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Maybe I’m wrong. I’d pray that I am, but I don’t know who would hear my prayer.
The door opens with a click. Nayeli Azerad Illusora stands in the doorway, holding her hand out to Dalca, who flows to her side like river into an ocean.
“Take me to our home.” Her voice is thin, swallowed by the underground air. “Make haste, before he wakes.”
“Before who wakes?” Dalca asks.
“I feel him, deep inside. Restrained, but even now he burns his bindings. Hurry, my son, please.”
I catch Cas’s eyes, meeting his troubled expression with my own. Perhaps the mark has to settle—perhaps the Regia will reforge her bond. Perhaps we haven’t failed.
Within fifteen minutes, they find a carved palanquin with embroidered veils to conceal the once-Regia for the trip down to the second ring. A handful of Dalca’s trusted Wardana help him bear it, not one uttering a single complaint at playing servant. The ikonomancers were left behind, after Casvian swore them to secrecy. He’s cautious, unwilling to let the information of the Regia’s condition spread too far and wide.
Casvian and I follow the palanquin to the most ornate quarter of the second ring. The air is dry, and the sunlight warms my skin as we walk down wide boulevards, past massive houses with verandas stacked one on top of the other, as if a view of the Storm is one worth having. Sunlight glints from mirrors hidden in the buildings, reflecting onto the path and across our faces. A bench sits under a tree so old it can no longer give fruit, as if there are times these people desire to be in the shade, as if they’ve had enough sunlight. I take a deep breath and unclench my fists. There’ll be time to fix the city, to make Dalca see.
At last we come to the doors of a palatial house, large even by second-ring standards—I count a dozen windows, just on the front.The walls are inlaid with brass ikons in a diamond-grid pattern, and though the ornately carved front doors are wooden, they show no warping, no water damage, no touch of the Storm.
Dalca calls for them to lower the palanquin, and the Regia descends, taking his arm and making her way to the front doors. Dalca pauses at the threshold, craning his neck.
“He hasn’t returned here since he was a child,” Casvian says under his breath, for my ears only. “Some minor wing of the family lives here now.”
Dalca’s shoulders fill the doorway as he steps inside. We follow, his twin shadows.
When Dalca was a child, did he run freely across these polished floors inlaid with opal and pearl? I can’t quite picture a child amongst all this cold luxury; would any child be permitted to play on a carpet woven with gold thread, or swim in the lotus-studded pool in the house’s central courtyard, or sit and eat at a table made from the massive bones of some long-dead creature?
The Regia clutches Dalca’s arm with one hand, and with the other, she runs her fingers along every gilded and carved surface. Dalca glances at all the finery, never touching a thing.
Not a single speck of dust is to be found amongst any of the house’s riches, no doubt a feat managed by an army of lower-ring servants. And yet the Regia shakes her head as though she’s found this particular treasure chest already plundered.
She pauses at an ornately framed mirror, turning to face it. She sucks in a breath and brings an emaciated hand to her face as if she can’t quite believe the image in the mirror. In her mournful eyes and sharp cheekbones are the shadows of a once formidable appeal, one that she shares with Dalca.
“Upon waking from a nightmare, one expects far fewer horrors.” Sorrow turns the Regia’s features as she looks upon her mirror self. “There is nothing for me here. Take me to a place I can see all of my empire. The highest point. I wish to touch the sky.”
My heart aches to watch her. Dalca offers her a hand and wordlessly takes her to the palanquin. As soon as the Regia is ensconced within, I reach for him. “Dalca?”
He blinks at me. “Vesper?” As if remembering who I am, as if waking from a dream.
“What’s going on?”
Beaming, he cups my face with both his hands. “I have my mother back, Vesper. My family is together. I’m not...” His smile swallows the end of his sentence, but I understand what he’s trying to say—he’s not alone anymore.
“But what now? Where’s the Great King? Do you think the Storm—” I cut myself off. I can’t say what I’m thinking. Can’t voice my worries that the Great Queen has somehow tricked him.
“You worry so much,” he says with a little laugh. “This is a gift. We have done something that hasn’t been seen for hundreds of years. How do we know what form this new bond will take? We’ll have to see—but you saw her. I have my mother.”
Dalca presses a giddy kiss to my cheek, and a smile curls my lips.
“It’s all thanks to you,” he murmurs against my ear before he lets me go, returning to lift his mother’s palanquin.
My stomach sinks. Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps I shouldn’t question the Queen’s generosity. But I do.
Whenever I’m near Dalca, but especially when he touches me, the Queen’s curse beats quicker—a tingling in my palms, a sensation both cold and hot, one that swells into the hollow of my chest. I reach out toDalca in the same way I reached for the stormtouched Wardana—and there it is in his chest, a darkness in the shape of a sculpted coffin. What would happen if I opened it?
The tallest point in the city is a watchtower in the outer palace. Dalca and the other palanquin bearers lower the Regia, and Dalca helps her out. She breathes in the air, her fingers wrapping around the railing.
All our entourage hangs back. Only Cas and I have the courage—or concern—to step onto the balcony, but even we keep a respectful distance.
Her voice resounds with deep affection and deeper pain. “My city. A lonely city, charged with mighty purpose. It has been far too long since I have looked upon you with eyes my own.
