The Forbidding Blue Read online

  The wind rustled around them as if in agreement, but Colette did not respond—not even to shiver against the frigid morning.

  Finally, she swallowed. Her eyelids closed as she leaned in to her soumme’s ear. She whispered almost inaudibly, “There’s a killer in Massada.”

  Brenol’s pulse lurched forward like a wheelbarrow thrown up by a divot in the soil. He could barely resist the impulse to tighten his arms around her and their child. “How do you know?”

  Again she shook her head, attempting to quiet his booming voice jumping across the meadow, and whispered, “Veronia knows… Or at least I think it’s Veronia.” Her eyes clouded, and she allowed her gaze to drop upon the hard, frosted soil.

  Brenol’s stomach turned to stone. Colette’s grief for Veronia had been bitter, but he had never thought it would sour her mind—yet what she said could never be. Veronia was more dead than alive, empty of its pumping vivacity and power. The antidote from the maralane had saved it from total demise, but it had drunk too much poison to fully recover the vitality it had shown before Jerem.

  He pulled back to gaze into her eyes, expecting confusion or derangement, but they met his with the clear intelligence they always had—and a touch of defiance.

  Brenol sighed. “Ok, tell me,” he said.

  “My dreams…”

  “The nightmares you keep having?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does Veronia say?” Brenol asked warily.

  “No. Not like that.” She shook her head. “Veronia doesn’t talk. I see him. The killer. Veronia—I think it’s Veronia—shows me.”

  “And how do you know he’s real? What does he look like?”

  Colette’s face narrowed and she snapped curtly, “Don’t doubt me from the beginning. I need your help, not skepticism.”

  It was an effective slap, and Brenol realized his mistake immediately. She was strained and needed his support. Disbelief ragged his gut, but he nevertheless worked to be conciliatory. “Ok, love. Tell me. I’m sorry.”

  Colette dipped her head in the Massadan gesture of acceptance, yet it was more reflex than thought. Her eyes pinched with anxiety, and she craned her neck forward to whisper in ear. Her soft lips touched the cool flesh of his lobes as she spoke. “He changes nearly every time. Hair, height, skin, gender—it fluctuates. But Bren,” Colette pulled her face back to meet his gaze with a piercing severity, “he is the same. His eyes never change.”

  “His eyes? What do they look like?”

  “Black—darker than a juile’s. Evil. Stony. The look, though, is the marker. He…he loves to bring pain.”

  Something in the description stirred an unease in him, like the faint vestiges of a nightmare recalled from childhood. “What does he do?”

  “Kills, tortures, confuses.”

  “Confuses?” he asked.

  “The first one I ever had—there was a small girl… She thought he was her da… He tortured her mother as she screamed his name. And laughed.”

  Brenol cringed at the repugnant image. “Why?”

  “I don’t know… He seems to be after something. He’s always searching, asking, hounding.”

  “For what?”

  “I-I don’t know,” Colette whispered, but her lips twitched involuntarily.

  “What is it?”

  “It just can’t be. It doesn’t make sense, Bren.”

  Brenol squeezed her hand. “Go on, soumme. I’m here.”

  Her words floated out like a breeze, turning louder than she had intended. “Heart Render.”

  Immediately, she wished them back into the silence of her mind, for all sounds of the day had ceased with their entrance. The sun suddenly glared brighter, and the two squinted in her starkly bright light. Colette wrapped both pale arms around herself in a fearful embrace.

  Brenol’s eyebrows furrowed. “The legend?”

  She nodded in the slightest of movements, and a strand of gold graced her smooth cheek. The hard lines of angst on her face did not detract from her loveliness.

  “Yes, the legend,” she breathed.

  Brenol knew the story. Long ago, still in the terrisdans’ youth, tournaments had been held in the lugazzi as a way to showcase the skills of the varying peoples. Carpentry, architecture, painting, metal working, sculpture, dance, athletics, stitchery, inventions, and more; the list was extensive. The competitions were called the Elitia of Massada. They were an immense success and enjoyed by all—until they were unanimously disbanded after the sixth orbit’s events.

  In that last tournament, a man named Garth had overwhelmed the people in the enchanted objects arena. He had brought choice pieces—all battle themed. Swords, a double-headed ax, silver-plated chest armor. His greatest prize was Dancer, a curved blade of white with a scarlet hilt and rubied pommel. It had been forged with carctz, the newly discovered metal of Bergin, and all who saw it marveled. The blade flowed in his hands like a ribbon, graceful and rolling. Lightning rippled out with each swift swipe. Dancer was indeed beautiful to behold.

  Previously, the Elitia for enchantment had been merely a source of entertainment, or an attempt at furthering an object’s utility. It had been considered trivial by most. Cookware that whistled when its contents began to burn, sculptured animals exploding into fireworks, deceptively absorbent towels, bags with hidden pockets. Garth, whether intentionally or not, turned the practice on its head when he tromped into the arena. He did not enter Dancer into any competition, but he drew eyes with his robust and intriguing calls, boasting of his accomplishment.

  The enchanter claimed to have threaded spells into Dancer as simply as kneading flour into dough, and hearts trembled when he announced his work: The blade could slice through material and immaterial. Dancer, he declared, could slice souls.

  Garth seemed not to perceive the danger, blinded as he was by the glory of his creation. When confronted privately, the man turned sour. He vehemently refused to melt down the blade or, more crucially, to dissolve its magic. No one forced an intervention, praying that the situation was not as grave as they imagined. But barely a season elapsed before the people of Massada saw the truth—it was far worse.

  Garth owned a shed on his homestead where he housed many of his weapons, Dancer being one. He kept the little building secured, but the infamous blade had piqued interest across the land, and it only was a matter of time before some hand reached out for it.

  One day, in the last breath of dusk, his son, belting a mere fourteen orbits to his girth, was retiring to the house from his evening chores when a flicker of light caught his attention. It came from the woods not ten strides from his father’s shed. He stole through the trees until he was almost upon two dark figures. They stood over a stash of the best pieces his father owned, venomously whispering about who would carry what. The reflection of the fading sun upon the metal had been what had attracted his eye.

  The boy, although red-faced and indignant, owned enough sense to seek assistance, but as he turned to leave, he encountered the third thief. Whether they intended evil or jest, it was never discovered, but they sliced the poor boy’s finger with the white blade. What would have been a trifling nick from any other weapon was unimaginably severe sliding from this sword. The group fled the scene at the youth’s piercing shrieks. The weapon was abandoned in the chaos of escape and discovered later.

  The youth howled inconsolably night and day until, within a septspan, he welcomed death. It seemed Garth had accomplished what he had claimed to have. The boy had been driven mad by the slashing of his soul.

  A band of men, learning of the tale, joined together to again request the destruction of Dancer. Garth adamantly refused relinquishment, but in the night the boy’s mother brought the weapon to them. She stared at the men with hollow eyes in the campfire light, and each felt fear lodge in his spine when she spoke in an empty voice. “He’s forged Dancer to melt only under his own hands… You’ll not be able to break it down. Hide it where none will go. Forever.”

  She
returned home with slow steps, and none knew what became of her after.

  The men all swore gortei, flew to the moon—Veri—and hid the white blade upon her white face. They returned to Massada and renamed the weapon Heart Render. It was the sword that should never have been. Their oaths extended to utter discretion, and so while the tale rippled out into every corner of the land, they themselves remained silent.

  The central polina, for lack of knowing what to do, banned further enchantments, arguing that the art wielded too great a power. The magic and remarkable skill of Garth was forever after shadowed by his failure and ultimate tragedy. The tale was whispered at every campfire and under the breath of nursemaids. All knew that the path to Veri was now guarded. Even Garth’s ghosted young boy stood as a sentinel, watching to prevent any from snatching the blade back for evil designs.

  “This man wants the hidden sword?” Brenol finally asked.

  “I-I… Yes.”

  He breathed in deeply and considered everything. His mind slid back to that day in the soladrome, when he had sensed the impending doom of some undefined and great evil. He had later assumed—no, hoped—that Jerem’s poison had been this evil, and attempted to forget Pearl’s unused whistle. The little silver instrument had been stashed away in a trunk, but it remained a persistent reminder that in all likelihood things were not as settled as they seemed.

  These dreams, if true, hinted of a horror too great to defeat.

  But my life is here now…with Colette…

  Pearl’s words resounded in his mind: Gortei is a forfeit of freedom… Honorable, but truly formidable…

  “My love…that is terrifying,” Brenol finally said.

  Colette nodded, her eyes echoing the statement.

  Brenol stared out at the cold morning. A whisper of the long-forgotten Genesifin seemed to tickle in his ears, but not wishing to return to the book of cruel fate, he refused to let it materialize and pulled his gaze back to Colette.

  “We’ll figure it out, love. We will. I’ll protect you.” He drew his arms around her rigid limbs, warming them as much as he could beneath his cool palms.

  Colette’s heart thundered as unconscious words tumbled out under the cover of Brenol’s breath. “My cartess,” he muttered. “My cartess.”

  ~

  Arman paged through the assortment of leaves—a smattering of dissimilar papers scrawled upon with black ink. Over a dozen seals rested in the packet, and Arman had already pored over them for many minutes, yet still Igont waited patiently upon his haunches. Knowing the juile, a reply was forthcoming. He stood, shuffled his legs, and snuffed hot air from his wet nostrils. A cloud rose and dissipated before him. Still he waited.

  A breath caught slightly in the juile’s invisible throat. It made the wolf’s yellow eyes sharpen; Arman was not prone to revealing emotion unnecessarily. Regardless, he held his silence.

  Finally, Arman shuffled the papers together. The wolf’s intense eyes peered fiercely into the void where the juile stood.

  “Igont, thank you for finding me. I know not every sealtor is willing to dig through terrisdans for juile. You found me quickly, too. This one is dated just yesterday.”

  The wolf bowed his head graciously. “And returns?” His growl rumbled low and hard.

  The invisible figure crouched to the earth and whispered in the soft, dark ear, “I cannot leave trail. May I give it to you personally?”

  Igont curled his lips back in surprise. This was highly uncustomary, but then again, Arman was rarely conventional. “To where?” he asked. He knew better than to promise a juile, let alone Arman, a favor without understanding the full demands.

  “I don’t know. I need to find Dresden the healer. And fast. I want to meet with him.”

  “And it cannot be written?” Igont said. His eyes probed the empty space in bewilderment.

  A swish of sound suggested the shaking of a head, or perhaps a hand. “No… I have my reasons.”

  “What reason do I give him?”

  “Perhaps none.”

  Igont barked in derision. “I will not drag him to your meeting. And few trust wolves enough to heed my words.”

  Arman hesitated in deliberation, but finally spoke. “I must know all he can tell me about the black fever, the icar.”

  The dark wolf clenched his teeth; he now wished he had not asked. “And where do I send him, if he’s willing to travel?”

  “The lugazzi outside of Brovingbune, in the village of Gare. I’ll be waiting.”

  “This is no small favor, Arman.”

  “You do not need to remind me.”

  The wolf paused, considering. His expression was menacing. “It is that dire?”

  “I would not ask it of you otherwise.”

  He snorted. “Humans, juile—they all have peculiar ideas of what’s important.”

  Arman stood abruptly, robes swishing in terrifying softness. Igont’s fur raised upon his neck as he sensed—and smelled—the looming figure filling the area.

  “If you consider your gortei important, you might not question me like I am sending you to deliver biscuits. I grow weary of your scrutiny.” He strode from the creature with quick steps, his pedasse barely traceable in the abandoned soil.

  Igont issued a vexed bark. “Bounty forgotten! Repay your debts, Arman.” A deep rumble echoed in the lupine throat until the juile’s scent had secreted away with the wind.

  Juile, he thought distastefully. But he threw his body hard into a leap, speeding toward Selenia. If the healer was not currently at Limbartina, at least there his whereabouts would be known.

  The wolf’s paws soared with an urgency that his soul had immediately felt with Arman’s request, despite his displayed skepticism. Determination coursed as he gathered speed and his rippling muscles found their powerful stride. This was no easy task, but he would make it appear as such.

  I will outrun the very wind.

  As his legs surged beneath him, unsettling thoughts were at the forefront of his mind.

  How does Arman know I’ve made the oath of gortei?

  And why must he learn of the black fever?

  CHAPTER 2

  The Lady sees as none other; even in slumber her purpose drives her forward as the tide beneath the moons.

  -Genesifin

  Brenol lingered in the dawn’s beauty. It had come later than he had anticipated, and he itched like a soldier awaiting first light. As he had sat anxiously, the heavens began to lighten from the bleak dark, but still the sun had hung back, as though too sleepy to rouse herself fully from the horizon. Finally, with effusions of tangerine, gold, and pink, she had exploded across the sky, and the world seemed to hush before the grandeur. His clouded breath had caught in his throat momentarily; she was magnificent. His soul quieted in the rare moment of peace and awe.

  Like I’ve waited my whole life for this one moment.

  The sun lunged forward with surprising vigor, and soon the canvas of sky was awash in light. He prayed that the serenity might melt into him and undo the night that had ravaged his insides.

  “Colette,” he whispered to the chill air. “What does all this mean?”

  If Colette was right, she was sane, but the world was collapsing under a weight of evil—and he must leave his soumme to fight it. If she was wrong, all was right with the world, but she was lost in delusions. Neither carried appeal.

  Focus on what you will do for the next harvest, he thought. You have practical concerns far more pressing. But still his mind worried on.

  A new thought entered the mix, surprising him. What would Deniel think?

  Brenol paused. Flashes were a thing of the past, and the memories of Deniel were now so incorporated into his own that he often failed to distinguish which belonged to whom. Brenol carried Deniel as one carries one’s own arms.

  “He certainly would trust her. And stop being so scared of fate,” he said softly to himself.

  The words had hardly left his lips when a burst of wind sliced through the v
alley, and his spine arched forward involuntarily in a shudder. This was no summer, despite the time of orbit.

  “Bountyless icing,” he muttered.

  The terrisdans’ long-sustained warmth was diminishing, and the chill was unprecedented. The people had grown to calling it “the icing.” Each moon seemed to enter into a deeper winter instead of cycling back into the orbital seasons. The waters—once as warm as a hot spring—now froze in places, and the crusting ice stirred trepidation in all; the bulk of life found sustenance from the water. Some of the plants were adapting, but on the whole, most struggled. Farmers were still able to eke by with cooler weather crops, but if temperatures continued to plummet, it was only a matter of time…

  If the maralane could pass, what’s to stop another people?

  Is the heart of the land actually growing cold?

  Will the world merely become an ice desert?

  He attempted to swerve his mind from it, but the truth remained: new things were coming, terrifying things. The world was changing.

  The Change… Again, his mind tickled with the whispers of the Genesifin, and again he shunned them.

  “As though we needed something else,” he mumbled to himself.

  Several coded clicks jolted him from reverie: Discerning Massada’s troubles?

  Brenol did not turn his head, continuing to gaze into the vast sky. “You answered quickly,” he finally said. “More quickly than I would have expected even of you. Were you close?”

  “I pray it will be bountiful,” Arman said. He stepped forward and lowered his long, transparent limbs to the ground. He was visible in all of Veronia now—another aftermath of Jerem’s foul poison. His robes settled around him in perfect, clean folds. The juile glanced at Brenol strangely, or maybe it was odd because he rarely expressed surprise. “I never received your seal.”

  “Then it is just luck.”

  “Luck?” Arman asked.

  “Never mind,” Brenol replied. “I have much to discuss with you.”

  Arman waited silently. His face was impassive but solemnly open.

  Brenol inhaled deeply and then began. He confessed to Arman the dreams of his soumme, of the evil and unchanging eyes. The longer he continued his story, the more incredible it sounded. He suddenly knew that her mind had finally lost hold, and now she was toppling, tumbling. Nothing would be able to stay the descent, not even his love.