S Farrell - A Magic of Nightfall

“Shut up!” she told them all, causing people on the street around her to glance at her. She scowled back at them. She hugged her stomach protectively, startled-as she always was-by the swelling curve in what had once been an athletic, flat abdomen. Already, she sensed the fluttering of movement there: Jan’s child. Her child. “You don’t know. You can’t know.”

When she thought of her child, born and alive, it was always a girl but with some of Nico’s features, too, as if they were strange siblings. “I took the boy in when he needed someone,” she told the voices. “I’m responsible for him now. I made that choice.”

They snorted derision. They howled.

She had watched Talis’ rooms since she left Nico there. She’d abandoned the rooms she’d taken, and had rented a room above Talis’ own, though she was careful not to let Nico see her enter or leave the building. She had bored a hole in the floor so she could both watch and listen to them below. And she did so, ready to act if she heard Talis mistreating Nico in any way, ready to appear as the White Stone to take the man’s life, furious and vengeful. But she had heard nothing to make her fear for Nico.

Not directly, anyway.

She already knew from Nico that the Numetodo had been hunting Talis. She knew that he was a Westlander and a user of their magic, and the Holdings was at war with the Westlanders in the Hellins. That would be a danger for Nico, all by itself. So she watched.

On the second Cenzidi of the month, she trailed them when Nico took Talis to her old rooms, watching from the shadows of the alley across the way as they emerged again with Nico shaking his head in confusion, his arms waving as he spoke to Talis. That afternoon, through the borehole, she heard them talking below. “I don’t understand,” Nico said. “That’s where Elle lived, Talis. Really. I was there.”

“I believe you, Nico,” Talis replied. “But she’s not there now.” She could hear the concern in the man’s voice. She imagined him rubbing at the healing cuts on his neck as he spoke. She heard the unspoken commentary underneath: She’s dangerous. She might have killed me.

“I liked Elle,” Nico said. “She was nice to me.”

“I’m glad she was. I’m glad she brought you to me. But…”

Whatever his objection, he kept it to himself. She smiled at that. “But she’s mad,” the voices said. “And the madness is growing.”

She clutched at the stone in its pouch as if she could strangle the voices with the white pressure of her fingers.

She didn’t want to hear any more. She would continue to watch, yes, but for now it seemed that Nico was safe with Talis. She slipped out of her own room quietly, hurrying down the stairs and out the rear door of the building. She moved quickly through the streets of Oldtown, away from the main areas and into its twisted bowels where narrow streets curved and snarled and the buildings were dark, ancient, and small. She listened to her own thoughts, to the voices inside her head, to the conversation around her. “Matarh!” she heard a child’s voice cry, and for a moment she thought it was Nico. She turned with a smile, her arms open to embrace him.

It wasn’t Nico. It was some other child, nearly the same age. “Matarh,” the boy cried again, and a young woman rushed from the door of a nearby building, gathering up the child in her arms, the boy’s feet dangling as she hugged him.

She watched the scene, her arms unknowingly hugging herself in sympathy. She wanted to feel pleasure at this scene that must be common enough, but what she felt was the hot flush of jealousy. “Yes, that’s what you’ll never have,” Fynn crowed inside her, and the others joined in. “You can never have that. No one will ever love you that way. Not even the child you carry. Never.”

“That’s not true,” she told them, feeling tears streaming down her cheeks. “No, it’s not true.”

“It is. It is.” A chorus of denial. “It is.”

She turned and fled them, pursued by the voices. She walked hurriedly, not even knowing where she was going, pushing through crowded street markets and along half-deserted avenues, past shops and businesses. She found herself finally on the northern bank of the A’Sele near the Pontica Kralji. There, uncaring of the mud and the foul smell, she sat hugging her knees to herself, trying to ignore the screaming voices in her head as she rocked back and forth. If anyone saw her, they thought her deranged and left her alone. She sat there for a long time, her thoughts frayed and chaotic until pure exhaustion calmed her and the voices receded. She sat panting, rubbing the swelling mound of her belly and imagining the life inside.

“I will protect you. I will keep you safe,” she whispered to her.

Somewhere across the A’Sele, on the Isle A’Kralji, almost as if in response, there came the sound of sudden thunder, and she saw black smoke billowing up from somewhere among the crowded buildings of the island. Not long after, the wind-horns of the city began to wail, though it was already past Second Call.

She wondered what had happened.

Someone was screaming. Over and over and over.

S When Audric opened his eyes, everything was tinged with red as if the world had been painted with blood. Clots of it swam over his vision. His breath was a rasp, a husk; he could barely draw breath. He seemed to be in his own chambers, in his own bed, but he couldn’t move his body at all. His face itched, and he wanted to bring his hand up to scratch it, but he could not lift either hand or move his feet. He was afraid to lift his head and look down, afraid of what he might see.

And the pain… There was so much pain, and he wanted to scream but he could only moan, a thin, eternal cry. He could feel hot tears running down his face.

“You can’t die. You can’t…” Her voice was as torn and ragged, a bare whisper.

“Great-Matarh?” he asked. “Where are you? Marlon? Seaton? Where is Kraljica Marguerite?”

His voice came from an impossible distance. His ears were full of a continuous roar, as if the city were falling around him. “Marlon? Seaton?” he called again. The pain surged over him like a great, breaking wave. He tried to scream, but nothing emerged from his open mouth.

A face loomed over him and he blinked. He thought he recognized Archigos Kenne. Teni-chants mixed in with the roar in his ears. “Archigos?”

“Yes, Kraljiki. I came as soon as I heard.” He could barely hear the Archigos, the words lost in the roaring in his ears.

“What happened?” The two words each weighed as much as the great marble blocks of the palais facade. He could barely spit them out. He closed his eyes.

“We’re still not certain, Kraljiki. O’Offizier cu’Kinnear… he may have been a Numetodo, or…” The Archigos’ voice faded. Audric opened his eyes again; the Archigos’ mouth was working as if he were still speaking, but Audric could hear only the red-tinged roar, and it swelled and with it the pain again, and he tried to scream along with it, but it was only a gasp. “… never know now… Councillor ca’Ludovici terribly injured… Marlon and Seaton dead…” the Archigos was saying, but Audric was no longer listening.

He had glimpsed the painting of his great-matarh. It leaned against the wall near his bed. The thick frame was shattered along its left side, and there were great rents in the canvas itself, frayed wounds crawling over Marguerite’s face. He moaned again. “No!” he tried to shout, as if the denial could push it all away and change everything.

He remembered. He wasn’t certain. The o’offizier approaching the Sun Throne, a flash… then nothing until now.