Chapter 34

Chapter 34

M ariah woke to the sound of screaming.

The words from the goddess still burned in her mind as she flew from her bed, feet carrying her to her bedroom window. She pushed open the panes and leaned into the crisp morning air. The wind wrapped around her, carrying the scent of melting snow and early blooms.

The screams drifted past on that sweet-smelling breeze.

A pounding knock boomed from the entrance to her suites. “ Mariah! ”

She shoved herself away, racing out of her bedroom and to the door. A wild-eyed Trefor stood there, Drystan and Feran appearing over his shoulder, Sebastian bursting into the hall.

“What’s going on?” Her heart raced in her chest, but her voice was surprisingly … calm. Shrieks echoed off the palace, but her mind was still flooded with life-giving, golden magic.

“I—do you not notice it?”

“Notice what?” Mariah scanned the dark hallway, opening her senses, letting her magic spill from a finger. It blazed around her, too-bright—far brighter than it should’ve been.

Her stomach dropped when the realization hit.

“The lights. Why are the lights off?”

That’s why it was so dark, why her magic was so bright. The sconces on the walls, the ones usually illuminated with allume , had gone dark.

And Mariah had spent so much time recently in the dark, she hadn’t even noticed it.

“The whole city has gone dark,” Feran murmured. Beside him, Drystan nodded. “All the lights are off. And … the wards are gone.”

The wards. They hadn’t meant much to her before—besides a few off-hand comments made by the lords during her early meetings, she’d hardly even acknowledged their presence—but she’d learned how the pirates had wormed their way out of the Kizar Islands, launching great stones of ice at her city. How they’d stormed the docks, just once—as if to make a point—and innocents on the port had lost their lives.

Those wards were the only thing that saved the battlements lining the Bay. Without them, the pirates’ ice would’ve destroyed their defenses in one fell swoop, and the Bay of Nria would’ve turned red with blood.

“Is the Bay secure?” Her words were clipped as she whirled, striding for her room. Feran followed her, waiting outside her bedroom as she pawed through a drawer, pulling out her favored black leggings and a tawny long-sleeve shirt.

“There’s been no sign of the pirate lords, if that’s what you’re asking,” Feran answered from the doorway as she slipped out of her oversized tunic and into the clothes. “The Bay appears to be safe. But without allume … I think our most pressing concern is chaos in the city.”

“The screaming, I take it.” Mariah shoved her feet into her boots.

Feran huffed. “Yes. The screaming. The people don’t like it when their reliable magic goes out.”

Mariah paused for a moment, turning slowly to face Feran. “This has happened before, hasn’t it?”

Feran, faintly illuminated by Mariah’s magic, shifted uncomfortably. “A few times. Only once has it gone out completely.” He tilted his head, dark braids falling across his shoulders. “They never flickered in Khento?”

Something inside her shuddered closed, and Feran winced. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have?—”

“I never saw them flicker. But I was kept in the dark most of the time. If it happened, I wouldn’t have known.” Her voice had gone cold. She snatched her grandfather’s dagger from her nightstand, strapping it to her thigh before brushing past Feran.

“Let’s go. I think I know how to fix this.”

Mariah had ultimately convinced most of her Armature not to follow her, instead sending them into the city to help the City Guard with calming the residents. Sebastian had insisted that one of them remain with her, however, so Feran strode at her side, silent and watchful.

Their hurried steps took them down the winding hallways and arching staircases, emerging into the great, cavernous throne room. Mariah paused in the shadows, tilting her head up to see the stars twinkling above the glass ceiling. It was early morning, in the hour just before dawn, when even the night had gone to sleep.

The starlight hour. The same time of night when she’d met Andrian in that courtyard, so many weeks ago.

She swallowed, eyes still searching the skies. “The Spring Equinox is soon, isn’t it?”

Feran’s arm brushed hers. “In three weeks, yes.”

There. Mariah finally found those twin moons, nothing more than pale crescents in the night sky.

She still could hardly believe the passage of time. She’d gone underground when those moons were bright and blazing amongst the stars and emerged with them quartered, their light dimmed with her own.

No . She was not dimmed. The moons came and went, their natural cycle as eternal as the tides they pulled along the shores of the Mirrored Sea. They would burn bright again.

Just as she would, too.

Mariah dropped her gaze from the sky, levying it on the lunestair pillars flanking the great golden throne. Despite the darkness of the palace and the city, those pillars still glowed with ethereal light, the milky white stone illuminated from within.

But as Mariah watched, she saw it.

A twisting mass of darkness snaked across the glow of the stone, carving a piece of the light away. It crawled like a serpent, too-alike the Uroborus that had once tried to claim her life.

She remembered what she’d felt when she’d rested her palm on those pillars the day after the Solstice. The way the magic had pulsed and burned, so full of power and life … but hidden beneath it, buried deep, was a knotted mass of cruel darkness. A blackness born of pain and suffering and deceit, not the joy and life she’d tried to instill throughout the kingdom that night.

Mariah gritted her teeth and stalked toward the pillars, magic uncoiling around her fingers.

The pillars pulsed, even as the lights stayed dark. The darkness seemed to seep from them, spilling across the marble, a poison in the air.

“Mariah, what are you?—”

“It’s okay, Feran,” she murmured, not turning as she climbed the dais, before repeating, “I can fix this.”

He didn’t answer as she halted before the nearest pillar. Her entire being had focused on the glowing moonstone, on the snaking shadows within it.

With her magic pulsing in her chest, she pressed her hand against the cool stone.

The allume snapped and sang through her, recognizing her from that fateful Solstice. It danced and twirled and sparked, so much light it was blinding.

That was when Mariah felt the darkness.

Just as before, it crawled out of the depths of the light, a wickedness whispering the terrible things that usually lived only in her nightmares.

She’d felt this darkness before. Not just when she’d last touched this pillar after the Solstice. No, this was the same darkness she’d felt inside Andrian, the same one she chased away as she wove her soul with his.

As if reminded, that bond roared to life, wrapping around her and pulling with a vicious ferocity. Mariah gasped, twisting her lips into a snarl.

She knew she’d neglected that bond. But she wasn’t yet ready to face it, no matter how much it might grab at her, demanding her attention.

“Mariah, I’m not sure if this is a good idea?—”

Ignoring Feran, she closed her eyes and speared her mind into the pillar.

At first, all was quiet. It was only Mariah, her magic, and the wild energy of the allume , familiar yet untamed. She relaxed for a moment, the power wrapping around her.

The darkness slammed into her with an animal’s ferocity.

It wrapped around her like serpents, biting and squeezing. It was suffocating, this darkness. Burning and consuming and devouring, and it would leave nothing but pain and ashes in its wake. It ate at her light like a starved beast, hungry for more power to fuel its wicked, senseless rage.

Mariah shuddered. Somewhere, she might have released a scream. So much pain drove the darkness. So much empty suffering, terrible and vile and wrought with the wrong kind of desperation.

Deep in her chest, beneath where even her magic lived, something ancient rustled awake. It rumbled through her, growling in annoyance as the darkness around her balked.

Mariah didn’t hesitate. She gasped her breath as the serpents released her before unspooling her magic through her mind. She hissed into the void within the pillar, vengeful and tired and broken.

“This place is mine. And it’s time you got the fuck out.”

Her threads of light grew claws as she unleashed them on the darkness.

It was over in an instant. As quickly as the darkness had emerged, it burned away, shredded and consumed by silver-gold light. The moment it was gone, the allume settled, returning to its gentle state of wild, thrumming power.

Mariah slammed back into her body, drenched in sweat, chest heaving. Feran caught her as she stumbled away from the pillar, her weak and sore body shaking.

“Fucking Enfara, Mariah. What was that? What did you do?”

Mariah didn’t answer him. Instead, she stared at the lights lining the throne room walls, at the pillars blazing beside the throne.

Lights that were on, glowing bright, not a hint of a flicker. The lunestair glowed with familiar pale light, not a whisper of darkness marring its depths.

Mariah sagged in Feran’s arms. “I told you. It’s fixed.” She stared again at the pillar. “I fixed the allume . It won’t go out again.”

Feran’s exhale grazed her cheek. “Next time, give me a heads-up.”

She chuckled. “Let’s hope there won’t be a next time.”

Carefully, he released her, steadying her with a hand under her arm. Mariah rolled her shoulders, standing straight, and was about to step down the dais when a flash of movement caught her eye.

Timidly, hesitantly, a delicate shape emerged from the shadows. Short and wrapped in billowing, pale gold robes, but obviously female. Her hood was pushed back from her face, youthful features open, strawberry blonde hair twisted atop her head in a conservative coronet.

Mariah knew those robes.

Her back went rigid as she lifted her chin, forgetting her exhaustion as magic stirred back to life in her chest and illuminated the tips of her fingers. Mariah released Feran’s arm as she stared the young woman down, her throne at her back. No longer would she be fearful and intimidated here, in her own palace.

In her home.

The girl’s doe eyes were wide as her mouth gaped.

“That … was incredible, Your Majesty. I have … I have never felt so close to my goddess.” With a furious blush, the girl gathered her pale robes in her hand and sank to her knees, the material pooling around her. “I am so sorry for not announcing my presence sooner. I woke when the allume went out and came to see if there was anything I could do. Please forgive my intrusion.”

Mariah glanced at Feran, fury fading slightly into confusion. He smiled at her before stepping back with a nod, retreating down the dais steps and into the shadows at the other end of the throne room.

What?

Mariah slowly turned back to the girl, still kneeling on the marble. “Who are you?”

The girl’s body dipped as if she was releasing a deeply held breath. “My name is Liliane, Your Majesty.” She still didn’t lift her face, voice quiet and subdued, shaking slightly. “I am—was—a priestess of Qhohena, one of the worshippers who used to call this place home.”

Mariah was quiet for a moment, still catching her breath and calming her racing heart. Her magic slowly receded back beneath her skin and came to rest in its familiar place within her soul. “You told my court where they took me. You gave them what they needed to find me.”

Liliane peeked up shyly from beneath her bangs. “Yes, Your Majesty. But it was no trouble. I would do it all over again if I could.”

“You would stand against your High Priestess again? Betray her to those she declared enemies of her faith?”

The girl pressed her lips into a firm line before nodding. “Yes. I would. Because even though Ksee is High Priestess, beloved of Qhohena … you are her Chosen. You wield her magic in your veins. I just saw as much myself, only a few moments ago. To me, to betray you is to betray my goddess.”

Mariah was silent for a moment, watching the girl. And to her surprise, the girl watched back.

“Stand up, Liliane.”

The girl tilted her chin up further, rising to her feet, hesitation slowing her movement. Mariah stepped slowly down from the dais, striding past Liliane to one of the benches lining the throne room. She sat, brushing a hand over the smooth marble.

“Sit,” Mariah commanded.

Liliane paused before a smile stretched across her youthful face. She gathered her skirts and settled beside Mariah, the smell of incense and candle wax moving with her.

Mariah turned to the still-dark morning, visible through the glass ceiling. And sighed.

“How old are you, Liliane?”

The girl twisted her hands in her lap. “Nineteen, Your Majesty.”

Mariah’s heart clenched. Sure, only two years younger than herself, but those two years felt like an eternity.

“And when did you … join the temple?”

A pause. “When I was twelve,” Liliane said, quietly. “My family is from here—Verith. I grew up in the market district. My father works for a merchant, always working down on the docks. My mother wove nets and baskets and sold them in our little stall near the Bay.” She took a breath. Mariah kept her gaze fixed on the fading stars.

“One day, I wanted to leave the stall to go down to the docks to see my father and the ships as they came in. There was this … girl.” Mariah risked a glance and saw Liliane’s cheeks flushed a rosy pink in the starlight. A smile tugged at her lips, but she kept silent.

“Her father also worked for a merchant, just as mine did. We liked to sit on the docks in the mornings and watch the ships pull into the Bay of Nria, guessing where each might have come from. Of course, only the Onitan trading vessels could make port at the docks, but we could see the other ships dropping anchor in the Bay.

“That day, she’d told me to meet her at the docks. New ships were coming in, she’d said, and she wanted to watch with me. But …” Liliane swallowed audibly. “But Father had to work a double shift and Mother said no, she needed my help at the stall.”

Tears now rimmed Liliane’s brown eyes. “I got so mad,” she continued. “I screamed and cried and threw a tantrum, like a child. I felt something boiling up with my anger, and before I knew it, flames were leaping from my fingertips, and my family’s stall was going up in smoke. All those baskets and nets that my mother spent hours weaving until her fingers bled … all gone, just because I wanted to see a girl when instead I owed my family a single day.”

Mariah furrowed her brow. She searched the girl’s face, a little surprised at how much of herself she saw there. A hunger for a life different from what she’d been born into. A thirst to forge a new path, one just for herself.

Liliane wiped away a tear before resting her hands back in her lap, recomposing herself into the perfect, poised priestess. “I couldn’t look my family in the eyes after that. Not after such shame. So when the priestesses came for me the next day, I went with them gladly.”

They sat there in silence for a few more minutes, the cavernous throne room silent and still, even with Feran lingering across from them against a pillar.

“Thank you,” Mariah said, “for sharing. I’m sorry your first experience at magic had to be like that.”

“It’s nothing,” Liliane rushed. “It was a long time ago.”

Seven years is hardly a long time , Mariah thought, but held her tongue.

“Liliane,” Mariah said instead. “I have a more … serious question for you. And if you don’t want to answer, just tell me. I won’t be offended.”

Liliane turned to her, brown eyes wide, and nodded. “Okay. I mean—yes, Your Majesty. Of course.”

Mariah smiled. “You can call me Mariah if you want.”

The girl smiled hesitantly but said nothing further.

Mariah sighed. “What did Ksee do for the Solstice?”

The question had been plaguing her long before she confronted that darkness in the lunestair pillars. It had lurked menacingly in the corner of her mind, ever since Ksee had visited her in her cell in Khento. The things Ksee had said … it seemed to Mariah that the priestess had done something. Something that might have tried to counteract all the progress Mariah had made on her own.

The noxious sludge of the darkness that poisoned the allume slithered through her. She felt weak and tired, drained from the confrontation. It had felt like a dream, but one that chased her into the waking world. Her senses told her it was gone, but her instincts …

Mariah shivered.

Liliane swallowed, twisting her hands between her pale robes. “I wasn’t permitted near it or allowed to know. I’m too low in the ranks.” She turned to face Mariah. “But … they did something. I’m sure of it. I felt your magic that night, but I also felt something else. Whatever they did.”

Mariah’s lips dropped into a grim frown, and she nodded.

Liliane might not know what had happened that night, how her beautiful magic had been polluted. But Mariah was determined to find out.

“Thank you, Liliane. I’m glad my court listened to you.”

Liliane’s shoulders relaxed, palms lying flat on her legs. “I’m glad they did, too, Your Majesty.” She frowned then, her brow twisting. “Were you ever in danger, there in Khento? Were they really about to do something terrible to you, something you wouldn’t survive?”

Mariah blinked in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

Liliane blanched. “I’d heard—that’s why I came here when I did. I heard a rumor that they were planning something terrible for you.”

Mariah was quiet for a moment, her thoughts turning dark. As they always did, when confronted with memories of that place.

“I wasn’t aware of anything. I was far from safe, and plenty of terrible things were done to me, but they weren’t to the point of killing me. Not yet, anyways.”

Liliane’s eyes had blown wide. “I’m so sorry, Your Majesty.” she said meekly. “I didn’t know. They keep so much from us—I should have come sooner.”

Mariah closed her eyes, forcing a breath. The panic of those dark memories slowly abated, washing back into the scarred and shadowed part of her. “You have nothing to apologize for, Liliane. None of it is your fault, and I am grateful you came at all. And seriously—call me Mariah.”

Liliane relaxed as she nodded again. “Okay.” The priestess gripped her robes, about to rise from her bench, before she hesitated, turning back to Mariah.

“Your—Mariah.” She stumbled over her words, blushing again. “I … I also have a slight request.”

Mariah sat up with interest. “Which is?”

Liliane cast her eyes down. “I wished to see if I could resume the weekly services in Qhohena’s temple here in the palace. They can be run by any robed priestess, and I think it could be good for the people to get back to something normal. Especially after so many weeks of chaos.”

Mariah knew these services. She’d been once or twice, back in Andburgh, dragged along by her mother for some rare special occasion. Onita celebrated no holidays beyond the Solstice, but there were other events that sometimes demanded a trip to temple: a birth, a marriage, or a death.

“I will need to check with my Armature,” Mariah began slowly, “and I can’t promise I’ll ever attend. My relationship with Qhohena is … interesting, to put it lightly.” Flashes of a golden meadow peppered the backs of her eyes. “But I see no reason to say no. I agree it would be good for the people who want it.”

Liliane’s face lit up like a torch, her flames—the same ones that had gifted her those robes—lighting up her soft brown eyes.

“Thank you, Your—Mariah. I think this will be just what the city needs.” Her smile softened. “Even after everything you suffered … thank you for letting me stay. This city has been my home my entire life, and the temple since I was twelve. I’m grateful to be allowed to call it my home again.”

Mariah stood from the bench, taking a small step forward to stand before the priestess. She was taller than the girl, and after a moment’s hesitation rested a hand on Liliane’s shoulder. The girl started, lips parting in surprise as Mariah did something that shocked even her.

She smiled, full and genuine.

“You are always welcome here, priestess. Thank you for reminding me that just because one or two have been corrupted … most are just as lost as the rest of us.”

Liliane smiled. “You hardly seem lost, My Queen.”

Mariah dropped her hand and stepped back, smile falling. The light faded from Liliane’s eyes at the change.

“Don’t let the starlight fool you, Liliane. The darkness plays tricks with our eyes, but it wouldn’t exist without the light.”