Kingsbane

But Eliana had already stopped, the sight before her leaving her speechless.

The small flame in her lamp illuminated the edge of a black lake. High cavern walls rose around them, glittering with gemstones. Rocky crags jutted out from the walls, creating cliffs over the water. Small islands rose from the lake’s center like the humps of a beast. Eliana squinted through the dim lamplight.

“Don’t be afraid, my queen,” said Zahra, sounding amused. “This is not the dangerous place I spoke of.”

Eliana followed her along the lake’s edge. The ground was hard black stone, peppered with tiny amethyst flecks that glittered in the lamplight. “Where are we, then?”

“We are far below Dyrefal,” Zahra replied, “in a private retreat that your Saint Tameryn requested her companions help her construct for Saint Nerida. Once, when magic still thrived, this was a refuge of light and greenery.”

That sounded familiar to Eliana. She sifted through her memories for one of Remy’s many stories about the saints.

“They were lovers, weren’t they?” She caught sight of a shadowed structure tucked in a shallow cove. “Nerida and Tameryn?”

A low wall of stones connected the structure to the shore, and it was here that Zahra paused and looked back. The lamp’s flame could not fix upon her; she was a void of gloom in the dim amber light.

“They were,” she replied. “Come, my queen. Watch your step.”

Eliana hesitated, then followed Zahra across the slick stones to the structure. The lamplight slowly revealed it to be an elegant circular belvedere—the smooth stone pillars discolored and rank with slime, the tiled roof shimmering with shards of crystal. Water lapped gently against the steps, pushed by some faint subterranean breeze.

“I believe it important for you to have a place of your own to practice your magic,” Zahra said, at last coming to a halt between two of the pillars. “A place far from prying eyes, with ties to the Old World in which your mother lived. That is why I have brought you here.”

Eliana moved gingerly around the belvedere, inspecting its pillars, the flecks of stones glimmering across its floor. A childish impulse told her that if she trod too heavily, she would awaken ghosts.

An even more childish impulse made her want to run from this place—from Vintervok, from Simon, even from the responsibility of Navi—and never look back.

Then a thought occurred to her, and she grabbed hold of it eagerly. Anything to delay the inevitable moment of sitting there, before Zahra’s expectant gaze, and trying to work magic she did not understand.

“This was a retreat built for Saint Nerida,” Eliana said slowly, dragging her fingers along the smooth stone of the nearest pillar. “Given to her by Saint Tameryn.”

“Yes, my queen,” Zahra replied.

“And how does it feel to exist in a space constructed by those who condemned your kind to the Deep?”

The silence that followed her question expanded to fill the entire cave. She took three measured breaths before turning to meet Zahra’s gaze.

The wraith shivered blackly. She seemed to take on a texture, as if she had recently emerged, soil-rich, from the earth. The lamplight carved strange shadows into the air around her, creating dark slopes of nothingness.

“How it feels is irrelevant,” she said at last, her voice as even and cool as the stone beneath Eliana’s feet. “Being here is the best way I know how to help you, and helping you is what I have resolved to do since emerging from the Gate.”

“But why? Why wouldn’t you resolve to hurt me? To hurt all of us?” Eliana’s heart pounded, but she had gone too far to relent. “Why help me when I should be your enemy?”

A ripple of emotion shifted across Zahra’s face and then was gone.

“Because the Emperor is insatiable in his quest to find you,” Zahra replied evenly, “and if he does, he may accomplish with you what he failed to with your mother. If that happens, it may spell doom for us all, in this world and in others.”

That startled Eliana. “In others?”

Zahra was still for a moment. Then she sighed, drifting to the ground as if deflated.

“It would be easier, my queen, if I could show you, as I did in your Fidelia cell. My words are inadequate. I lose myself in them. Would you allow me this?”

Eliana hesitated, then settled across from Zahra on the stone floor and placed the lamp beside her. She squared her shoulders, willing herself not to be afraid. She had started this; she would finish it.

“Yes,” she said. “I will allow this.”

“I shall be brief, my queen. What you will see may shock you.”

Eliana nodded once. “I understand.” She gripped her knees hard, barely managing to swallow.

Then, as before, Zahra moved swiftly toward her, like the rush of exhaled smoke, and disappeared.

• • •

Eliana opened her eyes to a vast green world at sunrise: cheerful woodlands, fields of quivering wildflowers, a quilt of slim silver rivers.

Above, in a cloudless blue sky, swirled a bruise. As Eliana watched, furious veins sprouted from its heart and raced across the sky, multiplying like cracks in glass.

She stepped back. “What is it? Zahra?”

Zahra appeared beside her, tall and whole, ebony-skinned. White hair to her waist, resplendent in gleaming platinum armor. Wings of light and shadow trailed from her back, flickering as she moved—smoky and dark one moment, brilliant the next.

“It is the Gate, my queen,” Zahra answered, her voice thin and tired. “And on the other side of it is Avitas and your beloved saints.”

“Then that means…”

“Yes. We are in the Deep.”

Eliana gazed wonderingly upon the idyllic green world around her. “But this is no prison. It’s an entire other world. Zahra, is this what you meant?” Her skin tingled, as if her body were stretching to accommodate this new information. “The Deep is another world like our own?”

“So we were led to believe during treaty negotiations,” said Zahra. “Never mind that we were first to live in the world of Avitas, and that humans evolved later. Humans were weaker, they told us—the saints, and our own leaders. Humans could not survive outside the world in which they came to exist. But we angels were older, more advanced forms of life. We could adjust to existence in another world, and our departure would bring an end to the war. Both sides had lost many. Both sides were eager for peace. This seemed the easiest way to achieve it. So we were led to believe.”

Then she pointed at the sky’s bruise. Her voice lowered, thick and bitter. “We arrive.”