Green Wild (Thrones of the Firstborn Book 2) Read online

  Lisette glanced involuntarily down at the sword, struck by the odd description.

  “Listen. When I destroyed the avatar of Ohedreton yesterday, I saw into his world for a moment.” Kiar ran her hands through her hair, spiking it up further. “I could see you there, Tiana. I’m pretty sure that means he can see you, too. We have to think about this stuff before we get into more trouble.”

  “You’re one to talk!” flared Tiana. “You’re always jumping into trouble. You jumped into another world of trouble once. If Jinriki weren’t around, would you two be so hesitant?”

  “No,” said Cathay, at the same time as Kiar said, “Yes.”

  Lisette decided to intervene. “In the stories, after the Firstborn removed themselves from the world, they left their thrones behind, so sometimes a chosen human could sit on the throne and act in the Firstborn’s name.” Everybody looked at her, as if they had forgotten she existed. “But there’s no records of any real thrones. So I suppose it’s a metaphor for this light.” She shrugged. “I’ll go with her. Kiar, did Twist return while I slept?”

  Kiar flinched and once again looked away. “Not that I noticed. I was busy.”

  “Well, if you didn’t see him, he didn’t come back,” said Cathay. “I wonder if something happened to him?”

  Sometimes Lisette wanted to smooth Cathay’s hair back away from his face, and sometimes she wanted to throttle him. “I’m sure he’s fine,” she said sharply, as Kiar’s eyes dilated. “We can send a messenger down the mountain.”

  Kiar studied her hands, curling them into fists. “We’ll have to camp outdoors. Even if Tiana doesn’t care, you’ll hate that, Lisette.” She spoke absently, as if trying to distract herself. “You were miserable when we spent two weeks in the field last summer.”

  “Are you looking to me to change her mind?” Lisette glanced down at her hands, at the injuries she’d gained last time she’d changed Tiana’s mind. “I think I’d rather go along and see where we end up this time.” It was true. But she couldn’t help remembering how miserable she’d been last summer. Too much exertion always made her light-headed and overheated, and left her exhausted long before her friends. She’d sat in the shade of a pavilion while the Blood and the other Regents engaged in practice battles.

  There had been more Regents then. But in the space of a year and a half, so many of them had died. Now she was left, and little Yevonne, and Harthen and Cara. And Iriss, if Iriss ever woke up from her coma. They were the youngest Regents, except for Cara.

  The Regency Council would establish new Regents, but adult-trained Regents would never have the same influence as those pair-bonded to their Royals as children, as Lisette had been. She’d grown up beside Tiana, befriending Jerya, Kiar and Cathay in the process, since they were all close in age. And she’d developed different relationships with the previous generation. They were her second family, and also her responsibility. Guiding them was her duty. Compared to that, a little dislike of travel and exercise could hardly compare.

  But she hoped the other thrones of the Firstborn were close, all the same.

  “Have you looked at any maps yet?” Kiar demanded of Tiana. “Maybe you can pick out where these lights are on a map. That would at least be something.”

  “I don’t know if it’s that... settled?” said Tiana hesitantly. “It’s not a thing, stored in a place. It’s power, sent down a channel, and the channel only exists for a short time.”

  At the other table, the leader of the Vassay contingent stood again. Lisette thought he was going to come talk to them after all, and she wished she could warn him away.

  Before she could even shake her head, a monk stumbled into the dining room, the whites of his eyes showing. “The fiends,” he said hoarsely, his gaze seeking around the room. He found Tiana. “The fiends in the basement have been unchained. We need your help.”

  Chapter 3

  The Mirror of Ice

  “WHY ARE THERE sky fiends in the basement?” demanded Tiana as she stood abruptly. “Did I miss part of the tour?”

  **What did you think they were going to do with me after they ripped us apart?** inquired Jinriki sweetly. **They certainly couldn’t banish me. The Logos likes me more.**

  **Shut up,** thought Tiana. “Well?”

  The monk twisted his garment. “When a fiend is banished, there is a chance it will eventually find a way to return again to the world. Some fiends are too dangerous to allow that opportunity. They constructed the Citadel, in part, to hold those fiends. The weight of all the workings presses down on them, Oh, come this way, please do. This isn’t the place to talk.”

  **He has no idea what he’s talking about. The Citadel is far older than our enemy, and there were no fiends before he murdered my master.**

  The Vassay leader—Master Camerind—cleared his throat. “Might we assist? It sounds very educational.” Tiana remembered that they’d replaced their previous government with some kind of strange university system.

  Kiar said sharply, “We’ll let you know.”

  Lisette smiled toward Master Camerind, the sweet smile Tiana knew she saved for those she didn’t much like. “Why don’t you prepare some defenses up here? I’m sure that would be educational, too.”

  “Yes, what they said.” Tiana picked up Jinriki and moved toward the monk, who stumbled back as if he thought she might stab him. She herded him into the hall and everybody else spilled out behind her. “Where’s the Magister?”

  “We woke him. He told us to fetch you, since your sword is the one who damaged their bindings.” The monk was a middle-aged man, as so many of the Niyhani appeared to be, and his wide eyes seemed to be a permanent state of affairs. He walked backwards down the hall with an almost unsettling skill.

  Kiar asked, “Does he want us to bind them or destroy them or banish them?” Her eyebrows knitted together. “We can do destruction, maybe, and banishment if the sword helps, but you could do that just as well.”

  **Nobody is going to destroy my master’s fallen Secondborn,** Jinriki announced to Tiana. **Far too many have been lost forever already.**

  “Secondborn?” asked Tiana out loud. Everybody looked at her, and she explained, “Jinriki says the sky fiends are Secondborn?”

  Kiar bit her thumbnail. “Well, Secondborn are the servants and children of the Firstborn. If the sword’s damned master was a Firstborn like the Dissolution Testament said, I suppose that could be true.” The Dissolution Testament was the mysterious book Kiar had found hidden in the Citadel library, documenting the murder of the Firstborn Innis at the hands of his servant Ohedreton, and Ohredreton’s defeat by Shin Savanyel, Tiana’s ancestor.

  **The Niyhani knows. Look at him.**

  The monk turned around to walk normally, which Tiana didn’t find particularly insightful. It was just sense, really. “Were you aware of this?” she asked him.

  He stopped and looked down at his hands before he started walking briskly again. “I knew it is a crime against the Citadel to destroy them. I never asked why.”

  “The book said his messengers went mad when he died,” Lisette said softly. “I wonder how Jinriki resisted.”

  “What makes you think it did?” asked Cathay acidly. “it doesn’t seem any different from any other fiend to me, except that it’s a sword. Evil, vicious, destructive. Where’s the evidence otherwise?”

  Tiana said defensively, “He’s not evil. He’s just focused. He’s not any more evil than I am.”

  **The Niyhani think I’m evil,** the sword observed. **They believed that even before the end.** He paused, and added thoughtfully, **Perhaps the Niyhani did build a prison for my brethren. I shall have to investigate.**

  **No!** thought Tiana. **Don’t hurt anybody!**

  **Hush,** he sent absently. **They’ll never know.**

  “He’s very rational, at least,” Lisette told the others. “That surprised me.”

  “Most fiends aren’t,” volunteered the monk. “Some of them are cunning, but they only be
come truly intelligent when they take control of a human. Otherwise they think perpendicularly to the world. The Magister says it’s because there’s always a part of them outside it.”

  **No, it’s because their hearts were destroyed with my master,** said Jinriki acidly.

  **How did you survive?** Tiana wondered.

  **My master’s mortal servants saved me,** he said briefly, and did not further explain.

  “And he helped save Kiar’s life,” Lisette continued. “He didn’t have to do that. Twist said it took a lot of power to do, too.”

  “And look what he got for his trouble,” Cathay told her. “Tiana wouldn’t take the opportunity for freedom when it beckoned.”

  Tiana shook her head uncomfortably and sped up until she walked beside the monk, leaving the others to talk about her and the sword behind her back. The monk increased his pace and she matched his stride until she was all but jogging. The others, more focused on their own argument, fell behind.

  They went down a set of stairs, through a long hall, past a distillery, and then through an old wooden door left ajar. A stone spiral staircase descended into a darkness only made deeper by the inscribed lights studding the walls at the top. The monk padded down the stairs without a second thought, but Tiana hesitated. She didn’t like descending into dark places alone.

  **Are you alone? The monk is ahead of you, and I am here.**

  “It’s not the same,” muttered Tiana, but she started down the stairs all the same. The air chilled rapidly as she descended. She wore a warm woolen dress and leggings and fur-lined boots: standard wear for the mountainside. But her fingers grew stiff and her cheeks burned with cold before they reached the bottom of the staircase.

  “We really are under the Citadel, I see,” she said to the monk as she emerged from the dim staircase into a pale chamber chipped directly from the mountain. Inscription-engraved walls glowed in the light of dozens of lamps. A group of monks clustered around a large door made of iron and white stone.

  “Here she is,” said the monk who led Tiana. He closely resembled the others; same hair, same middle-aged face. Telling Niyhani monks apart could be hard.

  The others turned to look at her. One of them said, “All is well, Your Highness. But the fiends need to be moved to a more secure location. Can you help us?”

  Confused by the change of situation, Tiana glanced at her guide. But she could no longer identify him in the cluster around the door.

  “I thought my sword had broken their chains?” she queried uncertainly.

  “A misunderstanding,” said one of them. “It isn’t as bad as we thought.”

  “Come and see,” said another.

  “Bring the sword,” said a third.

  That was very strange. She couldn’t tell the monks apart, but they were always hierarchical. If many were present, only one ever spoke to her.

  **I will keep you safe.**

  Annoyed, Tiana thought **I’m not worried about how to stay safe. I’m worried about letting more monsters loose on Ceria.**

  **Why worry about what has already happened? But perhaps we can minimize the damage. Let us see what their prison looks like.**

  Tiana eyed the monks. They all stared at her with a hungry expression that made her uncomfortable. Something was definitely not right. “Kiar?” she called over her shoulder.

  Kiar cursed on the staircase behind her, and emerged into the bright chamber. As soon as she scanned the room, she cursed again. “They’re tainted somehow. Where did our guide go?”

  “Uh, he’s over there somewhere.” She waved Jinriki’s tip in the general direction of the small crowd. Their eyes followed the sword in unison, and she realized with a start that they hungered for Jinriki, not her. “How do we untaint them?”

  Kiar’s hands curled into fists. “I don’t know if we can. I haven’t learned much about sky fiends taking possession of human, except that it usually leads to a Blight. At which point we usually, um, just kill them.”

  Tiana remembered when Jinriki had taken over her body, back at the beginning of their relationship, before she’d accepted the bond willingly. She had been an almost helpless passenger in her own body. And Lisette, Lisette had been watching and waiting as Jinriki borrowed her body. “We can’t kill them. They’re still in there!”

  “I know,” snapped Kiar. “I agree. Let me think a moment.”

  Lisette’s voice came out of the stairwell. “What’s going on?”

  “Lisette, no, don’t come down here!” Tiana cried, in sudden panic. “I don’t want you getting possessed too.”

  **The only person at risk here is Kiar. The rest of you already belong to me.** Then he added, **And I believe Kiar has her own very interesting defenses.**

  “Oh.” Tiana flushed. “Never mind. Jinriki says it’s safe.” **Yours?** she demanded silently, as Lisette emerged into the light.

  **Alas, yes. It may be possible that I could donate Cathay to one of the others...?**

  **I will chuck you into a river,** Tiana warned him, and felt his unexpected flare of amusement like a caress on her cheek. She shook her head. **You’re laughing? Why are you laughing now? How do we free the monks?**

  But Jinriki remained silent, the touch of his laughter lingering.

  Cathay stalked into the room and almost bumped into Lisette. “Should it be so cold down here? Aren’t we closer to the heart of the mountain?”

  “There’s a lot of magic down here,” Kiar said. “It must have come back after the sword cut everything loose. Very good workings.”

  “Why are they just staring at us?” Tiana asked nervously. “Shouldn’t they attack us now that we’re onto them or something?”

  “And lose what we have gained so quickly?” asked one of the possessed monks. “We are not so foolish.”

  Another of the monks pulled open the iron and stone door. “Go in. See for yourself. Those that remain must be moved.”

  “Take the stock, if you must,” said a third, generously.

  “Stock?” asked Cathay, and laughed derisively. “We’re dangerous stock, fiend. We’ve destroyed your kind before.”

  “Dangerous stock,” agreed the third. “Ought to be put down, for the good of all.”

  “What shall we do?” Lisette curled her fingers around Tiana’s arm.

  **Go in. The Logos noise in here is overpowering; I can’t sense the prison on the other side.**

  “Can we save them, Kiar?” asked Tiana, and ignored Jinriki’s exasperation.

  Kiar shook her head slowly. “I don’t know.”

  Tiana set her jaw. “I’m going in. Lisette, you go find the Magister and make sure he really knows about this. Cathay, you make sure they don’t stop her. Keep them in here. Kiar, do... something. Whatever you think best.”

  Lisette nodded, squeezed her arm, and then stepped backward. Cathay hesitated. Tiana knew him, and imagined he was torn between a genuine need to make sure none of the fiend-possessed monks went after Lisette, and a manufactured need to protect Tiana. She hoped he wouldn’t do anything stupid. She had to reserve that privilege for herself.

  Walking across the pale chamber, her boots echoed oddly off the walls. “All right,” she told the monks. “Here we are.”

  One of them bowed—to Jinriki, not to her—and gestured her in.

  **Am I just your transportation?** she asked sourly.

  He didn’t answer right away. **Best that they think so,** he finally sent, the thought cool and distant.

  The hall on the other side of the door was even colder than the antechamber, and looked empty. Her breath fogged the air and she desperately wished she had brought her mittens. More fog drifted low to the ground, and glittering pillars with sharp edges supported the high roof. Nothing fiendish loomed out of the mist at her. Then movement along one wall caught her eye and she spun around to face her own reflection.

  “Mirrors,” she said. The hall was full of mirrors, each one hanging at about shoulder height and stretching above her head. She
moved closer, inspecting one closely. Each mirror reflected the large hall perfectly, but they weren’t silvered glass. Instead the glass floated over deep blackness.

  **Not glass,** said Jinriki.

  She brought up one hand to touch the surface, and felt the painful cold. “Ice,” she muttered, and tried to tug her fingers away. At first, they wouldn’t come free: the ice clung to her hand as if her fingers had been wet. She pulled a little harder, and her hand came away. As it did, the mirror cracked, and then shattered.

  Tiana scrambled backwards as shards of glossy ice fragmented and fell out of the engraved metal frame. Most of the shards crumbled to dust upon impact with the ground but several large pieces remained intact. They still reflected her shocked face, as if the image had been fixed along with her fingertips.

  Warily, she glanced at the darkness that had been beyond the clear ice. It was gone; only dull, scratched metal glinted in the lamplight. “What’s going on, Jinriki?”

  Her face appeared in all the mirrors up and down the hall, distorted and frightening. Nervously, she backed up until she once again stood in the center of the hall. “Don’t frighten me,” she pleaded with them. “I get angry when I’m scared and Jinriki doesn’t want you to be destroyed.” In response, the reflections became her face, exactly, a perfectly normal reflection, save for how she wasn’t standing directly in front of each of the mirrors.

  She wondered uneasily why Jinriki wasn’t answering her and glanced down at the sword, still in her hand. The reflections in the blade were as strange as the ones in the ice mirror. Light chased shadow up and down the edge, as if the sword moved in another place.

  **I’m busy.**

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked, and got no answer. Sighing, she wandered down the hall, inspecting each mirror. Each mirror inspected her back, save for the other ones that had been broken. She counted five in all, not including the one she’d shattered. And there were five possessed monks lurking outside the room.

  Thoughtfully, she moved back over to the broken mirror and stirred the shards with her foot. When nothing happened, she looked around. The darkness imprisoned by the ice must have escaped, she reasoned. They really needed to have signs up warning visitors not to touch the mirrors.