Green Wild (Thrones of the Firstborn Book 2) (24 page)

Dreamily, she asked, “Fai, you brought her here to save her. But does Atalya need saving?”

He sucked in his breath. Then, slowly, he said, “The true Atalya walks into the forest to escape.”

Cinai said, “She was taken, but she redeemed her captors.”

There was a long, breathless moment. The twins stared at each other, their faces mirror images as they listened to something within them. Fai whispered, “Atalya saves herself.”

Cinai nodded at him, saying back, “Atalya saves herself.”

The rain turned to crystal again. Tiana hesitated, thinking about taking and choosing,and then repeated, “Thank you.” She took her hands away and stepped back. “Will you give me what you have?”

Drops of water sang. “Gladly,” said Cinai, her face alight.

Fai said nothing, and his expression darkened. The world itself rippled, as if the siblings were stones dropped into a pool. He pulled his gaze away from Cinai’s face and looked around, to where Lisette stood. “I don’t have to,” he murmured, a struggle playing out across his face. “I don’t want to. Is this how you feel, Cinai? I don’t want to give Her up. But we want them all to be free, like we are. So I will.” He spread his arms.

A green glow gathered around each sibling’s chest, drawing radiance from the verdant trees. Each raindrop was a prism, splitting the shadows of the forest into a viridian rainbow. The glow pulled itself out of each sibling, spectral halves of an orb. For a space of time they hung there, together but separate, as if inviting the siblings to take them back again. Then Cinai made a little shooing gesture with her hand, and wiped tears from her eyes.

The hemispheres flowed together into a single orb.

Kiar screamed something. As she did, utter darkness fell, roaring, upon them.

D
ARKNESS FELL
, BUT the orb of green light still glowed just beyond Tiana’s fingers. If her eyes were torn out, still she would see that light. She had no chance to claim it, though, before it fled that which stole the twilight. Kiar shouted her name. The fading green light muddied as someone cried out in agony, and a woman screamed.

**We are in an eidolon,**
said Jinriki, and Tiana finally understood what Kiar shouted: ambush. Ohedreton
had
found them. He’d been content to wait as they waited, until the green light appeared. Now, his forces attacked in earnest.

How did you see in a world without light? Tiana remembered Kiar’s description of that other world and wondered if it was the same. But she had no time for daydreams. Something moved near her and her own body moved in response, jerked like a doll by Jinriki in her hand.

“Can you sense them?” The sound of combat thudded around her: soft, organic noises, and the cries of the guards.

**They are hidden by the greater eidolon, but I can hear as you hear. That will be enough.**

“No, not enough,” and she struggled to grasp the idea dancing tantalizingly out of reach. But the green light had been so close, born into an orb she could take inside herself, and now it was distant again, and tainted. The hurt of it overwhelmed the rage, and both overwhelmed her thinking.

People fought around her. Lisette was somewhere, Cathay and Twist beside her. She was probably safe, but how long would that last in the dark?

Kiar had used some inner sense to see in the world without light. But Tiana couldn’t see for everybody. She had to attack the darkness.

Tiana, wind and fire.

She held out her arms, and imagined her rage rising through her. Radiance burned down her skin, little flames licking at the darkness. She felt, rather than heard, a deep moan, and so she flung her hands up and the eidolon fire devoured the eidolon darkness.

Sparks chased down the darkness like embers burning paper, revealing chaos. Andani battled humans, but more people fought than she expected, some in furs and paint. Several of the four-legged giants moved among them, swinging great staves. Despite the forest reinforcements, the melee went poorly for Tiana’s side. Cathay stood halfway between Lisette and Tiana, two of his cats fighting at his side while emanations flickered around his sword. Lisette pressed close to Twist, pale but steady. Twist spoke quickly and quietly to the pair of andani menacing them, his hands flickering strangely.

Kiar stood at the forest’s edge, an aegis shimmering among the wall of trees. Beyond, more andani seethed. Minex perched in a tree, watching Kiar as if her magic was the most interesting thing in the clearing.

Tiana only noticed the slender blade a creature thrust toward her after Jinriki had dragged her into a roll to avoid it. She let him guide her hand while looking around wildly. The guards and forest children gathered into little knots around the wounded and the fallen, and none of them were Cinai and Fai.

**Pay attention! You must start fighting back or they will fall!**
The frustration in Jinriki’s voice mirrored her own.

“Where are they? Fai and Cinai and the light, where did they
go
?” She knew he was right, though. Searching now would leave her companions to fight alone. She reached for focus.

But the phantasmagory was gone. She had to collect her thoughts without it. She lashed out wildly with an emanation, and a four-legged giant barely had to duck to avoid the blow. The monster squealed laughter and said something incomprehensible. That laugh gave her the focus of rage and she struck true the second time.

She looked away as the head of the eidolon bounced by, just as Twist failed to dodge the blade of an andani. It took him in the arm and he fell to one side, leaving Lisette standing alone, her back against a tree. Kiar shouted again, and the aegis she was maintaining vanished, to be replaced by a flurry of swords. But the andani just kept coming. Cathay cried out as the andani destroyed two of his cats. He stumbled, losing his footing.

Then Lisette glowed like stained glass, and reality poured off her. The guards became more substantial, while the aliens faded like a pencil sketch. She stood over Twist, a mother wolf, and with two sharp gestures she tore apart the andani with a hand of fire.

They all looked to the light, every human and alien in the clearing. Strange shadows moved independently, though their owners were frozen in shock. Something danced in the air before Lisette, wavering like a heat mirage. Then the mirage vanished, and it was only Lisette. She shrieked, “Don’t just stand there, fight them!”

But the andani and the giants turned to flee, every one of them at the same time. They were harried to the edge of the clearing, driven back into the darkness beyond Kiar’s aegis. Then the men turned their attention to the wounded, and Tiana turned her attention to the missing.

A moment’s concentration told her they were not among the casualties, or at least that the green light had moved off to the east. She took a breath and turned her gaze on Lisette, who knelt with Kiar next to Twist, her cloak pulled tight around her. Then she found Slater, bleeding from shallow cuts. “Break the camp. Do what you can for the wounded, leave them with the forest children if you have to, but we must move on, out of the forest, before they return. I have to finish what I came here for, but as soon as I return, we must leave.”

On the edge of the forest, she found Jozua, speaking with some of his own rough men. He held his axe in one hand and a hunting horn in the other, and Tiana recalled the golden belling of the horn in the eidolon darkness. He noticed her and waved his men away. “I think the brother took the opportunity of cover to spirit off the sister, eh?”

Tiana remembered the muddying of the green light and said, “No.”

He fell into step beside her. “No? What, then?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “You only think he did that because that’s what you would do.”

“Oh ho? And what would you do?”

She remembered an alley, and blood. “I wouldn’t run.” She shook her head. “But it doesn’t matter. We’re not them.”

“We’re going to find them, yes? Do you have any idea of where to search?”

“I can find them.” She frowned. Jozua’s presence, with the red light sleeping within him, overpowered the coalesced green light. “But not with you here.”

“Ah? Why is that? What was the theology lesson before your enemies attacked?”

She whirled on him. “My enemies? Ceria’s enemies! Your enemies! Or do you think you would be safe, as the forest children did?”

His hazel eyes glinted. “A slip of the tongue. My apologies, Your Highness.”

Tiana let her feathers smooth back down. “I’m collecting the Light of the Firstborn to use against the Blight. Fai and Cinai were the vessels for the light of Atalya. They still have it. I can find them.”

“Ah,” Jozua said, as if he understood perfectly.

Tiana frowned. “It’s harder with you present.” She wondered if explaining would change the situation, and gave Jinriki a chance to pipe in with an opinion. But he was uncharacteristically silent.

**Monitoring Lisette and others.**

Tiana sighed and said, “You’re also a vessel. So you’re interfering with my sense.”

Jozua’s eyebrows vanished into his hair. “Me? I’ve never been a man of faith.”

Impatiently, Tiana said, “We can discuss whether that’s required later, but if, for now, you could
please
stand away from me, or better yet, stay behind, I’d like to find the green light.”

Silently, he bowed and fell behind her, until he was barely visible among the trees. It wasn’t perfect but she didn’t want to spend more time arguing with him.

The green light was closer than she hoped; they’d stopped running and gone to ground as soon as they could. The glow suffused a massive tangle of fallen trees, but it didn’t show her a path in.

**Pull it apart?**

“I’m not their enemy, Jinriki.” She raised her voice as loud as she dared in the quiet wood, calling, “Cinai, it’s Tiana. The battle’s over.”

Branches rustled within the tangle of trees, and Cinai said something incomprehensible, her voice distorted by sobbing.

Tiana moved closer, climbing up on one of the trunks. “I didn’t hear you.”

“Can you—can you help me carry him? I don’t want to hurt him further.”

Tiana glanced over her shoulder at where Jozua lurked, and then slid down into the wooden cave. Cinai crouched down, her arms around an unconscious Fai. The green glow filled his chest, and only by peering close could Tiana see the raw gash that the light filled.

“A sword came through him—-his eyes got so wide. I pushed the green light into him and he didn’t fall. We ran, and then he fell. I dragged him here. He’s still breathing, do you see?”

Tiana did. More to the point, she saw the edges of the wound fluttering with each breath. Hesitantly, she touched his chest, wondering if she could absorb the green light.

“What are you doing? Don’t take it! It’s all he has!”

Tiana yanked her hand away, but she already knew she couldn’t take it, that it was bound by Cinai’s own desires.

Regretfully, she said, “I’ll help you move him, but both of you have to come with me.”

In the dimness of the tree cave, Cinai’s face was tight and frightened. “Come where? I said I would go home.”

Tiana waved a hand. “Perhaps. We can decide on ‘where’ later. Right now we need to get out of the forest.”

Cinai said, “But Fai needs healing! The Voice—-.”

Tiana clenched her fist, remembering Lisette’s story. “The Voice does not want Atalya to share her power. Do you understand what the light is?”

Cinai shook her head. “It’s a gift of Atalya and it’s keeping Fai from
dying
. And I know the Voice can heal.”

Something scurried outside the wooden cave and Tiana hunched her shoulders. “The Blighter wants that gift, or wants to destroy it. The light is Atalya’s throne and it’s meant as a
weapon
, Cinai, Atalya’s weapon. I need it. The Voice will make sure I don’t get it.”

“It gave you Lisette’s gift,” Cinai pointed out. “I don’t want to take Fai out of the forest! Maybe the light will vanish, maybe he’ll die!”

**Knock her out, bring them both along.**
Tiana ground her teeth and didn’t answer Jinriki, even though it was dangerously tempting. How far did not taking go? She wondered where the Blighter’s servants had gone. It couldn’t have been far.

Then, as sweetly as she could, she said, “Cinai, I’m a Princess of the Blood and you and your brother are my people, but protecting the country is my responsibility. You
will
come with me and act with the responsibility befitting your rank.” She extended an emanation, and lifted Fai from Cinai’s arms.

“No!” cried Cinai, but she let Fai be pulled away. Tiana started climbing out of the wooden cave, not looking to see if Cinai was following her. Instead, she concentrated on maneuvering Fai’s drifting body among the tangled branches, and wondered how Cinai had gotten him inside in the first place.

Jozua had moved in from the edge of the trees, and a fine mist of rain fell. Tiana couldn’t see his face in the darkness, for which she was glad. She turned to look at the mass of trees again, staring until finally she saw Cinai’s head emerge from a hole near the ground.

She stood, covered in mud. “The Lady won’t let him die.” Her voice was dreamy. “If all the world burns, while that light maintains him, he’ll live. That’s enough.”

Tiana sighed. If mysticism was required, she’d take it, but if Jerya had tried the quiet authority, it would have worked. She hoped the camp would be broken by the time they got back. She should have listened to Kiar, and they should have moved the camp, and it was past the time for recriminations, time for action, even in this downpour. They would look to her for a destination, and for that, she had to work out what to do about Jozua and his sleeping light.

T
HEY WEREN’T
READY to leave until long after full night, but nobody suggested waiting until dawn. In rain and darkness, they led the horses to the old road and mounted. Minex, once again fully awake and unrepentant, scampered in front. Ghostly flames, will o’ the wisps, sprang up around her, and they followed the road as it wound through the forest to its eastern edge.

In darkness, Lisette stared down at the light at the end of her wrist, hidden from others under her cloak. The shape of her fingers remained, but they glowed like incandescent flames through frosted glass. Tiana had inspected it, and tightened her lips, and touched her shoulder. Twist had thanked her somberly for his life. Kiar had given her a pained frown. And the big man who had carried her through the woods, Jozua, gave her a wry smile that made her want to hug him. Only his expression made her feel human.

She looked into the light as she curled her shining fingers. She could touch material things, but barely feel them. Her grip was uncertain, and she was afraid of touching anything alive. She couldn’t stop thinking the gauntlet remained and her hand was gone. When she’d summoned up the lux against the living eidolons, she felt like she was trading her flesh for power, like the gauntlet was devouring her. Like she was doing something wrong.

She shivered, and pulled her cloak closer around her. The rhythmic swaying of her horse soothed her, but she couldn’t take her eyes off her hand. When she tried, all she saw was blackness. The murmur of voices, the creak of leather, the smell of wet horse, but like a metaphor for her life, all she saw was devouring light and a powerful darkness.

She’d always known her life would be dedicated to the Blood. She never imagined it would be quite so literal.

She curled and uncurled her fingers, felt the coolness of the light with her other hand as she clasped them together. That was the strangest part: to the rest of her flesh, the light was hardly anything at all: not a warmth, not a tingle, just a numb pressure, as if her hand had fallen asleep.

The light swallowed her sense of time passing, and shockingly soon, when she lifted her gaze from the lux to compare it to the dark, she found a dirty grey instead. The horses squelched along a muddy track, between barren fields. At some point, the rain had stopped, but heavy, wet clouds covered the sky.

Jozua rode near her, as if by accident. He quirked a grin at her as she regarded him. “Good trick, sleeping while you ride.”

“I wasn’t asleep—” she began, then realized he had to know the truth. She ought to smile back at him, but she couldn’t find the energy.

As the day got brighter, the scouts found an abandoned farmstead, and they settled down to rest for a few hours. Lisette found herself passing her horse to a guard and moving to find Tiana, the habit too strong for even a lux-infused hand to break.

The princess stood in the large kitchen at the heart of the farmhouse, in a cluster with some of the others. Lisette slipped in beside her as Cathay rummaged around in a low drawer. Tiana reached for her hand and then hesitated. A pinprick of grief almost exploded in Lisette’s heart. She squeezed her eyes shut and Tiana hooked their arms together.

When she opened her eyes again, the pain safely tucked away again, Cathay stood, an apple in one hand and a carrot in another. “They’ve left recently.” The apple was freshly picked, still plump and smooth.

“Fleeing from Ohedreton’s forces? The army Jerya mentioned? The road has been so empty, even in the rain,” Tiana sounded bewildered.

“Villages sometimes hide from Blighter armies,” said Slater, reassuringly. “They’ll come back.”

“But they didn’t take the food,” said Cathay. “That’s odd.”

“Maybe they were in a hurry,” Tiana said darkly. “Or maybe something else happened to them. Maybe they were
taken
. Jerya said there were
humans
with the Blighter army.”

Later, Lisette curled under her blanket as the others slept through the morning, thinking about Tiana’s suggestion. Were those caught in the expanding Blight transformed? Was that what gave the enemy’s eidolons their apparent self-will? She wondered if they’d hidden in their coats, afraid of the reactions of the people left unchanged. The andani did not hesitate; any reservations they had were surely left with their previous shape, if previous shape they had. Their minds belonged to Ohedreton.

But here she was, still Lisette. She wanted to mourn, but she stumbled. If she was still Lisette, all she had to mourn was her hand. And scars gained in battle were nothing to hide, especially for a Regent.

She woke up, staring at the fingers of her unmodified hand. She flexed them. This journey had paralyzed her. It had taken her from the world she understood and changed Tiana and Kiar, and left her all alone.

She remembered reading about this in Rocliff’s analysis of the collected diaries of twelve famous Regents. Most Regents typically experienced stress and even a loss of identity when their charge developed a close relationship with somebody else. It could happen even with a private internal fixation.

It was, Rocliff wrote, a Regent’s coming of age. It was easy to blame the Voice of Atalya and her glowing hand, but when she considered it closely, she’d been increasingly adrift ever since the sword Jinriki had appeared. She still believed Tiana had done the right thing in preserving her connection to the sword, but where did that leave Lisette? The Regency had a phrase about Regents and weddings that seemed apt here, even if it was hardly a romance: ‘No place for a Regent at the wedding table’.

Of course, relationships were rarely so well separated, and the epigram was more about how a Regent felt than any truth of the matter. But it validated her feelings. She felt this way, and it was normal. She read enough to trust that. Yet she also knew she had to stop letting her feelings control her if she was going to be useful to the Blood.

Rocliff himself had lost his leg to gangrene. There was no magic, no suggestion of a powerful gift, just life-changing loss, and moving on.

He didn’t come to terms with losing his leg in two days, either
, said a sulky, self-indulgent part of her. But Lisette knew about that, too, knew about shock and survival and visualization. She knew about the need for purpose, and a hundred and one other tricks to keep a wobbly member of the Blood focused and fighting when, potentially, everything else was lost. It was all theory, with so little practice, but she knew how it began.

So she stood. She went to find a place to clean herself up, and she brushed her hair thoroughly, and if part of herself stood aside and watched her attack her hair like her bad thoughts were tangled in it, well, that was what a decade of specialized Regent training did to you.

They spent the afternoon traveling again, this time without rain. The road remained hauntingly empty. They journeyed toward Sunasin, Fai and Cinai’s home, but they were limited to the speed of Fai’s travois. They moved with a careful, aching alertness. The empty landscape put everybody on edge.

Lisette guided her horse up beside Kiar. She pulled her cloak aside and stretched out her light-filled fingers. Kiar only glanced at her, busy brooding At first Lisette wanted to back off, to coddle and pet and encourage Kiar the way she would any member of the Blood. She resisted the impulse. Right now, Kiar was a resource Lisette needed to understand what had happened to her.

“What I did before... wasn’t what Jinriki suggested we do, was it?”

After a hesitation, Kiar raised her head again. “I don’t think so. What were you trying to do?”

Lisette said, “I wanted to send power to whatever Logos-working Twist was doing when he fell. That didn’t work, but something else did. Everybody seemed... stronger. It wasn’t as... explosive as what happened to Twist, either.” She waggled her fingers and Kiar gave her a pained look.

“Do you think it will explode or destroy anything you touch?”

“How would I know?” She paused, thinking, and added, “No, I don’t, because it doesn’t burn through my cloak when I wrap it, see?”

Tiana’s raised voice came from the head of the column. “—idiotic. You can’t go.” She’d pulled her horse to a halt, cutting off Jozua’s own mount, who blew and pawed the ground.

“I have a job to do, Your Highness. I’ll take the girl to her father, and you can bring along the boy later. Or keep him, I don’t much care.”

“No,” said Tiana stubbornly. “Cinai won’t go. I’ll explain things to her father when we get there.”

Jozua’s horse danced and Jozua let it. He shook his head. “Even a Blood Princess like you should understand how I ought to report in. The Blight is coming here and the defense of the Counties and that girl’s marriage are links in the same chain.”

“That’s idiotic, too,” said Tiana. “Why would armies depend on one girl’s wedding? Nobody’s going to withhold troops because somebody hasn’t gotten married. This is just... nonsense.”

Jozua shook his head and clicked his tongue. “Can’t say I disagree. It’s all nonsense but it’s nonsense old men with armies care a lot about. How about this: you keep Cinai and I’ll go ahead to warn the Count you’re coming, get some armies mobilized, even start baking the wedding cake.”

He attempted to move his horse past hers. Tiana leaned over to grab its bridle, staring at him.

Like it was printed in stage directions, Lisette could see that he was considering making—and breaking—a promise to wait there for whatever Tiana needed him for; she could see that Tiana was wondering if she could trust him, and as he shifted his weight and his horse snorted, he was further considering trying to intimidate Tiana into letting his horse go.

That was never a good idea, and she wondered why he was so eager to get away. She’d miss him; in the short time since he rescued her, she’d appreciated his relaxed, easy strength. He exuded confidence in a way none of the guards did, as if nothing could ever really touch him. Cathay was like that sometimes, but she’d never seen it in anybody else.

She indicated to Kiar that she’d be right back to continue their conversation, and started to move up the stalled column.

Tiana said, “Will you swear on my blade that you’ll return as soon as you convey the message?” and Lisette pulled her horse back, surprised. What a cunning, awful idea. Where had she found it?

**She came up with it herself,**
said Jinriki in her head, sounding crotchety.

Jozua raised his eyebrows. “I’ve heard bad things about that sword.”

“If you’re trustworthy, so is he.” Tiana drew Jinriki from the scabbard slung over her saddle and rotated the blade so the handle extended toward Jozua.

He reached out and then pulled his hand back. “I don’t think I’ll make that oath after all.”

“Then you can’t go. Not that I understand why the red light would be in an oath breaker anyhow.”

“I cannot break an oath I haven’t sworn,” Jozua snapped, his patience visibly frayed. “But perhaps if I do, your red light will let me go. Shall we try it?”

“Please!” said Lisette loudly. She softened her voice as she moved closer to the arguing pair. “Please, don’t be rash, either of you. Sir, would it be so bad to travel with us for a time? We’re all going to the same place, to the home of Fai and Cinai. And you’ve seen that it’s dangerous. You must look after your charge. Does it inconvenience you somehow?”

Tiana stuck her jaw out, nodding agreement, and Jozua stared at Lisette a little too long. Then he said, “There is the army coming.”

“You don’t care about the army coming,” Tiana pointed out. “That’s an excuse. Even a Blood Princess like me can see that.”

“It’s still true.” He sighed. “I’m inconvenienced in... small ways. But I’ll stay for now.”

Lisette finally found a smile. “I’m glad. Perhaps we can talk more later.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “If I’m lucky.” A little thrill of pleasure curled in Lisette’s stomach at the genuine interest in the intensity of his gaze.

Tiana said, “And work on getting over whatever issues you have with Rann, please,” and Jozua broke his gaze away from Lisette’s. Without responding to Tiana, he turned his horse and rode back along the column to where Fai and Cinai travelled. Tiana blew out her breath and kicked her horse into a trot, ranging ahead with Slater at her heels.

Kiar caught up with Lisette. “That could have been worse.”

Lisette shrugged and immediately returned to her previous conversation. “Will you experiment with me to discover what we can do together?”

Kiar gave her a flat, unfriendly look. “Why would you want to use that thing? I don’t like what it’s doing to you. What could possibly be worth it?” Her response reminded Lisette of her own reaction when Tiana decided—the first time—to keep Jinriki. She shivered.

Kiar saw and instantly apologized. “I don’t want anything bad—worse—to happen to you, Lisette.”

Lisette curved her lips into a reassuring smile and searched for something light to say. She found nothing, and so she tossed her hair away from her face and looked down at her hand. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to me either. But it’s too late. I’m not what I was. I want to understand what I am. And maybe, with practice, I can control... this.” She tried to wiggle her fingers and the glow wavered.

Kiar squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, she looked haunted. “Fine.” She held up her own hand and an eidolon gauntlet shimmered into existence over her skin.

“What are you doing? That’s not the Logos.”

“I’m still curious.” Kiar proffered her gauntleted hand. Lisette squeezed her own hand, with its glove of light, tightly shut.

“Maybe we should wait until we’re not on horses. If you get thrown like Twist—.”

“I can make my shields very quickly, and I’m prepared to do so. But if you’re really concerned...”

The two young women stared at each other, caught in a morass of uncertainty. Then Lisette gritted her teeth and grabbed Kiar’s gauntleted hand with her own glowing one.

Or at least tried to. The light slid off the eidolon, or the eidolon slid away from the light. She pushed and her hand seemed to pass through Kiar’s, without any physical sensation.