Her hand stiffened in his. For years, Eldoria has turned away as we siphon day from their skies. Now we must turn away from their offenses.
No, Lady Mother. He focused on her, so only she could hear his answer. They did not turn away. They are afraid to seek out our smugglers in the Ashen Ravine. Eldorians are cowards, fearful of the flesh-eating shrouds created by their own inherent insanity. Cowards so malicious they uprooted an entire crop of roses whose only crime was pricking a lady’s flesh. Their queen should have had sense enough to wear gloves.
The uprooting was done in ignorance, not maliciousness. Vesper could feel the vibration in his lady mother’s answer within his own brain. It is the duty of a noble king to set aside his pride. He must think of his kingdom, make compromises for the greater good, hone relations to ensure a peaceful future.
Vesper pulled free of her touch. The thick, silvery hair that matched the gleaming crystal of her crown fell past her shoulders and hid the disappointment on her face. He was glad for that, as it might have swayed him to tenderness. But why give in to such a weak emotion? Anger was much more productive.
Before his murder, King Kiran vowed to Queen Nova that one of the precious panacea roses still existed—alive and intact—within the castle’s walls. The blood pact between their kingdoms hinged on it.
Vesper grimaced and resumed his mental conversation with his lady mother. A treaty should never have been enacted concerning my future reign without my counsel or consent. A prophecy carved by shadows upon the walls of the mystic ice caverns should not be the road map for the rest of my life. Perhaps I don’t wish to marry once I’m crowned. Perhaps I don’t wish to marry at all. Why should my becoming king hinge in any way upon marital status?
Queen Nova clamped her lips. You’re being entirely unreasonable.
Why should I be otherwise? You won’t even tell me the details of the prophecy. What were the exact words?
Set aside your cynicism and I will tell you. Until then, it will only make you angrier.
The prince couldn’t refute her point. After having gone to Madame Dyadia seven years earlier, and begging her to make him like everyone else . . . after having her refuse to help, insisting that he’d been born as he was for some monumental reason yet unseen, he’d lost all faith in the forces of witchcraft, soothsaying, and the like. Practitioners—be they mages, witches, necromancers, or conjurers—were fickle, choosing only the projects that furthered their personal gain. Elsewise, why couldn’t they use their talents to save a noble king, or to soften a people’s hearts toward their prince’s differences?
His queenly mother stroked the moonflower bouquet’s stems, her finger straying to caress a strand of the king’s hair lovingly. Your father would’ve agreed with the council’s logic, with my decision. Eldoria will replant the one remaining panacea rose in the soil above Nerezeth’s stairway. After a hearty crop has grown, we will supply all the midnight shadows and stardust Eldoria needs to keep their princess clad in nightsky. In return, their three royal mages will supply us with liquid sunlight, so there will be no more smuggling it. Other than that, we keep to ourselves until you’re both of age to marry. This joining will be of mutual benefit—an opening for our kingdom to accept you, and also to amend relations with Eldoria. Their princess is said to need shadows as much we need the light.
Vesper huffed. She’s obviously too pampered. All of Nerezeth’s citizens are sensitive to the sun, but it isn’t anything a slathering of obsidian balsam and layered clothes can’t solve. It’s not as if the sun-smugglers singe to ash each time they traverse into the Ashen Ravine to gather strands of daylight. At least the girl can hide from the sun inside her pristine castle walls. We require parcels of sun to grow food and medicines, so her “need” for comfort doesn’t even compare.
What has become of your benevolent spirit? Do you forget where you’re standing? his mother scolded.
He shifted uneasily in his boots. This shrine was hallowed—a tribute to meditation, thankfulness, mourning and communion. When Vesper was smaller, Neverdark itself, alive with magical topiaries and animated leaves that danced on their branches to stir a natural breeze, had been the one place that made him feel hopeful. Even the footbridges—built from enchanted rocks that heated the water and warmed the fragrant air—represented a path to growth, a means to carry his feet to another side where he could cease being the aberrant blemish upon this kingdom, and become the heir and son his parents had wished to have . . . the prince his people needed.
How can you harbor such resentment, the queen’s voice interrupted his musings, when all around us are symbols of peace?
He had no answer. Even the drifting insects and their serene wash of light felt different in this moment, feeding his rage . . . promising power over a powerless situation. Vesper’s attention settled at the head of the deathbed. Soldered to an ornamental holder that came to his sternum, a large globe of hollow copper—pierced with starry shapes—imprinted a galaxy across the king’s face. The luminary was strictly ceremonial, and emanated radiant golden beams, though not from a flame. The same special mix of pollen and sunshine that was fed to the fireflies filled the luminary and powered its light, symbolizing their world’s starry sky to which their dead would return after being burned to ash.
That dazzling mixture called Vesper closer. He leaned over the heat source and a new line of sweat dampened his hairline. He swept some strands behind his ear then raked a thumb across his lord father’s silver-white locks splayed out on the black pillow beneath his head. Their lack of color was not a sign of age or illness, but rather another inherent quality that set Vesper apart from every member of his family . . . from his entire kingdom.
What would you have had me do? His lady mother’s thoughts nudged him again, an obvious attempt to shake him from his silent brooding. How else would you propose to bring genuine sunlight to our world, in the expanding amounts we need for our growing populace?
Vesper kept the exchange between their two minds so the guards wouldn’t hear: I would order the princess to deliver the last panacea rose herself, then bind her within the cadaver brambles. The wicked suggestion caused his lips to twitch. The savage, frosty-white thorn creatures that slithered like viperous skeletons across their land could bleed the sun in fiery red stripes from her veins. Let her pierced tender flesh provide our natural light.
Seeing the shock on his lady mother’s face only strengthened his resolve, and he added aloud so all could hear, “I would rather rule alone than with a day-walker by my side. How would she survive the wilds?”
The queen’s eyes met his. “The wilds of your land, or of your heart?”
He considered her question. The one likeness he shared with the citizens of Nerezeth was their lithesome builds, tall and more faerie-kind than human—characteristics mistaken for weakness. Their spines, however, were steel, and their spirits glaciers—men and women alike. It took courage to brave the mystic ice caverns and the dark, frigid landscapes . . . to withstand the frosty sting of a rime scorpion, to survive a bone-spider’s bite rendered from fangs the size of a clouded leopard’s, or to hazard an encounter with tinder-bats, whose dung could set fire to stone if ignited by a torch. The milder winters were opulent and scenic. But the prim and proper citizens of Eldoria weren’t stalwart enough to face the night tides, where the snow crashed like tidal waves. In places, the drifts stood as high as any castle and caved beneath clumsy feet like the hungriest quicksand. And then there was the dead air, everything muffled by loosely piled snow, and avalanches waiting to tumble, lest one move graceful as a cat and relay their thoughts without sound to preserve the silence.
Vesper had his answer. “Ours is a land for the daring . . . and only the brutal of heart can survive.”
He smoothed the silken banner where it draped the lower half of the king’s prone form. He admired Nerezeth’s sigil: a black background behind a silver crescent moon standing tall and majestic beside a nine-pronged silver star, celestial bodies representative of the king and queen; three small obsidian stars—the same contrasting shade as the dark background—shadowed the middle of the moon, dark reflections of their silver brother. These stars stood for the three generations that first shaped Nerezeth, those who reigned during the earlier, treacherous years . . . those whose wisdom and courage transformed the land into something tenable.
“Those of the sunlit skies have flapping mouths and weighty bones,” Vesper elaborated. “They’re weak, soft, and spoiled. Smooth complexions, with no scars or frostbite burns. I’ve heard the royal house themselves are as rigid and flawless as bronze and ivory statues untouched by the elements.”