“What do you mean?” Queen Nova faced the sorceress after knotting the woolen binds around the princess’s gifts.
“Thana has Cronatia in her sights, as you commanded, Majesty.” The sorceress bowed to Vesper, acknowledging his rule. Synchronized with the movement, her flesh resumed its natural coloring: a mix of black and white stripes that along with her feline features and two-toned upswept hair had always reminded Vesper of a white tiger. “I spied through the bird’s eye, a box lined with drasilisk flesh within the witch’s keep. Written upon the lid were the words: ‘princess - revolution.’”
Vesper cursed, pounding the table with his left hand. His golden forearm scraped the edge and loosened a chunk of stone, sending it to the floor. He glared at it, jaw twitching. “She’s raising a rebellion against my bride. As if she hasn’t already done enough.”
“It would seem the witch has havoc yet to wreak. So very like Cronatia, to interfere no matter the consequences.” Madame Dyadia’s brow furrowed. In the midst of her striped forehead sat a pink, empty socket that usually housed a third eye unless she plucked and conjured it alongside a handful of white feathers into a scrying crow. The sorceress could even place her mind within the gruesome creature and use it as her mouthpiece.
“I understand it’s a difficult and painful process, but couldn’t you converse with the witch yourself, through the bird?” The queen offered up the suggestion in synch with Vesper’s thoughts. “It would give us a better idea of how to broach her.”
“I haven’t will enough to attempt a dialogue, knowing she wouldn’t answer truthfully. She’s a consummate liar.” Dyadia frowned and the raw, meaty divot on her forehead puckered and swelled, as if breathing. “Cronatia’s explanations are owed to Eldoria’s royalty, not me; those are the wrongs she must answer for now. Thus, she must be taken to the palace.”
Vesper crushed the broken rock beneath his boot’s heel with a gritty pop and wondered again at Dyadia’s strained familiarity with the witch. He’d questioned her about it more than once, but the sorceress skirted answers, insisting things that happened centuries ago belonged in the past, for they couldn’t change the future. He disagreed. Learning from yesterday’s mistakes is what made for a better tomorrow.
“I spied also a note,” Dyadia continued. “Wrinkled within the witch’s grasp. Too difficult to cipher. The contents might prove telling. Thana’s sightings suggest Eldoria’s princess is yet in danger. The bird’s precognitions have never proven false.”
Queen Nova shifted her feet and the sorceress turned to her, pressing her thin black lips to a line as their gazes locked.
Sensing a silent conversation taking place, Vesper stepped between them, breaking the connection. “You will address me directly and not speak behind my mind while in my presence. Both of you.”
His lady mother bowed her head humbly and Dyadia knelt before him, gaze turned to the floor. “Majesty, I was telling our queen that you must take the ravine despite her reservations. If for no other reason than the brumal stags.”
“Why? What have you learned?” Vesper asked.
The sorceress looked up then, torchlight gilding her complexion and slitted pupils to disturbing proportions—a wildcat set afire. “During Thana’s flight in the Rigamort, I spied through the bird’s eye: antlers piled upon the ground in bloody silver-blue stacks. Some within the herd appearing sick and weak. We must determine what has happened, on the chance it could infect our world with ills no princess can cure.”
12
Of Monsters and Men
Nerezeth, set deep beneath the earth, had a claustrophobic terrain. The magical, moonlit sky arched upward from massive, icy dunes, leaving an extensive valley that ran as long and wide as the Ashen Ravine—located thousands of leagues above. Having only two tunnels leading up to the day realm, it gave one the sense of being trapped within a snow globe. Though, unlike a child’s toy, there was nothing safe or frivolous in this harsh land.
The obsidian castle’s back wall rested flush against an embankment of earth and ice. The north, south, and east sides of the palace, along with Nerezeth’s colonized territory, were surrounded by the Grim—a thorny woodland that formed an imposing fortress around the obsidian castle, stony cottages, and Neverdark’s iron arboretum.
Before venturing through, Prince Vesper and his troop trussed the horses in barding made of the same toughened fish skin as the royal armor to protect their tender horseflesh from static and barbed obtrusions.
Once past the Grim, they removed the barding to journey southwest through the glacial badlands and reach the Rigamort. Tonight the scent of snow prickled the air; the skies extended clear and star-filled above the barbed, leafless trees lining the path, and the wind held a bitter bite that kept even the snow leopards in their lairs. When at last the rime-rimmed branches thinned to reveal a wide span of untouched snow dunes where the cavern’s entrance rose like a spire of dark ice, a concerted sigh of relief washed over the troop.
Prince Vesper cinched his fur-hooded cape around the white skull and black sockets painted across his face. He narrowed his lashes against gusts of air so brutally cold they burned the eye. Including himself, his cavalcade consisted of ten: Lieutenant Cyprian Nocturn; Princess Selena; two sun-smugglers, Alger and Dolyn; a husband-and-wife tracker team, Leo and Luna; and three of his best foot soldiers—Tybalt, Uric, and Thea—who also manned the three jackdaw cages they’d brought on the chance sending missives became necessary.
Vesper would have preferred to head the procession, and in the day realm he would; but since he didn’t have the night vision, he had given his first knight that privilege here.
Selena rode behind Cyprian with Nysa, her rye-colored tracker spaniel, snuggled belly-down between her mount’s withers and the saddle horn. Third in line, Vesper kept a close watch on the shadows cast by fir thickets and deciduous thistly trees. Glistening powder stirred by spiked hooves hindered visibility, but he utilized snatches of moonlight through the branches, searching for unusual movements beneath the drifts.
His world’s terrain, spawned of the same broken magic that supplied the day realm’s Ashen Ravine with flesh-eating shrouds, had given Nerezeth its own inherent monsters made of the bones of any humanoid who died out in the open alone. Skeletons would shed their flesh and blood and limbs—like a snake changing skins—and take root in frozen soil, rocky topography, or ice. They sprouted forth as white carnivorous predators that resembled human spines, varying from viper-sized to the length of giant moray eels.
Cadaver brambles hid deep within the drifts, attuned to vibrations like a spider relying on the tingling signal of a web. If there was more than one in the same vicinity, they hunted in packs. They were patient, lying in the darkness, ready for any man, woman, or beast to cross their territory so they could feed upon the marrow that once gave them life. Having no scent for the horses to detect, a bramble could propel upward and topple them, claiming both mount and rider with little warning.
Vesper’s glove stroked his stallion’s neck—a shimmer of sleek periwinkle beneath the moon’s creamy haze. He leaned forward to whisper: “It’s all right, Lanthe. We’ve nothing to fear of the cadavers this night. Pass the word up to Dusklight, would you?” Vesper gestured toward his sister’s silvery-purple mare. Lanthe nickered and jerked his head, playing coy. “Come on now, everyone knows you’re sweet on her.” Lanthe’s ear pivoted backward to capture his master’s fogged breath.
In preparation for this journey, Vesper had updated the census and found that none of their populace had died or gone missing in the tundra. As an extra precaution, he’d commanded their route be cleansed by utilizing special tools with five long, curved blades like scythes attached to broom-length handles. Digging deep through the snow, the movements lured the hungry creatures to attack so they could be sawed down and the roots destroyed. None had been found.
Still, Vesper allowed his shoulders to relax only after Cyprian led the procession into the clearing that sat like a white valley between snowy banks, where the moonlight was bright and plentiful. Cyprian stalled his horse and signaled to the prince in sign language: Safe to dismount?