“Ah.” She nodded in understanding. “We’d fought our last war decades before then. Not long before this city was first constructed. The world beyond this continent might still be steeped in tribalism and savagery, but here peace is the norm. However . . .” Her face darkened as she scanned the crowd and her gaze came to rest on one figure in particular, a thin woman of middling years dressed in the plainest robe of any present. “Unfortunately, we had yet to shrug off the lingering taint of superstition.”
Clay noted how the thin woman’s frozen features were set in an odd expression, somewhere between a disdain and hunger as she stared at the little girl clutching her father’s hand and staring at the surrounding assembly with fearful eyes.
Kriz unfroze the memory, the thin woman’s strident voice cutting through the silence a half-second later. “So,” she said, shifting her narrowed eyes from the girl to her father, “Philos Zembi finally deigns to answer our summons.”
“I received a request, not a summons,” Krizelle’s father replied in a carefully mild tone. “And I came as soon as I was able.”
“Ah yes,” the woman replied, her own tone much less civil, “you are so busy crafting fresh horrors in that mountain fortress of yours.”
“The Philos Enclave is not a fortress, nor is it mine,” Zembi replied, Clay seeing how he struggled to keep any animosity from his voice and bearing. “And I fail to see how the many gifts arising from the science practised there could be considered horrifying. Why, the very building we stand in could never have been constructed without the engineering genius of the great Philos Menzah, founder of the Enclave.”
“Brick and stone,” the woman replied, her voice rising as her gaze snapped back to Kriz, “not flesh and blood to be stolen and twisted into something that offends the very sight of the Divine Benefactors.”
“This child has not been twisted into anything,” Zembi said, a certain heat creeping into his voice. “Merely nurtured, educated and the gifts she possesses studied.”
“Gifts?” The thin woman grated out a humourless laugh. “You talk as if she merely has the ability to compose a tune or paint a pretty picture. In truth”—she raised a bony arm to point at Krizelle—“it is no exaggeration to say she could kill every soul in this assembly if the whim took her.”
“Devos Zarhi,” a new voice cut in, deep and pitched just below a boom. Clay turned to see a stocky, barrel-chested man emerge from the crowd. He wore a grey-blue robe with short sleeves that revealed thickly muscled arms. Noting his straight-backed bearing and the way the surrounding people made way for him, Clay suspected that he might be the leader here, or at least capable of commanding the most respect.
“This assembly,” the stocky man said, lowering his voice a little though it still easily filled the chamber, “is a venue for calm reflection and reasoned decision. Philos Zembi has done us the courtesy of responding to our request. And so”—the stocky man smiled at Krizelle—“has this young lady. I bid you Welcome, Krizelle. Your presence honours us greatly.”
Devos Zarhi gave a loud huff at this but remained quiet as the stocky man came forward, sinking to his haunches in front of Krizelle. “I am Veros Harzeh, Speaker of the Chamber,” he said. “I believe you have prepared a demonstration for us.”
Krizelle raised her small face to her father, Zembi squeezing her hand with an encouraging smile before reaching into a pocket in his robe to extract two objects. “I assume all present possess a basic familiarity with crystalline science,” he said, raising his voice and holding up one of the objects, a small crystal little larger than a pebble. “Even the smallest shard gifted to us by the Event is incredibly dense and contains more internal facets than can be counted with the naked eye. Although they have enabled us to craft great works, the true nature of the power they hold still eludes us. But now”—he turned a fond smile on Krizelle—“providence and science have combined to provide us with the key to unlocking their secrets.”
He held out the second object to her, a small glass bottle containing a viscous and instantly recognisable substance. “Black?” Clay said, glancing at Kriz and finding her attention entirely absorbed by the unfolding scene.
Krizelle hesitated before reaching out a small hand to take the bottle, removing the glass stopper and drinking the contents. Her face flushed as she swallowed, staggering a little as the product took hold. She straightened quickly and nodded at Zembi, features set in a frown of concentration.
Zembi reached out his hand, the pebble-sized crystal resting in his palm, and gave what Clay thought to be a pause of overly theatrical length before abruptly turning his hand over. The crystal fell several inches then stopped, freezing in mid air as Krizelle reached out to seize it with her Black.
From the vast gasp that filled the chamber, and the subsequent explosion of amazed chatter, Clay deduced this was the first time the vast majority of these people had ever witnessed such a thing.
A small ticking sound drew his gaze back to the crystal, seeing it shudder as Kriz modified her stream of Black. It gave another tick as a new facet appeared in its surface, quickly followed by two more. The crystal abruptly expanded to twice its previous size, new facets appearing so fast it was as if the stone blurred. The ticking sound grew into a continual almost melodic accompaniment to the crystal’s transformation. It grew to a fist-sized ball then flattened into a disc, the edges of which began to bow outwards then subdivide into thin overlapping shapes. An irregular cylinder grew from beneath the main body of the crystal, extending for several inches before resolving itself into what was clearly some kind of plant stem, complete with thorns. The ticking sound stopped as Krizelle reduced her Black to a thin stream, letting the newly made crystal rose spin slowly in the air.
Clay gaped at the spectacle. It was the most accomplished and detailed use of Black he had ever seen, outshining even the murderous precision of the dread Black Bildon, the famously skilled assassin from the Blinds.
“Well . . .” he breathed, turning back to Kriz. “That was surely something.”
She gave no reaction, instead watching the assembly’s reaction. Clay saw amazement, fear and delight on many a face and, in the singular case of Devos Zarhi, naked outrage. Her eyes seemed to glitter as she stared at Krizelle and hissed something through tightly clenched teeth. The words were lost amidst the continuing babble, but he doubted it was anything pleasant.
“You were the first,” Clay said to Kriz, laughing in realisation. “The first ever Blood-blessed.”
“No,” she whispered back, a tear swelling in her eye as she looked upon her younger self, “I was the first abomination.”
CHAPTER 45
Lizanne
“Scorazin wasn’t yours to give!” The Electress hunched in her saddle, broad features taking on a dark red hue as Dropsy shifted beneath her, perhaps sensing her mistress’s growing rage. “Now I have to bargain with a bunch of horse-shagging savages just to buy back a city that’s mine by right.”