The soldier lifted his rifle against his shoulder. In the crowd, someone cried ‘no’.
It was too late to go back. My heartbeat slowed. I stared down the barrel. I would not show fear.
I thought of my father and my grandparents. My cousin.
I would not show fear.
I thought of Jaxon Hall, wherever he was. Perhaps he’d raise a glass to his Pale Dreamer.
I thought of Nick and Eliza, Maria and Warden. There was no way for them not to see.
I would not show fear.
The soldier levelled his rifle at my heart. My arms dropped to my sides, and my palms turned outward. One last breath blanched the air.
A great wave washed around your feet, and dark wings lifted you away.
Interlude
The Moth and the Madman;
or, the Sad Calamities of War
by Mister Didion Waite, Esq.
O, Readers of Scion, you may well have heard
of a legend’ry Figure of good Written Word –
his Title, White Binder, his Name, Jaxon Hall – who answers no Summons and suffers no Fool.
Ah! the Mime-Lord almighty of old MONMOUTH STREET
was the Picture of Poise from his Hair to his Feet!
Observe his good Humour, behold his long Stride,
so spotless a Man must be all LONDON’s Pride!
But would it surprise you to learn, faithful Reader, why just such a Fellow could not be our Leader?
One ruinous Year, this Wordsmith decided
that all Voyant-kind should be cruelly divided.
Some called him a Genius! Some called him mad,
some whispered his Writing was terribly bad
(and verily, Didion Waite’s was far better, superior down to each amorous Letter) – but all seemed to love him, and after those Trials, he ruled, drenched in Absinthe, from sweet SEVEN DIALS.
O, and even as Binder sought seven great Seals, he grew deaf to his Gutterlings’ wretched appeals!
When cruel, od’rous Hector was found with no Head, this good Mime-Lord fin’lly sprang up from his Bed.
He danced in the ROSE RING and fought for the Crown and his Enemies great and small were cut down.
But close to the End, with a Victory certain,
a daring young Challenger swept through the Curtain!
And lo, who was she, but Black Moth arising, and O, but her Face was most dev’lish surprising!
The famous Pale Dreamer, the White Binder’s heir, the Dreamwalker Traitor, a scand’lous Affair!
She struck down her Master with Spirit and Blade,
but to spare us from Bloodshed, her own Hand she stayed.
And to wondering Ears, this Brogue told a Tale
of the Anchor’s Fa?ade and what lies ’yond Death’s Veil.
Monsters stood at her side! Voyants cried Underqueen!
and they called her the Thaumaturge never yet seen.
’Twas on that fair Evening, with Freedom our Lust,
that the Might of THE MIME ORDER rose from the Dust.
The Binder, incensed, to the ARCHON set forth, and the Dreamwalker Queen took her Voice to the North.
And O, what a Spectacle! O what a Show!
Alas for the Unnaturals! Where now shall we go?
For two hundred Years we have fumbled like Fools –
we have feathered our Nests and woven our Spools!
Shall we hide in the Night, where Dread will soon find us or stand against Doom with the ?THER behind us?
Alas, when the Dreamwalker gave up her Throne, her Subjects were stranded in Darkness alone,
and whispered that Weaver should bring them her head – but now, when we need her, our young Queen is dead.
PART III
Death and the Maiden
20
Tomb
If this was the ?ther, it was different from how I remembered it.
Pain radiated from a damaged place. I was a child in a red, red field. Nick called to me across a sea of flowers, but the poppies were too tall and I couldn’t find my way to him.
There was the spirit among the petals, reaching for my arm, whispering a message I couldn’t understand. When I held out my hand to her, it was Warden who took it. I was a woman, the pale rider, the shadow that brought death. The night showered my hair with starlight. He danced with me as he had once before, his skin too hot on mine. I wanted him beside me, around me, within me. So I reached for him, but his teeth tore out my heart.
He ebbed away. The amaranth had grown in my mind, too. As I bled, Eliza Renton spun in a green dress beneath a tower. Lightning lashed its highest turret, and a golden crown fell to the earth and shattered.
The tower loomed in a not-too-distant future, obscuring the sun. And somewhere, Jaxon Hall was laughing.
Each exhalation echoed through my skull, into the emptiness. I had thought this was the ?ther, but I felt the millstone of my body, smelled the sweat on living skin. There was sand on my teeth, paper on my lips.
Blood thundered in my ears. I had no memory of where I was, what I was doing here, what I had been doing before.
Just below my breastbone was a second heartbeat – thick, grey, deep within my body. It sharpened as I tried to sit up, only to find that I couldn’t. The only sound I could produce was a rasp. In a panic, I arched my back and pulled my arms forward, grinding my wrists against bracelets of metal. I was . . . chained. My hands were chained . . .
She will chain you in the darkness, and she will drain the life and hope from you. I shivered as I remembered his voice, his hand outstretched, offering me safety. Your screams will be her music.
White light scorched the backs of my eyes. I sensed the ancient dreamscape before I heard the footsteps.
‘XX-59-40.’ The ?ther quaked around me. I knew that voice; it dripped with an arrogance no mortal could attain. ‘The blood-sovereign welcomes you to the Westminster Archon.’
The Archon.
When my eyes adjusted to the light, I recognised the Rephaite –a male with the pale hair of the Chertan family. At once, my spirit leaped from my fragile dreamscape and slammed against the layers of armour on his mind, but I didn’t last long before I stopped trying. Red lightning flashed between my temples, drawing a weak groan from my throat.
‘I would not advise that. You have only just emerged from a coma.’
‘Suhail,’ I croaked.
‘Yes, 40. We meet again. And this time,’ he said, ‘you have no concubine to protect you.’
A drop of water fell on to my nose, making me blink. I wore a black shift, cut off just above the knee. My wrists and ankles were chained to a smooth board. Another bead of water splashed on to my forehead, dripping from the metal pail suspended above me.
Waterboard. My chest began to heave.
‘The Grand Commander has asked me to inform you that your pathetic rebellion amounted to nothing,’ Suhail Chertan said, speaking over my gasps. ‘And to tell you this, also: your friends are all dead. If you had surrendered earlier, they would be alive.’
I couldn’t listen. It wasn’t true. It could not be true. I lifted my head as much as I could.