Chapter 1 Preview
A broken night’s sleep is the sleep of troubled souls. Mine came in scraps, chewed over by hungry shadows, while a fitful wind tore at the loose shutters and reminded me – again – that I was too poor to have them replaced. Later, the same wind pushed me into a kinder dream: open plains beyond the city, wide grassland and scattered trees. In that refuge my magic soared like a bird released from its cage.
A gentle knock at my door fractured it. I pulled the covers over my head and ignored the intrusion.
‘Master. Master Valkas. Are you awake?’
If I wasn’t, I was definitely expected to be. ‘Who is it?’ The word master still sat oddly in my ear. Once I would have woken to bells calling the Brotherhood to meditation. I used to curse them. Now I missed the steadiness of that rhythm — the way it anchored the day.
‘It’s Jamie,’ a small voice said. ‘I was told to wake you at first light.’
‘Thank you, Jamie. I’m awake. Go back to bed.’ How the lad managed to rouse himself at this hour was a mystery, unless someone had promised him an extra breakfast.
Washed and dressed in my second-best suit of anonymous grey serge, I made strong tea, ate an apple, and set out for the Magistrate’s Quarter.
Lustris was a city of light. By day, pale polished stone caught the sun and threw it back in sheets; by night, magic-fed streetlamps cast a honeyed radiance over the pavements while glowing orbs drifted along the canals. The Magistrate’s Quarter sat on the border between the Elven Spires and the crowded Lower Rows — a line you could feel as keenly as a change in temperature. To enter the Magisterium you stepped across into the elven utopia. I had done so many times, and still the grid windows and painted glass made me feel like an intruder.
Magistrate Gaereth Linorin greeted me cordially enough, indicated the chair opposite, then produced a small gold chain with a simple locket.
‘This locket,’ he said, swinging it to catch the light, ‘belongs to a girl-child found abandoned near the Originis canal. So far we’ve been unable to trace her lineage. We need your help — your particular expertise.’
When he passed it to me the tiny locket throbbed in my hand, its magic fluttering like a dying bird. I laid it carefully on the desk and met Linorin’s watchful gaze. ‘I will need more details, Magistrate, if I’m to provide anything useful. But first – why is the child of interest?’
His lips pursed as he leaned back in his carved chair. ‘There’s only so much I’m permitted to tell you. Better you use your talents to uncover what’s hidden. But this much is known: the girl is probably seven years of age. She is obviously of mixed heritage.’
He did not use the slur half-breed – a small courtesy, given my own blood.
‘She has not spoken since we found her. Whether she’s mute or merely obstinate …’
‘Or frightened,’ I offered.
‘That too. Everything has been done to make her feel safe. Still we get nothing from her.’
An insignificant half-blood dragged from a grimy canal should have vanished into the usual machinery of the Lower Rows. There were many lost children. The Mission Guild took most of them in – warmth and shelter in exchange for light labour. For some reason, this one had not been swallowed up.
Linorin gave me no more that day. A line of petitioners waited at his door, ready with grievances. He dropped the locket into a silk purse and handed it back. ‘Do what you can,’ he said, absently tweaking an emerald earring. ‘I will expect you tomorrow. Midday at the latest.’
I returned along streets where graceful buildings gleamed and the towers were carved with vines and flowers. The air carried exotic spice and perfume — and then, as the spires gave way to functional stone and bland brick, the acrid smoke of industry rose to meet me and the weight of destitution pressed close.
A small retainer from the Magisterium paid barely enough to survive. Occasional work from merchants bought a few luxuries. My rooms were spare but clean: two rooms above a shop in the Jewellers’ District. With that I was meant to be content. As a former brother of the Vel’Aren I had never been accustomed to luxury, but there had been a certain equality among us. Our poverty had been shared.
*
Lustris is vast. From an airship it resembles a carefully pieced quilt of different colours and fabrics, seamed with canals. I’ve never travelled by air, but my friend Yvaran is an airman, and he often describes his flying experiences to me over sweet tea and fragrant rice. Unlike me, Yvaran is pure elf, born to the Spires and the household of Dhorkalen – an old family with roots to the city’s founders. People assume that makes him fortunate. I learned long ago that his glorious descriptions of life among the clouds are really expressions of something else: his longing for freedom.
That night we met at our usual cafe in the Hospitality District.
‘Perhaps you should visit the mountains,’ I said.
He smiled, and for a moment the longing in it made him look younger than his years. ‘One day I’ll have my own airship. I’ll leave Lustris and go to the mountains.’
‘A pilgrimage, then,’ I suggested. ‘To the shrine of Lunis. Surely no one could object to that.’
He called a server to refill his cup. I declined another. The old habits of frugality persist.
‘If only,’ Yvaran said. ‘Every hour of my life is mapped. I will never be allowed to get away.’
Our conversations on freedom usually ended there. Tonight, I pushed. ‘Why not join the Vel’Aren? There are academies in the mountains that would welcome you.’
Yvaran’s long ears dipped in dismay. ‘Exchange one prison for another? No, Ennis. Your own story tells me it could never work for me.’
I looked away, embarrassed, and he reached out to touch my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry. I did not mean to …’
‘No reminder is needed,’ I said. ‘Shall we walk?’
We took our usual route through the lanes of the Hospitality District, past tiny cafes and street vendors, under strings of red lanterns. One of the tall streetlights was flickering. Yvaran stopped beneath it, the worry in his face deepened by shadow.
‘Again, I’m sorry to spoil this night. There’s something else.’
‘Tell me. I’ll help if I can.’
‘The family council has decided it’s time for me to marry. My uncle has even chosen a partner.’
It hit like a blow. Yvaran was young by elven standards, and with my mixed blood I would stay young too. We were matched in our development; I’d never imagined him being bound so soon.
‘It seems my cousin Aldrin has failed to produce heirs,’ he said at last. ‘Three wives, no result.’ A brief smirk. ‘They even tried a woman of mixed heritage, like you. That produced a son – and the family is scandalised. They won’t accept the child. He’ll be sent to the Vel’Aren.’
I understood then why the mountains had sounded like salvation.
‘So now it’s your turn?’ I said.
‘Yes. I’m next in line.’
We walked in silence until he spoke again. ‘There’s only one solution to it all.’
‘And that is?’
‘I will marry the girl, of course,’ he said, and his voice went flat with resolve. ‘But there will be no children from the union. I’ll make sure of that.’
‘You could be forced to take more wives.’
‘True. But I can wait it out. Eventually they’ll give up on me, as they have with Aldrin.’
I didn’t point out how unfair that would be to any bride unlucky enough to be chosen.
He glanced at me and his diamond studs caught the lantern light. ‘Perhaps it’s time for you to marry,’ he said.
Heat rose in my cheeks. ‘I have nothing to offer a woman.’
‘No, but you might find one who has plenty to offer you. With your elven blood and your magic, you’d be a great catch for a rich woman of similar lineage.’
This was not a conversation I was prepared to continue. We parted soon after – Yvaran returning to the Spires, and I to the Lower Rows and my two small rooms.
As I readied myself for bed I thought back over his words. My heritage was conspicuous – pointed ears, eyes that shifted colour with my mood. I was a head taller than most mortals, and my high cheekbones gave me away in every mirror. I could not hide what I was. But neither could I dress it up. I refused to braid my hair and wear the lace and gems the elves favoured; it would feel like pretending to be what I wasn’t.
And yet it was precisely my foolish ignorance of such boundaries that had got me barred from the Vel’Aren. I had used what I was to beguile someone – and in the eyes of the brothers, that was an unforgivable breach.