Eyes were upon her. This is scandalous, isn't it? She realized and, in a surge of will, tore her gaze from him. You lost your own eyes? What were you looking at, his face? Ivory knew mother bood such thoughts.
Matters escalated. "Oh my," Miralin chuckled, "Mother always said I was handso, but this is truly amazing. A high heir smitten by ."
I was not! Ivory snapped in her thoughts, but had the strength to quiet them. Any such receptacle of words would tarnish her even more. What would they say?
A high heir who cannot even keep her cool!
"Is that true?" Mother said, silence slowly veiling over the hall. Ivory startled at this. Was Mother asking her or him?
"So you bear an interest in my daughter?" Argon spoke, a shivering calmness laced over it.
Miralin paused at the words—a first since the endless assault of them he used. "To be fair, she isn't exactly that. But isn't she of age yet?" he smiled, "Such a connection might strengthen the hivemind."
Argon sighed, "You people play with your lives as if they were a toy. You make jokes but care not how that jest is received."
"Everyone needs a laugh—"
"Nail stop!"
Miralin froze. A blade—a flat queer oredite forged blade was evened on his throat. A hand held it. A woman stood behind him, slender, tall, with black hair, stranded by two tails of white in the center.
She was stark to the others there—even the won. Despite a cold, bored expression, it sohow displayed the feeling of a storm. Like crackling thunder, she seed like the canvas of destruction etched into the winds.
Her clothes were simple for her rank. Black trousers and a tight shirt of the sa color. All this she donned over with a silver plate, one on the arm, legs, and waist. The Nail of Valor. ladyCaptain to the seat guards.
"There is no reason to kill him. Jokers often forget the horror of reality." Argon said, then tapped the armrest.
Silent, unseen like before, Nail vanished. And that brought a wave of dread through the crowds. They would wonder: if she can just appear and kill, what saves us from her?
Then they would rember how easily she was commanded and would graft peace into Argon. Obedience ant safety. This was the outco.
And at that mont, Ivory realized the depth of thought passed between her Mother and father. They both were like the greatest wares, perfect in synchronicity. This man thought he played them, but how wrong he was. Everything had led to this summation. Nothing had escaped them. Ivory shivered at this—the realization of what was expected of her bearing down like pressure.
How heavy it felt.
"Very well," Argon said, "You are allowed to do as you wish."
Who are you? The man asked, and the darkness answered, "I am!"—Poems of the mad.
Why am I doing this? Ivory asked herself. Now she walked slowly as could through the azure glow-washed hall. White radiance rayed from the base; so, annoying, pierced her eyes. She could wince at this, but could not for the simple reason of her company.
Miralin humd a song—a tune of the faith, though the exact aspect of the almighty embodied in the tune was lost on her. Her curiosity ended there. The man, a castWarer, hence ant to be courteous and elegant, was anything but. He was rash, walked without rhythm, and pestered her over with the one question:
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
"So what exactly are you allowed to use in your research?" He asked, "Sothing big befitting a high heir?"
There was an infuriation triggered by that question. The context of the word "Allow" brought a coldness within her. She hated it and hated him more for asking it.
But.
"I have the entire clan to use for it!" she responded. "As my mother had done hers, now I must do mine."
Yes, he was annoying, but she remained a high heir. Above the rest. Decorum needed to exist within her at all tis. Thus, not even this man would break it. She stopped. a door, massive, black, unlike one standing guard in the grand hall. This was smaller and more iron than eltium.
"This is my lab," she said,
"All I see is a tal door." Miralin confird, then, "Do you, by so chance, your grace, work on a door? Is that door your lab? Must be terrible to research on such a…flat surface."
Ivory bit the words and swallowed them. Retaliation, despite an observable course of events, would, in the end, harm her more. Insulting a castWarer, mainly one of the high fa'n had consequences. Other clans, the leeches at their heels, would pounce at such opportunities.
They would call it a war to return the honor of the hivemind.
Such rubbish..
"The door is rely the first," she said. "I believe they hold sothing on the other side of themselves, no?"
He gave a curious glance but said nothing else. Odd, yet the ergence of serene silence was ever welcod in her mind. She stepped forward, and the door slid to the side, vanishing as though rged into the side surface.
Smoke rolled out.
Mists! Ivory startled, but in a near mont of impulse, she reined in. No reaction, no trembling, just the perfect calm that was expected of her. What was wanted for her.
Miralin, on the other hand, jerked, staggering steps back. "Your grace. I suspect poison!"
"It is not," Ivory said simply and walked into the smoke-clouded room.
The vastness for a mont overwheld and she felt small again within the sheerness of it all. Most of it remained clouded in the fu of swirling smoke, but just enough, just the fraction of it brought the coldness. She forced it down and glanced up.
There was a skeleton of a creature, bone white and pinned against the wall. Iron bars extended from joint rims, and a man, unbothered by the smoke rolling out from the bone, sat. He whistled a tune and bobbed his head.
"That's enough."
"You sure?" he answered with head unturned. There was a disrespect to be found there, Ivory imagined; however, the placidity of it all threw her off.
"I need you to show the guest sothing."
"Who is he?"
"A castWarer."
There was a mont of pause. "Don't you have many of those already?"
"I do, but he's one of the high fa'n." Ivory hoped the condemnation hid well outside her voice.
He sighed. "This does not interest . One would think being a high heir ant certain privileges."
"You are. Not just one for the Valor clan." Ivory said.
"Last I checked, whiteTower is as much a great clan as yours." As always, there was just the flat passiveness in his voice. As though he were here yet not. A strange alien thing.
"You are doing your thing. Not everyone gets to study a fallen dread." She noted the four black holes lined across the bone head.
"And in return, I help your research."
"Hardly."
"I see." He stopped, then turned; eyes light that it felt white, and hair, though fewer in white, was more than hers.
Blood of whiteTower.
"I shall hope he interests then,"
I would ask and ask, and yet no answer would be given. It is with that realization that I grasp the ultimate truth. Humans are by the ans which creation functions.—An old world quote.
She sighed.
Light stretched upward along the walls, pale and buzzing. The lamps at the base of the surface pulsed slowly, casting beams of light toward the ceiling. From her place in the center of the room, it felt as though she lay beneath a cage of light — pillars rising upward, cold and luminous.
Her left hand traced circles over the back of her right. The hand where the Erllt would rest. Mother had not given her a choice. She was to wear it. To pretend. To live with the sha of it until — if — she snapped.
Ivory believed she would. In ti.
Mother Samara did not share that belief.
The box sat on the table beside her, inches from the hem of her black silk dress. A dark shape in the light. Watching her. A reminder of failure.
The Almighty knows what I would give to awaken my power.
Ivory’s gaze lowered toward the box. Her fingers curled.
The surface was eerily black and slick. Not like Eltium, but was perhaps the closest to it. Perhaps it was made from a similar tal, or perhaps it was Eltium, but one that had not been infused with the black spirit. She reached for the box, then stopped.
It felt repulsive. An act that would solidify her as incapable. A sign of foreseen frailty. Why couldn't her mother trust her? Believe in her? Maybe that would be all that needed to be done for her to snap.
The box felt alien, wicked like chains strapped around her neck. As though the re action of touching it would enslave her to its will.
Nonsense! She retorted.
Reviews
All reviews (0)