Eldoria’s citizens liked to boast that they were superior in their winnings. For surely Nerezeth grew cold in their eternal winter; surely they thirsted and starved without the promise of bountiful harvests, cascading waterfalls, and burgeoning spring foliage. What could possibly be sown, harvested, or admired in that icy, shadowy terrain? Did that not explain why there were smugglers carrying sunlight to Nerezeth, yet no one here ventured into that dark land to steal their moonbeams?
Yes, how little Eldoria needed the night.
Crony’s jaw ground against her cheek. How easily Eldoria had forgotten those early years, when so many fell to madness from lack of sleep and sought out shade in the Ashen Ravine, giving their spirits to the cursed forest and becoming shrouds—half-life silhouettes that craved the flesh they once had. How easily Eldoria had forgotten that this was why King Kiran’s royal ancestors initiated the cessation course: a nine-hour curfew set upon the entire kingdom, requiring by law that after the daily flash of dusk people were to retreat indoors, where heavy drapes blotted out the light, so they might rest and slumber. How easily Eldoria had forgotten the moon’s calming breath and the nightingale’s restorative song.
Until now. With the birth of the child princess and her peculiarities, Eldoria had been forced to remember. And everything had been upended.
“This way,” the fox said, his long, pink tongue lolling from the heat.
Together, Crony and her companion trudged a steep, rocky path dividing a field of fragrant purple heather. She followed as he vanished through a weeping willow’s fringe, then caught sight of his tail, the tip glistening like a plume of silver smoke.
There, at the fox’s front paws, a knight lay dying, half-hidden within a thicket of elderberry trees. Mud-smeared greaves stretched across his shins, their metallic surface catching glints of light. Crony trailed the heavily plated legs deeper into the brush to where his helmet and breastplate, embossed with Eldoria’s sun-sigil, were cast aside. The rest of his armor lay bent and crumpled on the grass—as useless to him now as the lavish white gold from which they were forged. Splatters of dried blood marred the bright metal and formed a crust across his ebony skin. Crony swatted at some gnats grazing upon his wounds.
“Curious.” The fox panted. “The three guards who accompanied the king were accounted for. Two knighted for their bravery.” He licked away some drool dripping from his muzzle. “One laid to rest in the royal cemetery.”
“May-let someone miscounted.” Crony knelt close enough the salty-sour stench of infection overpowered the perfume of greenery surrounding them. “Or, may-let this man had his own set of orders, apart from the others.”
The fox’s ears perked higher. “So, either he’s a traitor, or an unsung hero. I’m guessing the latter. I remember him from my time at the castle. He’s the king’s first knight. An honorable man, even in his youth.”
A large, jagged hole in the knight’s chest spewed out fresh blood with each cough of his heart. His skull had caved with some blunt trauma and squashed his eyelids permanently shut.
Crony’s own eyelids grew heavy. She found herself wishing for the thousandth time that upon closing, hers could offer sanctuary—an oblivion of blackness. Instead, the filmy flaps merely softened her view. It was her curse, to never stop seeing the world: its hatred, its bitterness, its mistakes.
Her companion circled the body, a graceful skim of red and silver, then licked the dying man’s right ear, the only part of his head which remained as perfect as a babe’s.
The fox’s gaze turned up to Crony, keen and challenging. “Won’t you chase away this one’s death, should he prove a hero? Isn’t that worth another chance at life?”
Crony knew the fox wasn’t asking out of altruism. His heart was not pure enough, elsewise he’d be soaring in the air where he belonged.
Luce wished for entertainment, to see Crony perform the one talent he knew she possessed that she’d never used. It didn’t matter how often she claimed none had proved worthy of the miracle of resurrection, Luce insisted one day someone would.
He didn’t know what it would cost her when that day should come, and why she held fast for the proper time.
Crony moved the breastplate away to kneel next the knight. “This man lived his life full out.” She nudged her fox companion aside, setting down her staff and drawing back her hood. Her braids fell across her shoulders. “Ye’ll not be seeing the trick today, cur.”
Luce barked a laugh. “Me, a mongrel? I’m wounded.”
Red glitter and silver smoke enveloped his form. His ears and muzzle shrank, his vulpine features blurred then cleared to sharp cheekbones and a masculine countenance; the burst of magic wound about him, transforming his fur to coverings that stretched to accompany the shift of ribs, forelegs, and hinds to a man’s torso, arms, and legs. He stood, shaking out his mop of red hair.
A sly spark ignited in his orange gaze. Along with his pointy white teeth, his eyes and ears were the only part retaining any canine qualities. Otherwise, he was inhumanly human in the way of all air elementals: youthful, fine-boned as a bird, tall and slender, with luminous skin and delicate hands. The only things missing were his feathery wings and the ability to walk the line between spiritual and corporeal—the very trait that had contributed to his exile in the first place.
Luce smoothed wrinkles from the fuzzy white shirt, red jacket, and breeches that had earlier served as his hide, kept intact by a trick of glamour. He bowed at the waist, the braided talisman swinging from his neck. “Fair Lady Cronatia. May I present my gentlemanly side, here to serve?”
Cronatia. No one had used her given name for centuries; the sound of it made her nostalgic. The fact that Luce had guessed without her ever sharing it made her shake her head in an effort not to smile. There was death enough already in this thicket without withering the plants. “Dapper or no, ye still smell of dog.”
“Ah, but now I have opposable thumbs.” He wriggled his long, elegant fingers.
“D’ye remember how to use ’em?” Crony arched a brow and smoothed a cloth across the dying man’s chest, so as not to be distracted by his exposed pulse.
Luce’s thin, pretty lips lifted to a sharp-toothed smirk as he gathered up the rest of the fallen armor and shoved it into a space between a large rock and some tall weeds. It was his job to take anything of value off their corpses-in-waiting, so the treasures could be carried to the ravine once Crony finished her task. Today’s was the best haul they’d managed in years. The white gold could be melted into bars or coins, and used for currency on the dark market.
Stirred awake by the preparations, the knight whimpered.
Crony touched two pruned fingers to the man’s lips, his salt-and-pepper whiskers tickling her skin. “Ye be two gasps from the grave,” she said with a gritty voice that was made to rasp a dying soul like a cat’s tongue—a chafing comfort. “I’d ask ye don’t waste them.” He tried again to speak so she pressed her palm across his mouth and nose, subduing him with her scent of myrrh and decayed flowers. Just as she worked in death, she smelled of it also. “Anything ye need be sayin’ can be shared with the skellies in the boneyard. I’ve important things to do. Shushta now, and save yer breaths.”
Crony untied the bag at her waist and laid it on the ground. She withdrew a paper-thin triangular plane of glass to hold over the knight’s mouth. “It be time to remember. Let the most important moments of yer life pass afore yer eyes.” He exhaled, his breath fogging the clear surface. Crony blew a breath of her own across it then trapped them together by placing another glass triangle atop the first. It sealed with a white snap of magic. She did the same for the man’s last breath and wrapped the trinket, tucking it into her bag. As for the first memory she’d preserved, she held it close while whispering an invocation over the knight’s dying form to release his spirit.
A sullen mood overcame Luce as he waited for the man’s life to fully slip away. Then, without preamble, he shoved his hand into the knight’s chest and tugged at his heart. The organ released with a grisly, sucking pop. Blood drizzled from the dangling valves and veins—red and sticky on Luce’s human hands. He licked it off hungrily, his gaze averted from Crony’s. She turned her back to give the sylph privacy, knowing how he despised the predator he’d become—a beast that craved the nourishment of raw organs and blood and flesh.
Air elementals supped upon sunlight and moonlight and became drunk upon rain and wind. In his invisible ethereal form, Luce had once whispered into the ears of earthbound beings, tricked them into thinking he was their conscience, coaxed them into losing their inhibitions and doing things—not against their nature—but against their better judgment. He hated being tied to the earth and its rules now, no longer capable of such chicaneries. Even more, he hated having lost his immunity to time’s passage. Sylphs were not immortal, but their airborne lifestyles kept them young. Without flight, he could only outrun age by feeding upon death.