Remember the Dawn Read online

  “Oh, child.” Condescension dripped from the intruder. “You are not the first singers, and you will not be the last. Throughout my life I have seen zealots and martyrs and sycophants and all manners of filth place their lives above mine. You are just apostates—no more, no less.”

  At last, the intruder revealed himself as he stepped into the room from behind Antarro's map, seeming to appear like smoke from ash. He looked a man, but Valura was not so sure. He was tall, broad shouldered, and dressed in tight black robes. A single white rope circled his waist and a hood was raised over his head, concealing his face in darkness. Within that darkness, two white slits burned where eyes should have been. His appearance invoked haunting imagery in her mind, and she recalled the childhood fables that had been so good at keeping her awake at night.

  “You stand there brandishing an unearned magic you don't even understand, and you think it makes you strong. Look,” he pointed at her, “she can't manage her star. I see it, the sweat beading on her brow, the tremors in her arms, smoke billowing from her skin. Even now her winds waver, unsure whether to obey or burst free. I hope she doesn't burn herself.”

  Antarro's eyes shifted for a moment from the intruder to his sister, a brief hesitation, but enough for the intruder.

  “Ah, you're scared. You know she can't control it. What will happen, I wonder, if she lets go? Should we wait and find out? Unbridled fury from an unchecked star, can you imagine?” The intruder hid his arms within his sleeves, as if praying, and stood motionless in front of the siblings.

  Valura intensified her vortex to dangerous speeds, the cold, black floating in her mind. Death would not take her today, Saryx be damned.

  “Sister, no!” Antarro yelled, but too late. She succumbed the force of the star burning within, screamed from the pain of searing heat inside, then released her starlight in a wild rage. Winds became a tornado, thrust forward to the intruder, a spiral of destruction infused with starlight. Papers caught in the gale ripped apart, and carpet peeled back from the stone floors.

  The intruder countered quickly, darting to the side and hiding his face from the storm, then moving forward through it unharmed as he repeatedly lashed a whip with five tails and carved a tunnel through her winds until the attack washed over him without effect.

  She blanched. This starless attacker was no Arbiter, yet he displayed defiance and resisted their magic.

  In an instant the intruder was by her side, then he slipped a black dagger from his robe and aimed it at her torso, seeking to take advantage of her hesitation.

  Antarro reacted instinctively and stepped in front of his sister. She watched in slow motion, a brief sensation of respite flooding her body as his light became redder.

  But the relief left her when the intruder's dagger split Antarro’s shield of light, unaffected, and entered her brother's torso. He screamed at the wound, his cry cut short as the intruder quickly slashed his windpipe. Antarro Rayn crumpled to the floor in a spray of blood.

  Valura released a terrible cry of agony, her foggy eyes blazing with an unnatural flame. Her star grew again inside her, fueled by the horror of her brother's murder.

  “Do you see your failure, apostate? Do you feel it burn?” The intruder grinned, taunting her further. “You are not worthy, and you will be culled along with the rest of the Astral. Your sigil will be purged from the annals of history, a forgotten blight on the Dominion.”

  She mustered her starlight and unleashed a torrential storm of electricity, the effort sapping energy within she never knew existed. Heat singed her face and white hair lifted from her shoulders and stood straight out from her head. Smoke rose from her skin, organs burning inside her, but she didn't care, too consumed with hatred.

  The shadow man retreated to the edge of the room, watching the approaching fields of sparking electricity, waiting for his chance. At the very instant the storm filled the entire chamber, the intruder reacted, raising robed arms and pushing forward, then slashed at the field with his whip. He slowly tunneled his way toward her, and she pushed harder, willing the fire out from inside her.

  It was no use. The intruder drew within range and lashed out with his dagger. She jerked away, but the tip struck her in the neck. She gritted her teeth as her skin ripped, ignored the warm blood trickling down into her nightwear, and focused on maintaining her channeled starlight. It was all she had left.

  Too late. The intruder struck again, his dagger slicing across her face. She screamed and dropped to her knees, then grasped at her cheek and tried to stem the flow of blood. As she did, her star faded, the channel broken.

  The intruder stepped up to her and grabbed her by the hair. She whimpered. Her brother's corpse lay next to her, and she allowed her mind to escape the room and wander through memory, settling on his laughing face. She remembered the way he’d looked at her whenever her fire had begun to slip through her fingers, and she relaxed, as she always did, staring up into the starry sky, eyes no longer fogged.

  “There is no escape from me, child. Saryx has returned to the Dominion, and you have sinned.” Without another word, he raised his arm and drove his dagger down into the top of her head.

  Chapter Two

  “Be mindful of the details, for every story is but a pillar, built stone by stone.”

  - Interpretations by Nesher

  “Do you see them, Nuna? Just there, over the mountain's crest. They watch our climb. We should hurry before the sun sets,” Ahryn shouted over the crashing waterfall and rustling breeze.

  Nuna raised a wrinkled hand to her brow and peered up into a hazy, orange sun. Several silhouettes loomed over the ridge far overhead, waiting.

  “As you wish, Lady Ahryn.”

  “Please don't call me that, Nuna.”

  Nuna bowed her head but said nothing, focusing instead on each step on the way to the top of Sanctus Mount, where House Ferai’s ancestral home stood for generations. They trekked up a stone stairway carved into the mountains' side, lined with pillars bearing the Ferai sigil: three stars, arranged in a triangle, with a fourth in the center, and two final stars far below. Two long lines extended outward and down from the top star, then bent inward to the bottom while two shorter lines extended from the bottom to the middle.

  Ahryn saw the constellation in her mind's eye, the image of a spearhead imprinted over many years, like erosion of the smoothed stone rockface along the Falls. Spearheads marked the path up the stairs, meant to symbolize the journey from peasant to warrior, to put travelers in touch with the Ferai star. She couldn't see it now, the night not yet dark enough. But she knew where in the sky to find it after spending so many nights in her childhood gazing upward.

  She considered the climb a silly tradition maintained for posterity, as the members of her House were no more warriors than the lowliest of the starless in the sewage district, and most visitors deferred to the water-lift and a rapid ascension to the top. It made no sense to her—she, a startouched child of an Astral House, left to climb in the dirt.

  But her parents kept to tradition, the connection with the Ferai star especially pious for her father. It was a rare intersection of spirituality with starlight. So, on each of her returns home she spent a day in the dirt, hiking up the mountain.

  The sun receded further throughout the evening as Ahryn and Nuna continued their ascension. The silhouettes no longer dotted the ridge, no doubt returned to the manor to lavish in some delight or another. Unused to physical exertion, Ahryn tired quickly and her legs grew weak and her feet sore. She stopped to rub a turquoise-blue sleeve across her forehead, mopping up several beads of sweat, and wished again for the lift.

  At last, she took the final step and crossed onto the plateau atop Sanctus Mount, exhausted and soaked from the sprays of the waterfall along with her own exertion. At her arrival, two figures set down their glasses of wine and rushed over from their resting chairs perched next to a river which flowed from the valley behind the manor to the cliff's edge, where it pooled into a grand founta
in.

  “My daughter.”

  Patron Ferai approached Ahryn with arms wide and a warm smile. They embraced, and the Patron took his daughter by the shoulders, gazing into her face with kind eyes.

  “You've aged.”

  “Thanks, just what every girl wants to hear.”

  Patron Ferai laughed, a rumble emanating from deep within his rugged frame. He wore an unusually long turquoise tunic, the back split into two tails that draped to his feet. The tunic sat over an ill-fitted white shirt, sleeves cut short at the elbow and rolled up, and his beige pants were stained with wine, her parents probably drinking for hours while their daughter toiled up the mountain.

  “Your eyes are wiser, and your face narrower. I see the burden of knowledge within you, Daughter.”

  “The seminary is tougher than I'd imagined, Father. To study astrology is one thing—wielding starlight is another.”

  “And your faith?”

  “Is that a trick question?”

  Patron Ferai frowned; it was no secret he hoped for his children to share his conviction.

  “Oh, Father, must we revisit this topic? You know my position well enough by now.”

  “True, but I remain optimistic.”

  That was as far as her father ever went. He respected his children's individuality and capacity to make their own decisions, even if they parted from his own desires. Ahryn never subscribed to history, let alone the stories from a time so long ago. Besides, everyone knew the faith had almost destroyed the world. Yet legacies survived to this day, like the name of the institution where she studied starlight magic—the seminary.

  How can he be foolish enough to embrace the faith’s return?

  Matron Ferai appeared beside her husband and threw herself on Ahryn, reveling in her daughter's return home, as she did every time. Each visit was only a quarter-year apart, yet Ahryn's mother always acted as if she'd been gone for years on end. She laughed at her mother's intensity and returned the hug.

  Ahryn's mother pulled away and took her daughter by the shoulders, then gazed at her with twinkling green eyes. Ahryn stared back with eyes to match.

  “You know, Ahryn, I've been reading The Astral Rediscovered—”

  Ahryn sighed and rolled her eyes, but her mother pretended not to notice and continued.

  “—and there is an interesting passage from Oryo of the Lost Ages: Night and day, dark and light, but still the sky, we are shown the way. But who lights our path as we reach above to command the stars?”

  “Yes, interesting.” But it wasn't, not to her. In fact, she had no idea what it meant, or what her mother was trying to convey. Ahryn did a poor job of hiding her annoyance, yet her mother smiled, warm and kind.

  “One day, you may see. Now, come inside—a feast awaits. Nuna, please alert the chefs we are on our way. I expect our little lady will be famished.”

  She sighed again, resigned to never win an argument over the faith. Despite her best intentions the discussion always seemed to present itself when she returned. Her parents acted as if she were a child that only needed the veil to be lifted from her face, as if waiting for an epiphany to somehow manifest. It seemed the more Ahryn pulled away from celestial worship, a practice purged so long ago, the more her parents pushed it on her.

  But in the end, Ahryn didn't mind too much. With every day spent at the seminary she became more and more in control of her life. It was the inevitable disappointment that scared her; would her parents be able to cope with an unbelieving child?

  Nuna bowed to Matron Ferai, lifted her frilly robes from the rocky ground, and scampered into the manor. Ahryn watched Nuna go, robes in hand and dangling around her ankles.

  How did she manage to climb the mountain in those things?

  The three Ferai did not follow, instead taking the time to reacquaint. They walked side by side throughout the grounds while they laughed and reminisced, dipped their fingers in the Sanctus pools, and wandered through trimmed hedging and blooming teyflowers. Ahryn smelled a scent of sweet wine that drifted in the air, a sign of spring pollen and one of her best memories of growing up on the plateau. Soon the sky began to darken with the receding sun, and the fragrances of waiting dinner floated out to meet them. Together they moved inside, famished.

  The Ferai manor stood much larger than the other families' ancestral homes, space a luxury atop Sanctus Mount. It was designed as if a temple carved out of the mountain itself, ringed by white, rippled ashpillars and topped by an enormous, rectangular leystone. Tables, benches, and bookshelves sprung from the ground and melded into the pillars. Inner rooms were reserved for eating, sleeping, and lounging, shielded from the cold by triple-threaded silkweave constantly billowing in the wind. A single corridor, high ceilinged and wide, ran straight through the home, through which Ahryn and her parents made their way to the dining hall.

  Upon her entrance into the hall, Ahryn's breath left her; she was awestruck every single time she stepped foot inside. Where a ceiling should have been, she saw only open sky, dark and deep, laced with twinkling stars of varying sizes and brightness. The constellations were visible, of course; it was here she’d first learned about each family's sigil. She took her place at the long table that sat under the sky and gazed up at the brilliant crystal chandelier appearing to float overhead.

  Ahryn's gaze lingered, and she rubbed her hands together and licked her lips. The Patron caught a glint in Ahryn's eye and the corners of his mouth turned up as he invited her to call on her magic.

  “As long as it's not dangerous.”

  She grinned, then focused her sights on the chandelier and squeezed her hands. The channel was not easy for her, and she'd only just begun learning. Where other singers were able to link with their star in an instant, Ahryn was still an adept, and it took a long time to draw upon the Ferai star and harness her starlight. She exerted effort until a bead of sweat rolled down her cheek.

  Her father, eyes misted blue, reached and placed a hand on her shoulder, lending his light to ease the burden. She both hated and appreciated his support, but forgot about it when established her channel. The edges of her vision tinted blue and her eyes began to itch. She squealed, delighted, and her father smiled.

  Ahryn seized the fleeting moment, waved her hands toward the chandelier, and willed the vapor in the air to coalesce until a thick mist hung over the table. Next, she brought her hands together and lifted them until the mist elevated, rising higher until it overtook the chandelier and interfered with the light refracting between the crystal. Blue light rippled over the walls in the dining hall.

  Matron Ferai gasped.

  “Beautiful! It's as though we're dining at the bottom of the sea! Well done, Ahryn!”

  The tint at the edges of Ahryn’s vision faded but she continued to feel the warmth of her light. She smiled at her family, enjoying their amazement at her developing command of their House's star.

  As if planned, chefs began to stream into the dining hall from unseen doorways at the sides. Their glassware and plates reflected the light as they served a delicious meal composed of ingredients sourced from locations throughout the Dominion: succulent fish from the Sanctus fountain, golden corn grown in the Lokka fields, and wine fermented from grapes of the Twilight Orchards, tinged with blood orange.

  She asked questions of her family while eating, mostly directed at affairs within the Dominion and the city proper, as she heard little while studying at the seminary. The Patron enjoyed his daughter's interest in family business, an interest not shared by her older brother. He briefed her on a boring political landscape and the same flow of interests and industry, focusing on the movements of the other families.

  “And the Ferai? What are our aspirations, Father?”

  “The same as always: harmony and sanctity, piety and belief. You're aware that we've formally backed the faith? The doors to our first shrine have been opened, down by the stonecutters district.”

  “I don't hear much, but that I've heard. Unbelievable.�
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  “Oh? And why is that?”

  “It's the faith, Father. The thing that almost destroyed the Dominion so long ago. The thing we've been warned about since we were little kids. The forgotten apostle.”

  Her father rumbled a laugh. “Oh, child, I see you’re still a believer in the myths of dark and light and all the fables in between.” She scowled, but he went on. “Faith is morality, Daughter, that's all. A reason—a purpose. A direction! There will always be those who bend and shape it to their will, inscribe a legend or two, but that should not distill its real meaning. One day you will see. In any event, you should visit our shrine sometime. It really is beautiful, and I handpicked a fine Starmother. She will do great things, I think. Worth a conversation, and I know she'd spare the time for you.”

  “I'll see what I can do.” Her voice belied her disinterest.

  “Yes, well, a little respite from your studies wouldn't hurt.”

  Ahryn put down her utensils, wiped her face with a napkin, and shrugged. “That's why I'm here.”

  “Ahryn, mind your tone. Your father means only the best for you, and he is the Patron of your House…”

  She finished chewing her vegetables, then washed them down with wine.

  “I'm sorry, Father. Yes, I will make sure to visit this shrine. I'm sure it's as beautiful as you say. And I will have words with your Starmother.”

  Her father beamed, but his glow slowly faded and he slumped back into his seat.

  “Father, what is it?”

  The Patron let out a great sigh.

  “Now that we've celebrated your homecoming and feasted under this splendid display,” he motioned to Ahryn's starlight mist that still rippled in the air, “we should discuss what's really going on in Celaena, and our place in the movements. I believe you're old enough, and your brother,” he trailed off. “Well, let's just say your brother lacks a necessary interest in politics.”