into jewels. This far north, the planet’s angle around the sun produced sunsets that lasted for hours.
Shortly, a knight in chemiostatic armor pounded on the front doors just as Taelin was opening them to check the approach. When they swung into the vestibule, the narthex seemed to lose one of its walls, staring vastly down on Mark Street.
The knight greeted her with a brusque smile and stepped out of the cold strawberry evening, armor glowing from little emerald panes of holomorphic glass. Once she had invited him in, a detachment of men poured into the church, inspecting rooms and establishing a perimeter with gate-crashing efficiency. It took less than five minutes. Taelin could see men holding flash handles. Bulbs popped in the murky street where gas lamps dwindled toward Knife. Then, Taelin heard the jingle of bells. A dark shape slipped off Mark, up St. Remora’s private causeway and came to a stop on the terrace.
Against the sky’s pennants of ripped pink and winter turquoise, Taelin saw a man dressed in black step from a sleigh heaped with luxuriant fur. He wore a gold clasp at his throat and looked directly at her.
I am an emissary of Nenuln! She chastised herself as the High King’s hand floated up to help Sena.
Twined in white fur, immaculate as the snow-draped roofs, the High King’s witch drew her hood back while Caliph Howl waited for her. In the twilight, Sena’s short gold curls tossed fitfully in the wind, eyes searching momentarily, wary of the subjacent streets.
Her gaze found Taelin as the eleven lenses on St. Remora’s facade dumped muddy orange light over her face. An eternal instant passed between them. Then the High King caught Sena’s hand and pulled her like a kite through air.
* * *
TAELIN imagined decadent sweets imported from Yorba, silk sheets as rich as cocoa butter. She imagined gorgeous, wrought-iron lanterns throwing candlelight across a lavish palace bedroom dripping beneath the moons. Under creamy light, the High King and his witch were moving together. Perfect bodies. Serpentine rhythms. Indulgent. Erotic. Pernicious to the soul. Sena’s lips pulled earnestly, her perfect teeth bit tenderly, siphoning the High King, drop by sparkling drop into an ewer full of souls …
* * *
“YES. Come in.” Taelin inhaled sharply.
The narthex was freezing. The knight helped her close the door. A crowd of people with official clearance milled as another flashbulb branded its ugly ghost onto her retinae.
“Thank you. Nothing for me,” the High King was saying. His smile was cordial. The smells of mocha and warm, iced pastries (filled with rehydrated berries) had already fogged the air.
Taelin watched Sena’s delicate fingers pluck snowflakes from her hair. “I’ll have loring tea,” said Sena.
More flashbulbs and conversational laughter. Taelin watched the press fawn over the High King’s witch while Sena reciprocated.
“Lady Rae,” a man in business attire leaned into her ear, “we’re going to do the donation over here.” His hands, one behind her back and one gesturing in the direction he meant for her to go, never actually touched her.
More flashbulbs. Taelin was getting a headache. She smiled and blinked and followed the man’s directions.
Caliph Howl stood near a table with a coffer on it, smiling exactly as all politicians smiled. His hands were folded in front of him until the man guided her into position. Then a spot right next to the High King opened up and Caliph put his arm around her.
That was precisely the moment that a huge amorphous shadow burst out of the chancel into the hall and caused Taelin to cry out. No one else seemed to notice the shape. They looked at her instead.
Taelin looked from the undulating apparition toward Sena.
Forked, interwoven shadows fluttered over the witch’s cheeks. Her stare seemed to gouge Taelin’s body, excavating flesh and bone and soul like an occult steam shovel. What’s happening? Why did I come here? Why am I in Stonehold? This is … anserine.
* * *
TIME seems to change. Chemiostatic mechanisms in the church’s walls are groaning. Everyone is talking. Sipping cups and smiling while the High King reveals a coffer. Litho-slides of the moment are flashed by journalists in the wings.
Glowing dials are spinning. The air is warped. Taelin can see a mansion on a hill … its windows swell with red skies. Sena’s mouth is full of whispers. Her curls are blowing. Her sapphirine eyes drool perfect rivulets: chokecherry red. Taelin hears the great black shadow that has slid out of the chancel shriek like gulls above the sea. Its shape is enormous and impossible to describe. Taelin feels herself stumble and fall. Then a woman’s beautiful lips—perhaps Sena’s—are pressed against hers, kissing her deeply. She feels the probing of an eager tongue.
Taelin opens her mouth to scream but something heavy dislodges from the back of her throat. It bubbles out of her mouth like semi-molten beef fat … with the exception that it ululates and squeals.
“There she is.”
A smiling face hovers over her. Not Sena’s.
“We lost you there for a minute. Let’s move her to that cot.” She can feel strong hands lift and position her on the uncomfortable canvas. She lets the nightmare go, gladly trading it for reality—even though it doesn’t feel real yet. Things are only marginally better.
Caliph is leaning over her with eyes the color of wet snakeskin. He is looking at her pupils. She can tell he is attempting a prognosis. But his anxiety over her is the anxiety of a stranger for another stranger.
For a moment she lets herself look into his eyes.
What’s happening? She feels frantic and confused.
From behind the High King, she hears someone break the silence with a joke. “It’s okay folks … she’s just never seen that much money before.” A chorus of good-natured laughter.
But a flashbulb pops and Caliph’s irritation shows. “Please! No more lithos!” Caliph’s voice is smooth but forceful. She sees a knight grab the offender and move him instantly toward the door.
A woman in a red trench has appeared.
“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” says Caliph. “Is she all right?”
It is the physician’s turn to look at Taelin’s eyes. She makes Taelin squeeze her fingers. Her face is kind but not as kind as Caliph Howl’s. “I think she’ll be just fine,” the doctor says.
Taelin sits up and summons a smile for the crowd. “I’m sorry.” Dazed amity leaks out of fractures in the resolve she has put on specifically for the event. “I don’t usually faint.” There are more jokes … this time about the High King’s good looks.
Taelin sees the chapel as though its gravity has shifted and the witch is at its core. The huge shadow has disappeared. Sena is looking at her with a curious smirk. Not cruel. Rather ingratiating … as though she has done Taelin a favor.
Taelin scowls and stands up. She remembers she is being scrutinized. She smiles again and touches her forehead where there is a faint scar.
The physician produces a glass syringe.
“Oh Gods, no. No. I’m fine.” She holds her hands up and maintains the artificial grin despite the fact that the room is spinning. “I’m so sorry. I haven’t eaten much today.” She sits down again, this time in a padded chair that has been scrambled from a nearby room.
Caliph pats her gently on the back and puts a glass of water into her hand. “We don’t have to do this tonight,” he whispers. His voice is only for her. Too kind. She suspects him of ulterior motives but smothers her skepticism with graciousness she coughs up for the press.
“No, really. I’ll be all right.” She stands up. Everybody claps.
She can see the Iscan trade bar in the coffer. Gold. Its value must be extraordinary. She doesn’t know what to say. She says thank you. She lets the High King’s aides move her into position by the table. They
