The Dusklight Oath: The Fifth Accord, #1

By Marcela Carbo

In the shadowy world of the Mornae, the price of power is etched in blood.

 

Joumina, the rich high matron of Ilor'Zauhune, finds herself shackled by the waning might of her house. Driven by an insatiable thirst for dominance, she fixates her gaze upon Nothrin, a young Mornae trainee, recognizing his potential as the key to salvaging her dwindling influence. In the shadows of secrecy, Joumina schemes and forms dangerous alliances to ensure Nothrin's admittance into the revered halls of Isilayne.

 

Unbeknownst to the ambitious high matron, Nothrin's own mother, Yilness, harbors a seething vendetta that spans generations. Concealing her true motives beneath a veil of deceptive humility, Yilness tirelessly works to dismantle Joumina's reign and avenge the destruction of her lineage.

 

As Nothrin seeks to fulfill his destiny, he finds himself ensnared in Joumina and his mother's schemes. The boundaries between friend and foe blur, plunging him into the age-old political strife of his people.

 

In the crucible of the arena, Nothrin must confront the cost his desires demand while fending off the forces that seek to control his destiny.

 

Will Nothrin conquer the Dark, or will he be consumed by its alluring embrace? Navigate the treacherous path with him and witness the relentless clash between ambition and vengeance in this captivating dark fantasy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marcela Carbo
• Release date: Dec 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223048220

Book preview

The Dusklight Oath

THE DUSKLIGHT OATH

THE FIFTH ACCORD

BOOK 1

MARCELA CARBO

CONTENTS

Epigraph

Maps

Prelude

Prologue

Late Autumn

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Spring

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Summer

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Autumn

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Spring

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Summer

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Spring

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Epilogue

Appendices

Ancient City Map

Notes from Vydan’s Dossiers

An interpretation of The Accords

Terminology of the Mornae

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Marcela Carbo

Vengeance today, or in a cycle.

MATRON VIKALA IN WISDOM OF THE MATRONS, COMPILED BY JEVAN LOR’VAKAYNE, SON OF SAVRA

MAPS

Map of VaidolinMap of Zalkamas

PRELUDE

The Alcar traveled in the light between stars. That was their greatest achievement. It came at a great price.

The Mornae, their descendants, chose exile rather than conform to the Alcar’s strictures. They desired to know power for themselves, to achieve the highest possible understanding… to be free.

In a crater of blackest rock—the blood of a god, some call it—they gathered, and dedicated themselves to uncovering the mysteries of forbidden power.

Few crossed over the Arms of the World; fewer still survived the crucible that was the Dark.

Those first Mornae claimed the crater and huddled together by bloodline into houses, focusing on a particular power or skill. As was their intent, they stayed small in numbers, attending to their own interests, and only interacting with other houses when necessary. They’d come to learn, not make an empire.

In time, however, their numbers grew, and they realized that to continue they must establish standards and guides. Under the Third Accord, on a stone island at the crater’s center, they built the temple with its globe to train priestesses and the academy with its tall black doors to train their knights.

The founders, great sorcerers and priestesses, shaped the buildings from the very rock of the crater. They named the academy Isilayne, for within, its squires and knights learned to fathom the dark face of the goddess.

The massive stone structure sat on the southern rim of the central plateau, covering the gorge wall that descended behind it with windowless black rooms. The waters of a fast-moving river, deep down in the encircling gorge, rushed in silence, imbued with a powerful enchantment. For the goddess is silent and silence is the first lesson all Mornae learn.

The cycles churned, and the Mornae continued their striving. They grew powerful; they crafted towers and monuments and mystical groves. Everything manifested the power they’d accumulated.

Then it all changed.

In the year 1228 of Kaleneon, the fifth eon since the founding of Saydolin the Golden, at the tenth hour of Sayin's dawning, on the twenty-sixth day of the Hounds, our world crumbled beneath our feet and within our very bones.

The empire of light, the Alcar’s expansive empire built on starlight, turned to dust. Not at once, but over the course of two cycles. The damage was done, though. Mornae were still Alcar in their blood and relied upon that power as a steppingstone to greater mysteries.

And so, like Saylassa, the Mornae fell, sliding inevitably to the level of ordinary people. Those that refused clawed their way to sanity. They must change to survive the inevitable decline.

They added two accords to protect what remained of the Mornae. Five high houses would rule in the crater and gather the remnants of power to enforce the goddess’s peace.

After three cycles of turmoil, five cities packed with the weak and resigned, sprawl away from the temple, creeping up terraced crater walls, and dominated by the citadel of its ruling house.

From the silent ground of the temple plaza, it appears peaceful, as the goddess herself must see it, a whole rather than the broken thing we all know it to be.

FROM MEMORIES BY JEVAN LOR’VAKAYNE, SON OF SAVRA.

PROLOGUE

500 Years after the Fall of Saylassa

The tower’s alarms sounded a warning, but Kelas ignored it.

Hovering high above the library floor, he floated across the second row of bookcases. The chamber was only thirty paces in diameter, but shelves and racks rose another hundred feet above his head. He slid two fingers along silver glyphs embedded in kithaun bands separating the bookcases both horizontally and vertically. The metal glowed in response to his unspoken command. The library’s enchantment carried his body aloft to the third row of cases.

Thousands of tomes and scrolls sat on the shelves. Most precious of all were the mind reliquaries of the ancients. He passed them without looking too closely. He didn’t have time. Each one was a great love, a voice from his ancestral past or his lifetime. The flickering crystals beckoned, but he turned away from the voices, thoughts, and feelings stored within the magical glass tablets. His gut soured to think he must leave them all again. His mission on this day was to retrieve specific volumes to aid his house in their exile.

The tiny sconces lining each row lit as he rose higher, setting the books ablaze in a pale, unnatural light. The goddess’s power danced over the spines in ever deeper shadows.

A soothing warmth flooded the base of his skull.

Top row!

His consort’s voice throbbed in his mind, shoving aside all distraction. United in this way, so intimately, Vesyla almost saw through his eyes and felt the surface of the spines through his fingers.

On the third case. To the left of the east arch. Scarlet binding.

She was also the matron of his house, and she shared her zaeress with him to accomplish this mission. He would need her strength for the final descent to the caverns, where they awaited to flee once more.

He paused and reached for a thin volume, a tablet covered in flecks of white gold with blue sapphires at each corner. It contained little instructional value, but he pulled the volume from the shelf anyway and ran his fingers over it. Lyrics of the most intimate nature, the binding songs of a legendary priestess, flowed into his mind. He grinned and placed the thin tablet in the satchel hanging across his chest.

Focus! The scarlet binding!

Vesyla urged him on, like a second self under his skin.

Power flowed out of him, mingling with the tower’s enchantment, and he raced to the topmost shelves where they stored the most precious volumes. He rested a moment, pressing his forehead to the spines of the books. Simple commands were such a chore now.

There! Look!

He tapped the spines and pulled out the book she’d indicated. Its scarlet tint was like dried blood in his world of light and shadow. He flipped the volume open and thumbed the ink for confirmation. Each glyph contained a thought. Sounds vibrated in his ears and feelings tingled in his chest. These were ancient glyphs, used in a time before the founding of Vaidolin. The author had written the tome under the blazing rays of Sayin, their star, and Kelas’s father had carried it east at the Mornae’s exile. Kelas had read it as an apprentice and struggled through the pages. Now he treasured them.

The lights flickered. He dropped a foot.

You must leave! Kelas!

The author’s thought, that of the great Axthenis Mahlicor, held his attention. The lights flickered another warning, and the power embedded in the stone walls twitched unevenly. He tucked the book into the satchel and descended. Axthenis’s thoughts continued to prickle the left side of his skull, demanding his attention.

The foundation of all power is the light of Sayin.

Until it fails, he whispered. And it had in the most unexpected and absolute way.

Kelas alighted on the library floor as the words of the text echoed through him. He shook his head, releasing himself from the instruction. He knew the feeling of a tablet’s magic so well, yet even after so many millennia, he struggled to break free. It never really got easier. It was so tantalizing to let the thoughts trapped within enthrall him.

Alarm glyphs snapped him out of his mental fog, amplifying the intruders’ footsteps until they sounded like a thundering herd of elk.

Kelas closed his eyes and pressed his hand to the library’s kith wall, following the alarms’ rippling waves of power to their source on the fifth floor, just six floors below the library.

He opened and then unfocused his eyes.

Xelastre, he said to the wall, calling forth an image of the tower he was in.

A miniature version of the library’s spire took shape in a quivering mesh of white light that only he could see. He marked his own position with a throbbing speck. The tower, named Xelastre, represented the star Xel in the Crown constellation. He spoke the names of the thirteen stars, and a tower took shape in response to each name until the complete citadel of thirteen towers appeared. The actual towers rose from the heart of the blackrock crater like a tight bundle of giant rods, each of its own height, depth, and diameter; each with its own purpose. Now he held the entire configuration of the citadel in miniature, just long enough to toy with his enemies.

The forms and movements of the interlopers flickered in the mesh like flies stuck in a spiderweb. His unwanted guests would struggle to find a way to the higher levels, but neither stairs nor ladders would aid them. This tower was part of the great citadel of Lor’Xaeltrin, crafted with sorcery by a founding house, and its important portals and gates only responded to its members’ commands.

Through his hand pressed to the wall, he issued a sequence of thoughts into the wall’s enchantment, altering a portal’s configuration. The interlopers halted—stuck on the south side of the fifth floor, unable to use the portal there. The rumble of footsteps started up again, swinging around the outer hallway to the portal on the north side. Kelas chuckled as he reconfigured that portal as well. They would need to find another way, and by then he must be far away.

He watched and listened, but the mesh flickered, and he could not waste his own zaeress—the goddess’s power stored in his body—looking for them again. The alarms droned and rumbled through the stone into his hand, echoing down to his bones, but their vigor was waning, just like the citadel’s enchantments.

He drew his right dagger and grazed the floor with his left hand, drawing up strands of the vaiyin trapped within it. His arm trembled, muscles flexing and straining as if raising the stone to himself. Shadows grasped and reached for his hand, uniting with the power stored within his body. His fingers spread, coaxing the strands, weaving them into a gauzy shell about himself. Its power was weak, and the shell quivered with each breath.

He couldn’t stay in the tower much longer.

At the library’s exit, he pressed his fingers to the kithaun studs embedded in the stone arch. He set his intention, and a gust of shadow transported him instantly to spire Dalastre. His body buzzed from the movement as bright light flared everywhere he looked. He breathed deeply three times, and the flaring diminished. He wobbled forward a step before pausing. The rush of blood in his ears and his breath warbling against the shadow-shell masked any sound of the intruders. A good shell would not have tittered this way, but it was the best he could muster.

He pressed his hand to the black rock wall of the hallway. Wisps of black light rippled across it and through his skin, muscle, and bones. He was nearing the point of danger; to feed off the power when he was so weak, to force it into himself, could lead him down a path from which he may never return.

Vesyla’s own zaeress flowed into him, and he took a moment to recover, grateful for the bond between them. As with the tower’s enchantment, their consort bond would diminish in time, never reaching the heights they aspired to. Everything was different now. Sayin’s power had failed. The world had changed. Something had destroyed the carefully bound forces that had fed them for so long, and now their absence left them weak like children. Even moving through a guest portal drained him.

Alarms fired again and sent waves of information rumbling up Kelas’s legs till they reverberated in his chest. The intruders must have powerful allies and a mind strong enough to overcome Xaeltrin’s sorcery.

They’d found a way across.

He darted to the next portal, grazed the markers with his fingertips, and leapt into a wall of shadow. He tumbled through the portal and stopped to rest. Again, Vesyla’s presence throbbed in him faintly. She felt distant, though. A powerful high priestess, and yet even she struggled.

Yellow lights flickered down the hall at the entrance to a large chamber. Memories of the place, the joys and struggles shared there with his people, came to mind. He slid the satchel holding the precious volumes to his backside and unsheathed his kithaun daggers from their leather scabbards.

A pair of soldiers came into view, clattering about in mail and shoving each other down the corridor, clearly unused to the tower’s deep shadows. They shuffled down the hall toward him.

Mornae shouldn’t move as a tumult of thuds and grunts. Were these oafs to inherit Lor’Xaeltrin’s legacy? How had these fools even reached this floor? Anger boiled in Kelas, and he lunged forward like a bolt of black shadow. His blades pierced and melted the soldiers’ mail, spurting blood across walls covered in exquisite mosaics.

Both soldiers slumped down, and Kelas let out an anguished cry as their bright blood spilled out. Honor had brought him to this point, and he did not regret their deaths. He scowled at the tabards of rough cloth with a crudely painted stamp of a scorpion’s tail, the sigil of Lor’Daushalan. That house had forced Lor’Xaeltrin into exile. They didn’t even have the decency to send knights, but instead used hired hands, rabble, to raid his home.

The black blades cut across the tabards, through the metal and leather of their garb, and sank deep into their muscle and bone. Blood sprayed Kelas. The soldiers’ mouths were open as if to scream, but the blades’ magic had devoured the soldiers’ cries.

Had I the time, Kelas said, I would have made you suffer longer. He wiped the blades on his pants.

One more portal remained to reach the citadel’s exit at the base of Rinastre. It was the thinnest and deepest of the towers and drew water and heat from far below the surface of the crater floor into the citadel. The descent was all Kelas had strength for. He hoped Silaun, consort of Vesyla’s niece, was waiting for him.

He continued through the curving halls and chambers great and small, each one dense with emptiness and silence. At the next portal, he pressed his hand to the kithaun plate engraved with the sigil of Lor’Xaeltrin, the Nightsteed, a legendary horse, charging a starry sky and circling a waxing goddess. He set his intention to move to another tower. Before the Fall of Saylassa, his movement between towers would have been seamless, a sudden shift in place, as if the world had moved beneath his feet. Now, everything jerked around him, and his stomach turned. A cracking pain radiated through his skull.

He stepped forward carefully and stopped at the edge of the tower’s hollow core. Thumbs pressing each blade, he assessed their remaining power and sheathed the dagger with less.

Tendrils of vaiyin waved back and forth from the remaining blade. With his free hand, Kelas gathered the tendrils from both the dagger and his body, weaving them into a shadow-shell. Together—body, blacksteel, and blackrock—they formed zaeress. Power… magic. For the Mornae, it was the vital principle of their existence and purpose.

Will it hold?

He grimaced at Vesyla’s question. It must hold. What choice did he have?

Kelas reached out into the emptiness of the tower’s hollow core and felt for one of the invisible, enchanted cords that hung there. He caressed it gently, focused more on containing the power than choking it. Physical strength didn’t matter. With a trembling breath, he forced zaeress into it. The cord crackled to life, filling with light in both directions until it illuminated the length of Rinastre from the highest level to the very heart of the crater.

He stepped into the emptiness, sunk a foot, then bobbed in the vast emptiness. The rope held. He looked up at the top of the tower, a small, distant circle opening to a starry night. Below his feet, the pitch-black well devoured all light except for the glowing rope swaying gently in the darkness.

He focused his will and commanded the rope. It shivered, but then complied. He descended slowly, passing two arches. The alarms still throbbed, but like a dull ache, no longer giving clear signs of where the intruders were.

A blue lamp appeared at an arch two floors below him. The arch led to Gaunastre, a tower housing the apprentice library. The lamp’s otherworldly power pushed the shadows aside, revealing a dais of three wide steps, the lowest entrance into the fortress. It sat like a dock on a river of shadow, occupying a third of the tower’s hollow core.

Silaun stepped out onto the dais, looking up at him. His pale eyes blazed in the blue light, and his silver hair, freed from its ties, hung messily around his charcoal face. I need to rest, Kelas.

Sadness cramped Kelas’s chest. His gaze shot up the length of Rinastre. Already, the top tenth was dead, no power coursing through it. Five hundred years had undone ten millennia of effort and care by the sorcerers and priestesses of Lor’Xaeltrin. Like the towers, they, too, were no longer the vessels of power they had once been.

Silaun’s satchel was bursting with books and tablets, but so were his arms. Two stacks of books sat on the lowest step of the dais.

Leave those, Silaun, Kelas said, projecting his voice through the shadow-shell. We must go now. There are intruders.

Kelas’s direction had become fixed, enforced by his will and the enchantment of the spire. To stop or change direction would deplete what little strength he had left.

Quickly now, Kelas urged. They will find the way soon enough.

Kelas saw the desperation in his eyes. He carried precious tablets, each one the mind of a master practitioner—thousands of years of thought captured in an enchanted crystal. Silaun leaned against the archway. He’d made too many trips and exhausted his store of zaeress.

"We’ll come back soon. Leave it all. Now, Silaun!"

Kelas floated down into the darkness until the blue light of Silaun’s lamp had shrunk to a pinpoint. A hundred feet below him, a pale light appeared. He reached the end of the rope, and a vast cavern opened before him. A spear zipped past, grazing the shadow-shell. Gritting his teeth, he grasped the shell’s shadowy fabric with his free hand and forced it down around his calves and ankles, flattening it out into a rough disc. The disc pushed weakly against the cavern air, its edges fraying and dissipating. It was a squire’s game to ride the shadow this way, but never at this height. He let go of the rope and descended, floating down, his legs rigid and slightly bent to keep his balance. The pale light grew until he could see his companions: five priestesses and three knights. They’d come better prepared this time, but it was all for naught.

Vesyla grabbed his feet, pulling him downward, and multiple hands touched him as his friends took the satchel and searched his person for other trinkets he had liberated from their home. Baen, his cousin, and a powerful sorcerer in his own right, stood ready to ascend.

We have to go, Kelas said, his breath short and gasping. I killed two. There are more, but I lost track of them.

The others looked at him with dismay. They’d only filled three satchels. A dozen more satchels, all empty, sat in a pile.

Kelas took out his other dagger and pulled desperately at the remaining strands of power.

A clang of steel and stone echoed above them. Everyone looked at Vesyla for guidance. She signaled for the knights to check the tunnels and secure their exit from Vaidolin.

Sweat trickled down Kelas’s face as the pungent, stale air of the deep assailed him. This was not a good place to remain for long.

Vesyla took his arm, eyes turned down. Leave him. We must go.

A terrible urge to please her compelled Kelas to obey.

And yet… Silaun had been his apprentice. More a son than his own son, who had left them to join another house… as sons should. But Silaun was the son of his mind, his third apprentice.

Kelas pressed her hand to his chest, pleading silently.

She looked away, white lashes flickering.

Aid him, she commanded without looking at him. In the dim light, her skin turned ebony, and her silver hair winked with starlight.

The clang of steel and stone above increased, and a crossbow bolt bounced off the cave floor. Kithaun-tipped, it could pierce any shadow-shell Kelas produced now.

Vesyla’s eyes widened, but Kelas was determined.

Grant me all you have left, he said to them.

Vesyla and the priestesses formed a circle around him, and the cavern filled with the stone-splitting sound of their call to the Dark. The calls increased, rapid and piercing, then combined to a low hum. The priestesses trembled, their eyes closed, forced to the edge of their capacity. Strands of power flailed about Kelas. His fingers twined around them, weaving them into something he could use.

One priestess collapsed. The remaining priestesses stopped their call, bent over or crouching down or sitting to rest. Only Vesyla remained standing, but blood bubbled in her nostrils. The cavern vibrated. Kelas hummed with it as low as he could, weaving his shadow-shell again. Rising was always harder, defying the power of the world, which held all things to its bosom.

Vesyla unsheathed her blade and prepared her own shell.

No! Kelas said. "Face of the Goddess, they need you here more than they need me. He was my apprentice. I will go. Strengthen me."

She nodded and embraced him, sharing the last of her power with him. She kissed his neck, his ear, and his cheek, stopping before his lips. Quickly, then! she ordered. He is precious, but so are you. She stepped back, and with the other priestesses, raised her hands.

Kelas floated upward until he could grasp the end of the enchanted cord.

More bolts bounced off the walls, hissing past him.

Below, his companions gathered the bolts and snapped off their kithaun heads. The enchanted material was too precious to leave behind. He waved them away as a spear flashed by him.

Faster!

He tried to coax the rope, but it only shivered in his hand. Before the Fall, he could have ridden the Dark like a hawk on the wind, but now his own power and knowledge betrayed him.

He inched up the length of the spire.

Silaun? he called. The shell muffled his voice.

More bolts fell around him. He gasped as one penetrated the shell and sliced his shoulder. A crimson ribbon stained his tunic. Kelas looked up, and a glowing blue light grew as it descended toward him. He dodged the falling lamp.

Tablets chased the lamp, bouncing off his shell. They plummeted into the darkness below and crashed into the cavern floor, shattering. His chest cramped with sorrow. All those voices, lost!

Vesyla tugged at his mind, urging him to return. Come, now.

Above him, the intruders fired more bolts, and lanterns of yellow fire flew out from the third floor. They smashed and exploded, revealing Silaun’s unmoving hand, extended over the edge of the dais. Kelas tried to propel himself upward, but the rope twitched and flickered. Rather than rising, he dropped several inches.

A hail of arrows and spears descended. The invaders must have already exhausted their kithaun-tipped bolts. His shell quivered and diminished with each strike. He could not rise the remaining distance without forfeiting his own life, and his life was not just his own; it was Vesyla’s, as well.

It was a sacrilege for anything other than goddess-fire to consume a Mornae’s corpse. Silaun’s body would suffer indignity for cycles to come.

Goodbye, my son, Kelas whispered.

He gripped the dagger’s blade, letting it cut into his skin, mixing his blood with the remaining zaeress to descend more quickly.

More yellow-flamed lanterns descended around him, dropping past to explode on the cavern floor.

Be gone! boomed a female voice from above. You have lost!

As he descended, Kelas couldn’t help but agree.

For now.

LATE AUTUMN

There is a saying common among those who have not studied our past: ten thousand left Saydolin and one hundred entered Vaidolin.

It is an exaggeration but there is a point of truth. A host left the golden empire with Savra Thelicor and only a handful of those succeeded in reaching their new home in the east.

The goddess killed the rest.

FROM MEMORIES BY JEVAN LOR’VAKAYNE, SON OF SAVRA.

1

Nothrin plunged fist-first into the fighting pit’s black gravel. His knuckles stung as the kith sliced his skin. He coughed through the dust cloud, spat out gray slime, and sat back on his heels. Sweat nipped at the scrapes on his face. He still gripped his training spear in his right hand. Half-buried, it snaked through the black sand.

Stand up!

Trembling legs refused to raise him. Arms hung burning and exhausted at his sides. His gaze wandered up the crater wall to the great peaks cutting through thickening clouds.

Stand up! By the goddess!

Startling heat braced his head and tumbled through his shoulders. He shook his head to clear the fog.

Stand up!

Was that the goddess speaking to him? Or was it just his own voice? The voice had been with him since childhood. At times, he’d thought it the goddess, and at others his own. Either way, it chided him for not pushing himself further.

Across from him, only a spear’s length away, knelt his opponent, Velin Lor’Zashtrin. He spat to his left and grinned at Nothrin through blood-lined teeth, stark white and scarlet against charcoal-gray skin. His cut lip oozed blood, and a purple bruise threatened to swell his left eye shut. Disheveled silver-black hairs crossed his face, pried loose from their bright silver rings where Nothrin’s spear had glanced his head. The sides of his head glistened with sweat. Velin wore no tunic, and he trod barefoot upon the fighting pit’s fabled gravel, just as a Mornae should. The goddess had protected him as a favored son by raising a sheath of protective shadows about him. He bore bruises and scratches thanks to Nothrin. Though only thirty, Velin looked like a Mornae warrior of old—everything Nothrin wanted to be.

Nothrin, head bowed respectfully, glanced at the row of instructors standing on the northeastern side of the pit.

Master Vesh, chief instructor, frowned at him. When will you learn, Nothrin Ilor’Zauhune, not to fight like a brute, but with the grace of your ancestors?

Nothrin flushed hard with embarrassment.

Still, Master Vesh conceded, "it was effective. You’re quite adept with the bludgeoning side of the spear. Let us hope you learn to pierce and slash just as well."

Marks on the training spear’s head designated the sharp edge, the blunt side, and the tip, of course. Then there was the butt. Even the haft served as a weapon. Nothrin had never held a true spear, though.

Master Vesh and the other instructors turned to confer on this match’s winner as the other aspirants, all young men between twenty and forty years old, snickered. They sat on both sides of the instructors upon stepped seating under the roofed colonnade. A wall of kith ten feet tall ran along the fighting pit’s interior. It bore the wounds of a dozen cycles of fighting. The boys sitting on the wall kept their legs crossed so as not to enter the temple of war.

Priestesses had their temple with its magnificent spire grasping an enormous globe, a sign of the goddess. Boys like him had the temple of the instruction hall and its pit, where the goddess waged war in their hearts and minds. Knights had the temple of the battlefield, though the days of such battles were long gone. In his day, men fought with ledgers and accounts over the price of flax or the quality of fleece, or they competed to craft the most praiseworthy brews and vintages.

Nothrin snarled softly. He intended to make his time in the pit count for more than that bleak future.

The drillmasters should have called a draw after three matches each, but neither boy had pulled ahead to win by two matches in a row. Master Vesh seemed determined to have a victor, though, and Nothrin agreed. He needed to show them all—especially Velin—that he belonged in Isilayne, the ancient and true academy. For three years they’d trained and fought each other, whittling down the candidates until only a quarter of them remained. There had been no logic to the fights. They randomly pitted boys against each other, sometimes more than once in a day. The instructors never explained their reasoning.

Now they turned, faces stern, and Master Vesh spoke.

Match to Nothrin, he said, surprising everyone. One more time. Settle it!

The boys in the stands sighed and whispers followed.

Anger twisted Nothrin’s gut. They disrespected the goddess with their wagers.

The harsh black sand, ground down by the ages, drinking the blood of knights for thousands of years, pricked his legs, but also warmed them—a reminder of his duty to the goddess. Devotion surged through him, reinvigorating his tired limbs.

Nothrin lurched to his feet, helped by his blunted training spear. Velin stood as well, a fierce grimace on his face as he struggled to rise. They each moved to their corners. Nothrin set his stance and held his spear up, pointing it toward the largest star of the Chalice constellation. His skin prickled, expecting ridicule from the boys in the stands, but none came this time. Master Vesh’s last warning reigned them in.

He bent backward, extending his body and spear toward the chief star of Yalen, the Fist. Then he arched around to the right, to Xel, chief star of the Crown constellation. He repeated the movement four more times. Ritual complete, he turned to his opponent and brought his spear to the starting position.

Velin’s lips trembled with amusement, but he didn’t laugh at Nothrin’s odd display. Instead, he brought his spear to the same position.

Nothrin didn’t care what the other boys thought of his devotion. If he was to fight such a Mornae as Velin, whose lineage was the most illustrious of all the candidates, he would honor the goddess first through her court of stars. He’d always felt the ritual appropriate. Knights of old performed the movement before battle, though he couldn’t recall where he’d heard it.

At the count of ten breaths, the match began. They staggered and shuffled through the thick sand. Neither wanted to strike first. Their feet dragged, spearheads bobbing over the sand. Nothrin’s legs burned. He needed to win quickly.

Velin challenged first. Their spears tapped and smacked each other in a flurry of strikes. Nothrin lunged at Velin, hoping to catch him with his longer reach, but Velin slipped away. Dust kicked up as his feet made lazy trenches in the sand. He wasn’t gliding over it like he had in the first few matches. Even a Zashtrin lost his natural grace when exhausted.

Power never lasts, Nothrin’s mother had taught him.

Sweat filled Nothrin’s right eye, and his eyelid fluttered at the sting. Velin’s spear came straight at his midriff. Nothrin twisted away, and the spearhead caught his tunic, sticking in a fold of cloth. With his own spear, Nothrin pushed as hard as he could against the haft of Velin’s spear. Velin fell forward, dragging Nothrin with him, and they both tumbled to the ground. Nothrin’s cheek slid across the cutting grit, and he puffed out a mouthful of air. Neither stirred.

No point, Master Vesh said, shaking his head.

Nothrin sat up, shook the sand from his hair, and checked his tunic. The thrust had ripped the weave.

Velin rolled over and lay still, breathing hard and coughing.

That was sloppy, Master Vesh admonished them.

We’re exhausted, Master, Velin said, sitting up and holding his side.

Do you wish to yield to Nothrin Ilor’Zauhune? Master Vesh asked, stressing Nothrin’s house name with amusement.

Nothrin rolled to his feet, spear in hand.

Velin did the same and then paced back and forth. It would certainly be the end of the cycles if a Zashtrin yielded to a Zauhune.

He flicked sand at Nothrin with the butt of his spear.

Vesh shot a silencing glance around the atrium. Boys stifled their laughter under the shadowed colonnade.

Nothrin nodded and glared at Velin. He paced in the black sand, kicking it up with tired steps. Velin only smiled in response. There didn’t appear to be any hatred in him for an upstart boy from the lowest tier of an inferior house.

Velin motioned to Nothrin’s corner.

I’ll wait, he said, and gazed up at the stars.

Nothrin nodded, grateful for the respect.

They shook out their limbs and returned to their corners. As he’d promised, Velin waited for Nothrin to perform his ritual of saluting the stars.

As soon as Nothrin’s spearhead reached its starting position, Velin erupted in a flash of speed and power. Nothrin raised his spear to defend himself, and cracking wood echoed in the gallery and into the sky above. Velin lunged again with a strength Nothrin had believed was exhausted. He was using the Dark. It was the only explanation Nothrin could muster.

The next strike of their spears held the distinct sound of shattering wood. They locked together, Nothrin pushing on Velin’s shorter, stouter frame with what little strength he had left. A crack ran down the haft of Nothrin’s spear. His grip shifted, and he stifled a cry as a long splinter dug into his skin and sank into his palm.

Ironwood is better! Velin hissed through his still bloody teeth. Red-tinged saliva sputtered from his lips with each breath. His eyes bulged at Nothrin, and the muscles of his shoulders and arms rippled and trembled. Neither boy pushed away. One of them would surely strike at the separation, and if they did, Nothrin would have to continue with a cracked spear. The boys would surely laugh, then.

You cheated, Nothrin said under his breath.

Velin’s face hardened. Nothing forbids it. You could have done the same.

He couldn’t have because he didn’t know the Dark like Velin did. That power eluded him.

Is it a stalemate, then? the drillmaster asked.

Both boys dug in hard, their feet sliding backward in the black sand as they descended to their knees.

Draw, Nothrin! Velin said through ragged breaths. By the goddess, do not be a fool!

Nothrin grunted with the effort. A Zashtrin wouldn’t invoke the goddess falsely. It was a truth he could not deny. If there was any honor left in Vaidolin, it lived in the fifth high house and its blood houses.

The spear’s haft continued to splinter, the fracture expanding and cutting into his other hand. A broken spear would give the match to Velin.

Nothrin reduced his pressure on the spear, but kept his gaze fixed on Velin.

Draw, Master, he said through gritted teeth.

Draw, Master, Velin said, pushing away and sitting back on his heels. He stretched his cramped hands and looked up to the sky, gulping in air.

Well done, Nothrin Ilor’Zauhune and Velin Lor’Zashtrin, Master Vesh said. An excellent lesson in tenacity. He gazed around the pit, meeting the aspirants’ gazes. You would all do well to model their devotion.

The other boys tapped their spears’ butts on the stone floor of the seating area.

Master Vesh raised a hand to silence them all.

The trials have ended, he said. We will post the candidate roster in five days. Ilor’Vakayne invites the candidates to a feast in the Velkamas Commons to celebrate the goddess’s last dawning before winter. He murmured something under his breath and then held out his hands palms up. The goddess and the spear are one.

The boys mimicked the drillmaster’s stance and responded, The spear and the goddess are one.

When the instructors departed, Nothrin pulled a thick splinter from his palm. He pressed on the puncture to stem the blood’s flow. The wound was deep, but the goddess’s power already rose from within him to mend it. His heart swelled with devotion, grateful for her favor.

His friend, Mir, coughed softly at his side. He glanced over Nothrin’s shoulder.

Velin was approaching.

You’ve been practicing in secret, he said. He stood before Nothrin, hand out.

Nothrin gripped Velin’s forearm for a moment, then released him. I needed moves you hadn’t seen already.

Master Vesh rarely commends anyone.

Nothrin lifted his chin. He’d not considered Vesh’s words a compliment.

You think I cheated? Velin asked.

The trials should be pure.

Velin chuckled. Pure of what? The goddess?

They should be fair, then.

Velin’s brow furrowed. In what world does a Mornae fight fair? When the goddess dawns, who will deny her?

Nothrin had no reply. Velin had quoted a revered knight of legend and was correct. Who indeed?

She protected you, Velin said. I saw it.

That was the common favor.

Velin huffed. My strikes barely succeeded.

Again, Nothrin frowned. Was Velin ridiculing him?

They watched boys messing about in the pit, re-enacting their bout.

Will you go to the feast? Velin asked.

They have not yet posted the names.

Velin shook his head. You should attend.

I hadn’t thought of going if they named me. I’ve not the proper clothes.

All you need is a spear. Even a cracked one.

Velin’s gaze narrowed as the other boys mimicked Nothrin’s salute to the stellar court.

Take your spear to Lor’Geldryn’s shop in the Dorgist, he said. "Lor’Zashtrin will pay for its repair. With a proper haft this time. Tell them to use ironwood."

Velin’s brows arched as the pantomime of their bout turned crueler. Nothrin swallowed hard as his imitator pretended to drive a spear into Velin’s stand-in.

Nothrin held his left hand to his chest, palm up, honoring the goddess. It seemed correct.

Velin’s eyes lowered, but he gave a small nod and honored the goddess as well. He dabbed his bloody lip and winced.

I didn't mean to strike so hard, Nothrin said.

Velin grinned. You always strike hard, Nothrin Ilor’Zauhune. See you at the feast—no, don’t protest. I know they’ll select you. And Mir, as well.

Should I shave my locks? Mir asked with a wink. Brown locks framed his grinning face.

Of course not, Velin said. The acolytes will find them charming. Velin gave a single nod, and then left them, passing through the arch leading to Velkamas’s main gate.

Nothrin headed for the waterspout and bucket. He had choked on sand and dust the whole bout. His scratched face proved he’d met the pit’s gritty floor often. None of his fights in the latter rounds had been easy victories. He’d had his share of defeats, too.

Mir sidled over to him. He could have beaten you.

He was a childhood friend; lankier, but just as tall. The significant difference was the mop of shaggy silver and brown hair. It resisted braiding or coiling, and he wore the brown like a badge of honor. He was of a house related to Nothrin’s mother—distant cousins, she called them. Nothrin and Mir were the only remaining aspirants from Ilor’Zauhune, the second high house, and ruler of Zalkamas, the city occupying the crater’s northwest quarter.

Nothrin washed his face and cupped handfuls of water into his mouth.

I heard the crack, Mir said. We all did. Strange that, don’t you think? Letting a Zauhune, a nobody Zauhune like you, get a draw?

Nothrin splashed water on him, but Mir just laughed.

Well, I’m right, Mir said, flashing a broad smile at him. "You are a nobody. We both are, while Velin will be the next consort of Ilor’Vakayne or Lor’Kiseyl. I can never keep straight who’s next in their line."

He’s not proud like that, Nothrin said, shaking the water from his hands. He inspected the blisters and scrapes on his palms. It was better for him to end it well than win by beating my broken spear. And he’ll consort into Vakayne. It’s Zashtrin’s turn.

Lucky man! Mir boomed. His eyes gleamed with joy. What I’d give!

Nothrin knew little of his own house’s lines and pecking order, but he knew Ilor’Vakayne’s intimately. Vakayne and its three blood houses—Kiseyl, Lauxyn, and Zashtrin—had consorted between each other for fifteen cycles, and despite the Fall, they continued to produce fine Mornae. Silver charms representing each of the four houses hung from Velin’s cord belt. Signifying the lineages held by his blood, they were stark reminders of what the Mornae had once been.

Nothrin’s cord held no charms. As the descendant of returning colonists, none of his bloodlines held enough importance. He felt a kinship with Vakayne and its bloodhouses more than with his own house.

"What would you give, Mir?" he asked cruelly. Mir never exerted himself in the activities that mattered most, not like Nothrin did. It was a wonder he’d survived the trials.

Mir’s joy paused, a shadow passing over his face.

Come, let’s go home, Nothrin said, regretting the barb. We’ll take the North Road. We’ll see pretty acolytes.

Mir grinned again and said, What I wouldn’t give!

Nothrin shook his head, and they set out. They walked the long, sloped road leading north, downward toward the bridge leading to Zalkamas, a sprawling, dense hive of white-walled estates, a maze of streets and alleys. At the city’s heart, the ancient black spires jutted up from the white stone layers of Ilor’Zauhune Citadel, brooding over it all.

2

Joumina, High Matron of Ilor’Zauhune, sat upon the throne of her main audience hall, awaiting ungrateful subjects.

The hall’s