Chapter 9
The night offers little rest. I spend it in a too-soft bed, clutching Ma’s locket, listening to the quiet of a strange place. The few times I manage to fall asleep, I wake with the echoes of stormbells in my ears. In the dark of the night, the voice of doubt whispers in my ear.You’re homeless, without a corner of the world to call your own, sneaking where you don’t belong. You’re a disappointment of a daughter; your father never trusted you enough to teach you his greatest power. You have one skill to your name—coaxing plants to grow. Useless, unless you can garden your father to safety.
You can’t save anybody. You’ve lost everyone you’ve ever wanted to protect.
I silence that voice. It threatens the shield that grew around me when I gave Amma’s sitar to the Storm. On the other side of this shield, something lies in wait for me. It waits in the space between my heartbeats. A dark omen, like monstrous eyes looking at me from the depths of the Storm. It’s a pain I won’t be able to bear.
The voice calls me weak.Who are you to stand against the will of gods and princes?
Another voice answers.Your parents were revolutionaries. Rebels who fought for a better future. Their bravery and brilliance are in your blood. Who but you could stand against gods and princes?
Back and forth these voices go. I feed the second voice all my fury. I replay for it Dalca knocking at the door, the way he bought all the lives of my loved ones for a gold coin. Anger swells in me, makes me strong.
And yet it doesn’t burn away that little, awful voice of doubt.
With hours to spare before dawn, I pull myself out of bed and don the trainee’s clothes I’ve been given—a simple white shirt and a pair of black trousers. Both still nicer than fifth-ringer mosscloth.
My roommate, another ikonomancer-in-training who grimaced when I told her who I was apprenticed to, sleeps curled up on her side. Her warm brown skin is dotted with flecks of darker brown, like stars—apparently a mysterious boon from living a life under the sun.
I shut the door quietly behind me so she doesn’t wake.
The Ven is a much larger place than I’d ever imagined. Once past the dormitory wing, I pass cluttered workshops and chalky-aired classrooms, meeting rooms with city maps on the wall, training rooms with cushioned walls, and a dozen closed doors that could hold anything at all.
As a gust of wind blows past me, it brings with it the muffled sounds of scuffles and thuds that echo softly through the halls. I follow the sound and come out onto a second-story balcony that overlooks the courtyard.
Below, a half-clad Wardana fights the wooden mock beast, armed with a spear and gauntlet. His back is slick with sweat, as if he’s been at this for a while already, though the sky is still dark. He’s not graceful; I wouldn’t mistake his movements for a dance, and he throws in no flourishes. But he’s brutal and relentless.
He pauses his attack and moves back a few spaces, repeating his movements until he’s satisfied. He does this a dozen more times, and each time he corrects himself, I expect him to fly into action and completethe drill. But he stops again and again, measuring himself against an ideal only he sees. There’s nothing showy in how he moves, nothing inspired—just the proficiency that comes with years of practice.
As the light begins rise, I’m not surprised when his features resolve into Prince Dalca’s.
I run my fingers across my lips, thinking. Pa was born a genius. Sometimes I think he never had to work at the small things. When I was twelve, I spent a month drawing circles, training my hand so I’d be able to draw perfect ikons when I learnt them. When Pa came across me drawing circles in the ashes from the stove, I’d braced, expecting him to reprimand me. But it meant nothing to him; it never occurred to him that others needed to practice something so basic.
But people who need to earn their skill bit by bit don’t miss such things. Dalca’s dangerous. I can’t underestimate him.
As if he heard my thoughts, he glances up at me and beckons me down. I wave, plastering a smile on my lips. Could I get away with not going to him? But that’s my feelings showing—it’d be smart of me to get closer to him.
I make my way down.
He taps his spear to his gauntlet, and in a seamless working of ikonomancy, the spear disappears as the gauntlet absorbs its mass and thickens around Dalca’s forearm. “It’s hard to sleep, that first night,” Dalca says, drawing my attention to his face. “Bed feels different, just a little too...”
“Soft,” I say at the same moment he says, “Hard.”
A surprised moment of silence ensues that he breaks with a laugh.
I force a smile, as if our differences are something to laugh about. I have to act this part right.
I nod at his gauntlet, changing the subject. “How does it work?”
Dalca steps closer to show me. He radiates heat, and I tense up, unnerved by his nearness.
He points to a circular dial slightly raised from the surface of the gauntlet. “This dial initiates the transformation.”
Three fourths of an ikon are inscribed on it; as he turns it, the last quarter slides into place and the ikon is completed. He pulls the spear out partway to show me, before reversing the process.
Two other dials stick out of his gauntlet, and I peer at them. “And those?”
He laughs, low and amused. “You don’t expect me to give up all my secrets so quick, do you?”