Prologue – The Awakened (Leonit)
“The awakened changed everything. Spirits struck in the everdark until dawnrise came to reveal the meager remains of our glorious empire. May the Crystal have mercy on us all…” – Horaton Pariniat, final scribe of the Piorakan Empire
Leonit Niezik the Second stared down at the massive tome before him, desperate for an answer. The old grandfather clock in his study’s corner chimed for midnight, but the slowly aging lord gave it only a passing glance as he pushed up his spectacles with a shaking hand. Time meant little, as he had little left.
A far softer noise from across the lavishly furnished room pulled him away from the book. His ashen haired daughter, Kasia, swung her legs impatiently as she tapped a piece against their game board.
Of course, he’d forgotten his promise to continue their game before bed. It was a secret tradition of theirs, as her mother believed the twelve-year-old was nestled in her chambers on the floor above. She was a tricky thing. Few men of the court could match Leonit’s cunning, let alone a girl so young.
“I will join you in just a moment, my love,” he said, his voice dampened by the room’s rug-covered floors and bookshelves, full of histories and tales from before the Awakening and after. Hundreds of books collected during his two lives. If only one could tell him how to stop what was coming.
Kasia groaned, tucking her hands defiantly under her legs and leaning back in her chair until it hung at the precipice.
Always on the edge, that girl, he thought. Too much like me.
“You said that an hour ago!” she complained. “Father, what is that book anyway? Surely it can’t be better than losing to me again.”
Leonit sighed and removed his spectacles. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, which ached from wearing the readers for so long. “What have I told you about using such informal language? You are my heir, and one day, when you join the Chamber of Scions in my place, the other patriarchs and matriarchs will not tolerate it.”
She furrowed her narrow brow. Her skin was a pale-gray, like Leonit and the other Commonwealth scions who carried the ancient bloodlines, and it made the silvery blue in her eyes as radiant as the quarter-year everbright, despite the devious thoughts she held behind them.
“I will do what I must,” she said, forcing a more noble tone, “but I doubt members of the Chamber appreciate false promises either.”
That spurred a chuckle from him. He knew he kept his daughter closer than most fathers, who preferred specialized tutors to teach their heirs the arts of science, literature, and eventually magical Reaching, but Kasia reminded him why he fought for the Commonwealth of Two Nations when the nation was obsessed with destroying itself. It wasn’t about him. Not anymore.
“This book is the story of the Awakening,” he said, closing it. “It, unfortunately, has offered little insight into why the spirits awoke and destroyed Piorak.”
“King Yaakiin has you reading about history? You are the minister of glass. Does he not have scribes?”
Leonit snatched his spectacles and circled his desk to Kasia, countering her first move without even sitting. “The king trusts few, and I consider myself lucky to be among them.”
She perked up and made her next move, advancing a seemingly harmless peasant. The haataamaash board resembled a battlefield, and it was a flanking maneuver he’d taught her to disrupt an opponent’s strategy. Her position could now threaten his throne if he wasn’t careful. “It is a secret, then?”
“Glass is our best defense against the awakened,” he replied, sending his dragon straight over her defenses. It put him a single turn away from victory if she failed to see how he’d exposed himself to her weakest piece. “It is my responsibility to understand them if we are to remain safe.”
“We are safe, aren’t we?” she asked, hesitating on her next move.
It was rare for her to reveal any wavering of her confidence, but Leonit took heart in it. With how she acted, one could be forgiven for forgetting she was only a child. He wanted her to learn, yes. The enjoyment of juvenile pursuits was important too, as he had no desire to see her experience adulthood’s burdens too soon.
A grin crossed her face as she reached for her peasant and placed it behind his throne. “You left your back exposed.”
He chuckled with pride, bowing his head before ceremoniously tipping over his throne to signal defeat. “So you did. Well done, my dear.”
Leonit crouched beside her. Though his knees ached, he smiled and pressed his hand to her cheek. “Like that peasant slipped through my defenses more easily than a dragon, we cannot always see those who threaten us. There is always danger among the great houses. The king has his allies and his foes, and there are those who—”
A crash came from outside, stopping Leonit mid-speech. Had they come so soon? There was still so much to be done, so much he had planned.
“Father?” Kasia asked, grabbing his arm. “What’s happening?”
Another crash shook the entire mansion. A scream followed. Leonit took a shaky breath, then steeled himself. “Keep your voice down and come with me.”
“But—”
“Defiance can be a worthy trait, but you must listen to me now. Do you understand?”
Kasia stared at him with her usually narrow eyes as wide as saucers. “I do,” she whispered.
“Good.” He yanked her toward his desk, tearing back the rug beneath it at the rear of the room. A glass trap door wrapped in iron was set into the floor. “Climb in, and do not leave until either your mother or Uncle Torav retrieves you.”
“Why? What about you?”
More screams sounded throughout the house as he yanked open the latch and gestured toward the ladder heading down into the darkness. His mind spun, fighting his heart. Oh, how he wished he had told her everything. But there was no time for such things now. “Please, Kasia. Uncle Torav will tell you more, but I need you to trust me.”
She hugged him tight, and he returned it, squeezing with every ounce of will he had left. It took everything he had not to follow her down. He was no fool, though. They had come for him and would end the search once he was found. If he hid, it would only lead to more death. Still, some primal part of him clung to life, even his second one.
“I love you,” Kasia whispered. Her tears wetted his vest, and his own trickled down his cheeks. Spirits, how had it come to this?
“You are everything to me,” he replied as a thud came from the double doors across the room. “That is why you must go. Hurry!”
She scrambled into the opening, and Leonit slowly shut it behind, making as little noise as possible as he returned the rug to its place, then grabbed his revolver from the desk’s hidden drawer.
Flexing his left hand, he dragged the gray blade upon his pointer finger through the air. It was made of winding crystal that covered the finger from knuckle to tip, and blades like it were called talons among the scion nobility due to its resemblance to a bird’s claw. The talon tore through veil as he Reached into the realm of Shadows. Deep gray wisps circled his arms, and he commanded them to cover the rug with a heavier darkness than the candlelit room would normally allow.
The doors shook. They were nothing more than wood, as the exterior walls had enough glass to keep out any rogue spirits. No, the Crimson Court had finally come, and he was too late to stop them.
He raised the revolver as the wood splintered. Many scions were well practiced with a gun, but Leonit had neither served in the army nor been much of a shot. The battles of the king’s court took more skill with one’s wit than with weapons. With words, he could disarm a nation, but they were useless in the face of his house’s demise.
His finger squeezed out of instinct alone when the doors burst open. The resulting shot sent a ringing through his ears as the bullet ripped through the doorway and embedded itself in the wall on the other side of the dim corridor.
“You have your mark,” he called out, inching further from the desk. “Come out, and let this escapade be complete.”
No one replied.
The hairs on Leonit’s arms raised, and he shivered at the familiar horror before him. He’d not seen battle, but he had lived long enough to meet his share of awakened spirits. He lowered the gun. Bullets would do nothing against this foe, and neither would his Shadow Reaching.
“So they have finished their research, then?” he asked.
The lamps flickered near the door as tendrils of a misty gray spiraled forth. Soundless, they surged toward him faster than any man could run, all light extinguishing around them.
Leonit could only stand and face the end with pride. His second life had been a full one, but as he stared at the menace crossing his study, he knew he would not have a third. The Crimsons would be sure of it.
His breaths fogged the air as the tendrils met before him to form a human-like figure. Neither solid nor entirely air, it resided somewhere between, unable to be harmed by material weapons… except for glass.
Leonit struck in turn with the awakened, pulling a glass-bladed dagger from a hidden pocket in his vest and slashing at the spirit’s chest. Normal spirits would flee at the slightest hint of glass, but the awakened plunged forward, undeterred. Its tendrils pierced Leonit’s chest and throat as he desperately tried to wound his attacker. Though the dagger found its misty torso, it only hissed and released more tendrils into him. His vision began to fade.
I should have stopped this. I should have saved the Commonwealth.
But he had failed. Any hope of stopping the destruction to come vanished as the awakened’s tendrils drew his spirit from his body. He collapsed, and with one last breath, he whispered into the darkness.
“Find them, Kasia.”
Chapter 1 – The Hunters and the Huntress (Kasia)
TWELVE YEARS LATER
“Parqiz Uziokaki, the Spirit Reacher. He knows the names of the rest.” – Leonit Niezik the Second
Wind and a cold rain greeted Kasia as she stepped from her carriage, clutching shut her high-collared coat and glaring at the mansion before her. House Uziokaki had made their fortune in hunting and forestry, and their estate resembled an overgrown hunting cabin. She grinned at that.
The only hunting tonight would be her.
“Lady Katarzyna, should we not hasten our way inside?” Tazper asked, rushing beside her with an umbrella. Her rounded koilee fur hat had done its job well, though, and she quite appreciated the rain. It announced the arrival of the everdark season—far more fun than the unending light of everbright.
“Haste would make it seem as if we wanted to be here,” she replied to her friend.
A poorer scion with a gentle face and a swoop of chestnut hair, Tazper had yet to be able to afford a talon to Reach, so Kasia had taken him as her house footman to help him earn his way. He was a bit of a klutz and his cravat spilled over his shirt like a waterfall, but he was one of the few people she could trust. On the day she intended to kill her father’s murderer, that mattered more than ever.
“Don’t we?” he squeaked, slipping out of his formal tone.
Kasia faked a smile at a group of passersby who were headed in to join the gala. The Ephemeral Storm of Everdark was an annual celebration of the quarter-year darkness that would soon arrive. Such events were hosted by many of the great houses, and none of the minor scions wanted to miss their chance to converse with the most powerful aristocrats. It was all a game, much like the one Kasia had played nightly against her father, and after twenty-four years of life, she’d learned her lessons well.
“Never let your opponents know your true intentions,” she replied before straightening the amber chains that connected the buttons along the front of her coat.
The peasants of House Niezik’s estate had called her the Amber Dame ever since her scouts discovered large reserves of amber in an ancient forest basin near the border of House Uziokaki’s lands. The Uziokaki claimed the reserves should be theirs, so wearing amber in their mansion would be considered an insult. Kasia sincerely hoped they noticed.
Before Tazper could stumble through his reply, she started toward the gate. It was made of intricately carved wood and crested with a golden-antlered stag—the Uziokaki sigil—and archways resembling interwoven branches lined the cobblestone path to the mansion itself. Guards stood on either side of the gate with rifles shouldered. Such guards were little threat to scions, most of whom were Reachers capable of drawing magic from other realms, but they still eyed her as she passed.
“They are watching us,” Tazper whispered once he’d scrambled to Kasia’s side.
“If you are worried about guards doing their jobs,” Kasia said, “then you should turn back. I can’t have you panicking.”
He held his chin up. “I will have poise.”
With an amused huff, Kasia led the way to the mansion’s double doors. A butler awaited them behind a podium.
“Lady Katarzyna Niezik, what a pleasant surprise.” He dipped his quill in ink and crossed her name off his parchment before turning to Tazper. “And who might you be?”
“This is Tazper of House Janka,” Kasia said. “He is my footman for this evening.”
The butler scribbled something down, then took a long breath and pointed behind him. “You may deposit your coats and hats to the left before making your way to the grand hall. I am sure they are dreadfully sopping amid this weather. However, before you go, I must examine your gloves.”
Holding back a smirk, Kasia held up her hands to reveal her long black gloves and the amber jewels embedded along her knuckles. The one on her right hand was a formality, but the butler examined the left closely. Scions could only Reach if the crystal talon on their left pointer finger remained uncovered, allowing them to tear the space between their realm of Spirits, called Zekiaz, and the one they were Reaching into. It wasn’t just impolite to remove one’s gloves during gatherings such as this. People had been killed for less.
Tazper did the same, despite not being a Reacher, and the butler waved them both past. Kasia laughed to herself at the irony of the check. Yes, they had ensured she was wearing gloves upon her entry, but nothing stopped her from removing them when the time was right.
The mansion’s interior tore away the cabin-like veil and replaced it with rural displays of wealth. Wooden pillars with glass-carved patterns lined two curved staircases that headed up to the next floor. Rustic chandeliers led the way to the stairs, exuding a dim glow that made the floors shimmer like copper as their footfalls echoed through the hall along with an ever-growing hum of conversation. Only the roll of thunder broke the ambience before surrendering to the constant drum of heavy rainfall.
The pair dropped their coats and hats, then followed the other scions to the stairs.
Kasia gripped the handrail as her skirts clipped at her heels. Her outermost layer was a cutaway jacket, belted at the waist to reveal a sleeved cream dress beneath. Like her coat, the jacket flared open at the torso with thin amber chains connecting the buttons on either side. It was a combination of domestic Ezmani stylings and foreign Ogrenian ones from the northern coast. Among the nationalists at the party, it would be yet another affront, but she’d intended so.
Keep their eyes on the dress, she thought, and they’ll miss the dagger in your hand.
Tazper took the lead as they reached the top of the stairs, but it wasn’t him who drew the crowd’s stares. In the twelve years since an awakened commanded by Parqiz Uziokaki killed her father, neither Kasia nor any other remaining members of House Niezik had stepped foot within their rivals’ estate. It was far from public knowledge that the attack hadn’t merely been a rogue spirit, but whispers had spread among the scions. If the House Niezik was stepping back into the fold, what did that mean for those who’d replaced them?
There wasn’t a smile among the near hundred faces beneath the chandeliers pulsing with Reacher fire, except Kasia’s. Most of the ones she gave nowadays were feigned to hide her grimace or hidden smirks. This one was genuine. For tonight, she would take her largest step since she’d discovered Leonit’s list of names two years before. Her father’s list had been hidden in a secret compartment of his desk that Kasia assumed had been meant for her Uncle Torav. Except the same people who’d assassinated her father, whoever they were, had killed Torav that same night.
Kasia carried the list at all times. It wasn’t all that substantial, just three names—Raniana Laxis, Sergeant Fantil Tozki, and Parqiz Uziokaki—followed by the words Crimson Court underlined three times. She’d already ridded Zekiaz of Raniana and Fantil, but they had offered little information regarding these elusive Crimsons.
Parqiz was her last target… and last hope.
Her talon seemed to hum at the thought of killing the assassin. She was a Death Reacher, a rare type technically banned in the Commonwealth, but no one had any way of knowing her power. That made her a scion’s worst nightmare.
Spirit Reachers, like Parqiz, were far more common, as the government and great houses employed them to keep rogue awakened away from populated areas. Just as important was their ability to guide the dead spirits of scions into spiritless unborn children, granting them a second life if done before a twenty-hour day had passed. Even her father, Leonit, had held the designation of “the Second” because he’d lived twice. The most powerful scions had lived many more lives instead of following the natural path to become a drifting spirit.
Only a Death Reacher could kill a person’s spirit too, making it impossible for them to return.
Few scions of any means feared death because of their Spirit Reachers. They ensured wives and concubines within their families always carried new bodies for them to inhabit. Kasia’s existence threatened their glass houses, and they didn’t even know it.
“Ah, Katarzyna!” a woman called out in a tone oozing with conceit. Kasia swallowed a groan as Qaraza, the mid-thirties heir of House Uziokaki, strode over with her brows rising impossibly high up her light-gray forehead. She wore a high-collared dress of the Ezmani style with a neckline that was deep enough to make Tazper blush. “I am confident I am not alone when I say your attendance tonight is quite the surprise.”
“I thought it best I start venturing out more,” Kasia replied flatly. “Especially with your father pressing an unfounded claim on my amber, it is ever-so important that I remind the scions in our region that rumors of House Niezik’s demise are greatly exaggerated.”
Qaraza took a sip of white wine from her glass chalice. “Are they? My father says House Niezik’s voice has not been heard in the Chamber of Scions for a decade. I am pleased to see you managed to dust away the cobwebs coating your carriage. It is quite the antique. As is this rare dress of yours. Have you forgotten that dastardly Reshkan is no longer king?”
She referred to King Yaakiin, Leonit’s old ally who’d been assassinated not long after Leonit himself. The Commonwealth’s scions elected their kings, and often, they preferred to select a weak, influenceable foreigner over a rival house’s scion from within the Commonwealth. Yaakiin had been neither effective nor popular during his reign—a fact no one let Kasia forget.
“Of course not,” Kasia said. “My dress is of Ogrenian inspiration, not Reshkan, but who could forget how conveniently your family took charge of the southeastern lands following my father’s death?”
Kasia scanned the balconies above, where her informant among the Uziokaki servants claimed Parqiz spent the galas as a reclusive nephew of the house patriarch, Sazilz the Second. Then she dropped her gaze to the massive green stone hanging from her counterpart’s neck.
“If only that tragedy were as forgettable as that jewel which I dare not call an emerald,” she quipped. “Now, if you will excuse me, I must find someone whose conversation will help this storm pass without granting me a similar thunder in my head.”
Kasia barely caught Qaraza’s disgust out of the corner of her eye as she slipped away, but that moment brought her immense pleasure. One day, Qaraza would take charge of her house and challenge Kasia herself. She was but a nuisance until then, dealt with by nothing more than petty quips.
“Is it proper to insult the host?” Tazper whispered as Kasia weaved her way between round standing tables full of scions, both significant and not. She would do business with many of them another day. Tonight, only one scion mattered.
“Father would not have approved,” she replied, glancing at the balconies again. “But I didn’t come here to make friends with House Uziokaki.”
A quintet of woodwind musicians took to the stage at the far end of the room. They soon filled the air with an upbeat tune, and couples took to the open center of the floor, some out of lasting love and others pursuing new attractions. Kasia’s heart ached watching them dance from afar. She’d tried to court many times in past years, but some scars seemed to never heal. When it came to her memories of Aliax, her last lover, they refused to stop bleeding.
The distraction tore her from her surveillance, and her wandering led her straight into the path of a gaggle of young men. They donned tailored suits, well-cut with exposed fittings of colored glass along the trim. Jewels were fine and well, but in a realm where glass was one’s best protection against the awakened, it was more expensive than many diamonds. Why appear rich when one could appear both rich and practical? At least, that’s what the scions of more minor houses believed.
The men swapped nervous grins before one stepped forward and removed his tricorn hat. Such a style was odd so far from the sea, especially with its cut favoring that of the northern Ogrenian tradesmen.
“Could I interest you in a dance, Lady Katarzyna?” the man asked. “It would be an honor to spend a moment with the Amber Dame.”
Amber had changed everything. Just a few years before, Kasia had struggled to find any house of repute willing to negotiate with House Niezik’s barley farms and gambling halls. Now… Well, she would have hardly disliked the attention any other night.
Kasia bowed her head to the man. “Thank you, sir—”
“Hazat, patriarch of House Tozki,” he said.
She swallowed, instantly wishing she had a drink to hide her nerves, but she’d sworn off alcohol long ago in an effort to keep her mind fitter than her target’s. This was the son of Sergeant Fantil Tozki, the second name on her father’s list. Except Hazat appeared to be far less of a nationalist.
“A pleasure to meet you finally,” she managed. “I am sorry to hear about your father, however.”
He chuckled. “You need not pretend to be sorry. It was no secret that our fathers stood on opposite sides of the Chamber of Scions, and I surely do not miss him.”
“Oh?” Kasia barely held back her own laughter. “It would be my pleasure to dance with you, then, but I must abscond to the powder room after our lengthy journey here. I will find you upon my return.”
Hazat nodded, then stepped back with an arm extended to the side. “Of course. I will eagerly await your return, then, my lady.”
Without replying, Kasia stepped away, recollecting herself. A dance would provide cover upon her return, as Parqiz’s body would inevitably be found before the gala’s end. First, though, she needed to the find him.
Tazper tugged on her sleeve. “Kasia, look.”
She followed his gaze up to a balcony on the third floor, where a heavy blond man leaned over the wooden rails with a liquor glass in hand. He sneered at the dancers before downing his drink and raising it for a servant to take. When none came, he barked something over his shoulder.
“He isn’t alone,” Kasia said before starting toward a side hall which her informant had claimed led to the balconies.
“Then this cannot be the time,” Tazper said from close behind.
“There is no alternative.”
The narrow hall led to a set of stairs. Guards patrolled, but none expressed concern at a stray couple wandering the lower level. How else could the Uziokaki and other scions sneak away for gossip and affairs?
Tazper protested as Kasia ran to the landing, then began up the second flight, but Kasia had none of it.
“I am tired of waiting for answers, Taz,” she snapped. “When we reach the balcony, distract the servants by ordering a drink for me. Make it something complex, so I have more time.”
“But you do not partake.”
“Do you believe the servants know that?”
He shrugged. “Likely not.”
“Then do as I ask, please.” She tried to say it nicely, but her insistence overrode any pleasantries. Luckily, Tazper wasn’t one to take offence.
Hearing no further appeals, she finished climbing the stairs, then found another staircase up to the third floor. A guard gave her a questioning look mid-way, but if he had objections, he did not voice them. Giggles from a hiding couple echoed through the halls. A quiet scion woman going about her business was hardly his greatest concern.
Laughter surrendered to shouting as Kasia reached the third floor. A servant cowered near the balcony Parqiz had been on, shattered glass at his feet.
“He breaks enough glass to feed us for a season,” the servant muttered before collecting the sizeable pieces and hurrying toward them.
Kasia grabbed Tazper and ducked behind a pillar, holding her finger to her lips until the servant had passed. When he had, she released her friend and nodded down the stairs. “Remember what I told you about my drink?”
Again, he tried to complain, but she was already gone, noting a cracked door to a bedroom nearby before she reached the balcony’s edge. She kept along the wall and didn’t step upon the balcony itself. There may be others watching, and it would be difficult to explain if she was the last one seen with Parqiz before he died.
“Now that is haste!” Parqiz called over his shoulder. In his mid-forties, he had not taken well to being far from House Uziokaki’s center of power. He’d been a far lighter, and tamer, man the last time Kasia had seen him over a decade before. “Give it here, boy.”
“There is no serving boy here,” Kasia said, crossing her arms.
Parqiz turned with a start. “Who are you? A suitor? A consort perhaps, sent by my uncle to make me useful?”
Not the tactic I intended, but easy enough to utilize.
She smiled wryly. “Why don’t you follow me and find out?”
As she spun away, she gave him a lingering glance. Leonit had been an adequate politician, but the real skill he’d taught her was using her opponent’s perceptions against them. Politics was a game, sure. More so, it was theatre, and the greatest actors were the ones who came out on top.
Parqiz followed her into the nearby bedroom at a speed greater than she’d believed him capable of. Before he passed through the doorway, she slipped her left glove off, hiding the hand behind her as she playfully danced around him and pulled the door shut.
Then she latched it.
“Oh, so Sazilz did send you?” Parqiz said, undoing his shirt buttons.
She swept her taloned hand toward him. “No, Leonit did…”