That word clanged through me, through my legion, like a lightning bolt itself.
“Bullshit,” Nabil snapped, his voice a loud crack. “The araethawn are dead, every last one of them. Our ancestors made sure of it.”
Araethawn. I let that word take root in my mind, too, matched it with what I’d seen in Wyfell, in the Red Star, and near the wall for this past year. Wyvern attacking wyvern. Soldiers wearing pitch black, spreading fear, peddling lies.
“How?” I asked Bbiya, trying in vain to soften my voice. There was something about the young woman that reminded me of my sister, and I’d rip the head off anyone who spoke toMihrunnisa with disrespect, but I couldn’t dull the fine edge of my tongue. “Nabil is right; they were killed centuries ago.”
The first and darkest war on this continent almost wiped all of us out. Long before Ithanys and Kalder became enemies, long before the wall was built, fae, wyverns, tigers, and araethawn lived together. Araethawn were a race of fae, but with sharper pointed ears and remarkable power beyond any fae magic. Magic that could heal a dying man or repair a chasm in the land itself. Magic so strong it could corrupt.
The Zalaam were an infection among the araethawn, greed and fear and selfishness given magical form, and they were allowed to exist unchecked for too long. So long that they named a queen, far ruthless and crueller than any other.
She lived for over a hundred years, as terrible as she was beautiful, and utterly immortal. There was no end to her greed as she conquered more and more of the continent, once called Wyvara. No end to the battling, to the death, until wyvern and tiger and fae were finally, after thousands of lives had paid the price, victorious. No one knew how they finally won, only that they did, and all araethawn, whether innocent or wicked, were slaughtered, giving way to an era of peace.
The lightning scoffed, her voice ringing around my head like a migraine. Or maybe the migraine was from how much magic I expended against the enemy wyverns.
It’s widely known that the lightning soul’s last reign was the darkest time on the continent, yet what could sound darker than being conquered and enslaved by the Zalaam queen?
I blinked.They occurred at the same time?
Yes.
You defeated the araethawn. You ended the war.
Not me, but another. The lightning soul long before me.
I started out of my mind when Bbiya spoke, at once young and weary. “I was studying at the Lapis Temple under the wisewomen of Wyfell when it was overrun with men in dark clothes, with even darker hearts.”
My mouth went dry. “We know what happened in Wyfell.”
Bbiya nodded, a shadow chasing through her eyes but she didn’t look away from us as she said, “Those men, soldiers, clergy, whatever they want to call themselves, are araethawn reborn. Or maybe what remains of them, descendants from the dark ones who escaped, who hid all this time.”
“They were all killed,” Zarrib insisted, every muscle tight in his body.
“Were they?” she challenged. “Were you there? Did you see it happen?”
“You know we weren’t,” Shula muttered, glaring when Bbiya looked to her. “Are you saying our history is a lie?”
“Maybe,” Bbiya allowed, lifting her hands. “Or maybe that history was recorded by someone who didn’tknow.You must have heard how the Torn Isle became sundered. The Zalaam queen herself took her perversion of magic to the earth and the sand and the sea—did you never wonder why?”
“She’d made it her home,” Ghalia said from the end of the table. “She ruled from the island, cast her darkness across the entirety of Wyvara from the Torn Isle.”
Bbiya smiled. Sharp, canines exposed. Scholarly and young and intelligent, yes, but as fae as any of us. “That is a lie. It wasragethat drove her magic into the ground, over and over, until it splintered and slid into the sea. It wasfearthat beat in her dark heart. Because our city sheltered the only light in Wyvara that could have matched her sheer power.”
Your ancestor, I presume?I asked the lightning soul. She made an affirmative sound.Were you ever going to tell me any of this, or should I learn everything second hand from people I run into by chance?
She sighed.I have given you all the essential information. If you need to know more, I’ll reveal it at the time it is necessary.
“Our island historians have tracked the spread of that darkness, that Zalaam magic, since the war’s victory,” Bbiya said when the table was silent, not even Chakir volunteering a gruff comment. “There are charts going back centuries, each mark indicating a whisper or story or rumour of the araethawn. For a thousand years, those charts were sparse. Three decades ago, the accounts began again, though quietly and located mostly around the Wall of Hydaran. In the last year, the number of sightings can only be described as a spike.”
“Which brings us to today,” Kanuri took over, eagle-eyed as she watched our reactions. “Those wyverns we fought are unnatural, in the same way the Zalaam queen and her warriors were unnatural. We are poised on the edge of a second war, and you, Varidian Saber, are at the heart of it. But as luck would have it, so are we.” She smiled, all canines and ferocity, a wyvern herself.
“Why?” Aliah asked, voicing the question that beat at my head like a hammer to anvil. “Why care so much? Because of your island’s history?”
“Because wyvernlings have been going missing for months,” the old woman said in a voice at once papery and ironclad. Chakir Kissami’s firm nod spoke volumes. He’d been in touch with these people, enough that their story wasn’t a shock. He’d heard about araethawn and the Zalaam queen, and recently. He’d likely requested their assistance to find Daurith’s missing wyverns.
“We didn’t know any of this,” Zaarib bit out, spearing his uncle with a caustic stare. “Does the council in Morysen know of the missing wyverns? Or did you go exclusively to the Torn Isle for help?”
“Are you accusing me of something, boy?” Chakir demanded, muscles bulging in his arms as he bristled. Even ageing as he was, Chakir could match his nephew if it came to a scrap. Not that I’d allow it to get that far; still, I watched their stares clash, in case I had to step in.