Page 58

Doroth Zain’s dark eyes narrow. “No. It was not. I was wrong to doubt you.”

“It was not?” Perl is quite surprised. For a moment he thinks he must have misunderstood what Doroth Zain is saying.

“Because of my concerns about your actions, I have been speaking to the Shard on your behalf,” Doroth Zain says tightly, as if he is passing on a message he does not like. Perl braces himself, “She has told me you are on the right path in Vylenor and that you were correct to take the Magician there. You were led there by The Aeons.” Doroth Zain moves his mouth as if the words he is saying taste foul. Nevertheless he continues. “Vylenor will forge the Magician. And you.”

Perl can only stare at Doroth Zain in shock. This is the last thing he expected to hear.

Perl walks back through Vylenor feeling a little uplifted. He cannot remember ever getting such an endorsement from the Shard before. But knowing he is on the right path is some comfort, although he still fears for Kerik. He cannot see how Kerik can possibly pass this test. Just because this path is correct does not mean it will be easy.

He reaches one of the wide entrances to the Ice Hall. The hall is empty, still and cold. Its white walls glisten in the ice light. Standing in the doorway, Perl looks up at the cage, dangling at the high ceiling’s apex.

He remembers the last time he saw his father, in this hall. Kneeling before Exeinil. Bloody from her magic after he’d enraged her with his proclamations. Still proud, even when she sentenced him to the endless death. He’d known what was coming.

He’d been found in Perl’s chambers. The magic he’d used to breach Vylenor’s wards a second time — the blood door — too strong to hide from the fae of Vylenor.

Perl remembers waking to a strange mortal at his bedside, and that mortal introducing himself as Perl’s mysterious father. And Perl had been horrified. He had not known, until that moment, that the rumours were true. His father truly was a mortal. Perl was the aberration the Timeless Court claimed.

His father had told Perl he had come for him. Perl’s place was elsewhere. He explained in a garbled, desperate manner, a demon, a mission, a desperate quest to save the world. And that Perl was part of it. Perl existed only to save the world from Ur-Durik. In the same moment Perl had discovered that his existence was a great and terrible shame, he had learned it had to be this way. That he had been brought into this world for a reason.

Perl had learned all of this, lying in his bed, only recently released from the iron collar of his year-long punishment, neck still raw and the shame of it still bright.

His father reeked of corrupted magic, dripping with it. His eyes wild. And although Perl had never seen him before, he did not doubt who he was or any part of his story. His father had created a blood door with Perl as its anchor.

But Perl hesitated. If he had not, perhaps there would have been time to escape back through the blood door. For while he was staring agog at his broken father, the doors to his chambers burst open, wards shattered by an alert of a threat to Vylenor. And his father had been seized by fae guards.

Krem had been there. Perl remembers Krem’s tender, worried expression. Krem had been the one who had taken Perl from his bed and brought him with the other guards and his father to the Ice Hall.

He’d stood there and watched it all. The Ice Hall had been so bright that night.

Only then, had the horror of his fate consumed Perl’s father. But Perl knew now that his father had known his path. He had come back to Vylenor to die.

The cage was raised to the ceiling and ignited with white fire. The eternal death, reserved for traitors. And Perl had been left with the realisation his father’s mission was now his.

Perl stares at the cage for some time. What manner of creature must his father be after burning in white fire for a hundred years?

His wings burst from his back, as if in answer: go and find out.

He doesn’t even have to think. It might have been over a hundred years since he’d used his wings — and when he had claimed to Exeinil that he meant to fly, he’d had no intention of truly doing so — but lifting from the smooth white floor takes no more thought than walking down a corridor. He cannot tell for sure if this act is his own will or something outside of him.

He rises through the air, feeling the strange, old feeling of his wings moving. He cannot deny the thrill of it. A deep, intense feeling of pleasure like the stretching of muscles after a long sleep. He’d been eighty turns when his wings first emerged, only a decade late to bud. His wings had been the source of much speculation when he was a young fae growing up at Vylenor. They had been inspected, measured and plucked. Fae elders had questioned whether he would be able to lift with them as they were under-sized, but eventually pronounced them acceptable. A little smaller than average but large enough for a fae of his status. Although Vane had muttered that a high fae with wings the size of Perl’s would be burned as defective in the Timeless Court.

When he is of a height with the cage that he can feel the heat from the white flames. He looks up at the golden bars. He cannot get closer, but he is close enough he can see the figure inside. His father, trapped in the perpetual death. The body inside is wisened and charred.

Is he truly alive? He moves, but perhaps he only moves as the magical flames move. He does not look at Perl or even seem to notice him. Perl had known his father for such a short time. And yet, that time had changed everything, had set him on this path he has been following for a hundred years.

“Why did you ever come back here?” Perl hisses to the figure in the cage. “Why did you do this to me? Why did you leave me to build a life here then return to take it from me?”

The figure in the cage does not respond. Why would he? Perl knows the answers to these questions. Perl knows his fate was written long ago, before he’d even been sired.

But he does have another question. His father has seen the future. Seen all that will come. His father knows how Perl survives this. How he protects Kerik. “How do I save him from the pit?”

But is his father still truly there? Can he answer? The figure inside the cage seems to move. Perl blinks. Is it just the oscillating, mindless movement the figure makes in its perpetual death? Perl isn’t sure for a moment, but as he watches, the figure’s head turns. His eyes lock with Perl’s. Perl is certain he cannot be imagining this.

Kerik Darekul.

The response is not spoken. It is words in Perl’s own head.

“Father? Is that you? Are you answering me?”