City of Light (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) (54 page)

The snow that had started to melt on the roof, even what had half-melted to slush, froze solid. Leah started shivering again; the temperature seemed to drop into the depths of winter in the span of a few seconds.

“The Bowl drains heat,” Cynara explained, levering the bowl to the side. Floating in the air, Alin moved along with the artifact, falling on to the ceiling when she dumped the bowl over. “That’s the only price, though I’m not entirely sure why.”

Alin rose to his feet, brushing snow from his shattered armor. “Thank you,” he said, then he gave Cynara a closer look.

“You’re the former Ragnarus Incarnation?” he asked.

Cynara smiled more broadly, then gave him a mocking curtsy.

Alin stood for a moment, thinking. After a few seconds, he held out one golden hand.

“Please, Rhalia,” he said.

A woman popped out of the air in front of him. She wore a long white dress belted with a golden sash, and her blond hair almost reached down to her feet. She spun a loop in midair, her arms and smile wide. “You should have summoned me
ages
ago! It’s a lot whiter than I…remembered…”

Her loop slowed to a crawl, and she drifted down to the roof, staring at Cynara. The two summoned women stared at one another with wide eyes. Even Queen Cynara looked as though she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“…Rhalia?” she whispered, and several dozen separate facts clicked into place for Leah. Cynara had mentioned her sister, and somewhere in the back of her mind, Leah had known that her sister was an Elysian Traveler…but
the
Elysian Traveler? The first Incarnation of Elysia, and the one that had almost destroyed Damasca?

Tears welled up in the golden eyes of the legendary Elysian Incarnation, and she staggered toward her sister, wrapping her pale arms around Cynara’s red shoulders. “I’m so sorry,” Rhalia murmured through her tears. “I always…wanted to tell you…”

They held each other for a while, and then Cynara released her. Rhalia didn’t let go.

“Rhalia,” the Queen said.

The former Incarnation of Elysia shook her head. Alin shook his head and stepped off the roof, caught by Orange Light, flying away to join Simon.

One roof over, the Helgard Incarnation landed in a crouch. Her one-eyed giant stepped up beside her, raising its fist as if to smash the roof on which Leah stood.

“Rhalia,” Cynara said, more urgently.

“I’ve waited three hundred years for this,” Rhalia said, without releasing her sister. “I can take a little longer.”

“No, you can’t!” Leah yelled. She drew as deeply as she could from her Lirial source, tried to summon the Lightning Spear—it failed; her father must still be holding it—then tried to summon the Titan Shield, but that failed as well. Her father still had a grip on everything useful.

As the giant’s blue fist fell, she wondered if her crystal would be enough.

Then an orange sun bloomed between her and the descending fist. The giant’s hand rose into the sky, pulling its enormous body along with it. At any second, Leah expected the orange light to vanish, letting the one-eyed titan fall back down to earth. It never happened. It kept drifting up, silently struggling, until Leah lost it among the clouds.

Helgard seemed more stunned than anyone else, her mouth working soundlessly.

Rhalia finally let go of her sister, smiling proudly. “I
am
sorry,” she said at last.

“Yes, well, I spent the last three and a half centuries sealed inside a blood-sucking tree,” Queen Cynara said dryly. “For the first hundred years, I kept planning out how to escape and make you suffer.”

Rhalia’s face crumpled, and she looked as though she were about to cry again.

“…stop that. You’re almost four hundred years old, act your age. It’s been a long time since I blamed you for this. I paid my price, and I reaped the reward. Bitter as it may have been.”

Ignoring the Helgard Incarnation, who looked curious rather than confused, Queen Cynara gestured to Leah.

“Leah, daughter of Zakareth, this is my older sister Rhalia.”

Rhalia beamed and drifted over to Leah, spinning circles around her in midair. “This is Leah, huh? She wears the Eye well. Much better than that old man.”

Cynara’s expression hardened. “Anything was better than the old man.”

At first, Leah was inclined to correct them about her name—she was the daughter of Kelia, not Zakareth. But Cynara had never met her mother, so she let that slide. Then she thought they were talking about her father as the ‘old man,’ but the context made that unlikely. Rhalia would have never met Zakareth the Sixth. Someone from their own time, then?

A shrill alarm from one of Leah’s scout crystals shrieked in her ear, and she spun around to find a dozen White Razors—sharpened snowflakes the size of wagon wheels—spinning straight at her, out of the snow.

She blocked the first one with crystal, but Cynara shattered the rest with a fistful of crimson darts. They shot out of midair and pierced each snowflake straight through the middle.

Leah was forcibly reminded, then, exactly how much she had left to learn about the Crimson Vault.

“We can handle this, Leah,” Queen Cynara said, launching a red wooden javelin at Helgard.

“Could you go see to the Elysia Gate, if you don’t mind?” Rhalia asked. “There’s a golem that cut his way inside.”

That’s right, I almost forgot.
Ornheim had been using his gatecrawler to slice his way into Elysia, and the rest of them had been too distracted by the other Incarnations to pay him any attention. Without another word, Leah started climbing down from the roof.

“Too slow!” Rhalia called, and then Leah felt herself lifted up by the shoulders and carried down to the street below.

…it wasn’t the most dignified way to travel, but at least it was fast.

***

Alin fought side-by-side with Simon, and it was the most fulfilling thing he had done in years.

He blasted King Zakareth with Gold Light, sending the Incarnation staggering, but when he turned to launch his spear in Alin’s direction, Simon was all over him, swinging that gold-and-silver blade of his so fast that Zakareth had to summon his shield. He used both that and his spear to keep Simon at bay. Meanwhile, Alin had the space to summon a coil of Blue Light underneath Zakareth’s foot, snagging his grip and draining a bit of his armor’s power away.

The Ragnarus Incarnation broke the Blue binding, but it still made him stagger a bit, took a little energy away from his weapons. He would fall to the two of them, and soon.

And there was something…right about it. Alin and Simon, standing side-by-side, fighting the evil Incarnation. Alin was even fighting like a Traveler; he couldn’t call much more power without endangering Simon as well, so for a moment he could pretend that all was as it should be, and he and Simon were about to vanquish the evil king together.

If you hadn’t made so many stupid decisions,
the Violet Light said,
perhaps you could have fought this way in truth, and not just in your mind.

Simon finally landed a good blow, knocking Zakareth’s shield aside and slashing across his breastplate with the tip of his blade.

While the Ragnarus Incarnation staggered backwards, Alin called Gold.

The hammer of Gold Light blasted King Zakareth off the roof, sending him flying down and toward the original building, where a hastily torn Elysian Gate waited.

“Thanks,” Simon said, panting.

“You didn’t do too bad yourself,” Alin said. “You know, for someone who’s not a real Traveler.”

Simon stared at him from behind the mask for a second before he snorted a laugh. “You know, I—”

Something caught his attention, as if he was listening to someone else talk, and then his whole body tensed. He leaped off the roof after Zakareth, his blade held in both hands.

Obviously he had thought of something that Alin hadn’t noticed with his Silver Light, so Alin flew after him on wings of Orange Light.

Leah was there, crouched at the edge of the Elysian Gate with her hands raised, as if she were about to summon some power. Her father had one leg raised to enter the portal himself, shield in one hand and spear in the other. His gold-and-ruby-patterned face caught the light. Simon landed, his knees bent, blade drawn back for a strike, his mask turned up toward Zakareth.

As had happened once before, in Malachi’s mansion, the moment froze.

Alin stepped away from his own body, turning to look at himself. His rainbow eyes had frozen with orange prominent, so the slices of orange glowed most brightly. His hair had turned from blond to something that looked like strands of actual gold—he wondered for a second if the hair on his head had turned to metal, or if it was just his appearance that had changed. His armor was practically in ruins again, and after all the effort he’d gone through to have it repaired the first time.

But it was his expression that bothered him the most. He stared forward, looking completely blank. He showed less emotion than a statue, as if nothing had ever happened that he cared about, and nothing ever would.

In his featureless confidence, he looked just like King Zakareth.

Rhalia walked up beside him, casually strolling along, glancing into everyone’s eyes one at a time as if to memorize the scene.

“How did you do this?” he asked.

“Oh, you should know that by now,” she said. “And now your brain won’t sizzle quite so fast, so we can take our time.”

When Alin bothered to think about it, with all the knowledge of Elysia, it seemed obvious. “It’s a Silver artifact, combined with Red Light to enhance the mind.”

Rhalia clapped three times. “You win the prize! My body’s over there.” She motioned to a building across the street, where her white-robed form fought next to her red-clad sister. “So let’s see if the wisdom of the Silver Light is all it’s supposed to be. What do I have to tell you?”

“Something about the King,” Alin said. “Does he have a weapon I don’t know about?”

She shrugged. “Probably. But no, that’s not why I’m here.”

Rhalia hopped over to Simon and pointed at his collar.

To Alin’s surprise, Simon was
still moving.
Everything else looked perfectly still, but Simon actually crept forward, his legs springing up, his sword drifting around in a strike that would take days to land.

“How is he not frozen?” Alin asked.

“No one’s frozen,” Rhalia corrected. “We’re experiencing time very, very quickly…and separate from our bodies, of course. The fact that we can perceive him move at all is a reflection of how fast he’s managed to go. But that’s not what I’m here to point out.”

She gestured under his cloak again, and Alin leaned in for a closer look.

Those black marks, the chains that crawled up Simon’s arms, had reached all the way around his neck.

The final link was gray, like the fuzzy edge of a shadow, but when it turned black, the chain would have covered Simon’s body completely.

“What does that mean?” Alin asked, quietly.

She shook her head. “I’m not familiar with Valinhall, but even I can sense it. He’s too far in debt to his Territory. When that chain is completed, he will either Incarnate or die.”

Simon had warned him about this, about what would happen if he wore the mask. The chain must be his time limit.

“There was another Valinhall Incarnation only days ago,” Alin said. “He told us.”

“Then, when this chain is completed, Simon will die.” Rhalia waved a hand. “Or he may fuse with his Territory or the current Incarnation. In those cases, he will wish for death.”

That would be a tragedy,
the Rose Light whispered.
Simon has never tried to do anything but good.

You owe him,
the Orange Light said.

There’s nothing you can do about it,
the Silver pointed out.

You don’t need to worry about him,
the Gold said proudly.
He’s a warrior, dying in battle. He’s lived a full life, short though it was. Everyone should be as lucky as he, dying like this.

“He has lived a good life,” Alin said out loud. “He will die with honor.”

Rhalia swept a strand of hair out of her golden eyes. Alin knew they weren’t really in their bodies, but it all sure
looked
real.

“Wouldn’t it be better if he could live with honor, instead?” Rhalia asked.

She knows a way,
the Violet Light said.

“What do you want me to do?”

Rhalia turned and looked at the Elysian Gate. “There is one door you have yet to open.”

The White District. Whenever he asked Rhalia for advice, it always came down to the White.

“…in the City,” he said.

“Yes. The White Light can only be used on another’s behalf. It can empower Simon with all the might of Elysia, giving him the strength he needs to win this battle. But it would mean staying here, with me.”

You have to save him, if you can,
the Blue Light said.

Going through that Gate would be like dying,
the Red argued.
Worse: it would be like giving up!

Alin took a moment to think of the problem from every angle. “I wish I could go,” he said at last, “but I can’t. I would be trapped there, and the people need an Elysian Traveler to lead the way into the light. It would be selfish of me to save this one man and deprive the world of the City of Light.” He wanted to save Simon, but it wasn’t practical.

He had to admit a certain measure of relief, though. The thought of staying trapped in one Territory forever chilled him; he almost thought dying in battle would be the better fate.

“That’s…not exactly right.” Rhalia smiled a little. It was the kind of smile that said,
I have a surprise, and I’m not sure you’re going to like it.

Then she walked around the King, standing in front of the Elysian Gate. She stood, waiting expectantly, clearly indicating that he should follow.

With an unexplainable sense of dread, Alin walked after her. And he looked into Elysia.

The field of grass and flowers outside the walls was all but torn up. Four people stood engaged against the towering Ornheim Incarnation and a small army of golems. One was the blond girl, Andra, her black-spotted sword clenched in both hands. She had driven her sword through a golem’s neck joint, popping its head off. The gem-spotted boulder still hung in the air, wearing a comical expression of surprise.