Illiana is a refugee from the Kingdom of Aeola who works in the Palace, but struggles to find her place in her new surroundings. She is Essie Brightsday’s close friend, likes to see the best in others, is a good listener, and even better talker.
Illiana could sing. Song ran in her veins. It called in her ears. It lived in her mouth. It danced in her blue eyes.
And so it should. Her native Kingdom above the Sun—Aeola—was built by the cloudweavers, who use music to bind the elements. For, as they have said since the Beginning, music is stronger than magic.
But though she could, Illiana did not, in fact, sing.
It wasn’t because she had lost her parents when she was very young. Though that was true. It wasn’t because she worked as a servant in the palace, though that was also true.
She didn’t feel sorry for herself. She felt grateful that she had been invited by King Mactogonii to the Kingdom of Mar after the Aeolan council banished her from her homeland for thievery and treason. Even if it had been a onetime thing.
In fact, if you had asked Illiana why she didn’t sing, she probably couldn’t have told you.
It troubled her, when she thought about it. So she tried not to think about it. She tried not to think about the Kingdom of Aeola either. She tried to forget the way the melody wove through the air—even the very ground. She knew that her best friend Essie could hear the notes sometimes, when it rained. But Essie could hear and sense more than most. As hard as Illiana listened, she couldn’t hear the cloudweavers music in the rain.
So she didn’t think about it. Any of it.
But she missed it, just the same.
***
“Strange goings on,” Milp muttered to herself, punching the pillow a bit more violently than it deserved. She tweaked the corner and set it against the arm of the couch, surveying the effect. “Fire and blastin’, splinterin’ to little pieces,” she grumbled.
Illiana knew better than to ask Milp what she was talking about. Stay quiet and listen was the best way to handle Milp. “Folks thinkin’ somethin’ can be had for nothin’,” she continued. Illiana swept the last of her pile of dust into a bunch and gathered it up. Milp whipped around, pointing a bony finger in Illiana’s face. “But everything’s got a cost!”
Milp shuffled off, hunched and angry, throwing fresh blankets over the bed like they had personally offended her. The tower smelled clean. Not that it had smelled bad when Illiana and Milp arrived this morning—just dusty and unused, with that stale, stuffy odor a place that has been shut up for too long gets.
The arched windows in the tower above the archives let in a welcome breeze that carried with it the sound of the city. Illiana ran a finger along the sill, making sure it came away speck free. Small blackbirds with yellow breasts chirped from a nest on the outside ledge, shrill and angry at the intrusion. Illiana breathed in deep and smiled. “It’ll be nice for whoever moves in up here.” The mother blackbird ruffled her feathers as if imitating Milp and turned her back on Illiana.
Illiana could see the main street, Market Way, crawling all the way from the city gates, through the Trade District, and finally ending here, at the palace. There was nothing unusual in the busy main street, bustling with hawkers, shoppers and general activity. Except one thing. A tall woman with silver gray hair moved purposefully through the erratic throng, clearing a neat path as she swept a long stick in front of her. She wore a blindfold. Behind the woman plodded a squat, fat donkey, whose back was heaped with neat bundles tied in an intricate web.
Illiana leaned further out the window as the stranger headed for the courtyard below, passing out of view. It felt unusual to see a blind person move with such confidence. Illiana had only seen that in Essie.
“Let’s go!” Milp snapped. Illiana shrugged and followed Milp out the tower, down the circular steps, and past the public archives. She was done for the day. She left Milp with a cheery goodbye, which was met with more grumbled complaining, and trotted toward Market Way, headed for the city stables on the other side of Blacksmith’s Row.
She would meet Essie—and Tig, of course—on schedule at noon. A blind stranger in Plen—that would catch Essie’s attention. It might even be enough to pull her out of her obsession over her Arcane Academy rejection for a few minutes.
Illiana checked her own thoughts. The street felt odd today. She slowed her walk, paying more attention to the babbling noise around her. The chatter was animated and happy. Folks were trading and buying and selling and gossiping. But there. An old man threw her a quick glance, pausing his conversation with two farmers from up the valley, even snapping his mouth shut in a thin line as she passed.
Illiana blushed and quickened her pace. That was it. Some news was running through the city—but what kind of gossip would turn the Trade District and the valley folk against the palace staff? She could only stand the stares and little silences for another block. She slipped behind a market stall and between a row of shop fronts, spilling into a quiet back street. As she turned the corner she nearly ran into a boy who looked about her own age, or maybe a bit older. It was hard to tell as he kept his head down behind a heavy looking box of braided and polished steel.
“I’m sorry!” Illiana skipped to one side, but the boy ignored her, staggering off under his load. She shrugged. “Rude.”
She didn’t even realize she had finished the trip to the stables until she heard Cragg, a stable manager, call her name.
She smiled. “And good day to you Mr. Cragg.”
“Goin’ by yourself today?” Cragg asked. His knobby hands were swollen and bent with age. He couldn’t lift heavy things anymore, but no one could match him for handling the horses. He gave her a couple of twisted, tuber-like carrots.
Illiana’s smile slipped. “Essie’s not here?”
Cragg scratched at his untidy beard and shook his head. “Not yet. Haven’ seen her cat neither.”
Illiana spent the next little while brushing Champie, her big bay gelding, while she mulled over the unusual silences and stares in the street. She looked him in the eye. “It was probably nothing. Just my imagination.” Champie nodded. Encouraged, Illiana broke off a piece of carrot and offered it in her palm. “Most of the palace staff are from the Trade District anyway…”
Champie crunched and drippled carrot pieces all over her arm. Illiana brushed them off absently. “But the fire last week on Nobble Street was real.” She pulled at Champie’s forelock. “And nobody believes the protector’s report that it was started by ‘natural causes.’”
The tower bell sounded, far away, noting the time change. She had been brushing Champie for an hour. Even running late, Essie should have been here by now. She looked over at Tangerine, Essie’s short, sleek, black mare. Tangerine tossed her head as if to say, “I know as much as you do.”
Illiana cleaned out Champie’s stall, even though she didn’t have too. She shared the rest of the carrots with Champie and Tangerine. But by late afternoon, it was evident.
Essie wasn’t coming.
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You’ve been reading a piece of parallel storytelling from the Nightrage Rising narrative. To find out more visit our main page for Nightrage Rising, or the Kickstarter update where it was first announced.
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