This Golden Flame Read online

  I start walking, toward the west wing. The same window gets me out of the building, and I shiver. It’s cold, the night air spreading goose bumps over my skin. I shove the front gates open, grimacing at the ache that burns into my ribs. On the other side of the wall, the island is quiet and dark, with clouds smearing up the sky. I look for the telltale bob of light from any of the patrols, but don’t see them.

  It takes me too long to reach the cliffs, and when I finally arrive, I’m panting. The automaton looms out of the darkness. As bad as the thing was during the day, it’s even more foreboding in the dark, its ghastly shape blurred by the shadows.

  I can just make out the ropes hanging from its form. I grab the one closest to the cliff edge, pulling until I have a spare spool snaking around my feet.

  Now the difficult part. I look out over the cliff side. Far below me the dark waves pound the shore. Dane would say I have a bad habit of not thinking things through, and I guess I just proved him right. Back in the Scriptorium, I didn’t stop to consider how difficult this was going to be with the shape I’m in. Already the pain is crawling back into my skull, echoing beneath my skin. For a moment the cliff and the waves and the night blur around me. I blink it away. It’s not that far. And if I fall... Well, that ledge caught me once already.

  Before I can spiral into doubt, I pivot, bracing my legs against the rock until the rope is fully supporting my weight. It strains but holds. My legs, though... Pain is already lancing through my muscles.

  Step by step I go, each one piercing and sharp. Spray hits the cliff face, making everything—me, the rope, the rock—slick and cold. My fingers ache from clenching so hard. Almost. Almost. Almost. The word pounds with my heartbeat, faster and faster.

  My foot touches the ledge and my legs fold beneath me, sending me sprawling. I plant my palms on the comfortingly solid rock beneath me as I gasp in air, the world shuddering. The spray has already soaked my chiton through with a cold that ekes into my bones.

  I really should consider listening to Dane more.

  Lifting my head, I look at the crack in the cliff side, half expecting not to see the glimmer of gold, as if it was only some shock-induced dream. But it’s still there, even more obvious in the night. I was right.

  I’d packed a lamp and a small amphora of oil, but my fingers are so chilled it takes me three tries to light the wick, bringing with it the nauseating smell of animal fat. I grip the lamp closer, wrapping my body around its flame, as I stagger to my feet and forward.

  The crack isn’t large, but I manage to squeeze through, the sound of the waves going strangely muted. There’s just my footsteps and my breath, thrown back at me from the dripping walls. The wetness makes everything glint slightly in the firelight. If I die down here, no one would even know where to look for my bones.

  That’s comforting.

  Something metallic clinks beneath my foot and I jerk. It’s a medallion. I crouch down and pick it up. It’s the size of my palm, faded and dirty and one side bent. Its edge is embellished with beads of gold and there’s something imprinted on its center beneath all the grime. It’s undeniably old and I really hope I’m not about to find whoever used to own it.

  I tuck it into my belt pouch and keep going, toward the glow of the Scriptwork hovering in the dark in front of me. My own light, pale in comparison, slips over plain rock. And then it finds a face.

  I jump back but my bruised body can’t move that fast and I go down, the lamp extinguishing as hot oil spills from it, scalding my skin. Stifling darkness floods in. I scrabble in my belt pouch for my flint, trying to listen past the rasping of my breath for the noise of whoever—whatever—I saw. Of them prowling toward me in the dark.

  My throbbing hand finds the flint and I strike it, lighting the lamp again. I lurch to my feet and see...

  An automaton.

  My light flickers over its stilled body. Every other automaton on Tallis is a vast, hulking creature built only to destroy. The monstrous pride of our nation. But this one, sitting against the wall, head slightly lolled as if it has simply fallen asleep, almost looks like a person.

  It’s my size, with delicately crafted fingers and toes, even a face that is strangely expressive, exquisitely shaped from dozens of bronze discs so smooth they blend into one another. A slight frown cuts its lips, a furrow dimpling its brow. There’s something youthful about it, as if whoever built it wanted it to look more my age than the age of the wizened masters who control this place. It’s wearing a chiton, too. An old one, more tatters than fabric now, but someone went through the effort of dressing it. Considering how old this automaton must be, it should be covered in tarnish. Instead, the bronze of its skin is still polished, with a strange sheen.

  I take a step back. This isn’t right. Automatons aren’t supposed to look like that. They were built to be monstrous, because automatons were built to be monsters. An automaton shouldn’t be lying in a cave, looking strangely troubled even in sleep, and appearing so unnervingly...human. As if at any moment it might open its eyes and see me.

  I’m being ridiculous. This thing isn’t human. It won’t open its eyes because it isn’t alive. It’s a weapon. A tool.

  A tool that maybe I can use.

  I kneel beside it, strangely feeling like I’m kneeling next to some corpse. I force my eyes off its face and onto its metal skin. Most of it is bared, showing me its runes. All the Scriptwork I know is self-taught, from sneaking books out of the library or even right out of the bags of the aristoi. Every automaton I’ve ever seen or studied has had the exact same runes: twist etched into shoulders, reach printed on arms, bend carved onto legs. This automaton does have those. But scattered among them are dozens upon dozens of runes whose meanings I can’t even guess. Even the lines look different. They normally look hard and rigid. These are more elegant, with a lilt that almost makes them look...graceful.

  On its arm, a tangle of lines stretches all the way from its shoulder to its elbow, so complicated I can’t tell where one rune ends and the next begins. They’ve been damaged, not from age, but struck through with a violent, jagged gash. The runes are broken, and they’re broken badly.

  That’s when I notice the satchel, wedged between the automaton’s back and the wall. I ease it out and open the flap. There’s only one thing inside. An old, decaying book.

  No, not a book. A tome.

  My breath rasps in my ears as I pull the volume out, taking in its worn cover, the leather crackling from age beneath my fingertips. It’s a tome. An actual automaton’s tome. I flip it over to look at the seal on its spine. Two curves enclose a circle almost like a golden sun. It’s glowing, the light gently pulsing across my fingers. I reach out and move the automaton’s chiton aside, to where its own seal is. It’s a match. And it’s glowing, too.

  I sit shakily back on my heels. I’ve seen so many automatons. I’ve even seen tomes in the archives. And none of them, not one, had live Scriptwork.

  No one knows what Master Theodis did to trigger the Great Lapse. No one even knows why it shut the automatons down when the rest of the Script—the individual runes used for locks and bracelets and weapons—kept working. But this seal is still lit. For two hundred years, the Scriptmasters have been looking for this exact thing, live Scriptwork on an automaton, and now it’s right in front of me. If I wake this automaton up, any of the runes on its skin written correctly on the pages of this tome will be able to make it move. The first one of its kind to be commanded in two centuries. And it wouldn’t be the Scriptorium doing it. It would be me.

  The idea’s a terrible one. As soon as I have it, I know that. It’s terrible and dangerous and reckless. I’m not a Scriptmaster. I don’t know all the runes they do. I don’t even know what I’d do with the thing if I woke it up.

  But all that possibility is already coursing beneath my skin, thrumming through my veins like they’ve been lit on fire, banishing the cold, th
e fear, the doubt. And it isn’t in me to turn from it. This is my chance to get away from this place, to change everything.

  I set the lamp between me and it, and step a safe distance away before cracking the tome open. I’m not exactly sure what I expect to see, but the smooth page with only a single faded rune at the top—wake—surprises me. This automaton never received a command. Who would go to the effort of dragging it here?

  I pull out my charcoal. It was only one night ago that I stood before a different seal and wrote a rune that did nothing. That was only a lock rune, and yes, it was complicated, but it’s nothing like the one before me now. There is no rune more advanced than the knot of tight lines that make up a wake rune. Even the aristoi aren’t allowed to study it until they become masters.

  I labored for months to figure it out for myself using any books I could find or steal, trying to untangle how all the lines interacted and which order they needed to be written in. Anyone can draw a rune as long as they have a ledger or, in the case of an automaton, a tome. But you either need to memorize the form or figure it out yourself. I wanted to learn the rune needed to power an automaton. Maybe just because it was forbidden. But standing here, alone, suddenly I find myself doubting. I’m not a Scriptorium master. I’m not an aristoi. I’m just me.

  Only then I think of Matthias. He’s out there somewhere. The only family I have left.

  I begin the rune. My charcoal dances across the page, tracing the broad strokes. Instantly I know this time is different, because this time I feel it. The lines running together. A strange energy thrilling around my fingertips.

  My charcoal stills. The rune is complete, thick lines and sharp angles bold against the parchment. I almost don’t want to look up, because I’m not sure I could handle another failure.

  A scrape sounds against the rock of the tunnel. Heart pounding, I raise my head.

  The automaton shifts, its back straightening. It’s... moving.

  I did it.

  That’s when its eyes open.

  I stumble back. Its eyes are made of some sort of polished stone, deep and dark except where they burn with light almost as if there are twin flames of gold inside of them. They’re ethereal. Eyes like I’ve never seen before.

  Then those eyes, those impossible eyes, look right at me.

  3

  * * *

  ALIX

  Nightmare images cling to my mind: of black water sloshing up over my head, suffocatingly cold; of a blazing light and golden warmth on my face; of a voice—my father’s voice—crying out my name in pain and fear. The memories cling, trying to pull me under, and I fight back, dredging myself free. As they clear, I see a damp, black cave, lit only by the dim light of the lamp that sits a few feet away.

  Behind that lamp is a girl.

  I blink at her as she stares back, her face so still I’d be half convinced she was a statue, if not for the shallow cut across her cheek. Her brown hair falls past her shoulders, wet and scraggly, the color matching her eyes. I struggle to remember where I am and who she is. My head and memory feel mired down somewhere I can’t grab hold. I’m sure I only closed my eyes for a moment, but I don’t know this cave. I don’t know this girl. She’s dressed strangely, her chiton worn off both shoulders, its hem landing above her knees.

  Then I see what’s in her hands. It’s my tome, and above it, a piece of charcoal poised to write.

  Everything in me goes cold. I lunge forward, hands outstretched. The girl stumbles away, jerking the charcoal across the page. A rune flares on my back, a bright burn, and a shudder goes through my body. It freezes everything it touches, stopping my arms as they reach forward, halting my legs in mid-movement. Panicked, I fight it, slamming my will against my limbs, but they stay still.

  I’m trapped.

  The girl takes a shuddering breath, her eyes painted wild by the reflected firelight. “What are you?” she murmurs.

  I clamp my mouth shut as I rack my mind, trying to remember anything that might tell me what I’m doing here in this cave with this girl. Nothing comes except for the crippling knowledge that this stranger has stolen my tome. She can make me do anything, and I am powerless to stop her from doing it.

  I wait for her to write the rune that will force me to move.

  She doesn’t.

  A fragile hope lights in my chest. Her clothes don’t look quite Scriptorium. Perhaps she isn’t one of them. Perhaps she hasn’t studied any but the most basic runes.

  We stand there, her staring at me and me staring back. In the end I’m the one who cracks first because the fear inside of me bursts with bright explosions. “Give that back,” I rasp. “It’s mine.”

  A jolt goes through her, and I remember that I’m not like other automatons. I can do things that other automatons cannot, such as speaking. How could I forget that, for even a moment?

  “You can talk,” she whispers, and beyond the fear there’s a hint of wonder.

  “Please.” I hate the pleading in my voice, but I can’t tamp it down. The panic is breaking through every wall I set up to hold it back. “Give it back.”

  The girl’s hands curl tighter around my tome and she steps away.

  Like a flame dying, all the fight leeches out of me. Father warned me what would happen if anyone else got their hands on my tome. Now someone has, and I can’t so much as move my little finger to get it away from her.

  I would have sagged if I could have, all the life draining out of me. The wretched rune in my tome doesn’t even allow me that.

  “What will you make me do?” I ask.

  A frown cuts across the girl’s face. She looks down at a bracelet on her wrist, runes carved into its surface. As she rubs her fingers over it, something sharp passes across her eyes. I can’t quite read it. The only face I’ve ever had to try to understand was my father’s.

  With an exasperated growl, she writes another rune in my tome. My limbs unlock, and I stumble forward.

  She thrusts my tome at me. “Here.”

  I stare at her in baffled disbelief, then snatch it back. As soon as my fingers wrap around the familiar leather cover, the seal on my chest flares with warmth. I retreat a few steps back, looking down at the new runes on the page: wake, stop, move. They’re all written in the same hand.

  Her hand.

  The girl leans against the wall, rubbing her face. I watch her, suddenly unsure. Father always said that if anyone stole my tome from me, they would never give it back. Yet she did.

  She drops her hands. “Seriously,” she says, her voice thick. “What are you?”

  Those words sting. What. As if I’m a thing.

  “I’m not a what,” I say. “My name is Alix.”

  Every time I speak, her eyes go a bit wider, as if every time she isn’t quite expecting it. She doesn’t seem to know what to say. Then, of all things, a dry smile tweaks at the corner of her mouth. “Karis.”

  I blink. That was not the reaction I was expecting.

  She raises an eyebrow as she studies me, firelight flickering across her face from the lamp. I’ve always regretted not having eyebrows.

  “How did you get down here?” she asks.

  That memory rises again of my father calling out to me, but it’s fuzzy around the edges. Perhaps I don’t want to know what the fog of my memory is hiding from me. Father wouldn’t have abandoned me in a place like this, with my tome unprotected. Which begs the question of where he is right now. “I don’t... I don’t know.” I rub my fingers over my tome. Its cover feels different. It’s worn, the leather cracked in places like scars. It wasn’t worn before. What is going on?

  I glance up at Karis. I’m not sure I can risk trusting her, but nothing is making sense, and I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. “You don’t...” I trail off, then force myself on. My father is one of the most prestigious Scriptmasters alive. Surely this girl,
whoever she is, will have at least heard of him. “You don’t know where my father might be, do you? His name is Master Theodis.”

  At the sound of my father’s name, shock flashes across her face, an expression that quickly slides into a fear I don’t understand.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  Karis chews on her lip.

  “Please tell me.”

  Her eyes search mine before she glances away. “Master Theodis is... I mean...” She grimaces. “He’s dead.”

  Dead. A sudden silence presses against my head. The world narrows to the space between me and this girl. I don’t understand that word. I don’t understand what she’s trying to say. “What?”

  The fear slips from her eyes, giving way to something like pity. “I’m sorry.”

  I take a step back, barely realizing I’m numbly shaking my head. There must be a mistake. My father can’t be gone, those twinkling eyes empty, that keen mind silenced. Whatever my memory is hiding, it can’t be that. I search desperately for the lie in her face.

  I don’t find it.

  Unseen cracks split over my skin. “How?” I whisper.

  “No one really knows how. Not anymore, I mean.”

  Not anymore?

  She rubs her arm awkwardly. “Do you have any idea how long you’ve been down here?”

  “A few days perhaps.” It must have only been a few days.

  “It’s just... Master Theodis’s death... It happened over two hundred years ago.”

  Two hundred years. Not days, not weeks, but years. Hundreds of years. I stumble away from her, only to hit the cave wall. I turn, pressing my forehead against the stone as I try to hold myself together, to control the panic clawing up my throat and shivering down my limbs. It isn’t possible. I simply closed my eyes. It can’t have been more than a few days. She must be lying...or trying to trick me...or...