Illuminare, p.1
Illuminare, page 1
Copyright © 2022 by Bryn Shutt
www.brynshutt.com
All rights reserved. This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover art by Julia Jacob
Graphic design by HSJ Williams
Interior illustrations by Irina Plachkova, Hannah Rogers, and Kateryna Vitkovska
Edits by Deborah O'Carroll
Proofreading by Cheyenne van Langevelde
Formatting by Polgarus Studio
To Chrissy, Sarah, and Micheline—and all who share light through story.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Interlude
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Bryn
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another. — Dickens
Dear amazing reader,
This story both stands on its own and is a prelude to future events. There are some threads that will be unraveled and some left tangled. You have been forewarned.
Prologue
SHADOWS
Masque, Vawdawr Region
33rd of Sim, 1019 A.R.
Nursery rhymes. They were what was wrong with the world. The shadows had been sure of this for centuries beyond recount. But still, they followed the Thief tonight—despite her singing. It was a low, rhythmic sound muffled and at other times harmonized by the gentle dig of oars into rain-pocked water.
But heaven’s weeping wasn’t the only thing disturbing the surface of the canal.
Streaks of red and gold dye could be seen—and smelled—in the dark water. For this was La Via delle Storie. Theaters lined the right side of the avenue and minstrel halls the left. But down the middle ran the canal and into it, every night, went the used tickets.
The shadows had no idea why dumping dyed paper into a waterway was something that had gone so far down the road of stupidity as to become tradition. But this was the Masque. People didn’t think here, and neither should the shadows. Besides, they were losing the Thief.
She’d pulled her gondola to a stop just under a bridge that flared in a twisting arch over a bend in the canal. Here, the shadows pulled in close, cloaking her.
She didn’t appreciate it.
“Chords.” The foreign curse came out in a low growl as a slim, black-gloved hand started fumbling in the darkness, groping for—
“Aha!” The sound of metal scraping against mold-slickened stone gave the shadows a shiver and they pulled back as the Thief leaned away and began tethering her little boat to a latch jutting out from the bridge’s left wall. Then, before they could decide to pull in again, she was gone, a dark figure jetting over the railings and landing in a soft thud just where the bridge ended and a small walkway began.
The shadows drew up as the Thief stood. The building now before them was like the city, ancient and reeking of secrets, its foundation buttressed by old bones. But what the building held was no secret. On both the back door and the front, in bold letters engraved in the language of Empire, was written: Kingdom of Albidon, Embassy, established 257 A.R.
The Thief ignored the door. Instead, she took two steps back and started swinging a small tangle of ropes in her hand like a lasso, then let them fly. The hooks on the end caught on a second story window and, as the ropes slid downward, a small ladder began to materialize. The Thief had her feet in the rungs and was sliding through the open window before the shadows could catch up. Only a few made it in after her.
The room they found themselves in was small, like an afterthought, made of mismatched walls and a sloping roof. Candles burned on both sides of the room, and in the center, on a desk, a single candelabra flickered three yellow lights over a figure slumped in sleep.
The Thief’s lips twitched. “Ari.” The name slipped from her in a sound too silent to be a whisper, but still, the shadows heard. They looked at the figure again. Golden hair almost red in the warm light, lanky frame, the Albidoni embassy, and that name… The shadows snapped phantom fingers. Artair d’Argon, the Golden Godsent.
The shadows knew him. Everyone knew him. They turned back to the Thief. There was something in the way she looked at the sleeping man, the way her eyes had softened as they locked on the bruising under his and the thin hollows of his cheeks. It was as if she cared. Everyone knew the Golden Godsent. But maybe she knew him differently. There was some history there. Now, what was it—
The shadows didn’t have time to remember. The Thief was moving again. Toe to heel, she padded silently to a trunk under a narrow, turret-styled window and after testing the lock, flipped open the lid. Clothing, maps, and two pairs of boots more dried mud than leather. She frowned.
“Where’s the book?” Her mouth moved with the soundless words as her head whipped around, evergreen eyes scanning the entire room. Books lined the shelves of the back wall, but her eyes kept moving until they landed on the desk again.
If sighs could define frustration, the heave of her chest would have made it into a dictionary. She stood. But instead of approaching the desk, the Thief stepped straight into the shadows. Sliding through the embrace of each one, she moved swiftly then dropped, legs folding, back bent forward.
She made it to the desk and, without raising up from her crouch, slid off a glove, then eased her fingers upwards. She had her hand around a slim volume made of old parchment and too small a cover before the shadows could decide if they were still of any use.
Within less than a dozen heartbeats, she was back out of the room, taking the rope ladder two rungs at a time, followed only by the shadows she’d brought in with her. The others crowded at the window watching her go, their forms lengthened by ever-dimming candlelight.
The shadows knew all the thieves the Masque’s gilded halls and murky canals had ever birthed; thieves liked shadows for some reason, sought their blessing like a patron saint. The shadows, however, only cared for the really good ones.
And this woman, she was the best.
She’d been born here, but she was not Vawde, and she had not stayed. No, she was Isadore Rhym: mistress of secrets, queen of mutterers, head of the Albidoni guild of spies and thieves, Lady of Black and White.
What she was doing here now, hundreds of miles from Albidon, stealing from the very embassy that housed her homeland’s seat in the imperial city, the shadows had no idea. But they had a feeling they were about to find out.
Instead of heading back to the gondola, Isadore reattached the rope ladder to her belt, then, reaching up, unclasped folded layers from behind her collar and around her legs and let the silken fabric spill down. The newly formed cloak and skirt inked out behind her as she slid her hood up and started down the nearest open-ended alley.
The backstreets of the Masque were just like its canals—narrow, dirty, and wet. Isadore took three of these before circling back into La Via delle Storie and coming to a stop in an arched passageway between two theaters.
Loud orchestral sounds poured from an open side door of the one on her right, while the other building exuded nothingness. She looked about to slide into the silence when the shadows suddenly reared up, one looming over the rest. A man stepped from behind a tower of stacked trunks. A giant of a man.
“Lady Rhym. You have my book?”
Isadore froze. She didn’t answer.
The words didn’t sound like a threat. But they weren’t a question either, not really. The shadows pressed around their Thief as she took a step back, shying away from the lone taper burning on the right-side wall. A single finger went to her lips. Jerking her head towards the left door, with one swift movement, she vanished inside.
“You could have waited,” she finally said, feeling over the lintel of a closed door. She hadn’t turned around to see if anyone was actually behind her. “Without announcing me to the entire strada.”
With the twist of a key, the door gave way and Isadore stepped inside. The looming shadow and its owner joined her.
“Forgive me,” the man said. He started to press a hand to his heart, then suddenly stopped, and without another word brushed past the Thief and draped himself into the nearest chair with something like a huff or a grunt. “It’s late,” he said. “Or maybe it’s early. Either way, a thing over and done sounds appealing, no?”
Isadore ignored her guest, a happening the shadows were beginning to think was habit. Instead, she struck a match and began bringing the room’s two lanterns to blazing life.
The shadows yawned as the light stretched them out across the floor. Nighttime shadows were nosy, with a penchant for the forbidden, the morbid, and all things that hide in the darkness. But they weren’t keen and sharp like their sun-stark brothers. Give them a wall to drape over or a carpet to lounge on and something to watch, and they could be happy.
Whatever was about to happen here in this dusty antechamber, however, was probably something they’d seen before. Maybe illegal according to some law, somewhere, but not worth repeating…much less remembering. As the second lantern’s light bloomed to full strength, the shadows yawned again.
Wait. A smell. Something sharp, something metallic like copper. Blood. The shadows locked eyes on their Thief’s guest.
He was tall, closer to seven feet than six. They’d observed this already. A black cloak lined with purple silk stretched across his broad shoulders and spilled onto the floor, smothering a few books along with their silhouette companions. He looked to be in the middle of middle age, and despite his rugged build, the man’s face was angular and fine boned…and pale. Too pale.
Hmm. Interesting.
“So, how long have you been with Ink and Quill?” Isadore had seated herself behind the room’s only desk. It was a small thing made even smaller by the almost crate-length ledger that took up almost every inch of it.
“A while.”
Isadore’s eyebrows dipped in irritation. Spies and thieves made their living in what they stole and what they saw. If people said little and did even less, well, it was bad for business.
“Your payment, then? I told you, I want it in lions, not hydras. I want out of this sewer-city.” The last line she said under her breath.
“First—” The man shifted in his seat and leaned forward slightly; the movement tightened the wrap of his cloak around his shoulders and the clench of his jaw—as if he was in pain. The smell grew sharper. “Let me see the book.”
Isadore shrugged but complied. She held up the volume with its stained pages with the pose of one who had every intention of jerking back should her client decide to make a grab for it.
“Yes.” The tall man gave a single nod and with another solitary movement tossed a velvet bag onto the desk. It landed on its side, three glinting gold coins leaking out onto the open ledger. “But it looked better last time I saw it.”
“This thing’s over six centuries old. I don’t imagine it’s looked good for a long time. Your name?”
“Kennet Zur.”
Oh?
But Isadore just waved her quill in a circle like the name was a fly and she intended to swat it from the room. “I mean your real name, not your guild role. I need it for our records.” She glanced up at the man and cracked a rare, coaxing smile. The shadows doubted it was genuine. The weary bend to her shoulders said she’d welcome her bed.
“Kennet Zur.”
The shadows, flickered by the light, cast glances at each other.
The Thief growled. The man crossed one long leg over the other and locked both hands against his knee. “My lady,” he began. “I don’t care if you believe the moon is a loaf of bread and I’m the baker. If you want my name, that is my name.”
The quill in Isadore’s hand took another twirl. The feather might have taken flight if her grip hadn’t been so white-knuckled. But finally, with a huff then a shrug, she started writing. Her strokes came out like little stabbing digs into the parchment, but the shadows were barely paying attention.
Their Thief wasn’t wrong. The Albidoni guild of libraries and writers had a tradition of titling their current master after the name of Ink and Quill’s original founder, a half Albidoni, half Veil chronicler who had died in this very city centuries ago.
…Well, that was one way to look at it. But handed down, passed around from shadow to shadow, was another tale, that of a man who’d died yet lived, slipping through generations and centuries chronicling stories until he had become one himself. But it was a story made like shadows: faceless, fluid, shifting, vanishing for a while, then coming around again. The guild had taken fact and fantasy and made a role out of it. But…
Who knows what the truth really is?
There was one way to find out.
“Well, then.” Isadore slid the coins back into their pouch and drew the string. With a twist, she dropped the money into an unseen trunk to her left, then stood. She shut the ledger. “As always, we at Black and White are here to serve, especially our fellow guilders.” She held out the book.
The man rose and reached to take it, but Isadore suddenly pulled back, drawing him towards her. Her next words would be real ones. “You know,” she began. “I don’t like stealing from the count. He’s a friend and a friend to Albidon. I only took this job because one guild can’t refuse another. I don’t know what your politics are, but Artair will be good for our country—”
“Good men tend to be good by default, my lady,” the man interrupted. “That I would never deny. But this book was born in war, and war has stolen it again from where it belongs. Not to revolutionaries nor to royals. It belongs to the Library in Prevecost. And it’s my job to see that it’s returned there. Now, if you will forgive me yet again, I really—”
“Chords!” This time it was the Thief’s turn to cut the conversation. “You’re bleeding!”
The man threw a glance down at his chest. “Eh? Oh, yes.” In reaching for the book, his arm had swept back his cloak, revealing gashed grey velvet stained and streaked with crimson just over his heart. He shrugged the opposite shoulder. “A little run-in earlier. Nothing that can’t be mended.”
“Are you mad?” The energy in Isadore’s words sent her small frame scrambling atop her desk with one hand reaching out to latch onto the tall man’s collar. “My lord, there’s playing your role, and then there’s insanity. You are not actually some storybook immortal and you need a physician. Please.”
But the man’s only reaction was a sigh. The sound was slow, like time had no hold on when it might end…or when it had begun. Gently, he pried her fingers loose. “I appreciate your concern, but I’d really like to be going now. Still.” His hand suddenly tightened around hers for a moment, his lips twitching almost into a smile.
His eyes—they were blue-green, the color of an endless ocean—softened like a father to a child. “Keep caring, little lady, about all the things: your homeland, your friends, those who bring you joy—” His smile stretched into a small chuckle. “Even those who bring frustration. It might bode you well someday. Addio.” With that, he swept a bow and was gone.
He didn’t vanish, but he moved from the room faster than any man with a stab wound to the heart should—which, by the shadows’ recollection, was not at all.
“Follow that man!” The words passed from shadow to shadow through the strada and into a twisting series of alleys and then down. Down beneath the pear tree-lined streets, beneath the canals. Down to where the bones dwelled.
Isadore tried to follow the man. The shadows heard her footsteps, her calls. But she would never find him down here.
The Masque was built on the Masque, except it hadn’t always been called that. Once it had been Tu’am, imperial city, master of millions, both in people and in acres. No foe could fight against the Vawdawr Empire and her imperators and hope to win. Except one.
The sea.
With watery claws, centuries ago, she’d come and taken men, miles, and gold to herself, crushing them down deep within her bosom. The capital itself did not wholly fall, but in the floods that had threatened to overwhelm the city, thousands had died, their bodies trapped in sandy graves beneath the ruins.
Eventually, the citizens had rebuilt. Built a city on bones. They called it the Masque. But they knew what they had once been. They would always remember.
Except, maybe some things had been forgotten. As the shadows delved down into the Under, chasing their Thief’s client, they knew one thing—they were about to find a dead man. Or…something that had been slipping unseen through Time for far too long.
In the light of three matches, they finally found him. He was leaning against a pillar that had once held up a grand house or maybe even the Senate. It was hard to tell; the shadows had lost some of their bearings in the rush.
But the thing they did notice, the only real thing that was worth noticing, was how the man leaned. Not slumping, panting, or any of the other things he should have been doing heartbeats ago. He had one foot kicked back against the pillar’s base while one shoulder rested in a deep groove some forgotten weapon had plunged there. And he was reading.
