Page 129 of Shardless

Still, Byron continued forward—hearing her silent plea to keep moving. Even when he was a foal, he had always known exactly what she was trying to tell him. And why wouldn’t he? Hers had been the first face he’d seen. His birth had not been easy, and after everyone else had given up on him, even his mother, Taly had stayed beside him, night after night in that humid stable, refusing to let him cross over to the beryl-green fields of Moriah alone. He was hers, and she was his, and he kept moving forward, despite the foam that accumulated around his mouth and even after he had thrown a shoe.

“Good boy,” Taly murmured. She tried to reach a hand out to pet his flank, but she couldn’t muster the energy. She was so tired, and every breath she took just reignited that aching blaze inside her body. It was like continuing to drown even after being pulled to shore. She tried one more time to scratch at Byron’s mane, but her hand just fell away, bouncing limply against his neck as he plodded forward. Byron’s head cocked to the side, acknowledging the gesture. If she didn’t know any better, she could’ve sworn she saw both affection and worry reflected in his glassy, equine eyes.

The next time she looked up, she saw therusted wrought-iron fence that surrounded Infinity’s Edge to her left. They had made it. The tumbling rapids that ran underneath the citadel roared in the distance, and she could feel the hum of the four massive hyaline relays that flanked the royal residence vibrating the very air around her.

For as long as she could remember, Taly had always been fascinated by the abandoned palace. She was seven years old the first time she saw it. She and Sarina had been going to Ebondrift to buy fabric, and they had made a detour so they could ride by the front gates. Sarina had lived on the island for a very long time, several centuries at least, and she could remember what the old palace had looked like when the Time Queen was still in residence. She always used to say that the glamographs couldn’t do it justice, couldn’t come close to capturing the breathtaking beauty of those towering, swirling spires when they were lit up with great blazes of magical fire.

Infinity’s Edge had been left to decay after the Schism—a monument to a massacred tribe. The cobbled drive in front of the palace gates was overgrown and strewn with scrap and what appeared to be discarded pieces of old Mechanica armor. Fragments of what Taly could only guess used to be brilliant shades of blue, red, green, and even chrome were just barely visible beneath the corrosion, and if she dared to look closer, she knew she’d see shards of bone beneath that old armor that had yet to decompose. The final resting place of the Time Queen’s Crystal Guard—exposed to aether, a corpse could take several centuries to completely turn to dust.

Still, even ravaged by war and neglect and surrounded by the bodies of the fallen, the ruinedpalace was a thing of beauty. A great dome flanked by columns of white marble crested in gold reached up towards the heavens, and even from this distance, Taly could see the glint of moonlight reflected off the carved, twining roses that stretched up and over the exterior walls of the main palace. She couldn’t remember ever being able to see that far, especially at night, but these new highborn eyes could easily detect details that previously would’ve been lost to the shadows.

They were almost there now, and even the air started to smell sweeter as they approached the gated entrance. The heavenly draft soothed the burning in Taly’s lungs and made the dull, throbbing pain that had taken root deep inside her just a little easier to bear.

As they passed by one of the colossal, darkened relays, it unexpectedly flashed, lighting up the night sky. For a brief moment, night turned into day, and she recoiled as the blinding glare hit her overly sensitive eyes.

Byron reared, and though Taly grasped at his mane, she couldn’t stop herself from sliding off his back. Her breath got knocked out of her as she hit the ground, and instinct had her quickly rolling to the side to avoid getting trampled. Another flash from the relay sent Byron galloping off into the woods.

“What the…” she panted, her eyes darting from side-to-side.

“Ah! There you are, little mage,” a low voice boomed. The malicious, masculine drawl came from everywhere and nowhere, all at once.

Taly clambered to her feet, ignoring the twinge of pain in her knee as her hands groped for the pistol holstered at her waist. She wouldrecognize that voice anywhere. It would no doubt be haunting her dreams from now on. The shadow mage from the relay room had finally found her.

Her hands were steady as she scanned the tree line nearby, but she didn’t see anything out of place. Just the bright flashing of the hyaline monolith to the west—a part of the communication system for the palace that had been disabled shortly after the Schism.

He’s somehow managed to tap into the scrying relay, Taly thought, raising the barrel of her pistol. If that was truly the case, that meant he was close by.

“That was a very impressive display back there, little mage. You caught me off-guard. Believe me when I say, it won’t happen again."

“Who are you?!” Taly screamed into the empty air. She began edging along the fence, towards the gates, but something must have happened to her leg when she’d been thrown. When she went to take a step, she stumbled over a stray piece of scrap. She twisted, trying to regain her balance, but her knee immediately buckled. With a pained groan, she hit the ground, and something in her leg gave a sickening crunch.

The disembodied voice of the man was almost gleeful when he suddenly exclaimed, “Wait! I recognize you. Now that you’ve managed to burn through the rest of that desecration spell… Shards, I thought you looked familiar. Those eyes—thosegrayeyes.” He paused to laugh good-naturedly. “My my, look at how much you’ve grown, Corinna! I must say, you lookjustlike your mother now. It’s a little uncanny.”

Taly tried to get back on her feet, but her leg wasn’t capable of supporting her weight anymore,and she just fell back to her knees.

“Now, now, stop struggling. I know you’re scared right now, but I can take that away. Just be patient. If you stay where you are, I’ll be there soon. And I promise I’ll be gentle with you this time. I spoke with my master, and he has decided to honor you. He is going to raise you up, give you a special place in the great war that is to come. I promise you—all this pain, all this uncertainty… soon it will be gone.”

The bushes started to snap and rustle in the distance.

Taly tried one more time to push herself to her feet, but when that didn’t work, she started crawling. She needed to get past the gates of the palace. Some forgotten instinct told her it was safe beyond the gates. The grit and pebbles bit into her cheek as she pulled herself across the old gravel drive.

Her lungs were starting to burn again. She was too tired to move, too tired to fight, and something in her already knew that whatever magical ability she might have wouldn’t work right now.

A shadow stepped out of the forest just beyond the first hyaline pillar—the man from the relay room. But instead of the hunched and limping figure she expected to see given the extent of his injuries, he stood tall. His fine clothes had been singed, and his skin was still a little flushed from the heat of the flames, but otherwise, he was unharmed. He stalked closer, and the yellow of his eyes seemed to glow as he studied her. He took careful steps as he skirted around the edge of the large, circular patch of gravel, his hands clasped behind him. Snowdrop was sheathed at his waist.

“Before the Schism,” he drawled as he drew closer, “there were more like you.”

Taly raised her pistol and fired off a shot. She smiled when the bullet embedded itself in the man’s shoulder, but her heart sank soon after when he just laughed and dug the bullet out, wiping his hands on his trousers as the flesh instantly knitted itself back together.

“Not very many, mind you,” he continued casually—as if they were just two friends catching up. He chuckled when Taly renewed her efforts to put more distance between them. She gripped at the iron railing, trying to pull herself along, but it was no use. Although his pace was halfhearted and mocking, he was still gaining on her. “Even at the height of their power, time mages were considered quite rare, which made the birth of a time mage something to be celebrated, even envied. Oh, how the noble houses used to clamor, trying to arrange marriages, even soul bonds, all so they could introduce a few precious drops of that coveted time mage blood into their family line.”

He stopped, pretending to ponder something as he ran a finger along his chin. His beard was gone now, burned away, and the skin that had grown to take its place was smooth and pale. “Of course, that’s certainly not the case anymore. These days, breeding contracts are arranged to try topreventthe births of new time mages. Not all successfully, obviously.” He waved a hand in Taly’s direction as he continued to circle. “Granted, your parents were matched long before the Schism. In hindsight, they really should’ve been more careful—or at the very least kept you in Faro. Shards, what did your poor mother think when she saw that golden glow at your AttunementCeremony? She must have been crushed.”

Taly wasn’t going to make it to the main gates. She could see that now. Eventually, the shadow mage would grow tired of toying with her, and whatever this man and his master planned to do to her, she had no desire to find out. But even if she couldn’t escape him, she did have one other option.

She already had her pistol in hand.

She could still control the way this ended.

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