Page 49 of Her Dark Reflection

Dovegni straightened up and eyed me with an expression full of anticipation. ‘To answer that question, it might be best to first show you the dungeons.’

I didn’t see what the dungeons had to do with weaving magic, and his decision not to simply answer my question then and there riled my irritation, but I followed him, nonetheless. He led me down a tangle of corridors and staircases that grew steadily more austere, until we entered a small, bare stone room set with a thick iron door. A trio of padlocks held three bolts in place, and Dovegni withdrew a ring of keys to unlock them, popping each open with a click. He swung the door out with an ease that surprised me, given that it was so large, and behind the door was yet another staircase.

He took a torch from a sconce and gestured to the staircase with a sweep of his arm. ‘This way, Your Grace.’

As we descended, the air grew noticeably colder, biting at my exposed skin and causing me to cross my arms tightly across my chest. Paired with the smell of mould and damp stone, it made for a clear signal that no one descended these steps for any pleasant reasons.

‘Will you give me a hint as to what you’re about to show me, or do you insist on the suspense?’ I asked peevishly.

‘We’re almost there,’ was the only reply I received, and I huffed a sigh as I hitched my skirt a little higher to avoid a puddle of slime on the next step down.

After what seemed like a climb into the belly of the earth, the staircase levelled out into a grubby stone floor, and I ducked my head under a low doorway to come out into the dungeon of the keep. A series of interconnecting tunnels were lined with tiny cells, complete with iron bars. It was so dark there were pits of thick shadow between territories of flickering torchlight. Water dribbled down the walls to pool in oily puddles on the floor. The sound of it dripping from above was a dreary reprise.

‘I hope you don’t mean to lock me up down here,’ I said, only half joking as I peered into the darkness.

He gave a thin smile. ‘Not unless you possess magic.’

My eyes flashed to him, wide with sudden panic, but fortunately he was walking to the nearest cell, his gaze fixed on something inside. I sucked in a breath to calm my racing heart, glad he hadn’t seen the shock that had splashed across my face, but still wary at the reminder that I was in the dungeon of Misarnee Keep with my face cloaked in profane magic. But if he suspected me, he surely would have watched to see how I reacted to his comment, wouldn’t he? Nevertheless, I would need to be on my guard. I followed him slowly, looking to where his eyes were fixed.

In the rear of the cell a figure was slumped on the floor. It looked like a woman with long hair knotted into matted ropes obscuring her face. She was painfully thin and smeared with filth. Dovegni held his torch aloft, shedding more light onto her, and I gasped.

‘Have you ever seen fall spawn in the flesh before?’ he asked, his tone smug. The additional light revealed that she had an extra set of arms sprouting from her ribcage to fall loosely across her knees. She flinched at the sound of Dovegni’s voice, lifting her head to reveal a pointed face with severe cheekbones and an inhumanly long nose. Her eyes were huge, round, and luminous, catching the light like a cat’s as she blinked at us. She opened her small mouth and made a trilling noise, somewhere between a gurgle and a purr.

‘Why is she in here?’ I asked, my throat tight. I thought fall spawn would be horrifying. They were described as ugly, terrifying, unnatural. But as she leaned forward a pair of translucent wings flitted into the space behind her and it was clear to me that, despite the grime and the strangeness of her features, she was beautiful in the same way as an exotic orchid or a colourful insect was. Inhuman, certainly, but not horrifying.

‘Itis here for blood harvest,’ he said, as though the revelation was as mundane as a comment about the weather.

‘Forwhat?’

‘You wanted to know how we weave magic. Here is your answer. The fall spawn generate the magic and we collect it, working it into enchantments or consuming it directly, depending on what we are hoping to achieve.’

Horror and revulsion oozed down my spine. ‘Their blood?’

‘Think of it as a raw material, like flour to a baker. We collect the flour, so to speak, and what we add to it and how we bake it leads to countless creations.’ This explanation had the quality of something repeated, like he used this analogy often, perhaps with new initiates.

‘So, you have no magic of your own?’ I wanted to tear my eyes away from the creature on the floor, to crawl away from the knowledge that she was chained up down here in the dark, having the blood drained from her veins to makecleaning enchantments, but I couldn’t seem to break her gaze. A small whisper of a thought flitted through my mind, just the faint echo of words, and I felt a queasy sense of an alien presence, as though the thought didn’t belong to me.

Help me.

Dovegni snorted. ‘Would you expect the body of a blacksmith to produce iron, or a dressmaker to shed cloth? We are craftsmen, Your Grace. To be a druthi is to study the arts of weaving magic and to master techniques for achieving different effects, with varying degrees of finesse.’ Without warning, he rapped his torch against the iron bars, causing the creature to break her stare and turn to hiss at him. ‘Forgive me for startling you,’ he said to me as he glared at the creature. ‘It is blood bound so unable to access its magic, but some dregs of mesmerism seem to cling to this species. I wouldn’t expect you to be able to resist, given your lack of experience with such a thing.’

A realisation gripped me suddenly, and I glanced down the tunnel at the flames of torches guttering and swaying on the walls stretching out for a few hundred meters before curving away and hiding the end from sight. ‘How many of them do you have down here?’

‘Currently? I wouldn’t know. They tend to last several months before they expire, so the numbers are constantly in flux. Would you like to look at some of the others?’

I shook my head, keeping my mouth closed tight.

He smiled coldly, his eyes hard. ‘Very well. If you’ve seen enough, I believe lunch will be served shortly. The cold down here always leaves me ravenous.’

I followed him back up the stone stairs, grappling with a thick, sticky form of sorrow.The fall spawn are monsters,I kept telling myself. They were so monstrous they were said to have been unleashed when Aether fell from the sky and split the earth. Binders would often pass through the Winking Nymph,regaling us with their tales of fearsome creatures who could paralyse a human with a look before devouring them while still alive and able to feel the teeth ripping through them, incapable of struggling or even opening their mouth to scream their agony. There were fall spawn who hid beneath the surface of bogs and pounced on the unwary, dragging any they captured to a murky grave, and those who could swoop down from the sky and pluck a human up in their talons to carry away and consume.

I kept seeing the luminous eyes of the creature in the cell, the way she had slumped against the wall, those iridescent, fragile wings. I knew any of the creatures the binders managed to capture were sold, but I suppose I had never given much thought to why anyone would want to buy them. Until now.

Dovegni and I were served lunch in a courtyard fragrant with jasmine, and he spoke a great deal about his plans for the guild, but I hardly listened to him, even though I was supposed to be charming him. When it came time to leave, I found I was eager to flee the incessant sound of his voice and the smug look of satisfaction he wore as he looked around at his little empire.

He walked me to the carriages awaiting to ferry me back to the palace. My attendants all scrambled to rise from where they had been waiting beneath a shaded glade of trees, no doubt grumbling to each other about having been left there so long.

‘I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that what you have seen today is a precious secret,’ Dovegni said when we were a few paces away from the carriage. ‘We wouldn’t want just anyone having access to the knowledge of how magic is woven.’

---