Page 70 of While the Dark Remains

He stands and she bows to him, very low. He pulls her to her feet again. “I am happy he was not beyond my aid.” And then Ballast smiles, too.

We head back into the maze of the fair, then, an ease to the set of Ballast’s shoulders I’m not sure I have ever seen before.

I look at shoes and scarves, peruse a whole booth filled with the pierced tin lanterns that hang all around the square, and another selling small glass spheres with supposed drops of Iljaria magic trapped inside.

Ballast has grown tense and antsy again, and I’m not sure why beyond the lateness of the hour. “You have to buy something,” he snaps in my general direction after I wander away from the sphere booth. “My father will be angry if you don’t.”

My eyes snag on the green ribbon holding his eye patch in place. I gnaw the inside of my lip. I want to shout at him. I want to pull him close.

“There was some jewelry a few stalls back that would suit you, I think,” says Vil helpfully.

Gods, I don’t want either one of them buying me jewelry, and certainly not on Kallias’s coin. I try not to glare.

Instead, I pick out a beautifully illuminated map of the peninsula, a blank book for writing, and a set of new pens and nibs. Then I go back for one of those glass spheres. I choose the one that claims to hold the magic of the Red God, in honor of Indridi. Clearly it’s just a bit of red dye trapped in the glass, but the merchant swears that if I break it, the magic will be set free. I could start a fire, he says, even in the rain.

Vil’s eyes go wet and I feel sick again, Indridi’s scream echoing awfully in my ears. I let Ballast pay for the sphere, and then I slip it into the pocket of my coat, hard and cold. I wrap my hand around it, but the glass never seems to warm.

In the next booth down is an Iljaria storyteller, a young woman with light-brown skin, her white hair bound in two braids so long they touch the ground. She wears thin silk robes in blue and green, not needing heavy furs—her magic keeps her warm. Her eyes fix on mine, and she beckons us over, rings on every one of her fingers.

I step up to the booth, with Vil and Ballast flanking me, and she presses a mug of steaming chocolate into my hands. I don’t know where she got it from—it wasn’t there a moment ago. She produces mugs for Vil and Ballast, too, then draws back the curtain of her booth and waves us inside, the space lit with calm yellow light, though there is no source for it.

We sit on silk pillows, and I am, suddenly, intensely aware of Ballast, the shape and scent of him, his hair brushing against the shoulder of my coat.

“Listen to a tale of my ancestors,” says the storyteller, “and I will tell you what it is you need to hear. The Yellow Lord was the youngest of all the First Ones, and so, too, was he the haughtiest. He did not like bounds to be set on his power; he did not like that the Black Lord still ruled for part of every day, no matter that the Yellow Lord had defeated him.

“The Yellow Lord’s guardian was the Prism Lady, and she made for him a great dwelling place in the very heart of the sun. But he sneeredat her gift, for he wanted to shine his light in the world, not bind his power to that of a mere star.

“But as time wore on, the Prism Lady pressed him to accept the house she had made for him, and warned him that if he did not choose to dwell in the light, he would instead be bound in darkness. The Yellow Lord did not heed her and scorned her authority over him. She had a piece of the power of all the First Ones, to be sure—but what, in the end, is more powerful than light?

“So the Yellow Lord left the palace of the Prism Lady and the dwelling she had made for him, and went to make his own way in the world. He brought his light to the winter, to the graves of the Gray Lady, gilding death in light. The Gray Lady was furious and drove him out.

“For a time, he dwelt with the Green Lady, for springtime and sun go hand in hand. But his light burned too hot for her tender plants, and she, too, sent him away.

“Where can light go? It clashes with time, which contains everything and is yet nothing. It clashes with fire, which is a light and heat of its own. It does not belong in the depths of the earth, where creatures sleep, where seeds put forth roots, where bones decay. And so the Violet Lord, the Red Lord, the Brown Lady—all denied the Yellow Lord. So, too, did the Blue Lady and the White Lady, because with animals and music, they had no time for light. The Yellow Lord did not visit the Ghost Lord, afraid to have his power nullified.

“So the Yellow Lord burned with resentment, with anger. He refused to return to the Prism Lady and the dwelling that awaited him in the sun’s fiery heart. He determined to have all the First Ones notice him. To bow to him.

“And so he called down the stars from the sky. He razed the earth. He turned oceans to steam and mountains to ash.

“And the First Ones came on wind and wing. They came in death and fire, with singing and rage. And they bound the Yellow Lord in darkness, as the Prism Lady had warned him, so he could not destroy the whole of the world with his arrogant light.”

“Is that your tale, storyteller?” says Ballast, his voice tight.

The Iljaria woman kneels before him, putting them on eye level. She reaches out one gentle finger and brushes it against his patch.

His jaw tightens, his single eye welling with tears. It guts me. I wonder if he sees himself as the Yellow Lord, inevitably bound anew in his father’s court. I want to reassure him that if any of us is the Yellow Lord, it isn’t him.

“That is my tale,” says the storyteller softly, crouching back on her heels.

“What is the point of it?” Vil grinds out.

She flicks her glance to him. “The point is whatever you need it to be. To not abuse power, perhaps. To not refuse a gift freely given. That there are better ways to gain acceptance.”

“That binding power is the only way to manage it?” says Ballast. “My father certainly believes that.”

“He is still bound,” I say quietly. “The Yellow Lord is still bound.”

The storyteller’s eyes fix on mine. She stares deep, parsing truth from lies. “Yes,” she says. “He is still bound. But for how much longer, I wonder?”

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