#1 RING — “Well, brother,” Osedo began, and flashed him a dark, wild grin from across the gardens, moonlight lending his red eyes a malevolent glow that made Demas feel, with all certainty, that the drop in temperature was not all just in his mind: “it seems I have you surrounded; what now?”
#2 HERO — Demas’s eyes softened as he watched Allegius toddle after his older brother: Luken was at the age now where he was simply far too important to entertain the littler ones, and Aimar spent half the year with his mother — an agreement to which Osedo had acquiesced with a roll of his eyes — so it was Ilach that Allegius clung to, and when Allegius bumped into the back of Ilach’s knees and fell onto his rump, he did not hesitate to reach up for Ilach’s hands, tan where Allegius’s were pale, when Ilach stooped to pick him up as he had always done.
#3 MEMORY — He could lose himself in it if he was not careful: his brother’s steady presence, the heat radiating from Osedo as they stood shoulder to shoulder, watching over their father’s pyre as their sisters kept the flame lit and coaxed the smoke into shapes that told of all their father’s accomplishments; and if he tried hard enough — sometimes, when the pain was too much, he tried very hard, a dangerous concoction of herb and drink and tinctures that worried Carolina, but it was the only way he could make it stop — Demos could still hear Osedo promising that no Edenveil in the world was ever truly alone.
#4 BOX — “I should like to remind you, Osedo,” Antonia snapped, voice all Oremisian steel, sharp and dangerous, eyes flashing as she finally whirled around to look at him, hand lifting from their second baby’s niche in the columbarium; and there she was, the woman he could have found a way to love if the Mothers had blessed them, but here they were, with only death between them, “that you are not the only one who lost a child today, and I will not suffer a dismissal from you like I am a servant and not your wife.”
#5 RUN — In the safety of his brother’s tall, long shadow, there had been no need for Demas to become a hunter; but Osedo’s first act of protection had been to kill, and then he had turned killing into his calling, and so it took everything Demas had to lend himself to the fire again and allow himself to be reforged, sharpened before he began the chase, not yet entirely sure if he wanted to see it through until the end.
#6 HURRICANE — Eryna smirked and looked at her half-brother on the opposite side of the shore, glaring viciously at her as he and their father’s men fanned out and tried to find an opening through the gales she wove across the lake, the surface of the water hissing as she continued to beckon her wind to rise, churn, agitate; she had waited for them for three days, confident in Ilach’s prediction that Allegius could not resist the opportunity for a victory to bring back to their father, and was glad that finally — finally — she had the chance to disappoint him one more time.
#7 WINGS — Carolina watched the raven distrustfully as it circled the length of the Sun Room, swooping low before landing right in front of Demas, eyeing him pompously as it cawed in his face while jutting its leg out, beckoning for her husband to take the message tied to it, taking flight immediately as soon as Demas held the small scroll in his hands; she turned to Eryna, and her niece nodded imperceptibly, rising and exiting to make sure the bird would not make it back to Osedo.
#8 COLD — Allegius drew Rila and Lorea closer to him, one sister under each arm, and exhaled heavily as they tucked themselves into his sides, breaths visible in the frigid, winter air, sorry he was not able to protect them with fire like they deserved.
#9 RED — “Sir...” the midwife said, and Osedo turned away from the window where he had been watching his two eldest children with their swordmaster — he would have to instruct Ilach separately, but Eryna was excelling, a credit to their mother — and raised a brow when neither the midwife nor Aurelia seemed to know what to say next, tapping his foot impatiently as they looked between each other, until it was Aurelia who finished the thought: “Osedo — his eyes are just like yours.”
#10 DRINK — Ilach threw back the finger of whiskey, uncaring of Eryna’s disgusted scoff and Zerah’s chastisement — the table was hundreds of years old, it could withstand a little thump; he watched blankly as Aimar pulled the tulip-shaped glass toward him, refilling it and following suit, and despite Aimar’s grimace at the slide of the alcohol down his throat, Ilach knew that the burn did not matter, because no kind of pain mattered after Luken turning coat and Lorea’s death.
#11 MIDNIGHT — Demas dismissed the bell-ringers and called for the fires on the watchtowers to be put out before the last chime; Osedo was coming, and Demas had every intention of letting him know he was not welcome here, not anymore.
#12 TEMPTATION — “It is so easy,” said the wisp of magic that was shaped like him, sounded like him; it even tilted its head to the right the same way, quirked the corner of his mouth arrogantly in the same way and if it was all in his head, then how did that explain the very visceral urge to send a fist through his own conjuration, “it is so painless — so simple — for what man does not dream of no more pain, no more fear, no more helplessness, no more inadequacy?”
#13 VIEW — Oremis rested above a mountaintop, cresting the skyline with its fortresses and tall spires and looming over its surrounding cities, so the sunrises had always been impressive against the backdrop of the city, but there was something about sunrise at Dawn’s Gate, purposefully built facing east so that it received first light every morning, that no visitor to its marble and limestone glory could ever forget, and even though it had been moons since he’d seen it for himself now, Allegius knew he would remember the sight for the rest of his life.
#14 MUSIC — Osedo closed his eyes and the din of the battlefield disappeared; it had been so long since he had heard the singsong intonation of Antonia’s voice, the blazing fire in her palms a miracle compared to the lack of one in her belly despite their best attempts: how apt, how appropriate, if she razed him to ashes now.
#15 SILK — Their uncle allowed Amata to wear shades of the Edenveil colours when she married, and she looked stunning in her wedding wear, set off by the jewellery Demas and Carolina included as part of her considerable dowry, especially one for an illegitimate child, but Luken hated that she had to be married off in the first place simply because her body had not kindled the fire within it; and as he and Zerah were given time after the ceremony to say their goodbyes to their sister privately, he swore on the First Mother and all the Mothers that came after that he would make his uncle see just how costly his mistake would be.
#16 COVER — “This is no ordinary rain,” Aimar muttered, face turned up to the sky, and Ilach was inclined to agree with him; he shot a flare high above them as a message for Zerah and Eryna in the rear to signal the retreat, and then turned to his brother and said somberly, “Darling Rila has grown.”
#17 PROMISE — “There will be none other than me who will bring him home,” Demas vowed, posture unfaltering in the light of daybreak that filtered in through the towers, statuesque as he stood before Grandmother and the family elders and brought the dagger to his palm; “fashion me into my brother’s keeper, and I will do my duty.”
#18 DREAM — In his mind’s eye, Osedo could see the Basca they all deserved, magics cast freely and without fear, no looming threat of exile or execution, witches spilling out into the streets to back into the light after they had been driven into the outskirts, into the shadows; they had been made to feel small for so long, made to feel unworthy, and though Osedo’s ancestors had made the infuriatingly questionable decision of aligning with the Church dogs in the first place, they had also been the first to rise up against them, and he knew, deep in the marrow of his bones, that he had been born for this: a sword so sharp the Inquisition’s throats would feel like water, glory to his father’s name and justice for the covens.
#19 CANDLE — Elia marched into the darkness of Ehagan’s Chapel in the middle of the night and set every wick ablaze with a thoughtless, furious wave of her hand, crossing the length of the nave within moments to kneel before the altar and swipe a blade across her palm, vibrating with rage as she thought of her sister on her deathbed because of the poison that coated their uncle’s sword; she would chain him, she swore, and she would bring him before her father, and Sera would be avenged.
#20 TALENT — Balancing Allegius on his hip with one hand, Ilach sparked a small fire in his palm, the fire of a matchstick, bringing his hand closer as Allegius leaned for it and pulling it away at the last moment; and when he sent a ball of flame spiralling into the air, much to his brother’s delight, Eryna rolled her eyes, but she was on the ground with Aimar hanging off of one arm and Lorea off the other, shrieking into her ear all the while, so she was in no position to judge him.
#21 SILENCE — In the silence of the columbarium, Demas’s boots against the marble floor could have been cannons, but even then, Osedo would have known his brother’s footsteps anywhere and he turned, knowing he would see only sympathy there, only love; only his brother could have pulled him out of mourning for a son that should have outlived him.
#22 JOURNEY — Osedo gazed up at the tall marble fortifications surrounding Dawn’s Gate, a beacon in the daylight when it caught the sun at the right angle, viewable from nearly anywhere in Oremis as if it and not the archcathedral were the central place of worship in the city, and he breathed in the magic in the air that still, after all these years, called out to him, beckoning him to retake his rightful place: Soon, he thought, spurring his horse forward without even looking to see if Allegius and their men would follow; I will be home soon.
#23 FIRE — Luken looked at Allegius worriedly and wondered, not for the first time, if he had made the right decision to side with their father, because if he had stayed, he wouldn’t be standing here, hands trembling in his gauntlets despite how tightly he held onto his reins, staring at what his father’s men referred to as the Pyrehounds, the swath of Edenveil witches touched by fire that stood shoulder to shoulder at the fore of their battalion; there, Elia, eyes forever darkened by Sera’s death, and beside her, Aimar, resplendent with recognition, only a step behind their uncle and their stepmother, but ahead of them, already burning, prepared to incinerate, Ilach in his armour but unhelmed, looking more like their father than Luken had ever seen him.
#24 STRENGTH — Osedo scoffed as Allegius’s Echo faded after three strikes of his sword to the breast, and Allegius winced in the sudden hush of the training grounds, looking away in embarrassment, cheeks aflame.
#25 MASK — If Osedo expected even a sliver of a reaction from her, Antonia took pride in defying him; let him ask his lover to present his son to her, Echo-eyed, fresh from the womb, and let Aurelia think she bested her, a witch of the coasts come to usurp her place, her marriage vows — she knew the name they whispered behind her back, did not care that they murmured burnt womb wherever she walked: she had endured this far, this long, and she would be damned if another child sired elsewhere by her husband was what broke her.
#26 ICE — Frost arrived with the Oremisian winters, even if the snow never stayed, but nothing felt as cold as the empty furnaces in the Echoer’s Wing after Osedo’s departure.
#27 FALL — “Take me,” Osedo rasped, reaching out to the magic rattling in him, the gift that made him near divine, and he thought he heard something cackle triumphantly, leap with joy, a rush of exhilaration that nearly toppled him, an ecstasy he had never felt before, “and take of me.”
#28 FORGOTTEN — Allegius’s heart sank at the chilly expression on Ilach’s face, falling down to his stomach as his brother unsheathed his sword — not Vengeance, he thought, catching sight of the elaborate twisting gold of the ornate basket-shaped crossguard, no, no, Uncle Demas must have been possessed to entrust that sword to a child born outside of the line — poised to strike him down as if they had not grown up together and Ilach had not chased all his bad dreams away.
#29 DANCE — Antonia only looked away from the scene unfolding before her when Carolina came up to her to lay a hand on her shoulder; her goodsister did not have to say a word when the hastily veiled pity said it all, and Antonia shook her head and smiled bitterly, murmuring, “I am well-versed in this,” assuring her she had nothing to worry about: Osedo had already exchanged her bed — her womb, hah — for two others: what was a third?
#30 BODY — Oremis had taken from him the family life he desired, the same way his older siblings took the recognition he desired and his uncle took his right to live by his father’s side, triumphant: but none of them — not their city, not their family — could tear him from his father in death; and when Allegius breathed his last, curled around the body of his father, Osedo’s head cradled in his lap, he was satisfied, knowing that at least this, they could not take from him anymore.
#31 SACRED — “Osedo gave him the name Aimar,” Antonia said to Demas, desiring to seethe with rage but incapable of anything else except staring blankly as her goodbrother winced, looked away in apology, knowing there was nothing he could say to assuage her humiliation, “not so that he could honour his new son by naming him after the dawn that is to come, or promise himself to the child’s mother, but so that he could insult me — so that he could exalt his ability to sire a child born of a fire womb, just not from mine.”
#32 FAREWELLS — Ilach did not speak as he watched his father ride away from Dawn’s Gate, every line of him noble and defiant, as if he was not walking away from his wife, his other children, his family, his legacy; and when his eyes caught on the slim, pale shadow to his father’s right, the little boy who had always longed to bask in their father’s light now a man who wore the colours of their father’s armour inverted, he found that he did not want to say anything, after all.
#33 WORLD — “You are not seeing it, Demas,” Osedo insisted from the window, haloed by the reds and golds of the sunset, voice tinged with a touch of hysteria as he went on: “Oremis free, unshackled, the Inquisition’s hands pried away from her throat” — his fists clenched on the sill — “and us at the forefront, defending the covens, defending our birthright, our hands on the pulse of our freedom: the future is ours, little brother, why won’t you let me take it the way we should?”
#34 FORMAL — Heart hammering in his chest, Demas knelt on the mosaic floor at the crossing of Ehagan’s Chapel and closed his eyes, surrendering himself to the sound of the family elders surrounding him like the arms of a star; he heard the fires start all around him, inhaled as he felt the blazes pour out into the shape of the Edenveil lion on the floor, hissing as they slithered toward him, and just above the din, Grandmother’s voice the steadiest of all, enshrining him as the new head of the family as the fire in him flared to life and burst from him.
#35 FEVER — “No,” Demas whispered in horror, threading his hand through Sera’s, and when she grasped him weakly, the poison and the fever having ravaged through her, he felt his entire world shift — not his daughter, not his daughter; Mothers, not his little moon — and knew, then and there, that she was about to slip away, “Sera — Sera, why did you do that, little light, my darling child, you cannot leave, you cannot leave,” but she was too far gone to speak now, and soon, in a moment, in an age, he was going to lose her altogether.
#36 LAUGH — The dark sound left Osedo’s throat, a laugh devoid of all joy, malice plastered over cracks where once, sunlight could have thrived, and Antonia stepped back, the frost sluicing down her spine causing her to hold her casting hand aloft defensively, but — no — she cried out, she had underestimated how quickly Osedo moved in his armour, encumbered as he was — he grabbed hold of her wrist and gripped, pulled, the metal of his gauntlet digging into her skin as he pulled her closer, eyes narrowed and snarling — another bruise again, perhaps it was a blessing they had no children of their own — metal pressing down on fine bone — so close that the shadow of his hair turned the sclera of his eyes black.
#37 LIES — “All will be well, little brother,” Osedo assured him, holding his gaze with all the temerity of an Oath being sworn, as if by his words alone, he could justify the flaying of the Inquisition informants in the cellars who had begged for clemency in exchange for the scrolls of information they were carrying; “I am here.”
#38 FOREVER — Demas pushed himself away from the table over the sound of plates and cutlery rattling as he slammed the butt of his goblet onto the table, shaking his head in disbelief that Grandmother could even suggest that they unstitch Osedo’s name from the tapestries adorning the Echoer’s Wing; he already killed his brother once and lived with the haunting of Osedo’s eyes when he did not have a drink or Carolina in hand: he was not going to do it a second time to ensure that not even the walls of Dawn’s Gate would remember him.
#39 OVERWHELMED — Allegius pulled on the reins of his horse and reared back as his uncle’s forces parted — they were never-ending; an outpouring of soldiers who claimed they were loyal to Oremis, when they could not even remain loyal to his father — and Aimar and Zerah stepped through, a brother born of fire and a sister who touched the earth and made it tremble: a little voice in his head told him it would be in his best interest to signal a retreat, that perhaps he could face one or the other but not both, not with his troops at half-strength, but he quashed it, refused to be cowed because his father would not be cowed, and urged his men forward, casting hand aloft.
#40 WHISPER — Demas slid the tip of his blade into the space behind Osedo’s gorget, and Osedo’s blood red eyes stared up at him, mouth twisted into a sharp, manic smile, tipping his head back onto the archcathedral’s marble floor, a sculpture of defiance bathed in the glow pouring in from the skylight; beyond him, Allegius, chained by Elia’s fire, roared his father’s name in agony, but like an Old Master’s marble, Osedo was unhearing because his gaze was trained only on Demas, because his mouth was already forming the words that Demas would never be able to forget: “You have my life in your hands, little brother — are you angry enough to take it?”
#41 WAIT — “Halt,” Lorea called, wincing at the crack of her voice, and the way Zerah’s savage grin widened, sharpened, made her flush with shame, another reminder that she had not been born for the battlefield, she’d been born for the books, “halt,” but Zerah paid her no heed, and as she stepped closer — where was Allegius, what was taking him so long, where was Father — the earth trembled in her wake.
#42 TALK — “I did not come back here to waste my breath, little brother,” Osedo snapped, unsheathing the broadsword from his back, eyes flaring as his facsimile shimmered into existence without even needing to say the words, scar on his mouth a furious red as it reopened, blood dripping onto his chin, “I came here to show you what happens to those who oppose me.”
#43 SEARCH — Luken yelled as Aimar tore through his defences with a shout, waving away his shield of fire as if it had only been air and syphoning it into him instead, each tongue of flame consumed a knifepoint into the pressure points of his casting hand, pain causing him to fall to his knees, unable to hear Aimar’s agonised demand for Eryna’s location over the sound of his own howling.
#44 HOPE — Demas and Carolina exchanged twin grins of amusement as they watched Osedo’s children chase each other around the courtyard, bevy of nurses looking at the them in as much fond exasperation they dared to spare in the vicinity of the second lord and lady of the house; Carolina had just given birth to Baztán not even two moons past, so their own boy would have to wait a while to play with his cousins, but at least he would not be wanting for company.
#45 ECLIPSE — Take me, the witch said, and the Echo writhed in triumph, a study in ecstasy, a wave at sea during a ferocious storm as it heard the words, saw the doors of Osedo’s soul open and seeped in, unimpeded; and when Osedo told it, take of me, it could have smiled if it had a mouth of its own, laughed and raised its fist in elation, it found the black fire of his heart and sank its teeth into him, leeched blood, leeched joy, leeched skin until it became the Echo’s skin, absorbed the hint of a fire until it withered into nothingness, darkness thriving, darkness twisting as it cut itself out of Osedo’s body through his mouth, cleaved its way toward the light it craved and basked, satisfied, a conqueror, in the haze of total surrender.
#46 GRAVITY — “Pregnant,” Antonia whispered, placing a trembling hand on her belly, pale blue eyes widening as she looked over at her husband, whose victorious smile nearly split his handsome face in half, eyes shining with pride as the head healer nodded firmly, smiling at them both: “An heir for the dawn,” Osedo said with confidence, as if a son were an inevitability, as if he could make their future happen with no tools except for his will and his own two hands.
#47 HIGHWAY — “You do not have to leave with him,” Ilach said once all nine of them were alone, laying a hand on Allegius’s shoulder to keep him from moving away, and Allegius looked up at him defiantly, but the slope of his mouth was unsure; behind them, Amata was comforting their youngest sisters while Eryna paced the room, letting curses loose as Allegius refused, denied him, insisted they should all leave, as Allegius wrenched his shoulder from Ilach’s grip and shook his head, face twisted, already mourning, already grieving: “If you won’t — if you won’t, then — then I will.”
#48 UNKNOWN — Not even the collapse of Dawn’s Gate could have torn Demas from his vigil at Osedo’s side as he recovered from Illán, where Demas had found him slumped over the bodies of three Inquisitors, each one more ravaged than the last, one missing an eye, one with the wings of his ribcage jutting out, the other with no throat, and Osedo barely breathing, Osedo delirious, Osedo with a wound from cheek to chin bleeding profusely; Antonia had taken one look at him in the infirmary bed and then swept out, unmoved, but Demas could not leave until he knew, with certainty, that Osedo was going to open his eyes again.
#49 LOCK — Father looked at her, haunted, but Elia refused to back down, clenching her jaw as tightly as she clenched her fists, the chains of fire around her uncle’s wrists biting into bone; her eyes flared in triumph at the sharp inhale from Osedo’s mouth, the way the scar across his lips pulled back — if he struck her down now, she could die content knowing she had brought him to his knees, this grotesque, lost soul brought low before her father, upstanding and burning — and she hissed, “For Sera,” and delighted in the way it hardened Father’s resolve.
#50 BREATHE — “All will be well, little brother,” Ilach said as Allegius curled into his side, flinching at the roar of the thunderstorm tearing its way through Oremis, and Ilach ruffled his hair gently, smiling although Allegius could not see him; “I am here.”