Angel of Storms (Millennium's Rule, #2)(124)

Then why does my body allow me to age? she asked as several worlds flashed by.

“Because when the body heals it is attempting to return to a pattern. Ageing is not a deviation from the pattern.”

Which was why it was called pattern shifting. To not age was to alter the natural pattern of the body. Did it automatically try to return to the natural state? Did being ageless require constant application of magic?

“All these questions will be answered in time,” he told her. Darkness surrounded them, then brightness, then the gently lit Arrival Hall. “But not yet,” he finished aloud. She nodded to show she understood. She must master everything else before she tackled the more sophisticated kinds of magic. She must finish her lessons with Dahli.

Valhan let go of her arm, stepped back and vanished.





CHAPTER 18





Rielle hovered in the entrance to Dahli’s rooms. Like all of the maintained areas of the palace, the walls were so covered in sculpted, painted and gilded surfaces she could not guess if the walls beneath had been fashioned from the natural stone of the caves or a human-made addition. Artwork of vastly different styles hung where gaps had been left in the decorations. Sculptures occupied niches and alcoves. Hangings blanketed walls and curtained doorways.

The open door suggested visitors were welcome, but she could not overcome her reluctance to enter without an invitation.

“Hello?” she called.

A head appeared in one of the internal doorways, then a man stepped into view and bowed. He wore a plain, sleeveless garment that hung loose from his shoulders and fell to the tops of neat slippers.

“Master Dahli is not here,” he said.

“Ah.” Rielle drummed her fingers on the door frame as she considered what to do. Dahli had said nothing to suggest her lesson wouldn’t be taking place as usual. “Can you tell me where he is, or when he will return?”

“I do not know. I apologise.” Another bow.

She smiled. “No need to apologise. I will return later.”

Retreating into the corridor, she started towards her rooms. They were almost as spectacular as Dahli’s, but she had examined the artwork many times already. The constant presence of servants made her self-conscious and when she tried to strike up a conversation they looked confused and uncomfortable.

Though she’d grown up in a wealthy family, she had regarded the workers in the dyeworks as friends, or a second, extended family. Yet this was not how all of the rich families of Fyre had treated their employees. She’d learned to judge a person’s true character by the way they behaved towards those lesser in status, or how their servants and children responded to them.

Yet it wasn’t fear the servants here expressed. They didn’t expect punishment if they were caught being too familiar, they simply hadn’t encountered anyone among those they served who had paid them much attention beyond giving orders. And they preferred it that way. Sorcerers–ageless sorcerers in particular–had such different needs and wants to ordinary people that they were close to being something not human at all. Something beyond human.

It meant the only person she had to talk to was Dahli. Fortunately he didn’t seem to mind. He was good company and never treated her as a lesser person because of her inexperience, or background. Unlike the priests of her home world, he showed an interest in her beyond her role as a student. He seems as much like a friend as a teacher now. A new friend, she amended. There is still much I don’t know about him. And, unlike with Betzi, we have no shared experiences to bind us.

Valhan was their only common connection. And magic. Thinking of the artwork in Dahli’s room, she wondered if he had chosen it. The works in her room were all in harmony with the décor. As a result, some were a little twee.

Without thinking too much about it, she steered her feet in another direction. What else was there to do but go exploring again? Parts of the palace were still unknown to her. She’d been saving them for a day like this, when she might have to return quickly. Winding through the wide interlocking corridors, she slipped between two heavy doors too warped to close properly into an unlit corridor. With a magic light floating before her, she pursued the receding shadows.

The plaster on the walls still remained intact, but the paint was faded and peeling. Despite the obvious abandonment, artwork still hung from the walls. She guided her light closer to see faces staring back at her from gloomy surrounds, or the black trunks of trees framing dark water or shadowed fields, or animals both graceful and menacing lurking in the gloom.

Here and there heavy lengths of fabric hung from rails–some only by a last few stitches–or sprawled over the floor. A closer look revealed the familiar texture of tapestry, though some used techniques she did not recognise. Their colours were strange, the dyes having shifted or faded with time. She’d hoped to guess how long it had been since the corridor was used and maintained by the deterioration of the textiles, but the varying levels of decay and the possibility that more robust materials and dyes were used in other worlds than those in Schpeta made estimation impossible.

A pair of ornately carved doors emerged from the darkness. She stopped to admire them. Despite the coating of dust and many cracks, the skill of the artisan still radiated from the wood. After admiring them for a while, she peered through the crack between them, opened thanks to the shrinking of the wood. A faint, cold light within revealed another enormous room, populated with people and creatures frozen and still.