Page 61 of Apple Boy

I knew Adam was right. I warily drew the gemstone out. Again, it became far too warm in my hand for me to hold, and I knew something was not right. My instinctive reaction was to let it go and drop to the floor. Sweating with fear I opened my palm. The stone did not fall, it shot quickly into the air as if a puppet on a string, and rose up far too high for me to grasp, and then it started to move forward.

“Damn it,” I cursed through gritted teeth. Awestruck, we followed the floating gemstone through curiously empty corridors, and then we ascended a stairway that circled around the building to be on the floor above the meeting hall. With every step, I hoped that a servant or guard would not come into the hallway or descend a stairs. The gemstone made its way to the center of the circular space where the opalescent moon window was installed in the floor. Above it, another moon window looked down upon us, and I guessed that these windows were set on each floor of the tower until they met where the giant Star-fall was once housed at the pinnacle. My small shard of that very stone paused above the moon window. I stopped beside Adam.

“What do we do?” I was concerned that a guard would happen upon us in a place we should not be. The Star-fall began to rotate in mid-air, and it glowed with a pulsing deep red hue. The air around it wavered as if it was a hot day. I suddenly understood what it was doing. This was where the stone landed on plummeting from the heavens; goodness knows how long ago. The magic was imbued in the very bedrock of Serein—and it was in every brick of the Great Council’s tower. The gemstone was replenishing itself with magic. The light it gave out grew brighter and brighter until it became a piercing white light and neither Adam nor I could look directly at it. I lowered my gaze and looked at the moon window set in the floor below. The light penetrated the window sending a rose-tinted hue into the Great Councils chamber. I heard the echoing cries, and surprised roars of “The Star-fall has been returned!” then I heard doors opening, feet scurrying and more unintelligible calls.

“Shite! They’re coming! What have we done?” Adam whispered roughly. He took several steps forward and grabbed for the stone, then he let out a yelp and opened his palm.

“The fookin’ thing burned me!” He exclaimed furiously. There I saw that he too was branded with my family seal.

The echo of thudding footsteps increased, and a dart of fear set me into motion. I grabbed for Adam with my left hand and the gemstone with my right. My small Star-fall now contained more magic than I could handle. A violent pulse of power entered me, passed into Adam, and exploded outwards. The walls of the Great Council’s tower seemed to shudder, and a shaft of rose-gold light rushed from where my hand met the stone then up and down through the moon windows. The glass of the window was no longer milky and opalescent; it was red.

We had arrived at the tower at noon, but as my eyes darted to a window, I saw night rolling in as swiftly as a wave. Within moments darkness covered the city of Serein.

“Where did it go? Where is the stone?” A manic call echoed in circles around us as the footsteps seemed to be heading for the moon windows on all floors of the tower. I decided that we should also run and pretend we did not know what the commotion was all about.

I pocketed the gemstone, and it settled as if it was now full and satisfied. We rushed back downstairs passing guards and servants who had strangely stopped in their tracks. However, they were not motionless, as had happened in The Half-Mast. These people were staring straight ahead, but their eyes were not right, not right at all. I was drawn to a woman in her later years who wore a servant’s garb. Her eyes were misted over with a rosy hue. The servant’s mouth was moving, and she was speaking, her words so light and breathy they were almost inaudible. Adam and I shared a worried glance; I moved closer,

“Are you quite well, my dear?” I asked. The servant set her strange unseeing gaze upon me, and I heard her words hiss from her throat, “I remember, I remember.”

I was horrified. What had we done? “Come,” Adam tugged urgently at my sleeve, “We have to get back to the chamber.” He sounded as alarmed as I felt, and he was right, we could not dally in case we roused too many suspicions.

We ran down the corridor and saw the doors of the council chamber thrown open. Strange murmuring and sobbing sounds were coming from the room. Instinctively, we both paused and then walked in through the open doors to see four of the seven council members standing in a circle below the moon window, their hands raised, eyes closed, chanting in a fevered timber. The red hue left by my gemstone was fading a little at the edges, and the opalescence was returning. Amber Silverich was sitting on the floor underneath the arc table clutching her knees and rocking; she too recited the same eerie mantra.

“I remember, I remember.”

My uncle sat with his head in his hands, and I hoped he was not taken by the strange rose-tinted affliction that had touched others. I rushed to his side and sat beside Ivon.

“Uncle, what’s happening? I was in the guard de robe and heard shouting.” I lied. I felt ridiculous, but it was the first thing that popped into my head.

Ivon was silent and pensive, and then looking up to see me, spluttered, “I remember…” He said ominously. “The spell is broken. We all remember.”

“You, boy!” I heard the severe matriarchal call of Madame De Bellamine. “You need to leave. This is no place for outsiders.” She instructed.

Oh, wonderful! After all I had risked making my way to Serein to meet with her I was an outsider now. The rejection cut me but the woman’s tone told me there would she would broach no argument. So, tongue-tied, and secretly relieved for an excuse to leave, I directed Adam to take my uncle’s left side, and I took his right, we helped him to rise and steadied him. I knew not what memory the pulse of magic dislodged or which spell was broken, but Ivon wore the washed out expression of a man who had experienced the shock of his life.

We near dragged Ivon along the corridors where the sconce lights burned a deep blood red yet still gave off a golden light. The coach awaited us, the young driver seemingly not affected by whatever had afflicted those in the tower. Adam and I bundled my uncle into the back, and then I called for the driver to go.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

REVOLT

Even though it was supposed to be early afternoon, the daylight was gone. Ivon sat with his head in his hands, and he was shuddering with the weight of his grief. I did not know what to do for him. I turned back and stared out of the window at the tower as we sped away and saw to my amazement a pinnacle of light at the top. It was a faint red ghost of what I believed was the original Star-fall stone.

“Adam look!” I exclaimed. He did so, and his eyes grew wide with alarm. We had done this! Adam and I caused the magical ghost to form by bringing my small shard of Star-fall into the tower. Not only had my gemstone replenished its power, but our joining had broken a spell that made had the city forget—but forget what?

As we came closer to the gate, I heard a commotion. Adam pulled down the window, leaned out. “What’s goin’ on?” He called to the driver I heard the carriage driver’s rough reply of, “Gods know! They’s lots of people outside the gate hollerin’ and causin’ a ruckus. Guard’s is trying to clear a path so they can open the gate.”

“Hold ‘em back!” A Watchman bellowed aggressively. I pulled down the other window and pushed my head out. I heard the pained creak of the mighty iron gates move.

“Lanceroy, Vincent, Maris, and Edwards, hold your ground so his Lordships carriage can pass. I don’t want none o’ this lot goin’ under the wheels.” I heard the Captain of the guards holler frantically as our driver slowly inched forward.

“Easy now, easy,” the driver called to calm the horse who had become skittish due to the angered shouts of the surging crowd gathered outside of the citadel. I tuned in to their calls in an attempt to understand why they had congregated outside the gates. What were they protesting about? The calls rose, and it appeared my first assumption was incorrect because I could hear that these people were not just angry, they were distraught. In the cacophony I heard the words Stolen, an elderly woman’s voice wailing: Give me back my child! And then, like the stab of a knife, words came from the shrill mouth of an unseen woman that sent a chill through me:

“I remember, I remember the Dark Harvest!”

So that was it. This was our doing. We broke a spell that had befuddled the city and made them forget. From what I now understood, a mage with great power must have gentled the population and made them forget whatever horrors occurred during the time of great upheaval in the Empire—a time when the Lords of the Empire were slain, and the city of Serein lost its magic. I had no idea of the specifics of that event, but talk of stolen children was gravely alarming. I was certain of one thing, a terrible event occurred here in Serein, and that event enabled the Twin Kings to claim the power and wealth without the people rebelling. I turned from the window and met Adam’s troubled gaze.

“Do you know what they speak of?” I asked anxiously. “My twin sister and I were born twenty years ago this night, not long after my uncle Aleccio was murdered.”