Starsinger

Solstice

Aaron Talus pressed his belly flat against the sunbaked roof of the kitchens, willing himself lower until the line of his shadow merged with the line of the sloping building. Below him, maids rushed in and out of the kitchens carrying trays bursting with midsummer produce. None of them looked up.

Invisible. But he could see everything. The kitchens towered over the rest of the courtyard, a rooftop dotted with pillared chimneys belching smog from the sweating ovens below. They clustered like trees around Aaron, a forest of stone and smoke.

Behind him the royal keep rose from the earth like a glimmering red-black geode. A rare variety of sphalerite, the geoscholars determined, though how such a vast quantity had ever been mined and shaped remained a mystery. The palace in the city of Ellanoi was older than the realm itself, left behind from the empire of the Bright Kings. The first Zareyman kings had claimed it as their own and tried to emulate the ancient architecture a hundred times over, but it was impossible to recreate the same soaring, seamless cuts of stone. Over time, the mines dried up and crystal became scarce. The kings gave up trying to replicate the geode towers.

The storytellers whispered that they needn't have tried. The rebel lords may have burned the histories, but some things can't be forgotten. A palace like Ellanoi could never be built, not even in the Old World. Like all crystals, it had to be grown.

The chimney nearest Aaron let out a ferocious clang as an oven far below was slammed shut. He twitched, but didn't jump. Stay low.

Preparations for the summer solstice masquerade were well underway. Servants crawled the ramparts, stringing vividly painted paper lanterns along nearly invisible threads so they appeared to float mid-air in great sweeping arcs. A handful of artisans strapped into leather harnesses balanced heavy pots of paint as they carefully manipulated a system of gears and pulleys to move along the eastern wall, the outlines of a vibrant mural taking shape beneath their brushes. Tattooed luminaries in homespun tunics stacked the heavy lumber and kindling that would later become the evening's prayer bonfires. A few of Aaron's fellow soldiers mulled about aimlessly, offering aid and awaiting instructions.

Aaron flicked his scope into place over his left eye, and the world swept closer. His kyrsquad was in position. He could see Felicity leaning with practiced nonchalance against the doors of the barracks, her sharp eyes were fixed on the Eastern Gate. Nearby, Mason and Jace played cards atop an empty barrel, their eyes on Felicity.

A breeze ruffled Aaron's ash brown hair. Southwesterly, coming over the wall. He thumbed the smooth wood of his longbow. He'd have to take that into consideration.

Scanning over the wall, he could just glimpse the triangular spires of the Conservatory. Heavy wooden cogs turned on the face of the plain stone like the inner workings of a great clock laid bare, lifting and lowering heavy loads to each level of the towers. Aaron remembered the day the first lifts had been completed. He'd been only seven then, scrambling through the crowded streets with his sisters to watch the unveiling.

A triumph of progress, the High Scholars proclaimed. The next great turn of the world. He had watched breathless as they raised a bucket of water, quivering in time with his nervous heartbeat, until it reached the top of the spire and the crowd burst into thunderous applause, and Aaron had wondered for the first time if the scholars weren't a little bit like gods. It was only a brief blasphemy—his mother had set him to rights as quick as the words came out of his mouth.

The iron bars of the Eastern Gate swung into the courtyard, and a stream of scholars flowed in. Their long burgundy robes dragged against the cobbled stone as they hoisted trunks and other bulky objects covered with canvas, new gadgets from the Ellanoi Conservatory brought to astonish the eager eyes of the royal court. A military escort in sky-blue dress uniform marched alongside them.