Tales of the Gleamwind I

I remember one cold afternoon when we played curveball in the lower halls of the palace and we broke a vase on display. It was a family relic. My brother took the blame for it right away in front of our parents, even though I threw the orb against the vase. That was just the kind of person he was even back then: responsible, brave, and kind. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to meet the man he could have become. - Memoirs of an Oracle.

The halls looked empty. Cold, long and empty. However, Sonora kept glancing over her shoulder and felt many prickly eyes fixed on her from behind the polished columns of the palace.

Servants were everywhere, ready to jump in case the Rosevy needed anything. But the servants weren’t the issue, they were not going to stop her or question where she went. Rinaer, on the other hand, might do just that.

Her knees wobbled as she rushed up a flight of polished stairs. The railings were far and Sonora had to struggle to keep herself on her feet. She had heard his voice. There was no mistaking it. Tullip had spoken to her in the Core chamber. His brother’s voice had been too clear, polished and alive to be a hallucination. What was happening to her?

She reached the level of the palace where the Oracle’s rooms were situated. She could not possibly confront her father with this. Not after she had seen the way he had been living in denial about the loss of his son and heir. Her mother was another thing entirely. Sonora’s chest ached as she realized that she could not go to her mother just yet. Not until she figured out what exactly happened in the chamber. She could not give her false hope. Not now.

The only person in the palace that could give her an answer was Movra.

On the first level below the Audience Chamber Sonora ran into a squad of guards, all brandishing their buzzing electro-halberds. Luckily for her, the officer in charge was ranked high enough to know where the Head Oracle of Magnet resided within the palace and pointed her towards the right rooms.

“We will escort you there, Rosevy.” The man added in a flat tone.

Sonora’s back stiffened and struggled to regain some of her composure. “There will be no need for that. If Rinaer asks of my whereabouts I command you to tell him that you have not seen me today.”

A flash of questions passed through the guard’s eyes, but he nodded and saluted. Who was he to defy the orders of the Rosevy? Sonora glided away towards the end of the hallway taking one deep breath after another.

“Come in.”

Her fist stopped mid-air. She had only knocked once, but Movra’s voice came out of his rooms quick and ready, like he had known she would come to see her.

Sonora pushed the wooden door open and stepped in the cold, spacious guest room. A single, ornate hearth stood built into one of the walls of the room, but stood empty of any fire. The servants were trained to keep every room heated and ready for any occasion, let alone if someone lived in them. Movra must have specifically instructed them to let his room cool down.

The man himself sat on a single bronze chair turned towards the door. All the couches and tables in the room had been pushed to the far side, as if to let there be enough space for him to stride back and forth in that space.

Sonora closed the door behind her, but did not speak. Movra sat elbows on his knees, like a teacher about to interrogate a particularly dumb student. She did not like it at all. The thrill she felt just minutes ago, the fleeting possibility that Tullip might still be alive almost vanished as she felt like she had made a childish mistake. The worst thing was, she did not know this was not the case.

Movra tilted his bald head and smiled at her. A crooked, oily smile.

“So you are finally interested.” He even sounded like a lecturing teacher.

“How did you know I was going to come to you?”

“I might not be as gifted as you are, but I possess something, a fracture of your aptitude.” He straightened. “I felt it as well.”

“Very well, then, what was it?” It was all she could do to keep the eagerness out of her voice. “Do you intend to help me or are you going to throw some more vague riddles at me?”

“Vague riddles? I thought I made it pretty clear what’s at stake here. You either choose one of the politically influential, but ultimately empty Oracles, or you become a Movra and be the first person in more than a thousand years that can influence the Gleamwind and save the Shards from drifting to their certain demise. Well, maybe I wasn’t clear enough? I can repeat myself if you need me to.”

Sonora surprised even herself with the amount of self-composure she showed at these words. She strode towards the center of the cold room, hands clutched in front of her.

“I do believe we have a misunderstanding here.” Even her voice sounded collected. A complete contrast to the desperate thoughts tumbling in her head. “You have spent so much of your time and energy explaining to me how all the other Oracles are morally corrupt and useless, but you have been awfully vague about becoming Movra as well. I just heard my dead brother’s voice. In the Core Chamber. He spoke to me.”

Movra’s misty eyes tightened. “His voice…”

Sonora waited patiently for him to continue. It was all she could to not jump at Movra’s throat, begging him to continue.

“I have never heard any voice spoken through the Shards, no.” Movra pushed himself out of the bronze chair to tower over her. “But what I do know is that the Cores are all connected to… something. Something back on the ground that makes it possible for these rocks to float.”

Sonora’s mind fumbled to get to an explanation. “Could this mean…” A lump worked its way up her throat. “Could this mean that I’m hearing my brother’s voice because he is talking to me through whatever is down there?”

Movra snorted and jerked his head away. But he did not answer. He did not crush Sonora’s hopes as she half-hoped he would. The soft sting of the measuring pins still pressed on her skin.

“Is my brother alive on the surface?” Sonora’s muscles tensed to keep her from shouting. The small lights flickered in the braziers around the room. “Tell me the truth, or leave my palace this instant.”

Her heartbeat throbbed at her temples, but Sonora stood unmoving as a statue. Movra ran a hand across his shiny, bald scalp and laughed. A cold, mirthless sound that pierced through Sonora’s shields that kept her from losing it all then and there.

“What in the Name of the Gleamwind are you laughing about?” She felt tears streaming down her cheeks. “This is all just a big joke to you, is it not? You are a pathetic excuse for an Oracle, even when you have a slight chance to be more than the object of ridicule to the others you throw that chance away. I’m here. I’m right here!” She was shouting now. “Asking you to teach me- begging you to tell me more about the Oracle of Magnet. And what do you do? You laugh in my face.”

“Sonora…” Movra tried to interject, but she did not let him. The floodgates were open now.

“You sabotage my testing, yank me away from a delicate political situation to drop the weight of the Shard, no- of the whole human civilization! - on me. Then expect me not only to believe every word you say, but to go against everything my father and my advisors told me and choose Movra over any of the other, sensible Oracles.” Movra’s eyes widened just a bit and Sonora nodded, savagely. “Oh, yes. People did tell me to stay away from you. It was heavily, oh so heavily, implied that becoming Sonora Sitak-Movra would be seen as the equivalent of disgracing my family name. But I did not care. I wanted to know more. I wanted to trust you-”

“Rosevy!” Movra’s voice was hoarse now. Sonora did not know how many times he had tried to stop her during her outburst, but it did not matter.

Sonora took a few deep breaths to calm herself, but it did nothing to stabilize the furious beating of her heart. She glared at Movra, pinned the man down with her dark eyes. She was so, so curious to hear what the Oracle Head had to say for himself now. She knew a man could not be changed with a single conversation, but she at least hoped to have hurt him.

“I told you time and time again that I cannot help you more unless you choose to become an Oracle of Magnet.” His voice was calm. Why was it so calm? And why did it infuriate Sonora even more? “I admit I have been more cryptic than I should have at times, but this is something I never lied about. I literally cannot teach you more until you undergo the Ascension Ritual and embrace Movra. After that, the metaphysical gates to your knowledge will swing wide open and we can start working on your powers.”

So there was no escaping it. She had to become an Oracle of Magnet if she wanted to know more about the voice of his brother. Sonora swallowed hard and loosened her grip on the hem of her toga. The fabric fell to her sides, the same way her resolve to never become Movra left her.

“I…” So this it how it felt to be lost for words.

“I’m sorry Sonora.” Movra stepped closer to her and lift an arm to console her, but stopped the movement mid-air. It was a good choice, Sonora was not sure how she would have reacted to the man’s touch.

“Why him?” She mumbled. “Why did I hear Tullip? And why only me? Do I really have to be the only one to bear this burden?”

“You might not be alone.” Movra said as he sat back down into his chair. Sonora only glared at him, so he continued. “The powers of the Oracle of Magnet are in your genes, in your family’s genes. It’s pretty clear that your father has no connection to the Shard Core, but who else completely lost their minds after the… disappearance of Tullip? Who’s brain spiraled out of control once they got moved away from the public and closer to the lower levels?”

Blood froze in Sonora’s veins. He couldn’t possibly mean…

“Mom.”

The next few moments would become a blur in Sonora’s memory. She would vaguely remember storming out of Movra’s rooms, across the cold hallways and down to the new chambers of the Oracle Queen. She foggily recalled a few body servants trying to reach her either because of her splattered face paint or because she kept yanking at her toga so badly she had torn it off her shoulders. She pushed them all away.

By the time she reached her mother’s rooms Sonora was shivering as she dragged most of her toga on the cold tiles behind her. The room was empty. Not only her mother was not there, but the walls, desks and shelves barely had anything on them.

“Where is she? Where is my mother?” Sonora’s voice trembled across the spacious halls.

Without waiting for an answer that would not come, she burst back out of the rooms and headed down. Down, deep into the palace, towards the constant buzzing call of the Core. Nobody told her where her mother had gone, but if Movra was right - and Gleamwind take him if he was - the Core Chamber was the only possible place.

Sonora raced down the halls, her breath catching in the chilly wind of the palace. Did the braziers not work? She heard faint steps crowding up behind her but did not slow and turn to check who it was. If they wanted to stop her, they would have to do it physically.

As soon as she got into sight of the entrance to the Core Chamber, the guards stationed at the entrance stepped aside without even glancing at her. Her mother was in there. She had to be.

As soon as Sonora stepped through the door, she knew something was wrong. The humming, throbbing sensation of the Core slowly spinning on its own axis in the middle of the room felt… different. It did not welcome her, it did not make her reel back either. It was-

Contempt.

“Rosevy, maybe you shouldn’t-” A voice called out from behind her.

Sonora never got to hear what is it that she should not have done. A pair of purple and yellow slippers rested casually just before the bronze railing that separated the Core and its gaping abyss beneath it from the rest of the chamber. A pair of slippers that was all too familiar for Sonora.

A broken shriek scrambled its way out of her throat. Sonora dropped all decorum and proper mannerisms as she stumbled down the chamber’s steps towards her mother’s slippers.

“Dayana… mom? Mom!” Her throat ached from shouting. She never shouted in her life. Not this much.

Her feet caught in her own robes and she fell to her knees. Twice. She was distantly aware of the sharp pain in her knees, but instantly got to her feet both times. Not like this!

Not like Tullip!

She scrambled against the railing, her hands slipping on the cold metal. And she cursed herself- oh she cursed herself so much!- she had almost gone to her mother instead of Movra’s rooms. But she didn’t.

She didn’t and now she was late.

“Rosevy! Sonora! Get away from there right now.” Rinaer’s voice boomed in the chamber. “Guards, grab her!”

Sonora was already on the railing. She did not notice getting up there, but she was now looking down in the misty abyss. The great nothingness. The thousand-feet fall through a hole in the Shard that led down to whatever was below, whatever was left of the earth.

“Mom…” Her voice cracked and she expected tears to start falling.

But there was nothing. A vast blankness tugged at her chest, at emotions that should have been there but instead it was just-

Loss.

Sonora blinked dryly as a pair of strong arms lifted her from the railing and back to the safety of the chamber.