A Silken Bridge to Bind the Stars

— I. The Invaders —

When Lyra was young, she’d loved the royal nursemaids’ tales of how the ancients had built an empire that spanned the stars and had sent colonists to worlds through Gates—Gates that only those of royal blood could control. Troublemakers and convicts had been exiled, leaving nothing but peace and prosperity for those who remained behind. She pictured diamond dust whirling in the obsidian walls of the Gate temples, sparkling with the stars’ own light, though all had stood in ruin for some two thousand years.

The royal tutors had little time for myth and legend. They focused instead on the collapse of the global empire after the Gates failed. With no raw materials arriving from the colonies to sustain the burgeoning population of Home, the empire shattered into petty, warring kingdoms. Of those kingdoms, those held by her grandparents, Rostiv and Castain, had been the largest, with the best claim to old imperial blood and legitimacy. And with her parents’ marriage, the two kingdoms became Rosstain.

But when Lyra was nine, her tutors stopped talking about history, and started discussing current events. More with her older sister, Tahti, than with her. But Lyra got crumbs of the conversations that made her stomach sink with fear and dread.

“The Invaders are coming,” Tahti told her one evening, staring out the window of the room they shared.

Their parents doted on dark-haired Tahti and their youngest child, Bhaitan. Lyra and her other sisters fell into a gray area between the cherished heir and the adored first-born. It didn’t bother her, most days. Their nursemaids showered all the children with love, and their tutors often complimented Lyra for being able to read, write, and figure better than Tahti, despite the five years between them.

“I thought they were fighting in Ardain?”

A tightly whispered reply: “Ardain fell. So did Fryncia.”

Her stomach lurched as she pictured the map. “That just leaves Esalia to our west?” The smaller kingdom jostled at Rosstain’s borders, trying to carve off pieces.

Tahti wrapped her arms around her knees. “Father’s calling up the levies. He’s going to ride to their defense in the morning.”

“But I thought Esalia was our enemy?”

Tahti raised her head. “The Invaders are everyone’s enemy.”

“Who are they? Where do they even come from?”

Tahti waved her hands impatiently. “They aren’t even human! They’re immortal, or nearly. They came through a Gate almost fifty years ago, and have been churning through country after country ever since—”

“But the Gates don’t work anymore—”

“They found a way! They’re monsters, Lyra!”

Dark shadows loomed in Lyra’s mind. Human-shaped, with fangs and claws. “But what do they want?”

“It doesn’t matter what they want. It only matters what it’ll take to stop them from killing everyone here!” Tahti flipped a hand at her. “Go away.”

Lyra stood, obedient. “Father will be all right,” she assured Tahti. “He’s brave. He’ll win.”

Tahti looked away, tears running down her face.

In the morning, the royal children bade their father farewell in the courtyard as he and his men mounted up. Swords and pistols at their sides, shining cuirasses, and long red cloaks. “We’ll be back before the harvest,” King Mitistav promised his wife, who stood holding their son, Bhatain, in her arms. “Don’t let the Council run you around over taxes.”

Queen Alania smiled, cool and reserved. “I have never yet allowed them do so, your Majesty.”

“There’s always a first time, your Majesty.” He accorded her a formal embrace. Gave Bhatain a kiss—a kindness that Tahti received as well. Lyra and her remaining sisters received light tousles to their hair, and a reminder: “Behave while I’m away.”

And then he was gone.

He didn’t return in autumn. Nor by the following spring.

When Lyra was ten, Esalia fell. Rosstain stood alone with its back to the eastern sea. Without trade to the fallen kingdoms around them, they had to rely solely on their own harvests. And while the royal children didn’t starve, the queen insisted on austerity measures to show solidarity with the rest of the kingdom.

Five years later, the Invaders besieged the capital. Queen Alania had stockpiled food and reinforced the ancient walls, forty feet thick in places. Defensive cannons roared while Lyra and Tahti watched from the highest tower in the castle. They could see the Invader lines moving in, even as a storm rolled in with them, blackening the sky. Lightning crashed, answering every salvo of the cannons with direct strikes on the walls, leaving purple after-images in Lyra’s eyes. The thunder was so loud, so continuous, that when Tahti screamed and covered her ears, Lyra couldn’t hear her voice. The storm consumed it, eating it whole.

The storm stirred something in her. Lyra walked to the window, blinded by each white flash. She could smell something behind the rain that pounded on the rooftiles. Something…alive. Magic. They’d used magic to awaken the storm.

She watched as the clouds rolled away, and great beasts with bat-wings and leonine haunches appearing in the sky. They soared over the battlefield, the riders on their backs shooting at targets below, their weapons throwing crackling arcs of blue lightning. Beside them swooped birds seemingly made of fire, their riders pouring down arcs of white flame.

“Beautiful,” Lyra whispered, but the thunder ate her words. Beautiful and terrible at once.

“Come away from the window, Lyra!” Tahti shrieked. “Come away!”

— # —

That night, their mother came to their rooms. As she entered, Lyra leaped up to curtsy. “Your Majesty!”

Tahti rose as well, asking, “Mother, what’s wrong?”

“The king has fallen,” Queen Alania whispered, her voice barely audible under the continuous growl of the storm that shook the walls of the ancient castle.

Tahti’s voice became a keen. “No…Father…”

Lyra wished she could feel something beyond the shame that she didn’t feel more. She darted a glance at Tahti, but her sister had never accepted or required comfort from her before.

And it didn’t seem that this had changed.

“A guardpost inside the walls was set on by those…flying beasts. He’d just arrived there with his guards.” The queen slumped into a chair, her eyes blank. “The horses spooked. Mitistav was thrown.” She put her hands over her face, a wracking sound coming from behind that frail shield. “No…heroic last stand. No fighting hand-to-hand with our enemies. Just trampled to death by his own men in a plaza half-drowned in flood water from the storm.”

“What will we do now, your Majesty?” Lyra asked softly.

Alania raised her face from her hands. “We’ll fight long enough to push them to the bargaining table. The Invaders have accepted peace terms before.” Her mother’s shoulders, always held proudly straight, slumped. “My only goal is to preserve the lives of our people.”

“No!” Tahti exclaimed, her expression contorted. “Father wouldn’t want—”

“Your father’s death leaves us without a commander that our combined forces respect. Our people are demoralized and have been fighting nonstop for five years. How many more lives would you have me sacrifice, Tahti?” Alania lifted her head, proud and fierce once more. “How many more young men and women would you have join your father in the earth?”

Lyra lowered her head. “As your Majesty thinks best,” she murmured, hoping Tahti would follow her lead.

Alania nodded acknowledgement to Lyra, and patted Tahti on the shoulder before leaving.

Tahti sobbed into her pillow for the rest of the night, screaming, “It’s not right!” and “It’s not fair!” and “Why did the Invaders have to come!”

Lyra sat beside her, patting her shoulders gently whenever Tahti didn’t snap at her for doing so. Bhaitan, now only nine—far too young to be a king—slept through the whole thing.

In the morning, Lyra went to the window and looked out at the walls of the city. The storm had abated overnight, so she had an excellent view as the western wall rippled. It shuddered. Collapsed. A great rent appeared in the earth, cracking wide through the city streets, and she felt a tremor in the stones under her feet.

We don’t have a week in which to surrender, Lyra thought numbly. Mother had best do it today.

— II. Surrender —

One of the benefits of being the invisible middle child was that Lyra could vanish for hours at a time, unlooked for. So she’d stolen time in the armory to learn the basics of swordplay from the guards. Snuck into the library to read tomes that her tutors hadn’t thought suitable for her age. Now, she found herself in the courtyard outside the Great Hall where her mother and her Council met with the Invaders. The Invaders’ great beasts perched on the roofs above, and her breath caught as she studied them. Up close, the bat-winged ones proved to be scaled, in vivid shades of scarlet and vermilion. And their amber eyes followed her as she approached the guards at the door.

Those same guards merely glanced at her as she pressed an ear to the cracked door. “Lady Lyra,” one of them whispered. “Don’t get caught, y’hear?”

She smiled. But the expression felt odd. The silence in the castle in the wake of the great storm was unnerving. The servants, red-eyed, barely spoke above whispers. And to smile in the face of death and defeat felt…wrong.

And yet here was Gorensi, one of her swordplay instructors of long standing, smiling at her with more affection in his eyes than her father had ever displayed for her. Trying, Lyra felt, to comfort her. “I won’t get caught,” she whispered and peered into the hall.

Her mother sat at the head of the long rectangular table, her Council to her right. To the left? The Invaders, their faces concealed by elaborate masks. The ones in brown cloaks wore masks of horn or ivory, carved like owls and deer. The ones in blue cloaks wore armor like none she’d seen before, the metal clinging to their bodies like oil, seamless and fine. Their faces, too, were hidden by masks. Bears. Boars. Dragons.

Behind their masks, the Invaders’ eyes glittered. Some were lid-to-lid black. Others had all the colors of an opal, changing in the light as they moved their heads. A voice at the back of her mind whispered, Beautiful…

Her mother’s voice rose now. “It is our custom to offer treaty-marriages. To ally both sides and to allow…continuance. I myself married my husband after his father’s armies had largely conquered Rostiv…”

Lyra stifled a gasp. The alliance of Rostiv and Castain had always been presented by her tutors as a treaty between nations and equals. Mother and Father didn’t marry by choice?

She suddenly felt small and naive.

“We have no such tradition.” The words were flat and only lightly-accented. They seemed to emanate from one of the owl-masked Invaders. He stood, his arms crossed, hands tucked into his sleeves. Indifferent. Implacable. “We’ve opened the way into your city. Your fall is inevitable. You do not dictate the terms here.”

“Spakr, hear them.” A younger voice, also speaking lightly-accented Rosstaini. “It doesn’t serve the Lith to slaughter until none remain. If there’s a way to ensure peace without having to scorch the land, I’d hear more.” The speaker leaned back, his gleaming steel dragon-mask appearing predatory. Behind it, his eyes gleamed green and blue.

Lyra shot a glance at her mother. Faint satisfaction in the queen’s expression. “You are the King, then?” Alania asked, turning towards the one in the dragon-mask.

“We have no kings. I am the Vinr, friend to all and first among Rekkren.” A shrug. “You may call me thus.”

Alania’s lips parted, and her councilors buzzed in consternation. “Ah. Vinr, then. You at least lead your people, yes?”

“In war I lead. With the advice of Spakren, Fragnen, and Rekkren. As you do.” A gauntleted hand waved at the Council.

Alania licked her lips. “Let me be blunt. I viewed my own treaty-marriage as a chance to build bridges between my people and my husband’s.” She paused. “If you wed one of my daughters, I’d be willing to sign an agreement that her children would inherit the rule of Rosstain, in place of my son.” Alaina’s dark eyes gleamed cannily.

“That assumes that our people are fertile with yours,” Spakr noted distantly.

Fascinated, Lyra pressed closer to the door. She’s buying time? So we can fight the Invaders off from within? Or…something else? She blinked, a new thought dawning. Tahti will rage to be married to an Invader. She’s had her eye on that Duke from Esalia. The one who took refuge with us and fought beside Fa…ther. Lyra swallowed, suddenly realizing that the young Duke might also be dead.

A sudden, rapid exchange of foreign syllables that almost crackled in the air. Then Vinr’s head swung back towards Alaina. “You can trace your blood back to the ancient Emperors. The ones who ruled when the Gates opened freely.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. I have documentation. You seek…legitimacy, then?” Lyra recognized the calculation in Alaina’s gaze. She thinks she’s caught them. That they seek unquestioned claim to the lands they’ve conquered.

Spakr and Vinr didn’t answer. Just exchanged a measuring gaze. “Marriage, among our people, is not to be entered into lightly,” Spakr warned now. “In the instant that either partner betrays the other, both suffer. Both may die.”

Wait, what?

Alaina snorted, a distinctly ungenteel sound. “So if a man lies with another woman outside of marriage, both he and his blameless wife can be put to death? How just your laws must be.”

“It is not a law,” Spakr replied, his voice indifferent. “It is the will of our gods. If one partner has carnal relations outside of the marriage, a wasting will come upon them. It has been known to consume both halves of the union, though not always. And if one partner kills the other…the gods’ justice is swift. The same blow that slew one, slays the other. Within seconds of the first heart ceasing to beat.”

Cold slithered down Lyra’s spine at the expression on her mother’s face. The fear. The uncertainty.

“Of course,” Spakr went on, his tone still neutral, “if you did not plan to give your daughter a knife with which to kill her new husband on their wedding night…you would not be sentencing your child to death.” A pause. “Consider very carefully what you intend when you bargain with us.”

Alaina’s chin lifted. “I seek to build a bridge, as I said. One forged of understanding.”

As Lyra swallowed, she caught the dragon-masked Invader turn to regard the door she stood behind. It was as if he could see her through the heavy wood, and she lurched backwards, suddenly aware of her own trespass.

“Heard enough?” Gorensi asked.

“Far too much,” Lyra countered tightly.

She slipped away as silently as she could, back up to the royal apartments, where Tahti slept, exhausted from a night of weeping. Where little Bhaitan was tracing the letters outlined by one of their nervous nursemaids and greeted her with an anxious look. “Lyra, what news?”

“Nothing yet,” she lied.

— # —

At nightfall, Lyra and Tahti found themselves summoned to the great hall, bade to wear their finest. Tahti wore gold brocade that skimmed over her curves, emeralds glinting in the heavy folds of her skirt. Lyra wore pale silver silk, unadorned. She’d been promised that, for her next birthday, when she’d be presented to the court as an adult, she’d be given her mother’s sapphires to wear at feasts and dances.

She doubted that this would now come to pass.

She wouldn’t miss the long, stultifying evenings that Tahti had relished. She hadn’t looked forward to dancing and idle gossip in the great hall or the gardens. But anxiety over what the future would now hold clutched at her stomach like bloody claws, twisting.

And as she looked down at the silk wrapped tightly over her arms, she compared it to the near-liquid armor that the Invaders wore and sighed.

“Come on,” Tahti snapped. “We must present ourselves before our conquerors.” Her lips twisted. “We’ll offer them dainties on trays like servants.”

But before they could enter the great hall, their mother appeared, her expression stern. “Leave us,” she ordered her attendants, who scattered with deferential bows. “There are hard truths that need to be spoken.” She spared Lyra a glance before focusing on Tahti. “You were the heir-presumptive of Rosstain for nearly twelve years, my dear. You were trained to rule until Bhaitan’s birth. Now you have a chance to take back that future. If you want it.”

Lyra admired how carefully their mother had chosen her tactics, leading with an appeal to Tahti’s pride. Tahti had wept when Bhaitan had been born. She’d sobbed for almost a week that it wasn’t fair that the baby would be king someday. It had taken a direct order from their father to get Tahti out of bed for the naming ceremony.

But Lyra wished she could be anywhere than here. The queen had made her decision. Tahti would be offered as a peace-bride to the Invaders; she would object but eventually obey, and that would be the end of it.

“What do you mean?” Tahti asked uncertainly.

Alania explained. And as she did so, Tahti shouted, “No! We haven’t even buried Father yet, and you’re already trying to sell me off to the monsters that killed him?”

Alania’s expression tautened. “Silence.”

She didn’t even raise her voice, but Tahti’s wails cut off abruptly. Alania went on softly, relentlessly. “One of my daughters must do this. To save the lives of the thousands of people who will die if this war continues. Why should it not be you? You would rule—”

“I don’t care. I won’t do it! They’re murderers. Monsters—”

“I thought the same of your father when I married him, and we had five children to attest to our tolerable happiness.” Alania’s voice harshened. “Stop being selfish and see where your duty lies—”

“I’ll do it,” Lyra said.

Her voice fell into the cracks between their words, and silence rippled out from the syllables.

The queen’s head snapped towards her. “You’re young. But…” Calculation in her mother’s sharp gaze. “A year’s betrothal would give us time.”

“You don’t care about Father,” Tahti accused Lyra, her voice riding over their mother’s. “You haven’t even cried. You just want attention.”

The words cut under Lyra’s breastbone. Their father had been an absent presence for her even before the war. She remembered him holding Bhaitan at the naming ceremony. Taking Tahti out a-horse for hunting. Little more. But Tahti—her whims, her moods—had been the constant presence, the whirlwind that had consumed Lyra’s life.

Because of it—or in spite of it—part of her craved her sister’s approval.

“It’s not that,” Lyra replied. She knew that she couldn’t confess her fascination for the Invaders. That they inspired terror and yearning in her and seemed as far beyond humans as any mountain or storm. How could you hate a storm for its mere existence? “I’ve always known that I’d be married for political advantage,” she continued, glancing at her mother. “Why not this one?”

And then the door behind them opened.

Alania turned, glaring, ready to upbraid whatever servant had just intruded…and then smoothed her features as several Invaders appeared in the doorway. “You’ve kept us waiting,” ivory-masked Spakr said. “But it appears your time hasn’t been ill-spent. You’ve ascertained which of your daughters is willing to participate in your treaty.”

“Either of them will obey me,” Alaina returned tautly.

“Obedience isn’t required,” steel-masked Vinr replied calmly. “Consent is. In marriage, I place my life in the hands of my wife. She would become Vina to my people. Trust must be earned in both directions.” He stepped forward, taller than any man Lyra had ever seen before, and taking up more space than seemed possible in the small anteroom.

But all he did was take her hands in his cold, armored grip and weigh them in his own, studying her palms. “You’ve used a sword.”

It wasn’t a question. “I-I’ve some training, yes. M’lord.”

“Is that a problem?” Her mother’s voice, from behind him, sounded oddly frail.

“No. If she’s to be Vina, she’ll learn both blade and pistol. To ride a wyvern or a firebird.” That, from Spakr, who sounded pleased. “We’ll teach her what she needs to learn.” He turned, the owl-like beak of his mask appearing like a hooked blade. “The question is, will you accept being taught?”

Lyra swallowed. “Whatever I must.”

“Well enough. We’ll complete this treaty of yours.” A hint of mockery in Spakr’s voice as he addressed Alaina. “And will use this castle as our base of operations until all of its conditions are met. Including access to your temple ruins.”

Past Vinr’s elbow, Lyra saw her mother blanch. “You’re staying here?”

“As the family of our future Vina, you will, of course, remain honored guests,” another voice replied, this one lighter. More feminine, speaking from beneath a white mask that looked like a deer’s head. “It would be inappropriate to break your kinship bond.”

“If consent and willingness between partners is so important,” Alaina replied rapidly, her eyes darting from Vinr to Lyra, “then…take the time afforded by my daughter Lyra’s youth to…get to know her. A year’s betrothal, before final vows are spoken, is all I entreat.” Her expression shifted. “I would be a poor mother, if my daughter’s happiness were not of concern.”

Lyra stared. Judging by Alaina’s shuttered eyes, Lyra’s happiness was her mother’s least concern.

“There is no rush,” Spakr agreed, shrugging. “We’ve spent fifty years in search of what we required of this world. Now that we’ve attained it, what’s one more?” A pause. “To the betrothal, then.”

“Oh, that will take at least a month to arrange—”

“Nonsense. I would speak the words of the wedding this moment, but for your touching concern for your daughter’s happiness.” Spakr’s voice held knife-edges.

Vinr removed his gauntlets, revealing wide, strong hands. His skin shone as blue-green as his eyes, rippling into oranges and red as the lamplight flickered. He took Lyra’s hands in his once more and leaned down to whisper a single word in her ear: “Courage!” as Spakr intoned in the Invader tongue, tying their hands together with a cord.

A question in their tongue to Vinr, who gave some hearty affirmative. A sharp look at Lyra and a question in her own language: “Do you consent to be bound to this man, and no other, for the term of one year, in preparation for spending your lives together?”

Lyra blinked, overwhelmed. “I—Yes. I do.”

The cord glowed. Dissolved, melting into Lyra’s flesh and Vinr’s alike. She felt it spread through her like cold fire, and her heart stopped beating for an instant, before pounding triple-time.

Spakr gestured, and the deer-masked female came forward, another mask in her hand—a steel dragon’s head, like Vinr’s own. “You will carry this for your intended. Against the day she may call herself Vina.”

It was nothing less than an order. And to Lyra’s astonishment, the war-leader simply bowed his head to Spakr. “For the good of all, I will.”

In spite of these whirlwind events, Lyra felt oddly safe among all these armored forms and masked faces. But before they could draw her away, her mother caught her arm in insistent hands, her fingers digging into her flesh like talons. Leaned down and whispered in her ear, urgently, “Discover what they want. Why they’re here. We can use that information.”

And then Vinr pulled her gently away, out of the room, while behind her she could hear her mother snapping to Tahti, “Go with her! The queen-to-be needs an attendant!”

Oh, gods, Lyra thought. What have I done?

— III. Among the Lith —

Lyra began by learning the Invaders’ language. Their name for themselves, the Lith, apparently meant the exiled.

The first day she took instruction with Tahti at her left, she realized that they were the only unmasked people in the room. Before their long table, Spakr paced, speaking in rapid, lyrical Lith, and Lyra felt too uncertain to ask him to translate. But the other Lith students beside her weren’t shy. They asked questions and seemed to argue.

And when that first lesson ended, she’d asked the students what their names were.

“I am Fragnr,” a hawk-masked male with gleaming golden eyes replied.

“And I am Fragna,” replied the deer-masked female Lyra recognized from the betrothal.

“You can’t both be Fragna,” Tahti retorted, perhaps mishearing the word.

“But we are,” they chorused, laughing.

“And Fragna you are, too, or could be. You’re old enough to put aside your childhood.” The female Fragna gestured at the white mask over her face. “To become what you must, for the good of all.”

“I am twenty. I’m an adult and should be married by now,” Tahti seethed.

“But you still carry the name of childhood.” The deer-masked female shrugged.

Lyra interposed quickly, “If Fragna isn’t your name, then what does it mean?”

The pair exchanged glances. “Scholar. Student. Or questioner.”

The male chimed in. “Inquirer, in criminal matters.”

Lyra exhaled. “So, am I Fragna right now?”

More laughter. “You’re learning. But you haven’t yet given up your childhood. Your name. Your face. That will come in time.”

They moved off, and Tahti glared after them. “I’ll never give up my name.” She stared at Lyra. “They just want to erase us. Turn us into them. They’ll probably set up re-education camps all through the kingdom. Just like this one.” She caught her sister by the arm. “Don’t you start believing them, you understand me? That’s the real reason Mother insisted that I attend you.” Her lips worked. “To keep you Rosstaini.”

But there is no Rosstain, Lyra wanted to reply. Rosstain is a myth. There’s just Rostiv and Castain, jammed together by conquest and marriage. I wonder if the people outside these walls still hate each other, even if our parents were…tolerably happy. If they’ve even noticed a difference between the rule of our parents and the rule of the Lith.

But she couldn’t say that to Tahti. Not while her sister squeezed her arm cruelly tight. “I remember who I am,” Lyra finally replied. But I also know who I’m not.

— # —

Her language lessons were supplemented, however, when her original palace tutors joined Spakr in teaching. They appeared uneasy before the Lith, but the Fragnen took diligent notes on the history of Rosstain, asking demanding questions. Lyra learned to do the same, pushing her teachers as hard as they’d ever pushed her.

Her afternoons, by contrast, were spent in sword-play and pistols. Sometimes Vinr was her instructor, though she would’ve cheerfully faced the rack before admitting to Tahti how much she enjoyed his instruction. And she certainly didn’t mention the cool tingle that suffused her fingers any time she came in contact with him—even through his armor.

Tahti refused to participate in those lessons. She simply sat in the courtyard, her face carved into a mask of disapproval and anger.

A year into her training, Lyra managed to get in two hits on Vinr before being thrown to the ground like a ragdoll. They rolled across the courtyard, Lyra half-laughing, half-grunting in effort as she set her feet against his hips and shoved, forcing his weight away before slamming an elbow into his masked face.

“Good!” Vinr said, sitting back.

Lyra sat up, accepting the hand he offered to haul her back to her feet, the usual cool tingle rushing through her. “You let me get those hits in.”

“I provided openings for you to see, as I would with any trainee. What you did with it was all your own work.” He nodded. “Much progress today. Soon, you’ll earn your armor.”

“Armor like yours?” she asked. Part of her delighted in the notion—she’d been found worthy, and by a demanding tutor. But part of her also felt discomfited. She couldn’t imagine how the people of the city might see her, dressed like…one of the Invaders.

Her eyes fell to the dragon-mask riding at Vinr’s hip. The one she’d agreed to wear when they were wed. Though a year had passed, and she was of age, no one had yet spoken of completing the ceremony. She wondered if it would feel like a cage to her.

If his felt like a prison to him.

“Yes, like mine,” he replied as her mind raced. “Every Vina must prove herself worthy of leading. Which means proving herself worthy of being followed. This is part of it.” He gestured at the courtyard. “You’re worthy enough to call yourself Rekkra, this day, if you wished it. But only you can tell me if you’re ready to call yourself Vina.” His eyes were serious behind the mask. Intent.

She hesitated. “If I prove myself worthy of leading your people,” Lyra noted softly, “I could be proving myself unworthy to lead my own.” She glanced at Tahti, who sat embroidering on a wall. Watching them.

His head inclined. “Possible,” Vinr replied as they moved towards the pump in the courtyard. He worked the handle, so that she could dunk her head under the rushing water. When her head came up, short-cropped hair dripping down her neck, he added, “Your mother spoke during the treaty negotiations of building bridges between our people. Were those just pretty words and stalling tactics?”

Lyra winced. “From her, perhaps.” She looked down at the flagstones. Every time she saw her mother lately, the urgency that blazed in Alaina’s eyes was almost too much to bear. What have you learned? What do they want? Why is it taking you so long to win your betrothed’s confidence?

She couldn’t tell her mother that she had no intention of betraying Vinr’s trust. Even if it meant betraying Alaina’s.

“And from you?”

Lyra looked up. “Bridges can be swept away when rivers flood.”

“Then we should ensure that the dams don’t burst,” he countered. Under his mask, his eyelids crinkled. “I’ll see you here again tomorrow. When you prove that today’s good work was not happenstance.”

She felt a smile stretch her face as he left. Which faded as Tahti closed on her. “You look happy,” her sister accused.

Lyra composed her face. “There’s pleasure in doing well,” she replied. What does she see when she looks at the wyverns? Monstrous beasts that killed our father, I’m sure—but can she see their beauty? Or does their very beauty offend her?

Tahti leaned closer. “Have you even seen any of their faces?” she whispered. “Do you know what they look like?”

Lyra felt exhaustion wash over at her. Not the good kind that came from exertion on the sparring grounds, but from emotional destitution. She wore one mask for Tahti and their mother. Another mask for Spakr and the Fragnen. Only around Vinr did she feel as if she wore no mask at all. “You know I haven’t.” Frank, open speech. None of the deference that Tahti still demanded in front of their mother and the human court. As if any of our former lives matter now.

Tahti’s face tightened. “I saw Vinr without his mask yesterday,” she whispered.

Lyra’s eyebrows rose skeptically. “Their faces are for intimates only.” Not even with his betrothed has Vinr removed that damned mask. She put her head to the side. What’s the play here? Is this Mother at work, trying to manipulate me?

Her mother was the best player of court games in living memory. This felt too unsubtle to be Alaina’s work. She could envision her mother going so far as to poison her¸ on her wedding night, to ensure that Vinr would die with her, but only if pushed towards such unsubtlety by forces outside her control.

Tahti’s anger is behind this, then. The thought startled her with its cool lack of emotion. “Did you try to kiss him, sister?” A thrust like the point of a sword, testing for reactions. “Did your desire to be queen overcome your loathing? Or did you just want to ascertain whether or not he and I would both fall over dead if you seduced him?”

Tahti’s hand leaped to slap, and Lyra caught her wrist before it could connect. And blinked, surprised at her own reflexes. “Don’t.”

Her sister’s lips worked. “He was alone in the courtyard and took off his helmet to drink from this same pump.” She gestured. “I was in the long gallery, passing by. His face is nothing but putrescence. A writhing mass of worms and rot.”

Lyra stared at her. Knowing from her own experience that there was no way in which the pump was visible from the window. A lie. But why? Is it just that she wants me to feel as she does towards them? So that she feels…less alone, having me as her ally in hate? “Thank you,” she finally replied. “It’s good to know where everyone stands.”

— IV. Bridges —

Weeks later, Vinr brought his wyvern into the courtyard. Lyra stared up at the great beast, studying the bat-like sweep of its wings, the clawed hindlegs, the restless, serpentine tail. “Let me adjust the saddle for you,” Vinr said, and moments later, had her positioned atop the great beast. Then he slipped up behind, asking, “Ready?” and she nodded.

The wyvern leaped, its wings clawing at the air, and Lyra half-laughed, half-shrieked with delight, feeling Vinr’s arms tighten around her.

After several minutes, the great wings spread out, catching the wind, and they soared over the castle and the city, giving her a clear view of the battlescars that pocked the fields outside. The crumbled outer wall.

The mass graves.

The exhilaration of the flight left her. “Did you bring me up here to show me the damage?” she called over the roar of the wind. To remind me of your power?

“No. I brought you here to give you a taste of what it means to be Vina,” he shouted back, the wind tearing at his voice. “Both the good and the terrible.”

“I know that you don’t give your names to strangers,” she commented carefully as he brought the wyvern in for a landing on a mountainous outcropping, miles away. “but I’d…like to know what your title really means.”

She could hear the smile in his voice. “Good question. You would be an excellent Fragna. Perhaps even a Spakr someday.”

“Could you be a Spakr someday?”

“My father was Vinr once. And is Spakr now—the one you know.” He helped her slide down from the wyvern’s back. “So, yes. Once I’m too old for sword and pistol and once someone else may call himself Vinr…it would be an honor to be considered wise enough to become Spakr.” A faint shrug. “Of course, many who called themselves Vinr have died in battle, too.”

She considered it. “Spakr means speaker.” She was fairly sure of that. “Someone who gives the laws. Speaks for the gods. Teaches others.”

“Excellent!” He pulled a leather bag of wine from the saddle, and a single cup. “Vinr means beloved companion. Which is what I am to all the Rekkren. Their leader, as well as friend to all the other castes.”

“The Rekkren are the warriors. So you lead only them? Not the rest of your people?”

“A warrior might not know when to plant grain or how to build a house. It would be stupid for me to tell the Stadren or the Smitjen how to do their jobs. No, it is the Council that governs. We all have voices on it. The Vinr and Vida are friends to all, however. The loudest voices on the Council, too.”

He gestured for her to join him on a patch of soft moss under a gnarled oak. She’d never been so alone with any man before, but the Lith had a way of cutting through Rosstaini propriety, so she sat beside him and picked through the food he’d brought with them. Simple fare. A wheel of uncut cheese, an unbroken loaf of bread, and cured meats. He even handed her a knife so that she could cut the food to her liking—a gesture of trust she instantly recognized.

“Will you eat with me today?” She’d never seen him eat or drink.

“Perhaps,” he replied slowly. “It’s…an intimacy.”

“My birthday has passed. So has the year of our betrothal,” Lyra replied, looking away. “Are we not to wed soon?”

His shoulders shifted. “Only if you’re ready to become Vida. I can wait longer. The other Lith grow impatient, however.”

“Why?” Lyra blinked. She hadn’t thought the Lith had any opinion of her at all.

His eyes shifted color, from blue-green to yellow-amber. Caution, she thought, wariness. “You may be the key to all we Lith have sought here,” Vinr admitted and filled the single cup with wine.

She keyed on the word, as he’d surely meant her to. “Lith. Exiles.” She nibbled on her cheese. “Were you exiled from your home? Is that why you’re here, on this world?”

“We were exiled to where we came from,” he replied, his eyes turning violet. Is that regret? Sorrow? “The gods of that world changed us. Made us what we are now, over generations. We no longer die of natural causes, but on the world of our exile, it’s a curse to watch someone starve, unable to die of the hunger. Do you understand?”

And after a moment, it all came together. “The Gates,” she whispered. “Your ancestors? They came from here. They were exiled from this world. Sent as colonists, or prisoners.”

He nodded. “You’re quick. Your mother and her advisors refused to believe this.”

Lyra sat upright under the oak, mind racing. “So you’re…human.”

“More or less. The gods of our new world changed us in many ways.” His voice sounded weary.

She turned towards him, not having realized until this moment, as relief coursed through her, how much her sister’s poison had coiled through her heart. “Under that mask…”

“No worms or rot, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You heard Tahti.” Shame colored her cheeks.

“A Fragna did. Your lack of belief was also noted. I was grateful to hear of it.” A wry note. “I wasn’t looking forward to a future in which my wife might recoil from me.”

Lyra swallowed. “Show me your face. Please.” She paused. “Perhaps…you might even tell me your name?”

He reached up and unlatched the steel dragon’s head. As he did so, his armor unfurled. Pulled back from his skin, retreating into the mask, into other hidden reservoirs on his body, leaving him wearing little but trews and his weapon-belt. The shimmering blue-green of his skin glistened in the dappled light under the tree, catching glimmers of gold and red as the leaves above swayed.

Then he let his hands fall, revealing eyes that appeared exactly as they had under the mask, though he averted his gaze from her in evident discomfort. And for the rest? Achingly human, with dark tousled hair, rough beard stubble, and a strong jawline.

Hesitantly, Lyra reached out, sliding her fingers along the line of his jaw. “You…feel real.” The cold-fire surged in her fingertips. As if the power inside her yearned towards the matching energies in him.

His lips curled. “So do you.” An exhalation. “The name my parents gave me at birth was Rikr.” Vinr’s eyes rose fractionally to meet hers. “No one’s called me that since I put on my first mask as a Rekkren.” He studied her face. “I wouldn’t object to hearing it from your lips in private. As I would call you Lyra, once you’ve become Vina.”

A quick, bright surge of panic, mixed with anticipation. “Why do your people…bury yourselves under these masks? Why do you efface yourselves so?” She cast about for an explanation. “Did your gods demand it?”

He shook his head. “Our new world was harsh. Names, identities, wealth, all the dross with which you distinguish yourselves from each other…it all seemed selfish. So our ancestors gave them up. As we all must. For the good of all.” He turned his face and she felt his lips brush the palm of her hand. “That doesn’t mean that we don’t take joy in our lives. That we don’t care for our spouses or families. It just means that we’re all obliged to care about all of our people.” A pause. “And once we’re wed, your people will be my people. I will be obliged to care for them as for my own.”

Her eyes fell to the dragon mask still tied to his belt. But she needed to know more. To understand all the things that had been unspoken.

“So…you returned to the world that exiled you. To…punish us?” That didn’t sound right. “You said that the Lith were impatient. That I might be the key to something.” Mother has wanted this information for a year. Wouldn’t she be delighted to know what I’m about to learn? Though…I surely can’t tell her.

Vinr nodded. Leaned back against the tree, letting her hand fall with his to his lap. Light. Undemanding. “I was born on the Lith world.”

“Wait. How old are you? The Lith arrived fifty years ago!” Lyra blurted.

“Aye. I was your age when we arrived. But I’m merely a stripling by my people’s standards, mind. Spakr is past three hundred.” He raised her fingers to his lips. “Can you accept my antiquity?”

“You don’t look or sound antique!” Lyra felt her cheeks flush and looked away hastily. “But I’ve interrupted enough.”

His chuckles faded. “We opened a Gate from our side,” Vinr went on. “Suddenly, we thought we could go home. Though for most of us, it was a home of myth and legend. But it closed behind us, and we couldn’t open it again from this side. Ten thousand warriors, crafters, and scholars, all cut off from home.” His fingers tightened on hers. “Everywhere we went, we were attacked. Spakr—who was Vinr then—responded in kind. His only goal was opening a Gate and either getting us back to our people, or bringing our people through.”

Her mind whirled through the possibilities. “You think I can open a Gate?” Lyra asked, stunned. “No one can—no one has. Not in centuries.”

“They were tied to the blood of the ancient rulers. Your mother claims lineage going back to them. It’s worth a try.” He shrugged. “And if it doesn’t work, we’ll be no worse off than we were already.”

“That seems a terrible gamble.”

He nodded, closing his eyes. A gesture of trust, she realized. “Is your world so terrible, then?” Lyra asked, hesitantly settling her head on his shoulder. He felt warm, she noted distantly. “Would all your people come through at once? I don’t think we could feed them all.”

“My people number in the millions. They can’t all come through. But simply opening trade routes would help. Your grain for our metals and the like.” One of his hands stole up, running lightly along the nape of her neck, tangling into her hair. “Will you go with me to the temple near here? Will you try to craft a bridge across the void, between the stars with me?”

“Between the stars. Between people.” She nodded against his shoulder. “Yes. I will. I’ll be your Vina.”

His eyes opened. Looked down into her own before he brushed a light kiss across her lips. “Between us, no masks,” he whispered. “Never. But for all others—”

He reached down, unhooking the mask from his belt. Offered it to her with gentle hands.

And she took it and covered her own face, feeling the liquid steel mold itself to her features. Felt the armor sleeking down from the mask to slick along her skin, under her clothing. But she raised the faceplate once more, long enough for him to lean in and kiss her, his hands tight against the supple armor she now wore. “I’m ready,” she whispered. “Let’s go.”

© 2023 Deborah L. Davitt

About the Author

Deborah L. Davitt was raised in Nevada, but currently lives in Houston, Texas with her husband and son. Her prize-winning poetry has appeared in over fifty journals, including F&SF and Asimov’s. Her AnLab-winning prose has appeared in venues such as Analog and Galaxy’s Edge. For more about her work, including her poetry collections, The Gates of Never and Bounded by Eternity, and her forthcoming chapbook, From Voyages Unending, please see https://www.edda-earth.com.