Nighttime cloaked the kingdom of Enid in heavy silence, finding next to no one outside of their homes.
After the chaos in The Joiner's Square, people retired for the day to treat injuries and take stock of what they managed to hold onto in the chaos of it all. No one had died, but the display was frightening enough. Those who weren't in the vicinity of the damage heard about it quickly, so any outdoor trading was suspended for the remainder of the day. Cottages and shacks alike had their shutters pulled tight, many wary of being caught unaware should something like it happen again.
But while the majority of the kingdom uneasily slept, King Abbott's castle loomed darkly from a distance, its most important inhabitants far removed from any realm of dreaming.
A girl had just woken from inside the walls, the female knight who'd been bedridden following her outburst in the square. Her male counterparts stood by her side, responding with favor at her recovery and wishing her well in this latest attack from her magic.
Attack perhaps wasn't the right word, but there was nothing else to call it. Her magic wasn't inherently malicious, but it always caused her great pain when it decided to come alive. And alive it very much had been earlier that morning.
So while she could enjoy the company of the other knights and offer them smiles, the conversation quickly turned serious with the topic of what happened, of what they needed to know, of what the King needed to know.
"The last thing we want is to bring up painful memories, but Abbott waits. What did you see, Jess?" Asked the knight to her right, a blond boy named Samuel.
The other two implored her with their eyes, and Jesmyn steeled herself against the premonition so painfully wrought.
"I was knocked off my horse in the explosion. When I came to, I saw a Red Alley dweller next to me. We barely had time to regard one another before my vision changed, and with it came a strange sound. I saw birds, hundreds in a flock, all screeching and swiping down as if to attack me. But their screeching quickly became a voice, one that began to sing strange songs..."
Jesmyn was locked in the memory, flashes of black and white feathers intermingled with a human tonality. She didn't realize she had stopped speaking until Izan, the knight to her left, gently nudged her shoulder, encouraging her on.
"The voice morphed from songs to screams, and it was as if my mind wasn't my own anymore. It's why I couldn't stop mumbling or crying for the longest time. I had no control over anything until you all brought me back here and the healers gave me something to put me to sleep."
Jesmyn lifted her eyes to the third and last of the boy knights who stood at the foot of her bed, arms crossed over his chest, pale eyes set hard as he pondered her words. She felt sympathy for him, knowing that he would have to tell the King despite the images not making any sense.
"I'm sorry, Dante," Jesmyn said to him. "I wish I could tell you more, but it's all I've got."
He looked at her then, offering a smile of reassurance as he took a breath.
"Don't trouble yourself, Jess. You two keep her company. I must tell Abbott."
She watched as he strode from the room, sending her pity with him before Samuel and Izan sought to turn the conversation to cheerier things. They told jokes and stories, keeping her mind off of what she had seen and felt, ensuring that she was back on normal footing before they dared leave her for the night. For this she would always be grateful, these boys who were more like brothers, always there so she wouldn't walk alone, so that her being a Favor-Born could bring with it a sense of purpose.
As they carried on, Dante stalked the corridors of the castle illuminated by candles held in sconces, counting the steps it took to reach Abbott's throne room. He tried to steel himself against the potential of the King's temperament, having already experienced the brunt of it when he returned with Jesmyn that morning, no explanation on his lips while she wept and shook. Abbott was not happy that the collection of dues had been interrupted, but he was more furious that Jesmyn couldn't compose herself enough to tell him what she saw. Her magic, a gift that gave her premonitions, only became that powerful when something equally strong triggered it. It was useful for detecting danger, so everyone had been on high alert for the remainder of the day, fearful that her outburst meant bad tidings for them all after the explosion.
The doors to Abbott's throne room soon stood before Dante, great hulking things that almost touched the vaulted ceiling. Taking a breath, he eased one of them open and cooled his features into something expressionless.
The throne room was a sprawling space that echoed, cloaked in black banners to reflect the chosen color of royalty. Windows from on high bathed the room in moonlight, allowing its sole occupant to be visible from his obsidian throne at the head of the space. Abbott sat with his hands folded in front of his mouth, seemingly caught mid-thought, before the sight of Dante coming into the room stole his focus.
"I trust our dear Jesmyn has awakened?"
"She has," answered Dante as he came before the King, bringing one knee to the floor in a bow.
"What did she say?"
"After the explosion," Dante explained, "Jesmyn said her magic showed her birds. She said they were aggressive and screeching, but their sounds became human, a voice that sang. It was a song she didn't recognize, but the singing became screaming, and she said she felt as though she'd lost all control over herself."
Abbott said nothing to this, and Dante could hear the sound of his gentle breathing fill the space of the cavernous room. The air hummed in anticipation, and shadows seemed to wait with baited breath for what came next. After a long while of this, Dante chanced lifting his eyes from his bowed gaze to Abbott's, and the King motioned for him to rise from the floor.
"Sounds ominous," Abbott muttered drily. "Jesmyn is a harbinger of future things, sometimes clear and sometimes not, most times dangerous but sometimes innocent. And since she was gifted this vision after the explosion, I believe it's safe to say it wasn't connected to that event. Wouldn't you agree?"
"I would."
"Then this is something else entirely. Was there anyone near Jesmyn when her magic made itself known?"
"She mentioned that she had been blown back next to a Red Alley dweller, but she barely had time to regard the person before she doubled over."
"And did you see this person as well?"
"Briefly. I went to Jesmyn, and as I picked her up, I caught sight of the Red Alley dweller running away from us, from The Joiner's Square. The only reason I noticed her was that she managed to get up before the other street performers."
At Dante's words, the King's eyes began to glitter with eagerness and desire, the sort of combination that drove men to possess things not yet within their reach.
"Did you get a good look at her face?"
Dante thought on that for a moment, trying to conjure the image of her from this afternoon. He vaguely remembered a grey cloak fluttering as she fled, and as the woman turned to look back over her shoulder, she seemed shaken to terror. But it was a new detail that he didn't know he'd initially caught, that of the red cloth at her wrist, one that was longer than the others he'd seen, the cloth he'd inspected just moments before chaos, the same woman he'd collected dues from...
He couldn't remember details of her face though she'd stood right before him, and he could curse himself for not looking closer. How inattentive he must've been for her red cloth to stick out, but not the woman herself.
"Not a good enough look to recognize her again, but I may have another way of finding her," Dante offered.
"Good, good," said Abbott, his voice low and amused. "See that you do. And when she is found, bring her to me at once. We may have another Favor-Born in our midst."
Dante said nothing to refute the theory, but privately, he harbored doubts. Jesmyn found a Favor-Born once, leading their trio of knights to Izan, a boy who could manifest barriers of transparent glass that kept everything behind them invisible. But that was years ago, and her premonitions of Izan were mild and recurrent until they'd located him. If her magic crippled her as it did today, it was usually in reference to some act that was yet to pass. Then again, he could be wrong. So little was known about Favor-Borns due to the previous king's affinity for destroying them, so it was hard for anything to be a surety.
"I'll begin my search first thing tomorrow," Dante affirmed, dipping his head in reverence, a gesture he always made before leaving the King. But before he could walk away, Abbott held up a hand to stop him.
"You and I may not have Jesmyn's gift, but surely you can feel the unease in the air as easily as I can. It cannot be a coincidence that the explosion happened on collection day in the exact place you first made your rounds."
"You believe someone in the alleys is trying to send a message," Dante pointed out.
"I do," said Abbott. "And I don't believe it's a kind message to me or anyone within these walls. When you search for the girl, I also want you to seek out those responsible for what happened this morning. If you find them, bring the traitors forth. Your magic is more suited to prying information out of people than mine, so I would like to hear what they have to say before I dispose of them."
"You have my word."
"Good. You are dismissed for the rest of the night."
Dante bowed one last time before turning his back on the King, the promise of using his gift a balm to his soul. He left through the doors and took the nearest stairwell that would lead him to the highest point of the castle, winding upwards in an endless spiral that he once imagined could touch the heavens when he was a child. At the top of those stairs, a door laid in wait for him, and he thrust it open to come to an outside balcony, nighttime winds ghosting across his face from the tallest spire the structure boasted.
He took a breath of the cool air as he surveyed the kingdom from a distance, the moon cloaking all in sight in an unearthly glow that spoke of anticipation.
Tomorrow he would search for the girl. Tomorrow he would seek out the traitors. Tomorrow, he might even get to use his gift.
He smiled at the thought, inwardly worrying if he'd gotten rusty from disuse. The magic of Favor-Borns always found an outlet in one way or another, but years of practice had shown Dante and the others how to suppress it. Abbott didn't want to waste their talents on anything without purpose, so outside of occasional practice, the chance to use their magic was often limited. The desire for it was always there, however, and there'd been more than a few times when he'd caught Samuel or Izan using theirs when they weren't meant to. Not that he could chastise them for it; he'd done the same thing too many times to count. Jesmyn was the only one who didn't have to suppress hers, mainly because it only came about from time to time.
Dante's, however, was always there, just lurking under the surface, ready to rear its head at the slightest flick of his hand. He wondered, if in fact this new girl was a Favor-Born, how long it would take for her to reveal herself. She couldn't possibly be trained and therefore had no knowledge of how to suppress it, no way to hide for much longer.
Dante looked down at the courtyard, blocked off from the rest of the kingdom by the iron teeth of the portcullis, and then beyond that: no lights could be seen in the distant homes, and Enid was stock still and silent, shrouded in hidden whispers he wasn't privy to.
But a momentary disruption in normal life of the dwellers couldn't last forever, and he presumed that tomorrow morning, things aught to regain shades of normalcy.
People would be out and about. Maybe she would be, too. Maybe they would be, too.
Unable to resist, Dante gave his hand the slightest of flexes at the thought. Immediately, darkness gathered around him like moths to firelight, and shadows grew in size.
Soon, he thought to himself.
Soon.