Right after our ascent, my uncle took me aside, walking just out of earshot of everyone else before he began to speak. But I didn’t really need to hear his voice to know what this was all about. The look on his face told me everything. I was in trouble. Because of course this was my responsibility again. Even though we’d at least managed to undo the first lock. I guess it hadn’t been enough. “Okay, one more time, Iris,” he said. “Tell it to me from the start.”

  “I’m telling you, it was Benjamin—”

  “Iris. Take responsibility for what happened. You are the Luminare here. You are the leader.”

  “For real? What are you even saying? How could I have led him? He wouldn’t even listen to me. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Something. Anything. Iris, if something like this were to happen with Alicia, would you blame her? If something serious happened to her, if she’d done something out of line and put herself into danger, if you were the only one who could help her.”

  “I’d do it in a heartbeat. But this guy is not Alicia.”

  “Treat him as if he were.”

  Impossible. “If he were Alicia, he wouldn’t have just... gone off like that. Rambling on and on about all those silly things, only to get immediately tricked by the very first illusion that showed up. Alicia is smart. Alicia doesn’t make ridiculous mistakes like that. Emily was there, too. Ask her.”

  My uncle sighed. “Iris. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Do you care about Benjamin?”

  “No.” I couldn’t even bother to lie and say that I did. “And if that makes me a bad Luminare, then so be it. I’m just so done with all this. It’s not my job to take care of him.”

  “It is—”

  “That’s enough.” Jonathan’s presence was a mercy. My uncle started to say something, but my instructor cut him off. “Saul. Let me take things from here, okay:? I promise I won’t go easy on her.”

  My uncle raised an eyebrow, but nodded and left.

  ***

  “You don’t care about Benjamin?”

  “Please, don’t even name him, Jonathan.”

  “Do you care about any of the soldiers with us?”

  “Of course I do. I don’t want them to get hurt. I don’t want them to be so afraid. But of all the soldiers, why did it have to be this one? This one, who doesn’t care about us, who doesn’t listen, who doesn’t do what he’s supposed to do? I can’t believe Uncle Saul chose him of all people to drag into the Cradle with us.”

  “He was the only one brave enough to volunteer,” said Jonathan. “And either way, you got the lock. That’s what matters. Congratulations.” My instructor shifted on his chair and took a sip of his coffee, completely unperturbed by the absolute disaster that had narrowly been averted within the Cradle.

  “He doesn’t... he’s not taking any of this seriously enough. The importance of our mission. He has such disdain for us. He doesn’t listen... he ran off like that and... and...”

  Jonathan put a hand on my shoulder to calm my trembling. “He is not Luminare, Iris. You must remember that. Be patient.” Jonathan smiled. “You know, I kind of like him. I’ve got a good feeling about him. I think it would do you good to try getting along.”

  “Me? With him?” I asked. “Is there nobody else who can simply accompany us? They have nothing to fear, so long as we are there, so long as they just listen. So that they don’t wander off the path and put us all in danger.”

  “Perhaps there’s a reason he isn’t listening to you.”

  “Of course there is! He’s not listening to be because he’s has no respect for us. He knows nothing of our situation, of what we’re doing, of the potential risks. He thinks he knows better. He thinks I’m just a child.” Jonathan chuckled. “Don’t laugh,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “I’m not laughing at you,” he said. “I see a lot of myself in you. How I used to be. But I learned that there is much still to learn from them, because they are not us. They are not Luminare, and because of that they see things so differently. They live in a whole different world. A new world.”

  “They’re in denial about the truth of the world, you mean. A world where the Patrons still rule, still have power and authority over them. Our authority. The natural order of things that has endured forever.” And by disobeying us, Benjamin had defied Polaris, defied his Patron, scorned his rightful place in the tapestry of history. “They reject what’s real. They deny the things they see before their very eyes. I feel they’ve gone crazy. Are we the only ones can still hold on to the truth?”

  “That may be. But it may be that the truth will not last.” The words caught me by surprise. Some things didn’t last, of course. People came and went. But the truth? The world? The world always stayed the same. The Patrons still held their dominions, and we fought their wars. The struggle of good against evil continued as it had since the beginning of the world. My instructor took a deep breath. “The world is changing, Iris. You haven’t lived quite long enough to see it. It’s really quite astonishing, to me. New ideas. New machines. New... you know, when I was a child, the idea of soaring through the sky was so far beyond our reach. But look at where we are now. Just between you and me, I feel that the Luminare have not learned enough from all these new things, not understood them well enough, only kept our own traditions, perhaps for too long. In years past we protected the world with our light and flames. I fear we will not be able to do the same in the modern world. That things are moving far beyond our pace. Beyond our capabilities. That the day will come when the power we wield is no longer enough.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Don’t be silly, Jonathan. There are useful tools that have come to us in recent days. Just tools. In the end, it is our Patron who stands behind us, with power beyond anything in this age or any other.”

  “Yes.” My instructor chuckled. “But still, do not discount the new wisdom, the new things in our world. It’s probably too late for someone old like me to change. I’m too set in my ways. But you’re still young, Iris. Please, give Benjamin a chance. I know his way of thinking is different. Wrong, even. But he is different. Modern. And sometimes I wonder if a modern Luminare is exactly what we need.”

  Modern. I scorned the word, the concept. The gross and brutish trappings of our age. But I understood what Jonathan meant. Listen to Benjamin, take in only what was useful, tempered by the purifying flame of Polaris, and discard the rest. Discard the useless dross, the trappings that created the weak: weak people who understood nothing about the Patrons, people who thought that reason and science could explain everything. “If you insist, Jonathan. But only because you say so.”

  ***

  Thunder crackled in the distance as we gathered in Jonathan’s tent for the Solstice ceremony. Though the raid had yet to start, the clouds roiled in the air, tumbling violently through the sky in premonition of the downpour to come.

  Still, the inside of the tent was cozy. The great open map table had been pushed to the side, leaving the ground bare, with enough space for everyone to sit on the ground. Candles were the only light, set up in a ring around the perimeter: seven little flames casting their soft glow to fill the darkness of the tent.

  Benjamin stood by the entrance, arms crossed across his chest, occasionally leaning outside to peer into the night. Was he not even going to go inside? I nearly caught his eye, but he seemed to avert his gaze. At least he had the decency to be embarrassed about his horrendous showing in the Cradle. As we passed, I simply sighed and found my seat between Alicia and Jake. For a moment, I considered heeding Jonathan’s words and standing all the way back alongside the soldier. But I just couldn’t bear it at the moment. Even if I was going to respect my instructor’s suggestion, there’d be plenty of time to ‘learn’ from him.. Just not now.

  The ground was hard and cold, each lumpy rock and twig and blade of grass painfully evident through the thin canvas floor. But if anyone felt uncomfortable, they dared not voice it. Instead, we all sat in a circle, eyes fixed on Uncle Saul’s little safe, which sat in the middle of the room. Jonathan walked into the middle and stood beside it, clearing his voice and beginning the ceremony.

  “Thank you for gathering here,” he said, looking from person to person all around the circle. “You all know why we’re here tonight. Tomorrow is Solstice. A day of rest and peace and harmony.”

  Solstice. The day of all seven Patrons at peace, for just one day. For us, it was a day for Polaris to come and speak to the inheritor of her daughter’s legacy. For her to come and speak to Jonathan, imparting her words of wisdom and guidance for the coming year. Jonathan smiled, unbuttoning his collar to reveal the mark of Lumis traced around his neck. “As the one who bears the symbol and inheritance of our Patron’s daughter, it’s my honour to repeat her legacy tonight, the ancient story that we commemorate each Solstice. I will lead the recitation. I trust you all know the words to repeat.”

  Everyone nodded, some more tentatively than others. Uncle Saul left his place on the edge of the circle and walked to stand beside his partner. His eyes glowed silver as the safe clicked and unfolded, the cube opening up so all its faces lay flat upon the ground. Within the safe were puppets, each unique in form and function, each brought to life by his invisible arms, his telekinetic powers guiding each and every one into position.

  I’d never seen this set before. Back at the academy, we’d had to re-enact the stories ourselves, dressing up in costume and performing for the younger students. These past few Solstices, I’d been out in the field with Jonathan, who did his best with a small set of wooden figurines which he moved by hand. Or, if we’d been back in the capital, it’d have been a grand performance in one of the great halls, with all the majesty and spectacle of the stage, with its cranes and gears, its lavish costumes and colourful makeup. But although all those had been lovingly crafted experiences, they paled in comparison to the little puppet set that lay before us. I had to wonder where they’d come from. At first I thought that my uncle had made them himself, but looking carefully at the pieces, the materials were far too fine and extravagant. Tiny wooden bodies, painstakingly articulated with uncanny likeness, each dressed in finery of precious metals and other rare materials. Uncle Saul was never one to waste time on luxuries, and these... well these puppets were certainly that.

  “Seven. Seven Patrons.” Jonathan’s voice filled the room as easily as the light of the seven candles around us. “At the beginning of time, before history began, they created everything and imparted their gifts unto the people of the world.” He raised his hand, shining a spotlight on the ground. One by one, the puppets began to march towards the light.

  “Polaris was first,” Jonathan continued. Our Patron had fiery hair, just like mine, crowned with a blinding halo of light. The puppet sparkled with gold and platinum sequins, lit up with a phosphorescent glow that shone far brighter than anything else around. “The Patron of light and life and truth, who banishes all darkness. And of all the Patrons, she gave herself to guide us in this life, to be our guidepost and trailblazer, to lead the way for all who pursue what is good in the world. To us, her people, she granted us a special gift, the light that wells up within us.” His eyes glowed a little brighter.

  “After her, Altair painted the world into existence.” The puppet of Altair bowed, emerald-green Patron waving his brush to paint broad strokes through the air. “The one who creates and destroys, who gave to us our bodies, moulded out of clay.”

  “Then, Deneb.” Tall and stark, the doll was white, the wooden skeleton framed in porcelain. Its body was swaddled in cascading robes of black silk that shimmered and changed like water under the candlelight. “Ever-changing one, who takes whatever she desires. To us she gave the fire in our hearts, the passion that drives us forward.”

  “Fourth, Vega.” The scholar Patron stepped out, masked and clothed in heavy robes that hid every aspect of the skeletal marionette beneath. “Though frail in stature, abounding in endless wisdom of the world’s secrets, and imparting a small share to us as a gift, that we would not wander this world aimlessly.”

  Jonathan paused. “Fifth and most terrible of all, Antares.” As if in response to her name, thunder echoed again in the distance. The puppet was gaunt and twisted, rusted metal pins and scrap held together by seemingly nothing, clad in faint white sheets and crowned with barbed spines. She raised a rusty little sword as she bowed and joined the rest. “Patron of war, and pain, and corruption, of every crawling rust and filth and disease that plagues us, of the crawling scales and thorny branches that encroach upon the good and fair places of the world. Her sole existence is endless torment. Her sole purpose the eradication of everything that is good. For just as Polaris is the only Patron truly virtuous, Antares stands alone, the most hideous of them all. And her ‘gift’, if indeed it can be called one, is the seed of doubt in each of us, that we must guard, lest it bear its terrible fruit.”

  But she was not the last. Sixth was Procyon. The weeping Patron emerged, tears painted upon his marble face. The puppet’s body was made of glass, hollow vessels filled with water that splashed around inside with every movement. “Procyon, ever dwelling on the past. He gave us the gift of retrospection, that we may look upon our pasts and perhaps learn something for the future.”

  “Finally, righteous Canopus.” She stepped out, double-bladed harvest scythe balanced delicately on gold-and-wooden fingers. “In all her grace she granted us the conscience in our hearts. May we be found righteous in her eyes at the end of days.”

  “And with these gifts, the Patrons beheld the world they had created, each claiming lands and peoples to be their own. Solstice was their day of creation, the greatest and most sacred day that all commemorate. A day of peace, to remember the Patrons and their gifts to us. And for we, the people of Polaris, Solstice means something more.”

  The first response to the recitation. Everyone knew what to say. “For to us, Polaris gave far more. A message and a mission.” The words flew off my lips without a second thought.

  “Indeed.” My instructor smiled. “No Patron was more brilliant, more perfect than Polaris herself. Our Patron.” Jonathan illuminated the effigy again, light scattering off in all directions. To its side, a smaller puppet walked, tottering on its tiny legs to hug Polaris. “And nothing in all the world was more important to Polaris than Lumis, her daughter, the light of her life and everything that gave her joy. Polaris granted her daughter a necklace imbued with her light, to make Lumis’s brilliance shine even brighter. But such beauty brought jealous eyes that lurked from within the shadows.

  The collar of light glowed around Jonathan’s neck. In the dim lighting, it was easy to see the intricacies of the patterns traced around him. The figures of Polaris and Lumis now retold the same story, engraved upon his skin. On the little puppet, too, glowed a collar of light. But our appreciation of it was cut short by a rattling from the edge of the circle.

  “Ariana,” Jonathan continued. Ariana. The child of Antares, and everything that Lumis was not. Jealous, immoral, vicious, and cruel, the little puppet was made of the same hooks and spines as its mother, crawling pitifully across the floor of the tent, skeletal arms reaching out with spindly fingers to grasp and claw at the fairer child. “Like their mothers, the daughters were mirrors of each other. While Lumis was kind and pure, and treated her people with grace and justice, Ariana was cruel at heart, devouring the lives of those who toiled under her thumb.

  “Antares saw Lumis’s brilliance, and, rather than rejoicing, sought to snatch the gift for her own daughter’s ends. So on the sacred night of Solstice, as little Lumis slept, Antares crept into her chambers and slit her throat, prying the necklace from her and bestowing it upon Ariana as a gift of her own.

  “When dawn broke, Polaris found her daughter dead, and saw the signs of the one who had done it. She wailed and wept for her only daughter. Determined, she rose and vowed to protect the children of her people, as none had protected hers. And so Polaris brought us into her fold, the Luminare, each snatched from the jaws of death by her own hands, adopted daughters to take the place of the one who was lost. And upon the dearest of the Luminare she bestowed a second necklace of light.” Jonathan touched his neck again, the patterns flashing once more against his skin. “A symbol to be passed from child to child in unbroken chain until the true necklace of Lumis is returned to its rightful owner.

  “For that ill-gotten treasure was warped by Ariana. In her hands, light turned to darkness. The necklace was sealed away in the Cradle, deep beneath the earth. The evil within seeped into the soil and trees, the Corruption blossoming all around it and devouring the world.

  “And as for Lumis herself, she still watches over us immortalized in purest crystal, standing guard within the Citadel until the end of days, when her gift shall be returned to her and shine in the world once more.” I had seen Lumis myself, her crystalline form entombed above the grand hall in the Citadel. She sparkled with the light at dawn each morning that I was there. I’d often imagined what would happen when the necklace would be returned to her. To think think that we were now so close to that moment sent chills to my very bones.

  My instructor continued. “So we gather here on Solstice to commemorate the birth of the world and, through the death of Lumis, the birth of the Luminare. We remember our Patron’s anguish, and how she saved our lives from certain death.”

  Uncle Saul began to pour the coffee into each person’s metal cup. In the closed tent, the aroma filled the room, strong and bitter, as it always was. The tray slowly floated around the circle, soldiers taking the cups one by one and holding them in anticipation. The metal was hot, steam rising off the black liquid inside.

  “Now, we repeat the lines,” said Jonathan. “I trust you know them well. Polaris lost her daughter many years ago this day.”

  Here it was. I took a deep breath before replying. “Now we are her children, following in Lumis’s footsteps.”

  “In following her, we testify to our Patron’s perfection, her message of hope and light to follow.”

  “We are ever grateful for her gift to us,” we echoed.

  “Now she calls us into the Corruption, to wrestle with it until we reclaim what belongs to her. She only asks that we follow her unconditionally.”

  “We gladly take up her mission as our own.” And now we were so close. Already one of the locks within the Cradle had been broken, one binding of the necklace that lay so deep within. I could feel it within my grasp already. My own neck ached, as if the same pattern etched in my instructor’s flesh was being branded into mine.

  “To show our devotion, we drink the bitter cup that she provides.” Jonathan held his own cup high. “Now drink.” He downed the glass, slamming the empty cup against the ground. It rang clear as a bell.

  I pressed the cup to my lips, downing the bitter drink in one gulp. It was hard to swallow. The coffee was tempered with bitter herbs and spices. A vile liquid that burned my throat. But I did so willingly, to show my devotion to the one who’d done so much for me. Opening my eyes again, I glanced across at the others, their eyes closed in thought. I recalled how Polaris saved me, catching me as I fell from the spires of the Citadel, discarded by my parents, finding my everything here. And each and every of us were the same, clutched from death to life by our Patron, if not in body at least in spirit, through her watchful eye and presence. I couldn’t imagine a world without her, without everything she’d done, because that was a world where I never existed, a world where my life was a single cold drop from the windy spires of the Citadel to the icy lake below.

  One by one, the metal cups rang against the rocky ground, like raindrops falling on the roof at night. A melody that showed our devotion to our Patron.

  Silence. A golden moment. How I wish it had never ended.

  Then the thunder reached us. A whirlwind consumed us and the ground crumbled beneath our feet. The canvas above was shredded, tent poles falling aside to reveal the sky above. Thunder crashed. The clouds burst, rain falling in sheets to melt away the carpet of snow and reveal the jagged metallic landscape beneath. Then her voice echoed across the clearing scraping across my eardrums as it carried through the air. It was impossible. And yet it was real.

  “Oh my. Am I interrupting something?”