The lights that lined the street back into Whitering were the color of death. Kess gave them a wide berth as she walked, though she couldn’t help but stare. They were placed at odd intervals, mostly in front of shops that either catered to wealthier Downhill customers or otherwise dealt in Fulminancy themselves.

The parlors were the worst. Bright with an unnatural glow both inside and out, Kess’s heart thumped erratically each time she passed one.

One particularly aggressive parlor owner— a heavyset middle aged woman with wild curls— watched her walk by. The older woman’s eyes snapped to Kess’s slight limp, which she had a hard time hiding in the uneven streets of Whitering. Kess sped up her walk into a slight jog, but the woman snatched at her sash in a surprising burst of speed.

“Here now, lass, have you been seen for that?” She peered at Kess’s leg, eyes sharp. The otherworldly blue glow of Fulminancy cast the woman’s features in a ghastly light as Kess tried to pull away.

“I don’t have any money,” she lied immediately. She moved to dislodge herself, but Fulminancy crept into the woman’s hand, a crackling blue light, and Kess froze, panicking.

“No need for that,” the woman said kindly, her eyes crinkling in a smile. “We’ve got plenty to go around, particularly with the funds Forgebrand sent this morning. It’s a celebration, after all. Let me—“

Kess finally managed to detach herself from the woman, and put a very large chunk of space between herself and the parlor. Without Fulminancy trying to crawl over her skin, she immediately felt better. The older woman scowled at her, Fulminancy still crackling in her hand.

“What celebration?” Kess asked, straightening her sash. The woman’s Fulminancy fizzled out, and she shrugged, eyes already scanning the street for another customer. Free or not, she’d probably manage to convert at least some of her charitable work into ongoing business for her parlor— a big ask these days given what had happened last week.

“You must live in the mountain with the rocks, girl,” the woman said, smile gone now that Kess was no longer a potential customer. “Forgebrand’s been spreading the word Downhill all day— I imagine even the rocklovers up top have gotten word. Mariel’s alive. The Smith himself said as much.”

Kess snorted as she edged away from the glowing blue lights of the parlor and left the older woman behind. Mariel wasn’t alive— of that much, Kess was certain.

Further into Whitering, towards the edge of the city, the sick lights finally dwindled and disappeared. Kess was glad to leave them behind. Whoever had come up with such an idea was a madman at best, and a sadist at worst. Who would want to illuminate their homes with that sickly, unnatural light? Who would want a constant reminder of a power that destroyed more than it gave?

Regardless, Kess had a sinking feeling that the city would accept such changes with open arms. Change, though it so often destroyed old ways of life, would be embraced in a place like Hillcrest. Here, novelty was its own commodity, and the ability to stay up into the late hours without worrying about lamp oil was admittedly tempting, even to Kess. Fortunately, she wouldn’t be around to see the changes sweeping through the city if she had her way.

Kess turned into an alley, slinking down a set of steps. She paused in a tiny alcove and slid her body lithely into a small window near street level. There were other entrances, but Witchblades usually patrolled nearby. Most would assume this street to be uninhabitable when the Floodstorms came, but a set of cleverly concealed drains kept the rainwater out, mostly.

A damp scent remained as she shut the window behind her, blinking in the warm light. In a city surrounded constantly by voluminous thunderheads, sunlight was at a premium, but lamp oil was not, and no expense was spared for the small bit of comfort it offered people whose lives were already dark enough.

“Kestril!” Draven’s booming voice called out across the humming bar, his cackle a piece of home. She smiled in spite of herself, throwing her hood back.

“No guard duty tonight?” she asked, taking a seat at the bar. Draven looked at her with an expression of shock, a pedestrian orange and white sash swinging from his waist.

“And miss the celebration?” Kess nudged him with her swinging foot.

“Hopefully this celebration is different from the nonsense I just heard in the city,” she said, thanking Draven’s bartender with a nod.

“Any night you get home in one piece is cause to celebrate, lass.” Draven smiled, but there was concern in his gaze as he caught the web of cuts meandering away from the flowering bruise on her cheek. His brows knit together.

“Another one?” he asked, voice suddenly soft. Kess tried to wave him off, but couldn’t hide the wince in her face at the sudden movement in her rib cage. “Honestly, lass, he might as well put you up in the Fulminant rings. It makes no difference with how many you fight anyway.”

Kess stared at the wall of the bar sightlessly. “I won’t have to worry about it either way after tomorrow,” she said, taking a sip of the stale drink. It certainly wasn’t the best in town, but it wasn’t the worst either. Draven pulled up his own chair nearby, his form towering over her.

“What did you get yourself into this time?” he asked, turning towards her. “Are you still on about leaving the city? Lass, there’s nothing out there— just rocks and hills. Where would you go?”

“Somewhere without Fulminancy,” Kess said quietly. “But there’s nothing for it now— the Uphill’s requiring Fulminant sashes to leave now. Bolair told me this afternoon.”

“I’d count you blessed if I didn’t know you’re already trying to figure out a way around it,” Draven said, chuckling. Kess smiled slightly, but the truth was that she was at a loss. The obvious solution, of course, was to simply win the fight tomorrow and get a Fulminant sash, but that solution brought with it a host of other problems— namely that she was being paid to lose in the first place.

The second problem was one of her oldest; she wanted nothing to do with Fulminancy. Kess leaned over the counter and rotated her drink, thinking.

“Far be it from me to put ideas in your head,” Draven said, “but my men might be able to help you— provided you agree to meet them.”

“Forgebrand?” Kess asked. Draven nodded, and she sighed. “You know how I feel about them.”

“We feel just the same about you lass,” one of the men bellowed behind her. His table erupted in laughter, and Kess felt her face grow warm.

“I don’t mean it like that,” she muttered, though Draven just clapped her on the back in a friendly manner.

“They know you don’t mean nothing by it,” he said. “Still, plenty of us know ways in and out of the city.”

“Of course,” Kess said bitterly. “And all I have to do in return is swear loyalty to a dead Fulminant woman.” She spun her drink, letting it wobble on the counter, half empty. “Mariel?” she asked. “That’s the best Forgebrand could do?” She looked around the room at the bulky men who filled Draven’s tavern, most of them wearing white sashes dirtied with use, and shook her head. “I swear, Draven, sometimes I wonder if you’re in a gang.”

“Just a group of good men who know what they’re about,” Draven said, eying his tavern. “A brotherhood of sorts. Smiths and jewelers, most of us.”

“And soldiers and mercenaries.”

Draven winced a bit at that. “Some few,” he admitted, taking a drink. “But I imagine Mariel needs fighters as much as craftsmen.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Your men use swords, Draven,” Kess said. “If that’s not the definition of a gang, then I don’t know what is. It’s not right.”

“Plenty of men use swords outside of Hillcrest,” Draven said quietly. “In Tamresh they train boys to use them from a young age.”

“Tamresh is full of savages.”

“Maybe we’re the savages,” Draven said darkly. Kess found it hard to argue with that. Swords or not, she’d never heard of Tamreshians using Fulminancy, which seemed like the ultimate form of savagery when all was said and done. “All I’m saying, lass, is that we’re more than what you have us pegged to be. Mariel wanted more for this city than us squabbling over sashes and rings. She was a champion of the common people— she even crafted items that would help Duds wield Fulminancy.”

“A plan working beautifully considering that I never see one of those trinkets in the hands of anyone with a striped Downhill sash.”

“Well lass, as they say, be the change you want to see in the world.”

Kess blinked, looking around the room. The usual thugs did occupy Draven’s tavern, but equally present were a number of wealthier orange and red sashes wearing the fine clothes of merchants or craftsmen.

“Mariel’s Smiths,” Draven said proudly, following her eyes. “We take her designs, forge them anew, give them back to the common people. Keep her dream alive as it were.”

“And where are you getting the Fulminancy to infuse her designs with?”

Draven shrugged, looking a little uncomfortable as he turned his drink. “No doubt you won’t like the answer,” he said. “The current Seat of Mariel. She inherits all of this, to my line of thinking— and the responsibility that comes with the Seat. That’s what the original Mariel intended it for, anyway.”

“Mariel is dead,” Kess said immediately.

“Is she? I must have missed the funeral.”

“She blew up half the palace when she left. If that didn’t cause her funeral I’m sure the Uphill arranged something for her. Would you return after that?”

He snorted, returning to his glass. “No,” he said quietly. “I guess I wouldn’t. But people talk.” His eyes glazed over just a bit as he stared at the wall ahead, as if he could see all the way to some future that Kess was unable to grasp. “A Mariel of the people, one who might defend us and help us.” His eyes were glassy from the future he was glimpsing, or the alcohol. Kess wasn’t quite sure which. “Can you imagine it?”

His words were dangerous, and Kess couldn’t quite hide a nervous glance around the bar. “What’s there to imagine?” she finally replied. “She obviously didn’t care about any of us or the original Mariel’s intentions if she left.”

Draven nodded with a small smile to the bartender as his drink was replaced with a fresh one. “Left, was killed, who really knows. But you know…” he trailed off, tapping his fingers against the bar. “That Seat wasn’t meant to keep us in check like dogs.”

“I’m aware of that tale,” Kess said, rolling her eyes and taking a sip of her own drink. Her cheek throbbed just a bit less with each sip.

“Are you now?” Draven asked. His eyes sparkled with amusement, a tilted smile lighting his ruddy face. “I never much took you for a historian.”

“How could I forget the biggest lie of them all— that the Seventh Seat was supposed to help us?”

“It could be true. It gives people something to hope for at least.”

“That’s all it is,” Kess replied, staring moodily into her drink. Somehow it wasn’t helping her attitude like it usually did. “It’s just something drunkards like you and I tell each other on stormy nights in taverns, to try and convince ourselves that there’s something bigger out there.” The worn grain of the bar blurred in her eyesight, but it was hardly the alcohol— it was the lie she kept telling herself to keep from shattering into a million pieces.

“Well you’re certainly charming,” Draven said, clapping her heartily on the back. Kess tried to summon a smile, but found it elusive.

“Do you think she hated herself, Drav?” she asked, playing idly with a dinner knife.

“Lass, that’s a hard question for any of us to answer without being in her head,” he said, but he looked thoughtful as he took a swig of his ale. “I find it difficult to believe that anyone can hate themselves quite as much as you,” he said, chuckling.

“So you’re saying I’m the expert on this topic.”

“I am. What do you think?”

Kess paused, the knife freezing in her hand. Mariel was the most powerful Fulminancer in the city, a force of nature by herself. She’d inherited all of the original Seat of Mariel’s powers, born with everything handed to her, a life that many would envy. Yet she threw it all away, leaving the Seat empty for the first time since it had been established.

“I think she did the clouding city a favor,” she said quietly. One less Fulminancer. Maybe she also took a few of them out with her while she was at it.” Draven’s expression darkened.

“You’d wish death on them so easily?” he asked. Kess shot him a flat look.

“Drav, they sneak into my fights, they burned my last house down, and they won’t even let Oliver into Uphill to study half the time. I’d kill them myself if given the opportunity,” she finished.

“Killing isn’t something you should take so lightly,” he said. “In any case,” he sighed, downing the rest of his drink. “The rumor today is that Mariel is here in the lower city, building a movement to fight the Uphill, even as we speak.”

“Why on storm’s gray earth would you try to fight them?” she burst out without thinking. Draven’s pointed glance gave her pause. “What I do is very different, Drav. I never know they’re Fulminant until I’m already in the ring anyway. And fighting the Uphill is another thing entirely. It’s like flying a kite in a Lightstorm.” Kess studied her drink distastefully. She’d obviously had too much already if she was having this discussion with Draven again. “Is this more Forgebrand propaganda?”

Drav looked slightly embarrassed, though some solemnity entered into his gaze. “Forgebrand doesn’t peddle propaganda, lass. We keep the traditions alive— no more, no less.”

“Which is why— besides you— every Forgebrand member I’ve ever met holds Mariel in higher regard than even Fanas,” she said. “I mean clouds, Draven, how do you even worship one without the other? They were both founders.” She shook her head and took a sip of her ale. “Traditions or not, starting a disagreement with the Uphill is only going to provoke the Witchblades into coming down here more often.”

“Maybe,” Drav replied quietly. “But smaller things have changed worlds.”

“It’s hard to change worlds when you’re dead,” she said, staring into her glass. If Kess had her way, it would be her only company for the rest of the night.

“Well,” Drav said, knowing when the conversation was over with Kess. “You choose to believe what you want. As for me, I’ll choose the option that doesn’t have Witchblades visiting Whitering every night and ruining my business. I’d tell stories about a damn fairy if I thought it might make for better business.”

A small smile managed to worm its way back onto her face. One more fight, Kess thought. One more night with them, and then no more Fulminant, no more running, and no more Witchblades. She clinked glasses with Drav’s empty one.

“Now lass, what is this I hear about a fight in the Uphill tomorrow?”

Kess froze, cup halfway to her lips, then decided it couldn’t hurt to tell Draven. He’d tolerated worse decisions before.

“One last fight, Drav. In the Fulminant rings.” Draven always swore up and down that his establishment didn’t tolerate eavesdropping, but the silence that followed her statement was rather incriminating. Slowly, a nervous chatter filled the room again as Draven glared at his patrons before turning back to Kess. “Maybe if I win enough off of it I can try Bolair again, or maybe another guard will cave,” she continued, eying her drink.

Voiced, her reasoning sounded weak, but she couldn’t come to terms with the idea of actually winning the fight. Was she even capable of it? And if she did win, what then? Would she become Fulminant? Wear a blue sash? Move Uphill to bathe herself in that sick, deadly glow? Her stomach churned uncomfortably.

“Kess, they’ll make tonight look like child’s play.”

“She’s supposed to be inexperienced,” Kess said, avoiding his eyes. She knew what she would find there.

After the silence stretched too long, she glanced at Draven’s ruddy face. He stared darkly into his mug, eyes unseeing. “Inexperienced, powerful, and noble,” he said. “What could go wrong?”