L glyph [https://i.imgur.com/2vwU4yB.png]

Neither sleeping nor waking… Dreams skim the surface of reality.

Night fell, deepening the shadows in a lightless courtyard choked with the rubble of collapsed buildings. Some shadows wandered on padded feet, peering and sniffing for food beneath the wreckage. Some of the food used to be people. Some of it still was.

In what had once been a cellar, Limathael blinked. The table he’d hidden under had saved him from the first fall of beams and stone. Slowly the debris had settled, crushing downward under its own weight. Movement of one hand remained to him, and that was all.

He waited and catalogued his pains. Pain he knew: he was an expert, after all, in bones and joints, muscles and organs. He was dying, but not yet beyond hope. If he lived, the damage was recoverable. He could fix himself. He had done it before, at need.

A shadow shifted, soft-footed, creeping nearer.

‘Is someone there? Help me. Please, help me.’

The small figure crouched to peer beneath the fallen beams.

‘Praise the Light. Help me, pet. Fetch someone to get me out.’

In the gloom, her face was a pale blur. She said nothing. A small sharp knife glinted in her fist.

The dream shifts… Another place, another time…

Sam tugged at his new suit. The material was stiff and scratchy. He liked the black half-cape though — he thought it looked rather fine, and as he strode down the Avenue, it swished in a pleasant way. And the boots, too, were good, so shiny he could see his face dimly reflected in them, and so sturdy he could barely feel the cobbles.

The clothes changed other people too. Before, passers-by would have barged past without a glance, or sneered and avoided him. Now they stepped aside and some even nodded, as if he were someone of importance instead of just another boy.

On balance, he didn’t mind the clothes too much.

Further down the street, he spotted red cloaks. One of the new patrols was heading this way.

He dodged round a slow-moving old lady, skipped past a seller of penny prophecies, and skidded to a halt, breathless, in front of the patrol leader. ‘Captain Nevin!’

The captain cracked his grim face almost into a smile. ‘Ah, young Sam of the Oryche. Are you meant to be roaming the streets without a chaperone?’

Sam grinned. ‘I have a free hour before afternoon lessons. Catch anything?’

‘Not today. There’s still reports of dire-wolves in the slums though. And rumour of a wyvern holed up in the undercity, but I doubt it myself.’

‘A wyvern! I’d like to see that.’

‘Well, if it ever turns up, I’ll try to let you know.’

‘Any sign of the—?’

‘The wild woman and the girl you’ve described to me at length on several occasions? No. Sorry.’

Sam sighed. Two weeks gone, and no word of Ellise, or green-robed Seekers, or of Andra and her sister. Andra, of course, could look after herself. Perhaps now she’d found her sister, they’d both leave the city, to go back north. Which was good, he supposed, though it stung to think she’d leave without saying goodbye.

Ellise had probably vanished into the crowds of the undercity or the slums. There was no reason to hope she’d be found. To anyone but him, she was just a girl of no importance at all.

Still, he knew he’d never give up hoping. One day, the crowd in the street would part and he’d see her, and she’d see him and smile, just like he remembered.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Somewhere else…

They came at dusk to the Westgate, one following the other, separate and together. Andra stopped and watched her sister sidle nearer.

Cara eyed the road beyond the gate. ‘Shall we go?’

‘You will go.’ Andra stretched and flexed her claws. ‘Travel north and west. Find home, if you want. Or elsewhere, I care not.’

Cara nodded. She still favoured her injured arm, but she was ready. She had no liking for the city. ‘Will you come with me?’

Andra shook her head. Her soul yearned for the distant ice-plains, for endless horizons and clean winds, but there was no home for her there, no kin to welcome a monster made by men. Cara could return home, perhaps, or find a new home with another clan. Andra would not.

She stood and watched her sister leave.

One day, she might follow her, head north to find another life or a good death. But not today. For now, the city suited her well enough. Strange as it was, she too was strange. The city was home to many monsters.

We must go, said the angel.

Not yet, Lorie said. I have to know.

They sat on a stone bench in the gardens at the side of the house, surrounded by gravel and closely trimmed, miniature hedges of box. It was one of those rare winter days when the sun broke through the clouds, and for an hour or so, an optimist could imagine spring was not so far away.

‘How is she?’ Grace said.

Simon flexed his fingers. New ones, a gift from Danta — beautifully made, but they didn’t feel right yet. The ghosts of his missing fingers didn’t quite align with the metal. One more thing he had to get used to.

‘No change,’ he said.

That was what Nana had told him, when he visited that morning. Nana and his mother had sat either side of Lorie’s bed, knitting. Nana was knitting socks. What his mother was making was a mystery even to her, but she seemed happy.

Lorie lay still and pale in her white linen sheets, and she looked no better and no worse. Sometimes he sat with her, but he couldn’t bear it for long.

‘She’ll be back,’ his mother said. ‘When she’s ready, she’ll be back.’

When he turned to go, there had been someone at the door: a young man, Lorie’s age, Anemari by his dress. ‘Excuse me, sir.’ The boy flushed. ‘I was told I might visit Lorie, but if it’s not convenient…’

The boy was so very young and clean, he made Simon feel out of place in his own home. ‘Who are you?’

The boy bowed, as if he’d just remembered his manners. ‘Phin vai Anemari, at your service, sir.’

Simon gazed at him, and didn’t know what he should feel. A young Anemari barges in, uninvited, wanting to see his daughter… Under other circumstances, he might be angry, or annoyed, or worried. Instead, he was only sad. ‘She won’t know you’re here. But go in if you want.’

Grace leaned back on the stone bench. Sunlight brightened the sweep of manicured green lawn, and a little wren crept along the line of box hedge. ‘I’m sorry, Simon.’

The silence between them felt awkward, too full of unspoken words.

‘You did the right thing,’ he said. ‘Sending for Master Caleb.’

‘The Oryche would have opened the Labyrinth with their own Adepts, despite your warning sign, and I didn’t entirely trust them. They had to see Eranon though, to know it was over… What have they done with him?’

‘Eranon?’ He straightened his leg. ‘Holywell, until we’re certain he’s no danger. Though if his condition doesn’t change, death might be a mercy.’

The bisected bronze head remained silent, he’d been told. Perhaps the Power had been destroyed. He hoped so. Otherwise, melting the bronze might work… though experimenting with the damned thing was so dangerous, perhaps it was better left untouched, forever sealed in stone. He shrugged. ‘How have you been?’

‘Busy.’ She frowned. ‘A lot of planning, a lot of talking.’

‘I was surprised they chose you as Head of Council. There was talk of dissolving Numisma altogether.’

‘House Numisma was badly wounded, but we’ll heal. We must. Numisma isn’t just my family. It’s the lifeblood of Athanor. It’s contracts and agreements, factories and shops, ships on the sea and grain in granaries. It’s money in motion. We’re needed. And when it came down to it, who else was going to head the Council? None of them trusted any of the others.’ She sighed. ‘Did they offer you the Lordship?’

He laughed. ‘Oh, yes. I turned it down, to everyone’s relief. There are better, younger men for that job, and thank Light, I know my limitations. It’s enough to be reinstated. The children’s status is still being argued about, but they’ll be provided for. They’ll have a future.’ Bad choice of words. Sam would have a future. Lorie…

His mind stumbled, as it did too often, on the brink of one of those sickening gaps left behind by the Power. It was gone from him, of that he was sure, but its imprint remained, the spaces where it had been. At times the earth echoed through him as if every hollow and void was mirrored in his soul, and all the honeycombed fragments of himself might shatter like glass.

He was not glass, though. In time, the damage would heal, just as Athanor — no stranger to fire and explosion — was already rebuilding itself. Streets reformed, gutted buildings were soon reoccupied. Life went on.

‘And what about us?’ Grace said. ‘Do we have a future?’

‘Grace...’ He gazed at the lawn, rather than her, and wished life could be simpler. ‘I won’t marry again. I don’t want to leave Oryche, and obviously, I couldn’t expect you—’

She giggled. ‘Oh, my dear…’ She started to laugh, and took his hand before he recovered enough to feel aggrieved. ‘Sorry, but really. We aren’t teenagers. It is possible, you know, for two adults of mature years to be friends, and have dinner together, and even to sleep in the same bed occasionally, without benefit of a formal contract.’

‘Oh,’ he said, and, ‘Oh.’

‘I mean, the Lady of Numisma isn’t expected to be a nun. Discreet, yes, but not… Are you going to say something that isn’t oh?’

The sun was warm on his face and hands. In a few months, spring would be here. ‘I think,’ he said. ‘I would very much like to have dinner with you.’

We must go, said the angel.

In the dream, there was no up, no down, no body, no breath. Lorie couldn’t sigh, however much she wanted to.

How long will I be away?

As long as it takes, said the angel.

Then I suppose we’d better get started, she said. Still she hesitated. Will they be all right?

That’s up to them, said the angel. The future isn’t written in stone.