"Looks like Morty and the rest had a hard time staking their claim tonight."
Mirk picked up his pace and beat Danu to the door to the training hall behind the K'maneda's Academy building, opening it for her and inclining his head the appropriate measure as she passed. He didn't even realize he'd done it, that the manners scolded and coaxed into him over years spent running at his mother's heels had once again eclipsed his growing familiarity with what counted as proper among the low-born members of the K'maneda. Not until Danu laughed at him. While Mirk looked down and sighed, she reached out a hand to ruffle his hair as she passed him by. "You're too good for us, Mirk," she said over her shoulder.
He wasn't. At least, he didn't feel that way. But before he could say so, Mordecai had spotted them both and was bounding over to shower Danu with his usual stream of effusive greetings. The teleporting mage was a little dusty and bruised, but not as badly as the men out front had been. They were all newer members of the Seventh, ones Mirk didn't recognize, who laughed and waved off his offers of healing before Mirk could even properly make them. He wished they hadn't. It was easier healing glancing cuts from daggers and swords early, before they turned foul and stirred up a fever that it took bottle after bottle of potion to manage. But maintaining a certain aura of physical toughness was key to getting along in the infantry divisions, Mirk had noticed.
That, at least, was familiar enough to Mirk. The men in his father's guard had been the same way. And Mirk's own inclination toward cringing and fretting over their wounds as well as his own had given him away instantly as not having inherited the stern, warlike disposition necessary to succeed as a commander of men. Unlike his sister. Kae had never backed down from a beating, no matter whether she was on the giving or the receiving end.
"Come take a look, Danny," Mordecai was saying once Mirk focused back in on him, tugging at Danu's elbow. "You're an earth mage, you can tell them that me and Niv got them a good deal. They look like junk, but the metal's still good!"
"I keep telling you, my elemental magic's not that strong," Danu protested. She didn’t resist Mordecai as he dragged her to the back of the training hall, though, past the other members of the Seventh sprawled out on the benches on either side of it, toward a heap of dinged and rusted metal that had been hauled in through the back door. K'aekniv was there, watching with a self-satisfied grin as Ilya poked through the pile of armor. The fire mage was holding the front part of a breastplate up close to his face when Mordecai and Danu got there, the plainly eager grin of a child on his face.
"From the eastern mines," Ilya said, his grin taking on a delighted cast when the rust covering the top half of the breastplate fell away with a touch of his magic. "Eastern iron has the best echo."
"If Ilya says it's good, then it has to be good," Mordecai confirmed, with an adamant nod of his head.
Danu folded her arms, looking tired. "Then what do you need me for?"
"Ilya's a little weird," Mordecai whispered at her, loud enough for anyone within ten feet to hear him. "Besides, they're still not convinced," he added, gesturing at the group of men sitting on the floor against the back wall. More new recruits, less beat-up than those out front. But whereas the ones in front of the training hall had been tanned and muscular, the ones inside looked lost, afraid. And cold despite how warm the building was from having the sun beat down on it all day. Even though autumn was nearly upon them, the afternoons were still as hot as they had been in summertime, or at least they had been for the past three days. Mirk had been in the City long enough by then to know it wouldn't last much longer.
Mirk drifted over closer to the new men, lowering his shields and casting out his senses to see if they were truly ill, or if they just looked sick. It was the latter. Though their minds felt oddly distant and their bodies ached, it was the kind of hurt that came from too much use for too long, not from an injury healing magic could easily repair. "Where did they come from?" Mirk asked no one in particular.
"Leto's train," Pavel said, soundlessly appearing behind him. His quiet voice startled Mirk; he turned to look at him. The aching of the men against the back wall had cloaked the familiar touch of Pavel’s melancholy presence drawing closer. But from what Mirk could feel, the Seer was more gloomy than usual. He was spinning one of his twin polearms around his wrist, catching it for a moment after every spin. There was a special word for the weapon, which made Mirk think of a cleaver someone had strapped to a quarterstaff, but he was perpetually forgetting it. "They'll be better in a couple of weeks. Just soon enough to go on contract, probably. But they already know how to fight."
"Smart ones," K'aekniv confirmed. "But they're the last we'll be able to steal, I think. Them and all the metal made the trip. We're good for up to the spring contracts. Everyone's happy." K'aekniv was talking even louder than usual, but his voice was colored with a note of worry. Mirk followed the half-angel's gaze to the other side of the training hall. Lina was there, doing a bit of mending and pretending not to hear K’aekniv. Even without turning his empathy on her, he could tell she was annoyed.
Mirk hardly knew where to begin. Things were always chaotic around the Seventh, and it wasn't just due to Genesis always lurking somewhere nearby, close enough to be called for if he was needed to settle something, but far enough away to avoid being drawn into most of the Easterners' perpetual debates and fisticuffs. But Mirk could tell that the commander wasn't there, not then. All of the growing shadows cast by the dregs of the evening sun through the training hall's tall, drafty windows were lifeless and flat.
Mirk had been half-expecting Genesis’s absence, but he was still a bit dismayed by it. The commander had been avoiding him ever since Mirk had asked him to attend Madame Beaumont's ball. Though Genesis had been doing an uncharacteristically poor job of it, observing Mirk working with the rest of the healers and fighters from some obvious corner instead of remaining completely hidden until someone either spoke ill of him or demanded his presence. Every time, Mirk thought Genesis looked more cold and disapproving than the last time he'd seen him. And every time Mirk got it into his head to go and speak with him, Genesis truly did vanish. Mirk was uncertain whether he was imagining things, that he was ascribing some emotional cast to Genesis's distance that was better accounted for by the irregular and complex nature of the commander's work, or if the whole matter of the ball and Genesis's attendant trip to Paris to be prodded at by the Nasiri twins really had upset him.
Again, Pavel's soft voice interrupted Mirk's thoughts. "Genesis said that if you want to train with him instead of me that you need to go to the low-born officers quarters out by the West Gate. It's the one old building over there. Third floor. He didn't say which room, but you'll probably be able to guess by the magic."
Mirk laughed, his relief at the second-hand invitation draining all the tension from his shoulders. If Genesis was willing to go so far as to ask for him in particular, he couldn't be too upset. That or he disapproved of what kind of bad habits training with Pavel instead of him had been adding to all the rest of the faults in his form. "Methinks you're right," Mirk said, adjusting his bag on his shoulder just before it could fall off. "But is there anything I can do here to help first? Those men seem a little...hmm, sais pas..."
"They'll be fine now that they're here. Anything is better than the train, even the City," Pavel said. Before Mirk could question him further, the Seer was called off by Ilya, who'd said something to him about the head on one of his polearms sounding off.
Mirk watched as the two men sat down on the floor of the training hall and conferred together, Pavel passing the weapon over and starting some conversation with him in their native tongue as Ilya ran his hands over the weapon's cleaver head, petting it fondly as if it were a kitten rather than an instrument of death. Whatever they were discussing seemed to help with Pavel's mood. Soon they were both laughing, though, as always, Ilya's delight had a more genuine cast to it than Pavel's, which still bore its characteristic hint of anxiety, as if something terrible was bound to pounce upon them the moment he stopped being watchful.
Everyone was falling into their usual routines all around him in the training hall. The older recruits partnered up to show the new men seated along the perimeter of the hall the basic techniques needed to keep themselves alive in the heat of battle, purposefully mismatching themselves to better show how to work at an inevitable disadvantage. Tall went with short, stocky went with slender, those with higher magical potential went with ones who leaned harder on their technical skill to compensate for their limited magic.
But Danu always fought Mordecai, both as an excuse for them to stay close together, and as an extension of Mordecai's philosophy that nothing could be learned well unless one enjoyed themselves in the process. Danu had no interest in fighting; she knew enough to handle combative patients, and had no intention of joining the Seventh as a combat medic, even though her empathic ability was weak enough for her to try. Mirk could tell from the flush it put on her face, redness that could easily be mistaken for exertion, if one wasn't familiar with the effect her Deathly magic had on her body, that she delighted in hurling Mordecai about the room, just for the fun of it. And even in getting pinned or thrown herself when Mordecai managed to outmaneuver her with a technique that put his quick wit and even quicker limbs to good use.
Pavel and Ilya were another constant pair, their contrasting physiques and different weapons of choice making them good instructors. And there was a little of the same joy in it that there was in the fighting between Danu and Mordecai, though it was mostly on Ilya's end. Mirk was still uncertain whether to believe Yule's evaluation that there was more than friendship between them. Considering what conclusion Yule had come to upon dissecting Genesis’s recent moodiness, Mirk was inclined to believe that Yule tended to read more into the friendly relations among men than was truly there. But even he had to admit that reaching that same conclusion upon watching Pavel and Ilya fight wasn't so much of a wild leap. They read each other like they'd been fighting together for centuries, not decades. And Ilya was always gentle when he managed to land a blow, even though the outsized fighter seemed to have trouble remembering to focus on nearly everything else that came his way.
Something was amiss that night, however. It took Mirk a moment to pinpoint it in the emotional din of the room, amidst flares of frustration and triumph and the ever-present fatigue. Lina. The one person in the room who felt out of place, who was still working at her mending on her own, despite the efforts of both K'aekniv and some of the other men to either engage her in conversation or coax her into trying her hand at some of the lessons. Not only was her own frustration more snarled and deep than that of the men who were struggling against bodies that didn't want to bend certain ways and hands that were clumsy on unfamiliar weapons, but it was coupled with a lingering feeling of worry from K'aekniv, which kept the half-angel’s usual relish of a good fight from permeating the room and overshadowing the tangled emotions of the rest of the Seventh.
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Mirk hesitated. It wasn't his place to get involved in whatever was going on between them. He was well aware of the unwelcome reputation the healers had for being meddling gossips and busybodies. But a friend's happiness was at stake. If a simple misunderstanding had soured things, either K'aekniv being unfamiliar with the trials that came with not having the same kind of latitude he did, or Lina not recognizing the intent behind one of K'aekniv's foreign habits, then Mirk thought that he was in a good position to put the matter to rest without it causing any more trouble to anyone. If the problem went deeper than that, Mirk resolved, as he crossed the room to speak with her, he would leave it rightly to them.
That aside, he couldn't linger too long, even if he wanted to. Genesis was expecting him, most likely. And the commander never liked to waste time waiting.
"Hello, Comrade Lina," Mirk said, nodding to her, stopping just short of a bow when he felt her annoyance rise up against his shields. His instincts told him to project his sympathy to her, but he held back, only smiling instead.
"Mirk, is it?" she asked him, her voice clipped and polite. As if she was well aware of who he was, and didn't welcome the intrusion by someone of his noble lineage and magic.
"Yes...do you work with the Supply Corps tailors? I only ask because that's an awful lot of mending..."
She glanced down at the uniform blouse scrunched up on her lap, its half-torn sleeve almost completely joined again. "I'm only a washerwoman," she said, a note of resentment seeping into her tone. "But the tailors will let us take home infantry uniforms to mend for a farthing a piece."
"It seems too little for such fine work," Mirk said, taking a closer look at the blouse, though he didn't draw any nearer to her. "I'm certain the men appreciate it when they pick them up from the depot. Half the robes I get need to be mended even before I put them on. And my stitching isn't much better than whoever sewed them up before me."
Lina didn't reply. But Mirk thought he could sense her softening, just a little. He gestured to the bench beside her. "May I sit down?"
Though she returned to her work without giving him a second glance, she nodded. Mirk eased himself down onto the bench, swinging his bag onto his lap. "I see why everyone avoids the empaths now," she said, her tone conversational. "Or did I miss Niv begging you to come talk with me?"
Mirk sighed. It was best to be forward with her, then. No matter how much it pained Mirk to be blunt. "No, you didn't miss anything. And I apologize, comrade. I...I really don't mean to pry. It's only easy to feel you're both upset. I thought maybe you might like someone to listen. You don't have to say anything, of course, I'd understand. But methinks it must be a little hard, fitting yourself into all of this," Mirk said, gesturing at the fighters locking and smacking weapons before them. The demonstrations had ended, and now the old fighters who'd been leading them were winding their way among the rest who were trying out the techniques for themselves, correcting positions and offering advice.
"There's room for no one extra in it. Except for the gaps left by all the ones who don't come home," Lina said.
"That's why they do this every night. At least, that's what Gen and the others tell me. The training they're given when they first join isn't very good."
"I've heard the same. Again. And again."
Catching himself before he could reach out a hand to her, Mirk worried at the straps of his work bag instead. Those could also use mending, or replacing. He settled for cloth rather than leather, and often paid the price in wet supplies and ripped straps. Of course, his picking at it every time he needed to think a little didn't help anything. "You're welcome to learn too, I'm sure. Danu does very well for herself, methinks."
"I know enough to do what I have to," Lina said, curtly. "And I'm not interested in wasting my time on more. Even if they let the women go on contract, the pay isn't worth the risk. The only point to it is getting good enough so that you don't have to be the idiot at the front anymore."
Mirk sighed. "What happened, Lina?"
She set her mending down, though she didn't lift her head. "A whole month I worked at Dauid's third trying to get that idiot a spot in the Scots," she said, making a sharp gesture in the direction of K'aekniv. "Double the work, since I couldn't just go straight to Dauid’s second since he's a buggerer. And what do I get for it? Some nonsense about needing to look after this lot. As if they're nothing but a bunch of great big children. Which they are," she added, crossly, as she picked up stitching again.
It was a thornier issue than Mirk had been anticipating. He knew better than to offer any more advice to her. All there was left was sympathy, which he was certain now he shouldn't project. "You did work very hard, Lina," Mirk said. "I'm sorry it didn't work out the way you'd planned it to."
"All he did was pull that stupid grin of his and say it was a perfect job for one of the other blockheads. It's not right. He's the captain, he should have taken the spot himself. Not given it to some sergeant who's only been in two years. So what if he went to school for a few years? School's got nothing to do with doing well at this work. Niv says it himself all the time."
"I...well. Niv is very attached to all the men, not to make an excuse for him."
"There's a better life out there for him. All he has to do is stand up and take what's his instead of just handing everything he gets away to these idiots. Not that he isn't one himself, half the time.”
The resentment she felt toward the men arrayed before them, oblivious to Lina and Mirk on the bench against the wall, didn't bode well, Mirk thought. He couldn't fault Lina for feeling what she did. At the same time, Mirk knew from having spent over a year with K'aekniv and the Seventh by then that his men meant the world to K’aekniv. He would do anything for them. And that didn't bode well for either Lina or K'aekniv's continued happiness.
A familiar sense of unease stole over Mirk. It was all too familiar, the quiet tenseness in Lina's shoulders and the way that K'aekniv was carrying on, distracted at the moment by one of the newer men asking him how better to defend against the advances of a spearman with his sword. Mirk had sensed that same frustration in his mother, both when he was too young to be able to feel the emotion that went with her pursed-lip frown, and once he was old enough to feel exactly what she meant by it.
His mother had a place she retreated to every time his father disrupted her plans with an impassive report that he'd been summoned by the Empire, and that whatever thing she'd wanted him to see to would have to wait. The front drawing room, the one positioned near the front of the manor to take advantage of as many hours of sunlight as possible, where she did her sewing and the minor enchantments that went into each of her invisible stitches. Her work would sit idle in her lap, much like Lina's was, in fits and starts, as she watched his father prepare his guard for leaving out on the front lawn.
Though K'aekniv's manner with the men of the Seventh was much more warm and friendly, the resolve was the same. His father, perfectly composed in his armor, all the feet of gleaming silver making him appear like more of a fantasy than he already did, would pace among his angels, searching for every last fault and meticulously correcting them. Not out of disapproval or fastidiousness, but because any small error, any poorly buckled plate or askew flight feather, could spell all of their doom. K'aekniv was much less stern in his admonitions. But, at its heart, the scene was the same. The fighter and the one left behind.
Only it wasn’t truly the same, Mirk realized, the longer he stewed on it. Not there, in the City of Glass's echoing training hall. Lina had no noble father's laurels to rest upon, to grant her the opportunity to launch her own campaigns. And K'aekniv wasn't the only son of a former Host commander, his oddity granted latitude due to his family line's unwavering service for millenia. Neither of them had the same room to maneuver, to bend, to compromise. Nor did they have the gold to ever tell their superiors no.
It made Mirk ache for them both. For how much brighter, how much simpler their lives could be, if only gold wasn't such an unyielding master. Though, the same could be said for most of the people in the training hall that evening, most likely, if Mirk considered their troubles long enough. It made him want to go search out this Ravensdale person he seemed to have heard every imaginable horror attributed to over the past few months and shove all his family's gold at him, just to let the Seventh and the Twentieth live in peace.
Something told him that wouldn't solve a thing, however. Not in the long run. The wealthy were always looking to add more pages to their ledgers. Mirk wondered if that was yet another sign that he'd been lifting too many pages from Genesis's book.
Mirk was drawn back to the present by a frustrated hiss beside him. Lina had finished one shirt and was in the process of digging another out of her basket. "If only he wasn't so damn handsome. Good-looking men will be the death of us all, I swear to God."
That time, Mirk didn't manage to catch himself. He reached out and put a sympathetic hand on Lina’s shoulder, not halting the laugh that bubbled up in him at her words either before it escaped past his lips. "I'm sorry, Comrade Lina. If there is anything I can do for you..."
Lina didn't try to smack his hand away. But Mirk withdrew it quickly nevertheless. "There's not." She paused, glancing over at the pile of finished shirts to her left. A bit beyond them on the bench was a garment that hadn't needed mending, one of the red cloaks that were so popular among the low-born ladies of the K'maneda for a reason Mirk couldn't pinpoint. "At least he was smart enough not to throw away all the money he'd saved on that ugly heap of scrap. Paid my rooms up for the month, and got the cloak besides. I just don't understand why he'll pay up for people he doesn't know just the same as he does for the ones he says he loves. You can't go around treating everyone in life the same, no matter what the Gospel says."
Mirk didn't even know where to begin on that topic. And he felt that he'd be in an even worse position to help with that matter than he was with the matter of men who put their work ahead of everything else in their lives. Instead, Mirk shrugged and got back to his feet, wincing at how something in his back protested the motion. He'd been assured that the aching would let up the more he practiced fighting, but near-daily practice ever since hearing from Madame Beaumont had yet to help his stiffness any. "If you do need help with anything, please don't hesitate to ask. I...well. I may have a bit more means than the rest of the men to help if a small thing comes up."
Lina didn't look up at him, smirking to herself as she started in on her new piece — a pair of trousers spit at the back and bottom. "Oh, yes. I've heard about that. Don't see what's in it for you, but if you're making the offer, I'm not too good to take you up on it. But money can't fix stupid."
Mirk sighed. "I'm afraid not, no. Be well, Lina. And...well. I'll think of you," Mirk added. He'd learned quickly enough that many of the low-born K'maneda didn't appreciate being prayed for, even among those who weren't as adamantly opposed to faith as people like Yule and Genesis were.
"If you're going to leave, you need to run before their nonsense sucks you back in," Lina said. But she said it with a smile that both looked and felt a bit more genuine. And, as if to emphasize the point, Mirk heard one of the new fighters let out a roar of an expletive from somewhere behind him, coupled with a flare of pain.
"Methinks you're right about that."