Chapter 17

The rain washed the red from Arios. He sat on the steps starring out at Kenosia. Dark plumes curled skyward, thick with grey ash and hot ember. It clung to the air choking the city. Below him bells rang, crying desperately for aid. And from all quarters of the city the Vigiles answered the call. They came running. In their dark leather coats, carrying tall ladders and great axes. They made towards the Low Ward and the Stacks, all the while raising the alarm, calling out for their brothers to join them.

Arios sat on the steps. Starring out at his city. All around him the gold and sapphire soldiers marched. Struggling to regain order. The fighting seemed at its end but the sound of the dying remained unbroken. Even worse were the wails of the living. Mothers whose children had been torn from their arms and trampled beneath the mob, lovers whose partners had been cut down before their very eyes. They cursed and screamed calling out for the lost but there would be no answer.

Arios sat on the steps starring out at the nightmare surrounding him. Above him was Ilaria. She stood tall and fierce. Her body tense, waiting, preparing for whatever horror came next. Smoke swirled around the steps blanketing the streets below in an obscuring fog.

“Arios! Ilaria!” A voice called out from the fiery haze. “What are you doing here!?” Out of the smoke stepped Erykos. Robes ripped and burned, his builder’s insignia barely clinging to his cloak. “The fires! We must get you home!” He stumbled up the steps towards them. “What has happened here?” He wheezed and then broke into a hacking guttural cough.

“The soldiers turned on the market goers,” replied Ilaria. “The crowd whipped itself into a frenzy and drove them into a melee.”

“Impossible!” Gasped Erykos. “What new madness has taken ahold of our city!?”

“It is just like I…” Ilaria fell silent. “Help me get Ari away from here! He was caught up in the mob…”

Arios starred down at the steps. Beneath the cobblestone he could hear a faint sound. The soft scratching of a thousand tiny beings clawing through the rock. What lay beneath them?

Scratch…scratch…

“Arios, can you walk?”

He looked up at Erykos. Then nodded struggling to his feet.

Behind them the last of the suns light disappeared beyond the horizon and the Kyrithon began their song.

They ran through the Upper Ward towards home. As they climbed higher the smoke grew weaker and the singing louder. All other sounds fell away until it was just the singing and the rain. But Arios could still hear the scratching. It dug itself into his mind burying so deep he could no longer tell if it came from beneath his feet or from inside his head. Was there something inside him trying to carve its way out?

The singing died as they turned the corner onto their street. Father stood outside their gates. He spoke with a soldier frantically. A captain by his dress but it was not Darios.

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“Father!” Shouted Ilaria.

He looked up, eyes wide, and broke out into a run towards them. “My children!” He cried, lifting Ilaria up and pulling Arios close. “They told me you went to the Market Hall.” There were tears in his eyes. “I thought…”

“Do not worry Father, we are well!” Ilaria’s eyes sparkled and she smiled wide. She looked so much younger than she had just moments ago.

“And you Arios?”

“I am…alright.”

“Father he was so brave! The crowd swept him away and I thought he was lost. But they could not bring him down!” She sounded like the Ilaria he knew. Bright, cheerful, an optimist girl that could bring a smile to anyone’s face. And yet… he did not recognize her.

Father laughed a great, deep, rolling boom, like thunder, “Your brother is a strong one is he not?” Then he turned to Erykos, “Thank you. For bringing back my children.”

“It was a stroke of luck that we happened upon each other. I was in the Low Ward when the fires started. I was separated from my men in the smoke and ash. I wandered blindly and eventually stumbled into them on the steps of the Market Hall.” He paused. “Daidal, there were many builders in the Low Ward today. We must send out search parties, we will be crippled if too many are lost.”

The relief disappeared from Father’s eyes. “I am headed to a council meeting, you will come with me Erykos, we will organize it from there.”

“Father? Should I—”

“No Arios, stay with your sister. Do not leave our home. There will be soldiers posted outside the gate for your protection. Do not leave.”

“Father—”

“I must go now. Take care of each other.” He smiled at them but the worry in his eyes betrayed its warmth.

Arios watched as Father and Erykos rushed down the street and disappeared around a corner.

The captain nodded towards Arios, holding open the gate and gesturing them inside.

Inside they were silent for some time. Ilaria prepared food and he gathered the plateware, placing it around the table. When she had finished, they sat together, eating.

“Ari, are you truly well?” Ilaria looked into his eyes.

“I had thought myself so strong. When we saw the first corpse” — Ilaria shuddered — “I was filled with anger. The Kyrithon had killed one of our own, desecrating his body. I wanted, needed to do something. To take action against them. There was no time to be distraught. But these were our people Ilaria, turning on each other… What can I do against such madness?”

Ilaria was silent. Outside, he heard the shouts of soldiers calling at the gates of nearby homes. They were searching. For the instigators of today’s atrocities. There were no calls outside their gate.

“Ari, it is the Kyrithon that are turning us against each other. Do not lose faith in Kenosia.”

“They have barely lifted a finger and already we are at each other’s throats.”

“It is the song,” Ilaria whispered. “There is a magic in it, they are praying to Arram and something is answering them.”

Scratch…scratch…

“Don’t be ridiculous Ilaria. You have read to many of those stories. Arram is no god. There is no magic they could use…You are just like…” he could not say it.

“Ari, have you…Ari do you remember our mother?”

“A little…” He knew about her, Father had told him so much, but had only one memory.

“I cannot see her face anymore,” there was a pain in her voice, a deep longing.

“You were just a babe when she died.”

She looked at him, eyes wild, “Ari… she is not dead.”

There it was. Father’s great error. He had wanted to protect them from the pain. So, he had told them a story. Of the old people of this land. How their mother had been one of them. How they had needed her back so they took her away. Back to the mountain, back to the great lake. But the truth was far simpler.

“Oh Ilaria…” He pulled her close, gripping her tightly in his arms. He saw his mother in the river. Cold, still. The Glintclaw pulling at her robes, tearing at her flesh. It was all he ever saw.

Scratch…scratch…

“Ilaria, do you hear that sound?”

She looked up at him, “What sound?”

“The scratching?”

“I am sorry Ari; I hear nothing but the rain.”

But he could see she was lying.

Scratch…scratch…