“Where’s his head?” Amo asked.
“Hm?” Sethian Skin paused on his way out, tilting his head under his hat.
“Phaeduin’s head. I need it.” Amo looked over the body. “To prove he’s dead.”
“Oh, blood enough for that, dear Amo.” Sethian Skin walked back to the main room of the Maniaque.
All of it, Sethian Skin had said, but Amo found a shard of metal broken off the chestplate and tossed it into a corner beneath the boxes Amo had woken up in. The rest, Amo threw out a side door that led into an alleyway. Before they left it, Amo said, “I’m sorry, Phaeduin. I wish I could’ve at least saved your face.”
* * *
The city of Gray Watch suffered under a constant fog, scooped from the sky by the great cliffs surrounding the largest bay on the northern edge of the continent. Beneath the clatter of palm leaves and the shadow of salt-eaten wood, Nymir brushed his hand over skin sticky with sweat and glared out across the sea. In moonlit silhouette he could see the strange globular hive of the Unspeakable Brood half-submerged in one direction, and in another the shadowy haze that surrounded the groaning city of the Fen on the sea. Beyond them, across the ocean, lurked the Nameless Empire, never seen by any living soul.
Nymir’s eyes flicked to a side. “Take that down.”
“Why?” One of the others had put up the blue-and-silver banner of the southlands.
“Someone will see it. We’re spies, you fool.”
“I just thought, with Phaeduin and Amo missing, some of us might need-“
“Take it down!” Nymir bellowed, on his feet, marching out of their little seaside shack and onto the quay. Sailor’s rags were an uncomfortable disguise, a fishermen’s stinking hut a horrible headquarters. He hated it. The northlands, the southlands, the war, the spying, the costumes. Hate piled on hate, day after day. He itched at his skin like it was something trying to get out of him.
Then he saw a flick of black in the corner of his eyes and looked up at the hill above the quay to see the dismal, salty winds pulling at dark silk. A hundred people on the piers, the great ships and ramshackle skiffs, a hundred more in the wooden buildings surrounding, dozens of businesses, shipwrights and cargo-haulers and merchants of all kinds, then all the gray stone buildings piled high beyond and gleaming wet in the fog, windows aglow with yellow lamplight… A thousand loyal northlanders to distract the eyes, and still Nymir spotted this purple-and-black silk dress among it all.
Nymir squinted. Short black hair tousled by the wind as it always was, ochre-yellow eyes half-lidded, skin as pale as though frozen, and body hard-muscled beneath the silk. Nymir whispered to himself, “Amo? Alive?”
He almost started forward toward them, but then he saw the figure shadowing them. Behind Amo walked a person as dark as the darkest night. He wore a vest of fine embroidery and lace over a delicate gown and shining boots, a brimmed hat so broad that all that was visible of his face was the curve of his chin and the spiderweb-thin black hair swaying in the wind. A sense of foreboding rushed through Nymir as Amo descended toward the quay with this dark man trailing, and Nymir retreated. Through gaps in the frail wooden walls of the fishers’ hut that the southland spies called their home, Nymir watched Amo walk past them to a strip of beach beneath the quay.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
* * *
When Amo had realized they were being followed, they’d kept walking right past their fellows and where they hid, not wanting to lead Sethian Skin to their allies. They passed through the quay and all its businesses, taking to the beach where their bare feet sank into cool sand. And there they stopped and said, “Was there something more you wanted?”
“Nothing but to ensure your safety.” Sethian Skin stopped behind Amo, smirking beneath his big hat.
“I’m honestly surprised to see you so easily leave your place of power.”
“How else would I do my grocery shopping?”
“I’m sure you don’t eat food. You told me your prey comes to you.”
“I also eat food. And I like coffee. Can’t have coffee without buying coffee.” Sethian Skin’s voice was suddenly closer. “What are you looking at?”
Amo locked down on their posture, crossing their arms to keep themself from flinching. They side-eyed the dark man who stood right next to them. “Gray Watch pretends at power.” No one stood close enough to overhear. It wasn’t a pleasant beach, here beneath the piers. Old wood and refuse floated in the surf. Amo nodded to the sea, where a few large, fine military ships floated among a hundred merchant and labor ships. “The size of the quay might’ve meant something once, but the northern nations can’t support a united navy and their merchants can’t trade outside of their own numbers. Ever since the south allied with Revan, almost every nation in Sof Sator is trading freely with the south and closing their ports to traders from the northlands. After a thousand years of war, the north’s economy is what’s done them in.”
“So they turn to magic weapons,” Sethian Skin said. “Maybe I should’ve been paying more attention to the war if it was going to lean into magic in the final act. Gray Watch has always had sorcerers, but never weapons great enough for war. What changed?”
“That’s the kind of question I’m here to answer. I’ll know more once our deal is complete and I’ve got their weapons in my hands.”
“Speaking of which,” Sethian Skin said, “I thought you’d go right to them, your fellow spies. I was looking forward to meeting them.”
“You will never meet them.” Amo turned on Sethian Skin, scowling at the sight of him in the muted gray light of the fog. Seeing him outside, in the larger world, made him seem suddenly real in a way that he had not before. Amo didn’t like it. Amo didn’t want to live in a world with creatures like this in it, but of course they always had. They always would.
“Well.” Sethian Skin shrugged, chuckling. “I guess I should be grateful that you’ve set such clear boundaries, at least.”
“I never want to see you outside of your boutique. If I need you, I’ll go there and find you.” Amo started back up to the quay.
“Ah, one more rule, then. Just in case.” Sethian Skin watched how the wind blew Amo’s silk dress around, smirking at the fabric. “No magic but my own will work inside the Maniaque; it is my place of power, as you said. Any magic spells from the outside will fall away, any magic weapons go cold. More importantly, any person or being that enters, besides yourself and my customers, will be regarded as a material to be used.”
Stopping in their tracks, Amo turned a narrow gaze on Sethian Skin. “Don’t talk around what you’re trying to say. Tell me what you mean.”
Sethian Skin inclined his head. “That is to say: do not bring your friends to visit unless you want them to be consumed.”
“That was never going to be a problem,” Amo spat, turning their back on him. “Now leave me alone."