I slid open the door and walked into my home, clutching the furry bundle tightly to my chest.
“Ma?” I whined. “Can I keep a puppy?”
All the shutters had been sealed. The door had been closed. The sun still stood a short distance above the horizon, but the restaurant was not open. We had been in a frenetic rush of business since the plague had ended. The residents of the Foot could finally meet and share in their quiet grief for all that the Raven’s madness had cost them. This was the first time Ma had sealed everything this early in the day since then.
I padded past the darkened eating area and into the kitchen, where bronze pots and pans lay unwashed aside a surplus of greasy bowls.
“Sash? Dash?” I called, gaze fixed on the disarray. Ma always kept it clean.
A thump emanated from upstairs.
Slowly, I lowered the dog to the ground. It quickly scampered from the darkness of the restaurant to the cold streets outside. I grabbed a knife still smeared with vegetable peelings and creeped past the our eating area, where darkness strangled the thin fingers of sunlight reaching through the shutters. The attic’s ladder seemed gnarled and pale. It gave a long squeak as my weight settled onto it, startling me into a freezing. But after a few tense moments, I continued upwards into my room. A bed and a footlocker awaited me, alongside my ever-growing collection of cool rocks, colourful ribbons, and shiny things. I had the room to myself, but Ma kept saying that Dash would move in with me when he turned five. Which sucked: it was my room. I didn’t want to share it with a baby.
But as full of shadows as it was, it didn’t seem much like the place I woke up every morning in. Every corner, errant knick-knack, and floorboard seemed to snarl at me from their dark alcoves. The deepest, darkest of all waited under my bed. I swallowed, gripped the knife, and quickly lowered my face to look under.
The twins shivered, pressed as far back as they could wriggle their small bodies. Dash held a weeping Sash, his own eyes leaking heavy tears.
“Sash?” I asked. “Dash?”
They froze, then scrabbled out from under my bed and latched onto me, sobbing uncontrollably.
I carefully placed the knife on the bed and rubbed their backs. Another tight squeeze, and I mustered the courage to ask them a question. “What happened?”
“Ma!” Dash wailed, snot streaming from his nose.
His sister let loose a broken, “Uh-huh, uh-huh.” My tunic was growing wet where she buried her face in it.
Then they were squeezing me as if doing anything else would kill them. They were five years younger than me. Only four years old.
I hugged them for a while, then gingerly extracted myself from them. The twins looked up at me with teary eyes.
“No!” my sister pleaded, chubby cheeks quivering.
“Don’t go!” said my brother.
“Stay here,” I told them. “I’ll be back quickerly.”
Sash gave a small giggle. It was ‘quickly’, but I always said it wrong to make her laugh.
But even so, the pair kept sobbing as I placed them in my bed, one at a time, and pulled its blankets over their head. After tucking them in, I turned, retrieved the knife, and began tip-toeing back down the stairs.
My home sat choked in swaddling darkness. The shadows could’ve concealed anything. I slipped my head through the door of Ma and the twin’s room. Dimly, I picked out beds and dolls and toys and nothing else. The dining area was similarly untouched. I looked out at the courtyard, seeing its wide-open space and the well like the pustule of some massive god, and shivered. I went back to the kitchen.
I went into the dining area, and blinking into the darkness, realised every table and chair had been shattered into pieces. All except one pair.
“General Maja?” I asked.
A shadow turned to me in the darkness, eyes as black as the darkest pits. Even seated, she was immense.
“Orvi,” she rumbled. “Where are your wounds?”
I gripped the knife harder, yet was unable to stop myself from trembling. “What?”
“Where are they?!”
I remembered a spear: killing and being killed. “I, I- “
A sound like a thunderclap made me flinch. “WHERE?!”
I’d cut my brow yesterday, wrestling with Blake. It had already healed. “I don’t know- “
“You ruined EVERYTHING!” the gargantuan woman bellowed. “Why did I take you in?”
I took a step backwards. “M-Ma…”
Still seated, she beat the side of her head with a series of ringing blows. “Why? Why? How could I be such a fool?”
My breaths were coming quickly. The tip of my knife trembled where I held it towards the seated shadow. “But Ma…” I felt like crying.
She clutched her head, releasing a harsh, resonant rumble. I couldn’t make sense of it at the time as anything but a deep growl.
But in hindsight, it was a sob.
“We’re…” I fumbled. I didn’t understand what was happening. All that work she put into us: were we not enough? “We’re worth it, right?”
Her head remained in her grip. “I don’t know,” Ma whispered.
I stood, shivering as tears slid down my face, and waited for something else. Some caveat; a ‘but’ to make everything alright. But Ma didn’t have anything else to say.
I returned to the twins and spent a sleepless night consoling them.
The restaurant opened and closed the next day at its usual time. Beyond the rote niceties of taking orders, Ma said nothing to anyone. The day after, she apologised to the twins and I for scaring us; claimed she would do better in the future. She did not apologise for the things she had said.
She didn’t even remember them.
The day she broke every piece of furniture in the restaurant was the day Ma had realised I was a Ravenblood. In her memories, the moment she put all the pieces together and staggered to her knees in the kitchen defined that discovery. The rage afterwards was dimly lit.
But the words? In the years since her death, I’d scoured every single one of her memories. They were nowhere, nothing. She’d forgotten them. They had meant that little to her.
But I never doubted that in that moment, Ma had meant everything she said to me. Despair had been writ too clearly in her rough features to allow any other answer.
I hurt her just by existing.
----------------------------------------
“Ma?” The name echoed through an empty space without reply.
All was silence. It was quiet.
I opened my eyes. Something was different.
I moved to pull myself upright, then a wall of pain pushed me back downwards. My consciousness narrowed to the dull ache that permeated my entire body, and the pillars of agony that seemed to hoist the pain upright. My arms; back; neck; chest: all were raw with pain, as if strips of flesh had been flayed from each area.
Gasps escaped me as I lay on the soft bed, gradually mustering the will to try again. My fingers clenched around blankets, utterly useless against the pain bearing down upon my mind, and my eyes flickered for distraction.
The room I was in sat in the steady light of an everburning lamp mounted on one of its stone walls. Other than the bed I lay on, the only other pieces of furniture were an impressively cushioned divan, an armoire covered in carvings of birds in flight, and a desk. It held nothing more than a bucket of blackened water which soaked several long bandages. A metal pipe emerged from one wall and disappeared into the other, steaming slightly. A rich room, clean of dust yet empty of any objects, clothes, mess, dirt or other signs of day-to-day living.
A room for guests. Important ones.
I ground my teeth, gripped the mattress beneath me, and slowly raised myself into a seated position. My muscles trembled precariously as I sat there, waiting to regain my breath. Idly, I scratched at a scab on my chest. A frown broke over my face and I squinted at it. It seemed tiny at first glance, but judging by the discomfort it went deeper beneath my skin. The scab hinted that whatever caused it had only recently been removed.
I took another glance around. Either I was under the care of Fort Vane or House Baylar, and I doubted the latter would offer such lavish accommodations.
Another sharp inhalation and I was surging to my feet into a brief stagger that rapidly transitioned into an outright fall. Tangled in the blankets swaddling me moments ago, all I could do was throw out my arms and prevent my head from smashing against the floorboards beneath. I rolled slightly, then came to a halt with my cheek against the floor. The pain in my body flared in protest and several long curses slipped from my mouth.
Slowly but surely, the pain’s immediacy ebbed away. As if it were slipping somewhere distant. Alongside the press of wood. The sharp chill of the air. The light of the lamp.
My tongue felt thick and heavy in my mouth.
Something was different.
I dragged myself over to the wall and used it to push myself upright. The blankets fell off my naked body, leaving only the scant bandages wrapped around my arms adorning me. But the door was all that mattered. Legs trembling, I slumped over to it. A lunge to grasp the handle had me teetering, but I managed to hurl it open and stumble out into the hall.
Stone walls embraced either side of the hallway, studded with doors lit only by the gentle blue light of the ubiquitous bloodtech lanterns. These were beginning to flicker and die; lack of fuel twisting their light and setting shadows oscillating between bloated rotundity and emaciated starvation. A small painting sat between two doors. It depicted several figures on a mountaintop, yet its clarity was ruined by tendrils of feckless shadows. I cast several myself.
As I leaned against a wall, panting, two ghosts carrying a third walked their fragmented forms into the room I had just left. One was giant, one was round with fat, both straining against their tall and well-muscled burden. When they disappeared through the doorway, a fourth followed, carefully tapping some kind of stick against the floor. I stared at their dissipating light, wide-eyed.
After a short rest restored energy to my quivering muscles, I picked the direction the spirits had emerged from to stumble down. Though I frequently stumbled, my body’s balance felt perfect. It was my mind that couldn’t understand the weakness hounding each of my movements. With every step, I reached for strength that was no longer there, forcing me to cling to the wall like a limpet as I inched my way down the hall.
My eyes were so focused on watching my feet that they almost missed the transition into a far larger area. At its centre a large brazier crackled, its light blocked in parts by winding pipes like the roots of a tangled tree: twisting through the flames and disappearing in every direction. The glass beneath the brazier revealed a dining area beneath, its vastness dogged by hollow darkness. The ceiling vanished into shadows far above.
Yet as my gaze panned around the room, it was the lack of walls that arrested me. What should have buttressed the hallway vanished on either side, allowing the space to stretch into endless darkness speckled with equally spaced braziers burning; a road that narrowed into eternity. An impossible, endless hall towered within stone walls. Infinity made manifest; as if the sky had fallen sideways to squat unending beneath the Fort’s ceiling.
I walked towards that distance, ducking under pipes while fighting against my strained muscles, then glanced up and found a shadowy silhouette staring at me. I knew that creature: it had impaled me; decapitated me; stabbed me; beaten me; killed me countless times. I screamed and stumbled backwards, then raised my fists unsteadily. But the thing simply took a step back and fell into its own stance. And behind it a thousand increasingly distant figures did the same.
My legs ached under my own weight. My throat heaved with growling gasps. I wanted to run, but I stumbled forward, and the figures advanced as well. When we stood mere steps away from one another, both of us turned our body to swing. But in the process, the firelight passed by my body and fell on the thing’s.
It stood of equal height to me, with a dark form wreathed in bandages. Skin stretched over bones like loose hide stretched over the ribs of a canoe. Sinewy muscle bulged was etched with grotesque clarity in the absence of fat. Above its emaciated body sat a shivering snarl. Two sunken eyes peered from beneath clumps of onyx hair, as dead as a corpse’s. Dark veins squeezed every inch of flesh. I needed to kill it – save everyone from this monster – but I sensed no life from its barren body.
We stared at one another, expressions falling into horrified comprehension. Then I reached forward and touched the surface of the mirror.
How many people had I killed to get to this place? How many souls had I grafted to my own? I remembered dying and I remembered killing; each connection severed as blood leaked from my nostrils, ears, and eyes. The memories of those people were incomplete, but the terror accompanying their many deaths remained. And Seoras, and ⬛⬛⬛⬛, and the soldiers on the hill.
What had happened to this body; this wasted tree of flesh? This tomb of souls? What had happened to me?
I looked downwards, at the bandages wrapped around the distant spikes of pain covering my body. My reflection watched as my hands slowly unwound the cloth from my arms. Beneath gaped a cavity weeping yellow pus. Necrotised flesh bearing the marks of a scalpel surrounded its edges. The remnants of an eye-socket. The eye itself had either been extracted, or rotted away on its own. Unwrapping the other bandages revealed the same.
I looked at myself. Something was different. But it was all starting to feel very distant.
A pair of footsteps light enough to be imperceptible were it not for my stolen Foxblood padded into the room.
“Hello?” an unfamiliar voice called.
I ducked into the shadows, careful to keep my movement silent. A man stood in the entrance to the mirror-hall; shorter than average and extending a cane hesitantly in front of himself.
“Vin?” the man said, cocking his head. “Is that you? We heard a scream.”
I inched forward, frowning. He knew my name. And who was ‘we’?
The second person to enter answered my question. It took me several sluggish moments to recognise their round figure.
“Gast.” The voice was rough from disuse. It took a moment to understand it was mine.
Two heads panned across the area. Gast craned her head towards the darkness. “Where are you?”
I slowly twisted my way through the pipes and out of the shadows.
Gast blinked at me owlishly. “You’re awake.”
“What happened?” I winced at the pain in my rusty voice-box. “And who are you?”
The man inclined his head. “Gale Vane: acting lord of the Vane family.”
I stared at him in silence. His hair was dark; his skin pale. Despite his thin body, he had a broad, earnest face. His eyes were a clouded blue.
“Vin: of no consequence,” I finally remembered to add. I bowed my head in return, but his pupils did not track the movement. The man was blind.
“That’s hardly true,” he protested. “I doubt there’s anyone this side of the Dolphin so important. You’re- you’re the last Ravenblood!”
I didn’t correct him. “You told him?” I asked Gast.
“He knew.”
“It was rather obvious,” Gale added. “And I have little prejudice against Ravenbloods, if that’s something you’re concerned about.”
“They killed countless people,” I stated.
“Mm,” he hummed. “If it’s alright with you, Vin, could we take this discussion to my workshop? I’ll be better equipped to explain what’s happened to you there.”
“You got some of my Ravenblood out,” I stated.
“I did, yes.” Gale paused, then rapidly added, “Upon the request of your friends, of course. I can, of course…” The man swallowed. “Put it back in, if you- “
“No,” I quickly cut in. “You’ve…”
I ran a hand through my hair, eyes fixed on the ceiling. That was it, was it? Avri’s essence: gone. Really? After everything?
I released a heavy breath. “You’ve rendered me a… great service.”
“Well…” The man’s eyes blinked slowly. “The extraction isn’t quite done yet. I’d, uh, appreciate it if you came with me.”
My gaze panned around the dark hall. The brazier, chewing through wood as it provided the fiery light of the hall. The glass beneath it, allowing light into the dining area below. The mirrors, repeating everything they beheld.
I inspected the fragile lines of my body. My nudity meant nothing – strange, as I dimly recalled clothes being important to me – but having a long conversation naked seemed somewhat off. “I might need something to wear, first.”
Gale gaped. “You’re naked?”
“He is,” said the round Strain beside him.
“You didn’t- “ He sighed. “There were clothes set aside for you in the room you woke up in.”
My eyes slid back to the hall. I grunted an acknowledgement, then began moving back to my room.
“He just left?”
“Yes.”
“Uh, well… I suppose we should follow.”
“To watch him change?”
“…Gast, I’m blind.”
“I’m not.”
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Why did you not say anything?!”
“You didn’t ask.”
I left their conversation behind.
Walking was still difficult, yet my body was beginning to adjust. With every movement, I’d been reaching for strength that was no longer there. Strength I no longer needed, to push my diminished weight. My slow shuffle was ponderous, yet the constant burden of time seemed less pressing. Eventually, I entered the room I’d woke up in, searched the armoire, and clothed myself in a dark tunic, trousers, and a coat that seemed to have its edges embellished with purple silk. Its touch was as soft as freshly-fallen snow.
Laid neatly beside the clothes waited my scabbarded sword, still depicting the story of a god slain by a giant in exquisite silver. I drew the onyx blade an inch and peered into its unflinching blackness. When it revealed nothing, I slammed it shut and buckled it to my waist. Its weight was unwieldy on my reduced body.
The strange pair waited outside. They beckoned me in the opposite direction of the mirror-hall – past a spiralling set of stairs haphazardly placed in the centre of the hallway and into an adjacent door.
The room we entered was lit with harsh light. I squinted through the blue glare, revealing a surprisingly neat workshop – perhaps the neatest I’d ever seen amongst any smith, whether mortal or made divine by Yoot’s essence. An everburning lantern glared as it swung from the ceiling. Chisels lay neatly on one side of a workbench which doubled as a set of drawers – each handle carved in a unique shape. Embedded in the wall at the back of the room squatted a cracked kiln, empty of heat but still bearing the sharp scent of metal, flanked by racks of tongs, a few choice hammers, and several moulds. Every surface was clean of dust, grime, or any charcoal residue, but the workshop still stank with an acrid tang. Despite it all, the air of the workshop felt otherworldly. Swaddled in that same surreal fog that had blanketed me the moment I’d woken up.
“Strange. A lord forges his own metal,” I found myself musing.
Gale shuffled around the other of the workbench, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well… no. I’m not a strong enough Owlblood to produce the temperatures needed to smelt iron or steel,” he admitted. “Colin has to do it for me.”
I looked at him. “Colin?”
“My assistant. He’s asleep right now.” Gale smiled, clouded eyes staring past my face. “Which is quite rare for him, being honest.”
The blind man began laboriously moving a set of chairs from the side of the room to the worktable that dominated the entire space. After a moment of mute watching, I blinked and began hurrying to assist him. When we had placed three chairs around the table, Gale gestured vaguely, then sat down.
“How are you feeling, Vin?” Gale asked.
I took some time to consider the question. “Hollow,” I finally answered.
“I don’t think that’s unusual for Blooded who have lost some of their divinity. You shouldn’t, uh…”
His voice trailed into awkward silence. The smaller man leaned forward, turning his ear towards me. After a moment, he swallowed, then gripped his hands together.
“Do you remember- “ he began, then shook his head rapidly. “No, wait. First of all, I should ask if you have any questions.”
I stared at him, then seated myself on the opposite chair. Gast plonked herself down beside me. The Strain and I could peer over the workbench easily, but Gale’s chin was partially covered by its form. Perhaps he didn’t notice. It felt like that should be somewhat amusing to me.
“How long have I been unconscious for?” I asked.
“A week.”
I leaned backwards. The chair was vaguely uncomfortable, I registered. “…Huh. Why’s…” I found myself rubbing sleep from my eyes. “Why is my body so…”
Gale nodded slowly, a pained expression on his face. “Radical physical changes are known to be common in the process of Blooded becoming unblooded, and they become more pronounced if the removal is fast or takes much. Any loss of Godsblood is generally accompanied by a lower life expectancy than both their mortal and divine counterparts.”
I bobbed my head woodenly.
His sightless eyes widened. “Ah! Only a small portion of your Ravenblood has been taken,” he added, “so I don’t believe it’s something for you to worry about. Your condition is… I’ll explain in a moment.”
I struggled to comprehend the information. Ma would’ve died? Had she known? “…Why don’t more people know this?” I heard the words rattle from my throat.
The blind man drummed his fingers against his collarbone, gingerly leaning his cane against the side of his chair. “The Houses are… incentivised to conceal this information.”
A grunt. “Because few would want to give their blood to the next generation if it meant dying.”
“Yes. Perhaps there are other reasons, but that’s what I believe as well.”
I screwed my eyes shut in an attempt to bring my distant mind closer to the conversation. “Alright. Okay. That’s in my future as well?”
“You… don’t want to stop?”
“No,” I answered.
“It’s not…” He turned to me again, disbelieving. “Really? Designing a stone specifically for you should hopefully reduce the chances of a bad outcome, but it’s dangerous. And you’re a powerful individual like this. One-of-a-kind. Endowed with entirely unique abilities. I’ve preserved your Ravenblood in a device similar to what Neelam used at Spires, but- ”
“You preserved it?” I snapped. “Why? Leave it in the sun, let the accursed stuff lose potency.”
It had always seemed impossible to lose such an immense, dominating force, but upon consideration, leaving it in the sun would be enough to render it a useless black sludge.
Gale shook his head. “I’m not sure Godsblood is so weak as to allow mere exposure to vanquish it.”
“It fades. I was a monster hunter…” A frown formed on my face. Was that correct? I’d been so many other things…
The noble’s words interrupted my thoughts. “I understand you’ve seen it happen many times, but even so.”
“Just…” I groped uselessly, then sighed. “Get rid of it.”
He hummed. “You’re certain you don’t want it back?”
“No,” I told him. “Reattach the stone.”
“Well,” he said with a sheepish wince, “it’s not quite that simple. What do you know about conversion stones?”
I began counting off my fingers. “They take and hold blood to be transferred without killing the original Blooded. Ideally, the original can help educate their successor. There have been none developed for Ravenbloods.”
The blind man nodded, cloudy eyes brushing past my position. “Not in the three centuries since they were invented. It’s a long time, no? Especially since – don’t quote me on this – most of the other types were made within decades of one another.” He scratched his cheek. “I believe Dolphinblood conversion stones took the longest, but that was in a very different society. The Houses were so reduced to barely deserve the name – they only came about because of the stones. Humanity was too scattered and disparate to support them. But with all our resources now, we should’ve cracked Ravenblood long ago.”
I shook my head. “Avri’s Cult would never want it. They had their own… more lethal methods.”
“Even so,” he stressed, “there’s good reason none have been developed. You could make a generic conversion stone for Ravenbloods, but it would only work on those who have preserved a few souls.”
My head snapped towards him. “What was that?”
He blinked. “Pardon?”
I was uncertain I’d heard him properly. “That word.”
“Souls? You’re a Face, are you not? You believe in souls.”
“No,” I ground out. “Before that.”
He frowned. “I was speaking of you taking from the dead.”
“You said ‘preserve’,” I snapped. “Where’d you hear that term?”
“What?” His features were warped in mute confusion. “It’s a word. Does it matter?”
“That’s a cultist way of describing the process.”
The Owlblood paused for a moment, then opened his empty arms. His eyes were aimed in my general direction. “I’m sorry for that? I didn’t know.”
I squinted at him, but was too exhausted to push it. “Sure. Fine. So I’m assuming a generic stone won’t work on me.”
Gale inclined his head in agreement. “You’ve taken in too many. I’ll need to modify the design based on the other Godsblood mingling in your veins. I know it might seem a hassle, but it’s actually very good for you,” he said quickly, “because you’ll have one adapted specifically for you- “
“It’s fine.”
“ -which I believe will vastly reduce the chances of rapid deterioration, though potency of the blood will obviously have an…” He paused. “Sorry, what?”
“It’s okay,” I told him. “It’s not a hassle.”
“Uh, alright.” He nodded to himself, releasing a sigh. “That’s good. You know, you’ll be the first Ravenblood in history to lose his blood through this method.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’ll also be the last.”
The blind noble hummed. “Right. If you’re concerned about the design,” he rapidly added, “you can ask Gast about it.”
“It’s very good,” the Strain provided from beside me, unprovoked. “Works really well.”
I glanced at her, somewhat surprised by her presence. “Why’re you here, anyway?”
“I’m helping,” she claimed.
“I concur,” said Gale. “She’s been a great help reviewing my work. And developing new ones. She lacks formal training, but such a thing allows a unique perspective that’s far more valuable – at least to me.”
The fat Strain nodded.
“Okay.” I dragged my gaze around the room, finally landing on the blind man. He fidgeted. “What do you need me to do?”
“I’ll just reattach the conversion stone, quickly – see if it has truly finished its work.”
He opened a drawer and produced what seemed to be a bisected metal sphere carved with a dizzying array of runes. I stared at them. Even after all my time in Spires – a city wrought with bloodtech – the sight of them caused a faint throbbing to take up residence in my skull. Only Yoot’s ilk could make sense of it the infinitely small contours. A set of pincers flaky with dried blood bristled from its roof. Belatedly, I tore my eyes away.
Gale twisted the device between both hands. With each rotation, he grew slightly more frantic. Eventually, the conversion stone spun rapidly. His eyes stared at the wall, ignorant of the toothy scowl growing on his face.
The Strain and I watched him silently. Eventually, Gast spoke. “Do you need help?”
“I- I made this thing, I should be able to…” Almost immediately, he tossed it on the table in disgust. “Damn it, alright.”
I eyed him, then realised I should say something. “Are you- “
“I’m fine.” Gale rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Stupid of me,” he muttered. “Really should’ve expected this.”
Gast stood, retrieved the device, and began lifting my shirt impassively. I frowned at her, but the mild discomfort at the invasion of my space barely registered. What did was a sharp pain from the already tender area of my flesh as the Strain flicked something and jammed it into my skin.
“Raven’s bones,” I swore, rubbing my chest.
Her eyes flickered towards mine. “Sorry.”
I waved a hand and she continued groping, as the pain from earlier – having faded – began to reignite. Before it could rise to a full inferno, Gast repeated the flicking motion and yanked it from my skin.
“Hell,” I swore. Then startled at my own bad language. It was unlike me to use Cult terms out loud. Or was I remembering a different person? Regardless, it was too dangerous a habit to keep.
“Nothing left,” Gast told the blind man.
He pursed his lips. “Good, good. Now Vin, the next step is to modify its design to target another part of your Ravenblood. For that, I’ll need to know what kind of Blooded you’ve incorporated. If it’s alright by you, I’d also like to know what age you received your blood; to modify the rate of extraction.”
I frowned.
Gale rubbed the back of his neck. “…Is that alright with you?”
The question was so distant it took a moment to realise it had been asked. “Give me a moment.”
When had I gotten it? Eighteen? Fourteen? Thirty? Twenty? My mind parsed through the ages like an old man sorting through a deck of cards. What answer was he looking for?
Ravenblood. The notion was a pit of gravity in an empty abyss. He wanted to know when I had gotten the Ravenblood – not any of the other Godsblood.
“I was six,” I found myself saying.
Immediately, the Owlblood sucked air through his teeth and rocked back. “That’s not good. And that would make you… Eighteen? Nineteen? And you would be fourteen when… Gods. I thought you were older.”
My brows furrowed. I was older, wasn’t I?
He clenched his teeth. “Who would… No. It’s not for me to judge such actions. But it’s little wonder your body has reacted so poorly.”
My eyes flicked to his clouded pair. “Why?”
“Godsblood is only meant to be given to people finished growing in their mortal, unvarnished forms.” There was a disparaging tilt to his lips. “Or so the Houses say. Such phrasing belies an unexamined prejudice for divinity, but while those who become Blooded earlier are often more capable with its powers, they are often… more prone to outbursts. Difficult to control. Amongst a gamut of other traits. And the outcomes for losing the blood that has been the scaffold which their body and mind has grown into…”
He sighed. “I suppose you’ve seen it for yourself. I had no idea it was that bad for you. You need a doctor… but the Fort’s disappeared months ago. Your friends say you might have taken in a Lizardblood?”
It took a moment to comprehend his lecture had ceased. “I’ve stolen some, yes.”
“It’s not…” Gale released a heavy breath. “Hopefully, it will fortify your body through the changes. We’ll remove it last.”
“Last?”
“I have to deal with the Godsblood wrapped within your veins on an individual basis. Which is why I need to know what, specifically, you have.”
That was a far easier question to answer than his previous one. “Lizardblood. Spiderblood. Foxblood. Shrikeblood. Oxblood.”
“Shrikeblood?”
I groped for words to describe it.
The fat Strain beside me found them faster. “Big god under the Heartlands.”
Gale’s eyes narrowed. His mouth hung slightly ajar. I idly noted that a small book could be slid in the space between his jaws easily.
After a thoughtful pause, she continued. “Or is the Heartlands, maybe. I dunno.”
He began slowly drumming his collarbone. “Shrikeblood. I see. That, uh… Throws some dirt in this brew.” The man no longer seemed to address us. “There’s no precedent… I don’t know how… I’d at least need a pure ‘Shrikeblood’ to test…”
Gale’s words suddenly slipped away. “Though… Come to think of it, I might know some.”
No one spoke. The everburning lamps flickered above the worktable.
“Though, being honest, I’m not entirely certain – so don’t raise your hopes too high – but even if I don’t I’m sure there will be a way. There must be one. I’ll ask them.”
“Who?” I demanded.
“Some contacts of mine. It should pose no issue.” His face scrunched in on itself. “Ugh, the blockade!”
“What?”
“Oh,” he said, turning his head towards me, “you wouldn’t know. House Baylar has blockaded – though they’re calling it ‘surveillance’ – Fort Vane. Supplies are no issue, but any visitors will have to pass through them.”
“Ugh.” He leaned backwards and groaned. “That’s frustrating. But I’ll work something out, Vin.”
The room we were in felt distinct from the rest of reality. “Right.” I heard myself say. “Is there anything else?”
“Just one final thing to check.” Gale sucked in a breath and leaned forward. “There was a battle several decades ago between the Houses Esfaria, Baylar, and a detachment from House Illico, in the mountains bordering their territory. The Battle of Siik’s Pass. What do you know of it?”
My brow furrowed. “It’s… It was…” There was an intense familiarity. Its name seemed to chime within me, pointing towards a piece of information I ought to have. “The, the battle…”
I clenched my teeth, eyes inwardly narrowed. I twisted in my chair. Whatever the answer was danced on the tip of my tongue, but that was impossible. If I had memory of something, I could recall it instantly. Even so, I persisted, and suddenly I recalled ruminating on the battle itself one cold night over a year ago. But none of the events I were considering made themselves known to me.
Gale noticed my silence. “Can you do it?”
“I- I can, I just need a moment.”
“If you have that memory, you should be able to remember instantly. That is the inheritance of Ravenbloods.”
“Give me a moment,” I snapped.
There was a chasm in my mind where there had once been something more. Then it clicked.
Something was different. I finally understood what it was.
My head snapped upwards and I felt everything. The room’s scent was cloyingly acrid; the light glaring into my skull; the immense pain of my body excruciating in its immediacy; the dull ringing that had suddenly rose within my ears.
“Who was the Esfarian commander of that battle?” I demanded.
Gale told me.
I got up and walked away.
The blind man rose to follow, but cracked his shin against the side of the chair Gast sat in. “Vin, where are you going?” he called, wincing.
“I need to find- “
----------------------------------------
“Kit.”
My name blared through the fog of sleep, startling me into panicked wakefulness. I rolled to my feet, pasting a feckless grin on my face. It remained there until I processed that the person in the doorway wasn’t Mother. Though only its silhouette was visible, I could still see the figure was harsh and lean, as if even the merest hint of softness had been carved off its body, leaving no reserves but pure doggedness. I twisted a knob on the lamp next to my bed, sending azure light to brighten the room.
His clothes hung off him emptily. The man’s sunken gaze pierced through limp raven hair.
“Gods,” I breathed. I hadn’t yet seen him, in the week we’d spent in the Fort. “Vin. You look like…” A steaming pile of Oxdung, but maybe it was better not to say it.
“Like a ghoul.” His voice was hoarse. “I know. I need you to do something for me.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “O’ course.”
“Have a duel with me.”
I rubbed yellowed gravel from the corners of my eyes. “What’re you on about?” I said weakly. “You look like you’d lose a fight to a wet rag. Go back t’sleep, you stupid bastard.”
His body sped towards me, and I unwittingly flinched. Vin halted mere inches from me. “Please, Kit.” His voice was raw.
For a moment, I simply stared. “Funny thing t’ask, Vin,” I said, hiding my discomfort with a sneer, “seein’ as you’re the one who refused t’fight me.”
“What? What’re you talking about?” the skeletal figure asked. “When?”
I threw up my arms. “Back on th’ farm, dumbass. Fer teachin’ you music. You were against a real spar.”
The tall man’s brows drew together. “When did I ever say that? I don’t remember any of…” The words drifted into silence.
I peered up at him. His face was frozen. “What?”
“Please, Kit,” he breathed.
“…Fine. Whatever.” It was a stupid idea. I’d break my arms just parrying one of his swings.
He stared at me.
I clapped my hands. “Chop-chop, oaf. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
I sighed. “Follow me.”
When we’d finally settled into the Fort, I’d taken to sleeping fully dressed with my sword still around my waist. Uncomfortable, but at least it saved me the hassle of grabbing anything when I woke. There wasn’t much to grab, anyway: the room was almost entirely empty save for some clothes and some books I was using to practice reading. That, and my lute. Neither lute nor books would be useful for a duel, which was good because the process of wiggling them out from their hiding place was annoying enough to leave me spitting and swearing. But there was no other way to keep them safe from Mother.
I left the room, leading him down the hallway, past the creepy mirror-hall, and stomped down a wide, fancy staircase which led into the dining hall. Wooden tables and chairs covered the room, ranging from the kind seen at any old farmstead to grand, varnished tables and cushioned seats at the very back of the room, where the Vane family was meant to sit. In the week I’d been here, I’d only ever seen anyone seated there once – just Gale himself on our first night, to commence a banquet that was less feast and more slightly filling meal. Even with everyone in the Fort present, it had still seemed an empty room, barren of all the glory it was meant to hold.
I began walking towards the outer courts, then hesitated for a moment. A small side cupboard beckoned me. Inside waited a few practice weapons – lead-filled wooden swords, blunted spears, and a halberd so beaten any edge it had once possessed had been lost.
“I’m jus’ scared I’ll hurt you if we use real swords,” I claimed while taking two out.
Vin didn’t seem to register my excuse. His hands wrapped around the haft of the halberd. The sallow muscles of his forearms tensed like strained cords as he lifted it. His arms trembled momentarily, before allowing the weapon to slump back into its holster.
I silently handed him the wooden sword and he took it from me without remark.
The outer court covered a wide, open area lined by small vegetable gardens on either side. The cragged surface of the Fort’s walls loomed high above us while the Fort proper pressed against our behind, cutting off sight of the land around us and leaving only the cold stars above to watch us. Frozen mud slid beneath my boots as we walked to a fenced area at its centre.
I glanced down at Vin’s feet and found them bare. “Yer feet ain’t cold?”
“They are.” He seemed almost surprised to discover that.
“D’you wanna go get a pair o’ boots?”
“No. I don’t think this should take too long.”
I couldn’t stop a toothy snarl from warping my features. Cocky bastard.
I hurdled the fence surrounding the training area, then stalked into position opposite him. “How you wanna do this?”
“A point for each touch,” he replied. “First to three wins.”
“You’re on, oaf,” I spat, unbuckling my true sword and tossing it to the side.
He carefully took off his onyx blade, then gently leaned its scabbarded form against a fence post. “Let’s begin.”
My boots padded over the cold earth as I circled him, sword held neutrally. For a few moments, his stance mirrored my own. His arms trembled, then its tip dropped to the side, leaving his entire torso open to attack. The audacity.
I ground my teeth, the lunged for him. My first, second, and third swings flowed into one another as he retreated, missing him entirely yet on the fourth he parried my blow, sliding it to his side while simultaneously sending his own blunted blade flashing for my leg. I hopped backwards, glaring at the tall man. He made no move to follow. The Ravenblood’s muted gaze scanned my body silently.
My next approach came amongst a slurry of testing stabs. Each was gently knocked aside by the tip of his blade as he continued backpedalling around the shadowy field. I snarled, lunged, and was immediately swatted on the side the head.
“Touch,” Vin called. “One to me.”
“Go die,” I snapped. “What in Dure’s thick skull d’you think yer doin’?”
He squinted at me. “What?”
“You called me out here,” I growled, gesticulating with the wooden blade, “an’ you’re not even gonna fight for real?”
“I’m trying,” he stated flatly.
“Go die in a hole,” I told him, then fell back into neutral stance.
I needed to do better. The man in front of me wasn’t some half-trained peasant soldier I could bury with a few quick slices and a bad attitude. Focus. Breathe. And be ferocious. There was no room in me for more humiliation.
I ran at him, ducking beneath one errant swing and slipping aside another to fall inside his guard. Yet the blow to his side I’d planned was foiled as Vin raised a foot and kicked my side. It had barely any force behind it, but it threw off my momentum enough for him to sneak in another overhead blow, which I promptly blocked. I took some distance again, eyes narrowed into a glare.
I’d seen the man in front of me fight. Carve through the battlefield with a force that seemed to rival a god’s, each of his attacks made a blur by the sheer power he’d buried behind them. The lightness of his blows could be forgiven – his week-long coma had clearly taken a toll on his musculature – but raw power had never been his greatest asset. It was the incandescent skill with which he wielded weaponry – clean, exacting, and precise, as if every manoeuvre had been writ in stone decades beforehand. And while his grace and exacting eye remained, his attitude was different. The controlled rage that twisted his mouth into a grim line as he slaughtered dozens had vanished into a lump of dull cinder.
All that remained was a weak showing. I’d spent days being ridiculed, but I never expected that Vin of all people would mock me as well. When he was the one that forced me here. That couldn’t be trusted to keep himself together. To be reliable. He had guts of steel to treat me like this, despite all his failings. I had to show him I was someone who should be feared.
I inched closer to him, then smashed his sword with my own. Repeatedly I batted at it, seeking to lever open his guard as he stiffly tried to dodge or mitigate each blow. But every time his blade grew a fraction more distant from its ideal placement. Until I cracked the sword from his hand, leaving him wincing as he clutched his fingers. I waited for him to produce another weapon. None came.
“Yer playin’ with me,” I snarled. “Use yer godsdamned bone-spikes!”
He stared at me impassively as he drew his fists together. “I’m not trying to test them.”
I gave a wordless scream and ran at him once again. Grunts reverberated through the midnight air as he ducked beneath one swing – a wince on his face as he pushed himself back up – stepped away from another, then cocked his fist. Usually I would keep attacking, but given Vin’s punch could shatter bone I swiftly brought my blade between my body and his punch.
It landed on the wooden blade, and I barely felt it.
Vin looked down at his reddening fist, then back at me. “Point to you,” he muttered.
My face twisted. “What’re you doin’, Vin?” I pointed my sword at him. “What is this? You call me out here jus’ t’mock me?”
His eyes widened, like mud-smeared moons buried in a bottomless pit. “Mock you? Ha.” A smile split his face in two. “Haha. Ha!”
The Ravenblood covered his face with both hands as high, delighted laughter pealed from his throat. There was an edge to it I could not decipher.
“What?” I cocked my head, sneering. “Huh? You wanna laugh? I’ll give you somethin’ to laugh about, you snot.”
My rage grew as his laughter did. It was open and honest – completely at odds with everything that frothed within me.
“Pick up yer bloody sword, Vin,” I loudly demanded.
Yet his cackles continued ringing across the outer courts, reverberating between the walls and building as it rung into the night sky above. The cold settled into my skin, and I steeled myself against the shiver that threatened to wrack my body.
I lunged forward and smashed my sword against his torso. “Two,” I snarled, then slammed it against his body again, “and godsdamn three! I win, so stop cackling!”
Vin was sent staggering by the force of my blow. He removed his hands to clutch at the spots I’d beaten him, revealing the heavy tears that rolled down his cheeks. My anger sputtered and died.
“I figured out what’s different, Kit.” The Ravenblood’s hoarse words erupted amidst fading laughter. “She’s gone.”
“Who?” I asked him. “Who’s gone?”
Vin’s torso folded as he bent over, clutching his face as the remnants of his harsh cries streamed through his fingers. The stars and moons shone from above, but the darkness between them seemed greater than light alone could conquer. He removed his hands and straightened in that brittle starlight, and though his gaunt body faced me, the dark pits of his eyes stared at the sky.
“Ma.” A tremulous smile found its way amongst the tears. “She’s finally free.”