I lay in my bed, facing the ceiling under a set of heavy blankets. Fatigue nibbled at the edges of my eyes, but sleep had cast me out and I had no chance of fighting my way back to oblivion. Dawn wasn’t too far away – I could already hear the raucous songs of birds heralding the morning.
When a pair of familiar boots clicked down the hall outside my room, every ounce of my attention became dominated by the specifics of that sound. Pathetic anxiety bloomed its putrid colours within my gut. I gripped the hilt of my sword beneath the sheets. The month-old scars clinging to my knuckles ached.
The door creaked open. “You up, birdie?” Mother said. Despite her tone, it wasn’t a question.
I slumped upright, plastering an expression of bedraggled stupor across my face. “Am now, Mother.”
“Well, seein’ as you’re chompin’ at th’ bit,” she began, and tension danced across my skin as I wondered if she knew I’d been awake, “you can get dressed an’ meet me at the eatin’ room.”
The door shut. After her footsteps receded, I threw off the blankets and slid out of bed, hastily adjusting my clothes to make it seem as if I hadn’t slept in them. Both my boots and fancy new set of silks gave off a stench suspended somewhere between acceptable and foul, but I’d need to save my spare set for the Baylarian’s visit tonight. If I came stinking like a dead dog, I’d be barred, and then who would look after Maddie? Vin, maybe, but I figured he had his hands full looking after himself. Didn’t need me heaping more problems on his plate.
I spent a few short moments beating my fear down to workable levels while painting my lips into the brash grin Mother liked to see me wear. Then I quickly exited the room and began jogging towards the dining hall. Being too early would lead to a few sharp questions I found hard to stomach, but being too late would be disrespectful, which always ended worse.
After a brief run, I slowly stepped into the hall. A looming darkness warred with the feeble light shining from the brazier through the skylight above, each wrestling for control over the dining hall. Between the two lay a red glow biting from the end of Mother’s cigarillo, where she stood smoking above a form with a blanket draped over it – unmistakeably a corpse to my eyes.
She took a long drag when I entered. “Quick feet, Kit,” she puffed. “Come help me move this feller.”
I stood at the doorway. “You kill him?”
“Her. And nah,” she drawled, “not this one.”
The clack of my boots against the floorboards rung out across the otherwise silent room. It seemed scarcely disturbed from the previous day. Each chair was still stacked on their respective tables. Neither fight nor flight had taken place in this room. Just a murder.
I drew close enough to the body to toe the sheet away from its face. The grin stretched across my face stiffened. “By the blood,” I swore.
Laying at my mother’s feet was the body of Greta – the Fort’s chef. She’d been a nice lady. Gave me a second lunch a few times, when I was hungry and prowling outside the kitchen. Her son had been leery of me, but I supposed he’d been right to be. After all, her thick neck’d been snapped less than a day before the Baylarian dignitaries arrived. But despite the clean death, it hadn’t been bloodless – a slit vein in her wrist steadily soaked the blanket atop her. Seemed pointlessly cruel, hurting someone after their death-blow. Poor woman.
I forced my lips to move. “Who’s gonna do th’ cookin’?” I asked, managing to sound slightly bored.
“Most of it’s already made.” Mother sucked the end of her cigarillo thoughtfully. “Maybe Gale’ll do it.”
“A blind noble?” I queried, careful to keep the disbelief in my voice at acceptable levels.
“Don’t you worry ‘bout it, birdie.” She flicked my forehead lightly, and I concealed a flinch with a scowl of annoyance. “You do th’ carryin’.”
“I did it last time.”
“Oh, but think o’ yer poor old mother. Already had to carry you fer nine months, then spent twenty times that raisin’ you!” She lay a hand on her back and gave an exaggerated groan. “T’be forced to carry jus’ that bit more ‘cause o’ some unappreciative daughter! Why- “
“Fine,” I told her, my eyes drifting down towards the body. I’d more experience making corpses than moving them, but my time at the Fort seemed to be changing that.
I squatted down, wrapped one hand around Greta’s still-warm arm and the other on her bloating leg, and proceeded to twist her lifeless form towards the doors leading outside. After stopping to heave in several breaths, I braced myself to begin hauling her backwards.
Behind me, Mother sniffed. “Can’t be easy, pullin’ such a bloated old goat. Even back when she was walkin’ I half-expected her t’start chewin’ on th’ finery. Goddamn cattle.” She hawked a wad of spit onto the clean floorboards, then groaned at it. “Ox’s balls. Someone’ll clean that up, surely?”
I grunted as I manoeuvred the dead cook around a particularly large table.
“Maids’re bloody cattle, too. Titter-titterin’ nonstop. I told ‘em on a visit a little while back it’d be funny for ‘em to switch bells – figured such a thing might teach th’ boss man to keep stackin’ his chits on people with a lick o’ sense. Like me.
“Those dull-eyed does actually did it, too.” She barked a quick laugh. “Only thing funnier’n swappin’ bells is the empty-headed animals stupid enough to do it! Who do they think’s payin’ them, anyway?”
I paused briefly to roll my shoulders and pop the encroaching soreness from my spine.
“I swear, Kit, all these people ever do is let the bloody shepherd make choices for ‘em. All it takes is one little death t’send ‘em all stampedin’. Makes this- “ she gestured towards me, “ -absolutely necessary fer the sweet little lambs t’sleep at night. Bloody exhaustin’.”
This was the moment I needed to say something. Prove I wasn’t cattle. But it needed to be well-thought – I was following her orders, after all. Finding the words used to feel natural. I was out of practice moving through this kind of hierarchy.
“Jus’ easier t’keep th’ blinders on, for people like them,” I said between grunts. “They don’t know what it is t’want somethin’. To chase after somethin’. To hurt for somethin’.”
“No they don’t,” Mother agreed, and I gave a quiet sigh of relief. “But it’s not just about makin’ choices, y’know? Gotta see clearly.
“Take yer boy, for example.” She clicked her fingers. “Vin. Dangerous, dangerous man. If he’s eaten old Graves – or Tully, I guess – like you said, I reckon he’s smart, too. Why d’you think I’ve told you to keep me outta his mind?” She scoffed. “But he goes and throws all that danger in a goddamn ditch, for anyone to come an’ pick up. What d’you think he’s tellin’ himself? That he’s doin’ the right thing? Gettin’ rid o’ that big bad Ravenblood. That he couldn’t handle that pressure? That no one could?”
Mother took a long drag of her cigarillo. “Dunno if he’s right, Kit, but it don’t matter, ‘cause he’s just makin’ a weak choice and tryin’ t’make it seem strong. Stickin’ his head as deep in th’ sand as he can shove it. He’s a hider, but you an’ I? We see things how they are.”
She held open the doors as I dragged the corpse through. “An’ I know how to keep us movin’ above, on th’ backs o’ animals like him. So you jus’ listen t’me, birdie, and the whole world’ll fall at our feet.”
Mother gave my head a rub as she walked past. Her touch clung to my scalp long after her fingers had left it.
As I stood in the Fort’s entrance, I sent a glance up at the battlements, where guards supposedly patrolled. None marched with any kind of lantern – doing so would give away our paltry numbers to our Baylarian overseers – making it impossible to tell whether anyone was in position to peer over the side and witness me dragging their captain’s wife over to a shallow grave.
Mother slunk over to the stone handholds embedded in the stone and scurried up the side of the wall. After a few tense moments, a dark hand extended over the wall’s lip and beckoned me to move. I readjusted the blanket over the body and gave another mighty heave backwards. Halfway to its destination, the blanket jiggled off to reveal Greta’s limp head bouncing over the frozen earth as I dragged her body across the outer court and into the gardens. Her expression was faintly disapproving.
I swore. If I left it revealed Mother might get caught. If she did, she’d probably kill the poor bastard who found her. After a moment of weighing each potential consequence, I covered the corpse’s face once again and squeezed the sheet tightly over the body.
When I made it to the shadowed gardens, I found a ditch already waiting. A piece of cloth poking from its side hinted at Colin’s body – the Owlblooded assistant I’d buried a few days before. His body reeked wetly. I dragged the body into the makeshift grave.
“Sorry,” I told it. “You’re no warrior. You didn’t sign up for this. Didn’t deserve this.”
It gave no response. My lips tightened. I got to work burying it.
When I was done, Mother ambled over and began replanting the crops our gravedigging had torn up. It felt as if fate should’ve conspired to reveal Colin’s corpse to the Fort by now. Yet despite discovery being only a few scoops of dirt away, no one ever thought to excavate the gardens under the light of day. They would inevitably be dug up and replanted in a few months, but Mother knew that as well. Whatever game she was playing operated for a far shorter span.
The Jackal stopped to shake some dirt free of her hands and stub out the glowing end of her cigarillo in the grave-dirt. “Y’know, Gale told me this garden was pretty important. Heard th’ famine hit Fort Vane almost harder’n th’ rest o’ th’ Heartlands. With you an’ I killin’ their caravans, Baylar refused to trade with ‘em – least until Gale got comfy with th’ Albrights.
“All th’ chits in th’ land can’t help a man with no one t’trade with. An’ th’ edges of the Heartlands were picked clean. Way I heard it, a few people would’ve starved without these gardens.” Mother smirked. “Seems only right we give ‘em somethin’ t’nibble on as a thank you.”
Unlike the Heartlands, blood wouldn’t make food grow here. The sacrifice would do nothing. But I figured keeping that fact to myself was wise. We finished concealing the murder as dawn broke over the walls of the Fort.
A string of pops burst through the birdsong as Mother stretched. “Righty then. Reckon we go see dear Mael, huh?”
Her laughter washed over my grin like waves over a cracked, worn cliff-face. Stone was tough, but time and tide could wear anything down to dust. I was no exception.
----------------------------------------
“D’you want us t’bring it in?” asked Mother, a wry smile spread across her face as she wrapped a bell around her wrist.
“Val,” Gale greeted, voice far brusquer than it used to be. “Is that Kit with you?”
I stared at him for a moment, disbelieving. My approach had been almost silent. How had he known I was there?
“Mm.” A hand smacked against my shoulder hard enough to sting, and the Jackal shot a meaningful scowl my way. “Go on,” she said, eyes wide in a silent threat. “Don’t keep th’ boss-man waitin’.”
“Hey Gale.” Out of the corner of my vision, Mother nodded in silent approval. “You good?” I finished lamely.
Gale’s clouded eyes drifted over my face. “I am fine,” he rumbled.
The noble had been standing in the doorway, unmoving, when we’d arrived. Far taller than he had in my memory. “Lotta…” I tried to find a way to coax him into revealing what had changed, but my skill with words ended at insults and intimidation. “…Nothin’ fer a man doin’ fine.”
The man drummed his fingers against his collarbone. “I can see why you might think that,” he conceded.
Gale seemed more composed, too. A well-placed provocation might goad him into revealing more. “Impressive, a blind man seein’ so- “
My world rocked forward as a blow caught me on the back of the head. Ice-cold certainty of impending death filled me. It quickly melted when I realised I wasn’t in a battlefield, and the hit hadn’t been particularly heavy. Even so, I allowed Mother’s punch to tip me to the ground where I landed without so much as a whisper. Gale’s blindness would forgive an assault in front of him, but the man still had a working set of ears.
“…you got work to do?” Mother was saying. “I’ll go feed an’ read Mael for you.”
“I would…” He paused to take a breath. “I would appreciate that.”
“No problem.” Mother took the tray from him gingerly, as if taking a bone from a wild dog. “Reckon Mr. Skin ‘n Bones’s waitin’ for you.”
“Do not call him that.” His voice cracked with enough restrained fury to startle me. “Have some respect. Especially if you want to keep concealing yourself from him.”
Mother’s face tightened into a predatory rictus and I hastily turned my gaze downwards. “…Sure. Be seein’ you.”
Gale turned on his heel and marched away with an eerily graceful rhythm. From the ground, I watched the way his weight landed on the balls of his feet in a way constantly prepared for an assault. A warrior’s walk, I realised.
“Prissy little prick,” Mother cussed when he was out of earshot. “If he wasn’t our ride back up, I would’ve slit him side-to-side fer that.”
With her anger turned on Gale, my own prodding would likely be forgotten. I cautiously pushed myself upright, and when the older woman gave no rebuke I straightened fully. “You’re gonna go feed, uh…”
“Mael,” Mother finished smugly.
“Yeah, him. That mean I can go?” I tried not to let hope colour my tone.
“You better come with me for a bit.” The Jackal adjusted her grip so one arm cradled the tray as the other proceeded to tip a bowl of shredded fruit into her mouth. She shoved the bowl of porridge into my own hands.
“Won’t Mael be mad?”
Mother coughed, letting loose a shower of fruit-flesh from her mouth. “Gods no,” she managed amidst fits of hacking. “Come an’ have a look. You’ll get it.”
She cranked open the door, revealing a cramped, dust-smeared room illuminated only by morning light trinkling through a single window. That shallow stream of radiance traced a narrow bed surrounded by dull contraptions; each filigreed by eye-blurring sets of runes in staggering quantities, engraved as a result of what must have been countless hours worth of obsession. All were empty of purple light and caged by thin layers of dust. On the bed lay a desiccated corpse.
“Gale made all these devices t’lighten Mael’s body. Enough time and talent t’kill a god, spent on a boy whose muscles couldn’t keep him upright. Kept him alive ‘til a few months back.” Mother shrugged. “Kid’s heart jus’ gave out one day.”
I looked at the corpse. Death had turned a young man’s body into that of a shrivelled old crone. Yet it was in far better condition than any other month-old corpse I’d ever seen. “You preserved it?”
Mother tsked. “Yeah. Place reeked fer a while after, but I made sure no one was enterin’ except me an’ Gale. Can’t have the Fort knowin’.”
Her form stood starkly at the corner of my gaze. Fond annoyance fixed her gaze to the body. “You were meant to marry him.”
“I mean, sure.” The Jackal barked a laugh. “If he lived through a wastin’ body with not so much as a lick o’ Lizardblood, he’d damn well deserve me.”
“You didn’t think he’d live, though.”
“Nah. Plan was always Gale. An’ ‘cause no one likes a Blooded rulin’ or havin’ children, my hands would be on the reins o’ th’ Vanes.” She inclined her head. “An’ I guess yours, when I die.”
I blinked. My mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. “Does Gale know his brother’s dead?” I asked, stepping around her previous statement.
She snorted. “Bein’ blind’s a good excuse, but I reckon he’s too clever not to. Boss-man jus’ don’t wanna admit it.”
“No one told him?”
“The Fort’s doctor wanted to,” she said casually. “I made sure he didn’t.”
He’d been the man who should’ve helped Maddie and Vin when we’d first entered the Fort. I wondered if he was buried near Colin and Greta. “You’re sure Gale knows?”
She arced her shoulder to affix me with a withering glare. “Boss used t’visit little Mael here every day, but you know what happened as soon as his brother kicks it? Man stops visitin’. Why d’you think that is?”
I gave a cursory shrug.
“’Cause if Mael’s dead, his whole big project don’t mean much. All that work fer nothin’.” Mother looked out the window with a dark chuckle. “He an’ Vin make quite the pair – two black-blooded fools stickin’ their heads in the dirt. Just in opposite directions.
“Poor Gale,” she crooned. “Too clever t’hide completely but too weak t’tear the earth from his eyes. Luckily, he’s got me t’steer him right.”
“An’ where’re you steerin’ him, Mother?” I carefully asked.
“I’m steerin’ us,” she said with snarling emphasis, “above the fools that cover this land from end-to-end. They need people like us.”
“To rule?” Neutrality flavoured my voice into a bland, unassuming slop.
“To control.” Mother scoffed. “They don’t wanna think. They wanna get told things that make ‘em feel good. Fact o’ the matter is, their empty skulls make perfect footholds for people with real ambition. Who know what they are an’ know what they want, an’ know it without flinchin’. You might not have my brains, Kit, but you ain’t a coward like them. You’re a different breed.”
I grunted an affirmation.
“Now, you needa keep yer Ravenblood’s attention away from Gale for a bit. You know a way t’do that?”
I gripped the hilt of my sword to prevent my fingers from trembling. “Gonna teach Taja some moves. Others’ll come an’ watch.”
Mother’s brows raised. “Th’ wimpy nomad kid? What’s teaching him t’fight gonna do?”
A furious retort rose from my throat, but bile from my gut yanked it back down. I shrugged.
She waved an arm. “Well, go ahead.”
Instinctively, I took a step away, but paused. “You’re not gonna hurt any o’ the people I came with, right?”
Mother sneered lightly. “Why d’you care, birdie? Savin’ ‘em fer yerself?”
“Just owe them is all.”
“Can’t hold debts t’cattle, Kit.”
“I know, I know. But- “
“I won’t do anythin’ to ‘em without you, Kit.”
Whatever happened, I would be able to stop her. So long as I knew who she was targeting, I’d be able to move her away. Mother knew I was a thick-headed thug, but she’d listen to me if I asked her something.
I opened my mouth to ask for a greater concession, but a cocked eyebrow from her shot the attempt down. It would have to be enough.
----------------------------------------
My practice sword cracked against Taja’s shin with vicious glee, forcing the teenager into a limping stumble backwards as his guard dropped. A swift blow batted his weapon from his hand while I rapped the side of his wrist with my knuckles.
“Again,” I snapped.
Another exchange was met with swift punishment as the novice swordsman fumbled his weapon. As our bout progressed, Taja’s eyes migrated from narrowed fixation on our bout to darting pupils swallowed by a sea of panicked white. His skill began to bend itself away from the process of learning into futile attempts to keep the thick piece of wood in my hand from wreaking pain upon him. Of all the places on his body, only his head was spared a bruising.
“Again!”
Taja pressed himself back against the fence, then screwed his eyes closed and surged forward in a blind flurry of blows. I stepped aside and smashed his ankle, sending him rolling sideways amidst a pained chorus of moans. A song heralding my easy dominance of this young, empty-headed kid. He tried to push himself upright and failed as soon as weight fell on the beaten leg.
I squatted over his supine form, sneering down at him. “Get up.”
Taja’s eyes flickered away.
“Don’t you wanna learn somethin’? Be strong, instead of jus’ a lump of dead weight we’ve had to haul halfway across th’ Heartlands?” I leaned closer to his face. “Don’t be weak. Get up.”
Though he didn’t meet my gaze, the thin young man slowly clambered back onto his feet.
While we fell back into our exchanges, I gave him the same brash grin I’d been wearing all morning. Taja’s newfound determination lasted through the next ten minutes of one-sided beating. Until his form began flagging once again.
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“Come on!” I shouted as I slapped a half-hearted blow away. “What about the stance I showed you earlier? The blows Vin taught you over Frost? Where’re they, huh? Where’s all that trainin’ trickled to? Right outta yer ears, by the looks of it.”
He swallowed and tried to fall into the neutral stance I’d taught him, but I kicked him to the ground.
“Too slow!” I bellowed, jabbing at him with my practice sword. “You think anyone’s gonna wait fer you to amble into a half-arsed form? You think it’d stop a Godkin? An enemy? A Baylarian soldier? Pathetic.”
Tears pricked at the corners of Taja’s eyes.
I recoiled.
My feet took several steps backwards before I could stop them. I tried to squeeze disgust into my face at his unabashed display of weakness, but my attempts were feeble themselves. For a moment, I considered slamming my wooden sword into Taja’s ribs as he lay on the floor. For a moment, I considered calling the session off. Both options were paths someone more agile could walk. Not me.
“Isn’t that enough, Kit?”
I rotated my head too quickly. Maddie stood behind me, expression bent into concern and confusion beneath her orange locks.
Her jade eyes fell upon me and I hardly dared to breathe. “I don’t know anything about swords, but I doubt Taja will learn anything right now.”
I thinned my lips against the pathetic sense of relief welling inside of me. “Sure. C’mon Taja. It’s done.”
The nomad stared up at me, eyes wide. In my impatience, I bent down and manhandled him upright. After I’d separated, I leaned in and wiped several patches of mud from his poorly-woven sparring clothes, though I only managed to work the filth further into its material.
“You did good,” I suddenly felt the urge to say, “keepin’ steady through all that. Good, uh, resilience.”
Whether Taja felt that was enough of an apology was unclear. He simply limped back towards where the others were gathered, allowing Maddie to help him stiffly clamber over the fence. After several heartbeats had passed, I followed.
From where they leaned against the Fort’s walls, Ronnie gently eased Taja down to rest beside Gast, shooting me a tooth-filled frown as they did so. The other Strain looked at me expressionlessly. I steered away from both and settled beside Vin, who gave no indication he’d registered my presence.
Almost immediately, I began to regret my seating choice. The man next to me barely resembled the person he’d been a month ago. Gone were the unsettling sets of eyes studding his arms, instead replaced with bandages which would gradually soak in a stinking mixture of yellow pus and blackened blood over the course of a day. Though his physical frame was only slightly diminished, the actual quantity of meat on it was so dangerously low that the clothes Gale had tailored to his form a mere two weeks ago hung limply off his body like rolls of skin on a fat man gone thin. Worst of all was his face. Sharp, skeletal features mounted by a sunken gaze terminating in hollow eyes.
Whatever Vin had become was eggshell-thin; a mere blanket draped over the same primordial emptiness that filled mourners and monsters and drug-fiends and dogs holding vigil over corpses and the space between stars.
But despite everything, he was the same person who had laughed and picked me up while we waited in that line in Spires, letting me hit him in the head. The man who had finished the fight I’d started back in the bar. The same man who had defended my rear countless times. I owed him more than unease, but I didn’t know what else someone like me could offer.
While I struggled with the sensation of my arm pressing against the cords that formed his, Maddie slowly began taking us all aside. To discuss him, safe in the assurance that whatever sound entered Vin’s ears wouldn’t reach the person that lay behind them. We all swerved around the topic for a few minutes, until the prancing infuriated me enough that I cut to the meat of the issue.
Only the blind would fail to see that he’d lost something vital along with the Ravenblood Gale’d removed. Surprisingly enough, Taja was the first to spit out the obvious counter: with the Ravenblood, he’d been a man whose being was so full it was beginning to tear itself apart. Was a man in the process of being rent asunder any better than one whose whole, unblemished veins were filled with nothing at all?
Maddie, Gast, Taja, Ronnie and I all sat and thought. Even the giant’s dog – Yowler – had his jowls arranged in grim concentration. I rolled Vin through my mind repeatedly, like a forgotten word retreating from the tip of my tongue. I scratched my head. I got up and paced.
The sunlight scattered over the Fort’s stones and rejoined together in puddles that depicted images of the sky while birds sung from the battlements, yet the longer we dwelled in the dead-eyed man next to us the more good humour seemed to crumble.
I joked that maybe we should just pump him with Ravenblood and roll him into a carpet, and Ronnie smacked me for disturbing their own musings. Gast stared at a beetle crawling through the mud. Taja broke a blade of grass between his hands until it was nothing but hints of green on the wind, glassy gaze fixed on nothing at all. Maddie hid beneath her cloak. Vin leaned against the wall, and for a single, quiet moment I looked at him and felt deep in my bones that he was carved out of barren stone.
It was when I squinted harder and came to the abrupt realisation that Vin lived still that I gave up. We’d need to talk to the man; I told the others. Let him know what we’d seen and hope it was some kind of massive revelation to him. Tell him that the one thing he’d wanted from Maddie as a reward for months of labour and murder and death could maybe perhaps be postponed, because five nosy people were concerned. I didn’t have much hope, but we’d need to pick someone to relay that message.
I was mildly pissed off when everyone immediately passed over me to tell him and began a debate over the best diplomat that, after many twist and turns, crashed into Gast on account of her being the most singularly inoffensive person ever to exist. After all, it took doing something to cause conflict. If doing nothing were a contest, Gast’d be tied first with rocks.
Nevertheless, getting angry at the fat Strain was much like getting angry at an owl – she’d just kind of give you a look that simultaneously made you feel stupid and undoubtedly in the wrong. I would know; sometimes her giving every response in grunts or shrugs had me wanting to leap on Gast’s back and tear her hair out.
With that settled, a foetal silence began seeping between us, before Maddie aborted it with a sudden cry. “The cakes!” she announced, before standing to rush within the Fort.
I squinted after her. “She hit her head?”
Ronnie grinned while their hands contorted.
“Maddie made cakes,” Gast translated.
The giant gave the other Strain a thinned look, then elbowed her.
“She’s excited,” the fat woman added flatly.
Ronnie shifted from their spot leaning against the wall and slowly turned their entire body to face Gast.
The round Strain gave a slow blink. “She’s excited about the cakes she made.”
Ronnie nodded, finally satisfied.
“Right,” I drawled, eying both of them. “Y’know, I coulda got that from th’ first thing you said.”
The giant shook their head as their fingers darted through several short, vigorous signs. “Flavour,” Gast translated.
“Yeah, what’s it taste like?” I asked.
The teeth set within Ronnie’s infantile face ground together noisily, but if the Strain wanted long, flowery sentences they shouldn’t’ve gotten Gast to say them.
“She’s never baked,” Gast stated. I looked to Ronnie’s hands and was somewhat surprised to find them still. She’d supplied that information unprompted.
“…Do you think it will taste good?” Taja interjected, leaning his bruised body to stare after Maddie.
Ronnie’s hands flashed. “The cook’s with her,” Gast translated. “Should be fine.”
I concealed my face from the people beside me, only to find Vin’s sunken gaze directed towards me. Whether he saw merely skin-deep or peeled past layers of flesh to seize upon my soul was illegible – the Ravenblood’s eyes betrayed nothing.
“She seems to be elsewhere, today,” Taja responded, mindless of my discomfort.
Ronnie gave a single, firm sign: ‘Bad’.
Gast stared at the giant’s hands, then turned to stare both Taja and I in the eyes. Her gaze was full of austere severity. “Not good.”
Maddie returned with a baking pan – iron, an expense that was unsurprising in a Fort with an attached Owlsmith. It was dotted with thick pastries with sizes oscillating between ones just large enough to fit in my palm to mammoth chunks of dough which would need two hands to hold. Thin streams of green stuffing – some kind of jam, maybe? – puddled in the cake’s peak, which was a dubiously light shade of brown.
The young woman swayed the pan beneath each of our faces, jade eyes beaming from beneath a tangle of orange locks. Everyone present found mundane objects – bugs; rocks; muddy patches of ground – to examine, excepting Gast whose scepticism was writ plainly on her face. Just as Maddie’s face began to fall and I was preparing to seize one, Vin’s hand snaked onto the pan, snatched a large cake, and began chewing it. Sticky strings of dough stretched between his jaw.
“Do you like it?” Maddie asked.
He swallowed and shoved the second half of the cake inside his mouth. Maddie gave a toothy grin, which suddenly formed the most singularly argument for eating dubious food that I’d ever borne witness to.
Accompanied by Maddie’s expectant gaze, I inhaled a quick breath and shoved it in my mouth. It took several seconds to process the sheer enormity of the flavour and texture. When the cogs of my stunned mind began turning again, I looked at Vin’s face – blank except for a pair of eyes slyly directed away from my face. Belatedly, my tongue began fleeing from the alien object occupying my mouth.
Once, when I was much younger, I’d consumed one of the new fruits the Aching had supplied. It was painted broadly in a swirl of pretty colours: bright, bold and engrossing. Even as a child, Father had warned me countless times to not eat plants without being certain they were safe, especially after an Aching. But in the small hours of the morning before, Mother had staggered into my tent, shaken me awake, and hissed at her bleary-eyed daughter that Father was a brain-dead fool who knew nothing about anything. I wanted to believe her. Eating the fruit would serve as proof of my faith.
Mother and Father had been out on a raid. I’d nearly died. Only Jana shoving chunks of charcoal in my mouth amidst a flurry of panicked insults saved my life. The cold, brittle taste of it coating every fold of my cheeks filled my tastebuds every time I thought back on that moment.
I didn’t recall that event, though, because Maddie’s cakes tasted far worse than charcoal. As I thoughtfully chewed, all that came to mind was lukewarm pigeon guts and the overwhelming urge to eject the contents of my mouth and paw at my tongue. But the princess’s hopeful stare kept my expression perfectly blank.
Mustering the courage to swallow the bizarre combination of liquid flavouring and undercooked dough took six attempts. “It’s alright,” I told her hoarsely. I’d heard the best lies contain a grain of truth. This one was utterly pathetic.
Despite that, I realised everyone present believed me. Which meant I could try the same trick as Vin. Glee bubbled in my chest.
I gingerly took another cake off the baking pan and offered it to Ronnie. “It’s good.”
The lopsided Strain’s eyes darted to Vin, then myself, then the pastry. They took a small one and shoved it in their mouth. A slight widening of their eyes was the only hint that Ronnie’s tastebuds had been sacked.
While they looked at me, expression torn between despair and hilarity, Ronnie signed: ‘Good’.
Taja took the bait next. Under my glare and Ronnie’s trembling lips, the teenager’s jaws slowly worked around the dough, eying the pair of us as we desperately tried to stop ourselves from laughing. Gast went after. In the wisest decision of the entire meal, she held the cake in her mouth as she rose to walk across the outer court, where she discreetly spat it behind a bush. Maddie might’ve noticed Gast’s stealth-puke if she weren’t in the process of delicately biting into one of the few remaining.
Her face immediately contorted. “Oh, gods,” she repeated as flecks of saliva, dough, and jam evacuated her mouth. A snort erupted from my nose amongst a stream of snot, which drove the young Head into gagging the contents of her cheeks onto the ground as an uncontrollable fit of giggles wracked my body. Yowler ambling over, licking the dough, and then deciding to spit it out launched my hysterics into almost painful heights. Ronnie wheezed silently. Even Taja and Gast managed a few chuckles.
When it was done, I turned to the man beside me. “You’re a mad genius, Vin,” I told him as I tried to stifle a set of hiccups. “How’d you think t’do that?”
My laughter choked into silence as his eyes drifted over my form without recognition. He chewed another disgusting wad of dough and I watched the lump in his throat bob as he swallowed it. Nothing in his face indicated anything he changed. Vin hadn’t been pretending to tolerate the flavour. He simply hadn’t noticed it.
Later, after we sent Gast to talk with him, she returned and slumped to the ground next to us. Splinters sprouted from her shins like tiny speartrees – remnants of her ramming through furniture in a frantic bid to catch Vin. They quickly began swelling. We asked her questions, but her silence said more than any words.
Failure.
----------------------------------------
The Baylarian diplomats were more pretentious than I’d expected. Hailed through the gates were a gaggle of yellow-robed men, all togas and hairy chests and arms despite Frost still clinging by its nails. Hairiest of all were their faces – beards practically dripping with oil that made them seem less like bundles of hair and more like languid river-creatures clinging to their faces. The hair atop their head – the little they had – was similarly styled. As I watched the Fort’s guards search them for weapons, I wondered why Baylarian fashion was so bizarre.
Another group quickly entered on their heels. At first I believed them servants of the Baylarians, but their rough garb itched a memory from the back of my mind. They bore cloaks and builds almost identical to the people who’d fought the Albrights in the crater. Gale – who greeted a huge, dark-skinned woman upon her entry – seemed completely at ease with them. When I clambered down and hissed a warning in the blind man’s ear, he waved me away. His complete disregard for the danger we were in spurred me into the Hall of Mirrors, to tell Maddie and the others we needed to leave.
The young Head gave a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and said we didn’t have a choice.
Which left me glaring at the Baylarian diplomats who approached her as I leaned against a wall and took angry sips of wine. The mirrors lining each side of the hall made it seem utterly massive, but the people dwelling within – despite being multiplied a thousand times as the infinite mirrors narrowed to nothing – utterly failed to fill it. I scowled quietly. At least Mother was elsewhere.
“…take Heltia so easily?” Maddie was asking the one diplomat who remained, having remained mostly silent until his fellows.
The Baylarian she spoke to drained his fourth cup of wine. I might be swayed to drink as well, were I unarmed and entirely surrounded by people with good reason to loathe me. “Well, any city could be taken with little more than a bundle of bread and promises of aid, had Enn gotten to it first. House Baylar can hardly take credit for immense tactical acumen.”
“You disapprove?” came the innocent query.
He went to nod, but stopped himself. “You lived in Heltia, once. You understand what Neelam created. Undoubtedly both an economic and military threat, given your, erm, Owlsmithed…”
“Bloodtech,” Maddie supplied.
“Yes, ‘bloodtech’. A great threat, but also a great opportunity.” The diplomat shook his head mournfully. “You know, I travelled there once. When we all gathered to create the Heltian Conditions – to debate how mortals could fell a god – I was a junior scribe to our delegation. A singularly beautiful place, your city. Bridge upon bridge, defying gravity as they towered as if to challenge the sun; seeing the enormity of that place, it felt as if the mass of humanity was one step from becoming a god.”
Maddie’s lips trembled as she nodded.
“What a waste,” he said, jaw tightening. “What a truly irredeemable waste. I am so…”
If he apologised, I was going to kill him – diplomat or not.
Instead, he gently placed his cup on a nearby table. “I cannot apologise to you. And I’m sorry for that.”
Maddie’s eyelids lowered, twin shutters withstanding a storm. Her narrow shoulders shook twice, then stilled. “I understand- “ Her voice hitched. She discreetly cleared her throat and continued. “But surely Baylar could have annexed Spires. With much time and many losses, of course, but wouldn’t such a famously mercantile House be prepared to sacrifice short-term profit for long-term gains? Why use Enn at all?”
“House Baylar did not goad the Ox into attacking Spires,” the diplomat stated woodenly. “We simply offered support after the city and its leaders crumbled.”
I snorted.
Maddie’s lips tightened.
Behind the oil and finery wrought with Baylarian colours, a terrible lucidity settled on the diplomat. His eyes tightened in black sympathy, and his voice lowered to a whisper. “…However, if a House devoted to profit were to do such a thing, it would be reasonable to suggest they were acting under strict restrictions from a higher authority.”
The young Head’s eyes snapped upwards.
“What powerful people would want such a promising, powerful city ruined instead of annexed? Who could possible stand above a House?” The diplomat licked his lips. “And what player might whisper the idea in the ears of those powerful people?” He swallowed, and asked one final question: no longer rhetorical but a legitimate plea for answers. “And what might the whisperer gain from such an event?”
His eyes flickered elsewhere. I followed his gaze, and found a blind man exchanging heated words with the wasted figure of our Ravenblood. It was as if ice-water had been poured over my body.
“Say nothing,” the diplomat told us. “I cannot be on your side. But though my role in these negotiations is too humble to know the objectives, understand the game that has been played. You are worms on a hook, but there must be room to wriggle off.”
“Jus’ let it go?” I asked him.
He nodded.
Maddie touched my arm, but I shook her off. “For what?”
“Pardon?”
“We spent months runnin’, fightin’, dyin’ for this. We lost people,” I told him, teeth clenched and eyes wide, “and we got nothin’ left of them. For this?”
His head tilted away from mine.
“Kit…” Maddie turned and placed both arms on mine. Water leaked from her eyes.
I looked at her. “We- what? How- You’re jus’ tryin’ to…” I clenched my eyes tight on the tears brewing there, then opened them. “Blood!”
I placed my hands over my eyes as harsh breaths shuddered through my body. It was all too much. The diplomat had to be lying. Someone had to be lying. Who was lying?
I removed the limbs obstructing my sight and found Gale seizing Vin by the arm.
“Kit,” Maddie pleaded, but her grieving sobs filled my ears and that blind man my vision. I shook her off and shoved my way through the crowd towards him.
Gale seethed, red-faced, as he whispered at Vin. The Ravenblood was held tight in his grip and as I approached, I saw discomfort break through the apathy on Vin’s face. My hasty movements sent an elbow barging into one of the maids but brought me close enough to grip the noble’s shoulder.
“Who d’you think you’re hissin’ at, Gale?” I snarled, pulling Gale away from Vin. “Better put that forked tongue o’ yours twixt yer cheeks, ‘fore it gets sliced off.”
Immediately, Vin pulled away, snatched a sack from the ground and began scurrying out of the hall. Wrapped around his hands were the singed remnants of a bandage, beginning to merge with the flesh beneath.
“What in the blood did you do t’his hand?” I crushed the noble’s arms in both hands as spittle coated his face. “Huh? What’d you do?”
I was taken aback when Gale returned my snarl with one of his own. “You believe I did that?” he thundered. “The boy burned his own hand. Orvi’s falling apart, and none of you are trying to stop him.”
“Stop him?” I snapped, shaking him slightly. “You’re the one who took the godsdamned blood!”
“And I am trying to put it back, stupid girl.”
“Girl? You’re barely older’n I am.”
He scoffed. After the blind man grasped my hands I watched, disbelieving, as he began to peel them off his shoulders with enough force to bruise them.
I ripped myself away from him and massaged my palms. “So?” I demanded, eying him. “What’s th’ point of all that work gettin’ rid o’ his blood jus’ to put it back?”
Suddenly, Vin shambled back into the room in pursuit of a shattering in the air. Both of us watched his stick-like figure move through the Hall and disappear out the other side.
Gale worked his jaw as he slowly unclenched his palms. “I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
“Because Orvi is dying.”
I ignored the unfamiliar name. There were more pressing matters. “He’s dying?” It should’ve been more of a shock.
“Kit.” It was Gale’s turn to seize my shoulders. “Your friend – you are friends, yes?”
I considered that. Nodding my head felt like pulling an abandoned lever from years’ worth of rust, but I managed.
Gale’s mismatched eyes managed to find my own. “Your friend has mere weeks to live,” he insisted. “He refuses to listen to me. He sees me as a stranger. But you know him, correct?”
“I- “
“You are close?” His gaze tried to bore into my own. “You- ”
I cut his frantic words off. “We tried, okay? Jus’ today. We all tried t’get him t’stop, an’ it failed.”
Gale reached into a pocket and withdrew a cylindrical device to shove against my chest.
My lip curled. “What in Siik’s legs is this, blind man?”
“Ravenblood.”
I tossed it back to him as if it were a flaming coal. “Go shove it up yer- “
“You need to stab Orvi with this,” he said rapidly, snatching my hand and curling my fingers around it. “Depress this button on the top. Rapid Godsblood transfusion would be dangerous for most, but Orvi’s body has already adapted to it.”
I looked through the device, trying to scry what lay at its core. Everything I knew about Vin – every tiny smile and moment of pure stillness – screamed that he would refuse it. However, my attempt didn’t have to end there. Ronnie and I would probably be able to hold him down while Gast unloaded the Ravenblood back into him. Together, we could put him back to what he used to be.
As I envisaged us commandeering his body as if it were some kind of divine right, bile emerged from the back of my throat. Yet I’d killed countless people before; stealing from them in a way far more fundamental. At least this would help the person I attacked.
‘This is you, Kit,’ came a thought slithering from between the cracks of my mind. ‘You want him to live. He’s too scared to make a choice. You’re not. So why don’t you make it for him?’
Why not? That was a question I had no reply to. Even so, trickling from the back of my mind emerged an intuition: Vin was Vin. And even with him throwing all his martial ability away, I still respected him.
“I can’t,” I told Gale.
Sightless eyes scrawled across my face desperately. “Please, Kit. I can give you anything, if only you do this one thing for me.”
I tried a grin. “Y’already owe me one wish. How’s that- “
“Kit.” The word rumbled out with the snap of an order.
I sneered at it. “Why d’you care so much about him anyway? You’ve- “
“He is my son,” the person in front of me thundered. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for him.”
“Son?” I snorted. “Sorry, pal, but th’ metaphor’s a little…”
My voice trailed away. Within the depths of my mind, facts slotted together in cracks of lightning: Gale’s strength; shortening temper; changes in gait; oscillating personality; sudden bouts of confusion; obsession with ‘Orvi’. The person in front of me was no longer just Gale.
The name slipped from between my lips unprompted. “Maja?”
Then a hand snapped around my neck as the Ravenblood hoisted me off my feet and began dragging me by my throat out of the hall. The heels of my boots scraped against glass as I fought to reopen my airway, but even as my fingernails ripped into the side of its wrist the grip refused to falter. I tried to scream for the others, but my voice had narrowed into a reedy croak and the Ravenblood concealed my own bent body with its own. Gale-Maja moved too quickly to allow my feet purchase, leaving them as ineffectual as a newborn doe’s. Instead of leaving them to skitter across the ground, I gripped the Ravenblood’s arms and hauled myself upright, finally finding the presence of mind to draw a knife from my belt and slash at the wrist.
Before I could draw more than a thin trickle of blood the blind Ravenblood released the hand around my neck and used the other to slam me into the side of the hallway it had dragged me into. The back of my skull smashed into the stone, leaving my vision flickering with flashes of white. I fumbled as the thing reared back again, and barely managed to jam my dagger into the thing’s forearm. It grunted, then roared as I twisted the blade, forcing the tendons inside to release me.
I stumbled several steps backwards, blinking away the pain twisting through my skull and throat. The Gale-Maja thing levelled its clouded eyes in my direction. Still tilting its head in an effort to detect me, it ripped a piece of fabric from its shirt and began slowly wrapping the wound back together. Pitch-black blood quickly soaked the makeshift bandage. I gripped the hilt of my sword, but refrained from drawing it lest the noise of metal on leather betray me.
I expected the Ravenblood to begin pacing through the hallway in search of me. Instead, it straightened, drew in a breath, and bellowed, “Valorie!”
My eyes shivered in their sockets. Saliva filled my mouth.
“I’m not trying to kill you, Kit,” the Ravenblood stated. It still looked like Gale, but the movement of its eyes were sharper than any blade. I should’ve known as soon as they started to change. “But I couldn’t allow that discussion to occur amongst company.”
I reversed my dagger. I’d killed a few Oxbloods before, but each time I’d come hairs away from a split skull. I’d put chits on me versus almost any other Blooded, but mortals just weren’t meant to contend with movements faster than lightning. And General Maja was legendary. Vin’s monstrous martial prowess must’ve come from her, and I wasn’t thick enough to think I could defeat him in his prime. As soon as it realised where I was, it’d have me.
But Gale was blind.
Footsteps echoed down the hall behind the Ravenblood. Its head turned. I took the opportunity to lunge forward, but in a flash of sudden panic I realised my sheath had scraped against the side of the hall. The resulting blow was off-target yet still managed to crack into my arm hard enough to send me spinning to the ground. The floorboards cracked against my side and I scrambled backwards with all the mindless fear of a stuck pig.
The thing did not pursue. “You told me she was stupid,” it said.
A chill ran down my spine as Mother arrived next to the Ravenblood. She cocked an eyebrow in my direction. “She is.”
“A single slip of the tongue was all it took, Val,” it rebuked sternly. “You miscalculated.”
“Me?” She scoffed. “Listen, boss-man: if you were too loose-lipped to keep yer secrets from slippin’ into the thickest skull in th’ world, I think that’s on you.”
The Ravenblood grunted. “Perhaps. I don’t want to kill your daughter, Val.”
Mother shot me a secretive grin as I tried to still my trembles. “’Preciate that.”
“Persuade her to keep this secret. Persuade her to stab this,” it said, folding the device into Mother’s hands, “into Mael.”
“Mael?”
“Orvi,” it corrected. “Orvi.”
A grin began to lift one side of my mother’s face. “You want him- “
“If he doesn’t live through this month, I will kill everyone in this Fort,” the Ravenblood stated calmly.
“What’s new?”
“Including you, Valorie. And I will let you rot, afterwards.”
“Ah.” She chewed that idea in her mouth for a time. The anger in her next word was transparent, even to the blind. “Well.”
“I understand it may not be ideal for you to have two Ravenbloods around,” Gale-Maja acceded, “hence the threat. Rest assured my son’s continued existence is not negotiable.”
Mother hummed. “Well…” she stated slyly. “Your son’s pretty tough. If I fail- “ She raised her hands. “Don’t think I will, o’ course, but if I do…”
I rose to my feet, eyes fixed on the Jackal’s mouth.
“Whaddaya think o’ savin’ him, hm?” After a pause, she added: “Just as a back-up plan.”
A shiver passed through the Ravenblood’s body. It stayed silent for a time. “I will think on it.”
Mother tossed the device back to it. “You keep this here thing for now, boss-man. Reckon you’ve got a better chance o’ stickin’ him with it anyway. Probably best fer you t’get back ‘fore the negotiatin’ starts in earnest.” She paused. “Unless you want th’ princess to go belly-up.”
The Ravenblood stared at the woman – both barely of a height with one another – unblinking. Mother met the gaze without flinching, but just before she managed to stifle it by clenching both hands together I noticed a tremor running through her fingers.
“We are tied together in this, Val,” the Ravenblood said, clouded eyes narrowed. “If I sink, you do as well. Avri’s essence is volatile even without exacerbation. Caution would serve you well.”
“I’m here fer both o’ us, Gale.”
“Gale?” The Ravenblood’s smile did not reach its eyes. “Remember that I’ve come to represent more than just the Vanes. I’ve seen you before, General Valorie. Serving your backwater House; the largest fish in a very, very small pond. I see you now, as well.”
Mother’s lips thinned. “Right.”
“Can I trust you?”
“Yeah,” she replied quickly. Quick enough to reek of fear or a lie. A mistake she’d always screamed at me for. I could hardly believe my ears.
The Ravenblood grunted, then aimed its blind gaze elsewhere. “I apologise for my brusqueness, Kit. You’ve been a good friend to my…” Its eyebrows tented. “To Orvi. Please continue.”
Then it walked away, leaving me clutching a knife and Mother glaring after its retreating back. A scowl twisted through the dozens of scars crossing her face.
“You love yer mother,” she said, turning eyes that were far too wide on me, “right birdie?”
Something horrible was brewing behind that stare. My back pressed against the wall as I nodded.
“Then I want you t’do somethin’ for me. Show me you’re loyal. That you’re not like th’ rest o’ them.” Mother turned to walk away. “C’mon.”
I followed her through the halls of the Fort, down a staircase, and into the outer court. Where, bathed in starlight, Gast slowly examined the many plants growing within a garden. A hand closed around my own, slowly guiding it to the sword on my waist. Underneath someone else’s power, my sword was drawn from its sheath.
A shoulder nudged mine. “Won’t do anythin’ without you, I said. So go on. Show me you’re on my side, birdie.”
Then Mother pushed me forward.