Maewys wakes with a start, the bones in her legs throbbing. She clenches her hands around her calves and thighs, feeling for each nerve and blood vessel beneath her skin. Nightmares have brought her teenage years to the forefront of her mind, days spent struggling up the steep stairs of Durduna while leg braces confined her knees.
Only Master Olohne and Zacaer offered her comfort, then.
Maewys steadies her breathing and lays back, covering her eyes with her forearm. At least she’s found a bed for tonight. She rolls over, eyes closed, but her mind is awake. The longer she stays in Nuaranth, the more prevalent the nightmares become.
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The Upper City doesn’t accept Lemlati Trines and Maewys had to resort to selling her hair. Forty gold marks, brilliant diamonds set in the center, is the price for copper red hair, spanning the distance between her shoulder and her long finger. She could have gotten more from the hairdresser she sold it to, but that would entail having her hair shaved. At least they were kind enough to ensure what hair was leftover wasn’t a hideous botch job. Now the Elemnist understands why so many lower-class women in Nuaranth have short hair or shaven heads. To make rent, they sell their hair, destined to become wigs for the patricians and noblesses in the Upper City, sold at a price one-thousand times greater than the cost.
“Maewys,” Ephel says, still ensconced in her backpack, “Agnel has informed me that their master’s banquet hall will host an event for House Kinkara.” Agnel is a rare Espreth owned by a lower-class patrician, someone wealthy enough to own land but lacking the funds to house an indentured workforce. Maewys deposits her gold marks in her coin purse and looks among the working class tenements in the Upper City. At dawn, the neighborhood illuminates as it carves into the cliff, but later fades into a pseudo-twilight. It’s not common for people around these parts to talk to themselves. Maewys whips her bag around to her front and whispers to it.
“If they are looking for waitstaff, I’m in,” Maewys says, her voice low. “I’ll even take kitchen duty. That’s within earshot of the servants, right?” She needs to prepare Nuaranth for intervention, should the Ordo Elemnata stop dragging their collective feet and answer to her call. That means identifying the key players of the current regime, who does what, and marking critical infrastructure for sabotage. Much of the Upper City can drop onto Midtown by breaking their supporting buttresses and struts.
“I’ll let Agnel know that ‘Mavis ap Guaren’ is interested in working during the banquet.”
They came up with the name after the Elemnist regained consciousness in a dumpster after her disastrous encounter with Gwydolin sett Talivar.
Maewys walks her way back to the Upper City proper. It’s a small section of Nuaranth, housing the city’s patricians and the people who work under them, whether it be businesses they spend money at or businesses they own. Small enough for her to walk multiple laps, with time for a bistro visit. Which she’s done on multiple occasions while getting a lay of the land, without the bistro visit. She reverted to living off travel food until it became apparent that the buildings she most wanted to see won’t let her in without paying a few silver marks. And so she sold her hair.
Maewys’s feet carry her back to the art studio where the Praetors beat her unconscious. The first floor of the art studio serves as a display area where paintings and statues are available for sale, and where commissions wait before customers pick them up. The second floor and above is the actual studio with multiple artists working and living the space. Savin was the one who found her unconscious in the dumpster. He was disposing of a slashed canvas bearing the ruined portrait of a former, irritated patron. He greets her at the door.
“Mavis! Welcome back,” he says, wiping paint from his hands. Savin is a thin man, almost skeletal, tan skin taught against wiry muscle. Old paint and wet clay splatter his smock, pottery being his primary source of income. “Did Sola give you a fair price for the hair?” He gestures to Maewys’s quite fashionable pixie cut, Sola being the hairdresser she sold her hair to.
“Is forty gold marks fair?” Maewys asks. “It doesn’t matter. House Kinkara is hosting a banquet outside their spire, and the hall in question is looking for staff.” The artist nods, holding his chin. “Consider me gainfully unemployed.”
“Once the banquet is over,” Savin says, “you’ll be unemployed again. It's a nice tip, though. I will tell the others.” One thing Maewys has learned about professional artistry is that it’s a special few who sell their work for thousands of marks. Everyone else sells for a pittance, and then the buyer turns around and sells it for a fortune. A tenuous career at the best of times.
“The statue you made sold a while back,” Savin says. “Someone from House Amareas came by to pick it up.” Maewys arches a brow. “I’m as surprised as you are, considering how quickly you made it—” a little Elemnistry goes a long way “—but once House Talivar expressed an interest in it, House Amareas just had to snap it up.” Maewys wonders if Gwydolin sett Talivar’s distributed letter and broadside lambasting the Urban Councilor has anything to do with that.
“Well, I’m glad I could help the studio,” Maewys says. She contemplates inquiring about the selling price, but money holds less importance to her than other’s desire. It helps when an Espreth can dispense coin from the Ordo Melikinara’s treasury, but Maewys struggles to list things other than food she can spend it on. She can make a shelter with wood Elemnistry and clean water with dust Elemnistry and, once she combines blood and bone to make Elemnatic flesh, she can make her own clothes out of leather. But gold marks and silver trines? All just bits of useless metal.
“Well, if you want to continue helping, we have some space free upstairs,” Savin says. “I know you work privately, so you have the entire second floor. If you want it, that is.”
“Well, as long as you’re offering,” Maewys says. She uses Elemnatic sculpting as meditation and practice. She’ll turn a log into a tree and neither she nor Savin will acknowledge the fact she’s an Elemnist as he amazes over the detail.
In Nuaranthian fashion, the stairs spiral up in a helix, black wrought iron with twisted rail braids. Maewys ascends the stairs and enters the second story studio, a wide room filled with messy workspaces and storage cabinets for sculpting supplies. It’s also where the pottery kiln is located, the shavings from wood carvings used as kindling for firing clay en masse. She draws a privacy screen closed and shutters the opaque windows, setting her bag down as she approaches the length of deep aspen wood Savin had set apart for her. Ephel rises out of their hiding space, pulsing with light as though stretching, setting a lazy orbit around the Elemnist and the log. With a touch, Maewys forms an Elemnatic connection with the wood and strips the black and white bark. Deep aspen trees, unlike their paper bark cousins, have a dark interior, though the wood is still springy when alive and soft when cut. The natives of the Southern lands often make canoes from deep aspen, digging out chambers and setting it alight, letting the fire hollow out the log for them.
“Have you put much thought towards whom you’ll be paying a visit tonight?” Ephel asks in calm serenity. “Paying a visit” implies Maewys having dinner with an old friend. In truth, she’ll be breaking in and looting the place for information. She may even have to kill someone again, provided she can avoid the Praetors.
“I gave you a list, didn’t I?” Maewys lays both hands on the stripped log, her fingers sinking beneath the yielding fibers. From the remains, she can tease out the shape of the aspen tree while it lived, locating branches through knots in the wood.
“House Harros, House Hayvris, House Amareas,” the Espreth repeats, “all of whom have deep ties to Nuaranth’s military, economy, and infrastructure.” They have deemed House Talivar too high-profile for an incursion, for now. “There is also House Bromire, steward to House Kinkara, with Fenoiryne sett Kinkara sitting on the High Council as its Administrative Councilor.”
The Elemnist raises a finger to present her point. “But House Bromire has come out to support House Amareas.” The wood is as clay to her hands, pliant and firm, fibers breaking and knitting together in shapes unknown to trees. “And if our ‘friend’ Gwydolin sett Talivar is to be believed, the Urban Councilor rejected no less than five building projects by House Kinkara because House Bromire paid them off.”
“They are likely to be set aside,” Ephel says. “House Harros is too risky. They have a lasting legacy of Garrison Commanders even before Gwydion took the seat of the High Councilor.”
“That’s why I want to visit them. If anyone knows, it’s them - about the Ordo Labrythyne and the Shadowarch men.”
The Espreth stays at eye level with the Elemnist, although she doesn’t look at them, molten core glowering redhot. “Their compound is swarming with Praetors. Lightning is not a sustainable strategy.” Maewys’s fingers tingle at the memory. She had only used her lightning Elemnistry once since arriving to Nuaranth and, while her hand has recovered, she still loses all sensation in the toes in her right foot when the weather takes a turn for the worse.
“And House Amareas is in crisis,” Maewys says, conceding to the Espreth. “Its members will burn midnight oil trying to mitigate the damage House Talivar dealt to them.”
“Which leaves House Hayvris,” Ephel says. “Their head, Drumon sett Hayvris, is the current Merchant Councilor. Money changing hands is their entire business.”
Maewys ponders for a moment, tapping her chin. “Do you think they keep records of their illicit dealings?”
“With absolute certainty.”
The Elemnist pulls her hands free from the wood, fibers woven together to form a braided ring of filigree rope. The top of the ring nests an egg with a delicate latticework shell, hollowed except for a palm sized bird. Maewys couldn’t make it larger, as she had to sacrifice some mass for wood shavings. While Savin doesn’t care that she’s an Elemnist, she may as well go through the effort of concealing it for his sake. It would be difficult to deny that knowledge otherwise.
“I’m telling you, this artist demands absolute privacy,” Savin says, voice increasing in volume as he and a second pair of footsteps draw closer. “You’ll spoil her work otherwise!” Ephel zooms over to Maewys’s bag and dives inside, concealing themselves just as someone throws open the privacy screen.
Maewys recognizes Gwydolin’s Shadowarch slave from what brief glimpse she could get back when the Praetors beat the daylights out of her. Tall and wearing a male servant’s clothing, crosshatched trousers and an over shirt with overlarge sleeves in a concentric cube pattern, black and white armband crisp around her upper arm. Her dark hair is short, though Maewys gets the impression that she elects that hairstyle for its looks and not because she needs the money.
“It might be because she’s a slave,” Maewys thinks with bitter recollection. “Slaves can’t spend money.” Not for themselves, at any rate. Gwydolin’s servant is rather handsome, her eyebrows thick and her lips thin, skin like baked terracotta. Her eyes go to the Elemnist’s short hair, eyes widening and lips parting.
She approaches the Elemnist with all the demeanor of a threatened beast. “Who did you sell your hair to?” Tall isn’t quite the right word at this distance. She towers over Maewys, the Elemnist craning her neck up to meet her eye. “How recently did you sell it? Did you tell anyone?”
“Sola cut it,” Maewys says and gives out an address. The Shadowarch nods and pulls out a black velvet coin pouch, heavy with marks, from the depths of her large sleeves. She’s using Shadowarchy as a pocket, sashing away items in the abyss.
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“Tell no one,” she says, reaching down and tucking the pouch into Maewys’s pocket.
“I am under a strong monetary obligation to tell someone. Perhaps Lady Amareas,” Savin pipes up. Wordlessly, and without looking, the slave tosses the artist a similar pouch. “A joy doing business with you, Tessn. I know nothing.”
“As for the statue,” Tessn says, pinching the bridge of her nose. “While I can’t speak for my Lady Talivar, I can speak to her tastes. She’ll love it, though I’ll never comprehend why.” Her lips flatten, but she says nothing more to Maewys, turning to Savin instead. “Two-thousand marks.”
“Four-thousand marks,” Savin counters, arms crossed.
“Two-thousand marks,” Tessn responds flatly.
“Three thousand marks.”
“I will not haggle with you.” Tessn pulls out another coin purse. “Five-hundred marks now, two-thousand marks once I’ve secured the artist’s red hair.”
“And if you don’t buy the hair?” Savin asks, leaning forward.
“Fifteen-hundred marks, also known as—” Tessn leans forward to Savin’s eye level, expression flat and eyelids hooded “—two-thousand marks total.”
“You better hurry,” Savin says, grabbing the bag of coins from the Shadowarch’s hands. He opens the pouch as Tessn descends the spiral stairs and can’t help but cry out. “Hot damn, she was speaking in gold! I love House Talivar!”
Maewys crosses her arms and shakes her head. So many words and so much excitement for cold little bits of useless metal.
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Nuaranth’s streets are never dark, even at night. True, a pale shadow cloaks the Lower City while crystal light lanterns line the street and cut glimmering channels through the dusk and noctis, and the quietus of day in Midtown meets the lighting of lanterns and plaza fountains while late-night establishments beckon the weary into the comfort of their lamplit bosom, all the while the unwalked streets simmer in twilight, plunged into a deep blackness and sprinkled with stars that come from the shuttered windows of awake residents.
But the Upper City glitters.
The lambent glass skin of the Upper City towers and highrises glimmer and glow with luminous radiance, beating hearts of crystal lights shining their scintillations across the streets and byways in all directions at all times of night. The roads are lit up as bright as day, not a shred of darkness among the pearlescent streets that hang suspended crossways through the higher limits of Nuaranth. Fulgid Espreths fly in flocks across the sky, performing their nighttime duties and carrying out clandestine communications for the never-sleeping Noble Houses of the High Council. The sparkling jewelry in the hair and around the necks, arms, and waists of the young patrician women roaming the streets in protective packs carry an even more pronounced shimmer and shine in the glistering night. Crystalline laughs and effervescent conversation carry the honeyed words of courting couples, young men under the watchful gaze of their chaperones, though always stealing away to secluded corners of dim-lit theaters and mellow bistros.
Maewys, to look the part, dresses herself in smooth silks and a thin silver headdress like a halo sprouting from the crown of her head. When she bought the pinkest pink dress using the money Tessn bribed her with, the store owner tried to sell her a matching clutch. Ephel wouldn’t fit in such a small rectangle, but current fashion trends disfavor large bags for women. But an up-and-comer having an Espreth isn’t unusual, so Maewys relented. She declined buying a wig, however.
“This is much better,” Ephel says, floating shoulder level to the Elemnist. “It’s a flood of information.” From other Espreth, no doubt. “I can feel the city breathing. It’s nice.”
“How do Espreths communicate, anyway?” Maewys asks. She’s always been curious. They communicate through vocalizations, even if she doesn’t comprehend the process. However, Espreths do not communicate with one another through speech. They synchronize when in proximity, provided both parties agree to it, and from there, they have near-limitless communication. Provided both parties agree to it.
“It is an old technology.” Maewys waits for more, but the Espreth remains silent.
They arrive at the House Hayvris spire, nestled among the other towers of the Noble Houses, the glass walls pulsing with Bright Casting hardlight. The lights change color like an aurora, drawing the envy of their neighbors, who glow brighter in response. House Hayvris is hosting an open engagement party: Lord Hayvris, son of Councilor Hayvris, is to wed Lady Cygnen sett Esellela by year’s end. As a display of magnanimity and wealth, Councilor Hayvris opened the party for anyone in the Upper City to attend. A fortuitous turn of events, given Maewys’s plans. Artists frequently come to such events seeking patrons and a reliable source of income. She assumes she will encounter Savin at some point. Although she’d rather not get wrapped up in conversation with him.
The queue to enter the tower lurches forward, a Garrison security checkpoint giving the attendees a once over. Unless they are of a lower standing. Then it becomes a full pat down while Praetors rummage through handbags and purses. Being of high status and class makes it even more insulting to be stopped and frisked by security.
Maewys tries to steady her climbing heart rate as she draws closer and closer to the checkpoint. If someone discovers her and a fight breaks out, she doesn’t doubt her ability to escape. However, blowing her cover again will make it much harder to sneak around Nuaranth and the Upper City. She’s stopped by a Garrison officer, her clutch handed off to a black armored Praetor, while Ephel synchronizes with a security Espreth. Ephel has assured her they have ways of getting past them, but the Elemnist still worries.
“Arms out and hands open,” the officer orders Maewys, a thin looking young man with a dusting of stubble on his upper lip. She complies and tries not to freeze up as he pats down her hips and ribs. The process goes on for a little too long for her liking, and horror strikes her when the Praetor returns, holding out a small sachet filled with her emergency dust. With the Upper City being so clean, the Elemnist crushed up sugar crystals into a fine white powder that she can Elemnatically control. The Garrison officer dips his finger in and arches a skeptical eyebrow as it comes back white. It gives it a lick and smacks his lips.
“It’s sugar,” he says, eyes widening in surprise. And then he laughs, Maewys chuckling along with him.
“I like my drinks on the sweeter side,” she says, lying.
“I’m sure you do.” The officer tucks the sachet of sugar back in her clutch before handing it back. “You can go inside.”
Maewys lets out a relieved breath once she’s crossed the threshold.
“I told you to use clay,” Ephel says. “You could have claimed you were an artist, and it got into your bag.”
“Shut up,” the Elemnist huffs. “We were let through, weren’t we?”
The opulence of House Hayvris is breathtaking. Beyond the entrance hall, House Hayvris has designed the whole first floor for mass gatherings such as banquets, parties, or even weddings. It features an open floor plan with familiar helical staircases that lead to an upper balcony, allowing those seeking solace in observing the activities from above. A braided square pattern, embellished with colorful glass tiles and Bright Casters’ hardlight, adorns the carved stone floor. The support pillars, all painted marble, hold up the second-story balcony with vibrant painted mosaics of House Hayvris’s long and storied history. Long tables cut rows through the open space, forming a ring around the central dance floor, an enormous table at the head made from dark wood. Each table has a fountain flowing with sparkling fluid, be it water or wine, gold plates overflowing with roasted meats and vegetables cut into the shapes of animals. Fruit hangs from silver hooks above each fountain, each attended by a house servant—a house slave—who also monitors the volume of bubbles and volume of drink. The glass walls carry their auroral glow inside as well, swirling with colorful light, setting a dreamy, moody atmosphere over the entire place.
Maewys is awestruck, standing immobile in her spot on the floor, eyes wide and taking in everything. The silver in her hair seems drab compared to the solid gold plates from which the food is served, let alone the slaves that attend their masters, much less the patricians themselves. She thought she saw it all when out on the street, precious metals in their hair and gemstones around their necks, but at this gathering in the halls of House Hayvris, everyone who's anyone has radiant and lambent gemstones sewn into their clothing with golden thread. The amount of wealth on display is staggering.
Sickening.
Maewys shakes her stunned expression from her face and walks with all the confidence she can muster into the banquet hall. Patricians idle among themselves in groups, sharing muted conversation, stealing glances at the head table housing Councilor Hayvris, his son, and the bride-to-be. Lady Esellela sits blushing at the table, citrines in her blonde wig and rubies sewn to her pale, sky blue dress. She laughs and demurs, doting on Lord Hayvris by skewering slivers of roasted boar on a gold fork and feeding him by hand. Lord Hayvris, to his credit, cuts a dashing figure in his tailor-made suit, his coat patterned with cerulean teardrops cut from blue topaz. That must mean that beside him is…
“Oh Lord,” Maewys utters. That must mean that the corpulent, blob-like belch of nature beside him is the Merchant Councilor Hayvris. Sweat beads the large swathe of skin he likely would call his forehead—or rather five-head—which he dabs at wit a religious devotion with a gold-threaded handkerchief, all while shoveling heaps of pureed Jalla root and mystery meat into his jowls. Maewys assumes he’s devoured the wife after she birthed their son. Such a jovial monstrosity repels the Elemnist, and she turns around, walking toward the windows. Upon lying eyes upon Savin, the wiry artist likely attempting to draw in more customers to his studio, she turns around again and ascends the stairs to the balcony.
It’s quieter on the second floor, dim crystal lights like stars suspended in the air, with only a dozen patricians milling about and having private conversation. Maewys spots Tessn standing, with arms folded in her sleeves, beside Lady Gwydolin sett Talivar. Gwydolin is as opulent as her peers, gold threads in her snow-white wig stringing twinkling amethysts through her ill-gotten locks, ovular opals on the hem of her white silk dress, lustrous gold embroidery forming a star-shaped pattern across the flared skirt which bounces with her left foot as she folds her arms across the railing. An extension of her mistress, similar jewels and trinkets adorn Tessn.
“Being House Talivar’s live-in sculptor is an innocuous way to research, I dare say,” Maewys says to Ephel.
“Indeed, it is,” the Espreth replies.
Once Maewys crosses the Shadowarch’s shadow, wrought across the floor, Tessn’s head whips around to face her. She brushes Lady Gwydolin’s arm and murmurs before taking long strides to cut Maewys off. With her arm over the Elemnist’s shoulder, she guides Maewys away from the noblesse towards the balcony’s far end.
“My lady is not taking visitors at this time,” Tessn says, curt and contrite once they are out of earshot. Maewys glances back, noting a queue of young men lining up to speak with Gwydolin. She speaks not a word of it to Tessn.
Maewys locks eyes with the Shadowarch. “How did she like my sculpture?”
“She loves it,” Tessn says with insincere flatness, “adores it. It cures her malaise whenever she sets lilac eyes upon the woven wood. It is a cure for her general ennui.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Buying your work doesn’t imply a relationship between her and… you.”
“Well, if I’m looking for work and you’re buying…” Maewys shrugs, making a face to match her posture.
“She does not—!” Tessn pinches the bridge of her nose harder. “House Talivar does not need a live-in artist. But if you are seriously looking for work, I know your particular style as House Hayvris enthralled.” With eyes closed, Tessn contemplates her next words. Maewys stares at the Shadowarch, eliciting a heavy sigh. “If you wait right here, I will fetch someone who can introduce you to Councilor Hayvris.”
“Much obliged.” Maewys pinches skirt of her dress in a curtsy. Tessn sighs, then strides with long legs towards the stairs, descending like a phantom.
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Tessn has, just for tonight, redirected or otherwise chased away fifteen would-be suitors pursuing her most radiant Lady Gwydolin sett Talivar. And also that “Mavis” character. Despite not perceiving any romantic interest from the “artist,” the Shadowarch dislikes Mavis’s attempts at getting closer to Lin. It can be exhausting, but Tessn would choose to run ragged rather than allowing Lin to suffer under the weight of unwanted attention and the malaise that comes with it.
She sighs to herself, searching for the drink she said she’d fetch Lin in the kitchen. Tessn has spoken with Vivini, one of House Hayvris’s house slaves, and she should grease the wheels that would, in an ideal world, keep Mavis out of their hair forever.
Tessn mumbles to herself. “Blood orange, I think.” She selects a thick glass bottle of juice. Sparkling, naturally. Lady Talivar has a delicate stomach and a curated palate. Something sour like wine will not do. “She is fond of blood oranges.” As she pours the fluid into a fluted glass rimmed with gold, Tessn thinks back to when both women were younger. She’s been a part of House Talivar from a young age and, though older than her mistress by nine years, has devoted herself to Lin’s wellbeing since she was born. In remembrance, she smiles, counting the occasions they exchanged orange smiles while sucking on fruit wedges.
The kitchens are empty now, the servants of House Hayvris wheeling out the next course of the buffet. Crystal lights in the ceiling light up the room regardless, narrow shadows on the floor coming from the furniture and gas burner stoves. Tessn twists the bottle as she finishes the pour, corking it and setting it aside for later. A hand clamps over her mouth as a narrow blade slides between her ribs, her body tensing up from the pain. She reaches back in reflex, clawing at her attacker. The grip over her mouth tightens, and the blade plunges deeper. They shush her, their voice a hiss against her ear.
“House Amareas sends their regards,” the voice whispers, brittle like sugar glass. Tessn’s eyes widen and she renews her struggle, but her strength fails her as it leaks out of her open knife wound. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of Gwydolin. It’s my personal mission to see that cunt meets an ignoble demise.”
Rage flares in Tessn’s breast and she frees her mouth, sinking her teeth into the hand that binds her. It’s not enough. Her legs lose their strength and she’s left to bleed out on the floor.