Maewys
Maewys is stunned to see the adipose Councilor Hayvris walking unassisted, much less scaling a flight of stairs. He has two house slaves attending him as she’s led through the tower, and Maewys thinks them insufficient should his legs give out. Up and up they climb, until they reach his private study, the Elemnist realizing that both slaves must both unlock the door in order to open it. The trust placed in people who despise him is an awful lot, but the horror is how it endears him to them. It makes them feel important and irreplaceable, an attractive proposition to those who have nothing.
One of the house slaves enters behind Ephel while the other retreats to the lower level. It would seem that only one key is necessary to open the study from the inside. Splitting the pair makes it that much harder to get in, as a bonus.
Councilor Hayvris waddles over to a short cabinet and squats down, retrieving two tumbler glasses and a bottle of amber liquid, dark like the honeyed glass of Ordo Elemnata’s stained glass windows.
“Can I interest you in a drink, Miss Guaren?” the man asks. His voice is higher than Maewys expects, a soprano rather than a tenor. “This is select whiskey from the House’s private stock, brewed on the premises. Nothing like this exists beyond these grounds.”
“How gracious of you, Lord Councilor,” Maewys says with a curtsy. The man himself pours the drink into the glasses. It is too much for someone else to handle the whiskey. He waddles over to Maewys, the gold threads of his cream-colored suit creaking from the strain, and hands her a glass. The Elemnist accepts it, mimicking his movements as he brings the glass to his lips and takes a molecular sip. It takes every fiber of her being not to spit it out, the strong, burning liquid spreading across her palate of its own accord. It burns as it crawls down her throat, filling her head with smooth smoke and an earthy woodiness.
Maewys uses her Elemnistry to keep her body from involuntarily shuddering and twitching. “It is indescribable. Truly an experience unlike any I’ve encountered.” Pleased, Councilor Hayvris takes another sip and smiles.
“Quite eloquent of you, I must say. You are certainly a cut above the usual riffraff that infests the streets. But now on to matters of business.” His eye twinkles with Inner Light. The man lives for business.
Maewys sets her tumbler down. “My colleagues tell me that my work piques your interest.” The house slave with them picks it up and sets it down in a particular spot, though the Elemnist can’t see what’s different about it.
“As scarce as it is, yes.” Councilor Hayvris waddles away and Maewys follows, encountering a section of his study filled with paintings of both himself and his adult sons. “I must confess, the first statue didn’t quite make sense to me. Oh, but my son Soret had much to say about it. He’s engaged to Lady Cygnen sett Esellela, hence the party, and she’s a member of Lady Gwydolin sett Talivar’s social circle.” He rounds a pedestal, pudgy finger running the rim around a bejeweled egg. “Lady Gwydolin spoke at length about it. A cure for her ever-prevalent ennui, she says. And when I sent for a slave to buy it, it was gone, snapped up by House Amareas.” He makes a fist and shakes it.
Maewys recounts Savin’s enthusiasm. “The studio I worked in told me as much.”
“And how do I find out about your second wood carving?” Councilor Hayvris asks without acknowledging that Maewys spoke. “My son told me that Lady Gwydolin bought it just moments after you finished, hot off the presses. It was then I knew you could make me a lot of money.” Not like he needs it. Maewys examines a portrait frame, a head taller than her, encrusted with rubies and sapphires. “With demand and my control of supply, I can secure buyers for your entire life.”
“So, this is an offer of patronage?” Maewys tries to sound hopeful. She’s not looking forward to working for him, however temporary the period is, but it’s a lead warranting inspection. Councilor Hayvris glances at her, as though seeing the young woman for the first time, before returning his attention to his gemstone egg.
“Patronage of a sort,” he says, wary, “It would be unfavorable for either of us, if it’s revealed that you're an Elemnist. There’s no choice but to keep you here since we’ve met.”
Shocked, Maewys’s jaw drops to the floor. “Excuse me? A what now? I don’t understand.”
“Don’t be coy,” Councilor Hayvris wags a finger at her. “A red-haired ‘sculptor’ arrives in the Upper City, whipping out wood carvings of immaculate detail in record time, all the while the High Council is buzzing with rumors that the Garrison nearly apprehended a red-haired Elemnist. It takes an idiot to not see the similarity or connection between the two. Though, fortunately for both you and me, the High Council is chock full of idiots.” He walks back to his whiskey glass and takes a longer drink from it, Maewys glancing at Ephel, unsure of what to do.
“When the Garrison first raided the Librarian Order’s sanctuary, I said to them, ‘we can make a lot of money by utilizing their Elemnistry. Eliminate the adults if need be; we can shape the children to be obedient.’ It worked with the Shadowarchs. My idea, by the way. That idiot Gwydorian wanted them all dead, but I convinced him we can make use of the women. Oh, but it was his father that snuffed out Nuaranth’s Elemnists. Gwydion sett Talivar—” he says the name with equal disgust and awe “—truly he is the King of Stupid.”
Maewys stands as still as a statue, jaw clenched, fists tight in her palms. She’s chewing on her tongue to keep from speaking out. As much as she doesn’t like to listen to a single word uttered by this rancid lump of man-flesh, she needs Ephel to record every admission that spills like a fountain from his fat lips. Councilor Hayvris takes another drink of whiskey.
Councilor Hayvris spits in frustration. “He threw every one of them in the ghetto.”
Maewys relaxes, her suspicions confirmed. She only needs to leave and enter the ghetto. Kuna can help with that.
“Then he had the gall to blame me when they tried to escape!” He slams his glass down hard enough to shatter it, and flicks bits of glass from his fingers. He’s so fat that it doesn’t even draw blood. “And then the culling. Disgraceful.”
“What?” Maewys knows the answer, her eye twitching. Suddenly, her body becomes a lot more relaxed, pupils opening, her vision zeroing in on the man before her.
“When they tried to escape, he executed every Elemnist who could shape stone or wood,” Councilor Hayvris says, not noticing Maewys. His servant brings him Maewys’s glass of whiskey and he takes it in both hands, thumbing the glass. “Every man, woman, and child. Those who could shape stone and wood. You know, the valuable ones.” He takes a long drink. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. Commander Harros was overzealous and killed a lot more than that, though. The little boot licker.”
“You speak as though they are not people,” Maewys says in calm serenity. Councilor Hayvris shrugs.
“They didn’t fight back. That’s a livestock reaction, sweety. And the Shadowarchs? Naturally abhorrent to radiant Bright Casters like myself. Darkness must yield to radiant light, just as night vanishes before day.”
Maewys reaches into her clutch and claps the sachet of sugar dust in her fist, her fury breaking through the bag and drawing the sugar into her palm. She whips it out in a glittering line through the air, contacting the corpulent Councilor. Ephel fires a rod of a molten lock from their yellow-hot core, skewering the house slave through the brainstem. They can’t trust in the devotions of a slave, even if they didn’t want them dead.
Councilor Hayvris has the full honors of experiencing Elemnistry first hand, his muscles seizing and his throat refusing to let out even an utterance. Maewys, eyes wide and lips parted in a look of abject disgust and hatred, twists her hand as though clenching his heart. She gives him just enough movement to react as she attacks his heart. Councilor Hayvris grips his chest, wheezing while he can, and stumbles into the pedestal bearing his gemstone egg. Both he and the egg fall to the ground, the pedestal crumbling under his weight, and he rolls over onto his back while gripping his chest. The egg rolls away, coming to a stop at Maewys’s feet. She nudges it aside as she draws closer, Ephel looming behind her like a halo. She stares down at the man as he struggles for breath, her lips still parted, showing a sliver of her teeth.
“Can you feel it?” she asks in a hushed whisper. “My animosity? I am no ‘Librarian.’ I am Maewys of the Ordo Melikinara and I don’t have the luxury of pacifism. Warfare is my calling.” She clenches her open hand, the dust linking the two going wild. Councilor Hayvris gurgles and sputters, his hand wrenched away by the Elemnatic forces, a sticky cavity forming in his chest. As he throws his head back in agony, crimson geysers ruin his clothes, while the Elemnatic forces wrench his hand away and rip a wet lump free from his chest cavity. He stares, wide-eyed, as his fatty heart lands in Maewys’s free hand. She cradles it as though afraid of breaking it.
“A miraculous thing, the human heart,” she says, giving it a light squeeze. “You need it to pump the blood through your circulatory system.” She drops it, sticky strands of crimson blood keeping it suspended from her hand like a puppet. She works her fingers, making it beat on its own through Elemnistry. “But with my Elemnistry, I can keep your blood flowing without it.” Her eyes turn hard, the Espreth behind her floating into the Councilor’s still cognizant view. “I can pick you apart, bone by bone, and keep you alive as I dismantle you. You do not die without my permission.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Vile crimson stains her hands, the vivisection etched upon her soul in resolute detail as she goes about her bitter work. The blood memory plays on repeat in the back of Maewys's mind and she's forced to observe herself as an outsider performing bloody murder. More than that. And through it all, Maewys feels nothing akin to emotion. Not contempt, not disgust, nor cold satisfaction for impassionate justice and vengeance. Through it all, her eyes remained fixed on the horror sealed beneath the Councilor's face as her own dreadful visage is reflected in his eyes and through his tainted blood.
Maewys remains true to her word, closing the study door and sealing away the oozing pile of flesh that used to be Councilor Hayvris inside after extracting everyone of his bones, starting with his teeth and ending with the tiny bones in his inner ear. And then she killed him, pulling out all the blood in his brain. It’s no slight relief to her to find that the other house slave is not waiting for their return. It makes fleeing this place easier, although she can’t leave too soon lest she draw suspicion. Ephel floats beside her at eye level, molten rock core dim as the Espreth relays the night’s events back to the Ordo Elemnata. They can’t ignore the things the former councilor had said.
Neither of them will allow it.
Maewys’s heart pounds in her chest as she descends the stairs and returns to the engagement party. A few guests wander, but most flock to the dance floor, as tradition requires. It’s been a long while since the Elemnist has danced. Ten years ago, she reckons, during the Renewal Festival. She had convinced Zacaer to dance with her after years of pestering him, and he swung her around in circles while she giggled like mad. Zacaer, proficient in stone Elemnistry…
The Elemnist clenches her hands around her clutch. She needs to leave.
As Maewys moves around the tables, still flush with food and little accouterments, she’s intercepted by Savin. He’s grinning wide, curly hair a fashionable mess, his dark suit a little baggy in places. Like everyone else, he’s ignorant of the murder that has taken place. Maybe even of the murders that happen in Nuaranth, endorsed by the High Councilor Gwydion sett Talivar. Gwydion… just the name boils Maewys’s blood and redoubles her fury. Savin’s expression falters as the Elemnist’s inner turmoil spreads plain on her face.
“Hey, Mavis, did something happen?” he asks. How can Maewys answer that question?
“I met with Councilor Hayvris,” she says. “It appears he’s a fan of my work.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” Savin’s smile returns, though uncertain in its shape. “Having an Espreth makes you look the part, right?”
Maewys glances at Ephel, cold and somber. “It’s a loaner. The meeting with the Councilor took a sudden turn. He… wanted certain things that I wasn’t willing to provide.” She grips her arm, trying to manifest the worst probable outcome for a young woman alone with a man in a position of power. Savin’s expression falls to the floor, mouth agape, but no words coming out.
“I’m going to go now.” Maewys walks away. She stops when she hears Savin calling out to her.
“You look beautiful.”
Anger boils hot in her veins, a rush of emotion making her head spin. How dare he? How DARE he?
“That’s the last thing I want to hear, Savin,” Maewys says, not turning around, her voice cracking, throat tight and raw. “Goodbye.”
The Elemnist exits the dining hall, proceeding to the bright streets of Nuaranth at night. She walks and walks and wanders through the night, her Espreth companion as silent as the thoughts in her head.
Her mind feels fuzzy, a ringing in her ears, and eventually Maewys’s legs give out as she’s crossing an Upper City park. She stumbles into a park bench, damp with dew, sits down, and tosses the silver adornment off her head. The thin ring of precious metal rolls away, laying flat on the walking path. She rakes her hands through her hair, lips trembling and teeth clenched, a wave of heat washing over her as her breathing turns ragged. Tears like crystals drip off her cheeks, making little dark spots on the ground between her feet.
“It was not undeserved,” Ephel says at last regarding Councilor Hayvris’s complete dismemberment. Still, their voice is a level monotone devoid of feeling. Calm. Serene.
“It won’t bring them back. It won’t bring him back.”
Looking up, she takes in the unfamiliar city. The oppressed build civilization, without exception. Cruelty is universal and exponential.
Nuaranth has been cruel for a long time, since before she was born.
The stark contrast of her own hopelessness and the reluctance she feels from her distant masters cuts far deeper than the cruelest knife. The Ordo Elemnata knew the tragic extent of Maewys's failings before she ever set foot on the city's grounds. Since the beginning, she could do nothing. Doomed to failure, the masters of the Ordo sent Maewys to die.
Agony.
Maewys clutches her hands to her chest, doubling over while seething through clenched teeth, blind with tears and deaf from the ringing that pierces her skull from ear to ear. Reinforcements don't exist. The mission doesn't exist. Hope doesn't exist.
It's all Maewys can do to not swallow her tongue in fury.
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Vost watches the Lady Gwydolin sett Talivar from afar. By now she’s noticed the absence of her attendant, Tessn, who he knifed in the kitchen a few hours prior. He observes from afar, hands folded behind him, as she stays on the balcony while the remaining partygoers leave through the front door. So many young men longed for her attention, who she brushed aside with callous ease. But as Tessn’s absence became longer, she shooed all of them away. And now Vost watches as she paces across the balcony in nervous anticipation, peering over the edge for any sign of her most stalwart shadow, ignorant of her demise. Ignorant of the fate that soon awaits her.
Vost licks his lips. House Amareas, reputation tarnished and pride bruised by Gwydolin’s publicized condemnation of Tulvaryne, had “brought him out of storage.” Publicly, Vost is Grenin sett Amaryne, a seventh son from a branch family of House Amareas. Not one of note or importance, a footnote in the annals of their storied past, an errant leaf on their family tree not worth the trouble of knowing. The real Grenin was a sacrificial lamb, someone the House could get rid of and replace with Vost, an assassin of noteworthy skill. They raised him from birth in the art of killing and leaving a horrific corpse, and House Amareas wants him to inflict the greatest of horrors on tender Gwydolin, the “delicate flower” of House Talivar. Vost licks his lips again. Those requests are his favorite and he will savor every inch of her body both before and after he’s wrung the life from her slender neck.
Vost unfolds his hands from behind him and adjusts the necktie around his throat. He needs to present himself in the best possible way. He is at a party.
Vost takes a singular step toward the young woman before his body freezes, progress arrested. He can feel his muscles strain under his skin, but no matter how much he tries to force his feet forward, he cannot. The feeling of a hand around his throat clenches hard and his eyes glance downward, finding nothing.
Just behind him, a voice says, “What happens next will expose your true nature.” Vost’s nerves go haywire, eyes widening in recognition. “Ah, there it is. I can feel your emotions through your shadow.”
Vost tries to crane his head to see the speaker, but he can’t. He can’t even so much as gurgle with the pressure around his neck. He slides backward, pulled by an unseen force, taken to a spot behind a support column outside the view of Gwydolin. His eyes glance from one side to another, catching the sight of Tessn as she leans over his shoulder, her skin looking sallow and her eyes bloodshot.
“I know what you’re thinking,” the Shadowarch says. Tessn straightens up and walks around to face Vost, a hand clenching her side, clothes stained scarlet from where he stabbed her. “‘But I killed you!’ You almost did. Your knife missed the important bits, and I lost a lot of blood.” She removes her hand and pulls the edge of her shirt up, revealing the wound in her ribs Vost inflicted on her. Thin, dark strands crisscross the gash like stitches, warbling in the dark and light. Vost stares, eyes turning wild, a strangled whimper leaking out from his lips. Tessn gives him a wry smile. “I closed the wound with Shadowarchy.”
Tessn drops her shirt and peers around the column, eyes fixated on the worrying sight of Gwydolin’s pacing. She sighs and taps her chin, deep in thought. She turns to face Vost again, his eyes bulging.
“I can read your emotions through your shadow. Every heartbeat, every breath, every chemical release as your thoughts churn in your head. Your body feels a certain way when recognition dawns on you. If I didn’t feel that, and you weren’t the one who plans to harm my beloved, I would have merely knocked you out.” Tessn lets out a shallow breath and runs a hand through her disheveled hair. “But here we are. You are Amareas’ assassin, sent to do unspeakable things to my Gwydolin. You dare make her worry and pace. And it’s you who dares to make her express anything other than unsadness.”
Tessn moves her hands to the buttons of her shirt, fumbling as she undoes them. She turns around as the last button comes undone, letting the back fall from her shoulders as the garment hangs from her elbows like a sash around her waist. She wears no undershirt, her muscular bare back knotted with scars and decorated with intricate tattoo ink. The ink etches a sigil in her skin, symmetrical despite the scars, lines like thick brush strokes taking the shape of a filigree crescent moon. The moon makes a bowl, the open end facing skyward, birds and stars pouring in from her shoulders. Tessn covers her back and buttons her shirt before facing Vost again.
“My name is Tessn oth Lunurian, and I am the last hope of my line,” she says, bringing her hand up in a flourish. Vost’s fingers start to twist and warp on his hands, bones snapping and being crushed into powder in his flesh. The shadow holds him tighter, trapping his agony in his throat. “By my honor, you will not touch a single hair on my lady’s head.” Tessn makes a slow fist with her upraised hand. The rest of Vost’s hands crumble and break under the extraordinary pressure, thin shadows up and down his arm tightening. Strange, they were imperceptible when his movements were first arrested, but now that they are contracting, they bulge thicker and thicker. His forearm snaps, drawing out a pained screech from his throat only for Tessn’s grip to clamp down and snuff it out. The pain reaches his shoulders and then the shadows around his feet crush them into a paste.
“So this is how House Talivar does things,” Vost thinks, his legs mangled just like his arms. “I’m impressed. It’s a shame I have to die.” His eyes tear up as the realization hits him. “I don’t want to die.”
“Too late for regrets,” Tessn says, reading his thoughts through her Shadowarchy. She snaps her fingers, pulverizing the rest of Vost’s body. The last thing he sees while his eyes still have light is Tessn walking toward Gwydolin, hands folded in her sleeves, as though nothing has happened. He can almost hear what she’s saying to the patrician.
“Pardon my absence, Lady Talivar,” Vost imagines while he still has cognition to imagine. “I was experiencing some intestinal distress.” If he still had an intact throat, Vost would chuckle. She wouldn’t say that. And then darkness.