(Back on) Spring 3
Soon as the radio began, Belle knew that Valkyrie had finally done it. Her beautiful, sweet, stupid daughter had finally stuck her whole hand into the hornet’s nest.
That night, she had sat in the chair by the door until dawn. Waiting. Waiting to find out who would deliver news; waiting to learn if her daughter lived.
Knowing, as much as she wanted to strangle her child, she would call upon Lynne or Alisandra if that was what it took to keep Valkyrie alive.
Officially, the Lady Alisandra Mishkan could do little more than supplicate the Conclave for a pardon.
Belle knew otherwise, though she dared not speak it. Alisandra and the Tempest, assiduously separated in every manner. Spoken of by all – including the Lady herself – as two separate entities. A barrier of politeness, maintained with the force of stone.
Belle did not understand how this truce continued when both wore the same face. When both wore the same crown of burning sunlight!
Yet she hesitated to breach the barrier, even as she plucked at her threads and waited.
Fifteen years ago, Lynne spoke to me in a dream. She asked the Wavespeaker of me. The moment that name crossed her lips, I felt its burden. Shuddered under its yolk. She named me, and fool that I was, I accepted.
Dreaming that at least the title would buy her newborn daughter a life of ease and a reprieve from the agricultural toil that had marked Belle’s own adolescence.
Waiting at the door of her tiny, cramped apartment, Belle shook her head against her own foolishness.
“Oh, Louise, if only you lived. You would have been a magnificent Wavespeaker…”
Dawn broke, but no constables arrived.
Then she lives. They would have dragged me before her body by now.
But still she waited.
Several more hours passed before a posse of Azure men arrived. They tromped up the stairs like a phalanx, and the first knocked on her door respectfully. “Wavespeaker?”
“It is unlocked,” she told them. There was no point in locking a door if the constables wanted in anyways.
Five of them entered, and the first explained: Alisandra had Valkyrie tucked away out of sight.
Belle released her breath, hands quaking in her skirts.
Anger followed relief, so red-hot she feared she would crack a tooth.
Finally, mastering herself, she nodded to the men. “Thank you. You may go.”
The foremost shook his head. “I think not, Wavespeaker. Betha advised that we stay by your side until this mess is sorted.”
The old matron of Sevensborough advised, and the men hopped to obey.
She would also make a better Wavespeaker.
But Belle was the one chosen. The one Named and thus bound. She wore her collar like the most loyal of mules, and she wondered if the gods among them could see its imprint upon her neck.
“If you would like,” she sighed, “though my days are long and my victories few.”
Knowing her beautiful, sweet, stupid daughter alive, she washed her face and turned to her duties.
***
Spring 6
Mid-day, the postman tracked Belle down with a letter. A strange, gaunt man, he found Belle’s make-shift office of the week in Secondsborough with no apparent difficulty. He strode forward with such confidence that Belle’s guardians simply parted like water before the mail.
Sebastian Mishkan offered an apologetic smile that never reached his blank, white eyes. “Poor news for your daughter, I am afraid.”
Avoiding his gaze, Belle accepted the letter. “Thank you.”
He departed, and she shuddered. Here was another touched by higher power, walking the world like a mere man. Yet while Lynne exuded the playful mist of the seas and the very air throbbed around Alisandra with valorous passions…this one offered nothing but that empty smile.
Like the Wyrm.
Biting her lip against her bleak thoughts, Belle turned her attention to the letter.
This notice hereby informs the assigned…
…that Valkyrie Osh shall be expelled…
…unless and until…
“Hardly a surprise,” the Wavespeaker muttered. Only the latest in a long line of lowered expectations.
Her posse laughed, and Belle flushed. She was too used to talking to herself, a poor habit now that she sported a royal guard.
“Ah, no shame in it,” one of the men assured. “I know that expression well. Shall I tell you how stupid my son is?”
The others chimed in, “Well, how stupid is he?!”
They regaled her with the idiocy of their own children, and Belle took heart.
“…and as her boat sailed away, I breathed a sigh of relief. At least she wouldn’t have to marry that damned priest!” finished the final story.
“I should have taken Valkyrie south years ago,” Belle agreed, sighing. But she just seemed to have such a bad time with that trip six years ago…
Though she knew that for an excuse. Valkyrie was a child, and children adapted to their circumstances. The vaunted Wavespeaker was the one clinging to Ruhum.
To her husband’s homeland.
Even though the farm is long lost – and by all accounts smothered by ash now anyways – I still cleave to this land that hates us both.
“There’s always tomorrow,” the men offered.
“Oh, the moment…” Belle began. She coughed, covering the rest of that thought. “Excuse me. Our next visitor is late, I see.”
A common occurrence. With many enemies and no official funding, Belle instead hopped between a variety of loaned offices. This usually kept her ahead of the various radicals eager to toss a flaming brick through her window, though this meant that her guests were often late.
Truthfully, she would not mind if the next appointment skipped.
Alas, the Father Maxwell arrived in another half an hour. The black-robed priest paused in the street outside to sketch the ward of Fire and pray before the building.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” one of her posse muttered.
“He comes twice a season to convert me from apostasy,” Belle sighed.
“A gods damned Penitent?!”
“Yes…”
The posse briefly conferred and agreed to retreat to a side room. The priest was no physical threat, and one of them might accidentally plant a desk in the man’s face depending on the words out of his fool mouth.
Understandable, she agreed. After all, the Penitents tell the world that the Wyrm was a cleansing fire, mankind’s purification forestalled only by the Tempest…
The Penitent deacon entered her makeshift offer, shuffling on his bare feet. “Good morrow, Wavespeaker. Hallowed be the Fire that molds us all.”
“Make hallowed the vessel that holds the Fire,” she answered. Just to be a little different this time.
Maxwell drew short, surprised.
“Did you expect me to burst into flame?” she wondered.
He grimaced but soldiered forward. “Regardless. I was hoping we could find common ground today outside the acrimony that has characterized your behavior since you turned away from the path.”
“I was excommunicated!” Belle snapped.
“For threatening the Keeper.”
“He lied.” Short on sleep and patience both, she added, “And I am glad of it. Show me a Keeper that put the pauper before his laurels, and we may speak of the Fire.”
“You seem to be out of sorts today,” the man remarked.
Belle shook her head, frustrated. Were that she was a noble, gifted with a barbed tongue worthy of Lady Visage! For her, all the retorts tangled on her tongue!
“Well, let us not worry over details of doctrine!” Maxwell continued. “Really, we must focus on what is important in your life: your duty as mother to your children!”
“Penitents have no children,” she managed to interject.
“The end of days is soon at hand!” Maxwell agreed. “God willing, the faithful shall not die but shall sail upon a beauteous ark through heaven’s open gate! Ah, how I dream of it!”
“That’s nice…” Her fingers started to pluck at her dress.
“But to speak on your holy duties as homemaker…”
She let her thoughts drift, lest the bitterness drown her. A childless man and expert in motherhood. For who could possibly conquer motherhood but a man of barely thirty summers?
Her roving eyes eventually settled on the newspaper, folded and unread on her desk. One of the headlines caught her attention.
Historic fete held to honor our fallen sailors!
Deacons across the three branches of the Doctrine of the Faith gathered last night in honor of…
The grainy picture revealed a trio of thick-jowled priests at a banquet table stacked for a dozen.
“Speak of the doctrine however you’d like,” she sighed to herself. “Your bedfellows betray you.”
Maxwell halted mid-sentence, following her gaze to the paper. His expression clouded, and he growled, “Those who profess false faith will know their shame soon. There will be a reckoning!”
“Who will even survive the second one?” Belle asked.
The Penitent started to explain the seventeen criteria of the truly faithful.
Wasn’t it sixteen last year?
Thankfully, one of her men took this opportunity to loudly thump into a wall. Right on queue, all five men re-entered the room, staring as a unit at the Penitent.
“Hey there,” one said, smiling wide.
“Notice you seem to be bothering our lady friend,” said the next.
Maxwell hissed between his teeth. He drew himself to his full height, puffing with the righteousness of a warrior against evil. “I am a servant of the most high–”
“You’ll be a hole in the ground if you don’t turn tail,” one of the men stated.
No false smiles now.
“Y-you will regret this!” snapped Maxwell, turning away. “When the day of reckoning comes, all shall–”
The men slammed the door on his rear end, toppling the Penitent into the street.
“S-should we really…?” Belle worried. Wouldn’t this be an excuse for the law?
“None of that inner borough simpering here. We know what to do with constables.”
The Wavespeaker flushed with worry, but her posse shuffled her from the makeshift office in record time. Escorted by her men, they headed east to regroup at the nearest Azure apartments in Fourthborough.
For an hour, Belle was only a few blocks from her erstwhile daughter.
As a result, she swiftly entertained a guest: Katherine Hale’s aunt. The woman informed Belle that the girl had stopped by the diner for lunch. Eavesdropping a little, the woman heard that Valkyrie was staying ‘well out of the way’.
Belle chewed on the news. The Azure faithful mostly lived in the outer boroughs where rent was lesser and the eye of the law more lax. This had not always been the case, but every year the landlords and constables found pretext after pretext to push them further from Mel.
Valkyrie’s classmates were mostly from Fourthborough. A sensible girl in hiding would never use such an obvious hide-out…so Belle had asked after those leads first.
On the other hand, even Valkyrie knows the dangers of the inner boroughs. They had both seen the skulkers that shadowed their apartment at odd hours, and only the thin pretext of Belle’s title allowed them to stay in Mel at all.
These facts, combined with Lady Mishkan’s message, meant that Valkyrie had to be staying at a property that Mishkan owned somewhere in the outer boroughs.
Though noble properties are often held under false pretenses, she realized. There was little chance she would penetrate Lady Mishkan’s veil through legal channels.
Turning to her posse, Belle asked, “What Azure-friendly aldersmen do we have in Fifth, Sixth, and Seventhborough?”
While the posse discussed that possibility, Belle shivered with a sudden revelation: the exact argument for Maxwell!
Who would gainsay the Keeper? Even if they would, who but God may judge him? I remember the Catechisms, Father. I remember the lists upon lists of judgements for the evil. It was only after I went south that I began to wonder why the Fire only cared for what it could burn.
Even were I to accept your redemption, I would always be tainted. Always the woman that had to go south to have a child. My only sin was being too poor to pretend my journey was a convenient Harvest vacation.
People are proof of a creed. The church of Fire you so love stole my husband’s life savings – the price of our family farm! – and discarded us both for the lies of one priest. We went south and were welcomed as family. The goddess herself granted me a place in her home. Tell me again how superior your hearth.
Hells, she always found her retorts an hour too late! She almost summoned him back just to finish her thought!
***
The Church of Fire too bent its ear to the rumbling street. By mid-afternoon, whispers of disruption in the outer boroughs arrived at the church offices of the Conclave Square.
As usual, this led to furious arguments in the velvet chambers. The deacons fell into three broad groups: the Doctrinal, the Disciplinary, and the Sanctified. These neatly mapped to the powers inside the church: the connected, the dangerous, and everybody else.
All the usual complaints aired.
“How much longer do we plan to let these heretics walk all over us?!”
“Those damn takers are nothing but a drain on our coffers!”
“The Conclave promised us permanent redress, but the boroughs remain!”
And so forth, embellished by every conceivable pet issue.
While the Doctrinal and the Sanctified warmed to the sound of their own voices, the Disciplinary assigned a trusted agent to the case.
Margaret Dune wore the constable blue, though she answered to a higher power. Her lapel told more truth than her cap, a small metal pin emblazoned with the three rings of Fire and a small ruby at the center. Though fifty-five years old and worn to the bone by her years of service, she marched straight into the Fourthborough precinct, demanded a report, and received it.
Officers glanced at her lapel, and their conversations died. Best to be prudent in the presence of a woman operating in the authority of God and country.
An Inquisition hound loosed for the chase.
Ignoring fools, Margaret skimmed the initial findings. Two outer borough gangsters were apprehended on the road to a notorious black market, though neither carried contraband at the time. Residents reported that the boys had literally laughed themselves insensate; she wondered if they found their current situation as humorous.
“Possible witchcraft,” she murmured, clicking her tongue. “I would remind the boroughs that you of all must be above reproach!”
No one answered her displeasure.
The report continued: the third thug had chased an errand boy straight across Main Street traffic, nearly causing a wreck, and fled the scene. By the description, this was likely Conner Orland, a rising star in Margaret’s dossiers.
The errand boy remained unaccounted for.
“No elemental beasts?” she asked, expecting an answer.
At length, someone cleared their throat. “No, ma’am. Nor any signs of chemical inebriation.”
“Good,” she murmured. Margaret took pride in slowly strangling the witch’s art from these shores. Some few remained with the smugglers that harried every unguarded cove, but Margaret and her mistress turned the screws tighter on those havens every season. “I will speak to them.”
A few moments later, she stepped into a bleak, concrete room where a gangster slumped in his chair. Haunted by private visions, he barely stirred at her approach.
“Rouse him.”
The constables brought in a bucket of ice water and shoved his head in.
When he burst up for air, eyes white and wild, she allowed him a moment to breath and then ordered, “Explain.”
Which he did. He was, after all, a dreg of the outer boroughs. Lacking the firm direction of God’s guiding light, these suited hooligans held their word as law. Only one crime could justify cooperation with the authorities: betrayal.
Conner Orland had chosen to chase the errand boy – actually a girl – instead of helping his own comrades. For that, the gangster spilled all his beans.
She took brisk notes on everything. Conner, the girl, and even a confused dream of a woman with red hair that spun for him lives like stars.
“I saw…myself…as I have been…as I will be…” he mumbled, “and the ‘me’ that came before would hate this ‘me’. Just a bully…”
Checking his file, she asked, “You are Verdant-born?”
He stiffened. “I was cursed by a witch in the middle of the street!”
“Witches always turn on their own.”
“I’ve told you everything!”
“You omitted the purpose of your visit with Mister Orland to the Fourthborough black market.”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The boy sucked his lip. “I don’t know any black market.”
“Save us both the lies.”
He scowled.
She gestured for the ice bucket.
“Damn you! Fine! Conner owes Tommy two and a half gold in bets!”
Tommy – Aldersman Thomas of Sevensborough.
Satisfied, Margaret stepped out of the room.
The constable on the boy’s case cleared his throat. “Want to hold him?”
“He will be of no further use. The charges: public disorder, disturbing the peace, and resisting arrest.”
The constable bristled. “I’ve the duty to determine charges.”
“And I have every faith in your ability to write them,” she answered, staring him down.
Glancing at her lapel, he flinched first.
Next, she repeated this entire process with the other gangster. The stories largely corroborated, though this boy reported only drunken, unpleasant dreams.
Checking his file, Margaret noticed that this second boy had been born to a proper Auren family.
“Assign him parishioner duties in Firstborough through Summer,” she ordered. Perhaps priestly supervision and some structure would manage to salvage his soul before he ended up like his little friend.
Mister Orland remained at large. Margaret put an order in with his school, though she doubted those babysitters would manage even that much.
Finally, she turned her attention to this mysterious errand girl. Small, blonde, and an associate of Conner Orland.
“What sweeps were executed?” she demanded.
She would see every street covered – see the gaping holes in a constable dragnet. Even a child could navigate the lousy fieldwork of these provincials! From the gaps, she would know which way the girl ran.
Orland. Aldersman Thomas. The road leads east.
The hunt began.
***
Footsore and peeved, Valkyrie finally darted into the Woodhaven back stairwell just as the sun sank. She slumped against the first step and groaned until all the air left her lungs.
Rie followed, floating low to the ground.
“Stormmother’s tit, I just wanted a sandwich!” Valkyrie complained. Her stomach churned with a taste like the bottom of a tar barrel!
“The authorities were unusually motivated,” the demon agreed.
“Wouldn’t have made it without you,” Valkyrie sighed.
Though if my stomach is gonna hurt this much every time Rie casts a spell, I need to invest in some peppermint.
“I am confident we have not been observed,” the demon assured.
“Why does magic have to ache so much?!” Valkyrie rubbed at her stomach.
Though, if she was honest, the ache in her belly was more like the ripple of a deep water for something else.
Something weird and unwelcome: guilt.
What do I have to feel guilty about? I’m overthinking this. Witches always warn that magic has side effects. A tummy ache can’t be that bad compared to half the drek in the tomes!
Mirielle tapped her lip. “The burden on your body is higher than anticipated, yes. Malkuth exacts a heavy toll…”
“Can’t we just ditch Malkuth?” she huffed, tongue tasting the strange word.
A tree of spheres like stars
A neat little model of the heavens
For neat little angels safe in their beds
The echo came with a sharp bitterness and the fragrance of Rie’s perfume.
Her friend broke into a cunning smile. “In point of fact, I could. If you would harbor me.”
Valkyrie’s stomach clenched hard enough she almost wretched.
Stop that! she shouted at herself. “And we’ll get more potent magic?”
Rie eased to the ground and sashayed closer. Smiling, she drooped her arms over Valkyrie and let her hair fall like a curtain around them. “Closer to the source of power, my darling. Closer to you.”
Her ghostly breath stirred Valkyrie’s heart to pounding. “I…you’re my only friend! Whatever it takes!”
“I only need an invitation.”
Valkyrie suddenly found it hard to meet Rie’s gaze. Ignoring her pounding heart, Valkyrie nodded.
Leaning forward – like into a kiss! – the ghost dissipated into a mist and sank into Valkyrie. Into her skin; into her breath.
Rie’s scent filled Valkyrie’s thoughts, and the girl rose on fresh strength.
“Okay! Don’t move the furniture in there too much!”
She hurried up the stairs to the top floor, anticipating her sandwich.
As she approached the door, the latch turned in the hands of the Mishkan butler.
“Welcome home,” Sebastian said, offering a shallow bow. “If you would allow, dinner has been prepared.”
“And what if I don’t allow?” she asked instantly, the words full of scorn.
Rie’s scorn curling up her lip of its own accord.
Sebastian Mishkan
Butler, babysitter, hound
Hoarder of Eden-secrets that could save millions
He could have been an Inventor-god
But that would mean sharing
“Please speak your mind freely,” the butler bid.
Skirting past him into the loft, Valkyrie found the meal waiting on the table. The smell of fresh bread set her stomach to rumbling, but she spared time for a barb. “Did you remember to reserve a portion for the starving children, angel?”
“I reserved no portion.” Closing the door, Sebastian moved to the counter and rest both hands on the marble. Fingers spread, he asked in turn, “What do I owe to the starving child?”
From the normal noble, she would interpret that question as mockery, but he asked in total sincerity.
She sat down at the table, examining the food: fresh bread, sliced and seasoned pork, butter, an apple with no hint of winter blemishes, and a bubbling drink with chunks of ice formed the main meal. A platter of cookies waited for desert.
“W-e-l-l, a loaf of bread for a start!” she said.
“One loaf per child? What if I do not have enough?”
“Not every child. But the starving ones!”
“Does starving include those who will die of malnutrition shortly or simply those who hunger?”
“The ones about to die!”
Sebastian moved to pick up her plate.
“Hey! Hold up now!”
“You have requested that I provide the food to the starving child, not merely the hungry one,” he explained. “In truth, this pleases me. You place their well-being above your own.”
She clasped the plate tight. “You have plenty of bread to spare, you know!”
“Yes, the Mishkan food bank donates approximately two thousand gold per year to various charitable causes, including sustained efforts for the eradication of childhood poverty.”
Two thousand gold notes! Each one worth a working man’s annual salary! A girl could buy an awful lot of cake for that kind of money!
“This represents approximately forty percent of our House revenue, largely funded by investments in certain extraction industries.” Sebastian withdrew his hands. “These investments were possible because I understood the principles of Mirielle’s schedule and bought what resources would be required in a decade. Thus, this money represents an unfair advantage. Only one House might own a rutile mine and gain the fabulous wealth that comes from the only source of its refined metals within man’s current reach. Were you in charge of this fortune, would you agree with this expenditure?”
“If the only reason you have the cash is because of an angelic cheat, then you don’t deserve any of it!”
The butler nodded. “Shall we withdraw the accounts? To whom shall we deliver them? Perhaps an ostentatious display of wealth in the Conclave square?”
Valkyrie scowled. “If you fling the money on the ground it’ll get pissed away inside a week.”
Sebastian nodded again. “Ah, then the money might have both lesser and greater utility depending on how it is wielded!”
“Of course, you dolt!”
“And how might we determine the appropriate bearer of this duty?”
Valkyrie fought the distinct feeling that she had lost control of this conversation somehow. She quickly cut the bread and made herself a pork sandwich to buy herself time.
If you gave a gold to Mom, she’d move us to a nicer apartment. If you gave it to a starving child, they’d eat. Well, except if you have a starving child you probably have a no-good father around to siphon the money for booze.
“Okay, if you buy them the food, it is less likely to be sold for booze…” she mumbled to herself.
“Alas, food spoilage is an issue. With the death of its Inventor, refrigeration has only marginally improved in your lifetime.”
Valkyrie spotted an opening. “Then teach mankind how to refrigerate better! How’d Eden do it?”
Sebastian began to explain, but she had no grounding in the physics to understand it. He started to work backwards towards first principles…
She quickly shook her head. “Look, you understand how! Find a random guy and teach him!”
“Alas, I refuse. I will not deny mankind that journey.”
All but daring her to ask why.
Rie, help me out here!
No answer. Apparently the puppet did not come with instructions on this crisis.
“Then you’re letting that child die!” she insisted.
“Your argument, then, is that we owe the starving child – and by extension, all of mankind – the maximum of our possible effort, under every possible scenario?”
“Everyone needs to rest a little…” she granted.
The butler nodded. “Then we shall define the maximum of possible effort to charitably include rest and repose for the maintenance of one’s own health.”
“Sure. Yeah. Glad we agree.” Valkyrie stuffed the sandwich back in her face, clear sign that this conversation could end now.
Sebastian relented, standing by the table with hands folded over his belly while she ate. When her cup emptied, he refilled it. When she finished the cookies, he offered more. When the sun sank below the horizon, he turned on the patio lights and made up the cushioned lounge chair under the stairs for her to sit.
Then, just as she began to settle, he asked, “Is it acceptable to forestall direct aid? For example, to allocate the money for today’s meal to a cause which is guaranteed to feed two children tomorrow?”
Over-full and footsore, Valkyrie sighed. “Sure…if you actually deliver. Cause I’ve seen an awful lot of church charities that take in a towering pile of donations, and the only thing it seems to buy is a new finish on the altar.”
He inclined his head. With how much he nodded, she wondered if his chin would fall off!
“A prudent condition. Let us assume, therefore, that these tasks come with sufficient foresight to guarantee their benefit.”
“Like buying a rutile mine?” she asked.
“Precisely.”
“Then we should maximize the overall number of children fed, taking into account the expected return of our actions, to the greatest possible extent of our power.”
Valkyrie shifted on her lounge chair. The lockpicks in her pocket shifted and started to slide free, but she quickly scooped them back in. Glancing at the angel, she hurriedly objected, “You’re an angel. You signed up for it!”
“Indeed we did,” the angel of Witness agreed.
Service and sacrifice until the end of days
He stared a long moment into the sky.
“As it stands, Valkyrie, I agree with you.”
Our duty above all
The road towards a better future
Must be taken
His gaze, locked on a single unseen star, hard as a hawk.
Locked on the road only he saw.
“You were set to this hidden oasis for your own protection,” the angel stated, “but I have faith, dear Valkyrie, that you will find so much more.”
Turning to her, his eyes softened. For a heartbeat, they even pled.
As though Valkyrie could save anyone.
“F-for the moment, how about finding a bath?” she stuttered.
The mask snapped back into place, and the butler bowed for his guest. “I shall run one at once.”
***
Hey hey hey, all my Lords and Ladies and fellow night owls! Surprised to hear me at this late hour? Oh, no worries, Mister Manager really has no sense of humor. I’ll be back for your breakfast in a snap!
Night shift has its perks. All the good boys and girls are in bed, so let’s talk some juice!
Couple whispers on the wind are telling me that the constables moved in force recently against a smuggler’s cove northeast of the restricted zone. Now that’s a miracle of Fire – the constables actually catching somebody!
Between you and me, is this really the best use of their time? Have you seen the price of bread lately?! If the constables want somebody to arrest, how about talking to the guys charging tomorrow’s prices for yesterday’s leftovers!
Ah, I’m working myself up again. Let’s listen to some music.
After a luxurious bath, Valkyrie collapsed into bed; she awoke hours later in the dead of night. Shivering in her shift against the chill, she rolled out of bed and confirmed that the rumors of heated toilet seats for noble bottoms were, sadly, exaggerations.
Leaving the wash room, she noticed a light gleaming beneath the study door.
Instantly, she shifted into a stealthy creep. Approaching with care, she debated fetching her new lockpicks.
First, let’s see if I can ‘accidentally’ open the wrong door in the dark…
Six feet away, she froze as Lady Mishkan opened the door. Behind the Lady, the room glimmered with candlelight reflections against jungle wood paneling, and jasmine incense rolled into the hall.
The perfect room for a mystical ritual!
Valkyrie quickly smoothed her shift, projecting innocence.
“I heard the toilet,” Lady Mishkan said, suppressing a smirk.
“You should get a heated seat,” Valkyrie advised.
“Waste of money,” the noble shrugged. She tugged the door to her study firmly shut. Rather than a key, she tapped the handle with a fingertip. Then she assessed her visitor and asked, “Do you require something?”
She stared at the mysterious Lady bankrolling her last chance at a life in Ruhum.
Noted Lady Mishkan’s three-button white blouse, stained at the shoulder; her leather leggings; her heeled boots.
Is she planning on riding somewhere?
Noted her smooth complexion; the inscrutable expression of a trained noble; and dark eyes that studied Valkyrie intently.
“I guess we’re both night owls?” Valkyrie hummed.
“A trait that runs in my family,” the noble stated. Her heel shifted, signaling the end of the conversation.
Rie woke and purred words directly into Valkyrie’s brain. You must bare your fangs if you want her attention.
“I suppose angels would stay up late,” the girl taunted.
Lady Mishkan snorted. “You even say it like her.”
That little demonic inflection of distaste
Crossing her arms, the noble continued. “Tell me – how much more of Mirielle has leaked into you?”
“So you can stamp it out?”
“So I might assess the risk that her influence rewrites your mind into a shallow copy of her own.”
Pay no mind to the silly angel, Rie counseled. Like that would happen twice!
Valkyrie stiffened.
“Ah, but from your expression I garner she omitted these details.”
“I am no puppet to either Mirielle or angels!” Valkyrie snapped.
Lady Mishkan chuckled. “No, you plan to burn brighter than both. I remember being fifteen.”
“Hardly a crime to dream!”
“Did I speak ill of dreams?”
“You’re teasing me!”
Lady Mishkan’s smirk grew wider. “And?”
The girl flushed in the dark.
Spinning on a heel, the Lady walked to the common area. Valkyrie followed, suddenly self-conscious from the pillow fort she had made of the couch cushions two days ago.
Why did I do that? She’s going to think I’m a child!
And we are ready to be seen other ways, Rie agreed, nudging the girl’s step to sway a little more.
Lady Mishkan strode past the couch without a glance. “Since you are awake…” She gestured to a prodigious stack of papers now covering the dining table. “Perhaps I may add your own account to the pile.”
“What in the hells are all these?!”
“Reports, pup.”
Pup?!
An excellent sign! the demon in her head laughed. She admits you have teeth. Now make sure to flash them!
Lady Mishkan arranged the papers. “From the temples, from the tribes, from the Conclave. The Plateau drags its heels on integrating with the Azure way; Deepbloom finds new ways to charge for roads it has yet to build; House Hastings stoops to renting out its dockyard to smugglers. The blighted Holy Receivership conveniently loses yet another request for an audience.”
Holy Receivership? Valkyrie wondered. Who cared about the holding tank for fallen House votes?
“You need not concern yourself with them all. Best to focus on the challenge before your nose.” Alisandra laid a friendly hand on Valkyrie’s shoulder and squeezed gently.
Her fingers soft, warm, and thrumming with energy like a power line.
Then she leaned down and added, “Like stirring the entirety of Fourthborough to madness over lunch.”
Own it, Rie advised.
“Turns out some of my friends are more interested in my bounty than my well-being,” Valkyrie snapped.
Alisandra considered this, tapping her finger on Valkyrie’s collarbone.
“I have read about you as well, wolf pup. Your conduct spans volumes. If your teacher was credible, you must surely be the greatest criminal of this century.”
“Not yet!”
Good, whispered Rie. Ali is like a cat – she only likes prey that put up a fight.
Lady Mishkan laughed. “Your courage is appreciated. However…”
She steered the young woman out onto the freezing balcony. Pointing into Sixborough, she directed. “Observe.”
A constable cart trundled quietly down Main Street; another sat parked at the edge of Woodhaven; a third carefully skirted the creek border with Sevensborough.
“A hornet’s nest, freshly stirred.”
Courage often falters when consequences come home
“I thought it prudent to complete my readings at the loft tonight.”
“Sorry…” Valkyrie muttered.
“You are my responsibility. I take this duty seriously. Please refrain from exciting the constables. They do not know how to properly express it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the girl sighed, her heart sinking. Another lecture – the only difference was a prettier face chiding!
Rie pressed upon that nugget of frustration, and Valkyrie burst out like a geyser. “But what is the point! I don’t care if I graduate! Nobody ever asked if I wanted to!”
What is there to even look forward to?!
“Your sabotage succeeds.”
Valkyrie spun, hands on her hips. “How much did you get out of finishing school, oh most holy angel!”
Lady Mishkan considered the question. “How to please a husband with my appearance. How to balance the household bills. How to arrange flowers. How to be a mediocre painter.”
“The whole edifice makes no sense! The adults tell me to put the proper marks on the proper pages so I can earn the right to put more proper marks on more proper pages so that I can one day show a boss or – worse! – a husband that I put lots of proper marks on proper pages!”
She instantly regretted her outburst. Her voice rose into a pouty squeak with anger; no one on this planet took ‘angry Valkyrie’ seriously.
But Lady Mishkan nodded, and Valkyrie’s heart skipped a beat.
Like she stood at last in front of someone who saw her.
“I survived school by being so quiet the teachers forgot I existed,” Alisandra commiserated. “I would vanish to the library during gym; the gym during library; take my lunch in a tree. I could answer every question, and my lineage was impeccable, so my behavior never met reproach. In truth, the teachers were likely relieved to have one less worry on their hands.”
“At least your teachers never threw apples!”
“An abrogation of every tenet for which a teacher should stand!” agreed the angel. Both hands on the girl’s shoulders, she steered off the cold balcony. “I often wondered as you do. Why? What was this all for? To marry into another House? To prove my scholarship to the Guilds? Perhaps to simply keep me occupied! Each year came its own grade, and each grade was like an invocation to access the next. Spent and then discarded with all the swiftness of a wedding invitation after the dance.”
Shocked, Valkyrie nodded. “Exactly! Sixth year, Mom begged me to behave. So I did! I finished every homework and every test. I even wrote all my own papers!”
“The year you placed first in your class.”
How extensive is that report?!
“Only I got the best grades for writing exactly what was in the books by my own hand! How is that any different than paying someone else to write for me?!”
Lady Mishkan smirked. “Wrist exercise.”
Valkyrie mimed a different kind of wrist exercise with one hand.
“Come,” the noble bid. “Help me water the garden.”
“What garden?”
Alisandra strode out the door.
Swearing under her breath, Valkyrie shoved her feet into a pair of slippers, tossed a jacket over her shift, and hurried after. By the time she entered the hallway, Alisandra waited at the end opposite the stairs up.
“This way,” the angel stated, twirling a key on one finger. As the girl approached, she inserted the key into a gap between two wooden panels.
The wall clicked, opened, and revealed a hidden stairwell up.
“Well, that’s fancy…”
“Architects also deserve a little fun,” the angel agreed. She hooked the key to her belt and mounted the stairs.
Valkyrie followed into the darkness. She fumbled in the stairs, her eyes fizzing with the false light that came in total darkness.
Only…when she glanced up…she saw little flickers like sparks about where Alisandra’s head would be.
The flickers arced, teasing at her. Like the pieces of a puzzle, always obvious in hindsight.
Then, somewhere in her head, something tore, and Valkyrie’s eyes opened wider. She took in the sharp golden glow that bathed the dark stairs – and the halo of war that pulsed with an angel’s inner fire above Alisandra’s head.
“Y-your hair is like the sea,” the girl said.
“And my eyes gems found ashore?” the angel guessed without pausing.
“No! I mean, maybe a little, but your hair is…” Valkyrie grimaced, struggling to put words to these new sensations. Was this what a blind man felt when the Maiden first granted him sight?
Your hair is the foam of the proud waves, dancing before you.
“Your hair is the foam of the proud waves, dancing before you!”
The angel halted at the top of the stairs, hand on the door, and glanced back. She caught the gleam of her own halo in Valkyrie’s eyes, and she hummed, “I see.”
“I’m not going back to sleep!”
Alisandra sighed, shrugged, and smiled. “I suppose not.”
Valkyrie flushed. “…so now what?”
“First, we water the garden.”
Lady Mishkan opened the door and admitted Valkyrie onto the Woodhaven roof. Southern ferns, fronds, and flowers filled the perimeter, trimmed just beneath the cusp of a smooth fence. The center was empty, though scored by black lighting strikes. Beyond, an artificial pond rippled with a mechanical waterfall, and a small shed hunkered against the far corner.
Flipping a switch, Alisandra turned on lights like fireflies that wove through the greenery.
With the clouds low and heavy, the city asleep and distant, they stood afloat on a forgotten land in the sky.
“Is this yours?” Valkyrie wondered.
“Communal by the deed, but left to rot by the few inhabitants. No one has complained.”
Alisandra handed Valkyrie a watering pot, and they took to the chore. Given the early season, most of the plants slept, and the girl wondered if plants could understand the strange circumstance of an Archangel providing their sustenance.
She claims a tiny stake in enemy territory for herself, Rie explained. Like leaving a few of your clothes on your lover’s bed.
“Your lover shouldn’t be enemy territory,” Valkyrie whispered.
Now what’s the fun in that?
Crossing the open center, Valkyrie peered at the lightning strikes. How could lightning hit such a precise spot every…
Again, something frayed in her head.
Lightning on a clear day
Booming for all to hear and yet dismissed as distant rumblings
The Tempest walks the world
“You echoes carry Mirielle’s lilt as well,” the angel noted, refilling her can. “Father wrote many pages on the colors of the soul. A thousandfold variations and predilections. In quieter times, perhaps I would study you myself!”
“Oi!” Valkyrie raised her empty can to pitch at the angel.
Alisandra crossed the distance between them in a blink, catching the girl’s wrist gently. A burst of cold air brought the scent of fresh rains and noble perfumes close.
“Spare the watering can your fury,” the angel stated.
Take her other hand! Rie exulted, a predator primed to strike.
What?!
With confidence!
Valkyrie lunged forward, grasping for Alisandra’s other hand! She struck fast, trained by years of pulling fast ones on teachers and friends…
To her disconcertment, the angel’s eyes followed her motion perfectly.
Allowed the motion.
But still she seized Alisandra’s wrist!
Closer, Valkyrie!
Buoyed by the demon in her ear, she planted Alisandra’s hand on her own waist and stepped backwards into the first motion of a private dance.
Meet her eyes. Part your lips a little. Let her lead but demand she respond!
Amused, Alisandra stepped into the lead. She set her hand against Valkyrie’s waist and pulled the girl into a twirl!
Thankfully, Valkyrie’s dancer instincts bent her to the motion, and she set her watering can on a convenient pot mid-spin. Finishing her revolution, she found that Alisandra had set her own can down as well.
“Does the pup have something to say?” the angel asked, drawing her backwards like the tide.
She’s forceful!
You’ve only danced with other girls, teased the demon. Now you taunt a god.
“I have had cause to meet many among the mages this last decade,” Alisandra said, drawing Valkyrie across the stage and into another spin by the dormant tulips. “They are an unhappy lot, maddened by mysteries that have eluded man since Eden.”
“But you have those secrets!” she shot back. She dared glance down, adjusting her footwork for the angel’s longer stride.
“A sliver more. We too wonder much about the nature of this place,” the angel admitted. “About what echoes we shall leave.”
Philosophical words that masked a darker echo.
About what should happen if we fail when the Wyrm returns
“I can help!” Valkyrie offered.
Alisandra released her hands on the girl’s waist.
Gritting her teeth, the girl turned a potential tumble into an artful spin. She stopped on her knees, holding her chin high to meet the angel’s gaze.
“What use have I for a slip of a girl, her Grace half-torn by a demon dream?”
Valkyrie held up a hand – the roof key pressed into her palm. “I’ve got my own skills!”
Snorting, the angel offered a hand up…
Though when Valkyrie accepted, Alisandra pivoted, grasped the girl by the waist, and hurled her skyward.
Shrieking, Valkyrie rose into the shadowed clouds. The mist coated her face, and the clouds rumbled with distant warning.
Then she broke through the thin layer, still rising fast. She beheld the carpet of clouds laid over the world below and the brilliant stars above, unveiled with the city below cloaked, and she forgot her fear.
Freed but for a moment from gravity’s tyranny, flit through her head. Like we used to be before…
Before this place, Rie finished.
She slowed, reaching the apex of her rise, and the angel appeared beside her with a rumble.
Not Alisandra but the Tempest, her blazing gaze set on the girl.
“Careful, little rebel. You bite more than you can chew.”
Valkyrie sought for a cute retort, but gravity took hold once more. Instead of forming the beginning of a truly devastating riposte, she let out an echoing shriek!
Now the angel – Alisandra once more – reached out, caught her, and stepped back to the roof. She set the damp girl back onto solid ground.
“Enough play. Let us discuss your transgression and its appropriate punishment.”
“Punishment?!” Frazzled, the girl blurted out, “You can’t mean to spank me!”
Though for some reason her mind insisted on investigating that scenario.
That’s more of a second date kind of thing, my dear.
Stone-faced, Alisandra shook her head. “Corporeal punishment is not an effective deterrent. If you are serious on your offers, you must recognize that my temple upholds a somber charge. You–”
With one hand still on the angel’s elbow, Valkyrie thought she heard the thunder of distant drums.
Alisandra’s attention whipped to the south, a hawk scouring for prey. Shaking free of the girl, she set her hand on her Blade and leaped into the clouds.
The sky boomed, and then a gentle rain started in the Tempest’s wake.
“…and she’s gone.”
Rie laughed. A marvelous performance, my dear! We must consider how to prepare the next stage…
Damp and chilled, Valkyrie pocketed the roof key and hurried back inside.
Perhaps we shall decorate the loft? Yes, something to mark us. We must make her feel welcome. Ali is partial to lemon tarts if you have the skill for it.
“Mom forbid me from the kitchen after I started a fire.”
No one’s perfect, dear. What matters is that we keep ourselves in the angel’s eye.
“And then what?”
I don’t know yet, but it is sure to be more fun than anything around here. Wouldn’t you agree?
Nodding along, Valkyrie tilted her head to the demon’s schemes.