by K. M. Hade
“When Blightlings such as the worm are requested for public spectacle, we bring them in when they are small and mature them under the arena.”
“Wait. That thing was in the fucking Capital for months?”
“Yes.”
“And how do you… mature them?”
“Prisoners.”
“Excuse me.” Smoke gets up, wanders to the edge of our little enclave, and vomits.
“That’s a good way to get dehydrated,” Blood says.
Smoke flips him the bird over his shoulder as he heaves again.
Blood says, darkly, “So it was a set-up. Students don’t get told they’re going to graduate until four weeks before the trials. But they requested the Blightlings for her graduation trial months in advance.”
“Yes,” Atrament says. “And you are correct. We get the request for Blightlings about eight weeks before delivery. It is always a rush order, although the requests usually do not vary much. We received the request for the worm before Ever-Night.”
The high winter holiday that marked the shortest day of the year and the turn of the year.
And none of it matters. My fingertips hurt, and the scar on my arm burns with old memories. “Atrament, can you spin Fell thread? Can you stitch me?”
He nods.
Blood demands, “So you’re a Tailor? Or are you only good for a button? Because we can go hire an experienced back-ally sell-needle for her.”
Atrament’s shadows stop shifting and turn sharp. “I am not a Tailor, Fell, but the Tailors at the Academy taught me some of their craft. Unless those back-ally sell-needles are failed Tailor apprentices, I am quite skilled.”
“Oh, really, and who have you been practicing on? Prisoners or goats or those poor bastards we saw hanging from meathooks?” Blood demands.
Atrament does not answer.
The hot air seems to get even more sullen and the bugs stop buzzing.
Blood’s disgust is palpable, and my heart twists like a rag.
Atrament’s voice is unusually low, his shadows sliding and slipping like snakes. “I assure you, Fell, I care very deeply what happens to her.”
“So do we.”
“You only care that she remains useful to you.”
“Back off, ghoul.” Blood extends one hand, fingers cupped as if pulling back on something.
Atrament’s shadows deepen.
I jump to my feet. My voice cracks. “Both of you stop!”
Great. Really useful. Next thing you know, I’ll be crying like an idiot child.
Rot gets up and drops his bulk in the middle of all of us. “Fell thread might ruin you, Pebbles.”
“Or we may have to kill you,” Smoke murmurs.
“You will not kill her, and the thread will not ruin her,” Atrament says in that low tone.
“You are not necessary to this mission any longer, ghoul,” Blood growls. “I will gladly drain your body of every drop of blood and leave you in the middle of that road. In fact, I’m thinking that’s exactly what we’re going to do. We can find someone else to stitch her.”
“With an Aether tapestry?” Atrament replies with very, very mild menace.
Blood steps around Rot, crouches down and shoves his face in Atrament’s. “You must be a very skilled Tailor indeed. Do tell me where you honed those skills.”
Atrament doesn’t blink. “It took five of you to deal with me in our first encounter, and I was not even trying. You and I are nothing alike. I was forged in the Pit itself under the gaze of the Old One. Your threats do not impress me.”
Blood snarls.
I shove myself between them. “Stop it! I don’t care about being damaged or dying. Oh no, my magic might get damaged. Oh no, I might get hurt. Oh no, I might die. I’m over all of it! I want ScatheFire back. I want him back, I promised him!”
My voice cracks on each word until I’m rasping.
If I do one good thing in my life, it’s going to be getting my only friend back. He’d been kind to me, he’d sacrificed himself more than once. The world needs him, even if the world doesn’t know it or want to admit it.
The world does not need me.
Atrament’s shadows twine over my calf. I yank away. Rot tries to tug me down into a sweaty embrace, I pull away, wincing at a tearing pain deep in my soul, and drop to my ass on the muck, and hug myself in the smoldering heat. Bugs dart in to taste my tears and sweat.
Blood dusts of his uniform. The brigandine and leather creak and rustle.
Rot stands as well. He seems to loom over Blood without actually looming. “If she wants thread, let’s try it. It can’t make things worse. I’m not sure about Atrament doing it, though.”
Blood gives his uniform a final smack. “I do not trust him. He’s been a Pit-ghoul his entire life. We escaped from the Pit a little too easy. Send us on some wild chase that ends up with the Warden having us right where he wants all of us.”
Rot puts a huge hand on Blood’s shoulder. “The Pit’s not designed to hold Aethers, so there’s that. They shoulda changed the locks.”
“We have no reason to think he has the skills he says he has, and we have no reason to think he won’t find a way to go back to the life he always knew. We saw it plenty in those feral holding pens they called schools, Rot. How many Fell brats did we watch who found their way back to the streets even when they said they’d never go back?” Blood’s expression is dark.
Rot’s armor creaks as he shifts his weight. “Yeah, fair point.”
“So I don’t trust you,” Blood tells Atrament, “and more to the point, you shouldn’t trust yourself. The Blight is very good at luring you right back into its grasp.”
“I have not fallen into its grasp yet,” Atrament says with quiet dignity.
“You’ve never been out of its grasp,” Blood scoffs. “You’ve been in the Pit. The Blight leaves deep marks, and when you’ve spent your whole life in its company, it’s familiar.”
Rot looks over at Atrament, skeptical. “He’s right. We saw it a lot in the schools they take Fell kids to to find out who might be trainable as a Mage. Most of the kids flunk out, and not because they’re stupid. The Blight’s got a way of feeling… good.”
He stumbles over the word.
Smoke retreats further into the crevices and valleys of the tree trunks.
Blood rubs his forehead. “Fine. Fuck it. We’ve got to stay out of the Warden’s grasp and the bounty hunters. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but to the ruined lands it is. If Pebbles wants Fell thread, it’s the finest Fell thread she’ll have. Creeping lotus it is. Let’s make a goddess out of her.”
5
CRYSTAL
The Warden and the Aethers, on lathered, spent horses, ride by a few hours after their first path. The other Aether team is nowhere to be seen. I’d give a few shreds of my Aether to hear what the conversation was on the road, but we don’t dare send any of our familiars out to catch a word. ScatheFire’s cat would be useful right then. My familiar’s too brightly colored and is pretty distinctive slithering through the withered swamp grasses and reeds.
“That’s our cue,” Blood says under his breath as they move out of line of sight. “Smoke, send up your familiar to watch from a tree branch. Once it can’t make them anymore, we’ll ride out. Everyone, start breaking camp. Quietly. Atrament, grab a stick and draw me a map of where we’re headed.”
I go to help Rot with the horses. ScatheFire still stares at nothing. I crouch down next to him and touch his face. “We’re headed out now. You won’t believe where we’re going.”
“Do you really think he can hear you?” Rot asks, tone hushed.
I pray for a response, something in those dead, vacant eyes of his, but there’s nothing. My heart twists. “Yes.”
Or am I just deluding myself and my Aether is lying to me the way Fell thread lies to Fells and leads them to their demise?
I wait another few seconds, hoping there is something from ScatheFire, but nothing. He just blinks.
/>
Rot chases the bugs away from his lips and puts the bag over his head.
An hour later it’s dark, and Smoke’s familiar returns to report it can no longer see the Warden, so it’s time to leave. Atrament’s briefed Blood on where we’re going, but Blood tells him to take the point in the moonlit darkness, and we’re riding slow until we’re out of the squishy low-lands and on the north-bound road. The way is treacherous, with pockets of water and sucking mud that’d happily break a horse’s leg, but there’s a path through the muck known to trackers and huntsmen, and apparently Pit-bred Mages named Atrament.
“A map and compass would be nice.” Blood sighs as he turns his face up to the stars. In the half-moon’s light, he seems like marble. “Eyeballing stars is for sailors crazy enough to cross the Vast Dark.”
“I’m glad it’s not cloudy.” I tilt my head up and take in the stars. I pick out the various bright spots we’re all trained to identify, but my knowledge of the area is limited to the memories of Empire maps I’ve seen (but never studied) in the past.
“Well, don’t get attached to the stars. You won’t see them in the ruined lands.”
“So it’s true? There’re no stars or moon or sun?”
“It’s always cloudy,” he confirms, tone haunted. “You’ll see. Atrament, you ready?”
The horses tear at the grass as we go, and with the half-moon, it is plenty bright enough for us to find our way. Smoke’s familiar stays in the air above us to keep watch. My familiar dangles off the pommel of my saddle, doing its best floppy saddlebag impression. So much for it wanting to be in utility form most of the time.
“Are you sure that’s comfortable?” I ask it. “Are you trying to imitate a lasso?”
It raises its head from where it bounces happily against my horse’s shoulder and pops the upper length of its body back and forth like the dance it’s learned from Blood’s familiar. Then it flops back down and dangles like it’s dead.
“Apparently getting jostled about is fun.” I sigh to no one in particular. “And of course I get the familiar that’d rather be in animal form and not utility form.”
“My familiar would rather be in animal form,” Rot supplies from ahead of me. ScatheFire’s body rests against his broad back, bag off his head so he can get a nice night breeze. “Blood’s would too, if we were back at court. It’s delicate.”
“Fuck off, it’s a little petal dragon,” Blood snaps.
“ScatheFire’s cat got it in its mouth once and ever since then Blood’s been all protective daddy on it.” Rot makes smoochy lips.
Blood turns his head to glare at Rot. “I’m just practicing for when I have a beautiful daughter or six, and I have to protect her from every sly-tongued young man.”
“So... men like you, basically,” I say.
Now he grins. “Damn right, Pebbles.”
I smirk. “Six kids. Said like the parent who doesn’t have to squeeze a watermelon out of a hole the size of a lime.”
Snerks from the others.
“Or have a little parasite sucking their tits off for about two years.”
More snerks.
“While having another one in the belly to repeat the process again. Because no proper nobleman is complete unless he has three children to parade. Two boys and a girl. Exactly. After that they’re just spares.”
Blood pauses, then focuses on me, riding his horse slightly out of line to get a better look. “What’s this custom now?”
I cock my head to the side. “You need one boy to be your heir. You need one daughter to marry off to seal an alliance that benefits the first-born boy. Then you need a second boy as a spare heir.”
“Gross,” Rot says.
If Blood has dreams of being a ‘proper’ nobleman, that’s how it’s done. But first we have to, you know... survive our current situation.
The squishy lowlands firm up into grasslands. We let the horses graze an hour alongside the well-worn three-horse-wide path winding due north.
“Fuck, brings back memories,” Blood says under his breath, standing in the center of the road and looking north.
“Been this way before?” I stand close.
“Yes.” His tone communicates he doesn’t want to talk about it. “You?”
“No.” I look south, then north. “So this road... goes where, if we follow it south?”
Blood looks back south with me. “Follow it another... twenty or thirty miles, I guess, maybe more. It intersects with the road leading to the Pit. The Warden’s team won’t come up this far, especially if he doesn’t know about the overland route through the swamplands.”
In the moonlight, his skin is smooth, cool marble, but his eyes are dark, reflective pits, like bloody rubies. I touch his cheek just to make sure he’s real, and he freezes, not moving but yanking away at the same time. Pain pulls inside me at how he recoils. I try to hide it by turning back towards the horses. I turn right into Rot’s chest. “Oof, sorry!”
“No worries,” Rot says, giving Blood a filthy look. I don’t need to see Blood’s face to sense him glaring right back.
What am I doing? Damn, Blood is right. I just do things like touch them, and I don’t catch myself doing it half the time. What happens if Atrament just does things? Is that how the Fell kids they talked about ended up outside again? They just did things because the Blight told them to, or the Blight’s influence had fashioned them in such a way that they just did things even when they were free of the Blight?
Atrament drifts in the darkness, the moonlight making him little more than a blot against the dimly-washed world. His hair slithers in the air like disembodied shadows, despite his braid. “This is where my knowledge ends, beyond I know there are poor farmers further east.”
“That’s where we’re going,” Blood says.
Rot sighs. “I hate doing it, but we’re going to need supplies. I hate being a second-rate criminal.”
I slide my arms around his shoulders and neck without thinking. “Don’t say that. There’s a way, remember?”
He clasps his big hands behind my back. “It’s a shit way. We already sacrificed ScatheFire once.”
“And it worked, didn’t it?”
“Don’t say shit like that. And once you’ve got Fell stitching in you, we’re just going to hand you over? The whole situation is fucked. I think I’d rather cross the Vast Dark.”
Blood tenses behind me, but Rot doesn’t look away from me.
My grip tightens on Rot and tears sting my eyes. “The team is everything, Rot. I’m just a shitty Mage who should have been put down—”
“You’re not a bad Mage. You really aren’t. Just a bit wild and all, and if Atrament’s right, this Fell thread’s going to change everything.”
“Just a little wild? That’s what you call a Mage with my history?” There were at least five high-bred families that would say I was a hell of a lot more than a little wild. “You saw what I did. Don’t forget that. That isn’t going to change.”
He adjusts his grip, jostling me closer against him. “Nah. You’re... you’re... fuck. You’re so damn pretty.”
“Oh gods.” Smoke drags his hand down his face.
Blood sighs. “Rot, you have fucked her, bled with her, escaped the Pit with her, jacked off to her, we’re riding into the ruined lands with her, you’re willing to go across the Vast Dark to keep her alive, and you’re gob-jawed about a pretty lady is paying attention to me?”
“Well, she’s touching me.”
“Yes, yes, I am,” I tease, sliding my thigh along his crotch just a bit. He yelps and blushes so red it’s obvious even in the moonlight.
Hell, why did I do that!
“She fucked you. I watched her do it.”
“Well, we haven’t like... made love,” Rot says defensively.
Blood groans. “Oh gods, who even does that?”
“I do,” Rot shoots back.
“Bullshit you do.”
“If you made love, I wouldn’t watch,” Smoke mu
tters.
Rot turns so red he’s purple in the dim light.
“She’s not even part of the team,” Smoke goes on, tone acrid. “She’s an Aether. We’re all Fells. So you should definitely not be making love to her.”
Ouch. That hurts like a smack across my face. I pull away from Rot, but he hugs me closer. “She’s a member of the team because we say she is.”
“She wouldn’t be a member of the team if the military hadn’t thrown us into the Pit and not given us a choice,” Smoke retorts. “Are you still clinging to this? There’s no Shard pardon now. There’s no—”
“She is part of the team!” Rot growls.
Blood strides over to Smoke. “I don’t know what crawled up your ass, but pull it out. Everything is fucked sideways, we’re all screwed, and nobody is happy. Yes, Pebbles has that wild idea about being our bounty and feeding her to the Storm team, but that’s a bullshit idea because once anyone sees her Fell thread, she’ll be kept under lock and key. The only way any of us get out of this alive is if all of us get out of it alive, so for now, that means everyone is on the team. Even Atrament.”
I blink. Atrament’s shadows pause in their movement.
“You can’t do that,” Smoke snarls.
Blood straightens and levels Smoke with a dark-eyed glare. “So fix my mistake of command.”
Rot’s grip tightens.
Smoke scowls. He shifts, fading in and out of view.
Blood turns away from him and gestures curtly. “Mount up. If we play our hand right and don’t let this get any further fucked, the Shard pardon might not be out of reach. I wasn’t expecting on having an Aether-Fell card to play.”
“That card could fuck us,” Smoke growls.
“So you want to throw it away? That card is the only evidence we’ve got of some fucked up shit happening in the Pit,” Blood snaps. “It is proof that there’s an entire fucked up underbelly to the Pit and the Academy.”
“And we broke out of the Pit for what, exactly?” Smoke shoots back, glaring at me.
“You know, I don’t even care at this point. Pebbles was pretty horny to stay in the Pit, remember? She’s no spook, and if she said it was time to get the fuck out, it was time to get the fuck out. I’m pissed about it, but I’m trying to stay philosophical that her change of tune merits us going along with the song. Now get on your damn horse. We’ve got to find somewhere to sleep tonight and some food to steal.”