by K. M. Hade
Blood, mostly shrouded in shadows, seems to yank back in surprise.
I draw in a shuddering breath, smack some dust off my ass with a hand, and storm back to the embers. They don’t get to play with ScatheFire’s husk like that. It’s fucking wrong.
Grief tears at me like the talons of a bird ripping prey.
I am going to get him back. I am, I am.
I drop onto the clay and bury my face in my hands. I will not cry. I will not cry.
My familiar slithers up my side and wraps itself around my arm.
Atrament crouches down next to me, but does not touch me. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” I pull myself together. The others came back with ScatheFire, who they direct to lay down and go to sleep. It’d be nice to just scream at all of them, but it won’t do any good.
I keep my question about what the fuck they’d been doing to his husk to myself. “Is he hurt?”
“Nah, he’s fine.”
“Good.” I shiver in the cold.
It’s Atrament who asks, “What was that for?”
“To see if the husks are useful,” Blood says.
“They’re for studying Blight,” Atrament says, soft voice slightly annoyed. “They serve no purpose of servitude beyond that.”
“The Warden’s the kind of man who makes use of what he has,” Blood says.
“He’s useless for holding a weapon, but could you imagine a thousand of them running straight at the enemy’s lines?” Smoke says. “Send them running through a forest as a distraction? Mix them into a riot for crowd control? I can think of many uses for animated husks that do exactly what they’re told, even if they can only take primitive commands.”
Rot’s big arm stole around me and tugged me against his side.
Atrament stands. His hair drifts around in the firelight. He’s horrifying and beautiful like this. “And I am telling you that there are not enough of them at the Pit. They are subjects of study.”
“And how were you studying him, ghoul?” Blood asks coldly.
Atrament says nothing.
Blood points at the now-obediently-asleep ScatheFire. “What were you doing to him? To study him? How do you study that?”
Atrament looks at ScatheFire, then back at Blood. “You sent him to the Pit. You would have left him behind, you intend to use Lady Crystal to gain your ultimate prize: a peerage and children. I gained nothing by how I came to stand here, I fully expect that this will end with my being returned to the Pit, executed, or exploited mercilessly because I am not worldly, and on my own, I am easy prey. Yet, here I am. Why are you standing here?”
Blood doesn’t reply. He also doesn’t so much as blink.
I bow my head and gulp down a chest-rattling sob. I can’t bear to look at ScatheFire’s sleeping form. It’s like looking at a bone poking out of the skin. I’m a coward for not wanting to look at him, but I just can’t.
Rot gives me a tentative squeeze, then stands. “Knock it off. We can either let Atrament do it, or we can take our chances with some back-alley stitcher.”
Blood almost grumbles. Smoke says nothing.
Rot growls, “So we just gonna crack ScatheFire’s head with a rock and call it a day? Because if that’s what we’re going to do, let’s get to it already and forget about this Fell thread.”
“She needs the thread to be stable,” Atrament says.
“We promised her she’d never have to use her magic again,” Rot growls back.
“That was for an old deal that’s no longer on the table,” Smoke throws up his hands.
“We don’t know that! If she can be a Shard then—”
“And we’re going to lie about it so other poor Aethers get to fake it and be useless too? Is that what they’re going to do to every sad Snow that goes through the Academy? We going to burden every Fell team with some worthless Aether who will be, guaranteed, less useful than Pebbles here?” Blood’s voice cuts over all of them.
Silence.
I say, “I am not abandoning ScatheFire. We aren’t euthanizing him until I try to get him back.”
“Do you really still believe he’s in there?” Smoke asks.
My throat is too tight to speak, so I nod. The despair and doubt are strangling, but I’m not giving up.
Blood laces his fingers together and puts them on top of his head, then turns away from us.
I wrap my arms around my knees and hug myself into a little ball. The fire’s dying down. Soon it will be completely dark. I gather myself into a little knot and hold tight.
13
CRYSTAL
“Please stomp on this,” Atrament asks Rot’s familiar, as polite as if he were asking a court lady.
Rot’s familiar obediently stomps the lotus vines until they are moist, foul-smelling fibrous threads.
We’re still where we set up camp (such as it is) the previous night. ScatheFire sits staring at nothing, and I try not to look at him as I curry one of the horses. My familiar hangs around my neck like a scarf, humming to itself. It’s not actually physically humming, but mentally, and I can hear it like someone humming on the other side of the room.
“Are we going to do the stitching here?” Smoke inquires of Atrament.
“Here would be best, given what I’ve seen so far of the lands. We have plenty of water, and there appears to be game and some forage for the horses.” Atrament is now sorting out the strands. “Unless you think we stand a chance of finding shelter elsewhere?”
Smoke glances towards Blood, who has taken half the horses a distance away to graze on what passes for forage out this way. “There are the shambles of ruined buildings and structures, but there’s no guarantee we will find any of it. We are also considerably off the regular path for anyone to find us.”
“So what you are saying is that this is as good as we will likely find.”
Smoke’s face flickers with a grimace, but he merely nods.
Damn, what has got Atrament so salty? Then again, putting up with the Fells’ attitude day after day has to be wearing. They’re kind of dicks to him, but I try to stay out of it, because I seem to just make things worse.
Blood is heading back with the horses now. In the dim sunlight, he’s more like a bleached bone, except for his armor, which fits him perfectly—he is unmistakably a senior Imperial Fell. The Imperial armorers do like to know corpses will be well-dressed.
I dig the heel of my stolen boots into the clay and dig up a divot. “How long will it take to make the thread and stitch it?”
I don’t know how many more days I can bear to deal with ScatheFire’s… husk. I hug myself and try not to tap my foot. I’m sure Atrament is working as fast as he can, and he will stitch me as fast as he can without endangering me.
Atrament glances up. “Not long. Fell thread is easy to make from lotus. It will come together very readily and be very good quality. Not as good as a Tailor can do, which I presume is what your Fells have.”
Blood, now within earshot, says, warily, “It is.”
Atrament ignores him.
I dig up another divot. “So not every Fell gets creeping lotus thread?”
Blood, tone dark, says, “Fells get what the Academy has on hand.”
“Why not?” I ask curiously.
“Don’t know if you’ve noticed, Pebbles, but the Empire doesn’t really like Fells.”
“Why do you call her Pebbles?” Atrament frowns. “It is derogatory. She deserves more respect than that.”
“Because she is our pet rock.”
“She is a Crystal Mage.”
“Your point being?”
“Her name is Crystal.”
“Her name is whatever the fucking Empire wants to call her. Crystal, Heart, Shard, Lady Fucks-A-Lot, it doesn’t matter.”
“You aren’t the Empire,” Atrament says.
“Exactly. I don’t make the rules.”
“It’s fine,” I tell Atrament. None of us have shared the names bound under our thread, and my birth name
doesn’t mean anything to me. I don’t know who she was. She was a child the world just wanted to grow up as quickly as possible.
Atrament and Blood glance at me. Atrament, aggravated, says, “Perhaps you should care.”
I cock my head to the side. “Why? I was never the name that I was given at birth. She didn’t exist. They could have called me anything. I became Crystal. Then Heart. Soon I’ll be Shard, and that will be a lie, but it won’t matter. Heart was a lie too, and I’m a shitty Crystal Mage. Pebbles will be the most real name I’ve ever had, and not one the Empire can take from me.”
ScatheFire had given me that name.
Blood’s expression clouds, mirroring the ache going through me.
Rot, tentatively, moves close to me, and his fingertips brush the back of my right hand.
Atrament continues to separate and twist strands. “The Empire doesn’t get to decide what you are. And you are an exceptional Crystal Mage, and will not be a bad Heart.”
I laugh. “I’m not a Heart at all. My name is legally Crystal. You had it right the first time. Got that demotion.”
“Right now you are Crystal, but after this, you will be Heart. Your plan is to tell the Empire you are a Shard. But you’re not a Shard. You’re a Heart.”
I shake my head again. “I’m not a Heart. That’s not how it works.”
“Of course it’s not how it works, and you are not Heart yet, but you will be soon. You are already my Heart, we reach across the Aether bridge our threads create. And when you have your Fell thread, you will also be theirs.” He gestures with the strands of lotus to the other Fells.
“Is the ruined lands ruining your mind?” Blood demands.
Atrament actually smirks. “Does it scare you? That you have a Heart?”
“It scares me that you’re losing your grip on reality. She’s an Aether, we’re Fells. We don’t have Hearts, we have Shards.”
“How worried you think we should be?” Rot mutters to me.
“No idea,” I murmur back. Atrament seems to have a good grip on reality, but the hell do I know? There’s absolutely no logical reason to think he’s sane.
“Not a chance he’s stitching you talking crazy,” Rot mutters, and Blood’s expression is murderous. Someone’s skull is going to meet a rock pretty quick here.
Atrament slides his fingers down three strands of lotus. “She is my Heart, and I am certain she is yours too. You knew she heard the lotus’ song. None of us needed to be told. We felt it, like she feels you, like she steadies and holds all of us within her. And once she has her Fell thread, it will bring it all to completion.”
“You’re full of shit,” Smoke growls.
Atrament shakes his head. “No, it’s how she’ll get ScatheFire from where he is. It’s how she knew he was still alive. It’s not his body that calls to her, it’s his soul. She hears his song wherever he is.”
“You are full of shit!” Smoke shouts. His magic swirls around him in acrid clouds. “Full of shit, Atrament! Stop putting thoughts into all our heads! You were raised in the fucking Pit, you’ve never even met a Heart, you don’t know a thing about any of it!”
I sort of agree with Smoke: the fuck is Atrament talking about?
Atrament is unmoved. “True, but I will tell you that she is my Heart, and that she is ScatheFire’s Heart. She hears his song, like she heard the creeping lotus sing. Then will you believe me that she is our Heart?”
Smoke storms away.
Rot looks at me very curiously. “I guess that’d explain a lot, huh?”
“What?” I ask, nonplussed. “Do you mean what Smoke or what Atrament said?”
Rot scratches his shaggy beard. “Atrament.”
“Excuse me?” I blink several times.
“I’ve just been turning stuff over in my head for a while now. It doesn’t sound as crazy to me as maybe it should. You know, I did get top grades in all my theory classes at Academy.” He adds that last part with a bit of a bite to his tone, like he’s used to people assuming just because he’s big, he’s dumb.
Atrament watches Smoke leave, still perfectly calm, and tells me, “Once you have your Fell thread in, you will be able to get ScatheFire—or whatever is left of him—back from where he is.”
Blood is stock-still. “She is not a Heart, Atrament.”
Atrament gestures to Blood’s stitched forearms. “No, not yet, she’s not. She needs Fell thread to finish it. But because I have Aether, she’s already aligned with my heart, and she’s powerful enough she can touch ScatheFire. You have all assumed she is powerful enough to be your Shard. She is powerful enough, and flawed enough, she can be your Heart.”
“In theory,” Rot agrees, still pondering it, “there’s nothing saying a Fell team can’t have a Heart or an Aegis. Blight consumes Aether, Aether destroys Blight. So that’s why there aren’t mixed teams. Only Crystals have ever proven they can be Hearts, and Crystals are always Aethers. All Aether teams need a core, but Fell teams don’t, but why that is is just a lot of theory.”
He pauses to look at Atrament, then he shrugs slightly. “Compared to Aethers, Fells aren’t nearly as studied, and it’s not just because we’re Fells. It’s because breeding Fell babies would be gross. They’ve tried to put both kinds of thread into Mages of both types, and it’s never worked. The thread just rots out. Except apparently it can work. And the three of us have felt her magic reach us. So.” He tucks his hands behind his back.
Atrament gives me a sideways glance before he says, “I believe it requires a very particular type of Mage.”
“You seriously believe this is not batshit insane,” Blood asks Rot.
Rot shrugs. Instead, he goes to put the bag over ScatheFire’s head so he won’t sunburn.
“You still want to do this,” Blood says to me.
“Yes. Because that’s the plan. It’s always been the plan.”
It takes Atrament four days to make the thread. He soaks the strips of vine in the brackish water until they are soft and very fine, like beautiful hair. Except the hairs are the ugly gray of a slug.
We don’t have much choice except to wait. There was some talk about leaving the ruined lands to do the stitching, but we decided that (even though we lack anything resembling shelter or protection) it’d be safer to do this in the ruined lands. The chances of the Empire’s bounty hunters or Imperial Mage hit teams finding us out here? Remote.
Nobody has brought up my desire to go a few days further afield to find a mudwitch-type. They probably think I’ve forgotten about it. Or I have a use for poison. Atrament casts a lot of thoughtful looks my way, but bites his tongue and says nothing. It’s a one-thing-at-a-time situation. The business of staying fed and watered while making camp in the ruined lands is problem enough.
Atrament says to me, “I need you to create two crystal poles. So I can hang these to dry.”
“Like… conjure the crystal out of the ground?”
“Yes, exactly. You’ve done it before. Not too high, and not too thick. Like for a clothesline.”
“I don’t know if I have that much control.” In fact, I’m sure I don’t.
“Try,” he urges me, smiling gently, his warmth slipping around inside my chest. “You can’t do any damage out here.”
Nobody’s talked much about my being a Heart (becoming a Heart, whatever), and I feel pretty squirmy about it. Things have gotten tense and uncomfortable at our little camp. Smoke refuses to talk to anyone except in curt tones, and Blood and Rot have defaulted to Imperial professionalism, I try to stay out of the way, and Atrament is blithely uncaring about it.
I almost feel betrayed that the strange connection I’ve had to Atrament—which I’d assumed was just the weirdness that comes from being in tense situations and maybe we’re sort of sympathetic oddball souls—might be more. Might be the result of warped Heart magic.
Because my magic is a mess, and I don’t want it to take Atrament away. Just like I lost ScatheFire.
“Try,” he tells me
again, giving me that gentle smile that looks quite strange on his face. It’s not unattractive, it’s just… odd. Like an unnamed dark god smiling at you.
Because Atrament is not attractive. Except he is. But he’s not.
Reluctantly, I move to the other side of the pond, away from the horses, and summon my magic. It comes eagerly to my hand, raw and wild, and more intense than usual. I struggle to keep hold of it. It’s just so… squirmy. Like it’s never where I expect it to be.
I pull.
Aether courses through me and the ground creaks and I pull upwards with my left hand. With the Warden, I’d just pulled up and not cared what shape it took. This I need to wrestle into something like a pole. I squish the magic until a crudely shaped, twisty, deformed conjured crystal spear pushes out of the ground, sending up a cloud of the red dust.
I cough and bat the dust away.
“That is ugly as hell,” Rot comments, suddenly beside me.
I give the dust another swipe with my hand. “Yeah. Looks like wet pottery.”
“It looks like an old sailor’s diseased cock.”
I summon a second spear, which is uglier than the last and not quite even with the other, but Atrament says it will do. He and Rot tie a rope between the two, and he knots the strips around the rope so it can dry. Once it dries—which is in less than an hour—he carefully separates out half a dozen of the strands, ties the end around the rope, and looks at all of us.
“Problem?” Blood asks, tone saying if there was now a problem, Atrament was going to end up as a puddle.
Atrament says, instead, “Which one of you Imperials is least willing to have a Heart?”
Rot points at Smoke. “Easy answer.”
“Come.”
Smoke glares at Atrament.
“Play along.” Blood jerks his head towards Atrament.
Smoke doesn’t look at me.
“Your hand, please. Hold it out.”
Smoke offers his hand.
“Usually a prisoner is used for this, not someone willing, so please indulge all your resentment and unhappiness with this while I cut into you.”