by Elise Kova
“Gird your tongue.” His jabs had been slowly losing their edge with each passing week.
“Cain, we both know we’re at a stalemate. You’ll do nothing to me because you can’t—I’m too precious to your House. I’ll do nothing to you because, even if I could take you down, I’d never get out of here alive.” She gave him an opening to refute the claim, which he didn’t, because he couldn’t. “Drop the bravado already. I’m not questioning your loyalty. I’m merely asking for your opinion.”
He looked back at the paintings with new consideration.
“The one of Lord Xin is magnificent. It truly is… However, I find the one of Lord Pak calls to me more.”
“Lord Pak?” Arianna studied the painting to the right of the veiled god. It was done entirely in grays. If she tilted her head to the side, she could perhaps make out a face, not quite Fenthri, not quite Dragon. It was familiar and unknown, a depth that threatened to embrace but never relinquish.
“The Dark-wielder,” Cain clarified. “I was born under his month.”
Before the clouds had been breached, Loom had no concept of sun or moon. The idea that a glowing orb of light floated across the sky was still unnerving to Arianna each morning she rose to look upon it. The large moon was no better in its pale and contrasting glow.
Beneath the clouds, the light was muted, diffused. Once in a rare while the clouds thinned enough to betray a potentially circular source of light, but what it was had every Guild guessing for hundreds of years. That said, Loom still knew of the moon’s cycles. There were periods of bright nights and periods of dark nights. Arianna remembered the first time she’d looked upon sketches of the moon’s phases, thinking about the inexplicable sense it made for some sort of hanging heavenly body to change its shape.
As a result of the “dark nights,” the evolution of Loom’s calendar had developed a similar pattern to Nova’s. Twenty cycles of the moon making up twenty months in a year, the end and beginning punctuated by a full day of light.
On Loom, the months were merely numbered—a simple, logical system of ordered progression. On Nova, the months were named like everything else, difficult to remember and seemingly random.
“What number month is that?” Arianna asked.
Cain regarded her cautiously, as if the question could have some sort of veiled meaning. “The tenth.”
She grinned madly.
“What?” Cain frowned, obviously expecting her to make a joke of some aspect of his culture.
“You and I share the same month.”
“We have the same Patron?” Cain seemed aghast at the notion.
“That seems to be the case.” Arianna delighted in his discomfort about them having anything in common. “What day were you born?”
“The tenth.”
She inwardly cursed: couldn’t have been lucky enough to have the same day. That would be enough to drive the man mad for months. “The seventh.” Perhaps it was a mark of the overall improvement in their relationship that she didn’t lie to him. They began walking again and Arianna let the conversation shift. “Why are there only three Dragon Houses, if there are twenty possible patrons?”
“There were more, thousands of years ago. But the others were killed off until only three remained. House Tam proposed a system to keep things equal among the Houses with one overseer and two Houses to keep them in check. A sort of peace treaty,” Cain explained. “Once every decade or two, some bold upstart works up the notion to have his own House, supposedly called to task by some Patron.”
“But the three in power never let that happen.”
He gave her a nod of affirmation, and silence passed between them once more. She began to steer them in a new direction. Each day she’d used the conversation to distract him long enough to let them wander somewhere new. They strayed from what she’d come to suspect was the “approved path,” into new areas of the Xin Manor. Arianna had yet to find the glider, but she would eventually. And, once she knew the route, she would not be long for Nova.
“How did you learn Fennish?” They had yet to speak in the Dragon’s tongue. It served Arianna better for him to think she couldn’t understand his whispered Royuk to servants about her and her care, or the conversations she could pick up as they passed through the halls.
“Petra’Oji wants all Da and higher in the House to be educated in the ways of Loom.”
Arianna snorted, earning herself a sour look. “If you are as ‘educated’ as Cvareh was before he came to Loom, then your understanding of Fenthri ends at a rough attempt at our language.”
Cain considered her a long moment. Arianna held his golden gaze, unafraid and challenging. Let him try to dissuade her. Let him speak one word counter to her point.
But he remained silent and—dare she say it?—thoughtful.
Shortly after, Cain realized they’d strayed from the course and promptly returned her to her room. No further words were exchanged on the way, but Arianna had learned enough. Judging from the scent, the halls they’d traversed were near the kitchen, and that was not what she was looking for. She needed to pick up the metallic tang of gears and oil. But perhaps that was looking for something that couldn’t be found on Nova. They seemed to have everything but workshops and laboratories.
“Is there something else?”
Cain lingered after he’d released her illusion. Two of the fingers in his hand had broken from holding the magic for so long and they were slowly knitting back into place. “Why have you not yet tried to escape?”
“Escape to where?” If he had a genuine answer to her question, she wanted to hear it. “I can’t fly, I have no glider, no boco—”
“You escaped your room the first day.”
“Only to be returned here.”
“Then you escaped again.”
“Only to be returned here again,” she reiterated.
“I took you for bolder.”
Was there genuine disappointment in his tone? “I’m merely biding my time,” she threatened with a smile.
He faltered. That was the thing about effective threats: they must possess a grain of truth. In this case, it was completely transparent.
“Whatever you’re planning, it will not get past me.”
“Like you didn’t let me escape either of the other times?” Arianna bared her teeth at the man.
His claws shot out but retracted just as quickly. She’d punched a nice nerve. “You no longer have that machination. You will need to depart through the door—a door I guard.”
“You should pray to each of your twenty gods that’s not the case. Because if it is, it will only mean that yours will be the first heart I cut out when the time comes.”
Cain growled. Arianna’s hand was limp at her side, ready to summon her dagger to her palm. If he wanted a fight, she would give him one while there were no others to interfere. His magic flared brightly, assaulting her senses with the smell of wet earth.
But it diminished quickly, fading into nothing more than frustration and a fearsome scowl. The Dragon retreated, slamming the door behind him like a petulant child. Arianna sighed heavily, turning to the window.
She had yet to tire of staring at the sun. For all it hurt her eyes and seared her vision, she was fascinated by its circular presence.
It was also a reminder: Arianna was very far from home, and understood little of the world surrounding her.
12. Florence
The engine that was going to propel them through the dense and dangerous wood known as the Skeleton Forest had seen better days. Better years actually. Long, long-ago years. It was an old and rusted thing, paint peeled at every corner and orange lines of oxidation ran down its sides. Florence didn’t have to be a Rivet to know that the make and model dated before she was even born.
It should be in a museum, or an artifact graveyard, not the overgrown tracks they
were supposed to be traveling on.
Even with her minimal training as a Raven, Florence could see the signs of wear that time had abused into the exposed metal. The cranks between the wheels looked brittle and the pistons were in no better shape. The actual Raven of their group, Anders, had been tearing out his hair over it for the past week trying to get it up to par. Florence wished he looked a little more confident now, running his final checks.
“Where did we even find this thing?” Derek asked no one in particular.
“I feel like some questions are better left unanswered.” Nora threw her rucksack into the car that would be their moving home for the next few weeks as they traversed down through Ter.2 into Ter.1. The train was only three parts long—the engine, the tender, the car—and no two parts looked as though they’d come from the same machine yard.
“Flor, come help me with this!” Anders called from the front.
Florence glanced between her chests and the direction the voice had come from.
“We’ll load it up,” Derek offered.
“Carefully,” Florence cautioned. “Or you’re going to blow us straight to Nova.”
“If there’s anything that temperamental in here, we have no chance of making it to Ter.1. I doubt this is going to be a smooth ride.” Nora grabbed for one side of the chest.
“Still, be careful,” Florence called over her shoulder, making her way up to the engine. “Anders?”
“Flor, pass me a wrench.” The man held out a hand from where he was wedged under the engine. “There’s a small disconnect here to the cylinder I want to fix and Rotus is up bothering with the whistle. Not that I know why we even need a whistle. If we encounter another train on these tracks we have bigger problems to worry about…”
Florence passed the Raven his tools as he muttered commands. She watched him tinker and toil, remembering all the times she’d seen Will and Helen do the same when they were younger. Florence wondered where her friends were now, what vessel they were currently obsessed with.
“This is almost on tight… Can you check up on the safety valve while I finish up?”
“I don’t think you want me doing that…”
“It’ll save us time, and I want to get well down the tracks before midday.”
“Yes, but I’m not—”
“You were born in the Ravens, no?”
“Yes, but—”
“How long were you there?”
“Fourteen years. But—”
“More than enough time to understand a safety valve,” he insisted.
“I left for a reason.” Florence chewed the inside of her cheek to keep herself from chewing out Anders and creating tensions before they’d even started on their journey.
Anders paused, sticking his head out enough to inspect her properly. “Do you understand it or not?”
“Not confidently…” The truth was Florence did understand it, in principle. But she didn’t want anyone depending on her work when it came to anything but guns and explosives. And even when it came to those, she didn’t have the best resume for a gunsmith.
“We all understand things a little better when our lives depend on it.” Anders passed her a tool and Florence reluctantly accepted it before climbing up to where the safety valve was located at the top of the engine.
Her handiwork appeared to be sufficient, and within the hour they were chugging down the tracks, set along a southerly course. Florence, Nora, Derek, and Rotus took turns helping Anders manage the engine. For the most part, that involved shoveling coal and calling out numbers on gauges.
It was shocking to Florence how ineffective purely steam-based travel was compared to magically augmented vessels. The train was so old that there wasn’t a speck of gold on it, and the metal was too rare for the Alchemists to have invested in attaching some before they left. But Anders was an older man, Florence would guess in his late twenties, so he was raised in a time on the fringe of the wide proliferation of magic. Where Florence was unnerved, he was relaxed behind the wheel. Or as relaxed as one could hope to be in a rattling death trap.
Florence was surprised the train held itself together well enough to grind the wheels to life and pull the two cars day after day. It was an imperfect process that changed regularly. Things broke, and repairs had to be creative solutions. She was continually selected as the extra set of hands over Derek or Nora. Anders reasoned it was because of her birth guild. Rotus reasoned it was because she’d studied under a Master Rivet.
After the first week, she stopped all form of protest. She had worked with Arianna enough times on various clockwork gadgets to trust herself when given direction. Each morning she’d get up early with one of the two men and help them with any daily maintenance.
The trees towered around them, encroaching tightly on the untended tracks. Florence watched them whiz by in the fading light. Her eyes lacked focus that reflected her blank mind.
“What is it like in Ter.5?” Derek asked as he plopped down next to her, ungracefully due to the swaying of the train.
“The trees are smaller.” They passed the hours doing almost anything to stave off boredom. This was the carbon copy of a conversation they’d had before. But they’d have it again over the endless symphony of chugging metal and grinding wheels. “The land isn’t really flat, not unless you’re by the coast.”
“And Ter.4?”
“More flat land there.” Florence tried to dredge up memories of the Territory she was born in, but all that came to mind was the great, moving guild hall of the Ravens. A perpetually changing, ever-moving structure from all the tracks and raceways that curved through its many levels. “Though I haven’t ever really explored it.”
“Just the Underground?” He already knew the story.
“Just the Underground.”
“What’s that like?”
“Dark and terrifying.” Florence had no good memories of the Underground. She’d almost died both times she’d ventured beneath Ter.4.
“I can’t imagine anywhere more terrifying than the depths of the Skeleton Forest.” Derek followed her blank stare out the open door of the train car to the whizzing trees. Darkness remained nestled within them, uninviting.
Florence shook her head. “There’s light here. There’s sky, and up, and down, and headway to be made. In the Underground there is simply blackness. Inky, endless, blackness… and Wretches.”
“Perhaps the endwig are nothing more than forest Wretches?”
“You’d know better than I, Alchemist.”
“We don’t regularly find them in a state we can dissect. Or we would.”
Florence inwardly cringed at the idea. Her hands were kept busy with the revolver in her hands, diligently oiling it. Every day it had its turn, following the rifle slung over her back. “What are the endwig like?”
“Nightmare given flesh.” Derek’s tone was instantly grave.
“Have you seen them before?” Florence studied his face with fascination. It was an expression she knew, one of world-shaking horror—a death shroud pulled taut over one’s features, even if they escaped its clutches. She knew the answer before she even asked the question.
“Only once, from a distance. They hunt in the twilight hours; it was my mistake for even being out then.”
“What happened?”
“A nightmare.”
Florence knew she would get nothing more from him, and she didn’t pry. It would be like someone asking her to recreate the sound of the Wretches’ pincers, or describe the glow of their mutated saliva as it cut through the darkness like the most ominous beacon one could possibly imagine. She wasn’t that cruel.
The conversation faded with the light and the train’s steam. They coasted to a stop along the tracks, not risking wearing down their brakes for no good reason. By the time they jumped out of the nearly immobile vehicle, dusk was nea
rly upon them.
Nora made the fire that they would all sit around. Anders and Rotus were exhausted from managing the train, and did little. Derek kept Florence company as they ventured into the silent woods in search of game, hastily avoiding the impending twilight.
His hearing was better than hers. Pointed and ruby red, he had the ears of a Dragon instead of a Fenthri. Even though Florence found her senses heightened since the introduction of magic—years of ringing from explosions smoothed away due to the healing powers of her new blood—her aural acuity was nothing compared to his. They stalked quietly through the brush in the direction of a water source.
Derek would collect the water while Florence hunted their dinner. She was the best shot of the group and had yet to fail them. Creatures crowded around the streams and brooks that wound through the forest. She’d never hunted before this excursion, but it proved no more difficult than target practice.
Point, aim, shoot.
She adjusted her grip on her rifle, scanning the brush for any signs of life. A fat hare, a small deer, a wild boar—it made no difference. With her gun in hand, they were all made equal.
The rush of water over stones permeated the foliage, blending with the sound of rustling leaves. They broke through the brush and crossed onto a rocky bank. Florence scanned the edge of the small river they had come across.
“I don’t see anything.” She sighed heavily. “I’m going to track upstream a bit.”
“Don’t go too far, it’s almost twilight.”
“Just around the bend.” She kept her voice low to avoid scaring off any potential quarry in the distance.
“I’ll wait for you.” He slung the water bladders off his shoulder and they fell to the ground with a dull splat. Derek began to unscrew them, his skin almost the same shade as the dark leather in the fading light.
“I won’t wander,” Florence promised. She knew the dangers of wandering. It was what had separated her and Arianna in the Underground. She would only stay along the stream.
Derek vanished behind her as she trekked onward. Time and again, Florence ran her hands over the hinges of her rifle. She felt the tension in the trigger, assuring her that it was cocked and ready. She needed just one creature, and she could return back victorious.