An Heir to Thorns and Steel

by M. C. A. Hogarth

—had to—

  —traitor body, cruel and corrupt and never-ending—

  “Master!” Almond cried. Kelu’s hands at my wrists, Almond’s arms around my waist, but they were small, small, and I was terrible in my despair. I cast them away, the stink of blood clogged my nostrils. I had no nails to part my own skin fast enough, but I had the broken shards from the vial.

  “NO!” Almond screamed.

  Kelu groaned but didn’t reach me in time.

  I woke.

  That was what surprised me most. That I woke. The cold, the wet patter of the rain, those things I expected. But to see again, to feel the drops on my skin, the sodden drape of my coat against my back... no. I’d finally found the strength to kill myself and somehow I found myself awake again, even knowing that I’d done it. I’d felt the glass parting my skin. I’d felt the sick gush of blood, too hot, too vital.

  I’d done it. I had. Hadn’t I?

  There was an arm over my waist and a pressure at my back. When I shifted, a damp nose brushed at my shoulder, hesitant.

  “M-master?”

  I said, “Almond.” Unnecessarily, “I’m alive.”

  She started crying.

  I closed my eyes, suppressing the sigh. Then I forced myself upright and turned to her, gathering her little body into my lap and folding over her, keeping the rain off her. “Where’s Kelu?”

  “She’s h-hunting,” Almond said, sniffling. “We n-needed food....”

  “Sssh,” I said, resting my head on the top of hers, between the wet ears. Of course there was rain. Of course it was cold. “Sssh.”

  “Are we so displeasing?” Almond asked, her voice quavering. “That you would rather die than be served by us?”

  What a question. I sighed and tightened my arms around her. “It has nothing to do with you, Almond. Nothing at all.”

  “Then... what?” she asked. “Please, Master, let us help you!”

  I shook my head and opened my mouth to tell her there was nothing she could do when I saw Kelu’s face. ‘Don’t tell her to leave. She will, weeping all the while.’ I said, “I’m not sure what you can do. Yet. But... you’re warm and something about having you near makes me hurt less. That helps.”

  “Is it enough?” she whispered. She looked up at me then, and it was hard, so hard to meet her eyes. They were so innocent, too innocent to be rimmed with tears. “You... you tried to die, Master. And we have been near you all this time.”

  “I’ve had a hard few weeks,” I murmured, then pinched the bridge of my nose. A hard life to now would probably be closer to the truth. “And I am in a great deal of pain, Almond. Constant pain.”

  “This rain,” she whispered. “It can’t be helping.” She reached for me and tried to fold me into her little arms, as if she could keep my much larger body from exposure. “Let me... let me keep you dry, Master.”

  “It’s a little late for that,” I said. When she began to shake, I touched her chin and lifted her face. “A joke, Almond. A joke.”

  She sniffled, her eyes crimping. “I just want you to be h-h-happy.”

  “I know,” I said and kissed her on her brow, on the furry space between her eyes. “Thank you.”

  As she clung to me I let myself rest against her and thought that they were all I had left, these two creatures. Unfathomably they were devoted to me, after their own fashion. And for all Kelu’s spitfire ferocity and Almond’s quiet grace, neither of them could survive without me, not indefinitely.

  I could fall apart, but if I did they would suffer.

  “Well, this is pretty,” Kelu said, her body a gray silhouette in the rain. “I missed the cuddling.”

  “He’s still here,” Almond said. “Come join me.”

  The taller genet tossed a brace of conies on the ground. “So he can throw me off again? I’d rather not. We don’t heal the way elves do, remember?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t in my right mind.”

  “I noticed,” she said. “Though for someone not in his right mind you surely did a good job of laying yourself open.”

  “I lived.”

  “You wouldn’t have if you’d been human.” She dropped to the mud beside her catch and beginning to dig into the meat with her claws. “The wrists and elbows... effective but expected. But the legs, that was creative. Good thing you didn’t get too far with that or there would have been no blood left for me to drink.”

  “I confess I don’t recall.”

  “It was gruesome,” Kelu said, popping a chunk of meat into her mouth and chewing. “There was so much blood everywhere we had to drag you to a new camp. No doubt every predator in the area is sucking on the mud over there.” She cocked a brow at me. “Are you done feeling sorry for yourself?”

  I was past offense. “For now,” I said and grinned without humor. “I don’t suppose there’s any cooking that.”

  She glanced up at the rain-fretted sky and then at me. “Not unless you can conjure us shelter.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Can I?”

  “No,” she said. “Or you’d have done it by now.” She offered me a piece of raw flesh. “Dinner?”

  I shook my head. “No, thank you.”

  She shrugged. “Fine. Almond?”

  Almond squeezed me once more and slid out of my lap to join Kelu at the repast, such as it was. I watched them eat; it stripped their civilized facades from them. They only had rending teeth and ate like dogs, heads tilted and eyes half-closed as they shredded the meat. I wondered as I sat there, hugging my knees, why I felt so sane.

  Then I thought to ask, “How long has it been?”

  “Since...?” Kelu asked, licking her nose.

  “Since I collapsed,” I said.

  They looked at one another. “Almost two days, Master,” said Almond.

  “And I spent those two days...”

  “Thrashing,” Kelu said. “Or unconscious.”

  My mind had gone, then. Mercifully. If healing from being beaten had almost destroyed me, then coming back from nearly killing myself...

  If I had been out two days, why wasn’t I hungrier? Thirsty? Achy? Instead I felt... numb.

  “We’re going to have to walk to the port,” I said.

  “Yes,” Kelu said, licking her clawtips. “At least we don’t have to follow your caravan train’s route. They were stopping more places than I would have. If we go straight from here, cross-country, it won’t take us as long.”

  “You must be joking.” I was fine now, but the pain would come back.

  “If we have to drag you, we’ll do it again,” she said. “You won’t be very pretty at the end of it, but we’ll manage.”

  Almond glanced at her, ears akimbo. I shared her misgivings.

  “You sleepy?” Kelu asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Good,” she said. “Because there’s another matter we have to discuss.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  She sat across from me, cross-legged, her hands on her knees. The rain had plastered her hair to her shoulders and her fur to her skin, revealing the frailty of her body. They had muscle, the genets, and Kelu more than Almond, but nothing could change the slender bone structure, almost childlike. To have such a delicate body with such an unlikely coating of fur and then such fierce and intelligent eyes... the incongruity of it was arresting. I did not know that I liked these elves, but I felt wonder anew at what they had created.

  “You can’t go on speaking Lit,” she said. “Human languages are the languages of slaves and servants. You need to start learning Angel’s Gift.”

  While languages were not my forte, particularly when compared to the facility of someone like Chester, I did find them fascinating... perhaps unavoidably, with an ambassador for a father. “I suppose that’s a good idea. Being able to speak with my hosts would be useful. I don’t know how much you expect me to learn in the time we have, though.”

  “As much as you possibly can, and then some,” Kelu said. “
If you want to survive.”

  I tilted my head. “Hyperbole’s unnecessary, you know. You don’t have to make it sound dire in order to induce me to learn.”

  Kelu flicked her ears back. “You think I’m lying? If you walk off that dock without being able to introduce yourself properly to Lady Amoret, she’ll toss you in the kitchens.”

  “I’d hardly be of any use to her there,” I said, amused. “I can make toast and tea, but there you find the limits of my cooking abilities.”

  “As food,” Kelu said. “Elves feed off of human energy.”

  I wasn’t willing to press her on how much of her descriptions were truth and how much of them shaped by her abuse at the hands of her masters. That they were abusive was all I needed to know. “Very well,” I said. “This Angel’s Gift. You’ll teach me?”

  She nodded. “And Almond. And we’ll start now. And as much as possible, we won’t speak in your language at all.”

  “Let’s start with the word for pain, then,” I said.

  Kelu studied me a moment, her eyes narrowed and thoughtful. Then she smiled grimly, with teeth. “Good choice.”

  I slept that night between the two of them, wet pelts, wet clothes, the rain dripping on us. My dreams were a confusion of clamminess, velvet, teeth, and aches, and I woke so stiff I couldn’t move, not even to nudge the genets aside so I could attempt to rise. I struggled, but my clothing felt leaden, like weights I didn’t have the strength to lift. I could barely breathe past the layers on my chest.

  As I lay there with my panic, trying to slow my breathing, I became aware of a... feeling. I mistook it for hunger, until I realized I was not hungry. Then thirst, but the thought of drinking did not assuage it. My body whined, the very flesh beneath my skin seeming to yearn outward for something just beyond reach. I wanted to writhe in my own skin, wanted to fight the joint pain and the nausea and the exhaustion to try to slither out of myself.

  Beside me, Almond yawned, little pink tongue curling between her petite fangs. She licked my shoulder and murmured in the elven tongue, “Good morning, Master.” And then, switching to Lit, “...are you well?”

  “I need to get up,” I said. “Help me up.”

  Startled, she rose and gripped my arm. I leaned on her and staggered to my feet. It didn’t help me feel better, so I paced. Every step sent a scream through my body. I ignored it. There were things worse than pain, and this qualified. This restlessness. This sense that I was missing something.

  Almond watched me, hugging her arms and ears flagging. The sullen sky lit her poorly, made the gold dapples on her body seem dingy, like a used-up rag. It was an improvement on the rain, but only barely.

  “Are you hungry?” she tried, hesitant.

  Was I? “No,” I said. “Yes.” I clenched my teeth. “Nauseated.”

  “It’s good to see you on your feet,” she said. “Are you sure you feel well?”

  “No,” I said. I sighed. “I feel wrong.”

  A sleepy Kelu opened her eye and brushed the hair from her face. To Almond, she said, “We have to get him to the port.”

  Almond nodded. “Can you walk, Master?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” I asked testily.

  “That way, then,” Kelu said, pointing. “We’ll catch up.”

  I thinned my eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Kelu shrugged and stretched, clambered to her feet. “You won’t like it.”

  “I’m shocked,” I said. “Tell me anyway.”

  Kelu looked at Almond, then back at me and said, “You need the opium.”

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  She began walking, Almond scampering in her wake. “You’ve been overdoing it,” she said. “And now you need it.”

  “A few days doesn’t make you a drug addict!” I exclaimed, limping after them.

  “Not all drugs, no,” Kelu said. “And not all people. But you weren’t taking a small amount of something very strong. You stank of it, and there was so much in your blood you put me at risk.”

  I gaped at her back, at the mud-draggled tail. “That’s not possible.”

  “We should be able to find you some in the city,” Kelu said. “The shipmaster’s good with that, he can ask around. He might have some laudanum, even. That will keep you until we find something stronger.”

  Almond dropped back to take my arm. I didn’t even notice leaning on her as I stumbled after Kelu. “You can’t be talking about feeding this,” I said. “If it’s even true that I’ve developed a... a dependency.”

  “There’s no ‘if’,” Kelu said, her bare feet squelching on the muddy ground. “Drugs are a habit in the Archipelago. We’ve both seen people go through this cycle.”

  I looked down at Almond, wide-eyed, but the smaller genet refused to meet my gaze.

  “This must be a joke,” I muttered.

  Almond patted my arm. “You did it for understandable reasons, Master,” she said. “You are in terrible pain. That is better than for entertainment.”

  “What does it matter?” I said. “Ennui or necessity, it means I’m weak.”

  “The word for weak is luushl,” Kelu said.

  “This is not the time for a language lesson!”

  “It’s a long walk,” Kelu said. “And I’m not going to talk to you unless you talk in the Angel’s Gift.”

  “You didn’t give me that much vocabulary or grammar!” I exclaimed.

  “Make do,” Kelu said.

  Frustrated, I used the one word I knew and tangled it in Lit. “/Why/ is it called Angel’s Gift?”

  She repeated the sentence for me. I managed to parrot it back to her satisfaction. She nodded and said, “Because they say that an angel taught the elves to speak it. They say it’s the language of heaven.”

  “But—”

  “Speak in the Gift,” she said.

  “You aren’t!”

  “Teacher’s privilege,” she said.

  “/There is.../” I trailed off, struggling with my extremely limited vocabulary. “/The elves.../ believe in heaven?”

  “Of course,” Almond said, serene. “Where else do angels come from?”

  “Angels,” I said.

  “If there are demons,” Almond said, “there have to be angels.”

  “And there are demons,” I said, bemused.

  “The words for all these concepts,” Kelu said, “listen closely. I’m not going to tell you twice.”

  Dutifully I repeated them for her. “/There are/ human stories of /angels and demons/,” I said. “I didn’t think there were /elven/ ones.”

  “Your accent is atrocious,” Kelu said, and translated what I’d said for me.

  “/Angels,/” I said. “/Why angels?/”

  “What do you mean, why?” Kelu asked.

  There would be no putting this concept through my limited set of words in their language. “No culture develops a set of supernatural creatures without a reason. They exist to explain something, to serve as a metaphor, to give rise to ritual and tradition. Why do the elves have angels?”

  “Because they’re real,” Almond said.

  I laughed.

  But neither of them laughed with me. Almond’s head drooped and she trudged alongside me without speaking; even Kelu fell silent. I looked from the crown of Almond’s head to the back of Kelu’s and said, “Surely you can’t tell me they exist. Have you seen an angel? A demon?”

  “At least you’re as arrogant as an elf,” Kelu said. “It’s a pity you’re arrogant about the wrong things.”

  “But myths—”

  “They’re not myths,” Almond said. “They’re real. Just like we’re real, and elves are real and humans and dragons and sea-snakes.”

  “Stories,” I began, and Kelu corrected me. I plunged on. “/Stories./ I accept /elves,/ but /angels/?”

  “They exist,” Kelu said.

  “But why?” I asked.

  “Because demons do,” Almond murmured.

  “Enough,”
Kelu said. “He doesn’t understand. We’ll just go back to the language lesson.”

  I began to protest, then shrugged. They wouldn’t admit to having never seen an angel or a demon, but badgering them about it seemed cruel. Humanity had its own beliefs, of course, but we were moving away from the superstitions of the Church; even among my friends only Ivy and Chester believed.

  No, all cultures have myths for a reason, and the elves were apparently no exception. I found it charming that they believed that angels had given them their language, but not altogether surprised. It had the hallmarks of their particular arrogance.

  Still, I wondered... if the elves truly couldn’t die, as the genets purported, then what did the elves need with a heaven?

  The language lesson continued unabated as we stumbled northward across the ragged terrain, beneath the cloud-choked sky. The restlessness propelled me onward despite the pain, and Kelu’s spite and rebukes were so infuriating that I continued on well past my normal endurance.

  But in the end I fell, as I knew I must, as they surely knew I must. I put my foot down and my knee didn’t hold and I lurched, and failed the recovery. The moment my shoulder smacked against the earth I knew I would not rise again. Stars swallowed my vision and I scrabbled for Almond’s hands.

  “Help,” I whispered, beyond pride.

  “We’re here, Master,” she murmured, and it was the last I heard.

  I drowned in my delirium, consumed by the fire-edged glass. If it could bend or flex, it hurt. It hurt past enduring. Even crying burned until the rims of my eyes grew swollen.

  “... there, now, up with you, fellow—”

  Something at my lips, cool and bitter.

  “—all the way, there you are—”

  I drank and drank, and the drinking calmed me... so that later, much later, when I found myself slung over a man’s brawny shoulder I felt far less alarm than was perhaps wonted. I formed the question but it must not have come out properly.

  “What’s that, then?”

  “‘o are... you?”

  The man laughed. “Just go back to sleep, little scholar, there’s a good man.”

  He seemed sensible. I collapsed back into black unconsciousness.

  The second time I woke I thought I was still asleep from the darkness I perceived... but no, there was a plum purple gradient in the west upon which the stars rode like distant shards of crystal. Evening, then. Closer to nightfall. It was the rise and fall of those stars that alerted me first that I was still on this patient man’s shoulder.