by Dani Smith
Outside, Ashe stood and knocked softly at the door. Omnia’s voice rose from the other side, startled and on edge.
“Who is it?”
He cleared his throat. “It’s Ashe.”
Slowly, the door creaked open, and Omnia’s pale face peeked through the crack, her pink eyes wide. She ushered him in and shut the door quickly, bolting it behind her.
Outside, the battle cry went up. Omnia walked to the window, skirts gathered and rustling in her hands. She threw it open and stepped out onto the little lick of a balcony.
Ashe stood over Iona, looking down at the sleeping fox maiden with a gaze filled with pain. Omnia had made a comfortable nest of blankets, furs, and cushions near the cold fireplace, and Iona was curled into it like a small fragile child.
“What did he do to her?!” Ashe moaned. “Her face … ”
“What pleased him,” Omnia muttered. “Ashe, come here.”
Ashe took one last yearning look at Iona and followed Omnia out onto the balcony. The smells of summer welled up around them—sweet grass, wild roses, myrtle trees, warmed air. And diesel. It struck his senses bitterly. He looked to the hazy city skyline beyond the compound and then down at the courtyard below where three of Drake’s huge black widow war machines were scuttling up to the gates, pistons whining.
“No,” Omnia murmured. “No, no, no … ”
“He is marching today,” Ashe said.
“They’re going after that Jade,” Omnia assumed. “The real one.”
Ashe glanced at her abruptly, his dark arched brows furrowing. “What do you mean, the real one?”
Omnia laughed bitterly. “You haven’t heard? She brought him a fake crystal. When he realized it wasn’t the bauble he wanted, he did that—” She nodded back in the direction of the bedroom. “—to her.”
“He wants me and Quinn going with him,” Ashe said quietly.
Omnia spun on him, glaring, her expression bitter. “And you didn’t refuse?!” she snapped, pushing his shoulder roughly. He took a step back, his eyes averted.
“You know as well as I do that no one refuses Drake,” he muttered. “You know that better than anyone.”
“But he trusts you!” Omnia hissed between clenched teeth. “Enough to make you that girl’s handler when he isn’t around to give her a poke!”
Ashe’s gold eyes rose to her face, his gaze so sharp that she took a step back.
“I’m still not much more than a slave, like you,” he growled. “And if it isn’t too much bother, don’t talk about her in that way.”
“So, you march with Drake where?” Omnia snapped.
“You know where. To Yellowseed.”
Omnia’s eyes widened. She turned and pulled the double window shut so hard that the glass rattled in the panes.
“You will say nothing to that poor child in there,” she hissed. “Not yet. That girl has been through enough!”
“I can find that Jade,” Ashe said. “I heard you talking when I was out in the hall. If she can tell me how to find it, I can bring it back to her.”
Omnia was chewing her lip frenetically, unblinking. “You’re treading on dangerous ground, Ashe.”
“Something everyone keeps reminding me since yesterday. I’m a godsdamned warrior, Omnia. I know how to measure risk and decide how much is too much.”
“You love her, don’t you?” Omnia said quietly. “I saw it in your face the moment she was led into the meeting hall.”
Ashe looked down at the humped metal backs of the black widow machines below, his mouth twisting.
“Not sure how everyone can assume that I could just fall in love with a pretty face the moment I look at it,” he muttered. “If that’s the case, why am I not already wed to some gilly-girl down in the lower quarters of the city?”
Omnia shrugged. “Because love isn’t just about sex, and sex isn’t always about love. You and that buffoon Quinn know that better than most.”
Ashe shot her a bitter look. “Thank you kindly for your opinion, my queen … ”
Omnia rolled her eyes.
“Besides, stranger things have happened, Ashe. Love—real love—is a potion all its own, and the gods have no issue with using it to toy with those of us here down below.”
Omnia leaned back against the balcony rail, folding her arms. She looked hard at him, her mouth a thin knife slash.
“All right. All right. I will wake her up, but you ask her. And if she refuses, that will be the last word on it.”
They stole back into the room, Omnia bolting the windows and pulling the drapes behind them. Ashe stood over Iona, gazing down at her as Omnia knelt, brushing a few strands of hair back from her slave sister’s brow. Her horn shimmered an ethereal glow that was there and then gone, and Iona stirred, sighing. Her eyelids quivered, and when they opened her gaze fixed directly on Ashe. Her brows furrowed.
“Faun boy?” she murmured.
Ashe grinned despite himself. Omnia looked less pleased.
“Ashe does not typically make it his habit to disturb us,” she said tersely, “but he has a question.”
Iona sat up, brushing her long hair away from her bruised face and back over her shoulder as Ashe knelt by her nest. Her ears twitched, sensitive to every sound, and he hoped that she would not wonder about the whine of machinery in the courtyard below.
“I hope you’ll forgive me for waking you,” he said softly. “I would not have dreamed to had it not been pressing.”
Iona looked at him suspiciously, folding her arms around herself, guarded. “Did Drake send you? If he did, go away. He has done enough.”
Her words pained him, but he kept it hidden. “No. I came of my own accord, to see that you are well.”
Omnia rolled her eyes. Iona’s lip curled. “How would I be well, after what your great man did to me last night?”
Ashe shook his head desperately. “Drake is no great man of mine. I’m not much different than you.”
“I doubt that,” Iona said quietly, her gaze unflinching. “But how could you know? You aren’t a woman. Now, ask me your question, and let me and my sister rest.”
Despite her chagrin, Ashe was struck by her intelligence and her bravery. She was obviously not just a beautiful face. “Again, forgive me, but I overheard you out in the hall,” he said. “I heard you say something about your Jade.”
Iona’s face twisted then, becoming a mask of pure bitterness. “You are a snake in the grass, too, then? Off to tell Drake and earn favors?”
“NO!” Ashe cried, startled by his own intensity. “No, Iona, I have no loyalty to him! I am a servant, indentured to keep my family alive! You should understand what that means. Both of you!”
Iona looked away. Beside her, Omnia drew a painful breath, but remained silent.
“Forgive me. It’s been a terrible night,” Iona murmured.
“I know,” Ashe said softly. “I can’t imagine.”
She blinked shyly up at him. “Your family, you say they’re still alive?”
Ashe nodded. “Yes. I’m sure of it. I traded my freedom for their safety. I have no doubt that yours still live, as well.”
“Then I, too, will have to have faith,” she said softly as she joined her hands and a twist of lavender light flickered to life between them. Ashe stared, breathless, as the swirling fractal glow flickered and glimmered, dancing within the curved cup of her palms, taking shape. He found himself looking at the image of a gracefully carved stone pedestal, its base lithe and elegant. Little specks of glowing foxfire sparked from it, as if it were going to wink out at any moment, and Ashe stared at it hard, determined to commit it to memory before it winked out of existence.
“This fount is hidden in the Tomb of Saints, under the statue of Kitsune, the All Mother. You’ll find the Jade inside it if you speak this word.”
She said something that sounded feathery and mystical, like the breath of a zephyr. Ashe closed his eyes and listened as she repeated the magic speech three times, assigning it to th
e image of the holy fount that she had shown him. When he opened them again, she was gazing intensely at him.
“If Drake catches you with it, I’m done for,” she said quietly. “Omnia is done for. We all are done for. Please be careful and see that my mistress and apprentice sister, Tabia, are safe.”
Ashe nodded. “I will. I promise. Thank you for trusting me.”
She smiled wanly, and a little color bloomed in her bruised cheeks. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”
Chapter 8
Shale City loomed with a weird, ragged clarity in the bright summer sunlight before them. As Ashe rode his motorbike—a stout, swift thing that skirted quickly over the cobble, dirt, and asphalt streets—the forests that surrounded the city to the north, east, and south beckoned with a treasure to be found.
The city was alive around them, neighborhoods and open-air markets thrumming with activity. Stone and brick tenements crowded the streets they rushed through, leaning precariously in some places, their chimneys belching dark smoke into the aching blue sky where airships floated like great slow-moving beasts. They blew past old hospitals shuttered for decades, dark clubs and bars, and factories where machines clanked and roared. They rode into the central market, redolent with the smells of hot oil and fried fish, strange spices, leather and steel and animal dung, past food stalls and tents hawking everything from pottery to toys to mechanical parts. The throngs of Horned crowding the streets as they went about their daily grind swept aside to let the small army pass, shouting gleefully, cheering as their chief rode by. Small children waved and laughing women blew kisses from high windows above the market. Ashe felt a weird gust of claustrophobia strike him. He rode harder, thinking only of reaching the trees, of breaking free of this crowded, poisoned place.
Quinn rode beside him on a similar bike, his long donkey’s ears flapping in the wind. He was laughing and hooting, sunlight dappling him through the first overhanging branches above as they swept past the last wall that surrounded the city and into the quiet woodlands beyond. Ashe became acutely aware that they had left behind the maze of brick warehouses, tall concrete and stone towers, belching factories, and trash blown streets that had become his home. He sucked in the cool, sweet air as if it meant his life.
Drake rode behind them at the head of his small Doomhand army, nestled into the riding globe of one of his colossal spider machines; two more were guided by Snow and Thorn. The trio of monstrous eight-legged horrors moved with a fierce, deadly precision, tearing through thickets and scattering throngs of terrified birds into the bright, cloud-scrubbed sky. Their sharp spindly legs tore apart thick knots of brush and pushed over groves of trees; their roots yanked wholly from the earth. Ashe gritted his teeth and gunned his throttle, aware that the machine he rode was just another part of this madness. The tires of his bike kicked up clots of dirt and grass and tore through little streams that had trickled undisturbed for centuries. The Doomhands brought destruction, and Ashe had become a part of it. As he rode, he thought of Iona and how she had looked lying asleep when he had come into Drake’s rooms, her hair a blazing waterfall, her full bosom rising and falling gently. Her eyelashes quivering against her cheeks as she dreamed.
Dream of me, sweet fox, he thought.
“There!” Quinn shouted over the din of machinery, shattering Ashe’s reverie. He pointed at a break in the trees ahead. Behind them, the spiders wrenched a few more trees from the ground, scattering dirt and stones, and Ashe heard Drake cackle.
Chapter 9
Tabia stepped from the Monastery of The Elder Orchard, shading her eyes from the blinding sunlight.
Down the blue-veined marble steps she could see the last remaining inhabitants of the village of Yellowseed limping about. The terrible event that had struck only a week before had left all their men slaughtered, and the few women and children left went about with shell-shocked faces and empty eyes. Many of the remaining survivors had already packed up and left to trek across the mountains to the east in hopes that they would reach a new safe haven before summer turned to winter. Tabia was certain that those remaining would eventually do the same.
Yellowseed had stood for the better part of six hundred years, its timber and stone houses both robust and delicate with their slate roofs and paper-lined sliding wooden doors, its gardens lush and fragrant with sprawls of jewel-green ivy and flowering vines sprouting across those sturdy walls. Now, there was nothing left of their village but broad swaths of burned land where houses had once stood, and a few shabbily erected tents where survivors huddled miserably. Their gardens had been trampled, and the air was acrid with the stench of burned wood and cremated remains. Soft ash drifted here and there on the summer breeze.
Not all had been lost. Behind Tabia, the monastery at the center of town still rose like a beacon, granite and marble shining in the brightness of a summer’s day, its arched entrance bearded with soft green moss. The ancient apple orchard that had given the temple its name still stood just behind the colossal building, with its great twisted trees and the mythic silver fruit hanging from those branches. If Tabia were to step back inside, she would be surrounded by the scents of cinnamon and patchouli, of ancient books and glowing candles, and below that, magic; a peaceful power, one that had allowed the last Kit tribe this side of the world to live in quiet splendor.
All of this would have burned, too, had it not been for Iona. Brave Iona, who had stepped in front of the Mother and offered herself in exchange for leaving the monastery standing.
Should we go now, too? Tabia thought. The Mother and I … We have no place here now.
“What are you doing so deep in thought there, child?” a soft but regal voice asked behind her. Tabia glanced over her shoulder, tucking a strand of glossy black hair behind one of her silver-furred ears.
Shiva, the nine-tailed priestess of their village, walked out onto the landing, her bare feet padding softly over the cool, blue-veined marble. She was several heads taller than Tabia, wearing a hooded robe of dark red velvet that looked stunning against her rich black skin. Eyes as green as emeralds gazed down at her apprentice with gentleness. Behind her, her magnificent white tails rose like a fan, their soft ivory fur rustling in the breeze. Despite her regal pose, the young apprentice could see that Shiva had been weeping. Tabia cleared her throat.
“I’m thinking the time has come for us to leave, Mother,” she said, adjusting her little gold-rimmed spectacles nervously. “We can go east, to the mountains. We’d be safe there—”
“I won’t leave Yellowseed until our villagers do, Tabia,” Shiva said softly, gazing off into the distance. “And not until your sister apprentice is returned to us safely.”
Tabia cleared her throat roughly. “Iona? Forgive me, mistress, but Iona is gone. For good.”
Shiva’s eyes gazed moodily off in the direction of the sea and Shale City before she turned and swept back into the monastery, her long velvet robes rustling. Tabia sighed and followed her. They walked past the two Guardian statues—lanky carved red stone foxes hung with colorful jeweled scarves—and into the quiet sanctuary beyond.
A small knot of priestesses knelt inside, chanting softly before the statue of Kitsune, the Supreme Being, sending psalms up to the goddess in an effortless chorus. The massive stone statue with its fox’s head, heavy bare breasts, and dancing open arms rose nearly as high as the ceiling. Like Shiva, the statue also had nine tails, rising behind it in a massive fan. The Mother was believed to be a living piece of Kitsune’s holiness on earth, and she took her job as the goddess’ representative with a calm but serious air. Of course, nine-tailed Iona had been chosen for the same reason, assigning her the position of senior apprentice. Tabia, with her three tails, was considered a lesser apprentice, one who would someday leave Yellowseed to serve as mistress to a smaller sanctuary elsewhere. This had often led to a quiet jealousy in Tabia, and with Iona gone, she could not help but feel the tiniest bit relieved.
They approached the great bronze chalice at t
he foot of the statue, at whose heart burned an eternal flame for the goddess. Shiva and Tabia both bowed before it, uttering soft invocations that danced and mingled with the chants of priestesses on the air.
Now it will be just me and the Mother, Tabia thought. Perhaps she will now train me in the Jade’s workings …
A sudden cry of terror erupted from outside. Tabia and Shiva wheeled around from their reverence, rushing outside. They watched as the few remaining Kit villagers ran from their tents toward the steps of the monastery. Beyond the flattened, burned out remains of their home, Tabia could hear the steady churning of machinery.
“Gods,” she heard Shiva whisper, and then the priestess’ voice rose to a powerful cry, echoing from the high temple steps and out to the frightened Kits running for their lives. “Into the sanctuary, hurry! Bring your children!”
Never assume, Mother, Tabia thought bitterly. Never assume that the pain is done.
The straggling remains of the village rushed up the steps, Kit females carrying wailing babies or pulling stumbling toddlers along. Shiva turned and swept back inside before the throng as Tabia shooed them inside. As she screamed for her fellow Yellowseeders to hurry, run faster, she glimpsed the metallic horrors that were Drake’s war machines tearing through the forest at the edge of town, scattering terrified Kits before them. She knew, this time, they were done for.
Chapter 10
Ashe would later recall the horror of the final raid at Yellowseed as some kind of foggy dream, stained around the edges with blood. There were explosions, fire, and in the end the hopeless screams of the last remaining Kits as they were snuffed from the world. The villagers who had so foolishly chosen to stay after the first raid had razed much of their town to the ground, a ragged gaggle of fox-tailed women left dazed and fragile with their children, fled the Doomhand war machines, their faces blank masks of panic as they ran through the blighted streets of their town, searching for a safe place to hide. A few of them committed suicide, taking their babies with them, slashing their throats or bashing brains out with rocks or swallowing poison potions.