by Elise Kova
“Keep your pilfered magic,” Leona sneered, starting for the door. Camile was silently in step, her claws still extended.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Leona paused. “You see, I happen to be the main contractor of the White Wraith. So I know a few things you may want to hear about how he conducts his business.”
Leona squinted at the hustler. She would be impressed if he wasn’t a Fen. “Name your price.”
“I want a living Dragon.”
“Too steep,” Leona scoffed. She knew what men like him would do. They would chain up the Dragon and pick them apart slowly, slow enough that the Dragon would re-grow flesh and organs to be harvested again indefinitely.
“Then another corpse—a strong one.”
“If your information is worthwhile.” Leona could think of a few members of House Xin she’d like to throw down to Loom for this scavenger to lick clean. And there were always those with no rank—they were practically born to be organ fodder.
The man sat in his chair, a tiny throne for the pitiful king of a worthless scrap of dirt. “The first thing you must remember is the name Florence.”
16. CVAREH
He had always been taught that Fenthri didn’t have magic. Dragons turned up their noses at the plain creatures of Loom, the hardened, stony residents of the rock below who lacked raw power surging through their veins.
It was the Dragons that had been the fools.
Cvareh had never seen a Fenthri work. The few Chimera that had been brought up to Nova to maintain imported golden machines were kept almost exclusively at the Rok estate; he who held the gold held the power in the sky world above. The Chimera slaves were kept out of sight, trusted to do what they must to keep the devices that had become so integral to Nova running.
On the third day into their voyage, the Holx III had suffered engine troubles. Problems with the pistons set the crew to scrambling, and Arianna stepped in. The woman hoisted wrenches as large as his calf, sweat rolling lines through the soot and oil caked on her flesh. She worked tirelessly through the night, changing out lines, welding, creating tools from scratch.
Cvareh was only below decks to support with his magic as needed. Arianna had been reluctant to ask him, but Florence was insistent after the fifth hour. Cvareh knew why the second he arrived.
Arianna’s strong shoulders were beginning to sag and her posture was slacker than the normal board-straight height she usually carried herself with. Running back and forth between drafting tables in the small cabin attached to the engine room and maintaining her patches while she rambled off numbers in search of a permanent solution had taken its toll. Arianna didn’t have energy to expend on magical pursuits. So when something golden needed to be lifted, or turned just so, Cvareh was there.
Arianna stepped away from the iron, brass, and gold monster she’d been wrestling with all night. The ship’s Rivet handed her a soiled cloth, which she uselessly wiped her hands with. The woman was absolutely filthy.
“Cvareh,” she summoned him without turning. “Strike the flywheel.”
Cvareh stared at the tube of gold attached to the shaft of the mechanism. With a mental command he drove down its weight. It pushed against the shaft, turning the flywheel to life.
“All right, Pops, try the combustion pistons now!” Arianna had to practically scream to be heard over the sounds of the engine groaning to life.
The ship’s Rivet—Pops, as everyone called him—raised his thumb in the air as some symbol of affirmation. With the help of another crewmate he engaged a different set of machines. Somehow, despite all the noise, Cvareh heard Arianna’s sharp intake of breath. She held it, waiting with as much tension as a harp string.
After a few minutes, the woman put her hands on her hips triumphantly. She curled her lips in a flat-lined smile of admiration at the engine. Cvareh didn’t find it beautiful, not compared to the breathtaking aesthetics of Nova. But there was something…lovely, in her admiration of the thing she had created.
The flywheel spun, pistons fired, and the noise increased until Arianna finally turned. She rested an oily palm on his shoulder. Another shirt ruined.
Her lips moved, but he couldn’t make out the sound over the cacophony of the engine.
“What?” Cvareh tilted his head, shouting in her ear. His eyes focused on the patch of skin at the corner of her jaw, usually hidden by her thick hair. The white strands were clumped with sweat and clinging to her neck. A faint scar ran around the base of an ear that had been capped with steel to prevent it from re-growing pointed—an ear that was a dusty sky color. A House Xin shade of blue.
“I said let’s get above decks.” She slapped his shoulder, unaware of his revelation, and led the way.
Cvareh was a step behind, not wanting to make his sudden discomfort obvious. It was only logical that, as a Chimera, she could have some parts from a Dragon that belonged to some rung of his House. He knew she engaged in organ trafficking. So why would it suddenly bother him?
Pops met them topside. “I don’t know what we would’ve done without you.”
“You would’ve figured it out, I’m sure.” Arianna rubbed sweat from her face with the back of her hand.
“I’m not certain about that.” The weathered sailor’s dark leathery skin folded around his smile. “I’ve been on this ship for twenty years now, making these runs. We’ve only had people ask to work aboard in exchange for passage thirty or so times… But not one has been a master.”
Arianna stilled. Cvareh felt her muscles tense. She fought the instinct in her wrists to seek out her daggers. The longer he spent with the woman, the easier she was to read.
“Your mark is washing off, miss,” Pops clarified.
Arianna brought her hand to her cheek, recognizing that not all the grease on her hands was from the engine. “What will the captain do?”
“Cap is a fair man. He won’t throw an illegal on a dingy to row back to Ter.5 after she just saved us from being trapped behind schedule.” The old man buried his hands in his pockets, more amused than anything. “You’re young for a master. Who was your teacher?”
“Master Oliver.”
Cvareh hadn’t heard the name before. He wondered if she still realized he hovered. And then put a quick stop to the wondering; Arianna was a keen woman, constantly aware. He wouldn’t discredit her by thinking she could have somehow forgotten her surroundings like that.
“Master Oliver.” Pops shook his head, humming quietly over the name. “One of the best.”
“He was the best,” Arianna corrected adamantly.
“What ever became of him?” the older Rivet inquired.
“He died.”
“I assumed…” Pops’s words faded into the silence, inviting Arianna to continue. She didn’t. “Well, he passed on his learning to hundreds, and his mastery. Those are the marks of a good life.”
Arianna nodded her head a fraction. Pops walked in one direction, she in the other. The woman started up a narrow metal stair for the walk above the engine room, around the smokestack.
Cvareh followed.
“What do you want?” Arianna placed her elbows on the metal of the deck rail, rested the small of her back against it, and looked up toward the sky.
“You must be exhausted. Why not go to bed?”
Arianna snorted in amusement, arching a curious eyebrow at him. It clearly conveyed the weight she placed on his supposed concern for her wellbeing. Cvareh rolled his eyes, leaning on the railing as well, and looked out to sea instead.
“I’m watching the smokestack.” Her voice was void of any bite. It was almost the same tone she reserved for Florence. “I want to make sure we’re up and running again before I go collapse.”
“Good of you to do for people who could turn you in for being unmarked the moment we dock.”
“Ooh, cynical. You’ve been around me too long.” There was an almost Dragon-like wildness to her grin. Cvareh chuckled and shook his head. “But they won’t turn us in.”
&nb
sp; “How can you be so certain?”
“They’re honest men and women.” She shrugged. “I believe what Pops said about the captain.”
“A thief concerned about honor.” He laughed.
“Honor is what I fight for—honor, justice, freedom, and above all, Loom.”
“I didn’t take you for such an idealist.” Cvareh shifted to face her, resting his hip against the railing. Arianna’s eyes fell from the sky, where they’d been following the trail of billowing smoke, to meet his. Neither said anything for a long moment.
“You never asked.”
He contemplated it. Somewhere, in the week they had spent together, he was certain he had. But he would give her this. For the first time, Cvareh yielded to her. Because she was fundamentally right. If he had asked it had certainly been defensive or insulting. He hadn’t asked to know. He hadn’t asked in such a way that implied he would listen.
“Why did you take my offer of a boon?” Cvareh dared appealing to her logic. “You’re clearly well learned, and you use it to your advantage to get what you want. You’re a Chimera, so you can use magic. What does a boon give that you don’t already have?”
“The one thing I truly want,” she whispered, not looking at him.
“Arianna, what is that?” He shifted closer, to hear her over the sea wind, to not miss a word that fell from her lips. His fingers brushed against her elbow.
Arianna’s head snapped down, looking at the offending contact. She pulled away with an expression of horror, laced with confusion. Cvareh tried to make sense of how that touch had elicited such a reaction.
“I want Nova to burn.” Arianna looked him right in the eye and Cvareh couldn’t find a trace of lie. “And I will use your boon to help me do it.”
Cvareh didn’t back down. He curled his fingers into fists to keep his talons from unsheathing out of instinct when she threatened his home. “Why?”
“For what you have done to Loom.”
“What we have done?” he balked. “We have given you magic, we have gifted you with progress. We have imposed logical systems of government, a hierarchy in which everyone knows their place and how they fit.”
She began to laugh, though he failed to see how what he said was funny. Arianna grasped her stomach and her shoulders trembled with barely containable, malicious mirth.
“You—you gifted us, with progress?” She shook her head. “Dragon, check your history. Your people fell from the sky. We were the ones to give you wings, to make your magic useful.”
“It was quite useful to begin with.”
“And we knew how we fit together before. We were a chain, every Guild forming a link that supplied the next, which made Loom work.” She prodded a finger in his chest. “Then you came, and put gates on the system. You tried to turn links in a chain into rungs of a ladder, one atop the next. Our trade has yet to recover, our output is only half of what it was, without the Vicar council the Guilds do not communicate, and that’s not even touching on problems with educating our youth now that they are trapped within your asinine notion of ‘families,’ condemned to their guild only to be killed off if they don’t make the cut.”
Cvareh didn’t know where to start, didn’t know if he should engage physically as she encroached on his space. He didn’t know if he should try to correct her. Or if there was something to be understood in everything she was telling him.
“Dragon.” He had been demoted again. “I do not presume to know your ways. I have studied them, but I do not know them. Frankly, I don’t care. Keep your Nova logic up in your sky world and leave us alone.”
Arianna eased away slowly. If looks could kill, Cvareh would be dead a hundred times over. She panted softly from her tirade. When she took another step, Cvareh’s hand closed around her wrist before he could think to arrest it.
He stopped her.
Why did he stop her?
Frustration knitted his brow. This woman was going to drive him mad long before they ever saw the Alchemists’ Guild. She had her prejudices and Cvareh knew that she would keep them no matter what he said, but that didn’t stop him from speaking. “You’re right, Arianna. You don’t know anything.”
“Unhand me,” she snarled.
“I listened to you.” He released her. “Now listen to me.”
Miraculously, she stayed. Perhaps it would’ve been better if she’d left.
“The Dragon King kills your people, just as he kills mine. The hierarchy he is imposing upon your world, service and servitude at the cost of well-being, is the same as he imposes on ours. I want to see him dead. That’s why I’m here.”
The blood rushed into his ears, deafening all sound other than the echo of his confession. He’d never said such treasonous words aloud before. That had always been Petra’s role. She was the brave one, and he was just her right hand.
“I want Yveun Dono dead,” Cvareh said again, just to prove to himself he could. “And I want a new world order too. For Nova and Loom. The Alchemists hold the key to making it happen. Once we’re there—”
“—we will find the power to change the world?” she finished, her flat tone deflating him to match. “Everyone on Loom knows of the Council of Five. But that resistance died long ago, and their hopes for the future with them.”
“I will build a new hope. My family will, Loom will, and you can too.”
“I gave up building hope long ago.” She sighed and looked out to sea. Her face was soft, still a mess of soot from her earlier work. It looked more right on her than any powdered makeup Cvareh had ever seen coloring the cheeks of the women on Nova. “It relies too much on trust that is too easily broken.”
Arianna did turn then. Cvareh watched her go, a strange ache growing with every step. He hadn’t expected to lighten the load of his heart upon her. Even less had he thought doing so would begin to bridge the harrowing gap of the past she lived in, and the future he wanted to build with her help.
17. FLORENCE
Territory 4, home of the Ravens. It was an ugly blemish on the horizon until it grew large enough to consume the sea whole. Just the sight of it turned her stomach sour and her palms clammy. She had sworn she would never return. She had been happy in Dortam with Arianna. There shouldn’t have been a reason to come back.
Florence’s focus shifted from her teacher to the man standing at her right. Things had been changing between those two. Arianna seemed more relaxed around Cvareh, just when Florence’s resentment was beginning to peak. If it weren’t for him they would be back in Dortam. She would be sleeping late with Arianna in their giant bed, scolding the woman for taking unnecessary chances, and keeping the house tidy between private lessons in back rooms of Mercury Town with some of the best teachers in the Revolvers.
To think, she had even been excited by the notion of the journey when Arianna had first suggested it. Now Florence would give anything to rewind the clocks and beg for a different decision to be made. Or at least beg to be left at home.
The buildings were similar, almost identical to those in Dortam, just as the structures in Ter.5.2 had been. No matter what city she went to in the world, the same, gray, towering spires would meet her with their black shingled roofs, stone awnings, and exposed clockwork. The Rivets were Loom’s primary architects, and once they had perfected designs that worked in nearly every climate with most available building supplies, they were copied and repeated across the map whenever a new city needed to be constructed.
It wasn’t at the cost of foolhardiness. They’d made use of the natural quarries and mountains when building Dortam. Ter.5.2 had seen more windows on coastal facing walls to let in sea breezes. And here, in Ter.4.2, buildings were wound up with the bridges and tracks running at three different levels of the city. They spanned canals and roadways with graceful arches. The buildings themselves moved to meet the Ravens’ innate and insatiable need to spread their wings.
“Flor, it’ll be okay.” Arianna’s hand clasped around hers.
Florence turned
away from the city and looked into the lilac eyes of her teacher. Was the woman ever afraid of something? Was there nothing that could turn her insides into a squirming pile of grub-worms?
Even Dragons—who Arianna hated—she did not fear. She challenged them with open eyes and broad shoulders. Florence never wanted to meet the thing that brought Arianna to the quaking precipice of terror.
“We will move fast.” Arianna’s encouragement meant nothing other than good intentions. Even if they moved as quickly as possible, Ter.4 was wide. It would take them at least a couple weeks to cross, and Arianna planned on traveling the majority underground to prevent Cvareh’s magic from being sensed by the Riders.
“When will you head to—” Florence glanced over her shoulders at the crewmembers preparing to dock. “—to see my friends.” She almost choked on the word.
Ari turned, and Florence followed her attention out to a distant point on the horizon. Standing against the choppy waters and undercurrents of the inner sea was a rocky outcropping—a desolate, barren island dominated by a single large structure. Sheer walls towered upward, unmarred by windows or doors. Iron spikes lined the ground, as much for intimidation as function. At the building’s center, a tall tower rose up like a single guard looking over the highest security prison in the world.
“By tomorrow night,” Arianna announced.
“So soon?” Florence looked back sharply at her teacher. Arianna usually took days, weeks even, to prepare for bigger jobs. But she wanted to tackle the floating prison in one day.
“Yes, soon.” Arianna had the audacity to smile, as though they were commenting on a mere train delay, or Florence forgetting to buy the necessary powders for a canister. “I promised you we would move as quickly as possible.”
That made Florence feel the tiniest bit more at ease.
“Plus, the sooner we get to the Underground, the better.”
And that returned Florence’s mood to rock bottom.
The ship turned in a wide arc, gliding into its place at the end of a long pier. Sailors and dockhands were there to tie off ropes and secure lines as the gangplank was lowered. Florence gripped her bag tightly, staring at the line where the gangplank met the dock. That was it: her last chance to run. If she crossed that line she would be committed to the rest of the journey. Time was running out to return home. Once Arianna freed her friends and went underground, there would be no going back.