by Tammy Salyer
“Verity’s eyes,” Mylla had proclaimed. “Why?”
The older Knight shrugged. “And in the Dastrart Age, prior to Ulfric’s birth, a couple couldn’t refer to themselves as ‘married’ until they had children and those children were old enough to give their consent to the union.”
Mylla had grown silent, marveling.
“That’s right. The opinions of children were deemed the superlative judgment on a couple’s compatibility . . . a custom I can’t say I completely disagree with, in truth. But my point is this, Mylla. Customs and habits all die or change with the passage of time. Why would Ulfric and I define our union by one such practice when our own time is unlimited? Our bond is to each other, not to transient ideas.”
Mylla had understood her point, but something about the conversation now unnerved her. Symvalline and Ulfric would outlive any notions of formality or custom, just as Safran and Stave would, even Mylla. But Havelock, a commoner and mortal, was himself utterly and irrevocably bound by limitations. How much longer would he accept their different fates and still love her? And how much longer would she? She’d believed when she’d taken her oath that time would no longer hold meaning for her. Yet now she found that it meant more than ever.
The sleeping berth held fourteen bunks, and she guessed by the room’s quietness that she and Lock were the only people there. She climbed down and looked around, just to be sure. Shafts of direct light coming in portholes made the contrast of shadows within the sleeping spaces that much darker, but she could tell by the sheen of his opened eyes that Lock was also awake.
“How did you sleep?” she asked, resisting the urge to sit beside him and run her fingers down his arm.
“Like a bird in its nest. Must be the pilot in me. I can’t believe you never told me about this incredible ship.” The wonder in his voice bordered on delight. To the sky born, indeed. He sat up and reached for her, but she abruptly turned away. After a moment of silence, he asked, “And you?”
She turned back, fiddling with the neck strings on her tunic to avoid his eyes. “Lock, I’m going to have to insist you remain in Asteryss once we’ve returned to the city. You aren’t”—she swallowed—“you aren’t a Knight. Protecting the vessel isn’t your duty.”
There, she said it. Among all the vagaries and uncertainties of the past day’s events and conversations, one thing was crystal clear. Lock had to go home. He could not remain among the Knights, with danger and death and uncertainty the only things he could look forward to. She refused to think about whether sending him away would reduce his troubles or worsen them.
From his carefully controlled expression, she couldn’t tell whether he detected her true meaning or not. But his calculated response made it clear he had no intention of making shunning him any easier for her. “I’ll find my squadron and assess its strength. If the Marines are as overrun and outnumbered as Knights Glór and Thorvíl believe, I may be able to do more good among the Knights. And I would rather stay by your side.”
“No, that isn’t possible. Go back to your family, help them.”
“They know I’m a soldier. I won’t quit the fight. My father may be retired from military service, but he can still wield a sword. And my mother and sisters are more than capable of protecting themselves,. They’d want me to stay true to my service. And to you, Mylla.”
At his mention of his five sisters—from ten-turn-old Lizet to twenty-turn-old Hilla—the hollow space forming inside Mylla’s heart expanded. Her fondness for them made her almost think of them as her own sisters. Orphaned when her own Dyrrak parents had been exiled from the shunned empire and then slain by strangers from Yor who were never found, she’d been raised with the children of the other acolytes in the Conservatum. But being a Dyrrak, they had not accepted her, and in many ways she’d grown up alone in the shadows of the great halls and pillars of the Resplendolent Conservatum. Lock’s sisters, who never cared about her heritage, were the first people outside the Knights she’d become attached to in a very, very long time. She hadn’t foreseen the pain she’d feel at the idea of losing them too.
But what choice did she have? She wasn’t out there, protecting them. She was here, fulfilling her duty, and they were too far away to reach now. Pain was inevitable at this point. Better to get it over with. “I was groomed for this life, Lock. It’s all I know. All I need.”
His response was, as usual, much too reasonable. “I’ve never asked you to give it up for me. I only ask that you include me.”
“But you don’t belong,” she said, struggling to keep her voice steady.
“I do. I belong both by your side and where I can most aid Ivoryss. From my vantage, those two places are the same at the moment. If a Verity is threatening us, who but another Verity is left to stop him? That’s where your Order and my duty fit together.”
He paused and stretched his legs to the floor. While she locked down her chaos of emotions—growing grief at knowing she would lose him, anger that he made it so hard to let go—he put on his boots.
Finally, he broke the silence. “But you seem to want to be rid of me.”
“It’s . . . it’s for the best. You know why.”
As she stood to leave, he took her hand. “What is it you’re afraid of, Mylla?”
She couldn’t say it, to herself or to him: she didn’t have the courage to face the day that would inevitably come when he would die—and she would not.
Before she could respond, Eisa’s curt voice came from the hatch. “Fear is a luxury for hedonists and commoners, not Knights. Don’t forget what you are, Mylla.”
Mylla turned quickly to the Stallari Regent, who still wore her armor and looked as if she hadn’t slept. How long was she eavesdropping?
Eisa ignored her questioning stare. “Come to the hold. Both of you. We’ve decided our next course of action. Commoner,” for the first time, her tone held no mockery, “you’re right about one thing: you aren’t rejoining the Dragør Marines anytime soon. We have a use for you.”
As they followed Eisa, excuse after excuse for refusing to include Lock in their plans rushed through Mylla’s mind. Not because she didn’t think he was up to the task, but because Eisa could not be trusted to care about the dangers faced by a commoner, even those the older Knight herself put him in. Perhaps especially those she put him in. Eisa thought of anyone who wasn’t a Knight as unworthy, as less than, just like she thought any Dyrrak who’d been ejected from Dyrrakium was unworthy. Their children, too, and Eisa had fought against letting Mylla into the Order because of her parents’ unworthiness. The idea of putting Lock at her mercy dredged up an image of a meat grinder—with Eisa’s hand at the crank.
But the Knights had a hierarchy, and she couldn’t say no to whatever Eisa may have cooked up without risking another confrontation like yesterday’s. I’m stuck between a Lock and hard case, she thought acidly.
Upon entering the hold, she automatically dipped her head slightly toward the vessel and touched her chin star in deference. The statue, still covered with a heavy layer of dirt, disturbed her for reasons she couldn’t put her finger on, and she recalled Eisa’s unexplained statement from last night: Something has changed.
A new worry bristled inside her. Had the Stallari’s cage worked after all?
Safran waved at her and Lock from the table, beckoning them over. Roibeard, still on watch, was absent, which only increased Mylla’s worry. The stoic Knight’s unsung talent seemed to be the ability to throw a bucket of cold reason on Eisa’s oft-fiery ire.
As they chose seats at the great wooden table, Lock asked Mylla, “Do you know where we’re heading?”
She hadn’t noticed it, but his query made her realize the Vigilance was once more on the move. She shrugged, about to speak, but Eisa beat her to it.
“Sit, novice,” Eisa said. “You too,” she added, nodding at Lock. “We’re returning to Asteryss. Or rather, you are, commoner. You’re going to become our spy, eyes and ears on the ground, and help us recover the f
inal Fenestros from the Conservatum. If you can retrieve it, we’ll need your help to resupply. If not . . .” Eisa’s explanation ebbed, and her expression made it clear she saw no need to explain the if.
So, Mylla thought, this is a fragment of a plan, not a plan itself. That wouldn’t do. “We shouldn’t use a”—she glanced at Lock, apology in her eyes, before continuing—“commoner to do the Knights’ work.”
“We can, and we will,” Eisa said. “The usurper’s spies will know us on sight, and we can’t move through the city without risking being recognized.”
“Spies,” Mylla mumbled to herself. “That must be how Balavad knew the vessel wasn’t at Vigil Tower.”
“But a commoner?” Eisa continued. “There are enough of them that the usurper’s forces won’t know one from the next.”
Scrambling for a reason not to send Lock into needless danger, Mylla said, “But wouldn’t it be better to search for the Stallari than go to Asteryss? He knows more than any of us what’s going on. If we—”
“And where, Evernal, should we look?” Eisa said.
Mylla sat quietly, trying not to visibly seethe at being overruled. Again. Safran, she sent, has this already been discussed and decided? Without me?
Safran replied, Action has to be taken swiftly, Mylla. We didn’t think it necessary to wake you.
It was a sucker punch. Her closest friend . . . to treat her like a, a novice. What would she have to do to prove herself to her Order?
Stung, she looked to Stave and, without thinking, carelessly pressed the sore spot she knew would draw a reaction from him. Stave, how much of this is the Knights’ decision, and how much is it Eisa’s alone? she sent.
“I can see your doubt, novice,” Eisa said. “We have nothing to hide from each other. Speak openly.”
For once, Stave showed some diplomacy, but only a dash. “Mylla thinks it’s unwise to rely on someone who isn’t tested, for something so important,” he stated. “Can’t disagree with that, I can’t.” Before his bait could lure Eisa into another argument, he continued, “But this time it’s no small matter, it isn’t. Mylla, you can’t argue with the wisdom. We Knights can’t move freely in the Conservatum. A nameless Marine, though, he can. As far as we know, leastways.”
“I am glad to help, but what exactly can I do?” Havelock asked. “It’s been a few turns since I left acolyte training. I’m not as familiar with the layout as I once was.”
“Don’t worry, we have someone on the inside who can assist you,” Eisa said. “An acolyte we can trust.”
They spoke of Irrick. “And if Irrick isn’t there?” Mylla asked.
Eisa’s eyes glittered with a challenge as she spoke. “You trust the commoner, novice, and think him smart and capable of noble deeds. Why shouldn’t we?”
“He has a name, Eisa,” she spat.
The Stallari Regent leaned toward her, her eyes narrowed. “And if he dies,” she promised, “be content knowing that neither you nor history will soon forget it.”
Chapter 21
Jaemus knew he was gambling with his life, but sometime during this bizarre exchange he became aware of two things. The first gave him hope, the second made him feel like he might whizz in his flightsuit.
One, chances were good that the errant foreigner’s “Scrylle” was the same thing as the metal scepter and the parchment contained within it that Jaemus now carried. Rather, the two he now carried after bagging the one that had arrived just after the Knight had. And if the Knight knew what they were, then he must know how to read the parchments. Read them. This was the key Jaemus desperately needed to assist him in proving to the Glisternauts that the old cult’s secrets offered possibilities for aiding them in the quest to save their future—setting aside the mythology of the Creatress and foretelling of their world’s doom. And that they had an obligation, an imperative, to explore it. And of course, it was the key to helping him earn back his stripped prestige. If there was one thing he couldn’t abide for long, it was being considered a superstitious idiot.
Two, the foreigner was asking for the Creatress’s Scrylle, not the one that had fallen from the eaves with him, and these things he called Fenestrii, which Jaemus suspected were the Verity spheres of Creatress lore—and apparently the lore of many Verities. The implication being that the Knight didn’t know the items were here. If true, this had the nice side effect of blunting Jaemus’s guilty conscience a smidge. However, the moment the Knight found out he had them, he was pretty sure he would never have to worry about whizz stains in his flightsuit again.
Thus, his gamble. Persuade the foreigner to tell him what the Scrylle said, the one belonging to the Creatress cult that Jaemus had come across legitimately—sort of. And if it was a map, as he speculated, the Knight could illuminate the locations of the other four of the Creatress’s spheres, these things called Fenestrii, for him. In exchange? Jaemus would have to work on that, starting with finding out what Aldinhuus wanted them for. Perhaps he could offer to split the stones with him—at least, after he’d distilled and replicated the process that made them tick and gave them the ability to produce what seemed to be endless power. This could take anni-cycles. And judging by the intensity of the Knight’s . . . well, everything, Jaemus wasn’t sure how that barter would go. That was something to worry about later.
And he’d better be very crafty if he wanted to ensure there would be a later.
Regardless, he was accustomed to taking gambles. It was half of what being a Glisternaut was about. And since he’d been, in his roundabout logic, bestowed the first sphere and the parchment, or Scrylle, he’d pushed more boundaries with the ’Nauts, with his inventions, even with his own beliefs than he’d even known he was capable of. The way he’d come across these artifacts in the first place had been the catalyst.
As he did often, he’d gone to visit his gramsirene one Glister Dim. She lived in the remotest part of the Dryside Quarter, where the plantlife of the Never Sea had encroached and grown to cover many of the buildings, turning them into unhospitable, decrepit structures. But Vreyja refused Jaemus’s requests that she move somewhere less ancient feeling, so he checked in on her when he could.
Voices from inside had made him hesitate before going in. He recognized her guest: that strange hermit was visiting her, the sickly-looking man named Griggory. Though he was an old friend of Gram’s, Jaemus found more than his pale skin and unidentifiable accent odd, and he preferred to avoid him. He’d been considering coming back another time, but a brilliant flash of light beneath the jamb had stoked his curiosity. He’d snuck inside and witnessed Griggory giving Vrejya the metal cylinder and a single stone-like orb, about the size of his fist, that seemed to be glowing with an inner light. Griggory was explaining how these artifacts related to the old Creatress cult, requesting that she keep and hide them until he returned, and Vreyja had willingly agreed.
Jaemus’s gramsirene was superstitious to the point of being considered unhinged by many Himmingazians. It was only her age that kept her from being apprehended for dabbling in the old forbidden cult. But Jaemus got a good look at those artifacts, and he knew then and there that there was much more to the dead beliefs than simply ideas that threatened Himmingaze’s orderly and strict laws. That stone looked as if it was a fallen piece of the Glister Cloud. And it looked . . . powerful. The engineer in him couldn’t see something like it and not want, need, to know its capabilities. Not too long afterward, he’d borrowed the artifacts—without asking, but . . . he’d get around to that part later.
So now here he was, with a crazy man and more of these powerful cult artifacts. And though Aldinhuus may have withdrawn his flying stones at Jaemus’s insistence, he still apparently had no qualms about skewering him with that harsh blue gaze.
“You’re right, Himmingazian,” the Knight said. “I shouldn’t expect you to know such things. You seem to be merely a commoner.”
Was that an insult?
“Forgive my impatience. So much has happened . . .” T
he Knight trailed off, his expression hardening into a grimace. Whatever had happened to him, it obviously pained him to think about it. “The Scrylles are records, of a sort, kept by each individual Order of the Knights Corporealis. They appear to be cylinders, made of metal or stone, about this long”—he held his hands apart about the length of Jaemus’s forearm—“and adorned by Verity runes. To a commoner, they would seem like—”
Too excited to let him finish, Jaemus cut in, “Yes! I know exactly what you’re talking about.”
“And you know where to find it?”
“As a matter of fact, I have one aboard the Octopod. Just outside. What do you need it for?”
For the first time since he’d arrived, Aldinhuus’s expression shifted to something a shade lighter than bleak. Yet somehow the look unsettled Jaemus just the same. “Show me,” the Knight said, taking a step toward him. Like a man walking ashore after many cycles at sea, his legs seemed uncertain of the ground. He lurched slightly and spread his arms to help him rebalance.
Jaemus said, “Looks like that knock on the head hasn’t quite worn off.”
“I’m fine.” The Knight placed the back of each of his wrists against his eyes and rubbed. “It’s just this . . . never mind. The Scrylle, take me to it.”
The moment to bargain had come, and Jaemus quickly gagged the little voice in his head telling him not to antagonize this man. He argued back that this might be his only chance to help not only himself, but also (and here he took liberties with hyperinflating the importance of his role in the grand scheme of things) all of Himmingaze. I have to persuade him to help me, even at the risk of a shard of rock going through my liver.
Adjusting his shoulders and lifting his chin, he said, “Perhaps you’d be open to discussing terms first?” The way Aldinhuus’s expression didn’t seem to change yet still shot him full of icy daggers impressed Jaemus. “And before you pull out the kinky stones again,” he added hurriedly, “hear me out.”