by Tammy Salyer
The ships, barely spacious enough to hold more than a dozen companies, but more than what it seemed the remaining Marines in Asteryss would need, would make good speed. Driven by sun-powered engines based on designs shared by the Knights, the chance existed that they could reach Magdaster within a couple of days. That was if they escaped the notice of the Raveners, or if their armaments were capable of defeating them should concealment and speed fail. Despite being formidable, the Dragør Marines’ munitions had nothing on the Vigilance’s emberflare cannons. Just as she’d so lately come to discover, the Knights wanted it.
Would Lock’s fate be to die at sea?
She paced some more.
What could the Knights do to stop the usurper from wreaking more havoc on the people of not only Ivoryss but all of Vinnr? And the much harder question: Should they? What could she do to save Havelock from the bleak fate suffered by Irrick and so many others? He may have chosen to step out of her life—and isn’t that what you wanted, Mylla. Of course, yes, but . . . no— but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do everything in her power to protect his. So long as it didn’t threaten or impede her duty . . .
From the corner of her eye, she saw movement and faced it. “Eisa.”
“Novice, still up?”
“It seems we both are.” Despite Mylla’s fatigue, her muscles tensed automatically, and her eyes locked on the Stallari Regent, waiting for the inevitable censure that still hadn’t come.
But a distracted “Hmm . . .” was her only reply as Eisa stepped to the vessel’s dais and peered up at the stone figure, seemingly deep in thought.
It struck Mylla that Eisa, in a long shift and leggings, with her braid loosed and her armor put away for the night, looked more like the woman she’d seen in Roi’s first shared memory—collected but not hostile, possibly even warm and amiable. Was it just a trick of the mind that made her think this? Or had Eisa’s enduring coldness clouded Mylla’s ability to ever see her as anything but?
She cleared her throat. “I expected you to be angry at me.”
Eisa looked at her, the deep lines at her mouth’s edges hinting at nothing. “Your departure wasn’t unexpected. But I was surprised at your cheekiness regarding the Fenestros map—which I expect you to return.”
With a bloom of chagrin in her cheeks that only someone more than three times her age could elicit, Mylla dug out the map and carried it to the Scrylle resting on the vessel’s dais, still where it had been when she’d first taken the parchment. For no reason she could put her finger on, the Stallari Regent’s lack of disciplinary action unbalanced her more than a rebuke would have, and she found herself speaking in her own defense.
“You should understand that I did what I thought was right. I serve—”
Eisa cut her off. “You ignored orders.”
Ah, here was the woman she knew. “I serve Vaka Aster. Not you.”
Instead of striking out, Eisa smirked, looking almost pleased. “And don’t ever let your allegiance to duty change, Mylla. Never. That is the most important lesson there is to learn, one that even I can’t teach, but experience, turns, and wisdom will, if you let them.”
Mylla faced the vessel, twirling the Scrylle in her hands thoughtfully. When Eisa spoke again, her words cut.
“Your Wing friend, what was his name? It was inevitable, you know. The commoner did you a favor by leaving the way he did. I did you a favor by sending him back to Asteryss where he belonged.”
She faced the older Knight sharply. “A favor? How?”
“He would have betrayed you eventually. Believe me. Commoners are simple. First they admire you, then they love you, then they resent you and fear you. It always ends in betrayal.” Eisa paused, as if considering a new thought. “Unless you kill them first, I suppose.”
“You’re wrong. Lock loved me, loves me. He would never betray—”
“What did you think was going to happen? Tell me. Him a commoner, you a Knight. Him Ivoryssian, you Dyrrak.” Eisa’s eyes once more shone with their usual cold-forged ire. “That you would grow old, become heart-matches, live like royalty atop Vigil Tower? He’s a commoner, novice, who turned away from the Conservatum. He’s destined to do little but die. You are a Knight! Your duty and devotion to your own kind is your only consideration.”
Silently, Mylla fought back her own fury. Arguing with the woman, who had killed her own lover to spare herself from ever feeling anything, good or bad, again would get her nowhere. Eisa was . . . ice, frozen in her own rigid, eternal, lonely numbness.
The Stallari Regent looked away from her, a struggle playing out in her face as she tried to smooth the angry wrinkles across her brow. “I want you to try to see my point, novice. You are just an infant still for all your turns around Halla, and you know so little about the human spirit. It, more than anything else, is fallible. You can disagree with me because you don’t understand, and you may even hate me. But someday you will hate that I’m right more. And you’ll learn you must either accept that truth or succumb to it as most do. There is nothing special about you. There is only doing your duty.”
Roi had called Mylla reckless, and he wasn’t wrong. Her next words illustrated this perfectly. “Just because you were betrayed doesn’t mean all commoners are corruptible. Your prejudice only makes you bitter, not right, not about everything. And not about Lock.”
Eisa’s eyes widened, then she blinked and released a resigned sigh. “Roi told you about . . . the uprising against the Knights before the Cataclysm.”
“Yes, Roi told me.” Eisa’s wound was so deep she wouldn’t even acknowledge the woman she’d loved, even when Mylla had all but spoken her name. She marveled at the will it took to maintain such denial.
Eisa’s silence dragged out as she stared thoughtfully at the vessel, using her fingers to brush off more of the grit that still covered it. Mylla decided it was prudent to leave her be. She placed the Scrylle back on the dais and took a light step backward—but didn’t escape in time.
When Eisa spoke, her voice was quiet and far off, as if she were talking to someone from a dream. Or from the past. “The only thing that’s ‘right’ is staying true to your duty.”
Unable to resist the bait, Mylla responded, “Even if it means relinquishing your honor?”
She didn’t get time to regret her words. Eisa moved like a crack of lightning, grabbing the hilt of Star Spark on Mylla’s belt with one hand, and pushed Mylla to the ground. She landed on her back with an “oof,” then scrambled to get her arms beneath her and rise up. But the sight of her blade being swung back over the Eisa’s shoulder for a full-bodied strike that would sever a man in two—Mylla had seen it done—dissuaded her from anything but a cautious: “Knight Nazaria—?”
With a wild look in her eyes that could freeze Halla, Eisa growled, “Right now, novice, we have greater concerns.”
Changing direction with the agility of a shark, Eisa pivoted on her feet and swung Star Spark at the vessel as if trying to fell an oak tree in a single blow.
Mylla pivoted as well, from disbelief to horror, and covered her eyes with her arm. “NO!”
The crash of metal on stone echoed throughout the hold, a strike that would raze the vessel and the realm. Clenching her jaw (how else does one prepare for the end of all existence?), Mylla fleetingly wondered if she would feel the world end or simply wink out of existence—but everything remained as it was. The world remained as it was. When the echo subsided, she dropped her arm and cracked first one eyelid, then the next. Eisa stood in the same position, breathing heavily, gazing at the vessel. The sword drooped from one hand, and she gripped the arm holding it as if the blow had injured her.
Mylla collapsed flat on her back as relief galloped through her. When she could speak again, she squeaked out, “What in the name of sanity did you do that for? Furious fates, are you trying to kill the world?” But the words were a reflex, and under them confusion skewered her.
A laugh so scathing it could have scoured paint from wa
lls came from the older Knight. Mylla looked up to see Eisa standing over her, glaring madly. With a toss, she released Star Spark to clatter beside her. “This vessel has been abandoned,” she said. “We are its protectors no longer.”
As Mylla scrambled to understand what was happening, Eisa staggered and fell to her knees, a groan that sounded animalistic and tortured welling from her throat.
“Eisa?” Shaken to her core, she cried through her Mentalios: Everyone, come to the hold! Quickly!
With a shake of her head to force her rattling thoughts into some kind of sense, she grasped her sword and used it to help her to her feet. “Eisa?” she tried again and clasped the Stallari Regent’s elbow to help her up.
It was like grasping wet rope. Eisa showed no sign of knowing Mylla was even beside her as her arm dangled limply from Mylla’s hand. At a loss for what to do, she looked around the chamber as if the answer could be found written on the walls. She caught sight of the deep notch Eisa had made in the statue’s carved robes. It was the only blemish on the smooth white stone. As a weapon of war, Star Spark could cleave most things in half with ease, but it had failed to mar the statue more than superficially. Wind and time could do worse damage. But Star Spark was more than a weapon of war. It was Knight-made and Knight-wielded, hallowed by Vaka Aster, imbued with the power to destroy the vessel. A commoner with a strong swing and a large ax could do it over time, but a Knight’s hallowed weapon should have shattered the vessel with one strike. None of them and nothing should be here anymore.
Abandoned? she thought and reached out to touch the statue. It felt as cold as the goose flesh rippling across her arms and neck. Yesterday, she had known it, just as Eisa had. Something was different about the vessel, something was wrong. But she’d shoved that knowledge aside. Too many pressing matters at once had forced her to triage information into an order she could act on. And this inconceivable thing had drawn the short straw. But Eisa couldn’t ignore it. Duty had mastered her, and now duty had apparently deserted her.
The urgency in Mylla’s summons drew the rest quickly. Roi fought to assemble his clothes and Safran to tame her waist-length hair as they lurched in from the bunk chamber, clearly pulled out of sleep. Stave, his brown hair corkscrewed and disheveled not from sleep but because he was Stave, tramped in from the helm like an agitated bear, a cigar jutting from his lips.
What’s going on? Are we under attack? Safran asked, then noticed Eisa. The alarming milk-white pall of the Stallari Regent’s usually umber-rose skin gave her the cast of a fresh corpse. Eisa, are you well?
“Great Verities, what’s wrong with her?” Stave asked.
Mylla’s mouth worked silently as she looked around at the others. Each stared at her expectantly, awaiting some kind of explanation that would make sense. Eisa was, without doubt, the hardest among them. Whatever could shake her, could, and surely would, shake them all.
“Vaka Aster’s vessel is deserted,” she blurted. “Eisa struck it with Star Spark and nothing happened.”
“With Star Spark?” Stave said. “That’s impossible. I forged that sword myself and Vaka Aster hallowed it. A hallowed weapon would destroy the vessel, it would destroy it!”
“I know, Stave.”
He flinched at her flat agreement as if she’d slapped him and looked back at Eisa, who stared at the floor with eyes as empty as Mylla knew the vessel’s to be. Safran stood still, her expression halfway between stunned and disbelieving, but Roi crouched next to Eisa and reached out to rest a hand on her shoulder. Whatever he said to her must have been through a guarded Mentalios link, but even that failed to get a reaction from her. After a moment, he glanced up, catching Mylla’s stare. Something uncomfortably similar to fear darkened his eyes. Without comment, he stood and moved to the vessel, exploring the cleft made by Star Spark with his fingers. After a moment, he picked up the Scrylle and turned to the others.
“She speaks the truth.”
Silently, they stared at each other, the bedlam of their thoughts creating a buzz that passed through all the Mentalios lenses. One by one, the Knights lumbered dazedly to the table and took seats. Safran tried to coax Eisa up from the floor. Resistant at first, the Stallari Regent pulled her wrist free from Safran’s hand and stood on her own. With one last look at the vessel, she paced out of the hold without looking back, without speaking.
Should I go after her? Safran questioned.
Roi shook his head. “That wouldn’t be wise right now.”
All eyes fell on the senior Knight. “I don’t understand what’s happening,” said Mylla. “How could the vessel be deserted? Where is Vaka Aster?”
Roi pulled at his pale-wheat sideburns thoughtfully. “It is only stone, the vessel, at least now. Vaka Aster can instill any object with her celestial spark. She hasn’t done so in living memory, but something must have caused her to shift.”
“This has happened before?” Mylla said. “How?”
“How? How does a Verity do anything? They take forms their creations understand to give us a reason to keep faith in them, and perhaps to keep their own faith in us. If Vaka Aster moved to a new form and excluded us, perhaps that means she’s lost hers,” Roi answered in clipped phrases, uncustomarily short-tempered.
Mylla blinked.
Safran said, What did the Stallari do? Has he doomed us all?
“The Stallari?” Mylla said.
No doubt he caused this when he crafted the Verity cage.
“I think we’ve already covered this ground—” she started.
Stave cut off Mylla’s reflexive protest. “Whatever it means or doesn’t, we need to decide what we’re going to do. The Order is falling apart, it is. Our Stallari, gone. Our Stallari Regent, useless. We have no Verity to protect. But we still have a Verity intent on taking Vinnr and all Vaka Aster’s creation. We should stop the usurper. That’s what we should do.”
“Why?” asked Roi flatly, causing Mylla’s heart, and everyone else’s, she was sure, to stutter.
First to recover, she spoke with slow care. “I think I know what you mean, Roi. Without the task we took oaths to fulfill, to protect the vessel, we are adrift in purpose. Why should we do anything to save Vinnr if Vaka Aster isn’t willing to stop the usurping Verity herself?”
The others stared at her, considering, until she went on. “But you already answered that question. Earlier tonight when you told me that our troubles as people of Vinnr are our own. If we rely on our Verity to decide for us and control our actions, we are merely mindless, like schools of fish that startle at nothing and react to everything. So why should we try to stop Balavad? Because that is our choice and the right one to make. Maybe this is a test. Vaka Aster wants us to prove our worthiness as Knights by seeing which path we choose for ourselves.”
She had just talked herself out of her own doubts, she realized. Yet she questioned, as she was learning to do, if this was really true. Was it a matter of saving Vinnr, or just a matter of wanting to save the only sense of purpose she’d ever known?
Or was it something else? In the face of this final desertion by their maker, where, or with whom, did her loyalty truly lie? If we brought the Vigilance and our skills into a fight against Balavad, we could save so many. We could save Havelock.
You want us to volunteer to fight the usurper? Safran asked, watching her keenly.
“Yes. We should travel to Magdaster. We can assume he’s going there. And we know the city has a legion of fighters. We might have a chance at ending this.”
And Havelock is heading there, too, I think we can assume, her friend sent softly. Had she heard Mylla’s thoughts, or was it simply a guess?
Mylla asked, “What other alternatives are there?”
Roi put in: “We could seek out the new vessel. The vessel is our duty.”
Dropping Mylla’s eyes, Safran said, Or we could seek out the Stallari. He may know what’s happened. He must.
Mylla looked at Roi. “What do you think Eisa will recommend?”
> Instead of a response, a shade of gloom darkened his eyes once again and his chin fell against his chest. She started to repeat her question, but a cold draft blew into the hold, silencing her.
The docking bay, Safran said, alarm widening her eyes.
As one, they jumped from their seats, but Roi spoke through the Mentalios: She is already gone. They ran to the hold anyway, and Mylla felt the wash of a dragørfly ship taking flight past the gaping hatch, though she could not see it due to its flint-glass cloak.
As they stared beyond the hatch, speechless, the stillness of the night sky folded over the final four Knights Corporealis, leaving them alone, without a leader and without a purpose.
Chapter 31
A slow, reverberating tone carried through the ship, repeating every few moments. Sensing Aldinhuus’s increased anxiety, Jaemus quit struggling. By the Glister Cloud’s gasses, did the stranger have a grip! It was as intractable as a feeding fleech’s. Antagonizing this cretin was sure to lead to unpleasant outcomes the likes of which he didn’t want to imagine—or experience.
And secondly, there’d been something in his voice when he’d warned Jaemus not to struggle. Was he perhaps cleverer than his crude stone-happy aggression seemed to suggest? Was he trying to give Jaemus the excuse of plausible deniability and make him look a victim rather than a conspirator?
What a twist that would be.
Yet the menace slithering in Aldinhuus’s next words turned the skin on Jaemus’s cheek as cold as the Never Sea, despite the Knight’s hot breath. “I gave you and your crew a chance, Captain, but it was clearly a waste of my time. I’ll likewise have no time to regret what I must do next, but if you’re lucky, you will. Nothing is going to stand between me and that Scrylle.”
With a gesture of the Knight’s free arm that had become all too familiar to Jaemus, the aggregate of blue stones gathered in a tight, portentous group just in front of them.