“Are you saying that I am not capable of reminding a House of its obligations to us? Do you believe I have not dealt with such behavior before?”
“No, Lady Night.” Yaki swallowed. “But I offer an opportunity that perhaps you do not get often. We merely wish safe passage to the docks after the deed.”
“You seek a boon. I have a price for that.” She stretched out her arm, her fingers extending, corkscrewing through the air, slowly traveling toward Raiju.
For a single moment, she thought about it. One man is nothing, Mother’s voice echoed back through time. If she didn’t acquiesce to Lady Night’s demands, Ishe could be lost. The heat in her chest grew. “No.” The single syllable rang throughout the chamber.
The creeping tendrils of shadow stopped their progress.
“Give me to her, if that’s what it takes,” Gama whispered.
Yaki’s body and temper moved before her mind. Gama drew a surprised gasp as Yaki drove two knuckles into his kidney. “What did I just say?” she spat as he toppled forward on legs that had gone stiff as slats. “Have you snapped your masts? Did I ask for volunteers?”
“No,” Gama said between labored breaths.
“Then shut up,” Yaki hissed through gritted teeth.
Lady Night laughed, a burbling, wet sound accompanied by snapping pops.
Yaki stepped over Gama and faced Lady Night, one hand resting on her sword, “He’s part of my crew. You can’t have my crew. I’ll fight you first.”
“Are you sure? I doubt that would go well for you. What about the crystal-touched? The rat, the vermin. Won’t he be far more trouble than he’s worth?” The tendrils curled toward Simon, who closed his eyes and knitted his long fingers together in apparent prayer.
“They’re all my crew and you can’t have them.” Yaki felt hot bile roll in the back of her throat. The creature could have them all if she wanted to. They had nothing that could hurt her. The Lady was toying with them, like a cat whose cruelty outweighed its hunger.
The tendrils withdrew back to Lady Night’s hand and ran along the skulls. “Pity, your pretty head would have made a fine addition to my collection, and the fire in your chest would have warmed me many days, Yaki of Madria.”
Yaki blinked, confusion sweeping through her as she stared at the skulls. Clarity hit her with a staggering force. Lady Night had been the very first Enshadowed, the one that defined what they were. They cared for the sick who had no family; they built the roads, maintained the sewers, and probably did countless other things that kept the city moving. All at her direction, following her example. Had she been ruled by hunger, all of them would have killed before they knew what happened to them.
Only one person had been in danger when they walked in there. It had been her.
Yaki bowed deeply to her. “Forgive me, we thought—”
“Me a monster? Part of the Grief? Dead?” Lady Night waved her hand through the air. “I am all these things. We are different sorts of monsters, child. Those that use other lives as currency displease me.”
“But the Grief is mindless! Nothing but hunger,” Chimon interjected as Raiju pulled Gama from the floor.
“Oh, but it is the opposite. The Grief of the rivers is a sea of minds, bathed in the injustice of their deaths. So loud and constant is their remembering that any new minds added to their swarm soon forget their own lives and echo the swarm. I am a swarm of one voice. I have other uses for the souls that do not pass my tests.” She made the skulls on her antlers dance.
Chimon looked even more horrified.
“So, now what I have passed your test, you’ll help us?” Yaki asked.
“Three men and one woman have claimed the title of Steward since one has seen fit to visit me, and now this one whispers of war. I had thought that my assistance to your mother would remind him that not all his subjects can stand in the daylight. But it appears my hand was too subtle.” Lady Night sank into her pool and rested her elbows on the edge.
“Wait? You helped my mother? But…” Yaki said.
“You do not give your mother enough credit. Her words exited your mouth a moment ago. Although she did offer me anyone else in the city.” That grin deep in the skull flashed again. “But not her crew.”
“So, you’ll help, then? You’ll do more than turn a blind eye?” Yaki bit the inside of her lip as hope filled her. “Could you declare a night of Howls on Nishamura alone?” A riot of the Enshadowed would paralyze even the Watch. The drums and chimes would even distract kami sent after them.
“Normally, I ask for a piece of oneself for such assistance, a mark that would pull one back to us if exposed.” Her head tilted, sending the skulls to clacking. “Yet you are in the service of an ending and have lost your heart. You are no more worthy of the sun than I.”
“Perhaps a cut of the proceeds; there is silver and gold in the vault as well,” Yaki suggested.
“And we shall settle accounts as you rapidly flee through the chaos of the streets.” She leaned forward, looming over Yaki. “I think not.”
Did I insult her? Yaki’s mind scrabbled for another thing to offer, an alternative. Part of the Grief but not. What did she desire? Before something could come to mind, Lady Night reached beneath the water and pulled out a long glass vial that she held between her spindly fingers. Yaki took it and found the vial ice cold, a darkness curling within it.
“You will break that within the vault or if you fail, before you are captured. Daylight never touches that vault, making it rightfully beneath my watch.”
“I will do this.” Nodding, Yaki made the vial disappear within her bag and tried not to let herself imagine what releasing a piece of the Grief inside a workshop could do.
“Then there is but one issue left to consider.” Lady’s Night’s head swiveled, her dark gaze landing squarely on Simon, his hands twisting the tip of his tail with anxiety. “Stand forth, Simon Bartholomew.”
Simon’s ears went flat; he tossed his tail down and pushed himself as high as his legs would allow. The long, clear whiskers trembled as he approached Lady Night. “Simon stands here, Lady Night.” The words were so high-pitched that Yaki had difficulty hearing them.
“Yaki of Madria has claimed you as her crew,” Lady Night stated. “What of your oaths to me?”
The ratman’s long fingers curled and uncurled, as if attempting to make fists. He stood so high on his toes that he had to use his tail to keep from toppling over. “Simon not sick, not cursed by burning sun. Only here because Lady Night’s shelter is only option. Yaki of Madria offers Simon sky.” He laughed nervously with no humor, watching Lady Night with a single eye. “Simon break any and all laws for that.”
“Lady Night—” Yaki started to interject, but Simon cut her off.
“Simon not alone among Twisted! We sick of hiding, sick of tunnels, sick being thankful for life alone.” His eye turned toward Yaki. “Should you call for crew, near thirty hands come. All know the sky.”
“If you are not bound by your words, then I shall not be, either,” Lady Night said in the most even of tones.
The light died.
A high-pitched shriek of pain. Cold wet slapped Yaki’s face as a splash echoed through the dark.
“I have decided that we will have to share this one. The others may join of their own choice.” Lady Night’s voice came through the darkness. “Walk the night without fear, Captain Yaki.”
Slowly, the glow crystals flickered back to life. Simon lay on the side of the pool, clutching at one of his eyes, black fluid leaking around his fingers.
Yaki knelt at his side. “Simon, can you hear me? What did she do?”
“Hurrrts,” he wheezed.
“Can you walk?” Yaki hesitated, trying to decide the best way to help him up; he didn’t really have armpits per se.
He warded her off with a hand and then peeled his other palm away from his injured eye. It opened experimentally to reveal the swirling darkness that had previously been contained within the eye
sockets of Lady Night’s mask. “I see now.” Then he vomited pile of black goo. Everyone leapt back. After he finished retching, he pushed himself back onto two legs, although he remained hunched with pain. “I have things”—he spat at the pile at his feet that had begun to wiggle in the direction of the pool—“that I...that the Lady needs done. She has decided she needs more eyes in the world.” He took a tottering step toward the corner of the room, and a grinding sound rumbled beneath as the room began to open.
“Simon...” Yaki swallowed. “Are you all right? Is...she eating you?”
He took a few more steps and then turned and gave her a four-toothed grin. “Simon knew sky would cost. Sky is worth it.” With that, he strode toward the growing crack.
Yaki found Gama right behind her, along with Raiju and Chimon staring at the back of the ratman. Gama was massaging his back where Yaki had punched him. “Are you quite done being excessively noble?” she asked him.
He blinked behind his lenses. “Uh.” The war between his heart and his brain was obvious on his face. It made Yaki’s heart flutter, and she couldn’t resist the urge to throw her arms around him. She managed to resist the temptation to peck him on the cheek and instead pressed her face against his chest. “Thank you, but don’t do that again.” After I’m done with Mitsuo, we’ll see. Be patient, she mentally urged him, and then stepped away. His arms slowly closed on empty air as Yaki set off for exit.
Chapter Sixteen
After the death of the moon, we were too busy surviving to look beyond ourselves. When we finally looked back to the sky, the dragons were there.
Boots, Storywalker
In less than two hours of walking parallel to the river, Stag and Sparrow reported seeing signs of recent human passage. The party veered back toward the water and soon stood by its banks, hidden from the humans but exposed to the sky. Without a word, Hawk and Sparrow lashed the rafts together. The water was smooth as glass. No rocks marred the surface of that water for as far as Ishe could see downriver. Still, her fingers pulsed and she knew that the calm surface would hide the Grief.
“We’ll be fine. We’re all with Hawk this time,” Catter said to no one but himself.
The blue sky had begun to surrender to gray clouds obscuring the tops of the mountains. That boded well. Ishe wondered if using that giant wind crystal to keep the sky clear had finally tired Yaz’noth. She smirked to herself; Gods, don’t get tired, you stupid dragon?
Sparrow looked up at them all, coughed once into the back of his hand, and spat into the water before addressing everyone. “You all know the plan. We stay on the raft until we’re spotted. Then we make for the opposite bank. Use these to help you swim if the current is too swift.” He pointed at a pile of logs as thick as Ishe’s hips on the raft. “We’ll continue the rest of the way on foot through the living forest until we reach the Maw.”
Ishe shook her head, boggled that they were all willingly getting back into the river. Still, every hour on the river would be worth three to four hours of walking. Everyone piled on the double-sized raft and waited to be discovered.
Sparrow and Catter took the two surviving oars in the back of the raft to steer. Drosa stood on the front with her bow. Ishe stood on the left side and Stag on right, equipped with planks of wood to serve as oars. In the middle of the squarish raft knelt Hawk, spear across her lap.
Blinky, for his part, skittered back and forth on the raft, clicking grumpily at the water and everyone else as they drifted in the swift current. Sparrow kept them close to the bank, blocking the view of Yaz’noth’s lair with the trees. That left them utterly exposed to the other side of the valley. Silhouetted against the whitecaps and gray clouds, Yaz’noth’s brood soared. Ishe picked out Hammer, the heavyset bronze fledging she’d tried to blow off the deck of Fox Fire with a hand cannon, flapping his wings with a steady pulse. His brothers and sisters appeared to be less attentive; Spine, the spindly iron dragon who’d attempted to ride his father, seemed to be more interested in how many loops he could pull off than in searching the mountain.
Hours passed as they drifted downstream. Occasionally, Sparrow steered them toward the center of the river, bringing the lair into view over the trees beyond the dead zone. Yaz’noth perched over the entrance to his domain, posed as if he would leap back into the sky at any moment. From the tilt of his head, his gaze swept across the mountain peaks and his children. But Ishe was done underestimating the dragon’s powers of observation and urged Sparrow back out of his line of sight. He quickly steered back to shelter. Together, they all watched the younger dragons circle in silence.
Ishe could feel a chill in her fingers wax and wane as the current swept them down the river. Occasionally, a snatch of a hateful dream stole across her mind, triggering an image of Gull’s melting black flesh. The clear water was deep and everyone could see the occasional black masses that grew on the river bottom like oily tumors.
The sun had crossed the apex and had begun its downward arc when Drosa pointed to the tallest of the southern peaks. “That the tooth that contains the Maw. See three stones?”
Ishe squinted at the mountain along with everyone else. Unlike every other peak in the valley, it had no tree line; bare rock greeted the eye until its base met the tree line of the valley floor, the meandering of the river obscuring the supposed Maw that swallowed the river. It appeared out of place compared to the other peaks, as if it had shouldered its way into the circle of mountains recently. Midway up its slope stood three man-shaped lumps of stone seemingly jutting out from the mountain. “Keepers of the Valley,” Drosa said with a hushed whisper.
“If we brave the central current, we could be there in less than an hour,” Sparrow said.
Everyone looked at Hawk. She started to nod.
“No.” Ishe blinked; that had been her voice. People’s heads swiveled toward her. She swallowed. “An hour isn’t long enough. If we’re spotted, we have a few minutes before the dragons are on us, nothing approaching an hour.”
As she talked, Spine began yet another series of loops, his long body flowing through the arc of the motion. One, two, three, four, and the fifth terminated in a puff of white snow as the dragon’s last loop slammed into a snow-covered peak.
It should have been comical as he tumbled down the mountainside, yet Ishe felt an icy prickle run up her spine to the tips of her ears. The dragon narrowly avoided a one-way trip down by snagging a ledge. The long, noodle-like body hung limp for a moment, wings catching a mountain breeze before he scuttled up and hugged the stone.
He froze. Although the distance was far too vast to see the direction of the dragon’s eyes, Ishe knew with the heart-stopping certainty of a rabbit spotting an eagle. It must have shown on her face because, as one, her companions turned in time to see Spine launch himself from the mountaintop. No loops or twists. The dragon flew with the grace of an arrow, directly toward them.
“To the bank! Now!” Hawk commanded, and Ishe ripped her eyes away from the slender dragon to paddle for the shore. In a few strokes, Hawk leapt out of the boat and into the water. With a grunt, she grabbed the front of the raft. The swift water churned white, rushing up into her face. She brought the raft to a halt in the current and hurled it toward the shore.
“Everyone off!” Sparrow wheezed. They all rushed to obey.
As Ishe’s boot touched the barren mud of the river’s edge, her fingers went numb.
She turned just in time to see a black mass surge out of the water behind Hawk. A warning tore out of Ishe’s mouth as black tendrils wrapped about Hawk’s waist and used the current to wrench her off her feet.
“Hawk!” Sparrow shouted as she disappeared beneath the water. He rounded on Catter, who had grabbed Hawk’s spear in their hasty debarkation. “Throw that to her!”
Catter lifted the spear over his head as if it were a weighted bar. Ishe doubted he could hurl the spear more than five feet like that. With a grunt of disgust, Ishe snatched it from his hands and tried not to stagger with its
weight. Ironwood, the entire shaft. Where in the nine hells did Two Herds get ironwood? Regardless, she wrapped one hand around the butt of the spear and started running toward the thrashing that was rapidly being swept downriver. Worse, Ishe spotted several wakes heading directly toward it.
A huge bubble broke the surface of the river, followed quickly by a gasping Hawk. Ishe hurled the spear, hoping to all the gods from earth to sky that ironwood floated.
“Ishe! Get back into the trees!” Hawk waved her arm as if trying to push her back from nearly forty feet.
The spear went plunk, having traveled half the distance it needed to. The wave reached Hawk, and her next words were lost beneath the water. Ishe stopped trying to keep pace and looked up to see the dragon bearing down on her.
“Ishe! Come on!” someone shouted, and she booked it for the forest.
Ishe hated running but she hated dying more.
Drosa appeared in front her of as if she’d stepped out of a tree trunk. “Follow!” The girl bounded back into the trees like a young deer. Comparatively, Ishe’s thudding footsteps made her feel like her own namesake. Sparrow’s wheezing and coughing made it to her ears moments before she saw the group. Catter looked winded, but Sparrow clutched at his chest.
Stag’s spear flashed as he nodded to Drosa. “Let’s go. We need to get as far as possible from the river.” He turned to jog away.
Catter and Ishe looked at Sparrow with concern.
“Go on.” Sparrow spat and then flashed a weak smile. “I’ll be right behind you.”
A hard jerk made Ishe take a stumbling step to the side. To her surprise, she found her blackened fingers in the firm grip of Drosa’s hand. “Come!” she said. “No time.”
Ishe closed her hand around Drosa’s, studying how neatly her corrupted fingers captured the smaller hand. Images crossed through her mind: The way that tentacle reached into the sky. Hawk’s reddened skin, burned with the power of Drosa’s companion, Eyah. Inklings of half-formed ideas gelled into a crazy plan. A mad grin crept onto her face.
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