by Rin Chupeco
He dashed away, and I focused all my concentration on that broken wheel, willing it not to move, not to send everything else crashing down around us. The gear struggled, still turning slowly despite my best efforts, so I gated another knife of Air, and then another, and then another, frantically jamming as many as I could fit into that enclosed hole, and then using the air itself to shove against the wheel with all my might. The strain was unbelievable—I was fighting a twelve-foot-tall, ten-ton machine, and my feet skidded across the floor as I struggled against the recoil. Jes tried pushing at the wheel in an attempt to aid me, but I shook my head. “No use losing your hands on top of everything else!”
“Well, with Rodge taking his sweet damn time, I ain’t gonna stand back and—”
“I’m not!” Rodge was back, snatching away the broken gear and slamming a new one in its place. With quick, deft fingers Jes screwed the metal back into place as I let go and sank to the ground, gasping. There were fainter creaks as the new cog settled into place before the whole arrangement regained momentum, soon turning at the same speed as the rest.
“That was close,” Rodge panted. There was not as much steam billowing out from Yeong-ho’s last position, and since the burly man had ceased yelling, I assumed they had defused the situation there, too. Soon enough, he reappeared with Charley in tow, both exhausted but relieved.
Like the others, I was caked in both sweat and grease, my face red from the exertion. “Everything good?” I managed to ask, still unwilling to move from my position on the floor.
Charley wiped at her forehead, leaving a long smudge against her temple. “Barely. We nearly lost the—” She let out a loud, hacking cough.
Immediately, Yeong-ho moved toward her. “A mandatory checkup with Catseye Franck,” he said sternly.
“But—”
“No buts. You’ve taken in a lungful of steam. Best make sure it isn’t quicksilver.”
We called the towers “sweat rooms” for good reason, but these hydraulic-powered engines were what gave the Golden City life. With them, we could manufacture clothes using large quilling wheels overlaid with incanta to shield us from the worst the relentless daylight could offer. We relied on them to pump up groundwater from ancient aquifers a thousand feet beneath the city—our only source of water. We used them to power the air-gated dome of the metropolis, which was our main defense against solar rays and roving nomadic tribes, and also against the heat. The hydraulic machinery required water to work the gears—water we could not spare.
But some of the mines under our territory contained quicksilver, and converting that into the steam needed to power the machines worked well enough—as long as the poisonous gases didn’t escape from the engines and into the public vents. Jes and Rodge looked concerned, but Charley grinned and shrugged. Accidentally ingesting quicksilver was a risk every mechanika took.
“We’re running out of materials to repair the engines.” Yeong-ho, like his father before him, served as the Golden City’s architect, our head mechanika. He’d taught me everything I knew. “Her Majesty will need to send out more troops soon.”
“How—how much do we need?” We controlled the mines east of the city, but they were often susceptible to raids by desert clans. We had better weapons, but our wagons were sluggish. And since the nomads had no mining equipment themselves, they often chose to target the caravans on their return instead.
I knew what I would do in my mother’s place. I would send out forty or fifty Silverguards armed to the teeth with fire-lances and stack the caravans high with cannons and glowfire. Any desert tribe seeing all that firepower on display would, I hoped, be smart enough to avoid carrying out what would be a suicide mission.
Yeong-ho sighed, running a hand through his dark hair. “Fifty tons, at least. I can manage with fifteen or so to guarantee nothing else falls apart in the next three weeks, but beyond that—” He left the words hanging.
A sonorous, mournful bell sounded from the direction of the Citadel, the highest tower in the city where Mother and I resided—twice, thrice, four times—proof I was in trouble. The Chimes were meant to warn the city of impending dangers or to issue proclamations, but Mother had been using them lately to announce when she wanted me in her chambers. She’d done it enough times that the others were familiar with the routine; Charley shot me a sympathetic look while Rodge helped me up. “Is something happening?” Charley asked.
“Knowing Mother, it’s probably another lecture on why I spend more time here than at the Citadel.” I bent over and retrieved the Bestiary. Mother had always disapproved of my decision to be a mechanika; I had deferred to her wisdom in almost everything else but that.
Rodge grunted. “Probably about that fandangled ball doohickey you’ve gots to go to in a couple of days.”
I cringed. Mother had made it clear that I was to find a potential consort among the many suitors expected to attend. It had never been a requirement for me to attend any of the previous balls she’d thrown, and I’d used her leniency to skip them altogether. This was different. This ball was to be thrown in my honor. I’d been dreading it.
“You can hide it out here with us,” Charley volunteered. None of them had been invited. “Just sneak out when no one’s—” She broke off into another coughing fit.
“To Franck you go,” Yeong-ho commanded. “And stop telling Her Royal Highness to disobey her mother.”
I flexed my fingers. “I’ll go see what she wants. She’ll need to know about this, anyway.”
Jes grinned, a strangely innocent expression that belied his usual demeanor. “Come back in one piece,” he said, and Charley guffawed, still choking.
Her Royal Holiness Latona sat on a jeweled chair that was just as opulent as the rest of the throne room. Despite the city’s name, gold was a useless metal in these parts, and nonessentials were forged with it to conserve the iron and steel needed for weapons and machinery. In this part of the city—the wealthier side—the dome was tinted and shuttered to keep most of the sun’s glare out, though Mother and I were practically immune to it. There had been some vague promises to do the same for the other districts, but the materials, for some odd reason, kept getting earmarked for other, higher priority projects.
Mother was clad in a simple white gown, braids carefully coiled behind her back, but as of late I’d been noticing the faint shadows under her eyes, the languid way she moved that suggested a lack of sleep.
She wasn’t alone; a cluster of nobles stood nearby, a few talking quietly among themselves. They were all old men in their fifties with perfectly manicured hair and expensive tailors on retainer, save one boy my age who was sitting quietly to one side with his nose in a book.
“You’re late.” Mother eyed my grime-smeared face and dirty work clothes with disdain. “And you’ve been to the towers.”
“With good reason, Mother. The structural integrity of some of the gears is failing, and we’ll need more ores soon to ensure that the irrigation system—”
“There are other pressing matters to discuss. Including your unannounced departure from the Citadel yesterday.”
I froze. Sometimes I underestimated my mother’s cleverness, and caught in her bright pale gaze, I couldn’t help but squirm. “It was just for a little while.”
“That makes no difference when it was without my permission!” Her voice rose, sharp in the sudden silence. “You’ll rule here after me, child. There are responsibilities to remember, and you cannot choose to gallivant out in the wasteland any time you choose.”
I’d had this argument with her many times before, and it wasn’t one I wanted to get back into, especially with an audience. So I maintained a sullen silence.
Mother sighed. “Lord Arrenley?” she asked, and a gray-haired man stepped forward. “Tell my daughter how Commander Evander and his men fare.”
“I sent them to the mines three days ago to harvest more ore, my liege. They should be back in time for the gala.”
I looked up, surprised and annoyed. Mother a
lways demanded that I tell her everything—but then turned around and withheld important information of her own, leaving me in the dark.
Mother smiled grimly. “There isn’t much going on in this city that I don’t know about, Haidee. In time, you’ll learn how. Besides, I’ve heard Yeong-ho complain enough times to make a guess.”
“Shouldn’t I be told these things, too?”
“If you’d poked your head out of the towers every now and then, I might have. Return that book to my library, and take up the treatise Counselor Seathorn sent regarding his thoughts on court customs. Perhaps that will keep all other foolish stories out of your head.”
“If it came from the counselor, then that isn’t likely,” I grumbled.
That earned me a rare laugh from her, and a few more from the other nobles. “There is more to ruling than slumming as a mechanika, Haidee. I trust you’ll find Vella’s latest creation more suitable to wear for the party?”
She was quick to spot the look on my face. “No protests. This is for your own good.” Mother’s gaze softened; for a minute she looked almost sad. “This is for the good of the city, too.”
“I know. I just . . . it makes me uncomfortable.”
“You’ll get used to it in time. I did. You need not marry immediately, Haidee. But it would do the citizens good to know that we are thinking of their future.”
“My liege?” one of the nobles asked. “Shall we start?”
I waited. I didn’t want to have to ask to join their meeting. Asking came from a position of weakness.
Mother turned away. “Seamstress Valla will be along shortly for your final dress fitting. I trust you’ll stay long enough for that.”
She and the other noblemen disappeared into another room, and I quietly fumed.
“I take it you’re having as bad a day as I am,” someone murmured by my elbow.
It was the boy with the book—the young lord hadn’t followed the rest into my mother’s inner sanctum. He was dressed exactly how I expected the children of the Golden City’s wealthy to dress: in an embroidered shirt and trousers underneath a heavy frock coat, ridiculous given the weather. But he looked genuinely friendly, and a friendly face was something I sorely needed at that moment.
“Thank you . . . I didn’t catch your name.”
“Lord Vanya Arrenley, Your Holiness.”
Of course. Of course he had to be a scion of the richest noble in the city, the lord who controlled the quicksilver mines to the west. The Arrenleys also oversaw the biggest of the gambling houses that had sprung up to meet the demand for entertainment.
He caught the change in my expression. “If you would much rather be alone . . .”
“I wouldn’t, but I’m not sure what a noble’s son is doing here.”
He shrugged. “Playing errand boy for my father. I’m the third son, so not as important in the greater scheme of things.”
“Not training to be a politician like he is?”
He made a face. “Not as well as Father wants me to be. I’m certainly not important enough to be in there with the others.”
That made two of us. “What are you reading?”
“History, mainly.” He held up his book, The Ages of Aeon stamped neatly across its pristine leather cover. Mother didn’t have that in her study. “Perhaps you’d like a look?”
I was surprised, pleased, suspicious. “Why?”
“This is the only copy known to have survived the Breaking. Father guards this book so zealously, I doubt Her Holiness is even aware that it exists. I thought you might like a look. After all, I live to serve the goddesses.”
I made a face at him, but his grin told me he’d said that in jest. I was still convinced he had some motive—nothing came for free in the Golden City. “Mother banned books that talk about the Breaking. She insisted that nothing but anger would come out of people forced to relive their trauma, even if just in pages. Are you telling me you own contraband?” That the nobles had access to more books than we did didn’t sound fair to me at all!
“Nothing so scandalous, unfortunately.”
I hid my disappointment. “It’s a work of fiction, then?”
“It’s a collection of poetry and hymns allegedly written by one of Inanna’s Devoted—or the collected writings of some anonymous madman, depending on which historian you believe. Some of the poems are mild enough, but a few border on the fantastic.”
“I see.” This wasn’t quite my field of interest.
“Father normally has no patience for balladry, but he’s quite partial to this book. Strange rituals, guardian statues, the Cruel Kingdom—”
“What?”
“Strange rituals? Guardian statues? Your Holiness, what—”
Seamstress Valla chose that moment to bustle in, wrestling with several armloads of lace and satin, but I was already making for Mother’s study instead of the private dressing room where I was to be measured. “I’m sorry,” I called over my shoulder. “But there’s something I need to do first.”
Mother’s study didn’t have many books—and I remembered now where I’d heard that phrase before. . . .
There! A volume older than most of the others, untitled. I flipped the pages and found what I was looking for:
Where the darkest hour and the brightest light meet
the Hellmouth shall be crossed
by she strengthened under the gift of day,
by she liberated with the gift of night.
But the Cruel Kingdom hungers for a sacrifice.
Sacrifice overthrows chaos.
Sacrifice is necessary
for what was two to become one.
This was it! Unfortunately, the strange poem was still as puzzling to me as when I had first read it months ago. What did a Cruel Kingdom have to do with the Breaking, and why did the mirage consider this so important?
A faint rustling noise. I looked down; two folded pieces of paper had slipped out from the pages. They hadn’t been there before.
I picked one up, absently tucking the other into my pocket to read next. I thought it would hold more explanations about the strange writings, perhaps even Mother’s thoughts on the matter, but—
Latona, my love, it read. Three days is far too long not to see you. Farthengrove is a beautiful place, but it does not have you and our children in it.
My face turned red. A love letter!
Mother never spoke of my father, never mentioned if he was a noble or not. For all I knew, I’d been hatched from an egg she’d nurtured.
The letter was unsigned.
Children, he had written.
I should put this back. I shouldn’t be reading this. This was a personal, intensely private letter. About my father.
Potentially my father.
Potentially my father, and children.
I continued to read.
I am worried about Asteria. I am not a Devoted, nor have I ever been an important person in the realm of Aeon, but I beg you: do not leave without healing the rift between you two. She took the gifts in your stead because she knows you have no desire to rule Aeon. We can remain here in Farthengrove and live the rest of our lives in peace now. Forgive her for not telling you of her plans beforehand. She may be ambitious, but I know that she did it for us as well.
You know they cannot be trusted; that they separated you two at birth is all the proof you need that they have raised you to be deceived. Surely there must be a compromise. Think of our children. Sweet Haidee and gentle Odessa would not—
“Haidee.”
I spun, my heart pounding. Mother stood in the doorway, eyes glittering with an unnatural light. The paper slipped from my hand, and she watched it float to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I didn’t mean to look—”
Mother crossed the room, stooped to pick up the letter. She examined it carefully. Something sparked in her eyes—grief? Sadness? “You’ve always been too curious for your own good, Daughter.”
“Was that
my father? Did I have a sister?” I was shaking. How could Mother have said nothing all these years about something so important? “Where are they? What happened to them? Mother, surely I deserve to know who my—”
Fire-gates opened without warning, and a burst of flame reduced the letter into soot and ash. Smoke curled, but the fire left no marks on her palm.
“The gala starts in the seventeenth hour, two days hence,” Mother said, every word a threat. “Do not be late.”
It was later, imprisoned in my room with guards posted at my doors, that I allowed myself to feel anger.
How could she? How dare she?
I had family! How could she treat them like they were inconsequential—like my right to know who they were was unimportant? Were they dead? She wouldn’t have kept that a secret from me for sentimental reasons.
But what did I really know about my mother? What else was she hiding from me? Because if she could go so far as to hide the fact that I had a sister . . .
I thought about the boy from the desert, so convinced that Mother had caused the Breaking. . . .
It was then that I read the second letter.
My love,
I ride with all the speed I can muster, but I pray this letter reaches you long before I do.
They betrayed us! Refuse the rituals they ask! Destroy the tablets! Flee Brighthenge! The magic that place wields can destroy the world as easily as it can revive it. Remember how you laughed when you said your customs were older than time itself, that Brighthenge spells were meant not for destruction, but for life? That you would have refused if she had foretold the destruction of our children as I’d feared?
I was not amused then, and I am not laughing now. They do not intend to kill Asteria for the ritual—they intend to kill you!
Chapter Five
Lan of the Two Lives
“SHE’S TIRED,” I SAID, stroking Odessa’s hair, exhausted myself. “She should be awake before long. She’s in no danger from anything else.”
Anything else besides the black spot above her heart—once as small as a penny, and now as large as a fist. For hours I had poured every ounce of magic I had into her, but nothing I did could shrink it back down.