by Dave Rudden
“Again!”
White-hot light pealed a second time, a menagerie of different Prayers. The Favored under Meredel’s tutelage unleashed their fire and then stepped back—not in perfect unison, but far more competently than when they’d first arrived. Only one staggered, falling to his knees and coughing through a flame-seared throat.
None of the others went to help. That wasn’t how training worked.
Beyond them, Grandfather lectured the most recent arrivals. Some had already donned tunics and shirts marked with the Crow and the Claw, but others still wore their clothes from Outside—strange fabrics, garishly bright. With an eye attuned for spotting weakness, Uriel identified those whose gaze was bright with fervor and those who stared forward blankly as if Eloquence were a bad dream they’d spent years trying to forget.
Meredel bid his students hold their fire as Uriel approached, but he still gave the newcomers a wide berth. After their long absence from Eloquence, it was hard to bring out the Favor in some, and harder to control it in others. There had already been ... clashes.
Despite the cold, sweat streaked Uriel’s cheeks. Once he had known every outcrop and pothole on this hillside. Now it had been rearranged by the violent worship of the Croits, pitted by sizzling craters and scars, and he had to pick his way across.
“Meredel,” Uriel said.
His cousin nodded, eyes still fixed on his newcomers. A placeholder title—Uriel had a feeling Grandfather would devise a grander name for them based on something from the histories—
Suddenly what he had just thought caught up to him, the disrespectfulness of it, and he felt the burn of shame, even as his head jerked involuntarily toward Eloquence.
Nothing. She’s not ...
Uriel took a deep, shaky breath. What’s wrong with me? “How ... how are they?”
“Learning,” Meredel said.
Farther down the slope, Adauctus Croit’s lanky form led a sweat-lathered group in swordwork. More modern weapons were arriving, but such things took time—even with Croit money involved—and in the meantime every sword, ax, and halberd had been pressed into service.
Focus. That was what Grandfather wanted. Wielding the weapons was a secondary concern. The days of that kind of warfare were long gone, and the destructive potential of a Croit went far beyond the point of a sword. But the Favor was dangerous, bound only by the will of the Croit that spoke it. Any distraction, anything that took your mind from taming that white-hot fire ...
“Have you seen Ambrel?” Uriel said. “I…um…haven’t. Have you?”
“Don’t know,” Meredel said. “Ask the Afterwoken.”
It was as good a name as any. Uriel stared down at them. He hadn’t learned their names—it was still strange for Uriel to have people in his life whose names he didn’t know—and the thought of them knowing something about Ambrel that he didn’t made his stomach turn.
They’re not Croits, Uriel thought. Not really. They hadn’t grown up in the shadow of the castle, sleeping on cots, learning everything they knew of the world straight from Grandfather’s mouth. Every Croit was brought to Grandfather to be tested at thirteen, but Uriel and Ambrel had spent their entire lives here, confiscated from their unFavored parents.
It was the only thing their parents had done right.
“No,” Uriel said. “I’ll find her myself.”
Another new concept, one far more disconcerting than the newcomers. Before the Redemptress had awoken, Uriel could have counted the beats of Ambrel’s heart simply by counting his own. There had never been more than half a second’s gap between them.
And there isn’t. There won’t be. Ever.
She wasn’t in the Armory, its walls now bare of all that sharpened steel. The new crowdedness of the corridors was unnerving—at certain points Uriel had to push through Afterwoken, though one look at his dark expression was enough for most to realize who he was and jump out of the way. He wasn’t sure what was more annoying.
Scaling the battered rib cage of a tower, he gazed out over the Garden, but the only color darting between the white marble was Tabitha exercising her cruelty on a stumbling, screaming cohort of Afterwoken. Ambrel wasn’t in the Weeping Gallery either, but neither was anyone else, so Uriel stood there for a long time, listening to the wind wheeze between broken stone.
There was only one place he hadn’t looked. Nausea bored through Uriel’s stomach, as it had every day since ...
Why won’t I go? That’s where she is. That’s where She is. Faces swam across his vision, the two most important faces in his life. His sister and his Redemptress. They blurred together and were one.
What’s wrong with me?
Attend.
He was running before the first echo of that unearthly voice. So was everyone else. Frustration built in Uriel as the exodus slowed his pace, and he was half tempted to split away, try some of the secret gaps and passages he and Ambrel had spent their entire childhood exploring, but ...
The castle’s shadows hung differently now, as if the stones that cast them had been rearranged. Corridors didn’t lead where Uriel remembered them leading. Old handholds gave way, and places that had once stood firm now teetered, ready to fall.
Everything was different. Everything was the same. He had lived here almost every day of his life, and yet, with these new faces and the bleak taste of nausea and a sister-shaped gap beside him that had never been there before ...
He felt like an outsider.
The Redemptress towered over the entrance to Eloquence, hair hanging round Her cheeks like the grasping legs of a spider, too heavy to be moved by the breeze. She had been spending more and more time outside in the last few days, relearning the touch of the sun.
In front of Her stood thirty-six Favored Croits, and half-Croits, and quarter-Croits, and drop-of-Croits. Each one had knelt in front of Her at the moment of their thirteenth birthday and each one had a Prayer to Her in their heart. Some had been in Eloquence for every minute of Uriel’s childhood. Some had just visited. Some were complete strangers ... but their destiny had always lain here.
Uriel’s eyes found Abucad’s and then immediately looked away.
Pushing through the crowd, Uriel tried to surreptitiously search for Ambrel. He just wanted to talk to her. Wanted to know if she felt the same otherness he did, the otherness that had come with the opening of wire eyes. He wanted to know if she was afraid.
He wanted to look into her eyes and still see his reflection there.
Do you feel it? The Redemptress’s head was tipped toward the sky, as if awaiting the first drop of rain. Can you feel it coming?
Her voice was soft, neutral, but the Croits around him tensed all the same. Uriel understood perfectly. When She opened Her mouth, there was no telling which voice would speak—the ice-cold conqueror or the lover tortured by loss.
“What is it, Majesty?”
Uriel stiffened as Ambrel appeared, followed closely by Grandfather. He strained to catch her eye, but her gaze was turned upward.
Go to her, Uriel told himself, but his limbs wouldn’t move. The turmoil in his stomach deepened to pain.
“Yes,” Grandfather said, placing his hand on Ambrel’s shoulder. “Tell us.”
Come close, She said, looking down on them. You must all come close. I thought I was the last… . I thought maybe there was no one left but ...
Her arms rose, gathering them all up like a mother with Her children.
Tell me what you are.
Grandfather raised his arms in imitation, right hand clasping his empty left sleeve. Light prowled under his skin, spilling from his open mouth.
“We are the faithful. We are the Favored. We are the descendants of the First Croit and we carry his sacred charge.”
More lights bloomed in eyes and mouths, staining the gray dust a rich and hungry gold. His brothers and sisters around him drew on their fire too, and, despite himself, Uriel felt his own Favor rise, flowing through his limbs in a wave of heat and burning his
doubt away.
This was right. This was proper.
Thirty-six Croits together, each one with the Favor in their hearts. What could you do with that much fire? What would you want to do?
Two Croits together was an argument. Three was a tinderbox. This many ...
This was a crusade.
“We are Croits!” Grandfather roared, and a yell swept the hillside. Uriel cried out too, caught up in the power and the fury, and above it all the Redemptress frowned as if She had never heard the word before.
No.
The light died in stages, in a sort of sullen shock. She was no longer looking at them all; Her gaze fixed upon the horizon. Beneath Her, Croits exchanged glances like chastened children. A slow rasp built in the silence, circling them like the sleepy drone of a wasp.
Wires were slipping from the rubble, twisting in the air like vines seeking sun. They braided, wrapping themselves round each other, pushing Croit against Croit. It was suddenly hard to see, to breathe; someone staggered into Uriel and he pushed back, the wires whispering to each other as they tightened.
The Redemptress gave them a bitter smile.
You are mine.
And deafening came the sound of wings.
The otherness prickling Uriel’s skin redoubled, the sensation of wrongness suddenly so strong it was like a physical pain. He tasted blood, then tin. The lattice of wires twisted around them, and Croits shoved and pushed in sudden panic. The ground shook, and suddenly there were birds, bursting somehow from the ground, spiraling upward round the Redemptress in a tower a thousand strong.
Uriel’s Favor hammered against his chest, crying out to be drawn. No. In this press, he’d hurt nothing but Family. The shrieking flood of birds hadn’t stopped, and when they banked overhead, it was like the sun had gone dark.
Then, finally, it ended. A final shape dragged itself out of the dust and into the sky, and then the whole crazed flock descended upon one of Eloquence’s ruined parapets, bird clinging to bird, the crag of stone invisible beneath a heaving mat of shapes.
They were crows. He could see that now—mirrors to the emblem on his tunic, though the embroidery did not do these creatures justice—white, fat things, long of beak and black of eye. Uriel’s skin prickled at the thought of so many razor points.
Croits around him swayed. Uriel caught a brief glimpse of Hagar vomiting into the dirt. One or two had simply fainted, held by their cousins so they didn’t pitch forward onto the gleaming fence of wires. The birds’ eyes followed those the most, as though they knew weakness when they saw it.
Carrion-eaters, Uriel thought, and then they spoke.
It feels soooo goooood to streeeeetcccchhh!
The voice seeped from a thousand beaks. Uriel had never heard such a voice before, with its clicks and wet snarls, but all he could think of was that it sounded familiar.
It sounded like the Redemptress.
Not the words but the nature of the voice—how it echoed oddly, slid into your ears like needles.
That’s the first time you’ve ever thought of Her as wrong, a voice whispered, but the blasphemy went unnoticed.
Back! the Redemptress snarled, Her voice like tearing steel. Mine!
And I thought I kept a full larder, the birds sniggered. Something like a head rose from the shifting, heaving mass—a clot of eyes and beaks and wriggling tongues. Someone vomited against Uriel’s back, but he didn’t dare take his eyes from this beast that spoke and felt like the goddess they were supposed to serve.
That we do serve, a voice whispered, but Uriel wasn’t listening to it anymore. He couldn’t. There was too much horror in the air.
Where is Ambrel?
Slowly, shouldering through the press, Uriel began to move. Above him, wires wove and rewove, widening the Redemptress’s shoulders, lifting Her higher, bulking out Her spindly frame. Spines rose along Her back—long knives of black. When She next spoke, it was in a new tone altogether, as if this creature had shocked Her lucid.
Malebranche. You live. You ...
We all live, dear. The monstrous thing seemed amused. It was you who was dead.
Something of the confused child entered Her voice. I fell.
Memory’s a little shaky, is it? Feathers rasped against feathers. I’m not surprised. Too long in this world and we really do start coming apart. You didn’t fall, Coronus. You were pushed.
Uriel hadn’t managed to move more than a meter or so through the crush. All he wanted to do was draw his sword and cut his way to his sister, and every word exchanged by these giants made that desire stronger. Was this thing, this Malebranche, a god as well? How many of them were there?
Why didn’t we know?
The Redemptress was trembling, Her wires hissing together.
How did you find me?
A single caw broke the air. The clustered murder lurched upward into something almost human-shaped—limbs thatched from wings and tiny bodies—and caught a descending crow from the air. It shook in the creature’s grasp, gray where the others were white, nuzzling as if glad to be with its brothers.
I never lost you, dear. I have eyes everywhere. And it’s funny what humans remember.
The Crow and the Claw. Uriel suddenly fought the urge to tear the emblem from himself. This was the creature they had carried through the centuries. This was the lie they had worn.
Crows always have a place on the battlefield.
The creature stroked its wayward son gently, crooning.
So long out in this rigid, searing world ... So long by itself ... It’s almost a real thing itself now, a little mind away from mine.
There was a snap.
There. Better.
Uriel watched as the limp body of the gray crow was subsumed into the rustling mass. The creature stretched with a multitude of croaks.
I wondered if our return would wake you, and what you would do if it did. Malebranche finally seemed to notice the Croits below it, huddling in their cradle of wires. Didn’t you learn anything the last time? What is your fascination with these little children and their flashbulb souls?
You don’t understand. The Redemptress growled so low Uriel felt his diaphragm vibrate. You’ve never understood.
No, the beast murmured. I never, ever have. It rolled forward on legs made of jabbering crows, leaving crushed bodies behind. The proximity of it was horrendous. Uriel wiped a thread of blood from his nose.
Ambrel.
He pushed harder, squeezing between his cousins, stepping over those who had fallen, and all he could think was—
They’re connected. They feel the same, and they share a past.
Come home, the hideous creature said, and all the mockery had left its voice. Come home and forget this world. You’ve been away so long that perhaps the King will show ... clemency.
Ambrel was steps away, her gaze fixed on the Redemptress, her hands clenched into fists. Uriel was nearly beside her.
The dark isn’t so bad, Coronus. We’ve adapted. As we’ve always done.
Its voice was raw.
There is nothing in the light for us.
And Ambrel turned toward her brother and took his hand. Gold spilled through her, turning her skin the shade of a summer sunrise. Uriel’s own Favor rose to meet it, and suddenly everyone around them was lit in honeyed light. Uriel could see panicked eyes, shaking hands—they were terrified, but they stood, and light rose within them.
They are the faithful. They are the Favored. The Redemptress halted over each word. They are descendants of the First Croit, and they carry his sacred charge.
We do.
And just for a moment, despite the wretched violation of Malebranche’s presence and the doubts growing like black flowers in his chest, Uriel believed in Ambrel. And that was enough.
The wires thrummed with tension.
They are Croits. And they are all I have left of him.
Malebranche shook its great feather-maned head. So be it.
Wait.
There was aching pain in the Redemptress’s voice. I never ... I never meant to cause ...
I know you didn’t, the monster said quietly.
Birds opened their wings and the creature came apart in spiraling crows.
Maybe you have it right, dear, it called from a thousand throats. Maybe we should all be gathering our little human cults. The King still has his, after all. ...
The wires suddenly tightened a full meter inward. Uriel fell against his cousins, and his cousins fell on him. Ambrel’s hand was jerked from his.
The Redemptress’s voice was a hiss.
The Order lives?
Oh, you have been sleeping, the birds cackled. Oh yes, Coronus—they THRIVE now, with the blood of thousands of our kind on their hands, and yet we meet with them under a banner of peace. And all because the King’s little girl has taken a shine to one of them. Wasn’t that what made you such adversaries to begin with?
You see, there’s this BOY. ...
WORDS WERE IMPORTANT.
Denizen had grown up on words. They were comfort and protection. In the absence of family, and occasionally food, Denizen had subsisted on nothing else. He’d understood the magic of them long before he had known of the existence of actual magic.
But it wasn’t magic words that were the trouble.
Some words had their own magic. Small words with massive meanings—words like love and family. They had to be small because people were already so afraid of them. Denizen had read once that the simpler a question, the more complex the answer. Giant questions boil down to a single number, and questions like How could you? might never get answered at all.
Words had power. Unseen, terrible power. And right now Denizen’s words had transported him into a whole other world.
There was a guard outside his bedroom door.
Denizen rubbed sleep from his eyes. He hadn’t left his room in a day, hoping that since Vivian hadn’t grounded him he might gain extra points by grounding himself. He didn’t know if Abigail knew what he’d done. He didn’t know if Darcie did. He just knew he couldn’t hide anymore.