Although he would never see her again, he could not be rid of her. The pain marring her face last he beheld her was seared into his heart, returning to taunt him each time he closed his eyes. Hurt was clearly there, but the more he peered, the more he saw relief as well. Then she would laugh cruel peals to awaken him in the unfamiliar darkness of Isabelle’s domain.
He knew she was awake each time he jerked back to consciousness, but Isabelle kindly kept up her pretense of the sleep that would elude him for the rest of the night, so Luca would slip out alone into the clearing to stare at the stars. The city of Gatlin stole the majesty of their glow, but even his glittering memories from his Wandering youth paled in comparison to the display of scattered diamonds in Ingios territory. For a while, he would forget his misery under their indifferent gaze, but eventually the eastern sky would brighten, and with the light, his hurt would return. Unable to muster any resistance to the constant pang, he would slump back to his bedroll to sleep the day away. Sometimes he consumed the meals waiting on the plate beside his pillow, and sometimes he forgot.
If Isabelle commiserated with his misery, he could not tell, the girl disappearing each morning after preparing a meal. Where she went each day he did not know, but she always returned before dusk with supplies for dinner. He caught Ingios words here and there in her head, but for the most part, she left him alone to wallow in silence.
She also left him his bix sticks. Although he never believed in them, Luca still threw them each day since his sojourn to Polis seven years ago. They were a part of him, sure as his name, his Listener talents, or his identity as an Ikus, yet he now did not know how long he had gone without them. Nor did he care.
***
Luca woke to Isabelle gently stroking his beard, her hazel eyes hovering inches from his.
=That’s enough. Time to work.
“Work at what?” His voice cracked like an old man’s. “You don’t need me.”
=True. But you work, or you go.
She stroked his beard again, giving Luca the impression of a shepherd appraising his year’s store.
=Getting better, but time to get rid of the Dobra.
Luca stumbled behind her as she ambled down the hill along her hidden path. Soon they found her corral, their horses awaiting their chance to graze. Her hand to her forehead to shade against the sun, Isabelle watched them until they disappeared over the horizon.
Then she wandered on.
The wilderness belonged to her, and she took her time harvesting her take. She never hurried, her pace far from strenuous, but Luca soon huffed as they silently stalked together. The tubers she gathered appeared wild, but he noted how many clustered near each other. It gave no hint of cultivation, but yielded more than enough for the two of them. Crushing a bulb against a rock, Isabelle rubbed it against the dried meat she produced from a pouch before handing it to Luca. He was unused to a midday meal, but found himself famished. The meat required several minutes of chewing before becoming soft enough to swallow, but between the bulb’s flavor and the added effort, Luca could not remember a better meal.
They rambled in silence the rest of the day, Isabelle casually bringing down two rabbits too curious of her for their own good. Wrapping her leather sling around her hand before returning it to her belt, she looked to Luca.
=You’ll have to learn.
***
Dinner done, Luca settled down for the night, but Isabelle stared hard at him. Instead of sharing her Mind, she sniffed the air and suddenly Luca’s stench assailed him. How he was able to ignore the unwashed weeks so long horrified him.
“Where can I get a bath?”
Isabelle nodded and he followed. To his surprise, she headed up the hill rather than down towards the stream he spied on their wandering. Soon as they reached the top, Isabelle fell still, her eyes aimed skywards. Luca gazed at the stars splashed upon the sky and became so enraptured by their beauty he did not notice Isabelle until she pressed against him. Grasping his coat’s lapels, she burrowed close enough for her crown to bump his chin. Then her hand crept up until it alighted upon his Listener pin. Never breaking her gaze, she tilted her head to blow lightly upon it. No glow appeared to dim the darkness.
=Now you.
Luca’s lips pursed, but he could not bring himself to exhale. The chance that Jaelle no longer loved him would break what was left of his heart, but the idea she still might would be far worse.
=No use now. Be free. Just let go.
Without releasing his eyes, she pulled Simza’s locket from under her shirt by the chain.
=We will both be free of Dobra. Marrow true.
She was right, Luca knew. He may be hunted by his own people, but they would never find him this far out in the wild. This was Isabelle’s domain, and he was safer here than anywhere on Ayr. She had proven herself his savior marrow true again and again, and all she asked in return was to give up this last vestige of Simza’s influence and Jaelle’s impossible love. It would be a dear price, but as the Listener pin left his hand on its arc into the dark, Luca felt shriven of the last shackles of his Dobra kin.
Isabelle grinned as she tore off Simza’s locket. Luca expected her to fling it away too, but she hesitated.
=One last. The imbued lockblade.
Gideon’s heirloom appeared from his pocket, Luca’s arm rearing back. But at its peak, he hesitated. The silver casing somehow reflected the cold starlight back at him, reminding him of its origins. In truth, it should have meant nothing to him, just chance spoils from a fallen foe. It was the most precious item he ever possessed, a treasure passed down from Chunvin father to son until Gideon was unlucky enough to wield it, but it felt abhorrent in Luca’s hand. It was nothing but a cruel reminder of what he had lost, and he should be happy to be free of it.
But it was imbued to ensure his survival.
“I can’t. So long as I have it, I cannot be defeated. It makes me strong.”
=Already strong. Never been defeated, only given in. Can do anything.
Luca looked away, his hand already burrowing the imbued lockblade back into his pocket. He expected Isabelle’s anger, but she smiled as she replaced the locket beneath her shirt.
=Good start. We’ll finish after the smell.
***
She led him by hand down to the stream, Isabelle following its flow until they reached a bend. There, the water backed up a bit, Luca spying the heavy stones strategically placed to dam the flow without drawing attention. How the slight girl had heaved them on her own confounded him, but he knew her mind as she removed first his vest then his shirt. The trousers troubled her a bit, so Luca shucked them himself. The water was bracingly cold, but it felt good to slough off the accumulated filth since Simza’s betrayal. Isabelle assisted from the bank, roughly scrubbing his back before turning him around. His hand securely in hers, she drew him up, and a new man emerged, still shivering from the cold. She warmed him with her kisses, a passion underlying them Luca never knew before.
He did not bother dressing as she hauled him back to their home, shedding her clothes along the way.
***
Isabelle set him to work the next morning, his first task to collect both their discarded clothes. Striding naked along the route, Luca marveled at the stinging bruises her kisses left behind. The minor pains felt welcome though—far better than the slow rot that had taken root in his Soul. In one night, Isabelle had torn it out from the bedrock on up, and he marveled at the new connection they shared. There were no expectations, no obligations.
The two of them now were truly free, and the freedom made him giddy in its totality.
Luca eagerly took to their shared bed that night with the intention of leaving sweet bruises of his own. Instead of soft feminine curves, Isabelle consisted of angles sharp enough to cut. Hers were strong, needy hands rather than a civilized woman’s worn soft by weakness and docility. She mewled like an animal, both dignity and decorum a foreign language she did not deign to learn. Strangest and most
intriguing were her closed-mouth kisses. Luca suspected they were due to the loss of her tongue, but was too aware of his good fortune to pry further.
Chapter 35
Blotmonad 29, 567
An exemplar of his deadly order, Graff held the line at Stone Cleaver alone, but Marta faced him without fear. Her odd Armor already shrugged off both his drawing and Isabelle’s black stone knife, so she believed the advantage to be hers, especially since he had no notion as to her limits.
“Keep Caddie safe.”
She leapt at the Render without waiting for Luca’s reply. Her Armor a second skin sheathing her, the throbbing pain of the scattershot wounds melted away as the ethereal encasement moved for her. Bounding faster than any human could possibly manage, she hoped her claws might cleave the Render before he could even unsheathe his glass dagger.
Graff disregarded his dagger, instead gesturing as he drew upon her exuded Breath. Shapers never stood a chance against Renders, and Marta took great pleasure in seeing the dullard’s surprise when she did not halt at his behest.
His drawing was not without effect, however, Marta sensing his unnatural influence tearing at her extended Breath. What before would have made her his puppet instead felt like slogging through a swamp; resistance was there, but she could still push through. It took extraordinary exertion to continue her attack, but Marta gladly made the effort.
Graff might look the simpleton, but soon as his drawing failed to halt Marta’s momentum, he shifted his unnatural influence, deflecting her to the side at the last second. Her claws missed his face by a hairsbreadth, the Render’s glass blade drawn and slashing her Armored arm as she passed.
Marta thought the pain from the scattershot pellets intense, as was the touch of Isabelle’s black knife, but Graff’s glass dagger eclipsed them both. Only the ghul’s intangible sting poisoning her own Breath came close, Graff’s dagger tearing her essence apart from just a single slash.
She held her odd Armor together though, her Breath aching, but intact.
Graff graced her with another flicker of uncertainty before muttering, “An untamed beast in an unkind land.”
“You want them as your last words?” she mocked.
His phrase came from the Biba Sacara, from the apocrypha Book of Aeson, detailing an emet that would one day stand against Sol’s return for the Harvest. Marta suspected he cast himself as Sol in his head, but cared little. Already Luca turned the reins to the carriage to spirit Caddie away. She hoped the sound of the carriage’s departure would draw Graff’s gaze long enough to lunge again, but the Render’s one good eye remained lazily upon her.
“Where do you draw from? Do you sit in the circle?”
To her utter amazement, the man walked forward with his dagger at his side as if she posed no threat. To kill such a cretin would probably be a sin, but Marta readied herself for the act.
Graff was only feet away and displaying no aggression when Marta’s Armor failed her. It did not disappear all at once, but suddenly the impossible plans lost their definition around the edges. Her ethereal fingers faded as the plans became even more indistinct, but aware she would not get this opportunity again, Marta stood her ground.
Her Armor slipping away by the second, she slashed soon as Graff was in range. The attack would end any other man, but Graff somehow managed to both dodge and catch her exposed Breath again with his damnable dagger.
The pain nearly blinded her, and it took all Marta’s will to keep her knees from buckling.
“An untamed beast in an unkind land,” he repeated before striking again.
Despite the remnants of her odd Armor still possessing more power than a breakneck train, Marta found herself falling back. As she retreated, her Armor disintegrated farther, her injuries roaring back to distract her. Seeing no point in remaining, upon Graff’s next lunge she shanked away on inhuman legs.
With each lope catching up to the carriage, Marta felt more whole, her Armor again moving for her wounded limbs and leading her along. Her enhanced legs thundered beneath her as she made the leap and crashed into the carriage’s back. The brass frame buckled in her inhuman grip, and she nearly giggled when the alarmed Luca looked back to see the source of the commotion. He wore Clement’s strange contraption, the goggles making his grin oddly distorted. The image appeared absurd, but Marta reveled in it until Luca’s face went rigid. Tracing his gaze, she saw Graff catching up on horseback.
Marta readied her pounce to remove Graff’s horse from the equation when the whomp on the carriage roof announced the appearance of the blonde glassman.
“Wha—”
The foot to the face cut her question short, Marta dislodged and tumbling in the cobbled street. Regaining an upright position, she spied the glassman’s hands tearing through wooden sides and ripping the roof from the vehicle. With no more than a shrug, the monster tossed the roof away, tittering as Isabelle savagely slashed at her ankles. One hand on the reins, Luca twisted to add what aid he could with his lockblade, but the glassman only laughed harder.
Marta heard Luca’s yell, but could not catch the words as Graff’s horse arrived. “Glassman,” she cried, banking on his hatred of their kind. She did not wait to see if her statement took root as she hurled herself forward.
The glassman met Marta’s press with barely a step back, catching her Armored arms and halting them inches from her throat. Despite all of Marta’s newfound power, the glassman held firm.
“This is the all of what you are? Pale. Paltry,” Bernice sneered.
Balancing atop the careening carriage, the glassman took a step closer. Marta feared her end when suddenly the monster’s legs ripped out from under her, and she silently thanked Graff’s intervention with his drawing. Unfortunately, the glassman maintained her grip, yanking them both over the side to skip across the road like stones.
Up in an instant, each eyed the other as Graff skidded to a stop. Drawing the glassman’s breath again, he dropped his reins to unsheathe his dagger. Dragged towards her death by his gesture, the glassman still grinned.
Suddenly, miraculously, the Render’s invisible grasp released her, Bernice already wheeling and disappearing back after the carriage and leaving a single blue Breath behind.
“Huh,” Graff intoned absently before riding on.
Marta could only imagine what she witnessed as she scampered after them. As far as she was aware, only she had ever shrugged off a Render’s drawing, and even then, Graff’s ability still held sway over her. Resisting a Render was patently impossible, but Marta could not ignore the image of the glassman catching up to Caddie instead of being trapped in his grasp. Overtaking the man and his horse, she chanced a glance his direction, ready for his attack.
“She abandons her threatened stones,” he said instead. She had no clue as to what he meant, but preferred his words to his blows. “But I will still return her to the flow before her daughter.”
Had she her druthers, she would end him then for insinuating Caddie’s unholy progeny, but she caught sight of Bernice climbing up the side of the carriage without any aversion to Isabelle’s slashes. Modifying her Armor’s feet into rabbit leg designs, Marta leapt at the monster.
They tumbled in a mass of limbs and groans, each up and swinging. The glassman’s strength outshone Marta’s, but the woman did not possess the claws or training Marta did, relying instead on a predator’s instinct. Still, she had faced down an ancient engel and survived, which made Marta wary. The glassman too treated her with respect as she feinted out Marta’s defenses. Extending their dance, Marta hid her grin she until she heard Graff’s horse rumble to a stop.
The glassman’s gaze only flinched away for a second, but Marta attacked soon as she did. Instead of aiming for the throat, Marta dropped at the last second to rake the monster’s undefended legs. The slash staggered her victim, and would spell the death of any human in seconds, but the glassman was immediately back on her feet, exhaling two Breaths as her skin knitted back together. Watching the w
oman’s wounds heal before her eyes, Marta realized she had done little more than chip a stone from a mountain, but she still considered it a victory.
Her ploy bore fruit, the Render gesturing and the distracted glassman’s Breath pouring out her mending wounds. Two elongated Breaths—red and yellow—stretched themselves all the way to his hands, his glass dagger whistling through them.
The glassman’s scream tasted sweeter than sugar. Even wounds Marta inflicted or the engel’s overwhelming assault earned no more than laughs. Marta knew the pain the monster must be feeling as Graff culled two more Breaths, but that only grew her grin. Like a street magician snatching scarves from nowhere, the Render tore Breath after Breath from the woman, which he severed with the efficiency of a farmer’s swinging scythe. Bernice diminished before their eyes as he yanked at least a dozen Breaths, the woman collapsing to quiver like a newborn. She still had life in her, the Render ready to tear more out, when Marta struck.
Despite his good eye focused upon the abomination, Graff again proved quicker as he brought his glass dagger to bear. It was brandished more to drive her back, but Marta pressed past the pain. His dagger pierced her odd Armor all the way through, and burrowed so deep its tip buried an inch into her breast.
Marta embraced the agony as she embraced Graff. Barreling them both to the earth, she drove his dagger a bit deeper, only finally wrenching herself free when she feared it would penetrate straight through to her heart. Perched perpendicular on the prone Graff, she marveled at the blade still imbedded in her flesh. Its shell was fragile glass, a steel core there to give it heft, and, as such, would probably shatter when it hit her ribs. In fact, the tip digging into her was not enough to keep the blade aloft, her Armor providing the netting keeping the blade in place. Such a sight was undoubtedly an anomaly on Ayr, but Graff stole her chance to consider it by bringing both fists together to drive at the dagger’s hilt deeper still.
He moved so swiftly that it was all Marta could do to get her Armored arm in the way. Holding him there on instinct with her superior strength, she tore the glass dagger free and hurled the hateful thing away.
The Imbued Lockblade (Sol's Harvest Book 2) Page 34