Diamond City

by Francesca Flores

  There was a hint of protectiveness in her voice, and Aina didn’t blame her. It was already a risk on her part to invite them here at all.

  “Are you Inosen yourself?” Aina asked as Raurie led them to the back room.

  Nodding again, Raurie said, “Yes, I have been all my life. But I haven’t been blessed to be able to use magic. My aunt says it’s too dangerous.” She gestured into the small back room. “Here she is.”

  Her aunt, June Coste, sat in the center of the room on a pillow. Black hair streaked with gray shrouded her face, which was narrow with high cheekbones. Two candles cast golden light onto her ochre-brown skin and her yellow shawl. A black tattoo curved in the center of her forehead like the blade of a scythe. Through the black ink, three small diamonds sat in her forehead, unabashedly revealed to the world. Aina’s breath caught at the sight. The diamonds revealed exactly what she was.

  June was a Sacoren, a priest—they were Inosen that the Mothers came to, either in a vision or in their thoughts, and asked them to be leaders of their people and to bless willing Inosen with the ability to use the magic of blood and earth. Then, they pierced three diamonds into an arc on their own foreheads as a gesture of loyalty to the Mothers and a sign that they had been chosen as leaders. Her parents had told her to always trust Sacoren, that they were there to help—except for King Verrain. He’d twisted the power given to him for his own purposes, making it evil instead of the blessing the Mothers had intended it to be.

  Ever since the war, any Sacoren who were caught by the Diamond Guards had their diamonds ripped out and these tattoos forcibly inked in their place, so that everyone would know their crime. Instead of being thrown in jail or killed, they were allowed to walk freely with the tattoo as a warning to all other Inosen that steel would always be stronger than blood. June must have restored the diamonds herself.

  On June’s left was a tattered copy of the Nos Inoken, the holy text filled with the Mothers’ wisdom, written by Sacoren hundreds of years ago. On her right was a glass jar filled with rough diamonds. Each diamond was only good for one act of magic, so it made sense that she needed a jar full of them. She said nothing as they sat, simply straightened her sleeves and took them in. This woman made a living off performing magic for people who had never been blessed to do so themselves or were too scared to. In the Stacks, older Inosen like June Coste were venerated as long as they could manage to escape the Diamond Guards’ attention.

  “Amman oraske,” June said in greeting. May the Mothers bless you.

  “Amman min oraske,” Aina replied, the familiar words sliding easily off her tongue and easing her nerves. These were some of the few words her parents had known in the old holy language, which had died out except for use among Inosen. Her parents had said these words in greeting to the Sacoren who had led the underground worship services. “You were a Sacoren, weren’t you?”

  “I am a Sacoren, a proper one, not a twisted one like Verrain was, and I will be a Sacoren until the day I die and my soul returns to the Mothers,” June said. “Even if most of the people in this city have given up on their faith, I have not. The Mothers will protect me even while the city bleeds itself out.”

  Aina fought down a grimace. June, like most Inosen, would likely believe the Mothers would always protect her—until, of course, there was a gun in her face with a Diamond Guard at the end of it. Maybe Aina would worship the Mothers if they could provide bulletproof shields.

  After a short pause, Raurie whispered sheepishly, “You have to pay first.”

  Aina elbowed Ryuu. He withdrew a box from his pocket, then opened it. Coins spilled out in front of June, gold glittering in the candlelight.

  “My blood will be given willingly in service to you, through the Mothers’ blessing,” June began. “Raurie, if you will assist me.”

  Raurie stepped to the side of the room and knelt in front of a chest. From it, she withdrew a small knife. She then plucked a diamond from the jar to the right and passed both objects to her aunt.

  “Raurie tells me you would like to track someone. What is their name?”

  Aina bit her lip for a moment, wondering how much she could trust this woman.

  Then she remembered there wasn’t really a choice in the matter.

  “Kouta Hirai.”

  “So, he’s still alive?” June asked, tilting her head to the side. “Have you brought something to complete the spell’s connection? To perform a tracking spell, we will need the blood of the person performing the spell, the blood of the person receiving the vision, and some piece of the person you are tracking. Mine, yours, and … Mr. Hirai’s.”

  Aina handed over a small glass vial with scrapings of Kouta’s dried blood from her dagger. June stared at it for a moment, turning the vial in her weathered hands so it caught the light. Weariness crossed her face, as if she’d seen so much blood that the mere sight of it exhausted her. She then looked at Aina, taking in her clothes and features.

  “Dare I ask how a girl from the Stacks got the blood of one of the wealthiest men in the city? Unless, of course, she recently tried to kill him…”

  The statement hung in the air, rife with tension. Aina partially rose, one hand trailing to a dagger, but Ryuu placed his hand on top of hers and answered June first.

  “I’m Kouta’s brother,” he explained quickly. “I was there when he was attacked. The person who tried to kill him dropped their knife, and this was left over. I need to find out where he is.”

  As he finished speaking, June waved her hand dismissively, but there was a knowing look in her eyes as she turned back to Aina. “It’s not my business, I suppose. I will perform this spell for you. It will show us a vision of where Kouta Hirai is. Since you brought the element we will use to track him, you will be the one the Mothers grant the vision to. You, and me.”

  In the dim light, June brought the silver edge of the knife closer to her forearm where healing cuts trailed across her skin, then made another small prick with the tip of the blade. Small scars circled the new wound like a macabre constellation. She caught the blood on the diamond, then nodded at Aina.

  Aina took the knife from her boot and brought it to her upper arm, a memory flashing through her mind of her mother doing the same thing to heal a neighbor of a blood disease. Aina had sat in the corner quietly, watching her mother’s every move.

  When the man had left, healed, Aina had watched him go through the window. She’d scanned both ends of the street for signs of Diamond Guards who might have been spying on them. Over the past few years, she’d seen people disappear. She’d seen people get shot. While she didn’t fully understand what was happening, she knew that what her parents did was a risk.

  When the man had disappeared around the corner, she let out a frustrated breath and turned to face her mother, who was busy cleaning the knife.

  “Why do you keep doing that if it’s dangerous?” she asked in a rush. She’d asked different versions of this question multiple times, but the answers she got never really eased her fears.

  Her mother’s forehead crinkled as she turned to Aina and spoke in the same calm voice she always used. “He needed help, mijita. He can’t afford to go to a hospital, and I have the ability to heal him. It’s what I must do with this gift the Mothers have granted to me.”

  She wanted to ask who would help them if they got caught, but she didn’t know how to voice the question without making her mother angry. So, she’d kept quiet whenever they went to underground services, recited prayers, or used magic, and she stopped searching for Diamond Guards at every corner.

  Now, Aina acted almost mechanically. She pressed the tip of the blade to her skin. Vibrant red blood spilled onto the blade. June held the diamond up to her own blade, and then Aina’s. Blood dripped off the metal surface and onto the diamond in minuscule red bursts to join June’s own offering.

  While holding the diamond in one palm, June took the vial with the scrapes of Kouta’s blood and held it in her other hand. The room fell sile
nt as they all watched her in anticipation.

  Closing her eyes, June whispered, “Amman inoke.”

  Though all the doors were closed and there were no windows, a brisk wind found its way into the room immediately, raising the hair on the back of Aina’s neck.

  As the bit of diamond visible through the blood glowed with a soft internal light, Aina wondered which jewelry store it had come from, who had sold it to the store, whom June had bought it from … and then a black slate fell over her eyes.

  22

  “What—?” The world disappeared, and all Aina saw was blackness. Her fingers twitched toward her knives.

  “Shh,” Raurie whispered.

  The vision descended into darkness, as if she were staring into a cavern lake with no chance of light reaching in.

  Then it brightened and murky images formed: a long, narrow room with numerous small windows. But even though it was still daytime, the world outside those windows was dark and ominous. Rows of seats spread along the room with a strip of floor between them. A few dim yellow lights hung on the walls. Kouta sat in one of the seats, his neck still bandaged, gaze fixed on the windows as if he we were waiting for something. There was no sign of the guards he’d left Amethyst Hill with.

  The scent of blood reached her nostrils. She sucked in air from the real world, which pulled her out of the vision like a fish on a hook.

  In seconds, her own vision cleared, and Aina found herself in June Coste’s home again.

  “Are you okay, Aina?” came Teo’s voice, tinged with concern. He sat right next to her, but the words seemed to come from miles away.

  “What the hell was that?” she asked.

  “The vision showed you where he is,” June answered simply. “A long room with many seats and windows. Do you know of such a place?”

  Aina shook her head. “No. Can it show us more? His surroundings, maybe?”

  June shook her head slowly. “It will only show you exactly where the person you seek is at this moment, and nothing else. We have his blood, not the blood of the walls or the floor surrounding him. You may use the information you viewed through the Mothers’ benefaction as you wish.”

  A moment of silence followed, and then Raurie spoke up. “My aunt doesn’t like being involved in politics and murder.”

  Taking the hint, they stood to leave. June extinguished the candles, plunging the room into shadows.

  * * *

  After the vision and the blood in June Coste’s house, everything about Teo’s apartment seemed too bright and kind. Ynes prepared bowls of soup and cups of tea for the three of them and hummed while she stood at the stove.

  “Thank you,” Aina said when Teo handed her a cup of tea. “So, do you know anywhere like it? A long, dark room full of windows? It doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen in the city before.”

  “Perhaps not in the city,” Ryuu began, his eyes brightening, “but underneath it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The room you saw was dark, even though there were windows.” He nodded to Teo’s kitchen window, where sunlight streamed in on Ynes and voices from the street filtered in. “But it’s the middle of the day. Where else could that be but underground?”

  He paused as if waiting for them to light up with the realization.

  “Spit it out, then,” Teo said after a few seconds.

  “He’s below, where the subway construction is happening. I have the blueprints of the system at my house. We can look at them and try to find my brother.”

  As he spoke, she recalled the giant tunnels, like burrowing holes for the gods beneath the earth. The metal structures of trains waited there, so big and strange, they even seemed to breathe. The tunnels might be underneath Kosín, the city she knew better than she knew anywhere else, but they were completely foreign to her. Like monsters waiting in the dark to devour her, they were poised to strike. Like Tannis with gold eyes peering through the darkness right before a fatal attack, or like Kohl at the other end of a gun.

  Ryuu would help them get through the tunnels, but once she killed his brother, he would turn her over to the Diamond Guards with no remorse. He might not want to get comfortable taking lives, but once she betrayed him with his brother’s blood on her hands, she suspected he would have no qualms filling her with bullets.

  “I’ll get them myself,” she said to break the silence.

  The less time I spend with you before killing you, the better, she added in her thoughts.

  Hesitating was dangerous, and the more she got to know this Steel, the more likely she’d be to stall before drawing his blood. Besides, sneaking past Ryuu’s guards and stealing his blueprints would give her the confidence she needed to return to those dark tunnels.

  “But how will you get the blueprints?” he asked. “They’re in the drawing room on the first floor, in a locked cabinet. The key is in my room.”

  “I’ve broken into your house multiple times, Ryuu. Don’t doubt me now,” she said with a wink. “If one of your servants sees you with me, your brother’s attempted killer, they’ll think I’ve kidnapped you or something and send for the Diamond Guards. I’ll get the plans alone and meet you both back here.”

  “Be careful, Aina,” Teo said as she stood. “More people want to kill you than usual.”

  One side of her mouth tilted upward in a smile. “They’ll have to get in line.”

  23

  After jumping over the fence into the backyard of Ryuu’s mansion, Aina crouched behind a row of bushes and watched the side door. The bright afternoon sun made her eyes water, but she had to stay in this position. A maid was doing laundry, leaving through the side door while carrying clothes to hang on wires in the backyard. She’d just gone back in for more. While waiting for the maid to come out again, Aina withdrew her blowgun and loaded it with one of her few remaining paralyzing darts.

  The door creaked open a minute later, and the maid exited carrying a load of sheets to hang. She moved toward the wire while humming, her back turned as Aina slipped by her and into the mansion. No one was in the laundry room, but when she entered the next hall on the first floor of the mansion, a servant was walking toward her. He stopped in his tracks, brow furrowed in suspicion.

  “Excuse me, miss, do you—”

  Her dart met his throat before he finished the sentence. She pushed him into a pantry, then made her way to the third floor, keeping her footsteps light on the staircase. If she was quick, she could get the blueprints and be gone in ten minutes, so she would do her best to only incapacitate rather than kill anyone who saw her.

  There were fewer guards now with both brothers away from the house, and so the little security she saw was easy to pass by hiding in the shadows and waiting until the path ahead cleared. When she reached the third floor, she breathed more easily.

  Since Ryuu wasn’t here, there were no guards outside his room like there had been last time. The door opened with a creak. The room was the same as before, with granite flooring, the floor-to-ceiling windows, antique and lacquered furniture, and the chandelier that twinkled with golden light over the center of the room.

  She searched a chest near the bookshelf for the key first, sifting through maps and drawings of buildings that Ryuu kept there. No luck. She moved to the nightstand near his bed. The first drawer contained only a notebook and pen, but the second drawer held a small set of gold keys, and next to it lay a photograph.

  She picked it up, carefully as if it would fall apart in her fingers, then turned on the nearest lamp to get a closer look. The only photographs she’d ever seen before were printed in newspapers occasionally or on fake IDs she used like the ones for the cleaning company, but the technology was still new enough that it took her a moment to differentiate it from a painting.

  There were no streaks of paint here, nor use of any colored pencil or charcoal. This was a real photograph, mostly yellowed, with the subjects of it captured in degradations of neutral colors. She immediately recognized the entrance h
all of the mansion in the background. Four people stood staring into the camera, parents and two young boys.

  Kouta was tall even as a child, his hair dark and long, his face narrower than his brother’s. He had one arm around Ryuu’s shoulders, and the two brothers leaned into each other with wide smiles. Ryuu was so young that, though she recognized his face, the happy expression he wore was foreign to her. His parents were still alive, and he hadn’t yet discovered the burdens life would hand him. He looked no older than four or five here, the same age she’d been at the time of the war when violence leaked into the Stacks. At least then, she’d still had her parents for a few years to shield her from the worst of it.

  As she returned the photograph to the drawer, something in its background caught her eye.

  A small statue sat on a plinth in the entrance hall instead of the vase she’d seen when she and Teo had entered through that part of the mansion. It was a depiction of the Mothers, Kalaan and Isar, holding hands and staring down where instead of their feet, the sculptor had crafted clouds. It was a rendition she’d seen in other artwork, of the Mothers gazing with love at all the worlds and lives they’d created. His parents must have removed the statue when they decided to hide their faith, when tensions between Inosen and Steels began to grow.

  She placed the photograph back into the drawer and let out a frustrated huff of air. She had no photographs or paintings of her parents. If she hadn’t tried to erase their deaths from her mind by inhaling glue every day for years, maybe she would remember them more clearly, with or without a photo.

  Ryuu had the luxury of his parents never fading from his memory because they were captured in a photo. But even so, they were still dead because of the war and the violence it spawned.