Dust: A Bloods Book

by Andra Leigh

  Less than an hour after waking from her regression she stood in the water tunnels with Laleita. The Witch handed her one of the Triplets’ fresh crystals, its flame illuminating her pretty face.

  “And another one,” she said, pushing an unlit crystal into Eliscity’s hand.

  “Thank you,” Eliscity said, remembering how she had only recently said the same thing to Juliette before walking away from her. It seemed Witches would never be done helping her.

  “You know you don’t have to leave right away. You could wait until morning. Or next week.”

  Eliscity laughed. “I’m ready now. I need to do this.” She didn’t add that she liked the idea of being a full night away from the Manor when Jinx discovered she was gone.

  “I know,” Laleita said. “I’ll miss you. I liked having another girl around the Manor.”

  “There’s Acanthea now.”

  Laleita made a face and Eliscity laughed again.

  “If you ever get sick of all the open air and sunlight, come back.”

  Eliscity gave a single nod, letting Laleita pull her in for a hug. She clung onto the woman briefly, feeling as though she was saying goodbye to a sister. Letting go, she adjusted her satchel and blinked away the tears that were clouding her vision.

  “Bye, Laleita.”

  “Goodbye, Eliscity.”

  Turning away from Laleita and the Manor, she set off into the tunnels, hoping to make the Southern Cities by morning.

  ●

  The Cityel Border was just waking up as Eliscity climbed out of the tunnels and retreated from the river. It had been the same time of day when she and Jinx had walked through the Cityel Border all those months ago; the day after she had dragged his unconscious body from the pulse cannon and med-building. For a moment it made it feel as if no time had passed at all.

  The majority of the buildings and homes in the Border had flat roofs that were used for drying or small gardens. Climbing a rickety ladder, she got a few hours sleep on one such roof. Surprisingly, she only slept. There were no dreams, memories or aggravating tossing and turning. She knew it was because her decision to take this journey had given her some sort of purpose. Her mind no longer needed to constantly send her reminders of her life.

  After being woken by an extremely angry woman waving a ladle at her she resumed her walking. It took her a day to make it into Wrethic and another day to make it out. This time she paid attention to the statues of Icah Wrethic that flanked the city’s borders. He was depicted in a grand pose, sword raised above his head. Few guards nowadays carried swords, preferring the long and short range threat of the boltbow. Eliscity imagined weapons had been wide in variety during the War – what was a war without weapons – and guessed the warriors would have had need for more than the single weapon carried by the Realm’s guards. Despite this, Icah Wrethic’s statues had only been given the sword and a sheathed dagger hanging at his waist.

  From Wrethic she continued south into Hynxt. It was another few days journey. The further from the lake and river she got, the hotter it became. And it was only going to get worse. She would be travelling on the Southern Trade Road out of the eastern point of Hynxt. Cut into the dry Cityel, there were no handy lakes to be found on it. But it would pass through small villages and towns where she could replenish her supplies and would eventually lead her to Talcony.

  The night before she was to set off into the Cityel, she was camping under the stars in a stopping ground where passing merchants and traders would rest before continuing on their way. The people were a boisterous and generous crowd, despite their habits to haggle over goods with vicious intensity. Within an hour of being at the stopping ground she had been invited to join several families and groups cooking over campfires. By the next hour they had been joined by over half the stopping ground. When a family of stone merchants heard she was travelling on foot, they told her they were on their way to Freext and insisted on her joining them.

  While she didn’t know the town, a quick scan of her map revealed it was a third of the way to Talcony. Accepting their offer would turn a fifteen day walk to Freext into a weeklong wagon ride. That sounded good to her.

  ●

  Freext had been a village built near old Pyre caves that were now used to harvest stone and gems. Wioi had smelt like ash after half the town had caught blaze and burnt to the dirt less than a week before. Owaine had veered from the Cityel into the thick forests that reached all the way up to the base of the Mythenra ranges.

  Talcony was far more industrial than she had expected it to be. It was a forging town with blacksmiths and their sooty apprentices. Many of the forges were built open. They had a roof to offer relief from the sun and no walls. Eliscity guessed it was to make the most of any breeze that may blow through. She could imagine nothing worse than working over a hot kiln in a town built into the hot Cityel. As well as providing fresh air to their workspaces, the missing walls let passersby watch the blacksmiths forge their wares. Already Eliscity had seen an apprentice making boltbow bolts by the bucket loads, a blacksmith making a long dagger with a decorative hilt and another blacksmith twisting, hammering and heating a delicate sculpture of a flower.

  Having finally made it to Talcony, Eliscity was now realising her next problem. Finding Harmon. Approaching a young faced apprentice who was cleaning tools in a bucket of water, she gave him an apologetic look as he glanced up at her.

  “Sorry to bother you.”

  “No bother so far,” the boy teased, soot smudging his face and throat.

  “Do you know the Reinhold family?”

  “Ain’t anyone in town that don’t.”

  Eliscity frowned. “So that’s a yes?”

  “Aye.”

  A nervous thrill went through her. She was close. She hadn’t just spent the last month travelling to a far off town for no reason.

  “I’m looking for Harmon Reinhold. He’s the son not t –”

  The apprentice was nodding. “Like to think himself pretty, that one.”

  “Attractive?”

  “Important.”

  “Right,” Eliscity nodded, beginning to understand the man’s lingo. “Yeah that’ll be the one. Would you know where I could find him?”

  The apprentice shrugged. “His estate.”

  “Talcony has estates?” She glanced around, as if expecting an oversized house to suddenly appear amid the sweat and hard work of the forges.

  “Can’t have pretties without having their holdings,” the apprentice said with mockery and disdain

  ‘Pretties’ was clearly not an endearing term. It made her smile. Harmon was not well thought of by the tradesmen he shared a town with.

  “Which way to the pretties’ holding?”

  The apprentice chuckled. “Stick to your own words, Sandie.”

  “Agreed.” She had cringed the moment the apprentice’s lingo had left her lips. “Which way to Harmon’s estate?”

  Following the apprentice’s directions she was led through the streets to the other side of town. Talcony estates didn’t have the same overwhelming affect as Seltley’s Manors, but within the towns limits they were still far grander than what the majority of its people were used to. There were only a handful of estates so it wasn’t difficult to find the front gate with ‘Reinhold’ twisted in thin rods of metal into its face.

  Heart pounding in her throat and shaky all over, she unlatched the gate and slipped into Harmon’s estate.

  And froze. Two dogs were chained to either side of the path that led to the large white and gold house. And they were growling at her, warning her against approaching. Immediately she had two fears. Her first was that they would bark, alerting Harmon of her presence before she wished to announce it. And second, between them their chains looked long enough to allow them to reach her no matter where she stood in the front path. She didn’t particularly feel like being something for them to chew on. Their growling grew into a dangerous rumble that threatened more.

  “Shhhhh,”
she soothed from a distance, gazing slowly between them. She didn’t expect it to work. Yet the rumblings stopped. The bared teeth disappeared and both the dogs’ heads tilted quizzically. She had confused them. Which confused her.

  “Okay then,” she breathed.

  She took a wary step forward. Then another. Her eyes never left the animals. As she continued forward so did one of the dogs. He approached her as tentatively as she approached the door. Stopping, she offered her hand slowly, palm up. When he leaned in to sniff she moved closer. He licked her hand cautiously, nuzzling into her palm. She spoke to him in a low voice.

  “Hello, beautiful. You just want some pats, don’t you?”

  He licked her hand again.

  The other dog hadn’t moved toward her but having seen his companion accept her kindness he lowered himself to the ground, paws rested in front. Eliscity didn’t miss that there was a cautious cower in the movement. She left the first dog on the path at the chain end and approached the second. After a few moments of hesitation he too let her pat him.

  Guard dogs defeated by kindness. Eliscity looked to the first dog who had come seeking it from her, to the second who had been afraid her kindness was something to cower over. How did Harmon treat his animals to make them act this way? The kindness confused and scared them. Yet they hadn’t lost the want for it. With a pang, she realised while their chain lengths meant they could reach all points of Harmon’s front path, they were positioned so they couldn’t reach one another.

  They couldn’t touch.

  They could only look at each other from across the path they both protected.

  Eliscity was disgusted. The way the dogs looked over to each other, a soft whine and sad pining for contact in their eyes, made her hate Harmon Reinhold even further.

  Deciding it was time to go have a little talk with her former husband, she stood and made her way to the front door without any trouble from the dogs.

  Testing the door she found it unlocked. With a careful look around her, where she only found the dogs watching her, she entered the house, clicking the door shut behind her lightly.

  She had entered a wide hallway. Cabinets lined both walls, their fronts framed in glass. Behind the glass were rows and rows of goblets, finery and expensive looking baubles.

  Harmon Reinhold was a collector…

  She eyed the closest goblets, remembering the way Harmon had told her that different goblets could elicit different tastes from wine. Every single goblet was different. Crystal, wood, stone, glass, marble, bone and metal. Some were cracked and chipped, marked in some way that was clearly a flaw. Whether by accident or not didn’t matter.

  They were scars. Walls of scars.

  There was a gentle tinkering sound further into the house that told her he was home. The droning hum of words told her he wasn’t alone.

  Unless she missed her guess, Harmon Reinhold had a few friends over.

  Well, Eliscity thought as she ran her fingers through the tangles in her hair, it would be rude not to announce herself. Gathering a lung full of air she opened her mouth and called.

  “Husband, I’m ho-ome.”

  The announcement hung in the air much like the way the chandelier hung in the hall above her. Ugly, heavy and somewhat startling.

  Eliscity would have liked to say silence fell, however her ears picked up the slow, careful plunks of glasses being settled on a table.

  She could almost imagine their faces, faces she didn’t yet know, hovering between confusion and worry. But their faces would be nothing compared to Harmon’s.

  Maybe he was trying to place her voice. It had been years, after all. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one he had married for the Reigner and the Clinic. He could be sitting there attempting to figure out which one of his wives had come back.

  Eliscity walked forward slowly, her steps echoing down the hall, letting Harmon and his guests know of her steady approach. As much as she wanted to rush forward, slam the door open and throw Harmon out the window, she preferred the idea of him sweating over every slow move she made. She was in control of this little encounter and she wanted him to know it.

  The length of the hall led her to white double doors trimmed with curling metal frames. Throwing them open she strode into the grand sitting room.

  More glass cabinets holding Harmon’s scars embellished the walls in here. There was even a metal framed glass cabinet sitting in the centre of the room. It was clearly the centre piece. His most prized possessions. She made a mental note to throw a chair at it.

  Five people occupied the overly decorated room. There were two women, who would be similar to her in age, though vastly different in their beauty routines, as Eliscity had never had the urge to use violet lip dye. It was easy to find Harmon in the three men. The years hadn’t changed his sharp nose or expression of disdain. Fear, anger and uncertainty slammed into her at the sight of the man but she pushed the feelings down. Harmon would see none of them from her.

  Instead she looked him square in the eye and said, “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends, Harmon Darling? Absolutely no manners,” she clicked her tongue. “I’ll introduce myself. I’m Harmon Reinhold’s late wife. Boo!”

  Harmon didn’t know what to do. His friends were looking between them, purple lips falling open in confusion. He was watching her like she was a pesky animal and he was deciding the best method of slaughter.

  “Harmon?” began one of the men, but she cut him off.

  “See, I died in a terrible accident,” she nodded dramatically. “Our carriage plunged off a cliff. Harmon was very fortunate, though. He only just got out of the carriage before it fell. He couldn’t get me out in time. It. Was. Devastating,” she punctuated each word, then smiled broadly. “But don’t worry, the fall killed me instantly and then my body was dragged off and eaten by animals,” she finished cheerily.

  Wide eyes stared at her from every seat in the room.

  Harmon recovered first.

  “Perhaps we should continue this another day,” he said to his guests, never taking his eyes off Eliscity. “It would seem I have an old acquaintance to… reacquaint with.”

  “Don’t remember my name, do you?”

  Harmon’s expression hardened at her mockery.

  “I loathe to rush everyone out but Miss Eliscity Naux here seems impatient.”

  Eliscity grinned. “I just can’t wait to get reacquainted.”

  As Harmon conducted the exit of his guests, Eliscity waved merrily.

  “Bye now. Lovely to meet you. Just lovely.”

  Opening one of the panels of the closest cabinet she picked up a glass goblet that looked like it had been melted in places. When the last guest had left Harmon turned back to her and froze.

  “Put. That. Down,” he said, his voice low with danger.

  So she did. Very quickly. Letting it drop, it shattered at her feet.

  Harmon’s face contorted with rage.

  “I was promised I would never be required to see you again.”

  Eliscity picked up another goblet. A wooden one this time. “The requirements changed.”

  “They had no right.” Harmon’s eyes never left the goblet she was now twirling in her hand.

  “Oh, Harmon.” She snapped the goblets stem and tossed the two pieces over her shoulder. “They haven’t had any right over me for a little while now. But you don’t know who they are, do you? If you knew then you would be afraid right now, rather than treating this as an inconvenience.”

  Harmon’s humourless laugh bit out across the room. “But that is all this is.”

  “Would you like me to tell you?” She unlaced her sleeves. “Who they are, that is.” The fabric strips fell loose at her back. “Don’t you want to know what they wanted with me? Ordinary, uninteresting me? Tell me, Harmon –”

  Her wings shot out from her back.

  “– Am I unique enough for you now? Do I belong on your wall of scars?”

  Harmon tumbled back, catching him
self on a table before he fell. His eyes were rounded. Locked onto her wings with a heated stare. He was incredulous. Amazed. Surprised and excited. But still not afraid.

  “What are…how…you must, they’re–” his hand reached out for her, for her wings, hanging in the space between them.

  “That’s a yes then,” she muttered. Harmon wanted her for his collection. As she watched him reaching for her wings, she could practically hear his mind fantasising about cutting them off and mounting them on his wall.

  “What’s your definition of love, Harmon?”

  Harmon’s awe slipped into absurdity. He sneered at her like articulating love was a trick question.

  “Mutual benefits.”

  His answer didn’t surprise her. Grabbing a tall, thin goblet she tested its balance. Looking around the room she found an oval framed painting of a blossoming rose hanging on the wall.

  “My definition is much different. Middle of the rose,” she said proudly, tossing the goblet at the target. It shattered against the flower, hitting one of the petals off from the centre. “Aw, close,” she sighed as Harmon’s jaw clenched and nostrils flared. “Do you want a go?” she asked brightly, holding a goblet out to him. “No? You’re no fun at all. Where was I? Oh yes. My definition. Love is beautiful and miraculous and agonising. I was in love. And it was beautiful and miraculous. And then you walked into my life and made it agonising.”

  He smirked. “Are you here for an apology?”

  “No, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m here to break all your things.”

  She made to throw the goblet she had offered to him.

  “Stop!” Harmon ordered.

  She paused for a moment, pretending to contemplate the command. “Ummmm…no.” The goblet exploded against the wall. “You destroyed my life. It’s only fitting I return the gesture.”

  Harmon studied his wall of scars. Picking out a place for her wings?