by Sam Sykes
“I like love stories.”
She didn’t like it.
“That’s still of no use to—” Tretta grunted.
“And the reason it’s my favorite,” Sal interrupted, “is that the answer to the question is in the first act. You remember, right? They go through war, pain, suffering, all the while adhering to traditions that make them unable to confront their love for one another. You keep wondering why they can’t just come out and say it, but if they did, then it wouldn’t be their love; it would just be another courtship.”
Sal ran a finger along the rim of her water cup. From beneath half-lidded eyes, she looked over at Tretta.
“You have to hear the end of the story.”
Tretta felt the curiosity ebb from her face. Slowly, she lowered her hands and placed them on the table. It was, she decided, the only reliable way she could keep from leaping across and strangling her insufferable captive.
Even that, though, proved insufficient. She rose from her chair, its legs screeching across the floor, and stalked to the door. And though her coat was half an inch thick and could ward off the chill of Weiless winters, she could still feel Sal’s crooked grin jammed into her back like a blade.
“Listen, if you’re going out,” Sal called after her, “could you bring back some wine? You don’t want it said the Revolution executes people after just giving them water, do you?”
Tretta could live with them saying that.
Tretta could live with them saying, “The Revolution executes exceptionally annoying people by force-feeding them wine, bottle and all.” But bureaucracy being what it was, she opted to leave so she was not further tempted to do that.
After all, the garrison had only one bottle of wine and she was saving that for something special.
She slammed the door shut behind her. The sound of its metal groan and crack of wood as it splintered the door frame echoed through the office. She would have thought this would be ample warning to everyone within earshot that she was not in the mood to entertain stupidity.
And yet, somehow, Clerk Inspire was standing in front of her again.
“Oh!” As if it were somehow possible for him to become tinier, he almost folded over himself with the force of his cringe. “Oh, my apologies, Governor-Militant. It’s just that—”
“Not now,” Tretta growled, pushing past him.
Or attempting to, at any rate. He showed surprising boldness by moving back in front of her.
“I don’t mean to be a problem, madam, truly,” he said, obviously either lying or stupid. “But it’s just, the time for the execution, previously delayed, has come upon us.”
Had it? Tretta glanced to the window. The sun had set completely. The hazy orange dots of streetlamps speckled the glass. By their light, she could see the crowds continue to gather, roiling angrily. Flashes of Revolutionary uniforms broke up crowds with swinging sticks.
They had warned her about this, the officers of Cadre Command. Executions must be ruthless, efficient, and above all, prompt. If the Revolution cannot do something so simple as kill a person on time, people will begin to wonder how it can run a government, how it can protect a people, how it can oppose the Imperium.
They’ll begin to wonder what they can get away with…
If word got out about her laxity in enforcing the execution—no, when it got out (there were always snitches looking for an opportunity to curry favor with the Cadre’s lust for law)—it would end poorly for her, possibly even with a new, lesser name.
And yet… she was close. To what, she didn’t know, but there was something to this prisoner, buried beneath shit so thick it came out of her mouth. Sal knew something about the Crown Conspiracy. And if Tretta could know that, too, then she could also learn where to find the remaining conspirators. To capture and slay the traitors who had stymied the Imperium—and, of course, to protect the people they threatened—would give the Revolution a victory so great they’d write propaganda about it for years. They’d have to invent a new name just to give it to her.
Her eyes drifted from the window to the door and the young guard standing beside it.
Or, she thought, maybe she could just get drunk and fuck someone and worry about it tomorrow.
He had been transferred here just a month ago, couldn’t be more than twenty-six—old enough to know what he was doing, not so old that he was just scars and spite like the rest of them… like her. They had exchanged idle pleasantries—as much flirting as the Revolution allowed, though a woman of her station would have certain needs and certain privileges to have those needs met, if he agreed to it.
It was tempting. More than it had ever been during the wars and stresses of command, it was tempting to forget everything. The blood-hungry crowd outside, the betrayals lurking in her Revolution, the insufferable woman who had brought them to light. Just get drunk, she told herself, fuck that guard, then shoot Sal in the head and call it a day. Simple. Efficient.
Who could blame her?
Cavric’s mother, a little voice spoke up. Cavric’s father. Your mother. Your father. The Revolution. Everyone who believed in you enough to put you in the position where you could find a lost soldier. They’d blame you. You’d blame yourself.
And Cavric would still be missing.
She had hoped that voice in the back of her head had died somewhere out in the battlefields. It tended to pop up in the most aggravating places. She rolled her eyes, sighed, made her decision.
“Soldier,” she called out.
The guard perked to attentiveness, like he had been waiting for her to acknowledge him—she knew what else he had been waiting for. He rushed over, stopped a touch closer than was protocol, fired off a crisp salute.
“Madam?” he asked.
“The execution has been delayed until tomorrow morning,” she said. “Inform the guards to disperse the crowds. Lethal force is authorized if they are noncompliant.”
“What?” Clerk Inspire squealed. “Governor-Militant, you can’t defy protocol like this! The Vagrant, she is dangerous. She is savage. Her weapon is—”
“And see Clerk Inspire to his desk while you’re at it.”
“Yes, madam.” The guard seized the clerk by his shoulders, escorting him bodily toward his desk at the back of the room.
“After that, please inform the cook that we’ll need food.” Tretta spat the command, loathing that she had to do that. “If the prisoner isn’t going to be killed, she’ll have to be fed another day.” She returned the guard’s nod as he set Clerk Inspire forcibly into his seat, then paused. “And, soldier?”
“Madam?” he asked.
“In my chambers, there is a bottle of wine.” The pause dragged out, a blade in a cold body. “Retrieve it for me. And two glasses.”
TWENTY-NINE
THE SCAR
To the Cacophony,
Dearest sweetling,
Pain in our asses,
We’d like to extend our gratitude on behalf of salvaging our ship. Simultaneously, we’d like to extend one or several digits in explicit gesture, as it was because of you that the Weary Mother was put in danger in the first place.
That ship works hard, you dumb bitch.
Still, the damage was considered mostly superficial, as you, nobly, went out to do battle with the offending Skymage. Sadly, you did not die in the process, but we do hope you sustained enough wounds to be painful.
Ah, well. Maybe next time.
Fortunately, it appears he still held his Imperial blade—goodness knows where, wearing as little as that boy does—and the bounty of Kresh the Tempest will pay handsomely. We’ve already begun the bidding at sixteen pounds of metal.
Turns out you’re good for something other than being shit.
Given your selfless act, the bounty, the Dust we’ll harvest from his carcass and the fact that you made us a shit-ton of money, the Ashmouths, in their immense virtue, have opted not to have you murdered, maimed, or tortured.
Congratulations.
/> In addition, we see fit to reward you with the information you were seeking. It is true, we bartered with Vraki the Gate for a focal obelisk we liberated from Haven’s vaults. And it is true that we know what he intends to use it for. By now, you probably do, too. Or do you?
Regardless, as you no doubt know, he requires an immense amount of magic to do so. Such a device can merely call to a Scrath, put out the welcome mat, so to speak. To let it in, a host is required in the form of a sacrifice. Or several.
But you knew that already, didn’t you, dear?
But to do what Vraki is intending, the sacrifice will need to be much bigger and the stage will need to be much more… special. A Scrath can be beckoned with magic. But what Vraki wants to do with it will require an entire nation.
Now, we can’t tell you exactly where he’s gone, of course. If it got out that the Ashmouths betrayed clients, who would deal with us again? Not to mention, ridding us of the Tempest only goes so far. We have standards.
Also, we hate you.
You understand.
But we can point you in the right direction. From Stark’s Mutter, Vraki, seeking a great amount of latent magic to tap into, went north. You remember what happened in the north, don’t you, dear?
Well, we’ve said too much. Destroy this letter after you read it, naturally, or we’ll find you.
Best wishes,
Yoc
Die well,
Pui
Go fuck yourself,
Gan
The Husks.
The thought came so suddenly I didn’t even know if it was my own. But it hung there, two words that I couldn’t think of without feeling a pain in my chest and an ache in my scar. They rang in my head, a cracked bell in a cold tower, and each time they did, my breath grew shorter.
The Husks.
The three had been enigmatic—just enough to be professional—but they didn’t have to be anything else. They knew that their letter, along with what Kresh had said, would leave me only one conclusion.
Vraki had his plan. He had his Scrath. He had his vessels. He simply needed magic to make it all work. An immense amount of it, so much that it would suffuse the air and water and soil. And he couldn’t get it here.
He’d gone back to the Husks.
And now I would, too.
I looked over the Yental. Necla’s shroud of mist was already far down the river, the Weary Mother, and all its massive glory, was vanishing farther into the fog. The storm that had heralded Kresh’s arrival had turned to a distant sigh of thunder and a muttering drizzle.
The damp wasn’t enough to threaten the fire I had built at least. And I wasted no time in crumpling up the note and tossing it into the flames—professional courtesy for the Three.
Then I reached into my pocket, pulled out a square of weathered parchment, and looked at the long list of names in faded ink. I leaned over it to protect it from the rain as I produced a pen and drew a bold black line through three words.
Kresh the Tempest.
I stared at it, that little line, ink wet like a wound, alongside two other older, faded lines. They reminded me of scars, like my own, black lines that told a black tale. Thirty other names stared back at me, contemplatively, as if asking me if I was still thinking about them.
I closed my eyes. I let out a deep sigh. I folded the paper back up and slid it into my coat pocket. My hand brushed against the grip of the Cacophony, his heat having died down to a warmth that was pleasant against the chill of the rain. The fight had left him satisfied.
At least one of us was.
I had no regrets. Kresh had to die for a lot of reasons. And it wasn’t that I felt hollow, either—anyone who tells you that revenge is empty is someone who doesn’t try hard enough at it.
It’s just that I felt… powerless.
It hadn’t been more than a few hours ago, but I could barely remember his face. I couldn’t recall the fear in his eyes, the sputter of his lips as he pleaded with me. Even after I had put a blade through his throat, I could still see his grin. I could still hear his laughter. I could still remember the dark place it took me to.
It was like he wasn’t even dead. Or not dead enough.
I wondered if he ever would be. If any of them would be.
If Jindu would be.
Now that question made me feel empty. But only because I knew the answer.
The raindrops grew fatter above my head. The fire began to sputter at my feet. I left it to die and made my way back up the riverbank, where the Iron Boar stood cold and quiet as a tomb. Without its engines belching flame, it reminded me of some shell of a long-dead beetle, an ugly metal blight on the plains.
Funny thing about weapons, when you’ve got no one at hand to kill, you kind of start noticing how ugly they are.
I rolled up to the door, rapped on it twice. No answer. The rain began to seep past my scarf and down my shirt. I muttered a curse under my breath and pounded on the door again. It opened, but only after I was almost soaked through.
“Fuck’s sake,” I growled, “were you doing your hair?”
An apology would have been nice. Sarcasm would have been acceptable. A curse right back would have been expected.
What I got from Cavric, though, was nothing. He simply stood there, staring down at me, empty-eyed. Then he quietly slunk away, back to the pilot’s chair.
I grumbled, but made no further grievance as I entered and slid the door shut behind me. I peeled off my scarf, draped it across the bench to dry. I fingered the hem of my shirt, tempted to add it to the pile to dry out. It wasn’t modesty that kept it on my back—rather, it was the ache on my arms and back. The damp had never been good for my scars. Neither had heat. Neither had other peoples’ prying eyes.
Eyes like Liette. Unlike Cavric, who turned his back to me, I couldn’t escape her stare. She watched every move I made, as though I were suddenly some new person, some creature, who had crawled out of the rain. Maybe she thought I was.
And part of me—a spiteful, bitter part that hadn’t left me since that dark night—wanted to ask her if this new thing was still broken, still in need of fixing.
“Shit’s coming down out there,” I said instead. “Strong as this engine is, I don’t think it can chew through mud. We’ll wait until morning to get going. Congeniality should be finished hunting by then and wander back, too.”
Cavric said nothing that would make me remind him who had the bigger gun here, so I assumed he was all right with the plan. I glanced up, saw him staring out the visor, watching the rain fall as it drummed out a metal rhythm on the Boar’s hull.
“Now, I know I said I’d turn you loose after I spoke with the Ashmouths,” I said, “but it turns out I’ll need your services for one more task. I need to get north in a hurry, toward…”
The words were choked out of my mouth as the images came flooding into my mind. Visions of flame and fire, of bodies blackening and skies without stars and winds that spoke on hateful, screaming voices. Visions that I thought I’d only ever see in dreams. And, bad as they were, I hoped I’d never go back to see them in person.
“Toward the Husks,” I finally said, and the words tasted foul in my mouth.
He didn’t look back at me. Funny, I had certainly expected some pushback at that. But he simply sat there and stared out the window. I got a little bolder.
“I know it’s dangerous. But don’t worry, I won’t ask you to go in any deeper than I need you to.” I paused, grinned. “I mean, if you want to go deeper, I won’t stop you. But I might need a little wine first and—”
“You killed him.”
He spoke so softly I could hardly hear him over the rainfall. Funny, though, it was that softness that caught my ear. A voice like that belonged on someone innocent. You didn’t find those in the Scar.
“Huh?”
“You killed him,” he repeated. Slowly, he turned around in his seat, looked at me with those empty eyes. “He begged for his life… and you killed him.”
Ah. So that’s what had him upset.
Now, I already told you I thought Cavric was handsome. Better than handsome, he looked gentle. Even empty as his eyes were now, they still looked soft, kinder than anything I’d seen in this place. I wasn’t keen on taking that away from him.
But there was some shit I just wasn’t prepared to eat, no matter how fragrant.
“Yes.” My voice came out clipped, short. “I did.”
“Like an animal,” Cavric said. “You gutted him.”
I thought of something clever to say. I couldn’t. What came out of my mouth, I didn’t even think about.
“He was an animal.”
“He was a man.”
“You’ve seen me kill plenty of men.”
“Not ones who were on their knees,” Liette whispered from behind me.
“He only looked like a man,” I growled. “The most vicious animals always do.” I snorted. “What, should I have left him alive?”
“Yes!” Cavric flinched. “No… I mean, I don’t know. He was a killer and a Vagrant, I know that. But he was surrendering; he was offering information. You shouldn’t have just… just…”
“Yes,” I said. “I should have. I didn’t kill a man. I killed Kresh the Tempest.”
“He was still—”
“He was Kresh the fucking Tempest,” I snarled. “And before that, he was Kreshtharan ki Nazjuna, the most unhinged Skymage in a school of magic famous for being unhinged. He spun winds so fierce they flayed Revolutionaries alive and scattered their blood for twenty miles. He ran down Havener pilgrims, chasing them until piss ran down their legs and spit went dry in their mouths before he tore the breath from their lungs. All this, he did for the Imperium…
“And once he went Vagrant,” I said, “he stopped being merciful. After all he did, you expect me to believe that he deserved better than I gave him just because he was on his knees and blubbering a few words you liked? Do you believe me?” I whirled on Liette. “Do you?”