by K. M. Hade
It whips itself up the big trunk and hides itself in the branches, dangling like low-hanging swamp moss.
Rot’s got ScatheFire propped up against the tree still, but taken the bag off his head. I crouch down next to him and touch his cheek. He stares, vacant, at nothing. Flies buzz around the corners of his lips and the crevices of his eyes. “Please come back, ScatheFire. Please. We got you out of that prison, I know you’re in there. I know it.”
I sit with him, holding his hand, and talking softly to him. I tell him stories from my time in the cavalry, from my first day to all the battles, to the stupid games of chance I’d had to referee because surprise, I was the Aether and wasn’t allowed to have a stake in the game.
“You should be the Shard,” I tell him softly. “You’d be good at it. Maybe that should be our plan. You be the Shard, and I’ll be the fake Shard, but I’m just the hack-and-slash cavalry rider. I have a new sword. That’s what my snake turns into. A short sword. It also likes to dance, and you should have seen it wound around the pommel of Rot’s familiar’s saddle. I could hear it enjoying the ride. Can you believe it? A snake familiar that likes joyriding on horses.”
I brush some bugs away from the corner of his mouth, then brush some tears from my eye, and take a shuddering breath.
I will get him back. No matter what it takes or what I have to do. I will get him back.
4
CRYSTAL
The food we have isn’t road rations, it’s mostly meatpies and jerky. The Fells have their uniforms, but we don’t have weaponry or other gear that a Mage would have, and we don’t have remounts. Going into the ruined lands isn’t our best idea.
It’s also the only real option, especially now that we’re all about to become fugitives and none of us can pass for a non-Mage.
Rot patiently feeds ScatheFire pieces of a meatpie.
“That’s just fucking disturbing,” Blood says. “An Old One? Why the fuck, Atrament?”
“He survived the Blightling,” Atrament says. “I don’t know how. I was not present. The Warden did not share his logic nor reason with me. I only know how ScatheFire became that way.”
“Do we put him out of his misery?” Blood asks. “Does he even have a soul or was it torn apart?”
“Lady Crystal believes he is still in there. It is possible he is.”
Smoke shakes his head. “Not important right now. Why did the Warden take you, Pebbles? What’s going on? Why did we just escape the Pit?”
My throat goes instantly dry, and Atrament flickers with something like a stricken look. We haven’t told the Fells why I had to escape.
Blood waves a hand. “The why isn’t important right now, Smoke. Atrament, does the Military know about you? I know they know you exist, and she said you were a prisoner. I thought you were a Researcher.”
“I am a Researcher. I am also research.”
“Come again?”
“A previous Warden wanted to see what would happen if a child was conceived in the Pit.”
“Holy shit, please say that again,” Rot blurts out.
Atrament pushes a strand of his long, disobedient hair and twists it around the ratty knot at the back of his neck. “I know nothing save the following: I was conceived, gestated, and birthed in the Pit. My parents were a volunteer Imperial Fell of unknown type and a volunteer woman. As soon as she gave birth, I was given to a wet nurse, as I understand my mother died from birthing fever. I was taken by the nurse and raised as a foundling somewhere. I don’t know where. When I was five or six, I was brought back to the Pit. I have always been passed off as that Warden’s bastard, although I knew I was not his son. On his deathbed, he told me what I just told you and no more. To some people, I am introduced as a previous Warden’s disgraceful bastard progeny that he had with an unknown, now-dead village woman. To others, I am merely introduced as a Researcher without further explanation.”
“And the Military has never tried to recruit you,” Blood says.
“I believe it is a mixture of my being more valuable in the Pit as a Researcher and my not having been revealed to them until I was an adult, making me too old to be properly socialized and integrated with a team. As well as the questions of a Warden being able to hide me for so long. The embarrassment, I mean.”
“Everyone says they don’t care what happens in the Pit, but they’d sure as hell care about this.” Rot scratches under his armor with a long stick.
Blood leans back against the tree trunk. “Fuck. I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse for us.”
Rot shrugs. “Getting to be heroes isn’t going to be pretty.”
“Yes, but I was figuring we’d have to go into the heart of danger to retrieve some lost relic or fight off a horde of Blightlings and their shitty human allies.” Blood stares up at the canopy of trees. “Didn’t think we’d have to break out of the Pit, steal horses, become fugitives, and reveal that some pretty shady experiments are going on.”
“And it’s not like the court will even care,” Smoke mutters.
“That too. This is probably for nothing. We were born in the gutter, just toss our bodies back in.” Blood tosses a pebble and watches it roll downhill.
My heart sinks.
Blood brushes his hand at some bugs trying to sample the sheen of sweat on his pale skin. “The military and nobility were there that day. They came looking for some entertainment. That Crystal-Aether team was there. Revealing Atrament will do nothing. Learning there is an Old One at the bottom will do nothing. The Warden is already in bed with the powers that be. Nobody is going to care now if Pebbles can prove she is our Shard. We broke out of the Pit. I’d say the deal’s off.”
Smoke huffs. Rot grimaces and doesn’t look at me.
My throat is so tight I had to escape, and I couldn’t leave anyone behind. But now I’ve gone and turned the Fells into fugitives, and I hadn’t thought this through. I’d just run blind like an idiot.
Smoke, Blood, and Rot look at ScatheFire. Their despair tickles along their Fell thread like a little cat’s claws.
I kill Aethers, and I apparently destroy Fells, and every life I’m anywhere near.
Maybe there’s a way for Rot to destroy my womb so that I can’t get pregnant, and I can crawl back to the Pit. Except that will mean I’ll have to either leave Atrament behind—and break my promise to him—or take him back with me, and when I don’t get pregnant, the Warden will use me for some other horrific purpose.
Although, perhaps if I am on the inside, I can learn his secret and why he is immune to the Blight.
“Why didn’t you wait?” Smoke asks. “The military would have come back in a few months. They wouldn’t have played the Warden’s games. We would have said you were our Shard, it was possible, we could prove it, but the Warden’s hidden you from us.”
Yes, he’s right. I could have risked waiting a few months. And then we could have escaped and found an Imperial Verdance to make sure I didn’t have a monster in my belly… except I’d have had to leave ScatheFire and Atrament behind.
Maybe the Warden is right. Maybe I do need to be in the Pit for everyone’s safety. Apparently, I’m Blight by a different name.
I want to say I’m sorry, but that’s pathetic and insulting. There’s no sorry to fix any of this. I bungled it all. As usual.
They all stare at me, except for ScatheFire, who has the sack on his head. They’re waiting for me to tell them what the fuck we’re going to do now.
I’m thinking I’m going to go sit on the side of the road and wait for the Warden to circle back. He was right about I belong in the Pit. How many Aethers have I killed… or worse?
Too many. I gulp. Too, too, many.
Except I promised ScatheFire I’d get him back. I promised him, and I know he’s in there. I can’t leave him.
If it’s the last thing I do, I have to bring him back.
And if I’m pregnant… well, I have a few months to figure that out, and if I can’t do it before it’s too late,
there are still options. They’re grisly and terrible, but I’m grisly and terrible. The Fells don’t need to be concerned with or burdened with the details.
The old scar on my arm twitches, and my fingers tingle.
Focus on ScatheFire. Focus on doing just one thing right. Get that one thing right. “There’s still a way. I think.”
Blood says, “Nobody is going to care if you are our Shard, Pebbles. That’s—”
I shake my head. “No, no, I know, that’s over. There’s a way—I think—to get ScatheFire back and for you to try to get your good names back.”
“Hah, joke’s on you. Our names were never good.”
“You know what she means,” Rot mutters.
Smoke folds his arms and gives me a burning stare. “I’m listening.”
I gesture with my hands. “All I’m asking is you help get ScatheFire back. Then we can go to the southern front. Put me in chains and report for duty. Say I escaped, and you pursued me across the Empire with Atrament’s help. The front’s such a shitshow they’re not going to immediately throw you in the brig. Just do what you do, and you’ll get into someone’s good graces because you’ll be more useful on the lines, and the powers that be in the Capital aren’t going to want to make a thing of it because they won’t want word to get out that innocent, decorated Mages get thrown into the Pit for experiments. Even if they’re Fells. Get word to the Storm team where I am. She’ll do the rest and it will end. Keep Atrament with you and the Empire will only be too pleased. It can still be a net positive.”
The Empire would get back a powerful Fell team, complete with the added bonus of a redeemed ScatheFire and an Atrament. I will be dead, and a powerful noble family appeased. There will be pissed off people at the Capital, but secrets can cut both ways, and I doubt very much the Empress knows anything about this. And if word gets out to other Mages? No. All the Fells have to do is stay ahead of their enemies at the imperial court, but that’s a political game everyone at court has to play.
I say softly, “You can still salvage this. It will take a few years, but you can do it.”
Rot’s expression is terrible.
“Lady Crystal,” Atrament starts to say.
I hold up my hand.
Blood’s expression is dark. “So how do you plan on getting ScatheFire back?”
“Fell thread, like I said before.”
“Pebbles, I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but Atrament is the last person I’d trust. I think I trust the Warden more.”
“Explain it to them,” I tell Atrament helplessly.
Atrament shifts his legs and gets more comfortable. “When she conjured crystal that did not dissolve in the arena. The reason it’s so stable is it is slightly Blighted. The Blight recognizes its own reflection and does not consume itself. It is why I am able to obfuscate and move freely in the Pit. The Blight sees only itself.”
Smoke raises both brows. Rot leans closer, while Blood’s eyes narrow. “Go on.”
“Lady Crystal is slightly contaminated. Something about her conception or gestation was impure. That is why her magic is not stable. She requires a small amount of Fell thread.”
“That’s impossible,” Blood says coldly. “I am not interested in this slop, ghoul.”
“It might be impossible, yes, but the inverse is possible.”
“The fuck it is.”
Atrament unlaces his dark tunic and pulls it over his head in one smooth gesture.
“The fuck is that,” Rot breathes.
Smoke surges across the space and stares right at the inky knot of Aether thread. Atrament, calmly, says, “As you can see, it is true. Hence my theory on Lady Crystal, who is not a normal—”
Smoke stops poking and raises his eyes to Atrament.
Atrament hesitates. I silently pray he doesn’t mention his half-formed Luminous theory.
Instead, he skips ahead. “I believe something happened during her conception, something wicked, but not actually evil, that caused the flaw that must be stabilized with Fell thread.”
Smoke’s eyes narrow. “And why would we tell anyone that? That directly accuses the Emperor and Empress—”
“I told you they aren’t my parents.” I sigh.
“Shush, Pebbles, technicalities,” Blood chides me.
“—of reagent abuse or bad behavior.” Smoke finishes his sentence. “Nobody at the court is going to let us say two things about that, no matter how true it is.”
Blood points at Atrament. “So who did that stitching? That’s Aether-style stitching with Fell thread.”
Atrament looks down. “Is it?”
“Fells get the brutal thick stitches, the Aethers get the finework. I’ve been told it’s just how the stitching has to be done for each magic type,” Blood says.
Atrament brushes his fingers over the Fell thread stitched into his left pectoral. “It is my understanding that the stitching, pattern, and placement are all individual to what each Mage requires. A great deal of a Tailor’s training is devoted to such understanding. I did not realize Fells never require finework and Aethers never have the heavier stitches.”
Blood rocks to his feet and paces around us, taking in Atrament’s extensive stitching. “You have even more thread than her, I think.”
“I have a tapestry, yes. You have never seen a Fell with a tapestry?”
“Hell, I’ve never seen an Aether with a tapestry until Pebbles. Well, unless it was in a painting.”
“Oh. So this is very unusual then?” Atrament inquires.
Blood sighs and my heart twists. Atrament doesn’t even know what he doesn’t know. How can I go to my death and abandon him when Blood hasn’t promised to look after him?
“Who did that stitching?” Rot points at Atrament. “That looks like an Academy job.”
Atrament touches the knot. “I was tailored at the Academy. There’s no where else in the Empire to get the Threading done or who knows how much to apply. I was taken in secret for the procedure.”
Blood sits upright like one of those tree roots violated his asshole. “Holy shit.”
“What?” Rot asks.
“The Academy knew this was possible! Now it all fucking makes sense!”
Atrament and I exchange bewildered glances.
Blood grabs a handful of his hair. “The Academy knew that a Mage could have both types of thread. The Academy knew that’s what Pebbles needed, but do you think they were going to tell anyone? That’s why they didn’t want her to consecrate a snake familiar. That’s why they sent her to the front. That’s why they didn’t care about her Aether team abusing her in bed. They knew she was flawed. Instead of telling her parents oh, hey, by the way, you guys did something, they just passed it all off as her fault instead of admitting she wasn’t a perfect Crystal Mage!”
Smoke works his jaw. “They sent her to the front, hoping she’d die on the battlefield and stop being a problem. Just shove her through the Academy as fast as possible, nobody will ask questions if she and her team die horribly.”
Blood’s eyes narrow. “It’s why her parents never objected to any of it. I’ve been trying to figure out why her parents just let this happen. They knew they did something, and she was born damaged.”
“So they just kept shoving Aether thread into her,” Rot says. “That’s not a scandal. They were trying to bind her up.”
Atrament says, “To be fair, she does require at least as much thread as she has. She probably could take more. She may need more.”
“That’s not the point, ghoul,” Blood says darkly. “The point is the powers that be were covering their own ass on this one.”
My world comes into focus only to shatter into little pieces.
The Academy, the military, my teachers, maybe even my own parents had wanted me to die. They could have stabilized me with Fell thread, maybe, but the Tailors would have had to tell the Deans, who would have had to tell my parents, and it would have been discovered I had Fell thread. It wouldn’t ha
ve been possible to keep it a secret in the field.
I scramble to pick up the pieces. “But Crystal pregnancies are so fragile. And I am a Crystal Mage.”
“Well—” Atrament says.
He better not say the word Luminous. “But what could my parents have done that made me this way? I shouldn’t be anything if the conception was less than ideal! Even perfect circumstances won’t give a Crystal.”
Smoke draws his knees up to his chest. “She is right. You can do everything right and still not get a Crystal baby. Maybe it was a curse? Or something like her mother was exposed to an Aether dust cut gem.”
“Her mother?” Blood scoffs.
“My parents have all their jewels carefully inspected for just that kind of thing,” I say.
“Or something like that,” Smoke amends. “Just a slight thing. A small thing they didn’t realize cast a shadow.”
“Fine, so her parents aren’t directly to blame, but the Academy clearly knew. They had to know. That’s some big news to hand to powerful people, and the gutless fucks wouldn’t do it.”
Rot cocks his head to the side. “But then the Academy would be to blame for the dead team.”
“I killed my first team, not the Academy,” I say, voice shaking. “I killed Frost. I… I kill my own kind. The Warden’s right.”
Rot snaps, “Don’t let that asshole live in your head. You killed Frost because you needed to save her soul. The Academy’s the one who put you with that team of Aethers. They’re the ones who didn’t fix you. And they were the ones who put the BlightWorm in the arena. They were trying to kill you.”
I hug my knees to my chest despite the smothering heat. I mumble, “They knew I was powerful and experienced.”
Atrament pulls back on his shirt. “I do not know if it is relevant, but the Academy requested specific Blightlings for her trial. I remember being very surprised they wanted the herd of goats and the worm. Worms are not requested for graduations. It was requested months in advance so we could prepare it.”
“How did you get it into the city?” Blood’s eyes narrow further.
