Heart (Cruelly Made Book 3)

by K. M. Hade

Even Smoke laughs at this.

  “What do the others say?” ScatheFire asks.

  “More of the same.” Blood shifts through them before tucking them all into his surcoat’s interior pockets. “Our pet rock is worth a fortune. Tells me that any Aethers they have looking for us aren’t going to risk killing her. The Empire wants her back.”

  My insides squirm. I’m not going back. I can’t go back. I won’t go back.

  Rot’s presence moves closer. He hesitantly puts a big hand over my arm.

  “They want all of us back,” Blood adds. “We’re all wanted alive.”

  ScatheFire dismounts. “They’ve invested too much into us. They want us back so they can wring us dry. We’re a problem for them now.”

  “How so?” Smoke asks.

  ScatheFire points at his head. “Read between the lines. The Military has to explain why you three were anywhere near the Pit. The bill accuses you of abetting an escape. It doesn’t accuse you of deserting or anything they could have thrown at you for not being at your post. And it doesn’t mention the dead Frost. Instead, you’re up in the Empire’s swampy ass randomly helping some Aether Mage escape the Pit.”

  “I doubt anyone will appreciate the difference,” Atrament says.

  Blood’s lip curls and he warms with smug satisfaction. “ScatheFire’s right. This could accuse us of a lot of things but it doesn’t. The Empire doesn’t Tailor idiots, and Imperial Mages are going to understand the difference.”

  “And we escaped right out from under the Aether Guards’ noses,” Smoke murmurs.

  “And not to mention the other team’s got a dead Frost, and the Storm team, and the Crystal-Aegis team. That’s a lot of Aethers who saw us at the Pit or played in the dirt.” Rot counts on his fingers.

  “You know that Storm team got shipped off somewhere no one will hear her screaming. People will ask questions about that.” Blood strokes his brooch thoughtfully. “The powers that be have realized this isn’t going to be cleaned up with our dead bodies. Too many people know too much. They can stop us from sending letters and couriers, but they can’t stop us from gossiping when we see each other, and the Warden made a serious mistake letting that Crystal-Aegis team see us. That’s too powerful a team to make disappear. Some shit must be stirring if they want us all alive.”

  More charges can always get thrown at us once we’re arrested, but the Military seems to be playing it careful about all the details. Aether Mages are going to get squirmy if they find out that the military just… throws Mages into the Pit as experiments, even if those Mages are Fells. And the Imperial Fells? If it can happen to Blood’s team, it can happen to any of them.

  The problem with Mages is that the Empire doesn’t let us have anything except our familiar and our team. We don’t have families, wealth, we aren’t even allowed lovers or friends. We have the names we’re given. We can’t even pick our teams.

  It also means the Mages have nothing to lose, except maybe a possible future in House Aether that nine out of ten teams will never see.

  And no mention of Atrament. The Military knows Atrament exists, but the Warden doesn’t seem to have revealed Atrament escaped—or if the Military knows, they’re keeping that hushed up. Ghoulish experiments to produce dark demi-gods in the belly of the Pit? The Empress will remove your head personally for that shit.

  “What are you thinking, Heart?” ScatheFire taps me. “I know that look. You’ve got a plan, don’t you?”

  Heart. I’m not used to hearing myself called by that name. The others mostly call me Pebbles, but occasionally the name Heart slips through, and Atrament will always shyly call me Lady Heart.

  And no, I don’t have a plan yet, but it’s an interesting development. Someone’s nervous. Several someones are nervous. They need to make this go away and they need to do it quietly and in a not-ugly way. “How much is my bounty, Blood?”

  He tells me.

  ScatheFire whistles. “That’s a lot less than I’d expect.”

  “It’s more than the value of her Aether on the street, but not by much. Hmm. They’re really not paying a premium bring her in alive price given how dangerous the bounty is.” Blood picks another bug out of his hair and curses.

  It’s still a huge bounty, maybe one of the biggest in Empire history, but it’s just my value as spare parts. “They’re paying my carcass weight. What are they paying for you lot?”

  Blood tells me the number. It’s a pretty bounty, but not remarkable. Blood, Smoke, and Rot are wanted alive. ScatheFire can be alive or dead.

  “So they’ll take ScatheFire alive,” I say.

  Blood frowns and taps the folded bill against his lips. “That strike you as strange, Pebbles?”

  I nod. “Very. I’d say they want me alive for my carcass, and the three of you for a big public court martial, but ScatheFire? He was condemned years ago. More to the point, as far as the Warden knows, ScatheFire is a husk. But does anyone else?”

  “Oh, this is getting interesting.” Blood practically rubs his hands together.

  “A whole lot of powerful people and Imperial Mages are not going to like this.” My eyes narrow.

  Blood’s expression darkens. “The military doesn’t want to lose its research, and neither does the Warden. There are nobles at the court that deal with both forces, and know more than they would like to right now, and there are Imperial teams that know more than those powerful people want them to know… and Mages have nothing to lose. That’s about to bite the powers that be. Hard.”

  “And everyone trying to cover it up,” Smoke concludes. He brushes some of the infernal dust off his chest and says smugly, “Time for swill.”

  “Wait, there’s booze in this trash heap?” I ask eagerly.

  “What else do you expect to find in a tavern in the middle of this shitheap?” ScatheFire asks.

  “Wenches?”

  Smoke and Rot exchange raised brows. Rot says, “Wenches. She wants wenches.”

  ScatheFire says, “There are wenches, last I was here, but they lack teeth.”

  Blood rolls his eyes dramatically. “You say that like gum jobs do not have their place.”

  Rot grabs both our hands and pulls us across the street and into the tavern.

  The interior of the tavern is (of course) covered in a fine layer of dust. The furniture is the same mix of clay-and-bramble that makes up the walls. There’s a bar of the same substance. Two leathery-looking women in dust-stained dresses and leather aprons move around, while behind a wall of clay-and-bramble there’s a kitchen. The near wall as we entered has corks in two neat rows. The doors are just heavy leather curtains made of horsehide. Light comes from dung pellet lanterns overhead, giving the air a particularly fetid haze.

  The air is thick, and if I wasn’t nose-blind from months in the Pit and the ruined lands, I’d probably notice it smells completely like ass. But I’m nose blind, so I’m just glad it’s surprisingly cool and being out of the blistering sunlight, wind, and dust is amazing.

  About ten people are hiding from the heat of the day, drinking from clay cups and eating unidentifiable slop off clay plates. They’re wearing leathers, faded clothes, boots, with long scarfs twirled around their necks and shoulders and hats on tables or on their feet. Some are playing dice or cards. Others are watching. Along the farthest wall some are wrapped up in cloaks or leather blankets, snoring.

  “That wench is for sale,” ScatheFire whispers, nodding to the one without the scar bisecting her face from crown, down her nose, the point of her chin.

  “You know her?”

  He laughs and whispers, “Her skirt is slit up both sides past her knee.”

  “We have a lot to teach you, Pebbles,” Blood whispers over my shoulder. He smacks my ass. “Pick a table.”

  I move to the closest unoccupied table. Blood drops himself into a chair. Rot pulls up some more. Blood brushes off some dust from his obviously Imperial uniform and eyes the room. I sit down, then wince as a sharp pain snaps through my lower
body. ScatheFire gives me a concerned look. I wave it off and shift my weight, and it passes.

  “We don’t serve Imperial Mages here,” the non-purchasable wench informs us. She looks at Atrament. The Fell’s long hair has come undone and drifts around him, slithering in the shadows like fox tails. He’s barely visible in the lantern light, his face flickering in and out of view. “And whatever that is.”

  “That is an Atrament, the Fell equivalent of a Crystal Aether.” Blood leans his head back to look at Atrament over the back of his chair, exposing his pale, elegant throat to everyone. “He’s strange, but he was raised in the Pit, so to be expected. He knows how to chew with his mouth closed.”

  The wench points at the curtained entranceway. “Out. We don’t serve Imperials here.”

  ScatheFire gives her a charming smile and flicks one finger in my direction. “How about notorious criminals?”

  Smoke’s chair scrapes as he scoots it across the floor. “I think they serve minor criminals. She’s probably above their risk tolerance.”

  The entire bar shifts towards us. A couple of them get out of their chairs.

  “Guys,” I say quietly. “I’d really rather not kill a bunch of people. Even if they are bandits.”

  “Even if they’re stupid bandits who think they can take a Fell team?” ScatheFire burns a design into the table’s surface with a controlled lick of flame.

  I sigh at him.

  Blood waves off my concern, and the room as well. “There’s no bounty here for you.”

  One of the patrons pulls a knife from his belt. It flicks in the light, and he grins. “Beg to differ, Imperial.”

  Blood pulls my bill from his surcoat pocket. “This clearly states that there’s no bounty if her Aether is damaged.”

  I stand and pull the neck of my tunic open wider, revealing the Fell thread entangled with the Aether.

  “Badly damaged.” Blood tucks the bill back into his pocket. “No bounty. Military just doesn’t know it yet. But you could go right to the nearest outpost, tell them you’ve seen her, and leave them an address where they can find you once they arrest her.”

  The patrons exchange glances. Then there’s a mass sprint towards the door.

  “Except!” Smoke raises his voice, pitching it perfectly to yank everyone back by the collar. They all spin around.

  Smoke’s voice is ashes and embers. “How many of you want the Empire to know where to find you?”

  The resident bright lights of the ruined lands combine their powers, collectively realize they’re all wanted for one crime or another, and shuffle back to whatever they’d been doing.

  Blood lashes his fingers behind his neck, groans, and folds forward onto the table. “The stupid hurts.”

  Smoke sits back down in his chair. “That’s the military’s problem with bounties. They never make it worth it.”

  Blood rolls his eyes towards Smoke. “Thank you. Please teach me how to talk to morons.”

  “It’s a skill you aren’t interested in acquiring.”

  “And you are the last person in the world I’d expect to have bothered to develop such a skill.”

  Smoke shrugs, but shifts inside me uncomfortably. Enough that Rot and Blood both give him a bit of a sideways look, which makes him squirm a bit more.

  ScatheFire taps the table and eyes the wench who has been standing there through all of this. “So. Drinks.”

  Her lips compress. “You got coin?”

  I move my fingers under the table. My new control lets me easily summon a few thin, coin-sized discs of conjured crystal. I put my hand on the table and push the half dozen discs towards her. They shine in the light like dragon scales.

  She picks one up. It catches the limited light and seems to hold it, a sheen within it like a sliver of opal, but with the distinctive pale blue of Aether overlaying all of it. She clutches it in her palm. “What is it?”

  I try to give her my best I’m-not-telling-you smile.

  Atrament moves slightly. The shadows slide away from his face, and he says, tone quiet but weighty, “Those are the reason she was in the Pit.”

  The woman eyes him. “Yeah?”

  Atrament leans forward very slightly, eyes never leaving hers. She leans forward too, drawn to his silky darkness and the aura of power rising off his Fell thread. His voice is silk and dark ribbons. “I was a Researcher in the Pit for many years. It is believed that wearing one as a trinket will ward off Blight.”

  The woman’s hand slips the chips into a hidden pocket. She spins and walks back towards the wall with all the corks in it and says something harsh to the other woman present.

  Rot leans across the table and whispers, “You lying sack of shit.”

  Atrament arches a brow.

  Rot gives him a thumb’s up.

  “I know very little,” Atrament says, “but I do know how to play games of flattery and persuasion.”

  The other maid (the one for sale) gathers up a tray of six clay cups and removes one of the corks from the wall. A stream of brownish liquid pours out into the cup. She fills each of the cups, marches over to us, and sets the tray down with a prim little flick of her hips. “Ass is one price, puss is double price, hand is half of ass. No discount for Imperials.”

  “Just the drinks and food.” ScatheFire sounds like he’s declining butter for his toast.

  She heads off towards the kitchen.

  “… So ass is the base rate?” I ask. “She means… her asshole, right?”

  Blood sighs at me, his cup dangling from his elegant fingers, while Rot bellows laughter, Smoke looks at me long-suffering, and ScatheFire snickers.

  “Yes, Pebbles, she means her asshole,” Blood says, eyes very, very wide. “You do know things can go in assholes, right?”

  “Maybe it meant sliding my finger up and down her asscheeks.”

  “I’m sure if that’s what gets you off, you can negotiate a price, but you have five of us to choose from, so I’m hurt if you’d rather pay a ruined lands maid for her services.”

  ScatheFire points at Blood. “The maid has tits.”

  “If Pebbles wants to play with breasts, she has two very beautiful ones of her own to enjoy. And we can enjoy watching.”

  “We can enjoy watching her play with the other’s breasts and there will be four breasts instead of two.”

  “It’s hard to argue with basic math,” Blood agrees.

  They’re warming up to the idea, so it’s time to pour some very bad beer all over it. “I have never paid for sex, and I am not starting now.”

  “Oh, look at you, standards.” Blood sips his swill. “In a place like this with your reputation.”

  “Drink your swill. Show us those Imperial standards.” ScatheFire gulps down his swill and raises the cup. “More!”

  “Please. You should say please,” Smoke murmurs.

  Blood and Rot snarf swill out their noses.

  The swill is beyond dreadful: it’s warm like piss and tastes like a dead body mixed with something from the sewer troughs in the Pit. There are little grainy bits floating at the top. “What the hell do they make this from?”

  “You shouldn’t ask that,” ScatheFire says as his cup is taken away.

  “It’s very good.” Atrament sets his empty cup down.

  We look at him.

  “Now none of us,” Blood gestures to the other Fells, “were raised properly, but even we know this is liquified pig shit.”

  Atrament spits out a bit of grainy whatever it is. “I’ve had much worse.”

  “Unholy Old Ones at the bottom of Pits, what the fuck was it made from? Don’t. Just don’t answer that.” ScatheFire waves his hands.

  “It must be an acquired taste, and I don’t care to acquire it.” I tip my drink in Atrament’s direction, then clink cups with Smoke.

  Blood leans back in his chair and puts his feet up on the edge of Smoke’s seat. “So we’re all fugitives with bounties on our head. I’m not concerned about the bounty hunters, but I a
m concerned about locals sounding the alarm. We’re almost out of the ruined lands.”

  “They won’t find us where we’re going,” I say.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Someone draw me a map.”

  Smoke dips his finger into his swill and draws a crude map on the clay tabletop. I scoot around, plunk myself down in Blood’s lap, and consider our options. He wraps his free arm around me. A jolt goes right through my nerves to between my legs. I try not to show it, but it’s pointless, because the jolt tickles along all their threads.

  Something I’ve realized over the past few weeks: being a Heart kind of sucks.

  I contemplate Smoke’s map. My eyes trace the line of the road south. I don’t add to the map—I don’t want anyone here to get clever and see where we’re headed.

  I nod, a lump in my throat.

  “Pebbles?” Blood asks.

  I smear the map with my palm. “I’ll explain on the way.”

  23

  CRYSTAL

  The border between the ruined lands and not-ruined lands is a line of hills that go from break-your-leg semi-mountains to soft, rolling hills as you go further east from the Pit. Once you get to the tavern-town, follow the wagon ruts five days south east and you’ll come to a gap in the hills wide enough for three wagons to pass abreast. Traverse this short little stretch of dusty road, and you’ll cross from the ruined lands into the Empire itself.

  It’s mid-autumn, but it’s still green, shady, and unseasonably warm. Once we step off the path into the Empire, it instantly feels like spring.

  Actually: it’s raining.

  And that’s more than a little strange.

  Behind us is the red, dry, desiccated ruined lands. The view is obscured by the abrupt gap in the otherwise towering bluffs. The lands themselves continue another forty or fifty miles beyond the diminishing hills, like whatever had crushed the ground together had eventually lost interest and gone home. The grip of the ruin eases until it ends in border estates and towns that the Empire barely remembers exist.

  But the land under our exhausted horses’ hooves is firmly the Empire. It’s wet, raining, muddy, and feels cold after weeks in the ruined land’s blistering heat.