A lump formed in her throat. Empathy had never been her strong suit because she'd never seen herself in others, never walked beside someone who could keep up. This man couldn't either—but it wasn't his fault. He'd been hamstrung by his own kind, and for the first time, she wanted to moderate her pace to match.
“I understand,” she said. “As much as I can.”
He raised a hand toward her: pale, slightly sallow, sword-calluses offsetting his fine fingers. All false. “No matter that I still look like myself, I am made of others' flesh. It is not...right, to use it for private business. More than that, I can feel its hostility—toward me, toward any life I come in contact with. I do not need to understand the whispers to know what they say.
“I used to draw them. Faces, strangers. I did not know what they were, just that they rose up in me sometimes like half-remembered dreams. Now I see them in the mirror when I look too long. I feel them under my fingertips when I touch my face. There are no individuals left; the sarisigi digest those they consume into a kind of...slurry of souls. It would be easier if there were personalities to contend with, I think, instead of this constant blurring, this lack of boundaries.
“I can still trust my mind. The Scryer has verified it. But this body...no.”
Her thoughts skipped across possible solutions. Archmagus Enkhaelen; a Zhangish or Yezadri necromancer, since they were legal there; the Light that was Iroliyale, if they could find and free it. Two options currently unreachable; one distant in a way that would strain her network of contacts and aggravate the eiyets.
Worth it, though.
“If I could find someone else to pull those souls out and give you control, would you allow it? Wouldn't be as good as the Archmagus' work, I'm sure, but it could hold you over.”
His mouth quirked slightly. “Are you so reluctant to take up the reins of Blaze Company?”
She gave him a look, at once amazed, amused and annoyed that he could joke about his state like that. “Answer the question, captain.”
With a too-casual shrug, he turned his gaze back to the drying writ. “I should object to it as necromancy no matter the benefit, but that is…selfish moralizing. What does it matter how I compromise myself, as long as we succeed?”
She didn't know how to answer that. If she could have shaken him until his teeth rattled—until the specter of gloom dispersed and his spirit returned—she would have, but he had been under that cloud for as long as she'd known him. It was doubtful even a necromancer could banish it.
What else, then? Pursue nastier options to find him a new body? Perhaps a construct, or whatever it is those Trifolder returnees are? She couldn't imagine him hiding behind a bronze mask, or accepting another's body, even if donated. There were no good answers for what he was.
What they'd made of him, that accursed Empire.
She realized she was getting angry again, but couldn't deny that she relished it. The fire that had forced her to the front lines in Savinnor, Fellen and a dozen other conflicts had already been sparked here in Bahlaer—for the sake of the people, for the fallen kai, for another strike against that wretched Empire. Now, though, it had become for him. Because she liked him, gods help her, and because those ghosts in him were just more Imperial victims. His whole company was, their masters having cannibalized them for no reason she could see but power.
They were all broken. But they could still be mended, with support.
“Maybe Linciard is right,” she mused aloud. “You could all move on to...not Iroliyale, I don't think, but to the greater part of him beyond the Seals. The Sun Father.”
“To complete my self-compromise?”
She opened her mouth to apologize, but he was smiling, rueful but honest. “To serve a Light less harsh,” she said instead, “if you still feel the need to serve. Though if Iroliyale is the Sun Father's proxy and he's been missing for centuries, that makes me worry about the church down in Yezad. Presh isn't the first to provoke their wrath, and if all that heresy-talk is because they don't want to acknowledge they've lost contact with their god...”
“I would rather not trade one murderous priesthood for another.”
“No, I get it, but he's supposed to be a better god than that. A revealer of secrets, a banisher of threats, the lover of the Moon and our Shadow Lord's best friend—not your judgmental isolationist-Light at all.” She was babbling, she knew, but maybe that was for the best: drop the awkward topic of their non-relationship and focus on something else.
His brows arched. “The Moon is...a Dark entity, yes? I recall hearing that somewhere.”
“A fragment of the greater Dark, yes, but a friendly one. We call her Moon-Shadow; she'd rather be like Morgwi than like the Dark beyond.”
“How can they tolerate each other, then, when one is Dark and the other Light?”
She shrugged loosely. “It's a regular point of question. Some say they became Tatska and Iroliyale not just for the Seals' sake but to have human-esque rendezvous—others that eclipses are them coming close enough to kiss through her moon-mask. Regardless, it's the same way all light and shadow coexists. Through barriers, whether they be objects or flesh.”
“Barriers,” he echoed, and she caught a trace expression on his face: speculation? Interest? She squelched her response before it could grow into hope. It was ridiculous to entertain such thoughts at a time like this.
“But that begs the question,” she said instead. “Those two are lovers, and the Shadow Lord is their close friend—so why did Morgwi hide it from us? And where has he gone? Has he been searching for Iroliyale himself and just not telling us? Not wanting to worry us? That would be just like him.”
“Secretive?”
“Annoyingly parental.”
“You truly have no reverence for him?”
She smirked. “Captain, he's my grandfather. I've met with him often enough to know that even if he merited it, he doesn't want it. Though I suppose I'll have to rethink the merit, if it's true he's been searching instead of wenching like we expected.”
Sarovy tilted his head, but instead of questioning that, he said, “You have always lived in the Shadow Realm?”
“All my life.” They'd touched on pasts before, but only briefly; mostly they'd talked about current concerns, future issues, possible tactics, logistics. It felt strange to be saying such things only now—but at least he was humoring her. “Brought up in the crèche and the Regency school, tested into the Enforcement stream, went straight on from there. Not so different from your upbringing—Mako said your people join the military at seven?”
“The Youth Corps, yes, most of us. I don't recall much of it now. What is a crèche?”
She shrugged, feeling the form-fitted plates of her armor shift with the move. “Communal child-rearing group. Regents don't have much time for it. Frankly I didn't have much time for it myself, as a child. I did my own thing. Sped through schooling—wanted to get into the action.”
“You started young?”
“Fourteen on my first mission, I think. You?”
“Youth Corps is not sent against active hostiles, but we did scouting runs—sometimes as part of a Sapphire unit—starting in the...fifth year? Sixth?” He frowned, then shook his head. “I remember I was tapped as a mapper, surveillance artist. I enjoyed it.”
“You didn't mind being away from home? Or...base camp?”
“My people tend not to settle in until we get married. Not with our parents, not in a camp. Some never do.”
“You did?”
“I was assigned an outpost command, with my wife. We...” His eyes went distant, so realistic that she almost couldn't believe he was constructed. “She ran the Women's Auxiliary there despite not being Trivestean, since she had rank through me. I think...we were...satisfied.”
Not happy, she noted, watching him. As much as she wanted to give him his privacy, she also desperately wished to pry. It was her nature.
“But I am unsure,” he added quietly. “I might have been mo
re ambitious, might have sought a higher post. A fortress command. Was that why I was called to the Palace? To test my potential and make of me an Imperial puppet over a Sapphire fortress? I cannot remember. I no longer know who I was.”
Unable to help herself, she reached out and set her hand on his. He froze, and for a moment—watching obscure emotions cross his face—she thought she'd hurt him. Triggered one of those identity episodes he so feared.
But his hand was warm under hers, alive, and before she could give in to her second thoughts, she saw him exhale. His expression smoothed, and though he did not turn to look at her, his hand tilted to meet hers. To let their fingers interlace.
Her heart thudded against her ribs, a weird thrill racing through her. Compared to other intimacies, this was nothing—and everything. It didn't matter that she'd only been on speaking terms with him for a few weeks. He was hers.
“Sarovy,” she started, then amended herself cautiously: “Firkad?”
He looked to her sidelong, his faint smile echoed in his eyes—all too human. “Yes.”
“My name—my real name—is Nemirin. Nemirin Ereshti kin Dvarraket. Nemi, to my close friends.”
He nodded slowly. “Nemirin.”
“Nemi.”
Was that a sparkle in those eyes? “Nemi. Why use Ardent?”
“Shadow name, to divorce myself from my mother's circle. Many of us use them for that, or other reasons. That girl Lark too.”
“I see.”
She wanted to pin him to the table. Test the boundaries of his control. But she couldn't—not now, not yet. Not while their soldiers and agents slept fitfully in anticipation of the coming action, and her own letters to prospective allies, necromancers, fleshbenders had yet to be written. Perhaps a shaman too, to do something about his sword.
So much work still ahead of them.
And yet, for a long unaccustomed moment of peace, they stayed as they were. Eyes locked, hands clasped. Smiling.
*****
Later, after Nemirin had gone, Sarovy stared at his hands. By the orange light of the Shadow lantern, they seemed real, but when he ran his fingers along the tabletop, there was more than just texture. He could taste the grain of it, and the oils and old stains—tea, ink, wax, sweat, concrete dust, dampness.
A faint residue of her.
Taking her hand had provoked a terror he'd rarely experienced in his life. Not just because of the wash of presence, the strange flavors, the perverse intimacy—but for the impulse to reach out. To pull her hips to his and meld.
His substance urged him toward it. The whispers, still wordless, nevertheless voiced their approval, to the point that he wondered if they truly were his predecessor's victims. Perhaps they were the monster's voice instead, fragmented by its overthrow yet determined to control him. No matter the shared heat, the willingness, the fragrance of her skin, he knew how it would end. He saw it every time he tried to imagine that moment.
Her hair loose from its braid, falling about her bare shoulders; the taste of her breath, the texture of her scar beneath his thumb… And then the change, his flesh loosening and reshaping, his fingers merging into a claylike pad to mold against her features—learn them like he had learned so many faces before. Her short black nails raking futilely at him—
No. No, it was impossible.
And it hurt. After so long, he hadn't thought it could. He'd accepted his isolation as an appropriate punishment for his misdeeds, a rebuke from those who had known him before his fall—ex-comrades, parents, wife. He'd been content in his role as an officer, aloof from his men, difficult to approach. Learning of his nature had stung, but it had also reinforced that solitude, and given him a reason to be alone that went beyond his quiet pain.
Yet she'd bridged that chasm without fear—and now here he was, in the dead-end canyon he'd made of his life, with her shadow filling the gap. He could stay in place and just endure as he always had; for all their nagging, he knew no one would come to drag him out. But what was the point of a life without motion, without progress?
For twelve years, he'd paced these narrow confines, believing himself alive.
But no. Out there, where her shadow beckoned—that was life. The promise and the peril were the same. And when she spoke his name, her faint accent changing it to something strange and melodic, she transformed everything.
This is neither the time nor place for it, he told himself. Even if it were, it would still be a coin-toss between disaster and…what? Hope?
We are caught in a trap of our own making, but which side is the trap? To risk everything on trust? Or to withdraw back into the shell—pull on gloves and taste only leather, feel nothing, let the promise fade like a dream?
Pragmatism demanded his disengagement. He had bent too much effort toward foolish pursuits recently—spent too much time on turnabout games and sparring. The only reason his work hadn't suffered for her presence was that there had been so little for him to do.
That would change in a mere handful of marks. He needed to be at his best, to anticipate their enemies' actions and respond preemptively. To end the Seether threat and start the march upon the Crown Prince's prison.
And yet her scent lingered, making him wonder what could be done with just minimal contact—safe contact. What he might feel, if he only let himself.
No. Not now.
Not yet.
Chapter 26 – Controlled Demolition
Five marks later, the teams were ready.
The Shadow Folk reported no further disturbances in Rallant's cell or anywhere around Old Crown or the garrisons, so Captain Sarovy gave the go-ahead to start the mission as planned. Blaze Company—bulked now to two hundred and four soldiers by the addition of the trustworthy ex-Seethers—split itself into two parts: one to assault the Riverwatch garrison, the other to be held in readiness within the Shadow Folk complex as reinforcements to the Riverwatch forces, the Rakut and Lakeshore defenses, or other points of embattlement.
Captain Sarovy set control of the active half of the company in the hands of Houndmaster-Lieutenant Vrallek, with Shield-Lieutenant Arlin as his second. Their platoons—Homeless and Bloodthirst respectively—held all of the remaining specialists, including the three White Flame-armored returnees, the small crowd of scouts, and Vrallek's hounds. They had to go on foot because the eiyets would not tolerate them within the Shadow Realm, but they weren't alone; the two Gejaran mages, Regna and Lahngi, were going along. Their baggage had been unpacked and reassembled into a twelve-foot-tall metallic carapace shaped vaguely like an ogre and a T-shaped ambulatory coat-rack hung with what appeared to be leather kites. The soldiers gave them a wide berth.
Sarovy accompanied them to the surface, following a knot of Shadow Folk along halls, up tight corkscrew stairs, and through uncomfortably familiar warehouse-space before climbing a staircase half-blocked by rubble. No one commented—not his men, who could guess the source of the debris, and not the Shadow Folk, who seemed content to leave past crimes unmentioned.
They emerged from the depths into an empty warehouse, and immediately Sarovy noted the crisp freshness of the air. It had been so long since he was topside that he'd started thinking of the stuffiness of the tunnels as normal, comfortable. Some of the men began shivering even before the big doors were opened, and they all flinched at the blast of cold air that swept in, chilling the sweat they'd worked up on the way here.
Sarovy wished he could share in that moment of shudders and curses. The wind brushed past him without stirring a hair, and though he could feel the cold, it raised no prickles on his skin, no instinctive bracing. It just was.
He just was, and would stay like this until his ultimate disintegration.
Banishing the thought, he led the way through the doors into the street beyond, eyes drawn automatically to the dark sky. The Chain of Ydgys was up, a comforting banner of light, and the glow of the mother moon limned the rooftops in what he guessed to be the east.
Think of it as a night assault, he
told himself. Pretend the dawn will come.
It wasn't difficult. Insulated down below for so long, some part of him had continued to imagine sunrise and sunset occurring at regular intervals—even with Yrsian's scrying-windows to show the truth. Time-glasses and marked candles had helped. He could tell himself that this was merely the deep night, perhaps second- or third-mark, as befit a Shadow-backed attack.
“We've marched this far and we're only at the Shadowland?” said a voice beside him—one of the scouts, already moving to the fore. Scout Telren, he thought, though it was difficult to be sure. “Where in pike's name did we start from?”
“Chisel Ridge,” answered a Shadow agent, beckoning them further into the street. “Riverwatch garrison is at the intersection of Stormline and the Scathe, right by the Riverwatch-Shadowland border. We'll loop around, take the small streets and come up on it from behind. Scouts can go ahead now; follow this street south to the big intersection, turn west, then stay on the main road until you see the garrison house. Should take a quarter-mark that way. We'll take a bit more than a half, going around.”
“I will stay with the main force,” said Magus Regna, patting the leg of her construct. “Lahngi, you should either go with the scouts or get up on the roof.”
“Do not tell me my business,” huffed the skinny man. “I will take the roof.”
“Go, then,” said Sarovy, unbothered by their self-assignments. He'd learned to trust that mages knew where they would work best. “Lieutenant Vrallek, Lieutenant Arlin, you have your mission. Subdue the garrison, capture as many as you can, turn the prisoners over to the Shadow Folk. Kill any enemy controllers, scouts or mages. Disperse before enemy reinforcements and switch to guerrilla tactics. Understood?”
“Yes sir.”
“Command is yours.”
The two saluted, then hollered for their men's attention—as unlikely a pair as any, the ugly ogre-blooded ruengriin and the mustachioed traditionalist Wynd. The new way welded to the old. Sarovy could only hope this would work as well now as it had in planning.
The Drowning Dark (The War of Memory Cycle Book 4) Page 76
