Break the Chains

by Megan E. O'Keefe

  “No!” Jeffin barked, too tied up in his own anger to sense Detan’s burgeoning rage. “She’s a pits-cursed monster!”

  Detan heard, as if from a great distance, Tibs take a sharp breath. And then his focus narrowed, encompassing only the inflamed face of the man before him, the tipping point of all his frustrations.

  “Am I a monster?” he asked, voice smooth as silk, though it sounded far away to him. Dreamy.

  Jeffin’s hand dropped, his pale brows pushed together in confusion. “No, that’s... You’re Scorched! Like the rest of us.”

  He stepped forward. Jeffin stepped back. A woman’s voice murmured, but all Detan could hear was Tibs say hush.

  “Scorched, am I?” He held up his hands between them, turning them over so Jeffin could get a good, long look at his heritage-darkened skin, his Valathean-long fingers. “Who the fuck do you think I am? I am, by blood, an honest-to-skies lord of your hated empire. That make me a monster?”

  “No! I said you were–”

  Detan surged forward, grabbed Jeffin by the lapels of his false commodore’s coat and rammed his back against the cabin’s wall so hard the mirror jumped. A woman screamed, someone clapped with glee, and somewhere in the distance he heard Tibs yell sirra! but he didn’t care. He was going to squeeze some pits-cursed sense out of this grubby lout Pelkaia had scavenged up.

  Jeffin squawked, a wheeze of air squeezed from his throat. Detan lifted him, lifted him so that his stupid little brown boots could no longer touch the floor. With his forearm bracing Jeffin against the wall, he slammed his free fist into the wall beside the lad’s head. Grinned as he squealed with fright. Grinned at the satisfying crack of the wood.

  “Listen to me, you dripping shit. Purebred Valatheans ain’t the only monsters roaming this sun-slapped continent, understand? Weren’t Valatheans who turned me over to the whitecoats, weren’t just Valatheans who jeered at Aransa’s walls while deviants were forced to walk the killing heat of the Black Wash. The empire sets the rules, but it ain’t imperial blood that enforces them, it’s superstition and hate and fear. We deviant sensitives got enough people to call us monsters without doing it to ourselves.”

  “I never meant–”

  Detan squeezed.

  “I know what you meant. You meant she was different. Meant she hadn’t grown up chasing sandrats for supper, or crushing palm leaves for a drink.”

  His vision narrowed, seeing only Jeffin’s red face, growing redder from fear and lack of air. Saw the sweat on his brow, the frantic twitching of his gaze as he searched for someone to save him. Jeffin wasn’t sorry about what he’d said. Was only sorry it’d bit him in the ass. Even if he did apologize to Laella, he’d never mean it. Not really.

  A tremble began beneath Detan’s skin, a tingle like the wind before the crack of lightning. He went rigid. White stars crept to the edges of his vision as his barriers broke, as his sense of the world expanded – came to encompass the great swathes of sel wreathing the ship, hiding it. Keeping all aboard it safe.

  There was so much. And it would be so easy.

  If Jeffin wouldn’t atone, then...

  “I’ll show you a monster.”

  A woman gasped. “We’re losing the mirrors! The sel’s just... It’s disappearing!”

  Running outside the cabin. Shouts. It didn’t matter. Punishing Jeffin – that mattered.

  “Detan, no!” Tibs yelled.

  Not sirra, not Honding. Tibs had called him Detan. Had sounded afraid when he said it.

  With a pained growl Detan tore away from Jeffin, let him fall to the hard ground without a care. He pivoted, yanked the cabin door open and bolted out onto the deck, elbowing aside startled deviants who came running at the shouts.

  He ran until his chest hit the Larkspur’s rail and gripped it so hard the wood groaned, his bones creaked. He gasped cold night air, sucked it down to drive back the heat of his anger, trying to submerge the rage.

  No use.

  Whirlwinds of sel thrashed around him, sparkling and flashing, ribbons like lashes speeding faster and faster, attracted by his anger. Craving his destruction.

  Shouts echoed to him – Tibs keeping the startled crew back – but the words were little more than a low fizz below the roar of the winds the sel-storm kicked up. He could not hold.

  Could not take them all out with him.

  Roaring defiance, he threw his hands toward the sky and called upon every ounce of skill he’d used as a selium miner, utilizing the motion of his body combined with his will, to direct where he wanted to the sel to flow. It carved up, damned near leapt with joy, spiraling into the cloud-strewn sky.

  He could not wait any longer, could only pray he’d pushed what he’d gathered far enough away. Anger poured through him, boiled through his veins, arced along his extended sel-sense until it reached the whipping strands of selium and then rended them, tore the effervescent gas apart molecule by molecule.

  The sky burst with flame. Clouds ignited in shades of blood and gold. Heat washed over him, kissed the top sail. Someone screamed fire and he heard the scramble of the crew as they went for the water buckets, the smothering tarps. He didn’t look. Couldn’t turn away until it’d all burned out and the sky returned to the dark-ash of the night.

  He’d contained it, somehow. Kept it away from the buoyancy sacks in the belly of the ship. Kept maybe half the mirror-ring safe. That’d have to be enough.

  When his rage had burned through he turned, arms shaky, forehead crested with sweat. The crew stared at him, the only movement a lazy tendril of smoke winding up from the top mast where a fire had gotten started and been promptly squashed. Eyes he did not know, wide with fear and awe and, just maybe, something like respect, pinned him down. Demanded answers.

  He never had any.

  “Laella.” He pointed to the woman, her face slack with shock. He had no time to assuage her worries. They needed to get out of here before watchers showed up to investigate his conflagration. “Get that coat off Jeffin and practice your best commodore impersonation. The rest of you, get this ship looking like something a Fleetie would be proud of. We’re going to go break your captain out, and then we’re going to rescue my friends. Understand?”

  Nervous nods all around.

  “Go!” he yelled, and they scattered like dropped grains.

  Tibs slipped up beside him, pressed a water cup into his hand. “Not the method I would have chosen.”

  Detan’s laughter was frantic, shuddering. He only stayed on his feet because Tibs held the back of his upper arm, propping him up so that no one could see how badly he needed the support. So much for not being a monster.

  Chapter Twenty

  After freeing her from her damp prison, the guards had hustled Ripka, dripping, into the stony shelter of her cell and left her without so much as a word. She’d paced, anxious, wondering if her sentence was fulfilled or if they’d come for her once the clouds had wrung themselves dry. None of the guards had given her an answer. Even Lankal had gone mute.

  As if someone had ordered them to silence.

  Though she had no light to see by, she knew the dinner hour had passed in the rec yard by the stomping of boots and the whoops of the inmates as they went about their scant social time.

  Ripka was left to stew. To pace. When the muttering of the inmates in the yard lost its initial fervor, a shallow tray of gruel accompanied by a few oily pieces of cheese was shoved through the narrow slot in her cell door. After a moment’s pause, a roll stuffed with limp greens followed, looking very much like it had been sat upon.

  She stared at that lump of leavened bread – its smooshed round face, the greenish ooze seeping from a strained side-seam. A temptation to kick it, to crush it beneath her heel and grind it against the floor, thrummed through her.

  Ripka took a breath. Consciously loosened her clenched jaw. Disgusting as it was, her body would need the scant nutrients stuffed in the crusty roll. Bread had been a rare treat in Aransa. She told herself she shouldn
’t be sick of it so quickly, but it was hard to ignore the panging in her stomach.

  She sat cross-legged, facing the door, and dragged the tray within easy reach. Methodically, she forced herself to bite, chew, and swallow every last drop they’d given her. By the time she was finished, she’d gone through half her water supply just to wash the stodgy mess of nutrients down.

  Stomach like a lead weight, she flopped backward onto the hard floor, splaying her arms above her head to stretch. She closed her eyes against the faint light of her single candle, focusing on the slow draw of her breath, ignoring the wet strands of hair sticking to her forehead and neck. Though she’d been granted a change of jumpsuits, there was little she could do for her rain-soaked head.

  With eyes closed, she allowed her mind to drift along the twisting paths of her possible futures. Kisser had promised her a rendezvous with a clearsky dealer – Uncle, she’d called him – and that put her one step closer to shucking Radu’s yoke. With her task for the warden out of the way, she could then turn her focus to discovering Nouli’s whereabouts – which meant, she was certain, gaining access to the yellowhouse. Perhaps she could leverage Uncle to discover Nouli. Perhaps Nouli was being put to use by Uncle. For a man with Nouli’s brilliance, the creation of such a drug wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

  A thrill of a thought sparked in her mind – perhaps Uncle was in the yellowhouse. He might even be Nouli himself.

  The timeline was tight, she needed all the advantage she could get. Needed to get close to the yellowhouse. The sticky, warm rains of the advance monsoon had proven that much to her. If she did not have Nouli in hand by the time Detan came for her, then this whole sordid adventure might be for naught. At least she’d learned a thing or two about running a prison.

  She snorted, choking back a laugh. Not that she’d ever need the knowledge. One future she was quite sure was dead to her was that of advancing through the ranks of the watchers. She’d turned her back on the empire, worn her traitor brand with pride. Too bad, really. The Remnant could use a steady, clever hand instead of the garish fumbling of Radu Baset.

  She dozed on the hard floor, the exhaustion deep within her bones quick to claim any moment of rest.

  The crack of wood against stone awoke her. Ripka jerked awake, reached for a baton she no longer carried. Her fingers tingled from numbness, the frantic patter of her heart rushed blood to the sleeping limb so quickly it felt as if her whole hand burned.

  Her cell door stood ajar, Kisser’s curved frame filling it. “I know the beds are rough,” she drawled, “but surely they’re better than the floor?”

  “Better than the well.” She drew her knees to her chest to stretch them before rising.

  “You really can sleep anywhere.”

  “Lots of practice.” Ripka squinted at the man hovering behind Kisser’s shoulder, trying to make out which guard Kisser had coaxed into opening Ripka’s cell. She didn’t recognize him, but she recognized the man standing next to the guard.

  “Enard, nice to see you standing.”

  He rubbed at a dark purple splotch spreading across his chin and cheek. “Thanks to you, I am.”

  “Save it for later, lovebirds. Uncle’s on a tight schedule and our lovely escort isn’t even assigned to this block.” She hooked her fingers in the guard’s collar and steered the blushing man down the hallway. “Chop chop.”

  Ripka fell into step alongside Kisser, letting the guard lead the way. She swallowed an urge to whisper to Enard, to ask him if he’d found anything out during his second waterworks shift. If he’d caught scent of Nouli, then they might be able to use Kisser’s abusive freedoms to find the man. To talk to him alone.

  She eyed Enard’s narrow back, Kisser’s words from above the well floating back to her. Glasseaters don’t just leave. She’d spent a year with Enard skirting the skies of the Scorched on Detan’s flier, working and laughing alongside one another. She’d felt she’d come to know him, to trust him, to understand his motives.

  But then, she’d never known his working name, Tender. Never imagined those careful, delicate hands were renown amongst the Glasseaters for the harm they dealt.

  Their path shifted. The guard used one of his many keys to open a door leading toward the staff’s quarters. Her heart sank. Unless he was about to show her a network of secret tunnels, they weren’t headed anywhere near the yellowhouse. She’d have to find another way out there.

  The guard heaved up a heavy beam that barred yet another door, standing aside so that Kisser could enter first. Ripka blinked in the faint haze that filled the large workroom.

  Oil lamps dotted the walls, casting unctuous light over a long table – obviously stolen from the rec yard – on which a collection of strange glass and metal instruments stood. A small brazier licked flames over the bottom of an amberglass flask. The fumes from the bottle had been angled so that they’d leave the room through a silver grating, about the height where a window would be. The scent of mudleaf clung to the air – not the acrid bite of the smoke, but the sweet scent of the raw plant, green but cloying.

  A sleeping cot huddled against the far wall, neglected with lumps of twisted blankets. Dog-eared notebooks scattered the ground like fallen leaves. At the far end of the table, a man – she supposed he was Uncle – bent over a notebook, graphite scribbling furiously, his ash-grey hair stuck up all askew. Kisser cleared her throat.

  Uncle looked up, a pleased smile deepening the crevasses of his features. Ripka’s heart skipped a beat. She knew that face. Had studied drawings of it for months.

  Nouli Bern.

  “Ah, my dear girl,” Nouli said as he came around the table, wizened hands outstretched toward Kisser. “Who have you brought me?”

  Kisser clasped the man’s hands and kissed his cheeks, then pointed her chin at Ripka. “This is Cap–”

  Ripka shushed her with a shake of her head, heart pounding in her ears loud enough to wake the dead, and stepped forward. Enard went still, silent, his lips parted in a little “O” of surprise.

  This was it. Their chance. She could no longer fear Kisser learning too much about her motives for being within the Remnant. Ripka lifted her palms before her, open toward the skies, to show her respect.

  “Well met under blue skies, Nouli Bern. My name is Ripka Leshe. I have come on behalf of the city of Hond Steading to beg your help.”

  “Oh,” Nouli said, “oh my.”

  Kisser’s wide hand fell upon Nouli’s shoulder.

  “Where,” she said firmly, “did you learn that name?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The combined talents of all the deviants aboard did a splendid job of making the Larkspur look like a standard Fleet cruiser once more. And they’d been polite enough not to comment on the amount of sel they were missing due to Detan’s outburst. Despite the resource’s depletion, the remaining selium wrapped around the ship made Detan’s skin itch, and not only because it was a fortune’s worth of the material.

  If he were to lose his temper again, he’d take half of Petrastad with him. The thought froze him to the spot, arrested his steps as he marched down the gangplank toward the grand double-doors of the watchtower. The Larkspur loomed behind him, its presence oppressive. So high above the city, the sea winds bit beneath the shelter of his stolen coat, but the chill wasn’t near enough to shake the fear from him.

  Tibs gave him a gentle nudge in the shoulder. Right. Tibs was here. He’d never let Detan lose control like that. It was their deal – the cornerstone of their relationship. They balanced one another with jokes and barbs, skirted around the short-leashed tempers in both their hearts.

  Detan dropped his voice to a whisper. “We’re going to save a damsel in distress from a tower, just like in fairy tales.”

  “Don’t let Pelkaia hear you say that, she’ll pop your eyes out and throw ’em in a stew.”

  “Oh, have a little fun. Has it occurred to you that we’re breaking a woman out of jail, to break a woman out of jail?”
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  “Thought had crossed my mind.”

  “Once this is through, I don’t want to see another set of bars for a year. Not so much as a sharpening rod.”

  “Rather thought you were enjoying yourself.”

  Detan stifled a grin. “Shut up, Tibs.”

  “As you say, sirra.”

  A few long strides ahead of them Laella paused, sized them up with a wary eye, and snapped her fingers. “Hurry up, louts. We have two prisoners to take custody of. Prisoners you idiots let go.”

  She spun on her heel, the long commodore’s coat flying out behind her like a standard of arms, and strode toward the unsuspecting lobby of the watchtower. Detan suppressed a whistle of appreciation. Essi’d been right, picking Laella for this job. The girl had her uppercrust act down pat. Probably because she’d grown up as one, just as Detan had.

  The watchers’ dock was a two-tier affair, and as they ambled along Detan peered down to get a better look at their neighbors. Only one of the watcher ships was currently manned. A short-bodied barge with a three large buoyancy sacks netted above it, the craft was packed with a handful of watchers. At least three, Detan realized with a start, were sensitives. They appeared to be doing maintenance on the ship – holding sel in place while workers patched the buoyancy sacks. Their presence made him nervous. If they were strong enough to sense the sel hiding the Larkspur’s shape, this whole plan might come apart at the seams.

  One of the watchtower doors lurched open, the tall pane of lantern light from within casting Laella in silhouette. In flat black outline, her chin high and her stride certain, coat making her figure mast pole-straight, she looked disturbingly like a whitecoat. Detan suppressed a shudder.

  “It is the middle of the sands-cursed night,” a watcher, in a much fancier coat than the ones who’d come to cart Pelkaia away, said. It was a style of coat he’d come to think of as Ripka’s coat. Seeing it on another watcher’s shoulders made him scowl. The sturdy man strode out to meet Laella, his back near as straight as hers despite the grey in his beard. “Can you not wait until morning, commodore? At this hour my staff is thin enough. We cannot spare the distraction.”