by Stephen Case
Without thinking I reached for her face, thumbs pressed to her eyelids. My heart was the crash of waves, blood pounding in my ears, drowning me. Now, I really was scared. I didn’t want to be made to feel like this.
I snatched my hands back. “Izavel, I—”
Something hit the side of my head and sent me tumbling. There was no pain, only the stickiness of blood, the chill of wet stone against my cheek. I remember trying to sit up but not being able to get my arms to stop shaking.
Izavel stood over me clutching a cracked stone hand and looking more afraid than I’d ever seen her.
“I’m sorry.” She dropped the stone and knelt to press her palm to the cut in my scalp. “Please, I’m sorry.”
I slapped her hand away. She curled it to her chest, eyes bright in the torchlight. I wanted her to try again, to take me in her arms and beg me to forgive her.
Instead, she ran.
The moon was high by the time I stumbled back into Hamaw. Mother was out searching the jungle, but the guards shouted with relief to see me.
I was bustled up to the manor, Aqat almost knocking over a screen in her haste to summon servants with bandages and clean clothes. I told her I’d been out climbing in the bay and fallen, but I could see she didn’t believe me.
We sat quietly until Mother returned. I don’t know what I expected, but she just looked at me, nodded, then left. Aqat went to speak with her, and a little while later servants came to take me back to my room.
I didn’t want to cry, but I did.
It was almost morning when Mother came. I think she’d been waiting outside my door for some time, but I was grateful she’d given me time to get myself under control.
“I want a heart,” I said.
“We should’ve had this talk sooner.” She sat stiffly on the bed, hands on her knees. “Being Carved is like wearing armor that’s too small. You can feel it with every movement, every thought. It’s easy to give yourself over, to trim parts away until you fit.”
I opened my mouth, but she raised a hand.
“Let me finish. It was selfish of me, but I wanted you to have a chance to grow wild. That’s why I brought you to Hamaw, that’s why I stayed away. I should love you, but I can’t.”
She shook her head.
For the first time, I noticed the grey in my mother’s hair, the hollow tightness around her mouth and eyes. I put my arm around her shoulders, the tension in them like a bent bow. Her hand rose, then fell.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t made for this.” She stood, smoothing her uniform. “It’s too late anyway. You’re going to get your heart, daughter. They are coming.”
* * *
I was wearing boots when the Volant arrived. It’s strange that’s what I remember most. I’d worn slippers and sandals before, but it was odd not to feel the ground, only hardened leather, hot and tight. Aqat had an ensign’s uniform tailored for me, but the cobbler had been killed months ago and I had to wear a dead soldier’s boots.
Our masters came in a ship of white metal, sailless and low to the water like some great ocean predator. There were masked soldiers, a few hundred at least, their breastplates and shields stamped with a golden heart. They formed ranks upon the beach, parting as three Volant descended.
Mother had always called our masters eagles, but they looked more like vultures to me, tall and crook-necked, heads bare but for a ruff of feathers around their chins. The Volant wore silk brocade embroidered with intricate patterns that reminded me of Father’s paintings. From what I could see of their hands and faces they had no skin, just ropes of dried muscle, their eyes lidless and staring. Atrophied wings trailed from their shoulders like tattered cloaks, and there were jewels set into their curved beaks.
They approached us in the little shuffling hops. Mother and Aqat trembled on either side of me, although not with fear. I think it was the first time I’d ever seen Mother smile.
“Failure. Many dead.” The lead Volant tilted its head to regard Mother with one eye then the other. “No nightwine.”
“I have no excuse.”
The Volant glanced to the crates of nightwine still on the dock, swallowed, then looked down at me. I averted my eyes, trying not to wrinkle my nose at the smells of blood and dry rot that slipped through the Volant’s perfumed robes.
“Your daughter?” It took my chin in one hand, claws pressing into my cheeks.
“Yes, Master.”
“She can govern Hamaw?” It swayed as it turned my face from side-to-side, tugging me a little off balance.
“If you wish, Master,” Mother said.
“Good. Daughter govern, you fight. Send nightwine, again.”
I knew better than to meet the Volant’s eyes, but suspected if I did I would find in them the same fevered haziness as my Father’s.
I’d wondered what our masters loved. Now I knew.
“There are many rebels,” Mother said. “Far more than we thought.”
“Love conquers all.” The Volant gave a dismissive click, then shuffled off toward the docks.
Mother didn’t want to have a feast, but the arrival of our masters warranted the best Hamaw had to offer. The soldiers sat down to glazed pork and wild rice, while in the manor servants unveiled great platters of smoked fish, spiced vegetables, and shrimp boiled in coconut milk. The Volant sat in Mother’s customary place, relegating her to a seat next to Aqat at the officer’s table. Our masters had shared a bottle of nightwine before the festivities and were clicking and cawing to each other quite happily.
At each place, the servants set a bowl of tea, hot and thick, and we lifted them to the masters. It took some time for them to acknowledge us, but at last one noticed that conversation had ceased and gave an airy wave.
“Don’t.” A hand covered mine.
I glanced up to see Izavel, dressed in servant’s robes as she’d been the night father died. She leaned forward, pretending to wipe an imaginary spill, then glanced at my bowl and shook her head, lips pressed into a tight line.
Around the table the others lifted their tea. I should’ve warned them, but as I looked from Izavel to the Volant, I knew that I didn’t want all this, didn’t want their love, their fear. Every mark in my heart had been put there by someone I cared for—Izavel, Father, even Mother. Wild and painful as it was, it was mine.
Even so, I almost called out, until I saw Izavel’s face, the beginnings of worry lines just starting to bunch the skin around her eyes and mouth, and realized she was afraid, not of the Carved, or even the Volant, but of me, for me.
It was cruel to force someone to love something that couldn’t love them back.
As I set the bowl down, I noticed Mother watching me from across the hall. She must have realized the tea contained enough nightwine to drop a regiment, but she said nothing, only raised the bowl to her lips and drank with the others. I like to think she’d set this all in motion—letting Father mismanage the sump, killing the chieftains, punishing the people of Hamaw, even forcing the Volant to come—that she’d somehow found the strength to hurt something she loved to protect something she couldn’t.
I think I remember Mother nodding to me as the bowl slipped from her grasp, then, just before the first slurred cries rang out, pulling Aqat into a tight embrace. I can’t be sure, though. Maybe that’s just what I want her to have done.
Speaking grass howled with the tread of many running feet, echoed by the shouts of surprised guards. Izavel pressed a knife into my hand as the servants stepped from their alcoves, weaving around the slumped bodies of their masters.
Together, we advanced upon the Volant. Maybe it was the nightwine, or maybe they couldn’t believe what was happening, but the Volant just watched us come, their heads bobbing like startled geese.
As the blades fell, I remember wondering if this was the beginning or the end, if the Volant were going to come for us, even if we were doing the right thing. All I knew for certain was that we had the strength and courage to fight.
As for the Volant, we’d
just have to crack them open and see.
Copyright © 2016 Evan Dicken
Read Comments on this Story on the BCS Website
By day, Evan Dicken studies old Japanese maps and crunches data for all manner of fascinating medical experiments at the Ohio State University. By night, he does neither of these things. His fiction has most recently appeared in Unlikely Story, Daily Science Fiction, and Flash Fiction Online, and he has stories forthcoming from publishers such as Cast of Wonders and Chaosium. Please feel free to visit him at evandicken.com.
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COVER ART
“Ambush,” by Raphael Lacoste
Raphael Lacoste is a Senior Art Director on videogames and cinematics. He was the Art Director at Ubisoft on such titles as Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed, winning a VES Award in February 2006. Wanting to challenge himself in the film industry, Raphael worked as a Matte Painter and Senior Concept Artist on such feature films as Terminator: Salvation, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Death Race, and Repo Men, then returned to the game industry as a Senior Art Director for Electronic Arts and Ubisoft. His cover art has been featured in BCS twice before, including “Knight’s Journey” in BCS #100. In October 2016, he will release Worlds, a limited-edition book of his artwork from iamag.co. View his gallery at www.raphael-lacoste.com.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
ISSN: 1946-1076
Published by Firkin Press,
a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization
Compilation Copyright © 2016 Firkin Press
This file is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 U.S. license. You may copy the file so long as you retain the attribution to the authors, but you may not sell it and you may not alter it or partition it or transcribe it.
