Her lips worked at the words before they came out:
“The … dead. How they want to … help us. A war. The war. Why not?”
“Be calm, Mama,” Fyra said. “I’m trying to do something. You’re more than hurt. There’s something else, something I couldn’t see before, when you wouldn’t let me in. Let me figure it out.” She flickered, growing in brilliance and then subsiding. One moment, she seemed of normal size, and the next she was a toy in Churls’s outstretched hand.
“Fyra,” Churls said. “I’m more than … hurt? Fyra?”
She fell back onto the bed. Her eyelids fluttered, vision losing focus. She labored to roll her eyes downward, to locate her daughter. Her limbs shook, no longer under her command. Gradually, the room grew dark, fading into black around the corners of her eyes. Closing in upon her.
Sleep, Fyra said.
‡
She woke, and immediately sat upright. The room possessed a startling clarity around her, a sharpness that cut through her disorientation. The blanket under her hand, the reflection of the mirror … every object she saw seemed suffused of its own light. Less than a handful of minutes had passed, she knew immediately, yet a longer span of time had passed inside the confines of her skull.
Fyra materialized before her, unusually faint.
“Mama,” she said in a voice that sounded as though it came from another room. Worry made her look decades older. “Mama?” she repeated, squinting as though she were having trouble making out the woman sitting before her.
“Yes, Fyra?” Churls asked. Her voice, richer than she remembered, fuller in her throat and ears. She reached out with a steady hand, marveling at the texture of her skin, its smoothness and inexplicable, almost metallic sheen. Her fingertips stopped a mere hairsbreadth from her daughter’s cheek. “Fyra, what is it? What’s wrong?”
The girl’s eyes widened, and she shrunk back. Her form wavered like a guttering candle.
“Mama? You’re not alone,” she said, and disappeared.
‡
Churls’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“Fyra?” she asked. “Where did you …? What did you …?”
She blinked, and the world turned gray.
No, it did not turn gray. It grew dim. It was as if a shadow suddenly passed over the building. She stood and crossed to the window, leaning out to squint at the sun.
The sky stretched overhead, a clear bowl of blue, yet to her eyes it seemed drained of its vibrancy, filmed over with a layer of grit. As her gaze descended, the world darkened until the street below appeared shrouded in fog. She looked at her hands, and there it was again, clear in the calloused, labor-worn flesh of her palm:
Death. Once acknowledged, it could not be unseen.
Alone, without someone equally fragile with which to share her realization, it pained her to see. It was like an unhealing wound, a cancer. The vision of her mother, laid out in her aunt’s threadbare bedroom, came to her. It had only been three years ago, but she still dreamt often of the wake. A fully-grown adult, inured to death—an experienced soldier, no less—her heart had nonetheless pounded as she took her mother’s hand, finding it cold, its skin a parchment stretched over bird-thin bones.
She retreated from the window, hugging herself against a coldness rooted deep in her marrow.
“Fyra?” she asked. “What’s happening, girl? Come back.”
A painful knot formed in her throat. She had never seen her daughter’s remains. She had been away, avoiding home and every responsibility home meant. Her mother had buried Fyra a month before Churls returned. Churls had not been there when her mother died, either—had missed it by days.
The world operated in cycles: one got what they deserved, in the end.
Churls would die—alone, she knew.
She retreated further until her backside hit the bed. She flinched, and reached back with shaking fingers to uncover the mattress. Her eyes never left the open window, as though she expected the arrival of death itself. The sheets still smelled of Vedas, yet another kind of longing.
“Fyra?” she repeated, knowing the girl had gone back to the dead and would not return for some time. Her daughter had discovered something, and taxed herself in the process.
Churls cursed. The world never stopped moving underneath her.
Though the temptation existed, she did not give in to irrational self-pity. She did not say her mother’s name, or Vedas’s. There would be no use, she reasoned, of wishing for comfort from either of them. Her mother had surely passed out of existence upon death. She had known her own strength, had come to terms with her place in the world in a way Churls could barely conceive. Inys Casta Jons had accumulated no soul-debt, no unfinished business, and would not have stuck around to watch over anyone. She had been ready for death.
And Vedas?
Churls shook her head. She did not close her eyes, did not sleep. She stared at the window until the sun passed directly overhead, until its direct rays no longer entered the room, and then she went downstairs to get drunk.
‡
She saw Vedas leave. He met her eye briefly as he passed through the games hall that made up the first floor of Shavrim’s headquarters, but his expression gave nothing away. She watched the flow of muscle under his suit as he walked out the door, aware of her sad desire but unable to do anything about it. She sniffed at her fingertips, which still bore a trace of them both.
“Another,” she told the bartender.
Five ales in, she ordered a sixth and then a seventh. An eighth and a ninth. She reached the point where she not so much thought about anything as let thoughts revolve around her, touching her awareness only briefly. Muddy-headed, she came to two swift, resigned conclusions she would not have been able to arrive at sober:
Vedas’s anger—there was nothing she could do about it. There never had been anything she could do. They were, the two of them, too wounded to be anything other than a mess, moving from one feeling to the next without any means of control. Had she the ability to do it all over, she likely would make the same mistakes. Different words, same foolish sentiments.
What Fyra had said—it made no sense, and would make no sense until the girl returned, so why consider it any more than she had to? Fyra would not allow harm to come to her mother, if it were within her power to prevent it. And if she could not prevent it?
Churls ordered her tenth ale, scowling at the bartender when the woman raised her eyebrows.
There was, of course, a third issue that could not be completely ignored. She raised her eyes to the ceiling and winced.
Berun.
Berun, with whom she had shared so much—with whom she, in some ways, felt a deeper sense of connection than Vedas. He had listened without judgment, an immediate sympathy between them from the beginning. He had never asked anything of her, had expected only …
“Shit,” she said to herself. What had he expected?
Trust. To be treated like any friend should be treated.
She ordered her eleventh ale.
“Fuck,” she muttered after three sips, and rose unsteadily from her stool.
She ascended to the roof of Shavrim’s base of operations, pausing before taking the final step onto the still warm clay surface, peering around until she located the mountain of rubble that was Berun’s cross-legged form. His gaze, she could see, was directed away from her, toward the sporadically lit city. She felt the chilly mass of Usveet Mesa, looming behind her.
She shivered, and opened her mouth to speak. She closed it again when words, even his name alone, failed to come.
Her fingers curled into fists. Her cheeks flushed. Impotent, she pivoted clumsily to leave.
“Churls,” the constructed man rumbled, drawing the sound of her name out.
“Yes,” she whispered, and took the final step onto the roof. She crossed to where he sat and stared down at him for a moment, unsure of her next move. He turned his craggy head up to her, the glow of his eyes intensely blue, a
searing radiance in the darkness that made her blink. She swayed in place, and his massive hand came up to the small of her back, steadying her. She reached back, her own hand covering only a portion of his.
It struck her for only the second time since they had known one another: he radiated heat. Far less than a man, but it was something. It made him more human, though he might take offense with that summary.
What had he said when she noticed it, that first time? She could not recall. She wondered if it would come to her later. She hoped it would.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He laughed, a deep metallic tolling from within his great chest. “Sorry?” he asked. “Sorry for what, Churls?”
She broke his gaze. “Fyra. I should have told you.”
A slight pressure upon her back. “Sit,” he said.
She sat. His arm remained behind her, close but not touching. A minute passed, and then two. She finally rolled her eyes at her own foolishness (what would a constructed man care?), and leaned over onto his shoulder. His arm moved to support her back. She felt subtle shifts in the way he held himself as he accommodated to make her more comfortable against him—a thing, she imagined, he would not have known to do before meeting her.
“I need no apology, Churls,” he said. “I want no apology. I told you, when we came into the city for you, I recognized her. I wasn’t mad at you then. I’m not mad now. You have your secrets. From Vedas, you‘ve kept secrets. Apologize to him, if you must apologize to someone.”
She smiled grimly. “He and I may be past the point where apologies mean anything.” She gestured out across the city. “He’s out there now, and not here. I think I may have broken everything.”
He shook his head. She saw it in her peripheral vision, and felt it through his body, the slide of his component spheres over each other.
“No. You’ve broken nothing. You give Vedas too little credit. Once, he wouldn’t have thought about his anger. Not long ago, he couldn’t see out from under his guilt, the hate he directed at himself. But now? Now, he’s a different man. You’re the first thing in his mind. If you can’t see that, you’re a fool. A friend, but still a fool.”
He smiled down at her. “I almost think we’ve discussed these things before.”
She remained silent.
“You’ll see,” he said. “The world is on the edge of death. Even as I am, not a man, I can see how wrong it would be to witness everything die without knowing who truly cares for you. You care for me. We share a bond.” He tipped his head, touching his forehead to hers. “Again, even as I am, I can see this.”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“And Fyra?” he asked. “She’s still away, among the dead?”
She wiped at her eyes, though they were dry. “She’s gone. Off to wherever she goes. Beyond where the world can touch her, beyond even Adrash.”
She looked to the sky, where the broken Needle spanned. Drunk, it no longer filled her with the same fear. She was, however, suddenly aware of her anger. How dare the world be kept on a tether, threatened so? Who gave Adrash the right to hold the world in a thrall?
It was an idiot question, of course. Strength gave him the right.
And now—who but the dead could oppose him? She thought, for the thousandth time, of what it could mean to accept Fyra at her word. To accept her and her companions’ help, to wage a war upon Jeroun’s one true god.
As though his thoughts had strayed to a similar place, Berun spoke.
“And what of our captor’s claims, Churls? Do you really believe our captor has a way to make good on Vedas’s speech, to wage war upon Adrash? I saw what passed between you and Vedas. You recognized Shavrim. His words mean something to you.”
She nodded, her eyes riveted on the chaotic view overhead. “I did recognize him. As did Vedas. I assumed you did, too.” When he said nothing, she knew her assumption had been wrong. “But beyond the sense that I remember him? There’s a void. No context, no specific memory. It’s like it’s been removed from my mind.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Or maybe we’re being manipulated. Of course we are. How could both Vedas and I both remember him? How could I know anything about the man’s claims?”
“You’re asking me?” Berun asked, amusement clear in his voice. “You, who are haunted by the spirit of your daughter, are asking me, a constructed man who has been assisted by that same spirit, what is possible? You’re asking a half-broken creature, only recently freed from the bonds of his creator, for advice on the workings of gods and men?”
“I am,” she said, finally lowering her eyes from the sky, meeting his bright gaze, holding the connection.
Searching.
“Fate help both of us, Berun, but I am.”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE 16TH TO 18TH OF THE MONTH OF SECTARIANS DANOOR TO MAREPT, THE REPUBLIC OF KNOS MIN
For the third night in a row, Vedas dreamt of the silver woman, cold and desirous of his warmth, a perfect complement to him: a needle of cold light, a finely focused lance of pain in the center of his being. They made love, quickly to suit her and then slowly to suit him, trading aggressions and tendernesses, moving as one mind. Knowing one another, as intimately as siblings. They referred to each other so, in fact—sister, brother—yet the words were puzzlingly alien, familiar and unfamiliar at once, altered to suit minds approaching but ultimately eclipsing human.
For the third time, the experience confounded him. He had never dreamt, aware of the dream. He had only ever been an unwilling participant, a mere inhabitant of his own body, forced to act and to believe wholeheartedly in the reality of his mind’s illusion. Now, however, he knew himself as Vedas, the Vedas of the waking world, here, aware, alone, of one mind …
Yet not alone. Of two minds. Himself, and another.
Another, whose body and thoughts were as intimately recognizable as his own.
In his first and second dream, this had been the extent of it: the deep awareness of himself as someone else, less an occupation than a transformation.
In this, his third dream, however, he became aware of a new aspect, a pressure within his body, a looming awareness in both minds. As of an oncoming storm, or the tingling sensation of knowing someone is about to enter one’s room.
Within the dream, dawn came to an end. The sun peeked above the belly of the world, instantly igniting the interior of the vast golden room in which the two made love, piercing through the amber lenses of his eyes, causing him to pause, mid-thrust.
He—the one who was and was not Vedas—quirked his head to one side, listening. His companion lifted her silver head and peered over her shoulder at him.
“Brother,” she said. “We’re not done.”
“I know, sister,” he responded. “A moment. First, say my name. I need you to say it.”
She smiled, showing two rows of sharp white teeth. “Say please.”
“Please,” he said.
She spoke his name. He sighed in realization, and spoke hers.
‡
His eyes snapped open. He was alone, he knew instantly. Nonetheless, he rose and searched the room thoroughly. The crawling sensation of being watched persisted, just as it had on the previous two evenings after he woke from the dream. If anything, it had increased.
Sleep was a shore too far, and a new question had arisen.
He would seek answers, once more.
He descended to the first floor, into the games hall. Walking the room counterclockwise, he made himself meet the frank stares of Shavrim Coranid’s men. Most were Knosi, openly curious about one of their cousins in a way he was only slowly becoming accustomed to. The assumption that, as countrymen, they had something in common, appealed and repelled in equal measure.
A few black-suited individuals smiled, offering him spots at their tables. He declined each with a polite wave of his hands, a gesture he had acquired from observation.
Undoubtedly, everyone in the hall knew who he was. What he had done.
<
br /> They were allies, presumably, yet some among them—the paler-skinned Castans and Stoli, in particular—appeared discomfited by his arrival, shuffling their seats closer to their tables, shutting him out. He smiled at this, sadly amused without really understanding why.
Upon sight of his target, he became self-conscious. He straightened his already rigid spine, painfully aware of the thinness of his arms and legs, the hollows in his torso.
Laures, Shavrim’s first lieutenant, stood where she had the two nights before, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed beneath her breasts. Unlike any Black Suit he had ever seen, her hands and forearms were bare, unprotected by the elder-cloth. Oddly again, though not entirely unknown in his experience, she wore clothes over her suit: a thin hempen vest and loose pants of the same material. Both were dyed the red-black color of dried blood.
“It’s for the Mother,” she had told him during their first conversation. “It symbolizes what she left after birthing the world.”
He stared, uncomprehending.
“I’m Usterti,” she said, as if that were sufficient explanation.
The name had communicated nothing singular to him, then. He pretended to understand what she had said, knowing it would not fool her. He knew what an Usterti was, of course. In theory, he knew a great deal about the religion, but theory carried him only so far. People did not act as books had led him to believe they would. They did not talk in straight, easily-comprehended narratives. Appallingly often, they did not even slightly resemble the pictures he had painted of them. He had heard all Mother-worshippers were witches or pornographers, ugly inside and out.
Laures was beautiful, long-limbed and athletically proportioned, clear-skinned, darker even than he. She wore her hair short, woven in tight, ordered rows upon her scalp. He thought it strange, how attractive he could acknowledge her to be, yet how little her form appealed to him. It seemed wrong that he should view her as more of an object, an abstraction worthy of admiration but not lust. Reason argued that if he had he spent his life among his own people they would not appear so coldly uniform, like a series of glazed statues.
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