by Elise Kova
“I look forward to the honor of having one whom our Dono holds in such high esteem among us,” Cain bit out.
The woman knew he was insincere just by her smile. That much was apparent. But she accepted the platitude and returned to Finnyr’s side.
With the tension slightly allayed, for now at least, the other Riders took to the skies, no doubt to report back to Yveun at the first possible moment.
None of the other members of House Xin moved. Once again, they all looked to Cvareh for answers he didn’t yet have. The home he so loved was quickly devolving into a battleground.
Cvareh started in first.
A familiar set of footsteps fell in close behind.
Cain followed him all the way back to his room, stalking like some predator. Cvareh kept his hands in plain sight, relaxed, claws sheathed. He hadn’t spent so much effort on the receiving platform just to flay Cain in private.
Cvareh started for his dresser first thing. He needed new clothes. These were now soiled with the memory of calling Finnyr “Oji.” He looked at the heap of fabric on the floor. He would need to get a new tailor on retainer if he was forced to discard clothing just because he used “Oji” in relation to his brother.
“What was that?” Cain finally spoke from where he leaned against the door.
“I don’t know yet,” Cvareh admitted quietly. He was still trying to figure out all the moving parts at play, and felt blind with no ears or eyes on Rok.
“You just let him come in here—”
“Cain—”
“—don her title and—”
“It was not her title!” Cvareh roared in frustration. “We are Dragons, Cain. We live. We fight. We die. All by each other’s hands. Petra knew that, and she loved it. Eventually, someone was going to kill her. She knew that.” It was why she prayed every day to Lord Xin, Cvareh realized in that instant. “And her death will mean nothing if we throw away our lives and House Xin by challenging my brother.”
“Throw away our lives? You don’t think you can beat Finnryr?”
“Think about this, Cain.” His friend was blinded by his sorrow. But Cvareh could permit it no longer. He had shed his tears and moved on; Cain needed to do the same. “If you or I had challenged, the Riders would have stood for him. Finnyr would approve the duel as Oji.”
His friend cursed, turning away with a quick spin.
“That woman, the new Master Rider, Fae . . . She seems . . . different. Surely you felt it, too?”
“She seemed as much trash as everything else Yveun dredges up,” Cain growled.
“Trash with fearsome power.”
Cain didn’t argue the fact.
“Yveun wouldn’t have sent her unless he believed she could guard Finnyr. Don’t let the lack of beads fool you.”
“She can’t stop all of us.”
“Together? No,” Cvareh agreed. “But that would be an act of all-out war, a disregard for duels. It would be a complete affront that would sway Tam to stand behind Yveun in a way they never had, for a crusade across our land. Future generations may not even remember Xin’s name. If we are to throw all Dragon law aside and bet everything, we better do it when we think there’s a good chance we can win.”
Cain cursed again and slammed his fist against the door. “So we are to sit here and tolerate all this? We are to accept it, bow to it, smile in the face of this affront?”
Cvareh wished he had a different answer for his friend, for himself, for their house. But he didn’t. The truth changed with work, not wishes.
“Smiling or not is up to you. But you will tolerate it, for now.”
“If you insist, Cvareh’Ryu.” Cain reached for the door handle.
“Cain.”
He stopped, but didn’t turn.
“I need you with me. I need you to trust me. I can’t do this without your help.”
Cain sighed softly. When he turned, Cvareh could’ve guessed what he was about to say from his expression alone. “I already told you once today, you have it. Nothing has changed since Finnyr’s arrival. Hopefully, not even your title.”
“Thank you.” Cvareh looked to the window. “I will figure out a way for our family to not just survive, but thrive.”
“For her?”
Cvareh nodded. “For all of us.”
The answer was enough. Cain’s anger dissipated, and he gave a small bow before departing. Cvareh stared at the door long after Cain disappeared through it. There was work to be done, much work. But underneath it all, his friend persisted. It was a relationship Cvareh already knew he would need in the coming days.
Cvareh leaned against his dresser. The weight of it all had become too heavy. He needed the support, if just for a moment, when no eyes were on him and no expectations accompanied them.
Petra would know what to do. But Petra wasn’t there. It was just him, a vicious king, and a gray world far below that was House Xin’s only ally against the rising tide. Cvareh tried to organize his mind and, for the first time, plan his next steps.
A sound summoned him back to reality, and Cvareh walked over to the window. He cracked it, slightly, to better hear the low, sad song that echoed off every rock and crag surrounding the Xin Manor. Cvareh leaned against the window frame, and wondered who else paused to listen to Raku’s dirge as the masterless boco cried it into the wind.
ARIANNA
Her quarters were more accommodating than she’d expected. Physically, at least.
There was an actual bed. The mattress was a lumpy mess of collected and questionable fabric, but it somewhat held its shape. It was, dare she even think it, almost comfortable when she nested into it far enough.
The world was cooling for winter, but the day’s heat soaked into the stones of the five-towered hall and radiated warmth through the night’s chill. It was practical. Nothing unnecessary, nothing out of place. It was a world Arianna was familiar with and was glad she could still find comfort in.
She’d needed a good night’s rest before this morning.
A sharp rap on her door revealed Florence, promptly at the time she’d informed Arianna she’d be by the night before.
“Good morning, Flor.” Arianna couldn’t stop herself from smiling. It was good to see the girl, to know she was near, even under present circumstances.
“I hope it’s a good morning.” Florence took off her top hat, dusting off some imaginary specks before putting it back on and adjusting it several times over as they started to walk down the stairs. Arianna recognized her nervous tell instantly. “At the very least, we’ll be able to stop agonizing over what state the tribunal will be in.”
Arianna still couldn’t believe the notion. Despite the reasoning behind it, despite the ramshackle location, there was to be a Vicar Tribunal. It was an event she had written off ever seeing in her lifetime.
“What are you expecting?” She put aside the odd excitement at the prospect of the day’s events. There was work to be done, and Florence needed her focused.
“I know Vicar Harvester will be here. The Vicar Raven may be a question, with all the help the guild is giving to collect up Loom and bring them here . . . I heard Vicar Rivet and Vicar Alchemist arrived last night.”
Arianna grimaced at the very idea of seeing Sophie again.
“What?” Florence didn’t miss the distasteful expression. Then again, Arianna had done almost nothing to hide it.
“I went quite a few years without seeing Sophie. I could go quite a few more,” she admitted. This was Florence, after all. The one person Arianna would make the Philosopher’s Box for. If Arianna couldn’t trust Flor with the truth, who could she trust?
“That won’t be an issue.” Florence adjusted the holster that held her guns on both sides of her ribs.
“It won’t? She didn’t make it through the Dragon’s attack?” Arianna didn’t feel bad in the slightest. Sophie was intolerable and, had the roles been reversed, Arianna had no doubt Sophie would be thinking the same thing about her.
; “She survived. An accident after did her in, I believe.”
“An accident?” The notion was almost delicious. Sophie, with her ability to stubbornly survive anything, done in by some innocuous happenstance. “Of what kind?”
Florence shrugged. “Not sure. You know how the Alchemists are . . . ever the secretive bunch.”
Ari knew all too well. It had taken her years to penetrate Eva’s shell and get the woman to trust her enough to share her research. So, she let the matter with Flor drop entirely, and put it from her mind as one small, golden lining to the whole madness that had become her world.
They rounded into the entrance hall. Even at this hour, people continued in a steady stream, led by Ravens and ushered into the various towers the Rivets had reinforced enough to be usable.
“What a mess we are,” Arianna murmured.
“Maybe so . . . But to be a mess, we have to exist. Which is more than a lot of Loom can say.”
Arianna kept quiet from then on, watching Florence interact with the people who seemed to know her already. They greeted her respectfully and bowed their heads and tipped their hats as she passed by.
And the day had only just begun.
“We’ll be in here.” Florence motioned to an open set of doors. “There are similar halls in the other towers, but this one was in the best condition and still happened to have working doors.”
“I remember studying in here, once.” Arianna paused to run her hand over the wood of the door. It was dusty and dented, but managed somehow to hold all the memories of her time on Ter.0 as a child and a young adult.
“Did you?” Florence paused as well.
“I was just a girl . . . and it was only for one lecture. This had been the Alchemists’ tower, so the talk took place in here.” Arianna could barely remember what was said and hated herself for the fact.
“Perhaps, someday, we will see lectures in here again.”
“Perhaps.” Such a day seemed so far away given their present circumstances that it was pointless to even think of.
At tight capacity, the room could hold maybe one hundred people. Large, but not the sort of room that would dwarf the speaker on the floor. Arianna and Florence walked down a sloping aisle that stretched along one of the five points of the pentagon-shaped space.
The floor was tiered in traditional lecture hall-style seating, with the occupants intended to sit directly on the edge of the tier, their feet over the edge. At the lowest point, where the lecturer would stand to address the room, the five guild symbols had been painted, one in front of each side of the pentagon.
“Florence?” A man’s voice drew the girl’s attention.
“Vicar Powell, it’s so good to see you again.”
Her apprentice, the girl she had pulled from the Underground, shaking and scared, now stood a woman who was bold and brave and capable. Florence was speaking with a vicar as though they were casual friends; Arianna had nothing more to do than stand to the side and watch.
“And good to see you as well.” Powell clasped hands with Florence. “I heard there was some turmoil at the Alchemists’ Guild shortly after your arrival.”
“I heard so as well. Such a shame. Happened just after I left to come to Ter.0. I have yet to meet the new Vicar Alchemist . . .”
Arianna took another step closer as a few Ravens began to trickle in. She was honestly surprised they weren’t late. The Ravens were notorious for it.
“And this must be the infamous Rivet.”
Arianna knew when she was being spoken about and was pulled immediately back to the conversation.
“Yes, this is Arianna, Master Rivet under Master Oliver,” Florence introduced them semi-formally.
Arianna clasped hands. “It’s good to meet you, Vicar Powell.” At least, she hoped it was.
“I owe a lot to Powell.” Arianna took note when Florence dropped his title, and further notice that Powell didn’t seem to mind. Arianna wasn’t sure if it was a sign of some deep familiarity . . . or if Nova had ruined her when it came to reading into titles too much. “He was the one who helped me escape the Harvesters’ Guild when the Dragon King attacked.”
Arianna immediately saw the man with the circled sickle tattoo on his cheek in a new light. “Thank you, truly. If anything had happened to Florence . . .” She trailed off, barely able to bring herself to think of the idea.
“A decision that seems to be reaffirmed as wise with every passing moment.” Powell looked only at Arianna now. She noticed a shift in him, from when he looked anywhere else to when he looked at her, as if she was different than the rest of the room.
These were the eyes of a man who knew what she was.
“And the best thanks you could give me is what Florence has already promised,” he continued. “The Philosopher’s Box.”
Arianna nodded. She didn’t have any other words. After all, she had spent most of her life pursuing the box in secret, then fighting to keep its existence carefully guarded. Now that people knew, she had to develop a new toolkit, and fast, for managing the topic.
“Vicars sit on the lowest tier.” Florence had the insight to save Arianna from herself. “Then elder masters behind them, younger masters behind that, and every guild is allowed a handful of journeymen to sit along the back.”
“I’ll take my seat, then.” Arianna started for the Rivet’s section.
Florence grabbed her arm and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Sit on the edge? I may need you to speak . . .” She glanced around the filling room. “After all, I got them all to agree to come because of you.”
“I understand, Flor.” The last thing Arianna wanted was to cause Florence to lose esteem with those gathered.
She heeded the girl’s advice. She sat four rows back from the floor, at the very end. She didn’t want to be in the foreground. She was the White Wraith, a member of the last rebellion. Her whole life had been lived in secret—a quality she realized she no longer shared with Florence.
The room continued to fill and Arianna watched nonchalantly as various masters took their seats.
“You always preferred the back.”
Arianna’s eyes swung to an elderly man, smartly dressed in all black that blended with his coal-colored skin and accented his steely eyes and closely-cropped silver hair. A thin line of stubble covered his sagging cheeks.
“You always preferred being clean-shaven,” Arianna pointed out.
“Well, the end of the world can do a number on one’s hygiene.” Willard chuckled and held out a hand. “Let me see you, Arianna.”
She suddenly felt nine years old again. But this time there was no Master Oliver to stand by her side and do the talking for her. Arianna stood on command, walking down to the man whose filled and circled Rivet tattoo was nearly invisible.
“You have hands, now.” He inspected the thin line around her wrists where her ashen Fenthri skin stopped and the steely blue of Finnyr’s Dragon flesh began.
“A recent acquisition.”
“How many organs are you missing?”
Arianna thought about lying. She didn’t want to bare herself to the world. But Florence’s attention was on her. Even while keeping up a conversation with Powell, she observed their exchange periodically; Arianna could feel her eyes on her face like a warm breeze.
“Now . . . only lungs.”
Willard whistled low. “Only lungs . . .” He eyed her up and down, finally letting go of her hands. “It appears the Alchemists were right, too, about their postulations on Dragon magic affecting a Fenthri’s growth. When did you get the blood? Seven?”
“Yes, seven.” The memory was seared into her recollection with the fire of magic hitting her veins for the first time. Killing her. Resurrecting her. Time and time again until her blood ran black.
“And when did you become a Perfect Chimera?”
“Eighteen.”
“Was it Oliver’s work?”
Arianna couldn’t stop a small grin. Willard and Oliver had always been fri
endly rivals of a sort, two who enjoyed mentally sparring with each other almost a little too much. They had needed each other to thrive, but couldn’t stand the other’s existence in equal measure. A perfect set of counterweights.
“No, no, the final box was not his work.”
“Your own.” Willard reached out a hand, resting it on the pin Arianna had affixed to the edge of her white coat by her collarbone. “And he gave you the circle for it.”
“Just before he died.”
For all the rivalry and competition, there was genuine sorrow to Willard’s eyes at the memory of his deceased friend. “How did he die?”
“I killed him.”
Arianna expected the reaction. She expected the look of shock, the probing stare for a lie where he would find none. Willard said nothing, no doubt expecting her to fill in the blank of the circumstances that led her to such an extreme action. But that was one line of history she wouldn’t fill in, one unbroken stretch for the unrelenting passage of sands in the great hourglass of time to wear away.
They would have her knowledge, her schematics, perhaps even her body for their studies. But she would never give them that memory. She would never share the final moments she had with those she had truly loved. Other than her pin, and the box that pumped away within her, it was all she really had left.
“Well.” Willard dropped his hand from the pin. “If what you say is true, then I expect you had a very good reason.”
Arianna’s mind was blank. She wanted him to rally against her. She wanted to see Willard rage for the death of one of the greatest minds of the last generation.
“Knowing Oliver, he likely commanded it.” Willard shook his head with an ironic chuckle, heavy with sorrow. “There would be no way you could’ve done it otherwise.”
She wanted to refute him. She wanted to tell him he was wrong. But it was the most truthful thing anyone had said in a long time, and betrayed the depth of the man’s familiarity with her. Before Arianna could find any words, he dismissed himself, taking the seat on the lowest tier—the space reserved for the vicar.
