Luca at least sprang to action, barring the doors and securing them inside the study. His blade extended, he smiled warmly at Valentine and Clement. “I’m afraid you’ll have to sit the part of hostage this evening. Tell me true, and know I’ll know if you lie, will they trade safe passage for you?”
Clement huffed himself up to face down Luca. “You dare set upon us like this and then expect—”
He fell quiet when Valentine touched his arm. “You did Sol’s work in ridding us of that viper in our midst. Unfortunately, I believe Mr. Oldham to be impious, and those are his men armed out. I cannot speak to his intentions, but you did just put an end to a man he has spent considerable effort in pleasing.”
A sob escaped Clement as he gazed at Hendrix’s remains. “Even with the unholy within him, Orthoel did more good for mankind than any living. I would gladly exchange my life for his or, preferably, one of yours.”
“Hush, Clement,” Valentine chided as she flared her dress to again crouch next to Caddie. “With so much black Breath hovering around her, she must be of some greater significance. What is this secret you carry within you, Caddie Hendrix?”
The girl turned to look up at them, Marta hearing Luca inhale sharply. She hoped whatever leviathan swimming in the depth of the girl’s Mind would finally surface, but then the moment was gone as Caddie’s gaze again turned unfocused. Ignoring now the bix sticks as well, she sat as still as the statue she appeared to be when Marta found her.
“We must know more about what she carries, even if she herself cannot tell us. I have friends to the south, Gazers, who could piece her story,” Valentine offered.
“Gazers?” Luca did not attempt to hide his disdain. “Bunch of lunatics and star charters.”
He was not wrong in his assessment. Even the most open-minded Weaver recognized the Gazer’s claims to see into the past lives of Breath within the living as heretical. Only on this and their shared hatred of glassmen did the Weavers and Renders ever agree.
“I have an inkling of what might ail the girl, but it is just that—an inkling. To know more I require more information, which in this case, will come from Gazer sources. And, honestly, I would assume someone of such exotic company to be quite less mulish as to his proclivities.”
Luca’s brow furrowed in mock-seriousness. “Have we been insulted? I do believe we have.”
“Shut up.” Marta spoke softly, but all fell silent as her thoughts wound around and around. Carmichael gave her two incongruous orders, Marta unknowingly serving him either way. Perhaps he made the same play as her father did during the Grand War by betting on both outcomes and swallowing his loss along with the victory. Carmichael certainly operated under multiple contingencies, but the question remained which one he would reward her for and which would earn her his ire. She did not even know if he operated on such terms, the idea of emotion clouding his judgment almost laughable. He understood emotions—or else how could he manipulate others?—but perhaps he had attained the rare indifference he always sought, and tormenting Marta no longer factored into his mental calculation.
Marta spun the thought about until she came to the beginning again and nearly smashed the table. She could hear Covenant Sons marshaling on the other side of the door, but she still could not untie this knot. Despite picking at it over several weeks, the only conclusion she could come to was that Carmichael meant Caddie no harm. Unlike the glassman or Graff, Carmichael seemed utterly indifferent to the girl’s fate. He used her as a playing piece, one he seemed willing to sacrifice if it served his ends, but Carmichael never wasted a piece for no reason.
And, most importantly, if he wanted Caddie dead, he would have done so at the very beginning when she was in his possession.
“We turn Caddie over to the Newfield troops,” Marta announced. “Tonight.”
“What? No!” Valentine sputtered. “One does not discover a treasure map and then hand it to the authorities to unearth. This child straddles a unique position in our epistemological understanding of the will of Sol, and I will not allow your shortsightedness to undermine our endeavor.”
“I’m turning you over as well.” Marta’s smile was as sharp as Luca’s blade. “I may even walk away with her if I give them key conspirators to the Ceilminster Covenant Sons.”
The irony of sacrificing others after thinking on her brother was not lost on Marta. Though she knew it a weakness, she genuinely liked Valentine Greene and Clement Hansel, but by killing Hendrix, Marta committed to Carmichael’s initial order in betraying the Covenant Sons, and playing out that eventuality was the only way to keep her cover straight. If he really believed she acted in good faith when she handed him a very public victory, he might prove lenient in her impending punishment.
Her decision made, Marta looked to Luca. “Are you with me?”
“I swore my life to Caddie and I intend on proving true. So if you say this is the way, then this is the way. Be it glory or dancing at the end of a noose, your path is mine.”
“You’ve proven useful, and Frost does not discard those he finds useful.” Marta did not add that Luca would always be beholden to her brother as she turned to Isabelle. “You swore no oath. Least not one I’ll hold you to.”
Isabelle almost turned to Luca, but caught herself. Intentionally avoiding him, she finally displayed her feral smile. Valentine and Clement kicked up all sorts of protests, but Luca ignored them as he herded them away from the door.
“Make sure to grab the goggles before we go,” Marta called after him.
“You are aware there are at least a dozen men waiting for us to make it through that door?”
Marta sneered.
“You are aware I’m a Shaper?”
***
Ed cursed himself for trusting the freebooters. Worse yet, the Armor the woman masquerading as May Oles demonstrated was unimaginable. Few could match Ed’s aim these days, so he knew his musket ball flew true, yet the woman still stood, and he was quite sure he saw his missile lodge in her inhuman Armor. Such a feat was patently impossible, but Ed did not survive the Grand War by dwelling on what he expected. His endurance when so many others fell came down to dealing with the facts directly in front of his face despite how he felt about them. He hated the Western fiends for their treatment of his family. The destruction they visited upon his homeland rode a close second, but Ed did not deny that the Newfield forces whooped them soundly in the Grand War with their Traitors Brigade and airships. To deny that defeat or excuse it as cowardice was a folly borne of shortsightedness. Ed Oldham therefore studied his allies and enemies alike, learning their means to victory so he could make them his own. It was this dedication to innovation that crested his career to the mantel of Herschel Serson. Others might share the name, but he led the Covenant Sons in Ceilminster, and he would be stained if he let these assassins escape.
They had the advantage in that they holed up in a windowless room, hence Ed specifically choosing it for their clandestine meeting. The doors the freebooters barred from the inside, but he did not worry. Given enough time, they would realize those doors were their only means of escape, and Ed spent those intervening minutes sending for scatter guns. Oles’ Armor may have protected against a single musket ball, but Ed supposed it would not fare so well against a hundred pellets. His six men were still looking the scatterguns over when he heard the crash.
“Remember Creightonville!” Ed leveled his piece at the door, which remained oddly intact.
The second, lesser crash made him kick himself for overlooking their Shaper even as he considered her uncanny capability. Selecting three of his men, he indicated the door. “Through there, then run their asses down.”
Leading the charge to head them off with the four remaining men behind him, Ed would have thanked Sol that at least Shapers were slow if he still believed in Ayr’s creator.
***
Marta plowed through her fourth wall, the wood and stone crumbling before her odd Armor like porcelain. Luca and Isabelle trailed in
her wake, each with a hostage, with Caddie at their center. So long as they made it off the Greene grounds and into the city, Marta imagined they might survive the night.
Orientation with the Armor around her gave her fits. The air danced through her exuded appendages, beguiling in its entreaty to reject the pretense of thought and succumb to the animal violence inside her. The Newfield barracks in the center of the city were vaguely southwest, but the maze of the manor disoriented her, especially when avoiding Ed and his men. She vaguely recalled there were two entrances to the compound: the eastern and the southern. The manor walls would probably be too thick even for Marta’s Armor, so she would need to make a run at one of the gates, the location of which currently eluded her.
Ed finally figured out their path, his men cutting ahead of them and waiting with scattershots soon as she burst through on her straight path. The hostages Clement and Valentine alone saved them. Faced with hitting two of their own Sons with their scattershot spray, the soldiers fell back at Ed’s behest into the hall.
“Best leave us here,” Clement said. “That bluff won’t work again.”
“I assure you,” Luca grinned, “she does not bluff.”
“Either way, they’re realizing now if you make your escape with us, you have two the guardsmen can interrogate. But if we die tonight, no secrets get lost. They won’t hold back again on our account.”
“Then that makes you two shields,” Marta hissed. “So best get us outside before you’re used.”
Clement clenched his jaw, Valentine again laying her hand on his shoulder. “Two walls north and you will be outside.”
Bereft of orientation, Marta waited until the woman pointed. Trusting in Valentine’s self-interest, Marta crashed through the wall and then the second to smell fresh air. But the humans behind her trod too slowly, Marta forced to turn away from the beguiling freedom to usher them on. Ed’s men appeared before they made good their escape, Marta wheeling with a smile.
The second group coming up their rear took her by surprise as she readied for the first rush. The distance from the first scattershots saved her life, the pellets’ deadly momentum dissipated enough before they reached her Armor. Most were snared in her tangled Breath, with only a few tearing her flesh. She felt invulnerable, but the second wave of emboldened soldiers stalked forward until their range was assured.
Spying a table, Marta barely brought it up in time. The wood soaked up most of the slugs, but her ethereal fingers screamed with pain from each pellet, as did her legs, some of the lead projectiles sneaking through her defense to bury themselves in her skin. Her diversion proved enough though, Luca shoving Caddie and their hostages through the hole as Marta flung the remains of the table at the reloading Sons.
Forcing the five fugitives forward, Marta found the grounds more expansive than she remembered. Even supported by Clement, the elder Valentine fell behind, Luca looking to her.
“Leave them?”
“Long as they breathe, they come.”
They darted through the trees towards the eastern gate, but the thunder of hooves sounded behind them.
Marta looked to Luca, her face wiping the grin from his. “Kill anyone in your way.”
Unleashing her fury, Marta slaughtered man and beast with equal antipathy. The horses screamed worse than the men, her inhuman husk rending flesh as if no more substantial than smoke. Her rude swipes passed through rider and mount together without resistance, their flesh intermingling in the gore. Bloody visceral flowed down her shell, Marta disappointed it never soaked her skin as she reveled in the bloodshed.
The second wave broke apart long before it crashed upon her. Her inhuman Armor begged to chase after Ed and his retreating force, but she loped after Caddie on all fours, the posture frightening in its familiarity. Lowering her shoulders, Marta barreled through the barred gate and out into the street. Ed’s forces no longer pursued them, and freedom was theirs so long as they had enough strength to make it to the Newfield barracks they had looted earlier that night.
***
By some miracle, Luca managed to hail a cab. Marta could not imagine their luck at such a late hour until she noticed the sun brushing the horizon. Without a look to their two silent hostages playing the part of passengers, the driver urged his horses on. Unwilling to be confined by the carriage itself, Marta took the scattergun seat beside the driver, her legs now aching. Releasing her odd Armor and again returning to the veneer of human turned out to be the hardest trial of the evening, Marta shoving her desire down and finally overcoming the urge to run alongside the carriage like an animal.
With the excitement from their escape dissipating as Greene Manor faded behind them, Marta felt exhaustion wrapping coil after heavy coil around her. Only one fear kept her awake: that of the glassman appearing to steal the sweetness of victory from their tongue before they reached the barracks. Watching for any inkling of the blonde woman, Marta breathed a sigh of relief when they arrived at the Newfield haven, her inhale choking off when she noticed the man with the perforated bummers cap awaiting at the gate.
Chapter 34
Winterfylled 12, 566 (One Year Ago)
Time had no meaning since Luca’s life did not. Stepping out of Simza’s house in a daze, Isabelle appeared to spirit him south. The countryside flowed past on horseback, but he paid it no mind. Each day bled into the next until he realized he did not recognize the landscape. It seemed familiar though, lost and alone; a land where the ley flowed unabated and untouched by human hands.
“Where we headed?” After so many days of disuse, his voice sounded strained.
=Home
“I have no home now.”
=Didn’t say your home.
She teased, waiting for Luca to rise to the challenge. His head sunk back down as his horse continued the trudge to the rest of his pointless short life.
***
Isabelle pushed hard against the dark, picking her way through the foothills as the sun disappeared behind them. For the last day, her silence matched her companion’s, but Luca could feel something stirring in her Mind. Riding around a ridge, she dismounted and offered Luca her hand. His pride chafed at the idea of needing a woman’s assistance, but Luca accepted her offer. His feet upon the ground, she traced his check with her other hand. Her fingers prickled against the stubble Luca did not know existed until she smiled and reached lower.
=Don’t need this here
Luca looked down to see her fingering his imbued Listener pin.
=Throw it away?
He walked off and, even without seeing her, could feel her smirk. Isabelle led the two horses farther before brushing aside some shrubs to reveal a fence made from sticks lashed together. Leading the beasts through a gate hinged with rope, she rubbed them down before returning to Luca.
=Wait here.
Disappearing up an unseen path, she left Luca alone in the dwindling light. The darkness felt soft upon him, passing from indigo to violet then black, and for a moment, Luca wished he could evaporate away to nothing in it. Like a dried dandelion, he would fragment and dissipate piece by piece until even the peace that comes from disintegration would disappear.
He felt Isabelle’s presence and wordlessly followed her up the hill along the trail only she could see. It ended at a cave, hides covering the entrance and obscuring the fire already crackling. Remarkably, the interior included enough room to stand upright, but it was the walls that caught Luca’s meager attention. Hardly an inch of space remained unpainted, colorful swirls and starbursts intermingled with designs he could not put names to. An artist’s skilled hand was clearly evident, but when he turned to Isabelle, she avoided his gaze. In that moment, he did not recognize her as she then pulled a blanket aside to reveal a luz jar with several yellow Breaths within. Suddenly she seemed that fifteen-year-old girl he found as she illuminated her art for his approval.
Without receiving a response, she turned back to see Luca staring at her luz jar.
=Her name is Sandy.
She’s my pet. Like a cat.
“You eat cats,” he reminded her.
=Not as much anymore.
She meant it as a joke, one of the first Luca heard from her, but he found no humor there. “How long have you had it?”
=Months and months. And her name is Sandy.
“The Renders will kill you if they find you’ve kept Breath that long.”
=They’d kill us for more than that, tsor.
Despite the harshness of her words, the thought came gently, as if trying to knock loose some of his erstwhile good cheer. But with his Soul torn in two, he had nothing to offer in return. Even a kind word was too much to manage, and he slumped down beside the fire.
She hesitated at the edge of his vision before disappearing into the cave to reappear with a bedroll she unfurled beside him. A pillow soon joined it, and Luca buried his head into the down as she prepared her own bed farther in the back.
***
Luca barely left his bedroll the next few days as Isabelle rebuilt her abode around him. There were far more pillows than he would have expected of a girl who often fell fast asleep on the cold ground. With woven blankets galore and an impressive collection of dishes, if Luca did not note the sloping earthen walls, he might have believed himself inside of a civilized home. Something familiar tugged at his thoughts though, it taking another day before he recognized the pillow’s embroidery. Not long ago, that same pillow adorned his bed in the vurd Simza made him sell. How the Ingios girl ended up with it, Luca could not imagine and feared to ask after it. Instead, he buried his face back in his former pillow and awaited the face of Jaelle to come and haunt his dreams.
The Imbued Lockblade (Sol's Harvest Book 2) Page 33
