A Shard of Sea and Bone

by L. J. Engelmeier

  “I’m fine.”

  “Sure you are.”

  “I can manage myself—”

  “Sure you can.” Her black eyes gleamed. “Who are you trying to convince? Me? Yourself? Father?” Perking up suddenly, she said, “Oh, is that it? You’re hoping to prove yourself on this mission. To run home to Father and show him how strong you are. How big and mighty his little mouthpiece is, his perfect son. See if he pats you on the head. Because let me ruin that dream for you now: he won’t give a shit. He never does.”

  “I am not trying to prove anything—”

  “Oh, yes, you are,” she snarled. “Everyone is. Everyone. What? You think you’re exempt from that, too? Crown prince, too good to be like us common folk with our common problems? But hell, you sure love to smear dirt on your hands and pretend you roll around in the muck like the rest of us do.”

  Kinrae could feel the anger building in his chest. He ground his teeth together, but he couldn’t keep himself from raising his voice. “Why are you so vile with me? What ill have I done you, Artysaedra? I’m here because I care about these people. I have a duty to them, just as you do. I serve them just as surely.”

  “No, Kinrae, you cry and wish the world wasn’t like this, and then you scurry home to your cushy chambers and wonder if there’s some law you can order the Guard to enforce or some army you can command to fix it all for you. You sit in a fancy chair and go to fancy meetings while drinking fancy wines in your fancy little castle, and nothing ever touches you. You move pieces around a map and call it your victory.” She shoved him, and he stumbled back in the dirt. Someone shouted. “You know nothing of truly serving the Infinity or of those who do—those pawns you push around the board. The blood they shed in the name of duty is not yours to claim.”

  “What do you want me to do, Artysaedra?” Kinrae begged. “Do you wish me to remain home and do everything you would mock me for? Or do you wish to see me here, doing what I can with my own hands? I don’t understand. You may travel the Infinity and you may protect others, but you would forbid me from doing the same out of some misplaced belief that I’m insincere. That I’m ineffectual— That I’m inept—”

  “Aren’t you fucking listening? You are inept!”

  Draven and Naliah stormed over and were now shoving themselves between Kinrae and Artysaedra. Kinrae knocked Draven out of the way. “I am endeavouring to do my duties to my people, in any way that I can, Artysaedra,” he said, and he could feel himself baring his fangs, snarling. “It is not my fault that I was not allowed to train with a sword as you were. It is not my fault I am confined to a study, to tutors, to public affairs. I am doing what I can with what I have. It is not my fault that I was born without your freedoms to wander as far and as wide as you’d like, to do whatever you want without social repercussion. You blame me for what I can’t control, but you have no conceivable idea what it is like to be the crown prince, what it is like to have your every action restricted—”

  “Oh, I don’t?” Artysaedra said, even as Naliah barked at her to shut up. “I have no idea what it’s like to be robbed of a choice? No idea? I didn’t ask to be a fucking Guardian, Kinrae. And I didn’t ask to be married off like cattle, either.”

  “Can you not appreciate what you have?” he yelled. “You live so freely. You follow your every whim. You are yourself without shame. You are not stripped of your identity, not made to live as a mere replacement. You have no idea how much I wish I could tell Father I do not wish to be the Saeinfinae—”

  Kinrae’s throat locked up all of a sudden. His heart pounded, and his breath came fast. Panic settled behind his anger. No one was supposed to know what he’d just said. He’d promised himself never to tell anyone. If his father found out—

  “Brother,” Draven said, settling a hand on Kinrae’s arm. It made him jump. “Hey, look at me. Breathe.”

  Kinrae trembled, backing away. “Forget I have said anything,” he begged. “Please. It does not matter. It changes nothing.” He rushed past everyone, toward the darkened east.

  “Just go home, Kinrae,” Artysaedra called after him. “You and Draven—just go home.”

  LET THERE BE ASHES

  _______________________________

  REBECCA: He wanted to kill me. I wanted to survive. But in our struggle, he and I met in the middle. We were no different. So how can you sit there and call me a hero?

  excerpt from On a Rusted Edge, by playwright Hans Ogden, performed in the Realm of Silver Wheat

  THE MULTITUDINOUS REALM OF BLACK WATERS

  THE REDROCK CAVES, QINYI’ASHN DESERT, SOUTHERN YSHIN COUNTY,

  CENTRAL NIA GUOHAG, NORTHWESTERN NIJAGI

  Artysaedra pulled purified water vapor out of the air with an idle curl of her fingers, formed it into a hovering ball, and jerked her mask down. With it, she washed her mouth of the taste of death. She tilted her head over the side of the mound of corpses she was standing on again and spat the water into the sandy red dirt. She pulled more water out of the air and drank it this time, ice cold as it travelled down her dry throat.

  “No survivors,” she called down at Naliah, who had been ignoring her since she’d fought with Kinrae. Apparently, he was going to continue to do so.

  As though she hadn’t said a thing to him, Naliah closed the eyes of a middle-aged owl demon who had been torn in two, the man lying just separate from the wall of corpses. One of his spotted wings was broken at an odd angle and matted with blood.

  “I see weapons with the bodies, but they don’t seem to have done much good. No dead hollowsouls. Not a single one. Which is strange. They should have taken down at least a few of the fuckers,” she said, trying to get her partner’s attention. “I’ll wager the slobbering jackasses are still out there.”

  Naliah continued to ignore her, and she rolled her eyes. You didn’t want my brothers here, either, she thought, so why are you punishing me for trying to drive them off? We can’t protect them.

  It had always been her duty to, though. She remembered the first time her father had approached her about it. She’d been just a girl then, new to steel armour and the shed of blood, hair still long, face unscarred. Standing sentry outside the war tent in the Low Realm of Irons, rain sluicing down her face, she’d been surprised to find her father suddenly at her side, hair matted to his forehead.

  “We can’t find Kinrae,” her father said, his voice almost lost to the growl of thunder rolling through the hills. His boots squelched in the mud as he shifted footing. “I need you to bring him back from wherever he’s wandered off to. It’s dangerous for him out there.”

  “He’s not an idiot, Father.” Artysaedra scoffed. “He’ll find his own way back, I’m sure, and he’s smart enough not to walk into a sword.”

  “Saedra,” her father said. His grey eyes went hard. “Your brother is the heir to the Infinity. Many people would kill him given the slightest opportunity. You need to guard him out there. This is a war.”

  “It’s dangerous for me out there, too, you know.”

  “Guardians can be replaced,” her father said, and looked out at the muddy hills smattered with white tents and milling troops. Lightning fractured the sky. “Your brother is invaluable.”

  Her stomach lurched with the memory. It had been the first time she’d realized she was expendable to her family. A foot soldier, a trophy, a bragging right. Her Royal Highness Princessa Artysaedra of the Infinite House of Veiyel. Granddaughter of the Infinite High Council. Guardian of Darkness. But most importantly: her brothers’ keeper. Their guard dog. They were the precious things she slavered to protect. Kinrae the most precious of all. Firstborn and heir, a man who had studied to take the throne for nearly five thousand years now and would be coronated before the millennia was out. There was no starting over with him, no training a new contender. He would always mean more to their family than Artysaedra did.

  I was promised to the battlefield before I took my first breath. You will be protected from it until your last. She sighed, sc
owling. But I will always protect you from it. Hate you as I might, I’m still your shield.

  With her eyes, Artysaedra traced the curve of Naliah’s back and the tenderness of his fingers on the owl demon’s face. He lumbered awkwardly over the prayer the Council had taught them, his accent strange against the flowing language of the dead. Artysaedra could have rattled the useless Su’netian prayer off in her sleep: Nebene Asain, sah bakrey, ankh len fows Su. Su, keita ankh conaledatin. Ile en die.

  Naliah only made it as far as the second Su before he stumbled for the next word. “Ket— Kesh— Hello… Hello—glalla. Kay… Kay— Kah?”

  “Keita,” Artysaedra supplied easily. “Can’t the prayers wait? We need to keep tracking.”

  Naliah didn’t look up and began his prayer again.

  Their souls aren’t even here to hear you, she wanted to tell him, but she rolled her eyes instead. She caught her left arm with her right to stretch it out. If these people’s souls had been here, they would have been suspended in the air like shadows for Artysaedra to see. Souls couldn’t venture far from their bodies. They lingered and haunted the lands until they were ferried by the Trinity into the Three Afterlives. Yet there weren’t any souls here at all.

  The thought drew her mind to the soul-eater tracks in the dirt. She was still certain that was what they were, but she didn’t know how the creatures could have gotten here. They didn’t naturally occur outside of the Three Realms of Afterlives, and as far as Artysaedra knew, none of the creatures had ever escaped those Realms before. And they couldn’t have been set loose by anyone. Portals were the only way in or out the Three Realms of Afterlife, and portals were a unique power. Portals could only be made by Guardians or by the Council.

  And portals to the Three Afterlives could only be made by the Trinity or the Council.

  The thought both chilled and stumped Artysaedra. It didn’t make sense. The Trinity was accounted for: her, her infant sister, and the missing Guardian of Light. And there was no way the Council was behind this genocide.

  It had to be something else. She just couldn’t think of what, so she made herself let it go for now.

  Instead, she found herself wondering if the soul-eaters were responsible for the missing souls here, which was a shame. If they were present, she could have just asked them what had happened in the Realm and they’d be halfway to solving this mystery.

  “Naliah, come on. We need to go—”

  “It’s polite to pray, Sae,” Naliah said. His brown eyes looked black in the dark evening, and dark circles had begun to form above his cheekbones. Both made him look skeletal. Artysaedra wondered how long he’d been awake. “We can spare a few minutes.”

  We can’t. There have to be more rabid hollowsouls out there.

  The uneven pile of bodies beneath Artysaedra’s boots shifted, and she leapt down before the stack could collapse. The impact of the landing shot all the way up to her knees. “We should be out there searching. The hollow-souls could be tracking down another group just like this one.”

  “Let’s worry about this one for a second. We’ve been searching for almost fifteen hours without rest or food. Your brothers are dead on their feet. We’re all hungry and tired. You’re sore from transforming so much.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You’re listing to your left, and you’re not disguising it very well,” he said with a flat look.

  Instinctively, Artysaedra adjusted her posture. She’d been trying to ignore the bone-deep ache coursing through her own body. Her heart and organs were sore from growing and shrinking. Dizziness fogged her head every time she moved too fast because her blood volume had changed back and forth so often in the last few hours. It was still trying to find its equilibrium now. “We’re soldiers. We power through.”

  “We’re soldiers,” Naliah agreed with an edge to his voice. “Not a whole army. We can’t keep charging forward like you want us to do every time we’re put on an assignment together. You run yourself ragged and nearly get yourself killed every time.”

  “I do not—”

  “Seven years ago, that rogue band of earth elementii that nearly buried you alive. Last year, those giant tundra spiders. When we met, that serial killer we tracked across the Realms who almost poisoned you because you were too tired to notice the off smell of your wine. Six months ago—”

  “Do you just keep that list on hand?” she shot off.

  “I tattooed it on my ass. Great conversation starter at the brothels,” he quipped, then sighed. “Look. Just give us some time to recuperate, Sae. Exhaustion isn’t doing us any favours. We’re already snapping at each other. We aren’t going to be any use to anyone.”

  They didn’t speak much after that. Naliah insisted on praying, switching to Anavene after ditching his clumsy recitations in Su’net. Draven’s dog was whining over what looked like a fox carcass in the barren field the cliff overlooked, and near the mutt, Artysaedra’s brothers were huddled together, silent, Draven watching Kinrae the same way Kinrae watched the corpses. She listened to the rattle of a lone tree in the distance. Overhead, night settled in, not a cloud in sight to obscure the foreign constellations.

  After a while, Naliah commanded everyone to step back, and then, with outstretched hands, he set the corpses ablaze. Pillars of flame erupted out from his palms and shot forward in a roaring inferno. In seconds, every single body was burning. The heat tightened Artysaedra’s face, and the smell of ash and burning flesh cloyed to the inside of her nose. It was suffocating.

  She had to shut her eyes against the sting in them after a moment, against the overwhelming glare of the flames, pinpricks of colour dancing on the backs of her eyelids. The deafening rush of fire roared in her ears, like the rush of blood through her veins.

  They all stayed there until the bodies at the caves were nothing but fragments of bone buried in mounds of ash and sand, drifting away when caught by a stray, frigid breeze. Naliah extinguished even the smallest embers, and when Artysaedra met his eyes, they were cold and distant.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  A SECRET SOCIETY

  _______________________________

  Upon death, the soul’s light is ferried to the Golden Fields, the Guardian Realm of Light, by the Guardian of Light; the soul is guided to the Nebene Asain, the Guardian Realm of Spirit, by the Guardian of Spirit; and the soul’s shadow is sent to the Guardian Realm of Darkness, known colloquially as the Abyss, by the Guardian of Darkness. These are the only three Realms in the multiverse the living cannot access. They are barred to all but the dead, to the Guardian Trinity, and to the Council.

  excerpt from On Death, penned by Makin-Kif, former Guardian of Spirit, published in the Realm of Forty Ravens

  THE HIGH REALM OF SANDS

  LINANU’THOS’ BOWER, THE EMPREJA’S PALACE,

  HIGHTOWN KHAJAL, CAPITAL OF BAL-HAKUR

  “Oh, do put the weapons away,” High King al-Loriaris said with a roll of his eyes and a flapping of his free hand. “I’m not going to murder you. I’m going to be framed for it. That’s my whole point.”

  Nori-Rin didn’t lower her niqwar. Instead, she lifted it higher. The leather was warm in her palm. “You’ve got a tick to explain yourself before I run you through with this point. See what I did there?”

  The High King smiled weakly, eyeing her sword. His words wobbled the slightest bit when he spoke next. “The stories about your conduct are very true to character, it seems, Guardian Baakutunde. If you so insist, I will explain myself. To start, however, and despite how you and your Council have tried to keep the information internal, I know the Guardians are dying at an alarming rate. I know that’s why you’re here.”

  Nori-Rin’s blade flashed in the torchlight as she pressed the tip to the High King’s bobbing throat. The piercings in her eyebrows pulled as she glared. “And how exactly would you have gotten your hands on that information, you little chet? Do you have a spy in our shrines?”

  “Let’s say nothing’s a secre
t if you’ve a talent for eavesdropping.” He held up his free hand in surrender. When Svahta confiscated the torch from the other, the High King chuckled nervously. He kept still under Nori-Rin’s blade, though. “Rest assured, my dears. I’ve kept the information to myself. Though I want to share some with you while you’re here. I needed to get you away from the prying ears of the palace.”

  “Then talk,” Svahta commanded. She doused the torch’s flames with a gust of air and then cast the rest of the torch aside. It rolled across the floor with a metallic clatter. “What now did ya mean ’bout bein’ framed for our murders? What do ya know ’bout—”

  “Patience, darling, please,” he said. “I’ll get there. But first, allow me to explain that I feel obligated as a citizen of the Infinity to inform you of a movement that has sprung up in some very dark corners of the multiverse. I’ve kept my eyes on it. It’s very dangerous. Very exclusive. Very secretive. Gaining an invitation to their society was…” The High King gave a trembling grin. “Well, let’s say I’ve done a number of greatly illegal things just to keep my membership.”

  “Such as?” Nori-Rin pressed.

  “Murdering Guardians.”

  Everything happened far too quickly. Before she’d formed the thought to do it, Nori-Rin was kicking the High King in the chest, knocking him flat back into the wall, and pinning him in place with her niqwar planted horizontally across his throat. His body was hot and solid against hers. His breath puffed up against her face. Their knees bumped together.

  “Maybe murdering is the wrong word?” the High King said, high-pitched, his voice trailing off in an uneasy laugh. Nori-Rin leaned in until she could feel his nervous words against her cheek. The smell of his blood, which her niqwar was drawing, bloomed in the air. His heartbeat pattered rabbit-quick. “Did I kill them? No. Did I watch? Yes. Hide their bodies? Once. This morning, to be precise. Ask my attendants. My advisors. They’ll tell you I left the Realm without my guards. That I often do.”