Dust: A Bloods Book

by Andra Leigh

  Then she helped Laleita and Neith with the cooking by watching their methods and not touching anything without permission. She was allowed to stir a sauce and was pleased when rather than make it lumpy or bubble over, it thickened to the perfect consistency. Even Jinx couldn’t find fault in it.

  She went to bed early, unable to keep an impatient tap creeping into her foot. It took longer than normal for her to fall asleep as she was far too preoccupied with the attempt to do so. After much tossing and turning and a fair amount of pillow pummelling she finally drifted off only to wake up five hours later, dream free and late for dawn practice. She dragged herself out of bed begrudgingly and slouched through the day feeling irritated and annoyingly well rested. By the end of the day she was so exhausted, from the extended training she had thrown herself into and bleary eyed after reading more of The Bloods Encyclopaedia, she fell asleep easily. She didn’t know how long it took, but at some point during the night she felt the familiar pull of a memory awaken her mind.

  It started as a blur of colour and echoing noises that slowly sharpened into the kitchen of her old home. She was humming to herself as she stacked plates and wiped benches.

  Hearing a scuffing sound she looked over her shoulder to find a sniffling, red-nosed version of her Papa standing in the doorway, eyelids heavy with sickness.

  “What are you doing up?” she scolded. “Get back to bed this instant.”

  “But it’s so dull,” her Papa complained, sounding like a petulant child with a blocked nose.

  “Oh fine. But the moment Ma gets back you are rushing back up there and convincing her you’ve been there the entire time.”

  He settled in one of the chairs along the bench. “Obviously,” he said, then sneezed twice in a row and swiped his watering eyes.

  “I’ll put some more hot cloths on.”

  “Ah ‘City, you really are the perfect child,” he sighed.

  Pulling a handful of small towels out of a cupboard she dampened them with a liquid that had the strong scent of lavender and hung them on a rail over the blazing fire pit.

  “I couldn’t have gotten sick at a worse time,” her Papa grumbled. “So much to do.”

  Her eyes swept sideways and she saw the state of the fields through the window. She figured it wasn’t long after the storm that had blown through the area in her last memory. There were still puddles and larger pools of muddy water submerging much of the land. Uprooted fence posts littered the paddocks but she could see a few fence lines had been mended and debris had been tossed into piles.

  “You’re sick because of the time, not despite it, Papa. And no more wading through water or standing in the cold until you’re better. Don’t worry, we’ll get everything cleaned up eventually.”

  His blotchy face winced.

  “Papa?” she asked.

  He rubbed his face wearily. “It’s going to take a lot more than cleaning up to recover from this.” Looking up at her he gave her a reassuring smile. “But we’ll be just fine, my Darling.”

  Eliscity felt herself nod, her thumb nail being worried between her teeth.

  Her body gave a small jump as a knock echoed through the house. Leaving her Papa in the kitchen she padded out to the hallway and opened the front door. Drae stood on the porch holding an armful of mismatched tiles and looking as sick as the man currently sniffling in the kitchen.

  His face fell into a frown as he stared at her. “Why don’t you look sick?”

  “Aw, is that your way of saying I look nice?” she teased.

  “You always look nice,” Drae said without pause, causing butterflies to take flight in her stomach. She felt herself desperately try to ignore them. “But no, that was my way of saying, why don’t you look as bad as I feel right now?”

  “Sorry,” she gave a small laugh. “I feel fine.”

  “How is that possible? You’ve been outside along with us the entire time. Mam’s been staying indoors and she’s just as bad as me.”

  “No point feeling bitter about it, Lad.” Her Papa appeared at the kitchen door, hot towel steaming around his neck and gesturing for him to come in. “Celosia’s got a bit of a sniffle but other than that the girls of this family are rarely weather sick.”

  Eliscity’s shoulder shrugged in response. “Just lucky, I guess.”

  “Or mean,” Drae sniffed. “Just seems mean.”

  Her Papa grumbled his agreement.

  “I’m just dropping off the tiles we didn’t use,” Drae said, piling them across the hallway wall.

  “Get everything fixed up?”

  Drae followed them into the kitchen where her Papa fetched another cloth warming on the rail and draped it over the younger man’s shoulders.

  “More or less. Much of the patch ups look stronger than some of the surviving roof. Mam wanted me to thank you again for the tiles.”

  Her Papa waved his hand through the air, dismissing the gesture. “Times like this, people need to help people and you’ve helped us out more than I can say these last few days. Besides, the tiles were spare. Why waste them on storage?”

  “Sit down,” she ordered. “Both of you. I’ll fix you up something.”

  Drae lowered himself slowly into a seat. “You’re not going to cook for us, are you?” he asked suspiciously through his blocked nose.

  She laughed as the two men sniffled. “No, I’m not that cruel.”

  Drae made a noise of disagreement as her Papa’s shoulders bobbed in amusement. Clearly her cooking skills hadn’t changed much over the years.

  “I’m making you two a drink to help put a stop to those colds.” She was pulling a series of jars and bottles from a cupboard. “How good it tastes depends on how nice you are to me.”

  “She’s not lying,” her Papa grumbled. “I’d start with the compliments now if you know what’s good for you, Lad. My beautiful daughter’s remedies always work, just like her Ma’s, but just like her Ma she can make them taste awful.” The man frowned, red nosed and watery eyed. “Often without changing a thing.”

  “The sheer willpower of us Naux women.” Eliscity felt herself grin as she watched her hands crush dried sage into a light dust and pinch equal amounts into two cups.

  “Oh no, that’s not a Naux family trait, that’s your Ma’s family.” Her Papa turned to Drae. “Old Granma LaCur had a way with mixing plants too. Difference was, didn’t matter how nice you were to her, it always tasted awful.”

  “How could you possibly be sure of that, Papa,” she said as she squeezed the juice from small deep red berries into the cups, “when you never once tried to be nice to her.”

  The man shook his head sluggishly. “I could say the same about her. I’ll tell you, Lad, that woman would have been the death of me if she hadn’t died first.”

  “Papa!” she exclaimed as Drae chortled and coughed.

  “Ah, I speak the truth, ‘City.”

  The two males started talking about the storm damage between sniffles and sneezes as she added a variety of dried leaves, crushed into fine powders or left whole, into the cups. She mixed it all together with a thick piece of eucalyptus wood that had been carved into a spoon. Stuck inside her body she couldn’t remember the names of all the things she was stirring into the concoction, though it made sense to her that they would blend together to create an effective remedy for the two men’s colds.

  Topping the drink off with hot water and adding a dollop of honey into each she passed the cups over to them and gestured for them to drink. Her Papa blew away the steam first and sipped on it carefully, but Drae took a large gulp without hesitation.

  Looking at her over the cup he frowned. “What?”

  “Nothing.” She felt her eyebrow raise. “I just expected you to be a bit more suspicious of it.”

  “Should I be suspicious of it?”

  She gave an amused shake of her head. “Still, you’re aware of my cooking ability. Thought that may have given you pause.”

  “I was reassured by the absence of
swearing and – you know – flames that it took to make it.” Drae grinned at her, taking another gulp. “Plus I haven’t been able to taste anything since yesterday.”

  “Oh, so I could make you up a stew right now and you’d be able to eat it without a problem?”

  He gave a half nod, half shrug. “Provided it’s chewable.”

  “Her stew’s quite good, actually,” her Papa said, waving a hand through the air.

  “Yeah, that’s true.” She turned back to the herbs and plants. “I’m alright with meals involving a lot of liquid. It’s the baking and roasting that eludes me.”

  Eliscity thought back to the sauce she had stirred into a perfect consistency that very evening and realised there was a chance that was still true.

  “I can smell,” Drae said suddenly, as he inhaled deeply. “Oh, thank the Dead, I can breathe properly.”

  “I’ll make a mixture up for Issa, too,” she said, as she busied herself with the ingredients once more.

  “Thanks. Did you hear it looks like school will be back within the week?” Drae stood, removing the towel from his neck.

  Tying a fabric patch over the top of the mug she walked out of the kitchen with him. “Yeah. I heard that. I also heard half the school’s front gate and sign is in Delora’s classroom and we have a new pond in the eastern courtyard.”

  “I heard the Frellow brothers had more to do with the sign’s relocation than the storm,” Drae laughed as he opened the front door.

  Laughing with him, she handed him the covered mug. “Here, just get Issa to pour hot water over it,” she instructed. “Don’t stir it.”

  They said their goodbyes and Eliscity closed the door, a smile still wide on her lips.

  ●

  …These creatures we fight, that we kill, slaughter as if animals… I fear they possess greater humanity than we shall ever know within ourselves. We reason that magic should not be of this world. We say it taints their blood and corrupts the soul – that there is no surrender to be found.

  Yet I have seen compassion, I have seen hope and above all I have seen the promised fear and wrath. Though not as I have been told I would. It was my wrath, not theirs and their fear, not mine.

  With that, I can’t help but query who the real monsters are in this war.

  I believed my blood determined my side, that there was no reason to even consider making it a choice, but now I am realising that this side was chosen for me by the trusted leaders of our Realm.

  We say it is the differences that feed the fires we set, yet I implore – is it our similarities we are truly trying to burn? These Bloods… they are us. They love and hate and laugh and cry LIKE US. Rather than do so alongside them, we seek their end, for if we were to fall in beside them, we would do just that. Fall. We would live, they would live. We would die, they would remain. War gives us a fighting chance to live longer than them.

  I wonder, if this was not a factor, would there be a war?

  Eliscity stared at the scrawling journal entry, signed I. Wrethic. Laleita had been right, she’d wanted to read this journal. The more she read the more she wondered how the man had had a Southern City named after him. Clearly the side that won the War didn’t know the things that he had thought or he wouldn’t have been branded a War hero.

  The journal was proving far more preferable to read than The Bloods Encyclopaedia that was littered with phrases like ‘…With twisted natures born of malice, they will trick the mind of the soundest warrior without mercy or challenge...’ and ‘…To suspect you have encountered a Fae-being is to know you have been tricked…’ or her personal favourite ‘…Heed the child that does not cry. Fear it to be Fae…’. The more she read about the creatures of her lineage the more she wanted to find the author’s grave, dig him up and throw the book at his remains.

  “I hope this means you’re ready.” Jinx stood above her, staring down at the book in her lap. “Just because you’re a girl doesn’t mean I’ll be waiting hours for you to get ready.”

  Reaching to the side of the sofa, she snagged the tan satchel borrowed from Cyan and plonked it down next to her. “I was ready at the time you specified. You on the other hand, appear to spend far too long on your clothing choices. Couldn’t decide between black or… black?”

  Jinx hitched his own – black – satchel over his shoulder. “Watch it, Angel. I can still decide to leave you here.”

  Shoving Wrethic’s journal in with her change of clothes, a cache of food and the small unlit elemental crystal the Triplets had given her as a present a few days before, she stood. “Admit it, you’re looking forward to having some company for once.”

  Jinx narrowed his blazing eyes. “We’ll see.”

  “Where are we heading?” she asked. “Wrethic?”

  “No, we’re staying in the Northern Cities this time.”

  “Sight-seeing?” she chirped lightly. Nothing had been able to dampen her spirits since Jinx had announced she would be joining him on the next excursion.

  “It’s not all about medicine, Angel. Food is important too and trust me when I say it’s a far more prolific thing in the north than it is in the south,” he teased.

  They bade farewell to the Family and ventured into the water tunnels side by side, following the flowing water, then veering off along the east-bound tunnels an hour into their walk.

  “Are you planning on filling me in on how guarded whatever building we’re robbing is?” Eliscity said after a particularly long silence had stretched out between them.

  “Who said anything about robbing?” Jinx smirked.

  She pulled a face. “I simply assumed. I was under the impression you were incapable of legitimate transactions. Not that I’m complaining about potentially getting out of the underground in the near future, but wouldn’t it be easier for Cyan to pick up the stores then?”

  Jinx shrugged. “It’s not exactly like it’s all completely legal.”

  “How surprising,” she guffawed.

  “There’s a man who sells undocumented stores,” Jinx explained. “He’s got a connection at the Trelyes Shore crops who supplies him with overflow products and the like. Practically untraceable the moment they leave the crops.”

  “How’d you find out about him?”

  “He’s an old contact of Raiden. From his Post days.”

  “Post days? Raiden was a guard?” Eliscity blinked in surprise. “How the Bloods do you go from that to being a pin cushion for the Clinic?”

  “Bad luck, mainly.”

  “And as a guard he had a contact who dealt in undocumented sales?”

  Jinx grinned. “Amazing what guards will overlook if given incentive.”

  She nodded, following him over a cross section of the tunnel. “So Raiden took bribes from the man?”

  “They benefitted from a mutual agreement. Raiden told us about the guy one day when we were thinking of ways to keep a constant store of food coming in. Since I was the only one that left the Manor, I tracked him down.”

  “And he happily accepted you as a new client?” Eliscity asked, doubting the ease at which a mutual agreement would have been forged between two criminals.

  “Guardsman Aryll Raiden inspired trust in his contacts so it wasn’t hard to convince him I was a friend. And I knew how to approach him. His wife’s ill. It’s long term and rather than kill her, it makes her suffer. Just ‘cause they’re above the river doesn’t mean they get all the medicine they need. His under the table sales give him some extra coin to try and help that need.”

  “And you offer the medicine, rather than the coin,” she guessed.

  “It was a deal no man in his situation could refuse.”

  They walked for a few minutes in silence, Eliscity falling into thought. It didn’t matter that Jinx was the only one in the Family that would leave the Manor. It seemed every one of them contributed to their group in some way. It made her realise just how useless she was. Laleita and Neith cooked brilliant meals, she burnt water. The Triplets made el
emental crystals that lit the underground and heated bath water, she couldn’t even change the colour of her wings when they asked. Casamir was a skilled and scary fighter that would always keep them safe, she was yet to punch Jinx in the face. And now apparently Raiden was to thank for their continuing food store.

  “What is Raiden?” she asked suddenly.

  “He wouldn’t tell you?” Jinx grinned, knowingly.

  Remembering the one time she had brought it up and been met with a nonsensical laugh followed by a quick change of subject, she said, “He sort of avoided the subject.”

  “Yeah he does that.”

  “Well?”

  “Swear you won’t tell him I told?”

  “Sure.”

  “Convincing,” Jinx laughed. “But okay. Pixnie.”

  “Are you serious?” she gasped. “I did not expect that. I thought Bear or maybe something from the horse family. No, Bear.” She nodded to herself, conjuring up the image of a Tined Bear from The Bloods Encyclopaedia back at the Manor. The gigantic beast with horns had been rare, hunted even before the War despite the gentle natures they were often said to have. Its grizzly features and raw power reminded her of Raiden and his large figure. “I thought Bear.”

  Jinx nodded. “I think he quite happily lets people believe that one.”

  “Pixnie. He’s Feyfolk… That practically makes us family,” she said, relieving Jinx from the duty of holding the elemental crystal. Pixnies had been a small, fast wingless creature. Fancying themselves the restorers of justice, they’d helped those in need and led those with tainted morals astray, leaving them to get lost or worst. “So the Clinic is definitely experimenting with the blood from Bloods previously unable to reproduce with humans.” Eliscity shook her head. “The War was practically founded on the fact that humans were terrified that some Bloods were able to breed with humans and here they are three hundred years later making sure the creature-bound Bloods have a chance as well.”