Post by wordy on Dec 22, 2012 19:52:11 GMT 10
To: kris
Message: I hope you enjoy the fic! I haven’t really written anything like this prompt before, so it was fun (yet slightly daunting) to try something different with such familiar characters. Merry Ficmas!
From: Em
Title: count up your demons
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 4302
Prompt: #2 – dark!Circle fic
Warnings: Mentions of character death.
Summary: Set immediately after Shatterglass. The difference that two deaths can make.
A/N: Hopefully any errors or other odd things are next to invisible, but let me know if anything really stands out/is irritating. Title inspired by Coldplay’s Everything’s Not Lost.
Tharios, capital of the city-state of Tharios
On the Ithocot Sea
“Dhaskoi Nomasdina,” called the clerk, motioning for him to rise. Dema did so, regretting that he had declined any food or drink from the servants of Serenity House; his stomach twisted and gurgled uncomfortably, no balm for his nerves. If his commander got word that he had come—
He noticed that the clerk held no writing implements to record his reason for desiring an audience with the Keepers. A bad sign. Nevertheless, he dug his fingers into his pocket for the appropriate bribe, only for the clerk to hold out a hand and shake her head.
“The Keepers of the Public Good have no time for you tonight,” she said.
“I will return in the morning.”
“The Keepers of the Public Good have no time for you, Dhaskoi Nomasdina.”
She began to turn away.
“Wait, a moment,” Dema said, lunging forward to take hold of her sleeve. Only when he had released her and taken a step back, head bowed in apology, did she face him. He took a deep breath. “A message, then. The Initiate Council of Winding Circle claim the right to Dhasku Chandler. Heskalifos agree to hold her until travel arrangements can be finalised.”
The words were not as formal, nor as elegant, as those that Goldeye had told him, but they would have to do. He wondered if she would relay the message, or if the Keepers had already instructed her not to inform them of whatever he might say. Without an audience with the Keepers there was little hope.
The Ghost had taken too many lives already; Dema did not want another death weighing on his conscious. But he knew what her response would be.
The clerk’s expressions did not waver. “A servant will show you out.”
“We should have anticipated this,” said Jumshida, resting a hand on his arm. Her wide mouth was, for once, curved into a frown. “They will not release her, now that they have her.”
“And they need someone to hold responsible for the prathmuni fleeing.” Niko sighed and rubbed at his temples. His mind felt brittle, as did every notion or plan that he had so far conceived and thrown away. Trisana’s arrest weighed heavily on his thoughts, yet any path forward from this point seemed to slip through his fingers.
He had seen this future. He had never expected to live it.
The slaughter of the prathmuni he should have foreseen, even if Tris had not killed the Ghost. The Ghost had been one of them, an unfortunate result of fate. Another reason for Tharios to look down upon them.
The men and women standing guard outside Jumshida Dawnspeaker’s residence were supposedly for their protection against what went on in the streets, but Niko knew differently. Their movements were watched carefully. His movements. Niklaren Goldeye was not one to be taken lightly.
It was bitterly amusing, that they would fear his actions more than his incarcerated student’s. What prison they had devised for her he did not know. That she only remained there by her own choice he was certain of.
Dema cleared his throat, pushing away his empty cup. “I must return to Elya Street. I’ve done all that I can.”
“I am grateful for that,” said Niko, and he was. It had been Dema’s duty as an arurim dhaskoi—an investigator mage—to arrest Tris. He had witnessed the murder. They all had. What was more, he had been the one in charge of the search for the Ghost.
Niko could not fault a man for doing what was right.
When the two of them were alone once more, Jumshida turned back to him with a concerned look. “What will you do?”
“I will write to Winding Circle,” he said, though he knew it was not the answer she was looking for. He rose from his chair, tea grown cold.
If the Keepers of the Public Good would not compromise, what was there left for him to do? The future held no hope; the paths were too many, each one as unforgiving as the last.
The choice was no longer his to make. It never had been.
North of Hajra
Sotat
The inn was plain in every way, except for the food. Briar watched as Evvy all but inhaled her spiced oats. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d tried to eat the bowl as well.
He’d barely touched his own bowl. Growing up not knowing when your next meal would come was something he and Evvy had in common, but every time he picked up his spoon he just put it down again.
How could he eat? What was the point, when Rosethorn was—
Something nudged his elbow. He looked down to see that Evvy had pushed Luvo across to him. The two of them were having some silent conversation, though it seemed like more of an argument by the way Evvy was scrunching up her face and giving Luvo pointed looks. How a silent argument between them was possible Briar didn’t know, since the only discernible face Luvo possessed was the gentle point that looked a little like a bear’s muzzle.
“Are we leaving today?” asked Evvy.
“Not today,” he said. “We have to wait for someone to come from Winding Circle.”
“Why?”
“To pay the innkeeper what we owe.” He put down his spoon again and picked up the small bowl of honey, tipping some onto his oats. Maybe something sweet would make him feel like eating. “We don’t have any money, remember? I sent a letter a few days ago. Someone should be here by tomorrow.”
She was still shooting Luvo glances. Briar wondered if she’d asked him to use some kind of weird mountain magic on him. As the heart of a mountain, Luvo certainly possessed some kind of magic, and though his patience seemed to be a good influence on Evvy, Briar didn’t need someone poking around his head right now.
Evvy ran her finger around the inner edge of her bowl, cleaning up the dregs that were left. Then she stood up. “I’m going to get some juice.”
Briar looked at Luvo, the mottled green and purple of his smooth hide, like crystal. After a moment Briar began to feel strange about staring at him, and reached out to turn him around slightly. It did look like he had a face of sorts. There were two very shallow indents above his ‘nose’, as if someone had smoothed him out using their thumbs.
“Evumeimei is concerned about you,” Luvo told him.
Briar sighed and looked down at his hands. The green stems and leaves looked less bright than usual, the petals dark and crumbling as though winter had come. His two Xs were hardly visible, unless you knew where to look for them.
He wondered if Niko had really known what he was looking for, that first day they had met. Or maybe he’d just had to hope that some thief kid was worth one last chance.
“She’ll be okay at Winding Circle,” he said, curling his hands into fists and shoving them under his armpits.
Luvo looked at him. Briar could feel his not-there eyes all the while until Evvy came back to the table with two cups of juice.
Number 6 Cheeseman Street
Summersea, Emelan
Seeing Sandry walk through the door of her forge on Cheeseman Street was something Daja thought she might never get used to. The fire was cold and dark, all of her tools waiting to be taken up and put to use. Daja ran the flat of her palm along the rough surface of the work bench—her work bench—and waited as Sandry pulled up a stool across from her. In the dim afternoon light coming in through the window, she could see that there was a flush of red visible around her eyes and nose.
“You saw Lark?” asked Daja gently, reaching out a hand across the bench top.
Sandry nodded, then sniffed and took her hand.
“If I’d known,” Daja began.
“If any of us had known this would happen, we wouldn’t have let them go.” Sandry smiled at her in the dark, but it was a frail thing, watery and so unlike her that Daja felt her own eyes burn with tears. “I’ve been trying to reach Briar, but he’s still too far away.”
Daja wiped her eyes on the shoulder of her tunic, suddenly glad for the darkening light in the forge.
They had almost lost Rosethorn once before, and Briar with her. Daja had been willing to give up so much for them, hadn’t thought that she could live without family. The Duke’s heart attack had made her ache for Sandry in a way that she’d thought she’d almost forgotten how to. None of them were strangers to death: that was why they had been brought together in the first place.
Yet she hadn’t tried to reach out for Briar, never mind how far away he might be. Since arriving back in Summersea with Frostpine, hearing the news of Rosethorn’s death in Yanjing, she couldn’t make herself face Lark. Would Sandry think her a coward, if she knew? Would she be ashamed?
Daja was ashamed of herself. She didn’t want to see disappointment in Sandry’s eyes.
“I asked if she wanted to stay with me,” said Sandry. She pulled her hand away from Daja’s and dug a lace-edged handkerchief from the pocket of her dress. She wiped her face with it, then blew her nose. “Uncle said it would be fine. But she said no.”
“She has Discipline. Maybe that’s what she needs.”
“She needs us,” said Sandry fiercely.
She needs Rosethorn, Daja did not say. It was difficult to imagine one of them without the other.
“Do Tris and Niko know?” she asked Sandry.
Sandry shook her head. “I wrote them as soon as I heard. I was expecting a letter from Tris by now as well, but perhaps they’re busy with the conference.”
Daja wished, suddenly, that Tris were here. Sandry’s noble upbringing had given her a tendency to take control, but Tris was a solid comfort that reminded Daja of her own mother, washed-out as the memories were, of soft lips brushing her forehead and calloused hands made strong by rope and water. Tris was prickly and dear and kind, their anchor when rough waves threatened. And she was far away.
Everything was...wrong. It was a feeling that Daja couldn’t shake. The four of them had been woven together, never imagining that they could come unravelled again so easily. Even though Sandry had separated their magics in Gold Ridge, Daja could still feel the pull of all the left-behind pieces that had buried themselves within her. Like hooks beneath her skin that had travelled so deep that she had forgotten the way they made her bleed.
Tharios, capital of the city-state of Tharios
On the Ithocot Sea
If she closed her eyes, she was home at Winding Circle.
The air was close, warm on her skin. Few sounds reached her inside the room. Muffled voices. A well-placed breeze could bring her more, but she wanted this quiet while she had it.
She kept her eyes closed and breathed, the gentle in-out that calmed her mind and centred the whirlwind of her magic. The pattern of Rosethorn and Briar’s garden at Discipline was printed on the back of her eyelids, evergreen juniper, rows of vegetables, the afternoon sun on the grass. She could feel the heat rolling off Daja’s skin at the forge, hear the sound of Lark weaving in her room. Sandry would be making clothes, a new tunic or dress, each thread glittering with love and care and the silver shine of her magic.
”Is this what it comes to, Trisana?” Niko had called, his normally crisp voice gentle. “When you sank the ships at Winding Circle, you defended your home. If you do this, it’s murder. You will be a murderer by choice.”
She could feel her lightning as it prickled every nerve in her body. It crackled with heat between her palms, waiting, burning. The look in his eyes. Hateful. Hollow. “Never once did anyone think of me!”
“He deserved to die,” she said aloud, to the empty room.
The aftermath of that day still hung in her mind. The day she had struck down the Ghost. The details were beginning to bleed together, colours, rage, Niko’s whispers in her ear, urgent, though she could no longer recall his words. Her arrest, and the regret in Dema’s eyes.
There was a knot in her stomach when she remembered it all, and it was difficult not to remember, even when she meditated. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel, or how she should act. A part of her wasn’t even sure what she did feel, or if she could anymore.
Only two things kept her sensible. The first was the knowledge that Niko would not leave Tharios without her, would never leave her. The second was Glaki.
It was difficult to feel regret, then. But perhaps not feeling something was a start.
After making his reports at the Elya Street station, Dema did not go home. The night was fading quickly into morning, the last stars hanging bright and sharp in the changing light of the sky. His feet were tired—all of him was tired—but he kept walking, following the streets without thought.
Rarely were the streets so empty. The prathmuni who had not attempted to flee the city had wisely kept themselves from sight. The difficulty of this was that there was no longer anyone to deal with the city’s night soil, something that Dema was already beginning to see the inconvenience of. It was well enough for him to crinkle his nose and breathe through his mouth as he passed by waste on the street, but what if the prathmuni did not return to their duties, or returned too late, when disease had already begun to spread? Their other tasks would also need to be dealt with, if such a thing came to pass.
Perhaps a suggestion should be made to the Assembly regarding another system of dealing with the city’s waste. Something had to be done. He wondered if the Assembly was already making plans.
Then he chuckled, imagining the expressions the priests of the All-Seeing would wear when they discovered no arurim prathmuni remained to assist with cleansings.
But his amusement vanished quickly as he glanced about, realising where his feet had taken him.
The Street of Glass was equally empty, but the muffled noise of activity remained, signalling that the glassmakers were already at work within their shops. If he walked further, such marvels could be seen through the windows as no other country could create. Dema hesitated, raising a hand to rub his chin.
The decision was made before he returned his hands to his pockets. He realised that he had been grinding his teeth, and took a moment to stretch and relax the muscles of his jaw once more. It seemed that some part of him had known where he was wandering to after all.
Touchstone Glass was dark and still. Dema would have bet all the biks he had on him that Keth was in the workshop, and not home at his lodgings.
Keth was a man made angry by grief. Dema could not forget the way that he had urged Tris on that day. There was some bitterness still in him, at all the things he had lost, and rightly so. Still, Dema had a mind to say some things to him. It was the Keepers who could demand a life for a life, no one else.
A moment longer, then Dema sighed, turning back towards Achaya Square. He would have words with Keth. But now, he needed the release of sleep.
Duke’s Citadel
Summersea, Emelan
Sandry unfolded the letter again, smoothing it out on her lap as best she could, stubbornly ignoring the tremor in her hands. The writing was smudged and grey, the paper frail from too much handling. But she could not stop rereading it, in case the words were different.
“Niko might not be able to interfere,” said Daja.
“We can’t just do nothing.”
“There’s nothing for us to do,” Daja pointed out, sinking back into her armchair. Sandry watched as she rubbed her hands over her face, then as her gaze moved to where her staff leaned against the wall.
Sandry could feel her lip begin to tremble. “But, it’s Tris.”
“I know. I know. Niko would know what to do, if there was anything to be done. But if Tris really did kill someone...”
“Tris wouldn’t do that unless she had to. Unless it was her only choice.”
Daja had been looking at her staff again, but her eyes snapped back to Sandry’s face. “The only choice? Niko said—”
“Niko didn’t say enough.” Sandry crumpled the letter again and threw it down on the table in front of her. “Maybe Tris killed a man, maybe she didn’t. But whatever she did, I know she wouldn’t have done so without reason! He probably deserved it!”
She couldn’t stop the words, or understand the way her thoughts ran. She wasn’t really thinking. Tris was in trouble, and Briar was still not home. Sandry felt like she was unravelling by the seams, and no matter how she tried, the threads could not be gathered up again.
“And that makes it okay?” cried Daja, so clearly outraged that Sandry drew back. “Someone deserves to die, so consequences mean nothing? Or are you just so blinded by the fact that Tris is our sister that you refuse to see the difference between right and wrong?”
"I know the difference between right and wrong, Daja Kisubo!”
“Obviously you don’t!” Daja stood, stalking across the room and grabbing up her Trader staff.
“You think Tris is guilty, don’t you?” Sandry demanded after her retreating back as it disappeared into the hallway. She balled her hands into fists, nails biting into the soft skin of her palms.
For a while after, Sandry stood, breathing heavily, until she realised that Daja was not coming back. They had never fought like that before. She sank to the carpet, raising a hand to the side of the desk and the other to her burning forehead.
She had once had bitter feelings about being left behind while her siblings left to see the world. Even after the Unmagic—especially since then—she had wanted to leave Summersea behind, and forget.
Everything was coming undone. Though she chided herself for being selfish, the thought remained: she was being left behind, again.
Discipline Cottage
Winding Circle temple, Emelan
Daja turned her eyes away from the Hub clock tower, and returned her attention to Discipline. It looked unusually quiet inside the small cottage. The walk to the temple had done her some good; her anger had receded to a warm tingling beneath her skin.
She was finally here, and for all the wrong reasons.
She should have known that Lark would notice her leaning on the fence. The older woman looked entirely like the same Lark, walking up the path towards her, a subtle breeze stirring her dark curls. Only when they were standing face to face did Daja notice the heavy circles under her eyes and the new lines around her mouth. Her heart constricted, and when Lark reached out to touch her arm, she was ashamed to feel tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.” Her throat already felt scratchy. She wiped her face, and when she raised her eyes again, Lark was watching her. Concern and kindness and all the things that should have been swept away with grief were still there in her face.
“We all deal with grief differently,” Lark said, squeezing her hand.
Daja laughed through her tears, though in truth she only wanted to cry more. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be comforting you. I’m sorry. I just didn’t—”
She hadn’t known what to say. She still didn’t.
The hug was warm and soft, for all that there was a fence between them. Daja let herself cry a little while Lark’s hand made soothing motions on her back. Even that was too much, and Daja couldn’t hold the words back any longer, found them tumbling out of her:
“It’s my fault,” she said, sobbing. “I thought—I thought things were different. But I did this, all of it. I’m still trangshi; I always have been.”
Third Ship Kisubo.
Ben.
Rosethorn.
Tris.
“No, Daja,” said Lark.
“Yes. The worst kind of luck. I’m sorry. It’s all my fault,” she said, pulling away. Her staff still leaned against the fence. She left it.
“Daja!”
She ignored Lark’s calls, ignored everyone until she had left temple grounds. Her nose and throat felt blocked, her skin warm. She kept walking. If she kept walking, maybe death would leave her, just as the dead had.
North of Hajra
Sotat
The sun shone spots through his closed eyelids, warmed him slightly too much in the narrow bed by the window. He had heard Evvy rise hours ago, moving around the room and whispering—to Luvo, he assumed—before disappearing somewhere.
He planned to catch as much sleep as he could. The cloying scent of incense crept under the covers with him at night, the sound of bells echoing in his dreams—
Briar opened his eyes and pushed himself up onto his elbows. It seemed he couldn’t even escape some images during the day. He wanted to forget.
With a yawn that cracked his jaw, he rolled over, only to yelp when something rough and pokey met his side. Somethings, he corrected himself, sweeping back the sheet and scowling at the stones piled in his bed. He didn’t know what they were supposed to mean; they looked like rocks to him.
“Evvy!” he yelled, not really expecting her to answer.
He picked them up all up and deposited them on the wobbly table next to his bed, then washed his face. His shirt was not one of Sandry’s, and held all its stains and smells, but it was the only one he had left.
The woman who ran the inn nodded at him when he got downstairs. His stomach grumbled, unhappy at missing breakfast, and he was just considering going to beg something from the cook when he looked up and saw someone very familiar.
Crane was talking with a stableboy, gesturing with one hand, his other tapping an impatient, long-fingered rhythm on the table he was seated at. When he looked over and caught Briar’s gaze, his face betrayed nothing, except for a small pinch between his pale eyebrows.
Briar realised that he had been standing frozen, one hand still on the banister. Since he could not seem to move, Crane stood and came over to him.
They were almost of a height, now. Briar found that his mouth would not open, not unless he wanted to cry in front of this man, which he did not.
Briar had been expecting someone from Winding Circle, but he had not anticipated Crane, or this feeling of—what? Relief: that was the closest he could even begin to describe it. For all that Crane was a tiresome know-it-all, he was familiar enough for all their past run-ins to not matter a bit.
Crane had been looking him over while his thoughts knocked about. He made no move to touch him, but asked, “The girl?”
“She’s here.” Briar licked his lips, finding his mouth suddenly dry. Life had become so like his night terrors that he could no longer tell the difference, but Crane was standing in front of him now, and though it meant that Rosethorn was not, at least it was real.
“I’m taking you home,” said Crane.
Tharios, capital of the city-state of Tharios
On the Ithocot Sea
She had grown accustomed to the room, with its sturdy furniture and silver spells painting the walls. When first exploring the streets of Tharios, she had noticed immediately the way the city’s charms and spells had radiated with power throughout their silvery layers, luck and health, and plenty more besides.
But there were no spells in this room to hold her.
She had been refused visitors, and deduced what that meant. The Keepers of the Public Good would make a decision—a decision about her—that Niko would not like. She already knew that she would not like it.
Perhaps she had done wrong, killing the Ghost, perhaps not. It had felt right. Tris shook her head, braids tapping against her neck. The city of Tharios would not judge it right, however, and that was where the problem lay. An eye for an eye: that was what they would say, no matter how many women the Ghost had killed. She would have to pay for his murder.
The ribbon went over her head after only a few tangles with her hair. She balanced the medallion on her palm, turning it this way and that, admiring the sheen on it. She rarely thought of it when it was hanging around her neck, but still she was finding it difficult to part with. The edges were inscribed with hers and Niko’s names. She turned the medallion in her hands to read them. Niko would worry about her; she would send word to him, eventually.
There was no need for silly feelings about a bit of metal.
She left the medallion on the table, fingers already working at a braid as she walked towards the door.
Message: I hope you enjoy the fic! I haven’t really written anything like this prompt before, so it was fun (yet slightly daunting) to try something different with such familiar characters. Merry Ficmas!
From: Em
Title: count up your demons
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 4302
Prompt: #2 – dark!Circle fic
Warnings: Mentions of character death.
Summary: Set immediately after Shatterglass. The difference that two deaths can make.
A/N: Hopefully any errors or other odd things are next to invisible, but let me know if anything really stands out/is irritating. Title inspired by Coldplay’s Everything’s Not Lost.
Tharios, capital of the city-state of Tharios
On the Ithocot Sea
“Dhaskoi Nomasdina,” called the clerk, motioning for him to rise. Dema did so, regretting that he had declined any food or drink from the servants of Serenity House; his stomach twisted and gurgled uncomfortably, no balm for his nerves. If his commander got word that he had come—
He noticed that the clerk held no writing implements to record his reason for desiring an audience with the Keepers. A bad sign. Nevertheless, he dug his fingers into his pocket for the appropriate bribe, only for the clerk to hold out a hand and shake her head.
“The Keepers of the Public Good have no time for you tonight,” she said.
“I will return in the morning.”
“The Keepers of the Public Good have no time for you, Dhaskoi Nomasdina.”
She began to turn away.
“Wait, a moment,” Dema said, lunging forward to take hold of her sleeve. Only when he had released her and taken a step back, head bowed in apology, did she face him. He took a deep breath. “A message, then. The Initiate Council of Winding Circle claim the right to Dhasku Chandler. Heskalifos agree to hold her until travel arrangements can be finalised.”
The words were not as formal, nor as elegant, as those that Goldeye had told him, but they would have to do. He wondered if she would relay the message, or if the Keepers had already instructed her not to inform them of whatever he might say. Without an audience with the Keepers there was little hope.
The Ghost had taken too many lives already; Dema did not want another death weighing on his conscious. But he knew what her response would be.
The clerk’s expressions did not waver. “A servant will show you out.”
***
“We should have anticipated this,” said Jumshida, resting a hand on his arm. Her wide mouth was, for once, curved into a frown. “They will not release her, now that they have her.”
“And they need someone to hold responsible for the prathmuni fleeing.” Niko sighed and rubbed at his temples. His mind felt brittle, as did every notion or plan that he had so far conceived and thrown away. Trisana’s arrest weighed heavily on his thoughts, yet any path forward from this point seemed to slip through his fingers.
He had seen this future. He had never expected to live it.
The slaughter of the prathmuni he should have foreseen, even if Tris had not killed the Ghost. The Ghost had been one of them, an unfortunate result of fate. Another reason for Tharios to look down upon them.
The men and women standing guard outside Jumshida Dawnspeaker’s residence were supposedly for their protection against what went on in the streets, but Niko knew differently. Their movements were watched carefully. His movements. Niklaren Goldeye was not one to be taken lightly.
It was bitterly amusing, that they would fear his actions more than his incarcerated student’s. What prison they had devised for her he did not know. That she only remained there by her own choice he was certain of.
Dema cleared his throat, pushing away his empty cup. “I must return to Elya Street. I’ve done all that I can.”
“I am grateful for that,” said Niko, and he was. It had been Dema’s duty as an arurim dhaskoi—an investigator mage—to arrest Tris. He had witnessed the murder. They all had. What was more, he had been the one in charge of the search for the Ghost.
Niko could not fault a man for doing what was right.
When the two of them were alone once more, Jumshida turned back to him with a concerned look. “What will you do?”
“I will write to Winding Circle,” he said, though he knew it was not the answer she was looking for. He rose from his chair, tea grown cold.
If the Keepers of the Public Good would not compromise, what was there left for him to do? The future held no hope; the paths were too many, each one as unforgiving as the last.
The choice was no longer his to make. It never had been.
North of Hajra
Sotat
The inn was plain in every way, except for the food. Briar watched as Evvy all but inhaled her spiced oats. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d tried to eat the bowl as well.
He’d barely touched his own bowl. Growing up not knowing when your next meal would come was something he and Evvy had in common, but every time he picked up his spoon he just put it down again.
How could he eat? What was the point, when Rosethorn was—
Something nudged his elbow. He looked down to see that Evvy had pushed Luvo across to him. The two of them were having some silent conversation, though it seemed like more of an argument by the way Evvy was scrunching up her face and giving Luvo pointed looks. How a silent argument between them was possible Briar didn’t know, since the only discernible face Luvo possessed was the gentle point that looked a little like a bear’s muzzle.
“Are we leaving today?” asked Evvy.
“Not today,” he said. “We have to wait for someone to come from Winding Circle.”
“Why?”
“To pay the innkeeper what we owe.” He put down his spoon again and picked up the small bowl of honey, tipping some onto his oats. Maybe something sweet would make him feel like eating. “We don’t have any money, remember? I sent a letter a few days ago. Someone should be here by tomorrow.”
She was still shooting Luvo glances. Briar wondered if she’d asked him to use some kind of weird mountain magic on him. As the heart of a mountain, Luvo certainly possessed some kind of magic, and though his patience seemed to be a good influence on Evvy, Briar didn’t need someone poking around his head right now.
Evvy ran her finger around the inner edge of her bowl, cleaning up the dregs that were left. Then she stood up. “I’m going to get some juice.”
Briar looked at Luvo, the mottled green and purple of his smooth hide, like crystal. After a moment Briar began to feel strange about staring at him, and reached out to turn him around slightly. It did look like he had a face of sorts. There were two very shallow indents above his ‘nose’, as if someone had smoothed him out using their thumbs.
“Evumeimei is concerned about you,” Luvo told him.
Briar sighed and looked down at his hands. The green stems and leaves looked less bright than usual, the petals dark and crumbling as though winter had come. His two Xs were hardly visible, unless you knew where to look for them.
He wondered if Niko had really known what he was looking for, that first day they had met. Or maybe he’d just had to hope that some thief kid was worth one last chance.
“She’ll be okay at Winding Circle,” he said, curling his hands into fists and shoving them under his armpits.
Luvo looked at him. Briar could feel his not-there eyes all the while until Evvy came back to the table with two cups of juice.
Number 6 Cheeseman Street
Summersea, Emelan
Seeing Sandry walk through the door of her forge on Cheeseman Street was something Daja thought she might never get used to. The fire was cold and dark, all of her tools waiting to be taken up and put to use. Daja ran the flat of her palm along the rough surface of the work bench—her work bench—and waited as Sandry pulled up a stool across from her. In the dim afternoon light coming in through the window, she could see that there was a flush of red visible around her eyes and nose.
“You saw Lark?” asked Daja gently, reaching out a hand across the bench top.
Sandry nodded, then sniffed and took her hand.
“If I’d known,” Daja began.
“If any of us had known this would happen, we wouldn’t have let them go.” Sandry smiled at her in the dark, but it was a frail thing, watery and so unlike her that Daja felt her own eyes burn with tears. “I’ve been trying to reach Briar, but he’s still too far away.”
Daja wiped her eyes on the shoulder of her tunic, suddenly glad for the darkening light in the forge.
They had almost lost Rosethorn once before, and Briar with her. Daja had been willing to give up so much for them, hadn’t thought that she could live without family. The Duke’s heart attack had made her ache for Sandry in a way that she’d thought she’d almost forgotten how to. None of them were strangers to death: that was why they had been brought together in the first place.
Yet she hadn’t tried to reach out for Briar, never mind how far away he might be. Since arriving back in Summersea with Frostpine, hearing the news of Rosethorn’s death in Yanjing, she couldn’t make herself face Lark. Would Sandry think her a coward, if she knew? Would she be ashamed?
Daja was ashamed of herself. She didn’t want to see disappointment in Sandry’s eyes.
“I asked if she wanted to stay with me,” said Sandry. She pulled her hand away from Daja’s and dug a lace-edged handkerchief from the pocket of her dress. She wiped her face with it, then blew her nose. “Uncle said it would be fine. But she said no.”
“She has Discipline. Maybe that’s what she needs.”
“She needs us,” said Sandry fiercely.
She needs Rosethorn, Daja did not say. It was difficult to imagine one of them without the other.
“Do Tris and Niko know?” she asked Sandry.
Sandry shook her head. “I wrote them as soon as I heard. I was expecting a letter from Tris by now as well, but perhaps they’re busy with the conference.”
Daja wished, suddenly, that Tris were here. Sandry’s noble upbringing had given her a tendency to take control, but Tris was a solid comfort that reminded Daja of her own mother, washed-out as the memories were, of soft lips brushing her forehead and calloused hands made strong by rope and water. Tris was prickly and dear and kind, their anchor when rough waves threatened. And she was far away.
Everything was...wrong. It was a feeling that Daja couldn’t shake. The four of them had been woven together, never imagining that they could come unravelled again so easily. Even though Sandry had separated their magics in Gold Ridge, Daja could still feel the pull of all the left-behind pieces that had buried themselves within her. Like hooks beneath her skin that had travelled so deep that she had forgotten the way they made her bleed.
Tharios, capital of the city-state of Tharios
On the Ithocot Sea
If she closed her eyes, she was home at Winding Circle.
The air was close, warm on her skin. Few sounds reached her inside the room. Muffled voices. A well-placed breeze could bring her more, but she wanted this quiet while she had it.
She kept her eyes closed and breathed, the gentle in-out that calmed her mind and centred the whirlwind of her magic. The pattern of Rosethorn and Briar’s garden at Discipline was printed on the back of her eyelids, evergreen juniper, rows of vegetables, the afternoon sun on the grass. She could feel the heat rolling off Daja’s skin at the forge, hear the sound of Lark weaving in her room. Sandry would be making clothes, a new tunic or dress, each thread glittering with love and care and the silver shine of her magic.
”Is this what it comes to, Trisana?” Niko had called, his normally crisp voice gentle. “When you sank the ships at Winding Circle, you defended your home. If you do this, it’s murder. You will be a murderer by choice.”
She could feel her lightning as it prickled every nerve in her body. It crackled with heat between her palms, waiting, burning. The look in his eyes. Hateful. Hollow. “Never once did anyone think of me!”
“He deserved to die,” she said aloud, to the empty room.
The aftermath of that day still hung in her mind. The day she had struck down the Ghost. The details were beginning to bleed together, colours, rage, Niko’s whispers in her ear, urgent, though she could no longer recall his words. Her arrest, and the regret in Dema’s eyes.
There was a knot in her stomach when she remembered it all, and it was difficult not to remember, even when she meditated. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel, or how she should act. A part of her wasn’t even sure what she did feel, or if she could anymore.
Only two things kept her sensible. The first was the knowledge that Niko would not leave Tharios without her, would never leave her. The second was Glaki.
It was difficult to feel regret, then. But perhaps not feeling something was a start.
***
After making his reports at the Elya Street station, Dema did not go home. The night was fading quickly into morning, the last stars hanging bright and sharp in the changing light of the sky. His feet were tired—all of him was tired—but he kept walking, following the streets without thought.
Rarely were the streets so empty. The prathmuni who had not attempted to flee the city had wisely kept themselves from sight. The difficulty of this was that there was no longer anyone to deal with the city’s night soil, something that Dema was already beginning to see the inconvenience of. It was well enough for him to crinkle his nose and breathe through his mouth as he passed by waste on the street, but what if the prathmuni did not return to their duties, or returned too late, when disease had already begun to spread? Their other tasks would also need to be dealt with, if such a thing came to pass.
Perhaps a suggestion should be made to the Assembly regarding another system of dealing with the city’s waste. Something had to be done. He wondered if the Assembly was already making plans.
Then he chuckled, imagining the expressions the priests of the All-Seeing would wear when they discovered no arurim prathmuni remained to assist with cleansings.
But his amusement vanished quickly as he glanced about, realising where his feet had taken him.
The Street of Glass was equally empty, but the muffled noise of activity remained, signalling that the glassmakers were already at work within their shops. If he walked further, such marvels could be seen through the windows as no other country could create. Dema hesitated, raising a hand to rub his chin.
The decision was made before he returned his hands to his pockets. He realised that he had been grinding his teeth, and took a moment to stretch and relax the muscles of his jaw once more. It seemed that some part of him had known where he was wandering to after all.
Touchstone Glass was dark and still. Dema would have bet all the biks he had on him that Keth was in the workshop, and not home at his lodgings.
Keth was a man made angry by grief. Dema could not forget the way that he had urged Tris on that day. There was some bitterness still in him, at all the things he had lost, and rightly so. Still, Dema had a mind to say some things to him. It was the Keepers who could demand a life for a life, no one else.
A moment longer, then Dema sighed, turning back towards Achaya Square. He would have words with Keth. But now, he needed the release of sleep.
Duke’s Citadel
Summersea, Emelan
Sandry unfolded the letter again, smoothing it out on her lap as best she could, stubbornly ignoring the tremor in her hands. The writing was smudged and grey, the paper frail from too much handling. But she could not stop rereading it, in case the words were different.
“Niko might not be able to interfere,” said Daja.
“We can’t just do nothing.”
“There’s nothing for us to do,” Daja pointed out, sinking back into her armchair. Sandry watched as she rubbed her hands over her face, then as her gaze moved to where her staff leaned against the wall.
Sandry could feel her lip begin to tremble. “But, it’s Tris.”
“I know. I know. Niko would know what to do, if there was anything to be done. But if Tris really did kill someone...”
“Tris wouldn’t do that unless she had to. Unless it was her only choice.”
Daja had been looking at her staff again, but her eyes snapped back to Sandry’s face. “The only choice? Niko said—”
“Niko didn’t say enough.” Sandry crumpled the letter again and threw it down on the table in front of her. “Maybe Tris killed a man, maybe she didn’t. But whatever she did, I know she wouldn’t have done so without reason! He probably deserved it!”
She couldn’t stop the words, or understand the way her thoughts ran. She wasn’t really thinking. Tris was in trouble, and Briar was still not home. Sandry felt like she was unravelling by the seams, and no matter how she tried, the threads could not be gathered up again.
“And that makes it okay?” cried Daja, so clearly outraged that Sandry drew back. “Someone deserves to die, so consequences mean nothing? Or are you just so blinded by the fact that Tris is our sister that you refuse to see the difference between right and wrong?”
"I know the difference between right and wrong, Daja Kisubo!”
“Obviously you don’t!” Daja stood, stalking across the room and grabbing up her Trader staff.
“You think Tris is guilty, don’t you?” Sandry demanded after her retreating back as it disappeared into the hallway. She balled her hands into fists, nails biting into the soft skin of her palms.
For a while after, Sandry stood, breathing heavily, until she realised that Daja was not coming back. They had never fought like that before. She sank to the carpet, raising a hand to the side of the desk and the other to her burning forehead.
She had once had bitter feelings about being left behind while her siblings left to see the world. Even after the Unmagic—especially since then—she had wanted to leave Summersea behind, and forget.
Everything was coming undone. Though she chided herself for being selfish, the thought remained: she was being left behind, again.
Discipline Cottage
Winding Circle temple, Emelan
Daja turned her eyes away from the Hub clock tower, and returned her attention to Discipline. It looked unusually quiet inside the small cottage. The walk to the temple had done her some good; her anger had receded to a warm tingling beneath her skin.
She was finally here, and for all the wrong reasons.
She should have known that Lark would notice her leaning on the fence. The older woman looked entirely like the same Lark, walking up the path towards her, a subtle breeze stirring her dark curls. Only when they were standing face to face did Daja notice the heavy circles under her eyes and the new lines around her mouth. Her heart constricted, and when Lark reached out to touch her arm, she was ashamed to feel tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.” Her throat already felt scratchy. She wiped her face, and when she raised her eyes again, Lark was watching her. Concern and kindness and all the things that should have been swept away with grief were still there in her face.
“We all deal with grief differently,” Lark said, squeezing her hand.
Daja laughed through her tears, though in truth she only wanted to cry more. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be comforting you. I’m sorry. I just didn’t—”
She hadn’t known what to say. She still didn’t.
The hug was warm and soft, for all that there was a fence between them. Daja let herself cry a little while Lark’s hand made soothing motions on her back. Even that was too much, and Daja couldn’t hold the words back any longer, found them tumbling out of her:
“It’s my fault,” she said, sobbing. “I thought—I thought things were different. But I did this, all of it. I’m still trangshi; I always have been.”
Third Ship Kisubo.
Ben.
Rosethorn.
Tris.
“No, Daja,” said Lark.
“Yes. The worst kind of luck. I’m sorry. It’s all my fault,” she said, pulling away. Her staff still leaned against the fence. She left it.
“Daja!”
She ignored Lark’s calls, ignored everyone until she had left temple grounds. Her nose and throat felt blocked, her skin warm. She kept walking. If she kept walking, maybe death would leave her, just as the dead had.
North of Hajra
Sotat
The sun shone spots through his closed eyelids, warmed him slightly too much in the narrow bed by the window. He had heard Evvy rise hours ago, moving around the room and whispering—to Luvo, he assumed—before disappearing somewhere.
He planned to catch as much sleep as he could. The cloying scent of incense crept under the covers with him at night, the sound of bells echoing in his dreams—
Briar opened his eyes and pushed himself up onto his elbows. It seemed he couldn’t even escape some images during the day. He wanted to forget.
With a yawn that cracked his jaw, he rolled over, only to yelp when something rough and pokey met his side. Somethings, he corrected himself, sweeping back the sheet and scowling at the stones piled in his bed. He didn’t know what they were supposed to mean; they looked like rocks to him.
“Evvy!” he yelled, not really expecting her to answer.
He picked them up all up and deposited them on the wobbly table next to his bed, then washed his face. His shirt was not one of Sandry’s, and held all its stains and smells, but it was the only one he had left.
The woman who ran the inn nodded at him when he got downstairs. His stomach grumbled, unhappy at missing breakfast, and he was just considering going to beg something from the cook when he looked up and saw someone very familiar.
Crane was talking with a stableboy, gesturing with one hand, his other tapping an impatient, long-fingered rhythm on the table he was seated at. When he looked over and caught Briar’s gaze, his face betrayed nothing, except for a small pinch between his pale eyebrows.
Briar realised that he had been standing frozen, one hand still on the banister. Since he could not seem to move, Crane stood and came over to him.
They were almost of a height, now. Briar found that his mouth would not open, not unless he wanted to cry in front of this man, which he did not.
Briar had been expecting someone from Winding Circle, but he had not anticipated Crane, or this feeling of—what? Relief: that was the closest he could even begin to describe it. For all that Crane was a tiresome know-it-all, he was familiar enough for all their past run-ins to not matter a bit.
Crane had been looking him over while his thoughts knocked about. He made no move to touch him, but asked, “The girl?”
“She’s here.” Briar licked his lips, finding his mouth suddenly dry. Life had become so like his night terrors that he could no longer tell the difference, but Crane was standing in front of him now, and though it meant that Rosethorn was not, at least it was real.
“I’m taking you home,” said Crane.
Tharios, capital of the city-state of Tharios
On the Ithocot Sea
She had grown accustomed to the room, with its sturdy furniture and silver spells painting the walls. When first exploring the streets of Tharios, she had noticed immediately the way the city’s charms and spells had radiated with power throughout their silvery layers, luck and health, and plenty more besides.
But there were no spells in this room to hold her.
She had been refused visitors, and deduced what that meant. The Keepers of the Public Good would make a decision—a decision about her—that Niko would not like. She already knew that she would not like it.
Perhaps she had done wrong, killing the Ghost, perhaps not. It had felt right. Tris shook her head, braids tapping against her neck. The city of Tharios would not judge it right, however, and that was where the problem lay. An eye for an eye: that was what they would say, no matter how many women the Ghost had killed. She would have to pay for his murder.
The ribbon went over her head after only a few tangles with her hair. She balanced the medallion on her palm, turning it this way and that, admiring the sheen on it. She rarely thought of it when it was hanging around her neck, but still she was finding it difficult to part with. The edges were inscribed with hers and Niko’s names. She turned the medallion in her hands to read them. Niko would worry about her; she would send word to him, eventually.
There was no need for silly feelings about a bit of metal.
She left the medallion on the table, fingers already working at a braid as she walked towards the door.