Book Fifteen

Murder Under Violet Skies

“The fires of industry burn cold on Valos. Thousands of years ago, Calis arrived in the skies above her, smashing one of her moons asunder and spilling the molten madness of the Reach upon her surface. The fragments of that catastrophe–pieces of Calis and Blackfang both–showered Valos in the mana-warped ice of space. Buried over the millennia, in the last few hundred years the potency of those ice crystals began to come to light, and the rush to dig them up fuelled exploration and wars across the Songs. The way they absorb and store energy makes them perfect for turning wheels and cogs and, while their outputs vary from crystal to crystal, the largest and most potent have been used to create some wondrous machines.”

“Fascinating,” Ravi Matrya says, watching the blue crystal turning in its cradle. Iron spikes emerge from four of its facets and attach to a toothed ring around it, which turns a pair of cogs on either side. The machinery expands out from there, losing Ravi in its complexity.

“It’s from one of my father’s books,” Glitter says, his voice going a little higher as he finishes his perfect quote. “He had a lot about crystals. They were his work, until he found me.”

“Is everything alright?” says a frightfully skinny man in a dark blue uniform that doesn’t fit him. His hat declares him the conductor of the train, but the way he wrings his hands and fusses with his grey moustaches suggest he isn’t confident in it. Unlikely though it seems, his name is Matteus Flamesbane. “Only the sergeant said you knew a thing or two about machines, and we’re not starting properly. We’ve had to use the steam engine to get going the last few stops, and our engineer got drunk and fell off the back of the train in Frosthold so we’re in a bit of a muddle. The Sultan of the Rails won’t be happy if we get back to Ragg…” he casts his eyes in either direction and lowers his voice, “late.” It comes out as a hiss.

“Umm…” Glitter says. His light pulses into the internals of the engine, ricocheting through gears and axles. The rhythmic clank and shudder of the train settles over the cab and lingers. “Oh,” Glitter says. “I’m afraid everything isn’t alright. The workings are so worn out!”

Matteus winces. “Can you… can you do anything?”

“I think so!” Glitter says, voice chipper. “I used to build rockets all the time.”

“They didn’t work, though,” Ravi points out.

Glitter draws himself a hurt expression. “I had limited resources.”

Matteus takes off his hat and wipes his brow, a smile lifting his moustache. “I’m not rightly sure what a rocket is, but if you can help, I’d greatly appreciate it. Usually the World Force are a lot less approachable.”

“Oh, we’re not really World Force,” Ravi says. “We’re just assisting the sergeant.”

“Nevertheless, I thank you.”

“I can’t work on it while we’re moving, though,” Glitter says. “How long until we reach Horologium?”

“It’ll be tomorrow morning, I’m afraid. Still, no more stops now between here and the capital. Just wind and sand.”

“That’s okay,” Glitter says. “I can map out the structure of the engine and make a list of things I need. Does the engineer have a store on board I can look through?”

“Oh of course,” Matteus says, gesturing back down the train. “It’s in the boiler room.”

Ravi leaves Glitter to his work and wanders back through the burning heart of the train to the coal car. A ladder takes him to the gangway that traverses the massive bucket of fuel, but he stops halfway across to stare out over the desert. The wind flings sand at him while the sun beams down through the Resplendence, fracturing the sky and enveloping the barren land in soft purple. He grips the rail and feels the bounce of the train, listens to the hiss of smoke and steam and the clicker-clack of the rails gliding by beneath them.

“You really like trains, huh?” Vale says. “Weird.”

“I do,” Ravi says. “I didn’t know that I would. Not for sure. But it was a dream I shared with my sister. We wanted to ride a train together.”

“Where is she?”

“She died,” Ravi says. “A long time ago.”

“Oh. How?”

“She was taken by an evil spirit.” Ravi finds he is gripping the rail a little harder. “I couldn’t save her.”

“Pretty cool way to go,” Vale says, then meets Ravi’s incredulous look. “What?”

“You really don’t see it?”

“Oh. Was that insensitive?”

“Yes!”

“Right. Sorry.” With an effort, she makes her hands ‘real’ enough to lean against the rail next to Ravi. She is getting better at that, but she still passes through things at least half the time. “Geez, there is so much to remember about talking to people.”

“Most people don’t have to remember that other people have feelings, Vale.”

“I’m not most people, remember?” She sighs, though the air does not stir. “I’m sorry, about your sister.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ravi says, looking back to the desert and letting the rumbling anger drift away with the sands. “It’s a shame Glitter’s so scared of you. I think he’d find it encouraging to know there are people worse at socialising than him.”

“Now who’s being insensitive?” Vale says with a smirk. “‘You’re worse at being human than a sentient crystal from space’ is hardly a compliment.”

“Sorry. But I meant that you might be able to help each other.”

“I told you not to try and change me, Master,” Vale says, losing her smile.

“I’m not. I’m just making a suggestion. Just because you’re my…”

“Tool.”

Ravi winces. “Doesn’t mean you aren’t still your own person. I won’t try to force you to change, but I’m also not going to deny you chances to change yourself.”

Vale turns away, then shrugs uncomfortably.

“Everybody changes, Vale. In small ways and large. It’s part of living. I’m not saying you need to, but I’m a very different person from when I started this journey. From the boy who talked excitedly about trains with his sister. I’d be surprised if you’re the same person you were the day you died.”

“Not much changes with me,” Vale says. “The world still looks the same as it did yesterday.”

“Well. Can you at least stop calling me ‘master’? People might get the wrong impression.”

“Of course, Master,” Vale says with a smirk.

Ravi just rolls his eyes.

The sun is setting, and with its surrender comes the blessed release of night. Raith Ixel watches with her hand shading her eyes as its light sneaks beneath the Resplendence to paint the sand orange. The bumps in the track set her body swaying and she feels too drained to fight it, so she wavers in her seat as though she is at sea. There is a glass of water on the table in front of her, but the three she has already consumed have not defeated her nausea, and the waft of alcohol and peals of laughter that roll through the carriage are so potent that she can barely smell the other passengers’ blood.

At least the company is good. Rolleck the Lost is a man who knows how to create a comfortable silence. He holds a book propped against his sword and uses his other hand to sip from his glass of whisky. He occasionally strokes his moustache in thought, then turns the page. Their table feels like an oasis of calm and decent rail travel. Few other tables can boast such, as the majority of their occupants are listening to Riyo Falsemoon, who is standing on the bar.

“You can never find what you need at the bazaar, can you? It’s bizarre.”

“Boo!” one of the passengers yells, while the others laugh.

“Boo? What are you, a ghost? I met a ghost, once, you know. He tried to sell me a fake mana gem, but I saw right through him.”

Raith sees Rolleck wince.

“Honestly, though. Ghosts are no joke. Toughest gig I ever did was to a bunch of ghosts. I died on my arse, but they expected me to keep going. That’s the undead for you, eh?”

That one got a pretty small chuckle, so Riyo mentally crossed it from her list.

“Hey, what do you call a waterproof ghost? A caghoul!”

She takes a swig of her beer, hoping it will encourage the audience to remember their own drinks. They seem to laugh more the more they drink.

The train stretches out through the sunset like a snake, capturing the last of the warmth before its blood cools. Sleeper cars pad out the bulk of its length, some passengers already retiring into the quiet lull after dinner. The last few cars bulge with cargo and luggage, rickety crates sharing space with thrice locked chests, all casting shadows into the corners that grow deeper as the light fades.

At the caboose is a carriage left completely empty: no seats, no passengers, no freight. Just bare wooden floor and the sound of the train. Emerald leans against a rail outside this car, watching the tracks flee beneath her, only to be replaced by more. Next to her sits a little girl with eyes the size of the train’s wheels. She has followed Emerald out here and has neither looked away nor blinked in the last half an hour. Emerald has been ignoring her, but this is not the comfortable solitude she had been hoping for when she came back here.

“Are you a dragon?” she says.

Emerald stares down at her and she shuffles back, clinging to the opposite railing but still staring, mouth agape.

“That took you half an hour to come up with?”

“Are you?”

“Yes.” Emerald turns back to the empty desert.

“Wow.”

Some more time passes, and Emerald considers giving up on solitude and returning to the sidelong fears of the other passengers.

“My daddy said he met a dragon before, but mummy said they’re not real.”

“I’m real,” Emerald says. “But your daddy’s dragon might not be. Lots of people lie about dragons.”

“Why?”

“Because dragons are strong. Fearsome. People claim they have survived, or even bested us, because they think it will make them appear strong.”

“My daddy says he beat a dragon.”

“You see-”

“At cards.”

Emerald glances back at the girl. “That’s a new one. Dragons aren’t known for being good card players.”

“He says the dragon was really bad at cards. He won a shiny scale and he gave it to me ‘cause he said it would protect me but mummy told him to stop making things up so I,” she stops to take a quick breath, “wanted to ask you if it was real which is why I followed you but then it was hard ‘cause…” She realises she has spilled everything, and her voice goes quiet again. Her big eyes seem to shimmer. “’cause you look strong. An’ fearsome.”

Emerald bursts out laughing, making the girl jump back. She folds her wings in close so that she can sit down cross-legged in front of the child, still chuckling.

“Thank you,” she says. “I needed that.” She holds out her hand. “What is your name?”

“Guinevere. Guinevere Copperwright.”

“My name is Emerald. Show me your charm, Guinevere Copperwright, and I can tell you if it is truly a dragonscale.”

The little girl smiles like the midday sun and plucks something sparkly from somewhere in her fancy dress. She lays it reverentially in Emerald’s palm.

It is golden.

Emerald blinks, her heartbeat rising. It is probably a fake, made to look convincing to human eyes, and yet… the weight of it… She taps it against the palm of her other hand. It doesn’t feel like gold. She gradually increases the pressure of her claw, waiting for the metal to bend, but it resists.

“Is it…?” Guinevere says.

“There is one last test,” Emerald says, standing and turning her back on the train. She finds her hand is shaking. “If it can withstand my flame, then it is a true scale. If it is a fake, it will melt away.”

“Oh.” Guinevere glances back at the door. “Only my daddy gave it to me… It… It might protect me even if it is fake, since it’s got his love in it. Right?”

Emerald’s excitement fades, and she smiles. “Of course.” She offers the scale back to Guinevere, who reaches out, then stops and shakes her head.

“Daddy wouldn’t lie to me.”

“If you’re sure,” Emerald says. “And you’re not just saying that because you want to see me breathe fire.”

“No!” Guinevere stamps her foot. “I believe my daddy.”

“I think I believe him, too.” Emerald stretches out her arm and breathes a current of pink flame across her palm. She is capable of burning through dragonscale with her cowl alight, but the soft, dancing light that rolls out into the desert dusk is just enough to melt anything that might seek to imitate.

The light fades, and the twilight swoops back darker than it was before. Emerald lowers her hand so they girl can see and shares her grin over the shining scale.

“A true, golden dragonscale.”

“Oh thank you!” Guinevere jumps up to hug Emerald around the neck. “Ouch! Your scales are hard.”

“Hard enough to withstand almost anything,” Emerald says as the girl lets go. “But.” She sits down again and holds the scale up, pinched between her foreclaws. “A dragon’s claws can pierce another’s scales.” She squeezes, carefully increasing the pressure until she feels the very point of her claw pierce the scale.

“Wah!” Guinevere jumps up to grab it off her, but Emerald raises her other hand to halt her.

“It’s just a small hole,” she says, demonstrating. “But with a little help…” She plucks a seed from her pouch and holds it on her palm next to the scale, whispering it to wakefulness. Tendrils of Spring’s life break from the seed and twist through the hole in the scale, then droop from Emerald’s palm like falling ivy. The two ends clasp together in a simple twist, then the plant grows darker, until it’s green is almost train track grey, its leaves flush black with the oncoming night.

“Wirevine,” Emerald says. “Stronger than the ropes that hold a galleon’s sails against the wind.” She shows Guinevere the way the ends twist and untwist, then puts it around the girl’s neck.

She stares down at it with unabashed awe.

“So now you’re protected threefold: a dragon’s might, a dryad’s magic, and a father’s love.”

“You’re the best, Emerald!” Guinevere shrieks, hugging her again.

“And now,” Emerald says. “I was hoping you could introduce me to your father. Humans have tales of dragons, but we dragons have tales of our own, and a golden scale is a rare thing indeed. I’d like to ask him about it.”

“Okay! I can’t wait to show him my necklace!”

The stomp of boots precedes the rattle of chains in a slow, steady rhythm that mocks the rush of the train. The groaning heat of the boiler room hisses steam through rattling turbines, hiding the soft sound of well-oiled leather and the creaking sway of a heavy scabbard. The door opens and closes, and the man leaning on his coal shovel breathes a sigh of relief before checking his pocket watch.

“Later than I thought,” he mumbles.

“Time to switch.” The voice caresses his ear, making him jump and shiver.

“Right,” he says, wiping sweat from his brow. “Right.”

“Umm… The leftmost bracket has worn down too,” Glitter says. “But it will hold out until the train gets back to Ragg.”

“I see, I see,” Matteus says, scribbling in a notepad. “That’s quite a list. I’m not sure how much of it we can actually get at the Horologium station, but I’m sure operations will see the necessity of at least some of it.”

The door of the cab opens, letting some of the new-born night in.

“The hour is at hand,” a deep, careful voice says. “Timing is everything. You know that, conductor.”

Glitter turns his attention to regard the huge man who has joined them. He has had to lean down to get through the door, and his head almost brushes the ceiling. He wears a cap similar to Matteus’, but there is a silver crescent moon on its badge. A set of chains is wrapped around his waist and a thick-bladed sword hangs from them. His strength is palpable and uncomfortable, and his stubbled face is mean despite his measured words.

“Oh,” Matteus says, a tremor in his voice. “We were just discussing repairs…”

“Repairs?” the heavy-set man says, turning to Glitter and appraising him with serene charcoal eyes. “We are already delayed, conductor.”

“T-to be carried out during our stop in Horologium,” Matteus squeaks.

“The engineer is gone. He disembarked at Westunnel. There can be no repairs.”

“He… disembarked? I thought you said he got drunk and fell off…”

“That’s right.” The man’s tone remains the same. “He fell.”

“Uh. Yes. Well. A World Force officer stopped us to request transport and-”

“We are even further behind schedule?”

“I’m afraid so.” Matteus tries to loosen his collar, although it is already more than an inch too big for him. “Only a matter of a few minutes…”

The man takes a step forward, and for a moment Glitter feels a sickly menace crawling inside his chassis. Then it is gone.

“Night has fallen, conductor.”

“Yes. Yes. Of course. Come, Glitter. Let’s let the night warden do his job.” He pats Glitter on the side and makes for the door. Glitter hesitates a moment, then follows. He remains aware of the large man’s perfect stillness until he is outside the door and his sense of the cab becomes fuzzy.

Matteus lets out a shaky breath. “Garth. The night warden. He and his… team… look over the train during the night. He can be a little… stern.”

“He’s scary,” Glitter says.

“He’s right, though. The Sultan hates a late train. He will already know of our delays so far. If we don’t make it up somehow… Well. Even Garth wouldn’t want to cross the Sultan of the Rails.”

“I thought conducting a train would be a fun job,” Glitter says.

“Oh, it is. I’m not too worried. There’s a lot of track between here and Ragg. Cut a few stops short here, push the train a little harder there… A lot of ways to make up lost time. We just have to hope there are no further problems.”

“Uh oh.” Glitter draws on his squiggly worried mouth. “That sounds like something Riyo would say right before-”

A scream echoes out over the clatter of the train.

Riyo is aware her ad-lib set is not going too well, but she didn’t think it warranted that. Everybody has turned to look at the back of the carriage where the door bursts open to reveal a distraught woman.

“Somebody help me! A doctor. Please! It’s my husband!”

People crowd between the tables, trying to get a look at who is shouting and why. The hubbub quickly overtakes the urgency as people ask loud questions and start trying to find out if their travel companions have any medical training.

Riyo takes a moment to realise that she does not have a healer on her own team yet, and then decides to use her tenuous power over the crowd as their sort-of entertainment to bring order to the rising chaos.

“Shut up!” she yells over their heads, waving her arms to draw their attention back to the bar. “Sit down!”

A surprising number of people obey, and those not inclined to find themselves singled out as parts of the problem rather than the solution and hasten their embarrassed returns to their places.

“I am a doctor,” a short, round man close to the bar says into the new quiet. He is wearing round spectacles close to the tip of his nose, and the rose of his cheeks suggests he has had a whiskey or two to help him survive Riyo’s comedy. Nevertheless, his silvery moustache and balding pate speak to his experience, and nobody with a lower blood-alcohol content steps forward to supersede his claim.

He begins to waddle down the train towards the woman standing by the door. She is finely dressed, with pearls at her throat and her raven hair tied into fashionable braids that form a crown around her head. She is breathing hard, and there is an unbound fear leaking from her eyes that puts Riyo on edge. She catches Raith’s eye and tilts her head in that direction.

Ex-sergeant Ixel nods and pulls her defunct badge from her pocket. Rolleck the Lost stands too, adjusting his wolf pelt. Neither of them needs to say anything, as their marks of office do their speaking for them.

The next carriage is reserved for the highest paying guests. A corridor one-person-wide threads down one side, allowing space for three expansive cabins that each contain two small bedrooms and a well-furnished seating area. Rolleck gives his best glare to the bravest busybody who attempts to follow him out of the dining car. The door he slams closed in their face remains closed, and they follow the ambling doctor to the last room.

The doctor’s hazy expression sharpens at the scene inside, and he pushes his glasses up his nose and hurries in. The distraught woman is knelt beside a man in a sharp suit who is slumped over on the table in the centre of the room. His jet-black hair is shot through with a single streak of white above his left temple, and his angular jaw is slack.

“Please,” the woman sobs. “He’s not breathing.”

With some effort, the doctor props the man up in his seat carefully and checks his pulse. Rolleck glances the windows, but both are closed. The last remnants of sunlight sparkle amidst the sand of the twilight desert outside, extending for miles into nothing. He walks over to one of the bedroom doors, wires tightening in his arm as his heart rate rises. It opens onto a dim space dominated by a pair of beds and another firmly-closed window. Rolleck checks under each bed but finds nothing.

“What are you doing?” the woman asks as he emerges, apparently just now noticing that Rolleck and Raith came in with the doctor.

“He is dead,” the doctor says. “I am sorry. There is nothing I can do.”

“What? No!” The woman grabs him, tears spilling from her eyes. “Save him!”

“Madam, he has been dead for several hours. Nothing could save him.”

“That… that’s not true! I spoke to him half an hour ago! Less! He…”

The doctor glances back at the body, uneasy. “But…”

“How did he die?” Raith asks while Rolleck checks the other bedroom.

“It looks like his heart failed,” the doctor says. He checks the man’s eyes again, then feels his skin. “He is cold. The stiffness of death is beginning to take hold.”

Raith’s nose twitches and she scowls with distaste before approaching the body. She checks his neck, turning his head with care. She sniffs again and undoes the top three buttons of his shirt. He was quite well built, with a broad, muscular chest, the left side of which is marred by a single red spot, like a pin-prick. She brushes her fingers over it and crumbles the coagulated blood away from the tiny wound.

“What are you doing to him?” the woman wails. “Who are you?”

Raith shows her badge, the World Force logo gleaming in the light of a mana-infused diamond lamp on the table.

“I’m afraid your husband has been murdered, Mrs…?”

Her features are stilled by shock. She looks like she might answer, but then crumples into a broken sob.

“It’s Mrs Angela Copperwright,” the doctor says quietly. “This man is Trade Prince Thaddeus Copperwright.” He is now stone-cold sober, his crystal-blue eyes fixed on the crying woman before him.

Raith sucks air past her teeth. “Oh.”

Rolleck checks the door of the room. Mrs. Copperwright’s key is still in the outside of the lock. Mr. Copperwright’s key lies on the table beside the documents he was looking over when he fell forward upon them.

“We should contact the guard,” Raith says, voice gentle. “Whoever did this is probably still on board.”

“What is happening here?”

The nasal voice belongs to a wiry man wearing thin, square spectacles and with his dark hair in a tail that falls halfway down his back. His blue uniform marks him a member of the train’s staff, but unlike other members of staff Rolleck has seen, he is armed. A pair of daggers hang in sheaths at his waist, and the way he holds himself hints at a strength that makes Rolleck’s sword hum and his eye begin to throb.

Raith holds up her badge. “There has been a murder on your train.”

“Nonsense,” the man says, face hard. “Our trains are the safest way to travel across the Songs.” He steps past Raith and leans over Mr. Copperwright. “This man has had a heart attack.” He turns back to them. “Get out of this room.”

Raith narrows her eyes. “No.”

“You will get out, sergeant.” He places a hand on one of his daggers. “You have been allowed onto this train by the good will of the daytime staff, along with your entourage. This decision can be rescinded on review by the night warden, and I am his chief of security, Elemus Fetch. Consider that before you open your mouth again.”

“I shall be returning to the dining car then,” the doctor says stiffly, waddling to the door.

“Of course, you will keep this unfortunate incident quiet, doctor Mildjum. We would not want to cause a stir among the passengers.”

“Ah, of course,” the doctor says.

Raith looks to Mrs. Copperwright, who is still curled in on herself, staring morosely at her late husband. She seems fragile and dead to what is happening around her, and Raith does not want to leave her alone with this man.

Rolleck puts a hand on her shoulder.

Fetch smirks as Raith’s shoulders slump and she follows Rolleck out of the room.

“We need to talk before we do anything rash,” the police officer says as they walk down the corridor.

“I know,” Raith says, but her anger is in her voice. She has failed enough people in the last few days to guilt her for the rest of her potentially immortal life.

Riyo has given up on comedy. What joviality had existed in the room before died as murmurs of worry and curiosity began to circulate the carriage. Her material might not be killer, but she at least has the instincts to read the room. Instead, she sits at one of the tables at the side of the room, nursing a drink and wondering.

“Um, hi,” someone says, dragging her unfocused eyes up from the surface of her beer.

A young man with red hair that practically glows in the lamplight is leaning against the chair on the other side of the table, smiling bashfully through his freckles. He is dressed in loose black clothing, but the way his side presses up against the chair reveals that there is something, maybe armour, beneath it. His uncertainty, the way his other hand lingers at his waist where a weapon might be concealed, and his rubbish outfit make Riyo immediately suspicious.

“Yes?”

“I just, um, wanted to talk to you for a moment. You know?”

“Why?”

“Uh.” he glances around. Nobody is paying him the least bit of attention. He lowers his voice and leans forward anyway. “You’re with the police guy and the World Force woman, right? You got on with them.”

“Yeah, they’re my friends. What’s this about?”

He slides into the seat opposite her and looks around again. “Could you keep your voice down a little?”

“Why? Everybody else is talking in groups in normal voices. Whispering just makes you look weird.”

The man blinks. “I… I never thought of it that way. Look, okay, I’m not very good at this yet. I’m still learning. The thing is, I’m,” he looks around again and leans as close as the table will allow before hissing, “an assassin.”

The door to the next carriage opens, and Raith and Rolleck return, followed by a gloomy looking member of staff with his cap shadowing his eyes.

“We are sorry for the disruption to your evening,” he says, his voice carrying through expectant silence with a touch of boredom to it. “One of our passengers had a minor health scare. A doctor has seen to him and assures us that his condition is not life-threatening, and that resting in his cabin is the best course for him.”

“That’s not true,” Raith says, sitting down beside the young man and effectively trapping him against the window. “A trade prince has been assassinated.”

Rolleck sits down beside Riyo and scowls across at Raith, then gestures at the stranger with his head. Riyo is just staring at him.

“Oh,” Raith says. “Who are you?”

“I’m, uh, no one,” he says.

“He’s an assassin,” Riyo says.

“Please keep your voice down,” he whines.

“Oh,” Raith says, turning in her seat to face him.

“Okay. I know this looks bad.”

“Just a bit,” Riyo says. “But why did you even tell me that?”

“I need to deliver a message on behalf of my mentor,” he reaches into one of his pockets and pulls out a folded piece of thick, luxurious paper. “I’m with the guild, you see, but I’m just a trainee.”

Raith snatches the paper from his hand and unfolds it.

“Oh, I used to visit the Assassins’ Guild all the time,” Riyo says. “How’s Master Violante?”

“Um, grumpy, mostly, I think. His back aches worst around this time of year.”

“This document certifies that Trade Prince Thaddeus Copperwright and family are, with no exceptions, protected from Guild contracts against them. It’s signed T. Violante.”

“My mentor and I were supposed to deliver that to Mr. Copperwright. He just paid for it.”

“That seems extremely convenient, considering it clearly has not been delivered yet and Mr. Copperwright has been assassinated in the cleanest and most professional hit I’ve ever seen.” Raith places the letter carefully on the table in front of the assassin. “Where is this mentor of yours?”

“I, uh, that is, I’m sure she’s-”

“You don’t know.”

“Well, not as such, no. She said something was off and went to look into it. That was an hour ago. But… but she knows about the exemption.”

“Yet she left it here,” Rolleck says quietly. “With you.”

“She’s an honourable assassin!” he says, a little too loud, then winces and lowers his voice too much. “She follows the rules. People who don’t get a taste of their own poison. That’s just the way our organisation works! It’s actually really stressful when you’re not sure you even know all the rules yet.”

“I believe him,” Riyo says before Raith can turn her scowl into words. “Obviously people find it really hard to trust a bunch of professional killers, so they’re really strict on their rules. They’re a bit like the thieves in that.”

“The last thief we fell in with left us to die in a cave,” Rolleck says. “I’m convinced Colourful saw that map from somewhere and snuck out without telling us.”

“Of course,” Raith says, covering her eyes for a moment. “I did wonder how you found the dumb ruins so quickly.”

“Colourful didn’t technically break the deal,” Riyo says. “We got the map and he just got to see it. That was the agreement. He didn’t say he’d help us fight, and it’s our fault we broke the map.”

“You’re defending him?”

“He’s a jerk, don’t get me wrong,” Riyo says. “But he stuck to the deal. The assassins are the same–they might find a way around something, but they’ll stick to the letter at least. This contract was agreed. The fact that it was in transit means it was paid for. That it wasn’t physically delivered yet isn’t a big enough loophole for Ginger’s mentor to avoid an assassination of her own if she did kill that guy.”

“So there are actually two mysterious killers on this train,” Raith says. She turns to Ginger. “What’s your mentor’s name?”

“Frostbite,” Ginger says.

“That’s not a name.”

“Well obviously.” Ginger looks at Raith like she’s stupid, but her expression makes him wilt. “Sorry. But we’re assassins. We don’t go by our real names, even with each other. My name is Shadowslice.”

“Your name is Ginger,” Riyo says before turning to Rolleck with a glint in her eye. “You know what this is?”

“Another awful situation we’ve stumbled into?”

“A murder mystery! On a train!”

Rolleck sighs.

“Ravi and Glitter are going to love this. I’m going to find them. Raith, you talk to that doctor and see if he knows anything more about how the guy died. Rolleck, you find a way to talk to the lady again and find out if anybody else was in or out of his room. We’re right in the heart of the Glimmering Desert, weeks from anywhere on foot, so the killer is probably still on the train!” She hops up and jumps over Rolleck’s lap to get out. “Ginger, find your mentor. It sounds like she had a hunch about what’s going on.”

She darts off through the crowd towards the front of the train, leaving the three of them to stare after her.

“Why is she so into this?” Raith asks.

“She’s into everything,” Rolleck says. “She has trouble sitting still.”

“We probably should have told her what that Fetch guy said, then. Otherwise she’s going to end up on the wrong side of the night staff.”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” Rolleck says staring despondently up at the ceiling of the carriage. The mana gems lighting it are a soft sky blue because the clean white light of a mana diamond would be far too expensive, even for the Sultan of the Rails. “The killer didn’t take the mana diamond, so we can assume either they are already very rich, they are extremely disciplined, or they weren’t hired and had a personal or ideological motive.” He stands. “I suppose I’ll ask his wife if anybody would want him dead.”

Raith turns to Ginger. “Know of anything that would kill someone and make it appear like they died a few hours ago?”

“What? Um. No? No. There are a lot of poisons I don’t know about yet, though.”

“I’m sure.” She taps the table with a fingernail. The night is flushing her with a comfortable second wind, making her restless. “Go find your master.”

“Um, okay.” Ginger casts about the dining car for a moment before slipping from his seat. He moves as though he has something to hide.

Raith sighs, then makes her way over to the bar. Doctor Mildjum is sitting quietly at its far end, the window beside him now a square of rushing darkness. He grimaces as Raith sits beside him.

“I just want to keep my head down,” he says, finishing another whiskey.

“Sure,” Raith says. She nods to the barman and orders a pair of drinks. “I don’t, though. I want to make sure a murderer gets their due.”

“Very noble,” Mildjum accepts the new glass and raises it to his lips as if to throw it back in one go, then stops, sighs, and lowers it back to the bar. “I’ve never seen anything like it, okay?” he says. “I believe her that she saw him alive not long ago, but medically he’s been dead for hours. That’s all I can tell you.”

“What can you tell me about Copperwright himself?”

“What most people in this car could tell you,” Mildjum says. He does drink, this time, but slowly. “He was an ambitious man. Made his fortune in spices, of all things. He created a machine that refines them and spent years researching different kinds across all the Songs. Once he started bringing them together and blending them, he was off from strength to strength. The Culinarium signed an exclusive deal with him. A bunch of high-profile restaurants, too. He expanded into other areas, but mostly stuck with food. Nowadays, his blends flavour just about every meal in the central ten.”

“Any major rivals?”

“No. That was his route to success. Nobody had thought about spice on the scale he did before. He exposed and filled a gap in the market in one fell swoop.”

“His business seems like a dead end, then,” Raith says, taking a swig from her own glass. The whiskey is dark and earthy, hot in her throat.

“He was a nice man, by all accounts. No enemies in the political sphere. A respected family man. The Board of Unfettered Trade was happy to make him a prince.”

“Hmm,” Raith says. She finishes her drink. “Sometimes, nice men make bad men look ugly enough that they get resentful.”

“That’s a sad truth,” the doctor says.

“Well, thank you for your help,” Raith says.

“You should give this one up, sergeant,” he says. “There is too much you cannot see, here. Too much darkness to hide a blade.”

“Then by the Writ it’s my duty to bring light.” She stands. “Besides, I’m at my best in the darkness.”

She wanders back over to her table and leans against it, arms crossed and brow furrowed. The train staff’s response to this is not unusual–the Sultan has a reputation for hiding anything that might discourage rail travel. He’s the sort of man that the Copperwright’s of the world make look bad by their honesty and decency. Even so, they ought to be worried about a killer on the loose on the train. They might not want people to know about it, but they should be doing something about it to avoid having to cover up more killings. The man with his eyes shaded by his cap is still standing by the door out of the dining car, relaxed and inattentive. People pass the door unhindered, heading for their beds, while still others arrive in search of late meals and cold drinks to pass another night of travel.

It’s too good. The problem was contained within minutes. They are surely practiced at such deceptions, but Raith’s instincts tell her this isn’t ad-libbed. The train knew this was going to happen.

Rolleck the Lost is not sure he is in the right place. Logically, he must be. He is on a train, and they are known for being very linear in design. One car follows another follows another. The engine is at the front. There is a fuel car. Some cars for the staff. Some cars for catering. Then comes the dining car, followed by sleeper cars interspersed with lounge cars. If he were to, for example, leave the dining car to investigate a woman’s claims that her husband was in trouble, then return to the dining car to talk to Riyo, logic would dictate that when he walked back through the same door, he would enter the same car as before.

The car is empty. Just wooden floor and barred windows leading on to endless night. Rolleck scratches his moustache. He checks the next car and finds another first-class sleeper, set up identically to the one that is now empty. He knocks on the door of the last cabin, but Angela Copperwright is not in there. Instead, a bleary-eyed woman in a night dress answers, then blinks at his sword before backing away from the door.

“Excuse me,” Rolleck says, shifting his shoulder to highlight his pelt. “I appear to have the wrong cabin. Have a good evening.”

The woman nods carefully and closes the door, leaving Rolleck to frown around at the other doors in the car. He returns to the empty car and meets a family walking through it.

“Excuse me,” he says. “I’m looking for someone who should be in this car. Did you pass through here on the way to the dining car?”

“Uh, yes,” one of the men says. He glances around. “Yeah, there are empty cars spaced out all along the train. I think it’s for if there’s a fire, or something?”

“I see,” Rolleck says. “And this empty car was here when you came through earlier?”

“I mean, yes?”

It must have been,” the other man says, his hand resting on their child’s shoulder. “I don’t remember it specifically, but it’s not like it could have moved.”

“Right,” the first man says.

“Right,” Rolleck says. “Sorry. Thank you for your help. I must have had one too many whiskies. Have a good evening.”

“You too,” the man says, and they wander away into the next car.

Rolleck stares. He stares for a long time, his brow furrowed.

“Sir?” the guard from the dining car says.

Rolleck looks up. The man’s hair drifts out from under his cap in curls, but the brim comes down far too low. He’s clean shaven, and he’s wearing a uniform with a slack jacket whose sleeves falls down over his hands. He looks quite young.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, yes, fine,” Rolleck says. “But, uh, what number car is this?”

“This is car eighteen.”

“You see I thought for sure this was car seventeen,” Rolleck says.

The man shrugs. “Always been eighteen, sir. We have to have these empty cars to help contain fires, you see. A lot of people find themselves miscounting because of that.”

“I see. Thank you,” Rolleck says, then he stares at the empty car again.

Eventually, someone says, “Rolleck?”

He looks up to find Emerald standing beside him, a little girl clutching her leg.

“Do you remember this car being empty?”

Emerald looks around and shrugs. “There are a bunch of empty cars.”

“The next one along is the dining car,” Rolleck says.

“Uh huh,” Emerald says. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not sure,” Rolleck says.

“The next one isn’t the food one,” the girl pipes up, looking up at Emerald. “Mummy and Daddy are in the one before the food one.”

“Ah, you’re right,” Emerald says. She smiles down at the girl. “This is my friend Rolleck. He’s a policeman.” She looks back up. “This is Guinevere Copperwright.”

Rolleck blinks, then looks down at her. She backs up a little, hiding behind Emerald.

“I know he has a scary face,” Emerald says, “but he’s a good guy.”

Rolleck grits his teeth and looks away, unable to meet the little girl’s eyes. “Emerald…”

“Can we go and find Daddy now?”

Rolleck turns and marches towards the dining car, making Emerald blink.

“Rolleck?”

He slams through the door to find himself in another sleeper. He narrows his eyes, then strides up to the last cabin. His knock rings empty as Emerald and Guinevere catch up to him.

“This is our cabin,” Guinevere says. She pats her dress then pulls a big iron key from a pocket, running up to the door and pushing it in. It clicks loud, and the door falls open to her hands. The diamond mana lamp is still blazing on the table beside a pile of documents. The bedroom doors are closed.

“Mummy?” Guinevere says. “Daddy?”

She runs over to one of the bedrooms and opens it.

“Huh,” she says. “Daddy said he was going to work until bed time.”

“He’s dead,” Rolleck whispers, so that Emerald can hear but the girl cannot.

“What?” Emerald’s heart freezes in her chest. She turns. “Guinevere, wait in here for a second.” She pulls Rolleck out into the corridor and lets the door close.

“Thaddeus Copperwright was assassinated less than an hour ago. The night staff are covering it up.”

“By the Word. Poor Guinevere.” Emerald touches her chest, her soul still aching from her own father’s passing. She still hates that she had not spent his last few years with him, had not been able to stop her brother from killing him. But she, at least, had grown up beneath his wings. Known his love through to her adulthood. The heat of her pilot starts leaking between her teeth, making Rolleck flinch back.

“Where are the others?”

“Raith’s asking around. Riyo’s insistent we solve the mystery, but she’s just excited at the moment. If she meets Guinevere, she’ll stop the train dead and we won’t get under way again until she knows who did it.”

“Good,” Emerald says.

“I thought you might say that,” Rolleck says. “But we can be smarter than that.”

“Why?” Emerald growls. “Why should we?”

“Because the night staff are suspicious, and as soon as we do something overt, they’ll probably fight us. That’s their job.”

“And if they’re responsible?”

“At least one of them is a jackass, but that’s no reason to throw down with them before we can prove they’ve actually done anything wrong.”

Emerald growls again. “So what do I tell Guinevere?”

Rolleck lets out a sigh, then shakes his head. “I don’t know of a single way to tell a little girl her father is dead that doesn’t hurt, Emerald.”

“What of her mother?”

“I thought she was in her cabin. They must have moved her. We should make finding her the priority. Tell Guinevere we’ll help her find her mother. I do have some experience giving people bad news about their families. It always helps for them to be together. Bear it together.”

“Okay,” Emerald says, then glances out of the window. She blinks. “That’s not right.”

Rolleck follows her gaze. “Huh?”

“I just walked down most of the length of this train,” Emerald says. Outside, the track curls around a massive sand dune. She can see the engine. “It’s about fifty cars long. There should only be another twenty or so in front of us.”

“So why is the engine all the way over there?” Rolleck says. “Damnit. I knew I wasn’t going crazy.” He jogs to the other end of the car and peers through. Where the dining car should be is another empty space.

Emerald turns and opens the other door. The tracks stream away into the night behind them.

“Not again,” she says. “Not another magic train.”

Glitter is still not good at cards. The train’s day staff don’t play for high stakes, but even so he has already lost all the money Riyo gave him in Westunnel. Now he watches Ravi play. Vale is walking around the table, gesturing towards the other players and trying to give him signs that he is studiously ignoring.

She throws her hands up and wanders over to Glitter, slumping down in a chair beside him and making him shiver.

“What’s the point in having a massive advantage like me if you’re not going to use it to fleece idiots?” she mutters.

“Emerald says it’s ‘bad sportsmanship’,” Glitter says, swallowing his fear. Ghosts are just like normal people. Ghosts are just like normal people. Ghosts are just like-

Vale glares at him for a second then harrumphs, causing him to jitter nervously. “A vampire scribe, a scared robot, a goodie-no-shoes dragon. What kind of travelling circus is this?”

“What’s a circus?” Glitter says.

The table erupts in cheers, and Ravi gives an embarrassed smile, running his hand over his head feathers.

“Well played,” he says as one of the coal shovels drags the pot over in front of him.

“Always a pleasure to get a little richer,” the coal shovel says, then takes a swig of beer.

“Oh yeah,” Glitter says. “Who was the lady shovelling coal by herself for the night shift?”

Everybody shares stony looks, then turns their glare on Glitter.

“Ah, that’s a touchy subject,” Matteus says, coming over from his little desk in the corner of the car. “Only a few of the day staff can actually talk about her due to various, um, misunderstandings.”

Ravi raises an eyebrow, while Vale whispers, “Ooh, scandal.” She leans in close to Matteus.

“Did it just get a little colder?” he says.

“Maybe it’s just the topic of conversation,” Ravi says, shooting a look at Vale while Matteus is looking the other way. “Do you mean people physically can’t talk about her?”

“That’s right,” he says. “Avril is a lamia.”

“Oh wow!” Glitter says. “What’s a lamia?”

“They’re snake people,” Ravi says.

“That explains why she had a tail.”

“You didn’t think to ask this before if you saw she had a tail?”

“What? You’re the only person I’ve met with feathers.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” Ravi says, scratching his head. “Lamiae are really rare. I still don’t know why people wouldn’t be able to talk about her, though.”

“Lamiae carry a curse in their bloodline,” Matteus says. “They call it the kiss of silence. Sharing a kiss with one of their species makes you unable to speak of them again for as long as you live.”

Ravi turns to the card table. “So all of you…”

None of them will meet his eye.

“Wow,” Vale says, a little too loud.

Matteus glances towards her, his brow furrowed.

“She must be really pretty,” Glitter says.

“Oh, she is,” Matteus says. “When she looks at you with those eyes… well.” He clears his throat. “It’s a heady experience. If I weren’t married, I’m sure I would have fallen for her charms by now too.”

“Of course, some of these fine ladies and gents are also married,” the youngest member of the crew says. Alice is twelve and serving an apprenticeship as an engineer. Unfortunately, her mentor has disembarked under mysterious circumstances that may or may not have involved a fall. The crew glare at her.

“Now now, Alice,” Matteus says. “If you were a little older, there’s no saying you wouldn’t also be under her influence.”

“Yeah right. She’s a hag. I can see right through her.”

Even if someone had been able to argue with her, they would have been interrupted by Riyo. She bursts through the door with an angry cook clinging to the back of her shirt, which has the first few buttons undone. Her white leather trousers disappear into her crimson, fur-lined boots, and she strikes quite a figure with her sword at her hip and a wide grin on her face.

“Here you are,” she says.

“Miss! You can’t come back here. This area is for staff only,” the cook groans.

“Then why are my friends here?” Riyo says, gesturing at Glitter and Ravi.

“I… Ah. Conductor. Please tell this woman that this is a restricted area.”

One of the daytime guards glances towards Matteus, but he shakes his head. The man takes his hand off his baton and relaxes back into his seat.

“She’s part of the World Force group,” he explains. “I’m sorry for any inconvenience she has caused you, but please allow her through.”

The cook glares at Riyo, then turns back towards the kitchen cars. Riyo sticks her tongue out at the man’s back, then says, “Guess what? There’s been a murder!”

“What?” Matteus says, frowning. The other members of the day staff look uncomfortably towards one another.

“Some important guy was assassinated, and it’s up to us to figure out who dunnit!”

“Um, why is it up to us?” Ravi says.

“Because I say so,” Riyo says. There is a powerful glint in her eye. “Think about it! A murder mystery on a train deep in the desert. We have only eight hours before we arrive in Horologium, where the killer could escape and be lost forever. It’s right out of a novel. Come on. Let’s go!”

“Ohhh, the Sultan is not going to be happy about this,” Matteus says. He stands up and casts about, fretting. He turns back to Riyo. “I’m sorry, young lady, but you need to leave this to the night staff.”

“Can’t do that,” Riyo says. “They’re covering it up!”

“Th-they are?” He shakes his head. “Of course. Of course. They wouldn’t want to alarm the passengers. I’m sure they’re doing everything they can to locate and incapacitate the killer. The night staff are strong and competent rail officers. I’m sure they will be able to get it under control.” His reassuring smile is wonky as a derailed train.

Riyo narrows her eyes. “As a concerned passenger, I’d like you to talk to the night warden about it, if that’s alright?”

“He’s scary,” Glitter says, slipping a little snow from his shoulder and moulding it into a little Garth. Broad shouldered and slab faced, the sculpture doesn’t really capture the imposing nature of the man Glitter had seen. Even so, his thick sword drags at the chains around his waist.

“The night warden can be a little… intimidating,” Matteus agrees. “But he’s good at his job. I trust him with the train every night and nothing has gone wrong for the whole two years we’ve been partnered together.”

“Except for Trent,” Alice says. “And apparently a bunch of other members of staff and passengers who’ve gone missing.”

“Alice!” Matteus snaps. “I know you’re worried about your mentor, but Trent has been unreliable in the past.”

“He’s a drunk, but he’s never managed to fall off. Even when he was clambering about underneath the train while it was moving, boozed up to his eyeballs.”

“That’s really suspicious,” Ravi says.

“Uh huh,” Riyo says. “Maybe I should talk to this Garth guy myself.”

Matteus pinches the bridge of his nose. “Please. I appreciate you offering to help with the maintenance of the train, but its running and organisation are the responsibility of the staff.”

He shuffles over towards his desk, and when Riyo takes another step forward a few of the day guards stand up and reach for batons.

“I will speak to the night warden,” Matteus says. “But for now, I will have to ask you to return to the passenger cars.”

Vale leans over towards Ravi. “I’ll stay. See what happens.”

“Thanks,” Ravi whispers, then takes Riyo by the arm. “Come on.”

“Thank you for the game of cards,” Glitter says brightly as he waddles over to the door. The train wasn’t quite designed for his bulk, but he is able to shuffle sideways into the next car.

“I am still suspicious,” Riyo declares to the room at large, before letting Ravi lead her back out into the kitchen. “I’m still suspicious,” she says to Ravi.

“I know. But we’re not far out from Horologium. Maybe we should just keep our heads down, for once?”

“But…”

“Sure, the night staff are apparently weirdos, but that doesn’t mean they’re up to something hokey.”

“It doesn’t feel right, Ravi,” Riyo says. “It’s a train mystery.” She sounds sulky.

“Sometimes, it’s up to other people to solve train mysteries.”

The dining car has grown raucous again now that their fears have been allayed. The clatter of plates and the roar of conversation are still underpinned by the rattle of the train tracks beneath them. Riyo spots Raith at a table and beckons her over. Glitter will have a hard time getting through the packed car and has no chance of finding a comfortable spot by a table.

“What did you learn?” Riyo says.

“Nothing good,” Raith says. “I think the night staff are involved in the murder itself, not just covering it up.”

Riyo gives Ravi an I-told-you-so smile.

“Why?” Ravi says.

“Because they were too quick. They weren’t just ready to cover up something bad, they were ready for these exact circumstances. And now Rolleck’s gone missing. The guy’s wife, too. All the rooms in the next car are empty.”

“We haven’t seen Emerald for a while, either,” Glitter says, drawing a squiggly-mouthed worry face.

“Those two between them could blow this entire train apart,” Riyo says. “No way they got taken out without us noticing. Not by force, anyway.” She glances around. “Gravity Mould.”

Her eyes spring wide and she whispers her reality closed again. “There’s a crafter on board. Their reality’s covering at least the whole of this car, possibly the whole train.”

“That guy on the door,” Raith says. “He reacted when you opened your reality. Don’t look.”

“Glitter?” Riyo says.

“He’s really fidgety,” Glitter says. “Oh. He’s leaving.”

Raith looks up in time to see the man slide into the next car.

“I’m going after him,” she says.

“Wait,” Riyo says, but she’s gone. Her passage disturbs a number of glasses and plates on the tables she leaps between, but nobody in the car is quick enough to see her. She touches down as soft as a bird’s perch and hauls the door open.

The car is empty. And not just of people, but of everything.

Ravi wonders if he can do that, too. He’d been fast enough to react to Raith back when she’d fought them in Westunnel. Perhaps he could flit through the train without being seen, too? He decides he is not confident enough to try it, and instead follows Riyo as she bullies her way through the busy dining car by stubbornly headbutting anyone who won’t move out of her way.

“Oh,” she says, peering past Raith. “Wait, this car definitely wasn’t empty before, right?”

“No.”

“Magic train!”

“You got run over by the last magic train we were on,” Ravi says, turning back to the dining car. His eyes flutter from face to face, capturing the little details in the passengers’ expressions. He has to admit, he is a little intrigued and excited by the prospect of a murder mystery on a train. He spent too many years camping outside Fefille with little to do but watch the road. A handful of times he’d met travellers who were willing to trade freshly caught game for books, and their pages had been a small solace in the monotony of his vigil. If those stories of conspiracy and derring-do taught him anything, it’s that everyone is a suspect.

His eyes catch on someone else’s. A woman is watching him with an intensity that burns him from a casual glance. It hits him so quickly that his attention is already moving on, and when he looks back, he can’t find her. He’s left with only an impression of terrible cold, of blue as hazy and ephemeral as ice that skins the surface of a deep and eerie lake.

“Well that settles it,” Riyo says. “I’m going to talk to this night warden character.”

“Yeah,” Raith says, then looks to Ravi. “Your Trait seems quite strong. Do you think you can shut down that crafter?”

Ravi looks around at the empty car and sucks his teeth. “I have no idea what his reality actually does.”

“He’s swapping cars around, somehow,” Riyo says. “Or at least moving the things inside them.”

“I can resist things that affect me and destroy things created by a reality, but if he’s only affecting the train… I’m not sure what my curse breaker can do.”

“He probably won’t be able to affect cars you’re in,” Riyo says.

“But if he can move all the ones around the one I’m in, then there’s not much difference.”

“Oh,” Riyo says. “Yeah.” She scratches her head. “So if this crafter doesn’t want us talking to the night warden he can just keep moving us to the back of the train.” She shrugs. “Fine. I’ll shut him down the hard way.”

She opens her mouth to slam open her reality hard enough to knock the man’s cap off, but Raith covers it.

“Mghmty mlrf,” she says.

“The night staff have Copperwright’s wife,” Raith says. “No telling why. We shouldn’t rock the train until she’s safe.”

Riyo scowls. “That doesn’t make me want to crack that creepy guy’s reality any less.” She taps her foot. “Fine. It’s a train mystery, so we treat it like one: we investigate! Ravi, find the others. I’m going to see if he’ll let me talk to someone near the front of the train. Raith, solve the murder. We’ll meet back at the dining car by midnight. If we’ve got nothing new by then, or if any of us aren’t there on time, then we do a train mutiny.”

“Uh. I’m not sure that’s the right word,” Raith says.

“Train. Mutiny.”

Ravi sighs. “Sure. Train mutiny. Let’s go.”

Matteus Flamesbane is a weed of a man. He’s the easily exploitable type, who caves to just the tiniest bit of pressure. Vale thinks she could push him over, even with no physical body. She has trouble understanding how people like him think. How do they get what they want? How do they even survive in a world filled with men like Garth? Or even Ravi? Her new master might whine a lot, but he gets things done.

The problem with empathy is that if you spend too long thinking about other people’s feelings and needs, you forget about your own. Better, in her opinion, to focus on the feelings and needs that sustain your own soul.

Matteus greets his colleagues on the night shift with a cheer that they don’t return. Vale watches them sneer at his back, hears the jokes they make under their breath. Some of them are quite funny. She follows him through the crew quarters where the day shift are bedding down, through a couple of offices much nicer than his, until he reaches the door that leads through into the boiler room.

“Elemus,” he says, nodding deferentially to the bespectacled man at the door. This one sneers openly.

“Conductor,” he says. “Your shift is over.”

“Yes, I know, only I’ve heard something worrying that-”

“The matter is well in hand,” Elemus says. “Is there anything else?”

“Uh, I see. Well… It’s just that…”

“What?” Elemus’ voice is cold and sharp as the steel of his daggers.

“The, uh, the group that came with the World Force officer-”

“Are you telling me that, after two years of working together, you would give credence to the words of some fare-dodging hitchhikers over that of the night staff?”

“I just want to make sure I have the truth of it,” Matteus says, a slight whine in his pathetic voice. “After all, what they told me was the first I heard of it.”

“That is because it occurred on our watch, not yours. The problem is in hand, conductor.”

“Right. Right,” Matteus twists his moustache and turns away.

“You should get Garth to confirm it. Just to be sure.” Vale isn’t sure how much will get through to the reedy man, but he seems sensitive to her presence, and her words make him shiver.

He turns around, blinks up at Elemus as though he’s not sure why he’s done it, then clears his throat. “I’d like to speak to the night warden all the same,” he says, standing just that little bit taller. As though he has a spine after all.

“No,” Elemus says, voice flat.

Matteus shrinks again. He nods and walks away.

“Pfft,” Vale says.

The door to the boiler room cracks open. Elemus glances over his shoulder with a scowl but leans down to listen to someone say something.

“Ugh,” he says, then, “conductor.”

Matteus stops.

“The night warden would like a word with you.” He steps aside and gestures sharply. “Do not keep him waiting.”

Matteus smiles at Elemus as he passes, while the taller man rolls his eyes and shakes his head. Vale follows into the boiler room, then jumps at the sight of the creature coiled by the coal hatch, smoke and heat rolling over her oiled skin and russet-orange scales.

“Good evening, Avril,” Matteus says, nodding to the lamia.

Her hair is pink and falls in bangs that almost cover her eyes. Far from the femme fatale seductress Vale had pictured in her head, she looks coy. Shy. Her button nose and pale cheeks are scattered with freckles, and she clutches her left arm with her right hand, covering her bosom. Her arms are muscular, but she shrinks into her vest just as much as Matteus.

“Oh, hello conductor,” she says, her voice quiet and soft. “Um. Have you thought about my offer any more?”

“No, Avril. You know I’m married.”

“Of course. I’m sorry. I just… feel so safe with you. I know you’d look after me. And you’ve always been so kind to me, even though I’m like this.”

“You’ll find somebody who’s right for you, Avril. I know you will.”

The lamia sighs, pulling herself in even more. “I hope so.”

Matteus touches her shoulder as he passes her. It’s an entirely sexless, fatherly gesture, and it seems to disappoint her more than comfort her. Vale stares for a moment longer before remembering she’s supposed to be following the conductor. The door swings closed, but she slips through it and into the engine’s cabin.

The night warden heaves a lever, his enormous muscles bulging beneath his uniform. Steam hisses and the train shudders. He turns, then, and wipes sweat from his slab of a brow. A short step brings him close enough to loom over Matteus, who wilts as though the heat has begun to melt his limbs.

“You are concerned,” Garth rumbles.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Matteus says with a wince. “Just that I’ve heard something that would be of concern. If it was true. Which I’m sure it isn’t.”

“Passenger Thaddeus Copperwright, ticket number zero zero eight one nine one four six two, suffered a fatal heart attack. The full nature of his problem was concealed from the other passengers to avoid causing a panic.”

“Oh, poor Thaddeus,” Matteus says, unconsciously clutching at his own heart. Angela and Guinevere must be inconsolable.”

“Guinevere?” Garth’s eyes go an eerie pale red for a moment, so quick that Vale barely sees it. “Guinevere Copperwright, ticket number zero zero eight one nine one four six zero. She is Thaddeus’ daughter?”

“Yes,” Matteus says, blinking.

“Theirs was not a family booking.”

“Was it not?”

“Guinevere Copperwright,” the night warden says, his expression grim. “She was not in her family’s cabin. We will find her.”

“Oh, I should like to help,” Matteus says. “The poor girl.”

“Your shift is over, conductor. The night shift is responsible for this. Return to your cabin.”

“I-”

“Return to your cabin.” Though his tone is the same, there is steel in the command.

“Very well,” Matteus says after the split second of hesitation that is all his flimsy backbone can support. “Oh dear.”

Vale watches him leave, pouting, then turns to the night warden. He is looking at her.

She takes a step back as his eyes film over with that pale red again.

“Did you think you could hide from me?” he hisses, and his voice is two octaves higher. It’s filled with venom, and his hand is suddenly on the hilt of his sword. “The dead do not belong here.”

Vale leaps before she even sees his body move, but pain rushes through her back as she tumbles through the side of the car and out into the desert night. She rolls in the sand and reaches a panicked arm around her back. There is a shallow slit in her translucent skin, just below her ribs. There is no blood, and the pain quickly fades. But the wound is there, empty and cold. Maybe forever.

Vale shivers, then looks up to see the train streaming away from here between the dunes.

“Well shit,” she says.

Glitter’s machinery rumbles. His fans sap water from the air while he drains the heat from within his casing. Crystals form, coalesce, and bond. In a handful of seconds, unseen water vapor becomes beautifully sculpted stars of ice which slide down a frozen sluice he has created and onto the bar. The bartender picks them up with a pair of tongs and deposits them into a tall glass before pouring amber liquid over them. The couple who have ordered the drink remark in delight at the stars before wandering back to their table.

“Thank you, Glitter,” another of the bar staff says. She is tall and well-built, her navy uniform jacket cut like that of a tuxedo, her long blonde hair swept down to one side. Her name is Carolina, and she has co-opted Glitter to be her personal ice machine. Riyo has asked him to keep watch in the dining car for anything suspicious, so he doesn’t really mind.

“You’re welcome. So, how long have you been working on the train?”

“Oh, only a few years. I don’t think I’ll be staying much longer.”

“Why not?”

“Itchy feet,” she says. “I’m not good at sticking to one thing for a long time.”

“Oh. I am very good at staying still.”

“So I see,” she says, plucking up the next ice stars and popping them into a different shaped glass. She takes a pair of bottles in one hand and pours from both into a metal cylinder. She then adds some regular ice cubes and a pair of leaves before shaking the cylinder around.

“What kind of drink is that?”

“It’s called a ‘chill wind’. Very popular on the desert stretch of the journey.” She pours the contents of the cylinder into the glass, and though she did not measure the amounts of liquid, the drink fills the glass exactly.

“You are very good at that,” Glitter says.

“Thank you,” she says, smiling at the recipient of the drink.

“I heard that there was a tragedy earlier while I was in the engine,” Glitter says. He feels Carolina grit her teeth.

“No, just a minor health scare for one of the passengers. But rumours grow very quickly on the train. It’s a long and boring journey to Ragg, so people like having things to talk about.” The tone of her voice has changed. Glitter is not sure, but he thinks she might be angry.

Glitter ponders for a moment while he makes more stars, then decides he has little to lose. “I don’t think that you believe that.”

Carolina is pouring more drinks, and some alcohol sloshes out of the cylinder onto the bar.

“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” she says quietly. “Like I said, I’m moving on soon.”

“So it doesn’t matter if you know that someone is covering up a murder?”

She paints an uncomfortable smile on her face as she serves the drink, then turns to Glitter. “That’s right. Nothing I can do about it. The night staff run this train while the conductor refuses to see anything he doesn’t want to. As long as nobody crosses them, the train runs smoothly. That’s all I care about.”

“I don’t think my friends are going to let that continue,” Glitter says carefully. “They are not very good at ignoring things.”

“Then the night staff will deal with them. Trust me,” she says, turning back to the drinks, “they’re monsters.”

“I was worried about that,” Glitter says. “My friends seem to like fighting monsters.”

Carolina sighs. “Great.” She sits down beside Glitter while someone in a fresh white apron takes over her mixing responsibilities. “I suppose you can’t convince them to back down?”

“No. I don’t think I could even if I wanted to.”

“Then…” she lets out a frustrated breath. “Just try not to destroy the train?”

“I will try my best. I don’t think the others would want to hurt any of the passengers anyway.”

“Well, that’s more than can be said for the night staff.” She stares at one of the bottles on the shelf beside her and then shakes her head. “Look. If you want to stand any chance at all, you need to find a way past Uther.” She looks down the car at the guard with the cap over his eyes. He has joined a table over at that end to play cards with a group of surly-looking men. “He’s a crafter, I think. I don’t know what his reality does, though. All I know is that he uses it to cheat at cards.”

“Oh!” Glitter says. “I like playing cards.” He draws a smiley face on his glass, angled towards Carolina. “Thank you very much.” He extends his little legs and begins to waddle slowly down the carriage. People stare at him in mute fascination as he passes their tables and press themselves against walls and furniture so that he can fit down the narrow alley of space down the centre of the car. He stops beside the table where the card game is taking place and says, “Hello!”

“You want somethin’?” a man with a heavy scar on his cheek says. His face is harder than Glitter’s glass.

“I am learning to play card games,” Glitter says, plucking his mana gem from the bottom of his chassis and snaking it out of his shoulder on a rope of snow. “I was hoping you would let me join you. My friend says this mana gem I found in the desert might be worth a lot.”

All eyes at the table touch the gem for a hungry moment, then turn to Uther, who nods slowly, a smile on his face.

“Well sure, why not?” the scarred man says. “Always nice to help a newbie, right fellas?”

There are some nods and smirks from the other players, and Uther gathers up the cards. He shuffles them so quickly that even Glitter cannot follow the movements, then spins them out to the players. They all come to a stop in neat piles before each man at the table.

Glitter picks up his cards with delicate strands of snow and presses them against his glass.

“Oooh,” he says. His cards are good.

The men watch him, barely looking at their own cards as the game unfolds. He is considered all-in with his mana gem, and it sits against neat little stacks of coins from the other players. At the turn of the cards, Glitter whistles with glee, and the men all give him pleasant smiles.

“Ah, to have my beginner’s luck back,” the scarred man says as Glitter draws his winnings towards him. He draws a grin on his glass.

“Let’s play again!”

They do, and Glitter wins a couple more rounds, shared amongst other wins. Uther doesn’t win any, but he continues his lightning-fast shuffles with the same small smile beneath the shadow of his cap. Glitter is having fun. He likes how congenial the men are, how they talk about their businesses and the places they have been as they win and lose alike. He has almost forgotten why he is playing when he suddenly finds himself all in against Uther, the other players having folded. His mana gem shines atop the pile in the middle, along with most of the other players’ wealth. It is time for the final draw, and it could go either way.

Glitter’s crystal pulses a little faster. He remembers what Riyo said about buying him presents when they reach Horologium, and he realises he does not want to lose. Not for anything. Though he knows Emerald will be angry with him, he expands his awareness. Not just to the men’s faces and hands, but to the finest point of the energy spectrum. Fine enough that he can sense the difference between the dyes on the cards.

Glitter rifles the deck from bottom to top. The topmost card is the Captain of Ice. It will win Glitter the game. He focuses on that card, on his opponent, barely aware of anything else as Uther reaches for the deck. His mouth moves, barely a breath of a word, and from one moment to the next, the card changes.

The entire deck has changed, the order completely different. As Uther turns the card over and places it next to the rest of the face-up cards, Glitter lets his attention return to the rest of the game. The men are all smiling, watching him. And he realises his own cards have also changed. The face-up ones, too. He is all-in with the one and two of a useless suit.

“Oh,” he says. His crystal feels suddenly heavy. The men all knew. They have been luring him to this point, waiting for a time when he would be unable to see it until it was too late. He clears his glass and gives a long, rueful pulse of light. He supposes this was his aim the whole time, so he shouldn’t be too upset. One of the new face-up cards is the Captain of Ice, and he checks it over. It is the same card that had once been his ticket to wealth. The cards have not moved, they all instantly changed places the moment Uther whispered the word ‘shuffle’.

“I would like to accuse you of cheating,” Glitter says.

“I’m sure you would,” Uther says. His voice still sounds bored. “But it’s time to show your cards.”

The men’s smiles have turned predatory, unsettling. But Glitter has faced cruel men before. He has also faced ghosts and nightmares, and intends to face the evil that lies at the heart of Calis. He finds he is not scared by their mean looks. In fact, he is angry.

He inhales heat. He has found that living creatures resist having their energy drawn from them, but inanimate objects do not. The cards offer no resistance as they are sapped of energy. What little moisture exists within them freezes, expanding even as the bonds that hold their very essence together lose their grip. The deck, the face-up cards, and both players’ hands crumble away to nothing.

“It seems that we will never know who won the hand,” Glitter says. His glass frosts over, but he draws nothing in it. “Perhaps we should call it a draw.” He snaps up his gem with a whip of snow just as the men’s smiles turn to scowls. “I will let you keep your money, though I don’t think you deserve it.”

“Hand it over, tin can,” the scarred man says, standing and reaching for a knife at his belt. His voice has a growl of undeniable authority to it. The other men shift in their seats, bringing hands closer to weapons.

Uther raises a hand, his expression troubled. “Unfortunate things happen sometimes, Tarren. Glitter has been more than reasonable in only taking back his buy-in. I’m sorry that this game had to end on such a sour note.”

“If you want to avoid that in future,” Glitter says. “Consider not cheating.” He begins sidling back down the car. It isn’t the most dignified of exits, but it’s all he can manage without bowling one of his fellow passengers over.

Uther Traviere watches the robot waddle his way back towards the bar. The silence around the table is volatile. He can feel Tarren’s eyes burning through the rim of his cap.

“What was that?” the con man hisses.

“Prudence,” Uther says. “Trust that the train will deal with him.”

“You say that a lot.”

“Has it ever been untrue?”

The lack of a response is answer unto itself, and Uther stands.

“You will have to continue your racket without me for a while. I must speak to the night warden.” He ignores their quiet grumbles and walks quickly to the end of the carriage. As soon as he is through the door, he shuffles the train, changing the order of the carriages so that he is beside the engine, then steps back through. Avril is leaning hard into her work and ignores him as he passes.

“Uther,” Garth says without turning from the pressure gauges that tell the tale of the train.

“Night warden. We need to deal with these hitchhikers. Soon.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve been played.”

Garth turns slowly, and Uther has to swallow and steel himself to avoid stepping back from him.

“You were beaten?”

“N-no. No, night warden, but one of them has seen through my reality, and the crafter among them knows I’m here.”

Garth’s eyes flash red, so quickly that it might just have been a reflection, a trick of the light.

“The Sultan will not be pleased if his train should be damaged. Nor if it should be delayed.” He drums his fingers along the hilt of his blade. “But then his request this time was dangerous. Can you gather them? Decouple them?”

“Some of them are gathered already, but one is in the dining car. I may be able to bring most of them together, but we can’t decouple that car. Another has a way of resisting.”

“Then deal with as many as you can. I will ensure that those left are removed with no distress or delays.”

“Yes, night warden,” Uther says.

Ravi Matriya suspects that his friends are at the back of the train, furthest from where they can cause trouble. He is proved to be correct, when, after passing through only two sleeper carriages and one empty one on his way to the back, he finds himself back in the dining car.

“Ravi,” Glitter says, making him jump. The robot is backed against the wall by the door, his crystal hidden by a perfect sheet of frost. “That Uther guy is changing the order of the carriages.”

“Yeah,” Ravi says, scratching his head. “I was just trying to get to the back of the train, now I’m here.”

“His reality is called ‘Shuffle’. He doesn’t move things around, they just change. Instantly.”

“That’s a tricky ability to deal with,” Ravi says slowly. Then, “are you okay?”

“No. People are mean.” He sounds sullen.

“I guess they are,” Ravi says.

The door opens again, and a waiter comes through with a tray, its scent wafting up to join amalgam of smells that make up the dining car. Ravi feels a twinge in his chest, and it’s as though the sound of chatter and cutlery grows quieter. The colours seem to fade, and through all the distractions a familiar chill touches him. He blinks, and the feeling passes.

“Glitter,” he says, looking down the carriage and drawing his dagger.

“Oh!” Glitter says, and snow whips out from his shoulder. It wraps around something, and then there is a woman by the bar. She wasn’t there a second ago, but nobody else seems to bat an eyelid at her appearance.

She looks down at the snowy tendril gripping her wrist, her pale grey eyes wide. Her ethereal, silver hair is caught up in a tail, and she is wearing a long, white coat that looks like it is made of silk.

“What?” she says.

“Ghost!” Glitter says.

“But she’s not,” Ravi says. There is a chill surrounding the woman similar to the sensation he gets from Vale, but she is alive.

“Huh,” Glitter says after a moment. “She feels like a ghost. But also… yeah. Not.”

After a moment, the woman turns back to look through the dining car. “You need to let me go,” she says, and Ravi feels it in the pit of his stomach. His heart picks up, and the feathers on the back of his neck twitch in a way that tells him to flee.

“Who are you?” he says, gripping the dagger tighter.

“None of your business,” she says. “But if you don’t let me go, my hunt gets that much harder.” She glances back at him, meets his eyes, and his dagger almost slips from fingers gone numb with imagined cold.

Glitter’s grip loosens, and her arm is free of the loop quicker than he can credit. Her other hand flashes out from beneath her coat and strikes like an adder’s bite, bringing a wicked sickle point first into Ravi’s chin. It stops perfectly, denting his skin without breaking it. Ravi’s breath catches in his throat, his body going still. The woman tilts her head slightly and sniffs, then says, “Damnit.”

The sickle trails its way down into Ravi’s chest feathers and stops just over his heart. The movement is gentle, and Ravi allows himself a shallow gasp of air as the woman nudges aside some of his feathers to reveal the skin beneath.

“You’re bleeding,” she says.

“Huh?” Ravi manages, blinking for a moment before remembering she’s holding a weapon against his chest.

“Oh. She’s right,” Glitter says. “But…”

“Do you have a needle?” The woman’s voice is low and intense. “Something very thin and very sharp.”

“I… I have this,” he brings the dagger up carefully, holding it between thumb and forefinger and letting it dangle, lest she think he’s trying to attack her.

She shakes her head. “Won’t do. You’ve got maybe a minute to find one.”

“Here,” Glitter says, and a platter of snow rises up beside him. After a moment, the powder shifts to reveal a shimmering shard of ice, not much thicker than a hair.

The woman snatches it up and, with the same lightning movements as before, stabs Ravi in the chest.

“Wah!” Glitter shouts, finally drawing the attention of others in the dining car.

Ravi’s mouth is moving, but no sound emerges. A second later, the woman withdraws the needle. It is smudged red with diluted blood, but impaled on the very tip is a sliver of something purple.

Ravi staggers back into Glitter, who teeters into the wall. He clutches his chest and finally manages to exhale a shocked, “Gah!”

The woman sniffs the icicle, grimacing at what she smells there. “This is enough, though,” she says, and produces a little glass vial from her coat. “Proof enough there’s a wither on the train.” She snaps the end of the icicle off into it the vial and stoppers it, then finally looks at Ravi again. “I hope your heart is strong, boy. There’s still some poison in there.” She turns and is gone.

Ravi is left leaning against Glitter, staring at an empty space along with a handful of other wide-eyed passengers. He finds he still cannot find anything to say. In fact, he feels exhausted. His eyes are already drooping closed.

“Ravi?” Glitter says, voice urgent but distant. “Ravi!”

He feels like there is a lot of attention on him, but he’s so tired it’s hard to focus.

“Ubble,” he says, before gravity drags him to the ground.

“What are we waiting for?” Guinevere Copperwright says. “Why are we so far from mummy and daddy’s carriage?” She wrinkles up her nose and glares at the empty carriage around them. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s like a magic trick,” Emerald says, forcing calm and patience into her voice. “We go through the train but end up right back here.”

“Okay,” she says. “But why?”

“I’m not sure yet.” It keeps them from bringing a murderer to justice. From interfering with a scheme that has taken away a young girl’s father. They have been stuck here long enough that Emerald is ready to burn this train to ashes, carriage by carriage.

“I want to see my daddy,” Guinevere says. She isn’t crying, but Emerald can tell she’s close. She grits her teeth and clenches her fists.

“I think someone else is about to fall for this trick,” Rolleck says. He sits, infuriatingly calm, facing the wall of the carriage. His eyes are closed, his legs crossed.

“What then?” Emerald says.

“Then we’ll have an idea of how it works. Magic tricks are spectacular to watch but learning how they work is a double-edged sword. Either the method is so impressive that it makes it even better, or it’s a disappointment.”

A few more seconds pass, then Rolleck’s eyes snap open just as there’s a click from the door. He rams his sword through the wall, barbs digging into his knuckles as they come to rest against the wood.

“Huh?” former sergeant Ixel says, her hand still on the door handle.

“Um,” Emerald says.

“Check the window, please,” Rolleck says.

Emerald looks out, craning around to the front and back. “Oh! We’re much further up.”

Rolleck allows himself a smile. “It can’t be simple moving the carriages around to remove individual passengers. Sometimes whoever it is will be able to move the carriage that person is in to the back, but sometimes they’ll have to move the back carriage up, capture them in it, and move them back. Too many people come in and out of the dining car to easily move it, so it’s more likely they’d take the latter option when trying to get at someone moving out of the dining car.”

Guinevere looks up at Emerald. “What?”

“I think officer Rolleck figured out the magic trick,” Emerald says. “But why did you stick your sword through the wall?”

“It was a gamble. I guessed they wouldn’t be able to move the carriage if some element connected the inside to the outside. Perhaps normally it would just break whatever it was, but my sword doesn’t break so easily.”

“But now you’re stuck there,” Raith says, frowning.

“But you aren’t. Take Guinevere into the dining car and ensure she’s safe. Hurry. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Okay. Come on sergeant,” Emerald says, leading Guinevere past her into the dining car. The girl watches Rolleck over her shoulder, face uncertain. Raith takes another look at him, then steps back through after the dragon.

Rolleck withdraws his sword, then rises to face the door. A quick glance out of the window confirms that he is once more at the caboose. The tracks clatter by beneath him, and the shimmering resplendence lights the desert sand in amaranthine silence. Minutes pass in emptiness, but with each that does, his sword sings louder. It can feel violence drawing in closer.

When the door opens again it is with the sound of tromping feet. Blue uniforms and edged weapons begin to fill the space before him. Eyes of flame and fear watch him from beneath the caps of the night guard.

“You realise, officer,” Elemus Fetch says, striding in behind his wall of steel, “that you have no jurisdiction here. The Sultan is the master of the rails. No king or general can usurp his word so long as his trains are the lifeblood of the Songs.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rolleck says, running his hand over his pelt. “This isn’t a mark of station. It’s a reminder. That I’m an agent of justice, a fighter of crime.” He stares into Fetch’s eyes, and the man’s smile falters. “And you are a criminal, Elemus Fetch. You stand guilty of conspiracy to cover up a murder. And, quite frankly, of wasting police time.”

“Enough stupid talk,” Fetch snarls. “Kill him and feed his body to the desert.”

Rolleck raises his sword and smiles. “Nowhere to run on a train like this,” he says quietly.

The voice just laughs.

Riyo Falsemoon blinks at the car before her. She has expected to have an argument with a cook or the conductor, but instead the roiling heat of the boiler room washes over her. The door ahead must lead into the engine’s cabin.

“That’s really convenient,” she says, starting for the door.

“Who are you?”

The nervous voice makes Riyo turn, her reality a whisper away. Behind her is a vision of soft beauty. Her amber eyes peek out from beneath a curtain of quiet pink hair, and the light of the fire she tends picks out the delicate freckles on her cheeks. In spite of her height and strength she seems to shrink in Riyo’s gaze, lowering herself on the rugged amber scales of her tail. The huge sack of coal she is hauling makes a metallic thunk as she drops it by the furnace.

“I’m Riyo,” Riyo says. “I was looking for the night warden?”

“Oh,” the lamia says. Her eyes flit to Riyo’s sword and, briefly, to the open buttons of her shirt. They fail to find her eyes, and she slithers the rest of the way into the room with a swaying motion that makes her hips wiggle. “He’s a busy man. The train takes a lot of attention.”

Her voice is at just the right volume to catch on Riyo’s ears and send a thrill down her spine. It’s as though she’s whispering from right beside her.

“I think he has a break coming up soon, though.”

“That’s okay,” Riyo says, affording herself a single glance over her shoulder at the front of the train. “I can wait a little while.” She watches as the lamia picks up a blackened shovel and pulls open the chute hiding the true intensity of the flame. Light claims her, shining off her oil-slick muscles and turning her eyes to burning portals. Somehow, seeing her bathed in that fire makes her seem vulnerable. She shoots another quick, self-conscious glance at Riyo before she starts shovelling.

“I can help with that, if you like,” Riyo says. She has taken a step closer, though she doesn’t remember doing it.

“Oh no,” the lamia says, flustered. “I couldn’t ask you to do that. It’s my job, after all.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” Riyo says. “Gravity Mould.” She can feel another reality wrapped around her own, but it doesn’t matter. She’s stronger. The bag of coal rises and tilts, pitching its contents down the chute and into the inferno below. The flames scatter and roar as they take the new fuel, and she hears the hiss of boiling water in the tank before them.

“Oh wow,” the lamia says, covering her mouth. Her other hand comes to rest on Riyo’s shoulder, and her skin practically fizzes with electricity beneath the cotton of her shirt. “That’s so very impressive.”

“It’s nothing,” Riyo says with a grin. Their eyes meet, and for a moment it’s as though Riyo has fallen into a warm, rose-scented bath. Then she looks away, and the blush hides her freckles. She snatches back her hand, too, and Riyo feels colder for the lack of contact. “What’s your name?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, offering out a tentative hand. “I’m Avril.”

“Nice to meet you!” Riyo tries not to shiver as their palms meet. Her hand is calloused from her work, but her grip is soft. Riyo holds on for a little too long, but Avril doesn’t pull back.

“Um, the furnace won’t need stoking for a little while, now. Would you… would you like to wait here with me?” The heat in the lamia’s cheeks makes Riyo’s heart flutter.

“Of course!” She can hardly remember why she’s here anyway.

“I don’t have a corporeal form,” Vale tells the desert.

The desert does not respond.

“I shouldn’t be standing on the floor. I shouldn’t be able to feel the stupid sand beneath my feet.”

The stupid sand shifts under her boots with each step she takes. The rails soak up the shine of the resplendence with their worn-to-matt steel, sleepers hiding beneath windswept grains.

“I should be able to move way faster than a big metal train.”

The moon looks washed out, the grandeur of her purple light stolen by the wavering colour of the sky.

“This sucks.”

Another dune folds back against the sky to reveal the endless roll of the Sultan’s road, empty of train. Empty of light. Empty of hope.

“Maybe I’m thinking about it wrong.” Vale stops beside a cactus and scratches a phantom itch on her head. “I’m not going to catch up by walking, that’s for sure.”

The cactus politely keeps its silence.

“Maybe it’s not about moving. Maybe it’s about being.” She turns to the cactus. “I shouldn’t exist, right?” The cactus agrees, just to keep it from getting awkward. “Most people don’t leave a ghost. Being a ghost means continuing to be even after I’ve officially ceased to be.” She points at the cactus as it falls into place. “So, since I shouldn’t be here, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be on the train instead.”

The chill night air shifts in the wind, blowing sand between the needles of a lonely cactus.

“Ha!” Vale says, pumping her fist in triumph.

Glitter jumps. “Ah!”

“Hi Glitter,” Vale says, then looks around. “What the heck happened?” Ravi is lying on the floor with a worried crowd lingering around him. A short, fat man with thinning hair and spectacles is kneeling beside him. “I wasn’t even gone for an hour!”

“There was an invisible lady,” Glitter says. “She said Ravi was poisoned.” He has a nervous expression drawn on his glass.

Vale kneels beside the balding man and peers at him. “Who’s this guy?”

“A doctor,” Glitter says.

“He smells drunk.”

“I think he is.”

“Pffft,” Vale says. She looks at her hand, translucent and ephemeral, and wiggles her fingers. Then she shrugs and shoves her hand into Ravi’s chest. It feels a little different from last time. A little… warmer, perhaps? She moves her hand closer to his heart and the strange heat increases. She frowns down at him in concentration.

“What are you doing?” Glitter says.

“I’m trying to ascertain exactly the nature of his complaint,” Dr. Mildjum says.

“I’m trying to ghost magic him back to life,” Vale says as though the doctor hadn’t spoken. “If I can just remember how to… Aha!”

Ravi jerks upright like a catapult going off, yelling like he’s been stabbed. Dr. Mildjum practically rolls over backwards and the surrounding crowd gasp.

“Master!” Vale says.

“Ugh. Vale?”

“You were poisoned, or something, but I gave you some ghost juice to help you fight it.”

Ravi touches his chest. “I feel like I’ve had ice water dumped on me.”

“Better than being dead,” Vale says. “I should know.”

“Thanks, I guess,” Ravi says. He pulls himself to his feet and looks around at all the people staring at him. “Um, thank you for your concern, everyone, but I seem to be okay now.” He reaches down to help the doctor to his feet.

“I don’t know what just happened,” Dr. Mildjum says, “and I’m not sure I want to.”

“Probably for the best,” Ravi says. “Thank you for trying to help, though.”

He nods, uneasy, and wanders over towards the bar again. As the crowd disperses, the far door of the carriage opens and Emerald ducks through, her wings tucked in tight against her back. She is leading a young girl by the hand. Raith Ixel follows her in, and they both cause a hush as they make their way through the car. There are a lot of uncomfortable glances towards the girl.

“Where’s Riyo?” Emerald says.

“She went towards the front,” Ravi says. “She was trying to talk to the night warden.”

“Ooh,” Vale says. “He’s a weirdo. Strong, too.”

“You saw him?”

“Yeah. He saw me, too. Only just got away.” She turns to show off her new scar. “His sword hurt me.”

“Um,” Emerald says, nodding towards Guinevere, who is staring at the bird man talking to himself with wide, frightened eyes.

“Oh, sorry,” Ravi says, glancing around before focusing on Guinevere. “I was talking to my imaginary friend. She met the night warden earlier. She says he’s strong.”

“Also,” Glitter says, making Guinevere jump and hide behind Emerald’s leg, “we met a strange lady who could turn invisible, but I don’t think she was imaginary.”

Raith cocks her head, then turns to look around the dining car. “Damn. He’s not here.”

“Who?” Emerald says.

“The, uh, apprentice we met earlier. That woman sounds like she might be his master. Either that or she’s the person responsible for our, er, investigation.” She keeps glancing down at Guinevere. “Ravi. There’s a ginger-haired man lurking about somewhere who’s part of the… well, he’s a member of a guild in Ragg. He’s really easy to spot. If he comes back here, tell him about this invisible lady.”

“Um, okay,” Ravi says. “What are you going to do?”

“We need to find Riyo. She’s going to want to meet Guinevere Copperwright here,” she invests the name with as much import as she can.

“Oh,” Ravi breathes. His eyes harden.

“You mean-” Glitter says, but Ravi raps his knuckles on his chassis, and he sputters to a stop.

“Dead guy’s kid, huh?” Vale says, but fortunately Guinevere cannot hear her.

“Right,” Emerald says. “I need you to look after her for a little while. The cars may be moving around, but the engine has to stay at the front, so the sergeant and I are going to cheat.”

“Where are you going?” Guinevere says.

Emerald kneels before her and puts a delicate hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to get my friend so she can help me find your mother.” She turns Guinevere around. “This is Ravi and Glitter.”

“Hello,” Ravi says.

“Hi!” Glitter draws a smiley face on his glass.

“They’re my friends too. Will you stay with them until I come back?”

Guinevere’s hand reaches up to her shoulder and grips one of Emerald’s fingers. She is shaking.

“I promise I won’t be long,” Emerald says quietly.

Guinevere nods and lets go.

“Um. Hello. My name is Guinevere.”

Nice to meet you, Guinevere,” Ravi says. “That’s a nice necklace.”

The girl perks up at the mention of her dragonscale, and she lifts it up to show Ravi. “It’s from a gold dragon! Emerald says it’s really rare!”

“I bet,” Ravi says, taking a seat to help put the girl at ease. “I met a lot of dragons in Emerald’s homeland, but none of them were gold.”

Emerald smiles at Ravi over Guinevere’s head, then turns to Raith. “Ready?”

“More than,” she says, and her eye gleams red. “These bastards have a lot to answer for.”

Emerald nods and heads for the end of the bar. To the side, not far from the staff entrance to the kitchen, is another door that opens out onto the desert night.

“Um, excuse me?” one of the bar staff says as Emerald reaches for it.

Raith turns to the woman, who flinches from her gaze. She holds up her World Force badge. “This is important, ma’am.”

“But we can’t unlock the door while the train is moving. It’s-”

Emerald squeezes the latch between her claws and cuts through it with a squeak of tearing metal.

“-dangerous.”

“I think we’ll be fine,” Emerald says. She yanks the door aside and leaps from the train. The sound of her wings slamming down against the night air rushes against the outside of the train, and then she is gliding alongside the dining car. Guinevere lets out a delighted laugh and runs to the window to wave. Emerald smiles and waves back.

Raith Ixel is a vampire. Some people don’t take well to learning that, but circumstances have once again forced her hand. The onset of night has restored her strength to her, so as she steps from the train, darkness engulfs her. Shadows etched with blood-red energy form thin, crooked wings that sprout from her shoulders. They beat in silence, lifting her up alongside Emerald. The two of them share another nod and they push against the wind towards the front of the train.

The coal car precedes the engine, open to the night, allowing them to come down right at the door to the boiler room. A heavyset guard stands before it, bald head glittering in the light of the Resplendence. His eyes flicker with surprise as Raith lands before him, red glare piercing his skin and making him conscious of the blood in his veins.

“I need to speak to your boss,” she says, and the parting of her lips reveals her fangs, long and sharp.

“Th-the engine is off lim-”

Raith’s eye narrows, and the man blinks a few times before his eyes roll back and he slumps back against the door. A grizzly snore escapes his throat as he falls. Emerald glides in and lands beside her, and they shove their way into the boiler room, claws and fangs bared.

And stop dead.

The boiler room is lit by a couple of mana gems at each end, but mostly by the ambient flicker of the furnace itself, hot red light warming the austere steel walls and floor. Pipes and valves fill much of the space and nestled by one of them are two figures.

Riyo is straddling the lamia’s tail, pressing her upper body against the wall. One hand is tangled in her pastel pink hair, the other slides beneath her vest. Their mouths are pressed together, their eyes closed in consummate bliss.

Emerald clears her throat carefully. “Riyo?”

It’s still a handful of seconds before the kiss breaks and Riyo looks round at them.

“Oh. Hey guys. What are you doing here?”

The lamia is looking away, an embarrassed flush lighting up her cheeks.

“We’re trying to find a murderer,” Emerald says. She feels her pilot flare in her throat. “What are you doing?”

“Oh! Yeah. I, uh, kinda got distracted.” She turns back to the lamia and begins kissing her neck, making her gasp.

“Riyo!” Emerald takes a step forward. “The man who was killed has a daughter. She’s seven.”

“Oh? Yeah?” Riyo says, not looking round.

Emerald growls and takes another step, but Raith puts a hand on her shoulder.

“This is bad,” she says.

“Yeah. I thought I knew Riyo.”

“You do. She’s not herself right now. That woman’s a lamia.”

“Huh? Yeah, I’ve heard of them.”

Raith shakes her head. “Vampires can hypnotise people. We stare into their eyes and pit our will against theirs. Usually the vampire wins, and the victim falls asleep. Makes them easier to drink from.”

Emerald frowns. “That’s creepy.”

“Yeah, I know. I can’t help being who I am, though, and it’s certainly useful for getting people out of my way without tearing their throats out.”

“Fair.”

“But lamia don’t hypnotise. They charm. Just being around them will draw your attention to them, lower your guard. And if they focus on you then you fall deeply, truly in love with them. Past the point of reason. You’d do anything for them. You’d die for them.”

“Ah, Riyo,” Avril says, flustered. “We have company.”

“It’s okay, I know them.”

“They’re looking at me with scary eyes, Riyo.”

Riyo turns a scowl on them. “Guys! You’re making her uncomfortable.”

“Riyo,” Emerald says, “the train staff killed a man in cold blood. They’ve taken a woman prisoner and taken a father from his daughter. We have to make sure they pay for it.”

“Avril’s not like them,” Riyo says. “Do whatever you’ve gotta do, but leave her out of this.”

“They’re lying,” Avril says. She’s cute even when she’s angry, and though she rises a little on her tail she isn’t imposing. Compared to the dragon and vampire facing them, she looks fragile. Vulnerable. “My friends aren’t like that.”

“You’re hurting her feelings,” Riyo says, balling her hands into fists.

“Emerald…” Raith says, looking between the two of them.

“I don’t care. She’s twisted your mind around and she’s helping them get away with hurting Guinevere.” She takes a step forward. “If you’re not going to be any use to us then get out of the way.”

“Riyo…” Avril whispers. There is such fear in her eyes.

Riyo puts herself between Emerald and Avril. “Gravity Mould.”

“You’re really going to fight me?” Emerald growls. “For her?”

“I won’t let anyone hurt her.”

“Riyo,” Avril says, and it’s like a shot in her gut. The quiver in her voice makes her whole body tense. Makes the rage bubble up until her jaw starts to ache. “Help me.”

Riyo’s hand flies out and her reality forms a corridor down the carriage. The earth reaches up for her friends and grabs them.

Emerald braces, but she finds herself flat on her belly all the same, her wings splayed painfully across the floor. Raith falls beside her, unable to even grunt with surprise at the pressure falling down upon them. The train groans as its wheels press into the tracks.

“Shit,” Emerald breathes. “She’s not holding back.” Her next gasped breath pulls her pilot down her throat.

“Then we can’t either,” Raith groans. Black flame rises around her, cracked with blood. It is joined by a wash of pink, and both dragon and vampire rise slowly, power washing off them. They look past Riyo’s glare to the smirking lamia.

“You have no idea what you’ve done,” Emerald tells her.

“Get them away from me, Riyo,” she says, barely hiding her contempt.

“We need to get her off the train,” Raith says. “She’ll derail it.”

The dragonclaw sword spins up from the corner of the room where she left it and into her hand.

“She’s not going to make that easy,” Emerald says. She glares past Riyo at the lamia. “Keep her busy for a couple of seconds.”

Raith raises her arm and blood lightning sings over her cuffs. Riyo’s eyes snap to the action, but she’s just testing the pressure on her. Even empowered by her glamour, she doesn’t think she can wade through the gravitational blanket that presses down upon her quickly enough to get close. She decides on a different tack. Each step she takes towards Riyo is measured. Even. The crafter narrows her eyes and lunges.

Raith gets her hand in the way of the point of her sword, which digs into her palm with a sweet, stinging pain that electrifies her. The punch she throws in return is vicious and precise, but Riyo has already let go of her sword. Light and heat press into her side as Emerald breathes at the lamia and a spear of flame rushes across the carriage, reflection shining in the width of her eyes.

Riyo’s knee hits Raith in the side, and the weight of it cracks her teeth together, pitches her down the carriage. The beam of light turns in the air and drives back towards her.

Emerald blinks as her flame engulfs Raith, then her father’s memento is spinning at her face. With a roar she slams it aside and swings her tail into Riyo’s path. Riyo’s weight shifts and she vaults over it like a gymnast, rolling into a kick that hits Emerald in the belly with the force of an asteroid. She is slammed back into the door, its steel face warping with the impact. The train shudders on the rails, and Avril’s soft laughter tinkles through the boiler room.

Raith bursts from the flame, her clothes a ruin of holes and char. Her blistered skin bubbles with crackling shadows as her injuries heal. Her foot crashes into the lamia’s shovel, but she’s off-balance and crashes into the wall of with a pained cry. Raith’s other foot touches down as Emerald looses a diffuse ball of flame that enshrouds both her and Riyo, hiding the other end of the room from them. Raith drives forward after Avril, grabbing her by the throat with one hand and slamming the other into the dented wall. The steel shatters, and the sweltering air of the furnace meets the chill of the night as they tumble to the sand.

Raith takes the handle of a shovel to the gut and rolls back, pushing up in time to see another hole appear in the side of the cab. Emerald hits the sand like an avalanche, sending a geyser of grains billowing up into the wind. The train rattles past, carriages a violet blur as the Resplendence beams down upon them. Riyo Falsemoon stands with it at her back, her face a massacre waiting to happen. She flicks her wrists and three daggers fly out of each of her sleeves, falling perfectly still in the air above her shoulders. The dragonclaw sword spins out of the gloom and into her waiting hand.

“Get. The fuck. Away from her,” she says, and the wind stops.

“That’s step one,” Emerald groans, rising to her knees and spitting a glob of burning blood onto the sand. “Now we stop her before she kills herself.”

Raith looks down at her suit, looks at the smear of blood on her palm where her injury has closed.

“That’s all, huh?”

“What was that?” Guinevere says, staring around as the train rattles.

“Maybe an earthquake?” Ginger suggests.

“Uh, yeah,” Ravi says. “Probably that.”

“Really?” Glitter says. “I thought it might be-”

Ravi raps on his side again, ringing him like a bell.

“Oh. Oh! An earthquake. Yes! We had lots of those where I used to live.” He piles some snow on the table in front of him, forming a craggy mountain. It begins to shake, and little avalanches slide their way down its sides. On one of them, a tiny Riyo Flasemoon surfs on a tiny Glitter. Guinevere claps as the figures reach the bottom.

“So you’re friends of the sergeant?” Ginger says.

“That’s right. And you’re a member of, uh, a certain guild?”

He nods. “I’m an assassin, yes.”

Ravi cringes.

“What’s an assassassassin?” Guinevere asks.

“They’re like ninjas,” Ravi says, glaring at the ginger ninja.

Guinevere looks at Ginger. A single eyebrow slowly rises.

“I’m still in training,” he says, blushing.

“The sergeant told me you might know an invisible woman with silver hair.”

“Yes! That’s my master, Frostbite. I’ve been looking everywhere for her.”

“Even though you knew she could turn invisible at will?”

“Uh. That’s a good point, actually. Where did you see her?”

Vale rolls her eyes and flicks the inept assassin’s ear. He neither sees nor feels it.

“Right here. But then she vanished again. She said I was poisoned by something called a ‘wither’. Do you know anything about that?”

“I’m afraid not,” Ginger says with a shake of his head. “But if she’s hunting it down then it doesn’t stand a chance. Frostbite is the best there is.”

“My ears are burning,” Frostbite says.

A cacophony of startled yelps bursts from the table and floats away over the dining car. Frostbite is sitting between Ginger and Glitter, leaning over the table with her chin propped up in her hand. Wrinkles crease the corners of her eyes and her forehead, but her silver hair is more gossamer than wire.

“So you’re a seer,” she says, glancing past Ravi at Vale. “Good for you.”

“You can see me?” Vale says.

“Hear you, too. You should be more careful with that blabbing mouth of yours.”

Vale’s lips make a fine line as she glares at the woman, but she just looks away.

“Anyway,” she says to Ravi, “your friends have done me a favour, so I thought I’d do one for you.”

“Huh?” Glitter says.

“The dragon and the vampire. They took the lamia off the train. That leaves the crafter, the Nighteye, the wither and the night warden himself as credible threats.”

“Surely none of them can touch you?” Ginger says. “You’re the best!”

Frostbite cocks a smile, then raps Ginger on the top of the head with her knuckles. Even the soft rebuke is so quick that Ravi can barely see it. Ginger doesn’t stand a chance, and flinches back, almost falling off his chair.

“I’m good, but you don’t stay good by getting cocky and taking bad odds. This wither is old. Experienced. It’s staying a step ahead of me, and it’s working for the night warden rather than the other way around. That tells us something. The Nighteye can see through even me, and the lamia… Well.” A shimmer of cold silver flickers up Frostbite’s cloak, and as it flashes over her face, Ravi is sure he can see her skull through her skin. A shiver crawls up the back of his neck, tickling his feathers. “Love is a more powerful force than even death itself.”

“So what do we do?” he says.

“You?” She smirks. “You get thrown in the caboose.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll look after the girl.”

“Wait… but-”

“There,” someone says, and a silence begins to emanate from the end of the carriage, reaching past the bar and amongst the tables. Frostbite is gone, as though she was never there. Uther stands in the door, several grim-looking guards in night-staff uniforms flanking him. A woman with thick eyebrows and a loosening braid in her hair stands behind one of the guards, her stark blue eyes focused on their table.

“Mummy!” Guinevere shouts, shoving the silence even further down the car.

Tears in her eyes, Angela Copperwright moves towards her daughter. The guard blocks her with his arm, and she lets out a soft sob. Guinevere hops down from her seat to run to her mother, but Ravi puts a hand on her shoulder and pulls her up short.

“Hang on a moment, Guinevere,” he says.

“I am afraid I will have to ask you to come with me,” Uther says. His eyes are still shadowed, but his smirk is directed at Ravi.

“Why?” Ravi says.

“You are a danger to this train.”

“To your evil plans, you mean,” Glitter says.

“The night warden is responsible for running this train,” Uther says, his smirk fading. “His word is law. He has the right to take action to ensure that there is no danger or delay to its paying passengers. He acts in the interest of their safety. If you have any regard for them,” he glances towards Guinevere and his smirk returns, “you will come peacefully and accept confinement until we arrive in Horologium.”

The guard beside Angela puts his other hand on the hilt of his blade, his stubbled face resolute, eyes fixed on Ravi’s.

Ravi snarls, clenches his fist.

“She’ll come through on her promise,” Ginger says, quietly enough that Uther and his lackeys cannot hear.

“I’ll watch over her too,” Vale says.

Ravi closes his eyes for a moment, then lets his anger drain away before it drives him to stupidity. He gives Guinevere’s shoulder a gentle squeeze.

“Go to your mother,” he says.

She looks up at him, infected by the uncertainty in the rest of them. Even in the innocence of youth, she sees the tension between the two groups. The pull towards her mother wins out and she nods, hurrying over to Angela and hugging her around her legs. Angela strokes her hair, her eyes closed and still spilling tears down her cheeks.

“Take them to the front,” Uther says to the guard, and the two of them are led through the door into the next carriage. Vale saunters after them, black eyes wary as she passes Uther. He doesn’t glance towards her, though. Guinevere looks over her shoulder at Ravi before the door closes.

A few moments pass before Uther says, “Follow me.”

Ravi nods to Glitter and Ginger. They pass into the next car where a contingent of nearly a dozen guards are waiting. Another follows them in, leading Doctor Mildjum. His spectacles are askew, and he wavers with each step. His nose and cheeks are rosy above his uncertain smile.

“A pleasant gathering,” he slurs. “Where are we going?”

The guard just shoves him again, and they are marched to the end of the empty carriage and to the next door. The smell of blood and oil pervades the carriage that follows. Twice again the number of guards that accompany them lie strewn across the barren metal floor, some groaning, some still.

Rolleck the Lost spins on his heel at the sound of the door, red eye flashing as he takes them all in and immediately lunges for Uther. The crafter raises his hand, and then he is gone. In his place is Elemus Fetch, and his daggers twist Rolleck’s blade aside as though Riyo is manipulating its gravity. He rolls out of the attack before the scalpel-sharp blades can draw another red line on his body and add to the blood soaking into his shirt.

“Rolleck!” Ravi says stepping through into the carriage and reaching for a dagger.

One of the guards grabs him and shoves him hard, sending him stumbling into Glitter. The rest of the guards move towards the door, blocking them. Snow drips from Glitter’s shoulders and he draws a mean face on his glass, eyebrows downturned.

“Think of the girl,” Uther says, now at the other end of Rolleck’s carriage. He has a leather-bound tome in his hand, its cover embossed with golden lettering that declare it to be Volume Five. On the page in front of him is a glittering, opalescent stone that glows with cursed mana.

Rolleck is back on his feet, the song of his blade so loud in his ears that he barely registers the change in circumstances beyond what it means for the fight. He ignores the guards and approaches Elemus once more. Barbs dig into his muscles and the voice in his head laughs as he circles around away from the new threat posed by the crafter. He is once again drawn to the man’s eyes. They seem to gleam and shift like the Resplendence, aware of everything and nothing. The moment Rolleck decides to move, they flash, and Elemus moves with him. The counter is perfect, once again, and the voice’s laughter grows louder as he is pitched past his opponent towards the guards at the door.

“Rolleck!” Ravi shouts, but by the time he has twisted round it is too late. Uther now stands where Elemus had, holding the mana gem in his hand. He crushes it, and a wave of force blasts out. It seems to grip Rolleck in its power and drive him through the door, scattering the guards like bowling pins. Ravi dives, but Glitter isn’t fast enough. He topples over backwards with the impact of Rolleck hitting him.

Ravi slips his bow from his shoulder and draws an arrow to his cheek, pointing it at Elemus, who now stands in the doorway. His aim is true, but the image of Guinevere walking away with her mother stays his hand. Rolleck’s dizziness flashes to memory and he springs from Glitter to the wall. His sword crashes out into the night, linking the inside of the carriage to the outside.

“That won’t help you this time,” Elemus says with a smirk. His daggers flash into their sheaths and he grips a lever by the door, then heaves it down. A mechanical crunch rings through the carriage and, as the seconds pass in uncomprehending silence, Elemus slowly begins to move away.

“He’s disconnected the cars!” Glitter yelps, snow piling up and shoving him to his feet.

“What?” One of the guards says. He turns and runs for the door, but a stretch of flickering sand and sleepers gapes beneath him.

“The Sultan’s will is law,” Elemus says, nudging his spectacles back up his nose. “He wishes these pests removed. Hold them here until the cleaner comes.”

The guard’s face turns deathly pale, but he nods and turns away from the growing chasm between the two cars. He draws his sword and yells, “For the Sultan!”

Riyo’s nose is bleeding. It’s just a smudge of red on her upper lip, but it means she’s in danger. Emerald knows this, but just staying alive is almost too much for her to manage right now, let alone saving her friend. Without having to worry for her own safety, Riyo is relentless. She moves like an insect, flitting from side to side in a manner impossible to follow, much less hit, and her sword cleaves like it’s folding the world in half. All the while she drives Emerald towards the sand, a constant, furious pressure that she must fight alongside Riyo. Knives dance around Avril, shooting like arrows when Raith tries to get close to her. The lamia herself is no slouch, either. She wields her coal shovel like a warhammer, and she is more than strong enough to break bones with it.

Emerald winces as her flame-wreathed fist meets her father’s claw again. Her knuckles are a mess of burning blood and shattered scales, but anything less than the full force of her cowl would mean the loss of her hand.

“Riyo!” she roars, flame escaping her throat in a cascade of pink twinkling embers. She grabs the sword with her other hand, but Riyo has already released it. Emerald digs her claws into the sand and the scales of her feet burst with a rush of fire. The sand flashes to molten glass around her, but Riyo’s kick is every bit as powerful as the previous one. Emerald grits her teeth and grabs for Riyo’s ankle, but like a burst of light she is gone again, and Emerald finds herself streaming through the air, clutching a monstrously heavy sword. She rights herself with her wings as she slows and clutches at her ribs with her other hand, her breaths coming fast and hot. Her cowl won’t last much longer.

Raith is getting used to the knives. They move faster than she can track, but Riyo is pushing her power to its limit. Even without a care for her own health, it can’t be easy for her to control all these individual entities, and the knives are the least important part of her arsenal. They fly in straight lines, then stop and spin in place before shooting off again. They are arrayed around her so that she cannot see them all at once, and Riyo has been very good at unleashing the ones behind her. Too good, in fact. As long as Raith remembers where they last were, she can anticipate their activation as soon as her back is to them. This lets her avoid them. The snag is that the moment she gets anywhere near the lamia, all the knives move at once in a blinding field of steel that drives her back and puts her at risk of being hit with a shovel.

“Emerald,” she shouts. “All-in.”

She streaks at the lamia as Emerald unleashes a massive fireball. The knives flicker into overdrive, the first coming from behind as usual. She shifts enough that it won’t hit her heart, but slams into her back and through her chest. She slaps her hand over its exit trajectory, black flame bursting from her skin and catching the knife in her palm. Pain wracks her as the other knives find marks on her body, but she clutches the one in her hand and drives forward. Avril is ready for her. The blade of her shovel flashes with heat as it meets her fist, then her tail lashes across Ratih’s abdomen and drives her back, panting. Her injuries are healing slower, now.

Avril screams. The hilt of Riyo’s knife sticks out between the scales of her tail. Stark crimson flows freely over autumn orange and Riyo’s head whips around, eyes hard with hatred. She vanishes, and Raith barely get her arms up before Riyo’s foot slams down on her. The sand around them leaps into the air, and Raith feels the strain in her ankles as she is driven towards the centre of Valos. One of her arms breaks with a crack that sends lightning arcing throughout her body. Another knife whips into her hand as she rolls over Raith’s guard. She just manages to move her head so that the blade comes down hard into her shoulder instead of her skull. She grabs Riyo by the front of her shirt and wreaths herself in power, holding to the fabric with a vice grip.

Emerald falls with the airborne sand, landing behind Riyo as the knife rises again. She grabs her friend by the wrist, and Raith sees the skin begin to blister as scales press against Riyo’s skin. They are caught in tableau, muscles straining against reality to hold Riyo still. Her jaw is clenched, her eyes filled with empty anger.

“Stop, Riyo,” Emerald says. It’s a whisper that seems to cut through the air like a blade of ice. “You don’t love her.”

For a moment, Riyo’s struggle falters.

“She is… everything.”

“Is she? Whose kingdom did you save? Whose curse did you break? Whose monster did you slay? Whose purpose did you restore?” Slowly, Emerald releases her grip on Riyo’s wrist. She doesn’t move. “Do you love her?” She places a hand on Riyo’s shoulder, and this time it does not burn. She turns her so she is facing Emerald. “Or do you love us? Your friends?”

Riyo blinks. Her head hurts. There is blood on her. Hers and her friends. That isn’t right.

“Emerald?” she says.

“I’m here.”

She looks down at the blade in her hand. She closes her eyes and lets it fall to the ground. Her reality closes, letting sand, stone and steel return to Valos. The pain in her head echoes out over the desert, and Avril screams again. She ignores it.

“I do love you, Emerald,” she says quietly. “Can… can you forgive me?”

Emerald steps forward and hugs her. “Love makes you do crazy things, Riyo. I wouldn’t still be here if I couldn’t forgive something as small as this.”

Riyo smiles and swipes away a tear. “Thanks.”

“What do we do about her?” Raith says, jerking her thumb towards the lamia.

Riyo turns to face her. Meets the soft embers of her eyes. Her heart jumps. Tugs her towards Avril’s beauty.

“Stop them, Riyo,” she says, the edge of pain in her voice a lead weight in Riyo’s stomach. “They mean to hurt me.”

Riyo takes a step, then gives her head a vigorous shake. “No. No they don’t. They’re my friends, and if I ask them not to, they won’t hurt you.”

“Uh, are you sure?” Raith asks.

“Yes,” Riyo says.

“Then… then I’ll-” She stops, jolted with fear, as Riyo’s reality opens. She finds herself caught in place, unable to move. Unable even to blink.

Riyo walks forward until she stands before the lamia, looking up at her with a blue gaze that promises both the depths of her passion and the apex of her fury.

“If you want me to love you,” she says, cold and quiet, “then do it properly.”

The pressure falls away, and Avril slumps to the ground. The sand bites into her palms as she looks up. Riyo parts her bangs and kisses her softly on the forehead, then turns to her friends.

“We need to catch up.”

“That’s going to be difficult,” Emerald says. Her cowl has flickered out, and now her entire body aches. Her wings feel like masses of stone.

“Yeah,” Raith says. Her glamour burns away, leaving her rumpled uniform and unkempt hair. The hole in her shoulder still froths with black smoke and blood lightning as it heals. “We’re not flying for a while.”

“I guess we walk, then,” Riyo says.

“Um,” Raith says. “I hate to ask, but…”

Riyo turns to look at her, then blinks. “Oh. Yeah, okay. I owe you that much, at least. Thank you for helping me, Raith.”

“Ah, no, don’t mention it.” She leans in and delicately bites into Riyo’s neck. Hot blood washes over her tongue and it feels as though she has never drunk before this moment. Elation floods her and flows through into Riyo, too.

Avril stares at them, heat coming into her cheeks at Riyo’s expression. “Oh,” she says softly.

Gordon Toddledown was once a proud knight. He served for nearly thirty years protecting his kingdom, but when it was overthrown, he fled. On the very train he and his family had ridden to safety, he’d been offered a job. He’d known the Sultan of the Rails was a cruel, greedy man, but for the most part that meant there were simply no problems on his trains. He hadn’t considered, then, that he might be expected to give his life for the Sultan’s profits.

He has now seen the Sultan’s cruelty in action, so he only has himself to blame that he is now encased up to the neck in ice on an abandoned carriage in the middle of the desert.

“What now?” the metal box says, drawing a frowning face on his glass.

“I suppose we need to catch up with the train,” the swordsman says.

“We’re not going to catch it walking,” the bird-man says.

“I’m not sure what other choice we have,” the swordsman replies. He is staring out of the door into the night, watching the tracks disappear off into the distance.

“The assassin said Emerald and Sergeant Ixel fell off the train too. Maybe they’ll catch up once they’ve dealt with the lamia?”

“Even if they do, it’s not as though they can carry us all. No offense, Glitter.”

“I am quite heavy,” the box says. It settles to the ground, retracting its spindly legs. Its glass mists up, then shapes and notations begin appearing. A softly-whistled tune fills the carriage.

“We can’t stay here,” Gordon says. The desert air catches in his dry throat, but when he swallows, nothing changes. “At least get us off the tracks.”

“Huh?” Ravi says.

“We have to get off the tracks before the cleaner comes.”

“Cleaner?”

“The rails have to be kept clear,” Gordon says, glancing towards the door at the back of the carriage. “The cleaners come through between each service and clear anything blocking the tracks.”

“Oh. Well, maybe they can help us, then.”

“No.” Despite the ice, Gordon feels sweat beading on his brow. “You don’t understand. They clear the tracks. That’s all they do.”

Ravi frowns. “I don’t think I do understand.” The agitation on the guard’s face is making him think his fears are founded in something truly terrifying, though. “Maybe we should get off, though. Just in case?”

Rolleck matches his frown, then they both turn to Glitter.

His whistling trails away. “I think,” he says slowly, “that we can catch up.” The incomprehensible scribbles on his screen fade away, and he draws on a grin. “I have a plan.”

Gordon looks from the box to the other two. “If the cleaner catches up with us, we’ll die. We’ll all die.”

Ravi raises an eyebrow and turns to another of the guards. “Is that true?”

The questioned guard swallows. “I… Carriages, even whole trains, have gone missing. No sign of them left. Protesters have barricaded the tracks to no effect. There are so many stories… There’s something that cleans the tracks, but nobody’s ever seen it. The cleaners… They’re real.”

“We won’t be here when whatever it is arrives,” Glitter says cheerily. “Rolleck, I need you to cut up the walls.”

“I think I’m ready to fly again,” Emerald says. Every muscle in her body complains at the very thought of it, but the anguish of scorched blood vessels has faded.

“Do you think we can catch up to the train?” Riyo says.

Emerald shrugs. “It moves pretty fast, but we might get to Horologium while it’s still in the station.”

“Tch. That won’t help us catch the killer.”

“I don’t mean to point fingers,” Raith says, “but…”

“Yeah, I know. My fault.” Riyo bites her thumb.

“Not really,” Emerald says. “It’s her fault.”

“Nah. I should have been stronger.”

“What are we going to do about her, by the way?” Raith glances over her shoulder. Avril the lamia trails them, perhaps fifty metres behind. She turns her gaze to the ground when she notices Raith looking, but she continues following them. Her tail flicks from side to side and leaves a writhing pattern in the sand.

Riyo stops and turns to face Avril. “Hey!”

She twitches, then looks up at them through her bangs.

“We’re going to try and catch up with the train. Hurry up.”

“Huh?” Emerald says.

“Well we can’t just leave her in the middle of the desert.”

“We absolutely can.”

“Nuh uh. Raith, can you carry her if I negate her weight?”

Raith sighs. “I suppose so, yes.”

“Are you serious?” Emerald says.

Raith touches her collar. “The Writ says we all come from the same place. That we’re all one. To perpetrate cruelty against someone is to be cruel to yourself.”

“Huh. And what about all the fighting you’ve done?”

“Fighting is different,” Rath says, turning her serious red eyes to Emerald’s amber. “A fight is a contest of wills against one another. The pain of conflict is already shared between combatants. Cruelty is inherently unequal, so the balance comes back in different ways.”

“Somewhere down the road,” Riyo says with a nod. “I like that.”

Avril shuffles up to them, eyes downcast. “The train is long gone.” Her voice is so demure it is almost inaudible. “I don’t think you will catch it before it reaches Horologium.”

“All we can do is try,” Riyo says. “No funny business while we’re flying.”

“I… Of course. You broke my charm. There is no more I can do to you.”

Riyo opens her reality and negates their weight. Raith’s shadowy wings roll from her shoulders with a burst of bloody static, and they are soon airborne, streaming beneath the resplendence with the black iron of the rails their unwavering guide.

“Huh?” Riyo says. “We just flew over something on the rails.”

Avril shudders. “It was a cleaner. Leave it be.”

“Cleaner?”

“They keep the tracks clear. That’s all I know. All anybody except the Sultan knows.”

“It was a single person on a cart,” Raith says. “She looked… strange.”

Riyo’s eyes weren’t good enough to make that out, but she feels them. Feels their disquieting aura. It touches her in the same way the Darkness did, and she swallows and falls silent.

Their flight is chilly, but Riyo does not want to waste her energy diverting the wind away from them. She may be called upon to fight again before the train arrives, and the soft throb of her brain tells her she is still too close on the heels of the previous fight to push herself. Avril makes no complaints despite her relatively thin vest. She simply watches the sands flow by below them. Every now and again she glances at Riyo, but quickly looks away again.

“There’s something else,” Raith says.

“A blue light,” Emerald says, a smile in her voice.

“Glitter!” Riyo yells as they swoop down.

They land on an open train carriage. The walls have been jaggedly cut down and the floor is littered with scraps of metal. A group of blue-clad night-shift guards sit at the back, shivering in their damp uniforms. They keep glancing out of the portal where the door used to be. Towards the front of the carriage, two holes have been cut into the floor. A cluster of gears and rods emerges from each, their mechanisms reaching out towards a large gear attached to Glitter’s back. His glow is a beacon in the desert night as he spins the gear.

“I’m a train!” he says, then lets out a long, low whistle.

“That’s awesome!” Riyo says.

“We’re not going fast enough, though.” His voice drops, then perks up again. “But with you and Emerald…”

The carriage shudders, then the gears unlink from Glitter and they roll to a stop. He spins around with a whoosh of arctic air, his glass already fading to grey-white with condensation and frost. Plans begin to appear in traced angles and tightly-written notes.

“We can’t stop,” one of the guards yells from the back of the car. “Can’t you feel it?”

“There is something back there,” Raith says. “Something horrible.”

“We’ve got time,” Riyo says, following their worried gazes back down the empty rails. “What do we need to do, Glitter? I’m pretty worn out.”

“That’s okay! We need fans!”

They set to work at Glitter’s instruction, tearing down more of the walls until the carriage is little more than a platform with wheels. In short order, a section of metal from the roof is bent into a tube and filled with fans, welded into existence with precision blasts of pink flame. The last of the walls are moulded into a large tank to which the pipe is attached. They cut two more holes into the floor and create another array of gears attached to the wheels.

As they work, the tension grows. The captive guards mutter and mumble, watching the darkness behind and shuddering against a cold just as much imagined as truly felt. Dread flows across the desert and builds into a wave that reaches up above them, threatening to crash down and wipe the rails clean of everything.

Glitter packs snow into the tank, dredging every molecule of liquid from the dry desert air and sapping it of its energy.

“We have to go,” Gordon Toddledown yammers, his body shaking. “It’s here.”

Raith looks up first, and her pale skin blanches further. Riyo rushes to the back of the car and squints out into the night as silence falls, heavy enough to drag wind to earth. A constant, uncomfortable squeak of a wheel turning rises and draws the cleaner into sight.

“What… what is she?” Ravi says.

“She’s an orc,” Raith says. “But…”

“Now, Emerald,” Glitter says. He can feel the energy behind them warping strangely, now.

Emerald seals the tank, then takes a step back. With a glance over her shoulder for the miasma of empty power that follows, she breathes, wreathing the tank in flame. Water begins to boil. Steam flows past turbines, which begin to spin.

The orc is tall. As tall as Emerald. Her skin is olive green, her hair as black as midnight. Her crimson ball gown flutters around her legs in a soft wind that floats grains of sand across the track before her. Grains which simply vanish. Her left eye is russet red, staring forward, devoid of life. Her right is too big, too round. Ringed with a haze of violet that almost matches the Resplendence, it contains a void so deep and empty that the entire world could fall into it without so much as a whisper. Cracks of black nothingness run through her skin all down the right side of her body.

“Word shelter us,” one of the guards whispers as time starts moving again. Steam bursts from the end of the tube and Glitter snatches it into his body, taking its energy and turning it back to water before rushing it back towards the tank. The wheels of the car grind the tracks, and they begin to move.

Another guard grabs a hunk of leftover metal from the ground, panic in his eyes.

“No!” Riyo says.

He hefts the metal as if to throw it.

The carriage begins to pick up speed. Emerald holds her flame steady on the tank while Glitter feeds it snow to boil.

Everyone else stares at the spot where the guard was. No sign remains that he ever existed.

The orc’s cart continues to roll forward, implacable. Their makeshift steam engine pulls them away from her, gears whizzing to a blur. The sound of groaning metal overtakes them, and as the cleaner fades into the darkness it feels as though they can breathe again.

“That was disquieting,” Rolleck says. Sword and voice both are deathly silent.

“It almost felt familiar,” Riyo says, staring at the tracks as if the cleaner is still there. She turns towards Avril, who is making herself as small as possible. “Who exactly is the Sultan of the Rails?”

“He is just a man. I have seen him. He is ambitious, greedy, but just a man.”

They are still gaining speed, and the air that rushes past them is laden with sand. They all hunker down as best they can to avoid being pelted.

“How fast can we go?” Ravi yells over the roar of the wind.

“Very,” Glitter says. He sounds distracted. “We aren’t limited by the weight of the train. Or by the need for the engine to survive the journey.”

Riyo’s stomach feels as though it is sinking into the ground. The sound of the tracks and wheels is a cacophony of clashing steel, while the violet-tinted dunes flash by them in a mirage haze.

“How do we slow down, Glitter?” Raith calls from the front.

“Uhhh…”

“You could at least stop making us go faster,” Rolleck says.

“I can design a brake,” Glitter says, letting the steam wisp away behind them. He begins calculating friction and velocity on his glass.

“I think it might be too late for that,” Raith says. A blip in the distance is fast becoming the back end of a train. It grows in their focus like the sun climbing higher in the sky.

“We’re going over the top,” Riyo says, narrowing her eyes into the wind. “Ravi, keep the first three cars where they are then find the girl and her mother. Glitter, Emerald, stay with the doctor and the ninja and make sure the passengers are safe. Raith, Rolleck, stay with me. We’re going to talk to the night warden.”

Everyone nods. The distance closes with the chatter of wheels and the grinding of gears.

“Um,” Gordon Toddledown says.

Then the broken car hits its former partner, and everything shifts forward. The guards roll, slump and slide, sloughing discarded chunks of train from their paths. Riyo tilts the world and, as the bolt that holds the cars together freezes into place, she and her friends are catapulted up over the train. The yells of fear and confusion reach them through open windows, but everybody’s eyes are turned backwards as they glide overhead. Only Emerald remains behind, bracing against the impact with wings outstretched, her claws hooked into the clothing of Ginger and Dr. Mildjum.

Ravi pulls a triad of arrows to his cheek. His cursebreaker rolls through his feathers and over his bowstring, imparting his power to cold steel and smooth wood. They arc over the train and curl back against the wind, slamming down into the first three cars, each in its centre. The arrows join outside to in and lock them there with curls of blue lightning.

They land half-way down the train and sprint for the front, Raith and Ravi pulling ahead.

“Find the girl and her mother,” Ravi tells Vale, and the ghost nods. She looks at the floor for a moment, face bent in concentration. Then she yelps and falls through into the carriage. Ravi jumps a few more cars then drops into a gap, his knife clearing its sheath just as the door before him opens. The carriage in front of him is lined with beds that bunk four high, all with curtains across them. Batons and blue uniforms hang beside many of them, and that is all Ravi notices before the night-shift guard in front of him yells and swings his baton.

Glitter stops on top of the dining car, letting his frozen leg-extensions melt away. He extends his awareness down through the metal to find a room full of anxious bodies. His crystal spins, and the metal beneath him grows cold. Brittle. He sees Vale slip through the floor and, a moment later, does the same thing. Iron cracks beneath his weight, and a chorus of fearful screams greets his arrival in the dining car. Ice crackles as it forms around him, catching his chassis and leaving him hanging above the passengers like a chandelier.

“Hello everyone!” he says. They do not stop screaming.

Raith smells blood in the car below her. Not the simple pulse of life, either. Freshly spilled by violence. She reaches the end of the car and peers down into the gap between, then snarls and swings down, her boot hitting a night-shift guard in the back and shoving him into the car with a yell. He crashes into one of his colleagues and they both go down in a heap.

Elemus Fetch turns his knifepoint glare on her. Behind him, Matteus Flamesbane hangs between two of the day guards, a long cut stretching across his chest. His blood soaks his white shirt and dribbles onto the floor of his little office.

“Uther has failed, I see,” Fetch says.

“Only as badly as you.” Raith reaches up and pulls back her hair, letting her glamour envelop her as she does. Shrouded in her power, she tilts her head to one side until her neck cracks.

A small smirk plays across Fetch’s lips, and he lays his hands on his daggers. His eyes gleam silver behind his glasses, their colour beginning to escape the iris. They make stars with black slits through them.

“I do not fail, vampire,” he says.

“Where’s she going?” Riyo complains as she and Rolleck jump the gap Raith has disappeared into.

“Leave her. She knows what she’s doing.” Rollecks words are clipped. His heart is racing as the wires around it tighten. His sword is singing a tune he has heard before, deep beneath Saviour’s Call.

They reach the first of the immobilised cars, and Riyo lets out a breath of relief. She has no idea if Uther would be capable of redistributing them when they were outside on the roof, but now she needn’t think about it anymore. Ahead, the engine huffs smoke and steam into the night, providing them with a ceiling of unfurling shapes. A dark figure heaves itself up onto the next car, its broad back to the trough of coal between them and the engine itself.

Riyo pulls up. “Garth the night warden, right?”

“As long as the Sultan’s heart beats,” he rumbles, “the trains run.”

“The train would have kept running just fine without the murder of Thaddeus Copperwright,” Rolleck says. His left eye throbs, drawn like a lodestone to the sword on the night warden’s hip.

He narrows his eyes but says nothing. Instead, he lays a hand on the hilt of his sword.

Riyo scoffs. “He knows it. He’s been given an order that makes no sense, but he’s too scared to question it.”

“Silence!” he shrieks, and Rolleck and Riyo both take a step back. His voice has risen in pitch, and now his eyes are open far too wide, their pupils burning like the heart of the train. “Kindness is weakness. Compassion is weakness. Empathy is weakness. The spice merchant got what was due to him.”

“Uh,” Riyo says.

“His sword is like mine,” Rolleck says. “Be careful.”

“That doesn’t really help. You never talk about your sword.” Riyo says. “But hey, that probably means I can just squish him. Gravity Mould.”

Her reality flares out over the desert night. At the very surface of the carriage, she feels the resistance offered by Uther’s reality, so she keeps her own above it. The air around Garth roars as it gains the weight of a mountain.

Garth screams. It’s a truly horrific sound, and the world around them flickers between resplendent purple and shimmering red. Rolleck’s sword screams in counter, and he swings around as something lashes towards Riyo’s back. His sword meets another, unseen, but the blade cuts across his forehead at his hairline, spilling blood down into his right eye. He pushes back against it with a roar and the pressure vanishes.

“What was that?” Riyo shouts. Then she blinks. There’s something driving towards her through the haze of colour. A barely-visible, heavily-distorted skeleton of withered grey bone, its massive sword swinging down towards her. Its eye sockets are filled with cherry-red bloodlust.

Riyo’s sword spins from her back and into her hands, the dragon claw crashing into the skeleton’s steel just in time to keep her head from being split open.

Then the creature is gone. She looks back to Garth to find him still. The pressure of her reality has driven him to the roof of the carriage, but he is not resisting. His eyes look empty. Riyo takes a step in that direction and the skeleton is there again. She feels it, rather than sees it, in the surety that she is about to be cleaved apart from the blind spot on her right. She turns, but Rolleck is faster. Steel clashes against iron and the presence disappears.

“Just crush him,” he pants, his eyes roving the fizzing sky.

Riyo reaches out again, but finds her reality is no longer solely hers. Uther’s has a barely noticeable bulge in it, just large enough to cover the prone form of the night warden.

“Shit,” Riyo says, focusing in and forcing Uther away. His reality retreats easily, but it is too late.

A wild-eyed night guardsman pushes himself upright, staring around at the sandy air before focusing on Riyo. His face is pale, but he reaches a shaking hand for his baton. A cold, screeching laughter fills the air and the baton is ripped from his grip as it is torn in half by a blow that cracks through the guard’s ribs. Blood fountains into the night as the spectral sword rips through him several more times before he collapses into a puddle that runs along the carriage and begins to dribble down over the windows.

Riyo grinds her teeth together, then closes her eyes against the rush of the wind and the flickering of the light. Through her reality, she feels her own mass. She feels the holes and bursts of gravity that hold her sword aloft by her side, ready to swing. She feels Rolleck, solid at her back, his balance perfect. She feels the air’s scattered shapes pulling and pushing at each other as they pass.

Something shifts, and a moment later the clash of blades rings out beside her head. Rolleck lands lightly then spins into another block. Riyo feels the weight of it blow her hair aside. Something cold touches her ear, then the heat of blood welling replaces it. She takes a steady breath. Lets it out. The fight drops away, and she feels just the air. Feels how it moves. Even as light as each particle is, it changes the world around it. Gravity. Pulling at the emptiness between everything, trying desperately to draw everything together. She can change it at her will, but she can also feel it. And it shows her the shapes, like clusters of stars. She just needs to learn from it. Learn the ebbs and flows. It’s something she does subconsciously when she fights – the knife edge that lets her flow through a fight like she is part of the very air that sustains her. She needs to learn it consciously. Needs to able to comprehend everything that happens within her reality through the way it affects the force she has chosen as its fulcrum of control.

“Give me five minutes,” she says to Rolleck in a patch of silence between the clangs of metal.

“That all?” he says, wiping some more blood from his eye with his cuff.

Emerald is surrounded by groaning humans that she is not sure what to do with. As far as she can tell there are no serious injuries among the guards, and even if there were, they are technically still her enemies. She shouldn’t be worrying about them, really.

“Can you do anything for them?” she asks the doctor. He is sitting beside her, watching the door to the next carriage through spectacles that sit at a jaunty angle across his face.

“Hmm?” he says. He then glances around. “It is my professional assessment,” he declares, “that these people all tried to kill me quite recently.”

Emerald grunts. There’s not much in the way of medicine amongst dragons. Either your wounds heal, or they kill you, as far as her kind are concerned. She knows a little of herbal medicine thanks to her training as a dryad, but the endless forest held endless greenery to learn about. They hadn’t touched on the scrub brush and ugly cacti of the desert.

“They’ll be fine,” Ginger says. He is squatting beside one of the guards, who sprawls beside his comrades. He is breathing, but not moving. “I think most of them are faking so that you don’t see them as a threat.”

“Cowards,” Uther says. “But still useful.”

Emerald starts, staring past Ginger to where the shady crafter now stands. A growl builds in her throat, fanning her pilot to a flare.

Before she can breathe, Uther is gone. In his place is a befuddled guard half-way through putting his trousers on.

“Bwa?” he says.

“Everything comes in sets,” Uther says, now a little further back amongst the fallen guards. “Cards. Carriages. People.”

He’s gone again, another guard in his place. This one is on his knees clutching his belly and groaning.

“So, anything that can be classed a set, you can reshuffle into any order you want,” Emerald says.

“Precisely.” Uther is standing next to Ginger. The guard he was inspecting is now playing possum somewhere else.

Ginger jumps, then a blade slips out of his sleeve and into his hand. It’s quite a slick move, really, but before he can jam it into Uther’s guts the crafter lifts a bright white crystal over his head and crushes it. Then Ginger is gone. In his place is a woman with sleek silver hair and eyes like a frozen pond. Spears of light burst from the motes of the broken crystal and lance through the woman, whose eyes have just begun to widen in surprise.

For a moment, everything is quiet. The desert wind continues to rush by, its chill curling around them. Then Uther grins.

“A small set, master and apprentice, but still a set.”

“What is this?” the woman growls. Only her face is moving. Her lustrous silken coat whips around in the wind, but her body is frozen.

“A light trap gem,” Uther says. “Very expensive, but worth it to capture one of the Guild’s top assassins, I think.”

Emerald lunges past the incapacitated assassin, her wings jerking back to give her a burst of speed from a standing start. She isn’t quick enough, and a moment before her fist connects a grim-faced guard appears, baton raised.

“Bloody bird-!” he manages before Emerald’s punch lays him flat.

“Huh,” she says, then glances back towards the pile of guards. Sure enough, Uther is there, and he’s off-balance. She dives for him, then, as soon as he switches, she grabs the confused guard by the front of his jacket and slams him into the ground.

Frostbite takes in the broken walls and cluster of guards, then lets out a relieved breath.

“You seem relaxed, for someone trapped so thoroughly,” Doctor Mildjum says.

“The crafter is running out of options,” she says. “Watch.”

Mildjum turns back to look at the dragon, who is eyeing up the pile of guards. After a moment, she lifts the one she has just downed and tosses him on top of one of his compatriots.

Uther flashes back into their carriage, replacing one of the downed guards. He’s clutching a book and scowling at Emerald. He flips open the cover as Emerald swings for him, and his hand closes around something concealed within the pages. A torrent of water takes hold of the book and flings it away from Uther, smashing it into Emerald’s chest. She instinctively tilts her head back to keep the water from her pilot, and the jet’s pressure forces her back down the carriage, talons digging ridges into the metal.

As the flow ebbs, she leans into it and breathes down its path, a spear of pink wrath the width of her wrist. Uther vanishes with the last of his flood, the fire swishing over the guard who appears in his place and glancing through the corner of the next carriage before flaring off over the desert.

“Seven,” the dazed guard says, blinking up at the sky where the ceiling was a moment before.

Emerald grins, then counts. On five, she digs in her claws and pounces towards the pile of guards. On six, she lands on one leg and pivots so her tail sweeps over the top of them. On seven, there is a flicker, and one of the guards vanishes so that Uther, clutching at a wound in his shoulder, appears in its path. He doesn’t have time to respond before crimson scales smash across his midriff, driving blood and bile from his mouth and slinging him from the train.

Her eyes trail him as he arcs over the sand and meet his. Still bright. Still conscious.

“Damnit,” Emerald says, throwing out her wings and leaping from the carriage just as Uther reappears at its far end among his guards.

“Got you!” he yells through bloody teeth, the book in his hands flickering from volume eight to volume thirty. He snatches the gem from its pages and darkness pulses between his fingers, spilling into the night in shreds of power.

Emerald lands in a flash of sand and wind, catching the plummeting guard in her arms and inhaling her pilot, knowing she’s too late.

Uther crushes the gem, loosing a miasma of horror that strikes all along the train. His palm burns black and red as he extends it towards Emerald. His evil smile is cast in writhing crimson shadow until it hits the deck of the car. His yell of surprise is overawed by a roar of tortured metal and a wave of corruption smashing over the edge of the car as his mana gem misfires. His scream turns to agony as shadow becomes hellish flame, then dies in a sliver of smoke that dwindles to nothing.

Emerald stares as the train pulls gently away from her, its smashed undercarriage and bent wheels screeching against the tracks. Then she blinks, taking a breath and pushing herself after it, wings thrashing the sky.

One of the guards is sitting near a perfect circle that has been scorched into them metal of the floor. Gordon Toddledown is being tended by the guards around him, all in various states of undress. His arm now ends at the elbow, where tendrils of shadow have etched into his skin and burned closed the stump of his arm. A night-shift cap and a leather-bound tome lie atop a rune in the centre of the circle, and as Emerald lands, the wind catches the cap and twirls it out into the infinite night.

Emerald picks up the book and flips it open to where the gem was hidden. The title reads Scourge of the Hellgate.

“Huh,” she says, then casts it after its owner’s hat. She looks to Gordon.

“Bastard,” he says between groans. “Sacrificing us-” he screams as one of his colleagues prods his arm.

“Sorry.”

“What happened to him?”

“I think he’s gone on unpaid vacation,” Emerald says, remembering the ashes and bones of the plane a fiery metal skeleton centaur had once proudly called Hell. “Somewhere warm.”

“What about the warden?” another of the guards says. He is watching the door into the train with nervous eyes. “What if he finds out?”

“He’s probably going to take a vacation too,” Emerald says. The wind blows by and the rails screech in protest at the dragging of the crippled carriage. Doctor Mildjum bundles himself over to Gordon and straightens his spectacles, blinking at the blackened skin of his arm. The assassin stands frozen in a ready stance, watching Emerald with calm blue eyes.

“You said you would watch over Guinevere,” she says. “Where is she now?”

“In the care of my apprentice.” Frostbite’s features are calm. Assured.

“He doesn’t seem very reliable.”

“He isn’t.”

Emerald scowls. “If something happens to that little girl, I will hold you partially responsible.”

“She’s safe,” the assassin says. The crystalised light holding her in place begins to shimmer and flash. Without taking her eyes from Emerald’s, she shrugs her shoulders and the spell breaks. Fragments fall like shattered glass as she straightens the collar of her coat. “I know when the spectre of death hangs above someone.” She turns to look up the train.

A lance of perfect white light flashes into the sky, piercing the resplendence and lighting the desert for a hundred miles around. A soft, sweet tune drifts down the carriages towards them.

“There are surprisingly few spectres around tonight,” she says.

Glitter has a good memory. He remembers everything his father ever taught him, every book he has ever read. He remembers the patterns of energy that make up everything in the world around him. This makes him incredibly smart in a lot of ways, but Albert was fond of saying that without wisdom, knowledge is worthless. Wisdom, he said, is applied knowledge.

For example, you can know that there is something seriously wrong with the people in a train carriage, but if you can’t do anything about it then you are not smart. If you cannot save them, you are not wise.

The people are still screaming. At first, Glitter had been hurt by this. Then they had kept screaming, and he realised that they weren’t even looking at him. Wide-eyed and shaking, they are nevertheless still. They stare at each other, or out of the windows, or at the floor. Whatever has them afraid, they cannot see it. Glitter cannot see it either, which means it is probably not a ghost. The question, then, is what else could possibly be that scary?

“Can anyone hear me?” Glitter calls, his voice squeaks as he strains to be heard over the screams, but it is useless. He stretches his awareness out to focus on the closest passenger. The man has black hair that is beginning to go grey and a loose white shirt that is also beginning to go grey. He is staring just past Glitter through a pair of spectacles, saliva frothing from his mouth and dripping from his lips. Glitter can sense specks of blood in it.

“Well, that’s not right,” Glitter says, beginning to hum quietly. He doesn’t know that much about human anatomy, but he is reasonably sure they are not supposed to bleed from their mouths. He does, however, know about the effects of temperature on humans. After almost killing his father by chilling their laboratory in his excitement over discovering how cheese was made, Albert had taught him all about the ideal human temperature, and the effects of lowering it.

His hum becomes louder as he goes to work, sapping the heat from the air around him. His favourite lullaby, one of the first songs Albert had taught him, lilts through the carriage to replace the heat. The furious heartbeats of terrified passengers begin to slow, coming to match the pace of his sleepy melody. A young boy slumps against his mother’s shoulder, his voice stilling, his eyes fluttering closed. Glitter keeps his little space the same temperature.

One by one, the passengers start to drop. The men at the card table collapse over it, screams turning to snores as their bodies slow to preserve their heat. When the last person’s forehead thumps into the bar, Glitter stops humming and draws himself a smile.

Then something smashes against his back. His attention flickers down the carriage, taking in the shards falling to the ground below him as it goes. Glass. Some kind of viscous liquid has splashed all over his machinery from a clear, unmarked bottle. A filament strand of something trails away from where the bottle hit him to the far end of the car, where Carolina is standing.

“Gotta say, Glitter, I’m glad no one else knows I pushed you into taking us on.” She puts the stem of a mahogany pipe in her mouth and speaks around it. “I thought Uther would just drop you all in the desert like always, but you’ve really surprised me.”

“Oh,” Glitter says, the pulse of his crystal slowing as his heart sinks. “You were lying to me, too.”

“’Fraid so. Nothing I said was really untrue, but I deceived you.” She pulls out a box of matches and strikes one, using it to light her pipe. “Still, it’s turned out a lot better for you guys than I expected. No harm, no foul, right?”

“Big foul,” Glitter says. He draws on his angry face, but realises his glass is facing the other way and she can’t see it. “You did something to the passengers, didn’t you?”

“A little concoction of mine. The boss needed to keep them from making any more messes. A little painful, for sure, only fatal to one in ten.” The match is still burning, getting close to her fingertips.

“Then you’re an enemy,” Glitter says, grabbing at the moisture around the car, careful to keep the passengers’ temperatures from dipping too far.

“Thought you might say that,” Carolina says, and bops the match against the thread that links them.

Perfect orange fire streaks up it, faster than Glitter can follow. In a pulse of his crystal, he is engulfed in flame, the liquid dripping down him catching instantly. The energy of it is incredible. He can feel it biting into his casing and pressing its heat against his crystal.

“The hottest flame outside the heart of the sun,” Carolina says with a satisfied smile. “It can melt anything. Even dragon scales.”

Glitter has never dealt with so much energy before. He draws it in, the moisture he has gathered forgotten, hanging like unspent rain along the roof of the carriage. It is endless. His pulses quicken, his extraction fans spin so fast they begin to grind against his casing. Steam flushes from his shoulder vents as the moisture he keeps within him vaporises. The calming blue of his light pales, then fades to burning white. It hurts. It feels as though his very essence is straining against the surface of his crystal. It feels as though he will crack. Will shatter. And still the fire burns.

“You draw in heat – energy – from the world around you, Glitter,” Albert said.

“Yes,” Glitter said.

“In normal crystals, this happens naturally at a consistent rate. With no outside influence, the energy is expelled simply as light.” He showed Glitter a small crystal. A distant, inert cousin. A piece of metal pierced it from bottom to top, and on each end was a gear. The crystal pulsed slowly, blue light twinkling between Albert’s fingers.

“Yes.”

“But, when pressure is applied to the crystal in some way, the crystal takes in more energy and resists.” He lay the crystal on the table so that a gear hung off the edge, then tried to twist the gear. The crystal glowed brighter and, despite Albert’s efforts, did not rotate.

“Yes,” Glitter said.

“So, by applying a little pressure to the crystal, we can force it to take in energy and spin, thus also pushing anything attached to the gear. Once the spin begins, whatever is being driven will provide its own resistance, and the output increases, until the crystal reaches its limit. The limit is different for each crystal.”

“Yes,” Glitter said.

“This isn’t relevant to you,” Albert said, shoving the crystal back on the shelf.

“Oh.” Sometimes, Glitter wondered at Albert’s teaching method. He would often repeat things that he had said before, as though Glitter might have forgotten it. Glitter did not forget anything.

“You can control the intake and distribution of energy yourself, but!” He strode forward and tapped Glitter’s glass with his gloved finger. “That doesn’t mean you don’t have a limit.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you have to be careful, Glitter. You are unique. Intelligent. You have free will.” He took a step back and removed his glove. Taking his smallest finger in his other hand, he began to bend it back. “Human beings have free will, too. This is the limit of how far I can bend this finger.” He pushed harder and his face changed shape. His finger bent further, and when he spoke again his tone had changed. “I can go beyond the limit, but it hurts. If I push any harder, my finger will break.” He stopped the demonstration. “You can do that, too.”

“I don’t have fingers, though,” Glitter said.

Albert knocked on his glass harder this time. “But you have limits, just like my finger. I’ve been thinking about them, and I want to make sure you have options.” He walked over to the bench that he had been working at lately, and that he had forbid Glitter from investigating. It now has a cloth over it, and with what he had taught Glitter was a ­‘smile’, he pulled the cloth off. “Behold, the energy displacer!”

“Wow!” Glitter said. “What is it?”

“I can push my finger back,” Albert said, lifting the device and bringing it over to Glitter. It was made up of a long pipe attached to a squat barrel. There were openings down the side of the barrel all around its circumference, and inside there were wires. “You can take in energy. If I push too hard, my finger breaks. If you take in too much energy…”

“Will I break?”

“Maybe, but with this, no matter how much energy you absorb, you will have a way of getting rid of it. You see, spiralling the energy around my patent-pending energy filament compresses it in a way that makes it much easier to impart to something else as kinetic energy. The tube contains a sphere of mana-corrupted steel that can be ejected with this energy without damaging your internals.” Albert patted the tube. “Depending on the amount of energy you’re capable of absorbing, it might end up coming out quite fast, so best not point it at anything important. Maybe we can make it come out of the top?”

“What does patent-pending mean?” Glitter said.

“Erm… Not quite sure. Just felt right, you know?”

“No. I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s something else you’ll have to learn from experience. Sometimes, things just feel right.”

“Oh.”

A gear whirls and, with a thunk of spring-loaded metal, the energy displacer tube shoots out of the top of Glitter’s chassis. As the last of the flames dies out, Glitter dumps all of his energy into the patent-pending energy filament. Sparks fly around the barrel of wires, arcing power between them and making the inside of his case flicker with lightning. His crystal slows, its colour deepening as the energy leeches away into his machinery. There is a moment of quiet peace that makes Carolina scowl.

Then the energy gets displaced.

The mana-corrupted ball of steel rides an impossible pillar of energy up into the night sky. The edges fray away into heat and light and illuminate the desert as the ball tears a hole in the resplendence. A fortune of mana gems cascade onto the sand around the tracks, and Carolina’s pipe falls out of her mouth.

Glitter feels good. After the pressure of all that energy, it’s as though his bulky body is as light as a feather. He begins whistling. Draws a smiley face on his glass.

“That was great!” he says. A knife of scalpel-sharp ice drops from the collected moisture and severs the thread between him and the mixologist.

Her hand flashes to a bottle on her belt.

“No,” Glitter says, and it’s a note of painful, discordant anger. Dozens of knives now point down from the ceiling at Carolina.

She freezes. “I don’t think you’re the murdering type, Glitter,” she says slowly.

An icicle shatters on the doorframe behind her. A line of red appears on her cheek, blood dribbling down to her chin.

“I wasn’t!” Glitter shouts, his voice cracking. “But maybe you made me that way. You and Uther and Eleanor and everyone who has ever lied to me. Everyone who hurt me just because I trusted them.”

Ice rains down and Carolina screams, covering her face with her arms. The scream covers the tinkling of broken glass, and a moment later, when she realises she hasn’t been ripped apart, she reaches down to find all her bottles shattered. Liquids soak into her trousers and drip down onto the floor. She quickly kicks away her still-smouldering pipe before any sunflame fluid gets near it, then bounces back against the wall beside the door as ice cracks in front of her. Bars rise from the carpet and encage her, twinkling in the blue light of the carriage’s mana gems.

“You just stay there until I’m less grumpy,” Glitter says, lowering himself to the floor between the tables and letting his attention focus on the greying man by his feet. He is still snoozing quietly. “How long will it take for your stuff to wear off?”

“An hour or so,” Carolina says, voice unsteady. She brings her hand up to one of the bars, but the chill radiating off it is enough to sting her hand. If she touches it, she might lose the hand before she can pull it away.

“Well, it’s probably best they stay asleep for now anyway. Riyo wouldn’t want them to get in the way.” He pushes his awareness out. Everything grows hazy, but he can feel the rough distribution of energy for several cars ahead of them. For a moment there is only stillness, then a massive wall of cold, bleak energy erupts from one of the guard cars.

“Ohhhh,” Glitter says, pulling his awareness back. “That’s… good? Bad?” He freezes the door at that end of the carriage closed, packing ice against it, then begins humming an uneasy tune. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

The situation in front of Vale is precarious. The small office at the back of one of the guards’ dormitory cars probably belongs to one of the night-shift’s higher-ups. It’s a close space for six people to occupy, but the single guardsman and his two prisoners probably feel reasonably comfortable. The three invisible members of the crowd are frozen in a stand-off, eyes darting from one to the other, waiting patiently for somebody to slip. The little girl clings to her mother, a leafy necklace clenched in her fist. Her mother strokes her hair and watches the guard, fear, anger and despair warring for control of her features.

The silver-haired woman wears a coat that makes Vale feel cold despite being a ghost. The creature opposite her makes hairs stand up on the back of her neck despite her no longer having a neck. It has pasty skin wrapped so close around its bones that it might as well be a skeleton, and its eyes are multi-faceted gems of deep crimson that flash in the light. It has a single finger and thumb on each hand, and a needle-like bone sticks out between them, shimmering with something toxic. Its mouth is too wide, and filled with terrible, off-yellow teeth.

“Uh, hi,” Vale says.

The room maintains its tableau, and Vale begins to feel awkward. Ravi hadn’t actually told her what to do when she found the girl. It seems the creepy bug creature wants to kill the child and her mother, while the assassin in white will not allow it. The assassin cannot move from her position lest she fail to destroy the creature utterly before it reaches its prey. The creature cannot go straight for the humans lest it give the assassin exactly the opening she needs. Clearly, the creature believes the assassin is good enough to make perfect use of such an opening. She is no flailing apprentice.

There is a flicker. A change that happens so instantaneously that nobody sees it for half a second. The assassin is gone. In her place is her ginger protégé.

“Uh oh,” Vale says, and leaps forward. She knows Ravi would be upset with her if she let the child die. She has no idea what she can do in this situation, but it will take something, or someone, with more of a physical presence than her to keep the creature from ending the spice magnate’s entire family.

She swipes at the guard, putting everything she can into the swing as the creature sees Ginger’s confusion and lunges for the girl. The guard yelps and stumbles between wither and victim, and the bony spike pierces his uniform. He grunts, then turns to look back at Vale, unaware that he is already dead.

Vale ignores him, springing over the two captives and landing in the apprentice. It feels nothing like the Death Waltz. That surging of impossible power that transforms two beings into a singular, godlike entity did not occur. Instead, Vale feels as though she is wearing a jacket that is slightly too tight. She looks down at her hands and finds that they belong to a man much taller than her. She touches her head and finds curls of thick red hair between her fingers.

“Oh,” she says, and it is not her voice.

The wither elbows the guard aside and lunges again, just as the girl’s mother turns in surprise at the sound of Ginger’s voice. Vale grabs for the shape at her belt that feels like a knife and swipes it over the woman’s head, slashing at the wither’s fingers.

“Stay away!” the girl’s mother yells, trying to shove at Vale. She lays a quick slash across the woman’s wrist – the most efficient way to make her withdraw it.

“Shut up and let me save your life,” she says with Ginger’s voice, watching as the wither draws back again, unsure what to make of this sudden competence from the apprentice.

Hold this pose for five seconds, or I will cut your throat as soon as I get back, she tells Ginger inside his own head.

Then she is gone, leaving the little office behind in favour of a carriage full of empty bunks and unconscious men. Ravi Matriya is leaning against one of the beds, his feathers ruffled and his lungs working overtime. He senses her and looks up, then sighs with relief.

“I hope Emerald got him,” he says, glancing past her at a tumble of guards near the end of the carriage.

“What-? No. Don’t care. We’ve gotta do the dance thing. Now.”

“The what?”

“Dead dance. Ghost boogie. Post-mortem paso doble. Whatever it’s called.”

“Wait, last time-”

“No time,” Vales says.

Ravi tries to step back, but there is a bed behind him. Vale slides into him as he begins to fall backwards, and this time there is a surge. This time, the chill of the grave wreathes them both and clutches the carriage in its icy embrace, incandescent azure flashing in the glass of the windows.

Vale seizes the power and slaps her hands together. Ice and lightning twirl together into the arc of a bow as she pulls them apart again, then she draws, aiming down the train.

Wait! A voice says in her mind, but she doesn’t. Somehow, she knows exactly how to let her arrow fly. How to control its power, its speed. How to make it perfectly deadly. There is a shimmering link in the air, trailing from her to the ginger boy she was just inhabiting. She aims just to the right of it.

Shadowslice is having trouble breathing. He doesn’t know where he is or how he got here. On top of this, he has just lost control of himself for a moment. For a terrifying blur of a few seconds, he had been able to see the most horrifying creature he could possibly imagine. He had attacked it. Perhaps out of instinct, or perhaps by some manner of Written providence. But then he had slashed the poor woman before a rude voice had told him to stay still.

He couldn’t move to save his life. He is too scared.

The creature, if it was real, is nowhere to be seen. The guard who had fallen over for no reason is now trying to stand up, but he seems woozy. His legs drop out from beneath him before he can push himself up the wall, and he slumps against it.

The quiet in the room is unpleasant. The subtle sobs of a little girl are all that touch the air, and all that Shadowslice can see is the ephemeral shape of that creature, looming like a monstrous insect on the backs of his retinas.

There is a silent flash of blue, then pressure washes over him, making him stumble away. He glances to his left to find an arrow quivering in the wood of the wall. Blue static flickers around it for a moment, then it explodes into splinters of twirling pine.

Angela Copperwright screams, and Shadowslice turns back to find the creature was not a nightmare, but very, very real. It stumbles towards him, right arm raised and a wet hiss emerging from its crooked mouth. Purple stains the side of its face, flows in rivulets down its skeletal torso from a gaping wound where its other shoulder should be.

Shadowslice screams even higher than Angela and throws his knife while covering his eyes with his other arm and cowering away from the creature, pressing himself against the wall. For a moment the hiss is the only sound. Then the thump of something hitting the carpet. He gingerly peeks over his arm to find the creature has fallen. Purple blood oozes into a pool around it, and the knife his master had given him upon selecting him as her apprentice juts out of its left eye.

Everyone stares at the creature, frozen by fear and confusion.

Then someone says, “Drat. Missed the heart.”

Shadowslice almost screams again, eyes darting to the door. The person that has just slipped through it, apparently without opening it, looks a bit like the bird-man, Ravi. He is taller, though, and his feathers are longer. They shimmer silvery in the dim blue light, and lightning seems to arc between them. His pure, white eyes touch on everything in the room, then he places his foot on the back of the creature’s head and presses down. With no effort whatsoever, it bursts, spraying purple across the ground.

He turns those eyes on Shadowslice and the assassin’s apprentice stops breathing.

“I wonder what your head would look like inside?”

There is a furious rush of arctic wind that carries the scent of rotting flesh and the sadness of grief, then Ravi staggers backwards, back to normal.

“I told you, you only do as I tell you or we’re done,” he says angrily, facing away from Shadowslice towards an empty corner of the room. He grabs a dagger from above his quiver and gestures towards the corner. Lightning flashes. “I’ve destroyed one ghost already with this power.”

After a tense but empty moment, he grunts and glances towards where Angela and Guinevere are huddled on a bench against the wall.  He nods, and with a palpable release of power he sheathes the dagger.

“I’m sorry if I scared you,” he says, facing the captives, “but you’re safe now. I’ll stay with you until we reach Horologium.”

“What was that creature?” Angela says, not looking at the bloody mess on the floor.

Ravi glances at Ginger.

“Um, my master called it a wither. I don’t know any more than that.”

“Then it was that… thing that killed my husband?”

Ravi looks to Guinevere, but her face remains buried in her mother’s dress.

“Yes,” he says.

“It was a member of the night staff,” Ginger says, climbing shakily to his feet. He pats his clothing for a moment then produces a sheaf of paper. “I’m truly sorry about what happened,” he says, offering the papers to Angela. “But as a member of the Guild of Assassins, it is my duty to confer these papers of contract immunity to you. They name you and your daughter alongside your late husband and bind the guild against accepting contracts against you in perpetuity.”

Angela takes the letter, red-rimmed eyes finding his. “Thank you,” she says quietly. “At least Guinevere will be safe.”

“Um, I will have to talk to my master, but I think because we hadn’t delivered them yet, you may be due some compensation from the guild.”

Angela just lowers her head and hugs her daughter close.

Ravi turns away to find Vale with her head stuck through the wall into the next carriage.

“Something I should know about?”

She pulls back and shakes her head quickly. “The sergeant seems… Well. I’m not scared of a lot, but I think we should stay here. You should open the door, though.”

Ravi does so and finds a pair of day guards holding Matteus Flamesbane between them. His shirt is dyed red, his face pale and slack. He is barely standing despite the guards’ assistance, and they stumble in together to the bench opposite Angela and Guinevere. Ravi shuts and locks the door behind them, then rushes over to Matteus.

“My train,” he mumbles. “My responsibility.”

“What happened?” Ravi asks.

“Fetch,” the left-hand guard says with disgust. “He’s a monster.” He goes to spit on the floor, then recoils in horror. “What in the Written Word is that?” There is a chunk of the wither’s brain on his boot.

“Another monster,” Ravi says, glancing back at the wall. “It seems like slaying monsters is what we do.”

Raith Ixel goes for the throat. It’s an instinct buried so deep within her that she seldom fights it. Her hand flashes out, straight as a blade and thrice as deadly, aimed at Elemus Fetch’s jugular.

She misses by the width of a hair.

“Typical vampire,” he says, leaning forward again. “You should know that none of your tricks will work on me.” He raises his blades, one held forward, the other in a reverse grip, and smirks. “You should also know that I am untouchable.”

“We’ll see,” Raith says, then lunges at him.

She feels the bite of his blade on the edge of her hand as he parries her, but the crackle of blood-lightning sears the injuries away almost as soon as they appear. She strikes for vital spots between trying for superficial strikes to throw him off balance, but his defence is precise and effortless. Her every swing falls a breath short, her every counter meets only air. He barely moves, taking only the steps that he needs to, slipping easily around the conductor’s office as though it is a dancefloor he has worked a thousand times.

Raith takes a breath and pulls back, lungs aching as they haul at the air. Fetch is still wearing the same infuriating smirk, and his breaths come as easily as if he were sleeping. Those star-shaped irises twinkle in the soft blue light.

“Even inhuman creatures of darkness grow tired eventually,” he says. “This is a game I have played before. First, they slow, then they err, then they die. It’s the same for every monster out there.”

Raith throws out power and darkness envelops her. Her blood-wreathed wings graze the ceiling and slice into the wood of the furniture on either side of her.

“You are only expediting the inevitable,” Fetch says.

In a blur of shadow, Raith is upon him. She stabs with flattened hands and wingtips, throws kicks that blow woodwork to splinters and shatter windows to let in the chill of the night. Walls come apart and the little office ceases to exist. The guards and conductor retreat through the carriage, staying ahead of the maelstrom of blows until they are forced to flee to the next car.

And through it all, Fetch is untouched, as he promised. Knives send her attacks wide, perfect little movements keep his body out of her range, and that smile drives her to greater fury. No matter what she does, though, he is always just out of reach.

“Those eyes,” Raith pants, stopping and leaning against half a chair to get her breath back. “What are you?”

“They call us nighteyes,” Fetch says, tossing one of his knives in the air. It spins like a fan blade, but he catches it again by the hilt before it can slow down. “Human beings with perfect perception and reflexes. I can see everything you are going to do the moment you decide to do it. I can see through any hypnosis or other trickery you might pull. You are an open book to me, vampire.”

“Then you’re still human,” Raith says, lunging for him. Once again, his throat is a fraction of an inch out of reach, and he tuts as his knife slashes across her throat. She jerks back, feeling blood dripping onto her collar for a moment before blood lightning flickers and the wound closes.

“Still human, yes,” he says. “But that is all I need. You may be fast, vampire, but I can move an inch far faster than you can cover the space between us. Because I know what you will do at the same moment you do, all I need do is lean back or flick my knife just so.”

“So, I just have to be faster,” Raith says, narrowing her eyes. Fetch stands in the centre of the carriage, surrounded by debris. Raith rams the tips of her wings into the walls, lowers herself ready to spring, then closes her eyes.

“Nothing moves that fast,” Fetch says, but she can hear his heartbeat rising. He doesn’t know for sure.

Between one beat and the next she lunges, wings and legs driving her forward in a pulse of power that shatters more of the woodwork. She hits the other end of the carriage hard, bending the wall out of shape and sending splinters flying up around her. There is a jagged piece of a bench sticking into her thigh, and when she pulls it out the pain of it rampages through her body unchecked. The flicker-flash of blood lightning is subdued, slow to act. Her lungs burn with the effort of drawing breath, but she clambers to her feet once more to face Elemus Fetch. She is smiling.

“Not quite untouchable,” she gasps, raising her hand. A smudge of blood drips down over her fingernail.

Fetch touches his cheek, where a red slit appears and begins leaking.

“So what?” he says with a scowl. “You are finished, vampire.”

He rushes her, but he is slow. Inhuman reflexes, perhaps, but human actions. And all Raith has to do is lift her hand to her lips.

His blood tastes thin, like the whisper of wind over grass. It seems to lift her up, make her light. Her eyes flash, and he realises his mistake too late. She sees the way his muscles contract, knows his intentions from the way his leg is rising. Her hand is already moving to block the thrust of his dagger, and she flicks it aside. At last, she can see his openings, and his perfect humanity is no match for her undead power. She grabs his wrist and twists. It cracks, but she does not let go. Her other hand meets his throat and squeezes, and the flurry of motion is over.

His other dagger drops from his limp hand, and he stares at her, pupils almost filling his strange irises. His breaths come quick and pained.

“Untrained,” she says. “Unprepared.”

“What?” he squeaks.

“I’ve known humans born with no talent, with no magical eyes or crafting to call on, who were far stronger than you. You have coasted on your inborn advantages, and it shows. You believed yourself superior. Now you know better.”

She drops him on the ground and lets him clutch at his broken arm. He coughs and then spits onto the carpet.

“Are you any better for using a stolen power?”

“No,” Raith says, sitting down on a miraculously undamaged bench. Her lungs are still aching, her wounds still gradually healing. “Neither of us is superior to the other. We all came from the same Word. The moment you think your gifts make you more worthy than others, someone, or something, will happen along to teach you otherwise.”

Fetch rolls his eyes. “So it was divine providence that brought you here?”

“Nothing so grand as a guiding hand. Just a quirk of our shared beginning that leads us to constantly reinforce our equality. Life is long, especially for creatures like me. The longer you observe a thing, the easier it is to see how it balances out.”

Fetch’s eyes narrow. “And you think you can balance the night warden? The Sultan himself, in all his power?”

“I don’t presume I can prove the balance to anyone. The Sultan? His time will come like everyone else. The night warden? I think his time has come already.”

The air is being etched by a scratchy red hue. It builds from a twitch in the spectrum of the light, lost to the peripheral vision, to a bold invasion of the space. Fetch starts laughing, harsh and uneven. It is a response to his fears.

“Too far,” he says. “You’ve pushed him too far. We’re all going to die!” He falls back in hysterics, leaving Raith to stare down the train towards the engine, her senses on edge. Beyond Fetch’s mania, there is more laughter. Subtle. Terrifying, even to her.

Something grey flickers across her vision and the wall further up the carriage bursts, a gash appearing that almost connects floor to ceiling. Raith jumps to her feet, wavering, her eyes moving everywhere. After a moment, it happens again. Almost random but getting closer. Seeking life to extinguish.

“It’s getting faster, Riyo,” Rolleck says.

The roof of the carriage is a mess of wounded metal and wood. The creature is now a whirlwind – unfocused, but more deadly than ever. Its attacks are nigh invisible, save for a flash of grey steel before an explosion of violence. Rolleck and Riyo stand at the centre of it, where the majority of the strikes fall. Rolleck has watched the ones that fail to hit them and determined that it is striking several times a second, and that the roof further and further down the train is coming under fire. It is expanding, and soon enough the dining car and passenger carriages are going to be in range.

The movements are so swift, so precise, that keeping the creature from Riyo is stretching him to the point of breaking. The iron in his body is wound tight enough that he can practically hear it straining, threatening to break.

Uncontrolled, the voice is saying as he fights. A beast of no composure, no finesse. And yet, there is something to be said for the explosive power of such a release.

His sword is singing a tune he can barely keep up with, shivering in his grip and rushing its excitement through him.

Nowhere to run but the vast desert. Nowhere to hide but behind those you wish to protect. You have control now, but could you maintain it if this was your fate? If such power were yours? I wonder.

“No,” Rolleck breathes. “I don’t need it.”

So you say. But eventually you must face it. Face me.

The creature is moving even faster, and Rolleck has to give up protecting himself in order to cover Riyo. The sword bites into his flesh, clashing against the wires in his body. They are the only reason it doesn’t shear off his limbs, doesn’t shred him to pieces. Blood leaks from his wounds as he dances around Riyo, the song of his sword growing fainter, the voice’s laughter and offers of poisoned aid quieting. He pushes against the pain and fatigue, pushes against the deep ache in his muscles and the cold dread of overwhelming exhaustion. He pushes up to his absolute limit, past it, until time seems to stop. He sees the skeleton moving towards him, sees an opening as it lifts its great sword. Rolleck swings into that opening, strikes for its cackling skull.

The creature is gone.

The wires clench, stopping Rolleck dead. He watches through misted vision as the skeleton swings. Watches as the sword crashes towards Riyo’s neck. He cannot move. Cannot breathe. Cannot save her.

Riyo’s eyes spring open and daggers burst from her clothing. Every hidden blade she owns flits out around her as the dragon claw sword leaps to intercept the blow that would decapitate her. The clash of metal rings like a dropped cutlery drawer all around them, expanding outward as Riyo’s blades find the creature’s sword wherever it falls.

Rolleck drops to his knees, his body a cacophony of pain to match the discordant sounds around him. The roar of the train and the rush of wind, the clatter and clang of violence, all seem to press him into the ground.

Riyo kneels before him, and he can barely see her.

“Thank you, Rolleck,” she says. “That last attack gave me everything I need. Sorry it took so long.”

“You better be,” he mumbles, then falls onto his back and watches the red-tinted stars flash at him. They’re hypnotising, and he feels his consciousness ebb.

Saved again, the voice says, though for once it doesn’t sound disappointed or condescending.

“’Swhat friends are for,” he manages before his eyes close.

Riyo knows where the creature is. Better yet, she knows what it is. Rolleck has forced it to give away its secrets. She takes a breath, then alters gravity around her. The air drifts away from her, and she is left standing in a vacuum. The creature’s blows keep falling upon the train, keep seeking for Rolleck where he lies. But they do not come for her. Despite being at the very centre of the storm, she is untouched. She smiles to herself.

Maintaining the ring of knives around Rolleck, she leaps over the coal car and walks through the boiler room, then kicks open the door to the cabin. Inside, she lets the air close in on her again, taking a deep breath.

Garth the night warden stands by the train’s controls. Avril the lamia lies beside him, unmoving. There are bloody marks on her tail and her vest is ripped and dyed red in several places. Garth turns. His eyes are normal but sunken, as though his skin has tightened around his skull.

“The trains must run,” he says, voice empty. He draws his sword.

Riyo grits her teeth, still looking at Avril. The skeleton strikes from behind as the night warden lunges. The dragon claw sword flashes out in front of her, catching the cursed blade. Behind her, the air opens up. Vacuum forms around the skeleton, and it finds itself in a bubble prison, surrounded on all sides by empty space. Its mad laughter is cut off completely.

“What?” Garth says slowly.

“Your skeleton uses the air, somehow,” Riyo says. “Hijacks it make its form.” She turns away from Garth and faces his monster. She has peeled away every spare molecule, leaving only those that form bones and steel trapped in a sphere of nothing. It cannot move or change. It stares at her with hollow red eyes, but its voice is silent.

“Nowhere left to run,” she says, and the creature contorts as it is drawn into the centre of its prison. Its shape fails, becoming a formless grey mass. Then that shrinks down into a marble. A pea. A speck.

Garth’s tired eyes widen as his sword cracks, then falls apart.

“No,” he whispers. Then Riyo steps up to him and slams her fist into his gut. Her punch drives air and spit from him and carries him up through the ceiling of the cab. He vanishes out into the sand swept darkness. The hilt of the sword clatters on the metal floor, then the silence of the desert finally returns.

“Jerk,” Riyo says, then closes her reality. It snaps against her brain like over-stretched rubber, making her wince. She kneels down beside Avril and touches her pale throat. A soft, slow pulse shakes her fingertips, and she sighs with relief. “I wonder what happened to that doctor?”

As the train crashes into the dawn, Riyo sits atop its cab, watching. The pure, white light streams beneath the edge of the resplendence and warms her face, then spreads out over the sand, turning it to gold. Riyo’s reality follows it, and she feels the way the air moves between the grains. She feels the pressure as sand sharks burrow up towards the surface to warm themselves in the first rays. In the cab, she feels the conductor shift his weight against a lever. Despite his injuries, Matteus Flamesbane is duty-bound to guide the train to station. Or so he says. Nobody has had the heart to stop him.

Emerald heaves one last shovelful of coal into the boiler, then lets the inferno settle on her scales as she watches the flames dance. It reminds her of home, of family, now lost to her. She feels an ache, for, although she chose this path, there was another she could have taken. One that would have seen her follow her father. Sit by his side. She glances down the train and sees through all the walls to where an exhausted girl sleeps in her mother’s arms. She lets out another weary sigh and closes the door of the boiler.

“It’s not as though anybody else is going to try anything now,” Ginger says.

“Attitudes like that get people like us killed,” Frostbite says. She leans against the door outside the Copperwrights’ room, wrapped in a stillness that must be painful to maintain.

“If I were an assassin,” Vale says, “I’d strike while everyone’s worn out and the train is in chaos.”

Frostbite nods. “Ghost’s got a killer’s instinct.”

“Thank you!”

“That’s not really a compliment,” Ravi says.

“It is when it comes from an assassin.” Vale turns to Ginger. “You can really see me now, huh?”

He winces, not meeting her eyes. “Yes.”

“That’s quite interesting, isn’t it Master?”

“It’s worrying, is what it is,” Ravi says. “What do you make of it?”

Frostbit shrugs. “I don’t know much about ghosts. I can only see them because of this.” She tugs at the collar of her coat.

“I knew there was something special about that,” Vale says, reaching out to run her hand over the shimmering silken material.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” Frostbit says. “I stole this from a Reaper. It’ll undo a ghost like that,” she snaps her fingers.

Vale hastily withdraws her hand. “Well. That’s cool. How did you do it?”

“That’s not a story I’m going to share with you.”

Vale pouts. “No fair.”

The dining car is not ready for breakfast. A couple of chefs are fussing around in the kitchen, putting together simple meals for a hungry train. The passengers will be served in their rooms, as the dining car itself has been turned into both a prison and a hospital. The battered and bruised lie on uncomfortable tables while a fully sober and fully grumpy Doctor Mildjum administers their rough-and-tumble care.

“A strip of tablecloth is not a good substitute for a bandage!” he grumbles. “How can this train be so poorly stocked with medical supplies when it is so heavily stocked with armed idiots?” He pulls the offending material tight around Rolleck’s arm, making him wince.

“I appreciate the effort you’re going to,” he says through gritted teeth.

“You, I suppose, deserve it. But half of these ingrates were happy to see me cleaned up by whatever that… thing was.” He shudders.

“Best not to think about it.” Rolleck sits up, letting his wounds announce themselves and cataloguing their complaints for later. “There are a lot of dangerous things in the world that you’ve just got to hope you never run into.” He looks over at the glittering bars of ice that separate the righteous and injured from the malefic and injured.

“I get the impression that’s a warning for me, and not for yourself,” Mildjum says. “You and your friends are insane.”

“We are,” Rolleck agrees. “But when you’re insane, you can’t be driven insane, and that makes you strong.”

Doctor Mildjum stares into Rolleck’s burning left eye and suppresses another shudder. “I shall keep that in mind.”

“Listen up, maggots!” Glitter says. “This is prison!”

His audience aren’t really paying attention. Many of them aren’t even conscious. The ones who are have glazed expressions or stare at the floor without saying anything. At their forefront sit Carolina the alchemist, Elemus the nighteye and Avril the lamia. Carolina watches him like he’s a broiling beaker full of unknown chemicals, Elemus has his eyes squeezed closed and grinds his teeth. Avril stares into the middle distance, a soft frown on her face.

“And not just any prison! This is Glitter’s maximum security detention centre! Anyone who displeases me, well…” He lets the threat dangle in silence for dramatic effect.

“Hey, you’re friends with Riyo, right?” Avril says. If she is cowering from Glitter’s threat, she is doing it on the inside.

“You will speak when spoken to, prisoner!”

“Yeah, okay, but what does she like?”

“Uh-”

“Because I thought I could win her over by ambushing Garth, but that didn’t really work out. And now that I think about it, I think maybe she wanted to be the one to beat him anyway. So maybe it’s for the best. I just… I want to make her see me, you know? Because I made such a dreadful first impression, and even so she was so gallant. And she gave me another chance and I really don’t want to mess it up, you know?”

“Um-”

“Seriously, though, she’s so cool. You’re so lucky you get to travel with her and see her in action all the time… You know, maybe-”

“By the Word, shut up!” Elemus growls. “That’s more words than I’ve heard you speak the entire time we’ve worked this damn train together. What happened to you?”

“I fell in love, duh,” Avril says. “It changes a person, you know?”

“It doesn’t usually completely invert someone’s personality, though,” Carolina says.

“And how would you know?”

Carolina looks away bitterly. “I guess I wouldn’t.”

“See? Love is wonderful, and now back to Riyo. Glitter… Oh.”

Glitter is pretending to be a cupboard. He vibrates slightly, and a pair of delicate crystalline ice cubes pop out of one of his shoulder vents.

Raith Ixel sits in an empty car. There are no heartbeats close enough to stoke her bloodlust, and no light penetrates the windowless walls. She has removed the mana gems and allowed the darkness to consume her whole. It is soothing, and she needs that calm. Her lips move, mouthing prayers for peace that were said to be contained within the Holy Writ itself.

Even like this, she can hear the hunger climbing up out of her gut and pulling at her hindbrain. Think of all the power, it says. Wear their strength as you own. Sate the urge. Answer the call to blood. Her hands are shaking, her muscles tense. The words flow, but the hunger only grows. It presses in on her, blocking out all else, making her teeth ache and her head spin. The train seems to roar in her ears as she feels herself slipping, slipping, sli-

“Are you okay, Miss?”

Everything snaps. The darkness turns red, and Raith looks up, eyes glowing crimson. Her nails stretch to claws to rend the life from the undeserving living.

There is a boy behind her. He holds a candle with a twinkling yellow flame that sets him in halo of light, entrapped by darkness. His eyes go wide, and the candle tumbles to the ground. Raith’s hand flashes out and grabs it before it hits. She stands over the shivering child and offers it to him.

“Be careful,” she says, voice as sweet as she can make it. It strains her throat. “It’d be bad if the train caught fire.”

“Uh, yeah,” he says, taking back his candle. “Um. My sister said that there was… that you were here in the dark and I wanted to see if you were… alright…”

“Thank you. I’m fine. I just find the darkness calming.”

“Oh, okay. I’m going to join the World Force one day, so I have to be…” He takes a moment to think, biting his thumb as he draws the words to mind. “Responsible for the wellbing of the people!”

The hunger is receding. Despite the timpani thump of the boy’s heart, the animal is retreating in the face of a wave of empathy. Rath reaches into her jacket and sits down before the boy, presenting her chewed-up sergeant’s badge for his inspection.

“That’s why I joined up.”

“Wow! You’re a sergeant?” The boy’s eyes shine brighter than his candle.

“Was. I retired recently. I’m older than I look.”

The boy reaches out gingerly and takes the medallion, turning it over and running his fingers over the bronze.

“You can have that, if you like,” Raith says. “As long as you promise you’ll get big and strong and protect those who need it, now that I can’t.”

“I’ll do it!” He says, jerking to attention and throwing up a passable salute.

Raith stands and returns it. “You should head back to your family now, soldier. We’ll be arriving soon.”

“Yes, sergeant! It has been anona to meet you!” He takes his candle and its light off into the next carriage.

Raith looks up and smiles, touching her other mark of office. “All from the same Word. All the same underneath.”

Bong.

The off-grey light of the speaking crystal in the centre of the carriage ceiling lights up, as if in response to her prayer.

Ravi stares at the ceiling, hand on the hilt of his dagger. “What was that?”

“First time on a train?” Ginger says.

“Yes. Well. First time on a normal train.”

“It’s an announcement,” Vale says. “It means we’re nearly there.”

Ladies and gentlemen, the ceiling says.

“Is that Riyo?” Ravi says.

We will shortly be arriving in Horologium. Thank you for riding this… There is a muffled conversation. This delayed dawn-to-dusk service from… Oh, cool, we stopped there. How are the princesses? Oh. Sorry. Ahem. From Saviour’s Call to Ragg. The train staff that remain would like to apologise for any disruption caused by the actions of the night staff. The safety of passengers is the Sultan’s first priority… Yeah, I’m not sure that’s true. Should I not say that bit? Oh. Ha! You’re right. Um. Oh, yeah! Anyway! Horlogium in, like, fifteen minutes or so. Get your stuff together. Peace out.

Bong.

“You hear that, mongrels?! Your doom awaits!”

“What exactly do you think is going to happen to us when we arrive in Horologium?” Elemus says.

“Uh, doom?” Glitter says. “Or a proper prison, at least.”

“Ha!” His laugh jolts his arm and cuts out any mirth. He scowls. “The Sultan owns the rails. The stations. Everything! We did what we did on his orders. The station guards won’t let you off the platform until we’re free.”

“That’s… not fair.” Glitter draws himself a scowl to match Elemus’.

“It’s also not what’s going to happen,” Rolleck says, strolling over from his sickbed.

“What do you know?” Elemus growls.

“He’s right,” Carolina says. “There are too many witnesses. The Sultan has a reputation to maintain.”

“Some of his employees, dissatisfied with their generous lot, attempted to take over a train. They put his invaluable passengers at risk. He gives a wide, public apology, everyone on the train gets some manner of compensation, and the successful assassination of Thaddeus Copperwright gets swept away as part of the chaos.” Rolleck gives Elemus a pitying look. “You were always expendable to him.”

“But…” Elemus’ head droops. “Shit.”

“Oh,” Glitter says. “Um…”

“You want to help them now, don’t you?” Rolleck shakes his head.

“Punishment should allow the chance for redemption,” Glitter says. “I think, anyway. I don’t think what the Sultan will do to them is justice. He doesn’t seem like a very pleasant man.”

“You’re not wrong about that,” Rolleck says. “Actually, I have an idea.”

“Yay!” Avril says. “I need to avoid dying so that I can figure out how to win over Riyo.”

Elemus looks up again, sceptical.

“Yes,” Rolleck says. “It was you guys who gave me the inspiration.”

Riyo sits on the end of the train, a mere five minutes shy of Horlogium station. Beneath her dangling feet, the remnant of a train carriage drags along the tracks, its bowed shape occasionally striking sparks. The wreck is full of guards.

“It’s your call, Riyo,” Rolleck says.

“Is that because I’m the leader?”

“Yes,” Glitter says, just as Rolleck says, “No.”

“Well, they’re idiots, but I don’t think they deserve to die.”

“So this is your great plan?” Elemus sneers.

“Do you have a better one, maggot?” Glitter demands.

He withers.

“I thought so. Know this!” Glitter spreads snow around himself that shimmers in the newborn light of the dawn. “You have been granted a second chance by the great and merciful Riyo Falsemoon. It is for you to become better! To make better choices! To help, where once you hurt! To heal, where once you harmed! Take these lives that have been spared and turn them to a better tomorrow!”

Rolleck strikes the ice that holds the last car in place, and, with a jolt, it starts to fall behind.

“I’ll come find you, Riyo!” Avril yells. “My heart is yours forever!”

She continues yelling, but her voice fades as the metal dragging along the track acts as a break and leaves them amidst the shining desert.

“So,” Riyo says. “What’s Horologium like?”

“We’ll know soon enough,” Ravi says, entering the last carriage. They follow him in, and Emerald pulls the platform-side door open.

They watch as the sand flits by, and buildings start to appear. Camels pull carts as they trawl the sands for newly fallen gems. Arching trees replace cacti, and the closer they get the thicker they grow. The train decelerates as the buildings get larger and closer. The sunlight catches in the resplendence, and the city is painted in soft lilac.

The train pulls to a halt by a dusty brick platform.

“Wow!” Riyo says.

Book Fourteen

Cold as Death

 

Vampires.

Monarchs of the undead. Their true origin is lost in the mists of time, but records of them exist long before the fall of the Reach. There are many myths surrounding them, and the ones I have known have been largely keen for those myths never to be debunked. Despite this, my digging has unearthed some fascinating truths. Despite popular belief, the symbols and Words of the Holy Writ have no effect upon them. Nor, indeed, does any religion I have encountered have a power over them. I have seen them happily eat garlic and cross running water. I have seen them enter places uninvited.

As to what is true: the sunlight hurts them. I suspect this is to do with the magical, unseen properties of sunlight that I am currently researching. They can sustain themselves on any food a human being can, so really there is no reason for them to drink the blood of others save for the fact that they crave it. It pulls them in a way that perhaps only an addict could fathom. And they can be killed. They heal from all but immediately fatal damage in seconds, so removing the head is most effective. The real difficulty is not the method by which you kill a vampire, though, but just how you actually achieve that. Their strength has few rivals in this world, and consuming blood–a person’s very life-force–makes them that much stronger. To face a recently fed vampire in the darkness of night would be a terrible thing, even for one such as myself.

• Elvolar Lightseer, ‘On the Veracity of Claims About the Non-Human Beings of Valos’

 

The darkness seems to shudder and waver, as though it, too, would like to escape. Sparks of blood flicker around Duke Haellus Malbec, drifting through the air like sanguine flower petals. The air is thick with dust, sharp with mana, and heavier than death. Riyo Falsemoon takes hold of everything and whispers, “starscape.” The shattered rocks and broken stalactites rise, drifting through gentle patterns that turn the space into a child’s mobile of dark, spinning shapes that she can feel through her reality.

Beside her, pink flickers of light become a steady roar. Flame dances over crimson scales to form a shroud of burning life. On her other side, the water in the air rushes cold and frosts over metal and glass. Snow forms and compacts until she is flanked by monsters. Lightning light licks across a silver sheen of feathers, and beneath the level of hearing, but not consciousness, a song of iron and violence rings out.

The vampire vanishes. The point of Ravi’s arrow tracks him up above them, and a line of blue breaks through the gloom. Malbec grins, baring his terrible fangs as the shaft breaks in his hand. Burn marks on his palm fade from existence so fast that Ravi is almost sure they were never there. He falls like a meteorite upon them, and his fist has the weight of a thousand years behind it as it crashes into Emerald’s claw. The impact creates a flash of light, and a moment later the ground around them turns to splinters as Emerald is driven down into it. Geysers of rock and dust burst like fireworks in the shaking cavern, and the silence is finally shattered by the roar of a breaking world.

Malbec pushes off a tumbling hunk of rock and it explodes into shards, driving him towards Ravi. Emerald breathes a rope-thick strand of indigo sunlight after him, and he nudges against one of the rocks above him to avoid it, landing neatly beside the crater he has just made. He turns his bloodlust upon the dragon and realises the light of her flame has not stopped. His eyes find the end of the strand of fire as it curls through a loop and comes down at him from above. It breaks over his hastily raised arm, showering the ground around him with molten globules that melt holes in the rock.

With the light of the flames still burning the air, Riyo swings in from low on the Duke’s right, her sword carried forward by its own monstrous weight. The inward curve of the claw slams against Malbec’s raised knee, while his hand flashes out to catch Rolleck’s sword as it sweeps in from his blind spot. Both blades withdraw quickly, bloodied, to let a fist of Glitter’s densest ice smash down on the Duke’s head.

A handful of seconds of concentrated violence. The cavern still echoes with the ghostly roar of it as twinkling mist mixes with the dust of minced rocks around Malbec.

“Ho ho!” his voice rings out of the swirling debris, and his footsteps crunch in the quiet as he emerges. “It has been too long since I faced a challenge. My long sleep must have left me out of practice.” He looks at his hand, at the blood dripping down over his wrist. The wound will not close. “A cursed sword,” he says, looking at Rolleck. “Which of my old nemeses resides within it, I wonder? And a dragon whose blood runs too hot even for my tastes. A traited archer with a spooky secret, and a crafter–powerful for one so young. And you,” he looks at Glitter. “What are you?”

“My father said I’m unique,” Glitter says, his voice slightly muffled by the snow of his golem.

“Quite. A formidable group, no doubt,” Malbec says, straightening his cravat. “I will take great pleasure in crushing you all.” He tilts his neck and it cracks.

The sound reaches Rolleck at the same moment the Duke does. His fist draws a terrible discordant scream from his sword as the wires inside his body tighten like the gallows’ noose. The muscles in his arm turn to jelly, and he is sent flying back through a series of stalagmites. Even as pain rips through him from every impact, his head is filled with laughter.

A true monster.

Rolleck comes to rest in a pile of crushed rock, his body aching but unbroken.

Even barbs of iron can only hold such flimsy flesh together for so long, Rolleck the Lost.

Rolleck groans, feeling blood and oil dripping down his arm.

Hadn’t you better start running?

 

Listless satellites gain purpose in an instant, drawn to Malbec like a magnet draws iron. Hundreds of rocks and fragments of bridge slam into him, entombing him. Riyo presses with everything she has as Emerald breathes a sheet of Yl Torat’s volcanic fury upon him. Rock sizzles and melts, cocooning the vampire in lava. As soon as Emerald stops to inhale, Glitter douses the shimmering lump in snow. Steam floods the space as a relentless torrent of crystal ice flashes to vapour, until there is no longer enough heat to melt it. What remains is a lumpen stalagmite, enrobed in twinkling frost. A new tomb for the unquiet dead.

Another dip appears in the sounds swirling around the cavern, but once again it doesn’t last. Rock crumbles and splinters, dust trickling until an explosion creates a cloud of furious shrapnel. A shadow moves through it like a snake in the grass, points of red anguish shining above a silvery grin that turns blood cold.

Emerald spins and manages to block the first punch, but it knocks her off balance, numbs the scales of her forearm. She whips around, lashing her tail across the duke’s midriff and making him grunt, but his smile only widens. His next punch meets her open hand and he grapples the other. Even with her blood raging with flame, he overpowers her. Her talons score the rock beneath her as she is pushed back. Her scales and bones groan with the pressure. It takes all she has just to stay upright, and then he leans back. Her balance goes, just for a moment, but it is enough. His forehead cracks her nose and sends her flying, embers of blood flickering from her snout as she crashes into the darkness.

Riyo’s sword sweeps over Malbec’s head. His fist rises to crush her throat but meets the sole of her foot and pushes her up into the air. She pivots, pushes off another asteroid, and rushes back down towards his head. She throws her reality ahead of her, shoving him down into the ground. He turns his grin towards her, and her power sluices off him like water. The extra weight on her sword is still there, though, and the tip of the claw comes around and finds its mark in the back of his shoulder. Malbec grabs for her, but she has let go of her sword the moment it hit, falling past it and out of his reach. She comes down hard on her back and gravity changes, pulling her along the ground as he turns and letting her throw a gravity-assisted punch directly between his legs on the way past.

Duke Malbec unleashes a roar and stumbles. Glitter rises behind him, a lance of compacted ice in his massive fist that falls like a lightning bolt. It slams into his other shoulder, splattering rock in red as it emerges from the front. A monstrous backhand blows Glitter’s snow fist apart, but as he rises to throw the second punch a streak of blue light pierces his back, straight through his heart.

He takes a step forward, eyes wide. His hand clutches at his chest.

“I thought this might be entertaining,” he says, voice raw. He rips the arrow from his chest, grabs Riyo’s sword and casts it away, crushes the ice spear in a powerful fist. The wounds fade like footprints in the desert sand, leaving smooth, pale skin as perfect as a new-born babe’s. “But so far it is nothing but irritating.”

“Only fun when they don’t fight back?” Riyo says, brushing dust from her sweat-soaked shirt.

“It is only fun when there is a challenge,” the duke growls, and then he is gone.

Glitter’s golem explodes, snow filling the black. A high-pitched wail rockets through the drifting flakes and smashes into the wall, making the cavern shake. Riyo’s eyes flash upwards and the broken earth rushes from beneath and around her to create a roof above her. Malbec smashes through it, and Riyo’s sword whirls into her hand just in time for her to throw everything behind it to block the duke’s next strike.

Riyo feels the exhilarating crackle in her spine as she finds the knife edge. The point where death is a cold, grasping chasm just a single hair’s breadth mistake away. For a beautiful moment she can see everything her reality touches. Understands the way it moves and the way it doesn’t. Each mote of dust drifts the way it does because of her. Every twitch in Malbec’s muscles tells her the shape of his next movement. The weight of a falling star drives every swing of her sword, and she matches him. Turns aside his fists, dances through her reality like Valos’ greatest swordswoman, twists like the flame in the wind.

Then the moment passes, and his knuckles drive into her abdomen. Bile and blood spatter the inside of her teeth. The air moves around her in spite of her reality, and she is airborne against her will. Everything seems to slow and blur. Malbec’s grin is a fearful rictus as he raises his fist to end her.

A flash of blue light cuts through Riyo’s dizziness, and her sight sharpens around the shape of an arrow piercing the duke’s hand.

“Ravi!”

It sounds like there are two voices. Ravi sees the ground beneath Malbec’s foot break as he lunges towards him. His bow comes up as a paltry defence against a darkness-wreathed fist that carries his death. Something cold touches his back, slips inside his heart, then his vision is filled with flame.

Riyo lands sideways on a stalagmite and shades her eyes against the blue-white inferno. She shivers against the wave of nightmarish cold that rolls past her, but as the light fades away she scowls.

“That’s not fair,” she says, folding her arms.

Ravi’s hand is wreathed in the Chill of the Grave and crackling with lightning blue curse-breaker where he grips the duke’s fist. His eyes open, and he looks down on Malbec with a blank, white stare. His feathers are longer, his talons sharper. Like a frozen phoenix he rises, and his other fist comes down like a diving eagle, smashing his prey face first into the rock and triggering another explosion that sends ripples rolling out through the earth.

“It’s not enough,” someone says below Riyo, making her jump. A dagger flies into her hand as she backs up the stalagmite, then pauses.

“Oh. It’s you. Sergeant… Ibex?”

“It’s Ixel,” she says with a scowl.

“So are you here to help daddy?” Riyo shifts gravity to her front foot, ready to blow the stalagmite apart to give herself a dust-screen.

“No,” Ixel says, returning her attention to the fight. Ravi vanishes. All Riyo sees is a blue flicker to tell her which way to turn her head. He is practically on the other side of the cavern, and his hands are awash with power. He brings them together as though in prayer, then draws them apart. Flame and ice linger in the air where they pass, creating an arc before him.

“No way,” Riyo says. “That’s so cool.”

“Is that a bow?” Ixel says, then growls. “It won’t stop him.”

“Then what will?” Riyo says, eyes moving around the dim cave. She cannot see any of her friends, save Ravi. Her body aches with a thousand promised bruises, and she can feel the strain of her reality pulling at her mind as though it clings to her with hooks and twine.

“I came here to ask you for a favour,” Ixel says.

 

Ravi can see everything. The colours are sharp enough to cut glass, and the ruins might as well be lit by the desert sun. He can see the insects scuttling through the displaced stone of the cavern floor. He can see Emerald, burning bright in a crater made by her body. He can see Glitter, a fierce dent deforming the upper edge of his chassis. He can see Rolleck, struggling back to his feet, and Riyo standing sideways above Ixel. More importantly, he can see the specks of dust in Malbec’s goatee as he rises. The burning anger in his crimson eyes. He grabs his bow of spectral fire and draws an arrow into existence at its centre. Lightning makes pulsing cracks in ice formed in the still hearts of the dead.

Don’t miss.

Explosions rock both ends of the cavern at the exact same moment. Ravi is once again engulfed in the Chill, flashing the rock around him to brittle ice and sending Vale tumbling out of him.

“Oh, come on,” she says.

Ravi slumps to his knees, shivering and hyperventilating so hard that his chest feels like it is about to break open. He scrunches his eyes closed and groans, clutching at his heart.

“Oh. Oh wow.”

Vale’s voice draws his eyes up. The world seems to be shaking, blurring his vision, and the darkness is back. He can just make out a figure, still standing.

“W-w-w-w-w-what…” he manages.

“We got him. The other end of the cavern is a lot more spacious, now. I can see it through the hole in the vampire’s gut.”

“D-d-d-d-d-damnit…” Ravi says. “I d-d-d-d-d-didn’t w-w-want t-t-t-t-to….” A spasm closes his throat and he sprawls on the ground.

“To kill him? Ravi, he’s an undead monster…” She looks down at him. Then back up. Her eyes widen. “Oh. Well, on the bright side you don’t need to worry about it.”

Ravi is still twitching. It feels as though the cold is reaching up from beneath the earth to claw him down to his final resting place. He curls up, wraps his arms around himself, but the cold is inside his soul.

“w-w-w-w-what?”

“He’s still alive.”

Duke Malbec throws his head back and roars. Blood drips from the corners of his mouth and trails through his beard, staining the stark white skin of his face. His eyes grow wide, leaking madness from their crimson irises. Red-black smoke spills from his wound, filling the cavern with a monstrous hiss and falling like a waterfall to the rocks around him. It flows heavy like fog and seeps into the darkness, merging with it and making the shadows all the deeper. Cracks of red lightning sparkle over his body, and with another mighty cry the duke flops forward, his arms dangling, his blood-spattered hair draped over his face. The smoke reduces to a trickle, revealing a hole through the duke’s fine shirt and doublet that shows a perfectly defined set of abdominal muscles.

“No way,” Vale says. “Ravi, get up.”

“C-c-c-can’t.” Ravi’s body is immobilised by the terrible tension in his muscles. He cannot even look up.

“You need to move, Ravi,” Vale says, taking a step back. “What’s wrong with you, anyway? I feel fine. Better than fine, actually.”

Ravi just groans in response.

“He’s looking this way,” Vale says, taking another step back. “I can’t move you, and he can see me.”

“Y-y-you’ll l-l-leave.”

The duke’s voice burns through the cavern once more, and Vale slips into the wall.

“The death waltz is a powerful thing indeed,” the duke says. He is standing over Ravi, but the chill of fear that runs through him is lost to the icy pain he is already wracked with. “But if you cannot do it properly, it is worthless.”

Ravi hears cloth ripping, and the remains of the vampire’s ruined doublet hits the floor. Then Ravi is rising, a new, sharp pain in his chest where the duke grips his downy feathers. Ravi looks into a pair of searing eyes, and his body relaxes. The pain becomes faint. Distant. His eyes try to focus on the arm holding him up. There must be a way out but…

“Your blood will fuel the slaughter of your friends.” The dukes voice sounds almost sultry. So soft that it glances off Ravi’s attention. His attention slips past the looming, toothy smile to another pair of eyes, burning like blood.

“I’m sorry, Father,” Raith Ixel says. She is wearing her glamour–hair like pitch slicked back into a quiff, black jacket brocaded with golden thread and crimson lining, cravat so white it shines. “I imagine this means I’m no longer a member of your esteemed family.”

Malbec’s sinister smile turns to a scowl. He drops Ravi, who hits the rock with an empty groan.

“Your mother would be so disappointed in you.”

“My mother is a story. A shadowy queen with no presence in my life. Her disappointment means nothing to me.”

“Ha!” Malbec turns around and stalks towards his daughter.

Ixel does not flinch or shift, letting him put his face uncomfortably close to hers.

“Your mother doesn’t just have expectations for you. She has expectations for all of us. She shaped us. She is the primal mother. You will learn what her disappointment means.” He stands back. “Or you would, if you were to leave this place alive. You are a blemish on my reputation, however. You die here with the rest of them.”

“We’ll see.”

She stops her father’s fist with her palm, and an explosion of dust and pressure bursts out from the impact. She can feel the strength of his arm, see his powerful muscles straining. And she smiles.

He narrows his eyes. “What?”

“You never told me much about yourself, did you?” She pushes his hand away, and he steps back. “Just tried to beat me into whatever shape you–or mother the queen or whatever–wanted me to take. But I’ve read about you.” She clenches her fist. “Your legend is not a pleasant one, father.”

“Of course not. We are vampires, Sethe. The stories these creatures tell are the stories of chattel. Of course they fear the slaughterhouse.”

“Yet you joined with the chattel,” Ixel says. “Became an honorary member of their World Force.”

Malbec shrugs. “Positions of power within their world demonstrate our superiority and make them respectful. A docile herd is easier to control. Besides, the position brought with it opportunities to test my might. Criminals and demons from all the Songs to sharpen my teeth upon. Meanwhile, you allowed yours to go dull.”

“Maybe,” Ixel says. “But I’ve read a lot of books, father. While you were sleeping between feasts, I was talking to the chattel. Learning about them. Learning from them.”

“And that is why you are weak, Sethe. That is why you must be purged.”

“Really? You don’t want to know what I’ve learned?”

He responds by trying to punch her head from her body, but once again she stops it dead with a lack of effort that shakes the ground.

“Then let me show you,” she says, and drives her fist into his cheek.

His face distorts in surprise and agony as he is driven into the ground with a scream of shattering rock. Ixel kicks him in the chest as he is rising, and he flails through the air and into a cacophony of stalagmites. Dust billows like smoke above and around them.

“What is this power?” Malbec says, rising from the rubble.

“They’ve studied us, while we glutted on them,” Ixel says, standing before him once more. “They know more about us than we know about ourselves. That’s what they do: they learn. It’s why they control the whole world while you’re content to control a small herd of them. It’s why this planet wasn’t overrun by nightmares the moment the Reach fell.”

“These creatures are nothing, Sethe. See how easily I have destroyed them? Humans, cursed, traited, dragons… whatever that box was. Here I stand without a scratch, while they are broken. Whatever power you have gained, it is yours, not theirs.”

Ixel shakes her head. “No. I took it from them. It’s their blood that empowers us, but because you don’t see them, you don’t see the differences in them. They do, and they started to wonder how those differences might affect us.”

She grabs him by the throat at drives him into the ground, kneed pressed into his chest. She can feel his pulse as she squeezes his neck.

“You might be more experienced than me, father, but I have been eating better.”

 

 

Riyo holds her sleeve against her neck and pouts at the red stain it leaves on the cuff. She’d spent a lot of time reading in the Galsbreath Apothacarium, and in amongst the tales of Calis and her legends, there had been some lighter literature that she’d read in her spare time. Among the gearpunk fiction and stories of space exploration she had found several fantastical romance novels that contained some very sexy vampires. She’d wondered just how much of their descriptions were accurate.

She fans her face as she sneaks among the stalagmites, Ixel’s vague directions proving entirely unhelpful even when she can bring them to mind over… other thoughts. The sound of footsteps freezes her and sharpens her attention. She can hear someone murmuring in the darkness.

“Rolleck,” she hisses, and the footsteps cease.

“Riyo?”

Riyo extends her reality in the direction of the voice and feels the flows of gravitational forces in the space. They lead her to Rolleck.

“Who were you talking to?” she says, keeping her voice low.

“Myself,” Rolleck says, voice a little strained.

“Have you ever heard anything about vampire bites having an aphrodisiac effect?”

“What? No. Wait, did he…?”

“No. Not him. But anyway, it’s true.”

There is a slow pause.

“Does this help us at all?”

“No. But we have a plan. I need you to do something for me.”

 

 

The cave rings with the shockwaves of vampires in conflict. Emerald rubs her snout and shakes rock dust from her wings. Her talons come away crusted with charred blood, but the ache in her veins is a quiet one. She can reignite her cowl if she needs to. If it will help.

She scowls down at her bloodied fingers. The vampires are strong, and despite knowing how stupid it is, that hurts her pride. The human stories of the vampires are of cruel parasites, stalking and feeding off them. Stories of dragons are ones of awe and majesty. Her travels and her father have given her an image of her race as nothing if not strong. Her own travails have taught her how individual strength is meaningless in this wide and dangerous world, but it still stings to know that these creatures of shadows can best her so easily.

“Emerald,” Glitter says. He is plodding over the uneven ground with snow wreathed legs, a massive dent in his chassis. “How bad do I look?”

Emerald eyes him up and down, then sighs. “Not as bad as mine.”

“You feel okay,” Glitter says.

“Yeah. It’s my self-esteem that hurts the most. I could stand up and test myself against him again, but I know how it would go.”

“Really? What happens if the sergeant loses to her father? Will we just give up?”

“We might as well.”

Glitter draws a frown on his glass. “Well, I don’t think I could beat him either, but I don’t know it. I won’t know for sure until I’m beaten, so I’m going to keep fighting until then. Especially if it means saving my friends.”

Emerald looks up at him, looks through his face to his crystal, pulsing as strong as ever. She finds the corner of her mouth tugging up.

“You’re such a sweet thing, Glitter.”

“You think so?”

“You’re like a cake.” She looks back to her hand and closes her fist, her talons resting against the scales of her wrist. “And you’re right. I can get stronger, and in the meantime all that matters is that we survive. Thar we can carry on our journey. Keep laughing and singing together. Right?”

“Yeah!” Glitter says. “So what do we do?”

“First, we fix that dent.”

 

 

“Having a hard time, father?”

Duke Haellus Malbec’s face is etched with rage. He grabs his shoulder and yanks it forward, popping the bone back into its socket and grinding his teeth as the damage heals.

“You must think I’m a fool,” he spits. “You’ve given away your secret.”

Raith’s smile wavers. “You’re bluffing.”

Malbec chuckles. “I’ve paid enough attention to the chattel to know there can be only one explanation for your strength. You only just stood in my way, which means the blood you drank is here in this cave. I’ve drunk from the traited before. I’ve encountered plenty of humans corrupted by curses. A dragon’s blood burns too hot, and that box doesn’t even have blood, which means you drank from the crafter girl.”

Ixel glances across the cave to where Riyo Falsemoon is watching their fight, then quickly back to her father. His grin widens.

“I won’t let you near her. And they won’t, either.”

Emerald and Glitter crash down between the duke and Riyo, pink and blue light playing off each other as shimmering ice reflects violent flame.

“You can’t stop me,” Malbec says. “I have lived for nearly two thousand years. I have fought creatures you have never heard of, ruled over generations of these worthless souls, and drunk their gallons of their blood. The thought that you could outwit me is… disgusting.”

They move at the same moment. Ixel is faster, and she plants herself between Riyo and her father, fangs bared.

And he is not there.

 

 

Lieutenant Anelle Marigold stares into a deep and shimmering pool. Its green-turquoise surface seems to beckon her. Seems to promise a calm serenity that the world around her has surrendered. She blots out the sound of fighting and focuses on that sensation. Perhaps, if she leaves this place alive, she will give academia another go. She has discovered that, though she may be good at bossing people around and fighting with a sword, a soldier’s life is more terrible than anything she has ever imagined. Her time on the Plains of Chaos had been tough, but straightforward. Nightmares emerged from the Reach and were put down before they could reach the walls of the city. With the main garrison of the World Force right behind her, when a titan had emerged, she had retreated with everyone else and allowed one of the generals to deal with it.

Here, there were no generals. Here, she was the highest rank. The leader. The one who had to deal with everything. She had failed to stop the criminals and she had lost control of one of her own men. This was her nadir, and she knew it meant the end of her soldiering career. But that might give her a fresh start. Her father always said it was never too late for one of those. He’d married his third wife at the age of sixty-seven and was still living happily with her.

Across the pool of mana sits Trost, the crazy Sunlight Cultist from Westunnel. Lieutenant Marigold has always ignored his ravings and has no idea what he is doing here. The light and heat from his supposed sunlite stone are welcoming in this terrible darkness, though.

“He hears it, you know?”

“Hears what?” Marigold looks up at the madman. He is twirling a strand of his manic hair between his fingers and staring into the pool with her.

“All of it. Everything that passes over one of his pools.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“The puddle man,” Trost says, jumping up and pointing his staff at the mana. “The glooper of glops.” He scratches his head. “The time is coming.” He looks up at her. “Try not to panic, rubber glove lady.”

“What-” She lets out a shriek as something grabs her hair, drags her to her feet. “Tunnel-”

Her attempt to open her reality sputters out as she meets a pair of crimson eyes. Her breath goes lax, her body stills. She blinks just once. Slowly. Feels her mind drift away on a cloud of emptiness.

“You have woken me to an exhilarating hunt, Lieutenant. I thank you. But now, I’m afraid I will be needing your blood.”

The armour around her collar bends, and she feels his breath on her neck. She supposes vampires must feed, after all. She wonders if perhaps those trashy novels she has read are right. Maybe she’ll enjoy this. It doesn’t really matter if she doesn’t, though. Nothing matters.

The duke grunts, and Lieutenant Marigold blinks. She snaps her elbow into his midriff, and his grip loosens in her hair, letting her pull free. She stumbles away, opening her reality and creating a portal. Then she stops. Malbec is still, staring at her but not seeing her. A broad, flat blade sticks out of his chest.

Rolleck the Lost steps out from behind him, his sword dripping with blood. Marigold meets his eyes, the left flashing rusty red in the darkness. The skin beneath it cracks, revealing a sliver of cold iron.

“I do think you’re a fool, father,” Ixel says. Riyo, Glitter and Emerald catch up a moment later and join her to stare at the dying vampire. “But you don’t think you are. You thought that because I didn’t spell out the thing about crafter blood that I didn’t want you to know it. That you were oh so clever for figuring it out. Then you thought I’d somehow forgotten about the Lieutenant. Most of all, you thought I was like you. Alone. Fighting by myself. Too proud to let someone else have the glory of bloody victory.”

The duke coughs, and blood dribbles from his lips. The stream of it flowing from his wound is ceaseless. It coats his skin in shining red, and despite the cracks of red light and the faint whiffs of black smoke the wound does not heal.

“You… are… a… disgrace!” he chokes. Then he convulses, his head jerking back as the last rattle of breath leaves his body. He topples backwards and is consumed by the pool of mana.

A flicker-flash of red, and Ixel’s glamour vanishes. Her hair floats softly down over her eye, purple once more. She lets out a steady breath, then turns to Rolleck.

“Thank you, swordsman.”

“It’s Rolleck,” he says, “and it was my pleasure.” He touches the skin beneath his eye and scowls.

A payment, the voice says, for services rendered. Silence has a cost, and only true silence allows you to get the better of a vampire.

“I’m sorry, Sergeant,” Lieutenant Marigold says. “You warned me, and I…”

Ixel shakes her head, puts her hand on the Lieutenant’s shoulder. “It’s okay. This disaster goes much higher than you.” She turns to Riyo. “How much do you know about your master, Riyo Falsemoon?”

“He’s a dick,” Riyo says. “I knew he’d try to get in my way. That said, this didn’t feel like his work. He’s usually a lot more subtle than just throwing the World Force at his problems.”

Ixel sighs. “I thought so. The others said this was one of his enemies within the Force, trying to get an edge over him.”

“And he will have known it,” Riyo says. “And done nothing to stop it.”

“I thought that, too.” She turns back to the Lieutenant. “Sorry Lieutenant, but I resign.”

Lieutenant Marigold looks back to the pool of mana, still rippling. “I don’t blame you, Sergeant. I think… I think I will look into reassignment as soon as I get back to Ragg.”

“Ragg…” a voice says.

They all look towards the pool. The ripples are growing stronger.

“That is the city on the plains, is it not? The bastion of humanity.”

Shimmering mana oozes upwards, the surface of the pool sinking as the mana takes a new form. The shape of a man, featureless and smooth, appears, as though the fluid is sliding into a mould. He stands on the air above his crater and turns his head to look at Riyo, eyeless face curious.

“It is odd. We have never had to learn this way before. Study the creatures of a planet like we have you. The others chafe at it, but I am finding it very interesting indeed.”

“Who are you?” Riyo says.

“Why, I am Mana. My blood pools beneath your world. And you… You have our scent on you. You have seen the Adit.”

“What’s an adit?”

“It’s an entrance,” Rolleck says. “To a mine or a tunnel.”

“Yes,” Mana says. “The entrance to your world.”

“The Reach,” Riyo says slowly. “Yeah, I’ve been inside it.”

“What’s going on?” former sergeant Ixel whispers.

“This is one of them,” Riyo says, not taking her eyes off the creature. Her heart races in her chest, sticky darkness sliding down the back of her neck. “The beings that destroyed Calis. This is one of them.”

Emerald’s eyes widen, and she reflexively inhales her pilot.

“Like the Darkness,” Rolleck says.

“I see,” Mana says. “So you are the one who repelled the Second. How fascinating. There is much that can be learned from you. The creatures I have been experimenting on until now have given me a great deal of data, but perhaps it is time I moved on from random selection.”

“Get back!” Riyo says, shoving at everyone with her reality to keep them away from Mana as he reaches out. “These guys are unbelievably strong.”

“No,” Trost says. “He is not the puddle-lord. Just a reflection in a black mirror.”

Mana’s head turns slowly, until he is looking behind himself.

“You,” he says. His head whips back round. “He is right, of course. I may be able to speak through and manipulate my mana, if you are the ones who defeated the Second, then I am no threat to you in this state.” His body begins to melt. “I will leave you with a gift.” In the crater below, mana drips onto the still body of Duke Haellus Malbec. “And perhaps we will meet again soon. The next incursion is mine.” His body loses form, falling like he has been upended from a bucket.

Riyo breathes out.

“Riyo,” Ixel says. “My father…”

The level of mana in the pool is sinking, like water draining from a bath. Something moves beneath the surface, stretching up out of the ooze.

“You said mana’s effects were random, right?” Glitter says.

“That’s what I thought.” Riyo keeps backing away from the rising mana. “But maybe it just looked that way. Mana was experimenting with the creatures of our world…”

“So he’s not going to just have a slightly higher voice, is he?” Rolleck says. His sword is already singing to him, and it is getting louder.

A hand breaks the surface of the pool and grabs its edge. White fingers are now mottled with black, fingernails growing. A second hand grabs at the rocks and they are crushed in its grip. Something black and leathery bursts forth, then flops open into a wing. A second joins it.

“We need to get out of here,” Riyo says. “We got what we came for and lost it already so there’s no reason to stay.”

“Kill!” The fury in the voice freezes them all in place, steals their will to flee. Their will to breathe.

Raith shakes her head, sloughing off dizziness and apathy.

“No,” she says. “That’s not possible.” She looks up into a pair of fire-filled eyes that shred at the edges of her willpower. The thing that stands before her is not her father. Its hairy black skin and prominent snout bear no resemblance to the man who had fallen in the pool. But its eyes. Its eyes are the same. They hate. They deride. They destroy. Wings like folds of ink stretch out from its back, claws of steel darkness rend the ground and the air. The scent of malice rolls through the cave on a chilling draught.

It reaches forward, and its image distorts, growing larger. Filling her vision. Her senses begin to fail again, seeping out of her to stain the rocks.

“Shiny shiny stones!” Trost yells, leaping between her and the creature and waving his staff at the creature. It withdraws its hand with a snarl, scrunching up its eyes against the glare of the light.

Raith blinks. Her mind is back to normal, and the others are waking up too.

“Haha! Still a vampire. Scared of the sun!” Trost shouts, then spins to face her. “But not you. Why? WHY?”

Raith staggers back, wiping spittle from her face and staring wide-eyed at the crazy old man.

“Uh, blood,” she stammers. “The less I drank the less the sun bothered me…”

“It always tasted too much like caramel to me,” Trost says, “so I never drank nearly so much.” He shakes his head, then peers hard at Riyo. “The time has come. I don’t care how. Riyo V. Falsemoon, will you please go now?”

Riyo looks him in the eye and sees something there. Something she’d seen on their first meeting. Something that terrifies her more deeply than even the Darkness had.

She nods. “Emerald, get Ravi and meet us on the bridge.”

Emerald nods and leaps towards the back of the cave, her wings beating dust into streamers that twinkle in Trost’s light.

“Lieutenant,” Riyo says. “Can you take the rest of us up there?”

The Lieutenant is staring past her, eyes fixed on what was once Sergeant Malbec.

“Lieutenant!” Riyo shouts, shaking her by the shoulder. “Get us all out of here, please.”

“Yes,” she says, then, “Yes of course. Tunnel vision.”

A pale green portal shimmers open behind her, hazy and indistinct. Rolleck nods and jogs through first, sword held before him, Glitter close on his heels. Marigold goes next, still not taking her eyes from the creature. Ixel follows her with one last glance for Trost.

“Mister Trost,” Riyo says. “I think I can leave you behind without worrying, but I’d feel better if you told me as much.”

“Fear not, young lady. The transformation has already begun. If you do not leave me here, I cannot guarantee you won’t die.”

“Okay,” Riyo says, turning towards the portal.

“And Riyo.”

“Yes,” she says, turning back.

“Wax the noodles. Wax them smooth.”

Riyo smiles. “Thank you for your tutelage,” she says, then she is gone, and the haze of light fails. Trost feels the Lieutenant’s reality withdraw from him and turns towards the mana-mutant vampire. He plucks the stone from his staff and stares at it for a moment, taking in its warmth.

“I’m supposed to do something with this,” he says. He cautiously puts it into his mouth and bites down, then shakes his head. “Nope, not that.”

The monster looms towards him, its face a crinkled mask of hatred born from its corrupted soul.

Trost puts the stone on his head. He feels its constant pull, but once again it doesn’t work. He frowns at the gem.

The monster leaps at him, its wings propelling it forward and putting dents in the rock behind.

Trost jumps and squeezes. The stone breaks, and flame flows out.

“Oh. I remember now.”

 

 

 

“Don’t stop running!” Riyo yells, barrelling up through the uneven tunnel and hoping the ground beneath her stays solid.

“Why?!” Glitter shouts. “Where’s Mister Trost?”

“He has kindly volunteered to kill that monster for us,” Riyo says. “I’ll explain later.”

“We can’t leave him back there!” Ixel yells. “Enough people I was supposed to protect have already died. I’m going back.”

“Don’t!” Riyo says. “He’ll be fine!” She nearly trips, but stumbles back into a dead run. “Well. Not fine exactly. But he won’t die.”

“Why is it so hot?” Rolleck asks.

“We’re in a desert,” Emerald says. She has Ravi curled up in her arms.

“Yeah, they’re cold at night. This one was cold last night.”

“Keep running!” Riyo yells.

The heat keeps rising, dragging sweat from them, and then pressing into their backs like a physical wall. Ahead of them, the gloom begins to lift. With an exhausted shout, Riyo bursts out into the chill night air and slumps down on the sand, gasping the cold directly into her lungs.

“This should be okay,” she pants.

“Then explain what’s happening,” Ixel says. She is barely winded.

“Trost is more than he looks,” she manages, lying back and staring up at her new vampire friend. Behind her, the sky is starting to lighten.

“Riyo!” Emerald calls, worry in her voice. “Help.”

Heartbeat picking up again, Riyo hops to her feet and rushes over. Ravi is lying in the sand beneath Emerald, shivering as though buried in the snow.

“He’s not cold,” Glitter says. “I’d be able to feel the difference in temperature.”

“I think he’s unconscious,” Emerald says. “I can’t wake him.”

Riyo bites her cheek, then scowls. “He did it. He did a death waltz, just like the princesses.”

“What?” Emerald says.

“But there’d have to be a ghost,” Rolleck says.

Riyo spins on him and points at him, clicking her fingers. She then turns to Glitter. “How many of us are standing here, Glitter?”

“Huh? You, me, Rolleck, Emerald, the vampire lady, the teleporty lady and…” he turns to face the empty desert, “oh. Oh nooooo!”

Riyo points in the direction he is facing. “You. Ghost. Show yourself or I swear I will have Glitter destroy you.”

“He can do that?” Vale says, shimmering into being in front of her.

“I have no idea,” Riyo says.

“I definitely could,” Ixel says.

“Doesn’t matter,” Riyo says. “You did the waltz with Ravi, but you didn’t do it properly, did you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb. I’ve seen it. Instead of sharing energy, you just take it. You sapped Ravi and now he’s dying. Fix it.”

“What? No I-”

“Yes you did,” Riyo screams into her face, making her take a step back. “Now undo it.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Of course you do. You’re a ghost!”

“I’ve only been a ghost for like two weeks.” She points at Ravi. “He killed me. In Saviour’s Call.”

Riyo takes a step forward, hand curling into a fist, then stops and takes her in. The Frostburne crest on her black tunic. The patches of scales on her face. The claws growing out of her knuckles.

“Oh,” she says.

“I’ll try to fix it, but I need you to know it wasn’t intentional. It’d be a bad deal for me now that I finally have a purpose.”

“Okay. Okay.” She takes a calming breath. “Okay. Sergeant Ixel, I don’t suppose you know anything about the death waltz?”

“I’m not a sergeant anymore, and you can just call me Raith. I don’t know about the waltz, though. I’ve heard about it, but never seen it.”

“What did you do?” Riyo says to Vale. “Take me through it. Quickly.”

“I don’t know,” Vale says, looking down at Ravi. “The vampire was going to smash him and I just… jumped. Into him. After that, he was in control.”

Riyo bites her lip. “If he was in control, then he should have been taking power and feeding it back to you, not the other way around. That’s what happened when the old king took control of the princess, right?”

“Yes,” Rolleck says.

“So if he’s been taking and not giving back, why’s he the one conked out?”

“The realm of ghosts is cold,” Raith says. “They call that blue fire the Chill of the Grave manifest.”

“So he has a whole bunch of my cool ghost power in him?” Vale says.

“Yeah. Okay,” Riyo says. “That makes sense. It’s not compatible with him because he’s still alive.” She turns to Vale. “So take it back.”

“How?”

“I have no idea. Just… I don’t know. Stick your hand in him?”

“Ew.”

“You’re a ghost.”

“Yeah, I know, but… ew.”

“Just do it,” Emerald says, looming over Vale. “I happen to know that my fire can burn ghosts.”

Vale looks up and meets her amber eyes. “Okay. I’ll try.” She kneels beside Ravi and chooses an inoffensive part of his back to reach into. “Here goes.” Her fingers tingle as they pass through his feathers, and then his skin. It feels as though she is submerging her hand in icy water.

“What now?”

“It’s your power,” Raith says. “Your essence. Just… pull it back.”

“Pull…” She doesn’t have skin or nerves any longer. There is no reason she should feel cold, except that she was expecting the Chill to feel that way. She focuses on that cold feeling on the outer edge of where her skin once was and tells herself that it isn’t real, that her resistance to the sensation is nonsense.

“Oh. Oh! I think it’s working!” The sensation leaves the edge and flows inwards, up her arm and into her chest. She tries thinking of it not as cold, but as warmth, and it is as though her soul is being filled. She finds herself smiling.

Ravi’s body relaxes. His shivering stills, and he stretches out into the cool sand, his muscles losing their tension. Vale withdraws her hand, the warmth suffusing her form and becoming a gentle part of her.

Riyo lets out a slow, relieved breath.

“Good,” she says. “You and Ravi have some explaining to do, but I’ll wait for him to wake up before that. Now.” She turns back to the tunnel, just in time for flame to erupt from its mouth. Her reality opens and a wall of mass drives the licking flames down into the sand before them. With a grand sigh of hot air, the desert before them sags. Sand slides and dunes collapse, creating a depression that stretches off until darkness and the haze of the Resplendence hide its opposite edge. The roof of the opening slumps forward and spills sand towards them in a glacial cascade.

“The whole ruin collapsed,” Raith says. “What happened to Mister Trost?” She turns to Riyo. “How did that just happen?”

“Mister Trost and I have changed places once again,” a sonorous voice declares.

Flames that shine golden at their edges and white at their centre burst from the floor before them, burning fierce enough to melt dragon scales for just a heartbeat, and leaving a silhouette etched onto Riyo’s vision. Flickering golden streamers of fire spread like wings from the shoulders of the figure left behind, illuminating white robes and golden armour. A pristine hood casts a stern shadow over the mask beneath it–a twenty-four carat masterpiece carved all over with infinitesimal writing. He rests one hand on a broadsword, also gold, that is carved with a single word in a language Riyo has never seen before, but that she knows means ‘fire’.

“My name is Infernarael,” he says. “Though you may call me Trost, if you prefer.”

“A Herald…” Lieutenant Marigold whispers. Then she blinks and throws herself to the ground, forehead pressing against rough sand.

Riyo glances at her, then looks back to what was once Trost. “A what?”

“A being of eternal light, according to the Holy Writ,” Rolleck says, eyes wide and pinned to the being. His sword is yearning for violence, to test a creature of power beyond power. “There are only four Heralds of the Word. Air, Earth, Water and…”

“Fire,” Infernarael says. “Indeed. I have been hidden for longer than I know. My siblings are lost, somewhere in this world. The time of our Words is past, now. The mortals no longer need our strength, and so we took our places among them. To hide powers such as ours, however, takes a toll. We must all but forget everything.”

“And become a crazy old coot?” Riyo says.

“Quite,” Infernarael says. “Wax the noodles, Riyo.” There is mirth in his voice.

Riyo smiles. “So what now?”

“I must go back. There is enough memory hidden within my mind as Trost to recognise situations that call for my true power. When the Misfortunes reveal themselves, so shall I. My power will be needed again, but for now…”

As the sun breaches the horizon directly behind him, burnishing the gold at his shoulders, another crack of perfect flame rushes sand into the air and forces them all to look away. When they look back, Trost is lying on the ground in Infernarael’s place. The sunlite stone makes a dent in the sand in front of him, and Riyo steps forward and picks it up.

Trost’s eyes shoot open, and he casts about.

“The pheasant has no agenda,” he says, then blinks up at Riyo.

“Hi,” she says, offering him the glowing stone. “This is yours.”

“Yes it is.” He snatches it from her palm and sniffs it. “I feel like I should put it on a stick.” He looks at Riyo again. “Do you have a stick?”

“No, sorry.” Riyo glances around at her friends.

“I do,” Emerald says, and reaches into one of the pouches on her leather harness. She draws out a single seed, held delicately between her claws, then drops it to the ground and kicks some sand over it. “May I?” She holds her hand out to Trost.

He looks at the stone for a long moment, then shrugs and deposits it in Emerald’s palm. She again grips it between two claws and holds it over the buried seed, then closes her eyes. For a moment there is silence as the sun warms the desert, then a shoot reaches out towards the sky. It grows quickly, straight as a sunbeam, and grips the stone in spring-green fingers. Emerald lets go, allowing it to wrap the stone like a cage, and then it ages. In a few moments, the green of new life is the gnarled brown of ancient wood.

The staff breaks free of its roots and topples to the ground.

“Fancy,” Trost says. “Have you considered pursuing a career as a greenhouse?” He picks up the staff and admires it. “You would make an excellent greenhouse.”

“What will you do now, Mister Trost?” Riyo asks.

“Trost… yes. That’s my name.” He hops backwards and waves his staff at them. “But who are you?”

“I’m Riyo Falsemoon,” Riyo says. “You don’t remember it, but you really helped us out last night. I wanted to thank you.”

“I did? Well, of course I did. I’m a hero, and that is what heroes do, young lady.”

“So, what will you do?”

Trost scratches his head, then points in the vague direction of Westunnel. “My spider-senses tell me there is a town over there. Do they have wiffle juice?”

“They do. I hear it’s good.”

“Then I will go there and drink my fill.” He begins trudging through the sand, bare feet leaving perfect prints.

“Mister Trost!” Riyo calls. “Wax the noodles!”

He looks at her blankly for a moment, then taps his temple. “Silky smooth.”

“What will you do?” Lieutenant Marigold asks once Trost has turned back to his trek across the wasteland.

“We probably shouldn’t go back,” Rolleck says. “We caused too many problems there.”

“I can have the information we sent back to the Intelligence Committee about you rescinded,” she offers. “Say it was a mistake.”

“Will they believe you?” Emerald says.

“I… I don’t know. Even if they did, if the people who wanted you stopped in the first place are in a position to, they will ignore me. Having an independent member of the Force determine you are criminals will make things a lot easier for them.” She looks down at the sand. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Riyo says cheerily. “We’ll go to Horologium. It can’t be that much further.”

“You obviously have no idea how big this desert is,” Raith says. “Horologium is days away.”

“Oh.”

“I’m not carrying Ravi all the way across the desert,” Emerald says. “Even if it does make me sound dashing.”

“I think I’ll go to Horolgium too,” Raith says. She plucks her badge from her pocket and looks it over again. “Here, Lieutenant.”

Marigold shakes her head. “I don’t have a right to take that. I’m… I’m going to lie on my report. I’ll tell them what happened to your father, that he was killed after engaging with the intent to kill, and after flagrantly ignoring my orders and killing another member of the Force. That ought to ensure you all aren’t charged with his murder. I’ll just say you’re missing, presumed dead. That way no one will be looking too hard for you, and you can slip through the bureaucratical cracks without a dishonourable discharge.”

“But… why?”

“Well, judging by the sun, the morning train will be coming in from Frosthold in about an hour. If you heave for the tracks now, you could hail it down and use your badge to catch a lift.”

Raith looks down at her badge, then smirks. She pockets it and salutes.

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

Marigold salutes back. “Thank you, Sergeant. You served well.” She turns to the rest of them. “Good luck. The Force has a permanent presence in Horologium. The Thieves Guild too.”

“Pfft,” Riyo says. “We’ll just slip through before they notice we’re there.”

Rolleck and Emerald glance at each other and give a simultaneous sigh.

“Goodbye, Sergeant Ixel,” Marigold says, then turns to follow Trost.

“Erm,” Raith says, glancing around. “I’m not sure where you’re all going, but if Elvolar Lightseer and the Committee members who oppose him are going to try and get in your way, I suppose that means eventually you’ll come face-to-face with them?”

“Oh, I’d imagine so,” Rolleck says.

“Pessimism doesn’t suit you, Rolleck,” Riyo says.

“Yes it does,” Emerald says. “It’s his whole thing.”

“You can hardly talk,” Rolleck bristles.

“I think you’ll find that I am a font of hope and good vibes.” Emerald kneels and picks Ravi up again. “We should get going.”

“Oh, um…” Raith says. “It’s that, I was just going to ask…”

“Yep, we know,” Riyo says. “And yes, of course you can come along.”

“Yay!” Glitter says. “New friend!”

“Can I be your friend too?” Vale asks.

“Ah! Ghost!”

“Hmph. Well I’m coming anyway. I have to follow my master.”

“Master?” Emerald says, raising her eyebrows. Then she shakes her head. “I don’t want to know.”

Rolleck puts a hand on Raith’s shoulder as she stares dumbly at the rest of the group.

“You get used to it.”

“We have a lot of fun,” Riyo says with a grin. “Now come on. If we miss the train, we’ll have to walk through the desert all day, and you’re already looking a little sunburned.”

“Vampires don’t get… Oh.” Raith sits down heavily in the sand and puts her hand against her forehead. “Oh.” She squeezes her eyes closed.

“Ohhhh,” Riyo says. “You drank my blood. The sun’s going to hit you a lot worse today, isn’t it?”

She gives a miserable nod.

“Hey, I have an idea,” Glitter says. Snow billows from his shoulders and twirls into shape before compressing to become ice. It begins sweating immediately, but for a while, at least, it will hold the form of a parasol. Beneath its shade, Raith is able to pull herself to her feet.

“Thank you,” she says.

“Don’t mention it,” Glitter says, drawing on a smiley face.

They begin their journey again, falling into the comfort, and then discomfort, of the desert heat.

“So,” Rolleck says.

“Hmm?” Riyo says.

“The Heralds are real.”

“Do you hold to the Word?” Vale asks.

Rolleck shakes his head. “I’ve always figured I’m beyond redemption anyway.”

“Hey, me too!”

“Then what does it matter?” Emerald says.

“Well, it’s still quite a significant truth that we all now share.”

“Pfft,” Riyo says. “It’s not like anyone would believe us if we told them.”

“I suppose.” Rolleck stares out at the shimmering horizon. “It does make me feel a little bad for not believing, though.”

“Thinking of taking up religion, then?”

“No,” Rolleck says. “That’s the annoying thing. The Heralds are real. I’ve spoken to one. Yet I’m still no more inclined to believe in the Writ.”

“Faith is strange,” Raith says. Her breath comes heavily and sweat drips over her rosy features. “You have it, or you don’t. if you do, it can go unbroken even when your whole world is turned upside down. If you don’t have it, you can’t just pick it up. Even if you have an encounter with the divine.”

“Do you believe?” Vale asks. “Because that would be pretty funny.”

Raith scowls at the ghost. “I do, as it happens.”

Vale snorts a laugh. “The Word is supposed to repel vampires. Everybody knows that.”

“Well it doesn’t.” She undoes the top button of her uniform jacket and turns the collar outward, revealing a silver scroll pin.

“You’re an ordained Scribe?” Vale says flatly.

“It was never about the grand stuff, for me. I didn’t think the Heralds were real, to be honest. But my father made me an outcast, tried to force me to think of myself as something separate from and above others. He tried to mould me into himself. I ran away, though–as a teenager, obviously, because most of us do. I met a Scribe, and the Word gave me a connection to people that I never knew existed. For me it was about a way of seeing the world. The idea that everything came from the first utterance of the Word means that we’re all fundamentally the same. We share the same essence. The same potential for good and for evil. It means a vampire can be a Scribe. It means a dragon can be a dryad. It means a crazy old man can be a Herald. My faith just… makes the world make sense.”

“I like that,” Riyo says. “It means we can all be friends.”

“Well I don’t get it,” Vale says. “Who would want to be connected to people?”

“I can see that we are going to get along,” Raith says dryly.

“Don’t worry,” Vale says. “I have trouble getting along with most people. I hung out with a cat for a while. He’d bring me mice to eat sometimes, and I’d give him bits of meat from the market. But then he died.” She shows a smile, but everyone else is frowning at her. “What? I got lizard traits and lizard appetites. Or had, I guess.”

“It’s been a long night,” Riyo says slowly.

“There’s the tracks,” Emerald says, dragging them free of the uncomfortable moment with an audible release of air.

“And the train,” Raith says, a note of desperation in her voice. She makes to sprint for it, but her first step seems to sink much too deep into the sand. She barely keeps herself upright as a wave of dizziness rolls over her.

“No rush,” Riyo says, cracking her knuckles. “For once, I’m not the one completely taken out after a fight. And I’ve had practice stopping trains. Let’s go, Emerald.”

Emerald grins. “Somebody carry Ravi. We’ll be waiting for you on the train.”

“You should take my badge,” Raith pants, but they are already gone. She watches them growing smaller, the haze of the desert air stealing their true shapes. “It would be so much simpler…”

“We don’t really do simple,” Glitter says. “Hey. Do you know any good songs?” A scoop of snow lifts Ravi carefully onto his head. Though flat once more, the metal is still a little warped from Emerald’s ad-hoc blacksmithing job. “We could sing while we walk.”

“Umm, I know a few hymns,” Raith says.

“Great! I like hymns–they have good harmonies. Rolleck-”

“No.”

“Boo.”

“I can sing,” Vale says.

“Ah! Ghost!”

“Oh come on. We’ve been walking together for ages.”

“Sorry. I’m easily frightened.”

“That’s a shame. Most of the songs I know are the wails of tormented spirits.”

“Umm, maybe we should start with hymns,” Glitter says, voice trilling a higher note than usual.

“I guess,” Vale says.

“Yay. Let’s do The Word of Friendship.”

“A bit on the nose, isn’t it?” Rolleck says.

“Hush. I have new friends, and I want to sing about friendship with them. Do you have a problem with that?”

Rolleck gives a rueful smile. “Of course not. It’s very you, Glitter.”

“Good. I wouldn’t want it to be anybody else. Let’s start on four. One, two, three…”

Book Thirteen

Black as Night

 

Riyo Falsemoon rubs her head and glares at the glittering ruby in her other hand. It is almost as big as an apple and has added another burgeoning bruise to Riyo’s expanding collection. Their footprints overlace each other as they walk, leaving a chaotic pattern of dents and craters behind them. Their sweat makes dark spots on the sand where it pours from their skin.

“What kind of place just drops rocks from the sky?” Ravi says.

“The kind that’s been heavily altered by Mana,” Riyo says. She tosses the gem to Rolleck, who eyes it thoughtfully.

“This one is not infused,” he says, “but it will still be worth a decent sum. You are a beacon of good luck, Riyo.”

“Yeah,” she says, still rubbing her head. “I sure feel like it.”

“What about my gem?” Glitter says. He has made legs of ice to deal with the clumping and sliding of the sand, but must constantly refreeze them as the desert captures and keeps the suns anger.

Rolleck drops the weighty ruby into his pocket and retrieves the smaller amethyst that has made them an enemy of the World Force.

“Full of volatile mana.” He tosses it in the air and catches it. “Not knowing what it does might hurt its price a little, but then there are those keen to buy mana gems just so they can work out their uses. To the right buyer… Well, this one could sell for thousands.”

“It would be nice to have money,” Ravi says.

“We should sell it in Horologium,” Rolleck says. “The black market there is almost as deep as the one in Ragg.”

“Aww,” Glitter says. “That was a gift for me.”

“You don’t like it, though,” Ravi says.

“I know. It feels weird. But it was the first gift I ever got that didn’t come from my father.”

Rolleck and Ravi share a guilty look.

“Tell you what,” Riyo says. “We’ll sell it and split it evenly, with the promise that all of us have to get you a gift with some of our share.”

Glitter mists up and draws a wide grin. “Really? That would be great!” He starts to whistle contentedly.

The air shimmers before them. The Resplendence casts its violet glare upon them. The heat batters them. Time seems to gloop and glom rather than flow as the sun ambles across the sky.

“If these ruins are from before the Reach fell,” Ravi says, “why do they have information about Calis in them?”

“It’s a mystery,” Riyo pants. “Although I’ve read a whole bunch of theories.”

“What are they?” Ravi says. “Just, you know, for something to talk about.”

“Um, one is that there were survivors from Calis before it ended up like it is, and they used an incursion to escape, bringing a bunch of treasures and stuff with them. Then there was another incursion that flooded all the ruins with mana, hence their current state.”

“That seems unlikely,” Rolleck says. “Especially if what that book says is true.”

Riyo nods. “I’m not enamoured with that theory. The next is that the World Force uses these ruins as storehouses for dangerous, Calis related stuff. Don’t buy that one either, though. The World Force is a bit more organised than that. They wouldn’t leave them unguarded for so long.”

“Which theory do you believe?” Glitter asks.

“I read in one of my books that the Riklow civilisation was so advanced that they could travel through space, and that they had contact with the people of Calis before catastrophe hit both. It was the most far-fetched, but then when we met Connie and went to space…”

“I guess it seems a bit more likely now, huh?”

A shadow glances them, and they all look up as Emerald ploughs a sandy furrow before them. Her wings send a swirl of air spinning away from them, dragging some of the desert with it.

“We’re close, now,” she says, handing Rolleck one edge of the map before unfurling it away from him. “Look. I put us about here.” She points, then drags her claw over to the circled ruin. “If I’m right, it’s just up ahead. I think I see signs that people have been coming to and from the place, but the World Force have done a good job of hiding them. I wouldn’t have noticed if the map hadn’t put me in the right area.”

“Nice to know we didn’t make a deal with the devil for nothing,” a voice that only Ravi can hear says.

The dunes roll on, but on the apex of the third one they stop at Ravi’s call.

“I see it.”

“Okay,” Rolleck says. “What’s the plan?”

“Plan?” Riyo says. “There is no plan. We go in and get the map.”

“Sounds good to me,” says Trost.

“Me too,” says Colourful.

There is a pregnant pause as puzzled glances are shared.

“Who are you?” Trost shouts, pointing at Riyo.

“How…?” Emerald says, then shakes her head. “Never mind. Shall I just set them on fire?”

“Hang on,” Riyo and Ravi say together, then share a glance.

“This is Colourful,” Ravi says. “He’s going to take a look at the map when we find it for the Thieves Guild. That was the deal.”

“We could just kill him,” Rolleck says.

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be a police officer?” Colourful says.

“He is,” Ravi says glaring at Rolleck. “And no chance. If we do, they’ll know, and they’ll make our lives hell from here to Ragg.”

Rolleck nods. “Very well.” He turns to Riyo and raises an eyebrow.

“I think we should take Mister Trost with us because he is funny.”

“No,” Rolleck says.

“Aww, please?”

“That ruin is going to be dangerous,” Emerald says. “I believe this thief can take care of himself, and don’t actually care very much if he can’t-”

“Rude,” Colourful says, his grin not wavering.

“But this crazy old man is another thing entirely.”

“I’ve seen the Sunlight Stone,” Trost says, indignant. “I can go in any ruin I want. Even the ruins of your heart, swamp monster.”

“I’m not a-”

“I wasn’t talking to you!” Trost wanders off over the top of the dune, using his staff as a walking stick.

“See?” Riyo says. “Funny.”

“We can’t exactly take him back to town,” Ravi says. “And besides, he made it out here alright. Maybe he’s more resourceful than he looks?”

“I agree with Riyo,” Glitter says. “And I also think we should go inside soon. My feet are melting again.”

“Fine,” Emerald says. “Whatever.”

 

 

A pair of desiccated pillars stand astride broken clay-brown walls and watch over a maze of sand and stone. What was once a staircase has been worn into a ramp, leading down into hot brown darkness. Though they approach with caution, Trost simply marches down into the cavern. Riyo skips after him, and the rest follow with apprehensive looks for whoever wishes to share them.

“You were right,” Ravi says, peering into a small chamber off the main tunnel. Trost thrusts his imitation Stone through the doorway and illuminates a small camp. Five bed rolls encircle a small device that still warms the room.

“It’s powered by a mana gem,” Rolleck says. “Since we’re enemies of the World Force already…”

Emerald steps on the device, raking through its metal cage with her claws, then plucks out a softly-glowing red gem. She pops it into one of her leather sashes, then shrugs at the look Ravi is giving her.

“What? He’s right.”

“He just wants some new waistcoats,” Riyo says, looking around the space. “The real question is: where are the guards?”

“Maybe they abandoned their posts so they wouldn’t give away the location of the ruin?” Ravi says.

“But then how would they actually, y’know, stop people coming in and stuff?”

There is a soft, angry rumble from somewhere deep below them.

“Or,” Rolleck says, “maybe they were looking the wrong way.”

They all move out of the room and stare down into the darkness beyond the reach of Trost’s Stone. More sad echoes reach them, sounding like they have come from the other side of the world.

“Somebody should stand guard up here,” Ravi says slowly. “To keep watch for the World Force.”

“Maybe it should be me?” Glitter says.

“You’re glowy, Glitter. We need you to help us see,” Riyo says. “Plus, Ravi can see further in daylight.”

“This is all true,” Glitter says. “But maybe… it should be me anyway?”

“Let’s go,” Colourful says. “We were searching this place before the World Force got here but we didn’t get very far. It’s an ant warren down there.”

“Ha!” Riyo says. She follows Colourful down the slope. The others follow, Glitter turning to show Ravi his grumpy face. He mouths the word ‘sorry’ at the robot before heading back to the surface.

 

 

“You wanted to speak to me, sir?” Private Cardamom says. He has been pleasantly surprised with his experience of awakening a centuries-old vampire so far. Sergeant Malbec is actually quite congenial, if a little old fashioned. He is also palpably strong. Cardamom feels as though he is walking into a dark ocean trench as he enters the Duke’s room above the tavern. The darkness is broken by a single candle, sitting on a table in the corner. The Duke sits in a grand armchair in the opposite corner, all but his vast silhouette lost to sight.

“Yes, Private. Thank you for coming. Please close the door, if you would?”

Cardamom does so, his pulse spiking.

“Would you care for a drink? I have been furnished with several fine wines and whiskies that I could not possibly consume by myself.”

“Ah, well, I’m technically on duty, sir.”

“Your duties are discharged until sundown.”

“Oh. Um, thank you. In that case…”

“Good man! Come, I will add a little more light.” Cardamom can feel him moving through the room, and a pair of lanterns flicker to life on a table in the middle of the room. They illuminate a set of decanters and glasses on a silver tray. All are curiously empty. As the sphere of light grows, it also reveals the bed.

“Now,” Malbec says, “daughter mine. You appear to have stopped drinking.”

Sergeant Ixel is chained to the posts of the bed. Her eyes are unfocused, staring through the ceiling, her arms and legs limp. Her mouth is moving slightly, breathing words through unresponsive lips.

“’uck o’”

“Mind your tone, wretched girl,” Malbec growls, stalking over and looming above her. “Our family is landed. Prestigious. Respected. We do not befoul ourselves as you have, and we do not speak that way.” He slaps her, turning her face away from the room.

Private Cardamom takes a step back. His shaking hand quests for the door handle while he focuses most of his attention on trying not to breathe.

“Private,” Malbec says without turning around. He rases his hand, and Cardamom feels as though all his energy is drained away. His body falls to lethargy, and he can barely stand. Even if he could entertain thoughts of flight, his fingers would not be strong enough to turn the handle of the door.

Sergeant Ixel turns back and sees Cardamom for the first time. Her eyes go a little wider, and she brings them to focus on her father.

“’o,” she says. “N-n-o.”

Malbec twitches his finger, and Private Cardamom takes a slow, purposeless step. Then another. Then another. Until he is standing by the Duke’s side, not really sure why. Not really sure of anything. He feels like he can see two red orbs, drifting across his blurry vision. Dancing like fireflies. He watches them, fascinated, until a quiet, sharp pain intrudes upon their performance. He blinks, and things start to get clearer. He is looking down at Sergeant Ixel. She’s quite pretty, really. It is a shame to see tears in such pretty eyes. Why is she crying?

He opens his mouth to ask, but his jaw just lolls. That pinch of pain is still there in his neck. He tries to look to his right, but he feels so terribly tired. Like the whole world is resting upon him and driving him down. His vision is going dark. What was he going to ask Sergeant Ixel, again? Those two red lights, swaying like they’re reflected in water. Prancing around so carelessly. He could be like that. Like…

Malbec catches the private’s body and props him in the chair by the table. “Tears are unbecoming, too,” he tells Ixel. He places the first decanter carefully beneath the hole in Cardamom’s neck, then picks up the tall glass he has already filled. He sniffs at it, then lets out a contented sigh. “It always tastes best when it comes from someone who trusts you.” He puts the glass to his lips and takes several deep swallows, eyes closed.

Ixel feels the hunger. Feels it like it is its own creature, trying desperately to burst out of her chest. She also feels the power it gives her father. Feels it radiating off him, disgusting and enticing. Unnatural and beautiful. The part of her that has been fighting herself for so long is ready to give in. To break out and drink deeply, straight from the neck.

From Private Cardamom’s neck. Private Cardamom whom she has been working with for months. Whom she has shared jokes and food with. Whom she has come to regard as a friend. She feels her fingers twitch. Her lips try to find a growl. A shiver passes through her, and her arm begins to rise.

Then her father looks at her, and there is nothing left. No resistance, no words, no thoughts.

“Here,” he says, putting the glass and the mouthful that remains in it on a table a little shy of her reach. “You know how to get back on the right path, and your mother would hate me if I didn’t give you a chance.” He turns and switches the full decanter for the empty one, letting Cardamom’s life drain into it. “It will be sundown soon. When it comes, I will find these refugees from justice and end them, as I am sworn to do. If you can reach that, you may join me. We can do the deed as a family, and feast afterwards.” He turns back to her, and his lips are still stained. “But this is your last chance, Sethe. If you continue down the path of nonsense, you will no longer be my daughter. You will no longer have my protection.” He takes a cloth from the tray and delicately wipes the blood from his lips. “Make the right choice, daughter mine.”

 

 

 

The ruins are an interesting mix of protruding rock and long-worn slabs that had once made tunnels. Or catacombs. Glitter’s blue light makes a cone before him and shimmers as he moves, making the whole place feel like it is just beneath the surface of a tropical sea. Several small branching corridors have already broken away from the main tunnel, but they have decided to follow it until they no longer can.

“Why do we always end up underground?” Riyo moans. She has become bored of the trudging and irritated with her companions’ refusal to engage with any of the topics she has tried to broach so far. Only Trost will respond to her.

“There’s something down here, Riyo,” Rolleck says. “Let’s at least try to avoid drawing it to us.”

“It’s cooler, beneath the ground,” Trost says. “The worms like it down here. The sharks like it, down here. The parrots like it down here!” The last comes out in song that resonates through the tunnel. Something distant and terrifying calls back.

“I don’t suppose you know what that is?” Rolleck says to Colourful. “It’s extremely unlikely that we’re going to be able to find the map before whatever it is finds us.”

Colourful shrugs, his teeth showing through his beard as he grins, reflecting the light so that it looks like he has been gnashing on blueberries.

“If you go down deep enough, you’ll find the pools of mana left over from a great incursion that supposedly happened here thousands of years ago. Animals find them, drink from them. Your guess is as good as mine as to how that affects them, but… Well, it’s never good.” Another echo reaches them, sounding almost forlorn.

“Manamals are as varied as nightmares,” Riyo says. “Some people think the nightmares are just Calis manamals, but I reckon they’re something different entirely.”

“Never heard them called that before,” Colourful says.

“That’s what the Cult call them. Usually they’re super weird, unviable mutations, but occasionally stable manamals get created and become a breeding populace. There’s a lot of them in the Everstall Song ‘cause the animals there are so varied and resilient. Things like Ligmists and Green Bears are technically manamals, but they’ve been around almost as long as the Reach.”

“Sometimes you sound like a genuine intellectual, Riyo,” Emerald says.

“Thanks.”

“What kind of… manamals… are we talking about here?” Rolleck says, looking around at the walls of the cave.

“Oh, mostly insects,” Colourful says. “Some lizards, snakes, rats, a couple of sand sharks and at least one-”

A rumbling moan folds through the cave, an earthquake of sound that shakes their teeth and makes the ground feel like it is trying to escape.

“-sand worm.” Colourful says, once the noise has faded.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Rolleck says, letting out a tired breath.

“Pfft,” Riyo says. “Mana’s weird and inconsistent. Sometimes it makes monsters, but equally often it just changes the animal’s skin colour or how often it needs to poop.”

“Knowing our luck, this sand worm is half the length of the desert with teeth the size of galleons,” Emerald says.

“I can’t overrule either option,” Colourful says. “Nobody’s actually seen it. We’ve just heard it.”

“I bet it’s not even a sand worm,” Riyo says. “I bet it’s just a bug that’s mutated to sound like one.”

“I suppose we can hope,” Colourful says. “This is where our work starts.” He stops by the wall and gestures forward to where it ends. Glitter’s frosty light spills out onto a bridge of jagged crystal that twinkles with trapped gemstones. To either side, not-quite-darkness shimmers in vague turquoise-purple.

Riyo runs over to the edge and peers down into the wavering abyss.

“Smells like mana,” she says.

Rolleck joins her, turning the fat ruby over in his hand. “I don’t suppose I can just dip this in a puddle of it?”

“Doesn’t work that way. We still don’t know how they get powered up while they’re in the sky. That’s why the World Force is so keen to collect them. Gems are really good at holding mana and making it do something useful, but the current prevalent theory is that it takes, like, thousands of years to infuse a gem, and these ones from the sky have been up there for ages.”

“It affects people — and animals — pretty much instantly, though,” Colourful says. “So don’t touch it.”

“You got it,” Riyo says, then steps off the edge of the bridge.

Colourful’s grin freezes. He blinks. “I was envisaging a more… uh… systematic search.”

“That’s not how we do things,” Rolleck says, watching Riyo grow smaller and then vanish into the gently glowing nothing.

“Geronymus Bosch!” Trost cries, and leaps after Riyo as though he is bombing into a pool. His twinkling sun-lite stone looks like a lonesome star in an endless night until it, too, disappears.

“Err,” Colourful says. “Are we all doing that?”

Rolleck looks at Emerald, who shrugs. Glitter draws on the face of uncertainty.

“I have always been a very systematic person,” he says. “My father was a scientist.”

“Me too.” Rolleck runs a hand over his wolf pelt. “There’s no harm in splitting up. Riyo can look after Trost and they can try the chaotic approach, we’ll move a bit more methodically.”

“That is a good plan, Rolleck,” Glitter says, moving further out onto the bridge. His light wanders over jagged, angular shapes until they spread out past sight, creating a ledge that hangs above the abyss. The wall that looms ahead is pitted with dark holes.

“This is the warren,” Colourful says. “All of these tunnels interweave and never seem to reach a dead end. There are rooms with decaying stuff all through them.”

“Do they usually hum?” Glitter says, before joining his own to a subtle chorus.

“…no.”

“Are there a lot of gems in these tunnels?” Rolleck asks.

“Also no.”

“Then we can only conclude,” Emerald says as the humming grows, “that those glittery things are…”

“Eyes.”

“I am very certain, now, that I do not like bugs,” Glitter says as hum becomes roar and individual wingbeats make the darkness within the burrows shudder faster than sight.

“Who would have thought I’d end up regretting not jumping off a bridge?” Rolleck says, voice heavy.

With a chitinous rush and the smashing of mandibles, the hive explodes towards them.

 

 

 

Ravi feels as though Riyo is trying to crush him. The heat of the sun is overpowering, even as it touches the horizon. He is starting to think he would have been better off facing the horrors of the cave below, just because at least then he would die in the shade. Here atop a crumbling pillar, accosted on all sides by airborne sand and blistering sunbeams, he will dry up and roast to death.

“Hey, at least you have company,” the voice says. “Can you see me, yet, by the way?”

“No,” Ravi says. “And I think I’d rather die alone.”

“Don’t say that. You’re supposed to give me a purpose, remember?”

Ravi blinks, his eyelids barely affecting the brightness of the desert.

“You?”

“Oh, come on. That should have been so obvious by now. Yes. It’s me, Vale. Duh. Why? Who did you think I was?”

“I don’t know. I was trying not to think about it.”

“Ha! You thought you were going insane. Nope. You just have a sociopathic ghost friend now.”

“But… Weren’t you part of the tapestry?”

“Nah. I’ve been following you since Saviour’s Call. I ended up in there with you. That kid I killed was there, but I tied him up and hid him in an alley so I could talk to you instead.”

Ravi glances around, a scowl on his face. He doesn’t know where the voice is coming from, though.

“You hid Fallow from me?” he growls.

“It wasn’t really him anyway,” Vale says. “Just a weird tapestry-made brain-fart. He would have just made you all mopey and probably stabbed you in the back with that dagger so you got stuck in that cloth forever. I saved you, if you think about it.”

“Why are you following me, then?” Ravi stands and turns slowly, his eyes picking out each mote of sand that drifts by but catching no sign of the lizard-woman.

“Cus you made me a promise. And I’m not gonna let you just forget it. I’m a little hurt that you made it thinking I was gonna up and vanish.”

“Why did you follow me to begin with?” Ravi says, still turning. “From Saviour’s Call.”

“I’m a ghost,” she says. “Never been a ghost before, but there are some suggestive stories. I figured I’d better get to haunting, and who better to haunt than the guy who killed me?”

“I’m… not sure that’s how it works. The other ghosts-”

“Well no kidding. Obviously I know that now. It took me until that stupid cloth shop to even make you notice I was there. But then you gave me an opportunity, and I wasn’t kidding about it, you know? Put me to some use. You just have to figure out how to see me.”

“Yeah, well,” Ravi says looking back to face the way they had come. “If you’ve got any hints about that then…” He stops. Blinks again.

“Oh?” Vale says, then, “Wait, I’m not standing there. I’m over here.”

“Shut up,” Ravi says. There is a black speck caught within the haze of the horizon. The sun crashes down towards it, but it limps on.

“See something? You know, lizards have pretty good eyes too. Apparently, we have way better colour vision than humans. It took me ages to figure out I was seeing everything differently than the other kids. They made fun of me sometimes for making up colours, but the joke was on them because I tricked them into washing their faces with Akaris venom so now they don’t see any colours at all. Or shapes.”

Ravi ignores her. The speck is coming closer, shifting sand into a cloud behind it. It isn’t big enough to be a trawler, though.

“Still can’t see it,” Vale says. “Is it a vampire?”

Ravi shakes his head slowly. “It’s still light. That Malbec guy said he wouldn’t come out until sundown.”

“Maybe it’s just some World Force dudes?”

“Why would they wait until now to come after us if they weren’t going to rely on the vampire? To be honest, if that guy is much stronger than his daughter then we’re in real trouble with just him.”

“Well. You guys are in trouble. I’m already dead.”

“Ghosts can die,” Ravi says, remembering the echoing wail of Deis Lisanna ringing across the village common as his arrow tore her from reality. He hadn’t thought about her for a while. She hadn’t been like the other ghosts he has met since. Something had twisted her. Even so, he had killed her.

“Yeah? I wonder what happens. D’you think it’s the same as just not becoming a ghost in the first place? Or is there a special punishment for screwing it up twice instead of just once? Double hell.”

“I hope you go to double hell,” Ravi says, still watching the speck resolve itself into a shape. He can almost make it out.

“No you don’t. Besides, you can’t kill what you can’t see.”

“Shit,” Ravi says.

“Ha. You’re stuck with me.”

“No, not that,” he squints, but there is no mistaking the purple hair. “Although that does suck too.” He glances around again. Something catches in the corner of his eye, but it is gone by the time he looks back. He shakes his head. “It is a vampire. But not the one we were expecting.”

“The other one was still pretty strong. She gave me goosebumps with that transformation. Do you think she’s single?”

Ravi blinks.

“What? She’s kinda pretty in a sullen way, and then with that suit and the hair back? Woof.”

“Just… be quiet, okay?”

“Pfft. Well, if you’re not going to try and woo her, shouldn’t you be calling for your friends?”

“She looks… unwell,” Ravi says after squinting at her again. Sergeant Ixel is walking quickly, but not running, and her shoulders are slumped. All of her hair now hangs over her face. “I’m going to try and talk to her.”

“Oh, okay,” Vale says. “Just while we wait then, what am I supposed to do after she kills you?”

Ravi pauses for a moment, stupefied. “I don’t care?”

“You’re boring, you know that?”

“So you keep telling me.” Ravi reaches into his pocket and plucks out the gem the half-devil gave him. Its strange grey light pulses so softly it might just be an ordinary stone. He rolls it in his hand, then looks back to the vampire.

Vale is quiet as Sergeant Ixel trudges across the sand, growing larger in such small increments that Ravi is surprised when she looks up at him and scowls. The sun is touching the horizon behind her, so her face looks dark and sallow.

“Get out of my way,” she says. Her voice is strained, her breathing slow and heavy.

“Why did you follow us?” Ravi asks.

“She doesn’t get on with her father,” Vale pipes in.

Ixel’s attention darts left. “Can you blame me?” she spits. “He’s older than the dinosaurs and he treats me like dirt.”

“Oh,” Vale says. “You can… You can see me, huh?”

“I’m a vampire. Of course I can see ghosts. We’re basically the rulers of the undead.”

“Well, I have only recently become a ghost. My name is Vale, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Ixel growls and turns back to Ravi. “Where’s your stupid friend?”

“I have a few stupid friends. You’ll need to be more specific.”

“The stupidest.”

“Riyo went down into the ruin to look for the map.”

Her eyes narrow. “What did you do to the guards?”

“They weren’t here,” Ravi says, glancing towards the lengthening shadow lurching out of the mouth of the ruin. He just manages to push himself back off the pillar before the top of it explodes. The gemstone tumbles from his hand as he grabs for his dagger. Ixel bursts from the dust, and Ravi can’t manoeuvre out of her way in the air. His dagger flashes with lightning that crashes against the force of her punch. He hits the ground feet first, his heels dragging scars into the sand. Ixel comes down in front of him, but her charge turns into a stumble.

“What…” she pants. “Did you…” She collapses on her face.

Ravi swallows. His arm is numb from blocking her punch. He has only held onto his dagger by sheer fluke.

“That was dramatic,” Vale says.

Ravi takes a step forward, then catches another blur. He feels something cold on his shoulder.

“Is that a good idea?” Vale says, quite close.

Ravi shakes her off and approaches Ixel. He nudges her with a tentative foot, then when she doesn’t respond he slowly turns her over. She is paler than even a vampire ought to be, and there is cold sweat on her face. The back of her uniform is still damp with blood from where Riyo hit her that morning.

“Hey, looks like we win,” Vale says. “You should cut off her head. Or stick some garlic in her heart. Y’know. Whatever works on vampires.”

“No,” Ravi says.

“What?”

“I’m not going to kill her.”

“Uh. Why?”

“It seems like she really cares about those soldiers, and she did warn us before she tried to arrest us. I think she’s actually quite a nice person.”

“You think?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok listen, I said I wouldn’t kill you back in that rug as long as you just let me be me instead of trying to change me, so here’s what I think: She is completely defenceless right now. You have no proof she isn’t gonna just suck you dry as soon as she wakes up. It is just pure good sense that you kill her right now. That way, the chance of you getting deflated to the tune of all your blood is ‘zero’ instead of ‘some’.”

“That’s a well-reasoned argument,” Ravi says. He then sheaths his knife and hauls Ixel up over his shoulder. She is surprisingly light. “I don’t like killing people, though.”

“Let me do it, then.”

“If you want a purpose, here it is. You called yourself a tool, said you had no personal morality, so I’m giving you a copy of mine. I don’t kill if it isn’t absolutely necessary, so you don’t either.” He looks her right in the eye.

Vale scowls. “Okay. But how necessary is ‘absolutely’?” She watches him walking towards the cave’s entrance. “Like, I feel like if someone gets my clothes dirty, that probably makes it necessary, right?”

Behind them, scattered in the sand, the light slowly fades from the fragments of a broken stone.

 

 

 

Riyo flutters to a gentle halt in complete darkness. For a moment, there is inky sludge all over her skin and broken, cackling laughter in her head.

Then a twinkle of light and a strengthening scream draw her attention upwards. Her reality pings further out and she slows Trost until he stands beside her. He takes another breath and continues screaming. His fake sunlight stone is a welcome source of illumination, and she glances around at the sawblade rocks that surround them. Grey and black interweave between savage teeth, washed out by the pure white light.

After a third momentous effort, Trost stops screaming. “It’s not the fall that kills you,” he says, breathless. “It’s the memory of the fall.”

“I saw mana glowing down here before, but now I can’t,” Riyo says, looking up and up at the space they have fallen through. It is vast, and the angry landscape rises and falls like the rolling hills of Frosthold.

“Mana is cool and precise,” Trost says. “If you see its chaos, it is only because you are not looking deep enough.”

“I see,” Riyo says. “Let’s look over there.”

Trost is barefoot, but makes no complaints about the bite of jagged stones as they climb the first black ridge. Sounds reach them as echoes with blunted points, making it impossible to tell whether they are hearing the drip of water or the war cry of a fearsome beast. The darkness flows away from them, pushed on by the light, pooling behind outcrops before drizzling away as they pass.

As the ridge folds away, they are afforded a better view of the space. It is pitted with turquoise-purple oases, and the smell of damp is perforated now and then by an acrid tang.

“Oh!” Trost says, his eyes bouncing between the dim lights. “I know this smell!”

“Mana?” Riyo says.

He shakes his head. “Sand worm poo. They eat the gems, you know? And when they eat a mana gem their tummies spin them around until the mana comes out.”

“Wait, so the sand worms have been pulling the mana out of gems and leaving it in pools in here?”

“Indeed,” Trost says, then swings his staff upside down and hits a loose stone off into the distant darkness. “Five!”

Riyo listens for it landing, but hears nothing.

“So where do you think this map might be?” Riyo says, glancing around. Her gut tells her there is something not quite right about this cave. The longer she stares at its bristling ridges, the more her discomfort grows.

“I don’t know,” Trost says, looking behind them. “Perhaps we should ask him?”

Riyo turns. She looks up.

“They’re not usually that colour, are they?”

“The sand worms of the Glimmering Desert are a pale colour that matches their habitat to better camouflage them from their prey while hunting,” his voice is inflected like an academic. It reminds Riyo of her master.

“This one’s bright green,” Riyo says. It is propped up and looming over them, the tentacles around it’s gaping maw swaying like the hardy reeds that sprout in the shadows between the dunes. Its skin is near luminous and embedded with chunks of black stone.

“That’s just a style choice,” Trost says. “you’ve gotta change it up every now and again if you wanna stay cool.”

“Can they… can they see?”

“With their eyes. But not with their spleens.”

For a moment, the air shakes. The sound feels like a wall, and Riyo is forced to create a vacuum around herself and Trost to shut it off until the worm is done screaming.

“Does that mean it’s… happy?” Riyo says once air and sound return.

“Yes,” Trost says.

“Oh. That’s good, I guess?”

“It is happy it has found a meal.”

“Oh.” Riyo says again.

“We could eat it, instead?”

“I think maybe we should just run away.”

The worm lunges forward and the darkness crashes aside to let it through.

 

 

 

 

Rolleck the Lost ducks left and drags his sword lengthways through a crackling black carapace. Alien gore drenches the rocks behind him as the creature’s momentum carries both halves of its body over the edge of the shelf. Rolleck glances after it and is surprised at how close he has come to the precipice. A little further along, Glitter is planted on the very lip, ice crusting his chassis and holding him to the rock. Before him, a wall of snow keeps the bugs at bay and births needles of ice that slash through the darkness like crossbow bolts. His light has gone dim, but fortunately they have a new source of light.

Indigo flames lash the wall of the cavern, showing the stream of twinkly-eyed insects as they pour out of the ancient burrows. Emerald’s claws rend exoskeletons while her fire melts them into the rock. The creatures cannot pierce her scales with their flimsy mandibles, but their sheer weight of numbers have pushed her back too. She need not fear the fall, but her patience for this is nearly through.

“I’m going to ignite my cowl,” she growls at Rolleck. “Get back to the bridge and hold the bottle neck. I’ll burn the whole warren.”

“Hang on!” someone yells, apparently deep within the mass of flashing wings and clattering legs.

“Colourful?” Glitter calls.

“I figured it out!” the ant-man yells. “Gimme… Ah-ha!”

A fathomless scream emerges from a thousand rancid throats. Every one of the bugs begins to writhe, their wings fluttering spasmodically and their legs flailing in the air. Mandibles snap, creating a riotous round of applause that crashes back from the walls of the cavern.

They die in drabs, twitching and failing in waves, until the shelf is still and dark again. The mound of dead bugs in front of Rolleck shifts, and Colourful emerges. His white turban and thawb are stained with blue-black blood, but his white grin still shows pristine through his beard.

“They all look the same,” he says as Glitter waddles over, his light brightening.

“They’re bugs,” Emerald says.

Colourful looks at her.

“Uh, no offence.”

“Ants look very similar to one another, granted,” he says. “But not identical. These creatures are all exactly the same, because they are all the same creature.” He opens his hand and holds it up to the light. “Mana is chaotic. It doesn’t seem to affect anything in the same way twice, so there was no way all of these bugs mutated in exactly the same way.”

In his hand is a miniature — or rather, normal sized — bug. He has squished it in his fist.

“So all the big bugs came from this little one?” Glitter says, drawing an open ‘o’ of astonishment for a mouth.

“Mana’s weird,” Colourful says with a shrug. He tips his hand and the bug tumbles to the floor.

“You deal with this sort of thing often?” Rolleck asks, scraping innards from his sword.

“The Thieves Guild is in the business of procuring valuable things. They are often guarded.” Colourful’s black eyes are cold in Glitter’s blue light.

“I see.” Rolleck brushes some gunk from his wolf pelt.

“We should start searching,” Emerald says. “The longer we are down here, the more of these mutated creatures we are likely to encounter.”

Rolleck and Colourful maintain their staring contest for a few more moments, before Colourful’s grin broadens slightly and he turns away.

“While we were searching, we started over on the left,” he gestures. “Made it about five tunnels in, but we’re only mostly sure we covered every side-tunnel and chamber. Like I said — it’s a maze in there.”

“We should split into teams of two,” Emerald decides. “One starting from the sixth tunnel on the left and the other starting on the far right. Work our way in.”

“That sounds like a solid plan,” Colourful says, reaching deep into the sleeve of his thawb and drawing out a white gemstone with a soft glow to it. He taps it against the rock of the floor a few times, and the glow brightens.

“I’ll go with Glitter,” Emerald says.

“Yeah!” Glitter says. “We can practice our singing!” He leans towards Colourful and lowers his voice. “We still have a lot of work to do, but we’re calling it A Song of Ice and Fire.”

“That sounds derivative,” Colourful says.

Emerald shoots them both a glare. “I told you not to tell anybody that.”

“Well I’m glad you two are getting along in spite of your temperature differences,” Rolleck says with a smirk. “Don’t worry,” he says to Emerald, “I’m good at keeping tight-lipped.”

“Just…” Emerald lets out a deflating sigh. “Don’t tell Riyo. She’ll laugh.”

Rolleck nods, but his smirk endures.

“What?” Emerald says with a glower.

“Nothing. This works out anyway,” he looks back to Colourful. “I’m still not entirely sold on the honour of thieves. I’d like to keep an eye on our new friend. Just in case, you understand?”

“I’m not yet sold on the honour of policemen,” Colourful says. “Even ronin.”

“We’ll go over to the right,” Glitter says, painting on a tone-deaf smile.

“Good luck,” Emerald offers, and follows the robot over towards the far side of the shelf.

“Shall we?” Colourful says.

“Lead on.” Rolleck follows his shining gem across to a hole indistinguishable from its compatriots in the cavern wall.

Colourful stops by the yawning mouth and crooks two fingers, which he then jabs into the rock. He carves out the number six, deep enough to be distinct even in darkness. He glances at Rolleck before heading into the tunnel.

 

 

Sethe Malbec awakes to a ceiling painted in warm red light. She is lying on something soft and the air around her is blessedly cool. She can feel the sun setting, but its absence doesn’t relieve her of the headache. Or the hunger.

“Sethe,” someone says, and she sits bolt upright, clenching her fist and baring her fangs.

“That’s not my name,” she growls.

“It’s written on your badge,” the avian-traited boy says, holding it up where the light from the little stove gem burnishes its gold to bronze. “Sethe Malbec.”

“I already left my father’s name in the dirt where it belongs. Where he belongs. My name is Raith.”

“Raith Ixel,” the boy says, nodding.

“It’s a nice name,” the ghost says. “I’m Vale, by the way. I think I introduced myself before, but you were kind of delirious.”

“And you?” She remains focused on the bird boy.

“Ravi Matriya.” He flicks her badge like a coin, and she snatches it out of the air. The shirt pocket she usually clips it to has torn, so she stuffs it into her trouser pocket without taking her eyes off either of the room’s other occupants.

“What happened to the guards?”

Ravi shrugs. “We found this room like this. There’s no sign of struggle, no blood…”

Blood.

Ixel sees her father’s lips again. Sees the cascade of crimson flowing out of Cardamom’s neck and into the bottle. Her teeth ache in her mouth.

She shakes her head, letting the sudden anger of her headache drown out the yearning.

“Then the thieves… no. They wouldn’t have recruited you if they just planned on sneaking in here behind out backs. Something from the ruins?”

“There was something making a lot of noise down there.”

“That damn sand worm.” Ixel bites her thumb, then stops because she doesn’t want to be reminded that she has teeth. “It would make a lot of mess, though, and they knew not to go down into the ruins without a research team…”

“There are other things down there, aren’t there?” Vale says. “Perhaps some smaller mutant snuck up here and vanished them?”

Ixel scowls. “It doesn’t matter, does it? They’re gone. I’ve failed them, too.” She shoves herself to her feet. “My father will be here in a couple of hours and I’m barely strong enough to stand.”

“You planned to fight him?” Ravi says.

“I don’t know what I planned to do,” Ixel says, her head drooping, her hair hanging down over her face. “I just had to get away from there before…” she winces and punches the wall, sending shards of rock clattering across the room. “He was supposed to stay buried.”

Vale leans in close to Ravi’s ear. “What do we do?”

“I’m not sure,” Ravi says. “She’s obviously in a difficult place, emotionally. Sometimes it’s better to give people silence to fill.”

Vale stares at him for a second. “Who cares about her fragile emotions?! There’s an ancient vampire coming right here to kill us all and that apparently includes me because they can see ghosts. What do we do about that?”

“We don’t know what happened to your friends,” Ravi says, standing up and drawing the vampire’s attention back to him. “You don’t know what to do about your father, but I assume you do want to find them. It’s possible they fled deeper into the ruin to avoid something. I need to find my friends and warn them that night is upon us — we stand a better chance together anyway. Perhaps we will find some clue that leads us to your compatriots on the way to finding mine.”

Ixel holds his gaze for a moment, then shakes her head again to find the clarity of pain. The bird boy’s heartbeat is loud, but he’s right. She certainly won’t achieve anything glaring at black rock and turning her failures around in her head. The boy has had ample time to try and kill her and hasn’t taken it. He’s either too afraid to act against her alone or genuinely holds no ill-will towards her, despite her earlier actions. Either way, he is offering her a path to walk, and it leads away from the hunger.

“Okay,” she says. “I know the ruins quite well. If your Thieves Guild friend is leading them, they will have gone back to the warren.”

“Then you can lead,” Ravi says.

She takes them out into the main tunnel, and they begin their descent. Her eyes pierce the veil of darkness as if it is not there, and the slight light of the heating crystal dangling like a lantern from the end of Ravi’s bow shines like a beacon to his raptor’s sight.

“I know you’re not feeling a hundred percent,” Ravi says, “But I don’t suppose you’re up to knocking down a mutated sandworm, by any chance?”

Ixel squeezes her fist closed in front of her. With the onset of night, power is dribbling back into her. “I think I can manage it,” she says.

“That’s reassuring,” Vale says.

“We probably won’t encounter it, though,” Ixel says. “It tends to just fill the ruins with its voice from wherever it’s tunnelling.”

“That’s even more reassuring,” Ravi says.

 

 

 

“What do you think the map looks like?” Glitter says. They have found a room filled with crumbled stone shelves. There are a few scraps of parchment clinging to them, but anything that was once scribed upon them has faded away in the thousands of years that have passed since then.

“Like a map, I suppose,” Emerald says, turning over another sheet that crumbles to dust in the delicacy of her claws.

“Hmm.” Glitter spreads his senses through the room, but all of the parchment in it has the same fragile consistency. “I don’t think it’s in here.”

“Map.”

They twirl back to the door to find the source of the mournful voice. A World Force soldier stands out against the dark of the tunnel behind him, his uniform mussed as if he has slept in it. His body is loose, as though he is being held up by something other than his own bones, and his eyes glow the soft turquoise-purple of mana.

“Follow,” he says. Then, “map.” His words are long and creaking, as though spoken through a throat gone dry from dehydration.

“Um.” Glitter sidles forward. “Are you okay?”

The man’s pulsing eyes turn slowly towards Glitter, then drift around as he lurches back into the tunnel.

“Should we follow?” Glitter says, drawing a worried squiggle for a mouth.

“Seems as though he wants to lead us to the map,” Emerald says, but still she hesitates. “Could be a trap, though.”

“What would Riyo do?”

Emerald sighs. “Yeah. I suppose we don’t really have a choice. Searching the way we have been could take weeks. The ant-man was right about these tunnels.”

The man’s halting steps carry him deeper into the warren, and Emerald and Glitter follow him. The path forks and winds, but he always remains resolute in his steps. It is as though he does not see the route but is drawn along it by whatever lies at its end.

“Do you think he’d mind us singing?” Glitter asks.

“I’m not sure he minds anything, anymore,” Emerald says. “I think the mind he had is gone. Replaced by something else.”

“He feels so very strange,” Glitter agrees. “But my father knew a lot of songs. There is one that I think he might like to hear.”

“Perhaps you should sing it alone, this time,” Emerald says. “I wouldn’t want to ruin it.”

“I think your voice suits deeper notes,” Glitter says, but Emerald shakes her head. “Okay.”

The tune is one they say was conceived on the Plains of Chaos as the light of the Reach first broke open to spill nightmares against the walls of the capital. The brave men and women who stood with the Last Empress and became the first of the World Force fought for weeks without rest to stem the tide. They rallied all of Valos with the strength of their spirit, and they were honoured in song as they fell.

 

As fire falls we man the walls

To guard the realms of light

As darkness calls we give our all

To staunch the wound of night

 

In life, in death, in joy, in fear

Our duty never falters

We remain united here

Your faithful sons and daughters

 

Bring the cold and bring the dark, we cannot be defeated

Bring your nightmares, your miasma, here we shall be seated

Bring destruction, desolation, no one has retreated

Bring The End into our world, with light you shall be greeted

 

“I always hated that song,” a wavering female voice says.

They have entered another chamber, larger than the last. It is permeated with the glow of mana that echoes out from a pool at the centre. Before it stand three more figures, and their guide lumbers forward to join them in line, turning to face them. All wear dishevelled World Force uniforms. All have eyes that seem to let the light of the pool behind them through.

“Perhaps because it was a reminder of a truth we always shied away from. To join the Force is to be willing to die fighting the nightmares. None of us joined for that, though.”

“We joined for money,” their guide says, his voice a little livelier now.

“We joined for prestige,” the next person says.

“We joined for the adventure.”

“We joined to feel needed.”

“Death was a long way from our thoughts,” the first voice says.

Emerald walks closer to the pool, and the four guardians step back to let her through. She swallows as her eyes adjust to the mana’s radiance and the far side of the pool comes clear. A fifth person lies sprawled over the rocks, her back broken over the lip of the pool and her head submerged beneath its surface. Her mouth is open in an endless, silent scream, her eyes staring as though in death but still twinkling with the glint of life.

“The mana keeps me alive, but my psychic scream killed my companions the moment I fell. I hold onto the empty shells of their minds, knowing that without them I am here forever, trapped and unable to move.”

“Can we help you?” Glitter says. He has erased his face because his crude drawing cannot capture the horror he feels. He had been like this, once. He had only come to consciousness after Albert found him, and so he had felt safe even unable to move. But every now and then he has wondered what it might have been to wake in darkness beneath the mountain. Lost. Trapped.

It makes his crystal shudder.

“I think if I am moved from the pool I will die. That would be a mercy, but I must hold on long enough to share what we have learned. We have found the map.”

“Where is it?” Emerald says.

“There is a small problem with that,” the woman says.

 

 

 

This far from the Tower’s End Song and the Reach, the curve of Valos hides Calis’ dark figure from the sky. The night is filled with crystal light from the Resplendence and the stars that spin beyond it. The purple face of the moon grins down at the desert, Calis’ shadow not quite hiding its crater eyes and molten teeth.

Before the fall of the Reach, there were two moons in Valos’ sky. Lightdance, the violet princess, and Blackfang, the shadow prince. Of course, Calis changed all of that. Blackfang was destroyed entirely–raining down upon both planets as meteorites or spinning through the space around us as ice satellites. Some of them crashed down upon Lightdance, breaking her perfect surface. This was so long ago that the names are lost to us. Lightdance is now just the moon to us. The only one we’ve known.

The words, written by Elvolar Lightseer, were one of the many reasons Lieutenant Marigold chose to apply for the position under the Research Committee. She had hoped exploring these ruins might lead to more such discoveries. Though she excelled more physically than academically, that hadn’t blunted her curiosity. She read voraciously, listened to the scholars of the committee while she guarded them at their lectures and demonstrations, and jumped on any opportunity she saw to help in the field. This was a chance for her to see it for real. To contribute what she could to understanding this world.

Or it was supposed to be. Instead they had found themselves waiting. For months, now. No researchers had arrived. The Committee sub-chair assured her by letter every few weeks that keeping the thieves out of the ruins was important, and that a team was being assembled to begin excavation. She had been assured that honorary sergeant Malbec would be a powerful asset to her. She had been assured that the command would be a simple, straightforward mission that would see her right to promotion to captain.

She wants to cry, but fear keeps her mind on quiet lamentations over empty promises and her body still. Sergeant Ixel had warned her about her father. She should have listened.

The pillars standing astride the entrance to the ruin loom through a shadow that feels tangible. Unholy. The night air seems to swirl around Malbec without touching him, kept at bay by darkness that pulses from his broad shoulders. That drips down his cape and soaks into the sand along with the blood. So much blood. Greasy and green, stinking of rot already, though it was only spilled moments ago.

He turns to face her, the blood moon in his eyes. She stops breathing.

“Come along, Lieutenant.” He turns and steps between the two halves of the sandworm he has just torn open with his bare hands.

Marigold glances around at the circle of them. More than ten. Maybe twenty. All of them torn to shreds in a few moments of indescribable silence. She swallows. Stamps on a whimper deep in her throat.

“Yes sir,” she croaks.

 

 

 

“You aren’t like other police officers I have had the pleasure of meeting,” Colourful says, tossing his gem into a side room. It illuminates dank, eroded walls and the smell of mould. Aside from a handful of pottery shrapnel, it is empty. Colourful sighs and stoops to retrieve the gem.

“My beat has always been changeable,” Rolleck says. “If you’d met me a few months ago, though, you wouldn’t have looked twice at me.”

“I look twice at everyone. Especially police officers. The guild’s biggest trip-ups do not come at the hands of the famous detectives and World Force special operatives. Our most well-known failings are always the work of someone we overlooked. A lucky beat cop or a perceptive rookie.”

“Well, I’m not looking for an opportunity to trip you up,” Rolleck says staring ahead into the gloom. His sword is whispering its quiet promise of violence into his mind, but it does that around most people. “We have an agreement, for now. You may have dealt with a lot of police officers, but you should know that I’m the kind of person who always keeps to my word. Can you say the same?”

“Of course not,” Colourful says. “There has never been honour among thieves, let alone with those outside the guild. We act in our own interest, and so we have built a system whereby it is in every member’s interest to act for the sake of the whole. Leaving the guild means death. Betraying the guild means death. The benefits of remaining a member are many and bountiful.”

“So what guarantee do I have?” Rolleck asks. The tuneful whispers are growing louder.

“The same one. The World Force have unleashed a deadly trump card on top of all the advantages they already had. Our team here is small and, aside from myself, not really the brawling types. It doesn’t benefit me to cross you.”

“Until you have your copy of the map.”

Colourful’s grin widens. “Once I have my copy, our deal is over anyway. I may be the muscle in our operation, but I’m not stupid. I can’t fight you and your friends for the original, and my superiors aren’t worried about what you guys might do with it, so it’s in my best interest to just let you have it.”

“Hmph,” Rolleck says. The silence stretches as they walk, poking the gem into various dents in the tunnel walls hoping vainly to reveal an ancient cartographia somehow preserved amidst the rot and damp that pervades this place.

“Your story is an interesting one,” Colourful says as he etches another six into the wall by a fork. He has stopped to do this every time the path branched, and, on several occasions, they have come across fives and fours by the entrances to side passages.

“My story is my own.”

“That’s what makes it interesting. I’m sure it won’t surprise you to know our information gathering capabilities are impressive. Information is just as pleasing to steal as gemstones, after all.” His black eyes glint in the light. “Yet still, we know nothing of you save for a few stories of a strange policeman wandering the Everstall Song. Village to village, never staying long. Who trained him? Who gave him his rare pelt? Where is his family? What is that strange sword? The rumour mill cannot answer anything.”

“The Everstall Song is deep and dark, with little of value in it. I’m not surprised.”

“But you aren’t from Everstall,” Colourful says. “You’re from Chirrickar.”

Rolleck stops dead, the whispers becoming a roar. He feels his muscles straining.

These are dark and dangerous tunnels. Nobody will know his fate.

The voice chills his anger, and he regains control.

Colourful, likely aware of how close he just came to dying, has lost his grin.

“A linguistic observation, is all. Your accent betrays you.”

“Dig no deeper, thief,” Rolleck says, voice strained. “For your own good.”

He stares for a moment, then his turban dips as he nods. “One day the story of your life will be worth a great deal.” He starts walking again. “But I think for now it would cost too much to obtain. Buy low, sell high, they say.”

The darkness in the tunnels feels even more oppressive with the weight of Rolleck’s fear pressing upon him. He keeps his past from himself, more than from anyone else.

But it cannot be hidden from me.

“Hang on,” Colourful says, squinting ahead. He secretes the gem in his sleeve and watches.

“There’s a light,” Rolleck says after a moment, voice low.

Colourful nods. He gestures back to the room they have just searched, and they creep to its entrance. Colourful squats by the door, watching the path ahead, while Rolleck centres himself in preparation. He lets the song grow, this time under his own conduction.

“Bazinga!” Trost yells, shoving his staff gem first into the room.

Rolleck’s sword stops like it has hit an anvil a hair’s breadth from the cultist’s neck. Wind tussles his unkempt hair and moans through the tunnels from the blade’s sudden halt.

“You’re not my mummy,” Trost says, looking down at the blade.

“Where’s Riyo?” Rolleck says, not moving the sword.

“Ah. Well. As to that,” Trost says, idling slowly back into the main tunnel. “There is a story to be told and I am not the one to tell it. Not even close. A frog would tell it better and so! We will find a frog. This way, if you please good sirs?!”

He trots off down the tunnel, and, with shared impatience, Rolleck and Colourful scurry after. Two lights bob through darkness, twisting downwards at every opportunity.

“I hope he’s not lost,” Rolleck says.

“It’s fine,” Colourful pants. He is having to run twice as hard to keep up. “I can’t get lost.”

“Perfect memory, right?”

“There are those who refuse to believe it.”

“I’ve seen much less likely things.”

Trost’s light stops bouncing off the ceiling, and a moment later Rolleck emerges at the bottom of the great cavern. He looks up, but the shelf and the bridge are lost in the vastness above.

“Huh,” Colourful says, backing up and scratching a six next to the mouth of the tunnel. “Useful to know you can get all the way down here without throwing yourself off the bridge.”

“Where’s Riyo?” Rolleck says again, glaring at the back of Trost’s head.

“She’s hiding.”

“Where? Why?”

“Over there.” Trost gestures, and his light grows brighter. It illuminates an expanse of starkly green rock that spirals inward on itself. “And maybe hiding wasn’t the right word.” He scratches his head. “There’s a better way of phrasing it, I’m sure.”

The green rock lurches upward and throws itself to one side, then the other. Rocks cascade through black space while the earth moves beneath Rolleck’s boots.

“Oh shit!” Colourful yells. “It’s that bloody sand worm!”

“Ah! Not hiding,” Trost says, smiling wide. “Being digested!”

The worm screams and the world flips upside down.

 

 

 

Ravi yelps, but manages to get his feet under him as the ceiling comes crashing down at him. Sergeant Ixel has not spent the time Ravi has sparring with and against Riyo. She lands on her bum.

“Ouch. What the heck?”

Ravi’s curse-breaker flickers throughout his feathers, but nothing happens. He frowns.

“It feels like Riyo inverted gravity, but you should be able to resist it and I should be able to negate it. This is something different.”

Ixel stands up and blinks up at the floor. Dust drifts through the air, making the transition to the new ground at a daintier pace.

“Whatever it is, nothing like this has happened down here before.” She picks herself up and tries to brush the dust from her sand-worn and battle-torn uniform. “We should find its source, quickly.”

They jog through the tunnel, feet steady on shaking earth. Gravity briefly shifts again, down migrating to the tunnel’s former eastern wall. Both of them are quick enough to adapt this time, but no sooner has it shifted than it reverts.

They come to a halt at a precipice and Ixel looks up, biting her lip.

“That should be a bridge crossing over to the warren.”

The expanse of jagged quartz above them reaches a lonely hand out into the black. It comes to an end a handful of metres away, shorn away by some great impact.

“Something must have fallen to the ceiling and broken it when gravity flipped,” Ravi says. He peers down, but his eyes are not good enough to pierce the darkness at this distance. “I see a spark of light down there, but can’t make anything out.”

Ixel growls. “It’s that bloody sand worm.” She glances at Ravi. “Some of your friends are near it.”

“Of course they are,” Ravi says, resting his head in his hand.

“I suppose we should-” She sniffs the air, then, and her eyes narrow. She springs from the ledge without a backwards glance and is quickly lost to the enveloping dark.

Ravi glances down. The vertical fall is fairly short, after which it becomes a very steep cascade of rock that had once made the dome of the ceiling. It is thick with stalactites, which Ravi supposes must be stalagmites now.

“Just like jumping between the trees in Everstall,” he mutters to himself, pulling his dagger. The blade flickers blue and he jams it into the floor at the edge, then uses it to lower himself down.

“Not quite as graceful as her,” Vale notes, watching Ixel bound from rock to rock, skipping her way down the crater. The darkness does not hinder her, either.

“It’s just the first bit that’s a challenge,” Ravi says. He finds a hand hold on the wall and yanks his dagger out, then moves it further down. For a few minutes, he brings himself down the sheer face beneath the tunnel. Once he is level with the top of the closest stalact/gmite, he pushes off from the wall and balances atop it.

“That’s more like it,” Vale says.

“Shut up.” Ravi dances across the tops of the mites, the light from his stolen gemstone barely showing him his next platform in the gloom. A quake almost throws him and he has to cling to his mite like a crazed culber bear until it subsides. As the light on the ceiling grows closer, he begins to make out the shapes of rocky outcrops and a single, flailing stalactite that must be the sand worm.

“Ravi!”

A flicker of indigo lights the space around him and then he is aloft, something gripping his wrist. After a moment of panic, recognition filters through.

“Emerald! What’s going on?”

“The worm ate Riyo!”

“What?!”

Emerald swoops, depositing Ravi into the sphere of light created by Trost’s stone.

“Goodness,” the mad man says. “Is it time for the picnic already?”

“Can we kill it?” Ravi asks, ignoring him.

“It’s been mutated by mana,” Rolleck says, staring up at the thrashing creature.

As they watch, Emerald banks around the creature and looses a jet of molten flame. It scatters across the worm’s luminous hide and flickers away to nothing. There is enough light around for Ravi to see that the attack hasn’t even left a mark.

“Its skin is harder than steel. Even my sword won’t cut it.” Rolleck looks down at his sword with a frown.

A sword cuts with the strength of the person wielding it.

Rolleck’s father had said that, and now the voice repeats it. Mocking.

Ravi draws an arrow and takes a long breath as he nocks it. He exhales as he draws, light weaving through his feathers and curling around the shaft. His skin tingles, his muscles strain, his eyes open and the arrow is gone. An after-image of light is all that is left behind, but Ravi sees his arrow ping off the creature’s body and spin off into the darkness.

“Damn,” he says.

Rolleck grimaces. “That was about our last option.”

“What about Sergeant Ixel?”

“Huh?”

“She was with me…” Ravi glances around, but there is no sign of the vampire.

“That’s a shame,” Vale says. “Hey. Maybe I could help?”

Ravi glances at Rolleck, who is still watching the worm, his grip tight on the handle of his sword.

“How?” he murmurs.

“Maybe I could get inside the worm? I’m a ghost, after all.”

“Maybe. Or…” Ravi bites his cheek. He remembers the bite of the Chill that seemed to crack the air as Princess Fortissa entered the waltz. The way power rode those cold blue flames.

He shakes his head. “Try to find Riyo. There’s no way she’d get chewed up that easily.”

“You got it, boss,” Vale says, and darts towards the worm.

Rolleck hefts his blade, wires tightening to bite at his flesh. He grits his teeth against the burn of it, then glances at Ravi.

“All we can do is keep trying. Emerald says that thing also ate the map.”

Ravi pinches the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes closed. “Of course it did.” He takes a breath. “Okay. I’m going to try and shoot it in the mouth. Maybe that’s its weak point.”

“Good thinking. I’ll help Emerald keep it distracted so it doesn’t turn the damn world over again.”

“I will gather our allies, the Urban Carpeteers, and bring them to our aid,” Trost says.

 

 

Raith Ixel follows her nose. Beneath the worm’s putrid breath and the ancient damp, she has picked up the familiar scent of blood. It is old. Dry. But this place was all bloodless rock the last time she was here. The tunnels bend and weave through the earth, the empty veins of Valos. They tang with mana and grit with sand, turning her footfalls into crunches.

“Sergeant,” a cold voice says. The echo of it touches the wound on her back, climbs her neck up and down. Even to her, it feels wrong.

“We are sorry,” a second voice. Higher, but still broken.

Raith presses forward, turning the final bend in the tunnel and stopping dead.

“We failed.” Privates Williamson and Turs stand before a softly glowing cavern, their eyes filled with mana, their faces slack.

“No,” Raith says, her voice dying before it can truly form the word.

“Sergeant,” a stronger, clearer voice says. It sounds like Private Irelle. “Please come closer.”

Raith swallows, balling her fists against the rising anger and unease that emanate from the pit of her stomach. Williamson and Turs stand aside, and she approaches a pool guarded by Privates Cole and Qirna. Irelle’s haunted stare stops her in her tracks again, bile rising in her throat.

“Grotesque, aren’t I?”

“No,” Raith whispers. “I let this happen.”

“Hardly. I slipped on a rock, Sergeant. Killed all of us with a moment of poor balance.”

“You shouldn’t have been left to guard this place for so long. We should have relieved you-”

“We knew not to come down here, Sergeant. You gave us that order. We knew it was unsafe. We thought we knew better. We followed a hunch about the map and it killed us all. It may not have been worth it, but we found it, Sergeant.”

“You’re right,” Raith says, anger heating her voice. “It wasn’t worth it. The map is just a lure to help wrong-headed dreamers to get themselves killed. We were guarding this place to keep people safe.”

“No. We weren’t.” Irelle says, sorrow in her voice. “We were guarding this place from one person. And now she is here. We failed.”

“What?”

“I was able to add some things together. Things that one of us thinking alone would not be able to see enough of the pieces for. But Qirna read a letter meant for the Lieutenant and Turs overheard a conversation on the platform before we left Ragg. Williamson and Cole shared a drink with one of the Committee crafters, and I interviewed one of the thieves we caught in Westunnel last month. Little pieces, coming together to form a picture.”

“What did you see?”

“Did you know that Elvolar Lightseer had an apprentice?”

“No.”

“Her training was no secret, and yet few know of her. That in itself is a strange puzzle, but not one I am equipped to solve. What I do know, however, is that her reputation is growing, and she is being watched. Elvolar Lightseer holds a prestigious position, and there are those around him who wish to see him falter.”

“What’s her name? The apprentice?”

“I think you know that already, Sergeant.”

“Riyo,” Raith says through gritted teeth.

“Riyo Falsemoon,” Irelle confirms. “She seeks the sunlight stone, and though they do not yet know why, the enemies of Elvolar Lightseer wish to see her fail. To ensure that she does.”

“So they send a group of young, hopeful soldiers to stand in the desert for months on the off-chance they can keep her from a map that is nothing but rumour?” The room’s mana-green tint is twisting to red. Raith can feel her fangs aching.

“Yes,” there is a black amusement in Irelle’s voice. “Even your father is just a piece in their game, albeit a powerful one.”

“Lightseer knows all this, doesn’t he?”

“I don’t know.”

“How could he not? He’s the Clairvoyant. The All-Seeing Eye. A plot this simple wouldn’t slip by him, and yet he signed the order that sent us here.”

“If he can see the future, then he is playing a much different game to everyone else. Maybe there’s a reason we needed to be here.”

“A reason you needed to die?” Raith says, words bitter on her tongue.

The cold, earthen silence suppresses the distant crashes of a crazed mutant worm. The world rolls by unseen outside the cave without disturbing the still surface of the pool. Irelle’s yawning mouth twitches.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m going to kill them,” Raith says. “All of them.”

“Sergeant…”

“I’m sorry, Talina. I’m sorry for everything. But they are responsible for this,” she plucks her World Force badge from her pocket and stares at its golden face, dull in the subterranean shadows. “I’ll show them what that means.”

“I wanted to do that, too,” Irelle’s voice is fading. Soft. “But I have had sleepless days trapped within my own mind, and nothing to do but ferment that desire. It is a dangerous, violent need, Sergeant. It can become an obsession. Steal the rest of your life away from you. My life is nothing, now, but yours… You have centuries ahead of you. If you dedicate the rest of it to violence…”

“I’ll become my father.”

“That isn’t you. You are kind, Sergeant. We, all of us, were apprehensive about working under a vampire’s command. But the path you walk is different from your father’s, and it is better.”

“Is it?” Her teeth hurt from the tension in her jaw. “If I was more willing to drink, Cardamom would still be alive. I could have captured the thieves. I would have stopped the apprentice in her tracks already. None of this would have happened.”

“And you would not have treated us kindly. Perhaps you would have killed us instead. The world is already full of dread and fear. Even if it makes you feel powerful, adding to it can only make it worse, not better.”

Raith jerks her gaze away as a tear escapes her eye. She scrubs at it viciously.

“I can’t just let it go,” she says. “I have to know why. I have to understand what led them here–to this callous decision. To disregard everything this badge means.” She makes to cast it into the pool.

“Wait.” Irelle’s mouth twitches again. “It still stands for what you think it does, so long as you hold it. We all think of the World Force as a bastion against darkness, but it is made of people. You are one of the best among them, and people should see that.”

“I…”

“You will do what you must, Sergeant,” Irelle says, and there is a quiet happiness in her voice. “And now, I must ask you for one more act of kindness, for all of us.”

Another tear dribbles salty over Raith’s lips, but this time she lets it fall. It ripples the surface of the mana, chiming like struck crystal.

A flicker of action, faster than thought, that lets her outrun her trepidation. Outrun her fear. Outrun her sorrow.

“Thank you, Raith Ixel,” Irelle chokes. Red begins to stain her uniform around the hilt of a knife bearing the sign of the World Force.

“We joined for money,” Williamson says. The mana-light in his eyes flickers and fades, and he slumps down to the cold rock.

“We joined for prestige,” Turs says, then follows him down.

“We joined for the adventure.” Cole drops.

“We joined to feel needed.” Qirna.

“But we found so much more,” Irelle whispers, and the light fades from the room. The pool is now clear, crystalline water.

Raith bows her head, then returns to the cavern’s entrance.

“As darkness calls, we give our all, to staunch the wound of night,” she whispers. A flicker of blood-red light wreathes her fist, and she slams it into the wall. Cracks trace lightning shapes around the cave, joining and shaking. Rock crumbles and a funeral crash drives a wave of dust after Raith as she walks away.

 

 

 

Ravi perches on a stalactite. He is not sure what they’re called when they are sticking out of a wall, so it seems reasonable to call it by what it used to be. When gravity shifted again, he managed to grab the tip of stone to avoid plummeting into the wall of the cavern, and now has the kind of position an archer can only dream of. He saw Emerald catch Trost and dive towards the new down, heard Glitter’s wail muffled as he and Rolleck landed in a snow drift. There is still dust swaying through the air from where the worm crashed into the rock shelf at the warren’s entrance.

“Can you make the shot?” Vale asks. She is sat cross-legged behind him, leaning against the ceiling. It turned out the worm’s impossible skin also kept ghosts out, so with nothing else to contribute she has returned to spectating.

The darkness once again hampers Ravi’s vision, but fortunately he has a solid idea of where the worm is because the mad old man and his glowing stone are now riding it.

“If I time it right,” Ravi says, drawing his bowstring to his cheek and letting his curse-breaker roll around the arrow.

 

“We need to focus our attacks,” Rolleck says, watching Trost’s light wave in the darkness as the worm thrashes its head to try and dislodge him. “Individually we can’t seem to get through, but if we pummel one spot with enough direct force, we might be able to punch through.”

“It’s worth a try,” Emerald says. “Where should we aim?”

“The neck,” Rolleck says.

“It’s all neck,” Glitter points out.

Rolleck shoots him a withering look. “Opposite where Trost is holding onto it.”

“Should we be worried about him?” Glitter says, ignoring Rolleck’s shaded eyes.

“Ride ‘em, cowgirl!” Trost yells.

“No,” Rolleck says, frowning back at the light. “That man has some higher power protecting him.”

“I’ll tell Ravi the plan and light up the spot,” Emerald says. “Take what shots you can.” She leaps up towards the new ceiling of the cavern, wings ravaging the stifled air. A few moments later, she swoops around the worm and lets loose a concentrated jet of raw pink light that smashes into the worm’s carapace directly beneath where its chin would be, if worms had such things.

The creature twists away, and lightning strikes it from the other side, point perfect. It lets out a soul shattering roar, and once again gravity shifts through a right angle. Glitter lashes snow around a stalactite, whipping himself forward as the worm begins to fall. Another arm of snow grabs at the worm and begins to crystalize into a collar around its neck, a single spike of ice compressing and compacting above the point. With a final heave, he shifts his heavy body above the spike, and as the sound of wailing rock fills the cavern from the impact, Glitter lands atop the spike. He senses a fraction of give before the spike shatters. With another wail, he tumbles from the worm a split second before Rolleck hits, cruel wires holding his arm firm against impact. The sword punches through the worm’s skin, sending a gout of hot red blood flying up around Rolleck.

The worm howls, rolling to its side and flinging Rolleck to the ground. More blood pours out as the creature writhes, but then it falls still. Its neck is bulging. Like dents being hammered into a sheet of metal, lumps jerk outward, until the tension becomes too great. With a gruesome splatter, the creature’s neck bursts open. Gore rains down around Rolleck and Glitter, speckling them in red.

For a moment, the only sound is the trickling rain of blood. Then, somebody starts coughing. From the ragged shadows of the creature’s neck, a figure stumbles forth.

“Riyo!” Glitter says.

“Blegh.” Riyo glances around. Her clothes are a little ruffled, but aside from that she is remarkably free from gore and intestinal juices. “I think that thing was damping my crafting. I could barely keep myself dry.”

“It was doing more than damping it,” Rolleck says.

Riyo tilts her head to one side, then her eyes widen. “Wow. It used my power?” The cave looks much as it did to start with, but gravity is off by a couple of degrees. “Not only that, it changed gravity permanently.”

“Can you fix it?” Rolleck asks.

“I don’t think so. Whatever the mana did to that worm, it didn’t do it to me.” She shakes her head. “Reality can’t cope with that kind of thing for long without the worm to sustain it. It’ll gradually change back. Anyway-”

Trost comes sailing out of the darkness above and hits her in the back. They both tumble across the rocks. Trost falls into a roll, springs up, and raises his hands above his head, back straight, feet together, eyes closed. Glitter scribbles a ‘10’ on his screen.

Riyo has achieved no points, and blunders to her feet while rubbing her head. “You could have called out. My reality was already open.”

“You don’t get points for cheating,” Trost says.

Riyo scowls, then pats herself down. “You made me drop the… Oh no.”

An angry red gem lies on the rocks a short way from them, a massive crack splitting it down the middle. The pulsing mana within begins to leak out and scatter to luminous dust.

“What is that?” Emerald says, landing beside Riyo and setting Ravi down.

“It’s the map,” Riyo says quietly.

They watch as the motes of mana-light twist in the air, forming a complex, three-dimensional web of crinkles. They climb out for dozens of metres, seeming to fill the cavern with their light. At the very top they spread out and form a ceiling with hundreds of little holes letting into the hollow lines. And there, at the centre of the web, within a smudge of flickering, angry light, is a brightly-flashing red cross.

“X marks the spot,” Ravi says, eyes flitting around the map.

“It makes the warren look like a straight shot,” Rolleck says.

“Where’s Colourful?” Emerald says.

“He’s missed his chance,” Riyo says, staring straight at the chamber with the cross as though she can see the stone resting within it. Her heart quickens as the future rushes towards her. For a fleeting, beautiful moment, she is there.

The motes are dispersing. The map drifts, distorting, breaking, fading. And then the darkness is back. The gem sits in two halves on the ground, lightless and lifeless.

“So that makes the whole trip a waste,” Ravi says with a sigh.

Riyo shakes her head, still watching the empty space where her dream lies. “We know now.” Her pulse is still racing. “It’s there. Waiting for us.”

 

 

 

A pair of beady black eyes peer over the ridge. They see light fading and air returning to normal, but behind them is a map. The most valuable map in Valos.

“Tell me you remember it,” Eleanor the Luminous says. She holds Colourful’s shoulder, draining his soul into hers and hiding it from perception. They call her weak-souled. A person with no presence. They are right, in a way, but it is not that her soul is weak, so much as malleable. For a long time, the difference didn’t mean anything to her. As a girl, she had tried so hard to be seen by others. She had become as bright and active as a person could, been the life and, indeed, soul of any room she entered. Even so, if she let it slip for just a moment, she was gone. People looked past her. It made her a brilliant thief. But a lonely one. Then Arturiel had found her, even when she didn’t want to be found.

“I did,” Colourful says, his teeth bright in the darkness. “Let’s go.”

“We need to go wide around the robot–he can see me.”

“Done easily enough.” Colourful leads Eleanor down the back of the ridge and then out towards the steep and narrow slope that will take them back up to the start of the bridge.

“What about Malbec?”

“He is focused on the girl. Besides, vampires are among the weakest against your ability–their souls over-awe all those around them at the best of times.”

“Then Glitter and the others?”

“Will almost certainly die, and the truth of the map will die with them.”

Eleanor bites her lip and glances over her shoulder, but the ridge has already hidden them. And besides, she is just one woman. Weak-souled and weak of heart.

 

 

 

 

“I don’t suppose anybody remembers it?” Ravi says.

Heads shake around the group.

Ravi sighs. “I suppose we’d better get out of here, then, before-”

“Before what?”

They all turn to find a shimmer of green energy in the air by the corpse of the worm. Two figures step through, one armoured, one with a cloak of midnight fluttering behind him. A weight infects the air, pushing down on them all and spiking tension into fear. Riyo grabs her sword while Rolleck raises his, dropping his stance. Emerald inhales her pilot. Ice gathers in the air and blue lightning crackles. Trost stands on one leg and picks a sharp stone from the sole of his foot.

The worm stirs, lifting its massive head as blood drips over the rocks beneath it.

“That thing is still alive?” Ravi grumbles. “It’s half decapitated.”

“It might be to our advantage,” Rolleck mutters so that only his friends can hear him. “It could serve as a distraction.”

The creature looms over the invaders, roar gurgling through the hole in its throat.

“My name is Haellus Malbec.”

While Lieutenant Marigold turns and starts stumbling back from the worm, Malbec keeps watching the six of them, a slight smirk on his face.

“Duke of the Nosfr Forest and Honorary Sergeant of the World Force. And you,” he says, clenching a fist, “are thieves.”

The punch stops above his head, cracking reality in a jolt of sanguine light. With a wave of pressure that forces them all a step back, the worm’s head explodes. Its body wriggles in horrific silence for a moment before falling to the ground.

“Your sentence is death.”

Book Twelve

Thick as Thieves

 

“Seven Misfortunes befell the planet of Calis,” Riyo reads. The Eastern Icebound Wall slopes downwards ahead of them. The sun crashes down upon bleached white rock and gritty sand, making a mockery of the chill winds that cut through the gaps between the peaks behind them. Sweat slides down the back of Riyo’s neck and dampens her brow. She wears her shirt around her waist and has to shade her eyes as she walks to keep the fierce glare from them. High above, the Glimmering Resplendence that gives the desert before them its name sheds its glow, and purple light plays across Riyo’s bare shoulders and dyes her blonde hair a shade of lilac.

“First came the cold.”

Ravi walks ahead of Riyo, refusing to look back at her. Her brazen near-nudity is only adding to his discomfort as his feathers trap burning air close to his skin. Rolleck claims it was even hotter inside Yl Torat, which makes him glad he didn’t end up going.

“Blizzards swept the continents, froze the seas down to their deepest trenches, turned the deserts to tundra.”

“That sounds nice,” Rolleck the Lost says. He is also shirtless, exposing his bronze muscles to the wrath of the sun to save his few remaining shirts from staining. He stares out towards the Resplendence and the unending sea of sand that rolls below it.

“Next came the darkness,” Riyo continues. “Hiding the world from itself and dividing families. Swallowing the light away inside itself.”

“It does sound uncomfortably familiar,” Emerald says. She is luxuriating in this heat. It feels like home. She just wishes ‘home’ didn’t bring her such mixed feelings. “But that doesn’t mean it was the same creature.”

“Nightmare,” Riyo says. “The rise of creatures imagined only within the minds of those suffering. Those in pain. Malignant monsters with nothing but hate within them crawled through the world.”

“That beetle was a pretty bad dream,” Glitter says. He has covered the inside of his glass with a thick layer of ice to protect his crystal from the merciless heat. He can sap that heat, take that energy into his control, but he cannot use it within himself. His father once noted that, although he could manipulate energy in fascinating ways, the power that sustains him is generated within his crystal. It is not the same kind of energy, but something he had no description for.

“Mana. A blanket of twisted power that warped the surface of the planet, that grew strange plants and melted rocks, that span into unending vortexes or soaked into the very material of the planet.”

“Destruction. Rains of fire and geysers of lava. Ash on the wind and the shimmer of heat from horizon to horizon. All things broken down until nothing was left but dust and flame.”

“I feel like I’ve visited a place like that,” Emerald says.

“Desolation,” Riyo says. “Stillness complete. The draining away of everything that was left. Rage and hope and sadness, all leaking away until even the air was apathetic.”

“Then The End. There’s no fluff about that.”

“It’s pretty straightforward,” Rolleck says.

“So these Misfortunes aren’t just natural disasters, but entities?” Ravi asks.

“Maybe,” Riyo says, snapping her book closed and shoving it back in her pack. “The Darkness was certainly conscious, and it was trying to do something by gathering all that power.”

“But what?”

Riyo shrugs. “Take over Valos? Do the same think they did to Calis?”

“Why, though?” Glitter says. “What do they get out of it?”

“Who knows,” Rolleck says. “But after Saviour’s Call I’d be pleased not to meet another one to ask about it.”

“Would it be too optimistic to hope we could sneak onto Calis and take the Sunlight Stone without them noticing?” Emerald says.

“A stealth mission!” Glitter says. “We could be like ninjas!” A bandana of snow whips out of his shoulder and ties itself around the top of his body.

“That would be the ideal,” Riyo says. “But I’d prefer to be strong enough to squash them by the time we get there.”

“Is it possible to be that strong?” Ravi asks.

“I intend to find out.”

“It’s always good to have realistic expectations,” Rolleck says, coming to a halt atop a sun-scorched rock. “Look, it’s the tunnel.”

They all cluster around him, sheltering their eyes and peering down the ridge. The Border Line wends its way out of the mouth of a gaping hole in the Icebound Wall, brown iron and brown wood standing out starkly against the white sand of the desert. It disappears out amongst the dunes, but not before slicing through a bustling hub of civilisation. Flat-roofed houses of the same white stone the travellers are standing on cluster around the train tracks, shading their faces with awnings of white cloth. Smoke curls into the air from cooking fires tended by white-robed figures and the sound of children’s laughter floats to them across the stifling air.

“What are those carts?” Ravi asks, pointing to a row of camel-towed contraptions that only he can make out.

“They’re probably sifters,” Rolleck says. “The desert isn’t exactly a pleasant place to live. The only reason anybody does is because there are gemstones in the sand. They rain down from the Resplendence and get buried by the wind and eaten by the worms. I hear every few hundred years there’s a great monsoon that turns the whole desert into a glittering treasure box.”

“Some of them are even charged with mana,” Riyo adds, “which makes them super expensive. The World Force has a chunk of its budget set aside for buying stuff like that.”

“Speaking of the World Force,” Ravi says, pointing.

“We can’t see that far, Ravi,” Emerald says.

“Uh. Sorry. The extra platform at the train station has a carriage parked next to it with their logo on it.”

“Huh,” Riyo says.

“Your master?” Rolleck suggests.

Riyo shakes her head. “He doesn’t usually advertise himself when he’s out and about. He used to wear blank robes anytime we left Ragg, which wasn’t very often.”

“Do we need to be worried about them?” Emerald asks.

“No way,” Glitter says. “They’re the good guys.”

Riyo and Rolleck share a glance.

“I think I’d just rather not get involved with them anyway,” Riyo says. “My master might not be here, but that doesn’t mean they won’t know about me.”

“Then should we just skip the place entirely?” Ravi says.

“We can’t,” Riyo says. “Giggly said the book came from a dig site in the desert, but we don’t know where it is. We’d die before we searched one millionth of the desert ourselves.”

“Do the Cult have a chapter here?” Rolleck says.

“Probably.” Riyo skips down off the rock. “Let’s go find out.”

 

 

Riyo reluctantly puts her shirt back on as they enter the town. The smell hits first, and hits her like a space train, turning her saliva glands to waterfall mode. As they pass the first cook fire, she leans in beneath the awning and takes a deep, soulful breath. It weakens her knees and makes her shiver with delight. Everyone else stops with her, Rolleck frowning and Emerald shaking her head in despair.

“A powerful smell, isn’t it?” the man tending the pot says. “The desert is bountiful for those who are tough enough to endure her fetid breath.”

“What is it?” Riyo begs.

“Sand eel,” the man says, lifting a spoonful from the pot and offering it to Riyo. “With cactus spice and sunfruit sauce. We call it makira.”

Riyo closes her eyes and slurps from the spoon. Her eyes spring open again, and she goes rigid before falling over, throwing up a cloud of sand.

“Ghhrflk,” she says.

The man nods, sagely. “That is how it affects outsiders.”

Riyo is turning red. “It hurts,” she says. “But in a good way.”

“I will sell you a flask to take with you,” the man says. “It is not my business, but travellers often stop here to ask me about it. The restaurant in the station do not like me for it, for my makira is better than theirs.”

“What is your business, if you don’t mind me asking?” Ravi says, eyeing the bubbling pot with a newfound wariness. He has never been fond of spicy food.

“I am a trawler, like everybody here in Westunnel. My name is Tarkal.” He ladles some makira into a clay gourd that he takes from a pile by his home, then stoppers it. “Eight phene.”

Rollecks eyebrow rises. “That’s expensive.”

“Pay the man,” Riyo glubs from the floor.

Rolleck looks at her, then shrugs and hands over the coins.

“Many things are expensive here,” Tarkal says, pocketing the coins. “The gems make us rich, and those who come here thinking they will find the gems make us richer.”

“We didn’t come looking for gems,” Glitter says, making the man jump.

“Your luggage talks?”

Glitter draws on a disgruntled face. “I’m not luggage. My name is Glitter.”

“M-my apologies,” Tarkal says. “I was just surprised.”

“Hmph. We came to find some ruins.”

“Ah. Ruins we have here in plenty. Some few people come in search of them, too.”

“I got this book,” Riyo manages, scrambling to her feet. She pulls the book from her bag and waves it at Tarkal. “Do you know which ruin it came from?”

Tarkal stares at it for a moment, then shakes his head. “I am sorry, but no. You may wish to speak to the Sunlight Cultists. If anybody is able to help you, it will be them.”

“Where might we find them?” Emerald asks.

“They have a sign a few buildings south of the train station. There is usually one of them outside waving a shiny gem that he claims is a weaker version of the Sunlight Stone itself.”

Riyo frowns. “No one’s even supposed to know what it does. How can he know his does the same thing?”

“You will have to ask him yourself,” Tarkal says. “Most of the Sunlight Cultists are a bit mad, after all, but he is the maddest I have met. The people here do not really like him.”

“Okay. Thanks for your help Mr. Tarkal,” Riyo says.

Tarkal watches them leave, stirring his makira. Not so slowly that it will burn, not so quickly that its flavours cannot diffuse. The large metal box with a face, the scaled creature that might be a dragon, the police officer with a sword strapped to his arm.

“Very strange,” he says, glancing towards the train station and its mobile headquarters. He rubs the coins in his pocket together. “Strange enough?” The coins make a slow metal noise. He takes his makira from over the fire and places it carefully on the ground by his house. “Strange enough.”

 

 

“Behold!”

The man wields a staff of gnarled, dark wood. Twisted in amongst its tendrils is a stone that shines like someone hid a lightning strike inside a diamond. Its radiance is a little diminished, however, by its bearer, who wears a cloak of chicken feathers and two different hats, one atop the other.

“The power of the Sunlight Stone!”

“Wow!” Riyo says. “What does it do?”

The man seems taken aback that they have actually stopped to talk to him.

“Why,” he rallies, “It holds the power of the sun!”

“So… it’s bright?” Ravi says.

“And hot?” Glitter says.

“Yes!”

Rolleck glances at Riyo. “Still sure you want to go all the way to Calis for one?”

“Pfft,” Riyo says, then turns back to the madman. “How do you know that’s what the Sunlight Stone is? No one’s ever seen it.”

“Someone has! And it was me!”

“When? How?”

“At some point! And in some way!”

He waggles his staff at her again, and Riyo scowls and shoves it down. It is quite hot.

“Is there anyone else here?” Emerald asks.

“Yes, but he has not seen the stone as I have!”

“Even so,” Emerald says, and ducks through the door behind him. The others follow, ignoring him as he waves his stick at them.

Glitter looks at the door, then draws a sad face on. He turns to the man and his staff.

“I hear it sometimes, you know?”

“What?” Glitter says.

“The Sunlight Stone.”

“Oh.”

There is a protracted silence.

“It says I look cute.”

“I see.” Glitter looks back at the door. “Um. I’ll just… uh…” He plops himself down by the door and pretends to be a cabinet. The man stares at him for a long time, then turns back to the street, looking for someone else to tell about the power of the Sunlight Stone.

 

 

Ravi grimaces at the smell inside.

“Like walking into a pile of unwashed socks,” Rolleck mutters.

“Hello?” Emerald calls. The room is lit only by the shaft of sunlight leaning in through the door, and it illuminates a mess. Unwashed crockery covers most surfaces, interspersed with empty bottles and gourds that stab through the musty smell with the tang of alcohol. A pile of cloth in one corner begins to groan and dislodges a pair of plates that clatter to the ground.

“Ah shit,” it says, then sits up to reveal a surprisingly handsome face, topped with tousled chestnut hair and graced along its square jaw with only a couple of days’ worth of stubble. The man notices them and his eyes go wide. “Take whatever you want!” he cries, covering his face with his hands. “Just leave me the butterscotch biscuits.”

“Um,” Riyo says. “Is this the Cult of the Sunlight Stone?”

The man tentatively lowers his hands and glances at them one by one. “Yes?”

“We need your help. See I have this book-”

“Hang on,” the man says, holding up a hand. “Hang on. We’ve started off wrong, here.”

He rolls from his bed of piled blankets and old clothing to reveal he is wearing a suit that wouldn’t look out of place in a high-class restaurant in the centre of Ragg. He brushes some of the wrinkles out of it, then throws open a curtain to let in the furious sun, which dazzles him. He blinks it away, then turns and strides up to Riyo with a perfect smile.

“Artem Lassiter,” he declares, holding out his hand and shaking Riyo’s as if it is something he is trying to kill. “Leader of the Westunnel chapter of the Cult of the Sunlight Stone, at your service.”

“Nice to meet you,” she says.

“May I get you something to drink?” He looks around at the room, his expression becoming sheepish. “Ah. Excuse me.” He clears his throat. “Order.”

Riyo’s instincts tell her that he has just opened his reality, though she cannot feel it without hers open. She reaches back towards the hilt of her sword, prompting the others to tense up too. Eyes flash to corners and exits, and the whole space seems to fill with a danger that wasn’t there a moment before.

Artem remains oblivious. Instead, he watches the table in the middle of the room. A plate leaps from it and swoops over his head, planting itself carefully by the sink in the corner. Other objects begin rising, and Riyo’s eyes widen.

“Get down!” she yells, diving to the ground. A book hits Rolleck in the back of the head, and he grunts and drops to the ground too. Ravi and Emerald follow, household objects bouncing off them and spinning past them. The room becomes a windless hurricane, flinging items hither and thither in a mad rush. Artem stands at the centre, still. Things whizz by inches from his body, but nothing hits him.

It ends. Riyo peers around, then climbs carefully to her feet. “Wow.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry,” Artem says, seeing them all sprawled on the floor. “I can be a little absent minded.”

“You’re a crafter?” Riyo says.

“Yes, yes.” He stands even straighter, brushing some imaginary dust from his now-immaculate jacket. “My reality brings order.”

Ravi stares around at the room. It is spotless. Books are stacked perfectly on shelves, plates are not only ordered, but cleaned, too. Clothes are folded and waste binned.

“If you can do that,” Emerald said, “how did it get so bad in here in the first place?”

Artem scratches the back of his head, chagrined. “I, uh, tend not to notice the mess. Nobody really comes here except Trost, and he just stands outside.”

“Uh-huh,” Emerald says, folding her arms.

“But today, you have come!” Artem says. “How can the Cult assist you?”

Riyo plucks Gangles’ book from her pack and shows it to Artem. “I was given this book. It’s supposed to be from one of the ruins around here, but I don’t know which one.”

Artem inhales through his teeth. “Where did you get that?”

“A man named Gangles McIves gave it to us,” Rolleck says.

Artem blinks. “He’s not dead?”

“No…”

“Well he bloody well should be! What was he thinking giving you that?”

Artem goes to snatch the book, but Riyo pulls back.

“You must give that to me. Its very existence is dangerous.”

“Why?” Riyo says, letting a knife drop from her sleeve and into her hand.

“I don’t know,” Artem hisses. “But the World Force is looking for it. The ruin you seek is under their control.”

“Behold!” Trost shouts outside. “The power of the… Hey!”

“Shit!” Artem says. “Hide it!”

Riyo shoves the book back in her pack just as the door slams open. Emerald is standing closest to the door and finds herself looking down at a thickly muscled woman in plate armour. Her short, white hair is plastered to her head by sweat, and the golden symbol of the World Force gleams on her breast. She is followed in by a slim, hunched woman with purple hair that falls over one side of her face and heavy bags under her eyes. She has a grey uniform on that matches the two soldiers with crossbows behind her, but hers has a cloak that falls over one shoulder.

To her credit, the large woman doesn’t flinch much when brought up short by a dragon. After a moment’s hesitation, her eyes scan the other occupants of the room, finding weapons and faces.

“I am Lieutenant Marigold,” she says, addressing Emerald.

“Good afternoon, Lieutenant,” Emerald says. “I am Emerald of Yl Torat. Do you have business with the Cult? We would be happy to move on.”

“We have business with you, travellers,” she says. “We were informed of your arrival and your intent. We are currently conducting an investigation of some of the ruins around this area and felt the need to inform you that they are therefore off-limits to explorers.”

“I see,” Riyo says. “Which ruins specifically? And where exactly are they?”

The lieutenant narrows her eyes at Riyo.

“Heh,” her second says, then, “sorry,” when her commander turns her glare on her.

“It might please you to make jokes,” the lieutenant says, “but rest assured that the consequences of defying us will be no laughing matter. This investigation was ordered by the head of the Research Committee himself.”

“Tch,” Riyo says.

“Well,” Rolleck says. “We’re still a little low on funds. We could try trawling for a little while?”

“An excellent idea,” Ravi says. “A few gems could provision us all the way across the desert. Right, Riyo?”

“Uh, right,” Riyo says. She is still staring at the lieutenant with a scowl.

“Just keep yourselves out of trouble,” the lieutenant says, before turning on her heel and marching out. The purple-haired woman gives them a sardonic smile before sloping away.

“Behold!”

“Shut up.” The lieutenant’s voice carries through the open door.

“And the head of the Research Committee is…?”

“Elvolar Lightseer,” Riyo grumbles.

“He’s getting in your way without even knowing it,” Ravi says.

“Oh, he knows it.” Riyo turns back to Artem. “How do you feel about the World Force keeping you out of ruins that might lead you to the Sunlight Stone?”

“Those ruins are of no use to any of us,” Artem says, his expression stern.

“Pfft. If my master doesn’t want me going somewhere, I can be damn sure it’s somewhere worth going.” She turns to the others. “We’ll just have to find some other way in. Split up and ask around.”

They all nod, and Emerald leads them back out into the sunlight.

“Behold!”

“You-” Artem says.

Riyo wheels on him and points her dagger at his aquiline nose. “Are you going to try and stop me?”

His eyes widen and he raises his hands. “The purpose of the Cult is not just to find the stone,” he says, eyes fixed on Riyo’s. “We also ensure that people are not killed by lack of knowledge. By unpreparedness. The Cult’s expeditions for the stone are always made up of-”

“The strongest, the best, the most capable,” Riyo quotes. “I know.”

“You… are a member?”

“Honorary,” Riyo says, lowering her dagger. “One of your members helped me out, once, and I helped him in return.”

“I… I see.” He shakes his head. “Even so, I cannot tell you what I know. I cannot trust that you will not do something reckless with the information after what I have heard. We also have strict orders not to interfere with the World Force.”

Riyo grimaces. “That’s fair. But.” She slips the dagger back into the sheathe in her sleeve. “Gravity Mould.” Her reality engulfs his, and she presses in against it, forcing it closed.

He yelps and takes a step back, glancing around with anxious eyes.

“By the time I reach the stone, I will be the strongest, the best and the most capable. That means I’ll be able to get into those ruins and take that map no matter what you or the World Force, or even my master, have to say about it.”

She closes her reality and heads outside, leaving Artem Lassiter to shiver alone in his spotless chapterhouse.

 

 

 

 

Rolleck the Lost is a police officer. He is therefore accustomed to being lied to and double-crossed. One thing he has learned in his time serving whatever law happens to exist in each place he visits is that people are very good liars. He had believed, when he first started, that he would get better at identifying a lie or deception, but too much of that art is dependent on what you know. For example, as someone brand new to town, how could he know there would be any benefit to a local trawler in reporting people’s movements to a temporary World Force outpost?

“Tarkal,” he says, making the white-robed man jump. A little of his makira slops over the side of the pot.

“T-traveller!”

“I’m not here out of anger.” Rolleck perches himself on the low wall between the two props that hold the awning aloft, his free hand towards the trawler. “I’m just curious as to why you spoke to the World Force about us.”

“Ah, well.” He glances around, then clears his throat. “They told us when they arrived to tell them about anything… unusual.”

“I see. Did they say why?”

“No. But it is the World Force, so…”

“That’s interesting.” Rolleck looks at his nails. They are rather dirty. He wishes Riyo would give them a few minutes to themselves upon encountering civilisation before throwing them into whatever calamity she will inevitably be a part of. “In most places, people look on the World Force with suspicion. They don’t get anything out of people voluntarily unless they’re afraid or… incentivised.”

Tarkal swallows.

Rolleck sighs internally. Liars he doesn’t know are difficult to spot, but he has become quite adept at figuring out their motivations after he realises that he’s been lied to.

Tarkal sees that he will not get away with lying again. He checks up and down the road and lowers his voice. “The World Force has much more influence here than you know. They may not have any jurisdiction in this place, but they have jurisdiction over the things in this place. Anything related to Calis is their domain. The ruins, the mana gems… they can take anything from us, and we can do nothing. Our deference towards them is self-preservation.”

Rolleck sighs out loud this time. “That’ll make our job a little difficult.”

Tarkal nods. “Nobody here will tell you what you wish to know for fear of what the World Force might do to their livelihood.”

“Well,” Rolleck says, standing up, “I won’t ask any further about it. Good day, Tarkal.”

“Thank you, friend.”

 

 

The market by the train station is bustling with a sense of life that Glitter has never seen. Though he had seen many people together in Saviour’s Call, he had only actually entered the city once it was in crisis. The people had been terrified and angry all together. Here, there is no emotion that overshadows any other. An angry woman throws an overripe pineapple to the ground in disgust. A child laughs as he manages to catch his friend and turn him into the Sand King – a creature that eats children foolish enough to roam too far off into the dunes. A man frets over his stall, glancing every other second at the Carriage with the World Force logo on it. Another stall owner sighs almost as frequently, her store packed with useful kitchen items that nobody seems to be buying.

The spectrum of emotion is dazzling, and Glitter is sure he hasn’t so much as cracked the ice. There is still so much more he needs to learn before he can beat Emerald at a card game. He sits, inactive, beside the train station wall. People glance at him with curiosity from time to time, but then move on with their lives and tasks. Here he hears voices of many pitches, speaking words both familiar and unknown to him. He sits, and listens, and resists the urge to whistle along with the rhythm of industry that surrounds him.

“…saw the Lieutenant earlier. Is it true that she’s a crafter?”

“No way. All the crafters jump straight up the ranks…”

The Lieutenant had been very rude to Mr. Trost outside the Cult chapterhouse. Glitter doesn’t think very highly of her.

“…from Horologium. He said they’ve been searching that place since before the World Force showed an interest.”

“I think if there’s something there worth finding, I’d rather the World Force found it than the Thieves Guild…”

Glitter pops to his feet, shocking the speaking man over backwards.

“Sorry!” Glitter says as the woman still standing begins to back away. “I wanted to know what you were talking about.”

“Deep sands,” the woman says helping her friend back to his feet. “Get away from us, creature!”

They watch him as they back off, then both turn and run. The rest of the market has stumbled to a stand-still, staring at Glitter as though he has broken their favourite vase. He draws a sad face on his glass, and watches as surprise becomes fear. Once again, the people are unified in their emotions.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

“Don’t apologise to them,” a woman says behind him. Glitter had felt her approach, but now he turns his full attention to her.

She pushes up a pair of circular, tinted spectacles and smiles. “People who can’t get excited by the chance to meet someone new are people with no imagination. Boring. Pedestrian.” She jabs the end of a paper parasol at the gawking masses. “Go about your worrying, dullards.”

She then doffs her trim bowler hat towards Glitter and bows, letting a long braid fall over the shoulder of her suit jacket. “Eleanor the Luminous, collector of art and fanciful knick-knacks.”

“Hi! I’m Glitter.” He tries to bow, but inevitably overbalances and has to throw out a lance of snow to keep from collapsing on top of her.

“A pleasure,” Eleanor says, not even flinching as snow winds its way back into Glitter’s body. She returns her hat to her head and throws her braid back over her shoulder. She then puts up the parasol, casting her into shade. “Perhaps you will walk with me?”

“Sure!” Glitter says. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a short walk.” Eleanor gestures away from the market. “But I think it will help you find out what you want to know.”

“Great! Riyo’s going to be so pleased.”

 

 

Ravi sips his water carefully. It has cost him most of the money he had left. Tarkal hadn’t been lying about the cost of everything here. He hopes one of the others has some ideas for how they can feed themselves, because his perusal of this café’s menu has only left him feeling hungry and poor. The awning above provides a little shelter from the sun’s relentless cascade, but Ravi’s eyes hurt from its reflection off the sand. Between slow and uncomfortable blinks, he watches the chunky train carriage that houses a company of World Force guards and all their operations. He has been watching for a while, now, and learned very little.

Something plunks down onto his table, and he looks up to find a white-clad man climbing into the chair on its opposite side. Ravi can only tell that he is a man rather than a boy because of the impressive beard that falls from his chin. He is perhaps half Ravi’s height and, though his turban hides the extent of it, his forehead suggests is he balding. When he gets settled and turns to look at Ravi, his eyes are fully black.

“Like mine,” A voice next to Ravi says. He jerks his head to the left, but the seat next to him is empty. He looks quickly back to the man.

“Piercing, I know,” the man says. “But then, yours probably see better.” He takes a drink from his glass. “My name is Colourful.”

“Huh?”

“That’s my name. Colourful.” He grins, and his teeth are a very neat. “That’s unusual too. There’s a lot unusual about me.” He turns to look out towards the train station. “There’s a lot unusual about you, too.”

“Um,” Ravi says.

“What I’m saying,” Colourful says, “is that we stick out. So if we were to sit in the café closest to their little headquarters and sip the same glass of water for hours at a time, not only would they notice, but they might even do something about it.”

“Uh,” Ravi says.

“New to the gig.” Colourful nods to himself. “It’s fine. A lot of people think they have an idea of how to be sneaky, or maybe they just underestimate how paranoid others can be. Either way,” he turns to Ravi again, “you won’t learn a thing here.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Ravi takes a nervous sip of his water. He is almost out.

“Because we have a lot in common, you and I. It’s something I think we can discuss. Though,” he jerks his head a little towards the World Force carriage, “perhaps somewhere else?”

Ravi can see his point. Now that he thinks about it, the woman at the bar had looked quite suspicious at his order. The people that passed the café tended to look at him rather than the few other patrons sitting outside. And the two guards outside the carriage hadn’t so much as twitched a muscle while he was watching.

He sighs. “Okay. Fine.”

Colourful smiles and grabs his drink. Ravi watches a little too keenly as he gulps down the ice-cold water. He picks up what remains of his own and throws is down. It is well on its way to boiling.

Colourful bounces from his seat and waves for Ravi to follow him away from the station. He sways a little with each step, and Ravi has to measure his own to keep level with the little man.

“I’m sure you’ve guessed,” he says, beady eyes focused on the road, “but I’m traited, like you.”

“My mother told me there were those like me all over Valos, but before I left my village, I knew of only myself and my sister.”

“It brings us all together, in some ways,” Colourful says. “But it’s not the be-all and end-all of who we are. You might be a bird, I might be an ant, but we’re still people. People who can be friends. People who can be enemies.”

Ravi glances at him, but he is still staring ahead.

“I hope we can be friends, Ravi Matriya.”

“Ohhhh, he knows your name.”

Ravi almost trips. He stops dead and searches the faces of those around him. Curiosity greet him in every eye he meets, but they are all normal, human eyes. All except Colourful’s.

“Of course we know your name,” he says, his grin unwavering. “And a lot more besides. You are welcome to leave if that scares you, but this could be your chance to learn more about us.”

Ravi swallows and focuses on Colourful again. He has mistaken Ravi’s reaction, but the voice in his head hasn’t distracted him completely. He is unnerved by the man’s confidence and manner.

“Who are you?” he asks, fighting down a tingle in the back of his neck that is telling him to run.

“I will give you the choice now,” he says. “Come, and find out. Or leave, and never know.”

Ravi glances around again. The familiar voice from nowhere is not something he can do anything about right now. The faces continue to move around them. The desert heat continues to shimmer. His instincts tell him that Colourful is dangerous, but that he can get Ravi closer to Riyo’s goal.

“Okay,” Ravi says. “I’ll come with you.”

“Good choice,” the familiar voice says.

“Good choice,” Colourful echoes, and pushes aside a curtain door by an alley. “Come.”

 

 

Emerald glides in lazy circles over endless sand. The hot air rises into her wings and drags her higher, the sun beats against the scales of her back and energises her. She has been walking for such a long time, she had forgotten what a wonder it is to soar.

Below, the wind nudges dunes glacially from one place to another. Worms breach the surface to bask in the heat before shuffling back beneath the grains to hunt the sand sharks and skittering lizards that also make their homes beneath the Resplendence. In other places, tracks are worn into the surface for the wind to cover over as camels drag square carts behind them that eat the sand and throw it out again. Trawlers whip them forward and glance eagerly backwards as their meshes filter gems from grains.

Here and there, pillars and segments of wall sprout from the uniform waves of sand, demarking the ruins of an ancient civilisation. Known as the Riklow peoples, they were wiped out in whatever catastrophe created the desert and left the Resplendence shining above it, thousands of years before Sanella crossed this place fleeing the fall of the Reach. Emerald can see dozens of them, and it seems like there is a new one behind every dune she flies over. To search them all would take an eternity.

She swoops back towards Westunnel, enjoying the rushing wind and the feel of adrenalin as the sands jump up to meet her dive. She lands by the trawlers’ base, startling camels and humans alike. Furtive looks coincide with furtive actions as she walks among the trawling machines and the stalls set up in the gaps between them. One such stall is tended by a man taller than she is, and with a girth that makes his white robes look a tent around him. His wares glisten before him in a thousand colours, all polished and ready for the eyes of the jewellers and smiths who come in on the evening train.

“None of them are glowing,” Emerald says, picking up a stunning example of her namesake between two gentle claws and peering through it.

“Why would they glow?” the man says. His bald head is sheened with sweat, but his stern eyes don’t give anything away. Emerald suspects he gets good prices for his gems.

She puts the emerald back. “I had heard that the best trawlers sometimes carry gems that glow. Gems with… power.”

“Mana gems are sold directly to the World Force,” the man says, putting both hands on his stall and leaning in towards her. “You heard wrong.”

The act is probably to intimidate people, and Emerald has to commend his brass to try it on her.

She places a claw on the centre of his forehead and pushes him back.

“I am a dragon.”

“Oh.” The man is sweating a little more than before. “That’s not… uh… not a costume?”

“It is not.”

“Well. Uh. Sorry, but I don’t have any mana gems.” He is off balance, and glances towards the train station when he can no longer meet her amber gaze.

“Or you do, but that you are willing to sell only to those you already know have the discretion to keep it from those who keep this world from being engulfed in nightmare.”

The man remains sweatily stoic.

“Still,” Emerald says, “it must hurt your business to be unable to display your wares.”

“My wares are here,” he says.

Emerald sighs. “Look, I’m not very good at talking around a topic so I’ll lay it out for you, and you can take it to that train or keep it under your turban, I don’t care. My friend is looking for the ruin they have taken custody of and they won’t tell us where it is. She thinks that the reason the Force have been sent here is specifically to stop her getting in, so if she were to succeed, they would leave, and everyone here would be able to continue selling mana gems over the Force’s head.”

“Nobody here sells mana gems,” the man says. His forehead is a waterfall.

“Fine,” Emerald says. “It was a long shot anyway.”

She looks up at the empty sky and its purple light. A few more hours drifting isn’t exactly unappealing. She will just have to leave the long shots to Ravi.

She squats, then her wings crash to the ground at the same moment she springs up. The rush of air displaces a treasure trove of glittering wealth, and she grins at the shouts and curses as the warm updrafts reclaim her.

 

 

“Behold! The power of the Sunlight Stone!”

The beturbaned woman blinks for a moment, then says, “Hey! Where’s Mister Trost?”

Riyo gestures behind her with her thumb at where Trost is reclining in the shade with a cool glass of wiffle juice.

“Oh.” The woman blinks again. “Why-”

Riyo waves the staff at her, its gem glaring into her eyes and making her flinch.

“Power beyond comprehension!” she screams, and the woman adjusts her turban and walks on.

“A bit much,” Trost says.

“Yeah. Being mad is hard.”

“Pfft,” Trost says. “It’s easy. You just wax the noodles. Wax them smooooth and glossy.” He takes another sip of juice. “This is good wiffle.”

“Wax the noodles,” Riyo says, nodding. She turns back to the street, but there is nobody around who needs to learn about the power of the Sunlight Stone.

“Hey. Do you know anything about a map of the mana caverns in a ruin around here?”

“Huh? Nah. Why would I need a map? I’ve been there.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry, I forgot. But hey, you can tell me how to get there so I won’t need a map.”

Trost sits up so quickly that some of his juice spills. “No.”

“Aww, come on.”

“No, no, no. The gravy there flows thick and fast and thick again. Such danger as I have only seen in your nightmares lurks behind every spider. It is a place you must not go if you ever wish to lose your life savings in a cruise ship bingo hall again.”

Riyo scowls. “I like gravy. The thicker the better.”

Trost gives a screeching laugh. “You know nothing of gravy. Your youth makes you powerful, but it also saps your turmeric. Without it, you won’t reach the Reach, let alone the Stone, let alone the Reach. Now turn, apprentice, and face the Mornington Crescent!”

Riyo feels a presence behind her and spins, staff held high.

“Behold!”

“What are you doing?” Rolleck says.

“The power of the Sunlight Stone!”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Light that will shine forever! Heat to warm hearts even as cold as yours!”

“Better,” Trost says, lying back again. “I like the personal touch.”

“Practicing for your future career?” Rolleck guesses.

“Yeah. But imagine the real stone on the end of my staff.” She thrusts it at him, making him grimace.

“Truly a worthy use of the most mythical item of power in all creation.”

“Right?” Riyo and Trost say together.

“I came to give you a warning because I expected you to end up in trouble, but seems like the only trouble here is in your brain.”

“My brain is entirely untroubled,” Riyo says, peering at the end of the staff through squinted eyes. “This stone is actually really powerful. I think it’s been glowing and hot since it was created, without failing. It might have nothing to do with the Sunlight Stone, but it’s still something pretty cool.” She tosses the staff to Trost, who catches it without opening his eyes. “Anyway, what was the warning?”

Rolleck watches the bedraggled man hug the staff across his chest before reaching for his wiffle juice again.

“There’s something weird going on in this town. The World Force have the trawlers worried, but there’s something deeper. Something nobody’s willing to talk about.”

“That makes it the same as every place we’ve visited so far,” Riyo says.

Rolleck sighs. “Yeah.”

“Maybe we can exploit whatever it is to find the ruin with the map.”

“Or maybe it’ll endanger our lives again.”

“You’re such a pessimist, Rolleck.”

“Hi.”

They both whip round. Neither of them had noticed the second from the World Force expedition approaching them.

“Hey, whoa,” she says, her voice slow. “I just came to tell you that the Lieutenant is looking for you. She wants you arrested, really, but I can’t be bothered.” She glances towards the sinking sun and grimaces. “It’s so bright and hot, you know?”

“Why would the lieutenant want us arrested?” Rolleck says, senses straining for any sign the woman has brought reinforcements with her. They seem to be alone, however.

“Ah, well, your friend – the avian traited guy – he was seen talking to a known member of the Thieves Guild. She’s pretty mad about it.”

“Thieves Guild?” Riyo says. “That sounds cool.”

“Yeah?” the woman scratches her head. “Well, nobody else seems to think so. Especially the Resplendence Ward and the Horologium police force. There’s a huge bounty on all of their known members and money for any information about their organisation. Even the World Force has the jurisdiction to bring them in because they’re a cross-Song network of criminals.”

“Hey, they might know about the ruin!” Riyo says.

“Yeah, they do,” the woman says. “They were searching it for that map you’re looking for before Lightseer sent us out here.” She yawns, then blinks. “Oh. I wasn’t supposed to tell you that. Or anything, really.” She shrugs. “Just go find your friend and get him out of trouble. Oh, and don’t go into the desert at night. You’ll die.” She yawns again. “Bye.” She wanders away down the road, her hands in the pockets of her uniform.

“That was weird,” Riyo says.

Rolleck looks from her to Trost and back again. “How do you even know what weird means? Besides, being lethargic in the sun isn’t really weird. If I got sent out here for months just to guard a place that already fell over thousands of years ago, I’d be unmotivated too.”

“Yeah, but you’d still leave footprints in the sand.”

“Huh?”

Riyo points. The World Force woman has just turned the corner, but there isn’t a single mark on the ground she has passed. He can still see his own approach etched out as boot prints that are slowly catching windblown grains to fill themselves in.

“Huh,” Rolleck says.

“Let’s go find Ravi, then. Maybe the thieves already told him where the ruin is.”

“Or they might have killed him.”

“Again with the pessimism! See you later, Mister Trost.”

“Stay frosty,” Trost says.

 

 

 

Ravi swallows. The velvet-upholstered armchair beneath him suddenly feels a lot less comfortable. The basement feels cold after the heat outside, but it isn’t the reason for the shiver that runs down Ravi’s spine.

The man opposite him smiles. “That is the reaction a lot of people have.”

Colourful leans against the wall to one side, grinning, but Ravi’s attention is captivated by the man before him. His skin has a sharp, red tint. His eyes are made from fire. A single black horn curls from the right side of his forehead and a black goatee points from his chin. His suit is immaculate and deep, deep black.

“But we’re not as dangerous as everyone thinks. It’s not like we’re the Assassin’s Guild or the Beat People Up In The Streets For No Reason Guild. We’re professionals committed to one ideal. It’s our creed to keep killing to a minimum, and intimidation is for extortionists and blackmailers. We are neither. We are Thieves, Mister Matriya. The very best of us take without anybody suspecting anything until long after we are gone.”

“This guy seems strong.” The voice makes Ravi flinch. “Surely it’d be easier if he did just kill people and take their stuff.”

“I see,” Ravi says. “Does that mean you don’t intend to kill me?” His voice quavers a little.

“Intend, no,” the half-devil says. “Of course, our organisation does require some secrecy in order to operate effectively. Very few of us can steal a person’s tongue without them noticing, so sometimes it is necessary to take their life. This is not stealing, however. You see, true theft enriches the thief. To kill takes from both the victim and the actor.”

“So… If I promise not to tell anyone about this, you won’t hurt me?”

The voice laughs in his face.

“It’s a little more nuanced than that,” the man says with a smile of knives. “But let us first discuss the matter at hand. It might be that this idle chatter is completely irrelevant. You see, we share an interest in archaeology, Mister Matriya.”

“Why does everybody know that?” Ravi mutters.

“Our organisation is very well practised in remaining unnoticed. You, if I may be blunt, are not. You walk into this town a robot, a dragon, a traited archer, a Lost police officer and the errant apprentice of the very man who stands between us and our prize. You leave behind you a corrupt tyrant slain, a cursed village freed, a draconic civil war averted and a human one ended. And this is only the things we know. You and your friends are interesting, Mister Matriya. Too interesting to ignore when you arrive in a small town on the edge of the desert.”

Ravi’s heartbeat picks up with every tidbit he reveals, until it feels like a train in his chest.

“That’s a pretty impressive record,” the voice says.

“You know a lot about who we are and what we’ve done,” Ravi says, ignoring it. “But you don’t seem to know much about what kind of people we are. If you kill me…”

The half-devil raises his eyebrow.

“Riyo will destroy you.”

Colourful is no longer smiling. Ravi can feel his beady eyes boring into the side of his head. The half-devil holds his gaze, stares long into his eyes, then nods his head slowly.

“I will take this threat to heart. However, I do not think it will come to that.” He stands and plucks a cane from beside his armchair. He leans heavily upon it as he limps to the corner of the room. Ravi cannot see what is wrong with his leg, but it clearly pains him to move in spite of the cane. He returns with a furled parchment, which he hands to Ravi before collapsing back into his seat.

He nods for Ravi to unroll it.

“That is a map of this corner of the desert,” the half-devil says.

Westunnel is marked at the bottom of the Icebound Wall on the left-hand side of the map. The rest is an empty expanse of yellowing paper surrounding a single black line that represents the train tracks. A number of ruins are spattered across it, but one of them, near the right-hand side of the map, is circled.

“This is…”

“The very ruin you seek,” the half-devil confirms.

“Ask them what they want in return.”

“What do you want in return?”

“He may not look like it, but Colourful here is quite the artist. He also has a perfect memory.”

“They want a copy of the map,” the voice says.

Ravi gives a sigh of relief. “That’s fine.”

The half-devil’s eyebrows rise slightly. “The map could be the greatest clue in the search for the Sunlight Stone since word of the Stone’s existence first reached Valos. It is not a simple decision to allow a competitor access to it.”

“He has a point.”

Ravi shakes his head. “Riyo doesn’t think that way. She’s after the stone for selfish reasons, but if she gets there to find it gone, she’ll just set her sights a little higher. Knowing she has competition from the Thieves Guild might even spur her on.”

“Interesting,” the half-devil says. “You were certainly right that we did not have a good understanding of you and your friends.” He glances at Colourful. “Is it too late to…”

“Yes,” Colourful says. His grin has some genuine amusement in it now.

“Ah. Well.” He glances around, then his eyes light on a bundle on the table by Colourful. “Pass me that, please.”

Colourful dutifully brings it over, then pats Ravi on the shoulder in a consoling manner.

“This is an… apology. For what is about to happen.” He unfolds the cloth of the bundle to reveal a jagged grey stone that seems to shine with ethereal light. “It is a treasure of the desert. Very valuable. If you-”

“What’s about to happen?” Ravi says.

“-break it the sand worms will come rushing towards you. Really, when you think about it, that’s a lot of power. I don’t know if you’ve seen the worms hunt, but-”

“Stop rambling and tell me,” Ravi says.

The half-devil says. “We did not think you would be so easy to convince. We had planned to allow you time to discuss our proposal with your friends, but it is in our nature to be cautious. We… set in motion a plan to help you make the right choice.”

Ravi groans.

“It’s nothing dangerous. Really. I mean, your friends are all very capable people…”

“There’re two factions at play here in Westunnel,” Colourful says through his grin, “and we wanted you to choose ours.”

“Then they would want to turn us against the other faction. The World Force,” the voice says.

Ravi groans again. “I better go warn everyone.” He stands and plucks the stone from the half-devil’s lap. “I’m sure you’ll know once we have a way into the ruins.” He looks to Colourful. “Be ready to join us.”

The ant-man nods.

“For what it’s worth,” the half-devil says as he goes to leave. “You’ve made the right choice. In many ways, the Thieves Guild are a far more powerful ally than the World Force.”

“Not the best first impression, boss,” Colourful says once the bird-man has climbed the stairs out of the basement.

“It’s the results that matter, Colourful. Nigel will be pleased so long as we get the map.”

“The big boss has never met these Stone hunters. How’d he know so much about them before they even reached Westunnel?”

“Nigel’s ways are hidden between the lines in the Scripts. He wouldn’t share them with the likes of us.”

 

 

“Good afternoon!” Eleanor the Luminous says in a voice bright enough to match her name and outshine the array of gems on the stall in front of them. The large man behind the table doesn’t even look at her, however. He is too busy staring at Glitter.

“Hello,” Glitter says, drawing on his friendliest face.

Eleanor snaps her fingers, finally drawing the salesman’s attention to her.

“Ah! Lady Eleanor!” he says. “I wasn’t expecting you until later.”

“I came in yesterday,” she says. “I thought I could enjoy the sun a little before returning to gloomy old Ragg.”

“Of course, of course,” the man says, twisting his hands together. His eyes dart from one end of the market to the other over his painted-on smile.

“Oh don’t be so paranoid, Canter,” Eleanor says with a smile like warm cocoa, “the patrols are elsewhere. I have better timing than you give me credit for.”

The big man deflates visibly with his relief. “I am sorry to worry, my lady. But these are not the best times for us.”

“That’s true, so perhaps we should hurry this along?”

“Yes,” Canter says. His eyes do another lap of the market before he pulls up the front of his robe. Glitter changes his mouth for an ‘O’ of shock, but Eleanor is unfazed. Canter lifts his rolls of girth and pulls a pouch from betwixt them before dropping his robe again. He offers the damp pouch to Eleanor, who takes it in a white gloved hand. She empties its contents carelessly into her other hand then tosses the gross pouch over her shoulder.

“Ah, my lady. Please,” Canter says. “A little more discretion would-”

Eleanor holds up a hand towards him, staring intently at the glowing gem in her hand. It is a crisp purple in colour, and Glitter can feel a strange energy radiating from it. It reminds him of the energy around the tapestry in Witch Gavira’s shop. Eleanor turns it over a few times. “Do you know what it does?”

“No, my lady.” Canter is scanning the market again. “But it has nearly thirteen quizzles of… No!”

“A gift for you, Glitter,” Eleanor says, popping the gem between two of the slats on Glitter’s shoulder.

“Huh?” Glitter says, catching it with the snow within him. It seems to pulse against his crystal. It is not a pleasant feeling.

“You there!” someone shouts from one end of the market. There is anger in the voice that even Glitter can recognise.

“You betrayed me,” Canter says, turning a glare on Eleanor. The look turns to one of confusion immediately. “Where…?”

“Huh?” Glitter says again. Eleanor is still standing right beside him.

“You can still see me, huh?” she says slowly. “You sure are an interesting person, Glitter!”

“I don’t understand,” Glitter says.

“Surrender that gem and submit yourself!” Lieutenant Marigold is marching through the market with a squad of World Force soldiers, her armoured greaves crunching sand.

“This isn’t mine,” Glitter says. “She…”

Glitter’s senses shoot out and find the eyes of everyone around him. Follows their gazes. “Nobody else can see you!”

“You’d better get running, Glitter,” Eleanor says.

“You’re under arrest,” Marigold says.

“I could just surrender,” Glitter says, beginning to panic.

“Riyo wouldn’t like that.”

She wouldn’t. She would probably bust Glitter out regardless of what he said, making things that much worse than they already were.

“You’re a mean woman!” Glitter shouts, throwing forth snow and wrapping it around his legs. He breaks for the other end of the market, a wall of ice forming across the street behind him, startling camels and traders alike.

“Tunnel Vision!” Marigold’s voice carries over the yells of surprise, and a haze of green light flickers into existence in front of Glitter. Marigold and two of her soldiers step out of the haze to block his path.

“Wah!” Glitter says, sliding to a stop and turning to run the other way. A shimmer of green flutters into existence in front of him, too close for him to stop again before he hits it. He finds himself upside down, disoriented. The top of his chassis hits the sand before he can right himself, and then another green haze surrounds him. This time the ground comes up to meet his glass.

“Oof.”

“Surrender at once. You have no means of escape.”

Snow bounces Glitter back up to his feet, and he finds himself facing two World Force soldiers with crossbows.

“Run, Glitter!”

Glitter barrels forward, and two crossbows are raised towards him.

“This is your last chance!” Marigold shouts from behind him.

There is a flicker-flash of blue energy, and the soldiers in front of Glitter are staring down at where their crossbows are pinned to the floor. A wall of green light appears between them and Glitter, but he does not slow. Just as he is about to hit the portal, it shatters like a mirror. An arrow streaks past within an inch of his chassis and pierces the spot directly between the Lieutenant’s legs. A blue flash brings her to a staggering halt, and Glitter bowls past the two stunned soldiers and around the corner, leaving the market behind him.

“What’s going on?” he asks as Ravi jumps down from the rooftops to join him at a steady jog.

“An unfortunate misunderstanding,” Ravi says. “We need to find Riyo, quickly.”

 

Lieutenant Marigold closes her reality and narrows her eyes.

“What happened, Lieutenant?” Private Cardamom says, blinking down the street.

“A Trait-wielder,” she says. “A dangerous group indeed. More so, since they seem to be in league with the thieves.” She puts her hand on the hilt of her mace, still staring down the street past the soldiers trying to pull out the arrows holding their crossbows down. “Tch. Take a camel into the tunnel. It’s time to wake up Sergeant Malbec.”

The soldier’s face pales. “Sergeant Ixel won’t like that, sir,” he says, his voice a whisper.

“I know that. But we’ll need both of them if we’re to keep these bastards out of our ruins.” She turns to the quivering private. “Well? Get to it.”

Cardamom flinches, then whines, “Yes, sir.”

 

 

“So,” Emerald says. She leaves it at that.

“It hasn’t been a brilliant day,” Riyo says. “But it’s not all bad. We got a map.”

“And all it cost us is the enmity of the largest military organisation in the world,” Rolleck says.

“I don’t care about that. My master was going to use the stupid World Force against me sooner or later. We were bound to become enemies.”

“Didn’t you want to join them at some point?” Ravi says, feeling guilty.

“Pfft.” Riyo slumps back on the bed. “I’m going to find the Sunlight Stone first. Once I’ve done that, they’ll beg me to join them no matter what I do on the way.”

“Being wanted criminals isn’t going to make finding it any easier,” Rolleck says.

“Speaking of which, be quiet.” Emerald presses herself against the wall by the window. Their single gas lamp throws its fitful light out into the night where a pair of World Force soldiers stalk. Their spears are topped with lanterns of their own, and their voices carry through the chill air.

“Can they really be that dangerous?” one asks.

“Two of them escaped the lieutenant, and they’re waking Malbec up.” There is an edge to the woman’s voice that betrays her nerves.

“Why are we even out here, then?” the first says. “Shouldn’t we be… I dunno. Leaving town? Hiding in the farthest reaches of space? Doing anything but staying in this doomed little town?”

“You’re out here,” a new voice says, “because it is your job.”

There is a rattle of armour as the two come to a halt nearby.

“Sergeant!”

“I’ll take it you haven’t found the travellers?” Riyo recognises the voice of the purple-haired woman from earlier.

“No, sir. Sorry sir.”

“It’s just as well. Orders have changed. Start knocking on doors and warning people – we’re introducing a curfew until they’re found. Absolutely nobody outside after dark. We cannot guarantee their safety otherwise.”

“Uh… Do we have the authority for that?”

“We do not. We just think people might believe we do for long enough for it to keep them alive. Give it your best authoritative voice and tell them to take any complaints to the Lieutenant tomorrow morning.”

There is a moment of uncomfortable silence.

“Yes, sir,” the first soldier says.

“Where shall we start?”

“I’ll do this street,” the sergeant says. “Take the next and keep going.”

“Yes, sir,” the soldiers say together.

They clatter off down the street, and the room collectively exhales.

“You heard that, right?”

Ravi and Glitter both jump, while Riyo pops up from the bead and bounces to the window.

“You move fast,” she says.

“I do,” the sergeant says. The shadow of her hair is cast across her face, but there is an intensity in her eye that makes it shine like the blood moon. “They are waking my father to hunt you. If you stay, you will die.”

“Who’s your dad?” Riyo says.

“Duke Haellus Malbec.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t know his name – almost nobody does. He has been asleep for years. Even so, you should leave this place quickly.”

“Why are you telling this to us instead of arresting us?” Rolleck asks.

“Because arresting you would be a pain. You fighting my father would be a pain, too. I just want a simple life, you know? The lieutenant doesn’t realise that keeping you in custody would be impossible with our current forces, and now that she’s released father, taking you in alive becomes basically impossible. It’d be better for everyone if you just left.”

“Not for us,” Riyo says. “We’ve got a ruin to investigate.”

The sergeant sighs. “Why do people have to have so much energy?” She retreats into the shadows of the street outside. “Well, I warned you. Twice.”

“Thanks!” Riyo shouts after her, then covers her mouth. “Oops.”

“Just get some sleep,” Rolleck says, shaking his head.

“I’ll keep watch,” Glitter says.

 

 

Private Cardamom joined the World Force several months ago. He received training in the use of spear and crossbow, and was even transported to Ragg to experience life on the Plains of Chaos, where the nightmares spewed from the Reach and met the teeth of the World Force as their only reward for making the journey down from Calis. He had felt, then, that his decision to join up had been meaningful. That he was going to make a difference to people’s lives.

Then he had been made a full private and been assigned to this expedition. He had stood in blistering heat guarding an empty ruin from imaginary thieves for days at a time in between patrolling the sunny streets of Westunnel and checking the people coming in on the train against a decaying collection of wanted posters.

He had begun to think that his choice actually didn’t matter. That he would be burning his skin in the harsh outdoors doing basically nothing for the entirety of the rest of his life.

He curses himself for a fool as his camel plods through sandy darkness. Better to remain stationary until you die than step forward into a pool of lava. The flame of his torch whispers against the stone high above him and makes shadows dance on the edge of his vision. The tracks glint every now and again where the train wheels have worn them to a mirror, and all the movements of light and darkness play games in his mind. There are dragons and demons and giants in there with him, but none of them scare him as much as what he has come here seeking.

Some distance into the tunnel, with the desert long forgotten and only harsh rock to tread upon, his camel grows nervous. The light of the torch lunges forward, but on the left side of the tunnel it breaks upon a deeper, harder darkness. Private Cardamom pulls his camel to a halt and, with shaking hands and legs of paper, dismounts. He holds the torch high over his head and keeps his other hand on the short sword at his belt as he enters the side passage.

It is not long before he reaches its end. It opens up a little, into something of a room. The stones below him are slabs rather than broken mountain and there is harsh grey furniture that can be no more comfortable than the ground. Dominating the room from its centre is a roughly carved sarcophagus, the shapes of hunting ligmists picked out around it.

Private Cardamom approaches it with his breath threatening to choke him. His gloves scratch on the stone as he runs his hand over it. The wounded creature picked out on its lid is one he could not name, but its eyes and teeth are a promise of blood and death. He raises the torch and casts it into the light, then feels a whimper escape his throat. There is blood in truth dripping slowly from the creature’s fangs.

“I could just say he wouldn’t wake up,” he says, his voice high. “I could go back and apologise and never have to come here again.”

“And why would you do that?” A sonorous, muffled voice says.

The sarcophagus begins to shake, stone grinding on stone as the lid begins to slide.

“Oh, Word save me,” Private Cardamom whimpers.

“Your religion of paper and sadness is dead, child,” Sergeant Malbec says, his voice coming clear as the darkness within the coffin is revealed. “I watched it die!”

The lid of the sarcophagus crashes to the ground, throwing up years of dust. Private Cardamom stumbles back and drops his torch. Its flames flicker inside the width of his pupils.

A Black shape rises from inside, looming over the room. Two points of red light pin Private Cardamom to the stone. He feels a terrified warble in his throat, but his heart is beating too hard for him to hear it.

“Good evening,” the creature says. “Does the World Force have need of me?”

 

 

 

The freezing sky is still black when Ravi leaves the hiding place. The Resplendence coats everything beneath it in twilight purple, and by its light he can see all the way down the street. Silence and stillness greet him, and he beckons to the others to follow him out. One of the least stealthy groups in the history of covert operations dribbles out of the building and around the corner. The perpendicular street leads straight out into the desert, and they scurry along it as amaranthine silhouettes.

“Halt!”

The voice breaks the night in two, and Riyo comes to a sudden stop. Ravi bumps into her, and Rolleck into him, and then Glitter falls on them all.

“You are under arrest,” Lieutenant Marigold says. “Come quietly into custody or forfeit your right to safe passage.”

She is standing by the last house before town turns to desert, accompanied by a disgruntled Sergeant Ixel. Further back, a grand, broad-chested man with raven hair and an exquisite goatee is talking to a young private of the World Force. His uniform is accentuated with various symbols picked out in gold, and he is wearing a red cape with a high, wide collar.

“We’d rather not,” Riyo says, crawling out from underneath Glitter and then spitting out some sand.

“Very well. Sergeant Malbec, arrest them!”

The large man tilts his head towards the lieutenant and rolls his eyes. “Women, eh?” he says, loud enough for Riyo to hear him. Then, “I don’t arrest people, Lieutenant. If you just wanted them brought in, get my daughter to do it.”

“The World Force does not kill indiscriminately,” Marigold says through gritted teeth.

“It also doesn’t let criminals get away,” Malbec says. He yawns. “Sethe. It’s almost bed time. Bring them in, there’s a good girl. If you can’t manage it then I’ll have to chase them down tonight.”

Sergeant Ixel growls. “Fine.” She glares at Riyo. “I gave you enough chances.”

She is in front of Riyo, then, her hand lashing out. Riyo’s eyes don’t have time to widen before a flash of blue blinds her for a moment.

“Gravity Mould,” she says, and grabs her sword.

Ixel is back where she started, but there is now blood leaking from a shallow cut in her arm, soaking into the grey of her uniform. Her red eyes are on Ravi and the curse-breaker streaming over his dagger.

“She’s so fast!” Glitter says, loosing snow from his shoulders and whipping it into a soft cloud above them.

“That’s good,” Riyo says, stepping past Ravi. She weighs so little now that her feet barely touch the sand. “Stand back and don’t interfere.”

“But…” Glitter says.

“Just be ready. I’m too slow. I need to be faster.”

Rolleck and Emerald glance at each other, then shrug and back away. Ravi hesitates, then follows them.

Ixel narrows her eyes. “I’m not going to play by your stupid rules.”

She is gone again. Emerald, her arms crossed, tilts her head slightly as the World Force sergeant appears before her. Before she can ram her fist into Emerald’s face, Riyo catches her by the back of her collar. Gravity warps around them, giving Riyo’s throw the power of a trebuchet. Sand splashes and rock cracks as the sergeant smashes into the ground.

Riyo raises her foot and goes to stamp on Ixel, but her hand is in the way. She scowls up at Riyo as her grip tightens on her foot.

“Uh oh.”

Riyo finds herself flying towards the World Force contingent. She slows herself in the air, eyes flashing to the crater she has made. It is empty. Gravity turns away from her, pulling outward in every direction and catching Ixel as she descends from above. It is not enough to keep her from crashing down on Riyo, and they hit the ground together.

Head ringing, Riyo blinks up at the woman on top of her. Her face is soaked in shadows, turning it a sickly grey. Her eyes are cracked with red, and though Riyo’s reality touches her, she fights it.

“Give up,” she hisses.

“Nuh-uh,” Riyo says.

A flicker out of the corner of her eye comes crashing into Ixel, driving her off Riyo and leaving a scratch on her side. Riyo hops to her feet and the dragon-claw sword comes spinning back around like a boomerang into her hand.

“You’re starting to make me angry,” Ixel says.

“You’re just making me curious,” Riyo says. “Are you a-”

Ixel comes at her head on, but Riyo still only gets her sword between the woman’s hand and her neck by instinct. The force of the attack drives her back, and she falls into it, kicking up into Ixel’s midriff with a gravity-assisted foot. The sergeant goes over her head, and the weight of Valos comes down on her to drive her into the ground again. Riyo flings her sword at her, but she swats it aside, muscles straining against the pressure on her. Riyo grabs two of her daggers from her belt and holds them defensively, keeping up the pressure on Ixel.

She growls. “That’s it.”

Sticky red lightning crackles out from inside her eyes, and the shadows leak from her body in puffs of blackness.

“Hmph,” Duke Malbec says, turning away. “Call for me when night falls tomorrow. This is finished.”

“Uh, yes, sir,” Private Cardamom says.

“Hold, sergeant,” Lieutenant Marigold says, but her command goes unheeded. She grinds her teeth and turns back to the fight. “I’ve had enough of th-”

The air explodes away from sergeant Ixel in a bubble of silence. Black flames enrobe her, shot through with blood-red cracks.

“Not good,” Rolleck says, rushing forward, Emerald on his heels.

“Guys!” Riyo says excitedly. “She’s a v-”

She hits the wall of the building beside Lieutenant Marigold. Stone cracks in a spiderweb around her in spite of her attempts to slow herself. Her shoulders go numb, but the pain of bruised bone is beaten to the front of her attention by the closing of her windpipe.

Ixel’s hair is now jet black, slicked back over her head. Her uniform is gone, replaced by a perfect black waistcoat and immaculate white cravat. A cape with blood as its lining flows out behind her into the empty desert night, seeming to go on forever. Her slim red lips part, revealing long, fierce canines.

“Vampire,” Riyo croaks.

The hand releases her throat as a curse-breaker arrow flashes through the space in front of Riyo and embeds itself in the wall between her arm and side. Ixel spins and ducks beneath Emerald’s punch. She catches Rolleck’s blade on her arm and deflects it, then swats aside several follow-up thrusts before driving her first at his chest. His sword takes the brunt of the power behind it, but it still sends him flying back across the street and into a snowdrift.

A hammer of ice smashes down on Ixel and shatters, spreading ice shards and mist into the chill dawn. It splits apart as Ixel blitzes through it, her heel coming down on top of Glitter. It meets Emerald’s tail instead, and the shock of their clash clears the rest of the mist from the air around them. Ixel grabs the tail and whips Emerald out towards the desert, then kicks Glitter in the same direction, releasing a shrill wail.

Both dragon and robot slow as they fly, until they land neatly beside Riyo.

Ixel bares her teeth at her, but she just smiles back.

“Time’s up,” she says.

Ixel’s heel breaks the ground as she accelerates, but she only makes it a step before the sun bursts over the distant horizon behind her prey. Its harsh rays pierce her like spears, and she staggers. In the blinding stillness that follows, something hits her in the back. She blinks against the light, and it begins to fade. Then it turns completely black.

Sergeant Ixel slumps over, and Riyo’s sword jerks free of her and wheels into her outstretched hand.

Sand begins to settle, and the soft morning breeze ruffles Ixel’s cape and sets Riyo’s ribbons flapping.

“Tunnel Vision!” Marigold yells, and Riyo feels her reality nudge up against her own.

“Time to go, guys,” she says. The desert around her gains an urge to see the sky, and every grain of it leaps into the air, shrouding them all in gritty shadow.

“Lieutenant!” Private Cardamom yells. “Sergeant!”

“Don’t let them get away!”

“I can’t see them, sir!”

A moment later, the sand falls with the crinkling patter of a cruel mountain rainstorm. The street is empty.

Cardamom rushes over to Sergeant Ixel. Within the sandstorm, her glamour has faded away, leaving her only her uniform. There is a tear in the back of it, ragged edges soaked through with blood. Her body is cold to the touch.

“Sergeant!” Cardamom says, shaking her by the shoulders.

The world turns, and Private Cardamom finds himself on his back, sand crunching beneath his armour. Pain soars from his upper arms where Sergeant Ixel pins him, but he cannot muster even a whimper in response to it. The Sargeant’s eyes take his voice and his wits. Fear brings his body to unnatural stillness, so that he can barely feel his breaths.

Ixel’s breath is ragged. Her whole body is shaking with a lust she has been dreading. Hiding from. She can feel Cardamom’s heart beating, sending hot blood rushing through his captive body. Just a little pressure and it will flow free. Over her tongue. Down her throat. Just one. Small. Bite.

She screams and rolls away to lie glaring at the softening sky and its shimmering purple mistress. The new-born light paints her skin in flame, and she lets it cremate her. Steal her lust with pain. Steal her hunger with pain. Steal her frustration with pain.

“I’m disappointed in you, Sergeant,” Lieutenant Marigold says, looking down at her.

“Then have my father kill them,” Ixel growls. “Or better yet, arrest them yourself. See how that goes for you. Your reality wouldn’t touch that dragon, nor the traited boy. That crafter is stronger than you, too. In fact,” Ixel sits up, cracks her neck to one side, then yawns, “they might even be able to go up against my father.” She pushes herself to her feet and tries to scratch at the wound on her back, but can’t reach it. “I’m going to bed.”

“It’s the start of your shift, Sergeant.”

“I’ve just been wounded in the line of duty, sir,” Sergeant Ixel says. “I’ve a right to recovery time.” She stalks off, shading her eyes from the fresh sunlight.

Lieutenant Marigold watches her go with clenched fists, then turns back to the empty desert. A smattering of gemstones catch the twinkling sunlight as they fall through the empty sky, then vanish as they are lost to the sand.

Book Eleven

Visitations in Silk

 

“It’s a shop,” Riyo Falsemoon says. “Look, the sign says so.”

“Yeah but… why?” Ravi Matriya says, glancing around. The rock-strewn slopes of the Eastern Icebound Wall are bereft of all life. Soft rain slicks mossless stones and darkens brown earth all the way to the edge of sight, where low grey clouds huddle against the ground.

“Oh, I know this,” Glitter says. The rain tinkles on his metal body, making a tune that he is having difficulty not whistling along to. “It’s called capitalism. People spend money in exchange for-”

“I know how shops work, Glitter,” Ravi says. “I mean why here?”

Witch Gravira’s Emporium of Silk and Other Quality Fabrics is a grand wooden building that would not look out of place amidst the dryad-grown architecture of Folvin. Its walls are carved with images of people dancing. Their features are indistinct – hands fade away into the wood before their fingers are revealed, heads show no signs of faces. Their clothing, however, is intricate, billowing with the actions of their wearers and dazzling imaginary colours into existence where in truth there is only wood grain.

“Maybe there are hill trolls around here,” Emerald says.

Rolleck the Lost raises an eyebrow at her.

“What? All of the human stories about dragons are wrong. Maybe hill trolls have a strong sense for fashion.”

“I have met an unfortunate number of hill trolls,” Rolleck says. “And the stories are accurate as far as I have seen.”

“Should we go in?” Glitter asks.

“The last time we went into a strange building in the middle of nowhere, we ended up in space,” Ravi says.

“We are absolutely not going in,” Emerald says.

Riyo is already pushing the door open. A bell rings above it to announce her entry, tinkling through a space that feels unnaturally vast. It reminds her of the prison beneath Ragg. To her left is a counter with a metal strongbox on one side of it. There is a bow of sultry crimson ribbon sitting in the centre of the counter, while beyond it is a pristinely tidied workspace. Every inch of everything is aligned with everything else. The space is filled with racks of hanging cloth, while more displays on wires above hide the ceiling and walls. It is as though a rainbow has been smashed into fragments and then caught up in a whirlwind. There is no order to the distribution, but it would be hard to describe something so beautiful as chaos. Riyo smells wood and cloth but feels no sense of anyone, or anything, alive.

“It’s empty,” she says.

“Maybe this Witch Gravira is out to lunch,” Ravi says.

“We shouldn’t go in, then,” Emerald says. “Let’s move on.”

Rolleck peers over Riyo’s shoulder and his eyes widen. “Hold on a moment, Emerald.” His hand drifts to his now-tattered waistcoat. Few of his good clothes have survived their recent escapades, and the cornucopia of silken wonder before him runs his imagination towards a wardrobe full of neat, cleanly-tailored trousers and waistcoats.

“It’s pretty,” Glitter says.

“I thought you didn’t see the way we do,” Ravi says.

“I don’t.” Glitter’s screen mists up, muting his blue light. Lines begin to crease the grey of his façade, shooting across from left to right at different rates until it is a torrent of sideways rain. “I feel energy. But light is energy, too, and that’s how you see. The streaks begin to bounce off the other side of his face, creating a messy web of ricochets. “Perhaps what is in our minds differs when we look through that door, but I see all the colours differently just as you do. The shapes and the air movements, the temperature changes and the way the light glances off the motes of dust in the air. I have my own definition of pretty to enjoy.”

“Uh, sorry,” Ravi says. “I didn’t mean…”

“It’s okay. If anything, my view is much prettier than yours. I wish I could share it with you.”

“Yeah,” Ravi says, looking back at a room that only contains coloured fabric to his eyes. “Maybe you can make me some goggles or something.”

Glitter’s face goes flat grey again, and he draws himself a wide grin.

“That’s a great idea!”

Behind them, Emerald sighs. “We’re going in, aren’t we?”

“Just a quick look around,” Rolleck says, already standing by the closest rack of fabric and running his hand over it with a delicate touch. “Perhaps the proprietor will return, and we can ask her what kind of prices she offers. This is very good silk.”

“We basically have no money,” Riyo says, picking up the ribbon on the counter and inspecting it. Two strands unfurl from the main bow, trailing over the wood. “Hey Ravi, help me put this on.”

“Is that a good idea?” Emerald says.

“I’m not going to take it. I just want to try it on.”

Ravi looks the ribbon over for a moment before shrugging and slipping the metal clip through Riyo’s hair. The trailing strands flow down her back, while from the front the two most prominent loops of the bow stick up over her head, looking a little like the ears of a cat.

“Well?” Riyo says, spinning around so that the trails flare out then striking a pose for Emerald.

“I think it suits her,” Ravi says.

“It suits her appearance,” Emerald agrees, “but not her personality.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s too cute.”

“I’m cute!”

Ravi scoffs, then looks away embarrassed. “Sorry.”

Riyo puts her hands on her hips and pouts.

“Hey, guys!” Glitter shouts from somewhere amongst the drifting fabric.

His urgent singsong draws them down aisles of colour until they come to a tapestried wall. A single curtain of fabric sweeps from a display of delicate white lace to a glut of luxurious red velvet almost a hundred metres away. It is a pale lilac, leaning towards white, and depicts a procession of characters in uncomfortable detail, their colours striking and their features terrified.

“Those are hill trolls,” Rolleck says.

“See? They look quite fashionable,” Emerald says.

“They all look fashionable,” Ravi says. “I’ve no eye for it, really, but they’re all dressed up.”

“They’re also all dead,” Riyo says.

“It’s a very creepy piece,” Glitter agrees.

The parade of people – human and otherwise – all have a knife stuck in their back. The wounds bleed excessively, streamers of red silk bursting like fireworks from their wounds. The blade itself, however, is always clean. It has a hooked blade with an inscription along it, and the stitching is so fine and perfect that the words are clear even on the smallest iteration. The figure it pierces is barely fifteen centimetres tall.

“Is that a fairy?” Ravi says.

“She does have wings,” Riyo says.

“I didn’t know they were real,” Rolleck says.

Emerald stares at the tiny figure, a dark feeling creeping up on her. “I think… I think I recognise her.”

“Well, that settles it,” Ravi says. “We should leave.”

“Yeah…” Riyo says slowly. “What do you think it means, though?”

“Pull the thread ‘til all unwinds. Leave them on the other side.’,” Rolleck reads. “Maybe-”

There is a crash and the sound of a clattering bell from back towards the counter. They all spin around, raising weapons and claws. Riyo whispers open her reality and watches as the fabric lilts in the disturbed air.

“It’s still moving,” Glitter says after a moment of tense silence.

The sway and flutter of the hanging silk is growing stronger, as though whipped by a wind that does not exist. The light that brought it all to life is fading, the high windows clouding with grey wool.

“We should go,” Emerald says.

There is a sudden roar as the imaginary wind becomes real. Fabric snaps taut then flickers back, the sound of a thousand flags flashing their colours in the fading dusk. There are several metallic cracks behind them, and Riyo turns in time to see the tapestry flick loose of the wall.

“Guys-” she says, before the heavy fabric enshrouds them.

 

The wind fails. Cloth flutters its last before falling still. The soft tinkle of a bell tiptoes through Witch Gravira’s Emporium of Silk and Other Quality Fabrics. Light reaches through from the foothills beyond the door and touches a beautifully expressive tapestry depicting humans, trolls, fairies, dragons, and at least one ice robot.

 

 

Emerald opens her eyes. They are met by soft sunlight flashing between the dancing leaves of the canopy high above her. The wind sends the sound of their rustling cascading down upon her, joined by the calls of familiar birds. The ground beneath her is damp and a little cold, encouraging her to stand. All around her, the forest marches away. Stout tree trunks wrapped in wrinkled bark provide a comfort that she has been subconsciously missing ever since she left this place.

“But how can I be back here?” she asks the Everstall Song.

“You never leave the trees behind, Emerald,” a quiet, female voice says.

Emerald stiffens. She jerks around, but the forest is empty of movement. Behind her, though, there is a twistwood sapling. It is only as tall as she is, now, but in a few years, it will tower over the rest of these trees. Its trunk will continue to spiral up, wood becoming so dense that even the most determined lumberjack would break his axe on its hide.

“Welcome home,” it says.

“This is impossible.” Emerald rubs her eyes, then blinks at the sapling in the hope that, between one and the next, it will vanish.

“Perceptions can be twisted in thousands of ways, Emerald. I taught you that. You, and her.”

Light flickers across the corner of Emerald’s sight. She turns to find a trail of twinkling dust drifting down from above her, marking a path through the air.

“No…” Emerald leaps after it, her wings pushing her to the branch where the trail goes cold. Her claws rest on the bark without breaking it and she peers around the trunk. There is no more dust. No more trail. A playful giggle reaches her, but it sounds impossibly distant.

“I had such hopes for you, Emerald.”

She turns back to the twistwood sapling. It has grown several metres, its trunk thickening, its bark turning towards the deep shadow-black of adulthood.

“You both made me so proud.”

Emerald’s heart is racing, her pilot roaring in her throat. The dread in the pit of her stomach turns to anger, and she drops from the branch and approaches the tree again.

“You tricked me,” she says. “You lied to me. To both of us.”

“Yes,” the tree says. “And you knew it long before you left. Both of you. Can you really blame me for what happened?”

“You took advantage of my naivete. I made a mistake, by trusting that you had good reasons.”

“Excuses.”

“Regrets.”

That giggle again, biting at the back of her mind and scratching beneath her scales. Emerald growls deep in her throat, casting her attention this way and that, trying to locate its source. She turns back to the tree with a snarl on her face.

“Hey, Em.”

Between her and the tree, practically touching the tip of her snout, is a glowing figure. Her wings flicker with light and movement, tiny scales tumbling free and raining down towards the mossy ground. She wears a spider-silk bra and short skirt that glimmer in the glow of her own flight, and her blonde hair is caught up in a tail that falls well below her feet. As beautiful as she ever was, her smile still does not touch her eyes.

“Boop,” she says, and punches Emerald in the nose.

 

 

“Well this obviously isn’t real,” Riyo tells the vast darkness around her. The ground beneath her bare feet is cold and scattered with small stones that dig into her soles. “This place doesn’t exist anymore.”

Her voice doesn’t bounce back from anything. She knows there are stalactites far above her that drip musty water into meagre puddles. She knows there are rats, lizards and insects trapped here. These things sustained her for a long time. She also knows about the mirrors. The ones down here reflect the world above. The ones above reflect only darkness.

“Indeed,” a chilling voice says. “So how could you be here now?”

Riyo swallows. “It would take someone who knew of it. Or could pull it from my memories.” She turns around.

“Or both,” Elvolar Lightseer says.

 

 

Iron is an interesting metal.

Rolleck the Lost does not know where he is. In many ways, this is immaterial. He isn’t going anywhere. The bars that surround him are made of an interesting metal. The floor beneath his feet is made of an interesting metal. Above him, an interesting metal indeed.

It is a middle metal.

The middle metal is cool to the touch, but the air around Rolleck is warm. There is an orange tint to the light that suffuses this strange place that suggests a flame.

Obsolete in the face of steel, and yet…

There are people, out beyond the bars. Their silhouettes pass by his prison, blurred holes in the orange light. Rolleck feels as though they are judging him.

There is something that humanity finds captivating about it. It has a purity. A lore. Iron has a solidity that has endured despite the coming of stronger metals.

Rolleck looks down at his sword. At the barbs that surround his arm. Its song is quiet, his sense for battle dulled even surrounded by these potential enemies.

“You’re much too talkative, all of a sudden,” he says.

It’s time we talked.  “Face to face.”

 

 

Glitter stands on the side of a familiar mountain, cloaked in falling snow. Crooked forests hide ligmists and worse from the failing light that seeps through clouds so thick they could choke someone.

“Riyo?” he says. “Ravi?”

“Your friends are not here,” Tremble says beside him. She is hidden beneath her layers of wool, only her ruddy cheeks and nose visible beneath the brim of her hat.

“Is anybody here?”

“No. Just us.”

“Why are we here?”

“Because this is a place where people meet those with whom they need to talk.”

“There is a lot I need to talk to you about,” Glitter agrees.

“Then talk.”

Glitter whistles for a moment. It helps him to think, and there is a lot to think about. The snow falls, around them, but none lands on Glitter’s chassis. He cannot feel the cold that should accompany its descent from the messy sky. Time should flow around him, but he cannot feel that, either.

There is only one thing that needs to be said.

“I took Albert from you.”

“I forgave you, Glitter. And I meant it.”

Glitter whistles a sad note. “I know. But it does not feel comfortable to be forgiven. Even with my limited experience of humanity, I think it would be better to be punished than to be forgiven when you do not feel you deserve it.”

“Is that what you would like? To be punished?”

Tremble comes to stand before Glitter. There is a wall of snow stacked upon the brim of her hat, and as she shakes her head it cascades down over her face, blustering into a storm around her. When it settles, it is no longer Tremble who stands before him, but Albert.

“Then perhaps it should be me,” he says. “After all, it was my life you took.” His soft eyes hold a sadness that Glitter recognises from the moment before he died. They watch Glitter for a while, then look slowly to the ground. A hooked silver knife lies in the snow between them.

 

 

“Hello?” Ravi shouts. He is standing on a cobbled street, and the sky above him is jewelled with stars. Everything is faded, though. The wind does not move the air, there is no smell of mud or stir of human activity. It is as though the scenery around him has been painted onto walls that hold him prisoner.

And if he is a prisoner, then the jailer is his conscience. He knows this street. He has seen it often in the last few weeks in his dreams. Even in this theatre backdrop version, there is a blood stain on the cobbles at his feet. It is the blood of two people – one a boy he failed to save, the other a woman whose life he took.

“I was your first, huh?”

Ravi grabs for a bow he doesn’t have and paws at an empty quiver. Even Riyo’s donated knife isn’t there. This place has robbed him of his weapons.

“What, you wanna shoot me again?”

The lizard-traited woman wears a sardonic grin. Her eyes are black pits, her hair dark, short and slicked back. She has smudges of green scales beneath her eyes and on her neck.

“What is this place?” Ravi asks, scowling.

“That’s a nice expression,” the girl says. Her slim, forked tongue passes over her lips. “But this is a place for talking, not fighting.”

“I don’t have anything to say to you.” Ravi turns back to the stain on the ground. “I have plenty to say to him, but nothing for you.”

“Oh? what?” There is an edge of anger in her voice now. “’Sorry. Sorry. Sorry,’” she bawls. “’I should have murdered her quicker. Sorry sorry sorry. Can you ever forgive me? I’m so sorryyyyyyyy.’”

Ravi spins around and marches up to her as she mocks wiping away her tears.

“You killed him,” he spits.

“Yeah. So what do you have to apologise for, dumbass?”

“I failed-”

“You weren’t quicker than me twitching my finger? You failed to anticipate how easily I can kill? Gimme a break. You want it to be your fault. You’ve got a guilty heart, and if you tell yourself this is why, you get sympathy. You get people trying to cheer you up by repeating the obvious. That it absolutely wasn’t your fault.”

“But-”

“But if it wasn’t your fault, why the guilt?”

“I could have-”

She slaps him. It feels impossibly cold, as though her fingers have left an icy brand on his face.

“Proud much?” she says. “I could have moved faster than light itself and resolved an impossible situation with my glorious powers.” She folds her arms beneath the Frostburne crest on her chest and stares into his eyes. “There was nothing you could have done to save him. You feel guilty because of all of the things you could have done to save me.”

 

 

Emerald hits a tree and feels its trunk crack. It tilts over her but becomes entangled with another and is left leaning drunkenly against it. It is a moment before Emerald can breathe, and when she looks up, Essomay is fluttering before her again.

“That’s for leaving.”

Emerald stares at her for a long time.

“What?” She folds her arms and cocks her head. “You think you didn’t deserve it?”

“I heard you were captured,” she says eventually. “That… That they tore off your wings and put you in a cage in the centre of that town until…”

Essomay’s face goes a little pale, but she shakes her head. “Did you think master would let that happen?”

“Yes!” Emerald says. “After what she did to get us to that point in the first place. I thought you could see it. I thought…” She looks away. “I thought you trusted me.”

“I thought you trusted me, Em. “Master is right. We both knew we weren’t doing a good thing, taking that sword.”

“I know,” Emerald says. She meets Essomay’s eyes again. “But we thought we were doing it for a good person. For a good reason.”

“We were!” Essomay clicks her tongue. “Have you forgotten what master faced?”

Emerald’s eyes widen. “You don’t know…”

“Know what?”

“But you were right there with me when… Unless…” Emerald clenches her jaw. “Damnit.”

“You’re not making much sense there, Em,” Essomay says.

“I was tricked. Again.” Emerald stands up and marches past Essomay to the twistwood tree, which now breaks through the canopy above. Its bark is as black as coal, its trunk twisting around on itself like a monstrous spring, wound tight enough to break.

“You never told her, did you?” Emerald growls at the tree. “It was an illusion.”

“Never told me what, Em?”

The tree is silent. Emerald snarls and turns back to Essomay.

“She was lying to us, Ess. The World Force was never after her. They probably have no idea who she even is. It was all a lie she told us so we would help her get her hands on that sword.”

“What? That’s not true… That World Force general tried to kill her! We both saw it!”

“We saw an illusion,” Emerald says, slumping against the tree. Her claws press into the bark, but even she cannot break it. “Master, she… She was far stronger than either of us ever knew. She taught us nothing, Ess. Talking through trees, touching the power of the forest, encouraging things to grow… I’ve seen dryads, since then. I know what they’re capable of. Their understanding of life is incredible. You remember those mushrooms, don’t you?”

“Huh? Oh, the ones that made you talk to that tree because you thought it was a dragon?” Essomay giggles again. “That was so funny.”

“It was,” Emerald says, smiling slightly. “But master could control those mushrooms to such a degree that she could determine exactly what illusion you saw.”

Essomay stops giggling.

“And then she could take that poison and imbue it into the apples she gave us.”

“No… but…”

“The World Force never had an interest in that sword. Its defenders were dryads.”

“No…”

“I’m afraid so,” their master says.

Essomay stiffens, and streamers of red burst from between her wings. Emerald tries to lunge forward, but tendrils of twistwood grab her arms. Rough bark scratches over her scales, binds her wings to the trunk of the tree. All she can do is watch and scream. The blood doesn’t look real. Almost like ribbons unfurling into the air behind Essomay.

The fairy’s body drifts to the ground slowly, wings moving fitfully against the fallen leaves until they are still. The air moves, folding aside to reveal perfect, pale-green skin and dark, pine-green hair. A glint of silver draws Emerald’s eyes to a hooked knife, unmarred by blood. Then she is staring into a pair of soft brown eyes.

“It’s been so long, Emerald,” her master says.

 

 

Riyo considers for a moment.

“Nope,” she says.

“Hmm?”

“You’re not really my master. His reality feels different.”

Elvolar Lightseer chuckles. His misty grey robes have a hood that hides his face in shadow, and a golden World Force logo emblazoned over his heart.

“You’re right, of course,” he says. The hood turns left and right. “This is a place that delves into your mind and searches for… something.”

“What? You always used to have all the answers.”

“Yes, and I told you what I felt you needed to know.”

“Nothing.”

“But then, I’m not your master, am I?”

“Yeah. Right. So what are you?”

Her master shrugs. “Something that wishes you to believe I am Elvolar Lightseer. Unfortunately, the image you have of your master is someone who would never suffer such nonsense.”

“So you just… told me?”

He shrugs again.

Riyo begins pacing around her fake master. He stands before her scrutiny with the air of a man who is smirking, but she can never see his face to confirm it. Even when she moves closer to him, the shadows beneath his hood are complete.

“Well then, I suppose I need to figure out what you are in order to get out of here.”

“Consider it a test,” fake Elvolar says. The smirk is in his voice. Riyo wonders if that is just a projection of hers, too. He always did seem condescending when he was teaching her, though his face never reflected it.

“I can’t open my reality, but not because someone is suppressing me. It’s as though I’m just not a crafter here. I’m naked, presumably because I was always naked while I was in this prison. Although…” she reaches up and finds the ribbon still in her hair. “It’s probably not a coincidence that the ribbon from the shop wasn’t affected.”

Fake Elvolar shakes his head and sighs. “It was a long shot, but I always hoped you would heed my advice and pursue a more… academic path. This is torturous.”

Riyo steps forward and punches her master in the gut. He groans and falls to one knee, coughing.

“Shut up,” she says. “Anyway, I did. I left you to go to the apothacarium and read a bunch of books. I’m basically an expert on Calis, now. Unfortunately, I’m not there yet.”

“Ouch,” her fake master says once he has his breath back.

“Actually.” Riyo stops. “Maybe this is something from Calis.”

“Oh?”

“That tapestry. If the whole thing had been soaked in mana, then it would have magical properties.”

“Okay,” Fake Elvolar says, standing up. “What does that mean for you?”

“Not much,” Riyo says, scowling. “But mana always imbues stuff with something specific. Sometimes it leaks through where the Reach is close to the surface and makes pools in caves. Whenever the World Force finds some, they do experiments with it… I guess you know that.”

“How could I?” he says, World Force logo gleaming on his chest.

Riyo sighs. “So, obviously this enchantment is affecting my mind. You said it found you in my memories, which means it’s looking into my past, but what for?”

“I don’t know, and it seems I am not allowed to know. The version of me in your head is flatteringly intelligent, even without the use of my reality. Even so, every time I try to think about it, I simply stop thinking.”

“That’s… weird.”

“Still, it brought me to you, rather than somebody else from your past. How do you feel about me?”

Riyo puts her fists on her hips. “You’re a dick.”

 

 

“This isn’t real,” Rolleck says. He swallows. “It can’t be.”

“Why not?” the creature says. It is hunched, so that both its head and shoulders touch the roof of the cage. Black iron skin laced with thick muscles is pierced by spikes and wrapped by barbed wire where it isn’t covered by plates of more iron. Both of its arms end in blades that mirror the one strapped to Rolleck’s arm. Scars of rust mar its exposed ‘flesh’, and a mask hides its face, held in place by chains that wrap around its neck. Glowing red eyes peer from tiny slits in the otherwise-featureless mask, and they pin Rolleck in place with their contempt for him.

“You can’t get out. Not for… not for nearly a year, yet.” Rolleck swallows again, but he knows he is right. “You’re too talkative, and this place is too unreal. This is…”

“What? Do you think there is nothing out there that could free me early? No power that could draw me into the same space it brought you?” It slams one of its blades against the bars of the cage. They tremble, ringing out their anguish and scaring the silhouettes without to flight. “This cage is our ring in which to… talk.”

Rolleck realises he has been backing away when his shoulders touch the cage. He has been putting off thinking about this moment, knowing that he had time. Knowing that he could keep running. His blade is still quiet, and he can feel his sword arm shaking. He grips its handle tight, but it does nothing to quell the fear within him.

The creature laughs. Its voice is deep and filled with a slow menace.

“You want to fight me? You know how that will end.”

“It is all I have left,” Rolleck says. “My only hope of redemption.” He raises his blade and takes a shaky breath. “If it comes earlier than I expected, then so be it. The conditions haven’t changed.”

The creature’s laughter returns, seeming to ring with the same resonance as the iron that surrounds them.

“Very well.”

Rolleck ducks. The pressure of the creature’s swing drives him to one knee, and when he looks up, the cage is a ruin. Fragments of old iron rain down on them both as the creature straightens to its full height. Rolleck steps back over the twisted metal that imprisoned him, the tip of his sword wavering.

“Running again?”

Rolleck grits his teeth. He is stronger, now, than he had been the first time. He has fought his way back to civilisation and then through it. He can face now what he ran from then.

He takes another step back.

The creature steps forward over the edge of the cage. Here the ground is pale dirt, and it takes the thing’s monstrous footprint – too triangular to be human, with pointed toes bound in bands of iron. It takes one more step, and then its left blade is pressing down on Rolleck. His sword groans under the pressure, his muscles screaming their everything up at the creature. It twitches its arm and Rolleck falls to his knees.

“Swordsmen speak with their blades,” it sneers. Another twitch of its wrist sends Rolleck flying backwards, rolling to a stop against a pillar of iron that reaches from the earth to demarcate the boundary between nothing and nothing. The creature is standing over him when he looks up.

“Do you remember who told you that?”

“My father,” Rolleck chokes, trying to pull himself to his feet.

“My voice is still louder than yours.” It looks up. “It was louder than his, too.”

Rolleck follows the creature’s gaze to the top of the pillar. There is a statue there, intricate in its detail. It depicts Rolleck’s father, a stately man with eyes far harder than the iron in the statue. The hilt of an ancient sword sticks from his chest, its fine steel blade emerging from his back.

“What is this place?” Rolleck says, turning from the statue and allowing the heat of anger to overawe his fear for a moment. “Who are you?”

“It doesn’t matter what I am.” The creature leans forward, the blades on its arms shimmering from their dull grey to a much crisper silver. There are words etched into their metal, but the creature’s face is now all Rolleck can see. “It matters what you are.”

“What?” Rolleck says.

“A traitor.”

 

 

 

Albert’s hair matches the snow that surrounds him. It sticks out from his head in counterintuitive ways, giving him a nonsensical halo. It had been white the whole time Glitter had known him, and he had claimed it was ‘a natural scientist’s style’. He is wearing his dark overalls and snow boots, and the hand that reaches out to pluck the dagger from the ground is covered with a thick glove.

He holds the dagger and stares at it. Reads its inscription several times.

“I was never much for poetry,” he says after a time. “Tremble was much better at using her words. She almost had to translate for me, at meetings of the town council.”

“Pull the thread ‘til all unwinds. Leave them on the other side,” Glitter sings.

Albert smiles faintly. “I didn’t give you a voice like that on purpose, you know? As soon as I discovered you had the capacity for speech, I wanted you to be able to explore it as quickly as possible. I had to cannibalise one of Tremble’s old flutes. You started whistling and singing before I got the chance to make it more human-like, and I felt as though you had found a voice that was truly yours – not designed by me. I didn’t want to take it away after that.”

“I like my voice,” Glitter says. “But you did give it to me. That’s not something that upsets me. You gave me everything, and I’m proud of that.”

“You have nothing of your own, Glitter.” Albert gestures at him with the knife. It isn’t a threat – more like he has forgotten he is holding it – but it makes Glitter feel a little uncomfortable. Reminds him that this place is not real. That Albert is not real.

“I’m trying,” Glitter says. “I’m travelling and learning. Making new friends. Like you wanted me to.”

“It was tough, deciding to let you go. But I was so looking forward to hearing your stories when you came back.”

Glitter whines. “I stole that chance from you. I stole your future.”

“You think you betrayed me. You think you should be punished for it.” Albert has returned his gaze to the dagger in his hands. “Well I’m not going to.” He looks up, turning the dagger over in his hands and offering Glitter the hilt. “You didn’t betray me, Glitter.”

“Why should I believe that?” Glitter says, voice peppered with the discordant notes of anger. A tendril of snow whips the knife from Albert’s hand. “You’re not Albert. You were Tremble a minute ago. You’re trying to manipulate me, and I don’t even know what for.”

“We’re two people and a knife,” Albert points out. “Logically, there are two potential outcomes.”

“I stab you or you stab me,” Glitter says, drawing on a scowl. “And you just said you wouldn’t stab me. Well, I’m not going to stab you, either. That’s too obvious.” He traces out the words on the knife again. “’Pull the thread’. What thread? We’re inside a tapestry, so maybe I literally just have to find a thread.”

“You just complained about an idea being too obvious,” Albert says.

“Well what else could it mean?”

“A thread could be a theme,” Albert says. “Or something that connects things together.”

“Or that connects people together,” Glitter says, tone brightening. “That would explain why we’re here together.”

“’Pull the thread ‘til all unwinds’,” Albert says.

“Does… does it want me to detach myself from you?”

“I don’t know,” Albert says. His hands have fallen to his sides, and he wears an untroubled expression. It reminds Glitter of the times when he was deep in thought. No matter what quandary he was tussling with, he always looked as though he had just switched off for a moment.

“Well I’m not doing it anyway,” Glitter says. “Forgetting you would be the biggest betrayal of all.”

“Leave them on the other side,” Albert says with a slight smile.

“Oh. Then… I guess pulling the thread would trap me here anyway. I should probably avoid using the knife at all.”

 

 

 

“Save you?” Ravi growls. “I wanted to kill you. I want to kill you again now.”

“What’s stopping you?” the lizard-woman says. She reaches into the pocket of her trousers and pulls out a short knife. “Here.”

Ravi frowns at the hilt of the blade. The woman is still wearing her smug smile. Her eyes tell him nothing.

“Why would you give me that?”

“So you can stab me. Duh.”

Ravi takes it from her unresisting grip. It is silver with a hooked tip and words scrolling down its blade.

The woman spins around. There is a bulge at the base of her back that must be the stump of a tail.

“Come on,” she says. “Right here.”

“I…” Ravi says, looking down at his hands. “I can’t just…”

“What? End a life? Why not? You did it the first time.”

“You had just killed a child.” His hand tightens around the hilt of the blade as he stares at the back of the woman’s head. In his mind he replays that moment again. “You were taking others away to be eaten by that… that thing. You were a monster.”

“So kill me, then.” There is a note of impatience in her voice.

Ravi raises the knife. Its sharpness gleams in the starlight, scaring away shadows and guiding its own path down into the woman’s back.

“I can’t,” Ravi says, letting his arm fall to his side.

“Ugh,” she says, turning around. “So boring.”

“What?”

“Well, you just described how bloody dreadful I am, then you can’t even stab me.” She shrugs. “People with consciences are so dull.”

“Why are you even here?” Ravi says. He shouldn’t let the accusation of having a conscience hit him like an insult, but somehow it stings anyway.

“I actually have no idea,” she says. Her midnight eyes don’t betray her glances, but she is looking around. “I guess this is some kind of reflection of your soul? You can tell because it’s so dull.”

“Whatever,” Ravi says. “Since I’m not going to kill you and you’re not going to kill me, I need to find a way out of this place.”

“Everything’s made of cardboard,” the woman says. “Just punch your way out.”

Ravi wanders over to the door of the church. He glances at the inscription on the knife, then shrugs and jams it into the wood. It goes straight through.

“See,” the woman says, peering past him. “Cut us a doorway out of here.”

“Do you really think it’s going to be that simple?” Ravi says, sawing at the stage-dressing anyway.

“Why not?”

“Something very weird brought me here. It doesn’t seem right that escaping it should be so simple.”

The woman shrugs. “Sometimes things are easy. I guess you wouldn’t know that if you overthink every decision like you do.”

“Is it easy to kill a child?” Ravi says.

“Yes. Children are very weak. They don’t fight back.”

Ravi yanks the knife from the door and spins on her, blue light flashing amidst the roots of his feathers.

The woman just keeps smiling, as though she can see Ravi’s thoughts.

The flash of anger fades, and Ravi turns back to his work. He has made a long slash down one side of the door, but he can see only blackness through it.

“I’m different from most people, you know?” the woman says when Ravi’s door is half complete. “Or was, I guess.” She leans against the wall next to Ravi and stares up at the sky, the only part of this place that looks real. “I don’t care about people.”

Ravi grits his teeth and keeps sawing. The blade in his hand was not designed for this work, and he is building up a sweat. His palms ache from the press of the hilt, but more agonising is being here with the lizard-woman, reliving everything in his head.

“I look at you, and that kid, and I just see… Well. Flesh and blood. Bone. Hair. Dirt. You might as well be children’s toys. My parents insisted I was the same as everyone else, but if nobody else sees the world the way I do, how can I be? That’s why I don’t get it. You really care that you killed me. So much so that you can’t bring yourself to do it again, even in this made-up place. Even knowing that I’m not human.”

“You are human,” Ravi says, leaving the knife buried in the door and turning to face her again. “That’s why. I think about how you must have felt in that moment, the pain it must have caused you. I think about the life you could have had and the people you left behind. I can’t stop thinking about it. My dreams are filled with that arrow and the way your head just…” He closes his eyes.

“Huh,” the lizard-woman says. “Sucks to be you. I’ve killed loads of people and don’t remember any of them.”

Ravi clenches his teeth. Balls his fists. For a moment, he wants nothing more than to stab the woman. He knows he would feel different if he actually held the knife, though. So he turns and grabs it. Pours his energy into cutting the scenery away.

“That’s my point, though. We’re not the same species, you and I. You can’t just tell me to experience feelings the same way I can’t just tell you to stop experiencing them.”

“That doesn’t mean I should forgive you for killing Fallow.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” the woman says. “And I don’t think it’d make a difference if you did. This place is made out of your messed up subconscious. It’s not about how I feel about anything. It’s about you.”

Ravi has carved a decent-sized circle into the door, so he steps back and lays a kick in its centre. The brittle card breaks free and falls away, scattering dust onto the faded cobbles. Beyond it lies darkness. The kind that makes Ravi shiver at the memory of the inky black dread that loomed over this very city.

The lizard-woman sticks her head through the hole without fear of reprisal. She looks this way and that, up and down, then turns back to him and shrugs.

“Absolutely nothing.”

Ravi sighs. “It knew it wouldn’t be that easy.”

“Maybe you should just stab me and get it over with,” the woman says. “I’m already dead, and bored out of my mind to boot.”

“Why do you think that would help?”

“We’re in some weird soul realm and there’s two of us and there’s a knife. Everything else is literally just set dressing. How heavy-handed do you need it to be?”

“Maybe you’re supposed to stab me,” Ravi says.

The woman blinks. “Huh. Didn’t think of that. Okay, gimme the knife.”

“No way!” Ravi takes a step away from her, raising it between them the way Riyo had taught him.

“Oh, so now you’re fine with stabbing me?”

“It’s different if someone’s trying to kill you.”

“Your brain doesn’t seem to think so.” The woman puts a hand on her hip. “So what’s it going to be? You or me? I’m fine with either.”

“Those can’t be the only two options.”

She starts walking forward, making Ravi back away. His back bumps into the cardboard wall of the church.

She grins. Starts rolling her hips on each step. “C’mon. Don’t be shy.” She puts her hand against the wall by Ravi and leans in, lowers her voice to a whisper. “Stick it in me.”

Ravi’s face feels flush with the heat of embarrassment and anger. He hates the fact that even a creature as dreadful as her still makes him flustered.

So flustered that he can’t respond in time when she grabs his wrist and buries the knife to the hilt in her own chest.

 

 

 

Emerald breathes a lance of raw flame into her former master’s face, but the dryad is gone.

“We missed you, you know?” her voice says, once again emerging from the tree behind Emerald. “Ess and I had a hard time getting that sword.”

Emerald strains against the wood, but it is only growing thicker around her wrists.

“But we did it.”

Another strand of wood snakes its way over her shoulder and wraps around her snout. She jerks her head away, but it binds like iron, muzzling her and denying her flame.

The air changes again, and this time Emerald realises that it is her master’s skin, dying to match the forest behind her. She smiles and raises the sword so that its tip is beneath Emerald’s chin. It is iron, but rusted to the brown of dry earth. Holes in the blade make holes in its shadow as the light reaches through the canopy to brush against Emerald’s scales. There is no crossguard, and to the untrained eye the hilt looks to be plain wood.

“Ethiswood,” her master says dreamily. “Would that I could see the tree from which it was hewn. Can you imagine the power?”

The Ethis Tree, and there is only one, according to Emerald’s master, grows on Calis, in the centre of a swamp drenched in pure mana. To see it would be just a step away from Riyo’s dream.

Her master raises the sword above her and stares at it for a moment, before returning it lovingly to the scabbard on her back. In its place, she pulls out the knife she used to stab Essomay. Its blade glints clean in the light.

“All that’s left is to tie up these loose threads.” She reads the inscription on the blade and sighs. “Betrayal is always the sweetest when they understand its depths before they die, don’t you think?” She turns back to Emerald.

And faces an inferno.

Pink flames roll from Emerald’s crimson scales, scorching the air around her into a haze. The indestructible bark of the twistwood begins to darken. Cracks are born and migrate across its surface, until near-white fire seeps into the tree’s heart. Emerald stands amidst an explosion of burning sap and tumbling splinters, her eyes glowing with amber rage.

“I’m not so naïve as I was then,” she says. “I’m not so easy a mark.”

Beautiful hazel eyes narrow, twinkling with reflected light.

“You were a good student, Emerald,” she says. “It’s too bad you stuck your nose where it didn’t belong.”

“The only regret I have is that I fell for your lies in the first place,” Emerald growls. “Burn.”

Fire engulfs the clearing, rendering soil and fallen leaves to ash. The flames spin into a pillar and leap into the sky, cracking the clouds on their way to the heavens.

Steam hisses in the shimmering air above a perfect circle of charcoal. A sliver of silver shines in its centre, and, with her cowl receding, Emerald kneels and picks it up. The dagger is untouched by heat and unsmudged by soot. Emerald clutches it and looks around, not trusting that her master would die so easily. The clearing is empty, though. She can feel its trees, and they whisper of empty branches and lonely trunks. Nothing passes them. Nothing disturbs the air.

Emerald is alone.

 

 

 

“Why do you hate me?” Elvolar Lightseer asks.

“You were supposed to be my master,” Riyo says. “But you hardly did anything for me. I pretty much had to figure everything out by myself.”

Riyo is starting to feel cold. This place never got cold enough to endanger her health, but it was never comfortable, either. Even ignoring the things that lurked in this darkness and the ever-chattering mirrors, the very air felt hostile. Like it wanted you gone just as desperately as you wanted to be gone.

“That is one of the best ways to teach,” her fake master says. “We remember the things we work out for ourselves far better than those we are simply told.”

“That’s not much comfort to an imprisoned teenager,” Riyo says. “You promised me the key to my freedom, and power besides, and then spent years popping up in the back of my head and giving me cryptic lectures.”

“Crafting isn’t an easy thing to learn.”

“I only have your word for that. Maybe if you hadn’t been such a rubbish teacher, I’d have picked it up a lot quicker.”

“So how do you feel about me, Riyo?” Elvolar says, ignoring her scolding. “Break it down.”

“Ugh, I hate that phrase.”

“I use it a lot, don’t I?”

“Always. There’s only so far things can be broken down before you can’t see them anymore!”

“There’s always another level,” Elvolar says, the smirk returning to his voice. “And no matter how it irks you, you can always see more when you have more pieces to look at.”

“Ugh,” Riyo says again. “Fine. I don’t like you. I am annoyed by you. I think you’re not as handsome as everyone else says you are.”

“Huh.”

“Let’s see…”

“What comes through most strongly, Riyo?”

“You betrayed me,” Riyo says, then blinks. She’d spoken her first thought, but hadn’t actually considered it before. “You promised everything and withheld it for your own nonsense reasons. You left me here because it made it easier. You treated me like an experiment. A rat, conveniently trapped for you to prod and probe.” She realises she is breathing harder, and her hands have balled to fists.

Elvolar’s hood tilts down, and Riyo follows his gaze.

“I think you’re right, Riyo. I think I’m supposed to use that.”

The dagger is a light unto itself in this infernal darkness.

“Why do you say that?”

“Every fibre of my false existence yearns to stick it in your back.”

“No chance,” Riyo says, scooping it up and spinning it round in her hand.

“What will you do?” There is an edge to his voice, now. Like his control is slipping.

“I think I’ll stab you with it.”

Not-Elvolar laughs. It is cold. “If I betrayed you, it is I who stabbed you in the back. If this is all a metaphor for my unfair treatment, then-”

“Then why should I put up with it a second time?” Riyo says. “I think turnabout is fair play.”

Not-Elvolar’s hood sways as he shakes his head. “That stubbornness, that unwillingness to bend, will be your death, Riyo Falsemoon. Do you really think you can succeed? Where countless others have failed? Where I have failed?”

His words kick Riyo in the chest, staggering her heartbeat and sending her eyes wide.

“You tried to find the sunlight stone?”

“It cannot be found, Riyo.” His voice has iron in it. “Intellectrum.”

Lightning strikes. Its blue-white fury cascades through Riyo’s thoughts, erasing everything as it goes. Her arms go limp, bloodless fingers twitching as the dagger slips from them, clattering against the stones.

“Turn around, Riyo,” her master’s voice says, and it is immovable as the earth. She can only shift her feet in acquiescence. She hears him stoop to retrieve the dagger, but her body is not her own. She can feel him rifling through her mind, plucking at her memories like a seamstress clearing away loose threads.

“It is better this way,” he says. “The darkness here is far kinder than the darkness you will find should you continue down this path.”

Something tickles Riyo’s back, wafted against her skin by some hidden breeze. It feels like sunshine glancing down on her and sparks a warm thought, as though a hole has been melted in the frozen lake of her mind, feeding heat to the water beneath. Thoughts dribble out, weak and slow. Thread. Ribbon. Mana.

Her fingers move.

“Goodbye, Riyo.”

She reaches back and grabs the trailing hair ribbon. Fire roars through her, blasting ice to steam and liberating her mind. She spins and slaps the knife from the phantasm’s hand. It skitters away into the darkness.

“What?”

“The mana in the tapestry,” Riyo says, still clutching the ribbon. It’s the same as in the ribbon. Whatever gives you powers that look like my masters can be negated. And. Gravity Mould.”

A rush of exhilaration greets the opening of her reality. The dagger flickers out of the black and into her hand while the weight of Riyo’s anger forces the fake Elvolar to his knees. With the mana-infused ribbon clutched in her hand, he is powerless. Just a man. Just a trick of her imagination given flesh.

The smirk is still in his voice when he speaks, though it is strained by the pressure upon him.

“What will you do?”

Riyo glances down at the knife.

“Not gonna stab you,” she decides. “I know I said it, but actually I don’t think you did betray me. You just betrayed my expectations. I never trusted you enough for you to actually betray me, and I don’t think you ever trusted me to do anything.”

“Ha,” fake-Elvolar says. “I think you have a lot of misconceptions about your master, Riyo Falsemoon.”

“I think you don’t have a clue,” Riyo growls. The air around her grows heavier. The stones around her feet tremble, then begin to crack. Fake-Elvolar is brought low, until he is flat on his belly. He makes no sound, and within the blink of Riyo’s eyes he is gone, his robe ironed of all creases against the cold ground.

Riyo lets her reality close and pokes the robe with her toe. It is empty. The darkness of her former prison leaps back into her peripheral vision, and she suppresses a shudder. The robe is a little big for her, but she drapes it over her shoulders anyway, tying the cord around her waist. The hood droops over her eyes, so she throws it back.

Water drips in the distance, interspersed with the sound of small, skittering claws. The familiar not-quite-silence makes the middle of Riyo’s back itch. A lingering discomfort that compels her forward. She does not think of this place often anymore. Though she survived it, it stole three years of her life with its wretched emptiness. Her feet trace an invisible path she recalls from the feel of the stone alone, drawing her to the only place she ever felt solace here.

The mirror in her memory reflected a dusty room filled with broken bookshelves. Leather-bound tomes lay strewn across the carpeted ceiling, and in the centre of the open space stood a thin chain propping up a grand chandelier. Its candles were all broken in half rather than burned down. Ladders had been put up around the room by curious explorers, but none of them had ever found anything worth the danger that lingered in the inverted palace. Ancient elemental sentinels warred with nightmares that crawled out through one of the many incursions that opened out beneath the Plains of Chaos. The only curiosity anybody had found there worth returning for, was a girl trapped in a mirror.

In this fake world of her mana-warped memory, the mirror in her prison is just a sheet of black silver. It shines like the night and seems to quiver without moving. Riyo twirls the lipstick-red ribbon around her hand and stares at it for a moment. She then presses it against the mirror with her palm, and her hand slides through the surface. Like slipping beneath the waters of a still pond, Riyo passes through the mirror and escapes her prison a second time.

 

 

Rolleck rolls backward and the creature’s hooked blade slams into the iron pillar, ringing like a death knell. He moves around to keep the pillar between them, but as the demon flashes behind it, it vanishes.

Rolleck stops, his boots grinding sand. The orange air is still and silent all around him. He is alone with the pillar, and when his eyes trail back up to its apex he finds a different statue now adorns it. This one is a beast of iron with swords for hands.

“You made a mistake,” a voice says, and Rolleck is a transformed into a child. A boy with a name, but no future. “In fear and anger you took what was not yours.”

Mallick DeSilva steps from behind the pillar. His white suit is pristine, his salt-and-pepper moustache squarely covering his top lip. Shades of grey at his temples and severe lines around his eyes enhance his stately features. His iron-grey eyes pin the child before him to the ground.

“It was a trivial, childish betrayal,” he says. “But actions have consequences, boy.” The sheer white scabbard at his waist is empty, but a silver dagger appears in his calloused hands. “Crimes have punishments.”

The boy in Rolleck sees his adult self, standing behind his father. Though he tries to act the same, though he wears a noble’s clothes and style, he looks shabby by comparison.

The man Rolleck has become sees the boy he was and scowls. His desperation to please a creature that felt nothing for him. Who would cast him aside for a childish prank. Who would see his own son as an enemy. It’s revolting.

“Yours never did,” he says, and it is his younger self who forms the words. Anger pitches his voice higher and the truth loses its edge. “You always had a way out. You broke rules and laws, did horrible things, and saw nothing but prosperity.”

“Until you,” Mallick says. “You were my greatest failure.”

Young Rolleck feels the sting and recoils, but adult Rolleck closes his fists. In one of them, he feels the hilt of a knife.

“Why should I care?” he spits. “It was your failure. You convinced me that pleasing you was the only metric for my own success, but I know better now. My life is worth more without you in it.”

“If that is true, why do you hesitate?” The knife is gone from his hand, now resting in Rolleck’s. Instead, his scabbard bears a white-hilted blade. He draws it, and pain twinkles along its edge. He points it at young Rolleck. “Swordsmen speak with their blades.”

He has the stolen sword. The one he found hidden in the secret room behind his father’s office. The one that had been bound in frozen iron chains that shattered at the touch of his curious hand. It looks dull and edgeless compared to Winter’s Bite, but young Rolleck raises it to match his father. The same stance – drilled into him since before he can remember. It doesn’t match the blade he wields, and this fight can only go one way if no one interferes.

Rolleck is within a step of his father, watching the scene unfold from the outside. Perhaps, if the actors change, the curse would remain dormant. Perhaps, if reality changes to match a different event, he can be free.

The dagger glints as he raises it, the words etched into it forgotten. It is just a blade, and swordsmen speak with their blades. His muscles tense as a final burst of anger rushes through him, and he drives the dagger down.

His arm stiffens, his body rocked by an impact that doesn’t exist.

“It’s not real, Rolleck,” Riyo says. Her voice is the only soft thing in this harsh plane of hard things.

“I know,” he says through gritted teeth.

The man steps forward into the child’s charge. Swords clatter together, but from here Rolleck can see the way the old man is toying with him. He can see the contempt in every movement. The viciousness in every cut he lays into his son’s flesh.

“I believed I could pass everything to you,” he says as the child stumbles. “But I was wrong. It was mine and mine alone, and so it must die with me.” He kicks the dull iron from the child’s grip. “I must accept that, and so I have no more use for you.”

The child looks up, and there are tears in his eyes. They catch the light reflected from Winter’s Bite as it descends and shake free as the sword plunges through his back and into his heart.

“You found a way to end this?” Rolleck says quietly.

Riyo nods, stepping forward. She clutches the ribbon between her fingers and her reality expands to captures the whole scene, then slams it into the ground as though a planet has fallen onto it. Both figures vanish, and the creamy desert and its warm orange air are all that remain.

Rolleck stands and looks up at the iron pillar, now empty. He grits his teeth. This was supposed to be his past. Not forgotten, but left behind in a place where it could not touch him. Riyo comes to stand next to him.

“So…”

“Not going to talk about it,” Rolleck says.

“’kay. Let me know if you change your mind, though. Looks like a good story.”

“How do we get out of here?”

“This ribbon is infused with the same mana as the tapestry.” She twirls it around her fingers, and Rolleck notices the mark of the World Force on her robe.

“I take it you had a trip down memory lane, too?”

“Yep.” She glances down at the ribbon then shrugs. “I guess I learned something about myself?”

“Do you think that was the point?”

“Nah. Mana’s effects are pretty random.”

“Perhaps when we view our past with new eyes, we are bound to learn something new.”

“Maybe that’s it. You learn anything?”

“I learned that I have not learned anything. Not for a long time.”

“Huh. Well, I know loads of stuff about Calis, so just ask me anything.”

Rolleck smirks. “I don’t want to know anything about that place.”

“You will,” Riyo says, wandering over to the pillar. “Otherwise you won’t know what to do when we get there.” She touches a strand of the ribbon to the interesting metal, and it shimmers like water. Her hand submerges, and she waves for Rolleck to join her.

“Will this take us out?”

“Eventually, I think.”

She offers her hand and Rolleck takes it. They pass beneath the iron ripples and leave the empty desert just a little emptier.

 

 

 

“I think,” Glitter says, “that the thread is betrayal.”

He and Albert sit side-by-side in the snow – Glitter untroubled by his home element, Albert snug in his thick overalls and gloves.

“Did I betray you?” Albert says, looking across at him.

“In a way.”

The snow before them lifts and shapes itself into an alabaster mannequin, its hair a halo around its eyeless face. Its mouth splits open, revealing a savage snarl of pointed teeth, and its gloved hand thrusts a dagger towards the sky. It stops dead, then crumbles away into harmless flakes.

“You betrayed me in the same way Tremble did. By not hating me. It’s a betrayal of my expectations.”

“I betrayed you by giving you those expectations in the first place,” Albert says, turning back to the snow between his feet. “I told you people would hate you. Would reject you for your differences. I was so scared for you that I made the world of humanity – and thus myself – monsters in your head.”

“There are monsters out there,” Glitter says, and Yrith’s shadow plays across the ground before them. Plain and stocky, his malice infects the snow that lies beneath. Drags memories to mind unbidden of blood dripping over ice.

“But there are heroes, too,” Albert says.

Glitter draws himself a smile, watching the shadow shift and change shape, becoming more familiar. The misty air parts to let a figure pass into the space. “I know.”

“Who are you talking to, Glitter?” Riyo asks.

Glitter sits alone in the snow, wearing his soft smile. “Myself.”

The snow falls between them, crisp and clean. Riyo nods slowly.

“Okay. I guess you’re ready to leave?”

“Yes.” He stands on the legs his father built him. Whistles out in the voice his father gave him. “That robe suits you.”

Riyo glances down at the symbol on her breast and smirks to match Glitter. “Not quite yet,” she says. “But one day.” She kicks aside some snow to reveal shimmering ice beneath it, then presses the ribbon against it. Ripples grow, and another dream passes behind them.

 

 

The pair of them make a cliché tableau, Ravi reflects. With a mummer’s set framing them and the knife glittering too brightly between them, all they really needed was for her to stumble back, clutch her chest and declare ‘I am slain!’ before toppling to the fake cobbles.

This does not happen.

The lizard-woman sighs. “Guess it’ll have to be you.”

Ravi blinks away his shock as her claws rip across his chest. He yells in pain and anger, bringing his leg up between them and kicking her away. Lightning ricochets down the cardboard street, flashing across her scales as she tumbles then slides to a stop. When she looks up, she is still grinning, and her vicious fangs are laced with the last of his curse-breaker. She stands and rips the bloodless dagger from her chest.

Ravi paws at his chest and his fingers come away sticky and red.

“No hard feelings,” the lizard-woman says. “But this place is dull, and I don’t want to be trapped here anymore.”

“Wait,” Ravi says, raising a hand at her as she takes a step towards him.

She ignores it and keeps walking.

“If you’re a creation of my guilty conscience then won’t you vanish if I die?”

She gives a wide-shouldered shrug. “Better than being stuck existing.”

Ravi’s back is still to the wall, and he glances down the street towards where the keep is painted above the jagged cardboard rooftops.

“Run if you want,” the lizard-woman says. “You don’t have very many places to hide, and the hunt might be fun.”

Ravi shakes his head, clearing some of the doubt from it. He lowers his stance, and his curse-breaker arcs from the feathers of his upper arms down to his fists.

“Such an exciting power,” she says, slowing her approach and watching. Blue light flickers in her wary black eyes. “I wish I’d learned to use it.” She then shakes her head. “Groven never taught us anything.”

“Because he was using you,” Ravi says.

“Oh, I know. But he wasn’t picky about who he employed.” She starts moving towards him again, knife held in a reverse grip in her off hand. “We were cheap tools to him. I think he was like me – he didn’t feel for us. Could only use us. It was refreshing.”

Ravi moves to grab her wrist as she lunges forward with the knife, but it’s a feint. Instead, she grabs him and drags him into her rising knee. It drives his stomach into his spine and his breath explodes out of him. Light crackles as he swipes at her, but his clumsy blow hits only air.

“I was a good tool, you see. I did what I was told.”

Ravi recovers his stance and growls, dragging at the air with his lungs and blinking tears from the corners of his eyes. She darts forward and kicks for his face. His curse-breaker flickers through the feathers of his forearm as it connects. She tries to drag her claws beneath his guard, but he slams her hand aside. She follows it, twirling into a back kick that brings her heel into the side of his head and sends him sprawling.

“Maybe that makes you feel better. Knowing that you just broke a tool.”

Ravi scrambles to his knees and spits a glob of blood on the crumpled cobbles. They spin beneath him, a smudge of grey and black cloud. He looks up and finds the lizard-woman standing over him, some of the stars behind her moving, some of them still.

“It doesn’t,” he groans.

She shrugs. “Too bad. Guess you’ll have to die sad about it.”

Her foot meets Ravi’s chin and carries him into another cardboard wall. He slumps against it, his ears ringing and his limbs unwilling to move. His jaw hurts, but he opens his mouth.

“What if I could help you?”

She pauses, the silver knife the only clear thing in Ravi’s vision. She squats beside him, and he feels its cold metal slide down his cheek. Though he winces from the contact, he realises there is no pain.

“You can’t help me, bird-boy. Because there’s nothing wrong with me.”

She drops the knife beside him and traces its recent path with her claw. This time blood leaks down through the soft down on his face. He feels it creeping down his neck.

“And I don’t like being seen as a problem to be fixed.”

Her claw trails down after the blood, seeking his pulse.

“I prefer to be a tool.”

Ravi feels the pin prick pressing into his skin, and once again he sees the scene from his dreams. But this time, he doesn’t loose the arrow. This time his focus is captivated by the lizard-woman’s claws. By the fear on Fallow’s face. He sees himself reflected in the boy’s eyes as blood begins to flow from his neck and recognises the same fear on his own face. He closes his eyes to lock out the coward he sees.

“What if you were my tool?” he squeaks.

For a moment, he thinks he is dead. The breathless silence. The empty lack of sensation in frozen time.

“What?”

“If you kill me,” Ravi breathes. “You disappear. I die.”

“Yes.”

“It’s pointless.”

“It gets us out of this stupid place.”

“And how do you know that? What if I just vanish and you’re left floating in that void behind the walls?”

Ravi feels the pressure on his neck lessen.

“That would suck.”

“Right?”

“Okay,” she says, but the pressure returns. “But let’s talk terms.”

“What?”

“If I’m going to be your tool, I need to be sure you’ll use me properly.” Her voice gets closer to his ear. “I’m a pretty versatile tool, after all.”

“Whatever you want,” Ravi says, conscious of every beat of his heart pressing his neck against her claw. His breaths are sharp and shallow.

“I want a purpose,” she hisses. “I don’t care what happens to people, and I’ve been called a monster for that. But I am a tool, and a tool does only the work of the craftsman.”

“I can give you a purpose,” Ravi says. He needs to swallow but doesn’t dare.

“Hmm.”

Ravi’s head is clearing, and the throbbing ache of his skull and jaw contrast neatly against the sharp sting of his cheek and neck. He swallows, and it hurts.

“Then I have one term.” The woman removes her claw and stands before him, her arms crossed. “You remember I’m a tool. You remember what I am. And you don’t try to change it.”

Ravi blinks a few times. The street around them is still deserted, the still air musty. He doesn’t know what he is agreeing to. Not really. But if he can get out of this strange place, he will be free of her.

“I agree,” he says.

The woman hauls him to his feet, then grabs his right wrist. He yelps as she draws a line of blood down his palm. She does the same thing to her own, then offers him her hand. Her expression tells him nothing. Her eyes glint with starlight and blood drips from her hand.

He reaches out, and they shake.

The woman’s mouth turns up at the corners. “My name is Vale,” she says.

“Ravi.”

“I’ll see you again soon, Ravi.” She turns and walks away down the street, glancing once at the bloodstain that marks her end as she goes.

Ravi swallows, watching her go. His chest feels tight, and he is already regretting what he has done here. He touches his cheek and winces as the pressure inflames the cut. Vale seems to waver as she reaches a turn in the road, and then she is gone.

Ravi lets out a ragged breath. The sweat dripping between his feathers now feels cool against his skin. The chill of the night around him is amplified by its falsehood. Vales exit has left him alone with nothing but stars and cardboard.

And a knife.

Ravi scoops it up and reads its inscription.

“What thread?” he asks himself.

“I couldn’t figure it out either,” someone says by his shoulder, and Ravi leaps clean across to the other side of the road, his curse-breaker flickering around his body like a cloak.

“Hi,” Riyo says.

“Riyo…?”

“Yep. Did I interrupt something?”

“N-no. I was just trying to figure out how to get out of here…” He stares at the shimmering logo on Riyo’s robe for a moment, then meets her eyes again. “Are you… really… you…? you know?”

Riyo’s face grows more serious. “Yeah,” she says, twirling the end of her ribbon around her hand. “This ribbon is the same as the tapestry. I can use it to move around in here.” She stops. “It’s a little worrying that you’re the first person to stop and check.”

“Where are the others?”

“Um… That’s a tough one to answer.” She starts twirling the ribbon again, watching as it slips between her fingers over and over. “A kind of stasis?” She looks up. “That’s the best way I can describe it. Once I’ve found Emerald, I’ll pull us all out of the tapestry at once. I don’t want to shove people out one at a time because I have a feeling this Witch Gavira person won’t like that we got out of her stupid quilt.”

Ravi’s chest already feels warmer. His instincts tell him his friend stands before him, rather than some second spectre of his guilty mind.

“It’s good to see you, Riyo,” he says.

“Tough flashback?”

“You went through something like this?”

“Yeah. Same with the other two. Apparently it’s fishing people we betrayed out of our brains.”

“Why?” Ravi says, thinking about the deal he has struck.

Riyo shrugs. “It’s Mana – a natural phenomenon of Calis. Its effects are random, and they don’t really serve a purpose.”

“Huh. So… none of that meant anything?”

“To you, I guess? But it wasn’t part of the tapestry’s great plan.”

Ravi looks back down the road. It was hard to believe Vale would just walk away if she only existed within the tapestry. Then again, since she was a part of the tapestry, she should also have no grand agenda. Why, then, had she seemed so sure she would see him again?

Riyo notices the hole in the wall and wanders over to it. “This should work,” she says.

Ravi joins her and watches as she presses the ribbon into the blackness. Instead of simply passing through the hole, ripples billow from her hand, which disappears.

“Come on,” she says.

Ravi glances once again towards where Vale disappeared, then takes Riyo’s hand and passes into darkness.

Beneath a cascade of stars, a cardboard city sleeps. Its painted windows stare down empty streets and up at a grand backdrop on a distant curtain. The actors have made their bows and exited the stage, their brief story told. The lights go down, hiding a smudge of red on the grey cobbles.

 

 

 

 

Emerald places Essomay’s body on a tree stump. There is no wound on her back. Her wings are undamaged. Whatever magic the knife possessed; it killed her clean. She could be asleep if not for the stillness of her chest.

Emerald sits down among the ashes and stares at her former friend, barely seeing. Her scales ache, and she can feel each breath she takes. The devastation of her anger presses in on her. The line where charcoal and desolation become forest again feels like a cut across her heart. Her master, threadbare though her teaching was, had instilled in her the respect for life that was integral to the dryad’s arts. Had given her a passion she had not known before she left Yl Torat. Though her intentions had been wrong, Emerald had learned so much. Had tempered her dragon’s wrath and become something new.

Or she’d thought she had. All she can see in the ruination around her are her brother’s dire ambitions and the echoes of human tales of evil dragons kidnapping princesses. She had failed to save Essomay. Hadn’t even looked for her. She had abandoned her father and let Black kill him. She had learned nothing since leaving home. Only pretended to. The moment she was faced with adversity, she reverted into what she was. A monster. A dragon.

“You knew her?”

Emerald’s head whips round. Her claws scrape grooves in the ash as she leaps to her feet. Then she sighs, and the tension leaves her body once again.

“Yes. I knew her.” She turns back to Essomay, and Riyo comes to stand next to her.

“Nobody else has told me their stories,” she says. “You don’t have to either.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s my fault she’s dead,” Emerald says, “but I certainly didn’t help her. And I should have. She was my friend.” She turns to look at Riyo, then. “We trained as dryads together. Our master deceived and used us to get her hands on a powerful artefact. I thought Essomay was with me when we discovered the truth, but it was just another deception. It never even crossed my mind that she was still under her control. I…” She stops. Stares up at the sky for a moment.

“We’ve all been betrayed, Emerald. And we’ve all betrayed others. Even our smallest mistakes can be monstrous betrayals if the circumstances are right.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“It wasn’t supposed to. It’s just a bit of perspective. We’re all just as fallible as each other. It’s what we do to fix things once we understand the harm we’ve caused that really matters.”

“And what can I do to fix her?” Emerald growls at her.

“Nothing,” Riyo says, unflinching at the dragon’s anger. “But there are still things you can do.”

“Like what?”

Riyo looks around. “I don’t know. But you do.” She reaches up and puts a hand on Emerald’s shoulder. “If you stop focusing on things you could or should have done, you’ll be able to see the things you can do. They might seem small, but they’re better than glaring backwards and doing nothing.”

Emerald closes her eyes and grinds her teeth against her anger. Riyo is right, but that doesn’t make it easy to look past her mistakes. Her betrayals.

“What can you do, Emerald?”

Emerald kneels and places a hand in the ash. Her claws reach until they grasp the rich soil beneath. The Everstall Song is resilient and forgiving, and that is true even in this false mirror. The nutrients and minerals in the ground here have borne life since long before the first dragon took flight. Seeds are nature’s patience, biding their time for years and decades, waiting for the space and energy they need to grow. Through her anger, Emerald has created that space. Perhaps, through her guilt, she can give them the energy.

She takes a deep breath, then holds it in her mouth. The heat of her pilot suffuses through the air, and when she exhales it shimmers with indigo light. It blows ash aside and glitters on the surface of the soil. She reaches out with her mind, the same way she does when she talks to the trees, and feels the seeds waiting for her. She tells them it is their time.

Riyo stumbles back as the ground begins to shake. Her bare feet tingle as grass sprouts through the layer of ash beneath them. All around the clearing, green swallows black and grey, then begins to turn brown. Great trunks swell up in seconds and throw out branches that clash against each other in their haste to hide her in shade. Around the stump where Essomay’s boy lies, wildflowers burst open like fireworks while a lattice of vines and fronds twirl themselves tight together, creating a shrine in her memory. Behind it, a monolithic twistwood spirals up and smashes through the canopy, its branches swirling out over the whole area.

Nature stills itself, then, and Emerald begins breathing again. She stands up and looks around, then turns to Riyo.

“It’s a small thing,” she says.

“But you did it,” Riyo says. “The only thing we can do is move forward and try our best to make up for our betrayals in little ways.”

“Thank you, Riyo.”

Riyo shakes her head. “If small mistakes can become big betrayals, it can work the other way, too. The small things we do might turn into miracles.”

“I hope so. It feels like there are too many shadows in my past to let anything good grow out of it.”

“I’m sure everyone feels that way, but they’re never right. Come on.” She leads Emerald through her new garden, following the soft sound of water. Just outside the space that was burned, a small brook has polished a stone outcropping into the facet of a gem. The algae in the water tints it green, so that it shines like an emerald.

Riyo pushes her ribbon into it, and it shimmers away from her touch.

“The others?” Emerald says.

“Waiting.”

“Then let’s join them.”

The forest waves farewell in the shaking of its branches and the babble of its waters, then reclaims the silence it has owned since Valos was new.

 

 

The five of them step together onto mossless stone. The chill air bites at them, the clouds swirl low and threatening, and soft rain drizzles over their heads.

Witch Gavira’s Emporium of Silk and Other Quality Fabrics is gone.

Riyo grabs a strand of the ribbon and twirls it in her fingers, then looks around again.

“Hello?” she shouts. “Don’t you want your ribbon back?”

The hillside echoes her own voice for a moment, then falls quiet.

“Guess I’ll keep it, then.”

“I think it looks good on you,” Glitter says. “Look.” His face freezes over, and Riyo peers at her reflection.

“I think you’re right.” She turns to the others.

None of them are looking at her. Ravi is peering over his shoulder, Rolleck is scowling at the ground, and Emerald has her eyes closed and her face tilted towards the sky.

“Pfft,” Riyo says.

“What’s up with everyone?” Glitter says quietly.

“The tapestry did something mean to them and they’ve taken it to heart.”

“Oh,” Glitter says. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’ll make them stronger. Eventually.” Riyo glances around. “Um. Anyone remember which way we’re supposed to be going?”

Emerald sighs out a long breath, then opens her eyes and points.

“Let’s get going, then.”

“Yeah, Ravi,” Vale’s voice says, making him jump and swing around to look over his other shoulder. “Let’s go.”

Run.

Rolleck closes his eyes and sighs under his breath.

They carry on along the hillside, rocks slipping beneath their feet and the rain hazing them, and they drag the gloom of the day eastward.

Book Ten Part Two

 

 

The Iron Pillowcase is down an arm since the last time Ravi faced her. This, in theory, should give him quite the advantage.

“This is the difference between you and I,” she says through her smile as Ravi drops, panting, to land in the wasteland of eviscerated earth that had once been a courtyard. “You are just a boy. Still wet behind the ears and blushing at everything. You’ve discovered your Trait and think it’s all you need.”

The ground shakes, and Ravi dives aside as a monstrous chain bursts from beneath him, bringing a rain of jagged rocks down on him. Smaller chains clinging to the monster’s links sling more precise projectiles his way, and he is unable to dodge them all. Another one crashes into his hip, sending a lance of pain through him. He stumbles as the mega-chain crashes back down and begins burrowing again.

“Ravi!” Emerald yells.

Ravi’s eyes find the Iron Pillowcase, and he bounds aside just as the morning-star hits like a meteorite.

His arrows hit nothing. Even scattered all over the courtyard as they are, he cannot bring his opponent close enough to them to strike his curse-breaker through her as he did last time. He only has a few left. His bones feel bruised, and his lungs scream at him with every breath he is forced to inhale. Even if he can destroy the chains, it seems to cost her nothing to make more.

He puts another arrow to his bow, meets the woman’s eyes.

She laughs. “Oh yes. That’s it. Those defiant eyes…” she licks her lips. “Eventually, you’ll beg. But not before I’ve had my fun…”

The earth shakes again, and Ravi starts running.

 

Emerald is winning. She flits around the cyclops, untouched by the broad strokes of his tree-sized quartz club. Her breath makes slag of his armour and, though his reactions are fast, she only needs a handful of seconds to burn through the steel. He is tenacious, however, and she has not yet been able to burn through his helmet. She growls in frustration as she further singes his hand instead of the enormous bucket that should make for such an easy target. He roars through the pain of his skin crisping to black and swings his club down once more.

All the time he can make Emerald waste is time that she cannot come to Ravi’s aid. The crafter is right that he is inexperienced. She has clearly achieved her rank among the guard by more than just her ability to craft – it shows in how quickly she has adapted to Ravi’s curse-breaker. In how she has kept Emerald’s interference in their fight to a minimum.

Emerald lands before the cyclops and scowls. Though the Darkness still lurks below, a threat to all life in the Song, she can no longer afford to hold back. She will just have to trust in Riyo and the others to get that job done. She inhales her pilot.

The cyclops is not wary of her sudden stop. He lunges forward, raising his club over his head and screaming with the force of the downswing. Emerald feels her blood catch, feels the warmth of its power rush through her body. Her eyes burn with it, her muscles ache with it. Everything seems to go still, each moment crawling past her attention like its place in time has been forgotten. She looks up, and her breath bleeds between her teeth in a hiss that lasts a lifetime.

The club lands, and the staircase down the hill splits in half. The gatehouse, now bereft of the drawbridge that defined its purpose, buckles in the centre and crumbles into the chasm created beneath it. The moat oozes in, moving more like treacle than water. A sickly crocodile follows the new current languorously over the edge and into the pit.

“Emerald!” Ravi yells, then swats the morning star aside with his dagger – his curse-breaker barely numbing the shock that rides up his arm from the impact. Flickers of light lash out behind the ball of true iron and tear apart the crafted chain behind it, but another snake-like series of links strikes out from the ground and grabs it out of the air, lashing it once more towards Ravi. It catches his shoulder and sends him tumbling to the ground with a yell of pain.

The Iron Pillowcase stands over him, the chain dangling from her arm reeling the morning star slowly back in. She puts her bare foot in the middle of Ravi’s chest and presses down, making him gasp.

“Now that your dragon friend is gone, I can take my time with you.” She leans down, putting more weight on him. Her fingers stroke his chest, then curl around a single feather by his throat. “I wonder…” Her expression turns vicious, and she yanks the feather out.

Ravi screams.

“I wonder what you’ll look like once I’ve finished plucking you.”

“Huh?” Momber says.

The Iron Pillowcase looks up.

The cyclops is staring at his club. The wicked black stone is riddled with cracks, and he blinks at them as they begin to fill with light.

“It’s pink,” he says.

Ravi closes his eyes and turns away.

The club explodes. The insides of Ravi’s eyelids are seared pink, and it feels as though someone has punched him in the eardrums. The weight lifts from his chest, replaced by a hot pressure that seems to weld his feathers to his body.

The formless noise subsides, replaced by a numb ringing and the rainfall sound of rocks returning to earth. Ravi sits up, fluttering his eyelids and peering through the dust. The crack in the world tapers to a point where the club landed, stopping at the heel of a flame-wreathed talon. Emerald’s mouth turns up at the corner. She looks past Ravi, towards the Iron Pillowcase.

“Don’t count me out so quickly, human.” She takes a step forward, her wings opening wide and her tail lashing the broken ground. “And don’t underestimate my friends, either. Ravi, we’re switching again.”

Ravi takes a slow breath and breathes it out, then stands up just as Emerald reaches him.

“Sorry,” he says.

“Don’t worry about it,” Emerald says. She puts a hand on his shoulder. He winces, but her cowl doesn’t touch him. He can’t even feel it. “Riyo’s taking the long road to the Reach so that she’s strong enough to cross it when she gets there. We’re going to get stronger, too.”

“Right.”

“The big guy is slower than you. He can see well, but it’s useless if he can’t respond in time.”

“I can work with that,” Ravi says. “What about you? You won’t be able to resist her reality completely.”

“We’ll see,” Emerald says.

“Good luck, then.” Ravi gathers his strength, ignoring the ache of his bruises, and springs towards the keep. Momber Maul, dazed by the explosion, is just now returning to his feet. He looks like a tin soldier that has barely survived a house fire. His armour droops and drips away from holes in its plates. His tabard and mail are shredded and charred, revealing thickly-haired skin beneath.

“Dragon!” he roars. “You broke my club!”

“You’ll have to take that out on me,” Ravi says, drawing to his cheek.

The cyclops raises one arm just below his eyes slit, ready to cover it as soon as Ravi fires. He lets out a frustrated, child-like growl. “Let me help my family!”

“We are trying to help your family,” Ravi says.

Momber does not believe him. He charges forward, eye-slit covered with a massive fist. His other arm comes down like a felled oak and smashes more rocks. Ravi is already behind him, bow raised, but there is no opening there to exploit. He has three arrows left, and one of them needs to hit the cyclops in the eye.

With a roar, Momber drags his hand around, throwing more debris into the air and forcing Ravi to back away. He feels their gazes meet through the cloud of dust and rocks. This close, he can make out the cyclops’ sunset-orange iris shining in the gloom within his helmet. Momber scoops up a fragment of his club twice Ravi’s size and hurls it at him. It skips off the floor and hits the wall of the keep like a shot from a trebuchet, opening another jagged hole in the masonry that cleaves through several floors. And it gives Ravi an idea.

He bounds up to the highest point of the hole as the cyclops charges closer. Mortar crumbles as he uses the broken façade to launch higher, out of Momber’s reach. His curse-breaker-charged dagger sinks into a gap between two stones like an ice axe, giving him a hand-hold. He swings up onto it and jumps, arcing over the cyclops with an arrow bending his bow.

That orange eye doesn’t lose him for even a moment, and so the arrow streaks into the ground between the cyclops’ legs when he jerks backward at the last second. Ravi’s penultimate arrow slips free of his fingers as he falls towards the courtyard, spinning and crackling up out of his reach. The last finds his bowstring, and his curse-breaker rolls around it. The steel point twinkles with caged lightning, and Momber’s gauntleted fist rises to intercept it.

It misses completely. Momber grins. He has been watching the bird boy’s quiver, waiting for him to grow impatient and waste his last three chances. He lowers his guard.

A crack of blue light catches his eye just above him.

The arrow almost seems to have left its glorious path on Ravi’s vision. A streak of blue light touches a point beneath the cyclops’ legs. A spark makes a flash, and then the arrow is moving upward. A dagger in the wall of the keep makes another spark, and the arrow is striking towards the heavens. A final spark – a tumbling arrow, lost in a fall – and Ravi’s final arrow streaks over the top of a giant fist and into a slim slit between two sheets of steel.

 

Emerald flares her cowl and roars. Chain links soften and tear asunder as she spreads her wings. Though her soul is burning away, she grins. The Iron Pillowcase watches, panting. Sweat drips over her bare skin, matting her hair and stinging her wound. A palm she no longer has feels clammy with it. Her head aches with the promise of agony when her reality finally falls, but she pushes against it. The king has promised her everything and she will not give it up, even in the face of a burning dragon.

The ground shudders, and the monster chain strikes from beneath like a deepworm of the Glimmering Sands. Emerald’s claws dig into its first link, holding her fast as she is driven into the air. The pressure it creates is like a breeze compared to Riyo’s attempts at crushing her. At the apex of the strike, Emerald leaps, her wings catching the warm afternoon air. She inhales, then breathes.

A pillar of roaring pink lances through the giant chain, sending molten metal cascading from every impact as it pierces each link. Emerald folds her wings and falls back towards it, then slams them back against the wind to give her speed. She grabs the top of the chain and drags it down, her flames eating at the metal like it’s butter. She smashes it down in front of the one who crafted it, blasting the first link to cracked, glowing fragments and roaring boiling air at her.

The Iron Pillowcase falls to her knees, panting and clawing at the earth with her remaining hand. Emerald can hear the quiver of fear in her every pained breath.

“So strong,” she gasps.

“Still not strong enough, though,” Emerald says, stepping on the morning star and shattering it.

Momber Maul shrieks, rending the world with his voice and drilling into Emerald’s skull until she roars indigo fury at the sky in retaliation. She turns to find Ravi on his knees in front of the cyclops, his fingers in his ears and his eyes screwed shut. Momber is clawing at his helmet, at his gauntlets, trying to escape from twisted metal that no longer disengages properly. As his scream fades, his actions become more frantic, until the metal itself breaks apart in his mighty grip. He twists free his helmet and flings it aside.

The left side of his eye is filled with blood. The blood vessels in the other half of the eye make dreadful cracks across the white, and his pupil is almost wide enough to hide his iris completely. Flakes of orange-white light glitter around its edge, sometimes escaping into the air in front of him.

“No,” the Iron Pillowcase says, trying to scramble to her feet. She winces in pain once she reaches one knee and has to stop.

“Looks like we win,” Emerald says.

“No. No you don’t. You’ve doomed us all.”

“Uh,” Emerald says, returning her attention to the cyclops. “We have?”

Momber’s eye is now leaking light, and orange flashes run beneath his skin down his neck. Crackles and bursts escape his eye, and the pupil shrinks slowly towards its centre. It reveals burning sunlight in his iris.

“The cyclops are sometimes called the rage of the mountains. They’re berserkers. Their eyes are as resilient as the rest of them, but they’re unimaginably sensitive.”

“So poking him in the eye… just makes him really mad?”

“To the point of losing consciousness. Their most fearsome warriors carry blades they use to cut their own eyeballs, sacrificing themselves to utterly destroy their enemies. They leave nothing standing. Nothing alive. It’s where the phrase ‘blind rage’ comes from.”

Emerald sighs. “Ravi, get back,” she shouts.

Ravi nods and jogs up, stopping by Emerald just as the cyclops’ iris closes down completely.

“Are we worried about that?” he says.

“Very,” Emerald says. “Get her out of here,” she gestures at the exhausted crafter. “I’ll try and shut him down.”

“You can’t…” the Iron Pillowcase says. “You…” She winces again.

“You should close your reality,” Ravi says.

She looks up at him. Tries to draw on her anger at losing her arm, her hatred for the bird and his friends. She even tries to clutch to her fear. Nothing will displace the pain, and she knows that he is right. If she doesn’t close her reality now, she will die.

“Screw you,” she manages, before letting her reality collapse and accepting the darkness that comes next.

She falls into Ravi’s arms, and he frowns.

“I guess that’s fair,” he says. He tries not to think about where he is putting his hands as he lifts her over his shoulder. Thankfully her chains do not need to be upkept by her reality just to continue existing, so at least she retains what little modesty she had.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” he asks Emerald.

“Yeah. If I can’t stop him, I’ll fly away. Just get to a safe distance. I don’t think this is going to be pretty.”

Ravi can feel the cyclops rage pressing down on him already. He heads down the hill towards the ruined gate, casting one look back at the giant. His eye glows and crackles, his muscles give off searing puffs of light. He raises his arms and tears his armour down from his shoulder, exposing an iron-muscled chest. Steel, leather and wool litter the ground as the rest of his armour comes away. Then he sniffs the air, his lips peeled back in a snarl that seems to hate the very universe. He turns towards Emerald and raises a fist.

“Oh boy,” she says.

 

 

 

“Illiana Frostburne was known as the Unbroken Wall,” Longshank says from up in the gallery. The stairs are packed with puppet guardsmen, and neither of the Frostburne royals will give Rolleck the Lost time to break through them and stab the heart of the hydra. Illiana’s hammer crashes into the ground in front of him, shattering the marble beneath the carpet and leaving her open to a riposte. Torus covers the gap, his sword glancing against Rolleck’s with an anguished clang. Rolleck grunts as he shoves the blade aside and thrusts in, forcing the golden-armoured ghost back, but it is too late. He rolls aside to avoid another hammer blow.

“She married her childhood friend, who grew up to be a great general. She, on the other hand, grew up to be a brute. She always led the charge from the front, and always survived. Her strength was legendary, and they called her hammer Nightfall.”

Nightfall falls, but Rolleck lunges forward rather than away. The overhead blow becomes a swing in response, but it is low. Rolleck leaps over it and jams his sword into the ghost’s faceguard. His momentum carries them both to the floor, where his sword breaks the back of the helmet and pins it to the carpet.

He dives forward, but he feels Torus’ sword on his leg as he does so. The sound of his heart is briefly drowned out by laughter that only exists inside his head. Pain rushes through him, tightening his chest and then seeping out with his blood.

“Torus Frostburne was known as the Golden Voice,” Longshank goes on, apparently unfazed by the demise of one of his ghost warriors. “The most beloved of the Frostburne kings. Even more so than Tondwell.”

Rolleck forces himself back to his feet. He can already barely feel the cut on his leg, but he knows that is dangerous, too.

The more you bleed, the easier you are to catch, the voice says.

Help me, a different voice says.

Rolleck parries a thrust from Torus and stumbles back. His leg almost gives way, and he has to duck a swipe meant to take his head. He roars and drives forward, but the ghost’s defence is too good.

You broke something, the new voice says while the other one laughs and his sword sings. Rolleck’s head feels full.

“His swordsmanship was honed through years of duels like this one. He won his husband’s heart on the end of a rapier and toured all the Songs as an emissary of Frosthold. He duelled the very best swordsmen and women from Everstall to Tower’s End and never lost. His sword, Whisper, was said to have a siren’s call that would not let anyone escape its voice.”

He’s controlling us, the new voice says. It is deep, but undeniably feminine. Like puppets. But when you stabbed me, you cut something.

Rolleck glances at the fallen Illiana. The armour is struggling to rise.

Torus presses in, and despite the hum of his blood and the oil leaking down his arm he is forced back. More cuts appear in his suit alongside those inflicted by the Ligmist-man. His waistcoat is now a wreck. It is one of his favourites, too.

He is still controlling me, but I can fight it for a moment. I can help you.

Rolleck doesn’t know how to respond to the ghost inside his own head. And besides, he is busy being torn to shreds by a professional duellist. Rolleck has fought his fair share of duels, of course, but he feels clumsy compared to Torus and Tondwell. Whisper’s scalpel point draws another line down his forearm as he twists away, rolling back towards the centre of the room.

He feels a presence behind him, too late to turn.

Jump.

He does. Something touches the bottom of his foot, and he grins as understanding dawns.

“Ha!” Longshank says. “You cannot kill a ghost like that, you fool.”

He hadn’t been lying about Illiana’s strength. The push sends Rolleck high above the gallery. A series of black vision slits follow him up, but inside one of them a pair of eyes widens. The one with an enviable length of well-groomed moustaches drooping out of it.

Rolleck’s sword arm flashes out and barbed wires slash into the man’s armour, wrapping around his arms and shoulders. A pull misbalances him, and jerks Rolleck through the air towards the balcony. He slams shoulder first into Longshank and they hit the floor, Rolleck coming down hard on the old captain’s chest and driving the air from his lungs. His bucket tumbles across the carpet and clangs against the wall.

The puppets around them all turn in, levelling crossbows and spears at Rolleck.

“The princesses asked me not to kill you,” Rolleck says, pressing his sword to Longshank’s throat. “Don’t make me break another promise.”

His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, and his left eye goes wide. His right eye, however, is as black as a starless night. Rolleck can feel him shaking.

“The master…” he chokes, “cannot be… disobeyed.”

His arm jerks up, and Rolleck slams his fist into the side of his head. His good eye loses focus, then rolls up into his head. His body goes limp and, with the crash and clatter of an explosion in a pantry, all of his puppets collapse into their constituent parts.

Rolleck holds the sword beside the man’s throat for a little longer, but the only sound is the beating of his own heart and the disappointed sigh of his blade at the cessation of its beloved violence.

“His strings are gone,” Illiana says, appearing beside him.

“Thank you, stranger,” Torus says, appearing a moment later.

Rolleck stands and regards the pair of ghosts. They both look as they did in their primes – Illiana tall and strong, Torus lithe and rakish – both red haired like their descendants.

Illiana kneels beside Longshank, peeling back his right eyelid to reveal a gateway to the abyss.

“It did something to him that let him see us,” she says. “Once we were under his sway, he could force us to waltz with his armour puppets. We- Ugh.”

There is a flash of blue light. Rolleck blinks, first thinking that Longshank had awoken. But the dagger buried in Illiana’s chest is held in a twisted, blackened hand. The arm has emerged from beneath Longshank.

“Shit,” Rolleck says as the ligmist man rises from the shadow under the fallen captain’s arm. Illiana stumbles back. Her scream starts in the air, then fades until it is only in Rolleck’s head. Then it is gone. Her incorporeal form frays away from the dagger like the Deis Lisanna had back in Fefille.

Rolleck lunges for him, but a flash of blue curse-breaker meets him. He is shoved back and hits the railing around the gallery.

“I should have known the old man would fail,” Groven says, kneeling beside Longshank. He takes his dagger and pushes it slowly into the captain’s black eyeball. Dakness flows from the wound like blood, dripping upwards over the blade and onto Groven’s hand. He shudders, lips parting as though in ecstasy.

“This is not good,” Torus says. “I cannot help you without a host, stranger.”

“It’s Rolleck,” Rolleck says. “And it’s fine. Go and find the princesses – see if you can help them.”

“Very well. Good luck, Rolleck.”

The ghost vanishes, and Groven’s eyes snap open. One of them is flushed with inky darkness.

“Oh, no,” he says. “You spirits have been interfering in a future you should have had no part in for too long.”

He flickers into shadow, his master’s sight showing him the spirit’s path. He can feel a new strength flooding him, familiar and yet still so enticing. He flits out of the shadow beyond the door and rams his knife home, teeth shining in the light of his Trait.

A grey blur mars his vision for a moment, like a guillotine falling past far too close to his face. He recoils, watching the ghost’s back get further away. Unblemished. His dagger is falling to the floor, and with it… His hand.

Groven screams and dives back into shadow, emerging near the top of the stairs. He stares down at the stump of his wrist, then looks up at the swordsman. His left eye flashes, red and inhuman. He grins.

“The master,” Groven says, “will not… be denied.” Power surges through him, and the blood leaking from his wrist goes black.

Rolleck watches as the man’s blood forms a new hand at the end of his too-long forearm, and he feels his smile fading.

It would be too easy, otherwise, the voice says. There is a grin in its voice. Run.

“Not this time,” Rolleck says.

There is darkness leaking into Groven’s other eye, now. He turns both on Rolleck and hisses.

“The master… will take… everything.”

 

 

 

 

Tondwell Frostburne, first of his line, Guardian of the Icebound Walls, King of all Frosthold, made very few mistakes in his life. He took the throne of a kingdom, ended a dreadful war, ruled justly and fairly, and was ever and always good to his family.

He has realised, since his death, that this does not matter. The number of mistakes is irrelevant in the face of their magnitude, and no amount of good can make up for even the smallest jot of evil. Whether one works at fixing one’s mistakes for ten years of four hundred, they can never be truly undone. Not so long as someone remembers you made them. Though generations have passed since the last person who knew of Tondwell’s great mistake died, he still remembers it. And never more so than now.

The dungeon corridor is nigh unchanged since the day he killed his brother. Grey iron doors march through the darkness, barely different from the grey stone walls that separate them. Now, as then, they hide empty cells. Prisoners haven’t been kept down here for more than ten years. Dust gathers thick in the air, but there is a trail leading through that which has settled on the floor. It leads to the back wall, where a hole bores deeper into Valos’ darkness.

“It wasn’t your fault, Tondwell,” Fortissa says.

I let the darkness in.

“You couldn’t have known.”

I could have asked more questions. I could have shown more caution. I could have waited but a handful more hours for when the World Force arrived.

“Or you could have watched the titan destroy Frosthold. Kill your people. Your brother.”

I failed them all anyway.

“But your inability to forgive yourself for it is what made you fail them again.” Fortissa winces at her own words, but keeps on. “Do you think Sanella will be glad of everything you’ve done to keep her safe? The lives you’ve fed to that creature?”

Of course not. But what was I supposed to do? Let her die?

“Would she have wanted you to?”

… Yes. After all this time… She probably hates me more for allowing her to continue living in captivity than she would have if I had killed her myself. I couldn’t, though. Not after Talbot.

“It’s time you accepted that the Darkness is the enemy, Tondwell. That the responsibility for all of this lies there. Even if you made bad choices, they were choices it forced on you with no good options. It only gave you that false agency in the first place so that you would convince yourself you are to blame and let it keep you under its control. You did exactly the same thing to me over what happened to Indessa.”

Fortissa steps through the hole in the wall, her greaves finding rough stairs cut into rough stone. The smell changes from dust to earth – a deep, damp smell. Riyo and Glitter follow her, Riyo shushing Glitter the moment he seems like he will ask the princess to explain the half a conversation they have just overheard.

I’m sorry, Fortissa.

“I forgive you, Tondwell. What you put me through is what you yourself have been experiencing for hundreds of years. We have a chance to make it right, now, for everyone.”

The air grows colder as they descend. This does not bother the haunted princess wrapped in the Chill of the Grave, nor the ice crystal wrapped in steel and glass.

Riyo shivers. “I just can’t seem to dress right for this adventure.”

“It shouldn’t be this cold,” Glitter says. “Something is changing the temperature.”

Fortissa comes to a halt as the narrow cave suddenly opens up. The trickle of water patters around the space, giving a sense of its depth that the flickering light of Fortissa’s sword cannot. There is a soft sound from above, and a handful of stones and dust clatter down the wall to their left.

A wall of snow shoves Fortissa and Riyo into the cavern, sledging them down a shallow incline of loose earth. Something massive hits the ground behind them, blue light skirting off a glossy carapace. The cold bludgeons them and chitinous whispers clutter the air, seeming to come from a hundred different places at once.

“The end is here.”

“The seven come.”

“Cold.”

“Darkness.”

“The world ends.”

“Nightmare.”

“Death prevails.”

“Mana.”

“Light fails.”

 “Destruction.”

“Silent suffering.”

“Desolation.”

“The End.”

“That feels like a bit much,” Riyo says, frowning back up at the creature.

“What is that?” Fortissa says.

Insect-like legs shuffle and a maw of vile teeth opens like a sinkhole before them. Breath like a mass-grave of incontinent rodents rolls over them, driving them back in disgust rather than fear. The creature looks like a beetle, its face and abdomen covered in a thick black carapace. It has too many legs to be a beetle, however, and eight black eyes shine in the firelight.

It recoils a little, then spits something from its gross mouth. Fortissa’s sword flickers across its path, keeping it from hitting Riyo in the face. Riyo just wrinkles her nose.

The substance is white and twinkles with frost, and it wraps around Fortissa’s blade.

Riyo grabs Fortissa around the waist just as the creature begins reeling her in, her heels digging into soil that is too loose to keep them both from being dragged forward.

“Let go!” Riyo shouts. Then, “Let go of the sword, doofus!”

“Oh,” Fortissa says, and does so.

For a moment the creature’s face is highlighted by chill blue fire. Then it crunches down on the sword, plunging them into complete darkness.

There is a dreadful munching sound, and the light returns. The sword lands in the snow in front of them, still wrapped in flame, but now bent almost in half. Fortissa reaches down and picks it up gingerly. The hilt glistens with frosty slime.

“Ew,” she says, then glares up at the nightmare. “This sword belonged to my grandmother, you bastard.”

The creature doesn’t care. It opens its mouth and spits again.

A twinkling white hand rises before Fortissa and grabs the string of sludge before it hits her. Another grabs the creature’s foreleg, and it makes a high, keening sound as Glitter flings it away. It crashes into the wall of the cavern somewhere to their left, ending its cry in a tumble of falling rock.

Glitter steps into the light. His stubby legs are wrapped up in snow and a pair of thick arms emerge from his shoulder panels, but his chassis is still exposed. He has drawn a grumpy face on his glass.

“I don’t like bugs,” he says.

“Huh,” Riyo says. “How come?”

Glitter pauses. “I don’t know, actually. I didn’t really see any until I left the mountain – father said it was too cold for them there.”

“Albert didn’t like them, did he?”

“No,” Glitter says slowly. “I should give them a chance, shouldn’t I?”

The nightmare screeches again, and the clicking of its legs makes an uncomfortable sound as it echoes around the cave.

“Not this one, though,” Riyo says. “Sorry, but you’re the only one who can see properly in here. Can you squash it, please?”

“Sure! I’ll stop hating bugs later.”

Glitter’s right arm swells in size and, as the skittering gets closer, he raises it into the darkness above. The nightmare’s drooling mouth opens wide as it enters the pool of firelight, its voice and breath coat them all in a creeping discomfort. Then it vanishes under a massive fist and a monstrous crash that makes the cave shake.

A moment later, the snow bursts apart. The creature’s carapace has risen to reveal wings that flicker back and forth so fast that they blur the darkness into light.

“Wow, that’s cool,” Glitter says. Then the nightmare smashes into him and drives him back towards the other wall.

“Time to go, princess,” Riyo says, grabbing her by the wrist and dragging her towards the other end of the cave.

“Will he be okay?” Fortissa says, trailing after Riyo anyway.

“Of course. We should worry about us. You’re going to have to face your father by yourself if all I can do is keep the Darkness off us.”

The edge of the cave comes into view, and they follow the wall with a growing sense of unease until they find a jagged hole that looks like it was created by giant teeth rather than human labour. The darkness within exudes a cruel miasma that Riyo recognises.

“The Reach,” she says, staring into the nothingness. “The incursion is close.”

Fortissa takes a long breath and blows it out between her lips. “Let’s go save my father.”

 

 

 

This is not a favourable fight, Indessa.

Indessa grabs the blade of Cotter Lee’s sword, her fingers flashing with blue energy, her heels ripping the carpet and breaking the stone beneath as she pushes back against the force of the blow. She then drags the blade across to her other side to smash away Tolmet’s next strike. The swords crash together and bounce apart, letting her jump back before both try to occupy her chest.

“Is this what you wanted all along, Cotter?” she shouts. “To kill me and my family? To sit on that stupid throne yourself?”

I really don’t think-

“Shut the fuck up, Talbot.”

Black-eyed Cotter comes on again. Whatever the Darkness is doing to control him, it still seems to have all of his sword skills. His flowing, far-reaching sword strokes are as familiar to Indessa as his deep, strong voice. She folds beneath one, then snaps her foot into Cotter’s face, knocking him over. Her hand comes up to block Tolmet’s follow-up strike, but it wavers, slipping past her guard and punching into her side.

She gasps but doesn’t let him pull back. She grabs his blade and kicks out at his face, making him flinch back and allowing her to hook her leg over his arm. Her balance, with Talbot’s simian senses behind it, is perfect. Tolmet’s never has been, and the Darkness has not improved it. She unbalances him and slams him to the floor, wrenching his wrist against the inside of her leg as she does so. It forces him to let go of his sword.

“And what about you, Tolmet?” She pants. “You wanted this too, right? A blemish on the family that you couldn’t bear to look at. I bet you wish I’d died back then, huh?”

“No,” Tolmet groans from the floor.

Indessa’s heart jumps, and her hesitation almost gets her decapitated. Talbot’s Trait flashes, but it doesn’t stop the blow completely. She feels blood trickling out of a cut along her jaw line as she bounces back from Cotter. He presses in, forcing her to duck and roll away again.

“What, then?” she says. “Why did you leave me?”

Cotter seems to take on the fury Tolmet has abandoned, his attack sharpening to the point that Indessa can barely fend it off. The Trait flickers and warms her body, but she feels the impact of every blow she turns aside. Her hand and feet ache from it.

“You couldn’t bear to look at me!” Indessa screams.

“I was ashamed!” Tolmet lurches back to his feet and charges forward, teeth bared. Cotter’s teeth appear too, and he throws himself into a risky attack that leaves him open. Indessa sees the gap, but Talbot’s instincts show her the trap that would allow Tolmet to run her through.

She falls back, letting Cotter misbalance all by himself. Then Tolmet’s elbow crashes into his side and sends him tumbling across the floor into a pillar.

Even if Indessa’s eyes worked, she wouldn’t have time to blink before Tolmet roars and swings his blade down at her. It smashes into her forearm, sending Frostburne banners rippling around the throne room.

“I was sixteen years old,” he growls. Indessa sees his eyes flicker in their void, but the strength behind his sword never wavers. Despite everything Talbot is giving her, she feels her knees begin to bend. “Just come into my majority. Prince. Heir to the throne. Mother was gone, father reticent. I’d lost Talon, my mentor. But the people still looked to me. And I let that happen to you. I failed.”

Indessa falls to one knee, but the pressure does not relent.

“Once, Tolmet,” she says, her anger falling off to a slow simmer. “You failed once, in letting this happen to me. We’re family! I would have forgiven you, if you’d let me. But you didn’t. You failed again, and again, and again. Every time you thought to visit me and let your guilt dissuade you, you failed me again.”

Tolmet’s sword draws closer to her, its blade pushing through the Trait and biting into her forearm. Blood dribbles along crystalline steel and gathers at the point, where it drips onto her shoulder.

“All that loneliness. The certainty that I was grotesque. That my family hated me. That’s your failure, too.”

Her strength wanes further. Her heart hurts. Her body hurts. Her arm falls lower, and the sword comes to rest where her shoulder meets her neck.

Indessa, Talbot says. She feels him take over, keeping her arm up even as she surrenders. Don’t give up. I gave up on my brother for four hundred years. It is a regret that still haunts me.

Indessa looks up into those black eyes. Looks through them, to the brother she barely remembers.

“I didn’t want to hurt you anymore.” Tolmet’s voice is quiet, at odds with the ferocity of his expression.

“But you did. You still are. All you need to do, is stop.”

Tolmet blinks. His eyes are blue again, shining like sunlight off Corsmere’s still surface. The pressure on Indessa’s arm slackens.

And she strikes.

Tolmet’s chestplate caves in, the Frostburne sigil crumpling. The Trait bursts from her fist like a wildfire, grabbing hold of the air and shoving it outward against the walls. Dust and mortar fall from shaking rafters and shower the room. Tolmet hits the throne, cracking its back, and slumps into it.

Indessa waits, panting, as the dust settles, and silence dapples the moment.

Was that… the right thing to do? Talbot asks. It felt as though you were on the cusp of a breakthrough.

“It’s what I wanted to do,” Indessa says.

Tolmet’s mouth falls open. Inky tendrils emerge, feeling around like insect antennae. They drag a glob of black sludge out behind them, which falls onto the prince’s broken chestplate.

Ew.

Indessa grimaces in agreement, watching as the creature grows several more ‘legs’. It seems to taste the air, then turn its chilling attention on Indessa. It springs forward like a crossbow bolt, surprising both her and Talbot with its speed.

“Peace.”

Indessa raises her hand to try and fend it off, but the thing splats against an invisible wall a short way from her like an insect hitting the front of a train.

“Tolmet?”

He has his hand outstretched, reaching for the creature, and sighs as it slides down his reality.

“Riyo Falsemoon taught me more than she realised when she used my power to keep the Darkness out. I decided to try using it to keep it in, and it worked.”

The sludge seems disorientated, and Indessa steps past it into her brother’s reality. She lets Talbot’s Trait fade from her. The feeling of tranquillity that washes over her is familiar – it has kept her from crying herself to sleep countless times over the last ten years. Finally confined to a smaller area, though, it is much more effective. The anger that has sustained her crusade against her family for all these years melts away, seems to leave her mind clear for the first time in a long time. She approaches Tolmet as if in a daze and falls into his arms. As she does, Talbot lets go of the waltz.

“I’m sorry,” Tolmet says. She feels his tears on her cheeks. Feels dampness on her blindfold to match him. “I’m so sorry.”

“I forgive you, big brother,” Indessa says.

Talbot smiles, then turns away and leaves the moment to them. Though he cannot touch the world nearly as strongly without the waltz, he can draw enough strength from Indessa to do what he needs to. Tolmet’s sword flashes through the air and into his hand. The Chill and the Trait wreath the blade in ice and lightning, their ephemeral blue light showing through the translucence of his body. He walks over to where the scrap of Darkness is still writhing on the ground.

“It’s not quite the revenge I have wished for,” he says quietly, “but it is a start.”

He plunges the sword through the Darkness and into the stone of the floor. The creature hisses like it is deflating. Its oily substance catches the Chill, and silvery-blue fire engulfs it. Though it fights and lurches around, the sword pins it in place until the spectral fire sputters out. Nothing remains of the creature.

“The master… cannot… die.”

Cotter Lee is standing. Black blood drips from a wound in his scalp, and his body seems uncomfortably tense. His sword dangles from shaking fingers.

Tolmet looks over his sister’s head and narrows his eyes. Carefully, inch by inch, his reality expands. Indessa senses the shift in his concentration and falls out of his embrace. She keeps her hand on his arm, however.

Cotter is ensnared within Tolmet’s reality, but his countenance does not change. His black stare is fixed upon Indessa. After a moment, she sighs and lets go of her brother. To her broken eyes, Talbot stands alone in the void, but his eyes guide her slow, shuffling steps towards Cotter.

“Indessa,” Tolmet says.

“Shush,” she says. Her outstretched hand finds Cotter’s chest. She can feel the strain of his muscles; feel the way he is fighting himself. She pushes up onto her toes and kisses him on his stubbled cheek.

“I forgive you, too.”

She takes a step back as Cotter starts shaking. His eyelids flicker, showing eyes black like an endless chasm and the rich brown of wet earth back and forth. His mouth yawns open, and sickening tentacles emerge.

Talbot steps up beside Indessa and grabs them, his furry hands gripping hard and ripping the Darkness from Cotter’s throat. He slams it to the ground and pins it like its ilk, watching with a satisfied smile as it is consumed by the Chill of the Grave.

Cotter slumps to his knees, and a new peace draws in over the throne room. The sense of it reminds Indessa of her childhood. Of the long-faded feeling of being at home. Of being safe with her family. She turns to Talbot and returns his smile. Behind him in the void, there is another smudge of light. Her smile fades, and Talbot turns to follow her spectral sight.

All he can see is the wall.

“Torus…” Indessa says.

“We can face him, if we must,” Talbot says.

Indessa nods. “I was getting tired of the darkness, anyway.”

The Chill flares up as they enter the waltz, and the throne room reveals itself to Indessa once more.

Cotter stands up and clutches at his head. “Indessa. I-”

Indessa walks up to him and slaps him across the face.

He lets out a breath, then smiles. “I deserved that. And a thousand more.”

“They’re coming,” Indessa says. “Trust me.” She then kisses him on the mouth, which shocks him far more. “More of those, too.”

“Uh…” he says.

“But first, we need to free my father.” She turns to the wall just as Torus barrels through it. From everyone else’s reaction, Indessa surmises he is showing himself to them.

“Stop, Torus,” she says.

He does, raising his hands. “I’m sorry, young princess, for what I did earlier. My bonds have been broken.”

Indessa breathes a sigh of relief.

“The danger is not passed, though. Tilch’s spymaster took some… darkness… from Captain Longshank. I do not know that that swordsman can prevail. His skills were… a little rough around the edges.” He runs a hand through his glossy hair and glances over his shoulder, expression worried. “It’s like he was taught the sword by a bear.”

Indessa shrugs. “I’m not worried. I need to catch up with Fortissa.” She turns for the passage down to the dungeons.

The whole keep seems to shift a metre to the left, and everyone is thrown to the floor. Light like the burnt-orange depths of a hearth-fire cascades through the windows, clashing with the blue of the Frostburne banners and glinting off the gold of the throne. It is followed by the roar of a volcano erupting. The sound hits the back of the room in a sonic wall and seems to buckle against it, shaking the air until it falls apart completely.

Torus, unaffected by vibrations in the air and the earth, frowns back the way he has come.

“What was that?”

“The cyclops,” Talbot says with Indessa’s voice. She springs back to her feet but stays low, wary of another tremor. “He must have gone berserk.”

“What?” Tolmet says.

“We need to get to father, Tolmet,” Indessa says. “If we can beat the Darkness, all this will be over.”

“Go. You and Fortissa can reach him – his heart was always softer for you two.” Tolmet regains his feet. “I will go and try to calm Momber.”

“He’ll crush you in a second,” Talbot warns.

“I have to try. I’ve read some of the historical accounts of cyclops berserkers. He’ll destroy the city, Indessa.”

Indessa hesitates for a moment. She has just got her brother back. To part with him again so soon will hurt.

There is another explosion outside. This one lights the room in a garish pink.

The dragon is still fighting him…

Tolmet steps towards the door, but Indessa grabs his arm.

“Just… be careful, okay? If it looks like Emerald is winning, leave it to her.”

Tolmet smiles down at her. “You be careful, too. Give my love to Fortissa.” He kisses her on the forehead and walks past Torus towards the entrance of the keep.

Indessa watches him go, then turns to face the dungeon stairway.

Cotter steps up beside her and lays a hand on her shoulder.

“Thank you, Indessa,” he says.

“Thank me by helping me save my family.”

“Of course.”

 

 

 

“Gravity Mould.”

Fortissa’s sword snaps straight, the Chill flame jerking after it as though gripped by a fierce wind. Its light is joined in the air by a deep red glow that promises the heat of a dying star, but that delivers nothing. It casts a shadow across a rock-strewn floor. A figure bent by a bone-deep fatigue, propped up with a simple wooden staff. He stares into the glow like it’s the fire in his hearth and he’s waiting for his children to return home to him.

“I will admit,” he says, voice cold and distant, “that you have surprised me.”

“I’m full of surprises, me,” Riyo says. Her reality fills the space and ensnares the king, turning him to face them.

He is smiling too wide, ripping a jagged-toothed hole in his unkempt beard. His black eyes drink in everything, ever hungry.

“I’m sorry, father,” Fortissa says.

“Your father is gone,” the Darkness says, his creepy amusement only deepening. “His shell is my bridge to this delicious new world.”

“I should have seen,” Fortissa goes on, ignoring the parasite feeding on her father’s spirit. “Should have been there for you.” A tear slides from the corner of her eye. “I was so angry with them, for what they did to Indy. For seeing your devastation over mother as weakness to be exploited for their own gain. I used that anger to justify so much. If I had just… You must be so disappointed in me.”

“He is gone!” the Darkness growls. His smile has turned to a snarl, the shadows making his teeth into fangs. Blackness boils around him, pushing against Riyo’s grip.

Riyo pushes back, sending the king’s expression to an even darker place.

“You do not know how much it chafes me,” he says. “There is always more time, but…” Darkness cascades from him, bubbling like molten tar and seeming to stretch a hole into Riyo’s reality.

“Father! Please!” Fortissa says as Riyo flinches, clutching at her head.

“Your father is dead, girl!”

Riyo feels something tear, and she retracts her reality around herself and the princess. Shadows drip from the king like sweat, oozing over him until his form is hidden in Darkness. It bulges outwards, malicious tentacles whipping at the walls of the cave and writhing through the light. They consume it as they pass, leaving nauseous smudges on the air. In the centre of the mass, a single, red eye bursts open.

“To waste this power.” The Darkness’ voice seems to flow from the Reach itself, hot and angry. “There is always more time, but the hunger… it hurts. The End feels it most of all. We must fill the void.”

Tentacles lash out, smashing against the outside of Riyo’s reality. The darkness seems to grow, hiding the Reach behind hulking sludge and filling the cave with an oppressive anguish. Riyo’s reality shrinks further as the tentacles begin trying to bore through it. She can feel each one, as though they are digging into her brain.

Fortissa growls and swipes at one of the tentacles, the Chill rippling along her blade. It catches the Darkness and the creature lets out an inhuman roar that echoes back through the cave. Its eye turns its burning gaze to Fortissa as it folds the flaming tentacle back into itself. It gives a soft hiss.

“Fight it, father,” she says, glaring into that eye and refusing to blink. “Help us drive it from our home forever.”

“He,” the mass says. “Is.” Its tentacles twist and spiral, wrapping around one another until they form a single inky appendage. “Gone.”

“Fortissa!” Riyo says, but it is too late.

Her reality tears before the overwhelming force of the next blow. The tentacle’s point moves like light – blinding and unstoppable.

Fortissa looks down, to the place where it vanishes into her armour just below her sternum.

Riyo can only look at where it comes out the other side.

“No!” The voice seems to come from inside the Darkness, but it is apart from it.

The tentacle withdraws, and Fortissa slumps to her knees. A flicker-flash of blue light sets the cave aflame, drawing another angry hiss from the Darkness. Its limbs unwind, flailing uncontrollably. Its eye is wide and unfocused, its pupil wrenched open.

Tondwell stumbles from Fortissa, a hole through his chest to match his host. His body is barely visible in the dampened light of the Reach, now shining past the shrinking Darkness. The creature hisses with the malice of a thousand dying souls, drawing back, and a second ghost steps from its embrace.

Tilch Frostburne wears a neat goatee and short, well-placed hair with just a touch of grey at the temples. His armour gleams crimson, the Frostburne tabard proud across his chest. Fortissa barely remembers him. The man who had stood so tall and laughed so much. The man who whose compassion she had wanted so badly to be able to imitate. The man who had made her love him so much that she had followed him down such a terrible path. Her father.

One of his eyes is the pure crystalline blue that matches hers. The other is a strand of Darkness that droops through his translucent form and winds its way back to the writhing creature.

“I’m sorry, father,” Fortissa croaks. “I failed. Again.” She lurches forward and blood pours from her mouth, splattering the rock in deep, painful red.

“Fortissa,” the king says, his words strained. “You have never failed me. You have become so wonderful. Please. Please, forgive me.”

“Gravity Mould,” Riyo says. Her tattered reality reforms around a fireball of anger in her chest. It fills the cave, and the Darkness falls still.

An axe blow of pressure plunges down into it. Its glooping form is rent in half and the earth below it cracks with the sound of a mountain falling over. The eye has closed, but it opens once more on the half of its body still attached to the king’s spirit. Tendrils lance out from the break, reaching to bridge the gap between its halves.

“No chance,” Riyo snarls, raising her hand. Her fingers crook, and she squeezes. Reality bends in on itself at her will, compressing the eyeless lump of Darkness until the weight of the world could not pull it free. The Darkness screams, but Tilch Frostburne turns and grabs the strand of abyss that still links them. His heels dig into the rock without marring it, and the Darkness is brought up short like a dog on a lead.

Riyo pulls, and an impossibly dense marble of foul sludge drifts into her outstretched hand. Her reality snaps closed around it – just a small dome above her palm. She grits her teeth and brings everything into that one, tiny space. Light erupts in her hand, raw and blinding. It fills the cave and sears the walls for but a moment, then flashes out of existence. Riyo breathes out and opens her hand, fingers creaking against cramped muscles. Her palm is empty.

She looks up and meets a quivering red eye, stare for stare.

The Darkness flees.

Tilch is yanked from his feet and dragged along the floor like a small blonde woman being dragged behind a horse. Riyo’s reality flashes out and she grabs at him, but tentacles of night whip around him and start hauling him back into the mass. The conscious part of the Darkness can fight back against her, and the strain on her mind gives it enough time to leap through the shimmering red portal, and into the Reach.

“Shit,” Riyo says. She walks up to it, lets its glow light the shadows in the depths of her eyes. She glances down at her scruffy shirt and the empty sheathes on her belt. She has always known that she must enter the Reach, but it has been a problem for a distant future version of herself until right now.

She looks back to Fortissa. She has collapsed to the ground, and blood leaks from her armour and dribbles from her lips. Tondwell kneels beside her. His body heaves as though he is breathing heavily, though no air moves through his ephemeral form.

“Go,” he says, his voice a tickle in her ear. “I will save her.” He glances up at her, and, though his form is fading fast, his eyes are like frozen diamonds. “I will protect my family.”

Riyo holds his gaze for a moment, then nods, turning back to the Reach.

“Save them. Tilch. And Sanella. Please.”

“You’ve served your family well, Tondwell Frostburne,” she says. “I’ll do the rest.” She steps into the molten void.

“Thank you,” Tondwell says. He reaches out and touches Fortissa’s cheek. The Chill ignites them both, and the waltz begins.

“Tondwell…?” Fortissa says.

Do not worry, my dear. I owe you a great debt, and even if I cannot repay it, I hope you will eventually forgive me anyway.

Fortissa doesn’t have the strength to form a reply. Her vision is hazy.

For many years I used you. The waltz shares power, but if it is not entered into equally, then one party takes and does not give. Give too much, and nothing will be left.

Fortissa’s cold, drifting thoughts suddenly latch onto that.

“Wait,” she breathes.

Thank you, Fortissa. For everything. I have never been more proud of my family than I am in this moment.

“Wait!” Fortissa says. She feels stronger. Strong enough to rise to her knees. Before her, a great blue flame burns. The Chill of the Grave warms her face, her hands. Her strength returns to her as the pyre shrinks. She clutches at her chest, tears flowing over her cheeks.

“No,” she sobs. “Tondwell. Stop.”

The flame grows dim and fragile. A torch. A candle. A match. And it is gone.

For the first time in her life, Fortissa is truly alone. So there is no one there to hear her cry.

 

 

 

In a cave dozens of metres below Saviour’s Call, a blizzard rages. A mist of ice swirls like soup, riven through by hailstones the size of squirrels. Two monstrous shadows blunder through the storm, throwing themselves at one another and crashing together. Breaking apart and then redoubling their attacks.

One of them is whistling.

Glitter finds it helps him to concentrate, even in the depths of battle with a really creepy nightmare-bug. For its own part, the creature from the depths of the Reach adds to the noise by screaming its high-pitched frustration at him every time they come together. Its tongue cannot find purchase on Glitter’s snow golem, and its claws rake harmlessly through snow that reforms endlessly around Glitter’s body.

This, Glitter is happy about. His defences are perfect. A wall of ice to guard Riyo’s back. A blade of ice to… shatter uselessly on her enemy’s carapace. This is his current problem: whether he tries to stab or bludgeon or smother, the nightmare shrugs him off. Albert had once told him that words could cleave what even the finest sharpened steel could not, but Glitter has now said ‘excuse me’ at least forty-six times, and the creature continues to just yell at him. As far as he can tell, the yells do not mean anything that its actions are not already telling him.

The nightmare’s wings flash to light as it leaps into the air, and though Glitter flings several lumpy snowballs after it, it flits out of their paths like a ladybird. It smashes into the ceiling, almost exactly unlike a ladybird, and brings shattered rocks cascading down onto Glitter. Chunks of snow break off him and then are reabsorbed.

For a moment, only the blizzard moves. Then the creature vanishes.

“What?” Glitter says. Only the howling snow answers.

The creature hits him in the back, smashing through his golem and driving him out of the front of it. He rolls end-over-end into the opposite wall, frantically drawing snow after him. The golem crunches back into existence, but he has already lost the creature again. The tune of his whistling grows discordant and panicked. A quick check of his body tells him he now has a small dent on his back, and the panic only grows worse. His defences aren’t perfect, after all.

The creature smashes into him again, this time from the front, driving him further into the wall. He lets out a squeal of terror as a small crack splinters the surface of his glass. He lets his golem go and flails with his snow before the nightmare can retreat again. Ice flash-freezes around a chitinous leg, and Glitter is dragged back out into the caver. The creature fades from his senses again, save for the leg he is gripping.

“The temperature!” he yells at himself. Albert often shouted at himself when he was working through a problem. As though every minute he spent thinking about it was wasted when it turned out to have an obvious solution.

“It’s matching the temperature perfectly so I can’t feel the energy difference with the air.”

That doesn’t tell him what to do about it, though, and a moment later he swings out against the creature’s sharp turn. He meets the wall again, and ice shatters to let him loose. He tumbles back down to the floor and lands in a snow drift.

He had started the blizzard in the hope that the severe drop in temperature would hamper the creature. It hadn’t worked, but Glitter should have figured out why almost immediately. Now it is only hampering him, so he stops it and drags it in around himself, building a dome of snow and ice to shelter him from his invisible foe. He feels the impact when it next swoops at him but, buried like a hibernating bear, it cannot get close.

Of course, if he waits too long then it might decide to follow Riyo and distract her from her fight with the king. That would be awful.

The silence starts to oppress.

“Think,” Glitter says to himself, drawing a set of frown lines on his pretend forehead without even thinking about it. If the creature can compensate for the temperature and the air movement, then he needs to find something that it can’t deal with. Something that will still let Glitter see it. Then he needs to find a way past its shell. He wishes he knew more about bugs. Are their bellies softer? Perhaps its wings are its weak point?

His dome of safety shakes again, and this time he can feel the way the snow moves as the creature begins scrabbling through it. He still cannot feel its body but, if he concentrates, he can feel where it isn’t. Though it is matching the energy of the air around it, it is only doing so at the surface of its carapace. There is a void of nothingness that the air cannot penetrate. If it is moving, however, it will do so too quickly for him to track – it would be like trying to pin down a specific patch of air molecules on a breezy day. He needs more data he can use. More information. What could help him see?

“Haha!” Glitter says.

Then a massive, clawed forelimb breaks through the snow and smashes into his body. The claw leaves a shallow graze on his glass, and a rush of fear goes through Glitter. Snow entwines around the leg and crushes close, condensing and freezing into true ice. The rest of the snow lurches out, forming into a golem around Glitter and dragging the creature after him. He swings it around and then flings it into the wall.

It fades from his perception again, though he still feels the vibrations of its roar and the crash of rock against beetle-face. Glitter lets the snow crumble from in front of his glass and quiets the blizzard inside his body. Instead of drawing in energy from the snow, he starts emitting it. His crystal pulses with light, growing brighter and brighter until all before him is bathed in crisp blue. Glitter feels the photons leaving him, changing the energy of everything they touch and pinging away in new directions. He feels them return after bouncing off a shiny black carapace.

It turns out what he needed to see was the same thing everyone else did.

The nightmare blunders to its feet and shrieks, its wings blitzing into motion again. Dust and snow stream from its body as it leaps into the air and dives towards Glitter. The gap in the air was too slow to follow, but, bathed in light, the creatures is now clear to him. Glitter draws himself a smirk.

The remnants of his golem rush upwards, an avalanche in reverse. They enshroud the nightmare in a cocoon of snow, crushing inwards. Unfortunately, Glitter cannot exert nearly as much force as Riyo. Wings stilled, the creature falls to earth, but its body is too tough. It breaks free of the cocoon with another screech and spits at Glitter. Snow rises to meet the slimy tongue, but the force behind it is far greater than before. It smashes through the hastily raised wall and slaps into Glitter’s face.

“Eww,” Glitter says, and then he his flying through the air. He extends snow hands to brace himself against the nightmare, but it raises its forelegs and claws through them. Glitter feels those claws slam into his sides. He feels the air change as they rise together, the creature’s wings making a furious buzz to cope with the extra weight.

They fly, and then they fall. The creature swoops low, dragging Glitter across the rock floor. Metal dents and bends, sending twinges of guilt and worry through Glitter. But he does not struggle. Albert once told him that, once he has solved a problem, he should not rest on his laurels. He should focus all of his energy on making the solution in his head a reality. And Glitter has solved a problem. Because on the ground, amongst the remnants of a snowy cocoon, there is a single smudge of warm, black blood. Glitter can feel its heat in spite of the creature. And he knows where it came from.

The two of them come to a grinding halt against the wall of the cavern. The nightmare’s tongue ungloms from Glitter’s face, to reveal that his smirk has only grown wider. Two feral claws jab into his glass, making tiny dents before pulling downwards to extend them into shallow grooves.

They run about two centimetres each before the nightmare starts screaming. It flails backwards, but snow floods in and snaps around its legs, holding it in place as it squirms. Steam begins rising from beneath its carapace, and Glitter climbs to his feet with a little help from some spare snow.

“I found your weak spot, Mr. Bug,” he says.

There is a crunch, and the sound of blood hitting rock is covered by another screech. Glitter cannot create the pressure Riyo can, but with enough time he can at least make his ice as hard as steel. A pair of jagged ice swords are now burying themselves deep into the nightmare’s body from the base of each of its wings.

Glitter watches as it struggles. As its body falls steadily out of its control. More blood gushes forth, the swords turning its insides to mush. It slumps down, its legs going limp. The blackness of the creature’s eyes still holds only hate. Its every failing action is still one that tries to reach Glitter. To hurt him. And yet, as that hate finally fails and those eyes lose the shine of life, Glitter feels unfulfilled. He feels almost sad.

“Squashing bugs isn’t fun at all,” he says. “I don’t think I do hate them, after all.”

Glitter is tired. It is not something he experiences often, but it is something he is wary of. He has no idea what his tiredness could lead to, because he is unique. Albert had some theories about what might happen if he expended too much energy, but they had never had time to test it. Even so, he drags his snow to him and makes a sturdy pair of legs. Riyo has told him that crafting makes her tired, but she does it anyway, even to the point of falling unconscious. He has seen Emerald, Ravi and Rolleck expend every joule they can muster without hesitating. This, then, is something people do for the sake of their friends. Glitter draws himself a smile as he walks towards the back of the cave, following Riyo’s path. He feels satisfied. Perhaps that is how they feel, when they are tired. Perhaps tiredness is not dangerous, but a physical marker for a task completed. Something to be proud of.

Something stirs the air of the cave behind him. He turns as someone strides into the light of his crystal.

“Who are you?” he says. And then, “Waaah!”

 

 

A firework display of pink and orange lights the windows and arrow slits that open into the entrance hall of the keep. The ground shakes, the air is filled with the roar of explosions and violence outside, and the shadows move and flicker across the carpets and walls. They crawl over empty suits of armour and creep behind pillars and under fallen stones.

Groven creeps with them. Rolleck cannot know which he will emerge from, and the Darkness within him has made him faster. Stronger. Angrier. His instincts for the movements of a ligmist are no longer enough, and each hit he takes leaves a deeper wound. His breath roars in and out of his lungs, sweat and oil coat his skin, and blood seeps into his clothes.

Run.

This time, Rolleck cannot run. If Groven is allowed to interfere with Emerald’s fight, the cyclops could destroy the keep. If he is allowed back towards the throne room, he could jeopardise the mission to seal the incursion. The voice knows he is trapped. He can feel its taunting tone, tickling his irritation towards fury.

Run.

A streak of empty night breaks from the shadow of the stairs as another orange flash pieces the gloom. Wires slash across its path, but not before it has scored another cut on Rolleck’s arm and vanished amidst the cluttered shadows of Illiana Frostburne’s armour.

“Shit,” Rolleck gasps, withdrawing the wires.

If you will not run…

“No,” Rolleck says, then growls as he manages to get his sword in the way of the next attack. It still nicks him, and he might as well try to fence with a mayfly for all the good a riposte would do him. Groven is too fast.

Then you would choose to die? Here?

Rolleck spins and rips the air, slicing through one of the pillars holding up the gallery and the shadows beneath it. Groven springs from a different shadow, and Rolleck leaps over him. Before he has landed, Groven has vanished into shadow once more.

Rolleck grits his teeth.

Let me give you just a hint. A taste.

“No!” Rolleck yells, but it is too late. Wires tighten around his heart and his veins burn with power. Time seems to slow, and his red eye shows him a world of muted grey. A crimson smudge flits across his vision, moving from the edge of one of the pillars to a stack of shattered armour at the top of the stairs. His sword is already rising as Groven leaves his new hiding place, and it cleaves through shadow and light. Goven streaks past him with a scream and hits the floor. The shadows that hid him fall away, letting blood hit the carpet in a steady stream.

A moment later, the entire staircase explodes, drenching the hall in dust and debris. Fragments of armour clash against flying masonry before coming to a chaotic rest on the carpet.

The wires loosen, and Rolleck falls to his knees, panting. Every inch of him aches like he has been torn apart and stitched back together. Near the broken door, Groven lies clutching his side. Blood seeps from a massive gash there, but already the Darkness is oozing through him. It dribbles over the wound and presses in, causing a flash of blinding pain and then a soft mellow of relief.

He rises to his feet, grinning wide, and advances on the winded swordsman.

Looks like it wasn’t quite enough, the voice says. There is a false modesty to it, and Rolleck knows that Groven only lives because the voice let him. Perhaps, if you ask, I will give you a little more.

“Fuck you,” Rolleck gasps.

One day, you will need it too much to say no, the voice says. But even if you don’t, I’m still behind you.

Groven extends a blade of darkness from his overlong forearm. Its edge bleeds shadow and the soft blue light of the Trait alternately, making it strobe.

“The master cannot be killed,” Groven says. There is a child-like glee in it. “He will wrap this world in Darkness, like he has countless others.”

“Did you always serve a monster, Groven?”

The spy looks up to the broken stairs. Prince Tolmet stands at their head, his armour battered but his eyes as clear as fresh-formed ice.

Groven blinks. “Of course. The master has always called to me. He brought me here. Showed me the holes in your family, in your hearts. Manipulating Tilch and Tondwell was the easiest thing in the world.”

“You…” Tolmet says, his expression darkening. He grabs the hilt of his sword. “You killed my mother, didn’t you?”

Groven gives a broken smile. “Such a terrible illness. A few dark whispers turned it into an assassination and a threat. A few nudges convinced a ghost to appear. Then it was just a case of adding two and two. Even a mind as slow as Tilch’s could see that his wife might not be gone forever. That he might see her again, if only he had whatever power Tondwell did. Whatever power was left lying down there in that dungeon…”

Tolmet’s teeth grind together. His sword clears its sheath in a rush, rage giving it power.

“Peace.”

Groven winces as the prince’s reality touches him. He feels the Darkness within him tense.

“A filthy power.”

“You’ve brought so much pain to us,” Tolmet says.

“There was nothing you could do to stop me then,” Groven says, watching the shadows shift as a new burst of pink flame outside casts everything into stark relief. “And there is nothing you can do to stop me now.” The shadows settle amongst the rubble in front of Tolmet, and Groven flashes into darkness.

Rolleck leans forward and, with a yell, drives his sword into his own shadow.

Tolmet blinks and takes a step back as Groven stumbles out of the shadows before him. Blood spurts from the spy’s chest and splashes at Tolmet’s feet.

They both stare at the crimson stain in front of them for a second, then Groven smiles.

“The master…” he says, “cannot…”

Tolmet’s sword makes a perfect arc of steel. His anger for the spymaster, so hot and fresh that he is not even sure it is real yet, draws a terrible roar from his throat. For the first time, his reality moves. Not just fostering peace, but creating it. Silencing the thoughts of war and violence with a shock of tranquil stillness.

Groven’s instincts flee him, his hatred seems to flutter away on a soft breeze. Suddenly, the Darkness feels distant. He feels as though he can see a path to peace wending its way between the black stains on his soul.

Then he feels Tolmet’s sword in his neck.

The spymaster’s head rolls from his body and bounces down what remains of the stairs, coming to a stop at Rolleck’s feet. His mouth yawns open, and inky tentacles clutch at the fibre of the carpet. They drag Darkness from his mouth, and Rolleck watches, fascinated, as the creatures tries to crawl away from him.

“Don’t let it escape,” Tolmet shouts.

“No, I suppose I shouldn’t,” Rolleck says. He walks after the pitiful lump of void and plunges his sword into it. It dies silently, writhing in its agony and then falling to pieces and fading away.

Tolmet struggles down the ruined stairs and joins Rolleck.

“Thank you, swordsman,” he says.

“Don’t mention it, your highness.” Rolleck says. “You killed him, after all.”

The keep shakes and light floods the room again.

“Perhaps we should both save out thanks for when we’re actually safe, though,” he says, glancing out of the door and then looking down at his sword.

“I…” Tolmet says. “I’m going to try and talk Momber down.”

“The cyclops?”

“Yes.”

Rolleck blows out a breath, then shakes his head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. Not in this state.”

Tolmet nods. “You have already done more than anybody could ever have asked of you. It is strange to think we crossed blades little more than a day ago.”

“Riyo always counts it as a victory as long as we make some friends as we go,” Rolleck says.

“She’s quite remarkable,” Tolmet says. “Far better suited to leadership than I.”

“I wouldn’t sell yourself too short, your highness,” Rolleck says, patting the prince on the shoulder. “Riyo leads a group of four idiots. You’ve been leading a whole country since you were just a boy, if I understand the story right.”

“I led us here. To this mess.”

“A glob of malicious shit from the Reach caused this mess,” Rolleck says. “You led as best you could before it and half the people loved you in spite of the Darkness’ machinations. Once it’s gone, you can go on leading.”

“Do you really think they will allow me to?”

The keep shakes again.

“If you can talk the cyclops down from the ledge, they’ll believe you can do anything.” Rolleck twirls his moustache. “Heck, if you can do that, I’d probably be convinced to follow you into the Reach.”

Tolmet smirks. “Thank you. That is where I will begin.” He sheaths his sword. “Even if the people will not have me, Momber is my friend. I owe it to him to try and save him.”

“Best of luck to you,” Rolleck says as the prince heads for the door. He then sits down. Of things owed, he knows an unfortunate amount.

The voice laughs as wires tighten and the pain begins.

 

 

 

The energy coursing through Momber Maul is ludicrous. His skin glows with it and turns aside Emerald’s claws as though it is tempered steel. His eye laser vaporises everything it comes into contact with, leaving a streak of explosions in its wake. His fists fall like the iron-shell colossi that jump off the cliffs of the Timbre Song to squash their prey. The world shakes, crumbles and roars as Emerald flits around and through the cyclops’ rage.

Her hottest flame will burn him, but he doesn’t seem to care. Blackened wounds ooze hot, red blood from a dozen places on his body. She had hoped to wear him down by piling up the little injuries while dodging his attacks, but at this rate her cowl will kill her long before he finally tires. She can feel her veins twinging already.

The cyclops’ eye pulses orange, and Emerald darts in towards him again. A burst of flame draws his rage straight at her. She feels his roar deep in her chest, but she stands defiant before it, her cowl flaring. The crackle of orange lightning across his iris tells her it is the last moment, and her talons break the ground below her as she leaps. The laser rips into the ground, burning perhaps even to the centre of Valos, and then shaking the hill as more explosions follow the beam down.

The first few lasers laid waste to lines of houses and pitted holes in the city walls, but since then Emerald has been able to point the cyclops’ ire down into the earth or up into the unsuspecting clouds.

He brings his massive hands together like he is attempting to catch a fly, and Emerald flaps her wings to take herself out of reach. She then breathes down at him – a lash of flame so potent it would embarrass the deepest magmas of Yl Torat. The flame scores a line of charred flesh and boiling blood across his left shoulder and he screams in mindless anger. He stamps his foot and smashes more of the south tower of the keep into dust with a flailing fist.

“Momber!”

The cyclops turns away from her and directs his roar at the door of the keep, where Prince Tolmet stands in dented, bloodied armour. His sword is sheathed, and his hands are raised placatingly.

“Oh no,” Emerald says. She drops to the ground and springs forward, surging flame into her left fist. Her cowl fades from the rest of her body, focusing her power into a single place.

“Listen to me, Momber!” Tolmet says, his voice quavering. The eye that burns before him is not the one that creased at the corners when a young Tolmet had pulled a silly face. “It’s okay, now! We’re safe! Me, Indessa, Fortissa…”

The eye is crackling, warping the air before it and glowing with the promise of fire.

“Momber!” Tolmet begs.

The cyclops only roars again in response.

A scaled foot breaks the ground in front of Momber, and Emerald the dragon slams a neon pink uppercut into Momber’s chin. A monstrous explosion turns everything else pink for a heartbeat, then a pillar of orange light reaches for the afternoon sky. The clouds part in a circle around it, then a line of firework bursts follows its path into the heavens.

Tolmet, squinting through eyes made murky by painful light and twisting a finger in his ear to try and root out the dreadful ringing that now fills them, recovers his feet. Emerald lands in front of him and throws a scowl over her shoulder.

“You should not be here, Prince.”

“I was closest to Momber,” he says, hearing the guilt in his own voice. “I thought I could…”

Orange lightning crackles through Momber, lighting his skin and sparking between his teeth as he snarls blind hatred towards both of them. Tolmet is struck again with the feeling that he does not know the creature before him.

He shakes his head. “I can,” he says, looking past Emerald. “Momber! Please! Hear my voice! It’s over! We won!”

Emerald gathers her flames. She is getting better at controlling them – using her cowl more effectively. It is burning hot now, though. Scorching her insides as it courses through her. Her left hand feels like it has been cooked. She flexes it and growls at the pain. Even so, she lets it fill with flame once more, watches them seep more strongly from beneath her scales.

“Momber! Please, it’s me, Tolmet! You’ve served my family for twenty years! Saved our lives!”

Momber Maul lumbers forward. His right arm swings back, and Emerald roars. The punch comes like a falling star, and Emerald rises to meet it. Their fists collide in a cascade of light and sound that cracks the firmament and raises dust and rock into the air.

Emerald is thrown backwards into the keep. The walls break around her like they are made from paper. She crashes through the throne, bursting it into splinters of wood and globules of molten gold, before tearing through the Frostburne crest on the back wall. She comes to a halt buried in the wall that surrounds the keep, stone crumbling down around her. She groans, then holds her breath. She cannot tell whether she hurts so much because her insides are on fire, or because her bones have been shaken loose of her muscles. Her cowl slowly flickers away as her blood is starved of oxygen, and she takes a long, painful breath. More mortar trickles down over her shoulder, but she does not have the energy to pull herself free. Not yet, anyway. She feels almost comfortable, lodged in the wall.

Tolmet regains his feet once more and finds himself at the lip of a crater. Some of the keep’s south tower has fallen into it, and amidst its rubble lies Momber Maul. His right arm is a blackened wreck, twisted to a strange angle. His eye is closed, his body still. He looks as peaceful as he always has when asleep. Tolmet slides down into the depression and approaches him cautiously. His skin no longer fizzes with the glow of subdermal lightning, but his fists are still larger than Tolmet.

“Momber?” he says, touching the cyclops’ giant finger.

He stirs. Tolmet takes a few hasty steps back as Momber sits up. When he opens his eye, that furious light is still inside it. His lips part in a snarl, his left arm rises.

Then he blinks, and his pupil opens. The light of his iris fades, and he blinks a few more times, then winces, looking down at his right arm.

“Prince Tolmet?” he says, massive brow furrowing. “What happened?”

Tolmet breathes a sigh of relief. “You fought well, Momber.”

“I did?”

“Yes.”

Momber looks around. Sees the battered keep and the trashed courtyard.

“Hurts,” he says, his voice quiet.

“I know. We’re all hurt, Momber.”

“Don’t like not remembering. Don’t like darkness in my head.”

“The Darkness is gone now,” Tolmet says. He turns back to the keep and adds, “I hope,” under his breath.

 

 

 

A horrible red light illuminates Princess Fortissa’s face. The way the Reach moves in this confined space makes her think of swarming insects more than lava oozing. Her eyes still feel raw from crying. Her body feels cold from the silence and emptiness around her. The sword in her hand is so heavy it is a wonder she hasn’t dropped it yet. Still, she waits. Riyo Falsemoon has promised to bring back her father, and she has walked into the Reach itself to do it. The least she can do is wait for her return.

“So, it is still here,” someone says, making Fortissa jump. She spins around to find a woman behind her. Her dark skin is broken in places by patches of crystal, like amber windows into her body. She is wearing an outfit that incorporates purple and silver cloth with old-looking leather armour. The light of the Reach slips over her bald head and shines in her violet eyes.

“You’re the crafter my brother hired,” Fortissa says. A sense of unease slides over her, and she tightens her grip on her sword.

“Ynara Velvette,” the woman says, still focused on the Reach. Her mouth is tight, her eyes narrow. “Amberritz.”

Fortissa glances around. She can see no sign of the woman’s reality, but decides she must have opened it. She raises her sword.

“Though I have fulfilled my contract with your brother already, I have decided to offer you an additional service, free of charge.” She gives Fortissa a grim smile. “Consider it a gift of my former employer.”

Something gold flickers through the air and Fortissa manages to snatch it with her off-hand. It is a coin, black and gold.

“The World Force…” Fortissa says, looking back up at Ynara. “Why?”

“As I said, I am a former member. It is by chance that I came here, but it is a fortuitous chance, for you.” She raises a gloved hand. “Stand aside, and I will close the incursion.”

“Wait!” Fortissa says, causing the woman to scowl. “My… my friend is still inside.”

Ynara’s expression sours further. “If your friend went inside then they are dead. The power I felt earlier was… I cannot risk it coming back. Move.”

“I won’t.” Fortissa sets her feet.

“Then I will move you.”

Fortissa tries to anticipate Ynara’s attack, but it is useless. One moment she is holding her stance, the next, she is encased in amber up to her neck. She cannot move but to gasp. The block of crystal slides across the ground, kicking up a trail of dirt as she is moved aside.

“This is for the good of your kingdom, Princess. The dangers an incursion presents…” She touches the chunk of amber in her cheek and remembers the sensation of burning cold. Of powerlessness and terror. A shudder runs through her.

“Wait. Please,” Fortissa says. “Just a few minutes. Please.”

Ynara shakes her head. “It is too dangerous.” She extends her hand again, spreading her index finger and thumb. Yellow crystal forms over the surface of the Reach in a delicate spiral, creeping inwards until the two strands meet in the centre. For a moment, yellow and red are balanced in a vortex of colour. Then, the crystal begins to spin. Ynara pushes, driving the Reach back.

The sound of footsteps echoes down through the cave. The gloom beyond the light of the Reach clatters with the noise, and a moment later Indessa and Cotter Lee emerge from it.

“Fortissa!”

“Indy! Stop her!”

Ynara turns from the Reach and raises her other hand. A wall of yellow flashes into existence, blocking the entire cave.

Indessa puts a Trait-wreathed fist straight through it, then rips it aside. It crumbles into amber fairy dust around her as she steps through.

“Tch,” Ynara says. She plucks something silvery from her pocket and casts it forward. The air between her and Indessa shimmers a translucent yellow, and another wall forms. This one wavers like imagination made unconvincingly real. Indessa tries to smash it, and only ends up hurting her knuckles.

“Talbot?”

It… whatever it is, it dissipated my trait. I’ve never seen anything like it.

“What did you do?” Fortissa says, catching movement out of the corner of her eye.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ynara says, still focused on the Reach. “Your sister cannot break it.”

“Princess,” Torus Frostburne whispers.

Fortissa doesn’t look at him. “Please, just give Riyo a chance.”

The crafter ignores her. The whizzing spiral of crystal is now a blur.

“Please allow me to waltz with you,” Torus says, glancing at Ynara. It seems she cannot see him, however. “Together we can break free of her crafting.”

Fortissa nods.

The cave begins to shake. Rock starts folding away from the edges of Ynara’s barrier, making space around it.

Ynara’s head jerks around again, her expression fierce. “That damn sword.”

The barrier fades away, returning to the same silver glimmer that birthed it in the first place. It flickers back into Ynara’s hand. Indessa follows it, her fist aglow with the Trait. Cotter withdraws his sword from the ground and lunges after her. With another silver glimmer, a lance of yellow light strikes Indessa aside. Cotter’s foot comes down on a smudge of twinkling yellow, and within a heartbeat the crystal encases him completely.

Then Fortissa hits Ynara in the stomach, sending her sailing into the wall. She hits feet first and crouches into it, then flips off it onto the floor. There is a crunch from the Reach, and the spinning crystal crumbles and fades to nothing. The Reach resurges, seeming to worm its way further out into the air.

“You fools,” Ynara says, face a wreck of anger and fear. “You have no idea what is coming for us through that portal.”

Indessa rolls to her feet and grabs Cotter’s cage. She squeezes, and the crystal cracks apart with a satisfying clink.

“Yes, we do,” Fortissa says, levelling her sword and falling into a stance she is not quite familiar with, but which Torus wears like a cat wears its fur. “Riyo Falsemoon.”

 

 

 

The Reach is not what Riyo had expected. In truth, she is not sure exactly what she had expected, but it was not a forest. Behind her, the portal glows and oozes, but around it is only dark crimson rock. She has emerged from a cliff face that extends up into darkness, left into darkness, and right into darkness. It is like a wall where the world just comes to an end.

The forest before her is black. What look like pine trees bear needles of obsidian slightly lighter in colour than the gnarled trunks and branches that support them. Grey cobwebs hang from everything, and a gloomy mist, alive with grey light, creeps across the floor and clambers the bark of the trees.

Off to one side, a short way from the portal, an inky sludge oozes around the base of a monstrous tree. Riyo approaches it, but it does not respond to her. She grabs at it with her reality and feels it shy away, try to flee as gravity shifts around it; pulling it towards Riyo. It gloops from the tree trunk in a steady trickle, its resistance meagre and weak, until it is all gathered in a sphere before Riyo. She crushes it, wondering at the lack of effort it requires. Then again, the tree now looks no different to the rest of the forest. She has no idea why the Darkness goop was even there.

She turns and glares out into the forest. The Darkness has taken the king, and she needs to get him back. The portal’s glow probably won’t be enough to let her find it again, but as long as she can reach the infinite wall, she should be able to find her way back. She heads off into the forest.

“Um,” a voice says next to her, and she jumps ten feet in the air, landing on the branch of a tree.

“Whozat?” she says, eyes flickering between the trunks of trees and the shadows that claw at them.

The air flickers, and a woman appears on the ground below her. Her hair is long and black, starting at the most severe widow’s peak Riyo has ever seen. Her cheeks and forehead are speckled with silver scales, and her eyes are a little too big and a little too round. She is wearing a long, white summer dress that shows more scales on her chest and arms.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I wasn’t sure…” She looks around the forest, a shiver running through her body. “Where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“That thing. The one that took me. The one that killed…” She clutches at her chest.

“You’re the old ghost,” Riyo says, hopping from the tree and drifting down to her. “Sarsaparilla.”

“Sanella…”

“Right. The old king told me to find you.”

“Tondwell? He’s still alive?”

“No. He’s a ghost.” Riyo cocks her head to one side. “How long have you been here?”

“I… I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like so very long. Perhaps a few weeks? After that… thing… inside Tondwell killed Talbot, he wrapped me in that cold darkness. I couldn’t see or speak or…” she shivers again. “Where is this place, anyway?”

“We’re in the Reach,” Riyo says. “And I don’t want you to panic,” she adds quickly as the ghost’s face somehow goes even paler, “but I think more time might have passed than you think. Tondwell has been a ghost for like four hundred years.”

“What?”

“It’s a long story,” Riyo says, turning back to the forest, “and I don’t remember a lot of it. I’ll let the princesses fill you in once we get out of here.”

“Um. Okay. Where’s the way out?”

“Oh, we still have someone else to save before we can leave. Another ghost.”

“We?”

“Yeah. Come on. We can all leave together once I’ve smashed the Darkness and saved the king. Or the king’s ghost, I guess. Hey! I guess that Toilet guy is technically king now.”

“Toilet guy?”

“The prince. I dunno, all of them have names that start with ‘T’. I sort of lost track.”

Riyo leads a bewildered Sanella deeper into the forest. The mist roils around their legs, seeming to flow away from the centre of the forest and towards the cliff behind them. Riyo walks against it, watching the darkness around her as it wanders between the trees. The silence reminds her of being in space – their footfalls are soundless, and even though the branches move as if there is a breeze, they do not rustle. The air smells like that of a dusty library rather than a pine forest.

“Can you really defeat that thing?” Sanella says when the oppressive emptiness becomes too much.

“Maybe,” Riyo says.

A cold, ugly laughter rolls through the forest.

Riyo frowns. “Somebody thinks I can’t, though.”

The trees fall away as they keep walking, until they are standing in a clearing of warm grey sand. The mist forms a knee-high wall around the space but does not venture into it. The ghost king stands in the centre of the clearing, his eyes as black and empty as the sky. Riyo stops in front of him.

“Welcome to my domain, crafter,” the king says without moving his mouth.

“Give him back,” Riyo says.

He laughs. “You have stolen away the fruit of my hard work by your obstinacy. You have dragged us further from the Crux with your meddling. And after all that, you dare walk through the seat of my power and make demands of me?”

“Um,” Sanella says, glancing around. The mist is gone. The trees at the edge of the clearing which had been visible by its light have faded into the starless night that rules this place.

The darkness leeches from the king’s eyes, slipping from the back of his head and drizzling to the ground. It soaks into the sand and fades away.

“You should not have followed me,” the king says, his eyes wide with fear. “The power he has here…”

The darkness now presses in around them, cutting off everything more than a metre from their feet. Above them, etched on the sky like a burning red sun, an eye appears. Below it, a mouth opens as wide as the horizon and grins with a mountain range of uneven yellow teeth.

“THE POWER OF THE SEVEN IS ENDLESS. YOUR WORLD WILL DIE AND BECOME OURS.”

“Okay,” Riyo says slowly. “I think maybe he was right. I can’t squash him. Let’s go.”

A planet falls on Riyo, and cracks appear across her reality that feel like they are being wrought directly into her skull. Blood drips from her eyes and nose. The two ghosts grab her by the arms and start trying to drag her away, but another hammer blow rattles her head and shakes her vision to a blur. Her reality crunches down to a crumbling ball around the three of them, while outside it the darkness presses. The pressure squeezes Riyo, and she cries out. The Darkness’ laughter consumes everything.

“WITNESS THE END THAT COMES FOR YOU AND YOUR WORTHLESS KIND. WITNESS-”

The impossible mouth closes suddenly. The eye goes wide, its jagged pupil contracting as though the light of the sun has appeared within it. The darkness that covers everything seems to stretch upwards towards the eye. It rises like a curtain from the forest, strands and streams clinging to trees before being yanked free. A wave of frustration and anger washes over the entire space, burning Riyo’s skin before fading away. The eye closes, and the last of the darkness is sucked away like water draining from a bath.

All around them is red, oozing metal. The forest is wrapped in the red glow of the Reach. The sand beneath their feet grows hotter, the air tends towards scorching, and where once the eye had looked down on them there is now a tunnel of fire reaching away until it is lost to sight. Until it reaches Calis.

Riyo regains her balance, clutching at her head. Behind them, the crimson wall still looms over the forest. Now, though, she can see where it ends; where the red heat of the Reach touches the heart of Valos. She begins stumbling towards it.

“What just happened?” Sanella asks.

“Don’t know,” Riyo manages. “Gotta get out.”

“Something pulled the Darkness back,” king Tilch says.

“What could do such a thing?”

“Something I don’t wanna meet,” Riyo says.

They half-run through the forest towards the wall. As the trees thin out, the ground begins to shake. Behind them, the crash of falling timber grows to a roar. Trees pirouette through the air, and a wave of molten metal climbs up and over them. Its crest foams with white-hot fire as it begins its plunge towards a crescendo of burning death.

Riyo throws out her reality and leaps, dragging a pair of wailing ghosts behind her. Down moves ahead of them, and they fall towards the portal. Riyo barely notices when she starts screaming, the heat pushing against her reality as the Darkness had.

They slip through the portal just as the wave breaks against the cliff face with a roar that seems to follow her from inside her own head. She rolls to a stop on the floor of a cave and scrambles to her hands and knees. The portal is stretching outwards like a membrane being pushed by a monstrous hand.

“Riyo!” someone shouts.

Riyo ignores the pillars of yellow crystal that surround her and that weren’t there when she entered the Reach. Instead, she throws her reality against the portal, pushing back with everything she has left.

“Spin it,” someone says, but she can barely hear over the roar inside her head.

Someone grabs her and slaps her across the face.

She blinks into a pair of angry, violet eyes.

“Spin it, you amateur,” their owner says. Her voice is crisp and clipped. She reminds Riyo of… someone.

“Oh for…” the woman drops her and turns to the portal. Riyo feels another reality inside her own, and a spiral of yellow appears before the Reach. It spins like a windmill and drags the extruded section of the Reach with it, twisting it into a braid of molten evil. Riyo stops pushing and watches as the hypnotising circle before her shoves back, and back, and back, until it is pressed against the wall of the cave once more. The crystal contracts, spinning even faster as it shrinks. After about a minute, it is no larger than a coin, and Ynara closes her fist. The portal vanishes with a comical pop. With its light gone, there is only the soft yellow glow of the crystals Ynara has made, and they show a black wall of rock and earth. She lets out a sigh.

Riyo blinks up at Ynara. “Don’t know you.”

Ynara arches a pristine eyebrow at the scorched, bloody mess of a girl at her feet.

“Nor I you. Let us keep it that way. You strike me as a menace to good sense.” She glances around. “I suppose I’m done here.” She snaps her fingers, and the majority of the crystals in the room shatter, including the odd, fizzy, translucent ones that form a cage around Indessa. “Next time, I would suggest you just let me do my job.”

“Wait,” Riyo says. “You closed the thingy. How?”

“I told you,” Ynara says. “Spin it. If you just push it will push back. If you make it dizzy, it gets lost once it loses contact with Valos and can’t find its way back.”

“That’s it?” Riyo says, then winces at the pain that being angry causes in her brain. “My master is a prick.”

“You should close your reality,” Ynara says. “You’re about to die.”

“Pfft,” Riyo says, but the woman is right. The princesses come to join her, along with Cotter Lee and the ghosts she rescued from the Reach. “Someone can carry me back up, right?”

They all nod.

“Okay. See you on the other side.”

Riyo lets go of her reality.

 

 

A mile and a half from Saviour’s Call, in a field recently harvested clear of a modest wheat crop and now bare and muddy, there is a farmhouse of old, sturdy wood. Beside it is a barn with a hole in one of its walls. There is a ladder propped against the wall beneath it, whose occupant has his shirt sleeves rolled up and a saw in his hand. Edgar Reine’s first job is to remove the broken boards, which he can then replace. Where he will find the money to buy new boards, he does not know. Inside the barn, his cows snag mouthfuls of hay from a large bale in the corner beside the secret tunnel that leads into the city. He is not sure what he is going to do about that, either, but one thing at a time.

“I’m sure they’ll fix it for us, if you let them,” Tamara says from down below.

Edgar’s wife has believed strongly in the rebellion ever since it began. She idolises Cotter Lee and thinks he will make a wonderful king once the evil Frostburne line is finally removed. Edgar does not share her conviction, but he has never been particularly good at containing his wife’s passion.

“They seem busy, at the moment,” he says. “And it looks like it’ll rain in the next few days. Best to at least get it covered.”

“You don’t think they care enough, do you?”

“I didn’t say that, dear.” He rubs at his bruised ribs surreptitiously.

“Just wait and see,” Tamara says. She has recovered well from her concussion, but even from the top of the ladder Edgar can make out the lump on her head.

“I’ll get a cloth over it,” he decides. “Then maybe the rebellion will sort it.”

“they will.”

Edgar begins sawing, but then his mind goes white. For a moment, he doesn’t know what is happening. He realises he is in pain, but it is so intense that he can’t feel it. It is as though all of his nerves have been seared away in an instant. He opens his eyes a few seconds later, the pain gone. It is replaced by a new pain in his back and rear. He is staring at the sky, and that means he is no longer on his ladder. The mud is cool against his back, and the grey clouds promise an eventual torrent, but for now just make everything seem greyer.

“What was that?” Tamara says, jumping up to her feet. She looks back at the house. “Incy!” She starts running.

Edgar stays in the mud. He can hear his daughter crying, so he is fairly sure she has experienced the same thing they did. By the noises the cows are making, they felt it too. The mass migraine is just another thing he doesn’t know what to do about. There is too much he does not know what to do about. He is starting to feel as though just getting a cover over the hole in his barn might not lead logically to the next step in his life. That, at some point, he might have to accept that it is all starting to become a bit much.

There are some days, he decides, when just lying in the mud for a while is exactly what a body needs.

 

 

“What in the blackest night was that?” Ynara says, clutching at her temple. The amateur is now unconscious. Or possibly dead. She nudges the girl over with her foot and frowns at her serene expression. A little drool leaks from the corner of her mouth, and her chest rises and falls as though she is dreaming of clean air and tranquil skies.

“I’m not sure,” Cotter Lee says. “It happened last time she over-exerted herself, too.”

“That is… distressing,” Ynara says, then shakes her head slowly. “It is not my concern. None of this was.” She turns on her heel and marches back up the tunnel, whispering a glowing amber crystal into existence above her open palm to light her way. She only manages a few steps before a high-pitched noise catches her ear. It is growing louder, wailing through the cavern like the wind. Her breath begins to mist in front of her, and ice crystals glitter softly in her light.

Ynara spins around, the chunks of her missing flesh beginning to hurt. The wailing rises with her heart rate, but the portal is gone. The incursion is closed. That creature has no way back here.

The floor in the centre of the tunnel shines with a slick of ice, and now there is a rough, scraping noise to accompany the wailing. Ynara feels the pressure of something terrible approaching and jumps aside just as something large and oblong rushes out of the gloom.

Glitter slides by on his face, crashes through one of the remaining crystal pillars, and hits the wall where the incursion was with the force of a runaway space train, wailing all the way. The cave shakes and stone falls from the ceiling. Snow rushes from Glitter’s shoulders and pulls him upright, and his scream becomes words without a pause.

“Riyo!” he yelps, drawing himself a worried face. He then notices everyone else in the cave. “Oh. Hello. Is she okay?”

“I think so,” Indessa says.

“Oh. Phew.” Glitter then turns to Ynara. “You trapped me in a crystal!”

“So?”

“That was very rude! I think?” He glances towards the person closest to him for reassurance, who turns out to be the former king of Frosthold.

“Very rude,” Tilch Frostburne agrees.

“Ahhh! Ghost!”

“I’m leaving,” Ynara says. This time her egress is not interrupted, and she vanishes into the gloom of the cavern.

“There are so many ghosts here!” Glitter says, backing into the wall. His metal body clatters against the rock as he shivers.

“Please, do not worry,” Fortissa says. “The ghosts here are all our allies.”

“Are you sure? My father told me a lot of very scary stories about ghosts. I don’t want to be eaten.”

“We will not eat you, friend,” Tilch says. “I saw the way you and your friends fought for us. You are heroes.”

“Okay…” Glitter says, but he still wears his worried face.

“We should get out of here,” Cotter Lee says. “There may still be fighting at the keep.”

“Wait,” Indessa says. “Talbot, stop being a coward.”

“Talbot?” Sanella says.

There is a flash of blue flame, and Talbot steps from Indessa. Both Cotter and Fortissa move to catch her arms as she slumps, then glare at each other over her head.

“Oh, come on,” Indessa says. “I don’t need to be able to see to notice that tension.” She shrugs both of them off. “If I can forgive you both, then you can bloody well forgive each other.”

There is a moment of quiet guilt.

“Of course,” Cotter says stiffly.

“Right,” Fortissa mutters.

“Sanella…” Talbot says, reaching for her but coming short. “I… I’m sorry. I had no idea you were still…”

“Not alive?” She has a slight smirk on her face, and Talbot feels as though his heart should quicken. But it doesn’t. The smile fades away.

“I suppose we’re both ghosts now, huh?” Talbot says.

“It hasn’t made you any smoother.”

Talbot gives a rueful smile. “You haven’t changed either.”

“It hardly feels like any time has passed at all, for me.”

“So, does that make me the more experienced, now?”

Sanella steps forward and flicks him on the nose. “Obviously not. I was haunting this place when it was two huts in a field.” She puts her hand on his arm. “It does make you the one who stuck around though. Spirits come and go more than you’d think.”

Talbot looks into her eyes, sees the flicker of mirth that he’d fallen in love with all those years ago.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Talbot says. “And neither is Tondwell.” He turns to Fortissa, smiling.

Fortissa doesn’t meet his eye. With a flare of blue light, the waltz ends, and Torus takes a step back. Fortissa looks up, a new tear trickling from her eye.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

 

 

 

The throne room feels cold. This is in part because it has a new, dragon-shaped window, but there is a bleakness about the people in it that adds its own chill. It does not help that half of them are either unconscious or dead.

Tilch Frostburne stands where the throne should be, frowning at the fragments that remain. His children stand behind him, the princesses holding onto their brother. Cotter Lee waits a short way away with eyes only for Indessa. Talbot Frostburne sits with his back to the wall by the dungeon stairwell. Sanella sits by his side, his hand in hers, while Torus rests a supportive hand on his ancestor’s shoulder.

Emerald sits at the base of a pillar, Riyo’s head pillowed on her lap. Rolleck is conked out behind the pillar, while Ravi leans against Glitter, who has decided his input isn’t needed here and is pretending to be a cabinet.

“There are some decisions to be made,” Tilch says, turning to face the room. “And they are no longer mine to make.”

“The question is,” Cotter says. “Who should make them?”

Sanella pats Talbot’s hand and stands up into the tense silence.

“I obviously cannot make the decision, but Tondwell always said, while he was planning his schemes and scheming his plans, that it’s important to take stock of where you’ve come from in order to figure out what you need to do for the future.” She glances at Talbot, who has looked up from the ruined carpet to listen to her. “On numerous occasions, he asked me to talk him through everything I knew of the history of Saviour’s Call and the Frosthold Song. Perhaps I can share it with you all, in case it will help?”

“I would like to hear that,” Tilch says, nodding. “Much of our history is written by biased hands.”

“Okay.” Sanella takes a deep breath that she doesn’t need. “Saviour’s Call was founded by refugees nearly three thousand years ago. I was one of them.”

Talbot’s bushy eyebrows hit his hair line so fast they make a sound.

Sanella smiles at him. “Still a lot of catching up to do, big boy.” She turns back to the former king. “We were followers of an old religion, now long-dead, that held that a saviour would arrive to liberate us from a great cataclysm. When the Reach began its descent, well… we believed that was the cataclysm.”

“That’s fair,” Glitter says.

Ravi raps his knuckles on his side.

“Sorry.”

“We fled the Songs closest to where the astronomers said the Reach would touch down and headed west. The prophets of our religion always said the saviour would come from the west, so we went in search of them. Hoping they would shelter us. It’s a long, hard journey out here. After facing the Glimmering Desert and the Eastern Icebound Wall, and with no sign yet of the saviour, we were too tired to go further. Besides, we had found this beautiful, tranquil place. Fertile land, clement weather, Corsmere’s clear waters… There were many among us who believed this place was the saviour’s gift to us – a sanctuary in which to wait for their coming. We decided we would put down roots and endure the cataclysm to come, raise our voices in song and hope that they would hear us.”

“Saviour’s Call,” Fortissa says softly.

“That’s right,” Sanella says with a smile. “Maybe the saviour already heard us, or maybe they are still to come. Or maybe they never will, and it was all the fancy of a group of terrified people who didn’t know any better.” She shrugs. “Anyway, we built a little town. A few of us formed a council, and many more refugees displaced by the arrival of the Reach and the ensuing flood of nightmares eventually found it. The population swelled, more farms were settled, more fishing boats built… Saviour’s Call grew so fast. I was murdered, along the way – funny, really. I’m so far past it that I often laugh when I remember how stupid the whole thing was. The council fell out over taxes, and my greatest rival paid a newly arrived crafter to assassinate me. Then he threw my body in the lake and tried to convince people that I had drowned.”

“But… you have gills,” Glitter says.

“I know. It was transparent enough that everyone knew he’d done it. Then several other council members had waking dreams that convinced them to vote in favour of his execution and that was it for him.” Sanella’s grin turns wicked. “I watched as Saviour’s Call became a city, and people grew wealthy. A council chosen by people who knew and trusted all of its members was no longer an option, and the people with great wealth took control by strength of hired arms and lobbied influence. Oligarchs became nobles became kings, and Frosthold became a monarchy.”

“It does not sound particularly honourable, when you phrase it like that,” Prince Tolmet says. He is now standing off to one side, staring at one of the surviving pennants bearing his family’s crest. “In the writings of our bloodlines, it describes our rise to nobility as the acceptance of a duty to protect the weak and powerless.”

“Lots of things change depending on how you describe them,” Sanella says. “Many nobles did help those they had power over, many did not. There were fights among noble houses. For a long time, the longest any one family held the throne was three generations. Then another civil war arose. Always, the winner was a noble and little of substance changed. That is, until Tondwell.

“Tondwell and Talbot’s early life saw the very worst of this period or warring nobles. The populace grew unhappy with taxes rising every other day. The nobles encouraged citizens to join their cause in exchange for protection from the king’s taxes. The whole city broke into factions and it wasn’t safe to walk the streets during the day, let alone at night.”

“Tondwell, through his impossible charisma and keen strategic instinct, managed to end it. He changed so much for the better in such a short time. After the incursion… well, I don’t know – I was encased in sticky goo.”

Cotter Lee looks down at the hilt of his sword. An heirloom passed down through his family for hundreds of years. His family is from the same noble stock that took power thanks to their wealth. Thanks to bribes, lies and politics. He has known for a long time that he has no more right to rule than the Frostburnes. He had hoped he could force a fundamental change in Frosthold but, apparently, he is no Tondwell Frostburne. All he has done is create another faction. One just as willing to follow a single leader’s vision as those who continued to believe in the king.

He sighs. “My family’s histories stretch back to before the Frostburne rule began.”

Sanella nods at him, so he continues.

“They are not kind about the Frostburnes. Not in tone, anyway. But in substance, they tell grudgingly of a prosperous reign. Tromell, Tondwell’s son, kept the peace his father created. I think the incursion helped with that. The people had a recent and terrifying reminder of the danger coming from outside the kingdom. It encouraged unity and the maintenance of peace above all else. My ancestors believed that that was the main reason, but Tromell lived a long time, and there was never any question about his daughter succeeding him.

“And so it went. The histories I read made a great deal of every mistake, but they were few and far between. It took the machinations of a demon from Calis to make anybody but the jealous nobles even question the Frostburnes.” He comes to stand by Tolmet and looks up at the pennant. “Even among my ardent supporters, you have always been respected, Prince Tolmet. It would take little convincing for them to follow you into a new era of peace. The only person you really need to convince is yourself.”

Tolmet sees through the pennant. Sees the city outside, now falling into shade as the sun slips away. He sees all the lives ruined, all the fear and sadness amongst the people. Sees the imaginary ghosts of those he has unwittingly fed to a monster.

“That is not something I can do easily.”

“Nor should it be,” Cotter says. “That is what gives me faith that endorsing you would not be a mistake. That, and the fact that you will have your sisters by your side.”

“If he screws up, I’ll punch him again,” Indessa says. “That goes for you, too.”

“Well, that’s decided, then,” Sanella says, clapping her hands together without making a noise. “Now, Indessa. Talbot says he’s been helping you see. I was hoping you’d let me take his place for a little while, so that we can have a chat.”

“A chat about what?”

“Oh, lots of things,” Sanella says with a wink.

“Uh, sure, I guess.”

Cotter Lee and Talbot Frostburne share an uneasy look.

“Um,” a voice says, surprisingly soft given its volume. “Sorry about this.” They all turn to the hole in the wall to find a big, blood-shot eye peering through it. “But there’s some lizards here.”

“The drakes!” Indessa says. “I almost forgot.”

“I’ll debrief them,” Cotter says quickly.

“I’ll go with him,” Talbot says. “Uh, just in case.”

The two of them scurry out of the throne room. Sanella laughs.

“Well, seems things are mostly sorted out here,” Ravi says so that only his companions hear. “I’m going for a walk around the city.”

“Okay,” Emerald says. “I’m going to go to sleep.”

“What, here?”

“Seems to be working for everyone else.”

“Okay. Pleasant dreams.”

The night has taken hold, and the stars are lost behind a flat screen of dark cloud. The city is quiet, its people hidden or fled, its lanterns doused. Ravi flits over streets filled with signs of work undone and tasks hastily abandoned. The rebels have done a good job of evacuating, though the lines of devastation left by a berserking Momber Maul probably hurried things along considerably.

In spite of the loneliness up above the city, Ravi feels eyes watching him. Though he moves quickly, those eyes never waver. Never look away or fall behind. They follow him all the way to the corner of the city where a dilapidated house wears a disguise of emptiness. Where a few cracks in the floorboards let a meagre light shine down from the first-floor window. A figure emerges from behind the curtain simulating darkness inside, her eyes shining and her whiskers twitching.

“What happened?” Meera says softly.

“It’s over. We think,” Ravi says. He is a long way out of his depth. What the princesses described about what happened beneath the keep is almost meaningless to him, except to fill him with a sense of dread. The Darkness, whatever it had been, had called itself one of seven. It had controlled nightmares, controlled the Reach itself. He hopes for everyone’s sake that the former World Force mercenary was right that the incursion is now closed for good.

“What of the king? What will happen to Saviour’s Call?”

“The king is dead. I think Prince Tolmet will take over. Cotter Lee seemed to agree that is the best course.”

“Is it true he is a Rose bastard?”

Ravi sighs. “You should wait to hear what he has to say about it tomorrow. I didn’t come to share gossip. I came to talk to the kids.” His voice sounds a little harsh to his own ears, but he is tired.

“Of course,” Meera says, and there is an edge of fear in her voice. It makes Ravi wince, but he has earned it. In his head, he sees the lizard woman from the day before. Her bloody claws, and the bloody stump of her neck.

Meera leads him into the house, then waits by the door. Upstairs, Ravi knocks on the beam by the trap door leading into the attic. The silence above him changes, becoming more tense.

“I’m coming up,” he says to break it.

The kids are sitting well back from the door, the light of their single candle twisting shadows across their faces as it flickers. Ravi closes the door and sits before it, not really sure what to say.

“I never introduced myself properly,” he says. “My name is Ravi Matriya. I just… I wanted to apologise. For what happened to Fallow.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Kenta says. His voice is quiet and reserved.

“It was my fucking fault,” Gem says. He is sitting furthest back, almost outside the candle’s glow.

“That’s not true, either.”

A chill passes through the attic, and the two younger children wail in fear. Fallow is sat beside Ravi, his translucent form glowing faintly.

“It’s not anybody’s fault, really.”

“Fallow…?” Sol says, reaching out towards him.

He smiles. “Yeah. It’s me.”

“You’re a ghost?” Kenta says, eyes shining with new tears.

“Yeah. Look!” He waves his hand through the floor.

“That’s… fucking…”

“It’s really cool!” Fallow says, forestalling Gem. “I can run through walls and make things cold and stuff.”

“Yeah, but… you’re fucking dead.”

“Yeah…” Fallow slumps a little. “I… I don’t really know what to do. What does being dead even mean, once you’re a ghost?”

“Do you have to… haunt people?” Kenta suggests.

“Umm, maybe? I don’t really want to, though. And besides, picking things up is really hard. I’m not sure I can throw spoons around and stuff like the ghosts in the stories.”

“Perhaps,” Ravi says, “you should talk to someone who knows a little more about it.”

“Do you know much about ghosts, Mister Ravi?” Sol says.

He shakes his head. “Not really. But I know people who do.”

“Huh? Who?” Kenta says.

“The princesses, for a start.”

The children all gasp.

“You know princess Fortissa?” Kenta and Fallow say at the same time.

“Oh, she’s so pretty,” Sol says wistfully. “Right, Gem?”

“Huh? Uh, yeah. I guess.” His blush is visible even in the shadows outside the candlelight.

“Gem’s got a crush,” Sol sing-songs, her smile a little cruel. The two younger children join in as she continues.

“Fucking shut up,” Gem growls. “I don’t have a fucking stupid crush.”

“She is very pretty, though,” Ravi says. “I’m a little smitten with her, too.”

“See?” Sol says. “Everyone crushes on the princess.”

“So can we meet her?” Kenta and Fallow say together, their excitement lending even more youth to their features.

Ravi can’t help but smile, in spite of everything. “I think I can swing that, yes.”

 

 

The eastern gate of Saviour’s Call forms two sweeping arches. The first over the train tracks, the second over the road. Ravi sits on the grassy verge that descends from road to tracks and watches as the first eastbound train hauls its way clear of the building that houses the platform. A pair of ice crystals, one at either end, drive the wheels over the rails, picking up speed as they go. Once they have given the train enough power to get under way, the steam engine takes over. Smoke billows from the smokestack, and a whistle sounds as the train passes through the walls and off towards the rest of the world. It might even be going all the way to Ragg, but Ravi doesn’t know. He is content to watch it disappear between the rolling hills of Frosthold. He’ll ride one, one day. But for now, he is happy to walk.

A small crowd has gathered by the gate, anticipating the arrival of the new king. There is still tension. There is still worry. But the leaders of both sides have said that the war is over. That the blemish of a four-hundred-year-old incursion has finally been cleared away. The new king has promised reparations to the people that will beggar the throne as an apology for the wrongs caused. The nobles have somehow been convinced to help with reparations, too. Cotter Lee says his new police force will follow the examples set by former sheriff Talon Dorman.

Most people do not understand what has happened. They have seen, however, the optimism among every one of their leaders. And now, they have seen the abolition of curfews and taxes. They have seen roads free of rebel bandits and markets full of produce. They are cautiously optimistic too.

People also aren’t quite sure why the entire royal family and the sheriff are coming to the eastern gate so early in the morning, but they are willing to follow the tenuous rumours for the chance to get a closer look. And they are to be rewarded.

Tolmet’s armour has been repaired. He looks resplendent astride his white charger, with his lance flying the colours of his family over his head. His handsome jaw supports a broad smile, and the silver crown on his brow is elegant in its austerity. He is flanked by his sisters, both wrapped in the ephemeral power of the waltz. Fortissa wears her winged armour, shining even though dour, angry clouds hide the new-born sun. Indessa wears dark leather armour with her family’s crest picked out on its breast in silvery-blue thread. Her missing arm is covered by a black wolf pelt.

They are accompanied by a small group of guards and police officers, led by Cotter Lee; a black-clad woman with nervous eyes and round, twitching ears; and a man in a nice suit with a bushy moustache.

Tolmet dismounts before the crowd, who are not yet comfortable enough to cheer his presence but are nevertheless enraptured by his smile. They clear a path for him as he approaches the gate. In the wide arch beneath it, a petit woman stands with her hands on her hips, a large, curved sword on her back. Her blonde hair whips about in the wind.

“Saviour’s Call owes you a great debt, Riyo Falsemoon,” Tolmet says.

“Pfft,” Riyo says. The crowd gasps, but Tolmet just laughs.

“I thought you might scoff at the offer of some grand reward,” he says. “But I wished to see you off personally, anyway.”

“It’s an honour, your majesty,” Emerald says.

Ravi and Rolleck nod, while Glitter draws himself a smiling face.

“The honour is ours,” Fortissa says.

“Yeah,” Indessa says. “Thanks.” She glances around at the empty space between them and the crowd. “Uh, our ancestors thank you as well.”

“Everyone’s here,” Glitter confirms.

Ravi catches something out of the corner of his eye and turns. There are only empty cobbles, but a short way back from that spot he sees several small faces peering at him from in the crowd. He throws a wave at them.

“I’m glad it all worked out okay,” Riyo says. “But it’s time for us to move on.”

Cotter glances past her at Rolleck. “You mentioned you were looking for a town in need of a good police officer. I could use a man of your talents, Rolleck the Lost.”

Riyo glances at Rolleck, who refuses to meet her eye.

“I appreciate the offer,” he says after a moment, “but I think I need to continue travelling for a time, yet.”

Riyo grins.

“Of course,” Cotter says. “You will always be welcome here.”

“I’ve prepared you a small gift,” Tolmet says, then waves down Riyo’s protest before she can voice it. “Mister McIves?”

Gangles hurries forward, clutching something to his chest.

“Yes, yes. Here.” He thrusts an old book at Riyo. “I thought this might be useful for your quest.” He scratches at his moustache.

Riyo flips the book open, letting the stiff, yellowing pages flutter from one cover to the other.

“It’s called The Misfortunes of Calis,” he says. “It’s been in the chapter house for centuries, and I only read it the once, a decade or so ago, but your recent misadventures reminded me of it. It’s all very theoretical, of course – not a jot of actual evidence in there – but it presents the idea of some powerful creatures responsible for Calis’ demise. One of them is referred to as Darkness.”

“Huh,” Riyo says.

“That’s it?” Ravi says.

“I guess it’s just not something I feel like thinking about right now.”

“That is fair,” Gangles says, nodding, “but it also contains some other information about Calis.” He gets closer and lowers his voice. “It talks a little about the planet before it became what it is. It also suggests that there are other, similar documents. Including,” he leans in yet further, speaks in barely even a whisper, “a map.”

Riyo just stares at him from an inch away.

He withdraws and clears his throat. “Um, yes. So. Of course it couldn’t guide you to the sunlight stone, but if the mana caverns as they are now are a mana-flooded ruin or cave system that existed before, then such a thing might help you find their entrance.”

“Oh!” Riyo says. “Yeah, that would be useful.”

Rolleck covers his face with his palm.

“Indeed, indeed,” Gangles says. “That tome there was excavated from the central mana ruins of the Glimmering Desert. If there are more volumes in the same series, then they might also be there.”

“We’ll have to stop in there on the way past, then,” Riyo says.

“I’d be careful, if I were you,” Tolmet says, looking uneasy. “That excavation site was abandoned after a series of accidents. Groven was always quite interested in it.”

“Pfft,” Riyo says, then turns to her companions. “Come on, guys. Let’s go archaeologying.”

“That’s not a word,” Emerald says.

They walk beneath the arching gate of Saviour’s Call together. Rolleck and Ravi share a look of enduring despair, while Glitter sprouts a giant snow hand, startling the gathered crowd. He waves.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” he says. “I hope we can see you again.”

Tolmet smiles. “The aid you rendered to Frosthold will never be forgotten.”

Fortissa and Indessa share a look, then nod. Veils of blue flame spring up to another series of gasps and cries from the gathered citizens. They burn between the royal family and the crowd, hiding them all. A moment later, five figures appear in the mouth of the gate. The light of their flames shines through their bodies as they wave.

“A strange group,” Torus Frostburne says.

Fallow nods. “They’re weird, but they’re really cool. Especially Ravi.”

Talbot laughs. “A lot of potential, that one.”

“In all of them,” Tilch says. “Do you think they can do it?”

“Do what?” Torus says.

“Take the stone.”

“Riyo pulled you from the Reach itself,” Talbot says. “And she will only become stronger.”

“Still, so many have tried and failed.”

“Who’s to say?” Torus says. “But I will say this for them: they have the makings of heroes.”

“Maybe even saviours,” Sanella says.

Everyone turns to look at her, and she shrugs awkwardly.

“Religion is a strange thing. You think you’ve surrendered it completely, turned against it, even, and then something happens that makes you wonder…” She shakes her head. “I suppose if someone saves you, it doesn’t really matter if they’re spoken of in prophecy – they’re your saviour.”

“She did come from the west,” Talbot says.

“Does your prophecy say anything more about the saviour?” Tilch asks.

“Loads of things, most of them grand and overblown. They will carry warmth into the cold, they will banish the darkness, they will soothe the nightmare and subdue the tides of mana. They will shelter us from destruction and walk resolute through desolation. They will face the end.”

That is followed by a short silence.

“Kind of makes you hope she isn’t the saviour,” Talbot says.

“Nobody would wish that on a friend,” Tilch agrees.

“I hope it’s all a load of crap,” Sanella says. “But if someone must endure it, then maybe… maybe she can.”

“They can,” Fallow says. “They’re cool.”

Sanella smiles.

The five ghosts fade away, and the wall of spectral flame wanes and falters.

 

 

 

“They escaped,” Darkness says. “If you had just-”

S I L E N C E

“We don’t waste the reserve on piddly things like that, moron,” the first says.

“Your plan was quite good,” the fourth says. “It is a shame you executed it so poorly.”

“There is always more time,” the sixth says.

“Fuck that,” the fifth says. “We fucking always say that, but it’s never taken this long. I’m fucking tired of waiting. The reserve is fucking massive, anyway. We should use it to blow away these fucking lice and rebuild it from their fucking souls.”

“Stop talking, please,” the third says. “Your voice is an abomination.”

“Suck shit.”

T H E R E   I S   A L W A Y S   M O R E   T I M E

“Seven knows best,” the first says. “Let’s just try to be a bit more creative.”

“Does anyone have a plan ready?” the fourth says.

“Uh,” says the first.

“Let me take another swing at that Saviour’s Call place,” Darkness says. “If you just-”

“Shut the fuck up,” the fifth says.

“So you have a plan, then?” the third says.

“Fuck you, too.”

“The time will come,” the sixth says.

“Helpful as ever,” the third says.

“Then it is my turn,” the fourth says.

“Wait, really?” the first says.

“Yes,” the fourth says. “I have been watching. Calculating. Preparing. The next incursion will be mine.”

S O   S H A L L   I T   B E

Book Ten Part One

Calling to Life

 

A young Riyo Falsemoon sat on a soft rug before a blazing fire. She wore a comfortable brown robe with a World Force logo emblazoned in gold on its breast. Her hair was damp from a bath that had left her clean and uncomfortably warm. Beyond the rug, rough, broken stone stretched out into unknown nothingness that seemed to last forever. Behind Riyo was an armchair, its tall occupant swathed in an all-encompassing robe that made an empty shadow of his face. A small table squatted beside the arm of the chair holding a crystal flute of clear glassberry wine. Riyo did not look at him. She was not allowed to.

Instead, she stared into the twisting flames, watching as orange overtook yellow overtook black before roaring orange again. The logs crackled, the sound seeming to fill a space it couldn’t possibly fill. Riyo thought she could see figures moving amongst the tongues of flame, describing actions and reactions from memories she knew were not hers.

“You’ve been talking to the Sunlight Cultists again,” Elvolar Lightseer said.

“They’re the only people who come down this deep,” Riyo said. In the fire, she saw a flickering white gemstone. Not the sunlight stone, though. Nobody knew what it looked like. “They say they’re going to find a way to get me out.”

“They also say they are going to retrieve the sunlight stone, but few of them have actually tried. None of them have returned from Calis, if they even survived crossing the Reach. I would not put much stock in their promises.”

Riyo sighed. “I know. I have to get out myself.”

“If they do manage to reach this place, you should not refuse their aid.”

“But you don’t think they will.”

“No.”

“And why can’t you just break me out?”

“The mirrors are all broken.”

Riyo sighed again. That was the same explanation as before, but it was really no explanation at all.

“Surely if the cult of the sunlight stone can get so close, one of your archcrafter buddies can get me out of here.”

“The mirrors are all broken.”

“Ugh. Fine. So are you finally going to tell me how to make a reality of my own so I can bust out?”

“Not yet,” Elvolar Lightseer said. He had been saying that for a long time. “Today I will tell you of Major-General Alicia Orion.”

“Oh, yay, another story where you brag about how cool your friends are, even though not one of them can fix a bloody mirror.”

“Mind your language, Riyo.”

“Pfft.”

In the fire, a shape emerged. It was crude, but a tall woman appeared. She had long hair made from the gaps between flames, and it billowed around her.

“Major-General Orion’s reality is one of lightning.”

Riyo perked up. “That does sound cool.”

“I thought you might like it.” Elvolar Lightseer’s voice had a hint of mirth in it. “Her most recent exploit was the destruction of a lava titan that emerged from the Reach itself.”

The woman in the flames vanished. One side of the fireplace was dominated by patterns of orphaned scraps of deep red flame, and she realised it looked like flowing lava. Just like the Reach. The very moment she recognised it, something emerged from it. A bulky, dog-like form with glowing yellow teeth and a mane of more flowing lava. It roared, and the whole fire tapestry shook.

“To name one’s reality is to craft it, and to craft one’s own reality is to take ownership of everything it contains. For most people, including myself, we do so without truly understanding everything we have obtained.”

“So I just have to say what I want my reality to be called and I’ll be able to craft?” Riyo said.

“No, Riyo.” Elvolar Lightseer’s voice was patient, but the fact that Riyo could hear that meant he felt anything but. “I will tell you how to craft your reality when I believe you are ready.”

The lava titan roared again.

“The point of this story is not in the actual crafting of a reality, but in the vast nature of the realities we craft.”

A tiny figure with long, flowing hair stepped forth to face the titan. Riyo thought she was holding a spear, but she was too small to tell.

“You see, Major-General Orion was just like you. Young. Impatient. Narrow minded. She wanted to smash things and would not heed the call for reflection on what is truly possible.”

“I’m liking her more and more,” Riyo said, imagining a little figure that looked like her punching a titan and watching it fly away into the distance.

“And this is one of the frustrations of crafting. The optimal time to craft a reality is during puberty, when the body can change to accommodate the instincts required to use such power. But that is when the mind is at its most flighty. A foolish time to make such important decisions.

“But I digress. For you see, even poorly made decisions can lead to unintended benefits. As I said, Major-General Orion’s reality is one of lightning. But what does that mean?”

“It means she can zap stuff.”

“That is why she chose it, but what else might it mean?”

“Uhhh…”

“Watch.”

The tableau in the fire lurched back into motion. The titan lunged forward with a paw twenty times the size of the Orion figure. The figure did not move, and yet, when the claw crashed down, she was not there.

“I don’t get it,” Riyo said.

“Because you could not see it.”

The scene reset, and the claw came down again – this time like a flicker-book, with each page visible for a full second. Just as the paw touched the woman, she disappeared. The flame seemed to crack, letting a jagged black line trace the bottom of the scene.

“She can… turn into lightning?”

“Yes.”

“Holy shit.” Riyo’s eyes glittered as she watched the figure reappear beneath the titan.

“Not only that, but the body’s nerves are electric signals. The very moment she is touched, no matter how fast, she can move away before any damage is done.”

“That’s so cool.”

“It is, and yet, when she first crafted her reality, she had no idea she could do it. Her only thought when she named it, was…”

The tiny figure raised its tiny spear. There was a flicker of white and yellow.

Riyo leaned forward.

Lightning struck down at the titan, tearing a hole through it and sending stone and lava spurting across the scene. It struck the Orion figure, who glowed with power, and a moment later she thrust out her spear again, this time towards the titan’s head. The bolt of brilliance returned to the heavens, smashing the beast’s head apart on its way.

Riyo’s heart raced. She almost turned around to grin at her master but remembered just in time that she was not allowed to do that.

“Of course, she couldn’t do that when she first named her reality, either. Crafting is like anything we do with our bodies and minds. The more we do it, the better we become at doing it. We get stronger, we become more skilled, we learn things we did not know before.”

“So when will I be ready?”

“Not yet,” Elvolar Lightseer said. “But soon. Think, Riyo, on any idea that comes to you. Think what it might make you capable of, and what it might not. Look at all the possibilities, because something that sounds useless on first hearing it might prove to hold a greater power than even Major-General Orion’s.”

Riyo was still pretty certain she wanted to punch stuff really hard. What she learned today, was that there were many variations of punching stuff hard. She needed to figure out which version punched the hardest.

“So ends today’s lesson,” Elvolar Lightseer intoned, and Riyo knew that she could look back again.

When she did, there was nothing behind her. The darkness was infinite in all directions. No armchair, no rug, no robe, no wine, no fire. She was alone here once more, with dirty hair and cold feet. She picked up her only possession – a needle-like knife – and stood, stretching the ache from her legs.

“I suppose I should look for some dinner, then,” she said to no one.

 

 

Riyo wakes up to the rumbling of her own stomach. Rather than the empty sadness of her former prison, she finds herself in a warm bed surrounded by light. Some of the light is blue.

“Good morning,” Glitter says.

Riyo groans. Her head hurts from front to back and a little at the sides as well.

“How are you feeling?”

Riyo repeats the groan a little louder.

“I see,” Glitter says. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Ice,” Riyo says.

“Oh! That’s something that I am very good at.”

Something cold and soothing touches Riyo’s brow, and she makes a soft, joyous noise.

“Thanks, Glitter,” she says. “Next is food.”

“Okay. I am not quite so good at that. Unless you like to eat snow. Do you like to eat snow?”

“No, Glitter. You know that.”

“You could have developed a taste for it.”

“Fooooood, Glitter.”

“Yes. Okay. Can you get up? The dining room is just through here.”

Riyo groans again as she pulls herself upright, then takes a moment to look around the room. Several lanterns light something like a dormitory with ten beds lining each wall. There is carpet on the floor, and the walls are seamless grey stone that looks as though it has been polished.

“Where are we, exactly?”

“I don’t know. This is the headquarters of the rebellion, but they wouldn’t tell me specifically where it is.”

“What happened to the king?”

“I also don’t know that. We think he just went back into the keep.”

Riyo feels the sensation of someone stepping on her neck again and shivers.

“Let’s go and eat,” Glitter says.

“Yeah.”

The dining room is made of the same slick stone as the dormitory, and there is a large, round table at its centre surrounded by short stools. The ceiling is higher in here, and a number of short stalactites descend from it with lanterns dangling from them. Wooden doors dot the circular wall, but all of them are identical and Riyo has no idea what direction she is facing to begin with, let alone where each might lead.

“Riyo!” Emerald says, standing up and hurrying over to her. “Are you okay?”

“Sort of,” Riyo says, still clutching her chunk of ice to her head. “Hungry, though. And there’s a disturbing lack of food on that table.”

“Um.” The only other person in the room besides Riyo and her friends is the rebel named Sasha. Despite her protests, it has been decided by her superiors that she has the best rapport with the motley group of travellers. She does not enjoy her new position as their liaison and wishes ill on all of them. Since last night, however, their underground barracks has been abuzz with rumours of their exploits. Cotter Lee himself told her to treat them as honoured guests so, despite her incredulity, at least some of those rumours must have grains of truth within them.

“Please wait a moment. We didn’t know when you would wake up, so the food is being kept warm in the kitchen.”

“Oh. Thank you,” Riyo says. “Sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“It’s Sasha.”

“Thanks, Sasha.”

“Um, don’t mention it.”

“That was surprisingly polite of you, Riyo,” Rolleck says. “Usually you forget names within seconds of hearing them.”

“Who were you again?”

“Don’t speak to your father that way,” Ravi says.

“Huh?” Emerald says.

“Oh, Rolleck’s my dad now. And I always remember the people who bring me food, so…” she sticks her tongue out at Rolleck. This hurts her head and makes her wince.

“We were going to have a meeting while you eat, but if your head hurts…” Ravi says.

“I’ll be fine,” Riyo says, sitting down and propping her elbows on the table so she can clutch her head. “What’re we talking about?”

“What to do, basically,” Emerald says.

“We have to get rid of the king, right?” Riyo says. “Or whatever he is.”

“See? I told you she wouldn’t suggest leaving,” Rolleck says.

“Huh?”

“It was an idea that was floated,” Emerald says. “Just so that it was out there.” She waves a hand vaguely.

“That Darkness is really bad news,” Riyo says. “I honestly wouldn’t be happy leaving it behind us.”

“So we’ll run into it, instead,” Ravi says.

“You were the most ardent that we stay, anyway,” Emerald says.

“Yeah. I can’t leave knowing that thing is threatening those kids. I’m just, y’know. Putting it out there.” He makes the same gesture as Emerald. “Objectively speaking, fighting something like that is… well, how do you even do it?”

“I guess that’s why we’re having a meeting.”

It goes quiet for a moment. Before anyone can think of any ideas, one of the doors opens and Cotter Lee steps in. Riyo hardly notices him, however, as he is accompanied by two rebels with trays heaped with food.

“It’s good to see you awake, Miss Falsemoon,” Cotter says.

“Riyo is fine,” Riyo says without looking at him. She is focused on the food, which is coming around the table far too slowly.

“Very well.” He sits on the stool closest to the door as some more people shuffle in. “First of all, I would like to thank you for the assistance you have rendered to our rebellion. Even with the earlier misunderstandings, we accomplished more last night than at any other point since this war began, including finally drawing the king out of his keep and showing him for what he is.

“You have helped us enormously.”

“There is still a lot to do, however,” Prince Tolmet says. He sits down beside Cotter Lee. There is still a wall of discomfort between them, but he knows now that it is a decade of misplaced resentment. “I… I can only apologise. To you, most of all,” he turns to the others who have entered but not sat down. Among them are the children from the keep and Gangles McIves. Gem keeps spiking awestruck glances towards Cotter Lee, while the two younger children cling to Sol like she is the mast of their storm-beggared raft. Meera the mouse is also with them, but stands apart, with her eyes downcast and her whiskers drooping.

“I was loyal to my father, let it blind me to what he has become. I took his distance from Fortissa and myself for greater trust in us, when really, he was hiding his true face from us. I… I will find a way to make right. For all that has been perpetrated against the citizens of Frosthold. For all the ill I have done. But first, we must deal with my father.”

“Maybe he can be saved,” Ravi says. “Whatever that Darkness thing is, it wasn’t always in him, right? Maybe we can kick it out.”

“That won’t work,” Cotter says with a sad shake of his head.

“Our father is dead,” Indessa says. She has been quietly standing beside Cotter, but she now comes to sit by him. Cotter puts his hand out, and she takes it for what comfort it provides.

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Ravi says.

“He didn’t look very dead,” Glitter says.

Everybody glares at him.

“Oh. Sorry.” He draws a face with two blushing cheeks.

“I know,” Indess says. “But I saw him. The true him.” She is silent for a moment, then draws in a breath that gathers her thoughts with it. “My sister and I are special. As I’m sure you’re aware, having fought her, Fortissa is always accompanied by a ghost. If a spirit like that wishes to be seen, it can appear to them. Some people, however, never stop seeing them. Fortissa is one of them, and so am I.”

Glitter gasps.

Everyone glares at him again.

“We spent our childhoods isolated, for fear that one of the other noble families would try to exploit us. But we kept company with the ghosts of the keep. We had more dead friends than most have living ones, so we were happy. At least, until our mother died.”

“Our mother’s death was hard on father,” Prince Tolmet says, sensing that Indessa needs a moment. “I think that was when he began to change. It was part of the reason I grew accustomed to the difference, at any rate. At first, I expected him to be upset, to act differently. When he did not return to himself, I thought, ‘why should he?’. He had been in love with her for longer than I had been alive. It would have been unreasonable to expect her loss not to change him permanently.”

“Mother’s ghost didn’t linger,” Indessa says. “Most people don’t. Only those with attachments they are willing to deny eternity for. Our father became withdrawn, barely showed for any functions or spoke to anyone but Goven.”

“Who’s Goven?” Glitter asks, then silently congratulates himself for making a pertinent interjection. Socialising is hard.

“Goven is my former boss,” a quiet voice says. One could even describe it as mousy.

Meera lowers her eyes again, seeming to regret having spoken at all.

“I think he was convinced that, despite suffering from her illness for years, mother was assassinated,” Indessa says.

“His reticence and paranoia emboldened our enemies among the noble houses,” Tolmet says. “Three years passed filled with rumours that continued to grow darker, until eventually they banded together to accuse him of plotting the destruction of all of their lines. It would have just been another brazen lie, except that it was corroborated by Talon Dormon.”

“Who’s Talon Dorman?” Glitter asks. He is nailing this, now.

“Talon was the chief of police here,” Cotter Lee says. “Before Yrith.”

“Who’s… Oh, wait, never mind. We know him.” Blew it.

“The people loved him,” Tolmet says. “He was fair, just, and strong. It was his support through father’s withdrawal that gave me the strength to keep going despite essentially becoming father’s regent.”

“But he was murdered,” Cotter Lee says, with an unfriendly glance for the prince. “Before he could reveal what he knew.”

“And even with what I know now, I refuse to believe father was responsible for it,” Tolmet says, a fierce twinkle in his eyes.

“I actually agree,” Indessa says. “I think it was one of the families who didn’t believe he had enough proof and knew it would be more effective for him to die in extremely suspicious circumstances.”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter at this point,” Cotter says. He remains unconvinced. “Whether he ordered the murder or not, he responded by appointing Yrith in his place.”

“I can’t imagine that went well,” Rolleck says.

“He caused a huge division in the force. He was corrupt as hell and sloppy about it, believing he had the backing of the king while still taking bribes from the noble houses. Then, about a month later, he went too far and facilitated the coup.”

Tolmet glances towards Indessa. “We don’t have to-”

“You’re right. We don’t.” She looks around at everybody in the room, then begins cramming what is clearly a significant event to her into a small nutshell. “The nobles tried for a military coup – their own private forces and the police that were true to Yrith’s greed invaded the keep. The guard captains proved too loyal to bribe and too strong to defeat. They failed, but they did find our bedroom. That was the first time Fortissa performed the death waltz. She used it to hide, and I was taken and…”

Cotter touches her arm.

“And this,” she finishes, touching her blindfold and empty sleeve.

“That was when the war began,” Tolmet says. “While my father had fallen out of favour somewhat, there were still those who sympathised with his mourning, and remembered the good our family has done for Frosthold. There were also those who saw rebellion against the king as siding with those who had mutilated a young girl.”

“And you certainly didn’t jump to point out the fallacy in that,” Indessa says.

“In fact,” Cotter says, “I recall several occasions, watching you speak from above that drawbridge, that you reinforced that belief.”

“Meanwhile, I was locked away in a countryside villa with some doctors and some nurses and none of my family. Where, ten years later, my brother still believed me to be.”

Tolmet can only stare at the tablecloth.

“Oooooh,” Glitter says. “You got him.”

“Maybe be quiet, Glitter,” Emerald says. “That’s an important social skill, too.”

“Okay.”

“Um, what’s the death waltz?” Ravi asks.

“Right,” Indessa says. “That’s the point of this story, after all.” She takes another deep breath. “Okay, Talbot.”

There is a queasy flash of blue, and Indessa slumps a little in her seat.

A man appears beside her, dressed in ragged black tunic and trousers. The Frostburne coat of arms has been half-ripped from his breast but, with a little imagination, it’s easy to see what the outfit once looked like.

Meera’s eyes go wide. “They told us about you,” she whispers.

The man has a literal mane of auburn hair and a tail with matching fur that curls up behind him. The rest of his traits are subtle, but that is because they are inherently similar to the part of him that is human.

“Good morning,” he says. “My name is Talbot Frostburne, the first of the king’s shadows, and brother to the first Frostburne king of Frosthold.”

“There was a lot of frost in that sentence,” Glitter says. Then, “Oops, sorry.”

The monkey-traited man laughs. “You’re not wrong, my frosty friend.”

“Talbot sought me out not long after the coup,” Indessa says. She looks smaller, now, and it is clear from the way she stares at nothing that she can no longer see. “He helped me to recover, and he taught me about the death waltz.”

“The waltz,” Talbot says, “allows living people, gifted like Indessa and her sister, to join forces with the dead. Not only does this let them share their strength and knowledge, but also creates new powers born from the waltz itself.

“Performed as we do it, it is harmless. However, it can be forced upon someone.”

“Fortissa thinks she is sharing her strength with Tondwell, but in truth he has control of her,” Indessa says. “I’m worried for her. The moment she becomes uncertain, Tondwell will assume direct control of her, and that is when it becomes dangerous.”

“During the waltz, the living and dead parties share their energy,” Talbot says. “It flows from one to the other and back again, much like a dance.”

“Hence the name,” Glitter says.

“If one party takes control of everything, however, they keep their own power and only take from the other. Take too much energy from a living person, and…”

“They don’t stay living,” Ravi says with a nod.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Rolleck says to the ghost, “why is it you are helping Indessa?”

“Because my brother killed me, and I’m not particularly happy about it, if I’m honest.”

Meera gasps.

“Yes,” Talbot says, “I imagine they never told you that part.” He glances down at Indessa. “It is an old story, and a long one, so I will pare it down a little. The important part is the reason Tondwell killed me.”

 

 

 

 

Talbot Frostburne glanced to his left. Sanella noticed and smiled at him, the scales on her face glittering in the early morning sunlight.

“Nervous?” she said.

Talbot returned his gaze to the lake. The once-tranquil surface now boiled, streamers of steam peeling off into the hazy air.

“Aren’t you?”

“What do I have to be nervous about?” Her voice tinkled with amusement. “I’m already dead.”

“Do you never worry that there might be something worse?”

“Something I’ve never heard of or seen evidence for? What’s the use in that? You might as well worry that all the potatoes in Frosthold will spring to life and devour you.”

Talbot looked at her again, then burst out laughing.

“You’re right,” he said once he had his laughter under control.

“Less nervous, now?”

“Yes.” He pulled his shadow-black tunic over his head and kicked off his shoes. Then he hesitated.

“I’ve already seen it all, Tal,” Sanella said.

Talbot looked at her again, his eyes narrowed.

“What? I’m a ghost! I’ve been lingering around that keep of yours for centuries. I’ve seen more naked people than you’ve seen people full stop.”

Talbot sighed. “I know. It still feels strange, though.”

“Well I’m not going to treat it like it’s strange, so just get on with it.”

Talbot held her earnest eyes for a moment, then, with a grumble, pulled off his trousers.

“By the Word!” Sanella covered her mouth in mock scandal. “How indecent!”

“Oh, give it a rest.”

“Heh. You’re adorable, Tal.” She glanced down with a grin. “But I guess you’re not a little boy anymore, huh?”

Talbot stared at the lake. “Are we going to do this or not?”

“Of course, big man,” she said. She came around in front of him, still grinning. Pressed in close, so that their lips were almost touching. “Anything you say.” Then she stepped into him.

With a flash of raw, blue energy, the veil dividing the dead from the living fell, and Talbot felt the rush of power as their spirits melded together. Blue flame engulfed him for a moment, then fell away to nothing. He felt Sanella’s touch in the back of his mind, heard her thoughts echoing through him as though they were his own.

A lot of room in here.

“Ha,” he said, trotting down to the edge of the lake. “You’re sure this will work?”

Of course. The Chill and your Trait will keep you from being burned, and my gills will do the rest.

Talbot let the Trait flicker through his fur. Unique to those who carried animal traits in their bloodlines, and manifesting in only a few even among them, the Trait could empower a person far beyond their normal limits of strength and endurance.

“Okay,” Talbot said. “I’m ready.”

Then let’s go!

Talbot jumped into the writhing lake, his heart racing. It felt like diving into a hot spring, and his instincts screamed at him to get out as the heat pressed in against his skin. Panic closed his throat, told him he would surely drown.

Here.

Sanella took over, and he breathed. Air filled his lungs.

“Amazing,” he thought. “Even though I have no gills.”

The magic of the waltz. Sanella’s thoughts are smug. I told you, didn’t I?

“You did. I’m sorry to have doubted you.”

Don’t worry. It’s natural to be suspicious of something so amazing.

They swam together, their skin becoming accustomed to the heat, their eyes piercing the watery gloom better and better thanks to Sanella’s sturgeon traits. The fish that fed the capital schooled like maddened locusts near the surface and edges of the lake, desperate to escape the devastation being wrought upon them by something hidden below. Once they passed the melee of gently cooking animals, the silence and emptiness grew oppressive. Deep water bubbles sent ripples through the water, and the heat grew stronger the closer to the lakebed they came.

Deep in the centre of the lake, the water brightened. A fierce red light emanated from a lurching mass of molten metal.

By the Word.

“It’s as we feared.”

What’s going on? It’s geologically impossible.

“It’s an incursion.”

An incursion? Of what?

“The Reach.”

 

 

“It can do that?” Ravi says.

“It can indeed,” Gangles McIves says.

Everyone turns to look at him. He is preening his moustache in thought and looks startled by the attention.

“My apologies,” he says with a shallow bow. “My name is Gangles McIves, leader and sole member of the Saviour’s Call chapter of the Cult of the Sunlight Stone. My order prides itself somewhat on its collected knowledge of all things Calis.

“The Reach is considered by many to be a bridge, but it is actually more of a tunnel. Or possibly a covered bridge. I think it depends how one defines a bridge in the first place-”

Talbot the ghost clears his throat. He seems to be displeased with the interruption to his story.

“Yes. Well, anyway, the Reach doesn’t actually end in the Tower’s End Song. It burrows beneath the Plains of Chaos and reaches its tendrils into the mantle of Valos. Those tendrils occasionally surface in various places across the planet.”

“And when they do,” Talbot says, taking back narrative control, “chaos comes with them.”

 

 

 

Something clawed its way out of the churning lava. A blackened beast with two heads on long, snake-like necks pulled free of the incursion. Its eyes glowed like amethysts and its fangs glistened like polished steel. The rest of its body came free. It was humanoid save for its heads and wore twisted armour that spoke of dying trees and burned bones. Its hands were tipped with savage claws, and its legs ended in cloven hooves.

It immediately began drowning.

“I have to warn Tondwell. It won’t be long before something that can breathe water comes through.”

What is it? There is fear in Sanella’s thoughts that echoes across the connection between them, shaking the waltz.

“Some nightmare of Calis. There are so many of them, all strange and evil, that even the Sunlight Stone cultists have given up on trying to give them names.”

What can we do?

“Call for help.”

They returned to the surface, breaching through a layer of dead fish that should have kept the lake populous through hundreds of years. Should the incursion be closed, they would have to repopulate the lake from elsewhere.

Talbot flopped down on the grass to get his breath back, and a blue flicker signalled the end of their waltz. Sanella stood over him, the teasing smile from earlier stolen by worry.

“Don’t fret,” Talbot says. “This is the primary reason the World Force was started in the first place. They are experts at dealing with incursions.”

“I thought the World Force was a peace-keeping initiative.”

“That’s what they say,” Talbot sat up and shook some of the water from his fur. “Incursions are rare – there’s maybe one every few decades – so most people don’t actually know about them. The leaders of the World Force like to keep it quiet so that people won’t panic.”

“So why do you know?”

“I’m a spy,” Talbot said with a grin. “I get paid to know things I shouldn’t.” He stood. “Come on, let’s go and warn my brother. The sooner we let the World Force know, the sooner they can close this thing.”

“You should probably get dressed, first,” Sanella said, her smile returning. “It would hurt your pride as a spy to give away such a big secret so easily.”

Sanella giggled at him while he dressed, then they climbed the gently sloping pasture before the lake to Saviour’s Call. The city buzzed with uncertainty. It was difficult to miss the lake boiling, and ever since that morning the people had been crowding the plaza before the drawbridge. Tondwell had made a speech, urging calm while the problem was investigated. The people cared so deeply for him that, despite many of them drawing their entire livelihood from the lake, there was no mass panic. No shouting or screaming for answers. If the king hadn’t told them the reason, it was simply because he didn’t know it yet.

People waved at Talbot, making space for him to pass through the busy streets. Twenty years ago, when the last king had died with no heir and the noble’s war began, Tondwell Frostburne had risen to the top like a soaring Black Condor on the back of his political cunning and deft swordsmanship. He had raised his bastard brother up with him, too, ignoring hundreds of years of tradition. Such was his will that he could single-handedly overturn such entrenched sentiments. As soon as the crown was his, Tondwell had legitimised Talbot and made him his shadow. Now, people barely remembered he was a bastard at all.

Talbot smiled at everyone who took the time to acknowledge him, then ducked into the Church of Vellum around the corner from the drawbridge. The people knew him as a pious man, but he hadn’t kept to the Word for a long time.

“Good morning, Scribe Cantor,” he said to the man stood alone by the altar.

“Good morning, Sir.” One of Cantor’s ears flopped down over his face, and he propped it back up again. His whiskers twitched in embarrassment. “Do you wish to use the library?”

“Yes, please.”

“Then please go ahead. It is currently empty.”

“thank you, Scribe.”

He descended the old wooden stairs into the basement and heaved open the secret passage that led to the keep. He had walked that underground path so many times that he needed no light, and his brother was waiting for him at the other end.

They clasped arms and hugged while Sanella rolled her eyes at them.

“You always greet each other like you’ve been apart for years.”

“It’s our brotherly tradition, Sanella,” Tondwell said. “A pact between men.”

“It’s stupid.”

“To you, maybe.” He turned back to Talbot. “Is it bad?”

“Yes,” Talbot said, his expression turning grave. “It’s an incursion.”

Tondwell sucked air through his teeth. “I thought as much. I’ve already drafted a letter to the World Force, but I worry it will take too long to reach them. Were there any signs of nightmares?”

“One,” Sanella said. “It drowned.”

Talbot nodded. “We’re fortunate, in a way, that it appeared at the bottom of the lake. Only amphibious creatures or those with no need to breathe will be able to threaten the city.”

“I will have every inch of the lakeshore watched. Several mounted units will respond to any sighting of a creature emerging from the water. I’d like you and Genji to be ready if anything really big comes out.”

“Yes, my king,” Talbot said, bowing.

Tondwell rolled his eyes. “Next time you do that, I’ll use my kingly authority to have you thrown in the dungeon.” He turned and strode out of the room, his ice-blue cape swishing behind him.

“I suppose I should get ready, then,” Talbot said.

“How long do you think it will take for someone from the World Force to come?” Sanella said.

Talbot just shrugged uncomfortably.

 

It took almost a month. The first two weeks were relatively uneventful – what few nightmares managed to reach the surface of the lake were filled full of arrows on the shoreline. Those who usually fished the lake were instead paid from the king’s own coffers to assist the guards in watching over the incursion. The danger drew the whole city together in a spirit of camaraderie, and the people grew complacent with the threat.

In the third week, they faced several creatures a day. The guards started taking casualties. And the much-beloved king all but disappeared from public life.

By the middle of the fourth week, there was a near constant stream of monsters crawling from the lake.

 

“Damnit,” Talbot said, looking down at the cut on his arm. It wasn’t deep but, with help still several days away at the earliest, he couldn’t afford to be taking such foolish injuries. The creature that had delivered the blow lay at his feet. It was almost human in size and shape, but it was made from stone and its face was just a twisted mess of geology.

The next nightmare was already creeping its way out of the water through the scum on the surface. The fish had all died, and now some manner of gross, slimy algae that enjoyed hot water was flourishing across the entire body of water. Talbot had almost become accustomed to its foul stench.

You should rest, Sanella said in his head. Let the guards handle a few while they’re still coming one at a time.

“The guards cannot do what you and I can,” Talbot said. “If they have to fight, some of them will die.”

If you keep fighting like this, you will die.

“Better that than the alternative.”

Your brother could help.

Talbot almost argued. His brother had many things he must do to protect the kingdom. His brother could not be risked out here. His brother was working on a strategy that could see the incursion closed. Over the last week, he had excused his brother in every way he could think of, and his instinct was to do it again, now. He owed Tondwell everything, and his brother had never failed him once. He must have a reason for not emerging from the keep to reassure his people and help them fight.

But the fact was, he was failing him now. He hadn’t seen him in days.

“I’ll leave the monsters to the guards for as long as it takes to find Tondwell,” he says, signalling to captain Landov.

The man jogged forward. “Yes, sir?”

“I must rest and speak with the king,” Talbot said. “Can you handle this for an hour or so?”

“Of course, sir!” Landov said. “You have already done too much in our stead.”

“Thank you, captain. I will return as soon as I can.”

“Please don’t rush, sir. Take as long as you need.”

Talbot nodded and headed for the keep. A number of guards cheered and saluted as he passed.

They’ve really come to respect you.

“They respect us. The strength of the waltz is truly astounding.”

He almost lost his footing just before the city gates as the ground began shaking. He heard fearful yells from within the city and atop its walls and turned back to find the lake rising.

By the Word.

The very centre of the lake became a hill as something truly massive rose through its waters. Steam and fragments of molten metal burst from its back, and then, with a splash that echoed off the far distant mountains, the creature stood. Its roar sent the guards surrounding the lake running. Scattered screams marked those hit by the rain of white-hot fragments of the Reach.

The creature itself was an impossible colossus, with twelve eyes that glowed like sunlit diamonds in its bulbous head and green-grey skin that dribbled with slime. Its body was stick-thin, but the innumerable tentacles that emerged from its neck like a ruff quickly wound all around it, thickening its body until it achieved an almost-human shape.

How can we fight that?

“I don’t know, but we have to try.” Talbot turned and let the Trait roll over him.

“Hold on, there,” a new voice said.

Talbot span around. There was a woman standing before the closed gates of the city. She had dark skin and black, curly hair that was shorn away on the left side of her head. She was almost tall enough to look him in the eye, and she approached him with a lithe grace that spoke of years of martial training. Her leather armour was painted with unsymmetrical, angular patterns, and came with a single pauldron over her right shoulder, leaving her left arm bare. When Talbot followed those patterns, they led his eyes to a symbol emblazoned on the front of her left thigh. The mark of the World Force.

“Thank the Writings,” Talbot said, breathing a sigh of relief and making the woman smile.

“Sorry it took so long,” she said. “I’m Lieutenant-General Sain Mantra. Is King…” she glanced down at the back of her hand, “Tondwell around?”

“I will go and find him immediately.”

“Thanks,” she turned her attention back to the titan. “I’ll deal with your little incursion problem while I wait. Please have all your people retreat to a safe distance and, ideally, avert their eyes.”

Talbot scanned the scene and found Captain Landov, already running towards him. The creature roared again, setting further panic into the guards. In truth, he needn’t give the order to retreat. They were already doing it. The only person who wasn’t was probably Captain Genji.

“Sunlight,” the woman said, then frowned. “You have a crafter among your army?”

“Yes. He’s probably on the other side of the lake. He’s never really known the better part of valour.”

“No problem,” Sain said. “I can send him a note.” Her brow creased.

“Captain,” Talbot said as Landov reached him, wide eyed and panting. “Make sure the guard falls back from the lake. If you can, get them to look away from the monster.”

“I’ll… do what I can,” Landov panted.

“You’re sure you don’t need any assistance?” Talbot said to the Lieutenant-General.

“Yes. Thank you,” she said without looking at him.

“Then I will seek the king.”

Talbot went over to the sally port that passed through the gate, sparing another glance for the titan. It was wading towards the city, its blazing eyes intent on the fleeing guards and the walls that would provide no shelter from something that size.

The people of the city were in their homes, as ordered. Talbot saw plenty of them watching him through their windows as he jogged through the streets. He was approaching the church when, for a moment, the world went dark.

What now?

He turned back towards the gate. A single point of light, so brilliant that just glancing at it left a painful streak of colour on his vision, seemed to hover above the lake, and he looked away again just in time to hide from a flash that lit everything in a light so bright that, even facing away from its source, he could not see. The shadows leaned inward on themselves until they were gone. It was like standing in a white room with a million lanterns.

Everything went back to normal so quickly that he was left blinking in the street, while around him the people cried out in fear and pain. But he didn’t have time to tell them that the light was probably good. He began jogging again.

A furious roar crashed against his back, suggesting that the visitation of all the light in the universe had not yet killed the titan. He hoped that wasn’t all the woman had up her sleeve, but if it was then they were all doomed anyway. He barrelled into the church to find it filled from wall to wall with people praying. Usually, the place remained empty from dawn until dusk, but Talbot supposed if there was ever a time to rediscover religion, it was now.

A number of the congregation looked up at him, but he ignored them. It might be that this gave away his long-standing secret passage, but he was in too much of a hurry to wait for the drawbridge to come down. Apologising as he went, he shoved his way through the crowd and bounded down the stairs. There were people in the library, too.

Uh oh.

“It is what it is,” Talbot said. The few people who had decided that the protection of faith might be bolstered by a layer of earth between them and the monsters watched him as he yanked the bookcase aside.

He turned back at the threshold and gave the astonished citizens a conspiratorial look. “I’d appreciate it if you’d keep a lid on this?”

“Uh, sure,” one man said.

“Thanks.” Talbot had recovered his breath, now, and yanked the door closed behind him before sprinting all the way to the keep.

His brother was not waiting for him. In fact, as he ran through the corridors, he got the sense that the keep was deserted.

Something’s wrong.

“Where the bloody hell is he?” Talbot growled.

The throne room was empty. His quarters were empty.

There should at least be a few guards here, Sanella said. Wasn’t Captain Brazen in charge of protecting the king?

There were rocks in Talbot’s guts. He had blitzed the whole keep and come up empty. The only place he hadn’t been was the dungeons.

A gloomy, narrow staircase spiralled down into the earth from the base of the north tower. No torches or lanterns lit the way, and the feeling of the weight of rock and soil above him pressed down on his shoulders as he went deeper. Several corridors jaunted off from the staircase, each lined with iron doors that were now standing wide open.

At the very bottom of the staircase were the prisons of the worst convicts, but these too showed their bare walls and dirty floors to the corridor. At the very end, where there should have been a wall, a new hole bored deeper into the world. Tondwell Frostburne stood at the opening, waiting.

“What’s going on?” Talbot said. The look in his brother’s eyes was not one he had ever seen before, and his grin looked like the corners of his mouth had been nailed to his skull.

“Something wonderful,” Tondwell said.

All of the cell doors slammed closed at once, caught by an imaginary wind.

The Trait rushed through Talbot’s fur, making it stand up while a chill ran down his back.

That is not your brother, Sanella said.

“Come, Talbot,” Tondwell said. “Let me show you a beautiful truth.”

“What happened to the people in the keep, Tondwell? To the prisoners?”

“Nothing,” Tondwell said.

Get out of here, Tal.

“Be quiet, Sanella,” Tondwell said. “I’m talking to my brother.”

Talbot’s chest tightened, his heart thrumming.

“The World Force is here,” Talbot said, taking a slow step back. “The incursion might even be closed by now.”

Tondwell’s eerie grin faded away, then he shook his head in a clunky, inhuman way.

“It doesn’t matter. We always have more time. Always.”

“More time for what?”

Just run, Tal! Get out, now!

“Time to bring the End!” Tondwell said. He took a drunken step forward, and Talbot turned to run. Something grabbed at his chest and shoved him backwards with such force that he stumbled. He tried to turn and found himself clutching his brother’s shoulders to keep his balance.

No!

There was a strange, pinching sensation in Talbot’s chest. He looked down.

“What?” he said.

He took a step back, and the sword handle followed him. He looked up, back into his brother’s empty eyes.

“Tondwell?”

Please, Sanella said. Her voice sounded distant. Tal.

There was a flash of blue light, and Talbot felt the world turn around him. He was on the floor, looking up at Sanella and his brother. For a moment, the two boys were children again. They were laughing and chasing each other around as Sanella watched over them with a smile. Then things began to go dark.

“Talbot,” Sanella said, but her voice was even further away now. “Tondwell, what have you done?”

“I’ve freed him. And I can free you, too.”

Sanella looked from Talbot to Tondwell, her face a mask of pain. She took a step back from Tondwell whose rictus grin returned.

Talbot blinked at the scene, wondering where the children had gone. On the other side of the blink, however, there was only darkness.

 

 

 

“By the time I awakened as a ghost, two generations had already passed,” Talbot says. Indessa is resting a hand on his arm, but he is staring down at the floor as though he is watching himself take his final breath. “I never saw Sanella again, and I discovered books in the library telling the story of my brother’s reign. The incursion was closed, the people cheered and I, apparently, took ill. I was quarantined away with some manner of Calis-born pathogen I’d picked up while fighting the nightmares. I passed away shortly after, but not before infecting a devastating number of people in the keep.

“I never did find out what happened to all those people. And though I knew in my heart the moment I died that what killed me wasn’t really my brother, until now I had no explanation for it.”

“You think this Darkness thing took him?” Prince Tolmet says. “The same way it has my father?”

“I’m sure of it,” Talbot says.

“But if it’s been around for that long,” Emerald says, “why did Saviour’s Call prosper for the next few hundred years?”

“The histories say that, three years after the incursion and shortly after having a son, King Tondwell Frostburne took his own life,” Talbot says. “I always thought he’d managed to take back control from whatever it was for long enough to kill himself, and it with him.”

“Maybe that’s not far wrong,” Ravi suggests. “Maybe the Darkness was gone, until the current king reawakened it somehow.”

“It’s as good a theory as any,” Cotter Lee says, “but how does it help?”

“Well, for a start we know it can be killed,” Rolleck says. “Or at least turfed out of its host.”

“It also tells us that there’s probably something in the keep that allowed it to return,” Emerald says. “So, if we can figure out what it is, then we can turf it out of the king and then stop it from ever coming back.”

“The place to start would be my final resting place,” Talbot says. “Whatever was down there when I died might still be there.”

“I doubt the Darkness will let us get there easily,” Rolleck says. “Whatever it is, it’s strong. If Riyo hadn’t kept it from us, we’d probably all be dead.”

They all look to their saviour, but she has fallen asleep on a gravy-smeared plate.

“I have a question,” Glitter says carefully.

“Go ahead, Glitter,” Emerald says.

“Um, Mr. Talbot. If your brother got rid of the Darkness once, why is his ghost now helping it?”

“That is what most perplexes me,” Talbot says. “It… it’s still possible that I was wrong. That Tondwell never defeated the Darkness, and that Frosthold’s prosperity is somehow a part of its plan.”

“Why don’t you just ask him?”

Talbot’s mouth quirks into half a smile. “I’d like to, but he will not speak to me. And I do not see him as often as you might think. We ghosts can move in ways that defy the physical world, but we are still bound to it. We can only be in one place at one time and… And my brother was always stronger than me. Even with my Trait, while we were alive, I never once bested him in combat. Death hasn’t changed that. He can hide from me in the keep, where I dare not tread, and on the handful of occasions I’ve found him outside, he has escaped me.”

“Well, now you have us,” Glitter says. “We’ll help you talk to your brother!”

“How exactly will you do that?” Cotter Lee says.

“Uhh…”

“We will have to draw him out,” Tolmet says. “And I think I know how we can do it.” He stands. “Now that my eyes have been opened, the only trustworthy member of our family that remains to the enemy is Fortissa. Between us, we have been keeping the people placated. I thought I was maintaining peace, protecting people from chaos, but it seems all I have done is kept this war going. If I speak to the people, tell them what I have learned, then only Fortissa could speak against me. She would have to come out, and Tondwell would have to be with her to keep her safe.”

“It’s still dicey,” Cotter Lee says. “Announcements are usually made from the drawbridge. That’s as far out as she’ll need to go.”

“It’s far enough,” Indessa says.

“Probably,” Talbot adds.

The door behind Ravi bursts open, smashing into the wall and making him leap out of his seat and onto the table.

Riyo sits bolt upright and screams open her reality. “Where are they?!” Her head swivels round, eyes glancing off everybody on the room, then she touches her face. “They got me! I’m bleeding!”

“Riyo! It’s gravy!” Emerald says, arresting her attention.

Riyo puts her fingers in her mouth. “I’m bleeding gravy!”

The black-clad rebel responsible for the chaos is leaning against the door and panting, while staring at Talbot as though he has seen a ghost.

“You have a report?” Cotter Lee says.

“Yes. Sorry, sir. Captain Longshank has escaped!”

Cotter Lee’s expression grows dark. “When? How?”

“He… I’m not sure. The two guards left outside his cell are missing. Two more are dead, and a third gravely injured. She says the cell guards attacked her and let Longshank out.”

“Traitors?” Sasha says, disbelief in her voice.

Cotter Lee shakes his head. “I don’t doubt there are spies among us, but the odds of two of them being chosen to guard a prisoner as valuable as Longshank?”

“Perhaps his puppetry is stronger than you realised,” Rolleck says.

“Shit,” Cotter says. “I should have… Well, there is nothing to be done, now. I’ll have to close up whichever path he escaped by before-”

A different door explodes inwards, this time behind Emerald. She, too, jumps, then turns an angry glower on the offending rebel, who forgets whatever urgent report she has in favour of stumbling back from the grumpy dragon and falling on her backside with a squeak of fear.

“I thought you people had secret knocks and stuff,” Ravi says, still standing in the table, knife in hand.

“We do,” Cotter Lee says with a raised eyebrow for the messenger. “What news?”

“Sorry, sir,” she says without taking her eyes off Emerald. There is a distinct quiver to her voice. “Immanuel reports activity at the keep. People are gathering as though there’s going to be an announcement.”

“If I were the king,” Rolleck says, “I would do something to counter the prince’s inevitable change of heart after seeing what he really is.”

“They’ll probably have Fortissa accuse us of capturing and torturing him,” Cotter Lee says, “And suggest anything he says later is done so under duress.”

“Would Fortissa do that?” Emerald asks. “She seemed hesitant about all this when I spoke with her.”

“She may not have a choice,” Talbot says. “If Tondwell takes control of her…” He turns to Indessa. “Would you like your eyes back, my dear?”

Indessa lets out a breath of relief and gives a faint smile. “Thank you, Tal.”

The ghost steps into the princess, and a rush of cold, blue fire engulfs them both. It ends with a searing blue flash, and Indessa looks as she did before. Taller. Stronger.

“That’s really cool,” Riyo says. “Hey, Rolleck. When you become a ghost, we should learn to do that.”

Rolleck just glares at her.

“We should go to the drawbridge plaza,” Indessa says. “If we get there first, we can head off whatever propaganda they’re planning on using to keep the loyalists on side.”

“Agreed,” Cotter Lee says, standing. “Are you willing to help us once more, travellers?”

“Yep,” Riyo says, bouncing to her feet. She casts about, then scurries over to Sasha. “Thanks for the food,” she says.

“Um, no problem.”

Riyo hugs her, stunning her into paralysis for a moment. When she withdraws, Sasha finds that the gravy from Riyo’s face is now on her tunic.

“Let’s go!” Riyo says.

 

Cotter Lee’s tunnel network leads them all to a damp basement on the edge of the moat. He informs them that this is an as-yet-unused emergency tunnel, which explains the look of shock on the face of the plump woman whose kitchen they bluster into.

“Sorry for intruding,” Riyo says. “It’s important, though. Which way’s the drawbridge?”

Everybody else, led by Cotter Lee, barrels past her out into the garden. The woman watches them pass by with eyes as large as Calis, her mouth flapping open and closed without issuing a sound.

“Seems like they know,” Riyo says, jogging to the door after them. “Sorry again.” And then she is out, hopping over the low wall around the woman’s small garden and into a street packed with startled eyes and curious ears. Shouts of disbelief gather in the air, and people jostle and shove to get out of their way. Emerald leads the charge, her heart breaking a little for each look of abject fear she receives.

The plaza is packed to bursting with people and unease. Princess Fortissa stands atop the drawbridge, resplendent in a beam of early morning sunlight that makes her armour shine and grants her an aura of unbreakable purity.

They come to a halt at the back of the crowd. The people it is made from are too focused on the princess to notice Emerald in timely manner.

“People of Saviour’s Call,” Fortissa says. Her voice carries over the plaza with unnatural strength, and the duality of it is clear to those looking for it.

“Tondwell,” Indessa growls.

“We have to do something,” Ravi says. “Quickly.”

Riyo opens her reality, but Cotter Lee puts a hand on her shoulder.

“This is politics,” he says.

“People of Frosthold.”

“It is best left to the royals and I. Look for an opportunity to capture Fortissa.” Cotter Lee draws his sword and closes his eyes.

“I come to you today with sad tidings.”

Cotter’s eyes snap open and he rams his sword into the ground. The people around them have noticed them, and a wave of pressurised chaos is trying to spread through the crowd. It picks up in intensity as the ground begins to shake.

“My brother, Prince Tolmet, has been captured by Cotter Lee and his violent rebels.”

The ground folds upwards, pillars of earth rising in uneven stages. Despite the press, the crowd parts to let the ground push higher.

Tondwell has clearly seen them, because he begins to rush.

“We cannot know what terrible tortures those barbarians will carry out against him, but his words can no longer be trusted.”

Even his amplified voice is drowned out in the last by the crunch of rock and the wails of terror from the crowd. As the new staircase settles into shape, Cotter Lee, Prince Tolmet and Princess Indessa hurry to its peak, at eye level with the top of the drawbridge gate.

“Fortissa!” Indessa shouts, and with the rumble of the ground fading, her voice reaches the same level as Fortissa’s.

“Man, that’s really useful,” Riyo says. “Hey Ravi-”

“I’m not dying so you can shout a bit louder, Riyo.”

“Pfft.”

“Tondwell is lying to you,” Indessa says.

For a moment, Fortissa’s face twitches. “Indessa?” she says, and it is only her voice that echoes around the plaza.

“Fortissa, please. You have to fight him.”

Her face twitches again, and this time it becomes a scowl.

“Do not test me, Princess,” Tondwell says.

“Let her go, you wretch.”

“You do not understand what is happening here, Talbot.”

“Enough,” Tolmet says. “We know you serve that Darkness, Tondwell. Release my sister and let us confront it together. You claim to serve this kingdom, but you are destroying it.”

“And you are not? By working with him?” Fortissa points her sword at Cotter Lee.

“Cotter Lee is the last honourable man in Frosthold,” Indessa says.

Fortissa laughs. “You do not know, do you?”

“Indessa,” Cotter Lee says, taking her hand.

Indessa glances at him, and he realises he has made a mistake.

“Know what?”

“His lineage!” Fortissa cries. “Cotter Lee, hero of the downtrodden, is the bastard son of the Rose family. His own family’s guards stormed your keep. Cut off your arm. Gouged out your eyes. And whose money, whose resources, do you think made his resistance possible?”

Indessa is very still. She stares at her sister’s face, twisted by Tondwell’s malice. Looks into her crystalline eyes.

“Indessa,” Cotter says again.

She lets go of his hand.

“Is this true?” Tolmet asks.

“Look to his sword,” Fortissa says. “A cursed heirloom of the Rose family. Would they ever part with such a blade voluntarily?”

“I…” Cotter says, his hand going to the hilt of his sword.

Down in the square, a formerly terrified crowd has grown complacent now that what they thought would be a fight has turned out to be a conversation. They are listening. Among them, several black-clad figures stare at their leader and wait. Wait for him to deny it. Wait for him to call out the princess’s lies.

“Uh oh,” Rolleck says as the silence stretches.

“Huh?” Ravi says.

“The man is too honest for his own good,” Rolleck says. “Riyo.”

“On it,” Riyo says, opening her reality.

“It was true,” Cotter Lee says.

Indessa turns away from him like he has slapped her.

“For the first few years, I…”

Indessa grinds her teeth. Her blindfold grows damp on the left side. The right eye was damaged so badly that even the tear ducts stopped working. Damaged by Cotter’s family. Whose actions he had, at least at first, condoned.

“But not anymore. I changed my mind. You changed my mind.”

“Shut up,” Indessa says, and hates how weak she sounds. How her voice quavers.

Bastard, Talbot says. Indessa, I’m so sorry.

A number of rebels are gathered at the bottom of the stairs. Rolleck stands in their path, but he does not have the heart to fight them. They have every right to be angry, and Rolleck himself still harbours some resentment towards Cotter Lee.

Other rebels have gone from the plaza, searching out companions to share their devastating news with.

“And what of it?” Tolmet shouts. His reality bursts open, and once again Saviour’s Call is blanketed in a quiet peace. Unassisted, his voice does not carry nearly as far as the princesses’, but with the crowd’s anger fading away, silence lets his words reach them.

“We have been at war with ourselves for ten long years. Some of us have changed our minds. Some of us have lied to ourselves, or to each other, to make our lives that little bit easier. That little bit more bearable. Some of us have made mistakes. Some of us have been betrayed. Our city is broken and strangled to the point of surrender. This could be our last breath.

“But we are not yet broken. We have not yet surrendered. And it is clear to me now that we have all been tricked. My father is not the man he once was.”

“Prince Tolmet…” Fortissa says, but it is not clear which consciousness within her is speaking.

“You have all seen it! His silence in the face of all of this. His reticence. He has shown, time and again, that he no longer cares for this city. For its people. In my love for him I have been blind to it, but now it is time for him to explain himself.”

He raises his voice further. “Father! If you truly wish to see the Frosthold Song prosper. If you truly wish peace. Come. Please. Speak to your people.”

“That wasn’t the plan,” Ravi says. “If the king does come out, we’re in trouble.”

“You do not want that,” Tondwell says. Fortissa’s features are still, suggesting he has control of her body now.

“You know what he is. What he did to your brother. To you,” Tolmet says so that the crowd will not hear.

“And that is why you do not want him to come out here, boy.”

A length of chain hauls the Iron Pillowcase up to the top of the gate, where she lands neatly beside the princess. The stump of her arm is bound in bloody bandages, and several lengths of chain emerge directly from it.

“The king is angry, your majesties,” she says. “Tolmet, he wishes to see you at once.”

Tolmet narrows his eyes. “I will not speak to him unless it is before the people. They have a right to know they have been toyed with.”

“Very well. Tondwell. Kill him.”

“What?” Fortissa and Tondwell say together.

“You know the consequences, Tondwell.”

Fortissa’s features show their struggle for a moment longer, but then they fall still.

“Fortissa?” Tolmet says.

A blue flash lights the entire plaza, and Fortissa vanishes.

The slash meant to decapitate Tolmet stops in Indessa’s hand, which flares with a Trait that is not hers. The impact shockwave blows the top of the staircase apart. Rubble and royalty tumble towards the crowd, which screams and panics but cannot move.

Despite this, only Indessa lands amidst the crowd in a three-point-pose that shatters the cobbles. Everything else floats in place.

“Let’s do the plan!” Riyo yells, leaping into the air and landing on the back of the flailing, airborne princess. “You’re coming with us, ghost king.”

Tolmet and Cotter Lee drift to the ground as the people at the edge of the plaza finally take a hint and begin to fray away. The whole crowd writhes like a wounded beast as the centre puts more pressure on the rim. Chaos reigns below, but Riyo rides her royal captive away from the drawbridge.

“Get off me!” Tondwell yells, and Riyo begins to feel cold. In a matter of seconds, she feels as though she is trapped in a glacier, and she pushes off the princess to land back on the staircase to nowhere, shivering. She feels the overlap of yet another reality on her own, and a chain lashes out from the drawbridge to arrest the princess’s flight.

With a clatter of reeling chain, the drawbridge falls and crashes into the ground. The plaza shakes, and a portion of the panicked crowd loses its feet. Momber Maul roars, making the drawbridge creak with his massive footfalls. Behind him, a legion of guards marches forth. Their every step comes down in time to make a metal drumbeat on the wood.

Indessa bounds off the side of the staircase and slashes a crackling blue hand through the chain around her sister’s foot, shattering it into nothing. A pair of similarly blue arrows smash into the drawbridge gate, driving the Iron Pillowcase aside and keeping her from grabbing Fortissa again.

Riyo grins, but it fades as Momber swings his club, blowing the staircase to smithereens. She rides the fall along with the debris, keeping it from showering the mass of civilians still trying to escape the plaza and coming to rest atop one of the fragments. Momber reaches for the floating princess, and with two realities overlapping hers on top of his cyclops resistance, she is powerless to stop him.

Emerald isn’t, though. She meets the cyclops’ outstretched hand with a kick that arrests his momentum and sends him stumbling back. His massive greave comes down on a pair of puppet guards, flattening them into the cobbles.

Several chains streak towards the crowd, and Riyo is forced to retract her reality to keep them from making skewers of the people of Saviour’s Call. Princess Fortissa drops to the cobbles and begins walking back through the stream of guards. Riyo scowlsand glances towards Ravi, but he and Rolleck are engaged with the guards, trying to keep Tolmet and Cotter Lee from being overwhelmed.

Snow rises from the moat, water flash-freezing in an instant and driving up into the bottom of the drawbridge. With an anguished crunch, the wood begins to splinter. Snow reaches between its boards and freezes into lumps of ice that drive them apart. In a handful of moments, all that is left is kindling wrapped around a spiny pillar of ice.

“Good job, Glitter,” Riyo shouts, bounding over towards the gate and dragging her rubble with her. She strafes the Iron Pillowcase with clumps of rock, forcing her to defend herself and keeping her from assisting Fortissa.

More snow rushes in amongst the puppet guards, then swirls around Fortissa. Blue flame rushes to life around her, rebuffing the snow. It freezes solid, creating a circle of guard shaped statues. Fortissa makes to jump over them, but Indessa is above her. Her blank eyes widen as Indessa’s heel comes down into her hastily raised sword and slams her back to Valos with a crash of shattering cobbles.

The two princesses face off in their circle of unseeing spectators.

“This is foolishness, Talbot!” Tondwell says.

“We just need to know why,” Indessa says. “Why do you serve that creature?”

“I serve Frosthold!” Tondwell yells, driving forward.

Indessa bats the thrust aside, Talbot’s Trait flaring from her hand. The Chill leaks from both of them, sparking impossibly cold flames in the air around them as they trade blows back and forth. Indessa’s fist and feet keep her sister’s sword from piercing her, but Tondwell’s form has no fault and his reach is far greater. She bounces around their arena, defending for her life and hoping for an opening that Talbot knows will not appear. His brother has remained ahead of him across thirty-four years of life and nearly four hundred of death. Blue light flashes and reflects off steel, and Talbot feels his Trait beginning to fail.

Fortissa’s attention flickers over Indessa’s shoulder, her inhuman eyes widening. The tip of her sword dips, and Indessa leaps into a kick that cracks her sister’s breastplate and sends her flying back into the frozen puppets. Bits of armour clatter off in every direction, and Fortissa comes to rest near the foot of what was once an earthen staircase. A moment later, ice crystals flash around her and a cage appears.

“I got her!” Glitter yells.

Indessa looks behind her. There is a child standing just inside the circle. He is perhaps ten years old, and his clothing is worn and dirty. He stares at her with teary eyes for a moment, then runs towards where the crowd has finally thinned to its last few terrified members. They shove between those brave and foolish enough to have stopped by the edge of the plaza to watch. The boy vanishes amongst them.

Emerald smashes into more of the frozen guards and scrapes up a furrow of cobbles before coming to a rest. She clambers to her feet and spits out a glob of steaming blood.

“We got what we came for, right?”

Indessa looks away from where the boy disappeared and nods.

“Let’s get out of here, then. Riyo!”

Riyo glances around at the roar of her name and sees a twinkling cage full of princess. She shoves aside some more chains, then pushes. Even with all the limitations on her, it is enough to send the Iron Pillowcase tumbling towards the keep and give her enough time to fall back to her friends.

Something flickers on the edge of her senses as she touches down beside Indessa, and she blows out her reality just as darkness closes in on them once more. Tolmet cries out, and she feels his reality close. It is just as well, since with the darkness comes pressure.

“It’s lighter, this time,” she shouts, eyes roving the melee to make sure all her friends and allies are inside her reality. “The king is still inside the keep.”

“Let’s go,” Indessa says.

Snow pools beneath the cage, carrying it like driftwood on a river towards the back of the plaza.

Riyo winces as a strange sensation overcomes her. It feels as though something is tearing at her skin. Darkness begins leaking into her reality like water through a damaged roof, and she realises it has somehow torn her reality open.

The leak becomes a flood, and a great black hand emerges from the pool and lunges for Fortissa’s cage.

“Hell no,” Riyo growls, slamming the weight of a world down on the inky appendage. It hits the cobbles and smashes them. Cracks rush across the plaza as it is pulled down towards the centre of Valos. The whole square begins to slant inwards towards the central point.

“Go!” Riyo screams.

Indessa nods and leaps onto the cage. Ravi and Rolleck disengage from the puppets, Ravi sending a pair of arrows to blow apart the ones pressing in on prince Tolmet.

Another pair of shadowy hands claw their way out of the pool of darkness, and Riyo has nothing left. The cage is too far for them to reach, now, but one of them clutches Cotter Lee by the waist. The other gets hold of Tolmet’s ankle, and both snap back with frightening speed, flinging the two swordsmen out into the black.

“No!” Indessa screams, taking a step towards the edge of the cage. Her body seizes up.

I’m sorry, Talbot says.

“Let me go, Tal!”

If you try, you will be captured, too.

Indessa screams again, wordless and terrified, but Talbot keeps control of the waltz, and the cage slides back into the morning sunlight on the edge of the plaza.

Riyo flings herself after it, coming to a stumbling halt in the middle of the street opposite where the drawbridge had once been. A dome of pure black covers the entire keep for a moment longer, then sucks inwards as though there is a black hole at its centre.

“We have to go back,” Indessa says. “We have to save them.”

Riyo closes her reality and everybody winces.

“We will,” Riyo pants. “But we have to know what we’re up against.”

Immanuel the drake skids out of a side alley on all-fours and comes barrelling towards them.

“What happened?” he says through misted breath.

“We got Fortissa,” Emerald says. “But the Darkness took Lee and the Prince.”

“Shit,” he looks at Indessa, who is still unable to move. “We should have been here.”

“Where were you?” Rolleck asks.

“With Cotter Lee too busy to close Longshank’s escape route, the human guards were able to push into the hideout. We repelled them with the Underlords, but we have casualties.”

“Let’s fall back as far as whichever entrance you came out of,” Riyo says. “We need to get the ghost talking as quickly as possible.” She looks up to Indessa. “We’ll get them back. I promise.”

 

 

 

Cotter Lee awakes in a room dimly lit by a single, wavering candle. It stands free, in a puddle of wax, in the centre of a wooden table. The walls it doesn’t quite light are the old, dense stone of the keep. The edge of the light lunges towards him, then flickers away across the floor like an animal uncertain whether he is safe to approach.

“You have been a bane, Cotter Lee,” a long-dead voice says. “A thorn in my side.”

“Good,” Cotter says. He is tied to a chair with thick chains that wrap around his wrists and ankles far too many times. The king speaks to him from the darkness. Or, rather, the Darkness speaks to him from the king.

“We will always have the time to overcome such obstacles,” the Darkness says. “And sometimes, triumphing over them is enough to be its own reward. Sometimes, though, there is no reward. Sometimes you step on an insect, only to find another over there, and another by the window, and another beneath the table. Sometimes, the problems are so small that there is no joy in solving them. And there is always just one more.”

“What are you?” Cotter asks, licking his dry lips. “What do you want?”

“Why, everything, of course,” the Darkness says. The king steps into the light of the candle. He is smiling, and Cotter can almost reconcile his visage with the man who had stepped forth from the keep all those years ago to proudly announce the birth of his twin daughters. The man whose eyes had sparkled with life and joy. Those eyes are now dull. That smile is now rigid and painful.

“For us, nothing short will do. And rejoice, Cotter Lee, for now you will help us obtain it.”

He steps forward again and covers Cotter’s mouth with his hand. His fingers are impossibly strong, and for a moment Cotter thinks his jaw will be crushed. Then he feels something ooze into his mouth. He tries to scream, but the darkness fills his windpipe, and then his eyes. The blackness hurts, and hurts, and won’t stop hurting.

 

 

In a cage, in a cave, beneath a pub called The Pillar of Autumn, sit a princess and a ghost. The princess is cold and scared, the ghost, still and angry. Before them is arrayed a fantastic collection of nonsense, and the most nonsensical element steps forward to speak to them, an angry face drawn on its glass front.

“Start talking, dirtbag,” Glitter says. His father used to read exciting stories to him every night before his body was completed, so he knows exactly how to get information out of prisoners.

“Stand down, Inquisitor,” Rolleck says. “I think this one needs a more personal touch.”

“Aww,” Glitter says.

Indessa moves over to the side of the cage Fortissa is sitting on. She sits down, her back to the wall, and looks at her sister for a long moment. Then, with a flash, Talbot steps out of her. He walks over to the other side of the cage and looks down at his brother. There is symmetry between the two sets of siblings, but it only works to highlight their differences.

“I’m sorry, Fortissa,” Indessa says.

“For what?”

“For a lot of things. For the way this has all turned out.”

“How has this tuned out, Indy?” She reaches through the bars and almost touches her sister’s hand, but doesn’t. “What’s happening?” The last is said through tears.

“Our father is dead.”

Fortissa sobs. She hates the words, but only because she has been denying them in her heart for such a long time.

“Something is controlling him. Something dark.”

“Why are you helping it, Tondwell?” Talbot asks.

His brother does not look at him. Instead, he stares at the floor.

“I do everything for the sake of this country,” he says.

“And how does this serve Frosthold?”

Tondwell does look up, then, and his handsome face is distorted by a snarl of anger. “It stops it from being destroyed! It keeps that creature from bathing the land in murderous darkness, from wilting the trees and starving the animals, from drying the rivers and lake. It stops it from killing all of us! It stops it from killing…” He deflates, returning his gaze to the floor and dropping his voice to naught but a whisper. “It stops it from killing her.”

“Who?”

“Sanella.”

If Talbot had a heart that beat, it would have stopped doing so.

“She… She is alive?”

“In whatever sense that we still live, yes.”

“Where is she?”

“It has her. And now, thanks to you, it will kill her.”

Talbot leans forward, puts his hands against the bars. Glitter’s ice is not normal. It is imbued with an energy that matches that which makes up their ghostly forms, so he cannot pass through it.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice is soft. “Four hundred years since we died, and you let me think she was gone.”

“If you didn’t know, the Darkness had nothing to control you with. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t run blindly into the black and be lost to me as well. As long as you didn’t know, you could live your unlife free of this burden. This leash.”

“So you protect me. Again.” Talbot slams a fist into the bars, making them crackle.

“Be angry, if you want,” Tondwell says. “But I would do it again. I have always loved you, Talbot. Protecting you. Protecting my family.” He glances at the twin princesses. “That has always been the thing that gave me the most joy. That is why what happened four hundred years ago was my greatest misery, and why I have done everything since to keep it from happening again.”

“But you failed,” Fortissa says. Her quiet words make Tondwell wince.

“Yes. Tilch lived such a wonderful life up until your mother took ill that I was content to just watch it unfold. I never wanted to rule eternally, so I only ever appeared to aid my family when they truly needed me. The Darkness held Sanella over me, but it was biding its time. It struck before I could do anything. Tilch… After Malory died, he was heartbroken. I made a mistake – showed myself in an effort to comfort him in his grief. He took it as a sign that his wife could still be brought back, still be saved. The Darkness exploited those feelings, drove him to greater and greater madness, until he opened the vault.”

“That place beneath the dungeon,” Talbot said. “What is it?”

“It’s the Reach,” Tondwell says. “The incursion beneath the lake was the main tendril, but a second, much smaller connection was made with our world. The Darkness came through it, came to whisper in my ear. I didn’t know what it was, then. How could I? But it told me it could help me. That it knew how to push the incursion back.”

“But… The incursion barely threatened us, except at the end?”

“And why do you think that is?” Tondwell growls. He looks around and picks out Riyo, lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling. “You’re the girl from Ragg, the one that seeks the stone. You know what the Reach births.”

“It’s a pretty endless tide,” Riyo says, without looking round. “Titans are kind of rare, but there’s basically an infinite army marching out into the Plains of Chaos.”

“Our incursion was little more than a trickle…” Talbot says.

“Because the Darkness made it so,” Tondwell says. “Not, as it told me, by manipulating the Reach and turning aside most of the nightmares, but simply by deciding not to let more through. I thought it was helping us. When I saw that titan rise from the lake, it gave me only one choice. It needed a body to fight with, and in my fear for you I gave it mine. By the time the World Force archcrafter destroyed it, it was too late.”

The cave is silent for a moment, but Indessa cannot bear it any longer.

“How can we kill it?”

“I don’t know,” Tondwell says. “But it feeds on life. It was constantly talking about its hunger, its need for more power. It said, ‘Once we pass the Crux, it will all be over.’”

Indessa grits her teeth. “So, what happens to the people taken to the keep?”

“They are sacrificed,” Tondwell says. “Cast into the Reach. Three every day.”

Somebody slams a door in the pub far above them, and their silence is so complete that it reverberates off the walls of the cave.

Ravi stands up and stretches. “Let’s go.”

Riyo rises from the ground and spins to her feet. “Right. I need to get my sword back.”

“What’s the plan?” Emerald says.

“There isn’t one,” Riyo says. “I don’t want to think about food right now.”

Rolleck rolls his eyes. “The ghost king forced the Darkness out once, right?” He looks at Tondwell. “If I recall, it was shortly after his son was born.”

“I had to,” Tondwell says. “I… It was better that he grew up without a father than with that thing controlling me.”

“So, we know it can be pushed out, and that strong feelings for one’s family can give a person the strength to do it.” He looks to Indessa and Fortissa. “You said you saw your father, or his spirit, at least, which means his mind is still in there. Maybe you can convince him to fight it.”

Fortissa looks across at Indessa. This time when she reaches through the bars, she does grab her hand. Indessa turns sightless eyes to her sister for a moment, then nods.

“That deals with stage one,” Rolleck says.

“Then Riyo can close the incursion,” Glitter says.

“Assuming she knows how.”

“No idea,” Riyo says. “But it needs to be done, so I’ll do it.”

“Seriously?” Ravi says. “You said your master was an archcrafter.”

“He is, but apparently you don’t get to learn how to close incursions until you’re inducted into the Force. I didn’t get that far yet. Everything I know about incursions comes from the apothacarium.”

“Well then,” Rolleck says. “We’ve got a couple of ideas that might work. Let’s go.”

“You’re all insane,” Tondwell says. He is watching them in disbelief. “You do not know what that thing is capable of.”

“That’s true,” Riyo says. “But it doesn’t know what we’re capable of, either.”

Talbot walks around the cage and offers a hand to Indessa. Though her eyes now show only blackness, her spectral sight picks out spirits in the void like glorious angels, wreathed in blue light. She smiles at him and takes the hand. With a roar of flame and a flash of blue she stands alone again, but not alone.

Glitter breaks a bar of the cage and Fortissa steps out. She grabs Indessa around the waist and hugs her close in spite of her armour.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “All this time I thought I couldn’t face you, I was selfishly hiding from my guilt. I’ve been so cruel to you, and yet you’ve become so brilliant anyway.” She steps back, and there are fresh tears in the corners of her eyes. “After… After all this, I will do anything I must to make you forgive me.”

“It’ll be a long list,” Indessa says.

Fortissa smiles through her tears. “I hope it is.”

Glitter makes to fix the cage, then hesitates.

“Um,” he says.

Fortissa glances at him, then turns to face Tondwell.

“I…” he says, then lowers his forehead to the floor. “I am sorry. I hurt you. I thought it would protect you, but that is an unworthy excuse. Even if my actions thus far have protected Frosthold, they will no longer. If… if you must insist on fighting this creature, please take me with you. If you will let me, I would like you to let me protect my family but once more. This time, on your terms.”

Fortissa is silent for a moment.

“My hands aren’t clean, either,” she says. “Let’s earn our forgiveness together.”

“Thank you,” Tondwell says.

Indessa touches Immanuel on the shoulder. “Rally everyone we have. Tell them what you’ve just heard and get them to spread it to everyone in the city. Start close to the keep. Convince as many people as you can to evacuate.”

“What of the guards? They will try to enter the hideout again.”

Indessa shakes her head. “Pull everybody out of the hideout. The war ends today, one way or another. If we fail… If we fail, withdraw as far from Saviour’s Call as possible. All the way to the Everstall Song, if you have to.”

Immanuel pauses for a moment. “If this is to be the final battle, we three should be with you.”

“You have given more than three years of your life to a war that isn’t yours, Immanuel. You came here with a mission, one that you’ve abandoned for the sake of a man who only showed you the kindness he shows everybody. Return to it.”

“What is your mission, by the way?” Riyo says, butting into the conversation as if she’d been in it from the start.

“Our prince-”

“I knew it,” Riyo says before he can finish. “We met him, right?”

“L’Sweren Riss, is it not?” Emerald says.

Immanuel tilts his head slightly. “Yes.”

“He was working with a group of bandits, led by the former sheriff of Saviour’s Call.”

“Bit of an arsehole, actually,” Rolleck says.

“Oh, we know,” Immanuel says. “Our mission was to kill him.”

“Oh,” Emerald says. “Why?”

“He stole something when he was exiled. Something very important to our kind. The king and queen decided that, on top of his previous crimes, it was too great a sin to let pass. Even if he is their son.”

“He was in Coldton until recently,” Glitter says. “But he said he wouldn’t come back.”

“I see…” Immanuel grunts in frustration. “We gave up the chase because the trail grew too cold for even us to follow. To hear he was so close all this time is… agitating. Even so, the chase can be resumed once Saviour’s Call is finally free. I admit what we have done seems too much to repay the initial favour, but we have all been convinced by the righteousness of your cause. We have been fighting with you because it is the right thing to do.”

Indessa stares at him for a moment, then sighs. “Very well. Begin the evacuation, then come and join us at the keep.”

“Yes, your highness,” Immanuel says.

Indessa punches him and he winces, but he is still grinning.

“Get going,” she says, “or we’ll have cleared the place out and closed the incursion before you’re done.”

Immanuel turns and heads down into the darkness of the tunnel, while the rest of them climb back up towards the beer cellar of the Pillar of Autumn.

 

 

The square before what was once a drawbridge is empty. The citizens have fled, to cower in their homes or to seek salvation outside Saviour’s Call. The morning wears on towards noon and the sun beats through a layer of insipid cloud to cast seven weak shadows across a field of broken cobbles. They stand before a stagnant moat full of shattered planks.

Glitter raises the water. He feeds on its energy until it forms a bridge of ice across to the portcullis. Riyo glares at the iron bars and they flee from her, bending and snapping until a hole forms that allows the seven to pass.

Atop the hill, before a battered keep, stands Momber Maul. Much of his armour is damaged, now, but he wears it still. It looks just like the armour worn by the rest of the guard, and his tabard bears the proud blue Frostburne flame. He sees the invaders’ return the moment they appear in the gatehouse square, and he hefts his club. He remembers standing here, in this spot, nearly twenty years ago. No armour, no weapon. No home, no family. He glances back at the balcony above the keep door. Now collapsed on one side, he sees it whole. He sees Tilch Frostburne, smiling, his wife at his side. He sees his son standing bravely before him and his two tiny daughters peering from behind him. Offering him all the things he did not have.

He turns back to the hill and watches those two girls, now women, marching towards him.

“They will come around, Momber,” Rintin says.

A pair of her chains connect the surviving south tower to the courtyard below, and she stands at the point where they cross. The head of a morning star dangles from a short chain attached to the stump of her arm, its spikes glinting in the noon sunlight. She watches the invaders with a deep scowl and persistently scratches at the bandages around her injury.

“I don’t like to see them fight, Rintin,” Momber says. “I don’t want to fight them, either. I just want them all to be happy again.”

“I told you not to call me that,” she says.

“Oh. Sorry. I like your name, though.”

“That makes one of us.”

“Okay,” Momber says. The invaders have almost reached the top of the steps that spill out into the ruined courtyard. “What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to let the girls through to see their father.”

“That’s good,” Momber says. “And we’ll smash the other ones, right?”

“Yes,” she says, narrowing her eyes. Momber cannot tell if her mouth makes a cruel smile or an angry grimace. He still isn’t brilliant at reading human facial expressions, even after all these years and all the time Tolmet spent pulling faces at him to help him learn.

“We’ll smash the others. The ones that took the princesses away.”

Momber nods, and as the invaders enter the courtyard, he roars his challenge.

 

“We need to go quickly,” Indessa says. “We don’t know how long Cotter and Tolmet have.”

“Poor Momber,” Fortissa says. “This must be hard for him.”

“What do we do?” Glitter says.

“Emerald?” Riyo says.

Emerald cracks her neck to one side and then the other. “Sure.”

“This is a selfish request,” Fortissa says, turning to her. “But please don’t kill him. Cyclopes are not as intelligent as us. I’m sure you know their reputation. He is being led astray, just as Tolmet and I were.”

Emerald blows out a breath. “You’re right. That is selfish, coming from you.”

Fortissa winces.

“Emerald,” Riyo says again.

“I know. I know. I wasn’t going to.”

“The aim is to be better than them, right?” Ravi says.

Riyo nods. “That’s it. You’re staying too, then?”

“Yeah.” Ravi pulls his bow over his shoulder. “I really hurt her, last time. I need to apologise.”

“Okay, you two make us a gap, the rest of us will push through to the keep.” Riyo opens her reality. “Let’s do the thing, Glitter.”

“Ohhh,” Glitter says. “I don’t really like the thing.”

Emerald and Ravi move forward together. Ravi flips an arrow onto his bowstring while Emerald stretches her wings.

“I’ll go first,” Emerald says. “Keep her from tying me up.”

“It can’t be comfortable, can it?”

“Huh?”

“Those chains,” Ravi says. It doesn’t seem fair that her appearance still sparks heat in his cheeks even after everything that happened the previous day.

Emerald shrugs. “I don’t think either of us is in a position to comment on the way others dress.”

“Yeah, but… It goes right up.”

“I’m going to punch the cyclops, now,” Emerald says.

“Yeah, okay.”

Emerald leaps forward and roars forth a ball of flame that enshrouds half of the courtyard. Indigo light casts shame on the light of the sun for a moment, but the shimmering haze burns out quickly. Momber Maul is not fooled. His eye pierces the veil of fire as if it is not there, and the dragon that flits behind it, trying to hide her movements, has instead only blinded herself. With a roar, he throws his fist out to meet her.

A flash of blue light dents his gauntlet and jars his arm just as the dragon realises her mistake. Her claws graze his armour as she uses the impact to avoid the punch, then she spins and spits a lance of liquid fire away from him. It slams into a ball of spiked steel that is flying towards Ravi, making the Iron Pillowcase tsk.

Emerald folds her wings and drops, letting the cyclops’ backhand rush over her head, then bounds back towards Ravi.

“His eyesight is as good as mine,” Ravi says. “Better, maybe.”

“Yeah. That could have been bad.”

“I think I’m better suited to fighting the crafter in the long run,” Ravi says, “but for the purpose of getting the others into the keep, let’s switch.”

“Deal.”

Ravi pulls an arrow to his cheek and fires it at the slit in the cyclops’ helmet. He is not fast enough to get his hand in the way in time, but he is fast enough to turn his head so that the arrow warps the metal below the slit. The feathered haft sticks out of a small crater in the steel – a threat that a few more well-placed shots could break through the armour completely. His hand blocks the next shot in response, and Ravi keeps the barrage going.

The Iron Pillowcase takes another shot at Ravi as soon as he fires the first arrow. Emerald leaps into its path and spikes it into the ground, sending a gout of earth into the air. She then breathes another firescreen along its chain, making the crafter scowl as she is engulfed.

A flash of cold air marks Glitter’s passage between the fireball and the cyclops. His smooth glass face offers little friction on his slick of mirror-like ice, and, propelled by Riyo’s reality, he swishes through the centre of the courtyard with a high-pitched wail of speed and a cackle of Riyo’s enthusiastic laughter. Two princesses, possessed by two ghostly princes, cling to his back – all four wide-eyed and white-knuckled. Rolleck sits with his legs hanging off the back and throws a casual wave at Ravi as they zip by.

“Door, Rolleck!” Riyo yells.

Rolleck spins to his feet, a wash of pain rippling through him as wires tighten in his arm. His sword rips the air, sending a blade of pressure first up one side of the doors and then down the other, just as Glitter impacts the wood. Both doors, freed of their hinges, fly inwards and crash to the floor, muted by the lavish carpet of the entrance hall.

They skid to a stop before a grand staircase, but Glitter keeps wailing while his passengers disembark.

Riyo slaps him on the back. “Good work, Glitter.”

“Why couldn’t you do the door?” Rolleck asks.

“Saving my juice,” Riyo says. “I might have to keep the Darkness busy again and it’s bloody monstrous.”

“That’s wise,” Fortissa says. “I am unsure what we will be able to do if it brings its full strength to bear against us.”

“I think it’s getting weaker,” Riyo says.

“Huh?” Indessa says.

“Well, it was affecting a wider area last time, admittedly,” Riyo says. “But my instinct says its power isn’t like mine. It won’t come back if it kicks back for a while. It’s making sacrifices for a reason, and then there was that thing about a Crux point, or something?”

“You actually heard that?” Rolleck says.

“Hey. Sometimes I pay attention. My point is, it’s building power for something, which means slapping me down yesterday and kidnapping your brother and your lover earlier cost it some of that power.”

“Cotter’s not…” Indessa says, then blushes.

“You and Talbot suit each other,” Fortissa says with Tondwell’s smile.

“Shut up.”

“So, we maybe have a chance?” Glitter says, finally standing up and reabsorbing his snow.

“Maybe,” Riyo says.

Somebody clears their throat at the top of the stairs.

“Is this the nonsense that convinced you to turn your back on your own father, girls?”

The balcony that runs around the upper floor of the entrance hall is packed with guardsmen. Their identical, hollow vision slits stare down at them with empty malice. The voice issues from one of them and echoes around the hall.

“Oh no!” Glitter says. “How will we find the real one?”

“It’s the one with moustaches sticking out of his helmet,” Indessa says, pointing to a guard a little off to the left of the one standing at the top of the stairs.

“Oh.”

Everyone is quiet for a moment.

Captain Longshank clears his throat again. “Nevertheless,” he says.

“I can deal with this,” Rolleck says. “Get going.”

“Um,” Fortissa says.

“No killing. I know.”

“Thank you.”

“You sure you can do that?” Riyo asks.

“Sure. Call it a handicap. Like doing forms with weights on my wrists.”

“Can you do that?”

“Begone,” Rolleck says, waving them forward.

“We’ll go to the throne room,” Indessa says. “It’s the quickest way to the dungeon.”

“You will go nowhere,” Longshank says. A number of his puppets around the gallery raise crossbows.

“Glitter,” Riyo says, “cover the stairs.”

“Yes!” Snow rushes up towards Longshank, like a waterfall in reverse. It builds a corridor of crushed ice, one Glitter wide, that begins eating crossbow bolts as they run into it.

“It won’t be that easy!” Longshank shouts.

Two animated armours burst through the snow on either side as they reach the top of the stairs. Each is far more ornate than the standard guards, and each bears the arms of the Frostburne family etched into its breastplate.

Fortissa catches a sword as elegant as her own, cold blue light flashing through the icy corridor. Indessa stops a falling hammer with her fist, Trait rolling down her arm from the blow. Snow flurries, then catches in the air as Glitter brings it under his control.

“No,” Fortissa says.

“You’ve desecrated our family, Longshank!” Indessa screams, backing away from the new armour. “How can you still serve our father when he asked you to do this!”

To the princesses’ eyes, these suits are both familiar. And they aren’t empty.

“Our kingdom is threatened like never before,” Longshank shouts as the armours advance again. “Your family is divided. Your ancestors can help to make it whole again.”

The ghost of Illiana Frostburne hefts her hammer. Through the bars of her helmet, Indessa can see her crying.

We ghosts have power over the realm beyond, but even the greatest of us struggle to touch the world of the living, Tondwell tells Fortissa. We need a host to waltz with, or to sap power from. Without such an advantage, we are best served by hiding ourselves away from your world, lest someone find a way to exploit us. But… Longshank should not be able to see us. We should be safe from him.

Rolleck kicks the door open and it slams against the wall.

“Go,” he says. “I said I’d deal with this. You have people to save.”

“But,” Fortissa says, glancing at him as she backs away from the ghost of her great-great-great grandfather, Torus Frostburne. “These are two of the greatest fighters of our line.”

“I know,” Rolleck says. The voice says as much. It is laughing. His sword is eager. Excited. He can feel the wires inside him tightening, but this time he will be equal to them. His left eye glows, hot and red.

Riyo gives him a lopsided look. “Don’t overdo it, okay?”

“Like you can talk.”

“I suppose. Okay. Let’s go, your majesties.”

Indessa glances at Rolleck. “I get the feeling you haven’t been trying very hard,” she says. “Do you have a reason to, now?”

“She told me to,” he says, jerking his head towards Riyo.

“Uh-huh,” Indessa says, but she finds she can’t hold his eyes for very long. “Fortissa, let’s go.”

“But,” Fortissa says.

Your father must be stopped, Fortissa, Tondwell says. And only you and your sister can do it.

In her moment of indecision, Torus lunges at her. The queasy blue flicker of ghostwork flashes inside his armour, making his blade a lightning strike.

Rolleck steps in front of Fortissa and turns it wide, then spins and grabs the haunted armour by the forearm. He continues the spin and uses the momentum to throw Torus down the stairs, then thrusts to meet Illiana’s hammer as it comes down. The tip of his sword sticks several centimetres into the flat of the hammer, and the attack comes to an immediate halt that seems to shake the hall.

“Go,” Rolleck says through gritted teeth.

Fortissa backs through the door as the guards close in around Rolleck, then turns and runs after her sister.

“You will not stop me alone, swordsman,” Longshank says, and his voice seems to come from all of his automatons at once.

“Unfortunately,” Rolleck says, shoving Illiana’s armour away and raising his sword, “I am never alone.”

Empty, the voice says.

“Not all of them,” Rolleck says, and grins.

 

 

The path through the keep to the throne room is much more lavishly decorated than the side corridors Riyo saw when she was brought here as a captive. Wall sconces of crafted silver light their way over rich, red carpet, interspersed with stern portraits of the Frostburne line. The hallway is wide, and branching corridors are hidden by oaken doors all along its length.

A short set of steps spills them into another grand hall. Pennants bearing the Frostburne crest drip from the upper gallery, and a grand banner hides the entire back wall with the image. Streaks of sunlight paint the floor from arrow slits in the walls on either side and shine between stone pillars, marking a path up the centre of the hall towards a throne of wood and gold.

The throne is occupied.

“Tolmet,” Fortissa shouts, running forward. The prince’s eyes are closed, his head drooping to one side.

“Wait!” Indessa says.

Cotter Lee spins from behind the last pillar, his sword a guillotine aimed at Fortissa’s neck.

A wicked blue flash brings Fortissa’s sword into its path, and the blades ring together like a death knell. Fortissa is thrown back down the hall and crashes into a snowdrift.

“Cotter!” Indessa says. “What are you doing?!”

“Something’s wrong,” Riyo says. “He wasn’t that strong before.”

Cotter Lee looks up at them, grinning through his stubble. His eyes are pits of darkness, colder than the void of space.

“No,” Indessa says, the pain of loss softening her voice to but a whisper.

“They both still live, Indy,” Fortissa says, bolder than she feels. “We can still save them.”

There is laughter. It seems to come from within the walls.

“Groven,” Fortissa growls.

“What?” Groven says, still lost in the broken shadows created by flickering torches and muted sunlight. “You think the power of love can save them?”

Tolmet opens his eyes, and they match Cotter’s.

“You think my master is so weak that his control over these flimsy puppets could be broken by their feelings? That was your plan, right? To banish one of the Misfortunes by pleading with the corpse of your father?” Laughter rings through the hall again, and this time Cotter and Tolmet join in. Their mirth is stilted and uncomfortable to listen to.

“Their souls are gone,” Groven says. “All that remains are husks – strong bodies we can use to-”

A whip-crack of snow slashes through the room, plunging into the depths of the shadows at the base of a pillar behind them and yanking Groven out. Ice gathers beneath shocked eyes, sealing his mouth.

“You talk a lot,” Glitter says. “But being quiet is an important social skill, too.”

“I’m not sure you’ve quite grasped that lesson yet, Glitter,” Riyo says, but she is smiling.

“Oh,” Glitter says, unsealing Groven’s mouth and drawing himself a blushing face. “Sorry.”

“How…?” Groven manages, still dangling from the snow.

“No, no,” Riyo says. “You did good, Glitter.”

Groven overcomes his shock, and a trait wreathed dagger smashes through Glitter’s snow, dropping him to the ground. He slinks backwards warily, and then is gone.

“He left,” Glitter says, drawing on a frowny face. “Should I chase him?”

“No,” Riyo says. “If the Darkness throws everything it has at me, it might be all I can do to keep my reality open. I might need you to fight him in my place.”

“Okay…” Glitter watches back the way they have come. He felt the ligmist man flutter away in that direction. He worries about the others, but Riyo is right. The main threat is the Darkness.

Tolmet and Cotter begin laughing their unsettling laugh again.

“What do we do?” Fortissa says, glancing towards Riyo. “We need to get to father, too.”

“I’m not leaving him here,” Indessa says, fists clenched by her side.

Can you really fight them? Talbot says.

Indessa smiles cold. “Oh, you bet I can. I owe both of them a piece of my damn mind.”

The shimmer of steel on leather twinkles through the room. A pair of swords taste the air and find it disappointingly bloodless. Their owners smile crooked hatred beneath eyes filled with nothingness.

“Indy…”

“Go,” Indessa says. “Free dad’s spirit. It’s the only way any of us get out of this alive.”

Trust your family, Fortissa, Tondwell says. She can feel his pride. In his brother. In Indessa. In her.

Fortissa nods and turns away. One of the stones in the north wall depresses beneath her gauntlet and triggers the mechanism that hides the door to the dungeon.

“The master…” Cotter says, his voice coarse and uneven.

“Will not…” Tolmet says.

“Be stopped.”

Both of them are very still, no hint of intent, or even life, in their bodies. Their gazes are locked on Fortissa, but she does not look back. The steps before her are dark and steep, spiralling away into the hungry earth. Her sword kindles with blue flame, the blade riming from the Chill. It casts a flickering blue-white illumination into the stairwell. She takes the first step.

The statues break, their shadows lurching forward before their bodies. Cotter raises his sword in the air, while Tolmet thrusts for Fortissa’s back. The blade strikes the sole of Indessa’s foot and air ricochets around the throne room, sending pennants fluttering. Indessa stomps the blade down into the floor, leaning forward and driving her fist into her brother’s face. The Trait crackles, the Chill flares, and light fills the room like a lightning strike.

Tolmet bounces past Cotter and slides into the far wall, his armour clattering against the stone and his breath escaping in a groan. Cotter’s face makes a broken scowl, and he brings his blade down at the floor. The tip strikes sparks off the stone and skitters across it. Cotter looks up and growls.

“That’s not your curse, demon,” Indessa says, still wearing her fierce smile.

Tolmet regains his feet. A streak of black blood dribbles from his broken lip, but he does not wipe it away. His eyes are full of a spite that does not belong to him, and he and Cotter stare it at her as though they have the same face.

Indessa stares it back. She loves both of them, but she hates them, too. The neglect Tolmet showed her, the lies Cotter told her. The pain they have both put her through. To do that, and then go and get turned into monsters without so much as apologising first.

“Come on!” she shouts.

Indessa…

“I’ll show you both what it’s like to be hurt by someone you love!”

A rush of blue light echoes her battle cry as she charges.

 

 

“Wow,” Glitter says. He is struggling with these stairs. His little legs won’t reach down to the next one without him tipping his body past the point it overbalances, and so he has wrapped them in snow. It helps, but it also makes him tall enough to scrape his head on the ceiling. He is further hindered by the encroaching of the walls on either side. If the staircase becomes any narrower, he will simply be unable to fit.

“Huh?” Riyo says.

“Oh. Um. Princess Indessa is very… passionate.”

“You mean angry,” Fortissa says.

“Good job not actually saying it, though,” Riyo whispers, winking back at him.

“She has every right to be,” Fortissa says. “She turned against her family out of anger. It couldn’t have been easy. Then to be betrayed by those who took her in after that…”

“She’s pretty strong, huh?” Riyo says.

“Far stronger than me.”

“I want to be strong,” Riyo says. “Always have. It’s why I’m looking for the sunlight stone. I know this journey will make me strong, because I know finding the stone is something only someone strong could do.”

Glitter’s head scrapes against the ceiling again, and dust rains down on them.

“I’ve been on the lookout for strong people and stuff I can do to get stronger myself. And I’ve learned a lot about how to be strong. Turns out it’s not just punching people really far or being able to stand back up again after being dragged for a mile and a half behind a horse.”

“That’s quite specific,” Glitter says.

“Sometimes strength is about acceptance. Accepting who, or what, someone is. And that includes yourself. Accepting your own weakness is strength all by itself, because it’s actually really easy to turn your back on the truth or make excuses for yourself.”

“But… just knowing that I’m weak, that I’ve failed… It doesn’t change anything.”

“Sure it does.” Riyo pats the princess on the shoulder. “It changes you. And once you’re a different person, you’re not the one that failed anymore. You’re better. So maybe this time you won’t fail.”

“Maybe…” Fortissa says.

Something horrible touches her, then. It sends a shiver through her that makes the Chill of the Grave seem like a simmer breeze.

“Uh oh,” Glitter says.

Riyo scowls. “I know this feeling.”

“What is it?” Fortissa says.

It feels familiar to me, too, Tondwell says.

“It’s a nightmare,” Riyo says. “Some of the stronger ones release an echo of malice when they emerge from the Reach.”

That’s it. When the titan emerged from the lake. Though I was already in the Darkness’ power, I felt this sensation.

“If it’s calling for reinforcements then it must be scared,” Riyo says. “We need to make sure it can’t regain its strength.”

“If you are even right about the source of its strength,” Tondwell says through Fortissa.

“Let’s just hurry,” Fortissa says for herself. “It still has my father.”

“Right.”

Book Nine

Calling to Darkness

 

Ynara Velvette only accepts cash for her services, and her skills are highly sought-after. She is a fighter, but she does not like it. She prefers to solve problems creatively, or by teaching her clients how to win for themselves rather than relying on her to do all of their work. There are many people like her in the world, but she believes she is one of the best and her prices reflect it. Many find them too steep, but those that don’t have never found reason to complain about her work. At least, they have never found legally viable reasons.

This is because she is also very particular. She always words her contracts to suit her assessment of the situation she has been brought in to resolve. This evening, for example, she will ‘Assist the Frostburne line in locating the hideout of the rebellious elements among the citizens of Saviour’s Call.’

Her reality shrinks with every step she takes. It is as thin as a thread but stretches out deep underground to where a bag of fruits sits on an abandoned card table. The crystals inside are of her own creation, and she can feel them despite the distance. Earlier in the evening, they followed the same path she does now, and entered the house in front of them.

Before the house, two drakes and a cluster of rebels prepare a paltry defence of their escape hole.

“I grant you the opportunity to yield!” Prince Tolmet yells.

“Never, tyrant!” one of the rebels yells back.

“Then you will be arrested by force,” the prince says. He dismounts his horse, leaving his lance on his saddle. Instead, he draws an old longsword with an ornamental crossguard of shiny steel made to look like crystals of ice.

Ynara feels him open his reality, and promptly closes her own. He is an interesting crafter – denied a true apprenticeship due to his station, he has nevertheless picked up enough to craft a reality. It is one of peace. With little control over it, he always opens it to cover the entire city. Such reach might be impressive, if this did not inevitably weaken its effects to near-uselessness. Everyone it influences has their bloodlust dampened, their inclination towards violence and anger tamped down. As an ambient blanket that covers Saviour’s Call, it has given many a citizen a better night’s sleep. It has diffused bar brawls in the making and saved marriages that turned too quickly to arguments. This civil war is a decade old, however, and the grudges of the rebels are far too entrenched to be knocked aside by such a gentle breeze.

Before taking on this contract, Ynara delved into the history of the conflict. She knows about the corruption charges against the king, the death of the respected sheriff of the police force who brought those charges. She knows about the malicious man who replaced him, and his crimes. She knows he enabled a coup attempt that almost killed one of the twin princesses. She knows about the dissolution of the police force and the countless skirmishes that have taken lives and drawn even more people to either side. She knows about the boiling anger in this city, and she is sure that if the prince had done nothing, it would have come to a head by now. With him artificially softening the people, however, it has been allowed to fester instead.

It is not her job to point that out. It is her job to ‘Assist the Frostburne line in locating the hideout of the rebellious elements among the citizens of Saviour’s Call.’

In this, she has been a resounding success.

“That will not work on us, your highness,” one of the drakes says.

“We’re not going to stand down for your bullshit magic!” the angry rebel adds. “You want us, you’ll come and get us.”

The prince sighs softly. “If we could just talk around our differences…” It is too quiet for the rebels to hear. No doubt he has thought that same thought a thousand times. But if it were that simple then there would be no conflict at all, and Ynara would have to find a new line of work.

“Take as many of them alive as you can, captain,” he says to the man on his right.

The pale man looks too old and withered to be a captain of the guard. His white moustache droops down over his tabard, and his armour looks several sizes too large. He nods and puts on his helmet, making him nigh indistinguishable from the squad around him. This is ruined slightly by his moustaches poking out of the bottom. The guards move forward at a jog. Ynara watches them pass around her, eyes narrowed. They move perfectly in sync.

“Will you not aid us?” the prince says. “Your crafting would surely turn the tide.”

“Sorry, but that is not what you paid me for. My job is done.”

“Very well,” he says with another sigh. He follows his men.

The guards massively outnumber the rebels, but Ynara has been navigating underhanded deals and treacherous machinations long enough to know the prince has been outplayed. Telling him so is not her job, however. Her job is to ‘Assist the Frostburne line in locating the hideout of the rebellious elements among the citizens of Saviour’s Call.’

Ynara turns back towards the keep. Perhaps she can catch a few hours of sleep before the train leaves tomorrow morning.

The ground begins to shake. A line of dust and stone rises in front of her, and she reflexively steps back from it. Behind her, the same is happening beyond the rebel fighters. Clouds of dust make curtains before the alleyways between buildings, too.

“Bother,” Ynara says. She had hoped to be gone before the ambush arrived. She wanders over to the nearest alley and watches, fascinated, as the earth folds in on itself before her. A pit several meters across opens up, and the crunch of the earth suggests it continues to grow deeper even after she can no longer see its bottom in the gloom.

“Amberritz.”

Ynara’s reality opens and fills the alley as far as the other side of the new chasm. Twinkling yellow light crystalizes before her, forming a bridge with angelic statues at the beginning and end of each arching balustrade. Her boot heels click on crystal as she crosses, while behind her the battle cry of the ambushing rebels rings out of the brand-new caves at either end of the street. Ynara turns the corner and heads for the keep.

 

 

Rolleck the Lost knows where he is. The street he emerges onto is the one that first led him underground, though the last time he saw it, it wasn’t full of clanking guards brandishing spears. Their group rejoins the night behind a handful of rebels and a pair of drakes. Beyond the guards, a second group of rebels burst free of the earth and charges. They are led by a third drake, and this one is noticeably larger than the other two.

“We have them,” Cotter says with a grin. “And it is better than we could have hoped. Prince Tolmet leads them himself.”

Rolleck realises Frost is missing, but with the element of surprise on their side and the numbers now almost even, Cotter and the drakes will likely be enough to tip the scales.

The guards react to the ambush with stoic discipline, half of them turning to face the threat behind while the other half continue to press in on the drakes. To Rolleck’s surprise, they are not faring so well.

Rolleck sprints forward and catches a spear before it can punch into one of the drakes’ sides. His scales probably would have turned it aside, but he is being pressed back all the same.

“There is something off about these guards,” the creature growls, and, with a roar, heaves the one he has been tussling with against a wall.

Rolleck turns to face the spearman. He holds his ground, spear levelled. Rolleck drives forward and turns the spear away. The force of the blow is a shock, crackling up his arm and awakening the voice.

Empty.

The guard withdraws his spear and thrusts again. Rolleck growls and grabs its haft with his off-hand. He feels the wood burn his skin as it scrapes his palm. He jerks the guard towards him and rams his sword straight into the man’s vision slit. It burst through the back of his helmet with a crunch of tortured metal.

Empty.

The voice puts Rolleck on edge, and he keeps hold of the guard’s spear as he withdraws his sword. There is no blood on the blade.

The guard starts thrashing, and Rolleck is forced to let go of the spear. He blocks a few more angry thrusts, feeling his blood warming as it flows past the barbs in his arm.

Empty. Empty. Empty.

Rolleck knocks a thrust into the cobbles, then steps on the spear hard enough to break it. His sword whips across the guard’s face like a falling guillotine. The man stumbles back, then the top of his head falls off.

The helmet is empty.

“Oh. That’s what you meant,” Rolleck says, watching as the armour crumples to the ground.

Empty.

He spots Cotter Lee a short way away and heads over. He stops to decapitate another suit of armour that tries a thrust at his throat, and in the time it takes him to reach Lee, the rebel leader has dealt with three more. His sword stance is low, and his technique involves a lot of sweeping strikes that turn sharply to misdirect his opponents. The long blade is an excellent match to the enemy’s spears. Rolleck’s sword looks stubby, by comparison.

Lee sheathes his weapon and turns to Rolleck, a scowl on his face. “Captain Longshank is here.” He glances around the battlefield, but his eyes light upon nothing. “He’s a puppeteer. He can control large numbers of empty suits of armour. They’re stronger and more skilled than most of the regular guards.”

“He’s a crafter?”

“No. It’s some other power.” He shrugs. “This is a gift for us. We have few fighters who can disable the puppets, but we need only find Longshank himself to defeat the whole lot in one go. Time to use our secret weapon.” He throws a hand signal at a rebel lingering near the cave opening. The woman nods and lopes back into the gloom.

“In the meantime,” Cotter says, drawing his sword once more, “let us thin their ranks.”

Rolleck nods. The line of rebels has stalled against the inhuman guards, their weapons insufficient to the task of destroying the armour. Several men and women have fallen in the attempt, and their friends drag them back towards the mouth of the tunnel to accompanying cries of agony or cold, solemn silence.

Rolleck grabs a man by the back of his jacket and drags him out of the way of a spear thrust, then interposes himself. The guard does not hesitate at his change of opponent, and thrusts again. Rolleck slices the tip from the spear then presses in. The guard attempts to block the next attack with his new staff, but Rolleck’s kick snaps it in two and lets him split the puppet’s helm in half. It clatters to the cobbles.

Empty.

The voice grows impatient as Rolleck trashes soulless automatons. His blade yearns for blood that is not there, the barbs inside his body pinching and clawing at him to sate their lust. Oil dribbles from the holes in his skin, sweats from his blade.

Eventually his sword comes up against another, steel meeting iron with a clang like hammer on anvil. The man wielding it is wearing a scowl of concentration, along with some of the finest armour Rolleck has ever seen. It shines in the darkness and makes the puppet pieces look as tarnished and faded as they are.

“Good evening,” Rolleck says, keeping the prince’s sword in check with his own. “My friend wishes to know what your father does with his prisoners.”

“What?”

Rolleck pushes Tolmet’s sword aside and thrusts towards his exposed face. He stops short of actually stabbing him, though, and the prince stumbles back. Two puppets lunge in from either side, and Rolleck rolls left beneath a spear and severs both the suit’s legs with a swift strike, then grabs the spear from the air as it begins to fall. It finds the vision slit of the other puppet, serving as enough of a distraction for Rolleck to sidestep the next attack and knock the bucket off its perpetrator. He is becoming used to the way they move, now. He has also confirmed that the person controlling the faux guardsmen is keeping an eye on the prince.

This turns out to be irrelevant. As another puppet moves between Rolleck and the prince, Frost bounds out of the cave behind him and over his head. She bounces off the puppet’s bucket and darts left. Her next jump is off a spear tip, then another bucket. The last pushes her up in the air, and she brings an axe kick down towards one of the puppets standing off to one side. Two others attempt to block it with their spears, but the spear tips shatter from the crackling blue impact of her kick. Her foot crashes into the bucket she was aiming for, and the armour it belongs to collapses to the ground. The other suits go with it, creating a metal cacophony that is like to wake the dead beneath Saviour’s Call.

Frost pulls off the dented helmet, revealing a very pale man with a very red lump on his forehead. She raises her foot.

Rolleck catches the kick before it can stave in the man’s head. Another shockwave bursts from where her foot meets his sword, and a thunderclap travels up his arm and through his body. He feels the wires tighten around his heart.

“You’ve won,” he says.

Frost snarls at him.

“Back down,” Cotter says, striding up and placing a hand on Frost’s shoulder. He looks at Rolleck, his eyes hard. “This man is responsible for hundreds of deaths.”

“Can you claim that you aren’t?”

Frost steps back and Rolleck stands, brushing some dust from his waistcoat.

“I am new here and not privy to the history of the war or the grudges you bear, but I do know that the guards were drawn here on purpose by children that are now missing.”

Cotter holds his gaze, but Rolleck can see his guilt.

“If it had been anyone else, they would have seen through the ruse.” His voice is tight. “You are right that you do not know about this war. That you do not know what it will take to win it. You do not know why we must win.”

“Then tell me. Why is it you must win?”

“Because my father has become a monster,” Frost says.

At this point, the three drakes approach. The two smaller ones are dragging the prince between them, who has wisely surrendered now that all of his guards are piles of neatly-aligned armour. His eyes widen when he sees Frost.

“Indessa!” he says. “But… how?”

“I’m surprised you recognise me,” she says. “How long has it been since you last visited?”

“I…”

“Let me answer for you. It’s been nearly two years. And even then, you didn’t stay long. Couldn’t bear to look at me. Before that, almost two more years.” She strides up to him, seems to glare into his eyes through her blindfold. “Father. Fortissa. None of you will look at me. So I left. And none of you noticed.”

“But… fighting with the resistance? And your eyes. How-”

Indessa kicks him in the stomach, shutting him up. The drakes struggle to withstand the force of it and almost drop him. The prince himself chokes up all the air inside him and then some, sagging between his captors with his eyes bulging.

“I don’t owe you an explanation for anything,” she yells. “Not when you abandoned me. Not when you used my injuries to justify your tyranny then threw me away to be forgotten.” She grabs his helmet and knees him in the stomach again. He cries out and goes limp. The drakes allow him to fall, but Indessa holds him so he can only slump to his knees. “What happens to the people you take to the keep, Tolmet? Do you even know? Or do you blindly trust that creature that used to be our father?”

“I…” he breathes. “I don’t…”

Indessa throws him on the ground with a roar of frustration.

“It seems the only person who knows anything is the king,” Cotter says. He is watching with his arms crossed.

“Then we get him to talk,” Indessa says. “Hide Tolmet and Longshank. Separately. We’ll tell that monster we have them and see what he does. If we can get hold of my sister, too, then we’ll have all the cards.”

Cotter nods. “Get them underground. I’ll make them comfortable later,” he says to the drakes. He then turns to the rest of the rebels. “You all fought bravely today, and we won a great victory. This is the turning point. This the moment where everything changes. It is finally time to see the end of this dynasty of tyrants. To this system of liars and thieves who call themselves noble. We could not have done it without your dedication. Your passion. Your commitment to freedom. Thank you, everyone.”

The tired rebels cheer, then begin making their way down into the caves.

“What of you, Rolleck the Lost?” Cotter says.

“Where are the children?”

He sighs. “The keep, I imagine.”

“Then that is where I will go.” He hesitates. “I recognise that you are in a difficult position. It is not for me to judge your methods, especially with a past as checkered as mine.”

“You’re right though,” Cotter says. “We should try to be better than those we seek to replace, otherwise what we seek isn’t liberation, only power for ourselves.”

“Then I wish you luck in that,” Rolleck says, and turns towards the keep.

Behind him, the ground shakes and folds over itself, filling in holes and organising cobbles until no one could tell it had ever changed.

 

 

 

Riyo is thrown into a cold, dark room with no windows and an iron door. Her chains vanish, and she sprawls on cold stone. They have taken her coat and boots, which is a shame because there are a lot of knives secreted in them that could have been useful.

“You are saved torture by the princess’s return,” the naked crafter says. “But you still broke curfew, so this is where you belong.”

The door slams behind her, singing a long, metal note that fades into the dust between the stones of the walls.

“Prison again, huh?” Riyo says, glancing around. She is not alone. Other people huddle against the walls, watching her with wary eyes. Their clothing varies, their ages vary, but their fear is all the same.

Riyo stands and stretches. Being dragged behind a horse, it turns out, is an uncomfortable experience. By tomorrow she will no doubt be one massive bruise. She doesn’t seem to have broken anything, but she still thinks she should be able to endure that much without complaining if she is to claim the sunlight stone, so she does not complain.

“So, what happens next?” she asks the collected criminals.

“Nobody knows,” somebody says.

“Huh. Why not?”

A man scuttles forward. He is dressed quite neatly in what looks to be a suit of satin, and his body doesn’t quiver with nerves like the others. He has a big moustache that curls a little like Rolleck’s, but it is far bushier.

“Ever since the civil war began, King Frostburne has been taking people to the keep. Nobody knows why, but they never come back.”

“Somebody must know. What about the king?”

“Well, I suppose he must,” the man says. He then sticks out his hand. “Gangles McIves. Former leader and sole member of the Saviour’s Call chapter of the Cult of the Sunlight Stone. Now a prisoner.”

“Oh wow,” Riyo says, shaking his hand with a smile. “I used to talk to the cultists in Ragg all the time. I’m currently on a journey to find the stone.”

Gangles’ eyebrows rise into his ashen-blonde hair. “I say. You’ve chosen to take a long run-up on the Reach if you started in Ragg.”

“True,” Riyo says, nodding, “but it was the Ragg chapter that told me about the Galsbreath apothacarium.”

“Ah.” Gangles nods. “I had heard that rumour, of course, but being the only member of the chapter out here I had to stay and keep things running. Was there much to be found there?”

“Not much about the stone itself,” Riyo says, “but a lot of useful stuff about Calis.”

“Well there you go,” he says. “I shall have to update my archives when I get back to the chapter house.” He smiles, then it slopes off a bit. “Ah, but I suppose that might not happen. Nobody returns from this place, you know?”

“Pfft,” Riyo says. She’s about to open her reality when she hears something outside the door.

Gangles beckons her over to the wall, and after a moment’s hesitation she follows and sits beside him. A collection of footsteps grows louder, and then is joined by gentle sobbing. The door opens with a jarring clang and three children join them in their incarceration. The youngest, about six, immediately clings to an older girl, while a teenage boy turns and slams his fist on the door after his captors.

“Fuckers,” he says. The bravado in his voice is laced with fear.

The air in the room changes a little. Apparently, a group of children tickles the heartstrings to sympathy much more than an adult woman, no matter how cute she might be.

“Get back here, you fucks!” the boy shouts, banging on the door again.

“Give it a rest, Gem,” the girl says. She squats beside the young boy and strokes his hair. “Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay.”

“No it’s fucking not, Sol. Nobody leaves this fucking place.”

The girl glares at him as the youngster’s sobs redouble. “Great. Thanks, Gem. Real helpful.”

“It’s the fucking truth,” Gem says, though he does lower his voice. He sounds tired.

“What about the bird guy? You saw him, right? He might come save us.”

“It’s too fucking late for us. He might have saved the others, but we’re in the keep, Sol. Nobody gets out.”

Riyo hops to her feet and strolls over.

“Hey. I’m Riyo.”

“Nobody gives a fuck,” Gem says.

“Rude,” Riyo says. “You shouldn’t swear so much. Swearing’s only good if you save it for the proper occasion.” She turns to the girl. “You mentioned a bird guy?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“He have silver feathers? A bow?”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

“He’s my friend, Ravi. If he’s on his way, then that’s perfect. We can go speak to the king.”

“You’re fucking crazy,” Gem says.

“Y’know, a lot of people tell me that,” Riyo says. Gem is almost of a height with her, but she ruffles his hair anyway.

He bats her hand away and steps back. “Get off me.”

She ignores him and presses her ear to the door. Silence greets her, so she waits. The people in the cell watch her, Gem going over to join the other two children. Almost half an hour passes, and the people lose interest in the crazy woman, returning to their cowering.

“Gem?” a voice whispers from the other side of the door. It’s loud enough for the boy to hear, and he looks up with wide eyes.

“Ravi!” Riyo whispers.

A moment passes.

“Riyo?”

“Hey! I found a really easy way into the keep.”

She hears Ravi sigh.

“Of course you did. Where are Emerald and Glitter?”

“I never found them. I figure they’re okay, though.”

“You’re probably right. Hey, are there three kids in there with you?”

“Yeah. You came to help them?”

“Yeah.”

“Well we can leave them here for a few minutes while we go talk to the king, right?”

“No. Riyo, the guards killed one of their friends. A kid. I don’t think we need to talk to the king to find out the truth anymore.”

Riyo’s mood goes sour in the space of an exhaled breath. Gem comes running to the door.

“What the fuck did you just say?”

“Gem,” Ravi says, voice heavy. “I’m sorry. They killed Fallow. There was nothing I could do.”

Gem sits back down as though he has been kicked. A pair of tears roll down his cheek before he can swipe at them with his sleeve. He tries for anger, but it’s clear his heart has broken. Sol drags him and the younger boy into a hug.

Riyo scowls. “Fine. Let’s just kick the king in the head instead. Stand back, Ravi.” She stands. “Gravity Mould.”

A crunch sounds that startles the rest of the prisoners, causing several cries of alarm. The iron of the door cracks and bends, crushing its way inwards towards a central point. It does not stop until all that remains is a wiffle fruit sized ball of metal.

Everybody stares at her.

“Wait here,” she tells them. “This won’t take long.”

 

 

 

“This way,” Glitter says. He and Emerald have entered a labyrinth, but so far most of the dead-ends have been quite easy to identify by the way the air moves through the tunnels. Glitter can feel it in a way that Emerald cannot.

“OK. So then, while we were camping right near the border between Everstall and Frosthold, we hear this sound. Like a bell.”

“Oh, I know bells. My father showed me one once.” Glitter approximates the sound it made, though the sadness of recalling the memory stings a little.

“Like that, but higher, and two notes repeating really quickly.”

Glitter raises the pitch and alternates between two notes. It is an annoying sound.

“Perfect. Anyway, we follow the sound to an old train station… Oh.”

“Huh,” Glitter says. They have reached a door. There is a single person in the room beyond it. “Should we knock?”

“No. There’s probably a password or something. Let’s just knock it down.”

“Okay. Be careful, though. There’s a lady in there playing with some pieces of card. Actually…” Glitter lets slip some snow, and it flows beneath the door. The wooden bar holding it closed jumps free of its bracket at his encouragement, and Emerald nudges the door open.

“Nice work,” she says, and Glitter draws himself a grin.

“Who goes there?” the woman says, jumping to her feet and grabbing a sword. She pales when she sees Emerald duck in.

Glitter has to turn sideways to fit through the doorway, and he waddles up next to Emerald in a manner that perplexes rather than instilling fear.

“Hello,” Emerald says. “We’d like to speak to your boss, please.”

The sword drops from the woman’s hand and clangs on the floor.

“You’re not a drake,” she says.

“That’s right. I’m a dragon,” Emerald says patiently. “Where is Cotter Lee, please?”

“Um,” the woman says. “Um.”

“I wonder why there are drakes here,” Glitter says.

“Maybe they’re looking for their prince,” Emerald says.

“Hey, yeah. That makes sense.” Glitter waddles over to the woman, who has frozen even though Glitter hasn’t released any of his snow. “We’re not here to hurt anyone. We just want to talk.”

“He’s not here right now,” the woman stammers.

“Will he come back here?”

“Uhhhh…”

“That’s a yes,” Emerald says. “Let’s wait.” She wanders over to the table and looks down at the cards. “Do you know how to play any card games, Glitter?”

“No,” Glitter says.

“Then let me teach you one.”

“Yay!” Glitter says. He likes learning things.

“Shall I deal you in?” she asks the rebel woman.

“Um.”

“Great. The more the merrier.”

 

 

 

 

Rolleck the Lost is not sure where he is. On his approach to the keep, he discovered a church wearing a broken façade and decided to investigate. Inside, he found a body. He is now very angry, and fortunately Kenta appeared from a back room with a mouse lady who helped to direct his anger. In truth, he is angry with Cotter Lee, too. He is responsible for putting the children in danger, and Rolleck probably would not have treated him so fairly if he had known it would end like this. His true anger is for the boy’s murderers, though, and they apparently lie at the end of this tunnel.

Ravi has come this way, according to the mouse. His eyes are much better than Rolleck’s, however, so he doesn’t entertain much hope of catching up with him. In an ideal world, he will meet Ravi on the way back out with the other captured children. In this world, it is likely he will encounter some resistance before long. Part of him – specifically that part which is most in tune with his sword and its voice – is hoping for this. He can hear the quiet song that always plays before the violence begins.

The darkness gets darker.

Rolleck scowls and spins around. A spark of blue light accompanies a sharp pain in his shoulder, and he lashes out at its source. His sword leaves a scar in the rock of the wall.

“And who are you?” a voice says.

Run.

“A police officer,” Rolleck says, glancing around. He sees and feels nothing. As far as his senses are concerned, he is alone.

The voice laughs. “There have been no police officers here for a long time. Citizens remain indoors after curfew. Guards patrol the streets. Only the king’s shadows wander the night unhindered.”

Another blue spark, identical to Ravi’s curse-breaker. This time, Rolleck catches something on his sword, but only by anticipating that his assailant would aim for his face. The strike is powerful, but not comparable to the princess’s kicks.

He doesn’t bother responding to the voice. Instead, he listens for anything that will give him a hint. The silence, however, is perfect.

Something plunges into the back of his leg and he stumbles forward, whipping his sword out behind him. It connects with something that clangs against it, and someone hisses in response. Then the silence is back with him.

The ground starts shaking. For a moment, Rolleck wonders what his sword and its curse will avail him if the tunnel collapses on top of him. He doesn’t much want to find out.

Run.

For once, the voice is on to something. Rolleck cannot fight here against an enemy that he cannot see and that seems to surround him, and he doesn’t want to remain in this claustrophobic darkness while it shakes itself apart from above.

Rolleck runs. The footing is uneven, making every step a test of his balance. Loose stones and jagged rocks threated his ankles, and the darkness makes the walls and even low sections of the ceiling a constant menace.

“You seek to escape?” the voice says.

Rolleck stops immediately and lashes out behind him. Something hisses and falls back in a flicker of blue light. The song in his head shifts a little, gets faster. There is finally blood on his blade, even if he can’t see it. He starts running again. Whatever stalks him is so confident in the advantage of their element that they didn’t stop to consider that their taunting might telegraph such an obvious attack. Even so, Rolleck can feel their threat. They have not stopped following him.

The ground becomes kinder. Uncarved rock becomes flat stone. There is light ahead of him, pale and flickering. Its appearance signals a change in the playing field, and Rolleck’s attacker will seek to prevent him from reaching it.

Rolleck turns on the run, trusting his new even footing and slashing across the darkness behind him. His opponent catches the attack on a crackling blue blade, then falls back. This time, though, they refuse to let up, striking from nothing and nowhere all around him. The blue light gives them away, but only in the fraction of a moment before their strikes land. Rolleck sustains several scratches where he isn’t quite quick enough to move out the way completely. Any time he tries to riposte, his sword meets nothing but air or stone.

His attacker is still confident. Though they cannot land a killing blow, they are relentless, and it reveals their nature. Rolleck listens to the notes of the song and, though his body bleeds and his muscles complain, he recognises what he was missing before. In his travels through the shadows of the Everstall Song, he has killed dozens of creatures who saw him as prey. Among them were ligmists – creatures that move through shadows far smaller than their bodies. That strike at their targets weak and blind spots from unseen holes in the world.

Rolleck’s senses tell him he is fighting one now, and he knows its rhythm.

His attacker hasn’t realised this. Hasn’t noticed that not one of their last dozen attacks has connected. The very moment it dawns on them, Rolleck grabs them by the arm and throws them over his shoulder onto their back.

“Oof,” the ligmist-traited man says. He then screams as wires slam through each of his limbs and pin him to the stones beneath.

Rolleck spins the wires together then snaps them off. He wipes some blood from where it is dripping over his eyebrow into his eye.

“It seems you no longer wander quite so unhindered,” Rolleck says between laboured breaths. “Now tell me, where are the children?”

“I won’t tell you anything,” the man pants.

Rolleck glances over his shoulder towards the light. The ground still shakes occasionally, making it sway on whatever it hangs from.

“Fine,” he says, and leaves the man where he is.

“Wait,” he shouts, but Rolleck does not. He doesn’t need to. The ligmist man could hold out for a while and then lie to him, and he would have no way of knowing that until he did exactly what he is now doing anyway.

He walks towards the light as the song in his blood quiets and the subterranean silence returns. It is broken by the occasional quake, which feel ominously like footsteps to Rolleck.

 

 

 

Emerald flips her card and reveals the captain of Honour.

Glitter groans. “This game is hard.”

“Half of it is luck,” Emerald says. “But the other half is knowing what to do with that luck and figuring out if other players are lucky, or just pretending to be.”

“Are you sure it’s cheating to check what cards other players have? Even if you can?”

“Yes, because that makes the game unfun.”

Glitter is capable of seeing what cards people have by sensing the minor differences in energy and substance between the dyes that colour the cards. He is also capable of choosing not to do that, so for the sake of the game, he does not. This, he finds, is extremely frustrating.

“You’ll get better at it,” Emerald says with a smile. “You haven’t had much chance to talk to people and learn about them, right? This game is about understanding people.”

“So, if I practice, I’ll get better and understanding people, too?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good. People are strange.”

“Tell me about it,” Emerald says.

Their new human friend just stares at them.

Emerald bounces to her feet just as one of the doors opposite her begins to open.

“Oh!” Glitter says. “Hello again.”

The woman that enters is wearing a blindfold, and she stops dead just inside the door, apparently staring at them.

“I’m sorry,” their card-playing companion says. “I couldn’t stop them.”

“We came to talk,” Emerald says.

“We did beat up some of your friends, though,” Glitter says.

Emerald closes her eyes and sighs.

“Oh,” Glitter says. “Sorry, Emerald.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure they know already.”

“Sasha?” the blindfolded woman says.

“Um,” the card playing woman says. “The Underlords returned, but short a few members and without Elanor. They claimed a dragon and a box attacked them at the Reine barn. I sent some of them to report, but the operation was already underway, so…”

“Your giant friend attacked one of your own and almost injured the Reine’s little girl. I smacked her for it.”

“We just want to talk to your boss,” Glitter says.

“Who are you people?” the blindfolded woman says. She sounds so very tired.

“Travellers,” Emerald says.

“We’re going to Calis,” Glitter says.

The woman adjusts her blindfold, and Emerald gets the impression that she is dealing with a similar headache to her. “Your friend with the sword was with us for the operation. He then left for the keep to rescue some damn children.”

“Rescuing children sounds important,” Glitter says.

“It’s suicide,” the blindfold woman says. “Even though our operation was successful, the loyalists still have too many advantages. Your friend is going to get captured, and we still don’t know what happens to the people the guards arrest.”

Emerald glances at Glitter. Glitter draws his wobbly-mouthed face.

“I suppose we should go and help him, then.”

The door behind the blindfolded woman bursts open again, and a rebel just avoids crashing into her back.

“Miss Frost!”

“What now?”

“Something’s happening at the keep.”

Frost takes a moment, but in the end, she shakes her head. “We have a plan and it’s working. Have Immanuel and Jean monitor the situation, but we stay out of whatever these travellers do. I’m tired.” She wanders over to another of the room’s multitude of doors, then waves her hand over her shoulder. “Sasha, take these two to the surface, close to the keep. Make sure they don’t come back.” Then she’s gone, leaving the messenger to stare at Emerald and Glitter while Sasha looks miserable.

“It’s this way,” she says, wandering towards a door while glaring dejectedly at the floor.

Glitter scurries after her. “Thank you for playing cards with me, Sasha.”

“Oh, uh, no problem.”

Another door opens onto more bleak tunnels, and Glitter starts whistling as they follow their guide and her lantern out into nothing.

 

 

 

 

Ravi Matriya has discovered that he is prone to anxiety that other people are not. Or at least, that his travelling companions are not, at any rate. Riyo has blithely entrusted him with ensuring that the prisoners, who now follow him like lost ducklings, escape from the keep safely. She has promised to distract the guards while he does so, but she has chosen a very questionable method of doing it.

The keep shakes again, sprinkling them all with motes of dust and ancient mortar. Ambient fear trickles up the line of former prisoners and crackles along Ravi’s tail feathers, making him glance over his shoulder to check they are all still there. There are twenty-six of them. Ravi knows this because he has counted them eighteen million times. He does so again now, just to be sure.

First in line behind him is a man immune to worry. He is also immune to Ravi’s polite requests that he keep his voice down.

“That one was a doozy,” Gangles McIves says with a grin. “I never imagined there was anybody that could stand toe-to-toe with Captain Maul.”

“Riyo is a winning combination of strong and insane,” Ravi agrees. “But please can you not shout about it?”

“Of course,” he all but yells. “My apologies.”

Ravi grimaces, but continues on down the hall. They are close to the entrance to the tunnel, and so far, Riyo’s distraction is working.

“I knew it,” somebody says.

Ravi’s head whips round and he raises his bow. He has to force himself not to look away out of sheer embarrassment once he sees who has discovered them, however. He feels a blush rising in his cheeks.

The Iron Pillowcase!” Gangles shouts. “Be careful, friend. She’s a crafter!”

The line of prisoners begins shouting and crying, hustling past Ravi in a wave of fear. Ravi is left facing the woman down a short length of empty corridor.

“Nobody would attack Momber unless they were trying to cause a distraction.”

Riyo probably would, but Ravi doesn’t bother saying that.

“The Iron what?” Ravi glances sideways at Gangles.

“She’s a captain of the guards and a first-rate sadist. Nobody knows where the nickname came from, but she demands people call her that because she hates her true name.”

“What is it?”

“R-ack!”

“Rack?” Ravi says. He glances his way again. Gangles is clutching at his throat where a short length of chain is strangling him by itself.

Ravi looks back to the woman, whose painted lips are curved into a cruel smile. He scowls.

“Release him. I’ll give you one chance.”

The woman laughs. It’s a rough, uncomfortable sound. Ravi feels his hand shaking, but then he remembers Fallow. The helpless silence as he died. The tears of his friends. The stillness of his body.

The arrow lances down the corridor and straight through a chainmail wall meant to capture it. Ravi sees the woman’s eyes go wide, but she is too late to move.

Blue meets blue, and the air explodes as flame and lightning both dance along the walls. The fading light reveals another woman. Ravi swallows, and his forgotten blush returns. The Iron Pillowcase is a beauty, but her cruelty casts a darkness over her features that makes her nudity unappealing. The woman that deflected his arrow bears no such shadow. She looks like an angel, and her winged pauldrons and helm lend credence to the image. Her unwavering eyes seem to shine in the keep’s gloom.

“Princess,” the Iron Pillowcase says.

“Captain. This man has mastery of the Trait even Groven couldn’t match.”

“Who the hell is he?”

“I have no idea, but he’s a danger to you. Go and help Captain Maul.”

Ravi’s rapturous focus on the princess is nudged away by an uncomfortable gurgling sound. He looks to his right and is reminded of the strangling of Gangles McIves. “Oops,” he says, and grabs the chain around his neck. His curse-breaker flickers between his fingers and the chain shatters like glass, whispering away to nothing before the pieces can hit the floor.

“Thank you,” Gangles gasps, still holding onto his throat.

“Gem,” Ravi says without turning around.

“Huh?”

“You remember the way they brought you in here, right?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Get these people somewhere safe.”

“Why the fuck are you asking me?”

“Because you’re a survivor.”

“Halt immediately,” the princess shouts. “Do not try to flee.”

“Go!” Ravi says.

“Get fucking moving, people!” Gem shouts, and Ravi hears the prisoners hustle away down the corridor behind him.

The princess’s expression darkens. “Those people are criminals.”

“One of them is only six years old,” Ravi says, matching the bite in her voice. “I watched one of yours kill a boy who was barely ten. You’re the criminal here, princess.” Ravi knocks another arrow. His curse-breaker electrifies the space in tune with his anger.

The princess’s eyes widen a little.

“He’s lying,” the Iron Pillowcase says. “He’s obviously working with the rebels.”

The princess glances to her left, uncertainty written across her face. After a second, she nods. “Right.”

“Capture him, if you can,” the Iron Pillowcase says. “He may know something that can help us.”

The princess levels her sword at Ravi. “Your lies won’t sway me from my family, rebel.”

The captain smiles again. “I will go and assist Captain Maul, then. Be careful, princess.”

“Don’t worry – I can handle him.”

The guard captain turns and walks away, and Ravi discovers that the single chain around her waist all but disappears between her-

The princess is fast. An uncomfortable flicker of blue light washes through the space and Ravi barely manages to nudge her sword aside with his bow. His curse-breaker rolls through his feathers as something seeks to grab him from behind. Blue lightning crackles around a man-shaped hole in the air that retreats with a whispered curse.

Ravi fends off another thrust with his bow, dropping the arrow resting on his string and grabbing for his dagger. His curse-breaker enshrouds the blade and lends strength to a desperate parry. Instead of running him through, the princess’s blade leaves a long scratch on his side. Its tip hits the wall of the corridor and leaves a smudge of his blood on the stone.

He lunges forward, trying to get inside the range of her sword. She can barely swing it in the corridor, so it is useless if she can’t thrust. There is another blue flicker, and the princess is a couple of steps back. The point of her sword moves like one of his arrows, and even he is not fast enough to avoid it. It scratches his cheek just below his eye, making him flinch back and giving her more space for her next attack.

Ravi stumbles back, trying to remember Riyo’s lessons. His stance is wrong. His grip is wrong. He blunders another thrust aside but feels the blade bite into his arm. With a cry, he drops his dagger and retreats further. She is too fast, and the next flash of blue light marks his end.

“We should spar more often, Ravi,” Rolleck says.

Ravi opens his eyes and takes a breath he’d thought he wouldn’t get to draw. The tip of the princess’s sword presses against the flat of Rolleck’s. Ravi can see the pressure she is putting into the thrust making her whole arm quiver, but Rolleck’s guard is as steady as a rock.

“If you insist on fighting up close, you need to learn not just what you need to do, but what your opponent is likely to do, too.”

The princess backs off a little, glancing to her left again.

“I insist on nothing,” Ravi says. “Even so, it happens often enough that I’ll take you up on that.”

“All the more reason to, I’d say.” The keep shakes again. “I assume Riyo has something to do with that?”

“She’s fighting the giant.”

“Of course she is. I can take care of this. Go see if she needs some help.”

“Got it,” Ravi says. He turns to go, then looks back at the princess. “Somebody’s lying to you, princess, and it isn’t me.” He starts jogging down the corridor.

 

 

“Ah,” Rolleck says. “So you’re princess Fortissa.” He cocks his head to one side. “I see the resemblance.”

Fortissa narrows her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“You had a plan to find the rebel hideout, yes?”

She glances to her left again.

“It didn’t go so well. They captured your brother.”

“No,” she says. “No!”

Blue light flashes and Rolleck fends off a flurry of well-placed thrusts that drive him several steps back. A flutter of excitement sets his sword singing again, its melody light but vicious. The ringing of steel on iron echoes down the corridor, multiplying the number of strikes and creating a rhythm to back the song.

A strike goes too far right, and Rolleck slams his sword against hers. It crashes into the wall and springs from her hand. The shock has barely registered before Rolleck’s shoulder hits the princess’s chest and drives her from her feet with a grunt. She lands on her bum and scrambles backwards, eyes fearful.

“Tondwell,” she cries.

There is a man in front of Rolleck. A fist wreathed in blue flame crashes into his hastily-raised guard, and he is forced back by its power.

“This man is dangerous,” the ghost says. His accent carries even more pomp than the princess’s.

Rolleck grips the hilt of his sword. He can feel it thrumming against his skin, begging for the taste of blood.

“We have to do it, don’t we?” the princess says.

“If we wish to win, then yes.”

“Do what?” Rolleck asks. His blade wants to see it. Wants to test itself against everything they can bring.

Run.

“Death waltz,” the princess whispers. Her breath belies her fear, wavering with the shaking of her chest.

“Show courage, Fortissa,” the ghost says, offering her his hand to help her up.

“We could avoid this,” Rolleck says, feeling wires tighten inside him in protest of his attempt at diplomacy. “If you tell me what’s wrong with your father, I’ll leave.”

The princess glances over her shoulder, then looks back just as quick. She stares at Rolleck like he is the ghost.

“You must trust your family, princess,” the ghost says. His eyes are compassionate. “They are all you have.”

“But… Tondwell, he has changed.”

“That’s not true, Fortissa. I have been watching over our family for generations. Your father hasn’t changed – you have. You’ve grown up to be so beautiful and strong, but an adult’s eyes see more than a child’s. They see the world as it truly is, see the sacrifices and choices we must all make to maintain peace. To keep everyone safe.”

“I…”

“Everybody in the rebellion seem to think it’s him that’s changed,” Rolleck says, earning a glare from the ghost.

“Fortissa, the lies of the rebels, of Cotter Lee and those nobles who vie for your father’s crown, are what began this cruel war in the first place. You know he lies, even to his followers. Trust your family, princess.”

Fortissa glances between Rolleck and Tondwell for a moment, then nods her head. A tear escapes from the corner of her eye, but she smiles.

“I’m sorry, Tondwell. You’re right.” She reaches up and removes her helmet, looses her hair to let it flow out behind her. “I trust you.”

She holds out her hand, and the ghost takes it.

A roaring blue flame engulfs both of them, burning so brightly that Rolleck averts his eyes. A clatter from his right draws his attention, and he sees the princess’s sword leap from the ground and fly into the conflagration. Its intensity falls off, dwindling down to nothing in a few heartbeats.

Rolleck blinks. Fortissa is taller now. A silver circlet holds the flame of her hair in check, while her face has paled almost to the colour of snow. Her eyes are empty and white, almost crystalline beneath long lashes. Her breastplate now bears the crest of her family – the shield with the icy blue flame that seems to burn him just to look at. Three ethereal flames that match it linger in the air just behind her, casting her shadow forward at Rolleck.

“Uh oh,” he says.

 

 

 

Riyo Falsemoon is getting a little tired of enemies she can’t squish. The giant man is not immune, like Ravi or the woman with the blindfold, but he can resist her anyway. It is much like the dragons and, while Riyo has done enough research to know there are plenty of creatures who share that capability, she can’t help but feel that she meets them too often.

Still, at least it provides her with a new challenge.

The giant’s club cannot resist her, so his attempts to swat her with it have so far only turned the courtyard before the keep into a smashed wreck of stone and earth. Much of what was once the floor is now a part of the sky, and Riyo skips between her self-made satellites to befuddle the monstrous guard.

This does not work very well. In spite of the narrow vision slit in his bucket and the multitude of distractions, Riyo is forced to redirect every swing. They are all on target.

She kicks off a chunk of paving stone and hits the ground in front of another. She kicks it. Her foot doesn’t actually connect, but the action helps her to focus the way she manipulates its gravity. The shot curls slightly on its way up. The giant twists his head at the last moment, and the rock clangs off his bucket just below the vision slit.

“Bugger,” Riyo says, then leaps again as the club comes down. The whole city vibrates, and more debris cascades through the air. None of it touches the ground.

She blasts another rock at his vision slit, and once again he aborts his next swing in order to protect it. She has been aiming for the slit because it is the only gap in his armour, but she had initially expected to have a hard time actually hurting him with such small projectiles. He is very protective of his vision slit, though. Perhaps the giant has much thinner skin than she thought.

She finds herself standing on the wall of the keep, looking up at the giant as he rolls forward into an overhead swing. A roar of anger breaks from his throat and shakes the night. Riyo narrows her reality, raining the courtyard with the rock and dirt it no longer supports. She focuses on the very tip of the club, switching gravity so that it is pulled the other way. The swing slows, and she can hear the creak of the giant’s armour as his muscles strain to bring the weapon down on her. It comes to a stop a little way from her, and she feels as though she is looking at a jagged black cliff-face.

Riyo switches her own gravity, dropping her towards the ground, and lets the club go. It hits the keep wall above her like an explosion, firing a barrage of fractured stone into the air. It pings off the giant’s armour and makes craters in the ground around Riyo as she lands. The dust cloud engulfs the giant, and Riyo’s reality snaps out to match it. The points at each end of the giant’s vision silt begin pulling like tiny planets, spinning everything in their orbit towards the gap. The cloud of airborne masonry is funnelled in like a monstrous breath, and an ear-splitting shriek touches every corner of the city.

The giant drops his club and flails backwards. His foot catches on a pit in the ruined courtyard and he falls with an almighty crash. His scrambling anguish culminates in the release of his gauntlets, and then two massive hands are yanking the helmet from his head.

Most of the head is dominated by a single, massive eye, which is now blood-shot and watery.

The cyclops begins wiping away tears with delicate swipes of his tree-trunk fingers and blinking an eyelid like the cover of a wagon. His iris is the fierce orange of the setting sun, and makes his pupil dilate like a closing door to focus on Riyo. His stare pins her in place for a moment, then travels up to the club she has lifted over his head.

Gravity describes another beautiful arc that ends at the cyclops’s forehead.

Once again, however, the club is arrested and denied its destiny.

Riyo feels a reality blaze through her own and darts to her left, spinning through her jump to try and locate its owner. The club has been stopped by half a hundred chains with links as thick as Riyo’s thighs, anchored in the stones of the courtyard and the keep wall. A chain grabs at her ankle again, but this time she has her reality open and it goes limp as soon as it touches her. She spots the exhibitionist standing in the keep, framed by the blunt stone teeth of the broken wall where the cyclops smashed it.

Crafting against a trained crafter is like crafting against a dragon or, apparently, a cyclops – they are not immune, but they can actively resist with their own strength. That only applies to direct attacks, however. Riyo can still turn her surroundings against the woman, and she does so with the ample debris around her.

“Meteor storm!”

Rocks blitz the side of the keep like a volley of crossbow bolts, chipping the stone of the wall or bursting apart in little puffs of dust. Manipulating so many things at once makes the shots inaccurate, however, and the woman dives forward through the storm. A chain appears beneath her, stretching from the keep wall to the floor, and she slides gracefully down it into the courtyard.

“Damn that’s cool,” Riyo says. She flicks a larger rock into the air over her head then leaps into an overhead kick. Her master would be disappointed in the unnecessary effort, but Riyo has always been better at crafting this way. Her physical movements help her visualise the effects she wants, so as her foot meets the rock it drives for the ground like it has been kicked by a god.

It blasts through four pairs of crossed chains that flash into its path, before breaking apart on the fifth. The woman smiles up at Riyo as she falls, her descent slowed slightly.

Riyo remembers the cyclops and twist gravity so that she is falling towards the keep like it’s a black hole. The fist hits her a moment later. Her new momentum saves her from the impact, and she quickly undoes the fall, slowing to keep from splattering on the keep wall like a swatted fly. Several chains fly at her like spears, and she nudges them aside before coming to rest on the wall again, standing beside the hole.

“Riyo?” Ravi’s voice comes from inside the break.

“Ravi! Check it out! It’s a cyclops.”

“I can see that, and I imagine he can see me, too.”

“His eye is super weak, just like in that story.”

“What story?”

“You know, the one about the guy who shoots an arrow in the cyclops’s eye.”

“I’m not familiar with it.”

“Oh. Well, some guy shoots a cyclops in the eye.”

“I see. So, the plan is…?”

“We challenge him to a fishing contest.”

“I just wanted to be sure,” Ravi says.

Ravi takes a breath to still his nerves, then spins around the tattered wall. The light of his arrow sets the courtyard alight, flashing shadows to scraps and making stark the angles of walls and stones. There is a clang like a bell ringing, and a dent appears in the cyclops’s vambrace.

“He’s fast,” Ravi says, then winces as several metal chains slam into the walls around him, pushed just wide by Riyo’s reality.

The hole in the wall widens as stones fling themselves out from it, strafing the courtyard up to where the Iron Pillowcase is standing. Chains whip out from the woman’s body, smashing anything that looks like it might hit her before vanishing again.

Riyo narrows her eyes. “This is going to be rough. I’ll take the big guy. You deal with the woman.”

“Can’t he just ignore you?”

“No. I’m going all out.”

She sounds a little too excited, to Ravi.

“Um, couldn’t that potentially kill you?”

“Lots of things could potentially kill me.”

“I suppose. Well, good luck, then.”

“You too.”

Ravi skips down into the courtyard.

Riyo leaps, then falls towards the cyclops. Another arrow streaks by her, smashing into the courtyard where the crafter was a split-second before. The cyclops swings a fat, unarmoured fist at her. She cannot redirect it, so she redirects herself, falling beneath it. Her feet touch the floor long enough for her to push off, and she is airborne again. His other hand comes up to protect his eye, but Riyo’s angle take her beneath his legs. A rock leaps from the ground and she ricochet’s off it, streaking at the cyclops’s back as he begins to turn. Her kick connects with his backplate with the softest of sounds, but she puts everything she has into it to turn his world sideways.

He roars as the keep pulls him.

 

Ravi swats at a chain that tries to snag him out of the air as he falls, then sends another arrow at the Iron Pillowcase. A chain wrapped around her wrist pulls her out of the path of the arrow far faster than she might dodge by herself, and more chains lance out around her to create a lattice. Another one flings her into the air, and she lands in the midst of her chains; a spider in the centre of her web. She smiles.

Ravi fires again, but the chain she stands on flexes, bouncing her to another, which sends her in yet another direction. Ravi tries to follow, but her reality means she can change direction with just a thought. It is like trying to hit Riyo. A chain lashes the ground in front of him, sending cascade of crushed stone his way. He dives aside, aims, and does not fire. There is no use trying to pin her down when she is moving so erratically. A chain lashes directly at him and blows apart as his curse-breaker flares.

He grabs several arrows and knocks them all at once. He sends them heavenward, then rolls aside as a pair of whips crash into the ground and pitch up more shrapnel. A piece of the keep catches him in the shoulder, and he growls at the pain as he fires more arrows into the sky.

The first set of arrows falls, but the Iron Pillowcase is expecting them. Still, it draws her attention up, and the moment she glances away Ravi rushes forward. He fires a pair of arrows forward, snapping several lengths of chain and reducing her options. She spins in the air and more whips strike out at him from her body, smashing the ground directly in front of him.

The next wave of arrows falls, and Ravi jumps. Several more shards of stone slam into him, but he grits his teeth and draws his dagger.

“Too slow.” The Iron Pillowcase has bounced over him as he jumped. She comes to rest on a chain behind him as he twists his body towards her. Unlike her, he cannot change his trajectory. A chain whips around a large chunk of rock on the floor, the other end in her hand. She makes to crack it forward.

Ravi glances up. The third wave of arrows is coming down. The first two waves all stick up from little craters in the ground around them, blue light crackling in their fletching. As the whip comes up, an arrow drops between the two of them.

Blue lightning arcs out from it, leaping for arrows on the ground. It hits the Iron Pillowcase in the chest, while other arcs crash into chains in every direction. They shatter into nothing with a roar, and blue power billows out in a web of Ravi’s creation. The Iron Pillowcase is sent flying towards the keep.

 

 

The much-abused wall of the keep bursts again from three impacts. The first is accompanied by a boneshaking roar and collapses the tower on the northern side of the keep, sending a number of watching guards tumbling with it.

The second is almost surgical. Chains smash stone to create an opening, then criss-cross it to make a net. The Iron Pillowcase hits it with a shriek of pain, but it bends enough that she does not splatter her way down the corridor inside.

The third breaks the wall from the inside, and Rolleck the Lost comes sailing out of the southern tower. He hits the ground hard and rolls to a stop a short way from Ravi.

“Rolleck?”

Rolleck groans. His waistcoat and shirt are ripped and bloodstained, and there are black streaks of oil running down his sword arm. He clambers up onto one knee and leans against it, panting.

Riyo bounds over, landing like a feather next to Rolleck.

“You’re not looking so good, dad.”

“Not feeling it, either, dear,” he says, hauling himself to his feet. “Neither of these princesses is as dainty as the ones in the stories.”

Princess Fortissa steps from the keep, her spectral flames whipping about in the night air. She plunges three stories, but lands as gently as Riyo. A shockwave of something dark and uncomfortable washes out from where her foot touches the broken ground. It ruffles Ravi’s feathers and flits through Riyo’s hair.

The crunch and tumble of stone rises from the keep, and the cyclops roars like a falling mountain. On the other side, the Iron Pillowcase is lowered to the ground by a pulley of her own creation, the soft clinking of her chains lost to the landslide of the cyclops pulling himself out of the wreckage of the north tower.

“What do you think of our odds?” Ravi says.

“I think they’re looking up,” Riyo says with a glance over her shoulder.

An enormous white snake has raised its head above the drawbridge gate. Emerald stands astride it, and a moment later it slithers over the wall and up towards the courtyard. Twinkling motes of snow drift free as it moves.

“Sorry we’re late,” Emerald says as the snow snake comes to a stop. Its body whooshes and whirls into a swirling funnel that rushes into Glitter’s body, leaving Emerald standing on top of him. She hops down.

“What did you do with the prisoners?” Ravi asks.

“We gave them back to their friends,” Glitter says. “We also let the princess go, which I think was very fair of us.”

“Wait, which princess?” Rolleck says.

“That one.” Glitter waves a tendril of snow at princess Fortissa. “Why? Are there more princesses? Wait! Where’s the g-g-g-ghost?” A face appears on his glass with its eyes tightly shut.

“The ghost is possessing her, somehow,” Rolleck says. “And it’s making her bloody strong.”

“What’s the plan, Riyo?” Ravi says.

“Uh,” Riyo blows out a breath. “Okay. Emerald, distract the cyclops. Rolleck, keep the princess busy a little longer. Me, Ravi, and Glitter will team up on the crafter and smash her, then come help you.”

Rolleck raises his eyebrow. “That’s actually a good plan.”

“I’m still hungry,” Riyo says.

“Let’s win, then get an early breakfast,” Emerald says.

They all agree and turn to face the keep.

The princess walks towards them, each calm footstep sending ripples of disquiet echoing around the courtyard.

“I do not know why you seek to challenge us,” she says, “but this kingdom has stood against far worse than you.” She seems to have two voices, one high and one low. They mingle together, adding further strangeness to her blank eyes and ethereal flames.

“The kingdom, perhaps,” Rolleck says. “But we aren’t here to topple a kingdom. We seek revenge for a murdered child.”

The princess’s steps falter. A discordant shriek bubbles up inside everyone’s minds, and she stops. Closes her eyes.

“Momber,” the Ironpillowcase says. “Destroy them. Quickly.”

“Yes boss!” the cyclops says. His voice is tremulous and surprisingly high.

He leans forward, and his eye begins to glow.

“Uh,” Ravi says.

“I’ve got it,” Emerald says.

A beam of fiery orange light streaks from the cyclops’s eye and meets a lance of Emerald’s hottest flame. The explosion turns the world white, as though the sun has fallen from the sky and landed in the courtyard. This blinds everybody but Glitter, who dives forward, leaking snow that sloshes around him like water. He trips on his little legs with a yelp and becomes a ball of rolling snow that grows larger with every rotation. By the time the Iron Pillowcase can see again, she is faced with a wall of tumbling white.

A chain yanks her up over the snowball, which smashes into the keep with a muffled ‘oof’, but it steals her attention away from a crackling curse-breaker arrow. She halts the upward momentum that would have carried her head into its path, but the chain wrapped around her outstretched arm offers no protection. The arrow smashes through her elbow and cracks the stone of the wall behind her.

She screams, and Momber turns to the sound.

“Boss!” he cries, stumbling toward her.

Riyo reaches her first, streaking after the arrow and bounding up to meet her fall. Everything turns as Riyo’s kick connects. The defences of a crafter steal some of the power of the effect, but the keep is still now beneath her and she cannot do anything about the strength of the kick itself.

She hits the wall hard, further cracking the stone.

Momber’s attempt to reach her is thwarted as Emerald collides with his leg, sweeping it out from under him and bringing him down with a mighty crash.

Rolleck the Lost has never fought a sword wielder as strong as the princess in this form. She has recovered from her momentary hesitation and now her every strike forces Rolleck back.

“This is nearly four hundred years of training and practice,” she says, twitching aside another of his attempts to counterattack before laying a burning cut across his upper arm. “Even a blade as twisted as yours cannot touch me.”

Barbed wires lash at the princess, but she brings her sword up to block each of them. Every time she does, Rolleck feels it. As though the wires are part of his body. More oil drips over his biceps as he stumbles back again.

Yes.

Rolleck almost trips. “Not ‘run’?” he mumbles.

You cannot run. Not from them. And every obstacle that makes you stumble brings you closer.

Rolleck’s body starts to burn. He groans with the pain of it, barely keeping the princess’s next thrust from his chest. His sword’s song rises, louder, until he is sure the whole courtyard must hear it.

The princess steps in, confident. Her sword comes up, and Rolleck cannot move. The thrust will pierce his heart, and all he can do is watch.

But the thrust never comes. The princess stops, her stillness unnatural even for a woman possessed by a ghost.

“Time to surrender, your majesty,” Riyo says walking up behind the princess. Her breathing is heavy, her shirt untucked and dishevelled, but she is wearing a grim smile.

Behind her, the Iron Pillowcase lies unconscious before the keep wall, a thick chain wrapped tight around the stump of her arm that must have been her last action before being kicked into the wall. Momber Maul has a new helmet of ice that covers his eye completely, and his hands and feet have been frozen together.

Rolleck’s agony fades, and he feels disgruntlement from the voice before it slinks away once more. He looks at the princess for a moment. He gets much the same feeling from her in this form that he did from Indessa.

“When was the last time you visited your sister, princess?” he asks.

That ripple of disquiet flutters out from her again, and this time when she closes her eyes, the feeling grows stronger. A soft, keening sound comes from her throat, and when she opens her eyes again, they are blue and beautiful. One the flames lingering behind her goes out.

“I…” she says, and her voice is more distorted than before.

Another flame goes out.

“They did this to her…” She closes her eyes again. “The ones who started all this. We… Ahh! We need to root them out.”

“How does she feel about it?” Rolleck asks. “Or perhaps you don’t know.”

The princess screams, and the last flame goes out. With a blue flash that turns Rolleck’s stomach to water, the princess falls to her knees.

“Ghost!” Glitter shouts. He, Emerald and Ravi hurry over. Ravi has his knife in hand, while Glitter has his scary face drawn on and a pair of snow fists raised like a boxer.

“I…” the princess says.

Tondwell appears and kneels before her. “Don’t worry, my dear. Sleep, for now.” He clicks his fingers, and the princess’s eyes flutter closed. Tondwell stands, staring at the keep until he disappears again. Riyo uses her reality to stop Fortissa from falling on her face. She turns over in the air and floats gently to the ground.

There is a wooden thunk, and the keep doors swing open. They reveal an arch of darkness from which issues a single, repeated sound – that of wood on stone.

“This is a terrible mess,” an old voice says.

The king steps from the shadows with the ligmist-traited spy limping along by his side. His plain staff clunks on the stone with every other step he takes. He wears the same silver crown Tondwell does, and his long grey hair falls down into his extensive beard on either side of his face. His robes are simplistic, and the same cold blue as his coat of arms.

Riyo turns to face him. “You must be the king.”

“I am,” he says. “And you are trespassing against my kingdom.”

“I went to a lot of effort to ask you a question,” Riyo says. “What do you do with the people imprisoned in the keep?”

“The dead need no answers for their pointless questions.” The king’s face is impassive. Almost slack.

Riyo feels an immense pressure. It is like someone is stepping on her throat, keeping air from her lungs. Everything outside her reality vanishes, replaced by a wall of black so stark it makes even the most overcast of nights feel like day. It seems to press in on Riyo’s reality, trying to crush it closed around her.

“This is the truest darkness,” the king’s voice says inside Riyo’s head. “The darkness found at the centre of worlds abandoned by the light. It is useless to stand against it.”

“What is this?” Ravi asks, glancing around their little dome of moonlight.

“It feels like a reality,” Riyo gasps. “But… not.”

“The king is a crafter?” Emerald says.

“No. I don’t… Ahh!” She stumbles to one knee, and her reality becomes a little smaller. The others move in closer to her.

Ravi touches her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“No.” She grimaces as the pressure increases. “It’s so strong.”

The ground starts to shake. Rolleck glances behind them and finds that they are beginning to sink.

“This world will follow my own, follow all worlds, into darkness.” The kings voice is audible to everyone, this time. He sounds tired but gleeful.

“You are not the king,” Rolleck says. “Who are you?”

“I am the second of seven. I am Darkness.”

“What… what is this?” A new voice says.

A hole has opened up behind them, revealing three figures.

“This is what used to be our father, Tolmet,” Indessa says.

“You cannot escape,” the king’s voice says. It seems to come from everywhere at once, now.

Riyo gasps, and Glitter stumbles back as her reality leaps in, letting the darkness even closer.

“You,” Riyo says, her teeth gritted. She points at prince Tolmet. “You’re a crafter.”

“I…” the prince is still staring at the darkness above them.

“Help me.”

The prince’s eyes are wide, his voice fearful. “I’m not fully trained. I don’t know…”

“Just come here,” Riyo all but screams.

He scurries forward.

“Close your reality.”

“Okay. Um… hang on, how do you…”

“Do it now!”

His reality closes, then flickers open again for a moment before closing once more. This time it stays closed.

Riyo grabs his hand and holds it as tight as she can.

“Ouch!”

“Shut up. Open your reality again.”

“I uh… I’m not sure I…”

“Fucking do it!”

“I’m trying! I’m trying!”

“Life cannot stand against the Darkness forever,” the king says.

Riyo starts to scream. The pressure on her reality starts pushing in on her mind. It makes her whole body shake, makes blood leak from her nose and the corners of her eyes.

Then the prince’s reality opens through her, and she can breathe again.

“How…?” the prince says, glancing around.

“A trick my master taught me,” Riyo says once she has her breath back. “Crafters can lend their strength to one another. It’s not very efficient, though. We need to get out of here.”

“Come,” Cotter Lee says. “We have a lot to talk about.”

“Yeah,” Riyo says. “Yeah.” She closes her eyes, fighting off a wave of dizziness. She can already feel the pressure growing again. She stands up, blinking rapidly before focusing on the large man. “Who are you?”

“That’s Cotter Lee,” Rolleck says, hauling Riyo’s arm over his shoulder.

“Oh,” Riyo says. “I can walk, you know?”

“Sure you can, but a father worries.”

They all follow Cotter Lee into his hole, Riyo holding hard onto Tolmet with one hand and letting Rolleck half-carry her with the other.

Indessa stays until last, glaring sightlessly at the darkness. “I’m sorry, father,” she says.

The earth shakes again in response to Cotter’s sword, and the hole begins to close, leaving them trapped in a much friendlier darkness. They have to walk a lot further before Riyo is willing to let go of the prince, and when she does, the pain in her head comes roaring back.

“So, just what was that?” Emerald says. She is running a hand along the ceiling in front of her, paranoid that she will hit her head on a stalactite.

“I ‘unno,” Riyo says. The edges of her vision are blurring. “Bu’ i’ was scar-” Her eyes roll up and she falls unconscious.

Her reality snaps closed, and everyone bar Ravi and Indessa grab their heads. The prince falls to the ground, screaming. Glitter gives a untuned wail, while everyone else just grimaces until the pain fades.

“What the hell was that?” Cotter Lee says.

“Riyo,” Rolleck says. He has managed to keep her upright through his mental battering. “Ravi, a hand, please?”

“Of course,” Ravi says, running to Riyo’s other arm and draping it over his shoulder. She’s short enough that they are now carrying her off the ground.

Cotter Lee looks at Riyo with a frank expression, before shrugging uncomfortably. “Just as long as we’re not being attacked again.”

“How much do you know?” Rolleck asks. “About whatever that thing is?”

“As much as you.” He shakes his head and begins walking again. “Indessa was sure there was something wrong with her father, but that’s the first time he’s left the keep in nearly a decade.”

“I’ll tell you everything I can,” Indessa says. Her voice is quiet. “Once we’re safe, I’ll tell you about my family.”

Cotter Lee looks back at her, a flash of surprise crossing his features. “You’re sure?”

“I saw him, Cotter,” there is a damp patch growing on the left side of her blindfold. “In the darkness, but outside it. Outside everything.”

Cotter Lee’s eyes widen in comprehension, and his whole demeanour softens.

“I’m sorry, Indessa.” He turns to the rest of them. “Come on, we’re taking a shortcut straight to our headquarters.”

He draws his sword and jams it into the world, causing Rolleck to tense up. After a moment, rock begins folding itself over and over and over.

 

 

 

Ynara Velvette stares at a sheet of numbers pinned to a noticeboard outside the Saviour’s Call train station. She does not see any of the numbers. She sees through the sheet, the board, the station building, and hundreds of homes. She sees through the walls around a crumbling keep. She sees darkness.

The morning air is cold, still anticipating dawn’s warmth. The station square is quiet, waiting for the end of curfew and the rush of people vying for a seat on the first train. The darkness sits in a lump before the keep, its weight pulling her stomach towards the earth. She feels it. Its power. The stench of the Reach fills her nostrils, its heat flushes her skin. She is there again. Standing before it and watching it ooze down into Valos. She can hear the inhuman cries of nightmares and the too-human cries of her comrades.

She can see the figure. Illuminated by the Reach, surrounded by nightmares, and smiling at her. Its power seems to seep through her skin. She feels it burning her but… but not burning. Freezing. It wrenches chunks of her body away, so cold that the very atoms that make her lose their energy and crumble to nothing.

Back then, she fell. Chunks of crystal born of her reality filled the gaps, saved her life.

Now, she stares at a sheet of numbers, and her body shivers. The creature grins in her mind.

She reaches into her pocket and closes trembling fingers around a large coin. She pulls it out and looks down at it, tears coming to her eyes. One side is blackened as though burnt. Etched into the black are the words ‘FEAR NOTHING’. She flips it over. The glimmering golden symbol of the World Force stares up at her. Unbreakable. The shield of Valos.

But she had broken.

Once.

She squeezes the coin in her fist and glares up at that darkness again, just as it vanishes. She marches past the timetable and back towards the keep.

Book Eight

Calling to Freedom

 

The Frosthold Song is so-called because it is edged on two of its sides by the sea and on the other two by mountains whose knife-like peaks shine with snow all year round. Between these walls of rock and ice are countless acres of temperate plains and low, rolling hills. Two broad rivers carry melted snow from both eastern and western ridges on a meandering route through pastures and orchards to a meeting point in a lake in the centre of the Song. Barges ply those routes, and the food they bring in from around the Song rides carts – and now trains, too — off the isthmus and out into the rest of the world.

On the shore of the lake, called Corsmere, stands the city of Saviour’s Call. Her thick, grey walls are dotted with points of reflected light where armoured guards stand sentinel. The keep at her heart casts its long shadow over thousands of homes and people that generate an endless bustle of life. If one were to stand in one of the fields of barley that surround the city, listening to the soft sound of the river passing by and watching the glimmer of the falling sun on the tranquil surface of the lake, one might think they stood at the very centre of a perfect slice of peace.

If one looks closer, however, they will begin to see the cracks and smell the stench of rot.

 

 

 

A man finds himself in an orchard he has passed through dozens of times before. His horse’s shoes clop against earth compacted by a history of similar impacts that stretches back to his great-great-grandfather’s lifetime. The sun lives in the gaps between leaves, tapping gently against the stubble on his left cheek as each turn of his wagon’s wheels draws him closer to Saviour’s Call. Ahead, he can see the last of the orchard’s trees giving way to the sky like the mouth of a tunnel. By the last tree is a stone, roughly carved to tell a weary traveller that they are only six miles from their destination. The man finds the sight of it eases his heart, as he supposes it is designed to do.

“I’d stop your cart, if I were you, friend,” a voice says from his left.

The ease he feels is ripped to shreds, replaced by a cold, gripping fear. He glances over and finds a woman stood by a tree, a loaded crossbow pointed at him. The reigns feel like lead in his hands, but his mind rushes forward. If he ducks low and lashes his horse, the woman will probably miss. Crossbows take some time to reload, so as long as that first bolt doesn’t hit him, he can escape.

The moment before he throws himself forward, two more bandits step into the road ahead. One is slight and greasy haired, the other a bull of a man. Both are armed, the one with a cruelly-hooked halberd and the other with a massive hammer. If either of them takes a swing at his horse when he tries to run, the whole cart will probably tip over.

“See?” the woman says, walking at a slow pace alongside the cart. “Pull it over.”

The man draws his horse to a halt and closes his eyes. He tilts his face to the sky. If he is lucky, he will survive. But what life would that be? Everything he has grown this season is in the cart, and the bandits will take it. He will be destitute. His family will be hungry. The guards will come for their ever-increasing war taxes and there will be nothing to give them.

Something cold hits his forehead and he opens his eyes. In spite of the warm afternoon sunlight and the careless, whisper-thin clouds roaming a sheet of blue sky, it is snowing.

“What the hell?” the bandit woman says.

The man glances around to find fat flakes drifting to earth all around. A few more bandits emerge from amongst the trees, their crossbows showing the man just how naïve his plan of escape had been. For the moment, however, they have forgotten about him. The man turns and, over the top of his wagon, sees more travellers on the road through the orchard.

“Get down from the cart,” the woman says, her voice a knife.

He hops down hastily, flinging the reigns onto the seat.

“Get behind that tree. Keep. Fucking. Quiet.”

The bandits leave the road, vanish into the dappled shadows. The man sits down behind the tree and listens. He hears the lacklustre wind trying to move the leaves above him. He hears his heart, prancing in his chest in unhappy fits. He watches the tip of the woman’s crossbow bolt, still pointing at him from the next tree along, and he thinks of his children. The Priests of Vellum have a chapter in Saviour’s Call, and there is an old church of the Word in his town. He has never believed, but he knows that people once did. Knows that they asked for things like mercy and deliverance. It is moments like this that probably made them do so.

“What would you use it for, though?” a voice says from the road.

“It reminds me of home,” another says. This voice is strangely tonal.

“I get that.” A third voice. “Sometimes I like to stare into the fire and remember home.”

“What about you, Rolleck? What reminds you of home?”

“I do everything I can to forget where I’m from, thank you.”

“Oooh, mysterious,” the first voice says. “Hey, whose cart is that?”

The bandit woman is fixated on the road, so the man shifts himself slightly closer to the edge of the tree. She doesn’t notice, and he is afforded a brief glance at the people now standing by his livelihood. His heartrate picks up again as he returns his gaze to the orchard. One of the voices belongs to a man with a wolf pelt over one shoulder. An honest to goodness police officer. The kind who had once ensured the people of the Frosthold Song could travel these roads in peace.

But the Frosthold police force is no more. Now the only hope of refuge is the guards, whose salvation is cold and fearsome. In fact, most of the police force now belongs to the rebellion. The man has heard they stop carts themselves and steal all that is in them for the sake of their unending guerrilla war. The man and his aquamarine pelt probably only represent more danger.

Did they just leave it here while they went to take a dump?” the same voice asks.

The snow stops as abruptly as it began. The last flakes hit the soil and it’s as though the freak flurry never happened.

“What’s with the tension, guys?” the voice says. Then, “Ohhh. The cart is bait for some kind of bandit trap, isn’t it?”

“Seems that way.”

“There are eight of them,” the tonal voice says.

“This is like the fourth time,” the first voice complains. “Is everybody in Frosthold a bandit?”

“There’s certainly a lot of them. I guess the police aren’t doing their jobs properly.”

“Don’t look at me,” the deepest of the voices says. “I wasn’t even a police officer the last time I was in Frosthold, and that was a long time ago, anyway.”

“So how come we haven’t been ambushed yet?”

“Maybe they’re scared of Emerald?”

“I do get that, sometimes.” The voice sounds a little down about not being jumped by bandits.

“Hey, don’t worry. That says way more about them than it does about you.”

“Thanks, Ravi.”

The man glances across at the bandit woman. She is peering past the trunk of her tree and wearing a perplexed frown. The tip of her crossbow has dipped towards the ground, and the man begins shuffling away from it. With the curve of the tree trunk at his back, he eases around towards the road and away from the woman.

“So, what do we do?”

“Can we just… leave? We’re really close to Saviour’s Call now.”

“And just leave these bandits to attack the next person to come through?”

“I mean, that’s life, right? We can’t clear every group of bandits out the Frosthold Song.”

“These ones are right in front of us, though,” the police officer says.

“Hey, maybe we could arrest them! They might even have a bounty we could collect.”

“That’s not an entirely bad idea,” the police officer says. “Hunting’s getting harder with all this farmland around. We’re going to have to start buying supplies sooner or later.”

The man has made his way around the tree and out of the woman’s sight. From his new position, he can see his horse, still standing patiently by the side of the road. He shuffles a little further before the bandit woman realises he is gone, and his yell of surprise at the sight of a dragon standing next to his cart comes alongside her angry order to fire.

Four crossbows snap, spitting at the most dangerous target.

Four bolts stop dead in the air a metre or so from her.

The dragon counts them and sighs. “It’s still hard not to take it personally, sometimes, y’know? There’s actually quite a lot of people around with animal traits like Ravi. Surely I don’t look that distinct?”

“Sorry, Emerald, but you kind of do,” a short blonde woman says. She walks around the dragon, plucking the crossbow bolts out of the air and then offers them to her like a bouquet of flowers. “But I think you’re even more beautiful because of it.”

“Aww,” she takes the bolts and picks at the fletching shyly, “thanks, Riyo.”

“Um, should I get them?” the tonal voice says. It takes a moment for the man to realise that none of the group had spoken. The large metal storage container they have with them has a quizzical face drawn on it, and it slowly dawns on the man that it is standing by itself on two spindly legs. Surely, however, it couldn’t have been the one speaking.

“That’s okay, Glitter,” the blonde woman says. “I got it.”

The conversation has given the bandits time to reload their crossbows, and the leader now steps out, still pointing hers at the dragon.

“I don’t know what the hell any of you are, but you’re surrounded.”

The two melee fighters that had blocked the man’s escape now stand in the road again, and there is a woman with a blindfold barring the way back through the orchard. There are two crossbowmen on the other side of the road, and a second joins the leader by the man’s tree.

“I don’t care,” the blonde woman says. “You hurt my friend’s feelings. Sit down.”

With a clatter and some yells of surprise, all of the bandits’ weapons zip through the air and form a pile in front of the woman’s feet. The man raises his head in disbelief and finds that the bandits are indeed sitting. All but one.

The police officer comes between the blonde woman and the blindfolded woman in time to stop a flying kick. A wave of air pressure knocks the man’s hat from his head, but the blonde woman doesn’t blink, only frowns past the police officer at the woman as she blackflips off the police officer’s sword.

“She’s completely ignoring it,” the blonde woman says. “It’s like trying to craft at Ravi.”

The blindfolded woman stands completely still, her body turned sideways with her right hand up in front of her. Her hair is red, tied in a braid that falls a short way down her back. A streak of silver runs through the fringe that drops over her blindfold. Her clothes are different from the other bandits’ – silken and almost robe-like.

Snow rushes out of the storage container and the woman springs backwards to avoid becoming a snowman. She leaps up a short ridge into the forest on the other side of the road and the dragon leaps after her, her wings unfolding across the road to propel her forward. She pulls them back in to keep them from hitting the low-hanging branches of the orchard and falls just short of swiping at the woman. She bounds after her for a moment on all fours, but when another leap doesn’t carry her far enough to pin the woman down, she slows to a halt.

The bird man has remained with the rest of his companions, and he now holds an arrow at his cheek. There is a whisper of something blue around him, and then the arrow is gone.

“Wow,” he says a second later. “It grazed her, but she dodged it. Just like Riot.”

The dragon returns a moment later. She looks a little sheepish. “I couldn’t follow her through those trees, sorry, and I didn’t want to breathe in there.” She touches the closest tree and closes her eyes. “Seems like she’s angling towards the city.”

“Sorry I couldn’t catch her, either,” the metal creature says. “She was so fast!” The snow he has coated the road with rises and flows back into his box.

“Strong, too,” the police officer says.

“She was missing her left arm,” the bird man says.

“It’s fine,” the blonde woman says. “She caught us all by surprise.” The blonde woman glances at the bandit leader. “And yet her friends seem pretty normal.” The leader rises from the ground and drifts through the air, where she hangs in front of the blonde woman like she’s dangling from a noose. “Who was that blindfold lady?”

“Who the hell are you?” she says. Her voice is much higher than before. “You’re not human.”

“Sure I am. I’m just a crafter. Who was your friend?”

“I don’t know! She said the boss told her to come with us on our raids for a while. She never spoke after that.”

“Who’s the boss?” the police officer asks.

“I ain’t telling you anything!”

“Um,” the man says, crawling the rest of the way out from behind the tree. He then flails as he, too, rises from the ground. “Wah!” His head spins, trying to tell him that he is falling, rather than floating, despite what his eyes are telling him. He is deposited next to the bandit leader and almost falls over as the whole world seems to flip sideways. He manages keep upright, and stares at the woman with wide eyes. A moment later, his hat lands neatly on his head.

“Who are you?” she asks.

“Um,” he says again. “I… this is… my cart. I was being robbed when you showed up. Um. Thank you.”

“Oh. Well. You’re welcome. Do you know who her boss is?”

“Um. It’s probably Cotter Lee.”

 

 

“I see,” Riyo says, though she has no idea who that is. “Do you think there’s a bounty available for these people?”

“Um. No,” the man says. “The Frosthold police force has disbanded and the guards don’t do bounties.”

“Well, that’s no fun,” Riyo says. “How far is it to Saviour’s Call?”

“About six miles. Um.”

“That’s not too bad. I’ll carry them there and give them to the guards anyway. Better than leaving them out here to steal more vegetables. Let’s go, team.”

The rest of the bandits rise from the ground and drift together, back to back. Their weapons float over to the cart and plunk down on the back in a gap between two crates of cabbages.

“This is going to look very strange,” Glitter says.

They all turn to look at him. A moment passes.

“Oh! Yeah. I guess there aren’t that many ice robots around, either?”

“I will be honest,” Rolleck says, “you are the first I’ve met.”

Everyone nods, including the bandits.

“It’s okay. I have an idea.”

 

 

“I’d argue this is just as strange,” Ravi says, glancing at Glitter. He is now lying on his back, where a set of what he calls ‘treads’ have emerged. They are similar to whatever moved the snow plough in Coldton, and he buzzes quietly as they crunch away at the dirt. They leave the same uniform, square tracks as the plough did. He has created a cage of ice on his ‘face’ and the bandits now sit in it, shivering.

“At least they’re not flying,” Emerald says.

“Are people really going to be more comfortable with a mechanical ice cage than a crafter?” Riyo says.

“Probably not,” Rolleck admits. “But you have to look a lot closer to recognise this as something special than you would if they were just floating. As long as Glitter stays behind the cart, then from a distance it’s just an extra cart with some prisoners in it, which isn’t that strange.”

“Fine,” Riyo grumbles. She ambles closer to the cage. “Hey,” she says to the bandit leader.

The woman turns away from her. The tightness of the enclosure means this puts her face in the armpit of her hammer-wielding colleague. She grimaces. The man has enough bovine traits that there are small horns poking through his matted black hair. Riyo can smell him from where she stands outside the cage.

“How’d you end up being a bandit?”

Glitter buzzes away. The cartwheels crunch and bump their way over the uneven road. Ravi’s quiet conversation with the driver and the songs of nearby birds throw their inconsistent chatter into the medley, making the afternoon at once cacophonous and peaceful. The amicability of it seems to bother the bandit, and eventually she turns back to Riyo with a growl on her lips.

“There was nothing else, okay? The inn I worked at got burned down by the guard because they thought we were harbouring resistance members. My mum died when I was a kid and my dad was taken to the keep two years ago. I haven’t seen him since. I don’t even know if he’s alive or dead.” She hugs her knees, becoming a little smaller. She can’t be much older than Riyo. “I guess maybe I’ll find out once I get thrown in there too.”

 

“Who’s Cotter Lee?” Ravi asks. The broad walls of Saviour’s Call are close enough now that he can see the multitude of guards atop them. They wear bucket-like helmets and lean against spears, and more of them look into the city than out towards the fields.

“The leader of the resistance,” the man says. He is grateful to these people for saving him, but he can’t help feeling uneasy around them after seeing how easily they did so. He keeps glancing back towards the blonde woman. She’s barely more than a girl, but she hides a monstrous power. At least the dragon looks scary. The crafter could be his neighbour, and he would never guess she was capable of crushing him with a thought.

“He was a police officer, back before all this started. Now he steals from those he swore to protect in order to feed his pointless rebellion.”

“Why did the rebellion start in the first place?”

“Politics,” the man spits. “Nobles spoiling for any opportunity to grab the crown and put it on one of their heads, even if thousands have to starve to see it done.”

 

“Cotter Lee gave me a chance to pay them back for everything they took from me,” the bandit says. “It’s dirty work, but it’s not like there’s anything else on offer.” She glances over her shoulder towards the cart and the city it rolls towards. “The king makes sure people stay poor. The guards on the gate will check everything this guy is bringing in and make sure the best of it goes to the keep. They’ll pay him next to nothing for it, too.

“Cotter Lee fights for the people. He wants to put an end to the king and the nobles both. We’ll finally be free.”

 

“We had peace, before. Real peace. The people loved the king – it was only the nobles that ever had a problem with him, and that only because they wanted his power for themselves. Now, the only people really trying for peace are Prince Tolmet and Princess Fortissa. Everybody else is just out for themselves, and it’s the common folk who suffer most.

“If Lee would just stand down, everything would go back to the way it was.”

 

Riyo falls back a little to match strides with her friends.

“Sounds like stopping in Saviour’s Call might not be such a good idea,” Rolleck says.

Riyo shakes her head. “I need to see if what she says is true.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I took them prisoner. If she is telling the truth, I can’t just give them to the corrupt guards. But she could still be lying to try and make me let her go. I can’t risk that, either.”

“Please let’s not get involved in another civil war,” Rolleck says. “The last time we did that, Folvin burned to the ground.”

“It would have done that anyway,” Riyo says. “Besides, we don’t have to resolve this one. We just need to ask people some questions and figure out whether to release these guys or not.”

“Who do we talk to, though? Everybody’s going to tell us they’re fighting for the good of the city, or the people, or for peace. Nobody ever outright tells you they’re out for themselves.”

“Sure they do. You just have to ask them convincingly.”

Rolleck sighs. “Right. And who, exactly, are we going to ask?”

“This Cotter Lee guys seems like a good place to start.”

Emerald starts laughing, while Rolleck covers his face with his hand.

“It’s just a few quick questions, Rolleck,” Emerald says. “But that’s only one side of the story, right? We’d have to talk to the king for the other.”

“Good point,” Riyo says. “Cotter Lee and the king. Two quick interviews, and we can decide what to do with the prisoners.”

Rolleck glares at Emerald, but she just giggles.

Ravi lets the cart trundle on until the group catch up with him. He glances around at their faces and then says, “Oh.”

“You guys worry too much,” Riyo says. “Let’s stop here.”

Glitter does so, immediately, jolting everyone in his cage into each other.

“We’ll need someone to stay with the prisoners until we know what’s up.” She glances around. “Glitter, Emerald, do you mind?”

Emerald shakes her head. “I didn’t much fancy wandering around a town full of humans in the middle of a war anyway – crossbow bolts still sting, even if they can’t get through my scales.”

“It’s fine by me, too,” Glitter says. The cage starts moving backwards, then tilts and hits the ground. Its contents holler angrily as those near the front tumble into those at the back. Glitter emerges from underneath it and the other end crashes to the ground. He stands up, then stares at the cage with a furrowed brow drawn on his face. After a moment, snow bursts from his shoulders and enshrouds the cage in a twisting blizzard. There are screams from inside, but they fade into puzzled noises and then silence as the snows recede. They have been shoved over to the side of the road, and their cage is now bigger. They also no longer have to sit on an icy floor. Instead, the bars disappear into the ground.

“There,” Glitter says. His face has changed to one of satisfaction. “We can wait here until you get back.”

“Thanks guys,” Riyo says. “See you soon.” She turns to Rolleck and Ravi. “Let’s go.”

“This is stupid,” Rolleck says as they begin walking after the cart once more.

“It’s not the stupidest thing we’ve done, though,” Ravi says. “It’s going to take a lot to beat going into a volcano full of dragons.”

“You didn’t even come with us.”

“I know. I think I deserve to take part in a stupid escapade before we start ruling them out completely.”

“We’re going looking for the sunlight stone. Every day, you get to be part of a stupid escapade.”

“Ha,” Riyo says. “You said ‘we’.”

 

 

The gates of Saviour’s Call are big, wooden and bound in iron. They remind Rolleck of the gates of Malvis, but on a much grander scale. They stand open, but a handful of bucket-headed guards wait before them, and Rolleck spots a guardhouse just inside the walls. As they wander into the shade, three of the guards approach them. The slits in their buckets find their weapons in short order, and they linger for a long moment on Rolleck’s pelt.

“What business do you have in Saviour’s Call?” The lead guard chooses to direct his question at Rolleck. His tabard is the same dark blue as the others, but it bears a coat of arms over his breast. It shows a shield with a flame on it, all picked out in icy blue.

“We’re travellers in pursuit of the sunlight stone,” Riyo says. “But first, we captured some bandits in the orchard down the road. We need to speak to that Cotter guy and the king to determine whether to hand them over to you or let them go.”

The guards glance at each other, then burst out laughing.

“Your daughter is a funny girl,” the lead guard says when they are done.

Rolleck steps on whatever Riyo is about to say. “She certainly is. She claims she wants to perform in taverns, but I can’t tell if that’s also a joke.” He pats Riyo on the shoulder and smiles at her. “She wasn’t lying about us being travellers, though. We’re just looking for an inn for the night.”

“Where’d you hale from?”

“Little town in Eversong called Malvis. This here is our friend from a couple of towns over.” He points at Ravi. “Excellent hunter. He’s been a Written gift on the road.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” Ravi says.

Riyo, wisely, remains silent.

The guards give them another once over. “Those are some interesting swords you’re carrying.”

“Well, you can’t be too careful, out there. I hear there are bandits around. The girl’s sword is made from the talon of an Eversong creature. It’s a lot lighter than a true steel blade, so she can swing it around easier. Been teaching her a little, too. I don’t want her growing up defenceless, you know?”

The bucket nods along with the head inside it. “That’s fair. Well, you seem like nice enough folk. I’d suggest you don’t hang around Saviour’s Call too long, though. It’s not the safest place at the moment.”

“I heard a few things on the way in,” Rolleck says with a nod. “You fellows have it rough.”

“We do, but the Frostburne line has kept us peaceful and happy for a long time. They’ll see us through this, too.” He glances back at one of the other guards, who subtly shakes his bucket. He turns back to them. “Have a safe night, now.”

“We will,” Rolleck says. “Thank you.” He looks at Riyo. “Thank the man.”

“Thank you,” Riyo says, just about managing to sound meek.

Ravi nods. “Thanks.”

They walk into the city in silence, their boots clunking on uneven cobbles. They turn the first corner they find, and Rolleck and Ravi both start laughing. Riyo punches Rolleck in the side.

“I do not look young enough to be your daughter.”

“What do you have to be angry about?” Rolleck says. “He thought I looked old enough to be your father. That’s mortifying.”

“I hate it when families fight,” Ravi says, then skips backwards as they both take a step towards him.

“Let’s just find Cotter and the king and get back to Emerald and Glitter,” Riyo says. “I don’t want to leave them out there too long.”

“What’s your plan for that, by the way?” Rolleck says. “I assume you have one?”

“Well the king is easy enough to find,” she says, glancing towards the looming keep atop its little hill in the middle of the city. “But getting in there will be risky. We should probably find the other guy before we set off the alarm.”

“Okay. Solid so far. How about the rest?”

“No idea.”

Rolleck sighs.

“I have an idea,” Ravi says.

“See?” Riyo says. “Ravi’s got it covered.”

“Well, they’ve been stealing food and stuff before it gets into the city, but that guard as much as said they’re mainly operating within the city…”

“So, they’re getting their stolen goods in somehow,” Rolleck says. “But apparently they’ve been doing that for a decade and the guards haven’t plugged the gap. What makes you think you can find it in a single day?”

“My eyes are really good.”

“That’s a pretty weak plan.”

“Well I like it,” Riyo says. “Where do we start?”

“We can ask around at the market, posing as concerned travellers, to figure out where most of the bandits are operating. We can find the ‘safe’ routes where there are more guard patrols that way, too. Once night falls, we stealth our way onto the wall and around to the place with the best ratio of lack of guards to bandit activity and watch for movement outside the city. Even if I can’t see exactly how they’re bringing stuff in, they’re bound to have look-outs around to make sure the guards aren’t on to them. It’s not a sure thing, but I think it gives us a pretty solid chance of finding something out. What do you think?”

“Uh,” Riyo says.

“I think we just captured a bunch of people who probably know exactly what we need to know,” Rolleck says.

Ravi stares at him for a moment. He blinks a few times. “We really suck at plans, don’t we?”

“I’m not entirely sure Riyo even knows what ‘plan’ means,” Rolleck says.

“Whatever it is, it sounds tasty,” Riyo says, her voice flat.

“Can you nip over the wall to ask the bandits once it’s dark enough, Riyo?”

“Sure. Until then, let’s go look at the keep. Maybe we can come up with a way of getting inside to see the king.”

“You mean like a plan?” Rolleck says.

“Shut up, you’re making me hungry.”

 

 

“Shit,” Emerald says. The sound of hoofbeats rings out over the fields, rising from a gentle tapping to a rumbling clatter just as the sun touches the horizon. She glances at Glitter, who draws himself an uncertain face.

“Maybe we can move further from the road?”

Emerald searches their immediate surroundings but, aside from a few stone walls that barely reach her waist demarcating the boundaries of each farm, there is nothing to hide behind for hundreds of metres. She can already see the group of horses crowning the nearest rise in the road. They might well see her, too.

“Doesn’t look like we have time,” she sighs. “We really didn’t think this one through.”

“Could we just… talk to them? Explain what’s going on?”

“I think that’s about the only option we have.” Emerald pulls up her hood. Her cloak does a poor job of hiding her, but in the past, she has managed to convince people she is just a very tall human with a very pronounced hunch. Those people might just have been being kind, though. “I just really don’t think it’s going to work.”

“I’ll, um… Pretend to be inanimate, for a bit, shall I?”

“If you don’t mind? I’ll probably be a big enough shock for them as it is.”

Glitter whistles an agreement and backs up to his cage. He then retracts his legs and goes dark, hoping whoever is coming will assume he is a machine that makes ice cages. He lets a few puffs of cold air mist the evening around him and whirls up his motion motor to create a mechanical noise.

Emerald sits to further conceal her height, then waits as the cavalry approaches. It turns out to be a guard patrol, which she really should have expected this close to a city under martial law. There are eight of them, led by a woman in armour that shines like the surface of the lake. Feathers of steel that look so real Ravi would be jealous fold over her shoulders, forming pauldrons, while silvery wings spread from either side of her helm. It is open-faced, unlike those of her cohort, so Emerald can see her ice-bright eyes and fringe of auburn hair.

“Shit!” the bandit leader says behind her. “That’s princess Fortissa!”

Emerald squeezes her eyes shut and groans softly. “Why would she be here?”

“She rides out with the patrols all the time. Other bands have tried to capture her but she’s a damn monster. Hey! Let us out and give us weapons or we’re screwed!”

“Shut up,” Emerald growls, then looks at the road so that her hood will hide her face from the guards. She sees a collection of hooves trail into view and then stop.

“What is going on here?” the princess says. She has a surprisingly soft voice, but it is backed up by eight people with hands on their weapons.

“These people are bandits,” Emerald says without looking up.

There is an uncomfortable pause.

“I am aware of that. We have been looking for them.”

“Uh, well, I’ve captured them. So, I guess you don’t need to worry about them anymore?”

“It’s quite impressive for one person to capture six armed bandits.”

“Uh, my friends have gone ahead to the city. I’m just waiting for them to get back.”

“Then please allow us to escort you there to meet them and put the bandits where they belong?”

“Where is that, exactly?” Emerald asks, causing another stony silence.

“Why, in prison, of course.”

“Without trial?” Emerald says.

“They haven’t been granting trials to their victims, have they?” There is some anger in her voice, now.

“If there’s no trial, how can you prove that there were any victims in the first place?” the bandit leader shouts. “You can just shove anybody you like in that keep of yours and say they were a criminal.”

“Silence, bandit.”

“She’s right, though,” Emerald says. “My friends have gone to confirm whether what she says is true, but it seems we can’t just hand these people over to you.”

Princess Fortissa is very good at cold silences. Emerald feels as though she is being dissected.

“Standing in the path of justice is a crime, traveller. If you do not hand these bandits over to us, we will be taking you to the keep as well.”

Emerald sighs. “I was afraid you would say that.”

“Arrest her.”

Emerald stands and lowers her hood, causing some gasps that echo inside some buckets. The princess’s eyes narrow.

“I knew it. Those drakes were working for Lee.”

“I am no drake, your highness.” Emerald undoes the clasp of her cloak and lets it fall to the ground. The spread of her wings hides the sun and casts the princess in shadow. “And if you attempt to arrest me, I can’t guarantee you or your guards will survive.”

The princess looks towards the city, then nods, apparently to herself. “Get to the city. Find one of the captains and return here immediately.”

“But… your highness,” the lead guard says.

“Do it now, sergeant.” Her voice is still as soft as before, but it is laced with poison.

“Yes, your highness.”

The knights all salute their princess and then kick their horses into a gallop. Their hooves throw dust from the road to twinkle in the last of the light. The princess herself calmly dismounts her horse and leads it to the other side of the road. She unpins her arctic blue cloak from her pauldrons and slings it over her saddle. Then she comes to face Emerald. She draws her sword – a slim, silvery rapier – with a quick, precise movement and holds it out horizontally. Her eyes close.

Emerald feels… something. For a moment, it is as though charming sunset has turned to dead of night in but a heartbeat. The cold heart of the abyss encroaches and breathes on the back of her neck. Then reality seems to stretch out and snap back into place, reasserting itself. Three blue flames appear along the side of the princess’s blade, sputtering like dying candles. The princess whips the blade down towards the ground in another flash of blue that is uncomfortable to look at, then raises it ahead of her into a fencer’s stance.

“What was that?” Emerald says.

“None of your concern.”

“Uh-huh.” Emerald tucks her wings and darts forward. She throws a feint punch at the princess’s face then follows her when she ducks aside, catching her heel with a sweep that sends the princess tumbling. She makes to knock the sword from the woman’s hand, but the abyss is there again. It seems to cling to her, drain the sound and life from all around. It holds her back as the princess climbs to her feet, and then it is gone again.

Emerald lurches out of the ethereal grip and just manages to bat aside a thrust. The blade feels like ice against the scales on the back of her hand, and it scores a line of pain through one of them. She turns her hand and grabs the princess by the wrist, then falls back. This pulls the princess off balance, and Emerald twists her arm hard enough to force her into a front-flip that lands her on her back in a clatter of armour. This time, her sword goes skittering from her hand.

The abyss grips hard, dragging Emerald away from the princess. She grits her teeth and inhales her pilot, letting raw, burning power suffuse her. While she is struggling, the princess scrambles to her feet and reaches out. Her sword flies into her outstretched hand with another nauseating blue flash. She points the blade at Emerald and then makes a pulling motion with her off-hand. Emerald feels the abyss shift, dragging her forwards to be impaled upon the princess’s blade.

Pink flame leaks from her and she flares her cowl, rushing fire against her unseen puppeteer. The abyss falls back, and Emerald hears a distinctly human yell of pain inside her head. She digs her talons into the ground and roars a gout of burning rage at the princess, whose eyes barely have time to widen before she is engulfed.

Blue fire meets pink, bursting out from inside Emerald’s conflagration. In the shimmering haze between her and the princess, she sees the flickering image of a tall man with red hair and a silver crown. He turns to face her, his eyes the same fierce, crystalline blue as the princess’s.

Then Glitter smacks the princess around the head, and she falls on her face. The man and his blue flames vanish, leaving the remnants of Emerald’s to scorch the road before fading away. Emerald lets her blood go out, then frowns at the insensate princess.

“That was weird.”

“Sorry if you didn’t want me to interrupt,” Glitter says, waddling over.

Emerald shakes her head. “No, that could have been dangerous. There was someone helping her, I think.”

“You couldn’t see him?”

“Him?”

“Oh. There was a man. He felt a bit strange to me, and he was messing with the energy around here in crazy ways.”

“So, a man I couldn’t see or sense, with spooky powers.”

“Oh no!” Glitter says. He draws a wide-eyed, screaming face. “Father told me about this! It’s a g-g-g-ghost!”

“But then why did it disappear when her highness took a dive?”

“Who cares! We’ve got to get out of here!”

“You’re right about that,” Emerald says, looking up towards the city. The guards are making a small dust cloud that is fast-approaching the gate. She turns to the cage full of bandits. “We need to get gone and we don’t have time to put you in a trundling cage, so you’re going to walk. If you try to run away, Glitter will freeze you solid and throw you at the city as hard as he can.”

“I’m pretty good at throwing stuff,” Glitter says, erasing his scaredy face and trying for a menacing one with downward-tilted eyebrows. He still looks cute, though.

“We’ll walk,” the lead bandit says. She’s staring at the fallen princess.

“Great. Do you have a hideout nearby?”

“Uh.”

“The alternative is trying to run ahead of whatever mounted reinforcements are coming from the city,” Emerald says, “and if you can’t manage that then we’ll just leave you to get captured and tell Riyo we tried our best.”

“Shit,” the bandit says. Even so, she hesitates. “The boss will kick us out of the rebellion.”

“Better than getting thrown in the keep,” one of her colleagues says. “It’s been ten years and we still don’t have the first clue what happens to people who end up in there.”

“It might be nice,” the bull man says.

All of the bandits glare at him.

“What? It might. You never know.”

“Fine,” the leader says. “We’ll take you to the hideout. It won’t be empty, though, and the others are gonna be pissed.”

“That’s a problem for later. Armoured knights are a problem for now.”

“Let’s go!” Glitter says, and the cage collapses into twinkling mist.

 

 

 

“something’s happening,” Ravi says. The three of them stand by a moat filled with stagnant water, across which is another wall. Inside the wall the ground rises steeply towards the monolithic keep, whose towers bristle with archers and crossbowmen. The only gate is hidden behind a grand drawbridge, which is now beginning to fall. A group of road-worn guards sit astride panting mounts before it.

“Is this our chance?” Riyo says, looking up at Rolleck.

He gives her a frank look. “No. Stop being so impatient.”

“Hey, you’re the one who said you didn’t want to get involved here. I’m just trying to get done as quick as possible.”

“That man is enormous,” Ravi says as the drawbridge crashes down, throwing up a cloud of dust. The portcullis on the other side ill-conceals a man who could barely fit through the outer gate of the city. He wears the armour and tabard of a guard, but the bucket of his helmet could drain the lake in a handful of scoops. As the portcullis begins to rise, his vision slit looks around and stops for a moment.

“He just looked at us,” Rolleck says, narrowing his eyes. “It felt a little… pointed.”

“He must have quite good eyesight,” Ravi says, then swallows. His eyes cannot pierce the shade of the giant’s vision slit, but it feels as though he’s locked in a staring contest with the man. One that he has no hope of winning. “Maybe we should move along? Act natural, you know?”

“It’s pretty natural for travellers to be interested in stuff like this,” Riyo says. “How does someone get that big?”

“Always eats their vegetables and drink lots of milk,” Rolleck says.

“Hey! I drank milk,” Riyo says, shortly.

“He could be like me,” Ravi says. “But with, like, whale traits.”

“Or he might not be human at all.”

“Well, we probably weren’t going to get in through the main gate anyway,” Riyo says. “We’ll have to go over the back wall.”

The portcullis has now risen above the head of the giant, but he remains where he is. Instead, another group of knights ride out. They are led by a woman whose armour looks very different from the other guards’.

“Oh my,” Ravi says, glancing away.

“Is she… naked?” Riyo says, squinting.

“Um, no,” Ravi says, feeling himself blushing. “But her armour is rather… limited.”

“Isn’t that just a chain around her chest?”

“Uh, yes. And only one loop.”

“Can that even be called armour?” Rolleck says.

“Isn’t she cold?” Riyo asks.

“These are not questions I can answer just by looking,” Ravi says. He continues not looking.

“Looks like she’s going out of the city with those knights,” Rolleck says.

The sound of their hoofbeats reaches Riyo a few moments after the group take off at a hard gallop, angled for the gate they entered the city by.

“Is it possible the others are in trouble?” Riyo says.

“Those other knights must have come via the road we left them on,” Rolleck says.

“Tch. I’m going to find the best way over the wall. You guys find an inn or something. If you get a chance, go talk to the king.”

“Sure,” Rolleck says, and Riyo runs off.

“We’re not actually going to talk to the king, are we?” Ravi says.

“Not if we can help it. Let’s just go and find an inn.”

The sound of the drawbridge rising rumbles out behind them as they wander back towards the wall. With the sun now vanished behind the city walls and preparing to finish up today’s sunset altogether, the people of Saviour’s Call have trickled away to their homes. Ravi and Rolleck amble over the cobbles through an uneasy silence, looking for the sign of an inn or tavern.

Ravi pulls them to a halt as they pass into a market square in the south eastern corner of the city. Over on the other side of the empty space, two young boys are hunkered beside a heap of crates. Several lanterns burn around them, and there is a man in the window of the closest house. Clearly, he is supposed to be watching for thieves, but he has fallen asleep. The children are dressed in rags, and one of them has a broken piece of metal pipe that he is using to try and lever one of the crates open. The other boy lingers by him, his eyes darting between the window of the sleeping man and the rest of the square.

Ravi quietly relays the details of the scene that Rolleck cannot see.

“What should we do?”

Rolleck glances briefly at his wolf pelt. He is compelled to see the boys off, but, though it does not look it from a casual glance, this city isn’t much different from a war zone. The usual rules don’t really apply and denying children food isn’t something he would feel good about.

The decision is taken from them by the persistent sound of metal on stone. Another light appears and grows brighter from the entrance of a side street. Ravi gestures towards the mouth of an alley just inside the square, and they move into it.

The boys notice the sound soon after, and they panic. The one with the pipe gestures at the boxes, suggesting they hide. The other jabs his hand at the nearest road out of the square. He runs for it, while the other one throws up his hands and scurries behind the boxes. A pair of guards enter the square a second later, lanterns swinging from their spears. The running boy is out in the open, and one of the guards spots him.

“Halt!”

Further panicked, the boy runs harder, and the guards give chase. Their swaying lanterns create flickering shadow plays on the walls of the surrounding buildings, then night swoops in behind them as they disappear down the side street.

The other boy emerges from his hiding place and runs to the corner, peering round it. He then starts back towards the crates, before turning back to the corner again. He stamps his foot, and the lanterns by the crates twinkle off a tear in his eye.

“I think we should help them,” Ravi says quietly.

“Maybe,” Rolleck says. He leaves the cover of the alley and approaches the boy, who is too caught up in his worrying to notice until Rolleck is almost on top of him.

He starts to yell, then catches himself and runs for the closest escape, but his unshod foot hits an uneven cobble and he falls.

Rolleck steps over and kneels beside him, careful to keep his empty hand towards the boy. He has found that people unconsciously appreciate it when he does so.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says quietly. “I’m not a guard.”

“Who are you?” the boy stammers. He is trying to get his legs under him, but he has noticed Rolleck’s sword. He knows he will not be able to run.

“I’m a traveller. And you’re worried about your friend, right?”

The boy glances in the direction guards have gone, then nods.

“What will they do to him? If they catch him?” Rolleck asks as Ravi comes over.

“They’ll take him to the keep,” the boy says. “They take anybody out after curfew to the keep, and nobody comes back from that.”

“Seems a little harsh,” Ravi says.

“It also seems a little rude of those gate guards not to tell us about the curfew. No wonder everybody disappeared so quickly.”

“They don’t tell anybody who comes in about it. I think they want to take travellers up there.”

“What do you think?” Ravi says.

“I think I’m starting to come down on Cotter Lee’s side.”

“I’ll go make sure his friend gets away.” Ravi takes a run-up and then hops to the roof of the building on the corner.

“Where do you live?” Rolleck asks the boy.

“Um. Nearby. But…” He glances over his shoulder towards the crates again.

Rolleck sighs. “Come on.” The boy has made little head-way on the crate with his pipe, but Rolleck’s sword makes short work of the panel he has been worrying, and a cluster of large, round fruits spill out. The boy grabs a folded sack from his belt and fills it with as much as he can. It is not much. He seems happy, however. He runs over to the street the guards went down and beckons for Rolleck to follow.

“They patrol in a circle, so the next pair will come the same way.”

Rolleck nods and follows the boy through the city. They make a few turns, passing darkened windows and scaring rats to scampering flight. They enter a new patrol area and have to crouch in an alley while another pair of lantern-wielding guards clump past. Many of the windows in this area are broken, and doors hang from single hinges where they haven’t been knocked down completely. The boy leads Rolleck to a house whose door is missing, then gestures for Rolleck to enter the building first. His expression gives away his poor attempt at subterfuge, but Rolleck goes inside anyway.

He gently taps aside the thrust of a broken spear with his sword, then steps forward and catches the wrist of the teenager wielding it, who yelps. A girl with a dagger leaps at him from behind a dark curtain, so he shoves the first boy away and catches her elbow before she can plunge the knife down at him.

“Stand down at once,” he yells. Years of police authority back his command, and for a moment every child in the space is stunned by the need to obey. “I am not here to hurt or arrest you,” he says at a more reasonable volume. He plucks the knife from the girl’s fingers before she can recover and inspects its blade. It is rusty and dull, and probably wouldn’t have got through his waistcoat. “I just want to talk to you.”

The boy he initially saved peers around the door to see what is happening.

“What the fuck did you do this time, Kenta?” the older boy with the spear says. He is watching Rolleck carefully, but his question is aimed at the younger boy at the door.

“I’m sorry, Gem, I didn’t know what to do…”

“Where the fuck is Fallow?”

“He… the guards came…”

“Fuck. Did they get him?”

“He ran, but I didn’t see.”

“Fuck,” Gem says again. “Tell me you at least got the fruit.”

“Y-yeah! I did. Here.” He scurries past Rolleck and hands over the sack.

Gem grabs the sack from Kenta roughly and then shoves the younger boy away. “So, who the fuck is this guy?”

“I’m a traveller,” Rolleck says.

“Well if you’re not here to hurt us or rob us, then fuck off.”

Rolleck glances around the gloomy space. There are at least two more kids of varying ages lingering on the edge of notice. The girl whose knife he now holds has backed away towards one corner of the room but stopped a little way from the wall.

“I was actually thinking I might be able to help you,” he says.

“We don’t need your fucking help,” Gem says, then spits.

“I see. Is that because you’re big and strong, or because you have someone else’s support?”

“We don’t need anybody, you nosy fuck,” Gem says, but Rolleck is watching Kenta. The boy’s eyes widen at the suggestion they have help from elsewhere, and he glances at Gem’s back.

“I see,” Rolleck says. He goes over to the girl, who tries to stare defiantly at him while visibly shaking. She doesn’t step back onto the piece of cloth behind her, though. Rolleck flips the knife and offers her the handle. “This is yours. I apologise for scaring you.”

She glances past him at Gem, then takes the knife back.

“Wasn’t scared,” she almost whispers, looking away from him and cradling the knife.

“My mistake,” Rolleck says. Then he reaches past her and flips the cloth up. Cracked floorboards make a hole just large enough for a person. There is a wooden ladder propped against the wall, and the faint flicker of lantern light clambers up it.

“Hey!” Gem yells, but he is far too slow to stop Rolleck from rolling down the hole. He dangles from the broken woodwork to arrest his momentum, then drops the rest of the way into the basement.

“Gem?” The voice belongs to a man sat beside a heavy door. A lantern flickers on the table before him, and he has a series of playing cards arranged beside it. He is dressed mostly in black and is rapidly balding. “You’d better have those wiffle fruits.”

Rolleck steps into the light of the lantern, and the man jerks to his feet. He fumbles a knife and it clatters into Rolleck’s left boot.

“Good evening,” Rolleck says. “I imagine you work for Cotter Lee.”

The man glances down at the knife, then back up at Rolleck, taking in the sword and the wolf pelt. He licks his lips.

“Don’t worry about betraying anything,” Rolleck says, picking up the knife. It is much sharper than the one belonging to the girl upstairs. “I’m not out to cause trouble for the rebellion. In fact, I was actually thinking of joining up.”

He offers the knife back to the man, handle first.

“How’d you figure you were going to do that?” The man takes the knife and keeps it in his hand, pointed at Rolleck.

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

The man stares at him with sour eyes for a long moment. They aren’t interrupted by any of the children, who must have decided this was the kind of adult business that might get a nosy child’s nose cut off.

“Not for me to decide,” he says finally. “But I’ll take you to someone who can.” He looks over Rolleck’s shoulder and raises his voice. “Gem! You got those wiffles?”

The shadow of Gem’s face appears hanging down from the hole. “Of course I fucking do.”

“Then give them here,” the man growls.

Kenta’s sack thumps down on the edge of the lantern’s sphere of light.

“Anything else to report?”

There is slightly too long of a pause.

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

“Fuck off.”

“Tell me, now, or you never get the chance to join the rebellion.”

“For fuck’s… Fine. Fallow… he might have got got by the guards.”

The man slams his fist down on the table, disrupting his card game. “Fucking shit. I’m gonna-”

Rolleck raises his sword to stop the man’s advance towards the ladder.

“What’re you-”

“The boy wasn’t captured,” Rolleck says. “My associate went to make sure of it. Please take me to this superior of yours.”

The man looks at Rolleck’s sword, and then his eyes. Whatever he finds there, it convinces him. Whether he is convinced the boy is safe, or that Rolleck will kill him if he objects, Rolleck does not know.

“Yeah. Fine.” He gestures at the door he has been guarding. “Let’s go.” He scoops up the bag of wiffle fruits in one hand and the lantern in the other before leading Rolleck through the door and down into darkness.

 

 

Ravi bounces over a few rooftops, looking for light. There is plenty fluttering from the windows of homes made cosy by fires and candles, but only one patch stutters and wavers like a pair of guards at chase. Ravi’s talons find sure footing in thatch and on slate, and it is less than a minute before he catches up.

The boy is still ahead but, even armoured, the men that follow him are trained soldiers. They have more stamina, and they are not blinded by the panic of fear. Ravi shadows the three of them, watching ahead for anything that might offer an opportunity to intervene. The boy jukes left into an alley that he does not know is a dead-end, and Ravi leaps over his pursuers to watch from the corner. He pulls his bow over his shoulder and waits.

The boy reaches the wall between the two houses and gives a fearful whimper. He turns, presses his back to the stone. Tears begin to dribble over his cheeks. The guards slow, their buckets making them faceless and inhuman as they approach the helpless child. It is a scene that turns Ravi’s stomach, and he pulls a pair of arrows from his quiver.

“You know the price of breaking curfew, boy,” one of the guards says.

“Please,” the boy sobs. “I’m sorry.”

“He’s just a kid,” the other guard says quietly.

“And he’s out after curfew. We’ve gotta enforce the law or we’ll never stop the rebellion.”

“I know, but…”

“Fine. Let’s leave him. We can reminisce about old times while he slips away. Let’s see, what’s a good memory…?”

The boy, breathing hard, watches the two guards for a moment. When neither of them moves, he begins to slip towards the side of the alley. The guard slams the butt of his spear down on the cobbles, scaring the boy back against the wall.

“Ah! Yeah. Remember what happened to Rowena the other week when she let that little girl out of the dungeon?”

“But…”

“That’s right. We could hear her screams in the barracks for days. Good times.”

“Nobody has to know, Kel.”

“The two of us know, and that’s two too many. I’m not chancing my life for this little shit.” He advances and, after a moment of guilty hesitation, his partner follows.

Ravi draws his bowstring.

“Excuse me, gentlemen.”

Ravi glances down to find a tall man in an all-encompassing cloak standing in the mouth of the alley. His voice is rough and, in spite of the warmth of the evening, his breath mists the air in front of his hood.

“Another curfew-breaker, eh?” Kel says, turning to face the newcomer.

“I’m afraid so. And a member of the rebellion, too, if you can believe it.”

Both guards level their spears at the man, their bodies tensing. Kel reaches for a bell on his belt.

The man is quick. Only Ravi can follow his movements as he darts forwards and grabs Kel’s wrist. His other hand flashes out from beneath his cloak and Kel tumbles backwards, the hilt of a dagger protruding from his eye slit. The other guard swings his spear with a yell of surprise, but the man grabs it and squeezes. It snaps in two, and his lantern shatters on the ground. A second dagger finds a gap in the guard’s armour beneath his arm, and he stiffens. Ravi feels as though he can hear the man’s rasping breath inside his helmet.

The cloaked man gently lowers the guard to the ground, then watches dispassionately as his blood spills out and runs into the gaps between the cobbles. He then looks up, making the boy squeak in fear.

“Run along, child,” the hood says. “The rebellion is a force for liberation.”

The boy nods, but he gives the man as wide a berth as the alley will allow as he passes. He doesn’t take his eyes off him until he is at the mouth of the alley, and then he is gone. Ravi hears his footfalls fading into the night. The boy is his best chance to regroup with Rolleck, so Ravi returns his arrows to his quiver.

“What of you, rooftop watcher?”

Ravi freezes, then sighs. “I’m just watching.”

“But for whose benefit?”

“My own.” Ravi needs to be off after the boy. Even he will struggle to find him in such a vast city if he gets too far away. “I don’t mean to overestimate myself, but I’m no lumbering knight. A fight with me will probably attract more attention than you want. You can either take my word that I’m not going to cause problems for you, or you can risk alerting the city that there’s a drake fighting for the rebellion.” Ravi’s eyes are not so hindered by the night that he would fail to notice the scales on the man’s hands or the way his tail moves beneath his cloak.

The alley remains quiet for a moment.

“You see much, watcher.”

“I have good eyes,” Ravi says. “Perhaps they will see you again.” Ravi sprints, his footsteps light and perfect. He streaks over the city as though there is a dragon on his tail. When he glances over his shoulder, however, only the night follows him. He slows down and swings back around to the square where they had first seen the boys. After a few minutes, the boy staggers up to the corner and leans against the wall, panting. He looks around the square and, finding it empty, sighs and turns back again.

Ravi stalks him across the city. They pass from untidy houses to dilapidated ones and from worn-but-serviceable cobbles to litter-strewn streets. Ravi’s footing becomes more precarious as thatch deteriorates and holes appear between tiles. Broken windows and doors breath in the night air, turning homes into collections of walls.

The boy stops by one such abandoned property and raps out a code on the window frame. A moment later, he enters through the yawning doorway. Ravi drops to the street and moves in close enough that his eyes might pierce the gloom inside. It takes him a moment to realise that the gloom is a hoax. A short way back from the door, someone has hung a worn black piece of fabric. Ravi looks the house up and down and finds there are other things that distinguish it from its neighbours. The thatch looks worn out, but it is superficial. There are no holes, no portions fallen away at the eaves. The upper window still has all of its glass and, through it, Ravi can see the boards that make up the room’s ceiling. To all eyes but his, this is of no consequence, but he sees the flickering of light escaping between them.

Ravi returns to the rooftops and hops carefully over to the boy’s hideout. He closes his eyes and listens. Sure enough, he hears voices. He wanders the roof with delicate footsteps until he finds the source of the sound, then lies down amid scratchy thatch and stares up at a starry sky.

“-fucking idiot.”

“I know. I know. I’m really sorry, Gem.” This is the voice of the boy, still sounding tearful.

“Not fucking sorry enough. I should beat the fuck out of you.”

“Don’t, Gem.” A female voice, this time.

“You heard what Torn said! He could’ve cost me my chance to join the rebellion properly. I’m tired of running all these fucking errands.”

“Then maybe you should have gone with them.”

“Then who would have been here to protect this fucking place?”

“Wouldn’t have mattered, would it? That guy got in anyway.”

“You saw his fucking sword. There was nothing I could do. He even scared the fuck out of Torn.”

That certainly sounded like Rolleck.

“Wow, really?” The boy again.

“Shut the fuck up, Fallow.”

“He was really cool, though.” A different boy. “Torn didn’t even test him or anything. Just took him straight through the door.”

“Or Torn’s just a fucking coward. How’d he even know the guy could use that fucking sword?”

“Sometimes you can just tell,” the girl says. “It’s in their eyes and their bodies. It’s like you can just feel how dangerous they are.”

“You’re just saying that because you fucking fancy him.”

“What? No way! Shut up.” The last comes as a shout.

“Keep it fucking down,” Gem says. “Someone might hear.”

“Someone has,” Ravi says, loud enough to be heard inside.

Deathly silence follows, but Ravi imagines he can hear all their heartbeats quicken.

“Please don’t do anything rash,” he says. “I mean you no harm. I’m a friend of the swordsman you mentioned earlier.”

“You’re the bird guy!” the boy who isn’t Fallow says.

“Shut the fuck up, Kenta!”

“That’s me,” Ravi says. “I just want to know where my friend ended up.”

“He’s not here anymore,” Kenta says.

“Stop telling stuff to some random fucking voice, you idiot!”

“It’s okay,” Kenta says. “He helped me. I think he helped Fallow, too.”

“Someone did save me from the guards,” Fallow says.

“What the fuck? Why didn’t you say that earlier?”

“Because…”

“Actually,” Ravi interrupts, “that wasn’t me, but I saw it happen. The person that helped you was from the rebellion.”

“He was cool, too,” Fallow says.

“The rebellion’s full of cool people,” Kenta says. “That’s why we gotta join it.”

“If you want to join the fucking rebellion, learn to keep your fucking mouth shut. Otherwise it’ll get you killed before you get a chance.”

“Sorry, Gem,” the younger boys say together.

“Your friend isn’t here anymore,” Gem says. “And we’re not fucking telling you where he went.”

Ravi sighs. “That’s okay. As long as he knows what he’s doing.” He gets to his knees. “Stay safe,” he tells the children. He jumps across the street and moves a few houses along, then drops to the ground and pulls aside a rotting door to get inside. The curfew means he can’t show up at an inn this late without risking being reported to the guards. He decides that if sleeping rough is his only option, he might as well find a place close to the kids’ hideout so he will know if anything interesting happens.

There is an apple in his pouch. It has seen better days, but Ravi hasn’t eaten since before they encountered the bandits outside the city. He stares at his bruised dinner and sighs again. Such is the life of an adventurer.

 

 

Riyo Falsemoon walks up a wall. She squats by the lip and peers over it. To her, everything falls away into night sky, as though she has lighted upon the precipice at the end of the world. She is fine with that. She is used to it. She glances both ways and, seeing no horizontal guards on patrol, she rolls over the edge.

Gravity flips and she hops up into a squat, scurrying over to the other side of the wall and diving through a crenel. The world turns again, and she is running down the outside of the city. The see-saw of gravity ends back where it began, leaving her standing in the mud a few hundred metres down the wall from the gate. She closes her reality and checks up and down the corridor of cleared ground that lies before the wall. There is no sign of movement, and no call of alarm from above her. She starts jogging out towards the first fields.

For now, she keeps her reality closed. This makes her progress slow, but she wants to avoid being detected if there is a crafter among the knights she saw leaving the keep. The woman with no clothes on has her suspicious. The flickering of light over the Glittering Sands and the soft purple light of the moon are enough to let her pick her way across pasture and through the loose mud left behind by the last harvest.

A light appears ahead of her and she squints at it. It bobs over the ground like a lost ghost, looking one way and then another. Riyo edges closer, and the light resolves itself into a lantern.

“Hey. You there,” it says in the voice of a man with a bucket on his head.

“Oh. Damnit,” Riyo says. She glances around, but there is nowhere for her to hide. She looks down at her bright red jacket and boots. “I suppose I deserve that.” She needs to work on her stealth skills, and she supposes that starts with thinking ahead a little.

“What are you doing outside the city?”

“Uh, I was looking for my friends.”

The guard comes closer, bringing his sphere of light to wrap around Riyo.

“You’re breaking curfew.”

“There’s a curfew?”

“Of course there’s a bloody curfew, the city’s under martial law.”

“But… we’re not in the city.”

“Shut up. You’re coming with me, bandit.”

Riyo frowns and reaches into her jacket for a dagger, then hesitates.

“What are you going to do to me?”

“You’re going straight to the keep,” the guard growls, taking the last few steps towards Riyo and grabbing her by the upper arm.

Riyo takes her other hand from inside her jacket. The keep is one of the places she needs to go, and this will get her in quietly. Besides, Emerald and Glitter probably haven’t stuck around to be captured by this search party, so she has no chance of finding them out here in the dark. If they have been captured, then she can just meet up with them in the keep.

The guard drags her across the field towards the road, apparently confident that he can deal with her if she tries to run or fight. This, despite being able to see her sword and accusing her of being a bandit. She spots other lanterns floating across the fields around the road as her boots cease crushing grass and start clumping over compacted dirt. The guard takes her over to a cluster of lights in the middle of the road.

The insufficiently-dressed woman sits astride her big, black horse, flanked by two other guards. The rest of the unit Riyo saw outside the keep is out searching for something. Her friends, perhaps.

The guard shoves her forward and the woman takes notice of their arrival. Just as Ravi described, she is wearing a single length of chain around her upper body. It is thick enough that it keeps her modest, for a very technical definition of ‘modest’. It doesn’t, however, do anything to hide the size of her assets. Riyo glances down and finds that something similar is happening around her waist. She isn’t wearing shoes, either.

“Who is this?” She speaks slowly, and her sibilants go on for a little too long, making Riyo think of snakes in the grass.

“Hi. I’m Riyo Falsemoon.”

The woman raises an eyebrow, as though she is surprised Riyo is capable of speaking at all. She then looks to the guard.

“A bandit. I found her over there in the field.”

“Where is she?” the woman says.

“Uh, who?”

“Where is the princess?”

“I dunno,” Riyo says, because she doesn’t.

A length of chain appears in the woman’s hand and she whips it at Riyo’s face. It clashes against Riyo’s sword, but the tip still hits her shoulder. Pain lances down her arm, and she grimaces.

Another chain flashes into existence around Riyo’s ankle, and the woman jerks the other end. The ground smacks Riyo in the spine, and her breath leaves her in a groan. More chains appear, grabbing her wrists and binding them together. The clinking of metal links ravages the night, sounding like ballistic wind chimes. Riyo finds herself trussed up like a hog, her arms and legs pulled back behind her and tethered together from wrists to ankles.

“Ouch,” she says. It seems she had been right to be suspicious of the woman. She has noticed that crafters have a tendency towards the eccentric. Most of them, anyway. She is completely normal.

A thinner chain wraps around the handle of her sword and the woman jerks it up. The chain disappears as soon as it has transferred the momentum it needed to, and the sword lands neatly in the woman’s hand. She slips it through a loop on her horse’s saddle.

“We’ll get what we need out of her at the keep. Recall everyone else. If the princess has been taken, we won’t find her tonight.” Anger adds gristle to her voice. She turns fierce hazel eyes on Riyo, and they promise pain. A final chain lashes Riyo to the woman’s horse.

“Shit,” Riyo says, and closes her eyes. She can open her reality now, give herself away, and spare herself some pain. Or she can endure the short trip to the city and secure a way into the keep. She decides she needs to be a lot more resilient if she wishes to reach the end of her journey in one piece, and so she grits her teeth as the woman kicks her horse into motion.

 

 

 

Emerald has some new prisoners. She is not entirely happy about this, because one of them is only five years old. The girl sits quietly with her family in the corner of their barn, clutching her mother’s arm and watching Emerald with wide eyes.

“This isn’t quite what I expected,” Emerald says.

The bandit leader shrugs. “The rebellion relies on a lot of people. Some of them have families.”

“And you don’t feel the least bit guilty for drawing such people into harm’s way?”

“We were already in harm’s way,” the girl’s mother says. “Not knowing when one of us could be taken away to that damned keep, or whether our land and home would be seized by the crown on top of the taxes they already take from us. Helping the rebellion to remove the king and those greedy noble families is the best way for us to make this city safe for our daughter.” Her glare makes Emerald feel ashamed for having asked.

“What should we do?” Glitter asks quietly. He is not good in social situations, largely due to lack of experience. He feels uncomfortable with all these people around him.

“Good question,” Emerald replies. She is tired. “I don’t think we can afford to just wait for the others to come back anymore. They won’t even know where to find us. Riyo might get mad with us, but I’ve already decided I don’t want to hand these people over.”

“Then… maybe we can just leave?”

Emerald shakes her head, which is beginning to ache. “I don’t think leaving the princess with them is a good idea. It doesn’t make sense to protect them from an unknown fate in the city and leave her to one in this barn.”

“Okay,” Glitter says. “She’s awake, by the way.”

“What?”

“The princess. She is pretending otherwise, but her breathing has changed and the man who is probably a ghost is sitting next to her.”

There is a little quaver in his voice that was not there before.

“I think I’d like to talk to her,” Emerald says. “Somewhere away from the bandits.”

“Okay. I’ll wait here.”

Emerald grabs the princess under her arm. She does an admirable job of not reacting to it, but Glitter is right. She is awake.

“What are you doing?” the bandit leader says.

“None of your business,” Emerald says. “You’re still prisoners, for now.”

“Oh,” she says. “Right.” She glances toward the two bandits who had been waiting for them to return, then towards the back of the barn where a group of cows are huddled around a haybale.

Emerald frowns at her.

“Sorry,” she says after a moment, not meeting her eyes.

Emerald takes the haunted princess outside a short way, then shakes her. “I know you’re awake.” She doesn’t respond, so Emerald drops her. This draws out a yelp and the clatter of armour as she tries to break her fall. She scuttles away from Emerald and stands up, raising her gauntlets in a fighting stance. Her eyes flash briefly over Emerald’s shoulder, giving up the ghost.

Emerald spins and exhales flame – a controlled gout that forces the phantom to defend itself. The princess makes to punch Emerald, but she captures the woman’s fist in her talon. Her claws bend the metal around her hand, making her cry out again.

“Call off your ghost, please,” Emerald growls. “I merely wish to talk.”

“Okay,” the princess says. “Okay.” The last is almost a sob.

Emerald lets go of her and she drops to her knees. Tears start dribbling over her nose and dripping onto the grass. She tries to wipe them away, but her gauntlet clanks against her helmet.

“I’m so stupid,” she warbles through a fresh glut of tears.

“Uh…” Emerald says.

A blue flash sets her sinuses hurting, forcing her to glance away. When she looks back, the ghost stands between her and the sniffling princess. He is dressed in shades of blue and black, a coat of arms prominent on his breast. A slim silver crown adorns his brow, failing to contain a shock of red hair. He looks young, for a dead man.

“I well remember the tales my forbears told of the dragons,” he says. His eyes are narrowed and angry.

Emerald scowls back. “I’ve heard plenty, too, thanks. They’re usually exaggerated where they aren’t entirely made up to sate some vainglorious human’s ego.”

“What is it you want here, dragon? Why do you interfere in the affairs of humans?”

“Because living alongside humans inevitably means being involved in their affairs. Would you prefer it if I had just carried the princess off to my lair and waited for a valiant prince to come and rescue her?”

“I’d like to see you try! I’ll stop you like I did before!”

“Next time, I will be ready for your tricks, spectre.” Emerald gets ready to inhale her pilot.

“Stop it!” The princess has regained her composure somewhat, and she is now standing with her fists clenched behind her pet ghost. “This isn’t going to resolve anything, Tondwell. She’s stronger than us.”

“Princess…” The ghost wears a guarded expression. He wants to argue, but part of that argument is something he doesn’t want Emerald to hear.

“You said you wanted to talk,” the princess says past him.

“I did,” Emerald says.

“Then I will listen.”

Tondwell the ghost looks back and forth between them, then harrumphs and vanishes.

Emerald looks the princess up and down. By the account of the bandit woman, the royal family are tyrants, but the princess’s tears and the way she shivers in her armour do not strike Emerald as particularly tyrannical.

“Do you trust your father, your highness?” She drops the question into the expectant silence and watches the ripples hit the princess. Her eyes widen, her lips part, and she freezes. For less than a second, she shows her face, and then her eyes narrow and anger overtakes her shock.

“Of course,” she says, but she has already given away the truth. She has doubts.

“What happens to the people you take to the keep?”

“They are imprisoned.” There is a little strain in her voice.

“Do you know that to be true?”

“I-”

“Princess!” Tondwell reappears at the same moment that Glitter starts wailing.

Emerald turns to the barn. The princess’s sword, strapped to Emerald’s hip by her harness, leaps free and darts into the princess’s hand.

Glitter waddles out, a look of artificial panic etched on his glass. “Emerald! There are people coming from underground!”

Emerald growls. “More of the rebellion.” She stares into the princess’s eyes. Usually, she is good at reading people that way. Still red-rimmed from crying, they reflect her uncertainty. Her fear. “If they take you, they will do something awful to you. Perhaps something as awful as what happens to those who go to the keep. If you wish to go free right now, your highness, you must promise me you will find out what that is.”

“But… my father…”

“Has ordered whatever it is. Give me your word, or I will make sure the rebellion takes you.”

The princess scrunches her eyes closed. “Fine. We have an accord.”

“Then go.”

“Are you sure?” Glitter says. “The rebellion people might get angry with us instead.”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay. Bye bye, princess. It was nice meeting you. Sorry for hitting you on the head.”

“Um,” the princess says.

“Go!” Tondwell yells.

“Ah! Ghost!” Glitter says and runs back towards the barn.

The princess nods and starts running for the city, vaguely visible by the faint glow of the lanterns on its walls.

Emerald follows Glitter back to the barn, her headache worsening with every step. It hits its peak when she looks inside. There are now nearly thirty people in there, all dressed similarly to the bandits. A hole near the back of the barn, previously covered by wooden slats, slopes down into the darkness beneath the earth. One woman stands out among the rebels, as her head almost touches the roof. Despite this, she is surprisingly thin, with disproportionately long limbs. She bends down towards Emerald and Glitter with a scowl on her long face.

“Where is the princess?”

“I let her go,” Emerald says.

What conversation has been murmuring away between the rebellion’s squad members ceases, leaving the barn silent enough for Emerald to hear the little girl fidgeting in her seat.

“What?”

“You heard me. I didn’t want you to have her for the same reason I didn’t want your friends to go to the keep.”

The woman stares at her for a long moment.

“She was here until a minute ago,” the leader of the now-liberated bandits from the orchard says. “We can catch up with her.”

“No, you can’t,” Emerald says with a glare for the woman, who shrinks back behind her giant friend. “Because doing that means fighting us.”

“Huh?” Glitter says.

“Fine,” the giant woman says.

“Wait!” the first bandit shouts. “Elanor, that isn’t a good idea.” She is touching the giant woman on her thigh, the highest point she can reach.

“Don’t touch me.” The giant’s backhand cracks her entire arm like a whip, and the much-smaller woman crashes into the family in the corner of the barn. “Underlords, get these two out of the way and get after the princess before she reaches the city.”

A group of ugly men and women with drills and pickaxes shove some of the slower rebels out of the way and lunge past the giant, swinging whatever tool they carry at Emerald. Emerald is watching the family, though. The little girl has crawled out from under the bandit and is crying next to her mother. The father seems dazed, while the mother isn’t moving at all.

“Glitter,” Emerald says through gritted teeth. “Deal.”

A fist of snow blindsides the first of the Underlords to reach Emerald, and he crashes into several more on his way to the other side of the barn. The cows let out cries of protest as he smashes through their haybale. Emerald ignores the rest of the shocked rebels and throws a leaping right-hook at the giant woman; whose height and reach have nothing on most of the dragons Emerald knows. Her head breaks the side of the barn with a crackle of splintering wood. Her body slumps against the wall, leaving her dangling from the hole she has made.

A few more rebels eat fistfuls of snow before the entire group begins running back the way they have come. Glitter roars at them with a grumpy face drawn on his glass, chasing them as far as the beginning of their tunnel. Their panicked footsteps echo around the opening until all is faded to silence. They are left in a barn with a whimpering girl and a handful of unconscious rebels.

Emerald approaches the family, but the girl backs away from her, beginning to scream.

“I never should have encouraged Riyo,” she sighs. “This is turning out to be a real pain.”

“It’s okay,” Glitter says. “It’s all part of the adventure.”

He clears his ‘scary’ face and puts on a smiley one, then begins whistling a slow, pleasant lullaby. He waddles towards the girl, whose screams fall away as she watches the funny machine and listens to its song.

“Don’t worry,” Glitter sings, weaving his voice seamlessly into the melody. “We’re going to help you.” A little snow leaks from his shoulders and pools on the floor. Little figures rise up from it and begin dancing along. The girl is fascinated by the show and leans in closer, her tears all but forgotten.

Emerald quietly goes over to check on her parents. Her father is awake, but terrified. He leans against the wall, watching Glitter and his daughter. Her mother is still, but after a moment of watching Emerald sees her chest rise with her breath. The bandit woman is out cold, too, her face a bloody mess thanks to a broken nose.

Glitter’s tiny snow puppets have begun dancing away from her, luring her towards her father. Once she is close enough to notice he is awake, she forgets all about the snow and jumps into his arms, where she begins wailing again.

“What do we do now?” Glitter asks, still singing.

“Let’s go find the others,” she sings back.

Glitter draws a few quick faces in a row, somehow managing to animate a wince.

“So I can’t sing,” Emerald doesn’t sing. “Let’s just follow that tunnel into the city.”

“What if there are more people?” Glitter does sing.

“Stop showing off. And we’ll just fight our way through if we have to. That giant woman has put me in a bad mood.”

“Okay,” Glitter says, but he makes a wobbly-mouthed face as he waddles after her.

 

 

 

Rolleck the Lost is not entirely sure where he is. The tunnels beneath Saviour’s Call are myriad and twisting, their darkness seeming almost sentient and determined to see him starve in their depths. His guide’s lantern barely touches the walls on either side of them, and even where it does the shadows are reluctant to withdraw.

The man, who is named Torn, occasionally stops to look at the wall. Where he does so there are patterns hidden among the natural shapes made by rock and soil. They would be almost impossible to see if one was not looking for them. Their trail ends as it began, with a mysterious door in the rock. Torn glances at Rolleck for a moment before shrugging and tapping out a coded knock on the old wood.

Another black-clad person opens the door a fraction. Her eye widens when she sees Rolleck.

“You brought an outsider?!” she hisses.

“He’s an applicant,” Torn says. He still sounds uneasy.

“You know we aren’t recruiting right now. Especially tonight.”

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” Torn says, shooting a glance at Rolleck. “He found me at my station.”

The woman on the other side of the door growls. “I knew it was a mistake using your station for this. If you’ve-” she looks at Rolleck again. “Shit. Fine. You have the fruit?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it’s too late. Get in here.” She pulls open the door, then stands aside to let Rolleck and Torn past. She glares hard at Rolleck the whole time.

Inside is a cavern lit with a dozen lanterns, each one hanging beside a door like the first. A few other rebels are sat at a table in the centre of the room, and their hands float towards weapons as Rolleck and Torn approach.

“Send the word,” Torn says, dropping the sack of fruit on the table. “And let them know I have a dangerous recruit with me.”

One of the others gets up and runs to another door. The tension of the room feels heavier than the rock it is carved into, and all eyes are pinned to him. He glances at the table. In the middle, beside the sack of fruit, are five piles of coins and five cards – four face-up, while the final one remains hidden. Despite the presence of a potential enemy, each person at the table has placed their hand of cards face-down before going for their weapons.

Rolleck eases himself into the messenger’s vacated seat and checks his hand. By the layout of the table and number of cards, Rolleck guesses they were playing Tip the Peach Cart. The bets for the round are all even aside from the messenger’s, so Rolleck slips a coin from his pocket and matches the bet. An even bet means all players are confident in their hands — or were at least bluffing to that effect during the betting rounds. Either way, they are all still in the game. The man to his left should now tip the cart, revealing the fifth card.

Without saying anything, he does so. Rolleck eyes each of his opponents and smiles faintly. The five central cards are known as the carts, with the final one being the titular Peach Cart. In this game, each of the five suits is represented among the carts. The actual names of the suits vary by Song – in Frosthold, they are Ice, Sun, Honour, Barley, and Truth – but there are always five, and each suit has a card from one to nine plus a captain for a total of fifty. The aim now is to match one card from his hand to each of the cart cards. Rolleck places his cards neatly alongside the cart cards, keeping hold of his smile and meeting the eyes of each player in the circle as he does so. He then sits back. The other players glance at each other and the table in a flurry of eye movements, then place their cards.

The cards are revealed one bet at a time, starting from the person to the left of the dealer. Since Rolleck placed the final bet, that means the messenger was the dealer. For each bet, the person who plays the highest value card that matches the cart suit wins that pile. If no cards match the suit, then it is just the highest card. The twist comes if someone matches all the cart suits, in which case they win the entire pot.

The other option, of course, is the one that now presents itself.

As Rolleck turns over the cards by his bet, the man on his left half stands up in triumph. He then hesitates. A woman across the table groans. If two players or more match all five cart suits, then those players immediately forfeit all bets. That leaves Rolleck and two other players. Rolleck keeps his seat while the other two pore over the cards. One starts scowling a little before the other.

“That creepy eye of yours doesn’t let you see through the cards, right?”

“Unfortunately not,” he says. “Otherwise I would be a much richer man than I am.” Even so, he has won all five bets. He gestures first at the man on the left, then at the woman who also matched all the cart cards. “You two gave yourselves away by being too eager to continue the game despite a stranger slipping into it. Most people would insist the game be reset or that everyone wait until the original player returned. Eager players often have five suit hands.” He nods towards the woman on his right. “You were greedy. You could have matched the eight of ice to the cart ice and won it, but you matched the four instead and tried to win off-suit with the eight.” He nods to the last man. “You were mostly just unlucky, but both of you spent too much time looking at the cards you were going to match strongly, so it was easy for me to choose where to off-suit to avoid matching out with these two.”

All of the players are leaning in to look at the cards, now, and the man on Rolleck’s left is nodding slowly.

“This game is a lot deeper than I thought,” he says.

Rolleck nudges the sack of fruits to one side and collects all of the bets into a pile in front of him.

“I won it off a strong hand, though, so I’ll let your friend keep his winnings.” He plucks a single coin from the pile. “I’ll keep my buy-in, though, if you don’t mind.” He pockets the coin and turns to face the door through which the messenger left. A moment later, it opens.

The woman in the blindfold freezes for a split second, then scowls and falls into a fighting stance.

“Hello again,” Rolleck says.

Her clothing is now black with golden snakes crawling across it, but the design is the same – baggy silken trousers, tied up at the ankle, and a tunic that’s long in the front and split at the sides. Her left sleeve is pinned across her chest, empty. Up close, Rolleck can see hints of significant scars peeking out from below the blindfold.

A hand taps her gently on the shoulder, and after another moment of hesitation she moves into the room. She keeps her hand raised towards Rolleck.

The man that follows her in is tall and handsome. Dark-skinned, he has close-cropped black hair and stubble that covers a strong jaw. He’s broad in the shoulder and walks with a swordsman’s stride. This is reflected by the long, curved blade on his hip. He is wearing a grey uniform that has seen better days, and he wears his black wolf pelt over his shoulder, just as Rolleck does.

“Torn,” he says, keeping his eyes on Rolleck. “The fruits.”

“Yes, sir,” Torn says. He grabs the bag from the table and hands it to his boss. He reaches in and then lets the sack fall. He twists the greenish fruit in both hands until the skin splits and sprays pale juice over the floor. In the centre of the wiffle is a translucent yellow crystal, which the man plucks out and inspects.

“Good work, Torn,” he says. “This is it. We know which way they will come. Is Elanor back yet?”

“No, sir,” one of the card players says.

The man frowns. “Fine. We will have to go ahead without her.” He finally addresses Rolleck. “You wish to help us?”

“I was thinking about it,” Rolleck says.

“You’ve come to an awfully dangerous place for something you’re just thinking about,” the man says. “Tonight will be a busy night for us. Why should I spend time trying to convince you to join up?”

“He’s strong,” the blindfolded woman says. Her voice is rough and surprisingly deep, given her size.

The man glances at her. “Well, if you’re saying that I’ll believe it. What would it take to convince you, stranger?”

“My name is Rolleck the Lost. My friend wished to take your measure to figure out which side is right in this war so she could decide what to do with some of your bandits we captured outside the city. An honest answer to one question would probably be enough to make me help you.”

“Alright, then ask.”

“Are you doing what is right?”

“I don’t know.” Everybody in the cave stares at him, save for the blindfolded woman. Mouths hang open.

Rolleck nods. “Point me where you need me.”

Cotter Lee’s mouth quirks into a smile for a moment. “Everybody with me. The loyalists will act as soon as they can. We need to be ready.”

“Wait,” one of the card players says. “You… don’t know?”

Cotter walks up to one of the other doors but turns to face the room before opening it.

“Of course not. It is not possible to know. I believe what I do is for the good of Frosthold, but for every decision I make, I can never find out if another course would have been better. Would have saved more lives. Would have brought an end to this conflict sooner.” He touches the wolf pelt draped over his shoulder, casting his eyes down to its black fur. “I have done things I would not do again, made mistakes because I didn’t know enough. I’ve trusted people who lied to me and mistrusted those who spoke truly. I’m not perfect.” He looks up again. “I hope none of you thought I was. I do what I think is right. That is all.”

The rebels are all staring at him with admiration. One of them starts clapping.

“That wasn’t a speech,” he snaps.

The applauder stops immediately. “Sorry.”

“Come. We will need to take a shortcut if we wish to join the ambush team before their mission commences.” Cotter turns and shoves the door open.

Everyone files in after him, and Rolleck finds himself walking beside the blindfolded woman.

“Thank you for speaking up for me,” he says.

“I spoke the truth. That’s all.” She doesn’t look at him, though it is clear she has some method of ‘seeing’ what is around her.

“Maybe, but the truths we speak and when we speak them is a choice we make. I’m Rolleck, by the way.”

“Charmed. Call me Frost, if you must call me anything. Where is the rest of your band?”

“Band?”

“I assumed you were mercenaries.”

“Ha. No. If that were the case, we might actually get paid for all the fighting we do. My friends and I are travellers. They’re… around, I suppose. They tend to show up when things get hairy.”

“And if they do, can they be relied upon not to get in our way?”

“Absolutely not,” Rolleck says.

“Here,” Cotter says from up ahead. He has stopped at a blank wall of bedrock.

Rolleck glances around. There is nothing nearby but earth and darkness.

Cotter unsheathes his sword. In the silence of the cave, the slow rasp of steel on leather feels like a death sentence falling. Rolleck can feel his own blade responding to it, its wordless voice lusting for imagined violence. He glances at Frost, but she doesn’t seem tensed for action. Her attention remains on Cotter.

For a moment, he is still, blade held before him. His eyes snap open and he pivots to his left, lunging forward at the wall with a yell. The sword pierces the rock, sliding down to the hilt with barely a sound.

RUN.

Rolleck grits his teeth, clutches his head. His sword arm is shaking with an eagerness for battle that laughs at anything he has experienced before. He can feel his mind going black with it.

Cotter rips the sword from the wall and steps back. The rock begins folding down into itself, crunching like the footsteps of giants. The sound rocks the entire cave like an earthquake. It almost looks like a vast puzzle solving itself, everything moving into a more suitable position.

The sound falls away, and a new passage has emerged, leading on into subterranean darkness. Rolleck lets out a breath that chills his teeth. The urge towards chaos slinks away, deep into the recesses of his mind. He knows it is still there, though. That it will come back.

“That’s quite the weapon,” he says, watching Cotter slip the sword back into its scabbard.

“It was a gift from a dear friend,” he says. “It has served me well.”

Rolleck glances down at his own sword. “Take it from one who knows a little about cursed swords. Be careful.”

Cotter meets his eyes, and there is something dark reflected in them despite the light of their lamps.

“Of course.” He turns and begins walking down the new path. The rebels follow, in awe once again.

Run.

Rolleck follows.

 

 

 

Ravi wakes up cold and uncomfortable. He is not surprised by this. He is surprised, however, by the girl standing in front of him. She is leaning in so close that her whiskers brush his feathers.

“Wah!” he says.

“Wah!” she says, hopping back. “You shouldn’t be here.” Ravi reaches for the dagger he now keeps sheathed beside the quiver at his belt. It is a gift from Riyo, who has been teaching him to use it a little ever since he complained that he keeps finding himself in situations where a bow is next-to useless.

The girl has mouse traits, and they have given her a squashed nose and large, round ears. A slim, pink tail swishes about behind her. She’s wearing a close-fitting black outfit that includes gloves and a knife at her waist.

“Who are you?” Ravi asks.

Her nose twitches. “You should get out of here, before I arrest you.”

“Arrest…? You’re a guard?”

She shakes her head. “I find people for them, though.” Her eyes widen, and she covers her mouth with both hands.

“You weren’t supposed to tell me that. You were looking for me?”

“No. Not you. Anyone around here. Just… just leave, okay? Otherwise they’ll take you to the keep.” Her ears perk up. “Oh no. I was too late.”

Ravi hears nothing, but he supposes she has better ears.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“Shhhh!” She looks left and right. The room is still empty. “Just stay here and don’t do anything. They’ll be too focused on the mission to worry about you.”

“What miss-” Ravi tails off as the sound of clomping greaves finally reaches him. It sounds like a lot.

“Just be quiet,” the mouse girl says, and scurries over to the stairs.

“Wait. Why are you helping me?”

“Because the little people have to look out for each other while the titans are clashing. My mum used to say… Never mind. Just stay quiet, okay?”

She disappears downstairs, and Ravi hears her shoving the rotted door a little further open to get out. The sound of soldiers grows louder.

“Hey, get off me!”

Ravi’s heat sinks, and he moves over to the window. A crack in the mortar beneath it allows him to see through without poking his head out, and sure enough one of the kids has been pulled from their hideout. It looks to be Kenta, the boy he left with Rolleck back in the square.

The man holding him is startlingly thin, and despite his eyesight, Ravi cannot see his face. There is a shadow across it, cast by nothing Ravi can see. His arms are long, and the one not holding the boy is pulled up in front of him, wrist angled downwards. He reminds Ravi of a preying mantis. Or a ligmist.

Ravi blinks. He has never heard of a person with ligmist traits. His mother told him once that people with animal traits only share the features of Valos’ creatures, not those touched by Calis’ tainted magic. Apparently, that is not the case.

“Nothing to report, sir,” the mouse girl says. “The other houses are empty.” She glances at Kenta, and her face betrays a hint of worry.

“Good work,” the ligmist man says. His voice is harsh and unpleasant even from a distance.

There is movement in the doorway of the children’s hideout, and several more figures emerge. They are dragging children. There are six of them in total, and one is the boy Fallow. An older boy must be Gem, and the girl whose name he never learned is one of two, probably the elder one. The last is a boy of perhaps six. The people holding them all have animal traits to greater or lesser degrees and are all dressed like the mouse girl.

“What are we going to do with the children?” mouse girl asks.

“Can we kill them?” a short woman with some manner of lizard traits asks. Her fingernails are like claws, and she hooks one of them under Fallow’s throat.

“Not here,” ligmist says. “The guard represent order. We do not kill willy-nilly in the streets. Take them to the keep.”

“I would not, if you value your lives.”

All attention shifts to the new voice, whose actor Ravi cannot see from this angle. He risks glancing through the window and sees a man in a long cloak. The tip of a white-scaled tail is poking out of the bottom behind him.

Ligmist shoves Kenta at mouse woman. “Take them. I will occupy this one until the guards arrive.”

The sound of marching is a street away, at most. The guard will be on them in no time at all. The traited keep spies nod, mouse woman last, and begin dragging their charges towards the sound.

The ligmist man darts at the drake, quick as shadows, and his hand flashes out in front of him. The drake blocks the attack, but there is a familiar blue flicker that makes Ravi’s breath seize. When the drake dodges back, he leaves a splatter of blue blood on the cobbles.

The ligmist smirks. “This is the end of the rebellion. You chose the wrong side, drake.”

The drake pulls his hood down. White scales seem to glimmer despite only having the stars and the distant moon for light.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that, spy.”

Another drake bursts through the window of the kids’ hideout and crashes into the ligmist man. They slam into the cobbles, and blood sprays into the air. Another flash of blue ricochets off what glass remains in the window in front of Ravi, and the two break apart. Ligmist man is limping, now, and his right arm hangs beside him, dripping red from his fingertips.

“It’s too late,” he snarls, and he is right. Behind the drakes, a troop of guards is clomping around the corner. At their head, astride a striking white horse, sits a man in ornate, silvery armour. He carries a lance with a flag trailing from the top – a flickering aquamarine fire on a field of dark blue.

Ligmist man backs towards the wall on Ravi’s side of the street, and between one backstep and another he vanishes. Just like a ligmist.

“Looks like they have us dead to rights, brother,” the first drake says, peering at the back of his arm where the ligmist man’s dagger has scored a line across it.

“Oh no,” the other responds.

“How long do we need to hold them here?” a third voice says. Ravi thinks it comes from inside the kids’ hideout.

“Not long. Get a few people out here to make it look like we’re buying time for an evacuation.”

There is a short pause, and a handful of black-clad ruffians emerge from the hideout. Their body language is panic and fear, but their faces are confident.

Ravi falls back from the window. Whatever is about to happen is not something he wants to be a part of, but six children are currently being carted off to the keep. He slips through the shadows of the house and out of a back window. The alleyway behind it smells foul, strewn with waste and old food. A chorus of skittering rats can be heard even from the second floor. Ravi wrinkles his nose, but he will be too obvious on the rooftops this close to the scene of an imminent double ambush. He drops to the ground and pinches his nose shut as he darts between the abandoned homes.

Once he is several streets away, he springs back to the rooftops for a better view. He moves between the shadows of chimneys and keeps low, scanning the streets for movement. He eventually spies the spies when they are a handful of blocks from the drawbridge. He watches them for a little while, then curses when they stop and begin to file into an old Church of Vellum.

A curse-breaker arrow smashes the wall above the little side door they are using to get in, cutting the group in half. Several more arrows force the three back from the door, then Ravi drops into the street, bowstring at his cheek.

“Release the kids,” he says.

The three left outside are mouse girl, lizard girl, and some kind of spider-man. His head is a little too tall, and a second pair of eyes peer out from above his first. The shape of his head suggests there are spaces for two more sets above those, but his traits have only given him the one extra pair. He has a normal quantity of limbs, as far as Ravi can tell. They’re escorting Kenta, Fallow and one of the girls.

“Who are you?” the lizard girl hisses. She presses a claw into Fallow’s throat again, this time drawing blood and making him cry out.

“It doesn’t matter. This is your last chance.”

“Vale,” mouse girl says. “We should-”

“Shut up, weakling,” the lizard girl hisses, and the claw goes deeper.

Her head explodes. Lances of blue lightning rain over the cobbles and shatter the windows of the church. By the time the first scream emerges, Ravi is in front of them. His bow cracks across spider-man’s forehead, sending him wheeling down the street. He grabs Fallow to keep him from falling but lets the lizard girl’s body drop to the floor. Glass rains down over them, and then the street is silent again.

Blood is glooping from Fallow’s throat, turning his ragged tunic red. Ravi grabs the lizard girl’s arm and rips the sleeve from it, then presses the cloth hard against the wound. It’s all he knows to do, but as blood begins to soak the cloth, he fears it will not be enough. He turns to the mouse girl, who has let go of Kenta and taken several steps back.

“Can you help him?” Ravi shouts, making her retreat a step further.

“I… No. I’m not a doctor. I… that’s so much blood.” She sits down hard on the cobbles, tears slinking out from the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t have a choice. They…” She scrambles up and runs, her feet barely making any sound.

“Fallow,” Kenta says quietly, kneeling beside Ravi. The girl comes over too and takes Fallow’s hand. The boy’s face is pale and tear-stricken, his breaths quick and fearful.

“It hurts,” he says. “It hurts.”

“Hold on,” Ravi says. “Just hold on.” But there is no one else around. No one coming to help. There is nothing to hold on for. Blood seeps between Ravi’s feathers and touches his skin, warm and painful.

“Fallow?” Kenta’s voice is soft, high enough to pierce straight through Ravi’s heart. The boy slips away, and all that is left is blood on the streets of a rotten city.

Ravi lifts his body and takes it into the church. He lays it on the altar, between the books of beginning and end. The two children left behind follow him, trying desperately to keep their sobs quiet.

“Is there anywhere you can go that’s safe?” Ravi asks.

“No,” Kenta says. “We only had…” He breaks down, then. His wails echo around the church, and Ravi sees his sister again. Hears her voice in the fraction of a scream she was allowed before that creature took her away from him. He clenches his fists, squeezes his eyes shut. A pair of tears escape for the lost child, for a future forever to be unwritten. But they do nothing, and all he has left after that is anger.

“Screw not getting involved,” he says. “Stay here.”

He leaves the church and takes to the rooftops. The night sky whips by, and he feels his curse-breaker rolling beneath his feathers. The air rushes around him without touching him, and it takes him only a few seconds to catch up with the mouse girl.

He lands in front of her, his talons breaking cobbles and tearing earth in savage billows of blue light. Her eyes go wide, but she has no time to raise her arms in defence as Ravi’s punch meets her jaw and sends her sprawling against a house at the side of the road. Ravi walks over to her and picks her up by the front of her coat, hauling her up the stone of the wall.

“What is it your mother used to say?” Ravi growls at her.

She whimpers.

“Did she say, ‘The little people have to look out for each other while the titans are clashing, but also, they have to kill children sometimes.’?”

“They killed her!” the girl squeals. “The rebels, they killed my mother. They torched the whole neighbourhood.”

Ravi lets her go and she falls to her hands and knees, coughing.

“So you avenge her by killing children?”

“No! I… I didn’t think it would be like this!” She looks up at him, her eyes pleading. “The guards saved me. From the fire. They said I could help them. They… But then…” She closes her eyes and lets out a sob. “I’ve been trapped. We all have. By this city and its war. I couldn’t get out, and now I’ve done something… something so terrible. And even though I know that, I can’t… I can’t see a way out.”

Ravi is still angry. His heart rushes adrenalin through the fingers of his clenched fists, but what is happening in Saviour’s Call cannot be resolved with a punch.

“Then I’m going to help you look for one.” Ravi offers her his hand.

“How? The war has been going on for ten years. Since I was younger than those children.”

“I have better eyes than most,” he says.

The girl takes his hand, and he pulls her to her feet.

“Come on,” he says.

They return to the church. Kenta peers from behind a pew as they come in, then disappears a moment later.

“Where did they take the other kids?” Ravi asks.

“There’s a passage behind one of the bookcases in the library below,” mouse girl says. Her voice is distant, her eyes focused on Fallow’s body.

“Show me.”

She hesitates for a moment, then leads him to a door in the corner that opens onto a flight of stairs. There is a lantern at the top, but neither of them needs it. They descend into a frigid stone basement lined with bookcases, where leather-bound tomes make the air smell of words.

Mouse girl picks a bookcase and hauls on it. With a little effort, it swings open, revealing a chilling passage that promises darkness and damp.

“What’s your name?” Ravi asks.

“It’s Meera,” the girl says.

“Those children have lost everything, Meera,” Ravi says. “Just like you did. Keep them safe.”

“I… okay.”

Ravi nods and sets off down the passage.

“Wait. Who are you?”

“I’m Ravi Matriya. My friends and I are on a quest to find the sunlight stone, but we’ve been stopping to right a few wrongs along the way.”

“The… the sunlight stone. You’d joke at a time like this?”

“Absolutely not,” Ravi says, and descends into darkness.

Book Seven

Whiteout

 

“You said Frosthold was just a name,” Riyo Falsemoon says through chattering teeth.

“You said that you wanted to go somewhere cold,” Rolleck the Lost replies.

A harsh wind drives snow into their faces as they trudge through a knee-high blanket over uneven rocks and the gnarled roots of leafless trees. The sky is slate grey, suggesting no coming respite from the storm.

Riyo turns her attention to Emerald. “Help me.”

“No,” Emerald says. “I may be fine now, but if I lose too much heat I’ll die.”

“That’s true for all of us,” Ravi Matriya complains. His feathers keep him warm to a point, but he has wrapped himself in all of the clothes he owns, and he still feels the bite of the wind on his skin when it blows against them.

“It’s not the same,” Emerald says with a shake of her head. “If anything goes wrong – say my pilot goes out or something disrupts my natural warmth – my blood will freeze immediately, and I will die. Breathing flame affects both and lowers my overall temperature, too. It’s too risky.”

“Ravi, lend me your feathers,” Riyo tries.

“Obviously no,” Ravi says without turning around. He squints up into the blizzard. Even his eyes can’t pierce it far, but it looks to him as though there is a wispy trail of smoke across the sky at odds with the clouds. “I think we’re close,” he says.

“We’d better be,” Riyo says. “My soul is about to freeze solid.”

“What’s that?” Emerald says, stopping and pointing at the sky.

The trail they walk wends its way around a mountain, whose peak is a wicked spike that looms as a shadow amongst the clouds. Something is flickering within that cloud; an unstable light that reminds Riyo of the way the wind would blow her candle flames when she snuck into the Galsbreath apothacarium late at night.

It’s fire,” Ravi says, a note of disbelief in his voice.

“A sky fire?” Riyo says.

“A dragon, maybe?” Rolleck suggests.

“Dragons steer clear of places like this, if they can avoid it,” Emerald says. “To fly in weather like this? And breathe flame, too?” She shakes her head, dislodging a few tenacious snowflakes from her crimson scales. “It would be suicide.”

“It’s rising,” Riyo says.

“Yeah,” Ravi says. He blinks snowflakes from his eyelashes and squints. “There’s some kind of… pointy object. I think the flame is driving it into the sky.”

“Weird,” Riyo says.

We are not chasing it,” Rolleck says.

“But…”

“You were just complaining about the cold. We’re not climbing a mountain chasing a sky fire.”

Riyo sighs. “Okay. Fine.” She starts walking again. “This town better be real close.”

“It stopped rising,” Ravi says.

The flame has begun sputtering, and after a moment it disappears completely, leaving the black smudge of an object it was supporting to the whims of gravity.

“I wonder what it is,” Emerald says.

“Maybe it’s some kind of bird.”

“A bird that farts fire?” Riyo suggests.

“That’s gross,” Emerald says.

“What? It’s just like you, except, y’know, out the other end.” There is an uncomfortable pause. “Hey, Emerald, can you-”

“No I cannot!”

“Looks like it’s completely out of fart fire,” Ravi says. “It’s getting dangerously close to the mountain.”

They watch as the little speck joins the big blur that is the summit of the mountain. Then there is a flash that lights the entire sky.

“It exploded,” Ravi says.

“Yeah,” Rolleck says. “Our eyes aren’t that ba-”

The last consonant is flattened by rolling thunder that shakes snow from the branches around them and scares a pair of ligmists from the shadow of a nearby boulder. Like stick insects, but taller than most trees, the creatures scuttle over the path and find new shadows to vanish into. One chooses the shade beneath a rock no larger than Riyo’s head, the other slips behind a tree thinner than her arm.

“That can’t be good,” Rolleck says.

“I still hear rumbling,” Ravi agrees.

“Huh?” Emerald says.

The avalanche hits them before they can explain what an avalanche is, but the rush of snow finds it easier to move around them.

“Wow,” Emerald says, watching the wall of perfect white flow by as if it were a river.

Riyo’s brow is creased with concentration. She treats things like this as a challenge and won’t settle for simply stopping the snow from crushing them to death. She uses it to practice her control, guiding the snow around them by adjusting the way gravity pushes it. First out, then past, making extra streams that go higher than normal to allow for the displaced snow.

After a minute or so, the snow stops moving. The four of them stand in a crater well below the new snow-line. Riyo lets out a breath and closes her reality. She has managed to sculpt the snow so that only a little crumbles inwards once it is under the normal influence of gravity.

“I didn’t know snow could move that fast,” Emerald says.

“Nice job, captain,” Ravi says.

Riyo nods. “It’s getting a little easier to make smaller changes, I think. Still too hard, though.”

“You don’t find the sunlight stone under the first rock you overturn,” Rolleck says.

“Has it started to feel weird to anyone else, hearing phrases like that?” Ravi asks. “I still have to keep reminding myself that we’re going to try and find the actual sunlight stone.”

“That’s what makes it worth finding,” Riyo says, then glances at the mountain. “There’s no rush, though. I say we-”

“No,” Rolleck says. “We get to town, first. Maybe this has happened before, and they can just tell us what it was instead of us having to climb up a frozen mountain to find out.”

Riyo pouts. “You’re no fun.”

“He’s right, though,” Ravi says.

“Yeah…” she says, sparing one more glance for the mountain and the explosive new addition to its peak. Then she turns back to where the path used to be and glares. The new snow is squashed flat, creating a corridor for them to follow. “Let’s go.”

Ravi can still make out the thin stream of smoke twirling its way through the storm, and they follow it until Riyo trips over something. With her reality open she manages to turn it into a perfect front-flip, landing on her feet without even needing to bend her knees. Ravi applauds politely at her extravagant bow, while Rolleck just rolls his eyes.

“It’s a sign,” Emerald says.

“Proof that we should just give up this insane quest and join the circus instead?” Rolleck says.

“No, an actual sign.” She points at the cause of Riyo’s trip.

“Coldton,” Ravi reads. “I suppose that’s appropriate.”

“It’s not very imaginative,” Riyo says.

“Let’s just hope the town survived the avalanche,” Rolleck says, gesturing towards the small ridge ahead.

“They must deal with avalanches all the time,” Riyo says. “I bet they’re fine.”

The town is covered entirely in snow. Severely peaked roofs poke up out of the powder here and there, tall chimneys still drizzling smoke up into the clouds.

“Uh oh,” Ravi says.

“Maybe it’s supposed to look like this,” Riyo says.

Some of the snow is moving. A rough, churning sound emanates from somewhere below them where the path once descended into the town. The surface collapses in on itself near the closest house, and a stream of snow geysers up into the sky, rejoining the blizzard. They watch, teeth chattering, as the avalanche around the path is dislodged into the air in bursts, while the sound grows louder and closer.

Something black and pointy emerges. Like the fin of a shark, it weaves its way slowly towards them, growing taller and wider until, after it has reached nearly four feet, the circular brim of a hat breaks free of the drift. It is followed shortly by a pair of spectacles on a wrinkled face that, despite being buried alive mere moments ago, is wearing a brilliant smile.

“That was a big one!” she says, looking up at them. “Welcome to Coldton!”

“Um,” Ravi says.

The woman is drawing glacially closer, rising from the snow as she does. Her body is a mound of black cloth with no shape or feature, and it squats atop something that shudders and groans and gushes snow out of a big metal pipe behind her.

She stops at the edge of the path and grins at them, her contraption still shaking beneath her. It reminds Emerald uncomfortably of the Twilight Express.

“We don’t get a whole lot of visitors, these days,” she says.

“It seems like a difficult place to visit,” Ravi says.

“Aye, I suppose it does. Didn’t used to be, though.” She looks up and wrinkles her nose. “Drat. Got a devil of an itch.” She starts moving her head and flaring her nostrils.

“Here,” Riyo says, hopping up onto the machine and scratching her nose for her.

Ravi and Rolleck grimace in unison.

“Oh, you’re a peach,” she says. “That’s it, right there.”

Emerald clears her throat.

“Oh,” the woman says. “Sorry. I’m Tremble, mayor of Coldton.”

Riyo steadies herself as the machine shudders and begins turning in place. Though mostly hidden by snow, it has a number of things beneath it that look like wheels to Ravi. It’s a far cry from any kind of cart he has ever seen before, though.

“Please, come, come. Let’s get inside and get you all warmed up.”

Riyo stays sat on the edge of the machine, while the others start walking behind it. Rolleck lets out a yell as hefty lumps of snow begin thumping down on his head.

“Give her a bit of space back there, folks,” Tremble yells over her shoulder. “She throws it up like me after my seventh dram.” She has a cackle to match the rattling of her machine’s engine.

Riyo sits giggling at the snowflakes in Rolleck’s moustache while they make their slow descent. The machine is much less efficient than Riyo at making a corridor through the snow, but she is fascinated by it, and wants to watch it work. Just beneath her, there is a window that shows gears turning inside it, so fast that they are jagged bronze blurs to her eyes. Linked pieces of metal wrap around strange cogs at either side of the thing and crunch through the snow, driving them forward.

They draw level with what is presumably the mayor’s house and begin another perfectly stationary turn.

“Might get a little cold there, dear,” Tremble says.

The snow now before them is still piled to the edge of the roof and, as soon as the machine starts eating it, it’s going to collapse on top of them. Apparently, Tremble is fine with that. So Riyo is too.

“I can handle a little more cold,” Riyo says, then opens her reality under her breath. Snow begins to tumble down and not hit them.

Tremble glances around for a moment, her wrinkled features showing surprise, then fear. She turns to look at Riyo, and the fear fades a little.

“That you?” she asks.

“Yep.”

“Oh.” There is a moment of relief on her face before she turns to look forward again. “Good.”

“So how does your machine work, Mrs. Mayor?”

“This thing?” There is probably a dismissive gesture that goes with her tone, but it is lost to her layers. “It’s powered by ice crystals.”

“Cool,” Riyo says.

“Most people usually have follow-up questions,” Tremble says after a pause.

“Most people don’t know as much about Calis as I do,” Riyo says.

The machine breeches the far side of the snow drift and begins pulling into a shelter designed for it. After firing its final blast of snow, it turns again, brushing the walls and dumping more snow onto the floor. The engine is louder in the confines of the shelter, so when it cuts out it leaves its memory thrumming against Riyo’s eardrums.

“Here we are, then,” Tremble says, standing and hopping from the machine. Her layers go all the way to the ground, so she remains a featureless, cloth blob. Her hat, which almost doubles her unimpressive height, is no impediment to her as she passes her unusually high doorway into her house. The others trail a dusting of snow in behind them, despite a thorough shaking and brushing outside the door.

“I’m afraid I can’t keep you company long,” Tremble says, bustling into her kitchen. “I have to help dig the others out.” Her house is warm both in temperature and atmosphere. Various knitted things cover walls, floors and surfaces in colours that long for a summer that will never come. All of her furniture is old and wooden, showing its wear with the grace of quality craftsmanship.

“You have a lovely home,” Ravi says, looking over a selection of pictures on one of the tables.

“Oh,” Emerald says, joining him. “I’ve seen pictures like this before. A merchant once showed me some of his family.”

“The cameras that take them are pretty new,” Riyo agrees, picking one up and looking at it. It shows Tremble, still wrapped in all her layers and wearing her hat, standing with several workmen before another strange-looking machine. “It’s rare to see good pictures out in the sticks.”

“Everstall is the last Song to get everything,” Rolleck says. He has found a comfortable seat and sat down. In front of him, in the middle of a semi-circle of such seats, is a contraption inside a cage that glows orange and hums softly. It seems to be the source of the house’s pleasant warmth.

Tremble returns with a tray of steaming mugs. She must be clutching it through her layers, because her arms are still not visible. Riyo wonders if perhaps she’s not wearing anything at all. She might just be a cloth blob woman. She sets the tray down and her head moves as though she has gestured them towards it, though she hasn’t. If she really was a blob woman, Riyo decides, she would probably have some more instinctive blob gestures. She takes a mug.

The drink is so rich and sweet and hot she almost spits it straight back out again. Everyone’s eyes widen at their first sip, and Emerald stares down into her mug with open wonder.

“What is this?” Ravi asks.

“It’s like chocolate, but… enlightened,” Emerald says, still staring.

“Rock cherry juice,” Tremble says. “Nearly the end of my stock, too. But I like to get it out for visitors because there’s nothing quite like it anywhere else in the world.” She doesn’t have a mug of her own and is already gliding towards the door. Presumably her legs are moving, but the cloth around them is thick enough that it hides any sign of the fact. “You all make yourselves at home, dears. I’ll be back once we’ve made some headway on this avalanche.”

She disappears, and a moment later they hear the machine start up again.

“Rock cherries, huh?” Riyo says, taking another sip. The drink seems to warm her right to her toes the moment it passes her lips.

“It’s amazing,” Emerald says. She sucks the rest down, passing it beneath her forked tongue to keep it from extinguishing her pilot.

“A little sweet, for my tastes,” Rolleck says.

Ravi settles his face into a soft scowl and lowers the pitch of his voice. “Yes. I prefer cold, black tea and eating whole, raw lemons.”

Rolleck looks over at him. A moment passes. “I do not sound like that.”

“You do, though,” Riyo says with a smirk.

Rolleck scowls at her, and Ravi’s deepens to match it. They glare at each other until Ravi loses it and starts laughing.

“You’re all just unsophisticated idiots,” Rolleck says. He takes another sip of his drink and grimaces.

Riyo drains her mug and hops to her feet. “I’m going to help flatten snow.”

“Seems like the decent thing to do,” Ravi agrees, joining her.

“I’d rather not go out in this if I don’t have to,” Emerald says.

“I’m staying, too,” Rolleck says. “It’s difficult to use a shovel with this.” He waves his sword in the air.

“You just don’t like getting snow in your moustache,” Riyo says.

“Have fun,” Rolleck says without turning around.

Riyo and Ravi head out through the machine shelter by which they entered. It has left odd, uniform tracks in the snow on its way out. They are too square to have been made by wheels.

Riyo opens her reality and squishes flat what snow has been left in the machine’s wake, while Ravi spots a shovel in the corner and decides the mayor will not mind him borrowing it to help with the clean-up. They both then leap to the top of the mayor’s house to get a better view of where to start.

The mayor’s machine marks its presence beneath the snow on what looks to be Coldton’s main thoroughfare by pitching snow at the heavens periodically. To their left, roughly west of the town, the mountain rises towards its ominous black peak – a vicious spire of rock. There are a few houses in that direction before the land becomes too steep to build on, so Riyo and Ravi decide to start there.

Riyo starts crushing the snow in the street in broad strokes, allowing Ravi to get close to the houses and start digging it away from their doors. He loses himself in the work, blocking out the cold and focusing on the heat in his muscles. Shovelful after shovelful of snow passes over his shoulder, scattering across the compacted stuff Riyo has left, until his arms are sore and his lungs are burning with the effort. Unlike the endless walking of their journey, however, this tiredness feels good.  The exertion of being useful, of helping people, always comes with a feeling of satisfaction.

Some time passes, though Ravi isn’t quite sure how much. The sun starts making its way down towards the Everstall Song, but it does so slowly, as if it must trudge through knee deep snow as well. He finds he has circled back towards the centre of the town, following the flat ground Riyo has made. He has lost track of her, he realises.

He stretches his sore arms and throws the shovel over his shoulder, wandering towards the main street. The residents of Coldton have cleared it completely, revealing a series of shop fronts and a path down to a mysterious machine. Ravi recognises it as the one from the picture in the mayor’s house. A long cable stretches away from the machine towards a metal pole further along the mountainside. Another pole is visible much further away, and the cable continues from there, too.

Mayor Tremble is sat atop her snow-clearing machine just in front of it, talking to a small group of people. Ravi heads down towards it, peering into the darkened windows of a few of the shops on the way. They are noticeably lacking in produce.

There are a few gasps and mutters as the people clearing snow from side streets notice him, and the group around Tremble all take a worried step back as he approaches. One of the younger men steps forward again, struggling to pull a sword from a sheath on his belt.

“Hold there,” he says. His long hair falls over his eyes and he jumps in surprise, then quickly brushes it out of the way again.

Ravi stops and raises his arms.

Tremble hops down from her machine and just walks into the young man. The weight of her layers must make her surprisingly heavy, because the lad misbalances and falls over.

“Don’t just wave your sword at everyone you don’t recognise,” Tremble says. “Most travellers are just travellers.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Mayor,” he says, scrambling to his feet and taking a few attempts to put his sword away.

“I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your shovel,” Ravi says, gesturing with the tool.

“Of course not, of course not. We appreciate the help, don’t we, chaps?”

The group aren’t sure how to respond, but Tremble goes on as if they have all nodded enthusiastically. “Don’t tire yourselves out on our account, though. You and your friends should be heading off as soon as you can. This isn’t a safe place to be, of late.”

“Oh,” Ravi says, frowning. “We were hoping to spend the night here.”

The mayor shakes her head. “Sorry, sorry. The inn’s closed I’m afraid. You really should be moving along.”

The big machine behind them suddenly blusters to life, cogs and gears spinning into action and spitting out a deeper, angrier roar than that of the snow clearing machine. It appears to do this for the sake of pulling the cable in and then reeling it back out the other way.

The residents of Coldton all turn to stare at it for a moment, their eyes full of fear.

“We can’t…” Tremble says, then shakes her head. “Everybody back to your homes.”

“But…” the young man with the sword says.

“No buts, Wicker.” She doesn’t make a shooing motion at him, but there is a pause to suggest she tried to. “Off you go, back to your mother. She’ll be worried if you don’t. I can deal with this.”

The lad remains for a moment, a hand on the hilt of his sword, before turning and walking away with the rest.

Tremble looks to Ravi. “Please wait in my house for a little while longer, if you don’t mind.”

“What’s happening?”

“Oh, just a little, uh, local politics. I’m afraid I really must insist that you go inside and wait it out.” Her face is etched with worry, and she swallows as she turns away to face the cable machine.

Ravi frowns, but makes for the mayor’s house. He turns off at the first junction, however, and springs to the roof of the shop on the corner. The gloomy state of this town is a recent thing, and it reminds him of Fefille before the Deis came. There is something looming over them – something they are unable to fight or escape.

Tremble doesn’t notice that he hasn’t done as instructed. She is focused on the machine – a lone lump of fabric staring down a rolling avalanche. After a while, Ravi spots something by the distant pole. A black box, swaying with the wind of the blizzard, is being drawn in by the cable. It passes the next post, and then slows down on the approach to Coldton itself. It has windows in it, but they are covered in frost and clinging snow that hides those inside from sight.

Ravi strings his bow and knocks an arrow, frowning down at the doors in the side of the metal box. They are wrenched open with a squeal of metal on metal, and a man steps out. He is tall and lithe, with cruel, angular features and long limbs. His lanky black hair hangs half way down his back and his eyes are pinpricks of black malice. He is wearing a black leather jacket, open to expose his muscular chest. The cold seems not to affect him. On his back is a long-handled axe with a chewed-up blade.

A group of less striking men and women follow him out of the box, all wearing clothing much more appropriate to the weather. They, too, are armed, and they look mean.

The scary man steps up to Tremble and smiles down at her, his teeth crooked and yellow.

“Quite the avalanche, hey, Mrs. Mayor?”

“Yes,” Tremble says. “We’re still clearing it up.” Her voice shakes like her name.

“Well that’s no good. We were expecting a tithe today.”

“You don’t usually bring so many of your friends to collect a tithe,” Tremble says, looking past the monstrous man to his entourage.

He laughs. “A smart woman as always, Mrs. Mayor. We can never slip one by you. I’ll tell you what, though.” He places a hand on Tremble’s shoulder in mock reassurance. “Find us a tithe, and we can just head on home.”

“We have nothing left,” Tremble says. “You trap us here, take away our means of making money, of making anything, and expect us to keep paying you at your whim. We can’t. There is nothing more to take.” She sags in her layers, her head almost disappearing like a turtle into its shell.

“That’s not true,” the man says, standing and taking the axe from his back. “We can take lives. A couple of young boys or girls will do nicely. They sell well if you know who to offer them to.”

“No,” Tremble says, her voice a whisper.

“Sorry?” the man says, leaning in.

“You can’t. The last time was bad enough. Please.”

The man rests his axe on Tremble’s shoulder, the blade pointed towards her neck.

“Who rules this town, Mrs. Mayor?”

“Yrith does.” There are tears on the mayor’s cheeks.

“And who is Yrith’s voice?”

“You are, Mortimer.”

“That’s right,” Mortimer says, lifting the axe away. “And Coldton owes us a tithe. Four youngsters, ripe for sale, and one little old woman to sate the beast of the mountain.”

Tremble looks up in shock. “No,” she says.

“I’m afraid so.” He gestures around at the snow. “This little snow-slide is proof he’s hungry. He’ll do worse next time if he doesn’t eat.” His smile comes back, more dreadful than before. “So. What will it be? Will you choose your sacrifices? Or shall we start knocking on doors?”

“I… No,” Tremble says, looking up. Her expression is defiant. “I won’t do it. You’ll have to destroy this town and take what you want from us.”

Mortimer shakes his head. “That’s a real shame, Mrs. Mayor. Maybe your successor will have a little more sense.” He raises his axe.

There is a yell from the house in front of Ravi, and Wicker charges out towards the platform. He has his sword raised above his head in both hands, rust flaking from the blade in the wind.

Mortimer turns and frowns at the young man. He has started his battle-cry far too early and is still a dozen metres away when he runs out of breath. He inhales and starts up again from where he left off.

“Wicker!” Tremble yells.

He doesn’t respond. Mortimer raises his axe to lop off Wicker’s head.

Then there is an arrow through his arm.

He cries out and stumbles back in surprise, letting his axe fall into the snow. Wicker’s sword comes crashing down on his shoulder. He is small, and his blade is all but blunt, but he has enough force to bite through Mortimer’s jacket and send blood arcing through the air to smudge the snow behind him.

They stand in tableau for a moment, as though the icy winds have frozen them in place. Wicker’s face is a fierce snarl of hatred.

“That’s for my father,” he says.

“Your father would be disappointed,” Mortimer says. He grabs the sword by the blade and pulls it free of his shoulder, then rips it from Wicker’s grip.

The young man stumbles back, eyes going wide.

“It seems we have one already.”

One of Mortimer’s underlings steps forward and clubs Wicker over the head, sending him to the ground with a thud.

Mortimer turns back to Tremble, sparing a glance for the street and the buildings around it. Ravi has already ducked down out of sight.

“Of course, this attack adds a few extra bodies to the tally.” He casually snaps the arrow in his arm and draws the rest out with another spurt of blood. “Six slaves and one old woman, Mrs. Mayor. And your archer friend should know that if he fires again, I will kill you where you stand.” He says this loud enough that Ravi would be able to hear him even without his extra-human hearing.

They drag Wicker into the metal box.

“You have until sundown.”

As the doors screech closed again, Ravi curses himself for not using his curse-breaker. He could have shot Mortimer’s arm clean off or aimed for his body and killed him outright. He’d hesitated, though. He hadn’t even been able to make himself kill a dragon, let alone another human being.

The cable machine blusters into motion again, and once the box reaches the first pole Ravi drops from his roof and runs to the mayor’s side.

She looks at him with surprise.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save Wicker,” Ravi says, still watching the cable slither its way through the bowels of the machine and then out into the snow. He makes a decision. “I’m going to try and get him back.”

“No. Don’t. You can’t.” She makes to clutch at his arm, but she has too many layers.

“Why not? Surely you don’t intend to give them what they want?”

“There’s nothing we can do. Mortimer is just a goon. His boss, Yrith… he’s a monster.”

Ravi frowns. The box is just reaching the second pole. He shakes his head.

“Go back to your house. Tell my friends what happened. I don’t know where Riyo went, but Rolleck and Emerald should still be there. Tell them to follow the cable.”

“If your friend wandered out of town then she’s dead. In a blizzard like this, with that… creature out looking to feed… Nobody could survive.”

“I doubt she’d be stupid enough to leave town in this weather.” Ravi stops to consider what he’s just said. “Okay, well maybe she would. But she’s Riyo. She’ll be fine.” He leaps up onto the cable, finding his balance easily as it drags him out into the storm. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Mayor,” he shouts. “I’ll save him.”

Mayor Tremble watches the bird man disappear into the drifting snow. The streets of her town are icy and still, and she has never felt so alone. So helpless. Coldton has nothing left to give and no one left to defend it. Her people are frightened and hungry, worn down by the snow and the bandits keeping them like rats in a cage. Once, her smile was enough to make this bleak place bearable. Now that her husband is dead, nothing can.

She climbs onto her snow plough and turns it for her home. She will speak to the bird man’s friends, and they will go and die. Or, more likely, they will flee this doomed place once they realise the inevitability of their fate. Either way, Tremble will have to choose five more of her people to sacrifice into a life of slavery. At least one choice left to her is quite simple. She only knows of one little old lady deserving of being fed to a monster.

 

 

Rolleck is asleep, and Emerald has grown bored. It makes her feel a little guilty, but she is rooting around the mayor’s house. It is full of pictures, and Emerald feels like she now knows the old woman quite well. She has been mayor for a long time. Either what Riyo said about the picture-taking device was untrue, or someone here in Coldton had invented it independent of the rest of the world’s technology. There were pictures of a younger mayor Tremble standing on snow-free slopes with a man who must have been her husband.

Emerald has determined that this man, whose name she has not been able to find, was a scientist. There are pictures of him working on various machines in the town, including one with a cable that stretches what seems like dozens of miles over brutal terrain that otherwise would be impassable. He had also built the snow-clearing machine, and a whole bunch of others that Emerald can’t begin to guess the purpose of from the pictures alone.

In every picture they are together, the two of them are smiling. Then there are more recent pictures of Tremble looking more like she does now. She is still smiling, but it is a very different smile. It is this that makes Emerald think that her husband has passed away, rather than divorced her or moved to the Tower’s End Song to sell his inventions to people who would appreciate them more.

It is quite a sad story, much of which Emerald has made up entirely herself. She could be miles off.

The rumble of the machine suggests their host has returned, and Emerald quickly makes her way back to the living room to await her as though she hasn’t been nosing through her things. Maybe she should just be honest about it. She has an awful lot of questions based on her nosing, and the woman had told them to make themselves at home, after all. Maybe she would tell Emerald her story over another mug of that wonderful rock cherry juice.

This decision is taken from her by the look on Tremble’s face when she shuffle’s in. She looks like the snow has settled beneath her skin.

“Is something wrong?” Emerald asks.

“I…” Tremble says, then lets out a cold sigh. “I wanted to spare you this place. Travellers are so rare, so it’s easy to just pass them through with a smile. To hide it all from them.” She sighs again. “We’re beholden, you see, to a group of bandits who call themselves the Kings of the Mountain.” She shuffles over to the table of pictures. Picks up the one of her in front of the machine, her hands deftly manipulating the cloth that covers them. She shows it to Emerald, who is floundering a little for something to say.

“This is the gondola. My husband built it, more than a decade ago, to help keep our little town relevant.” She sits down before the heater, and Emerald takes the chair next to her.

“It used to be that the path down out of these mountains was only passable briefly during the summer. Travellers from the Everstall Song would flood through during that season. You could walk from here to Tower’s End on a bridge of log carts bringing lumber out of the endless forest. Then the trains came, and it changed everything. They still struggle to run in the depths of winter, and they’re quite expensive to ride, but they’re so much quicker and safer than travelling the paths up here. My husband said we needed something special to compete with them. Something that would make travellers safe even in the very heart of winter. So, he built the gondola.” She looks wistfully towards the window, still covered completely with snow. “Tourists would come to ride it, see the beautiful vistas, watch the snow flurry all around them as they dangled in the sky.”

“What happened to your husband?” Emerald asks, trying desperately to be delicate.

“There was… an accident with one of his machines when the bandits came,” Tremble says. “He wanted to fight them, but instead he left me alone to try and keep this place joyful. And I did. For years, I did. Even when it hurt me so much to smile that I thought my teeth would crack. But there’s only so much misery a good smile can fight. I’ve reached that limit, now.” Tears run down her cheek and soak into her topmost layer.

“What can I do?” Emerald says.

Tremble looks up, then. “What?”

“Something’s wrong. I can’t fix everything, but there must be something I can do.”

“You can’t,” Tremble says. “It’s impossible. Their grip on us is too tight to break.”

“Right. You said something about bandits. Who are they?”

“The Kings of the Mountain,” Tremble says. “And as I said, there’s nothing we can do to stop them. They have a creature who roams the mountainside, eating anyone who strays outside the village and bringing avalanches to compound our misery. They keep it cold, so that even in summer the snows cover everything. We can’t feed ourselves, and no more tourists come. Even if they did, the bandits control the gondola. And now they have asked me for something I can’t give them. Could never give them. So, at sundown, they will come and finish us all.”

Emerald growls. “You hear that, Rolleck?”

“Something about bandits,” he says sleepily. “You have a plan?”

“Not really, but when did that ever stop us?”

“Maybe we should let it, every once in a while.”

“Not this time,” Emerald says with a shake of her head. “The mayor has already suffered so much, but she kept smiling for her town. She smiled for us, too. A bunch of complete strangers. If you aren’t willing to swat a few bandits for that, you have no heart.”

Rolleck sits up and sighs. “I wouldn’t want to be accused of that,” he says. “It would only make your impressions of me even worse.”

Emerald lowers her voice and scowls. “My heart is in my blade, and it cuts with the power of love.”

Rolleck groans. “That’s even worse than Ravi’s.” He glances around. “Where is he, by the way? Riyo, too.”

“The bandits came,” Tremble says. “They took one of my people. A boy named Wicker. The fool tried to protect me. Your friend jumped onto the gondola cable before I could stop him. He’s going to get killed, and that will be my fault, too.” She looks to Emerald, her eyes pleading. “Please, just stop him and go. Leave this place to its fate. I already have too much guilt to take with me to the next life.”

“Sorry,” Rolleck says, standing up. “We’re very bad at walking away from things. Emerald, you’ll probably freeze if you go chasing the gondola, so I’ll do that. You stay here and deal with anyone they send to bother the town. That sound fair?”

“It means I have to sit around waiting even more,” Emerald says.

“Okay. Go fly into the blizzard, then.”

“Yeah, fine, okay. I’ll protect the town.” She turns to Tremble. “Our avian friend is Ravi. Do you know about the other woman?”

“He, uh, Ravi, said she might have left town.”

Rolleck covers his face with his free hand. “She’s gone up the mountain, I’d wager.”

“Ohhh,” Emerald says. “Yeah. We never should have let her leave the house.”

“Well, I’m sure she’s having a grand old adventure of her own, then,” Rolleck says. “If she shows up here, punch her for me.”

“Now that’s a plan.”

“So how do I find these bandits?”

“Just follow the gondola cable,” Emerald says. “If they’re controlling it then their base must be somewhere along its path.”

“Right.” Rolleck makes to leave.

“Wait,” Tremble says. They have essentially been ignoring her ever since they decided to help her. “Wait. If… if you must insist on this madness. Let me help you in whatever way I can.” She scurries off into the kitchen, and Emerald and Rolleck share a look as various clatters and clangs filter through the doorway.

She returns a moment later with a metal cylinder, which she offers to Rolleck. “All the rock cherry juice I have left.” She twists one end of the cylinder and it comes lose, revealing the fluid inside. “The flask is another of Albert’s inventions. It will keep the juice warm no matter what. You’ll need it to stay alive out there.”

Emerald expects Rolleck to make a comment about sweetness, but he just nods.

“Thank you.”

They watch him leave.

“Right,” Emerald says, cracking her neck left and right. “We should make sure everyone else in town is okay. You never finished clearing the avalanche, right?”

“Nobody will want to help now. They’ll be hiding in their homes.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Emerald says. “As long as I know I have somewhere warm and safe to come back to, this snow doesn’t stand a chance against me.” There is still a risk to her, of course. She hadn’t been joking when she said her death from cold could come instantly. Even so, she is done waiting. She needs to move.

 

 

 

Riyo Falsemoon is not an exceptional navigator, even with clear skies above her. Even so, the mountain she is heading towards is very big. She figured she probably wouldn’t lose it.

It has taken her about six minutes to lose it.

She slogs through the snow, her coat pulled tight around her. Her reality can ward off the worst of the wind’s bite, but the cold is in the very air, and if she uses her reality to get rid of that then she won’t be able to breathe.

The clouds are so thick around her that she feels like she is in a burning building, breathing smoke and fighting a growing panic. She has never been much for panic. Even when she knows she is no longer in control of a situation, she has always had the feeling that everything will work out okay. She still has that feeling now, but it fades a little with every snowdrift she pushes through.

She eventually reaches a cliff and takes it to be a good sign. Most of the cliffs, she reasons, probably face outwards from the mountain. She switches gravity for herself and walks up its face, watching as the wind-driven snow now seems to fall upwards instead of sideways.

The cliff is tall, and she is starting to wonder if she hasn’t become turned around and started walking across rather than up, when she hears somebody whistling. At first, she thinks she has imagined it. But she doesn’t recognise the tune, and it seems unlikely she would imagine something so hauntingly beautiful all by herself. It’s a strange sound – not clean and crisp enough for somebody to be playing the flute, but too metallic to be someone whistling with their lips. Curious, Riyo abandons her questionable path in favour of chasing the tune.

It proves difficult. The wind and the mountain’s echoes drag the sound up and down, left and right. She reaches the lip of the cliff at an angle, and rights herself on its edge before chasing the whistler along it. Her foot clunks against something that isn’t rock, setting the mountainside ringing. The whistling stops suddenly. Its producer has heard her.

“Who’s there?” a voice says. It, too, is metallic. Like someone is talking through a flute.

“Riyo Falsemoon,” Riyo says, because it is rude not to introduce yourself when you’ve interrupted someone’s whistling.

There is a pause.

“Who?”

Riyo follows the sound of the voice into a field of metal scraps stuck in the snow. Much of it is charred and warped, and it occurs to Riyo that she might have found what she came looking for after all.

“Stay away from me,” the voice says. “Haven’t you heard the stories?”

“No,” Riyo says.

“Oh. Well, there’s a monster in the hills. He brings the blizzard and eats the people who wander into it.”

“Is it you?”

“Uh. Yes? You should turn back. Or I’ll eat you.”

“I’m not convinced.” She is right on top of the voice, now, but there is no sign of anyone. There are a few big bits of metal someone could be hiding behind, so she picks the most robust-looking and peers around it. “Boo.”

“Wah!” the voice says, but there is nobody there. Instead, the chunk of metal itself scampers away from her.

This causes Riyo to say, “Wah!” too.

They are both still for a moment.

“Who are you?” they both say at the same time.

“I’m Riyo Falsemoon,” Riyo says again.

“Oh. Yeah. Um.” The chunk of metal starts glowing, and Riyo realises it is not all metal. The front and top of a rough oblong are glass, and there is now faint blue light emanating from within. It rises on a pair of thin, metal legs, gears whirring behind the lower half of the glass. In the upper section, there is a reflection of the blizzard. Snow swirls and falls in the pale blue enclosure, making it look like a giant snow-globe.

“I’m Glitter.”

“Wow,” Riyo says. “Um, what, exactly, are you?”

“I’m ice,” Glitter says. “My father built me a robot body.”

“That,” Riyo says, “is really cool.”

“Ha ha!” the ice robot says. “My father made that joke, too.”

They are silent for a moment, and it begins to become awkward. Then Riyo remembers why she came up here in the first place.

“What exploded up here, by the way?”

“Oh. That was me. I’m sorry. I built a rocket to take me back home. To my real home. But it didn’t work. I’m not as smart as my father was.”

“So where is your real home, Glitter?” Riyo asks.

“My father said I came from Calis. So now I want to go back. Because I don’t fit in here.”

“Huh,” Riyo says. “I’m going to Calis, too.”

“Wow. Do you have a rocket?”

“No. I’m just going to walk.”

“You can do that?”

“Yeah. You just have to cross the Reach. Hey!” Riyo snaps her fingers. “You should just come with me.”

“Okay!” Glitter says. The blizzard inside his body grows stronger, until the glass is coated with snow. As if a big finger is drawing in it, a simple face appears. It is smiling.

Riyo laughs. “That’s a neat trick. Come on, I’ll take you to meet my friends. They’re waiting in Coldton.”

“Oh,” Glitter says, metallic register falling. “I can’t go there.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“That’s where the bad man is. I have to stay away from the bad man.”

“Pfft,” Riyo says. “What if I squash the bad man? Will you come to Calis with me then?”

“I don’t know… The bad man is very bad. I think we should all stay away from the bad man.”

“Well I’m not going to,” Riyo says, turning away. “I’m going to go squish him. So, you can help, or you can stay here and blow up some more rockets.”

“Um,” Glitter says, his comically small legs scuttling through the snow to keep up with Riyo as she walks away. “Um.” He follows her for several minutes, until Riyo turns back to him again.

“Last chance. Are you coming or not?”

“I guess,” he says. His frosted glass makes a face with a wiggly mouth.

“Great,” Riyo says. “Because I have an idea. How tough is your body?”

“Father said it was his greatest work,” Glitter says. “I have now crashed seventeen rockets without breaking it.” The pride is evident in his voice.

Riyo grins. “Perfect.”

She trips him with her reality, knocking him onto his glass face and making him yelp again. Then she jumps on his back.

“What are you doing?!”

“Getting down this mountain,” Riyo says, doubling her weight to help brace herself, then flipping Glitter’s gravity so it pulls him towards where Coldton probably is. He begins to slide. “This is gonna be awesome.”

“Waaaiiiiiit,” Glitter says, but it gets lost in the sound of rushing wind as they pick up speed.

 

 

Ravi Matriya is cold. The cable box has stopped on a ridge where the wind howls between two peaks, driving the snow into a near-perfect wall of white. Through it, Ravi can just make out the entrance to a cave. Light flickers within it like a siren’s call that promises warmth and shelter. The bandits have answered that call, but Ravi is fairly certain that doing so himself will only end in disaster. Mortimer’s boss is probably in there, along with Mortimer himself and however many goons he has in his employ. He talked a big game to the mayor, but now he doesn’t know how to make good on it.

So far as he can tell, nobody watches the entrance. This seems like an oversight to Ravi, but then they control the only reasonable approach to the base. They probably haven’t received unexpected guests for years. That might mean none of them are alert, and he can sneak in and get Wicker out without them even noticing.

If he waits too much longer, his arms will freeze off and he’ll have no chance at all, so he quickly strings his bow and slinks closer. No alarm is raised as he crosses the stretch of clean snow before the mouth of the cave. His footprints are eaten by the blizzard the moment he lifts his foot, and no sign of his passage remains by the time he presses up against the rock of the cliff.

A quick glance inside reveals a short corridor that curves right at the end. The flickering firelight turns rocks into transient shadows all the way up the left wall, and he catches the smell of something cooking. It reminds him he hasn’t eaten since lunch. He ignores his belly and joins the shadows on the right-hand wall, slithering along the face of the rock until he is up against the turn.

“I heard,” somebody says, “that the World Force is going to come and quash the rebellion.”

“No way. They aren’t allowed to interfere in Song politics.”

“They’re allowed to if the Archcrafters decide it’s for the good of world peace,” the first voice says. “And some of them can see the future.”

“They say that, but I bet they’re just lying. If they could, then they would have stopped the revolution from happening in the first place. They could have saved years of unrest.”

“Maybe. We should be careful, though. If they do restore the king’s power, he’ll probably beef up the police force and put a stop to our sweet little operation.”

“Mmm. Just gotta keep an ear to the ground.”

Ravi hadn’t known the Frosthold Song had a king, nor that there had been a rebellion against him. It doesn’t matter much. What does matter, is that there are two people in the cavern around the corner, and he needs to get past them.

He hefts a rock back towards the entrance of the cave and then hunkers down in the shadows. His coat is a dark colour, so hopefully it will keep him hidden.

“What was that?” the first voice says.

“Go check it out,” the second says.

“What? No. What if it’s that monster?”

“The monster’s on our side, dumbass. The boss can control it.”

“I mean the other monster.”

“What other monster?”

“You know. The other one. The one that killed Bridget.”

“You really are stupid, aren’t you? You think Bridget got eaten by a second monster the day after she disrespects the boss?”

“I mean, that’s what Mortimer said happened.” The voice slows down towards the end.

“Yeah. No. Bridget got fed to the monster, and you will too if you don’t go check out that noise. What if someone’s trying to sabotage the gondola?”

“Fine,” the first voice says. “But you gotta come help if I yell. Otherwise the boss’ll have you eaten, too.”

Ravi counts footsteps, then holds his breath as they get close. The owner of the first voice appears, holding a spear out in front of him. He is wearing a studded leather jacket over a warm coat, but he is still shivering and moves carefully. Once he is out of sight of the fire, Ravi slips up behind him, quiet as the night. He hooks his bowstring over the man’s head and pulls hard, strangling any sound he might have tried to make. He struggles, lashing over his shoulder with his spear, but Ravi stays low until the man’s panic subsides and he flounders into unconsciousness. His spear tumbles from his grip, and Ravi winces as it clatters against the rock.

“Oh, come on,” the second voice says. “I’m not falling for something that basic, Will.”

Ravi quickly shoves the unconscious man into the blind spot in the corner and retrieves the spear.

“Will?”

The second man may come and investigate, but he may also take the threat seriously and call for help. Ravi looks down at the fallen guard and thinks back to his conversation. His voice isn’t that distinctive, and the echo of the cave will help. He moves a little further back down the corridor.

“Hey!” he shouts. “I think there’s someone out here!”

He hears the scuffle of feet and runs back towards the corner. He arrives at the same time as the second man, and before he can yelp in surprise the butt of his colleague’s spear slams between his eyes. He drops like a clumsy roofer.

Ravi takes a deep breath, then smiles to himself. His infiltration is going well.

“Intruder!” somebody yells from behind him, making his heart dive free of his chest.

He turns to find a dragon in the mouth of the cave. His eyes are icy blue, his face elongated into a snout like Emerald’s, but with stark white scales and crystalline teeth. He has no wings, but a long tail whips out behind him studded with spines like icicles. His claws glint as he raises them to point at Ravi.

“Big mistake, birdy boy,” he says.

Ravi grabs for an arrow, but then the sound of boots on stone echoes through the chamber behind him. It sounds like an entire army is marching towards him.

“Crap,” he says, dropping the spear and then his bow before raising his hands.

The lizard man stalks towards him, his smile a field of jagged points. “More chattel for the cage,” he says.

More armed men and women clatter around the corner, and the lizard man jabs a finger at them.

“Take him,” he says, and Ravi can only let them grab his arms and drag him deeper into the cave.

 

 

Rolleck the Lost is cold. Following the gondola cable, it turns out, is easier said than done. So far, he has had to leap a crevasse and scale a small, icy cliff. The latter he only managed by jabbing his sword into the stone to make handholds for himself. Now he struggles his way through waist-deep snow and a tangle of thorny vines that snake their way around a forest of skeletal trees. Water has soaked through his coat so, once again, his waistcoat is damp, and it has put him in a sour mood.

The sun has fallen through the sky and sundown threatens, the last light that can penetrate the thick cloud around the mountain barely enough to keep the ligmists from their hunt. He has already had to kill one that decided to leap from behind a tree when he passed through its shadow.

Something throws a deep hum over the forest, and a moment later the gondola passes overhead. Rolleck curses quietly, but there is nothing he can do about that now. Emerald will have to keep the residents of Coldton safe. On the bright side, very little time passed between the gondola activating and reaching him, which means he is close.

Even so, it is nigh full dark by the time he clears the forest and stumbles into a clearing where light from the mouth of a cave beckons him close. There is a man outside the cave, holding a spear and peering into the gloom.

“Who goes there?” he shouts.

“This is the hideout of the Kings of the Mountain, correct?” Rolleck says, walking into the shy light.

“Intruder!” the man yells, then Rolleck is on him, his sword whispering sweet nothings into his mind. Blood splatters snow, and for a moment the evening is silent once more.

Rolleck steps into the cave to the sound of approaching enemies. It is a sound he is happy to hear. Nothing warms the blood like battle. He turns the corner into a firelit cavern where nearly a dozen bandits wait. A crossbow string snaps as soon as he appears, and he tilts his head slightly to avoid its bolt.

“Put your weapon down!” one of them yells.

“Sorry,” Rolleck says, raising his sword to show the wires and barbs wrapped around and through his arm. “That’s not really an option.”

“Um,” the leader says, glancing at some of her colleagues. It’s clear she’s not sure what to do.

“Don’t worry,” Rolleck says. “I wasn’t going to comply anyway.”

Run, the voice says.

Rolleck dives forward. More crossbows snap at him, but he is not where they think he is. He is much closer. His sword cuts weapons and shields, armour and flesh. He is as unstoppable as the blizzard itself, and the bandit small-fry are strewn across the cave floor like the last leaves of autumn. Where Ravi Matriya has a good heart, and no doubt attempted to rescue the hostage without killing anyone, Rolleck has been a police officer for a long time and seen what these criminals are capable of. He has no reservations about giving them no quarter.

When he is done, the cave is silent. He moves deeper, following torches and little orbs that give light with no fire. Each is attached to a little metal box that whirrs as though there is a spinning top inside. The next cavern is much larger. The heat hits him like a wall, and Rolleck starts to think he has walked into another volcano. There are no streams of magma pouring down the walls as there had been in Yl Torat, however. There is just a metal cage with a glowing orange device inside.

“Rolleck,” Ravi shouts. “Below you!”

Rolleck jumps aside just in time to avoid being skewered by a great spike of ice. He rolls to his feet, watching the ground, and sees the twinkle of forming frost. He moves again as another spike materialises.

A man’s deep laughter echoes around the cavern, and Rolleck looks up to find its owner standing before a raised throne of wood and gold.

Off to one side, Ravi and Wicker are tied up in a big iron cage.

“Careful,” Ravi says. “He’s a crafter.”

That does not bode well. Once, early in their journey together, Rolleck challenged Riyo to a friendly contest. He had mostly been curious about whether he was capable of resisting her reality.

He is not. She had been able to bounce him around like a rubber doll. She had laughed about it for a long time.

“You would be the leader of these bandits, then?” he says. He stays on his toes, aware that, if the man’s reality is one of ice, then he could expect an attack from anywhere around him.

The man is short and burly, his brown hair thin enough that he has combed it over to hide a bald patch that is still extremely noticeable. He is wearing spectacles and a dark shirt. There is a black wolf pelt around his waist. Rolleck scowls. Another police officer gone foul.

“That I am,” he says. “Have you come to arrest me?” He wears a sardonic smile.

“Unfortunately not,” Rolleck says. “This is outside my jurisdiction. I’m just going to have to kill you.”

The man laughs again. “I’m afraid this is my home turf, officer. You may not be like those other country bums who don’t even know crafting when they see it, but that doesn’t mean you can do anything about it. In this place, I reign supreme.”

Shards of ice spring into existence all around Rolleck, but he is ready for it. He slaps several out of the way as they are still forming and darts through the gap. The heat from the glowing device has disappeared, the temperature in the cave plummeting to match that outside and then falling further. Rolleck feels his movements slowing, and as more icicles stab at him from nowhere he finds he is not quick enough to dodge them. They rip into his clothes and skin, steam as his blood coats them.

The crafter stands by his throne, unmoving. He still wears his smile, and Rolleck realises that, just as with Riyo, he cannot approach him. Cannot fight inside his reality.

You could, the voice says. Let me closer.

“No,” Rolleck says through gritted teeth. He makes a final forward feint, focusing the man’s defences before himself, then darts left and shears through the cage. Barbs fly forward from his arm and rip through Ravi’s bonds.

Then the man’s laugh rings out again, and Rolleck cannot move. His limbs are encased in ice. He can feel it, freezing against his exposed skin. It almost feels as though he is being burned. The sound of the man’s footsteps fill the cave.

“And what was that supposed to achieve?” he says, coming to stand by Rolleck. “No, wait, let me guess. You must protect the innocent no matter what?” He laughs some more. It is not a pleasant sound. Like he was once told about laughter and thought he might try it out without hearing the real thing first. “I’d like to say I was once like you,” he says, kneeling down to bring himself level with Rolleck’s eyes, “but I wasn’t. The power this pelt brings, the power my crafting brings. They’re tools. Tools to control people. Before the revolution I used that power to get what I wanted out of the capital. Now I use them to get what I want out of the people here. You see, no matter what happens, people with power will-”

“Never shut up about it,” Ravi says.

The man looks annoyed that his speech has been interrupted.

“And I suppose you are the one to shut me up?” he says with a scowl.

“Maybe,” Ravi says. He has been disarmed, but Rolleck has made a convenient pile of metal bars in front of him. He picks one up. Stares at it for a moment. Blue light flickers along its length, cascades through his feathers.

“You’ll freeze to death like your friend,” the man says.

A new cage of ice surrounds Ravi, dreadful spikes pointing in at him. It begins to contract, closing in to crush him. And as each spike touches him, it shatters into nothing. The bars do the same, his curse-breaker obliterating them the moment they come into contact with his feathers.

“What?”

Ravi shrugs, then swings at the man’s head with his improvised club.

A sheet of ice springs into existence before the man, and the bar renders it to dust without slowing. It catches him on the hairline, snapping his head to one side and drawing out a yell. He stumbles back, clutching his head where blood flows between his fingers. His spectacles lie on the floor by his feet, one lens cracked.

“How…?” he says, eyes wide. He takes a few more steps back as Ravi emerges from the cage. The bottoms of his feet tingle, and he glances down to find an ice spike trying to materialise. What manages to form quickly crumbles away when Ravi swipes his foot through it.

The bandit leader licks his lips nervously.

Then he turns and runs.

Ravi considers chasing him, but he can’t leave Rolleck the way he is, or he might die. The man is inhumanly resilient, but even he would succumb to frostbite eventually if left encased in ice.

Ravi kneels and inspects his fallen friend. The ice coats him in a thin layer that shines in the light of the heating device. Now that the crafter’s reality no longer holds sway over the area, the heat has already made a sheen of glittering water on its surface. It is melting too slowly for Rolleck, however.

Ravi’s curse-breaker flickers over his outstretched palm for a moment, then jumps onto Rolleck’s back. It almost seems to burn the ice, as though it is covered in a thin layer of oil. It washes over Rolleck’s body, making dying nerves tickle and twinge, loosening his joints until they allow him to sag to the ground, panting for breath.

“Thank you,” he says.

“No problem,” Ravi says. “Thanks for getting me out of the cage. Guess we’re even.”

“No problem,” Rolleck struggles to say.

Ravi helps him crawl closer to the heating device, then returns to the cage to free Wicker from his bonds.

“How did you do that?” Wicker asks, rubbing at his wrists. “He’s been terrorising us for months with that power, and you just… ignored it.”

“It’s a gift,” Ravi says with a shrug. He is perhaps a year older than Wicker. He doesn’t really feel comfortable with the way the younger man is staring at him. He flickers his curse-breaker through his feathers as a demonstration.

“That’s amazing,” Wicker says. “Maybe he’s gone for good.”

“I doubt it,” Ravi says. “Most of his gang went to destroy your town, remember?”

Wicker’s face grows pale. “We have to get back.”

Ravi shakes his head with a glance for Rolleck. “We left at least one dependable friend in town, and I don’t want to strain Rolleck too much. He just almost died.”

“I’m fine,” Rolleck says. He has managed to sit up, but he is still shivering so much that his voice wobbles. He reaches for his belt and, after some fumbling, pulls out the flask Tremble gave him. “Got this.”

“That’s Uncle Albert’s flask!” Wicker says. He scurries over to Rolleck. “Here, let me help.”

He unscrews the top and then pours some of the steaming contents into the lid, using it like a cup. He helps Rolleck take a sip.

“The rock cherry juice was the first thing the bandits took,” Wicker says. “We used to mine the cherries out of the mountain ourselves, but then Uncle Albert made machines that break the rocks and filter out the cherries. They carry them up to the surface through a big pipe, but now the bandits control it. I didn’t know the mayor still had some.”

“This is the last of it,” Rolleck says. The few sips he has taken are already warming their way through his frozen body. It feels as though a great weigh of ice has been cleared out of him. “It’s enough, though. Let’s go.” He tries to stand, but he’s still shivering so badly his legs can barely hold him up.

Ravi shakes his head. “Emerald can buy us a few minutes,” he says. “And who knows. Maybe Riyo’s already back.”

 

 

 

It is quite easy for a fire-breathing dragon to clear snow. By the time the grinding sound of the gondola spins out over the town, Emerald has uncovered most of the houses that make up Coldton. A lesser dragon than herself might have had some trouble keeping said houses from catching fire when she breathed on them. She has greater control than the majority of Yl Torat, however, refined by years of careful study and practice out in the endless forest.

She only set fire to two houses, and she extinguished them quite quickly.

The citizens of Coldton were scared, then amazed, as she rolled through the town, melting everything. Now they are scared again and have retreated to their homes to await the coming bandits. Only mayor Tremble stands with her before the gondola platform.

“You should return to your home, mayor,” Emerald says again.

Her giant hat wobbles as she shakes her head. “This is my town. I should be its last line of defence.”

Emerald sighs. “Okay. But as long as I’m still standing, you have at least one line before yours. So please try to stay back.”

Tremble is quiet for a moment, then begins talking in barely more than a whisper.

“This has happened before,” she says. “They came before we could gather together a tithe. Their leader, Yrith, he…” She stops for a moment, the effort of remembering overwhelming her. “He took slaves, instead. He made me choose. Two young men from town, and one old woman to… to feed his creature.”

Emerald grits her teeth and glances at Tremble. The woman smiling in all those pictures. The woman strong enough to survive the death of her husband and hold her town together with her smile.

“You chose.”

“I did.”

“Does Coldton know?”

She shakes her head. “They… They would have taken what they wanted anyway. I doubt you have any idea how it feels to be this powerless. To be in a place where your only option is something truly terrible. We’re none of us strong, or brave. Not anymore.”

Emerald remembers standing before her father’s broken body, hating herself for things she could have done. Perhaps, without Riyo and the others, Folvin would have burned and her brother would not have been stopped. Certainly, she could not have stopped him herself. She had felt helpless, then. But Tremble is right. Even then, she had options. Tremble had none. Until now.

“You’re right,” Emerald says. “It must have been unbearable. But no more. What guilt you feel cannot be expunged by death. You will have to atone once you are able to.” The gondola is now visible, swaying past the closest post. “Hopefully, that will start tomorrow morning.”

“The gondola is hanging heavy,” Tremble says. “It’s probably over capacity.” She looks up at Emerald again. “Are you sure-”

“Yes.”

Tremble swallows and turns back to the gondola.

“If I fail, though,” Emerald says into the churning silence. “Don’t give up. Riyo will come back here, and even if she fails, someone else will come after. It may feel like all is lost, but there is always someone willing to help you carry your burden.”

The gondola makes an awful screeching noise as it drags across the stone of the platform. The doors wrench open with another tortured sound, and Mortimer steps out. He is followed by more than twenty men and women, all armed with crossbows and spears. The last one out looks like a dragon.

Emerald blinks at him. His scales and spines match the icy world around him, and he has no wings. Aside from that, he could have been born in Yl Torat.

“Who’s that?” Emerald whispers at Tremble.

“I don’t know,” she says, eyes wide. “I’ve never seen him before.”

Some of the bandits are wearing similar expressions of shock and begin glancing back at their scaled companions as if asking the same questions about her.

For his part, the wingless dragon narrows his eyes at her.

Mortimer ignores all this, stepping down from the platform into the street.

“Mayor,” he says, voice viciously jovial. “I don’t see a tithe.”

“The cost was too high, this time,” Emerald says. “You’ve pushed too hard.”

“We can push a whole lot harder than this,” he growls.

“Care, Mortimer,” the wingless dragon says.

“Huh? You think she can out-fight you? And the rest of us?” There is a sneer in his voice.

“I don’t know,” the wingless dragon says. “I’ve never faced a dragon before. I don’t know what she is capable of.”

“She’s a dragon?”

“The fact that you didn’t know what she is should be enough reason for caution, Mortimer. You know there are dangers greater than us out there.”

“Not many.”

“Enough.”

They are quiet for a moment, Mortimer glaring, the wingless dragon’s gaze steady and insistent. Then Mortimer sighs.

“Fine. What do we do?”

“Just be careful.”

“Insightful.” He turns to the gathered bandits. “Fire.”

Emerald steps in front of Tremble as a hail of crossbow bolts flicker towards them. They cannot pierce Emerald’s scales, so to her it feels like being pelted with snowballs.

“I think you’ve made your defiance known, mayor,” Emerald says. “Please go back to your home. I can hold them here, but it will be more difficult if I have to protect you.”

Tremble gives a trembling nod.

As she starts walking, Emerald turns back to the bandits.

“I’m going to fight you,” she says. “And if you win, then the town is yours again. Until that happens, though, anyone who decides to take a free shot at the mayor will be the first to die.” That said, she inhales her pilot.

Just as her blood catches, a crossbow snaps.

“Shit,” Emerald says. She isn’t close enough to intercept it. She just has to hope that it misses its mark. Instead, she explodes forward, indigo fire leaking from beneath her scales.

Though she cannot outrun a crossbow bolt, she can come close. By the time it reaches its destination, her hand is emerging from the other side of the marksman’s head. She tosses him aside and breathes on his compatriots, melting armour and scorching flesh. Screams echo out over the mountain as they scatter before her, diving into snowdrifts to try and soothe their burns.

She catches an axe in her left hand, stopping it dead on its path to her neck. She then stands from her slouch and faces down the man named Mortimer.

“Oh,” he says as his axe starts to melt.

Emerald uses what’s left of the weapon to yank him off balance and goes to punch his head off his shoulders.

“I told you to be careful,” the wingless dragon growls, catching her fist before it can connect. “Take any who can still follow and retreat to the edge of town.”

The fire around Emerald’s fist emerges in fits and flickers, and where his scales touch hers, she feels the fizz of heat meeting cold. She lets Mortimer retreat and takes a step back from her new opponent, watching out of the corner of her eye as the bandits regroup in the snow. He flexes his claws around his palm, but the scales there look undamaged.

Emerald breathes flame, engulfing him in a cloak of his own that twists into a short-lived pillar of light.

When it fades, he is still standing, this time wearing a grin.

“It was worth a try,” Emerald says.

“I knew the dragons were proud,” he says. “But it seems you don’t even know what I am, let alone who.”

“My dragonly education is lacking,” Emerald agrees. “But I’m not embarrassed about not knowing the name of a small-time mountain bandit.”

His expression sours at that. “I may be a bandit for now, but at home I am a prince – L’Sweren Riss, heir to the crystal empire of the drakes.”

“If you’re the one who used to be a prince then I’m not the one who needs to feel embarrassed, am I?” Emerald says. She can’t afford to have this conversation. Her cowl has a time limit, and when it expires, she will die the same death as Bronze, her brother’s consort. Either that, or she will successfully extinguish her blood only to have it freeze and kill her that way.

She coats him in flame again, then lunges after it.

“That won’t-” he manages before her fist crashes into his jaw, sending him careening off the gondola platform and into a snow drift. She leaps into the air after him, a billow of fire erasing any sign of the drift as she begins her descent. He’s sprawled across the rocks, but this time he’s able to dodge just before her flame wreathed talons make a molten wreck of the stones.

He springs to his feet and wipes a trickle of blue blood from the corner of his mouth. There is anger in his icy eyes, now.

“Since I can’t melt you like I do most of my opponents,” Emerald says, “and you can’t freeze me at a touch like you presumably do yours, we’ll settle this with old-fashioned tooth and claw.” She pulls her wings in tight against her back and then falls into a fighting stance. As one of the few dragons around with roughly human proportions, Emerald is perhaps the first of her race to learn martial arts beyond the brutal, flailing brawls she’d grown up with.

The drake prince snarls and comes at her, the knee-deep snow no impediment to his movements. He drops to all-fours before leaping at her, and it occurs to Emerald a little too late that the martial forms she has so painstakingly practiced as she travelled the endless forest were all designed for fighting human shaped opponents. The drake is suddenly more like a panther than a man, and she is barely able to nudge aside his claws as he collapses onto her. She can do little about his legs, and apparently a drake’s claws are just as sharp as a dragon’s, because she feels them dig past the scales of her thigh.

She grits her teeth and grabs his wrists to keep him from her throat. Now that he is on her, the fight resembles wrestling — something she is more familiar with. She brings her legs in close, wincing as his claws tear free of her and take some of her scales with them. She then kicks out, shoving him off her but keeping hold of his arms so that he flips over her head and onto his back.

They both come back to their feet, and there is a brief stand-off before they come together again. Emerald finds herself reverting to the style of fighting of her youth, when all her conflicts had been simple brawls between dragons trying to prove themselves before the rest of Yl Torat. Before she’d learned of a world so much bigger than all that. Blue blood chills her scales where it splatters from her claws, while her own blood burns like spilled lantern oil everywhere it falls.

For a while, the drake holds his advantage. He has been nurturing his animal instincts for violence his entire life, while Emerald has attempted to leave hers behind. She hasn’t succeeded, however. As the fight drags on, though her body begins to ache from her burning blood, she finds that the animal is still inside her. She finds herself smiling, and wonders if this is how Rolleck the Lost feels when he fights.

She also finds that all her training was not for nothing after all. Between primal growls and feral strikes, she sees wasted movements and openings she can exploit.

The drake leaves her the perfect chance, and instead of just raking his scales with her claws and leaving minimal damage, she grabs his arm and pivots it round. He reacts with surprise, trying to move away and only worsening his balance. She uses his misstep to force him to the ground on his belly, his arm twisted up behind him. Then she puts everything she has into the twist, and a monstrous crack rings out around the town.

The drake screams, but Emerald keeps hold of the arm and plants her foot on the back of his neck to keep him from writhing free. She’s almost at the limit of her cowl, but even so she is reluctant to end it so easily. The drake has given her a good fight.

Something responds to his scream. Something deep and loud and terrible, lost amidst snow and darkness. The ground starts to shake with the reverberations of enormous footsteps.

“Shit,” the drake says between pained breaths. “I hate that thing.”

“What is it?” Emerald says.

“I don’t know. It’s dangerous, though. Even to me. The boss never should have kept it around.”

A shadow looms up between two houses at the edge of the town, and another bass roar knocks snow from rooftops and tree branches. It is coming towards Emerald, perhaps attracted by the sound of fighting or perhaps ordered to by the now-missing Mortimer.

Emerald steps off the drake and turns to face the monster. It seems to drag the gloom of night with it as it walks, leaving only the impression of rimed fur and glowing red eyes.

For the space of a heartbeat, Emerald is frightened. Wrapped in her cowl and with the heat of battle running through her, she nevertheless feels a chill. Like her blood has already frozen.

Then someone yells “Yahooooo!” and something large, black and vaguely rectangular ramps off the roof of the house to her left in a shower of snow. It hits the monster in the side of the head with a clang like a church bell, losing its momentum and breaking into two parts. One of them is notably human in shape. Both thunk down into the snow, while the monster keels over backwards with a crash that once again sets the ground shaking.

Emerald and the drake both stare gormlessly at the mess.

Then Riyo Falemoon’s head bursts from a pile of snow.

“What a rush!” she says, looking over at the chunk of metal she has ridden into a mountain monster. “Let’s do it again!”

Emerald blinks as the metal sits up by itself. Snow cascades from one side of it, then moulds itself into a massive arm. It rubs the top of the box.

“Ouch,” a soft, metallic voice says. “No. That hurt.”

“Really?” Riyo says.

The box stops rubbing its head and sighs. “No. Not really. I don’t want to do that again, though.” Its snow arm recedes, moving back inside the box like a snake. A metal flap falls back into place over the spot where it had emerged.

“I guess climbing back up the mountain would be a pain,” Riyo says, pulling herself out of her self-made igloo and brushing snow from her coat. “What stopped us, anyway?” She finally begins to take in her surroundings. “Oh, hey Emerald.”

“Where have you been?” Emerald says. Then shakes her head. “Actually, I don’t care.” Her veins hurt. “I need to get back to the… mayor’s… house… Shit. I forgot about the mayor!”

Riyo’s eyes go wide and she runs after Emerald.

“There’s a monster here,” Glitter says behind them. “Oh! Maybe this is the one that eats people!”

Emerald darts around the corner onto the main street and makes a bee-line for the lump of black cloth near the gondola. The crossbow bolt had not missed her.

Both of them skid in the snow as they come to a stop.

“Shit,” Emerald says. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have got distracted fighting that drake.”

“Who did this?” Riyo asks. She looks angry.

“Bandits. They’ve been holding the town hostage for a long time. You’ve missed a lot.”

“Clearly,” Riyo says. “Point me at these bandits.”

“I’m fine,” a muffled voice says.

They both blink at the mayor. The blob begins reorienting itself, until the hat is pointing at the sky once more. Then it rises slightly to reveal the ruddy face of mayor Tremble.

“The bolt didn’t get through my layers,” she says.

Riyo takes hold of quarrel and pulls. It comes free with the soft sound of wool tearing. She then peers into the hole.

“Do you actually have a body, Mrs. Mayor?”

She chuckles softly.

“I need to recover,” Emerald says. The situation is getting a little urgent for her. She needs to be inside when her flame goes out, and it needs to go out soon. “Riyo, can you deal with that monster if it gets back up?”

There is a massive crash, then a high-pitched wail starts up. It gets progressively louder until Glitter rounds the corner, his little legs causing his over-wide body to waddle as he runs. He is screaming, and has made a comical, wide-eyed face on his glass. Behind him comes the crunch and clatter of the monster in pursuit.

“By the sunlight stone,” Tremble breathes. “It’s here…”

“I got it,” Riyo says. “Get the mayor home.”

Emerald nods. “Thanks. See you later.”

Tremble glides through the snow after the burning dragon, swinging around a set of buildings to avoid the path of the monster. Her hat swivels back and forth as she glances over her shoulder at Riyo, concern etched into her weathered face.

Riyo, meanwhile, steps in front of Glitter and changes gravity around her so that, for all intents and purposes, there is a solid wall in front of her. Glitter hits it and bounces off.

“Hey!” he says. “There’s a monster coming!”

Said monster bounds around the corner at that moment, using its giant fists like forelegs. It stops to glare red hatred at its surroundings, then its eyes light on Riyo and Glitter.

“I don’t think we need to worry,” Riyo says.

“But it’s huge,” Glitter says, turning to face it and backing up slowly. “Look at its arms!”

It roars and plunges towards them.

“Your father,” Riyo says, still watching the oncoming monster. She imagines being punched by those fists would be a lot like being hit by a magical space train. “He’s not around anymore, right?”

“No.”

“Where did he live?”

“Here. In Coldton,” Glitter says, glancing around. “He loved this place.”

“That monster’s making a mess of the place your father loved,” Riyo says.

“Then… then somebody should stop it, shouldn’t they?”

“Mhmm,” Riyo says. She flares her reality out to encompass the monster, then pushes against it. As she suspects, it resists, barely slowing as gravity around it begins pulling it back down the street. She glances at Glitter. The monster is now seconds away.

“Okay,” Glitter says.

Snow bursts from his two shoulder flaps, churning far faster than the earlier avalanche. In the blink of an eye there is enough swirling around him to cover one of the houses and, in the moment before the monster’s impact, it compacts inwards with a soft crunch. What is left is a bulky, humanoid snowman with a glowing blue heart.

Riyo takes a step back as the two giants come together. They grapple for a moment, pitching their strength against each other but coming to a stalemate. Then Glitter drops away suddenly, making the monster stumble forward. Glitter grabs the monster’s head, his hands losing their shape and becoming a ball of ice that holds the creature fast. His body then comes apart, flowing over the monster like the wind-driven blizzard and reforming behind him. He flings the creature down the street with a metallic yell that is muffled by the snow.

Riyo cheers as the monster comes crashing down beyond the mayor’s house.

“So, it wasn’t just the bird and the swordsman,” someone says behind her.

She swivels to find a man in a black wolf-pelt and spectacles standing behind her. He is grinning maliciously despite the dried blood on his forehead and down the side of his face. Behind him, on the gondola platform, a group of singed bandits are gathered around a pile of mostly-broken weapons. Their apparent leader, a man with some of an axe, is scowling at the wingless dragon from earlier.

Riyo frowns. “Who’re you?”

To her left, Glitter gasps. “Oh no! It’s the bad man.”

“Oh,” Riyo says, glancing at the ice robot. He has retracted into his case, and the face on the glass has its eyes closed in despair.

“This town-” The man is interrupted by the gondola whirring into motion again. He turns and glares at the axeman. “Turn that off.”

“We can’t, boss,” he says. “We broke the stop button at this end, remember?”

The boss’s face darkens. “Then anything that comes out of the gondola dies immediately.” He turns back to Riyo and Glitter. “This town is mine,” he growls, far less grand than whatever his speech was going to be before the interruption. “I’ve been made a fool of today, and I don’t like it. These people need to learn their place. Learn that no matter who they ask to help them, only I can decide what happens here. Only me.”

“No wonder Emerald wanted to kick your ass,” Riyo says. “Let’s squish him, Glitter.” She turns to her new friend, but his metal body is shaking on its spindly legs.

“I can’t fight the bad man,” he moans.

“That’s right,” the boss says. Then he says, “Whiteout.”

Riyo feels his reality enfold her and narrows her eyes. “Oh. Gravity Mould.”

The man’s smile wavers for a moment, but then he rallies.

“So, you’re a crafter, too. Well, it doesn’t matter. Here, my reality can’t be beaten.” He looks to Glitter.

Something cold and hard hits Riyo in the side, sending her smashing through the window of a shop and into the counter. She manages to slow herself so that the impact is small, but the initial hit and the shattering glass came too quickly. She pulls herself to her feet and ignores the throbbing of her left arm and the sting of a pair of cuts on her face.

Glitter has become a snowman again, but this time his heart glows red.

“All of this snow,” the boss says. “All of this ice. All of it, mine.”

Glitter takes a step towards Riyo.

“Uh oh,” she says.

 

 

 

 

 

“What’s special about this one, then?” Tremble asked, sipping from a mug of rock cherry juice and peering over his shoulder at the crystal.

“I don’t know,” Albert said. “That’s what’s exciting about it. Look at the way it glows.”

It pulsed blue again, as if showing off.

“Do you think it’s more powerful?”

Albert shook his head. “All the readings are the same as other crystals of this size.” He tapped the output gauge to demonstrate, but Tremble didn’t bother looking at it. She was his greatest gift – the woman he had given up prestige and acclaim for – but she wasn’t a scientist like him. Even so, she trusted in everything he said and did.

“Well, I’ll leave you to your probing, then,” she said, leaning down and kissing him on the cheek. “Just remember there’s a town meeting this afternoon. We need to decide what to do about the poor dears coming in from the capital.”

“I know, I know,” Albert said with a smile. “I’m sure I can find a way to make a bit more space if any of them want to stay. I think I might be able to attach something to the snow plough to make digging out new plots a whole lot easier.”

“One thing at a time, dear,” Tremble said, offering him one of her winning smiles.

“Right, right,” he turned back to the crystal while Tremble went downstairs. “What do you have to teach me, then?”

The crystal flashed again, then returned to the same soft glow as before. Now that he thought about it, Albert realised it had been much more active while he was talking to his wife.

“Is it responding to my voice?” he wondered aloud.

The crystal flashed again.

“Huh.”

Flash.

“It seems that it is.”

Flash.

Albert took a hammer from his toolbox and tapped it against the wood of his desk. The crystal’s light remained low. He tapped louder, and then louder still, but each time the crystal ignored him. He tried making a few different sounds by hitting metal and clapping, but the crystal didn’t respond.

“Only my voice?” he said.

Flash.

Albert’s eyes went wide at the implication of this.

“Can you… can you understand me?”

Flash.

“Flash once for ‘yes’ and twice for ‘no’,” he tried.

Flash. Just the one.

Albert grimaced, then glanced around, struggling for a way to test the crystal. Since he had no idea what the crystal knew or didn’t know, it was hard coming up with questions for which he knew the answer was no. So far, the crystal had only done singular flashes. If he could make it do a double flash, then it was one step towards proving it wasn’t a coincidence.

Maybe asking complex questions wasn’t the way forward. The odds of a sentient ice crystal from Calis even understanding his words was shockingly low. He needed something easier to understand even without a shared language.

He picked up his hammer again and moved close to the crystal.

“One,” he said, and tapped the desk once.

Flash.

“Two,” he said. A single word, but he accompanied it with two taps.

The crystal flashed once.

“Two,” he said again, tapped twice.

The crystal flashed. Then, after a moment, flashed again without Albert saying anything to trigger it.

Heart racing, Albert said, “Three,” and tapped three times.

The crystal flashed three times.

By this point, Albert was shaking so much he was having difficulty holding onto the hammer, but he managed to take the crystal up to ten. Each time it grew more confident, having figured out what he wanted it to do.

“Holy shit,” he breathed.

The crystal flashed once, then again with a little delay, almost seeming uncertain.

Albert glanced around, then put the hammer down carefully, trying to show the crystal that the game was over.

It flashed once more, then settled to its normal glow.

It seemed what mattered wasn’t what the crystal could teach him, but what he could teach the crystal.

 

Over the next few weeks, Albert grew convinced that the crystal wasn’t a simple life-form, but a new one. A blank canvas capable of thoughts matching, or maybe even exceeding his own, if only it had someone to teach it. He kept his discovery secret, unsure how the people of Coldton would respond to an alien lifeform among them. He kept talking around it, in the hopes that it would begin to pick up language in the same way a human infant would; passively absorbing until it was ready to begin experimenting with the sounds on its own.

But then, how would it do that?

As soon as the thought came to him, Albert began searching for ways to let the crystal speak to him. Ice crystals were used as power sources because they constantly drew in the heat around them and sequestered it. Even small amounts of heat were used so efficiently that they could provide more than enough power to operate anything he thought to create if he syphoned it out correctly. Perhaps a sentient crystal could control how it used that energy. Perhaps well enough to power things as and when it wanted to.

He could build it a body.

That became his task, and he quickly realised he couldn’t do it at home, so he made up an excuse about his next project being a little too dangerous to keep in the house and found himself a cave a short way from town.

It took him nearly six months, but after a number of failed attempts and plenty of one-way conversations with the crystal, he finished the base.

 

“This may hurt a little,” Albert said, easing the crystal out of its cradle. Even with his thick protective gloves, the chill of it pressed against his palms and threatened to numb them before he could put it on the base. With the crystal in the new cradle, he began turning the crank that would insert the syphon. He was almost sure it would work. His calculations had never been wrong before. But there was a nagging doubt in the bottom of his stomach that said the operation would kill the crystal.

He reached the point of no return and hesitated, then closed his eyes and turned the crank once more. A high pitched, metallic sound began resonating around the cavern, barely audible. Albert turned the crank once more and it became almost deafening.

“It’s over,” he yelled. His voice joined the squeal and was consumed by it.

It continued for a while then, just as Albert was ready to roll the crank back and remove the syphon, its pitch fell. It came down in steps, almost like someone playing the keys of a piano in order. Then it stopped.

Albert’s heart provided a beat for the scale, drumming against his rib cage. In the silence that followed the wail’s end, it sounded like a galloping horse.

“Glitter?” he said. He’d taken to calling the crystal that for the way its facets caught the sun on clear days.

The crystal pulsed a response, and another metallic sound emerged. Glitter seemed intrigued by that. It started making more noises, flickering through different pitches and modulations, exulting in its new communicative powers. It was all over the place for a while, then it started making bursts of sounds that almost felt like words.

“Fa…th…er.”

“What?” Albert said, his heart somehow managing to find an even faster rhythm.

“Fa…ther. Fa…ther. Father.”

 

 

Glitter learned quickly – far faster than a human child. He decided for himself that he was a ‘he’ after Albert explained what gender was. He also decided that he wanted to be a scientist after Albert explained what a scientist was. Together, they built his body from its simple base into an impenetrable fortress to protect his vulnerable crystal. Then, they turned to new projects. All the while, Glitter learned. Albert’s theories and ideals, his passions and his woes. Everything he knew and felt, he taught to Glitter.

“I have finished the modifications to the plough, father,” Glitter said. He knew it was powered by a crystal not dissimilar to him, but they had tested other crystals and found no sign of sentience in them. He was special.

“Thanks, Glitter,” Albert said. He seemed a little pensive.

“What is troubling you?”

He smiled at that. “Sometimes you can read me even better than my wife can.”

“You are deflecting, father.”

“You see?” Albert gave a short, sharp laugh. “Oh, but you’re right. I am.” He wandered over to the plough, and Glitter tottered after him.

“I think it’s time, Glitter,” he said. “Time for you to meet her.”

Glitter ‘breathed’ on his glass and made a shocked face. It was something he had discovered that always made Albert smile. He did so now.

“Past time, in fact. I don’t think I should have kept you sequestered up here by yourself for so long. I’ve realised that I don’t have the right to. Heck, you should be allowed to come and go as you please. Travel the world, even, instead of being stuck on this snowy mountain.”

“But I like this mountain,” Glitter said. “And I like you. Why would I want to leave?”

“Because this place is all you’ve known, Glitter. I’m the only person you’ve met. You might like other places and people even more. And even if you don’t,” he went on before Glitter could tell him that couldn’t possibly be true, “you deserve the chance to find that out for yourself.”

Glitter went to speak, then realised he didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t worry, though,” Albert said. “We’ll start slow.” He hopped up onto the plough and started its engine, filling their little cave with its hum. “Let’s go and meet Tremble. I’m sure she’ll love you.”

Glitter made a smiley face, then scurried over towards the door. Before he reached it, however, someone banged on it. The clang of metal stopped Glitter dead.

Albert frowned. “That’s odd.”

The person beyond the door smashed their fist into it again, insistent and frantic.

Albert jumped down from the plough and hurried over. “Play at sleep for a moment, Glitter.”

Glitter gave soft noise of assent and went to stand by the wall. He withdrew his legs, lowering his main chassis to the ground and then going still and dark. Like that, he just looked like another piece of machinery.

Albert nodded to him and then yanked open the door, the seal that kept their heat in hissing as it broke. A woman in a lot of layers and a tall hat stumbled in through the gap and fell against Albert.

“Tremble,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“Bandits,” Tremble panted. “They came up out of the pass. I don’t know what to do, Al.”

Albert glanced around at his workshop, then grabbed the arc cannon they had been working on for the last few weeks. It was still highly unstable, and Glitter almost said as much before remembering he was pretending to be a cupboard.

Tremble’s features were a little different from Alberts, but Glitter was still able to recognise the look of apprehension on her face.

“There are so many of them, Al,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Albert said, strapping the harness that came with the cannon to his back. “As soon as we show them we aren’t easy prey, they’ll back off.” He shook his head. “With the rebellion gaining traction, we should have seen this coming.”

“I know,” Tremble said. “I feel like this is my fault.”

“Nobody said anything at any of our meetings, Trem. It’s a failure of the entire council. But we can get our act together after we deal with the present crisis. Come on.”

They both ran outside, Albert sparing a quick glance for Glitter before the door closed with a metal crash.

Glitter waited exactly three minutes, then popped his legs out and started pacing. He hadn’t heard the word ‘bandits’ before, but the way they talked about them, and the fact his father had taken the arc cannon, suggested they were bad. Could Glitter help? Tremble had said there were lots of them. If he didn’t help, what might happen to his father? Glitter imagined waiting here. And waiting. And waiting. Until he knew in his core that his father was not going to return. A sense of dread settled on him like a layer of fresh snow, growing heavier and heavier, until even his amazing body of tempered glass and refined steel was crushed by it.

Glitter turned to the door and let his snow slither out and hook the handle. The air outside was crisp, the sky a perfect blue that let the sun bore down through the cold between the trees. Glitter stepped outside by himself for the first time and turned to follow the tracks that blemished the white sheet that coated the mountain.

 

 

Albert stumbled into town with no breath left and had to lean against the wall of their house for a while to recover. Tremble had kept pace with him and was considerably less exhausted. Down the main street, he could see the bandits gathered by the gondola. Their clothing was mismatched and rough, their weapons and armour damaged. As he had guessed, they were refugees of the violence in the capital. Which side they had fought for, however, wasn’t immediately apparent.

“Go inside,” he told Tremble.

“No way,” she said. “You are not facing them alone.”

He thought to argue, but then decided Coldton didn’t have the time.

“Fine. Stay close, then.”

“Always,” Tremble said, smiling in spite of everything. She looked so beautiful when she smiled. Albert fell in love with her all over again every time she did.

The bandits seemed to be waiting for something, so, together, they made their way down the main street. Once they were noticed, one of the bandits stepped forward to meet them. He was fairly short and stocky, and his wolf pelt declared him to be a former police officer. From what Albert had heard, the capital police force had dissolved entirely almost as soon as the rebellion started rather than declare itself for one side or the other.

“Good afternoon,” the man said. His smile was the very opposite of Tremble’s. It promised only unhappiness to anyone who saw it. “This is a nice little town.”

“Thank you,” Tremble said. Her voice was rock steady. “I am its mayor, Tremble. May I ask why you’ve come?”

“My name is Yrith,” the man said, “And these are my friends. We’re looking for a place to call home.”

“Coldton is a little small for a group of your size,” Tremble said, “but I’m sure hard-working, law-abiding fellows such as yourself would be able to help us expand so you can pick out a plot.”

“That’s the thing, though,” Yrith said. “We’re not all that hard-working. Or law-abiding, come to that.”

“That’s enough,” Albert said. “You’re here to take whatever you want from us.”

Yrith’s smile curled a little higher on one side.

“I suppose, if you want to do away with the trappings of polite conversation, then yes, that about sums it up.”

“Well we won’t let you.”

“And how, pray tell, will you stop us? I did my research on your little town, Mrs. Mayor. You don’t have a Song garrison. You don’t even have a police force. You can only send for help when trouble arises, and with things the way they are in Saviour’s Call… Well. You don’t have a lot of choices that I can see.”

“We’ve always been able to do for ourselves,” Albert said, then hefted the arc cannon. “So, you get one chance to leave before I show you what we’re made of.”

Yrith raised an eyebrow. “I see. Then show me.”

The arc cannon had a pair of metal rods sticking up from the backpack that housed the ice crystal, and when Albert activated it, lines of raw, blue energy arced between them. Sparks and spurts of power made their way down a rubber tube that linked the backpack to the main weapon. Albert raised it, and Yrith’s smile disappeared.

Lightning burst from the maw of the weapon in twisted strands, burning the air and melting the snow. A pillar of ice burst up from the ground between the two men, and the projectile crashed into it, smashing it to shards and filling the air with chill mist.

“What?” Tremble said.

Albert took a step back as Yrith’s smile returned. “He’s a crafter, Trem.”

“That’s a nice weapon you’ve got there,” Yrith said, taking a step forward. “I wonder what other nice things you’ve got for me.” He looked back. “Looks like we’ve found our new kingdom, boys.” He then looked up, past Albert and Tremble. “Kings of the Mountain.”

The bandits cheered. Albert charged the arc cannon for another shot, but his heart told him it was useless. He had been confident his inventions alone would be enough to deter bandits if they ever needed to, but a crafter? Lightning roared and broke only ice.

“It looks like you have a choice,” Yrith said. “You can do exactly as I say, or you and every last man, woman and child in the town can die.”

Albert readied the cannon t fire again, but Tremble laid a hand on his arm.

“Don’t,” she said.

Albert gritted his teeth.

“A wise choice, Mrs. Mayor,” Yrith said. “To start with, let’s all go to your house and have a nice little chat about how this is going to work between us.”

 

 

 

Glitter stumbled into Coldton as night was falling. He had wrapped his stubby legs in his own snow to help them push through the snow on the ground, but this was the furthest he had ever walked. He was tired. He hadn’t known he could become tired.

It didn’t matter. His father was in danger, and he would ignore any and all new feelings that might stop him from protecting the man who had given him this life. He found a long street near the middle of the town, and at one end there was a big fire surrounded by people. Were they townsfolk? Or bandits? What did bandits even look like?

“Oh,” someone said behind him. He stumbled back from the road and pressed himself against the side of a house. “One more thing.”

“What?” Albert said. Glitter would recognise his voice anywhere. “You’ve asked us to give you everything already. What more could you take?”

“We need to make an example. To prove to the town that we’re serious.”

“No…” Tremble said.

“I’m afraid so, Mrs. Mayor. And since only one person in the town attempted to fight back, it seems fairly clear to me who that example should be.”

“You’re a monster,” Tremble said.

“Call the town,” the man said, ignoring her. “They have an execution to witness.”

“You really think I’ll just walk to the chopping block with you?” Albert said.

“Yes. Because if you don’t, I’ll kill you right here and make an example of your wife instead.”

There was a painful pause.

“Make me your example,” Tremble said. Her voice was fierce.

“Trem, no,” Albert said. “It’s okay.”

“The town needs you more,” Tremble said. “You’ve made such a difference.”

“The things I’ve made haven’t kept people together, Trem. That was you. And you can keep them together through this, too.”

“How can I do anything if I don’t have you?”

“You’re strong, Trem. Stronger than anyone I’ve ever met. Everything passes, in time, and you’re the one with the strength to endure that time.”

“This has been truly touching,” Yrith said. “But you’re talking as if there was ever a choice.” He grabbed Albert by the arm. “There wasn’t. If Mrs. Mayor leads the town, the people endure, as you say. If you lead, you’ll foment a rebellion and I’ll have to kill everyone and find a new town all the sooner.” He dragged Albert past where Glitter was sat, dark and unmoving, and down towards the fire.

For a moment, there was only silent snowfall. Then Glitter heard Tremble weeping.

He didn’t know what to do. He had promised he wouldn’t let new feelings overwhelm him, but it turned out the ones he already recognised were more than enough by themselves. Above all, he was scared. Scared to do something wrong and make things even worse. Even if he could save his father, what if that meant the bandits destroyed the town? Albert wouldn’t be happy with that. He might even hate Glitter for it. But he was also scared to do nothing, because that would surely mean his father’s death. What had Albert said? ‘Sometimes you can read me better than my wife.’ But only sometimes. If there was anybody who could tell him what his father would want, it was Mayor Tremble.

He pushed his feet free of his chassis and tottered carefully around the house. Tremble’s woollen form squatted by the side of the road, shaking as she cried. Glitter approached her slowly, clearing the frost from his glass so his crystal showed clearly. His light drew Tremble’s attention, and she staggered back from him.

“Hello,” he said softly.

“What…?” Tremble managed.

“My name is Glitter. Father wanted me to meet you.”

The evening pushed by in silence for several seconds with Tremble staring at him.

“The crystal,” Tremble said slowly. “The unusual crystal.”

Glitter ‘breathed’ and drew himself a soft smile. “That’s right.”

“How…”

“I don’t know,” Glitter said. “I just am. Father gave me this body, helped me speak. Taught me language and science. And now…”

He turned and looked down the sloping street to where the town was beginning to gather.

“What do I do?”

“I…” Tremble said, then shook her head. “What can you do?”

“I don’t know,” Glitter said. “I’ve never really… stretched myself. I might be able to save him but… but if I can’t, then…”

“Everything will be so much worse,” Tremble said, nodding. She seemed to be taking Glitter’s appearance rather well, and he felt a pang of regret that his father had waited so long before introducing them. Perhaps he had been right. Perhaps he could find people he liked as much as his father, and perhaps they would like him, too.

Tremble shook her head. “Possibilities are no reason to watch someone you love die before your eyes, Glitter. We have to try everything.”

“Okay,” Glitter said, flashing bright. His crystal span faster, turning his interior into a whirlwind of shimmering crystal and white powder. His light lanced through it like flickers of lightning hidden in the clouds. He turned and threw himself after his father, his stubby legs immediately falling behind and pitching him onto his face. He didn’t care. He grasped at the snow ahead of him with his thoughts and crushed it into sheets of ice that let him slide down the hill, picking up speed as he went.

Yrith turned at the sound of crunching ice, but by then, Glitter was moving faster than any avalanche. Yrith’s eyes barely had chance to widen before Glitter crashed into his legs, sending him spinning into the air with a scream. His spectacles slapped into the wall of a nearby shop and smashed.

Glitter pulled at the snow around himself and added his own to the mix, building drifts in seconds that he then smashed through. More screams erupted from the people around the fire, and they lurched aside to let Glitter crash through it. Fire arced through the evening, leaving orange smudges on the air and turning snow to steam before they were overcome by meltwater. With a final, thundering boom, Glitter impacted the gondola platform and came to a stop.

He rose amidst a flurry of snow, drawing more to him and forming the body of a giant. Blue light pulsed from him in waves, worming its way through the gaps between snowflakes like blood through veins. With a crunch, he pulled the snow in tight around him. Then he turned to the humans below. Many were running. Some held weapons, and some did not, so Glitter decided he would punch those who were armed.

A man with a large axe stepped forward and swung it into Glitter’s leg. The snow cracked and broke apart, then reformed at Glitter’s will.

The man looked up slowly.

Glitter slapped him away, and he sailed over the gondola platform and out of the town. After that, none of the bandits attacked Glitter. Instead, they tried to flee. Glitter chased them around, flinging those he caught out of Coldton, until the night fell silent around him.

“Glitter.”

Glitter turned to find Albert standing behind him in the street. He let his snow crumble away, gently depositing him on his spindly legs in front of his father. A silent moment passed, and a thousand fears flew through Glitter’s mind. Had he made the wrong choice after all?

Albert ran forward and hugged him. His arm span was barely enough to reach either edge of Glitter’s wide body, but the sentiment was exactly enough to make Glitter’s crystal stop pulsing for several seconds.

“Thank you. Thank you for saving my life.”

“I thought about you never coming back,” Glitter said, voice high and soft. “I couldn’t bear it.”

“I’m so glad,” Albert said, pulling away. “You’re a hero. Come on. Everyone’s gathered by the gondola to welcome you to Coldton.” He was smiling, and there were tears in the corners of his eyes. “Everyone’s going to love you.”

The townsfolk had rebuilt the fire, and it cast its warmth and light over a crowd of bundled-up people with flickering eyes and wary expressions. They were tall and short, fat and thin, old and young. Glitter was shocked by how different they were from one another. And yet, just as he had with Albert and Tremble, Glitter could see how they felt. Could almost feel those same feelings by looking at their faces. They were unsure, but they knew what he had done for them, and they could see that Albert was with him. Maybe they wouldn’t understand immediately, but his father was right. He was sure they would grow to like him, and that he would grow to like them.

“Everyone,” Albert said, stopping before the crowd. “I’d like you to meet Glitter. He’s-”

 

“An ice crystal,” someone said.

Everyone turned to the gondola machine. A shadow detached itself and stepped into the firelight.

“You,” Albert said, his voice cold.

“Yes,” the bandit leader said. He was smiling, the flickering of the flames casting it as a fearful rictus.

“You aren’t welcome here. Begone with the rest of your troupe of rogues,” Tremble said.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “You’ve brought me too great a gift to leave behind.”

“Glitter, run!” Albert said.

“Too late, too late!” Yrith screamed. “Whiteout!”

The snow bunched in around Glitter, and he rose amidst it as his giant puppet formed. He felt nothing. Not surprise, not anger, not fear. The cold around him took on a red hue. Like blood.

“This is my power,” Yrith shouted. “And this is my town.”

People ran and screamed. Glitter watched them, impassive.

Then, something tugged at his attention. Something important. Something vital. If only he could focus on it.

“Stop, Glitter. Please.”

A voice so familiar. That he had heard so much of. It really shouldn’t be this difficult to place it. To understand what was happening.

“This is the price of defiance,” Yrith said.

“Glitter! Wake up! Glitter!”

Glitter raised a massive fist. Clenched it. Clenched it so hard it became a ball of dense ice that glittered in the firelight.

“I love you, Glitter.”

Glitter slammed his fist into the ground.

Someone screamed, and Glitter could feel again. It rushed back to him in a moment, bringing with it a pain so immense it hid everything else.

He knew what he had done.

“Get out of here!”

He focused on the voice. Mayor Tremble stood over Yrith, a piece of burning wood in her hand.

“Go, Glitter. Never come back here!”

Yrith clutched at his head. Dazed, for now, but not for long. Tremble went to hit him again, but he managed to throw his arm in the way, stumbling back from her.

“GO!” she screamed. There were tears rolling down her cheeks and soaking into the wool of her collar.

Glitter lurched away, barely in control of his puppet. It began to fall apart as he fled, crumbling away behind him until he was left to his little legs. His little legs his father had built him. Glitter began to wail, let his anguish escape in the voice his father had given him. He ran and screamed and ran and screamed until the mountain swallowed him, and he realised he was back home. Back in the little cave his father had carved out for them to live in.

Everything was so neat. So well placed. Categorised. Labelled. Perfect. It hurt to look at.

Glitter slammed the metal door closed and retracted his legs. He didn’t have eyes, but he was able to close himself down so that nothing got in. So that he was no different from the other ice crystals from Calis. In that darkness, he let his blizzard rage, until he had nothing left.

Calis. That was where he was from, and perhaps where he belonged. He had taken everything from the very man who had given him everything. He certainly didn’t belong here, with those he had taken Albert from.

He let the world back in. He had made a wreck of the lab. Instruments and workbenches were strewn all over the place; work that had taken them weeks torn apart in a matter of minutes. It didn’t matter. The one thing Glitter knew was that none of this mattered. He could not stay in the only place he had ever known, so he must return where he came from. Perhaps there, he would find a new meaning, or at least a quiet place to die.

Glitter stood up and began work on his first rocket.

 

 

 

 

Yrith the bandit is not a weak crafter. He is not as strong as Riyo, she thinks, but it takes a massive disparity in strength for one crafter to simply shut down another’s reality. The difference between the two of them is not so great, and so, as with the colour wraith in Fefille, their realities overlap. It becomes a little more difficult for Riyo to craft inside Yrith’s reality, and vice versa for him. It is next to impossible for her to, for example, crush him into a ball of mulch – affecting another trained crafter directly is very difficult indeed, even if you can see them.

In theory, then, they are on a level playing field.

In practice, Riyo bounces up to another rooftop just in time to avoid being smashed into paste by a dense mallet of ice. Glitter is surprisingly spry, and any damage Riyo is able to inflict on him in spite of Yrith’s reality is immediately healed by more snow. Whatever his true body is made of, Riyo could seriously hurt herself trying to create enough pressure to crush it. She doesn’t want to do that, anyway, since Glitter is her friend. Yrith himself will not stay in her line of sight, dodging behind buildings and creating barriers of ice to hide from her. He hopes Glitter will be able to finish her as long as his reality keeps her from bringing her full strength to bear on him.

Annoyingly, he is probably right.

Extra annoyingly, the giant monster from earlier is now lumbering down the road towards their fight. Its shadowy figure is barely visible in the few lights that parade along Coldton’s main road, but its red eyes smoulder with hatred and its teeth glint like sharpened stars.

“Hey, Glitter!” she yells as he leaps at her once again. She redirects him, and he overshoots her rooftop and comes crashing down in the street behind. “It’d really help me if you’d wake up!”

The snow giant turns to look at her, though it has no eyes.

A gentle crinkling of the air draws her attention round, and she manages to dive from the roof just before a hail of sharpened icicles crack the slates that she had been standing on. Unfortunately, that drops her into Glitter’s waiting arms.

He tries to grab her in his snow fist, but she pushes outwards. He is left holding a ball of inverted gravity with her at the centre.

“Oi, Glitter! Come on! You’re breaking a load of stuff your dad really cared about, here.”

The snow golem looks up, as though it is thinking. For a moment, Riyo thinks she might be getting through. Then she follows its non-existent gaze down the road to where the other monster has just come around the corner.

“Oh shit,” she says, remembering the way that creature had basically ignored her reality earlier. She looks back. “Glitter. Please don’t.”

The golem throws back its arm and pitches her and her little sphere of safety like a fastball, right towards the waiting monster.

Riyo lets her sphere go, and as the monster raises a be-clawed hand to smash her into the ground she tilts herself to one side. The creature can’t react fast enough, and Riyo rips her sword from her back and pushes the back of its blade with her reality to keep it from jarring out of her hands as it tears through the monster’s side.

She hits the snow hard as the monster howls, barely keeping her balance even with her reality. She doesn’t turn to see what she’s achieved. Instead, she starts running. Even if she did get a good hit in, she is outnumbered. She needs to find a way to change the situation somehow.

The ground shakes as both monsters begin their pursuit. Riyo’s reality makes her light and quick, her boots barely scraping the snow, let alone leaving prints. She bounds halfway up a corner shop and uses its wall to change direction, streaking towards the gondola. She can still feel Yrith’s reality surrounding her own, but he isn’t crafting much. It costs him very little to just hold it open and make her crafting more difficult. Even so, there’s an edge somewhere. Covering the whole town for this long would wear him out quickly, which means, if she can move fast, she might be able to draw the monster outside and face it one-on-one – a much more winnable fight.

The road ahead is suddenly blocked by ice, and Riyo is moving too quickly to stop. All she can do is push away from her raised palms and hope.

The ice breaks, but not quickly enough to keep chunks of it from pummelling her body as she flies through the barrier and smashes into the ground, rolling to a stop at the bottom of the main street. She lies in the snow, the damp soaking into her coat and her hair. Her breath roars in and out of her as she stares at the black layer of cloud that is still spilling its contents down over the mountain.

“This sucks,” she says.

“It’s about to get a lot worse,” a voice says.

Mortimer, with his axe that’s little more than a few scraps of metal clinging to a bo staff at this point, looms over her, wearing an awful grin.

“No,” Riyo says as he raises it to stave her skull in. “Not yet.”

It is gratifying to briefly face an opponent against whom her reality actually works. Mortimer sails off into the sky with a yell, and Riyo sits up and looks around. The monster is barrelling towards her, and it ignores the remnant of the ice barrier that brought her to a halt. Ice and frost billow up into the night, accompanied by another roar. Its side now glows like its eyes, its luminescent blood coating its fur and leaving trailing dots in the snow.

Its rumbling footsteps, however, are a muted slightly by the sound of the gondola, still whirring away into the night. Riyo looks over her shoulder, following the wire away to a rectangular smudge against the night sky. There is a speck of blue light atop it.

She grins. “Finally.”

She takes a few steps back as the monster rushes on. The arrow slams into the side of the creature’s head just as it raises its fist again. Its attack becomes a graceless pirouette that takes it over Riyo’s head, where it crashes into a building. Snow and roof tiles rain down upon its still form.

Glitter, who had been coming on behind the monster, stops short. For a moment, the only sound is the oncoming gondola. The tide feels as though it has shifted.

Then the monster roars and bounces to its feet again, smashing away more building as it does so. It leaves a gap in the wall as it blunders towards Riyo, revealing a terrified family huddling against the far wall. Glitter seems momentarily transfixed by them, his golem’s empty face pinning them in place. The walls of their home are bright and summery, like Tremble’s, and their warmth throws his cold, monolithic visage into stark relief.

Riyo jumps over the gondola platform and up onto its wire, the monster crashing after her. It grabs the cable, and, with little effort, snaps it.

“No! You idiot!” Yrith yells from somewhere behind her, but the monster begins thrashing the wire, sending a cascade of lethal sine waves leaping after her.

Ravi sees the monster coming and bangs urgently on the roof of the gondola, then dives free of it. A moment later, Rolleck kicks the door open and throws another person out before jumping after. Riyo is pleased to see her friends again, and leaps after them, letting the whip-crack of the wire slam into the gondola and drop it to the ground with an almighty crash.

She comes to rest beside Rolleck, who is sitting on his arse in a snow drift.

“Hi,” she says.

“Where the hell have you been?” he says without even looking at her. “Ravi? Where’s Wicker?”

“I’m here,” the boy says from a short way away. “Something broke my fall.”

The something turns out to be Mortimer. They all frown down at him for a moment. He is completely unconscious.

“So, uh, what’s been happening?” Ravi says from the tree branch he has managed to land on.

“Oh, y’know,” Riyo says, waving a hand vaguely. “The important thing for now is that we save Glitter.”

They all look at her for a moment.

“Who’s Glitter?” Ravi ventures.

Riyo points. The monster is coming towards them again. Its rage seems to be making it even stronger, making its eyes glow even fiercer.

“The big scary monster?” Ravi says.

“No,” Riyo says, as though that should be obvious. “Behind that.”

“The other big scary monster,” Rolleck says.

“Exactly.”

“Um,” Ravi says. He glances at Riyo, then decides trying to understand her mind is about as futile as trying to eat a tree. “So, uh, how do we save him?”

“I need you to take out that bandit leader guy.”

“Oh,” he says, brightening. “Well, I think we were planning something like that anyway.”

“Great,” Riyo says. “He’s hiding somewhere in town, doing crafter things. I’ll keep Glitter busy while you track him down. Rolleck, you take care of the monster.”

Rolleck turns to look at the avalanche of muscle, fur and blood descending towards them. He sighs.

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Um,” Wicker says.

“You should probably go check on the mayor,” Ravi says.

The kid seems to perk up at being given a role.

“Good idea,” Riyo says. “If you see Emerald, tell her we’re all fine.”

“Who’s Emerald?”

“You’ll probably know her when you see her.”

“Okay.”

There is a not-quite silence as they wait to see if anyone else has anything they need to say.

“Well then,” Riyo says, and the monster is on them.

Ravi jumps higher into the tree, Rolleck rolls aside, and Riyo grabs Wicker and backflips onto the creature’s head, using it as a springboard to send them both towards town. The creature’s fist comes down on nothing but Mortimer.

It doesn’t even notice, turning to follow the little insect that has bounced off its head. It makes to grab at them, but something slashes at its leg and it stumbles. It turns its fury on the insect that remains behind it, roaring into the moustachioed man’s face. He just smiles.

 

 

Ravi catches up to Riyo as she and Wicker reach the gondola platform. It is covered in cracks now, emerging from a single massive footprint that goes deep into the stone.

“How did you do that?” Wicker says, looking down at his legs. “It’s like… like we were flying.”

“Unfortunately, we weren’t,” Riyo says. She is still annoyed that she can’t do that.

Glitter is still staring at the house where the other monster landed. The family has fled to another room.

“Wicker, go straight to the mayor’s house,” Riyo says.

“But… the monster’s right there!”

“Yes, but we can see you all the way there and protect you if Yrith decides to go for you. Trust us and run.”

Wicker swallows, hesitates for a moment, then lets out a yell similar to his useless battle cry from earlier in the day.

Ravi sighs and covers his face.

“Keep him safe and find the bandit,” Riyo says.

“You got it, boss,” Ravi says, and skips up the wall of the souvenir shop to his left. He draws an arrow to his cheek. A slight twinkle is all he needs, and a streak of curse-breaker blue slams into the ground between Wicker’s legs. He stumbles in shock, looking back, then down. Another icicle tries to impale him, but a second arrow blasts it to powder before it can even form. A third threatens him from above, but all that reaches his head is a smattering of snow. It takes that long for him to start running again.

Ravi feels pressure to his right and spares a lightning glance to make sure he is not about to die. Riyo is on the roof, standing between him and a jagged ball of ice that is bigger than both of them together.

“Eyes on the prize, Ravi,” she says.

Ravi looses another arrow, smashing a wall of ice that has begun to form ahead of Wicker’s panicked charge. He does not know that much about crafting, but he has picked up a few things from travelling with Riyo. He knows that the easiest way for a crafter to open their reality is in a sphere with them at the centre. He knows that the edge of that sphere is absolute – they cannot craft even lightly outside it. Yrith is controlling Glitter, and he is not likely to let that control lapse just to kill Wicker.

He makes one last attempt, this time using multiple, smaller projectiles. Ravi curses under his breath and flicks two extra arrows onto his bowstring. They strike the ground around Wicker a fraction of a second after he lets go, making a rough triangle with the boy at the centre. Blue lightning crackles around and between them, making Wicker cry out. Arcs leap from the triangle at the slivers of razor-sharp ice before they can slice him to ribbons, and as the light fades, Wicker runs out of a fine mist and reaches for the door of the mayor’s house.

He bangs on it, and, though it takes almost half a minute for the door to open, there are no further attacks. When it does open, Wicker screams again and stumbles back, falling on his arse. Ravi’s fingers twitch, and he almost releases another arrow before he sees Emerald peer out of the door, then grab Wicker’s ankle and drag him inside. The door slams closed.

Ravi lets out a breath of relief, then looks to his right again. He dives forward and a massive fist of ice crashes through the tiles behind him. He slides face first down the precipitous slant of the roof and rolls off the edge, landing in a narrow alley.

“Riyo!”

“Sorry,” Riyo shouts. She manages to redirect another ball of ice and it smashes the chimney of the souvenir shop. On top of being unable to just squish Glitter, she also has to be careful how she deflects his attacks. Most of the buildings are still occupied by the terrified residents of Coldton, so she can’t afford to just sling ice meteors every which way.

“You’re still in there, right Glitter?” she says.

He swings at her and she nudges his arm higher. Even so, she feels the chill of it as it passes over her head.

“Come on! Fight him!”

The golem’s heart continues to pulse red and, if anything, her voice just makes him angry. She leaps forward, shoving hard with her reality and knocking him back. She’d hoped he’d fall, but he reels against her and brings an overarm hammer of ice down on her. She shoves it aside and leaps out of the cloud of snow that burst up from the impact. The other fist is coming right at her, and she has to spring up to avoid it. The whole street shakes with the impact of the golem’s two fists coming together.

Riyo spins herself in the air, raking her sword through both the golem’s wrists, then pushes herself hastily back to earth as its chest erupts with a cascade of snow that turns to a rain of jagged ice. Riyo stops a few that are coming right towards her dead in the air, then shoots them back. They rip through the golem’s empty face, but the wounds close straight up again. Snow streams like rivulets through the air, entwining together until the arms are reconnected.

“Are you even trying to beat him?” Riyo yells at the monster’s heart. “Do you even care that you’re destroying your father’s home?”

Glitter makes a noise. The golem raises its fists for a double handed smash, but Riyo focuses on the red glow. It’s pulsing faster, and beneath all that snow, Glitter is whistling.

“Yrith is responsible for all of this! For everything! Don’t let him get away with it!”

The air seems to freeze, the snow to stop falling. The golem’s body shivers as though it has just realised it is made of snow. The lighting of their tableau flickers from red to blue, then back to red again. The cold layers in, and Riyo exhales mist.

Glitter’s fists slam down.

 

 

A tree falls in the forest. Rolleck is there to hear it – extremely close, in fact – and it sounds like the applause of vast audience congratulating him on another excellent dodge. The blowing wind carries scent and snow past him, cold and evergreen. The darkness is a ligmist’s dream, but the slender creatures scatter from the clash of two far greater predators. The monster sees with eyes adapted to night in the snowy abyss of nowhere, while Rolleck sees by a fighter’s instinct, the glow of the creature’s blood, and a voice whispering in the back of his mind. His sword is a sabre of light, coated in red luminescence, and its voice is growing ever louder as it begs for still more.

I could let you see, the voice says.

The monster swings, the blood on its chest telegraphing a right-fisted punch. Rolleck pitches himself beneath it, feels the air rush across the damp material on his back. He twists and lashes out, but once again scores only a light cut on the creature’s upper arm. More paint glows up the snowy canvas, steadily turning the forest into an abstract work of disparate smudges of light in darkness.

I could let you feel the very air shift around it, so that its every move is yours to know before it even makes it.

Rolleck rolls away from another blow his experience tells him must come from the left, from the creature’s unextended, uninjured arm. It impacts only snow, scattering lumps of it against the trees and rocks that surround Rolleck. The sound helps him to shape the space in his mind, but even as his instincts mould a map for him, his body and sword urge him forward. He leaps and strikes out, slashing what must be the creature’s shoulder and drawing a furious cry from it.

His feet hit an uneven log, and his landing becomes a roll. The snow caresses him as he passes it, leaving its chill touch on his skin. He comes to his feet and throws all of his strength into a swipe that turns the creature’s next punch aside and opens another gash along its forearm, then thrusts for patch of light where Riyo’s attack has painted a target for him. His sword goes deep, muffling its song and drawing a scream from the creature. Its other hand grabs for him, swatting him away into another snowdrift.

I can make every thrust a killing blow. Make the edge of your blade a death sentence to all who see it.

The beast is cautious, now. Blood is gushing from its new wound, the heat of it melting the snow where it falls. It roars all the anger it has left at Rolleck, and Rolleck growls back.

“No,” he says. “I won’t sell my heart for such an empty price.”

You did it once, the voice says, and Rolleck can hear the smile in it. He hates it. You will again.

Rolleck yells and rushes forward into the creature’s rage. He thrusts his free hand out, and the monster’s punch stops dead. His sword is like the reapers sickle, splitting the world apart as it comes down. A geyser of light bursts from the monster’s shoulder as its arm comes free, and its shock seals its fate. In the moment it takes for it to understand, Rolleck is stepping forward, letting the momentum of his strike carry him around so that the blade comes down again. This time it splits the monster’s head in half, and all that is left is the slop of blood and the thunk of a falling body.

“I don’t need you,” Rolleck pants. “I’ll never let you in again.”

I’m already in, Rolleck. No matter how you run, I’m your shadow. No matter where you hide, I’m on your shoulder. No matter how lost you are, I will find you.

The voice fades as Rolleck’s blood begins to cool. His sword is quiet once more, and there is only his breath and the blizzard.

 

 

Ravi has decided that his quarry is sequestered somewhere along the main road, closer to the gondola than the path leading out of town. His attacks on Wither had been relentless until the boy out-ranged him, meaning the bandit leader must be somewhere he can see the whole street. Ravi has retreated down the alley by the souvenir shop and now finds himself on a side street parallel to the main one. Here and there, there are specks of something glowing red in the snow.

He jogs uphill, closer to the mayor’s house, then swings a right back to the main road. Now, hopefully, Yrith will not know where Ravi is. He hops up to a window ledge, then stops before bouncing up to the roof. Inside the house, a pair of young boys crouch by the other window. They are avidly watching Riyo and Glitter’s fight, eyes sparkling with wonder. Ravi taps on the window.

The boys, twins by their near-identical faces and reactions, scuttle back on their hands, wonder turning to fear. Ravi taps a finger on his lips, shows the boys his empty hands, then beckons them to the window. The braver of the two glances towards the door of the room, then shuffles over. His brother remains crouched by his bed. After hesitating several times to stare at Ravi with earnest eyes, the boy opens the window a crack.

“Um. Hi.”

“Hello,” Ravi says. “Quite an exciting fight, isn’t it?” He is aware that Riyo is relying on him to resolve this quickly, but the boy is shaking so much it would be visible even to people with regular eyes. He doesn’t want to frighten him.

The boy gives a shy smile. “Yeah. That lady is cool. I hope she wins.”

“Me too,” Ravi says, returning the smile. “She’s my friend, after all. Her name is Riyo, and I’m Ravi. What’s your name?”

“I’m Barrel,” the boy says.

“I’m Crate!” his brother says, scurrying over. He seems not to like being left out.

“Nice to meet you both,” Ravi says.

“Shouldn’t you be helping your friend, Mister Ravi?” Crate says.

“Yeah! You gotta stop the big snowman!”

“I am helping her,” Ravi says. “And you can help her, too.”

“We can?” the boys say in perfect unison, eyes going wide with delight.

“That’s right,” Ravi says. “You’ve been watching the whole fight, haven’t you?”

“Yeah!”

“Great. I need you to tell me what happened to the old guy. The bandit.”

“Yrith,” Barrel says, looking over his shoulder as though the name might summon him.

“He’s controlling the snowman, isn’t he?” Crate says, pressing his face right up against the window.

“Yes,” Ravi says. “Did you see where he went?”

“I saw,” Barrel says.

“No you didn’t,” Crate says, turning on his brother. “No way. I didn’t see.”

“I did too.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Lads,” Ravi says, glancing over them to the other window. He can’t see the fight from this angle, but Riyo’s probably still doing okay.

“Sorry,” they say together.

“What did you see, Barrel?”

“Well, I didn’t actually see see.”

“I said so.”

“Shut up, Crate.”

“Please?” Ravi says, trying to keep the urgency from his voice.

“But I didn’t see. See?”

“Didn’t see?”

“Right,” Barrel says, a smug smile on his face.

“That’s stupid,” Crate says.

“No it’s not! Because he was down by old Maureen’s fruit shop when it started, right?”

“Yeah. I saw that,” Crate says.

“And then the lady was fighting the snowman, and the other monster went past.”

“I saw that, too. But I didn’t see where he went after that.”

“Exactly!” Barrel says.

Crate frowns, then turns back to Ravi. “I’m sorry. My brother is stupid.”

“No,” Ravi says slowly. “He’s right. You would have seen him if he came closer, or if he crossed the street.”

“Exactly!” Barrel says again.

His brother glares at him.

“So he must be close to where he started,” Ravi says. He plucks two arrows from his quiver and passes them through the window. “A gift. One for each of you, for your help. Be careful with them – they’re sharp.”

“Thank you!” the boys shout together. Ravi smiles, then leaps to the roof. He keeps low and heads for the chimney, using it to cover his advance. His eyes skitter across the opposite side of the street, just in case, but there is nobody in any of the windows or on any of the roofs. A quick glance around the chimney shows nobody obvious on his side of the street either, which meant Yrith is probably indoors, somewhere near the fruit shop. Digging his talons in to grip against the snow, he jumps for the next roof.

 

 

Riyo’s throat hurts, and her head is beginning to ache. Aside from that first flicker, Glitter has shown no sign of responding to her. She hasn’t seen Ravi since the boy made it to the mayor’s house, either. Her time is running out.

“That’s it,” she screams at Glitter. He swings for her again, but she stops it dead. It sends a pulse of pain through her head. “If you don’t come to your senses right now then I’m going to really test that body your dad made you.”

Glitter starts whistling a faster tune. It’s urgent, even angry. His glow is strobing beneath his snowy skin, the light as fitful as a dying candle. There is another heartbeat’s pause, then he pulls his arm back and blitzes her with ice again.

“Fine!” Riyo contracts her reality to contain only her and Glitter. He tries to swing at her again, but his arm stops before it’s moved more than a few inches. She pushes inwards with everything her leash will give her, ignoring the feeling of her skull trying to rip itself open. The golem shakes. Weaker clumps of snow give suddenly, denting inwards as though struck by tiny meteorites. In seconds it is a pock-marked field of shallow shadows, and then larger sections begin to give. The crackle-crunch of compressing snow becomes a constant rush, and Glitter’s whistling becomes a frantic, high pitched keening.

In under a minute, the golem becomes a snowball. Riyo doesn’t let up, and compacted snow becomes ice. The red light of Glitter’s crystal is now hidden – there is no space between the snow crystals for it to seep out any longer. His whistle is muffled to almost nothing. Riyo keeps pushing. Pushes until it feels like her mind will break. Until she can barely see. Until, with an ominous groan, metal begins to bend.

 

 

Yrith’s chest is heaving. The anger that swelled there before has been tamped down by a fight that should have been over in a handful of seconds. His power over this town should have been complete. His own little kingdom to rule, to take from until there was nothing left to take. He grips the windowsill, sweat running down his brow and his temples throbbing. How could this… this girl – barely an adult, by the looks of her. How could she craft so well inside his reality? She should be dead.

Well, she is now. Expending that much strength to contain the ice crystal leaves her open from every other direction. All he has to do is concentrate. Just one more ice spike, and the town is his once more. He might even move on anyway, after selling every single man, woman and child into the slavery they deserve.

“I don’t know much about crafting,” Ravi says. “But the way Riyo talks about her master makes me think he must be something special.”

The bandit leader stiffens, his breathing coming in sharp bursts that do not mist the air in front of him despite the cold Ravi feels. The rooms above the fruit shop are somebody’s home, but they are empty. The window offers a good view all the way up to the edge of town, and all the way down to the gondola. The kitchen window on the other side of the shop looks down over the few smudges of monster blood he had seen earlier.

“She’s pretty special herself.”

The man spins around with a growl on his lips. “So am I! I was the sheriff of Saviour’s Call and now I am the king of this mountain. You… tourists can’t bring me down like this. You can’t!”

“We have,” Ravi says, narrowing his eyes. “Now close your reality.”

“Never!” The whole room twinkles with ice. A blizzard wind rushes through the little apartment, riming everything it touches. Everything except Ravi.

His curse-breaker rolls from his feathers and down the haft of his bow. He slams it into the side of Yrith’s head, and his frozen wonderland is just a quiet apartment once more. The bandit leader’s eyes roll back, and he falls like an avalanche.

Ravi steps over him and pushes the window open. “Riyo! Stop!”

Riyo glances over her shoulder, then blinks. She can’t feel Yrith’s reality anymore. Another metal crunch emanates from her snowball, accompanied by a lyrical shriek.

She stops pushing.

“Glitter?”

The snowball bursts like a firework, layering everything in another few inches. Including Riyo.

Glitter sits up and looks around. Looks at the damaged houses and broken gondola. The snow that was once his golem lies still, but to him it looks like a bloodied weapon. One that he has used to hurt people. Again.

He stands up. His casing is a little warped, but it does not hinder him as he flees. He knows he should never have come back here. Knows that all of this is his fault. He will return to his cave and begin work on his next rocket.

He runs directly into nothing and bounces off it. His legs slip out from under him and he lands on his back, staring up at an ugly black sky full of fluffy white death.

“Hey,” Riyo says, peering down at him. A man with feathers comes to stand next to her.

“So, this is Glitter?” he says.

“Yep.”

“Nice to meet you,” the bird man says.

“I’m a monster,” Glitter says. He breathes on his glass but draws nothing. He wants to hide, but he can still see them.

“For sure,” Riyo says.

The bird man nods.

Glitter is flushed with shame. He knows this emotion from times he has failed, times he has broken things by accident or tripped over his feet while doing something important. Never has he felt it so strongly, though. He wishes he could bury himself deep within the earth and simply stop feeling anything at all. He hears a door open, but he cannot bring himself to try and rise. To do anything but wait to be judged.

A big, red lady with scales and wings now peers down at him, too.

Footsteps announce the arrival of a fourth, and a man with a wolf pelt over one shoulder and a moustache completes a small circle. His judge, his jury, and, perhaps, his executioners.

“And now all the monsters are assembled,” Riyo says.

“That’s a little rude,” the moustachioed man says.

Riyo scowls and speaks with a lower voice. “I am no monster; I am an officer of the law.”

“That’s the worst of the three,” the man says. The bird man and the dragon lady laugh.

“Is… is it over?” a lighter voice says. A familiar voice.

Glitter sits bolt upright, startling all four of them.

“He moves fast for a mine cart,” the man says.

“He’s not a mine cart,” Riyo says. “He’s a snowboard.”

Now you’re definitely being rude,” the dragon lady says.

They continue talking, but the conversation fades from Glitter’s attention.

“Tremble,” he says quietly. “I… I came back. I’m so sorry.”

Tremble glides over to them, her layers parting the snow like the blade on the front of the plough. A young man with a battered sword scurries in her wake. She looks so much smaller than Glitter remembers. It has been almost ten years since that day, the day he last ran away from here. Even so, she looks as though several decades have passed.

She stops in front of him.

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

“You have nothing to apologise for, Glitter.”

“But-”

“I told you, didn’t I? Possibilities are no reason not to try. What happened… It wasn’t your fault.”

“But I-”

“You were exploited. Controlled. It must have been so awful for you.”

“I should have fought it,” he says. “Stopped him.”

“Where is he now?”

Glitter turns to look at Riyo, who turns to look at Ravi.

“Oh. Uh, he’s up there.” He points at the fruit shop window.

They all look at each other. Riyo raises a fist. The rest follow suit.

“Jankenpon.”

They all throw scissors except for Emerald, who throws paper. She shrugs, her wings stretching out and curling in again, and wanders over to the shop. They hear the rhythmic thumping of Yrith’s head hitting every step on the way down, and Emerald drags him out into the middle of the road.

“You really beat him,” Tremble says, a note of relief in her voice that seems to travel to them from ten years in the past.

“Um,” Wicker says. He is staring down the road.

They all follow his gaze through the streetlights and find the remnants of the Kings of the Mountain shuffling into town. Two of them have Mortimer propped limp between them, while the drake prince’s broken arm hangs limp at his side. They stop before the gondola, staring up the hill at them.

“Let’s put an end to this,” Riyo says with a glance at the mayor.

She nods.

Glitter follows them as they go to meet the bandits. Emerald drags Yrith behind her by one leg.

“You all deserve to die,” Tremble says. “For what you did to my town. To my friends. To my husband. You all…” She has to stop to hold back a sob. Everything she has endured. Everything she has kept locked in her chest while she waited and smiled, fearing this day would never come. It rises to the surface now, threatening to overwhelm her with pain.

Glitter steps forward. The snowflakes around them stop falling, hanging in the air like they’re dangling from silken threads. Snow flows from Glitter’s shoulders and joins with the snow on the ground, lurching around and smashing together until a flight of crystalline arrows is pointed at the group of bandits from every direction.

One by one, the bandits fall to their knees. Hands are raised in fear and eyes are closed in resignation. Glitter turns to Tremble and waits.

“I can’t,” the mayor says. Tears trickle down her cheeks and drip from the tip of her nose, making dents in the snow where they fall. “You’re all monsters, but…”

“But you’re not,” Emerald finishes for her. “People like them, people like us, like to believe it takes strength to fight, to kill. That somehow the ability to do so makes us worthy. But it takes ten times what any of us could muster to face everything this world can throw at us, and then smile.”

Wicker puts a supporting arm around the mayor’s shoulders and turns her away from the finished bandits. As they begin walking up the hill towards her home, Rolleck steps up onto the gondola platform and scowls at the captives.

“It seems what’s left of you get to walk away,” he says. “But for the rest of your lives, remember how it feels to be given kindness you don’t deserve. Carry the guilt over what you’ve done in the name of your selfish, pathetic desires all the way to your graves. I hope, before you get there, you can pay back the kindness you now owe the world.”

“Also,” Riyo says, “if you come back here and try anything else, I will literally turn you inside out.”

“Very poetic,” Ravi says.

“Thanks.”

“I meant Rolleck, obviously.”

“Oh.”

Glitter relaxes, and his arrows crumble and rejoin the snow that birthed them.

L’Sweren Riss stands up. He wants desperately to scowl, to dismiss these righteous words and promise vengeance for his arm and his pride. Some of it must show through, because the dragon narrows her eyes at him. He lets the last of his ugly feelings go in a frozen breath. He has been bested and shown again the weakness that has taken him from his home and his birthright. He has been trying to hide from his shame, but it has only made him even weaker.

“You were right,” he says. “I am banished from my home, disowned by my father. I am ashamed, and it has made me seek petty power over others when I should have sought to regain my honour.” He stands as tall as he is able, though it is not nearly as tall as he once could. “I am sorry that I am your first impression of the drakes, but please let me do one thing to redeem my race in your eyes. We hold fast to our word, so I promise you this: The Kings of the Mountain will not return to this place. I will ensure it.”

Emerald holds his eyes for a long moment. Something in them makes her believe him, so she nods.

“We’ll return to Coldton on our way back,” she says. “If your word isn’t good, there will be no place in this universe you will be able to hide from me.”

L’Sweren Riss bows his head, then turns and drags Yrith from the gondola platform. The rest of the bandits dribble after him.

The five of them stand watch in the puddle of light created by Coldton’s final street lamp, until the bandits escape even Ravi’s sight.

“I’m tired,” Ravi says, turning to look back up the hill. “Do you think we can convince someone to open the inn now?”

“I hope so,” Emerald says. Her stomach growls so loud Riyo is convinced for a moment that the monster has returned. “I hope we can get something to eat, too.”

“Um,” Glitter says. He is still facing the way the bandits went, his window still coated in impenetrable frost. “Thank you. For stopping me. For saving this town.”

“Don’t mention it,” Riyo says.

“But-”

“We would have helped anyway,” Rolleck says.

“It is a police officer’s duty to protect and serve,” Emerald and Ravi say together.

“Oh, come on,” Rolleck says. “I hardly ever mention being a police officer.”

The three of them press on up the hill. Riyo turns to Glitter.

“I’ll tell you what,” she says. “If you want to pay us back, you can carry me up to the inn.”

“Huh? But you look fine.”

“Well, it turns out going to town on you while inside another reality was pretty hard going.” She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and closes her reality.

Rolleck hears Glitter start screaming and turns just in time to see Riyo collapse. Then something the size of a mountain stamps on his head. He and Emerald grit their teeth until it passes. Ravi, meanwhile, frowns around. He can hear other screams from the surrounding houses. The pain passes, and they all rush back to Riyo’s side.

“I forgot about that,” Emerald says.

“It wasn’t as bad as with the Twilight Express,” Rolleck says.

“It’s still pretty concerning,” Ravi says.

“What can we do, though?” Emerald goes to scoop Riyo up, then stops as the snow beneath her rises.

“I said I would carry her,” Glitter says quietly. He has drawn a concerned face in the frost on his glass.

“We’re not going to convince her to stop using her reality,” Rolleck says. “We should probably find a crafter to talk to about it.”

“Maybe there’ll be one in Saviour’s Call.”

“What’re you talking about?” Riyo says sleepily from her bed of floating snow.

“We’re just blaming you for a variety of things,” Ravi says.

“Oh. Well do it quietly. Some of us are trying to sleep.”

Rolleck rolls his eyes. “She seems fine to me.”

 

 

Yrith first feels cold. This is not something he has experienced in a long time, and a moment of shivering disorientation passes before he manages to stammer open his reality. The cold leaches away from him by his will, and he is left with only his body temperature and another warm spot on his back. He rolls over.

“You’re awake,” L’Sweren Riss says. He is sat on the rimed stump of a tree, watching the dishevelled Kings of the Mountain huddle around a pitiful fire.

“Where are we?” he mumbles. His head hurts, and he can barely see. He reaches for his spare glasses, but that pocket of his coat is empty.

“This is a clearing near the start of the perilous Yvalt Pass. For a long time, it claimed dozens of lives every year through dangerous footing and an abundance of hungry wildlife. Nowadays, almost nobody uses it.”

“What?” Yrith says, sitting up. His head yells at him in tones of agony, making him wince. He pushes past it. “Why are we this far outside of town?”

“We got beaten,” L’Sweren says, turning his icy gaze on Yrith.

“By some random idiots. So what?”

“So, they asked us to leave.”

“And you listened to them?” Yrith’s raised voice begins to garner some attention from the remainder of the bandits.

“The alternative was to force them to kill us. The mayor chose to be merciful.”

“Then she’s the biggest idiot of all.” He forces himself to stand, ignores the way it makes his legs wobble. “We could have just gone back to the hideout and waited for that damn archcrafter to move along, then take the gondola back.”

L’Sweren is frowning at him now, but he ignores the drake and stumbles over to the fire.

“I swear, you’re all fools of the highest order. Where’s Mortimer?”

One of the bandits points. Yrith follows her finger and finds Mortimer slumped against another stump. His right arm and leg are both splinted and bandaged, and all of his visible skin is beginning to bruise. Each of his breaths comes hard, as though there is a great weight on his chest. His axe is nowhere to be seen.

Yrith considers kicking him awake anyway. The man was usually good at giving orders and convincing the rest of the riff-raff to march in time. He probably won’t do such a good job in his current condition, though, so instead Yrith turns to the bandits himself.

“Listen up.” He moves into the firelit circle and scowls at the battered faces that regard him. “We had some bad luck today. Crafters and fighters of that calibre don’t stumble through Coldton every day, though, so as soon as they move along, we can take our kingdom back.”

There are some mutters, but then only silence.

“Are you listening to me?” Yrith shouts.

They all avert their eyes.

“They’ve had a rough day,” L’Sweren says. “Emotionally, as well as physically. They have spent almost ten years being cruel, and now the tables have been turned on them. Yet instead of experiencing that same cruelty, they’ve been given kindness. None of them feel like good people, right now. Some of them will take this lesson in mercy to heart, while some of them will return to cruelty, in time. It won’t be tomorrow, though.”

“They’ll do what I bloody well tell them to do,” Yrith says. He glares at the fire, and though it makes his head ache, he contains its heat and lowers the temperature around the bandits. Teeth begin to chatter. “Or they’ll freeze to death.”

“I won’t,” L’Sweren says. He comes to stand before Yrith. He is nearly eight feet tall, and glares down at him through eyes that hold a fire cold enough to extinguish the sun. “Our partnership is at an end.”

“Fine,” Yrith growls. “Get out of my way.”

“I also promised that I would not allow you to return to Coldton.”

Yrith grinds his teeth. “You don’t speak for me, lizard.”

“I’m afraid I do. You see, you’ve been living your life using your power to get you what you want. You think everybody is the same as you, but you’re wrong. I haven’t been using my power to get what I want. I haven’t been using my power at all, in fact.” He raises a hand and places a claw just beneath Yrith’s eye. “Now I’m going to. You have two choices. Leave this place quietly with the rest of us,” he presses harder with the claw, “or die.”

Yrith swallows. His head feels like it is cracking open, but even if it didn’t, the drake has a lot of advantages over him. He is capable of resisting even the lowest temperatures Yrith’s reality can create, and he has the strength to break anything he might sculpt from ice or snow. He bites his tongue and, slowly, painfully, he lowers his head.

“I thought so,” L’Sweren says. “Get some rest. We’ll need your help getting through the pass tomorrow.” The drake returns to his stump.

Yrith turns away from the fire, humiliated. He feels the eyes of the other bandits on his back as he lies down. Sleep is a long time in coming.

 

 

The next day, Coldton is quiet. Last night’s blizzard has ebbed away, leaving only a soft, fluttering snowfall and a dirty white sky. Riyo steps outside and stretches. Though they are finally free of bandits, the air still feels heavy with fear. She finds the source of that fear at the bottom of the hill.

Glitter is standing in front of the gondola. Snakes of snow slither from his shoulders, splitting several times to form half a dozen icy hands that play across the machinery. They probe and prod, bend and twist, making delicate mechanical noises. Riyo looks up and realises that the broken cable has been repaired.

“Good morning,” she says.

“Wah!” Glitter says, spinning around and raising his tinkering arms to shield his ‘face’. “Oh. Good morning.” He draws a smiling face with little blushing cheeks. “You startled me.”

“I guessed you could see all around you. Was that wrong?”

“No,” Glitter says. “I don’t see like you do, but I can feel the changes in energy all around me. It means I can’t see distant things, but I’m not limited to seeing the way I’m facing, so it kind-of evens out. I have to concentrate to do it, though, so if I’m focused on something else, then…”

“Then I can sneak up on you.”

Glitter’s face disappears and is replaced by an image of a hand giving a thumbs up.

“So, can you fix it?” Riyo gestures at the gondola.

“I already have,” Glitter says. “I was just making a few improvements to the mechanism. It was well made, but even the most powerful machines have to rely on others to survive. Left alone, they eventually wear down and die.”

“Your father taught you that?”

“That, and so much more.” Glitter’s window becomes solid ice once more. “I miss him so much.”

“I’m sorry,” Riyo says.

“No. Don’t be. He once said that time eases pain, but I have been living without him for longer than I lived with him, now. It hasn’t made it easier. I’m not sure anything will. It is something that will be inside me forever.”

“People are like machines too, you know?” Riyo says. “We rely on others to survive. If you sit alone with just your pain, eventually you’ll break.”

Glitter turns to the empty town. “Better me than them. They’re afraid of me, and they’re right to be. I’m not like them. I’m dangerous.”

“Did your dad think you should be alone?”

Glitter winces. He remembers everything Albert said to him just before the bandits came.

“No. But he didn’t know. He didn’t know what I was capable of.”

“I don’t think that would have mattered to him, and I know you don’t either.”

Glitter watches the town in silence. The inn door opens and Riyo’s friends emerge, looking for her. They leave odd-shaped prints in the snow down the hill.

“Why’s it so quiet?” Ravi asks.

“I guess the residents of Coldton aren’t morning people,” Riyo says, then turns to Glitter. “So, what will you do, Glitter?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Tell you what, then. It’s a long way from here to the Reach. Why not walk with us? By the time we get to Calis, you’ll know if you want to stay there or not.”

“But… What if something bad happens? What if someone takes control of me again?”

“Then I’ll stop you again,” Riyo says. “Maybe you’re dangerous, but so am I, and so are these idiots.”

“Rude,” Emerald says.

“Besides, how much do you know about crafting?”

“I know lots about crafting,” Glitter says. “My father taught me to build all kinds of things.”

“She means the magic,” Ravi says. “Like her and Yrith use.”

“Huh?”

“So nothing, then,” Rolleck says.

“That’s fine,” Riyo says. She opens her reality. “Mine’s called Gravity Mould. I can use it to manipulate gravity.” She makes Rolleck do a slow, grumpy backflip.

Glitter draws a smirk on his face while he chokes back a giggle.

“Ha ha,” Rolleck says.

“I think Yrith called his Whiteout,” Riyo goes on. “But the important part is that it controlled ice, which is why he could control you. With my reality I might be able to ping-pong you about the place, but I can’t steal your soul like he could.” She lets her reality close. “I won’t say it’s impossible we’ll meet another crafter like him, but considering the focus of a reality is limited only by the imagination of the crafter…”

“The odds are really long,” Glitter says. He changes his face to one of zen understanding.

“So,” Riyo says. “Do you fancy a trip to the end of the world?”

Glitter looks back at the town, extends his sense of it as far as he is able. He barely knows it, really. Its people are afraid of him. He has been reluctant to come here for so long and done so much damage to the place when he has, he feels uncomfortable being here.

“I want to come with you,” he says. “Before he died, my father told me to go out and learn about the world. After what happened to him, I thought the world would be scared of me. That he was wrong. I tried to get to Calis, where I came from, but maybe I can give this world another chance. I think… I think my father would want that.”

“Your father sounds like mine,” Emerald says wistfully. “He wanted me to see the world, too.”

“Let’s go see it, then,” Riyo says. “I hear there’s a great view from this here gondola.”

“Didn’t seem that special yesterday,” Rolleck says.

“It was the middle of the night,” Ravi said. “And there was a blizzard. Even I could hardly see.”

Glitter snakes out an arm and taps the newly-repaired call button. The gears start pulling the cable in, crunching snow between them as they spin.

The gondola swings lackadaisically into the station, where it comes to a neat halt above the shattered platform. Its door is fixed, but there are still some dents in the metal.

“How far does it go, anyway?” Ravi asks as they shuffle towards the door.

“Forty-three miles,” Glitter says. He pauses by the swaying box. “I know everything about its specifications, but this is the first time I’ve really seen it in use. It’s truly wonderful.”

“It was his greatest gift to this town,” Tremble says.

All of them jump.

“Goodness,” Emerald says. “You move quietly.”

“Wool’s soft stuff,” she says. “Anyway. It’s rude to run off without saying goodbye.”

“Sorry,” Riyo said. “But it felt like the right thing to do.”

“Well it wasn’t,” she looks stern for a moment, then she smiles. The whole mountainside seems to light up. “I don’t think I can thank you for saving my town, but I do have this.” She hands them another flask. “It’s from the emergency stash. It’s supposed to be for if there’s an accident, but with the Kings of the Mountain finally gone we can start mining cherries again.”

“It seems like Yrith was using his reality to encourage the blizzard every few days,” Riyo says, taking the juice from Tremble with a return smile. “Without him, your weather should calm down again.”

“We’ll make sure to tell everyone we meet that the way to Coldton is open again,” Emerald says. “There’ll be tourists coming through again in no time.”

“You’re all superstars,” she says, beaming. “And Glitter…”

“Mmm,” Glitter said. He has hidden his glow in the vain hope she would assume he was a vending machine.

“The people are scared of you, now, but I can feel Albert’s heart in you. I’m going to talk to the town, explain everything to them. It’ll take some time, but, well, even if they don’t come around, I’ll still be here. I just want you to know… you have a home here, if you ever decide to come back.”

Glitter is still for a long moment, and Riyo begins to think he might have fallen asleep when he lets out a long, tonal wail that hurts their ears.

“Thank you,” he blubs. “Thank you so much.”

Tremble places a cloth covered hand on Glitter’s window while he sobs.

“Have a safe trip,” she says once he quiets. She takes a step back. “All of you.”

“It probably won’t be that,” Rolleck says.

“But we’ll be fine anyway,” Ravi says.

“Thank you for everything, mayor,” Emerald says.

Riyo just grins, and they all pile on the gondola. Glitter lingers a moment longer, until Tremble gives him a nod that tilts her remarkable hat.

“See you later, then,” Glitter says.

“I’ll be here.”

Metal crunches against metal as the door closes. Glitter drags frost and snow from the window, revealing a vista of iced trees and jagged rocks. Somewhere further along the range, the sun has broken the clouds, and lances down onto snow-capped peaks. The gondola rumbles back into motion once more, and the landscape begins to roll away behind them.

“Coldton was nice,” Riyo says.

“Still a bit cold for my liking,” Emerald says. “Can we stop somewhere warm next?”

“At some point we’ll have to cross the Glittering Sands,” Ravi says. “They’re supposed to be very warm.”

“You know, it doesn’t feel like that long since we were in a volcano,” Riyo says. “Surely there has to be some reasonable temperatures around.”

“It sounds like you’ve had an interesting journey so far,” Glitter says.

“It will only get worse,” Rolleck says.

“A journey is like a person’s life,” Rolleck seems to say. “It only ever gets worse.”

They all turn to stare at Glitter. He has drawn a frowny face on his glass.

“That was amazing!” Riyo says.

“Oh, come on,” Rolleck says. “You’ve known me for about five minutes.”

“You can learn everything there is to know about a man by crossing swords with him just once,” Glitter-Rolleck says.

“It’s perfect,” Ravi says.

“Beautiful, even,” Emerald agrees.

“We didn’t even fight, though,” Rolleck says.

“Of course not,” Glitter-Rolleck says. “That would be against the law.”

The gondola trundles on, lilting over a vista of glittering snow and swaying with the sound of laughter.