She put a hand on the dragon’s snout. Tapped the hilt of her machete as she’d done before. Leaned close to Myryntir’s skull and hummed to him. She knew no dragony songs, or if they could dance, but she knew his heart. You are brave. Proud to a fault, but never have you left us alone. We need your strength.

  We need your love.

  The dragon snorted, sneezed, and surged upright. Evanne back-pedalled, almost lost the beat with her feet, but kept her tapping going, her balance upright. //HAVOC?// He sounded uncertain.

  “Myryntir. Dragon!” His head swivelled to her, and she saw his eyes mark her fingers on her machete. And watched as a slow, iceglare grin spread as his jaws widened, the crackle of energy arcing between his teeth. “We need you.”

  The dragon turned to the melee. Vertiline and Tarragon were joined by Amir, the three fighting as one. It might have been backwash from Mama’s Light, but it seemed as if Requiem’s blue-white glow was joined by a haze of gold as the once-fairy patterned alongside the Knights.

  The creatures they fought were pure energy. She saw Tarragon run one through with her blade, spatters of liquid metal hitting the ground, electricity flurries dancing away like sprites. The quicksilver creature didn’t slow, rounding on her with an overhead slash. Tarragon swayed like the wind, tearing the blade through the side of the creature in a manoeuvre that would have ended any other opponent, then blocking with high guard. //THEY ARE MADE OF LIGHTNING AND METAL. I’M NOT SURE I CAN HURT THEM.//

  Evanne made a big show of her surprise, offering a Trick alongside her drumming fingers. “And you call yourself a dragon?” She snorted for effect; the dragon wouldn’t have heard it over the noise, but he saw the cant of her head. “Quitter.”

  He roared, rounding on their foes. He breathed in, a gods’ forge bellows, then spat energy in a crackling thunderstorm at their foes. Lightning leaped from creature to creature, the room incandescent. Evanne’s vision whitened out, and she lost her rhythm for a moment.

  When her sight cleared, Tarragon, Vertiline, and Amir stood amid a smoking battlefield. Five pools of liquid silver bubbled and hissed on the ground. Evanne patted Myryntir’s hide. “Good dragon.”

  //I AM NOT A DOG.//

  She started running to Tarragon, then stopped. The room felt colder, her breath steaming white. The pools continued bubbling, then shimmered. One crowned, a head rising from the morass, silver white eyes full of fury.

  Meriwether touched her arm. “Attend. They are⁠—”

  “I see it,” she snapped. “They are dead, as the ghoul was.”

  “I was going to say, ‘getting back up’, but your version works.” He pointed to the door. “We must run.”

  {There is a pool out there made from this stuff. I don’t feel like running that way.} Sands Apart was joined by Sight of Day. She looked angry, tail lashing. {We need a better option.}

  “Three’s mercy,” Evanne strode forward.

  Vertiline’s eyes widened as she saw her daughter approaching danger, metal hand up. “Back! It isn’t safe. We must⁠—”

  “I don’t want to hear it.” Evanne closed her eyes, reached down, and felt for that place she’d entered at the hospital, when the unliving masters tried to take her Tarragon. Saw the chains about her, white and hot rather than green and vile, but chains all the same. Touched them, grabbed, and snapped.

  She opened her eyes in time to see a warrior slump back into a puddle, no energy remaining. The pool was no longer living metal, cooling to a mirror’s surface.

  Myryntir leaned forward, nose to the pool, then faced her. //MAYBE LEAD WITH THAT NEXT TIME.//

  Chapter Twenty

  The cavernous passage was chilly. Tarragon rubbed her arms. In the world above it is spring. Here, everything sleeps but the dead. I don’t even have my glimmer anymore. She eyed Evanne. Her lover walked with a straight back, head on a swivel, but also hugged herself with the cold. Her Vhemin blood is no good here.

  By agreement, they had left Heser the Cheg and Morgan at the cave-in site. They needed a rear-guard almost not at all, but it gave the guardsman something to do other than fretting his queen was in danger. They would go back for him later.

  The source of the silver men was clear. The passage was five klicks long, easy as you please, and a good five hundred metres wide. All along one wall were human-sized capsules, spaced about a metre apart, and stacked ten to the ceiling. Tarragon checked her math. Say three hundred pods a klick gives us fifteen hundred columns. By ten rows, that’s an army of fifteen thousand souls.

  And souls were what they were. She’d checked a capsule as they entered. Within was a shimmering humanoid form, eyes closed in somnolent repose, but the once-fairy could feel the energy within. A whole bank of the things had been crushed in some long-ago cave-in, allowing a silvery fluid to pool on the floor. The living metal the souls inhabited created a long, shallow millpond Tarragon imagined must have shimmered before Evanne’s magic released the dead to their deserved rest.

  Myryntir placed a clawed hand in the pool, then lifted it and took a sniff. //IT SMELLS OF NOTHING AT ALL.// He shook the fluid off, then continued their weary trudge south.

  Tarragon sidled up to Amir. He brightened at her approach. “Ho, shieldmaiden.”

  “Ho, dickhead.”

  He laughed. “I meant no disrespect, lady. Where I come from the term is given with respect.”

  “I meant no disrespect either. Where I come from, dickhead is often given as a moniker of warmth and love.”

  The smile didn’t leave his face as he turned eyes front. “We come from very different worlds.”

  Tarragon nodded her agreement. “It makes you wonder, though.” At his quizzical glance, she gestured to herself in a see? motion. “You hail from Imshir⁠—”

  “I hail from the lands beyond the sea. I do not call Imshir home.”

  Curious, but whatever. “My makers gave me this,” she tugged wheat-pale hair, “and this,” she tapped her bare, honey-brown forearm. “Your hair is dark as night, but your skin and mine are a match. The people who made me were trying to say something.”

  He walked on in silence for a spell, mulling over what she said. I like this man from not-Imshir. I like his brazenness. I like how he holds the line. I like how he tries to listen to what I mean, not what I say. “I have no special knowledge of what being a fairy is like. I envy the experience of being a bright spark in a dark world.” His eyes hooded for a moment, some memory clouding his mind. “I imagine the Itikari thought to make a marvel, and they succeeded. No, don’t interrupt. I see it in the set of your shoulders. You think your magic sword is what makes the difference in each fight. I saw many battles before I took the black sash, and there is nothing in the weapon. It’s all in the man.” He brightened. “It is not your skill with steel that makes you a marvel. It is how you are made from all the pieces of beauty put together.”

  “You’re saying your skin is beautiful?”

  “Of course,” he said, and she laughed. “The Itikari made things pleasing to our eyes, although we’ve learned their purpose wasn’t pure. It pains me to admit I have always felt lesser to the Feybrind and their wondrous ways.” He ignored Sands Apart’s glance. “Dragons are amazing, and with all I have done, it is a blessing to have lived to see one grace the skies.”

  //FINALLY. SOME RESPECT.//

  Tarragon teased that through the fingers of her mind for a moment. “What do you mean, all you have done?”

  He took off his cloak. “Give this to Evanne. She is cold.”

  “You’re dodging the question.”

  “I’m buying time to answer.”

  Tarragon took the cloak, marvelling at how dust-free it was. Amir is prideful, but that has charm too. She sidled up to Evanne, draping the cloak about her shoulders. “Here, love.”

  Evanne drew it closer, then leaned into Tarragon for a moment. Her voice sounded thin as if strained through cheesecloth. “Thank you.”

  “It’s more than the cold, isn’t it?”

  “I released a clutch of souls from an ancient prison. I felt them go, Tarragon. I felt them all go.” She looked away. “Some of them wanted to stay.”

  “Mercy isn’t always easy,” Tarragon quoted.

  She was rewarded with a wan smile. “As you say.” Evanne nodded to Amir. “You are breaking his shell to get at the sweet secrets within?”

  “You should do it. You’re better at these things.”

  Evanne snorted. “Amir is scared of me. He’s more scared of Mama. He will tell you things he won’t say to me.” She tugged the cloak tighter. “Besides. I’m in no mood for Tricks. I wouldn’t mind a rest.” The maybe-Vhemin glanced at the rank of glimmering cylinders. “There may be a time and place for peace, once we’re clear of here.” She made a shooing motion. “Go. I’ll be fine. Give my thanks to Amir for the cloak.”

  Tarragon hurried to catch up with Amir. “You were saying?”

  He pointed to the ceiling. “Faust. Now there’s a man with a past. Have you noticed how he moves ever so quietly for such a large man? We locked blades with the Vide, and much of how they spar reminds me of Faust before he learned the Three’s patterns.”

  “Why are we speaking of Faust?”

  “Larochette, now there’s a marvel. The woman fights with ferocity, but do you know where it comes from? I do.”

  Tarragon blinked. “You’re speaking of your fellow students? Why⁠—”

  “I mean to tell you a story, lady, and it is hard for me to speak it. There is much blood behind me, and I wager more ahead. I tell you of Faust because his past is his own, but his calling to the Three is pure. Larochette found herself in a poor situation because of those she wronged but serves the Light now. As do I.”

  Tarragon pursed her lips. “I don’t understand.”

  “Then let me tell you.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The smell was never something Amir got used to. It wasn’t anything like sewage, nor the musky reek of an unclean animal pen. He’d been in a lot of places. Did a stint in the army, because he wanted to leave a horrible place, without understanding you can find new horror just over the next hill. He’d spent time throwing drunks out of taverns. Even kept a special pair of boots for the work, as drunks contained more bile, gram for gram, than anyone else in the world. He’d even sold his sword that one time. He’d slipped a blade into the grossly fat back of a wannabe sultan who hadn’t bathed in five years because an ‘oracle’ said it would wash away his power.

  None of those smells, not the sewage, pens, barracks, vomit, or the sultan of slime were like the cages.

  The bars weren’t the exciting, Smith-forged constructs made to hold a sinner and their power on the inside. He’d seen those; well-made, fashioned by people who cared about who was on justice’s docket, but also sure to see those on the outside safe, too. No, these cages were all rust and spite, the bars—if you were brave enough to touch them—a riot of bumpy edges cast in rust relief and shit-stained divots.

  Within, souls. More people than should be in one place, and then they added more atop. Calling them souls was a kindness, because those on the inside were the worst kind of fuckwit. Murderers, they had plenty of those in stock. Shake that cage at the front and a whole sweaty armpit of rapists would fall out. He glanced to his left, because that’s where the torturers were. Torture, apparently, was a thing you could get paid well for, but only in the service of a lordling. This lot were entrepreneurs. They’d taken it on themselves to put neighbours, dogs, or whatever poor mange-ridden creature passed their gaze into a chair or table, and then worked on them until someone went to find out what all the screaming was about.

  They had a few terrorists, too. Amir didn’t know what made a terrorist different from a soldier, but maybe it was the same as the torturers. If you had a writ from the just and high saying what you were doing was fine, it was all well and good. These people hadn’t taken the time to get the right paperwork.

  The one type of criminal they didn’t have were slavers, because that’s what Amir was. By the Three’s watchful gaze, they had writs, seals, promises, and gold saying their work was sanctioned. Slavery was still a crime unless you marched under a ruler’s banner. He didn’t much mind, because it paid well, and murderers and torturers weren’t the kinds of people who should be on the same streets as someone’s children.

  Still, no one here had a sense of humour, and that was worrisome. It left evenings boring, but fights were worse because Amir held no truck with a man who couldn’t laugh. One of those at your back, well, perhaps you’d be better off standing alone.

  Except for the big man. That one they’d picked up a few stops back. Amir was surprised such a person would want to hire on with the caravan, what with his expensive clothes and fine weapons, but such a monster would be good in a fight. He nudged his horse closer to the giant. “Roust, was it?”

  “Faust.” Even the man’s voice was giant-sized, deep like a cavern, solid like a mountain.

  “Not a name from around here.” Amir played the line out.

  “It is not.” No bites, clearly.

  “A name like that could be from wealth.” Amir raised a suggestive eyebrow. “If you need a hand writing your will, I’m good with my letters.”

  The giant snorted, then returned to his sombre repose. The horse beneath him was also a monster, yet managed to look put upon as it eyed Amir’s nimble mare. “You would only take a portion, I imagine?”

  “No, I’d fleece you for the lot.” Amir turned his eyes front. “I figure I’d spend some of it on soap.”

  “For these poor souls?” The way Faust said ‘poor souls’ made it sound like he was reading lines for a play.

  “Murderers deserve little from us, and they’ll return some meagre value to the world before we wear them down to the nub. No, I need a good camomile lather to get this smell out of my gear. This,” he tugged his leather jerkin, “used to smell of a horse’s ass. Now it smells of general ass, and something worse.”

  “Effluent?”

  “If it was mere shit, good Faust, I could do something with that. It’s like the unhappy marriage of shit and despair, I guess.”

  “You’ve been married?”

  “Never had the luck.”

  “I have.” Faust sighed. “It was good, until it wasn’t.”

  “She must have been a mighty woman.”

  “Aye. Good of soul, good of heart.”

  “No, I meant, you know.” Amir tugged an invisible woman onto his seated lap. “Because you’d crush the air from a lesser person.”

  Faust gave him a long, hard stare. “I have killed men for less.”

  “As have I, but then you’d have no one to talk to while trying not to think of the smell.”

  That earned a tight smile. “And your story, Amir?”

  The monster knows my name. What a day. “Running from something, or to something. I can never work out which.”

  “And which would you prefer?”

  “I don’t know.” Amir turned the idea over. “I guess I’d like to stop running.”

  “Ah.” Faust turned his eyes front. “There is a way. But it’s long, and not many know the road.”

  “You’re an odd one. You’re not old Khiton in disguise?”

  “Khiton?” Faust spat. “The gods have earned none of my love, but least of all that one.”

  Amir felt a pit was opening before him and skirted it. “Have you named them?”

  Faust gave him the best side-eye of the trip. “The gods already have names.”

  “No, this lot.” Amir pointed to the torturer’s cage. “That one without all the fingers of his left hand looks like a Three-Fingered Romullo.”

  “Remarkably specific.”

  “It passes the time.” Amir looked to the front, where the murderers were. They, for the most part, ignored him. All but the woman, who’d watched him from the moment she’d entered the cage. “What’s her story?”

  Faust sighed. “Regret. Remorse. Woe.”

  “I’m glad woe’s in there. You were running out of R words.”

  The giant stared at him for a moment. “You jest, Amir, but mark: no one in that cage is there because they made the best choice they could.”

  Amir sighed. “You’re missing one thing. They’re also all there because they made a mistake.”

  “Killing someone? That’s hardly an error.” Faust’s tone said he was used to that kind of work, perhaps on all days of the week barring Wednesdays.

  “No.” Amir scrubbed road dust from his hair. “They got caught.”

  She keeps looking at me. It was the most damnable thing. No matter where he was, her eyes followed him. Mess tent? He’d look up from a bowl of gruel and there she was. That made sense, because even gruel was better than what they got. Then he left the row of tents providing faux modesty for the latrine and, right there, right fucking there her eyes were on him again.

  It got eerie, then it got funny. He chipped in shoeing the horses. Looking up, sweat dripping from his brow, he saw her. Hands on bars, eyes intent.

  So, he made a game of it. Tried to sidle past rows of tents, the side of a wagon, even mingled in with other guards. No dice, of course. Eyes everywhere.

  There was nothing for it. I have to talk to her.

  Speaking to the merchandise wasn’t forbidden. The usual advice was given by the caravaner. Don’t believe them was front of mind. Don’t give them anything. Saw a man kill a guard with a piece of stale bread that one time. Amir had trouble believing it, but he’d been in enough places to know death found a man whether he wanted it or not. The only thing uncanny about death was its persistence, much like the woman’s eyes.