By Sapphire Light (The Gemology Saga Book 1), page 27
Coiffe lifted his silver topped cane and pointed it at her. “You think by turning the country on its head you can make things better? Change takes time. It has to be done slowly, cautiously. If the blue skies return, the crater could quit working. Our scientists must test the effects. It will take years of remediation for soil to be able to grow plants again. A blue sky might not be the saviour you think it will be, it might well be our death. So yes, I will have that gem. But I promise you, the best scientists in all of Yurdeh will use it only to find the best way to return this world to what it used to be.”
“A world where you and your family get to keep all your power,” Starr spat at him. “That’s what you really mean.”
She shared a look with Hinton, gave him an almost imperceptible nod as Coiffe laughed. Coiffe snapped his cane into the floor. “You’re honest. I like you. And if I may, I’ll be a little honest too: if you give that stone to Government House, their ineptitude and bureaucracy will keep this world on its knees for years to come. Hand the stone over to me and the world will find a much better fate.” Coiffe reached out, and the four guards behind him, each armed with a pistol, stepped just a little bit closer.
“So I hand everything over and get nothing?” Starr crossed her arms. “That doesn’t seem like a fair deal.”
Coiffe nodded his head and reached up to tilt his hat toward her. “A woman that likes to bargain. We can negotiate, if you like, but I do believe that I have you at an advantage. Though I suppose it wouldn’t be entirely fair to leave you with nothing. What is it you would like? A nice house in the city? A cart? A bank account full of coin? A handful of charged ruby to sell at your will, perhaps.” Coiffe slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out a small, black velvet bag. Before he even opened it Starr could see a hint of red light trying to escape. Coiffe poured the rubies into his palm. They lit his face red, turned it shades of purple as the red light mingled with the blue light in the room.
“And my mother?”
Coiffe placed the rubies back into the bag and tied it shut. “You sign everything over, hand me the gem that caused the sky to part, and I will bring your mother to you.”
Starr let out the breath she didn’t know she was holding. Her mother was alive. Coiffe had just told her everything she needed to know. She didn’t need rubies, charged or not. She was a geologist, she could find her own rubies if she wanted. But she didn’t know if she—if anyone—would ever find more taaffeite. Starr recalled that patch of blue sky, the feel of the sun on her skin, it had felt almost as warm and wonderful as her mother’s hugs. What kind of person would she be if she saved her mother over the entire world and everyone in it?
“Bringing back the sun would be good for everyone, there is no argument against that,” Starr said, noting that Coiffe was creeping closer with each moment they wasted on an argument that shouldn’t even be happening. It was clear that BGMC only wanted to maintain their grip on power. If Coiffe Mogovern told himself lies in his sleep to make himself feel good about his decisions, that wasn’t her problem, they obviously weren’t going to change his mind now. Which meant they had to escape. They had to go directly to Government House. It would open to the public in the morning, and Starr meant to be there.
But they were trapped.
“You’re wrong about that,” Coiffe argued. He stepped closer. “It wouldn’t be good for me.” He reached for Starr, almost had his hand on her arm, when a loud bang shook the house, causing Coiffe and everyone else in the room to stumble.
“What was that?” Marin asked, catching herself on the table.
Coiffe spun to his men. “Go check it out,” he commanded. By the time he turned back around, Hinton already had the window open. Starr tossed herself through, jumping onto the adjacent roof a story below before she had even a second to think about how much it would hurt. A moment later, Hinton landed with a heavy thud beside her. Starr pushed up, feet and legs aching, bones vibrating from the impact.
“Go,” Starr said. They ran together, dodging over the bronze rooftop. It was slippery and it was dark, but this was their only chance.
A shot rang out into the night. Searing pain radiated in Starr’s left leg. She stumbled and fell. Her leg felt like it was on fire, tearing in two. She felt hot blood slipping down her skin.
“Come on, just a little further.” Hinton hauled her up, balanced her as she hopped with one foot across the roof, her face twisted into a grimace. Only the thought of saving her mother pushed her onward. Her mother’s terrified scream echoing from her memory. “Run!” Starr had to listen. She had to keep running.
There were two more shots. Both tinged off the metal roof. Both missed, but came too close.
She glanced over her shoulder. A single guard had jumped down onto the rooftop. Hinton pulled out his gun and fired three shots back at the guard. A single bullet caught the man in the shoulder and he stumbled.
The roof came to a sudden, sharp end.
“Jump,” Hinton told Starr.
“I can’t,” she sobbed, glancing down at yet another rooftop below them, this one closer to the ground. Her leg throbbed, seared with hot pain.
“You will.” He gave her a firm gaze. “Remember, we have a ruby. All you need to do is get down. Then I can heal you.”
Starr looked down at the roof below them. Then there would be one more jump beyond that in order to reach the ground. Each one was going to hurt more than the last. And then what?
Another guard was climbing out from the window of the Balentica building. The first guard was clawing his way back to his feet.
“Go!” Hinton yelled as another shot came in the dark.
Starr knew she had to do it, no matter how much it hurt. She pulled in a breath, and then she jumped.
Chapter Twenty
Hinton fired his gun wildly. He knew the chance of hitting their pursuers in the dark was slim, but it might at least slow them down. He felt a change in the wind as Starr jumped. He didn’t see her leap and rushed to follow her down. His feet impacted the hard surface with a bang, sending painful shockwaves up his legs. Starr lay nearly unconscious on the rooftop beside him.
The good thing about this part of town was that the buildings were packed side by side, leaving no gaps to fall through. That made it easier, not having to worry about stumbling to their deaths. Hinton pulled Starr up by the shoulders. In the blue streetlight, he saw her eyes flick open.
“Come on, Starr, stay with me,” Hinton whispered in her ear. “Just a tad farther.”
Starr groaned, her fingers reached for her leg, searching blindly for the wound.
“Leave it until we’re somewhere safer,” Hinton said. “We have to get down to the street, find somewhere to hide first.”
Starr took a deep shuddering breath. “I know,” she said. Hinton led her across the rooftop. The metal roof was slick, but the ridges gave them a place to secure their feet. Hinton moved as quickly as he could, slipping now and then on the sloped roof, sliding closer to the edge. They would have to jump down again. There was no other way.
They reached the edge of the roof and Hinton glanced down. They weren’t that far off the ground. He could lower Starr, save her the impact. He asked her to sit on the rim of the roof as pounding footsteps rattled the rooftops behind them.
“Take my hands,” he said once she was seated.
Hinton moved to his knees then laid down on his belly. “Once we’re down, we’ll heal your leg with the ruby,” he reminded her, hoping to save her some pain.
Starr nodded. She looked like she might be sick.
A gunshot tinged off the roof beside them. Hinton grabbed Starr’s hands and swung her over the edge of the roof so that she dangled over the cobblestones. The street was well lit, but thankfully empty. Hinton dropped Starr. He swung himself over the edge and grasped the metal rim before dropping himself. Another gunshot followed him down. The bottoms of his feet bruised further as he hit the hard ground. He breathed through it, grabbed Starr, and practically hauled her across the street, moving as quickly as he could.
“This way,” he said, leading them into a narrow, dark alley. Just as they reached the dark, Hinton heard the slap of feet hitting the pavement behind them.
“That way,” someone yelled, followed by the slap of more feet on cobblestones.
Hinton pulled Starr along. She was slow and growing slower. She groaned with pain. A bang ricocheted through the alley. A gunshot behind them.
Hinton pulled Starr into a left passageway, even narrower than the first alley. The brick walls of the buildings closed in on them, and Hinton pushed Starr ahead. She stumbled but kept moving. She turned right, into another gap, a barely squeezable space between buildings. Thankfully, the walls were smooth metal, easier to slide along without catching their clothes or packs.
They continued to move, turning away from their starting point wherever they could, until finally Starr slowed, then stopped.
“I… I can’t…” She bent over double, gasping and clutching at her leg.
They were in the middle of an alley lined with waste bins. Mingled with the sour, damp smell was the metallic scent of blood. Hinton pulled two waste bins closer together so that they could use them for cover if they needed. He pulled out the aluminum-lined bag of charged jewels in his pocket and dumped them out into his palm. Their glows lit up the alley in a rainbow of light. He found a ruby the size of half his fingernail and put the rest of the gems back into the bag. “Where?” Hinton asked.
Starr pulled back her ruffled skirt so he could see the bullet wound above her knee. Hinton pressed the ruby to her flesh. Starr gasped when it made contact. Her head rolled back and she looked up at the narrow opening above.
“That feels wonderful,” she said. “Hot like the sun felt. Remember?”
Hinton smiled. “I’ll never forget. Tell me when you can run.”
“I think I’ll need a minute,” Starr said. Hinton watched as the ruby’s glow faded and Starr’s wound began to seal. He shifted his eyes to the end of the alley. He thought the BGMC goons would be on them by now, but no one came. There were some voices in the distance. Faint at first, but slowly growing louder.
“We’ve got to keep moving,” Hinton said.
“Okay,” Starr answered. “It’s healed, look.” She grasped Hinton’s hand and pressed it to her thigh where the bullet hole had been, but all he felt was the silky smooth, warm flesh of her leg. He looked up at her, caught her eyes, and then kissed her, once, quickly but deeply.
“We can’t stop,” Starr said, her breath short and quick.
“Right.” Hinton cleared his throat, felt the rush of blood to his cheeks. “We’ll keep going. We’ll head to Government House to present our findings directly. Once the House knows, BGMC won’t dare to hurt us.”
“The doors won’t be open until morning,” Starr said. She gripped at something tucked in the ruffles of her skirt, which Hinton knew to be the charged piece of taaffeite held securely in its small aluminum box.
“We’ll keep moving,” Hinton said, “and keep our eyes open. We can’t get caught.”
Starr nodded. Then she gripped Hinton’s hand tightly as they sprinted through the alley, across the street, and into another labyrinth of unlit back ways. It would be a long night.
Armason was an old city, as far as cities of Yurdeh went, though it was much younger than the cities of Laéanas had been, before they were abandoned after Impact. Armason had been built quickly and haphazardly, which meant the streets wound and wove, narrowed and stretched, twisted and turned randomly, as if to prove it had been constructed without a plan. Most buildings were steel, but the nearer they got to the city centre, the more bright and wood—old wood that was almost rotted through—there was.
Iron grew in great amounts in The Crush. Some said that the mountains themselves were iron, that they were made of pure metal, but Starr had been to The Crush many times and knew the mountains were mostly rock: granite, limestone, and sandstone, but if you dug down deep enough, like the monstrous pits that BGMC mined, the iron was plentiful, along with gold, quartz veins, and gems. But mostly there was iron. And that iron made Armason.
The factories that lined the coast turned the iron into steel. And the steel made the buildings. There was iron in the stairways, iron in the streetlamps. There were iron doors and steel beams. Even if walls were made from tin, it was iron that was the strength behind Armason. Iron was its backbone.
Even in The Blocks, a district full of lower and middle class working folk, steel was everywhere. This new area of Armason, where square buildings and row houses attempted to find order, was quiet at night. But once they crossed the tracks into the older Maze district, they found more people on the streets, more music pouring forth from restaurants and bars that catered to late night clientele. The Maze was composed of a host of narrow walkways. There was no room for carts or horseless carriages in these streets, but there was still plenty of room for patrolling BGMC guards. However, the Maze was where they would have to wait.
They were closer now to Government House and to the wealthier Oceanview district, where the wealthiest residents of Armason lived. Oceanview was the area that nearly every soul in Armason aspired to call home. Gorgeous brick houses with decorative wrought iron fences that protected gardens kept lush with charged emeralds. The people who lived in Oceanview never need worry about growing cold or starving to death. But the Maze was the heart of Armason. It was there the people gathered and shared stories, where they met with friends and feasted with family. Where people lived in apartments the size of a single mattress. The Maze might have been the heart of Armason, but it wasn’t where the rich chose to spend their time. The Maze had always been one of Starr’s favourite places.
"In here.” Starr nudged Hinton into a bar that was named after the Oceanview neighborhood, though it lacked both the view and the elegance.
The Oceanview Drinking Club was clean, however, with evenly spaced metal tables surrounded by three or four chairs each. The tables all faced a stage where a woman in a bustled dress sang, accompanied by a four piece band. Her songs were rowdy and the crowd around them howled and cheered the chanteuse on.
Starr led Hinton to a table at the back of the club and took a seat. "I'm sorry," Starr said. “But I must sit down. My leg is healed but I don’t feel well.” The table she had chosen was close to a swinging door that led back into what was likely the kitchen, and, Starr hoped, an alternate way out of the club.
In the dim light of the establishment—illuminated only by poor quality sapphire gems—Starr noticed dark stains on her palm. Blood. She looked down and saw the same staining on her leg, skirt, and boot. Blood. She looked at Hinton and saw more blood on his sleeve.
"All Gods we look like death," Starr whispered, reaching up to wipe sweat from her brow. Suddenly chilled, she slipped off her pack and wrapped her arms tight around her middle. She hoped that Drift had made it through the ordeal, tucked away as he was in her pack. Had she fallen on Drift when jumping between the rooftops? She untwined her arms and opened her bag. The moment she opened the top flap, Drift jumped up onto her lap.
“Oh good, you’re all right.” She moved to keep Drift concealed under the table as she scratched the top of his head.
“You’re shivering,” Hinton said. He pulled off his leather jacket and stood, coming over to Starr's side of the table to drape the jacket over her shoulders. It was warm from his wearing it and it smelled like citrus and machine parts. "You need to eat and drink." Hinton glanced around the club and raised a finger to catch the attention of a waitress. “The ruby heals but you still lost a lot of blood. I’m not a healer but I don’t think the ruby does anything about that.”
A woman ambled over to them, broad hips swinging side to side, the ruffled bustle of her red skirt brushing against the tables she wove her way through, tray balanced in one hand.
"A gallon of light ale, soup, and hearty bread,” Hinton requested. The waitress told him the price and Hinton was forced to hand over the money before she brought them anything. Starr noticed he gave the waitress two extra bronzen to ensure quick service.
"After we eat, we'll find a place to lay our heads for a bit. This is a big city, that’s in our favour."
"And BGMC is a big company. The resources they have—there could be a hundred men looking for us." Starr glanced at the club's entrance. She had sat with her back to the wall so she could watch the door. Starr stroked Drift's head as he settled into her skirts. Warmth from his body seeped into her legs, lessening the lingering pain in her thigh. Her wound didn't hurt but it felt weak and untested. If the BGMC goons stomped into the restaurant at that moment, Starr wasn’t sure she’d have the energy to run for long. But thankfully no guards appeared at the door.
They watched the entertainment until the waitress brought over a jug of ale and two tin cups. Hinton filled Starr’s cup first. The ale was weak but safer than drinking the water that came out of the taps in an establishment such as this, and they had used up all their aquamarine chips on the journey to Riverbrook.
"Don't drink too fast," Hinton warned her as she guzzled down the cold, bubbling liquid. She didn’t have a taste for it, the bitterness pulled on the back of her tongue, but her body wanted it, demanded that she drink. She had to force herself to stop in order to breathe.
The soup came next, steaming hot, with large chunks of potato, swirls of seaweed, and smaller chunks of crawler meat. It was the best soup Starr had eaten in her entire life only because she had never before been this hungry, even when her mother had been out of work and there had been no food in the house. Starr finished her first bowl and ordered another while she tucked into the water oat bread. The waitress gave Starr a strange look, her eyes lingering for a second too long on the stains on Starr's clothes and skin. "Just in from out of town," Starr said, attempting to give the woman a reassuring smile. "Not an easy hike from The Crush this time of year."
