Shard, page 2
part #2 of Cruelly Made Series
“We figure out how to convince the military she is our Shard. Then we get out of here. We don’t spend a lot of time on the front. We get sent on smaller missions to shitty places where they don’t send nice Aethers or puny Fells. She’s been to the front, and everyone agrees she’s a very good solider.”
Rot scratches his neck. “You know, that’s not the dumbest plan. We finish her familiar so she’ll be stable, then get out of here.”
“It’s not like the military is expecting me to be a good Shard,” I say thoughtfully.
Blood chortles. “We’ll be famous and those peerages will be ours yet. The Fell team with the Aether Shard.”
Rot grins, big and toothy.
There might be one small problem with the plan. “So we’re really going to dupe the military into believing I’m an Aether Crystal Shard, then swindle a pardon and peerages out of them?”
Because that’s not just an elaborate lie to escape the Pit. That’s an elaborate lie to keep up for the next ten years.
Blood stretches his arms over his head, laces his fingers together, and tucks his hands between the wall and his skull. “And there’s something else, Fells. Just to sweeten things further. For us at least, not sure what Pebbles will think of it.”
“I’m sure I don’t care.” As long as I can get these innocent Fells out of prison (and keep them out), I’ll consider everything else penance.
“When we retire, and when we get our peerages, one of us isn’t going to have to settle for whatever low-born minor noble daughter of an impoverished house looks our way.” Blood grins in my direction. “Because Pebbles there isn’t going to be saturated with marriage offers either. And since we all are going to be keeping her secret, one of us is going to get a very, very, very high-bred wife. The Fell and the Empress’ daughter.”
Smoke grins and Rot practically lights up like I’ve jabbed him with lightening.
I’ve never considered marriage or children, but marriage is the way to seal the secret of this lie safe away forever.
They cluster close together to whisper plans about how to defraud the military.
I try to listen, but I’m watching the shadows on the wall as they dance in the shape of flames, reminding me, achingly, of ScatheFire.
2
Crystal
We’re locked in. Nobody even got so much as breakfast. Half of the ravens have their heads tucked under one wing. Three are currently watching us.
“Think I can hit one with some piss from here?” Rot asks, eyeing a bird.
“How bad do you have to piss?” Blood looks up from his game with his petal dragon.
I grip my ankles as I sit cross-legged on my cot. Boredom is its own torture around here.
Blood’s petal dragon sits on his palm tapping its tail against Blood’s fingertip when cued, flapping its wings, and purring happily at the attention, and Blood’s cooing at it like it’s a newborn child. It’s been out a lot more lately. It’s a total ham: it loves to perform and do tricks and sing different songs and dance. A regular petal dragon, once hand-tamed, can be pretty sweet, but they’re not really trick ponies. Blood’s is all ham, no filler.
I feel a skittering across the magic haze that permeates this place. I swear the Pit is alive, and we’re just in its belly waiting to get digested. About fifteen seconds later, the distinctive rattling of the first gate.
Blood’s petal dragon hops back onto his chest and curls up into utility form.
The ravens wake.
Six Aether Mage guards march right up to our cell.
“Morning,” Blood drawls. “We’d offer you breakfast, but we’ve already licked our bowls clean.”
Hahha. He’s hilarious. There’d been no breakfast. We hadn’t been slopped recently. My stomach stopped growling a while ago.
“Crystal,” Inferno at the front barks. “The Warden has summoned you. Stand up and come to the door.”
“What does the Warden want with her?” Rot demands.
“Not your business. Step back.”
“She’s training to be our Shard. You can’t take her away. She’s ours.” Rot knuckles up his fists.
Inferno smirks. “You got something to report, Fell? Because if you do, we’ll let an officer know to come down here. Better make sure it’s worth their time.”
These guys will just stand and jaw at each other, and the Warden will just get pissed and more pissed, and I’d rather not have the Warden sniffing around us. Those Blightlings that had gotten unleashed for the “training session” that had killed ScatheFire hadn’t just randomly wandered up from the bottom of the Pit. It is the Warden’s job to keep things like the Ball Blightling contained. That thing hadn’t gotten loose without his say-so.
We’ll only get one chance at summoning the military too. We’ve got to save it for when we’re ready for the Shard-Farce. I dust off my hands.
“What are you doing?” Rot demands.
“Going to go talk to the Warden,” I say.
“It smells like a scam.” Rot walks over to the iron bars and gives them a good shake. The Aether enchantments flicker blue-white.
I push him back. “And what’s the Warden going to do to me? Kill me?”
“Maybe he’s going to take your Aether out. You saw that freaky shit—”
“Shut up, Rot,” Smoke murmurs before Rot can blab about what we saw on the lower level.
The Aethers unlock the door.
Rot gives the bars a good kick for emphasis.
“Go on,” I tell him. “It’ll be fine.”
Rot glowers and retreats to the back of the cell to stand with Smoke.
Stone presents me with some manacles. These are Mage-iron, with all the usual glyphs and enchantments, they sting like needles as they’re clamped over my wrists. They’ve got three strange gems set into the iron band that look like a puddle of oil. Then another little loop is bolted around each of my thumbs and a clamp yanks my thumbs back towards my wrist.
Ouch.
The dark gems swirl with iridescent gloss, like they’re vials filling up.
More manacles are belted around my ankles. There’s a toe-ring too, this one attached by a chain to the manacle and lifting my big toe off the ground. My ankles are chained close together.
An iron band is placed over my head and slid down around my eyes. It’s clamped shut, and I am blind. My head is squeezed like a melon at market. My ears roar and the pain in my temples is intense.
Chains are attached to my thumbs and a sharp reed whip delivers a smack to the back of my calves.
I balk.
The chains tug forward as the reed whip smacks me again. A welt instantly appears on the back of my thighs.
“Knock that off!” Rot shouts.
The door to the cell slams shut. Something large impacts it and Rot rattles the bars. “Hey! Don’t hurt her, asshole!”
Another smack on the back of my legs. Someone instructs, “Forward.”
“You could have said that before you hit me,” I say.
Smack.
“I am going to fucking strangle you with that whip, you piece of shit!” Rot howls.
“It’s fine!” I manage to say over the squeezing in my head. The last thing we need right now is for Rot to end up over the edge. The Aethers wouldn’t let me free to get him back, and with my magic tied up by the manacles, I am completely… well. Empty.
It’s a strange feeling. Like drifting in oil. Like I’m a bug in oil in an apothecary shop. No magic, no fighting with my Aether, just… nothing.
What are these restraints?
Maybe… maybe I could find someone to make something similar. Something that would pass as a necklace and I could wear it and it’d keep my magic at bay. I need to find out more. To the Warden it is, then!
Rot’s still shaking the bars. This is not the time for him to lose his mind. “It’s fine, Knock it off, Rot!”
SMACK.
I shuffle forward, disoriented and struggling to keep my balance with the chains tugging my thumbs while the chains on my feet rob me of my big toe, which also makes my ankles inflexible.
I barely stay upright as they herd me like an ox. The reed whip periodically delivers a slicing sting to some part of my body.
Through the first gate, up the ramp, to the left. I try to keep track of the twists, turns, and smells, but there are too many. My lower legs burn from the shuffling.
“Step!” a voice commands, delivering a smack to my aching ankle. “Step, step, step.”
Damn, next time they’re going to get some choks out and start teaching me to piaffe like a parade pony.
Another smack to my shoulder.
“Knock it off, assholes. I’m tame, I’m tame,” I snap.
SMACK, right across the back of my neck.
My magic surges. The manacles constrict: ankles, wrists, the one around my head. The loops on my toes and thumbs pull back farther.
I drop to my knees.
“Walk,” a voice demands, and another crack is delivered to my ass.
“What the hell did I do?” I rasp.
Two Aethers haul me to my feet even rougher than before, and one of them—Frost, I think, from the chill—shoves her face into mine, and her freezing magic scalds the metal into my skin. “What did you do? You’re a fucking murderer, you piece of shit.”
My insides crack and crumble.
“So that’s what you did,” she says as another one of them whips the back of my thighs with each word. “And this is what you deserve, and if you manage to worm your way out of here, you better keep an eye over your shoulder. Nobody else has ever given you what you deserve, so don’t be surprised when it shows up one night.”
A final, brutal smack, and they drag me back to my feet. My legs tremble. I resume shuffling while my brain tries to squish out my ears, and something trickles down my neck and the back of my legs. It smells like blood.
Up more stairs, around and around, I lose track of everything, and finally I sense I’m in a big, open room.
“Unbind her,” the Warden’s voice says.
“But, sir,” the Aether Mage says. “She tried to attack us on the way here.”
That’s a lie, but it doesn’t matter.
“No, she didn’t. She just doesn’t have control of her magic.” A presence sort of like an Aether Mage and sort of like a Priest brushes me. The Warden? It has to be him. With my eyes covered and my senses suppressed, he’s very different.
He pushes his finger into the base of my skull, so I tilt my pounding head forward. “You harm this particular Mage expect her magic will snap like a rabid dog. She never gained enough control. She’s otherwise very tame and loyal to the Empire. Aren’t you, Heart?”
“My name is Crystal,” I rasp, throat thick with tears.
“According to your Fells, your name is Pebbles.”
“They shouldn’t be here. They’re innocent. Please tell the military to let them go.”
“I’ve tried. Unbind her.”
He’s tried? Since when had the Warden been on their side?
My bindings are taken off and I sag in relief as my skull is finally freed from the band. I touch the back of my neck. My skin is split open from the reed whip. My legs are stumps of pain.
The Aethers carry away the shackles and collars.
The Warden’s office is made almost entirely out of windows, and we’re up so high I have a view of the entire complex. Sunlight streams through the glass. Outside the sky is bright blue with some puffy clouds, and the terrain beyond the stone walls is miserable and sodden: the contaminated marshlands that go twenty miles in every direction. Out of the eastern window I can see the narrow raised road lined with Aether-lanterns that winds its way out of the marsh to a small trading town that is the last little bit of civilization out this way.
Bookshelves line the place with volumes and scroll cases. Old rugs, battered furniture that had once been in some noble’s house, paintings, candles, lanterns.
The Warden’s desk is neatly organized with his work. On a stand to the side is a massive leather volume of great age. Restraints and weapons are on the walls.
There aren’t any bars on the windows. There’s nowhere to run, and if you’re dumb enough to jump for it, you aren’t going to suddenly sprout wings, and even if you made it to the ground without breaking every bone in your body, and out the front gate, your choices are a single narrow road or trying to find your way through miles and miles of Blight-riddled swamplands and then many more miles of just contaminated, twisted, infected lands where nothing normal has lived since the First Wars.
There’s no escape from the Pit.
The Warden sits on the edge of the desk, hands folded in his lap.
In the bright light of the office, and up close and not out of my mind with grief, I finally get my first good look at him. He’s older, but not old. Looks fit and healthy and intact despite living here. His hair is silvery-white, and his eyes are a strange, pale shade too, not quite blue, not quite silver, and depending which way he tilts his head, they seem to be different colors entirely. He doesn’t wear any rings, and his clothing, while quality, is the same uniform as everyone else, except for the strange well-worn second belt with many loops and no keys.
We stare at each other for a few minutes. Guess I’ll speak first, since that’s what he’s waiting for, and I don’t want to piss him off. “You tried to get the Fells out of here?”
He shrugs. “Of course. We all agree you’re guilty. You and I agree that the three Fells in your cell are not. The Military’s actions are unacceptable and will do nothing to engender loyalty from Mages, especially Fells. Sending Aethers here for guard duty is punitive enough. Every team who comes here knows it’s punishment. I tried to make these arguments and protest, but it fell on deaf ears.”
This is all news to me.
“After what happened with Storm, I’ve appealed to the military to stop this insane experiment,” he continues. “They intend on using you as exercise partners for the Academy Mages when school is in session again. You’re a Crystal Mage full of a very unique quantity of Aether. There is simply no way for you to be a Shard.”
While the Warden would be a powerful ally, he’s also the asshole who unleashed the Ball Blightling and got ScatheFire killed. “They want to try. You know the military isn’t going to change its mind no matter how dangerous or impossible it is.”
“And if the Fells end up dead.” He shrugs to illustrate how little he cares about the Fells. “It’s the young Aethers I worry about. You’ve already destroyed four of them. Five if you want to count your friend ScatheFire in your tally. And I suspect there are more you’ve kept hidden. Perhaps more from your time on the front?”
I flinch, and my Aether trembles in my skin as his words hit the raw blisters on my soul.
The Warden smiles very slightly. “Did I hit a nerve?”
I lean hard on that door in the back of my mind, keeping all the bad, dark memories inside it. It hurts to breathe. Every beat of my heart hurts.
“All that chaos,” he says, “in a battle. The confusion. The screams. Perhaps you lost control of your magic before. Perhaps no one noticed in all that chaos.”
I am strangled and breathless and don’t dare utter a single sound.
The Warden doesn’t seem to blink. His strange eyes seem far too bright. “My Aether guards are still serving Imperial Aethers. They just serve here for sixty to ninety days at a time before they leave again, You live with your Fells. So if you were to… have some training accidents…”
I jerk my head up and shake off the strangling nightmares from my past. “You want me to kill the Fells?”
“Let’s say I don’t want dead Aether Mages in this prison. I otherwise care little for who lives or dies here, because most end up doing neither for very long.”
“But they’re innocent. You said yourself they don’t belong here.”
“And I can’t get them out of my prison. That means they’re going to perish here, one way or the other. The military is determined to ignore the danger, even if it means using Academy students to spy on you and putting those students in real danger. And when something happens, which we both know it will, heads will roll. Since it would just be you and some Fells responsible, the public and families won’t get their pound of flesh from you, so they’ll take it out of whatever unfortunate Aether teams were here for failing to prevent it, and more Aethers will be lost.”
My throat feels like it’s full of a clump of dry weeds.
The Warden gestures like he’s rolling something downhill. “The military wants what they want, and what they want is to win the war. But there are also nobles that want explanations of why everything costs what it costs and why the war is not yet won. You are a very expensive and public failure.”
“They could take my Aether out?” I offer, voice small.
The Warden chuckles. “Oh, they’re past that now. Don’t you see how all this is going to coalesce into a nightmare the next time you kill? The families of your old team have learned how you begged for help. Storm’s made sure of that. They want to know why you weren’t pulled, re-assigned, or de-consecrated. The military and Academy are so focused on recouping that value out of you and proving they didn’t make a mistake that they are blind to how much worse this will be the next time you kill an Aether, which we both know you will do eventually.”
“No,” I say. “I won’t.”
“Doubtful.”
“If I kill these Fells, what’s to stop more from being sent?”
“So you don’t know much about them.” The Warden raises a brow at me. “They’re the best Fells the Empire has, aside from the Sharded team nearing retirement. Did you think the military sent you dregs? They sent you the best.”
“What?” I ask, gut sinking. Blood had hinted that they were the top team, but hearing confirmation from the Warden just made it feel so much sharper and worse. “They’re a top team?”
“Oh yes,” the Warden says with a slight smile. “The very best, like I said. If you can’t work with them, the military won’t bother with lesser. Have they been humble and not told you about their exploits?”
