THIRTY-EIGHT

NEW VIGIL

So the Imperium and the Revolution both have their eyes trained on the city. They are aware of Liette, the Scrath, everything, and they want it. And they, being two ancient and implacable enemies, have discovered that this is the only thing they want more than killing each other and have, thus, decided to cooperate in destroying us. At least a little.”

Cavric leaned back in his chair, stroked his beard thoughtfully. After a long, quiet moment, he shrugged.

“Well,” he said, “that’s not the best news, I admit.”

All eyes in the command center where everyone also got drunk turned slowly, incredulously, toward him. He blinked, held up his hands.

“What? I said it wasn’t good.”

“It’s… possibly… worse than not-good.” Meret adjusted his glasses. “This city is full of Revolutionary defectors and is a bruise on the Imperium’s ego. We should probably assume that surrender would mean conscriptions for the lucky and executions for the unlucky. Or the other way around, depending on how you look at it. If Sal’s associate… this…” He glanced to me. “Sorry, what did you say it was? A ghost?”

“No, Torle of the Void appeared to me as a mental projection cobbled together from my own memories and layered on top of mine so that he appeared to be there and was in communication with me from across great distances,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “There’s no such thing as ghosts, Meret.”

“Oh. Um.” He looked away, sheepish. “Yes, of course.”

“I suppose we should thank you for it, then,” Ketterling muttered, folding her arms. “I’m just so pleased that you could tell us two armies are rolling toward us.”

“I actually am, though,” Cavric rebutted. “This doesn’t change anything we didn’t already know. We knew they’d be coming. And if they are, I’d rather know than not.”

“We aren’t ready for them,” Ketterling said. “The wall’s the only thing that’s even close to being finished.”

“It’s not perfect,” he sighed, “but it’s better than where we started.”

“You’re the one in charge. Tell us what to do, then.”

Cavric hummed. He opened his mouth to say something, reconsidered, picked up a tankard of beer, and took a sip. He tried to speak again, reconsidered again, picked up the tankard and finished the entire beer. He slammed it back on the table.

“Well,” he said, smacking his lips. “I suppose we’ll fight.”

“Are… are you sure?” Meret asked.

“Fight? Fight?” Ketterling all but laughed. “Do we fight them with our wall? Or our birds? Or should I have my riders put together some unkind lyrics about their insecurities and we can try our best with that?”

I stood up in the chair, laid my hands on the table.

“They’re right,” I said. “You’re all right. It’s my problem that brought this to your door and it’s me they’re looking for. If I leave, we might stand a chance of—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, don’t start with this shit now.” Ketterling chuckled—and for once, it almost sounded like it wasn’t the spiteful, derisive kind. “We got our asses kicked for you. You owe us.”

“It’s considered quite rude to interrupt them when they’re monologuing,” Cavric said before glancing at me. “She’s right, though. We already bled for you. We’re not kicking you out.” He leaned back, folded his hands over his belly. “But it might be nice if you chipped in here, considering you’re the one with the massive gun and all.”

I suppose I must have looked pretty stupid standing there, dumbstruck. But you have to appreciate how rarely this happens to me. If it ever has.

I’m used to the stories that follow when I leave a city: the tales of Sal the Cacophony laying waste to an entire township, the frightened whispers of her passing, the curses that chase her back when she finally moves on.

People wanting me here? Even after I’d brought ruin to them?

That was new.

And it felt…

“What do you need me to do, then?”

Well, it felt like that.

I slid back down into the seat. Cavric’s eyebrows rose—he hadn’t expected that. I’d have taken offense, but Ketterling already seemed like she didn’t have a lot of patience for dialogue right then.

“I’ll take my riders out,” she said, rolling out a sore muscle. “Try to keep eyes on them, reset traps, maybe harry them to slow them down.”

“Not wise,” Cavric said. “Hard to harry tanks and mages on birdback.”

“Torle will have Scrymages watching you, too,” I chimed in. “If you move in small groups, they’ll have a harder time finding you. Good for evading detection…”

“Bad for fighting.” Ketterling spat onto the floor. “Fuck. This was way fucking easier when it was fighting other clans and robbing people.” She rubbed her temples. “All right, no harrying. Just traps and… and… I don’t know, I guess I can hope real hard that they get rocks in their shoes and have to stop every few steps?”

“I’ll take whatever you can give me,” Cavric said. “Hope and rocks, included.”

“I’ll have one of them for you by the time I get back.” Ketterling plucked her coat off her chair, draped it over her worn leathers and strapped axes. “I’ll do what I can. You do the same.” She started moving for the door, paused, called without looking up. “Hey, Cacophony.”

I looked to her. She spared the narrowest sliver of a glance for me.

“I heard you once took out one of the Revolution’s tanks with that gun,” she said. “That true?”

“No,” I replied. “I took out several of the Revolution’s tanks with this gun.”

She paused, grunted, flung the door open.

“Let’s hope you ruin them as much as you ruin everyone else.”

The door slammed. Drinks shuddered on their shelves. Cavric looked to me, beaming with delight.

“Oh, she really likes you.”

“I was going to say,” Meret agreed, “I haven’t seen her warm up to anyone like that before.”

“That, uh”—I cleared my throat—“didn’t sound like she does.” I smacked my lips. “In fact, it sounded rather like she hated my guts.”

“Yes, but yesterday she hated your very existence,” Cavric said. “It’s all about perspective.” Without waiting for me to respond, he laid a hand on Meret’s shoulder. “Not to overstate the obvious, but we’re outnumbered.” He furrowed his brow, thought. “Actually, let me overstate the obvious. We are severely outnumbered. Whatever force they send is going to be bigger than ours.”

“I can find volunteers,” Meret said. There was a grimness in his nod that hadn’t been there before. But there was a sadness in his eyes that would always be there. “People who can fight. Or at least, people who can’t sit and wait.”

“We need more than fighters,” Cavric said. “We need food, we need medicine, we need people who can clean shitters, even.”

“I can find them, too.” Meret plucked up his coat and spared a smile for me. “Feels kind of familiar, doesn’t it? You and I, about to face disaster together.”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “It didn’t end so well last time, as I recall.”

“Disaster never does.” He draped his coat around him, headed for the door. “But if it’s going to happen, I’d rather be with you.”

The door shut. Cavric and I were left without a word exchanged between us. I could feel a thousand things to say swirling in my throat, but couldn’t get them out. There was a pain in my chest that wouldn’t let me speak.

He, not being similarly moved, could not speak a word because he had already begun eating from a plate of meat skewers.

He paused, suddenly aware of me watching him, spoke through a full mouth.

“What? If you’re hungry, you should have brought food, too.”

“You’re optimistic,” I said, “and you shouldn’t be. Traps aren’t going to slow them down. And no matter how many volunteers you find, they aren’t mages. They aren’t cannons. They aren’t—”

“Yes, I’m aware,” he interrupted, tearing off another piece of meat. “As I am aware of the fact that you’re about to attempt to draw out a Scrath in my city. As I am aware that we just fought off a trio of Vagrants out for your blood. As I am aware that I’ve got one—one of two, I should mention—of my very hardworking Mendmages trying to keep your creepy friend with the sword alive.”

I fell silent, my eyes heavy in their sockets. There were about a hundred different sharp, pointy objects I’d rather have been hit with than that. I didn’t want to think about Jindu. What he’d done. Who he’d done it for.

“And you’re aware, too.”

I looked up, saw the plate of meat skewers slid before me.

“Someone is hurt because they chose to protect you. And I chose to use my people to help him. Just as I chose to come out to the middle of nowhere to die. He chose you. I chose you.” He slurped the last traces of fat from his skewer. “Not everyone is afraid of you, Sal. Some might even like you, no matter how badly you wished they didn’t.”

He pulled himself out of his chair, began to fasten his coat around his shoulders. He hesitated, briefly, as he did.

“It’s not optimism.”

“Huh?” I glanced up.

“It’s not optimism,” he repeated. “It’s resignation. I have no expectation of getting out of this. None of us do. It’s the first thing we made peace with when we moved here. The other powers would one day come and wipe us out. We knew. We always knew it would happen one day.”

He picked up another skewer from the plate. He took a bite of it.

“But to live out here, as we want… it’s worth making peace with that,” he said. “It always was.”

“Where are you going?”

“I have people to see about the wall, about the mages, about our strategies. I’ll keep you informed, tell you where you can help the most. Do as you will until then.” His boots clomped toward the door. “If I were you, though? I might go see one of those people who you wish didn’t like you.”

He didn’t wait for me to respond, choosing instead to leave and shut the door behind him. Which was quite rude, since now I had nothing to distract me from his words, weighing down on me. Nothing but the skewers he’d offered, anyway.

I picked one up, chewed on it.

It was good.

But not good enough to keep me there.

She had chosen a quiet section of the city to reside in.

A humble square of half-finished homes surrounding a well. Amid the barrenness of the rest of the New Vigil, a small scar of greenery had blossomed around the well’s base. The grass there was soft. The dandelions grew tall and their shaggy heads shuddered off buds to offer to the wind as it blew.

Even here, nestled between approaching war and unending nothing, she found the one place soft and green.

She belonged in a place like that. A place where she could be surrounded by beautiful things. A place where the wind smelled of growing things and not smoke.

My hand trembled at her door, hesitant. It wasn’t courage that made me knock.

She didn’t answer. That was probably wise. Wiser still would be me turning around and abandoning this plan, leaving her to her evening.

Wise isn’t what I’m known for, though. And wise wasn’t what I needed to be that night.

“Agne?”

I whispered into a softly lit room as I eased the door open. A cozy skeleton of a home greeted me: a barely finished roof, walls that needed more wall, a ladder where a staircase would one day be. My eyes were drawn to the softest corner of the room, where the orange light of a small band of candles flickered softly.

I found her there. A glass of wine sat before her, full and untouched. She sat at a small table in a small chair. Her hands were clasped together in her lap. She did not look up at me as I approached, as I sat down beside her. Her eyes were empty, unblinking, fixed on the glass as though it were a thousand miles away.

My eyes drifted around the room, from the blankets she’d draped here and there, to the careful way her clothes had been arranged atop a nearby crate. I searched for some observation to make, some joke to crack, anything to break the silence.

But I didn’t.

I believe in no god. Not many in the Scar do. But the silence seemed somehow sacred in that room, something mournful and respectful. It felt cruel to speak. As though I’d be wounding something that needed to be protected.

“Do you like wine?”

It was her that spoke. And she spoke so gently that it did not stir the silence, that reverent softness.

“I’ve never seen you drink it.”

“Not as much as whiskey,” I replied. “But I like it.”

“Do you want this one?” she asked.

I looked down at it, not so much as a fingerprint on the glass. “You don’t like it?”

“It’s my favorite.”

“Have you had enough?”

“I haven’t had so much as a drop.”

My eyes drifted to the candles she’d left here and there. They’d burned down to thin pools of melted wax, quivering and threatening to consume the flames that danced precariously on their wicks.

“Agne,” I whispered, “how long has it been since you poured that wine?”

“Hours,” she replied. “I poured it hours ago.” She stared at the glass. “I used to love doing this. Lighting candles. Pouring wine. Reading poetry. Trying on silks.”

“Do you not love it anymore?”

“I don’t know if I do or if I don’t.” Her voice changed not even a little. “I used to enjoy perfumes. And today I realized I haven’t bathed in days. And I wondered… do I still like wine?”

She stared down the wineglass like it could stare back.

“And then I wondered, if I don’t like it… if it doesn’t taste right, will I weep? Will I still have the capability to weep?” Her face remained empty, her voice painful soft. “And then I think how strange it is to let a glass give me so much trouble when I could simply break it. Just with my little finger. Like so many things. I could simply break them all and be done.”

The silence descended between us again, this time not so reverent. This time, it was the silence of crickets when a monster prowls, the silence after you say the wrong words to the wrong people. It was the kind of quiet that twisted between my joints, made it hurt to move in, let alone speak.

And when I did, it was agony.

“There are armies coming,” I said softly. “The Revolution and the Imperium have… well, it’s hard to explain, but they’re both coming for this city. They know about Liette and the Scrath. They know we’re here. And they’re coming.”

She stared vacantly at the wine, barely even noticing the words I spoke. War had become rote to her.

“We don’t know their numbers or their strength,” I continued, “but we know that Torle of the Void will be with them. Whatever plan we have… if we have a plan… will involve an incredible amount of fighting. It’ll be—”

I choked on my own words. I saw Agne’s face begin to fall.

“It’ll be hard fighting, Agne.” My chest felt tight. It hurt to speak. “It’s going to be some of the hardest fighting I can imagine. If we’re going to come out of this alive… if there’s any chance of us coming out of this alive…” I shut my eyes, forced the next words out. “The cost will be incredible. And that’s why I needed to tell you.”

I forced myself to look at her, forced myself to look past the tears that began to cling to the corners of her eyes, forced myself to still my voice and speak the words I’d known I’d have to speak all this time.

“Agne,” I whispered, “you have to leave.”

Siegemages are some of the most revered mages in the Imperium. Both for their incredible power and for the sacrifice of their Barter. They gain strength, endurance, invulnerability. They lose sorrow, laughter, love. In the end, they become hollow people, empty of everything but the power and the need to use it.

Agne had lived in fear of that.

And to see her shut her eyes tight and watch tears slide down her cheeks, I was grateful to have at least spared her it.

She could still weep.

“No,” she whispered.

“Yes,” I replied. “They’ll be here soon and when they arrive, you’ll be far away.”

“I can’t leave you. You need me. You all need me.”

“We do, yes,” I said. “But you need you more than we do. You aren’t made for this.”

“I’m a Vagrant,” she said, her breath halted with tears. “I’ve fought. I’ve killed. I’m no flower.”

“You aren’t. You’re Agne the Hammer. You fight, yes. But this isn’t the fight you’re meant to be in. This isn’t the death you deserve to have. You’re supposed to be in someone’s arms, surrounded by people, in a comfortable bed with a beloved pet—I don’t know. But you aren’t supposed to die out here, ground into the dust, until everything in you is so spent you can’t even feel it when you’re bleeding out.”

“I would, though. I would die for you.”

“I believe you would, if I asked you. And I’m asking you to do the opposite of that.”

“I can’t abandon you. Not now, especially. I don’t want to. Don’t you believe that?”

I stared at her.

“If you can look me in the eye and say it, I will.”

She opened her eyes, thick with tears. She met my eyes, her face trembling. Her lips parted, made a sound. But no words. The more she tried to speak, the harder the tears came.

“Can you?” I asked. “Can you say it?”

“No,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

“You can’t,” I repeated. “Because you can still feel. And that’s how you know I’m right.”

I pulled my scarf around me. I stood up. I laid my hand upon hers.

“Goodbye, Agne,” I said. “Thanks for coming with me this far.”

I turned to leave.

I couldn’t.

Her hand was around my wrist. On my shoulder. She turned me around to face her as she stood up, loomed over me. Her entire body trembled with barely restrained sobs and between her hands, I could feel that if she wanted to break me, it’d take no more than it would to break that glass.

She pulled me into her, against her. Her arms wrapped around me. Her tears fell hot and freely upon my shoulder. Her body shuddered against mine as she began to sob and did not stop.

“I’m sorry,” she wept into my ear. “I’m so sorry, Sal. I should have… I should—”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” My arms found her shoulders. “Nothing. Everything you gave to me, you gave because I asked you.”

“No,” she whispered. “I’ve been trying to pull away. Trying not to feel. Trying not to get close to anything so I wouldn’t even notice when it… when I couldn’t—” She bawled into my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I could have done more. For you, for Sindra, for—”

“Stop that.” I tried to laugh, almost succeeded. “What you gave me, I was lucky to have. But what it took from you killed me. And it’ll kill you, too, if you don’t leave while you’ve still got what you have.” I held her by her shoulders, dried at her tears with my scarf. “This isn’t where it ends for you.”

She took my hands, held them in hers, pressed them to her cheeks. Her tears felt warm on my fingers.

“Thank you, Salazanca,” she whispered. “I love you dearly. I would have given you everything.”

I smiled at her. “If I didn’t feel the same about you, Agnestrada, I would have taken it.”

We held each other as long as we could.

Agne the Hammer, one of the most tenacious Siegemages I had ever had the pleasure to meet, left the city that night, freshly bathed and with the taste of wine on her lips. I like to think she rode far that night. I like to think she didn’t look back.

But I know she did. Because I know who she is. And I have no regrets about sending her away before she could become something else. If I’d had the time, I would have stood upon the wall and watched her disappear over the horizon.

But I had someone else to see that night.

“Fuck me, is it too much to ask that you try harder not to kill me? I’m your sister, dickwipe! How can you do this to family?”

“If you wouldn’t move so much and, frankly, if you didn’t raise your voice at me so much, I could be a little more precise. It’s very stressful.”

“Oh, you’re stressed, are you, you little shit? I’m the one with the dead fucking arm, aren’t I? I’m the one that can’t feel her own asshole. You think that’s relaxing, Captain Cockstink?”

“And if you’d let me work, you might actually get the chance to retain some function in it. The sigils are incredibly precise, though, which requires incredible concentration—which, I will point out, is not helped by you cursing so much.”

“Sure, blame me. See how that goes for you. You hear what they say about me in the streets? About how I trapped that Vagrant? I’m a fucking hero.”

“That was very reckless. Very reckless. I didn’t like that, Yria. It was wildly dangerous and the work I have to do to repair it is going to make my hands shake for a week.”

For the first time since I had walked in, they stopped talking. There was an uncomfortable moment before Yria let out an uncomfortable noise.

“Yeah, well,” she grunted. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

Urda took a deep breath. “It’s okay. I’m happy to help. Just try to go easier on my work.”

He returned to his work, tending with quill and loupe to the sigils he was painstakingly scrawling across her numb arm. She returned to her tankard, leaning back in her chair and drinking deeply.

The twins had staked out a room at the only other inn that wasn’t Ost’s Grave—which was, allegedly, just a room in a home owned by an elderly woman. And, in short order, the tidy, cozy room had been consumed by ink stains and loose papers and an odor that wasn’t quite alarming but was far from unconcerning.

Almost every part of their abode had been centered around the massive, cobbled-together chair Urda had finagled to accommodate his sister’s needs. She lay reclined across it, her dead arm laid out on a work surface for her brother to scrawl upon, her other arm concerned with the hefty tankard she held.

At some point, she seemed to remember I was in the room. Her eyes popped open, she set her drink down and licked foam off her upper lip.

“For fuck’s sake, say something next time,” she spat. “I fucking forgot you were even here, let alone what you were saying.”

“I said Agne’s gone.”

They shot me each their own distinct glance. Urda’s was hopeful. Yria’s was suspicious. Both of them unsettled me.

“She left not long ago,” I continued. “I don’t know where she’s going.”

“If she’s got any sense that doesn’t go to dice, she’ll go away from here,” Yria mumbled.

“She has. Wait, what do you mean about dice?”

“Agne and Yria have—or had, I suppose, given this revelation—an ongoing dice game,” Urda answered. “I don’t approve.”

“What? When did this happen?” I asked.

“When you were off doing your own shit? I don’t know,” Yria snapped back to me. “I have a life outside of you. And I was just about to win back everything I’d lost to her but now I guess I won’t, so thanks for that, shitmouth.”

“You’re not listening to what I’m saying,” I said.

“Unless there’s something crucial I’m missing, it sounds as though Agne chose to part ways with us,” he said with a note of bitter satisfaction. “Good for her.”

“And it sounds as though you’re telling me you didn’t bother to stop her so I could win my money back.” Yria rolled her eyes as she drained her ale. “So I’m out metal and you’re still an inconsiderate dick. What’s new about that?”

“I’m saying I told her to leave,” I said. “And I’m telling you to leave, too.”

They both fell silent. He stopped working, she stopped drinking, they both fixed me with a stare I wasn’t used to. I was used to their anger, their contempt, their fear, and even their occasional begrudging admiration. But this…

This was the first time they were listening to me.

“Agne was going to lose herself,” I told them, trying to swallow down the painful sensation crawling up into my throat. “Everything about herself. Just like you’re losing yourselves. Both of you are losing to her Barter. This war is going to take everything. From both of you. And I can’t ask you to do that. I can’t let you do that.

“The Imperium and Revolution are coming,” I said. “And we don’t know when they’ll be here. But when they arrive, there won’t be any getting away. Even with portals. But there’s time for you to go now. And you should take it.”

The silence was stunned. Or maybe stupefied. The twins exchanged a look before Yria turned a long glower back toward me.

“Help me up,” she grunted.

Urda hopped off his chair, took her by the shoulders, helped her to her feet. She thrust her tankard toward him.

“Hold my shit.”

He took the cup from her, set it aside. She draped her arm over his shoulder, her legs shook numbly beneath her, ready to give out should he not support her.

“Get me up in her face.”

Together, they hobbled toward me. He propped her up as she leered into my face, the tattoo on her chin twisting wildly with the strength of her contempt. Her eyes narrowed to the thinnest, cruelest slits I had ever seen.

“Do you know who the fuck we are?”

I sighed. “I know who Yria the Cell is. You’re a Vagrant. No one says you’re not strong.”

“No, I mean do you know who the fuck we are. Him and me. Urda and Yria. We’re not just Vagrants, we’re brother and sister. We’re family. We have…” She caught herself. A tear danced at the corner of her eye. She snarled it away. “We had a mom.”

“She was… she was killed in a war. One of the earlier ones. There were so many.” Urda breathed heavily as he spoke, the words like iron as he pulled them out of his mouth. “Yria helped me… helps me with it, but it’s still… it’s still…”

“And another war is coming,” I said, “and that’s why I want to—”

“Fuck what you want,” Yria roared at me. “We’ve given you months of our help, so you’re going to fucking listen to us.”

I didn’t speak. Not another word. I stood there. And Urda swallowed hard.

“But I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t keep the sounds out of my dreams. Not without Yria. I can’t… I can’t…”

He couldn’t finish. He fell into her, turned away from me. With her one good arm, she pulled him close, held my gaze.

“I’ve always been an asshole. Since the day I was born,” she said. “But he didn’t use to be like this. He used to be…” She clenched her jaw. “It used to be easier for him. Big people with big guns did this to him. Made him this way. Made us the way we are. It was hell without Mom. She took care of us.” Her jaw tightened. “And I take care of him now.”

They turned toward me again. And for the first time, their eyes were full of the same tense resolve, the same furious ire, the same desperate aggression that they saw in each other.

“And now the big people with the big guns are coming this way, to do what they did to him to everyone,” she whispered, “and you think we’re not going to stay here and stop that?”

I admit, that wasn’t what I was expecting her to say.

And I wasn’t expecting to be left speechless by it.

“You can’t stop it,” I said. “None of us can. The Imperium and the Revolution are—”

“She heard you,” Urda said. “We both did. And we heard from Cavric. When he asked us if we would help.” He nodded, shakily. “And we said yes.”

“What?” I asked, agog.

“Well, don’t look so surprised, you selfish ass,” Yria snapped back. “If you ever bothered to sit down with me like a civilized human being, you’d know I’ve got a rich inner life.”

“I wanted her to leave,” Urda said. “I wanted to protect her. But we talked and… she’s right.” He shook his head. “I don’t want more people to end up like us. I don’t want them to lose what we lost.”

“But your Barter,” I said. “Your arm is—”

“Is my fucking arm to do with what I please, thank you very much.” Yria grunted with effort, made the barest wiggle of her numbed arm. “And his work is fucking shit, but Urda helps.”

“Excuse me,” her brother protested. “Applying sigils to flesh is considered extremely dangerous. Frankly, we should be astonished that it’s working at all. If we weren’t twins—”

“Well, we are twins, so shut your fucking mouth. You’re making us look stupid in front of this moron.”

“Are you sure you know what’s happening?” I asked. “What I’m going to ask of you isn’t nothing.”

“You aren’t asking anything of us and we aren’t doing anything for you,” Yria spat. “You just happen to be in the same city we are choosing to apply our numerous and splendid talents to.”

Urda cleared his throat, glanced sheepishly toward me.

“That said, uh,” he whispered, “since we are in the same city… I’m glad you’re here, too, Sal.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Yria sniffed, looked away. “I mean, better behind the Cacophony than in front of her, right?”

“Right.” Urda winced a little. “Though, I think a cacophony doesn’t necessarily have an implied directional force, does it?”

“I’ll consult my glossary while you get me another beer,” his sister said, grimacing as she stiffened up. “Now help me to my chair so we can finish. This shit itches like hell.”

It was me who took her this time, hoisting her weight onto my shoulders as I helped her to her chair. Urda tensed, but let me help. And as I lowered her back onto her seat, I squeezed Yria’s shoulder.

“I’m glad you’re behind me, too.”

She grinned, shoved my hand off her shoulder. “Yeah, we’re just a real pile of feelings over here, aren’t we? Now get the fuck off me and get the fuck out. I know what you do with those hands, you sick fuck.”

I did as she asked, Urda offering me a smile as he went back to work applying the sigils to her skin and I went out the door and back into the streets.

Now, don’t get me wrong—I don’t think I’m a total bastard. But I also didn’t expect to find myself in the situation I did that night. You hear about it in some stories, see it in operas sometimes.

Making amends, exchanging final words before a great and terrible battle. It felt like the sort of thing I’d never do. The sort of thing that better people than me ended up doing. And the things I’d received in return—the warmth of Agne’s embrace still on my skin, the twins’ smiles still bright in my eyes—were the sort of things meant for people better than me.

People who fought for better things than lists.

And as I walked and the moon began to sink in the sky, I found my steps slowing until I finally came to a stop under the halo of a dimly burning lamp. Vigilants patrolled slowly, the final shapes to grace the streets before dawn.

It would be morning soon. And then another morning after that. And another and another until…

I turned down a nearby street, started walking toward a distant building.

The people who nights like these, talks like these, were for—the people in operas and stories, the people who fight for great and good things—wouldn’t have gone there. They would have gone to sleep, justified in the moments they’d shared.

But I was a different kind of person.

And there were some words I couldn’t leave unsaid.

I never forgot the first time I held him.

I wanted to. I tried to. There were a lot of memories of him I tried to rid myself of. Some of them I did. Some of them I didn’t. That one—that night—I tried very hard to be rid of.

We were young. Young enough that the academy felt less like a duty and more like a life. He and I and everyone there had only known a scant few years of life outside its walls. And in only a scant few more, we’d come to accept that our lives would be spent in service of the Empress and our sprawling Imperium.

We’d even started to enjoy it.

They trained us, honed our powers in ways that made us feel powerful, more capable than we ever thought we could be. They celebrated us, praised us as the future of the Imperium and the answer to the Revolution’s upstart aggression. They gave us all we ever asked and more.

How could we not fall in love with ourselves?

It was four nights after our graduation. Service in the Scar was still distant, a concept so far in the future we couldn’t even conceive of it. But we were strong, we were young, and we were amazing.

We’d fumbled around before, struggled with each other’s mouths and bodies, let our hands wander across each other. But that was sex. Sex is very good. But it’s not the same as holding or being held.

When I disrobed him that night, I expected him to be strong. He had always been so capable: in training, in sparring, even in learning we’d thought he’d be the best of us. But when I pulled the cloth away and beheld him in the pale light, I remember noting how very fragile he looked.

His body was lean and strong, but he didn’t carry himself that way. He was shy in my arms, trembled in ways I didn’t think he would and guided my hands slowly across his skin. When we kissed, it wasn’t hungry or wild, but as deliberate as a poem. When we made love, it was as long and gentle as all good conversations should be. But when I held him, when I saw the things he flinched at and the things that made him melt, that’s when I thought I knew him.

When I realized I didn’t—and maybe I never did—it cut me as deeply as his blade had.

That was long ago—lives and scars and wars ago—when he was slender and strong, when he melted in my arms.

When I looked at Jindu now, he looked… smaller.

He lay sprawled out across a wood cot, one of many in the tavern that had been commandeered into a makeshift infirmary. Cavric claimed the abundance of sterile alcohol made it a natural choice for treating wounds. Personally, I just think putting the liquor near the place where important decisions are made was good sense.

The morning found the ward quiet. Only a few Vigilants remained in the room, slumbering off the alchemic concoctions that had eased the pains of their kite viper bites. One weary-looking Mendmage walked the rounds, checking on her patients. Pale light crept in through the shutters, painting macabre shadows across half-empty alcohol bottles and numbed bodies.

“Her name is Antilo.” Jindu’s eye lazily followed the Mendmage as the morning light cast her into silhouette. “She was from a regiment out toward the coast. A good, easy post. She did nothing more than heal injuries from bird riding and tend to the sick children of nobles.”

“No combat,” I said. “Not bad.”

“That’s what I said. But she thought differently. She wanted to see action, to put her magic to real use.” He stared at her for a moment. “After she did, she deserted. She followed rumors to New Vigil. Started working with Cavric within a week of setting foot in the city.”

“A week?”

“He’s a charming guy. Did you really kidnap him at gunpoint once?”

“Yeah.”

“For what?”

“So I could find you and kill you.”

“Ah.”

It got slightly awkward after that. I glanced around for something to comment on, found his wound. His body, once strong and slender as his blade, now resembled something of a shiv: a crude, sharp implement hardened and cobbled together. There was a visible dent in his body, a hollow in his skin where sinew was supposed to go.

“Does she do good work?” I asked. “Antilo?”

“I’m not dying, if that’s what you’re asking,” Jindu said. “She does her best. She kept me from succumbing to… whatever the fuck Quoir did to me. But what he pulled out, she can’t put back in.”

“What does that mean?”

“That’s what I asked.”

“What did she tell you?”

“Same thing you tell anyone who runs afoul of Quoir,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Did she tell you he died?”

“She did.”

“Painfully. It was a mess.”

“I imagine.”

“So, yeah.” I stared at my feet, scratched the back of my head. “We got him back for you. If that’s any comfort.”

He rolled his head to look at me. “Was it? It wasn’t my list his name was on.”

I hadn’t even thought about it.

But the moment he said it, I felt it like a stone upon my chest. I reached into my vest, pulled out the folded-up scrap of paper and a piece of charcoal. My eyes drifted down the various names on the list until I found the one.

Quoir the Eternal Knock.

I put the line through his name. Stared at it as it sat nicely there, only a few lines down from Jindu’s own name. I was searching through my head and my heart for the joy that was supposed to bring me. What had I imagined it would feel like when I killed him? Had I even imagined it or had I just… forgotten at some point? When I’d penned his name on the list, along with all the others, I wanted him dead. I wanted them all dead.

Now he was. He, whose ghoulishness was feared even among mages. He, who’d been the cruelest and most dangerous among us. He, who had killed Sindra and made her die in my arms…

And I hadn’t even been the one to kill him.

At my hip, I could feel the Cacophony stirring, as if in sympathy. He had wanted it to last longer. When I made the deal with him, so had I.

Revenge for ruin.

The list was the closest thing to a contract our bargain had. The pact we struck to carve his name across the Scar until he was feared and to give me all the names on that paper. I’d clung to this list, let it keep me warm at night when I had no other comforts.

And here it hung in my hands.

A simple piece of paper. A few smudges of ink.

It was uncomfortable to think about. Hard to think about.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

Getting angry, though? That was comfortable.

“You shouldn’t have fucking thrown yourself in front of me like that,” I growled. “It was stupid.”

“I preferred looking stupid to seeing you die.”

“Birdshit. If that were true, you wouldn’t have done what you did back in Cathama.”

Jindu winced. “I won’t deny what I did but I can’t change it, either, Sal. And whatever I might have done, what I’m doing now I do by my choice.”

“For what?” I demanded. “For me?”

“No!” he protested, then winced again, deeper. “And… yes. It’s for me. And for you. And because of you. And because of a lot of things. I don’t know. But… is that bad?” He raised his eyes to me. “That I want you to… to…”

A hundred battles, a betrayal, a pound of flesh plucked right out of him by Quoir—in all the struggles I’d seen him fight through, I never saw Jindu look as pained as he did then. His lips struggled to form the words, struggled to ask the thing I knew he wanted to, struggled to keep the pain of the words in his mouth.

I offered him nothing. No words. Nothing more than the eyes I couldn’t get to blink.

Say it.

I wanted him to. I wanted him to ask for it. To beg for it.

Ask for forgiveness.

And I didn’t want him to. I didn’t want to have to hear the pain in his voice.

You piece of shit.

I wanted to deny him everything, to crush whatever hope for it he had.

You took my magic.

And I didn’t want him to. I didn’t want to see how his face looked when I said it.

I loved you.

I wanted him to carry the pain in his mouth forever…

I loved you so much.

… and I wanted a world where him doing that would have helped anything.

I didn’t have that world. I didn’t know what I did have. I didn’t know what I wanted, what I couldn’t bear to hear, what I couldn’t bear not to say. I struggled to hate him as surely as I struggled to listen to him. I struggled… and I failed.

So I stared.

I stared at him as he tried and failed to speak.

I stared at him as his face fell, as he looked at his hands and I looked at my feet.

And in the last silent moments between us, we shared not another word, not another look, as morning found his bedside empty and my boots in the dirt as I walked into the dawn without looking behind me.