Her father was not in the house when she returned. Karys stripped out of her sodden garments, hanging Oboro’s coat beside the front door and placing a pan underneath it. The steady percussion of dripping water on metal seemed overly loud in the silent kitchen. She borrowed more of her brother’s clothing— a woollen shirt, rough-cut trousers that she cinched in with a belt—and it left her feeling like a villain from the stories of her childhood; a skin thief come to devour his life. Stealing his clothes, his bed, his place in the house: a quiet imposter bent on wiping him out entirely.
She set about sorting through the grief-food, taking stock of what her father had received and arranging his larder. It seemed like that might be helpful. She also found a sack of tangled trawl lines under the bottom shelf; their hooks rusted and the threads snared up into a chaotic wad. With quick, practised fingers, she teased out the knots. Useless old skills, the stuff of second-nature and muscle memory, but she found that the task settled her.
Once the lines were straightened out and recoiled, she replaced the sack and shut up the larder again. Still no sign of her father.
The kitchen needed cleaning. She scoured the tiles before the stove and wiped old dust from hard-to-reach surfaces. Through the window, the trees in the orchard swayed, and the long wet grass gleamed darkly.
“What happened between you and Haeki?” asked Ferain.
Karys was busy scrubbing loose a decade’s worth of sticky residue from one of the cooking pots, elbow-deep in soapy water.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Oh, you know.” His tone was idle. “The part where she acts like you jilted her at the altar.”
“That’s what you’re getting from her?”
“Did you?”
“No. Not exactly.” She checked the base of the pot against the light. “I broke a promise we made as kids.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Around here, honouring your word is…” She gave it thought. “Fundamental, I suppose. I betrayed Haeki’s trust, so her talking to me at all is generous. Especially when it’s going to reflect badly on her to the rest of Boäz.”
“So you were friends, then?”
“Yes.”
“Your father doesn’t seem to approve of her much.”
Karys hesitated, then returned to scrubbing.
“No,” she said. “He doesn’t.”
“You missed a spot.” Her shadow pointed to a blackened mark on the side of the pot. “I was wrong about him, though.”
“Hm?”
“Just something I noticed. He talks a lot, but in all this time, he hasn’t asked one question about your life.”
Karys didn’t say anything. She frowned at the water in the sink, the oily film of old grease on its surface. It was sliding toward evening outside, the light falling. When she looked up again, her father was climbing the path to the front door.
“Well, apart from whether you’re in a position to marry that slack-jawed man from the temple,” said Ferain. “But I’m not sure if that counts. Karys?”
She shook her head and set down the pot to dry. “Sorry. Thinking about something Haeki said. Quiet now, my father’s back.”
Her shadow flowed from the countertop onto the floor where it belonged. Karys dried her hands as the door opened.
“I didn’t think you would be out for so long,” she said with a smile. “How were the trees?”
Dayon Eska dripped with rain; his hair was plastered to his skull and his beard glittered. He took off his coat and hung it on top of Oboro’s. His clothing underneath seemed just as wet. A pool of water formed at his feet, spreading slowly across the clean floor. He smiled back at her.
“They weathered the wind well enough,” he said. “But there’s always plenty of other work to be seen to.”
“Let me get a towel for you.” She crossed the room and opened the linen closet.
“The goats had gotten out again. I’ll need to fix the fence. And one of the barn doors is stuck at the hinges too—water’s swollen the frame. That will need sanding down once it’s dried. How was your day?”
Karys fumbled and grabbed a large towel, then hurried over to him. “It was fine. The village was quiet, and I—”
He struck her across the face.
Karys’ head snapped backwards under the force, and she staggered, knocking into the table behind her. Her ears rang from the blow, and she dropped the towel. At her feet, her shadow went rigid.
“Liar,” growled her father. “You think to make a fool of me?”
Karys shook her head. He hit her again; her stomach this time. She doubled over, breathless. Ferain swore.
“I went down to see Ané,” said Dayon Eska. “And what does she tell me? That my daughter never knocked on her door. Instead, she tells me, my daughter went to see Haeki Maas. So, I’ll ask again: do you think to make a fool of me?”
“No,” she gasped.
The third blow dropped her to her knees. Karys’ vision swam. She looked up, and her father was looming over her.
“Running away in the middle of the night.” He shook his head, face twisted with scorn. “Just like your mother. Do you have any idea what people were saying? Do you have any idea how you made me look?”
“I’m sorry,” she rasped, tasting blood. She had cut the inside of her cheek against her teeth; its hot red salt spilled over her lip.
“Are you? And why should I believe a word out of your liar mouth?”
“Leave her alone,” snarled Ferain.
“Well?” Her father gave her a contemptuous shove with his boot. “First your mother, then you, then Oboro. All of you ready to cut me loose at the first opportunity—rats from a sinking ship. How am I supposed to manage on my own? When I’m eighty and blind, who’s going to take care of me? Do you ever think about that? No, no, you run off in the night, then come crawling back when it suits you. And now look what you’ve made me do.”
Karys shrank. It was like being twelve years old again; nothing had changed. Please stop. Please stop. Her shadow swept over her shoulder as Ferain tried vainly to shield her, but in the dim, unevenly lit kitchen, her father didn’t even notice. He grabbed hold of her by the arm, and hauled her upright. His grip hurt, his hands hard and cold. Karys automatically lifted her other arm to shield her head.
“You don’t fool me!” His spittle hit her face. “Do you hear?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He shook her. “Yes, what?”
“Yes, I hear you. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, you will be. Count on that. You’re going to be sorry beyond—”
There was a very loud knock on the door. Karys flinched, and her father went deathly still. His gaze flicked to the entrance, then back to her. His fingers wrapped tighter around her arm.
“Not a word,” he said.
Karys nodded. He held on a second longer, his eyes a warning, then released her. She backed away, clasping her throbbing arm, her breathing coming shallow and quick. Her shadow coiled in front of her.
Her father walked over to the door, and opened it a crack. Not all the way; he made sure his body filled the gap, concealing the kitchen and Karys from sight. When he saw the visitor, his shoulders went stiff, and his voice emerged rough and aggressive. “What do you want?”
The person outside sounded out of breath. “Ané sent me; you need to come quickly. It’s Oboro—the temple, something has happened to the body—”
“What?”
“Ané said it was urgent. She said you need to come now.”
Her father grew taller with anger. “What do you mean, ‘something’s happened to the body’?”
“Ané said you’re needed. Embrace, we’ve angered Nuliere, and there’s going to be a reckoning for it. I’m going back to see if I can help.”
“No, you’re going to tell me—wait! Wait!” By the swift sound of splashing footfalls, the messenger was already returning to the village. Dayon Eska swore, and cast a wrathful glare in Karys’ direction. She stepped back again, knocking into one of the kitchen chairs.
“This conversation isn’t over,” he growled. “Wait here.”
And with that, he grabbed his wet coat and strode out into the rain, slamming the door shut behind him.
Karys felt rooted to the spot. Her heart continued to pound, and her body ached fiercely where she had been struck. She reached up to touch her mouth. When she saw the blood on her fingers, she shuddered and sat down heavily on the kitchen chair. Her shadow moved in front of her, a darkness hovering in the air before her face.
“Easy, easy.” Ferain spoke in a low hush. “He’s gone now. You’re going to be okay.”
She shook her head. Her shadow reached out and touched her cheek: a strange, careful, gentle gesture. She could not feel it, and closed her eyes.
“I understand now,” he murmured. “Karys, I’m so sorry.”
“‘He knew.’”
“Knew what?”
She shook her head again. The room was spinning beyond her squeezed-shut eyes, and there was a coarse droning in her ears. Someone can jump and be pushed at the same time. Or just be pushed.
“It’s all right,” whispered Ferain. “We’re done here. We’ll leave and head for Miresse, find somewhere to shelter along the way. Together, you and me.”
She touched her mouth a second time. Ferain had seen. No one was supposed to see. This was meant to be in the past; she was not a child anymore, to cower and let her father hit her. Too afraid to even move. Why, after so long, had nothing changed?
Footfalls outside again, running. Karys’ stomach clenched. She lifted her head, but before she could rise, the door was already swinging open.
Haeki was drenched to the bone. Her long hair stuck to her shoulders like curling vines, and she held the doorframe as she caught her breath, her skin flushed. Her eyes found Karys’ face.
“He’s going to be fucking furious,” she panted.
The wind gusted into the kitchen. Karys felt immobile.
“I must have mentioned Ané about fifteen times. Figured that might get his attention.” Haeki stepped inside, and held out a hand. “Come on, we need to go.”
Karys stared up at Haeki, at her familiar features grown older and stronger and more solid, and felt the years dissolve around her. She was fourteen, standing before the Penitence Pool with Oboro, watching a rat flounder and drown. An offering, he had said, but it had not sounded like him, and she had not felt like herself, and she had stood there, just stood there. And then Haeki was there too, but yelling, yelling and rushing past with a net, yelling at Oboro while she scooped up the trembling creature, furious and bold and unassailable, yelling at him until he yelled back and the awful hard light left his eyes, and the rat shivered in the grass, and the world was set to rights. Karys’ head was filled with a low buzzing, and her throat felt too tight to speak through. But she tried.
“How did you—” she swallowed. “How did you know to knock?”
Haeki’s expression softened, even though her voice stayed the same.
“I’ve got ways,” she said. “I’ll tell you about them, and you can explain what’s living in your shadow. But later.”
Karys looked at Haeki’s still-outstretched hand.
“I thought you weren’t on my side,” she said, and couldn’t quite keep the tremor out of her voice.
“Then you’re even stupider than you look. Let me help you.”
Karys shivered, and took her hand. With no effort at all, Haeki pulled her upright. Her palm was calloused and warm, damp from the rain.
“You were meant to stay with me until the send-off,” she muttered. “I had it all planned, but you always have to be so stubborn about everything. Grab your coat, let’s go.”
Leaving the house, Haeki appeared tense: her shoulders bunched, her eyes scanning the dusk fields and the path down to the village. The wind had picked up once more, thinning the clouds above the sea. Early stars glimmered amongst the blue. Ferain kept close to Karys, not bothering to conceal himself. She moved quickly to keep up with Haeki.
“What are you going to tell everyone?” she asked.
“Nothing,” said Haeki.
“They’re going to ask.”
“And then? What are they going to do? Your father doesn’t scare me.”
The old track was flooded; they wound along the edge of the muddy fields. The trees in the orchard groaned in the wind. Karys’ body felt heavy, her head too light. Where she had been hit, she could feel her skin bruising. There was a muted ringing in her ears. At any moment, she expected to see her father emerge through the rain; she could almost hear him shouting her name. The bright copper taste of blood remained in her mouth.
She didn’t want to think about Oboro, but that whispered gasp—he knew!—haunted her. They were heading toward the cliffs now, following the path to the Penitence Pool.
“Haeki?”
Haeki did not look back. “It’ll be safe up there.”
“My father knew Oboro was going to leave Boäz.”
Haeki’s step faltered, and she went strangely still. After a second, she kept walking.
The old path was paved in shell and bone and brine-cryst, set with silver. It shone white in the last rays of thin daylight. Karys shivered as they climbed. Up ahead, the rim of the pool gleamed like the curved edge of a sickle moon. Before the Slaughter, it had been Boäz’s custom to chain up sinners and throw them into the water, so that Nuliere could take measure of their remorse—the herald either dragged the condemned under, or dissolved their bonds. Approaching the pool now, Karys could feel its pull on the Veneer; taste the metallic presence of ancient ritual. The ringing in her ears continued unabated, and she stumbled over her own feet. If anything, the noise was growing louder: a harsh, vibrating drone.
“What’s the matter?” asked Ferain.
“Nothing, my head just hurts,” she muttered, trying to shrug it off. “I shouldn’t be so…”
She trailed off as the sound became sharper still, an angry insect hiss that set her teeth on edge. Haeki glanced back to see why she had stopped walking.
“Karys?” she said.
The sound was unmistakable; she knew that droning. And it was getting closer.
“Oh shit,” breathed Karys. Her words tumbled together. “Construct. There’s a Construct. I can hear it.”
“What are you talking about?”
It had followed her to Boäz. Ferain had said New Favour could compel the creatures to hunt their enemies. The saints had set a Construct on her.
“Are there transport workings in the village?” asked Ferain quickly. “Or even horses, anything fast you could steal?”
Karys raked her fingers through her hair. “I can’t lead it down there; that would be a massacre.”
“How about boats, could you—”
“The sea’s too rough.” Her heart thumped. “Is there a way I could hide from it?”
“Stop talking to yourself and tell me what’s going on,” said Haeki.
The droning grew louder. Karys’ blood pounded against the wall of her skull, and she looked back toward the road. She could not see the Construct yet—the dusk light and the rain worked to conceal it—but it would not be long now. Through the misted air, she thought she detected movement. With a frustrated sound, Haeki snatched her wrist.
“Just tell me how to help,” she demanded.
“You should leave,” said Karys unsteadily. “Quickly.”
The wind screamed through the channel between the cliffs. And there—her heart clenched. No telltale firefly lights, but where the main road met the cliff path, a dark figure was advancing. He strode up the switchback on his long legs. Although his face was shadowed, Karys could read the fury in his body: in the set of his wide shoulders, the curl of his fists.
“Ah, fuck,” muttered Haeki.
Dayon Eska had seen them; he was moving fast, his hard-capped boots swift on the silver path. Haeki squeezed Karys’ wrist, then pulled her onward, up toward the pool.
“You think you can run away again?” her father yelled.
The vegetation at the top of the rise was wild and fragrant; grasses as high as their knees, white chincherinchees and gum-bush. The pool, black-walled and wide, formed a dark mirror to the sky. The surface of the water remained preternaturally smooth.
“Karys, we’re going to be cornered.” Ferain veered back and forth across the ground, his voice urgent. “Turn back. If you keep going, there’ll be nowhere to run.”
Haeki’s expression was grimly focussed; she kept going until she reached the wall of the pool, then released Karys’ wrist. With a grimace, she pulled off her coat, baring her arms to the swirl of rain and wind.
At that moment, the Veneer flexed.
“Help me.”
Oboro’s voice rose from the earth, far louder than before, and the wind whistled with a new force. Neither her father nor Haeki showed any sign they could hear the revenant, but Ferain cursed, and Karys’ shadow grew denser at her feet. Nerves prickling, she opened the Veneer. Up on the cliff top, the weave was slick with power, a tumult of bright sound and colour.
Oboro’s revenant hovered ten feet from her. His form had changed; he appeared as a red cloud teeming with clusters of staring black eyes. Light strained tight around him, like he was sucking reality into himself.
“Karys.” The eyes blinked and fluttered. “Do you see me now?”
“He’s stronger,” she whispered. “Ferain—”
“I won’t lose control,” her shadow replied.
“Don’t leave me again.” Oboro’s tone was plaintive—not the tenor of a grown man. He sounded like a lonely boy. “No one else ever understood.”
By this time, her father had closed the distance between them. His skin was blotchy and his collar loose; he looked hot with anger. He stamped up the path, ever closer to Oboro. Haeki put her right hand into the pool behind them.
“Far enough, old man,” she called, her voice ringing clear.
Dayon Eska spat, still climbing. “I should have known you for a liar, Maas.”
Karys’ mouth felt bone dry. The Construct’s droning grew ever louder, Oboro’s revenant swayed and swelled with red light, her father … her father. He had that look on his face: that hard, cold fury, that same winter-sea viciousness she knew so well. Exactly as she remembered him.
Like struck flint, anger kindled in her too.
“Did Oboro jump, Da?” she demanded.
His mouth twisted and went thin, but he said nothing. Behind her, Karys could hear the water in the pool moving, seething like it boiled.
“You knew he was going to leave.” Her voice came out high and tight. “You knew.”
“Quiet,” he snapped.
“I’m so cold,” said Oboro. “I had nowhere to go, and I couldn’t take the step into nothing. He was always there. I didn’t want to become him, Karys. Why did you leave me behind? Why won’t you let me in? It was supposed to be—”
Her father passed through the revenant’s clouded form. His face was briefly haloed in scarlet, and Oboro fell silent. The red haze rippled and compressed; Dayon Eska did not seem to feel anything, but now every one of the swarm’s eyes locked upon his back, unblinking.
“We’re going home,” her father growled. “And Karys, if you ever, ever, think of—”
Oboro plunged forward, swirling around his father in a blur of eyes and colour, concealing him from Karys’ sight. She took a step toward them instinctively, but Haeki raised one arm to stop her. Dayon Eska jerked to a halt, and produced a harsh, choked whimper.
“And now?” demanded Haeki.
He did not answer. The revenant drew closer and closer around him, emitting a sound like fire igniting: a low stream of guttural words spoken too quickly to be understood. The Veneer darkened the air surrounding them.
“It’s trying to take over his body,” said Ferain suddenly. “It’s contestation, it’s what Winola—”
With a crack loud as bones shattering, the red haze sank into her father’s torso and vanished. Dayon Eska stood there, chest unmoving, face slack. Blood ran from his ears and nose.
“What was that?” Haeki muttered, and for the first time she sounded genuinely alarmed. “Old man?”
He’s dead.
Her father was dead.
Karys had not realised she was moving until the small of her back hit the pool’s wall. Her father, face devoid of any expression, leaned his head to one side. His lifeless gaze was directed at her, but there was nothing at all behind those eyes; she stared into a fathomless abyss where a person had been. And it was trying to speak.
“It is not … warm.” His lips stumbled over the sounds. “I thought … it would be warm.”
“Embrace,” Ferain breathed.
The sight of her father’s corpse, puppeteered on invisible threads, was hypnotic. Awful, fascinating—the way blood drained from his cheeks; the minute, searching quivers of his arms and legs, an uncertain force testing them for the first time. He lifted one foot, inched it forward, put it down again. The movement seemed to demand absolute deliberation and control. His head remained tilted to the side as if forgotten.
Karys was so transfixed that she almost missed the Construct’s approach. A blur of yellow stars, a tidal-surge of droning, and the creature reached the crest of the hill. It advanced like a landslide; she shouted a warning just before it was upon them.
What happened next was unclear. Karys saw Haeki throw her head back—spine arching, skin gleaming pale blue in the dusk—and then Ferain was between them. A fraction of a heartbeat later, and pressure blasted outward from the pool. The long grass flattened, the flowers were ripped from their stems. Both Dayon Eska’s body and the Construct were swept down the hill, and Karys’ knees buckled as a violent weakness seized her.
What was that?
“That shining thing is your Construct?” Haeki sounded winded. She supported herself against the wall of the pool, bent over and clutching her chest. “I don’t like the look of it.”
The creature was far larger than any Karys had seen in the Sanctum. The Veneer around its body was scorched and distorted; it blistered the air. She could taste its presence in the back of her throat: a sweet, cloying, rotten flavour. It gathered itself with a shiver of light and advanced once more, cautiously this time.
“A plan, Karys?” said Haeki warily.
The droning in her ears made it hard to even think straight. Karys looked to the cliff edge. Ferain guessed what was on her mind; her shadow pivoted around, placing himself between her and the jump. As if that would make any difference at all.
“Don’t you dare,” he said fiercely. “Not that. Don’t make me watch you do it.”
“The Construct won’t stop,” she whispered.
“You’ve escaped before, you can do it again. We aren’t giving up here.”
Karys gritted her teeth, and turned to face the creature again. Even if she jumped, there was no guarantee it would save Haeki; the Construct was too close now. They were cornered, just as Ferain had anticipated. Her breathing came jagged. Her fault—she had drawn the Construct here, she had brought it down on Boäz. She should never have come back. But if this abomination was borne of Ephirite workings, then she, a deathspeaker of Ephirite-making, could stand against it. She had sold her soul for power. Let her fucking well use it.
With a snarl, Karys tore through reality and plunged into the depths of the Veneer.
The world eclipsed. The hillside vanished into grey fog, and her senses were subsumed by the violent force of workings. She dove deeper, pressing into the tumult. The Construct blazed with unnatural fire, and the Penitence Pool howled like an animal in pain. Weaker forces swirled around her father’s corpse—red and wounded—and over Haeki, whose body was streaked with a shifting pall of hallowfire. When Karys inhaled, she felt her lungs might catch alight.
The Construct had reached the top of the slope once more. This time, however, Karys could see into it, like a body dissected on a slab. A tight knot of workings sat in its core, a web of bindings, and she felt their function; she knew how the Construct had been lashed together, melted and cauterised and remoulded by an unknowable will.
And just as she could sense those threads of function, Karys could reach out her own will and grasp them. Her body burned, her mind was flayed, but she was a child of Boäz, a child raised by the sea and tangled in nets, and she could unravel knots. The bindings loosened and, with a vicious yank, she pulled the creature apart.
The Veneer exploded. Her vision was obliterated; she could not see, she could scarcely feel anything but an intense burning cold throughout her body. Too overwhelmed for fear or thought, she remained suspended in the light and the sound and the roar all around her. There was no way to retreat, no way to pull back; the weave of the Veneer was gone, and with it all semblance of pattern and order. Sheer chaos rushed through her. She could feel her mind slipping; with nothing to grasp, she was falling ever deeper, ever further from herself.
“Karys!” shouted Ferain.
Amidst the storm, she could discern the fading yellow brilliance of the Construct as it collapsed. Even as it came undone, it was still moving; its body spread to envelop her. She observed its descent, detached from the world.
Only, there was a darker shadow between them now. A tall figure wreathed in red. A man, facing her. She could hardly see, but she thought he was smiling.
“I’m sorry,” said Oboro.
Her father’s corpse shoved her backwards as the Construct swallowed him. The force carried her over the wall of the pool; as her shoulders struck the water, she saw the creature bloom red. Then she was under the surface, and cold hands grasped her limbs and pulled her down.