Ilesha’s house was older than Rhevin’s, a double-storey building standing on top one of the city’s northern plateaus. Clean and orderly, it folded around a small green courtyard at its heart, where the leaves of two crab apple trees bent under the dripping weight of the rain.
Karys found her bag beside the dresser, and pulled on her own trousers. The waistband hung looser than before; her hips protruded, and the skin of her stomach was mottled and pale. Movement revived her, however—although she felt unsteady, she sensed that the weakness was temporary. Unable to locate her shoes, she collected her wet bedclothes and padded barefoot out of the room.
Paintings decorated the walls of the corridor, intricately rendered still lifes of flowers and spooling bolts of bright cloth. A faded green runner covered the floor; at its end, the passage opened to the kitchen, where clouded grey light fell through a pair of enormous windows above a white-wood cabinet. The smell of frying garlic, spices, and meat fragranced the air.
Ilesha stood over her stove. She turned around at the sound of Karys’ footsteps, and smiled faintly.
“That’s my shirt,” she said.
“Sorry.”
“The colour suits you. I’ve always liked that shade.”
Karys looked down at the fabric, blood red and flowing. Sabaster’s colour. She raised the wet bedclothes. “I knocked over a glass of water. Ferain suggested—”
“Oh, did he?” Ilesha set her wooden spoon on the countertop. “Put those down by the wash basket in the corner. Haeki told me that you were awake; she’s just gone to fetch Winola. Why don’t you sit down?”
It felt more like an order than a suggestion. Karys placed the clothes over the side of the basket, then walked to the kitchen table and sat. Through the window, she could make out the distant peak of the Singing Crescent at the far end of the valley. Muted by the misted air, it shimmered like a mirage.
“I don’t know how to repay you,” she said.
Ilesha ground dark peppercorns in a mortar, and added them to the pan on the stove. She picked up a large bowl of peas from the counter, crossed to the table, and set it down in front of Karys.
“Shell these,” she said. “Has Ferain talked to you about Toraigus?”
Karys nodded. Her expression must have amused Ilesha, because the corner of the woman’s mouth quirked upwards.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not going to poison you.”
Ferain slipped into Ilesha’s shadow.
“She tried to talk me out of it,” he said.
Ilesha snorted, and returned to the stove. “After three weeks, I’d be dying to escape you too.”
“Karys expressed it slightly more tactfully than that.”
“A credit to her patience.”
Their shared levity made Karys feel stupid and slow, out of her depth, like they were putting on a performance to mock her. She had expected fury or coldness, but instead Ilesha acted like parting with Ferain was a joke.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” she asked.
Ilesha stirred the pan. The tarnished cooking pot beside it simmered low and steady. Oil hissed; steam misted the window.
“It does,” she said, not turning. “Very much, actually. I’m only human, and I’m set to lose my closest friend for the second time this month. Trust me; while you were asleep, I said things that neither of us want repeated.”
She picked up a small jug, and poured its contents into the pot. The browned meat in the pan followed, alongside a bowl of diced peppers, carrots, and tomatoes.
“He actually asked me to come with him,” she said. “Did he tell you that?”
“No,” said Karys.
Ilesha set the lid on the pot.
“Ridiculous. As if I’d drop everything, and go live out on a rock in the middle of the ocean. More ridiculous still, I even considered it.” She moved the empty jug and bowl to the sink. “And I could be bitter, but what’s the point? He’ll still be gone. So no, I won’t stand in the way if this is what Ferain has decided. Some things matter more than our shared convenience.”
Karys was silent. Ilesha glanced back.
“You’re surprised?” she asked.
“I just don’t know if I really understand. Shared convenience?”
Ilesha looked meaningfully at the untouched bowl of peas. Karys picked up a pod, and pulled back the husk.
“Mutual trust, sharing of information, a united front at parties.” Ilesha waved her fingers. “Conversation, reliably enjoyable sex…”
Karys coughed, fumbling the pod and sending peas rolling over the table. Ilesha deftly caught one before it fell to the floor, and tossed it into her mouth. Her face had turned sly, her chin tilted, her eyelashes lowered.
“That sort of thing,” she said, turning back to the stove. “In a word: convenience. I’ll miss Ferain terribly, but what we share isn’t essential. It’s just … convenient.”
Ferain lay quiet and dark on the floor. Ilesha stooped, and selected a patterned enamel bowl out of her cabinet. She ladled soup into it.
“I don’t think he ever saw you as just a convenience,” said Karys softly.
Ilesha gave a low hah. The skin around her eyes creased—a little ironic, a little sad. She set the filled bowl down next to Karys, and stretched over the table. Karys froze, but Ilesha only reached out and caressed the side of her face.
“Sometimes,” she murmured, “circumstances dictate that not everyone gets what they want.”
Her fingers, firm and warm, brushed down Karys’ cheek, and Karys, without thought or intention, leaned into the familiar touch. It took a few seconds for her mind to catch up to her body, and then she flushed, confused, and pulled back. Ilesha smiled.
“Eat,” she commanded, taking away the still-unshelled peas.
Karys ate.
The soup was hot and over-salted and greasy—the fat from the meat left a thin sheen of yellow oil over the dark liquid, the vegetables had gone limp, the meat stringy—and Karys realised she was ravenous. Until presented with food, her hunger had lain dormant, but now her body cried out for sustenance. She burned her mouth on the scalding liquid, ignored the pain, and kept eating. Ilesha poured her a glass of water, then resumed cleaning up around the kitchen.
By the time Winola appeared, Karys was already most of the way through her second bowl.
“You’re looking better than I expected,” said the scholar.
Karys twisted in her seat. Winola stood in the entrance to the corridor, supporting herself against the wall. Haeki hovered behind her.
“Better than me, anyway,” said the scholar ruefully.
Karys began to rise, but Winola waved her back down. Her already pale face was bloodless. She wasn’t wearing her glasses, and the skin around her eyes was swollen, her lips turned bluish and chapped.
“Ferain told me that you were almost back to normal,” said Karys, aghast.
Winola made a dismissive gesture. “Oh, that was a few hours ago. Apparently, this thing comes and goes; every time I think I’m through with it, a new surprise crops up. I suppose that’s what you get for eating dead heralds. I really am improving, though; you just mistimed your revival by about twenty minutes.”
“Do you think you could manage food?” asked Ilesha.
The suggestion appeared to make Winola feel even more ill. Her cheeks gained a greenish tint. “Not … right at this moment.”
“Just how much necrat did you take?” asked Karys.
“Well, I had to guess the dosage, and then doubled that. Plus one for luck.”
“Embrace, why?”
Winola gave a weak grin. “Instinct, I guess. Curiosity. I wanted to keep an eye on Rhevin’s workings, and I figured the higher the dosage, the better I would see. Which seemed to hold true, even if there were more side effects than I anticipated. I’ve already explained this to everyone else.”
Karys frowned. “You suspected Rhevin?”
“Just had a bad feeling. When I spoke to him the night before the separation, he kept brushing me off like he already knew everything I was saying. Afterwards, I began thinking about how quickly his research had progressed compared to mine, like he had started his investigations before we even arrived.” She shrugged. “And he was nice to Haeki. Respected her. You saw that too.”
“Because he knew I was Favoured,” said Haeki bitterly.
Karys snatched a glance at Ilesha, but Haeki’s statement didn’t seem to come as a revelation. Ferain must have told her everything. “Necrat really allowed you to penetrate the Veneer?”
Winola’s expression gained a wistful quality. “I’m not sure. But I could see workings, and they were all … so precisely formed. Coherent, even if they were too complicated to be understood in their entirety. Beautiful.” She shivered, and seemed to come back to herself. “It clarified a lot. I’m confident I can reproduce Nuliere’s diversion mechanism using Ephirite derivations; it’s just a matter of drawing power from a different source. Or a series of sources in parallel.”
“Just like that?”
“Being able to see what you’re doing makes working significantly easier, it turns out. No, I’m not worried about removing the Construct’s effect, or holding the Lapse open. But the way that the binding has ossified? It’s as though you and Ferain have…” She knitted the fingers of her hands together, one between the next. “Did you see it?”
The tangle of glowing crystal ribbons running through the air between them. Karys nodded. “A little.”
“I don’t know if separating all of that is possible, or what harm severing it might do.” Winola rubbed her eyes, her mouth going thin and pained. “Of course, it might not matter, it just looked…”
Her voice faded. Haeki touched her shoulder.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Winola groaned. “It’s frustrating; my thoughts keep scattering. I’m so tired but I can’t sleep. Even when I try, I see them through the walls. They change shape when I’m not looking.”
A chill ran down Karys’ spine. “Winola?”
“I hate lying there alone.” The scholar didn’t seem to hear Karys; her voice was fretful. “It gets so quiet. Something is watching me.”
“Winola,” said Haeki firmly.
The scholar snapped out of her reverie, and for a second she appeared afraid. She leaned more heavily against the wall.
“Sorry.” She spoke with an uncharacteristic, childlike uncertainty. “Lindlee told me paranoia and insomnia are common aftereffects of overdosing. That and the initial euphoria, loss of inhibition and empathy, and mania. It’s … fairly embarrassing, thinking back.”
“You need more sleep,” said Haeki.
The scholar nodded.
“Sorry,” she said again. “I just wanted … well. It’s good to see you awake, Karys.”
A sharp pain lodged in Karys’ throat.
“I think,” she said, “that the day I ran into you at Psikamit College was probably the luckiest in my life.”
Winola smiled, touched, and briefly looked more like herself. “I guess that makes two of us—not many practitioners can say that they’ve witnessed a living herald perform a working. Although you do still owe me dinner.”
Haeki helped the scholar back to her room, while Ilesha finished tidying the kitchen. The rain had stopped, but the clouds remained heavy and low, piercingly white where the sun shone through them, slate grey where it did not. Karys ate the rest of her food, slower than before. She had not expected Winola to look so sick, especially not after two days had already passed. Distracted, she worried at the broken skin around her fingernails.
Haeki returned, her expression troubled. Ferain flowed over to her.
“You’re concerned?” he asked.
She opened her mouth to speak, then seemed to change her mind. She shook her head, and walked over to the window. “She’s tired, that’s all. Nothing unexpected. Lindlee said it would take time.”
“It sounds like the hallucinations are back.”
A shrug. Silhouetted against the grey light, Haeki appeared faded: her skin washed out, her hair lank. “Not as bad as before. She sleeps better with someone else in the room, though. I’ll watch over her tonight.”
“You need rest too.”
“I get enough. Besides, she’ll recover soon.”
Haeki’s statement was pronounced with more hope than conviction. Karys got up and placed her empty bowl in the sink. Winola must have had a really bad reaction to the drug. In the distance, the Singing Crescent gleamed, and the faintest strains of its music echoed inside her head. She rubbed her temples.
“I need to talk to Nuliere,” she said.
Silence from Haeki. Ilesha, leaning against the wall, gave a weary sigh.
Karys turned. “Ferain said that you have her contained. That you’re taking care of her. Can she communicate?”
Haeki’s face was blank. “She’s angry.”
I’m sure. “That doesn’t matter.”
Ilesha grunted. “You say that now. You bottled a really nasty piece of work, by the way. I suggested burying her in the yard.”
“We’ve already tried talking,” said Haeki. “She won’t cooperate.”
Karys shook her head. “She’ll listen to me. Please, Haeki.”
A pause. Then Haeki reluctantly reached inside her shirt, and drew out Vuhas’ relic. The phial’s exterior had been wrapped in brown cloth, and its throat was ringed in twine; it hung like a pendulum from the chain around Haeki’s neck. Even covered, the bottle radiated a creeping menace; Karys could hear the glass ringing through the Veneer. Haeki passed it across. As soon as Karys touched the wrapping, her head filled with a wordless wash of whispering.
“I didn’t realise you were carrying it around with you.” Karys turned the phial over in her hand. “It holds her secure?”
“If she could get out, she would.”
Difficult to argue with that logic. From what Karys remembered of Vuhas’ account, the vessel had once confined a far more powerful Bhatuma than Nuliere. She steeled herself, and pulled back the wrapping.
Black water filled the phial, pocked with sickly pulsing blooms of sky blue and orange. The liquid spiralled slow and ceaseless, circling the interior.
“So the apostate did not die,” said Nuliere.
The herald’s voice had an echoing quality, as if projected through an empty hall. Karys turned the phial upside down, but the water inside remained as it had been, revolving and sedate.
“That is good,” continued Nuliere. “The process should be more painful. Then again, the ends I envision all pale before what your fell master has planned. Are you looking forward to his tender attentions, apostate?”
Karys’ jaw tightened. “What do you know about that?”
“About his intentions for his special favourite?”
“She’s bluffing,” muttered Ferain. “She doesn’t know anything; she just listened to our conversations.”
“Where there is salt in the water, so am I,” said Nuliere serenely. “Hold what delusions you will, but your time runs short, apostate, and your honour awaits you. Soon, so very soon, you will get what you deserve.”
Karys gripped the phial tightly. Just bluffing. Her voice came out rough. “What do you want with Ferain? What does the ‘last harbour’ mean?”
The phial made a clear tinkling noise, like a wine glass struck with a tuning fork. The herald was laughing. The sound rang through the kitchen. Haeki flinched, and Ilesha gazed at the phial with obvious dislike.
“Oh, poor apostate,” jeered Nuliere. “Do you truly believe that I will tell you anything?”
“I do, actually.”
The herald laughed louder, and the sound made Karys’ ears ache. “Then you have deceived yourself, you little—”
“Did you never wonder,” Karys interrupted, “why I chose to conceal your existence from my master?”
Nuliere fell silent instantly.
“He collects your kind,” said Karys. “Your corpses, anyway. For years, I’ve fed his obsession; I’ve bribed him with Bhatuma baubles and tokens, anything to keep him from calling my compact, anything to stay in his good graces. But in all that time, I never breathed a single word about the herald still living in Boäz.”
The orange and blue rings in the water darkened. Karys smiled, humourless.
“Pride,” she said. “You turned your back on me, but I never wanted to be the one to forsake you, Nuliere—because you remain my herald, even if I am not your adherent. No matter how much I hate you, I would have walked straight into Sabaster’s arms before ever selling you out.”
“I do not require the loyalty of traitors,” the herald hissed.
“Is that so?” Karys cocked her head. “Test my pride, then. Right now, you look like a wonderful parting gift for my master. Easy to carry. Bite-sized. My Lady of Brine and Urchins, you’ll give me everything I ask for—because if I know one thing about you, it’s that you’re a coward.”
A pulsing vibration filled the kitchen, heavy as a physical weight. Karys thought that the phial might shatter under the preternatural force, but it remained cool and smooth against her palm. And, in spite of the herald’s fury, Nuliere spoke evenly.
“In that case, allow me to make a confession of my own,” she said. “It was I who told your father that Oboro Eska intended to leave Boäz.”
A second’s silence. Haeki drew a sharp breath, and pressed her hand to her mouth.
“Through my Favoured, I encouraged your brother to go,” said Nuliere. “I knew that there were only two ways to compel your return to Boäz—the death of Oboro Eska, or the death of Haeki Maas. Tell me, did I choose rightly, apostate? Because it was for the sake of your attention that your brother died.”
Ferain drew closer to her. Karys fought to hide all feeling. Give her nothing. Oboro, lying in the temple, covered in coins, his face a stranger’s, his skin like wax in the candlelight. Her brother, sinking into the water. Give her nothing.
“I wonder now,” murmured Nuliere. “Whose blood would have soaked your hands more deeply?”
Oboro, pushing her backwards into the Penitence Pool, the light that shone through their father’s face. Karys closed her eyes. Up on the switchback behind the boatyard, her brother’s twelve-year-old fist striking her jaw, and how he had sobbed afterwards, inconsolable, and her certainty in his love.
“What is the last harbour?” she asked, voice gravelly.
The herald breathed out a single word.
“Hope.”
Karys wanted to smash the phial against the wall. She shook it. “Damn you, hope for what? What was all this for? Answer me.”
The black water remained undisturbed, implacable and remote as the ocean.
“The Bhatuma’s revival,” said Nuliere. “Your shadow harbours the last seed. The hope of our rebirth lies within him, waiting to be born.”
Stillness. The herald’s words were swallowed by the air; Haeki and Ilesha stood unmoving, uncomprehending. Karys felt the world slip on its axis.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No metaphors, no more—”
“I speak plainly.”
Silence again. Karys could hear her own heartbeat. At her feet, her shadow shifted.
“A … a physical seed?” said Ferain. He sounded disconcerted. “Are you saying there’s something inside my body?”
Nuliere hummed affirmation.
“A seed, an egg—it does not signify,” she said. “The matter from which we heralds arrive in this world; the potential lying dormant before formation. Yes, it is within you. It was within all those of your company, but you, alone, survived.”
“Then the whole ambassadorial retinue had these … seeds?”
Nuliere’s voice grew softer. “It had been so long awaited, so carefully planned. The remaining seeds were hidden, preserved beyond the enemy’s reach until the time was right. Imagine it: a score of heralds to reclaim what was lost. And then, at the last, they were betrayed. The apostates discovered the plan; they sought out and slaughtered the seed-bearers, dashing my kin against the rocks. All but one. I could do nothing but watch.”
“What will this seed do to Ferain?” asked Ilesha, speaking out for the first time. Her face was cold, her dark eyes piercing. “What happens to him when the herald is born?”
Nuliere acted as though the question was worthy of scorn. “Nothing consequential. My kin would not harm him; they would simply keep his body until they wished to adopt their own aspect. It is a high honour, one which would have seen his name written into history. That was why he was selected—his father wished for him to stand amongst those who restored Varesli to glory. Few could prove more unworthy of the task.”
Ferain seemed too preoccupied to absorb the slight. “I still don’t understand. Where did these seeds come from?”
“I have already told you—they were preserved in the one place that exists beyond our enemy’s reach.”
“Toraigus,” muttered Karys.
“Yes. That faithless, barren rock.” Within the phial, the water turned, slow and black. “There the seeds were planted within the chosen on their arrival. My kin were to be brought to Eludia, and born in the warmth of the Embrace’s light.”
“But the retinue never even made land,” said Ferain. “And we had stringent security measures aboard our ship—when was there an opportunity…”
He trailed off.
“Even if they hold no true faith,” said Nuliere, with a hint of satisfaction, “the people of Toraigus adhere to ritual.”
Karys’ shadow said nothing.
“A grand welcoming ceremony,” said the herald. “All of your number included, all of them honoured—”
“The Amity Beads,” said Ferain dully. “Those were the seeds, weren’t they?”
Nuliere hummed her agreement again.
“It is curious, how the sacraments of the faithless so closely resemble that which births us,” she said, and briefly sounded more affable. “Curious, but of great service.”
Ferain uttered a vicious string of curses. “New Favour murdered the retinue because we had all been fed parasites?”
As quickly as it had appeared, the herald’s geniality vanished again. The orange and blue lights inside the phial flared. “My kin were not parasites, you wretched, ungrateful fool, but the dormant potential of this world’s salvation. You were the harbinger of dawn, and the last harbour of our hopes, and I have given you answers. Release me.”
He scoffed. “After everything you’ve done, do you really—”
“Too much lies at stake!” said Nuliere fiercely. “I have greater concerns than vengeance, even if it is richly deserved. Enough of this. Apostate, I have given you the truth—if you have pride, then listen to me now. Your time has run out. Your master is coming, and you will not escape him. Will you drag the man you bound to the same fate?”
“Oh, don’t you dare,” snarled Ferain.
Karys felt small and cold. “I…”
“You need not both be lost to the Ephirite.” Nuliere spoke quickly, no longer hostile, but urgent. “He must be severed from your shadow before it is too late. Release me now, be spared from your compact, and ensure that he lives. You still have the power to save him, if you care to. If you care for him at all.”
The herald’s words resounded inside Karys. She felt unsteady; the kitchen was suddenly airless, too bright, but the bottle lay solid inside her palm. Water like the sea at night, down below the surface where the light could not penetrate, deep in the swallowing dark.
The phial disappeared from her hand. Karys’ head jerked up.
Haeki stood on the far side of the kitchen, the relic held protectively close to her chest. Her eyes were red-rimmed. Karys had not even seen her move; she had only felt the lightest brush of skin against her fingertips.
“She already took Oboro,” said Haeki huskily. “You don’t get to follow him into the sea.”
Karys lowered her empty hand. I wasn’t going to, she wanted to say, but she wasn’t sure if that was entirely true. Haeki had seen something on her face; for a single moment, she had—
“You worthless traitor.” Nuliere’s voice sliced the air. “You stupid, pathetic, crawling insect of a woman, you are nothing. I will make you weep for death, I will take it all away. Everything you care for will burn. You’ll never be anything but a cowering, faithless, useless—”
Haeki wound the brown cloth around the phial, sealing the herald’s voice away. Quiet descended on the kitchen. Outside, the wind whistled over the plateau and down the slopes of the cliffs.
“Do you hear that all the time?” asked Karys shakily.
With care, Haeki tucked the last stretch of the cloth wrapping underneath the twine.
“I am her sea-blessed,” she murmured. “She is my responsibility.”
She moved to hang the phial back around her neck. Ilesha made a disapproving sound, and straightened up from the wall.
“This isn’t good for you,” she said. “Always having her so close. I admire your resilience, but it’s gone far enough. Lock her in my safe—I’ll set the working to only open to your touch.”
“She is my herald. I can’t—”
“Yes, you can,” said Ilesha. “What you’re doing right now is more dangerous than sealing her away. You’re exhausted. The longer this goes on, the more likely you are to make a mistake.”
Karys stared down at the floor. Does Ilesha know? Haeki might be too tired to realise that the safe was no defence—it could seal Nuliere away from the rest of the world, but not from Karys. If it was worked, she could unravel it. Does Ilesha know that? Ferain might have told her that Karys could break workings. Was that what she hoped? It was true: if Karys went away, Ferain would live, could remain in Eludia, no loss of convenience, no hidden grief, no parting. The world set right. He would not be dragged down to the desolation of Sabaster’s domain, or spend his life trapped and wasting away behind the Unbroken Wall. Karys swallowed the lump in her throat. A stupid, selfish dream. And after all, what did she know? Toraigus wasn’t even a guarantee.
“It would only open for me?” asked Haeki warily.
Unseen by Haeki or Ilesha, Ferain brushed against Karys’ palm, questioning. She pulled away from the touch, drawing her fingers into a closed fist. What had she been thinking? What had all of this been for? Throwing everything into the pursuit of a pitiful fantasy, endangering everyone just so she could lie to herself a little longer. The money, Toraigus—it was a delusion. She had made her bargain, there was no escaping it. Either Sabaster or death, those were her cards to deal—there would be no quiet house behind the Wall, no small garden of her own, no time to read books or lie in the sun, no getting older, no learning Toraigian, no letters pressed with flowers, no future, no anything. And no Ferain, of course: there would be no Ferain. They should never have tried to stop Nuliere.
“Karys?” said Ilesha.
She turned abruptly and walked out of the kitchen, away from everyone. Her feet were quick on the floor, her eyes burning. All those years alone, grinding herself to the bone and saving for nothing. She could have lived. She could have built something—anything—that would matter now. Her life was a waste, and she had done it to herself.
She pushed open the door at the end of the corridor and stumbled out into the courtyard. The trees glittered silver and shining in the clouded light, blurring before her eyes, and her shadow rose up and caught her. The cool darkness wrapped around her; she felt Ferain’s arms close over her shoulders. He hugged her, and the last of Karys’ composure gave way, and she was crying.
“No one can see you,” he murmured. “I won’t let them.”
“I tried so hard.” Her voice broke. Overcome, it was all she could say. “I tried so hard.”
Her shadow held her, and Karys barely felt the drawing at all. She could not hold him back.