Xrie stood casually on the stairs behind her, his right shoulder against the sagging wall. A slim man only slightly taller than Ayae, he was a combination of elegance and steeled resolve that lent him an air of command. He stood before her in dark leather and a dark red silk belt, both immaculately kept, demonstrating a certain fastidiousness in his personality that emerged more strongly in his organization of the Yeflam Guard. Before Xrie arrived in the Floating Cities, before he left his family and descended through the twisting mountain passes to the world outside his homeland, he had been known as the Blade Prince of the Saan, but in Yeflam, where Ayae had first met him, he had simply been called the Soldier. He had been a Keeper of the Enclave and the Captain of the Yeflam Guard and, in both, he had been loyal to Aelyn Meah. In those days he had dyed the ends of his brown hair blue and let the colour run through the silk that he wore; but now the dark red of the silk belt also streaked his hair in a violent denial of the people who had betrayed him months ago.
‘Don’t clap,’ she said drily, responding to his earlier praise. ‘The floor might give way.’
‘I try not to talk too loudly in here.’ He spoke softly as he walked up the stairs towards her. ‘We’ve closed off a lot of the buildings to stop people moving into them, but factories like this are difficult. And dangerous.’
Xrie and the Yeflam Guard had organized the evacuation of the northern side of Yeflam the night Zaifyr died. If you spoke to any soldier who served under him at that time – any soldier who stood beneath the sheeting rain and struggled to erect tents and organize people and help loved ones find each other – you would hear only pride in their voices. They would speak of how Xrie had been selfless, how he had done what the other Keepers had not, and worked for them, for Yeflam. If you spoke to the people Xrie had saved, opinion was more divided. Some agreed with his soldiers, but there were others who still believed him to be Aelyn Meah’s servant.
‘This building is part of our regular sweep through Neela.’ He glanced at the two unconscious men. ‘I know them,’ he said. ‘Tan and Casa. They were some of the first to work on the bridge into Neela. I have not seen either for over two months.’
‘Now you have,’ she said.
‘Not the way I wished.’
Ayae knelt beside the white man – Tan – and rolled him onto his back. His face might once have been handsome, but it was now drawn and pinched with hunger. As she grabbed the front of his shirt to begin lifting him, however, the thin fabric that he wore gave way and revealed the edge of a tattoo on his chest. She heard Xrie grunt in recognition as she pushed the filthy clothes aside to reveal the tattoo of a whole sun on his chest. The centre of it held smaller versions of the complete sun, flames within flames.
‘Se’Saera’s mark,’ Xrie said. ‘Over the heart, as always.’
She turned to Casa. ‘Let’s see if his friend also has it.’
‘They never travel alone, Ayae.’
She knew that, but she reached for the shirt, regardless.
Shortly after, the two stood outside the factory. They had carried the unconscious men past where Eidan still sat, his eyes closed, and lowered them onto the back of the cart. As they did that, Xrie’s soldiers emerged silently from the surrounding streets. They numbered ten, no more than a scouting unit, but each of them wore the dark red of their commander.
‘They are better off dead than returning to the camp,’ Xrie told her as he stared down at the two men. ‘There will be no mercy for them.’
‘There is little mercy for anyone,’ she said.
‘But it is worse for those with Se’Saera’s mark.’
Ayae did not disagree. The first sightings of the tattoo had appeared after the storm had broken and when the camp had begun to take shape. Ayae had seen a young man dragged out into the dirt streets and lynched by his friends one morning, his body stripped to reveal the tattoo.
Similar stories arrived from across Leviathan’s Blood. Without the Enclave, the Floating Cities of Yeflam had fallen under the control of individual governors. The correspondence that came – most of it through Lian Alahn’s contacts – revealed a fractured nation. Barricades lined the bridges, new laws were enforced, and anyone not born in the ‘new’ nations of Yeflam was looked upon with suspicion. Ayae was not surprised that the camp had received no aid since it had been established on the shoreline.
Before her, Xrie motioned to one of his soldiers for some rope. With it in his hand, he took a step to the cart, but as his boot touched the edge, Casa sat up slowly, but with a strangeness that was immediately noticeable.
‘Yeflam,’ he said in the voice of a young woman. ‘It saddens me to see it like this.’
Xrie took a step back, drawing his sword as he did. ‘You are not welcome here, Se’Saera.’
‘I am welcome everywhere in my world.’ Casa’s head tilted as he gazed at the soldiers, who had also unsheathed their weapons. A lopsided smile crossed his face, as if the sight amused him, but he said nothing to them. Instead, he turned to Ayae. ‘Surely you welcome me here? You who have seen so much of this suffering world.’
She did not reach for her sword, though she wanted to do so. ‘No.’
‘No?’ the possessed man echoed. ‘You have spent much too much time with Eidan and his family.’
‘What is it that you want, Se’Saera?’ Eidan emerged from behind the cart, the lamp in his hand. He spoke casually, as if he alone had been unsurprised by her appearance. ‘I have no time for your sermons.’
‘I came to speak to you. I stand on the deck of Glafanr and I talk to another just as I talk to you. I am different, now that I am named. I have expanded. I am no longer the small figure you once knew.’ Casa’s arm rose awkwardly to hold a hand out to him. ‘I have come to extend an offer in exchange for your return. To you, my betrayer. You, whom I swore to destroy. I offer you a chance for redemption.’
‘I have no desire to die.’
‘To give yourself to me before death is to save your soul.’
Eidan grunted. ‘I have seen how you hoard souls to use their power.’
‘So you deny me a second time?’
‘And a third, if I need.’
Casa’s arm did not lower and his nod of acceptance was awkward, as if the muscles of his neck had weakened. ‘I will see your love soon.’
‘Bid her good day for me,’ Eidan said, placing the lamp on the ground.
‘I will be in the company of Aela Ren when I meet her.’ Se’Saera paused as a tremor passed through Casa’s body, but at the mention of the Innocent’s name, Ayae’s hand fell to her sword. ‘He and his god-touched soldiers serve me now. You will not be able to stand before them.’
‘I do not fear the Innocent or his soldiers.’
Ayae, her hand tight around the hilt of her sword, did not share the sentiment.
A gurgling laugh escaped the possessed man. ‘Why do you defy me, Eidan? I can remake this world once I am complete. I accept that my parents did not break themselves apart for love. It pained me to hear it in Yeflam, but I will preserve this nation for that reason. It was here that the failure of my parents became clear. Here that their messenger, Lor Jix, told the world that they tore themselves apart so I could not be whole.’ The words began to sound from Casa’s throat strangely, as if he could not properly carry the emotion that the god had. ‘I will repair what they have done, Eidan. Do you not want to see that?’
‘You forget.’ He reached out with his good hand and curled Casa’s finger backwards, snapping the bone. ‘I have seen what you create.’
A snarl emerged from the possessed man’s throat, but as it did, the skin there began to bubble and fold and then, suddenly, split in a gush of blood. A gagging sound followed, as Casa began to choke on his own blood. Before anyone could react, his head fell backwards as the bone in his neck let out a rotten crack. Eidan, still holding Casa’s hand, found himself holding the limb alone as a similar sound announced its departure from the whole.
‘These bodies are so weak.’ Se’Saera’s voice came from Tan, who rose from the back of the cart awkwardly, wet with the blood of his friend. ‘I will fix that.’
‘Your creations are flawed,’ Eidan said, still holding the other man’s hand. ‘You make only pain and suffering.’
‘You speak of those who failed me.’
‘No, I speak of you,’ he said. ‘As I have lain in my tent healing, I have wondered what convinced me to serve you and then so easily break away. I have thought about what I have seen and what I have been shown. I have begun to believe that others have made it so that I have seen you for yourself.’
The tension that coiled through Tan’s body suddenly left and he laughed a young woman’s laugh: carefree and innocent. ‘You cannot see the world as I can, Eidan. My thoughts are not what they once were. They are more complete. I dream of fate now. It is the most beautiful and complex sight to behold. I see how futures and pasts and presents overlap and cross. How they hide one another and then they reveal each other. It is amazing. Fate twists around us so much that every conversation is an echo of another. Even this moment has echoes. I see you reach for me. I see the Soldier cut deep into this man’s head. In both, the little flame stands terrified by the mere mention of the Innocent. This is divinity. This is truth unfolding before me.
‘But Eidan,’ she said, ‘I assure you, I promise you, that in all those fates you die.’