“You’re supposed to be resting,” said Basil, frowning as I entered the caverns.
“There’s no time.” I stacked up all my notes about the Door, ignoring its creaking laughter. “Do you know when the court is meeting to select who will get the bindings?”
They shook their head. “Tomorrow? They don’t like leaving it up to chance. Carlow’s already tried to break hers and died once today.”
I stripped useless page after useless page in my journal. None of it mattered, these years of experiments by Alistair or the few I had taken part in. I had stripped Creek’s bones and treated his corpse like it was no different from Carlow’s mechanical horse. The Door was one of the Vile, the Vile were everywhere and waiting to pounce once the Door was opened—or lifted or unanchored or however it did what it did was undone—and the only way to deal with the Vile was to offer them lives in exchange for letting some live. Just like Will Chase.
Laughter trickled out of me, quiet and slow, and Basil slammed their book shut.
“There’s no point in wallowing,” they said, picking at the binding where the surviving thirteen courtiers still controlled every contract they did. “We can’t lock the Door or destroy it and create a new one, and you’ve already set something in motion. It’s sloppy, but it seems to be working. What’s next? The surviving thirteen courtiers?”
I stared at Basil, and they cocked their head to the side.
“I’m optimistic,” they said. “You people always mistake cynicism for shrewdness, but Carlow’s the least shrewd person I know.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “You’re all involved in this too. There was little reason for me to be so secretive for so long.”
I’d forgotten—Basil was the youngest of Alistair’s noblewrought, but he still only took the best.
“The councilors have been plotting to let the Door open for over a decade, so they wanted to kill Alistair in case he did figure out how to close it,” I said. “Then they were going to put their plan into motion while the peerage fought over who was Crown next. They’ve been hoarding resources and consecrated ground to protect themselves from the Vile.”
Basil stiffened. “But only enough for them.”
“They were going to let the Vile do as they wanted with Cynlira and then start helping the survivors as some sort of belated saviors, so I told them I would help them attempt to assassinate Alistair.”
“And they believed you.” Basil’s fingers clenched and unclenched against their chest. “You can’t lie. Of course they believed you, and now the Crown not only owns their properties but all the ledgers detailing exactly what they have and where.”
Most wrought came from common families. If Basil, if everyone else weren’t bound to court and council, they could do far beyond what they did now. Some, undoubtedly, would side with the court and council. There would always be people who sought power and tried to gain it by tearing others down, but there would also always be good people. We could be stronger than we were now.
“We’re stronger together,” I said. “They bind wrought as children to keep us isolated and controlled, but imagine what we could do if all of us worked together instead of on single contracts.”
“What about the noblewrought who bound you?” I asked.
“They were like us once,” came Safia’s voice at the door. She moved toward us slowly, clearly having a bad pain day made worse by the demands of her binding, and green ink stained her dress. “But they decided they had survived it and put up with it, so we should too. Never mind that the bindings have gotten more vicious and more restrictive over time.”
Safia laughed, but there were tears in her eyes. Behind her, Carlow slipped inside the cavern.
“Do you know how many people I’ve had to let die because the court didn’t want to waste me on them?” Safia asked.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Shut up,” said Carlow, goggles hiding her face. “You don’t understand it.”
We all came together, the four of us, before the Door. It wasn’t frightening with the future so close.
“I made it all the way to ten before they bound me. I remember being free,” whispered Carlow, fingers tearing into the earth. “There wasn’t a lock that could keep me out. There wasn’t a space I couldn’t make my own. There wasn’t a home I couldn’t fix. I did more with my noblewright when I was five than I do now, but Vale Shad was too small a town for a noblewrought. That was what the Sundered Crown said. I looked up one day and she was there, Creek at her side. She wasn’t gentle when she bound me. She said it would make me stronger.”
“The Shearwill family’s run Ipswit for centuries,” Safia said. “I was thrilled when they found me. The world’s not made for me, and it reminds of that at every turn. The Shearwill family points out every expense, every change, they made for me as if I should be grateful for it. Like they’re doing me a favor. Like I don’t know they only do those things for me and not the other thousands who could use them because I’m useful. Use,” Safia spat and covered her mouth with her hands. “I was always a ledger to them—costs and gains, and then suddenly I was noblewrought and worth investing in. The Sundered Crown too. His Excellency. The lifts, the streets, and all the little changes he’s made are only there because one of us made ourselves useful to him. There’s no reason for healers to cost more than the price of the sacrifice and supplies. The Shearwill family could pay for every person in Mori to be cared for and still only cut into a pinch of their wealth. Adjusting the world so that I could live in it was only feasible once I started earning money for them. They shaped my life twice over.”
Her fingers touched her chest and came back bloody.
“They make us ledgers,” she whispered and held out her scarred arms. “They teach us to hurt ourselves, and the only way to survive is to hurt ourselves more, and then they’re angry when we flinch. You understand enough, Lorena, but you can’t understand this like I do. If I weren’t wrought, I know exactly what I would be worth to them.”
“They teach us with these little blades.” Carlow laughed. Dried rings of salt stained the lenses of her goggles. “So clean as if it made the act cleaner, but it’s the first thing they teach us as children. Alistair Wyrslaine and his mother were the only peers to be wrought in forty years, and they didn’t learn by cutting themselves. Even the Sundered Crown was taught how to sacrifice to her vilewright first.”
Of course those born with power were taught to use others first.
“Look at what he did in Hila.” Safia sniffed and rubbed her arms. “We’re sacrifices first no matter how useful we make ourselves. We will never be useful enough to prove our worth for them.”
“Why bother?” muttered Basil. “But what can we do? We cannot survive without work, and we cannot survive working.”
“The looms are easier to work when you’ve got small hands. They couldn’t swap them out, but why bother spending money on new ones when the current ones only kill a few kids per year,” I said and held up my hands. Sometimes I could still remember the steps, so familiar I could have done them in my sleep. “They’d tear off a finger, hand, or scalp if you were unlucky. Easier to have children do it. Smaller hands and smaller chance of us talking back. Who would’ve come to my defense?”
Low wages, desperation, and the promise of more were as binding as any sigil carved into a chest.
Basil laughed. “I cried, but then they taught me not to.”
“Me too,” Safia said. She took their hand.
“It’s addicting, that first sacrifice.” I drew a nail down my arm. “It’s our first and only taste of true control, but it’s not sustainable.”
Cynlira encouraged us to pare ourselves down till it reaped every benefit from our scarred corpses and gave us nothing but a false, fleeting taste of power. I had always used my wrights. What was I if not wrought?
Creek’s ghost, a warm breath against my ear, whispered, “You are a graveyard. You are a garden. Great things may grow from you yet.”
“We deserve better,” said Safia. “They won’t offer us better, but we deserve it.”
“We should take it,” Carlow said, “but I’m so tired.”
“It will take longer to break this habit than it will to rebuild Cynlira.” Safia closed her eyes and tilted her head back. “But once the court and council are gone, once the peerage is no more, once our worth isn’t based on birth or use, and once our bindings are gone for good, for the first time, we will be in control.”
Basil smiled. “There’s no reason sacrifices have to be physical. We can change that, and the wrought after us won’t have to feel like this.”
I pushed into the dirt, nails thick with ruddy mud, and reached past the boundary. Every hole I dug refilled. Every wound healed. The Door creaked. “They turned citizens into pieces, all of us, to be used until we can’t be used anymore. They divide us, workers and wrought, noblewrought and vilewrought, small town and city folk. They divide us until we are too small to bargain and can only beg.”
“Whatever happens,” said Safia, “we have to be together.”
From beneath the crack at the bottom of the Door came a pale hand, and it reached and reached and reached for the handle to open the Door.
“They think we’ll try to rule them,” I said.
“Curse ruling.” Carlow threw a rock at the Door, and the stone sunk into the wood like a blade through flesh, vanishing with a soft squelch. “I want to choose again. The contracts I take. The pain I suffer. The sacrifices I make. I want to be in charge of myself.”
Safia let out a soft sigh. “What would that be like?”
“Wonderful,” said Basil. “Wonderful.”
“When the Door opens, I hope all the other wrought are as brave as you all.” I rose and brushed off my knees. “I hope I am.”
Some of us weren’t fit to rule, and I knew what I had to do when the time came.
“What do you need us to do?” Basil asked.
“The bindings aren’t like normal magic, right? What noblewrought create and what vilewrought destroy persist beyond their deaths. The bindings are more like contracts. They can be nullified by vilewrought destruction or death.” I held out my hand to Carlow and helped her up. “Is there anything that needs to be done to end the binding specifically?”
“No,” said Carlow, pulling back her shirt. A third of the ink in her chest was peeling away with her skin. “Death of either party is sufficient.”
“Unless you’re immortal,” Safia said and swatted Carlow’s arm softly. “Stop dying, by the way.”
“It’s hardly dying when I know I’ll be back,” said Carlow. “I’ve no desire to leave you all alone. You’d be dead in a day without me. It’s just nice to be in control.”
I sighed, Carlow’s words comforting. I worried, sometimes, that she hoped each death would be the last.
“We all need to find better ways to feel in control,” I muttered.
Basil snorted. “Easier said than done but noted.”
“We have eight weeks until the Door opens, but I think we should prepare to have as many people in the council’s safe havens in two weeks. That way, we control when it happens,” I said. “Help me find the council’s safe havens and consecrated grounds. We’ll have to get the word out quickly.”
“The council’s what?” Safia gritted her teeth. “Never mind. I don’t want to be angrier now.”
I rose, ignoring the way the dirt of the Door clung to me and pulled me toward it. “I have some of Will Chase’s ledgers and his map with some of the safe havens on it. What we need to figure out is how many folks we can house, feed, and protect from the Vile in each place.”
Will had two in Ipswit, a church in Formet where he obviously meant to live, and the church in Felhollow. He’d also bought dirt from an old building too old to be used, and each of us made a list of the lands, relics, munitions stockpiles, and rations that we found. Carlow, who’d traveled the most, mapped out the quickest routes between them and nearby towns.
“There won’t be enough food,” Safia muttered. “They based their numbers on minimums. People don’t function optimally like that. They would’ve had to expend more to deal with malnutrition and illnesses.”
“We’ll need to find a way to keep farms working and safe,” I said. “Soldiers and noblewrought only solve part of that. They can’t be everywhere at once.”
“And we don’t know if we can hold our own against the Vile,” said Basil.
We needed a guarantee of safety from the Vile. We needed something to offer them so they wouldn’t go after the people of Cynlira, and I’d an idea about who I could offer them.
“I’ll deal with the Vile,” I said.
“I don’t want to allude to mass murder, but you’re going to deal with our bindings, aren’t you?” Carlow sucked on the end of a quill. “Unbound, I can solve some of our travel time issues. Mori’s palace is built to house seven hundred peers. It might contain the Door, but I think we can fortify it. If not, that’s still plenty of supplies. Do you really think you can deal with the Vile?”
Carlow glanced at the Door, and I nodded.
“How?” Safia asked.
“I have a few hundred ideas,” I said.
“Seven hundred and twenty-three ideas, I’d imagine,” muttered Basil.
The idea had taken root days ago, but now it was in full bloom—good things from terrible sacrifices.
“I got your message, Baz. What do you—” Hana skidded into the cave and stopped. “What is this?”
“Oh good.” Safia beckoned a confused Hana over and pointed to a line about rations in the ledger she’d been reading. “How many soldiers does the Wyrslaine house employ, and how much do you eat?”
“What?” Hana’s mouth twisted. “Why? You overthrowing us?”
“If the Door opened and the peerage ordered their soldiers to protect only their families, would they obey?” I asked. “Or would they protect Cynlira?”
Her face fell slack. “You’re talking treason.”
“What’s treason in the face of a world full of Vile?” Carlow jammed a pin into her small map and cracked her knuckles. “When the Door opens, are you with your court or your people?”
“Folks have families,” said Hana. “Friends. A lot would follow orders at first, but if the Vile get out, it’ll be chaos.”
“But if you could protect Cynlira at the cost of your orders, maybe your courtier, would you do it?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said, and Safia laced their fingers together. Hana stared down at her. “You’ll need to talk to the others. I’m only Alistair’s guard.”
“The day after tomorrow, can you get me a meeting with whomever you think I should talk to?” I asked. “And the noblewrought and anyone else you all think we need to bring in. When the Door opens, the soldiers in each holding will have to get who they can to safer areas and protect those who can’t leave their homes. We need to make sure we can get the word to the other holdings fast enough and they’ll listen.”
It was time for Cynlira to survive without sacrificing its people.