#Stylio | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fractured-legacies · 1 year

Text

Chapter 13: Contact

Prologue | Chapter 12 | Chapter 14

Chapter 13: Contact

In the entire system, we have found two space-based installations which are still operational—the two solar mirror arrays at the inner and outer primary-planet orbital equilibrium points. These are still functional and assisting with maintaining the planetary climate. However, attempts to contact and dock with each of the arrays resulted in hostile reactions, forcing us to retreat before we were harmed by the focused sunlight. Why these installations reacted in such a manner, we again have no idea, and we do not have the resources to attempt a forced boarding—nor do we wish to attempt to do so, given how the mirror arrays are integral for the continued habitability of the planet.

~o0O0o~

Raavi ava Laargan

The Lynx slid to a halt, despite the wind howling at our backs.

“I don’t think we’re going to be able to get any further,” I said, and slammed one hand into the other. “Damn it!”

“We’re still miles from the pass,” Yufemya said, the rustling of the map audible as she consulted it.

“I know!” I said, leaning back in frustration. “The slope is too steep, that’s the problem.”

“Can we try pushing the Lynx? Get out, open the sails a bit, and push?” Stylio suggested.

“We could, but, well…” I waved up the side of the mountain. “Look.” Visible in the glow of the Night-Light, the mountainside was steep. Not as sheer as some of the others we could see, but the way to the pass was still too steep for the Lynx.

Oksyna stood and closed her eyes. Spreading her hands out, she motioned in front of the Lynx. I watched, fascinated despite my frustration, as the snow in front of us started to compact down. It didn’t turn to ice, but it was definitely closer to older snow than fresh.

The Lynx moved forward a few yards, and sort of rocked back and forth on the compacted surface.

Yufemya and Zoy jumped out and started trying to push as Oksyna continued to crunch down the snow, and then Stylio and I hopped out to join them as well.

It wasn’t as heavy as carrying the Lynx up and down canal locks, but our progress was still slow, even with the wind at our backs and Lady Fia manning the sails, and Oksyna packing down the snow as best she could. I could feel the difference down by my boots—the light, windblown snow had packed down into something denser, like the snowflakes had fallen apart, which was probably what happened. I wondered how well that was recharging her reservoir of entropy. I did have to say this much—having a necromancer along made getting logs lit for the fire nice and easy. I would say ‘almost too easy’ except that it was cold enough that I was glad not to have to mess about with kindling and tinder.

We were maybe fifty or sixty yards along from where we’d stopped when I heard Yufemya gasp.

I turned, and saw about thirty or forty revenants standing behind us, down the slope, weapons in hand.

“Oksyna…” I said, staring. But I couldn’t leave the Lynx, or it would start to slide down towards them.

“On it!” she shouted, and raised her hands, holding a small gem in her left hand. Black and purple light started to stream out of her right hand in a nimbus, forming what looked like runes in the air as she moved her fingertips above the gemstone.

The revenants started walking forward, and then one of them held out a spear in front of the others, making them halt.

They started speaking among themselves, and I was eyeing the weapons they held. “Oksyna…”

Oksyna Mykyetyav

“Raavi, let me work,” Oksyna said, trying not to snap as she focused. With one finger extended, she drew the runes above the stone, mindful of her limited supply of Entropy. This was going to be delicate, unless she wanted to do something drastic to refuel. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much around unless she wanted to kill some trees.

Finished with the first motion, she gently lobbed the gemstone across the slope to the oathwalkers. Awkwardly, it hit the snow halfway down the slope and vanished with a plop. If not for the gentle glow, it would have been lost.

Now came the ticklish part…

One of the oathwalkers—the one with the spear—spoke to the others and, with a visible sigh, another one of them slogged up the slope and retrieved the tiny gem.

“What’s going on?” Raavi asked as they all watched the oathwalker carry the gem back to its companions.

“I’m negotiating,” Oksyna said. “While I could break their contracts with sheer brute force, it would require more power than I have to spare right now. So I’m hoping for something more voluntary.” She’d tried this before back with that other group, and they’d responded fairly well, but the size of that group had been taxing. And this one was even larger.

So she’d started with a simple proposal for a binding promise that neither her side nor theirs would begin a conflict, and hoped that they weren’t under direct strictures or orders to attack. The fact that they hadn’t as soon as they’d seen the Lynx was a good sign…

The oathwalkers clustered around the gem, and she could see the runes floating in air over it. After a brief moment, the leader touched the gem, accepting its provisos, and then passed it around.

She relaxed. “Okay, they’re bound not to attack, but if any of us starts anything, we’re in trouble.”

“Define ‘trouble’?” Zoy asked.

“I’m oathbound to whack whoever starts anything. So don’t.”

“Got it. Put the weapons down, people,” Fia said. “Oksyna, you’re the expert. What do you need?”

A nice midden pile or a compost heap, or maybe the pile of rejects behind a pottery kiln would be nice. Something I can just reduce down to crumbled chunks of dust without any guilt. Perhaps some paintings someone’s embarrassed by? That hunter squad’s outfits were barely enough. Rather than voice that, she said instead, “For the moment, space to let me work.”

“You got it.”

“And keep the Lynx from sliding into them,” she said, hopping down and landing nearly knee-deep in the snow. Joy.

Pulling herself higher up into the snow, she started slogging over to the group of oathwalkers.

“Oksyna?” She turned back to see Raavi looking at her worriedly. “Be careful.”

She smiled, feeling a moment of warmth despite the frigid chill around them. “I will be.”

Turning back to the oathwalkers, she trudged towards them. Thankfully, under the direction of their leader—and judging by the fancier clothing that one wore, they were the leader—they were stacking their weapons off to the side.

Giving thanks to the Silent and the Quiet that they were reasonable, Oksyna stopped several paces away, and held out her hand.

The leader walked towards her and placed the gem, now exhausted, into her palm.

Now that they were face to face, Oksyna gave the oathwalker an examining look. Old—at least a few hundred years old—and dressed in finely woven and dyed woolens in the form of a cloak over a poncho. A leather bandolier crossed their chest under the cloak, with leather pouches sewn to it.

She bowed politely. “Do you understand me?” This would be ticklish at best, but if all she could do was propose motions blindly, she’d exhaust herself quickly.

The leader frowned—the aged skin surprisingly supple, they apparently took good care of themselves—and motioned back to their group, barking an order.

Another oathwalker stepped forward, dressed in the same cloak-and-poncho woolens, but the weave was less fine and less dyed. Rank hath its privileges even in death, as usual.

It spoke. “What want you, deathspeaker?”

Oksyna relaxed a hair. All right. She could do this. “To find out why you are attacking this kingdom suddenly. My leader,” she motioned back to where Fia and the others stood, “wishes to parley with your king on behalf of hers.”

The oathwalker nodded and spoke to the leader. The two of them conversed for a moment before the translator looked back to Oksyna. “Speak much cannot we. What can do you?”

“I can give you a temporary respite from your oaths. Say, a hundred hours, maybe a hundred-fifty,” she said, judging how much of a reserve she had and the number of oathwalkers. “Enough to give you time to act and explain. It is good that you speak my tongue, or I would have to propose these blindly.”

Again the translator turned to the leader and spoke. Resisting the urge to pull up the wording of their oaths and start running through it to see if she could spot any loopholes, Oksyna fidgeted as they spoke back and forth.

The translator was waving their arms while the leader had theirs crossed, eyes narrowed, and said something curt that agitated the translator more.

Whatever their tongue was, it wasn’t one that she recognized—not that it meant that much. Both her own homeland and the Kalltii kingdoms had been under the thumb of the Dormelion Empire for long enough to leave its stamp on their languages, so coming here had mostly been a matter of learning the differences for the local dialect. But the Gehtun had never been conquered by the Dormelion.

Who were you, she wondered as she looked at the two oathwalkers, when you were alive? Warrior? Scholar? Artist?

She’d spent half of her life as a necromancer. She hadn’t known anything else. So she had to wonder, what would it be like to live a full life and choose to be an oathwalker at the end of it?

The translator hung their head and scoffed before turning back to her. “Complicated things are. Swear you will that our king no harm mean?”

“I can put that in, yes, but I know that I mean him no harm,” she said. “I’m neutral and just want the fighting to stop.”

The translator frowned and spoke again to the leader.

As they spoke, Oksyna took the gem and started inscribing more runes with it. Carefully, delicately.

Once she was done, she turned around. “Fia! Come down here please!” She looked towards the pair of oathwalkers. “The leader of this group will swear that we will give no harm to yours.”

Fia arrived a moment later and bowed politely. “Negotiations going all right? Raavi’s about ready to burst between worry and curiosity. I have him checking over the Lynx to distract him.”

Oksyna smiled a bit, hiding it behind her hand. “Of course he is. And yes, we seem to be doing all right.” She nodded towards the runes. “This is a provisional contract for the next hundred hours that these oathwalkers will be temporarily suspended from their oath and bound to help us—specifically guiding us to their king—and neither side can harm the other. At the end of it, their existing oaths resume.”

Fia nodded. “Sounds good to me.” She looked towards the oathwalkers. “What do you say?”

The leader frowned again and spoke, and then the translator, their eyes narrowed, said, “What catch?”

“No catch. But if you were that interested in attacking us, you would have already. So I’m here to help.”

The two of them spoke again, and as they did so, Fia leaned in. “I wonder what the issue is?”

“Could be anything. Showing weakness, some loophole or conflict in their oath, internal political crap…”

Before Fia could respond, the oathwalker leader barked something to the rest of their group, who marched up behind them.

“Is that good or bad?”

“We’ll find out. We’re still under a truce, though.”

The leader extended a hand and, in painfully mangled but recognizable words, forced out, “We accept.”

Fia reached out and shook without hesitation—which was impressive from Oksyna’s perspective. Most people didn’t like shaking the hands of revenants, or touching them at all. And with that, Oksyna pushed out what remained of her Entropy, binding the contract she had proposed; it cost a lot, especially the part where she suspended their existing contract’s wording, but it was worth it. With them in the binding, she wouldn’t have to sustain it herself.

“All right. So… first off.” Fia glanced up the slope. “Can you help us get over the pass?”

Raavi ava Laargan

I gasped for breath and leaned against the rock wall of the pass; at least the snow here was thin, but the rocks underneath were loose and liked to shift.

“Yeah. The air is so thin up here,” Lady Fia said, rubbing her head.

“Oh! I bet that’s part of the reason why the Lynx couldn’t get up the slope!” I said. “Thinner air! It makes sense!”

Zoy’s voice came from behind me. “Raavi, your brain is an interesting place. You’re barely able to breathe, and what do you think of? Puzzles.”

I turned. “Is that bad?”

She shook her head. “No. Just interesting. Come on.” She walked on and I followed after.

The oathwalkers had helped in the most direct fashion possible—we’d broken down the Lynx for portage, and over a dozen of them had hoisted it on their shoulders, while the rest of us carried the supplies, tent, skates and runners. The pass was miles long between two of the mountain peaks; we’d passed the border fort a while earlier. It had been gutted by fire, and abandoned.

But now these oathwalkers were helping us. According to Oksyna, at least. And I trusted her.

A flicker of light came from up ahead. Rounding the bend, my back aching from the pack I was carrying, along with all of my tools, I blinked as I saw the campsite. Several of the oathwalkers were busy raising the tent, and a few others were building up a fire. Where they’d gotten the logs, I had no idea, but the clean woodsmoke was nice. Another group was examining the Lynx where they’d set her down.

My exhaustion forgotten, I hurried over to see what they were doing.

Four of them were clustered around one of the brackets I’d made to hold the skates and runners in place, pointing and exclaiming. One of them held one of the runners, and was latching it in and taking it out before doing it again.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

The one holding the runner turned and held it up before speaking in its language. I tried not to look too closely at the gray-purple skin it had, stretched tightly over its skull. It motioned towards the runner and asked a question. At least… I thought it asked a question.

“I don’t understand you.”

It pointed towards my belt and spoke again.

“Huh?”

It shook its head, put the runner down in the thin snow, reached over, and pulled my small hammer off of my belt.

“Hey!”

Crouching down, it motioned for me to follow, and I did so, resisting the urge to snatch the hammer back.

Gently, it took the hammer and tapped a loose pin back into place, and then handed the hammer back. I took it on reflex, and then it pointed to the pliers that were several places over on my belt.

Staring, I handed those over.

Using them, the oathwalker delicately bent the pin back into place before handing the tool back.

I picked up the runner and carried it over to the Lynx. Slotting it back into the bracket, I realized that the pin had worked itself loose—probably from all of the portages we’d been doing—and would have fallen out soon.

I turned and looked back at the oathwalker, who was smiling in a satisfied way at their work. “You aren’t a warrior at all, are you? You’re a craftsman!”

“But why are they sending craftsmen and weavers after us!?” I demanded. We were sitting around the fire that the oathwalkers had helped construct, a cup of soup in my hands.

“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out,” Oksyna said, frowning as she sipped at her own soup and then giving it an appreciative look. “Also, add cooks to that list. This is good.”

“I guess if you’re working at something for a few human lifetimes, you pick up a few things,” Zoy said dryly before taking a sip of her own cup. “And damn, seconded. Can we keep that one?”

“No!” Oksyna said. “They’re not mine to give away!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Zoy said before turning to Yufemya. “So what’s your guess?”

“On?” Yufemya replied, sipping at her own cup.

“Why they’re sending so many worker-types after the kingdom instead of, you know, fighters?”

Yufemya frowned and took another sip. “I don’t want to guess. I feel like that would run the risk of having us start assuming.”

Zoy cocked her head and then shook it. “All right. You know, you can just say ‘I don’t know.’”

“‘I don’t know’,” Yufemya parroted, mimicking Zoy’s tones perfectly.

“Huh. I don’t believe you. You’ve got to have some idea!”

Yufemya frowned as I looked around, and I said, “Well, they’re not saying anything beyond that we’ve got to talk to their king. So we’re going to have to do that.” I looked at Oksyna. “Can you tell us anything? I know that you can’t talk about some things, but can you at least tell us how oathwalkers work?”

She frowned and nodded. “Yes. That I can do. In generalities.”

“I’ll take it,” I said, and the others nodded.

“Yeah, anything solid right now will help,” Fia said.

Oksyna rubbed at her cheekbones with her thumb and forefinger. “Give me a moment to get everything in order up here.”

“Of course,” I said, and took a swallow from my cup before looking around again. The oathwalkers were busy. A group of them were cleaning their tools and weapons, another group were darning and repairing their clothes, and another group were, to my continued surprise, spinning thread from wads of fiber that they had been carrying around in bags. Those last ones were using old-style spindles and distaffs, but that didn’t stop them from producing thread so fine that it left me in awe at their skill. As Zoy had commented, I guessed that if you worked at something for a few lifetimes, you got good at it.

“All right,” Oksyna said. “So, Raavi.”

“Yes?”

“I need to use you to help me here. Nothing permanent, I promise.”

I quirked an eyebrow. “All right…”

She grinned and shuffled next to me. “Good. Do I have your permission to touch you?”

“Sure…?”

She punched me in the arm.

“Ow!” I put my hand over the spot and looked at her, more hurt at the shock and surprise than at the pain. “What was that for!?”

“You said that I had permission to touch you!” she said, and there was a smile on her face that confused me.

“A punch is not a touch!”

“Says who?”

“Uh, most people?”

“Ah, but who?” Her smile went away and her expression turned serious. “And that’s the basis of what I do.”

“What, punch people?”

She reached over and gently put her hand on my arm. “I’m sorry, but you’ll see my point in a moment.”

Giving her a suspicious look, I nodded. “I’m listening.”

“So you and I disagree—for the sake of argument—on whether a touch equals a punch or just a touch like this.” She very slightly squeezed my arm.

“I’d say so! But what does that have to do with oathwalkers?”

“Because being an oathwalker—or any other form of spirit that continues on after they’ve died—is because they’ve made a promise, a contract, an oath. And such things depend on understanding the language.” She looked around the circle. “And that’s what I and my fellow necromancers do. We edit, amend, interpret, and adjudicate the oaths and contracts of the dead.”

“On whose authority?” I asked, fascinated.

“I can’t answer that,” she said. “I’m not allowed to answer that.”

That puzzled me for a moment, and then it clicked. “Oh! Because you have to make a contract with them yourself? And not revealing the details about it is part of that?”

She relaxed a little and nodded. “Yes. And I can’t say more than that, or I have to pay penalties.”

“What form do those penalties take?”

“Entropy… or Breath. And yes, before you ask, I can die that way.”

I winced.

“I also can’t kill anyone with my Entropy directly, outside of immediate self-defense or a few other specific circumstances,” she said. “I know that other necromancers have abused that in the past, and either they’ve got looser or vaguer contracts than I’ve got or they were playing with fire.” She shrugged. “Of course, making someone’s clothes disintegrate when it’s this cold out is fair game.”

“Ouch,” I said with a wince. I didn’t know exactly how cold it was, but I knew that someone without shelter or clothing would be dead in minutes from exposure. “Have you done that?”

“Once. To the leader of a group of bandits. The others ran away when they realized that the little girl they were threatening could kill them all.” She shook her head. “But that’s beside the main point. So for a ‘normal’ revenant, they swear to do something with their dying Breath.”

“Like see their daughter get married,” I said.

“Exactly. Or get vengeance on the ones who killed them… or wronged them, which often turns messy. But let’s take your example,” she said. “Let’s say that revenant, when their daughter’s wedding date is set, realizes that they’ll die right after the ceremony. Which would put a damper on it, to say the least. So someone like me could amend their oath to give them a few more days afterwards… or possibly amend it entirely.” She shrugged. “That’s how Nightshade and others like her managed to get their armies of revenants together, by amending their oaths to swear loyalty to her, and enough of them were scared of dying forever that they accepted.”

“Which is why I asked if she was ‘recruiting’,” Lady Fia asked. “Of course, most of Nightshade’s revenants still went insane after just a decade or two.”

Oksyna nodded. “Where oathwalkers differ from your standard revenant is that they have a formalized contract, inscribed on… well, it’s usually a gem or sheet metal, to which they sign their names before they die. The structure of the contract helps keep their minds intact.”

Blinking, I put that together with what I knew of oathwalkers. “So how hard is it to make those contracts?”

“And that’s something I can’t share. Suffice it to say that I can’t make one, and it took a lot of power for me just to temporarily amend their terms with it.”

As I considered that, Stylio commented, “But as I understand it, these oathwalkers are bound by the terms of their formal contract?”

“Exactly.”

“So what could have made them suddenly start attacking Westernfellsen?”

“That,” Oksyna said firmly, “is what I want to find out.”

Emerging from the pass, the first thing I saw was… nothing.

It took a moment for things to resolve themselves into a vast open plain of snow underneath a black, cloud-speckled sky, the Night-Light’s glow illuminating the landscape. There were no trees, no hills that I could see beyond the mountains we had just emerged from, no… nothing.

It was disorienting—to me, at least. The oathwalkers helped us reassemble the Lynx from portage, and loaded everything in. After looking for a bit, I saw that the tips of plants were sticking up through the top of the snow, and there were occasional rocks emerging as well, and there were long divots that looked like paths.

While I’d been looking around, the oathwalkers had produced snowshoes. From where, I hadn’t seen, but they strapped themselves in with an air of long-practice and started helping haul the Lynx up to speed.

“Do we want to start just going?” I asked.

“We don’t know where to go, and we don’t have room on the Lynx for any of them,” Stylio pointed out.

“Right,” I said, frowning and looked over the group of them just hauling the Lynx along like they were dogs pulling a sled. “Maybe we should just extend out the sail a little, just to help?”

“And with one good gust it will run them over. And then we’re on default for Oksyna’s parley.” Stylio patted me on the shoulder. “I know that you want to hurry as much as possible, and I think it’s good, but we need to go at their pace for the moment.”

I nodded, slumping a little, and fell into step with them. For the first hour, it was difficult; the oathwalkers lent us snowshoes, but walking in them was tiring, especially as I wasn’t used to it, and my lungs reminded me that the air was thinner at this altitude.

I found Oksyna walking alongside me; she seemed to be unbothered by the exertion.

“So…” she began to say.

“So?” I echoed, after she trailed off.

“So I was wondering where the idea for the Lynx came from. You mentioned back in the city that it was from something you read?”

“Oh, yeah! I was reading this travelogue on the Slaekkaruune tribes who live down at the equator, and their ice-fishing techniques on the pack ice. They have these leather and wood sailed-canoes that can travel both in water and across ice that use skates carved from whalebone. They use them to travel across the ice to hunt and trade and migrate. Apparently they move across the equator north to south depending on the season, so they basically go from summer to autumn to summer all the time.”

She raised a hand. “Wait a moment. Back up. What do you mean? I’m from Endanchoria, and I know that there’s ice south of there in the winter, and some of it never melts even in the summer. But what do you mean ‘summer to autumn to summer’?”

“When it’s summer here in the north, there’s winter in the southern half of the world, and vice versa,” I said. “They stay on the icy area around the equator. The sun is only overhead for a few days around the Equal Nights in Spring and Autumn, so they basically follow it back and forth; they spent half of the year in twilight and the other half with a day and night like the rest of us.”

She cocked her head. “But… doesn’t the ice melt in summer?”

“No, it’s all about the angle of the sun. Sunlight is coming in so steep at the equator during the summer that it gives barely more light than the Night-Light. Certainly not enough to melt the ice.” I made a fist and held it up so that it was lit by the Night-Light. “Our world is tilted hard on its side. We don’t know why. None of the other planets we’ve studied through our telescopes are tilted like this. If I remember right, it’s something around eighty degrees away from ‘upright’, while all of the other planets around the sun are within ten or so degrees of upright, like a top that’s still spinning at full speed.”

“You mean top speed?” she asked, and I laughed.

“I was resisting making that joke!”

“Good! So I got to make it instead!” She chuckled. “So continue.”

“So since we have such a high tilt, the sun moves back and forth, lighting one half of the planet at a time for each season. On the other planets, they have a day-night pattern all year like we have in Spring and Autumn.”

“That’s so weird to think about,” she said. “How would they tell the seasons apart? When do they sleep?”

“At night, presumably?”

“Huh. So you were explaining about the ice?”

“Yeah, so during the summer, there’s a band around the equator that gets just a little light every rotation, but not enough to melt the ice. So the Slaekkaeruune live there, moving back and forth across the equator in their ice-boats to follow the sun. So when the summer ends in their current hemisphere, becoming autumn, they move to the other one.”

“Amazing. And that’s where you got the idea for the Lynx?”

“Yup! I made my skates out of steel rather than bone, of course, but the idea is the same.”

She smiled at me and we chatted a bit more—and then I saw light coming from nearby, down in what looked like a ravine or valley.

“What’s that?” I moved away from the group a bit towards the light.

“Raavi, come back here!” Stylio called, and I slowed to a halt, but not before getting a look down into the valley. “Raavi!?”

I heard her walk up behind me. “Raavi, what is… it…”

She came to a halt next to me and looked down as well.

Below, down in the valley, there was a shrine. More than a shrine—a temple. Large stones, carved with runes, seemed to glow under the lights from torches and bonfires, the sources of the light that had drawn my attention.

Around them, I could see oathwalkers. Hundreds of them.

And they were tending to the dead.

Large stone tables lay within the perimeter of the outer circle of stones, and on them, the oathwalkers were cleaning the bodies, using pitchers of water—from melted snow, I suspected—and wrapping them in shrouds with their hands folded across their chests and blindfolds around their eyes. One group—I squinted—was ladling small spoonfuls of liquid from steaming pitchers into the mouths of the dead. Still more were carrying the wrapped, shrouded bodies into a passage that cut into the side of the valley.

“Your ways we know not,” said the voice of the translator, and I turned to see it standing there. “But our best we do.”

I glanced back down below and then pointed down, even as I looked back to him. “Wait, those are my people?”

“Yes. Those by ours killed. We show what respect we can.” It turned back to the Lynx before saying quietly, “Not much it is, know I. Sorry I am.”

I looked back and forth between the piles of the dead and the translator. “Why? Why have you done this?”

“Explain the king will. Me I cannot.”

“Damn you!” I spat.

“Already I am.”

That made me pause, and I looked back down at the bodies. Why?

I felt Stylio’s hand on my arm. “Come on, Raavi. Let’s go. We can get answers.”

Scowling, I nodded. “Yes, we will.”

<<<<>>>>

Prologue | Chapter 12 | Chapter 14

#fractured legacies imprudent #imprudent #original writing

15 notes · View notes

fractured-legacies · 1 year

Text

Imprudent, Chapter 6: Quest

Prologue | Chapter 5 | Chapter 7

Chapter 6: Quest

According to Lt. Alphonsoni, large urban areas of the planet have been reduced or entirely obliterated, a fact that is corroborated by our limited records. However, we have detected isolated remnants of architecture and other infrastructure, mostly in the form of singular towers and other edifices in various locations. Typically these are singular structures, although there are a few areas that have multiple instances. The reason why these buildings were spared from whatever else destroyed the rest of the planetary civilization is unknown; attempts to communicate with these structures have failed, and neither our records nor the Lieutenant’s memory are detailed enough to determine the distinguishing factor of these buildings.

~o0O0o~

Lady Fiaswith of House Rechneesse

The chill seeped in through the holes in Fia’s clothes; honestly, that was more irritating than getting hit with an arrow. She was still upset over her favorite silk gown that had met the same fate years earlier. Oh, sure, you could get blood out of silk, but a hole right through the bodice!? You couldn’t fix that, not without ripping out the whole bloody panel, and then you had to find matching silk to put in its place.

She knew that she was distracting herself, though, and as they came to a halt at the next lock—by a small village—she could feel Raavi’s eyes on her.

She hopped out of the iceboat and started giving orders. “Yufemya, sweep for any revenants. Don’t engage unless you have to. I’m going to see about finding us some help. Raavi, prep the boat for dismantlement, but don’t do anything yet until we find out if we need it.”

“And me and Zoy?” Stylio asked.

“You’re with me. Zoy, with Raavi.”

Looking around at the group of them, she could see them wondering, but none of them spoke up or demanded answers, spreading out as she’d ordered.

Turning, she marched to the village next to the lock; another canal joined up here, creating a larger pond, which was frozen over. That explained why this lock had a settlement here at all, which was good.

Stylio fell in step with her. They walked in silence, their boots crunching the snow as the wind whipped around them. As they entered the first set of streets between the houses, Fia asked, “See anyone awake?”

“No, but there have been people here. Look.” She pointed down, and Fia followed the line, to see the uneven hummocks in the snow that showed there had been foot-traffic here, even if the later snowfalls had buried it.

They continued searching through the darkened streets and quiet houses. Just when Fia was about to call it quits, Stylio called out in a carrying whisper, “Here.”

Fia turned, and saw a patch of dark ice besides an alleyway next to an oddly shaped hummock of snow.

“Oh shit.”

Stylio brushed the snow away, revealing a dead body, a bloody gash in its belly having leaked out into the snow, making the dark patch.

“Not an oathwalker, then,” she said. “They don’t bleed.”

Shaking her head, Stylio rose. “No. Come, let’s see if we can find any survivors. I don’t know how long this one has been dead, but it can’t have been too long; he was only a few inches beneath the snow.”

Fia nodded and took point as they went deeper into the village. They reached the largest house, and outside, there were more bodies under the snow. The doors were intact, however. Hoping that they weren’t too late, she knocked.

A moment later, the door swung open and someone shoved a crossbow in her face.

Sighing, she pushed it out of the way, and hid a wince when the wielder pulled the trigger and the bolt went clean through her hand, embedding itself in the wall. The whispering in the back of her mind was brief, the hole closing almost as soon as the bolt cleared it, and she pulled the crossbow out of their hands.

“Yo-you-you’re alive!” the man stammered.

“No thanks to you,” Fia said, glancing at the quivering bolt in the wall and setting the crossbow aside. “Bit jumpy, are we?”

“They… they came! In the dark! Monsters! Dead men! They fell on us, killing, murdering…”

“How many?” Fia asked.

“Dozens… maybe hundreds…”

“And you fought them off?”

“We had to! The sleepers… down in the cellars! We had to protect them!”

Fia nodded, and glanced past the man. Another dozen or so overwinterers were huddled around the corridor, clutching weapons and giving her furtive looks. Taking a deep breath, she said, “I am Lady Fiaswith of House Rechneesse. I am on my way to the capital to inform King Luitpoold about these attacks. I need your help to get around your canal locks.”

“But they’re frozen, milady,” said the man who had almost shot her. “It’s winter!”

“We’re using a different form of transport,” she said. “But we need, say, half a dozen men, more if possible, to help. Can you help us?”

A bunch of the overwinterers, apparently heartened and desperate for something to do, rose and started doing up their winter coats.

“Good. We’ll meet you down at the locks,” she said, then turned and left.

As she and Stylio walked back down the road, Stylio abruptly said, “It’s a Death Curse, isn’t it?”

Fia paused and looked at the other woman. Possibilities ran through her mind. She could lie, try to misdirect, to push it off for later…

Or, most scary of all, she could tell the truth about the secret that had kept her alive through all of her adventures, including, most recently, five years of marriage.

So she nodded. “Yes.”

They continued walking. “A powerful Curse,” Stylio said after several more steps.

“I prefer to think of it as a Blessing.”

“Do you know who?”

Fia nodded. “I do. My father.” She swallowed. “He was a healer. Someone like you. And he was murdered. And he blessed me with his dying words.” You will live a full long life. Neither injury nor illness nor poison or anything but old age will take you, my daughter. “I was three.”

Stylio put her hand on Fia’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. It… I don’t remember him. But the men who took him regretted it. I saw to that before I was twelve.”

A nod. “I understand. Come. We have a long way to go to the capital.”

“Not as far as you’d think,” Fia said, and forced a smile onto her face and some levity into her voice. “I know that when this is all over, I’m going to start a business making those things.”

“For courier duty in winter?”

“That, and for fun. Can you imagine taking one out to Lake Stotos and letting it go?”

Stylio laughed. “I’d like that!”

Raavi ava Laargan

I squinted, peering into the distance, unsure if I was seeing something or not through the blowing snow.

And then the clouds broke for a glorious moment, revealing the King’s Tower in all of its curved, prismatic glory.

“We made it!”

Behind me, Lady Fiaswith swore admiringly, and if there had been any question in my mind that she’d once been a sailor—and there wasn’t by this point— those questions would have been put to rest by the fluency and skill with which she swore.

I heard a click of metal on metal, and Stylio said, “We just traveled over a hundred and twenty miles in seven hours. I have never heard of such a trip outside of tall tales of people riding on dragons.” She put away her pocketwatch and said, “Well done, Raavi.”

My blush, which had already been in force from the Lady’s profanity, grew. I then almost jumped when the Lady said, “Over there. There are guards there; I can see their lights. Drop the anchor!”

With a joint sigh, Yufemya and Zoy lifted the heavy plate and dropped it over the side as I guided us over to the canal docks where indeed there were a group of miserable looking guards standing with crossbows. They heard us coming—how could they not, with the anchor’s screeching?—and leveled their crossbows at us as we came up to the dock.

“Not a good sign. Overwinterer guards shouldn’t be that jumpy…” Lady Fiaswith mused behind me, and then, taking a deep breath, bellowed out, “At ease, men! We’re coming in with news!”

As we drifted in, slowing, I tried not to stare at the crossbows and those shiny, deadly quarrels waiting to fly through the air at us…

Finally, the first guard moved his crossbow away, and motioned for his companions to do the same. “Identify yourselves.”

“Lady Fiaswith of House Rechneesse, and companions. We have news of an attack by roving revenants on the town of Rhaanbach and several others along the way, and we’re here to report to the King.”

As she spoke, we came up to the pier and shuddered against it with a soft thud. Lady Fiaswith ignored the guards as she started tying down the sails and getting the rest of us to tie the iceboat up to the docks, as if it was a regular ship. We were about halfway done when the head guard nodded and turned to one of his men. “Send a runner to the Tower. Inform them that Her Ladyship here has arrived and is in our custody, and we are awaiting instructions.”

The man nodded and moved off. As we finished tying up the ice boat, the guard looked us over. “If you all would come with me?” he said, although I could tell that ‘No’ wasn’t an option. I looked at the others, and I was the only one who was worried, or at least letting it show through our snow-crusted winter clothing.

Hefting our packs, we left my ice boat behind, and I gave it one last look as we walked away. I’d been working on it, on and off, for over a year and it had worked so well for its first trip.

It vanished behind a building, and I turned back to follow the others. As I did so, I could see the King’s Tower standing on High Point, overlooking the bay. It was beautiful. Three hundred and fifty feet tall, the last forty feet the finial alone, it was an exquisite gem of crystal and light which had stood guard over the bay since time immemorial. It was one of the ancient homes of the Kalltii, according to legend. Many of the pieces of art and architecture around the kingdom were done in imitation or inspiration of the style it and its brethren embodied, just done in glass and metal instead of imperishable, eternal crystal.

“Hey, keep moving!” a guardsman said brusquely, and I realized I had stopped to stare. Flushing, I started walking again, and heard him mutter, “Damned provincials…”

I flushed harder, and, bowing my head, hurried to keep up.

Stylio caught my hand and made me walk in step with her. “Do not let him get to you. You are young and you will have the chance to travel, especially with your new creation back there. He’s older and is a guard on canal watch duty in the winter,” she said to me in a low voice.

I gave her a sidelong look, but didn’t say anything.

We were led into a snow-covered brick building; I was blinded inside, after having been out with only the snow-glow and the Night-Light to see by.

“Travelers from the canal. They’re to wait here pending orders from the Tower,” said one of the guards.

My eyes adjusted, to see several other guards standing around a small oil-fueled stove; a few oil-lamps lit the space, revealing a battered wooden table with some equally battered wooden chairs around it. A card game in progress sat abandoned, along with a few sandwiches and beers. It was still cool inside, but warmer than out in the snow, and I sagged into a chair, grateful, when one of the guards motioned me into it.

I shut my eyes, only to see lines after endless lines of white—the pure white of the snow along the banks of the canal, the darker white of the ice of the canal itself—streaming before my eyes.

I groaned and grimaced, but I must have rested, because the next thing I noticed was the smell of hot food.

Opening my eyes, which took as much effort as lifting an iron ingot, I saw that Stylio had apparently raided our packs for what was left of our provisions, and had taken over the stove to reheat them.

“Oh, good, he’s awake,” I heard, and then a plate, with some steaming mashed potatoes (where had those been?) and fried sausages was slid in front of me.

Looking up, I saw Zoy standing over me, her face split in a grin. She reached down and messed with my hair. “Next time you take the boat out for a long trip, someone else gets to swap out the tiller occasionally.”

“Worried about me?” I managed to get out.

“Naaah,” she drawled exaggeratedly. “I just got bored sitting back there and want a turn to play!”

I laughed and started to eat. It was simple food, but delicious, and I was just about done when a guardsman came in.

“They’re wanted up at the Tower. Now.”

As we came up to the base of the King’s Tower, I craned my neck up to look at the smooth, sheer lines; from a distance, the entire structure could have been mistaken for a glass lamp, with a candle-flame at the finial. But up close, I could see that the smooth folds were ripples in the crystal, and deeper patterns and decorations divided it into panels. I’d been told that attempts to remove and study the sections had failed repeatedly through history.

Inside, it was quiet. Incredibly quiet, in fact. The howl of the wind ceased as soon as the doors closed behind us, despite the fact that I could see the blowing snow through the perfectly clear doors, which only had a thin band of metal around the outsides to mark where the edges were.

Lighting, though, was provided by what Night-Light came in through the windows, and from more normal oil-lamps that dotted the space.

We entered a foyer with a group of guards standing around; two were by another pair of glass doors, while another stood behind a counter, with a series of lockers and coat-racks on the wall behind her.

“Before you proceed to meet with the King, you must surrender any weapons or arms you might possess. They will be kept securely here and returned to you before you leave,” the guardswoman by the counter said. “You may surrender them voluntarily, or after a search.” She smiled thinly. “Your decision. Cloaks and coats can also be given here.”

Lady Fiaswith stepped forward. “Lady Fiaswith—”

“Of House Rechneesse. I know and I remember. You’re supposed to be dead,” said the woman.

“And some people are going to be so disappointed, I know,” she said lightly, and unbelted the sword and crossbow she’d come with, putting them on the counter, followed by her cloak and coat. Her shirt had a noticeable hole in it and a bloodstain where she’d been shot, but the guard said nothing about those, instead just bundling up the cloak and coat and sticking them on one of the coat-racks. Then she waved Lady Fiaswith forward over to the set of doors by the guards. “Next.”

Yufemya stepped forward and put down her bow and the quiver of arrows, followed by a few knives from a thigh sheath, along with her cloak and coat.

“Name?”

“Yufemya.”

“Relation to the Lady there?”

“Traveling companion.”

The guardswoman paused and frowned before glancing at Fiaswith. “She one of your pirates?”

“No, but I’ll vouch for her and the others. Come on, you know that if they’re not even giving us a chance to change clothes before going up to see Luitpoold, he’s not going to wait for a whole song and dance number.”

The guardswoman snorted and nodded. “Fine, but if there’s any problems, it’s on your head.” She motioned Yufemya through. “Next!”

I stepped forward.

“Name?”

“Uh… Raavi ava Laargan. Ironworker of Rhaanbach.”

“Good. Give up your weapons here.”

I looked around at the others. I didn’t have any weapons, so I just shrugged off my cloak and my coat, and handed them over.

“What are those?” the guardswoman asked, pointing at my toolbelts.

“Uh… my tools…” I started to say.

“Give them here,” she said, in a tone that brooked no argument.

After glancing around at the others, I saw Stylio give a nod, and I complied, taking off my toolbelt, my vest with all of the pockets, and the bracer I had on my arm for slipping in small tools.

“Brought a whole workshop with you?” the guardswoman asked, putting them away.

“Uh… no?”

“It was a joke, kid. Next!”

Zoy and Stylio looked at each other, and Stylio motioned Zoy forward.

With a put-upon sigh, Zoy stepped to the counter, and—making my eyes go wide—started pulling out knives from her cloak and putting them in a stack on the countertop. Two knives each from sheaths concealed in the outsides of her sleeves. Another two from the collar. Two more from the forward hem, the handles disguised as part of the closures.

She shrugged off the cloak and handed it to the guardswoman before producing more knives from her coat—four from her pockets, another four from sheaths along her spine, another two from her shoulders.

As she pulled the coat off, I glanced around the room. The guards were looking at her with respect, their hands on their own weapons, while Stylio was watching her with an expression that made me think of my mother when she sighed and chuckled at my enthusiasm.

The clink of more metal on metal made me turn back, as Zoy produced another two knives from the sides of her boots, and then another two from the bottoms, followed by four more from her belt. Another two from sleeve sheaths were produced, and then another four from her vest.

Then she glanced at Stylio, who had her arms crossed; she gave Zoy a wave with her exposed hand, and Zoy… pouted and pulled out two hairsticks from her hair, popped them open to reveal pointed stilettos, and added them to the pile.

“There. Done,” she said to the awed silence.

Stylio sighed. “And the holdouts, Zoy.”

“But—”

“Give them up.”

“Fine.”

She unbuttoned her shirt and I suddenly felt the need to look away… but I still saw out of the corner of my eye that she pulled another four from the boning of her corset and put them on the counter before doing her shirt back up again and then, at a pointed look from Stylio, reached up and pulled out a wire, from some hem on her shirt, that had a pair of wooden rods on loops at either end.

“Am I done? Or are you going to make poor Raavi burst into flames from embarrassment over there?”

I flushed and looked firmly away, instead turning my attention to the guards by the glass doors; they were staring in horror and awe. One of them had his mouth hanging open and his eyes were wide white circles in the lantern-light.

“I think you’re done, yes.”

A moment passed before I heard Zoy say dryly, “You can look again, Raavi.” Flushing, I turned, to see Zoy walk over to stand next to me, her hands on her hips. She sighed. “It’s going to be such a pain to put that all away again.”

Yufemya, her voice a little strangled, said, “If you need help, just ask…”

“I’ll take you up on that.”

“Quiet. Next!” said the guardswoman, looking at Stylio. “Name?”

Stylio sighed. “Stylio of Kasmenarta.”

There was a pause. A very long pause, only to have the guardswoman say cautiously, “The Stylio of Kasmenarta?”

Another sigh came from Stylio, longer and more drawn out. “Yes. Once.”

The guardswoman motioned frantically to the two guards standing at the exit, and they left, returning a few moments later with six more.

Stylio shook her head. “This isn’t necessary, but fine.” She reached down to her belt and, opening her pouch, pulled out a knife… and a battered brass fork, followed by a spoon, and set them down. Her healer’s flute, a set of small tuning forks in better shape than the eating fork, a small wooden wand, and a small first aid kit of bandages, needles, and thread followed.

The guardswoman, moving like she was about to try to put a muzzle on a snarling dog, came out from around her counter and cautiously patted Stylio down. The hairstick in her bun turned out to be just a hairstick, but was taken anyway. Her belt turned out to be just leather, and the boning in her corset was just ordinary steel boning.

I shared a look with Lady Fiaswith, who was watching, looking like she couldn’t decide if she was offended or amused, and then looked back as the guardswoman reluctantly declared Stylio to be ready to meet with the King.

I leaned over to Lady Fiaswith. “Do you recognize that name?”

“Vaguely. I don’t know if I’m a little jealous or not!” As Stylio joined us, the Lady turned. “Come on, let’s not keep His Royal Highness waiting.” The two guards saluted and opened the glass doors, revealing a glass box with crystals mounted to the corners.

We went inside, followed by two guards. One of them was about to do something when the Lady said, “Let me. I know you lot are probably aching from this by now.”

I was baffled—what was she talking about?—only to jump as Lady Fiaswith hummed and breathed out a cloud of blue-white Breath, which settled into the polished pyrite and quartz crystals in the corners.

They glowed, and a moment later the glass box lurched into motion, upwards.

I stared, knowing that I looked like a provincial, and not caring. How was it moving? I didn’t know of any means by which Breath could be used to power a mechanism! You could heal and augment your body with it, douse and control fires with it, nudge the winds, and throw sparks—even large bolts of lightning, if you were really skilled—and of course you could imbue a crystal gem with it first thing upon waking and get an answer to a question about the future, but that was it. Okay, you could also, in a pinch, imbue an appropriate crystal with it and use that as a light source, but given that candles and lanterns didn’t require ripping out a bit of your own life force and suffering the pain that came with that, most people just used those!

But I was in a glass box with gemstones filled with Breath and it was climbing into the air.

Clearly I was missing something.

I was still thinking when the box ground to a halt and the doors opened, revealing a golden-hued chamber beyond.

Lady Fiaswith of House Rechneesse

Doing her best to assume a cloak of dignity and command, despite how battered and torn her clothing was, Fia walked out of the lifting box, followed by her compatriots. The ache of her donation to the crystals powering the box had faded by the time they were halfway up, and she was ready to fight this next battle.

The King was standing by a map-table, with several of his generals and marshals around him. Thankfully, he was wearing a normal working suit of black and gray wool, instead of his dress whites. That was good.

She came to a halt at the prescribed distance; as much as she hated it, she needed his help, and bringing a report back of attacks wasn’t going to be more than a down payment. Going down on one knee, she bowed. “Your Majesty.”

King Luitpoold the Second looked down at her. “Lady Fia. I see that reports of your demise were greatly exaggerated.”

“Not for lack of effort, sire,” she said, suppressing a shiver at the reminder of the trunk.

“So, what is it that you have for me? And rise.”

She came to her feet. “The town of Rhaanbach was attacked about forty-two hours ago by a force of about a hundred oathwalkers.”

He frowned. “Forty-two hours ago? Impossible. You can’t tell me that you made the trip here from Rhaanbach in forty-two hours!”

She stepped aside and pulled Raavi to the fore. The boy looked like he was considering fainting, and she squeezed his shoulders supportively. “Young Raavi here is a credit to the kingdom, sire. He built a boat that can travel over ice using skates. We traveled over the canals; according to the milestones, we were moving at close to forty miles an hour.”

Luitpoold paused, and then turned to one of his men. “Have this skate boat brought to the Tower. I want to see it, and have it tested.”

“Aye, Sire.”

As he left—going for the stairs, Fia noted—the King turned back to her. “So, Rhaanbach was attacked. So were a lot of other towns. Most of our western lands, in fact. They started attacking at the start of Winter and have been out there for weeks now.” He leaned in. “I know that you wouldn’t come here with the news if you didn’t have some ulterior motive… pirate.”

She bristled but held her tongue. Especially since he was half-right. While she would have come regardless… she did need his help.

“You said that my death was reported. By whom, and how, sire?”

He scoffed. “Who else? Duke Rechneesse. Your dear father-in-law.” He chuckled lightly. “He didn’t quite dance a jig, but…”

Glowering, Fia said, “And Faalk and Stoor?”

The King shrugged. “Hasn’t really been my concern. I believe they’re at your family’s estate, mourning your loss.”

“Well then. No need for that, is there? You can very easily announce that I am alive and that reports of my death were… incorrect.”

“Ah yes, but that would upset your father-in-law… and I rather need his help, given that my kingdom is being invaded.” He balled his fists and then relaxed them. “Lady Fia, I will be blunt with you, because I know that you are nothing more than a jumped up peasant with no long experience in courtly manners, and watching you try is amusing, exasperating, and a waste of my time. You brought your report of the attack. All well and good. It is appreciated. But I have no need of Lady Fiaswith of House Rechneesse right now. Especially when I will need Duke Rechneesse when spring comes to muster a response to these attacks.”

He looked her straight in the eye. “But. Fia the Bloody, terror of the Center Sea? Someone capable of traveling at forty miles an hour through the depths of winter? That I can use. So I will make you an offer, Lady Fia. Right now, I can’t march an army through the winter to fight back against this invasion. I’m going to be hard pressed enough to muster enough to secure the towns that have been attacked. They’ve come from the west, meaning the Gehtun tribes. They have oathwalkers, we know that. Go find out why they’ve suddenly set them upon us, after more than a hundred years of quiet at the border. Find out their terms. Sue for peace if you can, or just bring me back the heads of those responsible. I don’t care, so long as they stop. You do that, and I’ll help you with your family drama.”

Feeling rage but also a degree of admiration for how expertly the king was using his limited resources—resources that included her—she bowed stiffly. “I don’t think I have much of a choice, now do I, sire?” She rose. “I accept your terms.”

He nodded. “I don’t think you have much of a choice, no. You’re dismissed. Go and get yourself and your people here cleaned up and rested. I’ll see that you can requisition what supplies and information we have.” He smiled thinly. “It’s not as if I want you to fail.”

Raavi ava Laargan

The King’s words echoed in my head as we walked into a set of rooms in the Tower; they were luxuriously furnished, with a thick carpet and curtains hanging from the walls. A window that stretched from floor to ceiling of perfectly clear glass showed the howling winds and gusting snow outside. We were at least two hundred feet above the ground, and I could see the waters of the bay churning and thrashing in the wind below… and yet, in here, it was perfectly silent.

Lady Fiaswith went over to a table that had a lantern on it, and with a whistle, lit the wick with a spark from her fingertip. I winced in sympathy. That had to hurt. But she ignored it, and turned to me.

“Raavi,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself. “I need to borrow—or better yet, buy—the ice boat from you. I’ll go with you as far as your home, and then I need to keep going. You can stay there.”

I shook my head. “So, what, you’re going to go out there, alone, to fight against all of those undead!? Why does the king want to get rid of you? Why does your father-in-law want to get rid of you?”

She looked around at the group.

“I’m coming with you,” Yufemya said. “You’ll need me to watch your back.”

“And I am coming as well, as is Zoy,” said Stylio. “But Raavi has good questions… and I think that you owe him and us, at least something of an answer.”

Lady Fiaswith sighed and sat down in a chair. She glanced around, and rose. Going over to one of the walls, she knocked on it and listened, her ear against the wall. Then she moved down the wall a bit and knocked again. “I don’t think we’re being spied on… so fine.” She sighed. “One life story, coming up.”

I sat down in a chair and leaned in to listen.

“Due to my… talents,” she motioned to the hole in her shirt, “I fell in with a mercenary crowd when I was… younger than Raavi here. Eventually, I ended up as a pirate at sea. Same basic skillset, after all. By the time I was twenty-five, I was captain of the ship, after the previous captain… well, he made a mistake and I ended up in charge. The crew knew, and they thought of me as lucky, and for seven years, we pillaged; I was a privateer, Fia the Bloody. We did some pirating, and some protecting, as if we could balance the books…” She sighed. “Six years ago, I was on shore leave in this city when I heard that House Rechneesse was looking for a bride for their son and heir… with a substantial dowry to go with it. Too substantial, really. I did some digging. According to rumor, he was under a Death Curse that his first wife would die a horrible death.”

I blinked. “Wait. Death Curses are real?”

They all looked at me, and Lady Fiaswith chuckled slightly. “Yes, Raavi, they’re real.”

“But I thought that they were just a, a, fiction! Something that they came up with for dramatic tension in plays and books and stuff!”

“Why do you say that?” she asked, leaning in, a smile growing on her face.

“Because Breath doesn’t work like that! You can’t cast a spell powerful enough to kill yourself! You pass out first, either from lack of energy or from the pain!”

Stylio spoke up. “You’re right. But a curse spoken with one’s dying Breath… well… that breaks the rules.” She nodded to the Lady. “Continue. The heir—your husband, if I understand correctly—had a Curse on him that his first wife would die horribly.”

“Yeah. And, well… I was thinking that it could be fun! Get the dowry, see what the Curse could throw at me, and then get on with my life.” The Lady shrugged. “You could tell that they just saw me as disposable, there to just discharge the Curse, and I was thinking that I was basically going to scam them. Faalk—my husband—didn’t exactly come into it with a lot of sentiment, either. And, well, the Curse tried its best. I fell down stairs, off of horses—out of a fourth story window once, that wasn’t fun… and… well…” She sighed. “If we hadn’t fallen in love… but we did. My daughter Stoor is two, now.”

“Ouch,” said Zoy. “So how did you end up getting reported dead, if you’re that hard to kill?”

“Well, my in-laws were hoping to marry him off to a princess once I was dead. Once I refused to die, they sort of… tried to help me along. Poison, assassins… that sort of thing. And I was getting cocky. Why wouldn’t I? I could survive a bullet to the brain!” She shivered. “But if half a dozen men jump me in the middle of the night and, and…” She swallowed and a tear went down her cheek, “and held me down with ropes and then came with axes and cut my head off…”

I stared as she started to cry.

Stylio rose and went over to her, and hugged her.

“I… I never had felt so helpless in my life. I was terrified. They showed Faalk my head, and I could hear and see everything but I couldn’t feel or do anything! And then they shoved me into that trunk with the rest of my body in pieces and told their men to drive as far away as they could and bury them.” She was shaking, and I couldn’t hold back anymore and went over and joined the hug.

She broke down in tears, sobbing. “And, I, I was still alive. I could feel my body trying to heal itself… but I was terrified that this was going to be it… that they were going to toss my head down a hole and I’d go insane before I finally died…” She looked up. “And then Yufemya here rescued me outside of your town. Broke open the trunk… and put me back together.” She looked across the room at the other woman. “How did you know to do that?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Yufemya said, looking down at her hands.

“Try me.”

“I saw it in a vision of the future,” she said, and the Lady frowned.

“You’re right. I don’t believe you. Fine. You still did it and I owe you. What do you want from me in return? You never said.”

“For the moment, I want to deal with these attacks on this kingdom,” Yufemya said. “So I will come with you. And I cannot let you do this alone. Not after what you have already suffered.”

The Lady… Fia broke down at that, crying into our arms.

I couldn’t imagine that. How horrible it had to have been. She’d… she’d laughed off everything—an arrow through the chest, an army of undead—but she wasn’t invincible.

And then I realized what she’d said.

“Wait. You’d just gotten out of that trunk, and you ran over to help my town!?” I demanded.

She nodded, her eyes red… and I watched the redness fade in a matter of moments. “I… I couldn’t stand back and just let it happen.”

I looked her in the eye, and knew what I had to do. “Lady Fiaswith… Lady Fia. I’m not super strong. I’m not a skilled healer like Stylio, or an archer like Yufemya. Or even someone who is a walking armory like Zoy—”

“I resemble that remark,” came from behind me.

“—but whatever help I can give you, it’s yours. I’m coming with you.”

“But why?”

I took her hands in mine and squeezed. “Because I can’t stand back and just let it happen.”

<<<<>>>>

Prologue | Chapter 5 | Chapter 7

And there we go! As usual, here's the Patreon link! I'm hoping to get some more support so I can set up an independent website to host my writing. If you're liking the story, please follow this tumblr, reblog the chapter posts, and consider supporting me!

#fractured legacies imprudent #imprudent #original writing

17 notes · View notes