I had to stop myself from naming this chapter 'Italics', and you'll see why. Instead, I named it after a Blondie song…well, sort of. I listen to too much 70s/80s music.

What else…oh, yeah. Nice try, NonFiction, but not lighthouseship. I can understand why, but that's not the case. Felix and Sheba treat each other as brother and sister, end of. You might click on what the last ship is after this chapter, but I'm not saying yet. (evil grin)

Yeah, whatever. Another long information chapter, but there are some links to the future in this as well. Ah…I love writing strange things.

Okay, and finally, a few days have passed… (Also, Garet misheard 'insubordination'. And yes, 'sextet' is a real word. It means there's six of something. It's not dirty.)


Dreaming

Ivan stumbled after his sister, trying to keep up with her long strides across the open grassland. The long blades of grass jabbed at him through his clothes; sometimes the pollen released from the miniscule flowers his steps disturbed got up his nose and made him sneeze. He almost fell on his face again as his foot collided with an unmoving lump of black marble unexpectedly sticking out of the fairly damp ground. Glancing up at the sky (in case of his worst fear: rain), Ivan forced himself back onto his feet and jogged after his sister again. He didn't understand why she'd brought him with her to Angara, but he didn't want to be left alone so close to a Mars citadel…

They continued across the muddy grasslands, his sister ensuring the winds left no trace of their tracks behind. Occasional pools of water, waiting to be drained away by the hungry soil and famished plants, appeared as tiny oases amidst the muddy-green desert Ivan now presumed made up all of Angara. He'd never left his home continent of Atteka before, and knew little of other places or the terrain in those places. Lumps of rock in the middle of grass almost up to his waist were just another of the bizarre things about this place. But what he found even more strange was, when he looked up beyond his sister's rapidly-moving form, the winged ship apparently berthed in the middle of an open plain. It made him stop instantly, frowning deeply with bemusement, as his nine-year-old mind raced through the possibilities and crashed at the first hurdle. There were no possibilities…

"Ivan, keep up. We're almost there."

Frown still festooning his face, Ivan pushed his slightly-matted hair out of his face and followed his sister towards the ship. He presumed it was a ship anyway. It didn't look like any normal ship he'd ever seen or heard of. As he got closer, almost getting stuck in a particularly boggy patch of land, he saw that there were people on the sail-less ship – only two figures, both dressed in various different shades of blue, but at least there was life aboard it. He still shuddered every time he remembered how his sister had taken him into Jupiter Lighthouse to 'meet someone' and that person had turned out to be a spirit trapped in one of the statues…

Suddenly he was actually on the ship, standing opposite a smiling girl with pale blue hair and eyes. She must have been a couple of years older than him – he refused to believe he would be short for all of his life. It was something he had to prove. He was not going to be short for eternity…

He rolled over in his sleep, smiling absently at how foolish he'd been when he was younger. It was certainty these days that he couldn't do anything about his…vertically challenged state. Still asleep, he clutched at the blanket and scowled at the nuisance the truth always was.

Now he was listening at a thick oak door, with the blue girl next to him. He had to keep saying, "shh!" to her – the way she giggled at random moments was off-putting and would be enough for his sister and the yellow-eyed man to find them and make them sit in the crow's nest for an hour as punishment. What snippets of the conversation he was able to hear were confusing, cryptic, sentences that made no clear sense. Why can't my sister hold nice, understandable conversations with other people? Ivan despaired, his shoulders slumping as he missed yet another piece of information.

"What can you hear?" the girl queried, abruptly becoming serious. Her interest in the grain of the floorboards increased dramatically the moment Ivan frowned at her. "Mariner…he's been hiding things recently. All I know is something about Acolytes being important factors for something or other, but nothing more. I'm worried about him." She met Ivan's gaze with her serene aqua eyes; they were filled with nothing but honest concern. "He keeps getting more secluded and secretive, so…"

"I can't really hear much with you talking, Mia." Oh, so they'd been introduced at some point. Why wasn't he seeing everything in the dream, only little fragments? "My sister doesn't tell me much anyway, and she's good at being quiet when she's talking." He adjusted his position to fix his ear to the door again and felt the smoky wisps of his weak psynergy rise inside him, until eventually he was surrounded by the lilac haze of his mental powers. Aware that Mia had stopped talking and was calmly waiting for him to concentrate, Ivan closed his eyes and felt the haze dissipate into the door. It wasn't as refined as a Mind Read, but it was good enough for him.

"…can perfectly understand what you're saying, Mariner. But we need to know if we're ever to help the Mars Clan stop devouring itself. With the Elements completely out of balance, anything about how the Acolytes were wiped out in the first place is –"

"You think I don't already know, Hama? He's trapped in the frame at the moment. Releasing him would lead to me fighting him, and probably both of us going. Besides that…the likelihood of him parting with how he managed to destroy the Mercury, Venus and Jupiter Acolytes is too low for me to risk it." There were the sounds of someone moving around, their boots heavy against the wooden floor, and the clink of glass against glass followed by the accelerating doukdoukdouk of liquid being poured. "Let him mellow awhile in the frame. I don't want him to escape again and cause more trouble."

"Mariner, in all the years the Seekers have known you –"

"No, Hama. I don't want another repetition of the Venus Uprising. That almost made the situation so much worse – it could have destroyed anything the citadel here had on the Acolytes and played right into his hands. All he wants is to destroy me by any means possible. He doesn't care about anything but the feud."

Ivan drew back from the door, unsure whether he should be frightened or in awe of Mariner. Whoever the man trapped in the frame was, he was part of the problem that Hama was set on solving. He might have been the cause of the problem. And the man called Mariner, the strange Mercury Adept of no clear origin, had been able to seal this powerful man – someone after his blood – away…

But he didn't tell Mia that. He didn't want her to be frightened for Mariner…


Inside his dream, the boy called Garet glared at the flower-bedecked girl in front of him. He must have been…what, four years old? Yeah, that had to be about right. Looking around the room, lit and heated by the roars of the dancing fire that flared in the hearth, he recognised it as his parents' living room. Shock knocked on his head as he noticed the decorations liberally festooning the walls and surfaces. Christmas. Christmas when he was four. But…that was the year that Kay was…

Grabbing a fistful of marchpane from the bowl between him and his sister, Garet stuffed the almond sweets in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. His conscious mind – his seventeen-year-old mind – was confused, concerned by what he was being shown in his dream; it had been that evening that his family had been struck so hard a blow from the palace that his parents never fully recovered. Fate and Destiny never smiled on Garet, that much he was absolutely certain of. Had he known at the time what was due to occur, he would've…he would've…

His sister tucked another winter flower into her shoulder-length ginger hair; the colours gleamed in the firelight happily, the poppy-red and soft gold flashes in her hair brightening her smile and illuminating her happiness of being with her family. For the last time till I got my place as a trainee guard, his conscious remembered. Mom and Dad never saw her again except for the public celebrations…

The door resounded with the sheer force of the raps on it. Business-like, no-nonsense knocks. The sort of knocks associated with the 'best' things about the Empire – the outstanding army, the perfect quality of life for those who deserved it, the luck of those chosen to represent their citadel, their Clan, their homeland – repeated, but his mother and father were reluctant to open the front door and let in the knockers. When he saw the visitors, his four-year-old mindset almost exploded with amazement and excitement and (naturally, because it was expected) total awe. The First and Second Ladies of Mars…the new First and Second Ladies, to be precise. What more would be necessary to petrify a child with wonder?

"You know why we're here," the First Lady said severely to his trembling mother. Menardi's gaze turned sternly to Kay, fumbling with the blooms in her hair as she hurriedly tried to tug them out without damaging them. "They've said for years that there's nobody suitable for the position of Third Lady. But in your daughter…there is untold potential."

The Second Lady nodded, smiling at Kay (quite unpleasantly, in Garet's opinion). "My sister and I think we could tap into her potential and bring out the right sort of qualities the citadel requires for a Third Lady." Her glance returned to his parents, calculated and gauging. "Such an honour for this family, wouldn't you agree?"

"I couldn't more, Karst," Menardi replied, squatting down next to Kay and extending a scaled hand. She stroked Kay's immaculate hair, ran her fingers down the five-year-old's skin, and eventually gripped the girl's hand and unceremoniously yanked her to her feet before turning to leave, dragging Kay behind her without so much as another word.

Garet could only listen to his sister's pleas to be released…

For some reason, the back of his sister's head became the back of another girl's head. He suddenly felt like he was seven. Mystified, he whirled around to take in his surroundings, calming as he recognised the familiar tapestry-laden walls and the mirror-bright polished marble floor of the smallest ante-chamber in the palace. Voices drifted lazily through the walls; he could hear every single word of the conversation going on in the next room. Grinning with understanding, he turned his attention back to the girl. He proffered a hand when she faced him, and felt his smile doodle all over his face with insane cheer. "Hi."

She stiffened, looking almost frightened of his hand. At first words wouldn't come to her, but eventually she relaxed a little under Garet's indestructible gladness. She was so thin and frail that at first Garet didn't know if she was really a Mars Adept or not. Before long though, she managed to curtsey awkwardly and mumble something that sounded like, "Milord…"

"I'm not a Lord," Garet replied. Maybe I look like one to this girl… "I'm just a trainee guard now – that's pretty far from being a Lord." He smiled at the girl when she looked up frowning. "Who're you? You've gotta be that newbie for the Second Lady's squad, right? It's nice to meet you!"

"Garet." The stern voice of the First Lady shot through his head, crushing his warmth towards the girl. "You know full well how to behave in the presence of someone new to the palace. You're meant to follow the rules." He felt her presence make the hairs on the back of his neck stick up. "Now do so."

Thoroughly chastised but annoyed at losing the chance to make friends, Garet bowed to the girl. "Good morning, Miss." When Menardi wasn't looking he pulled a face that made the girl giggle. Straightening up, he glanced over his shoulder at the First Lady in all her ceremonial splendour as she glared at one of the tapestries. "Milady, d'you have orders for me? 'Cos I can't think of another reason for me to be here." The moment the words escaped from him, he bit down hard on his lip. He'd used completely the wrong tone of voice, and now –

He heard Menardi mutter under her breath about suburb organisation (or something that sounded like it anyway) before adopting her natural chilly tone. "This is Jenna, the Second Lady's new charge. You're to show her the palace and take her back to Lady Karst's chambers by five o'clock. Now get on with it!"

When he was certain Menardi had stomped far enough down the mirrored corridor, Garet pulled his grin back onto his face and tried to talk to the girl normally. "Jenna, right? I'm Garet, but everyone says I'm just a misfit. C'mon, let's go before Lady Menardi comes back and starts yelling at me again for something dumb like being nice to you."

He decided he liked Jenna's solid, real laughter and the way she smiled at him instead of at what he did. She wasn't trying to put up an illusion around herself, unlike a lot of people he knew. And when she actually started talking to him, she was so different from his secluded and lonely sister that he couldn't help but like her as a person. There was a fresh, earthy quality to her character that made her so definitely real and (underneath her original nerves) forceful it was impossible for him not to become her friend…

Huh. Not that she knows I want to be more than a friend now…


Cold. So cold. Her body…so numb, so frozen. Underneath the snowdrift, one that had been created by the night's heavy snowfall that had hammered anyone who'd dared to leave their home, she shuddered and weakly tried to claw her way out of the prison created for her by the frozen heavens. She lost any sensation of feeling in her hands after less than a minute, and knew that soon she would have to give up and wait for the gnawing cold or the monsters to finish her. How long had she been there, lost in the snowfields, before he had pushed her into a drift and left her there? Long enough for her to be thin and gaunt, with only willpower letting her survive in this frozen hell.

It hadn't been long after her father died that the new arrival in town offered to be her protector. The Angelical Healers had been dubious at first, but eventually accepted his proposal; they couldn't look after everyone, no matter how much they wanted to. She'd known the man for nearly half a year before he suddenly disappeared one night, vanishing into the deadly, sharp-edged blizzard that was the worst in Imil's history. Why…why had she followed him out into the prospect of death by frostbite? The snowstorms were always vicious and starving, on the lookout for any unsuspecting creature in their path that could fuel their hunger. She'd known that…and still…and still…

She was starting to lose consciousness to the chill. Her clothes had been warm at first, but now they were damp from snowmelt and only a hindrance to any movement she could make. Worse, with her fingers and arms as deadened as they were, she couldn't do anything about trying to remove the restricting clothes. The only solution she had was to curl up as she started to black out completely…

someone was…lifting her out of the drift? Voice…she could hear a voice, low and kind, talking to her. Her body touched something…it felt like fabric…and she automatically clung to it, her leaden arms finally moving and her small, delicate hands weakly clutching at the material. She was unaware of moving, but vaguely registered in the back of her mind that whoever had pulled her from the drift was probably heading for Imil…

Consciousness grudgingly returned to her as she lay in one of the Angelicals' cots in the sanctum. Blissful warmth was calmly washing through her body, hunting down the splinters of cold inside her and tearing them apart into wondrous nothingness. Her eyelids flickered, pale eyelashes touching more heat into her face, and she gazed up at the heavily brown oak beams that stretched the width of the ceiling. Weakly drawing a thawing hand from under the soft, insulating, woollen blanket, she watched with amazement as she flexed her fingers – the same digits that she thought had surrendered to eternal freezing.

"…should have realised who he was before this happened. Mariner, I am so sorry…"

"It's not your fault that he escaped, Great Healer. That sin is mine. At least I was able to seal him back into the frame before he could kill that child." There was a short, uncomfortable pause that resonated with sorrow. "Hama said to tell you that the scrolls hidden in Mercury Lighthouse were of even more importance than you and your predecessors believed."

The Great Healer appeared startled, and he drew in a breath. "Then…is the information on our Clan's Acolyte complete, Mariner?"

"No…but combining what I brought with me from Lemuria and the Angelical Healers' scrolls from the Lighthouse apparently revealed many things about the reasons for the Acolytes in the first place – and part of how the statues were created." Footsteps tapped across the ocean-blue knotted rug, and the voices got louder. "Ah…she has woken…"

She didn't recognise the man who sat down on the chair by her bed, but his presence didn't make her apprehensive or scared; if anything it comforted her. It was…familiar, somehow, though she'd never seen anyone like him. In Imil there were primarily Clanless people and Mercury Adepts belonging to the Angelical Healers; he looked like neither. Lifting her head off the pillow, she tried frowning at him. "Who…are you…?"

His smile was kind, understanding. "People call me Mariner. It's nice to meet you properly, Mia. I'm sorry for causing you to be hurt like that…" He glanced at something covered completely in a cloth propped up against the cot. "…but he won't be bothering you for a while. I give you my word on that." She noticed how he touched the hilt of the sword that protruded over his shoulder. Was that a way of showing honesty?

"Why did you save me…?"

Deep within the yellow abysses in his irises, something fluttered into life and darted through his memories. Regret – great fathoms of it – sank into his face for a single moment before being banished by his smile. "I cannot let the division in the Mercury Clan continue as long as I live, Mia. My wish is to mend it. Aside from that, you'll be looked after by the Angelicals from now on. Much better than letting him try to kill you another time."

She'd never been able to forget that purely-clear, completely crystalline shard of her past. It made her remember the time before Mariner had become so afraid of his past and his memories…before he'd become distant, even more a stranger than he had been. These days it frightened Mia. Mariner and Ivan were the closest thing she honestly had to a real family, and if he was breaking apart then…


The first thing he noticed was the rain that insistently churned the pathways through the Venus sector into thick, teak-black mud. Water rammed into his face, flooding his ears and forcing him backwards no matter how hard he tried to move forwards. Desperately, he glanced up ahead and noticed that his parents were fast disappearing in the nearly opaque shimmer of rain; throwing his scarf over his shoulder in a vain attempt to keep it out of the all-consuming sludge that was spattered over his clothes and skin, he screwed up his face in decided concentration and pushed on through the storm. Lightning forked through the treacly air and viciously slammed into the ground somewhere to the north, taking a hungry bite out of his morale.

He was suddenly inside a house, tumbledown and incorrigibly messy as it was. Staring around the room, he almost didn't hear the muted conversation his parents were having with the man who had presumably let them in. It definitely wasn't tidy, but the jumbled confusion of bric-a-brac was (on a closer inspection) not made up of normal household objects. His fingers brushed a ring of what at first had been strange, ornate keys, and he quickly snatched them back; the tip of his left index finger had been nicked by the razor-edged steel, and he gaped at the welt of blood that hotly streamed down towards the palm of his hand. Hoping that nobody had noticed, he slid the wounded finger into his mouth and tried to seal the cut with his saliva.

More curios littered the room as leaves on the autumnal breeze; aside from the danger of the elegantly-crafted keys, Isaac recognised some of them. A tiny picture frame on the wall, layered with grime, evidently forgotten or meant to be so, sparked a candle in his mind into life. Close by, almost hidden completely by the rest of the ornamental mire that flooded the table, what looked like a limp doll made of cloth scraps lit up another tapering wax candle at the altar to his memories.

This is then. This is when I first met him.

Careful to not draw any attention to himself, Isaac cautiously prised the rag doll out from beneath the other unrecognisable miscellany and held it almost reverentially in his constantly bruised and battered hands.

This is the doll meant for…

Clumping footsteps jerked him from his child's reverie, and he looked up from the doll into a pair of dark eyes. He knew the boy in front of him, who looked to be about six. They were in the same work gang, one that was shunted about wherever they were told to go, irrelevant to what the workers could actually do, and do well. Isaac had often wondered about the boy on the outskirts of the group, never completely involved with the rest but always working at least as hard as them. What had made him like that, outcast from others? He'd sensed general wariness of the boy from the gang for a while…

He clumsily fumbled for words. "Hello," he eventually came out with. Nervous of the boy's unmoving stare, he reached for a mud-less corner of his scarf and started sucking on the cloth. Unsure of what to do and chewing on the yellow material even more anxiously, Isaac hurriedly snatched at the fragile straws of thought tumbling through his mind and tried to say something again. "Um…" Something he could utter elatedly burst open inside him, and he grinned around his comforting mouthful of scarf. "Nice to meet you. I'm Isaac!"

"Son, at least try to be a little more sociable."

The dark boy glumly met Isaac's shining eyes again. "Felix," he muttered in reply, before frowning. "Keeping stars in your eyes won't help," he added coldly. "As we won't get anything great out of life, you should let them go. And keeping that thing in your mouth will make you ill."

"Such a cynical little thing…" Isaac heard his mother say. "Jasper, how did…?"

Blinking at Felix as he turned round and promptly disappeared, Isaac felt more thoughts mix together inside the bubbling pot of curiosity that was always springing up in his mind. Ignoring the boring talk his parents were having, he followed Felix upstairs and into a small, cramped room somewhere in the roof, with floorboards lacerated with beams of weak moonlight and dribbles of rain seeping through holes in the thatch. Isaac tugged the bit of scarf from his mouth and stood behind Felix, still holding the little doll in his small hand and thinking of something to say.

The older child spoke first. "What do you want?" The words were sharp and…and…almost nervous. But nervous of what? "You're going to live here, but that doesn't mean you have to be my shadow. I've already got enough of those." He gestured at the multiple silhouettes cast by him in the moon's ghostly light.

"I-is this yours?"

"No."

Isaac frowned at him. "But you haven't even looked," he pointed out, hurt by being ignored. He took a step back when Felix glanced coldly over his shoulder at the blond boy. "Sorry…I just wanted to know…I mean, so we can be friends. Right?" His optimistically hopeful smile couldn't be diminished at all by the frigid nervousness in Felix's glare.

"No. You don't want to be my friend. It'll only bring you trouble you shouldn't get into."

That's right. He was always caught up in a fight for no reason. Never understood why, back then. I just couldn't.

Isaac's smile only grew wider, and he held out the rag doll. "But isn't it better to have friends? Everything's more fun then. You can work together to get something done quicker. And…"

"Shut up." The words were almost frozen with stiffness, uncaring and not wanting to know. The boy sat down on the floor, hugging his knees to his chest. "I don't care. I do what I do, and that way nobody else gets in trouble. Get it? Now leave me alone." In Isaac's eyes, it seemed that Felix was purposefully trying to hide away from him, clamping down on the truth to stop anyone from knowing. "It's nothing to do with you."

"If this isn't yours, then whose is it?"

Felix mumbled something under his breath in almost total silence, and completely ignored the second time Isaac asked the question. He hunched his shoulders, drawing his knees even closer to his chest and flicking his long hair in front of his face, obscuring his eyes and temples. Isaac sighed, looking down at the damp floor and seeing scuffed charcoal marks turning into dark water as the rainwater mingled with them. How could he handle a conversation with someone so completely unlike him…?

"Please tell me?"

"…it's…" Felix trailed off, dismally gazing at the charcoal marked. "It was meant to be for my little sister. But she and Mom were taken away. I don't remember them." He glanced up malevolently through his dark veil at Isaac and returned to his stony, bramble-infested self. "Now get lost."

It was a start.


Sleeping was more torturous than remembering things now. Mariner tried to rid his forehead of sweat and only provoked more to chillily erupt over his skin, trickling down his face and dripping off his chin onto his chest. Biting on his lip to pretend it was all illusionary, imagined by his mind after the expertly-jabbed stabs of clear pain his dream had presented him with, he sat up and glanced at the back of the picture frame propped up on the table. Automatically, he touched the knot of material tied to his wrist.

It was pointless trying to get back to sleep. We'll reach Lemuria in a day at most. I should have expected these dreams. Telling himself that helped, but not by much. Exhaling, he calmed his mind and reached for his clothes, slipping his jacket and trousers on over his nightshirt and getting out of his bunk. He didn't risk tying his hair back or organising his headdress; his hands were still shaking from the horrific impact the puce memory-dream had forced on him.

A movement in the cluster of secretive shadows around the picture frame made him stop cold, more sweat running into his cat's eyes to obscure what he could and couldn't see. Quickly flicking his eyes in the direction of the picture frame nearly made him gag from the choking, dark intent emanating from it, aimed directly at his mind and heart. Mariner's lip curled with unspoken anger. Keep trying. You're not getting out yet. I won't let you get at the Venus Adepts again. Or Mia.

The grimly-knotted shadows leered out of the corner at him when he closed the door and headed for the deck, finding comfort in the solidity of the floor beneath his feet that was such a contrast with the whispering, scathing mist that had floated tauntingly in his dream. Reality. Sometimes he needed a heavy anchor to stay in touch with it – an anchor far heavier than the sturdy iron one the ship owned. I know what I know, he mentally told himself. Whatever he says in those dreams are lies. Lies. He will never try to truly understand the origins of the feud, or why it should end.

Once he reached the crow's nest, he reached for the telescope he'd taken with him from his cabin and snapped it open. The diamond spangles of stars in the night sky, coupled with the moon's silvery sheen, granted Weyard plenty enough light for people to see without their own. Instinct, instilled into him during those distant years of his childhood, guided him the moment he placed the telescope to his eye; it took him only a sparse handful of seconds to locate the eternal fog that shrouded the 'uncharted' Sea of Time. A pair of rust-coated rocks marked its entrance.

He swallowed, unable to stop himself. It was only a matter of time before they all found out the truth about him: the feud, his age, his name, the truth of it all. The truth that couldn't leave him alone for a single moment. Taking the telescope from his eye, Mariner stared at the pinprick of fog in the distance and waited patiently for the expected call. I don't like it, but sometimes I have little choice but to accept the one true thing he says.

The hissed, serpentine words snaked through his head: It's all your fault.

Realising that the tangle of veins common in Ivan's throat had taken deep root inside his own, Mariner sighed at his stupidity. It might be true, but it always brought him so much more pain at remembering what he'd been made to witness.

It's all your fault.


Worry fear terror anger hatred rebellion dread pain pain pain PAIN

Something flashed in front of his eyes, slashing at his face. The skin at his right temple was sliced through, sending blood cascading down the right side of his face. Someone shrieked words he couldn't hear over the pounding pain, someone else bellowed with raw, unchecked anger that was suddenly brought to a crashing halt and –

Looking at himself in a puddle left over from the rain, he held up some of his bangs and gazed at the mark that had cut him off from his peers and elders –

Unafraid of the lightning that danced in the sky, he picked his way back through the forest with a bundle of dry wood and kindling tucked protectively under one arm. It wouldn't be long before the fire burned out and the others would be left in the devouring dark, unable to do anything with the wood that could no longer burn. In the stinging rain, almost as numbing and painful as lightning might have been, he only caught the tiniest glimpse of the star that shot towards the woods, burning through the sky with its pure brightness and divine celestial light in a completely different way to how the Mars Clan had taken over the other Clans. The perfect glimmer he noticed whirled around in the velveteen backdrop of night embroidered with lightning, appliquéd with silky grey clouds and studded with stars.

It was in the next clearing that he heard the crying. Stopping for a moment, he listened again for the sound of a child's voice younger than his own and went to search for its source; if someone was in trouble, then he had to help them…no matter what…

When he saw what lay in the centre of the crater that had destroyed part of the forest, the bundle of wood under his arm almost immediately clattered to the ground as he skidded down the walls of the crater, similar to one of the pock-marks on the moon's face, and hurriedly picked his way across to the slightly raised middle of the crater. A bundle quite different to the one he'd been carrying lay there, the sound of a child's howl emanating from it. He couldn't help himself; he knelt down next to it and lifted it up, with some difficulty, gently folding back the edges of the strange material and watching for a while in amazement when a baby girl's face peeked out at him, her eyes innocently gazing into him…

He had –

lost her. He and Isaac crashed through the Venus sector, desperately searching for her in all the usual places and not finding her. Terror bit into him hungrily, and he thought for a moment that a monster had managed to successfully snap at his arm. What to do? Where could she have gone?

There was someone watching him from not far away, with a hint of glazed boredom touching his body wherever the person looked. Standing upright, he bit his lip and felt the familiar rush of frosty defiance and flaming anger zing through him. A Mars. And not just any Mars: the girl destined to become the Third Lady, when one hadn't existed in years. She didn't look to be much younger than him.

Steeling his mind for the consequences but spurred on by desperation and his anger, he actually had the reckless nerve to go and speak to the girl as she sat there on the charred stump of a tree and watched the Venus Clan work. He dared to talk to her. She spoke back, in the way the Mars Clan did with the other Clans, but there was something in her eyes that told him far more than her words did. She was interested in what he was doing.

It was probably because of that interest that he wasn't whipped for his rash actions.

The hanging, eight years later. Yes. He thought he'd seen the young woman who'd read the declaration from the safety of the Lords and Ladies' platform before. She had to be the Third Lady, elevated to her post only a few months previously. He recognised the hair colour, the tame flames tied back into a stern ponytail. She'd changed from a girl with true humanity within into some sort of caged creature, emotionless and deadly. And even as she read through the last sentence and gave the order for the execution to commence, he couldn't help but pity her despite the irony of it all…a Venus pitying a Mars…

It had happened to his parents. But look at what happened to them.

The scar on his right temple twinged.


Another weird dream. Excellent. Just what she wanted when she was trying to sleep off the last memories of the horrifically gigantic ocean of paperwork she'd somehow sailed through. So what was it going to be this time? The flying ship her brother had reported? The cold, barren wastes leading up to an iced tower that glittered like purest quartz crystals in winter moonlight? The weird yet beautiful and blissful sensation of someone touching – caressing – her body, of sweet lava coursing through her veins, of the freedom it helped her taste…

eyes again. A pair of eyes…no…two pairs, incredibly similar, blinking as one pair and opening as the other. Suddenly there was a third pair as well, the colour slightly different, redder and more feminine, opening as the second pair closed. Nonetheless, something about the sextet of eyes was frighteningly familiar for Kay; the closer she squinted at them to discern the shadowed faces surrounding them, the deeper inside her the sensation planted its roots and blossomed inside her organs, the flowers dripping with nectar and dusted lightly with pollen she dealt with daily blooming in her mind and obscuring her vision. She'd have to find out another way, somehow.

Recognition oozed into her when the red-brown eyes opened. She knew that colour. She knew it well, even though she hadn't seen it since her visit to the infirmary to chastise her brother. The colour was unique, belonging solely to one of Karst's inspectors. Jenna. So…one pair belonged to Jenna…

Focusing on the other pairs, Kay tried to discern what the similarities were between them. Both pairs were hauntingly familiar, one chestnut-brown and the other the colour of dark oak beams. Residing in the irises and black abysses of pupils was that quality she'd noticed in that first strange dream, the one with that boy looking for his sister: the burning fire that –

Wait a minute, that pair she'd seen only a couple of weeks ago, down in one of the cells. The prisoner had been too weak and injured to take the stairs up to her normal interrogation room, so she had gone down instead. Stubborn as a mule, she remembered. He was one of the Seeker prisoners, wasn't he? So which one was he? Her mind tried to prevent her from delving deeper into the recesses of her memories, much to her annoyance. She wanted to know! She didn't give a damn if it removed her safety – she wasn't Lady Menardi's protégé for nothing!

She elbowed her way quickly past the guards to her mind's fortress. Her bare feet slammed almost painfully against the bare stone flags as she ran through the twisting corridors towards the door to her memories. Flinging the doors wide open, she stepped in and –

A name finally surfaced from the mire of thoughts: Jasper.

So…Jenna was somehow linked to that slashed circle Venus man…but that was impossible. Jenna was a Mars Adept, for the gods' sakes. A valued and respected member of the community. She couldn't be connected to a Venus Adept. Not unless she was related to him by blood, and everyone knew that if anything like that happened the Venus would be executed and the Mars taken into hiding. The knowledge that Jenna and a slashed circle Venus Adept were linked perturbed Kay; she'd have to ask her brother about Jenna. Well, after all, they were practically an item even if both of them would completely reject the idea. Besides, a guard and an inspector? It would never be allowed. She completely outranked him.

No matter how hard Kay searched, the only match she had for the third pair of eyes was that boy from eight years ago…no name, no nothing except that short glimpse of the Venus sector. She tried to go further, to find connections between the final pair and the previous two, but no matter what she did all she was able to see was invariably that ten-year-old's face framed with dark brown hair. If she tried to go any further, she might just fall into an even deeper, completely dreamless slumber…

Kay fell…


Her mother had been sick for months now. Her coughs racked her body when they seized her; sometimes Jenna saw her spit blood into the sink and pretend that it hadn't happened. For three weeks now, the woman – only in her early thirties, but looking far older due to the dullness in her eyes and the grey strands that stood out against the red-brown of her hair – had been bedridden, unable to leave her room because of her illness. The doctor never came, even when Jenna went and begged him literally on her hands and knees to come and help her mother. All she ever got in reply was: "If she was a real Mars woman, she'd come for help herself instead of sending a child. How can she bear to show such weakness?"

Jenna had persisted, trudging out of the house in all weathers to go back to the sanctum and try again. Her pleas would only fall on deaf ears no matter what she did; the mother looked after the child, not the other way around. After each failed attempt she would make her way home, pretending not to cry from being ignored and from the scathing, unfriendly eyes that watched her from behind the safety of window glass. Other children that darted through the streets shrieking with glee and laughing at each other would simply act as if she wasn't there, or had camouflaged brilliantly with her background.

One morning her mother wouldn't wake up.

Jenna decided not to worry about it at first. Mama's just tired, she told herself as she ate her breakfast and washed up after herself. She was six, and knew exactly how to take care of herself. Waiting for another hour before checking in on her mother and still getting no response, Jenna finished dressing and headed out into the autumn morning. For a while she sat on a nearby damp bench and watched the twirling leaves, garbed in rich golds and imperial reds, as they were tossed this way and that along the wind.

A duo of primly-dressed Mars women sauntered past, chattering gaily and fluttering their fingers at every little thing the other seemed to say. One of them glanced sidelong, her eyes hooking into Jenna and drawing a luscious titbit of gossip from the six-year-old's position. Her lacquered voice rose so the sombrely-clad girl could hear. "That slut must be gone by now. See, her little bastard child's all by herself again out here. The disgrace of it all."

"Did you know? Millicent, who lived nearby when that woman moved in, said she swore the woman turned to laudanum to get to sleep," her companion added conspiratorially, stealing a glance at Jenna. "Well, we all know that laudanum turns to morphine sooner or later." She shook her head in undisguised disgust, sticking her nose up higher into the air as she brushed past Jenna on the bench. "And eventually poppy brick."

"How horrid. Can't believe it took six years for the whore to die, though. Opium kills quickly – my brother's in the guards, and they've raided the dens before, driven out the scum that sell the poppy. She must have made herself ill on purpose to make her death look natural." The first woman thrust a sprig of lavender underneath her nose and inhaled sharply to drive away any bad scents. "No honour at all. It's disgusting."

Jenna's temper was a thread, slender and often weak. The woman's words snapped the thread completely in two, and, blinded with rage, Jenna jumped off the bench and scrabbled in a flowerbed for a handful of stones. Some were smooth and even, like eggshells; a couple were jagged and sharp, determined to slash and tear at whatever they touched. Not caring what the consequences would be, Jenna stood up straight and flung one of the stones with terrifying accuracy straight at the two chattering bullfinches of women.

"You leave my mama alone!" she yelled at them, hurling another stone and allowing her anger to dictate its flight towards the shocked ladies. "Leave her alone!"

The women stared at the child screaming defiance at them. The first turned to the second. "The fumes. From the opium. They must have got to the girl as well, the little wretch. Ugh, the way she behaves, you'd think she was from the Venus sector…"

"We all know she was spawned there. Not the slut's first child with that Venus either, I heard."

"Shouldn't be allowed."

"These stones – that child should be taken to bedlam for this!"

When she was satisfied the two gossips had fled and her throat protested sorely to her screaming any longer, the girl hurriedly stuffed the last few stones into her pockets and dashed back towards her home. Opened the door. Went into her mother's room, still dark and completely silent. Stood by her mother's cold, pallid face. Her voice only just whispered.

"Mama?"

Afterwards, she sat on the step outside and let the withering leaves collect around her, oblivious to people staring at her when they strolled past and noticed a little Mars girl alone on an austere concrete slab. What could she do bar sit there…but nothing…there was nowhere for her to go. Nobody nearby would look after her. They wouldn't want the whelp of some lowlife Venus Adept crossing their perfectly welcoming thresholds.

Hoarse sadness slid into her body through her wild eyes that refused tears. It seeped through her skin like rain through cloth: inevitable, unstoppable, clarifying. Elucidation was cruel and always sought out easy victims, and it shuddered through her while her shoulders began to shake from tension and pure unhappiness. Blood welled up where she bit her lip too hard, and it mingled with the twin salty streams that cascaded down her face into her drawn-up knees and arms. And yet, although the material absorbed Jenna's unleashed misery, it was still touching her skin and reconnecting it back to her. She was trapped by her grief, barred into a tiny room with only a tiny window that brought no ray of hope – only a tiny sliver of moonlight, barely enough for her to see the opposite wall of her melancholy cell by.

"Menardi, look over there. Some bastard's left a child out for the crows."

"Karst, must I remind you about your language in public?"

"Why should I give a damn, sister? Look at the girl! Look at all the people walking past, not caring if she lives or dies! She's another Mars girl, isn't she? What godsdamn right do those ignorant bastards have to leave a child crying?"

"Karst…although I agree with you, this is hardly the time for you to lose control…"

She heard footsteps stamping towards her, and peered up timidly through her hair. The woman before her was in her late teens, maybe early twenties, and she stood over Jenna for a while with her hands on her hips before actually talking. "You live here?" she demanded, nodding at the door. The wind snatched at her dark pink-red hair; it only made her even more imposing.

Jenna nodded, wiping congealing blood from her face as she hurriedly stood up and dipped a shaking curtsey. "Yes, Milady…I'm…I'm just waiting for mama to wake up…"

Tears were rapidly carving channels for them in the flesh of her cheeks, obvious against the grimy film that coated them from days without a proper wash. She stood outside with the Second Lady and felt like nothing more than an empty, pathetic shell devoid of…well, anything. When Menardi re-emerged from the house looking grave, Jenna already knew what was going to be said. Mama…mama, please don't leave me…mama…


This light was bright, golden, exuding nothing but cheer. That light…was no light at all; a yawning chasm of darkness stretched before her. Unsure of what it meant, she waited at the crossroads and frowned. If she was more like them, she'd be able to understand the meaning – but she wasn't, and never really had been. She didn't like the way they insisted on protecting her with no thought for themselves, especially her brother. He was always with his mind on other people's welfare, and that was what had caught him in so many fights. With a shake of her head she cast away the memory of what had happened during that time, not wanting it to return and weave its dark magic on her again.

When did that happen? she thought, staring with renewed perplexity at the dream-world. One of them was sitting in the light, smiling gladly enough to make the light filtering through the sky look dirty and severe. Frightened, she flicked her gaze towards the void and tried not to gasp with horror lest the dream broke. The other one was there, watching her sadly and occasionally glancing at the light area. This can't be…no, it can't be! No! NO!

She screamed all the harder, but nothing could reach either of them. And while she stared at the scene, her uselessness ramming into her at every opportunity it could take, she could do nothing but watch as the abyss gradually absorbed its victim, leaving no trace behind…not even that sad smile…while the one staying in the light was untouched and left there to survive…

NO!