She thought it was easier leaving. If you left first, it hurt less. She knew how it hurt to be left, too. It did not hurt to lie. It was easy to lie. When she came up to his room in mockery of every evening she returned, and hurried through his things like as a sad thief, she lingered just one moment. Just one.
She let herself have a little lie. He'll be back soon. He's right around the corner. He's standing outside the door. I'm in his bed. Something like that. Something she told herself often. Often, as a little girl. Dreaming of a big bed. Somewhere safe and warm. Atlesian summers were cold, if they could be called summer.
She did not let herself have it because it was not something that could stay. He might have been bound to her Aura the same way the Maiden power was, but a person was not something you could keep. Emerald and Mercury stayed because she offered them what they needed. She made Rhodes feel like a Huntsman, that she could be sure of. Just enough to be worthy of the title. So what would keep Jaune. What would keep him. Nothing.
Her Grimm arm ached something cold. It wrapped up her shoulder, parasite-hungry. Hunger kept her moving.
He would not want to keep her, anyway. The last thing he said to her bounced around in her head, as cruel as it was kind. She thought he would tell her to go.
She balanced on the window's edge and swept one last look across his room, then arched her neck towards the ungraceful view of Vacuo: bumpy sand dunes, and those hanging gardens she came in and out of it, shrouded by a green, red-black sky. Then she looked back to his room. She hoped he found the chainmail. That had been tedious work. What was she doing, going around leaving things for him. Where had her bite gone. Why had he burrowed right into her and refused to leave?
One foot in his room, one foot out. She had to move. He tugged on the bond so swiftly and insistently that she nearly fell out, and it took all her might just to ignore him. It was a feeling from head to toe, warm and cold at once. The last thing they needed to do was talk. The thing she needed to do was run. She was always running. So she left. How ridiculous that she had let him in to begin with. That she sat and talked to him when he was stuck on that beach, and she in her room. That she kept talking because she wanted to. That he knocked on the door of her heart and requested entry and she welcomed him in with open arms, like she had been waiting for him to come home.
She would just have to find her way somewhere else. If the throbbing of her arm was any indication, Salem expected her. She would need to return the Relic, and then, what else: maybe tell her the Summer Maiden was a pain in the ass and Tyrian was an idiot. Not that Salem would listen, but it felt good to think.
Cinder listened to the drumbeat in her body and went in the direction the Grimm called to her. They were strange, twisted things. She only had to bow and listen. Vacuo and Shade Academy swelled with the night. Cinder cracked her neck and stretched her arm, hovered high. She tried to summon up that old feeling: burn it. Burn it all down. Cinder liked burning. It was still there, and she wanted it, because sometimes things needed to burn. Salem liked a controlled fire.
This thing she felt was not controlled. It scared her, but it was not her master. It was riding high. It carried bad portents. She figured out what she had to do: follow the arm, give the Relic back, beg for forgiveness and take her punishment on the nose, then figure out how to play both sides. It was simple. Keep Jaune alive, and make him see there was nothing they could do.
She knew it long ago. It was simpler to give in. Maybe some part of her admired that he did not, and maybe another was angry at him for it. Another equal part inside her was angry at him for doing this to her, making her care. It hurt.
It was east of Shade, and then further. She kept flying. She felt better after he had healed her, like she could probably go another day and feel fine. She had never slept so well; she still marvelled at it. Whatever she was going to find, though, was not Salem. Salem would be coming from a different direction.
So what was coming instead of Salem?
The sand dunes rolled high and low. It was empty this far out. She felt like an unnamed traveller. She could have been anybody, alone and forgotten. She lost her balance when he called again, of course, as if he had sensed that she was going mad in her head. She groaned to herself, maybe out of annoyance and maybe out of fear that he kept searching for her. Leave well enough alone, she wanted to tell him. It was a waste of time.
A shadow parted the desert. It was hard to describe: it was nothing, like it ate the sand, and maybe it was something like Salem's warhorse she rode into Atlas, maybe as big, and then maybe it was something else. The moonlight reflected nothing. It was a gaping maw, but if it were a maw, then it would have something to eat with. This thing did not eat. It pulsated the way her arm did when Salem made it hurt, all shadow and smoke but no fire.
Cinder furrowed her brow, her Grimm arm at her side shaking. She was mostly confused because she saw a figure of pure white, right in the middle. A wraith or something like that. No Grimm look looked like that, almost human-shaped, almost dressed in a bridal gown. She still hovered in the air, carried by flame. She waited. The Relic was safely at her side.
The white flickered. It moved. Cinder let it come towards her, and the nothingness with it. Whatever this way rode was something she had never seen before. Maybe in one of Salem's crystal balls: not even black, not even something dark and familiar, not the shroud of shadow or anything you could seek refuge in from the sun. This was like looking without seeing. Cinder waited. Cinder waited some more. Cinder thought of the crystal ball, and the parlour tricks, and half-hidden face of Salem's: smiling, always smiling, with the secrets she kept. Her arm twitched. The white twitched with her, in a sort of sick mirror. The wind blew and it carried death.
Death or something like it, something which wished it were dead. Cinder had wanted to die, and then she did not die, and then she became something better and untouchable. So here she stood on air and waited. The wraith-like thing came closer, and the not-things followed. Then it stopped.
It peered up at her, like it was not quite sure what to do, some sort of hesitance in its frame. Cinder tilted her head and then descended. Salem had such interesting secrets. The white billowed. By the time she came closer, she saw that the white was perfectly white, untouched and unscarred, not even a shred of dirt on it. It reminded her of Jaune's armour, the white and the borrowed gold. Then the face: the face, if it were a face, was covered in a sheet of f lace. Like a burial shroud. Like what might be used to cover the face of a casket viewing, if the body had been unrecognisable in human form, and they wanted to give the family an easier time. To not look upon such a face.
Cinder reared back slightly. Just a touch. She gripped the Relic at her waist, and felt another tremor pass through her. Her skirt billowed behind her, again in reflection. One side Cinder, one side this thing.
She was not sure who would be the first to speak. The silence hovered like a third entity.
Eventually she said, near-scathing, "You're here for Salem? What brings you now?"
The wraith tilted her head just so. Considered Cinder unseen.
Cinder tightened her grip harder.
"We had a bargain," said the wraith, voice high, clear and piercing, like a spear. It was feminine. "I don't remember what for. But I'm here now."
"Salem makes a great deal many bargains. I can't imagine what she'd need you for now. Vacuo's done."
Behind it, her little army tittered, shadow shrugging. Like Cinder had said something funny, and the person— if it were a person— wanted to laugh.
"Well, do you have a name?" Cinder demanded, almost childishly. She wanted to know who this was, and what it wanted.
The wraith shrugged.
"I take it you have orders from her?" she tried. It was like pulling teeth trying to interact with the strays Salem picked up.
"She wants to see you."
"Great," Cinder muttered.
"She wants you to use the Relic."
"And what, build her a pony." She scoffed. "Salem wants. Well, I want too."
"She'd not like that," said the white wraith.
"She can deal with it. The only thing we need is the Relic. Can't Salem just— wait for the Summer Maiden to take it? Then we can go to Beacon. Simple as."
Then the white wraith reached out. There was no hand, only cloth, yards and yards of it. White on white on white. White, black, desert yellow. Cinder recoiled when she went to grip her bare arm, the one that had broken out from the sad attempt to protect it; that silver armour, tied to her with those nice leather straps. Salem had wrecked it.
"The mask," said the wraith. "She took your eye, too. Made you."
"She didn't make me anything." Cinder spat. "I don't even know who you are. Go help the Summer Maiden get in and leave them alone. Don't kill heedlessly. It'll— be a waste of time."
The wraith moved past her as if she did not hear her.
So Cinder said again, "Listen to me. This doesn't need to be as messy as Atlas. Oh, my bad: you weren't there at Atlas, so you have no idea how to take the school."
She still ignored her.
Cinder followed and stuck her feet in the sand with each step. The cold army passed around her, parting for her. It was probably most akin to a Grimm before it was born, out of the goop. But this was moving.
"Do you even know what you're going there for? Turn around. I'm sure you'd be more useful at Beacon—"
"I was at Beacon," she said, calm as anything. "I was minding the school while you played your little games. Now I'm here. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm here. I'm alive."
"Are you alive? What are you?"
"Scattered."
Cinder scoffed again. "Are you a woman? A man? Something else? Are you—"
"I'm like you."
"No one's like me," Cinder hissed, a blessing and a curse.
"No." She lifted up her arm, and waved.
Cinder lifted up her arm, and did not wave, but she inspected the claws she tried to ignore. The sharp edges. What else: the palm, the lines and craggles of Grimmness, where it clawed up her shoulder over the skin and touched her collarbones, less a kind touch like she knew now and more of an infestation. Underneath her old arm was there somewhere. She felt it growing over her.
"Like me," Cinder repeated.
"Like you."
"And what's it like, being like me?"
"Hungry," she said, and nothing else, before she turned again.
Cinder laughed at her, short and mean. Her arm wobbled and she gripped it with her flesh wrist. She hoped it might stymie the pain just a bit, but in it there was a call to her, a different one from his gentle pushing.
How could Jaune even think it possible he would go with her. By the time she found Salem again, she knew it would just be more of the same. Salem met her at the crossroads between Vacuo and Evernight. The night had weakened into morning, stretched thin into the day, and Cinder knelt down in the sand as Salem rode in on the wind.
It would be more of the same on their side. They would punish her all the same. She knew it too well: she had transgressed both sides, and gained what for it? They would hate her as much as Salem hated her now, eyes mean, jaw held high and derisive, her arm burning. It was always the same. The familiarity of it danced inside her. At least there was this. She could handle pain. She had grown soft at his touch, like it had transformed her. She wanted to go back. Go back where she did not know.
"What possessed you?" Salem asked. "What have I not given you?"
Cinder tried to think of something clever. She always had something on the end of her tongue.
"Speak."
It tore through her again. Cinder held her arm out and did not scream. "I gained— tactical advantage—"
"Tactical. A boy."
"It's not like that," Cinder snapped, even though it was, for her.
"I'll forgive you your tongue. I have been gone too long. I slumbered and waited. Now, Cinder, what is it that I have not given you?"
"You've given me everything," she said, in rote. It was true. Salem had given her a place to sleep, and had helped her find the power, and she had lifted her up from whence she came in Atlas.
"Then why do you want for more?"
Because it was not a hunger I ever knew I had, she wanted to say, I did not know how to want it until he made me want it. It was a knock at the door. It was a door I did not know was there. It ached inside her. She thought she had known how to want for too much, and how to figure out what made everybody tick. Then he had surprised her, and he had done it coyly, with a silly little smile.
"Here I thought I gave you enough. I have tolerated you stepping beyond your station. Such is the whimsy of the young. You may pretend, but I know exactly how old you are. Have you met your new companion? She's to mind you."
Cinder's head snapped up. "Mind me?"
"Yes. You need somebody to watch over you. Going out with a boy. Stealing Relics." She clucked her tongue, Cinder peering up and Salem peering down. "Causing such trouble for Tyrian and the Summer Maiden. And, oh. Going to warn the boy of my visit." Salem laughed, clear-cutting as a crystal. "Where do your loyalties lie?"
Cinder's stomach dropped. "I am loyal to you." Even if it ruined everything. She knew it would ruin everything. But she could make it an easier end, if they were going to lose.
"And did you learn anything?"
She waited for the punch.
"From the boy, Cinder." It came with a reprimand.
It wore off so she spoke, "I know that Tyrian should never have been left alone here, and the Summer Maiden has her own interests. Too many interests. I doubt she'll even give you the Relic we need—"
"And of these interests, you would say you have none? And you carry no Relic?"
She bit her tongue, revised her course: "I was going to give them back anyway. I was simply— doing things here in Vacuo."
"Things," Salem repeated dully.
Cinder thought of how to explain her protracted detour: she shared a bed, and pretended they were alone. She woke up beside him and he brought her breakfast. She went out and killed Grimm and practised using the power (surely Salem would approve of this). She came back and they ate and played chess, or he asked her things and she answered or the other way around, and he seemed to like keeping her, and letting her go, and waiting for her to come back.
It was pretty damning once she thought about it. At first her annoyance with Tyrian had been because she got the sense she was replaceable. Now it was just because he was actually doing what Salem wanted. Cinder wanted to stay in their room and never leave.
Sometimes this whole ending-the-world and taking down the Huntsman academies business was really tiresome. She hated them, but something inside her outweighed it, and, well, what did the Huntsman academies exist for except to hold Salem back?
Cinder slapped a hand to the ground, friend it was to her on her knees. The grains of sand pressed against her skin, one by one by a thousand. This was no time to think. Salem did not like her thinking. Well, all the more reason to do it, she thought traitorously. She lifted her head up very slowly and stared up at Salem, new and different.
"I waited for you. You put me to watch over you as recompense for Emerald… leaving. You didn't need me. So I was here in Vacuo, setting the stage. Vacuo's weak because it's spread so far. All you need to do is press. So let's press. We can just take the school—"
"Are you… telling me what to do?" Salem asked mysteriously.
"We didn't need to take Vale to take Beacon. We've already—"
"Cinder, Cinder, Cinder: do you not celebrate in destruction? My best always have a taste for it, like you. Don't you want to watch it all… burn down?"
"You chastised me for burning," Cinder said, remembering.
"A controlled fire is a useful fire. Come now. I may need Vacuo, but your Relic remains at large." Salem snapped her fingers. "Perhaps the only reason I keep you. You would do well to remember that."
It was very dangerous. Cinder said, "I could find Oscar and I—"
"And look at what happened to Hazel. He died. I believe that you would like to avoid that now."
Hazel died to let them get out, she wanted to say. She knew Salem was lying to her. "Oscar's interrogation didn't work last time."
"No, it didn't," Salem mused. "He's wily."
"If we push Vacuo, take the Relic, let their guard down… they may simply just take us to the Beacon Relic," Cinder tried. "Need we—"
"Let them think they have the advantage? Is that what you suppose to suggest, Cinder? Tell me more of your strategic genius. You have grown bold indeed. Should I not be trying to hold you back from seizing the Summer Maiden's power, now she offers her aid? Was this not our challenge with the Spring and Winter Maidens?"
Her tongue held. Cinder could be measured. Some things were better for Salem not to know. "I have more practical considerations."
She held the truth inside her. It wanted to get out. She liked talking, even if Salem did not tolerate it. She liked talking to him. He seemed to want to know everything, even when he hated her, and she had found it hard not to talk. He had tricked her because he asked just because he wanted to know.
She looked out somewhere for him. It was stupid. She did not want to call on him, and she tied the feeling down with the rest of her, but still. It was an old habit. Her gaze flicked left, right.
Salem frowned at her, and waited for elaboration.
"I'm… already the Fall Maiden," Cinder bit out, sour truth. "I've… grown into the power."
"Oh. How surprising."
"I… intend to simply take Vacuo as cleanly as possible. Maybe not half as elegant as Beacon, but close enough."
"Well, yes. Beacon was special. You got a little ahead of yourself, which, I think, spelled your disaster at Haven. It is so good to see you grow, Cinder."
Cinder waited for her arm to hurt. It felt like one of those mockeries preceding a punishment. She squeezed her eye shut, but it did not come. After some minutes, she let out a long breath, thankful.
"Let us make the journey, then," Salem said. "Let us ride the waves of the sand to Vacuo, press it, and take it. I'm sure Tyrian will be having his fun. And you, Cinder? What of your fun?"
"I thought you discouraged—"
"I mean," Salem ground out, "the boy."
Cinder lied through her teeth, "He doesn't mean anything to me."
"He was healing you… with his Semblance," she spat. Salem's mercurial mood had swung the other way now.
The answer lay somewhere in the sand, Cinder was sure of it. If she buried far enough, it would be sitting there, the right thing to say. All she could do was deny. "He— misplaced his trust," she said. That was true. "He thought it possible to— turn me." That was true too. "It was misguided." True too. "I resisted." True. She pushed the advantage, watching Salem's expression turn away from some of the sudden anger. "I never— I never wavered." That was not true. "I let him believe it, just a little. I know their weaknesses. I know his. It will be useful for Vacuo. They're quick to protect that which they think they should. We don't need to hurt them. Just hurt… what they… are attached to." This was true, too. It was good. She could turn this into something. But she had known this at Haven, had she not? When she speared Weiss? Yes. He liked protecting people.
Cinder was just one of the many he added to his little inventory. He might have been as possessive as her.
Salem sang out a long laugh, and said, "Oh, what a wonderfully precipitous event. Cinder, I believe Vacuo may prove to be exciting. What interesting developments. And what did he do to try to convince you, hm? Did he bat his eyelashes at you?"
Cinder scowled. He had, but not intentionally.
"Perhaps it is your loneliness. Your desire for companionship. You brought in those… acolytes. And the… recent addition, though she perished, didn't she. Perhaps you would do well to remember they all left you."
She nodded. That was true. Salem offered cruelty, and she did lie— she knew that now— but that was the cutting truth. It felt true, to Cinder. Emerald had left. Mercury had left, given the opportunity. Jaune would have left her anyway. He would not stay with her, the way she was. So she left first.
"Stand, then."
Cinder stood.
"Does it not feel better to remember that weakness?"
"And that it's a strength."
"Good. Good. Now you are strong, and have come into the power. We'll find your Relic yet. Now let's go ruin Vacuo."
She wanted to grin. It was familiar. But she did not grin. She just felt her mouth flatten, and her shoulders slacken. But it was true. This was what she was good at, and everybody left, but never, ever Salem. Salem would never, ever leave. She was undying and terrible, and older than Remnant, older than anything, as old as magic. It was foolish to think she could be stopped. She respected it, just a little, that he wanted to. But still. It was as foolish as thinking he could help her.
He did not know what she really wanted. She just wanted him. He nudged at her as if he had heard her, and she was afraid for a moment that he had, because surely the thought of it would disgust him. At least he might pity her. The sad girl at the bottom of the Glass Unicorn, thawing at the slightest kind touch. But then, many had tried, and they all wanted something from her. It seemed that he did not even want the Maiden power from her. He was just kind, even when he was a little mean. He was earnest above all.
It stung. She would keep it to herself, to the best of her ability. It was weakness. If anybody figured out the depth of her regard, it would probably paint a target on his back. That was for certain. She could take a beating if somebody wanted to mess with him, but he had others in that line long before her. Weiss' abdomen knew that well. Cinder gripped her arm and ignored him again. He was needlessly persistent.
"Make me something," Salem commanded.
"Can't you use the Relic?" Cinder asked.
Salem looked like she did not want to answer. She said, "Talking back, Cinder? So quickly?"
Cinder's mouth worked and she held out the Relic. "The spirit in the Staff is… capricious. He needs exact detail. What did you have in mind?"
The sour tilt of Salem suggested she did not like the idea of using it herself. Like it was beneath her. Nevertheless, she said, "Make a whale."
"A whale," Cinder repeated.
"Yes. Like I rode into Atlas on. Like that. It should be straightforward enough."
"He needs… blueprints. Specifications. How did you build it?"
"It was a special production. It took many years to grow. I tended to it, like a garden…"
Cinder sighed to herself. "So it grew. You didn't conceive of it."
"Conceive?" Salem laughed. "Like a child? What do you know of children, Cinder?"
"Nothing," she snapped.
"My daughters died at my own hand. I know, too, nothing of conception, clearly. Allow me to instruct you this: bend the spirit to your will."
"It doesn't work like that."
"It will," Salem said. "A capricious force is a force to be toyed with."
"You could just give me something to—"
"You did away with Watts. Now I leave the invention to you."
Cinder waited for the pain, but it did not come. She swept her gaze across the waiting Grimm behind Salem. The captive audience for her theatrics. Salem was, in one of these moods, frustrating.
Then she raised the Relic, high up in the air, and laughed at the thought: surely the Brothers never intended for this. There was something in her that thought them silly. Salem had wanted her to believe that, what, Oz wanted them back? But he did not. Salem did. Like a child calling for its parents to come and end the fight over the toys that went unshared.
Cinder drew in a breath. The blue man appeared again. The wispy blue smoke was less impressive the fourth time around. She was keeping count. But it was a nice blue. She had always liked blue.
"I was going to introduce myself," said Ambrosius, "but I think it's less impressive the more I do it."
"You would be correct," she drawled. Then she spied Salem, still as a statue, as immortal as one. "I'm in need of your creativity."
"Not hiding from anybody again?"
"Technically yes." Cinder looked at him and found him not quite her type. Jaune was strong, but he was not… beefy. She wondered what was the point of a Relic spirit carrying such— aesthetics. They had eyes, and mouths, and hair, but the Brothers seemed to lack anything, from what she had been told.
"This is about the boy, I take it?"
"Would you stop with the boy," she snapped. "I feel like I'm a— a—"
"Alright, alright, come on. Hit me. What're you in need of for my services?"
"I need you to make a… flying whale," Cinder said. Her master had some high ideas about production value. At Ambrosius' reaction, which was like nine feet of disappointment and confusion, she added, "It's just transport. I've got— photos." She pulled out her Scroll from her pocket, and used that fancy setting Watts had spent one belligerent afternoon showing her how to use. "I have no exact blueprints, but it just needs to be big. Maybe the size of a few buildings. And… made out of Grimm. Can you even make things out of Grimm?"
"It's antithetical to their very nature," Ambrosius said. "This isn't going to be pretty. It's derivative, too."
"What's the point of you if you're not even creative? What do you even do inside the Relic all day?"
"Maybe something like what you got up to when you were imprisoned. Have a little empathy, lady!"
"I wasn't imprisoned," she snapped.
"Oh, right. I get it. You struggle with empathising, because if you did, you'd see what a disaster your situation is. That's pretty sad."
That made her angry, and she was already bubbling over dealing with Salem. "Would you shut up and just make a flying whale?!" Cinder said, raising her voice. Then she snapped to the clear air: "And would you just take a hint and leave me alone!? I LEFT FOR A REASON."
Jaune could probably not hear her, but she hoped he got the message. He kept prodding at her. It was futile. Of course he would not freeze when she used the Relic. What else did she expect of him. Oh, here, let me see you across distance, or oh, here, let me touch you kindly and ask to keep you. His kindness made her angry. His insistence made her angry. Most of all, she missed him.
She felt all of that fury leave her, as quickly as the unfairness of it had struck her. When anger made her hot it took long to leave her, and it stayed with her, her only confidante. But this just left, and in its place she felt lonely.
"What if we did something a little different," Ambrosius offered, finger under chin. "I know, I know, it's not my place, but this isn't really your place, either. Let's say— what would you do?"
"What would I do?"
"If you were preparing for your great entrance."
"Well… it is a little… done."
"Exactly," he said. "Flying cities, flying whales, a bit of a theme of flying, don't you think."
"Something on the ground. Maybe a— giant wyvern. A Wyvern Grimm. But bigger. You could do that, couldn't you?"
"It wouldn't be Grimm. I can't make Grimm."
"Then make it not-Grimm," Cinder said. "I don't understand why I have to explain the obvious."
"I exist under very rigid parameters, and for the record, I shouldn't even be advising you. But it is a little fun. Alright. Get me the specs up for a Wyvern Grimm. I'm sure they have those on that… Scroll? Then we can get the party started."
"Just— like that."
"I'm a Relic spirit, you tell me."
Cinder thought about the day she got up and left her room and went and fetched Jaune's armour. She had just decided to do it and thought about the consequences later. Maybe Ambrosius was like her. Maybe that same feeling— waking up and doing something different— was the same thing to possess Jaune, the first time he touched her and did not mean to kill her.
She hoped Salem liked her new ride. Cinder watched it made: it was a dragon without wings, that much she could say, though had dragons ever been real? It felt like a detail she should have asked Salem, at some point. Did they walk the old world, with the magic and the princesses and towers?
Jaune had said she was like a dragon, when she breathed fire. He had watched her so happily she wanted to do it for him again, just to play around with the power. Now Salem would take this to Vacuo. Easy. Cinder felt satisfied. No flying whale, but better.
It was a thing with red-gold scales, and black as night eyes. It snuffled. It was very big, maybe as long as a couple of halls, or a number of swimming pools, not quite as impressive as the whale but it would do the job just right. There was even a leather seat that Cinder had not requested: she was not sure where that came from. Salem did not need to fly on her whale this time, no.
Cinder reached out with a hand and petted the scales beside its eyes. It seemed to like that, and she felt sorry for it, with how short its existence would be. It was only born to carry them into battle, and then, at the shake of a wand, it would snap out of existence. She felt cruel, then, like she had already killed it. She had never felt cruel like this. It must have been how parents felt, bearing their children, already condemning them to death. Maybe that was why Salem did it, she thought quietly: it was easier to kill than watch them die, because Salem would never die. It made her feel sick.
Cinder liked watching things die, but she felt like a chained beast. This chained beast she made. She blinked her one-eye, mourned the loss of the other as she always did, and stepped back. If she were kind to it, it would know how to miss it. It turned its huge head slightly towards her, like it had noticed her and missed her so she took pity, and scratched its scales again. It made a contented sound, vibrating in its loudness beneath her feet.
"I don't bring things back from the dead," Ambrosius said pensively. "I… do not recall this feeling, of making something living from nothing."
"You added a seat."
He waved a hand, dismissive as a penitent god. "It was implied."
"Of course," Cinder said.
The bond throbbed, trying to bubble over. He caught her in a near moment of weakness, and she nearly let them him through. She sighed. Had she wanted to block him, when they first talked? Had she really tried at all? Not really.
She stood there, just a little bit. The world was frozen. She wondered what he was doing now, if he were thinking about her. The clouds overhead remained unmoved. She wondered how the flowers were doing. If they still grew. If she might find that little spot again, and sit, and think. The scaly thing let her keep petting it, and Ambrosius watched her quietly. It was cheating, she was sure, but who made the rules? She let herself smile. Like she had ever cared much for rules.
Its great tail swept back and forth, sweeping the sand aside like one of those Mistrali zen gardens in rhythmic motion. She let her head droop just a bit in tiredness as she thought about their knotted up situation: at least if he were prodding her, she knew he was still alive. He surely could not have got into much trouble. He would be staying put in Shade and preparing for their assault. If it all went to plan, he would be safe.
Well, she helped Mercury and got one over Carmine. So maybe her plans were going well.
"Time to go," said Ambrosius.
"I wish I had more time," she said, more to herself.
Life returned hastily.
She rocked with the movement, of the air and the sound, as thrilling as the Maiden power. Magic was another sense, in a way, and she had been numbed. The wyvern mirrored her movement, and she brushed a hand over it again to steady it. She turned to Salem proudly.
"We got creative," she said, half-grinning.
"This is not what I asked for," Salem said.
"It's better."
She turned up her nose at it. "And, say, we ride this into Vacuo?"
"It's no Grimm. Ruby's silver eyes won't work on it, and it's magic. I can only imagine the old man won't have a trick up his sleeve for this. It's impenetrable." She turned to it, and she hoped it was true. It would get hurt. It was no Grimm. Not like her. Every time she got hurt, she was like her Grimm arm: she grew back painfully.
"Her silver eyes… yes," Salem said. "You still wish to kill her?"
"You would rather her… alive," Cinder said slowly.
"I would."
"Then I'll… keep away from her." It was true. Jaune would like her alive. She only wondered what Salem would do to Ruby. If it were a fate worse than death. There were worse things than that. Cinder knew it all too well.
"Such restrained character, Cinder. Perhaps the time to yourself did you well, finally. Now you'll retrieve the Relic of Knowledge?"
"Yes," she said.
Salem sent pain writhing through the arm, so she would not forget her task.
"I tolerate your failures. I tolerate your having stolen that which belongs to me. See to it that you redeem yourself. Tyrian informed me of your petty conflict. Fix it."
Cinder thought about it and decided she did not agree with Salem. There was a way to take Vacuo without co-operating with those fools. Why did Salem pick up such idiots, anyway. Not that Cinder was one of them.
"I'll fix it," Cinder said. She waited for the pain again to dissipate.
It had been nice, him touching her sweetly. When he put a hand on her shoulder, or touched her hair, or— hugged her, like that day in the tomb. She felt greedy with how she hoarded it, and tried to hold back her own touch. She did not understand how a raised hand could become a palm pressed against the cheek, or the roughness of the scars at her neck would respond to the softness of his nose in bed, or any such thing like that: and how hungrily she wanted it. She never did anything by half.
She accepted her return to Salem's hand. She knew what she was meant for. But still. She took one moment to let herself look back. Just a little bit.
She walked away from Salem, to pretend to peer away somewhere unseen as Salem situated herself on her new steed. What a steed it was. The Grimm flew overhead, and began to move at her command. She called on him. She wanted to see him. She felt silly, like she was peeking at him through a curtain. But there he was. She tried to commit him to memory. Flame unconsciously danced around her vision.
He watched her like he had been searching for her already. His hair was still worn prettily, but he had on his proper armour now, and the chainmail too, she noted with satisfaction. She felt her hair blow in a dry wind. The sand missed her eye. He looked good. He looked better by himself, away from her. He was touching his hair, watching her hard. She wondered what he was thinking of, and she wished she could tell him simply that she had been thinking of him. He tilted his head at her, mysterious, then he moved as if he had been bumped into, oddly endearing in the way he jostled. When he was gone she felt a smile pull at her lips, as insistent as he was. It was sad, though.
Salem knew how to make an entrance. Cinder snuck in and then waited for somebody to notice her, but 'subtle' was not a word she would use to describe her master. What else would she content herself with. Cinder had seen her crocheting once. She did not know what she was making, and it seemed to just be a long, long row of repeating threads spilling over her lap. It had been the strangest moment. Cinder had crept out of the room as she had come, and decided to speak to Salem later, and forgot the image of her crochet hooks, twined around the thread, looping and looping.
"All we need to do is watch, Cinder," Salem said. "You'll find the Lamp in time, won't you?"
Cinder rode on the wyvern's shoulder. "Easily."
"As easily as you thieved it?"
"I know where it is," she said, which was true. It was in the most unlikely place possible, which meant anybody else searching for it would not know where to look.
They rode. Their great beast trundled and huffed and puffed. It was fun, if she did not think about the context. She thought that they needed a flag of some sort to wave, like those old-fashioned cavalries. Salem had made an oversight. Or Ambrosius had. Maybe they needed war-horns, too. It was almost funny. If Cinder were in charge, she would suggest that.
Vacuo, moving through it very fast, took on a different visage. The mirage-like blur, and the smear of Grimm made it more picturesque than Atlas or Haven. Certainly more fun than Haven. Haven had been so awkward. She had objected to dealing with Raven, and then look at what happened. Raven had chastised her in the Vault. This, though. At least if they were going to tear down the school and flounce with a Relic or two, it might be better than a clumsy brawl at Haven Academy.
Well, she had been a little distracted, admittedly. She wanted to kick herself, but she was balancing on the shoulders of a giant. He was always doing things to distract her. It seemed to be a poor pattern with him.
The ziggurat loomed. It was impressively built, more pleasing to her eye than the other schools, she would give it that. With how flat Vacuo was it could be seen from very far away. The air and the earth was polluted with Grimm. It was uglier than Evernight, with lice-like Grimm crawling around. This was more like a dizzy fantasy of Salem. The world nothing. The world just dead. She could see Huntsmen and Huntresses, though. They were there. If dwarfed.
If they had any mind, then they would retreat. One or two of them would figure out Salem's forces had pulled back from Beacon, and then they would trickle there, and then the game would start again. It would be sad, watching them lose, but if they let it happen quickly it might be easier to tolerate.
Maybe she got ahead of herself. By the time they hit the peak of the northern dunes, and made their way around the eastern edge, the school at the heart of it, Cinder was impressed with how well they were holding on. Of course, that was before she spied the fight on the eastern boundary of the school between two Maidens.
So the Winter Maiden had finally been let outside of her cage. Cinder felt a smirk growing, and then something hot in her blood. Not quite longing for the power, but more like she wanted to use hers already. She was already beginning to pull herself off the beast, scratching its scales as she did, when Salem asked:
"Cinder, will you inform me of your plans, or am I to make assumptions?"
"The Summer Maiden needs a hand," Cinder said, not quite lying.
"See to it that you don't fail. We need the Beacon Relic."
Of course Cinder was still important to her, and it was contingent on a power she could wrest from Salem if she really wanted. She grinned. Then she flew. A Maiden fight was a type of environmental disaster, in Cinder's experience. It was in Winter's best interest to keep the Summer Maiden as far away from her subordinates as possible. But the Summer Maiden was also cheap, and from the looks of it— molten lead here, melting snow there, electricity there— it was turning out pretty disastrous for the two of them.
Three Maidens she had never seen, though.
"May I?" Cinder said over the firefight. The two Maidens in the air turned to look at her, to figure out what she said, since there was sort of a cataclysm beneath them, and between them, lots of stuff on fire. Cinder approved.
"Not you!" Winter snarled.
"Oh, now she turns up!" Carmine said, nearly at the same time.
Cinder swept her gaze across the ground, figuring out the odds of what she was about to do. Winter would not want Cinder to have the Summer Maiden power. Carmine wanted them, probably. Cinder did not like Carmine. Like she was going to fix it. It was in Cinder's best interest to kill them both. Probably.
"You haven't even won against one Maiden!" Carmine taunted.
Cinder tapped a finger at her side and thought about their stand-off. Winter had the look of a wild, feral thing, all that high-class Atlesian blood drained out of her. Both of them were new to the power. So why could Cinder not take them both. She raised her hands very slowly, in mockery of placation.
"I don't want a fight," she tried. "Salem wants the Relic. Let's get the Relic."
"A truce," Carmine snapped, at the same time Winter snapped it too. It was funny how they both said the same thing, with the same degree of incredulity.
Carmine added, "You haven't done much to make me like you!"
Grimm flew overhead and Cinder's arm seized with it. "I have that effect."
"I don't care how clever your tongue is: fuck you!" Carmine spat, and then she did spit saliva, and it probably landed on somebody below them. How gross.
So a one versus one versus one Maiden fight went a little like this: Cinder called on fire and told it burn. It burnt. She and Winter and Carmine feinted and dived like swans, dying ones at that. To anybody else watching it would have made no sense, and to Cinder watching it made no sense, because every time she went to strike Winter, Carmine would round on her, and vice versa, or vice versa again.
Winter approached it as she did the last time: she always thought she was clever and she used her Summons as much as her Maiden power, which was exactly the sort of Maiden she expected her to be, just like Pyrrha, not using the power too much. She seemed hesitant, nearly, her hand shaking as she lifted it, the new red of her Vacuo clothes which had replaced the Atlesian military uniform fluttering with the movement.
Carmine used her power messily. As she had the last time. It was hard to keep track of her, with her erratic movement, nearly mad with power. But Cinder was pretty sure the power worked so long as you listened to it and you gave a little back. So maybe her hand had been tempered. Maybe she tried to listen. It was easy, to always run. But between one Maiden and another, Cinder waited, and then she sent glass shards to pierce their Aura, and then she feinted, and Carmine went for her and Winter went for her, and Cinder chose Carmine to burn.
That made Carmine angry. She growled and said, "I'm seriously sick of you. Do you just not die? How do you keep going when you keep losing?"
Cinder moved and then hovered and watched her, calculatingly. If she killed Carmine then she would have the power, then she would open the Vault, and then she would give Salem the Relic. It would not be an ideal sequence of events, not anymore. But who else could she let have the power?
Winter was growing distracted. She was accounting for the people below. She kept blocking the fire, and icing the metal. It was at that moment that she went to block Cinder's shards, just like her sister on the road to Vacuo, that Carmine went for the jugular. The Summon Winter was riding vanished, and Winter began to fall. She flew then, on blue pixie dust, but Carmine went again for a strike, and Cinder had a choice, and it really came down to this: she could use the opening to kill Carmine, who would not see it coming, hungry for the same thing Cinder had been, or she could help Winter.
So things had begun to change for Cinder, or perhaps she recognised the strategic position, or perhaps she remembered falling and she did not like it. What was it Ambrosius had said, that made her angry? It was something about empathy. Cinder did not care for empathy much, not the way it made Jaune cry. Why would you take someone else's pain and make it yours, if it would only hurt? Anyway, Carmine did not need the Winter Maiden power, and the Winter Maiden deserved, at least a little, to keep her power for a bit. Let her play. They had kept her inside and coddled, after all, just like Fria.
Cinder raised her hand, told fire to swoop up and hit Carmine and then a glass shield, like Jaune's, to protect Winter. Carmine made the noise people make when their flesh burns. Aura did not protect you from everything all the time.
Winter foolishly looked over to Cinder in confusion, but she would understand quickly. The musical chairs of Maiden powers meant it mattered more to keep it out of Carmine's hands than it would to be altruistic. Cinder was not altruistic. She bared her teeth, then shook, unsured, as she turned and saw the looming nothingness approaching. It was a silent march. The wraith must have been walking the whole time, not running, not flying, just one step in front of the other easy and slow.
Cinder felt a twitch through her arm, as if it were talking to her through it. Then the wraith screamed.
She clutched at her ears, but it was not enough to cover it. It was a wail which must have been heard all over the city. She thought it would eventually stop, that maybe the unseen mouth of the wraith might close, but it kept going and going. The Grimm did not stop. Cinder reached out an arm as if to touch the magic she could call on, then flicked her wrist, focussing hard, sweat at her brow, to ask the wraith to stop. She could not see whether the fire hurt her new companion, her apparent watcher, but it stopped the screaming for just a moment. It had weakened Carmine and it had equally weakened Winter, but Cinder kept on. Pain and loss were always her companions, not this thing.
Then Carmine left. Cinder was thinking, where the hell are you going, but of course it was to the school. The wraith followed. Whatever and whoever she was, Salem had been saving her for a reason. Maybe for the day Cinder disobeyed her. Or something else. The wraith must have been securing their forces at Beacon. The wraith was like Cinder.
Cinder scowled at Winter, just for a moment. Then they both shot off after their shared Maiden enemy. Neither one of them attempted to attack the other.
Winter sniped, "Not even going to try and take the power?"
Over the wind Cinder wanted to say something clever back, but she just flew harder. What the wraith wrought over the school was worse than she imagined. They passed through a veil, where the light shimmered and then gave out weakly. Before she could not hear. Now she could not see. Everything was blacker than black, light wiped out, no shadow. Cinder clicked her fingers together like a match, hoping for some fire in the dark. It lit. The only thing she could see was the fire at the end of her palm, and she turned, searching for Winter, who was clicking her fingers together to make little lightning. Here and there Cinder saw a glimpse of her face.
Winter said, "I suppose you know what that is."
Cinder said back, "I don't."
She heard her own breaths, and the sweet crackle of the fire in hand. Cinder felt out and around, and tried to go by memory of where she had been before everything snapped out of sight. She wondered if anybody else could see her flame. She cast it across in front of her and hoped someone saw. She heard a shout or two.
This was the cloak that the wraith carried, and then cast across the school. A neat trick. That must have kept Beacon secure. No wonder there had been no news of the school being taken back. But now its net was gone.
Cinder could not navigate by the air so she gently lowered herself to the ground, touching down as carefully as she could, without sight. She landed amongst a group of Huntsmen and Huntress students, all quivering in fear, some having now taken out pocket lighters, one here with a Semblance that made her skin glow like a walking lamp, others igniting Dust. Cinder's fire had been the first. It was hers.
A student spoke to her, said, "Can you help us? We want to get back into the school."
Cinder stared at him. He looked very young. He must have been a first year, at least, if that. She was confused at his familiarity. He did not know who she was. He saw her and assumed she was, what, a Huntress? So she replied, "The school is the least safe place for you to be. Run."
"Run? But—"
"Turn around," she said. "Wherever you thought you were going, turn the other way."
Of course, she did not. She kept walking. She was pretty sure she knew where she was. The Grimm assaulting the school had disappeared, but then, maybe the slick sickly feeling pressing against her was Grimm all around her.
The markets outside the school smelt of old smoke and incense, but all the stallholders were long gone. Grimm had mauled the wares, and fruits— overripe figs, dates, plums— tumbled onto the paved streets, but they were gone for now. The dark was darker than night. She looked over her shoulder and searched for Winter, but she was gone for now. Then she searched for Salem. Then she felt the Relic at her waist, and thought about that creature. Then she stopped. Watched the fire in her hand. If the wraith pulled this stunt, and Carmine were already in the school, then Theodore would already be helping open the Vault, if it needed a headmaster at all. They would just enter the school, and then search for somebody who knew where the Vault was. They would be told where it was. Then they would take the Relic.
Cinder sighed a long sigh. She heard more shouts and commotion, calling out in the dark. She kept feeling her way around to the entrance of the school. She brushed her hair off the back of her neck. It was hot, for all the hidden sun. She felt a nudge from Jaune. She stopped in her tracks, and put out the fire in her hand. She stopped listening to the sound, and in a moment of maybe weakness or indecision she let him through. Had she not done that already to begin with? Let him in? She could just let herself have this, to check on him.
She heard him breathing quite heavily, and he must have been with other people, because he said nothing to her, but she still felt him. She felt around for him where she could not see, and she hoped he could not see her, because maybe it would not count. She found his shoulder, where his pauldrons were. That was disappointing. She heard something like a whine. She let her hand heat with her Semblance so he knew it was her. Then she felt along his shoulder until she reached his neck, and so slid her thumb up his jaw. She brushed it gently, his skin very soft. Her heart thudded to a wardrum and then something lower did too.
She hoped he would tell a funny joke, or say something sarcastic. Anything would have done, but neither of them spoke, he because if he spoke to the air he would have to explain what he was seeing, or rather not seeing, she because if she spoke she was afraid she would not be able to leave. Then she poked his cheek, and let out a little huff which was sort of like a laugh.
Winter was probably wasting her own time attempting to check on her sister. What good that would do.
The gates of the school were already broken open, and she entered, walking close to a mural and then running her Grimm hand over it. It was a pretty scene, though she could not appreciate the context. She liked the lapis lazuli. Then she kept walking. The lights of the school were off, and her footsteps echoed click-click, marbled sound mixing with the sound of conflict, thuds from above. Cinder would go high, then. She searched for stairs and eventually found a grand staircase, after bumping into a few walls more than a handful of times. Then she ascended, forewent the stairs and hovered up them, wondering what she would find.
When she went higher and higher up the vaulted halls, whose breadth were unseen, she finally found one brightened room, there an assorted group: one figure in white; one figure Carmine; the other with a scorpion's tail; a little bird, then a team of Huntsmen students and their headmaster. They were from Beacon. She remembered them. One of them liked sunglasses. Emerald had broken hers. It had been funny.
Cinder watched the proceedings with interest. One of the students tried shooting at her dumbly and she blocked it without a thought. That made Carmine notice her.
"Oh, just what we needed!"
Qrow sent her a mysterious look. She tilted her head. What was he thinking, and where was his sister. But then he snapped it back to the wraith, the thing that had been sent to watch over her. Good job of that she had done.
"Go," Theodore said to the students. "I won't do this to you."
They argued over that as Tyrian and Carmine argued with each other, and the wraith and Qrow faced each other off. Cinder watched, like Salem had told her to. Once team CFVY had come to some sort of agreement, they ran past her. She let them, in the dimness, pretending she could not see them, or that she did not care.
"Won't you go with them, headmaster?" she said. "Or are you to leave them to die in the cold and the black?"
"I must protect the Vault," he said, unwaveringly.
"I'm sure you've done all you can. But one way or another—"
"Shut up," Carmine interrupted.
"What? I'm trying to get you into the Vault—"
"He doesn't matter. The sphinx at the door wants the answer to a riddle."
Cinder waited a beat, and observed the gang of four. "So answer the riddle," she said slowly.
Theodore said, "I know the answer."
Qrow was still watching that wraith hard. Tyrian was watching him. It was a strange sort of refraction.
Cinder felt faintly ridiculous. Her mouth flattened in dissatisfaction.
"A riddle can't possibly be that hard," she said.
Tyrian turned around and snapped at her wildly, "You've caused enough problems for me—"
"Cut it out," Carmine snapped at him equally.
Qrow yet still did not speak. Cinder waited for somebody to tell her the riddle. Eventually Carmine relented and said, sounding bored, "'What can run, but never walks; has a mouth, but never talks; has a head, but never weeps; has a bed, but never sleeps?' I was never good at these in school. Not that I liked school. I hate Shade Academy, by the way; horrible job you've done here."
Cinder clenched a fist. She knew the answer. How did they not know the answer. Was Tyrian that stupid? Was Carmine that stupid? Why would the stupid old man institute a riddle to guard a world-ending Relic? Cinder was starting to lose her temper. The headmaster wrung his hands.
Then Qrow lowered his sword, and gently said, sounding choked, "Summer?"
"What," said the Summer Maiden drolly.
The wraith's cloak moved, in a wind that did not blow.
"I'm not talking to you," Qrow said. "I'm— I'm—" then he broke off.
Cinder's brow furrowed. Summer, he had said, and then her belly ran cold. Like you, she had said to her, like you, like you, hollow thing. Her arm spasmed again but this time she did not really notice it. Summer Rose twitched with her, them both responding to the same melody. She caught a brief flicker of recognition wash over Theodore, then Tyrian's shoulders shook with silent laughter, and Carmine did not register any reaction.
Cinder saw the opportunity and took it. "A river," she sang out.
The sphinx exploded. She covered her face, not much shock to her reaction, but mostly hoping Qrow and Theodore would leave. It would do him no good to see Summer Rose now, if she knew anything about the sentiment the old man's side reserved for loved ones. She heard a bird take flight, wings flapping indolently, and another old man run, and Tyrian made way to give chase and then Cinder stuck out an ankle and tripped him. He let out an indignant squealing noise.
It felt kind of mean. Cinder then recalled what the Relic of Destruction entailed in its name. Whoever— and whatever— Summer Rose was, Grimm like her, she was capable of something tremendous. Carmine wanted Cinder dead as equally as Cinder wanted Carmine dead. The Relic, at least, would be in their hands, and then Carmine would surely and swiftly pass it onto Salem. Score. All Cinder had to do once was betray Neo and she had two Relics in hand. Sometimes these things came so easily.
"What will you do, little Maiden?" Tyrian growled.
"Go back to Salem," she said calmly.
"You don't care about her. Not really. I think you should stay and let Carmine acquaint herself with you more. Perhaps she'll even grow to like you. There's only one Relic left after this, and my, my. It happens to be yours." He grabbed her arm, his dirty fingernails pressing into her upper forearm.
"I think," Cinder said, "you should shut up, and let go of my arm." She flared heat on her skin and burnt his hand off.
He yelped and drew back, though Cinder could not see where, could only vaguely sense it.
"Such a waste," he spat. "Wait and see. You wait and see. The Relic of Destruction is ours, and I so long to see what it shall do."
"It's sad, that this power can never be yours," Cinder said, ignoring him. "It must embarrass you, being so secondary to Salem's plan. Even Watts proved more useful. Here you even have to defer to somebody else, a no-name squabbler for a shred of power in the wasteland, and her would-be queen. If I cared, I'd probably feel a little sorry for you." She paused then added, "I don't."
Tyrian leapt for her but she raised a hand, set the room on fire and then left. He could sense weapons and movement, and he could feel around where she could not, but she was not about to stay for very long when Carmine was about to walk out with a dangerous Relic and an undead warrior at her side. A woman who did not remember her own name. Cinder knew hers, at least.
The blackout of Vacuo continued, and she ambled down corridors and stairs and wondered where Qrow and the headmaster went, if they found refuge or if they just ran for it. She wondered where Jaune was. They could retreat to Beacon, but then they would need something like a Relic of Creation to do that, and what was strapped to her waist, after all. She gripped a fist at her side. She could not do that. They would have to handle transport themselves, if they were going.
She wound her way up to Jaune's room, guided by the firelight that lit her path only in front of her, and went to the drawer under his bed. Again she pretended that she was only here to spend the night with him. She felt around for the sheets and, selfishly, smelt them for just a moment. Sunlight. Then she moved a hand around searching for the drawer handle, pulled it out, and found the Lamp gone.
She could not have expected less of him, really. If she told herself the truth, she intended it.