arbejdsglæde (n) when one's work is a source of joy, happiness or fulfilment.
Lady Chou's library was a study in muted opulence, not like the ostentatious extravagance which so characterised the foyer and ballroom which remained the only substantive elements of the palace Azula had so-far managed to glimpse. The lady's study was pannelled in richly hued tropical hardwood that Azula could not name, but suspected that any one of her comrades could have – certainly Ilja would have made up a name, if he knew none. It was shaped like a T, with a long open space unfolding from the entranceway adorned by shelves on all sides, with gold-wrought lanterns hanging from the sides of the redwood ladders which accorded access to them; at its head, a golden box embedded into the stone wall, like a tabernacle, was surrounded by a glass case of curiosities: Azula could not quite discern what their relevance might have been, these ribbons and feathers and daggers and little jars of ash, but they were displayed here like historical artefacts of great importance.
On the right-hand wing, there was a set of low-back winged couches, wrapped in the same wine-red velvet Lady Chou had worn the previous day, and some low coffee tables scattered here and there. The fireplace around which they were arranged were Azula's first duty of the day, before even attending to the lady's chambers to help her rise in the morning; the little piles of ash heaped upon the grate still approximated the shape of wood which had burned here the night before.
On the left-hand wing was her desk, large and broad and scattered with papers and inkpots, like any administrator. A counsellor, then? On the edge of the desk lay a small bowl, its porcelain in a pale sky blue, fretted with phoenixes and grapes, and a mug of cold tea, in the same material, abandoned as though work had swallowed up any time intended for dining. It was the very vision of busy; it gave the unerring impression that Lady Chou, whoever she was, was very important indeed.
Here and there, engraved like a rune, the symbol which must have meant something, to someone, once: 仇.
The darkness in which the study was shrouded rather made certain shadows resemble hands, more than they ought; Azula steeled herself. She was a Warrior, wasn't she? Nonetheless, when she crossed the threshold, it was with an overabundance of caution; she examined the spines of the books as she passed them, and found that whatever little knowledge of the Illéan alphabet she had gleaned from Ermete Tofana had been too paltry to allow her to understand any of their titles on a brief glance.
She knelt by the fireplace, and set about her work: first, clearing all the residue of the previous night's fire into the metal ash-box left aside for just this purpose; second, intending to tidy up the little teacups and vellum documents strewn about on the coffee table; third, realising that the first step of her work had left her hands rather too ashy and charcoal-smeared to risk the second step.
She almost sighed. She hadn't expected this to be complicated.
The ash-box was folded over and sealed – precariously so, though Azula wasn't sure how to do it better without utterly covering herself in soot – and she hefted it by the little hook on its head and carried it out of the study. So early in the morning, all was utterly hushed and silent; the palace had not yet stirred to life. The Chou study was tucked away in an innocuous corner of the upper corridors, overlooking the tangled set of gardens which ensared the palace; lugging out the soot necessitated that her path form a long arc around the palace, around to the place behind the stables where ashes were stored for later use for composting and bug-repelled.
Luckily for her, Akanksha had finally deigned to show her the servant corridors, which ran much shorter routes parallel to those, more opulent, occupied by the court. She accessed this one at the end of the red-carpeted corridor, hooking a foot around the hidden door which concealed it from view, and ducking into a veritable buzzing hive of activity. If the corridors of the court were silent, then the corridors of the servants were alive: grey-garbed maids flitting about their duties, grey-coated soldiers severe and precise in their movements. Azula easily melded into their number, understanding a little better now how Ilja had become so grey when it was so easy to become indistinguishable like this. He might have passed her now, in these halls, without either noticing; she wouldn't have been surprised.
The day was cold and crisp and bright – Azula emerged into the stables, dodging a piebald with no intention of taking his tack without a fight, and turned a corner, moving carefully as she ascended the low grey steps to the ash-heap. She was proud enough of herself for thinking to stand upwind as she shook out the soot, all the better for keeping her dress clean; grey was honestly so much worse than white for the way that it stained, without mercy.
Azula could feel that old familiar thought trailing her: could she live like this? Forever? It was a thought whose seed had been planted when she was a very young child, when she had been first given to Lilja and Mazin to raise in the stead of the child they could never have, and which had only grown in concert with every other change in her life: when she had been first scouted for the Warrior Programme: could she live like this forever? When she had first awoken as a xrafstar, feeling the strings settle into place along her sinews for the first time; could she live like this forever? When she had woken in the bakery for the first time, Khalore's voice soft in Inanna's room across the hall and the scent of freshly-made pastries rising slowly up the stairs like smoke: could she live like this forever?
These thoughts surged forward and crowded Azula's mind even as she returned to the study and set about her work once again – though she was quickly interrupted by a soft cough behind her and an impatient tapping of metal against porcelain. Azula did not jump in surprise, only turned to see whence the sound emanated.
Lady Chou was at her desk; Azula wondered now if maybe she ought to have jumped, to maintain the facade of being just another maid, just another lost soul from within the walls.
"Good morning, Azula."
"Good morning, Lady Chou."
"We've settled on that, then?" Lady Chou smiled. "I suppose it's fair. Not even my husband usually calls me Swietłana."
Azula catalogued her swiftly, analysing her as Commandant had taught them to analyse all of their enemies: her boots were crusted with a thin layer of topsoil, as though she had crossed the gardens without heed for a path on her way to her office; she was wearing a long wine-purple skirt and a neat grey bodice, with a matching jacket thrown over her shoulders in an insouciant manner.
She knelt again, tending to the fire, careful not to speak unless spoken to.
"What do you think of the place?"
Azula kept her voice soft. "It's very nice."
"There are other libraries in the palace, many more beautiful," Lady Chou said, softly, conspiratorily. "But this one is mine. None may enter without my permission."
There it was again, that ominous feeling, intensified by how starkly this lighting pronounced the scars gouged into her throat and bare shoulders. Azula could not help but be fascinated by her, unsure whether she was royalty or counsel or guard – but what kind of guard would be permitted her own private study in the heart of the palace? There was a chilling effect when the lady spoke so, a silent power behind it, which made Azula suspect she was more royal than not – that she had far more power than her simple attire would suggest. The little Devil spoke almost hesitantly: "I have your permission, don't I?"
"Of course, little bird." Lady Chou smiled. "And permission to take a book, too, if you'd like – though I'd appreciate if you named it to me first. Just so we don't end up ripping the place apart in search of it later."
Azula froze. A lifetime of fighting for her place, of ripping affection from the teeth of disdain, had inoculated her against such displays of affection unearned. She said, "really, I couldn't."
"Can't you read?"
"A little."
"Then whether you could or could not is not my concern." Lady Chou smiled. "You may."
She bent her head over her writings, her pen scratching out a steady rhythm. Azula relaxed slightly, having half-expected an interrogation.
"Oh, and – Azula?"
Azula looked up again, her hands resting gently on the kindling. "Yes, Lady Chou?"
"By allowing you to enter my library, I have shown you a great amount of trust." There was a coldness in the woman's eyes now, that justified the chills running along Azula's spine. "I hope you will not repay that trust with any attempt at… pulling strings."
She smiled.
"Do we understand one another?"
No. Azula didn't understand. Worse than that – she rather thought that Swietłana Chou did understand, more than was immediately apparent, more than any of them could have feared.
"Let me know if you'd like some tea," Lady Chou said, and bent her head again, so that silence enveloped the room again and the only audible sound was the stuttering pulse of Azula's heart.
The Schools were a genteel collection of green marble buildings clinging to Wall Schreave, doused in shadows and gloom no matter the time of day or night. Each pillar was fingerprinted with the creeping white spiderweb of marbling that made it such a uniquely distinctive building, like a school woven out of pure emerald; the earthquakes of a week ago had left long, jagged scars in the otherwise pristine steps that accorded the vaunted few entry into the scholarly depths of the building.
Khalore found herself standing in front of the Schools and staring, for a very long time indeed.
This was meant to be Ghjuvan's position, Ghjuvan's job, Ghjuvan's trepidation rising slowly and threatening to choke. Not hers. Never hers. Khalore Angelo had never been trusted – had never expected to be trusted – with such a task.
For a split second, she hated him for dying.
A gloved hand smoothing the jacket Ina had given her, a pretty pastel thing that Khalore would never have chosen in the world before, and a deep breath, and Khalore started her way up the steps. The day had dawned cold and crisp, despite last night's storm; it was as though the wind had thoroughly beaten all the dust and humidity out of the sky, clouds vanquished and exiled to the farthest corners of a reddening horizon. She drew in many deep breaths like this, even as she found herself moving into the emerald alcove of the Schools' first foyer.
The whole place seemed utterly deserted; she had expected this place to be like one of the Academies at home in Opona, where intelligent people in well-hemmed clothes would always dart here and there with bundles of papers in their arms, as though their thoughts were so vital that they simply could not wait to be heard. Khalore had always thought that some among their number – Ragnar and Hyacinth, and maybe even Ilja and Ina as well if she was being honest with herself – would have thrived better in those Academies than they had in the Programme. That should have been their fates, being bright and brilliant in a safe place and helping to improve their world in important ways, far detached from the ordinary gore of the Warrior's path.
Her arm was aching again, that arm that was no longer.
She lingered there, in front of the enormous marble doors, for a long moment, hesitating and wondering if she ought to try to heave them open herself, or even knock – but she had only a moment to wonder, for there was a crisp click-click-click of boots upon marble and Lorencio Suero had appeared around the corner to greet her. He looked pleased to see her. Khalore had half-expected this all to be some kind of hideously cruel trap. Surely there were some in Illéa craving the dissection of a xrafstar?
Did the Illéans even remember what xrafstar were?
General Suero was a spritely man – that was the word that occurred to Khalore, spritely, though he was almost a head taller than she was. He had a neat moustache and neat hair, neither yet greying despite the age apparent on his lined face and the stress apparent in his tired eyes. His hands were stained with ink and ichor, and he had a tendency to dip slightly on his stride, like a limp unhealed or like a man accustomed to having a weight on one hip: a sword, or a child, or a gun. No, Khalore thought, no. There were no guns here. His nose had been broken at least once, though splinted well enough that this was barely noticeable, and he had a set of barely-there stitches, long-faded, running along one arm, from wrist to elbow.
He had a fatherly smile, which unnerved Khalore far more than any amount of scowling – "Angelo. Delighted."
"General." She wasn't sure if she should bow or salute, but he solved this conundrum swiftly, by shaking her hand instead, not even blinking at the sleeve which hung empty. He must have been used to it, Khalore thought. The tagma were always bruised and battered, one way or another – but then again, his coat was a deep sapphire-blue and pristine, like it had never seen a day's combat. He was a Scholar. Ghjuvan had always said that they were an army apart from the others.
"Did you bring your papers?"
She had; Ina had sewn the papers into their coats their first week in Aizsaule, recognising them as a lifeline, knowing that none of her Warriors could be trusted to remember redtape during a mad flee from whatever might confront them in enemy territory. She had always been so: Khalore would never have thought to spin the stories that Ina had, to keep them safe, linking them all by neighbourhood or marriage or familiarity so that they could live together without any aspersions being cast, without any questions being asked. She remembered Ina sitting them down at lunch one day and precisely outlining what the Illéans did not have, what she had noticed about the way they spoke to one another, what they ought not mention or think about. Everyone here carries flowers with their blossoms facing downwards, Ina had pointed out, and Ilja had said, do we look like the floral types right now, Nirari? But she had been right to mark it. Khalore would never have thought to enquire about whether Illéa had bicycles, or coffee, or tinned food.
As it turned out: they didn't, they did, and they didn't.
She withdrew her papers and handed them to the general for perusal, keenly aware of how clean they were, how crisp the edges. Most papers were handled a thousand times in their lifetime; these looked fake in their neatness. "We had new ones issued after Mønt," she said, rather lamely, "and I'm a fanatic about keeping things in good shape..."
"It's not a problem, Angelo." He took them, and glanced over them briefly. "Kolesnitsa, also?"
She was struck, as she had been struck before, attending the registrar, at how totally she had stepped into the skin of another Khalore who had never really existed. It felt strange, she thought – still her name, still her, but still a different person entirely. What sort of childhood had this Khalore endured? What would she become – not a Warrior, not a xrafstar, not a killer. How had she lost her arm? Maybe her family was kinder. Maybe she had a job that she loved, safe and serene within the walls. Maybe she had a Ghjuvan and a Myghal of her own – an Ina of her own, an Azula of her own, an Ilja of her own, and maybe an Eero too – and maybe she had different friends, kinder friends, softer friends, friends who didn't attempt field amputations with heated knifes.
Was this why Kinga and Ghjuvan had taken different names? Did it ache for everyone, this memory-that-was-not-a-memory?
"Kolesnitsagrad." That was a legacy of Ilja, the fluid way she lied. "The town proper."
"I keep running into people from that town." The general folded her papers neatly and returned them to her. "There must be a certain instinct for survival in those parts."
"I think that's the kindest thing anyone's ever said about the place, sir. We're not exactly famed for our intelligence."
She bit her tongue against saying anything else, though she wasn't sure that there was much worse to say after confessing to stupidity on the steps of the Schools.
"Well, then," Suero said, "worst comes to worst, I'll have someone to carry my things." He paused. "Seen a scrap, have you?"
Khalore barely managed to resist the urge to reach up and touch the barely-scabbed cut on her face. She'd rather made a habit of it; it had almost got to the point of feeling good, in some strange way. Asserting herself onto the world and having it move over to accommodate her, for the first time. Having her pain be worth something. What had Ilja said, all those months ago? Constructive self-immolation. She was not the smartest. She was not the strongest. She was expendable. Self-immolation, she thought, and for some reason her thoughts spoke with Pekka's voice. Expendability had its uses. "Opened up a wound from Aizsaule."
The general made a sympathetic face. "Would you follow me, please, Angelo?"
He did not turn towards the enormous marble doors, but spun on his heel and went back the way he had come, around the corner of the building and across a mostly-dust courtyard. Away from the overwhelming opulence of the building's front-facing facade, Khalore felt almost as though she could see without squinting again. There was a narrow blackwood door, in peeling lacquer, set into the gable of the Schools; beyond that door, she could see only a narrow set of stairs, descending down into darkness.
"Down to the laboratory," Suero said. He lifted a lantern from where it hung next to the door, and lit it with a practiced motion. "I'm afraid we're rather going in at the deep end, Angelo. Did you have plans this evening?"
"No," Khalore said. Eero would understand; she knew that he would understand. Ina would be at the ball. Zoran and Nez were still beyond the walls. Azula, and Ilja, and Belle were in the palace, helping how they could, and Kinga had disappeared into some void of her own creation, no doubt helping in her own strange, violent way. "No, my only plan is… learning as much as I can. And helping as much as I can. In any way that I can."
"That," the general said, "is the best thing you could have said."
He smiled.
"Welcome to the tagma, Khalore. Welcome to the Schools. I do hope you're not too squeamish."
He ticked off their names once when they arrived for their things, and again when they had paid him, working through them more quickly and quickly as the day had accelerated on towards its inevitable hectic conclusion: Morozova had stormed through to claim her specified grey suits, and Morivec had rocked up to get their nice new coats, and Moriarty had brushed through to get last-minute alterations made to her Selected's dress upon learning that the girl was almost two sizes smaller than initial measurements had suggested – "you shouldn't be here," Kenta had said amusedly, keenly aware that he had no royal patronage which would allow him to produce for the Selection, and the maid had huffed even while she agreed and pressed another coin into his hand to pay for his silence as well.
So the day was winding down, very slowly, the sun slowly ticking towards the far edge of Wall Schreave as though running on an invisible track. Everyone had been clothed, and those clothes had been fitted, and those fits had been repaired. There was still work to be done – there always was – but Kenta found some solace in flipping the sign on Hijikata Fabric's from open to closed. As the lanterns were doused, candles in every window and workroom on the street blazed to fresh life. The work continued; it must.
But, for now, he could take a moment for himself – and he did, moving slowly into the backroom to brew himself a cup of tea.
Abruptly, upstairs, there was a low thud and a swear, barely muffled by the floorboards, and then another, lower, thud, as though some catastrophe had not been averted as thoroughly as one would like.
So he brewed two cups of tea.
The shop was not quite as aged or worn as the tread on the stairs would suggest; the Hijikatas had only come to Gjöll about a decade ago, when Kane had still glowered and scrapped at the slightest provocation, when Kenta had still been too young to articulate the change which had come over the world that he had known. The open spaces of Tiamat had been replaced by cramp and bustle; his sweet dying mother had been replaced by a solemn, silent father who smiled at nothing. Things had been worse here; things had been better here.
Less druj, for one.
The shop demanded to dominate the available space, for dignity's sake at the very least, which meant that the actual living quarters were tightly cramped; the narrow set of stairs which led to the tiny living room above were barely broad enough to permit Kenta entry, and he was not a particularly strong fellow. The steps were worn down like a forest path, the handrail bleached white by long dependence upon it, and the light which managed to escape from the workshops below minimal. It was dark and worn. It was home.
The sitting room was much as Kane's squad had left it the day before, with a new stark stain in the carpet where Sanav Mahesar had tipped over the teapot and roused Morozova's suspicion in the shop below. Rakel Sjöberg had spent the whole lunch with Kenta's grandmother's blanket wrapped tightly around her shoulders, like an old crone, grousing about the cost of lace; the blanket, at least, had been folded neatly and returned to the arm of the couch without too much damage done. And though Kunegunda Kaasik had busied herself with her meal and said little, Kenta saw now that the window leading to the roof had been wrenched open and there was blood on the handle of the room that had, in childhood, belonged to his brother.
He knocked gently. She shouted something that might have been come on in.
So he came on in. And blanched.
"Is there a corpse that needs burying?"
Kunegunda blinked lazily, like a cat might. "Cobbles."
Kenta said, "put up a fight, did they?"
She had her arm contorted in a manner which could not be comfortable, trying to daub at blood on her elbow, and stubbornly ignoring all the other blood on her. She was only half-dressed, but she didn't seem to particularly care; as he entered, she was quicker to cover the place where an eye had been rather than to throw on a shirt. "This district of yours is determined to kill me."
"I don't think it's alone in that."
"At this point, I'd almost be glad to go."
Kenta shook his head. "Someday you'll be sorry for joking about it."
"When that day comes," Kunegunda said, "I give you the right to gloat."
He set down the tea. He hadn't expected to grow accustomed to his unexpected houseguest quite so soon – when Aizsaule had fallen, Kane's squad had spent two days in emergency barracks, barely sleeping while they contributed to reclaimation efforts. Then – Sanav had family in Txori who could take him in, a grandmother and a little sister who would be pleased to fuss over his wounds and feed him home-cooked meals; Rakel had a retired tagma lieutenant that Kane teased her about, a warm bed and familiarity. Kunegunda had a dead friend and a death wish, which Kenta thought was probably why Kane had let her stay here for so long: he usually preferred to divide utterly all elements of his life in the tagma from all elements of his personal life, and thereby conceal any suggestion that he was a living and breathing human being with a younger brother and dead parents and a tailorshop in the innermost district. To do otherwise would be undignified.
Undignified. Like trying to wipe blood from your elbow, without help from a mirror.
And truth be told, Kenta didn't dislike the company. It really was, for the most part, like keeping a stray cat. She let herself out by the window in the mornings; she returned late at night, sometimes in time for dinner, sometimes not. Inobtrusive might have been the right word, really.
He liked Kane's squad. It reassured him, ever so slightly, to know that his brother's comrades were not all like him: that Rakel was in love and was loved in return, that Sanav hesitated for many long moments before throwing himself bodily into danger, that Kunegunda had a cynical voice about the army and a dully pronounced hatred for the druj.
"Whatever you do," Kenta said. He crossed the room, and opened the wardrobe that stood against the wall, withdrawing the garments from within; he had crept up here during lunchtime, while she was out, in order to conceal them here. Some things were easier accomplished without inviting a fight. "Don't get blood on your new clothes."
Her dark eye met his. "Hijikata."
He held up his hands and feigned innocence. "When the captain of the expeditionary corps gives you an order..."
"This isn't the work of the captain," Kunegunda said, "this is Sanav or Suero or Rakel..."
"Is looking nice such a sin, Kinga?"
She spread her hands. "Don't I look nice?"
She had a wine-purple bruise underneath her eye in the shape of a crescent moon, layered over two black shadows of exhaustion deep enough to seem like scars; a long black cicatrice ran a jagged line from thumb to shoulder, twisting around her elbow like a vice. Her skin was sallow and worn; all of her bones stuck out, like she hadn't eaten in a year. Her hair was strewn with leaves, and her trousers were bloody. Something smelled faintly like burning.
Kenta said, "do you want me to lie to you?"
She rolled her eye, and tacitly conceded the point by switching to a new argument. "Someone needs to stay on watch."
These bloody tagma. The king and queen were literally throwing a party for them – after six months of apocalypse, a party – and they were all determined to dodge it as best they could. It would have been funny, if it wasn't downright frustrating.
"Well, then," Kenta said, voice sweet as syrup. "I suppose it won't hurt if you just happen to look great while on watch?"
She pointed at him accusingly. He rolled his eyes.
"Apologies. You always look great. But now you're going to look beautiful."
"In your eyes, perhaps."
"The only eyes that matter, surely?"
She blew him a kiss, exaggeratedly, mockingly, her voice husky. "You Hijikatas and your charm. I swear, it's exhausting."
He laughed. "Call me back in if you need help with the buttons – and even if you don't."
He backed out of the room, and closed the door squarely, rubbing at the blood on the handle with his sleeve and staring at it for a moment, like he hadn't quite conceptualised what it was until it was upon his own clothes.
"You know." His brother's voice was a low drawl. "I thought I could trust you to refrain from flirting with my squad – just this once."
"And I thought you agreed to start using the door instead of coming through the window." Kenta grinned. "We're both disappointed, it would seem."
Kane's whole squad had come to him to be garbed in good style for the evening's festivities; he had flirted shamelessly with all of them, treasuring just how irritated his brother gradually became with each wink and giggle and whisper. They had all played along marvellously – even Rakel.
Kane returned the smile. He was, indeed, sitting on the windowsill that overlooked the main street, one flat-edged sword laid across his knee as a suitor might lay a bouquet. "I am under orders," he said, "Rakel won't let me live in peace if we present as anything less than a full squad."
"A full squad of four. What a fearsome lot you are."
"Times are hard for dreamers, otouto."
He sounded tired as he said it, though Kenta suspected that none but a brother could have heard it in his voice. Kenta couldn't blame him. Here in Gjöll, the numbers of tagma dead were a statistic alone; for Kane, they had been friends, albeit friends with an unspoken time limit. Rakel had been lucky to survive this long already; Kunegunda was probably already running down her clock. And what then?
Perhaps next time it wouldn't be a friend. Perhaps next time it would be Kane.
The sword glinted silver. Kenta said, "do try to enjoy yourself."
His brother smiled. "Don't I always?"
"Meet new people. Make friends."
"I think Kunegunda has brought out your maternal side."
"She needs watching. Like you do."
Kane knew better than to argue with that.
"You look tired," Kenta said. "You're working too hard."
"I cannot work otherwise. There is too much to do."
"You could rest."
Kane shook his head. Kenta collapsed into his armchair, and stared at the tea-stain Sanav had left in the carpet. It looked a little bit like blood as well, under this dull light. They came around for lunch often now, and sometimes Kane came for dinner on the roof, and that was nice, but so often they felt like stolen moments – like preparation for saying goodbye, like they were doing this while they still could.
Kane said, lowly, "there have been large-scale druj attacks three times in the last six months. The corps is beyond decimated; we have a fifth of the men that we once had. And with each attack, a new kind of druj, worse than the last."
Kenta stayed silent. His brother never spoke so; discussion of his work was always limited to the driest, most personal details. Sjöberg made lieutenant. Chlebek is retiring. I'm taking on two new excubitors.
Are they going to get themselves killed?
Don't they always?
His brother was captain by dint of outliving all who had trained with him; Kenta sometimes forgot that fact, but he knew that Kane never did.
"The walls mean so little now," Kane said. "They kept us safe for so long, but now..." He shook his head. "Maybe if we could capture them, then the Schools could study them. Accord us some way to defend ourselves. But..."
Kenta thought he knew what Kane was talking about: the winged druj of which he had heard only rumours, which had laid waste to Mag Mell; and the enormous stone druj which had destroyed Wall Alliette and Wall Szymańska alike, and allowed its brethren to begin their onslaught. The excubitors had been hunting them feverishly, night and day, for weeks now; Kunegunda was frequently summoned from her bed to search more. But how could a golem of that size disappear? The winged druj made a little more sense, but…
Kenta set down his teacup, and fixed his brother with a meaningful gaze. "Put it out of your mind for tonight. Tonight, you are being..." He searched for the right word. What had that Watcher said yesterday? "Tonight, the whole kingdom will fête you. Enjoy that while you can. No work. You've survived four apocalypses by now, Kane. You deserve to be recognised for that much."
Kane bowed his head. His hair was in the same style as it had been throughout their childhoods: a cloud of black curls that made his eyes look all the darker. "I will," he said, "do my best to relax. And have fun."
"And dance?" Kenta managed to swallow his laugh as he continued to prod at his older brother.
"And…"
"And dance."
"With Rakel, perhaps. If I must."
"I see. And the sword?"
"Well." A smile ghosted Kane's lips. "I just think it makes me look dashing."
A clink of a spoon against a wine glass and the chatter around the room died slowly, agonisingly. Mirabelle's girls were just as reluctant to fall silent as those around them: Eunbyeol had struck up a surprisingly engaged conversation with the playwright sitting beside her, having both apparently read the same novel over the weekend and both having considerable thoughts to share on the matter; Evanne was having her wine refilled for perhaps the sixth time by the kindly retired corporal who had taken the seat opposite her, trading war stories and wounds. Mirabelle was glad to see that they both had seemed to enjoy the night out, such as it was; she would have hated to think that they would find her friends and her entertainment to be tedious, or – perhaps worse – frivolous. But no; they were among the last to quiet as Wolfram Sauer raised his glass and called for a toast.
"To this evening's triumph," he said, and there was a smattering of applause in approval of the night's play. "To our Selected and their certain victory." He turned, and smiled at Evanne and Eunbyeol in that crooked way of his, as the applause swelled. "And to our king. Long may Aviram reign."
"Long may Aviram reign."
It went around the room like a rumble, sworn like an oath. Mirabelle murmured it with the rest, and saw to her right that Eunbyeol had squeezed her eyes shut, as thought in prayer, and that Evanne had murmured it a second later than the others. Well, she was a war hero; few would quibble. Certainly Wolfram had not noticed, for he gestured that the music should strike up again and lowered himself back into his seat. The conversation leapt back up with a liveliness, but Mirabelle ignored the merchant at her left elbow trying in vain to keep her attention as she turned to her Selected.
"We should be heading off in a moment, I reckon – if that's alright with you, girls."
Evanne smiled, a little more blearily than she might have at the start of the night. "If you think we ought."
Eunbyeol nodded in agreement. "Sounds good."
"Fashionably late works elsewhere," Mirabele confided, "but with the royals… best not to risk it. I gave your maids instructions about your dresses this morning, so hopefully all will be in readiness when we arrive."
Evanne shook her head. "What would we do without you, Miri?"
Mirabelle's smile fractured a little at the nickname, but she did not chasten the girl – not now. She only spoke a little softer. "It simply doesn't bear thinking about, Evie."
She gathered her skirts.
"I'll make our excuses."
It was a veritable who's-who of fashionable Gjoll; back in the day, it had been considered something of a tacky district, a place of art and merchants without many aristocrats to its name. Those of any noble blood tended to blag their way into Ganzir proper – but as Wall Schreave had proven itself against the test of time, a slow erosion of the boundaries had begun. Nonetheless, there were no aristocracy present here tonight, and so the diners could relax a little more thoroughly; the wine could flow a little more freely. So freely, in fact, that Wolfram barely seemed to notice what Mirabelle was murmuring to him, except to ask her if she was coming back that night or whether he should return to his wife. His hand, large and encrusted with gold rings, was heavy upon her arm.
"I imagine I'll be at the palace all night." Her smile was rigid. "But the choice is yours."
She ordinarily adored these nights, the richness of conversation, the layers of gossip into which you had time to delve, the sheer variety in types of human beings that were encountered over the run of a simple three-course meal. But needs must, and tonight she felt rather as though she was suffocating; she was glad for the clear, cold air once they emerged from the banquet hall. Evanne looked as though she felt similarly; she tilted her face back, so that what little light breeze existed could wash over her skin like a baptism. She was watching the stars with the slightest of smiles on her face. On her other side, Eunbyeol was picking her path across the cobbles, as though fearful of falling; she was right to be cautious, Mirabelle thought. An injury to the face, at this late juncture… it simply didn't bear thinking about, not at all.
"We'll call a carriage," Mirabelle said, and raised a hand to signal to the nearest chauffeur. Any that were available to Wolfram were available to her, on a night such as this, and the presence of the Selected at her shoulders would only hasten their progress back towards the palace. They still had plenty of time, but Mirabelle was already feeling the hours creep in close. She wanted this to be totally perfect for them. For her. "Just in case."
Eunbyeol was saying, "this ball…. it's being thrown for the tagma, correct?"
"Correct," Mirabelle said. "I think you and I have been musing the exact same matter, Eunbyeol. Perhaps Evanne's Watcher will be in attendance."
Eunbyeol's voice was droll. "That was not at the forefront of my mind, but I am glad to hear you think so. I want to get a good look at the boy."
Evanne said, "why do you call him my Watcher?"
"We must pronounce these things into existence, dear lady." Mirabelle smiled and thanked the chauffeur as the carriage drew up next to them in a crackle of hooves against cobble and creaking wheels. It was one of the plainer ones that Wolfram had on call, but she thought that preferable; this late at night, it was often preferable to adopt a more unassuming appearance and thereby escape any detection by unfriendly elements. Certainly, she had made a habit of this much: the more jewels she wore on her throat and wrists, the duller the carriage she arrived in. "Only by saying so can we hope to make it so."
Eunbyeol lingered behind as Evanne climbed into the carriage, poised to catch the other Selected should her leg fail her. Mirabelle was abruptly, not for the first time, seized by the sadness of Tereza's absence.
Settling into her seat, Evanne said, "how do you know I want it so?"
"I don't see why you wouldn't," Mirabelle said simply. "Only one girl may be queen. And the rest of you..."
She paused. Eunbyeol and Evanne stared at her, looking abruptly like sisters: the same ink-dark hair, the same ink-dark eyes. Beautiful, both of them.
"Must make do," Mirabelle said, finally. "Driver, could you possibly rush us a little? The party cannot start without us."
Agostina Sartore had never been any great healer, but even bad healers were badly needed in all parts of the kingdom – with so many thousands injured and maimed in every district, even those as likely to kill their charges as heal them were of some use in the more desperate houses of mercy. And as bad as Agostina was, she was not quite that useless – she could, at least, wield a scalpel without proving too dire a threat to herself or her assistants. For this modicum of competence, she had been assigned to Gjöll, which in ordinary times was a posting of such extreme prestige that it had never even occurred to her to apply. Now, however, her apothecary was ashes and her brother-in-law had no work at all to his name and it had seemed now, if ever, was the time to dare to try.
She was finishing up her work as the bells began to peal vespertine. Those in the house of mercy who were most whole, least damaged, were to be paraded and feted in Ganzir; much of Agostina's day had been spent on making these chosen few as presentable as possible. In many cases, she was keenly aware that she was simply painting over the shells that they had become, but it seemed so much kinder than the alternative. Less kind were the dozens remaining behind for every one invited, but Agostina tried not to think too much about that.
She had done as much as she could; anything after this would simply be to belabour the point. Anyway, the bells had almost finished ringing out their appeal to the night; Bartolo would be wondering where she was. Since the fall of Aizsaule, they had both been nervous and jumpy; every night, Agostina found herself dreaming of that day – the moment that the red-coated watchers had threatened not to let them out of the district under siege, that the golden-garbed paqudus had tried to turn them back into the massacre.
She went from the garden, bidding a quiet goodnight to those men and women who were still awake; so many of them seemed to sleep all day long, hiding thus from their pain and from their memories. She signed out at the desk and claimed that week's pay-packet, marking her name on the register with the few slashes which made up an outer-ring signature (ᚨᛊ) and whispered a hasty farewell to the sister of mercy who was meditating quietly by the front door, a most unassuming sort of warden. Along the garden walls outside were lined the familiar assembly of those invalids well enough to be trusted in this semblance of solitude – those who were broken only physically, perhaps. Many of them had put on new tagma coats, in anticipation of the night ahead; others, particularly those with mutilated faces, were still wearing the same rumpled clothing that they had been wearing yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that.
She bid them a good night – "please, look after yourselves until I see you again."
It came back to her in an echoing wave: goodnight, Mrs Sartore, get home safe, Mrs Sartore, see you tomorrow, Mrs Sartore.
"...Mrs… Sartore?"
"Pjotr?"
He had stood from his seat; the darkness always made him seem slightly larger, his shadow fretting out his edges like armor might accentuate the shape of a soldier. In this gloom, the bright blonde of his hair was the only thing that captured the starlight; she could not distinguish much about his expression, except that his mouth was pressed into a firm line.
"I'll… walk you." He always fought to speak; it had broken Agostina's heart, the first time that she had heard it. It was so clearly not something that had plagued him from birth: that was apparent in the frustration that flared in his eyes, when he could not communicate as fluently as he wished to. It had become gradually easier, though she doubted he had noticed the progress that he had made, so focused was he on what he could not do.
This was someone's son. This could have been Bartolo, if other choices had been made, if they had been a little more desperate. How unfair their world could be.
"It's fine, Pjotr, really."
He nodded, but as she started down the street, he joined her silently, and she smiled and did not bother to dismiss him. He smiled a little as well, realising that there was to be no argument about this matter – not tonight, at least. And it was a comfort; Gjöll was usually such a safe place, but since the districts had begun to fall and it had grown crowded, there were occasionally… incidents. Incidents borne out of desperation and pain and frustration, but she didn't think that would soothe her any if something happened to her and – please, god, no – Bartolo was left alone.
Nonetheless, she felt compelled to put up a token resistance, even as they crossed the street and moved through the long white avenues of the district: "the sisters might not be happy to find you missing."
"Not… a prisoner."
That was true. And it would be good for him, to walk, to get some fresh air. This was why Agostina had never made too good a healer: she cared too much about every broken thing she encountered, and prayed that each would be a Lazarus, and broke her heart everytime humans did what humans must and succumbed. She had too much of a mother's heart to tolerate it, to tolerate any of it.
He was wearing shiny black boots, tied in a ladder like those of a fisherman, and a nice new coat, its red colour vibrant against the grey mist which always crept in low in Gjöll, as though entwined with the night itself. The fog caressed the limbs of the onyx statues scattered about the city, positioned so that even an utterly empty street still felt occupied to some small degree; it was easy to be lured into a false sense of security in a place as beautiful as this. Here and there, shadows loomed on rooftops and were gone again, sometimes with a hiss and sometimes without. Her guardian watched them thoughtfully, but said nothing, only kept his shoulders hunched and his hands tucked tightly into the pockets of his new coat.
A new coat, she thought, would probably mean only one thing: "I hope you have a good time at the ball tonight, Pjotr. You deserve it."
He nodded and hummed an agreement.
Agostina said, in the same tone with which she would tease Bartolo about Zuzu the bakery girl, "are you bringing anyone special?"
He smiled. "No."
Her voice was sly. "Planning on bringing someone back, then?"
He laughed, and did not answer for a long moment, as they crossed the Bridge of Vrata towards the Kass Gate. Agostina was staying in Kass with her brother-in-law, Lénárd, and what remained of his family; traversing the Walls had proven complicated with every commute, morning and night. But the pay was good here, better than she had hoped for elsewhere; she could not ask for more, not fairly.
After they had delved back into the mist, Pjotr said, in that slow and thoughtful way of his, "there's…. a girl."
Maybe she shouldn't have asked. But – she asked. "What's her name?"
"I don't… know."
Agostina said, "will you see her again?"
"...I shouldn't."
Ah. The finality of youth. She remembered it well. "Then don't let it hold you back, son. If we do not keep moving forward, then we are surely lost."
He nodded, and said no more; he seemed thoughtful. He would want to get going soon, Agostina thought, if he wanted to get to this party at all. But he seemed to be in no rush; she was grateful, for his sake, to see the Wall grow larger and larger before them. She would have been happy to keep his company, reassuring as it was, but she wasn't going to deprive him off his night. As they approached the gate, she noted that there were a tight knot of people around the gates – an argument afoot.
Pjotr seemed to glow a little bit from anticipation of a fight; Agostina was about to warn him to turn back, for his own sake, when, to her shock, she recognised the tall, thin fellow making his case with a low-voiced intensity.
"Mr Czarnecki?"
Czarnecki turned, half-distracted, as though he hadn't quite heard her. "Mrs Sartore."
"Are you quite alright?"
"Just some trouble with our papers."
"They don't have papers," the watcher said irritably.
"As I said," Mr Czarnecki said, tiredly. "Some trouble."
"I didn't realise that you were in Gjöll, Mr Czarnecki." Agostina reached into her coat for her papers. "Pjotr, this is –"
She turned. Pjotr had almost vanished into the mist, only the red silhouette of his coat visible as he retreated back towards the house of mercy. Whether he considered her safe enough to need no more accompaniment, or whether the sight of a fellow watcher hale and hearty was too painful for a man still trapped in the throes of convalescence… whatever the reason, Agostina could only hope that he would make his way safely to the palace tonight and have the night which was due to him, girl or no girl.
"Not in Gjöll," Mr Czarnecki said, "only visiting. This is…"
"Nesta," the girl beside him said with a smile. She was olive-skinned and curvy, with a peculiar tight necklace around her throat and pale brown eyes that looked, in this light, almost as yellow as Pjotr's hair. Her shoes were stained deeply with mud, as though she had forded a forest on her way to this spot, in the middle of the city. "Nesta Nirari."
"Pleased to meet you, Ms Nirari." Agostina tried not to let her surprise show; Mr Czarnecki had always seemed so interested in the widow Hämäläinen. To see him out so late in the evening with another woman – though, of course, a woman of Agostina's age could note easily the superficial resemblance between the two girls, which was sometimes enough for some men. Mr Czarnecki had always seemed a little more of a romantic, but people could always surprise you. "Is there anything I can do to help you both? I can vouch for them," she added, handing her papers to the austere watcher. "We were neighbours in Aizsaule. My son still raves about the music boxes Mr Czarnecki here used to make – he's a carpenter, you see, a very good one."
The watcher shook his head. "I'm afraid that we can't – " he began to say – and then his head snapped upwards as the bells on the gate began to shriek out anew. what she had mistaken for stars in the sky were actually fires – fires lit along the wall of the city, high, so high that she could have mistaken them for infernos set into the heavens themselves.
For a split second, Agostina's heart stopped.
No. Please. No. Not again. Not again.
Not the druj.
The watcher screamed, "open the gate!"
Mr Czarnecki, Ms Nirari and Agostina herself had been forgotten; the watchers were racing to their positions and hauling open, not the smaller pedestrian door, but the iron-wrought gate which admitted carriage traffic. They had barely inched it high enough to allow through the horses which raced through in the next moment; behind them, a narrow coffin-cart bounced and leapt across the cobbles, accompanied on all sides by red-garbed soldiers calling out to one another, rattling out an uncertain pulse as the panicked entourage raced towards the castle.
"Oh, god," Mr Czarnecki said, "who was that, do you reckon?"
He turned, and swore.
Ms Nirari, smiling, had darted through the open gate before the watcher could stop her, pushing past Agostina with slightly more violent force than the older woman had suspected a girl of her size to possess. Mr Czarnecki caught her, and righted her, and steadied her, and looked irritated to have to do so; Agostina couldn't blame him. Some people just weren't raised right.
The watcher looked too dazed to give chase. He handed Agostina back her papers, and gave a firm nod to Mr Czarnecki. "Just this once," he said. "You're headed away from the castle; there's only so much I can be expected to give a shit about tonight."
Mr Czarnecki smiled his appreciation. "I hope your night is peaceful after this."
The watcher looked like he very much doubted it. As Mr Czarnecki and Agostina crossed the threshold between the districts, the enormous Kass Gate crashed closed behind them once again.
"I'm along here, on Défteros Street," Agostina was saying, as they moved gradually away from the Wall. "Will you be alright from here, Mr Czarnecki?"
He nodded, but seemed a little distant. "Should be. It's not your problem, Mrs Sartore. Just a little stressed, that's all."
"It's understandable."
"Give my regards to little Bartolo."
"I will. He'll be delighted to hear from you." He'll be delighted that you're still alive. She did not ask about the others from their quarter, old Pepijn or the widow Hämäläinen or little Zuzu. She didn't want to hear any unkind answers.
They parted there, in the mist. She hoped he would be alright. She suspected he might not be.
It would take her until the next morning to realise that her wedding ring had disappeared from her hand, and the week's wages had disappeared from her bag, at some point in that strange, dark evening.