Aliyah

She slammed the door shut in a squeal of flaking metal and fumbled for a deadbolt. Shouts echoed outside, mingling with the distant crackle of spellfire. She locked the door with its pair of rusted bars and hoped it would hold. Then she cut her gaze through the innards of the ship, forcing herself to focus—outside was not her problem now. Now, there was only darkness and corners, and ceilings.

She unsheathed her knife. Nothing but exposed pipes and peeling paint. A narrow corridor, empty. Had she been lucky after all?

She sharpened her hearing, directing it away from whatever was happening outside, and found footsteps. Multiple sets, approaching from the end of the hall, light and careful. Positioned just so. Unless they had another illusionist, this was real. It’d be nice if this were only another illusionist. They would’ve heard the door. She was trapped at the end of the corridor, a makeshift chokepoint. She had perhaps ten, twenty seconds to decide what to do. A strange, jittery calm descended over her like salt fog.

Better the element of surprise than not, she thought. Shield up. Go, now.

She drew her knife and charged, hitting the first attacker head-on; her shield turned a blade aside. The man grunted and lurched sideways; her free hand skittered across what felt like leather armour as it pushed magic through. Vasodilation found its mark; the man dropped.

More bodies crowded in—human ones, far too many. She dodged a thrusting staffpoint, only to be hit with spellfire—her shield burst as she ducked under a cudgel. The next strike slammed onto her shoulder as she flailed for its owner. She grazed the side of a hand and her cast overshot. There came a scream as fingers shattered from the inside-out.

Vasodilation next, even as someone else made a swing at her. Her hand shot up to protect her face, and the sheathed—sheathed? she wondered—blade slammed full-force into her arm, fracturing something. She screamed even as her mind retreated from the pain, awareness warped as if it were detaching from her body. Everything was moving too fast, a desperate scramble of silhouettes. Someone tried to cram her head into a sack; vasodilation again. And again. One at a time. She shored up her injuries and forced the last human to unconsciousness; his head hit the floor with a sickening crack.

Six of them, she realised as she stood panting over the pile of bodies. Her veins fizzled with adrenaline. She tasted blood; her nose was already bleeding. Her hand clutched tight at her borrowed knife. Was it her blood on the blade, or someone else’s? It was hard to tell, in the dark.

A sheathed sword lay where it had fallen, and she deliberated on whether to pick it up. Probably not, she decided. These were close quarters, and she might well end up dropping the point of it onto her own foot. She eyed the sheath warily; it was likely they didn’t mean to kill her. But it didn’t mean they wouldn’t. People always underestimated how easy it was to hit someone’s head too hard and…

Dread coiled in her gut as she stepped shakily over the fallen men—mercenaries? Foray-men? All well-muscled and rough-looking, clad in mismatched armour. Some had goggles strapped around their heads, presumably to help them better see in the dark. She hoped none were dead; there hadn’t been anything to cushion their heads upon landing. Then she shook her head. This wasn’t her concern—not here, not now. She needed to find shelter. Perhaps there was a better room upstairs, some sort of storage closet or captain’s cabin.

Tuning her hearing for hints of more footfalls, she crept out of the corridor and emerged into a larger room. It seemed it had once been a modest parlour-hall of sorts. She edged around holes in the floorboards; they were evenly-spaced, as if smashed open with purpose and intent. Snarls of spiked wire peeked through from beneath, and she glimpsed coils of long-dead ship’s machinery. Whoever had anticipated her making it this far—and it was disturbingly thorough of them, to prepare even this wreck—had not accounted for her bolstered night-vision.

The corridor beyond was wider, gave her a little room to breathe. She expanded her senses fruitlessly; there didn’t seem to be anyone left. The fight had made some commotion, hadn’t it? Anyone listening would have fair warning to retreat, or to lay in wait.

She spotted a ladder, set into the wall; a crewman’s exit? She sheathed her knife and grasped the rails, wincing as rust flaked off onto her palms. The ladder brought her up to a half-open hatch. She hesitated, straining her ears. Was that soft breathing she heard beyond, perhaps spell-muffled? If it was, then poking her head out would be a sure way of getting it chopped off.

Never forget to look up.

She reached for her magic—not her Healer magic—and slid half a dozen needles from where they’d been sheathed in her sleeve.

Tiny flickers of extra-sensory awareness sparked to life at the head of each needle and melded themselves to her sphere of perception. Maids had to know where their needles were if they wanted to sew with them; she wasn’t as proficient as some, but she could manage a simple formation of six at once.

A shield would stop a needle easily, but she saw no tell-tale glow beyond the hatch. She hadn’t recast her own shield for that very reason; sinking further into night vision was easier and probably safer, for now. She sent the needles scouting, up and past the lip of metal.

It was difficult to fly needles without seeing. She couldn’t gather detailed information about their surrounds; only a vague sense of direction in relation to herself and a certain frisson of knowledge if they happened to touch something solid. She fanned them out and slid them across the ground rather than let them fly blindly through the air. Details of grit and texture were muffled, but eventually, the leading needle hit…something. She furrowed her brow and concentrated: leather texture. A…boot?

Aliyah doubted the boot belonged to the only mercenary in wait. Perhaps she should stay here, wait out the fight. Then someone murmured from above, and the sound of shuffling movement sent her stepping hastily back down the ladder, as quietly as she could. She released her hold on her needles rather than try to withdraw them; the movement might rouse attention. She had another six stowed into her other sleeve and another dozen in her pockets; Silas had been generous in that regard.

She hurried back down the corridor and crouched off to the side at its mouth. If they wanted to come get her, they would have to pass through a reverse-chokepoint of their own. She barely managed to settle herself before the hatch clanked fully open. Something thudded against the floor—she pictured the mercenary landing in a crouch, rising to his feet and—

A man darted out, sword-first. Her hand darted out to jab into his side, but his head snapped round at the movement and he twisted away. Rough fingers tightened around her wrist, and the blade whipped round, the tip resting against her stomach. She tried to cast vasodilation into his hand, and…nothing. He wore some sort of reinforced glove—sizzling symbols lit up in its weave as she tried again, soaking up her magic like a sponge. Her dark-adjusted eyes watered under the sudden flare of runelight.

“Don’t even try it,” the man growled. He nudged her with the sword, still poised to run her through, and turned to speak over his shoulder. “Bindings up front, now.”

Bindings? Two others emerged from the corridor, each carrying shackles in one hand and heavy cudgels in the other. Panic crawled up her throat—she needed to get out. She needed to get away, right now.

She numbed her abdomen as best she could and gritted her teeth tight. Then she whisked the remaining needles from her sleeve and threw them at his head. Two slid off the lenses of his night-goggles. The others found their way up his nostrils and into his eardrums—he bellowed, fingers tightening to almost crush the bones of her wrist. The sword jabbed forward, didn’t quite run her through. She screamed anyway, and kicked blindly. Her foot caught on his leg and the fragmented breakage she cast must’ve done something, because he swore and let go, slumping to his knees.

She scrambled to retreat, healing herself as she went. A different hand fisted into her hair, yanking her up short. Her scalp pulled tight with pain. Sudden, acute regret flashed through her; should’ve chanced it with the shield. Gloved hands made to grab at her body; she panicked and pulled away. The movement yanked at her hair, hard enough to make her eyes water.

Saiphenora had done the exact same thing. Aliyah had turned the moment over as she’d drifted off into an uneasy sleep; how she could have avoided it, what she could have done. She felt each hair pulled tight, could map them out on her scalp. She couldn’t cast through hair—hair wasn’t living tissue. But the roots were.

She tore her hair out at the roots and lunged away. The man shouted as she hit the ground and rolled clumsily to her feet, well into the open area of the hall. Healing her head, she looked up just in time to see him drop a handful of hair and raise his cudgel. His companion readied his, too.

She grabbed her borrowed knife, reached for her needles. Behind her came sounds of stirring that chilled her to the bone—the forayers from earlier. Her casts for false-sleep didn’t act indefinitely.

Both mercenaries lunged in unison. She jumped sideways, over a yawning hole in the floorboards—one stumbled into empty air and shouted as he crashed through. The other slammed his cudgel into her gut, knocking the breath from her lungs. She drew on her magic and recovered, fast enough to slash blindly with knife and needles—her knife grazed across his shoulder, but the needles she lost, flung too hastily. He darted back, and she stumbled away. Her nosebleed had trickled to a halt; instead, her head thrummed with pain. Her eyes watered, feeling as though they might roll out of their sockets.

The man dropped his cudgel and unsheathed the sword at his hip. Aliyah fired all six of her remaining needles into his sword-hand. He shouted and switched the weapon to his other hand, before lunging.

Darting diagonally, now—she had to get around him. Otherwise, she was trapped—there were no exits here, and the first batch of mercenaries she’d vasodilated were going to come round any minute now.

She gritted her teeth, prepared for pain. Better to suffer this than to risk being surrounded by six more.

She charged, slashing with her knife—his sword found her arm and bit in deep. She roared and kept running, wrenching herself loose. Blood poured out—messy cut, must’ve hit an artery. Another slice into her back as she sprinted away. She fought to patch the wounds through her blazing headache, almost tripping over the fallen mercenary at the mouth of the corridor. He stirred and groaned, but didn’t rise to his feet.

Down the corridor, she thought hysterically. Down, down, go now. She made it halfway up the ladder before the sword-wielding mercenary caught up and locked a gloved hand round her ankle. She kicked at his head and he let go, stepping back—for a moment, she thought herself free—then he flung a spell-slip at her. Paper burst into spellfire on contact with skin. Agony seared through her body. She screamed and lost grip on the railings, hitting the floor hard enough to be winded. The spellfire burnt out, and the mercenary leaned over and grabbed her by what hair hadn’t been detached at the root. There was a brief, terrifying struggle before her hand found the skin of his throat and vasodilated him.

She staggered to her feet and scrambled up the ladder. Finally, she breached the hatch and crawled onto the dust-coated floor, already reaching for the needles she’d abandoned there. Someone grabbed her arm. She screamed and lashed out; her fist and needles stopped short against a shield.

“Chimera,” said Shasta. “It’s just us.”

She blinked the grit out of her eyes, still panting for breath. Shasta leaned over her, brow furrowed and shortsword angled away. Tomas stood behind him, wiping his knife on his sleeve.

‘Y-you got in?” she croaked. “How?”

Shasta jerked his thumb behind him. “Faeries fucked off faster than we thought, so Tomas got us up and over. Cleared the stragglers, but uh. Let’s get out, hey? Mercs aren’t so loyal with the bosses gone, but we don’t want to be hanging around.”

She sheathed her needles, shivering as the adrenaline began to drain from her body. “Th-thanks.”

“No worries,” Shasta said, pulling her to her feet. “’S what you’re paying us for.”

===

She re-grew the clumps of hair she’d lost before they made it back outside. Her nose seeped blood, and her eyes watered as they passed the glow of street-lamps. Shasta filled her in on the commotion as they hastened their way back to Silas’s shop. Tomas trailed behind them, silent but for the occasional grunt of agreement.

“Tomas’s slips took care of at least a handful, and after that they took off sharpish,” Shasta was explaning. “Great stuff, eh? His wife’s a runescribe, you know.”

“She is very skilled,” Tomas rumbled with a note of pride. “The best in the district.”

“So then,” Shasta continued, “We got a boost onto the top deck and cleaned house. Wasn’t too much trouble; a couple of mages in the crew, but they didn’t have anything deadly on ‘em. Might’ve been worse if you went where they were leading you.”

“Okay,” Aliyah said, and desperately tried to gather her thoughts through her wool-stuffed headache. “Wait, where would a faery get so many mercenaries?”

Shasta shrugged. “Not from me, or I’d’ve known. Was a little too busy knocking heads to ask questions—hey, Tomas, could you find Belia and get her to ask around?”

“Yes,” Tomas grunted, and peeled away into a side-street.

Aliyah pressed a hand to her temple. “Hang on. If there weren’t so many faeries here—if the illusions accounted for at least half—then Kionah and Luxon…I have to go after them.”

Shasta frowned. “What? No, you don’t. How would you even find them?”

“You know where your dog is,” she shot back. She’d overheard him arguing with Luxon earlier, telling her to make sure she put the homing collar onto his pet. She’d also heard a series of colourful threats about what would happen if Mutt should come to harm.

“Nope,” Shasta said. He clapped a hand onto her shoulder, as if to stop her from running off. “You got what you wanted, didn’t you? Their fighting force is hobbled for now. We stick to the plan—back to Silas’s. Who knows? Luxon and Kionah might already be there.”

She ground her teeth together and shrugged off his hand. “You know where they are,” she said. “You know if they’re there or not. The way you’re saying it, it doesn’t sound like they are.”

He shrugged. “We’re not finding out until we get there, are we?”

She stopped walking and crossed her arms. “Tell me where they are.”

He stopped himself, and scowled. “Kionah’ll stab me if I get you killed.”

“What? No she won’t. The faeries weren’t split up enough, if they were relying on mercenaries. You realise this means she and Luxon are in danger—I’ll be useful if they get into a fight.”

He snorted. “No you won’t. You look like shit. You’re a couple casts from burning out.”

She scowled through her headache. “I’m fine.”

“There’s blood all over your shirt.”

“It’s not mine,” she lied.

He raised an eyebrow, and she realised that the sword-cut in her back hadn’t quite closed. She set her jaw against the inevitable spike of headache as she sealed the wound shut. She thought of Zahir as she did it, and her stomach lurched; the second-kindest thing he’d done, after taking her on as apprenticeling, was to teach her to fix her whipping scars.

The scars weren’t fully gone—by the time she’d learned how, they’d already healed the natural way. She would have had to remove the flesh and regrow it if she wanted an unmarked back, and she hadn’t fancied on stomaching the trauma a second time. But she’d faded and fixed them so they weren’t as stiff and didn’t twinge as she worked. Though sometimes, if she reached for something the wrong way, she felt a tug at her back—the skin stretched a touch too tight. And there was a ghost-ache there, on cold nights, a tedious reminder of how unsafe she was—how unsafe she’d been. Tedious, but perhaps necessary.

Frustration boiled up in her stomach. She wasn’t unsafe now—not in the way she had been. She was free of the kingdom, and well-placed to rescue Zahir. And some upstart smuggler lord wasn’t letting her.

“Listen,” Shasta said, possibly in response to the look on her face. “Kionah can handle herself, and I reckon Luxon’s more than a potioneer, in a pinch. Silas gave them both some protective charms, too. You, on the other hand, look like you’re going to faint any minute now.”

“So help me,” she said. “Lend me some of your magic.”

He blinked. “I don’t think…”

She drove the point deeper. “You care about Kionah, don’t you? You seem like old friends. I’m the only one who can do anything if she gets hurt.”

He scowled and fished a folded pamphlet out of his pocket, frowning in concentration—a map, she realised. Twin pinpricks of spell-light flared in his eyes, and a matching gleam sparked upon the map’s surface—tracking the homing collar, she realised. Another moment passed before the lights sputtered out and he shook his head as if to clear it.

Shasta sighed, stuffing the map back into his pocket. “Underground, as far as I can tell. By the time we get there, they might be headed back.”

“They might be,” Aliyah argued. “If they’re not, then I’ll need to be there to make sure they’re okay.”

To make sure Zahir’s okay, she didn’t add. Anything capable of holding him would have to be damaging on some level or other; she recalled the memory of the princess Alhena walking to her death and shivered—oily runesigns, blackened fingertips, cells gone necrotic.

“Well?” she pushed. “Aren’t you worried about Kionah? You only need to lead the way.”

“Fine,” he said tersely, turning away. “Keep up, now.”

She pushed the darker thoughts out of her head—time enough to mull it all over later—and followed.