A muffled tolling of bells marked the small hours of the morning.
In the back of the darkened and empty Special Research laboratory, a gleaming rectangle of light outlined a closed door. From behind it came the steady, blurry hum of a fume hood vent. The door was emblazoned with several blaring red warning signs.
Inside, head bowed over a metal tray, Aralia worked a long, fat syringe into one glass ampule after another, carefully injecting a mustard-colored liquid through each self-sealing cap. She was mostly unrecognizable in a shapeless canvas jumpsuit, her face sealed behind a gleaming black gas mask.
Unable to sleep, she’d left Ellie in bed and come down here.
Her world was narrowed to the work surface in front of her. The churning white noise of the ventilation blotted out all other sounds. Fragments of memory replayed themselves and she bore reluctant witness to her mind’s swirling spectacle.
She saw Ellie’s face, burdened with tentative hope and turned up towards her like a beacon. Remembering her plea, Aralia’s heart lurched unsteadily.
I think you might have saved my life. She flushed, her voice dipping and swooping and fluttering like small bird towards temporary shelter. I just hope you still want to…keep me?
The vulnerability in her voice cut Aralia like a knife. She closed her eyes for a moment, as another, much older memory loosened on its mooring and drifted slowly up.
~ ~ ~
The farmstead on Faso where Pasha and Aralia have been tucked away like curious objects into a discerning finder’s pocket is nestled in a valley deep in the brown-dryhills. The family that lives here looks after their needs, urges patience, and tells them nothing. For the last few weeks, their world has been these few stone buildings with tiled red roofs, the goat pasture and the garden, the slope of gnarled olive trees and the vineyard, the waves of heat and the crisp blue sky.
Aralia knows better than to try to escape, but she also cannot stand waiting on the mercy of whoever is keeping them here. Her impatience has been at a rolling boil.
Today that could change.
In the dark coolness inside the farmhouse, Aralia and Pasha sit at a thick and pitted oak table with Emilia and Monarda and their gray-bearded uncle, Vinto, and some of their clan elders. A scattering of other Andartes dressed in homespun farmcloth look on. Aralia’s foot wants to tap nervously against the floor, and she forces it into stillness as the remains of a repast of bread, pale cheese, olives and jugs of watered wine are cleared from the table.
An old woman with glittering eyes and smile lines clears her throat. “We will hear you now.”
Aralia looks around at the deeply creased brown faces. “I will be brief. We two are survivors of the Damselfly. Our kin have plied your waters for generations. Some of you must have known our navigators, Jacynth and Venti and Moa. Perhaps you yourselves took oaths with them, perhaps not, but I should not have to remind you that oaths were taken.”
There is a small rustling and shifting as the elders exchange looks with each other. Emilia glares.
Aralia takes a deep breath. “We think some of our kin and shipmates may still be alive. We wish to search for them. Please, if you value your blood-sworn bonds in the slightest, if the pacts between our people and yours meant anything, if any loyalty still holds, help us.”
An indignant murmur arises and the same old woman holds up a veiny hand. “You speak much too confidently of shul vana oaths for one so young. Do not think you can herd us about like geese, with clever words and meanings, child. Do you think so little of us, to challenge us with our own blood bonds? You cannot possibly ken what such oaths mean to me and mine.” She dropped her hand back onto her lap.
Pasha quickly bows his head and looks back up. He is looking much more hale and hearty, now that he is taking the halia again—at least the hill kitchen counter version Aralia has been able to mix up with the basic equipment and plant-based precursors she has access to here.
“We meant no offense, grandmother, please forgive my sister her impudence.”
Aralia bites the inside of her cheek and lowers her eyes, trying to emanate humility and not show her frustration.
“Our recent experience in the Imperiat’s hygiene camp is still horribly fresh,” Pasha continues, his voice lowering soberly. “And the thought that our shipmates may still be imprisoned in similar conditions is nearly intolerable.”
Another elder, with a face so worn and creased by wind and sun that they are of indeterminate gender, grunts and clears their throat. “I have counted Hallel of the Damselfly as friend and heart kin for thrice your life-span, child. Many of us marked their loss and the loss of your ship with sorrow, rage and despair—not just for the sake of all those the enemy took from us, but also for the ending of the exchange of halia and the knowledge of its Making that your people brought with them.”
Pasha nods slowly. “Thank you, all of you. Perhaps there is something we can still offer you in the spirit of the oaths that our people have exchanged. My sister Aralia is a Maker and is bound by our traditions to offer her skill to those in need of it.”
Another rustle and murmur of satisfaction.
Aralia grinds her teeth impatiently. “I would be happy to train some of your healers to compound the halia. But for myself, I must keep searching for other survivors, and with utmost haste, for the trails are rapidly growing cold.”
She looks around, as pleadingly as her pride will allow. “I cannot rest while the fates of my kin remain unknown, whilst they might be languishing in a place such as Hellebore, rotting in a bilge or being tortured by the Imperiat. I must find them.”
The second elder spreads their hands. “I would ask you to state your need, but I already know that we cannot give you what you seek, child. The Imperiat takes many prisoners, steals many children. We contest their rule here as best we can, but their reach is endless and their resources seemingly infinite, and we are losing less and less slowly. We have sought long and hard for how to get our own back but their machinations and systems remain obscure to us.”
Aralia exchanges a troubled look with Pasha.
“It was only by luck that we learned of the fortress you were held in. We sheltered an Imperiati defector last winter who provided us with a trove of detailed files, and in those we found information about Hellebore, its defenses, location and approaches. He has since been smuggled away to Opali.”
Seeing her stiffen in excitement, the elder continued. “I can see the stubbornness in your heart, child. Know this: there are wounds that will never heal. They must be carried with us, and they are heavy indeed, but they can also give the strength to take vengeance.”
Aralia shakes her head. “No,” she says flatly. “Some of our people may still live. I refuse to give up on them until I know their fates.”
The first elder frowns at her, but the second waves her off, sighing. “How can you know? How can any of us know?”
Aralia grits her teeth. “The Imperiat keeps records of everything—theirs is an empire of clerks. I just survived one of their schools, and what I learned there, more than anything, was who they are, how they think, and how their form of power works. I know what I could do with that kind of access.”
Emilia crosses her arms, glancing around at the room, clearly struggling to hold back from interrupting her elders. She cannot contain herself. “What are you going to do?” she blurts suspiciously.
Aralia glares back at her. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to join them.”
There is a chilly silence. Pasha swallows, barely holding his tongue, joins everyone in looking at her.
Emilia is staring daggers.
“You’re smugglers, aren’t you? Smuggle me into the Imperiat—to their University. I’ll enroll as a student, and make myself indispensable. And in exchange I’ll pass you information for your forays.”
Aralia’s proud gaze sweeps the circle of faces at the table. “I can do this. I’m volunteering for it. I’ve succeeded in exploiting their systems before.” She jerks her chin at Emilia. “Ask her.”
Vinto grunts. “You are proposing to collaborate. We do not tolerate collaboration, here.”
“No.” Aralia says firmly. “I am proposing to infiltrate, and feed you information from the inside.”
Emilia shakes her head in disbelief. “Don’t pretend like you’ll be able to tell the difference! You forget that I know what its like in there—it’s a maze of power games, an absolutely insane world—they force you into making choices that are designed for you to lose yourself!”
Aralia sets her jaw. “I can do it. I know I can win.”
Deep down, a sense of her own unspent strength festers. And if Aralia cannot reknit the broken pieces of what she once had, she at least relishes the idea of snapping the Imperiat’s most prized machine to pieces under their noses. Part of her cannot wait to see how badly she can beat them at their own game. Did Hellebore leave her with anything, any alternative, besides this path of masks and knives?
She tilts her chin up at their incredulity. “Please. You lose nothing if I fail, but if I succeed, I’ll be an invaluable source. Besides, you can keep me on as short a leash as you please. And if you grow to distrust me, you can always be rid of me. Just feed my secret to them, and they’ll do the rest for you.”
As if they would ever stoop to that.
“She did poison the entire garrison,” says Monarda quietly. When Aralia meets her eyes, though, they harden.
There would be no undoing that betrayal, no return to the myopia of trust. Very well, perhaps it was better this way. All clean, sharp, uncomplicated lines of calculation. A navigator’s trigonometry.
The elders share a look with each other. “We’ll consider this matter more. For now, have patience. Do not be so eager to rush back into the maw of the animated corpse you’ve only just escaped.”
Aralia bows her head reluctantly, and her eyes flicker over to meet Pasha’s sideways glance.
“Aralia…” he murmurs, below the sound of scraping chairs as the elders stand.
“For Kalista, mea canar” she said grimly. “I’ll do anything.”
“Anything?”
In his eyes, the same battle that is taking place inside of her. Pasha will follow her back into the nightmare, of course. She has no care for herself, but can she do that to him? There is a terrible hole inside of both of them. Beyond all reason, Aralia is drawn to repair it, but what if this course she is setting will only widen it, only chip away at the edges of them both until there is nothing left?
And yet, if there’s any chance of finding Kalista…
She clears her throat and the room’s attention settles back onto her. “While I wait on your decision, send me a few willing healers, and I will teach them for you.”
“You have our thanks, Maker.”
“I’ll need some supplies, as well.”
“Vinto here will see to your needs in that regard.” A glance at the gray-bearded man, and he offers Aralia a firm nod.
“And one more thing.” She pauses, meets the elder’s sharp eyes. “I’ll need your leave to study those files you spoke of.”
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