“What is wrong with you? You could have broken my nose!”

Farris shrugged. “And you could have been standing somewhere sensible.”

He held out a hand and helped pull the captain to his feet, keeping his other hand hidden from view.

“I seem to have dropped my pipe.” Farris gestured to the floor. “Could you help me look for it?”

It was the captain’s turn to laugh. “Oh, I would be glad to if I didn’t have this damn city to protect.”

Padraig marched off towards the barracks in the western wing, wiping dust from his cloak as he went.

Farris smiled and picked his pipe up from the ground. He bowed to the king and closed the door, straightening himself before walking out through Móráin Hall.

When he reached the gates of the castle, he was greeted with the same pleas of help from the lame beggar. Farris walked over and casually dropped Padraig’s coin-purse in front of the old Simian. The beggar scrambled over to it and leapt in the air with delight when he saw it was full of gold.

Farris sighed as he watched the beggar pick up the bag and run off to the market in the distance, leaving his wooden walking sticks behind.

Actors in a city of lies. From the highest noblemen to the crippled beggars, we do what we must to get by

Chapter 3:

The Garrison

A cold morning breeze sliced salt and moisture across Morrígan’s face; she tasted smoke in the air. Roseán was not far from the Simian city of Penance, and soot and steam often came carried in on northerly winds over the Glenn. Sometimes airships flew over those jagged peaks, but on the day Morrígan’s mother was buried, the sky remained empty and grey.

Most of the same villagers who had attended the funeral were gathered in Roseán’s cramped graveyard behind the chapel. People shuffled as they crowded around the gaping hole in the ground, careful not to step foot on any of the other surrounding graves. A coffin sat at the bottom. Morrígan committed the image to memory, knowing it was the last time she’d ever be this close to her mother.

There was some comfort in the routine; Morrígan couldn’t deny that. Still, she couldn’t help but feel slight disgust as Daithí the Blessed described her mother with the same vague, clichéd phrases as he did at every burial.

“She was a kind woman, a caring mother, and a loving wife.”

Morrígan clenched her jaw tight. She never loved him.

The sound of iron scratching stone punctuated the priest’s words as four men shovelled dirt on top of the coffin. Yarlaith would often use his own Geomancy for village burials, but the healer was still busy in the clinic. Morrígan could still hear the Pyromancer’s screams from the previous night.

“She was well loved by the community,” Daithí continued, “and she would have loved to see all of you gathered here today.”

Morrígan glanced over her shoulder to gauge the size of the crowd. Then why didn’t they ever get together for her when she was alive?

“Though short, her life was full of laughter and love. There is nothing more terribly tragic than the death of someone so young and beautiful.”

She was more than her youth. She was more than her beauty.

Morrígan closed her eyes and blocked out the rest of the druid’s words. She wore her new beadhbh cloak, fastened tight against the wind. One of the strange adventurers had been carrying the feather and down of a skinned beadhbh, and Yarlaith had Mrs. Mhurichú, the local dressmaker, fashion it into a cloak. It fit her well, but Morrígan was more interested in the other implications her birthday present carried.

They travelled through the Glenn. They explored the poisonous valley, and only one lived to tell the tale.

Although Roseán was situated just several miles from the Glenn, she knew very little about it. Yarlaith had once said that every plant and flower in the valley was poisonous, and every bird and beast a predator. Its mountains acted like a massive, natural shield separating Roseán and the Clifflands from the Simians of Penance to the north.

Morrígan recalled the Simian’s words from the previous night. Surely, he meant well, but part of her struggled with the thought of there being nothing… after. No Tierna Meall. No life. Nothing. How could anyone live a happy life without knowing where they would end up? She knew little about Simian culture, but they did hold funerals of sorts. She had once read about great furnaces where the Simians would burn their deceased, releasing the remains into the air in the form of fumes.

This was a disturbing thought, as the Church claimed that only in the pure, undisturbed form of a buried corpse could one live forever. To interfere with the dead was a sin worse than murder itself.

A murmur rippled through the crowd, signalling that the ceremony was coming to an end. Morrígan, didn’t stir, and instead stood staring at the grave.

“Morry, are you alright?”

Taigdh appeared by her side, but she barely turned to look at him.

“Yes,” she replied. The word felt like a lie before she even said it.

“We’re all heading back to The Bear now,” he said. “Sorcha and Darragh are coming too, but if you want to stay here instead, we understand.”

Morrígan nodded. As she did, a mound of dirt upon her mother’s grave quivered, just slightly.

“Did you see that?” said Morrígan.

“No?” he said, taking a step closer. “What was it?”

“I saw something move. Just now, in the grave.”

“What?”

“There look! It’s happening again!”

Morrígan pointed a quivering hand down at the grave. There, several pebbles and stones trickled down the mound, as if the ground beneath them was shifting.

“It’s just the soil settling,” said Taigdh, shaking his head. “It’s nothing.”

“How can you be sure?” Morrígan’s voice rose. Taigdh balked in response. Behind him, Darragh and Sorcha, the dressmaker’s daughter, caught Morrígan’s eye.

“What’s the matter, Morrígan?” asked Sorcha. She approached and casually slipped her fingers inside Taigdh’s. Morrígan pretended to ignore that.

“The grave, the soil, it’s moving. Look!”

The three looked at the grave; none were polite enough to object. After a moment of waiting, another tiny shift in the soil caused more grains to come loose.

“There!” cried Morrígan. “Do you see?”

Sorcha sighed. “It’s nothing, Morrígan. It’s probably the wind, or—”

“It’s not the wind. It’s like something’s moving down there, something—”

Morrígan gasped as the realisation came to her. “What if she’s alive?”

Silence. On hearing those words, Taigdh, Darragh, and Sorcha all stood still, averting their eyes from hers.