“You owe me.”
“Be safe, Ashe,” Wren said with a honeyed aura. With a dismayed look, the young woman pulled Evander back into the villa.
Ashe turned to face the vicars, drawing her flask. The mist, now to mid-calf, having been drawn to her from the surrounding streets, bubbled, reading her apprehension. So, taking one more drink, liquor and pulmo-induced blood staining her lips, she smiled, specifically at the leader with the crest. “Hey Bristletop, come find me.”
The runes along her arm shimmered as she burned the Four Tenets of Aether before she bolted.
IV
Emre
NIGHTTURN WAS ASH and sand, but the coming day would carry the seeds of revenge.
Neon lights flickered Aere spells along the skyline of Drenth as the fearless midnight sandstorm raged through the outer sectors, those burned-out districts whistling empty songs of wind against stone. The forceful grit hammered at the remnants of the once-grand complexes, wearing away the laughing memories bound within, harkening back seventeen years before Drenth’s conquest.
Homes they’d been then, now an aethecite factory.
Emre Benld waited in the foyer of one of those rundown apartment buildings straddling the boroughs of Stanktown and the Smelt in northern sectors one and four. Vengeance seared through his blood as he rolled a bead of aethecite between his thumb and forefinger. His life, and that of his city, had changed completely because of the stupid hunk of aether.
Before the week was through, he would pay it all back in full. For his child, Brynn, who was still missing. His wife, Cadrianna, who was taken from him. His parents Edric and Alandy. Cadrianna’s parents from the line of House Nightingale. For all Drenth, dead or enslaved.
Plumes of ash chugged from a half dozen chimneys five hundred feet high. Grey-black smoke cascaded about the Smelt with a sulfurous stink and painted the factory with dried aethecite flakes. The precious ore dug from the desert surrounding Drenth distilled into valuable fuel within. A scant inch of mist clung to the paved streets, nearly opaque, just as deadly as aethecite radiation from the mines.
A bell tolled twelve peals. A reminder to those still awake, or to awaken those off into the land of dreams, to inject their parch, their sole protection from the blistering radiation.
Across from the Smelt, in an open plaza of dereliction, a massive aerescreen clicked on, LED illuminating the mud-drenched street. Solanine appeared upon the screen.
“Citizens of Drenth,” Solanine’s voice clear and kindly, blaring from enlarged aethecite-powered speakers on each street corner, “forget not your nightturn injection. Remember the death that comes should you not. Aethecite is the lifeblood of Drenth, without it, our city is nothing. Our Imperium is nothing.”
“What a load of slag,” Emre muttered to himself as the streaming message repeated Solanine’s warning.
He fished out a glass vial of parch. Liquid aether within. Bringing the vial to his lips, he swallowed. It felt like fire coating his esophagus, burning his innards. His stomach clenched, but he savored the feeling, for it reminded him of what he was. What he was about to do. Emre’s eyes focused on the object of his wrath. Its decadence mocking him.
Gargantua.
His fingers dug into a broken windowsill, the sleeves of his tunic riding up his tense arms. All along his forearms were crisscrossing scars. A physical memory of when the Imperium sacked the mega-city seventeen years ago. Cut flesh when his parents were murdered before his eyes. Torn soul when his daughter was taken from him. A thin scar wrapped his neck when the Fallen had his throat cut in front of his beloved Cadrianna.
But the scars had hardened him, and he would see the Fallen’s imperium burn to the ground. The scars reminded him of what he was underneath. Vengeance incarnate.
“Finn,” Emre said as he pushed away from the window and kicked the rotted couch upon which a man slept, “it’s almost time.”
Irises of the prettiest ice blue surrounding a golden pupil snapped open. “I was having probably the filthiest thoughts ever about you.” A perfect smile crossed Finn’s handsome face as he rose from the lumpy seat.
Though appearing of a similar age but far more handsome if you listened to him, Finnus Dunleith was not Drenth-born, but of Kalderim, which meant he was an elfir and was closer to nine hundred and twenty years old whereas Emre was nearly forty. Finn was tall and broad-shouldered, with thick, silver hair that curled around the nape of his neck. His pointed ears peeked through the waves, and he wore the same simple dung-brown mining tunic as Emre, although he had somehow found a way to make it more fashionable by slicing some unnecessary holes at the knees.
“’Bout bloody time,” Kephren complained as he paced the breadth of the foyer. His hands were stuffed into his pockets but Kephren’s emerald pupils glowed with delight. He was burning, for the rebel’s movements were quicker than a normal man’s.
“What?” Emre asked of the antsy man wasting his aetheurgy. Burn Form wasn’t innate like Shard Form, and Emre didn’t want any of his friends to burn out before their use was fulfilled.
“I don’t trust Killian Ness.”
“Killian wouldn’t have crossed us.” Emre leaned against the worn frame where a door had once been, toying with the pellet of aethecite. Lower, “He knows better.” Lower still, “knew.”
Kephren spun on his heel. “Heard some whispers Killian’s been working with Bar Stock.” His raven hair was in thick, corded locks, and had high cheeks of the same dusky coloring of all Drenth-born. He sported a faded shirt and narrow, cuffed trousers.
“Snuff if, Keph,” Emre said, gaze going back to the shadow of Gargantua. The fortress’ outline shone in the moonlight. His hands balled into fists, anger scalding hotter than the aether down his throat. He reined it in by combing his hands through his short, curled dark hair. “Don’t waste your burn. Nothing but rumors. Killian’s clean.”
“You trust too easily.” Kephren’s face split in a smile toward Emre, but the illumination in his pupils faded as he snuffed his aetheurgic Enhancements. “The Fallen’ll crush us under his boots before we can reach fifty.”
“I’ve already seen fifty,” Finn said. “And then fifty more many times over. But Keph’s got a point, Bar Stock won’t negotiate with us. Maybe they’re working Ness under the table. Em? You listening?”
“I heard you.” Emre took one last look at Gargantua, then steeled himself. Tonight, it signals the end. “Even if Killian is working with Bar Stock, he knows the rebellion will make him profit.”
“I hate working with these gangs,” Kephren said. “I don’t trust the lot of them to turn us over to the Fallen the first chance they get. How many of our hits have been sussed out before we could set up? It has to be the gangs. Them Imperium rats aren’t bright enough. Besides, Finn, I’d rather die young and handsome.”
Finn snorted. “I’d not put you and handsome in the same closet, let alone the same city.”
Emre scratched at his stubble to avoid digging at the scars on his arms. “Me too, Keph. But until the Imperium’s destroyed, we’re stuck working with the gangs.” That changes tonight. Kalderim will join us, they must. Finn’s convinced they will. “Without parch, the rebellion is done. And you know it.”
“You think Ness will be content just working with us? None of the other gangs want anything to do with the rebellion. And you said it yourself, the factories won’t trade directly. No matter how many we get inside.”
Emre checked his pocketwatch instead of answering—the one his father, Edric Benld, the former regent, had given him the day before the Imperium came, the day Emre’s life had shattered. The midday shift had just ended. The forges would go dark for the next hour, the furnaces would be cleaned and brushed out. The day’s output catalogued and boxed up, loaded for transport before the clock hit the first hour mark of a brand-new day of enforced labor. The workers released to find food or a waiting bed.
Emre had to hope that today would be different, but hope was a fickle companion.
Cad… forgive me… “Enough chit, and that means you too, Finn. Game faces on. I want this done cleanly. Don’t you goad Ness.”
