Captain Arhin had found her staring at the remains of a small teahouse, a place that held a special spot in her heart. A memory of Emre. When the captain had rushed toward her, she brushed off his concern with a glassy-eyed dismissal, telling him they needed to return to Gargantua.
She just needed to be away from Drenth. Maybe she’d return to Oldport Basin, to her ancestral home.
“Very well,” Captain Arhin said back in the present. “I shall take umbrage with the quartermaster and report my losses.” The captain had been in a skirmish earlier that day with some gangland brutes in Slag’s End and had suffered casualties. His focus went to the man running the controls from within a glass box at the top of the ramp. “You there, look alive. Get…” his words trailed off as there was some much ado further up the gangplank.
The distinctive clink of drake scale on metal made Cadrianna roll her eyes. And based on the gait and bearing of the form skulking toward her, it was Ratko. The last person she cared to see.
Ratko clapped his hands as he came to a stop and blocked Cadrianna from exiting the gondola. The man’s beard swung free, those lustful eyes sneering as they performed a full-bodied once over. “Been slumming it in the scraps again?”
Nocturne, she just didn’t like the man. And especially now, of all times. “Better use of my time than whoring it up in the brothels.”
“Sweetling, I’d much rather whore it up with you.” Cadrianna made to pass but Ratko put a gloved hand upon her. She went to draw the Strix, only to be callously reminded she didn’t have the blade. “You may have the favor of the Fallen, but that honor won’t protect you forever.”
She looked down at the glove on her shoulder. “Unless you want it broken, I suggest you remove your hand from me.”
Ratko smiled like a viper; teeth exposed ready to bite but he removed his hand anyway. “I look forward to the day we can finally cross steel, sweetling. Then I’ll play with your corpse however I wish.” With that, Ratko brushed past Cadrianna without another look.
The soldiers divided like a river going around a boulder submerged in the middle of its wake as she stalked from the gondola. Her thoughts were nothing but of Emre and Brynn, Ratko no more than a fleeting memory.
The stairs led into a man-made tunnel coated with the natural stalactites borne of the stone Gargantua was hewn from. A rail of gold-coated iron clung to the wall. Before long, the tunnel opened into a cavern where all the glory of Gargantua’s conquests were housed, while also allowing any guests to view its magnificence. She noted a handful of late partygoers lingering about, taking in the statues and murals upon the walls.
Seeing these people, these leeches, she wanted nothing more than to bathe Gargantua in the blood of traitors. Starting with Lu Har.
“YOU KNOW HOW I USUALLY ENJOY A GOOD BLOODLETTING, BUT YOU SEEM LOST IN THOUGHT. SPARE A POOR DAEMON A HINT?”
“Strix?”
“I AM HERE, CAD.”
“How?”
“WE ARE BONDED, NOT JUST AS A BLADE. YOU AND I ARE ONE ESSENCE. WOMB TO WOMB.”
“You’re a daemon, you don’t have a womb.”
“ONCE, CAD. THAT NEVER LEFT ONE SUCH AS ME.”
“What the void does that even mean?”
“NOTHING BUT A MEMORY OF A TIME LONG AGO. WHAT BOTHERS YOU SO?”
“Really, Strix, you ask that after what that bikrome showed me?”
Cadrianna veered down a secondary tunnel for Imperium staff only. A pair of guards saluted diligently before opening a steel door for her. Beyond was the main headquarters of Gargantua, the flight deck, the barracks, the laboratories; the lifeblood of the Fallen’s army above Drenth.
This section of Gargantua was comprised of dull, simplistic halls that were painted sterile white. As was the floor and ceiling. Soldiers in their scale armor doggedly patrolled the halls in small groups of threes or fours, heavily armed. Predators and other automatons stumped each corner, their blinking domes eagerly awaiting commands, especially with the party occurring.
“The Matron.”
“TRUST ME WHEN I SAY THIS, CAD, THAT OLD HAG IS A FEW BOILED EGGS SHORT OF A DOZEN.”
Cadrianna stopped. “What?”
“HER GEARS ARE RUSTED. THE DOGS ARE UNTRAINED AND RUNNING AMOK. A DAEMON’S BROKEN CLAW? NO? FINE, BLOODY NOCTURNE, CAD, YOU USED TO GET ALL MY EUPHEMISMS.”
“Not particularly good ones, most. What are you getting at?”
“THAT HAG IS ANCIENT, LOST HER MIND WELL BEFORE THE FALL OF EMINENCE. TO BE FAIR, NOT CERTAIN SHE EVEN HAD IT BACK WHEN I POSSESSED TWO WINGS INSTEAD OF HAVING TO RELY ON YOU TO WHISK ME ABOUT.”
“Yet the Fallen still relies on her counsel. Regardless, her words have left me baffled. Only more so now that the bikrome has shown me the truth of why I was kept chained.”
“BAFFLED? HER WORDS HAVE THE INTELLIGENCE OF A MEWLING KITTEN MOST TIMES THAN NOT.”
“The Seals, Strix. Why would the Matron even bring those up? I’ve never seen one, only do I know of them from my lessons from Thestile and Solanine. Calling it my true path. The true path that I must break. With you and all that. But what of Brynn?”
“RIDDLES. THAT’S ALL IT IS. THE RAMBLINGS OF A LONG-FLED MIND.”
“O, just riddles. She named you. Said the Seals and Eminence are what matter to me and to you. Want to explain that to me?”
“I KNOW NOT WHAT THAT OLD, BLIND HAG MEANS. YOU CAN BELIEVE ME ON THAT, CAD. IF I KNEW, I’D TELL YOU FIRST AND FOREMOST. WE’RE FRIENDS, REMEMBER?”
“Sometimes I wonder. But why tell me that? The bikrome, void, Emre said we needed to help Brynn. How can I do such a thing? He’s betrayed me, Strix!”
“YOU ASK SOUND QUESTIONS,” the Strix responded carefully, almost as if hiding something.
“For sixteen years you’ve been my guardian, my savior and giver, my protector and shield. The aether and blood that binds us, Strix. They are the same as the Seals, as it has been said. All the aetheurgies, the Forms, in fact. She named the Seals to Eminence. My hand will help break them. I care not for any of that. I wanted only Lu Har dead, Brynn freed. But apparently Brynn has been free all this time. How? Why? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“AS DO I. HE MADE ME WHAT I AM. WHAT WE ARE TOGETHER. HE BOUND US, BROUGHT ME UP FROM THE PIT ITSELF. I WISH TO GO BACK INTO SLUMBER. PEACEFULLY, I MIGHT ADD.”
