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rue-dixon · 2 months ago

Text

Work first

Chilchuck and Dandan talk about his failed marriage

And Dandan is his brother-in-law because that is canon to me

Chilchuck sat at the bar at one of the taverns on the island. He was on his third mug of ale, holding his head as he stared into his half-empty cup. Dandan, who was his best friend and just also happened to be his brother-in-law, sat next to him. Dandan was the only family he still talked to. His daughters all moved out barely sent letters anymore. As for his wife, she left without a word around two years ago.

"There's nothing really for me to do anymore. All I do is work, I can't handle going home to a dark and empty house anymore." Chilchuck sighed, his shoulders slumped as he ran a hand through his hair.

"I would say retire but I can't see you not working." Dandan half-joked.

Chilchuck took another swing of his drink, groaning to himself, “Yeah, I’ve thought about it… I'm saving up, I'll retire from adventuring. But I still need to bring money in somehow. Thinking about a locksmith shop closer to the girls."

"Don't you still send them all money?" Dandan took a sip from his drink as well.

Chilchuck nodded, "yeah. A little bit each month. Just to give them something as they're starting out in life."

"And what about Bel...?" Dandan didn't look at him, hesitantly asking about his sister. Chilchuck didn't bring his wife up that much after she left. However, Dandan knew the no contact was killing him. From the letters he had been receiving from his sister, he could tell it was slowly killing her as well.

Chilchuck tensed at the mention of her name, “…No. Ever since she left, I’ve never heard anything from her. So I figured she wouldn't want me to send anything..."

Dandan sighed, "And you still haven't gone to see her? It's been two years."

"You think if she wanted me to see her she would've told me where she went. But no, I had to find out from Fler." Chilchuck scoffs, taking another drink.

When Bellana first left, she stayed with Dandan and his wife for a few days before moving in with Flertom. Dandan remembered offering his home to her. Remembering the night she came to talk, only to cry in his arms about no longer being happy. He remembered holding her. Taking her by the shoulders and telling her it was time for her to put herself first. No longer living for her children and husband, but for herself. Putting her own happiness first.

Dandan wouldn't lie, he had felt guilty watching how miserable Chilchuck had become after convincing his sister to leave. He kept reminding himself, he was her brother first, Chilchuck's best friend second.

"I see your point." He sighed, "But you're so miserable it's hard to watch. Whether you admit it or not, you're lonely."

Chilchuck didn't respond, just grumbled something to himself before chugging the rest of his drink, slamming the empty cup back on the counter. Dandan couldn't hide the sympathetic look that came across his face. Despite not being the most observant person, even he could see how much Chilchuck missed having his family when he returned from jobs. There was a reason he seemed to spend all his time at the guild instead of his own home nowadays.

"... what if you start dating again?" Dandan offered hesitantly.

Chilchuck nearly choked on air, "What-?!" He looked over at him.

"Well, If you're so sure it's over. And refuse to go talk to her, why not get back out there? You're still young enough."

Chilchuck looked at his in-law like he was crazy. "Hell no."

Dandan rolled his eyes as he turned back to his own drink, "of course. You still probably avoid your eyes when you walk past the brothel stand in the dungeon, huh?"

Red bloomed over Chilchuck's cheeks that traveled to his ears as he scoffed and looked away.

"Wh- no! I don't.. well that's because-" he fumbled over his words.

It was true, he had been doing that since he came to the island. When he was younger and newly married he felt incredibly guilty that the pretty blonde women would catch his eyes as his wife was home nursing his two young daughters. Because of this, he started to shield his eyes as he walked by. Soon it became a habit, and he hasn't stopped since. Even after she left, he couldn't help it. It still felt wrong. Although he couldn't deny their appeal was getting to him as of recently. Sexual frustration no doubt adding to his permanent bad mood.

"It's just..." his voice softer this time. "What if she comes back...?"

Dandan seemed surprised, "you think she will?"

"I don't know... part of me hopes she does, but another part of me is still so.. angry with her."

Another reason that he didn't admit out loud as to why he didn't go after her was because of his pride and anger. Going after her first could possibly prove whatever she was testing. Losing whatever stupid game she was possibly playing. This was completely ridiculous, of course. However, his anger and pride blinded him from logic.

"What if she's waiting for you to come to her first?"

Although Dandan was keeping in good contact with his sister. The truth was, he himself had no idea what his sister wanted. Whether she never wanted to see Chilchuck again, just wanted a break- that was now stretching out way too long, wanted to come back, for Chilchuck to come to her, or some other option, he had no idea. All she talked about in her letters was her girls and asking how his wife and new baby were.

"And what if she's not, and I just end up making a fool of myself?"

"...Fair enough."

It was silent between the two men for a moment before Chilchuck spoke up again.

"Even if there was a real divorce, we sat down agreed and went our separate ways forever. I doubt I'd ever move on."

Dandan turned to him again to show he was listening. While Chilchuck stared down his empty cup. The alcohol in his system making him more open than usual.

"We've been together since we were kids. She was my first everything, the mother of my children, she's- she was, my best friend."

He clutched his hands together to stop them from shaking.

"Besides, who says I wouldn't fuck up a new relationship too?"

Dandan didn't respond. How was he supposed to? That Chilchuck was wrong and just being insecure? That wouldn't help anyone, especially since his concerns were valid.

"Either way, I'm focusing on my retirement. Save enough money, and open the locksmith shop. That way I can quit the dungeon work but I can still support my girls if they need it. And they all have something when I die."

Dandan nodded, "Why don't you try to talk to them more if they're your main motivation?"

Chilchuck looked guilty, he had been meaning to write to them. Every time he picked up a pen he never knew what to say. Just stared at the empty piece of paper until he eventually put the pen down. Part of him felt like they didn't want to hear from him. The last thing he wanted was to bother them. He barely kept in touch with his own mother when he moved away from his hometown, it would be hypocritical to expect them to keep in touch with him.

"I-I will.. just- they're not little girls anymore, y'know? Work first. Then I can travel and actually see what they're up to instead of just sending pointless letters." Chilchuck nodded firmly. As if he was trying to convince himself more than Dandan.

Dandan sighed deeply, his whole body slumping into the stole as he brushed his dark curls with his fingers. He was getting nowhere with him. Frankly he didn't feel like trying anymore. Especially now that he had his own wife and child to think about.

"Alright man, whatever works for you."

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #dunmeshi #chilchuck #chilchuck tims #chilchuck's wife #chilwife #dandan #dandan is Chilchuck's brother in law canon #Bellana Sams (Chilwife)

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books-of-the-great-leviathan · 2 years ago

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Chapter 20- Luca

***

Luca would never forget the feeling of home: the wind rising off Bellana's Arm, the lush humidity of the air, the scatter and cry of white cloud gulls coursing with the breeze. Still, nothing could dull his nerves, loosen the tension inside him. This wasn't a homecoming, no matter how much he wished it so.

On deck, the crew seemed subdued. Nadya marched the length of the Fishcutter, calling orders, but her eyes were hard, her hands never far from the hilts of her weapons. Rigging spiders scanned the horizon. Niive wasn't riding the high winds, like she preferred to do on the open sea, but rather stood on the bow, her arms raised as she filled the ship's sails, her black hair whipped round her shoulders. The sky was open, clear, sun making its slow climb to the apex. The water was a deep, vivid blue, all rolling swells. Luca helped where he could, but kept straying to the railing, kept his eyes on the horizon, waiting.

By noon, he caught his first glimpse of Lapide.

It was only a haze, a faint green trace, a wisp of cedar scent, but it was there. Luca went to the railing and leaned over, as if he could will himself closer.

"Not bad to look at from here," said Irene, behind him.

"The crew doesn't seem to share your appreciation."

"These are wartime waters." She moved to his side, hands in her greatcoat pockets. "Makes for uneasy sailing."

"I trust the thought of the Fishcutter foundering under a fortune in Lapidaean gold helps them sail easier."

"Gold," Irene snorted. "Gold in your words, gold in your hair. Gold lining our coffins. I'll rest easier when we're pointed toward the Gulf of Storms and I can't smell the reek of this water on me anymore. Are you ready, then?"

"I left Lapide a traitor. I won't be sailing in, that's certain." He kept his eyes on the trace of land. "We wait for night."

"I hope you have a plan, Valere."

"I assure you, neither you nor your crew nor your pretty little ship will come to any harm. I'll see to that."

Irene snorted. "Mind yourself first. You, and yours."

Luca glanced to Sirin. She was perched on the bowsprit, Puppy curled on her lap, snapping at seabirds that spiraled too close. She'd ventured out of the cabin these last few days, weak and gaunt but able to walk without assistance.

She'll be all right, he told himself. She was strong enough to do what she did in An Gholam, wasn't she? If she can survive that, she can survive anything.

He would never forget the sight of her at the bow. She hadn't commanded the storm. She was the storm. For a moment, he'd thought she really would let her shadows crush them all instead of the monster.

Irene's eyes flicked from him to Sirin, then scanned scanned the glimpse of Lapide, her brow furrowed over her mismatched gaze.

"You know how I lost this eye?" she asked. "My pa did it. He was a right old bastard. Ork-hunter first mate who murdered his captain in grand mutiny, stole his ship, and sailed it straight to Vaarghaul. Heard of the place? Better if you hadn't. It's hell, if ever there was one. A frozen wreck of a city clinging onto a frozen wreck of an island. Our mother was a flower-seller, a poor wretch who couldn't say no to him. Maybe it was animal magnetism. Maybe the reek of ork-oil got her in the mood."

She let out a snarl of laughter. "My pa had this whip from his ork-hunting days, used to control the dying beasts when they're hauled up on deck. He liked using it on people. And one day, I came in from plucking pockets to find dear old dad standing over my mother's corpse. Matteo was huddled in a corner, hiding his eyes, but I knew. I knew he'd seen. He was just a boy. Four years old and sitting in a pool of our mum's blood."

"Triune," Luca muttered.

"Yeah, well." Irene smiled. "He tried to turn the whip on me. On the ground, Irene, he yelled at me. He was so far in the drink I don't think I was his daughter anymore. I was too scared to move, and it cost me. Next time he cracked that whip it took out my eye."

She stopped. Her brows were drawn together.

"He wasn't done. Get on the ground or I'll put a notch in your little brother, he said. Well, that couldn't stand. I kept on coming. I stuck my little oyster knife in his guts and then he didn't hit me anymore."

"What did you do?" Luca asked.

"Me and Matteo chopped up our father's body and tipped the pieces into the dockyards chum-buckets. He always did like the sea, after all. Didn't take long to ferret out his stash of cash and make for the open ocean."

Irene drew a short breath, studying the waves.

"I was scared," she said. "Not just of him. I was scared 'cause he was my pa and it was me and Matteo, or it was him. If part of me hadn't wanted to spare him I'd still have two eyes."

"You can't regret mercy."

"Oh, yes I can," Irene said. "This world won't show you any. The Leviathan won't show you any. Your sister, Severin Azare, they weren't spared. They were flukes, motes in the beast's eye. We're all the same in its world."

She fixed him with her whaleglass stare. "I understand why my pa liked his whip so much. It gave him power. And if I had power like Sirin's-"

She let out her breath.

"We all saw her turn the monster," she said. "I'm grateful for that. Truly. But I saw what she might have done, too. She could have killed all of us as soon as smile, and she was so far gone in her shadows she might have done it without knowing."

"What in all Hells are you saying?"

"You know what I'm saying, Valere. You aren't as stupid as you look." Irene curled her hand over the pommel of her pistol. "I'm saying there are all kinds of mercy. Some don't look it. Not until after. Some we have to make for ourselves. Me, and you. And you're a merciful man."

Luca rounded on her. They were nearly the same height; Irene barely had to tip her chin up to look him in the eyes.

"I wouldn't make threats like that," Luca said. "If I were you."

Irene smiled. "Best be glad you're not me, then." She stepped back and gave him a mocking bow. "Welcome home, Luca Valere."

The Fishcutter drew no closer to shore. By dusk they made harbor off one of Lapide's many small barrier islets, a solitary crag of white rock rising from the sea, crowned in scrub and threadbare cedars and a circlet of gulls. The crew dropped anchor and trimmed sails, and as the shadows lengthened over the water the Fishcutter seemed to melt into them, its tarred hull invisible against the lee face of the islet.

He joined Niive, Sirin, and Cereza at the bow, settling down on a sprawl of balding velvet cushions. They sat round an oilcloth spread with fresh-caught shallows fish, pickled ginger, and raw pink crustaceans rubbed with spices and citrus juice. The crew had wasted no time netting fresh food after weeks at sea, and Luca was grateful for an end to hardtack and touga jerky.

A glimmer of ice swirled in Niive's palm, the air around her colder than the rest. "Nervous?" Luca asked, licking juice off his thumb.

"You wish." Her tone was cool, but the icy wind danced and fluttered around her fingers like an agitated glimmit. She saw Luca looking and clenched her fist, banishing the wind. "Are you going to stare, or are we going to plan?"

"We can't sail straight into the harbor, as much as I'd like to," Luca said. "The last command Isabella gave was for her Falcii to shoot us down. We'd violated our mother's direct orders. More than that, we'd sprung Cereza's would-be assassin from under Isabella's nose."

"You...freed her from prison?" Niive asked, glancing at Sirin.

"We did," Cereza said, Puppy curled in her lap. "I helped."

"That's true. You were there," Luca said.

Cereza kicked him in the shin. Sirin's eyes flicked skyward. Regardless, we three won't be getting into Valeris by any typical means.

"That's where Niive comes in," Luca said. Niive gave him a level look. "Can you fly with us three, and Puppy?"

"Puppy?" Cereza echoed.

"Puppy stays with me. I'm not leaving it with these pirates."

"I can fly the distance," Niive said. "I will not be nimble, but I should make it."

Should? Sirin cut in.

Niive fixed her with a golden stare. "Doubt me, witchborn?"

You, no. I simply doubt my ability to remain in one piece should I fall from sufficient height.

"You're sure you want to come?" Luca asked her.

She tensed. I am fine, Valere.

"You don't have to-"

I'm fine. Her shadow on the planks writhed and spread. The welt she'd burned into Luca's arm gave a hard throb, singing in the backs of Luca's teeth. He winced, and her eyes widened, then hardened, fastening again on the darkening sea.

Do not chide me, Luca, she signed after a moment. I am going.

Cereza jabbed a knife through the last shellfish and fed it to Puppy. The little creature crunched it down it in one bite, shell and all. "We still don't know what we're looking for."

"Valeria had to have left behind something in Valeris. It was her citadel. Her fortress. Triune, she built it from the foundations up-"

"Luca, no one knows what happened to Valeria. We don't even know where she was buried. No tomb, no trace."

"Just because no one knows now doesn't mean it doesn't exist," Luca pressed. "She was real. She was our bloody ancestor. You think she gave up when she saw the might of Laurais' armies? If she had, we wouldn't be here today."

"Incredible," Cereza said.

"What?"

"How much you can make me want to punch you within the span of five sentences."

"Try to avoid the nose. It's had enough abuse for one lifetime." He cleared dishes out of the way and spread a map of Valeris over the tarred planks, weighing down the corners with empty crockery. The map was one of Irene's, a creased old thing much stained from years of salt wind, spattered with what looked suspiciously like blood. It was at least a decade out of date, but Luca knew the city well enough to make up for it.

"If we approach from here," he said, tracing the arc of mountains that cupped the city, "we'll take the shortest route over Valeris, straight to the Palace itself."

"Homesick?" Niive asked.

Luca shook his head, twiddling the small oyster knife between his fingers. "The rest of Valeris has been rebuilt, remade, dug into to make new canals. The Palace and Valeris Ridge are the oldest parts of the city, the original foundations of Valeria's first settlement on the ruins of the Estaran Empire's prior capitol."

He tapped the Ridge and the Palace built atop. "We shouldn't be sighted. The Palace is well guarded, but the city's built to look to the sea for attack, not the sky."

"Awfully clear skies tonight," Cereza murmured, glancing toward the first of the three moons already visible overhead.

"They needn't stay that way," Niive said.

Luca grinned. "That's the spirit."

"Do you think Isabella-" Cereza began, her voice small.

"Isabella can go to the glowlands," Luca said. "We keep to the plan. We don't hurt anyone. We'll wait for moonsrise, then get flying."

"And I'm coming with you."

Luca looked up as shadow fell over them. Azare stared down at him, eyes narrowed against the setting sun.

"Alois is in the Palace," he said. "Your mother's prisoner. Isn't he?"

"Last I know of."

Azare turned to Niive. "Can you carry a fourth?"

She shrugged, picking at her nails.

Luca set his teeth. Azare met his gaze again, steady and dark. At last, Luca looked away and stood.

"Fine," he said. "Everyone should get some rest. Whatever else, we're in for a long night."

***

As the moons rose, their light swept over the ocean, touching the waves with silver and turning Lapide's coastline to a brushstroke of deep blue and blanch-white. The only color in the world came from the running lamps, dull red globes at the Fishcutter's bow. They cast a glow like a banked coal in the black water.

Cereza was right- the sky was cloudless, the stars unobscured. Heat still shimmered over the deck, but the wind held a chill. At the first trace of cold breeze, Niive seemed to perk up. She was balanced on the railing, poised on her toes, weightless as a bird. She eyed the land, the sea, then turned her face toward the sky, her eyes narrowed against the drenching light of the great moon.

"I can work with this," she said.

"Then let's go," Luca told her as he stroked Puppy. "Before we run out of night."

Azare knelt nearby, murmuring to himself- a prayer to Bellana, his weapons arrayed around him, sword and stiletto and boot knife. When he was done, he sheathed them once more and stood. All wore dark clothes, plain and weather-beaten, hardly the sapsilk and brocade Luca had left Valeris in.

Niive straightened, her hair lifting as the breeze kicked up around them. She nodded to Sirin a few yards off, tugging a hood over her short curls. "With her power, we hardly need the winds. She could make us disappear easier than I-"

"No," Luca said, his voice hard. "She already did enough for us."

"You don't trust her?"

"Of course I trust her!" Luca faced the sea, scanning the shoreline for any sign of lights. "You think I want her to push herself like she did in An Gholam? She almost died."

"That is true," Niive agreed levelly.

"Just be ready to fly," Luca told her. "Sweet-talk some clouds or whatever it is you do."

She gave him a look, then lifted her arms. Her hair rose with them, shifting and iridescent. It fell into form, becoming feathers. The railing creaked, the entire ship shifting to the side as her bird-shape took on mass.

Niive fixed one eye on Luca and clicked her beak with a sharp snick, as if to say your turn, Valere.

"Hurry up, Luca," Cereza said, brushing past him and swinging easily onto Niive's back. Azare followed after giving Niive a once-over.

Yes, Luca, hurry up, Sirin signed as she came up behind him.

"I was ready by sundown," he retorted, but didn't waste more time. He gathered Puppy and climbed onto Niive behind the others, winding his hands deep into her feathers. He felt her muscles flex beneath him, felt her weight shift, before her wings flared wide and she flung herself off the deck, into the sky.

The winds carved out around her; he barely had time to strengthen his grip before the Fishcutter fell away and they were borne up into the night.

Luca flattened against Niive's feathers, his eyes filled with tears from the cold. Niive gained altitude, then stopped, her wings outstretched, the wind keeping her aloft at her command. The shoreline stayed at a distance; they would fly down the coast to the mountains visible in the distance, pale and jagged, like the spine of some long-dead creature. The sea was a great rippling expanse of dark water and silver moonslight, Bellana's Arm spread beyond.

Luca glimpsed the light as Sirin did, as she glanced back at him with eyes wide. It flickered over the waves some leagues to the south: a great line of lanternlight, drawing closer with each of Niive's wingbeats.

Puppy gave a soft whine, pulling close against Luca. The lanterns drew forms from the waves, and soon the first of them became fully visible in the bright moonslight. A ship, tall and white-sailed, glorious and triple-masted, its flanks bristling with cannons. The blue Lapidaean flag snapped from its mainmast, emblazoned with his mother's pale hawk.

Even far away, Luca knew that sort of ship like he knew his own hands: a navy battleship in full wartime splendor.

Sand seemed to slither down his spine. A second ship appeared alongside the first, and then another. Within minutes, a line of ships had appeared below, all in full sail, all of them battleships with broadsides at the ready.

"A blockade," Azare said quietly.

Luca's pulse hammered in his fists. Had they wandered into a battle? Had the war escalated so while he was gone? The sky was clear of spellfire smoke, but he imagined he could still smell it on the breeze. His hands tightened on Niive's feathers as a curl of dread unfurled in his heart.

They veered sideways, away from the blockade, toward Lapide. The shoreline rushed nearer. It skimmed past, and the land overtook it, rocky coastline and the first broken fangs of the mountains jutting from cedar forests and scree.

Luca's heart hammered in his wrists, his palms slick as he gripped Niive's feathers. The crust of mountains cleared, and he glimpsed the first spear of pale stone.

Valeris. Even faraway it was familiar as an old song, long-since memorized and never to be forgotten. The spear became a spire, a single finial spike crowning the highest point of the city: the grand dome atop the Palace.

The Palace itself rose into view atop Valeris Ridge, spilling down its side in terraces and cascades of whitebrick curtain wall, waterways joining the great silver road of the Vie pointing toward the bay beyond. The great canal was fed by its countless lesser siblings, a web of tributaries twining through the rest of the city. Some served as roadways, others as drainage canals, built to channel storm rains and monster waves away from the city, preventing floods and protecting Valeris from the worst of what came.

Luca's heart ached as he felt the breeze off the city, not Niive's captured wind, but muggy and full of familiar smells. The mineral mud of the Vie, the sweetness of overripe fruit, factory smoke and tar and the sun-bleached salt-stone of Valeris itself, whitebrick baking in the heat of noon, buckled cobblestone streets steaming in the sun.

He caught Cereza's eyes as she watched the city, and she returned his look, her brow furrowed, her face pale.

It was still. Too still, and too quiet. The streets were dark, the harbor dark, the Vie bereft of vessels save for patrol boats. The Palace loomed on the Ridge. Even in the height of wartime, Valeris had never looked so empty. First the blockade, and now this, Valeris lightless and lifeless and spectral. Cereza glanced back at him again. He knew what she was thinking, and thought it too. What by the Triune had happened here while they were gone?

Something wrong? Sirin said.

"I don't know," Luca muttered.

Cereza leaned in. "Should we go back?"

Luca shook his head. The monster, the Leviathan- it wouldn't wait around. It wouldn't hold back, nor hold off.

Sirin watched him with her steady gaze, expression unreadable.

"No." Luca drew a short breath. He didn't have time to doubt. None of them did. "We keep going."

The mountain crags whipped beneath them, wind singing off the pale points of rock. They were almost clear of them and flying in empty air again. Luca nudged Niive with his knee and she tipped her wings in response. Around Luca, the air tightened. Pressure mounted in his ears, and the wind scoured past him, numbing his cheeks with ice. He felt the wind strengthen. The moonslight dimmed, and the air around them swirled with mist. A churning blanket of clouds gathered from the corners of the sky, sweeping like a cloak in Niive's wake.

Luca couldn't resist a grin as the entire sky darkened, the stars, the moons, and Niive alike shrouded in what would appear to the guards below as nothing more than night-fog. The last time a witch's storm had veiled the city was when Valeria had first come to Lapidaean shores. Luca had traveled long enough with Niive he'd almost forgotten the extent of her power, but if this city remembered anything, he was sure it would never forget the onslaught of Aiatar magic.

He glimpsed of the statue of Valeria in the grand Palace agora, so far below she was little more than a glint of upraised sword and pale stone.

A chill rippled under his skin. He remembered the Leviathan's eyes, his fear and uncertainty reflected back at him.

Let this be right.

Let me be right.

Niive tilted and swooped on one wing, mist descending with her. The city drew closer, the Palace dome breaching the cloud layer as Niive swooped in ever-widening circles. Tower windows blurred past, some lit, some shuttered; a guard patrolled on a narrow moonslit battlement, his rifle slung over one shoulder.

Wind skittered over the battlement. The guard looked up; as he did, Niive sent mist coiling around him. She passed yards over his head, silent as a ghost. By the time the mist cleared, they were long gone.

Ahead, a rooftop rose into view, a curved expanse of tiles like the back of a breaching sea-ork. With a twist of wind, Niive flared her wings and landed. Her talons let out a high scree against the tiles as she scrabbled for a grip, at last finding it on the roof ridge. Her massive claws bit deep into the stone. Luca and the others swung down, keeping under the protective canopy of Niive's wings; the towers rose around them, shielding them from the worst of the wind.

Azare nodded to Luca. "I'll find my own way out."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means not to wait for me," Azare said. "I'll find Alois, or I won't. Either way, look after yourselves. And her."

He nodded at Cereza, who looked up, her brow furrowed.

"Azare-" she began.

"Go," he said. He seemed about to add more, then shook his head. "Calm seas, Valere."

"And clear skies."

Without another word, Azare turned and sprinted away. Within seconds he was another shadow. He vanished over the edge of the rooftop and was gone.

Niive's form shifted in on itself, shrinking into her human shape, her wings remaining. "What do you need me to do?"

Luca pointed to one of the arched windows set in the wall of a dome below. It was dark and shuttered, too narrow to allow Niive's wings, the wall too sheer for her to gain a clawhold. "Can you get us down there?"

Niive fixed him with a look. "I still think you're mad, trusting those contraptions of yours."

"Land us silently on that sill and I'll never tinker again."

"I wouldn't want to rob you of the pleasure, Valere. I'll keep watch." She caught Cereza's hand and squeezed it. "Try not to need me."

Cereza chewed her lower lip, her eyes downcast. "I..." she began, then shook her head. "I'll be careful."

She went up on her toes and pressed a swift kiss to Niive's cheek. In the moonslight Luca couldn't be sure, but he thought he glimpsed a flush on Niive's face, gone by the time she pinned him with another glare.

"Let's see it, then," she said.

Luca reached in the pack slung over his shoulder and drew forth a folded sheet of canvas. He shook it, and it unfurled, springing into form: oiled sailcloth stretched on a flexible framework of lightlock, the entire contraption shaped roughly like a spearhead. It snapped taut, pulling at Luca's hands as he gripped the rough rope handles he'd hastily spliced onto the underside.

It looked like some huge tailless kite, though none of a sort he'd flown as a child, no paint nor gilt nor sapsilk tassels. This glider looked rough, and from the way it jagged and jumped at his grip, it would handle rough, too.

No matter. He hadn't had time for more, nor the tools, simply his memories of glider-models he'd made in his workshops.

"Here," he said, passing a second and third glider to Sirin and Cereza.

You're...sure, Luca? Sirin asked, eyeing the thing.

"No," he admitted. "Every prototype I made in the past crashed within minutes. Have you seen the rather impressive scar on my calf? That was from a test I did off a cliff. I must admit it was spectacular- when I hit the ground my fibula snapped like a twig, and the bone was sticking right through my-"

Will it work? Sirin cut in.

"That time I didn't have witchery on my side." Luca let out out his breath. "It'll have to work."

He went to the roof's edge, slinging Puppy over his back. It dug its claws into his shoulders. The mist swirled around them, the cool wind ruffling his hair, steadying the high keen of his nerves. The drop called, a plunge straight down the side of the ridge, all the way to the red rooftops of Valeris below. He made out pinpricks of lanternlight moving on the Vie's distant surface.

Puppy whined. Luca gave the creature a scratch behind the ears. He gripped onto the rope handles of the glider as he crept closer to the edge.

Grit showered into the empty sky.

"Niive," he said, between clenched teeth. "I could use that breeze around now."

In answer, wind swirled beneath him, snaking under his shirt; he had an instant to grip tight before it coiled under the glider, a swell of warm air. The canvas twanged and hummed on its frame; his feet left the tiles, and with a lurch in his guts, the roof was gone and he was swept into the sky.

Moonslight rushed past; wind stung tears from his eyes. His hands burned on the rope, but it didn't matter. The Palace spread around him, the wind buoying him up, Niive's control keeping him aloft.

He wanted to let out a laugh, to hear his voice echo off the pale walls below; he bit it back. If a guard's rifle shot nicked the canvas, even Niive's control over the wind wouldn't be enough to save him from the drop.

The window spun toward him; he felt the glider shudder as the white wall flung itself at him. Luca let go of the glider with one hand, reaching for the broad windowsill, knees to his chest. He braced and kicked out for the edge. His toes scraped stone. With a strangled yelp he scrambled onto the sill and dropped to his knees, still clinging to the glider as it danced and twisted at his hands, threatening to pull him back into the empty air.

Shaking, he wrestled it closed, then crouched on the sill and waved toward the distant roof, barely visible through the mist. Within minutes, Cereza swooped close, then Sirin. Luca reached out for Cereza and caught her, then turned to help Sirin. She was already crouched on the edge of the sill, her glider folded, shadows swirling around her like a cloak.

She lifted her eyebrows.

"See?" Luca said lightly. "They worked."

Sirin broke the lock on the cedar shutters with a twist of her shadows. The shutters swung open onto a corridor, darkness striped with slats of moonslight. They illuminated the arched columns of the corridor, the ceiling patterned with blue and silver tiles like fish-scales.

Sirin cast her eyes down the corridor, a look of distaste on her face.

"This is the residential wing," Luca whispered. "Our mother usually puts guests in here. I don't suppose we'll run into anyone. These aren't terribly social times. We need to get down to the lower levels of the Palace, down to the tunnels-"

You'd best be sure, Valere, Sirin said. Her posture was tense, hands clenched. Shadows danced around her shoulders like black flames.

"I am," Luca told her. "There was a city before Valeris, sundered to its foundations over five hundred years ago. Whatever was built on its bones was Valeria's."

Built over a battlefield, Sirin said. There will be bones indeed.

Cereza closed the shutters behind them, cutting off the keen of the wind. Silence fell, broken only by the plash of a fountain echoing from some nearby walled courtyard, by the faint, omnipresent rumble of the waterways coursing just under the Palace's skin.

The doors were closed, no light visible under them. Whitebrick walls became carved cedar paneling as they wound deeper into the dome, and in them Luca glimpsed their own blurry reflections traveling at their sides, strangers to this place, no longer Valeres at all.

Sirin jerked to a halt, lifting her hand. Lamplight flared through the colonnade ahead. They crept forward, shadows thickening under Sirin's command as they kept in them. Luca's breath was visible in the air as he peered over the mezzanine.

This colonnade overlooked the Palace's grand agora, the great courtyard that was its heart, dominated by a vast bronze statue of Valeria herself with upraised sword and face lifted to the sky. Moonslight fell in a heavy swathe over the statue, over the agora at its feet, over the gibbet raised beneath Valeria's sword, the smell of decay rising thick through the warm night wind.

Cereza gasped, flinching back, while Sirin stood rigid. Luca recognized the faces of the corpses swinging from the gibbet. Duchess Melia, with her graying hair unbound and fluttering in the breeze. Lord Maryen, from the Irial Ridge, who had been one of Sofia Valere's chancellors, whose daughters Luca had grown up alongside, who had ever sent him little mechanicals of Buyani porcelain and delicate clockwork. Several of the Falcii, still clad in their blue uniforms.

More Falcii guarded the gibbet's foot, rifles shouldered, pacing circles around their executed comrades. Luca's vision pulsed, his skin hot and cold in courses. Sirin's eyes were fixed on the gibbet, unmoving, lightless.

"It's Mother's chancellors," Cereza whispered. "Maryen, Melia-"

"I know."

Cereza's eyes shone with tears. "Why would Mother execute her own chancellors?"

Luca pushed back from the parapet, his mouth bitter. "We need to find a way down. We...we shouldn't be here-"

"You! Stop!"

Luca whirled as a pair of Palace guard burst from the archway, rifles at hand, eyes narrowed behind the silver faceplates of their helmets. Cereza stumbled back, but Sirin stayed where she was, her hands at her sides, her expression hard.

"Wait." The first guard blinked, taking them in. "All Hells, that's-"

Sirin moved.

Her hands snapped up, shadows rising like a wave. A howl filled Luca's head as frost fanned over the walls, the heat stolen from the air. The moonslight dimmed. Muscular tendrils of shadow snaked over the guards and pulled tight, cutting off their shout.

Darkness streamed from Sirin's body. Her eyes were wide, so black they seemed like pits in her face, like she'd slipped through some crack in the world, straight through to an abyss beyond. She'd looked that way facing the monstrous Leviathan, so deep in her shadows she hadn't realized the entire fleet was breaking apart around her.

"Sirin," Luca cried. Her shadows flexed, tightened; the guards cried out as bone crackled. "Sirin, let them go."

More shouts echoed down the colonnade and from the agora below. Luca looked up as lamplight flared, as a woman strode toward them, her hair springing round her shoulders, her sword drawn and shining. He flinched back as if struck. In the lanternlight, he knew her face- her unbound curls, the scars glinting on her dark skin.

Cereza knew her, too. Her fist went to her mouth, her eyes wide. Little wonder. The last time they'd seen her she was laying Luca's back open with a sword. Now she came to a halt, flanked by more Palace guard with live blades.

"That's Ziva Lapin," Luca snarled. "That's the Witchhunter's bloody lieutenant."

"Valere?" Lapin said, her brows drawn together. "You survived? But-"

She blinked. Her eyes widened.

"No," she whispered. "Can't be-"

There was no time. Without hesitation Luca plunged his hand into Sirin's shadows. It was like reaching into icy, fast-moving water. Cold crackled through him, darkness veining up his skin. He ignored it, ignored the pain, and grabbed Sirin's arm. The spike of cold when he touched her was worse than the rest, but he didn't let her go.

"Sirin!" he said again. "Now!"

She blinked. Her eyes cut to him. Her hands curled into fists, shadows slithering from the guards. They collapsed, groaning, to the floor.

"Get after them," Lapin ordered. "I'm headed to the gardens. They can't have come alone."

Luca grabbed Cereza's arm and pulled her and Sirin both back into the corridor. Lapin's commands rang behind them. The walls blurred; Luca tasted bitter magic in the air. Puppy bounded by his side, claws skittering on the flagstones.

"We need to call Niive," Cereza gasped, scrubbing at her eyes. "We need to get out of here."

"Look for a terrace," Luca said. He was still hanging onto Sirin, his arm numb to the elbow. He let her go and doubted she noticed. Her gaze was still distant, her body quivering. Shadows flickered over her skin like black flames.

"What in all Hells were you doing?" Luca demanded.

Saving our lives-

"By nearly killing those guards? We agreed to do this without hurting anyone-"

Her eyes flashed. What did you want me to do? Let them shoot us?

"No-"

This is my power, Sirin said. This is what I am.

Luca clenched his jaw. At his feet, Puppy yipped and began down another corridor. Shouts echoed from behind them, back the way they'd come.

"This way!" Cereza called, following Puppy. "There!"

She pointed. A pair of double doors loomed at the end of the hallway, carved with patterns of platefish and stars. They burst through at a run and skidded into the dark rooms beyond.

Luca slammed the doors shut, his pulse hammering in his palms. "Lapin's here," he panted. "Lapin is in Valeris. Why would Lapin be in Valeris?"

"I wish Niive had fried her with lightning when she had the chance." Cereza shook her head. "We need to get out. We can still-"

"Cereza."

One of the ork-oil sconces on the wall guttered to life. In its amber glow stood a young man, his dark curls mussed, his round face covered with healing bruises. He wore a light robe and sleeping clothes; he'd clearly just woken up. He stared at Cereza, his lips slightly parted, as if she was a trick of the moonslight.

"Alois?" Cereza said faintly.

"You're alive." Prince Alois blinked, as if taking her in. "You...you broke the curse? Saints, you found the Great Leviathan?"

"Alois, I'm sorry." Tears shone in Cereza's eyes. "You need to get out of the way."

He stood between them and the balcony. Luca saw it past him, a broad expanse of moonslit terrace flanked by statues, so close he felt the night breeze on his face.

"Isabella banished you," Alois said. "I saw you come in. You shouldn't be here."

"I wish I could explain-" Luca began.

Muffled voices echoed through the doors. Sirin lowered her head, shadows swirling around her again.

"Why is Lieutenant Lapin here?" Cereza demanded. "The queen would never-"

"It's at the queen's word she's here at all," Alois said. His hand crept to his side- reaching for a weapon?

"Mother let the Witchhunter's lieutenant into the Palace?" Cereza said.

Horror crossed Alois's face. "You don't know," he said.

"Know what?"

"I'm so sorry, Cereza," Alois said. "Your mother-"

He cut off as lamplight flickered under the door.

"Get out of the way, Alois," Luca said. "I don't want to make you."

Alois's jaw clenched. He didn't move.

"Alois, please," Cereza begged.

Shadow blurred, knocking Luca aside. Sirin. She sprang, all bared teeth and hands crooked into claws, talons of shadow sharp enough to tear Alois in half. Wood splintered behind Luca, and light blazed through the darkness. A rifle shot cracked. Sirin snarled in pain and collapsed at Alois's feet, clutching her side. Blood wept through her fingers.

"No!" Luca rounded on the Palace guard, fists clenched- to do what, he had no idea.

He had no chance to find out.

A hand closed on his wrist and wrenched his arm straight, pulling him round. Gold flashed in the lamplight.

"Bell?" he gasped.

His sister stood before him, tall and straight-backed, her grip tight as a fetter. She stared at him in turn, her gray eyes bright. Without warning she drove her knee into his guts. He went down hard, slamming back-first to the floor.

Isabella stood over him, her swordpoint pressed to his heart.

"Going to kill me after all, Bell?" he panted, taking in the new cuts on her face, the half-healed bruises darkening her jaw.

"What do we do with the witchborn, Majesty?" one of her Falcii asked, standing over Sirin with pistol drawn.

"Chain the monster," Isabella ordered. "Bring a magister with enough night-drop to fell a wild gholiant."

Luca twisted, looking for Sirin, but Isabella's sword dug deeper into his chest. Majesty, the Falcii had called her. Luca felt his pulse in his palms, felt the sickening twist of dread in his guts. He saw the harsh light in her eyes, and it was like she'd run him through after all. "You...you're queen? But Mother-"

"Mother is dead," Isabella told him, as Cereza began to weep, as the Falcii closed in. "I am queen of Lapide, now. And you should have stayed lost."

#grave of the great leviathan #tales of the great leviathan #fantasy fiction #serial novel #original fiction #chapter 20

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