Bring Me Their Hearts(61)
“One kick, two kick, find the head,
One jump, two jump, hide in bed,
Someday soon we’ll end them all,
Bring water for a witch,
And fire for their thralls.”
When the triple moons rise, I bathe, and Y’shennria has Reginall dig me something out of her closet from when she was my age—a black cotton outfit, with pants and loose sleeves and a long cloak, perfect for concealment while still enabling one to move quickly. When I ask where she got it, she changes the subject. When she’s gone, Reginall tells me with a twinkle in his eye that it’s from when service in the Wildwatch was mandatory for noble children, before the Sunless War. She was a scout. Y’shennria in the Wildwatch? I can hardly imagine it—elegant Y’shennria on the cold, rugged island continent—the Feralstorm—where all the world’s magical creatures are monitored and maintained by the group of skilled rangers. Her scout outfit fits me barely. I fix my hair back and pull the cloak over my shoulders.
“Do not take his heart. Do not give away your status as a Firstblood,” Y’shennria warns me on the steps of the manor as she adjusts my hood. “You can cross the channel between districts without being seen if you follow the watertell pipe system.”
“You’re awfully knowledgeable about sneaking around Vetris for a proper lady,” I drawl. She smiles faintly, a fraction of my dark mood lifting at it.
“I wasn’t always an old woman.”
She ushers me off, and I venture into the dusk air, the Twins trembling in the sky as they rise red. The Blue Giant is a paler azure tonight, smooth like the surface of honey—a mellivorous moon. The tangled maze of copper watertell pipes that spans the length of the channel separating the noble quarter from the common quarter is difficult to balance on, jump over and under, but it’s not unlike navigating through the roots of a thousand metal trees. Shops and stalls are empty, folded over with colorful blankets for the night. The only people who remain working are those in the flesh-houses and the priests and priestesses of Kavar at the temple. The flesh-house assigns a man to hawk their wares outside the building—and tonight he decides to hawk at me.
“Come now, miss—let my pretty boys show you how a real man kisses!”
I call back, “No thank you—I’m saving my first kiss for a dashingly handsome fellow by the name of Success!”
The man chuckles, and I leave him to enter the west square where Kavar’s temple looms. The eye of Kavar on the very top spire throws a long moonlit shadow, engulfing my every step. Two priestesses sweep the stairs, gray robes immaculate, necks rimmed with crystal pendants, faces placid and absorbed in their work. They look so…normal. They’re fed by the temple, clothed by the temple. The celeon guard who presided over the d’Malvane portraits—Noran?—his words echo in my head now. “To make a living in this cruel world.” That was his reason for serving the king. Are these priestesses the same—simply trying to make a living? I know of the demons that lurk beneath their domestic peace—intolerance, hate. Or is that simply Gavik? Are these priestesses taught to hate by their religion or by the archduke’s influence? Or do they both combine to create unstoppable machines of war?
How many purges have they swept the stages of? How many songs have they sung of the Old God’s worshippers deserving death?
The priestesses see me staring and wave, smiles bright, beckoning. I turn, the tail of my cape whipping behind me as I move on.
The sound of a celebration meets my ears, the edges of a crowd leaking into the streets. I follow, morbidly curious—is it another purge? Soon I’m surrounded by what feels like every person in Vetris—old and young, drunk and sober. I was wrong; this is no purge—this crowd sings, dances, all of them wearing some sort of white mask, the eyeholes outlined by the same symbol of Kavar. Massive waterdrums in horse-drawn carts thunder out a beat, the windlutes sighing a cheery song.
“Here, lady!” a little girl chimes, offering me a mask from a basket of them.
I take it and ask, “What are we celebrating?”
“Verdance Day is almost here!” the little girl insists. “Kavar blesses the water pumps, so we can have a good growin’ season and good health! Or at least, that’s what Father says.”
Take her apart, the hunger lilts seductively. She’s weak, delicious, and barely able to put up a fight. Look at all these humans—distracted by their happiness. Use it against them.
Unnerved by my silence, the little girl trots away. The white mask in my palm seems to cackle at me with its open mouth. I don’t want to wear it, but it’s a very good disguise—better than the hood around my head. I clip it on and slip into the nearby Tiger’s Eye Pub. Music blasts from a trio of key harps in the corner, pipe smoke blurring the high ceiling. The barkeep is a broad celeon, his furred chest bared, his ears studded with long silver chains ending in little bells, and his blue arms stacked with copper bangles. A busty woman smiles and offers me watered beer. I ask for wine, sipping from my tin goblet and watching the polymath in the corner. He’s with several others, drinking and laughing.
It hits me then that the metal coffin I saw drown that boy when I first arrived was mechanical—no doubt the polymaths made it. They made the water pumps that give the city plumbing, sewage, and irrigation for their crops outside the wall. They made the watertells the lawguards and nobles use for communication. Half of their inventions seem made to improve killing, the other half made to improve living. The humans’ technology is a rather dangerous conundrum. I think of the witchfire that destroyed Ravenshaunt, the Heartless spell that saved my life—I suppose magic is no different.