Aliyah

The door clicked open. Aliyah looked up from the bowlful of nutrient fluid and flooded her armour with a startled rush of magic.

“It’s only me,” Kionah said, nodding at the shimmer of shielding as it faded away. “Not bad.” She raised an eyebrow as she drew closer. “What are you doing?”

Aliyah offered a nervous smile. “Only some experimentation. It’s not working. Did you manage to find her?”

“Yes. You might be pleased to know your healing arts have done some good. Safira feels wonderful, physically-speaking, which I suspect is softening the whole magic-loss situation.” Kionah paused. “Speaking of healing, I’m guessing this is yours?” She was referring to the nutrient fluid. Aliyah supposed it did look like blood at first glance. “What’s it for? Please don’t say you’re trying to craft some sort of flesh puppet.”

“I’m not trying to make a homunculus,” Aliyah said crossly. “…I thought soaking synthesized flesh in more nutrients would help it last longer, or help me control it—anyway. What did she tell you?”

Kionah heaved a sigh and pulled out a chair. “Yeah, it was faeries. They had a Healer with them by the sound of things, and he did enough to rule out an illusion. Happened at an exile’s camp a few days ago.”

“He?” she echoed, half-dreading the answer.

“In all likelihood, it was probably Salai. But he wasn’t really—I mean, the poor girl was there with her grandfather but neither of them saw much. They passed out fairly early on. Interestingly, it sounded like he was under some sort of curse, or a thrall. There was a faery with him. The whole place was done for. Forty nine with their magic gone, or so they say.”

“Forty nine,” Aliyah said blankly, blinking at the cold, bland horror of it all. She shivered and drew her own magic around her shoulders like a blanket. “And she hasn’t recovered?”

“No, nothing.” Kionah sounded grim. “None of them have. They sent a request to the Hive, seeing as schismatists seem involved.”

“And will the Hive be much help?”

“Maybe. Better hope so, cause City Watch won’t. I don’t really know how it was in Shadowsong, but forty-odd’s practically nothing in a place like this and they didn’t even die. No one wants to get involved in temple politics either. Even old exiles count when it comes to that. Unless those faeries go thieving from some important people…” Her jaw twitched, and she fluttered her fingers in a heavy gesture of doubt.

Aliyah looked back down into the cooling bowl of nutrient fluid. A dark red skin had formed across the surface. “There must be other people from that camp. Does the story match? I don’t think Healers can steal magic. Only Magicians, and it seems—it felt like a slow process to me. And not so…permanent.”

“Haven’t checked.” Kionah hesitated. “We could go see. Safira didn’t say anything about mages in blue, but I don’t suppose it’s impossible.”

“But surely there’d be ritual stuff left over, if it was a Magician?” A different thought occurred to her. “And have you found more people you’d like me to heal?”

“Too much talk flying about for now,” Kionah said, almost airily. “After Safira and the rest woke up cured with mystery symbology around ‘em, the rumours have been spreading like crazy. Give it time to simmer down, and you can do more when some deserving folk try to replicate this miracle ritual for themselves. We should go while we can.”

“Alright. But you know, if that faery’s checking where I am—” She indicated with the arm bearing the tracker-mark “—then this might get their attention. Are you sure it’s alright for me to come along?”

Her hope must’ve bled through in her voice; a curious change came over Kionah’s expression. It was a neutrality that struggled to assert itself. “Would you heal me if I got shot?”

“Yes,” she said instantly. “Of course. You think I wouldn’t?”

Kionah flashed a smile. “Alright, then. Bring your armour. Your needles. Your knife.”

“I don’t have a knife.”

“The one I lent you earlier,” Kionah said, indicating where it sat atop one of the unpacked trunks. “Keep it. It suits you.”

===

Mosslight painted the cavern a cool, oily green. Grim-faced people huddled in clusters around timeworn tents and smoky cooking fires. Several held makeshift weapons close to their bodies: shoddy spears and knives which looked better suited to paring fruit than fending off attackers. Wary eyes stared them down, and secretive murmurs quietened as they approached.

Aliyah couldn’t blame them, knowing what she knew. A heavy silence seeped into the spaces between every word. She suspected they wouldn’t have been let in so easily if Kionah hadn’t drawn one of the gatekeepers aside and rattled off a list of names and places like a code. That, and for the fact that the Hive had gotten here already.

“Hey,” she whispered to Kionah. “Haven’t we seen him before? That orange one.”

“Back with the other scouts? Could be. Should go talk to the Lieutenant in charge, though.”

“Which one’s the Lieutenant?” she asked. “Those ones, in the tunics?” Most of the other faeries wore sashes around their waists, or scarves draped carelessly over their shoulders. She suspected the clothing was for identification rather than utility.

“Yeah, probably. We’ll have to wait in line.”

Aliyah glanced around surreptitiously as they joined a short queue. Knowing that everyone in this cavern had their magic taken painted the grim scene in an even worse light. She tried to picture a way of doing it, of draining the magic from each cell like blood from organ tissue. It seemed impossible. The Magicianling who’d managed to still her magic had only sustained the effect for a couple of minutes. The Magicians had also needed extra things, lots of set-up, intricate glyphs and blood rites powered by dozens of casters. This cavern was almost as bare as a salt plain. There were no signs of runestone or mage-marks.

“…Our thanks for coming here,” someone ahead of them was saying. “We don’t have much, but please, here is some moon-bread. And if you wish it, we could burn a paper offering in your name.”

“Ah, no need,” one of the Lieutenants said, nudging away the proffered parcel. “Rather, it is our scouts who have brought replenishments for you. Just one last question, however. You’re certain that this ‘faery’ accompanying the human mage had no horns, like my companion does? It can be easy to confuse the spines and horns for some, so—”

“Yes, the spines were certainly more like yours.”

“Well, thank you. We will do our best to see this individual found.”

The Lieutenant beckoned the next person in line. Aliyah listened to the next sets of testimonies with mounting dread. The same details stood out each time: a red mage, a golden faery, a Cathayan-looking young man straggling along with them. Each recollection was similar, except for the respondents who had become incapacitated too early on to tell. And peeking through was a curious detail: a clay receptacle which oozed an air of dread.

“You’d best smash it to pieces,” a woman ahead of them growled. “A thing like that, it’s not right. I can’t feel the magic coming back, not one speck of it. Got an answer for us, eh? Or just here to gawp at the misery? Four damn days before you bother showing your faces—took you long enough.”

“M—Ma,” stammered a girl by her side, gingerly tugging at her arm. “Let’s—let’s go, they’re just here to help. Let’s go make an offering at the shrine.”

“Kill ‘em and give our magic back,” the woman continued. She backed away, cradling the girl close with a tense and shaking hand. “We mightn’t have much down here, but it’s through power we’re made safe. What’re we supposed to do now, if some sick bastards get it in their heads to stone us for sport? Food’s all well and good, but you’d best be doing something useful. That’s if you scarcely care!”

“Next, please,” the Lieutenant said evenly.

The woman gave a derisive snort as her daughter led her away, and the Lieutenant sighed as Kionah stepped forward. Her spines shifted as she assessed them.

“You two don’t live here, do you?”

“No,” Kionah agreed. “But we’ve encountered these schismatists before. My friend here would word it best.” She nudged Aliyah forward.

“That golden schismatist you described,” Aliyah said, and tried to roll up her sleeve. The padded armour made it awkward, but she managed to bare most of the tracker-mark. “She placed this on me. Later, more schismatists attacked me—us—because of what we saw. We found a secret camp of theirs while we were travelling here. Later, they claimed to have captured a…colleague of mine. I have reason to believe the mage described in this attack was the same person they captured.”

“We’ve already relayed most of this to a certain Lieutenant Qilin,” Kionah added. “Except for that last part about the mage. She did say she’d investigate the camp coordinates. I know it hasn’t been awfully long, but any news on that?”

“Not that I know of. You are…?”

Aliyah hesitated as Kionah spoke her name with a flourish and offered a hand to shake.

“And you, mage?”

Glister was a big city and anyone who wanted her already knew her face. She wondered if there would be any use in lying. “Mage Scionsong,” she said, with more confidence than she felt.

“Lieutenants Drosera and Hespero,” the Lieutenant replied, first gesturing to herself, then to her companion. “Neither of us are closely linked with Qilin, but one of her assistants is near and may be of help.”

Lieutenant Hespero placed his fingers over his teeth and tipped his head back in a soundless whistle. Several faerie heads turned at the gesture, but only one form swooped across the cavern.

“Aha!” Cygnus exclaimed, saluting with her tail. She landed with a light puff of dust, nodding to each of them. “I remember you.”

“Any news from Qilin?”

Cygnus shook her head. “None. She’s been busy. I would’ve thought you would get your news through Luxon if there were developments.”

Aliyah shrugged. “Yes. But does this change things?”

Cygnus frowned at them. “Change what?”

“Qilin said it’d be difficult to spend time and effort on stray schismatists. It’s not so random or harmless anymore, is it? Forty nine’s a lot more than—than just one. Are you going to track them down?”

“We certainly are,” Drosera spoke loudly, her voice clear and chiming. Aliyah suspected the volume was for the benefit of the nearby acolytes. “This is extremely unprecedented, and it should go without saying that such a deplorable act by a…’faery’ cannot go unpunished even if they are not, strictly speaking, part of our Hive.” There was a note of disgruntlement to that last part.

“We have suspected identities for some already,” Hespero added. “When it comes to those formerly of our Hive.”

“Though many others remain unaccounted for, of course,” Cygnus added. “Who are these suspected ones? Anosmics? Exiles? Both?”

Hespero’s wings shifted hues. “We cannot say so unless we confirm.”

“Of course,” Cygnus said. She made to say more, then froze.

Every other faerie froze right along with her, their spines stretched taut. The cavern seemed to still as a cool breeze swept through it—no, not a breeze, Aliyah realised. It was a tide of unfamiliar magic that made her skin jitter with cold. She looked, instinctively, to the source: the other end of the cavern, where stone stairs tunnelled upwards. A lone faery flew in, skidded across the gravel, and staggered to a stop. The faery hissed several words in succession, the sound amplified by a spell.

Another faery hissed back. She wasn’t sure which. All that mattered was one starting, and the rest following. The ones at the far end of the chamber leaped to the air, and suddenly the cavern was aloft with winged bodies.

“General’s call,” Drosera breathed.

The pair of Lieutenants flared their wings; they spoke in tangled unison, voices sharp. “Contact the Hive later. We are called.”

A gust of air, and they were gone. The encampment swirled with human voices as the faeries began streaming out: cries of confusion, demands for answers, even a few angry curses.

“Again?” Cygnus said—still here, one of the last to start moving. She hovered half a foot off the ground and her spines were laid almost flat, quivering slightly. “Another? So soon?”

Aliyah reached out, fingers closing around spiked chitin as Cygnus made to ascend.

Faerie eyes widened. “Excuse me—let go, please.”

“What’s again?” Aliyah demanded. She jerked her head in the direction of the tents. “This, again? Magic theft? Happening now?”

Cygnus’ wings beat an anxious whirr. “I—I shouldn’t say, but—there was another attack, just this morning. A smaller one. General Grus stationed Lieutenants at some sites, but I didn’t know Perihelion would be—” She shook her arm. “Please, let go! I must help!”

“Take us with you,” Aliyah said urgently. “That mage—I know him, I can stop him.” She wasn’t sure she really could. But she’d kept the string of unlocking charms Kionah had given her by her side, and Hive soldiers at her back was too good of an opportunity to waste.

Cygnus glanced between her and Kionah. “I can’t carry you both.”

“Just me, then.”

“Wait,” Kionah said sharply. “How will I find you? Tell me where.”

Cygnus growled. “I follow the call. There is no name…somewhere toward East-Middle-Drowning-Hollow. Eight minute’s flight, maybe less. A place similar to this one. Vulnerable. That’s all I know.” She held out her other arm. “Coming, or not?”

“Okay.” She glanced at Kionah, whose brow was furrowed in calculation. “See you there?”

Kionah lifted her chin. “I’ll be as fast as I can.”

Aliyah grabbed onto Cygnus’ arm and was borne swiftly into the air.

Being carried by a faerie was a disorientating experience. Cygnus swooped and dived with abandon, her wings shimmering like beacons. The faint buzz of magic keeping Aliyah suspended made the air pliant beneath her feet, as though it were a surface that tilted on a whim. She blinked away tears as wind stung at her face.

Cygnus sailed over an arch of stalagmites and banked steeply at a corner. They wove through a labyrinth of tunnels. The air grew damp; Aliyah heard a rushing roar and soon they were whipping along the length of an underground river. Solitary fires flickered along the far bank. She noted tents and shacks that looked even worse for wear than the acolytes’ encampment as they drew near, almost skimming over the water. Further in, clusters of faeries swarmed the air, throwing distant shouts and sparks of spellfire.

“Here,” Cygnus gasped, and then a dark shape slammed into them.

Cygnus screamed, toppling sideways, then swiftly down as her wings failed. Spiked limbs thrashed as another faery clung to her back, clawing at her spines. Aliyah twisted free of the falling tangle and filled her armour with shielding a moment before she hit the ground. She tucked her head into her arms and rolled, coming to a stop by the river bank. Something shattered. Alchemical smoke filled the air, rendering visibility almost useless. Heavy, barbed ropes hit her over the head as she made to stand. The spikes scraped against her shielding, threatening to bite through skin. Another net. Too bad they’d given her plenty of practice already.

She scrambled into a crouch as someone pulled the ends taught, trying to force her back down. One hand braced against the net, barbs be damned, and the other reached for her knife. She hacked a hole open and tore it further with her hands, just enough to crawl free. Her palms ran with blood and she healed it like an afterthought.

“Cygnus?” she called, but it only drew an icy arrow her way. The point glanced off her armoured shoulder, far weaker than Saiphenora’s had been. She scanned around and upwards, spotting a vaguely familiar flicker of blue.

Aliyah expanded the shielding from her armour, pouring a thicker coating over her head and face and fingertips. Whoever had been down here to secure the net was still around. The smoke didn’t look like it’d thin any time soon. She sharpened her hearing. There was a crackle—that direction. She dropped the effort and pivoted, knife whipping up in one hand and vasodilation in the other.

Two faeries sprung simultaneously. One had a huge, glowing staff swung back, readied to arc down. She reached with the vasodilation. Didn’t have to touch them, anymore. The Calamistrum had seen to that.

They crumpled just as another two arrows hit her shield and one made it through, grazing the sleeve of her padded coat. She ignored it as she stepped forwards, dowsing the two fallen with false-sleep. They crumpled with a clatter. She wasn’t sure if they’d hit their heads badly, but perhaps it was better if they had.

“Cygnus!” she called again, but heard no reply. Probably injured, unconscious. Should she try to find her? No, the other schismatists were more important. If Zahir was here under a thrall, being wielded like a weapon, then she was the only one able to fix it.

Aliyah sharpened her hearing again. The river was at her back and the fight ahead. She sprinted through the mist, ignoring the faery archer as she was peppered with arrows; a few more made it through her shield, but the armour took the scratches in her stead. Yard after yard of river grit and damp gravel, the smoke fading and tents coming into view. Weaving through the tents now, past slumped-over bodies. At some point, she lost the archer. She ducked behind a jagged boulder to catch her breath.

Spellfire bathed the far side of the cavern, where dozens of tents had been felled, crushed, and lit ablaze. Long shadows writhed across the stone, an echo of fighting figures stretched to grotesque proportions. Faeries darted close to the stone-spiked roof, fighting in broken packs. One against one or a dozen against a dozen—the opposing sides seemed equally matched, until she realised some of the fighters were slicing through illusions, shapes wisping into shadow at the touch of a blade. The golden one was probably here then, likely cloaked in illusion herself. Aliyah sharpened her eyesight, scanned the air, and recognised a flash of silver.

Saiphenora of Shallownest was alight with magic, glowing white-hot with a ring of protectors surrounding her. She loosed arrows, one after another, concentrated on a specific faery: orange-red, the colour of flame, a wheel of swords spinning at his back like the spokes of a painted sun. A General, Aliyah thought. What was the name Cygnus had said—Perihelion? She glimpsed Drosera and Hespero striking at three other faeries, decapitating one.

Zahir wasn’t with any of the faeries, though—and why would he be, unless they were already leaving? She hurried forward, ducking behind tents and stepping over bodies. Didn’t have much time. Every previous encounter with the schismatists had demonstrated an exit strategy, and they wouldn’t have planned for an encounter with Lieutenants, much less a General. Hurry, she thought. They’d be leaving soon.

She forced her eyesight into peak clarity, searching for a tell-tale red cloak or a flash of dark hair. A few groups of humans battled it out on the ground, most of them huddled under shielding domes.

He must be here, she thought fiercely. All those unconscious—she was fairly sure they were only unconscious—bodies back there, that had to be his work.

Screams filled the air: high, thin trills as a bright arrow punctured Lieutenant Drosera’s body. Then another, and another, moving almost too swift to believe. Hespero swooped to catch her and was hit too. They fell as one, right onto the biggest cluster of people shielding on the ground. The shield shattered, and Aliyah traced the trajectory right back to Saiphenora. Disturbingly well-planned. She scanned the ground again, pulse hammering in frustration. Where was he?

There—a ripple of air by the collapsed shield. She wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t strained her eyes this far. The figures crawling out from under their fallen teammates staggered and collapsed face-down, barely a few steps out. The ripple of air wavered, like mirage-water over salt horizon, and she was suddenly sure she’d found the illusionist.

A deafening crackle overhead; more screams. Nearby, General Perihelion crashed into the ground like a flaming meteor. Faery whistles filled the air, barely audible but so thick with magic they touched her skin like an echo of river current.

Aliyah stepped out from behind the tent just as a hiss rippled through the cavern. Overhead, the schismatist formations were breaking and scattering. Several faeries pitched bottles and sachets at the ground. Glass shattered, powder plumed. The air filled with smoke and an overpowering, alchemical smell: sharp and stinging, like a bucketful of scouring solution. Escape plan? Had to be.

She fortified her shield and ignored what was above her, sprinting straight into the clearing of trampled tents. Smoke swirled everywhere; she could hardly see three feet ahead. Loosening her needles from her clothing, she sent them scouting in a broad fan formation. She slowed and veered hard when she felt them pinging off chitin.

Through the smoke, the edge of a wing loomed.

She’d expected the illusionist to be invisible; the gleam of gold almost took her by surprise. There was just enough time to clutch vasodilation and knife both, and bring them point-first into the illusionist’s back. The knife pierced an inch and the spell burrowed deeper. In through surface chitin, reaching for strange vessels—but no, there was a resistance. A familiar piece of magic, pushing back against her efforts.

The illusionist slumped fractionally and straightened again, eyes blazing. She twisted, lashing out with a spear of chitin. Aliyah staggered, knife ripping loose, the spear strike jarring her bones even as it bounced off her armour. A phantom sting bloomed across her forearm. She drew six needles from her sleeve and loosed them straight forward. Felt them stick before the chitin reshaped itself, expelling them.

“Kingdom rat,” the illusionist hissed, the spear quivering in her grasp.

“You!” Aliyah screamed, scrambling to her feet, a breakage at the ready. “You wanted me? Here I am! Now where is he?”

The illusionist’s spear melted back into her body. One hand clutched at a weeping wound in her chest; the other cradled a clay vessel. The wound was closing, but it was a deep one. She was more injured than she’d assumed, Aliyah realised. She could end it now. The thought crystallised along with her magic, weaving mere breakage into bloody excision—

The illusionist hefted the vessel, aimed its mouth. Aliyah’s gaze hooked toward that dark circle, hungry and calling. For a moment, it felt as if all of her blood had reversed direction. She took a jerky step backwards and threw the excision with all her strength. The illusionist snarled, diving aside. The vessel’s mouth pointed away, and the hunger faded from the air.

Aliyah’s excision had missed, but she formed another and threw it just as viciously. The illusionist ceased her light tricks. Invisibility ripped away like too-thin gauze and then Zahir was there, countering her excision, shielding the illusionist from view, his eyes glowing retina-red. The air snapped flat and cold. Agony screeched along every nerve. Her sinuses seemed to compress. By the time she reeled further back, letting go of her readied breakage to shield herself and purge her pain receptors, the illusionist was airborne and heading toward the distant, flaming glow to their right.

“You wanted your colleague?” the illusionist called. Hemolymph poured from her mouth. “Go—go fetch.” And she disappeared.

Zahir whirled round and ran, whorled in wisps of smoke. Aliyah grabbed at his trailing cloak and only managed to tear off a thread in her hand.

“The mage,” she shouted, almost tearing her vocal cords. The smoke was just starting to clear. She couldn’t see many Hive faeries, other than a few clustered back by the fallen Lieutenants. She called out anyway. “I found their mage! I need help!”

She sheathed her knife as she ran, gathering a sea of excisions in her hands instead. She had armour, she reasoned. He had years’ worth of experience. She had the unlocking charms in her pocket, too. Blood feathered her nostrils. Her tongue felt like a bruise in her mouth. She had a chance.

But only a chance.