10
ROT
SAERIS
“YOU’RE SURE YOU’RE fine? You’re so pale.”
Fisher had been fussing like a mother hen for the past hour. He’d heard me shouting Edina’s name. His mother’s name. I’d considered making an excuse, some other reason to explain why I had been calling out to her—it seemed cruel to tell him what had happened without properly understanding what had happened—but that thought hadn’t fully taken shape before I’d dismissed it.
Fisher deserved to know.
Edina had only told me not to tell him about the book, anyway. I honored her request and kept that to myself. I didn’t care about a mystery book. I was far more concerned about what she’d said regarding my runes. The pain I’d experienced in Everlayne’s bedroom hadn’t been normal. It had felt like it was burning my soul as well as my body. As if the river of magic flowing through me had caught fire and was unmaking me. It had been terrifying . . . and I did not want it to happen again.
“Yes, I’m sure. I’m fine,” I told him. “Just a little shaken, that’s all.” We were gathered in Cahlish’s library. Ren was still at Irrín, waiting for the remainder of the Yvelian forces who had fled the encroaching rot to meet at a rally point downriver. Lorreth had gone to help him figure out shelter for the warriors whose homes had been lost during the attack.
Te Léna, Maynir, and Iseabail had been poking and prodding at me since Fisher had sent for them. Carrion had already been in the library, lounging on a plush sofa by the fire and reading a book when we’d arrived. He hadn’t moved an inch. The token concern he’d shown over my well-being had presented itself as a crooked eyebrow, a quick glance up and down, and two questions that were neither tactful nor kind: “Is she contagious?” and “She’ll be fine after she eats something. What time’s dinner?”
He’d been buried in his book ever since.
“I wish I knew more about all of this,” Te Léna said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “It’s been a long time since I was this woefully uneducated on a subject. Even dealing with the quicksilver inside Fisher was easier than this.
There are plenty of documented cases that speak of quicksilver contamination and how to try to remedy it, but Belikon’s men were thorough when they scourged the realm of information regarding the Alchemists and their power.
There’s nothing in the library here about it. There’s nothing in the archives at the Winter Palace on the subject, either. Maynir spent years trawling through the stacks there before we met. He had a personal interest in the Alchemists and their abilities. He’s always been fascinated by the lost arts. He said that entire chapters were missing out of books that probably only mentioned the word Alchemy.”
“What about you, Iseabail? Do you know anything about sealing Alchemical runes?” Fisher asked. His voice was tight. He seemed distracted. “Belikon didn’t raid your lands when he purged Yvelia of all the Alchemists’ texts. Do you think there might still be anything useful in Nevercross?”
I hated being so out of the loop sometimes. “What’s Nevercross?”
Iseabail herself answered the question. “It’s our political seat,” she said, in her soft, lilting accent. “A city unlike any other. Our buildings have stood for millennia, protected from the outside world. We school our children there. We heal the sick there.”
“And your histories are kept there,” Fisher added. “In the catacombs below
the city.”
The redheaded witch scowled, implying Kingfisher wasn’t supposed to know this. “Our histories are exactly that. Ours. There are no records of the Alchemists or their practices below Nevercross. And even if there were,” she said, holding up a finger and cutting Fisher off before he could interrupt her.
“Only Guild witches are allowed down into the catacombs. I couldn’t get you access to those death chambers even if I wanted to. And I don’t. There are secrets down there that should never be experienced by outsiders.”
“Experienced?” That was a strange way of wording it.
Iseabail nodded. “The catacombs are unearthly. I wouldn’t even go down there unless I had no other choice. And we do have other choices. Until we’ve exhausted all of them, it would be foolish to even think about petitioning for access.”
Fisher drummed his fingertips absently against the table. Late morning light spilled through the window gilding his hair. A few short hours ago, we’d been tangled up in each other, embraced by his glittering magic. It had been blissful inside that silent velvet sanctuary. Now he was troubled. Deeply troubled. It was almost as though I could feel his pain. His chair creaked as he shoved back in it, balancing it on two legs. Covering his mouth with a heavily inked hand, he sighed.
“All right. I can respect that. The witches deserve their peace, too,” he said.
“We’ll avoid traveling to Nevercross for as long as we can. But this rot can survive ice and snow, Iseabail. The mountains won’t stop it. Before too long, this corruption will make its way to your home, and it will become the Guild’s problem.”
Iseabail inclined her head, the ends of her auburn braids coiling on the table as she accepted this truth. “Unfortunately, my mother and her sisters will probably wait to act until that day arrives. I’ll tell them of what I’ve seen here.
But I wouldn’t count on any expedient support from the north, I’m afraid.”
Silence reigned over the library for a time, all of us lost in our thoughts,
doing our best to figure out how best to proceed. The quiet was disturbed by the door to the library bursting open and the arrival of Ren and Lorreth in a whirlwind of leather, soot, and war braids.
Fisher rose quickly. “You found them?”
Ren’s face was grave, but he nodded. “The vast majority of them were waiting for us at the rally point. We lost a thousand more warriors, though.”
“More feeders?”
Lorreth shook his head. “The rot. It infected them somehow. The same way it must have infected the feeders. It took them in an hour. Two at most. The other fighters had to put them down. Their friends. Family. It wasn’t good.
There’s a trail of bodies from the war camp all the way into the foothills.”
“And where those bodies lay, the rot spreads and multiplies,” Ren said. “It claims any vegetation. Any creature, living or dead. It travels over snow and scorched ground without issue. We’ve yet to figure out a way to stop it.”
The color drained from Fisher’s face. His gaze met mine, clouded with worry, the thin strand of quicksilver banding his right eye flashing bright. We need to tell them, he said into my mind. Do I have your permission?
I gave him a small nod. I had described to him in great detail what had happened when I’d been pulled into the quicksilver back at Gillethrye. I hadn’t left anything out. But Fisher had wanted to keep the full account to ourselves for a little while so as not to alarm the others unnecessarily. But now it seemed as though alarm was warranted. He took a deep breath and began. “Back in Gillethrye, Saeris wasn’t just pulled into the quicksilver. She was called by the gods.”
Five baffled faces turned toward me. Over the back of the sofa, Carrion’s head popped up out of nowhere, his auburn strands disheveled as if he’d just woken up. “What does that mean, called by the gods? Like, you found religion?”
“No. It means that I was summoned by them. Zareth was the one who yanked me through the—”
“Excuse me. Zareth?” Te Léna squeaked. “The Zareth. God of chaos Zareth?”
“God of chaos and change,” I said wearily. “He was very adamant about the
‘and change’ part.”
“You met with a god?”
“Yes. Three of them, actually.” I shrugged. “Bal and Mithin were there, too.
Kind of.”
Te Léna looked like she might pass out. She pressed her index finger and middle finger to her brow with reverence. “What did Zareth say?”
“He said he was severing us from the tapestry of the universe. That the gods wouldn’t be able to see us anymore.”
“Wait,” Maynir interjected. “So you and Fisher . . . you’re not God-Bound anymore?”
Fisher shifted, absently rubbing the tattoos across the back of his hand that now matched my own. “We are. If anything, the connection between us is even stronger. The gods are just blind to us now. Zareth felt that it would protect us.
Some of the other gods aren’t too optimistic about what’s happening. They’d rather birth a new universe than wait to see what happens with this one, so . . .”
“No. No, no, no.” Iseabail shook her head. “Impossible. The Yvelian gods aren’t real. They’re metaphors.”
Lorreth’s eyes narrowed imperceptibly. “But the Balquhidder gods are real, though, right? Those elemental spirits who whisper in your ears? The ones who tell you whether you should prevent or commit atrocities for ‘the greater good’?”
He heaped sarcasm onto those last three words.
“Our deities aren’t myths, Lorreth. They’ve always been here, and their will cannot be questioned. If we don’t obey them, the consequences—”
“Enough.” Fisher didn’t raise his voice, but the command echoed around the library. Frown lines etched deep grooves between his brows. “The gods are real.
They’re bastards, but they’re real. I’ve met with them myself. We aren’t telling you this now to spark a debate about theology. I’m bringing this up because of what they told Saeris.”
Everyone looked expectantly at me, which was just great. Being stared at
was my favorite. “Zareth showed me this tree,” I explained. “There were thousands of leaves on its branches. He said that each leaf represented a realm occupied by countless living beings. Some of the leaves withered and fell as we spoke. He said that those realms were infected by a rot spreading throughout the universe. Whole branches of the tree were blackened and dying. Zareth said that it meant the end. Of everything. Of all realms. That the other gods wanted to wipe the slate clean and start over again, rebuilding the universe from scratch. But he had refused.”
“And so,” Iseabail said, “this male who claimed to be a God said that you and Fisher were the only ones who could prevent the end of everything, then? Is that what you’re telling us?” The witch didn’t sound upset, per se. Her tone was measured, but there was a whirlwind of emotion in her blue eyes.
“No. He said that Fisher and I are an axis of some kind. A convergence in the threads of fate. He told me that none of the gods could see around us. He said that we had to find a way to fix this, otherwise everything was lost. I’m not saying we’re special, Iseabail. I’m just saying that . . .” I fumbled for the right words. “A god rolled the dice on an unlikely outcome, just to see if it would pay off. That’s it. That’s what we are currently working with.”
No one looked happy to hear this.
I was met with tight, grim expressions as I glanced around the room. That is, until my gaze fell on Carrion. With his arms draped over the back of the couch and his chin resting on the cushion, he shot me a roguish wink. “You’ll come up with something, Fane. You always do. You’re very smart for a twenty- five-year-old.”
I choked out a laugh, and the tension sucking up all the air in the room suddenly broke. “If you’re going to mock me for my youth, Swift, you might as well get my age right. I’m twenty-four.”
He angled his head, waggling his eyebrows. “Are you, though?”
“I—” Oh. Huh. I trailed off, frowning as I tried to do the math. How long had I been in Yvelia now? It felt like a long, long time, but . . . gods, I had no clue. I’d
been here long enough, though. I’d missed my own birthday. I was twenty-five now.
Carrion turned his attention back to his book. “Don’t worry, Fane. We’ll have a big birthday party just as soon as people stop dying all over the place.”
“I don’t want a party.”
“Why not? You always used to come to my birthday parties.”
“I used to go to Kala’s,” I corrected. “You and your drunk friends just so happened to be there too sometimes.”
Lorreth shot Carrion a smirk. “Only Faelings have birthday parties, y’know.
We stop celebrating that kind of stuff when we turn fourteen. What are you now, seventeen hundred years old?”
“Watch your tongue, old man. I’m not ancient like the rest of you,” Carrion snorted, turning a page. “I’m only one thousand and ninety-six, thank you very much.”
“Impossible. The Daianthus heir went missing when we were Faelings. I was . . .” Lorreth frowned, searching his memory. “I was thirteen when it happened. I was preparing for my oath. What about you, Fisher?”
Unlike Lorreth, my mate was neither perturbed nor confused by the revelation the warrior had stumbled upon. “Nearly ten,” he said.
“Right. So that means you are nearly our age.” Lorreth raised dark brows at Carrion.
“He isn’t,” Fisher said softly. “It’s as he says. He’s probably only eleven hundred or so.”
Carrion pointed at Fisher. “Thank you. I do know how to count, Lorreth of the Broken Spire.”
“So he’s not the heir, then?” Te Léna sounded just as confused as the rest of us.
“Wait. I’m not?” Carrion was sitting up very straight all of a sudden. “I’m off the hook?”
“He is the heir. I’ve thought about it a lot since the maze, and there’s a
plausible explanation for Carrion’s age,” Kingfisher explained. “When my father took him through the quicksilver, something must have happened. My money’s on the gods, interfering again.”
“You think there’s a chance they wanted to speak to him?” I asked. “The way Zareth spoke to me?”
Slowly, my mate nodded. “Time is strange in their realm. When they took me at Ajun, I stood with Bal and Mithin in the middle of a field of swaying tall grass. I saw two figures up on a hill in the distance. The first was Zareth. The second . . . was you, Osha.”
Whatever I’d been expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. Fisher had fought and nearly died at the Ajun Gate over a thousand years ago. I had been pulled through the quicksilver and into the gods’ realm only a few short weeks ago.
“But . . . how? And how do you know it was me?”
I didn’t know your name. I didn’t see your face. But I knew, Osha. My soul recognized a flicker of itself burning inside someone else and it knew. The explanation was for me alone. Fisher’s eyes burned with intensity as he conveyed the message. To the rest of the room, he said, “When my father fled with the Daianthus heir, one or more of the gods must have delayed their escape. At least at their destination, anyway. Time continued here in Yvelia, but in Zilvaren, I believe it stood still.”
It was certainly within their power. And the gods did love to interfere in the matters of the living. I wouldn’t have put it past them. But the question was wh — “Why?” Carrion asked the question before I’d had the chance to finish thinking it. “To what end? I don’t remember going there. I remember nothing. I don’t even remember your father, Fisher. Did he have some kind of plan for me? Do the gods?”
My mate chewed the inside of his cheek, staring down at his hand where it rested on the table in front of him. It took him a long time to speak. “I barely remember my father, either. And I don’t pretend to know anything of plans made by gods. All we can do is make our own and hope for the best.”
“Agreed.” Until now, Renfis had been notably silent throughout this exchange. He rubbed his jaw, looking around the room. “The agendas of the gods will have to be tackled later. For now, nothing is more important than the task at hand. We’re woefully low on silver, but that doesn’t even seem to be an issue anymore. The horde is at bay. Saeris has forbidden them from leaving the dead fields. We don’t have to worry about them showing up at the river anymore. It’s true that we don’t have the relics yet, but we can do without them
for now.”
“Oh, we still need them,” I said.
Everyone looked at me again.
“We need them even more than we did before. The feeders at the river yesterday shouldn’t have been able to disobey my edict, and yet they did.”
“Because they were infected by the rot,” Ren said, slowly. His shoulders slumped, his face falling. “And the rot is spreading. If the horde at Ammontraíeth becomes infected . . .”
“We’re screwed,” Fisher finished. “Fuck.” He frowned, his eyes a million miles away as he processed that.
“The relics still won’t help us if we need to face an infected army,” Lorreth muttered.
I kept my mouth shut this time. I wasn’t going to be the one to say it. As usual, Fisher took on the burden of the difficult task, bearing the weight of it for the rest of us. “If it comes to that, nothing will help us,” he said. “We’ll have to leave Yvelia. And for a mass evacuation on that level, we’ll need far more than fifteen thousand relics.”
There were other realms. Places where we might be able to outrun the decay for a while. But it would be a temporary fix. From what Zareth had said, the rot that was fast spreading toward the mountain range separating Irrín from Cahlish was already finding ways to hop from one realm to another.
Renfis inclined his head, nodding. “Okay. I stand corrected. We will need more silver. More than we could hope to access here in Yvelia.”
“Agreed.” Fisher pressed his fingertips into his temples. After thinking for a moment, he looked up at me. “There’s a forge at Ammontraíeth. There has to be.”
“I’ll find it. And as soon as I do, I’ll get to work.”
“Thank you. While you’re there, Carrion can hunt for information about sealing your runes. And mastering your abilities in general, for that matter.”
Carrion let out a pained sigh and heaved himself up from the sofa. He slapped his hands at his clothes, straightening himself out. “No,” he said.
“Carrion cannot.”
“Why? Got something better to do?” Fisher asked.
“Well, I wouldn’t say better, but . . .” He rolled his eyes. “I know where you’re heading, and unfortunately for the both of us, I’m better off
accompanying you.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Where can we easily lay our hands on a bunch of silver outside of this
realm?” the smuggler asked.
Oh.
Oh, no.
I flinched when I realized where this was going.
“We also need to figure out if the infected feeders are coming from Zilvaren. And I’m just guessing here, but I’m sure that now that you’re mated and all starry eyed, you’re going to want to go and fetch Saeris’s brother and finally honor the deal you made with her—”
“Careful, Swift,” Fisher grumbled.
“And who knows exactly what the notorious Hayden Fane looks like, hmm?”
“You’ve made your point.”
“If that task’s left up to you again, you’ll probably bring back some random . . . hey, what was that guy called?” Carrion snapped his fingers at me, frowning.
“Y’know, that blond guy who kissed you at Kala’s that time? You chipped his front tooth when you punched him in the mouth.”
I was going to punch him in the mouth very soon. “Carrion, stop.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “All right. All right. I’m just saying.
While you keep shit in check with the Blood Court and figure out some new magic tricks, Fisher and I will head back to the Silver City and take care of business there, too. It only makes sense.”
A thick silence filled the library as everyone processed this. I waited for Fisher to refuse the suggestion, but when I saw his dark scowl, I realized that he wasn’t going to shoot down Carrion’s plan after all. He looked like he wanted to murder him. Instead, he said, “Fine. But I swear to the gods, if you talk the entire time, I will kill you and leave your carcass for the crows, Carrion Swift.”