ExEss A Murder in Whitewall (Download) - 1

A MURDER IN
WHITEWALL
RAI W. COLE
A MURDER IN
WHITEWALL
RAI W. COLE
Developer: Danielle Lauzon
Writer: Rai W. Cole
Editor: Kirsten Hipsky
Art: Joe Ng
Art Director: Michael Chaney
Graphic Designer: Dixie Cochran
Creative Director: Richard Thomas
© 2023 PARADOX INTERACTIVE AB.

All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written consent of the
publisher is expressly forbidden, except for the purposes of reviews,
and for blank character sheets, which may be reproduced for personal
use only. Exalted and Exalted 3rd Edition are registered trademarks of
Paradox Interactive AB (publ). All rights reserved.
2 A MURDER IN WHITEWALL
A MURDER IN
WHITEWALL
Chapter One: The Oracle and the Dragon 4
Chapter Two: The Scrollwork Atelier 14
Chapter Three: The Inn and the Sauna 25
Chapter Four: The Winter Rose House 33
Chapter Five: The Knight and the Ghost 43
Chapter Six: The Winter’s Wrath 54
Chapter Seven: The Ritual and the Rebel 66
Chapter Eight: The Shape of the World 79
Chapter Nine: The Gate and the Truce 82
Table of Contents 3
Chapter One:
The Oracle and the Dragon
Snow fell like petals, delicate and dreamy. At either side of the Travelers’ Road, the
flakes converged with their partners, petal upon petal building into drifts that could sty-
mie the most dedicated traveler. From her uneasy perch in the rattling coach, Kalehulani
watched the pearly tufts as they drifted past. Snow — real snow, as cold and beautiful as
she’d imagined.
“Tell him I want to make a stop soon.”
Lani scowled at the woman sitting across from her. Velta Eso was young, slender,
and pale — not that these traits were obvious to anyone else, as at that moment she was
bundled in layers of wool and wrapped in a heavy, tasseled shawl the size of a blanket.
From under her felted cap, wild, wine-colored curls spilled onto her cheeks like winter
roses. Her sharp, emerald green eyes looked as if she was holding in a laugh.
“Tell him yourself,” Lani growled.
Velta made her eyes wide with mock scandal. “And speak over my Dragon-Blooded
superior? I couldn’t possibly!”
Unamused, Lani picked at the feathers woven into her flax-and-fur cape. “I don’t
even speak Skytongue,” she muttered, half-hoping Velta wouldn’t hear.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. I think you’re getting the hang of it.”
The coach from Twofold to Whitewall — properly called the White Line, if one were
savvy to such things — was a drafty thing of white oak, iron, and brass, the interior lined
and padded with wool aplenty. It was meant to seat four; the coachman said as such when
they approached him back at the carriage house. But they had thought to change their
currency before departing, and when Lani haltingly explained they would pay triple the
fare for his trouble, the man’s face glowed with opportunity. His Skytongue was rapid
with barely restrained excitement: an easy trip, he promised, for a coach-and-four pulling
half the weight they were used to.
Some of that enthusiasm had faltered when Lani withdrew her weapon to stow across
the carriage’s roof. The coach sagged in its straps under the weight of the great, white
jade hammer.
“Trouble?” Lani had asked, stiffly.
The man had flown into another rush of anxious Skytongue: no trouble, no trouble
at all! He so fretted over her comfort — at the exclusion of her companion — that Lani
began to grow angry with the nuisance of it all, and she resolved to say absolutely nothing
if she could help it for the entirety of their trip.
So, she crossed her arms and sat silently, fixing her younger partner with a pointed
glare.
Velta’s sigh was a disappointed little cloud. “On the return trip, I’ll treat you to a
moon-and-noodle bowl at that shop near the heavenly gate.”
A beautiful image of luminous noodles, an iridescent soft-cooked egg, and steaming
midnight broth wafted through her mind. She’ll just forget. Lani squared her shoulders.
Rumbling, icy silence. The young woman scoffed. “You know, Dae-won warned me
you’d be too much of a distraction if I took you on as a partner for this. But here you are,
glaring at me and looking just like the old man.” Velta rose from her seat. “You two might
even get along,” she added with obvious disappointment.
When Velta raised her voice to speak to the driver, Lani heard him yelp in surprise.
She didn’t bother hiding her smug grin. The driver had already forgotten he had two
passengers.
Tall, thin towers appeared from the snow and mist. The carriage slowed to a crawl
as it approached. “What is this?” Lani demanded when she felt their momentum flag. It
certainly wasn’t snow or ice slowing them down — the Travelers’ Road remained mys-
teriously free of either.
“The Pillars,” Velta said simply.
Massive columns of indestructible gray marble rose from the snow just beside the
Travelers’ Road. The horses grumbled nervously.
Velta stepped out of the carriage without explanation, tightening the creamy woolen
shawl around her shoulders.
“What’s this about?” Lani’s heavy footfalls thudded onto the gleaming road.
When the carriage driver stumbled out of his seat, clearing his throat and avoiding
her gaze, it struck her once again how extraordinary she felt in Creation, in the North.
She was a full head taller than either of the pale little Northerners with her, and quite a bit
broader, with raw sienna skin, freckles like golden beryl, and basalt-black hair in long,
thick locks.
The Northerners’ plain wool and linen clothing, boxy and bland with only a few
splashes of colorful embroidery, made her feel glad for the beautiful cloak her family had
woven for her. It wasn’t just a practical gift, though the layers of flax and seal fur cer-
tainly accomplished that. It was a gift for the scion of her clan, the only Dragon-Blooded
of her line to be Chosen in over a century. It was woven with feathers from the ruby
mospid and the sun-shadow gannet, beaded with pearls from the Quicksilver Sea upon
which the Heavenly City was suspended. It was as important to her as the ancestral jade
hammer, Eruption Column, which she carried like the world’s largest, most intimidating
family sigil.
chapter one 5
Through Lani’s veins flowed the blood of the Elemental Dragon of Earth — through
him, she was Exalted. In the City of Heaven, vastly outnumbered by gods and spirits, she
was a mere curiosity, but here in Creation…
Velta lit out across the blanketed field, mysteriously light enough to leave no foot-
prints. Lani followed, her soft-soled boots making soft chuffing sounds in the snow. It
was wetter than she would have liked. She scowled. “Are you going to tell me why we
stopped at some old ruins?” Lani barked after her partner.
“They’re not ruins,” Velta’s voice drifted back to her like smoke. Her words were
always as careful and precise as a dagger strike, but with a hint of mischief that hinted at
a greater story behind them. It infuriated Lani to no end.
The pillars stretched from the ground like sterile tree trunks, wider than Lani could
reach her arms around, as stark as fangs against the encroaching storm-dark. Chains and
manacles were wrapped around the columns, discarded in the snow. These weren’t ruins.
The pillars were whole and smooth, the chains solid. Velta seemed arrested by one of
them in particular, studying it with a keen interest Lani had only seen her reserve for
scandal and lawbreaking.
Her heel came down on something smooth, hard, that she knew in her heart wasn’t
stone. Lani swept the snow aside with the blade of her foot. A large, long bone — a human
thigh bone.
Lani curled her lip. All at once she could make out the shape of what these columns
were for.
“This is a time-honored Whitewall institution,” Velta said to no one in particular, pat-
ting one of the Pillars with her gloved hand. “The worst of the year’s criminals end their
days here, as a peace offering.”
“Peace offering to what?” Lani asked warily.
Velta’s emerald eyes curved with her unseen smile. Behind her, the edge of the north-
ern forest was too dark, too silent.
There was something immediately unsettling about that place, something horrible
that made Lani’s skin crawl. She thought of Eruption Column, still strapped atop the car-
riage. “We should get going,” she said finally.
“We should,” Velta agreed, the smile still lingering in her voice.
Lani and Velta returned to the carriage, the harshness of death fading away.
As they neared the gates of Whitewall, Lani could sense her partner’s growing impa-
tience. The queue entering the city was long, disheartening, and filled with country folk
desperate to outrun the surprise winter storm and get to safety behind the city’s fabled
walls.
“Tell him to go around.” Velta was in the mood to make demands again.
Lani stared at her. “What, jump the line?”
The other woman nodded, unmoved. “We — you’re on official business.”
The driver proved hard to convince, even with a Dragon-Blooded giving the order.
“Is okay,” Lani assured him in broken Skytongue, and by way of proof, she reached to the
top of the carriage to give Eruption Column a pat on the head.
Even through the lattice between their car and the driver’s seat, Lani could see a
change come over the driver. His posture straightened and his shoulders squared. With
a gleeful clucking, he guided the horses into the opposite lane, and they took off like a
shot. Travelers flew past them, a blur of gray wood, dark horses, and roaring white wind.
“Maybe not so fast,” Velta protested through clattering teeth.
Lani parted the heavy insulating curtains to lean her body out the window of their
carriage. The wind tugged at her feathers and her heavy locks, whipped snow into her
unprotected face. The southern gates of Whitewall tore through the veil of snowfall, sud-
denly towering above them. The tops of the city’s ashen walls loomed beyond the heavy
haze. Though Lani craned her neck, she could not see where they ended.
Their flight came to a shuddering halt at the gatehouse, as official figures in long,
black overcoats barred their way. Authoritative, foreign words flew over Lani’s head. She
could barely make out her driver’s flustered responses.
“What’s Skytongue for ‘official business?’” Lani grumbled.
Velta’s nimble fingers dipped into the cuff of her long sleeves, withdrawing a golden
cylinder the size of Lani’s ring finger. She tossed it to the Dragon-Blooded. The thing was
slightly warm, imperceptibly humming with Essence. On one end, carved in relief, was
the seal of the Heavenly City, Yu-Shan.
“Why tell you that, when you can show them this?” Velta winked.
Gritting her teeth, Lani stuck her head and shoulders out the carriage window again.
“Hey!”
The black-coated officials looked up at her with faces red from cold. Lani held up
the seal. The storm-dimmed sunlight gathered along its edges, and suddenly it was bright
as a torch.
“Is okay!” Lani demanded with as much authority she could muster.
All at once the faces of the gatekeepers went slack with shock and alarm. More
Skytongue flew past her, the guards gesturing to each other wildly. They parted without
further complaint. Wheels groaned into motion again, the driver casting an awed look
back at Lani before she withdrew into the carriage.
She spun the seal in her hands, studying it with newfound appreciation and doing
everything in her power not to acknowledge Velta’s smirk.
Whitewall scrambled and panicked beyond their windows in a chaotic orchestra of
crunching wheels, clattering bootheels, and hushed voices. The cobbled streets were ac-
cumulating snow faster than carts and servants could clear it. It gathered between the cob-
blestones and drifted against the sides of soot-gray buildings. Folk traveling the streets
seemed in a hurry to reach their destinations, any emotion hidden behind fur-lined cloaks
and wind-whipped scarves. Vagabonds in tatters and patches moved in flocks, heads
together as though they were sharing earnest conversation. The tall, narrow buildings
chapter one 7
seemed to huddle against the cold, with few alleys or backstreets between them. Many
were stacked five or six stories high, precarious, and sagging. The air was heavy with
smoke and wet wool.
It was significantly drearier than the stories Velta told. Lani wrinkled her nose. “Just
like you remember it?” She asked drily.
Velta loosened her shawl, tossing her short, dark red curls. “It’s only been a year,” she
reminded Lani, but her clever, cruel little mouth pursed in thought.
Lani hadn’t expected to provoke deep thought with her offhanded question. “A lot
can happen in a year,” she offered uselessly.
“Can it?” Velta asked politely, the stars in her eyes dancing.
The carriage rumbled to a stop, the driver gathering his coat and reins with finality.
Lani peered out their ice-crusted window, grim and wary. Whitewall had room to breathe
here; the graying row houses and tenements were gone, and the remaining, lanky edifices
stood far enough apart to allow alleys and backroads to crisscross the district.
The temple in front of which they had parked was a grand old thing, an elaborate tower
of pointed arches, polished columns, and enormous colored windows shaped like dagger
blades. It was almost shocking in contrast to the drab and dreary tenements of the outer ring
of Whitewall. Lani was no stranger to ornate architecture — there were abandoned hovels
in the slums of Yu-Shan that could still put this temple to shame — but she found herself
impressed all the same. A crowd of citizens in grays and browns formed a curious wall on
the opposite side of the street, all of them staring with undisguised interest and suspicion.
Three figures in fine black over cloaks and flat-brimmed hats approached the two Ex-
alts from the temple’s stone portico, their boots dull with ice and muck. One extinguished
a rough, hand-rolled cigarette in the snow, the dying ember glancing off a badge in his
over cloak lapel set with two brass coins.
Velta pushed to the window herself, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining. “Lieu-
tenant Ozol,” she muttered. Her lips quirked into a cold smile. “My day keeps improv-
ing.”
Lani grunted. “You know him. Then you can do the talking.”
“Ozol and I have nothing good to say to each other,” she answered breezily. “Keep
throwing your weight around, Prince of the Earth.”
The three men formed a wall of heavy black wool and legal authority, speaking
quickly and harshly with the driver. Lani could hear the coachman’s assurance flagging.
Velta glared at her impatiently. Groaning, the Dragon-Blood shoved her way out of the
carriage. No sooner had she reclaimed her white jade weapon and stowed it in the sling
on her back than the interrogation of their driver froze into silence.
The habit Creation mortals had of falling silent when they realized who — what she
was had begun to wear thin. “Ozol,” she grunted, pointing to the man Velta had identified.
The peace officer apologized, though under the brim of his hat he remained hard-
eyed. He posed a question in a rough voice just this side of polite. Lani peered at him,
struggling with the unfamiliar words.
Velta’s hand was light on her shoulder; Lani was overwhelmed with the sudden scent
of hibiscus and amber incense. For a moment, the world and every sound it made was
emerald green.
“My lord,” Ozol was saying — the voice of a man who did not like to repeat himself.
“I said, how can we assist you?”
Lani cleared her throat. “Right. Sorry. We’re here to investigate.” Skytongue breezed
forth from her lips. She was too stunned to remark on it. “The Syndics asked for us.”
Another change came over the three men, who cast wide-eyed glances between
themselves.
“And why would the Syndics request one Dragon-Blooded and her attendant?” Ozol
growled.
“I’m afraid that’s confidential,” Velta answered in a voice that was not only unafraid
but delighted.
“We aren’t in the habit of giving strangers access to restricted areas simply on the
strength of their words.” Ozol’s chipped flint eyes returned to Lani, and he gave a quick
and half-deferent, “begging your pardon.”
Lani returned his hard look, retrieving the small golden seal from inside her tunic.
“We’re from Yu-Shan.”
This was, apparently, the last straw for Ozol’s two subordinates, who stepped away
from him with a quickness. “Yu-Shan,” the lieutenant echoed, his expression growing
slack at the sight of the seal. All at once, he let out a hoarse laugh.
Velta jabbed Lani in the side with her elbow, sharp and bony even through her winter
layers.
“What?” Lani pushed her away as discreetly as possible.
“Stop telling them so much!” Velta hissed at her in Old Realm.
“Heaven. Yu-Shan.” Ozol’s cheeks were angry red and his look was no less hostile.
“Fine, then. Follow me, investigators.”
Velta continued to mutter, but Ozol either didn’t hear or pretended not to. He turned
sharply on his heel, the tails of his long coat flaring out behind him, and started back
toward the temple. The two other peace officers flanked them, one on each side, as they
walked. The adherence to protocol was so absurd Lani couldn’t help but grin — neither
mortal stood a chance against her.
“How about this weather?” She chaffed, pleased at the sour look on Velta’s face.
Ozol grunted, and for a beat Lani wondered if he would dare to ignore her. “Abysmal.
Unprecedented.” He produced a heavy brass key from the depths of his winter wear, and
with it the bars across the temple door were made to swing aside. “The city prognostica-
tors are hysterical.”
“Why’s that?” Lani asked, surprised at the depth of this answer.
“I imagine it’s because they didn’t prognosticate it,” he said drily, and through the
high stone doors, an empty cold welcomed them and the little inescapable drifts of snow.
chapter one 9
The temple was well-lit, but it didn’t feel warm to her. It was a colorless, incandes-
cent light, shining steadily from sconces of gold and glass. The floor was white basalt,
bright and smooth and polished, and the ceiling above was high as a cliff. Hard, vibrant
tapestries covered the floors, marking the path for adherents to travel from entrance, to
nave, to the altar. The air smelled of baked fruit and wine, of richness and plenty.
Lani heard a quiet scoff. Velta was glancing about at the temple’s wealth with disgust
and frustration. Still, she had fallen into wordlessness.
“The body?” Lani prompted their three escorts.
“Concealed,” was all the gruff Ozol would say. A curt nod sent the two subordinates
to either side of the archway, where they posted like sentinels.
The ribs of the vaulted ceiling soared overhead, painted in silver with scenes of sum-
mer bounty and profit. The rugs along the aisle were thick and rough under Lani’s boots.
At the center, an altar of fragrant rosewood gleamed like a gem set in a velvet crown.
And in its shadow, a heavy tapestry lay over a motionless mass.
Lani approached, entranced by the idea of what she would find there. Velta was at her
elbow, her brilliant green eyes narrow.
“It’s only disturbing a crime scene,” the smaller woman grumbled, pointing her chin
at the tapestry-turned-shroud.
“Maybe in Yu-Shan, leaving a god murdered in full sight of fate and flock isn’t as
vulgar as it is down here.” Ozol’s voice was an inadequate sheath for his disdain. “Your
names, investigators?”
Velta smirked at some private joke, lifting the edge of the tapestry with the toe of her
boot. “Velta Eso.”
“And you, my lord?”
Lani noticed the lieutenant had with him a little soft-bound book and a wax pencil.
Going to verify this with the Syndics, personally? It was her turn to smirk. “Kalehulani,
the Caldera, daughter of Heaven’s Dragons and scion of the Verdigris Regalia Voyagers.”
She paused, before adding, “That’s in the Silver Bells District, south Yu-Shan.”
Ozol pursed his lips and tapped his little book.
“Help me with this thing.” Velta’s clipped Old Realm interrupted the standoff. She
struggled with the edge of the heavy tapestry.
In the moment, Lani had forgotten what they came to see — to investigate, to avenge.
The makeshift shroud was lifted, the victim exposed. Lani gritted her teeth. Velta made a
thoughtful sound.
Splendid Edvins-Sarta, Treasurer of the Abundant Vault, lay like a pile of discarded
fruit peels on the floor of his temple. His great, bejeweled form was headless and still. His
limbs were thick and strong, his throat still oozed an iridescent ichor. He had been the god
of Whitewall’s wealth — one of hundreds of spirits venerated in the city. And someone
had killed him.
The scent of death filled Lani’s nostrils; she felt dizzy for a moment, her vision blurring.
Velta’s gaze remained fixed on the body as she circled it slowly, her eyes flickering
over every detail. “I thought I would be happy to see the bloated leech like this,” she
mused. “But instead…Well, how are you feeling, my lord?” Velta swerved, smirking.
Lani righted herself with supreme will. “I’ve never seen a dead god before.”
“I wonder why.”
Lani bristled. “I’ve fought plenty of gods,” she snapped. “More than you. But they…
they vanish when you kill them.”
When Velta didn’t return fire, Lani’s anger evaporated.
“They vanish when you kill them,” Velta repeated, her voice barely a murmur. She
crouched beside the stump of the god’s neck, peering into its sublime meat with a faint
grimace.
Lani huffed, unsure how to react. After a moment’s silence, she realized there was
no explanation coming. Resigned, she crouched beside her partner, wondering what she
was looking for.
“Our number one suspect right now is a prominent public figure,” Ozol interjected
from across the vestibule. “A master of almshouses. We wouldn’t put it past him to —”
“The Beggar Prince?” Velta interrupted, not looking up. Her voice was openly snide.
“Hardly. Agents from the Cerulean Lute have been stalking him for years.”
The lieutenant peered at her as if he’d forgotten she was there. It was likely he had.
“So, what are you thinking, then?” Lani broke back into Old Realm.
“Magic, for certain. And no struggle. The Terror of the Abundant Vault had no idea it
was coming.” Velta’s voice was still low, her eyes on the corpse.
Lani swallowed hard. It hadn’t been thoughtless boasting; she had gone toe-to-toe
with her share of petty gods. But this was different. This was cold, calculated murder by
someone powerful enough to catch the god unaware. Someone prepared to take him out.
If Lani knew anything about gods, she knew there would be a scramble to fill this
now-vacant position. A wealth god’s cult was always affluent and their offerings always
substantial. Even a god living in Creation instead of the Heavenly City might have a life
of comfort and splendor. It was enough to make one desperate.
“And his head…” Velta trailed off, her slender, gloved hand hovering over the god’s
neck stump.
Lani frowned. “What about it?”
A smile fluttered across the woman’s face. “It’s not here.”
Confusion and embarrassment colored Lani’s cheeks. She turned on Ozol.
“You’re wondering about His Luxuriance’s head?” Ozol’s Skytongue was cheerless
and his shrug bemused. “Your theory is as good as ours, my lord.”
“But have you ever seen a weapon make a wound like that?” Velta wondered airily.
“A clean cut like that, miss, must be from a very fine blade.”
“A blade?” Velta’s eyes danced.
chapter one 11
Ozol sniffed, glancing over the divine corpse. “I hate to admit as much, but we see
this from time to time.”
“Murdered gods?”
“Death by daiklave, miss,” the lieutenant replied, unamused. “His Luxuriance had no
scarceness of enemies, the Chosen among them.”
Lani nodded, frowning in thought. “An Exalt would definitely have the strength to
overpower a god and take his head. Then, our suspect is an Exalt with a daiklave and a
grudge against a god of wealth.”
“Good luck to you, then.” Lieutenant Ozol was replacing his little book and refasten-
ing his heavy overcoat.
Lani rose to her feet in a storm of feathers, anger rumbling in her bones. “What do
you mean?” She demanded.
“Whitewall keeps the peace where it can.” He gave her a pitiless glance. “Bad enough
with a freak storm bearing down on us and every shifty thrall in the city using it to stir up
trouble — my team draws the line at trying to detain a Dragon-Blooded. I’ll leave it to the
Syndics and their investigators from Heaven.”
Lani opened her mouth to snap, but a hand on her knee brought her up short. “Let him
go,” Velta muttered in Old Realm. “He’s an idiot anyway.”
“We’ll notify the priests of the Treasurer,” he continued, his voice and his steps echo-
ing sharply through the vaulted chapel. “I imagine they’re anxious to tend to their pa-
tron’s estate.”
The heavy doors creaked open. A gust of cold announced the departure of the peace
officers.
“A daiklave,” Velta snorted. “Leave it to Ozol to miss the trees for the forest. Look—
” She indicated the god’s neck with a sweep of her finger. “Sure, it’s a clean cut, but it’s
pinched all around.”
Lani crouched and looked. The flesh of the wound puckered inward, the skin dusted
with iridescent blue bruising. She could picture it but couldn’t bring herself to exclaim out
loud: it seemed as if something had tightened around the god’s throat and in one sharp,
sudden instant, taken his head from his shoulders.
She swallowed against her suddenly dry throat. “You’re an Oracle. They taught you
sorcery and…and other things like that, right?”
Velta shoved a stray wine-colored curl out of her eyes, her porcelain face fervid with
thought. “I’m not a sorcerer,” she corrected absently.
“But you’ve heard about that one spell, haven’t you?” Impatience crept into Lani’s
voice.
This brought Velta out of her reverie. She looked up at her partner, incredulous. “You
think this was a Flying Guillotine?”
Lani’s hackles raised and her skin prickled. A silver chain of barbs and hatred, sum-
moned of pure malevolence and impossible to outrun — the Flying Guillotine could sep-
arate one’s head from their body with no uncertainty and no warning. She wasn’t afraid.
“It makes sense,” Lani insisted, feeling bloodless.
But Velta was on her feet in a rustle of linen and wool. Touching the tip of her first
finger to her thumb, she lifted a hand to brush the center of her forehead.
“What have I failed to notice here?” She whispered.
Lani knew better than to answer her. The chapel had grown oppressively silent.
Motes of dust, illuminated in the temple lights, hung motionless in the air. They subtly
pulsed with emerald light, a scattering of tiny green stars.
Like fireflies, the little green lights swooped and twirled. They gathered at the altar,
settling among the treasured offerings there.
“Not sorcery,” Velta mused, and for a moment the tiny green stars were mirrored in
her eyes. “At least, not a Flying Guillotine.” She smirked at Lani.
Lani didn’t deign to respond as she crossed to the altar. Already the guiding lights
were evaporating into smokey green essence, but Lani had no trouble determining what
they were meant to see.
Why they were meant to see it was still unclear to her. She found herself hesitating,
her thick fingers inches from the trophy.
“What is it?” Velta demanded.
“I think it’s an…egg.” It was the newest addition to the altar, if the veil of dust on
the other treasures were any indication. Gingerly, wary of her own strength, Lani slipped
her hands around the offering. It was the size and shape of a goose egg, composed of mir-
ror-polished black enamel, studded with garnets, and cradled in a dark platinum filigree.
Velta made a strange, choked sound. She thrust her hands out for the offering like a
spoiled child, and Lani passed it to her uneasily. “A scrollwork egg,” Velta squeaked. She
examined it with bright and feverish eyes. “This…can’t be.”
“Why not?” Lani was distinctly uncomfortable with Velta’s sudden and genuine joy.
“If Edvins-Sarta was killed over a scrollwork egg, it’s…it’s just too perfect.”
“Perfect?”
“A year later, here I am holding one and investigating this horrible miser’s murder,”
Velta continued to gush. “Like this is all a gift from the Maiden of—”
Her gloved thumb found the latch with a quiet click. The egg unfolded on black
hinges. Within was a portrait on ivory, painted with such tender strokes and dreamy colors
it felt like a single moment of romance frozen in time. It was of a young woman, porce-
lain-skinned, with wine-colored curls and sharp, clever features.
It was a portrait of Velta Eso.
“—Secrets.” The last word fell from Velta’s mouth, shattering in the stunned silence.
chapter one 13
Chapter Two:
The Scrollwork Atelier
Snowfall in the city was gray, wet, and heavy. It weighed down the limbs of trees,
collected in frozen patches on the cobblestones. It blanketed the brickwork, smoothing
what was once rough and uneven. Every step was an unsteady one on the slick, uneven
street.
Velta Eso was sick her to stomach in a vague and distant way, unsettled — she had
lost her footing. The Whitewall snow should have grounded her in a sense of familiarity.
She had been looking forward to it, in fact. But ever since entering the city gates, she’d
felt the light touch of dread across her shoulders like a gauzy robe.
“We can ask one of the priests if they know who brought the egg as an offering,
but if that fails, there’s only one tiun who makes scrollwork eggs in Whitewall — Hoch
Jorkavs.” Velta shot a surreptitious glance at Kalehulani, who concealed the jet-black egg
under her cloak. “With enough time, we can get to his atelier before sundown.”
“Does he know you?” Lani asked.
Velta shot an incredulous look up at her — something that always required deliberate
effort. Lani was taller than her by a foot, at least, and powerfully built under the heavy
flax-and-feather cloak. Her jawline and cheekbones were stronger than any temple’s
foundation, and her heliodor eyes tended toward hardness. But at moments when honesty
or uncertainty got the better of her — moments like now — they were deep and warm.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Lani muttered at her silent disbelief.
The peace officers (and the idiot Ozol) lingered near their rented carriage, question-
ing the driver. All looked up at the sound of the women’s approaching footsteps in the
accumulating snow.
“My lord.” Lieutenant Ozol gave the barest of salutes to Lani and cast an annoyed,
searching glance at Velta. “Have you found one of the Treasurer’s priests?”
Lani knit her black brows at him, her eyes darting between him and her partner. “This
is Velta Eso. You met earlier.”
Recognition dawned on the lieutenant’s dull face. “Of course. Forgive me, my lord.
We’re having trouble locating anyone responsible for the temple.”
“Are you?” Velta asked with fake sincerity. Of course, the idiot can’t track down a
couple of priests. “Because we had some questions for them.”
“Then my lord will be the first we contact when we locate one of the priests.” Ozol
sniffed, turning bodily away from Velta to speak to her partner. “Where are you staying
in the city?”
It was not a conversation that interested her. Velta took advantage of the mortals’ low
regard to slip away and into the carriage. She drew the heavy woolen curtains closed.
“Uva of the Pattern, little weaver.” Her prayer was as quiet as a feather on silk. Velta
pressed the tips of her fingers together into a cage, drawing it to her chest. “I invite your
prescience into my life.”
Essence drew from her in an invisible thread, unravelling from the great store of it
in her heart. A web of it gathered between her fingers, metallic and glittering. The web
hardened and coalesced into a familiar little spirit — a pattern spider, custodian of the
weave of fate. Uva clung to her glove with eight delicate legs, its clockwork-and-essence
body warm as embers, and its myriad eyes shining with intelligence.
“High priests of Edvins-Sarta, Whitewall,” Velta whispered to it in Old Realm.
“Check the weave for their fated purpose. And their location, if possible.”
The pattern spider clicked its chelicerae before unceremoniously disappearing from
sight. It was only a moment; Uva returned with a similar lack of fanfare. The spirit’s sil-
very voice spoke directly into her mind. No subject found.
Velta’s features drew into a frown. “‘No subject’? You weren’t gone for even a sec-
ond.”
No subject found, Uva insisted. Loom data regarding ‘High priests of Edvins-Sarta’
not found.
But as far as Velta understood, this was impossible. Whether the members were dead
or alive, the cult of Edvins-Sarta existed, and the members — even their lifeless bodies
— could be located in the Loom of Fate.
“Check again,” Velta ordered. “Don’t come back until you find something, you lazy
little thing.”
The pattern spider turned to face her. For a moment, Velta’s mind was a splash of
magenta and bright yellow plaid — Uva making its annoyance clear. Then it was gone,
the Essence used to summon it dissipating into thin green smoke.
The curtains flew open. The carriage creaked. Lani entered with a cold wind and a
cold expression. Velta’s concerns regarding the dead god’s cult sank to the back of her
mind; Lani had a way of unintentionally dominating the attention of everyone around her
that Velta found both pleasing and useful.
“Did Lieutenant Ozol show you the proper deference, my lord?” Velta folded her
hands in her lap and smiled demurely. “Or should we report him to the Immaculates for
insubordination?”
Lani glared, her bright yellow eyes narrowed to slivers. “They’d already forgotten
about you,” she began as though Velta hadn’t spoken. “Don’t you have some secret astrol-
ogy you can use to keep that from happening?”
chapter two 15
Her smile widened. “Where is the fun in that?”
The Dragon-Blooded huffed and looked away, feathers shimmering where she
crossed her arms. Lani’s anger was quick to kindle but slow to erupt, and Velta delighted
in teasing her up to the point of cataclysm. Anger made her eyes bright, her words bru-
tally clever, and the muscles in her forearms taut. Someday, she’ll have to do something
exciting to shut me up, she thought with a wicked little thrill.
Truth be told, Velta wasn’t sure she needed the help of a false destiny to begin with.
That pompous old Dae-won would certainly disagree and seize the excuse to lecture her
about broken masks and Arcane Fate, but Whitewall was her home and it lived in her as
surely as she had lived in it. It would never overlook her.
“Are you going to tell him where we’re going?” Lani demanded. The carriage was
still motionless.
The driver, too, had forgotten her again. Velta patiently explained to him, raising her
voice through the building rumble of the approaching storm. His anxiety at continuing to
work through the worsening weather was plain, but it was also plainly banished with even
more silver in compensation.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice I can suddenly speak Skytongue,” Lani grumbled when
she returned.
Velta widened her eyes in faux innocence. “It’s a miracle.”
“You could have done that at any time.”
“Where is the fun in that?”
The carriage lurched forward again, its wheels slipping on the slick cobblestones.
“When are we going to stop questioning idiots and get something to eat?” Lani mut-
tered, barely audible under the sounds of the city.
The question surprised her. Velta had forgotten to be hungry. More importantly, she
had remembered her last argument with the old man before he had handed her this mis-
sion.
“But I won’t know how to prepare if you don’t tell me what to prepare for.”
“This, precisely, is why you aren’t ready for the initiation.”
“I passed your tests — I excelled at them.” She remembered the pulse of anger in
her throat, the effort it took to remain courteous. “All I do now is listen to riddles with
no answers.”
Dae-won’s eyes were the color of a praying mantis, and his expression was twice
as shrewd. “You ask me, ‘What is the shape of reality?’ And I say to you, go ask your
shadow.”
“Sir,” she forced out through gritted teeth, but the elder Sidereal continued.
“When you ask your shadow, it will say to you what it said to Ei Zou —”
“I assume Whitewall doesn’t have many street carts at this time of year,” Lani was
saying bitterly, glaring out the window.
“I’m hungry,” Velta thought, the refrain of Dae-won’s koan so familiar to her she
heard it repeated in her sleep. “Why don’t you stop asking questions and find me some-
thing to eat?”
“We’ll have to wait until we get to the Gold Bell House,” she heard herself answer
through the fog of her thoughts. “I hope you like potatoes.”
She parted the carriage curtains, trying to make out anything in the gray gloom of
the streets. The quickest path to the craft quarter, where the workshops of tiuns could be
found, was back through the outer ring of Whitewall — neighborhoods Velta was all too
familiar with. Tiny streetside shrines to the Syndics, Whitewall’s ruling triumvirate, dot-
ted the city blocks, and even the devoted could not keep them fully clear of ice. Narrow
tenement houses crowded together, their roofs sagging under the weight of the snow.
They soared to seven, even eight stories tall, well past the limits of safety. Here and there
she saw the telltale plumes of steam that indicated entrances to the city’s ancient sewers,
dug thousands of years ago during the First Age and now unused to all but the desperate
and the illicit.
Among it all, shapeless, bedraggled figures huddled and shivered, glancing at them
furtively as they passed. Thralls, the lowest of the Quaternions: they had no legal prop-
erty, and no legal rights. Many had only their shawls and hats to wear over threadbare
woolen coats; more than a few had rags about their feet instead of boots.
Home, Velta thought, and the word brought forth an anger and sadness she hadn’t
experienced since she left.
“Did you feel that earlier?” Lani asked quietly.
Velta turned to see her partner’s golden eyes fixed on her with unusual intensity.
“Feel what?” She asked carefully. The strange and inescapable nausea dogging her was
still steadily increasing.
“There was a rumbling, like a small quake. Before I got back in the carriage.”
Velta shook her head.
Lani’s expression was unclear — not angry, at least, but a touch thoughtful. “It felt as
if something huge and heavy had moved, halfway across the city.”
“A building collapsed from the snow.” It was too frequent an occurrence in winter for
such a sensation to be from anything else.
Lani frowned at this, but said nothing.
The softer sounds of the city had been drowned out by the moaning wind and distant
grumbling thunder. The carriage rattled over a bridge, hugging the right side to avoid
being knocked off by the flow of traffic on the ice-slick road.
They approached one of the gates of Whitewall’s tiun quarter when all sound stopped
except for their rumbling carriage and the horses’ anxious snorts. Then there were bel-
lows, shouts, and footsteps, startling both Velta and Lani into action. Lani flung open her
door and half climbed out before Velta could stop her.
chapter two 17
Through the snowfall, Velta recognized the atelier: as tall and narrow as any of the
other buildings crammed together along the Whitewall streets, but uniquely designed.
The windows were larger, rounder, protruding in a way to maximize natural light. Ornate
vines and floral designs had been carved into the workshop’s stone facade. The warm col-
ors of firelight gave one the impression of a world set off from the rest, of the only place
of comfort in the city.
Between the carriage and the front doors were some dozen snow-flecked figures in
dark, shapeless wool. Their angry shouts appeared as puffs of hot breath against the rap-
idly chilling air. They beat on the door and slapped the windows, demanding whoever
was inside open up and save them from the storm. Some were armed with large rocks
or planks of discarded wood. Velta spotted crudely-sewn patches adhered to shawls and
caps — just a single character, the rune for “blue.”
“Hey!” Lani shouted. “Hey, clear a path!”
The gang either couldn’t hear her over their own anger, or didn’t care. Velta clenched
her gut against a growing dread. “We’ll have to clear them out,” she uttered, feeling dis-
connected from her own voice.
Lani cursed under her breath for a moment, before relenting with a resigned “All
right.” And then her great jade goremaul was in her hands, fearsome and salt-white.
Not like that, Velta thought, horrified, but held her tongue.
The Dragon-Blooded took a single step forward, the crust of new snow crunching
under her boot. Lani shouted wordlessly, her deep voice resonating from the very earth
beneath her. As if on cue, a burst of lightning from the gathering storm followed. The
mortals’ screams and shouts took on a new, frenzied pitch. The figures scattered, slipping
and scrambling over the frozen ground.
In the grim moment of silence that followed, Lani seemed to be a statue, snowflakes
slowly building in her long blue-black locks.
Velta exhaled in relief. Of course. I knew she’d handle it appropriately. Steadying
herself on Lani’s shoulder, she stepped carefully onto the snowy walk.
She had been to the Jorkavs Atelier before, though not while it was lit, staffed, and
open to the public. The interior walls of the tiun workshop were a deep shining green,
like cedar branches after snow-melt. The wooden floors were stained dark, the ceiling was
high. Beyond the foyer, a bare and narrow stairway led up into the lofts, which she knew
housed a warren of workrooms adorned with elegant metalwork and stained glass. The
warm glow of the hearth fire and the simple lamps beckoned away the cold and darkness.
The central desk was a heavy thing of iron and white oak. From behind it, a long, thin
face peered at them.
“Hey,” Lani called after it, gruff and annoyed.
The sounds of an unseen scramble answered her. A lanky young man rose from be-
hind the desk, carefully setting an ornate sword upon the desk before brushing the dust
from his knees.
“Indrek!”
The name hissed from Velta’s lungs before her eyes could even recognize him. Yes,
it was Indrek. His face and hair were much cleaner, but there was the same crook in his
nose, the same clever, anxious eyes, the same old gray coat. He startled and stared up at
her, black eyebrows halfway up his forehead. Her old partner, the closest thing she’d had
to a brother.
“Indrek, you weasel. I never thought I’d run into you here!” She beamed in spite
of herself, gesturing to the workshop, to the apprentice’s smock beneath Indrek’s coat.
“Looks like Jorkavs finally took you on after all!”
“Y-yeah…”
What a difference a year could make! She had left Indrek uncertain and frightened,
tired of the robbery and the racketeering, dreaming of his chance to work under the re-
nowned artist Hoch Jorkavs. Privately, she’d doubted he ever had a chance, but if any of
them could make it out and make something of themselves, it was Indrek.
Bewildered, his attention darted between her and the imposing Dragon-Blooded with
the massive jade warhammer.
“It’s a lot to take in, I know.” As far as she knew, the Whitewall crew assumed she
was dead. Now, here she was, whole and healthy, with a Prince of the Earth as her muscle,
a year of study in Heaven under her belt. “Don’t worry about her. I’m here on legitimate
business.” Velta winked, removing her gloves to settle them on the desk, careful not to
dislodge the starmetal bands she wore on each thumb. “I promise I’ll catch you up later,
but first —”
She motioned to Lani to step forward. As soon as the large woman was in reach, Velta
slipped a hand beneath her bulky flax-and-feather cloak.
Lani barked in protest. “Quit groping me!”
It was so warm under there. Velta smiled, her hand withdrawing with the beautiful
obsidian egg. Indrek’s eyes widened further, but he no longer looked overwhelmed. With
great care, Velta set the treasure upon the white oak desk, and Indrek crouched to inspect
it.
“Where d-d-did you get this?” His high, curious voice trembled with reverence.
“The temple of Edvins-Sarta.” Her smile was so wide her cheeks ached, but she
wasn’t ready to divulge the details just yet.
“I’ve never seen this one before.” Indrek traced the platinum filigree with the very
tip of his finger. “You’re —” He hesitated, shooting another fearful glance to Kalehulani
and clearing his throat. “You’re not…um, are my lord and her servant associated with the
p-peace officers?”
The peace officers? Velta knit her brows.
Lani stepped into the open silence. “We’re working with the Syndics to solve a mur-
der.”
Velta could have sworn at her. Indrek dropped his hand, stepping back from the desk.
“I’m not evolved in no mur-mur-murders,” he floundered, Skytongue gushing out of him
chapter two 19
in fits and starts. “I’m not evolved in nothing. I just man the d…the d…the desk and clean
up after everyone’s gone. I don’t even talk to Marko no more.”
“I know,” Velta murmured, a great and terrible chill creeping over her.
“They told me I could start over and they’d leave me in peeks,” Indrek babbled in a
full panic. “So, if you could p-please tell the officers that I’m not doing nothing wrrr —”
“We’re not here for you,” Lani rudely interrupted, scowling. “We just want to know
more about the egg.”
“The egg,” he repeated, sweating.
“Just the egg.”
“Okay. Okay,” he muttered to himself over and over. “The egg. Okay.” Indrek turned
away to the shelves behind him, full of wooden-board books, calfskin portfolios, and
sample materials.
Quietly, Velta folded her gloves and stepped back from the desk.
The dear young man, her old friend, bent to retrieve a massive book of dark leather
and thick, rough paper. It made a thump against the desk. He flipped it open, sending a
faint waft of vanilla and ink into the chill air, only to frown into its contents. “No — I
think I need the master’s ledger.” Indrek chewed on his knuckle. “The master hasn’t
been…um, he’s out, on a subtypical.”
Lani stared at him blankly. Velta whispered, “Sabbatical.”
Indrek continued, unhearing. “But he’ll be back tomorrow, I’m positive. Do…does
my lord want to come back —”
“No,” Lani answered firmly. “We don’t. Get your master.”
The young mortal sputtered. “I don’t know…I’m not sure I…I don’t think it’s —”
“Where does he keep the ledger?” Velta gave him a patient smile, her chest aching.
“Um. This lockbox. Here.” Indrek glanced at something unseen beneath the desk,
nervously avoiding Velta’s gaze.
“Could you place it on the desk?”
Still visibly sweating, the apprentice retrieved a heavy, ornate iron box, the lock fac-
ing out. “But the mmm-master has the key —” He began in protest.
“Of course,” Velta agreed. “But I just remembered, I commissioned something from
one of the journeymen upstairs, a wire brooch. I wonder how far along they are on it.”
Indrek was very pale. “A wire b-brooch,” he repeated.
“Yes. Could you find it and bring it down?”
Silent as a man marching to his death, the apprentice stepped away from the desk.
“Right away,” he muttered. He ascended the staircase with the stiffness of an old corpse.
“What are you doing?” Lani hissed as soon as he was gone.
Velta choked on the explanation. He’s not going to remember anything I do or say.
“We don’t have time for sweet talk,” is what she said to her partner, swallowing that aw-
ful, abandoned feeling.
“You’re just going to pick the lock?”
“I think I can manage it.” Velta tugged at a loose thread on her cuff, unravelling it.
“But you keep watch, in case he actually comes back with a brooch.”
The little silver lockpicks sewn into her cuff spilled into her hand. The lock was a
joke, ancient and far too simple. With her farseeing Essence guiding her, the box clicked
open faster than if she’d had the matching key. She found herself looking at a large, leath-
er-bound ledger of indecipherable words.
“Encrypted,” she grumbled. “Paranoid old coot.”
“What do you mean?” Lani fussed from the foot of the stairs. “He wrote in code?”
“For this, anyway. Maybe to protect against forgeries.” Velta’s eyes began to burn.
Automatic, instinctive, she was already unravelling the cipher, picking out patterns in
the weave of language. There was no secret that could hide from her for long. “These are
serial numbers, and names.” She regarded the black scrollwork egg with a critical eye.
“So we match the number up with a name, and we know who brought the egg to
Ekewaka.”
“Edvins-Sarta,” Velta muttered. Reluctant, she opened the egg, sheepishly avoiding
any long looks at the portrait miniature. Sure enough, in pale and tiny strokes at the bot-
tom edge of the ivory, she could make out a string of random numbers and letters. “This
shouldn’t take long.”
The stairs creaked. Indrek was returning. Then, the stairs groaned — Lani was meet-
ing him halfway. “What’s it look like in an artist’s workshop?” She was saying, only
half-interested. Velta could hear the faint and fearful protests of the young apprentice
failing to keep Lani out of the lofts.
Velta was positive she had deciphered the code correctly — she could even make
out a name written in fine hand beneath the portrait. Hellebore, RY 769. But the serial
number…the serial number was nowhere to be found in Jorkavs’ records. The egg was
unlisted.
“How strange. We should probably tell her.” Lani’s rich voice echoed down to her,
the wooden stairs complaining loudly. Velta closed the ledger and returned it to the lock
box.
“No wire brooch,” Lani announced gruffly. Indrek was meek as ever behind her,
wringing his hands so hard the knuckles popped. His gaze flitted to the lock box, and he
relaxed at the sight of it still on the desk, still locked.
“Maybe they haven’t started yet,” Velta said cheerily. “So, this particular egg. How
would we know if it was an official Jorkavs scrollwork egg and not a forgery?”
Indrek brightened. “A forgery! A forgery? You think? I’m good at spotting Jorkavs
forgeries.”
I know. I remember. Velta only smiled. “Then could you tell us if this is authentic?”
Lani quirked an eyebrow at her, lamplight glittering on her heliodor freckles. Velta
gave her the barest shake of her head. There was no chance to explain now.
chapter two 21
Indrek turned the trophy over in his hands, rubbing fingerprints away with the corner
of his sleeve, inspecting the craftwork for features at which Velta could only guess. At the
sight of the portrait, he raised his thin eyebrows and glanced at her, but said nothing. It’s
me, she pleaded, savagely twisting one of her starmetal rings. Indrek, it’s me. I have so
much to tell you. Please remember.
“See this, here.” The apprentice pointed to a bit of the obsidian enamel with his pinky
finger, beside a smooth bend in the whiplash curve of filigree. “The vitreous enameling is
completely smooth and polished even under the filigree. A lot of people get that wrong.”
She was distantly impressed at how easily the explanation flowed from him. “Then
this isn’t a forgery?” Velta coaxed.
Indrek shook his head and pointed to the bottom edge of the portrait. “His cipher is
here, too. If this were a forgery, it would’ve been made by one of his —” His hands trem-
bled slightly. “But he keeps a close watch on all of us just because of that.”
“You said he’s on sabbatical.”
“Only for a few-few-few days. These always take at least a season to make.”
And it’s dated for this year, so there goes the chance it was made before I…left.
Frustration roiled in her chest with the grief and nausea she was already fighting.
She suddenly wanted nothing more than to be as far from this place, as far from Indrek,
as possible.
“Then you’re sure this is a real Jorkavs egg?” She insisted.
He flinched at the question. “It looks rrrr-real,” he ventured. “It looks really good.
But I don’t remember ever seeing the master work on something like this.”
“And you don’t remember him working with anyone named Hellebore?”
Indrek flinched and chewed at his knuckle. “Oh. Who? No,” he lied as plainly as the
bend in his nose. “No, no idea who that is.”
“Good enough,” Lani broke in. A heavy hand landed on Velta’s shoulder; the other
gathered up the black egg and tucked it under Lani’s winter cloak. “Thanks for your help.”
“Don’t decide how to —” Velta hissed, but Lani squeezed her shoulder hard.
“Should I inform the master that my lord, um, made visitation here, forthwith?” In-
drek wrung his hands a moment before retrieving a thin notebook and a bottle of ink,
rubbing the latter vigorously between his hands.
“Uh. Sure. We might have more questions. Just write ‘Lani.’”
His glass dip-pen scratched across the vellum in the log book. “And your servant?””
Velta felt very small and dim. “Velta Eso,” she whispered.
The glass stylus rang like a tiny bell when he set it back on its stand. “When he re-
turns from his subtypical, I’ll tell him —”
But Velta was already in the doorway, cold stinging her face and gloom enveloping her.
The driver’s muffled protests sounded miles away. Velta arranged herself on the car-
riage bench, shawl wrapping her in a wool cocoon from head to foot. Silent. Alone. Iso-
lated. She shoved her hands back into her lambskin gloves and squeezed her eyes shut.
The world tilted and spun around her.
The door to the carriage creaked. “Tell the driver where we’re staying,” she ordered
automatically. Lani lingered at the entrance before deciding not to refuse.
The ride was frigid, slick and perilous. The horses were exhausted, the carriage
ill-suited to travel in the birth of a storm. More than once they passed angry shouts, splin-
tering wood, breaking glass. Velta kept the curtains drawn and stared into the thick fabric.
“If we’d stayed any longer, we’d be staying there all night,” Lani finally explained.
“Maybe all week.”
“You don’t know anything,” Velta muttered.
“So we wouldn’t have been snowed in?”
The carriage fishtailed on a patch of ice, the horses crying out in surprise. Velta re-
mained silent.
“Did all those questions about forgery have a point?” Lani asked pointedly.
Velta struggled to stir herself. “Yes. I was wondering if there was a reason it wasn’t
listed in the ledger.”
“It wasn’t listed?”
She shook her head.
Lani was incredulous. “Did we get anything useful out of that trip?”
“I just have the one name,” Velta answered drily.
“Right. Who’s Hellebore?”
Before Velta could respond, she felt the tug of tiny threads in her mind and heard the
ringing of a silver bell. The interior of the carriage was briefly lit in emerald candlelight,
and from it emerged a pattern spider.
Velta extended her hand to catch Uva like a falling snowflake. Eight tiny eyes gleamed
at her through the dusk. No subject found, it chirped into her mind.
The Sidereal let out a gust of frustration, but Lani leaned forward to stare at Uva with
interest.
Uva’s delicate starmetal-filament legs spun it in place. Dragon Lady! It rocked back
and forth at Lani, wiggling its abdomen. The Pretty Dragon Lady! I love the Pretty Drag-
on Lady!
“No,” Velta warned hotly. “Not now. We’re working.”
Lani grinned. “Hey there, little one. Long time no see.”
Tiny pops of pink fireworks bloomed in Velta’s mind. Uva stretched its front legs to
their maximum and waved its pedipalps at the Dragon-Blooded. Lady, look, I can dance!
Lady, you’re so pretty!
“That’s enough!” Velta picked up her pattern spider assistant by the abdomen. “Pay
attention!”
chapter two 23
Lani grunted at the interruption. The telepathic fireworks stopped, replaced with
pouting, rumbling clouds.
“There’s something else I need you to check. I need to know about this egg.”
The little automaton spirit freed itself to dangle from a thin thread. Egg? What egg?
Which egg?
Lani could not hear the spirit’s confusion, but still guessed at what was going on. She
withdrew the obsidian egg and held it out to Uva, who gently touched its front feet to it.
Its eyes shone with interest.
Not found, the spirit chittered. Not found.
“It’s an offering for the dead god,” Velta explained. “I need a report on its fate, or if
any of the other spiders have nudged it into —”
Not found! Uva insisted, glaring up at her. This item is not a part of fate.
Velta stared down at her assistant in silence.
“What is it?” Lani asked excitedly. “What’s it saying?”
“Get out of here,” she muttered. Her head was beginning to pound. “You stupid,
useless little thing.”
A blare of siren-red flashed through her mind, intensifying the headache. Uva was
gone.
The Dragon-Blooded scowled. “Why did you —”
“Shut up,” Velta snapped. “Just shut up for a minute. I need to think.”
But thinking was impossible. She could picture only the desperate, angry poor threat-
ening the atelier, and the emptiness, the lack of recognition in Indrek’s eyes.
Chapter Three:
The Inn and the Sauna
The two investigators spent the remainder of the ride in brooding silence.
Any other time, Kalehulani would have preferred it that way. Velta could be glib at
times like this, even wicked, and seemed to take great joy in cutting at Lani with that
sharp tongue of hers. She was one of the few humans who didn’t seem intimidated by
Lani in the least, and Lani was determined to find it infuriating.
This quiet fretting was new, though. As Lani continued to frown thoughtfully at her
partner, and Velta continued staring into nothing, the Dragon-Blooded’s anger began to
simmer.
She should say something, Lani groused to herself. I should say something. But her
tongue remained stuck, Velta remained lingering in elsewhere, and the carriage slid and
shuddered to a halt.
Lani parted the curtains. It was already nearly sundown, to her anger and disgust, but
their lodging looked stately and elegant from the outside. A snow-covered post and panel
sign boasted The Gold Bell House in gilded runes. A hoar of ice and snow thinly disguised
the outline of the towering plank-and-stone building. The paned glass of the grand front
doors had turned opaque with frost, reducing glimpses of the interior to vague shadows
rimmed in lantern light.
Upon her first step from the carriage, Lani sank several inches into muddy snow. A
cold damp seeped into her trouser leg.
Lani curled her lip.
A delicate hand rested upon her shoulder. Velta floated upon the snow, light as a
feather. “It’s smaller than I remember,” she murmured. Lani could hear the frown in her
voice.
“You’ve stayed here before?”
“No, never.” And for the first time since they left the egg-maker’s atelier, she smiled.
Their arrival had not gone unnoticed. An undersized attendant blustered forth from
the boarding house, their figure completely concealed under bulky wools and their only
visible features two round, watery blue eyes. The little thing offered muffled apologies as
they placed a makeshift catwalk of wooden planks over the filthy snow. It was too late for
Lani’s left leg, but she appreciated it all the same.
chapter three 25
Beneath it all, the earth trembled as if the city itself were shuddering at the storm.
The interior of the Gold Bell House was handsome and understated. Wrought-iron
lanterns, garlanded with evergreen boughs, cast a warm glow from above the oak-paneled
walls. The floor was polished but simple and undecorated. A wide stairway swept away
into the upper levels, to the hidden guest rooms. The lobby hummed with the smell of
fresh pine and something else, something heavy, warm, and slightly smokey.
Velta perked up immediately. “They have a sauna.” Lani followed the line of her
attention to a rose-stained oak door, from which a thin trail of steam issued. Velta’s eyes
sharpened, and her usual wicked grin appeared.
The little attendant took some time meeting them behind the registry desk. After
removing their outer layer of winter gear, their form was still round and unreadable, their
face still swaddled in scarves. Surreptitiously, they moved a long, iron object — a fire
shovel, Lani guessed — from atop the desk to just out of sight. “Welcome to the Gold Bell
House, distinguished guests.” Their voice was young and pleasant, if overly formal. “Are
you the two delegates here on an inquiry for the Syndics?”
“Yes,” Lani answered for them. Velta was still daydreaming about the steam room.
“They asked we set aside our two finest suites for you.” The attendant turned to fetch
a pair of iron keys from a board behind them. “If they are not to your liking, we can move
you to another set. Currently we are at max vacancy.”
This snapped Velta out of her reverie. “Really?” Her interest was palpable. “Did the
Syndics order that?”
“The Syndics have requested we restrict reservations in the wake of renewed vio-
lence from the Bluecaps,” the attendant answered smoothly, ending on a disdainful sniff.
This answer seemed to confuse Velta more than enlighten her.
“Fine,” Lani cut in irritably. “Which rooms? The driver will take our things to —”
“He’ll have one of our reserved rooms.”
Lani turned on her partner, eyes wide. “He won’t.”
“He drove us all day and can’t make the trip back to the carriage house.”
The attendant raised an eyebrow. “We have reserved two rooms only.”
“We’ll pay for a third, then,” Lani countered.
“The Syndics have requested we restrict reservations in the wake of renewed vio-
lence from the Bluecaps,” the attendant repeated coolly.
Lani’s mouth worked soundlessly. Are you serious? You’re going to make us share a
room? She couldn’t force the words out, and all the while Velta met her wild glare with a
sly smile that further irritated her.
She hated Whitewall, Lani decided. She hated the cold stones, the muddy snow seep-
ing through her woolen trousers, the poor freezing to death outside and the dead god with
mountains of treasure. Most of all, she hated Velta for making everything worse than it
had to be.
“Fine,” Lani repeated with increased venom. “Fine. You go tell him.” After you remind
him who you are to begin with, she thought with some petty satisfaction. “I’ll be in the
steam room.” She left Velta looking perversely pleased and the attendant rolling their eyes.
The rose-stained door led to a small changing room with hooks, oak shelves, and
woven baskets with thin, folded towels. A simple plaque in Skytongue runes briefly ex-
plained the use of the steam room to visiting foreigners. The further Lani read, the more
she realized she could barely understand it — her new Essence-fueled comprehension of
the language was dependent on whether Velta was near. She wrinkled her nose. The most
important rule seemed to be the standard of most steam rooms: “no clothes allowed.”
Lani undressed with practical, indignant efficiency, carefully folding the flax-and-feather
cloak to avoid harming even a single feather.
The steam room was a bright wooden box barely larger than the carriage they had rid-
den to Whitewall. The walls, benches and floor were made entirely from cedar planks. Its
spicy smell permeated the air. The wood was warm and smooth and the air lush with heat.
A small, fat iron stove squatted in the corner, a stone basin atop it piled with fist-sized
river rocks. Small glass lanterns hung from every possible surface, and together with the
stove-light made the room brilliant.
From what she’d heard of their lodgings, Lani had expected something opulent —
it was merely nice. Far more importantly, it was warm. Lani had more than enough of
northern winters.
She tossed her towel over the nearest bench, stooped to poke the stove-fire, and
splashed fresh water on the stones. With the room stirring to life in fresh steam and fer-
vid hisses, Lani settled onto her bench towel with a dusty sigh, letting the warmth of the
room sink into her skin. She was so unsettled; her shoulders ached and her head gently
throbbed. But the approaching cracks of thunder, like thoughts of murder and mysterious
disappearances, kept her from focusing on calm.
Velta had been acting strangely ever since they arrived in Whitewall — she was
moody and unreadable, and seemed bent on provoking Lani much more than usual. That
she could be hiding something wasn’t particularly new (she was Chosen of the Maiden of
Secrets, after all), but that this something could be disturbing Velta to such an extent….
This “inquiry” wasn’t going well, either. They had barely any leads on who could
have committed such an impossible crime. They were looking for an Exalt who knew
how to take a god’s head from its body, how to kill gods in a way that left a corpse. They
were looking for someone with enough wealth to commission priceless, secret art, and
leave it on an altar. They were looking for someone who, despite that wealth, had a mur-
derous grudge against the god of wealth. They were looking for someone who had known
Velta enough to own a portrait of her, despite the fact that even her loved ones — like that
timid little apprentice — had no memory of her existence.
Remembering the parade of hope and hurt on Velta’s face at the artist’s atelier burned
her up in a way she hadn’t expected. Lani had expected Velta’s understanding of fate and
her insider knowledge of Whitewall would bring this matter to a swift close, but even
Velta seemed confounded by everything they saw.
chapter three 27
It reminded her of diving, inexplicably. Lani crossed her arms and frowned. Why
would that be? Her clan lived on the southern shore and islands, eked out a living caught
between the city and the quicksilver sea. When Lani drew her Second Breath, it wasn’t
just the Earth Dragon blessing her with his gifts — she could cow the divine thugs that
preyed on her mortal kin, she could access the City in ways her clan never even dreamed
of, and she could survive in those places of Heaven that mortals were never meant to see.
With the surety of primeval earth sustaining her, quicksilver was no more toxic to her
than water.
Velta’s confounded face. That was the first time they’d met, wasn’t it? Lani pressed
her eyes shut, struggling against a fog of misremembering. It couldn’t have been more
than five months ago. There was Lani, surfacing at the dock with another priceless chunk
of black coral the size of her arm, setting it carefully beside her discarded clothing —
quicksilver couldn’t harm her body, but it could still ruin everything else she owned. Her
first-aunt was there, concern written on her venerable brown face. The Bureau of Destiny
needed Lani for…something.
She remembered the ambrosia her clan had earned in trade from that coral, she re-
membered how fat and glossy their oalu pigs had grown on the fine silage that ambrosia
purchased, she remembered the first exquisite roast from those pigs. But that early reflec-
tion of Velta was a blur, a mirage on the horizon of her mind. Lani had only a vague image
of red hair, a flattering gray dress, a Chosen of the Maidens who still somehow knew less
about Heaven than Lani did.
Is this what it’s like to forget one of them? She wondered. Would her recollection of
Velta grow dim with time? Or was it simply because it was the first she’d ever seen her,
and Velta’s starry emerald eyes had yet to burn their way into Lani’s thoughts?
Regardless, she remembered Velta now. The memories kept their edge the better Lani
knew her. Like so many things in Heaven and Creation, Lani did not need to understand
how it worked to trust it.
The door to the cedar box swooned open. She snapped her eyelids apart, feeling
inexplicably guilty. Velta entered, a towel over her head and another wrapped about her
hips, both of entirely inadequate size. Her body was firm and slender, and in the lamplight
her skin glowed like opals. The sight unsettled Lani’s heart like a seism. She reeled at the
sudden disappearance of every thought in her head.
She’s naked, Lani marveled, dumb. Then she caught herself. Of course she is. It’s a
steam room.
“I needed this,” Velta sighed, seemingly oblivious to the reaction she’d caused. As
she approached, Lani felt the heat from her body. She also felt Velta’s eyes, tracing every
curve of her body like a lover’s fingers.
Lani struggled to find her voice. You’ve just never seen her undressed before, she
scolded herself through the pounding in her ears. And she knows you haven’t, so she’s
doing this to get a rise out of you.
She’d learned at a young age that clever girls, girls like Velta, would always be out
of her reach. Even after she was Chosen, clever Exalted girls were still out of her reach.
Somehow Velta had sensed this, like a siaka scenting blood in the water. Maybe all the
teasing was her way of keeping Lani in her place. It didn’t matter — Lani was determined
to keep Velta’s taunting from getting under her skin.
Velta drew the towel from her head to arrange it on the bench opposite Lani. She
spent unusual time on arranging the towel exactly right, close enough to miss brushing
Lani’s knees by mere inches. Lani’s attention pooled in the hollow at the small of her
back. The round of Velta’s hips would fit so perfectly in her palms. Lani would barely
have to move at all to reach her, to pull her into her lap.
When Velta turned to take a seat, her smile was a bit too knowing. Lani scowled,
furious with herself, and stared pointedly into the stove-fire.
“Are you as tense as I am?” Velta’s voice was low and wicked.
Lani was reminded she’d never been able to figure out if the Oracle could read minds.
She crossed her arms and clenched her jaw. “No.”
She laughed. Lani heard a soft rasp like silk, and the creak of cedar. Velta had crossed
one leg over the other, and was now leaning toward her with a treacherous glint in her
eyes. “Are Earth Dragons too tough to feel tense? Or just too…modest?”
Lani grit her teeth at the jab and maintained silence.
Her partner swung her foot idly. “Did you forget Skytongue while I was gone?” She
asked this with fake innocence before dropping her voice again. “Do you need someone
to practice with?”
Hot, heavenly visions flooded her mind. Lani’s frustration boiled over. She had to
end this pointless torment. “So you had to know everybody’s forgotten you here, right?”
She snapped. “Why did you even try with that pushover at the studio?”
The silence that followed was broken only by the rattling of windows in the building
storm. Lani glanced up to catch Velta in the process of straightening her posture, compos-
ing herself. Guilt rushed her all at once. “You didn’t know?” She offered, uneasy at the
drastic change.
“I knew,” Velta countered. The warmth and ease with which she’d carried herself
into the steam room were gone. She slumped a little, her expression dark. “It was the
first thing the old man taught me — warned me about. Working with fate means being
forgotten by it.” She rubbed her arms as if she were suddenly cold, focusing on a knot in
the floor planks.
“Why that guy, though?” Lani muttered, feeling a discontent she wasn’t ready to
explain.
“Indrek was my brother.”
There was a weight to the statement Lani hadn’t expected. She could tell the relation
wasn’t by blood, but recognized the importance regardless. “So…you thought maybe
he’d still remember you, anyway?”
“Typical of me.” Her smile was thin and weak. “Typical Velta, thinks the rules don’t
apply to her.”
chapter three 29
Lani hesitated. “I understand.”
“Do you?”
“If someone carried me off to Creation for a year and told me everyone in my clan
would completely forget me before I got back, I probably wouldn’t believe him, either.”
“That’s not exactly —” But Velta closed her teeth over the sentence. “Thanks,” she
amended, looking not at all reassured.
A surge of annoyance rose around her like so much steam. “Well, I remember you,”
Lani huffed defensively.
Velta’s features softened. “Thanks,” she repeated.
For some reason, this annoyed her even more. “So, how are they all connected?” Lani
demanded, leaning back, vaguely waving her hand.
Velta offered only a distant “hm,” her green eyes focused somewhere beyond Lani’s
shoulder.
“The god, the egg, the lieutenant — everything that happened today.”
“Oh.” Her partner cocked her head and laughed, dark red curls framing her smile like
garnet filigree. “That’s the point of a mystery, my lord. We need to investigate more and
discover the —”
“I meant how are they all connected to you.”
“…Oh.” Velta drew herself up straight and was immediately lost in thought. Lani
tried not to notice the gentle rise and fall of her breasts.
The stove-fire popped, a small burst of steam puffed into the air, and Velta spoke up
again. “I wasn’t born with much. The little I had, I lost before long. So I survived by doing
what I was good at.”
Wary, Lani knit her brows. “What’s that?”
“Being smarter than everyone else.” She flashed a disarmingly cocky grin. “Every
petty crook has aspirations bigger than their brains.”
“You were a con artist.” Lani was hardly surprised.
“When it worked for me.” Velta pulled a knee to her chest and chewed on her thumb-
nail, her attention wandering afield again. “When Indrek started talking about these
Jorkavs scrollwork eggs and how much a boyar would pay for just one of the things, we
all thought…well, it couldn’t be that hard to get our hands on one.”
“What does any of that have to do with Etuate —”
“Edvins-Sarta,” she corrected automatically. “The Treasurer was…” Velta hesitated.
“I’d never been wrong before. I think it was…fate…that he caught me.”
That explains how you know the peace officers so well, Lani thought drily. She
stooped to splash another ladle of water over the heated rocks.
“That’s when I was sent to the Pillars.”
Water and fire clashed in a riot of clouds. The windows flashed with lightning. Lani
stared at her, unable to process her shock. “The ones outside the city? The Pillars?”
Velta wore a ghost of a smile and didn’t quite meet her eyes. “Grand theft, theft of art-
work, breach of divine sanctity, impairing the dignity of a boyar, assault.” She sighed as
if it were only a list of inconveniences instead of her once death sentence. “It was a bluff.
They wanted me to give up the rest of the crew in exchange for a reasonable sentence. But
Jorkavs was up-in-arms about his artistic integrity, and Edvins-Sarta wanted blood.” She
bit down on her thumb savagely.
“That’s not right,” Lani protested, her hackles raising.
“Thralls don’t have rights,” Velta said simply. “That’s how the Quaternions work.”
Lani had no idea what to say. The steam felt clammy against her skin. She tried to
picture the Velta she knew chained to one of those obelisks, unable to do anything but
wait for the monsters that stalked the night to brutalize her. The idea was preposterous,
insulting.
“That was before,” Velta said brusquely, sitting straight again. “The old man rescued
me from my rock, informed me of my destiny, and rushed me off to Yu-Shan. Everything
became so strange so quickly. I hadn’t thought about it in over a year.”
The sentiment rang hollow. It wasn’t like Velta to lie so obviously. Lani was unsettled
by it all in way she’d never experienced before, and it left her floundering.
First the city starts rumbling like someone’s shuffling the walls around, now…this.
She needed solid ground. She needed space to think.
Lani stood abruptly, her legs stiff. “I’ll get our room unpacked.”
Velta blinked up at her, pushing her knees together. “Oh.” There seemed to be more
on her mind, but she bit her lip instead of speaking. This was all the better to Lani, who
was set upon solitude as soon as possible.
She dressed in a haze of indignation and brushed past the attendant without a word.
Their room was made up when Lani sulked through the door: a healthy fire crackled
in the marble hearth, a plate of baked potatoes and smoked pork waited on the small oak
table, the woven rugs spread across the floor were freshly brushed. Thick blankets and
furs formed a mountain on the bed…the only bed.
Not today, devils, Lani thought grimly. She dragged the largest rugs into a makeshift
sleeping palette and helped herself to a few of the blankets.
Their travel chests, few though they were, teetered in an unsteady stack by the door.
Eruption Column leaned heavily against them. She felt a snap of regret at the sight, re-
membering how she had left the mortal carriage driver and the willowy Sidereal to haul
everything upstairs. Grimacing, Lani took the jade goremaul in hand. In the brilliant fire-
light, it glimmered like the white marble of the hearth.
That’s something, Lani considered, reaching out to touch the marble with her other
hand. It hummed with heat beneath her palm. When she focused on the resolute Essence
in her blood and bones, the stone grew still — stiller than still, as if waiting for her com-
mand. Only half-certain of what she was doing, Lani pressed the head of Eruption Col-
umn to the hearth, heliodor light coruscating between the jade and the marble. With not a
sound, her weapon disappeared into the stone.
chapter three 31
Lani withdrew her hands, studying with curiosity where her Essence left smears of
yellow diamond-dust on her palms. She’d never attempted that before and couldn’t help
but feel pleased with herself.
“Neat trick.”
A soft voice wrenched her back to reality. Lani spun to see Velta halfway through the
door, her expression lamblike, almost wounded.
It occurred to her that maybe Velta had been hurt at her sudden departure from the
sauna. If that were true, she would have said something, she argued with herself.
But Velta remained in the doorway, tense and unmoving, her glittering eyes searching
Lani’s expression. Lani stared back, wondering what she was up to. “Sorry you had to
carry it upstairs,” she offered, finally, begrudgingly.
The Oracle relaxed all at once. She stepped inside with a satisfied smile, quietly
shutting the door behind her.
Was she just waiting for an apology? Lani opened her mouth to throw the first barb
that came to mind, but Velta spoke first.
“I half-expected you to ask if I work here.”
Lani closed her mouth so quickly her teeth hurt. Velta seemed not to notice, breezing
over to their travel chests.
“Did you, uh—” The Earth Aspect stumbled over her thoughts, guilt and an embar-
rassing swell of longing cracking her resolve. “You brought a weapon, too, right?”
Velta didn’t answer, only raised her hand. The simple black ring on her thumb shone
like the rainbow on a soap bubble. Her fingers curved into an arcane sutra, emerald smoke
curling around her knuckles. The smoke solidified into a fork of solid starmetal — a
threefold fang.
“Just say ‘yes’ next time,” Lani suggested in a growl.
Velta glanced over her shoulder at her, grinning as the threefold fang dissolved into
smoke and the light in the ring faded. Her eyes crossed the distance to the lone bed and
the sleeping palette beside it. She wrinkled her nose. “It’s going to be cold on the floor.”
Lani turned away, grunting noncommittally.
“I won’t tell anyone if you want to share the bed,” she continued sweetly.
I’d rather be cold than made a fool of, Lani told herself, trying to steady her heart.
She simply grunted again rather than trust her fumbling tongue.
A sigh, a creak of a wooden chest, and a cold whisper she couldn’t quite make out.
Lightning flashed outside and ice tapped like silver needles against the glass.
Just say “yes” next time, a quiet voice ordered Lani from the back of her mind.
Chapter Four:
The Winter Rose House
She was beyond the walls at night.
She was shaking, mad, and terrified, feverish and hallucinating. Her wrists and an-
kles were heavy with chains, her back was freezing from contact with the cold marble.
Behind her, she heard the first scream, the first sacrifice to be taken. The shadows moved
in forbidden shades of emerald.
A hooded woman with piercing green eyes stared at her from the woods.
She had seen her in the corners and shadows for days now, watching knowingly,
silently. Every nerve in her body wanted her to cry out for help even knowing what she
knew — that was no woman, and it wasn’t her friend.
Something hot splashed against her leg. She clenched her eyes shut and took a deep
shuddering breath. The green eyes lingered behind her eyelids like burning stars.
“I don’t want to see it coming,” she heard herself whisper. “Just end it quick. Please,
just end it —”
“Not for you, young lady,” answered a creaking voice she had never heard before.
“This is not your ending.”
She opened her eyes to a creased and leathery face. An old man with pupils the color
of a praying mantis frowned down at her, and with his bare hands he struck the chains
from her wrists.
Velta startled awake to the crack of thunder and the sound of hushed Skytongue.
She stirred under her furs and quilts, squinting into the ember-lit gloom. The tip of
her nose stung in the cold air. The unseen sky rumbled. In the murky dim, she could make
out the tall, broad frame of Kalehulani standing in the open doorway of their little suite.
“Well, what does he want?” The Dragon-Blooded huffed. A young, pleasant voice
answered her in whispers. “And he wants me to help?” was Lani’s incredulous reply.
Velta sat up with both dread and interest, goosepimples covering her skin. The voice
of the house attendant rose in pitch but not volume. Pale blue light flashed outside the
lone window. There rose a sudden scuffle of heels on wooden panels. A new voice joined
them, and soon nothing could be made out in the protests and panic.
The Oracle rose silently, wrapping herself in her long shawl. The floor was freezing
beneath her bare feet. Lani sensed her somehow, turning with a pinched expression. Two
chapter four 33
familiar figures stood outside their door: the little house attendant, angry and fretting, and
Indrek, hurriedly dressed and red-faced from the cold.
Her heart sank. “What is it?” She murmured. The two in the doorway peered at her
with some alarm and embarrassment.
“He came here through the storm because of a…ghost?” Lani rubbed the bridge of
her nose.
A rime of ice crept up her spine. “Where?” She asked sharply.
Indrek shrank away from her, his eyes flickering back to the large Earth Aspect. “At
the m-master’s home, the Winter Rose House. The master is-is-is —” His eyes glistened
with distress, and he seemed to choke on the word. “Dead.”
Lani grunted thoughtfully. It gave Velta the cover she needed to step back into the
shadow and quietly compose herself.
Ghosts were not welcome in Whitewall. Ghosts were not allowed in Whitewall. And
Velta had hoped her investigation would bring her nowhere near the undead.
“We’ll be down soon,” Lani relented, shutting the door without waiting for a re-
sponse.
They dressed for the weather, and for conflict, in silence. Velta’s fingers trembled and
stumbled over her buttons, almost too stiff to slip the starmetal bands onto her thumbs.
“How did he even get here through the storm?” Lani sulked, her low voice gruff with
cold and sleep.
“The sewers,” Velta answered without much thought and saw Lani blanch. “They’re
not used much,” she continued, sounding more assured than she felt. “Just leftovers from
the First Age.”
“Much,” Lani repeated pointedly.
Velta couldn’t bring herself to respond. Her brain seethed with images of spectral
maws, of fleshless claws sinking into her psyche and possessing her thoughts.
Indrek was restless in the dark lobby, wrapped in layer upon layer of wool. A mantle
in brown-and-yellow plaid covered his face and kept his flat-brimmed hat in place. He
gripped a heavy glass lantern in both gloved hands. “My lord,” he gasped when the two
women descended the stairs. “I’m so thankful for…um, the estate of my master is indent-
ed to you for your —”
“It’s fine,” Lani interrupted him brusquely. “Please just call me Lani.” After a mo-
ment’s thought, she added, “and this is Velta.”
Indrek’s eyes widened, but he nodded.
“You can tell us more about this ghost problem on the way there.” She hesitated
again. “We’re going through the sewers, right?”
Indrek nodded again, a bit of shame dimming his expression. “If my lor…my l…Lani
wants, we could transverse the storm instead.”
A flash of blue lightning and muffled thunder added an exclamation point to that idea.
Lani grimaced.
“We’ll take the underways,” Velta answered for her. “Where is the nearest entrance?”
“Please take care,” the house attendant squeaked. They were busying themselves
with removing a heavy iron coatrack blocking the front doors. “The Bluecaps passed just
before the wind picked up.”
It was only the second time Velta had heard mention of this crew. She could only
imagine it referred to the crude patches with the word “blue” sewn into them. “I think
we’ll be fine,” she muttered.
The rich doors of the Gold Bell House had frozen shut in the short time since last
they’d opened. Lani applied careful strength to pry them apart, only for the lobby to howl
with sudden, freezing wind. The two Exalts and their mortal guide rushed into the maw
of the storm.
The blizzard had consumed Whitewall. It bellowed around them, blinding them to
all but each other. It clawed at the inside of Velta’s chest, and froze to her eyelashes. She
couldn’t even see the city’s towering gray walls. Lani pushed through the piling snow
like an angry bull, ice coating her skin in delicate scales. Velta clung to her forearm out
of instinct and wild panic.
It’s going to destroy the city.
Irrational as it was, her dread resisted all attempts to kill it. Whitewall had stood since
the First Age. These stones had survived countless storms before this one.
But she hadn’t. It was unlike any blizzard Velta had ever seen.
Lani barked something none of them could hear. She lurched to the side around a
large, heavy mound. In the time between gusts, Velta could make out gray wool frozen
stiff, white waxy flesh, the crudely stitched rune for “blue.” What were you doing out
here? She thought desperately. What was so important that you had to die like this?
Time was of the essence. Even the average winter storm could kill a man with frost
in less time than it took to cook rice. While Lani had the strength of the Earth Dragon in
her veins, and Velta was invested with the authority of Jupiter, their mortal guide could
succumb to the cold before they ever reached the Winter Rose.
Indrek was a smudge of gray against a black canvas, the light from his lantern cloudy
and guttering. Between gusts of wind, he gave muffled advice in single syllables — Up
here. This way. Not far.
Until, all at once, he disappeared.
Lani barked in alarm, sinking to her knees in the snow, inadvertently pulling Velta
with her. The cold bit into her shins with such ferocity she had to clench her teeth against
it. The Dragon-Blooded reached down into the ground, up to her shoulder in snow and
darkness. She seized on something, swore loudly, and pulled it up.
Lani had Indrek by his yellow plaid shawl. The apprentice was wide-eyed and grin-
ning, clutching her arm for dear life, terrified. “Here,” he shouted, and released her only
long enough to point down the hole he had fallen into. They had literally stumbled upon
the entrance to the ancient sewers beneath the city.
chapter four 35
Velta glanced at Lani, who nodded her agreement. This was their chance at everyone
making it to the Winter Rose House alive. Clutching desperately to each other, the trio
leapt into the darkness.
The underways were narrow, ink-dark, and freezing cold, but they were finally out
of the blizzard’s grasp. It was a strange comfort to Velta; the ancient stone tunnels were
more familiar to her than she liked to admit.
Lani swore when her feet hit the hard stone floor, and she continued stamping the
feeling back into them. “I hate it here,” she muttered under her breath. “I hate it here.”
Blessed and free of the deadly wind, Velta and Indrek loosened the shawls from
around their faces. The apprentice looked relieved but grim, raising his lantern high. Their
light was at first dimmed with rime, but gradually strengthened as melt-water dripped
away.
“This ghost,” Velta began unwillingly, “is Jorkavs’, correct?”
Indrek nodded, harsh shadows making him seem even more morose. “It looked like
him, at first,” he hedged. “And sss-sounded like him. But we didn’t know he was…that
he had…”
The lantern rattled in Indrek’s grip, casting eerie shadows against the millennia-old
stonework.
“Let’s go,” Lani encouraged, gruff. “Walk and talk.”
The storm screamed its fury overhead, the sound echoing like the distant wails of the
damned. In the quiet lulls, the stones rang with their footsteps and the cries of creatures
scuttling through the shadows. Velta heard a struggle in the murky depths and thought she
saw something large limp away. Whatever it was, it was gone before she had a chance to
identify it. She drew closer to Lani’s side.
“The master was lll-locked in his study for days,” Indrek finally continued. “And
ordered everyone not to disturb him. Not the serfs, not the journeymen, not even his d—”
He caught himself on the next word, coughing unconvincingly.
Velta narrowed her eyes but let it slide. “Then he’s been dead this whole time.”
“What?” Indrek stammered.
“It takes two days for a ghost to rise from a corpse.” She bit back a shiver. “Jorkavs
has been dead for at least that long.”
Indrek was silent, shaking.
They were not alone in the sewers, for better or for worse. As they trudged onward,
their path occasionally widened into small chambers and alcoves with circular columnar
supports, each packed with murmuring thralls. Myriad eyes shone from the eclectic light
sources the gangs had brought with them into the dark. All turned to glare when the trio
passed. Lani glared back. “What’s with all the thugs? This isn’t, uh, crime weather.”
Velta resisted the urge to chew her thumb, rather than admit she wasn’t sure. Indrek
maintained his silence until they were long past. “The Bluecaps,” he whispered. “They
were casing the atelier today.”
“Looters?” Lani suggested.
“I think so.” But Indrek didn’t sound sure, either.
Lani made a thoughtful sound. “So did this ghost say anything to you?”
“I don’t think it’s that kind of ghost,” Velta warned.
“What’s that mean?” The Dragon-Blooded demanded.
But Indrek was nodding, his face even paler than usual. “It at-at-ttacked the serfs. She
sent…we went to —” He licked his lips noisily. “A few of us went out to get help. Me and
Luiss and Dorta. This way.”
These last words he punctuated with a wag of his lantern. Rusted iron rungs were
bolted to the stone wall, leading up and back into the storm. Something rumbled and
shook out of sight. Velta fought against a wave of nausea.
“Ready?” Lani raised her cloak to cover her head. Velta and Indrek wrapped their
woolen shawls tight around their faces.
The storm had lulled, a winter behemoth pausing for breath. Snow still fell heavy and
thick, sticking in their wools and building into mountains. The street was wide, lined with
long, narrow houses, well-kept and beautiful, each standing cheek-to-cheek with no space
between. Through the flurry, Velta could make out the stately, slim facade of the Winter
Rose House. It was all of five stories, tucked into the tight row of other fine townhouses,
the portico and front balcony small and elegant like the trim of a boyar’s cloak. The front
door was stunning, solid ebony, framed with panes of periwinkle and lavender glass.
Above it shone an ivory flower of five petals circling a shining brass crown.
This is the center of Whitewall, Velta realized with a start. We’re near Congregation
Hall. But of course Hoch Jorkavs could afford to live in such a place, even if he wasn’t —
hadn’t been — a boyar. The idea still came to her with quite a shock. She had never been
so close to the city’s wealthiest quarter.
The house appeared to shimmer like a mirage, and from within came an uncanny
keening. It wasn’t until Lani took her by the elbow that Velta realized she had been ar-
rested in place.
Indrek led the way up the steps, pounding on the doors with unusual boldness. From
within came a scurry of footsteps, muffled grunts, the scrape of something heavy against
a wooden floor. Then, the doors parted.
As soon as Velta stepped inside, the feeling of dread intensified. It was dark and
musty and cold like a crypt. Above it all hung a relentless stillness that seemed to en-
circle the foyer like a cloak. The walls of the entry hall were dark wood, hung with
delicate stamped-metal lanterns that guttered without wind. Behind them, shoved aside
from where it had been used to bar the doors, stood a large, painted bust of Hoch Jorkavs
himself: a severe, handsome old man with sharp, gray eyes and short, silver-blue hair.
Although Velta was familiar with his cutthroat cunning and his cruel temper, there was a
sense of deeper sentiment in his carved expression that she couldn’t explain.
A clutch of servants in plain dress stood nervously glancing up the dark stairwell. At
the sight of the large Earth Aspect, they rushed to Lani’s side. The eldest of them gave a
chapter four 37
hurried bow. “We can’t begin to thank you enough,” the maid croaked, visibly restraining
herself from clutching to Lani’s cloak. Her graying hair had come loose from under her
headscarf. Behind her shawl, her thin face was lined with fear. “We worried the storm
might kill Indrek before he could reach you.”
“The house,” another servant was hissing. “Tell ‘em about the house.”
The floors above them creaked. Another wave of nausea hit her, more potent than the
last. Velta steadied herself on Lani’s shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” The Dragon-Blooded demanded, her voice cracking under the
strain of remaining quiet.
“Something is wrong with the house.” The words came out of the chief maid in a
frightened squeak. “The furniture upstairs — it keeps moving, or outright vanishing. And
the walls…something’s melting down the walls!”
“There’s thingies scuttlin’ around, out the corner of m’eyes.” Another maid clung to
Lani, her dark eyes huge and wet. “But when I look, there’s nothing there.”
A silent flash of lightning threw the entry hall into stark light and shadow. One of the
servants gasped.
“Any of this sounding familiar?” Lani muttered down to her partner.
Velta chewed the thumb of her glove, fighting to appear calm and unaffected. “Ghost,”
was all she could say. “Did anyone move the body from the study?”
There was a heavy silence. Another stroke of lightning illuminated the servants’
guilty faces.
Indrek cleared his throat. “Did Luiss and D-D-Dorta come back?”
“Ohh, oh gods, not yet.” The chief maid let out a hushed groan. “And Alarik went
looking for the creature with the kitchen knife — the kitchen knife! — and poor Miss
Hellebore is beside herself with —”
Indrek hissed and sputtered, cutting her off.
Velta narrowed her eyes. The only other name she could connect to the murder of
Edvins-Sarta — Hellebore. “I’m going to find the study.”
The chief maid gasped. “No, no no! It’s up there somewhere!”
But she was already removing her gloves with trembling fingers. “It won’t see me,”
she assured Lani, who was giving her a steely eyed stare. “But if you hear me —” Scream-
ing. “— calling for you…”
Lani nodded.
Velta stepped into the dark and inhaled deeply. The house was full of secrets, and she
drew the Essence of them into her lungs.
The shadows of Winter Rose House felt cool and silky smooth, as all shadows did.
But here in the night, in the storm, with death stalking the halls, the shadows left the taste
of ash in her mouth. She slipped through the dark like a forgotten thought, making not a
sound and catching not a glance of light. It wouldn’t see her; not even a spirit would be
able to sniff her out.
The stairway was polished stone, hard and unfriendly. The second floor was murky,
silent, and empty. A chilling howl rattled the windows. Velta waited.
Lightning flashed, illuminating nothing. A bare and empty story, cavernous.
She stared in disbelief. The world tilted slightly. A floor with no rooms or furniture?
Dare she wait for another flash? Another howl shook the floorboards and impaled her with
a spike of fear. Velta backed away from the emptiness, from the sick feeling, and rejoined
the current of shadows.
The rug on the third landing was stained dark. The smell of iron and terror burned
her nose. She found a large knife, bent and smeared with gore. Then, she found an arm.
Idiot, she thought sadly.
The hall of third floor was dim; lamp light beckoned from out of sight. The dark was
thick, slithering, and crawling. The walls were gray, a pale, pearlescent steel she shouldn’t
have been able to see.
The shadows are hungry, she mused, dizzy. She put out a hand to steady herself. The
paint was slippery, wet. Her palm came away covered in silver.
Velta stared at it, dazed. Her fevered mind sifted through all she knew of hauntings,
and returned with no matches. Fear squeezed her heart.
She peered around the corner.
The door to Jorkavs’ study was shattered into ebony splinters, dangling from its hing-
es. A tall silhouette loomed beyond the doorway, ringed in lamplight. Nothing else moved
from within.
She took another deep breath, focusing on the space she inhabited, the swell of her
ribs, the candle flame of her courage.
And then she stepped inside.
The silhouette was Jorkavs’, hanging from the ceiling like a spider swinging on a
broken thread, his hands clenched tight around the rope. The corpse’s eyes were hollow
sockets in a face twisted by mad despair. Behind him, a picture window looked out on the
center of a Whitewall smothered in white.
The study was devastated. Shelves were pulled down, chairs made legless, books
and parchment strewn about every surface. Abandoned dishes and half-eaten food made
a disgusting heap in the far corner. Paint ran and splattered over every inch of the walls:
frenzied words and lifelike faces.
No, Velta realized, horror creeping up her throat and threatening to burst from her
lips. Not many faces, but a single face over and over: hers.
Her own green eyes watched her from countless angles on the walls of the dead
man’s study. Across it all a disturbed hand had scrawled: WHO IS THIS?
She swallowed against the sickness that threatened to overtake her. The desk — be-
hind him, his desk was as clean as if it were new, only a soft-bound book and a single
sheet of paper upon it. Velta left the shadows and crossed to it with urgency, veering clear
around the hanging body.
chapter four 39
There, in the same hand, was written the master’s final thoughts.
There is a sickness taken hold of this city. Its name is GREED, and it is written in
the blood spilled by Quaternion injustice. The sickness is in me as well. I have become
cold, cruel. I cannot recognize my own daughter. I am haunted by what I never became
at the cost of what I might earn. At my center I am only so much colorless stone. As is
Whitewall. I look upon the seat of madness now and feel only fury. I bid it ill — I bid it
change or die!
Uneasy, Velta paused to glance out the picture window. A clearer mind had adorned
the wood surrounding it in sharp geometry, framed it in angles and figures of delicate
silver ink. Her head spun again and she returned her gaze to the note.
Forgive me, my little dove, for I cannot be the father you deserved. The wealth of my
estate is to be distributed to the charities and tenements listed in my journal.
Without looking up, Velta swept the book from the desk into her cloak.
The Winter Rose House is to be established anew as an almshouse. My blood and
my future, my Hellebore Rebel, will see to everything. Farewell to this wretched origin.
Farewell!
So, Hellebore was Jorkavs’ daughter — and he had cared for her a great deal. But
where had this madness come from, and how could it have struck so suddenly? From
Velta’s impression of him and the stories spread, Hoch Jorkavs was frighteningly shrewd,
disdainful, and obstinate, a brilliant artist who had also been blessed with a mercenary
sense of—
A soft swish of fabric, behind her. Someone, moving. The darkness behind Jorkavs
twitched and sobbed.
The letter fluttered from her hands. Velta spun on her heel, her curls whirling around
her like an arc of blood. Her nerves were like ice. Divine Essence rushed into her hands
in pins and needles. Green smoke trickled from her fingers, solidifying into dark metal.
The sound was staunched, the movement stilled. In the far corner of the study, hidden
between two broken bookshelves, knelt a young woman. She was a serf, by the style of
her dress, but her soft gray vest and sky-colored skirts set her apart from the Winter Rose
serving staff in their brown wool. She stared at Velta, rising slowly to her feet, her pale
gold face lined in shadow.
Velta spun her three-fold fangs into the underhand position, tucking the main prongs
into her sleeves. The back of her neck prickled. She hadn’t expected to see any living
mortals here — there shouldn’t be any living mortals here.
“Did you see the ghost?” Velta questioned the serf in a whisper, creeping slowly
around the desk. “Is it still…”
The desk was gone, the splintered wood gone, the disarray and refuse and mantra
of madness gone. The room was carpeted in soft gray. The lamps were brightly lit, and
stacks of books surrounded a large bed of white furs and blue quilts. Dreamy, beautiful
portraits adorned the pale blue walls.
Velta’s head spun. She threw out a hand to steady herself and found solid oak. The
desk. The study. The smell of death and madness dragged her back to reality.
What just happened? What did I see? She fought the urge to be sick.
The young woman clutched a wooden chest in her arms. Long blond hair framed a
haunted, lovely face. “It’s you,” she uttered in a cold, trembling voice.
Velta winced, shaking her head. She clenched her fists tight around her starmetal
weapons, the cool metal solid and reassuring. “Is the ghost still nearby?” She repeated,
coming closer. If the serf was too shocked by the events of the night to be any help, Velta
would have to escort her to Lani’s safety.
But the other woman backed up against the wall, tightening her arms around the
heavy box.
Lightning flashed. The air felt electric. Instinct whispered to her that this was not an
opportunistic servant looting Jorkavs’ study — but she should not have the contents of
that box.
“What’s that you have?” Velta asked, still approaching, struggling to keep her voice
neutral.
The serf’s gaze drifted to the chest, to Velta, to the picture window behind her. She
knit her brows, her jaw twitching, her eyes watering, her eyelashes fluttering. “You can’t.
You can’t be involved,” she muttered, the words trickling out of her. “It’s too late. Why
now…?”
Velta felt the stirring of intuition. She licked her lips. “You’re Hellebore, right?”
She ventured, still slowly approaching. Another inch or so and she would be in range to
take —
A knife-edge keening ran through her. A guttural howl shook the walls. There was no
rustle of skirts, no rush of wind and shadow; the serf was gone down the hall, the floor
beating with her footsteps.
She didn’t have time for bewilderment. Velta lunged into the dark after her, flecks
of emerald light shedding in her wake. Ash blond hair fluttered like a forgotten flag as
Hellebore — and she was sure this was Hellebore — fled for the stairway.
“Cut her off,” the voice of Dae-won barked from her memory. Her next step carried
her left instead of forward, into shadow’s embrace. The shadows are hungry. Velta burst
from the darkness on the stair’s landing, once again face-to-face with the woman in gray.
Her quarry skidded to a stop, the heels of her boots scuffing deep into the rug, the green
light of Velta’s anima reflecting in her horror-struck gray eyes.
Smoke rose from Velta’s limbs, a crown of soft starlight glowing on her brow. “Trap
her!” The memory of Dae-won ordered. The blunt fangs of Velta’s weapons glittered. She
struck with incalculable speed, the hooks of her weapons snarling in the woman’s vest.
“Stop!” The young woman’s voice was cool, authoritative, but her expression was
bitter and grieving. “Stop it!” She tried in vain to tug herself free, never releasing her
prize.
Fabric wailed and ripped. Velta hissed in frustration. The woman stutter-stepped
away, her vest and blouse in tatters, revealing the sapphire camisole underneath. Her pale
gaze suddenly fixed on the stone stairs leading up. In the next flash of lighting, Velta could
chapter four 41
see one corner of the oaken chest had grown dark and saturated, dripping a single bead
of thick, iridescent fluid.
The ghost is up there! Muscle memory guided her into the half-moon stance, nimble
hands whipping her threefold fangs into the overhand grip. She made her heart empty,
coaxing shadows to rush around her like a whirlpool. If she runs off and dies to that thing,
we won’t know what happened to —
A cold gust and the smell of ashes shoved past her. A night-black blade protruded
from the loose fabric of her sleeve. Something icy and hard as steel seized her by the back
of the neck.
“You! Run! Downstairs!” It was a voice Velta had never heard before, commanding,
yet feather soft. Her back burned and stung, pain lancing into her limbs. It felt as though
her spine had been replaced with razor-sharp ice.
“No! Downstairs!” The voice insisted. The woman in blue was heedless. She van-
ished on the ascending stairway.
Velta screamed, agonized and frustrated and frightened, clenching her chest with
effort.
No sound emerged.
Chapter Five:
The Knight and the Ghost
Kalehulani stared into the darkness of the stairway. She knew she wouldn’t see Velta
pass, or even see her return. All the same, it felt irresponsible not to watch for her.
“Where is she?” Someone — it sounded like the apprentice — was taking pains to
whisper quietly enough that Lani wouldn’t hear. She pretended she couldn’t.
“Th’mistress?” That was the pretty maid with the dark eyes. “Uppen-stairs.”
“With the…” Indrek struggled and hiccupped on the word. “Ghost?”
“We couldna get’er to come,” the pretty maid bemoaned. “She said, ghost’r no, I’m
to save th’master.”
“She didn’t know?” Indrek sounded aghast.
A flash of lighting cut the room with blue and violet. A strangled wailing carried
down the walls.
Inaction at a time like this made no sense. And it was making her nervous. Lani
turned to the servants huddled behind her. “What’s downstairs?” She demanded in an
undertone.
The chief maid twisted the front of her skirts in her shaking hands. “The kitchen…
the pantry…the cellar….”
“Take them down there.” Lani jerked her chin at the rest of the servants. “I’ll guard
the stairs.”
The chief maid spared her any attempts at courage or martyrdom. Without a word,
she gathered her skirts and the obedience of the servants. They slipped over the wooden
planks to the stone stairs, hurrying into the basement as quickly and as silently as possible.
Lani glared up the stairs, thinking.
She had never fought a ghost before and wondered if it would be foolish to try.
Weren’t ghosts immaterial, like other spirits? She seemed to recall a difference between
the ghosts of people who had died well and the ghosts of those who had died unfairly,
violently. Likely, it was the second one stalking the manor and terrorizing the servants.
Then this Jorkavs boss died angry.
She knelt to place her palm against the freezing cold stone. Deep within, she could
feel the pulse of elemental earth, and in that sea of primal stability, she brushed against
the Essence signature of Eruption Column.
chapter five 43
A shout wrenched her from her meditation. It came from upstairs, and she didn’t
recognize the voice.
“If you hear me calling for you,” Velta had said, an unexpected terror in her eyes.
Duty seized control where she might have waffled. Lani took the stairs two at a time,
the darkness swallowing her whole. But her sense of the solid ground beneath her carried
from her heels and into her bones. She didn’t need sight to see.
The soul of the house seemed to yawn into being around her, everything in contact
with stone and earth singing to her in quiet hums. She was aware of every floor, ceiling,
and wall. Footsteps from the basement thrummed below like a plucked bass string; there
was a flurry of activity overhead, an irregular melody of bodies in motion. And above
even that, a third figure added a quiet harmony. Maybe that Alarik kid is still alive after
all.
She hit the second stair landing and a sudden rush of Essence threatened to bowl her
over. This level of the house was unstable. Had the floor sunken somewhere? Lani paused
on the landing, feeling for her surroundings. But the source of the instability was still
invisible to her: she could sense only solid walls and heavy furniture.
Lightning flashed. No, there was nothing unusual here — the floor was unmarred,
the furniture and walls were whole and standing. That unusual sensation of fragility was
gone.
Lani narrowed her eyes.
Footsteps rang out overhead. Bootheels on stone. Lani heard a scuffle, a hiss, but
nothing else.
She flew to the third landing, her fingers dragging along the smooth marble railing.
Her Essence murmured to Eruption Column, drawing it from its stone sheathe.
The air was dark. The smell of ashes grew heavy. Through the murk, Lani could see
a halo of emerald light and faintly-glowing wisps of smoke. The darkness was a thing, a
person, a matte-black blade in one hand and Velta’s neck in the other. He wore the black
overcoat of other Whitewallers, but the brim of his black, flat-top hat was wide as a wag-
on wheel, festooned with unlit and half-melted candles. He turned to face her and his skin
was bone white. His large, blue eyes tilted inward like a fox’s, making them seem all at
once both deep and empty.
Those eyes had only a moment to widen at the sight of the charging Earth Aspect,
before the massive head of her jade goremaul smashed into the man’s chest.
He flew across the hall, splintering a framed painting and the wall behind it. Velta
slipped free of his grasp, collapsed in a heap on the floor. Writhing in pain, she curled
protectively around something solid. The darkness began to clear.
The man in black struggled to his feet, his pale eyes sharp with pain. Lani snarled
at him, standing like a mountain before Velta, hefting Eruption Column in both hands.
“Never touch her again!”
Is what she tried to say. But though she felt her lips move and her throat form the
sounds, no words came. Her face burned. Silently, she swore.
The man was on her in a flash, reaching for her with a bony gauntlet of that same
matte-black metal. She wasn’t quick enough to dodge. Those terrible claws rent the cloak
at her shoulder, ripping through flesh. Iridescent feathers scattered into the air, feathers
her first- and second-aunts had spent weeks gathering. Fury burned behind Lani’s eyes
even as her shoulder and arm went painfully numb.
The butt of Eruption Column missed his temple by an inch, crashing into the curio
cabinet beside him. He lunged with his short sword, slicing one of Lani’s locks. Her heel
planted, cracking the wooden floor. She reared back and flooded the muscles in her good
arm with unstoppable Essence. The man’s gauntlet clamped like a vice around her fore-
arm, freezing her attack.
An Exalt, she thought through the howling breath of war. Who else could stand
against her like this? He held her fast though both of them trembled with effort. Only a
sliver of his blue eyes could be seen beneath the wide brim of his hat.
With an empty roar, she crashed her skull against his.
He fell back on his haunches, his crushed hat tumbling from his head. Lank, moon-
white hair feathered his cheeks. He stared up at her in shock, a bleeding welt oozing from
his forehead.
Bemused, Lani wiped her fingers against her own head. Where had all that blood
come from?
A chill wind surged through the hall, ratting broken furniture, wrenching at her cloak
with invisible talons. A throat-rending scream issued from all around — the walls, the
ceiling, the floorboards beneath their feet. Velta clutched at Lani’s legs like a frightened
child. The man in black looked all at once grim and resolute.
“The hungry ghost!” He hissed in a voice like rent veils.
Lani turned her head warily. A great, dark stain spread down the stairs from the upper
floor. A grim, twisted figure watched them with empty sockets, its head twitching violent-
ly on a neck that was far too long. It was blue and violet, its distended jaw hanging to its
chest, its black tongue dangling like a noose, the front of its coat sticky and red.
Lani’s hair stood on end. Velta’s fingernails dug into her shin.
“It’s coming!”
Was he warning her? She didn’t have time to consider it further. The monster howled
again, sprinting toward her on all fours.
Lani was shocked at how monstrous a ghost could be. Somehow the fear only sharp-
ened her resolve. She pivoted and swung her goremaul like a pendulum, catching the
ghost in the side of its head. Its skull caved like a melon, eerily silent, but the thing kept
moving. It sank ragged fingernails into her arms, dragged itself closer, its stinking tongue
writhing eagerly for the wound in her shoulder. Lani recoiled in horror, holding it at bay
with the haft of Eruption Column.
“Excuse me,” a soft mumble reached her through the fog of terror. A dull black blade
sank to the hilt in the side of the ghost’s ribcage. It bucked and thrashed, its claws ripping
open Lani’s cheek. She held firm, clenching her jaw against the horrific smell of rot. The
chapter five 45
man in black thrust his gauntleted hand into the thing’s crumpled skull. Plasmic gore
splattered across her chest.
The ghost glowed from the inside out with light the color of a bruise. It continued to
crumple, collapsing in on itself. With a final gust of icy wind, it burst into ash and dust,
dissipating into nothingness.
Lani hacked, growled, and swore. She could hear herself again. She could hear Velta,
gasping and wincing. The house was still shivering around them.
“What did you do,” Lani roared, turning on the bleeding man. Her injured arm hung
limp at her side and Eruption Column glowed from within like lava rock.
The man stepped back into a defensive position, but there was no fear in his pale
eyes. “I destroyed the hungry ghost terrorizing these poor people,” he whispered. She
could feel those cool eyes assessing her condition. “And stopped your friend anathema
from assaulting an innocent.”
“Anakama?” Lani squinted. “Innocent?”
“Hellebore,” Velta hissed, and she floundered to her feet. Shining plumes of emerald
essence rose from her skin and the sign of Jupiter shimmered on her forehead like a third
eye. Her anima banner was beginning to unfurl — she had overtaxed herself. “I saw Hel-
lebore!” Before Lani could stop her, Velta was flying up the stairs, shadows rippling in her
wake, the chest she had been protecting left at Lani’s feet.
The man in black made to follow, but Eruption Column barred his way.
“No,” Lani growled, the hall vibrating with the force of her voice. “Answer my ques-
tions.”
He narrowed his eyes. A thick drop of blood oozed down the side of his nose.
“How did you get in here?”
“By invitation.”
“Yeah? By who?”
“A friend.”
There was something unnerving and cloying about his voice, worse than the short-
ness of his answers. She ground her teeth. “What’s in this chest?”
“I haven’t the faintest. Could I fetch my hat?”
But Velta was back, a torch of green fury with a crown of stars orbiting her brow.
Her caste mark was searing, too bright to look at. Lani had never seen her so livid or so
glorious.
“She’s gone,” Velta seethed. The constellation of the Key gleamed behind her like a
sword. “We were this close to answers, and you —”
The man in black met her fury with a cold, level stare. “I prevented vulgar deaths at
the hands of two monsters.”
An eruption of Essence engulfed them, flooding the room with light and smoke like
an interstellar cloud. Velta was at its center, an avatar of starlight, her voice suddenly cold
and severe.
“Under the knowing eyes of the Maiden of Secrets and her chosen Oracle, you will
not deny the truth. I invoke the Greater Sign of Jupiter.”
His pupils shrank, his eyes narrowed.
Lani felt a strange sort of heat bloom inside her skull. She had only ever heard of the
Greater Signs —somehow, she’d assumed only veteran Sidereals could invoke them. She
swallowed nervously.
The light faded, the afterglow of a falling star. Velta was herself again, the crown of
stars disappeared, the caste mark gone from her brow.
The man’s pale eyes darted between the two investigators, his thin lips pressed into a
straight line. “They call me the Moribund Hound,” he offered with a sigh. “I emancipate
ghosts.”
With the sleeve of his black coat, he wiped the blood from his face. The welt was
gone, only a perfect ring of a bruise left in the center of his forehead. Like a caste mark,
Lani thought with suspicion.
“Ghosts are not allowed in Whitewall,” Velta snapped, alarm in her voice.
“And yet?” He shrugged, spreading his thin hands wide. “This is a century storm, and
there will be more dead — more ghosts. Thralls dying so cheaply, by the hundreds. Their
higher souls will be trapped behind the walls unless I smuggle them out, and because
their bodies will never be properly interred, their lower souls will stalk the night. This is
merely the beginning of an infestation.” Then he looked as if the stream of words had left
an awful taste in his mouth. “What is this?”
“The Greater Sign,” Lani blurted. “I’ve never seen her use it before.” The truth forced
its way from between her lips.
Velta’s smug grin was exhausted, a shade of itself.
The Hound wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Anathema trickery.”
Rather than incense her again, this made Velta laugh, tired and hollow. “Is the pot
reprimanding the kettle? Deathknight?”
The man’s pale cheeks flushed pink. Lani rubbed at her deadened arm, scowling. “Is
someone going to tell me what ‘anakama’ —”
“Anathema. It’s a word you only hear in Creation. A word for the Chosen who ar-
en’t Dragon-Blooded.” Velta folded her arms. “How did you know to come for Jorkavs’
ghost? He’s no thrall.”
“My friend came to me for help,” the Hound admitted through clenched teeth, his
eyes narrow blue slits. “Dorta is a sweet girl. I would be troubled if you harmed her.”
“I won’t,” Velta countered, not at all reassuring. “I don’t care about Dorta.”
“You ripped that woman’s dress. You stole what belongs to her.”
“She’s a suspect in an investigation.”
“A murder,” Lani chimed in, unable to stop herself. “The Syndics requested we in-
vestigate the murder of Whitewall’s god of wealth. We’re from Yu-Shan.”
chapter five 47
Velta pinched the bridge of her nose.
“I don’t care about Edvins-Sarta,” the Hound echoed, though a newfound curiosity
softened his features.
“Neither do I, but a mission is a mission. You’ve never seen that woman before?”
Velta pressed.
“No.” And though he visibly strained to resist, the words continued. “Dorta spoke
to me earlier of her master’s daughter come to stay at the house, but I had never met her
until tonight.”
“Our suspect is Jorkavs’ daughter?” Lani asked, incredulous.
“So it would seem,” her partner murmured. “Come with me to his study. I want to
know what you think of —”
“There are the dead to think of,” the Hound interrupted in his soft voice. “The man
Alarik must be interred or his will be the next hungry ghost. And though the lower soul is
now destroyed, Jorkavs’ higher soul will continue to suffer if his body is not laid to rest.”
“Fine,” Velta agreed impatiently, waving a slender hand. “Fetch Indrek from down-
stairs if you need assistance. Jorkavs is hanging around his study. Lani, let’s go.”
“He attacked us,” the Dragon-Blooded pointed out, bemused.
“He thought he was defending someone.” Velta gave him a curious look, one he ca-
sually avoided meeting. She stooped to retrieve the odd chest, an unwitting mirror of the
man as he bent to fetch his wide-brimmed hat.
Feeling distinctly uncomfortable, and somewhat disappointed that she was denied a
fight to the finish, Lani fell into step behind her partner. She rubbed the stinging wound
on her cheek; sensation returned to her arm in fits and starts.
“I’ve never seen your anima banner before,” Lani heard herself saying. The urge to
blurt out the truth as it occurred to her hadn’t completely faded yet.
Velta paused to light one of the dead lanterns hanging in the hall. It gave off a gentle,
green glow. “Oh?” She answered vaguely.
“It’s beautiful.” And then Lani had never more desperately wanted to chew off her
own tongue.
Velta ducked her head, looking thoughtful. “Oh,” she said again. “Through here.”
The door to the study was a ruin of wood. But when Lani stepped through, she found
herself in a soft, elegant place, the bedroom of someone sensible and well-off — no
corpse and not a study. She frowned. “What is this?”
Velta’s face was gray with suspicion. “Do you see it?” She murmured.
Before Lani could answer, the room changed like a charlatan’s magic trick. The
corpse of Hoch Jorkavs hung from a rope tied to a rafter. The study surrounding him was a
squalid disaster ringed with trash, scribbles and scrawls covering every inch of the walls.
More drawings of Velta, Lani noticed, repressing a shudder at the desperately carved
WHO IS THIS?
Her partner pressed a soft, leather-covered book into her hands. “His journal,” she
explained curtly. “And his suicide note. I didn’t get a good look at his body before I found
Hellebore.”
Lani’s eyebrows scaled her forehead as she parted the cover of the journal. She
skimmed the Skytongue runes in Jorkavs’ final missive. “So he went crazy.”
“This much is obvious,” Velta muttered. She had replaced her gloves to carefully
probe the contents of the dead man’s pockets.
“Was he trying to remember you?”
The Sidereal hesitated, shooting her an unreadable glance. “He shouldn’t have been
able to remember he’d forgotten me,” she said cryptically.
“Then he did know you.”
“We met in passing.”
“Passing judgment?”
Velta glanced at her again, this time with her eyes narrowed. “When did you get so
clever?”
Lani summoned a scowl and looked back to the journal to hide how her face burned.
“Yes, he was personally involved in my sentencing,” Velta admitted. “But I barely
remembered his face, and I’m not the one with a fate-afflicted memory.”
Lani’s attention drifted to the sketches of Velta looking down on them from every
angle. Her face was all hard, sharp lines, black and dark, with blood red chaos for hair
and pinpoints of forest green for eyes. There was fury in every stroke — nothing like the
portrait miniature in the obsidian egg. Lani knit her brows.
Her partner exhaled sharply. She was standing before Jorkavs with his vest carefully
unbuttoned. His shirtfront held simple, elegant embroidery in silken, periwinkle thread
— the rune for “blue.”
“I was afraid of that,” Velta mused. She took a deep breath and turned her attention
to Lani. “The ghost is gone, but the house is still contaminated.”
“Do you mean the way the room changed?” Lani had been ready to brush it off as a
hallucination.
“But did you see the second floor on the way upstairs?” Velta watched her carefully.
Lani nodded. “It felt strange for a second. A little like…” She hesitated, struggling to
find the words to describe how she could sense solidity. “Like watching glass melt. But
everything was all there, so I don’t know what —”
“Everything?” She asked sharply. “What do you mean?”
Lani peered at her. “What kind of question is that? Chairs. Shelves.”
“Walls?”
Her suspicion turned to incredulity. “Yes, walls. What else would I mean?”
But Velta was wild-eyed, desperate-looking. She took an unsteady but deliberate
step into the center of the room, staring wordlessly out the picture window. Lani turned
chapter five 49
her head, suddenly uneasy. The panels around the window were decorated in fine angles
of shining iridescent ink, as if someone had painted a mandala to frame the view. She
squinted; three identical towers glistened through the snowfall, in the center of the view.
They looked…important.
Velta held her trembling hands before her chest in a triangle, her lips moving in
soundless prayer. With a tiny spark of Essence, her pattern spider appeared between her
fingers. Its little eyes were red with irritation.
“That doesn’t matter,” Velta hissed in response to its silent voice, her cheeks flushing.
“I need to know — I need to know how what’s taken place here has disturbed destiny.”
The spirit clicked its minute chelicerae at her.
“Listen, you little idiot, I don’t care,” Velta snapped. “Just do it.”
It hissed, crouching low on its eight legs. It launched itself at her face, dissipating
into a phantom of green light that spread over Velta’s eyes like a veil.
Lani shouted in alarm. For a moment, Velta’s eyes were empty emerald cabochons,
featureless and green. A shuddering gasp wracked her body. Before the Earth Aspect
could reach her, Velta sank to her hands and knees on the filthy floor, panting like a
wounded animal.
“Hey,” Lani growled, her hands flying to Velta’s shoulders. She was sick to her stom-
ach from seeing the Oracle humbled and hurt all night. “Come on. You’re fine. What’s
that all about?”
“Hellebore,” the woman gasped at the floor. “That ‘secret daughter.’ Hellebore. We
need to ask the servants.”
“Velta.” Lani lifted her chin with two fingers. Her partner was startled into silence,
her lips still parted in mid-thought, her face lined with anxiety. Lani’s chest ached with
the need to comfort her. She set her jaw against that feeling, instead saying quietly, “Slow
down. No one is leaving the city in this storm. Hellebore’s not going anywhere.”
Velta gathered her composure enough to sit on her heels. “We don’t know…” She
muttered, then looked away. “I don’t know what she’s capable of.”
Lani wasn’t used to hearing the Sidereal admit to anything approaching powerless-
ness. She bit the inside of her cheek. “What did the spider do? Did you see something?”
Heavy footsteps approached. Lani glanced out the shattered door. It was that bony
apprentice, Indrek. His sleeves were bloodstained, his expression ashen but resolute. Be-
hind him loomed the Moribund Hound, his face hidden in the shadow of his ridiculous
hat.
“Alarik has been laid to rest,” the Hound informed them in his eerie, soft voice. In-
drek choked at the sight of the study, and the Hound turned his attention to the gruesome
sight hanging before them. He made a grim, thoughtful sound.
Velta rose using Lani’s shoulder as a crutch. “There’s nothing more Jorkavs can tell
me,” she announced drily.
Indrek was boggling at the drawings covering the study’s walls, his attention bound-
ing between Velta and the horrifying portraits. “That’s you,” he cried, his hands balling
into fists. “Www-what did you do to the master?!”
The Oracle startled as if she’d been struck. Lani felt something inside her snap.
“Watch your tone,” she snarled at the mortal, who shrank from her in dismay. “She didn’t
do anything. She was with me the whole time.”
“Not the whole time,” the Hound mused, his ice-blue eyes gleaming. “I recall finding
her alone with your mystery woman.”
“That was dif—” The Earth Aspect stopped, floored. “You. You remember?”
Velta’s smile was slow but remarkably genuine. “Well,” she began breezily, “they do
say that denizens of the Underworld exist outside of fate’s reach.”
“Do they?” The Hound asked politely, his gaze unforgiving.
“And about this mystery woman,” she continued, rounding on the baffled apprentice.
“The game is up, Indrek. We know about Hellebore.”
Indrek gaped like a fish, his eyes darting between the two investigators. “I…you
know…Miss Hellebore?”
Velta gestured to the desk where the soft-bound book lay discarded. Sheepishly, Lani
retrieved it. She had forgotten about it in her rush to help Velta. “Either you tell us your-
self, or we read all about it in Jorkavs’ journal,” the Sidereal warned, though there was
something soft in her voice, something akin to understanding.
Indrek looked to the Hound, searching for any potential ally in this fight. The man in
black gave him an unreadable look before sweeping past to work at Jorkavs’ noose.
Indrek wrung his hands. Lani parted the cover of the journal.
“Miss Hellebore is the mmm-master’s daughter,” the apprentice began, deeply re-
luctant.
“We know that already.” Velta sounded more encouraging than impatient.
The first page of the journal was a list, laid out in an impeccable grid of Old Realm
hieroglyphs — not Skytongue runes. Lani raised her eyebrows.
Hollyhock House - Winter Rose House. Chief Maid Mikko - Chief Maid Milja. Erland
the Founder - dead or gone (the Beggar Prince?). Fletcher’s Street - gone (Jade Row?).
No stable, horses. Third floor bedroom - Study. Edvins-Sarta, Servant of the Tender Lar-
gesse - Edvins-Sarta, Treasurer of the Abundant Vault. Haslanti embassy - Realm garri-
son (!).
“She arrived last week,” Indrek offered.
“Was Jorkavs expecting her?”
The knuckles of his hands popped. “I d-d-don’t think so.”
The next few pages were simple but precise maps, variations of each other. The same
measured hand had written labels on the streets and landmarks. Lani thought she recog-
nized the arrangement of three identical towers in the center of the district. Chamber of
Comity was the label on one version. Congregation Hall labelled the other.
chapter five 51
“Where did she come from?”
“Uh, I don’t…I don’t know. Milja mmm-might. I could get her —”
“I need your attention to detail, Indrek,” Velta urged him, a note of sadness in her
words. “I know this is strange, you know this is strange. What was different about her?”
Lani flipped the pages, fascinated.
Mother is dead, he tells me. She rode off with the monster hunters and Ferem-No-Lon-
ger Alen years before I was born. I have never heard this name. He remembers Mother
with great love and sadness, wondering at what could have been. My heart breaks to see
him this way. He is so cold and lonely without her. Why has this happened to me? To us?
Am I now doomed to become the same shell of a person?
“She always,” he started as if the words were being pulled from him physically,
“wears something blue…a specific dye, glass blue. But her clothes are all…serf clothes.
It would be absolutely indigenous to d-d-dye work clothes with glass blue.”
Velta made an uncertain sound.
“And the master didn’t know who she was,” he continued with creeping suspicion.
“We all hearrr-heard him shouting. He was advocate that he’d never had a daughter. She
looks just like him though — they have the same triangle ch-chi-chin and their eyes are
the same gray.”
“What changed his mind?”
The Sleepwalker appeared to me again in my dreams, and I must call him that for I
have no other way to know him except by his method of speaking to me. His riddles make
no sense to me, yet I awaken with a sense of purpose — and my anger is magnified greatly.
I do not trust him, but I can’t deny the truth of his words. This Whitewall — this forgery
of my home — must be corrected. The Quaternions hold sway again, there are poor dying
of starvation by the hundreds, boyars pay worship to a twisted mockery of the Tender
Largesse — as if all our visionary toil had been unraveled in the span of a night!
“I d-don’t know.” Indrek sounded plaintive. “One day he was p-p-positive she was a
fake and the next day he was sure she was his real daughter. He…he changed overnight.”
Velta was quiet for a long moment. Lani spared her a curious glance — the Sidereal
was pensive, anxiety sharpening her already pointed features.
Whoever Hellebore is, she’s insane, Lani decided, frowning into the pages of the
journal. And worse, I don’t think she’s an ordinary mortal.
She turned the page. An astonished cry fought past her lips. There were long rows of
Old Realm blotted out in ink, unreadable. I must, the journal-owner had written beside
this. Regardless, I must, even if I am all that remains of her — especially if this is true!
I will tear down the Quaternions a thousand times over. It won’t be enough to galvanize
the people. They understand the truth of my words, but words alone will not suffice, not
anymore. The Sleepwalker has taught me all I need to begin. I will mend this warped de-
sign by force. I will rend the Syndics with my own hands and cast them out into the bitter
winter. I will paint my city with icons of love-shared-now-lost.
From the page opposite and every page after gazed a too-familiar face, each time
artfully rendered in soft pastels and pale washes of ink: emerald eyes, dark red hair, a
gently mischievous smile.
“Pasiap’s daughter!” The impatient epithet snapped through Lani’s shock. Velta was
studying her with anger and open concern. How long had she been trying to get her at-
tention?
Lani swallowed hard and shut the journal. “This isn’t Jorkavs’,” she managed, her
voice cracking.
Velta understood in an instant. “What does it say?” She demanded. “What did she
write?”
Even the Hound was watching curiously, a stiff corpse cradled in his arms. Lani was
at a loss for words. “I think Hellebore’s behind the Bluecaps,” she said uncertainly. “She
thinks this isn’t the real Whitewall and wants to ‘fix’ it by getting rid of the Kuhatanio —”
“Quaternions.”
Lani barely heard her. “She’s going to target the Syndics next.”
Velta was pale as a ghost, her mouth pressed into a thin red line. There’s more, Lani
thought. There’s so much more I can’t even begin to understand. But she couldn’t bring
herself to mention the portraits, the descriptions of lost love.
“Miss Hellebore is so kind, though,” Indrek insisted, wringing his hands. “She’s re-
ally kind. Always looking after the servants. Always g-g-giving alms to the poorhouses.”
Without a word, Velta went to the chest. Lani had forgotten it, forgotten the impor-
tance with which Velta had clung to it. She slammed it onto the desk facing the picture
window and threw the lid open.
The elegant, beautiful mandala around the window suddenly shimmered like a mi-
rage. The interior of the chest glowed with faint, prismatic light. A round, well-fed face
with diamond-bright eyes stared blindly at the ceiling, a full-lipped mouth slightly agape
as if the owner had been caught by surprise.
It was a head, perfectly preserved, iridescent ichor still oozing slowly from the neck.
“She killed Edvins-Sarta,” Velta announced in a trembling voice. “And she’s poison-
ing the fate of Whitewall.”
chapter five 53
Chapter Six:
The Winter’s Wrath
Fate was a complicated thing. Kalehulani knew this. Velta often spoke of it as some-
thing that could be inscrutable, its machinations difficult to recognize — or at times ab-
sent entirely. But it was also tangible, measurable, designed. Fate’s fabric was responsible
for the order of the world: it made things fall down to earth instead of up into the sky, it
made water flow downhill, it made fire consume instead of create and people grow old
instead of young.
Lani was still not sure how this was true, but she also knew it didn’t matter. It was
impossibly complex and lovingly woven, and she was a single feather in the weave. She
didn’t have to understand it to trust it.
The broken-nosed apprentice looked confused and suspicious. The gloomy man in
black narrowed his eyes at Velta. “What is this supposed to mean to us?” He whispered.
But Lani knew. There, in that gruesome room, with the decapitated head of a mur-
dered god before her and her partner’s troubled gaze wordlessly pleading, she knew per-
fectly well the only one of them who had to understand was Velta. And, despite it all, Lani
trusted her.
“What do we do next?” The Dragon-Blooded asked, firmly shutting the lid on Ed-
vins-Sarta’s head.
The Oracle lowered her chin and caught herself from chewing the thumb of her
glove. “Deathknight, after you deal with Jorkavs, I’ll need your assistance.”
“Will you,” he echoed, his mouth quirking.
“Come with me to the front doors,” Velta continued to Lani, disregarding him. “I…
need to think.”
Lani gathered the chest into her arms and let Velta take the lead.
The Sidereal was silent on the cold stairs, her face a porcelain mask. They paused
only to peer into the darkness of the second floor. Lani confirmed all was solid, causing
Velta no amount of consternation.
“There was nothing there,” she muttered. “There was nothing. I’m sure of it.”
The entrance hall was still dim and freezing, but the lingering mustiness, the scent of
grave soil, had disappeared. Occasional gusts of wind rattled the windows and the double
doors. Velta remained silent, pacing the carpet in an unpredictable pattern. Lani leaned
against the stair rail and crossed her arms, the oaken chest at her feet.
“It’s a sorcerous ritual.” Velta spoke up so suddenly Lani jumped, though the Oracle
hardly seemed to notice. “It would take days to understand the exact method.”
Lani held in a shiver. “Why did it have to be sorcery,” she muttered.
The Oracle grinned, though her eyes were still on the far-away. “I can guess that the
ritual requires a godhead, and it must be very important that it be the Treasurer’s godhead.”
“She had a different name for him. There’s a list of…” Lani stopped, that quiet, du-
plicitous voice in the back of her head cautioning her from calling too much attention to
the journal. Velta would want to see it herself. She scrambled to reorganize her words.
“She called him the Servant of the Tender Largesse.”
“Interesting.” Velta chewed on her thumb, looking more disturbed than interested.
“‘Servant.’ So she remembered him as someone completely different, not some greedy
miser worshiped by boyars…the avatar of the worst of the Quaternions….” She shook her
head. “However it was that she killed him…”
Her pacing brought her toe-to-toe with the heavy bust of Hoch Jorkavs. She stopped,
staring into its unseeing, gray eyes.
“Velta?” Lani prompted, peering at her.
“I think she exploited her blood relation’s connection to Creation as a kind of an-
chor,” she muttered to herself, tweaking Jorkavs’ stone nose. “And she used Edvins-Sar-
ta’s purview to breach the fate of Whitewall. She’s twisting it to match her vision of how
it…‘should’ be. But fate can’t be twisted without causing anomalies.” She poked Jorkavs
square in the eye. “And the anomalies are spreading…like poison. Like an infection.”
Lani straightened up, suddenly seized with the obvious. “Is Hellebore one of you? Is
she Chosen by the Maidens?”
Velta met her gaze only reluctantly, her face pulled into a grimace. “…No. She’s…
something else.” Her expression brightened unexpectedly. “Just a moment.”
She held her gloved hands out before her, her eyelids fluttering. The air rippled like a
heat mirage, and suddenly a long, ovular object had appeared in her arms. Velta staggered
a little under the weight of it, gently resting it on the carpet.
Lani leaned forward, studying it curiously. It was ancient, not cracked and faded, but
sleek and strange, mirror-black and impossibly smooth — a treasure from the First Age.
At Velta’s touch, an invisible seam hissed and released. The top slid aside, revealing a
plethora of illicit goods.
“A cache egg?” Lani asked, astonished. She had seen only one before, much smaller
and the color of peridot. This one was larger than her third-aunt’s baby, crammed full of
valuables, scroll cases, handbooks, and baffling hardware.
“Gifts from a past life.” Velta shot her a quick wink. “A Sidereal plans for everything,
even reincarnation.” She removed her gloves to carefully pick through the treasures. Lani
saw old folios and seals, keys of arcane design, adularescent ingots of pure ambrosia, and
memoranda printed on the indestructible mulberry paper used by the Bureau of Destiny.
One of these she drew from the rest, passing it to Lani. “Confidential,” was all she said.
chapter six 55
Lani unrolled it carefully, unsure what to expect. She had heard terrible stories of what
happened to those who opened correspondence from the Bureau without authorization.
The worst that faced her was a long, cryptic header of convention names, divine ti-
tles, and revision dates. The memo was almost fifty years old. She could be forgiven for
skimming.
Subject revealed he believed himself to be from Champoor, where he had personally
led a host of myriad nationality and nature to overwhelming victory against the legions
of House Ophris. By his report, this crippled the Realm’s presence in Prasad, allowing
the armies of Champoor to enact a campaign of liberation in eastern Prasadi holdings.
Any records of this host, Champoor’s campaign against House Ophris, or the Subject
himself have yet to be found, save a petition filed RY714 to the Dept. of Decisive Strata-
gems (Div.Battles) for additional martial heroes in the Nighted City region. Though the
Dept. of Wartime Intelligence (Div.Secrets) has launched an audit into whether either
nation is currently pursuing military action against the other, previous incidents with
similar entities suggest there will be nothing notable to audit.
Be advised that these entities appear to have the spark of Exaltation, though from
what manner of patron is yet to be determined. Known assets include panoplies of un-
registered starmetal, initiation in the Sidereal martial arts, corrosive fate, and contact
with rogue asset SLEEPWALKER. All agents are urged to avoid one-on-one engagement
with suspected entities. Any agent in possession of reports of entity encounters are to
forward an urgent memorandum to the Convention on Rogue Assets, to the attention of
Strike-the-Heart—
Something pinged in the back of Lani’s mind, gossip and news between divine cit-
izens of Yu-Shan floating just out of her reach. “This is about the invaders,” she spoke
slowly, trying to withdraw the memory. “The ones behind that huge manse explosion.”
“The Getimians.”
Lani narrowed her eyes, peering down at her partner. Velta’s expression had grown
tight with distress. The tragedy in the Five Auspicious Angles district in Yu-Shan would
have been soon after Velta had Exalted, maybe even days after she’d arrived in Heaven.
Manses, offices, and residences in a five-mile area had been destroyed or contaminat-
ed, hundreds of casualties and thousands made homeless. Lani had even heard a few
lion-dogs had died in the search for survivors.
“Getimians,” Lani repeated bitterly, committing the alien name to horrible memory.
Velta finally withdrew her intended prize from the cache of artifacts: an unassuming
spool of sapphire and moonsilver thread. “Bring me the chest,” she ordered. “I think
there’s room in here for the godhead.”
Doors opened beneath them and out of sight. Footsteps echoed from above and be-
low. The Winter Rose servants cautiously appeared, a mass of wide eyes and brown wool.
Indrek emerged from the dark stairway, the Moribund Hound glowering over his shoulder.
“My lord,” the chief maid gasped, scurrying to Lani’s side. “Is it over? Is the ghost
gone?”
Lani could hardly answer over the susurrations of the staff. The dark-eyed maid clung
to her arm, gazing up at her wetly. Indrek did his stammering best to calm the crowd.
Casually, the Hound kicked the chest with the tip of his boot. It drifted across the hard
carpet, thudding against the side of Velta’s cache egg.
“You need to make sure Congregation Hall is unaffected,” Velta was saying, care-
fully lifting the latch on the chest. Discretion prevailed, and she turned to block the sight
of the chest’s contents from the clamoring servants. “I’ll go back to the temple. I know
someone who was made ten inches shorter recently, and I have a plan to help him.”
Lani firmly removed the maid from her arm, fishing in her tunic for that first fateful
clue. Silently, she held out the obsidian scrollwork egg. Velta took it in her hand, consid-
ered it, a wrinkle forming between her brows. She tucked it into the sash of her own skirts
instead of placing it in her cache.
Lani raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. “So, what should I do if I see…her?”
“Exactly what it said in the memo. Do not engage.”
The Earth Dragon glared at her, stung. “What? What do you mean?”
“I have no idea what she’s capable of. Do not engage.” Velta pointed to the Moribund
Hound with her chin. “The deathknight will go with you.”
Lani turned to her with such force that the clinging servants shrank from her in shock.
“He won’t.”
“You’re not going against a Getimian alone.”
Her unshakable calm infuriated Lani. Over and over, she had demonstrated her trust
in the Sidereal, and Velta didn’t trust that she could handle a single Exalt? “He won’t,”
Lani growled. The furniture near her rattled. “I’m not going into battle with a whatev-
er-he-is.”
The Hound exhaled and shuddered. Lani realized he was laughing. Velta was defi-
nitely not. With a scowl, she reached back into the cache and retrieved a small amulet of
green jade. “Then take this. It will keep you from —”
“I’m not taking anything,” Lani snapped. “All I need is my goremaul and my Essence.”
“Who’she anyway?” The dark-eyed maid sputtered, reaching for Lani’s arm again.
“M’lord’s servant?”
“And for the gods’ sakes, do something about this.” The Dragon-Blooded gestured
violently to the mortals, who blinked or flinched in response. “Why do you put up with
everyone forgetting you?”
The cache resealed with a soft hiss. Velta stood, dusting her hands on her skirt, re-
fusing to meet Lani’s gaze. “Using a resplendent destiny wouldn’t help,” she murmured.
“Like hell it wouldn’t! I wouldn’t have to waste time re-introducing you every twenty
minutes!”
The entry hall was frozen silent. Indrek and the servants were confused, frightened,
awkward. The Moribund Hound merely watched. Beyond the front doors, the storm’s
howl began to build, a monster returning to its den.
chapter six 57
“I’m going,” Lani muttered, raising her cloak above her head. “Meet me at the Hall
when you’re done.”
The chief maid twisted the front of her dress. “Will my lord be long? There are gangs
of …” Her thin cheeks glowed red. “I don’t think we could fight off…with Luiss still
missing, and…and Alarik…”
“Then stay in the basement,” she growled.
Velta didn’t speak, didn’t look up. She only stepped aside to allow Lani to pass.
The storm’s lull was ending. The icy air was sharp and biting, cutting through skin
and clothing alike. Snowflakes drifted and twirled in the wind, glittering like diamonds in
the dim light and stinging like needles against her face. The sky seemed alive with elec-
tricity, blue and white lightning flashing between the clouds like pulsing veins. A deep,
muted rumble echoed through the air.
Lani coaxed her Essence to the surface of her skin. Snowfall brushed her cheek only
to melt and freeze again into a thin armor of delicate dragon scales. The wind’s deadly
sting faded, and her body gradually warmed again.
Beneath her feet, she could feel the earth groaning and shifting. A house collapsed
from the weight of snow, she thought, recalling Velta’s original guess. But the reverber-
ations led deeper into the district, toward those three towers in the picture window. This
was bigger than the roof of a single house.
Across the street and out of sight, a heavy door slammed and a man screamed. Lani’s
heart lept into her throat. Through the veil of snowfall, she could see figures slinking
among the ice-rimed houses — a group of ominous figures made indistinguishable by
their dark wools. Farther down the road came the sound of shattering glass and grim
laughter. She thought she could make out the dull glow of lantern light. The Bluecaps
were here, dragging wealthy citizens and anyone else they encountered into the freezing
street — fathers and mothers, servants, the elderly.
The distant screams cut short abruptly. An uneasy silence hung over everything. Lani
clenched her jaw. This was not her mission. If Velta was right, they could curb the vio-
lence from the Bluecaps and repair Whitewall’s infected fate with the same plan.
The snow was knee-deep, heavy, and difficult to navigate. The haft of Eruption Col-
umn dragged through the ice crust. Lani stopped reluctantly, taking the jade hammer from
its sling. She forced it down through the snow, pushing until she could sense contact with
the earth, letting her Essence sift into it like fine sand. The cobblestones accepted the
artifact with her permission.
It was windy, dim, and terribly lonely.
Lani kept her vision sharp and her ears open, above all trusting her earth-sense to
alert her to her surroundings. When she focused, she could feel clusters of burdened
footsteps, likely gangs on the move. They seemed to be converging on the center of the
district.
She could also sense a lone wanderer, meandering slowly toward her.
The storm’s veil obscured everything farther than six feet in front of her. Her pulse
began to pound. Would it be fate to simply encounter Hellebore on the road? Lani shifted
to the balls of her feet and waited.
It was not one, but three figures that burned their way through the snowfall, a fire
brighter than any torch announcing their approach. Two young men carrying a third
strode carefully but confidently through the storm. One was tall and poorly dressed for
the weather, stepping lightly atop the snow even though he bore another person on his
back. His own personal cyclone kept the snowfall at bay and seemed to ward against the
cold as well. The other was wrapped in fine wools and furs, the glint of red jade visible
between his cloaks. He was wreathed in sizzling red flame, sublimating snow to steam
before it even reached his skin.
She gusted a sigh of relief and raised her hand to hail them. These were Chosen of
the Dragons. But when the blazing one, the Fire Aspect, shouted to her in Skytongue, the
relief soured. Velta was far from her, and Lani had lost her gift of comprehension.
The two Dragons seemed to be in good spirits in spite of the chaos around them. The
poorly dressed Air Aspect knew some Old Realm, so information could still be exchanged
in stiff, clumsy, phrases. He was Mnemon Zakim; the Fire Aspect was Cathak Vophor.
“Lani,” she introduced herself — better to keep it simple.
“You, a sister?” Zakim asked in stumbling Old Realm.
She grinned, unable to contain her delight. “Cousin, from the Earth.”
Zakim laughed and translated for his partner, who finally thought to mention their
third member: the injured man they conveyed was a serf named Luiss, who risked the
storm to find help for his master.
Lani knew the name, and said so. The two Dragons reacted with surprise.
“Winter Rose, ghost,” Lani tried in Skytongue, then in Old Realm, “We ended the
ghost.”
Zakim and Vophor cast glances at each other, exchanging only a few words. “You,
here, storm. Why?” Zakim knit his eyebrows in confusion, spun his hand to mime the
blizzard and pointed to where they stood.
Lani hesitated. Were Velta here, she would curse at her or pout, but her first idea
seemed the simplest solution. She withdrew the golden seal from within her cloak. “There
is an enemy of fate sabotaging the city,” she rattled off in her native tongue, then strug-
gled to convey the same in theirs.
Understanding struck them like the dawn when she held up the golden seal. “Yu-
Shan,” Zakim said, slightly awed. The two conversed energetically. Lani felt distinctly as
though they were deciding something.
Suddenly, Vophor’s fires dimmed to a soft, simmering warmth. He took Luiss from
his partner, cradling the young serf against his chest.
“He goes,” Zakim nodded and gave Lani an eager smile. “I come, cousin.”
Lani balked at this. Her mission was dangerous and sensitive, she told him. The Air
Aspect smiled wider, pretending not to understand. Even as she raised her voice in anger,
chapter six 59
Vophor’s warmth receded into the stormy night, and Zakim patted a sheath at his hip
reassuringly. Frustrated, she relented. It wasn’t like she could prevent an Air Aspect from
following her through a blizzard. The wind and ice were as much a comfort to him as the
earth and stone were to her.
At least Velta will be happy I didn’t go alone, Lani seethed to herself.
The towers stood like sentinels against the snow-shrouded cityscape: three tall spires
reaching toward the sky with their pale stone faces gazing stoically outward in all direc-
tions. They were surrounded by a low, curving wall like a protective embrace, shielding
whatever lay within from outside eyes.
The earth trembled beneath her without end. Lani peered into the dark. The central
tower of the three — was it vanishing? It seemed to blink at her like a troubled eye.
“Careful,” she warned. With a quick, efficient gesture, she beckoned to the stones
beneath her, and Eruption Column burst through the crust of snow into her waiting hand.
Zakim nodded, drawing his weapon: a breathtaking, single-edged blade in jade as clear
and blue as ancient ice.
She caught him admiring her goremaul even as she was struggling to tear her eyes
away from his daiklave. I spend too much time with Sidereals, she mused.
That was when she realized the world had gone terribly, terribly quiet.
Outside the bubble of Zakim’s Essence, the wind had gone completely still, and the
snow fell in soft, idyllic clumps. A soft blue-violet glow collected along the edge of the
Air Aspect’s blade and at the tips of Lani’s feathers.
“Mela’s candles,” he said and gazed warily into the sky. The same gentle glow drifted
overhead in spheres and sprites. After some consideration, he added, “bad storm.”
But Lani’s attention was drawn to the dimly lit street. It curved away at the base of
the wall, lined with ancient stone buildings that reminded her of the offices of Heaven.
Standing with her back to them, lifting a hand glowing with that same stormy plasma,
was a solitary woman.
Lani’s hackles raised. Zakim looked after the woman curiously, lowering his sword.
He stepped forward and called out to her in Skytongue. The woman turned to study him
over her shoulder, her long blond hair shifting like a waterfall. She was not dressed for
the weather; she was wearing light blue skirts.
Zakim began striding toward her and sheathing his daiklave. The woman studied him
with hard, calculating eyes and her hand drifted to her waist.
“Careful,” Lani barked to him in Old Realm.
The stillness broke into chaos.
Snowflakes froze in midair, crystallizing into diamonds. An arc of starlight cut
through it like a reaper’s scythe. Chunks of stone from a nearby pillar went flying.
Zakim swore, stumbling back. Without warning, the golden-haired woman was inch-
es from his face. He raised his sheathe to parry, but she hadn’t moved, hadn’t struck.
“Cousin!” Lani cried out.
A comet of iron and starlight struck him from behind, seemingly locked in orbit with
the woman. The Dragon-Blooded exhaled a mist of breath and blood. His heels skimmed
the snow, air Essence carrying him just out of reach of her.
Lani’s fury called to the earth below, a war song’s refrain humming through her heart.
The earth and stone answered her, breaking the crust of snow to afford her a clear path.
Eruption Column pulsed in her hands. She swung it for the woman’s head, an unstoppable
force.
Hellebore turned to stare at her with hard gray eyes and raised her arm.
Starlight glittered at the corner of Lani’s vision. Instinct preceded thought. She threw
her weighty Essence down through her feet, crumbling her stone support, sinking back
into the snow. The iron comet screamed past just inches above her head.
Lani’s attack carried her forward. Jade slammed into flesh and bone, sweeping Hel-
lebore’s legs out from under her.
Screams and shouts filled the air. Men and women in rough clothing and blue patches
rushed through the snowy veil, from the squat buildings behind them, from around the
pillars before them, from thin air.
The back of Lani’s neck prickled.
Hellebore was standing as gracefully as if the jade goremaul had never
struck her.
The woman lifted her arm again, gliding her hand and shoulders in a dance Lani had
never seen before. The orbiting comet swung closer and closer, faster and faster, scatter-
ing the ice crystals suspended in the air.
“Cousin!” It was Zakim’s turn to warn her. Lani raised her weapon like a shield. The
stone under her heels cracked like thunder.
Blades of solid air rushed past her, chopping furrows into the snow and crashing
into the statues at the other side of the street. Brilliant blue wind gusted around the Air
Aspect, and with frenzied strikes of his sword he sent pressurized attacks flying through
the swarming mob and toward the Getimian. The blinding arc of her comet sent a few
careening off course, cutting down thralls, slicing chunks from the walls and roofs of
buildings. Hellebore could not avoid them all; her tattered skirt was soon soaked with
blood from her thigh.
“Good!” Lani shouted, ignoring her own blood trickling down her forearms.
“Again—”
Hellebore could avoid them all; her tattered skirt was clean and unstained,
her thigh unwounded.
Lani’s shout devolved into a wordless cry of disbelief. A Bluecap thrust his shoddy
knife at her, cursing when it chipped against her stony skin. Another lunged at her with a
sharpened trowel, and she batted him aside in frustration.
The golden-haired woman turned from her dismissively, a halo of cold, blue-gray
light flickering behind her head. Over the flurry of rust and wool rose a pillar of gray-
chapter six 61
white light shot through with void-black streaks, an anima banner like nothing she had
ever seen. Zakim shouted wordlessly, spikes of bright blue ice slicing through the air.
“Hellebore!” Kalehulani roared her name like an oath. The earth shook with her fury,
icy chunks of mud rising into the air. There were tattered thugs everywhere, surrounding
her, jeering in Skytongue and falling beneath the might of Eruption Column only to be
replaced by fresh fighters, an endless tide of followers.
“You like to dance?!” The Earth Dragon’s daughter bellowed into the still, ominous
sky. “Then let’s dance!”
The sole of her foot struck the earth like a bass drum. It rose in ripples, scattering ice
and rocks into the gelid air. Lani filled her lungs and let loose an explosive war cry, the
force of her rage hurling screaming mortals into pillars and walls.
Zakim’s howling anima shattered the ice into razor shards. He was battered, forced
to his back foot, struggling to predict Hellebore’s attacks. She moved quickly, unpre-
dictably, the tatters of her dress flowing in slow motion. The iron comet hummed with
dreadful portent.
Lani took another earth-shattering step and beat her weapon against the ground.
“Stones, wake,” she roared with all her might, the ancient Old Realm song rising in her
bones, “earth-blood, wake! To the sky! To the sky!”
A frozen cliff of earth and stone stabbed into the sky, a barrier between Hellebore and
Zakim. The Getimian flickered like a candle, suddenly facing Lani, her face a mask of
contempt. Eruption Column pulsed in her hands. More cliffs rose to either side of them,
an impenetrable corridor.
Hellebore blurred and pirouetted through the steps of her alien dance. The iron comet
reversed in mid-arc, retrograde. It spun too fast to be seen, pulverizing stone to dust.
The Earth Aspect bared her teeth and widened her eyes, Essence the color of golden
beryl steaming from her skin. “Great Earth Dragon, wake! Rot of my foes, behold!” Erup-
tion Column rang against the cliff like a gong, her heel pounded the earth like a drum, her
fist beat her chest like an anvil. With every pulse, the stones answered, rattling the earth
in rhythm, and the hidden heat of the earth began to rise. Snow and ice turned to water, to
mud. The Getimian’s jewel-hard face was lined with effort, her steps flagging.
“Behold!”
Lani’s cry shattered the streets with a sound worse than thunder. A divine fever boiled
her from inside. Gleaming Essence rose in a bonfire around her, phantasmal mountains
and the chorus of her ancestors building from her furious display: She was Kalehulani,
the Caldera, mouth of the earth’s fury.
The chant flew from her throat, rapid and booming. “Bring lightning, bring fire, the
foe is upon us! Not an inch, not an inch! Let her flesh feed the Dragons!” Kalehulani struck
the haft of her weapon, struck her forearm, her chest, her thighs. The mirage of her ances-
tors followed her movements, crying in distant voices. The stone cliffs marched inward
like an advancing army. Hellebore quailed, stumbling in the black mud. The iron comet
embedded itself in the rock wall in a shower of sparks, and the Getimian gestured to it as
though it might pull her from the mire.
Triumph was a fire in her heart. “Raise your fist, blood of mountains! Break her bones
with your boulders!” She pounded her heel against the cobblestones, shaking fist and jade
at her floundering enemy. Let her flesh feed the Dragons! echoed over and over from her
anima.
The Getimian fell to one knee, stuck fast and sinking. Walls of rock bent like willows,
closing in around her. From behind a curtain of blond hair, two baleful gray eyes and an
ominous caste mark glared at Kalehulani.
The Dragon-Blooded stared her down with a feral grin, the last verse ripping from
her throat. “Her legs shake with fear for her tomb is his belly and we pound on the earth
where she fell!”
A hundred ancestors screamed and whooped. The stone ramparts thundered and
cracked. Hellebore’s furious scream was swallowed all at once by darkness and stone.
Lani released the chant with a wordless shout, breath and anima expelled from her
lungs with tremendous force. The visions of her ancestors faded, their triumphant cries
drifting away on the wind.
Her shoulders heaved. Her skin beaded with sweat and bright yellow essence. Where
Hellebore had fallen stood a dome of frozen mud and earth, silent and cold, slowly accu-
mulating snow.
Lani leaned on Eruption Column, catching her breath. She could sense the Getimi-
an’s frantic struggling in her earthen cage. It’ll hold, she thought, gritting her teeth. It’ll
have to hold until Velta gets here.
Zakim groaned, pushing himself to one knee. Lani crunched toward him through
the snow, ice, and debris, heliodor light trailing in her wake. The army of Bluecaps had
thinned. Whether they had died, or run, or simply vanished, Lani couldn’t tell or care.
Those that remained rushed the prison with no regard for the two Dragons, scrabbling at
the stone with their hands and weapons.
Her frenzy had slowed to caution. Lani could feel her calculated strikes at the stones,
testing it.
“You won’t,” she growled, jutting her fist toward the prison. A bit of her remaining
Essence flowed forth to reinforce the walls in a shimmer of pale yellow light.
“Cousin,” Zakim gasped. She bent to seize him by the forearm. “Cousin…no…”
Lani hauled him to his feet with a grunt. He was icy to the touch. He sagged against
her, pale blue Essence coruscating over his skin. He winced in pain, though Lani could
not see where he was injured.
“No,” he repeated, looking at her desperately before turning to the stone walls. The
Air Aspect stumbled toward them, delivering a monologue of Skytongue Lani could bare-
ly understand, but she heard reunite Whitewall and Hellebore Rebel.
The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She grabbed him by the shoulder.
“What are you doing?!”
Zakim shook free of her, shouted at her. Blue-gray light collected on his fingers, the
edge of his daiklave — Mela’s candles, but wrong, the color of…of Hellebore’s anima.
chapter six 63
The walls of the stone prison shimmered like a mirage.
“You won’t,” Lani commanded through clenched teeth. She swung her fist, willing
the earth to stay solid.
But a creeping doubt was beginning to take hold of her, something that had
been nagging at her in the back of her mind.
A flash of lightning startled her, crackling overhead. All it once it
froze,
then
fell,
a massive branch of blue crystal plummeting out of the sky like a discarded weapon
of
fate.
Lani covered her head with her arms. The bolt dissolved into motes of glowing gray
dust inches from the ground.
What Hellebore wanted was to reclaim the city for the people. She wanted
an end to the Quaternions, to the useless suffering.
She hated this Whitewall. She hated the cold stones, the muddy snow seeping through
her woolen trousers, the poor freezing to death outside and the dead god with mountains
of treasure….
Lani shook her head furiously, panting with effort. The cage was going to fail without
her. She had to focus. She had to remain stable.
There could be no stability from a foundation of lies. This edifice of cruelty
wasn’t Whitewall, didn’t have to be Whitewall. No one else needed to suffer in
the cold, or be sacrificed to the monsters of the Pillars.
The towers of the Syndics flickered and swayed. Lani’s vision was shrouded in blue-
gray fog, the color of a winter storm. She felt a silent roar vibrating in her teeth.
Why was she so certain Hellebore was her enemy? If anything, shouldn’t
she be protecting her?
Lani clutched to the haft of Eruption Column so tightly her knuckles were the same
color as the jade. She trembled with exhaustion, muttered like a mantra, “Velta is count-
ing on me.”
The wall of the prison exploded outwards as Hellebore stepped through.
She strode with the slow, inexorable confidence of the changing seasons, chunks of
rock and ice careening across the boulevard, knocking statues and pillars to the ground.
Her iron comet soared in ever-changing arcs around her head like an inescapable crown.
She burned with a still, steady light the color of storm clouds, electrifying even in blood-
stained tatters.
And she would need protection if her vision for the city would ever survive
to be reborn.
Lani fought for the will to lift her weapon, to continue the fight. A glint of starlight
struck her eye — Hellebore’s weapon changed course in a heartbeat, whipping around
Lani’s shoulders. Something impossibly thin and hatefully sharp tightened around her,
lashing her arms to her sides.
Behind Hellebore, the shrapnel and debris
reversed course
and time rewound on a spool. The rocks and ice flew into new positions, sculpting
themselves into a towering, half-finished
sculpture
of two figures standing
hand-in-hand.
“We’ll help her, too,” Hellebore whispered, lifting her hand to the Earth Aspect.
“We’ll help Velta remember.”
chapter six 65
Chapter Seven:
The Ritual and the Rebel
Despite the darkness, Velta had always felt a strange sense of security in the un-
derways. Maybe a false sense of security, she thought to herself as she descended even
further into the darkness. Roving bands of Bluecaps could pass at any moment. There
seemed to be an improbable amount of them now, raiding the homes of tiuns and boyars
with no regard for the danger of the storm.
She spared a glance at her companion, silent and pale and dressed in all black. In
his soulsteel gauntlet he gripped an iron lantern, graciously lent to them by Indrek. The
apprentice had all but insisted they borrow it. “Borrowing” means one has to return, she
considered, amused. Indrek had always liked the quiet, soulful ones. She never under-
stood it. People like the Hound unsettled her. She preferred a certain sincerity, and…
Unbidden, her thoughts circled back to her partner.
Velta felt a sour pang of guilt in her stomach. Lani had been so stupidly stubborn
despite all the danger. Perhaps Velta should have been clearer about the risks of fighting a
Getimian…not that she fully understood what those risks were, herself.
What if Hellebore has something even worse planned? Velta wondered. She turned
over again in her mind how she had so easily reclaimed the god’s head, even when Helle-
bore had fought to keep it. Why had she left it behind after all? For what possible reason?
Velta looked over at the Hound again, as if she might find answers in his counte-
nance, but he remained stoic and unreadable. Velta sighed and continued walking.
“Do you think this is truly necessary?” The Hound broke the silence with his soft
whisper.
Velta nearly jumped out of her skin. She took a beat to steady herself before asking,
calmly, “What are you hissing about?”
“Edvins-Sarta was a parsimonious bastard who did more harm than good. His death
could be considered a blessing.”
She tried not to laugh. It forced its way out as a snort.
The death knight stared down at her, completely saturnine. “And it sounds as though
this Hellebore wants to do away with the Quaternions,” he added. “A boon for the people
of Whitewall.”
The Oracle cocked her head at him. “And you care for the living people of Whitewall?”
His smile was half a sneer. “Perhaps the idea of compassion is a strange one to anath-
ema.”
Again, she scoffed with restrained laughter. Old Dae-won would lose his mind in a
conversation with you. “I apologize, deathknight. I mistook you for an Exalt in service to
the lords of the dead, someone who had pledged himself to the goals of the underworld.
But you are some other kind of bloody-headed dandy.”
The Hound sniffed and held his answer. It stretched into icy silence.
She refused to linger further on his point. Stubbornly, she prevented herself from
considering the implications, from wondering what would happen if she allowed Helle-
bore to have her way with the city she was born in, neglected and condemned and forgot-
ten by. Beloved Whitewall, where the poorest couldn’t afford boots in the winter. Dear,
dear Whitewall, where creatures like Edvins-Sarta had callously doomed so many to die
in hopeless squalor.
Velta was an agent of fate. She was Chosen for this. There were greater things at stake
than one city’s injustices…or, so she had been taught.
They had gone several turns through identical, ancient stone tunnels when Velta
caught a noise from up ahead. It sounded like muffled voices and heavy footfalls — the
footsteps of a large group.
Together, as if they had coordinated it, the two Exalts backed swiftly into an alcove
just off the main path. The Hound shuttered the lantern.
There came a shouting and a terrified plea for mercy. A ragged crew of Bluecaps marched
by — a small army of them, dragging with them a shivering man in fine linen bedclothes.
“Please,” the boyar begged with frantic urgency, his voice cracking with fear, “please,
I beg you, I beg you to spare me. Anything — anything is yours. The contents of my wine
cellar. My…my horses. Please, anything —”
The Bluecaps laughed and jeered as they dragged him away while he screamed for
help that never came.
When the footsteps had vanished and the screams had faded, Velta and the Hound
stepped out from their hiding place, continuing on their way towards the temple of Ed-
vins-Sarta. Neither one spoke about what had just transpired.
“To live hopelessly, to die crudely,” the Hound whispered, his face hidden in the
shadow of his hat. “It births a morose ghost with lingering regrets.”
Velta considered this. It isn’t that he cares about the living so much as he cares about
their afterlife. It was a roundabout way to compassion, but a kind of compassion all the
same.
“The most ignominious death is one forgotten,” he continued. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
Though his words were mild, she could feel his pointed, unearthly gaze on her. Velta
pursed her lips.
“Why do you put up with everyone forgetting you?” Lani’s harsh words echoed
through her mind. Because I don’t have a choice, she thought bitterly. It wasn’t enough to
chapter seven 67
avoid reintroductions. Creating a resplendent destiny to wrap herself in only simulated a
memorable fate. They would remember the destiny she borrowed and the role it played.
They wouldn’t remember Velta Eso.
“You are truly from the Heavenly City?”
Though he was trying to hide it, Velta could hear a note of wonder in the Hound’s
question. She grinned. “Truly.”
“Even Yu-Shan cannot resist the conspiracy of anathema,” he observed.
“There are more anathema in Heaven and Creation than are dreamt of in your philos-
ophy,” she answered with faux gravity, then added, “We work for the Bureau of Destiny
with the authority of the Five Maidens. Mercury, Venus —”
“Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn,” the Hound finished drily. “The Inevitable Sisters, the
weavers of fate.”
“So, you aren’t just a fashionable dresser and a pretty face.”
“The Five Maidens take an interest in Northern class wars?” He neatly dodged her barbs.
“Their Chosen take an interest in the integrity of fate.”
“And fate demands the citizens of Whitewall consume each other on an altar of silver
and jade, rather than allow even one person attempt to change the status quo.”
“Poetic,” she sniped, anger tightening in her chest. “But no. Fate demands these
things happen with time, not be forced and twisted into place all at once.”
“Despite the fact that for so many, this is an urgent matter, one of life or death.”
“The unraveling of fate would mean death for much more than Whitewall.” She nar-
rowed her eyes. “Or is that what you’d prefer?”
It was the Hound’s turn to sigh. She noted with fascination that his breath did not puff
in the frigid air the way hers did. “I think I might understand your god-murderer.”
Velta withheld her annoyance at the sentiment, instead proclaiming, “Understanding
her motives doesn’t absolve her of her crimes.”
“So it would seem,” he murmured.
“Should I prepare for your startling betrayal?” She forced a smirk, not entirely joking.
“I should wonder the same about you, anathema.”
Her cheeks burned. “Betrayal is not in my skillset.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Ultimately,” she continued, her impatience simmering, “it doesn’t matter whether
her intentions are good or bad. What matters is that the integrity of fate is protected from
people like Hellebore.”
The Hound was silent.
“And whatever ritual she used to defraud fate likely resulted in this storm,” she huffed.
“It led Hoch Jorkavs to madness and the rise of a hungry ghost — a hungry ghost that killed
yet another innocent person. Fate can’t be transmuted like this without knock-on effects.”
He lowered the brim of his hat.
“Between all that and her little Northern class war, hundreds will die. Ignominious-
ly.”
Their boot heels echoed through the dank, freezing dark.
“You are an exceptionally difficult person,” he said.
She gave an exhausted smile. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“I am not interested in women.”
“I’ll have to let Indrek know.”
The deathknight snapped his head around to glare at her. It was the first lively reac-
tion she’d gotten out of him. A bit of her spiteful strength returned.
The two continued in cautious silence until a glimmer of light beckoned from above.
As they drew closer, the light got brighter and brighter, and the wind’s howl grew deafen-
ing. Eventually, they found themselves standing at the foot of a long shaft that opened out
into the storming sky. The Hound gestured to her mutely. Velta wrapped her shawl about
herself like a cocoon and ascended the ladder.
The howling dark had cracked, and the storm was brightening. Dawn. It was a true
white-out, her vision trapped by a wall of snow.
The Hound appeared at her side, pointing forward. There were no visible landmarks,
but Velta could recognize it now and name it for what it was. That building nausea, that
disorienting vertigo — it was fate warping, grating against her senses. It was a snarl in
destiny so convoluted and so foul her very Exaltation recoiled from it.
And she meant to head into its very heart.
The temple was not where she had left it less than a day ago. Velta found herself re-
directing the Hound, who appeared to grow frustrated with her in his own way. But there
was no denying it. The strongest point of infection was no longer near the far end of the
boyar ring. And when the old tower instead appeared on a far street corner facing a row
of tenements and poorhouses, Velta knew why. It was no longer the Temple of the Trea-
surer of the Endless Vault — this was the Temple of the Servant of the Tender Largesse,
Hellebore’s own vision of Whitewall’s god of wealth.
The temple was not in the shape she had left it, either. The Temple of the Treasurer
had been an edifice of wealth and extravagance, with enameled glass windows, impossi-
bly graceful arches, and a quarry’s worth of white basalt. The tower they saw now was a
humble gray, the heavy double doors merely oak instead of stone, the windows modest
and few.
The Moribund Hound dug in his heels and shook his head. Velta took him by the
wrist (clammy even through her gloves, she noticed with a shudder) and dragged him
into the temple.
The vestibule was warm and brightly lit, though no source of heat or light could be
seen. The Hound shut the doors behind them, locking out the furious blizzard. Velta stood
and stared, marveled and wavered. The sconces were gone, the tapestries were gone, there
chapter seven 69
was no gold, no fruit, and no wine. The building was empty, utterly static, as though no
purpose had ever been assigned to it.
As though it isn’t done moving.
The Hound removed his sizable hat, peering into the emptiness with his narrow fox
eyes. “This is not correct.”
“It’s not,” she agreed, striding forward with purpose. For the building was not truly
empty, not yet. In the center where the altar had once stood was a motionless mass, con-
cealed under a blank gray tapestry.
The soft hiss of metal against leather drew her up short. Velta stopped, slowly turning
on her heel.
The Hound was mere steps behind her, his soulsteel daiklave drawn. In the inexpli-
cable light, she could faintly see within the blade an ever-changing mosaic of leering,
writhing faces.
“Your ruse ends,” the deathknight hissed.
“No ruse,” she insisted, swallowing her hammering pulse. “Look.”
With the back of her heel, she moved to kick the tapestry aside. Instead of heavy fab-
ric, she met with a brittle veil. It disintegrated into rotten flakes, revealing the headless,
immutable corpse of the Treasurer of the Endless Vault.
The Hound’s eyes grew wide, and he lowered his blade.
“This is the Temple of Edvins-Sarta,” she explained carefully, slowly moving to a
crouch, her eyes unable to leave the terrifying blade. “But it also is not. I’m going to
troubleshoot the problem.”
“And how do you plan to do that?” The deathknight whispered.
Velta revealed the spool of thread hidden in her sleeve.
The Hound’s eyes flickered from the thread to her face, back to the headless body.
“You jest.”
I wish I did. Her heart had not stopped pounding since she caught sight of the changed
temple. This plan was absurd. It was a shot in the dark. But Dae-won’s most valuable les-
son continued to ring through her mind.
“There are times we must simply do our best and trust in the plan the Maidens have
designed.”
Velta turned to the corpse, holding her hands before her, palms up. There was a small
part of her power invested in an item sent Elsewhere…she tugged it like a fishing line.
The shining black cache egg appeared in her hands. She lurched under its weight.
“There are considerable odds that Hellebore will sense what I’m about to do,” she
muttered, hefting the grotesque head from her cache. “And there are further odds she’ll
rush to stop me. This is where you come in.”
He shifted his weight behind her.
Velta pulled off her gloves, flexing her chilled fingers. “If you truly care about the
souls of the people who live here, you’ll protect me and my assistant. If not, you can turn
away now. Heaven won’t hear of it either way.”
From the spool she drew a length of glittering thread, fraying and only half-magical.
It was the wreckage of a destroyed sorcery-capturing cord, a wonder of the First Age
meant to trap and retain spells. There was still some latent Essence left within it. It was
her best and only option.
She hardened her Essence into a slim emerald needle and bit her lip.
“I am ready,” the Hound murmured.
Velta smiled an unseen smile. I knew you would be. “I’m starting.”
As soon as her needle pierced the godly flesh, the flagstones beneath it began to
ripple.
“We may have even less time than I thought,” she warned, before dropping her voice
to a silent whisper. Uva of the Pattern, little weaver. I invite your prescience into my life.
The moonsilver strands gleamed, liquid. She set her jaw against the grisly task. The
tower groaned in the wind, groaned under the torque of twisting fate.
Uva of the Pattern, she prayed again, imperative this time. I urgently request your
presence.
She remembered Jorkavs swinging from his noose, the terror of what she had learned
in that study, the impatient contempt with which she’d treated the spirit.
“Uva!” She hissed through gritted teeth. The godhead was already half-adhered, her
fingers sticky with ichor, and through the apocalyptic winds she could hear a low, omi-
nous thrumming. “I need you!”
A hush of wool and the click of a boot heel issued from behind her. The Moribund
Hound had turned, peering toward the front doors.
“This is no time to pout, Uva!” Velta snapped into the silence. “I am summoning
you!” She needed a Loom custodian — she needed someone who could repair the weave
with efficient, painstaking accuracy. She needed it soon, or the tower would mangle itself,
the Getimian would render Whitewall’s fate irreparable, the Dragon-Blooded holding her
ground at Congregation Hall would —
Velta thought of the way she had fought to keep Lani safe. It was all for nothing. Her
partner had marched off into the storm alone. Hellebore was coming. This was her first
and last mission in service of Heaven. With Lani.
Her eyes began to sting.
She’s counting on us. The Oracle bit her lip savagely to keep it from trembling. She’s
been counting on us. Uva, please. I’m sorry. I can’t do this without you.
Her trembling fingers sparked with emerald light. From between the moonsilver
stitches, the eight eyes of a little spider-spirit blinked up at her, slowly. A slow current of
deep blue flowed through her mind.
Velta fumbled the needle and covered her face with her hand.
chapter seven 71
The current changed course, leaping into empathic fountains of turquoise. Velta took
a steadying breath, forcing down the sobs that threatened to take her. When she lowered
her hand, she saw Uva with the moonsilver thread and its own supernatural silk, suturing
the god’s head to his severed neck with truly ferocious speed.
The Oracle hiccupped and laughed. “Thank you. That’s not what I needed you for,
but I appreciate it.”
Uva perched atop its marvelous, gruesome work, wiggling its chelicerae at her. Pretty
Dragon Lady?
“We’ll go get her after this. Can you see how fate is tearing, here?”
The walls of the temple were no longer vertical and straight, spiraling in an impossi-
ble manner toward the sky. The Hound waited like a grim reaper by the front doors, even
as they warped and splintered with the weight of this-cannot-be. The gales of wind were
coins pouring into a safe, babies crying in hunger, a lone woman’s wail.
Uva flattened itself, tucking its legs in protectively. Error, it chittered nervously. Error.
Error.
The earth and sky boomed with thunder. The temple doors shuddered.
“Is Edvins-Sarta still part of the weave?” Velta asked hurriedly.
The pattern spider dared to lift itself an inch, only to make itself small again. Error.
This entity is not a part of fate.
“Can you make him part of the weave again?”
Slowly, Uva perked up.
Through the chaos-wind, a chorus of shouts could be heard. The Moribund Hound
held position in the temple’s only shadow, his face hidden under the brim of his hat.
This spirit entity is deceased, Uva chirped with interest. When reintegrated, its cor-
poreal form and Essence signature will disintegrate and be unrecoverable. Do you wish
to continue?
“I do,” Velta said firmly as the doors began to rattle and crack. “Very much.”
A crash and a howl; a flood of blue-gray light; a deep, bone-shaking groan. The first
of the Bluecaps to rush the temple interior were cut down in an instant, too quickly to
register pain or fear.
Velta’s mind flooded with bright yellow and sickly green shivers. “We will protect
you,” the Sidereal promised the little spider.
She rose to her feet, Essence billowing within her. “Smoke and shadow blind the
self-righteous,” Dae-won’s voice creaked from her memory. “Demonstrate the form of
the Ebon Shadow.” The bland light in the temple flickered and pale shadows gathered
about her like a shroud. Half-moon stance, overhand grip — her anima grew dark and
heavy with gloom, thick smoke coalescing into a pair of threefold fangs.
“We’ll protect you with everything we have.” Her voice was dusky, echoing off the
empty walls. “And I promise that when we’re done, we’ll go get—”
The flagstones trembled, the ground rumbled and shook. A great crevice opened be-
neath the doors of the temple, swallowing the entire portico and the front of the vestibule.
A powerful, statuesque figure strode through the gaping hole in the temple’s wall. She
wore a cape of red and black feathers, shone with light the color of golden beryl, and held
a goremaul of ancient white jade.
Kalehulani shouted wordlessly to the Bluecaps, who stumbled into some semblance
of a formation. The Moribund Hound was outflanked, his fox-eyes narrow slits of blue.
Lani looked up and locked eyes with the Oracle. Velta’s lips moved in disbelief.
“Put down your weapons,” the Dragon-Blooded demanded, genuine pain and conflict
in her voice. “We need to talk.”
But Velta’s stomach was twisted in knots, a cold sweat beading on her forehead. Her
partner was rank with infection. “What did she do to you?” Her voice cracked.
“I suppose it was in her skillset, after all?” The Moribund Hound snapped.
“Weapons down,” Lani repeated, her voice booming from every stone, and hefted
Eruption Column.
The Hound struck without warning, before Velta could so much as think the words
Don’t hurt her. Bluecaps howled and descended on him, before all at once the din cut to
silence. Mortals fell in bleeding heaps, Lani roared noiselessly, the Hound’s deathly aura
strangling any sound their bodies struggled to make.
And then the world flipped upside-down.
Velta’s feet left the floor, her stomach turning violently. She was plummeting toward the
ceiling as it twisted farther and farther below her, wooden support beams flying past. The
roof was crumbling; there was nothing to fall into but roiling white sky, forever and ever.
She couldn’t hold in the scream. She dragged the tines of her weapons along the stone
walls, desperate to slow her descent. Soft, blue-gray light collected in the sparks. She
heard rapid footsteps, closing in on her location. Velta planted her heel on the last wooden
rafter, the impact sending an unpleasant shock up her leg. The storm yawned below her.
Hellebore stood mere inches away, waiting for Velta.
The Sidereal assumed her balance quickly, her auspicious Essence refusing to let
her do something as humiliating as fall. She flowed into cat-foot stance, the fangs held
overhand.
Hellebore smiled. Her light blue skirts were heroically tattered, her golden cabochon
face rosy and fair. “I’m so glad you brought his head. It means you’re still the same.” She
spoke in a voice smooth and sweet. “You’re still Velta.”
The Oracle didn’t know what to say and so she said nothing, instead narrowing her
green eyes. She remembers me. She knows me? She’s not attacking me!
“And if you’re still the same,” that honey voice continued, “then I can help
you remember everything.”
She fought a debilitating wave of nausea. “Like you helped your father?” Velta
gasped, struggling to maintain her stance.
Hellebore’s hopeful mask shattered in an instant. “I didn’t understand,” she insisted.
“I thought I just needed to push harder. But that wasn’t it at all. It was you.”
chapter seven 73
“I’ve never met Hoch Jorkavs in my life,” Velta lied carefully, her eyes darting over
Hellebore’s expression. Regret. Pain. Confusion. Resolve. What was she doing? What did
she think she was doing?
“It was me against the world,” Hellebore murmured. “Against…against fate! It really
was fate, wasn’t it?” The Getimian laughed and stepped closer.
Velta’s back pressed against stone, finding it uncomfortably warm and malleable.
“He couldn’t remember you no matter how hard I tried — because fate didn’t want
him to. Because fate didn’t want us together.” The woman’s gray eyes shone dangerously.
“But that’s over. I’ve spent long enough in hell because of Heaven.”
Her heart pounded uncomfortably, her vision tilting. “You’re —” Velta laughed, a
desperate and hysterical sound. “You’ve got the wrong idea about me.”
“You have the wrong idea about you.”
Velta’s head spun. Hellebore reached for her; she snagged the woman’s sleeve on her
fang, pivoted to an arm lock. The gold-haired woman cried out in pain and anger.
“Enough! I’ve had enough!” Steady, unchanging light bloomed from her skin, the
color of a snowy sky. Hellebore
and Velta met when they were sixteen — it was love at first sight.
Velta hissed, her head pounding. She threw the Getimian away from her with as
much strength as she could muster. “I’m not part of this,” she gasped. “I won’t be part of
your delusions.”
“Delusions?” Hellebore’s eyes burned. “If only I were mad! If only it could be so
simple! To wake up in a world that never knew me or you…every day, I prayed the gods
would see fit to kill me and end it!”
Velta’s stomach turned. The world was righting itself again. She had only seconds.
Her threefold fangs flipped underhand. Velta hooked herself to the support beam,
swinging up and over. Hellebore merely sidestepped to the opposite side of the rafter.
Below them, eerie silence reigned; Velta could be certain the Hound was still standing,
still fighting.
Fighting Lani. Her eyes stung.
Pretty Dragon Lady? Uva’s telepathic voice was quiet, distant.
Keep at it, little one. One problem at a time.
“But this is all a lie, Velta,” Hellebore warned her. Her clever, shapely hand hovered
near the sash at her waist. “It isn’t us. The world is mad. This isn’t the real Whitewall. The
Endless Vault, the Quaternions, the gods-forsaken Pillars — we abolished it all. It was a
city of equals. It was our home!”
“This is the only Whitewall I know,” Velta countered, her throat clenched. Her heart
was pounding so fast it was hard to breathe evenly. What should she prepare for next?
Was it even possible to anticipate the next move?
No thralls desperate for work, homes, food. No one dying in the streets. No
one banished to the Pillars.
She was beyond the walls at night. She was shaking, mad, and terrified. Her wrists
and ankles were heavy with chains, her back was freezing from contact with the cold
marble. Behind her, she heard the first scream, the first sacrifice to be taken. The shadows
moved. A woman with piercing green eyes stared at her from the woods —
A gentle hand in lambskin gloves was molding her fate into a new shape. Velta’s
skin crawled, her very soul revolted. “Stop,” she growled. “Stop it. You’re killing them.
You’re killing those thralls you wanted to save. You sent them out into a blizzard!”
A stroke of lightning lit the woman’s pale gold face in harsh white and blue. Hel-
lebore’s mouth trembled. “I couldn’t stop. It has to happen this way. You know I’d do
anything for this city.”
“Even destroy it?”
“Then we’ll rebuild it together.”
Velta cried out at the psychic invasion, launching into another defensive strike. The
flat of her fangs whipped into Hellebore’s temples.
But Hellebore was at the far end of the temple roof, and her defenders had
come to her aid.
Velta’s heels crunched in the snow. Vertigo gripped her by the throat. She was stand-
ing at the edge of a high stone cliff, the road a dizzying distance below. Her eyes burned
in the glaring light. The air was crisp, temperate…pleasant. She stumbled away from the
edge of the cliff, struggled to get her bearings.
She was atop the Temple of Edvins-Sarta — the structural damage to the roof gaped
open off to her right. At the far end, she saw Hellebore’s long blond hair and pale blue
dress, the unsettling, still light of her anima blending with the snow and sky. In a flicker
of pale gray Essence, two figures appeared as if they had always stood there: a tall, white-
haired young man in a light uniform of the Realm, and Kalehulani.
The storm had abated. An opalescent blue sky shone clear and calm. But all around
the city was a wall of chaotic gray, lightning and wind and snow.
We’re in the eye of the storm.
A glint of starlight and iron drew her eye to the Getimian. Hellebore had taken a low,
wide stance, a dancer’s stance. A large, heavy dart swung around her in wide arcs, circling
her with no apparent means of propulsion but her gestures.
Regrettably, Velta would not accept the truth. Her eyes would need to be
opened for her.
The tall young man drew an elegant reaper daiklave of pure blue jade. The motion
erupted into latent air Essence. It was luck alone that caused Velta to skid forward — a
jagged spike of ice thrust into the air where she had once stood.
Stones rattled, her teeth chattered. The ground beneath her was suddenly unstable.
“Lani!” Velta couldn’t help but shout her name. The Dragon-Blooded marched toward
her, the vision of grim determination, Eruption Column held like an executioner’s axe.
“Don’t make me do this,” Lani warned.
chapter seven 75
“She’s the one making you!” Velta snapped and readied her fangs.
Another wall of brilliant blue ice stabbed at her from below. Velta flew from it like
smoke on the wind. Already she could see streams of emerald Essence rising from her
limbs.
I have to last long enough for Uva to finish.
The thought brought her an eerie calm. It was so simple, really: stop Hellebore or
die trying.
Velta took a deep breath and focused on the candle-flame of her courage.
“Is this the famous loyalty of Earth Aspects?” She shouted, crouching low against the
ice. “I leave you alone for a few hours and already you’ve turned traitor.”
Lani’s bright yellow eyes narrowed. She swung early. “Demonstrate the technique of
nothing-but-shadows,” her old teacher demanded, and Velta’s Essence surrounded her in
thick forest-green smoke, carrying her just out of reach.
“I’m no traitor,” Lani growled. “It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like, my lord?” She taunted, dancing along a drift of snow.
Blue jade flashed. Velta dropped to her shoulder and rolled to avoid the strike. The
Air Aspect recovered from his lunge with quick efficiency. He’s fast. And quiet. I’ve got
to be more careful.
“Did you even ask yourself why we have to do this?” Lani shouted to her. “After
everything Whitewall did to you?”
After living a life of the few tyrannizing the many, how could Velta fight to
preserve this? What about Whitewall was worth saving?
Velta stumbled to her feet. An ominous whistle streaked toward her, the iron weight
gliding along a crack in the sky. She deflected it with the tip of her fang, sent it careening
back toward Hellebore.
“It’s not about me,” she called back to her partner. “It’s about —”
An ominous whistle streaked toward her, the iron weight gliding along a
crack in the sky.
Velta startled, confused, slow to lift her weapon again. The weight glanced off her
shoulder with a painful crack. Her threefold fang snagged in thin air, wrenching her arm.
What is this? She pulled at the snag with all her strength, and the weight came with it. A
hair-thin strand of starlight slipped from around her weapon.
A rope. It’s a rope dart!
Hellebore’s smooth, unpredictable movements were thrown into sudden clarity. It
wasn’t a weight compelled by willpower and mysticism — it was a dart at the end of an
impossibly thin filament of starmetal. A starfall chain.
“Close the distance,” old Dae-won nattered at her. “Stifle her momentum. Every
weapon has its flaw.” For all his unanswerable riddles and infuriating protocols, he’d
managed to teach her so much in just a year. Velta hoped she could see him again.
She would. She would! One problem at a time! Velta scrambled to locate cover, dark-
ness, anything she could use.
The roof was a pale, empty circle, and her only ally was her own shadow.
But time was on her side. It was dawn, and the shadows were long.
The Air Aspect lunged for her again. Velta stepped into the strike and past his attack,
diving into the blue-black of his shadow.
“Don’t let her do that!” Lani roared.
It covered her like a scratchy shawl crackling with dry electricity. She emerged the
other side on her belly, righting herself with a windmill kick. Hellebore spun in a flurry
of skirts and pale blue static.
“Stop her!” The stones shook with Lani’s command. A mirror-bright wall of ice cas-
caded toward them.
Velta sprang up from her heels, after-images of green Essence trailing her. “Now, the
final test,” Dae-won barked. “The last technique. Throat-slitting Shadow Strike.”
Her fangs closed in on Hellebore’s throat.
But gradually, inexorably — they would find their mark, in time.
The sudden arrest of her speed stung like a whip. She moved as if through syrup,
heavy, slow. Velta strained against it, pushing through with the authority of her Essence.
It was no use. Hellebore’s words were taking hold and the truth could be
denied no longer. This was not her enemy, it was her friend, her partner, her
true love. She only needed to see.
The starfall chain howled and spun around the fulcrum of Hellebore’s shoulders,
around Velta’s hindered body. The glittering razor filament lashed tight around her. Terror
clawed at the back of her throat.
The Getimian cradled her face in gentle hands, her own expression a mask of pain.
“Please, stop fighting,” Hellebore whispered. “Please stop fighting and see me.”
The Getimian cradled her fate in gentle hands, her own destiny an aborted,
half-formed idea.
“Don’t!” Velta gasped, her voice clumsy with fear. “Stop it!”
“It’s not going to hurt,” Hellebore promised, smiling, tears welling in her eyes and an
alien caste mark flickering on her forehead. “I’ve improved at this.”
She would continue to improve, spreading the truth throughout the city, be-
yond the walls, to the entirety of Creation, to Heaven itself. There was no need
for fate, for someone else’s idea of order. And if she couldn’t have her world
back, then this one could burn — the two of them could watch it, together.
No matter what came between them.
A blast of Essence. A shout. The sound of jade cracking bone, of glass shattering.
Velta fell to the crusty snow, shuddering, ripping the starfall chain from her with a des-
perate frenzy.
Lani stood over her, Eruption Column glowing like a forge. Hellebore slid from the
impact crater in the wall of ice, every shard a mirror in miniature.
chapter seven 77
“I’m sorry.” The Dragon-Blooded glared at her over her shoulder, great angry tears
streaming down her face. “Velta, I’m so sorry.”
Hellebore was covered in minuscule cuts, her sleeves shredded from the jagged ice.
She lurched to her feet, incandescent with rage. Her anima was chaos, roiling and crack-
ling. Velta stared, transfixed. Every shard a mirror in miniature.
The Getimian lunged, her arm extended, and the starfall chain flew from her hand.
Lani intercepted it with her goremaul, purposely snarling it, dragging Hellebore into
range. The blonde woman’s heels dug trails of gray fire into the ground.
Every shard. Every shadow. Every mirror. I’m hungry. What is the shape of the
world? Feed me. I’m hungry.
“What have you done?” Hellebore screamed, her eyes electric. She grasped the heavy
dart in her hand and cracked Lani across the jaw. The Earth Aspect staggered, surprised
at the weight of the attack. Hellebore freed her chain and began spinning it at her side.
What have you done? What is the shape of the world? Velta watched herself stand
and stride purposefully toward the two Exalts, as if observing the conflict from another
realm.
The starfall chain struck the Earth Aspect in the ribs with a hideous crack. She weath-
ered the attack with a cough and a grin. “You’ll have to do more than —”
The starfall chain struck the Earth Aspect in the ribs with a hideous crack.
Lani swore, her voice tight with pain, her blood splattering the snow.
Questions don’t cast a shadow. Moving like a dream, Velta stepped in front of Lani.
Questions are not decisions. Mad with grief and anger, Hellebore continued swinging the
chain. The decision is what makes it real.
“I can’t look at you,” the Getimian sobbed. “I can’t look at what you are now.” The
dart shot from her hand.
The decision is…
Velta lunged backward and raised her threefold fangs.
Something vital, something forgotten, something that-should-not-be-and-yet-was
slipped free of her grasp.
The obsidian scrollwork egg fell from Velta’s shawl, a beautiful treasure of murdered
possibility. The tip of the dart shattered it into uncountable fragments, each a black mirror
of the world as it stood.
And Velta shattered, too.
Chapter Eight:
The Shape of the World
One day, Ei Zou told his shadow, “I’m sick of you watching me. I’m going to kill
you.”
His shadow asked, “How can you kill me when you don’t even know how much I
weigh?”
Ei Zou agreed and went to find scales.
The black shards of the Oracle fell to the ice in an unpredictable pattern. But there
was only one pattern it could make, and that was the pattern that appeared.
Possibility acknowledged that she should, in fact, be standing in the shadow of the
Getimian, the haunted Unpossibility. Her movements were elegant steady. Her eyes were
obsidian-black. Her anima was
emerald green
oily smoke
burning, burning
unstable, lurching out of control. She was not ready for this understanding — she
was not ready for the mysteries of the Obsidian Shards of Infinity. But still, it had come
to her, because there was only one possible reality and that was the reality in which she
had gained understanding.
“What did you do?” The Dragon-Blooded demanded of the unfortunate one, the Nev-
er-Made. But the Never-Made was a creature of unrealized possibility, and could not
know the importance of Unanticipation, waiting for the decision that kills entire worlds.
The golden-haired Anomaly swung for the Oracle, her arc unpredictable, erratic. The
Oracle
lunged to the side, and was struck
leaned back on her heels, and was struck
stepped into the attack, away from the orbit of the dart. Her pitiable foe reacted with
terror. “What happened to your eyes?” She asked.
“My eyes can now see.”
chapter eight 79
“My eyes are normal, and fine.”
“My eyes are mirrors that never show the truth.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
The Aberration grew wroth, and reality puckered around her, feverish and bloated.
Their weapons collided. Black sparks blossomed and fell in razor-petals of obsidian.
“This isn’t you,” the Never-Made misstated, her hollow soul ringing like a bell struck.
“Oh, gods, what did they do to you? What are you?”
“…”
“I’m still me.”
“I’m every me that could exist.”
“I am the Key and the Pillar.”
“What are you?”
“I’m…” The Anomaly choked and stumbled on her own identity. “I am…!”
She was not. The Oracle’s obsidian eyes could see the single thread upon which the
poor creature’s fate had been drafted, the thread that had never been part of the weave. It
writhed at the core of the Unpossibility’s being, struggled to interlace itself with reality.
It was not to be; that thread had been severed long ago, and no decision can be unmade.
“I am the Winter of Injustice Ended,” the Getimian sobbed. “I am Hellebore Jorka-
vs!”
When the eye passes, Whitewall will crumble under the weight of the
storm, unless someone is there to guide the city to safety, to peace.
But this was only one possibility, and though possibility was
emerald green
oily smoke
burning, burning
lurching out of control, there were still Choices to be made, and realities to sever.
The Oracle’s anima scarred her soul like acid. She would bear the wound of Unread-
iness for centuries her entire life. The Elders would
teach from this moment
never speak of this moment
subject her to an audit
ask more questions than she could answer. But, one decision at a time. One problem
at a time.
The Oracle raised her bare hand like a knife, and caught between her fingers a black
shard that had still not yet fallen. The chance of this happening was zero percent, and also
it was one hundred percent, because no other outcome could exist.
The Getimian’s arm was a wheel-shattering rod, her weapon a comet of portents. The
discarded thread at the heart of her deleted fate was white as snow, fragile and feeble.
Hellebore was Velta’s final chance at being seen, and known, and remembered.
But this was only one possibility, and not the one she chose.
With her volatile understanding, with her obsidian knife, with her anima washing her
mouth in blood, the Oracle struck through
the starfall chain as thin as pretense
Hellebore, the Rebel, the Winter
the feeble, snow-white thread.
Hellebore Jorkavs sank to her knees in the shattered ice and glass, her eyes wide and
disbelieving.
And in a sudden vortex of quicksilver and dreams, she was gone from the city that
troubled her.
chapter eight 81
Chapter Nine:
The Gate and the Truce
Kalehulani stood motionless and silent, as tall and straight as she could force herself
to become. She wore her best tunic and trousers, and the kilt of hollow reeds that sang
like bells when she walked, and the flax-and-feather cloak she had done her utmost best
to mend. (Her aunts would give her hell for her shoddy weaving when she returned to
the Verdigris Regalia, but they would also teach her the proper method to prevent future
disasters.)
Beside her, Velta was genteel in her long, cream-colored wool shawl, her skirts em-
broidered in forest green and deep garnet. She was respectful without smiling and spoke
in effective, careful Old Realm.
They stood shoulder to shoulder to conceal the desperation with which Velta clung to
Lani’s hand, leaning hard on her support.
The State Room at Congregation Hall was, for the most part, an office of high ceil-
ings and polished white oak. Unlit fireplaces of regal white basalt stood at either side,
flanked by portraits of Whitewall notables. The air was crisp, carrying smells of sacred
cedar incense and mahonia blossoms. The far end of the room was a beautiful archaism,
clashing with the rest of the architecture: the ceiling vaulted, the ribs glass-of-mercury,
the entire wall an archway of blue jade bricks, a white jade keystone, and mortar of
orichalcum — real orichalcum.
Before the two Exalts stood three towering figures of smooth silver crystal, com-
manding the presence of the entire room. They folded their hands and listened with re-
semblant, blank expressions.
“— with significant structural damage to the city’s fate. Because of this, it was deter-
mined the suspect was a Getimian Exalt.” Velta was restrained and officious, an odd mir-
ror of herself. “We believe Edvins-Sarta of the Abundant Vault was murdered as part of
a ritual to assume control of Whitewall’s destiny, the unintended consequences of which
were the century storm and the uprising among the thralls.”
The three Syndics shared brief, identical, sidelong glances. “Then the fate of our city
has been restored?” The center figure, one with a softly curving face and body, asked in
a diaphanous voice.
“The worst of the infection has been treated,” the Oracle answered smoothly. “A
more experienced team will be in contact with you regarding further adjustments.”
Lani watched the three gods with a sharp, wary eye. They seemed satisfied with this
answer — as satisfied as they could appear, at least.
“Will there be anything else, Lords Triumvirate?” Velta asked in the pause that followed.
Lani couldn’t help but notice what she hadn’t briefed them on — the Moribund
Hound, for one. The man in black did not linger in the aftermath for accolades or to treat
his wounds. He simply whispered to Velta something concise and secret, before taking
his leave to the underways.
“He has to return a lantern,” Velta had said, with that infuriatingly self-satisfied smirk.
The Syndics inclined their heads as one. “What has become of the Getimian and her
remains?” The first asked in mild tones.
“Disposed of,” Velta lied to the gods with remarkable calm. Lani clenched her free
hand into a nervous fist. We have no clue what has become of her. But she was damned
if she could explain what happened: after Velta’s eyes turned solid black and she started
flickering around the battlefield like a bad dream, Lani had let go of trying to understand.
For all she knew, disappearing into a gust of silver wind was how every Getimian died.
The Syndics gave a single shake of their heads. “We eagerly await the full report
from the Bureau of Secrets,” the left figure, thick-shouldered and narrow-waisted, spoke
in a husky voice.
“Please accept our most sincere gratitude,” hummed the third, their body as flat and
featureless as a doll’s.
“As well as our gift,” the first added in her soft voice, “complete acquittal of crimes
committed before your Exaltation.”
“My Lords Triumvirate are so generous.” Velta’s fingernails dug into the back of
Lani’s hand. The Earth Aspect fought not to wince.
“You may take your leave,” the second declared. “We permit you and your assistant—”
“Partner,” Velta corrected.
An electric, crackling silence filled the room. Lani sucked in a breath.
“We permit you and your partner the use of our heavenly gate,” he continued as
though he had not been interrupted. “May Yu-Shan ever prosper: as above, so below.”
The three gods of the city vanished in a spray of diamond-dust, even as similar fare-
wells began in Velta’s throat.
The Dragon-Blooded exhaled in a gust. The State Hall suddenly felt much less claus-
trophobic. She turned on Velta with a frown. “They have a heavenly gate?”
With her chin, Velta indicated the great jade archway at the far end of the room.
Lani’s face burned. “I know it’s that,” she huffed. “I meant why did we arrange a
carriage in the first place? We could have just taken a gate this whole time?”
“The Whitewall Gate leads to the Hidden Spires district.” Velta waved it off with her
free hand. “From there to the Eye-of-Heaven district takes a day by flume sedan or three
days by rail. Much faster to take the Twofold carriage.”
chapter nine 83
Lani couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re…you hurt your, uh…” She
stammered, feeling stupid.
“I may have slightly everted my soul by attempting to use a Sidereal martial art,”
Velta conceded as though such a thing were entirely relatable.
“You can barely walk on your own and you’d rather take a drafty old carriage in
Creation than a railcar in Yu-Shan because it saves a couple of hours?”
The Sidereal tilted her head. Wine-colored curls brushed her cheeks. Her emerald
eyes twinkled. “Are you suggesting an Oracle willfully waste the time of the Bureau, my
lord?”
Her partner bristled and fumed, blushing to her hairline. “I’m suggesting you take it
easy for once,” she snapped.
“Oh, have I finally wrung blood from a stone?” Velta drew closer, leaning all her
trembling weight into Lani’s forearm, smirking up at her face. “Did my inconsequential
brush with ego death soften the craggy Caldera?”
It seemed not even an existential threat could convince Velta to stop acting like a
pitiless tease. Though her heart pounded like a drum, Lani refused to back down. “Shut
your mouth already,” she growled, embarrassed at how fervent she sounded.
Velta scented Lani’s weakness like blood in the water, her clever mouth curving with
the threat of a smile. Her pupils were wide and full of stars. “Make me,” she suggested.
Months of mounting heat and pressure brought a quaking to her knees. With a sud-
denness that surprised them both, Lani seized her by the chin and sealed her lips with a
hard, punishing kiss.
No more treating me like a fool, Lani begged silently, fear and anger and ardor burn-
ing her from the inside out. Just shove me off and be done with it already.
But she didn’t shove. Velta clutched at Lani’s wrist like a lifeline, her short gasp
giving way to a soft, satisfied hum. She didn’t just return the kiss, she silently demanded
it continue.
Lani broke from her in a confused daze. Velta gazed up at her partner from under her
lashes, her smile glad and sweet.
“Maybe taking a flume sedan wouldn’t be so bad,” she murmured, stroking the inside
of Lani’s wrist with her thumb. “That gives us time for a thorough debriefing.”
Lani’s pulse hammered like her ribs were an anvil. “You…what…what is happen-
ing?”
Velta’s expression was gently incredulous. “What’s happening is it took half a year to
get you to kiss me. Can you tell the driver we’re taking the quick way home?”
Her head spun, but finally she felt as though they had reached solid ground. “Doesn’t
the Dragon Line have a car with a steam room?” She asked, the heat in her voice leaving
no room for interpretation.
Velta’s emerald eyes widened in delight. “The Bureau’s time can’t be that precious,”
she mused even as a charming shade of pink spread across her cheeks.
A MURDER IN
WHITEWALL
When the Sidereal Velta and the
Dragon-Blooded Lani arrive in Whitewall
to investigate the shocking murder of a
god, they find a mystery that points
to Velta’s past in the city. As the pair
follows the god slayer’s trail, they find an
increasingly bizarre set of circumstances
outside the confines of fate. Something
more is happening in Whitewall, and they
must get to the bottom of it before the
whole city is subsumed by a twisted destiny.

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A MURDER IN

© 2023 PARADOX INTERACTIVE AB.

Chapter Two: The Scrollwork Atelier 14

Chapter Three: The Inn and the Sauna 25

Chapter Four: The Winter Rose House 33

Chapter Five: The Knight and the Ghost 43

Chapter Six: The Winter’s Wrath 54

Chapter Seven: The Ritual and the Rebel 66

Chapter Eight: The Shape of the World 79

Chapter Nine: The Gate and the Truce 82

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