Tallah held her ground without flinching. Anna’s embrace enveloped her, those terrific mental boundaries that could even shield Bianca’s empath tendencies now serving to dampen everything Tallah felt. All at once she found herself cut away from the reality of what her conceptual eyes were seeing, and the horror of touching Rhine’s corpse no longer struck her as viscerally, all sensations and feeling muted to cold reason.
This wasn’t Rhine. It only wore her face. Rhine was dead. None of it could touch her anymore.
While she couldn’t remember anything concrete of her sister, she remembered the weight of the corpse as she dragged it into the shallow pit, the chill touch of dead skin, the hardness of rigid muscles and the smell of rot just setting in. Piss and shit. Fresh, worm-infested earth. The grain on the shovel’s wooden’s handle.
In the flesh, she dragged in a deep breath, held it tight, then released it slowly. It couldn’t touch her, but it could still revolt her. The asinine cheek of it all.
In the mindscape, she scowled.
“I will not make this offer again,” she said. “Either say what you had to say, or we sever this link.”
Rhine’s gash of a mouth opened and words slithered out, “Do you understand what that even means?” The voice wasn’t the wraith’s.
It also wasn’t Catharina’s.
“We know precisely what needs doing to rid ourselves of your intrusions.” Christina leaned forward and smiled mockingly. “We’ve had quite successful practice.”
The wraith made a noise close to a rasping laugh.
“And we were so convinced you were the sentimental sort, Cinder,” the thing said. “Well, Catharina still is. She will not expect how easily you would sacrifice your last bond to your sister.” It snapped withered fingers. “Just like that. Always the pragmatist.”
Tallah refused the bait, if that’s what the words even were. “My sister’s dead. I buried her. If you thought wearing her face would mollify me, you’re delusional.”
Again, the wraith laughed and shook its head. “I tried to tell her, that you wouldn’t give a toss about this skin. She thought we could hold this bargaining chip over you. More fool she. Excuse me while I put on my own face.”
The change happened nearly instantly. Rhine’s haunted face flowed like melted wax and rearranged itself into a stranger’s visage. As did the rest of the wraith. Tallah pulled her hand away but remained almost chest to chest with this new person, unable to draw too far away lest she sever the connection prematurely.
It was not Catharina.
Shorter than Tallah by more than a head, almost as petite as Bianca, with a willowy frame and a back so straight that it would’ve shamed most parade soldiers. Raven-black hair hacked short framed a gaunt, pale face, made all the more cadaverous by the blackest eyes Tallah had ever witnessed.
The wraith’s rags also changed into a rather strange iteration of the imperial uniform. Black and red, far more rugged and less royal. Clothes fit for hard riding and rough living rather than Court intrigue.
But the shock came when the ghost summoned a familiar-looking sapphire-tipped silver staff.
“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced, Cinder,” the ghost said. Her voice was reedy thin and low, a smoker’s rasp tinging each word. “My name is Iliaya of Azurite Holding. You might’ve heard of me since, I believe, you carry something of mine.”
Tallah felt Christina’s surprise as acutely as if it were her own. Oddly, it felt good to see something could still startle the ghost.
She needed a moment for the name to sink in. Iliaya, the great terror haunting Vas at the dawn of the empire. Her final fate—destroyed by Catharina’s hand after a century-long hunt—had never been confirmed by anyone outside of the empress’s inner circle, the corpse never recovered or shown off.
Seems a lot lay hidden beneath history’s skirt.
“I want to talk to Catharina,” Tallah said, unflinching beneath the ancient sorceress’s black gaze. “I’ve no business with you.”
“Oh, but you only get me to talk to. Cat’s busy.” Iliaya squared her shoulders and twisted her neck side to side to a symphony of pops and cracks. “There’s a mess that needs sorting in Ria and it’s taking up a fair size of her focus. Besides, I was the one to initiate the truce. Whatever you mean to discuss, you do so with me.”
Tallah felt an eye twitch and her patience fraying. This was not off to a good start.
Christina spoke up first. “What even made you think we’d be interested? If you know anything about Tallah, you know how far she’ll go for this mission. Why did you come forward?”
Iliaya’s black eyes didn’t move from Tallah. “I know you well enough, Cinder. I proposed you for Justice. I gave you your claws. And, if this might make a difference to you, I opposed harvesting your sister.”
It did not make a lick of difference to Tallah. For a brief moment, Anna’s protection trembled and Tallah felt her anger rising to the surface before quickly being smothered again in the blood mage’s blanket. Anna, it seemed, had learned a great deal since Grefe and that first tussle with Tallah’s inner self.
“I offered a truce because our goals should align, Cinder. While you have good reason to want Cat dead, your timing couldn’t be worse.” The ghost took a step away from Tallah, looking at the room. “You originally ignored me at the Rock. What’s changed that you went to the trouble of summoning me?”
First off was to know if it could be done. Iliaya’s presence, if the ghost was indeed attached to Catharina, proved that the bind worked both ways. Tallah could strike at the empress through this.
They’d decided prior that there would be no attempt to conceal their more overt reasons. With every precaution taken, they still dealt with an information vacuum. Filling it was their top priority, and time did not allow for much subtlety.
“I’ve been ordered to slay Catharina,” Tallah said.
A stunned, incredulous silence filled the room.
“That seems… counterproductive,” Iliaya said, a smile quirking her lips. Then she laughed, the sound eerily girlish and high-pitched. “I doubt you wanted Cat here for an assassination attempt. You’re stronger now than you have any right to be, but you can’t strike at us over such distance.” Her eyes moved to rest on Christina. “You’re clever, but not clever enough to breach my defences for a real blow.”
“Not yet,” Tallah agreed. “And no, this isn’t a trap. I mean for you to buy your truce from me. If you accept, then I will deal with other things before coming for Catharina’s head.”
Iliaya kept walking. The connection still held strong. Somewhere, unseen, Rhine’s wraith lingered. Tallah could feel it on the edges of their common circle, trying to peer in.
“And what do you want for this wonderful stay on execution?” Iliaya asked, lips still smiling.
“Information. I need to understand some things, and believe Catharina has answers for me.”
“And if I can provide what you need, how do I trust you’ll remove yourself from our list of worries?”
It was Tallah’s turn to laugh. “You won’t. My word will have to be enough.”
Iliaya stared and her gloved fingers tapped the staff’s handle. “I’m no stranger to irony, Cinder. I know how Cat made her assurances to you. I objected loudly to them. I can see how appealing it would be for you to break your word to me. More is needed for trust.”
Tallah shrugged. “You get nothing but my word. Else I sever the connection and Catharina can worry about my lances in her back.”
In the flesh, Anna threaded a needle of blood from Tallah’s finger, and moved it to the corner of her eye. A familiar stinging sensation as the thin projectile stabbed up through her tear gland and climbed upward into the frontal lobe. It remained there, poised to strike at any moment.
She remembered the feeling from a lifetime before. The mind-skinner’s needle had been cold while Anna’s was warm. Their thrusts were just as slow; Anna’s cared for Tallah’s safety, the mind-skinner for her terror. The smile on the bastard’s face was almost orgasmic. He didn’t need to go slow but enjoyed her whimpers.
All those memories and the fresh sensation of blood stabbing into the connective synapses, she pumped into her conceptual space to prop up her intent. Her threat was genuine. Iliaya’s eyes widened just a fraction, but enough to understand that Tallah could, indeed, sever this flimsy connection and be freed of Catharina’s meddling.
Then what warning would they have of her approach?
“You’ve made your point,” Iliaya finally said. “We want you to not move on us until midwinter. I need you out of our way until then. Afterwards we can settle your grievances like honourable women.”
Midwinter, again. Christina shared her surprise. It seemed Ryder’s deadline was not quite arbitrary after all.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“What happens at midwinter?” she asked. It seemed as good a way to break the ice as any,.
“The culmination of centuries of planning and gruesome work. Humanity will finally escape Edana, as we were always meant to.”
She said it with a calm that ill fit the momentous news. Whatever Tallah had expected, it wasn’t that.
“How?” she asked.
“Not for you to know, I’m afraid. Tell me, who wants Cat dead so badly?”
Tit for tat. “A god named Ryder. He’s quite insistent on the idea.”
The name didn’t spark any recognition on Iliaya’s face, just mild surprise. “I’ve never heard the name.”
“Ort has. They seem to have ancient grudges to settle.”
“This happened less than a tenday ago?”
The only one of them that kept any semblance of track for time was Bianca. Tallah, Christina and Anna had been submerged in planning this ever since Adamar dropped them off on the sea’s shore. She couldn’t begin to guess at the passage of time anymore.
“Give or take. Why?”
“Because Ort soiled himself recently. We wondered at his behaviour. Good to know where it’s coming from.”
Iliaya was far more forthcoming with fresh information than Tallah expected. Their plan had been to deal with Catharina and her hard-line method of negotiation: either everything, or nothing. By comparison, this one was a kitten. Though the information so far hinted at nothing useful for them.
It set Tallah’s teeth on edge, as it did Christina’s. The ghost burned with questions of her own, but those weren’t to do with their situation.
Iliaya’s illum control was nothing short of the stuff of legends. That she stood there, in the conceptual flesh, and chatted pleasantly with them, was an opportunity any Metal Mind would’ve killed for.
To be denied picking at such a mind was agony for the scholar in Christina.
“Wouldn’t you rather we sit down and discuss?” Iliaya asked as her steps brought her back around to the centre of the room. “You’re unreasonably tall, and I do hate it when I can’t kick someone to their knees.”
In the next moment, they were all seated in high-backed chairs, with a scuffed dark wood table between them. Even the room’s light changed, from bright afternoon to a gloomy, stormy night. Candles filled in for the missing sun.
“Better,” Iliaya said as she reached for one of the cups. “I prefer coffee to tea, personally. I’m afraid I’m not a very good host.”
Shock was not enough to describe the look on Christina’s face as she found herself seated next to Tallah, on an identical chair. This was her mindscape and control had been wrestled away from her. Seized, more likely.
The only one not moved from where she hovered was Anna. And that one hadn’t made a sound since Iliaya had manifested.
“Don’t look so surprised,” the ancient sorceress tutted as she sipped a foul-smelling blend of coffee that Tallah knew all too well. It was Catharina’s favourite poison. “I have been doing this for centuries. Your protections are good.” She threw a look at where Anna stood while she took a long sip of the brew. “But you’re far from able to match me in this matter. This little demonstration barely takes any effort at all. I could humble you in far worse ways.”
Tallah drank the coffee. It was a decent sensory approximation of the same torture she’d inhaled daily while under Aztroa Magnor’s wing. Christina only stared at it in incomprehension. They’d been prepared for gaudier shows of strength, attacks on their seals and the grip they held on the connection.
They hadn’t expected simple comfort as the first real proof of how big the gap was between their mastery of the soul linking.
“I hate this coffee. Always did,” Tallah admitted. “Never understood why this dreg got bought in such quantities and then forced on all of us.”
Iliaya showed a nasty little smile. “That would be my doing, I’m afraid. My father used to bring this particular blend across the Divide. Vanadal grown, you know. Catharina, unfortunately, inherited my particular taste for it once we joined souls.”
“How did this happen?” Christina asked, shaken out of her stupor by the bitter smell wafting around them. “Every mention of you paints you as the empire’s enemy, not one of its architects.”
A shrug answered, followed by a disinterested monotone. “Few things unite people under a common banner quite like a common enemy. If Cat was to be empress, she needed some monsters to vanquish. I gleefully played the role. When I was wounded beyond repair, before that goddess set loose her healers, this was how we chose for me to continue aiding the cause.”
“Over two centuries since,” Christina marvelled. “And you’re still a distinct personality?”
“That is matter of high debate amongst ourselves, if I’m honest.” There was an exchange there, in the looks the two Metal Minds shared, that Tallah couldn’t follow. “But, far as I can tell, I’m still myself, yes.”
Anna still did not engage with the conversation. If she strained under some invisible assault on her, she didn’t show it. Her gaze was locked on some point far beyond the walls, almost soldierly in her repose. The protection her wards offered never wavered, but the ghost was doing something. Illum moved through her, but where it went or what it served, Tallah couldn’t determine.
As long as the protection held, she gave Iliaya her full attention.
“You’re not going to ask why we did what we did to you and your sister?” Iliaya surprised her with the question. “I was expecting it on top of your mind. You don’t even seem curious.”
“I don’t care,” Tallah growled. “I don’t need to know why.”
“What if it’s for a cause greater than any one of us?”
“Then Catharina will make for a righteous corpse.”
What difference would it make? Catharina had Rhine killed. For that she’d pay with her throat, no matter what understanding was reached in the mindscape. Ultimately, the empress would breathe her last while burning in Tallah’s flames.
Only Anna’s buffer kept her anger in check now as she tried to understand what game this ghost played. Offering information? Sipping coffee? Being polite? Everything screamed of danger, but none of them felt a thing out of place.
“Grim. But not unexpected of you, I admit.” Iliaya leaned forward and dropped her voice. “You won’t manage to kill that god, Cinder. I assume that’s why you want this truce, to give yourself time and strike back at him for the cheek of ordering you about? You don’t have the means to slay him, not if you want to still enact your vengeance afterwards.” She very carefully took a sip of coffee and kept her eyes unfocused, as if she contemplated some grand secret. They shone with mischief over the cup’s rim when she refocused. “I could teach you how to slay gods. Aside from Cat, you’re the only one that could.”
“We know how to slay the maggots,” Christina said. “I believe you’re bluffing. If you could slay them, why would Ort still live? Why would any of them?”
“Killing one of the First Born is not without risk, girl,” Iliaya said, still not giving Christina a proper look. “Do you want to be responsible for unleashing a second Cauldron? The corpse there just barely touches our side and still infects our world with daemons. You’ve seen your share of them. Slay one of our own parasites and the repercussions would be too grave to consider. But this Ryder is not one of the known ones, so I assume he’s a transient.”
Tallah’s ears pricked at the mention of the First Born. Ryder had used the term too. This was the game then. Iliaya knew far more than she let on. It gave weight to her words.
“Moreover, you’re still bound by your siphon,” the Metal Mind said, malice in every word. “One would think you would’ve broken free by now if slaying gods is something that you’re so confident you can do.”
That got Anna’s attention. Tallah felt the ghost’s presence shift, as if her eyes refocused on something more immediate.
Iliaya had just confirmed the soul trap could be broken. They’d have to make a more determined effort of it, but it could be done..
Again, valuable information offered freely. Of course, its veracity was questionable at best, but nothing about Iliaya suggested lying.
“What’s your game?” Tallah finally asked. “Why the morsels of information? If you’re lying to us, we will know.” Bianca would know actually, but Bianca wasn’t there to verify. She intruded, now and again, but could not leave the work for any serious length of time.
“I have no games to play, Cinder. What I have is a mission to achieve, and I find here means to my ends. Believe it or not, you and Cat killing one another helps no one and solves none of our real issues.”
“Issues such as?”
Iliaya blew out her cheeks and leaned back, her staff held across her lap. She crossed her legs and showed her right hand, counting on her fingers. “We’re trapped on a peninsula at the far end of the world, cursed with the least generous lands this side of Beril. Our people are forbidden from settling the world as if we were plague-ridden. We’re being preyed upon by creatures posing as divine, who’ve locked us in a cycle of violence that will soon decimate our people for the seventh time. In spite of it all, our population is currently expanding while our farmland is not. Famine looms on all horizons.”
She sighed, then chuckled as if it were all amusing to her.
“To top everything off, the aelir are chartering fleets and outfitting armies. They worry Cat’s success might lead to the return of the bad old days, as some of their bloody Protectors are fond of saying. Oh, and Ort’s brood have escaped containment and busy themselves by eating people. Do you see how you are the very least of our concerns? And yet, you’re the one poised to cause Cat the greatest discomfort in the short term.”
The honesty shocked. Tallah resisted the urge to look at Christina in disbelief. After all the faffing about Panacea had put them through, not to mention Ryder’s self-aggrandising delusions of profundity, this was a welcomed breath of calm.
Iliaya regarded them cooly over the rim of her coffee cup, a dark eyebrow quirked above those tarry eyes.
“You’re not used to be spoken to plainly,” she said finally. “And here I am, gabbing on like some Court biddy. Deary deary me.”
“Not what we expected, no,” Tallah said, still waiting for the gloves to come off. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because we can help one another. While I don’t expect you and Cat to kiss and make up, you and she can still work together for the greater good. Temporarily.”
“Until midwinter,” Tallah prodded.
“Yes. Until then. Help us deal with Ort’s priests and their treachery, and Cat will forget you still live. We either succeed and we all escape this world, or nothing will matter anymore and the two of you can kill each other as bloodily as you might like. Seems a simple choice and a simple request.”
Tallah considered the idea for a moment. Ort’s priests would not be easy to kill, but Anna was confident she could do it.
“Why do you want them dead? Last I checked, the empire bent over backward to keep Ort’s clergy happy.”
“They’re outgrowing their britches, I’m afraid. As such, they need to be put down before they come to free their father.”
What that meant, Tallah had no idea. But she did notice a pattern.
The only information Iliaya would be able to give, that Tallah was dying to know: “Tell me what happens at midwinter.”
“I told you already—”
Tallah cut off the Metal Mind with a gesture of her hand, imposing her will in the small space. The room shifted to her old dusty workshop in Solstice, her ancient family furniture replacing this simulacrum of comfort Iliaya had conjured. The move was calculated. She still had the upper hand in pure willpower, especially when remembering how Iliaya was there on her sufferance.
For a moment, Iliaya’s remained with a hand upraised, holding a cup that was no longer there. Her face twisted into surprise, then outrage, the finally a smouldering displeasure.
“Far as I can tell,” Tallah said with relish as she settled in her old family chair. “You need me out of your way far more than I need you out of mine. Seems I have ample chance to strike now if I so choose. So cut the shit and give me something I can actually use. What happens at midwinter?”
“You can’t bluff me, girl.” Iliaya’s eyes turned hard as flint and her thin, bruise-coloured mouth drew into a tight line. “I already gave you plenty. Don’t test my patience.”
“I’ve nothing to do with what you gave me.”
While Iliaya was quite open, her information did not progress Tallah’s plans. And she dreaded asking more questions to prove her own ignorance.
Anna’s needle advanced and the ghost opened up her wards just enough for the feeling to cross into the mental space. A few more moments and those alien entanglements in Tallah’s head would be nothing more than ribbons.
“Fine,” Iliaya said after a moment’s intense consideration. “Fine. At midwinter our little ball of mud aligns with both our suns. We will have a short window of opportunity to open a stargate to another world. We will sacrifice Ort in order to achieve this.”
Her grin became feral in the candle-lit gloom.
“I hope you’ll join the moment. It’ll be quite the spectacle.”