Andwhat he remembered most, what he had always remembered most, were the smiles.The first time he had toppled a cup with a gust of wind, he had turned and seenpride in his uncle’s eyes.
Oh, thejoy he had felt.
“Isaac!”
Theextraction chamber was barely destroyed.The room was incalculably large, andthere was so much metal, so many machines, so much crystalized death stillclinging to the tanks and scythes, that it would take him days to destroy itall by hand.Beside him, the grated floor was littered with shards of metal,split open tanks, powdered hills of bone.
Heremembered the meals shared in the dining hall.Spiced chicken, fresh olives,hot bread.A cider, here and there.
Ourlittle secret, his uncle would say.
“Hey.Hey.”
Hecouldn’t breathe.His lungs did not have the energy to flex.Isaac gasped, hisvision fading, his mind desperate for air.
A handrested on his back.He flinched, falling to the floor.He tried to curl into aball, lie on his side, protect his belly and organs.
Thecane.
Thecane.
Thecane—
“Isaac.It’s me.”
Hislimbs were twitching, his muscles as stiff as the bark of a tree.He had casttoo much.His body was spent.
Hewanted to lie there and die.
Thehand came again, and another followed, and he was lifted back to a sittingposition.He felt furry fingers, each of them tipped with a claw.He felt abreath on his neck, a voice in his ear.
“Easy.Easy, now.Come on.”
Thehands on his shoulders became arms that wrapped around his chest, gentlyholding him in place.Breasts pushed into his back.He felt the strap of aleather pauldron, the cloth of a brassiere, a few tufts of fur.
Warmth.
Zaria.
Hecould smell her again.
Heremembered, suddenly, the apprentice tests, the gathered crowd, the spreadingnews of a journeyman who had grown proficient in two different schools.Thenews was so extraordinary that even an Archon had come to witness the event.Isaac had shaken the old man’s hand, feeling the cold and wrinkled fingers,studying the braids in the wizard’s whitened beard.The Archon of the Diet hadtold him that he was the most promising mage in quite some time.
Justlike his father.
“Breathe.Breathe.”Zaria’s arms tightened against his chest, moving in slow,rhythmic motions.“In, out.In, out.Come on.Breathe.”
He drew breath as best he could, struggling against thedepletion of his muscle.Her hands wrapped around his arms, stroking up anddown.On the floor in front of him, their legs pressed together, pushingthrough broken glass and shards of metal.
“I’mhere,” Zaria said, softly.“I’m right here.”
Hegripped her arm.He listened to her voice.
Helooked above his head.The stripes and stars banner hung limply along itsmount, the fabric tattered and ancient.He still didn’t know what it meant.Thenecromancers seemed to use it as a symbol of their gods.It allowed access totheir tomb.It was on every mural and relief, every myth of their society.
Redstripes.Navy blue.Dozens of stars.
Did thestars represent their gods?Were the red stripes a symbol of blood?
