The group slowed to a stop, silently arranging themselves down the length of the pier to face the airship. Clan Storm was the oldest clan written down in E’ridia’s royalty genealogies. As such, Honovi and his father stood in the center.
Honovi didn’t see any ground crew present. He watched curiously as the gangplank was cranked out to connect to the pier, the scrape of metal on wood sounding loud in the night air.
The woman who appeared at the railing was of average height, but there was nothing average about the way his father and the othercinn-chinnidhknelt to her. Honovi hastily followed his father’s lead, going to one knee as he watched the woman disembark. Gold glinted along her right thigh in the lamplight, and Honovi’s eyes widened at the sight.
The Dusk Star was eerily beautiful in the dark, their goddess of the wind the one every clan prayed to as their guiding star. Nilsine planted one hand on her hip, the other curled over the hilt of the pistol she carried as she gazed at her children.
“Call for the shipbreakers in the morning. The dead you will deal with tonight, for there were spores on the storm wind,” Nilsine said.
Honovi shivered at that warning, knowing the risk of revenants if the dead weren’t burned to ash. No wonder his father had asked him to fetch the shroud before this meeting. For all that the wardens worked to keep the lands free of poison and revenants, the walking dead could not be completely eradicated. It was why every city and town, no matter the country, built their walls high against the blight.
Nilsine’s gaze drifted from person to person before settling on Honovi’s father. She stepped closer and placed her hand on his head, mindful of the gold metalwork woven into his braided hair as a symbol of his rank.
“Your clan will care for the boy on the airship. He is E’ridian now until I or my brethren say otherwise.”
Honovi’s curiosity piqued at that statement, but he knew better than to question a star god’s order. Then the Dusk Star disappeared into the night, as if she had never set foot to ground in the first place. Honovi’s father rose with a quiet sigh and headed up the gangplank with a sure-footedness that came from a lifetime spent boarding airships. Honovi was right behind him, gripping the shroud tightly, swallowing in shock at the sight that greeted them on the small forward deck.
The clan members had all died where they kneeled, hands free, a single bullet hole neatly placed in the center of their foreheads. Blood haloed their skulls, the shine of it black on the decking in the lamplight. But it was the smiles on their faces that would stay with Honovi, as if they had been thankful to die.
“Wrap them in prayers for the funeral rites,” Alrickson said to his fellowcinn-chinnidh.
Every clan had a representative lying dead on the deck. Thejarlsandcinn-chinnidhseparated to do their duty to the dead. Honovi worked alone while his father searched the airship for the boy Nilsine had given to their clan.
He was halfway done wrapping Clan Storm’s dead, prayers falling from his lips, when his father came from belowdecks. Honovi watched him lean over the open hatch and extend his hand, gruff voice tempered with kindness.
“Up you go,” Alrickson said in the trade tongue.
He pulled a blond-haired boy the rest of the way onto the deck, and Honovi paused in his shroud-wrapping. The boy was shorthaired and not dressed for a flight, wearing clothes that wouldn’t be out of place in an Ashion city.
Alrickson waved at Honovi to approach, so he left the dead behind for his father and the boy who looked at them with haunted hazel eyes.
“This is Blaine. He is of our clan now. I want you to take him to your mother. Tell her tomorrow we will find a foster family for the lad,” Alrickson said.
Honovi nodded. “Yes, Father.”
“I will be home when I finish with the dead. Off you go now.”
Honovi silently took Blaine’s hand in his and led him to the gangplank. He took the way down slowly, keeping one eye on Blaine, who traversed the distance on shaky legs. When they reached the pier, Honovi shrugged off his leather jacket and placed it over Blaine’s shoulders, cognizant of the chill in the boy’s fingers. The cold night air bit at his skin, but he’d warm up enough on the walk home.
Honovi urged the boy forward. “Let’s go.”
Blaine stumbled into a walk, blinking rapidly. “They let her kill them.”
Honovi glanced back at the airship, which would be torn apart for scraps beginning at dawn, the dead it had carried home set to burn in the crematoriums dedicated to every clan.
“It is always an honor to die for the star gods.”
Blaine sniffed, lips trembling. He said nothing more, and Honovi let the silence settle between them as he led Blaine back to the city they both now called home.
Six
CALLISTO
Callisto remembered when the Poison Accords were signed, how fractious the world had been millennia ago. She supposed things hadn’t changed much through three Ages. Countries had split yet again, betrayal ran rampant through the bloodlines, and revenants still roamed the land, necessitating the need for wardens and their alchemy.
For all that the borders had expanded mile by precious mile over the centuries, the natural state of Maricol didn’t lend itself to human life. Living on the planet would always remain a fight, and every country paid its tithes in citizens sent to the island in the middle of the Celestine Lake to be made into wardens. To fight the dead in the poison fields required a resistance to such toxins, and tradition demanded a neutral party for that task.
Wardens had remade this world since the stars fell and would continue to do so in spite of the political games played by those who governed. Wardens, unlike everyone else Callisto and her brethren watched over, understood the real threat was Maricol itself, and there was no throne or council or senate in any country that could stand on poisoned land.
