The bed was shaking. I looked down at it. No, my hand had taken on a slight tremor. I squeezed it into a fist, taking a ragged breath to try to calm my trembling.
Five years until the Sanguirs would be loose on mainland. Along with many other horrors that lived within the miasma.
“Who else knows?” I asked.
“Any Voyager or Sentinel,” Zevrial said. “Anyone high in the Ascendancy’s chain of command.”
That was preciously few people.
I trailed my fingers along the yo-yo on my nightstand for comfort. None came. “What can we do?”
“Not much. At least ‘til the Ascendancy agrees that the information should be made public,” Zevrial ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “We can start by giving you more Skinscript.”
Excitement fluttered in my chest. I hadn’t noticed it when he first entered, but there was a second smaller bottle of shimmering black liquid strapped to his belt.
“Tonight?” I asked, feeling my heartbeat soaring.
“Tonight,” he agreed.
Skinscript would certainly help deal with Sanguirs. Especially if they made it past the barriers and overran the island. My skin prickled.
“It’s not exactly easy to acquire the materials for this,” he said. “At least, not legally.”
He reminds me a bit of myself. He’s not a subtle thief. Starshells are too large to easily hide.
Even mildly inebriated, I connected the dots. “You stole it.”
He shrugged. “Only enough that they won’t be missed.”
“You’re a Voyager Instructor,” I said. “Can’t you just ask for more? Or petition the Ascendancy for help or something?”
“Don’t you think I’ve already tried? My petitions were denied.” He blew out an exasperated breath. “They don’t want a panicked citizenry. They’d rather have them ignorant and complacent up ‘til the miasma is in their backyards than tell them that the perimeter is compromised. They’re not even willing to share their knowledge of Skinscript, and it’s been around for hundreds of years. They’ll try to maintain the illusion of a stable Tide, no matter the cost.”
“There isn’t going to be anything left to maintain if they don’t do something,” I insisted.
Zevrial’s eyes narrowed, voice grave. “No shit.”
I bit my lip, trying not to feel defeated.
He scowled, fingers clenching on the chair’s back. “The Ascendancy doesn’t know how to deal with the crisis on their hands. The only means they’ve got of staying safe from the miasma is the Arcs, and there are only twelve of them remaining. They’re not large enough to hold the full population of Mesmoria, they could hold maybe two or three hundred people if we filled all of them to max capacity. And their best efforts at understanding why the Arcs are not corroded by the miasma resulted in decommissioning an Arc; the worst possible outcome. They couldn’t even put it back together safely to use again afterwards.”
“The abandoned bridge,” I said. Zevrial gave a slow nod.
“They tried to make armor and weapons out of the decommissioned Arc planks too, but that effort also failed,” he scoffed. “Not that any of that was ever made public.”
“There’s no chance that the perimeter will hold against the miasma?” I forced myself to unclench the death grip I had on the blanket beneath my fingers.
“You saw it today. That was from one single miasmic creature, and it ate straight through. Every material on the mainland melts when exposed directly to Miasma.”
“Except for the bodies of the monsters that live in it.” I thought back to the beach littered with Sanguir corpses. The miasma wave had washed right over them, but it hadn’t burned them. Hell, they lived in the damn stuff.
“There’s no way we could ever kill enough of them to make any sturdy barrier against it,” Zevrial argued. “The fact that most of them attack in swarms means the loss of human life required for that would be catastrophic.”
“Starshells are also immune to miasma,” I mused.
“And they’re the only thing strong enough to make weapons to fight the things that live in it. And they’re required to grow the crops that feed us. Not to mention, only available in any significant quantity on the outer isle’s shores,” Zevrial said.
I went on, undeterred. “How many Starshells does a single operation bring back?”
