38
The Wards
Below the lattices of the Han district, the tunnels narrow as we descend deeper into the Veinroads, forcing me to fold my wings tight against my back. The stone reeks of dust and scorched wards, the air tainted with the metallic tang of magic long forgotten. It sits heavy in the lungs, stagnant as a pond left too long without motion. Zora and I would have preferred not to move so deep underground, but with the explosion above and the destruction in its wake, we have no choice but to retreat into anonymity for now.
There are some in this rotting city that call this series of winding roads and caverns the Cataclyss. But my people have a word that suits it better.
Vesh'tera.
Dead earth.
In our endless war with the creatures called the Shades, the Gliders have witnessed their corruption spread like tar across the land. With bodies made of nether-residue and shattered magic, they gather in hordes and consume every living thing in their path. Everything they touch turns to rot and ash in their wake—becomesvesh'tera—and it is only by my people's glaives that this filth hasn't devoured the entire continent. Yet, we are not praised as the strongest of Elendria. Instead, the world bows to the Resh'Agar and his Krystopolis.
Our Matriarch trades with the Glasswalkers, making treaties and offering our bloodline to Vessar. Most support her cause, but there arethose who fight against it. In my long centuries of life, I have grown tired of holding second rank to the Skycleaver and his ilk. I have petitioned to end the treaties. To go to war with the Crystal City.
But, thus far, I have been denied.
Pity, for I would have loved to rend them limb from limb. To dismantle their shining towers and their altars of blood and stone. I would wipe their Doctrine's filth from the flesh of Elendria. Would cleanse the land until even the winds forgot to whisper of them. But my Matriarch is weak. Unwilling to risk her supply of Lustrals, spices, and rich ores in favor of doing what is best.
I had nearly given up my quest to change her mind, had busied myself with the search for the next heir to the violet ribbon, when everything shattered.
The Cycle of Dark came, washing over the Skycleaver's fortress of Stonewake on the Surface. And with that calamity arrived the Starborn. A woman with blinding silver hair and a magic I could not ignore. The heir to the ribbon fought in that maelstrom, and though I arrived in time to save her life, the ribbon had been stolen from its rightful owner.
The Starborn had taken it.
By all the rules of this accursed spell, stealing the ribbon should have broken its bond to me.
But it did not.
It called to me for days. Weeks. Months.
Until I gave in.
Until I followed.
I had just cause, for the Skywhisperer of my people, Zora'thera, was rumored to have taken the Veinroads to the Crystal City in search of the rare disease said to have broken out within the Glasswalkers' realm.
I watch her walk ahead of me now.
Another unruly variable in all this. She is young and reckless.
Zora’s golden feathers catch the weak glow of the Polis lanterns. Flightless. Useless. Yet she has surprised me these past years. She does not bend to the will of the winds. Does not follow the call of the Sky. Only chases her obsession with single-minded purpose. A cure to the plague these Glasswalkers call the Pale Madness.
“Skywhisperer," I call to her.
She turns to look at me. One golden eye and one azure. Her dark skin shines in the Polis light, the white marks of the Sky upon it shimmering in stark contrast to the rest of her.
"You spoke my name before our enemies,” I say, displeased. My voice echoes against the tunnel walls, sharper than I intend. “Before the Skycleaver and his Sokâr.”
She arches a brow. “So I did.”
My talons scrape against the stone as we walk. “Have you lost all sense? I tire of your games.”
“You do not have to endure them,” she replies briskly. “Go back to the Nestings if you are so burdened.”
“And leave a Skywhisperer in this den of snakes?”
Zora’s wings twitch with irritation.
