Dragon Soul (63 page)

Which was: Havemercy was gone. At least, the parts of her that’d been lingering in the soul were, since those’d gone into Madoka. I couldn’t hold on to a
woman
like a memento, and especially not one like Madoka. Besides, she’d made her choice, and now it was up to me to do away with the remains of the soul. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to—and I could fucking man up and accept that.

If only for her sake.

At least everyone else had fucked off, Malahide spending time with her Ke-Han buddies and smelling of desert perfumes and being exactly the kind of woman I didn’t want to have anything to do with—and because of that, I had to keep away from Madoka, exactly the kind of woman I
did
want to have something to do with. Not that there was much I could’ve done all bandaged up like a present. That was probably for the best, since her soldier friend kept looking at me like he knew what I was thinking. But the thoughts I was thinking about Madoka were far away and mostly unimportant. I could get back to ’em later, on lonelier nights, and keep myself nice and warm, but right now I couldn’t, since that’d cheapen it. And I guess I’d come to that point where I had to distinguish the women in my life, or at least I had to put one kind before the other.

It was a weird feeling, but I could adjust. I wasn’t some kind of rigid ’Versity professor who couldn’t tell which way the wind was blowing. In fact, I’d always had a pretty good nose for the wind.

I’d made up my mind, and because I
wasn’t
gonna pussyfoot my way through this like it was somebody’s prize daisy garden. I was just gonna do it. Rip the bandage off and deal with the consequences after that. Thinking about it too much was only going to drive me nuts, and I couldn’t let that happen, because what was Thom supposed to do with his brother in the nuthouse? If I had dreams about it while I slept, then it was because of getting my guts nearly sliced out in the desert, and if I had dreams about it
later
, then it was because I was a piss-poor excuse for an airman or even a man who couldn’t let a good thing go because he knew he’d never see anything that good again.

At least I wasn’t gonna
cry
and share how I was feeling with my brother, which was what he was waiting for, all this time, just sitting by my bed and staring at me like he was expecting something. A word or two that would explain everything—like words could explain anything. The problem was, someone’d told him that they did, and he’d had it beat into his head so hard that he couldn’t quite see his way around to any other kind of thinking.

Wasn’t my job to figure him out, though. That was
his
deal, analyzing. And if he wanted to waste his time with figuring me out instead of himself, then that was his problem.

“Guess I’m gonna smash her,” I told him, late one night, just to keep him on his toes. He was nodding off in the chair by my bed and I startled him good—which I almost felt bad for, except then I didn’t. I’d told him to sleep in his own bed and that I’d had worse scrapes than this one, but he was being stubborn and there was no fucking arguing with him when he got like that. So there he was, shitting himself the second I spoke up, and I had to look away not to let on that I’d planned it that way all along.

“You’re going to—Oh,” he said, waking up real fast at least. Faster than he did most mornings, green eyes all bleary and hair that definitely wanted cutting. He was learning, even if it was slow going. “Oh, I see. Do you think that’s appropriate?”

“Can’t burn her, can I? She was made to withstand that kind of heat. Part of her makeup. And I can’t bury her, either, ’cause someone’s
bound to dig her up and we’ll be back where we started. I’ve been thinking about it, anyway. So that’s the only fucking way.”

“I suppose it is,” Thom said. “I’m sorry. When do you want to do it?”

“Tonight,” I told him, wondering if that would slide.

Instead of giving me the usual dance-around about how I
shouldn’t
and he
couldn’t
and we
wouldn’t
, he clenched his jaw and looked somewhere else, far past me.

“John,” he said, and oh, I knew I was in real trouble then—not even the kind of trouble you could argue with or ignore, but the kind of trouble that you had to face head-on and it made all your teeth hurt. “I don’t really remember anything.”

“I noticed,” I said.

He sighed, frustrated but not angry. “That isn’t what I meant,” he said. For once, my little brother, at a loss for words? Unfucking believable. “What I mean is, about you. Before all this. I wish I did remember.”

“Why, ’cause you’d like me more?” I asked.

“Maybe,” he said.

“Probably not,” I told him. “And if you think you’re gonna distract me with all this hoopla about who I
used
to be and bastion knows what else, then you’re fucking mistaken.”

“I’ve already decided we can go,” Thom said. “I was just trying to ask you a simple question. Not
everything
is a battlefield.”

“Fuck you,” I said. Then, because I couldn’t say “help me up,” he saw right through my horseshit and helped me up anyway.

It was slow moving, and the muscles in my chest did hurt, but like I’d said, it could’ve been a lot fucking worse. Fan hadn’t known where to stab and he’d been blind-crazy with trying to defend himself by that point; I’d gotten lucky, and he hadn’t. Somehow it’d all turned out to be simple as that. His move’d missed everything vital and it’d glanced off the rib cage, and so my own fucking bones had saved me. I’d have to thank ’em sometime, do something nice for ’em for a change. I’d heard they had baths in Eklesias, public ones, where everybody got naked, men and women together, and just spent time steaming and relaxing. I could use some of that, to finally get all the grit out of my heart.

“I suppose you’re going to want to carry that by yourself?” Thom said, giving me one of those looks.

I tested the weight of my baby’s soul. It was pretty damn heavy, just like I remembered, and parts of me were pretty pissed that I was even trying it. But I just snorted and ignored ’em.

“You suppose pretty damn right,” I said. “Got any suggestions on how to smash this thing?”

He looked up at me like that was the greatest question I’d ever asked him. And maybe it was, since I didn’t mind if he came with me, didn’t mind if he watched, didn’t mind if we walked back together in the end. I wasn’t gonna look up at the stars and tell him about how much I missed it. He already knew all that.

“We could drop it from the roof,” he said.

“Just like flying,” I agreed.

Thom grinned. “So long as you don’t fall off.”

We made it up to the top of the building, the wind cold up there in the darkness. The moon was a neat little sliver in the sky and too far away for me to look at. I remembered all the things Have used to say and I squared my shoulders, lugging the soul up past the final step and pausing to catch my breath. Thom had the fucking decency not to ask me if I was doing okay, because I was just fucking fine, thanks very much, and he sat there with me while the wind cooled off my sweat and made me feel like I was alive again.

“We could always stay here,” Thom offered softly. “In the desert.”

“You hate it here,” I said.

“I do,” he agreed.

“Don’t do me any favors,” I warned him, not angry, just wondering why he was so fucking bell-cracked.

“It’s just that you seemed to enjoy the camel racing,” he explained. “And since I know it’s difficult to find things in life you truly enjoy, I simply thought—”

“It’s not the same,” I said flatly.

Thom stared at his hands. “I suppose it wouldn’t be,” he said at length, and thank bastion he didn’t bring it up a second time.

I could’ve been okay in the desert, but Thom wouldn’t be. He’d be complaining every morning and hanging back at watering holes staring like a lost soul at the pools, dreaming about books and cities and crowds and crazies. We had to find somewhere in between or we really were going to lose each other, and as much as I wasn’t about to admit it
to anyone, I worked best in a team. Not that I couldn’t pull through on my own if I had to.

I stood and lifted the dragonsoul after me, then moved to the edge of the roof. It was about five stories up and the alley below was narrow and quiet. Had to check and make sure no one was wandering around down below, because my brother’d never forgive me if we accidentally killed someone in the explosion.

Blowing up part of a city street was enough to get us thrown in jail, but if we planned things right we could actually steal some horses—no more camels, not ever—and race out of there, heading back to the mountains, and back in the direction of Eklesias too. I didn’t want to answer any questions about what we’d been doing in Karakhum with explosives anyway.

“You can do it,” Thom said, trying to be helpful and achieving about the same level of success as usual.

“Shut up,” I warned him.

He held up his hands in defeat and I breathed in deep and long and slow, probably just putting off the inevitable like I knew I couldn’t for too much longer. I wished I was alone but I was glad that I wasn’t, and when Thom came up behind me I didn’t shout at him, or make him back away, or anything like that. He put his hand on my shoulder, and I didn’t even shrug him off, which said a lot about just how fucking doomed I really was. But then, it was Have who’d spotted some kind of resemblance between Thom and me in the first place—almost like she’d known before either of us, though I didn’t go in for that kind of spooky crap. If anything, I figured she wouldn’t mind him being here now.

It was a weird thought, but kinda nice—my girl’s soul in front of me, and Thom at my back, like that one crazy night we went up into the sky all together and my own brother nearly squeezing me in half with how tightly he was holding on. Already it seemed like something out of another life, but it
also
seemed like it could’ve happened yesterday, and that was what had me so mixed up. I didn’t know where I was coming and where I was going, and Havemercy would’ve told me to just get it over with, stop being so sentimental, and grow a pair while I was at it.

So that’s what I was gonna do.

With a grunt, I lifted the dragonsoul up over the lip of the roof, effectively ending the conversation. Even if it was a lot damn heavier than it looked, the dragonsoul had a nice heft to it, and maybe someday we’d come back to the desert just so I could tell Sarah Fleet what a piece of work this thing was—almost as much a piece of work as the creator herself, and that was saying something. We should all be lucky enough to make something in this world half as fucked up as we were ourselves, something we could leave behind.

Behind me, I could hear my brother’s sharp inhale, his hand tight against my shoulder. Even in the dark, the soul glowed—the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Moonlight glinted off the edge of the glass, and I held my breath. Just like the first time I’d ever seen her—
my girl
—it was almost too hard to look at her.

Then I threw the dragonsoul over the edge of the roof, sticking out an arm just in time to catch Thom as he stepped forward to watch it.

Havemercy arced through the sky like a big red shooting star—like those comets that came once every seven years and astronomers all shit themselves, marking it down as a portent of doom and disaster. Terror flying bright through the skies, coming a little too close to earth.

As a dragon, my girl had been just that. It only seemed right that she go out in the same fashion.

Thom held tight to the arm I’d used to keep him back, and we both watched for the split-second turn when flying became falling and you knew it was all gonna be over soon. The soul crested the height of its arc—at least I’d given her one last flight—and then plummeted sharply down like a stone.

“I hope that doesn’t kill anyone,” Thom said, but his tone was quiet, almost reverent.

“I checked,” I told him, figuring I could let it slide just this once.

It landed seconds later with a
bang
, and a ferocious
crunch
on top of that—sort of like a lightbulb exploding, only magnified by ten at least. A bright light flared up from the streets, then immediately went out, like it’d burned too brightly for whatever fuel was left to sustain it. We were probably lucky we hadn’t triggered some explosion. Or
I
was lucky—because I had to be with her at the last, no matter what kind of
boom
and
crash
followed.

From below, someone shouted, and I could see dimmer lights turning
on, torches and oil lamps, doors opening and people staring out of their windows.

I drew back from the edge of the roof, pulling Thom with me.

“Come on,” I said, and before my brother could say anything stupid to ruin the moment, I grabbed on to his arm, wheeling him around the way we’d come.

Sometimes I didn’t give him enough credit, though, ’cause he didn’t seem to be all that surprised. Instead, he just had that resigned look on his face, like he thought that’d fool anyone into thinking he wasn’t anything but happy at being dragged off to our next destination. Wherever it was.

“Are you well enough to ride?” he asked, like
he
wasn’t the one stumbling after
me
.

“I’m fine,” I told him, and if he wanted to take that in both directions at once, he could.
I
knew he wasn’t just asking about my injuries, anyway. I was either too smart for him, or he wasn’t that subtle to begin with. Or we just knew each other a little bit by this point. “Job’s done, anyway. Hate getting sidetracked.”

Thom craned his head around to see if he could make heads or tails of the commotion taking place below us. Everyone’s lights were on now, and I could hear angry shouts mixed with more excited ones—probably the opportunists who’d noticed the precious metals laid into the shards of glasswork. Those would’ve survived the fall, I imagined, but that wasn’t my concern. My stake in it was over, my work was done, and I wasn’t interested in looking back. Neither of us could protect each other anymore.

There were all sorts of horses stabled outside the place we’d been staying. It made me feel a little low-down to be stealing from sick people, but then we’d be leaving our camels behind, so as far as I was concerned, it was a fair trade. Thom didn’t even pipe up once to complain about it, either, which gave me some idea of just how bad an influence I was turning out to be. He did a neat job of prepping the horses, checking the bridles and making sure the saddles weren’t too loose. I didn’t know where this sudden burst of competence had come from, but if I had to guess, I’d have said it was pure fucking gratitude at getting the hell away from his camel and back onto an animal that made more sense to him.