Leviathan's Blood (6 page)

‘It’s okay.’ Ayae didn’t know what else to say. ‘Really.’

‘No, it’s not. You have to admit when you’re wrong. Maybe you don’t have to say it aloud, but you have to admit it.’

‘You don’t have to say it.’

‘But I am.’ Caeli fell silent, but this time, Ayae knew that she hadn’t fallen asleep. She knew that she lay on her back, staring at the low ceiling. ‘You know that she
is right, don’t you?’ Caeli said, after a minute. ‘About leaving, that is.’

‘Yes,’ Ayae said softly. ‘I know.’

The Captain of the Spine, Aned Heast, was not with Muriel Wagan and the Mireean people when they were led down to Wila.

He had been sent into Yeflam two days before. On the night he left the mountain camp, he did so alone, on foot, and with no fanfare. He was, once all descriptions of him were reduced, a man who
wore the decades he had lived beneath the broken sun with a sword at his side and a hand out for coin. Upon first sitting opposite him, many felt that his weathered features and pale-blue eyes
belonged to a man who had little pity, who weighed their worth against the money he was being paid and little else. People had always said that of him: in his youth, men and women said that it was
because he had suffered the loss of a young love; in the decades after he had lost his leg, people who met Heast said that something had broken in him, that a kindness that existed in the hearts of
other men had left him with the limb. Neither version was the complete truth, but he did little to convince people otherwise. When he first lost his leg, enough men and women had known what else he
had lost that their words had an echo of truth, but the words were now repeated by those who knew nothing about it. He was thinking of that when, an hour outside the camp, he discovered Benan
Le’ta waiting for him at the side of the moonlit road.

The merchant had not impressed Heast. A short white man, Le’ta’s weight rolled down him as if he was a pear, but with a square and stubby head atop his shoulders. It was he who, once
the siege had been laid in Mireea, had sent the letters demanding that the two Keepers, Fo and Bau, be put in chains and brought to him, if the Mireeans wanted his help. It was an impossible
request, but then, in Heast’s mind, Le’ta had planned an impossible scenario. The merchant imagined a public hearing of the two Keepers’ crimes in Mireea and he believed that such
a hearing would provide him with leverage, if not against the Keepers, then against his own political enemies in the Traders’ Union. The sharp letters in Le’ta’s handwriting had
admitted that to Muriel Wagan in the first week after Mireea fell. Indeed, when Le’ta first rode into the camp, Heast thought he was going to throw a tantrum and stamp his feet. If it had not
been for the presence of Faje, and Aelyn Meah’s desire to keep Zaifyr away from the Floating Cities, he might very well have done so.

‘Le’ta will turn on us once we are welcomed into the city by the Keepers,’ Lady Wagan had said, hours before Heast left the camp. He had gone to her tent to bid her goodbye, to
tell her of the orders he had given to his soldiers and to Lieutenant Mills, who would assume command while Heast was gone. ‘He is an idiot.’

‘You agree with what Faise said, then?’ Faise had arrived on the same day as the ambassadors and Heast had done everything he could to lose her and her husband in the camp while
Le’ta and Faje were there. ‘That it will be nothing but a prison?’

‘It was plain to see before.’ Muriel looked tired. She had not been sleeping well, but he could not blame her for that. ‘Le’ta will try and use us as political leverage
rather than work with us. It almost makes me wish that Lian Alahn had remained in power. It would have been a different situation if he had – but we will have to make do with what we
have.’ She handed him a folded piece of paper. ‘Faise and Zineer will meet you at this location the day after we arrive.’

He took the paper, pushed it beneath his old, worn leather armour. ‘Essa sent a note. He and the Brotherhood are in Yeflam.’

‘Good.’

‘He is not happy about it.’

‘The only person happy to go to Yeflam is Zaifyr.’

Heast had not disagreed and, in the carriage that took him into the Floating Cities, Benan Le’ta echoed the Lady of the Spine’s words.

He had shrugged off the merchant’s comment. The charm-laced man had made it clear that he had little concern with what was unfolding around him. He had shown the same lack of interest to
the Mireean people who had thrown insults and spat at him after they left Mireea and the streets full of ghosts. The girl, Ayae, who had stood against Fo and Bau, had not fared as well beneath the
insults: Heast had watched her move between patience and anger and, fearing that she might justifiably lash out, he had quietly told guards to shadow her. He hadn’t ordered Caeli to do it
– she had other duties – but he had been pleased to see the former with her. He had ordered guards to shadow Zaifyr as well, but Zaifyr had seen them within an hour and, in a move that
terrified his soldiers, Zaifyr approached the guards and told them that it wasn’t necessary. Heast related that to Le’ta in the carriage, while it took them over the bridge into Neela,
as the morning’s sun began to etch across the black ocean, into Mesi.

‘They say he is a powerful man,’ the merchant said, ‘more powerful perhaps than the Breath of Yeflam.’

‘Aelyn Meah?’ He hadn’t heard that title in a long time. ‘Who can say? If he is her brother, then he ruled beside her long ago with three others.’

‘With a brother, a sister, and – ’ Le’ta smiled unpleasantly – ‘a lover.’

‘A lot was burned back then,’ Heast said with a hint of distaste at the other man’s comment. ‘A lot to hide who was who and what was what.’

The smile slithered away. ‘Yes,’ Le’ta replied. ‘It makes it difficult to know anything for certain.’

Shortly after, the merchant dropped him off before a small two-storey inn made from stone and wood. It was called The Minotaur’s Lost Eyes and the sign showed, beneath the words, a pair of
eyes spiked through the centre. Le’ta said that it was a good establishment, a fine building of sturdy beds and discreet staff, and Heast assumed that he owned them. Just before he tapped the
roof of his carriage to signal that it should leave, Le’ta said that he would come and visit him when everyone was safely on Wila. ‘We will discuss what we can do for the Mireean
people,’ he said. ‘What kindness can be given to them in their time of need.’

The next day, after the Mireeans had been led to Wila, Le’ta found Heast in the common room of the inn. Heast had a collection of newspapers and pamphlets laid before him, having flipped
through most of them already.

‘You were there, I trust?’ Le’ta asked as he bobbed through the tables in the mostly empty room. He did not wait for the Captain of the Spine’s response before he began
to claim how well it had gone, how he had seen fear in Aelyn Meah’s face, how the crowds showed that she did not have their support. Heast, for his part, had seen the Keeper’s face in
the carriage as it drove by. From that brief glimpse, fear was not the word he would have used. Resigned, perhaps. But the horses made from wind had drawn the carriage away and, by then, his
attention was on the other Keepers and the Yeflam Guard. They had barely contained a riot as the Mireeans were led to the island with Muriel Wagan at their head. The pamphlets and papers before him
had been given out in that crowd by men and women for free. Le’ta, upon seeing them, said, ‘Ah those disgusting rags. Printed by presses not on Neela, I assure you.’

‘Is that right?’ Heast said, leaning back in his chair. ‘You’re all innocence, are you?’

‘Captain, now is not the time to question our trust.’ The merchant sat and, in doing so, revealed the man a handful of paces behind him. ‘May I introduce you to Commander Bnid
Gaerl of the Empty Sky?’ he said.

‘We’ve met before.’

He was a tall white man a handful of years younger than Heast. Yet he appeared older, the lines in his long face leaving him with a craggy, liver-stained visage in which dark eyes sat deeply. He
wore expensive armour that was mostly a light chain mail, and over his shoulder, beneath the cloak of dark blue, he bore a heavy two-handed sword.

‘Well,’ Le’ta said, turning back to Heast. ‘I trust that it was in favourable conditions.’

‘He was the Captain of Refuge then,’ Gaerl said, his voice deep and heavy. ‘But he shed that title like a snake sheds a skin. He’ll shed the title he has now the same
way.’

‘Refuge no longer exists,’ Heast said evenly. ‘The rank no longer has meaning when there are no soldiers.’

‘Your witch still wears the title.’

‘By all means, tell Anemone to stop.’

‘Commander. Captain.’ Le’ta appeared surprised by the animosity, but he must have known of it before he entered the inn. Over a decade ago, Gaerl – Heast refused to use
the self-appointed rank of commander – had tried to use the name Refuge for his own mercenaries. ‘We are not here to talk about old difficulties or, indeed, the men and women that you
have known in your service to the world of coin. Instead, we are here to ensure that all that can be done is done for the Mireean people.’ He tapped one of the papers on the table. On the
cover was a picture of Muriel Wagan and, around her, an ocean of bones. ‘It is a difficult task when stories like the ones here are being printed. We can all agree on that, I’m sure. It
will be difficult to do anything for Lady Wagan and her people if they are linked to this monster.’

‘They need blankets and food,’ Heast said, turning back to the merchant. ‘Lady Wagan has given me access to Mireea’s finances to provide for them on Wila. I would like to
begin with that as soon as I can.’

‘Of course, of course.’ Le’ta frowned slightly as he said the words. ‘But I warn you, it may not be as easy as simply buying and shipping goods. We will be required to
petition the Keepers to allow us access.’

‘I will speak to Xrie,’ he said. ‘We should be able to avoid that.’

‘The Soldier?’ Gaerl frowned. ‘The Captain of the Yeflam Guard is not an easy man to get an audience with.’

‘It can be done.’ He did not look away from Le’ta. ‘I’d also like to request a personal favour, if I could?’

‘Of course,’ Le’ta said, just once, this time. ‘What is it?’

‘I’d like to meet with Lian Alahn – privately.’

‘He has fallen considerably from favour with the Traders’ Union,’ the merchant replied. ‘He is not even currently in the country. I am afraid he will be able to do little
for you.’

‘It is a personal matter concerning his son,’ the Captain of the Spine said. ‘That is all.’

Bueralan Le sat in the shell of a building, the moon’s light seeping through trees to fall through a broken roof, where it offered little solace to a man in grief.

He had been unable to save Dark.
Kae
.
Liaya
.
Ruk
.
Aerala
.
Zean
. He repeated the names to himself each night, an act of punishment in his suffering.
He saw them again, each of them fallen in the cathedral. Saw the candles flicker along the walls, the light wavering over the dead. He heard the sound, a shifting mass, in the rafters. Then he saw
Kae first. Saw Liaya and Ruk together. And after them, Aerala. Next, he saw the blonde-haired child at the end of the cathedral. She stood at the top of a small dais in a simple dress of white. She
was but a handful of steps from Zean’s body, as if his oldest friend, his blood brother, did not matter. Bueralan could close his eyes and remember the green eyes of the child. He had been
ready to die. Then the child had stepped towards him and said, ‘I have a gift for you.’

A soul.

Zean’s soul.

After, the child had called him god-touched, had said that he could call on her –
only when what is at stake is innocence
, she said – and she released Samuel Orlan into his
care, but those words, those actions, were like shadows around him. She spoke but he felt only the crystal she had given him. A chill had begun to settle into the black skin of his hand as he held
it, had begun to numb it to where his white ink tattoos began on his wrist. Outside the cathedral, he placed it in a dark leather pouch, but he could still feel the cold. Even so, he threaded a
piece of leather through the end of the pouch and tied it around his neck and let the chill settle against his chest. It would lie there until he returned home.

He knew instantly that he would be returning to Ooila, to where the witches of his childhood blew dark expensive glass bottles from which pieces of glass were taken for the living to wear around
their necks. To where the bottle was whole once again after the death of the man or woman who had worn that piece. To where the family took the unearthly remains of their loved ones and entered
into a long-established network of barter and purchase to ensure that the bottle would sit on the nightstand of a pregnant woman in a good family. The soul would be leached into her womb with every
sip she took from the bottle, drawn down into the foetus, to search for a perch in the newly created child, to find life again.

The Mother’s Gift, they called it.

‘Break the damn thing.’ The rough voice belonged to Samuel Orlan. The old white-haired cartographer had almost had his throat crushed by a creature made from shadows in the cathedral
and it had not yet healed. ‘Don’t sit there with it in your hands all night again,’ Orlan muttered from where he lay. ‘Break it. Smash it. I’ll get a stone from
outside for you to do it. Better than what she has planned.’

‘Your conscience has no place beside me, old man.’ Above him, the swamp crows that lined the rafters shifted, awoken by the sound of his voice. ‘Zean is dead because of you.
They’re all dead because of you.’

‘You would be too, if you’d come with them.’

‘But not you.’

The cartographer grunted sourly as he pushed himself into a sitting position.

‘Why didn’t she kill you?’ Bueralan asked. ‘You’re not worth a thing compared to the people who died.’

‘She didn’t kill you, either.’ He coughed, rubbed at his throat. ‘She’s not a god yet.’