The Harvest (17 page)

She turns, snapped out of it.

Just as a thrum-whip coils around his neck.

His eyes bug.

Boyland screams as the lash begins to vibrate. His thick fingers claw at the whip but come away smoldering at the tips. His teeth chatter so loud they sound like a woodpecker hammering on a barn wall.

At the other end of the whip is an
evocati augusti
, sneering beneath his helmet.

She raises a finger and points it.

Something struggles underneath the flesh of her fingertip, like a grain of rice pushing its way out of her skin.

It’s a seed.

A tiny little seed.

She flicks her finger.

The seed flies true and goes where she wants it. The guardsman’s head shudders, and suddenly his one eye is shut, his face wrinkled and wincing beneath the horsehead helmet. Because he has something in his eye.

Something that’s about to grow a great deal bigger.

It happens fast, faster than is natural—fast enough that as the seed pops and the root-tangle explodes out, it sounds like a rifle shot. His head jerks. Both eyes are gone, erased by thrusting roots, his mouth wrenched open by tendrils to make way for a stalk of corn jutting from his now-shattered jaw.

The whip uncoils from Boyland’s neck. The flesh there is seared—some of it bleeding. He looks up at her with horror. He says something, but whatever it is gets swallowed by the sudden roar of hover-panels as a massive trawler—flags of the Sleeping Dogs rippling in the winds of the pollen drift—emerges, firing sonic cannons, taking out mechanicals and
evocati augusti
like some kind of pirate ship savior.

She wonders suddenly who the ship is saving.

Them from the Empyrean.

Or the Empyrean from them.

VALKYRIE

HERON
YONG
looks nervous, but Enyastasia cannot care about him. Because
she’s
trying not to be nervous. Her middle is a jar of starving flies shaken up and then opened inside of her.

Together, the two of them stand atop the seventh circle of the Luzerne Garam Ilmatar—the tallest tower on any flotilla the Empyrean possess. The tower is an architectural marvel, with four sides that twist, giving it a liquid look. Even the windows warp and bend with the gentle spiral.

One floor below them is the Architect’s Aerie—a meeting place for all the Grand Architects. While each Empyrean flotilla is allowed to do as it sees fit, for the most part, each is still connected to the whole—and certain decisions must be made together, not apart. Like how to increase cornfuel production. Or how to deal with unruly Heartlanders.

Or how to deal with
her
.

“They must know what you’ve done,” Heron says, voice shaking.

“Shhh,”
she says. “Lower your voice.”

“The wind is catching it. Nobody can hear us.”

“Just the same.” She pauses. Heron needs to be controlled, lest he tells them what happened. And that’s not an option. “And it wasn’t what
I’ve
done. It’s what
we
have done. Together. You’re in this.”

He looks at her. Fear shines there in the mirrors of his dark eyes. She can see hers reflected back. He’s afraid. So is she.

That fear cannot be allowed to guide them. Not now.

Heron opens his mouth. She can see the thoughts rising, about to reach his lips. He’s about to say that they don’t have to be in this together.

He’s about to threaten her.

And so she does what she does best. She stares, emotionless, like one of the mechanicals: her face a cold, inert mask. The mask of a killing machine, a machine that has never known mercy and will never compute it.

“Of course,” he says, bowing his head.

Good boy, Heron
.

“We’re very close now,” she says. “They have no choice but to consider what I’m saying. The Frumentarii are broken. The peregrine is done. Eldon Planck, the Initiative’s creator, is missing, somewhere down amid the Saranyu’s wreckage. Berwin Luzerne . . . had an accident. The way is paved and the door is open, and all we have to do now is walk through it with steady feet.”

“We’re not ready for this. You’re a child. I’m . . . not much more than that. I don’t even know if I believe in what we’re doing.”

She reaches for his hand and takes it.

“You don’t have to believe. You just have to trust. Have faith. Like in all the old gods, the gods of the sky, the ones we name the flotillas after. But have faith in
me
.”

Enyastasia squeezes his hand. Not in a loving, comforting gesture. But in a way that grinds the knuckles like iron bearings. Heron’s knees buckle.

She continues: “Don’t make the mistake of losing your faith in me. Because the gods don’t like it when you stop trusting them.”

Her grip relinquishes his hand. He yanks it away and shakes it, sucking in breath and whimpering. “You’re scary.”

“I know.”

And with that, she hears the elevator doors crank open, hears the Elevator Man announce the uppermost floor to whoever has come to get her and deliver her to the chambers below.

“It’s time,” she says.

She and the young architect head to the elevator.

A massive, sprawling room. Black table. Red carpets. Drapes the color of pressed wine. An ugly space. Enyastasia is sure it has some name, a name that harkens to some period of design that the Empyrean glitterati all know about—but Enyastasia just thinks it looks old. This was the first flotilla, after all, and it hasn’t seen much updating while Luzerne was at the head of this table.

Ten Grand Architects sit around the table. Seven men. Three women. Most of them old—though, really, Enyastasia wouldn’t use the word
old
so much as she’d call them all “decrepit skin-kites aloft on the winds of their own gaseous emissions.”

Two chairs are empty.

The head of the table: Berwin Luzerne.

The other side: the chair reserved for her grandfather Stirling Ormond.

Heron hovers behind her, nervous energy bleeding off him like heat vapors off a hot hover-panel.

The architects share a series of uncomfortable looks. Miranda Woodwick, who looks quite a bit like a constipated stork, flits a gaze toward the round, toadlike Ernesto Gravenost—who had seemed to be melting into his chair but now perks up at her nervous stare. He shrugs. She jiggles her head as if to say,
Someone, please speak
.

Someone does. Fentinue Crisler clears his throat, steeples his fingers, and leans forward with his elbows on the table. Everything about him looks tight, as if he’s a corpse left in the sun, its flesh drawn tighter and tighter as all the moisture dried up.

“Thank you for coming today,” he says, his voice with a crisp edge to it. As if someone is giving him a slight pinch whenever he reaches the end of a sentence. “You, too, Mister Yong—”

“Can we dispense with all the polite folderol and get to the matter at hand?” Enyastasia asks. “Is Project Raven allowed to continue or not?”

Again more looks at the table.

Fentinue speaks, almost as if he’s irritated nobody else will. “The untimely death of Berwin Luzerne”—she hears the slightest sigh of relief from Heron, behind her; relief, most likely, that they’re not on the hook for murder—“has left us reeling and grasping for a way forward in this dark time. But we are prepared to continue with his recommendation despite his demise, that Project Raven be canceled. We have a way forward—”

“You’re weak,” she says. A collective gasp from the table. The regal old Jorum Grantham looks like he’s about to foul his seersucker pants. “I came here days after the Saranyu fell. Days after my grandfather died because of an attack by a cell of terrorists you were incapable of identifying and incapacitating. And I said to you that I had a plan. One part of that was the creation of a war-flotilla, and I recommended this bright young architect to build the Herfjotur. The other part of it was the commission of a new band of soldiers. That was Project Raven, and I am to be its head.”

They’re still staring at her, shocked by her impudence.

Ernesto Gravenost finally speaks, and when he does it’s all wet flapping and rheumy lung-grumble, as if every word first has to pass through a filter of pudding. “We already have a two-pronged approach. We have the Initiative, and we have Herfjotur, which, yes, yes, we have you to thank for that idea and for sending Architect Yong in our direction. We are most gracious. We are prepared to offer you a notable tract of real estate in the Palace Hill District of the Oshadagea—a vineyard, a stable, a small sky-yacht—”

“I don’t
want
a vineyard, or a boat, or a bunch of godsdamn ponies. I want what I have been building to for the last year. I am Dirae to my Harpies, and we are prepared to go to war.” She sneers. “Have you seen the visi-feeds? Have you seen what the animals are up to down there in the dust and the pollen? Yes, the metal men of the Initiative set up a blockade around the Saranyu’s wreckage. But look what happened! The terrorists attacked it. Broke the line. Destroyed a dozen mechanicals. Destroyed a ketch-boat. Killed a dozen more of our guardsmen. Does that
feel
effective to you?”

Ernesto blusters: “We will soon have utter supremacy of land and sky with our Initiative in place and the Herfjotur flying in less than a month—”

“Even if you had those a year ago, would it have stopped the Saranyu from crashing to the Heartland? You can’t stomp ants and think you’ve killed the colony. You need to kill the queen. They have our flotilla and have claimed it as a city. They have the love of the Heartlanders. And now they have
Blighted monsters
fighting for them—monsters who can take apart your precious metal men with barely more than a thought. But sure, of course, let’s keep pretending that every problem is a nail and we have the hammer.” She leers, wild-eyed, feeling a fire going wild inside her. “Sometimes, you need a knife.”

“And you’re that knife?” Fentinue asks.

“Not me. I’m just the handle. My girls, the Harpies, are the blade.”

“But you
are
just girls,” Ernesto says—contained within that sentiment she hears incredulity, but also anger. She can practically hear his thoughts:
How dare these girls think that they can be soldiers for the Empyrean
?

She’s about to let fly with some choice profanities, but it turns out, she doesn’t have to. One of the women present, Miranda Woodwick, lifts her cranelike head and narrows her eyes: “What’s wrong with being female?”

The other two female architects present—Isme D’kard and Ginger Wellington—both nod their heads in agreement.

“Well, it’s not—it’s not just that!” Ernesto blubbers. “They’re
girls
. Children. It’s not fitting for them to become . . . a . . . a
weapon
.”

“I designed the Kingfisher model of ketch-boat when I was fifteen years old,” Miranda says, chin lifted. “What did you do at fifteen, Ernesto? Eat, drink, be merry on the deck of your father’s yacht?”

Ernesto blubbers. “Not all children are eager. I came to my role and my talents in time—”

“I have come to mine now,” Enyastasia says, voice raised. “So let me use my talents for the good of the Empyrean. This is not the time to be soft-handed. I am the handle of the knife. Wield the blade, godsdamnit.” With that last word she pounds the table with the flat of her hand.

They all quietly look to one another, shifting uncomfortably in their seats. Ernesto biting a thumbnail. Jorum squirming like something’s trying to burrow into him from below. Fentinue looking left, right, left, right. “I think it’s time to vote, then, on Project Raven.”

And they vote.

Below, clouds snake along the streets of the Ilmatar flotilla. Some drift up and over the buildings, like a consumptive force. Enyastasia wonders what it would be like to jump. To fall. To
whiff
through those clouds and die a half-moment later. She’s considering it, her hands on the edge, her feet itching to pick her up and carry her over.
Kill yourself. Die. Show them what they lost in you. Let the guilt destroy them
.

But that’s not what would happen. They’d all moo and cluck and bow their heads and shrug. They’d say she was troubled. They’d say her grandfather was addlepated. They’d say her father was a monster.

And then they’d go on feeling plenty justified for voting her down, for killing Project Raven before it ever took flight.

Enyastasia quakes.

Heron is down there, being congratulated. Handshakes pistoning his arm so hard it’s probably about to fall off at the elbow.

All she’s done. For nothing. Just to prop him up.

A presence behind her. A part of her thinks:
Doesn’t matter who it is. Just spin around, grab them, throw them off the edge.
Because whoever approaches isn’t her ally. She has no allies but her Harpies. The scarred-up girls who are daughters to those who died on the Saranyu. Survivors. Like her.

Instead, she waits.

The voice that speaks surprises her.

“I’m sorry about that in there,” Miranda Woodwick says.