These walls, her guards, were oddly shaped, however, and they let Florence see a picture that Arianna knew didn’t quite make sense. Ari had told Florence of her hatred for the Dragons and everything that the wretched creatures wrought. Flor was smart enough to also know that Ari was a woman on a mission. She’d likely figured that much out from their first meeting.
Not a single day had gone by in the two years she’d been around Florence that Arianna wasn’t silently haunted by the ghost of her failed mission. The banner had fallen upon her shoulders, weighted by guilt amid the winds of change that swept across Loom. It was the only thing that still truly mattered in her world—or would have been, if she hadn’t met Flor. It was an unfinished portrait that would now be the masterpiece of her revenge. And it was missing one brush stroke—a stroke a Dragon could give.
They had stopped walking and by the way Florence was staring at her, it had been Arianna who had halted their forward progress. Arianna reached out and laced her fingers with the girl’s. She looked at her apprentice in the way she reserved to signal the imminent announcement of the final word on a matter.
“I need this boon, Flor, because there is something he can give me. I will never be free until I finish what I made myself for. And, as much as I abhor the fact, it’s something he can provide.”
9. Cvareh
The train had become a moving tomb, the compartment his coffin. Cvareh had never had much of an opinion on the mechanical boxes that whizzed around Loom like hornets on unknown missions, but he was quickly finding one. He was about to go mad—or maybe he already had. For on the third morning, he found himself debating the fact with his favorite diamond shape in the corner of the ceiling.
There had been no magic whatsoever on the trip. That was a strong and fast rule from the great and always correct Arianna. Sarcasm and eye rolling aside, Cvareh didn’t actually disagree with the mandate. They seemed to have managed to give the Riders the slip by some miracle, and using any magic would only increase their chances of discovery.
He glanced over at the woman known as the White Wraith and wondered if the magic he’d imbibed from her helped mask his own. Or perhaps she had treated the inside of that bunker with some unknown substance and the Riders lost the trail. Cvareh was learning that his traveling companion had a knack for being two steps ahead and one calculation over-planned.
She also had a knack for being more annoying than a no-title upstart determined to gain rank through a back-alley duel. There wasn’t a thing Cvareh could say that wasn’t countered in some way. Honest questions were responded to with bitter retorts. It had him seriously wondering if he had somehow hurt this woman in a past life.
He rested his temple back on the wood by the window. He hadn’t changed his clothes in days—days! And he hadn’t left the room for more than the call of nature, and even that was with an escort. He felt like a prisoner on the run. Which, when he considered it, was almost exactly what he was. Though if he was caught, he’d be killed on sight rather than imprisoned.
The world outside the window had changed dramatically. Dortam was land-locked, nestled in a valley in the center of mountains. For a day and a half, they’d wound around narrow tracks high above sheer cliff faces. Overnight, however, the land had flattened and the train picked up speed as it shot out of tall hills and toward the flattening coast.
They passed towns and small villages that crept up out of nowhere and went running away toward the horizon as soon as the train passed. One or two times, they stopped at a small platform and a few people got off—fewer got on. But everything went as smoothly as butter gliding across a hot pan.
In his moments of frustration, Cvareh bemoaned Ari’s existence. But the farther he got from Dortam, the more he realized his spur of the moment decision to ask her to take him to the Alchemists was a wise one. He knew nothing of this world or its people. He didn’t know why the thin grasses grew so feebly, a pale yellow gray color rather than the vibrant viridescent to which he was accustomed. He didn’t know why men and women buttoned and bundled themselves like swaddled babes, barely showing any skin—often times not even their hands.
He couldn’t tell the highborn from the low. And it was difficult to discern who had wealth and power from those who didn’t. Everything looked much the same as everything else. Ornamentation on rooftops and windows was fine, but not outdone. Nothing stood out, nothing fell apart. New Dortam had been a world away from Nova, and even that was more similar to the cities he was accustomed to than these rural towns.
It was small wonder the Dragon King demanded all Fenthri be marked with their guild rank. Without it, there would be no way to tell them all apart or make sense of their backwards society. He kept such thoughts to himself, of course, as they were certain to upset his present company.