The train lurched to life, bringing on more screams as the people on the platform were faced with the realization that there simply wasn’t enough room for all of them. They chased the train. They jumped for the vessel. Some missed, tumbling under the train’s wheels with unsettling thuds. Others managed to find a hold, only to be splattered the second the train entered the narrow tunnel leading out of Faroe.
It seemed like an ocean of black and red blood was going to drown them all.
“Powell…” Florence finally began to catch her breath. “That man…”
“It was you or him.” The Harvester at her side verbally recognized the fact, but he didn’t look at her. He remained focused ahead, looking into the wind that carried only the darkness of the tunnel. “You had no choice.”
“He was of your guild…”
“The rest were as well.” Powell shook his head. “I chose to get the three of you on board.”
“Why?” Florence asked.
“For Loom. I did it for Loom. The Alchemists and Ravens and Revos and Rivets—rusted sickles, they may not have gotten warning. You may be the last ones. As a Mast—As a Fenthri, knowing at least some of my guild escaped, I had an obligation to preserve the widest reach of knowledge. It was my duty…” For now, Florence willingly chose to ignore the idea that she may be the last Raven, or Revolver, alive.
The train shot from the tracks in the dim light of morning. The world was awash in sepia tones of clay and rock. The morning seemed almost peaceful, until Florence looked back at the guild hall they were fleeing at bone-rattling speeds. High above, rainbow trails curved and spiraled. Concentrated magic glimmered down as light.
“Dragon Riders?” Florence remembered what Powell had said, but it made no sense.
Florence watched as a Dragon leapt from a high rooftop, caught by another mid-air. They began to arc and spiral away, uncaring of the trains and people fleeing. They made no effort to pursue.
No, why would they?
Florence realized the truth of it as the very evil in the air iced down the column of her spine. They wanted an audience. They wanted people to see.
She knew what was coming the moment she saw the wide canister lofted above a Rider’s head. But Florence still screamed. She screamed before anyone else, because she had seen those canisters before. Hidden away one of the dark nights that she studied in the Revolvers’ Guild proper, she had laid eyes on them as every Revolver should at a certain point in their studies. They were a testament to the truth of the Revolvers—that just because they could, did not mean they should.
The bomb fell like a dark omen against a silver sky.
Seconds stretched on as she watched it plummet toward the guild. It was so tiny from her vantage that it was almost as if she could reach out and pluck it from the air. But she couldn’t. She could only watch, and hold her breath.
A flash of blinding light, brighter than any day. A wave of heat and air that jostled the train itself. An explosion of magic and chemicals so loud that it silenced all else in the moments to come, both demanding and earning a committed audience.
The top of the guild shuddered and groaned, toppling like the building toys of a toddler Rivet. It began to fall in large pieces as they tumbled away from what had been the epicenter of all supplies for Loom. The room she had learned about with Powell—gone. How many records of their resources, the very lifeblood of Loom, had been lost? The true shock waves of the day were going to reverberate long into the future, long after her cheeks dried and her ears stopped ringing.
But the Dragons spared no kindness. Secondary explosions rang out from deep within the guild. The walls exploded outward, tumbling the very foundation upon which the oldest city in Loom was built.
Faroe was tumbling and with it went all those who weren’t safely on a train, whizzing away. Florence’s mind returned to those who had entered the worker’s tunnels with them, the souls who had sprinted into the darkness and would never find a way out.
The riders watched as the walls shuddered and shook. They stayed long enough to see the spiderweb fractures pop and split into existence. And then they left, as behind them the guild crumbled and burned and violently exploded, reduced to nothing more than rubble and smoke.
Florence watched with the rest of them, with every other Fenthri who screamed and sobbed and then stared silently in horror, at a complete loss for all emotions. They watched as the Dragons razed the first guild of Loom. The Dragons, who had always claimed to be their saviors, their guiding hands, demolished one of the five fundamental pillars upon which their world stood.
Florence burned the image into her mind with the heat of rage. She watched as the city of Faroe crumbled and fell into the hungry abyss that surrounded it.
36. Arianna
They spent most of the night on that island.
It had been a long time since Arianna had covered her concerns with the warmth and flesh of another. She’d never make a habit of it, but there was something to be said for it. To want and be wanted. To need, to desire, to delight in another and feel that same delight. They moved well together, for a copious number of reasons, and Arianna turned off her mind and let herself simply be.
The flowers bloomed for only a short period of time, but they didn’t need light for the acts they performed. When the time came to mount the boco again, she found herself lamenting the end of the short quiet in the storm that was her life. She dared to say she enjoyed the peace she’d come to find with Cvareh.
But that was precisely the problem. They were at peace only when they didn’t think about what their unconventional relationship really meant. The moment she dedicated thought to it was the moment she realized its true folly. They had pulled the trigger and the bullet could not be caught. It was shot to kill, and they would both be right in its path. The question was, did she push him out of the way, and shoulder the pain on her own? Or did she pull him before her?
Arianna rested her cheek in the middle of Cvareh’s back, watching the clouds swirl effortlessly beneath them. She wished she could see Loom, however small and insignificant it was from Nova’s vantage. She missed her home and its industrial sensibilities.
There had been no word or rumor from Loom. The fact didn’t surprise her, given the logistics of communication between the two realms, but she worried for Florence. The girl was no doubt involved in the rebellion and the very fact put her in danger. Arianna hoped she was merely oiling guns in the Alchemists’ Guild hall. But knowing Florence, the likelihood of that was slim.
The world would only ever be safe when the Dragons no longer attempted to rule Loom. For as long as they did, Loom would bend and break, rebellions would creep up, the dream of bygone days would flower into bloody conflict. She knew she had reached her decision when they landed in the manor.
“It’s quiet,” Cvareh observed as they headed for her chambers.
“Perhaps they are still in Easwin?” Arianna proposed, quickly changing the topic to what weighed on her. “Cvareh, I have decided that I will help your sister.”