The moment they arrived at the factory’s entrance, where the Rivets had gone ahead early to begin manufacturing the corona-blasting guns, Florence knew every sickening concern was founded.
Bodies littered the ground, soaked in black and crimson. Blood formed small rivers in the grooves between the stones of the street. Fenthri and Chimera alike, most bearing Alchemist and Rivet markings, all had the distinct slash marks that came with Dragon talons. A startling few had guns on their person. It was a slaughter of noncombatants that set Florence’s mouth into a grim line.
All movement had stilled around her and every living eye was on the large factory doors, pulled shut. Upon them, written with the smear of a large palm, was a message in blood.
“To Florence, with love,” Emma read from her side. “What do we do now?”
Florence stared at the door for another long moment, as though it were the Dragon King himself. “We do what Loom is best at. We clean up the mess the Dragons have left us, and we get back to work.”
Cvareh
“She would be impressed.” Poiris folded his arms over his chest and looked out onto the refinery floor that wasn’t much of a refinery anymore.
“Do you think so?” Cvareh rested his hands on the window sill.
Below, the floor that had been mostly dark since its creation now glowed with life as men and women flitted about from one machine to the next. His eyes tracked over each of the Fenthri, and he silently practiced each of their names. It was something small, but he hoped it would be enough to show Arianna that he had begun to take seriously the idea of Fenthri as equals on Nova.
“Petra wanted to see this place come to life. It was a grand vision that now means something. Yes, I think so.”
“Thank you.” Cvareh gave his friend a tired smile. His shoulders felt like they sagged a little deeper just from expending the energy to do so. “She wanted it to make gold.”
“She couldn’t have foreseen that we needed it for a much greater purpose. More than anything, Petra wanted it to be useful.” Poiris had a working relationship with his sister that Cvareh had only glimpsed briefly. This had been Petra’s pet project; were it not for Poiris, Cvareh would’ve had a hard time assuming the mantle, going in blind.
“Useful, it is.”
“To think, we underestimated them for so long.” Poiris’s eyes were on the Fenthri. “Thinking them lesser. Thinking we had things to teach them and order to bring. We had a lot more to learn.”
“I wouldn’t say that . . .” Cvareh’s eyes fell on one woman in particular, who nearly stopped all movement on the floor with her white-haired, nearly ethereal presence.
Arianna was a force to be reckoned with. Respected among Fenthri and feared among Dragons alike for her knowledge, she commanded loyalty with an ease Cvareh didn’t think she even recognized. With him as Dono and her at his side, they could rule the world together.
Do I want that?
It had long since stopped being about what either of them wanted.
“Why is that?” Poiris pulled Cvareh from his thoughts.
“Why is—oh, because as much as we have to learn from them, they need to learn from us.” Cvareh thought of Arianna when she first landed on Nova, the things she questioned. Was it fair for him to think that she was better off for having her world expanded beyond the cold logic that governed Loom?
“Well, call me greased,” Arianna said as she opened the door. “This damn near looks respectable.”
“Are you surprised?” Poiris asked, his chest puffing like a bird ruffling its feathers.
“With this one at the helm?” Arianna motioned to Cvareh. “Yes.”
“I don’t think—”
Cvareh merely chuckled and allowed the sound to diffuse Poiris’s tension into confusion. “Poiris, all is well. Please excuse my mate and I.”
Arianna arched her eyebrows, a silent question.
Naming her as such extended her all the respect and protections that came with his own status. But he couldn’t deny the quiet thrill that hummed through him at the notion.
With Poiris departed, Arianna dropped her bag into a heap by the door, empty. The tubes it carried had already been handed off to be filled anew with flowers. “Your mate. Sounds serious.”
“It’s not,” he lied.
“You’re lying.”
She could be very frustrating. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing does unless we win.”
“Until we win,” she corrected and stared out down at the Fenthri. “They’re doing a good job, seem happy enough.”
“When the war is over, every Fenthri who wishes to return home to Loom will be ferried back. The ones who don’t will be treated the same as any Dragon.”
“None will want to stay.”
She sounded as if she had every confidence, but Cvareh wasn’t so sure. In the hybrid world that existed just beyond the horizon, there was a place for Fenthri on Nova to maintain the various mechanizations that would no doubt crop up across their landscape. The mere idea brought a smile to Cvareh’s mouth.
“What?”
“What?” he echoed.
“That smile.”
“Just imagining a Nova with Fenthri, and machines.”
Arianna snorted. “The likelihood of that happening is about the same as the Alchemists giving up dissections.”
“I don’t think so.” He leaned against the glass, following her stare. Even now, Dragons were beginning to walk among the Fenthri, work among them. “Plus, for the longevity of one world, we’d better hope that we get along enough to live on land or sky.”
“Well, we will be living in both places soon, as Loom is about ready to ferry Perfect Chimera.”
“How many?” Cvareh didn’t even bother to hide his desperation.
“Ten.”
Ten, the word echoed. “That’s not nearly enough.”
“It will have to be.”
“Ari—”
“Loom isn’t sending anyone who isn’t ready to fight. If we send them up here prematurely, they will be slaughtered.”
“It’s my people who are being slaughtered right now.” He knew it was a faulty argument, but he couldn’t stop himself. Logic and emotion didn’t always work well together.
“Loom could always, instead, just fortify ourselves and leave Xin to fight alone.”
Shock started with his mouth and rattled up to his brain. “You’d condemn us to death?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Isn’t it?” Cvareh pushed off from the sill and stepped into her personal space. He stared down at her, working to ignore the familiar scents of her. “You’d leave me to die by Rok’s hand?”
Arianna stared up at him. Her chin stretched forward, as though she was about to fight him. But then her brow softened. What looked like conflict overcame her features, and Cvareh no longer had any idea what was going through the woman’s mind. He loathed the distance that had come between them, though he couldn’t quite identify when the chasm had started to form.
Cvareh never had the opportunity to find out her answer.
“Attack on the western side of Ruana!” Cain skidded to a stop in the open doorway. His eyes narrowed at Arianna and hers narrowed in reply, the defensive expression instantly back on her face.