Lapis leaned against the snowy rock face, hands to her chest, bundled so only a small slit for sight remained between her purple scarf and matching hood. Her finger smoothed the edge of her left gauntlet, though if she had to trigger the blade snug inside them, she did not think she could move fast enough in the plump coat to strike.
Tumbling snow and dirt showered the ledge, the only sound besides birds on the overcast day. She peered up to check whether anything else skidded over the cliff’s edge and snugged back up to it. Cloister priests once used the tongue of stone sticking out of the mountain as a platform to speak to the Stars followers on important ceremonial occasions. The devotees needed to see the night sky during certain times of year, and Maphezet Kez wanted a space where he could sit and view the twinkles in comfort, rather than stand, straining his neck to see.
Or so Tuft said.
She slid her eyes to the right. The Shivers khentauree stood near the bush-concealed entrance to the ledge, arms folded, still as an icicle but for his flowing hair and tail, which waved in the gusty wind, transparent and ethereal. A touch of misty splendor hovered around his shimmery silver upper torso and four-legged chassis, sparkles of ice winking in and out. To match his chilly appearance, he had replaced the red shoulder marks with frosty blue streaks and his forehead jewelry with a diadem of silver chains and sapphires. Glass dagger earrings brushed his neck, and silver and storm-blue bangles hung from his wrists, while cuffs decorated each of his legs above the hooves. Such a beautiful presentation, for an unbeautiful mechanical being.
Snow blew with the wind, sending a shower of white across the clearing. She shoved stray bits of black hair back under the hood and looked at the remaining ashy residue marring the drifts. It led to the two Swifts that crashed during their first encounter with Tuft, both of which had taken out several trees and dislodged soil when they struck the short rock face to the northeast.
She silently thanked the non-existent gods that Lorcan had not selected her to sift through the debris to see if any tech remained viable. The Abastion rebels who did, said the Red Trident mercs looked as if they survived the crash, but not the ensuing fire, and she hated thinking about scratching at windows and doors that refused to open while flames seared her clothes and skin.
Especially since she had already crashed in a flying machine, and was about to take a flight in another.
Patch shifted, and she glanced at him; he, too, leaned against the rock face, arms folded, his blond locks flitting about in the wind. His lid drooped over his blue eye, and she nudged him with her elbow.
“You need sleep, more than you need to be out here,” she told him.
He shrugged, his gaze drifting to Tuft, and his black eyepatch whirled with tiny blue lights before the pattern slowed and ended. Grumbling to herself, she tipped her head back and thrummed her fingers against her chest. He stood in the brisk cold because she kept Tuft company—and she did not trust the khentauree to play nice.
“They said he was ready,” Tuft muttered in an impatient, fuzzy staccato. He had demanded to know when Dreamer finished the transfer from his damaged, house-sized chassis into the smaller blank, and when Jhor contacted them to tell them the initial download had completed and they would take the eager khentauree to a Cloister exit, he demanded to watch as the once tera-khent entered the outside for the first time.
“You could ask Sanna about it,” Lapis said. Khentauree, after all, had the wondrous ability to speak to each other through their internal communication devices.
Tuft lifted his front legs, adjusted his stance, and stilled again. “No.”
Patch raised his eyebrow, and Lapis silently thanked him for not laughing. The khentauree’s furious yells ricocheted off the Cloister’s walls when he realized the Swift that would take them to Dentheria needed to outwait a snowstorm, and Sanna, annoyed at his response, yelled in turn—and every being other than Jhor who stood in hearing distance shut up, bowed their head, and scurried to shelter.
Even Tuft. When he next spoke with the Ambercaast khentauree, he remained monotone, quiet, polite. Lapis did not blame him. She had no idea what dwelled within Sanna’s voice that caused both humans and khentauree to quake, but something dark swam within it. Dark enough, that Dreamer listened to her and kept his peace, rather than roaring about the slowness of the transfer.
Well, Sanna might intimidate her at times, but Lapis had no qualms about asking her a simple question. She pulled a square tech device from her pocket; it was a button and a speaker, nothing fancy, but she could contact Jhor with it.
“It is fine,” Tuft insisted, slapping his hand over her wrist to stop her. She tensed at the touch.
Echoes rose from the cave, and they looked down and to the right.
A khentauree cautiously stepped from the frozen opening and into the knee-deep snow, picking up their hooves with dainty lifts, their arms spread wide for balance. Their head rotated around with deliberate slowness, taking in the view as they moved further and further from the exit. Dreamer? Likely. Two khentauree accompanied him, and Lapis did not recognize them. She assumed they were members of Luveth’s congregation, the ones who prayed to the Stars with her because humans coded them to do so over a thousand years ago.
Lapis withdrew her hand, leaned over, and waved at the group clustered in the cave’s mouth. Jhor stood next to Sanna, a device lodged in his armpit as he attempted to tuck his shoulder-length brown hair behind his ears. Sanna had her hands on her hips and one knee bent so she could tap the tip of her front right hoof against the rocky ground; had Dreamer annoyed her? Linz waved back, and from their smirky expression, she bet the mechanical being had done something that he would eventually regret.
A snowflake drifted past her nose. She looked up as a few more wafted down, then back to Dreamer.
He raised his hands high, palms up to catch the bits of ice, just like a small child. His head tipped back, and a cyan glow formed in the center of his forehead, swirling slowly. He closed his fingers and brought the snow to his chest, then opened them and stared at his palm. A guttural, grating sound came from him, and Lapis frowned. Did the chassis protest being out in the snow and cold?
“He cries,” Tuft said softly.
“Cries?” Lapis clasped her hands to her breast as tears stuck to her eyelashes. She had not realized khentauree could cry.
“Happiness overwhelms him.” Tuft dropped his arms, his shoulders sagging. “His sole wish was to go outside. He never stopped dreaming of it, though he despaired he would go to silence and never experience it. He sees wonder, a new world, vast in possibility.” A crackle escaped from him. “I see the same mountains, the same caves, feel the same hate for the humans who shuttered us within and forced us to honor their worship centuries after their deaths.”
He bowed his head, his fingers curling into loose fists. Did he realize, that Dreamer’s pain was his own? “He’s right,” Lapis murmured. “The world is vast in possibility. It may not seem like it, considering how humans treated you, but there are wonders waiting for you, you just have to step beyond the known.”
“Wonders? I wish to experience a new world, but I do not know what places there are, or how to reach them.”
Did he? If she had been stuck in a cave by human decree for several centuries, she would want to vacate, too.
Her gaze drifted to Dreamer, who bent and cupped a handful of snow, rose, crumbled it, then let the clumps trickle through his fingers. Did Tuft yearn to breach the unknown? Did he want to delight in life beyond the network of stifling caves and sour memories?
“Depends if you want to stick to this area, or explore further,” Patch said. He did not seem upset at the direction of the conversation, but thoughtful. “You’ve met Lorcan. He’s in charge of Ragehill, and he’ll welcome a visiting khentauree. If you want to travel further but stick with something familiar, you can visit Jilvayna. Ambercaast is another mine, so not as different as you may think, even if it’s populated by both khentauree and terrons. And if you want to visit Jiy, Faelan will put you up.”
Lapis disliked the thought of Tuft getting upset with her brother and freezing him to the rebel House’s floor, but his interest in the khentauree’s icy abilities would prompt him to issue an invitation.
Tuft cocked his head. “Visit Jiy.” He returned to the scene below, as Sanna made her way to Dreamer and slipped an arm around his shoulders. She coaxed him to turn, and they walked back to the cave, trailed by the attending khentauree. Dreamer swiveled his head back and forth while he continued to cry, as if he could not get enough of the sight. “What is Jiy like?”
“It’s in the foothills of the Neliyvos Mountains. It gets snow, but not as much, or as cold, as here,” Lapis said, annoyed at her partner for bringing it up. “The Wrain River runs in the middle of it. It has a population of about five hundred thousand, not counting the outlying areas. The mansion my brother’s living in is on the west side of the river, and it has guest houses out back you can use while visiting. Ghost sent an envoy to Jiy. Her name is Path, and she lives in one of those houses. She’d love to show you around.”
“An envoy?” Did she hear a tinge of hope in his voice? “Now that we are exposed, envoys would be good. Vision says we must make allies, because the vicious will return if we do not, and the khentauree will suffer.” He swiveled his head to regard her and Patch. “Vision is comfortable here. She knows the outside world beyond what we perceive and wishes to stay within rather than explore outwards. She is odd, but she will stand as a leader that the Cloister and the Shivers can look to, someone unaffiliated with Luveth and Dedi and the religion they hate but uphold.”
“The Shivers khentauree see you as a strong and trustworthy leader,” Patch said.
“But the Cloister does not. Ill words backed by ill intent are not so easily broken. Some of the Shivers are wary of Vision, but no one doubts she wants the khentauree to succeed and live without the yoke of the Stars and Ree-god’s hand.” He looked above their heads. “Luthier is already at Ragehill. She should be the envoy. She will report to Vision, and I will find a new world elsewhere.”
A hum filled the air. A sleek black Swift with red running lights flew over the clearing, heading for a landing pad they shoveled the night before.
Patch popped from the rock face and shoved his hands into his trench pockets. The black leather was a cool look, but Lapis preferred to remain warm rather than stylish. Her partner could freeze his face into berry-red all he wanted, complete with a runny nose and watery eyes, and she would keep to her thick, unattractive coat and roast.
“Looks like the Swift’s arrived,” he said.
With every step, dread grew in Lapis’s breast as they made their way inside and to the temple Luveth once used for services. Shara, the Minq Syndicate underboss in Jiy, had graciously provided a quick, maneuverable flying craft for their small infiltration group because she anticipated catching a rival through their work. It seemed difficult but doable in thought, to sneak into Dentheria, locate a guarded enemy headquarters, rescue kidnapped khentauree and a seedy techie, and return with relevant information.
Difficult and doable, like everything else that she experienced since her older brother re-entered her life. Faelan had upended her every day, and she had yet to decide if she appreciated or despised the excitement and adventure.
She slipped from the over-warm outerwear once they reached their staked bench. Before the chill penetrated her, Patch opened his trench and wrapped it around her, drawing her close. She snuggled into him, and he kissed her static-wild hair before burying his face in her shoulder. Her partner, her rock, her base; she needed to soak in his confidence because if she did not, setting foot on the Swift would be an excruciating endeavor.
