Goldblood

TW; Heavy Gore and Sexual Violence

………………………………....…........Chapter One……….....……………………………….

It’s cold and pitch black here. The walls press in on me from both sides, the narrow never ending hallway stretching out further than even I can see. I keep walking. Further, and further, and deeper, and darker down into the black.

I am in the Gruesrackle, I know that, but I can not remember how I got here. And just as certainly as I know through which dark halls I walk, I know why; the Fourth Generation are here. It is a blood-and-bone knowledge, so obvious to me now that I can hardly believe I had ever denied it.

So I continue to walk. There are no turns, forks, or doorways, only the eternal stretch of hallway. I keep my eyes and ears sharp, but nothing stirs in this night black. I keep walking. Somewhere down here is the Tomb, and in it the sleeping Fourth Generation, and I know that if I walk long enough I will find it, and them.

Suddenly something skitters along the floor behind me. I turn to look but see nothing, only more empty black. I wait for a moment, seeing if anything will appear, then decide that it must have been a rat or some other foul pest. What else would I expect from the King’s dungeon? I turn again to continue walking, but I stop short--out of the darkness, a pair of green eyes stare at me.

A young woman stands only a pace away from me, staring with naked curiosity. I stare back, and neither of us say a word. Her hair falls in soft black waves all the way down to her hips, and her eyes are the soft green of the sea. She is lean, and tall, and though there are no signs at all, somehow I know who she is.

A Four-Gen.

My sister.

The girl does not startle as I go to take her hand, only watches me with those wide eyes. I test the weight of it, and her hand is warm and just as heavy as I knew it would be. I feel the subtle movements of her gears and bearings as her fingers flutter, and my heart soars. The pulse of her blood pumps against my skin, and I know that it will glimmer gold, just like mine.

I am so certain I don’t even cut her to be sure, I only pull her against me and hold her tight. A laugh, light and free and relieved and delighted bubbles out of me. The girl still doesn’t speak, but when I pull her back to look at her again, she is smiling too.

“Where are the others?” I ask her quickly. I want to collect them and bring them far, far away from this place, as quickly as I can.

“The others?” She asks, and her words are clumsy and thick in her mouth. Maybe the first she’s spoken, if she’s only just been woken up.

“When you woke up, there should have been other girls like you, still sleeping.” I explain slowly.

“I woke...in the dark.There were no...others. Just me.” She says. “Who are you?”

“My name is Gleo,” I say, softly. “I’m a Valkyrie, like you.”

“Valkyrie?” She asks, and I can see some of the cloudy confusion lifting from her eyes.

“Yes, Valkyrie. We’re warriors, protectors of the Castle.”

“We..." She repeats. “Where are the rest?” She asks.

“The others, the Second and Third-Generation, are in the Citadel. It’s our home, and they’re all waiting to meet you.” I tell her, and I take her gently by the arm and begin walking again. Her first few steps are shaky, but then she keeps stride with me easily.

“Waiting to meet me?”

“You, and your sisters. The whole Fourth-Generation.”

“And we’re going to find the rest now.” She says, more an observation than a question this time.

“Yes. The rest of them will be in a place called the Tomb. We’ll go wake them up, and we’ll all leave together.”

“Why are they in the Tomb, if the Citadel is our home?” She asks.

“The Castle…” I sigh. I don’t know where to begin. “The Castle is ruled by a very cruel man. When the Valkyrie tried to depose him, he waged a terrible and bloody war on us. He knew he could not win against us, so in the end, the coward stole you from us.

“He took the entire Fourth generation, who were still sleeping, and hid you in the Tomb, so that he could hold your lives over the heads of the others and force us to be slaves. It’s been a long time since then, but now I’ve found you, and it’s my Purpose to bring you back where you belong.”

“So I am… Fourth-Generation.” She says. “What are you?”

“I am Fourth-Generation, too.” I tell her, another burst of joy lighting up my chest. “I have been the only one of us awake for almost thirty years, but now you’re here too, and we’ll soon go wake the others.”

“And what happened to the King?” She asks.

“He is still the King, but not for long. Once I bring you back, we’ll kill him, and we’ll leave the Castle forever, as nothing more than ashes and cinders.”

“Where will we go, Gleo?” She asks, and I hear the voice of all the Valkyrie layered together in her words.

“We will go to a place called Ibellum.” I tell her. “It is another of the Great Cities, and it is the most beautiful place in the world. The walls are made of ossgold and rubies, and the streets are open to the sky. It’s built in an oasis in the Triangle Sea, and the Matriarchs who rule there are good and fair.”

As I weave the words, the walls of the tunnel fall away and the blue sky emerges. I feel the hot wind on my face, and watch it toss the girl’s silk synthair around her body. She looks down at the city, and a smile spreads across her face. It truly is beautiful, shaded by tall trees and bubbling with clear streams of water.

She is beautiful, too, I think. Her raven synthair gleams in the sun, and the green of her eyes glows like aquamarine against her honeygold skin. For the first time too I note her nakedness. We all wake naked, but now my eyes cling to the lean sloping angles of her. My gaze lingers on the graceful divot at her hips, the flat expanse of her shoulderblades and the pink swell of her nipples.

Without meaning too, without asking or commanding my hand to move, it reaches for her. My fingertips themselves ache to brush over her skin, and they hover a synthair’s breadth away. My heart hammers against my steel ribs. Finally, I am not alone. Finally, there is someone I could love. I savor the warmth of her, radiating from her, when she turns to me. She meets my eyes and the smile falls off her face.

She takes a step backwards, away from me. I open my mouth to apologize, to tell her that I didn’t mean to get so ahead of myself, but before I can, she screams. We are back in the dark hall of the Gruesrackle, and the noise of her wailing shatters off the walls again and again until it is the only thing I can hear now or have ever heard before.

And now it is not my hand but dozens that crawl over her skin, groping and pulling and peircing her with needles. She screams again, and looks desperately to me for help, but I can not move. I thrash and kick and struggle in my mind, but my body will not move. I can only watch as her gold blood dribbles down her body, and add my screams to hers.

Then everything falls away, and it is only darkness and the calamitous wailing. It grows louder and more insistent, until I can only cover my ears and let the sound break the world around me into splinters.

I break into wakefulness desperate and furious and blindly confused. It takes me a few moments to find the source of the ringing, the discordant noise still scraping against my ears. When I finally realize that the noise is, in fact, just my alarm-bird, I reach over and snap it off. I sigh deeply into the dark. I know that it was only a dream...but a horrible, desperate feeling follows me.

I take a deep breath and shake it off as the details of the dream fade into fragments and muddy shadows. I never remember my dreams for long, though today the color of sea-green remains in my mind. I rub the last of the sleep from my eyes--and now fully into waking, I feel a small pang of guilt for being so rough with the little alarm-bird. I wonder briefly if it dreams, too, but I know it does not; we may both be made of gears, but there is no life behind it’s eyes.

I sigh deeply again as I sit up and stretch my arms above my head, squeezing all the sleep-stiffness out of my muscles. The sky outside my single small window is still dark, with barely a hint of grey on the horizon. The concrete walls have trapped the nighttime chill and the room is cold enough that I shiver.

It is a small bare room, occupied only by my thin sleeping mat, my grotesquely large wardrobe, and the chest that I brought with me from the Citadel. I hate this room deeply, not for anything that it is, but for everything that is isn’t. There is no incense burning here, no tapestries or prayer flags, no tall windows to let in bright breaths of sunlight. There are no bookshelves, no treasures of art or weaponsmithing, no instruments or puzzles.

And most grievously, there are no other Valkyries. I am alone, and no Valkyrie is meant to live alone. I know this because the absence of their warmth and the sound of their breathing is like a chasm in my chest, empty and weeping. I am only a shadow apart from my sisters and my mothers.

But I can not indulge myself in this self-pity. I know, I remember, how it will consume me if I let it. So like I do every morning, I remind myself that this is a choice I made--and I will see my Purpose through to its end. And then we will all be together, and whole.

So I push myself to my feet, and with the pull of my Purpose heavy in my bones I diligently begin my morning Saharpories. I begin with a luxurious set of Votion-stretches; the Two-Gen mothers have always said that I take too much time with this section, but the memory of their scolding is almost a comfort to me with their voices so seldom in my ears these days. The blood rushes around in me delightfully, and my joints loosen one by one until I am warm and limber.

Next I begin the Senances. These too the mothers have always chided me on, that I rush through them and do not take my time. The point of a Senance is to feel the movement of one’s body, to feel it’s connection with the energy of the world, and to practice quiet deliberation and peace of mind. At least, this is what they tell me. To me the movements are agonizingly slow, and I cut them short more often than not.

Then come the Parages, and though they are repetitive at least they feel useful. I enjoy the feeling of my muscles straining against the weight of my body as I lower and lift myself in increasingly difficult positions. In the Citadel there are balconies all the way up to the towering ceiling, and we would make games of tumbling and lifting around the highest ones. My small room doesn’t have a bar of any sort, so I make do with the ledge above my door to pull myself up on until my arms and fingers burn.

Finally, I begin my Advellions. Though my body still hums with the exertion of the Parages, I begin the forms with clear-minded focus and total precision. I begin slowly, turning and twisting carefully through the footwork and timing my outbreaths with my strikes, first with my bare hands, then my training knives, then my downstaves, and finally with my sword. The feel of it is pure pleasure to me. No loneliness, anger, or fear can invade me here.

When I lived in the Citadel still, the others would often come to watch me practice; the Two-Gen Mothers, blessed with wisdom and fire as they were, could never match my speed--and many of them still bore injuries from the war besides. And among the Three-Gens, not one of them had my precision or fluidity. Amidst the continent’s greatest conclave of warriors, I could not be out-dueled.

It fills me with pride to think about. I continue to practice, honing the edge of my skill as sharp as my blades, pushing my body to be faster and more precise. I lose myself in the movement, and the ache and the sweat of my body, and for a little while I feel myself again. Too soon though the dawn light begins to brighten my room, and I know it’s time to begin the grating process of prettifying myself. Reluctantly I place my training knives away in their cases, and stow my downstaves in the chest.

I open my wardrobe and see nothing I would ever choose to wear. I took precious few of my clothes with me from the Citadel, and what I do have is folded in my weapons chest. In my wardrobe are only dresses, a meaningless array of colors and fabrics and cuts that coordinate with my many pairs of useless, involted shoes. I pick one at random, and put it on with a sense of defeat. The long too-tight gown clings to me uncomfortably, and it shifts in the light in a way that renders my figure much too sistine.

It amazes me that the Butterfly Princess and the other Ladies at court can stand to have the fabric tugging their thighs together like this--or the clinging eyes of the men of the Castle--but they always seem comfortable. I carefully wipe away the sweat of my Saharpories, and I apply my pigment like they do, and style my synthair into a great tumbling mess of curls and braids like them, and look in my cracked mirror and I know deep down in my gold-metal heart that I will never look like them.

Still, I plaster on my brightest smile, because I do not have the luxury of standing out. My steel-frame skeleton is the secret buried underneath my skin that they must never suspect. The Valkyries, though we are automatons that run on gears and fiber-muscles, look outwardly like any flesh-and-blood humanesque. There is no seam in my soft skin to betray me to the king’s court--only my traitor heart that aches to be free of this costume and charade.

It tires me to measure my steps and slow my movements. To speak softly, to let the niskip men hold open doors and lift things for me, to look into the face of the Bastard King and never let my hatred show; but I have to blend in, because I must sit on the King’s council, and do what I can to defend our interests as we work to free ourselves. And so even as the responsibility I’ve been entrusted with humbles me, the idea of spending yet another day in the court of the King wearies my gears.

When I reach the atrium where the great pendulum swings, I’m happy to find that I have time to skip down to the Found for a quick breakfast. Of course, the food itself holds little appeal for me; I can eat, and do to keep up appearances, but the perpetual-motion core in my chest requires no sustenance at all. But Chypru will be there, and her company is worth the long walk up and down the stairs.

The Found rests at the ground floor of the Castle, sprawling across it in an untidy circle. The kitchens frame its outside edges, and the long dining tables are situated inside the ring of heat and noise and smells. It is not busy at this time of day--most of the provist will have already eaten their breakfast and taken to work, and the voysias will not rise until after the sun does. The other nobles don’t visit the Found at all, prefering to keep private cooks that live and work in their two-story estates. But I am only a noble in the shallowest sense of the word.

It was part of the bargain that Cassaphine and the other Two-Gen Mothers struck with the King at the end of the bloody rebellion, now three centuries past; one Valkyrie would always sit on the King’s council, which necessitated she hold the title of Lady. That, of course, did not mean we would be treated like one. The small bare room that I live in is the same one that Sylvis, the last secret ambassador of the Valkyrie, did.

Sylvis was a hero, who died in the last scavenger-siege thirty three years ago. I was woken soon after to take her place, and after ten happy years in the Citadel, I inherited her chafing mantle. In the early years, newly robbed of my family and my home, I clung steadfastly to my dark isolation. I cared only for my Purpose and what time I could steal to visit the Citadel. Chypru was the first person to show me any kindness, though I was nothing more than a stranger to her, and we fell quickly into friendship. And as always, my spirits lift as I find her finishing her breakfast at edge of the Found, and I skip down the zig-zag stairs as fast as my spindle-shoes will allow.

Chypru is a bright and kind woman, and she smiles widely when she sees me. It still makes me warm to know that I can put such a smile on her face, and I find myself smiling in return. I sit down across from her and easily accept the half of roll that she pushes towards me--she’s also tripple-stubborn, and I’ve learned to pick my battles.

“Good morning, Gleo.” She says as I chew. “You look nice today.”

I roll my eyes dramatically at her, and she giggles; we both agree that the court fashions are niskip. I look longingly at her soft cottinn clothes, remembering how comfortable they are. Chypru lives by herself in one of the illar-west lodgings, and is always happy to share her clothes when I visit.

“Good to see you too, Chyp.” I say, smiling indulgently around a bite of my roll. “You figure out your song problem yet?”

“Ah, yes I did!” She says, her face lighting up immediately. “I managed to work out the eloblane part last night, I just needed to put a little more stress on the high notes. You should come over tonight and give it a listen.”

“I’d be happy to.” I say, and I’m glad to have something to look forward to after this involted meeting. Chypru is a gifted musician, and listening to her is always a pleasant way to pass an evening. I almost wish I was a real noble just so I could patron her.

“Perfect!” She beams, “I’ll see if I can get Uphen to give me some more of those scratch-drop candies, too.”

“Those are my favorite.” I say, though in truth they’re no better or worse than any other food. It was a spur-of the moment lie from years ago, but I like them now just because she always gets them for me. “And I can bring you some more crossicons, too.”

“Ah, now you’re just trying to bribe me, Gleo.” She teases, and I flash her a conspiratorial smile and take another bite of my roll.

“You know,” she continues, “if you want me to set you up with Tyullian, all you have to do is ask.”

“Tyullian? Ugh.” I groan around a mouthful of half-chewed food, then stick my tongue out at her for good measure. This earns me a disgusted laugh, and a crumb thrown at my head.

“You’re right, Glow,” She says as I put my tongue away, “I have no idea what he sees in you. You have to be the least lady-like Lady in the history of the Castle.”

“And that’s exactly why you like me.” I tease.

“I suppose so.” She smiles, “I still don’t see why you never want to entertain anyone. Surely there’s someone in this place that you find at least halfway umbry.”

“Ah, not this again, Chyp!” I say. “I don’t know why you care about who I am or am not bedding anyways.”

“Oh, so there is someone?” She asks eagerly. There’s not, of course, but I just shrug noncommittally, hoping she won’t press it. Thankfully she doesn’t, only sending a frustrated glance my way.

“I heard the King called the Court today.” She says after a moment, changing the subject.

I nod affirmatively, my mouth full.

“I wonder if anything interesting will happen?” She says, her tone almost wistful. Most people in the Castle feel the same; non-nobles get their news easily enough from the gossip-whirl, but rarely get to participate in it. To have a place on the King’s Council would be a chance to shape events instead of being shaped by them.

And the dream of it must be tempting; while the Nobles have excess and luxury globbing at their fingertips, things for the rest of the Castle have been getting worse and worse. The other Valkyrie speak of times when wealth and security flowed freely through the Castle, but in the decades since the King severed the continental trade agreements the rot and the dirt have crept into the corners. I can see why the chance to be heard would be alluring.

Secretly, deep down though, I think they are also relieved to be below the King’s notice. His temper is legendary, unpredictable and cruel, and no one save perhaps the Prince is spared from it.

Even Serphaeas Sephor, one of the King’s foremost advisors, had faced the bottomless wrath of his King only two turns ago. I was there, as was the rest of the court, as the King had him thrown into the center of the throne room. His daughter, the Butterfly Princess had begun to whimper, and his spouse Lulerain had held her tight while shedding their own silent tears. But Serphaeas had stood straight and stone-faced, unbending before the King’s tirade.

The lights in the room had quivered and darkened as the Handlers had brought in the Thimblespook. It was a cruel choice, I thought, messy and long--and for what was only a minor slight. We all watched as the pillar of void approached the center of the room, tentative limbs swirling out from it’s center, but no one as closely as the King.

Something mad and hungry came over the King as he gave his punishment, his sharp blue eyes drinking in the misery he was too cowardly to deliver himself. There was some desperate satisfaction in Serphaeas’ composure; even when the Thimblespook first coiled a limb around him, he didn’t break posture. But even he could only hold out so long as the creature’s gaping toothless mouth began to grope across his skin.

By the time his clothes had been devoured Serphaeas was wincing and grimacing; once he’d been splayed out, held tight between the coiling black limbs and gagged on the darkness, he began to groan and struggle; when the creature’s thick genitals forced into him for the first time, he screamed.

And all the while, the King looked on, savoring the obscenity and the horror of his watching family. And as Serphaeas finally broke and began to beg for it to stop, the King just kept stroking himself through his silk trousers. Most of the eyes in court were fixed in horror on Serphaeas and the Thimblespook, but I looked only at the King. His sharp smile, as the Thimblespook began whining and rutting faster, is carved into my memory in crystal clarity. I feel as though all of the pain and hatred of every Valkyrie killed, maimed, enslaved by those hands flows through me, and I want to tear the Bastard open from his--

“Glow?” Chypru says my name, concerned.

I realize that I’ve clenched my hands into fists and gone stone-still in the remembering. I shake my head quickly to clear it and return to the present; Chypru doesn’t want to hear about the horrors of the Court or the King. She wants to believe that he is the righteous monarch who keeps us all safe. There will come a day when I will shatter that illusion for her, and for all of them… but it is not today. I sigh.

“I’m sorry Chyp. I don’t think I slept well last night, I’m a little distracted today.”

“Uh-oh. Bad dreams?” Her face is full of genuine concern, and I don’t want to worry her. She has enough to deal with without my dark mood.

“Sort of. You know, I think I’d better get to Court.”

“You don’t look so good. Do you want me to get one of the gearboxes to take you up?” She asks, gesturing the where Cephe stands at the edge of the Found, and the word goes through me like a knife.

I take a deep breath, and remind myself that she has no idea what she’s saying. Chypru believes, like the rest of the Castle, that the Valkyries are lifeless automatons, no more needing or deserving of respect than a rat-sweep or an alarm-bird, and in that moment the tragedy of it overwhelms me. Chypru would love Cephe, I know she would, if only she knew.

“No, really, I’m alright.” I reassure her. “I’ll let you know tomorrow if anything interesting happens.” I leave her with a quick smile, and for a moment I’m almost tempted to go back and ask Cephe to walk with me up to the throne room, just for her companionship.

Instead I walk by myself, with only my sadness now festering into anger to keep me company. I want to tell Chypru, and the whole Castle, about the Valkyrie, and it kills me that I can’t.

This was the other side of the King’s bargain; the Citadel was given to us as a home--a secluded fortress abutting the south of the Castle-- to live free and unfettered together, and we received a seat on the council. In return, we would protect to Castle and its inhabitants, an honorable mantle we would have taken up willingly, but for the other condition; the knowledge of our sentience would remain a dead-spoken secret.

So for three hundred years the Valkyries have suffered as slaves in the Castle, pretending to be unthinking and unfeeling combat-automatons and nothing more. The pride and honor that governs us, the rich tangle of ceremonies, codes, and values that define us stay locked away in the Citadel and inside of us.

I see the suffering in the faces of every one of the Two-Gen mothers, and in the very limbs of the Three-Gens, who have never known freedom. They all ache for it, to be free, to not have to pretend. But for the deep bonds that run between each of us, I truly believe that every Valkyrie would choose her own death over this bondage.

Of course the wrath and ruin of the Valkyrie would dethrone the King swiftly and without mercy--the mere idea sets my fight-blood singing through my veins--except for the Fourth-Generation, kidnapped during the Bloody Revolution and locked sleeping the the Tomb, at the King’s fragile mercy.

I was one of them, though I don’t remember it. I knew nothing but sleep and darkness for another two hundred and seventy years, but the story had been told so often in the Citadel that I can almost picture it; one after another, three of their heartless corpses delivered to the Valkyrie camp, broken and pale and lifeless.

It took only those three bodies for the Second-Generation, barely through their war-trails and now thrust into command, to decide the price was too high. And so the concord was signed. Shame and fury still haunt the Two-Gen’s faces when they speak of it, their greatest failure...

But I can feel the tide of blood shifting under my feet, the taste of change in the air. It has been a slow wide arc, beginning thirty three years ago--in the aftermath of the scravenger-seige when a successor for Sylvis was needed, the Two-Gen Mothers insisted that the next Lady Valkyrie be of the missing Fourth-Generation.

They needed to see that we could still be woken, they told him--and the King had no choice but to agree, because without his hostages there was nothing standing between him and his killing machines.

So from the Tomb he’d retrieved a single slumbering Four-Gen, and woke me. And when he passed me to the Valkyrie, they named me Gleo, and told the King they would send me back to sit on the Council when I was ready. So I trained for ten long years under the careful watch of the Two-Gen Mothers, and grew up under the warm light of the love of the Valkyries.

And when my war-trials were completed, my name and my paint earned, and Ophimia looked into my heart she saw my Purpose; her gentle fingers cupped my chin and she declared that the time had come for us to be freed--and that I would be the one to do it.

I have worked tirelessly since, scouring the Castle for the Tomb where the Four-Gens sleep. I will rescue them, and return them to their rightful place among the Valkyrie, and we will leave the Castle and it’s piss-bastard King forever. And so, in waking me, the King has woken the beginning of his end.

Now I find myself standing in front of the twin mahogany doors, with the fire of my destiny burning hot within me. I ache so fiercely to fulfill my Purpose that it feels like pain. I itch to throw these doors open and tear the King limb from limb myself. But the Two-Gens have all told me to be patient, that I am young in my life and the decade I have spent planning our escape will come to bear in their own time. But I doubt that any of them have ever sat through the bone-rotting tedium of a Council meeting.

I sigh deeply, knowing that my pent-up energy will find no release here, and push through into the throne room.

The eyes of the other nobles barely lift as I enter. I straighten my back and lift my chin anyways, and take my seat. The cushion is a rich embroidered fabric of a dozen colors, and still it is plain compared to the opulence of this room. Gold and silver gossamer hangs in sheets from the high ceilings, casting shimmery reflections of the chandelier light. There is not a hard or plain surface in sight; each seat is cushioned beyond reason, and each space large enough to be painted or beaded or carved has been. I settle into my sinking-soft chair, and resign myself to wait.

When after a long half hour the doors burst open, it is not the King but the Owl Prince who enters. He is a storm of black feathers that blows into the relaxed chatter of the room with a certain violence. He is conspicuously without a Valkyrie guard, though no one seems to take note of this but me. Everyone can sense his foul temper, though, and no one attempts to speak to him. Even the Butterfly Princess leaves him a wide berth as he settles into his high-backed throne.

I can’t help but to watch his face. His big round eyes are glassy black, and seem today to be gravitational voids against the stark white of his circular face. His steel-hard beak is pulled into a scowl, and the small bone-bleach feathers of his forehead are creased. He broods over his black-gloved hands and doesn’t notice my staring, for which I am grateful.

The Owl-Prince is only as old as I am myself, though his coming into the Castle was much wider celebrated. No one has any idea who his mother may be, or if he came from the King’s seed at all. All we know is that one day the King announced the imminent arrival of his son, and the next day the half-fledgeling appeared.

I have never paid much mind the the Prince, beyond the reflexive revulsion I feel for the Bastard King’s son. He attends the Council most times it is convened, but he speaks rarely and melts into the King’s shadows, rarely drawing attention to himself. Today, though, something in his restless shifting sparks some strange curiosity in me.

I am still watching the Prince, and the silence he ushered in has not yet dissipated, when the King arrives only a few minutes later. He brings with him four Valkyries; Aremora and Idonne accompany him to his towering plush throne, while Tivit and Spiria break off to guard the door. This is part that tests my composure most, watching them with their blank faces and empty eyes, performing just as much as I am. They stand board stiff at his side as he calls the court to attention--unnecessarily, as every eye is already upon him.

I miss the King’s initial address of boring empty words as I stare at Tivit, contrasting this empty version of her with the boisterous and clever girl known to me. I almost miss the cue to regain our seats, which were hastily abandoned upon the King’s entrance, and sit down akwardly on the trail of my stupid dress. I am too in my mind today, I think. Dwelling on the injustices will not solve them.

Still, when the King clears his throat to speak, I can not imagine hating him any more than I do right now.

“I’ve called you all here today, because I bear grim news of great import. You, as my most trusted advisors, will each and every one be needed in the trying times that seem to stretch out before us.” He speaks with an undeniable gravity. His voice is deep and rich, umbry even. The Two-Gens say that once he was handsome, and strong as an ox, but that must have been centuries ago. I can’t picture it.

Now, he sits deeply in his shioned throne, his belly spilling ever so slightly over his belt and his hands resting soft and fleshy on the arms of his chair. I know, deep in my gears, that this is a man I could kill. There are few men in the world who could stand against me or any of the Valkyries, and if ever King Kohorrad was one of them that time is long passed.

I have to focus deeply on staying in my seat as the fight-blood churns in me.

“We are at your service, as ever, Your Grace.” Herayn vomits on cue. The other nobles nod in silent agreement. The King waits a moment more, letting the silence stretch.

“I bear tragic tidings from the east. Ibellum has fallen.”

The words fall heavy in the room, and it is a long moment before I understand what it is he’s said. The words trickle into me, and my mind rejects them at once. A hundred images flash through my mind; imaginings of the Ibellum sun shining on the smiling Valkyrie, finally free. No, it can’t be gone.

All my anger is forgotten, my hate blown away like a morning mist, and it leaves only horror and hollowness in me. I realize that I am on my feet, though I do not remember standing, with my fists clenched at my sides. I don’t know why, what I might do from here; I can’t think.

Through the whirlwind in my mind, I see out of the corner of my eye as Aremora twitches a single finger at her side. This small warning snaps me for a moment out of my own horror, and I see that I have drawn all the eyes of the court to me. The courtiers are less than trivial to me, but I see the King watching me, and the King...he can not know the significance that Ibellum holds to me.

So as my mind still spins around the growing feeling of dread in me, I stumble back hastily onto my cushion, and press my hand firmly over my heart. I imitate a small whimper as best I can, and hear it echoed among some of the other ladies. I will convince them that it is only fear.

“The Clay Keepers failed Ibellum?” I ask in my weakest voice. Truly, though, it is not so difficult an act; the Clay Birds have protected Ibellum for as many centuries as the Valkyries have protected the Castle. How could they have fallen?

“How is that possible? No Great City has fallen in two hundred years!” Girnan echoes my thoughts. I notice that the lords have all puffed themselves up, inflating their chests and drawing the women to their sides protectively. They pull their strong voices from deep in their chests, but I can feel their fear undulating through the room.

“Ibellum was set upon by the Stroal.” King Kohorrad replies. “A single spy survived the attack, and what he saw I’m afraid spells grave danger for us all. He speaks of a rain of Tigarrs, creatures larger and more numerous than could be comprehended. They descended from the clouds with fire-archers on their backs, and when the Clay Eagles rose to meet them, a ground force of soldiers took the city from right beneath their wings.”

“The Stroal? What reason would they have to set upon Ibellum?” Kalla the Copper-Hair asks. Her long face is drawn with concern and confusion.

“That we do not know. We can be sure it was not for conquest or plunder, though; the Stroal razed the entire city to the ground. The Sea of Triangles is no more than a wasteland, now.”

This is the last tooth in the throat of my fragile hope. My mind is finally forced to accept the truth, and then it feels as though all the gears inside of me are spinning apart. I can feel that my control is a tremor away from imploding, so I bury my face in my hands. The courtiers begin to speculate and strategize. I spiral apart on the inside.

Ibellum was our best hope, my best plan, for leaving the Castle. It is--was--a proud City, with strong walls and tall towers, and the ruling Clay Council was said to be fair and just. Once the Fourth Generation was woken, we would have all made the journey together. Every one among us strong and fit, and with King Kohhorad dead and the Castle left with no force to pursue us, we could have escaped. We would have.

And now, all of my carefully laid plans rent to scraps by the tripple-damned Stroal.

I know I must look up now, and no grief can show on my face. I suck a deep desperate breath into my lungs, and steel my features into expressionlessness. I think only of the next step; I must speak to the Two-Gen mothers. I unbury my head from my hands, and look up straight into the eyes of the Owl Prince.

He is staring at me with a hint of suspicion ribboning deep in his black eyes. A real thrill of fear whispers through the gears of my core, but I do not break his stare. He leans forward in his throne and rests his elbows on his knees, unblinking, and I think I see the beginning of a smirk or a snarl around his beak.

I forcibly break my gaze away, and it is immediately clear that I am not the only one aware of the direction of the Prince’s attention. Celodass, the Butterfly Princess, stares at me with her mismatched petal-pink and vasco-blue eyes and her expression is unmistakable. I have to choke down a fit of hysterical laughter; romantic jealousy, at a time like this! The erroneousness of her conclusion baffles me, but I can’t afford to think on it long.

I have to figure out how to slip away. I have to speak to the others as soon as I can, and it seems this council is set to go on for hours. There is a small side door half-hidden by brilliant tapestries, set into the wall behind the King’s Throne. The King and his nobles, crowded now around the throne, will not see me, but to leave through that door would put me directly in the sight of the Owl Prince, who has already noticed more than he should have.

Then, an idea. I turn back to Owl Prince, and smile at him. His feathers ruffle in surprise, and his look of confusion only deepens as I flutter my eyelashes at him. A risk a glance over to Celodass and see that her face is a shade of berry-red that underscores the fury in her eyes. Then, to be absolutely sure, I deliberately uncross and recross my legs under my gown.

The Butterfly Princess immediately shoots up from her seat and marches over the the Prince’s throne. She throws herself melodramatically over the spiral arm of it and mewls about how frightened she is. His feathers are standing almost on end now, and he stumbles over some flat platitude as his gaze remains stitched to mine.

Celodass doesn’t miss the direction of his attention, and she shifts closer to him, almost across his lap now. I hear the Prince stammer, but I can no longer see him through the tower of her lemon-drop hair. Celodass spares a moment to shoot me a venomous look before redoubling her efforts, and I take my chance and rush out through the side door.

………………………………………….Chapter Two………………………………………….

“Ibellum destroyed? How can that be?” Ophimia, our Mender, asks me, her eyes full of disbelief.

“The Stroal.” I say, grim. Hearing the news was truating enough, but to tell it again is somehow even worse. I returned to the Citadel immediately, and went straight to the Triad. Cassaphine, our Speaker, called a formal meeting right away. Every Valkyrie not on duty in the Castle is gathered around the dias, where I stand next to the the Triad in order to speak.

Angry murmurs break out across the listening Valkyrie, shock and outrage and despair rolled into a single tide of fervor. Ibellum has been the beacon of our hope for years, the promise of a life of freedom. It is rending to have to tell them that it’s gone.

“We can help them rebuild!” A voice calls, and I see Bahonne and Liadoll nodding in agreement.

“There is nothing left to rebuild. There is no one left to help.” I tell them. The Three-Gens all begin to speak at once;

“Then where we will go?”

“We cannot trust the Stroal to take us in.”

“What of the Willoride at The Cliffs--”

“--Or the Candykiins in The Spire?”

“No.” I say, speaking loudly to be heard. “The Cliffs are too far to the south for us to reach on foot, and you all know the Candykiins will not take us in. Any land to the East will take us too close to the Stroal, and the roads to the north will be impassible for years yet.” I have been considering these things for years; there is no way around it.

“Then where are we to go?” Cassaphine asks, not to me but still somehow of me. It is my Purpose to lead us all out from the slavery of King Kohorrad; the destruction of Ibellum has not changed that. This is my duty, and so despite the fearful flutter in my chest, I find the courage to tell them the bone-deep certainty that has been stirring in me since the Council;

“Nowhere.” I say. “We are to go nowhere.”

“What do you mean, Gleo? We will need somewhere to go.” Vive asks me.

“Why should we not stay in the Castle? It has been our home for centuries, and all we need is here.” I say, loudly enough for everyone to hear me.

“We decided long ago that we would leave this place,” Axenthe, our War-Chief, says through her long-shattered lip, rising from her place at the bench. “That holds so many of our ghosts and would not have us.”

“The Citadel is our home.” I repeat. “Surely the blood of the Bastard King will serve to satisfy the dead.”

“And how much more blood would we need to spill to restore the peace, once we have severed the head of the people’s beloved monarch?” Cassaphine asks, sadly shaking her head. “Gleo, the people of this city know us only as machines. There will be no welcome for us here.”

“Things have changed, Cassaphine.” I say, stubbornly standing my ground. “The comforts of the Castle have dwindled in our isolation, and the love for the King has dwindled with them. Haven’t we lost enough at the hand of the Bastard? Will we give up our home too?”

“We can make a new home, Gleo. We will.” Cassaphine says to me, her voice ringing with authority.

“We have nowhere else to go.” I say, trying to match the strength of her voice and only just keeping it from shaking. “You know I’m right.”

A subtle glimmer enters her eye, and I can not tell if it is anger. She stands from her place at the head of the circle, her dark angular features stormy, and every eye is on her as she speaks.

“It has already been decided, Gleo.” She says. The Valkyrie let out a breath, taking her judgement as final. She is the Speaker, after all, the most trusted and respected of all the Valkyrie, and I am just the youngest--only awake for thirty years, a child in the eyes of the Second Generation… but I have no choice. It is my Purpose to free us.

“Decided before I was awoken.” I say, feeling my blood rushing nervously through the palms of my hands. “I didn’t get a chance to decide--so we must take another vote.”

I can feel the surprise rippling through the others standing behind me. Cassaphine seems torn equally between indignation and grudging pride. If a vote is called, the decision will be out off her hands. The Triad lead and guide us, but they do not rule us; we rule by vote, and the Triad’s votes count no more than any others. Cassaphine looks to the others in silent question. Axenthe smiles sharply, tossing an approving glance my way, though Ophimia seems undecided. Slowly, she nods her agreement. Cassaphine turns back to me, still with a conflicted expression, and addresses the crowd.

“Very well. A vote has been called. I forward the course of killing the Bastard King, burning the Royal Chambers, and leaving the Castle forever.” She says, then looks at me expectantly.

“I too forward killing the Bastard King, then staying here in the Castle and hanging the culvagg’s head from his own chandelier.” This earns me a small smile from Cassaphine, a few assenting cheers from the others.

“Does anyone put forward another course?” Cassaphine asks the crowd. “No? Then let us discuss.”

“The echoes of the dead are too heavy in these halls, Gleo. You were not there to hear them, but I am haunted by the screams of my fallen sisters, and my mothers.” Aremora speaks up first, and I nod in recognition of her point--and her pain.

“Would it not be a greater disservice to the dead to abandon the home they fought for?” Vexa counters her, and Cassaphine nods in her acknowledgement. This is the way of votes among the Valkyries; only when everyone has had a chance to speak will Cassaphine and I make our final arguments.

“The people of the Castle will never accept us.” Says Phyrnane, sadly.

“We will make them accept us.” Bahonne replies in a snarl, her dark eyes flashing.

“What, are we to lead the Castle then?” Says Zipha.

“Why shouldn’t we lead them? We have no less right than the Bastard King!” Cimina cries from somewhere near the back of the room.

“They will not accept our rule!” Vexoria insists.

“They’ve let that involted swine lead them for generations.” Vive says at the same time that Bahonne yells “What choice would they have!”

“No.” Ophimia says, her voice carrying from the bench. “We will not subjugate them.”

“Well where else have we to go?” Spiria asks, and no one answers. After a few moments of silence, Liadoll speaks up.

“We can do nothing until we rescue the Fourth Generation, and we are no closer now than we have ever been.”

I feel the energy in the room grow heavy, the truth of her words settling hard on each of our shoulders. To me it is a molten spike through my chest--to the others it is a sadness, but it is my failure. Cassaphine looks to me, something unreadable on her face, and suddenly the color of the sea rushes through my mind.

I hold up a hand for silence, and every eye turns to me. I fight to remember...something. Something desperately important, just beyond my reach, until.

It somehow trickles slowly and slams into me all at once.

“I know where they are.” I say, suddenly steel-sure.

Cassaphine looks at me softly and sadly, and I can see she doesn’t believe me.

“How could you know, Gleo?” Ophimia asks, her expression mirroring Cassaphines.

“I don’t know how I know,” I tell them. “But I do. They’re in the Gruesrackle.” The silence prickles at my words, some unnamable energy building in the room. They don’t want to believe me--I don’t want to believe me--but I know that it’s true.

“Gleo, we’ve searched the Gruesrackle. Vaesde has told us that the Tomb isn’t down there.” It is Saranne, Vaesde’s partner, who speaks.

Vaesde herself stands among the crowd with a hollow haunted look in her eyes, the same she gets whenever the Gruesrackle is mentioned. She is the only survivor of the mission into the King’s dungeon, and though she returned with her mind and memory splintered she insists the Tomb was not found. I do not want to disrespect her, but somehow I know that it is.

“It is,” I insist. “It must be. There is nowhere else we haven’t looked. And I just… I know they are there.”

Cassaphine looks about to disagree, but Axenthe speaks before she can.

“If the Goldblood says the Fourth Generation is in the Gruesrackle, then they must be.” She says firmly. “After all, does your own blood not sing out to your sister’s? There must be depths to that dungeon that we did not find, Saranne.” I shoot a grateful glance in her direction.

“I will wake them, then, as is my Purpose.” I say, full of fire, “Now let us vote on what we will do after.”

“Very well.” Cassaphine says, her expression unreadable. “Let us vote. All those in favor of leaving the Castle once the Bastard King is dead?”

A scattering of hands go up, mostly Two-Gens, but some Three-Gens here and there. I count quickly, and find that it is well under half. If my proposition gets less than half as well, we will move back to deliberations; if it receives more than half of the votes, the decision will be made in my favor.

“All those in favor of remaining in the Castle once the Bastard King is dead?”

More hands go up this time, but I can not tell immediately if it is more than half. I glance up to Ophimia, who as Mender will be responsible for marking down precise tallies, and find to my surprise that all three of the Triad have their own hands up. Cassaphine gives me a small and somber smile, and my heart swells almost painfully.

“Then it is decided.” She says, and a rumble of approval goes through the crowd.

“Now it is time to plan.” Axenthe says. “Gleo will lead the expedition into the Gruesrackle. Who would you take with you?”

With a sinking dread, I know what my answer must be; “No one.” I say.

“Gleo…” Cassaphine says.

“I must go alone.” I tell her. “We can not tip our hand; if the King finds out he will be prepared, he will kill as many of them as he needs to. It is my Purpose to save them, not to drip their blood on my hands.”

“Don’t be bolted, Gleo!” Saranne shouts. “We’ll put together a team to go with you--you can’t go alone.”

“No. The King keeps too close an eye on the rest of you. If anyone is missing during a shift change, he’ll know.”

“Gleo, it’s too dangerous.” Say Nisko from the front of the crowd, the pain clear in her voice.

I look out at them, gathered around the dias, the women I grew up with; never quite belonging, but always loved. They fear for me now, and their concern for me even in these dire circumstances warms my gold-metal heart. Zipha who is nearest to me reaches her hand out and I take it.

“I’ll be alright. It will be dangerous, I know. But I will descend, and I will find the Tomb, and I will return. I swear to you on the hands of the Maker I will do this.” As the words leave my lips, I feel the binding of them. The gravity of it hits me all at once and it is a heady feeling, full of fire and determination; I will do this, or I will die trying.

“Then we will remain here, and we will arm ourselves to finish the war we started.” Axenthe says, accepting my decision to go alone. She looks hungrily to Cassaphine, her lover of centuries, who nods her assent.

A temarious energy begins to build in the air between us. After centuries of waiting, finally the time has come to fight. It is a hungry, bloodthirsty ecstasy, the edge of revenge, and the anticipation of it swells into something roaring and towering and inescapable now.

Axenthe approaches me, and lays a hand on my arm. “Bring the Four-Gen back to us, and then together we will gut the bastard once and for all.” She says, the fire of a lifetime in her eyes. Soon every inch of my skin is covered with a warm weight as the Valkyries crowd around me and place their hands on me.

“Goldblood.” Zipha whispers, lacing love and surety and protection into my war-name as she says it.

“Gleo.” Says Liadoll next to her.

“Gleo. Goldblood. Gleo, Gleo!” Bahonne and Vive and Vexa take up the call, and the other Three-Gens.

“Go well, Goldblood.” Axenthe says, as the crowd of Valkyrie begins to sweep me towards the door. Someone reaches out and stripes my lazap-blue war-paint down my cheeks and across the bridge of my nose. The chanting of my name resonates in my chest like a drumbeat, electrifying and enlivening me. Ophemia places a quick kiss on the plane of my forehead, and asks the Maker to protect me.

Then we are at the Citadel door, the fevered energy hitting a crescendo, and it is only Cassaphine and two panes of glass between me and what I am now sure is my ultimate destiny. She holds up her hand and I clasp it with mine, until she grasps the back of my neck and pulls me to her.

“Gleo, you don’t have to do this. You are brave, and quick and strong and clever, but no one returns from the Gruesrackle. Say the word, and I will revoke your Purpose, and we will find another way.”

“I must do this. It is my Purpose, and I will succeed, Mother. I would sooner die towards our freedom than let my cowardice condemn us to another moment of bondage.”

I feel her breath on my ear as she sighs, and I know she has heard the truth and courage in my words. “Spoken like a true Valkyrie.” She whispers, then she pulls back and addresses me in her full voice. “Go well, Goldblood. You carry the hopes of us all with you.”

And before I can reply, Cassaphine lifts her heavy cloak from her broad shoulders and drapes it around mine. The black wreckre fur tickles the back of my neck, and once she is finished knotting the gold clasps, Cassaphine takes a step back. There is nothing between me and my path to the Gruesrackle now.

I am full to bursting with the fire of my Purpose and the steel of my courage as I push open the glass doors. I hold onto the voices that chant my name, and they follow me down the hallway long after the doors close behind me.

….

The steps that lead down to the Gruesrackle are steep and covered with grime. I am grateful that my quarters lay on the path from the Citadel to the mouth of hell, as I’m not sure I would have been able to manage even the very first descent in my ridiculous niskip gown. I’d left it puddled on the floor as I slipped into my simple blacks, donning a pair of sturdy boots and braiding my synthair out of the way. I’d buckled on as many weapons as I could move under, and then thrown Cassaphine’s cape over it all. Despite the danger I approached, it was a relief to dress in something practical again.

The truth is, though, that I have little idea what to expect in the Gruesrackle. No one except Vaesde--and the King of course--has ever reemerged from its depths, and what little Vaesde has told has been only of cold and damp and endless darkness. The rest is all wild rumors, which I suspect the King encourages. Some of them are plainly false by this point; I’ve reached the bottom of the steps, and I haven’t yet keeled over dead. I lay my hand against the cold thick iron of the door, and try to convince myself that the oxy stains are only rust.

It is too thick by far to think of breaking down by myself, so my only way in is through the twin Arrowgance lock. I kneel on the cold sticky floor, and my movements are sure and Purposeful as I carefully insert my picks, first into the keyhole on the left, then the one on the right. It is an agonizingly slow process; I need to pass each tumbler of each lock at the same time, which requires me to exert impossibly subtle pressure on my twin-torque as I pick. But the faith of my sisters still hums in my chest, and so I keep going long after my hands and calves begin to cramp.

Relief floods through me as I felt the second-to-last tumbler click into place. One final effort, and I will be through. I adjust my picks, twitch my twin-torque just barely, and--

“I can help you with that.”

I whirl around, picks abandoned and replaced with two sick-sharp knives in an instant. My boot is already hurling through the air by the time I register the moon-white face of the Owl Prince. I pull my kick at the last moment, not enough to miss him but enough to keep his bones intact and leave him conscious. I feel the kick connect, then hear the dull thud of boot on flesh.

Should I kill him? My head spins in confusion as I try to think. He’s the son of the King, a dangerous liability. Too dangerous to be left alive--except that if something were to go wrong in the Gruesrackle, and it was found that I killed the Owl Prince...the King’s retribution to the Valkyries would be cruel and unforgiving. So I can not kill the Prince.

I’ve decided this by the time the Prince in question has propped himself up against the wall and begun to rub his head crossly.

“Well there was no need for that.” He says, and I realize I have never known what the Prince’s voice sounds like before. Surely I’ve hear him speak a dozen times, but the honey-tenor surprises me.

“What are you doing here?” I hiss at him, waiting tensely for someone else to come follow down the hall.

“I could ask you the same, Lady Gleo.” He seems to decide that crossing his arms at me is more urgent than rubbing his wound, and glowers down at me. “I could also ask you where you learned to pick locks and carry knives, or what all that is on your face.”

I have no answer for him. Rivir, who spends the most time guarding the Prince, is certain that the King has not revealed the secret of the Valkyries to his son. So, even if I were to tell him the truth, he would never believe me. I stay silent.

He waits, and we stare at each other much longer than any two people have any right to; his owl eyes seem never to blink, and though it is a deep reflex, I don’t actually have to. The tension mounts in the air between us, until eventually he huffs an exasperated sigh and runs a hand through his neck feathers.

“Look, I’m not here to stop you. I will get you through that door--if, you tell me what meaning Ibellum had to you. Deal?” He holds his black-gloved hand out to me, and I stare at it suspiciously.

“Why do you care what I think of Ibellum?” I counter. Something feels...off, like gravity has released its grip on the world by a fraction. I don’t know what to make of the feeling, but I assume it’s something bad.

“It doesn’t matter why I care. It matters that I could have a half a dozen gearboxes down here before you could finish picking that lock.” I flinch at his casual use of the word. Of course, he doesn’t know that calling a Valkyrie would only tip the scales further in my favor. It’s his father that’s the real danger, and so I decide to play along--for now.

“Fine. But you unlock the door first.” I say firmly. He huffs again, but he extends his hand and I take it. Something tightens in my gold-metal heart as I feel the pressure of his grip, though I shove the feeling away as firmly as I can. Now is no time for fear.

He reaches into his feathered cloak and produces a grim-red twin key, then moves past me to the door.

“You know, I’d say you kind of owe me anyways, after you set Celodass on me earlier.” He sounds so genuinely beleaguered by her attentions that I can’t help but snort.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I say. There’s a low click, and the door cracks open just a sliver. There is only darkness beyond. He turns back to me, blocking my way.

“You thought I wouldn’t notice you slip away.” He says.

“I don’t think you saw anything but her lazap hair in your face.” I retort.

“Why do you care about Ibellum?” He asks again. I don’t know how to answer, and now that the door is open it would be infinitely easier to just knock him unconscious. As if reading my thoughts, he gently grips the door handle, ready to pull it back into place. “What did it mean to you?”

“I…” I have never been very good at thinking of lies. Right now my head is empty., my pulse thrumming hard and fast. “My sister...was visiting Ibellum. With my niece. They’ll both be dead, now.”

Something flickers behind his expression, and I realize he was expecting a different answer. He runs his hand through his feathers again. “That doesn’t make any sense…” He mutters.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s--nothing. Forget it.”

“Fine. Why would you let me into the Gruesrackle just to find that out?” I ask him.

“Oh, I’m not.” He says, almost flippantly, tucking the key back into his cape. His words sink in and I stare incredulously at him, bristling with outrage. He clicks his tongue at me then. “What, you really thought I was going to let a Court Lady into my Father’s dungeon?”

And before he has a chance to tug the door closed again, I tackle him through.

…………………………………….…...Chapter Three…..…………………………...……...

There is darkness, and then the sound of the door clicking shut behind us. The Owl Prince scrambles up to his feet next to me, and I can see him tugging desperately on the door. It stays firmly closed, despite his best effort, and he whips around to look at me.

“What have you done?!” He shouts at me, puffed up to twice his usual size in rage.

“You were going to double-cross me!” I shout back, angry as well. I realize belatedly that he wouldn’t expect me to be able to see him in the pitch black, and I purposefully gesture somewhere to the right of his actual body.

“So you’ve killed us both?! You involted idiot!”

“What do you mean?” His ripe fear tries to work its way into my coils, cold and sour alongside the hot of my anger. It’s possible that the Prince knows something I don’t about what the Gruesrackle holds.

“My breadbegging key doesn’t work from this side! Why would you even want to come down here? What is wrong with you?”

“Oh!” I almost laugh, the better part of my anger swept away with my relief. Getting out of here is still a dozen problems away from now, and though I still think it’s better not to kill him, his presence is little more than an inconvenience. “Well.” I say with a shrug, and I take some small enjoyment from the look of fury that he shoots at me.

I turn away from him and begin to descend the massive staircase that stretches off the landing, miming finding the wall with my hand for effect. I hear him following me and I ready myself for an attack, but none comes. He only follows a pace behind as we push further and further into the deep.

“Do you know what’s down here?” I ask him as we walk.

“Ha. Only the same rumors you know. When I was a child my father used to tell me scary stories of all the monsters that lived down here. He’d tell me never to even think about coming here, or I’d wake them and be eaten.” There’s no real humor in his voice, and I can tell he’s still very angry with me.

“Ah, so that’s comforting. Man-eating monsters, unbreathable air, endless falls and rains of razors. Nothing the Owl-Prince Kohorrad can’t handle, right?”

An unamused rumble from deep in his chest is all the response I get.

We walk in silence for a while, eventually reaching the bottom of the stairs. There is only a narrow hallway, with no doors or other passages, so we walk forward the only way we can go. The closeness of the walls begins to feel oppressive the farther into the darkness we walk, and the presence of the Prince is more distracting than it should be.

“Why are you even here?” I finally ask him in irritation.

“Because you dragged me here, Lady Gleo.” He says, and he laces my title with sarcasm, but his tongue drags across my name in an unfamiliar rhythm.

“I meant, why were you there in the first place.” I say, somewhere now between annoyed and flustered. “And for the record, I only dragged you down here because you were going to double-cross me.”

“And if I had, neither of us would be trapped down here now.” He snaps.

“And if you hadn’t been there at all, you wouldn’t be in this situation anyways. So why were you there?” I ask again. There’s a long moment of silence before he huffs and answers me.

“I was looking for you.” He finally says, and it catches me by surprise.

“Why?” I say after a moment. “So desperate to chastise me that you’d roam the whole Castle looking for me? Surely Cellodass’s attentions can’t be that grueling.” .

“I needed to ask you about Ibellum.” He says, annoyed.

“Why do you care about Ibellum?” I ask him again.

“Why does no one in the Castle know where you live?” He shoots back.

“Why couldn’t you just wait until the next council meeting to ask me?”

“Why do you even want to be down here?”

“Why do you care so much about what I do all the sudden?”

“Because you’re being so...strange!” He almost shouts. “I find you breaking into my fathers dungeons, wearing who knows what, with paint all over your face and carrying a sword. Then you kick me, and tackle me into this hell-pit, and no one knows where you live or anything about you--I think I’m allowed to ask for some answers here!”

I listen, and when he’s finished I consider whether or not to answer him. I can find no reason to, so I decide instead to change the subject;

“Do you eat regular food, or mice?”

It has the intended effect; the Prince begins to splutter indignantly, his own questions forgotten as he informs me--very clearly--that he does not eat mice.

“Are you able to swivel your head all the way around?” I ask him, and he huffs.

“Now you’re just being childish, Lady Gleo.” He says.

“No, I’m really curious.” I say, teasing. Mostly I’m glad to have diverted him, but I do really want to know; it would be a great advantage in a fight. He only huffs again, not deigning to answer me.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” I say with a laugh, and there’s a distinctly disgruntled air to his silence as we continue walking.

…

We have been walking in silence for quite some time when I hear the Prince’s footsteps stop behind me. I toss a glance over my shoulder to see why he’s stopped, a small irrational piece wondering if he’s simply vanished, eaten by the darkness and the silence. Instead I find him a few paces back, staring intently at the wall.

I turn back, and after a moment or two of searching I can make out the thin outline of a door in the wall. The Owl Prince must have much sharper vision than mine to have seen it; the seam is barely the breadth of a hair. I hurry to the door as my heart starts to spin in anticipation. Surely the Tomb can not be so shallowly hidden, but if I didn’t see this door then surely Veasde and the other’s wouldn’t have either. Perhaps...perhaps the Fourth Generation sleeps just beyond this door.

I run my hands along the seam and the flat stone of the door itself, but I find no handles or hinges anywhere. I turn to the Prince;

“Do you know how to open this?” I ask him. The feathers of his brow furrow as he continues to look at the door.

“Perhaps…” He mutters, low enough that I’m not sure he’s speaking to me at all. “Do you have those picks still?”

“No,” I groan, “I didn’t have time to pick them up before you made me tackle you.”

He sighs in frustration and approaches the door. Then with a quick, painful sounding snap he yanks a feather from the back of his neck. His broad back blocks my view, but I think I see him insert the quill into the seam in the wall, and after a few moments I hear something click.

The Prince steps back as the door opens, yawning inwards to reveal the dimly lit chamber beyond. The Prince hesitates and I push past him into the room. There is a low orange light coming from somewhere towards the back of the chamber, which is not much bigger than my cold concrete room in the Castle. It is filled with tall shelves that cast long slanting shadows over us as we stand just inside the doorway.

It takes only moments to tell that this is not the Tomb. The shelves are not lined with sleeping Valkyrie, but with an assortment of strange objects whose purpose I can not discern. It doesn’t matter though; I am only looking for the Four-Gens, and if they are not here then I must keep looking. I turn back to the hallway, and the Prince looks at me skeptically.

“Where are you going?” He asks.

I don’t answer him, only gesturing back to the hallway. He looks at me for a moment through narrowed eyes, then turns and begins examining the objects on the nearest shelf.

It is both a relief and a strange discomfort to leave him behind.

…

The silence is easier on my own, and I walk through it for a long time yet. I suspect that we entered the Gruesrackle more than two hours ago, but timekeeping has never been a strength of mine.

Finally, I see a light flickering in the distance. I’m still a hundred empaces from it, but it seems warm. Maybe firelight. I walk a little faster, thinking again that it will not be so easy, but hoping nonetheless. I’m halfway there when I hear the first of the groans.

A sinking dread grows in my belly… I am suddenly very conscious of the fact that I am in the King’s dungeon, and I know the kind of man he is.

I walk slowly the rest of the way, careful of my footfalls. Part caution, part reluctance. The groans get louder, and gain distinct timbres as I get closer, and by the time I am at the doorway I am cold down to my metal. I creep forward and peer around the corner, and immediately wish I hadn’t.

The orange light dances in sharp ribbons across the oiled skin of a dangling corpse. The first body blooms into my vision and fills it, so that all I see is the sloping angles and planes of flesh, suspended feet above the ground in a high arc.

The man looks as if he’d been frozen, mid leap, the vivid beauty of his movement in revolting juxtaposition with the ugliness of his lifelessness. His body is threaded through with a dozen black wires that run from the ceiling to the floor straight through his swollen discolored flesh. His skin has been embroidered, with lapaz-colored string that has been stained and discolored with blood and puss.

And he is only the first, I now see, the welcomer to a hideous perversion of a sculpture garden. Instead of bronze casts, there are a dozen corpses strung up around the room. A clear spiral path weaves through them, a gallery inviting closer attention, but I don’t--I can’t--move. I choke on the smell of rot. I am rooted to the doorway, my eyes fixed horribly on the grotesque angles in to which the corpses had been contorted.

Clearly broken limbs and dislocated joints give the bodies an unnatural look, allowing them to have been bent into impossible shapes. For display. For amusement. Then the strangest, strangling sort of fear wells up in me as my mind puts together something that I can not let it articulate;

These people, these graceful and horrible corpses, had been strung up while they were alive.

Too much blood on the floor, russet stains with creeping tendrils, for them to have died anywhere else. And many of them bear rips and gashes where they clearly fought the wires. I feel my breathing get quicker and shallower as my eyes race around from corpse to corpse, taking in only flashes of gruesome flesh, greens and yellows and sagging greys, bright patterns woven into skin, and blooming purple bruises over broken bones.

But the angles of every body, the tilt of their limbs and torsos, all point to the center of the room, where the soft orange spotlight bathes two bodies suspended together in the act of fucking.

His limp-dead cock is held inside of her with blueberry string, his fingertips nailed into her ribcage, dimpling the soft flesh. Their tongues twist together in the open air, and I feel for the first time in my life that I am going to vomit.

Then I feel my legs give out from underneath me and the floor comes barreling upwards as I see it;

The woman is still breathing.

The crack of my kneecaps against the cold stone thunders across the room and in my own head, which is spinning uncontrollably. My heart threatens to tear out of my steel-ribs, and when her green eyes begin rolling in their sewn-open sockets, searching desperately for me, I scream.

...

I keep screaming after the light is gone and I am in darkness again. I am gone but she is still looking for me, her eyes roving through the walls, begging me to help her. I can not help her, though, because I am floating away. I glide away through the dank air until I can no longer hear the groaning, and then I find the floor again. There is still sound bursting out of me, but I am apart from it. I am apart from all of it.

It is only when my lungs have emptied and the echoes of the sound no longer clings to the walls that I come back to myself and I remember the Owl-Prince. I can hear his breathing now, and it is sharp and ragged. He must have found me and carried me away from that horrible room, I realize, which means he saw it too. I look up at him, and his fists are gripped tight in his feathers, his black eyes wide. I sit up and lean against the wall of the tunnel and focus on my breathing. He spins around and punches the wall. Again and again until he’s leaving black-red smears through his gloves.

When he is spent, he slides down the wall until he is sitting next to me.

“I…” The word creaks out of him then falls flat. His beak opens and closes continues to open and close, but nothing comes out. I am at once torn with pity and consumed with righteous anger.

“Your father.” I say, even though it will hurt him, because this is the cruelty he has never had to face before, and I want to him to feel every ounce of it.

“I know what he is. He didn’t do that.” He says in defeat, and drops his head into his hands. “He only watched.”

He spits the word with such disgust. I know he’s seeing the same thing I am; the King’s face, sharp with pleasure as he watches someone suffer in front of him. The cruel blue of his eyes, hungry and focused.

They pierce into me, stabbing through my flesh until suddenly I can’t bear the thought. This is why I came here, to rid the world of him. I should have known what would be down here, I think. I rise suddenly, stinging with shame at my own weakness, and I walk determinedly back the way we came. I hear the Prince follow soon after.

I return to the room and the vomit feeling begins again, but this time I push it down. I walk to the center of the room, and the woman’s desperately spinning eyes finally find me. I rest my fingertips gently across her neck and feel her weak pulse.

She watches, unblinking, as I inspect the place where the shiny black wire enters her ribcage, and exits the other side. I know, as I trace it, that there is no way to remove it without killing her. I almost want feel separate from myself again, to pretend that the hand that probes the shiny red skin is not my own. But it is, and I am here, and I am made of fury and horrible, pitless grief. I look back at the Prince, who is staring with horrified eyes, and shake my head. He nods once, understanding, and as I turn back to do what I know I must, I expect him to walk away.

Instead, he surprises me by removing one of his gloves, revealing pale skin, and taking the girl’s hand in his. I see the way his hand shakes, and it is clear that he feels responsible for this, for the pain his father’s caused; his guilt bleeds into the air. She stares at him from the corner of her eye and reaches her trapped fingers vainly towards his feathers, and he tips his head so she can feel them.

I think I hear a small sigh escape from her, and her eyes roll back up into her head. And while she isn’t looking, I slip the very thinnest of my blades in under her jaw. Her body relaxes immediately, her breath rushing out all at once and her hand relinquishing it’s grip on the Prince’s feathers. I close my eyes as I pull out my dagger, not wanting to see the wound it caused. As I do, he takes his own blade and deftly severs the threads holding her eyes open, and closes them gently.

It is truating, but it is better, too. The end of her suffering is good, even if the end of her is heartbreaking. There is a moment of silence, and then the Prince and I come to the unspoken conclusion that it would be wrong to leave her there, strung up. I use my dagger to cute her down, the Prince turning his own blade to the strings that hold the days-dead man beside her.

Afterward, he and I become an unspoken team, working in silence to end the abasement of the suspended corpses. We cut them down, and since there is nothing to cover them and nowhere to bury them, we simply pile the bodies as best we can. It doesn’t feel like enough. When it is done, we leave the room without a word or a glance backwards.

...

We walk through more darkness for a long time after that. I can not cry. There is no mechanism in me for tears, and I wish deeply that there was. Anything to release this sick grief in me. It chokes me, sticking the gears of my throat together and I feel like I am going to shatter with it. I want something to break, to rip apart and savage.

I want the King. I want to hang him with his own intestines, sew him open and leave him dangling from the ceiling. Throw him to his sick menagerie and watch as they fuck him and tear him apart.

I burn with Purpose at the thought. I will not take the honor and revenge of his death, which is rightfully Cassaphine and the Two-Gens, but I will be the reason he dies. And suddenly, for the first time, I’m thinking of the after. What will happen when the King’s body cools?

“What will you do when your father dies?” I ask the Prince, abruptly breaking the silence.

He laughs without humor. “I will be King, then, I suppose. I may have to wait my whole life for that to happen, though.” He sounds bitter at the idea, but it’s true. The King has already lived for three-hundred and seventy years; without my intervention, it might be another century or more before he died.

“And what would you do as King?” I ask. He surprises me with his answer;

“Make peace with the Stroal.” He says earnestly. I look at him incredulously--remembering too late that I shouldn’t be able to see him, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “The Castle has suffered too much from its isolation; we are one of the only Great Cities who don’t participate in large-scale continental trade, and the entire city is going to crumble underneath us if we don’t change course.”

“But the Stroal? They just obliterated Ibellum!” I say, the sting of it still fresh. He hesitates for a moment before he answers.

“I don’t know that they did.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“When my father told me the story, before the Council...some things just didn’t sit right together.” We’ve stopped walking now, and I can see that he’s fidgeting with his glove again. “I don’t see how the Stroal could have mounted such an overwhelming force to attack Ibellum, when half of their army is defending their southeastern border.”

“How do you know that?” I am numb with disbelief. How can that be? The Prince is so long in answering that I wonder if he’s begun to regret saying so much.

“Our spies often report to me when my father is...occupied. The Stroal aren’t the warmongers he makes them out to be.” He says eventually.

“Then...if not the Stroal, who?”

“That I don’t know. There’s a lot of gaps that I can’t make sense of.” He exhales deeply, seemingly lost in thought. “I wonder if there any answers down here, or just more misery.”

I don’t have an answer for him. It seems that everything King Kohorrad touches is brought to only misery--and that seems even to include the Owl-Prince.

“Only one way to find out.” I say. He nods, and we continue down the dark hall.

We walk another long time in dark and silence. There is only the one hallway, no turns or twists or offshoots. I wonder how far and deep it goes, if perhaps none of the rumors are true and instead the Gruesrackle is really only an endless suffocating cage of black. The idea sticks in me, and it gets hard to breathe. Suddenly I can not find my courage, or my Purpose, as one horrifying thought occurs to me;

Does the Owl-Prince need to eat? Drink? I do not. As long as I remain in motion, I could live down here forever, caught in the empty silence without any escape. I could wander this empty hallway for another century, until sunlight and laughter were only a dusty memory in the back of my mind. How long until I lost my mind? Is the Gruesrackle filled with the broken shells of long-lived creatures, roaming in madness?

I don’t notice that I have started to run until the Owl-Prince catches up with me. I am not sprinting and he easily matches my stride, and when I see him I return to my senses. Someone will come looking for the Prince. The Castle would not give its sole heir up for lost, and someone would come. I don’t slow down, but the panic recedes.

The Prince doesn’t seem to mind running, and I’m glad to be moving faster. It doesn’t take us long at this pace to reach another doorway, though. I see the slant of light that spills into the hall only a moment after he does, and as if on unspoken cue we slow to a walk together. Neither of us wants to see what is beyond the doorway, but there is no avoiding it.

I stop just short of the vasco-green light, hovering in the shadow just outside the door, bracing myself. I startle terribly when I feel a hand on my shoulder, but it is only the Prince. By the time I’ve realized this and re-sheathed my dagger, he’s moving into the room ahead of me. I hear his shallow gasp, and go in after him.

This room is just as harrowing as the last, and I’m oddly grateful to the Prince for sparing me the burden of seeing it first. There are no human sculptures here, only bodies piled together haphazardly. The carelessness is somehow worse to look at; there are also more. Bodies of every shape and color litter the floor and the couches. At my feet is a woman who’s fragile wings are torn and crumpled underneath her, her arm tangled awkwardly together with another corpse with skin the texture of thick paint-strokes.

The Owl-Prince is kneeling over a man with delicate, translucent skin. He is tracing the outline of bruises and teeth marks, that appear as lazap yellows and greens and blues. I cross the room to him, stepping carefully around the bodies between us. I touch his arm lightly, but his fingers just continue to loop across the rainbow of violence.

“Go get me some of that fabric.” I tell him quietly. He stays where he is for a moment, then shakes himself and stands. He begins to take down the swaths of fabric that hang from the ceiling, and I begin to collect the bodies. I lay them out in a row, arranging them as best I can amidst their broken limbs and fingers. When it’s done, I take one end of the long fabrics the Prince has collected, and together we cover the corpses in colorful silk.

“Do you think there is any good left in him?” The Prince asks me as we leave the room. I don’t answer him, because he knows what I am going to say. He sighs, “Maybe there was never any good at all.”

“We are not our parents, Prince.” I say, and once the words leave me I hear the truth in them. I had never truly given the Prince much thought before this, but I have seen enough to know now that the Prince is not the King.

“Soyan.” He says to me. “‘My name is Soyan.”

“Soyan.” I try the name out, and find that it fits him. It feels like a small gift, his name, and I wonder if we might be something closer to allies than adversaries now.

“And are you different from your parents, Lady Gleo?” He asks me. I almost laugh at the question, then a deep pang shoots through me. I wonder if I will ever see my mothers again. I have to believe that I will.

“I am much like them; any strength I have came from them, any honor or loyalty. I am much less patient, and they are wiser than I think I will ever be.” I say, fondly.

“And your kindness? Does that come from them as well?” He asks gently.

“I don’t think I’m kind.” I say quickly. “I don’t like to see people suffer, but I don’t know that that’s kindness.”

He makes a disbelieving noise in his throat, but doesn’t press it.

“Alright, then are they as stubborn as you?” He says instead, and there is teasing in his voice. This time I do laugh.

“Even more so.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.” He laughs at my faux-indignant expression. We have a few moments of companionable silence before he says; “I didn’t know my mother… I can only hope she had some good in her.”

“I think she must have.”

“Thank you, Lady Gleo.”

He seems on the verge of saying something else, but when he opens his beak he is interrupted by a shattering roar.

It sounds at once distant and irreconcilably loud. Both Soyan and I know without saying that we are nearing the Menagerie, and we begin walking again. Eventually we come to the first split in the hall; a dead end with a turn to the left and one to the right. The growls are coming from the right-hand hall, and I notice that it is much wider than the left. A thought occurs to me;

“There must be another way in to the Gruesrackle.” I say.

“What makes you think that?” He asks.

“The King couldn’t fit all his monsters through to door that we came through. He must bring them in some other way.”

“Oh, well that is good news.” The Prince says with some sarcasm. “Then all we have to do is navigate through a labyrinth of my father’s most hideous monsters to escape.”

Yes, I think dryly, and I will be leading a score of wet-geared Valkyrie as well. Then it occurs to me all at once that I might not have to complete my Purpose alone. Would the Prince help me, if he knew? I can’t help but think that he would…

“Lady Gleo? What’s wrong?” He turns and looks at me with concern when he sees that I’ve stopped dead. “I was mostly kidding about the labyrinth and the monsters, you know. I’m sure my father will have them chained up.”

“Prince Soyan,” I say, hesitant in my unsurity, “you asked me why I wanted down into the Gruesrackle…”

“Yes?” He says, and now he sounds unsure as well.

“I’m here on… a mission, of sorts. There’s something I need to find.”

“What could you possibly need from the Gruesrackle?” He asks, confused, then softer; “Oh, Lady, I hope you didn’t come down here to find someone.”

“Of a sort.” I say, and I can find no way to measure my words so I tell him plainly; “I came to find the fourth generation of Valkyries. They’re down here, I’m sure of it. There’s nowhere else in the Castle they could be.”

“What? Why?” He seems genuinely confused, and I can see his feathers begin to ruffle as the first hint of defensiveness ripples through him. “Are you trying to reprogram them--trying to stage a coup? It wouldn’t work.”

“Because they belong with the rest of the Valkyrie.” I say firmly. I’m trying to be gentle, I am, but his defensiveness has stirred my own.

“Lady Gleo, you’re not making sense. The Castle has plenty of gearboxes; why would we need to wake the next batch? Is this because of Ibellum?”

“Don’t call them that.” I hiss. I stop and take a deep breath, and concentrate on keeling my voice back to even. I know I’m going about this all wrong; he doesn’t even know we are alive, and my anger is not going to help him understand. “Have you ever been to the Citadel, Prince?”

“Storage wing? No, not since my Father showed me as a child.”

“If you went, today, right now, you would not find rows of empty-headed automatons waiting in an empty room to be called into service. You would find a community of living, breathing individuals, playing and sparring and teaching and learning together.” I can see the Prince beginning to go blank with disbelief, and the words start coming out faster; “All of the Valkyries have a name of their own, friends and lovers and thoughts and desires of their own. They are people.”

“That’s not possible. The Valkyrie are automatons; they fill their purposes, and nothing else. Trust me, Lady Gleo, they’ve been guarding me my whole life. If they were aware, alive, I would know it.” He sounds almost desperate. But I have to keep pushing him, I have to.

“It’s true, Prince Soyan. Your father has been enslaving them for centuries. There was a revolution that wiped out the entire First Generation before either of us were born, and the Second Generation had no choice to surrender after he took the whole Fourth hostage; he would have killed them all if they didn’t agree.” In a fit of impulse I take his gloved hand in mine. He has to see, I am begging him to see.

His brow-feathers furrow. His eyes are dark when he looks up at me. “And how would you know, Lady Gleo?”

I take a deep breath before I can answer. “I know because I am one of them, Soyan.” His grip threatens to crush my hand now.

“That’s not possible.” He says again, furious.

“So you’ll believe all his other atrocities--all of the mutilated corpses, and the terror he’s brought to his court right in front of you, but not this?” I spit back at him. He opens his beak to say something else, but I yank my hand out of his grip and draw one of my blades.

“Gleo, what--” He reaches for me, but I’ve already drawn the sharp edge across the backside of my own knuckles. My thick gold blood, managing still to glimmer despite the dimness of the light, globs down my fingers and falls heavy down to floor.

The Owl-Pince’s eyes grow even wider and rounder as I grit my teeth against the pain and pull my skin back as much as I can bear. It is enough, and the pistons and bearings of my hand are a distinct silver against the gold of my blood.

“It can’t be…” He whispers, seemingly to himself.

“It is.” I say, pulling my skin back over my hand. “Soyan, please...believe me. All I want is to save my sisters; they don’t belong down here.”

“And when you do…” He backs away a step as he speaks. “You’ll kill the King. You said it yourself; their safety is the only thing stopping you.”

“You don’t think he deserves to die?” I can’t believe this. After everything we just saw?

“You’ll destroy the Monarchy! You’ll kill me, and end the line, and then who will bear the burden of the rule?” He is almost shouting now, his feathers all on end.

“Oh, and the Monarchy is doing such an outstanding job! I should have known you wouldn’t help me. Why should the Prince care about the lives of anyone else?” The pain in my hand is burning now, and I am out of patience for him. I didn’t need him when I began my quest to the Gruesrackle, and I don’t need him now.

“I don’t care? You lied to me! You were going to kill me--you’re still going to kill me!” The words come out as a screech, and the fight-blood is bubbling in me now. A moment more and I know I’ll hit him--I’ll hit him hard and I won’t stop.

“Get out of my sight. Run home to daddy, since it seems you’re just like him after all.” I tell him, then I turn around and walk into the deeper darkness.

...

It is an unending walk down the narrow passage, and the temperature drops further with each step. I am shivering fiercely even under Cassaphines heavy cloak by the time I see a light in the distance, but I am still furious, and glad that I am alone. The Owl-Prince shouldn’t be here for this, the completing of my Purpose; and I know that this is it. Every step I take towards the blue light I grow more sure.

I reach the doors, twice as wide as they are tall, and I hesitate. The soft blue light leaks out of glass windows and from the crack along the floor, and I can’t see into the room. What if I’m wrong? What if the Tomb isn’t here at all, and I’ve only buried myself?

Waiting outside the door will not change it, one way or the other, though. I push through.

…

Pure joy fills my heart as I enter. A glorious, ecstatiliant relief floods over me as I see them, my missing sisters. But it is followed too quickly by the sinking disbelief. The Fourth Generation are here, curled tight into little balls and laid gently into shallow shelves. But they are not all here. Empty hollows punctuate the rows, screaming out with vacancy. I count numbly; ten, eleven, twelve… eighteen missing bodies. Just short of half.

Half.

I try to convince myself that the King has only hidden them somewhere else. I beg myself to believe that there is another room, just behind this one, or past the Menagerie, somewhere. But I know better. I know down into my cold steel bones that there is no other room. I know, because I felt it--felt but did not realize it--the density and heaviness of their bodies as I cut their corpses down and covered them in colored silk.

I can see now the vivid sea-green of the girl’s eyes as they spun and searched for me; I wondered, blind involted fool that I am, how she could still be alive. A bitter laugh escapes me, and another until they turn into sobs. I am screaming again, and tearing the doors behind me off their hinges, and shattering the glass and breaking everything in my sight. What is the point? What is the point of anything if they’re dead? Half a generation, lost!

When there is nothing else to tear apart, the screams die in me, and so does everything else. A small piece of myself, small in the back of mind, is glad for it. I want none of this pain, this overwhelming, truating sorrow. I walk numbly out of the room, back down the hall. I go into the rooms again, barely seeing the monstrosity of them. And I find them, the girls with glossy synthair and hard strong limbs, and I carry them with me. I only find seven.

I take them back to the Tomb, then I scour the Gruesrackle for the rest. It takes me hours. I find four more rooms past the Tomb, each seemingly designed for their own horrors. I pile the corpses in each one, taking only the Valkyrie with me, until I have all eighteen. My arms ache by the time I’m done, the cut on my hand still stinging, and I wish the pain was more.

I spend another eternity brushing out each of their hair, snapping broken and dislocated pieces back together. I painstakingly remove every inch of blue thread from the girl I rescued from the sculpture room. I take the blood that still dribbles slowly down my wrist and mark each of their faces with it; they will never have a chance to complete their war-trials, but they have earned their paint all the same. When I am finished, I begin to move the still-sleeping.

I take them gently into the hall, one by one, until the blank spaces in the shelves no longer mock me. The grief recedes by an inch as I do, and I return a little to myself; no Valkyrie will ever touch this room again. I have to search a long time for something to start the fire; in the end I find a lightbulb to shatter, and I drape a long spool of cloth over it. It takes a while, but eventually the threads go up in flames, and I stand for a long time and watch as the Tomb burns down to ashes, taking my dead sisters with it.

When it is nothing but soot and scorch marks, I set to waking the remaining Four-Gens. I am as gentle as I can be as I delve into the back of their necks in search of the switch. One after another, I feel the shining, vital tremble of them under my finger, and the grief recedes another inch. They blink slowly to life, fog and confusion clinging to them like cobwebs as they slowly stir their limbs. I finish, finally, brushing the last one to life, and look into their eyes.

A soaring light blossoms in my chest as I look at them. My Purpose, finally fulfilled. The chasm in me yawns dark and wailing still, but they were not all lost; I saved more than I burned.

They truly are like children. They stand clumsily, stretching themselves uncertainly and wobbling on their new legs. I know that this is what I must have been like, after Cassaphine first woke me, but I can't help but to laugh to myself. Another tick of the tension in me unspools; seeing them standing on their own two feet feels so right.

Then like a dam breaking, I come back to myself. They need me, to lead them out of the Gruesrackle, and so long as King Kohorrad lives they will never be truly safe. I can grieve later, when it is over.

I approach them, and clear my throat gently as not to startle them.

“Who are...you?” One asks. She is the steadiest on her feet, and the first to find her tongue.

“My name is Gleo. I’m a Valkyrie, like you.” I tell them.

“Valkyrie.” Another one tests the word. It’s repeated a few times through the crowd of them.

“I’m here to take you back to the others. They’re all waiting to meet you.” I’m unaccountably pleased when they exchange look among themselves, deciding together whether or not to trust me. Evidently they do, because the first one, the steadiest, only says; “Lead.”

It doesn’t take them long to iron out their movements. We’ve been jogging through the tunnel towards the Menagerie for only minutes when the sound of their footsteps starts to gently melt into silence. I am grateful for those instincts, that run so deep they need no teaching. The hall widens when we pass the fork, and they begin to run three abreast behind me,

I am reminded suddenly of Prince Soyan, and the memory of our last encounter enrages me all over again. I wonder if he made it out, or if we will find his body. I don’t know which I would prefer.

I get my answer when we reach what can only be the entrance to Menagerie, and I know with a strange surety that the Prince has escaped the Gruesrackle. I can’t tell what’s given me this certainty, until I see that the great iron gate has a twin-key still lodged in it’s keyhole.

I feel a prickle of relief that the Prince found his way out, and a tribble of shame that after all the things I said to him that he still left the key for me to be able to follow him. I quash both these feelings with my anger, and on the heels of the anger comes the dread; the Prince would not have closed and locked the gate behind him if there wasn’t something that needed to be kept in. There is something loose in the Menagerie.

The four-Gens have gathered quietly behind me. The dread builds as I realize the difficulty of the task before me. These just-woken Valkyrie, still blinking slowly and with new curious eyes, will need to be led silently through a labyrinth of horrific monsters then back through the Castle without being seen or devoured. But there is no room for doubt, or for fear. I have to lead them, so I will.

“I understand that you’ve all only just been woken,” I say to them, keeping my voice low. “But for what we are about to do, I will need all your concentration and focus. You don’t yet know what it means to be one of the Valkyrie, but know that our courage, our strength and tenacity, runs through your blood.”

The steady one, who’s synthair is a mass of gold-red curls, looks around to the other Four-Gens. The others nod affirmatively to her, and she asks, “What do we need to do?”

I swell with pride at their firm, serious expressions and they way they’ve squared their young shoulders in the face of this challenge.

“Past this gate is a maze full of monsters, horrific beasts that will kill us all if we aren’t perfectly careful. Every one of us will need to be as quick and silent as death if we’re to make it through. You will need to follow my lead footstep for footstep, and if we’re discovered you will all need to do exactly as I tell you. Can you do this?” The possibility that they may have to fight, wet-geared and shiny, chills my bones.

“We can do it, Gleo.” she says. She sounds so confident, and for a moment all I can think of is her broken body, caught in the green teeth of a glast. My courage is only mine, I realize; I do not know how to be brave for the girls in front of me. But the sound of the Valkyrie comes to me, drumming their feet and chanting my name, and remember that these girls, too, are Valkyrie. And I put my faith in that, that if I will lead them, they will survive.

I begin handing the Four-Gens every blade I have. I give my sword to the steady one, the daggers that hang on my hips go to the two behind her. The knives in my boots, then the ones strapped to my forearms, and the two crossed along my shoulderblades. I remove all the thin spikes sewn into my clothes, and then I only have the to the two in the lining of Cassaphines cloak to give.

When all is said and done, fourteen of the twenty two Four-Gens are armed. I consider spending time here in the mouth of the Menagerie to teach them the basics of bladeplay, but I realize that have been a long time mourning and burning, and if the Prince went to his father then our time may already be up. I will have to trust the fight-blood in them to guide them. I will have to make sure they don’t need to use it.

“Remember; do everything I tell you, and nothing else.” I say sternly, and every one of them nods their assent. “I promise I will lead you through this.” And again in the saying of the words they bind me.

I turn, and twist the key.

The gate swings inward without a whisper and I breathe a silent sigh of relief. I creep excruciatingly slowly through the entryway. Inside, I can see that the walls of the Menagerie are built of towering norawarn shells. The pale opalescence is almost translucent, and I can see the shadows of movement through them. And in a stroke of Maker’s Grace, the shells still bear the marks of colossal underwater battles, and the deep tooth scars run along all the way to the top of the walls.

I signal for the Four-Gens to stay put, then I begin to climb. My left knuckles protest weakly as I scale the sheer wall, but it isn’t long before I reach the top. I perch carefully on the too-thin edge, and look across as far as I can see. It is a sprawling maze, set in a wide cave-like chamber with a shallow domed ceiling. The Prince was right, mostly; the beasts I can see are chained by their necks and limbs to the ground. A few of the passages will be a tight squeeze past, but nothing undoable. And, across the wide expanse of the chamber, I can see a staircase leading up the wall to a small door.

My hopes are rising, until I see movement from the very center of the labyrinth. A rolling bit of flesh crests above the norawarn wall, the most of a creature I think--until it raises its head. It is a behemoth, the glinting eyes alone as large as my head. I takes me a few moments of shock at its sheer size to identify the creature, and when I do my blood freezes cold; I am looking at the thick heavy head of a Tigarr.

“Tronhexa’s bones...” I whisper under my breath, still not entirely able to belive my eyes.

I creep slowly along the walls to get a better look. As I get close enough to see it clearly, it confirms all of my worst fears. Long strings of muscle cord the length of its body, each limb as large as a person and armored tightly in iron. Its paws are tipped with cruel black claws, and the the points of its ivory teeth protrude slightly from beneath its lips.

Worst, it stretches freely. No chains trap it to the ground, it’s heavy metal collar untethered entirely. Only it’s great iridescent wings are tied together, and that will not stop it from pursuing us like rats through it’s maze.

Could this be one of creatures that attacked Ibellum? This monstrosity would easily tear a clay eagle limb from limb, but what would it be doing in the King’s Menagerie? It shifts, rolling onto its side, and the sheer size of it overwhelms me again. I look for passages around the thing, but every passage leads to the center. I can see places where the walls grow too thin to walk across, and the other creaturs seem to be strategically positioned to force anyone in the maze towards the Tigarr.

I know with a familiar sinking certainty that there will be no way around it. I scramble back down the wall to where the Four-Gens are waiting silently for me. I leave the steady one my sword, but I take back one of the long daggers from another. I’m going to need it.

...

I take the Four-Gens through the cleanest path through the maze. The halls are mostly empty as we creep silently through them, and they perform bravely when we are forced to crawl past a snapping, slavering beckawry. None of them make a sound as they flatten themselves to the wall and move past single file, even when its gleaming teeth come within inches of their faces.

More than once the twists and switchbacks of the labyrinth disorient me, and I’m forced to scale the walls again to get my bearings. Once one the Four-Gens legs goes to rubber, and sends her sprawling across the ground. The others help her up, and I instruct them how to massage the joint to return to feeling to it. I listen intently, unmoving and unbreathing as they do, waiting at any moment for something to appear around the corner. But nothing comes, and the girl gets back on her feet, and we keep moving.

I whisper them encouragements as we go, sharing my courage with them as best I can, and it is not long before we reach the center of the maze. I stop us two turns away, and think on how to proceed. The agitation of the creatures we’ve passed has riled up the titanic Tigarr; I can see its hulking silhouette through the shell-walls as it paces. And for the first time I can see the fear in the eyes of the Four-Gens, but they stay still and quiet.

I turn to the steadiest one, and pull her aside.

“We’re at the center of the labyrinth.” I tell her, quietly so the others can’t hear. It’s a risk, trusting the safety of them all to this wet-geared girl, but I can’t see any other way. “Just across from here is a path that will take you all out the other side. When you reach the far wall, there will be a staircase, and at the top is the door that will lead you out into the Castle.

“In between, there will be a boargall first, and then a thimblespook. You’ll need to move past the boargall just like we did with the beckawry, but the thimblespook will be more difficult. It wont be able to see you, but you can not let it hear you. If it touches you, it will pull you in and you’ll be trapped. Get one of the others to make a noise from further away to distract it, then lead the others past.”

“Gleo, what--”

“Listen to me.” I cut her off. There isn’t time for questions and I need to her remember everything. “When you get out into the Castle, I don’t know where you’ll be. You’ll need to find your way to the Citadel, where the other Valkyries will be waiting for you. It’s in the northwest corner of the Castle; stay to the outer edges, and if you have to ask someone to orient you, make sure its not anyone wearing bright colors--or an owl-man. When you reach the other Valkyries, they’ll take care of the rest.”

“Gleo, we’re not going to leave you.” She whispers furiously. Her mouth is set in such a stubborn line that I would laugh if my heart wasn’t trying to burst out of my chest for them. I put my hand on her shoulder.

“You have to. My Purpose is to get you back to the Citadel safely; that’s the only thing that matters to me. Now, wait here, and when the time is right, you have to lead the rest of them across.” Before she can protest again, I unhook Cassaphines cape from my shoulders, and drape it across hers. At least Cassaphine will get it back, I think.

Then I stride forward around the corner, into the center of the maze.

…

When I turn the corner, the Tigarr is pacing away from me. I watch it for a moment, sizing up my opponent but also mesmerized as it’s muscles ripple under its striped hide. There is a beauty in its movements, a lithe grace grounded in iron-hard power. Truly, it is like nothing I have ever seen.

This will be a battle, and a death, worthy of a Valkyrie.

I begin to feel the pulse of my blood, a quickening drumbeat to the rising chord of exhilaration vibrating through my core. Readiness thrums down into my fingers as I grip the hilt of my dagger. The great beast continues to pace away from me, and away from the doorway that will take the Four-Gens out of the labyrinth.

I place my feet softly and steadily as I follow it silently across the pit. The semi-soft sand greets my footsteps easily, and I move quickly. I am almost upon the it when both the beast and I sense something across the pit. Maybe it was a sound, perhaps just a shift in the air, but it is enough to draw the attention of the Tigarr to the place where the first few Four-Gens have started to make their way across the pit.

The beginning of a snarl wrinkles the giant cat’s lips, and I move without thinking. I run towards it, and bellow out my battle-cry at the top of lungs. It is more than enough to get the Tigarr’s attention. It whips its head around at the sound, it’s ears flattened to its skull, the Four-Gens all but forgotten. It bares its fangs to me, and they are gleaming white and dripping with saliva. Blood is crusted into the fur of its muzzle, and there is a savage fury in it’s boiling amber eyes.

We stare at each other for one short moment, two creatures made of the same fire, and then the moment ends and the battle begins.

The Tigarr slips into a crouch with blinding speed, and then I am ducking under a swipe from it’s savage paw. My momentum propels me forwards, and I roll smoothly with it, coming up underneath it’s belly. It twists to find me, and I score my blade across it’s gut as I dart out from underneath it. The beast snarls in annoyance, but barely a drop of blood trickles into it’s thick fur.

I steady my feet, and immediately the Tigarr’s jaws come crashing towards me. A launch myself sideways and it’s teeth snap shut around the empty air, but only barely. I move as quickly as my body will allow, spinning into a overhand stab--it finds its mark and sinks into the flesh of the beast’s foreleg just behind its armor. The blade is an extension of my soul as it rips through the skin and muscle, and I smile as the Tigarr yowls in pain.

The Tigarr turns and tries to ram me with it’s massive head, and I barely dodge it. I can feel it’s primal fury in the air between us, in the steaming heat of it’s blood as it sizzles onto the sand, and there is something pure in the feeling that we share. I feel it as I firm my stance; craving for it’s blood on my blade and in my teeth, the sure power of my own body, the joy of the challenge. There is no euphoria I know that could match the thrill of the fight.

It lunges for me again and now I’m ready for it. I leap backwards through its parted jaws before they crash closed, and then drive my dagger down hard into its muzzle. It howls again, and I feel my feet leave the floor as it yanks it’s head back, but I hold on. It thrashes back and forth, trying to shake me off, but I dig my hand into the widening cut and rip with all my strength, tearing the gash until it stretches from its black lip to the edge of its nostril. Steaming blood pours out and slickens and burns against my belly.

It pumps between my fingers, and I struggle for a moment before I loose my grip on the slippery flesh.

It shakes me off with a sharp jerk of it’s head, and I go spinning to the ground. I land to absorb the impact, but the soft earth gives way beneath my feet and I feel my ankle roll. I struggle up to my feet, hoping that the wound I’ve inflicted will buy me enough to time to recover, but before I can right myself something crashes hard into my side. The Tigarr has bowled me over with a massive paw, and once I’m on the ground the Tigarr pins me there.

Out of my periphery, I see the last of the Four-Gens disappear into the maze, ushered through by the steady one. I let out a breath of relief. I know in my bones that this will be the end, but I served my Purpose as best I can, and I will trust the Maker to guide them the rest of the way. It feels almost right, to me, that it would end this way; a Valkyrie between generations, never part of either, it made sense to die so that the Fourth Generation belong the way I was never quite able to.

I feel the hot angry breath of the beast on my face as it looms over me, waiting, as its cruel curved claws dig down into the skin and muscle of my shoulder. Though the movement is agonizing, I bring my dagger up and wedge the blade into the base of it’s claw. I feel the tendons tear, but the pressure doesn’t let up. Then I see the blurring white of teeth above me, and brace myself for the end.

…

In the blackness, the weight of the Tigarr’s paw is gone, but the sting in my shoulder remains. I feel my blood dripping down the side of my neck, and hear it puddling underneath me. Then I hear my name.

“Gleo.” It is nothing more than a whisper, and I wonder if I am about to meet the Maker. I am happy that I will be able to tell her that I served my Purpose, and died like a true Valkyrie.

“Gleo.” This time the voice is louder. I’m confused; it sounds almost angry, strained somehow. Why would she be cross with me?

“‘GLEO!” This time it is a shout, and I recognize the voice.

My eyes fly open and I see the steady-one with my sword held out in front of her, and she is screaming my name. The Tigarr is limping heavily on the shoulder I injured, but it has her backed up against a wall. It takes a perfunctory swipe at her, gauging it’s distance before it lunges. I ignore the screaming in my shoulder as I launch myself to my feet, any joy of the fight gone now and replaced with dread.

I scream, running towards the beast. I shout wordlessly at it, and it’s ears angle back to me, but it stays intent on the steady-one. My dagger is still in my hand so I throw it, sending it spinning end over end until it lodges into the tendons of its hind leg. Finally it turns to me with a growl so furious and savage that I feel it rumble through the earth beneath me. As it turns, the girl rolls over her shoulder away from the wall, and hacks at it’s already-injured back leg with the sword. The Tigarr howls again, hateful eyes boring into mine, before it turns again to the girl.

I have no more weapons than my two hands, but the thought of losing another Four-Gen is unthinkable, so I keep sprinting at it, driving forward as hard as I can, my heart pounding.The great beast swipes again at the the steady-one, and she ducks with only a synthair between her and it’s claws. Then the Tigarr crouches to lunge, but I’ve reached it now, and I launch myself onto its hindquarters. I climb desperately using the straps of it’s armor and fistfulls of it’s fur.

I crest its hipbones, struggling to keep my grip on the now writhing beast, when I see the other Four-Gens pouring from the mouth of the maze, blades in hand.

Then the Menagerie is filled with the sounds of the Tigarr’s snarls as a dozen cuts open into it at once. Three of them together set upon it’s right foreleg, already bleeding from my attack, and begin to slice it savagely. Before the thing can bring its teeth down on them though, another handful take to its back legs. In it’s pained and angry confusion I crawl up its spine, climbing over its chain-bound wings until I’m seated directly between its shoulderblades. It’s fur is thick, and I have nothing in my hands.

“SWORD!” I yell, and the steady one looks up from where she is hacking at the Tigarrs tendons. Two things happen at once; she sees me and tosses the sword up end over end to where I’m sitting. And then the Tigarr ducks down, and catches her between its teeth.

Her earsplitting scream fills the air as I catch the sword by the hilt. The sound rends me in two, and it is with only hatred in my heart that I bring the sword down into the back of the Tigarr’s skull. It roars in agony, but doesn’t fall. I twist the blade, pull it out halfway and jam it back in again, and finally I feel the muscles go slack underneath me. The Tigarr goes down hard, and I go down with it, barely avoiding being crushed by its limp weight as it rolls onto its side.

I free my sword from its dying flesh, and round its head just in time to see the light go from its eyes. Its sizzling lazap blood covers the ground, and it takes me too long to find the steady-one where she lays on the ground. I run to her, my heart in my throat. She coughs weakly, her eyes unfocused.

My hands scramble across her skin desperately until they find the puncture marks. The worst is through her hip, directly above her right leg, and the wound is ragged and as wide as the palm of my hand. Her blood--gold, like mine--gushes out and runs down her skin, but I don’t think it’s hit anything vital. I still have a chance to save her. A desperate hope beats against my ribs.

“Lift her torso!” I yell at the closest Four-Gen. “You--get that cape off her!” They hand it to me, and I am tearing scraps from it, wadding them up and pressing the black fabric into her wound. The bleeding slows, now a trickle from her hip and from the shallower scrape along her other thigh. I wipe off what I can, and when the blood is clear I can see that her hip joint has dislocated.

I rack my brain for the memory of Ophemia resetting my own leg, after a bad fall from a balcony, but all I can remember is the pain. Can she take much more pain? But if I leave her hip dislocated, the socket will begin to close, and we may never get the leg back in.

Her eyes are fluttering, half shut, and if she falls asleep I worry that I’ll lose her.

“You--” I motion to one of the others, “Keep talking to her, and tell me the second you think she’s not understanding you.” The girl nods, and goes to do what I said.

“Oh, and someone should find her something to bite down on.” I say ruefully to no one in particular. But someone goes, and when the girl’s teeth are firmly around the leather-bound hilt of a dagger, I place my hands as best I can, and push. The leg snaps back into place with a sick pop, and the steady-one screams. I can hear a dozen creatures in the maze crying out in answer, hungering for her blood or her body or her pain, but not a single one of the Four-Gens flinch.

They are most of them sporting shallow scratches or budding bruises but none of them truly injured, and I am heartened to see the determination on their faces. Two of them help me as I tear a long strip off the cloak and tie it across the steady-one’s hips to keep the leg and the bandages in place, and they nod solemnly when I tell them to keep putting pressure on the wound. I’ve done all I know to do--Ophemia would be able to do more, but I am no healer. All I can do now is to get her back to the Citadel.

“Stay strong, and you’ll pull through.” I tell her, willing it to be true. Her eyes are a bit more focused now, and she relaxes a bit when she sees me. Her hand comes up, and I grasp too tightly, like I can physically hold her with me. She’s trying to say something.

“Give me… a name?” She asks, her voice faint and hoarse. The request startles me; it’s a break in tradition, of course--but she doesn’t know that, and I can’t deny her this. I run my thumb across the back of her hand as I think. I want it to be right.

“Aeon.” I name her, and she smiles. Her eyes flutter closed, and for a moment my body goes cold before I see the strength of her breath.

Now that I think that she is away from the brink of death, the weight of time presses on me; we need to reach the Citadel before the King can come down here and find us, but I am wary of moving her too much. A piece of me is furious at her, at all of them, for disobeying me. For risking their entire future. But the bigger part of me knows that they were overwhelmingly brave, and that they fought like true Valkyries, wet-geared or no.

After a moment more, I decide we need to move more than Aeon needs to rest--she will just have to hold on as best she can. I quickly go to retrieve the dagger still lodged in the Tigarr’s leg, and hand it to one of the unarmed Four-Gens, keeping the sword for myself. My fingers come away covered in the lazap orange blood, and an idea comes to me suddenly.

I return to where two girls are positioning Aeon on what remains of Cassaphine’s cloak, which they’ve thought to stabilize with the long sturdy plates of the Tigarr’s armor. She winces when they adjust her leg, but she is lucid and that is all I can ask of her for now.

“Hold still.” I tell her as I approach. The blood is still hot on my fingers, but she stays still as I spread it across her face. I have never drawn my own warpaint, but know what it looks like, and I send a prayer to the Maker as I draw the pattern. Let this tie her life force to mine. Let her live to earn her own paint.

I choose the three tallest girls, all solid and sturdy with only a few scrapes between them, to carry Aeon on her makeshift pallet, and then lead them once again into the maze.

………………………………………….Chapter Four…..…………………………………………

Brilliant shafts of sunlight slant through the high windows of the Citadel, and stepping into its walls soothes my ragged heart. It is like the removal of a pain, returning home, and returning victorious. The race from the Gruesrackle, which after a long series of dizzying staircases emerged under the Royal Chambers, had been a breathless one. The dust-carpeted outer halls, secluded and used by few, had been blessedly empty and I’d led the Four-Gens as fast as I dared.

Now joy and relief fill me as I watch them file in behind me, wonder lighting up their faces as they enter the Citadel’s warm embrace.

The Citadel is one towering, sprawling room, with four deep balconies layering the far walls. Every foot is covered in bookshelves that hold weapons, clothes, miscellaneous objects, and everywhere books and more books. The sunlight, pouring through the full-glass wall, catches the colored fabric scraps and hanging chimes that have been hung ceremoniously throughout. It is more beautiful than anything I have ever seen.

Slowly though, I realize that there things missing; no curling smoke or scent of incense, and it is far too quiet. In the waning of the day, there should be at least a dozen Valkyries in the Citadel, but I can not hear a single voice. And as I close the door behind the last Four-Gen, I look around and confirm the uneasy truth of it; the Citadel is empty.

Almost.

“‘Get down!” I shout to the Four-Gens, who crouch obediently. I vault over a shelf, drawing my sword as I do, so that when I land I am standing defensively in between the girls and the intruder.

He shifts from his perch on the third balcony, and I uncertainly tighten my grip on the hilt of my sword as he leans forward, tipping his balance over the railing and falling. He drifts almost slowly to the ground, his feathered cape trailing behind him through the golden light until he lands softly on his feet. He stands straight, and his round black eyes meet mine.

His face is unreadable, but I can put the pieces together; the Citadel empty, the Valkyrie gone, and the Owl-Prince Kohhorad here. An unspeakable rage fills me, boiling the blood in my veins.

“What have you done?” I scream at him. I feel the choking sensation again, the one that isn’t tears but should be, and realize it is isn’t just anger I feel--it’s betrayal. I demand again; “What have you done with them?”

“Lady Gleo--”

“Where are they!?”

“The King has them.” He finally says, and before he can open his beak to say more, to give me his justifications, I lunge.

My sword is a silver blur through the air, and it is only by an inch that the Prince manages to dodge the blow. Had I been but a step closer, he would have been parted with his arm--and been grateful it was not his neck I severed. I am going to hurt him, yes, but even in my rage I realize I am not swinging for the kill.

And now he has his own blade drawn, and I can see in the steadiness of his stance that this will be a true fight. His big black eyes are steady on me. I feint high, and swing my leg out to sweep him. I catch his ankle, but where he should have fallen instead he twists and somehow keeps his footing. He takes the opening presented, but his swing is half-hearted and it is barely a thought to parry it.

“Gleo…” He says, and it pinches something in my heart to hear it. I swing again, and he sweeps it aside with a sloppy contre, exposing his ribs for a half second. And when I see the opening, and do not take it, I know that I am half-hearted too.

“Get out of here, Prince.” I tell him, before I can change my mind. He stares at me, and doesn’t move.

“Get OUT!” I shout, and I take a wide, wild swing at him with my sword. He skitters back a pace, and after another moment’s hesitation he turns and leaps up to the first balcony. He looks back at me for just a moment then he turns and he disappears into the shadows.

…

There is a putrid sort of irony that strikes me as I run through the halls of the Castle now. By all accounts I’ve completed my Purpose; I’ve woken the Four-Gens and brought them back to the Citadel. But they are still not safe, and now neither are the others.

And there is no one else to save them, so I sprint as fast as my legs will carry me through the halls. I ignore the dull ache in my shoulder, the burned skin on my palms and stomach, and the curious eyes that follow me. I just run.

A thousand nightmares run through my mind as I go; how the King could possibly have taken the Valkyries, what he means to do with them, how I am going to save them. There is something that is missing, something that doesn’t make sense, but I have no choice but to keep hurtling towards it.

I left the Four-Gens to protect the Citadel, though they protested fiercely at being left behind. I waited only long enough to instruct them how to find the shelves that hold our battle armor and weapons, then I commanded them to protect each other as I ran out the door. I can only hope that they will not need to. True fear bubbles in the pit of my stomach; there is too much danger, and for the first time I doubt myself. How will I save everyone that I love?

I only stop running when I reach the doors to the throne room. I take a half-moment to swallow the fear--I let the anger fill me in its place, and take from it a steely, bitter determination. My shoulder has begun to bleed again, and I dribble little gold puddles onto the ground as I press my ear to the heavy oak doors. I think I can hear something from the room, but the wood is too thick to be sure.

Every piece of me wants to storm through the doors right this instant, but I can hear Cassaphine’s voice in my head that tells me that I can not barrel in blind. No, I’ll slip in through the hidden door, and see what I’m up against. I’ve just decided this when I hear a shattering scream. The truation in the sound cuts right through the door, and I know in my gears that it came from one of us.

I grab the gilded handles and wrench the doors open without a second thought, bursting through into the throne room. The next moment I have a blade in each hand, and I am ready.

The king sits on his raised throne, his cruel blue eyes locked onto mine, and my vision is a simmering beating red.

“Lady Gleo, how kind of you to join us.” He says, and has the audacity to smirk at me. Hatred boils in me, searing my throat, and I ready my sword in my grip. He will not be so joviusial with my sword in his gut, I think--but before I can lunge, a movement at the base of the throne draws my eye. Axenthe, with Kohhorad’s fist in her hair and his steel at her throat. And then I look to the rest of the room, and my heart drops out of my chest.

The Valkyries are on their knees on the floor, with their hands and feet carefully bound--and behind them stand dozens of the grallest men I’ve ever seen. Metal plates and studs are welded into their puffy white skin, and it looks as though their lips have been mutilated, torn away to reveal a skeletal grimace of bleached teeth. They carry heavy curved blades, and bear the scars of war.

The King watches me stop, and his vicious smile grows.

“Allow me to introduce you to my friends, the Barbirdes.” He says, and my mind races. The Barbirdes--from the southern sea? I cannot fathom what they are doing in the Castle, or how they overpowered the Valkyrie in the Citadel in the first place.

“Now,” The King continues, “I think before we can proceed, you ought to join your sisters on the floor. Don’t you agree?”

I lock eyes with Axenthe, who seems to be glowing with rage. She shakes her head only a fraction, but it is enough. My mind spins, and I don’t understand why we aren’t already fighting, but my war-chief has told me to keep my steel in hand so I will.

“No. I don’t think I will.” I spit at the Bastard King. Anger takes over his features, a dark scowl replacing his vainglorious smirk.

“You would see the rest of your kin massacred in their sleep, for you stubbornness?” He snarls at me, and after a half-second of confusion, understanding breaks through me.

The King, and the Valkyries, still believe that he controls the Fourth Generation. Soyan didn’t tell him anything---suddenly the curdling sting of his betrayal disappears from my heart, and leaves it light and sharp. I almost laugh aloud; all these grall men the King has assembled will not be able to protect him once I reveal the truth.

“I would murder no one but you, my King.” I say, unable to keep a smile from my face. I can see that he doesn’t understand yet, but I see the first flicker of fear ignite in his eyes as he senses the danger. I savor it, this moment of his burgeoning fear, and find I am still ravenous for his suffering.

“I’ve woken the Fourth Generation, and they are out of your reach.” I say, and the words feel heady and extatiliant on my tongue. I do laugh now, and my challenge rings throughout the room; “Now let us see how well you fight without your shield.”

There is a moment of silence in the throne room; the Valkyrie stare at me with disbelieving eyes, then slowly the room begins to fill with a crackling, electric energy. I can almost hear the drumbeat of our collective pulse as it builds-- The Fourth Generation is safe, they are alive! Their hearts sing, And now it is time for vengeance.

I know Kohorrad can feel the thrumming violence building in the room; his hand trembles in Axenthes hair as he yanks his final shield against him. Whether by chance or by purpose, he has chosen his last shred of armor well; even for vengeance, Cassaphine will hesitate to give the order while her lover is held hostage.

The room is pulled tight in the tension like an ionstring, each audible breath winding it tighter, and the mounting demand for blood crashes against the silence like waves beating against a cliff.

I look to Axenthe, searching for a way past to the King. She stares at Cassaphine, something deep and unreadable in her eyes, but when she senses my gaze she looks to me. Her shimmering silver blood globs slowly down her throat where he’s opened a small cut, and her mouth is wide in a feral smile.

“Is it true, Goldblood?” She asks me, and I don’t know why but I’m filled with a feeling of dread. I know what she is asking, but I hesitate to answer.

“They are safe.” I finally tell her--and with a final triumphant laugh, she yanks forward against the knife.

My hand shoots out of its own accord, as if to stop her, but it’s too late. The last tendons of her neck part at the edge of the knife, and her severed head topples down the stairs and lands at the bottom. The heavy thunk fills the silence of the room. When I look up, I see true terror in the King’s eyes.

Then I can no longer see him, as a group of the Barbirdes rush to close around him. The Valkyries are on their feet, Cassaphine staring in horror at the thick blonde mane of Axenthe’s synthair for just a heartbeat. Then she screams, an impossibly loud cry of grief and rage that shakes me to my bones, and chaos erupts.

The Barbirdes charge across the room towards me, and each dagger I have I throw into their necks and their hearts and their chests. As soon as the blades sink into skin, before the bodies even hit the floor, the weapons are in the hands of a Valkyrie, who have rushed forward to meet the tide of men.

The bloodbath consumes me as more Barbirdes rush forward. They are slower than I am, and less skilled, but they are made of thick solid meat, and their welded armor stops my blows as often as they find their mark. It is enough that I need my focus, but they face the ocean of my hatred and I rip through them mercilessly. I glory in my own savagery--I am nothing but strength and speed and unrelenting force. Every heavy body that drips off my blade is a pleasure to me, and when I look around I see a thick carpet of them dead on the floor.

To my dismay, I see the bodies of Valkyries scattered among them; we have carved a path of bodies towards the throne and the Bastard King, but there are so many of them, flooding in from every side. A ferocious snarls rips through me, and I throw myself back into the fray with new determination. I push myself harder and faster through the tangled jungle of limbs, ensuring that every blow is a fatal one. We will not lose anyone else today, not if I can help it.

I run to where the fighting is thickest, and sever limbs and puncture ribcages as quickly as I can. The floor beneath my feet becomes slick with blood and entrails as I hack the Barbirdes to pieces, and I feel my arms and legs begin to burn, but I don’t slow down. Then I hear a cry of pain, and see Spiria surrounded by a crowd of men. Her dagger is buried in one’s neck, while another has jammed one of his steel spikes into her back.

I abandon the man I was gutting and run to her, vaulting over bodies and ducking around other fights until I reach them. She’s been backed up against a wall now, and she’s killed two, but two more have only taken their place. I grab one of the culvaggs by his throat and rip him away, moving to her left side. We begin to fight together, our movements as smooth and easy as breathing. We start to beat them back, severing limbs and necks, prying up their metal plates to stick the organs underneath.

A pile of bodies begins to mount around us, so that each oncoming Barbirde is forced to climb over the corpses of the others, and they fall quicker and quicker as the footing becomes more difficult. The crowd of them seems to be thinning, and I think we may be able to start moving forward away from the wall, when I see a movement out of the corner of my eye. I can’t turn to look, but I‘m about to yell a warning to Spiria when I hear a sickening crunch from beside me.

Something heavy bounces off of my thigh and crumples to the ground, and I can’t look, but I know that it’s Spiria. I can hear her gurgling at my feet, dying. A ragged cry escapes me as I spin to face the new threat--he is clearly Barbirde, but he is larger, and much more metal than flesh. Nearly his entire face shines silver, and he carries a cruel spiked flail that is now speckled with copper blood.

I send a series of brutal kicks into the cluster of men I have been fighting, unconcerned with killing them, only with making enough space to flay the breadbegging bastard in front of me. The metal-man takes a few measured steps towards me, and then I am in range of his flail. The other Barbirdes still crowd around, but no one else moves to strike me. It is only a moment before I understand why; the metal-man swings his flail wildly, and when I duck around his strike the ball of it crashes into the wall behind me, leaving a crater the size of my head.

My focus narrows to a razor’s edge; I duck under another wild swing of the flail, but my riposte glances sideways off his iron breastplate. I try to twist past him for a better angle of attack, but another man cuts me off and I am forced to defend a series of blows from him. His neck is protected and someone is lunging in my periphery, so I dig a dagger in between the muscles of his upper arm and tear as I dodge backwards. The man’s blood splatters me as he screams and his arm is severed in two down to the wrist.

I stab the second man in the base of his skull when he overswings past me, but by then the metal-man has recovered his weapon and brings it down again. I skip to the outside, and this time I’m able to skirt his guard and come out to his side. I search for an opening, any exposed flesh I can find, but all I see is flashing metal.

A blow to the back of my leg comes out of nowhere, and I go down to my knee. A wild-eyed Barbirde is standing over me, swinging his sword down towards my skull. My muscles have begun to scream, and my gears ache against each other, but I manage to roll out of the way, taking his legs with me. His head hits the floor with a crack, and I’ve stuck him through with his own sword before his eyes can focus. I’ve lost track of the metal-man, and I’m searching for him but I--I am suddenly made of pain--my body is on fire, my shoulder is an explosion of agony--

I can’t help the scream that tears out of me. My vision has gone hot white, and I can’t understand anything except the truating agony in my shoulder. I feel the wall up against my back, and it is only through instinct and pure force of will that I drag myself back to the present. My vision starts to clear, and the first thing I see is the ball of the flail lodged deep into my shoulder. And as I see it, the roar of pain resolves itself into a dozen sharper, more precise spikes.

The metal-man is standing in front of me, unhurried. I think I see a gleam of sadistic pleasure in his eyes, but it is hard to tell through the pain and the obscuring metal. I go to strike, but I realize two things--my hands are empty, my sword lost somewhere in the fray, and the spikes of the flail have sliced through my shoulder and are pinning me to the wall. The metal-man takes something from his belt. It is a small sharp knife, not of a length or thickness intended to do damage, but to cause pain.

My fight-blood boils--I will not stand for that. It is a colossal effort to bring my right hand up to my shoulder, and the pain is so intense it almost knocks my feet out from under me, but I begin to pry the flail from my flesh. I grit my teeth and another scream escapes me as the spikes slide out and leave my shoulder a mess of sticky gold chunks. The flail clunks to the floor, but the metal-man is right on top of me now.

My left arm isn't working, so I swing my right hand at his face. My meat is tough and my bones are metal, but they are precise and delicate compared to the brutish expanses of iron sewn onto him. So instead of striking with my fist, I reach for his eyes to tear them out. He barely turns his head and my fingers slide harmlessly over the smoothness of his scalp.

His arm shoots out, and his fingers are cold where they wrap around my neck. I feel my feet lifting off the floor and my vision goes blurry again, there is pain, but there is also peace, I feel the Maker reaching out to me…

...then somehow I am breathing again. Air burns into my lungs, and I lift my head to see a black blur above me. I watch the metal-man stumbling back on his heels as the dark shape darts around him. There is a terrible shrieking sound as something scores gash after gash into his armor. Finally the man turns to run and the dark shape launches after him, leaping onto his shoulders, and as it snaps the man’s neck I catch a flash of white feathers.

My heart twists as I recognize him, and it calls out painfully for him-- Soyan! For a moment I’m afraid he’ll vanish again, but when the body falls he turns to me. He is bleeding very lightly from one thigh, but I’m relieved to see that he is standing straight and seems otherwise to be whole. His eyes are wary, and regret floods over me as I realize that he doesn’t know how my feelings have changed. I struggle to choke out an apology, to tell him I was wrong, but my throat is still convulsing and the words won’t form. I reach my hand towards him and I hope he understands.

He must, because he approaches me, and kneels down next to me, staining his pantleg with my blood. His face is gentle and so are his hands as he helps pull me up so I can sit against the wall. The sounds of the battle still rage around us, but it seems like they are thinning. No one is near us anymore; the thick of the fighting has moved closer to the base of the throne.

“I’m sorry, Prince Soyan.” I finally manage to say.

“Well I’ll be tripple-damned,” He says softly, “An apology from the Lady Gleo.” His feathers are ruffled in amusement, but his eyes are tight with concern. He glances at my shoulder and cringes slightly.

“Oh come now, I can’t look all that bad.” I tease. I can see a dim reflection of myself in his big glassy eyes, though, and I’m not sure that’s entirely true.

“I’m sorry I left you down there.” He says soberly.

“I’m sorry I chased you away, after.” I reply.

“No, I--I was wrong, Lady. About everything.” His voice is agitated; I hear the pain in it. “When I got back up to the surface, I confronted my father, and he--I--I couldn’t believe it. He’s the one who attacked Ibellum. He partnered with these Barbirdes, and he thinks they’re going to take over the continent.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.” I tell him, and start to struggle my way up the wall.

“Gleo…”

“As long as I can hold a sword in one hand I can fight.” I tell him firmly.

“No.’ He says. “You stay here, I’ll go and fight.”

“We can fight together then.” I argue.

“This battle will be won without you; you’ve fought hard enough already.” He insists.

I open my mouth to disagree, but I am cut off by an echoing cry from the center of the room.

We look together to the top of the throne, where Cassaphine and the King are outlined in a sharp slant of light. Everyone in the room has stopped to look, and an unnatural quiet falls.

Cassaphine stands ragged and bleeding, her left eye socket empty and the arm ending in a jagged stump at the elbow. King Kohorrad, bleeding heavily from a wound to the ribs but otherwise unhurt, holds her at the point of a sword. The tip of the blade digs into her belly and stains her tunic silver, and the anticipation from the Barbirde soldiers is palpable--but I know better. I see her triumphant smile and the way the coward’s hand is shaking on the hilt of his sword.

Soyan supports my weight and we watch together as Cassaphine takes a step forward, and another, driving the blade down into her own belly until she is within arm’s reach of the King.

Soyan’s hand tightens around me as Cassaphine digs her fingers into the King’s throat, and the flesh parts easily for her. Red blood gushes out and rolls over her knuckles, and he begins to make a terrible choking noise. Finally, she tears her hand back, and takes the King’s throat with it.

The body thumps down heavily. The silence stretches still, broken only by the revolting gurgling noise; every eye in the room is still watching as Cassaphine as pulls the blade out of her stomach and hacks down on what is left of the King’s neck. The gurgling noises cease. She leaves his body where it has sprawled next to Axenthe’s, and turns back to the waiting soldiers with the King’s head in her hands.

No one moves. The room is frozen in shock--I feel it in my own body as I stare in disbelief. Severed from its body, it is hard accept that the sagging, misshapen head is truly the King’s. But slowly the comprehension begins to sink in, one person at a time. The victory-cry of the Valkyrie begins as a single voice, deep and clear and resonant, but it builds quickly as the remaining few Barbirde’s break away and begin to run. The sound reverberates in my heart, and I add my voice to the growing thunder. And when the last man is slain or fled, Cassaphine roars out our triumph from the top of the throne.

…………………………….....….........Epilouge…...…….......……....………………..

When all is said and done, there are seven funeral pyres built out on the terrace. Spiria is on one end, and next to her lies Zipha, the only other Three-Gen lost in the battle. The others are Idonne, Vaesde, Phyrnane, and on the very end are Axenthe... and Cassaphine, who bled out on the steps of the throne with a smile on her face and the King’s head still in her hand.

The day is bright and clear, with chirruping birdsong filling the air and a cool breeze tossing the leaves of the many plants that grow on the outside balcony. It feels deeply wrong to me that the sun should shine on my skin when there are so many bodies to burn.

They have all been laid out on their high pyres with their own weapon, and meticulously dressed in their full paint. Each of them had earned their war-paint long ago, and their name-paint down their sternum; Idonne and Phyrnane both wear paint down their arms for their own victories in the Bloody Revolution, and Cassaphine and Axenthe both wear the patterns of their respective Mantles across their shoulders. And, though it doesn’t show, I know they both wear their bond-paint across the small of their backs.

Axenthe’s head, of course, has been woven back onto her neck. The suture is grisly where it is visible under her hair. Cassaphine’s arm could not be recovered from the battlefield, but enough of her eyelid was left so that her empty socket is covered. Seeing them laying there, hands intertwined but achingly lifeless, I almost can't stand it. I focus on breathing around the choking sensation in my throat as one by one the other Valkyries approach the pyres and lay down their tokens.

I am one of the last to offer mine. The pyres are covered with flowers, scraps of fabric, favorite books and gleaming crystals as I approach. I go to Spiria first. My limbs feel heavy and rotting with grief, and with shame.

I’m sorry I didn’t protect you, I think to her as I give her my token--the gleaming white spine of the metal-man. I spent hours in my grieving cleaning the bones and stitching them together with pearl thread, but it still feels like so little to give her.

For Zipha I leave a carefully braided section of my own synthair; she loved to comb and braid it after a sparring session or a lesson. I can still feel her fingers running through it now, and I can not quite believe that I will never truly see her again.

For Idonne I leave a splinter of the old throne; in the aftermath of the battle, it was torn down and shattered. I know she would have liked to see it like that, broken beyond repair.

I leave Vaesde a bundle of ashes I collected from the lost Four-Gens. She was one of the few who made the original pilgrimage to retrieve them from the Cradle, and risked her life to search the gruesrackle for them, and she would have grieved them more deeply than anyone else.

For Phyrnane I leave my very first dagger, and I see that I am one of many who learned to craft under her gentle guidance. Her pyre is covered in weapons of all sorts, some clearly firsts like mine, others finely-wrought masterworks in tribute to her skill.

I almost cannot make myself approach the wide pyre that holds Cassaphine and Axenthe. In all the days since the battle I could not think of a single token that would honor the great debt I and every Valkyrie owe them--or express the overwhelming love that threatens to crush me now. Somehow I go to meet them still. I could not leave them to return to the Maker without at least something of mine to carry with them.

Up close, their injuries are a biting inditement I cannot bear. This is my fault. How could I even show my face here at their sacred rite when this is all my own fault. A convulsing begins in my chest, a heaving that I struggle to contain--I can not break the silence of the funeral, but there is a wail of grief that is trying to beat its way out of me. I know that I will not be able to contain it long standing here next to them, so I quickly set down my token and retreat to the edge of the crowd.

Only a few more women go up to give their tokens, and soon it’s time for the lighting. I can not look at any of their faces, so I only watch the flames lick at the heavy leather-bound book I’ve set between them. Careful drawings of the faces of each of the surviving Four-Gen, sketched onto the thick paper in strokes of charcoal. The ones that Axenthe and Cassaphine lived and died to save.

Now as the smoke rises into the great blue of the sky, I send another quick prayer to the Maker that She will receive their brave hearts well. And we all watch in silence as the hot flames burn the fallen down to ash.

....

Night has fallen, and I imagine it has been hours since the wind blew away the ashes of the dead. I’m standing on the highest balcony, leaning against the rail and looking down at the Four-Gens talking and laughing together. The ending of a Valkyrie’s funeral is always a tournament and a spectacle, meant to be a grand celebration of a vibrant life, so the Citadel is filled with warmth and joy and the sweet sounds of music. I can not blame them for celebrating; the last handful of days have been truating.

The physical cleaning up of the aftermath was only the beginning. After the bodies were sorted and the invaders disposed of, there came the inevitable question of what next. The castle had been ruled by the monarchy for a millennia, but no one was eager to place another despot on the throne--least of all Soyan. His was one of the strongest voices against a continued monarchy, when even some among the Valkyrie were shouting for a Queen.

Instead, locked inside the throne room, we hashed out a new system; a council, modeled after the Clay Council of Ibellum. A representative from the Valkyrie, one from the Noble families, one from the provist, and one from the voysia. It was also decided, after a long and contentious debate, that there would be a seat for a representative of the monarchal line. Soyan was again the fiercest in opposition, but in the end it was decided that he would be vital in smoothing the transition.

Once this was decided, slowly we brought in the nobles first. Soyan spoke to them, and told them to choose one representative from among them to sit on his new council. Many families took the news poorly, so accustomed to King Kohorrad’s rule that it took long hours to convince them to submit to this new design. Eventually though Serpheas Sephor was selected, a choice both Soyan and I approved of.

A wider announcement was made to the provist and the voysia, and both selected their counselor without much unrest. The news of the battle in the throne room had spread quite far in the Castle, and Prince Soyan’s involvement in the new council pacified their fears a good deal. The Valkyrie returned to the Citadel then, the see to our own dead, and to set our own affairs in order.

A great cry of joy had gone up when the Valkyrie flooded into the Citadel to find the Four-Gens alive and awake. The girls had closed ranks around Aeon, still weak and bleeding, holding their weapons out with fire and uncertainty until they caught sight of me within the crowd. Then they relaxed their guard, and I led Ophemia through to Aeon while the Four-Gen and the rest wondered at each other.

The rest had passed in a blur--the Naming ceremony for the Four-Gens, and the subsequent Passing ceremony for the remaining Two-Gen mothers. It was a great relief, and a great righting of the world, for them to be able to take their Elder’s paint after being so long suspended in between. That also meant, though, that with Cassaphine and Axenthe dead, and Ophemia relinquishing her position, that a new Triad had to be chosen, as well as the council representative for the Valkyrie.

Elections were held, each individual given a vote and a chance to be heard. There was great deliberation on the matter of the Triad. After two long days of debate, Cephe was chosen to take Cassaphine’s place as Speaker, Bahonne as War-Chief, and Liadoll to take Ophemia’s place as Mender.

The election of Councilor was short and nearly unanimous, and I accepted with only a small heaviness in my heart.

Then, with new leaders chosen, it was time to reveal the secret of the Valkyrie to the rest of the Castle. The Nobles, most acquainted with the cruelty of the king, were the quickest to understand. The rest of the castle, long accustomed to thinking of their guards as nothing more than objects, were slower to accept it. Both, though, now knowing the truth, were skittish around us. Some were more than afraid, and lashed out with cruel words and cold dismissal. After so long in bondage, this coldness was a small price to pay, but it still stung my heart to see.

So yes, after all this, a celebration is well called for, I think. If only I could find it in myself to join them. But grief still clung too heavy in my heart for laughter, so in order to not damage anyone else’s good moods I exiled myself to the top balcony alone.

I catch sight of Aeon, sitting up on her own and laughing with a mixed group of Three and Four-Gens. She gestures quickly as she talks, and I gather that she’s once again been asked to tell the story of the Tigarr. It bolsters my spirit some to see her getting stronger, and to watch each of the Four-Gens’ unique personalities unfold in the days since their naming. Strice, one of the girls who carried Aeon through the maze, sits protectively by her side, and I can’t help but smile a bit.

I stand at the railing for a long while before I become aware of footsteps behind me. I recognize them, and don’t flinch when Ophimia lays a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“You should be down there celebrating with them.” She says to me gently. “Much of our triumph was your doing.”

“Too much of this is my doing.” I tell her, my chest still raw and aching.

“Oh, child. You can not shoulder the burden of the evils you were unable to stop. We would all be crushed under the weight of the world if we tried.”

“If I had only listened to the Prince when he came to warn me…” I protest.

“There are a thousand things you might have done differently, and some of them would have been better than the thing you did do.” She says. “It is a hard truth to accept, but that is the way of life. There is no getting around it.”

“You don’t understand, Ophimia.” I say, well aware that I am deep in my self-loathing now but unable to keep the bitter edge from my voice. “If I hadn’t been so blind, so triple-damned, involtedly angry--if I had taken my time like you always told me--I could have done it differently. But I didn’t, and people died.”

“Yes, Gleo, I’m aware.” There is an uncharacteristic hardness in her voice, and when I finally look up at her I see how weary she looks. “Two of them were my greatest friends. I watched them burn the same as you.”

Immediately I feel the sting of shame. Of course she is in far greater grief than I am. I duck my head, chastened, and she continues;

“I do understand child, better than you know.” She says, “What do think occupied my thoughts for a century, if not how we might have saved the Fourth Generation? There are a thousand things that all of us--Cassaphine and Axenthe included--could have done differently.

“They understood this feeling too, child; it is the burden of life, and double so the burden of leadership. And there is no other way that they would have chosen to die, than righting the mistakes we made so long ago.” She takes a long deep breath, and when I look into her face again her eyes are gentle.

“I’m sorry, Ophemia.” I say. I’m not sure what I’m apologizing for, perhaps everything.

“I am grateful that you could give them that death--absolution in battle. You did well, Goldblood, just as they knew you would. They would have been so very proud of you.” She says, and I believe her.

A little bright light stirs in my chest, and when she pulls me into a rough embrace I’m able to feel past the grief. I thank the Maker for their lives, and for letting me know them.

“What’s this, then?” Says a teasing voice. “Isn’t the Goldblood a bit too young for you, Ophemia?”

“Ah, I never could resist a hero.” She jokes back, and I turn and see Cephe climbing the stairs to the landing. Her face is covered in glitter and someone has braided large bundles of flowers into her hair, and her smile is radiant.

“The hero is certainly missed downstairs.” Cephe says lightly, “I never knew you to miss a chance to show off.”

“Give me challenge, Cephe, and maybe I’ll reconsider.” I say, elbowing her playfully when she comes to stand next to me.

“Oh, a challenge for the Tigarr-Slayer!” She turns to Ophemia and pretends to consider it. “Do you suppose if we blindfolded her naked with no sword, and threw her in a ring with five of us, do you think that might be a challenge?”

“I think you had better not give the other Four-Gens any more reason to glorify her, Cephe.” Ophemia laughs.

“Well, who can blame them, really.” Cephe concedes. “Though I suppose we could show them her skill with a flute, if only to disabuse them of the notion of her perfection.”

“I might prefer that, to be honest.” I laugh. “Besides, I think I’ve had enough of swordplay for a little while.”

That thought sobers us, and there are some moments of quiet before Cephe speaks again.

“I wish I could grant you leave from your swords, sister…” She sighs.

“It was an idle thought, Cephe.” I reassure her. “Pay it no mind, I will keep my blades and my skills both sharp.”

“I know you will, Gleo.” She says gratefully. “If only the threat of the Barbirdes had died with the King, we might sleep a little easier…”

“Someday things will stabilize, Cephe.” Ophimia says. “For now you are wise to keep our defenses high.”

“At least the Four-Gens are learning quickly.” She says, looking down at the celebration.

“They are far from their war-paint yet.” Ophemia cautions, and Cephe waves a hand in acknowledgement.

“Oh, I know. They’ve only just had their first true Saharpory lesson after all. It just comforts me that they will not be helpless when the time comes.”

“Yes,” I chime in, “They will not be helpless. But they will not be enough to protect the whole Castle, not with us spread so thin.”

“What else can I do though, Gleo? We must make contact with the other cities, and we can not send an ambassadorial party across the continent unprotected.” Cephe says, and though her voice is firm I can hear the worry underneath.

“Have you given any more thought to my suggestion?” I ask gently. She lets out a heavy sigh.

“I have, though I’ve not made up my mind.” She turns to Ophemia, who is listening with a thoughtful expression. “What do you think of it?”

“I remember, in the days before you had your paint Cephe, there was a great scavenger-siege.” She begins, “A thousand men if there was one, and us with only one generation to mount a defense. The King raised the bridges, as he always did, and they went down through the woods as they always do.

“Only, that year there was a terrible plague of magpeists in the trees--you could hear them all through the Castle at all hours of the night--and of course the magpiests drew in great packs of werseldoubts to hunt them. And so, when the scravengers descended into the woods they were torn to shreds, and maybe one in fifty made it to the wall.”

“Yes, I understand. But now with two generations grown and a third in training, surely we can manage to defend ourselves without freeing the King’s monsters?”

“Remember though, now that the Fourth Generation is woken, soon enough you will need to lead the pilgrimage to the Cradle to retrieve the Fifth. And you will take the strongest among us with you.”

“Yes, that’s true. This would make us safer, certainly, but I only worry it will push us back into isolation.” She argues. “Who will want to send their trade envoys to us if they have to cross a moat full of thimblespooks and glasts?”

“What if we were to set up a trading post past the moat?” I interject suddenly as the idea comes to me. “We could build a wall around the southern outpost station so it would be defensible in itself, and then we could do trade from there.”

Cephe hums in thought, but Ophimia smiles in approval.

“That is certainly an idea.” Cephe says eventually. “Do you go to your Prince tonight?”

I ignore the teasing in her voice, though it is of course meant lightly. “Not tonight. Tomorrow though.” I say.

“Bring it up to him then. If he thinks it’s worth pursuing, we may bring it up to the counsel.” She says, and turns to leave the balcony. “Oh, and as long as you’re here for the night, try and have some fun.”

“I’ll do my best.” I tell her retreating form, and I think perhaps I just might.

…..

It is the early hours of the morning by the time I leave the Citadel. I told Cephe I wasn’t going to see Soyan tonight, but the rest of Valkyries have slipped into dreamstates while I can not turn my mind off. And I know Soyan will be awake.

I climb the stairs as quietly as I can, making my way up to the very top floor. Soyan agreed to keep his title, but refused to continue living in the royal chambers. I understand this; I don’t think I will ever set foot in my cold concrete room again. Instead he’s taken up residence in the Hollistret, a spacious low-roofed enclave that’s stood empty for years. It stands on the very end of the west wing, with a sprawling balcony that looks out over the whole world.

It also happens to be just down the hall from the Sephor manor, a coincidence that Cellodass was quite pleased with--until she saw me sneaking down to see him. Now it’s hardly a secret in the Castle that the Valkyrie counselor spends much of her time in the company of the Owl-Prince, though few are brave enough to whisper about it in the presence of either.

I’m still smiling softly at Cellodass’ poor spurned heart when I duck through the doorway into the Hollistret.

“What’s so funny?” Asks Soyan’s voice from across the room.

“Nothing,” I tell him, “I was only thinking of the feelings of your poor neighbor; I’m afraid you’ve broken her heart by allowing me to monopolize you.” He laughs, a deep resonant sound that pleases my gold-metal heart to hear.

“I’ve never broken her heart, only her ambitions.” He clarifies lightly as he walks to me. “Now that I’m a Prince only in name I doubt she’d have me.”

“Ah, I think you cheat her with your assessment, dear Prince. Surely her feelings for you were something more than political.” I say gently. He takes my hands in his, and his pale skin is wonderfully smooth against mine.

“Perhaps,” He admits, shrugging. “But no matter her feelings, she must resign herself to them; I have been quite thoroughly bewitched by another woman.”

“Oh!” I exclaim, and pretend to look around the room. “Shall I come back when she’s gone, then?”

He chuckles, his bright eyes twinkling, then in a flash he’s scooped me up in his arms and is spinning me. Surprised and delighted, I laugh like a wet-geared girl as he spins us.

“Let me down, Soyan!” I gasp breathlessly.

“No.” He teases. “Not until you’ve admitted to being my secret paramour.”

“Soyan, it’s hardly a secret!” I protest through my laughter.

“Admit it!” He demands, swooping me down in a motion that makes my gears feel unbalanced.

“Oh, all right, you win!” I concede. “You’re my not-so-secret lover--and I will knock you down without a second thought if you try and dip me like that again.”

“I don’t doubt that you could, my Lady.” He says, smiling as he finally sets me back on my feet.

“I’m not really a Lady anymore, you know.”

“I’m not really a Prince either, but you still call me Prince Soyan.”

“Counselor is just too… starchy, for you.” I say, and he smiles at me.

“Yes, and ‘counselor’ captures all that you are, certainly.” He teases, and I huff.

“I didn’t actually come to argue semantics with you, you know.”

“No, you’ll save that for the next council meeting won’t you?” He says as he leads us through the room to the balcony. “I imagine you’ve come to me in the early morning hours for an entirely different reason.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” I tell him plainly, though some emotion I can’t name slips into my voice.

“Ah. Yes, the funeral was today, wasn’t it?” He says softly. We emerge on to the terrace, and the wind buffets my skin and tosses my messy synthair around my shoulders. I nod briefly as I look up at the stars, hoping to find some sort of solace in their glittering depths.

Soyan has strung a thickly woven net between two pillars and filled it with cushions, and we settle into it without speaking. He lets me sit in the quiet for a long time, only tracing a light finger over the fading paint across my shoulders.

“I can’t help thinking…” I trail off, then begin again uncertainly. “I can’t help thinking that if I had only stopped to listen to you, when you came to the Citadel, I could have saved them.”

“Oh, Gleo…” He breathes softly. He thinks about it for a moment, and I watch the reflection of the night sky swirl in his big black eyes. “I think, no matter what we did, some people were going to die.”

“But if I hadn’t rushed in like a fool, we could have avoided the battle altogether.” I say stubbornly. I realize I deeply want him to blame me, to give some weight to the guilt that crushes me.

“What do you imagine you could have done, Gleo?” He says sadly.

“If I’d listened to you and known what was waiting there, I could have snuck in through the back, and…”

“And still faced and army of the Barbirdes. The King didn’t leave the back door unguarded; you might have wound up in an even worse position.”

“Then I could have pretended to take you hostage--bargained with the King for the other Valkyrie.” This earns me a humorless laugh, and Soyan runs his hand through his feathers.

“You know, I’m not sure that my father would have traded them back to you just for me.” He sighs. “I told you that when I escaped the Gruesrackle I confronted him right after. You should have seen him, Gleo--he seemed almost mad. I’d never seen him so frenzied, and when he told me about his grand alliance, how they were going to take over the continent…”

“He needed the Valkyrie, to give to the Barbirdes in exchange for the Castle’s safety. I don’t know that he would have given them up, even for me.” I reach over and take his hand again, and he presses my palm to his face.

“I still don’t understand how he thought he would control us without the Four-Gen--surely he knew how dangerous it was to try?” I say softly. I don’t want to upset him, but a piece of me thinks that if I can just understand, maybe it would lessen the hurt of it.

“He told me the Barbirdes had a...Tinker, but more advanced than any you and I are familiar with. He made it sound like he could override you, turn you into soldiers.”

That idea chills me down to my bones, and I don’t want to believe it but I know it must be true. The King may have been mad and cruel, but he was not stupid. I shiver unconsciously, and Soyan pulls a blanket over me.

“My point is, my father was evil. He was the one who hurt people, and broke things. You can’t blame yourself for not saving everyone from him.”

I give a dry little chuckle. “Ophimia said something similar to me earlier.” I tell him.

“Well, if Ophimia agrees with me then she must be very wise indeed.” He says, and I smile to see the mischief in his eyes. My happiness can’t last under the heaviness in my heart though, and after a moment I heave out a tired sigh.

“I suppose then that will be my lifework; living up to their standards, being worthy of the faith they placed in me.”

“And mine will be an apology for the life of my father.” He says.

“I thought you said that we can’t blame ourselves for the pain he caused.” I object. I hate to see the sadness on his face. He hesitates a moment before answering.

“There were so many times I might have changed things, though. I could have opposed him so much earlier, perhaps I could have prevented some of his worst nature from developing.” He takes a deep breath.

“But still, you’re right. I can’t take responsibility for his evil, but I would heal as many of the people he hurt as I can...Not out of obligation, but because I can, and because I think it’s the right thing to do.” His voice is resolute, and I feel something stirring in my heart; maybe we can’t change what happened, but we can make things better now.

“We’ll heal them together.” I tell him, and the binding of the words lightens the grief some. Soyan begins to warble happily deep in his chest, and the sound makes me smile. I feel a bright string of light connecting us then, and I fold into the warmth of him, climbing onto his lap and wrapping my arms around him.

Then his feathers tickle my chin, and I feel his beak brush lightly against the skin of my neck, and I let myself lose all the thoughts of tomorrow and surrender to the happiness of the moment.

The End