Bron rises before me, though I have not slept a second night. He rouses me, and I sit, then stand, against my will. He offers me food, but I refuse.
“I will find us more for tonight,” he says. Does he think I refuse out of concern for him and Nyasha? I did not know we were at the end of our rations. It does not concern me at all. I have no room for outside concerns.
I refuse again. “I’ll eat tonight, then.” It is the best way to end the conversation.
We are walking as the sun rises. Somehow, the light changes my mood. The thick darkness that covered me in the night dissipates a little. I sense I could be happy again someday.
Soon, we are on a main road, and it is evident the army controls it. People walk along it, and though the buildings are crippled, the debris has been removed from the main thoroughfare. Hammers and shouts and scraping surround us. Men are tearing down what can no longer be used and salvaging what can. Mounds mark where whole buildings have been demolished. They have made remarkable progress to have leveled so many.
Black-clad soldiers are stationed at intervals, watching us carefully. Bron asks one of them, “Is there work here?”
The soldier eyes him. “For you, perhaps.” His gaze lingers on my arm, my leg. I know what is left unsaid. “They need strong men, with the power out of commission.”
Such a nice euphemism–“with the power out of commission.” They say it as if the well will suddenly fill up over night.
I’ve considered it already. Magic disappeared in a moment; it could return just as quickly. But it won’t. I know in my gut it won’t. To disappear, to fade away, to empty is natural. Birth is the miracle; rebirth, the impossibility.
Bron walks on as if nothing has happened, as if he had not just been granted entrance into the new world. “Men like you will rebuild everything,” I say. The words are laced with venom.
He says nothing. He acts as if he has not heard.
“You have the power now, Bron. How does that make you feel? A world beat together by brute strength. There’ll be no room for intellect anymore.”
Nyasha is glaring at me. “Bron would run the world just fine.”
“You’re as useless as I am. When starvation comes, it’ll be women and children first. The weak perish.” I give her a sly glance. “Unless you want to bear children for a living.”
“Enough.” Bron doesn’t turn around, but the simple, unraised voice is enough to shake me. I meant to provoke him, but I have rarely received a proper response.
It takes me a moment, but I respond. “Taking charge already, I see. You might as well leave me here so you can go about your business in peace.”
And now he ignores me.
Even the best efforts of the Thyrion government cannot begin to disguise the catastrophic damage in this part of the city. Whole blocks are blackened shells. The road intersects fallen buildings, and we snake through a path cleared some days earlier. The skyline is broken teeth. Slowly, gradually, the land is descending. I know, because I can see the lip of Thyrion’s well in the near distance where the blast of the Cataclysm has opened the view.
I speed up, causing Bron to increase his pace. I point ahead through the beaten landscape. “Look at the flags.” I can make out over a dozen fluttering beyond what remains of the thick, rat-nest buildings that were obviously bureaucratic offices. The flags no longer bear the lightning-clenched fist of the House of Kyzer but an open palm, upon which sits a ball radiating power.
I once held magic in my hand–actual magic. Raw power that no one should be able to touch, much less handle. It sat in the palm of my hand. I had been commander of the most volatile and incredible power on earth. And I had clutched it close.
Because that’s what you did with power. If you didn’t, someone else would.
“That’s the palace. It has to be.” It doesn’t seem quite where it should be, but what other structure would bear so much pageantry? “I know from maps the library is that way.” Away from the palace, away from this Dracon who thinks to persuade people he wants to share his power. He doesn’t. I don’t need to know the man to know that.
Bron nods.
Everything takes too long. It’s past noon when we reach the road that runs parallel to the well, with only two or three blocks of shattered landscape separating it from me. Someone has already fixed the street sign. “Imperial Avenue.”
We turn left, away from the flags and the palace. The street is wide enough for four lanes of traffic. Husks of vehicles collect along the curb and in the side passages, but by the charred and churned pavement, I can see how much wreckage has been removed.
My heart is beating wildly. My mouth is dry. I am faint, almost dizzy, with the expectation of reaching my destination. “Hurry up,” I roar, glaring at Nyasha for trailing so far behind, gazing about like the country girl she is. The buildings here are massively built, thick-walled stone structures designed to impress. Like the Academy back home, they survive because they are rooted and stubborn and essential.
And still it takes too long. Thyrion has no sense of elegance, except in brute strength, and no sense of restraint. Each building expands outward, the blocks stretching interminably. Like the city itself, they are bloated, corpulent masses.
“There it is,” I say. “There. Look at it.”
I almost repent of my unflattering descriptions. The Library is tremendous, but not bloated, not vulgar. Instead, it is like a dusty volume discovered in a corner. A whole stack of tomes. The walls are dark from age and fire, the architecture right angles and heavy masonry. There is something ancient and religious in its look.
If I must hide away from the world to survive, I will be a beggar in a place like that.
But as I draw near, I grow uneasy. The stack is tilted unsteadily. The ancient facade is crumbling. It has been struck hard by the cataclysm. It has been beat and bruised.
Of course it has. Magic was, at its heart, an intellectual pursuit. As it dies, so does the pursuit.
Soldiers are stationed at the nearest entry.
“Let me through,” I say.
“The Library is off limits.”
“I’m going in.”
“It’s for your own safety, ma’am.”
“Ma’am? Do I look like your mother? Idiots! Not enough people starving and setting the city on fire? Thought you’d protect some books and escape lifting a few rocks. Fools! Deserters!”
“The structure is unsafe,” one says. “Librarians are inside, trying to save as many books as possible. Many were damaged.”
“I’m a scholar. I’m here to help.”
“Please move away. We will remove you forcibly if necessary.”
I want to punch the soldier. If I had my old prosthetics….
I stand there, seething. Then, almost without thought, I throw myself at them. I swing my arms wildly, screaming, pressing forward with my legs, kicking, using my head to batter them. The blows strike hard, hurting me as much as I want to hurt them. I want to taste blood; I want to break bones. I need pain, and I don’t care if it’s mine or theirs.
Arms grab me, lift me away from the struggle. Startled, the soldiers stare at me. Bron holds me.
“I’ll take care of her,” Bron says. When they move forward, he says it again, low and threatening. “I’ll take care of her.”
Don't miss a single word of stories as they are published! You'll also receive first notice of special sales and behind-the-scenes information.