Born for Silk (The Cradled Common)

Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Rome

Odio screeches above me.

Blood mists the air. On my right shoulder, orange first-light filters through the dark skies.

I stride across the dry range littered with twitching bodies, using my steel-capped boot to push them from my path.

My hood flaps in the wind.

Arid, hot air cuts across the sea from the north, carrying the scent of death, decay, and victory. Air that travelled The Strait, picking up the sharp notes of fish and boat oil. The invaders made it to the shore at Breaker Ledge, such a remarkable feat. They should be proud.

Only to be killed on the desert sand.

Holding my automatic rifle, I stride up the hill wanting the epic view of carnage. My thigh muscles burn, my lungs rattle. It’s been a long night.

“Spare me,” a weak voice says, and I stop halfway up the rock. The tip of my boot dusts the side of a Common man’s face. Eyes wide with terror, blood flowing like a fountain around a bullet in his throat, but still very much alive.

I hover, giving him a final breath before I step onto his head, popping his skull against the hard red crust of The Cradle. “Meaningful Purpose starts in the womb.”

I reach the top of the desert plateau, the wind threatening me, but I am too fucking big to be swept over. To be thrown backward. To be controlled.

I look out over the desert range, through the sand-mixed gale, and distinguish the grey shapes that represent bodies. Hundreds of them. And further in the distance, their cargo ship wedged on the shore, cutting the red sand open. Everything is red in the waste.

Moments ago, screams of pain, automatic rifles running and rattling, and wails for aid pierced the atmosphere. A continuous thunderstorm of chaotic noise.

Now, silence rides the wind.

Only the phantom of war stirs.

“You’re wounded, Sire.”

I touch my shoulder, feed my fingers through the leathers to a warm, wet spot and poke it. I barely feel the bullet hole, not above all the other senses sparking with action.

I smile coldly. Perhaps, I’ll leave it there. Like my father did, claiming all the silvery lead inside his body like trophies for his tissue.

“I am fine.”

“But it may fest?—”

He stops midsentence when I turn to face him. Him—a random member of my Guard wearing a full mask to help him breathe through the gale. The sand would fill his lungs like an hourglass.

Staring directly at him, I breathe deep, the thin films of skin in my nostrils vibrating, filtering the sand and air. I was designed for this world. “Did you speak?”

“My apologies, Sire. I only wish to serve you.” He salutes me, and ducks away with his rifle clutched to his chest.

Alone again, I take another moment but feel the presence of an old friend quickly approaching.

Odio’s wings flick sand and debris around us, further clouding the atmosphere. His talons hit the red crust, and his left wing touches my thigh. A greeting.

Giant creature.

His beak drips with blood, slithers of flesh dangling, slapping his face in the wind.

“Beautiful,” I say to him.

“You’ll need that seen to, boy.”

Kong.

My brows pinch.

At least my Guardian respects me enough to only call me boy when we are alone, though, I do not care for it under any circumstances. “Did we lose many to these rogues from Ruins H?”

“A few,” Kong answers, staring at my back, his gaze tangible. “They will keep coming. They are starving up there.”

“And I will keep killing them.”

He faces the wind, staring out over the desert face. “I know your father kept his bullets inside, but your father was?—"

“The king,” I utter, but the message is clear.

“Yes.” I hear his frustrated sigh even through the whipping wind and the sound of Odio aggressively plucking at his feathers, cleaning the blood from his majestic onyx coat.

“I care to travel to The Estate alone,” I say, striding back down the rock, not wanting to continue this conversation given the direction I know it is going.

“Before you were born, your father nearly ran out of time!” He spits out, and I anticipated he wasn’t fucking finished. “He waited too long. Focused on the war. Fucked the House Girls. Lost two heirs before you! He eventually stayed in The Estate and focused on his Collective and his legacy. And he made heirs.” He chuckles, but it’s mirthless. “ You refuse to wear a protective mask. You refuse a Guard circle. You want to walk around, a great ominous force, and see them tremble and drop, but you don’t have a damn legacy, Rome! Dammit, boy. I am here to help you!”

I spin to face him. “Then help me.”

“Cairo came to me, Rome,” he states, hesitant, and I frown. “He’s tired of waiting, too. I didn’t like it when he came to me, but he’s right.”

Is he tired? Is he here?

Fucking, Cairo.

“Is now really the time?” I sweep my arms wide, the bloodshed surrounding me, the whispers of final breaths still coasting the Redwind. My wind. My shore. The final breaths still plead with my name.

“While you’re bleeding two inches from your heart?” he punches out. “Yes! I’d say now is the time, unless you want Tuscany in danger when you die. You must give your pairing heirs. You will do this for her, and, dammit, you will do this for me, Rome!”

He rarely speaks of my sister so when he does the intent holds weight. I don’t speak of my sister either; she is a wound that never closed. But his affections for her have never been quiet, though never uttered aloud. They need not be. They are in his every motivation. Drive his every action.

I study him. “You speak of the queen out of turn, Kong. She isn’t yours to defend. She is mine.”

What little control he had leaves him in that moment. His face burns with anger. “Who are you punishing now, Rome? Always punishing someone so they hurt as much as you do. I am protecting your legacy! And your sister needs your sons to protect her when your rashness gets you killed. Without them, she will be taken from us. She is fragile. You know this.”

“Sire.” A member of my Guard pants, struggling up the hill, dropping to his knee in apology for the disrespectful approach. “Forgive my interruption, Sire, but Master Cairo has been informed that two Silk Girls are missing from the Aquilla Silk Aviary. We received a radio message from a Guard with reports of a crash. A Mill Trade worker found the van flipped over near Ruins N, outside an abandoned abattoir. He has sent Marshall Blues from the Trade-tower, but we are closer. Shall we go?”

“Rome,” Kong warns. “ No .”

“Yes,” I say, thrilled at the premise of more blood on my hands and kills in my mental ledger.

“Send men from here,” Kong implores. “You don’t need to be rescuing Silk Girls. You have Trade men for such jobs.”

“I don’t take kindly to others playing with my property, Kong. You should know this about me.” I smirk. “I am somewhat of a possessive man.”

“Haven’t you killed enough men today, Rome?” he calls out as I stride down the hill. “You are possessive, but you’re not a man. You’re the damn King of The Strait, and you’re avoidin—” His words are swallowed by the wind as I descend, space stretching his voice to join the howling.