Ravenous (Taint of the Gods #1)

7. RIEKA

7

RIEKA

T he warmth was a surprise. Unless in proximity to a fire or baking in the sun, iron tended to be cold. Where the collar touched my neck, it was hard not to image hands resting there, warm and smooth, devoid of edges. How long must a person be forced to wear one before their skin starts to blister?

Definitely longer than it took Etrina to give you the first one .

“Kensillan Territory Rail approaching. Please disembark.”

A low whistle sounded beyond the open doorway like a bat being swung through the air. It was the only warning we received before we were cut off from the fast-moving world outside.

Another train was pulling up alongside us, the wind wheezing between the carriages as though pressed between a vice. The train beyond was nothing but a wall of black until the wind’s wheezing eased and the black solidified and hardened to reveal a large door.

If it wasn’t for the vibrations beneath my feet, even I could have mistaken the two trains for being stationary.

The door slid open on the other side, flooding our compartment with warm light. A crowd of people were gathered, collars much like our own circling their necks. The one who had pulled the door open, a burly gentleman with a full head of dark curls, stepped over the threshold between the two trains, one foot in each. Like a carnival performer on a balance beam.

“Best you two come aboard now. They don’t give us long to fetch all the newcomers,” the stranger said, addressing us in Prean.

The man offered his hand. A gesture of trust.

Nothing untoward came from the man, no scent of deceit or animosity, so I took his hand and approached the doorway. In the gap, like the smearing of paint, rock and dirt blurred beneath me. The only sign of the train’s high-speed travel.

Crossing the boundary onto this train felt like walking into the market district of the capital. Blessed everywhere. The air was saturated in their scents. Natural and emotional, with every breath I took them in. Their curiosity, their anxiety, their caution. Nearly every blessing I knew to exist was present in someone in this space.

An entire carriage just to collect us? I doubted it. I couldn’t see much, a thick crowd congregated in the space leaving little room for a stroll. The people were, well—stew. A bit of this and a bit of that. Whilst it was impossible to ascertain anyone’s origin just by their features, it certainly wasn’t common to wear silk embroidered Deogn Robes over that harsh cotton of Lycoan trousers, or to see a Setrali Naval uniform torn in half and restitched to a Torvian sailor’s wet coat. And yet they were. As if the gods took the world in their hands and shook it just to see how it reformed when they stopped.

I shifted on the bench, wiggling my toes to gather the warmth that had been stolen by the water tank. The floor beneath my boots was hardwood, scuff marks scarring the surface. They were everywhere in fact. Every time someone moved in the space I saw more marks. A sign of frequent and forceful use. As foreboding a trait as everything else.

A grey figure passed in front of me and grunted as they took up a seat beside me.

“There were eight people in my first carriage, what about yours?” my death train companion asked, sniffling as he wrapped his blanket tighter around his body. He had a long face, thin lips and big brown eyes, the kind that showed signs of smiling more often than most.

“Eight.”

He huffed out a breath at my response, then turned to me and offered me his hand, introducing himself. “I’m Bennic.”

I shook his hand. “Rieka.”

“Incoming!” someone shouted.

The doorway we’d entered through had been closed during my survey of the room. The man who pulled us aboard was opening it once again, revealing two young women staring wide-eyed across the gap. One sporting frizzy red hair, the other a Terrestrial Brute whose antlers appeared to be broken. Both were covered in blood. Both wearing collars.

Fear clung to them like oil.

They joined us in silence on the bench.

The door closed again a few more times until we were joined by three more pairs, five men and another woman. Ten.

Ten survivors out of eighty. And that was only an estimate based on the sixteen that had been split between mine and Bennic’s carriages.

Old Rieka might have found that impossible. Deaths in that number could never occur under the golden eyes of the gods. Present-day Rieka knew better.

“They’re all yours, Sal.” The burly man tapped a young woman on the shoulder sitting on a bench on the opposing wall by the door. She rose to her feet.

She was in her early twenties maybe. She had a slight build, black hair cropped short at the shoulders, the shade blanching her fair complexion. And quite surprisingly, she wasn’t wearing a collar.

Sal, as the burly man had called her, addressed us in Prean too. “If you’ll follow me into MedCom , I’ll see to your injuries.”

We followed the petite woman through a doorway and down a flight of stairs. When all ten of us had gathered she pressed a button on the wall and the door slid open, a mechanical whirring accompanying it.

The scent of antiseptic, linen, and steel greeted us.

“Each of you take one of the cots, I can examine you one by one and then you can be on your way to the Mess Hall, I’m sure you’re all hungry after that ordeal.”

MedCom was a medical facility, a clinic perhaps. Both sides were lined with metal framed beds, cordoned off by privacy drapes, and on the other end of the carriage was a set of large open doors where a crowd had formed.

From the cot I’d been ushered to, I watched this Sal, their medic by my assumption, move from person to person, opening and closing the privacy drapes as she tended to the one behind it. More to block the stares of the voyeurs by the doors than for our benefit.

As she approached my cot, one of the two women who accompanied her pulled the drapes closed around us, the metal screeching as it passed along the overhead rail. Both women, unlike the medic, wore collars.

“Name please?” the medic asked without looking me in the eye.

“Rieka.”

“No last name?” she asked.

“None that matters.” One of the women reached out for my coat. The growl was instinctual. The fact the woman simply lowered her hand, unfazed by my reaction told me she’d experienced it enough to be unaffected by it.

“They are Spindles,” the medic said. “They are going to mark your possessions for you, so that none may claim them as their own.”

I’d encountered Spindles before. Mother had taken me to one of the fashion houses the Devoted frequented because I needed a gown for an upcoming Ascension Festival. The Spindles there were draped in the most exquisite silks, the material flowing off them in sentient waves. They had weaved the dress onto my body, right there in the dressing room.

These two women looked no different to a human seamstress. Those I’d been to many times. Spindle garments were expensive in the Deogn capital.

The second Spindle presented me with a piece of parchment, half a dozen black scribbles lined the paper, inviting me to pick one. I pointed to one randomly after which the other woman asked for my coat, assuring me they would return it. They then asked for everything else. My shawl, trousers, and boots. At least they’d permitted me to retain my slip and gloves.

The moment I returned to sitting on the cot, Sal closed the short distance between us, her head tilting to the side, her eyes on a spot over my shoulder, the look in them distant, almost as if...

She's blind.

Her hands hovered over my body, first by my shoulders then my hip and knees. But she never touched me. Sal wasn’t just the medic. She was an Organic. Only a human medic was required to make physical contact with a patient to mend them. A skilled Organic needed only proximity and clarity of mind.

Or so I’d read.

She dropped her hands. “Nothing’s broken. I’ve mended the bruising around your ribs. There was a nasty hematoma forming there. Aside from the graze on your chin, you survived remarkably unscathed.”

I brushed off the casual way she spoke of that death train and touched my chin, wincing at the sting when my fingers brushed over the raised flesh. It must have happened when I smacked it into the luggage rack.

“Take this.” She pulled a small tub from her pocket and held it out for me to take, the seal made it impossible for me to determine it's contents. “Apply the salve twice a day for a week. It should be healed by then.”

I’d never heard of an Organic treating someone this way. Mending only one injury and not the other when it would be easier to do both.

When I didn’t take the tub, Sal placed it on the cot beside me. “It is good for the body to be allowed to heal things on its own. Further intervention was not necessary. If you would like me to remove the scar later, you can return to MedCom . But if you use the ointment, there should be no need to return. You will not scar if you use it as I’ve instructed.” She paused and then added, “It should also help with the rope burn.”

My hand instinctively went to my neck, to the raised line where the noose had been.

Sal didn’t pry any further, but she did add that once the collar began to chafe I could use the ointment on that too.

Her companions chose that moment to return my clothes. One of them lifted my shawl, the fabric spread out over her hand. The mark I had picked was embroidered on the material in a thin white thread, an odd angular swirl with two dots. The second woman asked to touch my slip. I gave her my permission and she stepped forward to place her hand on the fabric between my shoulder blades. A sensation not dissimilar to a beetle crawling across skin occupied the space where she pressed. She withdrew and proceeded to ask for my hands.

As she cupped them in her own, I noticed the roll of white twine wrapped around her wrist like a bangle. Her hand hovered over my glove, then as she lowered it, the bangle began to spin. A white tendril twisted around her hand and snuck between her palm and the buckskin glove where the tickling sensation returned. She did the same for my other hand. When she stepped away, I found the mark embroidered in the hide of the gloves.

“Your mark will be registered with the council,” Sal informed me as I reached back and felt the silk between my fingertips, recognising the same pattern stitched there too. It was on everything I possessed, and that wasn’t much. Everything else I owned was in a pack somewhere in the Kensillan woods, still strapped to Engar’s horse.

A feeling began to surface when the women left. The sensation of walking out a door and finding the world beyond was upside down, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't flip with it. I sat, fidgeting with the fastening on my gloves.

After the ten of us had been attended to, some in a little worse shape than others, the same curly-haired, burly gentleman from earlier, who finally introduced himself as Tomas invited us to eat.

We followed him through a set of doors connecting MedCom to one that looked an awful lot like a gambling house. The stench of alcohol and pipeweed perfumed the air as passengers stared at our group from darkened leather seated alcoves under yellow-tinted Bright-light.

My senses told me we were heading in the direction of the front of the train. Tomas didn’t stop as we passed through another carriage.

This one bore a timber corridor that engulfed us in the aroma of a multitude of Blessed, some of which stood in the string of doorways that lined it. Their faces curiously examined us as our party walked through. I only managed to glance through one doorway and found the space beyond inhabited by more than a dozen Blessed passengers, many of which were akin to dens. There were three more carriages identical to this one. Group Sleepers, Tomas called them when someone asked.

Upon reaching the end of the fourth Group Sleeper , he led us up another stairwell, across the train passage and through a carriage he called The Gardens.

It was less garden and more indoor forest. There was a grove of trees growing in rows down the centre of the carriage stretching up to an enormous skylight. Scattered between them were fruit trees. I smelled at least a dozen species as we walked past groups of passengers picking the fruits from the branches. After everything that had happened in the last day, I still found myself wondering just how something like this was possible.

The walls crawled with climbing plants, whittled wicker frames allowing for expanded but controlled growth. Baskets too intricately weaved to be made by human hands hung from the ceiling at various lengths, creating an array of green and yellow fireworks.

If it wasn’t for Tomas leading us through the grove, I would likely have gotten lost in here. We passed by a circular fountain in the centre of the grove, which I assumed once flowed with water, but was now dry and housed large quantities of cultivated wildflowers. Some I recognised from my travels, others I didn’t.

Around the fountain was a ring of benches occupied by passengers quietly conversing amongst themselves. All but one was vacant. It housed a golden statue instead. The visage of a woman reading.

As soon as we passed through the next passageway, I knew we had arrived at our destination. Tomas called it The Mess Hall — a long open compartment with high ceilings, dozens of windows lining each side and wide enough for three long dining tables to stretch the length, each one crowded with passengers.

Meals were served at the seventh, twelfth and eighteenth hours of the day Tomas told us, and as it was the latter, we were encouraged to get dinner now before the other residents arrived. No one questioned the information. We did as instructed, heading over to a line by the door where other passengers were. A collared passenger dished out the meals on a large assortment of mismatched crockery, served from a trolly with a half-dozen hot pots.

My stomach grumbled when I caught the scent of stewed game.

We all took our bowls in silence and as though some odd comradery had formed, all took seats in a space at the same table.

“Do you think it is poisoned?” the redhead said in Prean, her accent lilting on the vowels in a familiar way.

My senses picked up every ingredient used in the meal. From the deer and the vegetables to the sugar they’d used to slightly sweeten the dish. If there was poison in the stew, there would be two hundred convulsing bodies in the room. Tomas was clearly enjoying the bowl he’d been served from the same pot as our own, and unless they killed their newcomers, I doubted it had been tampered with. Drake venom—a tasteless and odourless poison—was the most likely candidate should one of us suddenly drop dead.

And the only Drake among us was chowing into his plate with ravenous delight, slurping unapologetically. Young, perhaps mid-twenties, with ochre skin that glistened under the warm lights of the carriage and a lean muscular build only discernible due to his garments, an extensively embroidered vest with no undershirt. He wiped away the traces of his meal from his lips with the back of his hand as he is green serpentine eyes, visible beneath the dark waves of his fringe, looked around eagerly. “Do you think they serve seconds?”

His accent was identical to the redhead, confirming my suspicions. Torvians. They were coastal people, building cities on water and sailing in their sky ships, rarely venturing further north than The Imperial City. I’d only recognised the accent because it had the same lilting quality as the Torvian operas I listened to repeatedly when I lived in the Citadel.

He waited for an answer that didn’t come. One of the others, the woman who’d arrived last, changed the topic to a far more engaging one.

“Where do you think we are?”

No one seemed to acknowledge her words, perhaps too scared to voice their fears. None but an elder gentleman with greying hair. “Judging the design, I’d say we were on a Monarchical Era Locomotive. Pre-republic. The Kensillan Monarchy used to have several they used to tour the nation with.”

“We’re on a five-hundred-year-old train?” the woman said in disbelief.

“Oh yes, quite feasible,” the man continued quite nonchalantly as if he were giving a history lecture. “Kensillans were very ahead of their time. Some say they were ahead of even the Preans in their use of Devo ingenuity.”

The woman shifted in her seat, leaning into the table as she changed the topic. “Well then old man, how do you propose we get off this locomotive?”

Several eyes shot up at once, faces plastered with keen interest, scents eager as they looked to one another for a suggestion or an answer.

“Unless you want to learn what that collar on your neck is really for. I’d suggest not even contemplating running away.” Tomas glanced up from his plate, a gaze that felt much older than he looked surveying us.

Another one of the men, this one wearing tattered Deogn Robes, the seams torn open at his shoulders, spoke in broken Prean. “We are prisoners, yes?”

Tomas looked back to his half-eaten bowl of stew, his motions slow, as if he was intentionally taking his time to eat. “Yes.”

No one said another word.

The jovial mood of the rest of the passengers of the train unsettled my companions. The residents, as Tomas had called them, spoke with one another in a combination of words and hand gestures, whilst some said nothing at all. Entire conversations were conducted in utter silence, with the occasional burst of laughter or the clap of a hand cutting through that void.

I knew most languages in Idica. Boredom was commonplace in my former vocation and reading became a solace, so when I was permitted to take a book from the Celestial Library it was rarely in Deogn, my native tongue. From whatever book I could find written in the language, I’d taught myself Prean and Old Prean since it was the trade language of the Prean Union. The member nations were harder to come by. My only source of education for them was Audibles, aural recordings the library kept in the archives. So, after a year with nothing to do in my free time but read, I’d developed a good ear. What the passengers spoke here, the majority at least, was not one I knew. I recognised a few words in Old Kenar—the archaic tongue of Kensilla before it became a republic and closed its borders to the world—along with some Prean and Deogn words that were interspersed amongst quick short sentences that incorporated those hand gestures.

But I had never encountered or read about a language like this before. It was as intriguing as it was unsettling.

Tomas suddenly stood and my companions bolted to their feet.

Our guide straightened his vest, the material aged and worn, and instructed us to return our plates to a trolley at one end of the carriage, for those in The Kitchen to tend to.

No one spoke as we followed him down another stairwell. Travelling towards the back of the train, we crossed through the compartment directly beneath The Gardens where it appeared passengers were growing food crops. Various root vegetables, greens and herbs were being cultivated in raised beds under Bright-lights and heaters. The language was spoken here too.

We crossed back through MedCom, the majority of the cots now unoccupied, and into the largest carriage I had ever seen. It smelled distinctly of soap, linen, and sweat. Tomas led us hastily around the edge of a giant in-ground pool, the passengers here void of any shame as they conversed in various states of nudity in that very same language. Those gestures were much more obvious in this space.

We passed two women sitting together on a wooden bench by the wall, both naked and neither one saying a single word as their hands moved. They appeared to comprehend what the other was saying.

I felt my stomach twist.

Languages are formed over long periods of time, words adopted and reformed to accommodate the culture that spoke it. The Celestial Library boasted the most comprehensive collection of books on the continent, and if they had no record of this language then in all likelihood it had developed here. In isolation.

Tomas’ words suddenly felt heavier.

We finally came to a stop in a carriage that smelled very much like a den. Large square cavities lined the walls in vertical pairs, each one large enough to accommodate a bed fit for two.

The space seemed to be able to accommodate over fifty people, with quite a few who were in various stages of undress. A ladder ran up the wall between each pair, and an alcove with a long window was in between every other. Here is where Tomas chose to speak.

“Welcome to the Kensillan Territory Rail. You are now wards of the Republic of Kensilla and the Venerable Council. You have been granted a stay of execution for the crime of being born with a taint.”

He paused to let his words sink in, to let us understand his meaning. The train was a prison. For Blessed.

“The Rail is now your home. The collar around your neck is both your ticket and your shackle. Best acclimatise yourself. Should you attempt to leave, no one will stop you. But the attempt will kill you. Attempt to leave the train whilst it is moving, and you will die. Attempt to take off the collar or tamper with it and you will die. If anyone on board says they can take it off for you, they are lying. And if anyone even suggests you can escape to Lantern Town, they are most definitely trying to get you killed. The collars cannot be removed.”

“Who can remove them?” Bennic asked. He’d been quietly observing this place alongside me since we left the dining carriage.

Tomas smiled. “Know any gods?” It was said in humour. But unfortunately, it hadn’t been taken as such. Tomas cleared his throat. “Eight of you can sleep in this carriage.” He pointed to four empty bunks, one of those window alcoves between them. “The other two come with me.”

He waited for us to decide. The woman who had asked if we could escape and the man who she’d survived the death train with stepped forward and left with Tomas.

I was the first to move into the alcove to claim a bunk, choosing the lowest one closest to the exit. There were sliding partitions for each bunk facing the alcove. I pulled it open and sat on the bed.

The little female Terrestrial, still partially in her metamorphic state, looked to the bunk opposite, tugging on the redhead’s hand. She’d clung to her since the medical carriage. As she turned, I was able to better gauge the damage she’d taken to her antlers. I quickly had to snuff the anger that roiled under my skin.

They hadn’t been broken off as I’d initially thought. They had been cut off, right down to the root. Still resembling that of a deer, the young woman shuffled her hooves on the metal floor nervously. Whoever had taken her antlers had done it intentionally. The trauma of removing them, much like the violence inflicted on the Rabbit-Blessed Terrestrial from the camp, had caused intentional damage. She would be stuck in her metamorphic state until they grew back.

The moment she caught my eye, her tail which had been elevated a moment ago flattened itself against her, sensing danger from my presence.

That was the behaviour I was accustomed to before I’d met Kris. The redhead accommodating the gentle tugging took the bunk opposite, positioning herself on the edge of the bunk, between us and the Terrestrial. She couldn't have been older than me, her dark complexion such a pleasing contrast to the brightness of her red hair. And the freckles that scattered her cheeks and hands had the oddest effect of making it appear as though her skin shimmered. Her metamorphic state must be a sight to behold. I picked up the slightest traces of salt water, and her hands looked quite rough, I wouldn't be surprised if her occupation before all this was manual labour—somewhere near the coast.

“Who here speaks Prean?” asked the elderly greying gentleman from earlier. He was much younger than I’d initially thought. Perhaps in his middle years, with a dark complexion, honey-coloured eyes and a greying beard to accompany his hair. The state of his robes, the blackened and charred ends, confirmed what my senses detected—he was a Kindling.

Myself and Bennic, both the women and the serpent-eyed Drake, raised a hand.

The man in the tattered clothes answered once again in broken Prean. “Only few words.”

Tattered was not a state I’d ever seen Deogn silks in. It was as though someone had dragged them through mud, scraped them over rocks and baked them in the sun. Only two classes of citizens in Deos could afford such expensive attire. Devoted, those who were seen by society as being worthy of attending Citadel in the presence of the Celestials, and the Artisans, those who benefitted from the gods' favour through their artistic expression. Right now, he looked like neither—and rather malnourished.

“You are Deogn?” the older man asked him. The Deogn nodded in acknowledgement, expression stoic as he glanced from face to face and then stopped when he reached mine.

“I know you,” his inner voice declared.

I glanced at the man as normally as I could knowing if I looked away too soon, I might draw suspicion. But it didn’t stop me from pulling the hem of my glove up my wrist.

“And you, sir, can you understand me?” the older man asked as he addressed the youngest of his sex, a handsome man with short cropped ink black hair who wore a singlet that revealed muscular arms covered in very brightly coloured tattoos. A short, and rather pretty phrase passed his lips on his way up the ladder to the bunk above the women’s bed. My education in Pazgari was rudimentary at best, but I knew what that phrase meant.

“Fuck this.”

As he climbed, I noticed two long slits in the back of his singlet.

The southern island of the continent was considered to have the most dialects of any nation in Idica, and that wasn’t including those just in the seven sovereign cities. I’d read that even the native Pazgari had trouble understanding one another. What audibles I'd heard made me think he was from the east coast of the island. Shadowport maybe.

“Quite an eclectic group we have. Perhaps names might help,” the older man added.

“Why bother old man?” said the Pazgari in a cold angry tone in Prean. “They will probably come up with a different way to kill us tomorrow. You’re wasting your breath.” The old man brushed off the comment. Clearing his throat, he introduced himself. “I am Hentirion Ignati.” He then translated for the Deogn, whose name was one I recognised immediately.

“Emil Kal.”

Leaning her elbows on her knees, the redheaded Torvian introduced herself next. “S’vara Xaiaren.”

“And you, my dear?” he asked the shy Terrestrial who had pushed herself across her bed until her back was against the wall of the bunk, her fur-covered knees under her chin.

“Tir’tana. But Tira is what the commune called me.” Excitement shot from Hentirion like an arrow, the scent conflicting in this fear-induced environment. “Commune! You come from the Enibon Islands?”

They were the dozens of little islands off the coast of Torvar. Tira was a Terrestrial. It made sense. They’d inhabited those islands for generations.

“Not anymore,” she said solemnly. “The slavers’ ships came to the island and rounded up everyone, even the younglings. Then they set us free only to chase us down.” It didn’t take much to determine what she meant by chase. It solved the question of her damaged antlers.

“Farox Benhairo,” said the Drake, then Bennic and then I introduced ourselves, my voice garnering a spike in fear from Tira.

Hentirion looked to the bunk where our angry Pazgari companion lay. “And you, young man, what shall we call you?”

The young man provided Hentirion with a nonchalant response. “Saska.”

Hentirion smiled softly. “There we go. Now that we are all acquainted perhaps tomorrow might not be as daunting. Would everyone like to go to the seventh-hour meal together, greater strength in numbers perhaps?”

Most agreed, but I didn’t care. I honestly didn’t care about much right now. I wanted a bath; I wanted a drink, and I wanted to cry.

“Then shall we call it a night?” He turned his attention back to Saska. “Perhaps Farox could share your bunk Saska, and Bennic can squeeze up here with me and Emil.”

Hentirion’s suggestion wasn’t without its merits. The beds were large. They had enough headroom to sit up and not bump your head and were large enough to fit a third person. Though I doubted very much it would be comfortable, regardless of Hentirion’s good intentions.

“No, it’s fine. Bennic can sleep beside me.” I shifted so he could climb into the bunk.

“My back thanks you. But I’ll have to make my way back through the train. I think I left something back in the dining hall.” He gave me a small smile, as he looked across the room, possibly trying to figure out which exit led to The Mess.

“Want company?” I didn’t want to go, but being kind under the circumstances seemed appropriate. Bennic declined the offer. “I’ll be right back when I find it.”

I tried to get comfortable in the bunk after he left, but found I could not sleep. There were too many thoughts flittering through my head. About Kris, about Taren. Tiny . I tried reciting recipes to myself in the hopes I would just drift off. I didn’t, so I counted heartbeats. I counted those in this carriage, and then since the doors between the sleepers were open, I counted the heartbeats in those too.

I was still awake when Bennic finally returned an hour later, the light snores of Hentirion and Farox helping me keep time. He appeared happy, a smile on his face. “You found what you were after I presume?”

“Oh yes.” He flipped a small black and gold button in his hand and placed it in his pocket. A keepsake of some kind. Considering how small it was, I was surprised he found it in a room that large.

I moved my hand to rest over the place where Tiny’s fur was concealed in the pipe pouch, hoping proximity to him would help me sleep in a strange place as he had so many times before. But I still couldn’t sleep.

I’d seen a washroom in the corner of the carriage. Perhaps cleaning up a little might help slow my mind. I pulled myself from the bunk, careful not to bump Bennic awake. He’d fallen asleep almost the instant his head had touched the pillow.

There was no door to the washroom, so I shouldn’t expect any semblance of privacy, but there was a mirror. My appearance was as bad as I expected.

I looked like a wet long-haired snow rat.

My hair was matted, and the braid didn’t even look like one anymore. The water had washed away most of the slavers’ blood from my face, but I could still find traces of it around my ears, my hairline, and under my fingernails.

A snow rat that someone had taken a club to.

The graze on my chin wasn’t too bad at least.

I untied my shawl and pulled off my coat. I tried to clean the spot off with the water from the sink but there were just too many, and I couldn’t even find soap. Kris would be so pissed at the state of it.

At least my buckskin vest was untouched. The same couldn't be said for my shirt. One of the sleeves was stained. And it had the smelled like the weasel. It wouldn’t come out either. I didn’t even bother with the spots on my boots.

There were folded cloths beneath the sink so I took one and used it to clean the blood from my face and ears, then faltered when the stroke down my neck was hindered.

Gods, the collar looked so inconspicuous, as if it were a necklace that could be removed. So I tried to. I was in a confined enough space that if it backfired, the only one hurt would be me. But when I searched my mind for a spell to remove the collar, nothing came. As if there wasn’t one.

I took one last hateful glare at the collar then returned to my cleaning, wiping away the blood caked beneath it, then across my scar and down my chest.

The light caught my eyes. I shifted again, causing the grey to flicker to white, the colour which had no doubt caught the slavers off guard when I had ripped them all to pieces.

My breath came out in a stutter, my vision began to blur. I quickly wiped a hand across my eyes and returned to my hair. I used my fingers since I had no comb. But after several minutes of trying and failing to detangle the wet knots, an exhausted dry sob escaped from my traitorous mouth.

“You can use mine.” The voice came from the little girl in the mirror’s reflection, a comb outstretched in her hand, her eyes downcast. She was Wolf-Blessed like me, but unlike my blessing, which seemed defective when it came to manifesting, her tail and ears were on full display. She couldn’t have been more than nine.

I slowly turned, registering fear from the young girl. I took a step towards her, taking note of the submissive way in which she was greeting me. “Is that allowed?”

“As long as you give it back to me.” She took a single step forward, continuing to hold out the comb. There were so many ways this could go wrong. A pup making first contact with an older Wolf-Blessed, an Apex Brute. She was endangering herself. I’d met other Brutes, members of the Celestial Guard who took slight when young ones crossed the boundary of familiarity. Many a recruit returned home with fresh claw marks. It was why I hadn’t said a word to S’vara yet, she too was Wolf-Blessed.

Yet, I was not in the world I knew. So I did the only appropriate thing. I crouched down and offered her my cheek. She took the invitation and padded quickly over to me, her bushy brown hair tickling my nose as she brushed her cheek to mine. She then lingered, allowing me to scent her.

I let her do the same. She offered the comb once again and as reached for it, I noticed a black mark on her hand. A pattern not dissimilar to the ones I’d seen the Spindles put on my clothes.

She stepped away, only moving back to the doorway when I had taken it. I sighed with relief when the knots obliged.

“You smell like a wolf,” she finally said, her head cocking to the side. “But you also don’t smell like a wolf.”

“Is that so?” I handed her back the comb, and she replied, “You can borrow it again until you get your own.” With the knots finally gone I proceeded to braid a crown atop my head.

“Are you one of those people who live in the land of snow? Teacher said they have white wolves there.” A quick glance at my hair hinted to the origin of her question.

“The Hetra?”

The small she-wolf nodded, her eyes focused intensely on me.

“I’ve come from there, yes.” She didn’t say anything else as I finished the crown, unable to plait the rest without a tie to secure it. I bent down until we were face-to-face. “What’s your name, pup?”

“Ghena.”

“It is nice to meet you, Ghena. My name is Rieka.” She repeated my name to herself

“Ghena, can I ask you a question?” I added before she had a chance to leave. She nodded. “Why is it that you don’t have a collar when my friends and I do?”

“Because I’m invisible. The Eyes can’t see me without it.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

Anger. Thick and heady.

Fury that tasted like a thunderstorm.

I rushed towards Ghena, pushing her into the washroom behind me. Standing in the alcove where my companions slept was a figure, the window casting a dark halo around them. They stood gazing down at my bunk. At Bennic.

As if by some invisible force, Bennic was ripped from the bunk and held aloft, his feet dangling off the ground, his face directly in front of the strangers’. The air in the room stilled for a moment, then began to move towards the stranger. Towards Bennic. Strangled gasping noises sounded from his throat as the air in the room pushed against his flesh. Panicked hands reached blindly for the source but found nothing but the air. The heartbeat of the stranger spiked and the air shifted again violently.

Bennic’s hands were instantly crushed, bones protruding, skin splitting.

Growls and howls erupted in the room at his blood being spilled. A scream shot from the bunk opposite, from Tira who was being shielded by a very awake and growling S’vara, red wolf ears and fangs now donning her dark sun-kissed features.

The air shifted again, much more slowly as if it had a mind of its own. And I watched, half in fascination and half repulsion as Bennic's chest began to concave, like he was a slab of meat on Engar's butcher's table.

Pneumatics could control the air. They could call on the wind to sail a ship, induce flight, even hear far off into the distance, and they could also use it as a weapon, their arsenal the very world itself. The stranger was a Pneumatic.

The scent of pain and fear made the room sing with delirium, my own sense of clarity muddled by the sight of Bennic's blood dripping onto the floor in several crimson pools where his ribs had pierced his chest. The stranger released his hold on Bennic, and his body fell to the floor in a wet heap.

Bennic coughed up blood as the figure stood over him, glowering. Emil, who had jumped down from his bunk was being held back by Hentirion, the older man noticing the same thing I had. None of the other residents of the room were doing anything, they were just watching the event unfold.

Bennic’s heart stopped.

The collar on his neck came alive and dissolved, running from his neck like the molten steel in a blacksmith’s forge. It pooled by his head before reforming into the very same solid metal collar he’d put on only hours ago.

The figure then stared down at the collar. The light from the window touched his face, illuminating his features. Short auburn hair, a strong nose, a ginger beard and his neck bare of any collar.

He leaned down, picked up Bennic’s collar, and then left the carriage.

Ghena was called away a moment later by someone I could only assume was her mother, leaving me standing in the doorway, my companions motionless by the bunks.

We were in a state of shock. Except Saska. He let off a single laugh before returning to lying back down. No one said anything but his words from earlier were no doubt replaying in all our minds.

A group of passengers arrived ten minutes later with buckets of soapy water and a bag big enough to fit a body in. Bennic’s body. They removed him and cleaned the floor of any traces of his blood, and then left without a word to any of us.

When I’d finally regained enough semblance of control over my body, refusing to leave the washroom until my heart rate had returned to a normal rhythm, I returned to the bunk. The warmth of Bennic’s body still lingered on the mattress. As I rolled over, refusing to turn my back on the carriage, I noticed the small black button wedged on the mantle that ran the circumference of the little pod I now inhabited alone. There was a pair of cupboards in the wall of the pod. I picked one for myself and put his keepsake inside it.

Saska seemed to be the only one who slept that night.

When the seventh hour came, no one chose to rise for breakfast.