20. TWENTY
TWENTY
FANKALO
Location: Chira’na
Fankalo sat in the same window-side corner she’d loitered in for three days since visiting Deshpian Thacklore’s manor.
The drafty Chira’na cafe was the only one which would let her linger through the afternoon, avoiding the crew, for purchasing a single cup of tea.
Condensation from the teacup in question had long since left the glass pane beside her as she nursed it.
Fankalo missed its warmth. The window drew all the heat from her.
“Temperate,” was what Gelhard had said of the climate this far south, though she couldn’t imagine this chill moderating anyone’s mood.
They were marooned in this fated place. While they had come to Chira’na to find Thacklore, their stay had stretched unexpectedly, due to rumors around the city.
Cul’Mon, Tera’thu’s Tohatu—a general who earned his place through mortal combat—had advanced through most of the northern territory.
From what Captain Keane had learned, Cul’Mon had commissioned multiple fleets to eliminate any raiders found north of Nelfindar’s waterline.
If that wasn’t enough, two of the sovereign trade ports where they took frequent refuge had been burned to the ground by a rising power labeled as the Shadewalker.
Ultimately, her father had determined they would stay grounded for a month or two until they could gauge the safety of their usual routes.
The city of Chira’na, surrounded by an impenetrable wall, was all too similar to those days trapped in Kaidech’s slums; another cage, just bigger.
It was nothing like being out on the open ocean where the sun kissed her skin and the Rogue’s Rapture escaped the gravity of everyday stagnation.
But at least in Chira’na she could isolate herself to tend to her predicament.
She shifted, recrossing her legs on the worn, embroidered pouf beneath her to disguise her self-check—a quick glance under the waistband of her sirwal.
She still peered past her shoulder to see if anyone had seen her do it.
Then she leaned her elbows against the splintering wood of the low table to squint at the flowing penmanship of Abiathar Methu’su’s journal.
Methu’su’s Nelfinden was poor. His script was difficult to piece out—only a Tera’thian would write with such superfluous curvature—but she kept at its yellowing pages.
She needed to understand everything to be sure she wasn’t misinterpreting the tectonic shift in her reality that its contents implied.
Chaos curse it if they hadn’t gotten their money’s worth.
Fankalo jumped as Mitek pressed his face up to the window, eyes framed by his hands to block out the sun’s glare. He rapped on the glass harder than necessary. His breath clouded the surface between them.
“Ay, Brat! Come on, time to come up for air!”
The journal had been a convenient excuse to avoid him. No one would wonder twice on why she’d holed herself away with it.
When Fankalo flipped him a crude gesture, Mitek strode past the window, through the cafe’s paned door, and plopped onto the adjacent pouf.
He slammed a dirty hand on the table, rattling her teacup.
“When you’re done unlocking conspiracies, there’s a halloucha stand with our name on it.
I heard that in Chira’na, they make ‘em bigger!”
Count on Mitek to waste his enthusiasm. Every fated city in Nelfindar claimed to make them bigger.
“Not hungry.”
“You’ve been indoors all week.”
“Yep.”
He snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “You’re on a cycle.” Where she’d lacked heat before, it now flooded her with interest. “Knew it. Your tits are coming in.”
“I hate you.” She directed her attention back to Methu’su’s journal to keep herself from cleaving Mitek’s face in two.
Had she been the only person in all the world who hadn’t known this would happen to her?
She’d thought she was dying. Poisoned or cancerous or Preservation knew what else.
The crew’s physicker had thought she was pulling a fast one on him, not knowing.
It was the first time in her living memory she hadn’t been.
When she could no longer bear the gleeful glimmer in Mitek’s eyes, she muttered over the pages, “How in bloody Chaos did you know about birthing cycles when I didn’t?”
A dark smile crossed his face. “You know how I know.”
She gagged. “Oh, Fates. Why did I ask?” His fox-like cackle was maddening. “Can’t you find anything better to do with your money? Go away, you debaucher. I’ve research to do.”
His expression soured. She’d taught Mitek to read years ago—and anyone on the Rogue’s Rapture who had any interest. With most of Nelfindar being illiterate, it strengthened the crew. But while Mitek found value in deciphering notes and street signs, he remained allergic to literature.
He nodded to the journal. “Is this it then? Answers on the Kaidechi scourge?”
Despite the still-present desire to hold Mitek underwater, the corners of her mouth rose. “Yes. And more.”
“More? Like, treasure more?”
She shook her head. “This journal holds Nelfindar’s deepest secrets about Seraphindo’s line.”
“Ahhh. Ummm… the Ruxians?”
Fankalo closed the journal and planted her palms on the table.
Her heartbeat spiked. “I have to tell you about this. The Ruxian gene—it was recessive. Short of becoming extinct, eah? Seraphindo’s line washed out in the Nelfinden gene pool.
Especially after the Tera’thians established a task force to hunt them.
It took very specific combinations of Ruxian classes to produce another Ruxian with the ability to manifest distortion.
And, apparently, there’s this weird thing about Ruxians: they can’t distort unless they link up with other Ruxians—something to do with hormones in the pineal gland. ”
Mitek’s eyes darted to the window. Too specific and too rambling at the same time. She would need to dumb this down for him.
“So, on account of that, Ruxians with the power to distort nearly died out. And the Nelfinden government started its own…” How to describe it? “Breeding program to correct the problem.”
Mitek shifted in a way that indicated he would rather she ran down the street with him in the direction of fried dough.
“They set up arranged marriages to try to propagate the bloodline.”
“Sounds gross.”
“That’s because it is gross. Can you imagine being an all-powerful being, but having to be bred like an animal?”
Mitek’s face scrunched. “Right. Ahm. What do you mean, classes?”
“There were four—one aligned with each of the Fates—that determined how their powers would manifest. But there were so few Ruxians that the program began recruiting half-breeds—‘conduits’.”
“I mean, ‘conduit’ does have a better ring to it than ‘half-breed’.”
“And it played matchmaker between complementary classes, trying to produce full-blooded Ruxians from conduit pairs. Then, half a century ago, a member of the breeding program’s board betrayed them. Gave a list of names to the Tera’thians. A quiet culling began.”
Mitek let out a low whistle. “That’s quite a thing to keep a lid over.”
She gave her eyebrows a conspiratorial lift. “According to Methu’su, the oligarchy orchestrated it.”
“Why? I thought the oligarchy has been waiting for the Seraphindos to take the throne back?”
She chuckled at his naivety. “If Gelhard became captain of the Rogue’s Rapture tomorrow, do you think he’d give it up again next ten-day?”
Mitek picked at his nails. “Suppose not. Still, it seems a little treasonous… and dangerous. I thought a Ruxian was impossible to kill.”
Indeed. Killing a deity was no small task.
That was why Nelfindar had begun to outsource.
“The government was so infiltrated with Tera’thian spies, and oligarchs who secretly wanted the Ruxians out, that support for them fell into private hands.
And Methu’su, this journal’s owner, was a part of that shadow operation keeping them alive. ”
“Got it. Sooooo, what does this have to do with Kaidech?”
Fates help her. Mitek genuinely cared more about filling his stomach than learning about one of the largest coverups in Nelfinden history.
“Mitek, the operation’s key orchestrator was stationed in Kaidech.”
His eyes rolled skyward in thought. “So you’re saying the reason the Tera’thians risked an all-out assault on Kaidech was because they were terrified a Ruxian would jump to our defense during their conquest and destroy them again.
” Natoluphut, Seraphinden’s first Ruxian king, had supposedly submerged a fleet of Tera’thian war ships.
But that had been generations ago, long enough for the line between tale and truth to grow murky.
“And they knew that there was a Kaidechi operation with intent to procure additional Ruxians.”
At least he could follow a stream of thought. Perhaps there was hope for him.
But his eyes strayed out the window again, towards a girl walking down Chira’na’s trade district, a basket brimming with apples in the crook of her arm.
The ribbons braided into her hair rippled against the wind.
Another ribbon cinched the waistline of her kaftan, revealing what felt like unrealistic proportions.
Fankalo rolled her eyes. “Mitek, focus.” She snapped her fingers.
“I am.”
“I need you to keep your dick out of your hand for five minutes. This is important.” When he’d hit his teens, he’d lost half of his brain. Not that there had been much there to begin with.
Mitek shone every one of his teeth at her. “If you were half the boy you pretend to be, you’d have your dick in your hand too. She was brilliant.”
“Disgusting.”
Mitek’s expression sobered as he slowly comprehended the implications of her discovery. “This is why they burned your city?”
“Yes.”
“The Tera’thians were successful, then. In killing the last of the Ruxian bloodline?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”