34. The Weapons Room
THE WEAPONS ROOM
Seraphina
The armory reeks of oil, stone and steel. It’s that kind of smell that will cling to our clothes long after we’re done, and sharp enough that I can already taste it at the back of my throat.
Silver decided this morning after we “half-arsed the Iron Root,” his favorite, most arduous and grueling kata, that the four of us, my alliance and I, would be spending the afternoon polishing enough weapons to supply a small war.
I have a feeling he might be enjoying punishing me more than the others, given the headache I caused him a few nights ago and the way he’s been giving me the cold shoulder ever since.
Khali and I are seated at the long oak worktable with cloths and whetstones. Reiva and Az are hauling armfuls of blades from the racks lining the walls, the training halls and the sparring yard.
Az stumbles through the armory doors first with a stack of swords against his shoulder like badly balanced firewood. “This,” he announces loudly, “is abuse.”
Reiva walks in behind him carrying twice as many weapons and looking far less dramatic about it. “You volunteered,” he says flatly.
“I volunteered for glory, not this, this… manual labor!” Az protests. “I’d take another ten rounds in the Triad over manual labor.” Steel clatters loudly across the wood as he dumps the swords onto the table in front of us. “More for the polishing princesses.”
Khali doesn’t even look up. “If you call us that again,” she says calmly, dragging an oil-soaked cloth along the length of a longsword. “I’ll polish your skull with the same enthusiasm.”
Az grins. “Threats. I love when you flirt with me.”
Reiva sets his armful down beside the pile, more carefully than Az, though the table still rattles.
Az groans dramatically but turns back toward the door anyway. “If I collapse under the weight of oppression, tell Overlord Silver I died bravely.”
Reiva ignores him but follows.
I pick up one of the swords Az brought. The blade is dull along the edge, nicked in a few places like the last ten I worked on. “This place has too many swords,” I mutter, sharpening it first and then moving onto polishing.
Silver must have ordered every weapon in Vulcaris be brought back to its freshly forged, former glory.
Along the bench, Khali’s already halfway through the blade in front of her.
“You missed a spot,” she says without looking up.
I glance down.
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
I drag the cloth across the blade again to prove a point.
“Happy?”
“Ecstatic.”
I watch her for a moment. “You’re going to wear a hole in that blade if you keep polishing like that. What’s up with you today?”
That gets her attention. She looks up, brow furrowing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re snappy.”
“Am not.”
I tilt my head slightly. “You and Az have a lovers’ tiff or something?”
She shakes her head. “It’s not Az.”
“So you admit there is something.”
She hesitates, like that something is on the tip of her tongue, but decides not to say it. Then she looks back down at the sword in her hands. “It’s nothing.”
Which according to Az means it definitely isn’t nothing.
The silence stretches and I resume polishing. Khali clears her throat. “I’m nervous about the next game. We are so close to making it into the Iron Choir.”
I nod. “What made you want to join? The Sister’s army I mean?”
“To help with their mission,” she drops her voice. “Not many know but Trutina is hanging on by a thread.”
I know better than most, but I press her anyway, curious about what twisted version of the truth she’s been told about how precarious the balance is right now and why. “How so?”
“Scelus isn’t without its problems, especially where its Noble families are concerned. But the more immediate and bigger issue is the opposite side of the scales.”
I almost laugh. “Virtus?”
Khali nods. “Not so much the place but the people ruling it. They swore to the heavenly council that they would live a virtuous life and encourage their people to do the same. That their good deeds would make up for the misgivings on the Scelus side of the continent. But the power, as it has for the Noble families, has gone to the High Seraph’s heads.
Many have become corrupted or cruel, sometimes evil, in their twisted pursuit of perfection.
Taking away chunks of the land they swore to cherish is the angels’ way of punishing them for it, as it is the princes who are punishing the Noble families for their crimes.
But ultimately, it’s the land and population living on it who are suffering.
I want to help the Sisters do what they were conceived to do, restore the balance. ”
I scoff. “Restore it. That’s a generous way of describing what they do to the balance.”
Khali huffs. “See, there you go again.”
“Excuse me?”
“Talking about them like they’re the villains in this fucked up world.
You did it at lunch, when those Aes cadets were arguing over whether Maeva or Seren would win in the sparring ring.
And a few days ago, when the tattooist was found hanging from the east wing staircase, you made some comment about how it’s forbidden and you think the Sisters are keeping secrets up there and shouldn’t be trusted.
If something's gotten into anyone, it’s you. ”
Apparently Khali doesn’t miss a thing.
I have been making some comments recently, putting the feelers out to see how loyal my allies are to my enemy, especially after Silver’s actions and his stories about Eurya have been tilting, no, shaking the world as I know it. I thought I’d been more subtle.
Feigning like I’m not rattled in the least, I shrug.
“Maybe they are the villains. They haven’t exactly made any effort to gain our trust. From where I’m sitting, they’ve done little more than design deadly games as admission to get into their army.
Games that will wind up killing most of our friends if history is anything to go by. "
She studies me. “They are the only people keeping the balance in Trutina and stopping the land from crumbling into the sea when holier-than-thou Virtishans commit evil deeds.”
I shake my head. “They are the reason we are being punished and the continent is crumbling,” I seethe. “It is their evil presence in Virtus that upsets the balance!"
Khali sets her whetstone down. “Who the hell told you that?”
My nostrils flare. “I’ve been there when it happens, I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
She leans back slightly against the stone wall behind the bench. “If you’ve seen it,” she says. “You’d know that if not for them risking their lives, there would be hardly anything left of Trutina already!”
I almost choke. I should dismiss her delusion, change the subject back to safer ground. It would be easier.
That’s what I always do, it’s safer that way. But then I remember my mother’s face as she lay broken on that rock in the sea, her body being battered by the waves as if the fall hadn’t done enough to kill her, and they wanted to be sure.
But how can I expect Khali to understand when I never open up to her about anything? I’m so busy carrying a dozen secrets of my own, I don’t let the conversations get deep enough to know how she or the others really feel about this place, the Sisters, the Iron Choir or even the games.
Would Silver and Khali and the rest of them even still think the Sisters were heroes if they knew the truth?
If I told them the truth.
I stare down at the sword in my hands. I guess there is only one way to know for sure. “Because they killed my mother,” I say quietly.
Khali goes still. “What?”
I drag the cloth slowly along the blade. “We used to hike the coastal cliffs near my village. My mother loved the sea.”
I let the memory creep in. The wind, the gulls, my mother laughing as we’d played together.
“It was my thirteenth birthday,” I continue. “A clear day, no rain, certainly no storms.” No warning that my world was about to change forever.
My grip tightens slightly around the cloth.
Khali doesn’t interrupt, she waits.
I clear the lump from my throat. “The cliff… collapsed. One second we were playing together, the next there was nothing under our feet.” My throat tightens.
“Before that day, I thought I was human, like her. But wings saved me.” Shooting from my back as my stomach had flipped and that weightless feeling had taken hold of my limbs.
“My mother…” I swallow. “She truly was human. No wings saved her from falling.”
Khali’s voice is soft when she speaks. “Seraphina… I’m so sorry.”
Me too, because that was when she’d used her final breath to tell me that my father was the High Seraph of Industria, and that the wings at my back were because I’m part seraphim.
I nod once. “My father explained it was divine judgment. A punishment from the angels for the imbalance. Too much evil on Virtus soil.”
“Most likely.” Khali nods, then frowns slightly. “But what makes you think the Sisters had anything to do with it?”
“I didn’t at first,” I admit. “It wasn’t until some years later that I learned my mothers death happened around the same time that people in Virtus started talking about the Seven Sisters causing chaos. Breaking people out of our prisons, hunting and killing people in cold blood.”
Of course by people, I mean my fathers spies had told him. And when he’d deemed me ready, he’d told me too.
Khali’s brow creases. “So someone saw them? They saw them doing these evil deeds in Virtus the day your mother died?”
I stare at her. “No, not exactly. But I have no reason to believe they would lie.”
Don’t you?