Chapter 26 #2
Drinking around Zevrial felt sinful and risky, like eating an entire cake instead of dinner. Wrong and right at the same time.
I’d never been great at resisting temptation, and starting now was beyond me.
“Where’d you get this, anyway?” I shook the bottle, handing it back.
“Henrik’s room,” he said. A puzzle piece clicked into place.
“You knew Henrik stole the horn. You covered for him,” I said.
“He’s not a subtle thief.”
“How?” Then after another second, “Why?”
His eyelashes lowered, “Why do you think?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I asked.”
He watched me as he took another sip, considering.
“He reminds me a bit of myself, when I was younger and dumber.” I held back a snort.
There was no way Zevrial was more than five years older than Henrik.
“And it was a mistake on my part to leave the horn out where it could be taken by anyone when we left for Jakavra. I’ll admit, I was preoccupied. ”
I tugged at the hem of my nightgown, trying to pull it down further. Zevrial’s gaze was drifting up my bare legs, making me self-conscious.
“And?” I asked, knowing there was more. He passed the bottle back to me. I downed what remained in three swallows. The room took on a delicious warm patina.
Dark eyes rose to meet mine. “He tried to steal from me after getting caught gambling. He’s your friend, but he’s an idiot. I figured I’d confirm my suspicions about him and spare you from having to watch anymore of your colleagues get maimed today.”
I sucked in a breath. “Is Rosa…?”
“Beyond Restoration’s ability to heal. Blind in one eye, when I went to collect her dagger,” Zevrial said. “She’s unlikely to become a Voyager now.”
I hugged myself, suddenly chilled. It was horrendous what Rosa had endured. And it could have easily been me.
Zevrial’s finger tapped against the edge of the chair.
“Henrik doesn’t know when to quit. Neither do you.
” Indignation sparked, I started to argue but stopped myself.
He had a point. “Starshells are too large to easily hide. He was greedy enough to try to steal the horn, one of the biggest Starshells, and I knew he’d do a piss poor job of hiding it.
” He shook his head. “He thought burying it underneath some dirty laundry would conceal it. Idiot.”
He hadn’t wanted me to see anyone else get maimed.
He’d helped my friend, who he thought was an idiot.
He’d even injured himself to lure the Sanguirs away from me, although his leg looked fine now.
Must have gotten it treated when he went to collect Rosa’s dagger.
My brain changed direction, resisting the impulse to examine things too closely.
I recalled the discolored stones I’d seen along the outer perimeter.
“How many times has the outer perimeter been damaged like it was today in the past year?” I asked.
He studied me, taking my measure. “Can I trust you?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Can I trust you?” I echoed.
He drummed his fingers against the side of the chair. Silence pulsed between us, plumping up as the minutes ticked by.
“I didn’t tell anyone about the Skinscript on your…on you.” I finished. I didn’t know what would happen if I had reported the Skinscript I’d seen to anyone else, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t have been good for Zevrial.
“And I didn’t report on you or your friends for gambling at Haburi,” he countered.
“The Skinscript on our chests,” I reached up, touching the spot. “I haven’t told anyone about that either.
“Keep it that way.”
Feeling comfortable around him was a trap, and I was tripping it. Even with our heated exchanges, he had protected me on multiple occasions. And today, he’d protected Henrik too, simply because Henrik was my friend.
It was more than just caring about Zevrial. I trusted him, and I wanted him to trust me too.
Now there was a scary thought.
“So.” I cleared my throat as I stared at him. “The perimeter damage?”
“It’s happened at least thirty times in the last year,” Zevrial answered.
Shock struck me mute for several seconds.
“The miasma is rising, isn’t it?” My voice was quiet.
Zevrial’s eyes shot to mine and I saw a blink of surprise.
He let out a drawn out breath, closing his eyes.
“It is. More creatures are coming ashore as it encroaches, and they’re breaking down our defenses.
We’ve maybe another five years before the miasma reaches the outer perimeter and begins to completely dissolve it. ”
Miasma could melt almost anything, even stone, but it took longer to liquidize solid rock. Having the outer perimeter as a barrier would buy us a few months. Until it became melted slag and sand.
The bed was shaking. I looked down at it. No, my hand had taken on a slight tremor. I squeezed it into a fist, taking a ragged breath to try to calm my trembling.
Five years until the Sanguirs would be loose on mainland. Along with many other horrors that lived within the miasma.
“Who else knows?” I asked.
“Any Voyager or Sentinel,” Zevrial said. “Anyone high in the Ascendancy’s chain of command.”
That was preciously few people.
I trailed my fingers along the yo-yo on my nightstand for comfort. None came. “What can we do?”
“Not much. At least ‘til the Ascendancy agrees that the information should be made public,” Zevrial ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “We can start by giving you more Skinscript.”
Excitement fluttered in my chest. I hadn’t noticed it when he first entered, but there was a second smaller bottle of shimmering black liquid strapped to his belt.
“Tonight?” I asked, feeling my heartbeat soaring.
“Tonight,” he agreed.
Skinscript would certainly help deal with Sanguirs. Especially if they made it past the barriers and overran the island. My skin prickled.
“It’s not exactly easy to acquire the materials for this,” he said. “At least, not legally.”
He reminds me a bit of myself. He’s not a subtle thief. Starshells are too large to easily hide.
Even mildly inebriated, I connected the dots. “You stole it.”
He shrugged. “Only enough that they won’t be missed.”
“You’re a Voyager Instructor,” I said. “Can’t you just ask for more? Or petition the Ascendancy for help or something?”
“Don’t you think I’ve already tried? My petitions were denied.
” He blew out an exasperated breath. “They don’t want a panicked citizenry.
They’d rather have them ignorant and complacent up ‘til the miasma is in their backyards than tell them that the perimeter is compromised. They’re not even willing to share their knowledge of Skinscript, and it’s been around for hundreds of years.
They’ll try to maintain the illusion of a stable Tide, no matter the cost.”
“There isn’t going to be anything left to maintain if they don’t do something,” I insisted.
Zevrial’s eyes narrowed, voice grave. “No shit.”
I bit my lip, trying not to feel defeated.
He scowled, fingers clenching on the chair’s back.
“The Ascendancy doesn’t know how to deal with the crisis on their hands.
The only means they’ve got of staying safe from the miasma is the Arcs, and there are only twelve of them remaining.
They’re not large enough to hold the full population of Mesmoria, they could hold maybe two or three hundred people if we filled all of them to max capacity.
And their best efforts at understanding why the Arcs are not corroded by the miasma resulted in decommissioning an Arc; the worst possible outcome.
They couldn’t even put it back together safely to use again afterwards. ”
“The abandoned bridge,” I said. Zevrial gave a slow nod.
“They tried to make armor and weapons out of the decommissioned Arc planks too, but that effort also failed,” he scoffed. “Not that any of that was ever made public.”
“There’s no chance that the perimeter will hold against the miasma?” I forced myself to unclench the death grip I had on the blanket beneath my fingers.
“You saw it today. That was from one single miasmic creature, and it ate straight through. Every material on the mainland melts when exposed directly to Miasma.”
“Except for the bodies of the monsters that live in it.” I thought back to the beach littered with Sanguir corpses. The miasma wave had washed right over them, but it hadn’t burned them. Hell, they lived in the damn stuff.
“There’s no way we could ever kill enough of them to make any sturdy barrier against it,” Zevrial argued. “The fact that most of them attack in swarms means the loss of human life required for that would be catastrophic.”
“Starshells are also immune to miasma,” I mused.
“And they’re the only thing strong enough to make weapons to fight the things that live in it. And they’re required to grow the crops that feed us. Not to mention, only available in any significant quantity on the outer isle’s shores,” Zevrial said.
I went on, undeterred. “How many Starshells does a single operation bring back?”
He rubbed his chin, thinking. “Maybe a hundred? Three hundred at most.”
My heart sank. The math wasn’t mathing. Mesmoria was more than fifty miles around its circumference.
Every step was carved into my memory from the Mistrun.
Even with thousands of shells, we wouldn’t be able to build up a barrier more than a few inches off the ground.
And the Voyager labor required to make the trips to and from the outer isles to retrieve that many would be staggering.
Not to mention, everyone else would starve in the meantime.
“Why isn’t the Ascendancy training the citizens to fight? They’ll be helpless if something like the Sanguirs makes it past the outer perimeter,” I asked.
I hadn’t even known how to fight Sanguirs until earlier today. Even with Voyager training I was receiving daily. And I’d been mediocre at fighting them, at best.
“The Ascendancy is doing…other things, to try to prepare for the eventuality of the miasma destroying the perimeter defenses,” Zevrial said.
My eyes narrowed. “What other things?”
“The less you know, the better.”
Awful things, got it.