4: Yearning

Corvus never dreamed he could actually enjoy a mission. He’d never had a task like this, one where he could remember everything that happened.

Where there was no blood.

Guarding Emrhys Coldriver and conveying letters between her and her sister Lenore was his job now, under orders of General Acton. An important job, apparently, they could trust to nobody else. After all, Emrhys had supposedly killed those innocent leymages with one spectacularly failed experiment full of spells and reagents so forbidden that even the Dominion, rotten at its core, feared them. From all outward appearances, the accident showed signs of the most forbidden magic of all: Kraah curses, Old Guard magic that was banished from Ahra in ancient times.

The general’s flunkies said that in the post-mortem report. Corvus did not believe the accusations against Emrhys, aether leymage or not. She had been nothing but obedient and terrified so far. Not the demeanor of the madwoman General Acton had insinuated her to be. There was something more happening, something he could not yet see.

Tonight he stood guard outside her warded and leymagic-treated prison, the same as he’d done for the last three weeks, still trying to wrap his mind around why either of them were here.

“Are you well, Miss Coldriver?” he asked tentatively. It felt strange to address her. He was not good at small talk.

“As well as expected, Highguard Sevens,” she answered, tone wry, from where she sat on her cot. “The accommodations are not cozy, but at least the company is good.” She smiled, the light in her pale blue eyes sending chills over every part of him.

“You are too kind. I’ll be here for a long shift, so I would love to hear more about the time you accidentally levitated your thaumaturgy professor.”

“Oh, that was just terrible. I’ll happily tell the story again.” Emrhys laughed, the sound so bright and pure compared to the terrible sounds of Stonechasm at night.

Corvus passed this evening, as he had many other recent shifts, hungrily listening to Emrhys’ accounts of what it was like to work in a busy laboratory, surrounded by dangerous but incredible magic to harness and use for the higher good under the Dominar’s watchful eye. She even talked more about her aether leymagic, earnestly telling him of how it was the most dangerous magical affinity only because too many flawed and power-hungry people had misused it.

She truly believed that her aether leymagic helped the world. Not just the Dominion, but all Ahra. And he believed her.

He listened to her talk for hours, her voice soothing over him, until something happened that gave him pause. Tonight, there was another sound he’d not noticed before. A hum surrounded him, beating against his mind and his eardrums.

The magic of the warded prison walls was louder than it used to be.

The wards placed upon Emrhys’ cell existed to hobble prisoners with certain types of leymagic. The spells flickered brackish green, prompting waves of nausea. They were brighter than before. Sinister.

“What’s wrong, Sevens?” Emrhys cut in on his dark thoughts. He watched her, not sure what to say.

Prison was one thing, but the oppressive weight of the wards set Corvus on edge. He’d stood for hours in the windowless, narrow hall over the course of three weeks, both day and night—sometimes he could not tell which was which. Not that it mattered. Duty was duty, even if something seemed wrong about this entire assignment.

Even if it felt like there was something he was supposed to remember.

“I just feel so tired. This magic is bothering me,” he said finally, waving a hand vaguely over the humming bars.

“Bothering you how?” Emrhys asked in a strange, tight voice.

“It’s loud. Louder than before,” he said simply.

“I see,” Emrhys replied, and said nothing else for a time.

Corvus positioned himself so that he could see inside her cell without facing her fully. Even the illusion of privacy was scarce in Stonechasm, and he wanted to give Emrhys any comfort in his power, however small it might seem. The times hemet her eyes shocked straight into his heart in a way nothing ever had. He was not used to caring if he understood. There had been only obedience.

Emrhys Coldriver was a mystery to him, so different from his other current assignment. Her sister Lenore, a woman with hair like spun gold, keen sapphire eyes and a spell-struck smile that was far too perfect for his comfort, was the only other person he’d seen besides the general and Emrhys, and only then to deliver letters.

He did not understand his orders to help the two sisters, but he had his suspicions. Was General Acton trying to get more information out of Emrhys through the letters? That would make sense for several reasons. He could not speak to Lenore (and had told Emrhys so), which forced the sisters to put all delicate conversation in their correspondence. Acton had ordered Corvus to read the letters, though he had so far encountered nothing but sisterly talk of painful absence, inquiries after one another’s wellbeing, and questions of what in the world had really happened.

He could find no answers to these questions, and this pained Corvus. Failure was a new sensation, and it did not sit well with him.

“Are you still there?” The sound of Emrhys’ voice drew him again out of grim thoughts. She sat shivering, wrapped in a knitted blanket her sister’s Priory was kind enough to donate (at his own urging, despite any regulations to the contrary), chanting entries of the Table of Known Elements. Some days it was the names of celestial bodies, of potion herbs, of the animals of Ahra in proper taxonomy—all ways of comforting herself.

“I am.” Corvus allowed himself to look directly into her cell, moving closer. Emrhys shuffled across her cell until she was standing inches from him, taller than he remembered. She was almost to his nose, and his height was not inconsiderable. She stared up at him, unblinking, her gray-robed body separated from him by a wall of stone and magic. Her unique silver hair hung unbound past her shoulders. Even despite her exhaustion, Sevens could not help noticing how bright her eyes were, or the soft curve of her lips.

Another thing he was unused to… a weakness for softness and beauty. A yearning.

“Miss Coldriver, what is it you need? You look like you wish to tell me something.” Corvus regretted his observation immediately, but Emrhys just smiled briefly, an expression that did not quite reach her eyes.

“Soldier Sevens, may I ask something of you?”

“You may ask me anything,” he rumbled back, voice husky.

“You have been so kind in offering to deliver letters to and from Saint Eskala’s Priory, even if your superiors are probably reading them to root out a confession or something,” she said.

“That is a reasonable thing to assume,” he offered.

“I’m sure that you read them. It’s the sensible thing to do, especially if your superiors want a good reason to punish me further.”

“You are wise, Miss Coldriver.” He tried not to sound surprised at her admission. Of course, someone as smart as Emrhys would have figured it out. “I won’t repeat what we speak of here. You know that.”

“You are duty and honor bound, though. And I understand. It’s your job to do as you do.”

“You do not understand, I assure you. I will die before I give you up to them.”

“Sevens, take care.” She stared at him, eyes wide. “That is a terribly dangerous thing to say,” she added, finally averting her gaze.

“Perhaps. What do you need?”

“I would be forever grateful if you could check in on Lenore for real, actually speak to her, and let me know how she is. I need to know that she is properly cared for. Please.”

Though Lenore had committed no crime, she had supposedly been the one to give Emrhys the Bottled Night from their family’s personal stores, and was the one who had encouraged Emrhys in her field of study. Now Lenore faced punishment for these actions, considering the supposed murders. Never mind that the Coldriver family’s work had begun at the Dominar’s request all those years ago.

He wasn’t supposed to know that, but Sevens picked up on things in the course of his duties. Surely he could speak to Lenore without drawing attention to himself.

Corvus leaned in toward Emrhys, his head pounding from the magic of the wards. Even though enchanted prison bars separated them, a heat that had nothing to do with the protective sigils washed over him in slow, lazy waves.

Was this another type of magic? Something unique to Emrhys, or some reaction her power sparked in his being?

“I’ll take care of it this very night if I’m able,” he whispered.

“You will? Truly?” Emrhys stared silently at Corvus as if trying to reconcile his sincerity with the uniform he wore. Hope and suspicion warred in her expression.

“If it’s safe to do so,” Corvus added.

“I don’t know what to say. Thank you,” Emrhys said, voice breaking.

“Was there anything else I could do for you, Miss Coldriver?” He leaned closer, allowing himself just briefly to smile.

“I’m still in shock that you are even asking, but I’ll be bold, and answer. There is one other small favor I beg of you,” she started hesitantly, looking away as if ashamed.

“I’m listening.”

“If you could bring my journal from Lenore, I would be eternally grateful. I left it with her years ago, and I know Felsin and the others will have combed through it a thousand times by now, but I promise there is nothing of interest to anyone but me. I just want to reconstruct my formula and reexamine my notes. Figure out what I could have done wrong, what more I could have done to keep those poor people safe.” Her voice trembled, and she gazed up at him, eyes haunted.

“You have my word I’ll help you in this, Miss Coldriver.” He surprised himself with the rush of emotion in his voice.

“You are wonderfully good, Highguard Sevens,” she whispered roughly. “I mean it. Being so kind when I’m all at sixes and sevens. Ha, sevens, Sevens. I never thought of that till now.”

“Sixes and sevens?”

“It means all higgledy-piggledy. All mixed up. Like we are now.”

“Sixes and sevens. I like it,” he said with a light chuckle.

Emrhys tilted her head to see him better. Corvus allowed himself to return the scrutiny, memorizing the details of her face. High cheekbones and clever eyes, blue irises flecked with shimmers of green he had not noticed before. A generous mouth that more often than not twisted in a thoughtful frown, but when curved in a smile, devastated him with its loveliness.

She was so beautiful that it hurt.

Corvus never remembered the details of the faces he encountered on his missions and assignments. To stand here, lingering, studying, differed from anything he had ever experienced. He committed the details of Emrhys’ face, of her voice and mannerisms, to his deepest and most secret memories. He hoped fiercely that if he closed his eyes days later, he could still see Emrhys’ expression, just as it was now.

A loud clang from somewhere in the prison shook them both out of whatever spell they were under. Emrhys backed away, curling up in the corner with her coverlet, though her expression was more serene than before. Sevens finished the rest of his shift in a deep reverie, unable to shake the feeling that something was happening. Something was changing in a way that he was powerless to stop.

It amazed him to realize he did not mind at all.