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Since everyone’s either at the gala or winding down from preparing for it, Zebani pretty much has the run of the house, for once.
No one checks on her during the day, not even her Aspirant, who’s been gone on her brother’s tail for days anyway. Instead of heading to the basement, she reads in the gardens, where if anyone sees her, no one will go out of their way to ask her what she’s up to, and then goes to take a swim in the indoor pool, once everyone’s left. The past few months, her existence has been entirely monotonous. Draw the filament, pack the filament, organize the filament’s transport. Even when trying to entirely put it out of her mind and have an evening to herself, she could see the lines of her ledger, the beads of her abacus imprinted behind her eyes, and the pale sea moss glow of her grandfather’s blood. Early tomorrow, she would have to get back to work, and catch up on her free day’s slack.
She’s been put to this work for over half her life, spending most of her days in the basement, over the Prismatic Retort and the insane angel inside it, her ancestor. For a long time it was just her, and she got used to it, to the point where now, working with an Aspirant feels odd and cumbersome. It’s been fine. She’s always been a homely, pudgy girl and miserable company, so she wasn’t surprised when her prettier, skinnier, more charismatic younger brother was picked to be groomed to succeed to Grandmother instead of her. This was fine. So far, no one’s voiced concern about marrying her off, while they’re all worrying about which of his affiance will give them most of a leg up. She’s absolutely glad that she’s too useful doing the dirty work no one else will take on that she can’t be made to leave the house. What isn’t fine is the frantic efforts her family are making to find him, when they wouldn’t go through half the trouble for her, if she actually were in danger somewhere. She could bet Wick’s really just off playing hooky cause he can’t face up to what it takes to actually do the work of this family. It was a bad idea to shelter him for so long. No one ever asked her, so she didn’t say anything, but never telling him the big truth meant he developed all these ideas about the Light and the Creed, without becoming jaded and bitter like Zebani and the rest of them. No one ever tells her anything, either, but she learned just enough to survive.
Lately, she’s been noticing, something’s been ramping up, but she’s not been told its nature or purpose. She’s had to find ways to scale up the angel’s blood production without diluting its potency, and to extract and package the filament more efficaciously. The rebel arcanist’s execution seems like it shifted everything towards an acceleration, but again she can’t say towards what. She was made to arrange a large volume of shipments, they told Wick everything, he left, and then… All she knows is that Grandmother was preparing something big for the gala. Grandmother and Uncle Filoneus were having hushed discussions about it, but the thing was important enough that they’d actually shut up and switch topics if they saw Zebani around, which they usually didn’t bother with. (No one ever tells her anything, but she overhears sometimes.)
All pruned, Zebani feels twice as heavy as usual when she steps out of the pool. There’s no attendants to hand her her robe, no one to scold her when she trails water behind her as she walks directly to the kitchen to have a plate of bread, cold cuts, pickles and cheese prepared for her. She almost feels comfortable in this large house where she’s always been like an unwelcome, superfluous presence. Cheerful in a way she rarely is, she takes the plate up to her room, with a bottle of sweet wine.
The shadows in her room seem a little deeper, a little thicker, when she walks in. As usual, she casts Light on the inside of the carved brass sconce fixed to the wall — projecting small confetti of light in ornate patterns around her bedroom. The flash catches half of a scowling face, from someone seated in her chaise, the one slightly to the left of the entrance, startling Zebani so abruptly she almost drops her plate.
“Turn that off,” the woman growls.
The deep tones of her voice reverberate inside Zebani. Rough and gravelly, it always sounds unused, like it’s the first time she’s spoken in years. Zebani knows the woman, of course — a mercenary her family hired as part of their Sons of Dawn, as a skilled spy and assassin. The two are not, strictly speaking, supposed to be close, or even really know of each other.
They’d first met, though, two months ago, maybe, in the yard. Zebani was coordinating a shipment outside, and caught a glimpse of her, standing in her full plate armor, helmet under her arm, speaking with two of her peers. In that moment, the assassin looked over her shoulder, her long, long braid swinging off it down to her hips, her thick lashes hiding the complex gradient of her eyes from this distance. Her face was sharp and severe, not exactly beautiful, but striking. Zebani almost tripped over one of the crates she was supposed to have transported. When she looked back over, the woman was still looking at her, with a pinpointed heat that made Zebani’s heart hammer, and that never really dimmed whenever their eyes caught again, over the next few hours. That night, when she heard a knock at her bedroom door, she opened it with hope jumping up her throat, and let the tall mercenary inside.
She knew her peers called her Nayar, but her name was Mayali; Zebani just called her “Follower” or “Companion”, referring ot her position in the Sons of Dawn, because technically she’d never introduced herself. In response, she called Zebani “Princess” (wrong, but flattering) or “Mylady” (correct, but nothing exciting). She came over most weeks, sometimes more than once, and her skill made her a more recurrent lover than Zebani had anticipated. At some point, she’ll have to put a stop to this foolishness — the more often they meet, the likelier it’ll be someone will figure out their affair, which will put the assassin at risk of disposal. Zebani knew this would be an eventual ending as soon as they hooked up the first time. The longer it goes on, the more she has to admit that the thought saddens her.
She hurries to the foot of the chaise, setting down the plate and the wine on the table at its side. This is where she prefers to eat, reclining and reading, when her presence isn’t requested at dinner. Zebani clicks her fingers and the floor candelabra in the corner alights. Her guest scowl, but she does not voice a protest. In the low light, she looks beaten and rough, two fingers from death. This evening, Mayali Nayar does not look like she calling on her with a sexual purpose. Her gambeson’s unlaced at the front, and the sleeves have been entirely untied off, laying on the ground. Her boots are still on, having tracked in something that looks thinner, drier than mud. Her breathing’s shallow, the result of heavy exertion that she still hasn’t recuperated from. An odd look Zebani can’t identify sits on her face.
Something terrible happened.
“Follower. Were you at the gala? What’s happened?” She reaches for the assassin’s hand — it’s cold, in a worrying way. She knows no healing spells, and keeps no potions with her. For once, this feels like stupid lack of preparation, rather than pragmatic efficiency.
Mayali simply removes it, sits up straighter, but vacillates; Zebani reaches for her, but stops short of actually holding her. “It’s nothing.”
“Clearly not,” scoffs Zebani. “If you stood up, you’d fall right over.”
“I managed to get here fine enough.”
“Has anyone seen you?”
“Do you think a flesh wound suddenly makes me inept at my job?”
They rarely talk this much. Zebani finds her frustrating. Her face hasn’t stopped looking strangely out of place, and it’s starting to freak her out. Mayali’s gaze usually pierces her, unmoving, like a command, but today, it avoids her entirely. She’s sure where in the house the healing items would be, but the woman, on the brink of death, might die before Zebani can come back with a potion. Instead, she finds the hem of her robe, and gives it a good rip. “Hold still. Let me bandage you.”
Mayali’s hand is faster than her: it strikes out like a snake, and grips onto her wrist. “Do not bother, mylady. I will heal with time.” The heaviness of her breath tells Zebani otherwise, but she’s not going to start arguing when she’s in this state. “Do you know? Where your brother is?”
The young Halovar has no clue. For a moment, she’s convinced Grandmother’s figured out what’s going on between her and the mercenary, and is using her to suss out if Zebani is hiding anything. Truthfully, she isn’t. She hasn’t the faintest idea where Wick is, and doesn’t care. If this is a scheme of the Photarch’s, she thinks calmly, there is no trick that will reveal her, because she has nothing to hide about this. She says calmly, so that even if Grandmother were to see her through Mayali’s eyes, she would only see earnestness, “I do not know where he is, and I would not care to.”
Her grip does not relent. “I thought mine was dead.”
“You have a brother?”
“I know where he is, now.”
Mayali’s face is open, honest, like Zebani has never seen it before. Since they’d met, she thought the woman sullen, fundamentally inexpressive. Finally, she realizes what, exactly, was going on with her: it was relief, mixed with joy; total exhilaration. She feels something nasty and foreign take root inside her, and recoils in disgust, except that Mayali does not drop her wrist at all. The hold might have her bruised in the morning.
“Do you know Azune Nayar? He’s with the Arcane Marshals of Dol-Makjar.” She pronounces the city’s name with the slight accent of those who grew up outside of it. Her voice even sounds younger, lighter.
“No, I don’t,” Zebani insists, and she doesn’t. She miscalculated. This isn’t a scheme of Grandmother’s, but she can’t tell what Mayali is aiming at. She’s losing patience. “I don’t know him. No one tells me anything.”
“He was there, in the room, with me. I thought I should die for him.” In the dark of the room, Mayali’s eyes glow slightly. Zebani’s always found them so beautiful. Sunsets were her refuge as a child, a moment of the day when no one would be looking for her. She saw that same peace in Mayali’s eyes, and wished for it to blanket her beyond the nights they spent together. In this moment, she recalls how often she was told that sunsets are a Dimming of the entire world. “And I almost did, except he brought me back.”
Her hand loosens, and Zebani pulls her hand back to herself as soon as she can, rubbing it as she stands up and moves to the corner of the room. Her guest also rises, slowly, picking up her things, like her helmet, and the bits of the armour she took off, off the floor. Heavily, she takes a few steps, to stand right in front of Zebani.
“His name is Azune,” she says at the absolute lowest volume her voice can convey, very close to her ear. “Remember it. And make sure nothing your family does comes to hurt him.”
Trying not to get distracted by the proximity, Zebani’s truly exasperated. “What? How? Why?” What is this joy that has nothing to do with her? Why is she in her room, tonight, with the only plan to make it obvious Zebani would never be anyone’s pride or treasure?
“Why? If your people kill my brother, I’ll kill yours, Princess,” she says simply. Zebani realizes one of her gauntleted hands is on the hilt of her sword.
She’s surprised the assassin would think the threat would work on her at all, or mean anything for that brother she was so glad to find again. No one in her family listens to her: if she singled out a commoner for protection, out of affection, that would only hasten his death. And while she didn’t outright wish for Wick to die, she also didn’t feel personally concerned by threats to his safety. Those were his business, not hers, just like if harm were to come to her, it would certainly not matter much to him. Irked, she replies dismissively, a laugh of frustration on the tip of her tongue. “Please. Do as you wish, Companion,” Zebani waves her off. The ugly thing inside her she can’t name swells, and she needs the mercenary gone, along everything she represents that Zebani can’t understand.
And instead of stepping away, Mayali considers her — despite herself, Zebani appreciates how her eyes bore into her, likely for the last time. “Fine,” she seems to understand where she misconstrued Zebani’s priorities. “Then if anything happens to him, I’ll just kill you.” Lightly, she turns, her braid and her cloak swaying with the movement, and she is out of the bedchamber in a breath.
As soon as she can regain control of her limbs, Zebani slumps against the wall, too stunned to entirely feel fear. She heaves, then sobs, in that private, little-girl way only Cruelty’s ever seen her do. More than anything, as her heart thumps between her ears, she feels the nasty, foreign thing fill her from the inside, crawl up her veins, thicken her throat and her intestines — pure-rot jealousy, heavy and filthy, for every beautiful thing that would never come to her. Her tears come out boiling hot, tar-dark, surprising even her, and fall in oily splotches on the floor, next to the bloody bootprints Mayali left on her way in.