Chương 66: 2.13. The Blue Ekadao

"What, this?" Seth looked at the red team signifier like he'd only just noticed it.

"I'm putting myself to use."

"Like fuck you are," Anna said.

"Give that spear to someone who'll use it right and find a place to bunker down."

"You and your children are facing this thing head-on. I am, too."

"I told you." She was closing in on him. Closer than her rule, surely.

"You're. Not. Strong enough."

"You're sending hay balers and pensioners out there. You know what I can do." Seth was using that voice again, he realized. The one she said was so obnoxious.

"You called me a millstone around your neck. You called me weak. I think you even called me smelly? Fine. But don't call me a coward when you know that's not true, Anna. I'm a preener, sometimes, but this isn't preening. The shit that we've faced—that you've shown me how to face—I'm still weak, and still a burden, maybe. But I'm not a coward anymore."

"Okay. You've made your point. Stop wasting my time and take that off."

"No."

"Give me that cloth, Seth il Gutierre."" No."

"You give me that fucking —" She reached for the red cloth. He snatched it away. A dangerous, wild look lit into her face and she seized his arm, and without thinking he shoved her back, and he might as well have been shoving the side of a barn— But she stumbled. Back away from him. As if he were twice as strong as he actually was. They stared at one another, and Anna's perpetually squinty eyes were huge and blinking with rapid confusion. Her ears lay flat. Then the moment passed and she stomped back into his face.

"You don't refuse my orders, thief."

"Tell me why," he said.

"Tell me the real reason why and maybe I'll go hide like you're asking me to."

"Fuck you. I don't know what the fuck you want from me. If this is because I said you weren't strong—""This is because I just found a family and now I want to help keep them alive," Seth said.

"But if you're honest with me—""Honest with you about what?"

"Just say you love me and you're worried about me, and I'll hide. I'll do whatever you want me to."

"If you go and get your skinny ass killed, then Annalise will—"" You, Anna. You say it, and I'll go be the coward you're pretending I still am."

"Do you think I like being this?" Anna raked her fingers against her heavy black gambeson.

"This evil asshole? I hate being Anna. I want to rip my own fucking head off. It was barely tolerable before your whiny little ass showed up and now it's torture. So please, Seth, if please is what you want to hear, please take the fucking cloth off and go be safe somewhere and stay out of my sight until I can be the woman you love again."

"You're the woman I love right this second."

"Then please." Her voice was suddenly so small and unsure.

"I can't. I can't be like this, when I'm her. I can't think about how smashed-up Anna is. It's like when you look at the wound and realize how bad it hurts. I can't be a person." Anna's not for winning over. She's a big arsehole cudgel I bash seraphs with. She's the bits of me I don't enjoy being. Don't worry about Anna. She isn't good for us. He unwrapped the cloth from his arm and held it out to her. The spiky vitality returned to her; she snatched it from his hand.

"Now get the fuck off my wall," she said.

"You want to be useful, you go to the inroad by the square, and you keep a tally of how many more bodies we get."

"All right," Seth said.

"I see any sorcerers, I'll send them your way."

"Good," she said, and then, like it was an afterthought, "You're not a coward. That's true."

"Thank you."

"You're rash."

"I'll take that," Seth said, and left her there in the slowly brightening street. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. He arrived at Shaheill's outskirts and exchanged brief words with the clerk at its signpost, who left him her clipboard and departed for her bed with some relief. He didn't realize how tired he was until the slivering sun peered pryingly above the treetops on the other side of the road.

He wasn't sure how long he stood; he might have microslept between his blinks. He was beginning to consider a catnap slumped against Shaheill's road sign when a horse and its attendant cloud of dust crested a far hill. Seth gave his own face a light cuff and tried not to slouch. He traced the horse's approach and then hit himself again, harder this time, to ensure he was not dreaming. The horse had a lizard on top of it. Seth blinked and wiped his eyes. The lizard was still there.

The lizard slowed their ride before Seth and leaned forward in its saddle. Beneath a draping riding cloak of heavy felt, it was unclothed, but lizards usually are, Seth supposed, even if they tend not to bipedalism or equestrianism, for that matter. There was nothing untoward to see on its cream-scaled belly regardless.

"I greet you," it said, in an unexpectedly smooth and pleasant voice.

"I am the Blue Ekadao."

"Hello," Seth said, and decided not to point out that the Blue Ekadao was copper-colored, mostly, with bits of green on its forelegs.

"I'm Seth il Gutierre. Welcome to sunny Shaheill." The Blue Ekadao reached into—his? her? their? —saddlebag and produced a sheaf of papers crowned by the same pink card that had guided the al Ydris clan to Shaheill's gates.

"I received a skywire requiring my presence in Shaheill. I bring my papers and a stamped dictum that I am a Sorcerer Subofficiyant of the Legion, trained in the siege spell. I trust this will ensure remuneration for my time."

"Yeah," Seth said.

"Probably."

"Splendid." The Blue Ekadao climbed from their saddle, tail straight out for balance.

"Then I am at your command." Seth took her horse's tether. The beast seemed skittish, and relieved to be rid of its rider.

"You're a sarkanian, aren't you?"

"I have been told so by those who would know," the Blue Ekadao said.

"And I see no reason they'd lie."

"You know you're the first sarkanian I ever met?"

"This is often the case." Their face did not move the way a mammal's would. It wore the same toothy grin it had the entire time.

"I will tell you then that I am a male sarkanian. I imagine you were wondering. There are very few of us—ten times fewer than our sisters. You are triply blessed this morning. Your first sarkanian, your first sarkanian man, and an accomplished sorcerer."

"Yes. That is extremely a blessing." Seth scanned the area by the roadside for an al Ydris or an il Teremi to hand this conversation off to, and came up blank. Just fellow humans, gawking at the unlit and the reptile.

"Honestly, you've come at the perfect time."

"I must also tell you that I do not like how humans smell most of the time," the Blue Ekadao said.

"So please keep your distance if possible."

"Oh." Seth backed up.

"Uh, sorry."

"It is not your fault. My kind speak through scent as strongly as through words, and humans are incapable of modulating their bouquet. Unless they've bathed recently, humans smell deeply offended. Constantly." He made a chittering noise.

"It certainly brings a touch of awkwardness to our communications, no? That was a laugh." Seth laughed as well, though this conversation would be feeling awkward if he smelled like poise and peonies.

"I can see how it might."

"I have come here to kill a blackfeather, or die to it." The Blue Ekadao's clawed feet scraped the cobblestones.

"Pray lead me to where I am needed." In the square, Riccana sat with Simon il Teremi, patting slow circles on his back as he hid his face in his hands.

"Maybe you could sleep," she said.

"The Verdugo has it in hand."

"I tried already," Simon said.

"I don't know if I can. Every minute, every bit of time that's left, ticking down, I can't—what if I'd be sleeping through the last time we'll all see each other? See this place whole." His red-rimmed gaze departed his palms and fixed uncomprehendingly on Seth and his new friend.

"Who's this, then?" Riccana asked.

"This is Ekadao," Seth said.

"And he—""The Blue Ekadao," the sorcerer corrected.

"This is my honorific, not my name."

"What's your name?"

"I must tell you this is a question of great intimacy to the Sarkani," the Blue Ekadao said.

"I would fain reveal it to a lover, but you are difficult to smell."

"Ekadao." Simon managed a smile.

"Well met. Are you—sorry, Blue Ekadao."" The Blue Ekadao."

"Yes, right." Simon grasped for his manners.

"Every time?"

"If it please you, sir."

"You're a sorcerer, then?" The Blue Ekadao bowed.

"I am, sir. And you are Corregidor Alesandri, perhaps?"

"Alesandri's out," Simon said.

"I'm what we've got."

"That is all right. So am I." The Blue Ekadao smiled, or maybe he didn't.

"Are you in command?"

"That would be the Verdugo." Riccana pointed toward the muster yard.

"Splendid," the Blue Ekadao said, and was walking again. Seth, who was waking further and further from his fugue as this reptilian gentleman dragged him around Shaheill, caught up, making sure not to tread on the Blue Ekadao's swishing tail.

"How did you learn sorcery?" he asked.

"I was taught the siege-spell by Officiyant Duruth al Mekz, at the Necropolis." The Blue Ekadao indicated the papers he'd handed Seth.

"It's all there."

"Right, right. But did you do any magic before then? Like, are you—" The Blue Ekadao's reptilian face was a cypher.

"By the charter my people have signed with the Legion, I am not required to disclose this, nor would I be in breach of Necropolitan law. The Sarkani Territory asserts plenary authority over—""I'm not trying to hit you with any sort of gotcha, all right? I'm asking because… Sarkani stormcallers fill up airships, right?"

"Yes."

"Could you do that?" The Blue Ekadao ceased walking; he became very still. A smell like cracked pepper tingled Seth's nose.

"You presume that because I am a sorcerer of the Sarkani I am a stormcaller?" Seth untied his tongue.

"Look, I'm sorry to offend. But we've got a goddamn Blackfeather, and I'd hoped—""I am a stormcaller," the Blue Ekadao said, and made that churring laugh noise again. The smell was replaced by something floral and lilting, like lavender.

"I am messing with you. Have cheer, Seth il Gutierre. Death is dulcet."

"Maybe it is," Seth said.

"But I've just found the love of my life and she can lift me over her head one-handed, so it better take its time." He set his jaw. No sleep. Not yet.

"And if you're a stormcaller, I have an incredibly stupid idea."