16. Cvareh

He had always been taught that Fenthri didn’t have magic. Dragons turned up their noses at the plain creatures of Loom, the hardened, stony residents of the rock below who lacked raw power surging through their veins.

It was the Dragons that had been the fools.

Cvareh had never seen a Fenthri work. The few Chimera that had been brought up to Nova to maintain imported golden machines were kept almost exclusively at the Rok estate; he who held the gold held the power in the sky world above. The Chimera slaves were kept out of sight, trusted to do what they must to keep the devices that had become so integral to Nova running.

On the third day into their voyage, the Holx III had suffered engine troubles. Problems with the pistons set the crew to scrambling, and Arianna stepped in. The woman hoisted wrenches as large as his calf, sweat rolling lines through the soot and oil caked on her flesh. She worked tirelessly through the night, changing out lines, welding, creating tools from scratch.

Cvareh was only below decks to support with his magic as needed. Arianna had been reluctant to ask him, but Florence was insistent after the fifth hour. Cvareh knew why the second he arrived.

Arianna’s strong shoulders were beginning to sag and her posture was slacker than the normal board-straight height she usually carried herself with. Running back and forth between drafting tables in the small cabin attached to the engine room and maintaining her patches while she rambled off numbers in search of a permanent solution had taken its toll. Arianna didn’t have energy to expend on magical pursuits. So when something golden needed to be lifted, or turned just so, Cvareh was there.

Arianna stepped away from the iron, brass, and gold monster she’d been wrestling with all night. The ship’s Rivet handed her a soiled cloth, which she uselessly wiped her hands with. The woman was absolutely filthy.

“Cvareh,” she summoned him without turning. “Strike the flywheel.”

Cvareh stared at the tube of gold attached to the shaft of the mechanism. With a mental command he drove down its weight. It pushed against the shaft, turning the flywheel to life.

“All right, Pops, try the combustion pistons now!” Arianna had to practically scream to be heard over the sounds of the engine groaning to life.

The ship’s Rivet—Pops, as everyone called him—raised his thumb in the air as some symbol of affirmation. With the help of another crewmate he engaged a different set of machines. Somehow, despite all the noise, Cvareh heard Arianna’s sharp intake of breath. She held it, waiting with as much tension as a harp string.

After a few minutes, the woman put her hands on her hips triumphantly. She curled her lips in a flat-lined smile of admiration at the engine. Cvareh didn’t find it beautiful, not compared to the breathtaking aesthetics of Nova. But there was something…lovely, in her admiration of the thing she had created.

The flywheel spun, pistons fired, and the noise increased until Arianna finally turned. She rested an oily palm on his shoulder. Another shirt ruined.

Her lips moved, but he couldn’t make out the sound over the cacophony of the engine.

“What?” Cvareh tilted his head, shouting in her ear. His eyes focused on the patch of skin at the corner of her jaw, usually hidden by her thick hair. The white strands were clumped with sweat and clinging to her neck. A faint scar ran around the base of an ear that had been capped with steel to prevent it from re-growing pointed—an ear that was a dusty sky color. A House Xin shade of blue.

“I said let’s get above decks.” She slapped his shoulder, unaware of his revelation, and led the way.

Cvareh was a step behind, not wanting to make his sudden discomfort obvious. It was only logical that, as a Chimera, she could have some parts from a Dragon that belonged to some rung of his House. He knew she engaged in organ trafficking. So why would it suddenly bother him?

Pops met them topside. “I don’t know what we would’ve done without you.”

“You would’ve figured it out, I’m sure.” Arianna rubbed sweat from her face with the back of her hand.

“I’m not certain about that.” The weathered sailor’s dark leathery skin folded around his smile. “I’ve been on this ship for twenty years now, making these runs. We’ve only had people ask to work aboard in exchange for passage thirty or so times… But not one has been a master.”

Arianna stilled. Cvareh felt her muscles tense. She fought the instinct in her wrists to seek out her daggers. The longer he spent with the woman, the easier she was to read.

“Your mark is washing off, miss,” Pops clarified.

Arianna brought her hand to her cheek, recognizing that not all the grease on her hands was from the engine. “What will the captain do?”

“Cap is a fair man. He won’t throw an illegal on a dingy to row back to Ter.5 after she just saved us from being trapped behind schedule.” The old man buried his hands in his pockets, more amused than anything. “You’re young for a master. Who was your teacher?”

“Master Oliver.”

Cvareh hadn’t heard the name before. He wondered if she still realized he hovered. And then put a quick stop to the wondering; Arianna was a keen woman, constantly aware. He wouldn’t discredit her by thinking she could have somehow forgotten her surroundings like that.

“Master Oliver.” Pops shook his head, humming quietly over the name. “One of the best.”

“He was the best,” Arianna corrected adamantly.

“What ever became of him?” the older Rivet inquired.

“He died.”

“I assumed…” Pops’s words faded into the silence, inviting Arianna to continue. She didn’t. “Well, he passed on his learning to hundreds, and his mastery. Those are the marks of a good life.”

Arianna nodded her head a fraction. Pops walked in one direction, she in the other. The woman started up a narrow metal stair for the walk above the engine room, around the smokestack.

Cvareh followed.

“What do you want?” Arianna placed her elbows on the metal of the deck rail, rested the small of her back against it, and looked up toward the sky.

“You must be exhausted. Why not go to bed?”

Arianna snorted in amusement, arching a curious eyebrow at him. It clearly conveyed the weight she placed on his supposed concern for her wellbeing. Cvareh rolled his eyes, leaning on the railing as well, and looked out to sea instead.

“I’m watching the smokestack.” Her voice was void of any bite. It was almost the same tone she reserved for Florence. “I want to make sure we’re up and running again before I go collapse.”

“Good of you to do for people who could turn you in for being unmarked the moment we dock.”

“Ooh, cynical. You’ve been around me too long.” There was an almost Dragon-like wildness to her grin. Cvareh chuckled and shook his head. “But they won’t turn us in.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“They’re honest men and women.” She shrugged. “I believe what Pops said about the captain.”

“A thief concerned about honor.” He laughed.

“Honor is what I fight for—honor, justice, freedom, and above all, Loom.”

“I didn’t take you for such an idealist.” Cvareh shifted to face her, resting his hip against the railing. Arianna’s eyes fell from the sky, where they’d been following the trail of billowing smoke, to meet his. Neither said anything for a long moment.

“You never asked.”

He contemplated it. Somewhere, in the week they had spent together, he was certain he had. But he would give her this. For the first time, Cvareh yielded to her. Because she was fundamentally right. If he had asked it had certainly been defensive or insulting. He hadn’t asked to know. He hadn’t asked in such a way that implied he would listen.

“Why did you take my offer of a boon?” Cvareh dared appealing to her logic. “You’re clearly well learned, and you use it to your advantage to get what you want. You’re a Chimera, so you can use magic. What does a boon give that you don’t already have?”

“The one thing I truly want,” she whispered, not looking at him.

“Arianna, what is that?” He shifted closer, to hear her over the sea wind, to not miss a word that fell from her lips. His fingers brushed against her elbow.

Arianna’s head snapped down, looking at the offending contact. She pulled away with an expression of horror, laced with confusion. Cvareh tried to make sense of how that touch had elicited such a reaction.

“I want Nova to burn.” Arianna looked him right in the eye and Cvareh couldn’t find a trace of lie. “And I will use your boon to help me do it.”

Cvareh didn’t back down. He curled his fingers into fists to keep his talons from unsheathing out of instinct when she threatened his home. “Why?”

“For what you have done to Loom.”

“What we have done?” he balked. “We have given you magic, we have gifted you with progress. We have imposed logical systems of government, a hierarchy in which everyone knows their place and how they fit.”

She began to laugh, though he failed to see how what he said was funny. Arianna grasped her stomach and her shoulders trembled with barely containable, malicious mirth.

“You—you gifted us, with progress?” She shook her head. “Dragon, check your history. Your people fell from the sky. We were the ones to give you wings, to make your magic useful.”

“It was quite useful to begin with.”

“And we knew how we fit together before. We were a chain, every Guild forming a link that supplied the next, which made Loom work.” She prodded a finger in his chest. “Then you came, and put gates on the system. You tried to turn links in a chain into rungs of a ladder, one atop the next. Our trade has yet to recover, our output is only half of what it was, without the Vicar council the Guilds do not communicate, and that’s not even touching on problems with educating our youth now that they are trapped within your asinine notion of ‘families,’ condemned to their guild only to be killed off if they don’t make the cut.”

Cvareh didn’t know where to start, didn’t know if he should engage physically as she encroached on his space. He didn’t know if he should try to correct her. Or if there was something to be understood in everything she was telling him.

“Dragon.” He had been demoted again. “I do not presume to know your ways. I have studied them, but I do not know them. Frankly, I don’t care. Keep your Nova logic up in your sky world and leave us alone.”

Arianna eased away slowly. If looks could kill, Cvareh would be dead a hundred times over. She panted softly from her tirade. When she took another step, Cvareh’s hand closed around her wrist before he could think to arrest it.

He stopped her.

Why did he stop her?

Frustration knitted his brow. This woman was going to drive him mad long before they ever saw the Alchemists’ Guild. She had her prejudices and Cvareh knew that she would keep them no matter what he said, but that didn’t stop him from speaking. “You’re right, Arianna. You don’t know anything.”

“Unhand me,” she snarled.

“I listened to you.” He released her. “Now listen to me.”

Miraculously, she stayed. Perhaps it would’ve been better if she’d left.

“The Dragon King kills your people, just as he kills mine. The hierarchy he is imposing upon your world, service and servitude at the cost of well-being, is the same as he imposes on ours. I want to see him dead. That’s why I’m here.”

The blood rushed into his ears, deafening all sound other than the echo of his confession. He’d never said such treasonous words aloud before. That had always been Petra’s role. She was the brave one, and he was just her right hand.

“I want Yveun Dono dead,” Cvareh said again, just to prove to himself he could. “And I want a new world order too. For Nova and Loom. The Alchemists hold the key to making it happen. Once we’re there—”

“—we will find the power to change the world?” she finished, her flat tone deflating him to match. “Everyone on Loom knows of the Council of Five. But that resistance died long ago, and their hopes for the future with them.”

“I will build a new hope. My family will, Loom will, and you can too.”

“I gave up building hope long ago.” She sighed and looked out to sea. Her face was soft, still a mess of soot from her earlier work. It looked more right on her than any powdered makeup Cvareh had ever seen coloring the cheeks of the women on Nova. “It relies too much on trust that is too easily broken.”

Arianna did turn then. Cvareh watched her go, a strange ache growing with every step. He hadn’t expected to lighten the load of his heart upon her. Even less had he thought doing so would begin to bridge the harrowing gap of the past she lived in, and the future he wanted to build with her help.