2. Cvareh

“We’re not going in there, are we?” Cvareh made a scene of squinting into the dark manhole. He could actually see perfectly fine.

The woman shot him a dull look and pointed into the hole. “Go.”

“It smells rancid.” He scrunched his nose. He’d known he’d need a Fenthri’s knowledge of Loom to escape the King’s Riders, but he’d hoped for something or someone a little more…elegant.

“So don’t breathe.”

“You must be—” Cvareh never finished his statement. Her legs felt dense as lead and the sharp kick to his lower back had him pin-wheeling his arms to avoid falling forward.

He landed nearly headfirst, choosing to crack a few bones in his wrists over taking yet another assault on his face. The ground was covered in a thin, cold film that had him frantically rubbing his hands over the walls—no cleaner—the moment he stood. Filthy, filthy, filthy.

The woman pulled the manhole cover back into place and slowly descended the metal ladder cemented into the portal wall.

“Do you have a light?” he asked, massaging the newly knitted bones in each of his wrists.

“Afraid of the dark?” she called over her shoulder. She’d begun walking confidently along the narrow path that was the only thing keeping them from the flowing sludge of the sewer.

“Ah, my darling—”

“I am not your darling.” She wheeled and the dagger point pressed into his neck, attempting to pop the words from his throat.

“Will you ever talk to me without brandishing a weapon?” Cvareh sighed. They both knew the dagger would do nothing more than annoy him, even refined. Pointing it at his chest was at least threatening. The only way his neck would be a cause for worry was if she somehow planned to cut his head clean off.

“I’d rather not talk to you at all,” she ground out through her flat teeth.

“Where are you from?” He tried a different question, trying to ease the ever-increasing tensions between them. She had no guild mark on her face. An illegal.

The woman twirled the dagger in her hand, slicing up his mouth. He licked his lips, tasting his blood and then the flavor of the magic on her blade. He didn’t recognize it; whatever Dragon had given parts of their body to refine that steel was one Cvareh didn’t know personally.

But the weapon wasn’t just refined; it was tempered. There was a layer of her power embedded above the original Dragon’s magic that told him the weapon would only respond to her will. He wouldn’t be able to command it no matter how much magic he exhausted.

And that wasn’t all he learned. Cvareh pulled his lower lip between his teeth, his sharper canines nearly drawing blood, and ran his tongue over it. He tasted her, and wasn’t that the most interesting of flavors…

“What did you do that for?” He narrowed his eyes.

“A threat.”

“Of what sort?” Dragons smeared blood as warnings. They communicated through trace amounts of magic left behind. Had she been intentionally communicating with him as a Dragon would?

“That I will cut you every time you show idiocy.”

“You wouldn—”

He didn’t finish before she had him slammed against the wall again, her dagger half into his mouth. He’d have to cut through his cheek to move, or cut his tongue to speak. This woman was really starting to annoy him.

“Listen, Dragon, I will not repeat myself.” Her words were level and calm, but they had a wild timbre at their edges, like chaos was trying to pull them apart into raw cries of rage. “You set the terms of the boon. I didn’t ask why you need me to take you to the Alchemists’ Guild because I don’t give a bloody cog about who you are or why you want to go there. I won’t pretend to enjoy this. So do us both a favor and don’t make this something it’s not.”

He stared through the darkness at the Fenthri’s face. It was round, like a loaf of bread, or a pork rump. The goggles pressed over her eyes, leaving small indents on her ashen-colored cheeks at their edges. Scraggly-cut white hair fell over her ears in messy parts. Fenthri were hideous creatures, really.

Finally, she withdrew her blade, wiping it on her covered leg before sheathing it and starting forward again. Cvareh followed in her steps through the winding sewer passages. The path became even narrower, and the walls changed from stone and steel to red clay bricks.

“Where are we headed now?” He decided his options were to go crazy from silence or risk her stabbing him again.

She didn’t answer.

“Have we left New Dortam?”

“We’re headed for the Alchemists’ Guild.”

Whoever this woman was, she certainly harbored a deep hatred for Dragons. Cvareh knew he’d never come across her before, so it wasn’t as though she could resent him personally. In fact, she was the first Fenthri he’d ever met in person, and what an impression she was making for her entire race.

“Yes but—”

“Dragon, how was I unclear?” she sighed.

“Cvareh Xin’Ryu Soh,” he persisted. “If we’re going to be traveling together we should at least know each other’s names, don’t you think?”

“Not really.” She paused. “Cva.”

Cvareh curled and uncurled his long fingers one at a time, resisting the urge to unsheathe his claws. “Cvareh Xin’Ryu Soh.”

“You can’t possibly expect me to say the whole thing,” she drawled with an annoying little smirk. “It’s such a mouthful.”

“It’s actually quite important on Nova.” Patience, Cvareh reminded himself. The Fenthri had likely never left the ground of Loom. She didn’t know what was important above the clouds.

“Oh, I know it is.” She smiled, and he barely contained a cringe at how her flat teeth made a perfect line in her mouth. “Come now, Cva, we’re going to be late,” she chided.

“You may call me just Cvareh Soh,” he insisted.

“Mmm, Cva is easier.”

“I must insist—”

“Don’t push your luck, Dragon.” A hand curled around one of the crossed blades at the small of her back. He was getting rather tired of seeing that golden steel. “We could always go back to the heart-cutting.”

Cvareh looked her in the eyes, or, well, the goggles. She didn’t tense and didn’t shy away. Whoever this woman was, she certainly had no love for Dragons—and no fear of them either.

“I don’t think you will.” He took a step closer to her. “You want your boon.”

“Ah, yes, a boon.” Rather than shrinking away, the woman met his step with her own. She was almost as tall as he, and Cvareh was of average height for Dragon standards. He’d always been told the Fenthri were a smaller race. “They’re quite rare for Dragons to give out. What could you possibly want at the Alchemists’ Guild so badly that you’d surrender yourself to my whims?”

“You think I’ll tell you?” He took another step toward her. His blood rushed at the feeling of her magic: wild and varying, a blend of many Dragons’ powers combined into something all her own.

“I could make you.” Her chest, flat and strapped under what appeared to be a harness, touched his.

Cvareh paused. A harness. Why did his mind tell him that was important?

She clicked her tongue against her teeth then stepped away when he didn’t rise to her challenge. His failure to respond to her banter had disappointed her. So his options seemed to be allowing himself to be annoyed at her very apparent efforts, or pleasing her. Or swallowing his pride and letting her say what she wanted but not giving her the satisfaction of taking the bait.

He was growing to hate this hideous wench with every second.

Somehow, Cvareh managed silence. He followed her through the rank passage for what seemed like forever until the sewer vomited its sludge into a slime-covered river. The woman paused, glancing outside and back at his hands.

“Dragon, can you make illusions?”

“Not a skill I possess.” Though he was glad she asked. The look of consideration she gave his clawed fingers let Cvareh know she was well aware of what Dragon parts held what magic. It further confirmed that, whoever she was, she truly knew about Dragons beyond the value of a heart.

“Of course you can’t. That would be far too easy.” She let out a sigh of utter disappointment. The woman thought for another long moment. “Very well, stay here.”

“Wait, where are you going?”

“If you walk around Old Dortam looking like—” Her head moved up and down as her eyes raked over him. “You, you’re going to cause a scene. Or someone else will harvest you. And then I’m out a Dragon heart as well as a boon.”

Cvareh would appreciate it if she’d stop discussing cutting out his heart, but he knew better than to say so. He also knew she was right. Cvareh adjusted the wide sash around his waist, heavy with the beads and embellishments of his station. His shirt was done in a dark navy that highlighted the color of his powder blue skin just so. Its capped sleeves showed the strength in his arms—his physical ability to assert dominance. Dragons took note of the feature, which had helped ward off challenges for years.

He looked back at the woman in her heavy leather coat and worker’s trousers. She was unfashionable and plain, a continued source of vexation for him. Certainly, she was poor and couldn’t afford more than basic clothing. But why would anyone choose to wear white in this industrial wasteland?

“I suppose you’re right,” he admitted.

“Of course I am,” she agreed confidently. “Now stay here like a good little Dragon and don’t move.”

Cvareh did as he was told.

Time was hard for him to tell on Loom and the seconds smeared into tedious minutes. The thick layer of clouds above hid the progression of the sun, filtering it into a bleak and neutral light. Cvareh cursed himself for forgetting his timepiece back on Nova. He hadn’t really had time to pack anything.

He opened a small pouch at his waist and pulled the folded papers from it. They were old, or had been through a lot to find their way up to Nova. He expected the latter was more likely. The parchment was weathered and already delicate, the leaves beginning to tear at the folds. He didn’t dare spend longer than a moment making sure all were accounted for.

The delicate lines made up schematics that meant little to Cvareh, but they would mean something to a Rivet. However, he wasn’t headed for the Rivets’ Guildhall. The engineers of Loom had long been under the close eye of the Dragon King and, seeing as how Cvareh had stolen the documents from under said King’s nose, he didn’t think heading toward anyone or anything that was notorious for being under his thumb was a good idea.

The woman reappeared.

“You actually made a line in the slime.” She appraised where he’d been pacing. “That bored?”

“Well—” Cvareh didn’t know why he tried to answer. She interrupted him by tossing the cloak she’d had folded over her arm at his face, leaving Cvareh scrambling to catch it before it fell onto the grime-coated path.

“Put that on, pull the hood, and keep your head down.”

Cvareh did as instructed and followed her without needing to be told.

She led him up the hard dirt of the river’s embankment and into soot-covered streets. Welders worked in a nearby factory, their torches lighting up the cobblestones under his feet. He heard the occasional crackle of magic, but the world on Loom was quiet compared to the splendor of Nova. Mostly normal, un-augmented Fenthri surrounded him.

It made the woman in front of him stand out all the more. She seared his senses as wildly as the strongest Dragon Rider he’d ever met. Why would someone who hated Dragons so much choose to become a Chimera?

He dared a glance up at her back. She didn’t turn or slow, ignorant of his study. She may have been a Chimera, but she looked very much Fenthri. Her shoulder-length white hair, gray skin, broad shoulders, and dingy clothes fit in with the iron, brass, and sepia tones of the world around her. It was as though Loom itself had given birth to the woman.

He followed her down a side street and up a flight of stairs to a shut down, boarded up shop. She glanced at him from the corners of her eyes, wedging her body between him and the intricate door lock. Metal slid on metal and the door swung open.

“Welcome back.” Another Fenthri woman—barely more than a girl, really—jumped over a sofa in a haste to meet them. She skidded to a halt as the Fenthri in white closed the door behind Cvareh. “Is this the one?”

“Would I be around a Dragon if it wasn’t?” The woman who held his boon and still hadn’t told him her name unclipped her high boots and dropped them on the entryway tile.

Cvareh took in the room and was surprised to find it well styled, given his earlier assessments of the person he was now keeping company with. The floors were smoothed from being walked on for years—uneven in a way that seemed perfectly imperfect. Dark leather furniture was accented with heavy knit blankets around a crackling iron stove. Steam and water piping ran through the barren beams overhead, keeping the room warm and glinting in the midday sunlight let in by two tall, iron-framed windows.

“Did you draw the bath?” His boon-holder started for a side door.

“I did,” the younger Fenthri replied.

“Lovely.”

“Wait, what am I to do?” Cvareh asked, hovering uncertainly. “I’m filthy.”

The woman in white paused in the tall doorframe, unclasping the harness and shrugging out of her white coat. She wore a loose cotton shirt with ruffles at the collar under a tight black vest.

“Why don’t you just stand there, Dragon?” She pulled her goggles over her forehead.

The woman’s eyes were bright purple, a dark slit that matched his own instead of the usual rounded Fenthri iris. If Cvareh had needed any further proof that she was a Chimera, there it was.

“Your magic already stinks. I don’t want you dragging sewer sludge into my home too.” The woman threw the verbal jab at him before disappearing into the side room, working on the first button of her vest as she disappeared.

Cvareh looked at the remaining Fenthri, who was failing to hide her amusement behind a dark gray palm. Rolling his eyes, he started for one of the sofas.

“I wouldn’t do that.” The woman’s black eyes focused on where Cvareh’s still-booted feet crossed onto the wood. “If you track mud into the house after she made her proclamation, I fear she really will kill you.”

“Not if she wants her boon.” Cvareh was getting tired of repeating the fact, but he couldn’t take his offer back. She’d agreed; the magical contract was formed between them. He was at the mercy of this Fenthri woman until she delivered him to the Alchemists or willingly relinquished her contract with him.

“Then I may kill you, because I’m the one who cleans the floors.”

“Are you her servant?” Cvareh didn’t think Fenthri kept households. Judging by the woman’s laugh, he was right.

“Grind my gears, of course not.” She shook her rounded face, her boxy shoulders slowing from her mirth. “I’m her initiate.”

“Initiate?” Cvareh frowned. The outline of a raven had been tattooed on her cheek in black, almost blending in with her granite-colored skin. “You’re both Ravens then?”

“No.” Her demeanor changed completely. The girl regarded him coolly when she had been almost welcoming prior. “I am a Revolver. And my master is a Rivet.”

Now that made no sense. One of them was an unmarked illegal, out of place in the world, and the other was claiming to be something other than what she had been marked. “Assuming that’s true, a Rivet couldn’t teach a Revolver.”

“Indeed she can. And she is certain to get me help when her knowledge has gaps. We’re in the heart of the Revolvers’ Guild, after all.” The woman grinned. Cvareh continued to be unnerved by the image of flat teeth making a perfect line.

“It is against Dragon law to be taught outside your guild. Any marked who desert their duty could be punished by death. Going unmarked is no better.” Cvareh didn’t actually care. He was hardly about to uphold the laws when he was the one seeking out the Fenthri rebels at the Alchemists’ Guild.

“No one in Old Dortam would turn either of us in,” the girl hummed. “And people in New Dortam have more important things to worry about when the White Wraith shows up than the fact that she isn’t marked.”

The sun fell from Cvareh’s sky at three words. “The White Wraith?”

The young woman paused her ministrations at a back table. “Who did you think you were traveling with?”

Cvareh honestly hadn’t a clue. But his guess wouldn’t have been New Dortam’s most infamous criminal.