The Fade

'We can keep at him,' says Casta conspiratorially. 'But you shouldn't have made him angry. He won't change his mind now.' She sighed. 'Ah, if only I were Magnate. I would have granted your plea, Orna. You know that, don't you? But I daren't go against his word, even to find out where-'

I'm barely listening. 'After all I went through, after everything… Abyss, he wasn't even willing to consider my request. What the fuck am I worth to him?' I snarl.

Casta is taken aback, not sure how to react. She's not used to hearing such a tone directed at her brother, and certainly not from a Bondswoman of the Clan. There's a warning in her eyes: remember your place, Orna. I glare back at her, too riled to submit.

'Oh, but Jai will be fine! I just know it!' Liss says, having abandoned her show now that nobody is paying attention to her. It defuses things just enough for us both to get away without a conflict.

'No,' says Casta, still watching me closely. 'There's the operation.'

'The operation?' Liss cries in horror.

'Operation Deadfall,' I say. Casta barely nods. 'You know about it?'

'I know it's not long now. A dozen turns. Maybe two.'

I don't want to ask, but I have to. 'What will happen?'

'They want to break the Gurta in the Borderlands, once and for all. They'll throw everything they've got at the enemy, and try to overwhelm them with weight of numbers at certain tactical points. But it's a risky strategy. It will leave them dangerously overstretched and committed. If it doesn't work, if we're forced to retreat, the Gurta will slaughter us.'

'It'll be carnage!' Liss whispers, scandalised. It's all so breathlessly exciting for her. She seems to have forgotten that my fucking son will be there. Sometimes I just want to punch her.

'What was that name you said to our brother?' Liss continues, off on a tangent. 'Brolicaspa or something?'

'Belek Aspa,' I correct her. 'Just a name I heard in prison. Someone asked me if I'd ever heard Ledo say it.'

She suddenly gets to her feet, losing interest. 'I need to piss!' she declares, apropos of nothing, and wanders off towards the toilets.

I'm faintly surprised that Casta has remained seated at the table with me.

'They intend to end the war in one stroke,' Casta says, returning to the previous subject. 'Many will die, but they think it will save lives in the long term.'

'And what do you think?' I ask. The spikevine has reached my brain now, and is soothing everything to a fuzz. The handmaiden returns with more, in bigger cups. Casta waits for the servant to leave before she answers.

'The operation is only good for Caracassa if we push and we fail. Otherwise, the war is over. The Clan is struggling to compete in the market anyway. We make our fortunes treating the wounded. Healers only turn a profit when there are people to heal.'

'It's in Clan Caracassa's interests to have this operation fail?'

'Exactly. When the war is over the Turnward Claw Alliance falls to pieces. Clan Caracassa loses its influence.'

She sees the suppressed feelings on my face. 'I know this is hard. Your son is there. But we have to think of the Clan.'

I drink my spikevine, and Casta sips at hers. She's never been as dizzy as her sister, but I've rarely heard her talk politics so confidently.

'What's Ledo up to?' I ask. Casta likes people to be direct. 'Why's he marrying Liss off to a family that manufactures textiles and luxury goods?'

'He won't say,' Casta replies. 'But I think he's hedging his bets. In case the push does succeed. If the war ends, Caracassa has good links to a peacetime industry.'

'We convert our factories to manufacture fine dyes and treatment agents for textiles-' I say.

'And they cut each other a mutually beneficial deal. Clan Caracassa and Clan Jerima go into business together.' She tuts and sits back, folding her arms. 'There's no real money in that. The reason we're being out-competed in the market is because he's dividing our resources.'

She takes out a cigarillo and lights it. I reach over and take one from the packet. She doesn't care enough to comment. Probably can't remember if I used to smoke or not.

'We made our money from war and we always have,' she says, blowing a plume of smoke into the air.

'I don't get it,' I say. 'Does Ledo want a war or doesn't he?'

'Clan Caracassa needs this war,' she says, then sneers. 'This sham of a marriage is his backup plan in case it all goes wrong.'

I watch Casta carefully. She seems to phase in and out of her moods. Sometimes she's sharp as a razor and other times she's as clueless and addled as her twin. Right now she's definitely the former.

I take a slug of spikevine. 'What do you think of Liss's fiance?'

She holds my eyes steadily. 'I'd like to kill him,' she says. Then Liss comes back, Casta turns all sweetness, and everything is forgotten. I can barely stand up by the time I get home. Liss and Casta have to get someone to help me to the door of my chambers in the Caracassa Mansions. I shut the door behind me and totter gingerly into the centre of the room. It's dark; only the lights of Veya beyond the huge circular window in our living-space provide any illumination.

I listen to the silence for a long time, knowing that it will never again be filled with my husband's laughter, that we will never eat as a family at that table again. I wonder if Jai will ever come home, but I can't believe he will. It feels so, so empty. A vacant nest is a terrible thing.

I sink to my knees and curl up on the floor. Lonely, scared, overwhelmed. Sniffles become sobs become great wracking whoops that score my throat, but I can't seem to cry it all out. At some point I stem the flow, and at some point I sleep; but I know that when I wake up in the morning, this shitty world will still be waiting for me.

9

The rain is unending here. Sometimes it falls in a fine mist, sometimes a lashing spray, but it never stops. The lakes that sprawl across the enormous cavern – one of dozens that comprise the Rainlands of Eskara – are constantly evaporating with the heat of the magma flows below. The steam rises, condenses on the cooler cavern roof hundreds of spans above, and then returns to the lakes in droplets. Phosphor trees nod in the haze: tall, branched lichen formations with heavy globes of light hanging from their branches, casting a pale illumination throughout the cavern.

I sit in the doorway of the boxcar, one leg dangling off the edge, watching the world speed past me. The blood-warm rain soaks me, and I let it. The rapid clacking of the tracks has become a metronome, counting time away. I'm going to Veya. I'm going to see Ledo.

Nereith sits in the shadows, out of the rain. But for a few crates of documents and some damaged but salvageable weaponry, we have the space to ourselves. They even provided some mildewed bedrolls. Other carriages are full of wounded, on their way back from the front, but there weren't enough to fill the train. I'm not sure whether that's a good or a bad thing. At least the wounded are still alive.

I can see a village in the distance. It's an island of light in the rain-mist, an uneven heap of hanging lanterns amid the lakes. It lies mainly around the base of an enormous, gnarled mycora root, which bursts from the ground and bends upward to the sky. Most of the dwellings are built from huge seed pods. They stand upright on stilts, windows lit brightly and smoke wisping from their tapered tips. Others, like the communal longhouse, are stone or treated wood. Still others cling to the lichen trees or the flanks of the root. The whole village seems to have been grown rather than constructed.

'Sankla,' Nereith says idly. It takes me a moment to realise he's identifying the village. 'Not too far now. Another turn or so.'

I stir from my reverie, glance at him despondently.