The Shattered Circle

15. Poisonous Dreams

Shira shivered when we stepped out into the supernatural chill, pulling her gambeson's collar up to better guard her throat. The training sword still sat in her sheath as a plausible threat, something to draw attention away from her. Few walked down the Street of Broken Sky without obvious weapons and those who did were perhaps the most dangerous...and drew the most attention.

As we walked, people subtly changed their courses around me like minnows sensing a shark and flowing respectfully far from its teeth. It was still day, if barely: the dying ember of a sun so weak it could barely pierce the clouds was slipping behind the horizon even as it clutched for its last hour of life. I wore no steel armor, only a thick gambeson and my sword ever in its faithful place at my side. Layers of quilted wool and silk could turn many a cut and I knew the streets of Sanctum better than most.

We were close to the Alabaster Spire, a great floating tower of shattered ivory glass anchored to the east and west by two mammoth bridges guarded by heavy fortifications. Beneath it was the shattered obsidian remnants of the molten stone crater formed by the King in Black's ascension, a break in the earth that was more than six hundred feet deep at its center. I turned my eyes towards it for a moment as we walked, a painful longing striking me like a subtle knife sliding slowly between my ribs.

I looked at that tower and thought of the man I had loved so fiercely, even knowing it was a feeling that could never be returned.

Shira tugged at my sleeve to draw my attention. How is it floating? It is huge! Her fingers flicked swiftly, cold forgotten for a moment.

Her curiosity and awe at such a sight was rather charming. It forced me to look again at the tower, not as the seat of the King in Black, but as a marvel of magic and architecture. "It has been that way since the Apotheosis. When the old god of magic, Arvuin, was murdered, some of his power exploded outwards and shattered the tower. Surely a priestess knows that story."

She frowned at me. Much of that lore is lost to the lands beyond the Eternal Kingdom. Besides, stories are nothing compared to the truth.

I raised an eyebrow. "And you expect the truth, do you?"

You were there.

"Many who were present yet live as undead in the city. Ask them." I picked up speed as I walked, heading down Coldheart Promenade towards Luka's estate. The grand promenade was lined by twisted, black trees reaching claw-like branches towards the sky, coated in rime with hanging icicles. This was a large, public thoroughfare patrolled by the Eibonguard. No one was going to assault us here in the open.

Shira had to hurry after me, one hand on her sword to keep the training blade in its sheath. It was just a little loose, not the same dimensions as the real thing, but it was convincing enough for our purposes. Unfortunately, she still had the wide-eyed look of a foreigner and flinched away from undead passing on the street.

Before she could tug on my sleeve to draw me back into conversation, I caught her wrist in an iron grip and pulled her past cluttered street stalls hawking reagents and talismans. Luka made his home near the intersection of the Dark Mothers' Path and Coldheart Promenade, which meant the endless stream of acolytes and worshipers were perpetually in my way. My distaste for religious folk did not end with the followers of Light.

It shouldn't have surprised me that Shira picked up on my contempt immediately. We stopped under crowded eaves to let a procession pass, made up of masked figures representing the different aspects of the goddesses.

You don't like them, Shira signed with furrowed brows. Surely you honor them, if you serve the King in Black.

How little she knew of them. "The Dark Mothers were content to sit back and let their own followers be burned at the stake for thousands of years. They enjoy their prominence by the King in Black's grace and tender their respect accordingly." A priest glanced our way, saw me, and immediately fixed his attention back on the procession. "When they forget their place in the natural order, I remind them. They would have nothing without His Majesty."