Chapter 13

The sun has drifted across the fields, heating the air enough that the weight of my arm warmers loosen as the heat kisses my skin. Nex even left his cloak on the back of the chair at home.

As the residential street narrows, Nex’s gaze flicks between each of the colorful stalls flanking the cobblestones path. It’s almost funny how enlivened his eyes become at the sight of various food booths, his head on a constant swivel to take in the plethora of displays.

“This is truly remarkable. How do people find so many things to sell?” He marvels as he slows his walking pace slightly to take in a collection of small, metal trinkets sitting atop a table.

“A lot make what they sell,” I reply. “But mostly they repurpose scavenged items that they can get a hold of.”

“Why? Wouldn’t they want to keep those things for themselves? I mean, they paid for them.”

“Sure, but why waste money to keep something when you could sell for a higher price. Unless it’s a collectible, that is.”

“I do find it intriguing seeing how that tradition has somehow stuck around on every peak. Everything else seems to be specific to the peak’s culture,” he explains, then stops completely in front of a stall selling bread. I savor the aroma of some of my favorite selections, but I barely got through all the broth I’d cooked up for the lunch rush. I need to finish that off before I splurge on more.

But Nex is almost salivating at the sight of several thick-crusted loaves warming the table.

“How much for this one?” He asks the owner, pointing to a loaf sprinkled with rosemary cuttings. I look around or I’ll end up buying the entire stall, and my eye happens to land on exactly what I should’ve been looking for in the first place.

I leave Nex to his haggling and cross diagonally across the path. Shielded from the sun by a rich, wheat-yellow cloth, adorned with tassels jingling softly with coins, is the stall I’ve familiarized myself with three years ago. I peruse the coin display, the owner leaning back in his chair with his bearded chin resting heavily against his chest as he appears to be sleeping. Discs of gold, silver, and bronze lay in organized groups of size and detail. In the three years I’ve been collecting coins, no one has been able to answer what they were used for in Old Atoraxis. I’m sure if someone scoured Sulien’s tome hoard they could come up with a plausible theory, but the tomes within the Citadel are not for public use. However, I now have access.

I skim past the larger coins, then mark a bronze coin so dark it almost looks black. I don’t notice any markings on it, or maybe it’s too old and worn that any markings have been rubbed off. But it reminds me of the all black attire Sulien seems to prefer, which is exactly the type of reminder I need for my collectible. A moment I felt strong condensed to the shape of coin.

“I’ll take this one,” I say firmly to stir the owner enough to wake from his slumber. He snorts suddenly and blinks the sleep from his eyes. When he spots me, he straightens in his chair and clears his throat. He cocks an eyebrow at me.

“You sure? This is is hardly as eye-catching as some of my gold ones. I have a nice collection of polished coins from the most recent expedition,” he suggests, but I point to the black coin again and he shrugs. “One Tile for that one.”

I pay him and slip the coin off the table, weighing it in my hand. The moment I mentally imprint onto the coin is the moment I decided to pursue the apprenticeship, hoping I can play a more active role in how my future is shaped. However, it’s momentarily marooned by the shadow that falls over me as Nex hovers behind me.

“Got yourself a souvenir?” He chimes, then peeks over my shoulder like I’m hiding something from him. Indeed I do almost hide the coin from him out of reflex, but I catch how his dark hair nearly matches the worn black of the coin and I sigh.

Appropriate.

“More or less,” I mumble and untie one end of the string attached to my belt before slipping the black coin onto the bundle.

“I take it that’s your collectible?” He asks, still watching as I tie off the string again and we start walking. “Why coins?”

I chew my lip, not because I’m hesitant in telling him, but because I want to. “They’re more like moments that I can carry around with me. Visual reminders of times I’m proud of,” I explain, my thumb running along the edges of each stringed coin. “Moments I’ve felt strong.”

I don’t check to see if he’s giving me any sort of strange look, but out of my peripheral I can see him nod slowly to himself with the hint of a smile on his face.

“What’s your collectible?” I ask him, thinking back to the night before when I didn’t spot a status tassel or anything that gave away what he collects.

Stolen novel; please report.

It’s subtle, and I wouldn’t have noticed it had I not been watching for it, but his jaw tenses and he rolls his shoulders like a weight is added to them. He doesn’t reply.

I would’ve repeated myself and pushed harder for an answer, even if just to learn a little more on how to read him. But we pass the halfway point of the Market before I clock her. But the gasps around us would’ve given her away anyway. Near the edge of the path a red-haired woman walks with the same blue and grey colors threaded into her knee-length dress as most Callantheans, a sheer shawl hanging from the crooks of her elbows. She carries her chin high as she walks at a slow, intentional pace towards a stall selling fish, like she knows everyone is watching her and she’s defying them by doing so. She looks entirely ordinary. Until we walk closer and the luminance of the five Carvings running from ankle to knee on her gaunt legs.

Whispers erupt around me, several building up the gall to spit in her direction like she’s some awful omen. It sends my blood into an instant boil, but I keep walking. Against every desire to step in, I keep walking.

Because I’m a coward.

We walk past the woman, and I’m close enough now that I can tell her dress is tattered along the hem, the shawl a small attempt at hiding another Carving circling her bony elbow. But it’s her tear-stained face that tugs at my ribs.

She knows.

She knows she’s only got minutes. Maybe only moments till they come. And I still keep walking. Every muscle in my body strains, begging me to stop. Stop her. Stop the guards that will swoop down at any moment. Stop them from dragging her to her death. Like I should’ve been dragged away three years ago. Or my life immediately leeched by an unstable shard. And yet here I am, waltzing through the Market.

Coward. Liar. Pretender—

A group of three children, bundled in vibrant furs and scarves, barrel past us, laughter ringing out like sweet music against the darkness growing within me.

“Come on, Mena! We need to reach the west side before sunset!” yells one, his voice soaring above the din, the knitted scarf trailing behind him catching the sun.

“Had we left earlier, we wouldn’t have to rush!” Mena’s voice chimes back, her hair whipping like golden wheat in the breeze.

“Singing Cave, here we come!” The second boy punches into the air as he tries to catch up to the rest of his group.

A crack.

A black crack spiders along the corner of my dark mind, like a rock flung at a glass wall.

One foot in front of the other, another pang of shame fighting against my burning instinct to stop in the middle of the path. Stopping me from walking any further. There’s a numb feeling in my left hand. But my right feels hot. Too hot. Like it’s going to spontaneously combust and then everyone will know. Everyone will know that I’m no different than the crying woman walking along the path she has every right to walk on. I’m just good at hiding. And lying.

I will hold my ground, chants inside my head, tapping against the mental glass walls I’ve welded. They keep me contained and controlled. But they also remind me of the chaos that waits on the other side if I let an inch slip. If I let the tapping turn to pounding. If I let the glass box shatter.

I will hold my ground.

I can’t even convince myself of it right now.

I rip my eyes from the group running far ahead as they deviate from the cobblestoned path towards the west side of the peak.

Just like Maven and I had done.

I shove my quivering numb and burning hands into my pockets. I want to rip the new black coin from its string.

“Do they get dragged away in Ocassus too?” I ask quietly without looking at Nex. “Do the guards come for the Carvers if they deign reveal themselves?”

There’s a beat, and I wonder if he didn’t hear me, when, in a hoarse voice, he responds, “it’s a little different there.”

“How so?”

Another beat. This time I level a look at him, but his face is drawn, the coiled storm that lives in those grey eyes dampened to the liveliness of a rock.

“Body Carving is still prohibited there, but you can’t keep track of how every shard of Stormglass is used. It still happens. The best we can do is ensure any unstable shards are discarded before distribution.” He does a curt shake with his head, warmth returning to his eyes. “It’s harder to obtain raw shards. So if any Carver is… detained by guards, it’s mostly because they shouldn’t be in possession of raw shards.”

I bristle. “That sounded an awful lot like a roundabout way of saying that Carvers still get dragged off.”

We emerge from the dense crowd as the path widens again and tall stone homes framed in metal flank the path instead of stalls.

Nex gives me a curious look. “Should it be any different? Should Body Carving go unchecked?”

It’s a dangerous question. While I don’t think Nex harbors an ulterior motive, I have every reason to believe he’d sound the alarm on me if I showed too much disdain. So I stuff my fanned bitterness down among the rest of the undesired emotions and force neutrality into my tone.

“I just wonder what could be done. If Carving could be made safe. Or at least if Stormglass’s properties could be made immutable.” Every word is clipped, but I manage to make it sound dismissing, adding a wave of my hand for show.

“I’m sure it’s been considered,” he adds, and I don’t like how his eyes keep scanning my face.

I stare ahead, weighing how to make this line of thinking more natural. “It’s my research,” I settle on. “Or what will be. Researching the potential for making the effects of Stormglass permanent.”

Nex finally drops his gaze from me, plucking a piece of lint off his shoulder. “And inevitably what we’ll be researching today?”

“What I’ll be researching today. You’ll sit in the corner and behave,” I nearly snap. A feline smile stretches across his face, ashen locks of hair swinging across his eyes as he peers down at me.

“Last I remember, you mentioned something about being tied to a chair,” he purrs with entirely too much amusement coating his voice. “It would be impolite as a host to break such a promise.”

“Shameless flirt,” I mutter in response. Nex’s rolling laughter travels down the path, almost drowning out the echo of heavy footsteps running towards the Market, metal clinking with every step, like spears descending.