FORGED: 4 Reforged short stories
Purity
Maeve crouched on the roof’s edge like an undersized white-winged gargoyle, watching the other Arcadians march back and forth far below. They held signs over their heads and waved them urgently at passing drivers. Maeve couldn’t read the words from her high perch, but knew them all by heart.
We want work, not worship!
Hyzaar is home!
Repeal the Purewater Act!
The protests had been going on for months now. Maeve had urged Gaelin to hold them anywhere else in Envollo. The city had plenty of other public locations, parks and plazas on every level of the towering arcology. But he insisted on city hall, where the sidewalk was wide and busy at the intersection of two major highways spiraling up from the endless blue ocean outside the city-spire. The air was fresh here and tasted of salt. Here, the protesters were too exposed, too public.
But Gaelin had only smiled at Maeve’s worry. That was the whole point, after all.
Hyzaari police in sleeveless black uniforms stood to one side and watched the Arcadians’ protest. Most kept their large, sun-bronzed hands on their shiny laser weapons. One of the officers — a woman who wore her dark hair in braids to secure it against the tug of the ocean wind — squinted up at Maeve’s perch.
Maeve twirled her spear between her hands. Colorful ribbons tied along its length flared like a dancer’s skirt and the blade — as long as her forearm and made of glittering glass, just like her armor — heliographed brilliantly in the light of Hyzaar’s triple suns. Maeve stopped toying with her spear and shaded her eyes. From her vantage point, she could see very little of Envollo. There was the courthouse to one side, all marble columns and carved promises of justice, and the blocky parking garage on the other. Salt crusted the gray concrete and left long white streaks when it rained. Across the road, the arcology’s exterior fell away in a long sheer drop to the unending blue waters that covered the whole planet. The ocean’s name was Hyzaar, so that was what the people here called their world.
What they called the Arcadians was less flattering: refugees and aliens, bird-backs and bums. Hyzaar had seemed like a good home for the Arcadians, but even with their long wings, they had to land somewhere on the watery world. They needed to eat and they needed jobs on a planet that didn’t have enough for their own people, much less two hundred thousand feathered interlopers.
Maeve stretched her wings up over her head, her shifting shoulders making the glass plates of her armor clink like crystal chimes. The Arcadians below marched nervously back and forth in front of the Envollo City Hall, a dome scaled in overlapping green tiles that had been stylish on Hyzaar thirty years before. Pedestrians and drivers slowed to watch the protestors. Some stopped to listen, but more ignored the Arcadians entirely and moved on.
A silver car with a sleek, sharkish design and no wheels raced down the street, riding low on its cloudy null-inertia field. It wove between other vehicles, decelerated suddenly and fishtailed to a crooked stop at the curb. The Arcadian protesters went still and Maeve’s fingers tightened on her spear.
Four long-limbed Hyzaari climbed from the car, each wearing a mask made of polished brown wood — precious and expensive on nearly landless Hyzaar — over their faces. The masks were eerily blank of any features. Their wearers spread out around the car, ominous presences silently pressing the Arcadians back. Those few Hyzaari they had been speaking to made quickly mumbled excuses and hasty exits.
Another man emerged from the low-slung silver car. He wore a clean, neat white suit below his blank wooden mask and his hands rested easily at his sides.
“You’re not allowed to be here,” he told the Arcadians. His voice echoed hollowly from behind the mask. “You know that. The Purewater Act expressly forbids Arcadian gatherings.”
Maeve didn’t know this man. Not his name or the face beneath the mask. There was one name that Maeve did know: Hulaan LiMarrin, the leader of the Purewater movement. But LiMarrin was a powerful man, far too important to deal with the Arcadians himself. No, for that he had people like this, men and women that hid their bigotry behind masks and self-righteous rage.
Maeve spread her wings and leapt, flying down to the street below. The Purewater man in the white suit seemed much as Maeve imagined LiMarrin would: large and imposing, with dark hair that lay flat along his skull in slick, smooth waves that were the same color as his mask. Maeve landed in front of him. Her glass armor threw back the light of three suns and the man took a step back, shielding his eyes with one bronzed hand.
“This is not a religious gathering,” Maeve said. “Which is what your law forbids.”
“You’re protesting the law that controls your cult practices,” answered the suited man. His eyes were deep gleams in the darkness of his wooden mask. “How is this anything but a religious gathering?”
“We are not worshipping here,” Maeve said. She shifted her spear from one hand to the other and pointed back to city hall. “We only defend ourselves peacefully from an unjust law. A law purchased by Hulaan LiMarrin and the rest of the Purewater supporters.”
“That we wrote.” The Purewater man raised his voice to carry across the street. “And which the people of Hyzaar voted to enact. But the Arcadians have no respect for our laws!”
Spectators murmured and looked at each other. The hiss and grumble of the sea below drowned out their words until one middle-aged human shook his fist at the winged aliens.
“Go home, bird-backs!” he shouted.
Maeve faced the growing crowd. She kept her spear against the ground, more of a standard than a weapon. “We cannot return to our homeworld. The way we came here is no longer open to us.”
“You’ve taken our jobs!” called another Hyzaari in the crowd.
“Ripping heathens! Get off our planet!”
“We are no threat to Hyzaar,” Maeve said. “We wish only to share your world. We do not want to take anything.”
“You’ve invaded Hyzaar,” the Purewater man answered.
“We are refugees. And we thank you for–”
The towering Purewaters took a step toward the Arcadians as though they could menace them back to their own planet. Maeve would not yield ground. She glanced at the watching police, but they were busy holding back the rising tide of angry spectators.
“You have spoken your piece,” Maeve said. “Now go.”
“Go?” asked the suited man. His voice had been smooth and even, but now it shook with barely suppressed anger. “You’re telling me to leave? On my own planet?”
Maeve cursed herself before Anslin Sky-Knight, the god of her trade. She had said the wrong damned thing. Again. The Hyzaari traded a masked look and advanced on Maeve. She beat her wings once and jumped back, holding her spear up between her and the Purewaters.
“She’s threatening us,” hissed the man in the suit. “On our own planet, while her people are engaged in an illegal protest.”
“No,” Maeve said. “I–”
She had only a moment to reflect on her failure before the Purewaters leapt at her. Knives of varied shapes were drawn, all shimmering with an iridescent sheen, as though dipped in oil. Maeve didn’t know what the colorful finish was, only that it made the blades terribly sharp.
Her spear gave Maeve some range against the taller humans, but she was badly outnumbered. She spun and parried and pushed back. Sweat streamed down the back of her neck. If she could meet their deadly force in kind, the fight might already be over, but Maeve couldn’t kill anyone here. The Hyzaari were angry and stupid, but they didn’t really deserve to die for that. And it would only prove to the watching crowd that Arcadians had no place on Hyzaar.
Maeve fended off some of the knives with her spear, turning them aside and smashing fists with the haft. Others glanced off the curved glass of her armor, but one of her enemies finally remembered the Arcadian’s wings and slashed. Maeve clenched her jaw against a fiery line of pain. Red blood — the same color as any human’s — streaked her feathers.
With an effort, she beat her wings, blinding the Purewaters, and leapt out of the fray. Maeve landed in front of the other Arcadians, between them and the Purewaters.
“I do not want to fight you!” she cried. “We wish only to be your neighbors. Friends, if you would let us!”
Maeve looked back at the black line of police that held back the sea of unfriendly faces. Some bystanders watched in fascinated horror, but more jeered and actually shouted encouragement to the Purewaters. One of the watching Hyzaari cocked his arm back to throw a the bottle in his hand, but the cop with braided hair stepped in the way and held up her hand.
“Maeve!” shouted a high, clear voice from somewhere above.
She spun back to the street just as the man in the white suit pulled a shiny black gun from a holster under his arm and aimed it at Maeve. She could throw herself out of the line of fire, but what if the Purewater suit didn’t adjust his aim? He would shoot right into the unprotected Arcadian protesters.
Maeve stood her ground. Red laserfire struck her in the shoulder and splintered into orange reflections against her shining glass armor. The masked man fired again, but the glow of his laser faded once more when it hit. The Purewater hesitated then, staring at his gun.
Maeve seized on the pause and leapt at him. She spun her spear as she landed, sweeping his feet out from under him. The suited man tumbled to the ground and the laser flew out of his hand. He rolled to one side, reaching for the gun, but Maeve kicked it away and laid her spear blade against his shoulder. It glittered like ice.
“Leave us alone,” Maeve said.
The Purewater picked himself up, straightening his polished wooden mask. He and his companions backed toward the sleek silver car, glaring from the narrow eye-slits of their masks. Maeve watched them climb inside and did not relax until the car slid out of sight again down the crowded street.
The police were busy dispersing the crowd, motes of black moving through the sea of blue and green favored by Hyzaari civilians. Except one. The braided officer approached Maeve and inclined her head.
“Simone,” Maeve greeted the other woman. “Thank you for your assistance.”
The cop arched one dark eyebrow. “Yeah, right. I’m sorry we can’t get involved. You know I wish we could.”
“I know,” Maeve said.
“Why can’t you do anything?”
The question came from Maeve’s elbow, in the same voice that had warned her about the gun. The two women turned to look at a young Arcadian boy. He was all wide blue eyes, mussed blond hair and clumsy, gangly wings. Maeve hummed a low, disapproving note.
“You were supposed to be observing, Doriel,” she told her squire. “Not getting involved.”
“There’s nothing to get involved in now,” the boy said. “It’s all over.”
“And without a body count.” Simone splayed a dark hand over her chest in a symbol Maeve had come to associate with the coreworld religion, but still didn’t know what it meant. “On either side. Why aren’t you dead, Maeve?”
The fairy knight rapped her knuckles on the glass of her breastplate and the clear crystal rang. “We never developed laser technology in Arcadia, but our glass armor has proven useful against it. I am told that it has to do with the refractive qualities.”
“Is it fragile?” Simone asked. “I suppose it can’t be. Those Purewads tried to stab you a dozen times. Probably a lot of carbon nanostructure, right?”
Maeve shrugged. She was tired and didn’t know the details of her armor’s construction. Not well enough to explain them to Simone, at least. Doriel tried to answer, but everything the young squire knew, Maeve had taught him. The conversation ended with more shrugs and little information.
The Arcadians’ protest continued throughout the afternoon with only a few more interruptions — none of them as violent as the first — until the suns dipped toward the horizon. The bright, silver-blue trio of stars turned orange and then red as they tumbled down into the ocean.
“Now it is time for us to return home,” said a quiet voice.
Gaelin was an ancient Arcadian man, with thin skin so pale that it was almost like white paper, and even paler hair. He held his wings at a stiff, arthritic angle and the feathers were shot through with gray. Gaelin balanced a large cardboard sign on one narrow shoulder and Maeve bowed low, holding her wings out to each side.
“If you wish,” she said. “You could manage another hour…”
“No. Not today. We are safe, thanks to you, but it is growing late and it is unwise to tempt the gods.”
“That’s the kind of talk that gets the Purewaters out of bed in the morning,” Simone said, who remained nearby. Her shift had ended an hour ago.
“Their claims of heresy are only tools to have us removed from Hyzaar,” Gaelin countered. He gave the cop a gap-toothed pink smile. “You know that. But can I safely assume that you will vote in favor of repealing the Purewater Act?”
“My vote is none of your business. Go home, you old coot,” Simone said gently. “We’ll see you back here tomorrow.”
Gaelin bowed slightly mockingly — but entirely pleasantly — to Simone. Maeve offered the old Arcadian man her arm as they gathered the rest of their people to leave and took to the air in a crooked V of white wings. Gaelin flew close beside Maeve. Several of his pinions were gone, leaving his wings uneven and frayed-looking, but the old Arcadian flew as well as any of his younger protesters.
“They are frightened,” he told Maeve as they swooped between a pair of huge starscrapers.
“The Purewaters think they can intimidate us into silence.” Maeve looked back over her shoulder at the line of quiet, watchful Arcadians as they flew down deeper into the city.
Gaelin flicked one of his wings at her, the tip pinging quietly off her glass armor. “They are wrong, so long as you stand guard. We did not think that any of the knights of the Morningfire Court survived our kingdom’s fall. You fight against terrible odds–”
“There were only five of them,” Maeve said. She beat her wings, making the glass plates of her armor chime against each other. “And one laser. I alone wore armor, and knives are no match for a spear.”
“–in defense of the innocent.” Gaelin laughed then, a wheezing sound snatched quickly away by the wind. “The others, I mean. I am too old to be innocent. But my point remains, my lady. We are blessed to have you.”
Maeve didn’t know what to say to that, so she flew on in silence.
Envollo was a sharp spire of metal and concrete jutting up from the darkening indigo waves of Hyzaar. If Maeve squinted, she could just make out the blurred yellow line of the mainland on the horizon. It would be easier to see in the dark of night, when the cities that filled the Hyzaari continents from shore to shore glowed with light like colonies of stars.
The view from the land must have been equally impressive: vast arcologies rising from the sea like great swords thrust up from the waves. But the cities extended further below the water than above, forcing Maeve and the other Arcadians to land and follow the sloping streets into Envollo’s lower reaches. Open roads and walkways gave way to closed tunnels and portholes. Columns of sea-green light filtered through the reinforced windows like pillars of jade.
Gaelin led the Arcadians toward an uninspired, water-stained concrete building. The sliding double doors were thick and windowless, labeled with weathered plastic letters: Linnos Low-Income Shelter. Shiny red-violet camera spots flanked the doors and flashed at the Arcadians’ approach.
“Maeve!”
Doriel landed with a thump in front of the knight, so close that he almost smashed his nose against the front of her armor. Maeve jerked to a stop and scanned the street for danger.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Over here.”
Doriel led Maeve around the shelter to a narrow serviceway. The gate hung open, the lock long since broken and crumbled away into rust. Faded colors covered the shelter wall in layers of graffiti, painted over and then tagged again. The newest and largest of these was all in bright blue and white:
Go home, bird-backs!
On wings or on a board
Your choice
“What does it mean?” Doriel asked when Maeve finished reading the letters, each as large as she was tall.
“Hyzaari traditionally set their dead adrift in a boat. The poor and dishonored get only planks,” Maeve said. She was too tired to answer questions. “This is a threat.”
“Do you think they mean it?”
“Yes,” Maeve sighed and put her arm around the boy’s shoulder. Doriel was trembling. She squeezed gently. “The Purewaters believe that we pollute their planet, but they are wrong. They will understand in time and until then, we will keep our people safe. It is the duty of a knight.”
Maeve led Doriel into the shelter. The front office was still full of Arcadians, all speaking quietly to one another in their own language. A middle-aged Hyzaari man sat behind a desk and looked up at Maeve.
“There you are,” he said, obviously relieved. “Staying the night?”
“Yes,” Maeve answered. “We all are.”
“Fine.” The human man thrust a pile of cheap plastic datadexes into her hands. “Get them to sign.”
Maeve signed one of the datadexes — an agreement not to bring chems or weapons into the city-sponsored shelter — and passed the rest to Doriel. The boy nodded and set off to help the rest of the Arcadians. Most of them didn’t speak or write the local language well, but had stayed at the shelter long enough to know the process. Still, Doriel dutifully explained the terms to each of his fellows and then collected their signatures or thumbprints.
“You can’t take that spear inside,” the man behind the desk told Maeve.
“I know.”
Maeve did, but she was reluctant to give up her only weapon. She let herself be led over to a row of dented fibersteel lockers. The desk manager opened one with a card from his belt and Maeve placed her spear inside. She tucked the colorful ribbons carefully away from the door and closed it.
“There is a threat to the Arcadians painted on the west wall of your building,” Maeve told the human.
“What?”
“Yes. It is very large and very visible. I am concerned that it will incite action against us.”
“Large?” The desk manager frowned, deepening the lines already creasing his bronzed cheeks. “Aw, flotz. Is it new?”
“I believe so. The paint is still glowing.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Damn it. That’ll come out of my pay, sure as tides.”
Maeve stared and her teeth ached with the force of her clenched jaw. It was not this man’s fault. Just because he worked at the shelter did not mean that he sympathized with the Arcadians. Their problems were not his problems.
“I am sorry to bring you bad news,” Maeve forced herself to say.
“Yeah, yeah.” The human waved Maeve through another set of doors and into the line of Arcadians streaming inside the shelter.
There were rows of small cubicles with stained cloth walls, each containing a single bed and a small locker of the same design as those in the front office. Most of the other Arcadians sat or lay on the beds. Some of them sang or ate in their tiny rooms, but most simply lay still. Their wings hung limply between their shoulders.
Maeve clanked into her own cubicle and collapsed onto the creaking bed in a clatter of armor. She groaned. How much longer before Gaelin’s protest made any difference?
In spite of the discomfort of laying down in her glass armor and the sounds of other Arcadians coughing and singing just on the other side of thin walls, Maeve was quickly falling asleep.
“I am sorry to disturb you,” said a quiet voice.
Maeve opened her eyes.
“I am at your disposal, Gaelin,” she answered. The knight sat up and wriggled one hand free of its gauntlet so she could scrub at her sandy-feeling eyes. “What is it?”
With an effort, Maeve stood and offered her bed to Gaelin. It was the only place to sit in the closet-sized cubicle. He accepted and sat, tucking his graying wings behind him. Gaelin smoothed his thin white hair.
“Doriel told me about the sign outside,” he said.
“Graffiti,” Maeve corrected.
“The Purewaters know that we live here.”
“We have made no secret of it.” Maeve stood between the threadbare curtains that were her cubicle’s door. “It would have been a simple task to find us.”
“Perhaps we should leave. Go somewhere else. There are more cities than Envollo and planets other than Hyzaar.”
“You do not need to run,” Maeve said firmly. “I will protect you.”
“Even a knight has her limits. This will not be the final battle against the Purewaters and there may be more than five next time.”
“My glass makes their laser weapons useless. I am equal to the task,” Maeve told Gaelin. She smiled and hoped it was reassuring. “Attend to your protests and I will handle the rest. On my oath as a knight, I swear it.”
“Rest, then,” Gaelin said. He stood, grimacing and pressing his hands against his spine. “Sleep. You will need it.”
Maeve bit her lip. Gaelin was right, of course, but she didn’t want to admit that. She offered the old man her elbow and escorted him to his cot.
When Maeve wove her way back through the crowded corridors, Doriel was waiting for her. The boy apologized for being delayed — some of the other Arcadians wanted to know about the protest and the battle earlier that day — and helped Maeve out of her armor.
“I’ll take care of it,” Doriel said. He nodded at Maeve through the armload of curving glass. “I think one of the buckles needs mending.”
“Do you have what you need?” she asked.
“I’ll figure it out.”
Not for the first time, Maeve was grateful that she had relented to Doriel’s pleading and taken him as her squire. He was a bright and dedicated boy. A little distracted at times, but intelligent and more or less helpful. He would be a good knight, in time. Most of Arcadia’s knights died in defense of their homeworld and it was time to begin training more.
But Maeve would tend to Doriel’s lessons later. For now, she tumbled into her bed once more and fell instantly asleep.
The sound of weeping woke her. Maeve was on her feet in a moment, reaching reflexively for her spear. But it was still in its locker. Maeve spread her wings and flew up over the grid of cubicles, quickly locating the source of the sobs. An Arcadian woman beat the wall with already bruised fists while a Hyzaari man stood to one side, mouth hanging open and gasping for breath.
Two more Arcadians grabbed the woman and tried to calm her, but to no avail. Maeve landed and they stepped back. She recognized the other woman — Allia, Doriel’s aunt. All threw herself on the floor in front of Maeve, flapping her wings against the concrete floor and wailing.
“They killed him!” she cried.
There was more, but Maeve couldn’t understand through the storm of tears. “Calm yourself and tell me what happened. Who is dead and how?”
Allia curled up tightly on the floor and sobbed too hard to answer, but the Hyzaari managed to speak. It was the same one who had been manning the front desk, the shelter manager who had despaired about his paycheck when his boss found the graffiti outside.
“They killed that little bird-back boy that you work with,” he said. “Dorian?”
Maeve went cold, as though plunged into icy water. “Doriel. What happened?”
The crowd of white wings grew around them, watching and listening.
“He was around back. Cleaning your armor I guess,” the Hyzaari said. “The Purewaters, the ones with… with the masks… They were already there when I popped out back for a stick. They were telling him to give up the armor and Dorian… Doriel told them no. They fought…”
Maeve tasted blood. She was biting her tongue. Doriel fought the Purewaters over Maeve’s armor? The proud, brave little fool.
“What did you do?” she asked in a cold, furious voice.
“Me? I… I hid.”
“You did not call the police or help Doriel?” Maeve asked.
“No,” the Hyzaari man admitted. “I… I was scared.”
Before anyone could stop Maeve, she stood up on her toes and punched the man. Despite his superior size, the manager was no warrior. He reeled, hands pressed to his darkening cheek.
“What else happened?” Maeve asked.
“I… You hit me!”
“What happened?” Maeve shouted.
“The Purewaters had lasers and they shot him. Then they took your armor and flushed it.”
“Flushed?”
“They stuffed it all into one of the drainage pipes and hit the valve. It pumps straight out into the ocean.”
Maeve grabbed the front of the human’s shirt and hauled him down to her level. “You are a coward and–”
The crowd parted before Gaelin. The old Arcadian looked at Allia — who was still weeping uncontrollably on the ground — and then at Maeve.
“Let him go,” Gaelin told her. “It is done. Doriel is dead. Salla has confirmed his silence. Let that man be.”
“He let them kill Doriel!” Maeve cried.
“He could not have stopped them,” Gaelin said sadly. “If we could end violence simply by witnessing it, Arcadia would not be lost.”
There was more. Maeve closed her eyes and willed herself to listen to Gaelin, but her pulse pounded a liquid drumbeat in her ears. Doriel was dead. Murdered. His blood was not even cool yet and her own people told her to forget.
“No! I will not be silent,” Maeve said. “They have murdered one of us! I am a knight of Arcadia and I am sworn to protect you. The Purewaters will answer for this!”
The circle of other Arcadians stepped back from the furious knight. Maeve snatched a keycard from the Hyzaari manager’s belt and took to the air again. She wove between old, taped ducts and landed, kicking open the doors to the front office. It was closed for the night, the shelter already overfull. Maeve yanked open the locker, grabbed her spear and then the com on the front desk. She pressed the green button on the side of the finger-long device and crisply enunciated a name. The line beeped twice and then a female voice answered.
“Simone here. Who is this? It’s the middle of the frothing night.”
Was it? Maeve had no idea. Deep under the Hyzaari ocean, it was impossible to tell and Maeve hadn’t bothered to check a clock. She willed her voice to be steady.
“It is Maeve. There has been an attack at the Linnos Shelter.”
“Flotz,” Simone said. Maeve heard cloth rustling and another sleepy voice mumbled in the background. “Is Gaelin alright?”
“He is fine.” Maeve swallowed hard. “But this has gone too far.”
“Agreed. I’ll get a team together and be right down.”
“Wait. Simone, I need something else from you,” Maeve said. “Tell me where to find Hulaan LiMarrin.”
“What?” Simone asked. “LiMarrin is the leader of the Purewater movement. Why in the three hundred hells would you want to talk to him?”
“We must end this.” Maeve poured all of her anger and pain into the words and hoped that they were convincing. “I need to speak to him. I know that he lives in Envollo, Simone.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know that Envollo is the center of the Purewater problem. That is why I came here. Please, Simone. You know I would do anything to end this. I just want my people to have a home.”
“And what makes you think that I know where LiMarrin lives?” Simone asked suspiciously. “Or that I would ever give out that kind of sensitive information?”
“You have helped us as best you can, my friend,” Maeve said. “You care about the Arcadians’ survival on Hyzaar and your position makes you privilege to certain information.”
“Well… yes,” Simone admitted. “But I don’t exactly have LiMarrin’s address memorized. And I still can’t give it to you, Maeve.”
“They attacked Doriel.”
“Doriel? Is he alright?” Simone asked.
Maeve hesitated before answering. “He is resting now and in no lasting pain.”
“Damn it all. Just… just give me a second.”
Maeve waited in tense, trembling silence until Simone came back with the address. The police officer repeated it three times, until she was certain that Maeve remembered it.
“Be careful,” Simone said. “LiMarrin may not want to talk. I hope you’ve got something special planned.”
“He will listen,” Maeve promised. “I will end this.”
“Good luck.”
Maeve ended her call and stood in the dim front office, staring at the com in her hand. Everything inside her ached. Maeve went to the computer and called up the mainstream. Clumsily — she wasn’t familiar with computers — Maeve searched for the address that Simone had given her. It wasn’t actually in Envollo, but located on one of the small, private artificial islands surrounding the ocean arcology.
Maeve ran from the shelter and leapt into the air. Her wings trembled with rage and weariness, but they held. She soared along the dark streets and then up through Envollo. The city rose from the silvery sea like a spear, thrusting up toward the moons.
Catcalls and even less flattering shouts followed Maeve through the streets. It was late, but Envollo was a large city. Nightclubs thrummed with music and lights. Restaurants and late-night stores catered to quieter clientele. The waves that lapped all around the city were alive with glowing seed-shapes of ships. The Hyzaari fished and danced and raced on the ocean at all hours.
The largest moon, Beven, was half full. Hyzaar’s atmosphere turned the celestial smile a brilliant gold. Maeve landed beside the road that ran along Envollo’s edge, perched like a bird on the railing and clutching her spear. She scanned the swirling waters far below and spotted what she was looking for: a round island floating on the distant waves. Bright searchlights swept the starry sky like reaping blades of light.
Maeve leapt from high Envollo and fell through the sea-cooled air. Just before she hit the water, Maeve spread her wings and raced along the ocean’s undulating silver surface. The salty spray tasted just like her tears.
Maeve couldn’t risk landing on any of the boats, even those darkened for the night. One startled call to the police would shatter her silent approach. Her wings were stiff and painful by the time Maeve reached the island.
It was perfectly circular and surrounded by gracefully tapered towers. They looked like the spires of a cathedral, but Maeve suspected that they served a far more practical purpose. She would have to be careful. If Hulaan LiMarrin was concerned about security, there were doubtlessly weapons on that island. Probably lasers. The light weapons were efficient, reliable and accurate. Most guns in the galactic core were lasers. With her armor, Maeve had little to fear from them, but now… Well, at least she was less shiny without her layer of glass, less likely to accidentally catch the soft golden moonlight.
Maeve landed silently at the foot of a tree between two of the watchtowers. The grounds of LiMarrin’s home were lovely and peaceful. There were rolling green hills of grass and heather, dotted here and there with the smooth mirrors of calm ponds. Streams and waterfalls whispered over smooth rocks in every color. Maeve crept to the edge of the nearest pool and tasted the water. Fresh water.
Pure water.
Keeping to the shadows, Maeve hurried across the well-manicured island. She dove behind a gardening shed only barely in time to avoid a pair of armed security guards. When they were gone, Maeve vaulted over the roof of an atrium and landed with a soft thump on the other side.
Maeve finally found him sitting on a flagstone patio, holding a woman’s delicate brown hand and staring out across the open ocean. An empty bottle of wine sat on a small table between them. The woman kissed his cheek and murmured a name, just audible over the hiss and crash of the sea — Hulaan.
As Maeve crouched in the fragrant flower bushes, unsure what to do next, Hulaan’s com buzzed. He slid his hand from his lover’s and apologized. The Purewater leader walked away to take the call — right toward where the Arcadian knight hid.
Maeve started. Hulaan wasn’t Hyzaari. The man was tall and lean in the moonlight, but his skin was pale, closer to Maeve’s own than the rich bronze color of a Hyzaar native. Instead, Hulaan’s cheeks and long neck were marked by tiger-like stripes, colorless as ash in the moonlight.
The leader of the Purewater movement was Mirran. The Mirrans were a related species — so close that they and the Hyzaari regularly interbred — but Hulaan LiMarrin was from a different planet.
Hulaan strolled through the grass, smiling and speaking into his com.
“It’s not going to be a problem,” he said. The man’s accent wasn’t even Hyzaari. Every consonant had the thick Mirran burr. “Just keep things moving, Juten, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
Liar. Murderer!
Maeve burst from the underbrush in a flurry of white wings and sharp glass. A deafening roar filled her ears. Maeve did not know if it was the sound of the ocean or her own fury-hot blood. Hulaan reeled and fell, eyes wide as Maeve leapt on him. He was no warrior. Hulaan LiMarrin had other men for that. Men who wore masks… But Hulaan didn’t wear a mask. It wouldn’t have been enough to conceal his Mirran stripes.
Maeve pounced. So quickly that Hulaan couldn’t cry out, she slashed open his throat and blood gushed across the grass. It shone in the moonlight like dark dew.
It was done. Doriel was avenged. The blood on Maeve’s face was still warm as she vaulted back into the air. There was a scream from below as Hulaan’s wife found his body, but Maeve was already vanishing into the distance.
By the time Maeve landed in front of the shelter once more, the blood and tears were dry on her skin. Simone was already there, leaning against the black door of her squad car. The lights were dark. Simone looked up at Maeve’s approach.
“Hulaan LiMarrin is dead. Murdered in his own home,” Simone said as the Arcadian landed. Her voice trembled. “One of his security guards called it in. Swears he doesn’t know how anyone could have gotten onto the island except if they flew…”
“LiMarrin’s people slaughtered my squire,” Maeve answered in a flat, tired voice. “Hulaan invoked his own death.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that Doriel was dead?” Simone asked. “Maeve, I thought we were better friends than that!”
“You might not have given me Hulaan’s address.”
“You’re damned right,” Simone said. She banged her fist on the hood of her car. “You lied to me, Maeve! You’ve made me an accessory to murder!”
“Hulaan LiMarrin was not even Hyzaari, Simone. He was a fraud.”
The cop closed the distance between herself and Maeve in three long strides. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care if he was a Nnyth maggot. You killed him!”
“He murdered Doriel,” Maeve said. Her eyes were dry and painful.
“No, he didn’t!” Simone told her. “He was affiliated with a group who killed your boy. It’s not the same thing. Even if it were, you can’t take the law on yourself!”
“You were doing nothing against the Purewaters,” Maeve said coldly.
“You have an hour, Maeve. Get out of here. I don’t want to see you in Envollo again.” Simone closed her eyes. When she opened them, they glistened with tears. “Get off the planet. They’ll put a bounty on your head, but the galaxy is a big place. Run. Don’t ever stop flying.”
Maeve knew she should say something, but she felt only a faintly aching hollowness inside. She nodded and turned away. Simone climbed into her squad car and drove swiftly off into the endless night.
Maeve still had the keycard. She slid it through the lock and stepped into the shelter. The front desk was still empty, just as Maeve had left it two hours before. She didn’t put her spear away.
The rows of sleeping cubicles were quiet as she made her way through them. Arcadians turned away when Maeve passed, unable or unwilling to meet the knight’s eye. Gaelin was waiting for Maeve in her tiny room. He held out a small mycolar bag, her few possessions sealed up inside.
“It is time to leave Envollo,” Maeve said. “I have killed the Purewater leader, but there will be anger.”
“It is no longer safe here,” Gaelin agreed. “We will be gone by dawn.”
Maeve took the bag and tucked the handles into her belt. “We will find a safer home.”
“Not you,” said Gaelin. “You are no longer a knight of Arcadia.”
“What?” Maeve asked. “Because my armor is gone? It was only glass!”
“You have broken your oaths. You killed an unarmed man,” Gaelin said. “You are not welcome with us.”
“But I–”
“Go, Maeve.”
She did have tears left to shed, Maeve discovered, but Gaelin’s eyes remained dry. Maeve turned away and left the shelter. The street outside was empty. Maeve put her spear over her shoulder and flew away into the darkness.
