There was Umber to consider, too, though. He didn’t have Hansa’s hang-ups about family and peer expectations, and a societally-indoctrinated dream of a respectable career and a wife and classic little children, but he had a life. Hansa had forced this bond on him, and though Umber had been remarkably sanguine about the whole thing—better than Hansa deserved, considering it was his pigheaded selfishness that had dragged Umber into this entire mess—he clearly wanted to shake off his unasked-for Quin appendage so he could go back to whatever he did when he wasn’t taking care of Hansa.
“Thank you,” Hansa managed to choke out to Verte. “But are you sure you—”
Firmly, Verte interrupted, “For now, I will bid you farewell.”
Chapter 4
Umber
Hansa turned an incredulous look his way, and Umber realized he had made a vast error in judgment. He had been focused on survival—always his first priority—and Hansa’s and Cadmia’s safety. He didn’t trust Terre Verte or Dioxazine, but hadn’t had a way to suggest separating that didn’t insult them, which he couldn’t afford to do.
Now Umber saw the way Hansa’s jaw set and his brown eyes hardened, and realized he had forgotten one crucial detail: Hansa wasn’t the kind of man who sat back and took care of himself while the world burned.
“You think we should just let them go?” Hansa challenged.
When it came to sex or sorcery, Hansa tended to do a lot of blushing and stammering. The Followers of the Quinacridone believed in abstinence outside of marriage, that same-sex relations were deviant, and that any contemplation of the Abyss or the Numen was the first step toward an inevitable decline toward madness and destruction. Since Quin made up the vast majority of the democratic Kavet, the laws reflected these views. Therefore, Hansa’s education on certain subjects had been so lacking that Umber sometimes struggled to comprehend just how naïve he still was.
On the other hand, a Quin man in Kavet didn’t have to spend a lot of time ducking his head and hustling just to survive. Umber had spent his life focused on surviving tomorrow; Hansa had spent his focused on protecting the country in which he lived. That made their perceptions fundamentally different.
Umber had seen a sorcerer break a powerful man’s neck, and had decided that sorcerer was a danger to him personally and therefore best avoided. Hansa had seen a murder—an assassination, even—that he perceived as a prelude to more violence. He wanted justice. He wanted to fix it, whatever that meant.
“Verte started by killing Indathrone,” Hansa said, emphasizing the once-prince’s name in a way that made it clear he had consciously dropped the title. “What do you think he will do next?”
“He clearly thinks he has a right to this country,” Cadmia said, with a grimace. “Terre. Prince. I know the Quin deliberately eradicated all records of the royal house, but I feel like such a fool that I didn’t know.”
“It’s obvious he intentionally misled us,” Hansa speculated. “Every time we spoke of Kavet, or asked where he was from—”
“And what if you had known?” Umber asked. He hadn’t realized Verte had been royalty, but it had been clear from the start that he was a man used to privilege, power, and prestige. “Leaving him in the Abyss wasn’t an option, just like keeping him with us now wasn’t an option. Trying to force him to stay would not have ended well.”
Her voice uncharacteristically quiet and strained, Cadmia said, “Xaz was hoping Terre Verte could help her break her bond to Alizarin. What will happen if he does?”
Umber winced, wishing he had assurances he could give her. “Abyssi and Numini cannot stay in this realm without some kind of mortal bond,” Umber said. “The immediate result would be Alizarin falling back into the Abyss.”
“And the less immediate result?” Cadmia pressed.
Alizarin, knowing the answer already, curled himself against Cadmia and tucked his face against her hair.
“Magic can change who we are,” Umber answered, glancing at Hansa, thinking of their long conversations about how their bond may have affected him, and how once it was broken he might look back on the last few weeks with a completely different view. A fleshbond was only supposed to affect physical attraction, but who could say anything for sure? “Alizarin has traits I would say are impossible for an Abyssi, which must be enabled by his connection to the Numen through Dioxazine. If he loses that connection . . . it may be for the best that he won’t be able to stay on this plane, since it’s likely he will turn around and eat us all without a second thought.”
Alizarin lifted his striking turquoise eyes, and Umber could see sorrow and fear clearly etched on his face. He knew.
“People keep telling me Abyssi can’t plan, either,” Cadmia pointed out, “but we’ve seen them do it. Maybe some Abyssi, like Alizarin, are just different.”
“No one said Abyssi were stupid,” Alizarin interrupted, his voice holding a touch of growl that Umber thought came from sorrow, not anger. Actually, Umber thought, many people have said that, though he also knew it was false. “Abyssi do not plan unless they need to, because planning is boring. But Abyssi can hunt. Stalk. Play a game. Some make mancers. But the world is full of food and fun, so planning isn’t needed most of the time. Because food and fun are all that matters. And not being eaten.”
The last words were muffled, spoken as he once again nuzzled at Cadmia’s hair, acknowledging the irony. Obviously, to this Abyssi, many more things mattered.
Umber wasn’t often speechless, but what else could he say? He had no power to hold Alizarin in this realm, or to protect his connection to the divine one.
Alizarin swished his tail once more, then shook himself, smoothing his fur in a gesture of anxiety Umber saw too often from him. “We do need those,” Alizarin said, changing the subject from the abstract threat to their more immediate needs. “We came here for food and rest. Is there food?”
“I can barter for mortal food downstairs,” Umber said. “Can you hunt without attracting notice?”
“I can.”
“Umber, how much time have you spent in the Fens?” Hansa asked. Umber smiled despite the circumstances. He had wondered when that question was coming.
“It was a favorite haunt when I was younger,” he admitted. “I’ve moved up in the world since, but I still know my way around well enough.”
He started toward the door. Cadmia called after him. “Can you tell us about yourself?” she asked. When he turned to look at her, she met his gaze directly, despite the hint of new color that rose on her cheeks. “When you get back, I mean. I’m curious about you, and about the spawn in general, but even Alizarin doesn’t know much about your kind.”
Again her hand drifted toward her abdomen, an unconsciously protective gesture.
Umber nodded. He would have to decide how much to tell her. He had spent most of his life actively cultivating the belief that his kind didn’t exist, not deliberately sharing details, but there were some things Cadmia should know.
He had time to think as he sought the ever-present yet ever-changing flea market, which was half inside and half outside, wedged in a sheltered alley between three buildings. Individual merchants lit their booths with oil lamps or hooded candles just enough so the wares were visible, but the faces of merchants and customers were left dark.
Umber found a woman selling simple food, and bought a loaf of dense barley bread, goat cheese, and smoked fish. The woman looked particularly down on her luck, and normally Umber would have deliberately overpaid for the purchases, but he wanted to avoid drawing attention. From another merchant, he purchased warm woolen blankets, which were slightly worn but clean and serviceable.
He was on his way out of the market when the glint of candlelight on steel caught his attention. The merchant had his wares arranged on a blanket, which could be rolled up and hauled away over his shoulder at a moment’s notice.
One more purchase, and Umber returned to the others. Alizarin was still gone, hunting, but perhaps that was for the best.
This story might be better to tell without an Abyssi nearby.
Once he and Hansa and Cadmia had gathered for their simple meal, Umber contemplated how to begin. As he thought, he watched Cadmia pick at her food despondently, uninterested but grudgingly forcing it down because it was better than nothing. Umber thought she should be able to tolerate human food soon, as her body became used to being back on the mortal plane, but in the meantime, he hoped Alizarin could bring something back from his hunt.
“My story isn’t as sweet nor my father as solicitous nor my mother as loving as you and Rin,” Umber began at last.
He still found it hard to credit the relationship between Cadmia and Alizarin, but that was only because he had never heard of an Abyssi being able to care for anyone but itself. Abyssi and Abyssumancers were drawn to each other, but that was a physical draw, closer to the fleshbond Umber shared with Hansa than the emotional connection Cadmia and Alizarin shared—and besides, Cadmia wasn’t a mancer. She had chosen her relationship with the Abyssi, as she had chosen her pregnancy, entering into each situation with her eyes open.
“My mother was a member of the One-Twenty-Six,” Umber continued. “A lieutenant, actually, named Bonnie Holland.”
Cadmia had known that already, but Hansa visibly started, then blanched, his imagination filling in the blanks accurately enough. He already knew part of the story, because it was told as a cautionary tale to newer guards. Bonnie hadn’t done anything wrong, and what had happened to her could have happened to any man—except for the pregnancy, of course—but President Indathrone had used it as an excuse to stop accepting women into the 126, and to start forcibly retiring those who remained.
“Holland went as part of a team to investigate a report of suspicious activity—strange noises, missing livestock, the usual indications of an Abyssumancer who isn’t being careful enough.”
Abyssi inherited memories from their sires. To a lesser extent, so did spawn. Umber’s mother had never told him the tale of his conception, but he remembered it with the brilliant horror of a fever dream.
Walking up the step, careful not to slip on the ice from a recent storm, beneath a gray and hazy sky. Knocking. Nervous, despite the half-dozen others she was with. They were all well trained with the weapons they wore, but they also knew the damage an Abyssumancer could inflict.
“They were ill-prepared to deal with an Abyssumancer whose carelessness had to do with the fact that he had spent the last week building power to open a rift. I imagine he assumed that, with an Abyssi at his command, he wouldn’t need to fear Quin reprisals.”
Bonnie was the only one who had the sight and so could see the black void that opened behind the Abyssumancer’s left shoulder. She shoved one of her team back—a young man who had only recently been promoted to full soldier, out on his first assignment—and ordered him to run to the compound to warn the others and get more support.
He hesitated for a heartbeat. He knew it would be over before he returned, that she was trying to save his life. A human being could not fight a monster from the Other realms.
Bonnie lunged at the Abyssumancer. The rift would close when he died. The action threw the mancer off-balance and disrupted his ceremony, but not before the beast stepped into the mortal realm.
It was on the others before Bonnie could take her next breath. A wash of blood later, it turned to her where she was still grappling with the mancer. Its claws dragged deep gauges in her skin as it pulled her away from the Abyssumancer.
“Wait!”
When the Abyssumancer called to the invisible beast, Bonnie thought for one foolish instant that he intended to save her. She was wrong.
“Don’t kill her yet. I need her to tell me who reported me. As soon as I’m finished here.”
“The mancer stopped his Abyssi from killing her so he could interrogate her. But first he had to complete the ritual to bind the Abyssi to this realm.”
If the Abyssi had wanted, it could have helped the mancer create a stable link between them, as Alizarin had helped Dioxazine. Umber’s sire, however, had had no interest in being a mancer’s slave, so he resisted the link, making the ritual a painstaking and time-consuming process.
“There are a limited number of ways that an Abyssi kept from feeding will entertain itself. Eventually the Abyssumancer lost control, and the Abyssi killed him and was pulled back to its native plane, but not before it had raped . . . my mother.”
As Umber fought against memories that weren’t his own, Hansa reached over and put a hand on his. The contact, the opposite of the viciousness in his mind, made him jump.
He pulled away from Hansa to avoid getting distracted, and caught a scrap of thought from the guard:
Stupid, Hansa chastised himself. Why would you touch someone as he’s describing his mother’s rape?
It was an irritating misread of the situation, though this wasn’t a good time to correct Hansa’s misconceptions.
The fleshbond between them affected the purely human Hansa most, but Umber felt the pull of it as well. He wouldn’t wither, starve, and succumb to madness without the touch of Hansa’s skin, as Hansa would without Umber, but Hansa’s presence was like the wafting scent of rich chocolate in the air. His touch stirred hunger no matter how sated Umber had previously been.
Given a choice between describing this story and tumbling into bed with Hansa, Umber’s preference should have been obvious—but it wasn’t, not to Hansa, because he had been raised to think of sex as a dirty indulgence best met in secret with one’s lawfully-linked partner. It would never occur to him that passion with a willing and tender lover was exactly what Umber wanted after dragging his mind through these memories.
Instead, he forced himself to continue the story. “After the attack, Holland was given leave from the guard with a generous pension.”
After Hansa had been the only survivor of a similar attack, he had used Bonnie’s deal as the basis for his own demands. Hansa could live quite well in Kavet for the rest of his life even if he chose never to return to work.
Hansa should have died that day, when Xaz had summoned Alizarin. Umber should have left well enough alone when he saw the bloodied guard struggling to lift himself from the cold street. But he couldn’t. He had meddled. He had pushed enough Abyssal power into Hansa to stop the bleeding and heal the wounds. He had made plenty of excuses at the time, and even more since—oh it was tempting to blame the Numini who had manipulated them all—but the heart of the matter was that he had seen a downed Quin guard in the same uniform his mother had worn, and despite knowing the action would cause a bond between them that would give Hansa a dangerous amount of power over him, Umber had been too stupid to walk away.
“Bonnie became a recluse by her own choice before she realized she was pregnant. She kept the child. Bore it. Nursed it.” Abyss-spawn nursed on blood, but his Quin mother hadn’t hesitated. “About the time I was learning to walk and talk, she dumped me at the doorstep of an Order of A’hknet witch, walked off and never came back.”
Cadmia and Hansa both looked at him with horror as he narrated that portion of the story, but even when he had been a child, Umber had understood. After all, he had his mother’s memory of his conception. He wondered sometimes if she would have cared for him without any magical coercion, but she never had the opportunity to make that decision, so as the Abyssal taint faded from her so did her dedication to her unwanted spawn.
“At the time she intended to leave Kavet on the first ship that would take her. I don’t know if she made it, or if she died like rumors say she did.”
He stopped with his personal history then. He had known Cadmia when they were both children in the Order of A’nknet, though there was no reason she would remember him. She had been the daughter of the famous Scarlet Paynes, a much-admired dancer and the highest paid courtesan in Kavet; Umber had been the scrawny kid no one claimed, who lived off scraps left behind by the sailors and merchants until he finally came into his power as an adolescent.
/> He continued with more important, general facts.
“Eventually human-born Abyss-spawn do learn to eat the same things as humans, but the first few months they nurse—blood, not milk, which at least means Alizarin can feed the child as well as you can.” Cadmia twitched involuntarily when he said “blood,” but like his own mother, she would do what she had to. She didn’t question it. Was that just her practical nature, Umber wondered, or the unborn child’s magic manipulating her? Unlike Bonnie, Cadmia had willingly chosen to conceive her child. That changed everything, didn’t it?
“My first solid food was strawberries,” Umber recalled aloud. “In summertime they grew in my mother’s backyard.” That one was a pleasant memory.
“After that . . . well, the spawn are among the more powerful creatures in Kavet,” he said, without false modesty or arrogance. “We are human enough to hide the Abyssal taint from Quin soldiers with the sight, but Abyssi enough that we are substantially sturdier than other humans. We can feed on any of the coins of the Abyss, or eat human food. And in my experience, we are often more human—more able to control our Abyssi side and the impulses associated with it—than Abyssumancers.
“Which brings us to the dangers your child will face.” He gazed down at the scraps of bread left on his plate, because he didn’t want to meet either Hansa’s or Cadmia’s gaze.
“The two largest dangers to the spawn are bonding, and Abyssumancers. A full bond usually takes some form of intent, but partial bonds can be formed through accidents. Simple favors. Any unequal transaction.” Like saving the life of a Quin guard. “The Abyssal power seeks a mortal connection. A mortal granted one boon has the ability to demand another, and another, and each one ties spawn and bond-partner tighter, until harm to one is harm to the other.” Since humans were significantly more fragile than spawn, such a bond could be a significant weakness.