Chapter 51

  As soon as Hitasa shoved the paper in Michel’s face, he reflexively looked away. It was a habit ingrained in quite a few people, even humans. The dragons wanted publication to be difficult for the average humanoid, so they trained their subjects to avert their eyes at the first sign of unexpected writing. It was part of all primary education. There were similar lessons when it came to listening, training elves and beastkin to stop up their ears if they were ever surprised by unwanted rhetoric.

  The indoctrination wasn’t perfect, but it often forced a reader or listener to think about what they were about to see or hear before making the choice to take part in someone’s publication attempt. Most went along with the training because they did not want to be forcibly made party to the rogue words of a dissident.

  Michel tried to act nonchalant, as if he hadn’t just reacted on trained impulse. “Is that all you want?” he said. “A spell? With what Dalex can do, I’m shocked you would care to—”

  He stopped midsentence, actually reading the word of power Hitasa had written down for him. He read it again. Squinting, he read it a third time. A laugh escaped his lips, almost fearful.

  “No, I can’t—” he started, “I shouldn’t have— No, no, no, no, no, you can’t show this to anyone else in my staff. You—” He paused. “I—” He paused again. “I would be burned in Drakko’s belly if he knew I had even looked at these words. What are you trying to do, call every dragon in Gaia to personally dine on your innards?”

  “Read it again,” Hitasa ordered him. “Make sure it’s firm in your mind. And you will show it to the rest of your household.”

  He shook his head and backed away from her. “No, I won’t look at it again.”

  Hitasa reached out to grab him and pull him back, but her fingers only touched his publicized barrier. She couldn’t even get ahold of his clothes.

  A wide smile split Michel’s lips. “You’re mad, she-elf. And you don’t have Dalex’s power, even if you’re carrying around one of his weapons.”

  Unfortunately for him, during Ring’s lesson on how to use the all-purpose gel, it had also taught Hitasa a little more about what a charm of protection could do. “Ring, shoot him in the foot.”

  The device floating above her head manifested and pointed one of its protrusions down at Michel’s left foot. It flashed and a loud bang assaulted Hitasa’s ears. The projectile smashed straight through Michel’s barrier, shattering his defense and blowing through Michel’s foot. It left a wide bloody hole that continued through the floor into the room below.

  Michel’s face went white and then he let out an ear-splitting yelp. The yelp became a scream of pain as he turned and tried to limp away from her. Hitasa grabbed him by the collar, no more barrier in the way to stop her. Now she was an elf and he was a human, and elves had always been stronger than humans.

  She turned him around so he could see the paper again. “Read it again.”

  “Fine, just… just unhand me.”

  “READ IT AGAIN!”

  Hitasa held the paper back up, and his eyes scanned over it one last time.

  “Good,” she said. “Now—”

  Michel opened his mouth and began to shout, “Torsclap—”

  Hitasa threw him against a wall, cutting him off. He broke straight through the wall and into what appeared to be a lavish bedroom. A human woman sat on a bed at the center of the room, holding a handkerchief to one eye. She was dressed all in finery, indicating she was the woman of the manor, Michel’s wife. Melisende, Ring’s map had named her.

  Perfect.

  Melisende looked down at Michel, lying on his back on the floor. He was covered in dust, paint chips, and wood splinters. He rolled over, moaning as his foot trickled blood. Melisende looked up as Hitasa slipped through the hole she had made in the wall and stood with them in the room. Hitasa still held the paper with kirtevas’s definition.

  “Good, you’re here. I want you to read this.”

  Hitasa walked up to Melisende and put the paper up where the woman could read it. She also looked away reflexively, but Hitasa grabbed her by the hair and forced the human’s head forward. Either the woman had never publicized a barrier or hadn’t activated it recently.

  “Just read it.”

  “Yes, yes,” Melisende squealed. Her eyes scanned across the page once, then a second time.

  “Why did you show me this?” she asked.

  “So you would remember it. Call your staff. They’re going to read it too.”

  “I can’t do that. You know what this word could—”

  “Ring,” Hitasa said, “shoot Michel in his other foot.”

  Another bang went off. Michel screamed once more, clutching the carpeted floor with both hands as if he was riding a horse bareback, clinging for life and sanity.

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  Hitasa glared at Melisende. “Your foot will be next.”

  After a moment, Michel got control of his voice enough to shout, “JUST DO IT, MILLY!” through panicking breaths.

  Melisende stood up and walked quickly but surprisingly primly, her hands clasped in front of her, out of the room and around to the top of the staircase. Hitasa watched her go and then stood at the hole in the wall, waiting for her to make the wrong move. One of the remaining house servants was already standing at the bottom of the stairs, curious about the commotion.

  Melisende called down the stairs, “Pika, would you please gather the staff. My husband and I have an announcement to make.”

  “Thank you,” Hitasa said. “Now, you may tend to your husband’s wounds if you wish. Or not, I don’t care. Just don’t get in my way.”

  Hitasa stepped back through the hole in the wall, pushing Melisende out of the way to walk back down the stairs.

  She waited at the bottom step for the rest of Michel’s household to arrive, considering what she would do if the servants and remaining bodyguards refused to read the paper.

  There was one law of draconic society that stood above all others, though truly, the dragons had not come up with the law themselves. It was older than their rule, older even than the oldest known elven kings and queens.

  Thou shalt not use magic to publicize magic.

  Where averting one’s eyes from gazing upon unexpected paper being shoved in one’s face was trained behavior, the prime law was ancient taboo. People broke it occasionally, but very few could get believers to go along with them. Anyone who tried was usually put down quickly by whatever authority was in power.

  What Hitasa was trying to do was a gamble, but she felt her position was unique, and her circumstances extreme. She had an overwhelming enemy to defeat and a very powerful ally supporting her.

  The eight remaining members of Michel’s staff finally congregated around her in the foyer, uncertain why they had been called. There were six servants and two bodyguards. At Hitasa’s request, Melisende reappeared and made sure they understood they were to listen to Hitasa and take her orders, at which point Hitasa held up the paper for them to see.

  Having been primed for the experience, the staff all leaned in to get a closer look at the writing without having to overcome any built-in aversion.

  They read it.

  They read it a second time.

  Expressions of shock and horror ran through the small crowd. Many of them turned away. One of the bodyguards cursed and walked out of the mansion. But they had seen it and read it twice. It was the kind of thing that demanded two reads. First, the text was mysterious. The reader wouldn’t know what they were getting into. Then, as realization began to dawn, the reader couldn’t help but scan over it again to be sure they had seen it right.

  And so Hitasa’s band of believers grew to ten.

  She tested the spell, holding a finger against the back of the flier and running it over the text of the spell while chanting, “Kirtevas writes my script across the sky.”

  The script appeared in the air next to her, a quivering line of flowing black ink, faint and difficult to read. She could only make out what it said by squinting, and some of the characters bled into each other. As she gained more believers, the text would become clearer and larger. Eventually, it would probably do exactly as the definition suggested, becoming writing, inked upon the sky itself. For now, it was simply a little bubble that followed her around as she walked.

  “That will be all, everyone,” Hitasa said to those still gathered in the foyer. She gave them a shallow but stiff standing bow and added, “Thank you, and I apologize for startling you. I promise I will not misuse this power.”

  With that, she walked through the foyer door and out to the front of the mansion. To her shock, Dalex descended from the sky to meet her. He was covered in dried black blood. He settled to the ground and Hitasa caught a whiff of dead animal smell. Seventh came down from the sky to join him, and she smelled even worse. The demon Balgoth was nowhere to be seen.

  Hitasa scrunched up her nose and stepped back from them. “You’re done already?”

  “I just finished,” Dalex said. “I dropped off a bunch of expensive hydra parts outside Dava’s house and Seventh told me you were here at Mike’s place. I was a little worried something might have happened, but you look unharmed. Is everything okay?”

  “All is well,” Hitasa said. “Mike?”

  “Michel,” Dalex explained.

  Hitasa wasn’t familiar with the nickname, but she recognized how it fit. It was a little off-putting to hear Dalex and Seventh could so easily track her location, but it also wasn’t surprising. The map Ring had showed her made it clear that both humans—though Seventh always referred to herself as an android, whatever that was—kept information on everything. Knowing Hitasa’s location was probably just a byproduct of being thorough, and Hitasa wanted Dalex to be thorough. Castreier and the Wolf Brigade would attack again eventually. Dalex was the resistance’s only hope of staying alive when that happened.

  “What brought you out here?” Dalex asked. “I would have thought Mike was one of the last people you wanted to see.”

  Hitasa smiled. “I’m enacting a plan, and I needed his help. Watch this.” She opened her flier so it showed the manifesto and traced her finger across its first line while speaking the spell, “Kirtevas writes my script across the sky.”

  The words “There is shame in our history” appeared in the air next to her. The text looked slightly bigger and somewhat more clearly defined, though it was still hard to read. Dalex and Seventh hearing the spell had probably made it just a little more effective.

  “Very cool,” Dalex said. Then he paused in thought, the spell’s utility slowly dawning on him. His reaction was so different from everyone else’s. “Very cool. Can this do what I think it can do?”

  Hitasa nodded. “I’m going to show it to even more people. The average citizen of Batulan-bar walking down the street isn’t going to give me the time of day, but if the other humans of the city are anything like Mike—” Using the nickname got a chuckle out of Dalex. “—I can use your name to convince them to read my spell definition and help me publicize it.”

  Dalex grinned. “I like it. Go to town on those sorry bastards. Though, I’m curious. What happened to that other spell you want to publicize? Starfall, I called it. I think you said its name was—”

  “Astregn,” Hitasa provided. “Astregn means the crushing star. That will come next. Once kirtevas is improved enough, I’ll use it to publicize astregn.”

  “Smart.” Dalex put his hands on his hips. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

  Hitasa felt her cheeks grow hot. She hoped it wasn’t showing. She tried to keep her composure and asked, “What do you mean by that?”

  “I’m just glad I got to see the real you. Smart, determined, resourceful. I saw bits of it when I met you. I could tell you were working hard, though you were struggling. But I’m betting this is what you were like when you were with Sitoa.”

  She stared at him, once again remembering the night before. The quiet intensity with which is his eyes bored into her own. He was looking at her the same way right now.

  And he kept on looking at her like that.

  And Hitasa kept on looking back at him, not sure what to say. “Thank you” didn’t seem sufficient or correct.

  Hitasa was saved from having to say anything at all by Seventh. She suddenly stepped in front of Dalex and said, “I must interrupt. I have found them.”

  “Found who?” Dalex asked, chuckling. “I thought you were an android. Don’t be so cryptic.”

  “I have found the mutts.”

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