A wet snapping of branches from behind interrupted them as a beast thrashed about in the swamp. Balthasar spun, half-expecting to see the hippoguarox, head lowered and charging. Instead, Aemilia emerged from the dense trees on the other side of the fen. Her sweaty horse splashed through the mud and the shallow water, struggling to keep its feet.
How reckless, Balthasar thought. One wrong step and the horse will break a leg, throwing her into the muck. Miraculously, Aemilia crossed the fen without harming herself or her mount and drew up panting beside them.
“What are you doing here?” Balthasar spluttered.
“I followed you,” Aemilia grinned down at him.
“The jungle road takes hours. We’ve only been here a few minutes.”
“I left before the hunt, went as far as I remembered the way, and then waited for Vezza to fly over.”
“Clever,” Rehmalika snorted.
“Impetuous,” Balthasar interjected.
Aemilia slid off the horse and splashed into the fen. She moved with the admirable grace of a warrior, agile and lithe, finding her footing easily in the treacherous terrain. “Is that one of the spiders?” Aemilia asked, coming to stand between Balthasar and Rehmalika.
“It is,” Balthasar said, exasperated.
Aemilia prodded it with two fingers. The spider didn’t move.
“Careful,” Balthasar said.
Aemilia poked it harder. As the trio watched, pores in the furry discs popped open. Quick as a flash, the insect’s abdomen reinflated and it scampered away toward the trunk of the tree. Aemilia giggled.
Balthasar put a hand to his temple and shook his head.
“Can we harvest one?” Rehmalika asked. Her tone was clipped, her fascination buried behind her mask of propriety now that a daughter of House Stormcloud was among them. “I need to see the anatomy for myself.”
“I have drawings I can share,” Balthasar said, “They will be much more detailed than what we’re able to observe in the field.”
But Rehmalika was already sloshing toward the warren, belt knife in hand. Balthasar hastened after her, the rest of their party struggling to keep up.
“How common are these warrens?” Rehmalika asked over her shoulder as she approached the pile of rocks, branches, and jungle detritus.
“I’ve documented eight in a five-mile radius of the fens,” Balthasar panted. “They seem to prefer the humidity and the proximity to open water.”
Rehmalika picked up a stone from the top of the warren and chucked it into the fen with a splash.
“What are you doing?” Balthasar exclaimed.
Rehmalika threw off another stone, before looking at him. “Finding you a bigger
spider. One worth our time.”
Balthasar cast a sideways glance at Aemilia that he hoped conveyed the sentiment, we will talk about this later, then hurried to Rehmalika’s side.
“We shouldn’t do this,” he said. “It violates the institute’s policies and the imperial edicts. We’re allowed to study aetherial creatures if we don’t disturb them.”
“I won’t tell, if you won’t,” Rehmalika said. “Besides, this could be quite the discovery. If we could use the pre-webbing to stabilize a focus for aetherial magic, it wouldn’t have to be illegal.”
Balthasar stared at her. “You’re an Independent, aren’t you?”
“Keep your voice down,” Rehmalika hissed, her eyes traveling to the two soldiers in heated conversation with Aemilia. Virgil would be irate when he learned his younger sister had followed them out here.
But Rehmalika? An Independent? Balthasar had assumed the Bronzewaters were Imperialists. The Emperor, himself, had elevated House Bronzewater for its role in bringing Flynt into the empire. Virgil’s older sister was the empress. This wasn’t a research outing for the Airene, this was a rebel mission right under the nose of devout loyalists.
What is Rehmalika’s game?
Thoughts of intrigue and deception distracted Balthasar from Rehmalika’s methodical destruction of the warren. Spiders skittered from the pile. Just a few at first, but soon there were dozens. His earlier estimates of how many spiders might inhabit a single warren were much too low. Despite the long hours spent observing these creatures, the sensation of dozens of agitated spiders crawling across his boots made him shiver. Still, he observed that the individuals fleeing the disturbance increased in size. The smaller ones lived primarily in the trees, while the more mature spiders lived below the rocks. These were the size of his outstretched hand.
“Catch that one,” Rehmalika gasped as a dinner plate-sized Dryad Spider scurried from the warren pile. Balthasar hesitated, and the spider disappeared into the brush. Another one emerged from the pile, flitting across the mud toward where Aemilia stood.
“Grab it,” Rehmalika shouted. Aemilia did. In one smooth motion she scooped up the fleeing spider, holding either side of the abdomen as it thrashed. Air hissing in and out of its discs made a violent whistling noise that forced Balthasar to grit his teeth. Rehmalika was already moving, warren forsaken. Balthasar trailed after her.
“Flip it over,” she instructed Aemilia.
Aemilia did her best to rotate the spider upside down while holding the hooked forelegs and fangs away from her arms. The result was an awkward spin that caused her to cross her arms.
“Balthasar,” Rehmalika said, “you’re the expert. Cut it open.”
Balthasar took his field knife and opened the spider’s abdomen, excitement overcoming trepidation. He’d never seen a specimen of this size. He had strict orders not to disturb the warrens as part of his grant, and he wasn’t keen on the idea, anyway. But here was an opportunity to operate on a specimen large enough to prove the hypotheses he’d formulated over the summer. He wouldn’t miss out.
The spider died quickly once Balthasar inserted the blade into the junction of abdomen and cephalothorax. He made a precise cut back toward the spinnerets to lay open the whole interior. There was the venom sac, and there the bilious organ that made the pre-webbing fibrous. Nestled between the two was the pre-webbing sac. Balthasar severed the connection between it and the organ so that none of the bile might penetrate and corrupt the aether material in the spider’s death throes. The pre-webbing sac was the size of a copparch, or copper arch coin, and Balthasar removed it gingerly, placing it in an oilskin pouch for further study. He felt giddy. This was plenty of fluid to decant and distill to test his theories. The institute would be thrilled, and he, Balthasar Balefire, would contribute to the World System’s knowledge of aetherial magic.
“Should we find another?” Rehmalika asked.
Balthasar wanted to, but voiced the responsible objection, “I could lose my funding if someone revealed these methods. Plus, the spider’s venom is more potent given their size. I don’t want to risk handling more than we need.”
“You’ll need enough pre-webbing to corroborate your findings,” Rehmalika said, smiling. “Besides, Aemilia handles that one expertly.”
“How venomous?” Aemilia’s voice quavered, as she held the dead spider further away.
Balthasar forced a return smile. Rehmalika’s desire for answers at Aemilia’s expense troubled him. But one look into her deep, silver eyes quashed his doubts. In one morning, this remarkable woman had given him the tools to complete the research he’d been stewing over for months. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but without these large pre-webbing sacs, his research had hit a dead end.
Aemilia cleared her throat. “Can I let go of the spider now?” she asked.
“Yes,” Balthasar said. “And yes, one or two more would allow me to complete and replicate enough experiments that I can be more certain of the scientific accuracy of the results.”
Rehmalika stood and stretched her limbs. Balthasar tried not to stare. Muddy bog water dripped from her, catching the light in scintillating patterns. As if on cue, Virgil’s swamp hounds brayed off to the east. Balthasar had nearly forgotten about the ongoing hunt to honor Rehmalika’s betrothal to his cousin.
She is betrothed to Virgil Stormcloud, Balthasar chided himself, and a confidant of the Airene. She was also a scholar and that quickened his pulse. She had secrets, too. She wanted the empire out of Flynt, or at least wanted aetherial magic legalized. While Balthasar considered himself apolitical, he supported her agenda whole-heartedly.
Aemilia cleared her throat, laying a hand on Balthasar’s arm. He jumped, momentarily forgetting she was standing beside him.
“This is a bad idea, Bale,” Aemilia said, “you’d see that if you weren’t so besotted.”
Balthasar coughed to hide his surprise at his transparency. “I am not besotted.”
Aemilia rolled her eyes. “She’s putting all your research at risk. Rest assured if the institute learns how you got these spiders, she won’t be the one to suffer their wrath.”
“She’s also giving me the tools to revolutionize our understanding of aetherial magic.”
Aemilia let out a long, exasperated sigh.
Rehmalika dug through the warren. Balthasar watched her with admiration while Aemilia glowered, pouting beside him. The soldiers stood halfway between the two women, debating who would fly Aemilia back to the estate. Spiders skittered from the disturbed safety of their warren.
“Catch that one,” Rehmalika said. Aemilia made a half-hearted attempt before Balthasar scooped up the hissing dolophone, barely avoiding the creature’s wiggling fangs.
“Bale, “Aemilia struck a plaintive tone, “we really should–”
With a roar, the hippoguarox burst from the forest and careened into the swamp, the leathery skin of its sides heaving with exertion. It bled from a deep wound on one flank; the droplets swirled in the murky bog water. Its breath steamed despite the humid morning. The beast splashed toward them in a mad frenzy.
The red soldier near Balthasar reacted first, leaping into the air and swapping with his dragon in a crackle of lightning. The hippoguarox slid to a sloppy halt, snorting, when it noticed their group. It stamped its cloven hooves, spraying muck and water plants, and shook its tangled mane. Balthasar dropped the wriggling spider, fear tightening his chest. He had never seen one in person. There was a feline intelligence in its green eyes.
The red dragon bore down on it from above. The hippoguarox veered sideways at the last moment, and the dragon crashed into the swamp where the beast had just been. The creature ran twenty yards, then blinked out of existence. Balthasar counted to ten. The hippoguarox reappeared on the other side of the fen, its amber-studded collar glowing with the magical discharge.
It resembled a giant bison, hairless except for its bristling ruff, and instead of horns, two tentacles swept back from its head toward its bifurcated tail. Somehow these gangly protuberances interacted with aetherial and astral magic and allowed the beast to skip back and forth between Holoxia and the material plane. Unfortunately for this hippoguarox, the collar put on by the hunters limited its time in Holoxia to ten seconds. It made for a sporting hunt, so Balthasar had been told, though he’d never participated.
He would have loved to study the creature and its aetherial abilities, but mid-hunt was not the time. It saddened him that this specimen would not survive the day, even though the species hovered near extinction from overhunting. Hippoguaroxen were not especially delicious, nor were its body parts valued, so it was the pure sport of pursuing them that had led to their decline.
If I could study a living specimen, I might find a reason to preserve the species, Balthasar thought.
The beast turned toward Balthasar and bellowed loud enough to make his ears ring. Balthasar leapt into the air and switched places, Vezza storming out from Holoxia, belching steam. As Vezza wheeled to get a better angle, the hunting party emerged from the jungle. Vezza heard the baying of Virgil’s swamp hounds as they broke from the cover of the trees, their webbed feet carrying them swiftly through the shallow water. When Vezza came around, Virgil and a coterie of soldiers were splashing into the fen. Virgil immediately swapped with his red Snarfallow, recognizable from one snaggle-toothed fang. Snarfallow sucked in a lungful of air and unleashed a gout of flame toward the hippoguarox.
The creature disappeared, revealing Aemilia standing behind the missing bulk. She dove into the water to avoid being scorched by her brother’s dragon. Vezza waited, feeling Balthasar’s horror, but Aemilia emerged moments later, spluttering and cursing. The hippoguarox reappeared near the edge of the fen, not ten yards from Rehmalika. The remaining soldier drew his sword and placed himself between the charging beast and his liege lord’s betrothed. Snarfallow inhaled once more.
Is he insane? Vezza wondered. He’ll roast them all.
Vezza dove for Snarfallow at the same moment the hippoguarox charged Rehmalika. The cry of “For Stormcloud!” echoed off the water as the hippoguarox met the brown soldier from Rehmalika’s retinue, while Vezza barreled into Snarfallow. The dragon’s flame went wide, scorching a stand of Ipe trees dense with tanglevine. Soon a patch of jungle was burning. Balthasar wanted to see what had become of Rehmalika, but Snarfallow, crest fluttering with agitation, lunged toward Vezza. The blue dragon climbed for the higher position, readying its breath weapon of boiling water and steam. Snarfallow did not charge. Instead, he rumbled a warning, bits of flame dripping from gaping jaws, then turned his attention back toward the hippoguarox, which had once again disappeared.
Vezza surveyed the scene. Two red dragons and a purple circled the fen looking for their prey. The broken body of the brown soldier lay a few yards from the decimated warren. Solaurumakhti emerged from a bank of clouds, lightning singing at her lips. The soldier’s sacrifice had given Rehmalika enough time to swap and put distance between herself and the hippoguarox, which was just reappearing on the north edge of the swamp.
Vezza saw it first and dove toward the elusive beast. The other dragons realized what was happening and wheeled around, but the fen wasn’t large and dragons eager for glory crowded the sky above it. Vezza exhaled a gout of boiling water and steam, catching the beast near its hindquarters, melting one of its portal appendages and burning the thick skin. It unleashed a chilling cry and disappeared. Vezza whirled and counted. Ten seconds elapsed. The hippoguarox did not reappear.
Had it died in Holoxia? Unlikely, plus the collar would still bring back a corpse after the allotted time. Twenty seconds went by, then thirty. The dragons grew anxious, wheeling about in the sky, calling to one another in reptilian screeches. Vezza scanned the fens.
Had it reappeared in the forest? One of Virgil’s men, the purple, clearly thought so, for he landed and swapped back to his human form. Standing in thigh-deep water, the soldier scanned the borders of the swamp for any signs of the beast. Snarfallow broke their quiet trepidation with an ear-splitting battle cry, and dove. Vezza followed the arc of the dive and saw the hippoguarox. It had reappeared directly behind Aemilia. Vezza’s breath had melted part of the collar, which must account for the prolonged absence. Vezza dove. Aemilia noticed two dragons and realized what was happening. Sword in hand, she spun to face the charging beast. Her sword would do little against the thick hide. The dragons were too far away, and the hippoguarox so close.
The beast closed the gap between itself and Aemilia. Balthasar’s exhortations for haste echoed in Vezza’s brain. Aemilia leapt into the air at the last moment, stabbing down at the charging beast, but she couldn’t jump high enough in the water to clear the beast’s full height. It caught her and flipped her into the air a second before Snarfallow’s fiery breath blasted into the creature. Dragon arms had limited dexterity, and so when Vezza was only a few feet from the tumbling Aemilia, he swapped.
Balthasar found himself catapulted from the torpor of Holoxia into the super-heated air of Flynt. He only had time to stretch out his arms before he collided in mid-air with Aemilia’s falling body. The force of their collision dazed him, but the impact was hard enough that they sailed safely over Snarfallow’s killing blow to splash into the swamp a few feet away. Balthasar tumbled and spluttered, taking in a mouthful of the terrible brackish water. When he stopped rolling, he thrashed about for Aemilia. She floated face down a few feet away. He rushed to her side, pulling her from the swamp, dragging her back toward dry land. When no air filled her lungs, he breathed into her mouth, forcing her lungs to work like a bellows with his hands. Long moments went by before Aemilia spluttered and coughed, vomiting algae-laden water.
Balthasar heaved a sigh of relief. Aemilia’s eyes fluttered open, and he smiled down at her. She smiled back, but lost consciousness before he could think of anything to say.
Later that afternoon, Balthasar slumped against the wall in the hallway outside Aemilia’s chambers as Virgil stomped away down the stairs. Lady Vanessa Stormcloud had thrown them both out after they proved unable to cease their bickering at the bedside. Balthasar sank to the floor, his head in his hands, and waited for some news.
She wasn’t supposed to be there, the thought brought him no comfort. In Virgil’s enthusiasm for the hunt, he had nearly roasted his sister.
The purple dragon, Calioptrix, had carried the injured Aemilia back from the fens. Despite Balthasar’s feelings that Vezza had saved Aemilia’s life from Snarfallow’s rash exhalations, Virgil had refused to let Vezza bring her home. Rehmalika had collected more spiders before swapping with Solaurumakhti and flying away in the chaotic aftermath of the battle. The red soldier brought his brown friend home, leaving Vezza and Balthasar to get back to the estate on their own. The following hours had been a whirlwind of doctors, mystics, and family members as they tried to revive the unconscious Aemilia. So far, nothing had worked.
Balthasar did not realize he was crying until Rehmalika called his name. He looked up to see her ascending the stairs, holding a sack. He scanned her face looking for concern, sympathy, excitement, anything, but her draconic stoicism was firmly in place and her face betrayed nothing of her thoughts.
“Where were you?” he demanded.
“There were enough dragons for one hippoguarox,” she said.
“Not enough to slay it before it killed a soldier and injured Aemilia. That soldier died protecting you.”
Rehmalika shrugged “Will Aemilia recover?”
“What do you care?” Balthasar bit off the words. Her nonchalance infuriated him. Then he chided himself. He could not speak this way to one of her position and not expect punishment. Do I care? He wasn’t sure, which meant he still did.
“What happened to Aemilia is unfortunate. You reveal too much of your feelings for her, however.”
Balthasar nodded. It was unseemly for a dragon to cry. And the strict social hierarchy of draconic culture prohibited Bale and Aemilia from ever acting on any feelings they might share for one another.
Rehmalika crouched next to him. “What you and I discovered today, could change the understanding of aetherial magic.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “It might even allow dragons to throw off the emperor’s yoke.”
In the pandemonium of the hunt and Aemilia’s injuries, Balthasar had forgotten his revelation in the fens that Rehmalika was an Independent.
“I’m not interested,” Balthasar said.
“In what?”
“In your crusade.”
“Not even if it meant freedom from this rigid imperial constraint?”
Balthasar studied her face “You only want a free Flynt if it’s ruled by House Bronzewater.
Rehmalika shrugged, unconcerned at being called out in this manner. “Perhaps we can both have what we want.”
Balthasar buried his face in his hands once more. “Aemilia is dying in that room.”
Rehmalika grimaced. “She doesn’t have to.”
“What do you mean?” Balthasar sniffled and met Rehmalika’s hard silver eyes once more.
Rehmalika opened the bag. “Take a look.”
Balthasar recoiled. Every instinct he possessed warned him that help from Rehmalika would place him on a path full of heartbreak and sorrow.
How far will I go to save Aemilia? Rehmalika’s help was worth the risk. He was, above all, a scholar, and his curiosity overcame his reticence. He peered into the bag. There was a large Dryad Spider, twelve inches in diameter. Balthasar tightened the drawstring and looked up at Rehmalika, confused.
“How does that—” but then realization dawned. “No. You want to use the spider’s ability to recycle aether to repair the damage done to the aether in her body; to use it like a magical filter… very few have even theorized that a living symbiosis is possible with aetherial creatures.”
“Of course it’s possible. We have been doing it with dragons for centuries. It might save her life.”
“Dragons are much more powerful than spiders, and it took decades of trial and error to perfect the bond. We still can’t exist together on the same plane at the same time. There are too many variables. What about its venom? A spider that size carries enough to do serious harm. Or the bile might solidify the aether in her blood. That would be a terrible way to die.”
“She is already dying. Thrown by a hippoguarox.”
“What about astralysis? If we replace the aether in her blood, she might heal.”
“That might work if she had already bonded. As it stands, if she begins with astralysis, she must continue it the rest of her life, and even House Stormcloud cannot afford a lifetime supply of aether gems. Her father has enough children. He will not invest so much in a daughter.”
The coldness of this calculation shocked Balthasar, even as he recognized the truth of it.
“Think about it, Bale,” Rehmalika pressed, “his oldest daughter is empress, his son on track to become a high-ranking general and member of draconic parliament, Aemilia is expendable. He doesn’t need another soldier or another dowry. Her injuries will prevent her from bonding at Xiamentarisia. Worse, in her weakened state, she might bond and fail, then suffer the indignity of drakkomange. But if she serves the Airene? If she serves science and alchemy for the purpose of freeing dragons from imperial tyranny? House Stormcloud would be cast down. Social position could be based on merit, not inheritance. Dragons will hail you as the bringer of a new age to aetherial magic. You’ll be a hero.”
“House Bronzewater will fall too.”
“You let me worry about House Bronzewater.”
“Her parents will never agree to it.”
“They already have, in a manner of speaking.”
“What do you mean?”
Rehmalika stood and smoothed her dress. It was the deep blue of Vezza’s scales. “Virgil has annulled our betrothal.”
“What?” Balthasar said, too loudly.
“Hush, Bale,” she said.
“Stop calling me that. We’re not friends.”
“As you wish, Balthasar. Virgil has cast me aside after today’s events.”
“You had nothing to do with the hunting fiasco,” Balthasar said. “Wait, did you?” Rehmalika frowned ever so slightly.
“Aemilia came to my rooms last night, upset that I usurped her place. She threatened to follow us. I told her not to, but I didn’t discourage her with any vehemence.” She then produced an amber stone from the leather satchel slung over her shoulder.
“The hippoguarox,” Balthasar breathed, “you led it right to us. Amber calling to amber in the—”
“The transubstantiation of like to aetherial like. Just like you articulated last night at my betrothal ceremony, yes,” she interrupted, “you’re not the only one who knows a little alchemy.”
“And Virgil learned of this?”
“Not exactly. He was angry, blaming everyone except himself. He said he didn’t want to be around anyone who’d had a hand in today’s events. I told him that if he released me from our betrothal vows, I would return to the service of the Airene and that the High Priestess would promise him another bride, a bride of higher station.”
Balthasar ran through the brief list of names with more clout than Rehmalika.
“Who?”
“Rioba Holyoak.”
Balthasar gaped, the Holyoaks were a proud first-tier family. The Airene was a Holyoak. “You never intended to marry Virgil. This was all a setup, a contrivance between you and the Airene.”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Your schemes cost Aemilia’s life!”
“I’m giving her an opportunity.”
“No, you’re trying to leverage her against me. You don’t value her life any more than her parents.”
“Why would I? What is her life against understanding aetherial magic? The very magic that courses through our own veins.” Rehmalika hissed, her voice low and menacing, “What is her life compared to leverage against the Solan Emperor?”
Balthasar opened his mouth to protest, but found he had no rebuttal. He cared little who controlled the political sphere. He was a researcher, his work wasn’t supposed to spill into the real world in such a reckless way.
“What you’re proposing,” he offered meekly, “could kill her.”
“She’s going to die if we don’t, Balthasar.”
Balthasar’s shoulders slumped. What choice do I have?
Rehmalika offered him her hand, to hoist him to his feet. He hesitated, then grasped it. She raised him up, their deal struck.
“Shall we go in?” she asked.
Balthasar nodded. Trailing flakes of dried mud still caked on from the fens, he followed the immaculate Rehmalika into Aemilia’s chambers.
Doctors crowded around the broad bed. Bits of herbs, wrappings, and other medical waste littered the ground at their feet. Vanessa Stormcloud sat in a rocking chair by the cold hearth, tight lines around her mouth the only indicator of her distress. Byron stood behind her, one hand on her shoulder. He spoke in hushed tones to a scribe, who was jotting down notes in shorthand.
Aemilia had been bathed and dressed in a white slip. Balthasar noted they had bandaged her left shoulder and right forearm. The almost imperceptible rise and fall of her chest was the only indication that she still lived. She was drained of color, but her pallor had the blue cast of illness, unlike Rehmalika’s glowing leucistic alabaster skin tone. He hastened to Aemilia’s bedside and took her hand. Byron pretended not to notice. Rehmalika crossed the room to speak in hushed tones with Vanessa.
“Clear the room,” Rehmalika said at length.
The gaggle of doctors protested, but Vanessa echoed the order, her voice full of command, and, Balthasar thought, touched by sorrow. He waited while the doctors packed their satchels and vacated the room. When only the four of them remained, Rehmalika took up a position on the opposite side of the bed.
“Roll her over, Balthasar.”
“I don’t want him here,” Lord Byron protested.
“Balthasar is here at my request,” Rehmalika said, “He is the foremost authority on dryad spiders and their use of aetherial magic. To my knowledge, what we are going to attempt has never been done before, and I require his expertise.”
“What are you going to do?” Vanessa said, taking hold of his arm.
“Well,” Balthasar cleared his throat. “Aether is the substance of life. It flows in the veins of dragons, and despite the emperor’s many edicts outlawing its use, aether surrounds us just like the particles from other types of magic, astral dust, and void particulate. If we can bond her to an aetherial being, it might be enough to save her.”
“A dragon?” Lady Vanessa asked.
“Not in this case, no,” Balthasar confessed.
“What then?”
Rehmalika dumped the large Dryad Spider on the bed, it immediately flattened itself against the sheets, air hissing from its myriad discs.
Vanessa gasped. “Absolutely not.”
“She will die otherwise,” Rehmalika said.
“Balthasar?” Vanessa asked. He knew she wanted him to object, to present some other option.
He looked to Rehmalika, unable to meet Vanessa’s gaze, “There is no other way, I’m afraid. Aemilia won’t survive Xiamentarisia in this state, even if she lives through the week. These spiders have a gland that recycles aether. It is my—our hope—that it will be enough to revive and sustain her, until we can figure out another option. We need the spider to interact with the aether in Aemilia’s blood. Our hope is that its recycling mechanism will filter out the damage inflicted on her life force by the hippoguarox.”
A sob escaped Vanessa’s lips then. “That’s my daughter.”
“Hush, Van,” Lord Byron chided, irritated by the break in decorum even at his daughter’s deathbed.
“She may live a normal life in service to the Airene,” Rehmalika offered, a bit impatiently. “Shall we continue?”
“Do what you must,” Lord Byron said.
“I don’t want to see it,” Lady Vanessa interjected.
“That may be best,” Balthasar agreed, not wanting to undertake such a procedure at all, certainly not in front of Aemilia’s parents.
“We’ll stay,” Lord Byron said, “If she dies, it will be on your head, Balthasar Drake.”
Bale swallowed.
“Roll her over,” Rehmalika said, producing a knife from her satchel. Lady Vanessa buried her face in her husband’s shoulder. Balthasar did as instructed. Rehmalika cut Aemilia’s shift from the shoulders to the waist. “Balthasar, ready the spider.”
Reluctantly, Balthasar grasped the spider around the abdomen as Aemilia had done in the fens. The creature was so afraid to be out of its habitat, surrounded by strangers, that it did not fight him. It merely tried to flatten itself further. In one swift motion, Rehmalika made an incision in Aemilia’s flesh just beneath the shoulder blades. “What is she doing?” Lord Byron said. He looked queasy.
“The incision will allow the spider access to the patient’s circulatory system.” The clinical explanation helped Balthasar distance himself from what he was about to do. Blood ran down Aemilia’s back, staining the sheets and her shift.
“Quickly, Balthasar,” Rehmalika encouraged him, “before the blood clots.” Balthasar placed the spider on the small of Aemilia’s back. It lay flat. He nudged it. The spider didn’t move. Then he had an idea. He swiped two fingers through Aemilia’s blood and wiped them on the spider’s mandibles. The aether in Aemilia’s blood would call to the aether in the spider, just like the amber to the amber in the swamp. Sometimes he hated being an alchemist.
It did the trick, though. Balthasar had thought he would look away, unable to watch the horror he was about to visit upon his dear friend. A horror that he hoped would save her life. But when the spider shifted, he watched it, fascinated. The spider crawled haltingly at first, then with more confidence toward the bloody incision. It probed the cut with its hooked forelegs. It took a few experimental swipes, then went to work, slicing under the skin, until it wriggled underneath and disappeared.
Balthasar vomited. He grabbed the empty bedpan just in time. When he recovered himself, the flat lump of the spider had settled between Aemilia’s shoulder blades, coming to rest at the base of her neck. When Rehmalika was sure it had stopped moving, she took needle and thread and stitched up the wound.
“Is it working?” Lord Byron’s voice was tremulous, to Balthasar’s surprise. Lady Vanessa cried silently into her husband’s shirt.
Balthasar inspected Aemilia’s fingernails, there was a faint green, aetherial glow at the edges.
“Something is happening,” he said, “but given the extent of her injuries, it will take time.”
“We leave tonight,” Rehmalika announced, tying off the stitches.
“Tonight?” Lady Vanessa objected.
“The Airene expects me, and I want Aemilia in quarantine until we can be sure it worked. Say your goodbyes. I will have my attendants move her body to the dirigible when you’re finished. Balthasar, please join me in the hallway.”
Balthasar rolled Aemilia face up, avoiding the bloodstained area of the sheet and positioning several down pillows under her upper body. Then he followed Rehmalika into the hall.
“Go to your chambers,” she said, “gather all your research and come to the dockyard. Don’t worry about the equipment. I’ll see that you have everything you need and access to the temple library when we arrive in Fyrehaven. Just bring your notes and specimens.”
“What about—”
Rehmalika held up a hand to stay any objection, “I will communicate with the Institute of Alchemical Sciences on your behalf. Come now, we haven’t much time. I’m offering you the research opportunity of a lifetime.”
Balthasar’s stomach clenched. All his enthusiasm around dryad spiders and aetherial magic had transmuted into revulsion. Yesterday, he would have leapt at the opportunity to have unfettered access to the library of the Airene. His research touched the magical and metaphysical. It wasn’t supposed to cost lives. His only solace lay in the fact that they may have saved Amelia’s life.
But what type of life had he doomed her to? A hollow droning in his ears made it difficult to string words together. He could only nod his acceptance and retreat to his quarters to gather his things.
At the servant’s quarters, Bale dumped his notebooks into his pack, and a few books he had found instrumental in refining the distillation process. He wrapped the specimen jars hosting live dryad spiders in pieces of his blanket and meticulously packed the bile sac they had collected yesterday. He was writing a note to his assistant when one of Rehmalika’s attendants entered the kitchen carrying a wooden crate. The man withdrew a bundle of dynamite and a clockwork mechanism and began joining the two of them together.
“What are you doing?” Balthasar said.
“The priestess’s orders,” the man said, “can’t have your research falling into the wrong hands.”
“You’re going to blow it up?”
Another attendant came in with the body of Balthasar’s assistant slung over one shoulder. He threw the body down onto the floor. The boy looked as if he’d been dead awhile. A startled scream escaped Balthasar’s lips.
“You killed him!” he protested, making the sign of the ring. Waves of dizziness threatened to overwhelm him, forcing him to his knees as the world spun. But Balthasar had chosen this path. The spider was living inside Aemilia. If he wanted to save her life, there was no turning back now. He had already determined that her life was more important than his assistant’s, or even his. The two attendants watched him in silence, waiting to see what he would do.
“You ready?” one of them said.
Balthasar looked around, then knelt and said a prayer to Zalivex, the dragon god, over his assistant. “I’m ready,” he managed. He followed the attendants across the estate grounds to where Rehmalika’s dirigible was preparing to return to Fyrehaven. Several burly men loaded Aemilia’s stretcher onto the ship. He remembered laughing with her at the audacity of dragons in dirigibles only yesterday. As he climbed the gangplank, he reflected that yesterday evening his whole life had been different. His research had been about to dry up, and he would have returned to Polaris empty-handed.
Now he was flying to the Temple of the Airene in Fyrehaven with a secret member of the independence movement, and as lead researcher at the forefront of aether refinement. It was a scholastic dream, but he wanted only to wake. He sagged under the invisible weight. This was more than he would have thought possible, and he hated it. A dryad spider was keeping Aemilia alive, by Djinnar’s blood. Still, only a few minutes into his new life, he missed his old one. As the Stormcloud estate dwindled in the twilight behind them, Balthasar settled himself beside Amelia, wiping tears from his cheeks. The aetherial tint in her nails was stronger, and to his immense relief, faint color tinted her cheeks. She would wake to the news that she would never bond a dragon, but she yet might free her people from imperial oppression.
