The Final Strife

No,Hassa signed, her small mouth tight. But she speaks the common tongue and can be useful when negotiating with the academy.

Sylah’s head was whipping back and forth between the Ghostings. They spoke quickly, without the slow movements Sylah had gotten used to from Hassa, whom she now realized had been compensating for Sylah’s lack of ability.

“Did you say the academy? The Ghostings are going to the mainland? Is that why this is all packed?”

Hassa sighed impatiently through her teeth and nodded.

“Where is all this stuff from?”

Every day we trade back the pieces of the heritage that we lost, Elder Dew signed to Sylah.

“What do you mean, ‘lost’?”

Someone laughed softly, Sylah couldn’t tell which elder.

Hassa touched her left wrist to her eyes.

Look.

Sylah followed the direction of Hassa’s gaze.

“Oh.”

The walls weren’t just hammered, they were carved, etched with drawings that scoured the floor and up the walls, setting the room alight with history.

Some of the engravings were painted with the faded hue of old ink, and Sylah’s eyes were drawn to a cluster of figures on the wall to her right. A group of Ghostings was sketched in gray, screaming, mouths open. Rippers, identified by their blue-flecked uniform, severed the Ghosting’s tongues. The carvings were intricate, so finely detailed that Sylah could see the horror in the expressions of the Ghostings. Sylah reached out to touch them, to feel the grooves of their pain etched into the whitestone.

Hassa’s arms pulled her back. Don’t touch them, these carvings are some of the oldest in the Nest.

Nest. It was the first time the Ghostings had referred to the cavern Sylah found herself in. It suited the place.

They were drawn by our forebears over four hundred years ago, Hassa continued.

“Four hundred years ago?” Sylah’s hand still hovered above the carvings, not touching, but feeling them.

This is the end. Start at the beginning,Hassa said.

No, it is not the end. The end has not come yet.Elder Reed chastised Hassa, and Elder Dew nodded in response, tapping their walking stick on the ground. It made a metallic sound and for the first time Sylah realized the end of the stick was filed to a point, flecks of whitestone marred the blade.

Start here.Hassa pointed toward the Nest’s entrance, where Sylah, unbeknownst to her, had already walked past the truth she had so long been searching for.

There were more gray figures carved into the stone here. Families, friends, a town—a city. Sylah recognized the domed roofs of the Keep and the people within it. Ghostings, with their tongues wagging, hands gesticulating.

The next drawing was of a ship, manned by red and blue. Dusters and Embers coming from the mainland. Eight ships; four were circled by a great serpent: the Tannin. But Sylah didn’t laugh at the children’s stories made real in stone. She watched two ships sink beneath the Marion Sea and the Dusters and Embers storming the land. Blue and red specks filled the empire like Ardae confetti.

The next image saw the Ghostings asleep in their beds next to pyres burning in flames.

Hassa signed to Sylah. They brought disease.

“The sleeping sickness…” Sylah whispered. Though she wasn’t sure the words came out as her throat constricted at a carving she couldn’t quite comprehend.

A Ghosting held a knife against their wrist, their fingers drawing a gray smear on the ground. A bloodwerk rune. Ba.

“I don’t understand.” Sylah didn’t see if anyone replied as she kept her eyes glued to the series of etchings that were leading her around the circumference of the Nest.

In one of the corners of the cavern clustered a series of images of Embers with their wrists slashed; a Ghosting taught them.

“But only Embers can bloodwerk?”