The Age of Undeath

12. Listen, I just hit things - Tatiana

Tatiana sat by the living room window in Trill's apartment, watching the skystream fade in brightness as dawn crept over the western mountain range. This place had become her life. She could still recall the blazing morning light of her childhood home, but it felt like a past lifetime. Someone else's world, a strange place with wood cuttings in the windows and hot dust on the breeze. Clayfall was radiance, dazzling colours, heat reaching your bones, and voices singing across the rooftops. Tucapon was crisp, white light and aquamarine curves, radiant like the moonlight on its cold waterfalls, lonely even in prayer. Even Arcatera, the Empire's seat of power, had felt more familiar than here.

It's still cold, she scratched across the parchment. Another splotch of ink marred the page as she hesitated, mentally crossing off everything she could never tell her mother. I wish I was back hunting monsters in the Arena at home. Tatiana closed her eyes, concentrating on Mesra Lorenzo's pain, on his scream, letting it resonate within until it cut her heart.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

I'm afraid I'm now the monster. She tried to swirl the blobs of ink into fresh words. How does fighting to the death prove innocence? I thought it was only the rotten I was fighting, but I'm not so sure anymore. Tatiana rubbed her hands over her face, no doubt smearing ink across her forehead. She refilled the quill. I can't be completely monstrous though. You'll never guess who your daughter has befriended. An avishkar! A real, living and breathing, flap your wings and click your beak avishkar!

Then added under her breath, just as cheerfully, "I'm also guarding him in case he committed murder!"

"Kali!"

Tatiana jumped, splattering more ink dots across her atrocious excuse for a letter, as Trill shouted again, "Kali?" She twisted toward the sound of his talons, an unhurried pat-tat, pat-tat on the exquisite Escarian rug that lined his main hallway. The whole apartment was grand, and Tatiana could easily imagine herself as nobility, basking in the comfort and beauty of such a place. The floors were white marble, scored with bolts of shimmering gold. Soft and vibrant indigo velvet covered the settees, to compliment his bright red plumage, he said. And while they had stayed up almost all night talking, Trill had insisted on burning his entire stock of wood to keep Tatiana comfortable.

Compared to her single room beneath Tucapon's Arena, she had become the rat that had climbed out of the cellar and into the royal suites. Even if it was for one night.

She waited for Trill to spot her at the desk, feeling inadequate of holding an avishkar's quill, despite being permitted before he retired to sleep.

"Have you seen an elf?" he asked. "Black hair, dark skin, white tattoos on her forehead, and a bit of an underbite, if I'm being honest. She's half-elf."

Tatiana recognised enough of the cultural nuance to understand he was calling Kali 'not as pretty' as a 'real' elf, who could never possibly have underbites. She shook her head.

"Damn. She's my servant, excellent at her job, too. I don't know what I'd do..." His golden eyes widened to the size of oranges. It was fascinating to watch the intelligence and feelings flash within those avian orbs. "What if last night... What if something happened to her? She would have gone home late, she could have been caught up in the madness..."

"Try not to worry, Mesra." Tatiana stuffed the letter into her pocket and stood. "You have bigger problems today. We need to leave, the Captain will be waiting."

#

In the cresting wave of dawn sunlight, the skystream's brilliance faded. What should have been a warm spring morning humming with the activities of everyday life was instead poisoned by the tang of ash. Wounded moans carried in the air, almost drowned out by the holy dawn chorus that welcomed Ray of Light, the vocals of priests amplified across the city.