Chapter 85
Shards on the floor, a crystal desk cracked down the middle, an empty chair. The seven sin-shapes still turn in the air overhead, slower now, wobbling. Nobody sits at the desk.
standing among the shards. Vigolas, Smurjan, Kali, Kompis with Mingus, Drekk with Trollmage on his back, Nässla. Rougeina stands at the desk with her back to them, blades sheathed, rose script glowing down her arm.
looking around, frowning, puzzled.
third eye half open, confused.
not turning around.
A small square seal of white light lifts off the back of an empty glove lying on the desk, like a leaf off water. It drifts up, turns once in the air, and floats away through a crack in the octagon's ceiling.
The floor of glass, the ring of twelve chairs. The square of light floats down out of the air and settles on the Sixth Chair, and goes dark. Around the ring, nine Architects in their chairs look at it. None of them can remember who sat there.
getting slowly to his feet, looking at the glass cage of shards that holds the gold-masked Ward. The cage is crumbling, the shards dropping one by one with nobody to place them. Inside, the Ward's mask flickers gold, then less gold.
The gold leaves the Ward. A ribbon of golden light lifts out of its chest, snakes through the falling shards, crosses the room, and flies home: straight into the inside of Kompis's left wrist. The small golden knot settles back into his skin like it never left.
his eyes filming gold. And around the crew, threads blaze back into his sight: gold lines between every one of them. More than before. Thicker.
at his hip, and the soul-text bursts out of the steel like a puppy through a door:
along the bottom of the panel springing to life as Mingus presses against him. ba-DUM. ba-DUM.
looking up at the seven sin-shapes overhead, which are wobbling worse, orbits fraying.
The seven sin-shapes break orbit:
The crimson blade (Wrath) whips down across the octagon, slicing a wall in half.
The amber mouth (Gluttony) swoops and swallows the cracked desk whole.
The violet hourglass (Sloth) drifts past Drekk, and he yawns enormously and nearly falls asleep standing.
The emerald coin (Greed) spins straight at Vigolas, who catches it on reflex, "Mine!", and it burns his hand and he drops it.
The silver ring and the rose ribbon circle Rougeina like hounds.
The octagon is coming down. The ceiling cracks. The floor of shards slides toward the edges. Nässla walks calmly through it all.
The crew runs for the mirror-doors. Smurjan drags Kali. Drekk carries Trollmage. Kompis runs with Mingus at his heel and Lilla Ulv yipping in his holster. Rougeina last, because she turned back once to look at the empty chair.
The roof of the octagon bursts open, and the seven sins pour out into the sky over Glasheim: emerald, crimson, gold, violet, silver, rose and amber, seven great ribbons of light the size of rivers. Above the white towers they scatter, flying in seven directions, splitting and splitting again into thousands of small sparks, a firework that covers the whole world.
Below on the Mirror Road, tiny against the burning sky, the crew stands among the falling glass, faces lit in seven colours, watching it go.
very quiet.
looking up, the gold in his eyes catching the falling sparks.
later. The crew sits on the edge of the starlight path, catching their breath. Nässla stands apart.
Nässla walks back into the dark between the mirrors, unreflected, gone.
holding a scrap of parchment he took from the cracked desk before the Gluttony-shape ate it: an old decree, sealed in white wax. In the Order's script: BY ORDER OF THE COUNCIL: ONE SOUL, DIVIDED, TO BE HELD IN TRINITY. And under it, a signature that is blank: the ink is there, but nobody can read the name any more.
reading over his shoulder.
apart, sitting on the edge of the path with the list unfolded in her hand. She crosses off KATRIEL with a stub of charcoal. To her, a name. To anyone looking over her shoulder, a line that was always blank.
floating over her, updated by every board in the world: ROUGEINA · K-IV SHAPED · Scalelist #777. The rank has climbed now that the Codex is read. The number stays frozen.
For just a moment, a missed beat. Her heart skips. She frowns and dismisses it.
sailing away from Astralis. Supper at the galley table. Kali comes up from the hold with bowls on her one arm and sets them out: one, two, three, four. This time she sets the fourth one on purpose, at the empty end of the bench, and fills it.
looking at it, then at her.
A fishing village: a girl wakes up with a gold knot glowing on her wrist and screams for her mother.
A market island: an old baker stares at a violet hourglass on the back of his hand.
A Trisdel barracks: a Sentinel pulls off his helmet and finds crimson script running up his neck. His officer backs away.
A troll hall in Brygdar: a young troll holds up an arm covered in amber.
A Scalelist board in a city square: the numbers are going wild, thousands of names jumping, new names appearing faster than the stone can carve them.
staring at a rose ribbon curling up his arm, nobody's assignment and nobody's decision, his own.