Chapter 7: Ash and Oaths
Elias woke to a ceiling of damp stone and a throat full of rust.
The room smelled like boiled lye and bitter herbs, somewhere close, water dripped, steady, metronomic. He tried to sit and his ribs lit like a fuse, A small weight pushed gently against his chest, a low huff warming his collarbone.
Rook.
The cub's silver eyes blinked up at him, pupils big in the dim, he whined once, soft as a question, then put his head back down like he'd decided not to let Elias move until given orders.
"Don't fight him," Tamsin said from somewhere to his left you're not winning that argument."
Elias rolled his head, the healer sat on a stool by a low table, sleeves stained to the elbow, hair pulled back with a cord that used to be white. A brazier squared the room with heat, bundles of dried plants hung from beams like upside down fireworks, behind Tamsin, Lysera leaned against a post, arms folded, hood down her eyes were the color of water under ice.
"Where" Elias coughed. It felt like dragging a rasp across old wire "are we?"
"Salt Mill," Tamsin said "rebel safehouse on the river line two levels below street. If the Wardens sniff this place they'll smell vinegar and rat piss and keep walking."
Elias blinked grit from his lashes memory came in like tide, bells, ash, the Prelate's smile cracking, the spear burning in his hands. The crash. Darkness.
"Prelate?" he asked.
"Gone," Lysera said. "Rebels pushed a flank while you were busy dying on your feet, he folded the Threads and ran when his circle broke." Her mouth tugged, not a smile "you bought the break."
Rook made a smug little sound like he agreed, Elias scratched between his ears with a hand that trembled more than he liked.
"How long?" he asked.
"Half a day," Tamsin said "you bled until I thought you'd drain dry, nose, mouth, a little from the ears" she tilted a clay cup to his lips "drink."
The water was lukewarm and tasted of tin and mint, but it went down Rook angled his muzzle to steal a mouthful Elias let him.
Tamsin set the cup back "whatever you pulled out there, don't do it again. Your pulse went sideways, temperature the same, your veins lit like someone stuffed a lantern under your skin." She jabbed a finger at his sternum "your heart doesn't belong to a sermon, and I'd rather not watch it pop."
"Duly noted," Elias muttered his voice sounded like it had been rolled in gravel "how bad am I?"
"Bad," Tamsin said cheerfully. "But not dying. Burns are angry again. Ribs bruised to hell. Shoulder wants to come apart. Pulled stitches in your back that weren't there yesterday, so thank you for that" she flicked a glance at the cub. "Your… dog keeps trying to sit on the bandages. I'm choosing to believe that's medicine."
Rook huffed, offended, Elias stroked his neck "you did good," he said, the cub's eyes closed halfway, smug and soft.
Boots scuffed outside, a coded tap, and then the door scraped, Noll eased in first, arms full of folded blankets he almost dropped when he saw Elias sitting up. Elvi slipped in behind him, bow unstrung but close to hand, a stranger followed, lean, grey at the temples, wearing a rebel's scavenged coat that fit too well to be anyone's castoff. He had the look of a man used to being obeyed and tired of the cost of it.
"Captain Hale Voss," he said without fuss, eyes cataloguing the room before settling on Elias "you're uglier in the daylight."
"Likewise," Elias said, It came out harsher than he meant, he nodded at the others "you make it?"
"Most," Elvi said, and that one word stacked a little cairn of names in the air "Garren didn't."
Noll swallowed hard and looked at the floor, his knuckles were raw where the skin had split, he was doing that thing young men do when they want to be stone and their eyes won't listen.
Elias slid his palm once along the cub's back, steadying himself "he bought us time," he said. "I won't waste it."
Hale took that like a ledger entry "word is spreading," he said. "Grey Hook says a stranger stood under an arch and tore a priest's choir to ribbons. Other runners swear the Loom itself bent a little" his mouth compressed "stories like that get men killed if they're not true. They also get them killed if they are."
Elias didn't look at Lysera but he felt her watching.
"I held a line," he said "that's all."
"That's enough," Elvi murmured.
Hale's gaze ticked to the spear propped against the far wall, the dull black head had been scrubbed clean, faint etchings caught the brazier's glow and threw it back in ghost light. "Your stick's seen better days," Hale said "if you're staying in our city, it needs a better spine, we have a contact in Low Foundry, mad bastard with a forge, you give him a problem and he grins like a wolf" he half smiled "goes by Thorek."
Lysera's eyes flicked, quick interest she didn't bother to hide "Thread steel?"
"And worse," Hale said "he sleeps with a hammer and eats sparks for breakfast" He jerked his chin at Elias "he'll like you."
Tamsin clicked her tongue "he'll kill him if he asks for anything that breathes fire."
"I'll kill him if he tries it today," Tamsin added to Elias. "You are not walking to a forge on those legs."
Elias flexed his fingers to stop the tremor the crash lingered in his bones like a hangover that had learned new tricks "I'll heal," he said.
"You'll follow orders," Tamsin shot back "rebel orders this time."
Lysera uncrossed her arms and moved closer "Captain," she said to Hale without looking away from Elias, "give us the day the Wardens will sew up Ashvale at dusk and sweep at dawn. We move him at first light through the Threadway runs, if we draw heat now, you'll lose more than a few men."
Hale weighed that, then nodded once "dawn," he said "we'll have a door."
He was almost out the door when Noll blurted, "I want to learn."
Everyone looked at him, color crawled up his neck but he didn't back down "what he did," he said, pointing at Elias, then swallowing like his tongue wanted to bolt, "Not that, I mean… moving, hearing the way the floor wants you dead. The… hum." He glanced at Lysera as if asking permission and defying it in the same breath "teach me, I won't be dead weight."
Elias opened his mouth to say the easy thing, no. He saw a flash of Ava's paint smeared hands and something in his chest twisted until it hurt enough to be honest.
"You don't want what I've got," he said quietly "you want to live."
Noll's jaw set, "I want to live and not watch my friends burn because I didn't learn fast enough."
The room held very still.
Lysera's voice came like a blade slid onto a table "he will not learn fast the way you did," she said to Elias, "no one does, he will stumble, he will fail. He will die if you teach him to run before he stands."
"Then we start with standing," Elias said.
Tamsin groaned "saints help me."
Elias looked at the boy "you show before dawn, If I'm breathing and she" he flicked a thumb at Tamsin "doesn't tie me to the cot, we'll walk a line just steps how to listen, How not to make yourself bait for the Loom."
Noll nodded so hard it looked like a prayer "yes, ser."
"Don't 'ser' me," Elias said. "And if you call me 'sir' again, I'll make you do pushups until your arms weep."
A flicker of humor loosened Elvi's mouth, even Lysera's eyes softened by a hair.
Hale scratched his jaw "lesson one for me is the same as for the boy, don't draw heat, we'll post watchers on the street. Wardens will be licking their wounds, but they're dogs of habit." He tapped the door frame, "Eat if you can, sleep if you can't, see you at dawn."
He left with Elvi on his heels, the room sank back into the steady drip, the soft crackle of the brazier, Rook's warm breathing.
Lysera moved to the spear and crouched, up close the etchings were finer than Elias remembered, little hair thin lines that crossed like veins under skin, she ran a fingertip near the metal without touching it, then stood and set the weapon within his reach.
"You heard the pitch," she said "once, It will tempt you to listen for it again."
"I won't survive a second chorus," Elias said.
"No," she agreed "you won't."
They stared at each other across the cot's narrow shadow Rook's tail thumped once, a quiet drumbeat.
"Why are you here?" Elias asked. It came out rougher than he intended, He meant the room, the city, him.
Lysera's gaze flicked to the cub, then back "because I have seen men burn for less than what you did, if you are to die, you will not do it alone, if you are to live, you will not do it stupid."
He almost laughed, It broke in his chest and came out a breath.
He tilted his head back until the cool stone kissed the sweat on his neck and stared up into the darkness as the old habit rose, words not meant for rooms with other ears, if You put me here, You can damn well show me where to put my feet, It wasn't a prayer so much as a challenge, God could take a punch.
"Peace will have to wait," he murmured.
"Sleep will do," Tamsin said she nudged Rook with two fingers "you too, menace, give your fool a chance to knit."
Rook snorted and curled tighter against Elias's ribs, his heartbeat was a small, solid thing under Elias's palm. The ache that ran through Elias's body settled into the kind of hurt he could sleep inside if he tried.
"Dawn," Lysera said, and the word sounded like both a promise and a warning.
Elias nodded, eyes already closing "dawn."
The drip kept time, the brazier breathed, and for the first time since Ava's death, he fell into a sleep that wasn't all ash.
The first thing Elias felt was cold stone beneath his palm, the second was Rook's breath, warm against his ribs, steady as a drum. Dawn hadn't broken the world above, but down here, time announced itself in the shift of air, in the stir of voices as rebels prepared for another day of hiding, fighting, bleeding.
He pushed himself upright with a grunt, pain lanced through his side, but it was duller now, worn down to something he could ride. Rook rose with him, stretching long forelegs, jaws parting in a yawn that showed too many sharp teeth for a cub.
"You're up early" Tamsin's voice came from the corner where she was grinding herbs with a pestle. She didn't look over, "or rather, too early. But since stubbornness is your only virtue, I won't waste spit arguing."
"I've got a promise to keep," Elias said. His throat rasped less this morning.
"You've got cracked ribs and stitches that will open if you sneeze too hard."
"Then I won't sneeze."
Rook padded ahead of him to the door, tail flicking Elias followed, one hand on the wall until his balance settled, Tamsin made an exasperated noise but didn't chase him. Lysera was already waiting in the narrow corridor, hood up, arms crossed. She studied him the way a hawk studies prey, measuring distance, strength, risk.
"Fool," she said.
"Good morning to you too," Elias muttered.
She led him to the lower chamber where the rebels stored barrels of vinegar and sacks of salt. The air was sharp with it, a sting in the nostrils, Noll was already there, spear in hand, eyes red from lack of sleep but blazing with determination.
"You're late," the boy said.
Elias nearly laughed. "If that's your first lesson, I'll take it" He leaned his spear against the wall and faced the boy "Show me how you hold it."
Noll gripped the shaft near the butt, knuckles white, stance too wide, Elias shook his head "you're not digging a ditch, higher balance the weight, A spear isn't a club, it's a question you ask from just out of reach."
The boy adjusted, Elias circled him slowly, ribs aching with each step. "Better. Now, move, step, thrust, recover, again, and again."
Noll obeyed, clumsy at first, then finding rhythm, the tip wavered less with each thrust. Rook sat near the wall, silver eyes following like a judge.
Elias closed his own eyes and let the Resonance Sense stir, Threads hummed faintly, the faint vibration of stone, the whisper of breath, the boy's pulse hammering faster with effort. He heard the flaws as if they were cracks in a drum.
"Too stiff," Elias said, eyes still shut "you're fighting the spear instead of letting it move with you, breathe, don't lock your knees, again."
Noll blinked but did as told, the rhythm steadied., Elias opened his eyes, "better, You'll trip over your own feet a dozen times before it feels natural, but you're not hopeless."
The boy flushed, pride warring with fatigue, "I can do more."
"Not today, standing comes before running" Elias reached for his spear, grounding himself against the wall when pain flared through his ribs. "Listen, Noll. I'm not teaching you to fight like me, you don't want that, you want to live long enough to make your own choices, so when I tell you to stop, you stop."
Noll hesitated, then nodded "yes, Elias."
Lysera's gaze flicked between them, unreadable. At last she said, "You teach as though you expect him to outlive you."
"I do," Elias said simply.
The silence that followed was heavier than stone.
Before it could harden, footsteps came from the stairwell, Hale ducked into the chamber, Elvi at his side. The captain's eyes swept over them all, lingering on the boy, then on Elias's posture "you're upright, that's something, good, We've got a door."
"To where?" Elias asked.
"Low Foundry," Hale said "your spear's headed for new bones and you'll meet Thorek, our hammer mad friend."
Elvi's mouth curved faintly "assuming he hasn't blown himself up since last night."
Hale ignored that "we move before the Wardens sweep, small group, quiet as ghosts, Lysera knows the paths, Elvi scouts, the boy stays."
"I'm going," Noll blurted.
"No," Hale said flatly.
Noll looked at Elias, desperation plain, Elias weighed the fire in the boy's eyes against the danger of the streets. At last he said, "You'll get your chance, but not on this run, learn to stand before you walk."
Noll's jaw worked, but he bit back whatever he wanted to say, Elias nodded once, satisfied.
They set out soon after, the Threadway opened beneath Lysera's touch, violet strands weaving into a narrow corridor of shimmering dark. Elias stepped in first, Rook at his side, the others close behind, the air within vibrated against his skin, the Loom's hum threading through his bones.
Every sense sharpened, the resonance was louder now, as if the Loom itself leaned close to listen. Elias tightened his grip on the spear, the pitch of the world had changed, and he knew deep down this path would not be walked back.