Chapter Twenty-Five

He left them to divide the people among the chosen buildings while he went to test his realization. They'd harvest the sunhearts of the other ships, then leave the surplus hulks behind. As he'd suggested, they did keep one scout ship with a prospecting device—they picked one where he'd been living, the one that had belonged to Elegy—and the hovercycles.

He rushed away, Rebeke close behind. Before going to his quarters, he asked Rebeke for permission, then stopped beside her hovercycle and pulled out its sunheart.

Hmmm… Aux said. I'd guess around two hundred BEUs in this one. Far less than what powers a full ship. Still, on a lot of planets, that would be a wealth of Investiture. Enough to reach the Second Heightening, and here it's used for simple locomotion.

"At a steep cost," Nomad said, heading toward his quarters, Rebeke still trailing behind.

Even on highly Invested worlds, a person's soul isn't more than three BEUs, Aux replied. You are right about this Investiture coming from somewhere. Keeping this city flying, though it's much smaller than Union, must require sunhearts worth tens of thousands.

He'd considered that. He considered it again, then continued on his original path. Back at his room, Elegy was still chained to the wall—and yes, that was still uncomfortably strange. Stormfather help him if his master ever found out about this situation. Wit's delight at the potential jokes—most relating to Nomad's methods of getting a woman to stay near him—would be able to power small cities.

Nomad held up the sunheart, which glowed with a simmering deep red light. Yes, it made sense. For the Commands he'd been using, you needed people, or things, with life in them. In essence, he had been trying to command a dead hound to do tricks. This time, he held up the living sunheart to Elegy.

It glowed with the power of the soul that formed it. And when he spoke the words of the prayer Rebeke had taught him, their mother's soul knew what to do. It drew forth some of the life from Elegy in the form of radiant smoke that glowed a luminescent red.

Perfect. Now they were getting somewhere. He grinned, pulling back and digging out another notebook.

"I still don't understand the point of this," Rebeke said as Elegy, as usual, snarled and growled.

"Humor me," Nomad said. "Tell me. There's something different about the sunhearts that make the Charred, right? You all handle these ones without problems—but touch one of those, and they burn away the body and create a monster. Why?"

"We…don't know," Rebeke admitted. "You're right that the Cinder King has access to strange sunhearts with terrible powers—we call them cinderhearts. They glow with a harsher light and consume anyone who touches them. We don't know where he got them, but they are how he rules. First, with the one in his own chest, giving him the ability to feed on thousands of souls. Second, with the ones he uses to make his Charred, who serve him."

There's some Connection going on there, I suspect, Auxiliary said. Looking at his cinderheart and those of the Charred, his glows even more brightly. And they seem to react to his mental commands. Have you noticed?

He hadn't, but he trusted Aux, who picked up on things he didn't.

"I still want to know what you're doing to my sister," Rebeke said. "And why you're doing it."

"I'm learning," Nomad said, making some notes. "I've done nothing harmful to her, just siphoned off a little of her Investiture. But this isn't enough. Otherwise, those bracers would be enough. Or, storms, having one of you touch her would be enough. I have to get at the core of the soul and remove the residue cankering it…"

"For what?" Rebeke said. "I barely understand what you're saying, but I do not see how this helps us build engines."

He ignored her. If he was going to figure out how to use this process to remove the Torment from his soul, he needed a stronger transfer. Maybe he needed to press the sunheart into her skin? When the Cinder King created one of his warriors, he jammed the cinderhearts in deep.

He held up the sunheart next to the cinderheart at Elegy's core and found hers was a darker shade. "Auxiliary," he said, stepping as close as he dared to examine it. "That's not anti-Investiture, is it?"

Doesn't feel like it, Auxiliary said back. But I'm not the best at spotting that.

"It seems corrupted—overlaid with some kind of…membrane or coating. Like the skin of a fruit." He thought for a moment, then said to Rebeke, "It's important that we both understand that my next action isn't intended to hurt her in any way."

"That sounds ominous," Rebeke said, stepping toward him. "Why do you say it that way?"

"Because I need to believe it," he said. He held up the glowing sunheart—then touched it to Elegy's cinderheart and spoke the proper prayer. "Bold one on the threshold of death, give this sunheart your dying heat that it may bless those who still live."

Elegy started screaming. Rebeke grabbed his arm, trying to pull him away. She threw her entire weight at him, which wasn't a ton, considering her size. He remained steady, watching the darkness on Elegy's cinderheart drain away.

Just like, he hoped, the canker on his own soul would. It was working. Finally Rebeke grabbed onto his arm and hung there, her entire five-foot-tall frame dragging down on his muscles. That was enough to make him budge, and he was forced to pull back and push Rebeke off.

"I told you," he snapped, "I wasn't intending to hurt her!"

"Intent or not," Rebeke shouted, "that's what you did! She's helpless! I want you to remand her to the care of our authorities. I won't stand for her to be your pawn."

He stepped toward Elegy again, but Rebeke threw herself between them, frantic. Until, behind her, a new voice spoke.

"Who are you?" Elegy said, throat obviously raw, her words ragged—like from an engine too long without oil. "Let me go."

Rebeke froze, then spun, gasping. Elegy sneered at them and shook her chained arms, but the motions lacked the wild ferocity of moments earlier. More remarkably, she could speak. He'd never heard one of these Charred speak before. Her cinderheart continued to glow, but now in a purer, vibrant shade. Like magma at the heart of a crater.

"Let me go!" she said, louder.

"Elegy?" Rebeke said, stepping forward, reaching out with gloved fingers.

"Let. Me. GO!"

"Well," Nomad said, tossing the glowing sunheart onto the table, "that worked." He began making notes.

"You were trying to cure her?" Rebeke said, spinning back to him. "Why didn't you say that?"

Cure her? Oh right. Well, that was the side effect. He paused, then said, "I didn't know if it would work, and didn't want to get your hopes up."

Storms, the younger woman began to cry. She took him by the arm, then struggled to get her glove off, to press her skin to his in thanks. "You have earned heat today," she whispered, "and I misjudged you. You are a wonderful, wonderful man. Thank you."

Cute, the knight says. How long has it been since anyone looked at you with true admiration?

Did it matter? He pushed her back firmly. She let him, then looked to Elegy, who watched them with a deep frown.

"Tell me who you are," Elegy demanded. "And why I'm in these chains. What happened to the voice?"

"The voice?" Nomad asked, stepping forward.

"The one who gives commands," she said, "in my head. Everything was so clear just a moment ago. Now…now I'm confused. Restore the voice!"

"The Cinder King," Nomad mused. "As you suspected, he has a way of controlling them. A direct Connection."

Her soul is terribly compromised, the hero notes. That usually makes it easier to control or infiltrate a mind, doesn't it?

"It does indeed." The corrupted sunhearts gave the Cinder King some control over his Charred—but Nomad had removed that control, letting Elegy's natural personality reemerge.

"It's her voice," Rebeke said, "but she doesn't seem to recognize me. How do we get her to remember?"

Nomad didn't have a good response. He'd seen cases like this before. Elegy's memories had almost certainly been burned away by the process that had infected her soul. This wasn't a case of a little confusion after hitting her head. Her soul had literally been shredded, her mind enslaved.

In his experience, the way forward wouldn't be to restore her memories, but to help her make new ones. He narrowed his eyes as she rattled the heavy chains, still supernaturally strong.

"The cinderheart's Investiture remains," he said. "That comes from the source, not the sludge we drew off. Storms. She can probably feel it in there, driving her."

A human body, crammed with that much power, would be electric with the need to move, to act. One would feel a virtually irresistible urge to use the power, to satisfy its demand to become kinetic. In his case, it drove him to constant motion, to avoid sleep, to push himself to keep running. In Elegy, it was clearly of a more aggressive nature.

The frenzied way these Charred acted, always attacking and enjoying the fight…that might not be the command of the Cinder King. He probably just pointed them in certain directions, kept them working for him, channeling their violent energies.

Nomad took some further notes. How could he apply this to the sludge on his soul? Maybe fashion a knife from the sunheart, then stab himself? That might work, but he feared a Connection problem. These people could all share power, and souls, because of where they were from.

Still, it was the logical next step. He borrowed a knife from Rebeke, who was trying to get Elegy to talk to her. He was able to use it to shave off a piece of the sunheart, something he'd heard them describe. It was less like glass and more like resin. The new fragment continued to glow with the same living light.

He positioned the knife to cut into his own skin. He'd make a small incision on his left arm, then shove the piece of sunheart in. For many uses of Investiture, touching the blood was necessary. Ingesting the piece might have worked, but he wanted to be certain—besides, this would be easier to undo if something went wrong.

Um, Nomad, the knight says, hesitant. This seems kind of stupid.

"And?"

And so maybe don't do it? Choose something not stupid instead?

"I have to try something, Aux," he said. "The Night Brigade could be upon us at any time—and I need to be able to fight if that happens."

Still. Are you certain you want to be this brash?

"What about me makes you think that I'd do anything else?"

The knight gives a long-suffering sigh, but is forced to admit the truth. Nomad is at the very least consistent in his stupidity.

Nomad made a small incision on his forearm. He made a fist and stuck the sliver of sunheart into the wound. He said the prayer, with proper Intent, that had worked on Elegy—then pressed a cloth against the wound to stanch the blood.

Nothing happened. He said the words again, trying to maintain the proper frame of mind. He also said them a little differently several times, using variations of oaths from his homeworld, then other Investiture-transferring incantations he'd learned.

None seemed to do anything. Sharing Investiture was much more difficult when you didn't have Connections to the power or the people who'd created it. Perhaps that was the problem here. Or maybe it was working, but he just couldn't feel any—

Click.

He looked up with a sharp intake of breath to see Rebeke undoing the manacles on her sister's feet. The ones on her arms already dangled free.

Damnation.

Elegy met his eyes, then leaped at him with a howl of determined anger.