Dust

protocols.

'Gorgeous,' Asrafil said. 'It is a pity we must leave it.'

'It won't be here much longer in any case.'

Asrafil nodded and let the silence linger for a little before he filled it. 'But in the meanwhile, we each bring certain resources to an association. I think it would behoove us to combine them. We can fight over who gets to be king when we've preserved the kingdom.'

'Funny,' Dust said. 'Samael came to me with a very similar proposal not long ago at all—'

The attack was untelegraphed, but not unexpected. Asrafil struck along Dust's entire leading edge, rending, gnawing, attempting to overwhelm him with a blitz. But Dust had been braced, focused behind his apparent distraction, and when Asrafil tore into him he gave way, fell back, creating a hollow at his center for Asrafil to tumble into.

Asrafil was not fool enough to dive into the trap. He struck out to all sides as Dust stretched around him, and Dust was not large enough to engulf him. They fell together, warring in the silence. Any naked eye would have seen nothing but the emptiness they moved through, their combat invisible and carried out at supersonic speeds. And then, like sparring cats, they broke apart again, dragging their ragged fringes up.

Dust had let his avatar lapse in the skirmish; now, he did not bother to recollect it. Asrafil, too, had fallen apart, and Dust thought they seemed equally bloodied. He tidied himself, tucked his edges in. Pictured Asrafil spitting teeth.

It cheered him.

'That was stupid,' Dust said.

'It wouldn't have been if I'd won,' Asrafil answered as, with elaborate precautions, they began to disengage.

The wood rang with silence, and Rien was happy to be alone in it for now. She was used to spending time with others, but this enforced closeness wore on her.

She didn't know how big a Heaven could be, but this one had to fill the entire inside of the holde. She wanted to walk alone among the bare black trees, touch the cold bark, feel the snow creak under her boots again. Just for a little while.

She didn't know if she was ever coming back.

And she needed to at least look for Gavin, if they were leaving nearly immediately.

Benedick offered her skis, but she didn't know how to use those, and the snow wasn't really that deep. Just awkward to walk in, when it crushed and slid, and prone to making her ankles and the arches of her feet hurt. It has a smell, too, a distinct one, which she hadn't expected. It was just water, wasn't it?

Gavin left no tracks, so she wandered, trusting that one of them would find the other. Her breath hung on the air, silver in the reflected light. One of the external mirrors was angled just so she half-blinded herself every time she glanced upward, so she quickly broke the habit of looking up. Black birds—big birds—moved among the trees. The silhouettes kept catching her eye and turning her head.

And of course, as soon as she gave up and turned back, calves knotted with the unfamiliar effort, she found him. He perched on a tall stump beside the trail, his tail flipped over his talons, for all the world like an old man sitting, watching the day go by.

'Hey,' she said. She leaned her hip against the stump, her elbow atop it, grateful of the excuse to rest.

'Hey,' he said. 'What's going on?'

'Were getting ready to go to Engine. Are you going back to Mallory?'

'Staying with you, if you'll have me.'

'Of course.' She didn't even need to think about it. And the words brought an easing of the knot tight in her chest. 'Where did you go?'

'Angels don't agree with me.'

'Yeah,' she said. 'They kind of give me indigestion, too.'

She made him laugh, for a change. And when he stopped, she said, 'Gavin. You know a lot of things.'

'I am old,' he said. And then, wryly: 'I contain multitudes. Not vast, however.'

She leaned her cheek against his wing, and he let her. 'You're a good size for carrying.'

He hopped onto her shoulder, as if it had been an invitation. Well, Rien thought, questioning her own motives, perhaps it had been.

'Then thank you for carrying me. Now tell me your question.'

'Who said I had a—oh, never mind. Yes. My question is, do you know my mother?'

Silence, and then he hmm'd, softly. 'We're going to Engine? To seek your mother?'

'No,' she said. 'But that's where she is, isn't she? That's the whole reason I was born. To be a hostage.'

'Not the only reason. But yes, your mother is in Engine.'

'Who is she?'

'Your mother is Arianrhod Kallikos,' he said. 'Does the name mean anything to you?'

She thought hard, and said eventually, 'No.'

'This is because you are ignorant.' She felt his shrug, the rise and fall of his wing. 'But ignorance can be remedied with time. She is an Engineer. You will find her interesting.'

Interesting wasn't entirely reassuring. 'Oh.'

'You might meet Perceval's mother, too.'

Rien jerked. 'We have different mothers?'

'Perceval was a hostage against Alasdair, after all. Her mother is Caitlin Conn.'

'There is no—' Rien started. And then she craned her neck way back and stared at Gavin, who sat placidly on her shoulder, eyes closed, waiting for her to finish. If beaks could smirk, she would have sworn him to be smirking. 'Who is Caitlin Conn?'

205

'In Rule, there are three portraits turned to the wall,' Gavin said. 'Do you know them?'

'I dusted them. Or the backs, anyway.'

'They are the portraits of Alasdair's treacherous children, the sisters Caithness, Cynric, and Caitlin. His eldest; his initial heirs. They tried to overthrow him, you see.'

'So they're dead?'

'Alasdair killed Caithness himself. Cynric was captured and executed.'

'Oh.' Rien swallowed, her throat feeling abraded. 'And Caitlin?'

'Exiled,' Gavin said. 'To Engine.'

'Pregnant with her brother's child?'

'Perceval is your age,' Gavin reminded. 'What I speak of happened centuries ago. You'll meet Caitlin in Engine, too, most likely,' Gavin said. 'That is where her exile took her, in the end.'

'And what is she there?'

Definitely a smirk. Even if he did it only with the angle of his head. 'The Chief Engineer.'

20 Primogeniture

I would rather be ashes than dust!

—ATTRIBUTED TO JACK LONDON, 'Credo'

'You're the rightful Commodore,' Rien said, the words as sensible to Perceval as washers hurled against a window. 'Or at least the rightful Commodore's rightful heir.'

'I don't understand you.' They were in the room they had briefly shared, Gavin perched atop the monitor,