Raust had always prided himself on his ability to read the emotions of others. The ability made him a good priest, able to feel the energy of his congregation and shape it as he pleased. It had also made him a very good conman, once, but those days were well behind him.
So, he had a good idea of what the tower held in store before he entered, squeezing in through the broken doorway. It was warmer inside, but he shivered – the air here was saturated with fear and sorrow. An intense grimness that hit him like a physical wall. “Whatever I find here,” he muttered out loud to the anxious storm seeker as he followed it up the stairs, “will not be pleasant.”
As he ascended the crumbling stairway, he could pick out Shrike and Chimes' energies individually, like panes of glass in one of his stained glass masterworks. Chime had always been neatly walled off from him, but something had lowered her defenses; her shock and guilt hung acrid in the air, in maroons and deep purples. The fae felt more gray and white, with a underlying red trace of pain. Blood in the snow. And try as he might, he could sense nothing from the tundra.
It was with his heart in his mouth that he turned the corner into a small room. Chime glanced up as he approached; he’d never seen her like this before, so lacking in composure. Her face was wet with tears, and in her arms she cradled Clementine's too-still form. Raust had been steeling himself for this, but the sight still sent daggers through him. Nearly unconsciously, he made the sign of the eleven over his heart. “Gods,” he whispered, not knowing what else to say.
“Gods,” came a small voice to his right. Shrike had been so still that he hadn’t even noticed her. The fae could have been carved out of ice, save for the minute quivering of her wings. She was dry-eyed, unfocused, her mouth open in an “o”.
“Gods.”
“What happened?” Raust heard himself asking, when the words finally came unstuck in his throat. Shrike seemed to sway on her feet, and then shook herself. Raust could feel some great emotional door slamming closed at the motion. “It’s...” she began. “It wasn’t predators. I know what a dragon attack looks like. She wasn’t hunted. She was murdered.”
Murdered? Who could have possibly wanted Clementine dead?
“This is my fault,” he heard Chime say, her voice low. “If I had gotten here sooner, if I...”
“No,” Shrike cut her off. She wasn’t looking at the spiral, but instead at the middle distance around her. “I drove her away.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” Raust thought out loud. He hadn’t known the tundra well, but it had been clear that she was harmless. “Who would do this?”
“She was protecting something.” Shrike’s voice was flat, totally devoid of emotion. “These are defensive wounds, but not for herself. She could have got out, but there was something...”
It clicked then, for him. “The egg. My egg was missing when I woke up. She must have taken it. I don’t suppose it’s still here...”
“I don’t give a rat’s tail about your egg,” Shrike snapped, drawing in her fins flat against her body. “If it’s gone, good. Clementine might still be alive if not for that stupid egg.”
You don’t understand, Raust wanted to tell her. That stupid egg was far more important than she knew, and in the wrong hands...but now wasn’t the time. Shrike was distant, but he could still read her, and he could see how close to the knife’s edge her emotions were. One misstep, one poorly placed word, and she would be gone, spiraling down into the endless night that surrounded them. So he merely nodded. “I’m very sorry.”
Shrike shook her head in a sharp movement. “Get her back home,” she said shortly, her voice rough with an edge of tears. “I’m going on ahead.” The fae alighted and was gone with a few shaky wingstrokes, soaring out the window into the howling storm. Raust watched her go, his heart like a knot of wood in his chest. Chime gazed up at him, and despite his dislike for the spiral, some part of him wanted to fold her into his wings and hide her from all of this. “You are a dragon of the cloak,
non?” she whispered. “Do you have any words for her?”
He was taken aback – Chime had always been staunchly non-religious – but he nodded anyway. “Eternal rest grant unto her, o Lords.” His voice dropped into the sonorous tone he used for mass. “And let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Amen.”
“Amen,” he heard the spiral breathe, her head dipping down toward the tundra’s body. “Perpetual light, that is good.” There was a pause before she spoke again, drawn out like a last breath. “We’ve lost our sun, Raust. There’s only midnight now.”
(last call if anyone else wants to put their name in for little Clem - I'll draw a name later today)
