Dark and fast, the river runs, thick with flotsam—jagged stone and bits of iron spinning in the current before they sink into the mud; a girl’s shattered body; a daughter’s soul cradled in her mother’s arms. Water rushes over the banks. Spirits ride the surge, ecstatic in their freedom.
The river rages, decades of anger unleashed, tempered by a daughter’s grief, a daughter’s hope. A daughter’s bargain.
The mountain shakes, heaving the river in her bed, undoing centuries of patient carving. Fish and snakes writhe in upthrust mud; slime glistens on bones and stones hidden for hundreds of years. The water tastes of ash, of hot stone, of blood and brimstone.
Boats snap their moorings and capsize, throwing screaming passengers into the roar and rush. That part of the river that was a girl mourns each snuffed and broken life, but knows she cannot save them all. Mud rushes down the flanks of the shaking mountain, adds its weight to the flood.
In the city, canals burst out of their banks, water sweeping over streets and sidewalks. A bull kheyman washes onto the steps of a house, roaring his outrage. The earth trembles and a bridge shudders and gives way. In the Floating Garden, potted trees break their tethers and bob away, shedding leaves and branches into the hungry current. In Straylight, buildings groan and slide, bricks and mortar raining into the floodwaters. In the harbor, the sea already churns, vexed to tempest by the earth’s upheaval. Caught between wave and flood, docks splinter, ships founder and sink. Bayside windows shatter under the onslaught, doors burst from their hinges. The water snatches people off quays and sidewalks and drowns all their cries and prayers.
But it hears those drowning prayers too.
Throughout the city fires are doused, but rocks and cinder still rain, and wave after wave of ash blots out the sky. Buildings crumble beneath the weight of ejecta, piling stone upon stone over their unlucky occupants. If it cannot burn the city, the mountain means to bury it, to wipe out all trace of those who in their hubris bound it.
And that, the river decides, will not happen. Not to her namesake, this curiosity of men nestled in her delta, the home of the daughter who set her free. The daughter prays; the mother listens.
And as the mountain renews its offense, the river rises and enfolds the city in her arms.
Dawn never came.
From the tower beside the ruined dam, Isyllt and Asheris watched the mountain burn. Ash drifted past the window like gray snow. Eventually she slept, lulled by the roar of the river and the warmth of Asheris’s shoulder. When she woke her head was on his thigh and the darkness hadn’t brightened. The murk hid the mountain, giving only the occasional sullen flash of orange. The sky to the south was the yellowish gray of necrotic flesh.
“What time is it?” Her voice was a croak, throat raw and lips cracking. Her eyelids scraped as she blinked.
“Afternoon,” he said, his own voice rough. “Or it ought to be.”
Golden witchlights blossomed over their heads, driving away the gloom. Dirt smeared Asheris’s face and clothes and itched on Isyllt’s skin. When she scratched her cheek her nails came back black with grime; it dulled her ring, hid the diamond’s fire and clogged the setting.
Her left arm was numb, wedged between her and the floor. Her elbow creaked when she straightened it, and the rush of blood to her ruined hand made her eyes water. But it didn’t hurt as much as it should. Wincing, she eased her tattered sleeve back. The print of Asheris’s hand circled her wrist like a shackle gall, char-black and flaking in the middle, seeping raw flesh beneath. The edges were pink and blistered, hot and painful enough leave a sour taste in her mouth, but she couldn’t feel the worst parts. At least the ashen air had clogged her nose enough that she couldn’t smell the burnt-pork reek of it.
She’d seen burns like this before, knew the infection sure to follow in one as filthy as this. She might have another day before the fever set in. The bandage on her palm was foul with blood and soot, and she didn’t want to imagine the state of that wound.
“Wait here,” Asheris said and left the room, brushing futilely at the dirt on his coat.
Another tremor came while he was gone, rumbling softly through the stones. Isyllt tensed as dust sifted down from the ceiling,