They stepped outside. The rain had ceased falling, and the sun-wire glimmered in the sky, dormant and sullen, Bastion and its ruins wrapped all the way around it. In the far distance, he could make out the copper and blacklight hues of the city at night, patchy and unequally distributed across Bastion’s bulk.
It was hard to focus. After a while, his attention narrowed down to just following Naomi and not tripping every third step. He sensed her shifting into her Nightmare form several times, but couldn’t tell why—his bleary attempts to look around revealed occasional movement in the distance, but he wasn’t able to discern the exact nature of the threat.
Toward the end, his vision began to blur, and he just couldn’t catch his breath. Wheezing, he staggered on. Naomi spoke to him, but he didn’t understand the words—he simply raised a hand to gesture that they should keep going.
But his legs wouldn’t obey, and he found himself kneeling for some reason. Then the ground swung up to slam against his face.
It was cool and damp. Delicious. He closed his eyes for just a moment, just a few seconds to gather himself, and when he opened them again, everything had changed.
He lay in a bed, a massive, sunken four-poster with a sagging canopy of faded blue silk. A mess of blankets, throws, and even heavy rugs were draped across its collapsing frame, turning it into a collage of different hues, the colors of which burst into vibrant islands wherever the shafts of ruddy light from the holes in the ceiling spilled across them.
The room was large, off-kilter, the floor sloping subtly down to the back left, as if the building in which it was housed was in the process of settling unevenly into its basement levels. Carpets were scattered haphazardly across the stone floor, and heavy pieces of battered furniture were set against the walls, ranging from dressers to wardrobes, half of them looking to have been scavenged from out under landslides and cave-ins. A large table was covered in arcane alchemical equipment, while thick candles of differing heights were clustered across most of their surfaces, with melted wax having hardened into waterfalls over the edges and pooled on the floor.
White curtains, gauzy and insubstantial, drifted into the room from where they framed a large doorway that led out onto a half-ruined balcony. The light outside betrayed either First or Second Bronze, and propping himself up on his elbows, Scorio gazed around blankly, having no idea how he’d come to be here.
Everywhere he looked more details suggested themselves. There, a basket filled with vibrant rolls of yarn, the balls ranging from sulfurous yellow to the rich incarnadine. A small, dead tree was planted in a clay pot in one corner, its branches of the smoothest alabaster, and from which hung countless shells of viridian green and deep, cobalt blue, their reflective surfaces causing spangles of light to slowly swing across the walls and ceiling. A stand filled with shelving displayed endless treasures, ranging from glimmering nautilus shells to hunks of raw, luminous crystal to slowly breathing fronds of the most delicate cerulean blue.
This had to be Naomi’s place. Scorio pressed his hand to his brow, realized that his headache was gone, and slid out from under the covers. He was still dressed in his robes, thankfully. He rose, swayed for a moment, and then decided that he felt much better. Stepped over to a broad bowl of clear water, cupped water to his lips to drink, and then splashed the remainder over his face.
Naomi stepped in from the balcony, dressed in black robes, the hems faded to gray, several patches sewn neatly over the knees and elbows. “You’re awake.”
“Barely.” Scorio smiled widely. “That bed made waking up a nearly impossible task. How long have I been out?”
“Just a day.” She rubbed the back of her neck and then moved to a table where she picked up a cutting knife from a breadboard then set it down. “You needed the rest,” she said, voice low. “You pushed yourself too hard.”
“You’re right.” Scorio stretched, relishing the pops that came from his spine as he did so, and then released it with a contented sigh. “Thank you. For taking care of me. For bringing me back here.”
She still didn’t turn to him. “Don’t worry about it. Are you hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Right.” She took up the knife again and cut a thick slice from a small loaf of black bread she pulled out of a hempen sack.
“Can I help?” asked Scorio.
“No, I’ve got it.” She reached for a clay crock but knocked it so that the lid spilled off. Her attempt to catch it only knocked it off the table altogether where it cracked apart on the floor.
“Oh!” She dropped into a crouch and began to hurriedly pick up the pieces.
“Here,” said Scorio, joining her with three long steps to crouch beside her. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, of course,” she said, quickly piling the fragments atop each other and rising rapidly to her feet. She cast around, trying to decide where to set them, then simply stepped to the opening and hurled them out into the void over the balcony.
Scorio went to hand her the piece he’d picked up, and then saw how high up they were. His insides clenched and his breath caught.
“Where…?” He moved to the doorway and peered out over the ruins. They had to be at the very top of that massive tower in her territory, for the city spread out far below them, the sun-wire so close overhead he felt like he could stretch out his hand and clasp it.
“I call it the Widow’s Tower,” said Naomi quietly, busying herself with spreading butter over the bread. “Been here over a year now.”
“Wow.” Scorio studied the floor of the balcony before stepping out onto it. It was more an act of faith than anything else, for gaps clearly showed in the stonework, and half the balustrade was gone.
But it was exhilarating as well, his chest filling with emotion as he gazed out over the ruins. The light of Bronze—whichever it was—flattened the details and covered everything in its copperish light. They had to be ten, maybe fifteen stories up. Looking down, he saw that the tower was indeed angled, angled alarmingly actually, so that he drew back inside with a hiss.
“Are you sure—?” He caught himself and took a deep breath. “Obviously this is safe.”
“I guess so.” She placed his slice of buttered bread on a small wooden plate and handed it to him, eyes averted. “I have lived here a year, after all. It’s not fallen yet.”
Scorio stepped back to sit on a stool, hiking one foot up to rest the heel on a rung. “Why’d you choose to live here, then?”
“None of your business,” she snapped, smoothing the fabric of her robes down over her hips before casting her gaze around. She moved abruptly toward the bed and began pulling at the coverlets and blankets, straightening them out.
“You’re right,” said Scorio softly, taking up the raggedly cut bread. “None of my business. I’m sorry.”
Naomi sighed, a blanket stretched taut before her, then released it. “When… after I left the Academy, I was in a bad place.” Her hair had fallen forward to hide her face. “I couldn’t go back to my father. I didn’t want to stay in the city. Didn’t have any friends. So I came to the ruins to hide.”
Scorio listened attentively.
Naomi smoothed down the fabric of the cover carefully. “Like I said, I was in a bad place. Was taking… risks… that I wouldn’t take today. One of them was a dare. A wager, I suppose. With Bastion, with the world. With hell. I came up here one night. I don’t remember why. With so little to do, I’d spend my time exploring. I had an idea that…”
She trailed off, shot him an alarmed glance, then turned away to move to a dresser where she snapped a stalactite of hardened wax off the edge and began to crumble it into the wells of each candle.