It was a glassdamned massacre. A few pockets of grenadiers – the duke’s own bodyguard – held out for as long as it took Idrian to locate and clear their position. The rest of the Grent infantry either were chewed up by Ossan bayonets, were blasted to bits by Mika’s grenades, or fled.
Less than ten minutes passed before Idrian stood panting among the bodies, his ears barely hearing the screams of the wounded and the occasional cry for mercy from a downed Grent infantryman. The Green Jackets now commanded the intersection, their entire battalion flooding in to shift the barricades and prepare for a counterattack.
If it came, that was their business. Idrian found Valient, who was already organizing his soldiers to double-time it back to their own position.
“Five dead, eighteen wounded,” Valient reported.
Idrian nodded. Not bad, all things considered.
“That was quite the leap. Tash says you landed on their glassdancer. Is that true?”
Idrian grinned. He couldn’t resist. He was, he had to admit, a little impressed with himself for aiming that jump so well. “Last thing the poor bastard saw was my boots.” He raised his head, looking once more to the south, where he could see the palace at the top of the hill. The Green Jackets had a good position now, which meant the entire push could continue.
Valient slapped him on the shoulder, then made a face as his hand came away slick with Grent blood.
“Let’s get back,” Idrian told him. “We’re not going to take the palace today, but we can push them out of the townhouses entirely.” He was close enough to taste it. He was going to lead the charge up that hill, and with any luck he’d be the first one through the front door of the ducal palace. He could secure the cinderite, and if they were lucky, capturing the palace might even lead to the end of this little war. “Oh, and do me a favor.”
“After that jump? Hah! Name it.”
“Find me a sheepskin. I need to wrap up something fragile.”
16
The first twenty-four hours in the Ivory Forest Glassworks left Thessa an exhausted husk. She plowed through it, working late into the night, catching a few hours of sleep in the dormitory she shared with twenty other prisoners, and then got up early enough to watch the assistants light the reheating chambers in the morning. She worked through the midday meal to catch up on the previous day’s quota, finishing both her own work and Axio’s, only to immediately start on the current day.
She daydreamed about the phoenix channel as she worked. Her time in the back of that wagon had allowed her to grasp the project pretty well, and she bounced ideas off herself to keep her mind occupied. That cannon-like sorcery converter floated in her head, turning this way and that, allowing her to imagine every aspect – and the small changes she’d need to make to improve it.
If the other prisoners noticed that she was covering for Axio, they said nothing. In fact, Thessa was left almost completely unsupervised. The quotas were given, the prisoners worked to fill them, and that was it. No interference by the guards or the other prisoners. Barely anything but a nod from the hired assistants and laborers. It was as if Thessa – and the other siliceers working the furnaces – was nothing but a machine to be occasionally greased and otherwise ignored.
It was dehumanizing. Humiliating. Thessa let those two words repeat over and over again in the back of her head, fueling her work with her fury. They wouldn’t break her. She wouldn’t allow it. She would use their dehumanizing tactics against them to plan her escape and, if there was any chance at all, she would find justice for both herself and the others forced to work here.
Axio did not learn quickly – nobody became a practicing siliceer overnight – but he helped her gather information. He was a second pair of eyes and ears, making mental notes of guard positions, work rotations, sympathetic laborers, and even the other prisoners. They spoke in hushed tones, exchanging information, and Thessa cast it all to memory as she worked to fill both their trays with godglass.
Heat, pinch, snip, shape, listen, repeat.
Heat, pinch, snip, shape, listen, repeat.
She fell into a trance, transferring tools between hands and the workbench with speed and efficiency. Heat, pinch, snip, shape, listen, repeat. She was deep in her own thoughts when they were interrupted by an older woman with gray-black hair and a limp standing immediately next to Thessa’s workstation. Thessa jumped, catching her breath. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
The woman was one of the other prisoners. None seemed interested in sharing their names, so Thessa had labeled them with the numbers of their workstations. She herself was Nine. This older woman was Three. Three didn’t meet her eye, instead staring straight at the floor as she mumbled apologetically, “You’re working too much.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you continue to work as much as you do, you’ll get glassrot. Take breaks when everyone else does.”
Thessa inhaled sharply, realized the mistake she’d made. One of her greatest advantages in a glassworks was her sorcery aphasia. Most siliceers needed to be judicious about the time they spent working, but not her, and she’d used it to her advantage to catch up on the quotas. It hadn’t even occurred to her that other people would notice.
She pretended to scratch at some nonexistent glassrot on her forearm, trying to be nonchalant. “You’re right, I should. Thanks for the warning.”
The woman shuffled back to her workstation without another word. If anyone else had taken note of their conversation, Thessa could not tell. She glanced back at Axio, who continued to go through the motions, making forgeglass pieces that had no resonance. Periodically Thessa would remove them from his tray, replace them with her own, then melt his down in her own crucible to be worked again. It was inefficient and wasteful, but the ruse seemed to be working.
A whistle was blown, signaling the top of the hour. The other prisoners immediately began to rack their tools. Some knuckled their backs, others bent over their workstations to weep quietly. Most just trudged outside. Thessa’s nerves had tightened with Three’s warning, and she knew she had to take that advice before someone else noticed her lack of glassrot. It would slow her down but it couldn’t be helped.
She and Axio left their stations and stepped out into the courtyard, where dozens of prisoners from several different furnace rooms were taking their break. The air was thick with smoke from the belching furnaces, the light dim from the setting sun, but it did feel nice to be out of the heat.
Thessa sank to the ground just outside, rolling her shoulders, swearing to herself softly. Axio came to sit next to her, his head raised, looking at the guards up on the walls. She should be doing the same, she knew, but she needed this breather. Let him do the reconnaissance. Had it been only a day in this place? It felt like weeks. She couldn’t help but wonder how long some of these prisoners had been here. Months? Years? How did they keep going every day?
Muted conversations filled the courtyard, and some of the woodsmoke was mixed with the scent of cigarettes begged from guards or laborers. Only two people had books, and they held them protectively whenever someone walked by. There were no newspapers or entertainment. She thought she heard someone mention a weekend cudgeling match between guards.
Dehumanizing. The word rolled on her tongue as if she were about to spit it at a tribunal. Was this what all prisons were like? Did anyone deserve this? Thessa didn’t even know if her fellow siliceers were thieves or murderers, or if they’d just had the same bad luck to be on the wrong end of an Ossan war.