She worked the bellows for the godglass funnel, reheating her pieces again and again as needed. Her leg eventually grew numb. She switched legs, then ordered one of the apprentices to come and work the bellows for her.
She started over. Then she started over again. She barely noticed the siliceer that brought cureglass for Demir’s wounds. The arrival of the owner of the glassworks was similarly ignored. Montego took him aside, and she was not interrupted. Minutes passed, and then hours. She kept her head bent, listening to the resonance of the sorceries as she attempted to mold four pieces of godglass into one. It was, she reflected in a moment of clarity, like a musician trying to put together notes to find the right sound.
Darkness fell, the workshop lit by gas lanterns and the furnace that Prosotsi siliceers continued to stoke without questions. At one point the owner of the glassworks stood and watched her for almost an hour. He did not say anything.
She mixed more cureglass, throwing away her dozens of mistakes.
She did not know what time it was when the resonances finally matched up. At first she thought she had made a mistake; that she had managed only to braid three of the godglasses together without losing their resonance. But holding the curved, still-warm piece of glass at arm’s length she could see that it had all four together, and they hummed powerfully in her fingertips. She hurried over to Demir.
Montego rested his head on the workbench by Demir’s shoulder, his body slumped with exhaustion, still whispering in Demir’s ear in a gentle tone. Demir’s eyes were barely open, his breathing rasping and labored. Thessa turned up the lantern above them and moved a recently changed wet compress off Demir’s chest. The medium-resonance cureglass supplied by the Prosotsi siliceers had done an incredible job – the burn still looked nasty, but like it had already had a week to heal.
Demir’s eyes focused on her briefly as she stood above him. He made a sound that definitely had a question mark at the end.
“High-resonance braided godglass,” she told him. “I don’t know if it’ll work as intended, but…” She did not finish, instead pushing the godglass between his lips, using her opposite hand to work his jaw open so that he held the godglass between his teeth. “Keep it in place, but do not bite down. I don’t want to have to pick broken godglass out of your mouth.”
Demir did as instructed. Thessa searched the workbenches until she found a pocket watch left by one of the siliceers. She checked the time.
It was almost six in the morning. Without rest, food, or drink, she had worked the furnace for twenty hours straight. She shook the thought from her mind and focused on the second hand. One eye on the watch, she looked at Demir’s wound. For a moment, she could not tell if anything was happening. Then, slowly but definitely, the burn began to knit itself. Flesh grew where the old had come away with the fearglass. New skin, pinkish and puckered, slowly knit together, closing over the burn.
As the sorcery worked, she could see the glassrot scales growing on his chest. They shimmered in the gaslight, becoming more defined with each passing second. She wiped them away with the brush of her hand, but they grew back in moments. A minute passed. A minute and a half. Two minutes.
Once the pocket watch marked that two and a half minutes had passed, Thessa snatched the godglass from between Demir’s teeth and found a cork-lined box to put it in. She returned to his side, running her fingers across the pink-and-white scar that had only minutes ago been a terrible burn. Demir’s eyes were closed, but his breathing was now steady. She checked his pulse.
It was normal.
His lips moved imperceptibly, and Thessa bent to hear him.
“I am saved,” he whispered.
Thessa felt a great tension leave her body. She might have collapsed if she were not already leaning on the workbench. She rested her head against Demir’s bare chest for a moment and became aware that every sinew of her body hurt. Not bothering to remove her heavy boots or apron, she rolled onto the workbench next to Demir, closed her eyes, and slept.
25
Idrian received an eight-hour leave of absence – not difficult during the confusion of the entire Foreign Legion pulling out of Grent – to rush into Ossa and deliver the cinderite to the Hyacinth Hotel. The concierge told him that Demir was not available, but allowed him to take the cinderite directly to Demir’s office, where he promised that the hotel master-at-arms would keep it under her personal protection. Idrian left disquieted, wishing he could have handed it to Demir directly. It was enough. It had to be. An itch had started right behind his godglass eye that told him a battle was brewing, and sooner than he would have liked.
He returned to the Foreign Legion in late afternoon, far out beyond the western suburbs of Ossa where all three brigades had moved their strength into the Copper Hills. It was rolling farmland, barren for the winter, with plenty of defensible positions and hilltops for artillery batteries.
It was on one such hilltop on the right flank of the army that Idrian found the Ironhorns. Soldiers and engineers alike had out their short military shovels, digging trenches and putting palisades into place to protect seven heavy cannons and four mortars while the artillery crews went through last-minute drills to make sure both they and their weapons were in top order. The entire region was crawling with soldiers and support staff – even backup companies of National Guard from the city. Glassdancers wandered the hillside, getting a feel for the slopes and the winds.
As much as Idrian preferred being in the middle of the action, he could see the relief on the faces of his compatriots. In the city they were on the front line, capturing bridges, erecting barricades, and throwing grenades. Here on the open battlefield, engineers were less useful in combat. Their privilege was manual labor under Mika’s expert gaze, and most of them would be glad of it.
Let the regular infantry hold the front line for a change. Idrian and the Ironhorns would protect the artillery.
“How are we looking?” Idrian asked, striding into the camp, where Tadeas and Mika were having a heated discussion underneath a canvas pavilion.
Tadeas looked toward Idrian, giving Mika the chance to flip a rude gesture at his shoulder.
“I saw that,” Tadeas snapped. To Idrian he replied, “Most everyone has pulled out of Grent. We’ve got a solid defensive position here – if Kerite tries to go around us, she’ll lose at least a week on the march.”
“Stavri doesn’t want to go on the offensive?”
“He doesn’t see the need to, and for once I agree with him. Let Kerite come to us.”
“How long do we have?”
“If she contests us straight on? Two days. If she decides to juke around it could be longer.”
“I wager it’ll be sooner rather than later.”
“Your eye itching again?”
Idrian nodded.
“Shit,” Tadeas replied. “It’s a weird sixth sense, but it’s never steered us wrong before. Better keep your engineers working through the night, Mika.”
Mika rolled her eyes. “Glassdamnit. Fine, but I’m going to press-gang some of those National Guard into helping us. Asshole policemen ordered out here to play soldier, they’re going to get their hands dirty.”
“I’ll send a messenger to the nearest regiment,” Tadeas told her.