Page 90 of The Book that Broke the World

Next to these historical figures Oanold’s corruption, fragile ego, and bigotry were unpleasant realities, but things that could and should be fought rather than run from. Even if they hadn’t discovered that Livira was in the chamber, Arpix imagined he might vote for an attempt to make peaceful contact with the king’s faction in the hopes of reaching an agreement. A sizeable part of Arpix looked forward to the normality of seeing scores of his fellow citizens and some of the central elements of his old life. Four years of isolation on the margins of the Dust had taken a toll on more than just his body.

Arpix felt safe enough with the two canith flanking him. He enjoyed being the shortest of a trio. For most of his life he’d towered over nearly everyone. Especially Meelan, his closest friend.

Arpix had always felt a distance between himself and the world, and although he knew that it was his innate reserve that had created the gap rather than his height, his stature still felt like the embodiment of that disconnect. Eye contact required an extra step, which took away spontaneity. Everyone had to look up first.

Clovis walked beside him, easy in her skin. Magnificent in it, truth be told. He shook his head. He used that word about her too often, albeit only within the confines of his skull. Magnificent. The closeness of her, the sheer physical presence, affected him in ways he was unused to, ways that left him unsettled and from which he had always steered away on the rare occasions he’d encountered them in the past. This time, however, he was neither sure that he could absent himself from her company, nor that he even wanted to despite the excess of nervous energy she filled him with.

Part of him wished that they weren’t always in such extremes both of danger and of circumstance. Though, when he tried to picture them talking in a quiet, stress-free library, or strolling the streets of Crath, his imagination failed him. And there were no streets to go back to now, no peace, no part of his old life to return to.

Arpix couldn’t picture Clovis in his previous existence—taking her to tea with his parents, for example, totally defeated him—but he could easily imagine her growing bored of him in such a context, dismissive of his interests. And that would hurt. It was, almost certainly, best if he let go of this thing, whatever it was, and instead trod a more prudent path.

Although—if Wentworth was correct—they were walking towards Livira, she was, in a very real sense, already walking beside Arpix. He could hear her voice in his mind, asking him why he was still waiting for his life to begin. All his years of caution, all those years when she had asked him seemingly every day what he thought he was getting ready for. Those days when she’d told him that the race had already started, and he needed to join in or be left behind. Livira’s advice would be, and always had been, to grab what was before him with both hands. And now she would be saying that if he really had for so long been saving himself for something better, something extraordinary... how was this not it? How was Clovis not it?

A tap on his shoulder made Arpix look around to see that Kerrol had stopped walking and was letting others go on ahead. Arpix fell back too. “What is it?”

“You looked troubled.”

“We’re in troubling times.” Arpix enjoyed the privacy offered by the canith’s language. The settlers from Yute’s group, who were passing them by, probably thought that the two of them were gearing up for a fight, judging by the growls and snarls. Certainly, there was mild alarm in the looks thrown their way.

Kerrol started walking again once the back of the party caught up with them. “You looked as if your troubles might be of the oldest boy-meets-girl kind.”

“How could you—” Arpix broke off, remembering that people were Kerrol’s study, whatever species they might come from, and that relationships were as much a part of people as water was a part of blood. Without water, blood was just a red dust. In his library life, Arpix had come close to cutting himself off to a dangerous level, to becoming dust, moved only by the wind rather than by the pulsing of a heart.

He sighed and, after a long pause, admitted, “I worry.”

“You seem to have summed up your existence in two words, Arpix. Clovis worries too little, because she has suffered too great a hurt and has armoured herself against cares of all kinds. Somehow you have sidestepped that armour. She might liken it to a stiletto slid through a joint.”

“And your advice is?”

“It’s more of a warning. Though a different kind from my brother’s one.” He paused, rumbling in his throat, a deep sound that seemed to travel the length of him. “My family will not all take the same side in the library’s great war. And it seems that we will all become embroiled in this conflict. I want you to consider that the library, though it has been home to you both, has shown a very different face to Clovis than it has to you and your friends. There will come a time of choosing, and it might well be that this time will be easier for you if you don’t choose my sister first.”

Arpix sighed. “It’s never easy, is it?”

Kerrol set a hand to Arpix’s shoulder. “And we didn’t even get to the biting part yet.”

“Biting?” Arpix glanced uncomfortably at the large hand beside his neck.

“The females of our kind, when in the throes of...”

“They bite?” Arpix said, horrified.

“Famed for it.” Kerrol nodded. “A good thick mane offers some protection to the largest arteries, but I’m not sure yours is... big enough.”

Arpix was still fumbling for an answer when he walked into Clovis. She warded him off, gently enough, while staring daggers at Kerrol. “My brother’s filling your head with nonsense.”

Kerrol strolled on past her. “I saw you were waiting for us, and I felt he needed to know.”

Arpix rubbed his arm where Clovis had grabbed it to steer him clear of a collision. “Was... was any of that true?” He felt his face turning crimson and was mortified.

Clovis turned away and followed her brother. “No,” she said over her shoulder. “Manes are no protection at all.”

Arpix had more questions. Whether or not he had the courage to ask them was not something that was put to the test since at that moment scattered shots rang out in the distance and, in the following silence, distant screams rose.

At once Evar picked up speed, urging Wentworth on. The group jogged behind him, a pace that started to tire the smaller children quickly. More turns, more aisles, another ’stick blast, isolated this time. They hurried on, running now to keep up with Evar’s barely restrained jog. Clovis, despite her weakness, forged a path to take her place behind Evar. Arpix kept his place just behind her and Kerrol, his view blocked by canith backs.

A turn left, right, two more lefts. Without warning, a terrified cry rang out at the front of the group. Clovis readied her blow before Arpix could blink. Then Evar’s voice came, raw with emotion.

“Livira!”

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