Fic: Web of Fate, Chapter 3
2026-06-07 03:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rodoTitle: Web of Fate
Fandom: Carnival Row
Author:rodo
Chapter: 3/17+E
Length: 4,551 words (77,000 in total)
Rating: 16+
Genre: Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence, Worldbuilding, Adventure
Characters: Rycroft Philostrate, Jonah Breakspear, Vignette Stonemoss, Runyan Millworthy, Darius Prowell, Absalom Breakspear
Pairing: Philo/Vignette
Warnings/Labels: war, and mentions/occasional depictions of associated atrocities; canon-typical fantasy racism
Disclaimer: Everything you recognise belongs to Amazon, of course
A/N: I started this story in August 2021, and I finished the draft in 2022, so this was all written prior to the second season. So some of the worldbuilding contradicts what was shown in season 2. Still, I had so much fun re-reading this lately that I thought I’d polish it up some more and post it anyway, in case some of you will like it as well. Since it’s an AU, the plot of the second season is not that relevant anyway.
Summary: A year after the attempted assassination of Chancellor Absalom Breakspear, The Burgue is at war, and it’s not going well. In order to break the stalemate at the front, some unlikely soldiers are recruited to fight in a place nobody expected, and Philo and Jonah find themselves caught up in it against their expectations.
Chapter 3: The Barracks
PACT INVADES BASILIA
The headline – and others like it – were everywhere. Newsboys were repeating them at the top of their lungs. The chatter and discarded papers even made it back to the Row behind its barricade and barbed-wire fences. For once, nobody was talking about the critch menace that was going to destroy The Burgue. Instead, the humans were cursing their old rival while fae and faun were sitting in their prison, waiting, weary. Philo could sense that, after the past few months, few of them had any trust in the humans left and feared the worst.
It was strange how the news came as a surprise, yet also not. In a way, they had all been heading for war ever since it had become public that the Pact had financed the puck terrorists that tried to kill the Chancellor. What followed had been a steady escalation on the diplomatic stage – strongly worded dispatches, withdrawn ambassadors, sanctions, embargoes… one had followed the other. War had been the natural conclusion; few had doubted it. What came as a surprise was that the Pact had made the first step, involving neutral Basilia, no less.
When Vignette saw Philo staring through the headlines, she gave him a sympathetic hug. Without a word, she knew how he felt. She’d gone through it all before herself, some twenty years ago. The Pact had come for her home; now it came for his, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
*
The coach ride didn’t take long; they made two more stops, picking up a fae who recognised Vignette but didn’t say a word, and another half-blood, a timid young man with reddish hair and tiny horns who looked like he was barely old enough to grow a beard. Then they drove on to the train station, where the soldiers herded them into an empty third-class carriage, the kind the Burguish army used to deploy its soldiers. For a moment, Philo felt as if he was back in his youth, almost expecting to find Darius at his side rather than Vignette when he turned.
The train ride took longer than the coach ride, but it was just as silent. There were armed minders in their carriage, killing any conversation before it could start. And so they all sat down on the hard, wooden benches and stared out of the windows, sparing only a surreptitious glance here or there for their fellow passengers. There was little light, and so there wasn’t much to see anyway. Outside, the Beornlands passed by them in the dark of night. Philo held onto Vignette’s hand and soon enough felt himself drift off, despite the cold. He only awoke with a jolt when the train drew to a halt.
The group that was ushered out of the carriage was a sorry sight. Philo hadn’t been able to tell before in the half-lit carriage. Here – wherever here was – the gaslights were illuminating a bare platform and a long fence beyond. In the distance, there were the telltale boxy shapes of barracks. Soldiers guided the group – more than one of them half-dressed, all huddled in on themselves to make themselves seem smaller – towards the gate, then past, until they finally entered one of the nondescript buildings.
“Males this way, females that,” a soldier said in lieu of a greeting, gesturing left and right. Philo and Vignette froze in place as the others moved around them. When Philo looked at her, he saw her try for an encouraging smile at the same moment he did.
“I’ll find you again,” Philo promised her.
“I’ve found you again after seven years in hell,” she pointed out. “I’ll find you.”
For a moment, they looked at each other, and it hit Philo again just how much Vignette mattered to him. He was about to lean forward and kiss her one last time when the butt of a rifle hit him between the shoulder blades.
“Move it,” one of the guards drawled.
They did. Before he turned, Philo saw Vignette mouth a silent “I love you.” Then she turned, and so did he.
The grey corridors were familiar, even though he hadn’t seen them before. Army bases all looked the same, at least the ones built in the last half-century. The soldiers directed him and two other stragglers to follow one of the lieutenant’s men, whom Philo recognised from back in The Burgue, to a large room covered in white tiles. Three men wearing white coats already awaited them. The oldest was obviously a doctor, the younger ones his assistants.
“This all of them?” the doctor asked, not sparing “them” more than a passing glance. Then he yawned. Philo had almost forgotten that it must be about to dawn right then.
The soldier nodded. “Yes, sir.”
The doctor nodded, then peered at them through his spectacles. Philo wanted to twitch when the piercing gaze reached him. “Half-bloods, I assume?”
Again, it was the soldier who was being addressed. Philo and the other two might as well have been dogs or beasts of burden, for all that they seemed to matter.
“Yes, although this one,” he pointed at Philo, “wasn’t on our list, and he might be lying to stay with his girl.”
That brought the doctor’s gaze back to him. Philo had been examined by an army doctor once before, but that man had barely paid any attention to him. He was tall enough, not too heavy nor too thin, didn’t need glasses, had a full range of motion and no known diseases (as per his own statement). That had been enough then. The Burgue had needed soldiers more than it needed to prevent half-bloods from joining up. This doctor was different. He motioned for his assistants to measure the other two while he walked over to Philo himself.
“Turn around,” he ordered.
Philo did.
“No wings, no horns…” the doctor sighed. “Take off your breeches and shoes.”
Philo just stared at the man and instead removed his undershirt, exposing the scars on his back. “I’m half-fae, not half-faun.” Then he turned and flexed what he imagined to be the wing muscles in his back. Portia had told him that it made the scars stand out more once. Martyr, he hadn’t thought of that in ages.
The doctor stepped even closer and let his fingers run over the scar tissue in a parody of a lover’s touch. Philo wanted to flinch. He hated being touched there by anyone but Vignette and tensed at the uncomfortable closeness. The doctor didn’t seem to care; he just let his hands rest on Philo’s scars.
“Flex your wing muscles,” he demanded.
“How? I don’t have wings,” Philo replied, trying to hold onto his composure.
The doctor sighed again, then yawned. “Do try.”
Philo closed his eyes and tried to feel his wings, tried to imagine himself spreading them like he’d seen fae do a thousand times and more. He could feel them obey his thoughts, could feel them strain to bear his weight, but the doctor only sighed and removed his hands.
“It’s no use, we’ll need to do a blood test. You, young man, are either a liar or had a very good surgeon. If there’s a trace of wing muscles in there somewhere, they’re too small or stunted for me to detect.”
The doctor shuffled to his station and assembled what Philo reckoned he needed to test his blood, opening drawers and cabinets.
The soldier who still stood beside Philo coughed and eyed him with suspicion. “If you’ve wasted our time, there’ll be hell to pay. Hope you enjoy the front,” he whispered.
Philo paid him no mind and put his undershirt back on. The medical examination room was too cold to stand around for long without a shirt. While he waited, he watched the other patients get what was mostly the standard examination he remembered. The young man shot Philo glances every now and then, fluctuating between curious, pitying, and fearful. Another half-fae, Philo thought, and wondered if he still had his wings under his coat.
“Come here,” the doctor ordered, pointing at a chair. Philo had seen the procedure from a distance before. Soldiers getting their blood drawn if their blood type matched that of an injured soldier in their regiment. Mercifully, it was over soon. Philo watched as his blood dripped into a couple of vials and onto a thin, flat piece of glass. He didn’t know what would happen with human blood, but in his case, the vials all reacted the same. The glass slide was then examined under a microscope. Finally, the doctor took a deep breath.
“A good surgeon, then,” he said. “I would like to congratulate the man on his work. I’ve never seen such a good shearing before.”
Philo doubted that. They’d want to put him behind bars, no doubt. “I was a baby,” he answered. “Maybe that has something to do with it. And he’s dead.”
The doctor seemed to store away that information for later. “A pity,” he replied, without a hint of it in his voice. Then he proceeded with the medical examination, including taking down his personal information.
“Name?”
“Philo,” he said. He didn’t want them to figure out who he really was, but the soldier might have heard Vignette call him that. Enough half-bloods never got a family name anyway. Orphaned or abandoned when they were too young to remember their parents. There were no orphanages for half-bloods that would randomly assign them one, either. The doctor wrote it down as “Filo.”
“Family?”
“None.” That he cared to tell them about. “You picked up my— Vignette too. Vignette Stonemoss. She’s the closest thing to family I have.”
“Age?”
“Thirty-eight.”
Taking the remaining measurements was left to the assistants. Height, weight, sight, notable scars or tattoos. A normal medical examination for the army, were it not for the fact that Philo was half-fae. His mind drifted off again, wondering why he was here and what their purpose was. He hoped that Vignette was alright. What they wanted with actual fae, not just half-bloods, was even more of a mystery to him. He hoped it wasn’t too bad, and that he and Vignette could find a way to escape if it was.
Afterwards, the soldier led Philo into one of the barracks. From the other rooms they passed, the occasional snore and unintelligible muttering drifted to his ears. He finally stopped in front of one of the rooms – 2-13, the thirteenth room, barrack number two. Philo knew what awaited him inside: three beds – six bunks in total, a table and two chairs. Six lockers for their personal effects.
“You get some rest today. Training starts tomorrow. There’s a uniform inside,” the soldier explained.
Philo nodded and opened the door. The room looked like he had expected it to. Through the window, he could see the first traces of dawn on the horizon.
He was the last to arrive. There were already five men inside, eyeing him when the door fell shut. Philo sighed and looked at each of them. Three he hadn’t seen before, but two – the suspected half-fae from the medical examination room and the young half-faun – had been on the train with them.
“Which one’s mine?” he asked.
The one at the back – a full fae in a ratty top hat and burgundy coat – pointed at the lower bunk closest to the door. The number two was embossed on a little plaque fixed to the bedframe. Philo went to the locker with the corresponding number to find his uniform. He was sick and tired of running around half-dressed at this time of year; even an ill-fitting military uniform would do.
“And you are?” the fae asked.
“Philo.”
“You’re a halfer too. What kind?”
“Half-fae,” the other half-fae from the examination room supplied. “I saw the scars on his back. He had his wings cut off.”
Three pairs of eyes looked at him in horror. The full fae, the half-fae he already knew, and another one with skin as dark as Darius’s. Philo would bet that if he turned, there’d be wings on his back too. He tried not to let their stares bother him while he changed into a Burguish military uniform for the first time in eight years. Last time, there had been a sergeant’s stripes on his shoulders.
“My mother had it done when I was a baby,” Philo explained.
“Still, that’s cold,” the dark-skinned half-blood said. “Basilius Stokeworth,” he added after a pause. “The others are Ash Greenstone,” he pointed at the fae, “Mungo Weeks,” he pointed at the other half-fae, “and those two half-pucks are Silesius and Thomas.”
Philo nodded at all of them and even tried to smile for Thomas’s sake. The boy was far too young for whatever this was, and he acted it, too.
“You were in there longer than any of us. Did you hear them say anything about why they picked us up?” Mungo asked.
Philo shook his head as he shrugged on his uniform jacket. Then he turned to face them properly.
“God’s noose!” Thomas cried. “You could pass for a Burguish soldier, looking like that.”
The others nodded in agreement.
“I used to, for a while,” Philo admitted. “Back during the war.”
Ash Greenstone whistled. “Guess we’ve got someone else who’s got a bit of guile. I thought I was the only one.” At Philo’s questioning glance, he added, “I used to run lixir from Fomhoire to Anoun, before it got too hot and I caught a boat to Beechhaven. Should have stayed, probably. But who would think that a year and a half could turn The Burgue into… this.”
A fae from the Black Raven (presumably), a former smuggler from Tirnanoc, and Vignette… Philo was beginning to put together a picture. One of what they might need the fae for. All relatively recent arrivals, or at least people with some knowledge of Pact-occupied Tirnanoc who knew how to survive and hide there. If it was Philo who was making the plans, he knew what he’d use them for. But the half-bloods were another matter, one that wasn’t as easy to untangle.
“I don’t think there’s any good place left to be in the world right now,” Philo argued. “We’re all at war, in one way or another.”
Ash scoffed but didn’t argue, and neither did any of the others. With the introductions out of the way, Philo lay back on his bunk and closed his eyes in an effort to catch some more sleep before they’d inevitably be called to the mess hall for their meal. It took him a while to drift away; his thoughts of Vignette and Thomas’s nervous chattering were distracting him in turn. When he finally slept, he dreamed of the train and of resting his head against Vignette’s, their fingers intertwined.
*
The next day, they were woken around dawn by a drill sergeant who ordered them to assemble on the training ground in fifteen minutes. The others grumbled and cursed, fighting with their uniforms, ill-fitting boots, and, in Ash’s case, getting out of bed at all. Philo only sighed and followed the patterns he had learned long ago, before he even joined the army. Transitioning from the orphanage to the army had barely felt like a change at all. When their group stumbled onto the training ground, he was the only one who looked like a soldier, if only because he was the only one whose body didn’t rebel against the uniform. Basilius’ wings peeked out from under his jacket, Mungo’s twitched under it, Thomas’s cap didn’t quite fit onto his horns, and Silesius’ trouser legs were split from forcing his hooves through them. Ash hadn’t bothered with a uniform at all. Neither had the giant of a man from one of the other rooms, who looked to be half-trow, nor the handful of female fae and half-fae standing on the opposite side of the large courtyard. In the twilight, Philo had to struggle to make out Vignette’s form. Still, when he finally succeeded after a few moments, his heart felt lighter than it had since they parted.
The drill sergeant – a man pushing sixty, probably too old or infirm for proper fighting – wasn’t pleased with what he’d been given to work with. He sneered, the shadows of the early morning transforming his face into a cruel mask.
“Line up!” the man screamed.
Not even Philo jumped into position as he’d learned. Instead, he slowly shuffled into place like the rest of them. The sergeant walked past them all, scoffing and shaking his head at each, criticising how they wore their uniform or stood. Even Philo was told to “stand up straighter.” When he was done, it was finally light enough for them to see him and each other properly. Philo guessed there were about fifty of them, half-bloods and fae.
The sergeant took ten steps back, muttering to himself how hopeless this was – whatever “this” was. Then he turned and took a deep breath.
“Listen up, you imbeciles! You don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here. But the higher-ups have a plan, and we have a job. I have to turn you into proper soldiers, and by the Martyr, once I’m through with you, you’ll be the best soldiers you could ever hope to be. You’ll still be the worst soldiers I’ve ever trained, but there’s only so much a man can do.”
If he weren’t a soldier, Philo thought the man would throw up his hands in exasperation. Instead, he kept his composure enough to order some of his subordinates to pass around their new rifles. At the same time, he moved to stand behind them, giving them a view of the targets and the other side of the grounds.
“That is your rifle,” he explained. “Take care of it; it might one day save your life.” Then he continued explaining to them how to use it, its safety, loading, and maintenance. When he ordered them to shoot, Philo made sure his movements were sluggish and that his aim was off. His real attention was on the guards around, and the fact that they kept their guns on hand and their eyes on their new recruits, in case any of them got any ideas.
“Hey, passing-for-a-soldier, think you could hit one of them?” he heard Ash hiss beside him. The fae handled his rifle a little too expertly as well.
“One,” Philo answered. “Then there’d be ten bullets in me before I could fire a second time.”
The fae harrumphed, and they continued playing their charade all through the morning. Some of them ended up hitting their target, if not the bull’s eye, but others, like the half-trow, had trouble even getting the basics right. Not that there was much he could do – the triggers were designed for human hands, not a trow’s.
In sum, the morning was a drudge, at least until the moment steps approached the drill sergeant. They were entirely too chipper and lacked the precision of a trained soldier, which was what roused Philo’s attention in the first place. The drill sergeant was standing only a couple of steps away.
“Sergeant Reeley,” an all too familiar voice said. “How are our recruits?”
The sergeant’s silence spoke louder than his words ever could. Philo could almost see the disapproval on his face that he’d never dare voice to someone who had power. But that voice… Philo couldn’t help it; he lowered his rifle and half-turned to see the face that didn’t belong. Unfortunately, Runyan Millworthy had been looking in his direction when he did so. His eyes widened when he recognised an equally unexpected face.
“I hope you don’t mind me stealing one of them for a moment. You there!” he waved his hand at Philo.
The sergeant saw who he’d picked and shrugged. “One of the least hopeless ones. Return him when you’re done. We don’t have forever.”
Philo slung his rifle over his shoulder in a probably too well-practised motion and followed Millworthy to a corner of the grounds to the side of the targets, but far enough away to avoid being hit by accident by even the worst shot.
“Aren’t you supposed to be an inspector?” Millworthy asked.
“Aren’t you supposed to be an actor?” Philo replied.
Millworthy answered with a wry grin that disappeared once he remembered where they were. “These are different times, Ins—” he broke off and stayed quiet for a few moments. “Why didn’t you tell me you were Aisling’s son?”
Philo raised an eyebrow. “Being half-fae – that’s not something you tell someone you barely know. That’s not even something you tell someone who means the world to you. Not in The Burgue.”
“I forget, sometimes, how much things have changed.” Millworthy sighed and looked to the heavens as if he were asking the Martyr for advice. “You’re still the main suspect in her murder, last I checked.”
Philo shrugged. “I didn’t do it, but who believes a half-blood?”
“And so Aisling’s death will forever go unpunished.”
“Her murderer is dead, if that’s any consolation.”
There was a hardness in Runyan Millworthy’s eyes when he heard that. Fury. Hunger. For a split second, Philo could see just what was hiding under the surface of the affable actor. And suddenly, his presence on a military base made much more sense, even if he wasn’t a soldier in the least.
“It is,” he finally said.
“Why are we here?” Philo asked, because he didn’t just want to know the answer, he needed to.
“In the corner of this yard? The barracks? The world?”
“The first two will suffice.”
Millworthy huffed. “We’re here to help the Republic win the war.”
“By opening up a new front in Tirnanoc?” It was an educated guess, but Philo had learned by trial and error that those were sometimes the easiest way to get information.
Runyan Millworthy grinned. “You’re a clever one, Mr Philostrate. Yes. You’ll be sent over the Great Main.”
“I understand why you need the fae for that. But wouldn’t it be easier to send a regiment with them rather than this lot? Some of them can’t even fire a rifle.”
“Ah, but that would defeat the purpose. Which is to distract the Pact’s armies and disrupt their supply chains, with some plausible deniability for us. You won’t be wearing uniforms. You’ll do your best to seem like a small group of insurgents, hoping for a better life after The Burgue has left you high and dry. Also, and I think you’ll agree with me there, the Burguish army is hardly subtle. This undertaking doesn’t need a well-trained army. It needs people who can be subtle, who can think outside of a narrow Burguish pattern of thought. That’ll be worth more to that giant over there than following a sergeant’s orders.” He pointed at the half-trow who had given up on his rifle altogether and instead grabbed something from the ground. Then he threw it – a stone – towards the target. Philo heard a heavy thunk.
“Why do I get the feeling that there’s something you’re not telling?”
“Because there is. Some spy in Cibola managed to get highly sensitive scientific data to us. As a half-blood, you’re uniquely immune to one of the Pact’s favourite weapons to use in Tirnanoc. That’s something neither human nor fae can say.”
Philo watched the assembled patchwork of people that would be his brothers and sisters in arms. He couldn’t picture them on a field of battle, even with training. Maybe that was for the best. He could picture them trying to sabotage Pact supply lines while skulking in the shadows far more easily.
“And what’s your role in all of this?”
“My role? Why, it was all my idea, of course. I’ll be your teacher later on as well.” He laughed when he saw Philo’s confused face. “Let me tell you, young man, acting is the love of my life, but it doesn’t pay well. It does, however, allow for an itinerant lifestyle that nobody questions. And that led me to some interesting other jobs over the years.”
Meaning he had been a spy. For The Burgue, most like, especially during the last war. He had the acting talent for it, certainly. And the Martyr only knew what he hid behind the façade of a befuddled old man. There was little doubt in Philo that he was dangerous, despite his age and mild demeanour.
“One last question, before I send you back to the training you don’t need, if you’ll permit my curiosity: did you ever find out who your father is?”
Philo hummed. “Maybe I’ll even tell you one day.”
*
It was a rare break for the recruits, and so they all sat around on the grass-covered ground just this side of too unkempt to pass for a lawn. The recruits had started forming groups after a couple of days. Philo and Vignette stuck to each other as much as possible, of course. Then there was Primrose, who had joined the Black Raven for a lack of options after five years of stealing and foraging in the wilds of Anoun, not unlike Vignette. Thomas had attached himself to Philo as well, probably because the others had grown tired of his youth and naiveté. Basilius was with them this time as well, just like Thorfinn, the half-trow. He looked like a dumb giant, and he’d never been taught any of the things other children were, but he was smarter than he let on. It was a sunny day, which did nothing to mitigate the damp cold of a Burguish midwinter. But still, it was fresh air, and none of the wardens – as they’d taken to calling the soldiers from the military police – were nearby.
“I’m still wondering what’s so special about us,” Thomas said, more to fill the silence than to start a conversation. Philo’s revelation had excited him more than any of the others.
In the distance, Philo watched as an armoured coach drove into the compound, coming to a halt in front of the cellblock where they kept their prisoners – deserters, delinquents, traitors and spies, given that this place was run by Military Intelligence.
“Saints know I’ve never been immune to anything.” Basilius snorted. “I used to get colds so terrible when I was small, it’s a miracle I ever made it past five.”
Thorfinn grumbled in agreement.
“But that man told Philo that we’re special, that we’re immune. I can’t help but wonder against what.”
Philo was still watching the carriage while leaning against Vignette and basking in her presence more than the weak sunlight. The soldiers around it were extremely careful, jumping back after opening the locks in the back. Out stepped two people, one light-skinned, one dark-skinned. They wore manacles and iron collars around their necks, and their feet were chained. As Philo watched, the dark-skinned figure seemed more and more familiar the longer he studied it. The man tilted his head in a peculiar way, like a dog trying to catch a scent. Then it all fell into place.
“It’s marroks,” Philo said, eyes glued to his old friend Darius.
Chapter 2: Opportunities | Chapter 4: The Mission
Fandom: Carnival Row
Author:
rodoChapter: 3/17+E
Length: 4,551 words (77,000 in total)
Rating: 16+
Genre: Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence, Worldbuilding, Adventure
Characters: Rycroft Philostrate, Jonah Breakspear, Vignette Stonemoss, Runyan Millworthy, Darius Prowell, Absalom Breakspear
Pairing: Philo/Vignette
Warnings/Labels: war, and mentions/occasional depictions of associated atrocities; canon-typical fantasy racism
Disclaimer: Everything you recognise belongs to Amazon, of course
A/N: I started this story in August 2021, and I finished the draft in 2022, so this was all written prior to the second season. So some of the worldbuilding contradicts what was shown in season 2. Still, I had so much fun re-reading this lately that I thought I’d polish it up some more and post it anyway, in case some of you will like it as well. Since it’s an AU, the plot of the second season is not that relevant anyway.
Summary: A year after the attempted assassination of Chancellor Absalom Breakspear, The Burgue is at war, and it’s not going well. In order to break the stalemate at the front, some unlikely soldiers are recruited to fight in a place nobody expected, and Philo and Jonah find themselves caught up in it against their expectations.
PACT INVADES BASILIA
The headline – and others like it – were everywhere. Newsboys were repeating them at the top of their lungs. The chatter and discarded papers even made it back to the Row behind its barricade and barbed-wire fences. For once, nobody was talking about the critch menace that was going to destroy The Burgue. Instead, the humans were cursing their old rival while fae and faun were sitting in their prison, waiting, weary. Philo could sense that, after the past few months, few of them had any trust in the humans left and feared the worst.
It was strange how the news came as a surprise, yet also not. In a way, they had all been heading for war ever since it had become public that the Pact had financed the puck terrorists that tried to kill the Chancellor. What followed had been a steady escalation on the diplomatic stage – strongly worded dispatches, withdrawn ambassadors, sanctions, embargoes… one had followed the other. War had been the natural conclusion; few had doubted it. What came as a surprise was that the Pact had made the first step, involving neutral Basilia, no less.
When Vignette saw Philo staring through the headlines, she gave him a sympathetic hug. Without a word, she knew how he felt. She’d gone through it all before herself, some twenty years ago. The Pact had come for her home; now it came for his, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
The coach ride didn’t take long; they made two more stops, picking up a fae who recognised Vignette but didn’t say a word, and another half-blood, a timid young man with reddish hair and tiny horns who looked like he was barely old enough to grow a beard. Then they drove on to the train station, where the soldiers herded them into an empty third-class carriage, the kind the Burguish army used to deploy its soldiers. For a moment, Philo felt as if he was back in his youth, almost expecting to find Darius at his side rather than Vignette when he turned.
The train ride took longer than the coach ride, but it was just as silent. There were armed minders in their carriage, killing any conversation before it could start. And so they all sat down on the hard, wooden benches and stared out of the windows, sparing only a surreptitious glance here or there for their fellow passengers. There was little light, and so there wasn’t much to see anyway. Outside, the Beornlands passed by them in the dark of night. Philo held onto Vignette’s hand and soon enough felt himself drift off, despite the cold. He only awoke with a jolt when the train drew to a halt.
The group that was ushered out of the carriage was a sorry sight. Philo hadn’t been able to tell before in the half-lit carriage. Here – wherever here was – the gaslights were illuminating a bare platform and a long fence beyond. In the distance, there were the telltale boxy shapes of barracks. Soldiers guided the group – more than one of them half-dressed, all huddled in on themselves to make themselves seem smaller – towards the gate, then past, until they finally entered one of the nondescript buildings.
“Males this way, females that,” a soldier said in lieu of a greeting, gesturing left and right. Philo and Vignette froze in place as the others moved around them. When Philo looked at her, he saw her try for an encouraging smile at the same moment he did.
“I’ll find you again,” Philo promised her.
“I’ve found you again after seven years in hell,” she pointed out. “I’ll find you.”
For a moment, they looked at each other, and it hit Philo again just how much Vignette mattered to him. He was about to lean forward and kiss her one last time when the butt of a rifle hit him between the shoulder blades.
“Move it,” one of the guards drawled.
They did. Before he turned, Philo saw Vignette mouth a silent “I love you.” Then she turned, and so did he.
The grey corridors were familiar, even though he hadn’t seen them before. Army bases all looked the same, at least the ones built in the last half-century. The soldiers directed him and two other stragglers to follow one of the lieutenant’s men, whom Philo recognised from back in The Burgue, to a large room covered in white tiles. Three men wearing white coats already awaited them. The oldest was obviously a doctor, the younger ones his assistants.
“This all of them?” the doctor asked, not sparing “them” more than a passing glance. Then he yawned. Philo had almost forgotten that it must be about to dawn right then.
The soldier nodded. “Yes, sir.”
The doctor nodded, then peered at them through his spectacles. Philo wanted to twitch when the piercing gaze reached him. “Half-bloods, I assume?”
Again, it was the soldier who was being addressed. Philo and the other two might as well have been dogs or beasts of burden, for all that they seemed to matter.
“Yes, although this one,” he pointed at Philo, “wasn’t on our list, and he might be lying to stay with his girl.”
That brought the doctor’s gaze back to him. Philo had been examined by an army doctor once before, but that man had barely paid any attention to him. He was tall enough, not too heavy nor too thin, didn’t need glasses, had a full range of motion and no known diseases (as per his own statement). That had been enough then. The Burgue had needed soldiers more than it needed to prevent half-bloods from joining up. This doctor was different. He motioned for his assistants to measure the other two while he walked over to Philo himself.
“Turn around,” he ordered.
Philo did.
“No wings, no horns…” the doctor sighed. “Take off your breeches and shoes.”
Philo just stared at the man and instead removed his undershirt, exposing the scars on his back. “I’m half-fae, not half-faun.” Then he turned and flexed what he imagined to be the wing muscles in his back. Portia had told him that it made the scars stand out more once. Martyr, he hadn’t thought of that in ages.
The doctor stepped even closer and let his fingers run over the scar tissue in a parody of a lover’s touch. Philo wanted to flinch. He hated being touched there by anyone but Vignette and tensed at the uncomfortable closeness. The doctor didn’t seem to care; he just let his hands rest on Philo’s scars.
“Flex your wing muscles,” he demanded.
“How? I don’t have wings,” Philo replied, trying to hold onto his composure.
The doctor sighed again, then yawned. “Do try.”
Philo closed his eyes and tried to feel his wings, tried to imagine himself spreading them like he’d seen fae do a thousand times and more. He could feel them obey his thoughts, could feel them strain to bear his weight, but the doctor only sighed and removed his hands.
“It’s no use, we’ll need to do a blood test. You, young man, are either a liar or had a very good surgeon. If there’s a trace of wing muscles in there somewhere, they’re too small or stunted for me to detect.”
The doctor shuffled to his station and assembled what Philo reckoned he needed to test his blood, opening drawers and cabinets.
The soldier who still stood beside Philo coughed and eyed him with suspicion. “If you’ve wasted our time, there’ll be hell to pay. Hope you enjoy the front,” he whispered.
Philo paid him no mind and put his undershirt back on. The medical examination room was too cold to stand around for long without a shirt. While he waited, he watched the other patients get what was mostly the standard examination he remembered. The young man shot Philo glances every now and then, fluctuating between curious, pitying, and fearful. Another half-fae, Philo thought, and wondered if he still had his wings under his coat.
“Come here,” the doctor ordered, pointing at a chair. Philo had seen the procedure from a distance before. Soldiers getting their blood drawn if their blood type matched that of an injured soldier in their regiment. Mercifully, it was over soon. Philo watched as his blood dripped into a couple of vials and onto a thin, flat piece of glass. He didn’t know what would happen with human blood, but in his case, the vials all reacted the same. The glass slide was then examined under a microscope. Finally, the doctor took a deep breath.
“A good surgeon, then,” he said. “I would like to congratulate the man on his work. I’ve never seen such a good shearing before.”
Philo doubted that. They’d want to put him behind bars, no doubt. “I was a baby,” he answered. “Maybe that has something to do with it. And he’s dead.”
The doctor seemed to store away that information for later. “A pity,” he replied, without a hint of it in his voice. Then he proceeded with the medical examination, including taking down his personal information.
“Name?”
“Philo,” he said. He didn’t want them to figure out who he really was, but the soldier might have heard Vignette call him that. Enough half-bloods never got a family name anyway. Orphaned or abandoned when they were too young to remember their parents. There were no orphanages for half-bloods that would randomly assign them one, either. The doctor wrote it down as “Filo.”
“Family?”
“None.” That he cared to tell them about. “You picked up my— Vignette too. Vignette Stonemoss. She’s the closest thing to family I have.”
“Age?”
“Thirty-eight.”
Taking the remaining measurements was left to the assistants. Height, weight, sight, notable scars or tattoos. A normal medical examination for the army, were it not for the fact that Philo was half-fae. His mind drifted off again, wondering why he was here and what their purpose was. He hoped that Vignette was alright. What they wanted with actual fae, not just half-bloods, was even more of a mystery to him. He hoped it wasn’t too bad, and that he and Vignette could find a way to escape if it was.
Afterwards, the soldier led Philo into one of the barracks. From the other rooms they passed, the occasional snore and unintelligible muttering drifted to his ears. He finally stopped in front of one of the rooms – 2-13, the thirteenth room, barrack number two. Philo knew what awaited him inside: three beds – six bunks in total, a table and two chairs. Six lockers for their personal effects.
“You get some rest today. Training starts tomorrow. There’s a uniform inside,” the soldier explained.
Philo nodded and opened the door. The room looked like he had expected it to. Through the window, he could see the first traces of dawn on the horizon.
He was the last to arrive. There were already five men inside, eyeing him when the door fell shut. Philo sighed and looked at each of them. Three he hadn’t seen before, but two – the suspected half-fae from the medical examination room and the young half-faun – had been on the train with them.
“Which one’s mine?” he asked.
The one at the back – a full fae in a ratty top hat and burgundy coat – pointed at the lower bunk closest to the door. The number two was embossed on a little plaque fixed to the bedframe. Philo went to the locker with the corresponding number to find his uniform. He was sick and tired of running around half-dressed at this time of year; even an ill-fitting military uniform would do.
“And you are?” the fae asked.
“Philo.”
“You’re a halfer too. What kind?”
“Half-fae,” the other half-fae from the examination room supplied. “I saw the scars on his back. He had his wings cut off.”
Three pairs of eyes looked at him in horror. The full fae, the half-fae he already knew, and another one with skin as dark as Darius’s. Philo would bet that if he turned, there’d be wings on his back too. He tried not to let their stares bother him while he changed into a Burguish military uniform for the first time in eight years. Last time, there had been a sergeant’s stripes on his shoulders.
“My mother had it done when I was a baby,” Philo explained.
“Still, that’s cold,” the dark-skinned half-blood said. “Basilius Stokeworth,” he added after a pause. “The others are Ash Greenstone,” he pointed at the fae, “Mungo Weeks,” he pointed at the other half-fae, “and those two half-pucks are Silesius and Thomas.”
Philo nodded at all of them and even tried to smile for Thomas’s sake. The boy was far too young for whatever this was, and he acted it, too.
“You were in there longer than any of us. Did you hear them say anything about why they picked us up?” Mungo asked.
Philo shook his head as he shrugged on his uniform jacket. Then he turned to face them properly.
“God’s noose!” Thomas cried. “You could pass for a Burguish soldier, looking like that.”
The others nodded in agreement.
“I used to, for a while,” Philo admitted. “Back during the war.”
Ash Greenstone whistled. “Guess we’ve got someone else who’s got a bit of guile. I thought I was the only one.” At Philo’s questioning glance, he added, “I used to run lixir from Fomhoire to Anoun, before it got too hot and I caught a boat to Beechhaven. Should have stayed, probably. But who would think that a year and a half could turn The Burgue into… this.”
A fae from the Black Raven (presumably), a former smuggler from Tirnanoc, and Vignette… Philo was beginning to put together a picture. One of what they might need the fae for. All relatively recent arrivals, or at least people with some knowledge of Pact-occupied Tirnanoc who knew how to survive and hide there. If it was Philo who was making the plans, he knew what he’d use them for. But the half-bloods were another matter, one that wasn’t as easy to untangle.
“I don’t think there’s any good place left to be in the world right now,” Philo argued. “We’re all at war, in one way or another.”
Ash scoffed but didn’t argue, and neither did any of the others. With the introductions out of the way, Philo lay back on his bunk and closed his eyes in an effort to catch some more sleep before they’d inevitably be called to the mess hall for their meal. It took him a while to drift away; his thoughts of Vignette and Thomas’s nervous chattering were distracting him in turn. When he finally slept, he dreamed of the train and of resting his head against Vignette’s, their fingers intertwined.
The next day, they were woken around dawn by a drill sergeant who ordered them to assemble on the training ground in fifteen minutes. The others grumbled and cursed, fighting with their uniforms, ill-fitting boots, and, in Ash’s case, getting out of bed at all. Philo only sighed and followed the patterns he had learned long ago, before he even joined the army. Transitioning from the orphanage to the army had barely felt like a change at all. When their group stumbled onto the training ground, he was the only one who looked like a soldier, if only because he was the only one whose body didn’t rebel against the uniform. Basilius’ wings peeked out from under his jacket, Mungo’s twitched under it, Thomas’s cap didn’t quite fit onto his horns, and Silesius’ trouser legs were split from forcing his hooves through them. Ash hadn’t bothered with a uniform at all. Neither had the giant of a man from one of the other rooms, who looked to be half-trow, nor the handful of female fae and half-fae standing on the opposite side of the large courtyard. In the twilight, Philo had to struggle to make out Vignette’s form. Still, when he finally succeeded after a few moments, his heart felt lighter than it had since they parted.
The drill sergeant – a man pushing sixty, probably too old or infirm for proper fighting – wasn’t pleased with what he’d been given to work with. He sneered, the shadows of the early morning transforming his face into a cruel mask.
“Line up!” the man screamed.
Not even Philo jumped into position as he’d learned. Instead, he slowly shuffled into place like the rest of them. The sergeant walked past them all, scoffing and shaking his head at each, criticising how they wore their uniform or stood. Even Philo was told to “stand up straighter.” When he was done, it was finally light enough for them to see him and each other properly. Philo guessed there were about fifty of them, half-bloods and fae.
The sergeant took ten steps back, muttering to himself how hopeless this was – whatever “this” was. Then he turned and took a deep breath.
“Listen up, you imbeciles! You don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here. But the higher-ups have a plan, and we have a job. I have to turn you into proper soldiers, and by the Martyr, once I’m through with you, you’ll be the best soldiers you could ever hope to be. You’ll still be the worst soldiers I’ve ever trained, but there’s only so much a man can do.”
If he weren’t a soldier, Philo thought the man would throw up his hands in exasperation. Instead, he kept his composure enough to order some of his subordinates to pass around their new rifles. At the same time, he moved to stand behind them, giving them a view of the targets and the other side of the grounds.
“That is your rifle,” he explained. “Take care of it; it might one day save your life.” Then he continued explaining to them how to use it, its safety, loading, and maintenance. When he ordered them to shoot, Philo made sure his movements were sluggish and that his aim was off. His real attention was on the guards around, and the fact that they kept their guns on hand and their eyes on their new recruits, in case any of them got any ideas.
“Hey, passing-for-a-soldier, think you could hit one of them?” he heard Ash hiss beside him. The fae handled his rifle a little too expertly as well.
“One,” Philo answered. “Then there’d be ten bullets in me before I could fire a second time.”
The fae harrumphed, and they continued playing their charade all through the morning. Some of them ended up hitting their target, if not the bull’s eye, but others, like the half-trow, had trouble even getting the basics right. Not that there was much he could do – the triggers were designed for human hands, not a trow’s.
In sum, the morning was a drudge, at least until the moment steps approached the drill sergeant. They were entirely too chipper and lacked the precision of a trained soldier, which was what roused Philo’s attention in the first place. The drill sergeant was standing only a couple of steps away.
“Sergeant Reeley,” an all too familiar voice said. “How are our recruits?”
The sergeant’s silence spoke louder than his words ever could. Philo could almost see the disapproval on his face that he’d never dare voice to someone who had power. But that voice… Philo couldn’t help it; he lowered his rifle and half-turned to see the face that didn’t belong. Unfortunately, Runyan Millworthy had been looking in his direction when he did so. His eyes widened when he recognised an equally unexpected face.
“I hope you don’t mind me stealing one of them for a moment. You there!” he waved his hand at Philo.
The sergeant saw who he’d picked and shrugged. “One of the least hopeless ones. Return him when you’re done. We don’t have forever.”
Philo slung his rifle over his shoulder in a probably too well-practised motion and followed Millworthy to a corner of the grounds to the side of the targets, but far enough away to avoid being hit by accident by even the worst shot.
“Aren’t you supposed to be an inspector?” Millworthy asked.
“Aren’t you supposed to be an actor?” Philo replied.
Millworthy answered with a wry grin that disappeared once he remembered where they were. “These are different times, Ins—” he broke off and stayed quiet for a few moments. “Why didn’t you tell me you were Aisling’s son?”
Philo raised an eyebrow. “Being half-fae – that’s not something you tell someone you barely know. That’s not even something you tell someone who means the world to you. Not in The Burgue.”
“I forget, sometimes, how much things have changed.” Millworthy sighed and looked to the heavens as if he were asking the Martyr for advice. “You’re still the main suspect in her murder, last I checked.”
Philo shrugged. “I didn’t do it, but who believes a half-blood?”
“And so Aisling’s death will forever go unpunished.”
“Her murderer is dead, if that’s any consolation.”
There was a hardness in Runyan Millworthy’s eyes when he heard that. Fury. Hunger. For a split second, Philo could see just what was hiding under the surface of the affable actor. And suddenly, his presence on a military base made much more sense, even if he wasn’t a soldier in the least.
“It is,” he finally said.
“Why are we here?” Philo asked, because he didn’t just want to know the answer, he needed to.
“In the corner of this yard? The barracks? The world?”
“The first two will suffice.”
Millworthy huffed. “We’re here to help the Republic win the war.”
“By opening up a new front in Tirnanoc?” It was an educated guess, but Philo had learned by trial and error that those were sometimes the easiest way to get information.
Runyan Millworthy grinned. “You’re a clever one, Mr Philostrate. Yes. You’ll be sent over the Great Main.”
“I understand why you need the fae for that. But wouldn’t it be easier to send a regiment with them rather than this lot? Some of them can’t even fire a rifle.”
“Ah, but that would defeat the purpose. Which is to distract the Pact’s armies and disrupt their supply chains, with some plausible deniability for us. You won’t be wearing uniforms. You’ll do your best to seem like a small group of insurgents, hoping for a better life after The Burgue has left you high and dry. Also, and I think you’ll agree with me there, the Burguish army is hardly subtle. This undertaking doesn’t need a well-trained army. It needs people who can be subtle, who can think outside of a narrow Burguish pattern of thought. That’ll be worth more to that giant over there than following a sergeant’s orders.” He pointed at the half-trow who had given up on his rifle altogether and instead grabbed something from the ground. Then he threw it – a stone – towards the target. Philo heard a heavy thunk.
“Why do I get the feeling that there’s something you’re not telling?”
“Because there is. Some spy in Cibola managed to get highly sensitive scientific data to us. As a half-blood, you’re uniquely immune to one of the Pact’s favourite weapons to use in Tirnanoc. That’s something neither human nor fae can say.”
Philo watched the assembled patchwork of people that would be his brothers and sisters in arms. He couldn’t picture them on a field of battle, even with training. Maybe that was for the best. He could picture them trying to sabotage Pact supply lines while skulking in the shadows far more easily.
“And what’s your role in all of this?”
“My role? Why, it was all my idea, of course. I’ll be your teacher later on as well.” He laughed when he saw Philo’s confused face. “Let me tell you, young man, acting is the love of my life, but it doesn’t pay well. It does, however, allow for an itinerant lifestyle that nobody questions. And that led me to some interesting other jobs over the years.”
Meaning he had been a spy. For The Burgue, most like, especially during the last war. He had the acting talent for it, certainly. And the Martyr only knew what he hid behind the façade of a befuddled old man. There was little doubt in Philo that he was dangerous, despite his age and mild demeanour.
“One last question, before I send you back to the training you don’t need, if you’ll permit my curiosity: did you ever find out who your father is?”
Philo hummed. “Maybe I’ll even tell you one day.”
It was a rare break for the recruits, and so they all sat around on the grass-covered ground just this side of too unkempt to pass for a lawn. The recruits had started forming groups after a couple of days. Philo and Vignette stuck to each other as much as possible, of course. Then there was Primrose, who had joined the Black Raven for a lack of options after five years of stealing and foraging in the wilds of Anoun, not unlike Vignette. Thomas had attached himself to Philo as well, probably because the others had grown tired of his youth and naiveté. Basilius was with them this time as well, just like Thorfinn, the half-trow. He looked like a dumb giant, and he’d never been taught any of the things other children were, but he was smarter than he let on. It was a sunny day, which did nothing to mitigate the damp cold of a Burguish midwinter. But still, it was fresh air, and none of the wardens – as they’d taken to calling the soldiers from the military police – were nearby.
“I’m still wondering what’s so special about us,” Thomas said, more to fill the silence than to start a conversation. Philo’s revelation had excited him more than any of the others.
In the distance, Philo watched as an armoured coach drove into the compound, coming to a halt in front of the cellblock where they kept their prisoners – deserters, delinquents, traitors and spies, given that this place was run by Military Intelligence.
“Saints know I’ve never been immune to anything.” Basilius snorted. “I used to get colds so terrible when I was small, it’s a miracle I ever made it past five.”
Thorfinn grumbled in agreement.
“But that man told Philo that we’re special, that we’re immune. I can’t help but wonder against what.”
Philo was still watching the carriage while leaning against Vignette and basking in her presence more than the weak sunlight. The soldiers around it were extremely careful, jumping back after opening the locks in the back. Out stepped two people, one light-skinned, one dark-skinned. They wore manacles and iron collars around their necks, and their feet were chained. As Philo watched, the dark-skinned figure seemed more and more familiar the longer he studied it. The man tilted his head in a peculiar way, like a dog trying to catch a scent. Then it all fell into place.
“It’s marroks,” Philo said, eyes glued to his old friend Darius.
