Chapter 709: The First Dawn

Hajin crossed the thread bridge above the Thorn District with Nyra, a paper bag of candy crackling between them. The walk from House Kessarine was meant to clear his head, yet every step still tasted of cold roses.

"You're doing the face," Nyra said, crunching a candy skull between her teeth.

"What face is that, Nyra?"

"The one where you hide something behind your eyes, like a dog with a stolen sausage."

"I'm hiding a very small secret about dinner, it's a surprise," he said, handing her another skull to buy himself a breath.

'She'll hear it soon enough, but I won't be the one who lets Ibaran say it first.'

Halfway across the span the carved bell above the lower bridges swung once, then went mute mid-stroke. A silent tide rolled over the lowest spire like spilled milk, swallowing every lantern in its path.

The silence reached Hajin's ears a heartbeat before it reached the rest of him.

"Stay on my left," he said, though his voice sounded thin and far away, as if spoken down a well.

Nyra dropped the bag and unslung Halfmoon in one smooth pull, the glaive's blade turning slowly. Her gold-edged horns lit brighter than any lantern, small flames flickering along their tips like candles.

"I'm helping," she said flatly, "you can't talk me out of it, so don't waste the breath."

"Wouldn't dream of it, you'd bite me."

Cradle Knights poured past them in a clattering river of armor, mouths opening in shouts nobody could hear. Behind them the silent tide crept up the spire, eating the carved railings one rung at a time.

"Is that Roke?" Hajin muttered, squinting through the tide.

Sir Haruvane Roke did not run, standing his ground at the bridge's far end with both blades raised. A bandage circled his forehead, his fine coat hanging in ribbons from yesterday's humiliating fall through nine pillars.

"Surface-crawler, I lost one sword to you yesterday, so I will lose the rest to something worse," he bellowed.

"Careful, you almost made that sound brave."

"I will not let my city be eaten by a mouth, not while I still have—"

The Hush swallowed the rest of his voice mid-word, leaving him swinging at nothing, furious, perfectly silent. Hajin barked a laugh he could not hear, the grin tasting strange where laughter made no sound.

'The loud idiot is holding a line alone, I like him better already.'

Shapes rose out of the grey, tall and stooped, their mouths sewn shut with thick black thread. Hushbound crawled along the bridge cables in dozens, hands stretched toward anything that still made a noise.

"They want our names," Aria said inside his head, her voice flat and thin as paper, "the tide is thinning my speakers."

"Then we give them something better to chew on."

The first Hushbound lunged across the planks until Nyra met it with a short, brutal arc of Halfmoon. A crescent of gold ember opened in its chest, the thing folding around the wound, burning to ash.

"Ember Crown," she said, panting as flames rolled down the haft in a ring, "I can hold it for about nine of them."

"Then save four for me, I'm greedy."

She rolled her eyes at him, stepping into the next lunge with one corner of her mouth twitching. Three more Hushbound fell to her blade before the tide thickened, Roke's roar joining her from the rail.

'Nine isn't enough, the tide is climbing the spire faster than we can cut it.'

A Hushbound slid beneath the rail toward Roke's back, so Hajin kicked it off the span. It dropped soundlessly into the grey, the tide closing over the spot like a patient mouth.

Roke gave a curt nod of thanks, strangely polite for a man mid-brawl.

"Can you do it without breaking yourself?" Nyra asked, her eyes on the climbing tide.

He rolled his neck, "Mostly, I only break a little around the edges."

"The state you are considering slows your heartbeat, past one minute the Goddess answers through your mouth," Aria warned.

"Then I'll make it a short minute," he said, cracking his knuckles.

"I will count it for you, since you cannot count past five."

Hajin rolled his shoulders, feeling the Chain stir beneath his skin, warm and eager like a dog at a door. He raised his left arm toward the dome, where Ouro's drowned ocean hung across the entire sky like a lid.

'No ground to anchor it and no sun to borrow from, so I'll make my own.'

[Host scan]

[Hajin]

[Divine State: engaging]

[Fragment: 85%]

[Warning: heart rate falling]

Gold light cracked along his forearm, spilling through his sleeve in thin, hungry veins that crawled up to his throat. His hair flared blue at the roots, then bled to gold at the tips, lifting as if wind blew inside.

"Your eyes," Nyra whispered, taking a slow step backward.

He turned his head, the left eye burning gold while the right shone blue, each iris split like a coin. Nine thin rings of light rose from his shoulders to circle his head, spinning slowly, each bright as a halo.

For the first time since the tide arrived, the nearest Hushbound stopped crawling.

"Come on then," Hajin said, grinning wide, "you've never seen a morning, have you?"

[ashley(mod): Hold on, is he about to do what I think he's about to do?]

[LurkerNoMore: Please say sun, please say sun, please say sun.]

He swung the Sun-Chain overhand, the bright golden links screaming out of his fist like a comet leaving the ground. It flew up through the Hush and past the highest spire, slamming into the dome where the ocean pressed down.

"Dawn Over Dead Water," he shouted, hauling back with both hands.

The Chain bit into the drowned ships' hulls overhead, anchoring itself on nothing and everything at once. White fire raced from mast to mast across the sky, then the inverted ocean ignited from underneath.

He yelled over the roaring light, feet sliding on the planks, "Is it working?"

"The entire ceiling is on fire, so I would say yes," Aria shouted back, her panel flaring red-edged.

Light fell slowly over Kuroyomi like warm honey poured from a jar the size of the whole world. Drowned masts, upside-down waves, silent spires turned amber, then rose gold, then the clear yellow of summer noon.

"It's warm," Nyra said, staring up with her horns dimming in the glow.

The Hush recoiled the way frost recoils from a hearth, boiling down the spire in long, curling ropes of smoke. Hushbound shrieked without sound, crumbling to ash in the light, their sewn mouths tearing open to let something warm out.

"Is that... is that what the surface looks like?" Roke whispered, lowering his blades, tears streaming.

"On a good day, yeah, you'll like the afternoons."

Windows banged open across the Hanging City as ten thousand courtiers stepped onto balconies, hands raised against the glare. Many wept openly while a child's voice somewhere cried out suddenly in a language older than any living king.

[LurkerNoMore: THE UNDERWORLD HAS A SUN NOW.]

[CringeSlayer91: He built a whole sunrise with a chain. I'm going to lie down.]

[DarkBlade: Whoever bet against this man owes everyone an apology.]

Roke dropped to one knee on the planks, his blades laid flat before him like an offering.

"Get up, you bowed lower than any man in this city just now," Hajin said, offering a hand.

"My father would call this treason, but I find that I do not care," Roke said, taking it.

"What do you call that thing you threw?" he added, staring up at the dome.

"I call it a start, the name came to me on the way up."

'Everything is slow and bright, I can hear Nyra's pulse, the weight of the ocean, plus one more thing far below, listening.'

Nyra tugged his sleeve and pointed at the nearest balcony, where an old noble knelt weeping into his hands.

"He's crying, did you do that to him?" she asked, part proud, mostly alarmed.

"I think the sun did, I just threw it," Hajin said, laughing, a little dizzy.

Hajin felt his heart slow to one beat for every three breaths, thudding like a drum deep underwater. Aria's voice came sharp inside his skull, her warning pinching the edge of his vision until it creased.

"Your pulse is at thirty-one, you must release the state within the minute," she said.

"Just thirty more seconds... I want to watch their faces while it's the first sun they've ever seen."

"That is not a request, it is an order from your own failing nervous system," Aria snapped, her alarm ringing hard enough to sting.

"Fine, fine, I'm coming down," he muttered.

"Your hair is still partly gold, I recommend a hat," Aria said dryly.

"I don't own a hat, Shoulder."

On a balcony above the city, a man in a plain coat leaned on the rail, watching it. Ibaran lifted his teacup toward Hajin, smiling like a father at a recital, patient and entirely at ease.

'He isn't angry, he's pleased, that's worse than any growl.'

A whisper rose in the back of Hajin's skull, soft and old, in a voice that was not his own. It asked one question over and over, a sound much like a sleeper in a bed slowly beginning to wake.

"Not yet," he growled, clamping down hard, "you don't get my mouth today."

The halos collapsed one by one into his chest, the gold bleeding from his hair as the Chain's light folded. The sun stayed in the dome, fainter now, a lamp left on for guests, the city's weeping softening into laughter.

Nyra caught his arm as his knees buckled, leaning her whole thin weight against him.

"That was the best thing I've ever seen, so don't tell Juna I said so," she muttered.

"Don't tell her you caught me, either... deal?"

Juna dropped onto the planks in a crouch, daggers drawn, her tail bristling from root to tip.

"Somebody turned on the sky and I did not get a vote," she snarled, sniffing the warm air.

Hajin grinned up at her, "Morning, Wolfie, you missed the good part."

"I smell toast, burnt hair and you," she said, eyes narrowing at the sweat on his face, "you're swaying like a drunk."

Nyra tucked herself behind his arm, "He's fine, he only fell over a little."

"I can walk," he protested, though his legs disagreed with him.

Juna snorted, hooking an arm under his shoulder, "You can fall, that is a different thing."

Nyra lifted her chin, "I caught him first, so he is technically mine to carry, wolf."

The last tatters of the Hush drew back from the spire, sliding down into the Bright Dark like a tide. Then, from somewhere inside the retreating silence, a woman's voice floated out across the dark water, soft, tired, unbearably familiar.

"Hajin, baby, come here."