average human’s Reviews > One Small Echo > Status Update

“You know that’s not how this works, Alessandra.” The gruff, older voice didn’t belong to Chasin, but it was familiar.
Cairn Torven, she finally realised. The guard from the train. Maelon had said that he was Chasin’s first soldier—so he belonged to the Eclipse banner.
“Chasin handpicks his recruits,” Cairn continued. “And only after watching them train. He doesn’t accept leftovers.”
“Then she’ll be bannerless, if she survives.” There was a distinct shrug in Alessandra’s voice. “But I don’t want her.” She walked away—several others leaving with her—without waiting for Cairn’s response, though the older man swore colourfully at her until they were out of hearing range.
Eiko strained to hear how many people remained on the clifftop with her, but they were too silent. She could only assume that the other section leaders under Ilara and Alessandra had left with their captains, and whoever worked under Chasin remained with him, though he hadn’t introduced any section leaders for the Eclipse banner during his speech.
It’s just Cairn and Chasin, Hymn told her. Eclipse doesn’t have section leaders. It’s a much smaller organisation than the other banners. It usually only has a captain and a first soldier.
Gradually, the shadows shifted again as the sun crawled up her body. The wind changed speed and direction. Her lips cracked and bled. At some point, her knees stopped shaking because they simply didn’t have the strength.
The sun dropped, and she imagined the sky as a molten thing, full of pain just like her, and then darkly bruised as night came around, just like her. Her muscles trembled, then failed. She caught herself on her cane, but barely. Her shoulders screamed.
Hymn was a tiny, tight knot around her heart.
I can try again, he offered weakly. I’ll keep trying. Maybe if I⁠—
No, she thought, a strange, stubborn calm settling over her. If you tear yourself out, you might break the Silencing, and then Chasin will kill you. Is he still here?
He hasn’t moved.
She shifted her weight from her numb, aching foot to her other numb, aching foot. And Cairn?
They’re both still here.
Are they suffering, at least? she asked hopefully.
They seem unaffected, Hymn replied.
Assholes.
Yeah, he agreed with a little too much enthusiasm. Asshole light-lickers!
She spluttered out a sound that might have been a laugh, or maybe she was choking and dying. Footsteps approached, and a cane whacked sideways across her stomach, knocking her right off her feet, her cane clattering from her hand.
“Dark be damned, girl, this is pathetic.” Cairn stepped away, and she regained her feet in a very wobbly, stiff, and ungraceful display.
When the sun finally broke over the horizon for the second time, she was more bone than woman. More will than flesh. She didn’t realise she had started to sway until a hand caught her elbow.
Gloved. Warm. Strong.
“Recruit.”
It was that single word again, scraping the air apart just as it had the last time Chasin had spoken, the sound fractal and grated.
Hymn escaped to her ankle, twisting there and shuddering inside her boot, too afraid to make a sound.
Eiko’s head jerked up, even though she couldn’t see Chasin. Her knees buckled and he latched onto her other elbow instead of letting her fall. Only his grip kept her upright, now. He let her sway there for a heartbeat, as if measuring something, before his right hand slid from her elbow to her forearm, closing around the place Hymn usually liked to coil. His thumb brushed once over her wrist. Searching. Again.
Monsters know each other by touch, Hymn frantically reminded her. Don’t let him find me!
Chasin’s grip loosened and fell away.
He signed something—she heard the whisper of leather, the shift of his clothing, and then he stepped back.
“Then she’ll be bannerless,” Cairn replied to him with a sigh, before there was a new grip on her elbow, far rougher than Chasin’s. “Back to the barracks with you, blind girl.”
Eiko swallowed. Her throat felt like sand, and for the first time since boarding the train back in Stonesigh, she began to cry. It was soundless, but the hot tears slid down her cheeks as Cairn gave her stiff body a slight shove in the direction he wanted her to go.
She had … failed.
She had failed.
Everyone else had succeeded, even Ron, who had succeeded so hard he died⁠—
I’m not sure we should be calling that a success, Hymn tried to interject, but she ignored him, choosing instead to wallow in her humiliating failure, coupled with the fact that all the section leaders had rejected her.
The walk back was nothing but a blur of pain and the sluggish tapping of her cane. Stone paths. Stone steps. Gates. The echoing chill of the barracks forecourt, where they had burned their clothes. The feeling of other bodies somewhere nearby, moving about and talking in low voices.
Ky tried to reach for her when she stumbled into the room with the cots. She heard his boots scrape, his quick intake of breath.
“I’m fine,” she lied quietly, too tired to care if someone whacked her for it, but nobody did, because apparently, they were done with that now.
“Wash,” Cairn barked from the doorway instead. “Then report to the mess. You will eat. You will drink. You will not pass out.”
It took her longer than it should have to get to the washroom, despite Rion leading her there. She was so exhausted she couldn’t even talk—could barely think—and simply focused on the scent of clean soap and the sound of dripping pipes. There were stalls, thank the sun. Stone dividers with hooks for towels and uniforms, which Rion guided her hand to.
“I’ll be just outside,” Rion promised, though her own voice was husky and broken. She had learned, after Cairn left, that the other recruits had already taken up proper rooms within the section of the barracks occupied by their new banner. Her friends had been waiting for her in the dungeon room, after hearing some of the other soldiers gossiping about the last recruit nobody wanted.
She stepped into the nearest stall and shut the door behind her, leaning her head against the cool wood for a moment. Just breathing. Just wondering why her face was so wet.
You’re still crying, Hymn told her gently, curling around her jawline to nuzzle at her cheek.
She fumbled for the pipe, found the valve, and twisted, hoping to wash away the tears as fast as possible. Water slammed into her like a physical thing. It was blessedly, bitingly hot, and it stole her breath. Salt, sweat, and tears ran in small rivers down her body, pooling around her boots. She tore those off clumsily, then the socks, then the uniform, her fingers stiff and shaking.
“I’ll put a new uniform over the door for you,” Rion whispered, likely hovering right there and listening to the wet sounds of her discarding her sodden clothes.
“Thanks,” Eiko croaked.
Hymn was restless. She could feel the small weight of him rustling through her hair, unsure how to comfort her.
I’m sorry, he whispered. I’m sorry I couldn’t do it right. I’m sorry you hurt. I’m sorry he hates you.
“Stop,” she croaked aloud, because the roar of the water would cover it. “Just … stop apologising.”
He stopped immediately. Obediently.
Far more obedient than the tears that continued to fall without her permission. They burned worse than the water. Worse than the salt. Worse than two days and nights of standing on that cliff.
She pressed her palms to her face, fingers digging into her skin, shoulders shaking as the silence she had been forced into finally cracked. The sounds she made were ugly, but the water ate them all up. Nobody could hear her here. Not over the groaning pipes and the rush of the water.
You’re not weak, Hymn said, frantic now. They broke you on purpose. That’s what the exercise is designed to do.
“It’s not that,” she rasped. “I just … I stood there for two days and couldn’t even fail properly.”
You didn’t fail, he insisted. I’m here. I’m just … stuck.
She let her hands fall, blinking water out of her eyes, breathing hard.
“Stuck where?” she muttered, dragging her palms down her face.
On the next pass, her nose brushed the inside of her wrist, where he had skipped down to circle in his favourite spot.
The skin there was cold.
She frowned, turning her arm under the spray, water streaming across her forearm. The water was burning hot, but her wrist remained cold. Her other arm was pleasantly warm, by comparison. She raised her right wrist higher, frowning harder. She could feel a tightness beneath the skin. A faint, sinuous movement, a slight shifting of something under the surface.
“Hymn,” she whispered, her heart thudding. “What are you doing?”
I … don’t know, he admitted slowly.
She pressed her thumb to the inside of her wrist.
Something moved.
Something under her skin. A slender line of coolness twisted just beneath the surface, following the line of her bone. It coiled once, twice, then stretched, as if testing the limits of its cage.
Eiko swallowed hard.
“Do that again,” she whispered, pressing more firmly.
The thing under her skin answered. A little ribbon of cold slid along her vein, looping neatly into the shape of a tiny head and the impression of wings before flattening again, as if embarrassed.
I manifested, Hymn said faintly. See? I told you we could do it.
Before she could respond, he pushed an explosion of colour into her head, her comforting blanket of blindness yanked away. She flinched at his excitable action, unprepared for the sudden change. Steam curled through the air, and condensation dribbled through the gaps between stone, the walls all around her glistening. The door was washed in helpless strokes of lace-blue worry with streaks of darker, cobalt distress. Rion was still there, on the other side, tainting the wood with her colours.
Sodden, forest-green fabric bunched on the floor. Neatly folded, forest-green fabric over the door. Soap in a dish, on a bench. Little flecks of purple flowers in the waxy block.
Boots, kicked aside.
And then her feet. Bruised and blistered, tainting the water pink. Slender legs, skin the colour of the dust spirals that used to dance through the Fingers back home when she was little, each sparkling particle catching the sun.
Bruises everywhere, haloed in pumice-coloured pain. The colours painting her body were washed out with exhaustion.
And then her arm.
She stared at the subtle, shifting darkness beneath her own skin, feeling the edges of awe and exasperation collide in her chest. Hymn was a shadow beneath her skin, a narrow ribbon of darkness, ink spilled over bronze parchment. When she sensed his presence moving—as she had been for days—the shadow moved with him, sliding beneath the surface of her skin in a slow, sinuous glide. He was a small, winged thing, swimming just beneath the surface. When she pressed her thumb to him, the darkness bunched and flexed, ink gathering and spilling, dragged across the parchment of her skin. When she lifted her finger, a tiny head seemed to form, and sleek little wings flared out in a blur of deeper black, before smoothing back into a simple band of shadow.
“Oh my sun,” she breathed, her fingers trembling over the moving shape. “You didn’t come out at all.”
Hymn’s little hum of pride vibrated along her bones. But I’m here! Look!
Can you hide again? she asked, thinking of how Chasin had touched her wrist like he was searching for the little monster.
The twisting shadow around her wrist disappeared, and she traced the spot, marvelling over how it was still cold. She could still feel him and the way he swivelled and twisted around her bone. It was unnerving, but she imagined it would have been significantly worse if her monster had been as large or violent as any of the others.
No wonder they had been washed in the colours of pain and agony.
Let’s keep this a secret, she decided. At least until I can figure out how to manifest you properly.
Okay. He wrapped her wrist loosely and nestled into the palm of her hand. I’m going to sleep now.
Lazy little thing.

34%

Eiko tried not to get distracted by the ethereal beauty of her best friend, who appeared in that mess hall like a single rose blooming on a thorn-choked vine, even washed out and exhausted, her long, auburn hair a waterfall of tangles. The mix of her mother’s Stonesigh heritage and the Stormridge blood of her father’s ancestors created a striking meld of the typical, delicate, softly slanted features of Stonesigh with the paler, more autumn colouring of the Stormridge people.
Why had nobody told her Rion was the most stunning woman in the damn world? They had spent all their time trying to convince Eiko that she was beautiful instead. What lying, treacherous friends she had. Also achingly wonderful, but mostly just lying and treacherous.
“Where is he standing in the room?” Eiko clarified, watching as Rion’s pretty frown deepened even further.
“I don’t understand—” Rion’s hazel eyes connected with hers and widened, flashes of golden surprise and molasses confusion briefly muddying her irises and throwing off the clear visual of her face.
“You’re looking right at me,” Rion hissed out quietly, her hand latching onto Eiko’s forearm in a death grip, the statement more of an accusation.
Please don’t tell—Hymn began to beg.
“It’s Hymn’s second sight,” Eiko briefly explained. “I don’t have long before it burns out. Where’s Cairn?”
“Over b-by the doors to the kitchen, to your right,” Rion stuttered, her eyes flicking in that direction.
Eiko followed the long, scuffed walnut benchtop that separated the kitchen from the mess hall, her attention skimming over food piled onto warming trays. There were stacks of crusty, seeded brown rolls; salads peppered with legumes, olives, and sprinkled with some sort of fluffy, crumbly white cheese; thick, bubbling stews; and glistening roasted vegetables piled onto skewers with grilled meats.
An older man stood at the end of the buffet beside an arched doorway leading into the kitchen. He had wiry arms, the muscles bunching as he shifted position to lean heavily into a polished cane, easing the weight from his left leg. The limb was painted in a knotted orange pattern of pain, focused around his knee, the colour browning with age. He wore all black, tight leather and weave, with a strange symbol on his chest. A slightly debossed, dark circle.
Eiko didn’t know if the symbol was familiar. She had been fed far too many images in far too narrow windows of time. She would need the ability to pause time and thoroughly scour the visions for every detail—sifting and sorting beneath Hymn’s second sight—to really absorb what she had briefly seen.
Cairn had tight black curls, shorn short and streaked with grey, and mahogany skin, with a short black beard. His eyes, contrary to the rest of his dark colouring, were a washed-out green, stark and frightening in their intensity.
He was staring at her, so she allowed her attention to pass right over him instead of fixing and focusing.
“Why is he staring?” she asked Rion.
“I don’t know,” Rion whispered back, as Eiko released the colours, breathing out a small sigh of relief as the world settled back into comfortable darkness.
“Maybe he’s decided to take you under his wing?” Rion asked sceptically. “Since, you know …”
“Nobody else wanted me, and we’re both physically disabled with adorable, matching canes?” Eiko asked dryly.
Rion picked up a tray, and Eiko followed the sound, picking up one of her own and placing it beside Rion’s. Usually, her friend would have automatically helped her and gathered food for her without even asking. But Rion wasn’t just devastatingly beautiful; she was also intelligent and unfailingly emotionally literate, because why have a moderate amount of talent and goodness when she could just have it all? She knew that Eiko wouldn’t want to be treated as unable or special in the middle of a conversation about being unable or special.
Instead, Rion just did everything loudly. She clanged each serving spoon with a huff, like she was too physically exhausted to place a utensil down in a dignified way. And she just so happened to feel like eating exactly what Eiko would have picked out for herself, so all Eiko had to do was follow her, stop when she stopped, and then pick up the same spoon Rion loudly set down.
Eiko waited until they were seated before resting her chin on her hand and staring in Rion’s direction. “You already ate, didn’t you?”
“Guilty,” Rion admitted sheepishly.
“Thanks. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
“Is he still staring?” Eiko asked.
“No, he left when you sat down. I think he was making sure you washed and ate like he ordered?”
“Uh … is he my section leader now? Did Prince Chasin palm me off to his apprentice?”
“Feels a bit weird to call the old man an apprentice, but yes, I think he did.”
Eiko spluttered out a laugh, which set Rion off, which had tears springing back to life and falling down Eiko’s cheeks again.
Dark be damned, not this again. She hastily brushed them away.
“I’m glad you’re alive too,” Rion admitted quietly, correctly guessing the reason for the tears, her own voice sounding watery. “Sonnette told me that the strongest monsters take the longest to manifest—and the longer it takes, the higher the chance of death.”
“Sonnette?”
“My monster.”
“That’s a very pretty name for such an evil wench.”
Rion paused a moment and then said, “She would like me to inform you that she looks prettiest when peeling skin from the skinny bones of useless twigs like you.”
“She didn’t say ‘twig,’ did she?”
“Nope.”
“She totally called me a cripple, didn’t she?”
“Yep.” Rion’s lips popped on the word. “She truly is a miserable wench.”
“Is she still causing you pain?”
“No.” This time, Rion sounded smug. “It turns out, successfully manifesting a monster gives you a certain power over them. She’s a little more domesticated now. Still mouthy. Still miserable. But no longer torturing me every minute of the day.”
Eiko could feel Rion’s eyes on her. “What?” she asked. “You’re burning a hole through me.”
“It’s just …” Rion hesitated. “Are you sure your monster is an innocent baby and everything? Just because of the whole … the longer it takes, the stronger they are and the higher the chance of death thing, remember?”
“You said it only a few seconds ago, so yes, I remember.”
“And?”
Hymn? Eiko whispered, but it seemed the little monster was still sleeping.
She shrugged at Rion. “Seems like a baby to me. He’s literally sleeping right now. Wore himself out trying to manifest.”
“Or he slipped back into the Quiet. They can do that, you know.”
Eiko stilled, her brows jumping up. “They can?”
“The stronger ones.” It sounded like Rion was toying with her cutlery. “Mine can—she does, I mean.”
“Interesting.” Eiko frowned, filing away that little titbit of information to deal with later.
First, she had to fill her aching stomach, before she face-planted on the table and succumbed to her need to sleep for the next fifteen years.

37%

“The girl from Stonesigh who refused a Silencing.” The king was scraping his fingers across his stubble as he stood over them, and just like with Ceran, she could feel the weight of his stare. “Interesting. And with the strongest monster, no doubt, if you were up on that cliff for so long—where in the blasted Quiet is my son?” he suddenly barked. “He should have come straight here to debrief me.”
“Probably eating and pissing, finally,” Corvan muttered. “Don’t know how he does that every year.”
The door flew open, and Chasin’s booted steps were barely audible over the rushing and shuffling of a second person.
“Your Graces.” It was the attendant again. “Please allow me to p-pres⁠—”
Chasin must have spoken with his hands.
I think he said something like “I’m here,” or maybe “you sent for me, here I am,” Hymn told her. At a guess.
“I sent for you hours ago,” the king responded sharply. “Now tell me about the girls.” After a pause. “Yes, I’m aware they’re in the room.”
Eiko sat there stiffly. She was getting sick of being called a girl. Ever since she boarded the Kingsweep, it was “blind girl” this and “recruit” that. Small she may be, but …
But what? Hymn asked, apparently hanging off her thoughts instead of attempting to decipher Chasin’s debrief.
I was trying to think of a redeeming quality, Eiko admitted. I’m actually coming up blank.
Are you reliable?
Not particularly.
Hmm, Hymn murmured, sounding far too perplexed. Are you proficient in any trades?
She internally winced. Is tripping over everything a trade?
Only if you’re a court fool. You would make a great court fool!
Eiko cringed.
Are you clean, tidy, and well-organised? Hymn asked.
I don’t have any possessions anymore so … sure.
There you go! he trilled happily, circling her wrist. I knew we’d come up with something.
Thoroughly depressed now, she tried to activate the colours again, hoping to sneak a glimpse of the princes and the king. Unfortunately, the second sight didn’t want to cooperate.
We’re too burnt out, Hymn told her despairingly. The second sight needs time to replenish. You’ve barely eaten and haven’t slept at all.
Eiko subtly tucked her hand into her pocket, pinching the still-warm bread roll hidden away and breaking off a piece.
She slipped it into her mouth and tried to chew as inconspicuously as possible.
Rion tapped her thigh, also trying to be inconspicuous. Well, too bad, Rion. Food is fuel, and fuel is needed to see.
She pinched another piece of bread and slipped it between her lips.
“Didn’t manifest?” The king suddenly interrupted Chasin’s silent debrief.
Eiko froze mid-chew, bread lodging in her throat.
“She still hasn’t manifested?” King Grigori pressed, and there was that tone again … intrigue or greed or something else.
“Are you sure she Silenced?”
Chasin made a quiet scoffing sound.
“I must check for myself⁠—”
Don’t let him touch me! Hymn screamed, streaming away from her wrist and huddling behind the bars of her ribcage to shake and shudder like a leaf fighting off a gale-force wind.
“If you would oblige me, Miss Eiko?” The king had dropped the “lady” after being reminded of who she was. So much for being a noble maid.
Eiko sat there, staring in the direction of his voice, mildly horrified.
“The king is asking you to stand and offer your hand,” Ceran provided, amused.
Eiko rose shakily to her feet and walked to the king, stopping when she heard his slight exhalation of impatience. She tugged her shaking hand from her pocket, and⁠—
“What in the dark?” The king sounded horrified and disgusted. “What are you clutching, girl?”
Oops.
Eiko had used her free hand, since her other hand was wrapped around her cane. Except her free hand had taken all of her anxiety out on the hidden bread roll, mangling it into a carcass squeezed half to death by the fist she had only just begun to unfurl.
Rion made a small, despairing sound. Vana murmured, “Crumbs and crumbs and crowns and crumbs,” as though she had just taken on so much second-hand shame that her rantings had been triggered into another flare-up. Ceran chuckled in that same, velvety rumble she remembered from weeks ago.
Corvan and Chasin were silent.
The attendant must have left the room again, as she couldn’t hear him having an audible heart attack.
Please don’t touch him, Hymn whimpered.
I don’t have a choice. He’s the King of All—and I am part of that “all.”
“Apologies, Your Grace.” She quickly stuffed the bread carcass back into her pocket and wiped her hand hastily on her uniform before offering it again.
The king took her hand in a hot, uninviting grip, the pads of his fingers thick and rough, and Hymn shrieked inside her chest like he was being torn apart.
Don’t let him touch me!
Eiko’s breath hitched, her knees growing weak, her body so tight with anxiety it was beginning to feel like thin glass under pressure.
“Hold still, girl,” the king chastised, his voice hinting at two very different men: one, jovial and booming, charismatic and lively; the other, sharp, impatient, and wildly dangerous.
Hymn whimpered, his voice barely a thread. His monster hates you. It wants to tear through you just for breathing near him. It’s right behind him, right under his skin, and he’s squeezing it back down so it won’t attack.
Oh, sun above. The king? She shot back, alarmed.
King Grigori’s thumb pressed against her wrist, slow and proprietary, and Eiko fought the urge to yank away.
No, Hymn answered. Chasin.
What?
A low, suppressed sound came from Chasin’s direction. He was still standing close to his father. It wasn’t exactly a word, more like a loud breath, hinting at something straining.
His monster, apparently, straining with the need to attack her.
Hymn curled up tighter, trying to make himself as small as possible. The king inhaled sharply, almost pleased.
“I sense it,” he mused, every ragged, dangerous, hidden edge to his persona somehow appeased. “It’s hiding, and it doesn’t want to be found.”
There was a heavy, braced silence.
How can you all sense each other? Eiko asked Hymn. How do you know Chasin’s monster wants to hurt me? How can the king sense you without touching you?
Power leaves traces, he said lowly. She didn’t think he was trying to be cryptic; he just seemed too afraid to speak.
Why does Chasin’s monster want to hurt me?
Not hurt. Kill.
Why? she pressed, sensing more than hearing as Chasin very quietly shifted beside the king.
Because he touched me, Hymn whispered. That’s why you can’t let anyone touch me.
“I would be inclined to say the monster is weak,” the king continued to muse, “but if he was, she would have manifested him quickly. You should have taken her into your banner, Chasin. A Silenced woman is a very rare woman.”
She didn’t love that the king kept talking about her as though she were a gold ornament being presented for consideration for him to hang on a castle wall somewhere, but at least he hadn’t said “girl” again.
Chasin signed something short and sharp enough that the movement rustled his uniform.
The king scoffed. “You’re delaying the inevitable.”
Chasin’s presence vibrated with a barely contained pressure, a storm waiting for one wrong breath. Eiko’s hand trembled in the king’s grip.
Ceran’s voice drifted closer, smooth and assessing. “Best not to provoke him, Father. You know what his monster is like.”
“Let him be provoked,” the king dismissed, utterly unafraid. “If the girls cannot withstand being near a monster, they are useless to me.”
And she was back to being a girl again. That was a very short-lived womanhood.
Suddenly, she could feel the king, or his monster, probing beneath her skin. Whatever it was, it had the precision of a hair-thin blade wielded by a skilled carver. It separated her skin from bone and attempted to flay her open for closer inspection.
Get away, Hymn pleaded. Get away from him!
She twitched, but the king still held her wrist, refusing to release her.
“Fascinating,” he murmured, sounding increasingly delighted. “She stirs my monster. Not much rouses him.”
Chasin’s jaw clicked in a thin, violent sound.
Hide, she told Hymn. The little monster scurried deeper into her chest.
“You may sit.” King Grigori finally released Eiko. She stumbled back and then hastily tapped her way back to the chaise, where Rion pulled her quickly down between herself and Vana.
“I feel them,” Vana muttered. “Searching, searching, searching for the killer.”
Rion and Eiko clutched each other, pressing close together, both of their fingers shaking. At some point, the attendant must have returned with tea and cakes. Eiko could smell the delightful array of sugar and boiled leaves on the short table before them. The king had sucked up so much of her attention that she hadn’t heard anything else going on in the room, but now, with a few paces of distance, she found herself suddenly wondering if she could inconspicuously swipe one of the cakes without anyone noticing.
“How long has that one been talking to herself?” King Grigori sounded annoyed. After a pause, where Chasin seemed to be speaking, he made a gruff sound. “So we have one mentally addled girl with a bloodthirsty beast, one physically addled girl with a hidden beast, and one perfect specimen with a strong hand on a powerful monster.” His footsteps paced before their chaise, slow and thoughtful. “Excellent choices,” he concluded, amused.
Eiko’s stomach dropped. This was an evaluation. A choosing of some kind.
“When will they be receiving lace?” King Grigori asked. “I would be very curious to know which monster the blind girl managed to Silence. A Rustling, perhaps?” He chuckled, the sound painted with warring humour and anticipation, like he couldn’t believe it of her, and yet he couldn’t quite stop himself from gleefully imagining the impossible.
A Rustling? The most violent and unstable of all the monsters—the thing inside Chasin that always had Hymn screaming his little head off and spiralling through her body for a better hiding place? Yeah … unlikely.
Do you know what you are? she asked the little monster. A Murmuring, maybe? I’ve heard they can come in all sizes.
The only way to discover our “class,” as you humans put it, is to join with a human and have the lace reveal our bond. The colour of the lace that appears on your skin tells us our class. Pitch black for the Kill Class, or the Rustlings. Blood red for the War Class, or the Whistlings. Pearl white for the Espionage Class, or the Murmurings.
She had known the names of the monster classes, but not the corresponding Godsguard names. Espionage definitely seemed a more likely class for Hymn than “kill” or “war.” He was very good at hiding.