Hierarchy of the unseen, p.1
Hierarchy of the Unseen, page 1
Contents
Note to ARC Readers
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Thanks again for reading!
Glossary
About the Authors
Thank you so much for taking the time to read Hierarchy of the Unseen! This is an unproofed copy of the book; the final version will be available on June 21, 2023.
If you would like to get in touch to inform us of typos or other issues, feel free to email b.a.pigeon.writing@gmail.com, or contact us via our website at https://www.homoliterature.org/contact.
Otherwise, we appreciate reviews (on Amazon, Goodreads, or the platform of your choice); sharing on social media; telling your friends; or any other way you can help us spread the word about this book. Remember to disclose in any reviews that you received a free advance copy from the publisher!
Thanks again, and we hope you enjoy.
B & Fell
CHAPTER ONE
When Mitzli rose and began to walk that morning, the fog was dense enough to obscure the valley below. For this, they offered thanks to Ykeitu, certain it was nothing short of a minor miracle.
The path they’d been traveling for days traced a steady curve up a mountain slope, providing a full view of the ground in their peripheral vision—the canopy of green treetops, the occasional glimpse of the river ribboning between them, all dizzyingly far below. Beyond the line of rocks marking the edge of the pale dirt road was a steep and abrupt drop, a fall to certain death.
They’d become preoccupied with a renewed fear of heights, and being alone didn’t help matters; their journey was so long and lonely and painfully dull, with nothing else to see but the scrubby yellow-green plants growing from cracks in the rocky mountainside. Without a distraction to occupy their time, they dwelled constantly on the danger.
But now, with the world below shrouded in mist, that obsession cleared, and they could focus on more pressing anxieties. If they trusted their judgment of how far they’d traveled, they were nearing their destination, and might arrive within hours.
Here—at the margins of civilization, practically sitting atop Lu-nevet’s border, beyond which lay nothing but ocean to the west, wilderness and demon camps to the south—they would find work in the village of Quio. The task itself would be simple enough, and was hardly worth thinking about; instead, they gave careful consideration to how they would make their first impression.
Their religious garb, they’d long since discovered, didn’t quite compensate for the red tint of their eyes; if they didn’t speak, people assumed them to be some sort of trickster, an impersonator. So they always announced their arrival first, hoping to find the right words to prove themself as trustworthy as any other Lukeitai'li.
“I’m Mitzli,” they would say, their voice sharp and clear, hitting those harsh consonants hard. Impious though it was to reference the old, false gods, their namesake was a gift here; even this far south, the rural people would recognize the name of the sky goddess, would know that they were unmistakably human.
Then they’d come closer, wearing a benevolent smile, holding aloft the jar of pink-white iridescent powder—the holy substance called light that existed within humans and in the aether, distilled to its most concentrated form—so it would glitter in the sun.
“I’m here to keep you safe from demons,” they’d say, which wasn’t strictly true. In reality, their work was little more than soothing minor inconveniences. Demons used the edges of empire, where they could find nothing of value to break or steal, as practice grounds for their young. Their activities amounted to petty pranks: letting loose animals, flattening rows of grains, painting something rude on the side of someone’s house…
Relative to the older demons, who injured people, humiliated them, stole from them, ruined their lives, it was all harmless. But people had their superstitions, and Mitzli played into them—sprinkling light over everything to give their solutions an air of spiritual significance, letting the locals believe they had the power to dispel evil.
They smiled to themself as they considered this.
And, distracted, they let their foot land on a tiny pebble at just the right angle to slide them across the ground.
They only slipped a few steps further along their path—no closer to its edge—but the momentary loss of control stopped their heart, filling them again with the terror of falling. Even when they came to a stop, they froze for a minute, tense and trembling.
And then they laughed, bending at the waist and wrapping their arms around themself, cackling, verging on hysteria. Their fingers gripped their sweat-soaked undershirt, nails digging into their flesh. They should’ve thanked Ykeitu for the reminder to pay attention, for the admonishment over letting themself get so distracted by their own thoughts—but they couldn’t find the words, not even when their laughing fit subsided and left them empty.
They waited there a moment, still, silent. Their head hung down; their arms dangled so their fingertips brushed against the dusty road. With a long, deep breath, they straightened and resumed walking, watching their feet as they went.
The fog was clearing, anyway, as if Ykeitu was speaking to them still; the view of their surroundings returned, the green leaves and snatches of bright river below now approaching perfect clarity. They’d swam across that river before, recalled crossing it after several minutes of effort, and now they could obscure its width entirely by lifting a finger. They tried not to think about that.
Time passed—the sun reached its zenith, and began its descent to the west—and they persisted, swallowing their discomfort. There was nothing to do but keep moving forward. If they went fast enough, they’d reach their destination before sunset, and could talk to someone other than themself for the first time in days, sleep in a real bed, eat real food...
It was late afternoon when they came to a rope bridge, and they’d consulted their map enough to recognize what that meant. They were close.
With less enthusiasm, they regarded the narrow bridge swaying in the wind, not daring to look directly at the chasm it crossed over—but they had to prepare themself, so they tore their eyes away and swung the bag off their back.
First, they unstrapped their dagger from their hip and dropped it into an inner pocket, exchanging it for the sparkling jar of light. Then they dug to the bottom, past the sheet of canvas they’d been sleeping under and all their other supplies, and extracted the knee-length white tunic that proved their affiliation with the Lukeitai—the monastic order of the state religion, Lukeira. They pulled it on, brushing dirt off the long sleeves and adjusting the tiny upright collar before fastening the row of yellow buttons running down the left side.
On instinct, forgetting that they’d shaved their head, they went to throw their thick hair over their shoulder to uncover the golden sun embroidered on their chest that marked them a Kolteina’li, a demon hunter—but no, there was nothing to hide it now. Everyone would see it as they approached, along with their bright face and their promise of blessings.
It would be fine. They practiced their smile, wishing they had a mirror. Certainly any charm they possessed was dampened after days of travel, now that they were weary and sun-beaten and covered in a permanent sheen of sweat, but they’d have to try their best.
They hoisted their bag back onto their shoulders, their aching muscles complaining at the sudden return of the weight, and faced down the rope bridge.
Everything trembled beneath them from their first careful step, but they pushed onward, resisting the urge to turn back. They put one foot in front of the other, humming something pitchy and stuttering and broken—a song they remembered from the Lukeitai who raised them, perhaps. It carried them forward as they went, hardly daring to breathe for fear of losing their balance.
And then they reached solid ground, and took in a deep, shuddering breath of the thin mountain air, giving themself just a second to pause and ease the racing of their heart before they continued.
Here, they found slender trees topped with clouds of wispy yellow-green leaves—and that was a promising sign they were nearing land fertile enough to support humans, no longer traversing inhospitable territory. They rushed forward, darting between trees and ducking occasionally under low-hanging branches, until they spotted someone. After so many solitary days, just the reminder that other people existed flooded them with relief.
This person was standing halfway up a gentle, terraced slope and leaning toward a large, spiky plant Mitzli thought they recognized as urca; that would make sense, since—other than the medicinal properties of its sap—its primary application was making rope from its broad, fibrous l
They crept forward, rehearsing their kindest expression, holding the jar of light against their heart.
“Hello!” they called once they reached the foot of the terrace. The worker jerked up, pushing his hat back as he squinted at them. His face was dark and lined, weathered by the sun; they couldn’t guess his age.
“I’m Mitzli,” they said, widening their smile as they took another step.
“Mitzli?” the man echoed in his low, rough voice.
They nodded. “I’m here to—”
He leaned toward them, eyes narrowing further—then cut them off with an abrupt gasp and recoiled, a hand reaching for something on his back.
Mitzli froze where they stood. “I’m here to protect you from demons!” they said quickly, presenting the container of whitish powder. “On behalf of the Lukeitai—I’ve come to help.” With their free hand, they gestured at the sun embroidered on their chest.
He just stared at them with his dark, sunken eyes. “Demons,” he said, and Mitzli wondered if he spoke their language at all. So far, he’d just repeated their words back to them. They took a nervous step backward, wary of how he would react if he didn’t understand their careful explanations of themself.
But he continued, “You… you want to keep us safe from demons? What do you intend to do?”
“I can offer blessings,” they said in nearly a whisper.
“You’re with the Lukeitai.”
His tone was flat—more a statement than a question—but they said, “Yes. I’m a Lukeitai'li.”
He eyed them disbelievingly, and they felt a seed of panic blooming in them; if he wasn’t convinced, despite their garb and their light and their promises, they had nothing else with which to prove themself. The best they had was a signed letter from their superior, granting them access to the state’s roads, but what if no one here was literate?
“I’m half human,” they explained, recognizing honesty as their last desperate hope. If he didn’t believe them and attacked them instead, all they could do was try to run past him—or turn back the way they came and sneak past later, abandoning the job they’d come so far to finish. “I choose not to change my eye color. I think it’s only fair to let people know what I am. And I’m here…”
They paused to take a deep breath.
“I’m here to atone. To make up for what—what half of my ancestors have done to humanity.”
He just gaped at them.
“I should get someone else to talk to you,” he said eventually. They tried to reply with a gracious smile, but felt empty, so drained of emotion they couldn’t even fake it. “You”—he backed a few steps away from them—“you just stay here.”
There wasn’t anywhere they could go if they wanted to, so they waited, watching him spin around and hurry away. They approached the nearest urca, running a finger over a spiked green leaf and wondering whether this was set aside for the tithe collectors or grown for their own benefit.
The man returned soon, his hat held to his chest as he listened intently to the woman walking beside him. She was older, her skin sagging and wrinkled, a pale enough shade of brown to suggest she no longer worked in the sun; her gait was slow and stiff, and the man kept her pace, leaning over to catch her words.
The two of them were a few levels up from Mitzli in the terraced earth when she reached out a hand to stop the man and proceeded without him. He lingered there, watchful and uncertain.
She came close to Mitzli—too close, uncomfortably close—but the presence of another person, and one who was so openly unafraid of them at that, was still a relief.
“A demon,” she murmured, as if talking to herself.
A vampire, in truth—for reasons even they didn’t fully understand, it was impossible for regular demons to reproduce with humans. But even if these people knew the difference, it would only hurt their case to reveal that their father was not a mere demon, but the higher, more evolved form of the species—a vehttir, in the traditional dialect.
“I’m half,” they said apologetically. “I was raised by humans. I’m here to help.”
The woman made a little humming noise; Mitzli didn’t recognize the sound and couldn’t discern its meaning from her blank face. “I can’t imagine you can do anything for us, but I’ll show you. If nothing else, you can bring news back to the capital for us.”
Mitzli agreed before it occurred to them to question her. What news? What harmless prank would be worth conveying to the capital? They’d never even been to Tei Relen, not that anyone this far from the city understood how inaccessible and intimidating it really was.
“Come,” the woman said simply, turning to start uphill again and motioning for Mitzli to follow. They hurried behind, too scattered to ask the questions that came to mind, and the man joined them without a word.
As they climbed up, the village came into view—little more than a smattering of asymmetrical mudbrick houses with sun-bleached thatched roofs. Most were similar in size and clustered together around a stone-ringed fire pit full of ash; a much larger structure, which Mitzli guessed was their storehouse, sat nearer to the terrace.
A small group of children ran shouting through the trees beyond, while a girl who appeared barely older than them stood watch. Two adults sitting outside one of the houses coiled lengths of rope and tied them off, tossing the finished product into a wide basket between them. Otherwise, there was nobody to be seen.
They’d never been somewhere so small before, and it made them feel strangely, achingly lonely.
Just past the little town was another terraced slope, this one shorter and narrower, the bottom half dense with green and the top unused. As they drew closer, though, the wind changed direction, and Mitzli was hit with the acrid smell of smoke, and felt their stomach turn with horror.
The land wasn’t just unused; it was scorched. Blackened. They could see, when the woman walked them right up to the end of one row, that it was all darkened and cracked, the majority covered in a layer of ash.
Unsure of what to say, they knelt next to the ground and ran a finger over the earth; they spread the ash, feeling its depth and the parched, shattered dirt below, dense and solid and lifeless under their fingertips.
“What happened?” they whispered.
“You know,” the man said haltingly. “It was demons.”
“It can’t be.”
“Someone saw it,” came the woman’s voice from behind them. They couldn’t bring themself to look at her. “It was a demon, and it created fire from nothing. It could have killed Kiya, too, if he hadn’t escaped in time. Could you please alert the emperor?”
“Demons don’t—” they started, but cut themself off. They were going to claim that demons didn’t kill, but that wasn’t fully accurate; rather, demons killed rarely and strategically. That happened once or twice a decade, though, and never here. This was a place for the youths to practice their mischief, to steal what light they could with minor inconveniences. The more advanced demons needed an audience; they fed off the misery of the witnesses more than the acts of harm themselves.
Why would one of them burn up half of a tiny, remote community’s subsistence supply? Depending on how much food they had stored, how long it had been and would be before the state came to collect their tithe, they might starve to death on the mountainside with no witnesses.
They shuddered, their stomach churning with dread. This was beyond what they could fix or pretend to solve with a sprinkle of magic powder; this was more than they ever expected to find.
They screwed their eyes shut and begged Ykeitu for clarity, and realized at once that the woman was right, in a sense. She knew she needed the state to help her—but not the emperor, whose power was purely ceremonial. Only the Relukai, the national leaders of the Lukeitai and the officials who kept the vast machinery of Lu-nevet running, had the resources to ensure the survival of a remote village with rows of food burnt to nothing; somehow, they’d have to petition their help.
They stood, turned to face the two watching them in grave silence, and asked, “Will you have enough to eat for a little while longer?”
The others exchanged glances, frowning. “We will,” the woman said. “We’ll be fine taking from the storehouse for the next moon cycle, but we’ll have to start from seed to replace what we’ve lost. And I don’t know what will happen if we come up short when our share is due.”
