The menhir barely glowed in daylight. In the pocket she’d have been able to see the lines more clearly, but here they blended in with the gray stone and failed to speak to her. Satina leaned close and ran her fingers over the pillar. The pocket would have helped today, but she didn’t feel like taking Vane across again. His visits to Old Space excited the man in ways she didn’t enjoy watching. So, she stared at the ordinary stone and whispered, “Interesting.”
“What?” Vane bumped into her, trying to see over her shoulder, to see what he imagined she saw. “You’ve found something? What is it?”
They’d been camped in the ruins for a week. She’d managed to keep him satisfied with cryptic references and brief trips across pockets, but he’d grown steadily more impatient, and the time to deliver something solid had arrived. She’d lose his trust otherwise, something already tenuous at best.
As it was, he’d let her go back to the cottage only once on the pretext that she needed an herb from Hadja that would help her to decipher the stone. It allowed her to fill the woman in, to decide on a timeline and form a simple plan for communicating. But the separation had her spooked. She just didn’t know what was happening on Hadja’s end.
She held up her hand, and Vane frowned but didn’t push her further. His eyes glinted like steel, resenting her skills, the need to rely on her at all. “Let me see.”
Her fingers drifted to the symbol she’d come to call Vision. It knew her as well, and of all the marks on the stone, this one alone leapt to her hand. It warmed for her and Satina nudged it with her power, joining her skill to the ancient one. Her eyes glassed over, she knew. That had impressed Vane enough the first time and he never questioned her use of the mark to “see” for him.
The sigil swept her up and away. She’d learned it over the weeks, how to wake and ride the power held inside. She’d used it to spy on Vane’s men in town, to check up on Maera and Hadja and once, when her resolve had failed her, to peer into Marten’s shop. He’d been cleaning, and the privacy of the moment, the way he’d leaned on the broom and sighed, had filled her with guilt. She hadn’t tried to see him again, and she vowed to tell Hadja about the spying the next time she managed to sneak back to the woman’s home. She should have thought of it earlier, was certain they could put the sigil to some use that would aid their operation.
Today, she needed to see how the plan was progressing, and she had a hell of a story cooked up for Vane upon her return. The symbol obliged her gentle direction. She hovered over the cottage and then swooped down, passing at a thought through the thatch roof and lingering just inside amidst the hanging herbs.
Hadja had a visitor, and Satina felt the Vision tremble under her surprise. She reined it in and watched Marten lean over the narrow table. They had the necklaces ready. Three shards of mirror gleamed against the wood.
“Will she wear it?” He asked Hadja. “Or will she fight about that as well?”
“Have a little patience with her.”
They could only be talking about one person. The Vision wavered as she absorbed the fact. She’d learned that early too, how any strong emotion would throw her back to the stone and Vane. She focused and tried to keep her mind neutral.
“Have you finished the stuff for the wagon?”
“Yes.” Hadja had added a safety measure to the plan, a special herb she swore would incapacitate but not kill. Something about the way she stroked the packet in her hands made Satina believe it. They’d been folded precisely to burst open on contact—the woman had demonstrated with a harmless bundle of sage—and the plan was to stuff as many as possible into the straw inside the wagon. “How about your helpers? Do we have Gentry?”
“No.” Bad news. A huge portion of the plan depended on this. Satina held the image through sheer willpower and watched him lift one of the shards and loop the thong around his neck. “Can you handle the pocket?”
“Yes.”
“Moon won’t quite be full.”
“It’s waxing. I’ll be fine.”
“It’s been a long time since you had—”
Hadja smacked him. He recoiled overmuch and grinned. Then his face shifted, he grew taller and his hair smoothed. Even his clothing altered in the shard’s effect. Now Vane stood in the cottage with the old woman, but he posed and twisted with Marten’s flare for dramatics. “What do you think?”
“That you’ve gotten too big for your britches.”
“They’re not my britches.” He spun in a circle to demonstrate.
“How is the militia coming?”
Satina jolted. Vision wavered and blurred her view of the cottage. She grasped for a way to cling to the scene, but already she was lifting up through the thatch.
“Good. More than thirty so far.”
“What about the blacksmith?”
The roof flew away below her. She could see the yard, the field of weeds and Maera sneaking back across them as usual. She could see the smithy and the whole town, but she couldn’t really see anything. They had a whole plan of their own that she didn’t know about. A militia. Hadja working the pocket. She flew back to the stone even faster at that thought. She’d no idea the woman’s powers extended that far.
Marten had told her Hadja had more magic than she understood, and the old woman had mentioned Powers as well. Satina had assumed she referred to her herbs and potions, to the smaller magics. But they’d both known just how ignorant she was, and they’d kept her in the dark, kept her out of their loop and the big plan, a plan that involved armed conflict.
If Hadja was handling the pocket, that meant Marten wasn’t. Satina could guess why. One word explained it. Militia. Her imp was fighting after all.
They’d both lied to her.
The menhir glowed from the courtyard and she dropped toward it. The Vision slammed her back into her body hard enough to knock her into Vane. Good. It would impress him and give her a second before he expected her to be coherent.
He shouted her name, but she pretended not to hear him. They had a bigger plan than they’d told her about. Why? The answer came immediately, stinging and sending a wave of shame through her. They didn’t trust her. They didn’t trust her ignorance or her skill. Maybe they didn’t trust her motives either.
“Satina!” He shook her until her bones rattled. “Goodmother?”
“I’m back.” She inhaled a long breath and sat up. “I’m fine.”
“What did you see?” He brushed past any concern on her account.
“The map,” she began.
“I know it’s a map!” The gang leader’s frustration bubbled over and he snapped at her.
She’d convinced him the menhir sigils laid out the original floor plans of the castle, tempted him with stories of a man of power, an advisor to the ruler in this castle. He’d swallowed it all eagerly enough, but his eyes still narrowed when she peered at the stone, and she could tell there was a skeptic inside still doubting her story. The plan needed a believer, whatever plan it was.
“I think I found his workroom.” She frowned as deeply as she could manage. It wasn’t hard, the frustrated act. She just revisited the words she’d heard in the cottage, imagined Marten playing in Vane’s body. She bit her lip and glowered at the stone.
“Where?” Vane’s voice startled her, brought her back to present.
“I’m not—I think it was here.” She pointed to a random marking. Then she squinted across the courtyard and then dropped her eyes back to the mark. She did that a few times, looked up, looked down, chewed her lip. “That can’t be right.”
Vane growled and pushed in beside her. He’d taken to squinting at the rock as well, as if through proximity, he might just be able to see what she saw. His hand settled at her back, and she fought the urge to flinch away. She’d learned that lesson the hard way, had a bruise on her forearm for three days as a reminder. But the bastard touched her more and more frequently as the days passed, and it still made her skin crawl.
“It should be right there.�
�� She threw her arm out, one finger pointing to the suspended pocket. She pressed her lips together and stared at the stone again, then back to the pocket.
“Of course!” Vane stood up and clapped his hands together. He’d been there the day the fiend fell, and now his eyes lighted on the spot where the wounded woman had vanished. His eyes narrowed. “There’s a pocket above there. Will the room be in the rubble on this side?”
The last thing they needed was him digging in the pocket. She nodded, feigned a bout of weakness and closed her eyes, sagging again. “Yes. Whatever has survived should be.”
“Tell me about him. What did you see?”
“He used his magic to advise King Leopold.” The name had actually come from the menhir, had simply popped into her mind when she needed it, but he might have been the gardener for all she knew.
“I don’t care about advice, Satina. Tell me about the magic.”
“He made things. Devices, playthings, weapons.”
“Weapons.” Vane clapped a hand on her shoulder and she fell forward.
Satina hid her smile by examining the base of the menhir. Vane was hooked. She’d done her part at least, and despite what they thought of her, she trusted Marten and Hadja to do theirs. For now, maybe even more now, that was all that mattered. He leapt up onto a fallen stone shouted to his gang.
“Halt! Starlights to me!”
She listened while he commanded the excavation team to stop digging. She counted the threads fraying from her hem and tried not to imagine Marten with a sword in hand. The gang assembled around them. Their muttering faded under Vane’s triumph.
“I have made a breakthrough!” He had.
Satina had to choke back a snort. The Starlights shifted and waited, hovering on his revelation. She lifted her eyes to the crowd, noted the faces. Each of them had made a choice to join him, had wanted something so badly that they’d sold their loyalty to this man in return. She wanted to hate them.
“My goodmother has seen the thing we seek,” he continued, and his words didn’t really matter. The gang had no more choice than she did any longer. He told them to dig, and they dug. He told them to stop, and they stopped. If he told them to kill, Satina had no doubt that they would do it.
The tripods were lifted from the latest pit. Despite her attempts at misdirection and ambiguity, Vane had insisted on continual digging, and the Starlight crew managed to pockmark the courtyard with their clumsy pits. Piles of dirt and rubble mounded between the old walls. She’d tried to keep them near the exterior fortification, but the few items they’d found there had been far too mundane in nature to appease Vane’s hunger.
Now they dragged their tools, the pulleys, carts and shovels, into the shadow of the great stair. She pulled the loose hair from under her blouse and twirled it back up into its knot. The sun made her shift stick to her, and her neck burned where she’d sat too long watching the stone. She’d taken to tucking up the sides of her skirts like the Starlight women as well. More than gang unity there, the drafts eased the heat and made walking a more practical matter.
The women had never tried to hide their dislike of her. They spent the days huddled in the center of the camp, tending the pots and keeping the workers fed. Where men had accepted her presence on their leader’s command, the women spared her only snarls and, when Vane wasn’t looking, spat on the ground when she passed.
She suspected Vane liked it that way, that possibly his little touches, his hands on her neck or back, the way he kept her at his side all built into his plan to keep her at odds with them.
“Satina!” He waved her up, offered her his hand and dragged her onto the stone to stand at his side. “Tell them where to dig.”
She found her voice, pointed to a spot just near enough the stair but not directly under the pocket. The crews honed in, all eyes pinning her to Vane’s side. He hugged her close and his fingers dug into her forearm. “Just there.” She pointed again and they all scrambled to obey. Vane’s grip tightened. His breath whispered against her neck.
“Nicely done.” His fingers found her neck, they trailed up into her hair and she had to suppress a shiver. “I think I like your hair better down.” He loosed the pin in a swift stroke and her silver fell in a wave. “Wear it down from now on.”
He leapt off, leaving her standing unsteadily on a huge lump of rock. He’d made his point, asserted his authority in a way that would shame her. Now he walked away, waving and shouting orders, the most important person in the world again. She climbed down and brushed her hair back behind her shoulders. Its weight dragged against her head in a constant reminder that she belonged to Vane.
She joined him at the new dig, but she hung back, leaning against a bit of wall while the crew set up their string markers and tripods, laid out levers and bars and shovels all stolen from Marten’s shop or forged at the blacksmith’s hand. Gangs traveled light. Why carry what can be raped from the next town?
They broke ground within minutes, used the bars to pry up both stone and dirt until the afternoon morphed into a cacophony of scraping metal and men’s voices. Satina faded into the wall, eventually sitting cross-legged at the base to watch. They didn’t need her now, and so long as she remained where Vane could snap his fingers for her, she’d be blissfully invisible.
Near mid-day the women brought bowls of bread and vegetables. They ignored Satina, and she let it go, pretended she didn’t see the sneering or hear their whispers. Even so, Vane noticed. He dragged one of the women back by the kerchief and made her serve Satina. It would only make things worse. The woman’s eyes spat hatred at her now. She’d be terrified to eat anything they brought her next time.
Even worse, Vane took to hovering near the wall. She caught him watching her each time she looked up from her meal, and even when he wasn’t, she knew a portion of his attention was fixed in her direction. Her hands trembled as she tore off each piece of bread. She chewed them without tasting, swallowed automatically, and started again.
When she’d finished, Satina set the bowl on the stones and leaned her head back against the wall. She closed her eyes and let the sun and the rhythm of the diggers’ scraping soothe her into oblivion. She awoke to the rattle of a cart. The men had broken through the first layer of stone and now scratched away at raw dirt and smaller rubble. They stood knee deep in places, most leaning on their shovels to watch the cart’s approach.
Satina ignored it. They’d had supplies brought from town before. Vane’s men had carved their rough road through the forest. The innkeeper delivered barrels of beer just the day before, and she’d heard Vane order a garden gleaning only that morning. She looked up to the top of the staircase and watched the clouds wander past the black stone until Vane’s voice summoned her.
“Satina!” He clapped his hands and raised his voice to a singer’s pitch. “Sat-i-na!”
She scrambled from her shelter and skipped over the cobbles and debris. Vane stood in front of the wagon. He held out his arm and she slid under it without argument. They needed him relaxed, believing in his own victory. He squeezed her in close and smiled so wide his teeth showed.
“Hurry up with that,” he ordered. At the back of the wagon, she could just see a man’s back. He bent down to loosen the ties holding a huge tarp over his load. “We want to celebrate my goodmother’s brilliant discovery.”
The way he intoned “my” raised goosebumps up her forearms. He was up to something sneaky, and she eyed the tarp as if a wagon load of vipers hid beneath it.
“Don’t we, my dear?”
He’d lost his mind. The camp fell suddenly silent. No shovels scratched. The men stilled to watch. Even in the women’s makeshift kitchen, the Starlights froze and turned their attention to the wagon. She had the pressing feeling that she should run, flee for the pocket and be gone for good.
Before she could act, Vane turned her. One arm held her like a cooper’s band, and the other caught her by the jaw, lifting her face to his. She had time to gas
p once before he kissed her. His rough lips pushed hard against hers, and her spine turned to stone. She stiffened and felt her blood chill. The goosebumps turned into shivers. She couldn’t pull away, couldn’t even twist in his iron grip.
He lifted his face and turned her toward the wagon, trembling and with a face that burned. His hand fisted into her hair and moved her head like a puppet’s, forcing her eyes to the wagon, forcing her to see where Marten had stopped unloading to watch Vane’s show.
His shoulders didn’t slump any longer. His eyes blazed yellow and she feared for a moment that he would rush Vane, attack the man here in the midst of his band and die in the trying.
“You there,” Vane waved to the nearest shovelers with the hand that didn’t have her by the hair. “Help the man unload.” He pushed her away, driving her by the grip on her neck and head while his Starlights moved in on Marten. When they’d gained enough distance from the wagon, when the great stair rose to shadow them, he turned and let her watch.
Her chest hammered, and she trembled from head to toe, but the Starlight crew only did as their leader instructed. They helped the Skinner unload his wagon, no doubt, the very last tools in his inventory, without harming him.
“Just a reminder,” Vane hissed close to her ear. “In case you needed one.”
Satina nodded. Her lips throbbed too much to bite them. Her face ached, and his grip on her neck hadn’t relaxed a bit. She could still taste the bastard, still shivered from his reminder. She hadn’t needed it, could have lived forever without it. And if he ever tried it again, goodmother or not, Granter be damned, she’d kill the son-of-a-bitch.
☼
She waited until she was safely inside the pocket to cry. If Vane suspected her of bolting, he didn’t show it, nor did she care. By the time she’d slipped through the menhir rift, he had no recourse but to wait for her to return. And possibly go after Marten. Still, she knew Vane’s certainty in his hold over her would last at least a few minutes, earn her at least a moment’s respite.
She slumped beside the big stone and buried her face in her hands, letting the sobs rattle free and the tears slide. She wanted to bathe, even considered hopping pockets. Did she have time to get clean before the bastard marked her as missing and sent his men after Marten? He couldn’t have made it all the way back to town by now. They’d find him alone in the woods, pulling his cart over the ruts and stubborn roots.
She sobbed again, pounded her fist against the cobblestones and cursed Vane, the Starlights, anyone stupid enough to ever join a gang. Like herself.
Footsteps crossed the cobbles behind her. She scrambled to her feet, spinning and stumbling back into the menhir. Her chest tightened. Marten stood in the pocket. His eyes blazed and he watched her with a curious expression. Half anger, half something she couldn’t label. He shook his head softly from side to side, opened his mouth once, but said nothing.
What was left to say?
Satina turned back to the menhir. She didn’t want to look at him now, with Vane’s taint still scenting her hair and skin, with the memory of the man’s hands on her still fresh. She dug her nails into her palms and, once again, pretended to examine the big standing stone.
“Has he been hurting you?” The words might have come from the rock itself.
“No.” She breathed out, in, pushed her fingernails deeper into flesh. “That was a first.”
“For my benefit.”
“I—I don’t know why.”
“I do.”
That time his voice crackled. Satina spun back around. He’d crossed the space between them, stood just a few steps away.
“Hadja wants you to take this.” He pulled a shard from his pocket, dangling on a thin strip of twine. “Don’t wear it unless you need to, but if you need to…”
“I will.” She held out her hand and he placed the mirror there. His fingers clamped over her palm and pressed the smooth glass tightly between their palms. He didn’t let go, and sparks danced outward from the contact. His breath came soft and shallow.
“Do you want us to push the timetable up?”
“No.” She shook her head, but her voice had less conviction. She tried again. “I’ll be fine. Should we wait for the full moon?”
“Why?” Now his words took on a skeptical edge.
“So that Hadja can work the pocket more easily.” She played her only card. How could she help it with him touching her, sending tingles up her arm? She knew they’d altered the plan, and she deserved to hear him say why.
“Hmm.” He tilted his head to the side. “I think she’ll be fine as long as we’re close.”
“Three days then. I think I can keep him busy that long.”
His hand gripped more tightly. “Satina.”
She wasn’t ready to look at him. She had more to say, and a dry lump building in her throat. “Will your militia be ready by then?”
“Hmm.”
He pulled his hand away then. She tucked the mirror shard necklace into her cloak pocket and waited for an explanation. He just made that noise a third time, “Hmm.”
Now she looked at him. His eyes burned with a low, golden light, staring at her. Waiting.
“You’re planning on fighting.”
“Yes.”
“And you were hiding it from me. You were both hiding it from me.”
“Yes.” He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t even flinch.
“Because you don’t trust me.” She stuck her chin out, crossed her arms over her chest.
One of his eyebrows lifted.
“Fine.” She sniffed and tilted her head right back at him. “I get it.”
“You don’t, Satina.” His eyes flared and he shook his head. “You really don’t.”
He moved so quickly. One second he was staring at her and the next he held her. His mouth fell on hers and the pocket warped and crackled around them. Marten’s kiss, Marten’s arms, his chest pressed against hers. She tangled her arms around his neck and hung on for all her worth.
He kissed her and kissed her until she couldn’t have stood on her own if her life had depended on it. His arms closed around her back and his warmth and magic rushed through her body. He turned his head and nuzzled her on the neck, breathed into her hair. She curled into him, until her trembling ceased. Her breathing heaved in and out, matching his and somehow clearing her body of darkness. Here in Marten’s arms, in the pocket, swirling with their magic, Vane could never touch her.
“There’s going to be fighting, Satina.” He whispered into her neck, brushed his lips up and kissed her on the mouth again. “People are going to get hurt.”
A shock of fear trembled through her. She tensed. “If we could get them all in the pocket…”
“Satina.” He brushed her hair back from her face and leaned in until their foreheads touched. “Satina.”
“We could try.”
“This is why we didn’t tell you.”
“But you could get hurt.”
He didn’t answer, and the fear bloomed into a whirlwind. She’d worked it out so carefully, had everything planned just to avoid this very thing.
“I didn’t think there were any optimists left in the world, Satina.”
“Why do I think that’s not a compliment?” She stiffened and pulled away. Marten let her go. He scowled at her and shook his head.
“I meant it as one.”
“And yet you’ve tossed aside my plan and made a better one. You’ve lied to me, you’ve—”
“Tried to protect you?”
“I never asked you to protect me.”
“No.” He turned his face away, looked to the far corner of the pocket where they’d dragged the wagon. He hadn’t wanted Vane suspicious, hadn’t wanted him to make the connection between the pockets. Now she’d have to trust them to get it back in place, to drug it, to be exactly where and when she needed them.
She’d put her life in their hands, but she hadn’t asked them to keep her safe—or in th
e dark.
“I suppose you didn’t,” Marten said. He turned away and headed for the pocket wall. Better that he go. Better that she didn’t think too much about him now. He called back over his shoulder as he stepped through the rift, “Three days, Satina,” and then he vanished.
Chapter Eighteen
Unlikely Page 18
