Branded

by Clare London

  I stretched, awkwardly—and then suddenly Kiel was there, dropping down from the rock platform above to land beside me.

  “Maen! Isn’t it an astonishing place? I’ve been looking around, and although it seems so disconnected and primitive, it’s really very efficient. It’s a proper settlement with all the facilities you’d need, though so much poorer and less accessible than in the city, of course. In fact, I think I’ve seen descriptions in the earlier Histories of similar settlements, though surely that must have been before the Queens created the cities and moved the people inside the walls. There are so few records left in the Library from those times, they’re difficult to find and awkward to read, and of course none of it’s on my list of official research from the Queen herself. But these people, these Exiles weren’t around then anyway, were they, and yet they’ve created their own community in just the same way. I must look through the older volumes when I get back, just for my own interest, I must find the time to compare…. Don’t you see this is why I love the books, for what they tell us about the world and our people, and the patterns of our life? I’m beginning to believe nothing is really new, nothing should be a surprise, everything can be relearned—”

  “Kiel.”

  He stopped and stared at me. He had a new jerkin on, which he’d obviously borrowed overnight from a generous Exile—or maybe one who’d welcomed the prospect of freezing to death rather than listening to Kiel chatter on for unadulterated hours.

  “You want me to be quiet,” he said and grimaced.

  I smiled. “Just while we find out what will happen to us now.”

  He frowned. “We’ll go back to the city, surely? Mistress Flora won’t let harm come to us. She says she’ll talk to Hann, their leader, he’ll understand we’re just messengers and no threat to them.”

  “We’ve seen their camp,” I said gently enough. “I’m a servant of the Royal Household. That’s a threat in anyone’s mind, let alone their leader’s.”

  His eyes widened. “She says he’s a good man. He’d honor a messenger, wouldn’t he? Who wouldn’t? We’re not here as soldiers—”

  “Kiel,” I prompted again.

  “She promised, Maen.” His voice was low but determined. “A royal promise.”

  I didn’t want to scare him, but he had no understanding of these people beyond city legends and his investigation of those old Histories that he set such store by. “Mistress Flora’s not royal here. She’s not in charge.”

  “No” came a low voice nearby as another man turned the corner onto our particular rock shelf. “I am.”

  I turned slowly to face him. “You’re Hann.” I wasn’t surprised in the slightest.

  Dax nodded to me. In the morning light, his face was a better color, his skin tanned from continued exposure to the sun. The contrast with his piercing blue eyes and pale hair made him even more striking. And unlike last night he stood well, as if the pain had abated from his wounds. He looked every inch the master of his community. The leader of this Exile band.

  Kiel looked between us, confused and scared. “Maen,” he whispered. “Is there anyone here you haven’t met before?”

  Dax met my eyes, and we looked at each other for a silent moment.

  “Come with me,” he said at last. “We need to talk.”

  I MADE sure that Kiel was settled with some of the men who still attended Mistress Flora, and then Dax led me across a wide plateau area in front of a collection of tents. A group of men and women sat around a contained fire, cooking root vegetables and birds’ eggs and joints of a thin wiry animal whose bare carcass was unfamiliar to me. But the smell of the cooking was very good. When the food was done, they laid it out on the ground beside them on a low, rough table made of branches and covered with large leaves. Then the younger Exiles brought along baskets of bread and seeds to supplement it.

  Dax stopped next to the group and picked up food from the makeshift table, handing some to me. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until the smell of it hit my nostrils and the juices from the meat ran over my fingers. I ate quickly, and when a young boy timidly offered me some more bread, I took it eagerly. He stared at me, though, and kept himself and his basket as far from me as possible. After I took the food, he ran off quickly.

  They were all staring at me. Dax glanced around the group and frowned. He ran his hands down his jerkin, wiping the excess grease off, and gestured for me to come away. We walked a farther hundred steps, then paused behind a small cluster of empty tents. No one could see us there, though we could still hear the murmuring voices of his people in the background. He sat down on a pile of large flat stones fashioned into a bench arrangement, and after a brief pause, I followed. There was something about his attitude that made me keep a space as broad as a man between us.

  “It’s still the same,” I said quietly. It wasn’t a question. “There’s still the hostility between Exiles and city.”

  Dax frowned. “What did you think would change? The Queen continues to exclude us from everything, to treat us as mortal enemies. Her city’s resources are kept jealously for her citizens, and only them. And when we try to take what we need, her slaves lock us out and her soldiers attack and kill us.”

  It sounded as if he’d pronounced that speech many times. “You have contacts in the city,” I said steadily. “You’re not always locked out.” When he looked up at me, startled, I shook my head. “I don’t know that for certain, but I’ve always suspected it. There are things here that I’ve seen in the city, implements you couldn’t make out here without the materials, which means you have suppliers inside the walls. And not just the Remainders. You remember—”

  “You accused me of being a spy once,” he interrupted. “Yes, I remember. You thought I was a traitor to the city.”

  “I didn’t understand then,” I said, quietly, “how there can be so many kinds of people, so many differences.”

  He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “But now I am a traitor, aren’t I? And yet it was the city itself that made me so. My own Guard turned against me, to torture me. They rejected me and would have executed me.” He shook his head and his hair fell back over his ears, exposing the whole of his face. “The city declared me damaged goods, no longer of use to the Mistress. Do you remember that?”

  His resentment was so fierce that his tone seemed to lash out at me physically. I continued to gaze at him, neither afraid nor disgusted to look at the mess of badly healed skin on his face. He looked the same as ever to me. He looked as handsome, as magnificent! My gut churned. I’d found him again, but I’d found that particular agony as well.

  “Why did you take a different name, Dax?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? I was a fugitive. The camp took me in—though they didn’t want to, at first—and it seemed only fair I didn’t add to their problems. Anyone looking for me by name wouldn’t find me.” When he saw my rueful smile, he snapped back, “What is it? Is that so wrong?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “It’s very admirable. But I think you’re naive if you think only your name would identify you.”

  Even here among his adopted people, in their clothes and with a similarly sunburned skin, he looked different. It wasn’t just the bright hair and the vivid eyes, for there were many different types of people seeking to make a life here, and many Remainders, from what I could see. But Dax had been well built as a youth, else my Mistress would never have chosen him as a Bronzeman, and he’d shown tremendous promise in his training, growing taller and stronger by the day. There was also something about his bearing that marked him out from the crowd: he carried himself with a pride that only a soldier of the city could have. I knew there were likely to be other soldiers in exile here, but Dax was one of a kind. His rise to leadership had only accentuated that.

  “And they’ve put you in charge.” I was proud, despite our situation.

  He flushed. “Takk was killed shortly after I came here. It was a raid for medical supplies, yet again, for those are things we can
not yet prepare for ourselves. Maybe one day, when we have access—” He caught my eye, and my interest, and he bit off what he’d been about to say. “It was a stupid attempt. He went on his own with only a couple of men, and no one knew why he risked that, not even Eila. We brought them all back, but none survived. Eila didn’t want to be sole leader, and our soldiers were low in number and morale at that time. I offered to help them, to ease my way into the group, and also to… keep occupied.” His face twisted as if he fought to hide his emotions. “I suggested we move the camp to here. It was an impossibly hard life down by the old riverbed, and we were vulnerable to any attack they sent after me.”

  I was shocked and reached out to take his arm. “You were pursued?”

  He stared at me, his eyes narrowed. “You didn’t know? Seleste sent several parties out in the first months after I escaped. They were only ever Silver Captains—no Gold Warriors. I didn’t merit that, obviously. They never found me, though, and many things changed in the camp, slowly but surely. We learned a lot, both from those attacks and our own raids. I learned a lot. This camp is easier to defend and to protect the safety of our women and children if we’re attacked closer to home. I think other groups have found this location useful in the past too. There’s evidence of it having been adapted before for human settlement, though it’d obviously been abandoned for a long time. We’ve gathered many new recruits, some of them from other cities, so we can share knowledge and experience better than before. We’re well placed to gather resources where we can, considering the poor soil out here and the exposure to the worst elements. But since then I’ve brought in new training too—”

  He broke off sharply. His eyes didn’t meet mine.

  “You can trust me, Dax,” I said. It was astonishingly hurtful to realize that he doubted my loyalty to him. “I’m not a spy for the Queen. Not against you.”

  His gaze flickered back up to me, and he continued in a more subdued tone. “I’ve developed more close-quarter sword fighting and better general fitness training, plus a tighter structure to our grouped attack.”

  I nodded, for they were all good strategies. “I knew you’d be a good soldier.” My voice came out barely as a whisper.

  “I’ve had to be. You don’t see how things really are, Maen.” His voice was a hoarse thread in the quiet air. “You’re indoctrinated to think the city is everything to a man, but the Queen knows more about life out here than she admits. She sends men out more regularly than you realize. We’ve been attacked near here as well as at the city walls. She knows there’s traffic between our communities, and it’s likely to increase.” He glanced down at my hand on his arm then back up to my face. “I thought for a long time she might send you after me, if only to torment us both.” I struggled to speak, and for the first time his eyes softened toward me. “I wouldn’t have wanted that.”

  “But I thought I had—”

  “You thought you’d bought my freedom at the expense of your own?” His voice was harsh now. “The Queen doesn’t bargain like that. I’ve learned that from my own experience, as well as from Eila’s, and from Flora’s. The Queen wants only what she wants, the rest of us are expendable. She would have killed her own sister, Maen, as easily as she wanted to kill me.”

  “At the battle? I was there—”

  “She’d kill you too!” he growled. “Don’t you see? If you defy her, if you don’t help her with what she wants and needs. If for a minute she thinks you’re no longer hers.”

  It felt as if something snapped inside me. I tightened my hand on him and wrenched him around to face me fully. “Is that how you see it? That I’m hers?”

  His eyes widened but he didn’t pull away. “Yes. You made your choice. It was a hard one, I know, but it was still your choice. You let me go, and you went to her.” Something flickered in his eyes. “How else can I see it? Veli says—”

  “Veli?” I felt my fingers gripping him too tightly, but still he sat there, taking it. No one was within earshot or sight, but I still spoke in a low urgent tone. “What does she know of it all?”

  “She’s my partner now. She’s…. We’re going to have a child.” He half smiled, then frowned. Maybe he was confused about it himself. “You won’t understand that idea of a family unit, of course.”

  I stared back. My heart hammered against my chest. I might have been able to think of Dax with another lover—or many—but the thought of him with a child rocked me. “Try me.”

  He shook his head; he looked both ashamed and angry. “It’s been hard for me. I am of neither world. They’re both wary and scornful of me. But I’ve made my own place here, regardless.” His gaze was fierce. “I was alone, just as I was before I was taken into the Household. Just as I’ve always been. Whatever I’ve done, I’ve done for myself. Alone.”

  There was silence between us for a second.

  “Mistress Flora has ideas to bring the Exiles and the city together again….” I began.

  “It’ll never happen.” His voice had dulled. “We’re too different now. And we have nothing important enough to the Queen to bargain with, for representation.” He glanced up at me. “Is that what you’d advise, if you were still a Warrior?”

  “I don’t want your men to be killed,” I said bluntly. “If you continue this pattern of sporadic, vicious raids, that’s what’ll always happen. Your only choice is to find some way to negotiate with the city.”

  He was watching me closely, as if he expected me to say something more. He didn’t answer.

  “You called this ‘home.’” The pain in my chest felt like a physical wound. “You talk about the camp being ‘closer to home.’ And you have a partner. There’ll be a… child. I understand that.” I let go of him and stood up, a little stiffly. “Whatever you say, whatever strategy you take with your camp and your men, I understand I’m no longer part of your world. You no longer need or wish to listen to me. But I’m glad you’re alive.”

  My heart celebrates it, I wanted to cry aloud. My whole being is amazed by it!

  “I stayed in the city because I couldn’t see any other option,” I continued. “Because, you may say, I was a fool. But I never stayed because of Seleste. I never chose her over you, not deliberately. I did what I did because of you. But I know you think I was wrong.” He started to rise as well, and I hurried on. “I’ll leave the camp at once. You can trust me not to tell the city where you are. Give me that credit at least.”

  Standing, he was much closer to me. “You know I can’t let you leave. A Gold Warrior, who’s been to our camp? Who’d be returning to the city to serve in the Queen’s own Household? I’d be gifting the life of my people into Seleste’s hands!”

  His vehemence shocked me. “You hate her that much?”

  “I will kill her one day.”

  I stared into those bright, cold eyes, my heart contracting painfully. “Would you kill me as well, then, Dax?”

  His pupils dilated suddenly, and he straightened. He braced himself for confrontation instinctively.

  “Whatever you do to me, let the youngster go.” My heart was beating very fast. I knew if Dax tried to kill me here and now to prevent me leaving the camp, I could defeat him, though maybe not as easily as when he was first a boy under my command. But I was still the stronger, better soldier. Then I looked into his ravaged face and I knew it would never come to that. I would never harm him. How could I even have harbored the thought of it? “Let Kiel go,” I repeated, desperate for Dax to agree. “He’s just a bystander, an errand boy. He’s no threat to you. Mistress Flora will vouch for him, if you have any respect for her.”

  Dax didn’t answer directly. His breathing had become shallower and his gaze flickered from my face to my body. Was he so wary of me? But he knew I was unarmed; he knew he only had to call out to have his men rush to his aid. “What will you do if you leave here?”

  I swallowed carefully. “I’ll go back to the city, you’re right about that. I need to see that Kiel is safe, and to make sure we cove
r our tracks for having left in the first place. If I don’t do that, they’ll come after me. They’ll know.”

  “She’ll know,” he answered softly. “And this time she’d send Gold Warriors, I’m sure. Are her soldiers good ones, Maen? As good as the ones at the Household of the Exchequer?”

  I thought of the fine, arrogant Zander and the keen, talented Edrius, and I nodded. “They’re better. The Queen has the best.”

  He nodded back, his eyes still on me. “I know that already.”

  I felt hot, my mouth dry. I watched the swell of his throat as he moved his head restlessly. “I mean it. I won’t tell the Queen about the camp. I wanted to know where Mistress Flora was, but I don’t wish her harm from Seleste.”

  “Seleste will kill her. Flora would never bow to her. Her only choice is to stay here.”

  I nodded.

  “Would you do that, Maen?” His voice was clear but still low, so no one beyond the tents would hear his urgent words. “Would you stay if we had our time again?”

  I stared at him. For a second the youngster gazed out at me through his more world-weary eyes. I couldn’t find the words I needed, and I stammered. “A-all I know—”

  He interrupted me with a sound of disgust. “As I thought. Your choice would always be the same. It would always be for the city, for the Gold Warrior in you, not for—”

  I grasped his arm, much more fiercely this time. “Let me finish!” I hissed.

  Startled, his eyes widened again and he dropped his head back, baring his neck to me. There was a mist of anger and pain in front of my eyes, and it made me speak more harshly than I wanted—and definitely more rashly. “All I know is that I’ve thought about you every day since we parted, that your spirit has been with me in everything I’ve done. I’ve walked with you, trained with you, fought with you—slept with you! You are with me, Dax, all the time, and you always will be. I can’t change that. I may not like it—”