“Damned if I know. As far as the boy knew, it had been standing empty for some twenty days. The smith and his apprentice were taking the waters at the hot geysers in Juniper Hill, three towns over. They just came back yesterday and found the smithy quite thoroughly ransacked. The girl must have had an accomplice.” Rees tied the canvas sack shut and hurried toward his horse.
“Wait, where are we going?” asked Greer, moving toward the wagon. “Aren’t we supposed to report to the Capital?”
“I am going to find somewhere far away from this contingent of pimple-ridden little boys to get drunk,” answered Rees, bridling up his horse. “Then I plan to find the thief and claim my reward from the Queen and Council. You are going to do whatever is in your heart.”
“Sir,” cried Greer in protest, but Rees was already barreling down the road into the forest.
When Rees had disappeared from sight, Tanya turned to Greer, stunned. “What just happened?” she asked.
Greer was staring woodenly after his former commander. “I just lost a future,” he said in a monotone, and walked back to the wagon.
It took Tanya a moment to gather her wits. She wasn’t the only one. The main road leading from Ironhearth to the woods was clogged with stunned soldiers—half-trained boys, really—scratching their heads. In that moment, Tanya and the men of the Queen’s Corps had something in common. But there was a key difference between her and the corpsmen:
They had horses.
One of the boys knocked into her and she fell against a horse. She grabbed desperately at the reins, but he already had a rider—Hart.
“Don’t get trampled, wench,” he said distractedly.
She scowled up at him. “Don’t get seduced and robbed, dunce,” she spat.
A hand fell on Tanya’s shoulder and she startled and spun, knocking Darrow back a couple steps.
He was holding a scrap of paper with some crude lines and chicken-scratch names scrawled on it. “Here, miss,” he said, holding it out. “I drew you a map.”
Tanya took it. “This will take me to the Capital?”
Darrow drew his brows together, confused. “No, ma’am. That map will get you back to Griffin’s Port.”
“But I don’t want to go back to Griffin’s Port. I want to go to the Capital. And then go back to Griffin’s Port.”
Darrow frowned. “Miss, I’m not sure the journey to the Capital is still happening. Our commander means to find the thief first, you see.”
“Yes, I did see, Darrow,” she said impatiently. “I was there when he said so and then ran off to get drunk.”
“Well, you can’t go by yourself.” Darrow moved as if to put a hand on Tanya’s shoulder, then seemed to think better of it.
“No, that doesn’t seem practical,” agreed Tanya. She looked curiously at the solid, deferential young man before her. “What are your plans now that you’re no longer a member of the Queen’s Corps?”
He bowed his head. “Forgive me, but that’s not accurate. I am sure Commander Rees will be back. But, even if he isn’t, I swore my vows to the Queen and Council, not to Commander Rees.”
In spite of herself, Tanya was impressed. She nodded, encouraging him to continue.
Darrow straightened his back. “I promised to visit my mother as soon as I could. If the commander does not return, I’m off to her herd on the Glassland Meadows and then to the Capital, to join another regimen of corps.” He looked at Tanya. “If you wanted to join me at my mother’s and then onward to the Capital, you’d be welcome, miss.”
Tanya met his eyes, surprised. “I would be? Why on Lode should I be?”
He took a step back. “It’s not my intention to be forward, miss.”
“Yes, I gathered that from how you call me ‘miss’ instead of ‘wench,’ or ‘tavern maid,’” answered Tanya, crossing her arms. “I wasn’t suggesting any such thing, Darrow. I must admit, you at least are a gentleman.”
He blushed and looked pleased. Smiling shyly, he bowed a little. “My mother would like to believe so. Miss Tanya, I believe that your claim to the Smiling Snake is as valid as anyone’s and I would be more than happy to serve as escort to the Capital.”
Tanya smiled back at him. “But only after the Glassland Meadows?”
“I made a promise to my mother.”
That was undeniably nice, if inconvenient. “Thank you, Darrow.”
He bowed again and turned toward his horse, leaving Tanya once again alone in the dusty road. She wandered into town to think.
Everything was rooted to the earth in Ironhearth. After a lifetime of needing to pay attention to the patterns made by wind and waves, Tanya found herself stumbling a little at the muddy ruts in the road and listening too closely to the men calling to each other over low stone fences, all—all—in the same flattened growl of a Marsh accent. Her ears strained to locate other accents, snatches of Lumen or Gobi mixed in with her native Lodeiann. That familiar hint of the foreign, the new, the faraway wasn’t present in Ironhearth.
Tanya paused under an ancient copper-willow tree and blocked the sun with her hand, scanning the nearly identical coal-coated buildings until, at length, she spotted hanging from the arched doorway of a building a small scrap of a red flag bearing sketchy gold stitching in the shape of a salamander. She sighed with relief and made for Ironhearth’s tavern.
She hadn’t gotten halfway there when a shrill whistling caused her to pause and turn her head. Her eyes widened and she tripped backward, falling and sitting hard on the packed dirt. An eye-stinging rush of wind blew her hair back.
“It’s a funnel,” someone yelled. “Take cover!”
Chapter
5
Tanya didn’t even have the time ask what a funnel was before she saw it herself: A dusky column spun toward her, spitting out hard particles that cracked windows and made horses squeal. It was moving fast.
Tanya scrambled to her feet and ran. The funnel picked up speed, but Tanya had no more speed to acquire. “Oh, come on,” she moaned as it gained on her. She reached the inn, collapsed on its stoop, and yanked off her apron, throwing it over her head. “So, this is happening,” she grumbled, and the funnel hit her.
Tanya had angled her body away from the wind, so it wasn’t quite as bad as it could have been. But it was bad enough.
An endless swirl of sharp pebbles, thickened by dust, pummeled her, each one hitting her skin like a needle prick and a punch at the same time. It seemed to go on forever and the sting of each tiny assault intensified exponentially, so much so that the funnel had passed all the way through the village for several minutes before Tanya realized it was over.
She pulled the apron away from her face and dragged in an uneven breath. Eyes still closed, she turned and leaned against the wall of the inn. She opened her eyes and gasped.
The whole of formerly drab, brown Ironhearth was blanketed in a fine, sparkling powder of the palest pink.
Tanya sat up, wincing at the pain. She drew one finger across her arm and came away with a layer of gritty pink. She moved the tiny rocks between her forefinger and thumb, bringing it to her eye.
“Rose diamonds,” she breathed. She had never even touched a rose diamond. Now she was covered in the dust of an endless sea of the stuff.
A scraping sound next to her made her look up. A small, lithe figure in a black-hooded cape was kicking the diamonds into a pile like a child building a sand castle. They were whistling. The tune sounded familiar, but it wasn’t until the figure stuck a slender hand into the pile and deposited a careless handful or two into a hip pouch that Tanya recognized Jana.
Tanya was torn. On the one hand, it was smarter to ignore the thief, continue into the inn, and barter for a respectable night’s lodging. Tanya had raised herself to value order. Complications were to be avoided wherever possible. An organized plan of action was to always be preferred and pursued.
On the other hand, Tanya was really angry.
She felt the rage starting to boil in her veins a
nd was gathering her skirts together to stomp toward Jana when the other girl threw her hood back and lifted her face to the sun. Jana, as content as a cat on a windowsill, spread out her arms and inflated her chest with air and sunlight.
The white, sparkling tip of a feather poked through the top of her shirt.
Tanya zeroed in on the quill. Rees had been taking it to the Capital. And he bore a letter from the Queen and Council, granting him incredible power to complete his mission.
Tanya felt a sudden clarity of purpose: That quill, whatever it was, was somehow a ticket to the only people in the kingdom who could give her back her inn.
Jana suddenly became still. Tanya ducked behind the doorway, pressing her back to the wall. She tried not to breathe too loudly.
Tanya heard Jana take two slow, crunching steps toward her. She desperately scanned the yard for escape.
The door to the inn opened, letting out a rush of noise and hot air. The people of Ironhearth began streaming out into the street and Tanya heard the light, crunching footsteps quickly recede. Tanya dared to look over her shoulder and watched as Jana slipped into a stable.
Tanya found a tree to sink behind and waited for the sun to go down. If Jana had waited until darkness to steal the quill, then Tanya would, too. Tanya firmly forced herself to forget that she had no idea how she would get the feather off Jana, no idea how she was going to get to the Capital—no idea even whether to turn right or left off the main road. She had learned how to make soufflé in an oven where the temperature was always one hundred degrees off. She could learn this.
She didn’t need Darrow’s help—or anyone’s.
When the moon was up, she made her way back into the inn’s yard. The stable was dark and silent. She began to push the door open, but started back at the scraping whine of the boards. A girlish mutter sounded briefly and then fell silent. Someone was in there, breathing the deep breath of sleep.
There was a gap between the sliding door and the wall, but it was narrow. Tanya inspected it and instinctively put her hand over her belly, which jutted softly away from her hips. She would never make it through.
Frustrated, she bit her lip so she wouldn’t curse and stepped away. She peered around the building, lit only by dim moonlight. There was no other door.
But there was a window.
It was high on the left side of the stable, near the back of the building. It probably led to the loft, Tanya thought, walking underneath it. She put her hand to the wall. Smooth boards. No slats she could climb.
A light, raspy snore floated out the window. Tanya stood on her toes, futilely trying to see through to the barn. More murmurs, a snorting, and then a honking snore.
Jana was well and truly asleep. As well she might be, thought Tanya, casting about until she found a ladder lying on its side by a chicken coop. She went to fetch it. “How nice for her that she gets to sleep,” she grumbled, dragging the ladder through the mud and diamond dust. “What a lovely luxury after being up all night.”
The ladder was dirty and full of splinters, but it was sturdy and held Tanya’s weight as she climbed the wall to the window. Once at the top, Tanya planted one hand around the sill and gathered up her skirts with the other. Moving as quietly as she was able, she thrust one leg through the window, reaching until her foot found the loft.
The snoring was coming from the far corner. She was buried under a cloak and a horse blanket, but Jana’s silky black locks poked through, reflecting the shadowy moonlight in the otherwise dim and dusty stable.
Tanya leaned forward until she was on her hands and knees. She inched across the wooden slats. Her boot tip caught on a nail and Jana mumbled. Tanya held her breath, but Jana only mumbled again and flopped over onto her side.
Jana was now facing Tanya. Her lips puffed out and air whistled through her nose with each breath. Her arm was flung out and across her chest. As if she were hugging herself to sleep, thought Tanya.
Tanya crawled forward until her face was directly over the other girl’s. Jana’s hair was fanned out across her chest. Not sure what else to do, Tanya blew softly on the hair, floating it back toward Jana’s shoulders. The thief smiled faintly in her sleep and angled herself to be more directly in the path of Tanya’s pursed lips. It was stuffy in the stable. Tanya lifted a wrist to wipe the sweat off her upper lip.
Tanya blew softly one more time and Jana’s hair parted like a curtain. Tanya saw the pouch holding the quill, pressed between Jana’s brown, sunburnt neck and her own nightdress.
Tanya hesitated. The pouch was hanging from a cord around Jana’s neck. There was no way she could get it off without Jana waking. But she had been serious when she had warned the thief not to touch something she didn’t understand.
Tanya grasped the hem of her skirt and wrapped it around her fingers, lowering them to Jana’s neck.
The cloth dragged across Jana’s neck and the girl shot upright, her eyes still closed.
Tanya threw herself flat, fear coursing through her veins. But Jana merely sat upright for a few seconds before collapsing back onto the pillow.
Tanya slowly pulled herself up onto her knees, searching her pockets for a handkerchief, but finding none. She bit her lip. She was going to have to risk touching the feather.
Crawling toward Jana, she pushed her thumb and forefinger together, and, wielding them like tweezers, lowered them to Jana’s chest. She grasped a tiny scrap of the satiny filaments making up the quill’s feathers and pulled.
She had expected resistance—friction from the pouch, stickiness from sweat—but instead the quill slid out of Jana’s pouch into Tanya’s hand like water over a cliff.
Tanya gasped, her fingers suddenly burning, then cold, then burning again. She lifted the quill and stared as it seemed to ignite, throwing a dancing, golden light across the walls.
Jana mumbled again and Tanya quickly tucked the quill into the pocket she had sewn into the inside of her sleeve.
Something snorted.
Tanya looked up, but Jana was still. The snorting sounded again, closer this time. Tanya inched to the edge of the loft and peered underneath.
A horse was tied up underneath the loft.
It was the most beautiful horse Tanya had ever seen. It was pure, shimmering gold with a flowing creamy mane. It was long legged and muscled like a war horse, but lithe. It moved, and Tanya realized with a surprised start that it was a mare.
Adrenaline thrumming through her veins, Tanya changed direction, crawling past Jana to the ladder leading to the ground level.
The golden mare was asleep.
Tanya could count on both hands the number of times she had actually ridden a horse. She approached the mare carefully.
“Ush, shush, shush,” she whispered in the mare’s ear, not touching her. The mare opened her eyes, blinked a few times, and turned calmly toward Tanya.
“Ush, shush, shush,” she whispered, smiling triumphantly. She might not have had enough leisure to ride a horse, but she knew more than enough about calming strange ones. There had been no stable boy at the Smiling Snake—just her.
Tanya glanced around the mare’s stall, looking for evidence of her owner. All she found was what looked like a new saddle and bridle, stiff and shining with fresh oil. No livery, no banners, no insignia that she recognized on the tack. She turned to look up at Jana—the mare couldn’t be hers?—and her foot caught on something soft buried in the hay.
It was a gray velvet cap. She picked it up, turning it around in her fingers. She recognized it; the boy who had almost mowed her down this morning had been wearing it. Someone had entrusted him with this glorious horse?
Tanya studied the insignia on his hat: a triangle and a circle. She didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t from any noble family she’d ever heard of nor any guild. He wasn’t representing anyone important.
It would be a lot faster getting to the Capital if she had a horse.
Tanya tried hard to dismiss the thought as soon as it popped into her head. �
�You are not a thief,” she whispered.
But, as she had recently learned, thieves were everywhere. And her inn was standing empty and unprotected—ransacked, but still valuable. Every minute she was away from the Snake, she was risking someone else claiming it for themselves. Every delay in gaining an audience with the Queen and Council meant that some miscreant was that much closer to simply burning down a vacant building and constructing their own inn in its place.
She walked determinedly to the saddle, yanking it from the hook on the wall. She had left Griffin’s Port to get her inn back. She was getting. Her. Inn. Back.
The mare sleepily turned her head, calmly surveying Tanya as she strapped the saddle around her midsection. The harness slipped over the mare’s golden head just as easily.
The mare yawned through Tanya’s preparations, placidly allowing all handling. The moment Tanya pulled on the lead though, something changed.
The mare went stiff and lifted her head toward Tanya. Tanya made eye contact with the mare and felt something shrivel up in her chest. The mare’s expression was human in its disdain. She snorted and shuffled her feet, never taking her eyes off Tanya.
The two stared at each other for a long moment, weighing the other’s movements, matching the other’s position in front of the door. A snore sounded from the sleeping loft and the mare looked up.
Seizing the chance, Tanya grabbed at the mare’s harness and swung herself into the saddle with a yelp of exertion. The mare reared and whinnied furiously, bucking Tanya sideways, her feet swinging wildly, far wide of the stirrups. Only adrenaline kept Tanya hanging on.
“That’s not fair,” sighed a girlish voice.
Both Tanya and the mare looked toward the loft, where Jana was flushed with sleep, but awake and pointing an arrow right at them.
When Tanya didn’t respond, Jana shrugged and pulled back her bow. “You haven’t given me the impression that you deserve to die, but I can’t let you get away with that feather-thingy. So . . . hmmm.” Jana frowned and then her face lit up. “Got it,” she said, and pointed the arrow almost to the floor—aiming right for the mare’s left flank.
Wench Page 5
