Children of the Healer

by Barbara Ann Wright

  Cordelia floated down, following the cord until she spotted her body on one of Pool’s massive limbs. Her head rested in Nettle’s lap, and through the link to Pool, Cordelia felt Nettle’s worry and love. She’d never liked the idea of Cordelia leaving her body, liked it even less after Naos. Cordelia lingered a moment, watching Nettle’s lean form, the whorls on her dark skin, her long fingers stroking Cordelia’s hair, the poisonous claw on her middle fingers rolled into her palm to prevent an accidental scratch.

  Sensing Cordelia’s affection, Nettle raised her head. Her short, thick red hair had flattened on one side where she’d been leaning against a branch. Her lichen-colored eyes searched the air, but she wouldn’t be able to see Cordelia’s spirit, only sense her. She wrinkled her narrow nose, and Cordelia heard one clear thought:

  “Sa, my heart’s friend, return to me now.”

  With a chuckle, Cordelia slipped into her body with all the ease of donning a favorite shirt. She opened her eyes and stared into Nettle’s worried face. “Sorry if I scared you.”

  Nettle’s thin lips turned down. “If you were truly sorry, you would remain in your body where you belong.”

  Cordelia sat up. “I couldn’t let memories of Naos keep scaring me.”

  “I know this. I only wish you to be safe.” She looked away and smiled. “And I do not wish to argue with you now.”

  Cordelia sighed. The “now” meant there’d be more arguing later. She started to look forward to Gale’s problems if it meant she’d be too busy to explain the need to conquer her fear.

  “Liam awaits.” Nettle gestured along the branch to where Liam stood, arms crossed, green eyes pinned on them. All he needed was a tapping foot to make the picture complete.

  “Ah. You’re going to let him argue with me instead. I get it.”

  Nettle didn’t answer, so Cordelia strode to Liam, bracing herself for a lecture. He’d never been happy on the plains. Like her, he’d given up being a paladin lieutenant when they’d first left Gale, given up weapons and powered armor, but that wasn’t the reason he’d been so angry. The Storm Lord, god of Gale, had killed her uncle, the mayor, and Liam’s mother, captain of the paladins. Liam had wanted to stay in Gale and get his revenge, but they’d had to wait eight months before the fight came to them. After Simon killed the Storm Lord, Cordelia hoped Liam’s anger would find an end, but he’d just found other things to be mad about.

  “I wasn’t gone long,” she said before he could start.

  “Why go at all? Naos’s army is done. The Storm Lord is dead, and we’re making peace with the plains dwellers and headed back to Gale. Why tempt fate by leaving your freaking body?”

  She walked past him, quickly losing her taste for a lecture. “Shouldn’t you be down hobnobbing with the plains dwellers? They like you.”

  “Simon and Horace have it well in hand.”

  Two healers united in power; she’d felt just how potent that could be. She couldn’t help giving Liam a leer at the “well in hand” comment since Simon and Horace were also lovers.

  Liam snorted a laugh, still the same beneath his anger. Reach had told Cordelia that while she’d been off fighting Naos, Liam had been getting the plains dwellers to talk to one another and make peace. A good job had calmed him down. Now, if he could find another such task in Gale, the nagging might stop. And he could take all the talking, as far as she was concerned. She was more than sick of it.

  “Have you spoken to the paladins and yafanai we captured near Celeste?” she asked.

  He sighed deeply, and she nearly grinned, happy to deflect him. Some of their captives were still desperately loyal to the Storm Lord. Others seemed to be wavering, especially since the Storm Lord had killed Jen Brown, captain of the paladins since Cordelia left.

  That particular death hurt more than a little. Brown hadn’t exactly been a friend, but she’d been a compatriot, a good soldier. She’d always watch a fellow paladin’s back. Her former lieutenant partner, Jon Lea, was now the leader of the “failing faith” party. But with their powers subdued by Simon, the captured yafanai seemed to still be on the Storm Lord’s side. Most of them, anyway. And many of them, paladin and yafanai both, were spreading a crazy rumor that the Storm Lord hadn’t died, that he’d flown off to fight Naos in space. The fact that no one had found his body, only his armor, convinced them it was true, even though Simon assured them he was dead.

  “They still insisting he rode a lightning bolt into space?” Cordelia asked.

  “Some are very convinced.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re starting to believe it?”

  He shook his head. “I know he was just a man, but a few have let Horace read their minds, and…they saw it somehow.”

  “I bet it was the Sun-Moon fucking with them. Then they stole his body after Simon left, but before we could get there. A little parting annoyance to remember them by.”

  “Dirty fuckers, if that’s the truth.” He shrugged. “I’ll put that to the captives, see what they think.” He looked at her sideways. “Or you could.”

  “Oh, no. A few rounds of bullshit, and I’d be punching the truth into them.”

  Nettle grabbed her arm. “Sa…”

  Even though she was firmly in her body, Cordelia felt it as Pool’s mind touched Nettle’s, though she didn’t get as clear a message as when she was spirit walking. Pool was anxious, giving a warning: “Fajir approaches.”

  “Shit.” Cordelia put a hand to her wooden blade, a gift from Pool, an ever-sharpening weapon. “With how many?”

  “A group of ten, all widows.”

  Looking for revenge? They hadn’t parted with the Sun-Moon on good terms, not exactly, but in the end, Simon had saved Celeste from Naos and promised to hurt the Sun-Moon bad if they ever came looking for trouble again.

  The branches lifted Pool to where Cordelia stood. Taller than the rest of her drushka, well over six feet, Pool loomed over them. Her long green hair flowed over her shoulders, the mark of a queen. She frowned hard, pulling all the whorls downward on her brown face.

  “I thought we had seen the last of these people, Sa.”

  Cordelia nodded. “Me, too. If they’ve come for trouble, they’re going to regret it.”

  Her stomach shifted as the tree lowered all of them to the ground, but she was happy for the assistance. She didn’t know how long it would have taken to climb the trunk of Pool’s massive tree; she hoped she never had to find out.

  They left Simon and Horace to their healing work, though Pool sent several more drushka to guard them. The plains dwellers they healed would defend them, too, Cordelia had no doubt, if only to save their own skins. A host of drushka and humans waited for Fajir’s arrival. She wouldn’t stand a chance.

  But why come at all? Cordelia searched her memory for all her conversations with Fajir, most of them angry. She sucked in a deep breath as she remembered the dank dungeon under the Sun-Moon’s palace. She’d been looking for Mamet, a plains dweller who’d gotten caught in all the fighting. Fajir hated plains dwellers, wanted to kill them all because one had killed her partner. She wanted to torture Mamet for that pain, even though Mamet had nothing to do with her partner’s death. Cordelia had to bargain for her freedom, and she’d only had one thing to offer.

  “Shit,” Cordelia said again. When Nettle looked at her, she leaned in close. “She’s here about my promise.”

  Nettle sucked her teeth, the sign of drushkan confusion, before her eyes widened. “I had forgotten!”

  “Me, too. Stand down, everyone. I know why she’s coming.” They all glanced at her, and she rubbed her forehead. “In order to get Mamet back, I, uh, had to promise Fajir I would help her find the plains dweller who killed her partner. I’d hoped she’d forget in all the fighting, but I guess not.”

  Liam gawked. “You’re going to help her find this person, and then what? Kill them?”

  “No, she can do that herself.” But even helping left a bad taste in her mouth.

  Liam still frown
ed as if they’d eaten the same thing. During the fight between Naos and the Sun-Moon, Cordelia had tried not to kill any humans, and the only death she’d delighted in had been the Storm Lord’s. She’d been ready to kill Naos, but in the end, that hadn’t been necessary. After she helped someone hunt a fellow human being, she didn’t know if her hands would ever feel clean again.

  “Maybe I can convince Fajir to let it go,” she said.

  “Maybe we can,” Nettle added.

  Cordelia gave her hand a squeeze. “I didn’t want to ask.”

  “You will never have to.”

  Before Cordelia could kiss her, Liam butted in again. “Just tell Fajir to fuck off, then!”

  Cordelia considered it. There were only ten people with Fajir, after all. “I’ll talk to her first. Let’s match her ten for ten with others standing by in case this turns nasty.”

  Cordelia and Nettle were two of the ten that went out to meet Fajir, taking Liam as well as Reach, a healing shawness, and several others. The drushka would maintain a telepathic link with Pool, who promised to come herself if Fajir proved rowdy.

  As the widows came closer, all of them riding ossors, Cordelia’s stomach did a turn. Fajir was human, too, as were all those who rode with her. Cordelia gritted her teeth. Killing them by defending herself was different than hunting someone down. Fajir’s life didn’t compare to Nettle, Liam, or Reach. It didn’t compare to any of Cordelia’s friends and new family. She could stand a little blood on her hands if it meant her loved ones would live another day.

  Fajir wore a satisfied smirk that made Cordelia want to punch her in the face. She used to think she and Fajir were a lot alike, but Cordelia hoped she’d never looked this cocky. She’d thought of Fajir as the woman Cordelia might have become if she’d surrendered to the urge to sink into a life of violence after her parents’ deaths. She used to go on drunken street brawls with Liam, the two of them punishing whomever they could for the shit life threw at them, but neither had ever been as murderous as Fajir.

  And Cordelia wasn’t as angry anymore, not after seeing how big the galaxy was, not after seeing how many people cared about her, depended on her. The living were more important than the dead, and if she could learn that, maybe Fajir could, too.

  Fajir dismounted, her long black hair trailing around her shoulders. Tall and willowy, she didn’t look very powerful, but Cordelia had witnessed firsthand how skilled she was with the bone sword on her hip. Her fellow widows stayed mounted, letting her come forward alone. Cordelia knew part of Fajir didn’t care whether she lived or died. It was one of the things that made her so dangerous.

  Before Fajir could speak, Cordelia said, “Miss me?”

  Fajir’s smirk widened into a genuine smile that reached her gray eyes for half a heartbeat, then she shrugged. “You remember your pledge?”

  The words were casual, but her fingers twitched next to the grip of her sword, and she leaned forward slightly as if she might leap. Cordelia bet her muscles were as taut as ballista strings underneath her Moon embroidered robe. She wouldn’t be put off by assurances that the pledge would someday be fulfilled, and she wouldn’t be bought by anything else Cordelia could offer.

  Everyone was silent, waiting for Cordelia to refuse. Then Fajir would attack and be killed. But her fighters were skilled. They’d made it through the attack on Celeste, after all. Some on Cordelia’s side could die. Liam, Nettle, Reach: they were all on the front line. Cordelia herself might die just when her people needed her the most.

  And the way Fajir’s gaze skated over everyone in Cordelia’s group told her that Fajir would go for the pain before she’d seek the kill. She knew that losing loved ones hurt more than the threat of one’s own death. She’d probably told her fighters who to target first.

  It made Cordelia’s blood boil, but she had to find the least bloody way out of this for her conscience to rest. She gestured to Nettle. “The two of us will come with you.”

  Fajir nodded. “I will send my fighters back to Celeste and keep two ossors for you.” She waved behind her. “I’ll wait for you over that ridge.” It was a good vantage point. She’d be able to see exactly who was coming, the sort of cautious move Cordelia herself might have made.

  “We’ll get our gear.”

  As Cordelia turned away, Fajir said, “Wait.” She tossed a ceramic jar to Nettle, who caught it easily. “We use this when breaking in young ossors. Spread it on your body, and they should not shy from you.” So she’d noticed that the animals didn’t like Nettle. Or maybe Cordelia had told her at some point. Or maybe she was just guessing.

  Cordelia told herself she had to stop admiring this woman. “Thanks.”

  Nettle smelled the jar and winced. “What is it?”

  “They sweat it out,” Fajir said as she mounted.

  Nettle was still grimacing when Fajir rode away. Liam had the same look but probably for a different reason. Reach stood at Nettle’s shoulder, both of them smelling the jar, but Cordelia bet they were more freaked out by the smell than by the thought of rubbing bug sweat on their bodies. She supposed it was no different than drinking mead made from the hoshpis in Gale.

  “She didn’t even say hello to the rest of us,” Liam said as they all walked back to Pool. “I guess she’s not interested in diplomacy.”

  “Did you expect so?” Nettle asked. “That one dwells in the past. Everything else is nothing to her.”

  “Do you think she can change?” Cordelia asked.

  Nettle spread her hands. “If she were drushka? Perhaps. Humans seem more stubborn.” She glanced at Cordelia. “All but you.”

  Liam snorted, but Cordelia ignored him. “I love you,” she said to Nettle, not caring that everyone else could hear, that Pool would know. It probably meant all the drushka would know, but at the moment, she didn’t care about that either. It was too soon after the fight with Naos to hold back what was in her heart.

  Nettle grinned. “And I you, though you pick the oddest times to say so.”

  “Better odd than never spoken.” Cordelia paused, thinking over the phrase. “That sounded better in my head.”

  “I shall make that into a drushkan saying,” Nettle said. “Better the sudden flood than the long drought?”

  “No, no,” Reach said. “Better a sharp wind than utter stillness.”

  Cordelia laughed. “They both need a little work.”

  As soon as they were back at Pool’s tree, Liam pulled Cordelia aside again. He’d worked up the same anxious, angry look she was getting used to seeing, but she supposed she should be thankful he didn’t lecture her in front of everyone.

  “It’ll be all right,” she said. “She’ll keep following us if I don’t go.”

  “So let her follow us, and if she starts any trouble—”

  “You’ll kill her? As far as I know, she’s never done anything to you.” She looked at him closely. “I’d expect Mamet to want to kill her.”

  “And Horace. She kidnapped him, remember?”

  “So you want to kill her on his behalf?”

  “No!” He walked in a tight circle, hands resting on top of his head, a frustrated pose she remembered from their childhood. Without his mother to make him crazy, maybe he was desperate for something else. “I’m just so sick of everyone else’s shit.”

  She barked a laugh. “I won’t argue with that. But if I started killing everyone who annoyed me, well…”

  He nodded and pulled her into a quick hug. “Don’t get in too deep with her. From what you’ve told me, she’s an asshole. She isn’t you. You aren’t responsible for her.”

  She returned his hug, slapping his back. “Noted. And if she does manage to kill me, avenge my death.”

  He breathed a laugh. “You got it. I’ll bring all the drushka down on her, too. Right?” he asked as Pool stepped up beside him.

  “Indeed,” she said, looking faintly amused at her daughter’s lover.

  Or former lover? Liam had mentioned that he hadn’t seen Shiv in the
days since they’d left Celeste. And he was too scared to ask her if they were through. That was probably the source of all his tension, and Cordelia hoped he’d work it out soon enough. She’d hate to have to get between them.

  “Well,” Cordelia said as Nettle joined them with two backpacks. “We’ve got gear, mounts, and two pledges of bloody vengeance. Looks as if we’re all set.”

  “More than two pledges,” Pool said. “If you count one drushka, Sa, you must count us all. Let her know just how many would seek her death.”

  Cordelia was touched beyond measure, and warmth spread through her body as she nodded. “I will.”

  She and Nettle donned packs and strode toward where Fajir waited with their mounts. She’d kept one fighter with her, a small, stocky man Cordelia had seen before at her side. Maybe they’d decided an even number was preferable. Cordelia didn’t look back at the humans and drushka who’d become her family, telling herself she’d do what she had to and get the fuck out as quickly as possible.

  * * *

  Simon Lazlo watched the captured Galeans and fought the urge to fidget. A few craned their necks and peered at him with equal parts fear and discontent. Lieutenant Jon Lea stared, no expression lighting his face, the same way Simon remembered from the long night’s siege in Gale. Lea had urged the other Galeans to listen to what Simon had to say; he’d lost his faith in the Storm Lord, but others weren’t quite there yet. They sat in separate groups: those willing to listen, and those who were convinced that Simon and the other “renegades” would be punished when the Storm Lord came back from heaven.

  Simon had already told them what had really happened. It didn’t seem to matter that he let some read the truth in his mind; under Horace’s watchful eye, of course. In the end, he’d told them he didn’t need them to believe him. He’d help Gale however he could. They seemed as if they didn’t know what to do with that information. All in all, he’d rather go back to healing the plains dwelling Svenal, but that work was done. The disease was no more, and the Svenal would be able to have children again. How they’d make peace with the other clans they’d attacked, he had no idea. He could only worry about one people at a time.