by Tanya Huff
Vree turned her attention back to Evicka. "All? That's..." Evicka watched her visibly struggling for the words. Her inability to hide that kind of vulnerability was the best indication of how big this was. "That's likely to get people killed if we don't tell other people the right way. Now shut-up."
She knew what Gyhard had been up to. Wait until the Bardic Captain found out. Giggling hurt.
A shadow and the em man appeared. Disappeared. "Throat's badly bruised."
Vree frowned. "I'm more worried about fingers and toes."
"Vree." Gyhard used the tone healers used when they said, We've lost her. She wasn't lost. She was found. She wanted to turn her head when Vree did, but couldn't.
"Can we move it?"
"Not without a block and tackle and she won't live that long. Only the cold and the angle have kept her from bleeding to death already."
That really didn't sound good.
"Then we cut them off."
Them?
"You can't just..."
Vree cut Hanya off. "Or she dies."
"When Donal brings the healer from Janniton..."
"She'll be dead before Donal gets back."
"But to cut off her legs!" That was Hanya's man. Pja-something. They were all here. Except Donal. That was nice.
"Or she dies," Vree repeated. She wrapped the hand not holding the knife around Evicka's chin. "It's your choice, Bard."
"Vree."
"She's aware, Gyhard. It's her life."
*
Evicka could hear Vree and the healer talking in the hall. From the sound of Vree's response, the healer had been giving Vree advice about the pregnancy with no idea of how lucky she was that Vree had stopped killing people. Glancing down at where the blankets lay flat against the bed, Evicka had to admit she remained skilled with a knife.
Half a dozen kigh came in through the open window, circled the room and left. Now that Stasya and Annice were only a few hours out, they'd started to calm, but they'd been more trouble than they were worth for a while now. Every bard in Shkoder – as well as Karlene who was halfway between Shkoder and the empire – had checked in on her. The captain had been so invasive, Evicka had finally sent a kigh to Tadeus, begging him to intervene.
Tadeus understood. Blind since birth, he'd spent his life teaching people to see him, rather than what they saw as his disability.
She was rubbing the top her right thigh – the handspan left of it – when Vree knocked and came into the room. The ex-assassin had been surprisingly comforting. Blunt but not cruel. If Hanya's arms had provided a warm circle to weep in, Vree company had eventually stopped the tears because Vree treated her like a bard – like an annoyance inevitable when living in Shkoder.
"The healer tells me you'll regain the sensitivity in your fingers."
The healer had just removed the mittens stuffed with paste that smelled of cardamon. Evicka hoped the smell would fade. "She doesn't think she can save my toes though."
Vree actually snickered and Evicka grinned. The tip of her nose remained numb, but she'd been promised feeling would return to that as well. Grin fading, she patted the side of the bed. "If we're going to talk, we need to do it now. Once Stasya and Annice get here..."
"No one will get a word in edgewise. I know." Vree sat, her condition still hidden behind the bulky sweaters even though spring had finally come to Bicaz. She'd sat where Evicka's legs would have been – the only one in the holding who did. The others treated the space as though Evicka still maintained a claim to it. Vree treated it like an empty part of the bed.
"The Bardic Captain sent me here because he doesn't trust Gyhard."
"He trusts me?"
"He thinks Gyhard controls you."
Vree snorted. "I've met Kovar. He doesn't think, he reacts. He finds what Gyhard did to survive abhorrent and everything builds on that. He feels sorry for me..." She raised a hand when Evicka opened her mouth. "He objects to how assassins are trained. Because of this, he can't believe I could willingly..." Cheeks suddenly flushed she ran a hand through her hair.
"Love?" Evicka asked, amused.
"...make a life with Gyhard. He sees the knife, but never stops to consider the person holding it."
Kovar saw Vree as the knife and an abomination holding it but Evicka understood what Vree was saying. "He hears one note and believes he knows the whole song."
"If you have to get bardic about it."
"You don't mind?"
"That you get bardic?" She grinned as Evicka stuck out her tongue, but sobered immediately. "That you followed the orders of your captain? I spent most of my life following orders. That Gyhard and I are considered dangerous? That's fact. That Kovar is the wrong person to command the most powerful force in Shkoker? That I mind."
"The bards aren't," Evicka began but trailed off under Vree's level gaze. She could see how it looked to an outsider, but the bards weren't a powerful force. They were the eyes and ears of Shkoder.
When she told that to Vree, the assassin raised a brow. "Your captain's words? Seems like something's missing."
Before Evicka could explain, half a dozen kigh roared in through the window and nearly shoved Vree off the bed. Stasya and Annice had arrived.
*
Stasya accompanied her as far as Vidor, the two of them together Singing a strong enough water to tame even a First Quarter river. They shot the rapids just above Janniton in a channel of kigh then pried the healer's grip from the gunnels and dropped her off muttering about bards and insanity which was a huge improvement on previous muttering about infection and scarring.
Stasya handed her off to Tadeus at Vidor and the two of them took the riverboats down to Elbasan. The docks butted up against the river inns and the boatmen vied to carry her the distance. Usually because they thought it would get them a chance with Tadeus. Once or twice because they figured it would get them a chance with her. She wasn't ready for that yet, but it was good to know that someday she could be. Tadeus played every night for appreciative crowds. Evicka sang a few harmonies but mostly hid behind his harp and voice. At the Rivermaiden, when the crowd called for The Assassin's Love Song, he grinned and handed her his harp.
Walking would have to be redefined, but the crowd's reaction let her know she hadn't lost any of what made her a bard. Although that night she cried in Tadeus' arms for what she had lost.
Pjasef met them in Riverton with a wheeled chair.
"I had my father add straps here for your flute and here..." He spun the chair to show her. "...for your harp. This is the light one, for getting around the city and the Citadel, but he's working on a heavier one that'll take the weight of a pack without slowing you down. He figures he can make a small donkey cart you could get in and out of on your own with the chair hooked low on the back so you could still walk anywhere the roads go. Uh... " he leaned closer to Tadeus. "Why is she crying?"
She punched him in the thigh. "Because you heard the whole song, you ass!"
That night they wrote another verse.
Nine months and three days after she left, Evicka returned to the Citadel.
Marija was back on the gate. She frowned, pushed her hair back out of her face, and said, "I can't put my finger on it, but there's something different about you."
As the gate guards looked everywhere but at the two of them, Evicka rolled over her foot.
When she finished cursing, Marija cupped Evika's face in both hands, bent and kissed her gently. "I'm glad you're not dead."
"Most of the time, so am I." No point in lying to a bard.
"When you hit a dark time, come find me. We'll get drunk and make up embarrassing songs about the men we've slept with."
Behind her, one of the guards made a sound that might have been a protest.
The Citadel courtyard was nearly empty – a page charging across at full speed, two courtiers hurrying in the opposite direction, their heads together, the bardic captain waiting by the entrance to the Bardic Hall. Evicka took a deep breath and whee
led toward him.
Nine months and three days. Long enough to build a whole new person.
"I thought Pjasef..."
"Pjasef delivered the chair. He didn't need to deliver me."
"Yes. Of course. As you mean to go on..." The captain rubbed his hands together, clearly distressed. "I sent you there. I sent you to them. She cut off your legs..."
"To save my life. She wasn't torturing me at Ghyard's command." No surprise really when the captain didn't see the humor. Evicka sighed. "If this had happened anywhere else, I'd have died. If Vree hadn't seen the kigh..."
"She sees kigh?"
The water kigh Evicka had Sung had gone off with some urgency, but no direction. "She saw water running against the current."
"That's not..."
"She notices things."
"Of course. Her training." He was thinking of how Gyhard could use that, the concern clear on his face, but he shook it off and bent to touch her lightly on the shoulder. "Evicka, I am so sorry."
It wasn't sympathy. Well, it was sympathy, but it was mostly apology.
"I failed you," he continued. "I am responsible for the bards as the bards are responsible for Shkoder."
Evicka had Recalled the death of King Theron and the coronation of Queen Onele all the way to Bicaz. She wondered what their majesties would think of Kovar's set of responsibilities.
"The healers have said they want to see you."
"Before or after my Recall?"
"Your Recall?" All bards returning from a Walk gave their Recall first to the captain and then a more detailed version to a scribe. All bards. Except, apparently, bards without legs."
She looked at him the way Vree had looked at her.
"Of course..." He cleared his throat. "I'll take your Recall when they're done."
Evicka looked pointedly at the broad stone steps leading up into the Bardic Hall. The captain flushed. He hadn't yet glanced below her waist and he didn't now.
"We can use the library. It's on the first floor and there are doors leading out into the gardens. We'll have to build a ramp and my office... I'll have to move my office. You can teach, of course. Let me assure you, Evicka, there will always be a place for you in the Bardic Hall."
"Because I'm a bard."
He looked confused and she suddenly felt very tired.
"I'll go see the healers now, Captain." Evicka pulled at the cuffs of her leather gloves – Tadeus had given her three pairs, declaring she couldn't possibly wear black every day – and rolled back, giving herself space to turn. A passing breeze lifted her hair and she thought she heard Vree say, "Seems like something's missing." The captain wanted the bards to be the eyes and ears of Shkoder. Who then was the voice? "Captain?"
"Yes?" His gaze skittered past her.
She almost asked. Closed her teeth on it in the end, needing to think about things a bit longer. "I'll send a kigh if they're going to keep me for long."
She could feel people watching her from the windows, but that was understandable. People always watched bards.
If you love the Quarters series, don't miss
The Fire's Stone
It was a long fall from Clan Heir to common thief, but Aaron never wanted any part of his father’s brutal outlander reign. In fact, besides coin purses and jewels, there’s very little in all of Cisali that interests Aaron, until he stumbles—quite literally—into a prince’s bedchamber…
Prince Davish of Ischia is a skilled swordsman both on the field and beneath the sheets, at least when he isn’t outrageously drunk. But the wine helps him forget all the ways he’s disappointed his father, his family, and soon enough, his young bride-to-be…
A trained Wizard of the Nine with more raw talent than real-world experience, Princess Chandra has no interest in the politically arranged marriage. She flees to the royal city of Ischia seeking a way out of the union. But there, she discovers something far more shocking than Prince Davish’s rakish reputation…
The Stone of Ischia has been stolen. A powerful talisman, The Stone protects the city from the active volcano that looms over its terraces and streets. Without it, Ischia will be destroyed and the kingdom of Cisali will fall. Its only hope is an unlikely band of heroes—a failed thief, a drunken prince, and a runaway wizard—who must face pirates, powerful magic, and their own carefully guarded secrets in order to find and restore the Stone of Ischia.
The Quarters Series
The Bards of Shkoder hold the country together. They bring the news of the sea to the mountains, news of the mountains to the plains. They give their people, from peasant to king, a song in common. Annice is a rare talent, able to Sing all four quarters, but her brother, the newly enthroned King Theron, sees her request to study at the Bardic Hall as a betrayal. But Annice renounces her royal blood and swears to remain childless so as not to jeopardize the line of succession. Ten years later, she’s on the run from the Royal Guards with the Duc of Ohrid, the father of her unborn child, both of them guilty of treason – one of them unjustly accused. To save the Duc’s life, they’ll have to cross the country, manage to keep from strangling each other, and defeat an enemy too damaged for even a Bard’s song to reach.
Trained to kill from childhood, siblings Bannon and Vree have only known life as assassins in the Imperial Army. When their latest target steals Bannon’s body for his own, Vree saves her brother by dragging his spirit in to share hers. But two assassins in one body is one assassin too many. To save both their lives, they must abandon the only life they’ve known, risking Imperial ire and possible execution, to regain Bannon’s body. It isn’t until after they capture Gyhard, the body thief, that they realize they can’t force him to do anything while he holds Bannon’s body hostage. Gyhard is willing to trade Bannon’s body for their assistance. All they have to do – while being hunted for desertion and dealing with an unknown power able to Sing the dead out of the grave – is betray the oaths they’ve lived by and help Gyhard secure the body of an Imperial Prince.
Vree heads north to Shkoder with two kigh struggling to co-exist in a single body. Although the odds aren’t in their favour, there’s a chance, a small chance, the Bards can find Gyhard a body of his own without anyone else having to die. No one, from the guard on the Citadel gate to the King himself, wants them anywhere near the single Healer who can Sing the Fifth Kigh. No one except Magda, the Healer, whose heritage has taught her that things are not always as they seem. In the end, Bardic suspicion becomes the least of Vree’s problems. The dead walk in the mountains of Shkoder, kigh confined in rotting corpses, and Gyhard’s past returned to haunt them. Hunted by the Bards and the Healer’s family, Vree, Gyhard and Magda head for the mountains to try and Sing Gyhard’s past to rest.
Benedikt Sings the most powerful water in the kingdom, but water is the only Quarter Benedikt can sing, which isolates him from the Bardic Captain and his fellow Bards. When the Queen of Shkoder outfits a voyage to discover the lands across the sea against the Bardic Captain’s objections, Benedikt is the only Bard willing to brave the Captain’s wrath and volunteer. In uncharted waters, a storm strikes and the kigh of the deep seas rise. All of Benedikt’s skill is unable to save ship or crew. Shipwrecked in an unfamiliar country and unable to send word to Shkoder of the ship’s fate, Benedikt must play the part he’s been given: a pawn in the game of politics and religion between brother and sister — who both intend to use his Song to their advantage. As the Queen waits for word, the kigh of the deep seas rise again…
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