The Nightborn

by Isabel Cooper

  Size did make a difference, though, as the dancing girl was rumored to have told the high priest. The scale of Heliodar multiplied the unexpected turns where a straight street ran into a building and changed course, shifted segments so that a district of recent wealth bordered one where formerly grand houses fell into disrepair or desperate battered cleanliness, and generally presented buildings to Branwyn’s stunned vision like marching ranks of an army. She was beginning to make out differences, though, to know the faces above the raised shields and readied pikes, which had seemed impossible on her trip to the Star Palace and almost inconceivable when she’d made her way from the city gates to the Porpoise.

  The inn was her first destination on an afternoon radiant with sharp autumn sunlight, a familiar landmark and one that she could excuse returning to. The Rognozis, at dinner the night before, hadn’t acted at all surprised when she’d mentioned going back to explain and settle her accounts, though the round-faced and merry Lady Rognozi had offered the services of a messenger instead.

  “Thank you,” Branwyn had replied, while eating roast pigeon with more care than she’d ever given food before, not to mention more utensils, “and I’m certain they’d do a wonderful job, but I’d best attend to it myself. I’m a bit overcautious about inns after my journey, you understand.”

  “I do indeed,” Lady Rognozi had said with a click of her tongue. “Why, I remember a spring when I was a girl, journeying from no farther than my family’s estate—three days by coach—and…”

  The story that followed had involved larcenous innkeepers, drunken footmen, and a game of chance that Branwyn found impossible to understand. It had made her laugh, though. It had, more importantly, more or less settled the question of her errand the next day without suspicion, and provided some distraction from the subject of her mission.

  Neither of the Rognozis were old enough to remember Thyran’s War precisely, nor the start of the Great Winters, but they’d grown up feeling more of the effects than most. Lord Rognozi’s father and three of his siblings had perished then, he’d said. Lady Rognozi had simply gone silent, which Branwyn was already recognizing as odd for her, at the mention of Thyran, and neither of them had eaten very much.

  She was inclined to think well of them, as much as she could let herself think well of any living soul in Heliodar yet, particularly those in the nobility. She was also inclined to believe that her absence from the house that day was a relief for all parties.

  Branwyn certainly felt more herself in the lower city. Physically, it was much less enjoyable, but it was a trip back to a world on her scale—a world where she at least felt mistress of whatever she might encounter.

  The great houses gradually shrank, as did the gardens in front of them, and the iridescent coating on the roofs—the shine that had given the Star Palace its name—became small patterns or disappeared entirely. Down near the water, the large buildings were warehouses, the streets were twisted and narrow, and many of the inns, shops, and houses were patchwork, made or repaired with materials from other buildings that had been destroyed during the Great Winters. The tavern where her third conversation ran dry, for instance, had a foundation of gray rock, then became half redbrick and half smooth, gray wood.

  Inside, it was a tavern much like most other half-decent examples of its type: dark, quiet during the day, and smelling strongly of cheap wine, which was one of the better options. The bartender was happy enough to talk, but all of her stories sounded fairly normal: her nephew’s apprenticeship as a smith, how much she was anticipating an upcoming festival, the rumors of war.

  “But you’d know, hmm?” she asked, refilling Branwyn’s wineglass. “Criwath, by your accent. How bad is it?”

  “Bad,” said Branwyn, recalling the siege of Oakford, the smell of fire and mass death. “Or it was. The twistedmen retreated, but I’m certain they’re planning their next move, and even far away from the front lines, everybody’s on edge. Uneasy. How are matters here?”

  “Eh.” The bartender shrugged, her tan shoulders a striking contrast to the light green of her chemise. “Folk talk, but that’s all. Worst that’s happened here this week is a fight over cards—one of ’em got knifed in the side, but I hear his friends got him to Verengir quick enough. The Mourners didn’t even have to waste their strength.”

  The name was a firework on a quiet summer night. Branwyn’s head didn’t actually jerk, she was fairly sure, but it was a near thing. “Verengir?”

  “Mm-hmm. The lord’s younger son. He—and one of the waterfolk now, though gods know why they want to be messing about with humans—run a place down near the market, healing with herbs and needles and whatnot. Handsome lad,” she added. “If I weren’t married, I’d not mind having him see to a few of my problems.”

  The waterfolk, Yathana put in, might have a different view of the city from most. Worth meeting. And worth finding out what your councillor is doing down here, if he’s the same man.

  “A lord’s son as a healer?” Branwyn sipped her wine, which was sharp and a touch spiced. “Was he disinherited?”

  “Not at all—well, he’s on the council, and he wouldn’t be there if the old man had cast him off, stands to reason. Some say he had his heart broken and does good deeds to forget, and others that he did something real wicked and this is penance.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I dunno. But he doesn’t act wicked. Or heartbroken.”

  * * *

  Getting thanked for being useless was enough to break a man’s heart.

  Chessa, the missing boy’s mother, had been past the point of weeping or rage. When Zelen sent Nislar back to his brother’s servant and presented the bad news, her thin face had only shown weary numbness. “I’d not had much hope,” she said, a phrase Zelen suspected covered more than the last two days. “Thank you for trying, m’lord.”

  He wished she’d slapped him.

  There would be no comfort in his house, just Gedomir, who’d likely find a comment or two to make before he left for the country. Zelen couldn’t predict whether the subject would be Chessa’s child-rearing—and by extension that of nearly every family near the docks—the hope that other children would profit from this sad example of recklessness, or the better ways that Zelen himself could spend his time. He doubted he could sit through any of them with equanimity, and so he turned toward the clinic.

  He was in sight of the flat-topped little yellow building when he saw another figure approaching it. The afternoon shadows were growing long, and the person was wearing dark clothing, so they blended well. It took another few feet before he could tell that the figure was an athletic woman with a sword at one hip, and he was nearly at the clinic itself before he recognized Branwyn Alanive.

  “Poram’s balls, what are you doing here?” was the first thing he said.

  Her cool blue gaze reminded him that he’d had manners once. “Following the path of a rumor,” said Branwyn mildly. “I’ll admit it’s fairly nosy of me, but I didn’t realize I’d be intruding.”

  “It… No, you’re not… Well…” In the strictest sense, no, she wasn’t. The streets were public and the clinic welcomed all during its hours. In a slightly less-strict sense, as Branwyn had said, she was prying, and he certainly hadn’t anticipated her presence. She didn’t jar on his nerves after the surprise, though, as Gedomir had the night before. “I’m not very good company now, I’m afraid,” Zelen said, which was the core of the issue.

  Branwyn gave him a long examination, one that took in his matted hair, the shallow scratch on his forehead from trying to crawl under a broken staircase, and the dirty, torn state of his plain clothing. “You certainly look more disheveled than you did when we met before,” she said, “not to mention more exhausted. Can I buy you a glass of wine, or would you rather go find a bath and a few hours of sleep?”

  She spoke matter-of-factly, as though she met with filthy, t
ired, slightly battered people every day. It took a moment for Zelen to remember where she came from and then realize that she probably did, or had, and that the people in question been much worse off than he was. “I’ve a bottle and two glasses in my office,” he said, “and Altien’s still on duty for a while. Care to join me?”

  “That sounds wonderful.” It was very likely that she was being kind, but she was also kind enough to give every evidence of sincerity. Had Zelen been a better man, he never would have seized the opportunity.

  Had he been less exhausted, or Branwyn less kind, he might not have felt any guilt about it.

  “You’re well set up here,” she said when she followed him indoors. Her eye traveled over cushions, bookshelves, and chairs. “Nicely insulated for winter, I’d imagine, with the curtains, and plenty of reading material.”

  “None of it exactly sensational, I’m afraid,” he said, struck by her assessment so soon after Gedomir’s. “Give one of the chairs a try. I can almost promise they won’t collapse.”

  “That does set my heart at ease.” She sat carefully.

  Under the yellowish magical light of the office, Zelen saw that her tunic and breeches were a dark charcoal gray, not quite black, and her shirt was nearly the same deep red as the wine he poured. The sword at her belt, gilded and gemmed, was the most ornate thing about her that day.

  “It takes courage,” he said, “to wander about carrying a weapon like that—not to mention making the trip from Criwath.”

  Branwyn glanced down at her waist. “For a soldier,” she said, “obvious wealth is as much a defense as it is a lure. Some figure that I have to be good to carry it so openly.”

  “And others?”

  “They learn.”

  Zelen didn’t doubt it. He drank, settling into his accustomed chair, letting the walls of the office close in around him, familiar reassurance with one new element. Courtly manners suggested he ask how she was liking the city, or the Rognozis. Gedomir would’ve wanted him to pursue the subject of the trip.

  “How old were you,” he asked instead, “when you left home?”

  Immediately, he feared it was a misstep. Branwyn’s lids dropped, half veiling her eyes—home might not have been a place she’d wanted to think of—but then she spoke without pain or anger. “Thirteen, more or less. Why do you ask?”

  “I was on my way back from searching for a boy. I’m”—he drank more wine to get the words out—“fairly sure he’s not trapped or injured in the city. As sure as I can be. We could always have missed a place, couldn’t we? But the locals looked, my people and I looked, and we went as far as he was likely to go, playing. Nothing.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Eleven. Not large for his age,” he added, remembering what Tanya had said.

  Branwyn considered the facts. “His age doesn’t rule out running away to take up the sword,” she said eventually, “but you don’t, no offense intended, have much of an army here. He wouldn’t have had to run away to join the city guards, would he?”

  “No, and they’re not bloody likely to take him either,” said Zelen. Despite the situation, the image made him smile, but it was brief. “There are estates in the country where he could’ve hoped to be taken on, though, or ships.”

  “You’d know more about that,” she said. “This is the closest I’ve ever been to sea.”

  “Really?”

  “There isn’t much coast in Criwath,” she said, which Zelen knew. He simply couldn’t imagine life without the sound of the waves at night, or when he had to go out to the country, the chance of a salt breeze when the wind was in the right direction. “I was never sent to places where there was.”

  She traveled a fair bit then, and not—or not always—of her own choosing. Olwin might have sent her as an envoy elsewhere, even before Thyran’s return. Zelen noted that as he watched her drink the last of her wine. There, he could tell Gedomir at least one thing his brother probably hadn’t known. “The ocean’s treacherous, even here,” he said, his thoughts circling, sharklike, back to where they’d started. “Most children here know well not to play on the docks, but…children know many things. There comes an age when you start wondering if they’re all true, maybe testing that.”

  “And such exploration doesn’t always end well,” said Branwyn, picking up the thread.

  “No.” Zelen’s family would likely have said it had ended poorly for him. He disagreed—but he’d survived. “So there’s one more possibility. Nothing to be done about it if it’s true, of course. I’ll have a word or two at court—perhaps he did go to one of their houses.”

  “If he’s on a ship, it’ll come back.”

  “Poram willing,” Zelen said. It was more hope than conclusion, but still the day sat less like a stone in his chest. He remembered when he’d first seen the ocean, the ever-shifting nature of it, the sun on the water like a golden road or one of Sitha’s spiderwebs, and considered telling her about it. Then the hourglass on the desk caught his eye, and Zelen sighed. “I don’t mean to rush you off, but duty will call very shortly.”

  “Mine as well,” Branwyn said. She set her glass aside and stood up. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”

  “Whatever help there could be,” Zelen told her, “I think you were.”

  Chapter 8

  Rognozi’s parlor had become intimidating in the course of two days.

  Ever since Zelen had joined the council, he’d waited there for dinner every few weeks, or taken sherry on more casual occasions. The house as a whole had put him more at ease than the one where he’d grown up, though that wasn’t a very high bar to jump.

  Now he had a curiously dry feeling in the back of his throat. He couldn’t sit still, but kept crossing one leg over the other, then reversing them.

  Having a purpose was not good for his state of mind, even when that purpose was pleasant, and only one of his qualified.

  Damn Gedomir, he thought uselessly, and damn Father too.

  “Zelen Verengir,” said Lady Rognozi, sweeping into the parlor in a cloud of rose scent and bouncing gray curls. “Dear boy, you grow more handsome each time I see you.”

  Zelen, who’d made the lethal mistake of sitting in one of the upholstered chairs, struggled to free himself from its all-enveloping yellow cushions. “It’s joy in seeing you, my lady, of course,” he said, and finally won his liberty enough to stand and bow.

  “That’s a well-polished turn of phrase if I’ve ever heard one,” she responded, “but I’ll take it, with thanks, nonetheless.” A toss of her head set the pearl drops in her ears swinging. Then, theatrics over, she descended into a chair, arranging lilac skirts around her. “Make a well-preserved woman happy and tell me this visit isn’t about council matters. Petrus is at the Golden Lady’s temple and likely to be there for hours yet.”

  That was good news for Zelen, but he was sincere in his reply. “I hope all is well.”

  “As it ever is. At our age”—she spread her hands, rings flashing—“one gives considerable thought to the gods.”

  “My nurse said we should do that at any age,” he replied, “but I’m afraid I’m as bad about that as about following most of her teachings.” That wasn’t sincere, quite, or it didn’t get at the whole truth, but the rest of it wasn’t suitable for light conversation. He moved on. “In any case, I’m here on a purely frivolous matter. A friend tells me that Elena Drazen is tremendous in Spirits of the Air, and I’d thought to ask you both, and your charming guest, to join me at the Falcon tomorrow.”

  Lady Rognozi lifted perfectly groomed eyebrows. “And should my lord and I be unable to attend, will your heart be broken?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re a dreadful liar,” she said cheerfully. “But given the motive for it, I’ll forgive you and summon the real reason you’re here.”

  “Ah.” Hearing her ded
uction felt like missing a step in the dark. “I don’t… That is…”

  Lady Rognozi pulled a silk rope next to her chair. A young woman, her dark clothing plain but in good condition, opened the door. “Please tell Madam Alanive that Master Verengir is calling on her,” she said. “In the Yellow Parlor.”

  The maid bobbed a curtsy and left, leaving Zelen in the jaws of peril.

  “Sitha bless us, Master Verengir,” the lady said with a charming giggle that took at least another twenty years off her age, “you’ll be blushing next. There’s nothing to be ashamed of—she’s a lovely young woman.”

  That was slightly less insight than he’d feared. In theory, having Heliodar’s most blatant matchmaker on his side was an advantage.

  “She’ll be returning to Criwath before long, remember,” he finally said. It was the only objection he could muster, short of revealing what Gedomir had asked him to do.

  “How very star-crossed. But she’ll be here for Irinyev’s festival and the ball.”

  “Is she going?”

  That would be an opening. Dancing naturally led to conversation and there were always plenty of places in the ballroom, or in the gardens outside, for exchanging confidences—or other activities. One could easily lead to the other.

  “Of course. I’ve made her an appointment with my dressmaker already. I’m sure the results will be breathtaking—not that what she has currently isn’t quite striking, but she wasn’t expecting to dance.”

  “I imagine she won’t lack partners,” Zelen said, trying for neutrality.

  “Imagine indeed!” The lady laughed. “I’m only glad that… Well, she could do much worse than you for a…let’s say a friend in the city, you know.”

  There was that missing step again. “I’ll do my best,” he said, and reminded himself of what he’d told Gedomir: Branwyn would doubtless keep any real secrets hidden, no matter how friendly the two of them got.