“Have you changed your mind about me?” Latch asked, sounding more eager than he probably meant to.
“Afraid not. We must determine how badly you’re wanted by the local hired swords.”
“Kres—”
“I’m sorry, lad. After what happened in Fork Town, I’m not sure it’s worth the risk to the team.”
The look of disappointment on Latch’s face was all too familiar. It mirrored how Siv had felt when his father first explained that—as the heir-prince—he wouldn’t be allowed to compete in the dueling opens back in Vertigon. He couldn’t help feeling sympathetic. Now that Siv had competed in one match—albeit not a challenging one according to the announcer—he wanted more.
“What if we made him a disguise?” Siv said. “We could shave all his hair or get him a hat or something. No one needs to know.” Granted, a hat hadn’t worked out that well as a disguise for Siv. It felt like a lifetime since he’d been snatched from outside the racing grounds in Rallion City.
“That may be a possibility for the next Dance,” Kres said carefully. He pushed back his stool and stood. “I need to locate a backup swordsman in the meantime. Do stay out of trouble while I’m away.”
Latch followed Kres out of the house, still arguing his case. Before the door squeaked closed, he looked back at Siv and nodded. Could it be? Could that have actually been a full-on friendly nod? Siv grinned. Miracles did happen.
He stood to help Gull clean the bowls and put away the rest of the food while Fiz started on another helping of fish stew. The big man seemed determined to make up for all their lean days on the road in a single evening.
“Do you know who the extra swordsman is?” Siv asked as he and Gull tidied up the kitchen together.
“A few fighters are always asking to join our team,” she said. “They were practically breaking down our door to vie for a spot when we lost our last knifeman and the old duelist retired. But Kres wanted Shreya.”
“I see. She must have been something special.”
Siv had a sudden vivid image of Dara joining the team as their fifth fighter. He could see her doing lunges on the scuffed training floor, debating combat strategies with Kres, smiling at him across the humble wooden table. As soon as the thought formed, he was pretty sure he’d never wanted anything more in his entire life. As soon as he figured out how to send word to Trure, could he invite her to join him? He had little hope of retaking Vertigon, but if Selivia and his mother were okay, he could offer Dara a life. Her presence would make this little blue house a home.
Gull nudged him with her bony elbow. “We’d never have picked you up if we hadn’t gone to Trure to recruit her. Funny how things turn out.”
“Yeah, funny.” The truth was Siv didn’t know whether Dara still wanted him anymore. If he were worthy of her, he’d never have been taken in the first place. He certainly wouldn’t have been lured by the temptation of a life with the pen fighters. Siv frowned, thinking of when he’d tried to leave and the pen fighters threatened to kill him if he gave them away. All because of the other incognito member of the team.
“And where did you get Latch?” he asked, trying to push away the burning image of Dara.
“Not my story to tell,” Gull said. “I reckon he and Kres’ll trust you enough to fill you in eventually.”
“What about you?” Siv asked as he put the last bowl away in a cupboard. “How did you get into the Dance?”
Gull met his eyes, and something sad shadowed her expression. Before he could react, she stepped in and brushed a kiss on his cheek.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she said. Then she winked and headed for her room, hips swaying.
Siv tugged at his collar. Had that wink been an invitation? Gull had teased him mercilessly throughout their journey, but the kiss on the cheek had been a step beyond flirtatious. He frowned. He may be joining this new family while he was stuck on this side of the Pass, but he didn’t want to take it that far. Despite his best efforts to convince himself she was better off without him, Siv couldn’t look at another woman without thinking of Dara. Gull may be willing, but he didn’t want her the way he’d wanted Dara almost from the moment she’d first walked into his dueling hall.
“You don’t get a wink like that every day,” Fiz said. “And Gull isn’t a patient woman.”
Siv jumped. He had forgotten the big man was still there, sitting at the wooden table with a fourth helping of fish stew, a quizzical look in his eyes.
“I’d better go make sure Latch didn’t fall in the canal,” Siv said and marched firmly to the door without giving Gull’s room a second glance. The door squeaked closed behind him.
He found Latch ambling along the edge of the little island, kicking stones into the muddy water. The blue house wasn’t far from the rocky causeway connecting to the main road, and plenty of stones scattered in the soft mud. Siv picked one up and hurled it into the slow-moving canal. It sank like, well, a stone. He selected another, flatter rock and threw it with precision. This one skipped lightly across the water before plopping into the murk.
“Sorry about the Dance,” he said to Latch. “I know you were looking forward to it.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Latch said. “I guess it wouldn’t be worth it if I got murdered the second I left the Steel Pentagon.”
“You’d risk death in the Pentagon anyway,” Siv said. “If you care so much about staying alive, what’s the big difference?” He wondered if Kres had ever planned to let Latch into the Steel Pentagon at all. He certainly had a vested interest in protecting the runaway lordling.
Latch raised an eyebrow. “The difference? I’d be facing down my adversary man to man in the Dance of Steel, participating in the grand fighting tradition of the oldest city on the continent. The alternative is having hired thugs pack me off to my father.”
“I’d give anything to have my father back,” Siv said without thinking.
Latch paused. “He’s dead?”
Siv grunted, hoping to end the conversation there, but Latch abandoned his effort to kick the entire island into the river stone by stone and turned to face him.
“How?”
“Killed,” Siv said.
“In battle?”
Siv sighed. The man was finally interested in having a civil conversation, and this was what he wanted to talk about? On the other hand, Siv knew more of Latch’s secrets than was strictly fair already. Perhaps he should return the favor. Maybe he and Latch would be friends by the time they fought side by side in the Dance of Steel after all.
“He was murdered,” Siv said at last. “I know who did it, but I couldn’t defeat him. That’s why I had to leave home. I failed to avenge him.” And Sora. The Lantern Maker’s men had killed his sister too, and he couldn’t even give her a proper burial. That was more than he wanted to share with Latch, though.
“I thought Vertigon was supposed to be safe,” Latch said. “Didn’t realize you had murderers too.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not as safe as it used to be.” Siv felt a wrenching guilt at leaving his people behind. He couldn’t imagine the Lantern Maker would be able to resume the Peace he had destroyed so completely.
“Sorry about your father,” Latch said gruffly.
“Thanks,” Siv said. “So, why are you trying so hard to get away from yours?”
“We have political differences.”
Siv snorted. “What, you’re friends with different noble houses?” In Siv’s experience, politics was mostly about being friends with various powerful houses. And not letting them plot your assassination. He wasn’t particularly good at that last part, though. He had the scars to prove it.
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Latch said. “When my father invaded Cindral Forest, he led the army without the knowledge or approval of the Soolen royal family.”
Siv narrowly avoided tripping into the canal. That was not where he thought this was going.
“He just decided to start attacking foreign lands al
l by himself?”
Latch nodded. “The queen and the crown prince are keeping it quiet for now, but the celebrated Commander Brach—my dear father—intends to conquer Trure for himself.”
“I . . . don’t even know what to say.” Siv eyed Latch, reassessing his decision to run off and join the pen fighters. “You disapprove?”
“I don’t think he’ll succeed. He planned to lay siege to Rallion City, but when he faces the famed Truren cavalry, he’s going to get thousands of his men killed. Most of the ordinary soldiers didn’t know they were betraying their homeland and condemning themselves and their children to certain exile. No ambition is worth doing that to so many people. I told my father as much, but he was too eager to destroy the horselovers and establish his own throne. Some secret ally promised information and aid that made him think he could defeat Trure.”
“A secret ally?” Siv ran through a list of candidates in his head, wondering who in Trure would stoop to such a betrayal. Sora would have known. He couldn’t name half the Truren nobility. Unless the help had come from outside of Trure.
“I don’t know who it was,” Latch said. “My father can be too confident for his own good, though.”
Siv remembered how much his first captors had admired Commander Brach. And they at least had already known they were breaking away from Soole. He wondered what Commander Brach had planned to do with him. Lucky he had fallen in with the pen fighters and Brach’s estranged son instead.
“So you told him off and ran away to join Kres’s traveling circus?” he asked.
“Pretty much.” Latch looked up at the blue house on stilts. “Kres promised to keep my secret and look out for me. Gull and Fiz know who I am too because they were there when we met. Shreya didn’t know.” His expression darkened. “She was Truren through and through. And scouts from my father’s army killed her.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Siv said, hoping Latch wouldn’t be offended by his sympathy. No wonder the man was so damn grumpy all the time. That was a heavy burden to shoulder. It was like—well, it was like Dara knowing her father had killed his. Damn. No wonder things had been rocky between them when he last saw her. He could have been more understanding. Latch would never see the woman he loved again. But maybe Siv still had a chance to make things right.
“Didn’t know her that well,” Latch said gruffly. “It’s more what could have—never mind.” His eyes darted up to meet Siv’s, then he looked away quickly.
“I hear you,” Siv said. He bent to retrieve another flat stone to give Latch a chance to assume his surly mask once more.
He considered Latch’s revelation. So Soole’s celebrated general had jaunted off with a large chunk of their army to conquer his own kingdom. They sure lived in interesting times. Siv would have spent more time mulling over what this meant for the continent, but the rumble of hooves on the rocky causeway distracted him from that line of thought.
He looked up as a dozen armed men on horseback thundered across the causeway, heading straight for them. Not again.
Siv and Latch exchanged tense glances. So much for keeping Latch out of the Pentagon. They’d been found anyway. And their swords were in the house at the top of the ladder.
39.
Pendark
DARA never imagined a city like Pendark could exist, even in her wildest dreams. The canals and streams divided the land into dozens of marshy islands. Buildings rose from some islands atop rock structures. Others rested on stilts, either above the mud or above the murky water. A handful of towers appeared in the distance, and she glimpsed manor houses centered on some of the larger islands. These had high walls reinforced with rocks, and guards scowled down from the ramparts. The crowds of people tramping through the streets and filling the canal boats paid them no mind.
As in Rallion City, the masses came from many different lands. Winter was almost at an end here, so people walked around without coats, their exotic clothing on display. Dara was beginning to understand just how parochial her life had been in Vertigon. Although it was a large, busy city, its inaccessibility at the top of the mountain meant that few foreigners traveled all the way there. But the port city of Pendark teemed with variety. Children darted through the mud in bare feet without a parent in sight. Barges passed by on the canals, packed with precious wares from across the sea. Strange creatures swam in the canals or peeked out from cages beneath stilted houses or atop other barges. Even the weapons were different, with more curved swords and hilts bedecked with colorful inlays and glittering stones.
Banners flew from every house in a myriad of colors. The patchwork of colors dividing each region was like a quilt spread out beside the sea. As their carriage clattered down the main thoroughfare from the Darkwood, they passed between a pale-blue region and a seemingly endless field of purple.
Wyla explained that each Watermight practitioner had his or her own color. She named the principals as they passed from pale blue and purple on either side, through the purple district, and onward into a field of yellow.
“What’s your color, ma’am?” Rid asked.
Wyla gestured toward the full skirt fanning above her steel-toed boots.
“I favor a particular shade of poison green,” she said.
Dara hardly listened to Wyla. She leaned out the window, trying to see as much of their surroundings—and as many of the passersby—as possible. They’d all ridden inside the carriage since Lord Vex’s men overtook them. Dara wished she could sit up top with Siln for a better view of the muddy walkways and the canal boats of all shapes and sizes floating by. There was a fleeting chance she’d spot Siv in the throng. She feared Lord Vex had gotten to him before they even arrived in the city.
“Huh.” Rid stuck his head out of the window on the opposite side of the carriage. “Looks like we’re coming up on your land—er, marsh.”
“Indeed,” Wyla said. “I must say I’m looking forward to cleaning off the dirt from our journey and connecting with my power once more. You will stay with me, of course, even though your three-month term has not yet begun.” Her tone brooked no argument.
“I’d so love a bath,” Vine said. “And perhaps a swim. I’ve swum in the Azure Lake in Trure but never the true salt water of the sea.”
“We don’t have time for swimming,” Dara said. “Lord Vex could be locating those pen fighters right now.”
“We will soon reach my manor house,” Wyla said. “I can send out my informants from there.”
“I’d like to get a head start at least,” Dara said.
“You may get out now if you insist on searching instead of resting,” Wyla said.
“I’ll do that, then.” Dara couldn’t rest. Not when they were this close. Not when Lord Vex had beaten them to the city.
“Very well. Rumy can ride with me. I daresay he’ll attract unwelcome attention if he accompanies you.”
“Is that all right?”
“I know you won’t leave Pendark.” Wyla tapped Dara’s sword arm with her ice-cold hand. “From here you need only walk straight ahead for another quarter mile to reach the gates of my manor. I shall see you there soon enough.”
“Of course.” Dara checked the ivory-hilted knife in her belt and Siv’s pendant around her neck. She didn’t have any other belongings to collect. She put a hand on the carriage door. “Are you two coming?”
Rid looked as if he might protest, but Vine said, “Of course, Dara. We won’t leave you to search alone.”
Dara hollered for Siln to stop the carriage. With a final look at Wyla’s cool, knowing eyes, Dara climbed out. Her boots splashed down in a puddle of mud.
Vine descended with more grace and surveyed the street around them as Wyla’s carriage pulled away. Rid had climbed down on the other side, and he nearly got hit by another carriage as he crossed the road to join them. He gaped at the buildings on stilts and the busy canal running alongside the road as if they were made of magic and Fire. Dara could barely take in the details. She was too focused on searchi
ng for Siv—or for the telltale red of Vex Rollendar’s coat.
“Vine?” Dara said. “Can you Sense him?”
“I shall try,” Vine said, “but there is a great deal of interference here. It’s partially the crowd, but I believe the Watermight disrupts the vibrations as well. I will ask Wyla about it in more detail later.”
“We’ll have plenty of time with her,” Dara mumbled. Maybe they shouldn’t have been so quick to leave her carriage, but she had to get away from those knowing, icy eyes. And she’d hoped Vine would Sense him as soon as they arrived.
She scanned the faces gliding by on the nearest canal boat. They blurred together in a hundred colors, all set against the backdrop of Wyla’s poison-green banners rising from the island beyond them. She tried to ask passersby for information, but they shook her off before she could launch into Siv’s description, hurrying on their way. The barefooted children didn’t seem to understand her, their movements wild as they scurried away. Everyone acted so busy here, almost frantic, as they went about their business. A growing sense of panic clutched her, making it difficult to approach the problem strategically. They were running out of time. Focus, Dara!
Vine showed no such anxiety. “Excuse me, good sir.” She grabbed a passing stranger by the arm and held on tight even as he tried to shake her off. “Could you tell me where to find the pen fighters?”
“The pen fighters?” the man said blankly. “Which ones, woman?”
“That’s just it,” Vine said. “I don’t know. My dear cousin has taken up with a troupe of them, or a squad, or whatever you call them.” Vine gave a simpering giggle, giving the impression that her head was full of more air than it actually was. “I so want to find him, but I don’t know where to start.”
“There are dozens of Steel Pentagons in Pendark and hundreds of pen fighters,” the man said. He tried to walk off, but Vine kept her hold on his arm, her eyes widening plaintively.
“He’s tall and athletic with dark hair. Very handsome,” she said, and something in her voice made it sound as if she were calling this man tall, athletic, and handsome. He relaxed and stopped trying to rush off. Dara had no idea how she did it.
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