The rope whipped through Lance’s hands. “Stay with him,” Lance shouted. He grabbed Sara’s wrist.
Rhiain followed the sound of cracking branches, the legionnaire as noisy as a wild boar. But sounds were deceptive in the fog, and she caught only frustrating glimpses of his sandals or cape.
When the crashing stopped so did she, panting, and only then did she smell blood. He was hurt. Keeping her gaze down, she sniffed out his trail.
She found him kneeling on the wet leaves, his face covered with his hands. All the arrogance had been scared out of him.
“Gaius? Arrre you injurrred?” She nudged him with her nose.
He lifted his hands, revealing myriad scratches. The corner of his eye bled. “The wood hates me,” he said hollowly. “It tried to blind me.”
Poor little man. The deep resentment and anger she’d harbored all day fell away. She struck him a calculated blow with her paw. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped, unconscious.
She closed her teeth carefully around a mouthful of his tunic and was dragging him through the trees when Lance and Sara appeared. She chuffed in surprise.
Lance answered her unspoken question. “No one is calmer than Sara. I should have let her lead from the beginning. Here.” He boosted Gaius facedown over her back, careful to touch only cloth and not heal him back to consciousness. “Sara, please lead the way.”
Within five minutes the Labyrinth relented.
* * *
Drifts and swirls of fog parted, revealing the Hall. For all Lance’s anxiety, his heart lifted as they approached the old bandit hideout wedged into a notch in the hillside. Home. Well, as much of a home as One who Wore the Brown could or should have. He had rooms here, even if he seldom occupied them.
The burly guard standing at the top of the six steps leading up to the door hailed him in a deep voice. “Lance! It’s good to see you.”
Lance recognized Bors. Lance’s father had inherited the guard along with the Hall. Bors had taken the time to teach Lance how to use a quarterstaff when he was a stripling. “It’s good to see you, too,” he said honestly.
“Rhiain, you look well.” Bors tactfully didn’t mention her still-unconscious rider, instead peering at Sara, who trailed a step behind. “And who’s this lovely lady?” The smirk on his face turned to consternation. “That’s not—? Where are your brains, boy?”
Apprehension made Lance’s stomach kick. He forced calm into his voice. “Wenda will understand.” Lance would make her understand. And his sister owed Sara.
Lance groped for Sara’s hand—not for comfort, but to ensure she didn’t wander off.
Sympathy tinged Bors’s face. “Wenda—that is, the Kandrith—isn’t home right now.”
Rhiain visibly brightened, shrugging off her rider.
Yesterday, after Sara’s remarkable statement, Lance had been eager to bring Sara before Wenda so his sister could use her soulsight to examine Sara for a new soul. Now, after hours of silence, his insides dissolved with relief at the delay.
If he’d read the signs wrong and it was too early for her soul to have returned, his hopes would be crushed. Maybe it was better to wait—
“Your mother’s here, though,” Bors added.
Weariness rolled over him, and his arm throbbed. Lance sighed. “I don’t suppose you could just let us go to my rooms? I’d like to wash up before I talk to her.”
“I’ve strict orders to notify her as soon as you arrive,” Bors said apologetically.
And no one in his or her right mind crossed Lance’s mother.
“Truth be told, your mother’s all but running the realm.”
Lance’s heart sank. “I thought Wenda intended to take Marcus as her Protector.”
“She did.”
“Then why—?”
Bors hesitated. “Marcus sees his role a mite differently than your mum. He doesn’t want anything to do with the stewardship end of things. He’s happy to leave that to your mum—which drives her mad. Instead, he stands by Wenda’s side all day, Protecting her. Like a bodyguard.”
Lance relaxed. He liked the idea of his little sister having more protection. Perfunctorily, he bent down and laid a hand on Gaius’s shoulder, healing him. He felt the Goddess’s warm hands over his own, but Her full presence wasn’t needed for such minor wounds.
“Your mum says Kandriths don’t need bodyguards—they’re deadly enough on their own—but, if you ask me, Wenda’s still adjusting to losing her sight. She could use a little help right now.”
Lance hated thinking about how Wenda had sacrificed her eyesight and her hand to no purpose since the gifts she’d gained in return hadn’t been enough to defeat the blue devil.
Sara had done that.
Lance straightened as Gaius groaned and stirred. The legionnaire deserved the headache still remaining. “Bors, can you find a place for Rhiain and her prisoner while I speak with my mother?”
Bors nodded, and Lance moved down the polished wood-turned-to-stone hallway. Sara followed at his heels. Lance paused just outside the throne room; he could hear voices inside. “Sara, wait out here for a moment. It’ll be best if I see Mother alone first.”
Deep breath and in.
A petitioner stood before his mother. He had thinning brown hair and plump cheeks, and the quality of his clothing—a yellow tunic and dark green trousers—suggested that he might be a merchant. Which made his topic all the more surprising.
“Chief Fitch has proven he can beat the Republic’s Legions, but even the bravest warrior cannot win without resources. We are on the cusp. One decisive battle and the people of Gotia will rise up to join him. You are Gotia’s natural ally. Join with us,” he urged.
Lance’s mother shook her head. “I wish your rebellion the best—”
“That’s not enough!” The merchant’s face flushed with frustration. “It’s vital that you commit troops.”
“—but there is little Kandrith can do to help,” she finished.
The merchant drew himself up. “Enough. I demand to speak to someone with actual authority.”
Anger flashed in his mother’s eyes, but she kept her voice even. “As you wish. You may wait and speak with the Kandrith, but I doubt she’ll have a different answer.”
Furious, the fat man stormed out.
Lance stepped out of the man’s way, and his mother saw him. “Lance!” Jumping up, she hurried towards him.
Though she wore a red vest, signifying Heart’s Blood, it disoriented Lance to see her without her formal red Protector robes.
“Mother.” In the two months since he’d seen her last, he’d tried to imagine what he might say to her. Am I still charged with treason? seemed a little facetious, even cruel. And he flinched away from the other, deeper question, Am I forgiven? For healing Sara after her execution and for haring off to the Republic to save Wenda. Did accomplishing the rescue wipe out the fact that he’d broken the law to do it?
A spasm erased his mother’s smile. Perhaps in reaction to his own wariness, she stopped short of an embrace. “Welcome home,” she said briskly. “We expected you weeks ago.”
“The journey took longer than I’d hoped,” Lance offered.
She studied his sweaty face. “Sit down before you fall down. What is it this time?”
“Just some scratches. They’re infected.” He didn’t mention the almost-gone tumour. “It will pass.” He changed the subject. “Bors said Wenda was away. I
s anything wrong? Has there been another incursion?”
“No. So far this General Pallax is holding to the one-year peace. Either that, or he’s been too busy taking control of the Republic to get around to us. No, Wenda just wanted to show around, or perhaps show off, that Republican legionnaire who followed her home.”
Poor Marcus. Lance wondered how long it would be before his mother granted the new Protector a name.
“You missed the wedding,” his mother said sourly.
“When do you expect her back?” Lance asked.
“Toward the end of the week.”
Far too long to hide Sara in his room, damn it. “Did Wenda tell you how the blue devil was defeated?” he asked abruptly.
“That your ladylove gifted it her soul? Yes.” A sniff. “Though I find it hard to believe.”
“I was within inches of death,” Lance said brutally. “She saved me. And Wenda, too.”
His mother frowned. “Wenda is the Kandrith. She could have—”
Lance shook his head. “No. She tried, Mother. She knew a Kandrith needed multiple sacrifices to gain that kind of power, so she sacrificed her hand and her sight, but it wasn’t enough. Wenda didn’t have enough years as Kandrith for her Lifegift to be great enough to hurt a blue devil.”
His mother spread her arms. “What do you want me to say, that I was wrong to order her execution? That I should somehow have anticipated her sudden altruism? Her father broke the Hostage Pact. I obeyed the law.”
Have you ever admitted to being wrong? Lance swallowed the words—he hadn’t anticipated Sara’s selfless act either. “I need you to understand the importance of what Sara did.”
“Why? What—” She stopped, mouth open. “You brought her home with you, didn’t you.” It was an accusation not a question.
“I couldn’t leave her in the Republic,” Lance said shortly. “She would’ve died.” In a thousand different ways. He had nightmares about it: Sara forgetting to eat, Sara with a gangrenous foot from an untended wound, Sara stoned to death by those unnerved by her stare.
A soft grunt from his mother. “Surely, she’s already dead if she has no soul.”
I don’t want to argue with you, Mother. Especially, when he had a hunch he would lose.
An austere frown pinched her face. “However did you get her past the Watcher?”
Lance had been very concerned about the possibility that the Watcher at the Gate would mistake Sara for a blue devil, since both lacked souls. Fortunately, the magic seemed able to tell the difference between a soul sacrificed for power and one gifted for the good of the world; or perhaps blue signaled the presence of Vez. In any case, they hadn’t been stopped. However, Lance hadn’t had the courage to ask the Watcher if he’d seen some other colour or nothing at all. They’d had the good luck to arrive with a group of three slave escapees, and Lance and Sara had simply kept walking, unnoticed in the tearful hubbub.
To his mother he said, “She isn’t a blue devil.”
“Hmmph. Where is she then? Show her to me.”
“A moment. We didn’t come alone.” Lance briefly explained about Rhiain and her prisoner. By the time he finished answering his mother’s questions, he was anxious to retrieve Sara from the hallway. He never knew what she was going to do next.
Of course, he’d never been able to predict what Sara-with-a-soul would do either.
* * *
“That was longer than a moment,” Sara said when Lance came back into the hall.
His eyes widened, then his lips turned up. “So it was. I’m sorry. Now, come.” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist. She followed the gentle pull into a large room with weapons on the wall. A man in a red vest stood in front of two high-backed wooden chairs. No, a woman—she had breasts—but her dark hair was as short as a man’s.
“Sara, this is my mother. Mother, you remember Sara.” He released her wrist.
The short-haired woman walked in a circle around Sara. “Lady Sarathena Remillus. The last time I saw you, you were shorter by a head.” The woman’s lips parted, showing her teeth. “I think I liked you better that way.”
“Mother,” Lance said. His brows moved together.
Sara started to count the weapons on the wall behind her. Eight rows of twelve, plus a partial row of five...a hundred and one in total.
“You’re looking at the axe, I see,” the woman said. “Do you remember me ordering your head cut off?”
Sara thought back. Yes, this woman had been there. “I do.”
“And?”
“And what?” Sara didn’t understand the question.
“You must bear me some ill will!”
Lance let out a loud breath. “She doesn’t see it that way. Sara, do you seek revenge against my mother?”
“No.”
“Are you convinced yet, Mother? She isn’t faking.”
“I’m not the one who needs convincing,” the short-haired woman said.
Lance shifted from one foot to another. “May we stay? Or do we need to seek out other lodging before night falls?”
“Of course, you’ll stay. I’ll take you to your rooms.”
“I know the way,” Lance said.
Ignoring him, the short-haired woman led Sara and Lance down a second hallway to two interconnected rooms. The outer one had a bench; the inner room had a large bed with brown blankets, a washstand, and a trunk. In one corner stood an eight-inch carved figure of a woman.
“You must be tired, Sara. Sit,” Lance said.
Sara immediately folded her legs and sat on the floor.
Lance pinched the bridge of his nose. “On the bench, please.”
Sara moved, though it made no difference to her. She would stand on her head if Lance asked her to.
“Ah, I see what the problem is,” the short-haired woman said. “It’s just like that mad girl who had conversations with thin air. You want to heal her.”
Lance turned to the woman. “Of course, I want to heal her.”
“But she isn’t sick. She has no soul. She can’t be healed of that,” the short-haired woman said.
“You don’t know that.” Lance’s voice was quiet.
“Yes, I do.” The woman pointed at the carved figurine. “What does Loma say?”
Lance didn’t answer, but the woman acted as if he had.
“Ah. You haven’t asked, because you know what Her answer must be.”
Lance shook his head. “Just because Sara can’t be healed by Loma, doesn’t mean she’ll stay soulless. There have been some signs—”
“Like what?”
“Just now she complained that I was late—” His lips pressed together. “You wouldn’t understand because you haven’t been with her all along. It may not be much progress, but it is some. And in any case it’s only been nine weeks. It’s too soon to draw conclusions.”
The woman pulled at her own hair. “You always were stubborn.” She paused halfway out the door. “Shall I let it be known that One who Wears the Brown is in residence? We don’t have any dire cases, but one of the servant’s children has a cough.”
“Give me a half hour to settle in, then let them know I’m available. All I have is a sore arm right now, so I can go to them if necessary.”
“All? You look like you’re running a fever.” The short-haired woman laid her hand on Lance’s forehead.
He moved away. “Only a low one. I’m fine.”
&n
bsp; “As you wish.”
He had his first visitor within the hour. During the next six days the outer room’s bench was often put to use, usually by people who weren’t sick themselves, but accompanied one who was.
Except for the day when Lance vomited four times, they ate at long tables with the rest of the Hall inhabitants. The short-haired woman always sat at the head of the table. Lance sat on the benches with Sara beside him. People talked to Lance, but soon only Lance talked to Sara. Only he said her name.
Are you warm enough, Sara?
Be sure to tell me if you feel sick, Sara.
Go wash your hair, Sara.
Eat, Sara.
Sleep.
She did as he said, but as the days passed he spoke to her less and less.
The short-haired woman came to see him on the fourth day as he was healing a girl with a broken arm. “Healing is a wonderful gift,” she told him after the child left with her parents, “but not everyone can be healed. Sara is never going to get better. You have to face that. She’ll go on as she is year after year after year. Only eating if you remind her to. Staring at the walls. What kind of life is that?”
Sara didn’t stare at walls. She watched Lance, studying the way he moved, trying to puzzle out why he was important.
“Leave her be,” Lance said. “She’s not hurting anyone.”
“She’s hurting you,” the woman said loudly. “I’m your mother. Do you think I can’t see that this is killing you an inch at a time?”
Killing him? Lance had stopped vomiting and his current ailment was a sprained knee—hardly life-threatening.
“Accept the gift Sara gave you and move on.” Liquid filled the woman’s eyes.
“I can’t just give up on her,” Lance said, his voice low and rough. “I love her.” His eyes filled, too, though Sara couldn’t detect a cause—no injury, no eye-watering stench.
“Love? How can you love her? She’s a thing,” his mother said. “It would be like kissing a doll.”
Soul of Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) Page 5
