“You? Stubborn? I never would have guessed.”
He grinned, and I watched a dreamy memory float through his eyes. “Yeah, my father smiled the whole time I was getting it done. He reminded me, Be careful what you ask for, and he made sure the tattoo was nice and big. I had to go back for three more sessions after that to finish it up. Those were even harder, but I survived. When it was done, my father made me come to dinner without a shirt for a week to show it off. He was proud. I think that was when I knew I would be the next Patrei. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon.”
His expression turned sober, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he was remembering the duties that awaited him or remembering that his father was dead.
I gently dragged my fingernail over his skin, outlining the jagged edge of feathers, trying to bring him back from that other world, at least for a few minutes. His eyes gleamed once again, and a flurry of birds flew through my stomach like they did every time he stared at me so intently. I wondered how I had not seen how beautiful his eyes were the first time we met. But then I knew—it was his kindness that had broken me, that first night when he asked for a riddle. He had perceived a weakness in me that he tried to help me overcome by bringing out my strength. Before that kindness, the color of his eyes hadn’t mattered.
He looked down at me, our pauses becoming more reckless, the questions lurking behind them doubling.
“What?” I finally said as he continued to study me, like all the world’s mysteries were hidden behind my eyes.
“I have a riddle for you this time,” he said.
“You?” I laughed.
“Don’t be such a skeptic. I’m a fast learner when I’m motivated.”
Wish stalks, stories, riddles—for now it was enough. “All right, then, Jase Ballenger, go ahead.”
“What is as bright as the sun,
As sweet as nectar,
As silky as the night sky,
And as irresistible as a cold, tall ale?”
“Hmm. Bright, sweet, silky, and irresistible? I give up.”
“Your hair woven through my fingers.”
I laughed. “That’s a terrible riddle. It makes no sense.”
He smiled. “Does it have to?”
He brushed a strand of my hair across his cheek, his face drawing closer, and his lips hovered, lingering at my hairline. I closed my eyes, breathing in his touch, needles of heat skimming beneath my skin, and then as slow as syrup his lips traveled over my brow, grazed my lashes, down my cheek, drawing a line all the way to my mouth, and there his lips rested gently, our breaths mingling featherlight, a searching, wondering ache between them—How much longer?—both of us memorizing this moment as if we feared it disappearing, until finally his lips pressed harder, hungry on mine.
It was a wild indulgent slope we had cascaded down, and I didn’t care. For once in my life, I didn’t care about tomorrow. I didn’t care if I starved or died. I feasted on the now, and I didn’t let myself think about who he was or who I was, only who we were right now in this moment and how he made me feel on this patch of earth, in this patch of shade. In this strange upside-down world, ignoring tomorrow seemed as natural and expected as breathing.
What is this, Jase? What is this?
But it was a question I didn’t really want answered.
Our lips finally parted, and he rolled onto his back. He blew out a long slow breath. “Time to go,” he said. “I’ll think of a better riddle next time.” He stood and helped me up. We got our last drinks at the stream, and he studied the path ahead. I perceived a shift in him already, counting the steps to home. The settlement was closer than I thought.
Next time.
There would be no more next times. This brief story we had created was ending. I felt it in the glint of the sun, the curl of the wind, the voices of ghosts still calling, Turn back. I saw it in the change of his focus. That other world, the one that held who we really were, was calling him, already whittling a hole into this one, our pasts echoing through it. Its voice was strong and I heard its call too.
* * *
The mountains on either side stepped closer, the wide valley narrowing, funneling us in the crook of its arm. I watched the way he scanned the shrinking horizon, the way he tensed as we crested every knoll, always walking a step ahead of me. My fingers danced up the knots of his spine, and his chest expanded in a deep breath. He looked sideways at me, his expression dark.
I had interrupted his thoughts.
“My father is being entombed today,” he said.
The final good-bye.
I wondered how quickly his father passed, if there were things Jase didn’t get a chance to say to him. We can never know the exact moment when someone will leave our lives forever. How many times had I bargained with the gods for one more day, one hour, just one minute. Was that too much to ask? One minute to say the unsaid things that were still trapped inside me. Or maybe I only wanted one more minute to say a real good-bye.
“Is there more you wished you could have asked him?”
He nodded. “But I didn’t know what all my questions were until it was too late.”
“How did he die, Jase?” I wondered if he would trust me enough to tell me now, instead of skirting the question like he had the last time.
“His heart,” he answered, but it sounded more like a question, like he was still not quite believing it himself, or maybe this was the first time he could say it aloud. “It was unexpected. It seized in his chest, making him fall from his horse, and within a few days he was gone. There was nothing the healers could do.” He stopped walking. “I’ve told you about my family, and you’ve told me nothing about yours. Can you at least be honest with me about this? How did your parents die, Kazi?”
The words that had been teetering on my tongue vanished. I hadn’t expected this. “I never said they died.”
“You’ve talked about Berdi and her stew, nameless people you trained with, and others you’ve met in distant cities, but you never mention your parents. They’re either monsters or they’re dead. I can see the scars, Kazi. You’re not fooling me.”
Be honest? I could barely be honest with myself, but after his confession, what I held back seemed like a mountain, all the larger and darker for its secrecy. I could only create a larger mountain to hold back the truth.
“Not every family is like yours, Jase. I don’t see mine as often as you see yours. My parents are very important people. My father is the governor of a northern province, and my mother’s a general in the army. They’re always away. I rarely see them.”
He was silent for a long while as if mulling over my answer, then asked, “If they weren’t around, who raised you?”
The streets, hunger, fear, revenge, the merchants and quarterlords who chased me away. Desperation. A lonely world in the middle of a bustling city—a world he couldn’t begin to understand.
“Friends,” I answered. “Friends helped raise me.”
* * *
We were the poorest of the poor. My mother was beautiful but so very young. Too young to have me, but she did, and she loved me. We were rarely apart. Whatever she did to earn a few mouthfuls of food, I was there too. She stitched garments, washed clothes, wove tethers for amulets, and sometimes at the jehendra she sold the useless fragments of the Ancients that she dug up in the ruins. Many Vendans thought they could ward off angry spirits.
We had a silent language between us, street language, signals that helped my mother and me survive. The subtle flick of fingers. A hand held at the side, rigid. A fist against a thigh. A finger on the cheekbone. Run. Don’t move. Say nothing. Disappear. I will return. Smile. Because in a taut moment, some things were too dangerous to say with words.
It was the middle of the night when he came. I was awakened suddenly when I felt a finger pressed to my lips, Shhh, Kazi, don’t say a word, and she slowly pushed me to the floor between our bed and the wall to hide me. From beneath the bed, I saw yellow flickering light dancin
g across walls as he approached. We had no other way out, no weapons, but she had a heavy wooden stick in the corner. She didn’t reach it in time. He lunged out of the darkness, grabbing her from behind.
“I have nothing,” she immediately told him. “Not even food. Please don’t hurt me.”
“I’m not here for food,” he said as his eyes scoured the small hovel we called home, a cramped space in an abandoned ruin. “Someone’s had his eye out for a girl like you. You’ll bring a nice profit.” The moving light from his lantern made the planes of his face jump like he wore a distorted, hideous mask. Cheekbones, chin, a shining forehead, looming close then far, twisting like a monster as I cowered in terror beneath the bed. “Where is the brat you were with today?”
That’s when I knew I had seen him before, a Previzi driver, unloading his wagon of goods at the jehendra as merchants gathered around to admire the exotic wares. He walked by the stall later where my mother made amulets. He paused and studied us both but didn’t buy anything. The Previzi never did. Vendan goods were beneath them, and they had no fear of the gods or spirits. They didn’t need amulets.
“Come out, girl!” he yelled, lifting his lantern trying to see into the corners of the ruins that were our home. He shook my mother. “Where is she?”
My mother’s eyes were frantic black pools. “I don’t know. She’s not mine. Only an orphan I let help me.”
I wanted to run to her. Run for the stick in the corner, but I saw her hand, desperate, rigid at her side. Demanding. Do not move. Her fist against her thigh. Say nothing. I watched as he forced something to her lips, her hand striking him, her struggle as he made her drink, as she choked and coughed, and within seconds she went limp in his arms. I watched as he carried her away, her limp arms swinging as if saying good-bye.
Run, Kazi. Grab the stick. Save her. Now.
But I didn’t. And then the flickering lantern light disappeared, darkness closed in again, and I was alone.
When the light of morning dawned, I still cowered beneath the bed, too afraid to move. I stayed there for two days, lying in my own waste, growing weak and hazy with hunger and thirst. I finally crawled out, dazed, and searched the streets for her, drinking at the washbasins, chewing bitter cuds of thannis, because wild plants were the only thing that was free. Those first months were a blur, maybe because I was half starved, but somewhere along the line I stopped being afraid of the merchants who chased me away. I was only hungry and determined.
Someone’s had his eye out for a girl like you. Who? A rich merchant? A quarterlord? You’ll bring a nice profit. I never forgot the driver’s face, but it took me years to understand what his words even meant. I thought he took her to make amulets or wash clothes, so I searched every merchant tent and washbasin in the city. And once I got better at slipping into shadows, I found my way into every quarterlord’s home, thinking he was making her work there. She was nowhere. She had vanished, along with the Previzi driver who had taken her, perhaps to a remote province in Venda, perhaps to a faraway kingdom on the other side of the continent. She was gone.
“You’re quiet,” Jase said, pulling me from my thoughts.
“So are you.”
“Hungry?”
A stupid question. A placeholder for what was really on his mind. He was getting nervous. Unusually so. It made me wonder what kind of animosities the Casswell settlement might hold against the Ballengers. They were far outside the borders of Eislandia and in no way could be construed as being on Ballenger land. To my knowledge they had not been raided by them. Still, there could be grievances. Even settlements had to trade goods, and the Ballengers appeared to control the center of trading. He might have a good reason to be nervous. Just as nervous as I might be entering Tor’s Watch.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
JASE
We were almost there. I knew this stretch as well as any. My blood raced, and my mind sprinted from one thought to the next. Getting home. Getting there in time. It was so close now. We just might make it. I wouldn’t let guilt get in the way of what needed to be done. There was too much at stake. Lives. History. People who depended on me.
I tried to keep her focused, pointing out features on the northern range, a cluster of trees, a rock formation, a pass, anything to divert her gaze from the southern range. I was buying minutes now, and there wasn’t a single one to spare. I had already seen our post hidden high in a rocky outcrop overlooking the valley. It was hard to see if you didn’t know it was there, but she had a keen eye and it wouldn’t stay camouflaged much longer.
As the valley turned, grazing horses came into view, and beyond that our small farmstead where the caretaker lived.
“One small farmhouse?” she said. “This can’t be the settlement.”
“Maybe there’s more at the end of the valley,” I answered, still trying to delay the inevitable.
And then she spotted the three riders galloping down a trail from the outpost, heading toward us. She stopped, her walking stick jutting out in a protective stance to stop me too. “Those don’t look like settlers.”
“I think we’ll be all right.”
“No,” she said, still not convinced, “settlers don’t wear weapons like that at their sides. They’re armed for trouble.”
As they drew close, smiles evident on their faces, her shoulders pulled back and her attention turned slowly to me, her lips parting slightly, a dull realization forming. Her eyes shot back to them again, the truth settling in, my lack of concern, the recognition in their eyes when they looked at me. They pulled up short in front of us, and one of them said, “Patrei, we’ve been watching for you, hoping you’d come this way.”
She turned back to me and for a few seconds her eyes were cold, deadly, but then they exploded with rage. “You filthy—” She swung her stick, but I was expecting it and grabbed hold, jerking her toward me. “What did you expect me to do?” I said. “Just dance into a Vendan settlement so you could arrest me or worse? Going separate ways was never in your plan. Your lies are easy to spot, Kazi.”
Her chest heaved and she glared at me, unable to deny it. “Get away from me!” she growled, letting go of the stick. She stepped back as far as the chain would allow, still seething. I didn’t have time to explain or to try and assuage her. I’d have to try later.
I looked up at Boone, our foreman. “Go back to the post for tools to get this chain off us,” I ordered. “Foley, you bring back food. And an extra horse.”
“Two horses?”
“No. She’ll ride with me.” I couldn’t trust her to stay with us, and there was no spare time to go off on a chase.
“You have a messenger up there?” I asked.
“Aleski,” he answered.
“Bring him down too.”
While we waited for Boone and Foley to return, Tiago told me they had sent scouts out everywhere looking for me. “We finally tracked down the hunters, but the wagon was empty and tracks went off in all directions.”
“There were four other prisoners,” I explained. “When we escaped, everyone scattered. Did you take care of the hunters?”
He nodded. “Dead. But one did a lot of pleading for his life before we killed him. He said they’d been paid for a full load up front, and then were free to take and sell their haul to a mine for more profit that they could keep.”
Paid up front? That was impossible. Labor hunters were nothing more than scavengers. No one paid them for merchandise they hadn’t yet produced. Illegal mines were the only ones who dealt with them. “Maybe he was lying,” I said.
Tiago shook his head. “Don’t think so. Not with a knife pressed to his temple. He said they knew better than to come near Hell’s Mouth, but it was too good an offer for them to resist.”
“Who paid them?”
“He didn’t know. Said it was a nameless fellow who approached them. He told them he’d know if they cheated him and didn’t follow through.”
No one would pay for merchandise they didn’t want. It wasn’t m
erchandise they were after. They were buying panic—and anger at the Ballengers for not keeping the city safe. Someone was trying to edge us out.
“Did you find any of the other prisoners?”
“Three. The smithy was dead, and the other two were in bad shape. Not sure they’ll make it, but we brought them back to Tor’s Watch. Healer is taking care of them.”
“Good. Before you release them back to the city, make sure they know to tell no one what happened to them or that I was there.”
“Already done. They know to keep quiet.”
“Track down the other prisoner. He has to be out there somewhere. We don’t want him stumbling back into town and talking.” I gestured toward Kazi. “What about the other Rahtan who were with her? Did you find them?”
Tiago hesitated, glancing at Kazi. “We have them in custody, but they aren’t talking.”
Her eyes were steel. This was another development she didn’t like. I wasn’t going to get anything more out of her. At least not yet.
“There’s been some other trouble,” Tiago added.
He said that since the first night I disappeared there had been six fires in six different districts. Two homes had burned to the ground. No one died, but all the fires were suspicious and unexplained. The town was uneasy. There was also a thwarted raid on a Gitos caravan. Two drivers were injured.
I cursed. Someone was trying to create unrest in Hell’s Mouth from all angles. Or maybe it was many someones.
Boone brought back awls and hammers from the post, pounding and fiddling with the rusted lock on my ankle until he broke it off. “Hers too?”
She was surprisingly silent, but her gaze was condemning, certainly calculating how she would pay me back. “Yes,” I answered. “Hers too.”
I rubbed my ankle where the shackle had scraped and cut into my skin. Kazi did the same as she eyed me suspiciously. We were finally separated.
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