Rosemarked

by Livia Blackburne

  My mother’s face breaks into a smile when I reach her. She pulls me close and rubs my back as if to assure herself that I am in one piece. “You passed your trial.”

  My father, his face lined by years on the crop terraces, clasps my shoulders. “My daughter, a full healer at seventeen. The ­Goddess smiles on our family.”

  The ceremony itself is short. Head Healer Doron calls me forward and reads vows for me to repeat, the very ones that the Goddess gave to the first healer. I will use this sacred knowledge to heal and not to harm. I will brave the jaws of death to save those the Goddess has chosen. Then, with the village watching, my master Kaylah ties the sash around my waist.

  The feast starts in earnest after that. Wine is poured, and after everyone has had their fill, some village boys pull out tambourines and pipes, and the dancing starts. I’d been worried about Amparan soldiers intruding on the festivities, but surprisingly few of them show up. It’s curious, since they must be able to smell the venison roasting, but I count it a blessing.

  Much later that evening, I’m sitting at the edge of the festivities when Kaylah comes to join me. “Is the day catching up to you?” she asks.

  Indeed, my limbs ache as I move over on the bench to make room for her. Kaylah sweeps her heavy black hair over her shoulder as she sits down.

  “If I’d only been bitten by one creature this morning,” I say, “perhaps I’d still be dancing.”

  Her eyes crinkle in her round face. “I’ve spoken to Doron and Zad. You’ll take over the care of my younger patients until you become more accustomed to managing things on your own.”

  Doron and Zad will probably travel back to their own homes tomorrow. Though we call Dara a village, it’s actually a series of clusters up and down the valley. Doron, Zad, and their apprentices live a day’s travel away in different directions.

  We sit side by side and watch the dancing. I’ve probably spent more time with Kaylah than anyone else, even my family. I was very young when my mother discovered I had an interest in healing. Like many women in our village, my mother sometimes foraged herbs for her own home remedies—vel for fever or a cold, sweetgrass for digestion, puzta flower for scrapes and bruises. I used to forgo playing with my sisters so I could tag along with my mother. I’d meticulously help her sort and clean the herbs, then set them out to dry.

  In my seventh year, the Amparans waged a campaign near our home, and the perpetual presence of soldiers drained Dara’s food stores almost completely. I remember the never-ending gnawing at my stomach, my constant and growing obsession with food. Once I even sneaked out to spy on a group of Amparan soldiers as they ate, only to be dragged back by my terrified mother when she found me.

  My mother developed severe pains in her abdomen that year, something more than common hunger. She tried to hide it from us, but I saw how she turned pale and clutched her belly, the drops of blood on her handkerchief. She didn’t go to the healer—they were busy serving the soldiers, and we didn’t have money to spare. That was the first time I remembered hating Ampara.

  One night it occurred to me that if puzta helped scrapes and bruises, and sweetgrass helped digestion, the former added to sweetgrass tea might help whatever sores she had in her stomach. In hindsight, it might have turned out badly, and my mother only drank the brew I gave her because she was distracted at the time. But the pain was gone within a day. Once my mother realized what had happened, she took me to Kaylah. In the ten years since, Kaylah has taught me a healer’s skills—to sort herbs, milk snakes, mix poultices, and bind wounds. She’s also taught me to observe patients, to see beyond their symptoms for what truly ails them, and to have a healthy reverence for the Goddess’s work.

  “Healer!” A harsh male voice cuts over the music.

  I turn and jerk back when I see the Amparan commander Arxa cutting across the field. He’s an imposing man. Tall and well built, with sharp eyes and a hint of gray in his thick black hair. Several soldiers trail in his wake, silencing the few villagers around us with their glares.

  Arxa’s eyes lock on Kaylah. “Healer, we need you. Now.”

  Kaylah stands immediately, closing the distance between them before the commander can make any more of a scene. “What is it, Commander?” Tension rolls off the soldiers around us, and I can feel the growing unease of the witnesses surrounding me.

  “Three of my men have fallen ill,” says Arxa.

  Kaylah nods. “Lead the way.”

  Commander Arxa leads Kaylah and his soldiers out of the square. I trail behind, and Kaylah motions me back. “Stay here, Zivah. Tonight is your night.”

  But I ignore her, and she can’t afford the time to argue. I would be no friend at all if I let her go alone with these soldiers.

  The commander stops in front of a house at the edge of the village and throws the door open to reveal three soldiers lying on the ground, their hair damp from sweat. One moans. Another turns his head from side to side as if searching the room for something. They don’t seem to notice us.

  “How long have they been like this?” Kaylah asks. She steps closer, but Arxa puts out an arm to block her.

  “Go no closer, Healer, until you see them more clearly.”

  Kaylah pauses, puzzled, but then our eyes adjust to the darkness. Not much moonlight comes through the doors or windows, but enough to illuminate the soldiers in faint gray light. Kaylah sees it first, and her gasp rings in my ears. The soldiers’ arms are covered with large patches of discolored skin, patterned like the spots of piebald dogs or horses. The spots are bruise colored in the darkness, but if they were illuminated…

  Kaylah draws a shaky breath. “I understand, Commander. I need light.”

  Dread gathers in my gut as Arxa delivers the order and a soldier comes bearing an oil lamp. Kaylah carries it toward the sick soldiers, though she stops a good distance away. One cries out and throws a hand up over his eyes. Now, with the lamp, we can clearly see that the marks are large and bright red.

  “Rose plague,” I whisper. Words that no healer ever wants to hear.

  Next to me, Kaylah nods grimly. “These soldiers must be quarantined right away.”

  Before she finishes speaking, another Amparan soldier runs up and salutes the commander. “Two others have developed a fever, and another seven are feeling unwell.”

  Kaylah’s jaw sets, and her voice takes on an authority that rivals Arxa’s. “Round up your soldiers, Commander. They must all be checked.”

  Arxa fixes his eyes on her for a moment, then gives a brisk nod. He steps out and addresses the soldier that just arrived. “Gather everyone. Line them up in front of this cottage.”

  He steps through the doorway, and I follow behind him, my mind swirling from the news. Rose plague kills three out of four in a matter of days, and there is no cure. My skin crawls at the thought of those three feverish men inside the cottage. How many others have fallen ill? Who among the village has already contracted the disease from them? What would the empire do to us if Amparan soldiers died in our care?

  Then the commander walks fully into the moonlight, and I let out an involuntary cry. It’s hard to see, but now that I know what I’m looking for…

  “Commander,” I whisper. “Can you angle your arm toward the light?”

  All heads turn first to me, and then to Arxa. The commander slowly angles his forearm to catch the moonlight. We all see the beginnings of skin markings. The Amparan soldiers turn to each other in horror, and everyone starts speaking at once.

  “Order!” Arxa says, and the soldiers snap to attention, though their eyes are wide and their faces pale. There’s no fear in Arxa’s countenance as he looks down at his arm. The man’s just been handed a death sentence, yet he studies the marks on his skin as if they were simply battle diagrams or maps. Arxa drops his hand to his side and steps deliberately away from the others. He looks around, and when he’s made certain that everyone is paying attention, he speaks.

  “I relinquish command of our battalion until my illne
ss resolves,” he says. “See that authority moves correctly down the chain.”

  Then he turns to Kaylah. “Healer, the lives of my men are in your hands. See that you do the empire proud.”

  He doesn’t say the rest, but he doesn’t need to because we hear it as plainly as if he’d said it out loud. Do your best, and convince the empire that you spared no effort. Otherwise, your people will pay the price of your failure.

  Amparan soldiers torture me in my dreams. They hold my head underwater until I writhe like a hooked fish, inhaling the foul liquid and coughing it back up. They beat me, whip me, hang me from the ceiling until I beg for mercy. I scream until my throat is hoarse, calling for anyone who might help—the gods of war and mercy, Warlord Gatha, my mother…

  And this time, someone answers back. “Wake up.”

  My eyes fly open. I expect to see the dark walls of my cell, to hear the screams of fellow prisoners and choke on the rank air. But instead I’m in a small, warmly lit room, and a woman wipes down my face. I grab her hand. She gasps, and I push her away and roll off the bed. The bedding tangles around my legs, and I realize I’m as naked as a newborn. Then the room spins around me. I pitch forward. The dirt floor is not as hard as the dungeon’s stone, but it’s still enough to make lights flash in front of my eyes.

  As I groan into the ground, the woman shuffles to my side. “We won’t hurt you, boy.”

  I roll over, my breath rasping through my throat as my eyes settle on her. She’s about my mother’s age, and only now do I notice her roughly spun clothes and the uneven walls of the room that holds me. “Where am I?” It doesn’t look like the dungeons. Maybe I’m still dreaming. Or maybe my captors have finally succeeded in driving me mad.

  “An hour’s walk from Khaygal.”

  I’m no longer in that accursed military outpost? Still, an hour doesn’t feel far enough. I grab the sheet from around my legs and pull it up to cover myself. My fingers shake.

  “What’s your name?” the woman asks.

  “Don’t ask his name.” A man comes up and puts a protective arm around the woman’s shoulders. “Don’t ask anything. The less we know about him, and he about us, the better.” He scowls down at me. “Behave yourself, boy. My wife might have pulled you out of the pile of bodies, but I’ll throw you right back out there if need be.”

  Pile of bodies…I rub my aching temples and gradually, the memories return. The rose plague outbreak in the dungeons, the panicked guards…I remember coming down with fever, looking down to see red marks on my skin, lit by the dungeon’s flickering torchlight. And I remember feeling happy, because it meant they wouldn’t be able to hurt me anymore.

  “You were dumped outside the fort, along with the rest of the diseased prisoners,” says the woman. “The sole umbertouched body in a pile of corpses.”

  Only then do I see that the marks on my skin have turned dark brown, and I have a perverse urge to laugh. I just can’t die, though I’ve begged Zenagua, goddess of death, to take me countless times. Everyone knows the stages of rose plague. First comes the fever and the delirium. It kills most people up front, though a few manage a stay of execution. Their fever ebbs, and they regain their strength, but their rash stays red, which means they can still pass the disease to others. Those are the rosemarked, and they’re banished from society until the fever reclaims them a few years later.

  Besides the rosemarked, there is one other group of survivors: the umbertouched, who beat the disease completely. Those lucky bastards have marks that turn brown. They also regain their strength, and they’re immune to the disease from there on forward. Seems I’ve now joined their number.

  And it finally sinks in. I might actually be free. Free, after a year in the Amparan dungeons. A year at my jailors’ mercy, cut off from my fellow fighters, wishing for death. My bones go soft. I cover my eyes, hold my breath, do anything to keep control, but I collapse into wracking sobs. It takes me a while to realize the animal sounds echoing off the walls are coming from my own throat.

  I feel a hand press gently on my shoulder, though the woman says nothing. It shames me to break down like this. After what seems like an eternity, the tremors finally subside.

  “Why did you pull me out?” I ask. My throat is parched, and my tongue feels awkward. “You could have left me there to die with the others.”

  “Not everyone condones the way the empire treats its prisoners. If Hefana says you are to live, I do my utmost to help.”

  Hefana, the goddess of healers. It still strikes me as odd, almost heretical, that Ampara would have the same gods as my people, the Shidadi. It’s said that we share the same forefathers, but the Amparans ceased their wandering and settled in cities. They brought the gods with them and built them giant stone temples, while my people continued to worship in our tents. From how things have turned out, it seems clear that the gods prefer temples.

  Well, whether this woman was sent by Hefana or dumb luck, I owe her my life. “I don’t know how I can repay you.”

  The man comes close—I’d forgotten about him—and he bends down so his face is just a hand’s width from mine. “You can repay us by leaving. We’ve risked enough nursing you back to life. We’ll give you food, provisions, enough to get you started on your journey, but you need to be out of our house in two days, you understand?”

  The woman presses her lips together, and I can tell this rebellion on her part is a constant thorn between them. His words are raw, but they’re fair. If they’ve really pulled me out of that living hell, they’ve already done more than I can ask of anyone. I need to get away, for my sake and for theirs.

  “What provisions can you give me?” I ask. I’m already thinking ahead. I’ll have to travel on back roads and steal food along the way. It’ll be a tough journey, but at least I’ll be in the open air, free from chains, going on my own terms.

  And if Ampara comes after me again, I’ll make them regret it.

  I leave my rescuers’ house under cover of darkness. In the dungeon, I’d resigned myself to never seeing the sky again, and it’s overwhelming to step out into open grassland with the stars stretching as far as I can see. It feels like a trick or a dream, something that might be snatched away at any time. I walk as far as I can that night, wading over hills covered with grass as high as my knee. Every stray sound, every footstep or falling pebble, has me diving for the ground. As I huddle, hardly daring to breathe, I silently curse Ampara for the frightened rabbit I’ve become. There was a time when I was fearless, when I’d run into battle with no thought of the consequences, but now I know too much.

  Dawn comes with no sign of pursuit, and I continue to travel by night, avoiding the emperor’s road and sticking to the side paths. When my supplies run out, I loot the occasional village for food. As my strength grows, so does my confidence, and I start to think about where to go. Truth is, I’m not sure where my people are. At the time I was captured, our fighters had been pushed into the mountains on Monyar Peninsula. But it’s been over a year since, and I wonder if they’ve been driven even farther back. I suppose they could have gained ground as well, but that’s never happened in my lifetime. Ten years ago, some of our tribe still lived on the main continent. But little by little, we fled to more remote regions, finally crossing the strait to Monyar. And the empire continues to expand its reach.

  Still, even though it’s been a year, my best lead is to go where I’d last seen my people. After a week of travel, I reach the black waters of the Monyar Strait. I steal an unguarded rowboat and push it out as the tide’s going down in the evening. It’s windier than I expected, and I come perilously close to some sharp rocks on the way out, but finally I pull the boat onto the Monyar side. A pile of rocks and driftwood provides a hiding place for the boat, and I duck into the shelter of the forests to rest.

  It’s not quite a homecoming. Our tribe crossed the strait when I was twelve, and we’ve moved around too much for me to really feel like I belong anywhere. Still, Monyar’s bamboo forests are a we
lcome sight. The Dara villagers live in the valleys and foothills, and I avoid them, since they’ve shown their belly to the empire. Instead, I hike deep into the mountains, wandering the bamboo groves, gaining strength day by day. The hunting’s good once I knap a rough knife and throw together some snares, and there are a few small caves where I can conceal a cooking fire. I don’t bother trying to look for my people. The Shidadi have always been good at staying hidden, and with the empire coming down harder on us every day, we’ve had to become ghosts.

  Even ghosts leave traces though, and little by little, I see signs that they’re still here—the ashes of a campfire not quite scattered, telltale divots where a snare had been placed. Every sight ignites a new spark of hope. I wonder about my fellow fighters. Are they alive? Have they given me up for dead? I let myself hope, just a little. Several times I see crows flying in unnaturally straight paths. I whistle to them, though none come down to me. Still, it’s another sign that my people are around. If I wander these forests long enough, they’ll find me.

  It happens on my fifth day back. I’m walking the trails when a voice above me calls out. “Who are you, stranger? Speak your name.” The words are Amparan, but I smile and reply in Shidadi. “Dineas, son of Youtab and Artabanos, fighter for Gatha.” I don’t look up, because any motion would invite at least five arrows to loose from their bows.

  “Pull back the hood of your cloak,” comes the voice again. Very slowly, I draw my hood back. A caw splits the air. A familiar black blur launches from the leaves, makes two circles around my head, then lands on my shoulder. The feel of claws digging into my shoulder is the best welcome I could hope for.

  “Good lad, Preener,” I say.

  The crow, whom I’d raised and trained from the shell, flaps his wings in reply. Finally, I raise my head to see archers perched in the bamboo above me.

  And then a familiar voice calls out. “Neju’s sword, it really is Dineas.”