by Cat Bruno
Byron was growing concerned by all the questions that the man was asking, yet he figured that if he kept talking, then the man would not hurt him, so he answered, honestly, “She stays there while I work. We have a small cottage near the beach.”
“I shall look forward to making her acquaintance. And you, well, you should never have been spared, and I will never understand why she did it. I will not be as merciful, you can be sure.”
“You are mistaken! I did what the birdman told me to do. I did exactly as he asked! The girl is dead. I did as he told me to do!” Byron screamed, his words slurred and spit flying from his hair-covered face.
It was then that Byron realized that the man in front of him was not kin to the one he had met a few moons previously. That man had been thinner, shorter, with a crooked nose and yellowed eyes. When the man spoke again, Byron’s vision blurred with fear.
“He cannot help you here. No one can.”
Through fog-rimmed eyes, he watched as the man neared him, his dark eyes blazing with a darkness that seemed endless.
“Did you think one such as you could dare touch what is mine?”
Byron couldn’t move, his limbs would not respond, and his head pounded as the man continued to roar, words rumbling through the room louder than thunder, striking him over and over again. When the man came closer and stood just beside the cot, Byron shook, and his bowels let loose, a pungent odor filling the room. Again, he tried to scream, but his mouth hung open in silence.
The man picked the Tretorian up effortlessly, holding him high with one hand and staring into Byron’s frightened, brown eyes. Wordlessly, he flung him against the side wall, knocking down the carefully tended shelves, spilling clean linens and ointments onto the floor, clear, sweet-smelling liquids oozing onto the tiles.
Before Byron could cry out, the man was upon him once more. Breathing hard and with blood dripping down the side of his face, through course eyebrows and darkening cheek and beard, Byron tried to rise. Yet, he could not.
“Please,” he croaked, blood filling his mouth and trickling over his thick lashes, edging his sight in red. “I did what he asked. The girl is dead.”
The dark stranger paused for a moment, looking down from where he stood and onto the crumbled man who lay at his feet.
“I saw everything, everything, that you did to her! You will die here today. Then, I will kill your wife, children too, if there be any when I arrive.”
Byron’s skin turned an unnatural shade of white underneath the bright blood that was splattered over his cheeks. Once more he opened his mouth to speak, his teeth yellowed and decaying, his tongue lolling about as gurgling noises erupted. The man bent his knees, lowering himself until his eyes met Byron’s.
It seemed as if time itself had stopped, and Byron watched as if he stood outside of his own body.
“You were told to kill her, fool, but she yet lives. It was she who showed me where to find you. Tell me once more who it was that hired you to kill her.”
Before Byron could answer, the man’s fist slammed into his chin. Behind his eyes, darkness spun. When he opened his mouth to answer, several teeth, bloody and broken, fell to the floor.
“He never told me his name,” Byron stammered, blood pouring from his mouth.
Again, he was struck, this time in the stomach, and Byron cried aloud in pain, barely conscious.
With eyes half-closed, he spit, “He could fly, and one of his black wings had a streak of white across his.”
His words were whispered, his face bloody and bruising. Byron struggled to open his eyes, and, when he did, he wished he had not.
He watched as the man bent his face, angling down, teeth gleaming and sharp. With nothing else said, the man leaned in, closer, erasing the small gap that had existed between them. Slowly, knowledge dawned on Byron, although it came too late. Too late did he try to cover his neck with shaking, blood-spattered hands. The last thought he had before dying was to curse the girl with the flaming hair.
47
The morning sun was full, low and shining in a cloudless sky, by the time that Pietro hurried from his room, and, as he walked, his stomach grumbled in protest. Without a morning meal, he was hungry and late, hurrying to make it to class on time, yet instead of going to the dining hall, he neared one of the bakeries in town, having woken up with a taste for something sweet. Few people crowded the streets so early, although the bakery was certain to have a large gathering, as it always did in the early mornings. So he quickened his step and veered from the main street, cutting between buildings and small alleys. Pietro had never imagined that he would learn the town so well, but his late night excursions had taught him the small city’s layout, and he could walk the streets without any light to guide him, unlike the King’s City, most of which was now forgotten.
As he squeezed between a tailor’s shop and the healer’s clinic, movement caught his eye, and Pietro slowed his pace, more from surprise than from fear as he noticed a darkly dressed man hunched over. He quietly moved forward, thankful that he had chosen his well-worn sandals this morning and their smooth bottoms. The man didn’t appear to be hiding and stood calmly, his back toward Pietro. Something about the man, however, forced Pietro to silence instead of calling out to him.
Suddenly, Pietro had a sense that he knew the man, but, after a moment, he realized that it was not quite the man whom he knew, but the feeling that had overcome him, especially once the hairs on his arms prickled in sudden alarm and his throat tightened. As if the man could read his thoughts, he turned.
Open-jawed and eyes large with fright, Pietro looked on the man, knowing what he was. In his hands, the stranger held a blood-soaked piece of fabric. Yet it was his face that caused Pietro to reach for the bricked wall, balancing himself as his vision hazed. The man’s face was stained red, the edges of his lips crusted over with dried blood, crimson stains smeared about his cheeks and neck. His black hair hung across his face, thickly matted and wet.
When the man smiled at him, showing white, pointed teeth, Pietro’s stomach heaved and the world tilted, then blackened.
*****
When he woke up, Pietro was shocked to find himself still breathing, and, without rising, he quickly examined himself. His head ached and his body seemed stiff, yet, he was, for the most part, uninjured. As he rubbed at his heavy head, images of the blood-covered man appeared, and Pietro frantically searched about the alley to see where the man had gone, half crawling until he found the wall behind him once again.
The sun still shone low in the sky, convincing Pietro that not much time had passed while he lay unconscious. Still, he did not think it wise to remain in the alley much longer, even with the man now gone, so he uneasily made his way to his feet, bracing himself with once hand against the side of the building.
Slowly, he made his way to the bakery, wondering what the Tribesman had been doing in Litusia, and if Bronwen was somehow to blame, especially since the man who had visited him had mentioned her. His thoughts were so troubled that Pietro walked by the bakery, and only when his stomach gurgled and the scent of freshly baked bread was upon him did he realize his mistake. Doubling back, he entered the bakery and waited in line behind a few others, unable to respond to their chatter nor to a pretty girl’s smile, on edge and shaking.
When it was his turn, he ordered a few pastries, then made his way back to the cobblestone street, chewing a sweet cherry pastry as he headed toward the Academy, unhurriedly. Just as he was about to drop the last bite into his mouth, the thick, red filling squeezed out onto his hand, sticky and crimson. When he looked toward his hands, covered with the syrupy filling, he could think of nothing else but the blood that had covered the man’s hands and face.
Pietro ran to the side of the road, dashed behind a large bush that had been planted outside of a floral shop, and vomited up the pastry, closing his eyes as his stomach heaved, expelling the morning pastry. After his stomach emptied, Pietro averted his eyes from the mess and turned away fro
m the bush, wiping at his mouth with the corner of his robe.
Just then a small child came running down the street, and, as the boy neared, Pietro realized that he was perhaps older than he had first seemed, as his eyes were serious and his muscles well-developed.
He called out to the boy in stunted Tretorian, “You there, boy, come here.”
The boy slowed down, eyed him suspiciously, and asked, “Did you need me, sir?”
“What is your name?” Pietro demanded, more harshly than he would have liked, his voice raw and hoarse.
In Common, the boy stuttered, “I haven’t done nothing wrong. Just trying to find some work.”
He handed the boy the wrapped pastries, and added, “Take these. I had enough.”
When the boy reached for the bag, he hesitated and asked, “Did you see anything strange just now, back there?”
When the boy paled, Pietro had his answer, but said, “There is nothing to be afraid of, boy. Tell me what you saw.”
He clung to the bag of pastries as if he believed that Pietro would snatch them away at any moment, and kept his head down, chin tucked into his chest. Pietro was ready to grab the boy and force him to answer, but refrained, knowing that it would do little good to frighten the boy any more than he already was.
Instead, he knelt down on the ground and quietly said, “He is gone. That man you saw back there. And he will not be returning. But you must tell me what it was that you saw.”
The boy was breathing deeply and trembling a little, but seemed to relax when Pietro gently took the sweets from him, unwrapped them, and then handed him the lightly powdered pastries. As he ate, his cheeks regained some color, darkening to a light, nutty shade.
Chewing, the boy mumbled, “My name’s Lido. And you probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you what I saw.”
Convinced that the boy had seen the Tribesman, Pietro said, “Lido, I want to help you. And whatever it is that you saw, I will believe you.”
Lido, who still wouldn’t look directly at Pietro, started talking, and his words were even more surprising than what Pietro would have believed.
“This morning, I was supposed to meet Darios, and we were going to see if Donallos, he’s the butcher, needed any help. Sometimes he has us clean up for him, and then he will give us some meat to take home. Well, Darios never showed up, so I left, and started walking toward the butcher’s shop. See, there’s this shortcut, and I already had wasted too much time waiting for Darios, so I was running in between some of the buildings. When I was outside the building that the healers use, I saw something.”
The boy stopped speaking so abruptly that Pietro nearly cried out in anticipation, anxious for Lido to finish his story. As he waited, biting his lip to keep himself from forcing the boy to continue, Lido slowly unwrapped the other pastry and began eating it, this one peach-filled and smelling sweet. The sun was climbing higher in the sky, and Pietro knew that if the boy did not hurry then he would be late for his morning class with Master Rova.
“Lido, come with me. I must be heading back to the Academy, but you can walk with me for a bit and finish your tale. You will be safe, I promise.”
“You have seen him too. The man who rides the spirit horse.”
“Come,” Pietro said, grabbing the boy’s arm and nearly dragging him down the street, but this time the boy allowed him.
After several steps, he loosened his grip on Lido’s arm, and the two walked in silence. They continued, heading toward the Academy. Once inside the tall, iron-wrought gates that marked the campus entrance, Pietro led the boy in the direction of his rooms, realizing that it was far too late to try to make it to class. When he arrived at his door, he quickly placed his hand on the center of the door, watching Lido’s eyes grow large when he recognized the tingle in the air that signified the ward’s undoing. He kicked open the door and gestured to Lido to follow him into the room.
More relaxed than he had been on the street, the boy seemed pleased to be inside Pietro’s rooms, and, despite the early hour, Pietro poured himself a glass of watered-down wine. After a moment, he poured the boy an equally large glass, even though he was half his size. The boy blushed but accepted the glass, staring at the intricate Rexterran pattern that was etched along the base.
“You may keep the glass if you so wish. It was a gift from my father. But, first, we must tell each other all that we know,” Pietro explained.
When Pietro had the boy’s interest, he said, in a tone the masters often used, “I myself saw the man, and I was as afraid as I have ever been. When he looked at me, I thought he would kill me next. Yet, he did not. Tell me, Lido, did he see you?”
The boy shook his head, taking another sip of the crimson wine before answering in hushed words, “No, he didn’t see me. I have learned how to be silent, like a shadow. That’s what my mother used to call me. Her little shadow.”
A sudden look of sadness crossed his face after mentioning his mother.
“Is your mother well, Lido? I am a healer, you know, and if there is something to be done for her, I will do so.”
He again shook his head, replying, “You can’t help her now, sir. She died last summer from the coughing sickness.”
“What of your father, then?”
“Don’t know much of him. Although my ma used to say that he was an Islander, whatever that means. And that, someday, maybe he would come back and take me home with him. That is why she bartered with some students here to teach me Common, so that when he comes, I will be able to speak with him.”
Pietro smiled, recognizing the longing in the boy’s voice, the wish that his mother’s words might one day come true. He remembered back to the days of his own youth when he tried so hard to be the boy who his father wanted him to be, the man that his brothers were. Yet, he had never become so, instead leaving Rexterra altogether.
With another look at the boy, he noticed what should have been obvious when he first had met him, and would have been if he had not been so distracted by the morning’s events. Lido’s skin was a shade darker than most Tretorians, and his eyes were a deep shade of brown, framed by thick eyelashes. But, there was something else about him that set him apart from the other Tretorians, and Pietro could not place what exactly it was. He had little doubt that his father had been an Islander, yet something lingered behind the boy’s eyes, a touch wild and untamed.
Pietro shook his head and replied, “Of course, I see it now. You do have a look about you that isn’t all Tretorian. Do you know how to read, Lido? I am certain that we have many books about the Southern Cove Islands here at the Academy. I can take you there later today, if you would like.”
The boy smiled, exposing deep dimples that bordered his mouth, and answered, “My ma taught me a little. She wanted me to travel, maybe even to Rexterra, sir.”
“Let us first finish our discussion, and then I will show you the library. You are certain then that he did not see you?”
Lido shook his head, splashing the dark wine around in his glass.
“What did you see him do then? You mentioned a horse that was a ghost?”
“No, a spirit horse. That is what my mother called them. Not just an ordinary horse, you see. These ones are white and have wings to fly you home upon your last breath.”
Lido took a few more sips. Finally, slowly, he continued, “The man could hardly walk, and I thought maybe he had been injured. He was covered in blood and was leaning against the side of the building when I saw him, bent in half-like. When the wind shifted, I realized that the blood was not his because it did not smell like him.” The wine was strong in the boy, Pietro realized. “He mumbled some strange sounding words, and, a little bit later, the spirit horse appeared. He was riding atop it, sir.”
Pietro stared at the boy, afraid to interrupt, and clung to the goblet that he was holding, wrapping his fingers tightly around the glass, until his knuckles were white.
“The horse was white, but not sun-bleached like the buildings here. Shining w
hite. Like the way the sun shines through this glass.”
Lido held the glass up and let the sun streak through it, sending prisms of light throughout the room.
He continued, “That is how the horse was. He sparkled with rainbows, but his mane and tale were as white as could be. When the horse landed, it looked at me! Right at me! And for a moment I got scared. I thought that I was done for, sir, but the horse turned away from me and lifted his head toward the man, bowing down slowly. Then, the man nearly crawled to the horse. I wanted to help him get on the horse, but my ma always told me to mind my business, so I stayed back. He finally managed to get on the horse’s back, and then it jumped into the air.”
Pietro downed his wine in a loud gulp, setting the goblet down hard upon one of the many trunks that he had brought with him from the King’s City.
Then he turned back to the boy and said, “Come with me, Lido.”
The boy copied Pietro and finished his wine as quickly, a ruddiness spreading across his cheeks that had not been there when he had first entered Pietro’s rooms. For the first time in a long time, perhaps since he had last been in Rexterra, Pietro was excited about what he and Lido might discover. The thought sent a tingling chill down his back, and Pietro grabbed the boy, in a half-hug, which surprised them both and led him from the room, out into the blazing morning sun.
When next the man visits, I will have some answers, and maybe then he will tell me what Bronwen has done, Pietro mused as they hurried toward the library.
48
When he arrived, he could still barely stand, and his legs had shaken beneath him as he had tried to cross through the door. If it hadn’t been attuned to his touch, Conri feared that he would not have had the strength to unbind the warding. Rarely in his life had he been so weak. As he fell into the room, he wondered how Bronwen fared, having left the beach before she woke.
Now, he was lying on a large bed, covered with a thick, down-filled blanket, and, although his body ached, he breathed and his mind was clear. More than once he tried to call a flame, yet none came, although his fingers tingled, and Conri knew he would recover. Knowing he was safe and well-tended, he let his mind wander, unable to control the spiraling thoughts.
