by Jae Waller
Parr gestured toward two padded benches around a low table. “Please, take a seat. Excuse my manners. I have a meeting soon, but I can spare a few minutes.”
He strode past a heavy carved desk, undid a clasp at his neck, and hung his robe on a hook. Underneath he wore a black silk waistcoat, a white collared shirt, and black breeches. A triangle of deep green silk showed above his breast pocket. A slender knife sheath peeked from under his waistcoat hem. I wondered if he always carried it, or just since Skaarnaht.
Parr turned back, catching my glance. “Now, you were saying?”
I edged forward, sinking into a rug, and perched on a bench. “Sir, maybe it would be helpful to consult people who actually know what Suriel is.”
He rested his hands on the back of the other bench. “We have a scholar of viirelei studies attending who is an expert on local mythology.”
“With all respect, Councillor, anyone who says saidu are a myth isn’t who you should ask. The Iyo have known about Suriel since long before itherans arrived.”
Iannah, still standing, tilted her head. The permanent blank expression of Colonnium guards was aggravating.
If Parr was surprised, he didn’t show it either. “Falwen and I discussed the idea briefly. We concluded it unlikely the Council would agree to invite a viirelei.”
“Couldn’t you persuade them? The Sverbians might agree.”
“Perhaps, but they make up only a quarter of the Council, and the inquiry schedule has already been drawn up. I would have to request an extension, and find a viirelei both knowledgeable and willing—”
“Falwen could send a messenger to Toel Ginu.” If I was pretending to be Iyo, may as well go all in. “He probably didn’t press the issue because the Crieknaast events didn’t affect us. But my friend, another Iyo, nearly died in the Skaarnaht riot. My people can’t avoid this anymore.”
Parr deliberated a moment, then crossed to his desk and scrawled on a slip of paper with a white quill. “I suppose it cannot hurt to try. Pelennus, would you do me the favour of delivering this to Falwen? My apologies — I know you are off duty.”
Iannah took the folded paper and gave a clipped bow. I dipped into a curtsy like Marijka taught me, but Parr’s voice stopped me at the door.
“Actually, Miss Kateiko, if you would stay a moment.”
I looked at Iannah. She shrugged.
After she left, Parr said, “I learned something from Mayor Vorhagind yesterday.”
“What, sir?”
The dim light cast him into silhouette against violet sky. “A young viirelei woman acquainted with Tiernan Heilind broke into Crieknaast’s town hall. She advised the mayor to oppose the Council by abandoning Dúnravn Pass.”
I froze. I couldn’t think. My heart thudded against the stiff boning of my bodice.
“Do you know what happened in Rutnaast?”
“Nei, not — entirely.”
“Half the ships on Burren Inlet sank in a storm. Vorhagind warned Rutnaast to abandon their port. They did not. A day later, soldiers bearing Suriel’s sigil sailed down the inlet. Rutnaast no longer exists.”
Parr slowly crossed the room. “The world owes a great deal to people who are not afraid to break the rules.” He opened the door and bowed. “Have a pleasant evening, Miss Kateiko.”
•
I met Iannah again the next afternoon. We followed a cobblestone path that started in the docklands and wound down the coast. The next day she brought dull practice blades and taught me sword-fighting stances in the fields behind the Colonnium. I challenged her to spar hand-to-hand, no weapons allowed. She trounced me every time, pinning me in the snow even though I had a palm of height on her.
Iannah slept strange hours around her midnight-to-noon post, so I had a lot of time alone. My horse, Anwea, seemed to know the paths across the Roannveldt and trotted happily through slush and muck. I spent an evening in Segowa’s stall helping Airedain cut hides. Segowa gave me amber-coloured sapsweet and showed me what they made with my furs.
I wondered aloud how two people managed the shop. A single blanket took weeks to embroider. Nili, Hiyua, and the other Rin embroiderers spent all winter sewing goods to trade with itherans. Segowa explained that she and Airedain only made the items that had to be tailored in the shop — cloaks, gloves, slippers. Things like blankets and purses were made by her daughter or nieces in Toel Ginu.
I didn’t press them about Dunehein. Knowing he and his wife were alive was enough for now. Making a good impression on the Iyo in Caladheå seemed like my best way of easing into diplomacy. Self-restraint, as Isu said.
One day I woke and realized my birthday had passed. I didn’t know the exact date, just that it was half a month past Yanben. Any other year wouldn’t have mattered, but I was eighteen. Old enough to marry outside my jouyen.
I mentioned it to Iannah later, trying to sound offhand. We sat on a brick wall bordering a park, watching people pass. Snowflakes swirled around as if afraid to meet the earth.
“Doesn’t matter unless there’s someone you want to marry, right?” she said.
I kicked my heels against the wall. I couldn’t explain without admitting I wasn’t Iyo. “I just feel like I should be looking.”
“No rush.” She picked a burnt corner off her bread. “My oldest sister got married at sixteen. She sounds miserable in her letters.”
“You must want to get married eventually.”
“Can’t. Female soldiers aren’t allowed to be courted by men.”
I crinkled my brows. “That sounds . . . lonely.”
“Not like I have time for romance. Easier to just not think about it.”
“Oh, come on. Like you can shut your brain off. Or your eyes.” I pointed at a young man with dark curly hair and broad shoulders. “You don’t think he’s lush?”
Iannah gave me an appalled look. I laughed.
I expected her to return to the Colonnium at sunset, but she insisted my birthday couldn’t go ignored. She stopped at a grocer and made me wait outside, after which I made her come back to the Blackened Oak where it was warm. This inn didn’t have communal rooms, so we weren’t worried about disturbing anyone. We kicked off our boots and sat cross-legged on my bed. Iannah unbuttoned her coat and tossed it over a stool. Underneath she wore a sleeveless white shirt that showed her curving muscles.
“Hold out your hand.” Iannah counted small green objects into my palm. “Salted beans. You have to eat one for each year you’re turning. It’s a Ferish tradition.”
I rubbed a finger over them, feeling the grit of the salt. “Can I drink water in between?”
“Only after every tenth one.”
“You’re making that part up.”
She grinned. I’d never seen even the trace of a smile on her lips before. “I did twenty-two without any water.”
“Fine. Watch.” I started eating the beans one at a time, crunching them between my teeth. I wanted water after six. At ten my mouth tasted like bean-flavoured salt. I glanced down at the last eight — and tipped them all into my mouth at once.
Iannah burst out laughing as I choked them down. She tossed me a waterskin. “Here you go, Koehl. Well done.”
I drank until the sting of salt was rinsed away. “I don’t want to get any older.”
“Don’t complain. You got to skip the first seventeen years.” She held out the bag of beans. “Hungry?”
•
The sky was clear and bright the next day, so I waited for Iannah outside the Colonnium. I stood by the courtyard fountain watching water bubble up and fall into a wide basin. On a platform in the centre was a bronze statue of a man, one foot resting on an anchor. He wore a triangular hat and held a scroll over his head. I crouched to read a plaque on the base.
“Sir Gustos Dévoye. Captain of the Péloma,” said a voice next to me.
I jerked
up, twisting my knee. “Oh — Councillor Parr. I didn’t hear you coming.”
He gazed at the statue, politely ignoring my pain. “Dévoye was one of our most famous naval captains. He founded Eremur’s first trading port.”
“Found it? Was he lost?”
Parr chuckled. “Some speculate he was.”
I glanced around the empty courtyard. “Why are you out here, sir?”
“Fresh air eases my mind.” He rubbed his thumb over a silver ring on his finger. “I have good news, although just as likely you have heard already. Your nation agreed to send your second-in-command as envoy.”
“The proper title is Okoreni-Iyo.” I twisted my braid behind my back. “Just . . . might be good to remember.”
Parr bowed. “I hope that does not rattle free from my mind in the next three weeks.”
“Three weeks? How long does an inquiry take?”
“Far too long.” He sighed. “Let us hope nothing else goes wrong in the meantime.”
As I walked through the city with Iannah later, I told her it was my last day in Caladheå, but I’d be back for the Iyo testimony. “You know where to find me,” she said. I went to see Airedain, but Segowa said he had gone to Toel Ginu. I fell asleep that night dreaming of silent gusts swirling between mountain peaks.
15.
HOUSE OF THE DEAD
I heard the thud of the axe before I saw Tiernan. He was by the cabin splitting logs with rhythmic blows. His beard had grown out. I hadn’t noticed before, but without a tan he was almost as pale as Marijka. He looked up at me and went back to work. I took my time brushing Anwea’s sleek brown coat in the stable. Gwmniwyr whickered in the next stall.
Tiernan rested the axe on his shoulder as I approached. “You came back.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” I leaned against the cabin, inhaling the woody scent of hemlock.
“Maika said you were spending time with a viirelei family.”
“And the guard who escorted us through the Colonnium.” I wasn’t going to lie, no matter what Marijka said.
“You have a knack for encountering dangerous people.”
“Like you?”
“That is different.” Tiernan swung the axe into a log, loosed the blade and swung again.
I folded my arms. “You’re mad at me.”
“It is none of my business who you spend time with.”
“But you care.” I stepped forward, crunching through the snow. “Aeldu curse it, Tiernan. Is that so hard to admit?”
He tossed the split wood aside and balanced another piece on the block. “She is a soldier, Kateiko. What do you think will happen if she learns you are lying about being Iyo? Or that you killed one of her comrades?”
“I’d tell her why. Maybe she’d understand.”
“She has to follow Council orders.”
“What would you have me do? Live in exile? Some people like having friends.” I regretted it even before I saw his wounded expression. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
He turned away. “You should go see Maika.”
•
The woodpile was overflowing when I returned. I crept across the clearing and hesitated on the porch before knocking. Tiernan opened the door and returned to his book. I climbed the loft ladder and lay awake late into the night, huddled under my fir branch blanket, listening to the fire fade into lifeless embers.
A cold snap had North Iyun Bel in a chokehold. As the weather squeezed the breath from the forest, Tiernan and I circled each other in uneasy dissonance. He brought firewood in every morning and then went to his workshop. I spent hours curled up with my book, speaking the sounds aloud. My voice felt thin inside the empty cabin. I started a story about a wise woman who healed the sick, but the words were too complicated, and I gave up halfway.
My breath froze into icy filaments on my mantle when I ventured out to check my snares. More often than not, they were empty. Everything hid in warm burrows. When I tried to tug an unlucky squirrel free, the brittle wire snapped and sliced my wrist. As I sucked away the blood, something occurred to me. I dashed back to the clearing, almost forgetting to grab the squirrel, and burst into the workshop.
Tiernan looked up. “Your game is bleeding on my floor.”
“Nei, that’s me.” I dug my heel into the frozen dirt to bury the red drops. “Tiernan, where did Suriel’s army come from? I mean, who are they?”
“No one knows. I would guess mercenaries from Nyhemur or the south.”
“So they could be anyone, right? They could wear a different sigil and no one would recognize them.”
Tiernan set down a paper. “What are you getting at?”
“Maybe those soldiers in the woods weren’t from Caladheå. That’s why they didn’t care about killing Nili and me. That’s why no one ever came looking for them.”
“Why would Suriel’s men be here?”
“No idea, but they mentioned poachers near that valley of stumps up the creek, and the only traps in this area besides mine are years old. So why ride to an abandoned logging camp at night? Why kill us except to keep us quiet?”
Tiernan ran his finger over the wall map. Then he lifted his sword down and buckled the scabbard around his waist as he strode toward the door. The fire in the brazier sputtered out. “Get your cloak.”
“I’m already wearing it,” I muttered. I tossed the squirrel into the snow and hurried after him to the stable.
After hours of riding with only creaking saddles, snuffling horses, and crunching snow to break the awkward silence, I was almost relieved to reach the camp. Almost. Skeletal alder grasped at the sky like effigies. Ice suffocated the creek.
“This place has been abandoned for years,” Tiernan said as we approached the buildings on the bank. “Log drivers used the creek to transport lumber. They passed Maika’s house every day. When the Storm Year began, they fled.”
I shivered. “Can’t say I blame them.”
He reined in Gwmniwyr among saplings poking through white drifts. “Do you feel anything?”
“Other than creeped out?”
“Auras. Lingering magic. There might be some trace of Suriel.”
“Nei. I haven’t seen anything this side of the sky bridge.” The cold leeched moisture from the air, but I felt the familiar tingle of water in the blanket of snow.
Tiernan rode up to a building and pressed his hand to the wall. The air shimmered like a scorching summer day, warping the planks. He flinched as light erupted through cracks in the wall. I shielded my eyes, but the negative image was seared inside my eyelids. A long-necked bird with spread wings, its head turned to the side.
“Oh, fuck,” I said.
Snowflakes skittered over the frozen creek. Wind flooded down the valley and slammed into us, almost knocking me from the saddle. I grabbed the reins as my hair whipped around my face. Icy needles stung my eyes until I could barely see through the blinding whiteness.
“Hold on!” Tiernan shouted.
A ring of fire erupted around us. I flung my arms around Anwea’s neck as she reared. Waves of snow drove into the flaming wall, sizzling into steam that poured into the sky. The valley splintered into shards of orange and scarlet and gold light.
I huddled low over Anwea until the wind stilled and the flames faded. I looked up to see a circle of scorched stumps surrounded by puddles. Woodchips and twigs floated in the water. Ash drifted through the air.
“Runic magic.” Tiernan flexed his fingers. “More like a signature than a threat. Suriel has not been here in a long time.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Maybe. We still do not know why his men were here.” He turned Gwmniwyr around. The reins trembled in his hands. “We should go.”
•
I should’ve been relieved. I could return to Caladheå without fear. Without hiding from e
very soldier I saw or dreading the day Iannah learned I killed one of her comrades. Yet someone was buried in these woods because of me, and Suriel’s reach seemed further all the time.
“Stay close to home tonight,” Tiernan said. Then he returned to his workshop and left me wondering where home was.
I dug a chunk of alder out of the kindling box and sat by the fire while my squirrel stew simmered. The last time I whittled was on the shore of Kotula Huin when it was too humid to hold my hunting knife. In winter my hands never warmed. My fingers were clumsy around the rawhide grip.
Tiernan came in with an armful of wood and tossed a log under the stew pot. He paused to watch curls of wood fall at my feet.
“I’ll sweep it up,” I said.
“I did not know you whittled,” he said, stacking firewood in the corner.
I grimaced as the bone blade slipped. “Apparently I don’t.”
He pulled up the other chair and sat down, leaning his elbows on his knees. “You need a proper whittling knife. That blade is too large.”
I brandished it at him. “This is all I have.”
Tiernan pushed my blade down and took his folding knife from his breast pocket. “Here.”
I accepted it cautiously. The grip was pale polished wood, fire-branded with a curling design like filigree, still warm from his body heat. I swung the steel blade out from the notch in the handle. “You trust me with this?”
“I have seen you skin a rabbit.” He adjusted my fingers around the handle. “Try to relax. When your mind is at ease, your hands will follow.”
“Is that why you stopped carving?”
He pulled away. He was silent a long time, staring into the fire. Finally, he said, “I used to whittle when I travelled. Now it . . . is better if I do not.”
I bit my lip as I looked at him. Soot had settled in the lines of his skin like a tattoo. “Tiernan . . . you don’t have to go through this alone.”
