by K. Eason
Small wonder musicians wouldn’t come up and play at its feet. They’d have to sit here, in the courtyard just outside the gates. Have to chirp and warble for the amusement of students and masters and Adepts, who came in and out of those gates with little patience for street entertainers.
Snow turned back to the remains of her lunch. Stringy meat in a stale roll, watered beer. Toadshit food never went out of fashion where there were students too poor and too busy to cross the Arch in search of better fare. She had been both. The memory dragged a smirk out of her that hardened and sloughed away. She’d eaten her share of shit up here. Paid for it, too, with more than copper bits.
She fingered the rim of her right ear. Four rings there. One, the silver with the garnet, marked her as a master chirurgeon. There were three others, narrow threads of gold. One of those could’ve been silver with a little more study. She would never have been an Adept, but she could’ve mastered fire, at least. She’d always had a talent for it.
But then Briel had happened. Little hatchling Briel, a cast-off project of one highborn second son, Perkal Vik. Snow had mended the svartjagr’s wings and earned the chirurgeon’s master ring, but she’d learned something else, besides.
Where your true talents are, yeah?
It was a tricky thing to kill a man and get the body off the Second Tier. Trickier still to conceal the evidence of murder from an Academy of conjurors and chirurgeons.
Try impossible, yeah? The ghost made a cold patch at Snow’s back. Ghost-Tsabrak came and went as he pleased, yeah, just like he had in life. You had help.
The Laughing God, the ghost meant. And himself, too. Tsabrak had been the first of her wounded things, beneficiary of a third-year chirurgeon’s skills. She’d benefited in turn, because Tsabrak knew how to dispose of bodies. But the God and Tsabrak hadn’t been there when Perkal Vik’s mother had searched the Academy in person, cell and corridor. They hadn’t been there when she’d threatened Senate inquiry, and Senate sanctions, unless her son was found unharmed.
That, Snow reckoned, was the reason she’d gotten away with it. The threat to Academy autonomy had closed its ranks against the ordinary divisions of sex and class. Suddenly there was evidence—a letter, some things missing from his chamber—that suggested Perkal Vik had taken a boat up the Tano and gone east. There were whispers of an affair with a common-born boy, one of the servants. A scandal that, if Senator Perkal pursued it, would taint her whole House. Suddenly there were witnesses who’d say, under oath, they’d seen Vik and the servant together.
Dekklis would have an opinion about the quality of those oaths. Dekklis would have an opinion about Academy insularity, too, but she’d understand it. She was legion. They, too, protected their own. And Dek had enough of a sense of honor that she might see the justice in what Snow had done.
And why do you care what she thinks?
A good question. Snow didn’t have any answers. Confronted the remains of her lunch instead and considered calling Briel down for the leavings. Reconsidered in the next moment. Briel wouldn’t want this toadshit. She’d turned picky over the years. Gotten used to better fare than this. Briel didn’t attach sentiment to substandard food eaten just outside the Academy’s front gates, sitting among students with unringed ears and plain queues. And Briel would attract a lot of attention.
Not that Snow hadn’t drawn attention already. She wore the rings and the topknot of an Academy scholar, but she dressed like a northerner, and the hair in her topknot was half-blood fair. It didn’t take paranoia to guess she was the subject of whispered conversations, held behind hands and turned backs. She could have dressed southern if she’d wanted to waste time in the markets, outfitting herself. But all the silks and linens in Illharek wouldn’t hide her hair, or her height. Half-bloods were unusual here but not unheard of. Let people notice, let them talk.
Not what you told your skraeling, was it?
Fuck’s own sake, Tsabrak, shut up.
No, what she’d told Veiko was simple truth. He would draw attention up in the Tiers, yeah, same kind he drew everywhere. But in the Suburba, people wouldn’t stare at an outlander, because that outlander might become your customer, might belong to one of the cartels, might be one of ten kinds of trouble you didn’t want. Here on the Arch, on the Second Tier, anyone that pale should be wearing a collar or showing ink where a collar had been. And no one up here, collared or not, would wear skraeling braids and carry an axe and look everyone in the eye.
Veiko had argued—
This is unwise.
—when she’d sent him Above yesterday. Had scowled and thought fool at her. Had imagined failed conjuring and broken bones and her body lost in the lake, which Briel had passed along to her, thank you, along with a headache that meant Briel was upset, Briel was worried.
Any luck at all, Veiko would’ve got that headache’s twin. Any luck, he’d still have it, same as she did. She’d told the man not to worry. He understood about Rata. He understood that he would be no help at all in the Archives. His own people didn’t even write, fuck and damn, how could he help her? But he worried about her just the same.
Same as she worried when he walked the ghost roads and left his body behind, which was what he intended to do, in his free time. Practice being noidghe.
Veiko had some reason to worry for her, to be fair. Her finger was mostly healed now, down to throbbing, with occasions of on-your-knees-and-gag pain when she bumped it into something. The arm just hurt, deep and constant. The chirurgeon part of her understood that wounds took time to heal. But the rest of her had no time for it, with Tal’Shik and Taliri and fucking Rata and her cartel. That part of her fretted and drove half-healed flesh as if it were whole.
Besides. She didn’t need to fight in the Archives. Didn’t need anything but her wits and her intellect, and they were in fine shape. What she needed was help getting inside. And that help hadn’t arrived yet. Fuck and damn.
At least there was one good thing about Illharek: you could get decent jenja here, and without spending fistfuls of coin. And you could light it without flint and patience or risking half a city block to backlash.
No, the drawback to conjuring in front of the Academy’s gates was that everyone around you knew exactly what you were doing, and everyone checked your earrings and reckoned the limit of talent and skill. A handcount of heads turned as Snow drew fire out of air and stone and lit the stick of jenja. Students, mostly, and one woman in a junior Adept’s robes. That one’s lip curled a little, too, when she caught Snow’s eye. Might be the three gold rings. Might be the fair hair.
Same toadshit as always.
Snow slid off the stool, abandoned the remains of her lunch on the bench. Walked past Domina Curled-Lip and toward the shops that ringed the plaza. Same goods you could get down in the Suburba, at twice the price. Rent went up with the distance from the Suburba. But no one up here would go shop down there. Highborn families had bondies to run errands for them, but the Academy forbade bondies in its walls. That’s what students were for, scut work and errands. And fucking few of them would dare the Suburba; they’d pay what the shops asked up here, even if custom said any coin left from their master’s shopping became their profit. They were, most of them, highborn. They had no idea how to bargain. No idea how to navigate the Suburban streets.
That had been her advantage. She knew the neighborhoods. Knew how to cut coin, how to weigh bits of copper, or silver, or gold. She knew what things were worth, and she had the accent to bargain with Suburban shopkeeps. She’d got to be damn popular, too, once people figured that out. Mark that one advantage for the half-blood.
Snow paused in front of an apothecary. Smaller than her mother’s shop, brighter, whitewashed. Glass jars and bottles lined the back wall, each one labeled—trusting a clientele that could read and who might not recognize the contents without written help.
That was the second advantage Snow had had that her classmates had not, when they’d got to basic herbalism. She knew where
the mossflower grew, because she’d gone and picked it. She knew how to dry snailsilver so that it didn’t go brittle, because she’d done it. She knew how to tell toadwort from nettle without reading the motherless label on the toadfucking jar, because her mother had dragged her through every field within a day’s walk of Illharek and made her learn.
Snow hadn’t admitted how she’d come by her knowledge. She’d let her fellow students imagine genius and raw talent, imagine reasons how the half-blood from the Suburba was better in this one thing than all the daughters of the First Tier. It had been Belaery who’d found her out, the only other half-blood. Belaery’s mother was from the Second Tier, a merchant with highborn clientele. Belaery didn’t have a Suburban accent. Belaery’d had a bondie tutor, just like a highborn daughter. And because of that, Belaery’s we-don’t-talk-about-it father, whoever he’d been, hadn’t mattered. That, and Bel had been lucky, favoring the Dvergir half of her parentage, in features and frame.
Snow remembered envying the crowblack twist of Bel’s queue. Remembered Bel catching her staring, and sidling up after class.
I can get you some, Snowdenaelikk.
What?
The dye I use. I can get you some.
Remembered staring at her, yeah. What motherless dye?
I’m a half-blood, too, confessed in Bel’s midtown accent that sounded like money. I’ll trade you. The dye for your help on exams.
It wasn’t quite the beginning of a friendship. But alliance, oh yes, they’d forged that. Belaery didn’t like not knowing things. She’d gone with Snow to the Suburba on a dare—
The fuck you afraid of?
—and made her own contact with Snow’s mother, who’d seen a wealthy future client in Belaery’s pretty face.
That had been the beginning of an alliance of half-bloods, and of new business for her mother’s shop. Bel had started buying her supplies down in the Suburba—making the walk herself and telling everyone else about it. No few customers had come from that. Sinnike still had them on the books. Makaer and Jhaen, Breszy and Ylisan Kel. And Uosuk Belaery, the merchant’s daughter who’d gone on to earn four master rings and an Adept’s ring and robes. Who, Sinnike said, still asked after Snow’s health and well-being when she came shopping.
So it had been easy enough to send Bel a message. She’d written it out on paper, in the ornate Academy script that Bel had helped her learn.
The letter curls this way, Snow, see?
Rolled it and sealed it, ribbon and runes traced on the paper. Handed it to Kaj—
Read it and your eyes will burst, yeah? So don’t.
—to deliver. And Kaj had come back and said Adept Uosuk Belaery had asked Snow to meet her at sixth mark, third day, at the Academy’s front gates.
Well. It was somewhat past sixth mark, but Bel hadn’t ever been punctual, and—
“The snailsilver here is no good,” said a midtown accent, drawn out slowly. “You can tell. The edges are curled up and brown.”
Snow’s mouth twitched. She lifted her chin. Didn’t look at the woman who had come up beside her. “So where do you suggest I go, then?”
“I know a place.” The accent shifted, suddenly. “Down in the Suburba, yeah? I can show you.”
“I think I know where it is.” Snow looked at her finally. “Thought you weren’t coming.”
“No. Just late.” Belaery unfolded a smile. She had the four silver master rings in her right ear; the one in her left was the braided silver and steel that meant Adept. “I wasn’t sure I believed the message, except that no one mangles script quite like you. Then I wasn’t sure I would recognize you.” She inspected Snow like a potential purchase. “Life in the north must agree with you. You look just like you did when you left.”
“So do you.” Same classic Dvergiri beauty, same slender, not-too-tall frame. Same unbroken midnight hair, pulled up in a tidy conjuror’s topknot. “You’re still dyeing your hair.”
“It’s still easier.”
“I reckon.” The jenja was down to smoke and charred butt. Snow flipped it into her palm. Willed it all the way to ash. There was a flash and hiss as the fire did as she asked. She brushed her hand off. Didn’t look up. “Congratulations on the fifth ring. Adept.”
“Thank you.” There had been a time Bel would’ve threaded her arm through Snow’s and they would have walked together like sisters. Bel started to reach. Caught herself and stopped and let her hand drop. “I never expected to see you again.”
“I didn’t expect to come back.”
“And yet, here you are.” The midtown manners fell away, taking the wide eyes and wider smile. This was the Bel Snow remembered, narrow-eyed and flat-lipped. “I was just down in the shop, what, four days ago. Sinnike didn’t say you were coming.”
“Sinnike didn’t know.”
A nod, as if that matched Belaery’s expectations. “And you didn’t come up here out of sentiment, just to visit.”
Was a time Snow would’ve borrowed Belaery’s midtown manners, and
lied
protested no, she’d come to see Bel first, business after. But now: “I need to get into the Archives.”
Bel hitched an eyebrow. “You don’t need me for that. You’re on the graduate rolls.”
“I wasn’t sure about that. Since, you know.”
“Oh, toadshit. No one cares where you went, or what you do now. You earned your rings here. That matters more than your dubious associations during and after.” Bel’s eyes glinted with a sudden wicked humor. “How’s Briel?”
“She’s fine. Somewhere up there, gliding around.”
“They never found Perkal Vik.”
“I didn’t reckon. If they had, you’d’ve told Sinnike, and she’d’ve thrown that at me along with the rest of her toadshit.”
Belaery pulled out her tight and brittle smile, the one that meant her humor was growing fangs. “Even if they locked and barred the door, Snow, you’re telling me you couldn’t get into the Archives?”
“It’s easier with keys and a faculty escort. Besides. Your pre-Purge Dvergiri is better than mine.”
“Pre-Purge Dvergiri.” Bel squinted at the Academy gates, as if she could see through wood and iron and stone. “I’d ask if you’re in trouble, but I don’t think you’ll tell me the truth.”
Snow hauled in a mouthful of air, wished for more jenja, and blew her lungs clear. “Well, then you’re wrong. I am in trouble.”
“Mm.”
“So’s Illharek.”
“That sounds dramatic.” Bel’s smile flickered. Went out like a candle in rain as Snow looked at her. “What the hell are you into?”
“Met a woman up north. She was a half-blood like us, only her other half was Talir. That’s where I met her. With Taliri. She had ink on her hand, like I do. But not to the God.”
Belaery blinked. “You’re serious.”
“The Taliri have been burning the north all winter. Leaving men on poles, yeah? The old ways. Her ways.”
Silence now. Wide eyes.
“That half-blood I met—she knew godmagic. I saw her work it. I saw.” Against her eyelids, in between blinks: blood running up the walls, violet fire, a woman’s flesh stretching into something else. “I saw an avatar. She knew the rituals, yeah? She knew. She was never a student here, Bel. She’s never been in the Archives. And I’m damn sure she can’t read pre-Purge Dvergiri. So tell me how she learned them. Tell me how she became godsworn. There’s only one fucking way. From the source, yeah? From the fucking goddess.”
“What happened to her?”
“I think she’s dead. I don’t know. I—” Snow bit the word off as a clot of students came too close, all chatter and waving hands. Waited until they passed, and dropped her voice, “I tried to kill her, yeah? Pulled a building down on her. But I didn’t stay to see if it worked. The Taliri were all over Cardik by then. Fucking army, Bel. We just ran.”
“We? You and Tsabrak?”
“Tsabrak’s dead. Me and my partner.
And a couple of legion soldiers.”
Belaery blinked. Shook her head slowly. “The Senate needs to know about this.”
“One of the soldiers who came south with us is a senator’s daughter. She’s handling that report. Listen, Bel. My partner—he’s from a northern tribe, not Taliri. He’s got some tricks for dealing with spirits. And he says that’s all she is. Just a really big, old ancestor spirit. I want to know if he’s right.”
Belaery’s fingers clenched around a gesture that was part warding, part reflex. “And you think that information’s in the Archives?”
“I think so. If we go far enough back, we might find out what she was before everyone started calling her a god.”
“She’s heresy. She’s superstition.”
That was the midtown conservatism, that was Illhari law, that was—
“Toadshit. You know better.”
“What you’re asking, Snow. It’s treason.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re serious. You really believe this.”
“Yeah. Same way I believe in sunlight and water.”
Bel chuckled. Dry little sound, like lizard claws on tile. “Fuck and damn, Snowdenaelikk. I was expecting you to lie to me. Now I wish you had.”
The air was too thick. The sky was too far away, and too blue, and the wind was too gentle. There were trees Veiko did not recognize, and flowers, and grasses. There were birds, too, whose songs he did not know, whose colors seemed bright and garish.
At least there were crows. Raucous congregations of them, studding the alien trees, more than he’d ever seen at once. And there were roads—paved Illhari things, wide and official, as well as honest dirt paths—cross lacing the forests. Smoke spread long fingers into the sky, from woodcutter’s huts and small farms. And in the open places there were either villages or the great sprawling houses of Illhari highborn, with their fields spreading around them, and still more huts and habitations. A man could not go high enough, or far enough, that he did not see someone’s smoke, or cross a dirt path in the forest made by two feet instead of four.
