The Baker's Wife--complete

by Amy Keeley

  “Of course not.” Zhiv’s brow furrowed. “Where was Tira when he did this to you?”

  “With me,” she whispered.

  “And you sent her to Hon Jixsin’s after?”

  “He knows where Hon Jixsin lives,” Krysilla said, more to herself than anyone else.

  “But he doesn’t know how close your sister is to he or I, nor what she feels toward you. You haven’t been too sociable since your arrival.” His eyes opened. “It’s him.” He stared at the dagger as if he’d suddenly discovered a snake in his hand. “He’s been handling this and recently.” Turning toward Nitty with more energy than he’d shown all morning, he said, “He’s coming here, isn’t he?” He crouched down once more in front of her.

  “I don’t—”

  “Oh, but you do know. Or at least, can guess.” His eyes narrowed, an angry smile growing on his face. “You’re meant to keep us here. Damn it all!” He got up and gestured toward Krysilla’s bag. “We’re leaving.” He opened one of the drawers and grabbed the satchel he always carried with him.

  Krysilla didn’t move. “What about Nitty?”

  “If,” he’d slung the worn leather satchel over the shoulder of his velvet tunic, “and I still can’t believe I’m accepting this as a possibility, but if Lord Teranasin is alive, we have no time. We should have left this room the moment your sister entered it.”

  “We can’t leave her. Not when she could die.”

  “She won’t die.” With a gaze that seemed a mixture of fury and pity, he said to Nitty, “He’d rather keep you locked up in a room somewhere than kill you. After we leave, you’ll sit here, like the goodwife you once were, and quietly wait for him to punish you.” With a disgusted glare, he said to Krysilla, “She came into this room, knowing she couldn’t do what he asked. And he only asked her because he knew whatever is in this dagger is enough to keep me here against my will and every moment we linger is another moment we might end up dead so let’s go!” He walked to the door, obviously willing to leave her behind.

  Unsure what to think, Krysilla turned to her sister. “Nitty?”

  “Take care of Tira,” she said, all hope gone from her eyes now.

  Before Zhiv could open the door and with his hand still on the handle, Krysilla shoved it closed. “You know the ancient spells.”

  “What you’re about to suggest is exactly what he’d love for me to do. That proof would seal my execution.”

  “And if you can undo the spell before he arrives?”

  “Goodwife, he may already be here.”

  “I’m not leaving without her.” Her jaw set, she was certain Zhiv would open the door and walk out on both of them.

  Instead, he stared at her, the muscles in his jaw working as furiously as his fingers now tapping on his thigh. “All right,” he said. “I’ve probably killed us both using time we don’t have, but all right.”

  He knelt down in front of her and put the dagger in Nitty’s hands. “I’ve never tried this before.”

  “Are you saying you might kill me?” she said, some of the girl Krysilla had known coming back to life.

  “No. Disfigured for life and still bound to Vyomsi, perhaps. I don’t have the skill to kill you. Not like this.”

  “How comforting,” she muttered.

  He traced long lines on her arms and hands, then got up and began to trace figures on her back. Then, he paused. Krysilla covered her mouth when she realized he wasn’t sure what to do next. She watched as he closed his eyes and hesitated in drawing the spell, starting and stopping more than once. Muttering words to himself she couldn’t understand, he began drawing the spell once more on her sister’s back. Krysilla could feel the edges of the spell he was drawing spread through the air, a heaviness in the casting that reminded her of the few times she’d touched Ornic magic.

  He stood far too slowly and walked around to face Nitty. Is this too much for him? Krysilla wondered, regretting asking him. Once more he crouched down in front of Nitty, taking the dagger from her. And his hand shook.

  He closed his eyes, and held the pommel once more against his forehead. He breathed in deep. “I can’t break it,” he said. Nitty’s face fell. “But,” he quickly said, “I can bend it. From what I can tell, there’s nothing in the spell that demands death itself, only blood. So take it.” He gave the dagger back to her.

  Nitty’s eyes widened. “But—in the blade—”

  “Go ahead.” Zhiv unbuttoned his cuff, exposing his arm. “Two cuts, one on each side, deep enough to get the blade wet, and the spell will be broken, do it quickly before I lose patience and decide to leave you here, after all.”

  Nitty only hesitated once, then sliced him twice, as he’d instructed. She gasped, eyes wide, and Krysilla felt the magic disperse...and linger in the walls of the room, still with that distinctive heaviness.

  “Thank you,” Nitty said, breathless.

  “When we’re outside the city, then thank me.” Opening a drawer, he used the smaller dagger to cut off the sleeve of a white shirt. Wrapping his arm as he walked, he said to Krysilla as he passed, “Happy?”

  “Very.” I owe you for this, she thought, and, grinning madly, she grabbed her sack in one hand and her sister’s hand in the other. Zhiv was already in the corridor. But he wasn’t heading to the servants’ stairs. He was heading down a hall with sunlight spilling onto the floor at the end.

  The remembrance that Nitty had said there was something in the blade was quickly lost as they hurried to catch up. Krysilla gasped when they did. He’d led them to the grand staircase that spiraled up through the keep. Sunlight streamed from what appeared to be windows set into the ceiling over the staircase, illuminating the various symbols carved into its white, stone surface.

  He gestured impatiently for them to follow. They walked alongside the grand staircase, then turned left and ducked into a small room that was little more than a closet. “I didn’t expect, when I placed this here, that I’d have others with me,” Zhiv explained, and closed the door behind them. “Nitty, you’ll go first, then Krysilla. Don’t try to move from where you arrive or you might end up getting separated from the rest of us.” He chuckled. “And I’m saying this to the woman who would have held a dagger to me.”

  “Are you sending me to Tira?” Nitty asked, the first signs of hope showing in her voice.

  “No. But I assure you, as long as your daughter is with Hon Jixsin, she will be perfectly safe. He can blend in far better than one like me. Now,” he rummaged around in the dark. There was a sound of cloth being unfolded. “It’s not like the carved Ornic doors of years past, but it’ll do. Just hold still, Nitty, until you feel it draped over you, then step forward. You’ll have to lift it open on the other side, but that should be all.”

  “I’m trusting you on this,” Nitty said, though Krysilla knew she wasn’t talking to Zhiv.

  “We’ll meet again soon,” Krysilla promised.

  “I hope so,” she muttered. And then, with a swish of cloth and the sound of one step, Krysilla felt the spell pull at the space where Nitty had been standing, then disappear, as if it had been sucked out of existence.

  “Will the Dogs be able to trace her?”

  “I change the location each time I use it.” The cloth began to fall over her, but Krysilla batted it away.

  “You didn’t mention that.”

  “If we move quickly, it won’t matter.”

  She thought of his shaking hand. “What about you?”

  “I’ll join you.”

  Lord Teranasin had threatened the royal family. “You’re staying to help them, aren’t you?”

  She could hear Zhiv grind his teeth in the dark. “The longer we wait—”

  “I saw your hand, Zhiv.” Her voice was low, but just loud enough for him to hear. She knew he heard her in the way his breath caught. “You haven’t eaten. You’re recovering from a fever caused by pushing yourself last night, using spells that I’ve never seen any tradesman, or anyone for that matter, use. Yo
u did the work of nobles the day before and you pushed yourself yet again when you freed my sister.” And then she remembered what her sister had said about the blade. “How much were you able to bend the spell?”

  “Now is not the time to discuss the finer points of Ornic technique,” he nearly snapped.

  In answer, Krysilla opened the door and stepped back into the hall. Behind her, she could hear Zhiv put away the cloth with an angry swipe of his hand. “Impossible,” he whispered as he passed her to the grand staircase. “Come along, then. Let’s go visit the Queen.” He glanced at her as they tried not to run up the steps. “You do realize there’s a possibility we’ll have the Dogs against us?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re still willing to follow me into that? What battle spells do you know?”

  “As many as you, given what you’ve said.” They had gone up two floors and she was starting to wonder how high up the staircase went. “Or are you saying the focus of your group wasn’t defense?”

  “Same spells, goodwife. Same spells.”

  She knew she’d be useless if it came to it. But she hoped she might be able to modify something she already knew, much in the same way Zhiv had in order to hide the cart what felt like an eternity ago. Maybe one of the fire spells. She cringed at the thought, but these were the Dogs. She’d watched them burn a man to ashes.

  But perhaps they wouldn’t need to face the Dogs. Perhaps everything would go well, and Zhiv could speak with the Queen and everything would be all right.

  They had gone three floors up, total, when they stepped off onto a marble floor with blue rugs trimmed in gold. Before them stood an intricately carved door, much bigger than anything she’d seen so far in the castle. Zhiv slowed. “The King is dead, goodwife.” And then he gave her a look that told her his former influence among the royal family might have diminished.

  “Just tell me how I can help.”

  “Wait here. If I don’t come out after one verse of Lovely Lisbet sung in your head, run back to the place I showed you and don’t hesitate this time.”

  “I make no promises.”

  “No, you have to promise me this or I’ll pick you up and throw you in myself.”

  She remembered his shaking hand and how tired he looked. “Can’t.”

  “Tira and Nitty? You’d abandon them for me?” He snorted lightly. “I thought better of you than that.”

  Part of her knew he had a point, and yet, she also knew she couldn’t let him face this alone. “Hon Jixsin will watch over them. But someone has to watch over you.”

  He eyed her for several moments, his calculating gaze making her feel she’d said something wrong. “I certainly feel better now,” he finally mumbled, then turned toward the ornate door.

  She grabbed him by the arm before he could walk away. “I trust your ability to talk. You’ll come back, and I’ll be waiting.”

  That earned her a brief smile. “Wish Parlay well, goodwife.”

  He took her hand from off his arm, hesitated, then raised her hand to his lips and pressed them against her fingers. He watched her, as if unsure of her reaction.

  Which made no sense. Zhiv had always been able to see through her. Not that she had anything to hide, even if he couldn’t.

  He knocked and waited. The Queen asked who it was. Zhiv cocked his head to one side, as if listening to something else that didn’t make it far enough for Krysilla to hear. A child’s scream pierced the door. Zhiv yanked the handle, but the door didn’t open. Krysilla rushed forward to help him before it was too late when he muttered a curse under his breath. “Run!” he yelled, racing toward her and the stairs.

  The doorway exploded outward, throwing Krysilla into the column at the center of the stairway. She tumbled down the steps, pieces of wood from the shattered door raining around her.

  Terrified of what might have caused that, or who, she scrambled to her feet. Zhiv lay unmoving on the stairs.

  Above her, she felt magic filling the air. Looking up to see if it was a Dog, she saw Lord Vyomsi Teranasin at the top of the stairs, amber eyes locked onto her and Zhiv.

  Humiliation, she told herself. He wants that first. She remembered Zhiv had put the dagger in his bag. Searching frantically for it, she grasped hold just as Lord Teranasin raised his hands, a spell gathering above them like a storm.

  We can’t stand against the Dogs, Zhiv had said. But you stood against a noble once, she thought, pulling the dagger out. And once, just once, an Ornic dagger cut through the spell the King tried to cast. Perhaps that was true here.

  Reading the characters on the hilt with no idea what they might mean, she called out, “Min pyorik geelar!”

  Nothing happened.

  Lord Teranasin waited, two Dogs appearing on either side of him, both obscured as they were before an execution. Did the King want this? she couldn’t help thinking as they studied her. Did he tie Lord Teranasin to him as surely as he tried to tie me? Or did he manage to tie him tighter, using Teranasin's desperation against him? Just like me.

  Slowly, Lord Teranasin smiled. As indulgent as a parent correcting a child, he leaned forward. “Casting as an Ornic, are we? Too bad the stories seem to be untrue.”

  Her breath ragged from terror, she tucked the dagger into her sash. She struggled to get Zhiv to his feet, while Lord Teranasin once again built the spell above them, his hands drawing the pieces of the unknown spell into place while the Dogs watched.

  “Zhiv,” she whispered, managing to lift him up by the arm a little. She thought she felt something warm against her hip, but ignored it. “Zhiv.” The spell focused above them. Death or capture, she couldn’t afford to imagine what it might be. “Zhiv!” she called out, and the warmth against her hip blazed to life.

  Zhiv’s eyes went wide and he cried out, clutching his arm in agony, the same one Nitty had cut. It was then she realized the warmth was from the dagger. Pulling it out, she was amazed by the heat in it.

  Zhiv’s eyes focused on the weapon and he snatched it from her. He looked up at Lord Teranasin just as his spell released, the lights going out, though she knew it was daylight around them.

  “Min pyoram geelarrr gin zhiv,” he said, and this time she heard Lord Teranasin scream out in pain.

  The darkness lifted, but before she could see what effect Zhiv’s words had had, the great performer and minstrel had grabbed her hand and was pulling her after him down the stairs.

  “My bag!” she cried out. It held the map, and the certificate of her divorce, the only proof that it had been given.

  “There!” and Zhiv pointed below them, where her bag had been torn open, the contents spilling out.

  There was a scream behind them once more, a screech that was too high-pitched and too piercing to belong to anything in this world. Krysilla’s legs felt like water as she followed Zhiv down the grand, spiraling staircase, pausing only to snatch up her bag and throw a few of the spilled contents back inside it. “Come, goodwife!” Zhiv demanded. She felt magic, and what little there was inside her that was still thinking realized the stone under their feet had become enchanted.

  Zhiv gripped her hand tighter as they ran. His free hand reached out, drawing spells in the air along the stone as they ran, and she felt the magic begin to swirl around them. He stumbled, and she felt the staircase begin to shift under her feet, threatening to break apart.

  With a growl of frustration, Zhiv began to cast once more. He’s too tired, she realized, and this time she was the one pulling him along down the stairs. If they tried to stay and alter whatever Lord Teranasin had thrown at them, Zhiv might exhaust himself to the point of death. She didn’t know if it was possible, she’d never heard of such a thing, but it wouldn’t be the first impossible thing she’d had to believe since meeting him. And yet, she could feel the tension as Zhiv tried to hold back whatever destruction Lord Teranasin had created.

  From up above, Lord Teranasin called out, “The Queen and her children are dead! The ones who did it are on the sta
irs! Hurry!”

  Two floors, and then they were at the level where Zhiv kept his means of escape. Hand in hand, their steps felt too slow to Krysilla, who heard the shouts of those who saw them. Ducking into the closet, Krysilla said, her grip shifting to Zhiv’s shirt, “Same location.”

  Zhiv didn’t answer, though she could hear the cloth being prepared. “Zhiv? I’m not leaving you.”

  “I heard you.” His voice was little more than a whisper, and sounded as if he were fighting to stay awake.

  “Promise me.”

  “You know better than that,” he said. She swore she could hear him smiling.

  The cloth wrapped over her and she tightened her grip on his shirt as the spell pulled her forward. “Come with me!” she shouted, feeling her grip loosen on him. And then she lost the feel of his shirt entirely and stepped forward, hoping she that she had only temporarily lost him.

  Cloth wrapped tight around her, and she had to fight panic as she searched for the opening to what she realized was a large sack. It felt as if it took forever to open the drawstring. Tears sprang to her eyes. He hadn’t followed her, otherwise, he would have been pressed against her now. Yanking open the sack, she wriggled out, pushing her bag ahead of her, and found herself in a cave. Outside, she could see a lake stretching out and a green meadow on the other side, with a forest beyond that.

  She didn’t know what to do. Alone, she turned and turned and searched for something, anything that would let her go back, that would let her defend someone who shouldn’t matter in the least to the former wife of a baker.

  And then, the sack she’d come from filled, and Zhiv crawled through it.

  “Circle blessed,” she whispered, and dropped to her knees in front of him. He collapsed onto the floor of the cave. She pulled the sack off him, tossing it into the corner.

  “Bring it here,” Zhiv said, reaching out, though he couldn’t lift himself off the floor.

  “No more spells,” she said. “You’ve pushed yourself too far this time.”

  He chuckled. “I’ve done worse than this, goodwife. One more spell. It’s important if we want to stay safe. Hurry.”