“Don’t worry. I can take it any way you give it.” His voice was soft and reassuring, but Reisil heard the ragged edge of fear he couldn’t hide.
Reisil looked at her hands. They trembled. What was she doing? She was so tired, she could hardly see straight. Her magic had long ago lost that rich fluid feeling, and now it struggled against her. But she couldn’t stop. Not yet. Just once more, something so minor . . . She touched her fingertips back to his chest. Once again she loosed her power, willing it to cooperate.
“Gently, gently, gently,” she chanted. Within her, the torrent of magic subsided, though it remained knife-edged and corrosive.
The healing took longer than it should have. When at last Reisil pulled away, her legs shook and darkness clouded the edges of her vision. But tired as she was, restless energy consumed her and she paced aimlessly in the small space.
Juhrnus stretched out his arm again, sweat beading his flushed forehead and cheeks. “Good as new. If I don’t slide off the stairs into the bay.”
“You’re a good swimmer. You could probably make the docks—if you didn’t shatter your head on the rocks first.”
Reisil took up a broom and began sweeping up the melting ice.
“A tragedy you would no doubt feel deeply. After all, who would remind you of where you came from? Keep your feet on the ground and your swelled head out of the clouds?”
“That doesn’t appear to be a problem these days,” Reisil returned sardonically.
“Could change at any moment. Healing his son might bring the Lord Marshal around.”
Reisil shook her head. “No. The Lord Marshal would take it as proof that I use my powers selectively to further my own secret cause.” She paused. “Anyway, it won’t matter soon. I’m leaving Koduteel. It’s time to track down the wizards.”
Juhrnus lunged to his feet, the chair clattering across the floor. “No. That’s suicide.”
“It’s worse than suicide to stay. Look around. The plague—” She broke off. “How long am I supposed to wait? Until everyone dies?”
“They’ll kill you as soon as look at you. Besides, what makes you think they have the answers, even if you can make them talk to you?”
“They started this plague. I know it. And I can handle them,” Reisil said, remembering the way the power had sung through her when she had killed the assassins.
Juhrnus laughed—a harsh, barking sound. He threw his hands into the air and turned around, addressing the air above. “Bright Lady! Do you hear this hen-witted arrogance? Rescue me from fools!”
He swung back around, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at her. “You can handle them. Do tell. Your magic is crippled—you could barely heal my shoulder. So tell me. Just how will you handle them, little sister?”
His words struck her like a blow. She knew well enough how to kill. Her mouth opened and then closed. A needle of cold stitched through her spine. She was a healer. That was no point of pride.
Juhrnus picked up the chair and rammed it back down on the floor. “I thought so. No idea, have you?”
Reisil stood a moment longer. Then with a strangled sound, she snatched up her cloak and fled, shoving past a heavily laden Sodur and vanishing up the decrepit stairs. Behind her, Juhrnus swore furiously, kicking the chair he’d just righted, sending it careening across the lighthouse chamber to crash against the opposite wall.
Chapter 13
Metyein woke to angry voices. A hammering sound jolted him. Then more irate voices and a loud clattering as something banged against a wall. Metyein winced as pain speared through his throbbing head. Where am I? What happened?
A sense of danger swallowed him, clenching around his bladder, squeezing his lungs. He twisted his head to the side. Two men stood talking in the flickering candlelight. He blinked, trying to clear his vision, but his gritty eyes refused to focus. I went to the Gardens. A duel. Metyein scowled, the movement sending streaks of pain over his scalp. He remembered . . . Nedek and Kaselm, blood pooling on the ice, Soka, the attackers, the chase, pain . . . Metyein’s throat spasmed. He closed his eyes, groaning.
“What’s this?” The candlelight darkened as the two men came to stand over him. “By the Lady! Metyein cas Vare! What in the Lady’s name is he doing here?”
“Found him in the street. Ambushed, by the looks of it.” Metyein recognized the voice instantly. The ahalad-kaaslane . Some of the tension drained out of him. His attackers hadn’t caught him. “Leaking like a sprung cask of ale and closer to dead than not. I thought Reisil might have a go at him. Give us a marker against the Lord Marshal.”
“And if she failed?”
“Dump the body off the bluffs. No harm to us, and for him, better a slim chance than no chance.”
“Was Reisil successful?”
“Can’t say.”
Metyein went rigid as the bedclothes were pulled away.
“He’s stopped bleeding, anyhow. What’s this?” Movement along his side, the rustle of cloth, the brush of a hand.
“Hmph. No barbs. Odd choice for murder. And there’s the hole where it went through his clothes.” Metyein felt a tugging on his doublet and the tunic beneath, then a rush of cold air against his skin. Neither of the two men spoke for a moment.
“Guess we won’t be dropping him off the bluffs,” came the younger man’s dry comment.
For a moment the words made no sense to Metyein. Then a flood of icy shock ran through his system. What were they saying? He was going to die. A gut wound was a seal of death. The blankets were pulled back farther, and the chill made Metyein shiver.
“Thigh’s healed too. Ugly scar, but he can live with it.”
“Yes, but can we? Can Reisil?”
“What do you mean?” The younger man sounded belligerent. Metyein recognized the tone. It was the tone he usually took with his father.
“Think, Juhrnus. Reisil can’t heal anyone, and then suddenly she heals the Lord Marshal’s son? What would you think?” The blankets were pulled and the two men drew away, their voices falling. But Metyein didn’t need to hear the explanation. He knew exactly how his father would react. This would only confirm his worst suspicions: she withheld her magic for political influence. That she was another traitor ahalad-kaaslane like Upsakes.
Under the blankets, Metyein slid tentative fingers up over his stomach, his arm feeling wooden. He touched the stiffening blood on his clothing, pushing aside the heavy material of the doublet and the lighter tunic beneath.
There wasn’t even a scar. Just a single point of tenderness where the arrow had gone in. He didn’t have to touch it to know it. He could still feel the wood burrowing through his flesh.
His hand worked lower, reaching down to touch his thigh. His hose were torn, the edges of the material stiff with blood. Underneath, his skin was rippled like spilled wax. The scarring was about the size of his palm, and where he touched, he felt nothing. A scrap of death like a patchwork square on a quilt. Metyein slumped, his head reeling. He wasn’t going to die. Reisiltark had healed him. Political influence? He didn’t know. It didn’t matter. If his father didn’t owe her, he did.
Metyein’s senses swam, and tears ran from the corners of his eyes to dampen the hair at his temples. By the grace of the Lady, he was going to live.
“So even now when Reisil’s magic actually works and she does a miracle like that,” Juhrnus pointed to the bed against the wall, “she is still going to get pilloried. For doing the Lady’s work.”
Sodur sighed. “Yes, but it isn’t that simple.”
“Seems simple. And stupid.”
Sodur rubbed his eyes, a hollow feeling blooming in his chest. The healing was a good sign. This was what she was supposed do to, what he’d been hoping she’d do. How could he complain? But it wasn’t going to help. The fire he’d started had grown far beyond his control and saving Metyein cas Vare was only throwing oil on it. But how could he tell either of them it would have been better to let the boy die?
“That’s
because you don’t know everything.” Then quickly, before Juhrnus could push the issue, he waved toward the door. “What’s that about?”
Juhrnus hesitated. “Wizards.”
“Ah.” Sodur took a wrinkled handkerchief from his breast pocket and blew his nose.
Juhrnus scowled at the door. “I should go after her.”
“Better give her some time.”
Juhrnus paced across the room. “Damned stupid fool.” “We do need answers.”
Juhrnus whirled. “What? By the Demonlord’s shriveled balls, she can’t light a fire without blowing up the room!”
Sodur shook his head, the sense of vanishing time pressing harder on him. His mind felt muzzy. “She healed the boy well enough. And we’re running out of options.” The Scallacian sorcerers only exacerbated the problem. He couldn’t help but think Kodu Riik would deeply regret their coming. At least going to the wizards didn’t involve stupidly inviting them into the front parlor. Juhrnus was eyeing him balefully. Sodur gestured placatingly with his hand. “We need answers. Finding the wizards may be our best chance, before things get really bad.”
“You think they’ll help? Just like that?” Juhrnus’s voice shifted to a falsetto, pretending to be Reisil. “Excuse me. Sorry about killing so many of you last time we met. But I just dropped in to ask if you would explain how to cure the plague that you probably started in the first place. And while I’m here and still breathing, might I borrow some flour?”
Sodur’s lips quirked, but he didn’t answer. Instead he squatted down beside his pack and rifled through it.
“Grab that pot over there, would you? I’ve got a bit of mutton I filched from the kitchens, and some vegetables from the winter bins—they’re a bit wrinkled, but they’ll do.”
He continued to paw through his pack, ignoring Juhrnus’s withering disbelief. After several long moments, Juhrnus snorted and went to grab the pot. Sodur expelled a quiet sigh and closed his eyes. A weight sat on his heart, and his breath rumbled in his chest like rocks down a hillside.
Lume bumbled his cheek against Sodur’s knuckles, scraping his ahalad-kaaslane’s skin lightly with his teeth.
Concern.
Sodur rubbed behind the silver lynx’s tufted ears. The cat’s emotions were becoming tangible, like heady wine or hallucinatory herbs. Words no long seemed necessary between them. Sometimes they seemed nearly impossible. Frighteningly so.
He drew a deep breath and opened his eyes, gazing at the pile of foodstuffs from his pack. It was time to put his trust in these two striplings and pray to the Blessed Amiya that they could survive the burden.
Several minutes went by before he realized that Juhrnus had fallen silent.
The younger ahalad-kaaslane contemplated Sodur over folded arms, scowling. “So. Don’t you think it’s about time you told me what’s going on? Reisil never will.”
Sodur hesitated, carefully slicing through the white flesh of the turnip he held. “After we have some food in our stomachs.”
Juhrnus nodded. “Fine.” He retreated to the table while Sodur set the pot over the fire, stirring in a handful of barley grains and a pinch of salt. Sodur already knew how Reisil was going to take his revelations. If Juhrnus was molten, she was glacial. Since Veneston she’d frozen him out of her life.
Familiar sorrow made his shoulders slump. Between one moment and the next, Reisil had stopped confiding in him, stopped asking questions, stopped looking at him. If she could have, she’d have avoided him altogether. Thank the Lady severing our tie isn’t so easy! He rubbed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. He missed her. After Upsakes, there had opened such a great hole in his life. Reisil had filled it generously. She’d been a friend, a daughter, a student and a teacher. And now that hole was back again, larger, more raw than before.
The stew bubbled and soon filled the room with hearty fragrance. The storm outside continued to blow. Juhrnus sat at the pitted plank table, weaving intricate braids from strips of finely cut leather he carried in his belt pouch. Sodur sat in the chair Reisil had vacated, his feet propped on the windowsill, whittling a piece of fine-grained chestnut into the shape of a gryphon.
Minutes ticked past. Each man looked to the door whenever the wind rattled the latch. At last it slid silently up.
Reisil eased herself inside, her cloak stiff with ice, her cheeks brilliant, her lips pale. Purple shadows filled the hollows around her eyes. For a fraction of a second she met Sodur’s glance. She flinched and looked away, hanging her cloak on its peg. Wordlessly she took a kettle from the mantel shelf and filled it with water, adding lemons, dried apricots and currants, and several spoonfuls of honey from a cracked green crock that sat on the end of the shelf. She bent and situated the kettle firmly in the coals before sinking down beside Esper, her hunched back to the fire’s heat.
And so they sat, the stew bubbling, the fruit brew steeping, the snick of Sodur’s knife on the wood, the gentle rapping of Juhrnus’s knuckles on the table. Outside the ice became snow, driving horizontally through the black night. Inside, the fire collapsed with a rush of sparks and glowing coals.
Sodur sat up, dropping his feet to the floor. “Should be ready.”
Juhrnus laid more wood on the fire while Reisil brought out a loaf of rosemary flatbread. She set a pitcher of water in the center of the table as Sodur spooned the savory stew into bowls. Soon they were sitting around the table in less than companionable silence.
As he ate, Sodur felt the weight of his confession press heavier. And even heavier was what he still couldn’t reveal. He glanced at Reisil’s gray cloak, the melting crust of ice and snow making a puddle on the floor beneath it.
“Did you need a new cloak?”
“I like this one.”
“The green one was nice. Didn’t Elutark give it to you? Hardly worn, really.”
Reisil glared at him and bit off a hunk of bread. His eyes traced the pattern of golden ivy unfurling along her neck and left jaw. A sign of the Lady’s blessing. Or curse. He wasn’t sure anymore. The burden of the Lady’s gift was proving very difficult indeed. And it was about to get harder.
“It won’t change anything, you know. They won’t stop wearing the green just because you have.”
“No?” Her gaze cut into him. For months she’d refused to look at him. Now she skewered him with feral intensity.
Sodur nodded, the hairs on his neck lifting. He’d been expecting ice, but the glacial mask she’d worn for months was nothing but a thin sheath now. How do I handle this?
“You can’t hide from what you are,” he said carefully.
“Tell me, just what do you think I am?”
“You—,” Sodur began and then stopped as she bent forward, her green eyes too brilliant, her jaw jutting like an ax-blade. There wasn’t an ounce of fat anywhere on her. All that had ever been soft or young or unfinished about her had vanished, stripped away in the last year. “Hope,” he said. “You are our hope.”
Her nostrils flared, and she laughed, a short, guttural sound that echoed from the curving stone walls. “And you are not only a liar, but a fool as well,” she said. “Or is it an act? Another mask?”
There was something waiting beneath her words. A trap. Sodur’s tongue slid between his teeth and his lips. She wanted a fight. She wanted blood. His especially. “I am what I am, Reisiltark,” Sodur said mildly, trying to shake her from this mood. “And you are what you are, no matter what color cloak you wear.”
“And you think that I am hope. Which leaves us wondering—what are you?” She smiled, a humorless stretching of her lips. “Shall I tell you?”
She waited. Sodur nodded, uneasiness twisting in his bowels.
Reisil leaned forward until she was a scant six inches away. The wind blustered, and the chimney moaned.
“Dead. You are dead.”
Chapter 14
Sodur sat back, face stony. “Is that supposed to be funny?”
“No.”
Sodur’s mouth thinned. “A
threat, then?”
“Hurt an ahalad-kaaslane? Oh, no. Possible rumors to the opposite, I am loyal to the Blessed Lady and Kodu Riik. No, what I said is merely unvarnished fact. Truth. You may have difficulty recognizing it, of course. But it remains. You are dead.”
Several turgid moments passed. The tension inside Reisil knotted. Her boiling frustration and fury were unbearable. Sitting still, doing nothing, holding it in—she couldn’t do it anymore.
“Perhaps you would explain it to me,” Sodur said, his hand dropping to Lume’s head. The lynx had come to stand at his knee, a low growl rumbling deep in his throat. “I have a sniffle, and my joints hurt. Nothing fatal, I should think. But then, I suppose I ought to be surprised to be feeling anything at all, dead as you say I am.”
Reisil’s lips curved reluctantly. Damn but she liked him. But even as she thought it, her smile faded. He held the keys to the locks that shackled her. They were not friends. “I went down to the Fringes today,” she said abruptly.
Sodur frowned. “Is that wise?”
Reisil lifted a shoulder. “I had been on my way to see you, actually.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.” She didn’t elaborate. “But to answer your question, the ahalad-kaaslane serve all of Kodu Riik, not just those who smell good. And I have done some good for the people of the Fringes on occasion.”
“Of course you have, but to go there alone . . . You must be careful. The ahalad-kaaslane don’t enjoy the respect they once did. And you’re not a favorite of many.”
“I wonder why.” She watched the color rise in his cheeks and felt a certain satisfaction at his discomfort. “What kind of ahalad-kaaslane would I be if I refused to do the Blessed Lady’s work because I was afraid of getting hurt? What kind of ahalad-kaaslane would that make any of us?”
“You’re talking about going to the wizards again,” Juhrnus said accusingly.
“Whatever it takes,” Reisil said. “And it is my decision.”
Before Juhrnus could retort, Sodur interceded. “That is an argument for later. I’d like for Reisil to get back to my being dead.”
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