The woman coughed a bitter laugh. “You’re a good one for Vendanj, all right.” The woman turned more fully toward him, her nose, chin, and brow throwing the right side of her face into shadow. “I once walked the Vaults of Estem Salo, where the Sheason make their home. Twelve years I lived there, not as a renderer, but as a wife to one. Our life was happy. But that ended when the Quiet killed him. Twenty hellish years ago.”
No emotion cracked her voice as she spoke of her loss. “Yes, Sodalist, this is a dreary place. Because we here are Baenal.”
Braethen knew the word, had read about it. It meant “eternally left behind.” But references to it in the books he’d read didn’t give a lot of information, and even then had been found only in the oldest texts his father owned.
Her eyes narrowed. “And now that you have placed yourself alongside those who walk into the breach,” she waved at Vendanj, “the burden is yours to share.”
Braethen sat, waiting, wanting to understand this burden.
Ne’Pheola turned and looked ahead, staring at nothing. “More than once the Quiet have nearly overwhelmed the world. As protection, an early Randeur of the Sheason found a way to bind a husband and wife together. Even beyond death. Do you see?” She turned back to look at him. “Every Sheason could die, but they would go knowing they’d be reunited with their love in the next life.” She laughed dryly. “The Undying Vow, it’s called. Made Sheason bold. And it did defeat what the dissenting god stood for … for a time.”
Braethen put the rest together. “The Quiet have found a way to sunder the vow.” Panaebra, eternally left behind.
“My love was killed by the League under the Civilization Order.” Her eyes turned distant again. “Sanctioned by a council of men with greed in their fingers and wine in their gullets.”
The candle danced slowly in the quiet of the room. Vendanj appeared lost in thoughts of his own. But Mira gave Braethen a searching look, and he remembered what she’d said: Joining yourself to this cause may hold a price for you, too. His own vow was starting to mean more than he’d imagined.
He returned Mira’s long gaze, then also recalled one of the truths written by his father’s own hand. Softly, to them all, he said, “And this is the great gift of life, is it not? That I may choose to go where others have found sorrow.”
He stood and walked out into the storm, needing to clear his head.
* * *
The rain descended in great drops, hammering the ground like stones. Braethen pulled his hood up and strode through the downpour. There was no place for him to go, but he needed some time alone. He slogged south, the way they’d come, watching his feet kick through the gathering puddles. Then the splatter of the rain changed as hailstones replaced the drops, beating the sodden ground more heavily, tapping an endlessly complex rhythm against the earth. The hail fell on his shoulders, and quickly stung him through his cloak.
In moments, the world filled with a dizzying white roar, hail striking the ground so hard it jounced up at odd angles and skittered against other hailstones like the glass balls children roll in their games. The hail fell in sheets, shortening his vision. The hovels of Widows Village became nothing more than low, hulking shadows through the gloom. He looked desperately about for a place to take cover. Tree branches rattled, bare. He almost turned to dash back to the little room, when a voice rose through the storm.
“Here,” came the voice, “quickly.” The invitation was muffled by the beating of hail upon the earth.
Braethen peered around him, shielding his eyes as he searched for the owner of the voice. He could see nothing, and the hail bit at the flesh of his hand.
“Quickly,” the voice repeated, “to your right.”
Braethen still could see no one, but he followed the directions, finding himself in front of a dwelling a short distance away. Drifts of hail had already collected against the outer walls. The shutters had been latched tightly against the storm. A rug door similar to Ne’Pheola’s hung from the lintel of this even smaller hovel.
A hand drew back the rug, offering entrance to a darkened room. Braethen hesitated. In the darkness he could see no face. Hail continued to pelt down in painful waves, covering the ground in a blanket of white. Unable to stand the thrashing, he dashed inside, away from the onslaught.
The room was utterly dark. The sound of feet became Braethen’s only evidence of his rescuer. Slowly, his eyes adjusted; dark shapes showed themselves against lighter shadows. Behind a table stood a figure patiently looking at him through the darkness.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’d nowhere else to go.”
He wiped his face with his cloak and looked around. A small bed, cupboard, and desk furnished the modest home. In one corner stood a trunk half covered with a piece of some delicate fabric. Atop it a slender vase held a number of green stems. It appeared to be an attempt to brighten the spartan room, though the stems bore no flowers or buds.
“How often I’ve said the same thing,” the figure said. This time Braethen heard the soft inflection of a young woman, different from Ne’Pheola’s even tones. He guessed this voice hadn’t been in Widows Village as long, her remark almost witty.
“Do you have a candle?” Braethen asked.
“Yes,” she answered, “but the dark might be preferable to you.”
“Nonsense,” he said, adding a single laugh.
The woman went to the hearth behind her and struck flint to a bed of straw. When the straw flared, she added several small sticks before taking one lighted stem and touching it to a candle wick. The room brightened, but seemed emptier in the light.
“That’s better,” he observed with good humor. Then he looked back toward the woman. Terrible burn scars had ruined one side of her face, the disfigurement running from her forehead across one eye to her cheek and jowl. Scar tissue had grown completely over her left eye. She refused to look at him with the other.
She couldn’t have been much older than Wendra. She wore a shapeless grey dress. Her hair and skin were as drab as her clothing. Over her ear she had tucked a green stem like the one in the vase. It was all the color she held, apart from the blue of her one good eye. Around her delicate shoulders, she had wrapped a shawl. Her hands trembled, as if unfamiliar with visitors.
“You may leave if you wish,” she said, still not looking at him.
“But I may stay, too?”
Her eye finally found him. “Yes.” Braethen thought he saw a thin smile touch her lips.
“Well then, I am Braethen. What may I call you?”
“Names have no—”
“But I am not from here,” he interrupted. “Please.”
The woman’s one eye grew distant. “I was called Ja’Nene.”
“Ja’Nene,” Braethen said cheerfully. “It suits you.”
“You don’t understand,” Ja’Nene said.
Braethen looked about and lowered his hood. He spoke loudly, deliberately filling the room with sound. And he paced as he spoke, filling it with movement. Ja’Nene stood still and did not speak.
“I haven’t seen a storm like this in ten years,” he said. “In the Hollows, we wait for the hail to stop, then rush into the streets to gather it into balls. Hail fight. Usually only the young ones play the game. But can there be anything funnier than someone getting hit in the ass with a snowball?” Braethen chuckled.
Ja’Nene may have smiled weakly, or it may have been a trick of the light.
He went on. “Wait, there is something funnier. We have a grand inn at home, and the roof is not quite even on one side. In the winter, melting snow falls at the foot of the kitchen door. When the skies clear or the night comes, the water there freezes. Our good man, Hambley, can never seem to remember it. I’ve waited in the morning cold for him to come out his kitchen door to fetch eggs from his coop. The funniest sound is a man slipping on the ice and falling on his ass.”
Braethen laughed more genuinely, seeing Hambley in his mind’s eye pinwheeling to stay on his feet before l
anding hard on the seat of his trousers. This time, Ja’Nene clearly smiled, the smile turning to laughter, and the look and sound of it stole his breath. It was beautiful and weary and sad, like the first touch of yellow in autumn leaves.
The laughter faded to smiles.
“It’s been a long time since I laughed. It feels strange.” She motioned to her scarred face.
“What happened?” he asked.
“The League came for my husband. When I tried to stop them, they threw an oil lamp at me.” She faltered, a tear escaping her good eye before she resumed. “It struck my face and shattered. The oil lit. I ran into the street to find a water trough to douse the flame. By then, the damage was done. And when I returned home, Malichael was dead. I felt it even then; I knew we would never meet again. And so I came here.”
“You’ve no family?” Braethen asked.
Another weary smile pulled at the ruined half of her mouth and cheek. “Who would want to look at this?” She gestured at her face. “More than that, I guess, I needed the company of others who knew what I was feeling. And yet,” she paused, “with time, even empathy dies from the burden of grief, doesn’t it? For me,” she looked away from Braethen, “well, a woman wants to feel womanly. The night they killed Malichael, they stole that from me, too.”
Braethen went around the table and took her hand in his own. “I think what a woman is has very little to do with how she looks, Ja’Nene. On this topic, I’ll suffer no argument.”
She looked up at him, another tear falling from her useful eye. “Would you kiss me?”
Braethen stared back at her. A delicate hope and plea etched her gentle, ruined features.
“Is that proper?” was all Braethen could think to say.
The disappointment in her face was painful to see. And he flashed on another look of disappointment—his father’s—not when he left home, but when his mother had died. Braethen had disappointed them both.…
Braethen held up a hand. “Wait—”
“Questions are the last effort to avoid action … or honesty. I know I’m ugly.”
He felt as though he’d been slapped. It brought him back to himself. “I’ve come a great distance in a very short time,” he began. “And I’ve seen things I’d only read about in books, some things I didn’t believe were more than tales created by gifted authors.” He looked her straight. “And today I come into this sad and dreary village of people who’ve removed themselves from the company of others. People who believe their lives are over. It isn’t proper—”
She shot him a scathing look. Braethen bit back his words, and painfully watched as her anger turned first to sadness and then quickly to apathy. He much preferred her scorn. She sat and ignored him, the shadow of her head cast large upon the table.
Braethen looked around the room, searching to find something to talk about, something to say. He lit upon the thin, green blades of tall grass, the stems sitting in the vase. They too cast long shadows, like ethereal fingers trying to claim purchase upon the physical world. The image struck him.
Finally, in an emotionless monotone, Ja’Nene spoke. “Forgive me. I forgot myself. They say I’ll eventually come to understand, to accept…” The haunted sound of her words was more disturbing than Ne’Pheola’s. Perhaps because of her youth.
“Accept what?”
“It was rash of me. But I didn’t ask because I’m love-starved.” She turned her one good eye on him, her lips quivering to smile. “Though that’s certainly true. And I’m not looking to make a memory to warm me on bitter nights.” A tear fell gently down her cheek from her one eye. “I sense a gentleness in you. A kind of caring. I’ve always been fast to know such things about a man. And I…” She swallowed, tears coming more freely. “… I just wanted to remember … the closeness.”
Braethen looked from Ja’Nene to the long blades of grass and back again. He understood. They weren’t just color for her drab hovel. They were a bit of life. A stem of hope. In a simple godsdamned blade of grass.
He put his hand on her scarred cheek. She jerked away at first, but a moment later inclined her cheek toward his hand, a warm tear falling on his knuckles. Braethen looked at her, and in that moment did not see her ruined face. Or rather he saw it for what it was. Leaning in, he kissed her tenderly on the lips. And before pulling away, he shifted and gently put his lips to her scarred face.
When he drew slowly away, he saw the wonder and gratitude in her eyes. He smiled and nodded to her. Then, gazing around the room, Braethen memorized the look and smell of it all. Fixing on the blade of grass, he turned back to speak directly to her. “It won’t always be this way. A blade of grass might sire a forest.”
He could have found better words, but he hadn’t bothered to consider them first. And she understood him, in any case.
He stood and crossed to the rug-door. When he looked back, she was sitting in the shadows of her small fire and candle, staring after him. He remembered the darkness he had felt when he took the sword, and his cry when he lifted that sword to defend the Sheason’s life. It stirred in him the one thing more he could leave her with.
“You are beautiful. And I will not forget your name … Ja’Nene.”
He stepped back into the hail and strode toward the others with a smile and a purpose. Good things both.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Reputations
There’s a no-bounty list kept by guilds and gillers and assassins. Oh, the list changes by trade. But the top name is always: Grant. Former Emerit to the regent. Master of combat and ethic. Defier of courts. An exile. Survivor in the Scar. The man who takes him down will be a king among killers.
—Firsthand account recorded in a canvass by the League to determine influentials
Solencia squatted against a low hill, little more than a collection of merchant shops and a smithy. The town did trade with overland travelers. A waypoint, was all. A few homes dotted the road into and out of the place, and some few tents and wagons had been set up along the highway—travelers taking a day of rest while they gathered supplies. Grant headed directly for the general mercantile where he always purchased what we needed. Except today he’d brought his ward Mikel with him.
“Don’t speak to anyone,” he warned Mikel.
Thirteen now, and old enough to come on these trips, Mikel nodded.
But in truth, it was a town of little talk. Prices weren’t negotiated and passers didn’t stop to trade greetings. The one tavern hunkered small and quiet at the end of the main road—a place to get a drink, nothing more. And the sound of wagon wheels and horse hooves seemed loud for the lack of human voices.
They stopped in front of the mercantile and went in. Grant handed a list of items to the shopkeep and dropped exact payment on the counter without a word. They waited patiently while the order was filled, then began to shoulder the provisions out to their small wagon for the trip back.
On their last haul, voices finally interrupted the solitude of Solencia.
“So our outcast comes to take our food and water back to his desert home. And he brings with him one of his bastards this time.”
Grant turned. Three men stood in the road several strides away. Challenge in their stances. Weapons in their hands. Grant took a survey of the scene. He noted the men’s positions, their full complement of weapons, the ground itself, onlookers, everything.
This wasn’t the first time someone had called him out, hoping to make a reputation by killing the exile of the Scar.
“Go home,” Grant said. “We’ve no quarrel with you. We’ll take our supplies and go. There’s no need to fight.”
His challengers laughed. The leader said, “It’s not enough that you take our goods, but the word is you also take our arms. I think you’ve much to answer for. And we won’t wait on the courts and councils to put it right.”
Grant recalled the child abuser whose arm he’d cut off, then placed his sack of oats in the wagon bed and spoke softly to Mikel. “Stay calm. I’ll talk with them.
If it comes to it, remember your training. You’re young, but practiced.”
Despite his confidence in the boy, Grant didn’t want to see him tested on the road of Solencia. He approached his challengers, his weapons still sheathed.
He gave them each an even look, no pride or fear—something he knew a wise fighter could use to gauge what would follow. “You’re not the first to call me out. There’s no reputation to earn from killing me.”
The lead man returned a menacing grin and deployed his men to circle Grant. “Your reputation is for betrayal. And now for crimes against the innocent.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Grant replied. “But I won’t ask again. We’re packed and ready to leave.”
Grant could see his words had fallen on deaf ears, and clenched his teeth in anger. His sentence had made of him other men’s ambition. Kill the exile and make oneself a name. And their reasons were always the same: notoriety at having killed the regent’s Emerit, the defiant Grant.
There’d been almost twenty years of daily drills since then. He’d sent more men to their earth than he could count. He didn’t lament a one.
The attack came fast, but predictable. A knife shot out from the lead man’s left hand, meant to put Grant off balance, while he brought a hammerfall stroke with a heavy sword.
Grant dodged the knife and in a fluid motion stepped, unsheathed his own blade, and removed the challenger’s arm. A deliberate irony.
A scream shot out across Solencia.
But it didn’t belong to his attacker. Grant spun in time to see the two accomplices fall upon Mikel. The lad defended one stroke, but took a second in the belly.
Grant rushed toward the boy’s attackers, calling out to distract them. But they each raised their blades to finish Mikel. The lad ducked and rolled, grimacing with the pain of his wound. Mikel brought his short sword up to deflect another strike and managed to stick one of his attackers. His sword hung in the other’s flesh. As he fought to pull it back, the man gave a wicked smile and used two hands in his final swing.
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