by K. Eason
“You owe.” His left eyebrow quirked. That side of his mouth went with it. “What is this, you owe?”
“He got between me and a legion sword. Say they know him now, too, yeah? I let him go, they pick him up, and he dies. And before that, he’ll give me up. So.”
“So you brought him back to Still Waters. That’s clever. Aren’t any soldiers down there, yeah?”
“Aneki can hide him. What’s one more toadbelly in that place? Besides. This isn’t sentiment. You know me.” Mix truth with lies, see if it held. Eyes locked and unblinking: “I saw him call up a whole army of ghosts. Command them like a First Spear. We can use that kind of power, if I can get him to teach me.”
“Ghosts.” Tsabrak leaned forward. Whole new gleam in his garnet-black eyes. “Will he? Can you learn it?”
“It’s just conjuring, wrapped up in his people’s toadshit superstitions. Got to convince him I believe in it first. The rest will be easy.”
“So bring him across into the Warren. I’ll find him a safe place.”
“I barely got him into Cardik.” She shrugged. “He’s skittish.”
“What is he, a feral cat? Fine.” Tsabrak scythed an impatient hand. “Stay with that toadfucking slaver, then, learn what you can from your skraeling.” Sly smile, half malice. “Enjoy yourself.”
“Big man, this skraeling. Won’t be a problem.”
He snorted. “Save some energy, yeah? I have work for you. There’s new blood in the city. New markets.”
“Yeah. About that. Awfully rustic for you, aren’t they? And short of silver. And the metal you’ve got for sale isn’t cheap.”
“We can make deals. Besides. I think they’re angry. And I think there’s going to be more of them, very soon.”
Fuck and damn. “Yeah? The God tell you that?”
“As a matter—” Tsabrak began. Stopped. His tongue moved slickly behind his lips. Should’ve been words to go with them, should’ve been sound, and there was nothing, except her own heartbeat too loud in her ears. Slow build of power over her skin, her scalp, prickling and stinging like the threat of backlash, like the tension before lightning. An echo of power that filled up the room until her skin hurt, until her eyes ached in her skull.
“As a matter of fact, I did,” said Tsabrak’s mouth, syllables drawn and dropped like pebbles. Not Tsabrak’s voice. Not Tsabrak’s eyes, licking fire from the sockets.
Oh Laughing God.
“Speechless, Snowdenaelikk? That’s not like you.” The God rearranged Tsabrak’s features, eyebrows raised over flame-filled sockets. “I won’t hurt him, if that’s your worry. And if I did, he’d call it a blessing. A gift. Which is what he will say when he finds out I’ve been here.”
“Will he remember this?”
“What was said and done? No. He isn’t here.” The God tapped Tsabrak’s temple. “You and me, Snowdenaelikk, all alone.”
She cut a glance sidelong, measured the distance between hearth and door. That was a habit Tsabrak had taught her early on. Know your exits. Never get too far away from one. Hell of a time to forget that. But then, not like she could stop the God if he chose to burn Tsabrak into ashes or melt her where she sat.
And the God knew it. Smirked with Tsabrak’s mouth, tight and feral. “I won’t take much of your time.”
Mocking her, yeah. Enjoying her fear. That was the God she knew. Mercurial. A little cruel. Not inclined to social calls.
“What do you want, then?”
The God laughed. Tiny blisters sprang up on Tsabrak’s cheeks. Burst and ran like tears. “Your skraeling asked that same thing, in much the same tone. I am pleased that he found his way back to you.”
“So am I.”
“He refused my help. I might call that ungrateful. But then.” Tsabrak’s eyelids drooped red and glowing, so that Snow could count the veins. “It wasn’t his prayer I answered, finding him. It was yours.”
Fuck and damn, she saw the way this river ran: straight over a cliff onto rocks. “I’m grateful.”
“Good. I trust that you are. Tell me about your Veiko. What he can do.”
“I already told Tsabrak—”
“I heard what you said.” The God tapped Tsabrak’s temple again. “He believes you. Trusts you. Relies on you, yeah?”
“I know.”
“He hates you for that. You know that, too?”
“Guessed it.” Tsabrak had never been safe. Not his friendship, not his temper. Certainly not his affection. “So what?”
“So if he finds out you lied to him, he might be disappointed. I don’t think you have any intention of learning how to command ghosts. I don’t think you can. I think you already know that.”
“I can handle Tsabrak’s disappointment.”
The God nodded. “Maybe. Still. I find myself needing your skraeling’s skills. I need them directly. I need them reliably.”
Ask why, and look into firepit eyes, and have a heartbeat’s pity for the God’s enemies. “And you’re coming to me for what, exactly? Veiko already told you no.”
The God thrust his hand out, faster than Tsabrak could have moved. Clamped fingers around her wrist. Somewhere in the back of her skull, Briel thrashed and panicked. And then didn’t, suddenly. Silence inside and out, and only the God for company.
Flames licked between Tsabrak’s eyelids. “Be wise,” he said softly.
She rolled her wrist in the God’s grip. She might beat Tsabrak in a fight. But the God in Tsabrak’s skin, she’d end up grease and ashes. She licked her lip. “Veiko works on debt. You’ve got nothing he needs, so he won’t bargain with you.”
Embers now, in the sockets. Discomfort now, where he touched her, spiraling to pain. “Perhaps I can find something he wants, then.”
Snow made a fist of her trapped hand. Met that eyeless stare. “Threaten me, hurt me—that won’t get you what you want. It’s not like that between us. You may’ve found Veiko, on my asking. But you didn’t bring him back. He thinks I did. My skills. So maybe Veiko owes me for his life, and I owe you for finding him, and that’s how we work this out. Yeah?”
A smile slashed across Tsabrak’s lips, sly and feral. Snow smelled her own skin now, heard the sizzle.
“All right, Snowdenaelikk. Let’s hear your terms.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Veiko tipped his face skyward. Fitful flakes scraped out of frigid clouds stung where they struck him. It should be luminous grey overhead, snow-dim twilight. But there were witchfires on the Street of Silk Curtains, throwing bruise-colored shadows. Lanterns in the alley, their glow oozing across slick-dark cobbles. An extravagance of candles in Still Waters, melting in their sconces and leaking light around the edge of door and window and curtain, cutting a bright wedge from the open back door. Aneki’s shadow stretched long on the margin. The lightspill made an uneven shape on the snow, spangled by snowfall.
He reckoned the snow wouldn’t last. The clouds would split, around moonrise, and the air would turn bitter. Not a night for outdoors. Not a night to
limp
pace the perimeter of Still Waters’ courtyard, Logi beside him, waiting for a woman who—
“—won’t thank you for this,” Aneki said. “She’s fine, yeah? No cutpurse would touch her. You get sick out here, or start yourself bleeding, she’ll—”
“No,” he said, only that. He did not want to say why there was a good chance Snowdenaelikk was not all right. Did not know if Aneki would understand why it mattered that Briel had thrown herself at the latched window just past dusk. She had flapped and clawed and keened until he opened it. And then he’d retched and dry-heaved after, echoes of the svartjagr’s fear.
And now the spirit world lurked at the borders of his awareness like a starving wolf. He blinked and saw glacier on the back of his eyelids instead of honest black. That was not right, either. It had started after Briel’s panic. As Snow would say, fuck and damn if that was coincidence.
Veiko paused, for the twentieth time, at the gate. Look
ed back at Aneki’s cross-armed silhouette in the doorway.
“This Tsabrak.”
“Him. Motherless toadfucker. Skin his own sister if the God told him to. If she’s with him, you’re wearing a path in the garden for nothing.”
It was a recurring thing, Veiko decided. Half-blood Dvergiri said a great deal, very quickly, and only a very little bit made any sense. He traced the iron bars, sharp with frost. Thought about his axe, back in the room. About the stretch of corridor between here and there. About the cobbles outside, and endless buildings, and no landmarks he understood.
“Can you take me there?”
“To Tsabrak? Oh no.” Aneki made a noise in her throat. Her hair, in the lamplight, was the color of old teeth. “He’d gut you.”
Her certainty rankled. He was grateful for the cold and the darkness. Imagined the snow hissing to steam on his skin. “He would have no reason to attack me.”
“He doesn’t need a reason. He’s Tsabrak.”
“Will he hurt her?”
“Snow? He might try. Doubt he’d get far.” A snort. “She can care for herself, Veiko.”
Clearest memory: Snow slicing at him with that seax, the thud of black metal into the handle of his axe. He hadn’t understood Briel’s sending, had only seen a woman blind and, therefore, he had thought, helpless. But he had seen how fast she could move, and where she might’ve cut him, sighted or not, if he hadn’t been ready.
Laughter ricocheted off his skull, off the flat walls, off the glacier and the sky. He saw a man’s face, flames where his eyes should be.
Think she owes you for her life, skraeling? Think she’ll ever pay you back?
Aneki moved in the doorway. Came two steps out into the snow. “Veiko? You all right?”
He was not. He was slipping. Holding tight to the gate and the bars. He would not ask what the God wanted with him, would not acknowledge, would not invite. A noidghe never allowed himself to be summoned.
You are no noidghe.
“I am,” he said, under his breath. And louder, to Aneki: “Fine. I will wait.” Here, he added, to the God and the glacier. Here. In my flesh.
Aneki said something that was lost beneath another hiss of laughter.
“—listening to me?”
“No,” to her and the God. But the God left him then. The glacier slipped away.
Left a new wide bar of light in the yard, and no silhouette, and, “Well, that’s honest,” a sudden arm’s length off his shoulder.
He spun, too fast for his leg. Almost toppled into the snow. Caught himself on the gate and hung there while Aneki tucked a hand under his elbow. She leaned close, so that the curve of her breast pressed his arm.
“I said come back inside. Wait in the kitchen. I’ll have Esa watch for her. No sense in freezing out here yourself, yeah?”
He knew what brothel meant now, and what it was that Aneki sold here. What she was offering now. Her fingers were warm. Her perfume tasted like sweet oil in the back of his throat.
“I will wait here.”
“Veiko.” Mixed impatience and sympathy spilled out of her. “They go way back, her and Tsabrak. Came out of Illharek together, them and some others. Built the cartel here, between them; she’s his right hand and more besides. She’ll be late, she’s with him. You savvy?”
“Yes. And I will wait here.” The word did not wholly describe the tapestry of debt and loyalty and little kindnesses between them, but, “She is my partner.”
Sudden hardness in Aneki’s voice. “That what she calls you? Partner?”
He blinked at the force, and the anger. “It is what we are.”
“Listen. Tsabrak’s an old—not friend, I don’t think he knows what that word means—habit with her. He says jump, she does it. He says kill, she does it. And they’re lovers, Veiko. You won’t get between them, whatever she says about partners.”
He looked at her. She was Snowdenaelikk’s associate, yes, and his host, yes, and those things alone made him reclaim his arm with some degree of civility. “She is my partner,” he repeated. “And I will wait.”
Aneki let him keep the last word, which he had not expected. Crackling quiet, in the look she gave him. Then she turned and left him at the gate. The door thumped and took the light with it. Silence pooled in the courtyard, and darkness, and cold.
Logi oofed and leaned against his thigh. Veiko trailed his fingers through the winter-stiff fur. He had not seen Helgi on the glacier. That was a sign. Only a fool wandered that place with no guide. He’d learned that much. Learned not to doubt Snowdenaelikk, either, whatever Aneki thought. Sooner doubt the sun’s rising, or winter’s cold.
Idiot, yeah? Exactly what she’d say to him, wielding that half-twist smile. His own mouth hitched at the corner. Hung there, like thread caught on a nail. She could care for herself. Aneki had been right about that much. About Tsabrak, well. Veiko did not know the man. Thought maybe it was best that he didn’t.
Another oof. Logi cocked his ears and straightened. Veiko saw her then, gliding through the alley, caught in the crevice between pavement and buildings. Heard her when he held his breath. Just a whisper, boots and cloak, just the faintest chink of metal.
Witchfire flared and wrapped like a vine around the bars. It picked out the edges of nose and cheekbone. Caught the gleam of her eyes and settled there, bright blue on darker.
“The motherless hell are you doing out here.” Not even a question, no, too weary for that.
“It is a good night for walking.” He unlatched the gate. Stepped aside and let her through while Logi danced his paws and whined a greeting and did not, miracle of discipline, leap at her.
“Toadshit.” She fumbled the latch, gloveless and awkward with the sack across her shoulders. She dumped it onto the cobbles. Rattle and clink as it landed. Pots, Veiko recalled. She’d gone back for cooking pots.
“Briel,” he said as she tugged at the latch.
“She’s hunting.”
“Toadshit,” he said clearly.
That won a grim little smile from her. “It’s where she is now, yeah? She’ll be back. She’s all right. I’m all right.”
“Tsabrak,” he began, and stopped when she looked at him. Eyes cold and empty as caves. Angry, he realized. No. Furious.
“What about him?”
Did he hurt you shriveled on his tongue. He did not want to insult her. She did not need his protection. Whatever had upset Briel, Snow was alive on this end of it. That was obvious.
“Aneki,” she said to his silence. “Motherless gossip. What did she say?”
“That you are lovers. That he would not hurt you. That he would gut me.”
“She’s wrong.” Silent about which. She scooped up the strap again. Slung it onto her shoulder and settled it and hissed, sudden and sharp. Made a fist of that hand and dropped the sack and sent Logi skittering sideways. Abused metal echoed off the walls.
Veiko ignored the sack and the strap. Took her hand instead, far more carefully. Turned it over. There were finger-shaped burns on her wrist, livid even in the lamplight and witchfire. Whitish blisters torn red and oozing.
“What is this?”
She hitched him a smile’s poor cousin. “Inside, yeah? You and me. Need to talk.”
She didn’t wait for his answer. Flexed her hand loose and reached for the sack. Scooped it up and shouldered past to the door. Left it open behind her, so that he must pause to latch and lock it as snow collected in swirls on the lintel.
He followed her back to their room. He shut their door behind her, too, and rested a moment after, forehead and his palms flat on the wood. The ghost roads’ glacier spread out behind his eyes. Invitation. Temptation, to find the God and
get yourself killed, yeah?
ask questions.
He turned his back on it. Sank into the dark instead, into the ache and breath of his body. Listened. A dog’s paws on stone, and the thump as Logi settled. Muffled scraping of boots across the small woven rug. A rush of heat
against his back as she opened the firedog’s hatch. Wet dog smell, wet wool. The murmur of clothes coming off: slap and squeak of wet boots. Leather whisper, linen sigh.
He opened his eyes again. She’d abandoned the sack just past the threshold. The canvas had settled around its contents like hide over the bones of a strange animal. Blackened iron peeked out, ate the light, and spat it back dull and blue. The pots.
Splashing from the basin, and Snow’s brisk, “How long were you out there? Since Briel?”
“Yes.”
“How bad is the leg?”
“It is no worse than usual.” Sharp herbal smell now, to keep company with smoke and wet dog, and the quiet grind of a mortar and pestle. He did not need a poultice. Turned around to tell her so, with a hand on the door for balance. Heat crawled up his face that had nothing to do with the hearth or the blood pricking under chilled skin.
She was sitting on the hearth, naked to her hips. The pestle’s white stone glowed pink in the firelight. There was a puddle of grey and sharp shadow beside her boots, where the light didn’t quite reach. Her shirt, he guessed, and her undershift, and the sweater she wore over the shaped leather vest. Her seax lay propped on the hearth, belt and scabbard.
She had the blade’s same hard, narrow grace. He’d stared, the first time he saw her naked, before he’d made his grim peace with Illhari modesty. She hadn’t laughed when she caught him, although he thought she had wanted to.
Laughing God, Veiko, am I that different than any other woman?
Yes, though he had not said it. Not in shape, but in her utter unconcern in her nakedness, as if she was unaware what a
skraeling
outlaw
stranger might do to her.
She can care for herself, yeah?
Except. His eyes caught on the ruin of her wrist. There was another burn on her shoulder, the size and shape of a mouth. A handprint, blisters that were still solid bubbles, on her ribs. Veiko found himself staring again, and this time the ache in his belly had nothing to do with a naked woman.
