by K. Eason
“The garrison. We saw what they did up there.”
Aneki nodded. “Then the dragon showed up. We thought it’d burn the place, but”—she shrugged—“it just flaps around. And then much later, once this happened,” and she gestured at herself, at Fridis, “and we were safe, we went and looked. I think we got lucky, dying like we did.”
Fridis snorted. Began to scoop stew into bowls, short savage gestures that said she didn’t feel very lucky, but this was an old argument.
Snow was staring hard at her hands. They had folded into fists on the table, the knuckles pushing grey against her skin. Her throat worked, words trying to climb up and slipping back down again.
Veiko did not need Briel to know that she could not ask the next question. That her chest hurt, every breath.
“How did you die?” he asked.
Aneki looked at him, sharp and surprised, as if she’d forgotten him. “The Taliri came back. Went door to door. They had someone who could speak Dvergiri with them this time. We toadbellies and half-bloods got a choice: go with them or die here. Join the army. Embrace the dragon. Some kind of dramatic rot. Most people went.” She spat into the open fire. “Fridis and I, we decided we didn’t want to be bondies again. Join the dragon army. What toadshit.”
“And?”
“And. Then the Taliri marched the so-called volunteers across Market Bridge and up into the Warren, and that was the last we saw of them. Thought maybe they’d leave us alone, yeah? Go away. But then they came down and blocked up all the doors.” She looked at Snow. Nodded. “That’s when we first learned how to cook rat. That went on for, oh, a couple of weeks. Anyone who tried to break out and run, the Taliri hacked her apart in the street. Fridis and I decided we’d go on our own terms.” Aneki leaned across the table. Touched Snow’s hand. “We were friends a long time, Snow. You taught me a few things about herbcraft.”
A small, bitter smile. “I hope it didn’t hurt.”
“It didn’t. We dosed up on mossflower and went into the baths. Reckoned the drowning wouldn’t hurt if we were asleep. Didn’t reckon we’d wake up again, though. That was a surprise.”
The angry dead were always victims of violence. That, in everything Veiko had learned from Taru and common wisdom. But these were Illhari dead, with Illhari notions of fault and honor, and Illhari notions of who, exactly, was responsible for their dying.
“There are two ways to settle the angry dead,” he said. “The first is to cut off the head, and turn it face down, and burn it.”
Fridis snorted. “Fuck that. What’s the other way?”
“Allow them to take their revenge.”
Snow raised her head. Hung a smile on her lips that reminded Veiko of the Laughing God, amused malice and anger woven together. “Who do you blame, Aneki?”
“The Taliri.”
“You think all the other angry dead feel that way?”
“Can’t say we’ve tried talking to them much.” Aneki exchanged a look with Fridis, who shrugged. “What are you thinking, Snow?”
“I’m thinking we have a few Taliri nearby, and we don’t want them following us. You think you might help us out?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Day sidled into night, a careful slip from grey to black. A man might not notice with the shutters closed against storm-grey and rain. A man might not want to notice, knowing what came with sunset.
But the dead knew. Aneki and Fridis turned together, heads tipped. Stared westward as if they could see through the walls.
“Well,” Aneki said. She rose. Smoothed her skirts. “We should go. See about those arrangements.”
Snow looked up through the stringy remains of her topknot. The room smelled of damp dog and damp clothes and burned supper. “Already?”
Fridis swung her legs over the bench. “We have a lot to do before dawn.” She paused beside Veiko. Looked down at him.
“I wish—” Fridis tipped her head. The shadows gathered in the crease of her throat. Black wedge, opaque, as if there were no flesh there at all. “Never mind.”
Listen to her footfalls as she walked away, loud as a living woman. A man could believe that. A man would. But not a noidghe.
The hallway shadows crept closer. Hesitated at the threshold.
Aneki drew a breath she did not need. “You two should get up to the flat. Get behind those wards of yours again, yeah? The rest of us aren’t very civilized, as you’ve noticed. Besides.” Aneki had more smiles than skirts: bright and similar and one for every occasion. This one was darker. A little sad. “I don’t think there’s much left for us to say.”
“Right.” Snow stood up. Gestured at the door. “I’ll walk you out.”
It was perhaps three short-legged steps across the room. Half that, from the table and bench. But Aneki waited for Snow to come around the table. Walked with her, shoulders almost touching. Grave, slow steps, leisurely. The way women walked when they had things to say to each other.
There was no whispering between them. No touching, no looking. Grief, though, there was that. Veiko wished he could grant them privacy. Close his eyes, look elsewhere, practice the determined, polite disregard that had governed life in the longhouses of his village.
He took a better grip on the axe instead. Did not blink.
From this angle, it was Snow who looked the ghost. Tall and gaunt, the fire carving unkind angles into her face. The light was gentler to Aneki, who turned just on the other side of the threshold.
“Remember what we talked about.”
“Fuck and damn, Aneki.”
“I know. I know you won’t forget. Snow, listen—”
“Don’t.”
“All right.” Aneki wasn’t smiling anymore. She pressed her palms together against her chest. Inclined her body slightly. A gesture meant for both of them, Veiko thought, although Aneki’s eyes never left Snow’s face. She took two steps backward, until the hem of her skirts had cleared the doorway. Then she spun and walked out, a swirl of silk and the memory of perfume.
Snow stayed a moment, staring after her. One beat, two. Then she straightened. Lifted her chin. A trick of the fire, surely, that made silver streaks on her cheeks.
Now a man could turn away. Pretend not to notice, grant her privacy. Count the jars on the shelves, one-two-three-many. Stare, unblinking, at the plates on the table: two, for the living. At the remnants of his own dinner, that Logi badly wanted. He looked at the dog’s hopeful eyes, moved the plate from table to floor. Listened to the sounds of Logi eating, and not the quiet grief behind him. A man could refuse to hear, and it would be courtesy for anyone except his partner.
Veiko gritted his teeth. Let go the axe. Gathered courage and breath and stood up. He knew how to comfort a woman. He had no idea how to manage Snowdenaelikk.
She spared him the distress of trying. She cut a savage gesture at the fire and quenched it to smoke and ash. Left the bowls where they sat on the table. Then she hitched her pack across her shoulder. Marched out of Still Waters’ kitchen, into the corridor.
He followed her, through the hallway, up the stairs, through a twilit dimness that made him imagine ghosts in every shadow. She opened their flat with a murmur. Stood aside and let him in.
“Snow,” he said.
She shook her head. She waited, silent, grim-lipped, until Logi came scrabbling up the steps, still licking Veiko’s dinner from his lips, and came into the room. Then she sealed the wards behind them with a gesture, another muttering. Veiko thought he saw a moment’s flare of orange before the door returned to honest wood.
Snow looked at him, flat-lipped and unhappy. “That’ll keep the angry dead out, and every other spirit. Thought I’m not sure about avatars. She almost got us twice today.”
“Your conjuring worked well enough. The net. She did not see us.”
“Because I had a chance to prepare that time. This morning, she surprised us. Be dead if it wasn’t for you.”
“Perhaps.”
“Fuck perhaps. I don
’t know if that’s natural dragon, that fear she sends, or if it’s godmagic, or something of both. What I do know—she comes at Illharek sending that, she’ll break the legions. They’ll run screaming.”
Snow braced both hands on the windowsill. Closed her eyes. Leaned her forehead against the shutters. The wards shimmered like the air over a forge. Veiko expected the shutters to burst into flame, to crumble to ash. He half-reached for her, to pull her to safety, before he marked there was no sizzle where her skin touched the wood. Just the ache at the base of his ears.
“Snow.”
She half-hitched a smile at him. “These wards date from before the Purge. Originally, these were defense against the Alviri godsworn. Bel thought it’d be good to learn, since we were dealing with Tal’Shik. If you’re right and conjuring’s offensive to spirits—then that tells me why the godsworn hated the adepts. We, conjurors, could hurt them. And that tells me why the Academy backed the Purge and also why it’s stayed on the Senate’s good side. Conjuring doesn’t work if someone breaks your hands.” She wiggled her crooked finger at him. The one Tsabrak had broken on the Old God’s orders.
“What are you thinking?”
“Something the God said about you.”
Always, at the root of it: the Laughing God. Tsabrak. A bad habit, like her jenja. Aneki had warned him of that, last winter. Veiko prodded his chest with careful fingers, as if he might find a wound to match the sharp pain upthrust beneath the bones.
“And what did he say?”
Her eyes drank the fire. Gave nothing back. “That you have no intention of surviving this fight with Tal’Shik. That you can’t win, and you know it. I didn’t want to ask you, in case it was true. So. Now that I’ve got my courage up—is it?”
That fast, the ground shifted. Solid rock turned to ice, creaking under his weight. A wise man did not jump when that happened. A wise man moved slowly, carefully, back to safe ground.
“My survival is not the important part.”
“It is to me. Is this something to do with that promise you made me last winter, when you said you’d kill her? If it is, I release you.”
Unless he had walked too far into the center of the lake to retreat. Unless the ice cracked all around him.
“It is not that simple.”
The smile hung crooked off her lips. “Sure it is. Listen. We’ve warned Dek about the tunnels. Told her about the garrison and the sacrifices. It’s her problem now. Let’s leave all of it. Walk out of here with sunrise. Go—wherever. North. South. East. I don’t care.”
“That will not solve our problem with Tal’Shik.”
“I think it will. If she has the leisure to come after us, let her try. I reckon she’ll be too busy watching Illharek tear itself apart.”
“And that does not bother you.”
“As you have been at pains to point out to me, I’m a half-blood to everyone in Illharek. I always will be. No matter what miracles I perform, even if I go back there carrying a dragon’s head in a sack. So let them care for themselves.”
“Dekklis. Belaery. Istel. Your friends.”
“If those three can’t defend Illharek, what can I do? But even if—when—they win, Dekklis can’t afford to be my friend. I’m godsworn. I will be a political liability. And Belaery? Same problem. The adepts will forgive her for learning heresies. But they won’t forgive me. No, see, my friends were here, Veiko, and they’re dead.”
“And what of the God?”
“The Laughing God doesn’t need me. He never did. By any of his names.”
“No.” Veiko wished himself wiser, and silent, and said, “He does need you. This new God needs you very much.”
“He’ll learn better.”
“No,” a third time. He meant to lecture her on oathbreaking, that the God would not simply let her go, no matter her wishes. Said instead, “You are no coward, to flee from a fight.”
“Maybe I am. Maybe you just can’t see it, since you don’t know what the word means. Oh, don’t look at me like that. You’re the one who fights because you’re a good man. Not me. I’m the cartel assassin.”
“We are both outlaws,” Veiko said. “But we are not the same. You are deliberate. You have chosen your outlawry. I did not think or plan. I acted. I was fortunate to escape with my life. I was fortunate” —
that I did not die that first winter, that I found you
—“that my family did not suffer for my crime. I was a fool, but I was also lucky. A man must grow wiser, or rely on his luck to save him. Someday, luck will fail.”
“So a man commits suicide against a superior enemy instead. That’s wisdom.”
“Tal’Shik needs killing,” he said simply. “Just as the chieftain’s son did. Except this time, I am planning it.”
“You’re telling me this is your strategy?”
“Yes. If I kill her, she will—change me. I will take her into myself. If she kills me, then I can do that to her. I am noidghe.” Iron-bitter in the back of his throat, as if he’d swallowed blood. “Of the two, I prefer the first, although I do not want to be what Istel is.”
“Istel doesn’t mind it.”
“Istel may not. But tell me. Would you be so willing to share me with Tal’Shik, the way the God shares Istel? Would your God be pleased at our association?”
“I wouldn’t ask him for approval.” The anger bled out of her again. Left her brittle. “You know what’s funny? The God told me all of this. Said you weren’t going to tell me. Would you have, if I had not asked?”
“No.”
She sucked in her breath. Held it a beat. Then: “Why not?”
“I knew you would object.”
“Fuck yes, I would object. I am objecting.” She stared at him. “What makes you think Tal’Shik will even want a bellyful of you? She eats souls, we know that. But you’re noidghe. You’re dangerous.”
“She is arrogant.”
“Lot of that going around, yeah? Listen to me. We’re partners. What makes you think this is just your decision?”
“It is exactly the same as what you did when Istel was hurt and the God offered you a bargain. You acted as you thought best. So. This is the best way I know to fight her, and that is what I will do.”
“Toadshit. I asked you before I took any oaths. And I have an out, rot you. The God and I have a fucking bargain and when the terms are finished, I’m free of him. You do this, you’re just gone. Or changed.”
Not even ice underfoot now. Deep water, and no land in sight. “What bargain?”
“The one you didn’t want to know about, when I tried to tell you details. The one where he lets me go.”
Which was not an answer. She might be too angry to tell him. She might be lying about the details of bargain, too. Ancestors, he did not want to think that, but she might be. She was that angry and that desperate.
Frost collected in her eyes. On the line of jaw and mouth. “Call me liar and have done.”
“I…believe you.” His own lie. Please, ancestors, he could make it true.
“Huh.”
Oh, he did not think her satisfied. But she left off arguing, at least. Settled back onto her heels. Folded her arms. Stared hard at the floor between them. Silence crept between them. Took up all the space and kept pushing until Veiko’s skin hurt.
He turned a shoulder to her, finally. Walked back to the table, to their packs. He had been carrying the cookpot. He worked the laces holding it loose. He scraped with a fingernail at the blackened fragments of flatcake. It was a good pan. Well seasoned. And still not entirely unaffected by the accidents of Snow’s cooking. He should have made their supper on the road north, knowing her skills lay elsewhere. Had not, preferring to keep his attention on Kellehn and the Taliri. Now he scooped up a handful of sand from the bucket beside the firedog, dropped it into the pot. He concentrated on the scrape of sand on metal that was both too loud and not loud enough. Heard her crossing the room. Heard Logi’s tail swish across the boards as she passed him.
Heard her stop, less than an arm’s length from his back. Heard her breathe. Smelled the damp coming off her clothes. Dust and sweat, a week’s travel, spice and jenja smoke.
He shook the pan out. Took a second handful of sand.
“All right,” she said, and it was like lancing a boil. Pain and relief together. “You say I don’t run from fights, and you’re right. I don’t. You say I plan to win. You’re right. I do. So, here is my plan. You don’t kill the whole Tal’Shik. You kill just the dragon. The avatar’s body, not the goddess. Stay out of the ghost roads. You said you could—what, go find a wurm in the ghost roads? Learn its secrets?”
He tasted dust between his teeth. “It is not a simple thing, wurm-killing.”
“You’ve got an axe, yeah? I’m told they work well on dragons. We know your bow does.”
“That was in the ghost roads. She. It.” He paused. Collected words and wit. Scraped hard at the blackened pot. “That does not solve our problem. She will acquire another avatar, and it begins again. Your plan only prolongs the conflict.”
“Not if we go after her in the ghost roads at the same time. If she’s in an avatar, she’s splitting her power. She’s weaker in both places. And conjuring is lethal to spirits, yeah? I can’t kill something that big. But there’s a whole Academy of adepts who could, if we taught them how.”
“None of them came north with us.”
“So, we go back to them. We get her to follow us to Illharek. And that’s where we kill her. Tal’Shik doesn’t know I’m noidghe. She only knows about you. That’s got to count for something.”
“Now you are noidghe.”
“Way you tell it, I have been since last winter.” She hesitated, one breath and two. Her voice was low, a little unsteady. “If it keeps you from committing your honorable suicide, I’ll cross that black river as many times as I have to. Learn whatever songs you teach me.”
