Starborn

by Lucy Hounsom

  More silence. Kyndra pressed her ear closer. ‘Perhaps’, Argat said coldly, ‘I’m asking the wrong question.’

  ‘What do you think you are doing?’

  If the captain’s voice was cold, Brégenne’s was quiet ice. Kyndra leapt away from the wall as if stung, her heart pounding. She hadn’t even heard the door open.

  ‘Answer me.’

  She desperately wanted Brégenne to be quiet, or Nediah would know at once that she’d been eavesdropping. She didn’t know why that mattered to her, but it did. She sprang past Brégenne to slam the door shut. Then she whirled around and held up her hands in a placating gesture.

  Brégenne’s white eyes seemed portals to her outrage. They blazed in the dim room.

  ‘Brégenne?’ It was Nediah’s voice outside the door. Kyndra shook her head, mouthed please. The woman didn’t blink.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Not now, Nediah.’

  ‘I need to talk to you. It’s important.’ Nediah sounded as anxious as Kyndra felt.

  ‘It can wait, I’m sure. I have some things to sort out.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No. Half an hour, Nediah, and I will be free to listen.’

  They heard nothing from the man beyond the door and Kyndra was sorry for him.

  ‘This had better be good,’ Brégenne said softly. She folded her arms and – deliberately, it seemed – sat on the black silk. ‘I am waiting.’

  There was nothing Kyndra could say to justify her presence, except to tell the truth. Her blunder over the wine had taught her that. ‘Nediah wants to talk to you about me,’ she began. Brégenne raised an eyebrow, but stayed silent. ‘I came in here … to listen in on his conversation with Argat,’ Kyndra said in a rush. She watched Brégenne’s face carefully, but the woman showed no sign of approval or disapproval. She simply sat there, sphinx-still, her arms crossed beneath her breasts. ‘I was in the captain’s saloon.’ She told Brégenne about the earth and the dreams she’d had back in Brenwym, but decided to leave out the vision she’d seen in the marketplace, frightened to think about what it meant. She described the citadel and the red valley and the headaches she suffered afterwards. ‘The earth showed me the same things,’ she finished, ‘but it only worked for me, not for Argat. He might have glimpsed them over my shoulder, though.’ Kyndra heard her voice tremble. ‘I don’t like them. I don’t know how to stop seeing them.’

  ‘They started on your Inheritance day?’

  Kyndra nodded. ‘I almost missed the Ceremony because of the first. I thought it was just a dream at the time.’ She paused. ‘Now I don’t know what to think.’

  Brégenne unfolded her arms. ‘Thank you for telling me. It’s more important than ever that we reach Naris swiftly.’

  Any relief Kyndra had felt at being able to talk about the visions evaporated. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘What can they do there?’

  Brégenne twined her hands together. ‘I think we can help with the headaches. As for the visions, we have ways to examine a person’s mind by means unavailable to others.’

  ‘Examine a person’s mind?’ Kyndra repeated. She didn’t like it. Just the thought of Brégenne poking around in her head was enough to trigger a nervous sweat. A new thought occurred to her and she shivered. ‘You don’t think I’m going mad like that man in the city?’

  ‘Stopping the headaches may be enough,’ Brégenne replied without answering Kyndra’s question.

  This definitely wasn’t enough for Kyndra, since the subject Brégenne skirted round was her immediate future. She crossed her arms. ‘Why are you taking me to Naris? There’s something you’re not telling me.’

  ‘There is.’ Brégenne stood up and moved towards the door. ‘And the reason for my silence is simple. You wouldn’t believe me.’

  While Kyndra stared, slowly shaking her head, Brégenne jerked the handle of the door and pulled it open.

  Nediah leapt back against the opposite wall, hitting his head on an extinguished lamp. He cursed quite inventively and then the dark flush that always lurked beneath his skin rose to the surface. It was too much for Kyndra. She laughed. Her fear of whatever Brégenne was keeping secret lent it a slightly desperate edge.

  Brégenne did not laugh. She fixed her glowing eyes upon her companion. ‘I take it this is the important subject you wished to discuss.’ She nodded at Kyndra.

  ‘Yes,’ Nediah said, rubbing the back of his head. ‘But I didn’t think she would come to you.’

  Kyndra shifted uncomfortably. Nediah was right; telling Brégenne about the visions was the last thing she’d have done, given the choice.

  ‘She saw sense,’ Brégenne said. Kyndra opened her mouth to protest, but the woman shot her a white glare and she closed it again. She owed her, and Brégenne knew it.

  9

  They arrived in Jarra near sundown. The Eastern Set’s stern paddles churned the air, speeding them through the late afternoon. The airship had maintained its impressive pace after leaving the capital, but Kyndra was already anxious to be off it. Not that she was looking forward to what would come next. Brégenne’s words about Naris crouched in a fraught corner of her mind, tormenting her with images of her skull being opened by thin-fingered people.

  It was hot on deck, so Kyndra shed her jerkin and rolled the sleeves of her shirt as high as they would go. Then, feeling reckless, she leapt onto the starboard rail. Grabbing one of the ropes, she leaned out, letting the wind blow the hair off her forehead. She grinned – now this was flying. From her vantage point, she could see down the whole length of the airship. Its body was like a gleaming animal, flesh dappled with cloud shadows. The oiled chain clanked, as the ground rushed below her. Everything was wind and world and hazy, rusting light.

  A sailor’s sharp word ended her flight and Kyndra jumped down. As if she’d left them on the deck, her fears flowed back to her chest where they clung like a winter fever. She snatched up her jerkin and put it on, pulling its laces tight. Suddenly the sun was too strong and the cooling wind too chill.

  Kyndra wandered back to the cabins. Nediah, she saw, was repacking the saddlebags. ‘How are the horses?’ she asked him.

  ‘Not happy. They’ve been cooped up for too long. But they’ll get their wish to run soon enough.’

  She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  Nediah’s hands paused and he glanced up from where he sat on the floor. ‘Thanks to your antics in the saloon, Argat told me he wants you off his ship the moment we reach Jarra.’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘It’s his ship, Kyndra. His rules.’

  Kyndra was silent, feeling guilty. Nediah shook out two shirts, laying one on the narrow berth.

  ‘How are we going to reach Murta without another horse?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ll think of something.’ Nediah stowed the other shirt in the saddlebag and then gave her a crooked smile. ‘You seem to have a talent for making enemies.’

  Kyndra’s protest shrivelled in her throat. She remembered the angry, frightened faces in Brenwym and the shouts of condemnation.

  ‘Murta is near Naris, isn’t it?’ she said quietly. ‘That’s why we’re going there.’

  Nediah nodded, pulling the buckles tight on the saddlebag before rising and stashing it in a corner. Then he turned to remove his shirt, picking up the fresh one he’d laid out ready.

  Kyndra blushed and was about to flee the room when she caught a flash of gold. Instead, she found herself staring. An intricate net of shining lines scored Nediah’s back. They curved and plunged around each other, forming a great circle whose rays burst out like wings across the man’s shoulders. Kyndra gazed raptly until the tattoo vanished under the clean shirt and Nediah turned to meet her eyes.

  ‘The marks of my trade,’ he said shortly. ‘All Wielders bear them.’

  Jarra was little more than an outpost in the west: a few buildings and two sturdy docks.

  ‘Not many live here,’ First Mate Yara told Kyndra, as the Eastern Set whirred to a
halt. ‘It’s isolated and the soil’s too poor to take crop. But the original workshops were built out here many years ago and the Assembly won’t spend the gold it’ll cost to relocate.’

  ‘Yara!’ a voice cried.

  In one smooth movement, Yara gave her mooring line to a crewman and leapt the gap between airship and dock. She landed catlike on all fours. An equally tall woman with the same dark skin hurried to embrace her. When they parted, Kyndra saw that the stranger’s face was a mirror of Yara’s. Throwing a tumble of hair over her shoulder, she smoothed out the short scroll that Yara had squashed in her hug and looked expectantly at the first mate.

  Yara shouted an order and crates soon began to arrive on the dock, carried up from the airship’s hold. The woman Kyndra took for Yara’s sister ticked them off, tucked the grubby quill pen behind her ear and then seized the first mate’s hand. They slid down the ladder and – talking rapidly – disappeared into one of the whitewashed buildings on the ground.

  Nediah appeared, loaded down with saddlebags, and Brégenne stood beyond him, characteristically hooded. She was speaking to the horses. As if they sensed their impending freedom, the two stamped happily on the deck, attracting irritable looks from Captain Argat. Kyndra watched him approach with some trepidation, but the man addressed himself solely to Nediah.

  ‘The rest of my fee.’

  ‘Of course,’ Nediah said smoothly. He dipped into a pocket and tipped a few small golden coins into Argat’s hand.

  The captain stared at them and then swiftly closed his fist. ‘These are stamped with the Murtan sigil,’ he hissed.

  Nediah raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that a problem? I have silver capitals if you prefer.’

  An ugly look contorted Argat’s face. ‘Get off my ship,’ he growled. Without looking once at Kyndra, he turned and strode away.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Kyndra asked once they and the horses were back on solid ground.

  ‘Our Captain Argat’s a superstitious fellow,’ Nediah said, as they wandered towards the ramshackle town. ‘I promised to pay him gold if he’d take us to Jarra. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t specify what kind.’

  ‘Gold is gold.’

  ‘True enough, but he’ll have a hard time spending those coins. There are few who’d accept them. Such is the power of rumour.’ Nediah grinned. ‘He’ll have to trade them for half their value.’

  Kyndra felt a peculiar pity for Argat. ‘What’s so bad about the Murtan sigil?’ she asked.

  Nediah gave her a sidelong glance. ‘Although the coins are stamped in the town of Murta, the ore is mined in Naris and that results in a rather unusual effect. The coins show Murta against a backdrop of mountains.’ His eyes grew distant. ‘But some who look at the coins see another mountain, black and twisted, which throws its shadow across the town. A blink and it’s gone. Enough people have seen the mountain in the coins to consider them cursed.’

  The first stars were visible in the night sky. Kyndra stared up at them, hugging herself against the thought of the disfigured peak. She knew what was in the coins without needing to see one. It was the fortress of Solinaris – or what was left of it.

  ‘I doubt we’ll be able to find a third horse.’

  Brégenne’s words broke Kyndra’s trance. Her head snapped down and she darted a guilty glance at the blind woman. Brégenne’s white eyes glowed brighter now that they were away from the airship. ‘I’ll make a few enquiries,’ she said, turning down one of the dirt roads that quartered Jarra.

  Nediah started to follow her. ‘Let me come with you.’

  ‘No,’ Brégenne said sharply over her shoulder. ‘Stay with Kyndra. I won’t be long.’

  Nediah sighed as he watched her vanish into the shadow of a building. He motioned to Kyndra and the two of them looped the horses’ reins around a tree and seated themselves on the rocky ground beneath.

  ‘Is she angry with me?’ Kyndra asked quietly.

  ‘No.’ Nediah propped his chin in his hands. At that moment, with his patched cloak gathered on his back, he looked nothing like one of the Wielders of legend.

  ‘It’s just that she’s hardly spoken to me since I told her about the earth. And it’s my fault we can’t take the airship to Murta.’

  ‘She’s worried about the envoi,’ Nediah said, his eyes searching the dark street that had swallowed Brégenne. ‘Even if we do find a third horse, the journey will take three or four times as long.’

  Kyndra nodded and they sat in silence for a few moments. Then she noticed the tavern that Yara and her sister had entered earlier. ‘Can’t we go in there?’ It was a tall structure peppered with windows. The lowest ones were full of light and the sounds of gathered people leaked out to where they sat under the stars.

  ‘I’m not making that mistake again,’ Nediah said wryly, wiping a hand over his face. ‘And it’s a pleasant evening. I’d rather be outside to enjoy it while I can.’

  Kyndra looked curiously at him. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We’re almost home.’

  She waited for more, but Nediah said nothing and his green eyes were remote. Kyndra realized he was gazing still further west at something as yet unseen.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said softly. ‘Aren’t you glad to be going home?’

  Nediah blinked. ‘I suppose. But there’ll be a hearing. Even if we come out of it well, Brégenne and I won’t be able to leave the citadel any time soon.’

  ‘You said you always travelled together,’ Kyndra remembered. ‘For safety.’

  Nediah smiled. ‘That’s how a Solar–Lunar pairing works. It means we are never defenceless and can watch one another’s back should events get out of hand. But any display is strictly prohibited unless the situation threatens our lives. When we return,’ Nediah added, losing his smile, ‘Brégenne will have to answer for breaking that law.’

  Kyndra wondered whether she ought to feel guilty, but, after all, it wasn’t her fault that Brégenne had used her powers in front of everyone in Brenwym.

  More stars glimmered into view and a wind picked up, blowing towards them out of the west. Kyndra pulled her cloak around her shoulders, gazing at the distant, twinkling lights. ‘I thought there was another power,’ she said. ‘That poem mentioned it. The Starborn.’ She hadn’t thought about the poem for several days.

  Nediah was a still shadow beside her. ‘They are long gone.’

  ‘What happened to them?’

  The man’s gaze wandered across the sky. ‘They were rare in the first place. Only a few are recorded in Acrean history and none has appeared since the Deliverance.’

  ‘There are stories.’

  ‘Few.’ Nediah took his hands from his pockets and rubbed them. ‘They were greatly feared, for their power was born of the stars – all the countless suns separated from us by the frozen wastes of the void. It made them cold people, amoral even. They lived by their own laws.’

  ‘But were they Wielders like you and Brégenne?’

  ‘Not really. Their power was not restricted to day or night. It was universal, some said limitless, though I’m not sure I believe that. They kept to themselves and – according to some strange rule of the cosmos – no two were alive at the same time. That was something to be thankful for. Not even Solinaris could have withstood an alliance between two Starborn.’

  ‘Why do you keep talking about Solinaris and Naris as if they’re separate?’ Kyndra asked. ‘Aren’t they the same place?’

  ‘Yes and no.’ Nediah lowered his face until his mouth was in shadow. The moon shone on his closed eyelids. ‘Solinaris was destroyed in the Deliverance, at the end of the war. What remains is Naris – the dark mountain and my home.’

  Such was the weight in his voice that Kyndra kept the rest of her questions to herself. The minutes passed and the moon rose higher and finally they heard footsteps coming out of the night.

  ‘They won’t sell,’ Brégenne announced irritably, as she strode up to them.

  ‘I’m not sur
prised,’ Nediah said. He climbed to his feet. ‘Any horse is worth its weight in gold out here.’

  Brégenne gave her mare an apologetic pat. ‘Sorry, girl.’ She turned her moonlit eyes on the other two. ‘There’s no help for it. We’ll have to do this the slow way.’

  ‘Kyndra can ride with me like last time,’ Nediah said. ‘We’ll go easy over the worst parts.’

  ‘No.’ Brégenne shook her head. ‘I’ll ride with you and Kyndra can have Myst.’ She stroked the grey mare’s mane. ‘She’ll look after her. She knows her way.’

  Nediah’s gaze flicked between the two women. ‘I guess it makes sense,’ he said. Kyndra was about to ask him just exactly what made sense, but the tart words died on her lips. She realized that she stood at least half a head taller than Brégenne. And the blind woman was slimmer too, she admitted. She’d be less of a burden on Nediah’s mount.

  ‘Uncle can cope,’ Nediah said with an affectionate glance at his horse.

  Kyndra stifled a laugh. ‘Your horse is called Uncle?’ She jumped at a burst of humid air huffed on the back of her neck. Nediah’s stallion stared at her with large, liquid eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ Nediah said mildly, ‘named in memory of the Hrosst breeder who tried to renege on our deal.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ Kyndra edged nervously away from the horse.

  ‘Nicked himself with his own poisoned dagger.’ Nediah’s eyes narrowed. ‘Quite tragic, really.’

  The days that followed were as long and slow as Brégenne had intimated. Kyndra became used to Myst’s rolling gait, though she inevitably fell asleep with aching muscles. Each hour of daylight found them further west. The terrain grew more rugged, the rarely used trail cluttered with rocks and pebbles. It stalked bluffs, ran down into chalk-choked valleys and out onto vast plateaux. Above them hung the elevated chain that marked the path of the airships, clankingly mocking their progress when the wind blew.

  The strain of carrying two people over such mountainous terrain finally began to tell on Nediah’s horse. They’d frequently have to dismount and walk – Kyndra included – until both mounts had recovered. The ground only grew worse as they moved west and Kyndra began to wonder what kind of people would willingly choose to live out here, surrounded by leagues of rock and shale. People who wanted to keep out the world or people the world wanted to keep out?