“A lot of Halmady men were killed. I saw them falling. The lead Steiner men had shields, they'd…they'd attack the Halmady soldiers, and press them, and…and I don't think they could handle the shields. Gregan grabbed my arm at the end, tried to run me to the main hall stairs, and fight through with a small guard. But the stairs were blocked. They stabbed Gregan eight or nine times before he died. He was brave. He screamed, but he fought too. He took two Steiners down. I screamed at them for mercy, that he was valuable, that there could be ransom. They didn't listen. They just kept…stabbing. He bled so much.”
There was a chill on Sasha's skin, at odds with the warmth of the morning sun through the shutters. Alythia's stare was vacant, her voice thin, trembling. Remembering all. Sasha had seen horrors, death and bloodshed…but she had not watched someone she loved butchered before her eyes. For all her youthful ignorance, Sasha had always been certain that she was far wiser in the ways of the world than Alythia. Now, for the first time, she was not so sure.
“The guards were all killed,” Alythia continued, softly. “They just…murdered them, even once they'd stopped fighting. I…I tried to fight them, but one just knocked the sword from my hand. They dragged me downstairs. I saw maids being raped. I thought they would rape me too, but a senior man claimed me for a prize. On the patio, I saw little Tristi. They'd killed him.” Alythia's voice finally broke, a strangled sob. “He was just a little boy, but they killed him. I couldn't see Elra. I thought they'd killed her too.”
Heirs, Sasha thought, past the lump in her throat. Girls could not inherit. Boys could. Patachi Steiner had wanted the Halmady name erased. It seemed he'd succeeded.
“I don't know where Tashyna was. She must have hidden and followed me later.” Her eyes met Sasha's, struggling for composure. “Gregan wasn't a wonderful husband for most of our marriage. But he died like one. All my life, I wished for the day I was wed to a dashing, handsome man like him. Two months I was married, and in much of that time he ignored me. Only at the end, when I finally won him back, he was killed. Some fairytale.”
“I'm so sorry, Lyth,” Sasha said quietly. “I don't know what to say.”
Alythia sniffed and wiped at her eyes. She stroked Tashyna's head. “Well, I still have Tashyna,” she said, attempting lightness.
“Elra will need you, once she's woken,” Sasha added. “Errollyn's made her sleep for now, he says she'll heal faster that way. But she'll need a familiar face when she wakes.”
Alythia nodded. “I'll be there. Can you help look after Tashyna? She's not good with most company, and Elra's scared of her. I thought…I thought if anyone could help me look after a wolf, it'd be you.”
Sasha blinked in astonishment. A compliment. Of sorts. It was the first she could remember in…well, ever. “Of course,” she said. “Of course I will.”
“There were rumours that you'd met with Marya,” said Alythia with a dark, level gaze. “Did you?”
Sasha nodded. “She stuck me in the back of the neck with a needle. I should have seen it. We're now her second family, Lyth. Steiner are her first. The ones that matter.”
“I'm going to kill her,” Alythia said in a low voice. “If I ever get close enough again, I'm going to slit her throat.” Sasha had heard Alythia offer threats before, usually in high temper at the top of her lungs. This was the first time she believed Alythia really meant it.
Sasha didn't reply. She didn't hate Marya like that, despite what had happened. Marya was who she was-a good mother, a devoted wife, the perfect woman of the household in Lenayin or Petrodor. Alythia might have seen death, but she'd never killed. Killing enemies was hard enough. Killing sisters…dear spirits. She didn't want to think it. Marya had been the other great friend of her childhood, besides Krystoff. One did not banish such memories easily. And Krystoff's spirit would never forgive her. Nor her mother's. Nor all her other, still living siblings. Everyone loved Marya. Or had done, before the sides were chosen.
Tashyna squirmed in discomfort and tried to lick Alythia's face Sasha noticed that the water bowl by the bed was empty. “Here,” she volunteered, “I'll get her some more water.”
When she returned to Alythia's room, she placed the bowl on the floor. Tashyna waited until Sasha was sitting once more, then jumped from the bed and drank thirstily.
“Look,” said Sasha, as the idea formed, “she'll need some exercise, I don't imagine she got much in Halmady.”
Alythia shook her head. “Just a small pen. She ran lots of circles, it must have driven her mad.”
“Well, I can take her on my run easily enough. She just needs to trust me. The first step's easy, here.” Sasha got up and sat on the bed beside Alythia. Tashyna paused drinking and looked at them with big, yellowish eyes. “See?” said Sasha to the wolf, putting an arm around Alythia's shoulders. “My sister. I'm a part of your pack too. See?”
She put her head on Alythia's shoulder. Alythia felt stiff and uncomfortable. Tashyna cocked her head, ears pricked. Sasha smiled-she could see the wolf thinking. Reasoning. Doubting. Alythia seemed to relax-Sasha looked, and saw she was smiling too. And put her arm, too, around Sasha.
Tashyna went back to drinking, still watching from the corner of her eye. “Don't think this makes us sisters or anything,” said Alythia. A joke, Sasha realised after a moment. With heavy irony. She was trying. Lords, it couldn't have been easy.
“Perish the thought,” she replied, smiling. “Lyth, you're safe here. Or as safe as you could be in Petrodor, anyhow. No one here will hurt you in any way. Just…just know that.”
Alythia nodded, biting the inside of her cheek. “Thanks” did not quite escape her lips. But that was fine. Sasha could wait.
Tashyna finished drinking and looked at the sisters. She stepped forward, wanting Alythia's lap once more, but pausing. Sasha eased herself slowly to the floor and, kneeling, held out her hand. Tashyna sniffed, cautiously, but no longer with such obvious worry. She licked. And lowered her head, paws braced, observing this new person from several angles.
Sasha planted her hands on the floor and imitated the wolf on all fours. Whined at her. Tashyna's ears pricked. Her tail wagged, then stopped. “Sasha, what in the world are you doing?” Alythia asked, a trace of that old, imperious tone returning. Sasha ignored her and risked a small jump, bracing her arms straight out in front, head and shoulders low. Tashyna jumped as well, backing a little. Sasha repeated it, several times. Then panted. Tashyna jumped at her, then backed away.
Sasha jumped at the wolf and Tashyna sprang up onto the bed. And then, to Alythia's exclamation, jumped straight onto Sasha from that height. Sasha rolled and Tashyna sprang aside, darting to the far wall and crouching. Her tongue was lolling now, excitedly. Sasha laughed.
“Oh, Sasha, stop it,” Alythia complained, half wearily as if having expected no better. “That's undignified, even for you. You shouldn't go down to her level, she's just a wolf!”
“That's no way to speak of a friend,” Sasha retorted and sprang at the wolf. Tashyna leapt sideways, with far greater agility, then jumped on Sasha's side. Sasha grabbed her and wrestled. Tashyna was nice enough not to bite hard, and jumped away, tail wagging madly.
Soon even Alythia was having to smother a smile behind her hand. Sasha had worked up a sweat by the time Kessligh pushed open the door, to stare with some concern at the cause of all the noise. Tashyna immediately backed away from the door, nervously. Sasha put a comforting arm around her and scratched her neck. “Oh look, Tashyna,” she said brightly, “it's the dominant male!”
Kessligh raised an eyebrow. “Just checking. I thought maybe someone was dying.”
“Oh, come on, if Alythia and I were fighting, it wouldn't last very long.”
“Oh that's charming,” said Alythia drily.
Kessligh squatted opposite Tashyna and offered a hand. Tashyna stretched forward hopefully, tail high and curled. “She's at least known some good treatment,” Kessligh observed, “or she'd be impossible.” Tashyna sniffed his hand. “
She looks like a northern wolf. She's a little lighter on the chest and her coat's thicker.”
“Aye,” Sasha agreed, still on her haunches by the bed, breathing hard. “She's probably Hadryn. Which would make her the most agreeable Hadryn I've met in ages.”
“Just as likely Taneryn,” said Kessligh. Tashyna stopped sniffing and went to take a drink. Which was remarkable in itself, Sasha reckoned. Some new people, at least, no longer terrified her into demanding her full attention. Some could safely be ignored. “Better hope it's a cold winter, or she'll be hot in her new coat.”
The wolf jumped back onto the bed and nudged at Alythia's shoulder. New friends or not, Alythia would remain her best friend. And deservedly so, Sasha conceded to herself thoughtfully. Wild animals did not give loyalty lightly. Alythia must have earned it.
“Come on Lyth,” said Sasha, rising to her feet. “There's breakfast downstairs, we'll see if we can find some scraps for Tashyna.”
“Give her a few more months and she'll need a lot more than scraps,” Kessligh warned, leading the way to the stairs.
“Oh but Kessligh!” Sasha complained, in her best, well-remembered little girl voice. “Can't we keep her? Please? She won't be any trouble, honest!”
Behind her, fixing a lead to Tashyna's collar, Sasha could have sworn she saw Alythia smile.
Taking a young wolf on a leash for a run was not as simple as Sasha had thought. Tashyna reacted to everything, sometimes with fear and, at other times, with uncontainable excitement. She leaped from one side of the alley to the other, avoiding strange-looking people who stared, then bounding toward doorways from which wafted interesting food smells. Her ears would prick pleasantly upon the sight of children, tail raised, her whole posture alert and positive. And then she would halt, go sideways, or retreat at the sight of a man with a sword at his hip. Then Sasha would have to halt and yank her onward, and say reassuring words while she growled and slunk past the man in question…who usually pressed himself against the opposite wall for good measure. Thankfully most men with hip-worn swords were sailors who rarely ventured far from the docks.
Running up the incline paths and stairs was also a challenge, as Tashyna tried to bound up four steps at a time, only to be yanked short and entangle Sasha's legs with the leash. Worse yet, several times on the incline they encountered stray dogs. At the first one, Tashyna nearly tore Sasha's arms from the sockets…but within five strides, the other animal's nature-given instincts seemed to alert it to the fact that this was no big dog, but in fact a wolf, even though it had surely never seen a wolf before in its life. It ran baying with terror. Tashyna looked a little crestfallen.
Sasha laughed. “Don't worry,” she said. “You're not missing much.”
By the time Sasha ran her final leg along the dockfront, Tashyna didn't seem particularly tired. Instead, she leaped and snapped at the leash as Sasha laboured along. Surely Tashyna was unfit after so much captivity, spirits forbid she came into good condition, there weren't many Nasi-Keth runners who could keep up. Perhaps they'd have to send her on consecutive runs.
Dockfront crowds stared and pointed as she ran. Some men setting up their market stalls called out, “It's the Lenay wolf girl!”
“She's not mine, she's my sister's!” Sasha called back, cheerfully. And was amused by the thought of the rumours that would now spread along the dockfront of a Lenay warrior princess even bigger and meaner than the first, who befriended wild wolves.
Arranging for an extra supply of meat scraps was not hard-she simply took Tashyna to The Fish Head and said hello to Tongren. Tongren and his three sons greeted Tashyna as though she were a long-lost relative, giving her water, bacon rinds, and bones with scraps from the kitchen, promising better to come.
At a lane off Fishnet Alley, Sasha rapped on a warped old door, then opened it without waiting. A brick lane led through a dark corridor and into a small courtyard surrounded by several floors of old, brick building. Through some window shutters, Sasha could see people moving.
She tied Tashyna's leash to a small tree in the courtyard and gave her a final pat-Tashyna seemed to get the idea, and lay down with a yawn. Remarkable wolf, Sasha thought as she walked to the door. Maybe it was possible to train her.
She knocked and entered. Inside a small room was a bed, in which there lay a little girl with light brown hair. There was a paste on her left arm, which rested on the sheet that covered her. She looked flushed as she slept, and the young woman at her bedside wet her forehead with a damp cloth from a basin. At the bedside sat Alythia, holding the girl's good hand. By the end of the bed, Errollyn stood with another woman, whom Sasha recognised as a Nasi-Keth healer. Errollyn was explaining something. His green eyes met Sasha's as he talked.
Sasha put a hand on Alythia's shoulder. “Lyth, Tashyna's just outside,” she said quietly. “Best warn these people there's a wolf in their courtyard.”
“Thanks,” Alythia murmured, her eyes not leaving little Elra's face. The last surviving child of Patachi Halmady…unless Vincen had somehow survived, which didn't seem likely.
Errollyn finished his conversation and hugged her, hard. Sasha hugged him back, and held on for a long, long time. She felt suddenly exhausted, wanting nothing more than to burrow her head against his chest and stay there forever. Finally Errollyn released her and took her face in his hands to look at her. “The spirits favour you,” he said with a smile. “You make more trouble than a bear in a beehive.”
“Just once in my life,” Sasha murmured tiredly, “I'd like to be compared to something other than wild animals.”
“You don't need to do this, you know,” Errollyn told Sasha as they climbed the lower slope from Dockside. Sasha did not reply. “Yulia made her own choices. You aren't responsible for what happened.”
“I'm not discussing this.” Again the familiar, winding road, its sides cluttered with ramshackle brick buildings.
At the lane that led to Yulia's aunt's residence, Sasha nearly stopped. But she didn't, and walked up to the little side door and rapped. There was no reply. Sasha rapped again. Finally, it opened. Looking out at her was a young girl, perhaps ten.
“Hello Marli,” Sasha said. Her voice was steady, which surprised her. She would push through it, she thought. Like diving into cold water, you pushed through the shock, safe in the knowledge that the sooner you began, the sooner you could climb out and begin drying. “Is your mother home?”
Marli shook her head. “She's out. Making preparations.”
“Preparations?”
“The funeral.” Marli's eyes were lowered.
Sasha took a deep breath. “When is the funeral, Marli?”
“Tomorrow. The rites say within three days.” As if Sasha, a Lenay pagan, might need that explained to her.
“Is it at Angel Bay?” Sasha asked. There were cremation pyres there. In the strict Verenthane faith, bodies had to be buried, but cemetery plots were beyond the means of lower-slope residents and so the lower-slope priests had resurrected cremation.
Marli nodded, sullenly. “You're not welcome,” she muttered. “There's no Nasi-Keth welcome.”
Sasha stared down at the girl. Took a deep breath and tried to retain her composure. “Marli,” she said quietly, “I'm very sorry about what happened to Yulia. It was my fault. I shouldn't have asked her to come. I should have gone on my own.”
Marli met her gaze for the first time, with incredulous eyes. “You admit it?”
“Of course I admit it. Marli, do you understand?” She gazed at the girl hopefully.
Marli stared back, her wide eyes unreadable. “Responsible?”
“Yes, responsible. I'd like to be at the funeral, Marli. I have to be there.”
“Mama wouldn't like it.”
It was a less hostile response than it could have been. Sasha's hopes rose further, desperately. “I know that, Marli. I'm very sorry about that. But I knew Yulia too, and I know she didn't always agree with what her aunt thought. What do you think?”
“Me?” Marli blinked. “You actually ask what I think? Yulia's mother is dying, did you know that? She's not just sick, that's what Yulia always told people. She's dying. She was always my favourite aunt, and Yulia was my favourite cousin. We were always friends. I know I shouldn't have been happy that Yulia came to live with us, because she only did it because her mother was dying…but I was happy. I had to take care of the babies. Mama's always toiling, and she doesn't have time. My brother works as staff for a midslope Family. He's a groundsman, I never see him. It's just me here now.
“It was me and Yulia. Yulia helped with the babies. She helped Mama cook, and fetch water. She took care of Grandpa when he fell ill and took six months to die, I don't know how we'd have managed without her help. She taught me to read after the Nasi-Keth taught her, even though Mama said I was wasting my time. We played games together. I never played games before Yulia came to stay. I had someone to talk to, for the first time in my life.
“Now she's dead, because you thought she might be useful to your stupid Nasi-Keth games. But that's the way it always is, isn't it? Wealthy folk always use up poor folk like firewood, don't they? And now you come around here, and demand that you be allowed to come to the funeral, and say how you want to become even more involved with this family…doesn't it even occur to you that you're the last person in the whole world we'd like to see right now?”
There were tears running down Marli's cheeks, and an awful, hollow pain in her eyes. Sasha stood rooted to the spot, unable to move. She wanted to run, but her honour would not let her. She wanted to never have come, but her principles had demanded it. Most of all, she wanted to have been smarter than she was, and more sensitive of other people's lives, and to never have asked Yulia to come with her to the Cliff of the Dead. But she had, and all the wishing in the world would not change it.
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