“She is fair, is she not?”
“If you speak of Jaelle, her fairness is the least of her qualities. She is exquisite in all things.”
Gideon gave the barest of smiles. “Too true, and I would say she deserves a future worthy of all her fine qualities. Would you not agree, Luca?”
The Hammat boy’s stay having lasted over two weeks, Luca still noted this was the first time he addressed Luca by name. “Would that I could, she would be lavished with every treasure she deserves.”
“I do not doubt you in your intent, only your means.”
He said the words kindly enough, but Luca still felt their sting. “It is a good thing my means do not matter. Jaelle decides her own destiny, and I know where her heart lies.”
Gideon stared at Luca a long time, his thoughts hidden as he extended his hand for Luca to warily take. “You have a romantic’s heart, Luca Dolphus. For that I wish you all the best, though I fear the world does not.”
Although their parting ended civilly enough, the Hammat’s benediction haunted him, Luca descended into a funk he could not escape until Jaelle relieved him of it.
At the door to her vurd, she slipped him the box so quickly he scarcely noticed. His mind lingered instead on the fact she had not initiated her usual nightly epithet when he opened the box. Inside sat the most beautiful thing he had ever seen: a silver Listener’s pin chased in intricate detail. It shone in the moonlight and paraded a heft that testified it was not one of Saban’s cappers. Such a gift was worth more than he would ever earn, and Luca wanted to tell Jaelle as much, but his words deserted him. Her smile said she understood, but she was not done.
“Breathe on it.”
Luca obeyed, and as soon as his exhale brushed the pin, it glowed faintly gold. Shock stole his next breath as Jaelle’s soft laughter tickled his ears. “Yes, imbued to show a lover’s heart. So if you are ever weak and ever doubt my heart again, you will have a reminder as to who it belongs to. Until someone chaperones us.”
She disappeared before he could return to her his refrain, Luca still too shaken to form thoughts. Imbued objects were rarer than silver and more valuable than the true love Jaelle demonstrated with her gift. But more than its priceless nature and promise of her heart, another message dwelt within. Only Simza could create such powerful objects, which she undertook at her daughter’s behest. If made by Simza’s own hand, it meant she not only approved of her daughter’s decision, but bestowed her blessing for all to see.
Luca’s nimble fingers fumbled at removing his dull pewter pin to replace it with the chased silver, its glint only overshadowed by his own grin.
***
Secure in Simza’s sanction, the months flew by to include Lela’s wedding to Nicolae Rinza. Five years past, folks would have whispered that Nicolae was marrying beneath his station, but now Luca thought his sister to be the one stooping. With the war on and the sudden influx of new Ikus families, need for Lela’s midwifery skills grew by the day, the blunt woman somehow parlaying her new status into an invitation to join the ghilana. Although it held no official power, many often approached the council of women to settle disputes, and each member held significant sway. All Lela needed now to cement her status was a child, but when Luca broached the subject, Lela snorted.
“What good would that do other than show the ghils I don’t know my own trade? Besides, traveling when anticipating is unpleasant, from what I gather.”
Looking over the swelled wolari, it took all of Luca’s will to keep from laughing. “You really think we’ll wander soon?”
“Nothing good ever lasts, Luca. And war is never good.”
She could not have been more wrong, as Simza demonstrated each day. Soon other Ikus matriarchs traveled with their retinues to seek her advice in person rather than over the ley, Simza making a great show of their presence as the wolari hosted feasts in their honor.
The head Weaver at Ceilminster College, which Luca learned four years later was called a provost, appeared twice more, Luca steering Simza’s vurd out into the night with her and Dorothy Kohl inside. Instead of Bo, the nervous Marko sat beside him. Petro was the better of the two bietala and took naturally to Luca’s lockblade lessons, but he was not originally from the wolari like Marko, who Simza specifically requested. Remembering suddenly the pouch of tobacco Bo shared his first time, Luca cursed himself for forgetting to do the same with Marko. To him these nightly missions were old hat, and only at observing Marko’s nervousness did Luca remember once being outside Simza’s personal circle. Both times they waited outside of eyeline from the nearby nodus until nearly dawn, at which point Marko escorted Kohl to her train headed back south. If she remembered Luca at all, she gave no sign, and that suited him just fine.
Simza’s new missions suited him less so, not so much for their danger, but because they took him away from Jaelle. But whenever doubt assailed him, Luca breathed upon his imbued pin and knew her golden thoughts still dwelt on him. Although Simza again insisted on Marko assisting him, Luca demanded the more capable Petro. To his surprise, Simza accepted, and while the man was pleasant enough, each excursion simply reminded Luca what he lost in Bo. The missions themselves mostly consisted of acquiring esoteric objects Luca had no hope in ascertaining, but the latest task that she sent him on alone left a bad taste in his mouth.
After traveling up the Theade River on an archaic steamboat, he stole into Ceilminster. Although not the capital of the Covenant, the city and its Weaver university held significant symbolic importance. There, under the cover of a new moon’s darkness, he doused the city hall with kerosene before tossing in a spark box. He did not linger long enough to watch the conflagration, and after two nights out of sight in a flophouse, he made the trip back north. The papers labeled the arson work by Newfield irregulars, and Luca wondered what they would think to learn it was a neural Dobra at the behest of his matriarch. Simza siding with the West while still dealing with an Eastern paragon in Dorothy Kohl proved more troubling. Perhaps this was some form of neutrality he did not understand, pruning each side through sabotage like a bush to keep it balanced, but Luca did not delve into the idea too deeply.
As he had told Kohl years ago, his job was not to understand, only to obey.
His obedience to Simza’s latest order ended up more difficult in execution than in intention. Not a month since his arson in Ceilminster, she summoned him and Marko to pilot her vurd out to the nearest nodus. Remembering his rolling papers this time, Luca and Marko scarcely finished their second smoke before Simza called them back to return Oselinda’s trunk to her vurd. Observing his matriarch’s face, it was the first time he had seen Simza scared. Ignoring the protests of the horses, Luca hurried back to the wolari, only for Simza to awaken the camp and tell them to depart. More surprising were the grumbles and almost outright refusals to obey. Judging by their faces, Luca reckoned a good third were ready to depart while a smaller, but more vocal, minority enjoyed their lives on the outskirts of Gatlin. Ready to play his part as bieta and put his silver tongue to his matriarch’s use, Luca took the stage only to find Lela beating her brother to the punch.
“What kind of Ikus refuses the orders of his matriarch?” she shouted. “And what kind of Wanderer refuses the call to ramble? Would you tell the bee not to sting, the bird not to sing? No! The bee makes a poor singer and the bird no soldier. Each acts as to their nature because they know what they are. So why then do you refuse your lot?”
Without another word, Lela strode to her vurd in the center circle with her husband at her heels, and Luca swore it was she who broke the dam that sent them back to their homes to pack.
***
Simza drove them south as swiftly as nearly seventy wagons could manage. Luca she sent on ahead alone with the tribe’s swiftest horse.
Her instructions were particularly specific, Luca following first the Theade River then her landmarks south. Unsure when exactly he entered Ingios territory, he knew not what he sought, only its location. Completel
y sure Simza had never traversed these lands she described in such detail, Luca’s hand never strayed far from his lockblade.
Both his destination and prize awaited him in a clearing stained brown from blood. He was amazed that only two bodies could produce so much, and even more so when he realized the smaller of the two still lived. Somehow the girl still clung to life despite the loss of her tongue.
Chapter 21
Blotmonad 19, 567
By Marta’s reckoning, they were far too adept at departing moving trains. For the second time in a month, Marta clutched Caddie close when making the jump. Waiting for the penultimate stop before Gatlin, their exit came within the first mile outside the town of Moorfield Station while the train still gathered momentum. Despite the dresses Cyrus provided, Marta maintained her current clothing to aid in mobility. Conroy’s coat was another matter, the rawhide sure to stick out in a proper city. She considered replacing it with Cyrus’ own coat, but his scent hit her upon picking it up, and Marta threw it back down. With each inhale invoking her mentor, she did not have the heart to be continually reminded of how terribly she treated him.
Cyrus they left bound inside his train car after Marta changed the destination on the outside chalkboard back to Broad Baird. Drunk, blindfolded, and with his ears bound, Marta doubted he possessed much awareness in his feverish state, but she still hurried. Cyrus would not remain incapacitated for long without their continual doses of drink after the train arrived in Gatlin within the hour. Their discovery was only a matter of time, but Luca refused to leave the ley. His eyes fluttering, Marta knew there was nothing to do until he was through.
Finally, his eyes opened and his grin returned.
“Time’s wasting,” she chided.
“It was worth the extra effort,” he replied. “I sent another message ahead that his car is not to be disturbed.”
“Won’t matter when he gets free. He knows where we’re going.”
“Ceilminster, yes. But that’s always been the end of the road, so why worry about that now? Perhaps, instead, you tell us while we’re here in Gatlin?”
He arched an eyebrow, the deepening dark keeping her from ascertaining if it signaled slight intrigue or annoyance. She was certainly the latter, but not entirely because of him. So close to her goal, any interruption irritated her, and she realized again she was not thinking clearly. To return home and demand answers from her father would be walking into the bear’s lair while carrying a honeycomb. With Caddie beside her, he might not require her any longer, and she saw the wisdom of Luca’s delay. Realizing she held Caddie’s hand in her own, Marta disentangled her fingers to offer the girl’s arm to Luca.
“I need to clarify something. If it works out, no one will trouble us for the rest of our trip. If I’m not back by midnight...” Marta realized she had no idea what the alternative might be. The freebooters who had been her constant companions were hired by her hateful brother, and she could not be sure they shared her mission to assassinate Caddie’s father. Perhaps they were just paid to see her through to Ceilminster and were utterly ignorant as to her real intent. Such a situation would be just like Carmichael and his parceling out of information at cross-purposes, and Marta secretly cursed his impenetrable machinations.
Her father would know though.
Pushing the girl on towards the man, Marta decided to let the bix sticks fall as they may. “You three head up the line a piece until you come to a meadow. If I don’t return by midnight, alone, complete your original orders.”
Caddie’s hand still hovered there, Luca unwilling to take it as he regarded Marta. His grin finally returned upon catching the child’s hand. “I’ll look after her as if she were my own.”
Turning away, Marta only made it two steps before the child interrupted her retreat.
“Home. Take me home. With you.”
Previously, Marta wondered if the girl just parroted the words she recently heard, simply repeating parts of questions as answers. But this was an unbidden statement, disconnected from anything said prior. Marta ached to explore it with additional questions, but time was of the essence.
“You stay with them for now. They’re your family, and no matter what, they’ll take you back to your father. You’ll be safe with them. I promise.” She held Caddie’s gaze as long as she could, which was still too short. “Midnight,” she repeated before leaving them her haversack and heading down the ley towards Hillbrook Manor.
Caddie tugged against him, but Luca firmly kept hold. As soon as Marta rounded the bend, he popped the cork to the vial hidden in his other hand. Without reflecting upon it lest he hesitate, he released the girl’s hand and pinched her nose closed. Caddie opened her mouth by reflex, Luca pouring the vial’s contents inside before clasping it closed. She resisted longer than he expected, but finally, Caddie succumbed by swallowing the ekesh.
The drug took immediate effect, the girl taking a halting step, only to stumble on the second. The fourth finally brought her to her knees, Caddie silently staring after the missing Marta before collapsing completely. She never called out for aid, and for that, Luca was thankful.
Isabelle remained equally inscrutable, but Caddie had been the goal all along, so he did not hesitate to step into the ley and send one final message, complete with their current location.
Compared to claiming the child, the luz jar with the Render Breath was a paltry prize, but Luca pilfered it nonetheless. With it weighing heavy in his pocket, he hoisted the comatose Caddie across his shoulders like a dead stag. The immobile Isabelle’s eyes still bored into him.
“Will you come back to us?”
She kept her thoughts hidden, but Luca felt her fury fighting with her despair. Her hand unconsciously played with the silver locket Simza gave her long ago, and Luca knew she understood the strands of loyalty that bound them all tighter than a funeral shroud.
“Don’t be like that. Please. It may not be what you want, but it will be better than what you have now.”
The necklace fell from her hand, and Luca knew then that he lost her forever. More than anything, he wanted to beg her to return to them, but she had already given him her all, and he knew he would only do her even greater harm by asking for more still. He needed to make a clean break of it for her sake, but found himself dipping down under the uncomfortable weight of Caddie to press his lips to Isabelle’s. The motion itself was not unfamiliar, but her lack of reaction was.
Walking away alone, Luca realized their last goodbye already passed a month ago.
***
Marta came upon the Coak Line and turned her course to trace it back home. Although Hillbrook Manor secretly controlled the nation of Newfield, her family’s plantation resided many miles from the Mimas capital of Gatlin. Such was the true proof of their Cildra power: information came to them rather than chasing after it.
The scent of her homeland hit her hard. The Saulshish Ocean resided many miles away, but Marta swore she could still smell the salt in the air. The land around her, intermingled with the air, coalesced into an odor she would be incapable of describing as anything else other than home. The smell struck her the moment they departed the train, it being all she could concentrate on. She knew she should focus upon her impending encounter with her father, but memories of her upbringing would not let her be as she traced the road back to Hillbrook Manor.
A mile in, she found the trail that had been old when her father was still young. It snaked through their huge holdings, Marta learning the path from Carmichael and later teaching it to Oleander in turn. The tobacco crop should have been harvested months prior, but Marta detected the tell-tale smell long before she reached the rows. Tangled with it was the sweet scent of rot, and from the look of the plants, they had not been tended in several seasons. Years past, even at night, the plantation would be alight with the glow of mindless festations picking through their crops, but the West’s victory put an end to that way of life and Marta felt the sting of the Grand War’s touch even here in the
center of her clan’s power.
Her route took her past her father’s famed kennels, and despite her desperate need to make haste, Marta paused at their husks. The buildings which drew customers from hundreds of miles were now nothing but blackened skeletons struggling to remain aloft. Seeing the ruin, her breath caught. Having witnessed untold deaths of friends and enemies firsthand with equal disregard, the idea of the hapless animals burned alive by fire in their kennels made her hardened heart hurt.
Pushing past the remains of her father’s former pride, Marta pressed through the fields gone wild with time. Her father’s coded letter to her via Carmichael mentioned the need to rebuild the plantation, but it stole none of the sting of seeing her home laid low firsthand.
More worrisome was that she had not been challenged during her trek through the heart of Cildra power in Newfield.
The white-washed walls of Hillbrook Manor finally appeared, but it refused to match her memory, the mansion seeming smaller and darker, its windows unlit and incapable of warding off the night. Reaching the end of the fields to tread upon the unkempt lawn, Marta hesitated. She had stolen inside Sable Hill like a thief, and the idea of entering her family estate this way irked her to no end, so she strode to the door like a hero returning home from war. Yet at the threshold, she again paused. Since the doors were always thrown wide by servants when she made such an approach as a child, she was at a loss. Finally, she grasped the oversized doorknocker to give it three big raps.
It took far longer for the servant to answer than was proper. Unfamiliar to her, the woman was far younger and prettier than Marta expected. Her father had always favored male servants so as to head off any whiff of impropriety.
She expected a request for identity so as to announce the caller, but her unannounced appearance only earned a distrustful squint from the servant. By reflex, Marta almost proffering her assumed name of May Oles, but the idea was laughable here.
The Imbued Lockblade (Sol's Harvest Book 2) Page 21
