by Morgan Rice
“You say that as though it’s a good thing,” Kate said.
Siobhan put a hand on her shoulder. “You have sharpened yourself into the weapon you need to be.”
“For what?” Kate asked. She should have guessed that there would be a reason why Siobhan would help her to become a better fighter. There had obviously been a reason why Siobhan had demanded a yet to be named favor as part of the price for her help.
Siobhan didn’t answer. Instead, she tended to Kate’s wounds, applying fresh herbs and cooling salve where they had opened.
“For what?” Kate repeated.
Siobhan stood, looking Kate in the eye. “There are things that are coming. Things that threaten those like me. You have seen an army coming, and you think that it is just a human kind of war. It is that, and many will die if you fail, but it is more, it is far more.”
“How much more?” Kate asked.
“There are things in this world that destroy all they touch,” Siobhan said. “This is not the time to talk about them.”
That wasn’t good enough for Kate. She wanted to reach out and grab the other woman. She wanted to demand real answers. She knew that she was being used; she just wanted to know in what way, and why. She wanted to have the kind of choice that had never been given to her back in the House of the Unclaimed. She would force an answer from the other woman if she had to. She would—
Kate! Help me!
The sound of Sophia’s voice drifting into her mind stopped her like a hammer. On another occasion, she might have sent something back, or asked her to wait. Even now, a part of her wanted to stay and find out what was happening, but there was something about the feeling of her sister’s sending that made her pause. She could feel Sophia’s terror. She could hear the urgency in her words.
What is it? Kate sent back. What’s happening?
There was no answer, just the original words, hanging there with all their terror.
“I… I need to go,” Kate said. “Can I go? My sister is in danger. I know I’m supposed to stay here to be your apprentice, but—”
Siobhan raised a hand to cut her off. “I said that you were to be my apprentice, not that you needed to stay here, Kate.”
“You’re letting me leave?” That caught Kate more than a little by surprise.
That earned her the laugh of Siobhan’s that said she was being foolish, or hadn’t understood something, or was simply rushing into things again. Even in the short time she’d been the forest woman’s apprentice, she had grown to hate that laugh.
“You were never a prisoner,” Siobhan said. “You are free to make your own choices. Just know that they will have consequences, for all of us.”
Still, Kate wasn’t sure that she understood. “But if I’m your apprentice…”
“I am not your blacksmith,” Siobhan said. “Do you think that I need you here to teach you? Wherever you are, you will still be my apprentice. Things will progress as they were always destined to progress.”
Again, Kate had the sense of something larger going on in the background, but now there was no time to ask about it all, even if there was any chance that Siobhan might have told her.
“You will go out into the world,” Siobhan said. “You will do what is necessary. You will learn, as you learned the first lesson: that you needed what I have to offer.”
Kate swallowed at the thought of that, and the boy she’d killed. He’d deserved it, because he’d been trying to drag her back to the orphanage, but even so, Kate had been the one to end his life. Would all of Siobhan’s so-called lessons come with that kind of a price?
“So I’m just going to learn from experience?” Kate asked.
“If I need to teach you more directly, that will be easy enough,” Siobhan said. “I will summon you, and you will come. If I choose to, I might even come to you.”
That caught Kate a little by surprise. She’d thought somehow that the other woman was limited to her woodland home. It meant something else as well: there would be no escape if she didn’t keep her half of the deal that they’d made.
“Now,” Siobhan said, “let’s help you find your sister.”
Kate hadn’t thought about that part. Sophia would be back in the city somewhere, probably in or around the palace, but she had no way of knowing exactly where. The best she could do was call out to her with her powers and hope for a reply.
“You have a way?” Kate asked.
In response, Siobhan pulled out a needle like dagger, picking the pad of Kate’s thumb and ignoring her wince of pain. She held Kate’s thumb over a bowl until blood dripped into it, whispering words close enough that Kate couldn’t catch them.
“Blood calls to blood,” Siobhan said. “For a time, anyway. Move fast, and your blood will lead you to your sister. Move slowly, and you will be left searching for her.”
“Then I’ll have to move fast,” Kate said.
She reached out, taking the bowl and cupping it like the precious thing it was. She kept it as level as she could, but even so, the drops of blood rolled to one side of the bowl. Kate barely had to look up to see that it was on the way back toward Ashton.
“We will see one another again, apprentice,” Siobhan said. “For now, do what you are meant to do.”
Kate didn’t know how she felt about that. She didn’t want to be bound by destiny any more than by the chains of another. For now, though, Siobhan had given her the means to find her sister, and Kate planned to make the most of it.
She ran, hoping all the while that she would be in time.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sophia saw the moment when the city started to give way to the Ridings around it, in the thinning of houses and the changing pattern of bumps as the wheels hit more ruts. The forward progress made her fear build, because she knew all the things that were waiting for her when the cart stopped.
The old walls of the city had passed by a long time ago now, the continuing sprawl of houses meaning that there was no clean line stating where the city stopped. Briefly, Sophia found herself wondering what would happen if the wars over the water came to the kingdom. Would people find themselves trying to crowd behind the old walls, or just build barricades in the street? Would stone walls make a difference to cannon?
Then she realized that she didn’t care. None of the people they passed tried to help her or the other girls. None of them looked at them with anything other than the contempt, useless pity, or dangerous interest that had been there since they’d started on this journey.
The cart was getting crowded now, because the slaver had made plenty of stops along the way. It seemed that there were a lot of people in Ashton who were prepared to sell servants or apprentices, foundlings or even daughters, not caring about what happened to them next. Perhaps they convinced themselves that the indenture was only temporary, and it didn’t matter. Perhaps they didn’t even consider it.
A pair of tough-looking guards joined them as they reached the edges of the city, riding on the outside of the wagon. Meister Karg might have felt safe enough driving around on his errands while there were houses, but now Sophia could pick up thoughts of forest cats and bandits, fathers having second thoughts about selling a daughter, or even rival slavers who might try to add to their stock without the work of trawling orphanages.
“Don’t worry, my dears,” Karg called down, in a cloying voice, as though he were talking to a clutch of beloved nieces rather than indentured slaves. “Hop and Burro here will see you safely to your destination.”
Sophia doubted that the two men could deliver anyone unharmed. They were both broad and thuggish, with flat faces and pockmarked skin. They wore leather jerkins and dented breastplates, with poniards and basket-hilted swords at their belts. One even had a wicked-looking crossbow.
He winked at Sophia as she looked his way, his expression making it clear that she didn’t want to look at his thoughts in that moment. She would probably never be able to scrub her mind clean again. The two rode at either side of t
he wagon, staring at the women within as often as at the road.
Sophia forced herself to ignore them, staring out at the road and the countryside beyond the city’s sprawl instead. Maybe that was why she saw the figure running toward them first, and realized that it wasn’t just some errand boy carrying a message from one of the farms beyond the outer rings of houses. This figure had a blade at its hip, and moved faster than Sophia would have thought.
More than that, it was familiar.
Sophia frowned, and for the first time since being thrown in the cart, she dared to feel some measure of hope.
“Kate?”
***
Kate sprinted forward, following the pull of the blood compass. When she saw the cart, the blood drop practically leapt from the bowl, falling to stain the dirt of the road a darker shade.
The cart looked like some kind of prison wagon. No, worse than that, a slaver. Anger burned in Kate then, and her hand tightened on the hilt of her sword, in spite of the guards clinging to either side of the wagon.
Sophia? she sent.
I’m here! Help!
That was all the confirmation Kate needed. She strode forward, and maybe she should have tried for subtlety, but right then she had no wish to even try to sneak or hide. Instead, she stood in the middle of the road, drawing her blade and waiting until the wagon drew to a halt in front of her.
“Out of the way, boy,” the fat man driving it shouted down.
“I’m no boy,” Kate shot back, “and you get one chance to live. Let everyone in that wagon go, and I won’t kill you.”
The two guards on the wagon stepped down. One pulled out a crossbow, leveling it at Kate.
“Little girls shouldn’t make threats,” he snapped. He glanced over to the fat man. “You want her for the wagon?”
The slaver shrugged. “Looks like too much trouble. Kill her.”
The guard didn’t hesitate. Kate saw the flicker of his thoughts as he made the decision to fire, and she’d spent enough time with Siobhan dodging spectral arrows to throw herself into motion, swaying aside as the bolt buzzed past. It thudded into the dirt of the road, burying itself almost to its fletching.
“Thank you,” Kate said, turning back to them, “for making this easy.”
They ran at her then, and Kate stepped between their rush, dodging the slash of a broadsword and the thrust of a long knife. She brought her own blade up, parrying another thrust, swaying aside from a wide sweep and kicking one of the thugs’ feet from under him.
“You’re not very good at this, are you?” she asked.
One of the men roared and ran at her, trying to overwhelm her through sheer strength. Kate stood there, her feet rooted to the ground, feeling the strength of the forest flooding through her as she parried every stroke. The man pressed closer and she kicked him in the knee, then ducked a blow aimed by the second thug.
Kate flicked her wrist and her sword danced out to cut his throat. She’d thought it would be harder to do, but the blood pulsing beneath his skin seemed to want to jump clear. She was just clearing the way for it.
While he fell, the first thug attacked her with all the fury of a man who didn’t have anything else. Kate gave ground, stepping aside from his attacks neatly, then lunged. The sharp tip of her saber slid through the gap between his plate armor and the leather behind it, finding the flesh beneath. Kate heard his gasp as she pulled it clear.
She advanced on the slaver, and he scrambled from his seat, pulling out a whip and a knife. Kate stared at the whip with anger. She’d felt enough beatings in her life already.
“I gave you a chance,” she said. Her anger had turned into something so hot it looked cold now, the way metal could go from red hot to white. She floated on it as she advanced. “You could have lived.”
“I’ll break you,” he promised. “Do you think I haven’t broken wild little things before?”
“I’m sure you have,” Kate said. “Why don’t you try?”
He swung the whip, and Kate didn’t even bother to step inside the arc of it. Instead, she lifted an arm, ignoring the pain as it struck, letting it wrap around her forearm. She jerked, pulling the slaver forward in spite of his bulk. With him moving, all it took from her was to hold out the sword she held. She barely even felt the impact as it slid into his heart.
It was only in the aftermath of it that Kate started to feel again. She watched him fall, and the adrenaline of the fight started to rush out of her. She forced herself to move slowly, cleaning her sword and sheathing it. The sense of horror she’d had when she’d killed the boy from the orphanage was there, but it was less this time. These men had deserved it.
The main thing she felt was exhilaration, at her strength, at her speed. She was everything she could have hoped for. Siobhan’s tests should have shown her that, but this, this was the real proof of it.
She moved to the doors of the slave wagon, throwing them open and letting sunlight rush in. Sophia was the first to come out, wrapping her arms around Kate and looking at her in astonishment. Kate clung onto her.
“Thank you,” Sophia said. “I thought…”
“It doesn’t matter,” Kate said. “You’re safe now.”
It felt good to have her sister there. It felt right. Kate wished they could stay there like that forever.
“Thanks to you,” Sophia said. “They were going to sell me.”
“What happened?” Kate asked. “Did your prince do this?”
If he had, Kate would kill him. No one would do this to her sister and get away with it. No one who could do this should be allowed to go around with the chance to do it again.
“No!” Sophia said, and Kate could feel the shock there. “Sebastian would never do something like this. No, this was the House of the Unclaimed. They found me; I don’t know how, but they did. They whipped me in the courtyard and they sold me off to the highest bidder.”
Kate felt her anger flaring again. She looked at Sophia’s dress now, seeing the blood that stained it. The House of the Unclaimed had fallen from her attention in the time she’d been Thomas’s apprentice, and then Siobhan’s. Now, it filled her thoughts.
She watched while girls and women spilled from the slaver’s cart. They came out blinking in the sunlight, looking scared and happy in equal measure. Kate could tell that they weren’t certain what to make of the things that were happening to them. Most of them had resigned themselves to their fates, and now their entire futures had changed.
Kate went to the slaver and his thugs, pulling the weapons from their belts and pressing them into the hands of the women there.
“You’re free,” she said. “I’m not going to tell you what to do now, but I do know that eventually, someone will come looking. If you stay here, they’ll sell you again at best, hang you at worst. You can go and hide in the city, or go find families if you have them. You can take to the roads or build lives.”
It was a hard message, but someone had to tell them. She felt Sophia’s hand on her shoulder.
“My sister is right,” she said. “You’re free now, and I don’t know what that means next, but it means something. It means that you have a chance of something better.” She turned to Kate. “I’ll find a way to explain it to them, and then… what do we do after that?”
“We’ll think of something,” Kate said. “Can you stay here with them for a while?”
“Why?” Sophia asked, and Kate caught the note of suspicion there.
Kate looked back toward the city. “There’s something I need to do before we leave.”
***
Kate ran into the city, sprinting through the outskirts and along the narrow streets, hopping across the rooftops where it was quicker, and staying out of sight of the crowds below. She used the skills of stealth and agility now as a way to keep from having to answer questions or make up lies.
She had no time to be slowed by those around her. She was an arrow now, flung at her target by an invisible hand. An arrow that would bring vengeanc
e, but also one that would free those who lay within her target.
It lay ahead. Kate would have recognized the House of the Unclaimed even if she’d left it a thousand years to come back, and now it stood out against the rest of the city in its squat ugliness. It looked like the prison it was in all but name. She thought about those within. The thought of the children trapped there made her burn with the need to free them. The thought of the nuns who had hurt her and Sophia…
…that just made her burn with anger.
Kate hopped down to street level, walking to the front gates that sat open to taunt those within with a freedom they could never truly have. Inside, there were candles waiting for the evening, the sconces filled by some child’s unwilling hands. Kate took one, ignoring the looks of the masked nun by the gate as she lit it.
She walked through the orphanage, and something about the purpose with which Kate did it kept people there back from her. Very deliberately, she walked to the chapel, where the symbols of the Masked Goddess were set out, the nuns murmuring in fervent prayers before cloths set with her symbols, drapes of the finest silk hanging around the walls.
“What are you doing here?” one of the nuns asked, rising. In spite of her veil, Kate recognized Sister O’Venn. After a moment, it seemed that the masked nun recognized her too. “You!”
“Yes,” Kate said. “Me.”
There were a thousand clever things she could have said. A thousand comments listing all the harm the nuns had done. A thousand wrongs to right. She could have demanded answers for what they’d done to Sophia. She could have told them that she was some kind of divine retribution, come to settle with them for what she’d done. She could even have asked them if they were proud of her, because weren’t the orphans there supposed to go on to apprenticeships and indentures?
In the end, none of it seemed adequate, so Kate set her candle to the drapes and stepped back as they caught, the sheets of silk turning into sheets of fire.
