Too much had been given to get us this far alive. I couldn’t throw it away because of a children’s rhyme.
We started walking. But every step hurt, and a haze seemed to have fallen on me with the coming of dusk. I kept hearing the shouts of the dead soldiers in my head, and seeing the thorns stained with blood. I stumbled, and then stumbled again; the third time, I fell to my knees.
“Grace of Mercy, you’re clumsy.” Zaira grabbed my arm to haul me to my feet.
The wrong arm. I flinched, breath hissing through my teeth. Zaira pulled her hand back, swearing.
“You’re wet. Hells, it’s blood, isn’t it?”
“It’s not bad.” I dragged myself to my feet.
Zaira went still. “Is that all yours?”
I looked down. I had one white stocking and one red one, hanging in tatters. The sight made it more real, and suddenly the pain stopped knocking politely at my door and came crashing through it all at once. I sat down, hard, in the dirt of the road.
“We should probably put something on that,” I said. My voice came out detached and calm, seeming far away, but a high, panicked note sounded in my head, like a shrill flute.
“That might not be a bad idea, yes.” Zaira knelt down beside me and peeled back what was left of my stocking. “Ugh. What a mess.”
“It can’t be too bad if I ran on it all this way.” But I couldn’t bring myself to look.
“I’ve seen worse,” Zaira said, her voice carefully neutral. “Let me see if I can stop the bleeding.”
She cleaned the claw wound with water from her flask, which stung enough to bring tears to my eyes, then drew her knife and tore strips off her skirt for bandages. I struggled to keep from slipping into a quagmire of hopeless misery, trying to focus on what we needed to do next. We had to keep going.
While Zaira wrapped my leg, I fished the first of my three small emergency elixir bottles out of my satchel—each a day’s supply—and downed half of it. The last thing I needed now was to get weak from poison on top of blood loss.
Behind all the pain, and the fear, and the exhaustion, waited a great dark mass, like the ocean itself pressing against a sea wall. So many people were dead, and we hadn’t even rescued Terika.
I had to know this, because it was important information. But I couldn’t let myself feel any of it, even a little, until we got to safety. So it waited, a deep ache spreading quietly through me, like the poison my elixir held at bay.
“Well, we’re neck deep in demon dung, aren’t we?” Zaira helped me remove my jacket so she could get a look at my arm in the fading light. I shivered in the icy chill that had gathered under the trees as the sunlight drained away.
The coat had offered me some protection, and the bite was less serious than the wound on my leg, which I’d worsened with all that running; it had nearly stopped bleeding on its own.
“We just need to find a footpath through the mountains before it gets dark,” I said wearily. “We can do this.”
Zaira’s hands paused on my arm. In the deepening twilight, her eyes were pools of shadow. “No, we can’t.”
The edge to her words pierced the numb fog in my brain. I took in the taut hollows of worry in Zaira’s face, and the sunset-stained sky that bled through the branches behind her.
“We’re not making it out of here tonight,” she said, her voice low and rough. “It’ll be dark as a demon’s armpit soon. All that blood loss is making you loopy if you think you can climb up a mountain on an unfamiliar trail in the pitch-blackness with a mangled leg.”
She had a point. I stared around at the darkening woods, the full depth of our peril pressing down on me. The roads might be safer during the day, but I had little confidence that limited protection would hold at night. And if the footpath wandered back across the border into Sevaeth, the forest itself might try to kill me.
But the forest didn’t hate Zaira. The chimeras wouldn’t hunt her. She was whole and healthy and nimble, and she could protect herself perfectly well. Especially if she wasn’t trying to lug me around.
“You’ll have to go without me, then,” I said slowly.
Zaira shook her head. “Don’t be stupid.”
“It’s not stupid. It’s sense.” I lifted a shaking hand to my temple; I felt a bit light-headed, but what we had to do was clear enough. “You’re right. There’s no way I can make it over the mountains with this leg. Any pass easy enough for me will be easy enough for horses, which means it’ll be full of Vaskandran troops and guarded by Vaskandran fortresses. But you can scramble up some game trail easily enough. There’s no reason for both of us to die if one of us can live.”
“No.”
“Zaira—”
“Shut up and listen to me.” Zaira shook my shoulder with sharp, bony fingers. “I survived all those years in the Tallows by not getting close to anyone. Well, thanks to your meddling, now I finally have a few friends—only a few, mind you—and by the Nine Hells, I am not leaving two of you to die in this pit tonight.”
I stared at her. Friends. And of course she waited until a time like this to say it.
A pale speck drifted down between us, and then another. One planted a tiny, cold kiss on the back of my hand.
Snow.
I shook my head as more soft white flecks of sky danced silently down the evening air. The cold of it bit deep into me, settling into my core, numbing my fingers and my cheeks and my aching heart.
“There’s another reason one of us needs to make it back tonight,” I said, my voice heavy with the awful truth I’d been trying not to think about.
“What?” Zaira demanded suspiciously.
“What do you think they’ll do,” I asked, “when Bree gets to Highpass and reports that they left us behind in Vaskandar?”
Zaira frowned. She didn’t understand, yet. I pressed on. “The best-case scenario,” I said, “is that they send a rescue party after us. But now the forest is all riled up, and they’ll probably all get killed.”
Zaira swallowed. “And what’s the worst-case scenario?”
“They get on the courier lamps and tell my mother,” I said.
“Sweet Hell of Death,” Zaira swore.
“Yes.”
Zaira crouched beside me, very still, for a long time. A dusting of snow began to gather on the outermost curls of her hair, where it was too far from her head to melt. I pulled my coat on again over my bandage, to try to stop my shivering, but somehow that only made it worse.
At last, Zaira stood, the hacked-up hem of her skirt swinging just below her knees. “We can’t sit here in the road all night. Come on.”
“Zaira …”
“Not another damned word about how valuable either of us is to the Empire. We’re not counters in some game; we’re people. You, too.” She reached out a hand to help me up. “Let’s head for the village. This close to the border, they must get traders passing through all the time. You can throw a bucket of that Cornaro gold at some brat to carry a message to Highpass, if you’re so worried about what they’ll do.”
I was too tired and hurt to argue any more. “All right.”
Zaira pulled me to my feet. Her jess hung on her wrist, catching the fading light. She followed my gaze, scowled, and pushed it up beneath her coat sleeve to hide it.
We hobbled off down the darkening road, deeper into the forests of Vaskandar.
Chapter Nineteen
By the time we staggered into the village, Zaira was half holding me up with my arm across her shoulders, and my leg had bled through the bandages. My torn stocking had frozen stiff with blood, and my fingers were numb with cold.
Little more than a dozen weathered wooden houses encircled the snow-dusted village green; a wide stretch of stubbly fields formed a buffer between the huddled cluster of lantern-lit buildings and the snarled darkness of the forest. Woodsmoke hung warm and welcoming in the air, and a dog barked at us through a barn window as we stumbled into town.
Not a soul was outside, not so much a
s a horse or a chicken. Light shone through the gaps in closed shutters, catching on bright snowflakes fluttering down in the air before them. Lanterns hung like ward sigils beside every door, but the village square lay still and quiet in its shroud of falling snow, as if no human or animal lived here at all.
But there was an inn: the largest house on the square, with bright lamps blazing beside the doors and hitching posts out front for hours when horses dared to be outside. A sign swung above the stout, iron-bound door, with a painted rooster perched on top of a pile of sacks and crates, declaring it The Trader’s Nest.
I yearned for its warmth and light so much, it had to be a trap.
But these were normal people who lived here, regular Vaskandran folk going about their lives. They had no reason to expect Raverran heirs and warlocks to wander into their inn. Still, I took my own weight before we opened the door; there was no sense walking in looking like easy pickings.
A haze of sausage-scented woodsmoke and a wall of warmth enveloped us as we limped into the inn, trailing snowmelt. The dim, ruddy light came mostly from a massive fieldstone fireplace, around which a handful of old men and women in fur and leather clustered at a couple of tables. Two boys of perhaps fifteen years slouched at another table in a corner, playing some game with bone dice while a thin, stooped man with iron-gray hair and an apron set drinks down for them.
All eyes in the tavern turned to us; murmured conversations fell silent. A couple of traders paused in mid-deal, furs and herb jars spread on the table between them opposite fabrics and potion bottles. The innkeeper hurried over to meet us, wiping his hands on his apron.
“Come in, be at peace, and shut the door.” He closed the door himself as he said it, barring out the icy cold and the snow-starred darkness. “Cutting it close, weren’t you?” An accent sharpened his vowels and roughened his consonants, but he was understandable enough.
I swayed on my feet, too tired and numb to reply. Zaira said, “We want a room and dinner.”
“Of course. I’ll take your—huh. You don’t have any bags, do you?” A puzzled frown creased his forehead as his eyes slid over my satchel and caught on my bloodstained leg. “Ah, saw some trouble on the road, I see. To be expected, at this hour. You’re not the only ones today.” He shook his head. “Sit down. I’ll get you dinner.”
I all but collapsed in the nearest chair. Zaira helped me put my leg up, then sank down next to me, her back to the wall. Everyone else in the tavern was still staring at us. Zaira glared at them, and a few looked away; after a moment, subdued conversation started up again.
“Be ready to release me,” Zaira muttered.
“Here?”
“If you think no one ever gets murdered in an inn, I have some bad news for you.” Zaira’s fingers tapped the tabletop, restlessly. “I don’t like how those brats in the corner are watching us.”
The two boys flicked frequent glances our way, their heads together, talking. No one spoke much above a whisper, besides the innkeeper with his nervous chatter, and tension hung thicker than smoke in the air. I couldn’t tell if it had been like this before we walked in, or if we were the cause of it.
“Maybe we should leave,” I murmured.
“And go where?” Zaira shook her head. “These people might kill us in our beds, but this is still our best shot at living until dawn.”
The innkeeper returned with plates of sausages and potatoes for us, cooked in the same pan, and tankards of weak beer. “I’ll wager you’ll be paying in imperial coin, from the look of you,” he said, as he laid out our dinner. “That’s fine. Half our business comes from across the border. Though it’s been slow since the army came and rounded up all the young and able-bodied for Prince Ruven’s war.” He made a sign against his chest, fingers flicking out as if to brush cobwebs off his soul. “Avert misfortune.”
My hand rose to my own chest, fingers tangling in Kathe’s string of claws and the chain of my flare locket. The innkeeper blinked at me suddenly. “Oh! I’m surprised you had trouble on the road, with the Crow Lord’s safe conduct on you. Did you step off the path?”
“Ah …” I wasn’t quite exhausted enough to blurt out the truth, but too much so to think what to say.
“Something like that,” Zaira said.
The two boys from the corner rose and approached our table. The foremost moved with the gangly swagger of a boy, in the midst of growing, trying to put on the airs of a man. The other had just begun to fill out the broad frame of his shoulders and rolled them as if eager to test their new power. There was a menace and a confidence to their stride that didn’t match their shallow years; I checked their eyes, wary, but in the dim and flickering light I couldn’t make out a mage mark in either of them.
The innkeeper’s shoulders hunched in something approaching a bow, and he tried to leave with his empty tray, but the boys didn’t move aside for him. Zaira slid her chair back an inch. I did my best to quell my shivers and look relaxed and confident, but mostly managed to lock every muscle in my body tight as an iron gate.
“And who are these?” the lead boy demanded. A wisp of blond beard clung stubbornly to his chin. His fur cloak bunched at his shoulders, likely calculated to make him seem bigger.
The innkeeper shrank from him minutely, his gaze dropping to the floor. “Guests, sir. She has a—”
“They look like runaway serfs to me,” the boy interrupted, sneering.
If he thought we looked like Vaskandran serfs in our fine velvet coats, mine with thick golden embroidery at the admittedly bloodstained cuffs, I couldn’t imagine he’d met many. More like it he was taking advantage of our ragged state to bully some coin out of us.
“We are most certainly not serfs,” I snapped.
The innkeeper winced. The boy hovering like a guard scowled, his freckled face reddening. “Watch how you speak to him! Do you know who you’re talking to? This is Grainor Greenhand!”
Zaira snorted. “Last I checked, having bilge slime on your fingers is no excuse to make an ass of yourself.”
The innkeeper drew back at that, blanching. The freckled boy started forward, but Grainor stopped him with an idle gesture.
“You’re not from around here,” he said, “so I’ll give you one last chance. The Green in my name is for Greenwitch. With my father away at the border, I now rule this village, and four others besides.”
It seemed ridiculous that it had come to this, that I should be bullied by a two-bit vivomancer a few years my junior, but here we were. And we didn’t dare draw attention to ourselves, with our situation so precarious. I had to smooth this over.
“Now apologize,” the freckled boy demanded, looming over us. “On your knees.”
Zaira pushed back her chair and stood.
“We’re not from around here,” she said, smiling to show her teeth, “so I’ll give you one last chance. Look in my eyes, turdbiscuit, and say that again.”
The freckled boy’s hand dropped to his dagger. But Grainor whispered, “Wait.”
He peered into Zaira’s eyes. She stared back, still grinning, the hearth fire reflected in her dark gaze.
I slid my chair back and rose to my feet behind her, ready to run, or draw my knife, or speak the release word. I had to follow Zaira’s lead—we were in Vaskandar; she was the one with the weight of status behind her words now.
Grainor went pale as milk. His hand flew convulsively to his chest, his fingers flicking out in the same casting-off gesture the innkeeper had made. He dropped to his knees, grabbing his taller friend to pull him down, too.
“My lady. Forgive me.” He bowed his head nearly to the floorboards. “In the dim light, I didn’t see your mark. Forgive me, I beg you.”
The freckled boy stared at Grainor, aghast, and then at Zaira. He bowed his head, too, kneeling as if to a queen, making the same sign. “Avert,” he whispered, almost too soft to hear.
Then the innkeeper dropped to his knees. And all around the room, there was a great scraping of chairs, as every pat
ron in the inn threw themselves down to the floor, until only Zaira and I were standing.
“Oh, get up,” Zaira sighed. “And bring me better beer than this.”
Once they knew Zaira was mage-marked, everyone treated her as if she were something between a queen and the Demon of Death. The innkeeper brought her the finest food and drink in the inn, and bowed so deep he nearly touched the floor at the slightest provocation. Everyone else in the tavern averted their eyes, and cowered away from her if she made any sudden moves. Most of them fled either upstairs or to their homes as soon as enough time had passed to do so without insult.
“I could get used to this,” Zaira said, grinning, as she tore into an herb-roasted chicken. “They know how to treat a mage right, here.”
I nodded weakly. More than anything in the world, I wanted to be at home in Raverra, in my own bed, safe behind wards and under Ciardha’s watchful eye. Really, a soft spot on the floor would do at this point. My leg throbbed, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever been so exhausted.
But I had to find a way to get word to Highpass in time to avert disaster. I scanned the tavern for a likely messenger from the few who remained; my eyes lit on one of the traders, who was still packing up his wares in the corner.
My mother’s words came back to me: I assure you that a full third of Raverran merchants in Vaskandar are spies.
“Zaira,” I murmured, “Can you call that trader over? I want to try something.”
She gave me a curious look, then shrugged. “You!” She called to him, across the tavern. The trader flinched. “Come over here!”
He hesitated, then approached our table with the air of a man called up before the executioner.
“My friend wants to talk to you,” Zaira said, and ripped another bite off her chicken leg.
The trader’s eyes flicked to me, taking in the blood on my sleeve. He relaxed visibly. “Ah, does my lady wish to purchase some imperial medicine? I have a fine selection of alchemical salves and potions, brought all the way from Ardence.”
The Defiant Heir Page 20
