“Why did you ask me that?” Cyte said.
“What?” Winter shook her head. “I don’t know—”
“Why did you ask if I wanted you to kiss me?”
Winter’s heart skipped a beat. “I thought we were forgetting about that.”
“Winter—”
“You really want to know?”
Cyte nodded miserably.
Winter took a deep breath. “Because I thought that’s what you were trying to work your way around to,” she said. “And because I thought I wouldn’t mind kissing you at all.”
“But . . .” Cyte shook her head, hair swinging wildly. “Why did I say yes?”
“That I can’t answer for. Karis knows I’m not . . .” Winter hesitated. “Not ideal. In several ways.”
“Don’t be stupid. You’re Winter Ihernglass. I’ve looked up to you ever since the revolution. But I’m not . . . I mean, I don’t have . . . that disease. I don’t.” Cyte looked down, clenching her fists.
“I didn’t know I had it either,” Winter said. “Until you told me. I just knew what I felt.”
“I don’t,” Cyte said. “Know what I feel, I mean. I’m . . .” She trailed off, the silence broken only by the roar of the rain outside.
“Do you want to sit down?” Winter said. “Just take off your boots first. It’s muddy enough in here.”
Cyte bent over and fumbled with her laces. Winter got up and dug out a spare blanket, setting it down beside the table.
“You’re soaked,” she said. “Hanna told me that it’s important to stay warm.”
“Right.” Cyte wrapped herself in the thin cloth, and shivered. “Okay. Let’s think about this logically.”
“Is that likely to help?” Winter said, sitting down across from her.
“I have no idea. But it’s the only way I know how to think about it.” Cyte drew her knees up under the blanket. “You wanted to kiss me.”
“I did.”
“And I told you you could.”
“You did.”
“And you did it.”
“How did it feel?”
“I couldn’t breathe,” Cyte said. “And I thought my heart was going to explode.”
“Have you ever kissed anyone before?”
Cyte frowned. “Once. His name was Fetter Blalloc. It was at a Wisdom Day party.”
“How did that feel?”
“Wet. And a little icky.”
“So not very similar, then.”
“No.” Cyte looked up. “Only two experiments isn’t much data to form a hypothesis, I guess.”
Winter grinned. “Obviously not. Clearly you should go around kissing everyone you meet until you’ve got enough to form a real conclusion.”
“Clearly,” Cyte said, smiling a little.
There was an awkward silence. Winter had to stop herself from drumming her fingers on the table. Why do I never know what to say?
“Do you want a drink?” she offered eventually.
“No,” Cyte said, her tone surprisingly steady. “I don’t think I do.”
She stood up, letting the blanket puddle on the floor. Winter froze as she walked around the folding table and sat down beside her.
“Cyte?” Winter said. “What are you doing?”
Cyte put her hand on Winter’s shoulder, leaning forward, which startled Winter so much she leaned back and fell over. Cyte shuffled forward on hands and knees, one palm on either side of Winter’s head, looking down at her. Her hair hung in a thick mass, dripping steadily just beside Winter’s cheek.
“Acting logically,” Cyte said.
“This is logical?” Winter’s heart slammed in her chest.
“You agreed to forget about this,” Cyte said. “But I came back here. Whatever I think that I think, I think that shows what I actually think is pretty clear. Right?”
“I have no idea what that means,” Winter said.
“I’m not really sure it makes sense,” Cyte said. “I’m going to kiss you again. Is that all right?”
“If you’re sure you want to.”
Cyte lowered her head, gently, and they kissed. It went on longer this time, and Winter let her eyes close. She felt Cyte coming closer, and then something wet and clammy brushed her arm, drawing an involuntary yelp.
Cyte sat up, eyes wide. “What’s wrong?”
“Sorry.” Winter sat up as well, breathing hard. “Your shirt. Is very cold and wet.”
“Oh.”
Cyte looked down at herself. Then, in one swift motion, she grabbed her shirt by the hem and pulled it and her undershirt over her head together. When she looked back at Winter, the expression on her face—hope and terror and excitement and vulnerability all at once—made Winter want to crush her in an embrace and never let go.
“Your shirt also looks . . .” Cyte hesitated, cheeks burning. “A little damp.”
“You know,” Winter said, hands fumbling with the buttons, “you may be right about that.”
—
Later, Winter lay on her back on the bedroll, listening in the dark. The rain had stopped falling, and Cyte’s breathing was soft and regular. Winter felt as though her bones had turned to jelly, as though you could have poured her into a cauldron like soup.
She had never slept with anyone but Jane, never touched anyone but Jane. The two of them had known every inch of each other. When Winter had come back from Khandar and found Jane again, falling into her bed had been like coming home, a return to something long missed but never forgotten. It made it feel perfect—no fumbling, no awkwardness, just as though they’d never been apart.
This was different. It reminded Winter of when she and Jane had first begun to experiment, kissing and touching, each breathlessly daring the other to go a little further, stealing time in closets and empty rooms. Except then they’d both been ignorant. This time, after a certain amount of confusion, Winter understood what she was doing, and Cyte had proven to be an attentive student.
“Winter?” Cyte said very quietly. “Are you asleep?”
“Not yet,” Winter said.
“I need to ask you something.”
“Somehow,” Winter said, “I feel like I’ve been here before.”
“Sorry. It’s . . . I don’t know. Something I’ve been thinking about.”
“Go ahead.”
“Are you sure you’re all right with this?”
“Cyte—”
“Not with me. With . . . this. It hasn’t been that long since Jane . . . left. And I thought—”
“What? That I was forcing myself through it to make you feel better?” Winter ran her fingers through Cyte’s hair. “You may be giving yourself too much credit.”
“I just know you were unhappy,” Cyte said. “That’s why I started coming here in the first place, remember? And now . . . I’m not sure.”
“I’m all right,” Winter said, a little more forcefully than she meant to. “Jane is . . .” Her throat went tight for a moment. “She’s gone. I fell in love with her when she was a scared girl in the Prison. After I came home, she’d grown into something else. For a while I managed to fool myself that she would change back. But she won’t. And I’m . . . not the same, either.”
Cyte shuffled a little closer, pressing her head against Winter’s side.
“I still miss the girl,” Winter said. “I suppose I always will. But that’s the past.”
“I think I understand that,” Cyte said. Then, very quietly, “Fuck.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s nice and warm and I’m very comfortable.” She sighed. “But I really need to piss.”
Winter laughed. “At least the rain has stopped.”
Cyte muttered something impolite as she rolled over and began hunting around for her shirt and trousers. Winter lay
still, feeling a rush of cold air across her bare skin as the tent flap opened and closed. A moment later it opened again, and Winter sat up and shivered.
“Cyte?” It was hard to see anything with the lamp out. “Is that you?”
“You’d better see this,” Cyte said.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s snowing.”
—
MARCUS
“Snow,” Janus said.
“Apparently, sir,” Marcus said.
“In May.”
“It is Murnsk, sir.”
“Even Murnsk has a summer,” Janus said, looking up at the sky. His face tightened, as though he could subdue the weather by sheer force of will, but the fat flakes continued to drift down regardless. “In the northern wastes, perhaps, or high in the mountains, but here? No.”
“But . . .” Marcus gestured helplessly.
“I’m not denying the reality of it,” Janus said, flashing a smile. “Only the cause. This is not natural.” He held out a hand, and a snowflake landed on his palm, lasting only a moment before it melted. “The Pontifex of the Black must be desperate.”
“You think this is their doing?” Marcus lowered his voice. “The Penitents?”
“Can you doubt it? First days of rain, and now snow in spring.”
“But . . . can they really do that?” Marcus shook his head. The Penitent Damned and their demons made him uncomfortable, as though the world he lived in were built on rotten foundations and might collapse at any moment. He’d fought them several times, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever truly get used to the idea. “Control the weather?”
“You’ve seen the dead walk, Marcus,” Janus said. “At this point I would think you’d be beyond doubts about their power.”
Marcus shifted. “We’re not likely to run into that again, are we?”
“No,” Janus said. “That demon was one of the Thousand Names we captured in Khandar. But the powers of many demons overlap, so I would not be surprised to find a Penitent wielding similar abilities. From now on we should be prepared for anything.”
“What should we do about the snow?”
“What can we do but press on?” Janus said. “We’ll reach the Kovria in two more days. Our foraging parties will be able to send supplies by boat, so we should be able to stop and build up our reserves. Then we’ll take the last step.” His eyes were on the horizon, gray and distant, as though he were already looking on Elysium’s walls. “Nearly there, Marcus. I’m nearly there.”
“Yes, sir,” Marcus said.
Janus blinked and looked back at him, his usual smile there and gone again. “Speak to the locals. Ask if anything like this has ever happened before, and how long it lasted. If there is a Penitent directing the weather, there must be a limit to his strength.”
“Yes, sir.” Marcus saluted and hurried away.
Truthfully, he was glad to go. Janus had always been a creature of odd habits, but since the destruction of the Murnskai army he’d been acting strange even by his own standards. More and more of the basic work of moving the army—the assignment of routes and objectives, camp placement, and thousands of other details—seemed to no longer be of any interest to Janus and therefore fell onto Marcus’ shoulders. Without the help of Giforte and his staff, he would have been completely lost.
As it was the situation was serious—the supply convoys, mired in mud, couldn’t replenish food as fast as the army ate it up, and with every bit of transport capacity devoted to rations, stocks of everything else were rapidly dwindling. Horses were dying, abandoned by the side of the road or irretrievably stuck in the mud, and the cutters’ ominous warnings of flux and skin rot were quickly being proven accurate. Thus far the change to snow had been a blessing compared to the endless downpour, but Marcus was worried. Even at the height of the day, the sun was only a weak presence through the flat, gray clouds, and at night the sentries had to break a crust of ice on the water barrels.
Andy, limping only slightly now, fell in alongside Marcus as he walked back toward the camp. The halt for the day had only just been called, and the marked-out grid was still mostly empty, regiments filing in off the road to set up their tents and start cooking their meager dinner.
“Did he tell you anything, sir?” Andy said.
Marcus shook his head. “He wants me to question the locals, find out if anyone remembers anything like this.”
“That could be tricky,” Andy said. “The scouts have been saying that every village they find is empty.”
“Go find Give-Em-Hell,” Marcus said. “Tell him we need to find some Murnskai to talk to, and ideally someone who can translate as well. I doubt they speak much Vordanai this far north.”
“On my way, sir.”
An hour later Marcus, Andy, and Give-Em-Hell were riding east, with a dozen troopers as escort. The cavalry commander had explained that the villages along their line of march were deserted, but people not in the direct path had often chosen to stay in their homes. He’d also produced a Lieutenant Govrosk, a severe-looking young man originally of Murnskai extraction who had enough of the language to make himself useful.
“You’ve never heard of snow in May?” Marcus asked the lieutenant.
“Wouldn’t know, sir,” Govrosk said. “I was born and raised in Vordan, sir. It was only my gran who spoke the old language at home, sir, and she made me learn some of it.”
“Ah.”
They were near enough to the Kovria that the country had turned civilized again. The woods that covered the hillsides showed signs of logging, and long, snaking trails connected the isolated farmsteads. The snow was still coming down, deadening the sound of their horses’ hooves. It melted on the ground, adding to the mud, but coated the trees and bushes in a light frosting of white.
“Should be a village another mile up this way,” Give-Em-Hell shouted, riding as usual at the very head of the column. “If this damn map is worth anything, anyway.”
Andy, riding beside him, leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Something feels wrong, sir.”
“Apart from the snow in May?”
“Yes, sir. Apart from that. I thought . . .” She peered into the swirls of snow. “I don’t know. I may be imagining things.”
The soft, near-perfect silence felt sinister. Marcus looked around and realized just how little he could actually see.
“You have good eyes,” Marcus said. “Keep them open, and shout if you spot anything.” He was suddenly eager to be done with this whole expedition. If the village isn’t where it’s supposed to be, I’m taking us back to the camp.
After a little less than a mile, though, a cluster of crude log buildings loomed out of the snow. There were perhaps a dozen homes, gathered around the inevitable Sworn Church. Judging by the tethered animals and smoke rising from chimneys, the place hadn’t yet been abandoned. The small party of Vordanai rode onto the central green, where a carpet of grass was now almost completely covered in white.
“Come out!” Give-Em-Hell shouted. “We won’t hurt anyone!” He elbowed Lieutenant Govrosk. “Tell ’em we’re not here to hurt anyone, but we want to talk.”
The lieutenant nodded, closed his eyes for a moment to work it out, then shouted something in awkward-sounding Murnskai. Marcus thought he saw a flash of motion behind the shutters of one of the houses, but there was no other response.
“Tell ’em I don’t want to start kicking in doors,” Give-Em-Hell said. “But I will if I have to.” He rubbed his hands together. “It’s cold out here, damn it.”
Govrosk translated. Again, for a moment, there was no response. Then the door of the house beside the church opened, spilling lamplight onto the green. An old woman, heavily bundled in blankets, stood in the doorway. Someone inside shouted something at her, and she answered in rapid-fire Murnskai.
“What’s she saying?” Marcus said.
The lieutenant coughed awkwardly. “The, uh, person in the house is telling her to come back, because everyone knows the Vordanai rape every woman they can catch. The old lady said . . . ah . . .” His face reddened a little. “Roughly, that if we want her privates, we’re welcome to them, because that’s more than anyone else has for decades.”
By the time this translation was finished, the old woman was marching across the green. Marcus saw a young man in the doorway, looking after her nervously, with a wide-eyed child huddling behind his knees. Getting off his horse, Marcus motioned for Andy and the translator to do likewise, and stepped past the ring of watching troopers to meet the old woman.
“Kdja svet Murnskedj?” she barked, followed by a quick string of words Marcus couldn’t separate.
“She wants to know if we speak Murnskai,” Govrosk said. “Because she can’t be bothered to learn any of our heathen tongues.”
“Tell her I’m Column-General Marcus d’Ivoire, of the Grand Army,” Marcus said. “We’re not going to hurt anyone from the village. We just wanted to ask her a few questions.”
Govrosk rendered this and waited for the response. A smile flitted across his face.
“She says that she herself is the Crown Prince of Murnsk, and that she’s most honored to receive you, General. By rights she ought to spit on you, but she’s willing to answer our questions if we agree to leave before one of the young men tries something stupid.”
Marcus chuckled and tried a smile on the old woman. She scowled at him.
“The snow,” Marcus said. “Ask her if it usually snows this late in spring.”
“You must be a southerner,” came the translated response. “All southerners think it’s ice and snow up here year-round. What do they think we eat, one another?”
“Has it ever snowed like this that she can remember?” Marcus asked.
“Not here,” the old woman said through Govrosk. “But when I was a girl, I lived in the east, beyond Mohkba. My mother told me stories about the year winter never ended, when it snowed in June and rained all the way through August. The fields were frozen too solid to plant, and the livestock died in the pastures. Half the village starved.”
The Guns of Empire Page 27
