The Keeper Chronicles: The Complete Trilogy

by JA Andrews

  “He’s a grass hawk. And he’s beautiful.”

  “A grass hawk? Is anything in this land not named after grass?”

  Sora shrugged. “The grass is everything here.”

  “He’s not full grown, is he? Because he’s too small to hunt anything but mice.”

  “Just a yearling.” She reached out again and ran her finger along Talen’s brown and white chest. “But he won’t grow much bigger. A female would be half again as big and a better hunter.” The edges of her lips lifted slightly. “And faster and smarter and all around more capable.”

  Talen fluttered his wings and hopped onto Sora’s fist—and she smiled a wide, genuine smile at the bird.

  It was utterly transformative, like the time Will had seen a brown lizard skitter onto a leaf, and its rough skin had shifted to a vibrant, shimmery green. He was torn between shock and a sudden possessiveness toward Talen.

  “Stop seducing my hawk.” Will pulled out a bit of meat. Talen hopped back onto Will’s saddle horn and snatched it up. “He’s small and not particularly useful, but he and I are a good fit.”

  She sat back, the smile lingering. “Grass hawks are difficult to catch.”

  He almost opened up toward her. It’d be unusual to feel any pleasant emotions from her. But it felt refreshing to take the smile as enough. He did soften his voice a little. “Don’t try to convince me he’s valuable. I’m very comfortable with the long-suffering caretaker role I’ve developed with him.”

  “He’s not valuable, just intriguing.”

  Talen peered at Will’s saddlebag.

  Will spread his hands out. “You’re going to have to be hawk-like and hunt for yourself if you’re still hungry.”

  Talen let out a whistling call and sped off into the sky.

  Will watched him go until he was only a small black speck. He flung the dead mouse past Sora into the grass.

  A small crinkle of disgust wrinkled Sora’s nose, but it was accompanied by another smile. She kept her eyes trained on the disappearing hawk. “Killien wants you.”

  Will looked at her sharply. “Why didn’t you say so before?”

  She shrugged. “He’s up near the front.” She seemed to have no intention of coming with him. So, spurring Shadow forward, he left her looking thoughtfully after Talen.

  As he rode up to Lilit’s wagon, the silk scarves hanging across the back fluttered and he caught a glimpse of the Torch’s wife lying on a thick bed of blankets. Her eyes were closed, her face set in an expression of exhaustion and irritation. She pressed painfully swollen hands against her belly. The wagon lurched. Her eyes flew open and she hissed something at the driver.

  A grey sleeve came into view and laid a wet cloth across the front of her neck.

  Lilit’s eyes closed again. “I’d sell everything I own for more wet cloths.”

  “I’ll be right back with more water, Flame.”

  “Thank you,” Lilit said.

  Will urged Shadow alongside the back corner of the wagon and came face to face with Ilsa. She cast an alarmed glance toward Lilit, who still lay with her eyes closed, and waved him away.

  He motioned for her to be quiet, and offered his water skin. She paused, then gave him a begrudging smile which still looked vaguely disapproving. He poured water onto the cloths in her hand until they were soaked.

  Thank you, she mouthed, before turning back into the wagon

  “I found some,” she said to Lilit, spreading another cloth across the Flame’s forehead. The Flame let out a long sigh of relief.

  Will rode up toward Killien, feeling almost euphoric but trying to school his expression into something less intense.

  Lukas rode next to the Torch, bent over a book Killien held. The Torch watched Will, disapproving. With a quick word to Lukas, he shut the book and handed it to the slave. Lukas gave him a nod and glanced back at Will. Whatever he muttered as he rode away made Killien laugh.

  When Will reached the Torch, the man glanced back at Lilit’s wagon. “Lilit does not like foreigners, and she will not be pleased if she finds you loitering around her wagon. You don’t want to cross that woman, Will. Stay away from her.”

  Will’s buoyant mood deflated. At least Lilit’s hostility of foreigners didn’t extend to her slaves. “Is she alright? She seems…uncomfortable.”

  “The healers assure me everything is as expected.” The wagon hit a bump and Lilit snapped at the driver. Killien grimaced. “She wanted to stay in Porreen until the child was born.”

  Will couldn’t blame her for that. “Does no one stay behind?”

  “Not this year. With the reports of the frost goblins. I couldn’t let her come north with only a small guard. She was…not pleased with that decision.” Lilit’s voice rang out behind them again, scathing. Killien winced. “She’s usually not so…”

  Lukas had fallen in close behind them, the book spread across his saddle again. A bit behind him Sini talked to Rett, enthusiastically waving her hands while Rett still looked anxiously at the green stone he held.

  “Have you been enjoying my books?” Killien changed the subject.

  Will nodded. “I read the account of your father yesterday. He sounded like a fascinating man.”

  “My father led the Morrow with honesty and strength. He said that fear could punish and rule, but never lead.”

  Will felt a reluctant approval of the sentiment.

  Killien didn’t continue right away, but his hands tightened on the reins “What you read is the official version of his death. The Torch of the Panos had refused my father’s help several times. But other nearby clans had begun to mend their differences. My father had a way of making people…see each other. Clans who had been enemies for generations were trying a tentative peace.

  “Suddenly the Panos wanted help, said they wanted peace. But I think the truth is that my father was uniting their enemies.” Killien stared ahead, unseeing, at the serpent’s wake that wound ahead of them on the Sweep. “Two reliable witnesses say there was no fighting the night my father died. There would have been no stray arrows. And when he died, all the old feuds were revived.”

  Killien rode with an unnatural stillness.

  Cautiously, Will opened himself up to Killien. A hollow, worn out grief laced with a savage need for vengeance filled his chest. The anguish and anger at his own father’s death rose up.

  Yes, emotions had resonance.

  A tightening in Will’s chest shoved the words out without him meaning to. “My father was killed when I was eleven.”

  Killien turned toward him and Will felt a glimmer of sympathy from the man. He shoved the emotions out of his chest.

  “He was murdered.” By one of your wayfarers. “A man broke into our house…” Will rubbed his scarred palms together. “I could do nothing.”

  Killien’s eyes focused on some unseen point. “You seem like a man of peace, Will. But if you could find the man responsible, what would you do?”

  The pressure in Will’s chest climbed up into his throat, threatening to spill out. Killien shifted to watch him closely. “I ask myself that often lately…and I never have an answer.”

  Killien’s face was stony. “I do.”

  They rode for a long stretch in silence while Will battled the anger that filled his chest. Had Killien sent Vahe twenty years ago?

  He glanced at Killien. “How long have you been Torch?”

  “Seventeen years.”

  Not Killien then. His father.

  Not that it mattered. Killien would have, if he’d been Torch then. Lukas's grey presence behind him felt like a dagger cutting into the afternoon. Spread out behind them, slaves peppered the caravan. So many lives stolen and broken.

  “I would like to continue my father’s work to unite the clans. But I’ve become convinced the only thing that will work is a common enemy. I need an attacking army to destroy.” He turned to Will, his eyes brighter than they should be.

  Will shook his head slowly. “I don’t know of any di
sposable ones.”

  The Torch turned back toward the grasses with a fierce smile. “A disposable army. That’s exactly what I need. With that I could unify the Sweep. I could solve the world’s problems.”

  “Or you could raze it to the ground.”

  Killien let out a boyish laugh. “No Will, for that, I’d need a dragon.”

  “I hope you’re not offended,” Will said, forcing a lightness into his words that he didn’t feel, “that I don’t share your enthusiasm for the disposable army or the dragon.”

  Killien grinned at him. “I never expected you to, storyman.” The smile slid off his face. “But the Roven need a way to see that they have more in common than they think. And there’s nothing more effective than fear to make people see the truth.”

  Will hesitated before asking, “What happened to your father’s words that fear could punish and rule, but never lead?”

  “You have to rule them before you can lead, Will.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was days before he spoke to Ilsa again.

  Over the next three days Killien summoned him only twice for short discussions about things Will had written. Both times he’d been surprised to find he left thinking better of the Torch than when he’d arrived. Almost worse was how much Will enjoyed the conversations himself. A large part of him hated Killien more each time he saw a grey slave’s tunic. But a newer, smaller part of him had formed a firm respect for the man who seemed so unlike the other Roven. He was endlessly interested in other lands and their people, he treated Will with simple friendship, and as far as Will could tell, treated his slaves better than many men treated their own families.

  But both times he’d been near Killien, Lilit’s wagon had been surrounded by people and he’d had no chance to even see Ilsa.

  The days fell into a blur of pale green grasslands. The wind blew constantly out of the northwest. Sometimes a mild breeze, sometimes so fierce it tore away anything not tied down. On warm afternoons, the clouds piled up and rolled across the Sweep with sheets of rain, plunging it into darkness and thunder. And with every day his frustration at not making progress with Ilsa grew. The Morrow would reach their rifts in a week, and if Killien decided he had no more use of a storyman, any chance to talk to Ilsa might be at an end.

  To pass the time, Will continued working his way through the books in the red bag and writing out stories for Killien. Whenever he could, he snuck a glance into Lukas's grey bag, but only one book was interesting. Will had enough chances to read Methods of Transference to fully understand compulsion stones.

  Killien and Lukas were very focused on the idea of transferring emotions or thoughts into someone. Which was troubling.

  Most days he spent a portion of the time with Killien, talking about history or stories. Will often found the Torch discussing some book or another with Lukas, but Will’s appearance always prompted the slave to close the book and fall back. Although Will was always answering Killien’s summons, Lukas didn’t bother to hide his feelings about the interruptions.

  Most nights Will ate with the Torch. The man continued to request stories from Queensland, and Will felt that each night was spent downplaying his knowledge of Queensland while still satisfying Killien’s curiosity. Hal was always there, a constantly friendly face who worked in questions about dwarves whenever he could. Sora joined them if she wasn’t out scouting. Lilit too, a scowling, hateful addition to the group no matter how much Will tried to entertain her. But, shadowing Lilit, came Ilsa, who never made eye contact, but seemed to listen with rapt attention. Will found himself tailoring each story to his sister, pleasing Killien falling into a secondary goal.

  Killien’s other slaves were always close by, but never actually with the group. Lukas, Sini, and Rett sat together a little removed, but usually listening to any story Will told. Lukas watched him with an unrelenting coldness, but Sini and Rett watched curiously.

  The nights Will didn’t eat with Killien, he sat with Rass in the back of a wagon and let her prattle on about the little creatures she’d seen that day. Each night it got easier to fall asleep on the hard wagon, each morning he rose less sore and less enthusiastic about the walk that was about to begin. Every other day they reached a large cistern dug deep into the ground and covered with a thick metal lid. Will stood on the edge of the first one, looking down into the dark, still water, feeling cool air seep out from it. The well looked endless and the water poured into his canteen tasted stale.

  It was the evening of the sixth day before Will caught sight of Ilsa in the crowd near the cistern. He wove his way through the crowd until he reached her.

  She met his eye for only a moment before looking away. “I can’t talk to you.”

  “I won’t move my lips,” he said through a stiff jaw, falling in beside her and looking forward stoically.

  She let out a little laugh, then pressed her lips into a straight line again. “You don’t have anything to hold water,” she pointed out.

  Which was true. He searched for some reason he could give her for being there. He wanted to ask her how her life had been. If she remembered her home or their parents. If she remembered him.

  He wanted a way to pour all his memories into her mind and show her the childhood she’d lost. A way to figure out how she’d survived here, how hard it had been, who she'd turned into. But those were hardly conversation starters.

  Tossing out the first hundred things he thought of to say, he managed, “I just need your help.”

  Ilsa shook her head, keeping her eyes forward. “If Lilit hears of me talking to you,” she whispered, “she’ll be furious. She hates you.”

  True. Will glanced around. “That’s what I need help with. Is there any sort of story she would like? Anything that might make her think better of me? Killien keeps asking for things from foreign lands, and with each one, I swear the Flame hates me more.”

  “She does.”

  Ilsa was shorter than him by a hand, and she glanced up at him. Being close to her was such a strange combination of familiarity and awkwardness. Such familiar features set in a face he didn’t quite recognize. What sort of stories would she like to hear?

  “Pick something with a powerful woman,” Ilsa said. “One who is the driving force of the story.”

  Will smiled. “That I can do.”

  “Now go away before you get us both in trouble.”

  He paused, trying to think of some reason to stay. An idea occurred to him. “Can Lilit read?”

  She nodded. “Now leave. Please, Will.”

  At the sound of his name, his breath caught. For the briefest moment he thought maybe it signified that she knew him. But there was nothing in her face beyond a worry they’d be noticed.

  His mother had always teased him that he couldn’t resist his baby sister. He’d retrieve anything for her that she couldn’t reach, carry her on his back whenever she asked, act out ridiculous stories just to make her laugh. It didn’t matter that Ilsa had no idea who he was today. For him, nothing had changed.

  He gave her a slight nod and pulled himself away. At least now he had an idea of how to ingratiate himself to Lilit.

  When he got back to the book wagon, he pulled out some fresh paper and set to writing out a story with the most powerful woman he could think of. Sable’s story was epic enough in proportions to need a whole book, but certain episodes of her life were excellent tales themselves.

  He wrote until darkness hid the page, then rose with the sun to finish. By the time the caravan began moving, he had left Shadow hitched to the wagon and woven toward Lilit’s wagon.

  He reached the side of it and heard a thunk from the back. Moving quickly before any of the nearby rangers noticed him, he ducked around the corner.

  “Ilsa,” he whispered, walking along with the wagon.

  But it wasn’t Ilsa sitting there, shifting her weight uncomfortably.

  Lilit’s eyes flashed in recognition and her lips curled into a sneer. “What do you want with my g
irl, fett?”

  “I don’t…” Will almost stumbled. He tried to give her a disarming smile, but it probably looked panicked. He glanced into the wagon, but Ilsa wasn’t there. “I have something for you, actually. I thought you might be bored so I wrote down a story for you about a woman named Sable who began with nothing and ended up essentially ruling the world.”

  Lilit’s expression didn’t soften and Will held the papers out to her. She glared for a moment before pulling them out of his hand and flicking them to the ground. They fanned out in front of the next wagon, smashed into the grass by the horses’ hooves.

  Will stared at the trampled pages disappearing under the wagon.

  “My husband may see you as some exotic pet,” she said, her voice cold, “but I know you’re nothing but a field roach slinking in through a crack, spreading disease and filth.”

  Will opened his mouth to object, but she leaned forward and fixed him with a look of utter hatred. “If you come near my wagon again, Killien will lose his pet.”

  Will pulled back. So much for ingratiating himself to her. Will gave her a quick bow and turned away. He cast one last glance around, looking for Ilsa, but all he saw was a page of his story fluttering further behind them under the feet of the caravan. Before Lilit could call for any of the rangers, he hurried around the next wagon and headed back toward the books.

  The next few days were torturously uneventful. Ilsa stayed at Lilit’s side, which was now firmly off limits. Will had failed to find Ilsa near the cisterns when the clans stopped. He’d watched during the days to see if she’d leave the wagon, but he could not catch her alone.

  On top of that, some sort of crisis involving an illness among the sheep kept Hal busy and ill-tempered, and Sora spent the days ranging.

  The third such morning, he rode along the eastern edge of the caravan, getting some relief from the fact that there were no Roven between him and the Scale Mountains. The flatbread that was breakfast every morning, somehow managed to be both salty and bland at the same time. He ate it mindlessly, bracing himself for another day alone.