by JA Andrews
He rode behind the book wagon for the next several hours, reading and pondering ways to get Kachig’s book out of Killien’s wagon.
It wasn’t Lukas who brought the runes for him to translate around midday, it was Sini.
When she appeared, Rett stood up in the still moving wagon and started to climb down. “Where are you going? I’ll go with you.”
“No, Rett.” She pulled up alongside him, speaking gently. “We’ll sit together at dinner. You need to drive the wagon and keep the books safe.”
“Oh.” He stopped and sat down slowly. “I forgot. Thank you.”
She gave him an encouraging nod and once he was seated, rode back toward Will, carrying a roll of paper. Her face lost the serious expression it often carried around Rett and settled into something curious, but cautious as she got closer.
“Is Rett…?” Will began quietly, looking for the right words.
Sini glanced back at the big slave, her face turning pensive. “There was an accident a long time ago. They say he almost died. I don’t think he remembers it, but he has trouble remembering a lot of things. He’s always distracted by things inside his head.”
“Do you take care of him?”
She shrugged. “He doesn’t need much care, just reminders sometimes. And he’s funny and kind.” She brushed a bit of blond hair back behind her ear, nervously. “We like the stories you’ve been telling at night. Both of us knew the one you told in Porreen, about Tomkin and the dragon.”
“Where did you hear it?”
“We’re both from Queensland,” she answered.
Will tried to ignore the complicated surge of pity and anger that thought evoked, and tried to find something to say.
But she didn’t seem to need a response. “How many stories do you know?”
“I could tell you a different one every day until you turned a hundred.”
She gave him a dubious look. “There aren’t that many stories in the world.”
“There are enough stories in the world that each of us could hear a different one every day until we turned a hundred, and we still wouldn’t run out.”
She considered this, biting her lip. With an almost absent expression she held the rolled papers out towards Will. He took them with thanks.
She lowered her voice and glanced around. “I’m glad you’re telling stories from Queensland.” With a quick smile, she turned her horse away.
Will watched her go, a convoluted tangle of emotions crowding into him. Killien might give him Rass if he could read these runes, and he’d find a way to free Ilsa, but how was he going to walk away and leave a girl like Sini here? She should be at home with her parents, growing closer to adulthood every day, complaining that they didn’t give her enough freedom. Not trapped here with no hope of it. It didn’t matter whether she seemed to be treated well or not, she was still a slave. The list of people he wanted to rescue from the Roven kept growing.
He unrolled the papers and his stomach sank for a completely different reason.
He’d been hoping that when Killien said “ancient runes,” what he’d really meant was “old fashioned runes.” A more decorated version of modern ones. But these runes were old. The deep, original-magic-workers-creating-a-language-to-hold-power old. The Keepers had plenty of books that used them. And all the Keepers could read them. To some extent.
For Will, that extent did not include being able to do more than narrow down their general meaning to a marginally more-narrow meaning.
Will’s eyes trailed over the page, sliding past the precisely written, highly complex shapes.
The topmost rune was something watery. Yes. Watery.
Will tilted the paper slightly to the side.
The next was definitely something about death. Except the corner of it was odd.
The third had entirely too many pieces. He pulled it closer, trying to make out the thin lines of extra strokes drawn into the bottom.
Chicken.
It said chicken.
Will let the paper fall back against the saddle.
The translation was “dead water chicken.”
That seemed unlikely.
He scrubbed his fingers through his hair, scanning the rest of the page. There were a dozen different runes. Each complex, each nonsensical.
Will closed his eyes.
If Rass’s freedom depended on this, she was never going to get away from the Morrow.
The day dragged inexorably on. Will returned, time and again to the runes, dissecting them, rearranging them, turning them on their heads. None of it was comprehensible.
The Morrow crept slowly north through the brownish green pelt of the grasslands, the sun moved slowly west through an empty, faded blue sky, and Will made no progress at all with his translations. Which began to tie his gut into a small knot of worry.
Rass appeared briefly, tugging on his foot to bring him down so she could show him the chain of flowers made from stalks and little blooms with greenish-yellow ray-like petals.
“I made it for you,” she said, seriously, holding it out toward his head.
Will leaned forward and let her set it on him. When he straightened, she nodded approvingly. Her face was so much less gaunt, her arms less skeletal. She’d lost the hollow sort of look in her eyes.
He reached into his bag and pulled out a wide salt flat and handed it to her. She must have been eating almost nothing before if the little food he was able to share with her was making such a difference. She grinned and took a big bite.
“Do I look kingly?” He lifted his chin and gazed over the grass ahead of them.
She giggled. “Like the King of the Grass.” And with that she ran off, stopping occasionally to yank something out of the ground.
Will watched her run, the knot of worry growing. There was no way he was leaving her here.
Ahead of him the peaks grew taller, connecting with each other until the entire northern horizon was blocked by the imposing wall of the Hoarfrost Range. He found himself staring at them more and more often, spinning his ring. His mind avoiding the impossible runes, avoiding thinking about Ilsa and Rass and Sini.
The sun wasn’t remotely close to the horizon when the caravan stopped. There didn’t seem to be a cistern, and Will was caught between wondering why they’d stopped and if he could come up with a good enough reason to go near Ilsa when he heard the news that Lilit’s time had come. There was no reason in the world that would get him close to Ilsa tonight. Will settled down on the back of the book wagon, glad to be able to sit still during the daylight and write for Killien.
The sun had sunk low in the west when Sora rode up next to him. He hadn’t seen her since that morning, and her mood had not improved. She sat down beside him on the back of the book wagon with a curt nod. He waited for a minute or two before leaning over and whispering, “Are you mad at me? Or someone else?”
A small smile cracked through her scowl.
“Good.” He sat back. “It’s nice when you spread your anger out among other people.”
This earned him no response at all.
“Have you been doing something more riveting than walking north through grass?”
“Helping Killien.” She didn’t look toward him, and by the way she said the Torch’s name, Will didn’t have to wonder who she was angry with.
Will fiddled with the page of the book a moment, waiting for her to continue. She didn’t and he let the silence go as long as he could. “Did you finish whatever he needed?”
“Yes.” The word came out as almost a hiss, and Will leaned back slightly to be farther from her line of sight.
“Sometimes you’re terrifying,” he said.
She closed her eyes and let out a tired sort of laugh. When she opened them, her face was weary. The sun was low enough that the air had turned golden, and the copper of Sora’s braid caught at the light, reflecting strands of dark red.
“Why don’t you go home, Sora?” he asked. “Get out of these infernal grasses.
Leave the Morrow to whatever Roven things they want to do, and go do something…anything else?”
She sank over against the wall of the wagon. “Because it’s never that simple.”
Will couldn’t argue with that. “Well then don’t go home. Go somewhere else.” He paused for a moment. “Come with me when I leave.”
She turned to him with an incredulous look. “And go where?”
Will shrugged. “Off the Sweep. There are a lot of interesting countries just over those mountains.”
“When is it that you’re leaving?” Her face was back to being unreadable.
“Once we reach the rifts, I suppose.” Or he freed Ilsa. And Rass. He felt a cold doubt in his stomach at Lukas's warning that Killien already owned him. But a sudden realization struck. “Can you leave?”
“Of course I can.” The scowl was back on her face.
“Does the work Killien asks you to do usually make you this mad?”
“No. This was a first.”
She stopped talking and Will let the conversation end. The gnaw of doubt that had crept into his stomach was still there, and he tried to push it away.
Several minutes passed before Sora glanced over at him. “You have dead flowers on your head.”
Will laughed, pulling off the crown. The dried stalks of the flower chain broke where he touched it, and one of the little blooms, which had curled in on itself into a brownish cage of withered petals, snapped off and rolled down his leg and into the grass.
“I’m King of the Grass.” The whole dry chain crumbled and fell.
Her mouth quirked up in a smile. “You should get a better crown.”
Will brushed his fingers through his hair, dislodging bits of dead flower. “I should get a better kingdom.”
Sora didn’t seem inclined to talk any more, so Will went back to flipping through the book, before the last of the daylight trickled away. When it was too dark to see the page, Will flipped the book closed and pointed out that if they didn’t find Hal soon, they might not find any dinner. Sora gave a “hmm” that sounded like an agreement and mounted her horse, turning it in to the clan. Will climbed up on Shadow to follow when shouts rang out from somewhere nearby. A rider tore toward them.
It was Ilsa.
“Sora!” she cried. “Killien needs you! The baby has come, but the Flame—she’s bleeding and it won’t stop. She is losing her strength. The Torch begs you to come!” Her face was drawn, her eyes worried.
Sora’s horse danced away from Ilsa’s mare. “What does he think I can do?”
“He asks…” Ilsa hesitated, her eyes flashing toward Will for just a breath before facing Sora again, her brow creased with uneasiness. “For your blessing.”
Sora’s face hardened into stone. “He’s a fool.”
“She’s dying, Sora.” Ilsa voice was quiet, pleading.
Sora pressed her eyes shut.
“The Torch begs you.”
With a growl torn from somewhere unbearably deep, Sora spurred her horse forward. She and Ilsa raced toward the front of the clan. Shadow, jolted into action by the others, raced after them.
Chapter Eighteen
Shadow galloped after Sora and Ilsa to a small tent near the front of the caravan.
What did Killien think Sora could do that a healer couldn’t?
Ilsa swung off her horse and hurried into the tent. Sora sat still in her saddle gripping the reins.
Killien rushed to her. “Please!” He stood at Sora’s knee like a supplicant.
“You know I can’t help her,” Sora hissed at the Torch.
“She’s dying.” Killien reached up to clench the bottom of her shirt. “It can’t hurt to pray.”
He wanted her to pray? Will leaned forward trying to see Sora’s face, trying to understand what was happening.
A low, torn moan came from inside the tent and both Killien and Sora flinched. With a curt nod, Sora shoved his hands off her and swung down from her horse.
Fixing the Torch with a look of pure hatred, she whispered, “You and I are finished.”
Without waiting for a response, she ducked into the tent.
Killien sank to his knees and dropped his head into his hands. Will sat awkward in the saddle, unable to make sense of either Killien’s request or Sora’s response.
Another low moan tore through the night and Killien shuddered. Will cast out toward the tent and felt three people’s vitalle blazing like watchfires. A low, smoldering form lay at their feet.
Lilit had very little time left.
Will waited to see if Sora did anything with vitalle in the tent, but nothing happened. He climbed quietly off Shadow. Skirting around Killien, Will drew in some energy from the grass and wrapped it around himself like a cloak, infusing the influence spell with the idea that he was not worth noticing.
Will reached the tent door, and when none of the Roven at the nearby fire objected, he stepped inside. A lantern cast dim light on Sora and Ilsa kneeling next to Lilit’s still form. Sini leaned over a basin of red water, washing blood off her arms. Tears traced tracks down her cheeks, and she dashed at them with her shoulder.
He cut off the influence spell, letting it dissolve and Sora gave him a quick, surprised glance.
“The healers gave her mutherswort,” Sini whispered to Sora, “but she still bleeds from somewhere deep inside.” Her voice broke. “It’s too much to stop.”
“The child?” Sora asked softly.
“A healthy boy.”
All the fury was gone from Sora’s face. With her jaw clenched, she shifted the blanket covering Lilit’s legs. Beneath them, everything was soaked with blood. “Find some clean blankets,” she said firmly to Ilsa, who hurried out of the tent without glancing at Will. “And fresh water,” she added to Sini with a tight smile at the girl.
Sini nodded and left.
“What does Lilit need?” Will whispered.
“Strength she doesn’t have.” Sora gently lay the blankets back down.
Sora sank back, her hand resting on Lilit’s stomach. She bowed her head and began whispering words Will couldn’t understand. He cast out toward her, waiting for…something.
The words rolled out of her mouth rhythmic and heartfelt.
Killien brought her here to pray?
Will knelt down next to Lilit’s head, setting a hand on her damp forehead and casting out. Her vitalle lay weak and thin, like tired coals of a dying fire. The little energy she had surged against the tattered edges of a tear deep inside her womb. She was weak enough that the blood flowed through it slowly.
He drew all the energy he could find from the grass beneath them. It wasn’t nearly enough. If he took from the grass past the tent, it would leave a difficult to explain, enormous dead spot, and it still might not be enough. Casting out farther, he found the blazing energy of the fire and drew in as much vitalle as he could. It poured into him, and he felt the fire growing dim. Someone outside called for more fuel for the flames. Hopefully it would come soon, because this wouldn’t be enough.
As gently as he could, he set his hands on the sides of Lilit’s head and slowly funneled the energy into her, offering the vitalle her body needed to heal itself. Will leaned down near her ear. In a low, calm voice, he began.
“The night the nineteenth Torch of the Morrow Clan was born, the winds of the Sweep blew like a dragon, flattening the grass and driving evil omens before it.”
A sound near the door caught his attention. Killien stood there, watching Will sharply, a dangerous glint in his eyes. Sora was still bowed, whispered words pouring out of her in a rhythm like a prayer. Lilit groaned quietly.
“Lilit, Flame of the Morrow,” Will continued, pressing more vitalle into her, “had fought and bled, until her strength was almost spent.”
Slowly the wound drew together. He drew in more from the fire, funneling everything into Lilit’s body.
“But the Flame of the Morrow was not like the grass, she did not bend and bow before the wind.”
“She reached down into the Sweep,” Will continued, “down into the grasses, into where the power of her people lay.”
Lilit opened her eyes and a spasm of pain flashed across her face. Sora placed both her hands on the Flame’s stomach and continued whispering. Will cast out toward Sora, but she still did nothing more than pray.
“The Flame of the Morrow reached into the place where all life begins,” he whispered. “Into the place where all life goes when it is worn out with living.”
Lilit grimaced and shifted. The wound was almost healed, the blood barely flowing, but the fire was almost out. “She reached that place,” he said, offering some of his own energy while casting out desperately to find more, “and she found the strength to fight on.”
Killien had drawn back, his eyes locked on Lilit’s face.
She was pulling energy from Will too quickly. He couldn’t quite stop the bleeding. The blood kept wanting to push the tear open again. He cast out toward the grass past the tent. It would be impossible to hide a huge swath of dead grass, but he didn’t see another choice.
Outside the tent the fire flared with new fuel and Will grabbed the vitalle from it, pouring it into Lilit.
And finally the last of the wound closed.
He waited a moment, but everything held. She was terribly weak, but the immediate danger was over. Lilit groaned and twisted and Will let his hands fall off the sides of her head.
Sini returned, bringing an armful of blankets. She lifted the filthy one off Lilit and began to clear away the soaked ones. Will sank back, his palms aching.
Sini grabbed Sora’s arm. “The bleeding—” She shoved blankets out of the way and called for clean water.