by Cara Witter
She bit down hard on her own tongue as wings hit stone.
Sagis spines crumpled. Silks collapsed. Leather straps jerked as her momentum came to a jolting halt and the kite above her fractured into pieces. Saara pulled her arms from the straps and kicked off the rock, pulling herself out of the harness and leaping to the ground as the silks came billowing down around her like a falling tent.
Her feet slipped a little on the river-smoothed stone, and she grabbed the cliff wall to steady herself. Her limbs ached, and she tasted blood. But at least she was alive. She was fairly certain she’d done herself damage, but her pulse pounded as she scanned the sky above her. Kites were already circling. The bow of the ship appeared as it rounded the bend in the river. There was no time to hide and recover. Saara slipped into the shadow of the cliff so the kites above wouldn’t be able to see her and slid down the smooth rock into the river.
The cold water shocked her, but Saara plunged beneath, so she wouldn’t be visible from above. As the ship came closer, the currents rushed more quickly around it, and Saara swam furiously against those currents, dragging herself along the hull.
There would be sentries aboard the ship—no doubt looking for potential stowaways—but at least they wouldn’t have heard yet to watch for her. Saara grabbed onto the barnacles that had adhered themselves to the hull while the boat was at sea and pulled herself up the steep incline of the wooden hull until she was well above the water line. Fingers and toes searching the tar, wood, and barnacles for handholds, she scooted along the edge of the hull, arms aching, until she reached a place where a rope had been affixed to a cleat in the deck above and left dangling a few feet below. Grabbing onto the rope, Saara hauled her aching body up and slipped onto the deck behind a coil of thick, soaked hawser as big around as her forearm, piled waist high.
Above her in the rigging, she spotted one scout. Two. And a third near the forecastle. But thankfully, none of them were looking directly at her. Before they could discover her whereabouts, Saara slunk around the pile of rope, keeping it between her and the lookouts, and slipped silently down into the hold.
No one was moving cargo this late at night—especially because the ship had probably unloaded its wares upriver and already restocked. Saara slipped into the cavernous hold, picking her way around crates and barrels.
Moving toward the back of the hull, Saara noted the location of the crates of foodstuffs and casks of fresh water—which she’d no doubt have to skim a bit of before they arrived in port. Water dripped from her clothes and her long black hair, and Saara pulled a bit of string from the outside of one of the boxes to tie it up in a knot. She’d rather be a bird than a ship rat, but at least she was out of sight.
Saara tucked herself into a space between the curved hull of the boat and a heavily tarred crate of silks. The sailors wouldn’t be crawling back here for that until they arrived in port. She could only hope that the port they were going to was on the far side of the island, somewhere she wouldn’t be recognized. She needed to focus, to form a plan about what she was going to do next.
If the ship was going as far as she hoped, at least she’d have time on her side.
Two
The first thing Kenton noticed upon entering the town of West Fenbrook was the quiet. There were no people out on the narrow main street, talking or haggling or sweeping their entryways. No carts creaked along the dirt road; no laughter filtered out from open windows.
He prayed to the gods that he wasn’t too late.
He stalked by a handful of squat, single-story buildings with thatched roofs and colorful homemade curtains fluttering in the early spring breeze. One front door had been left open, and a tawny chicken pecked at some crumbs on the wooden floorboards. A large, shaggy herding dog trotted past, eyeing Kenton briefly before continuing on.
The dog wasn’t gorging on corpses, which he took for a good sign. There were no bodies in the streets, no stench of death, no carrion birds like he’d found in other towns before this. Still, if General Raske’s men had reached this town ahead of him, they might have rounded up the villagers rather than killed them where they stood.
Diamis’ soldiers, Kenton knew too well, liked to make examples, and these days it seemed the Lord General’s blood mages also had an unwitting spy in every town.
Kenton made his way down the road toward a plume of smoke rising from behind some trees. He could hear voices as he approached, but the tone didn’t seem like a soldier barking orders. One voice in particular—a man’s—rose above the others.
“—that the Banishment Chronicle has foretold,” the man said in a voice that sounded accustomed to speaking before crowds. “It may seem difficult to believe that Nerendal would choose a mere farmer, and yet, aren’t the bearers said to be ‘plucked from among the faithful?’”
Kenton sighed. So he had beaten the soldiers to the man who claimed to be the godbearer of Nerendal, though the voice alone—a reedy, clipped Andronish accent rather than a lilting Tirostaari one—cast serious doubt on this man’s legitimacy, as did his gender, since Nerendal favored his daughters over his sons.
If he was a bearer, he was in grave danger. If he was a charlatan, he was needlessly endangering the people here, who would pay the price for his blasphemy. Either way, he was a gods-damned fool.
Kenton emerged from behind the trees into a large grassy clearing, the type that a town like this would use for festivals and public meetings. The crowd was larger than Kenton had expected given the size of the town—more than a hundred men, women, and children surrounding a crackling fire. Kenton could barely see the man at the head of the group, and he edged through the crowd to get a better view, ignoring the irritated glances of those he pushed past.
The man wore plain russet breeches and a blue sleeveless vest, his skin bare beneath it. “You’ve come because you’ve heard from your neighbors of the miracles I can perform,” the man said. He swept his hands through the rising smoke, building suspense for the actual demonstration. Kenton noted the barrel beside him—probably a dousing barrel, a safety measure common among fire-dancers.
Kenton had seen all of this before—had chased down more than a dozen people who claimed to be the bearer of Nerendal, the one who would be able to touch the godstone of Tirostaar. None of the others had turned out to be more than con artists and performers, and this man seemed much the same.
Things had not ended well for many of them.
“You don’t look Tirostaari to me,” Kenton called out, and many in the crowd turned to look at him. He hated attracting attention, and while he saw no soldiers of Diamis in this bunch—not yet—Diamis’ secret army of mages might even now be looking at him through one of their eyes. It had happened before, and there was no way for him or anyone else in the crowd to know for certain who the puppet might be.
The man searched through his audience until he found Kenton. His congenial smile managed not to look forced. “Ah,” the man said. “But you must know your Chronicle. It breathes not a word of the bearer being Tirostaari.” He turned to the crowd. “What are the exact words in the Chronicle about the bearer of Nerendal? Can anyone here remember them?”
Kenton could practically recite the whole damn thing. But he kept his mouth shut, watching the reactions of the people around him. Most looked nervous, their eyes darting around the circle, waiting for someone else to speak up.
At least these people have some sense of self-preservation, he thought. Diamis hadn’t formally outlawed worship of the Four here in Andronim like he had in Foroclae, but it was strongly discouraged. Strongly enough that most of the chapels to Arkista he’d seen in his travels had been abandoned, home now to stray cats and spiders rather than priestesses in silver robes and crescent moon sigils.
The weighty silence dragged on a few moments, and then a young man with a chin dotted with patchy attempts at a new beard stepped forward. “It says Nerendal’s bearer wil
l ‘come forth from the people of the sun, and the fire of the god will harm the bearer not.’”
“And are we not all people of the sun?” the man asked, flashing a look at Kenton. “Do we not all toil beneath Nerendal’s light?”
The young man gazed up at the so-called bearer with such open adoration that Kenton could tell he wasn’t from this village, but rather one of the man’s followers, a retinue growing from town to town. A retinue that had already attracted the Lord General’s attention, and if one of his spies had managed to get just a drop of blood from one of them—
They needed to get on with this. “Where are your miracles, then?” Kenton called.
The man spared him another glimpse, but kept his general attention on the crowd. He was experienced at dealing with hecklers; Kenton would give him that much.
“I see you are not all convinced,” he said. “But remember the scripture. Fire will harm the bearer not!”
And with that, he bent down and plunged his arms into the fire burning before him. Gasps sounded from the crowd, and several people cried out when he straightened and held his arms out to either side, flames licking along his hands and dancing on his bare skin.
The man stood exultantly, his face raised to the sun, letting the flames burn. And then, when he’d made his point, he doused his arms in the large barrel of water. Steam hissed from the barrel, and then he withdrew his arms to hold them up again before the crowd.
The skin looked as pale and unburnt as before. He turned his palms this way and that, spinning in a circle to show everyone in the awe-struck crowd. Kenton, however, noticed that the water beaded up on his arms and hands unnaturally. The man was using firedamp, a translucent cream that could protect skin against flames like this—a troupe of performers he’d witnessed years ago in northern Mortiche had rubbed their entire bodies in the stuff before leaping through hoops of flame. The potion was expensive, but Mortichean duchies loved a good acrobatic troupe, and the dukes paid handsomely for them to perform at festivals and tournaments. Rural farmers in western Andronim, however, were unlikely to have seen it before.
A short, balding man in a green tunic with a constable’s insignia appeared about to pass out. “Does this mean—If you are a bearer . . . does this mean that Maldorath has been released?” The man’s voice wavered.
A few more cries sounded from the crowd as the connection dawned belatedly on them. That if a godbearer had indeed been chosen, if the powers that signaled his identity had begun manifesting, then it must mean that the gods needed to be found again to prevent the release of Maldorath. As the Chronicle said, the bearers would come and bring them to the place where Maldorath was bound.
“Times are perilous,” the man said, stepping dangerously near the fire again. “Only the watchful will be able to anticipate his coming.”
“That didn’t answer the question,” Kenton called.
This time the charlatan pointedly ignored him.
Kenton made a show of looking smug. Maldorath hadn’t been released yet. But it might only take Kenton’s death—the death of the last Drim, the last of the people given the power that kept Maldorath locked away from this world—to finish the job. He’d spent ten years running, working odd jobs as a personal body guard or in caravan protection, transporting drugs or other smuggled goods. Trading in information and learning all he could.
And searching, not just for the bearers, but also for other Drim survivors, people like him who could stand between Diamis and his plans.
So far, he’d found none.
In front of the crowd, the man tossed forward a bucket. “Please,” he said. “Don’t hold back. Show the gods your generosity, so that they may rain down their blessings!” Then he dipped his hands close to the fire again, letting them catch, and danced them together deftly in an intricate pattern.
Some of the townspeople threw in their coins readily, while others hesitated. But on too many in the crowd, Kenton saw expressions of the rawest of human emotions: belief.
Misplaced belief had led Kenton to kill for Diamis back when he was a soldier. He’d given his faith to a man who had murdered his family—not because they had turned to blood magic, as Diamis had led his people to believe, but because they held the power that bound Maldorath, gifted from the gods themselves. When the soldiers arrived, belief would lead to these people’s deaths, as well.
Enough. Kenton would end this and settle the matter of this man’s authenticity once and for all. He clapped his hands along with the rest of the crowd, eyeing a drunken fellow at the front of the crowd who sipped casually from a large tankard. He stepped past the drunk and into the clearing, keeping the fire between himself and the man who was now dousing his palms.
“That is miraculous!” Kenton shouted. “Please, show us more!”
The man smiled at him uneasily, and he was right to. Before the man could react, Kenton grabbed the tankard from the drunk and splashed the contents on the swindler, who yelped and jumped backward. But not before Kenton kicked one of the flaming sticks from the fire at him.
The man’s linen breeches went up and he screamed, beating at them with his firedamp-lathered hands. His face contorted in obvious panic and pain, and the fire continued, catching the man’s vest as well.
The crowd erupted in a mess of yells and crying children and people fleeing from the clearing. Even the faithful looked on in horror, too shocked or too cowardly to intervene.
So much for not attracting attention, Kenton thought. He sighed, stepped over to the screaming, burning man and tossed the dousing barrel over him. The man fell to the ground, and Kenton rolled him in the wet dirt until the fire went out. The stench of burnt flesh mingled with the loamy smell of dirt and ashes.
The man wept. “Oh gods, it hurts! You burned me, you—”
“You’ll live.” Kenton eyed the red, blistered skin on the man’s chest through the burnt strips of his vest. “Which is more than Diamis will grant you or these people if you keep on with this. The soldiers are coming. Run while you can.”
The man lay in the dirt, where he twisted and moaned. Those who’d remained in the crowd parted as Kenton walked past, voices rising in panic.
News of this would spread, unfortunately, but Kenton would be long gone. And if the so-called bearer was gone, too, the soldiers might spare them their folly. If not, they were beyond his capacity to help. If the charlatan had an ounce of sense—which Kenton doubted—he would hide and escape imprisonment, avoid a life of being locked away on the off chance that he might actually be the bearer of Nerendal.
A few months ago, Kenton had found and tortured one of the mages who controlled Diamis’ blood puppet spies, and she confirmed the truth. Diamis was recruiting mages to look for the bearers, but most of all, they were looking for Kenton.
After all these years, the Lord General was growing desperate.
Kenton turned, walking away from the village and toward the city of Drepaine. He reached into his pocket, feeling the etched wood of the box he kept there. He ran his thumbnail over the Drim rune.
Ten years he’d been looking. Ten years of frustration. Ten years without answers. Ten years of being one step ahead of Diamis, but often only that, following one lead and then another. The man with the firedamp hadn’t been his last; a woman he’d been tracking was rumored to be staying with her sister in Drepaine. A Drim woman, supposedly, who might be able to open the box which, try as he might, Kenton had been unable to so much as crack all these years. After a decade of tracking every clue, every snippet of information he could find about the Drim and about the godbearers, he had a pretty good idea about what was in this box, and it would be the first real step in stopping Diamis.
This Drim woman might be another false lead, another disappointment. But Kenton had to proceed as if every possibility represented a hope.
He had years of complicity with Diamis to atone for, and a gods-d
amned world to save.
Three
Daniella Diamis sat in her coach, squinting against the harsh midday sunlight as she took in the sights of the city of Drepaine, capital of Andronim. The street was narrow and the crowds gathering to watch them pass could scarcely stand on both sides of the road and still allow their coach to roll through without mangling toes. Children perched on the shoulders of their fathers to catch a glimpse of the daughter of the man who had taken control of their country.
She wondered if she would disappoint them.
Daniella had never visited Andronim before—had never left Sevairn, in fact, in all her twenty-six years—and she was aching to see what little she could before being shut up in the Lord Governor’s palace for weeks. Not that she’d never been stuck in a castle before. Daniella had been a sickly child—once confined to bed for over a year—and her father had been overprotective ever since.
Protective enough to send her away at the first sign that she might be in danger back in Peldenar. Officially, she was here to pacify the Andronish nobles about her father’s intentions for the future of trade along the Trace river, which marked the border between Andronim and Sevairn. Daniella might be the daughter of the Lord General, but she was no diplomat. Her knowledge of Andronish shipping regulations came only from the books in the castle library, and they were forty years out of date. She was afraid her ignorance was going to show.
Daniella had brought along some reading to help her prepare, but the only thing she had in the way of a guide was Lady Braisia, the second cousin of the former king of Andronim. Unfortunately, Braisia seemed disinclined to talk about much beyond the latest fashions.
“Daniella, dear,” Braisia said, fanning herself with an ornate silk fan with dangling beads that clicked with every motion, “you really should close the curtains. Too much light is bad for the complexion. You don’t want these peasants to think you’re one of them, do you?”