The Heart of Betrayal

by Mary E. Pearson

  He shook his head, satisfied with my silent response. “You need to learn to let go of things, Lia. All things. Nevertheless…” He slipped his dagger from it, then lifted the baldrick over his head and placed it over mine. His hands lingered on my back as he adjusted it. “Yours. As a reward. You’ve been proving yourself useful these past days.”

  I breathed with relief when he finally finished adjusting the baldrick and removed his hands from my back. “Your people already bend at your command,” I said. “What do you need me for?”

  He reached up, and his hand gently glided over my cheek. “Fervor, Lia. Food supplies are shorter than ever. They’ll need fervor to help them forget their hunger, their cold, their fear through this last long winter. That’s not too much to ask, is it?”

  I looked at him uncertainly. Fervor was an odd word choice. It implied something more feverish than hope or determination. “I don’t have words to stir fervor, Komizar.”

  “For now just do what you’ve been doing all along. Smile, flutter your lashes as if spirits whisper to you. Later I’ll tell you the words to speak.” His hand slid to my shoulder, caressing it, then I felt the fabric of my shirt pinching me as he gathered it up in his fist. He yanked suddenly, and I winced as the cloth tore free from my shoulder. “There now,” he said. “Your tedious shirt is taken care of.” His fingers brushed over my shoulder where the kavah now lay exposed, and he leaned close so that his lips were hot against my ear. “The next time I tell you what to do, see that you do it.”

  * * *

  We headed toward the washing grounds without another word. I garnered stares for both my kavah and my flapping torn shirt. Fervor. That’s not too much to ask, is it? He was making me a spectacle one way or another. I was certain that in his own mind, the kavah was only something peculiar and exotic, or even backward. He didn’t care about the meaning, only that it might help fan this so-called fervor. An added distraction, that’s all he wanted, and nothing about it seemed right.

  When we reached the washing grounds, I saw three long basins, the pressure of the river skillfully routed through them. Women lined the edges, kneeling to scrub their laundry on the stones, their knuckles split and red from the icy waters. Sickly sweet smoke drifted from one of the many nearby shops that circled the grounds, and the Komizar said he was stepping inside for a moment.

  “Talk to the workers, but go no farther than the basins,” he said sternly, reminding me I was to do exactly as he said. “I’ll be right out.”

  I watched the women hunched and working, throwing their washed laundry into baskets, but then I spotted Aster, Zekiah, and Yvet across the way, huddled in the shadows of a stone wall and looking at something that Yvet held.

  They seemed unusually subdued and quiet, which was certainly not typical of Aster. I walked across the plaza, calling their names, and when they turned toward me, I saw the bloody cloth wrapped around Yvet’s hand.

  I gasped and rushed over to her. “Yvet, what happened?” I reached for her hand, but she fiercely clutched it to her belly to hide it from me.

  “Tell me, Yvet,” I said more gently, thinking I had startled her. “How did you hurt yourself?”

  “She won’t tell you,” Aster said. “She’s ’shamed. The quarterlord took it.”

  I turned to Aster, my face prickling with heat. “What do you mean? Took it?”

  “A fingertip for stealing. A whole hand if it happens again.”

  “It was my fault,” Zekiah added, looking down at his feet. “She knew I’d been aching fierce for a taste of that marbly cheese.”

  I remembered the angry swelling stump of Zekiah’s forefinger the first time I met him.

  For stealing cheese?

  Rage descended, so utter and complete that every part of me shook—my hands, my lips, my legs. My body was no longer my own. “Where?” I demanded. “Where is this quarterlord?” Aster told me he was the metalsmith at the entrance to the jehendra, then clapped her hand over her mouth. She pulled on my belt, trying to stop me as I stormed away, begging me not to go. I shook her loose. “Stay here!” I yelled. “All of you! Stay here!”

  I knew exactly where the shop was. Seeing me fly into a rage, several of the women from the washing grounds followed after me, echoing Aster’s words, don’t go.

  I found him standing in the center of his stall, polishing a tankard.

  “You!” I said, pointing my finger in his face, forcing him to look at me. “If you ever so much as touch any child again, I will personally cut every limb from your worthless body and roll your ugly stump down the middle of the street. Do you understand?”

  He looked at me, incredulous, and laughed. “I’m the quarterlord.” The back of his meaty hand shot up, and though I deflected it with my arm, the force of his blow still sent me sprawling. I fell against a table, tumbling the contents to the ground. Pain exploded through my head where it hit the table, but my blood raced so hot, I was on my feet in seconds, this time with Natiya’s knife in my hand.

  There was a hush, and the crowd who’d gathered around stepped back. In an instant, the quarrel they had expected to see transformed into something deadly. Natiya’s knife was too light and small to throw, but it could certainly cut and maim.

  “You call yourself a lord?” I sneered. “You’re nothing but a repulsive coward! Go ahead! Hit me again! But in the same moment, I’ll be slashing your nose from your miserable excuse of a face.”

  He eyed the knife, afraid to move, but then I saw his eyes dart nervously to the side. Among his wares, on a table equidistant between us, was a short sword. We both lunged for it, but I got to it first, whirling as I snatched it, and the air rang with its sharp edge. He stepped back, his eyes wide.

  “Which arm first, quarterlord?” I asked. “Left or right?”

  He took another step back but was trapped by a table.

  I swung the sword near his belly. “Not so funny anymore, is it?”

  There was a murmur from the crowd, and the quarterlord’s eyes shifted to something behind me. I turned, but it was too late. A hand clamped down on my wrist and twisted my other arm behind my back. It was the Komizar. He yanked the sword from my hand, threw it toward the quarterlord, and painfully squeezed the knife from my grip. It fell to the ground beside us. I saw him noting the carved handle that was distinctively vagabond. “Who gave this to you?”

  I understood Dihara’s fear now. I saw the fury in the Komizar’s eyes, not just toward me but toward whoever had given it to me. I couldn’t tell him that Natiya had hidden it in my cloak. “I stole it,” I told him. “What is it to you? Will you cut my fingers off now?”

  His nostrils flared, and he shoved me into the arms of the guards. “Take her back to the horses and wait for me.”

  I heard him yell to the crowd to go back to their business as the guards dragged me away.

  He rejoined us only minutes later. His rage was strangely tempered, making me wary.

  “Where’d you learn to use a sword?” he asked.

  “I hardly used it. I waved it a few times, and your quarterlord wet himself. He’s a bumbling coward who’s only brave enough to cut off children’s fingers.”

  He glared at me, still waiting for an answer. “My brothers,” I said.

  “Your quarters will be searched when we return to see if there’s anything else you’ve stolen.”

  “There was only the knife.”

  “For your own sake, I hope you’re telling the truth.”

  “That’s all you have to say?”

  “I’ll pardon your threat to my quarterlord this time. I told him you’re ignorant of our ways.”

  “Me, ignorant? The cutting of children’s fingers is barbaric!”

  He stepped closer, pressing me up against my horse. “Starving is barbaric, Princess. Stealing from the mouth of another is barbaric. The infinite ways your kingdom has kept us on this side of the river are barbaric. A fingertip is a small price to pay, but a lifelong reminder. You’ll notice we have very
few one-handed people in Venda.”

  “But Yvet and Zekiah are children.”

  “We have no children in Venda.”

  * * *

  On our way back, we returned through the Velte quarter.

  Again, he greeted those we passed in the street and expected me to nod in kind as if I hadn’t just seen a child mutilated by an ogre. He stopped our procession and dismounted to speak with a stout man who stood just outside an open-air butcher shop. I looked at his hands, all his fingers intact, large and stubby with neatly squared nails, and I wondered at how Gwyneth’s careful observations about butchers extended all the way into Venda.

  “You butchered and distributed the horses I sent with Calantha for the hungry?”

  “Yes, Komizar. They were grateful, Komizar. Thank you, Komizar.”

  “All four?”

  The man paled, blinked, then stumbled over his words. “Yes. I mean, there was one. Just one that I—but tomorrow I will—”

  The Komizar drew his longsword from the scabbard on his mount, and the slow sound of freeing it chilled everything else to silence. He gripped it with both hands. “No, tomorrow you won’t.” In a move quick and precise, the sword cut the air, blood sprayed my horse’s mane, and the man’s head toppled to the ground. What seemed like seconds later, his body crumpled next to it.

  “You,” the Komizar said, pointing to a man gawking in the shadows of the shop, “are the new quarterlord. Do not disappoint me.” He looked down at the head. The dead butcher’s eyes were still wide and expressive, as if hoping for a second chance. “And see that his head’s dressed up where everyone can see him.”

  Dressed? Like a pig that’s been slaughtered?

  He got back on his horse, gently clicked the reins, and we moved on without another word, as if we had stopped to buy sausage. I stared at the glistening red drops on my horse’s mane. Justice is swift in Venda, even for our own citizens. I had no doubt the bloody message was for me as much as it had been for the butcher. A reminder. Life in Venda was precarious. My position was still precarious—and not only quarterlords could be dispatched without so much as a blink.

  “We don’t steal from the mouths of our brethren,” he said, as if explaining his actions.

  But I was certain that the quarterlord’s deception was the greater crime. “And no one lies to the Komizar?” I added.

  “That above all.”

  When we dismounted in Council Wing Square, he faced me, his face still spattered with blood. “I expect you to be well rested tomorrow. Do you understand? No more dark circles.”

  “As you command, Komizar. I will sleep well tonight if I must slit my own throat to do it.”

  He smiled. “I think we’re beginning to understand each other at last.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  RAFE

  There was no sign of Jeb when we returned, but knowing he was here—looking and sounding more Vendan than ever—helped to ease my mind. Somewhat. I had seen today what could be his fate if he were found out. What could be all of our fates.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Calantha said.

  “Habit,” I said.

  “Emissaries in such a grand kingdom as Dalbreck brush down their own horses?”

  No. But soldiers do. Even soldiers who are princes.

  “My father bred horses,” I said as an explanation. “It’s the way I grew up. He said horses return twofold to a rider how they are treated. I’ve always found it to be true.”

  “You’re still disturbed by what you saw.”

  The three impaled heads churned in my thoughts. I paused from my brushing. “No.”

  “Your strokes are long and brisk. Your eyes shine like cold steel when you’re angry. I am getting to know your face well, Emissary.”

  “It was savage,” I conceded, “but what you do with your traitors is of no concern to me.”

  “You don’t execute traitors in your kingdom?”

  I rubbed the horse’s muzzle. “Done, boy,” I said and closed the stall. “We don’t defile bodies. Your Assassin appears to elevate it to an art.” I started to return the brush to the hook but stopped mid-step. Calantha turned to see what I was looking at.

  It was Lia.

  The shoulder of her shirt was torn, and her face pale. With Calantha there, I had to pretend I didn’t care. Lia avoided my gaze and spoke only with Calantha, telling her the Komizar was waiting outside, and she had come to retrieve her cloak, which she had left behind this morning. Had Calantha seen it?

  Calantha cast a pointed glance at me, then directed Lia to the back wall of the stable and a row of hooks. “I’ll be outside waiting too,” she said.

  “You don’t have to go,” I said, but she was already leaving.

  Lia walked carefully past me, her eyes averted, and lifted her cloak from the hook.

  “We’re alone,” I whispered. “Your shoulder. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “It was just a difference of opinion on clothing choices.”

  And then I noticed a bruise at her temple. I reached up and pushed her hair away. “What did—”

  “I tripped against a table,” she said hurriedly, brushing my hand away. “Ignore it.”

  She kept her voice low, her attention fixed on the cloak in her hands. “We have to find a way out of here. When Kaden returns, if I—”

  I pulled her into the stall. “Don’t tell him anything.”

  “He’s not like the rest of them, Rafe. He might listen if—”

  I jerked her closer. “Listen to me,” I hissed. “He’s as savage as any of them. I saw his handiwork today. Don’t say—”

  She yanked free and her cloak fell to the ground. “Stop telling me what to do or say! I’m tired of everyone trying to control every word out of my mouth!”

  Her eyes shimmered, with fear or rage—I wasn’t sure which. What had happened today?

  “Lia,” I said, speaking more softly, “this morning I saw one of—”

  “Is the emissary holding you up?” The Komizar stood at the stable entrance.

  We both took an awkward step back. “I was just retrieving her cloak. She dropped it.”

  “Clumsy, aren’t we, Princess? But you’ve had a long, tiresome day.” He ambled closer. “How about you? Did you enjoy your tour today, Emissary?”

  I worked to keep my voice even and unimpressed. “The Stonegate quarter had some interesting avenues, I suppose.” And then for Lia’s benefit, “I also saw your Assassin’s handiwork. The impaled heads of the boys he executed have grown quite ripe in the sun.”

  “That’s the point. The stench of treachery—it has its own unique aroma—one not easily forgotten.”

  He reached out and took Lia’s arm with a familiarity I hadn’t seen before and led her away. I couldn’t control the burn in my chest, but I turned back to the horse as if I didn’t care, brushing his coat again with long, quick strokes. This was something I’d never been trained for. There were no military strategies or drills to prepare me for the daily torment of not killing someone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  It wasn’t just one or two dozen, but hundreds filling the square. I felt the Komizar’s eyes on me from somewhere afar, waiting to corrupt my thoughts. I began with hesitation, trying to find that place of trust he couldn’t control. The words came out awkward and self-conscious, a basic childhood prayer.

  I tried again, closing my eyes, reaching, breath slow and deep, waiting and waiting, despair creeping in, and then I heard something. Music. The distant faint pluck of a zitarae. My aunts’ zitaraes. And then my mother’s hum rose above them, with its haunting echo that floated through the citadelle. The music that made even my busy father pause from his duties. I turned my head, listening, letting it strum through me as if it were the first time, and the rote words disappeared.

  My remembrances began as utterances, a wordless tune that followed the music of the zitaraes, each note plucking out the beats of creation, swirling in my belly
, a song that belonged to no kingdom or man, only myself and the heavens. And then the words came, an acknowledgment of sacrifices and a girl’s long journey, and I kissed two fingers, lifting them to the heavens, one for the lost, and one for those yet to come.

  The distant music still seemed to echo off the high stone walls that hemmed me in with the people below. Eventide. A time to be going home, but instead they stayed. A voice called out. “Tell us a story, Princess of Morrighan.”

  Tell them a story, Jezelia.

  There she was, only an arm’s length from me, an apparition sitting on the wall, but at the same time solid. Unwavering. Her long hair trailed along the stones, all the way back to another millennium. Tell them a story.

  And so I did. I told them the story of two sisters.

  Gather close, my brothers and sisters,

  Listen well,

  For there is one true history,

  And one true future.

  Once upon a time,

  Long, long ago,

  Seven stars were flung from the sky.

  One to shake the mountains,

  One to churn the seas,

  One to choke the air,

  And four to test the hearts of men.

  I drew from the words of Morrighan, Gaudrel, and Venda. I drew from Dihara, the wind, and my own heart. I drew from the truth that shivered at my neck.

  A thousand knives of light

  Grew to an explosive rolling cloud,

  Like a hungry monster.

  A storm that made the ways of old meaningless.

  A sharp knife, a careful aim, an iron will, and a listening heart,

  Those were the only things that mattered.

  Only a small remnant of the whole earth remained,

  But two sisters found grace.…

  I told the story of the worlds I had seen, whole cities mowed down, no matter how far and wide they spread, and of soaring cities of immense magic that could not withstand a furious storm. I told them of exalted temples that melted into the earth and valleys that wept with generations of blood. But through all this, two sisters remained side by side, strong and loyal, until a beast rose from the ashes and tore them from each other, because even stars thrown to earth could not destroy every last shadow of darkness.