by Carol A Park
“Drop dead.” She flung the arm back over her eyes. “No, wait. Get out, and then drop dead.”
He moved farther into the room and tried one more time, this time, a different tactic. “Is this what you’re like now that you can no longer hide behind Sweetblade, then?”
There was a long silence. Then she erupted from the bed, her face twisted in a snarl, and she staggered toward him.
He backed away, his hands up. Anger and drunkenness didn’t go well together. Anger and drunk former assassins even less so.
Undeterred by his posture of surrender, she advanced on him until she had backed him against the door. “You think you know me so well?” she hissed, grasping the collar of his shirt.
He never was one for wisdom. “I know this isn’t like you.”
She growled. “Neither is my having tolerated your presence this long. Get. Out. Now.”
He didn’t think she would hurt him—too much—but then again, the only other time he had seen her under the effects of alcohol, it had been a very little. In that case, it had made her more amiable and talkative.
Apparently, too much made her angry. And violent. “I’m leaving,” he said, feeling for the doorknob behind him.
She didn’t move, but her arm started trembling. He wasn’t sure if that meant she was fighting the urge to hurt him, or if she had reached her physical and mental limit.
He hesitated, then reached up and untangled her fist from his shirt. Thankfully, she let him. “I’m leaving,” he said again, slowly.
Her arm dropped to her side, and she stumbled away from him.
He slipped through the door, closed it, and a moment later, heard a low, feral growl and a hollow thunk on the door.
Well. That had gone well.
The nerve—! Ivana rubbed the bottom of her fist where she had slammed it into the door and stumbled back to the bed. She sat down on it heavily and leaned over her knees, her face in her hands.
Her head swam, and her blood was boiling.
She was furious. Furious that he understood even a bit of what was wrong. Furious that he thought he could help. Furious that he had seen her in anything but a state of absolute control.
But most of all, she was furious that, when her mind wasn’t at its most optimal, she had fallen back on old habits. What did that say about her?
Her head throbbed already, and she felt like she was going to vomit. She was an idiot. Aleena was right. Tomorrow would be miserable.
The next morning, Vaughn lifted his hand in farewell as a vessel slipped from the docks and into the current. Danton, Sanca, and Aleena stood at the rail, all three waving.
The three had arranged passage to Arlana on a merchant vessel traveling down the Tecolti; it was the fastest—and safest—way to travel south toward Venetia.
They waited until the ship was out of sight, and then turned back toward the city. Ivana surprised Vaughn by linking her arm through his own and leaning into him. “There’s a Watchman on the other side of the docks who’s been watching us,” she said under her breath. “Fereharian.”
He started to look but checked himself just in time. Instead, he scratched at his beard. “What kind of watching?”
“Kind of watching?” she repeated.
“You know. Watchmen specialize in watching, after all. Suspicious watching? Absentminded watching? Curious watching? Ogling watching? Watching of—”
She exhaled. “I don’t need a taxonomy of types of watching, thank you.”
“You’re the one who asked. Also, have I ever mentioned that when you use big words—”
“He’s coming this way.”
Vaughn grinned. Convenient.
He already had his hand tucked casually in his pocket, a sliver of lightblood aether between his forefinger and thumb.
The Watchman circled them to cut off their trajectory. “Da, Dal,” the Watchman said. He produced a tiny cylinder from a satchel at his side. “I’m going to need to do a blood test on you both.”
Ivana blinked large eyes at the Watchman. “But, Dal,” she protested, the timbre of her voice raised slightly in what Vaughn recognized as her “innocent maid” persona. “We were already tested coming into the city.” She extended a finger to show the Watchman where she had been pricked earlier, a slight pout to her lips.
He hesitated and then inclined his head to Ivana. “Random check, of course. Recent change in protocol. Your pardon, Da.”
Random check. Ha. That’d be suspicious watching, then. It was a bit unsettling, but why would the Watchman have any reason to suspect them? Vaughn had done nothing out of the ordinary, and as Ivana noted, they had already been subjected to the blood test when they had disembarked from the ferry that had carried them across the river.
Ivana allowed the Watchman to prick her finger with the needle hidden in the spring-loaded cylinder. This was not the first time Vaughn had seen one of these; they weren’t a new invention, but they were now part of the basic kit for a Watchman when they hadn’t been before.
The Conclave had been flexing its newly formed muscles in all sorts of small ways.
The Watchman eyed their packs and then Vaughn’s bow. “Traveling?” he asked while he waited to see if her blood would turn.
“Yes,” Vaughn said. “Just passing through.” He didn’t like the way the Watchman was now studying his face. Had he been recognized?
“Where you headed?”
But he had read the descriptions the Conclave had begun circulating of him and other known Banebringers who had been present at that disastrous Harvest Ball. His description could fit thousands of men. And they didn’t even have the beard in the description. It was more likely that their little eclectic group had drawn the Watchman’s attention early on before the others had boarded their ship.
Ivana broke in, clutching Vaughn’s arm closer. “Ferehar to visit family. He’s never met them.” She gave the Watchman a brilliant smile.
What would it take to get her to smile like that genuinely? An idle thought. One that would probably get him in trouble if he dwelt on it.
Satisfied that she wasn’t a Banebringer, the Watchman now turned to Vaughn.
“Hope you’ve got yourselves in with a good caravan,” he said, returning Ivana’s smile. “The plateau’s been bad lately.”
Vaughn pinched the lightblood aether in his pocket and held out his other hand, and the Watchman pricked his finger. Vaughn burned the aether and masked the drop of blood that welled up with an illusion that kept the color of the blood the same. His heart quickened in his chest as it did every time he had to do this. If the aether chose this moment to be unreliable…
“Really?” Ivana asked. “Why is that?”
The Watchman shrugged. “Survivors say it seems like there are more bloodgiants than normal. Even had a couple come down into Cadmyr about a week ago.”
Well. That didn’t bode well.
The Watchman’s eyes flicked to Vaughn’s face again, and then glanced at Ivana. “Where are you from? I’m from Ferehar too. Maybe I know your family.”
Ivana waved her hand. “Oh, I doubt it. Just a tiny farming village on the southern end.” She looked pointedly at Vaughn’s finger. “Are we free to go, Dal? We’ve a long journey ahead.”
The Watchman inclined his head and let go of Vaughn’s hand, which Vaughn promptly shoved into his other pocket.
“Thanks for the warning,” Vaughn said. “We’ll be extra careful.”
The Watchman jerked his head. “Good luck.”
Ivana inclined her head and they ambled away.
Vaughn dared a look back. The Watchman was still watching them.
At the western gates, a short line waited while every person leaving the city was tested.
Vaughn was certain no Banebringer in their right mind would be left in one of the Setanan capitals, if they had a choice about it. Vaughn had lightblood aether at his disposal; that wasn’t true of every Banebringer—especially those unconnected to the Ichtaca, who wouldn�
�t have the same resources or information to draw on.
Of course, the lightblood aether Danton had donated wouldn’t last forever. A good reason not to tarry in the city for too long.
Their plan was to stop at an inn about seven miles out from Carradon that evening. They wouldn’t travel after dark until it was necessary—especially with the report of bloodgiants coming down off the plateau.
They passed through the gate with little fanfare. Vaughn masked his blood again, the guards were satisfied, and they were on their way.
If they hadn’t passed through gates and beyond a wall, he wouldn’t have known the “city proper” had ended. The urban sprawl of Carradon, much like Weylyn City, was an extension of the city itself, complete with residential, commercial, and industrial areas. The western road out of Carradon was, naturally, lined with shops.
“It’s a wonder they haven’t started random searches,” he said once they were well past the gates. “Or at the least searches at the gates. Surely, someone has realized by now we have ways of subverting their tests.”
“I imagine even the Conclave has to close its fist slowly,” she said.
Vaughn shuddered. All the more reason to end this sooner rather than later.
Ivana led the way; Vaughn tried to engage her in further conversation about Carradon, but she didn’t seem interested. So he tried conversing about plans for crossing the plateau. Also not interested.
He finally resorted to commenting on the weather, and still she remained taciturn.
He lapsed into silence and noted the tension in her shoulders, the way her hands were balled into fists, the slight furrow in her brow.
Huh. She was rarely so transparent.
When they came upon an iron fence surrounding the burial grounds at the outskirts of the city, Ivana’s steps slowed—and then halted outside the open gate.
“Ivana?” he asked.
She didn’t say anything. She just turned and went through the gate.
Not knowing what else to do, he cast a glance down the mostly empty road and followed her inside.
She wound her way through the graves to a long columbarium and stopped in front of a section that didn’t look as weatherworn as the rest of the wall. The newest section, he surmised.
She stood there, staring at the wall for a moment, then reached out and traced the first name on one of the plaques that adorned the stone boxes.
Her hand dropped, and Vaughn peered closer. Boden, the name read.
It dawned on him. “You lived here,” he said.
“For a time.”
“When?”
“It’s the first place I lived after I left Ferehar.”
He digested that. “And where Sweetblade was born?” he guessed.
“Indeed.”
He hesitated and glanced at the plaque again. “And Boden was…?”
There was a long silence. Long enough that he was certain she wasn’t going to answer him. Then, finally, softly, she said, “A friend.”
This was ridiculous. Why was she here?
It meant nothing. She didn’t care.
She couldn’t care. If she cared now, what had it all been for?
To buy herself fourteen years of detachment, of death, of numbness? Fourteen years bathed in blood. Fourteen years begun by this one kill.
Oh, she had killed before this one. But there were many points when she could have veered from the path she had chosen.
But this one had been one too many, one too far. The pain of the decision to kill someone who had been a friend—someone who had trusted her—had been too much for her tormented psyche to handle without ensconcing itself in the shield of numbness. She had known there would be no turning back once that decision had been made.
It had been what she had wanted. It was why she had gone through with it.
Only a monster could have killed the gentle young man whose ashes lay behind this wall, so she had become a monster.
She had never wondered before, not even then, what would have happened if she had chosen differently.
She would probably be dead, and he still would be too.
Just not at her hand.
She took a step back and stared at the box. There were no tears. Not then, not now. There was still numbness. But the quality of it had changed. It was no longer the absence of anything else. She could feel it now, tight and tingly, like fingers exposed too long to the cold but not yet frostbitten. She could prod at them and feel the barest brush of pressure, maybe even a prick of the pain if she dug her fingernails in deep enough.
Her hand drifted to the hilt of the dagger at her thigh—the dagger she had begun to wear again because of this trip.
Why was she prodding? What was she doing here, headed back into the one place that could thaw her out, once and for all?
And then what?
The only way she knew how to live was to be dead inside, yet something deep inside her had started longing for real life again, and the possibility terrified her.
To be truly alive was to feel pain.
Vaughn’s eyes were on her, but she didn’t owe him any further explanations. “We have six more miles to travel before dark.”
“Best get on it then.”
Chapter Eight
New Enemies
Driskell was the model firstborn child. He had been at the head of every class: well-read, well-rounded in his education, and well-liked on top of it.
He was not, however, well-traveled.
Then again, he wondered how well-traveled a person would have to be to be comfortable with a Xambrian standing at their side.
No matter. Though he had balked when Nahua had originally given him the task, he would be the model guide as well.
He and Ambassador Mezzo now stood at the wall of the eighth ring of Marakyn, the highest and smallest of eight concentric rings that made up the city.
“Wall” was a generous term. It was more like a waist-high barricade to prevent someone from accidentally falling over the edge and into the seventh ring, thirty feet below.
To Ambassador Mezzo, it was more like chest-high.
Even so, they could both look out over it and into the land beyond. Having exhausted the tour of the city itself over the past week, he had proceeded to give Mezzo a lesson in Donian geography from the highest point in the city.
Driskell cleaned a speck off his spectacles, settled them back on his nose, and pointed across the plains. “Two hundred fifty miles due east is the eastern border of Donia at the Tecolti River,” he said. He then traced his finger across the horizon. “Ipsylanti is three hundred twenty-five miles southeast, at the mouth.”
Of course, both landmarks were still too far to see; most of the land beneath them consisted of empty plain stretching out to the horizon.
Mezzo, however, turned his eyes to the north. “And your northern border, with Weylyn, is but one hundred miles from here.”
“Yes. You…know your geography, I see.”
Mezzo gave his strange, squarish smile. “I can assure you, Dal, that I know far more about Setanan geography than you know about Xambrian.”
Driskell shifted. Incredibly, after a couple of days of letting Ambassador Mezzo stew in an inn, Tanuac had finally decided to give the ambassador lodging in the consulate. A few days after that, Nahua had charged Driskell with showing the ambassador around, as he had time.
“Your Marakyn, however, is a bit of a wonder,” Mezzo went on. “It reminds me more of our own cities than those typically found here.”
The ambassador’s observation was true, at least as far as the Setanan side of the statement went. Even the Fereharian capital, Cohoxta, wasn’t nestled directly into the side of the mountains the way Marakyn was.
“Well, we didn’t build it,” Driskell said. “According to the histories, the city was abandoned when our ancestors claimed and settled it.”
“A curious location as well,” Mezzo continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. “And it gains the distinction of
being the Donian capital despite being neither the most populous nor the largest of your cities.”
No, the honor for both of those titles went instead to Ipsylanti, his own home city.
“Scholars believe it may have been a strategic choice at one point,” Driskell said. “It’s easily defensible and guards the southern pass into Ferehar. Of course, now, it’s important for trade with Ferehar as well as the nomads.”
“And still easily defensible.”
Driskell eyed Mezzo. He had—inwardly, of course—questioned the wisdom of showing a Xambrian around Marakyn. They weren’t exactly allies, after all. “Well. Yes. Though that’s not my specialty.”
It was Mezzo’s turn to eye Driskell. “No? What specialty are you, then?”
“I’m an attaché. So, that’s like administrative work for—”
Mezzo cut him off with a wave of his hand. “I’m familiar with the term. But in Xambria, there is no specialty for the knowing of war. We are all trained and ready to fight should the need arise.”
Driskell blinked. “You don’t have a standing army?”
“We have war leaders—something akin to your Setanan officers. Anything more would be a waste of resources.”
Xambrians—or at least this Xambrian—seemed to have a distaste for “wasting” resources. Driskell’s hand itched to write the observation down, but he thought whipping out his notebook might be considered rude.
Then again, what did he know about what Xambrians considered rude? It struck him that standing next to him was a wealth of knowledge about a subject he had never tapped. They were forbidden from studying foreign languages, cultures, or anything of the sort. What he knew about Xambria, or Xambrians, could be summed up in a single chapter in their history texts, and it all focused on when they had intersected with Setana.
He hesitated. Mezzo certainly seemed to have no qualms about sharing what he knew.
Driskell glanced around him, but there was no one around. Would it be considered illegal to ask a Xambrian questions about things they were forbidden to learn? It wasn’t illegal to talk to a Xambrian, after all…