by Kirby Crow
Scarlet wasted no time and pushed himself back with more speed than sense, his legs tangled in furs that were dragged out with him. He had barely reached the open door when the sleigh began to slide toward the edge. He got one foot out and Cestimir grabbed his arm, then he dug his foot in and launched his body forward, landing face-first in the snow and splitting his lower lip on something hard hidden beneath the layer of flakes. The sleigh slid another several inches over the side before it halted there, hanging suspended over open sky.
Oh, gods, the horses—he scrambled to cut them free, but he needn’t have worried. One horse had vanished, spooked into running off, he assumed at first. The other was further up the hill, clear of the wreckage. The front of the sleigh containing the driver’s seat and reins had snapped clean off, and Yesuk lay very still in the snow. Cestimir was beside Scarlet as he caught the mare’s bridle, and they both exchanged the same grim look, for the horse was lamed: bloodied white bone poking through her foreleg.
“Yesuk,” Cestimir gasped, turning.
Scarlet handed the reins to Cestimir. Prince or no, Cestimir was still a boy. “Here, hold the mare. I’ll see to him.” He jogged the short distance to the curve of the hill where Yesuk lay, but it was no use. The man’s neck was broken and his skull crushed against a rock jutting out of the snow, now bathed red.
“The man is dead,” Scarlet called out as Cestimir watched anxiously, and the boy froze for a moment, looking blank and lost. Scarlet returned to him and put his hands on the broken reins. The horse whinnied in pain, her foreleg drawn up under her.
Scarlet couldn’t help the animal, but he could put her out of her misery. “Give me your knife,” he told Cestimir, spitting blood from his split mouth, but Cestimir shook his head.
“I will do it.”
The prince drew his knife from his belt and did what needed to be done. Brave lad, Scarlet thought, and left Cestimir grieving over Yesuk as he collected the scattered furs from outside the carriage before joining him beside the body. Cestimir’s eyes were dry as he cleaned his knife in the snow.
The wind skirled down from the hill and Scarlet shivered, realizing just how bitter it was. All was shrouded in the dim, bluish light that disrupted all normal sense of distance and depth and made objects seem closer than they were. Yet the spires of the Nauhinir Palace, wedged into the cleft of the valley below, did not look so very small. It depended on how deep the snow was. They could survive it if they made good time and stayed warm.
“I will have someone's blood for this,” Cestimir said coolly. “Yesuk was my friend.” He reached out to touch the fallen man’s shoulder and said something in Sinha.
Scarlet marveled again at the prince’s calm. “Here,” he said, and wrapped one of the furs around Cestimir’s head and shoulders. “Keep your face covered.”
Cestimir nodded slowly and stood, hauling Scarlet up with him. “You’ve lost a glove,” he observed.
So he had. Scarlet shook his head when Cestimir would have given him one of his. “No, it’s fine. These sleeves are too long as it is. I’ll just keep this hand safely inside and hold the fur closed with this one. But we need to start moving.”
“Agreed.” Cestimir pointed. “Your forehead is bleeding again.”
“It is?” Scarlet reached up and felt the matted lump over his left eyebrow. The wound was only scraped open and hadn’t bled much, but the size of the lump was still impressive. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“That’s not always a good sign,” Cestimir worried. “Come,” he said, and threw the remaining fur around Scarlet’s shoulders. “We must start back.”
As they passed the overturned sleigh, Cestimir caught his arm. “Keriss, look.” He pointed to the long, shining runners. One of them had snapped, perhaps as they rounded too fast at the curve of the hill.
“It broke,” he said needlessly.
“It didn't break,” Cestimir disagreed. “Too clean. It was sawn through.” His expression was stony.
They stood together in silence, staring at the death that been intended for them, or perhaps just for Cestimir alone. Scarlet still doubted that anyone would go to this much trouble to harm him. He opened his mouth to tell Cestimir just that, but suddenly the sleigh groaned like a living thing and began to slide towards the edge of the cliff. Both young men backed away, and within a few seconds the underside of the sleigh rolled over very slowly, like a fish going belly up in water, and it wavered there, hung out like Linhona’s washing over an open sky, before tumbling end over end to the bottom of the black gorge far, far below.
They stood for a few moments in mute shock, then turned without a word and began walking down the hill.
“Be careful where you step,” Cestimir cautioned. “And let us move further away from the edge. This light can make shadows very deceiving.”
Scarlet chuckled a little. “Cestimir, Hilurin can see much better than Rshani in the dark.”
“They can?” The prince shook his head as they walked. “You are full of surprises, ser Keriss, but I think you have heard that before.”
The first part of the trek did not go badly. The snow was only as high as Scarlet’s boot tops, and they were both shaking and charged from the wreck. It was nearly an hour before the cold began to sap Scarlet’s bones and his legs began to tire, but he resisted feeling it. His head throbbed and the bruise on his temple was one loud hum of agony, but that, too, he kept to himself, kept his feet moving.
Despite telling Cestimir that he would keep his gloveless hand protected in his sleeve, Scarlet had to keep using it to grasp onto rocks or the bare trunks of saplings as they navigated their way down the hill. It became numb quickly and thereafter he ceased to feel it. It was a long walk and the ghost-pale trees looming over the road from the steep embankment seemed like arms reaching over the path. White trees still seemed unnatural to him, and their presence illuminated how he felt about himself here.
It was true, what Liall said. He was the foreigner here. This landscape was alien to Scarlet, and he didn’t have the slightest idea how to navigate it. He had been traveling roads in Byzantur on his own since he was seven, errands for Scaja from Lysia to Tradepoint and Skeld’s ferry –and even the Sea Road to Riverpoint. Now there was a royal court to navigate, dangers he had never heard of, a people and a language and a history he did not understand. Perhaps he had been too confident since coming to Rshan, too stubborn and proud, and perhaps Liall could only see how out of his element and vulnerable he was. Despite his misgivings, there were many things Scarlet loved about Rshan: the books with pictures in them, the way that everyone lived together like bees in a hive in the Nauhinir, and how for the most part they all seemed to get along and to thrive. He liked the food and the music and the smells. He even liked the blue lamps. Scarlet realized that he was drawn to this place, without ever having seen it before. Rshan felt like a childhood home he was returning to, a place dimly remembered, but always cherished. He wondered if the land felt the same about him, and doubted it.
Then there was the tangle of Liall. Scarlet needed Liall, but not in the way Liall seemed to want him to be needed. He did not want to need anyone like that. His Hilurin pride kept reminding him that a man does for himself, and does not rely on others to make the way easy for him. That Liall always seemed so determined to protect him and take care of things made him feel weak and laughable, and Liall never understood that. Liall was always so sure he was in the right.
Look where you are now, Scarlet-lad, Scaja’s voice murmured in his ear, and he smiled. True enough. Maybe he should have been arguing less and listening more.
They kept walking. By the end of the second hour, the palace looked no nearer in the valley below, and the dim light and the trees kept them from seeing anything of the grounds surrounding the Nauhinir. Scarlet’s vision may have been keener than Cestimir’s, but it, too, had its limits.
It began to snow again, and they stopped in the lee of the hill to rest. Cestimir pulled the flask from his coat and insisted
that Scarlet drink. Scarlet thought that Cestimir looked much more tired than he himself felt, but some of that may have been grief for Yesuk.
“Here,” Cestimir said, holding the flask out to him. “Drink. It’s not good for your head, but neither is freezing to death.”
Scarlet nodded and reached for the flask with his numbed hand. Cestimir hissed and took Scarlet’s hand instead. The prince flexed Scarlet’s fingers and examined the white edges of his palm.
“It’s already begun,” Cestimir fretted. “It’s hard to see because your skin is so pale, but you have some frostbite.” Cestimir drew his own glove off and jammed it over Scarlet’s hand despite Scarlet’s objections.
“I’ll live,” Scarlet mumbled. His mouth felt stiff and his head throbbed, and there was a brassy taste on his tongue.
Cestimir gave him a long look, then uncapped the flask and held it to Scarlet’s lips. Scarlet drank and barely tasted it, but a moment later the warmth spread in his stomach. He sighed and nodded. “Better."
Cestimir took a drink, still watching Scarlet as the wind howled around the edges of the hill and sent small curtains of snow chasing into the darkling landscape.
Scarlet pointed to the forest and the long hill sloping below them. “We should cut across country,” he said. “This road is easier going, but it’s three times as long.”
Cestimir glanced at the forest and then at the winding road before nodding. “I agree,” he said. “But if they send a search party out for us, we will miss them.”
“How long do you think it will take them to send one out?”
Cestimir glanced at the sky. “Too long. The snow is getting thicker. Scarlet.... can your magic help us here?”
Scarlet’s teeth chattered a little. “I know where we are relative to the palace,” he answered. “I could find our way back even if we couldn’t see a thing. And I can heal a small injury if I need to, or start a fire to keep us warm or send up a smoke trail.”
Cestimir shook his head negatively. “It is very hard to see smoke in this kind of sky,” he pointed out. “And the smell might bring snow bears to us before a search party. They are very curious and aggressive animals, and now is their foraging time. Can you do anything against bears with your magic?”
“If I could, I’d have used it on the Hunt.”
“No fire, then,” Cestimir sighed. He held the flask out to Scarlet again.
Scarlet shook his head. After all, Cestimir was the younger. “You drink.”
“No.” Cestimir took hold of his shoulder, not too gently, either. “I am used to the weather. Don’t make me pour this down your throat.”
Scarlet stared him down. “Liall...” he began, intending to say something about how Liall would want Scarlet to look out for his brother.
“Will blame me for this, not you,” Cestimir finished. For one so young, his tone was implacably commanding. “I am prince here. I took the sleigh out. I took you with me. If anything happens to you, Nazheradei will not forgive me.”
Scarlet sighed, realizing the futility of arguing. “Fine, give me the damned stuff.” There was not much left. He downed the last of it and Cestimir tucked the flask back in his coat.
“We must keep moving,” Cestimir said, rising.
The liquor gave him a little more energy and they started off quickly again, this time turning east into the forest and beginning the difficult descent. The wind had picked up, and for long hours it howled and fought them. Also, the drifts were deeper in the woods, and the ground uneven beneath the snow and rocky. There were moments that Scarlet could swear he felt hands in the frigid air, pulling him back, trying to force him to lie down. He pulled the fur closer over his ears and buried his face in the ruff of his coat, and he trudged more slowly, every step seeming to require a massive effort on his part. Finally, he stumbled into a drift that swallowed him to his hips, and Cestimir was there, prodding him back to level ground and cursing.
Cestimir pulled him along, his arm linked with Scarlet’s, half-dragging him. “Don’t stop,” he begged. “Please don’t. I don’t think I can carry you.”
Scarlet felt like he was covered in snow, and he looked down once and saw that he very nearly was. “Just down a little further, then turn south again,” he mumbled to Cestimir, giving directions through numbed lips. “We’ll cross the road again there. We can rest.”
They reached the road below and both boys collapsed to their knees onto the flat roadway, gasping for breath. They knelt there for several minutes before Scarlet raised his head and stood, peering through the thick forest to the south. The Nauhinir was still a disheartening distance away.
Suddenly, through the whistling of the wind through the trees, they heard the jingle of harness.
Cestimir pulled his arm, flattening them both against the hillside. A sleigh pulled by a double team of blacks barreled up from the valley road. Painted on the carriage was a strange symbol. It was not the blue and silver starburst that adorned Cestimir’s sleigh, but a blazon of crossed gold hatchets on a field of red.
Cestimir swore softly. “Vladei.”
Scarlet was too glad to see the sleigh to care who rode in it. He could no longer feel his legs at all. “Are we in trouble?”
“I do not know, Keriss.” Cestimir shook his head, his lips compressed and white. “Please keep silent and do not speak.”
The sleigh stopped and the door opened. Vladei leapt out and stood in front of the pair of cold, frightened young men. “Cestimir!” he barked and then a spate of rapid Sinha.
“Vladei,” Cestimir said in Bizye, visibly fighting to keep his voice even. “How fortunate your arrival. There was a mishap near the temple road, I’m afraid. A runner on the sleigh broke and we narrowly escaped with our lives.” Cestimir turned to Scarlet, and Scarlet saw the frightened look he had hidden from Vladei.
Vladei’s eyes were like two river stones, flat and lifeless, and Scarlet had the feeling that if he had been alone, his neck would have been snapped before he could count the fingers on one hand. Or perhaps, if Cestimir had been alone, the same would have been true. He wondered if someone had meant for Cestimir to be alone when the wreck occurred. Scarlet bowed as best he could, covered in furs and snow. Vladei spoke to Cestimir again in Sinha.
“Thank you, my brother. We are very grateful for the rescue.” Cestimir took Scarlet’s arm, his voice raw. “Come, ser Keriss, my brother has kindly offered to return us to the Nauhinir, so we may warm ourselves and find dry clothing.”
As they climbed into the carriage, Scarlet was nudged and shoved and ended up between Cestimir and Vladei. At least I will be warmer, he reasoned dryly, not liking the thought of Vladei so close to him.
Cestimir looked at Scarlet’s stillness and dulled eyes worriedly, and he drew his own hapcoat off to cover Scarlet. Scarlet’s eyes drooped and Cestimir shook him roughly. “Sleep later!” the prince commanded. “You must stay awake until we get back to the palace.”
Vladei said something more. Scarlet caught a few of the words, but they were the gutter Sinha that Liall had taught him for fun on the ship. The man looked at him so coldly that he shivered, though he was no longer truly cold or felt much of anything at all.
“Lenilyn,” Vladei said, glaring holes through Scarlet. “How old are you?”
“What does it matter?” Scarlet said through chattering teeth, too tired to demand why Vladei wanted to know. “I was a man in my country years ago.”
“So young,” Vladei said in heavily accented Bizye, giving a look aside to Cestimir, who was calm and untouched by Vladei’s dark mood. “Among us, it would be a scandal: a boy of your age with Nazheradei. But of course, you are not one of us.”
“Vladei, this is my brother’s t’aishka,” Cestimir said pleadingly.
Scarlet wondered what difference it made, or why Cestimir’s hand sought his and tightened. “It’s all right,” he told Cestimir. “I don’t mind his questions. I’ve got a few of my own.” If there was trouble later, he had sooner be damn
ed for truth as for lies, and he was tired of this man sneering at him. Vladei knew nothing about him. “How old are you? And while we’re at it, how old is Prince Nazheradei?”
“Do you not know?” Vladei replied, quick as a hound scenting blood.
“Vladei,” Cestimir begged, his composure cracking, and then added something in Sinha.
Vladei ignored the younger prince. “What else is unknown to you, I wonder? What secrets has he kept from you? You did not know that Nazheradei was a prince, or that Shikhoza was once promised to him, or about Nadei’s murder. What else has been kept from you?”
Those cold eyes, like Liall’s and unlike, made Scarlet want to bend his neck in submission and look away, let the man win, but his stubborn pride kept his chin up.
“Have you met Jarek?” Vladei smiled coldly. “The woman soldier who rode at the head of the army? She is Khatai Jarek, once Nazheradei’s lover. They are very close. Very close indeed, to plot such things together. Have you heard of a place called Magur, little lenilyn?”