Bloodleaf

by Crystal Smith

  Frostily, I replied, “Tell me where Falada is, and I will divulge everything you want to know.”

  “She’s safe. And now she’ll remain safe in my protection.”

  “It’s funny how, often, when someone says they want to protect you, they actually mean they want to control you.”

  “It must be terrible, having people care about your well-being.”

  “I’m being held against my will in an empty alley of a heathen city. Obviously, that’s not a problem anymore.”

  “Heathen city.” Zan rubbed the spot just below his lip. “Because Renalt is so civilized, right? If someone so much as breathes the wrong way, you just kill them. It’s all very organized, I’m told.” He saw my expression darken. “Oh, that hits close to home, doesn’t it?”

  “Let me go. I’m not going to tell you anything—​” But I was cut off midsentence by the deep clang of a bell, not far away. Zan gave a start, and when the bell tolled again, Nathaniel raced toward us from around the corner.

  “Forest Gate,” he said.

  Zan replied, “I know.” He swore.

  “Is that supposed to mean something?” I asked.

  “The bell at the gate tolls for only two reasons: an army is approaching, or there’s royalty coming.”

  Ah. It seemed as if Toris, Lisette, and Conrad had finally arrived.

  Nathaniel asked, “What about the king?”

  “He’s having one of his parties at the Stein and Flagon tonight. Find one of the captains—​they’ll retrieve him.”

  Nathaniel was already sprinting away when Zan took me by the arm. “Come on.”

  We were closer to the second gate than I imagined. Two quick turns and we were out among a gathering crowd. Zan and I found a place to stand along the edge of the road next to a line of thorny hedges, waiting like spectators at a spring parade.

  This road was a main highway, an unbroken stretch that began beneath this gate and ran to the steps at the castle entrance. Lights had begun to go on in the windows above me, and it wasn’t long before people were pouring from their houses to see what the noise was about.

  Beneath the gate, which bore the marble likenesses of three towering women, the portcullis was raised, and three figures, quite small in the distance, stepped forward onto the border, all holding one of Simon’s stolen invitations ahead of them.

  It went much faster for them than it seemed to have gone for me. A red flash that turned to blue and then disappeared, and they were all inside, panting and heaving but otherwise no worse for wear. I strained to get a better look at the last little figure on the left, his hair shining like burnished gold.

  I was overcome with anxious fear. Was Conrad all right? Was he hurt? Did the passage across the wall make him sick? Was he scared?

  Two horses carrying men in formal guards’ uniforms came thundering down the road from the castle, and the crowd split to receive them. “Good,” Zan said under his breath, “Nathaniel got to the captain in time.” I stared at him for a second—​in my worry about Conrad, I’d almost forgotten he was there.

  When the riders reached the gate, the tolling bell stopped its mournful call and an expectant hush settled across the uneasy city.

  The two guards, having spoken to the gatekeeper, turned and reined their horses into an escort position as the three travelers remounted their own horses, the man on one and the girl and child on the other. All of them were bedraggled and stained with the marks of hard travel.

  “Make way!” the castle riders called. “Make way for the princess of Renalt!”

  I shuddered, feeling suddenly vulnerable, exposed. Lisette, Toris, and Conrad and their castle escorts were coming fast now, the beat of their horses’ hooves resounding on Achlev’s ancient cobblestone. They couldn’t learn that I was here. Toris would kill me if he saw me; I was certain of it.

  With mere seconds to go before they thundered past, I yanked Zan behind the hedge and threw myself into his arms, using him like a shield so that even if the branches did not hide me, his body would.

  Zan stared down at me in astonished alarm as I huddled against him, using the pinpricks of blood I could feel beading up from bramble scratches to cast a feverish spell. “We are not here, we are unseen . . .”

  Despite the thorns and the awkwardness of being so intimately clasped in a strange girl’s arms, Zan did not attempt to disentangle himself from me until the riders were long out of sight. Slowly, I regained enough of my sense to lift my wary gaze to his. My spell waned to a whisper and died on my lips as he searched my face with a new awareness, confounded and cautious, as if I’d transformed from damsel to dragon in front of his eyes.

  Zan asked quietly, “Anything you want to tell me now?”

  “Yes,” I answered, surprising us both.

  Then, in sudden panic, I gave him a swift kick to the shin and a hard shove from the hedge and tore out the other way, too fast for him to follow.

   13

  I didn’t sleep much that night or the next. I did drift off for a few hours on the back stoop of a tavern but was woken up by a bucketful of frigid water when the proprietor discovered me. “No place for your sort here,” he said, spitting a mouthful of tobacco juice at my feet. “This is a respectable establishment.”

  I slogged the roads of Achlev, waiting for my clothes to dry—​wishing I’d taken Zan’s money and hating myself for it—​and felt my hopes diminishing. I’d vowed to bring Toris down and rescue my brother, but now that I was lost in this mazelike city, I wondered if such a thing was even possible. I was helpless, without even the most basic tools for survival: food and shelter. I couldn’t gain those without money, and the only way to get money was to earn it or steal it. My first attempt at picking a pocket, however, won me only a welt across my back from an old woman’s cane. I quickly abandoned all ideas about a life of thievery and decided to look for work.

  The problem was, I had no skill with which I could acquire employment. I could not sew or cook or clean or serve. I slowed down in front of a brothel or two, considering the possibilities, but even there I had no experience to speak of and little to recommend me, as I was over-endowed in angles and under-endowed in curves. Ultimately I decided against it, but I did wonder how long I’d have to sleep in the streets before I found myself on the brothel doorstep again, and what was the likelihood of finding patrons who were really into elbows and knees? I was still looking back at one when I stumbled into something that gave a small squeak.

  “Watch it, lady!” a little girl cried, and I realized I was being glared at by three children holding hands, forming a protective ring around three round stones. Another little boy was sitting gleefully on one of the stones, having broken through their circle to claim it. The children scrambled to get to the other two, but one girl was left standing and pouting.

  “Not fair,” one of the girls said to the boy. “You didn’t break our wall. She did.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your game.”

  “Doesn’t matter how the wall gets broken,” the boy said. “You’re still it.”

  The children reassembled themselves into a new ring as I moved past them. Their singsong chant followed me to the edge of the square.

  It begins with three dead white ponies,

  Then a maid, a mother, a crone,

  Then upon a bed of red rosies,

  Bleed three fallen kings who leave three empty thrones.

  They shrieked and giggled as they battled to keep their wall intact from the invading child and protect their stony seats.

  When I could no longer hear them playing, I found myself standing at the door of a shop with dark windows on a less-frequented corner of the street. Above it an apothecary’s sign hung on creaking hinges. The glass was too cloudy to see into the building, but painted on the window was SAHLMA SALAZAR: HEALER, MAKER OF POTIONS. PREFERRED HERBALIST OF THE DE ACHLEV FAMILY.

  My skin crawled at the sight of the place, but what other choice did I
have? This was the one field in which I might actually be of some assistance, and she was associated with the royal family. It gave me a small twinge of hope, despite the apprehension digging into my stomach like the claws of a startled cat.

  A bell tinkled above the door as I entered the dim building, but the white-bonneted lady behind the counter did not acknowledge me. She was already immersed in a heated conversation with a woman offering a handful of coins—​Renaltan gold marks, from the look of them. “Please,” the woman begged. “This is all I have. You must help us.”

  “And what am I to do with those worthless hunks of metal? I told you, three Achlevan crowns. Now go on. I’ve got other customers.”

  The woman left in tears.

  Sahlma was small in stature, but she loomed over her shop like a storm cloud. The shop itself was gloomy and cluttered, with cobwebs gathering in the corners, and the smell of herbs in the air was overwhelmed by a tang of decay. “Well,” she barked from beneath her bonnet, “what is it you need today?”

  I stuttered, “I—​I just came in to see . . . to ask . . . if you were looking for any help . . .”

  “Help?” She guffawed, which sent her into a spasm of painful-sounding coughs. “No, I don’t need any help. If you aren’t buying anything, then you can be on your way.” A man had come in behind me, and she was already waving him over.

  “Wait!” I twisted my hands on the counter. “I’m really good with herbs. I know all the varieties and can make concoctions for you, and assist you in whatever you might need. And in your poor health, couldn’t you use an extra pair of hands?”

  She glared at me. “My health is fine.” Several more hacking coughs suggested otherwise, but she continued, “Why would I pay someone else to bungle what I can do perfectly well myself?” She began taking down several herbs for the other order. I recognized them: belladonna, jimson weed, henbane. Powerful sedatives of dubious reputation, all. I tried not to think about it.

  “But maybe you wouldn’t even have to pay me,” I continued distractedly. “I just need a place to stay and perhaps something to eat. I could work just for that.”

  “Well, if that’s all you need, there’s a whorehouse about two buildings down from here. Not one of the real discerning fancy ones, either.” She looked me up and down. “I’m sure they could find some use for you.”

  The other customer’s attention was on me now too, a leering smile spreading across his face as if he were pondering what those uses might be. I took a step back and tried to look busy fiddling inside my pack. I’d wait until he was gone to needle her more.

  A cool gust of air brushed my arms, and I whirled around, full of dread, expecting to find the Harbinger. Instead, I saw the timid eye of a little boy peering at me from behind a door frame. A small red cap sat askew on his head, soft curls sticking out from beneath it.

  “Well, hello there,” I said, kneeling.

  He ducked away, but I could still see his little hands. After a second, he peeked out at me again.

  “Don’t be afraid,” I said. “I won’t hurt you.”

  Wrapping up the man’s order, Sahlma barked, “Who are you talking to now, girl?”

  “The little boy,” I said, standing. “He’s hiding, though. Is he shy?”

  She glared at me and thrust the parcel into the customer’s hands. “There are no children allowed in this shop.”

  “He’s not yours? A grandson or something? He’s very sweet. Dark curls and this little red cap . . .”

  The color was gone from Sahlma’s face. “Get out,” she said.

  “But . . . I just . . .”

  “Get out,” she said again.

  “No, listen. I know I can be of some help—​”

  “Out!” she roared.

  I tripped down the steps of the apothecary, followed closely by the cloud of her wrath and the man with a bag full of sedatives. I ducked behind a nearby merchant’s stall, watching as he scanned the street. When he didn’t find me, he seemed to give up and move on.

  Even when I stepped from my hiding place and the man was definitely gone, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was still being watched. That’s when I saw the little boy again.

  He was standing in the upper window of the apothecary shop, cap still sitting crookedly on his dark curls. The entire right side of his face was covered in bruises, and long purple welts were ringing the gray skin of his neck. He pressed his small hands against the window, and we regarded each other for several long minutes before he turned and disappeared.

  * * *

  That evening I sold the mermaid charm to a woman in a market booth for a pouch of six gold coins, a mostly burnt chicken leg, and a cup of ale, only to have her laughingly steal the coin purse back an hour later while I was busy being sick into the gutter from the tainted meat. When the painful spasms of my stomach finally subsided, it was dark again. Blearily, I dragged myself to my feet and forced myself to keep going, if only to avoid the temptation to lie down somewhere and be done with it. Simon and my mother were still bound to me. While it would have been noble to say that it was their lives I was motivated to preserve, at that point I was more moved by the idea that my dying would be futile, so why bother?

  I was somewhere in the tavern district, on the south side of the castle between High Gate and Forest Gate, when the prickly feeling of being observed returned. There were several times I had to stop and look around, convinced that someone was following not too far behind me.

  “Who’s there?” I called, but no one answered.

  A few minutes later, I heard another sound, this one unmistakable: a footstep that wasn’t mine, on the cobblestones behind me. It wasn’t the Harbinger, either—​the Harbinger never made noise.

  A man streaked out from a dim alley. Before I had time to yell, he locked his arms around me.

  “Come now, love,” he said, wrapping his fingers around my throat. “Don’t make this difficult.”

  It was the man from the apothecary’s shop. A second man circled—​I was outnumbered. “Let . . . let me . . . g-go—​” I stammered, but the grip on my throat tightened, cutting off my air.

  He leaned his cheek against my hair, his breath hot on my neck. “That’s it,” he said. “Just relax.”

  “Make it fast,” the other whined.

  He kept his right hand clamped on my neck but loosened the other, and I heard the sound of him undoing the buckle of his belt. In one fluid motion, I threw my head back against his nose and stomped hard on his foot—​a method I’d seen Kellan use in sparring matches at the barracks. The man released me with a yelp, giving me enough freedom to drive my knee between the legs of the second man. That one collapsed like a puppet with severed strings, moaning on the dank alley floor.

  I tried to run, but I didn’t make it far. The first man grabbed my hair and used it to yank me back. He slammed his fist into my jaw, causing my head to bounce off the alley wall with a sickening crack. The world was spinning now, and the single gas lamp at the mouth of the alley became a blurry streak as he picked me up just to strike me again.

  “You want to do it this way, eh?” Drawing a red-smeared knife from his belt, he said, “I was going to be gentle,” as if that was a kindness I no longer deserved.

  “What’s it like to be so disgusting that you have to beat a woman half to death before she’ll notice you?” I asked.

  His lip curled and he lunged with his knife, just as I hoped he would. But I was too weak and dizzy; I miscalculated his swiftness and my slowness, and instead of dodging his knife completely, I felt it glide across my ribs as I tried to dart away.

  I screamed as he threw me violently down to the stones, trying even then to crawl away one-handed, my other arm wrapped around the cut in my side, which was radiating with pain. He grabbed my ankle and dragged me back. “Bitch.”

  I hurt everywhere, every organ and limb singing louder and louder in an unrelenting chorus of agony. And the blood—​it was seeping between my fingers now, staining t
hem red. All I could see was the light from the lamp and the pulsing cobweb of veins in my eyes. All I could hear was the pounding of my heartbeat and the distant sound of my name.

  Emilie! Emilie!

  But it wasn’t my name, not really. I was not Emilie. Emilie had burned. Burned because of me. I saw her in the bobbing glow of the gas lamp, screaming as she was consumed by the Tribunal’s bonfire.

  No. I wasn’t certain if I said it in my head or aloud as I reached my blood-soaked hand to the lantern light. Not her.

  The man slammed me over and climbed on top of me, still fighting to get his buckle undone. His face morphed in the lantern light, rearranging his features into a more familiar configuration.

  “You killed Kellan,” I told Toris. “I’ll kill you.” Rage and anger pulled tight in my core until, suddenly, it snapped. I cried out at the flooding fire inside me. I put my bloody hands on either side of his face and let go.

  His skin began to blister and crackle where my fingers left bloodied prints. He scrambled back, clawing at his cheeks and eyes as the heat spread quickly into flame and the flame blazed into a conflagration.

  I felt a pair of arms lift me free of the fire, and I struggled against them.

  “Emilie! It’s me!” Zan said. “I won’t hurt you. Stop! It’s all right. It’s all right.”

  “All right?” I echoed.

  I didn’t know what that meant anymore.

  Nathaniel had the second man cornered. He landed hard strikes on the villain’s chin and then his chest, knocking the knife from his hand. He pushed him up against the wall, arm across his windpipe, before that man’s skin also started to smoke.

  “Bleeding stars,” Nathaniel swore, jumping back.

  “You’re safe now,” Zan said again, hand on my cheek. “You can stop. They can’t hurt you.”

  His words were like cool water to a fire. When I looked again, it wasn’t Toris writhing on the ground with charred clothes and bubbled skin but the stranger who’d attacked me. Behind him the other man was sobbing like a child, staring at the blisters disfiguring his arms and hands.