Voice of Crow

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  Damen put his hands to his ears. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  She pulled his arms down. “No one in Asermos knew when or where the Descendants would attack, until Arcas gave me the gift.”

  “What gift?”

  “He’d changed the colors of the trees around the wheat field. He made a sunset for me.” She let go of Damen. “The golden oak was the sun.”

  He drew in a short gasp. “So you knew the Descendants were coming soon.”

  “I didn’t tell anyone how I knew, but they believed me. That was when I realized how much people respect the judgment of a Crow.”

  “Which is exactly why we can’t abuse it.”

  “I agree,” she said, though she wasn’t sure they held the same definition of abuse.

  He exhaled hard and lay back on his blanket. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Now I know how you feel, knowing your loved ones are in danger. I’ve been so cold about it.”

  “Not cold. Realistic.”

  “I’ve turned into Coranna, only more brittle.” He laid his arm across his forehead. “At least she was happy that way. She found peace in her stoicism. Me, I’m just…dead.”

  She tucked the blanket around his trembling frame. “Not anymore.”

  24

  Marek awoke from his sea-sickened fog into a world so white it hurt his eyes. For a moment he wondered if he’d died and floated up into the clouds on Crow’s wings. At least the endless pitching and rocking had stopped, and his stomach felt as if it was part of his body again.

  “Get up.” Mila’s voice cut through the haze. “We’re home.”

  Marek opened his eyes all the way. He moved to peer out the round window next to his bunk, rattling the chain that bound him to the bed.

  He saw what had blanched his vision.

  Leukos. The White City.

  He craned his neck to see the tops of the tallest stone buildings. Though he had lived his life in trees, the sight gave him vertigo.

  “It must look strange.” Mila’s voice softened. “I’ll never forget what you did, bringing Neyla back. My prayers will ask the gods’ mercy for you.”

  He turned from the window. “Can you get me to Nilik?” Since his escape in Velekos, they hadn’t allowed him near his child, hadn’t even let him leave this room filled with the stench of his own sickness. “I need to see my son.”

  Mila glanced at the door behind her. “I—I don’t—”

  “Don’t speak to him, Mila.” Sareb sauntered in with the burliest of the soldiers, who unlocked the manacle that held Marek’s chain to the bed.

  “Please don’t take him from me,” Marek said as his wrists were tied behind his back and attached to another chain. “I’ll do anything.”

  “Do you want to live? Then keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.” The captain pulled a clean cloth from his belt and wiped Marek’s face hard. “And look decent. If you’re lucky, she’ll make you a house or stable slave.”

  “Who?”

  Sareb poked Marek’s chest. “What did I say about speaking?”

  They climbed two flights of stairs to get to the main deck outside. Marek squinted at the sun blazing off the tall white stone buildings. The strange sights begged his attention, but first he had to find his son. They couldn’t have come so far together only to be separated.

  A plaintive cry pierced the crisp morning air.

  Marek turned to see one of the soldiers who had taken him from Asermos. He was holding a baby basket. Marek lunged, but the chain jerked him back. Sareb cursed.

  “You’re going to the same place,” the captain said, “so calm down, or I’ll send you to the mines.”

  “I want to see him now.”

  “When we get there, if she decides to keep you.” He pulled Marek closer. “To make us all happy and some of us rich, try to pretend you’re a good boy.” He clapped Marek’s shoulder and gave him a wide grin. “Understand?”

  Marek nodded. Whatever it took, he’d stay with Nilik. As the line crept forward, he breathed deeply, straining for the scent of his son.

  It occurred to him that if Rhia, Alanka and Lycas hadn’t rescued him from the Descendant army camp last year, he would have been brought to Leukos a captive, as he was now. For the first time, he wondered if there was such a thing as destiny.

  A horse-drawn cart met them at the end of the dock, at the side of a busy street paved with flat, pale gray stones. The soldiers helped Marek into the back, where two of them sat on either side. Sareb sat across from him, wearing a self-satisfied smile despite the wails emanating from the baby basket in his lap.

  The cart clattered over the street, jarring Marek’s teeth and bones. Nilik’s cries subsided soon after the rocking movement began. As they moved between the buildings, Marek’s throat closed with a trapped feeling. He peered around for anything familiar—a tree, even a shrub. No green met his eye.

  They made their way uphill, where the buildings became shorter and wider. Many windows were bedecked with flowers of all colors, but he couldn’t see the soil in which they were planted. As they climbed higher, more of the city itself came into view.

  White buildings lay astride narrow streets in long, crooked rows, like bricks waiting to be mortared. On every street they passed, workers scrubbed the buildings’ walls to maintain the pristine appearance.

  Marek would have covered his ears had his wrists not been bound and chained to the seat. The rattle of cart wheels and the harangues of what seemed like a thousand pedestrians and drivers created a whirl of sound that set Marek’s nerves on edge. A hundred scents assaulted his nose—scorched food, raw sewage and the sweat of too many humans in one place.

  Soon they reached a wide driveway of richly patterned paving stones leading to an iron fence about three times his height. The soldiers helped Marek out of the cart. Two guards approached the gate from the other side.

  “Here to see Petrop,” Sareb said.

  They swung open the gate. Beyond it lay a large open space, bordered on one side by a stable and, on the other two sides, by the back of a stone house—white, of course. Horses and humans mingled in the space, glancing at his passage.

  Feet crunching on a surface of tiny pebbles, the soldiers led Marek to a door with no handle on the outside. One of the gate guards rapped four times and waited.

  A wizened bald man opened the door, dressed in a smooth white shirt and black trousers. His uniform bore no insignia or other flourishes, but his upright bearing spoke of his status, at least within this household.

  “I am Petrop.” He cast a narrow gaze at Marek. “What’s this one?”

  “The child’s father,” Sareb said.

  The man waved them away. “He can’t stay.”

  “Let Her Honor decide that.” The captain lifted his heels and displayed a crooked grin. “Perhaps she’ll offer us all a token of her appreciation for this extra gift.”

  “Enter, then.” Petrop sniffed. “If she’s not pleased, you’ll get a token of something else.”

  They walked through a large, busy kitchen. The scents penetrated Marek’s nose and went straight to his stomach. He’d eaten little on the ship due to his seasickness; now his appetite had woken, ferocious.

  On the other side of the kitchen, they entered a windowless stone corridor, lit by torches held in iron sconces along the wall. Marek glanced back at Nilik’s basket, which emitted louder fussy noises with each step they took.

  At the end of the corridor an open archway led to a room with a long table—enough space for forty or fifty people. Marek’s mind swam at the size of this building and its chambers.

  They passed through a room with a large stone staircase to the right, and to the left, an ornate wooden door—which Marek took to be the front door. Facing them was a smaller, cozier room that was nonetheless larger than his entire house in Kalindos. They stopped in the doorway, the soldier with Nilik standing next to Marek.

  “Is it him at last?” cried a high,
melodic voice. It came from behind the back of a long, cushioned bench.

  A young woman rose to her feet and swept around the end of the bench, a flowing white silk skirt swaying above her ankles. Even from halfway across the room, Marek could see the eager spark in her bright blue eyes.

  “It is him.” She came forward with a jerky gait, as if she were trying not to run. Her hands clasped and unclasped each other, and long golden curls bounced with each movement.

  A few paces away, she surrendered to impulse, and leaped at the basket with such a predatory ferocity that Marek stepped back, startled.

  The woman looked at him, just now noticing his presence. Her pale brow creased. “Petrop, who is this?” she asked without taking her gaze from Marek.

  Her servant frowned. “The infant’s sire, Your Honor.”

  “He reeks.”

  Captain Sareb stepped forward. “Your Honor, he is quite docile and cooperative.” He gave Marek a subtle glance, no doubt warning him not to reveal the truth. “Despite his current wretchedness, his physique is strong. If it pleases you, he would make an excellent home slave.” The captain jerked his chin toward Petrop. “He’s certainly younger and more vital than some of your current household staff.”

  The woman circled Marek, twisting the end of one of her curls as she examined him. “How much?”

  “Three thousand,” Sareb said with a confident air.

  “How amusing. Nine hundred.”

  “He’s young and civil tongued, and he’ll clean up well. Two thousand.”

  Marek fought to calm his breath. They were negotiating over his price as if he were a pony at auction.

  “What skills do you have, boy?” she asked Marek.

  He bristled at the word boy. She couldn’t have been more than five years older than he was—twenty-six or twenty-seven at most. “I can cook, clean, repair things, handle the horses. Anything you require, just please let me stay with my son.”

  “Shh.” The woman stepped close to his side, and he realized that even in her slippers she equaled his height. She placed her hands around his upper arm as though measuring the muscle there. “Hmm. Could be meatier.” She ran her hand over his shoulder and across the top of his back. “And the hair would have to go, for certain.”

  Marek flinched at the idea.

  “The beasts only cut their hair in mourning.” Sareb inclined his head to her. “But if you buy him, you can do as you like.”

  She stood less than a handspan from Marek, examining his face. He kept his gaze straight ahead, on the horse-bedecked tapestry covering the opposite wall.

  “Were you a soldier?” she said in a low voice.

  “No. Never.”

  She made a small noise of surprise. “But you’ve taken a life, haven’t you?”

  He looked into her gleaming eyes, etched with kohl into a feline shape.

  “Maybe more than one,” she said. With the tips of her long fingernails, she tilted his chin down and away. “Don’t look at me like an equal.” She turned to the basket. “Let me see my child.”

  Instinct made Marek step between them. “No.”

  Her eyes flared. “Say no to me again, boy, and I’ll have you killed.”

  Sareb cleared his throat. “With all respect, Your Honor, you can’t kill him if he doesn’t belong to you. Two thousand.”

  “Fifteen hundred,” she said, her gaze locked with Marek’s. “You’d only get five from the miners.”

  The captain chuckled. “Fifteen it is.”

  “Pay him, Petrop.” She gripped Marek’s chin again. “I’ll take my child now. Step aside.”

  It was the hardest thing he’d ever done—harder than killing Skaris, harder than withstanding a day’s beating in the Descendant army camp. He moved away and watched the soldier ease Nilik out of the basket and into the arms of the nameless woman.

  Her face transformed in an instant. “Oh, he’s lovely.” Her eyes glistened, then she turned away with her new bundle. “How do they make them so beautiful?”

  Marek’s arms already ached with the urge to seize his son, who didn’t even gurgle in protest at another stranger holding him.

  The captain winked at Marek as he unbound his wrists and unlocked the chain. “Remember, be a good boy,” he whispered. He exchanged coins and papers with Petrop before swaggering out.

  “Fetch the wet nurse,” the woman said to Petrop, then flicked her fingers toward Marek and her guards. “Have this one washed, shorn and fed, in that order, then return him to me.”

  Marek nearly fell to his knees with relief. He would stay with his son. He knew he should already hate this woman for making him a slave, but she had spared him the one fate that would have killed him as surely as a sword to the heart.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” he whispered as the two men led him away.

  As he reached the door, he looked back to see her staring at him in surprise.

  25

  Rhia hurried to keep up with Damen, trying not to stumble over the slick cobblestones that made up the Velekon streets. They had left the others at the dock to negotiate a price for Koli’s boat. Damen, of course, couldn’t wait another moment to make sure his child was safe.

  Her Crow brother’s powers had continued to ebb and flow throughout the day, and rain had slowed their progress to an agonizing pace, so that it had been nearly sunset when they arrived. Rhia didn’t want to admit it, even to herself, but she still clutched the hope that a mistake or a miscommunication had occurred with the pigeons, that Marek and Nilik would be waiting for her here in Velekos.

  Damen’s pace increased as they turned down a narrow street, past a grizzled old man with a half empty fish cart. From the directions Damen had given the others, she knew they were near his home.

  He stopped before a rough wooden door, reached for the latch, then hesitated. Rhia caught up to him.

  “It’s odd,” he said. “This is my home, but after all this time, I feel like a stranger.”

  Rhia knocked softly.

  After several moments, a panel in the door slid open and a bright blue eye peered through.

  “Damen!” cried a female voice. The latch clicked, then the door swept inward, revealing a pale pregnant woman.

  Damen spread his arms. “Reni, thank the Spirits.” He took her into a careful embrace, then pulled back to examine her. “You all right? The baby?” His breath came quick. “Felt it almost die.”

  “Listen to you, sounding like a Kalindon still, heh?” Her musical voice held a tenor of exhaustion. “I’m fine now. We had a bit of a struggle, but the Turtle woman says if I rest and take care what I eat, he should make it to full term.”

  “He? It’s a boy?” Damen looked past her. “Where’s Nathas?”

  “He’s at market, I imagine. The Horse woman told us to expect you, so he’s buying food for everyone.” She turned her wan, shadow-eyed face toward Rhia. “Is this the mother of the child that was taken?”

  Damen held his arm out. “My Crow sister, Rhia.”

  “Welcome.” Reni smiled and smoothed the loose strands of red-brown hair that had fallen out of her own braid. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t bow, right?”

  “I understand.” Rhia bowed. “It wasn’t long ago that I was pregnant.” Her throat tightened around the word.

  Damen took Reni’s hand. “You should lie down. The others will be here soon.”

  Reni beckoned them in and motioned toward the kitchen to the left. “Please, dry yourselves, make some tea.” She walked to a bed in the far corner of the living space, eschewing Damen’s assistance. Even in her current state, Reni held a sprightly energy. A bushy gray squirrel-tail fetish hung on a nail at the end of a narrow staircase. She looked about Lycas’s age, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four.

  Rhia moved to the adjoining kitchen to give them time alone, though her mind burned with questions about the failed rescue attempt. She lit the stove and filled a pan of water. When she came back to the living space, Reni was lying on the bed with
Damen sitting next to her, his hand on her abdomen.

  “I felt him move!” he told Rhia. “He’s alive.”

  Rhia tried to force a smile, but didn’t succeed.

  “Well, of course he’s alive.” Reni gave his arm a light slap. “Soon he won’t have much room to move in there, so enjoy it while you can.” She shifted her head on the pillow. “I’m so happy you’ll be here for the birth, Damen. I worried you wouldn’t make it, but Nathas always believed.”

  The door swung open, and a brawny redheaded man backed in, dragging a small upright cart containing a crate full of produce.

  “Reni, I hope you’re hungry,” he said without looking behind him. “I bought all the spring vegetables the Turtle woman suggested.”

  He turned and saw Damen, who had moved to stand an arm’s length away. They stared at each other for a long moment, then fell into an embrace as fast and hard as if they’d been yanked together by ropes.

  “Damen…” Nathas’s eyes squeezed shut. “Spirits, I missed you.” He drew away to examine the Crow’s face. “When did you get so old?”

  “When did you get so ugly?”

  They shared a laugh, then a long kiss—long, especially, for the reticent Velekons. Rhia wondered if she would ever reunite with Marek in such a way.

  “Time for that later,” Reni said. “We’ve got guests coming and Damen won’t let me play hostess.”

  Nathas let go. He spotted Rhia, and his hazel eyes grew sad. “You must be…”

  “Rhia,” Damen said, “my Spirit sister.”

  “Two Crows in one house.” Nathas gave a tight smile. “Good times, heh?” He bowed to her, a motion Rhia returned. “I’m sorry about your family,” he said. “My friend Eneas is coming by after work to report his account of the rescue. He was there with your husband, who gave him a message for you.”

  “A message?” Rhia’s heart leaped. Perhaps it held a clue to finding him. “What was it?”

  “You’ll have to ask Eneas. He’ll be here after dark, once he’s brought in his fishing boat.” Nathas dragged the cart into the kitchen. “Help me with the food, heh?”