Valor of the Healer

by Angela Highland

  “Rook,” Rab gasped. For the first time since the two assassins had come for Faanshi, he sounded almost frightened.

  “Out. Now.”

  She heard nothing more save for a scrabbling of hands and feet along hard-packed earth and the creak of the stable door. Not daring to breathe, Faanshi pulled her knees close and inched backward into the hay. If she hid, if she kept silent, they wouldn’t know she’d heard them. They couldn’t then turn their anger upon her—

  Footsteps halted the panicked whirl of her thoughts. Her ears were good, and in the stable’s silent darkness, the tread of feet up nearby stairs seemed as deafening as gunfire. Her eyes, too, were good; she marked the shadow of Julian’s form as he came up into the hayloft, moving with stiff control. She could make out the droop of his head, and as he sank down to sit between her and the stairs, his back against the stable wall, she heard his weary hiss.

  Faanshi didn’t know what moved her to speak, nor did she realize she wished to until the words left her mouth.

  “Akresh—” Then she caught herself. “Julian?”

  His head turned. “Ah. I should’ve guessed you’d hear that.”

  “Yes,” she admitted, grateful that darkness and gauze veiled her features, for Julian couldn’t possibly see her blush. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to cause you and the akreshi Rab to argue.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. Rab excels at vexing questions.”

  He hadn’t actually answered Rab’s question—save with the blow she’d heard him, felt him deliver, which was both an answer and no answer at all. “So what Rab asked isn’t true? You don’t wish to make me your concubine?” Julian jolted sharply, and she threw up her palms in automatic supplication. Promise or no promise, she couldn’t quell the habit of obeisance. “Please. I only ask because all has changed, the world is made anew around me, and I’m trying to understand.”

  Julian’s features, little more than indistinct shadings against the lighter oval of his face, twisted in a grimace. “I like that question even less from you.”

  “I don’t mind. I understand what I am.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Tainted. My blood is impure. It—” She stopped, her cheeks heating behind her veil. She’d meant to speak without rancor, but the words turned bitter as she voiced them. “It makes me unfit for such things.”

  “Bollocks.” Julian thrust a peremptory finger toward her. “I pledged I wouldn’t beat you, but gods, if I hear one more word of that I’ll throw you right out of this hayloft.” Then he slumped, his head tilting back, baring a pale stretch of throat. “And as I’ve carried you halfway out of Camden as it is, I’d appreciate not lifting you again.”

  “But—”

  “But you’ve always been told you’re tainted, eh? Fit for nothing but toil and drudgery, and not even worth a tumble in the sheets because no man would sully himself by touching you?”

  He sounded angry, though not with her or even with Rab, and what had caused his ire was beyond her fathoming. He spoke as if in mockery of the folk of Lomhannor Hall, and that surely couldn’t be right. She must have heard him wrong.

  “Such has always been told me,” she affirmed at last, warily. “Even by my okinya.”

  “Your okinya’s wrong.”

  Such blunt disdain was all too familiar, yet to hear it leveled against Ulima, on top of all else that had befallen her, was too much. Faanshi surged up out of the hay, not quite daring to leap to her feet, yet finding herself halfway upright before she even realized she was in motion. “Do not speak of Ulima so!”

  The assassin said nothing for long enough a time that she feared all over again that she’d angered him. Then, in a gruffer tone, he asked, “Who is this okinya Ulima, to prompt such a fierce defense?”

  Faanshi drew in a breath to reply—and found herself shaking, kneeling on the hayloft’s rough-planked floor, unable to think of anything in that instant save how her mind felt too small and too large all at once. That scared her. That she couldn’t for an instant remember how to identify the woman who’d promised her Djashtet’s deliverance frightened her even more.

  “She...she’s my kinswoman...in Adalonic you’d say great-aunt, I think.” With effort she forced herself to speak, though she flushed with shame at how much effort it took. Would the Lady of Time claim as the price of her freedom not ever seeing her okinya again? Not even properly remembering her, with a Hawk’s memories flooding her own past the point of overflowing? Panic drove the rest of her words from her. “And she’s wise. She’s never been cruel to me, and she’s always warned me away from showing pride. The akreshi duke always beats me if I’m too proud.”

  “Ah yes, because the last thing a slave needs is a sense of pride and self-respect.” Julian snorted. “How old are you?”

  Taken aback by the abrupt tangent, Faanshi blurted, “Nineteen soon, if I reckon the days correctly. I’ve not seen a calendar in many months. It’s Jomhas now?”

  “Jomhas sixth. Eighteen then, more or less. And you haven’t seen a bloody damned thing of the world, have you.”

  She went still then, for it wasn’t a question. He’d called her a mouse, and rightly. She was small and vulnerable, and though such feelings weren’t new, the strength with which they swamped her was. “I’ve never left Lomhannor Hall. You’ve already taken me farther than I’ve ever gone in my life.”

  “Then take this as your first lesson in the ways of the world—kindness imprisons just as well as cruelty. Question everything you hear, especially when those with power over you seem kind.”

  “Including you?”

  “Especially me.” He tossed something in her direction, and she had just enough time to catch the bundle of garments before he went on, “While you’re questioning, put those on. Rab made his best guess on what would fit you.”

  Faanshi cautiously unwrapped layers of cloth, and though acquiring new garb had been her idea, what she discovered shocked her. A pale woolen shirt and thick brown breeches such as those the workingmen at Lomhannor Hall wore about their daily tasks weren’t at all what she had expected. Wound up within them were the weightiest items in the bundle, an old pair of boots and a battered leather cap, and these drove home most of all the nature of what she held.

  “Julian...this clothing...it’s meant for a man.”

  “Yes.” He didn’t sound sympathetic. “Now isn’t the time to reconsider your idea. It was a good one, and you should have more like it. They’ll keep you alive.”

  Praise. That too was new, and Faanshi almost giggled at the sound of it, part of her sure she was somehow lost in the vagaries of a dream. Yet it steadied her hands and made her risk a longer look at the man who’d freed her from the church. “If you please, I’ve never removed my veil in front of a stranger, or...”

  Seeming to comprehend her meaning, he shifted where he sat and murmured in a strangely gentled tone, “I won’t look.”

  “Thank you.” Only with frequent peeks toward Julian’s unmoving form could she disrobe. He’d turned his head away, making good upon his promise. As she laid her veil aside and unwound her sari, she wondered what it meant that he warned her against all kindness, even his own, and yet treated her more kindly than anyone she’d ever known. “Julian?”

  “Yes?”

  It frightened her, stripping away familiar layers of cloth, baring her skin to the stable’s cool night air. She had to drape the sari like a blanket over her head before she could trade her choli for the woolen shirt, and even then she ducked her head and closed her eyes before undoing her choli’s laces. Then at last was she able to speak. “Do you not follow the Anreulag and the Four Gods? Don’t you think magic is evil?”

  “Given our current situation, girl, you can safely assume that no, I have no problem with magic.” He let out a brief bark of laughter. “And I have quite a few problems with the Church, as well as their all-seeing angel of death.”

  “Is that why you tried to kill my master? Do you hate him?”


  That surprised him. Julian stirred, and a curious note slid into his words. “Do you?”

  Her mouth opened, but no words emerged. Faanshi clung to the sari’s concealing folds, reluctant to give up its meager shelter. “The Dawnmaiden bids us to look for the good in all men...”

  “That isn’t what I asked.”

  Faanshi clamped her eyes shut, conscious of a needle of pain that sliced at her tongue even as she forced it out into words. “I shouldn’t. Hate is a sin.” Many a night she’d tried to make herself believe that. But each syllable fought her as she spoke it, until she had to ball her hands into fists and push them into the hay to banish the memory of the duke’s senses obliterating her own. “But my mother and father are dead because of him. He told everyone I killed akreshi Kennach and locked me away. I had to heal him when he was sick—Crone of Night, I wish that fever would have killed him before I touched him. His mind is dark and hungry and I hate him!”

  “None of that makes you a sinner. It makes you human.”

  “I’m half an elf.”

  “Who do you think gave me the contract on your master, eh?”

  In truth she hadn’t given it an instant’s thought; there’d already been too much crowding her awareness, and she had no ken of how an assassin did his work besides. Embarrassed by her outburst, she blurted, “Elves paid you to take the akreshi’s life?”

  “They couldn’t exactly get to him themselves, as well-protected as he is. They’d have risked the attention of the Hawks. But just like you, the ones who paid me have very personal grudges against His Grace, above and beyond what he’s done to his slaves in general.” When Faanshi gasped he tilted his head, a shift of shadow against shadow. “You’re hardly his only slave. Surely you knew this?”

  She should have, Faanshi told herself. Cloistered as she’d been, this at least she should have guessed. “There were never any others like me at Lomhannor. I’ve never even seen an elf or anyone else with the blood—”

  Yet that was no longer true. Her palms prickled with the memory of the shape of Kestar Vaarsen’s face, of the feel of his ears against her fingertips. Words she’d uttered in a dream echoed across her thoughts, and she wondered what they meant—what she knew. In more ways than one, you are like me.

  “Do you want to?” Julian’s tone turned thoughtful.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He rose and came to her in a few quick strides, then knelt beside her. “Let me lay it out for you, girl. When you left the church with Rab and me, you became a fugitive. We’ll be pursued, and our ability to disguise you will last only as far as the first Hawk who senses your magic. If you’re caught, and you’re lucky, you’ll be hanged or shot for being a runaway slave. If you’re not, they’ll give you to the Anreulag. I trust you know what that would mean.”

  “I grasp these things,” Faanshi said, her voice small. “I know what a Cleansing is, and that it would likely kill me.”

  “So then, your list of safe havens is short indeed. I could get you as far as Shalridan, where you might find a ship bound for Tantiulo. Or I could take you to the elves.”

  Thunderstruck, she stared up at him. He was right. Tantiulo was no option, for she had no caste, and therefore no place among her mother’s people. Nor did she have any more notion of how to find aid in that land than she did in this one. Save, of course, for Julian, and her heart leaped at the aid he offered now.

  “Would they help me? Want me with them?”

  “They may. The elves I know seek to free those of their blood from human masters. There aren’t many of them, and they’re forever moving and hiding.”

  “Fugitives.” Comprehension chimed through her in an unsettling chord.

  “Fugitives. Their lot’s harsh, and will be little better than what you knew before. But none of them will make a slave of you, and from what I’ve seen of what you carry in these hands—” Julian took one, lifting it in his and squeezing her fingers. “They need magic like yours.”

  Wonderstruck, Faanshi turned her hand over in Julian’s, and squeezed his in return. Leather across his palm met her touch, warmed by the heat of his flesh. His fingertips, uncovered, were four light points of pressure along the back of her hand. They anchored her, a reminder of the true shapes of her hand and frame, and gave her clear and certain resolve.

  “Take me to them, Julian. Take me to the elves.”

  Chapter Twelve

  I grow too old for this game.

  A week ago Shaymis Enverly wouldn’t have acknowledged such weakness. But a week ago assassins hadn’t attacked him in his own church. Though the physician who’d tended the Hawks had treated him with equal competence, his injuries still ached. He’d allowed himself only a minimal dose of laudanum. Drugged rest wasn’t an option, not when the work over which he’d labored for so long was so close to fruition. And not when he had one more trial to face in the most grueling morning he’d suffered in years—telling Holvirr Kilmerredes why his slave, the very slave on whom that life’s work depended, was gone.

  The very thought exhausted him. With the town watch on high alert, he didn’t dare take advantage of the blood he’d drawn from the girl, despite the promise of its secrets. So he’d compromised with the physician, retreating to his cottage behind the church, but to his parlor hearth rather than his bed. There he laid a fire despite the clement summer, for his home was shaded and cool. Usually this was a comfort in the hot months of Jomhas and Jeuchar, but today it grated against his bones. He was growing frailer and slower with age and the ease of his chosen station, and as it had never done before, the realization galled.

  Not that His Grace permitted him time to brood, for Kilmerredes descended upon the cottage not long after Enverly had settled himself. The slamming of the door, the bellowed orders to the guards outside and the heavy tromp of booted feet struck his head like new blows.

  “Enverly! Enverly! Where the blazes are you?” The stentorian roar carried straight into the parlor as the duke strode in, his movements powered by anger he wielded like a weapon, like the matched pair of pistols he wore and the riding crop lashing back and forth in his hand. He raked a sharp stare over him, taking in the bandages that bound his wounds. Only then did his posture relax. “So it’s true, then. You were hurt by the intruders.”

  “A trifle too old and slow to stop them, I’m afraid, my lord.”

  “I’d offer you Faanshi’s services,” Kilmerredes sneered, “except she’s no longer in my possession.”

  “And what sort of priest would permit injuries gained in the service of his Church to be mended by one of the very heathens he’s sworn to Cleanse?” Enverly snorted and then regretted it, for it hurt. “One might conclude my religious scruples are lacking.”

  “Your religious scruples are lacking. That’s why I’ve been paying you for the last twenty years.”

  One could test the temper of Holvirr Kilmerredes only so far. Enverly had learned that when serving with him in Tantiulo, and he understood that limit all too well. “And not for failing you, Your Grace. I’ll accept whatever penalty you wish to levy for my lapse. I didn’t foresee that the girl would be at risk in my custody.”

  The duke sliced a dismissive hand through the air and flung himself into the chair facing his. “Don’t be so damned bloody meek, man. It’s bad enough coming from Faanshi, and it’s ridiculous coming from you. I require a cunning mind from you, not groveling. And I require a report. Begin with how badly you’ve been hurt.”

  “I took worse during the war, but I was younger then. The physician bids me rest for at least a week.”

  “We can’t afford a week, Shaymis. I’ve an escaped slave, assassins who’ve made attempts on both our lives, and two Hawks caught at the scene of my slave’s disappearance. One of whom, or so the watch reports, has been identified as an elf-blood himself. Is that true?”

  His gaze burned and his jaw clenched in a way that sent a shiver of déjà vu through Enverly. He hadn’t seen that look on the duke’s face in eighte
en years, not since the birth of the very chit who’d now vanished. Elves. The entire affair bore far too great a touch of elven hands; an elf had ruined the Duchess Yamineh, and now another of elven blood was far too interested in Yamineh’s bastard daughter. A Hawk, by all the gods. How had an elf-blood made it into the Order of the Hawk?

  “It’s true,” he grunted. “Kestar Vaarsen’s own amulet betrayed him, as did Celoren Valleford’s and mine.”

  “I saw no such thing when they came to Lomhannor. The amulets glowed only for the girl.”

  Enverly’d forgotten that, thanks to pain and the medicine dulling his wits. Memories returned now, of Kestar Vaarsen in his office, riding up the mountainside, at Lomhannor Hall. Not once had his amulet come to life.

  Why had it spoken in the cellar of the church?

  “They say that elven blood is temperamental, my lord,” he mused, frowning. “It can lie dormant in a man all his life until something awakens it. A trauma, perhaps. Valleford claims that Vaarsen was wounded, and Vaarsen himself is weak and delirious. I found him babbling that the girl had healed him.”

  “Had she?”

  “There was froth on his lips, as if he’d coughed up blood, and as if his lung had been pierced. We found a bloodied knife cast aside in the cellar. It was a wicked blade, notched and unbroken. It should’ve killed him. Yet when the physician examined him, she found only a small, shallow wound.”

  “She was interrupted.” The duke rose again and began to pace, jealousy blackening his countenance. “But that doesn’t address why the Hawks were there in the first place. If Vaarsen’s out of his head, did you get anything out of Valleford?”

  “Only that his partner wished to question your slave, my lord. He himself saw nothing. Both Hawks were tied hand and foot when I found them, and Valleford had a dart in his neck. He’d been drugged.”

  “Drugged. Like my lady wife.” Kilmerredes’s pacing continued, a big cat’s predatory stalk, to and fro across the room. “It fits. Faanshi healed the bastard who tried to kill me. Clearly he and his accomplice came back for her.”