“You’re alive,” Simon said quietly. “We both are.”
He let the crowd go, and they stood carefully, watching him, watching his would-be assassin.
Jacobs hauled the assassin to his feet. “You’re under arrest.” She gave him to another paladin before the crowd could turn ugly again.
Simon faced them, searching for what he could say. “You can’t do that,” he decided on, his anger growing. “If someone breaks a law, they get arrested. You don’t beat them to death in the street!”
“He stabbed you!” someone yelled. “Maybe he set the fire!”
“I don’t care!” Some of them took a step back. Simon took a deep breath. “Let the law handle it.” He remembered when a crowd had beaten someone who tried to kill Dillon, but Dillon encouraged that kind of adoration. “I’m not your god. No matter what happens, I’ll still help you, but please, don’t ever kill anyone on my account or in my name. Please.”
Some of them grumbled, but others nodded, and he felt their shame. Good. Maybe they’d think twice before becoming part of a mob again.
Chapter Sixteen
Lydia marched Fajir south, closer to Sun-Moon territory. The Engali might be less likely to pursue them there, but Lydia didn’t know what she’d say if they ran into any Sun-Moon worshipers. She didn’t think they’d take kindly to seeing a widow bound and prodded by a Galean.
But what else was she supposed to do? Fajir would turn on her if set loose. Maybe she should stay tied up until the fire started.
Lydia took a deep breath and told herself again that there was no use dwelling on what could or would happen. Fajir would be loose when the fire happened, then she would stop it. All Lydia had to do was find a way to keep her from killing anyone before that. Lydia supposed she could wander into the future and find out, but that had gotten her into this mess. She didn’t want to follow one mistake with another.
“Can you see the future after your death?” Fajir asked.
Lydia blinked. The very idea gave her the creeps. She’d never tried. “Why?”
“Because I’m going to kill you, Nemesis. I just don’t know if it will be before or after this fire you saw.”
Strangely enough, the words made Lydia smile. It was good to know some things didn’t change. Fajir might save the plains for purely selfish reasons, after all. Whatever. She could be contained after she took care of the problem.
Brave thoughts, but Lydia couldn’t let herself doubt them at the moment. “I think that calls for a breakfast break.” Lydia halted the ossor and dug through the packs, finding geaver jerky and some dried fruit. She tossed it over, and Fajir caught some even with her hands bound. She plonked down in the grass and began to eat. Lydia stood as she ate, sore from the saddle.
“In this future, were my hands tied?” Fajir asked.
“Nope. You’ll get loose exactly when you’re meant to.”
“And when is that?”
Lydia shrugged.
Fajir sighed. “Can you not simply look?”
“It’s…complicated. Most of the time, it’s better not to know. If I hadn’t dreamt of the future, I wouldn’t be out here with a maniac.”
Fajir frowned hard. “You are the strangest creature I have ever known.”
“I’m not a creature,” Lydia said, shifting uncomfortably. “Shut up and eat.”
“With such great power, why not use it? You’re like a swordswoman who trains night and day, then binds her arms.”
Lydia tried to fight her irritation and lost. “If you won’t eat, we can always walk.” She mounted the ossor and prodded Fajir to move, but Fajir kept muttering until Lydia’s temper boiled over.
“If I see something, there’s a chance I’ll cause it!” Lydia yelled. “Like with you. I knew you were going to get loose, but I didn’t want to cause it, so I decided to wait, and sure enough, it happened. And I don’t know why, but I feel as if I did something, as if my power shapes the future instead of just seeing it. That’s probably untrue, but it’s still awful and terrifying. I can’t help how I feel, okay?”
Fajir walked backward for a moment, one eyebrow raised as if waiting for more. Outbursts didn’t seem to faze her.
After another long sigh and nothing but uncertainty ahead of them, Lydia told Fajir about the boggins attacking Gale. She’d seen the soldiers gathered on one side of the city, so she’d told the Storm Lord that was what would happen. That had left the eastern side of Gale unprotected.
“But according to you,” Fajir said, walking beside the ossor, “it would have happened that way no matter what you did.”
“Yes, but I saw it happen that way in the future because I told him it would happen that way. If I’d already learned my lesson about not wanting to see the future, I never would have told him, and then it might not have happened.”
Fajir’s face scrunched up as she tried to process that. After a few moments, she nodded. “I understand.”
Lydia was so shocked, she nearly reined the ossor in. “You can’t. No one does.”
Fajir shrugged. “You look, and you’re caught, even if the looking made the future worse. And you can’t change what you see, so it’s better not to look.”
Lydia’s jaw dropped. Only Freddie had ever understood so clearly. No, she was not going to compare this murderer to Freddie. Not ever. “That’s…close,” she muttered.
Fajir gave her another lifted eyebrow, but Lydia didn’t respond. They walked a few more steps in silence before a shout came from ahead, followed by the keening of ossors in peril. Lydia slowed, listening. Another person shouted, and Fajir broke into a run, headed for the sound.
“Wait!” Lydia cried, riding after. She crested a hill just behind Fajir and saw a group of plains dwellers fighting Sun-Moon pairs over a small ossor herd. As the groups clashed, Lydia caught sight of a symbol painted on the plains dwellers’ clothes: a single red eye, the sign of Naos.
Lydia gasped. She hadn’t been directly involved in that battle, but she’d seen some of the damage it had caused. Chafa Yuve had told them some plains dwellers still followed this goddess even though she’d abandoned them. And there were far more of them. The Sun-Moons didn’t stand a chance.
“Free me.” Fajir held out her hands, gaze locked on the battle.
Lydia looked back and forth, her anxiety building. If the Naos worshipers killed the Sun-Moons, she and Fajir might be next. “But—”
“You said I would save people. Well?” She held her hands farther out.
Lydia bit her lip. She couldn’t save anyone on her own; she didn’t think she could end this battle with words. She drew the sword, cut Fajir free, and tossed the sword to the ground in front of her.
Fajir scooped it up and raced toward the plains dwellers like silent death. She sliced one across the back, and he spun away with a cry. More turned in her direction, and Fajir took one across the chest before spinning and blocking the sword of another. She knocked his thrust to the side and slashed him across the face.
She’d kill them all before they even knew what ran among them.
“Run away!” Lydia cried. “Everyone! Go, go, before she kills you!”
A few obeyed as Fajir continued to tear into their ranks like a cyclone. The Sun-Moons grabbed the ossors and fled. Within moments, the battlefield was still, and Fajir bent over a Sun-Moon worshiper lying in the grass.
“Nemesis, bring water!” Fajir called.
“My name is Lydia,” she grumbled. Quickly, she dismounted and hurried over with a water skin. “We can probably make some bandages from—”
Fajir lunged, knocking Lydia over and slamming her into the ground. Lydia struggled, but she couldn’t catch her breath. Fajir’s hands whipped around her neck and squeezed, flooding her with pain. Lydia clawed up Fajir’s arm, but Fajir knelt, digging a knee into Lydia’s thigh. Even that pain became lost in the pressure around her throat. She couldn’t get air, and she felt as if her head would come off any moment.
Fajir bent close. “Shall
I find my own future now, Nemesis?”
Spots of light danced in Lydia’s vision. She couldn’t find her power, could barely think. She swung for Fajir’s face, but her limbs felt leaden, and Fajir nudged her clumsy attacks away. A rushing sound built in her ears, and her eyes slipped closed. Like a pop of lightning, she saw Freddie’s face, smiling.
“Hello, love,” she tried to say. If Freddie was there, everything was going to be all right.
Dimly, someone screeched. The horrible pressure on Lydia’s throat eased. Still, she floated in darkness. She tried to look for Freddie, but her body wouldn’t move.
“Lydia!” someone called.
“I’m here, Freddie,” she tried again. Why wouldn’t her mouth work?
“Lydia, breathe!”
Freddie lifted her, and she wanted to open her eyes, to look at Freddie as they kissed.
Someone pounded on her back. Lydia’s eyes flew open as she sucked in a breath so hard it hurt. She coughed, gagging, and someone turned her to the side as her meager breakfast came up in a rush. She coughed again and again as someone rubbed circles on her back, and it damn sure wasn’t Freddie. She looked through her tears and saw Mamet’s worried face.
“How?” she tried to ask, but a coughing fit seized her again.
“Stay down!” Samira’s voice, coming from the side.
Lydia tried to look, but her neck burned like fire when she moved.
“Easy.” Mamet eased Lydia around.
Samira stood with her legs apart as if braced for a rush. Beyond her, Fajir rose from the grass, but an invisible force flung her to the ground. Her bone sword bounced away. When she lunged for it, she kept flying under Samira’s power until she smacked into a rock. The bone sword tumbled through the grass and landed at Mamet’s side. She scooped it up and helped Lydia stand.
“Lydia’s all right,” Mamet called.
Lydia squeezed her tightly and tried to stand on her own. Fajir had stopped moving. “Is she unconscious?” Lydia whispered, coming to Samira’s side.
“I don’t know.” Samira pulled Lydia into a hug. “Idiot! What were you thinking? She nearly killed you.”
“Sorry,” Lydia said. “I thought…” She winced and rubbed her throat, feeling as if she was trying to swallow hot knives.
“Don’t talk. I can guess. You saw the future, but you couldn’t just let her go. It probably felt like the right decision at the time.”
“Samira,” Mamet said, “don’t badger her. She’s hurt.” She walked a few steps closer to Fajir, sword at the ready. “She’s still breathing.”
“Of course she is,” Samira said darkly. “We’re going to tie you up,” she called to Fajir’s unmoving form. “And if you give us any trouble, I will crack your head against that rock again.” She gave Lydia another hug from the side. “Since you saw it, I know that she lives. And you were right. I don’t want her death on my conscience. But so help me, if she pisses me off, I will roll her around the plains until she behaves.”
Lydia smiled and squeezed Samira again. Fajir seemed truly unconscious. She didn’t move as they bound her hand and foot, then made a small camp so Lydia could recover. The rest of the Engali were far behind them, and they had a moment to think.
Until Fajir woke again, at least.
* * *
Cordelia tilted her face up to the sun as Pool’s tree broke out of the swamp, and she saw Gale in the distance. After two solid days of travel, they’d finally made it home. Just thinking the word “home” lifted her heart.
Morning mist covered the fields, giving the cool air a humid tinge. She couldn’t see anyone at this distance, and she didn’t want Gale to think they were being attacked by the drushka again. “Hold me out in front, Pool.”
From her bark cupola, Pool glanced in her direction. “Why, Sa?”
“To say hello.” Cordelia grinned as the branches lifted her out front. She took her sidearm and fired one shot in the air, just to let the people know their paladins had returned.
Or she was now giving someone the nightmare image of drushka using guns.
Ah well. She’d have to wait and see. As they came closer, people poured out of the gates, cheering. So, her message had gotten across. Pool set the humans down, and the rescued captives ran into the arms of the rest, everyone calling out names of those they’d thought lost. Everything dissolved into a weeping, laughing mass. Here and there, people looked for missing loved ones, and she knew they wouldn’t find them. The other captives would have to tell them who had died.
Cordelia got lost in the people who slapped her on the shoulders or threw their arms around her. Others seemed angry, shouting, but their words were lost amidst the happiness, and all she could do was yell back that everything was all right for now. She moved too swiftly through the crowd for anything else.
A wave of people brought her up against Liam, and they hugged each other fiercely. He had bags beneath both eyes and lacked his normal swagger. Maybe he’d been too busy, or things with Shiv weren’t going well. Probably both. She tried to ask him about it, but there was too much noise. Something must have shown in her frown. He waved a hand as if dismissing her concerns.
“I’m glad you’re all right!” he shouted near her ear. “Everyone?”
Not quite, but she didn’t really want to scream that in the midst of the celebrations. She gave him a thumbs-up. There’d be time for bad news later.
Soon, the crowd began to filter back inside the city, and Cordelia was swept up by well-wishers again. There didn’t seem to be any immediate crisis, and the party atmosphere swelled when Pool’s drushka produced a herd of hoshpi they’d caught on the way home. Some seemed leery of the drushka, but as the people thinned out enough for Cordelia to be able to hear, she caught several conversations stating that Pool wasn’t like those drushka; she was different, more human. Cordelia thought of the eighth’s fears about drushka becoming human. She tried to steer the conversations to other topics, but she knew nothing would change overnight.
And she was tired. And the mead had begun to flow.
When Cordelia looked through the crowd next, she spotted Simon Lazlo. He looked tired, too, but he managed a wave and a smile. Shiv stood behind him along with the plains dweller Pakesh. Each of them held a child by the hand, and Pakesh had a baby in the crook of his arm. Someone had gotten roped into big-time babysitting.
Reach jogged toward them and lifted Little Paul, planting a kiss on his cheek. He hugged her around the neck, and when Cordelia was close enough, she heard Reach say, “Thank you for keeping him, shawness.”
“My pleasure,” Simon said with a smile. “He…wasn’t any trouble.”
Reach barked a laugh. “This I doubt, but I know a kind human lie when I hear it.”
Cordelia grinned at them both. “Well, I see the city’s in one piece.”
He winced.
She sighed. “What happened?”
“There was a fire. The temple. A few people were hurt.” He held out a hand before she could head in that direction. “There’s nothing more to do. Private Jacobs should be commended, though. She’s been invaluable.”
Cordelia shook her head as she tried to process that there’d been a tragedy, and she could do nothing about it. “The temple burned down?”
“Forget that for now,” he said with a shaky laugh. “I’m sorry it was the first thing I said. Just remember the part about Jacobs.”
Shiv pushed forward before Cordelia could ask more questions. She wrapped her arms around Cordelia and looked more downcast than Cordelia had ever seen. What the fuck had been happening since she’d been gone?
“I missed you, Sa,” Shiv said.
Well, if that was all… Cordelia lifted her and swung her around. “I missed you, too!” Shiv laughed, and Cordelia was glad she could cheer one person up, at least. Maybe she should have swung Liam and Simon, too. “Were you in the temple when the fire started?”
“Ahwa, no! Better if I had been, perhaps. I would have smelled t
he smoke soonest.” She bit her narrow lip with pointed teeth, dimpling the skin. “I have other thoughts crowding my mind.” She glanced behind them at Pool’s massive tree, then at her young charge, her tribe of one.
“Go say hello,” Cordelia said, holding a hand toward the drushka.
Shiv seemed as if she might, but then shrank as if Cordelia was asking her to head into a nest of stinging insects.
Cordelia put her hands on her hips. “What’s wrong?”
Shiv seemed torn. Finally, she walked away, gesturing for Cordelia to follow. Cordelia frowned but obliged. What could be so bad? Shiv had never been…hesitant with her words. But instead of speaking once they were alone, Shiv licked her fingers and rubbed them along Lyshus’s hair, revealing green strands beneath the dirty brown color.
Cordelia straightened. She’d been around enough queens lately to know their hair color when she saw it. “What the fuck?”
“Indeed,” Shiv said sadly. “I do not know what it means. Shawness Simon told me to ask Shi’a’na, but what will she say?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Cordelia had to shrug. She’d seen enough drushkan politics to know they weren’t exactly straightforward. Sometimes, they seemed to feel their way through leadership disputes rather than think, using drushkan emotions and attachments that Cordelia knew little to nothing about.
But Pool did, and Cordelia trusted her. “She won’t hurt him, Shiv.”
Shiv spread her hands. “For something this new, we can know nothing. I do not like Lyshus’s new appearance, and I am his queen. My people will not like it.”
“Yeah, but maybe you’re too close to the problem. Your mom is the master of change. She can handle anything.”
Lyshus chewed on his wooden nini and crouched to watch an insect crawling across the ground. He put one finger in its path before guiding it back the same way. When it changed again, he laughed like a maniac and hopped from foot to foot, not squishing it. Not yet.
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