"Listen to me. My husband... it wasn't chance that he picked you. It never was, with him. He knew you would come here. He was blind, but... he could see things. Akir gave him a gift."
Helix shook his head. The words were gibberish.
Everyone he knew was turning to ash.
"Stop." She had his shoulders. "Listen."
She learned ten minutes ago that her husband is dead, and I'm making her console me. The thought struck him like a slap.
She held his eyes. "Listen. He would not have sent you here, if he thought it would put me in danger. Do you hear me? He could see things. If you spent any time around him, you know that."
Finally, her words penetrated. He gave me the letter the day he came to Southlight. He knew.
From the first day, he knew.
"Now. You tried to help him. He sent you here. That's all I need to know. We'll figure out the rest. M'sai?" Her voice was hoarse, her eyes searching his. "Do you hear me?"
"M'sai," he breathed. The panic receded, tugging at the hem of his mind.
"M'sai." Her face pinched. She pulled him into a hug. "Oh, you poor thing." Her voice was hot against his ear, trembling with shared pain. "I'm sorry."
Chapter 14
i. Iggy
Iggy had never been in a city as big as Keldale. He didn't like it. The walls were too close, the crowds too thick. In some of the narrow alleyways, he could barely see the sky. It made him feel imprisoned. Or entombed.
Helix, Seth, and Lyseira had stayed at the orphanage, but Lorna hadn't had room for all of them. She had offered to put them up at the Keg and Kettle, an inn off the central square where Harth apparently had some connections to the owner. Iggy had expected to finally catch his breath in the square, but when Harth led them there, it was just as bad as everywhere else.
The square was huge, and even in the cold and with night coming on, the merchant stalls clamored with customers. A swarm of pilgrims took to their knees in prayer, facing west, toward the temple. A pocket of town guards drifted through like a lily pad on a pond. Rising from the center of the cacophony was a statue of a man on a rearing horse, his noble eyes fixed on the coast.
When they finally reached the inn and Harth showed them to their room, Iggy was fighting for breath.
"You well, Igg?" Angbar asked. "You look terrible."
Iggy nodded, but he felt light-headed, the room spinning around him. He put a hand to the wall. "Yeah, just... need a minute."
"M'sai," Harth said, sweeping in and closing the door behind him. "Aron only had one room open, so you're sharing it. It's got two beds, at least."
Syntal staked out one of the beds, wincing as she took the pack from her shoulders. Angbar drifted to the other.
"Aron is an old friend of Matthew's. He knows me. You can trust him. If you need something, talk to him. If he tells you something, believe it."
Iggy nodded. When he stopped, the room kept moving.
"I didn't realize your friend was wanted by the Tribunal for murder when I took this job." Harth looked at Iggy. "Eighteen shells? It should have been eighteen crowns." He pointed out the window. "The whole city is crawling with pilgrims and clergy. With luck, no one will recognize you. Stay inside. Don't leave your room unless you have to. I'll be back tomorrow. If I can talk any sense into Lorna, you'll be out of the city again tomorrow night."
That sounded wonderful to Iggy, but Angbar frowned. "What? Where will we go?"
Harth shrugged. "Not my problem. But it's not safe here. Not for you, not for Lorna. Keep your heads down."
He left.
Angbar made an incredulous noise. "You sure know how to pick 'em, Igg."
"Iggy?" Syntal said. Iggy looked at her. She was very far away. "You should lie down." The words echoed down a tunnel.
"M'sai," he said, and took her advice.
~ ~
In his dreams, he was flying.
The wolves' wood unfolded beneath him, spreading to the horizon in a sea of snow-drenched treetops. Wake up, it called in his mother's voice. Come home.
She had given birth to everything; she was the soil and the sun and the rain. Her heartbeat thrummed in the air, a pulse like the rhythm of the sea. He yearned for her. Her branches reached to embrace him.
But on the ground, the wolves watched. Their eyes were glittering and black, full of enigma. He could feel their relief at his passing. They wanted no men in their home.
I'm not like the others, he wanted to say. I won't harm your young. I won't take your home. He wanted to make peace, but he wasn't one of them. He didn't belong.
They don't understand, his mother said. They think they can't trust you.
The trees fell behind him. His mother's heart ached, her pulse deep and sad, and he wanted to weep. Beyond, he saw the human roads. He veered above one that led east, and remembered walking on it. It had seemed benign.
Now he could see it was a scar, gouged into his mother's flesh. Its desecration stretched nearly to the sea. At its end was the city: a festering sore.
Its pillars of smoke rose like blood leaking into the sky; every building was a knife in a wound. The wall turned his stomach: tree and rock, murdered and carved to meet the desires of their killers.
He wanted to stop, to turn back, but his flight carried him in, to a place rife with horrors.
Tree and grass were torn away, the soil entombed in dead stone. Humans crawled across his mother's diseased flesh like maggots. Chimneys jutted toward the sky, hissing smoke and malice.
These were his people. This was his place.
He woke surrounded by the corpses of trees. Most had been butchered, their bodies nailed together to provide him a place to sleep. Some fed the fire in the hearth. It crackled and spat as it devoured them.
I started that fire, he remembered, and felt his gorge rise.
"Iggy?" Angbar's voice came from a bed on his left: a cradle made of bones.
Iggy lurched to his feet. The eyes of wolves stared at him from the darkness. Now you see the scar, they accused. Now you know.
"Iggy?" Angbar sounded annoyed and sleepy. He didn't notice the sputtering cries from the fire. For him the burning wood didn't stink like a slaughterhouse under the sun.
Bile rose in Iggy's throat. He reeled toward the door, threw it open, and bolted down the stairs. The inn was a nightmare, a structure built of corpses. Every corner accosted him with new atrocities.
He burst through the front door and onto the cobblestone street outside. Freezing air hit him like a waterfall, and he gulped it as if he were dying of thirst. It was sweet and caustic, burning and pure. He gasped like a man flagellating himself.
The inn's door groaned closed behind him.
The town square sprawled in the dark, exposing him to the midnight wind. He shivered and turned away, but he couldn't go back in; he would rather freeze than inhale the stench of burning trees.
I am here, his mother said. Between the scars, even here, you can find me.
He followed her voice into a nearby alley and curled up on the frozen stone. He lay there, his body quaking from the cold and the horrors, until the heartbeat came over him again. It was gentle and powerful: the mother's pulse heard from the womb.
Shhh, she whispered. Her fingers were in the breeze, caressing his forehead. When she held him, he warmed. Shhh. Rest now.
Her voice drove away the horrors. He burrowed into her arms, and slept.
ii. Helix
Helix woke staring at a ceiling he didn't recognize, in a room he'd never seen before. Filmy morning light trickled through the patched windows and crept over peeling walls. Outside, he saw children chasing one another through a narrow alleyway. The air smelled of salt and fish.
The orphanage. He sat up, remembering. Lorna insisted we stay.
He must've slept in his clothes. He barely recalled coming to the bed, let alone falling asleep.
He padded to the door, where the hallway greeted him with the rich smells of frying tula fish and fresh bread. H
e turned toward the kitchen.
A month ago I would have been waking up to the smell of Mom's wheatcakes and sausages. Now I can barely remember where I am each morning.
He rounded the corner to find Seth and Lyseira in the kitchen, eating.
"How late is it?" he asked as he approached the table. "You should've woke me."
"Oh, there's a few hours 'til highsun," Lorna said. She gestured at a chair. "Sit. I made you breakfast."
Helix sat. Lorna's eyes were still bloodshot. She shouldn't be making him food. "You don't have to do that," he said, and she ignored him, casually filling a plate with hot bread and two tula strips.
"Eat," she said.
Courtesy gave way to hunger. He grabbed a fork and stabbed a piece of fish. "Where are all the kids?" he asked.
"I asked Harth to bring them outside. It's cold, but not too cold to play, yet."
The food was delicious, but thinking about the children made his stomach twist. If Marcus learns I was here...
"I spent a lot of the night in prayer," Lorna went on, "and I think I can make room for your friends for the winter. Winters are never easy, but I believe Akir sent you here for a reason."
Lyseira looked at him; was there a glimmer of hope in her eyes? She probably thinks this is another divine sign, just like everything else. Helix wasn't convinced it was.
But we can't go home. I don't have any other family, and even if I did, it wouldn't be safe for them to harbor me.
His throat clenched. Exactly. It wouldn't be safe.
"You would have to stay hidden, but Marcus would never think to look for you here. In the spring, you could get out of the Valley—make for Ornbridge or Chesport, somewhere distant—and start again. With luck, the Tribunal will assume you died in the wild, over the winter."
"I can't..." Helix's voice broke. What she was offering sounded like heaven. A chance to stop running. A home for the winter. Even never leaving the building, at least it would be warm. "I can't ask you to do that."
"You aren't," she said. "I'm offering."
"We'd never make it that far in the winter, Helix," Lyseira said. "It kills me to say it, but I don't see how we have a choice."
"Of course we have a choice," Helix said. "There has to be somewhere else we could go."
"Where?" There was an edge to Lyseira's voice that hadn't been there before, the same brittle fear that he felt every morning. He wondered what had changed. "We can't go home. Our families—"
"Our families have been taken by the Tribunal," Seth said. He looked at Lorna. "Which is exactly what will happen to you if Marcus finds us here."
"You remember Leese and Blane, Lyseira?" Helix said. "The cabin in the woods? There could be an arc hound on its way here right now. There are kids here. Can you imagine—" He cut off as a picture tried to form in his mind. He didn't want to see it. "I'm sorry," he said to Lorna. "It's... I can't believe you're offering. It's too kind. Matthew told me what a wonderful soul his wife had, and it's..." He shook his head. "But there's no chance. Harth was right. I never should have come here in the first place."
The silence trembled with premonitions.
That's it, then. We'll be caught, or freeze, or starve. His chivalry would get him killed. But he still dreamt about the night Matthew died. When he closed his eyes he could still feel the hot gush of the man's blood against his hand.
He wouldn't bring the same fate to his wife.
Lorna's jaw tightened. "M'sai." She sucked on her bottom lip, her eyes searching the table. "Wait here." She disappeared into a hallway.
Lyseira looked stricken. As soon as Lorna was out of earshot, she said, "I don't understand. We came with you here because you thought it was our best chance. Angbar thought she might be able to help us, and he was right! And now you want to leave again? For what? Helix, we have nowhere to go!"
Retorts clamored at his tongue, but the fear in her eyes killed them. "I know," he said. "I'm sorry."
"I know staying here is a risk, but she's willing to take it! And leaving again..."
She didn't have to say it; Helix knew. Leaving again meant being hunted. It meant being hungry and cold. It probably meant dying.
"We should split up," he said. He was both relieved and horrified to see Seth nod behind her. "You take Syntal and the others and head for Shientel, or back to Coram. It's me they're after, and you've done enough."
"And let you wander off to die? No!" Lyseira's lips pinched, quivering. "What in Hel did I do this for?"
Lorna crossed the room to the front hall, where she opened the front door and called for Harth. When she came back with him, she set a bag in front of Helix.
"Here." Her face was hard with resolve. "You're taking this."
"What is—?" he started.
"Twenty crowns," she said.
He coughed. Harth said, "What?"
"If you won't stay here, you'll need money to survive the winter. Harth can take you to the bazaar and then bring you to Shientel." She looked at Harth. "Can't you?"
"Where were you hiding twenty crowns?" Harth sputtered.
"Can't you?" Lorna repeated.
"Well, of course I can, but—"
Helix pushed the bag away. "I can't take this. This must be years of savings for you, I—"
Lorna grabbed his hand and shoved the bag into it. "If I send you out that door with nowhere to go and no money for supplies, I might as well kill you myself. I won't do that. Stay here, or take the money."
"I..." Thank you, he wanted to say, but his throat was suddenly too tight to speak.
"Don't you have some friends in Shientel?" Lorna asked Harth. "For the right price, someone who might be able to put them up for the winter?"
"I—well, yes, probably. It won't be cheap."
Lorna nodded. "M'sai. Then we have a plan."
~ ~
Harth disappeared for a couple hours. When he came back, their plan had flesh on its bones.
"We're in luck," he shouted over the dull roar of the kids having lunch. "A friend of mine will be on the south gate tonight just after sunset. I talked to him. Should be no problems. I stopped by the Keg and let the others know we'll be by for them tonight. We keep quiet and keep our heads down, we'll be back on the road by evening."
Evening, Helix thought. The idea of sleeping on the road again so soon left him bleak. He shook it off. What's done is done.
"Right now we'll head up to the bazaar and get you supplied, then come back and wait for sundown."
"Shouldn't I stay here?" Helix asked. "If someone sees me—"
"I don't think they're looking for you yet. I've asked around. Quietly," he added, as he noticed the look of horror on Helix's face. "Akir, Helix. I'm not new to this."
"Still," Seth said. "There's no need to tempt fate."
"It's the Beggar's Bazaar," Harth said. "Church doesn't come around there. And if he's going to get seen, I'd rather have it be as far from here as possible. Besides, if someone in the city could recognize him, I don't want it happening at the orphanage."
Helix didn't want that either. He nodded.
A scruffy boy with a wild cap of blond hair bounced off his leg, laughing. Another boy chased him, this one older, his hair stringy and red. A powerful memory of Rake, the bully from his childhood, rocked Helix. He put a hand on the redhead's shoulder. "Leave him be," he said. "He's smaller than you."
"Sit down, both of you," Lorna ordered. Then, to Helix: "Get plenty of blankets and food. Get a packhorse, if you can. It'll be two weeks to Shientel on the Fisher's Road. They'll be cold."
"Mama Lorna, can we go out and play?" Helix recognized Julius, the boy who had stabled their horses the day before.
"No, you may not, it's snowing outside."
"But I'm all done eating!" he whined.
"That has nothing to do with it. You go out there now, you're like to freeze a leg off."
"Julius could stand to lose a leg," Harth mused. "I wager he'd eat less." Julius glared, and Harth gave him a mock glar
e in return.
"M'sai," Lorna said, turning back to Helix. "Be quick. I'll see you back here."
iii. Lyseira
Lyseira understood why Helix wanted to leave. She even knew he was right. She just didn't care.
When they had saved him, she hadn't had a clear plan. She'd expected to get him out and get away. A short time after that, she'd expected everything would be resolved somehow. Goodness would prevail; the wrongs would be set right.
Reality had not followed this script. It had seemed like it might—especially when Akir had finally granted her the miracles they needed to keep everyone alive—but the miracles were ended, now. She didn't know why. And it was becoming more obvious everyday that it would be months or years, if ever, before Helix's name could be cleared.
Not just his name. My name, Seth's... all of us. Syntal would probably never be safe again.
Lorna's offer had struck Lyseira in a sore place she hadn't realized was there. The prospect of home was an aching wound in her chest. On the last leg of their journey toward Keldale, her nightly prayers had given way to meditative memories of her mother. I miss you, Mom, she'd whispered into her blanket. And I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.
Lorna was the first person who had known everything about them—all their reasons for running—and kept her door open. Lyseira's gratitude to the woman was paralyzing. No, it was more than that. It was desperate. She could've clung to her like a drowning girl.
And dragged her down with me.
"Here," Harth said. He angled right, guiding them off the busier main street and into a narrow, shaded alley. "It's not far, but stay close. Look..." He gestured emptily. "Look like you belong."
A verse from the book of Solac whispered to her. "He is your strength when you are weak; He is your hope when you are lost. Lay all burdens at His feet, that they may be borne away."
She had lived her life by that verse. She had always had faith, or striven to. When she had felt His fire, she'd thought it was a vindication of all her choices, a promise that He was with them. But if that was true, what did it mean now that He wouldn't answer her?
Above, she could just glimpse the ashen sky between the rooftops. Where did I go wrong? she asked it. Please! I want to do Your will, but how can I when You won't answer me?
Children of a Broken Sky (Redemption Chronicle Book 1) Page 25