“Good,” she coughed. A spatter of blood landed on her chest where more quickly pooled over it, erasing the stain. “I am glad you are at my side as I die.”
Meirge looked desperately as though he wanted to argue, to complain. To say anything.
“Make sure it is done, love. She…” Another cough. It seemed to drain the light from her face. Her eyes lost their focus. “She is the best of us.” She smiled at that. “Socair?”
“I am here, Deifir. I am sorry. I am sorry. I do not know…”
“Shhh.” Deifir weakly moved her hand to Socair’s leg. “Do not fret, Socair. I have… I… I have seen the Waters.” She breathed harder, horrible sounds came with each bit of air she pulled or let go. “You must… must save us. You will. I have seen it.” She smiled and her eyes turned to Meirge. “I love you, Meirge. You were my light.” Her hand reached for his face but she lacked the strength. He took it and pressed it against his flesh, weeping. “Do not let them refuse her.”
A rattled sigh was the last breath Deifir of Abhainnbaile took. Socair looked at her. She could not force a thought to her mind. There was nothing. Meirge laid Deifir’s hand upon the ground and stroked her cheek, smiling as Socair had never seen him. He closed her eyes gently.
“I did not want to believe you. You… you laughed at me. Just last night.” He looked across at Socair then to Deifir’s peaceful face. “I will see it done, love. Sleep easy, now.”
Socair watched him blankly, shifting her eyes back to Deifir. Sounds of fire filled the air above her for a breath. Meirge kissed Deifir’s cheek one final time and then looked at Socair with eyes, cold and serious as she always knew them.
“I hope you are prepared, Socair.”
“Prepared?”
“You will lead us. You will be Treorai.”
Socair shot to her feet, backing away. Her eyes could not find a place to rest that made sense in her mind. Deifir to Meirge to Nath and back and again. She opened her mouth, but no words put themselves in the air.
“W-why?”
Meirge stood, lifting Deifir’s body from the ground.
“Because you must.”
v
Óraithe
It had been two days since the gate was taken and there was little semblance of order among the Low District. Though hundreds had joined to their cause, most kept quiet and stayed in their houses. Óraithe and Scaa had discussed it at least a dozen times since breakfast. What could be done, what the hold-outs would do. Scaa was convinced that they would come over to their side when the tide had turned, that there was still proving to do to win their hearts. Óraithe found reason in that, but figured it would account for minor gains at the best. She felt sure she knew the Low District sort well enough. They were cowardly, underhanded. Not all, but enough.
The decision was to acquire what they could. Óraithe was alone in assuming there would be others who would seek to take advantage of the chaos. She had been wrong, but two days was not the time she’d had in mind. The decision to acquire every bit of unclaimed food and armor and the like was received without complaint, at least. There was a delicate balance to the whole thing, Óraithe was beginning to understand. They would see her as a child if she was not careful with them. It was a danger of letting them near but she could not know everything. She did not understand horses or steel. She understood nothing, in truth. She had only inklings of what they ought to do at large, the beginnings of an intuition about how she could use people and how to have them allow that.
Perhaps among the more curious things was the seeming trickle of new guards into the Low District. They had chased as many as they had seen in the passing days but still new faces came among them. Perhaps they had hidden. Some fought. Others dashed their colors and fled, rarely successfully. She had kept some as prisoners, let others go if they were vouched for. Killing friends of her own for working as a guard could not bring her closer to any sort of useful future. Cosain had lectured her on the nature of honey and salt after every one of her run-ins with the guard in a life that seemed so long ago. The guards they had caught had painted a sweeping picture of the state of the High District. Sparsely populated, Briste considered it the whole of Fásachbaile. There were some stories of the woman herself that Óraithe was unsure whether to believe. Tales of her acting as though she were wholly unaware of the loss of the Low District in some moments and screaming, raving about it in others. Ordering fruit delivered from Abhainnbaile though the cold and Óraithe’s presence made such a thing nearly impossible. She had killed the first to tell her otherwise. Or so the guards had said. Gossip and rumors. Or stories meant to lead them to underestimate the Treorai and her remaining guards.
She stood now with Scaa in an abandoned shop. A clothier, from the looks of the wreckage left after what must have been a dozen lootings. There were a few lengths of cheap cloth left to them. Thread but no needles. Buttons. Things that would be useless to looters, but their people needed the ability to mend what they had and patch it. To piece together blankets where they could. Scaa had pointed the building out to her, a place they both knew. Óraithe had not noticed it. So much of the city felt unfamiliar to her. She recognized the shapes and the turns of the streets, but the city felt as though it had changed.
“It feels so long ago…” She said the words aloud for no reason at all.
Scaa looked up from the drawer she rummaged through. “Hm? What does?”
“That I set foot here. That I walked a street in my home. It feels so strange now.”
A shrug was the weight with which Scaa felt her dilemma. “They are certainly more empty.” She returned to the drawer, rustling through and picking needles out, placing them on the countertop.
“It’s not that.” Óraithe kicked at some mannequins, shifting them to find only dust and crumbled papers. “Not that at all.”
“Perhaps the problem is you. It could be, maybe, you do not walk them the way you did.”
She had not even bothered to look up from her work to say it, but Scaa’s words put a piece in place in Óraithe’s mind. Putting that change into words or even taking hold of the mercurial feeling of the epiphany proved beyond her ability. The feeling of incompleteness was frustrating, but the small work Scaa had done for her at least offered to make the streets outside feel less unnerving.
Scaa stood, putting needles into her pack and broached another subject that had seen near constant discussion.
“There ought to have been more.”
“The needles? Cloth?”
Scaa shook her head. “Resistance.”
They had come to understand it better, but very few among her party were willing to accept that a Bastion City could be taken so easily, with so few. They had been over nearly every aspect of the center city in discussion and had any place they suspected searched. The first day had given them nothing for their caution. There were simply so few guards in the Low District that they could offer no fight. Naí and Callaire had confirmed as much with every elf they’d asked. Scouts sent to the Palisade confirmed the missing numbers were across the steel from them, staring in and watching the length of the horrible fence. Even then, it did little to calm nerves.
“We can do nothing about the feeling. Only hope it’s wasted on us. We have done what we can about the guards themselves.”
Scaa twisted her mouth, unsatisfied with that. “As you say.” She started for the door. “My nerves deserve at least a moment’s rest.”
Óraithe sneezed into her hands. She looked down at them, wet with snot. “Sisters, ugh. And my nostrils would be thankful for the same.”
They had not set foot in a building without a fine layer of dust at least and it stirred without fail, sending Óraithe into sneezing fits. She wiped her hands on her braies and followed Scaa out into the street.
“Was there anything more? A dozen spools of thread and two dozen needles?” Scaa looked
absentmindedly at her pack.
“We could find some use for the mannequins. They could guard rooftops.” Óraithe nudged Scaa. “They would look—”
She cut her words there and Scaa stopped dead still. Óraithe felt someone. They had put themselves against a wall only a half a block from them. No reason for one of their own to do such a thing. Óraithe motioned with her head and crouched, ready to run. Scaa secured her pack as she kept talking.
“They would look absolutely fantastic if we dressed them in—”
They both pushed off, sprinting as quickly as they could toward the corner where Óraithe felt the presence. They rounded the corner as a girl in the uniform of Briste’s city guard turned away and came to a sprint herself. Óraithe raised a small block, hoping to bring the girl down, but she adjusted, stepping over it.
“Just raise a bigger one!” Scaa shouted at her, both of them keeping pace with the guard ahead.
“I want her down, not standing and ready for a fight.”
She raised another, but missed short this time bringing the cube up under the girl’s foot as it lifted off. It was a weakness she had not known she had. Placing the rock at speed was difficult. Whatever she formed took focus, the same as keeping a sprint. Aside from the shape needing to be firm in her mind, the placements were relative, it seemed. She would need to shift them with her speed. She tried a few times again, but there was some trick to it she could not grasp so quickly.
Scaa had gained on the girl. They turned into a long, unbreaking alley between a row of houses.
“Stop running! We’ll not hurt you if you stop!”
The girl did not so much as give a half-step less to her speed.
“She does not believe you.”
“Rrah!”
Scaa dug in, sprinting as fast as she could force her legs to move. She would catch the fleeing guard, just before the end of the alley. Óraithe stopped where she stood and felt the ground below her patiently. Ahead of the girl a large, thin wall of stone shot up across the whole of the alley. She slowed, her hands coming against it. She turned just as Scaa lowered, putting a shoulder into the fugitive. They flew through the wall as Óraithe released it, pulling a cloud of fine dust into the street behind them. Scaa pinned her shoulders as the girl kicked and screamed against the restraint. Óraithe walked patiently toward them, bringing squared bars of rock over the girl and pulling them down tight. It took effort, but she would neither let Scaa nor the guard see as much.
Scaa stood, winded and complaining. “Why must they run? I am not built for it.”
“That may be why they run.” Óraithe stood over the girl. “I do not know your face. Are you highborn? What is your name?”
The girl worked as best she could but the rock did not care. “No! You’ll kill me. I’ll tell you nothing!”
Óraithe crouched next to the girl’s head, looking at her sideways. “Do you know who I am?”
“I…” She looked to Scaa as if it were some sort of trick. “I do. Óraithe. The Treasonous.”
Óraithe looked back at Scaa. “The Treasonous.”
“Oooh,” she said, wiggling her fingers mockingly, “fearsome.”
“Well then.” Óraithe looked back at the girl. “You know my name. What do you know of me?”
“You are a horrible killer! Come to destroy us!” The girl writhed more, spitting her words with anger and hate, so much as she could muster.
“Can you read?”
“No…”
She answered readily, not aware she had answered the first of Óraithe’s questions in doing so. A lowborn girl, then.
“A shame. But I should not become distracted. You are a dangerous guard of my enemy after all.” Her prisoner became still at the words, her eyes flush with concern. Óraithe smiled at her. “And if I understand you correctly, you believe I have come to kill every elf in this city. And, though I have you held fast against the cold ground, unable to save yourself, you will not tell me what I want to know.”
“I will! I will tell you! Anything! My name is Flós! I was born and raised in the shadow of the southwest wall! I hate the guard! I did not wish to die! Of thirst, of hunger! I’m going to die, I know! I know! I’m sorry, mama!” The girl flew into hysterics, her voice giving over to an accent common to the far slums. Óraithe heard it rarely even in the same city. “I hate this city! And that Treorai! I hate it all! I’m so sorry!” She shook her shoulders back and forth so mindlessly that Óraithe expected she would hurt herself if something was not done. She could not let the girl free yet.
“Flós.” She said the words calmly, placing a hand at the girl’s cheek. Flós pulled away alarmed and Óraithe pulled her hand slowly back, smiling at her. “We have not come to kill any who do not deserve it. You will not have known, but I grew up…” She stood looking, the streets familiar as they had not been in days. Her stomach turned as she realized where she stood. “I grew up only a short walk from this street.”
She let the rocks fall away, almost without thinking as she stared at an intersection she had not seen in too long. Flós did not run, she only sat herself up staring at Óraithe. Scaa offered the girl a hand and she stood. Óraithe came back to the world as it stood around her and looked at Flós.
“You need not fight beside us, if you do not wish. I would ask you only for three things in such a case.”
Flós nodded, not saying a word.
“That you renounce the guard and your allegiance to the power that haunts this city. That you tell us all that you know of the guard, of Briste. And that you do nothing to harm us.”
When Óraithe finished, Flós immediately pulled leathers marking her as a guard from her body. She had only thin clothes underneath, but she did not hesitate.
“I will. I wish nothing to do with them. With Briste. But I fear I know little. I hope not too little, I would… I do not wish to die, is all. I joined the guard thinking the same. I hid, mostly. Even during patrols. The sergeants seemed not to notice or care.”
Scaa stepped forward, pulling a small blanket from her pack and putting it around the girl, who seemed bemused at the gesture. “No information is too little, Flós. We need all we can know.”
She nodded three times, nervously.
“Why were you here? In the Low District?”
“You do not know? They have locked us here. We can no longer pass back through the Palisade. And not only the lowborn. Others as well. I do not know why. They have abandoned us here… them here. I am no longer one of them. I am not.” She looked at Óraithe as she said it. “I swear it. It is just…”
“Natural, I know. I will not misunderstand you.”
“Do you have family here?”
“My ma… mother. My mother. She was a miller with my father. In Íobair. Came when my father’s father fell ill. She… she bakes now. Bakes.” Flós nodded again. “I… I as well. Bake. I bake. Do you need bakers?”
Óraithe looked at Scaa. It was Scaa who spoke.
“You are offering us help. That will put you in danger. And your mother.”
Flós looked at the ground, nodding to herself. “We’ve lost so much. She never smiles anymore. I have thought through it… Here. Now.”
“You have made no vow.” Óraithe spoke softly. “You need make no vow here. We would welcome you. Go and fetch your mother if you are resolute. And come to the central road square. If you should change your mind, do as you please. Just remember what I have asked of you. Go, now. Before you are seen with us.”
Óraithe’s suggestion was taken and Flós started away. She had not passed ten steps when she turned to them.
“Thank you. I do not know yet what for. Maybe many things. Maybe only for allowing me to live. I do not know. But thank you.”
She turned again and started away, this time at a jog. Óraithe and Scaa watched until she had gone around a corner. Scaa heav
ed a sigh when they were alone.
“Something unsatisfying when they turn out nice.”
“I agree. The uniform makes me wish to skewer them without a second thought. But they are not guards. Not like we knew. Those, I expect, are all at the other side of the Palisade. We will have our fill of them, I think.”
Óraithe’s eyes turned back to the intersection.
“Do you wish to go?” Scaa asked as she readied her pack.
“Go?”
“Do not play so coy. I know where we stand. His home is near, is it not?”
It was. Óraithe was curious, somehow. They walked to it quietly and stood in front of the door for far too long. The sign was torn and dirty. Cosain would have been livid. Such filth. She frowned and, without a word, walked through the doorway. A travesty, gutted by thieves and scavengers as they were. She saw footprints in the dirt on the floor, smaller than her own and recent enough to have not yet been filled. What were they after, she wondered? She looked up. The door to Cosain’s living space was still covered.
“Scaa! Help me. The hatch. Above.”
They searched for a ladder, finding it under broken pots and discarded drawers. If it had been used, the thief had been kind enough to replace the door at least. Scaa raised the ladder for her and Óraithe began up it without a word, stopping halfway as Scaa did not follow.
“Come on, then.”
Her head came through first, but she chose not to look until she had come onto the landing. In all his time looking after her, he had let her into his own room only twice. She could not remember them clearly, but her mind told her that the room looked exactly as it had those years ago. Scaa came up and stood beside her, watching her face.
“I will not cry. I am fine.”
Scaa huffed defensively. “Of course. Silly of me to worry.”
Óraithe walked the room, looking at things. It was a small space with two of the walls covered in books. She browsed the titles, knowing she had only read a few dozen of what must have been a thousand or more. Well-kept but for the dust that had settled on them. He gave them to her when he decided she needed to know the lessons held in them. So many in the old tongue. A pair of those books would have bought him a home among the highborn. He’d never have even entertained the notion in jest. There was no value in things, he’d have said. There was value only in knowledge. Óraithe pulled her hands along the books.
One's Own Shadow (The Siúil Book 2) Page 44