by Stina Leicht
He blinked. “But she told Uncle Sakari that I’d be the savior of Eledore.”
“That she did,” Ilta said. “She also lied.”
He jerked his wrist from her grasp and stood up. “The Silmaillia can’t lie! That’s—that’s treason!”
“She did it to save your life,” Ilta said. “I was there, remember?”
“But—”
“I also remember telling you that you shouldn’t have been eavesdropping,” she said.
“You were in one of your trances! How did I know you knew what you were saying?” He began to pace in front of the hearth.
“Oh, please. Don’t lie. I was making perfect sense, and you knew it. You chose to ignore me. I remember. Everything. Vividly,” she said. “Your uncle was about to have you murdered. There. In Gran’s garden. She stopped him. And you weren’t the only one she saved when she did. She knew he’d have had his men break down her door and kill everyone to cover it up. I knew it. He could’ve easily blamed the Acrasians for the whole thing. She had to lie.”
“Oh.”
“Suvi and I have been going through the histories,” Ilta said. “Do you know what we found out?”
He stopped pacing and shook his head.
“The old stories are wrong. The ones you and I know,” Ilta said. “Kassarina Ilmari did not banish the Old Ones on her own. She did it with the help of two others. Her sisters.”
Nels didn’t move. “That can’t be—”
“It’s true,” Ilta said. “The histories changed over time. Eventually, the Old Ones vanished altogether and became a vague loathing of death and anyone associated with it. Even blood is viewed with disgust.” She paused before going on. “How does it feel to have blamed yourself for a failure to fulfill an expectation you were never intended to meet? To have loathed yourself your entire life because of a lie?”
He swallowed, went back to the sofa, and dropped onto the cushions. “I don’t believe it.”
“The myth of the lone savior is just that: a myth,” Ilta said. “At its best, it’s a beautiful metaphor for the cycle of life. All is born, lives, dies, and is reborn again. A tragedy or a terrible mistake occurs, but life doesn’t stop there. It shouldn’t. Life continues. And one starts again from there with new knowledge. It’s an important concept.” She laid a hand on his knee. “At its worst, the myth of the one savior is a lie told to the powerless. ‘Be good. Do as you’re told. And someone will come save you from your misery.’ It’s also a story intended to make the oppressors feel good about themselves. It allows them to believe that they have everything not due to an accident of birth but because they are more like that lone savior and more worthy than those who have nothing.
“The truth is, all the important, necessary changes that happen occur because a group of people decide to make it happen. A single person simply can’t. They don’t have enough power.”
“Oh.”
“You have to stop punishing yourself for a failure that wasn’t yours in the first place,” Ilta said. “We need you too much, Suvi and I. And not merely because we love you. Do you understand?”
He struggled to tie off the bandage on his wrist one-handed, but she finished the knot for him.
“I’m attempting to,” he said.
“Good,” Ilta said. “Now I would like to bed you. If you’re up for it.”
“What?” He gaped. “Now?”
“Any objections?” She got to her feet and held out a hand.
He paused. “Strangely, none spring to mind.”
BLACKTHORNE
ONE
THE HOLD
GRANDMOTHER MOUNTAIN
NEW ELEDORE
SIXTH OF PITKÄKUU, 1784
Blackthorne dreamed of archery practice.
He despised archery. He would rather have been assigned to working the fields. Perversely, the duke had insisted upon personally instructing him in the art of the bow. Talus had made it clear that the master did him a great honor by doing so. Blackthorne would have preferred to be far less honored. He’d been beaten for missing his aim the day before, and his body ached. Now he shut his eyes while servants fixed the target in place. He didn’t want to listen to the process but knew no way to keep from it without drawing the duke’s ire.
Standing close behind him, the duke bent and whispered in a loud voice that forced a stinging puff of brandy-laced breath against Blackthorne’s sore ear. “Open your eyes, Severus. Now. Damn it, you cannot sight the bow with your eyes closed. I will not have you a coward. Do it, boy.”
Left with no option but to obey, Severus reluctantly opened them. There was a fresh bandage on his upper left arm. It covered the latest of a long series of wounds that had been inflicted upon him by the sorcerer. The cut underneath the bandage burned, and the substance that had been smeared into it smelled horrible, but he had learned to leave the plasters alone. He’d also learned that none of his questions regarding the purpose of the treatments would be answered. It wasn’t his place to know the motivations of his betters.
His shoulder throbbed. The bow in his fist imprinted a crease in his palm at the base of his thumb. His legs were healing but still sometimes ached from having been broken. The collar had been removed from his neck at the same time. He wasn’t free—that much he knew. He still bore the brand, but he no longer slept in the cell below the guardhouse. Now he lived with Talus, the duke’s weapons master, in a cottage on the edge of the duke’s estate.
Severus liked Talus. Talus was kind and nursed him after each excruciating visit to the sorcerer. The weapons master had even held the slop bucket while he was sick. However, not even Talus had explained what was being done to him. At first, Severus had been terrified, but since nothing could be done about it, that fear had faded into the rest of his emotional existence—a heavy, low-level weight in his chest and back, best ignored.
The only reprieve from pain and fear involved fencing, fighting, and shooting. Talus had proven to be a patient and methodical teacher. Every day that Severus was well enough to stand, they practiced with saber, dagger, musket, pistol, bow, and the basics of hand-to-hand combat. An encouraging word from Talus was like cool water on the hottest day. Severus quickly found himself focusing all his attention on pleasing his teacher. And he’d been happy for the first time in his life since his mother had vanished—that is, until the duke announced he would be taking over the archery lessons.
At first, Severus had purposely mishandled the bow in the hope that the duke would think him slow-witted and abandon the task—or, preferably, find another, more interesting subject for his attention. However, the duke had consulted Talus, and upon discovering the deception, had had him punished. It was then he knew there was no escaping archery lessons.
Now the richly decorated bow was once again gripped in Severus’s hands. The duke handed him an edged arrow, and Severus saw that the same target was in place as before. He swallowed a fresh bout of dread.
An old house slave named Esa had been stripped to the waist and tied immobile to the post. Marks were painted on his chest in red and white. Esa was bound and gagged, and his darting, wet eyes begged Severus not to kill him.
Severus heard the duke once again whisper in his ear. “You are not one of them, boy. You are something else. Something more. Remember that. Now shoot.”
His arms and hands made the necessary motions to nock the arrow. He saw himself pull on the string while pushing outward on the curve of the bow at the same time, but he hesitated as he had twice before. He didn’t want to shoot Esa. He knew Esa. Esa, along with Brita, had looked after him after his mother had been taken away.
The cut on Severus’s arm burned as the fresh scab stretched. The string dug into the leather glove on his right hand. He had no intention of killing Esa. He was resolved enough on the matter to take another beating, if he had to. At the same time, he knew he was only prolonging the inevitable. The tension in the bow began to wear against the strength of his arms, and his muscles quivered with the e
ffort of keeping it taut.
“Do it NOW, boy!” the duke shouted in his tender ear.
Severus flinched. His fingers slipped from the string. As the arrow passed through the air, the target changed, and old Esa no longer struggled wild-eyed at the post.
The target had become Lydia, his last bed partner.
Blackthorne grabbed for the arrow with everything he had but couldn’t keep it from hitting her in the throat with a terrible, quiet thump. She opened her lips to scream but instead, a cascade of blood flooded out with a horrible choking gurgle. Crimson colored her white teeth, poured over her chin. It rained down the front of the tight blue dress, instantly soaking the fabric, causing it to cling to her breasts, revealing the shape of delicate nipples beneath. The sound of her futile, staccato attempts to breathe echoed in his head.
The image was instantly cut off and replaced with another. A balding man with a gore-drenched face laughed at him. His mad pupils were slitted diamonds like a cat’s. “I see you.” He held up two bloody orbs of flesh in one palm and gently patted them with a finger. “Blood calls blood,” he said in a hoarse wet voice.
Blackthorne sat up with a gasp and covered his ears, trying to block the images and sounds from his mind. The room was dark, and it took him a moment to remember where he was.
Lydia. He hadn’t thought about her since he’d left Novus Salernum in the fall. Now worried, he hoped she was well. He also couldn’t help anticipating her being available when he returned. Lydia was one of his contacts. She was also a prostitute. Originally, he’d never intended to bed her. In fact, the idea had been hers. She’d claimed that Reggie Meade, the landlord of the Golden Swan on Headley Street, would become suspicious if she didn’t play out her entire role as rich patroness of the dueling ring. At first, he thought she was joking, but he quickly came to understand she’d been serious. At the time, he decided he didn’t care as long as he wasn’t being charged. Lydia’s services were far more expensive than he could afford, and it wasn’t long before he understood why.
Gathering his trousers, he put them on in the dark and tried to clear his mind of looming dread. The nightmares were getting worse. He didn’t know what to make of them. He tried to believe they were naught but a mix of bad memories and leftover fear, but it was clear they were drifting into new, more intense directions. He didn’t want to think about what that might mean.
All kainen possess some form of magic. He shuddered.
His watch, nestled in its place on the bare mantel, let out a series of quiet buzzes—the sound of its vibration against its holder. Five o’clock in the morning. There would be no going back to sleep. Not now. He finished dressing and then lit one of the candle nubs.
The others seemed to be more lax in the mornings now that winter was in full force. With everyone in a state of near-constant vigilance, no one was sleeping well. More and more members of the community got a late start—not that there was enough daylight to provide much of a demarcation. Acrasian winters weren’t nearly as cold and dark. Still, he was growing used to the longer nights and found he didn’t mind. Deciding on a trip to the bathing niches, he gathered his things.
The passage outside was decorated with imported ceramic tiles from Tahmer. Their blue surfaces glittered with sea images lit by oil lamps during the winter months and light vents during the summer. The longer he resided in the Hold, the more impressed he became with the level of ingenuity the Waterborne possessed compared to the people of Acrasia. The Regnum’s architecture followed strict styles dictated by Gens Fortis and the Emperor. Thus, everything built within the past fifty years tended to look the same—all designed to the exacting specifications of the Golden Mean, the glorification of the Regnum, and classical influences from a lost land over the distant sea. A land that no one in the Regnum had seen since the volcanic eruption and destruction that had led to the great migration.
In his experience, the Regnum gazed backward and inward. In contrast, kainen of Eledore and the Waterborne Nations fixed their vision in any direction that suited them. He liked that.
The Hold’s interior was a palace, and it was well hidden by its unassuming exterior. As a result, he could only assume that the Hold had been created to serve a different intent than a Waterborne warehouse. For a start, it’d been originally constructed by Eledoreans. For another, it was too far inland to be a Waterborne property. He decided to ask Slate about it later. Maybe even Ilta or Moss. It suddenly occurred to him that it was nice to have someone other than Slate to whom he could turn.
The air became close and smelled faintly of sulfur, and at last, he knew he’d reached the stairs leading to the bathing niches. The steps were slick with moisture as he descended. The radical temperature difference between the passages above and the warm stairway gave him a shiver.
Ten semi-private bathing niches had been hollowed out of the walls surrounding the underground pool. Curtains were hung in each arched doorway to provide privacy. He paused to pull off his boots and stockings—he didn’t wish to risk falling in with them on. The stone was warm and smooth under his bare feet. He peered into each niche on his way to the farthest and was relieved to discover he was alone. Settling into the most isolated of the alcoves, he set down his things, drew the curtain, and stripped. He placed his pocket watch on top of his folded clothes. Finally, he assumed a comfortable position on the stone ledge, or as comfortable as he could manage on hard stone.
Emptying his mind as Talus had taught him, Blackthorne focused on his breathing. He took a deep breath and slowly released it several times. Next, he concentrated on every muscle, flexing and then releasing tension. When that was done, he listened to the flow of water, letting it be his only awareness. Soon, passages from the Retainer’s Code drifted to the surface of his mind. He recalled their soothing words and felt a measure of reassurance from the familiar, the known.
The First Precept: A Retainer’s life is not his or her own to spend. The true Retainer exists for the master. The sacrifice of one’s life for one’s master is the highest honor one can achieve.
The Second Precept: Fear is the eternal enemy. Fear destroys the mind. Fear tears at conviction. Have no fear. Grant it no power. For fear prevents perfect service to one’s master. Fear is the tool of cowardice.
The Third Precept: Release the things of the material world. A worthy Retainer possesses nothing—not belongings, not family, not lovers. These are fleeting. All a true Retainer requires is the orderliness of one’s own mind. Even access to weaponry is unnecessary, provided one maintains ultimate self-discipline.
The Fourth Precept: The only true peace is the serenity of death. One must endeavor to maintain inner peacefulness at all times. It is only from a place of calm that one’s duty can be executed with precision during the chaos of battle. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that a Retainer be comfortable with their own mortality. Visualize death morning and night. Live as if already dead.
He finished his meditations feeling more confused and uneasy than before. Slipping into the hot spring-fed pool, he sank to the bottom, letting its warmth cover him completely—hoping his uncertainty too would be washed away.
Live as if already dead.
A Retainer exists only for the master.
Master. A slow rage burned deep inside his chest at the word. Slate does not own me.
I have no master. I am my own.
Masterless Retainers are without honor.
Suddenly, he felt trapped. It was at that moment he understood the foundations of his former self had worn thin. Self-contempt came on the heels of surprise. To be ambushed by this information was ludicrous. He had come to Grandmother Mountain with the intention of discarding his past, after all. It had seemed easy enough to shed the Brotherhood’s lies—much as he still struggled with them. He had inwardly rebelled against the Brotherhood and the duke his whole life, but he hadn’t considered how much of his identity centered on what else he’d been taught. And now …
Now he was terrified
.
Fear is the enemy.
The only true peace is the serenity of death. One must endeavor to maintain inner peacefulness at all times. It is only from a place of calm that one’s duty can be executed—
If I discard the Retainer’s Code, what is left? What am I? In spite of physically abandoning his past, he understood now he’d brought it with him. Worse, he wasn’t sure he would ever be entirely free of it. Slavery of thought is still slavery.
Which left a new, more frightening problem. He couldn’t be what he had been but had no idea of what he should be. The question is not “What should I be?” Isn’t it “What do I want to be?”
He suddenly realized why he had waited over a year to consider the consequences of leaving Acrasia—seen in terms of everything he had given up, the weightless insecurity would have been far too unsettling. The truth was that as much as he had despised his previous life, it had had the benefit of being familiar, simple, and therefore comfortable, even certain.
I have no master. Not the duke. And not Slate. I am my own.
The lack of air pressed against his lungs more urgently than his thoughts, and he used the bottom of the bathing pool to propel himself to the surface. He combed wet hair from his face with both hands. A thumb brushed against one artificially rounded ear.
No matter how much I wish it, I’ll never be free of the past—of the things I’ve done. Nor should I.
He liked the way Ilta had treated him at the party, as if he were someone honorable and worthy. She made him feel it was possible to be that person. Of course, it wasn’t the first time a woman had looked at him like that. Others had professed attraction for him before, but he had always known it had been about the duke’s money, the Warden’s uniform, the illusion of being human. Ilta was the first to know him for what he truly was.
I can’t forget what I am. But the truth was, he didn’t know what that was anymore. He had spent so much of his life being what others required that he wasn’t sure he ever did know. It was as though a gaping canyon had opened beneath his feet, and all at once, he felt lost. He needed something, anything with which to catch himself. He reached out for the little leather book resting next to his pocket watch.