by Jenna Rhodes
He looked upon her again. “I can’t bring war upon Larandaril.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
The corner of his mouth pulled up wryly. “And yet you do.”
“You must march to where I direct you. I know that in my very bones, and yet I can’t tell you why. That is your fate, yet to be written.”
“And revealed to you.”
She stood up carefully from her squat and then kneeled before him. “It may be. It may not. All I can tell you is that I threw away what life I had to reach you, and to tell you this much. It was a wretched life, but it was mine. This is yours. I’m only a visitor within it.”
He stood then as well. “A Vaelinar comes to your door,” he said softly, as if to himself. He laughed without humor. Stretching his arms out, he looked at his hands, at the backs of them and then his palms when he turned them over, his brows knotted in thought as he did. Then he spread his hands wide.
Abayan beckoned at her. “Go. Take your ease while you can. We decamp and march in the morning. We are an army that moves mostly on foot. It will take us a while to reach this destiny you’ve promised me.”
GRACE PUT HER HAND to the back of her neck and tried to rub away the knots, her horse jarring as it trotted. If Sevryn were there, he’d lean over and pull on her reins, bringing them both to a halt, and his hands would find the tight places instinctively to soothe her. Her heart ached to know where he was and how he fared, if Lariel had caught him anyway, or if he’d made it away safely. Dust from the trail rose around her. “I can’t do this.”
“You can and you must.” Narskap studied her.
Rivergrace reined her horse to a halt and pretended to adjust a stirrup. He fell back, with a mercenary behind them watching them both, his expression bored. Quendius did not seem to notice or care as he rode on.
“You deal in death.”
“We all deal in death, my daughter. We’re born to die.”
“You know what I mean. Kill him now. End this.”
“If I kill him now, I will simply push him across a threshold that he will master, and once he’s done that, none of us will be able to deal with him.” Narskap’s whispery voice rasped across her nerves.
“He treats with Cerat.”
Narskap laid his dry hand on the back of her wrist. “No. I deal with Cerat. He can’t touch Cerat without me.”
She looked into his eyes. Souldrinker. Soulstealer. She knew Cerat’s voice well, and could not hear it in her father, and yet she knew that Cerat sat deep within Narskap. Perhaps caged. Perhaps in charge. “Let me go. If you love me like the father you once were, let me go.”
“I can’t. I have some lessons to teach, and then a place to bring you. From there . . .” His expression cleared to a careful neutral. He said nothing more and turned away from her but not before she saw a single tear track down his cheek.
A tear tinged with blood.
She put her boot back in her stirrup to urge her horse after him and knew she would have to kill them both. If they could be killed. The thought plunged inside her, knowing that she wished her father dead. But the being he’d become under decades of service for Quendius had done more than lead him into being Undead. He’d changed long before that. Lost his name. Juggled sanity. She knew that she could study him for years without finding a trace of the young man who had married her mother against the wishes of both their Houses, and loved her, and fathered a child with her. That man had disappeared long ago even as she had toddled after him, and she could no more resurrect him than she could clearly remember him from those times.
Now he labored to recast and forge her in the same mold he had followed. She couldn’t allow it, even if it meant saving her life. What kind of life would that be? Not hers. Never hers. Surviving at any cost meant nothing.
Grace wiped the back of her hand across her forehead, though it did little good to clear her head. They’d been riding for days and the forests and valleys of the First Home faded behind her. They headed north and east to what some called the badlands, where magics of the Mageborn Wars twisted and warped the geography, and even groves of the aryns could not hold back the chaos. Quendius had staked a claim there. She knew once she saw it, she would never leave his custody until she died or he did. Sevryn wouldn’t be able to trace her there. Twisted magics would likely block any touch between the two of them. His seat of power had never been known, although Quendius had held the forge and mines where her family had slaved for him. That had only been one of his holdings. Seeing the place he called home would be deadly for her.
A small freshet of water cut through the ground ahead of them, scarcely enough for the horses’ hooves to splash as they waded through it. She slid to the ground anyway, and went to one knee in it, washing her face and hands upstream a little of the muddied crossing.
As she plunged her hands into the water, her soul cried out for Sevryn. The River Goddess who had entwined with her gave her the power to touch through water . . . if he was touching it also. Small comfort that could be, for those times could be few and far between, unless he searched for her as well. And he would be, unless Lara had caught him. She prayed he would be.
No answer came to her. She stayed in the water another heartbeat, then two, reaching for him, knowing that the odds he touched water at the same time were like being struck by lightning on a clear day unless he searched actively. She needed to know that he lived somewhere, safe and sound, clear of Lara’s anger and vengeance. She wanted him to know what had befallen her. She sent her heart and soul shivering through the water, searching for him and found nothing but the cool wetness. Rivergrace sighed. It might be the last she could speak and share with him.
“Get up.”
Anger flared as she doused her face with water again and got to her feet. Quendius had circled around and come back to the brooklet’s bank, staring down at her. She thought of setting the river on fire, but the cost to her would be too high. It wouldn’t bring him down, but it would drain her of the strength she so badly needed now. Nor could she melt into the river as she wanted to do, as the rivulet called her to do, giving way into mere droplets of water and mist to float away. That would also take too great a toll of her mind and body. She wasn’t strong enough.
Not now. Not yet.
“I’m tired,” she simply said. She picked up her horse’s reins, turned the stirrup to put her foot into it and mounted.
“At least you live,” Quendius answered her as she rode past him.
Sevryn
They brought him out of the caverns early in the morning. Already the sunlight glanced off the rock in white-hot spears, and Sevryn could feel the furnace this place would be in the summer at the height of the sun’s power. He didn’t wonder the Kobrir could find a refuge in this place, for no one would live here unless out of necessity. Although there would be hidden valleys and fonts of water here, it was still a blasted land with little to recommend it. He narrowed his eyes against the glare and put one hand up to shade his face so that he could follow the trail they led him down. Pebbles and sand rolled from his boots as he walked. Scrub grass stubbornly grew from cracks in the rock and shale, stabbing green shafts upward that yellowed and browned as they reached the full sun, and tried to wrap about his ankles. He didn’t find the area familiar though he’d traveled a lot of territory under Gilgarran’s tutelage and during his service to Lariel.
He couldn’t be sure what they had planned for him since taking him out of the arena. Perhaps to a wider forum, perhaps to another purpose altogether. The Kobrir bracketing him had not spoken since getting him on his feet and on the move.
Insects hummed, and he could hear birds on the wing, their fast shadows darting across the white rocks. The smell of greenery reached him, and so he was not surprised when the rocks split open, their wall tumbling down, and a valley of not inconsiderable size met his eyesight.
A
river tumbled through it, swift enough now from melting snows and spring rains, but one which might sink into little more than mud flats when summer heat reached its fullness. Water! He could search for Rivergrace as soon as they gave him a bit of freedom. He felt an ache at the back of his throat that came not from thirst but from loss. Sevryn turned his head and saw terraces, cultivated and growing, and canals for irrigation watering bordering each area.
They had been here a long time, the Kobrir. Sevryn looked about, searching for evidence that might show how long, and from where they came.
The sheer rock sides of the valley could well shield it from direct snowfall, although not icy temperatures, but chances were a community could live here through nearly any season and stay self-sufficient. The wind and airflow over the cliffs would protect them to some degree, making it a valley that could hold life well year-round. It was no wonder their home base had never been discovered.
The captor following him touched his shoulder and pointed when he had his attention. “Down there.”
A pathway snaked through the terraces to a garden near the bottom, staked and growing with herbs. Some he recognized, some he did not. He wondered if they would try to poison him again. As he reached the garden, they pointed him toward a well, sunk deep into the ground, a stone ring cupping it. An empty wooden bucket with a long, thick rope tied to its bail lay on its side next to the well.
“Draw a bucket and seek the master.” The Kobrir pointed toward a bent figure, in dark colors so old and faded they appeared a warm brown rather than the sharp black of the assassin cult.
He thought he’d killed the old master, but apparently there was more than one in that ranking. The bucket fell a good distance before it hit water, and he hauled it up, water splashing to and fro as he did. He still had a pretty full bucket in his hands as he pulled it from the well and the cold wetness hitting him as he hefted it with both hands felt good. He thought of Grace as it did. Did Lara hold her? Had she gotten free on her own? She lived, he felt that in the very marrow of his bones, but did she live well?
He would go to the river, free-running water, when they let him, and see if the water carried her voice, her thoughts within it.
“Bring that here, boy.”
The hunched figure in faded brown had turned and glared at him, face wrinkled behind the Kobrir veiling mask.
Sevryn answered by obeying. Crossing the ground between them, he held the bucket out. Water spilled out over his hands and for a moment, a brief but shattering moment, he heard an echo of Rivergrace in his mind. It could be no other but her thrilling through the drops, warm where the water chilled, elusive as it ran through his fingers. He could feel a love that filled him and then a touch of fear that shivered down the back of his neck. Narskap has me.
Had he heard that? Or did he imagine the words flowing through the touch of her element? He tried to catch her voice, her sense, her words, and keep her with him but could not hold on, any more than he could keep spilled water from running through his fingers and all he had left filled him with uneasy knowledge. He trusted Narskap no more than Quendius or than he currently trusted Lariel.
His thoughts and her touch evaporated. He found himself returning the glare of the bowed-over Kobrir gardener. The man snatched the bucket from his hands. The old man bent to water tiny seedlings he had buried up to their neck in the dirt, a sandy loam that nestled them gently. Sevryn took the bucket back and refilled it a second time, although the water no longer held an echo of Rivergrace in its shimmer.
“Recognize this plant?” the gardener asked as he finished watering.
“I believe the Kernans call it pinch-wart.”
“Excellent. Yes, that is it. The tales of old women say to chew a leaf and then apply it to tag-warts and moles you wish to remove. Never treat more than three blemishes at a time, they warn.” The gardener straightened laboriously. “They are right. The leaf does not work unless the person needing it is the one chewing it—something about the saliva—and it is highly toxic. More than three leaves can kill you.” He smiled, a half-toothless grin. “We do not use it for warts.”
He did not imagine they did. The gardener grabbed up a walking stick and moved through the plots. Sevryn trailed him warily, staying out of range of the stick should the Kobrir decide to turn and swing it.
“Stay close to me,” the old gardener muttered. “I’m an old man, I have no strength to yell.”
“I think you have all the strength you need,” Sevryn told him. “I killed your associate. It would not be unreasonable to think you would hold me to answer for it.”
“That was my son, and he fell to his own foolishness for his treatment of you. I taught him better.” The old gardener sniffed before turning back to his herb beds. He pointed them out, one by one, seeing if Sevryn could identify them and their properties. He kept up, naming more than half of them and their usages, both common and uncommon, to the Kobrir’s satisfaction. It unnerved him a bit to know that a good many of the flowers beloved in the gardens of Kerith had lethal properties. One of them, the drought-loving neriarad, was bitterly toxic in every part of its existence: leaf, stem, flower, and seed. It grew lavishly in the wild, and he scrubbed his hands together as he passed the towering shrub, making a mental note to warn Rivergrace and Nutmeg of it.
He spent the day working with the gardener, weeding, watering, transplanting, harvesting. The Kobrir laughed at him for not being able to always smell the difference from one herb to the next, noting his vulnerability in that sense while Sevryn noted that the gardener had a touch of blindness for color. He did not always see that an herb’s leaf carried a hue over color on its frilled edge or striping its stem.
Not all the garden’s crop was used for poison or hallucinogens. More than half carried medicinal properties, useful ones that he committed to memory as he handled them. When the day’s sun had begun to pass into a mellow streak on the horizon, the gardener dismissed him abruptly.
“Leave me. I’m done with you.” He waved Sevryn off and stood with his walking stick in both hands across his chest as though he might attack after all.
Sevryn climbed up the valley’s stone staircase where the smell of cooking fires hit him when he reached the crest, a welcome aroma. When he reached the sandy floor, a veiled woman pointed him to a vacant spot by her campfire.
When his dinner, a stew of some kind, arrived in its bowl, she knelt by him with a plate. Various compartments held ground-up spices and her eyes smiled at him.
“Choose three,” she said. “To savor your meal.”
Sevryn examined the platter. He recognized the frilled edge of at least one herb, chopped up nearly unrecognizably but for that one particular. A most unpleasant topping. This, he realized, was not dinner but a test of what he had learned from the ancient herbalist and gardener.
The woman tilted her head at his reluctance. “It is a simple thing.”
Beyond him, at other cooking fires, Kobrir gathered and chose their seasonings with abandon, looking now and then and laughing as he paused, hand outstretched over the platter.
He had no doubt if he were to exchange one spice platter for another, he would find considerable differences. He pondered challenging another for his spices, but knew it would not likely be accepted.
They were waiting to see if he poisoned himself.
The smoke of the fires overwhelmed his senses. Even if he were to hold the spice to his nose, he couldn’t be certain of what he smelled. He had to rely on his other senses. A Vaelinar first and a hungry man second.
Gilgarran used to rail at him to look and truly see. As if he had an eye in his hand, Sevryn let himself examine each compartment with his Vaelinar self.
A sickly yellow hue hung over more than half the plate, with a single vibrant green over a crushed leaf in the middle. He reached for that, a pinch and held it before his nose to be certain.
Yes.
This had both a mint flavor and a heat to it. Not toxic although if used in great quantities, the food would be too spicy to eat comfortably. He crushed it further in his fingers as he sprinkled it over his stew. The servant woman gave no indication at all of her opinion of his choice, not even a tightening of the fine wrinkles at the corner of her dark brown eyes.
He knew common salt when he saw it, or thought he did, but when he reached to it, his Vaelinar sight flashed a brilliant red for a moment. He pulled his hand back. He might want his dish salted but did not dare to try that crystal.
“Two more spices are needed, master, before your trial is done.”
He looked up at her and nodded in understanding. Quickly then, using his knowledge of that morning, he picked a small dried fruit that helped with digestion and lastly, a dull gray-brown seed that could also impart, he hoped, a bit of salt to the stew. Both looked and felt green as he handled them.
The Kobrir server smiled. “Perhaps another seasoning?”
He looked at the platter. He thought he recognized dried silvery green stems from a wild onion shoot, but decided against it. “I am done, thank you.”
She bowed her head before straightening and bearing the dish off. When she knelt again, it was beside the gardener who sat in the shadows, and she pointed out to him which herbs Sevryn had chosen. The gardener considered the serving dish before lifting his head and leveling his gaze on Sevryn.
The stare was meant to unnerve him. The man thought to shake his confidence in his choosing. He waved away the platter and the woman, and she retreated into an alcove in the rocks, which might or might not lead elsewhere.
Sevryn swirled his bowl about to integrate his seasonings and lifted it to his mouth. The gravy had a pungent, rich flavor to it, with an undertone of that minty herb. The meat was chewy but tender, and he counted three different root vegetables in it. He enjoyed the stew down to its last drop, and a Kobrir dining nearby passed him a hunk of bread to mop up the bowl. They had stopped watching him.