by Evie Manieri
The tent’s stripes appeared to undulate as Isa reeled and she looked for something to hold on to before she fainted, finally shaking the whole tent when she grabbed hold of one of the supports.
Lahlil looked at her at last.
Isa said,
The pack in Lahlil’s hand dropped to the bed.
Isa drew back as Lahlil threw the pack aside and ran out of the tent, leaving her to follow behind in an exhausted, stumbling run as her sister loped down the sandy paths. The stricken looks and aimless pacing of the Nomas made sense now, as did the crowd Lahlil forced her way through to get to Jachad’s tent.
“Where is it?” Lahlil shouted to the people inside. No one paid Isa any heed as her sister barged around, bending down to look under the little table, then bumping into the desk with her sword and knocking the scrolls to the floor. Then she turned to the desk, and when she still didn’t find what she wanted, she darted to the corner and began rummaging through the neatly piled bags and trunks.
Jachad sat propped up in bed with a loose tourniquet circling his left arm and his hand supported by cushions, while blood dripped down from his forearm into a wide bowl. Mairi had just come back in herself and was pulling a stool up to the bed. A lancet glinted from the folds of a cloth in her hand.
“The wineskin,” said Lahlil, “the one we drank from yesterday—where is it?”
“What’s going on?” asked Jachad, trying to sit up until Mairi pushed him back into the cushions.
Lahlil continue to rummage, ignoring the stream of golden lentils pouring from a sack she’d tossed aside. Finally she uttered a strangled cry and turned around with a small wineskin in her hand. A smudge of yellow chalk marked one side.
said Isa, stepping forward.
“Isa! Sweet Amai, girl, where did you come from?” Mairi cried.
“The wine was poisoned,” said Lahlil. “Magic users—it only kills magic users. Someone in the Shadar has been using it to get rid of the ashas. You see? That’s why it affected Jachad and Callia’s baby, but not Callia or me.”
“Lahlil,” said Jachad. He began to rise, but the moment he swung his legs over the edge of the bed his eyes rolled and he crashed back down again. His elbow caught the edge of the bowl and flipped it over, splattering the striped tent wall with his blood.
Mairi cried out and jumped across to him. “Everybody get out!” the healer screamed at them.
Isa grabbed her sister’s arm and hauled her outside.
Mairi came out of the tent, fists clenched, eyes aflame. “What was that all about?”
“Get Jachad ready,” Lahlil said to her. “I’m taking him to Norland. There’s a healer there, someone I trust … she can cure him.”
Mairi just stared in shock as Lahlil turned to Isa.
Mairi shook herself and, deliberately switching the argument back to Nomas, said, “Then go and get your healer and bring her back. You’ve got your brains in a knot if you think Jachi can go anywhere in his condition.”
“It would take too long,” said Lahlil, seething with impatience. “It’d be at least a week, if I could get her to come at all.”
“If you’re going to shout at each other out here,” said Jachad, appearing in the doorway of his tent with a fresh bandage on his wrist, “do you mind if I join you? It’s a little hard for me to hear from in there.”
Mairi and Lahlil glared at each other.
“How long do I have, Mairi?” Jachad asked her.
The healer twisted a lock of her tangled blonde hair. Then she said, “If we keep bleeding you…”
“Days? Weeks?” Jachad persisted. The forced jauntiness in his voice made Isa’s throat ache.
Mairi’s face screwed up. “Jachi, don’t…” He said nothing, only stood waiting patiently. After a moment, she rolled her shoulders and wiped her red eyes with her sleeve. “A few days, if we keep bleeding you. And I might be able to make up a draft to help you breathe better. But this is ridiculous—I won’t allow it, Jachi.”
“Do we have any other ideas?” His voice rose as the cracks began to show in his brave façade. “Because I don’t really want to die, to tell you the truth, and if I can’t avoid it, I’m guessing Prol Irat or Norland is just as good a place for it as Wastewater.”
“Well, you’re my king, so I can’t stop you,” said Mairi. “You can do what you like, even if it means dying in some frozen ditch somewhere, away from everyone who loves you—” She squeezed her eyes shut and lowered her head for a moment, but when she raised it again her face blazed with anger. “What about Oshi? You can’t take him with you, Lahlil. I won’t let you.”
“I know. I’ll take care of it,” said Lahlil. “Moonrise—we can’t wait any longer, or we’ll lose the light.”
“What do you mean, you’ll take care of it?” Mairi demanded.
“Mairi,” said Lahlil, much too quietly, “leave it alone.” She took off back down the sandy path, Isa in hot pursuit.
Lahlil’s left hand curled into a fist and her right hand slid in toward the hilt of her knife. Isa stepped back in a cold flush of fear. Her sister could end her in a heartbeat. But then Lahlil gave a weird little shudder, like someone just waking up, and looked at Isa with her head cocked to one side as if she had just recognized her.
said Isa, freezing the tears behind her eyes before they could fall.
Norland. The word came at Isa as hard and bright as a polished blade, and it cut right into her. The stump of her left arm flinched, and hot shame bubbled up from inside it.
Isa sucked in a breath of the marshy air.
Replace him. He would be free. They would both be free.
<—won’t be a problem, not where we’re going. You’ll soon see you’re not the only Norlander with scars.>
Isa stood very still, listening to the hiss of the reeds brushing against each other in the breeze.
* * *
Mairi came out of Jachad’s tent carrying a bowl full of bloodstained bandages. She kept her head down and would have walked past again if Isa hadn’t stepped out in front of her.
said Isa.
Isa didn’t mind going to perdition; the sooner she got there, the sooner she could come back.
Chapter 16
Lahlil walked through the camp looking for Behr, but every time she tried to think about the supplies they would need for the journey to Norland, the memories of that last argument with Cyrrin locked up her mind like rust on a wheel’s axle. She had been living in Norland with the other outcasts for five months: that was already longer than she’d stayed in any one place since she’d left the Nomas …
* * *
The clearing was only a short way through the tunnel in the briar, but ice had already stiffened her fur coat and the cold was scorching her lungs. She paced around the ancient statue, cataloguing its particulars: a sexless body, a mound for a head, twin pits for eyes. Snow filled the basin where people had once burned their sacrifices.
Trey was waiting for her answer. Heavy snowflakes fell around him and settled on the hood and shoulders of his patchwork furs and on the shining hilt of Honor’s Proof. Darkness drifted from him: smoke, and storm clouds, quiet as the forest around them.
He took out the copy of the Book that he had been carrying when he was injured; he never went anywhere without it. Lahlil had watched him pore over it for hours when it was their turn to wait at Onfar’s Circle for new outcasts to bring to Cyrrin. Now she watched him flip the bloodstained leaves to a particular page.
she said.
Trey gripped the book with one hand and tore the page from the binding. She knew how he felt about the Book; she might be jaded, but for him it must have been like tearing off a fingernail.
She folded the page and slid it into the sleeve of her coat.
They sensed Cyrrin coming even before her approach flushed a flock of silver birds from the treetops and filled the air with cries like a chorus of rusty hinges.
said Cyrrin, leaning heavily on Berril’s shoulder. Scarlet pain bled through her words, staining the snow at her feet.
Lahlil swallowed back the taste of blood: the cut on the corner of her mouth had cracked open again.
Trey fixed her with his silver eyes.
He was right: she could see it. She could see the towers and walls crumbling and sending an avalanche of stone through the streets of Ravinsur and rumbling through the warehouses, mansions, and towers. She could see the beacon toppling, scattering fire across the Front as it fell, and the plundered wealth of a hundred nations trammeled underfoot by the panicked mobs. She could see ten thousand mangled bodies groaning beneath the rubble, begging for the mercy of death.
She could do it. She could pull it all down. She was the Mongrel.
He hesitated for a moment, then he dropped his gaze, crossed the clearing and disappeared into the briars.
Berril helped Cyrrin walk up to the statue, where she looked up into its
staring eyes. She scooped a bit of snow out of the basin and let it fall in a wet clod at her feet.
said Cyrrin.
The grachtel took off into the trees.
said Cyrrin.
Lahlil felt an unfamiliar pull in her chest.
* * *
Lahlil found Behr over by the goat pens and gave him a list of what they would need. He listened attentively, suggested a few substitutions, and recommended a few more things they might find useful. Then she headed back through the silent camp to finish her packing. No one plucked a harp or puffed pipe smoke into a wedge of lamplight. No voices bubbled up in laughter or song or impassioned conversation.
She found Callia in the rocking chair. She was still very pale, but she had put on a clean dress and had brushed her hair into its usual glossy waves. She had Oshi in her arms. Something about the way she was holding him reminded Lahlil of someone in a swollen river clinging on to a tree root to keep from being swept away.
“He’s tired,” Callia warned her as she came closer. “That’s why I brought him back. I’m just trying to get him to sleep. Then I’ll go.”
“Let me have him,” she said, and Callia took a moment to fuss with his blanket before handing him over. He started to cry as Lahlil cradled him against her shoulder and she gave him her finger to clutch in his tiny hand. An ember not quite dead somewhere inside her glowed as he fit snugly into the space in her arms, but Callia looked small and lost without him.