The Lost Daughters

by Leigh Grossman

  “How about the civilian population and supplies?”

  “We have plenty of supplies in the catacombs, though some of them look like they might date back to the last war. About two years’ worth of food if there’s a siege, and there might be. As far as people, we have about thirty thousand noncombatants and refugees. A hospital full of wounded soldiers and refugees, and half-dead channelers—”

  “Wait a minute.” I stopped him. “Did you say half-dead?”

  “I thought that might surprise you. There aren’t many, but some of them survived here—we must have been far enough away from the killing at the capital. The powerful ones all died, and none of them have magic anymore, of course.” Nemias shook his head. “It’s a waste, really. A few have recovered enough to be useful. But most of them are crippled or mad, or both.”

  A memory suddenly returned to me. “Nolene?”

  His eyes clouded. “She didn’t make it. She lasted a day, and I held her hand at the end. She...I don’t know what to say, Sperrin. I married late, and I thought the Empress had forgotten me. But I’ve never been so utterly loved. Never imagined what it could be like. It made me understand, a little, why you would leave the fighting if you thought you might lose Sefa. Not that Nolene was ever anything but supportive of my soldiering.”

  Nemias refilled his glass and drained it. I was remembering my sword at Nolene’s throat the night of her engagement, forcing her to use the engagement token rather than—and then it came back to me. I remembered what I had found out about Sefa that night, about how she had only pretended to care for me. About how she and her sister had conspired to keep her relationship with her first love alive, even while outwardly following the Empress’s orders.

  So Nolene had escaped punishment. Enough time had passed that I found myself glad of that. I was genuinely glad that she and Nemias had found happiness together.

  “Children?” I asked.

  Nemias shook his head. “We didn’t have any. You know I would have invited you to the namings if we had. For that, the Empress would have let her best guardsman go free for a while.”

  He seemed to choose his words carefully. “I think the Empress wanted to keep you close and give you a chance to heal. Something happened to you, Sperrin. I don’t know if it was just too much fighting for too many years, or if something else happened. But you needed a rest. She knew if the empire needed you, you would be close by.”

  I nodded ruefully. “Closer than any of us expected, I’m afraid.”

  “I hope ten years have healed you, friend. There’s fighting to be done here. No one but you would have thought of a way to use scouts to kill giants.”

  “I did enjoy that,” I admitted. Nemias refilled my glass and I drained it, letting the yellowfruit brandy sear my throat. Nemias had a look on his face like he wanted to say more but couldn’t think of the best way. I filled the glass again and sipped the brandy this time while I waited for Nemias to choose his words.

  “There’s one other thing,” the captain-general said. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but your wife is here.”

  “What?” I had no idea of what to say. Until that last memory had returned, word of her survival would have been happy news. Now, however—dead, Sefa could have been ignored. Alive, what had passed between us would be an unhealed wound. “I thought....I would have thought Sefa was dead. You said that all the powerful channelers died.”

  “I did,” said Nemias. “But...I know you don’t know what happened, but Sefa wasn’t a powerful channeler anymore. I gather the Empress wasn’t happy about her role in your wanting to leave the front. She wasn’t a favorite anymore. The Empress arranged a transfer to some sort of menial assignment, the kind they give weak channelers. Her sister told me she was living with someone, someone she’d met before she knew you. I know she never remarried. She and Nolene had some sort of falling out—they went from being best friends to occasional letters. I would have liked to see how your daughter was doing, but they never visited. Then a couple of years ago Sefa showed up here alone and beaten up and without any magic. It was the first time I’d seen her since you left. She talked to Nolene, and then they both asked me to take her in with no questions, in the name of my friendship with you.”

  “And of course, you did.”

  “I did.”

  “What about my daughter?”

  Nemias sighed. “I wish I knew. Sefa said ‘no questions,’ and when I did try to ask later she wasn’t very responsive. All I know is she was alone when she got here, and no one has visited her. She’s changed, Sperrin.”

  “We’ve all changed.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” He filled his drink again, and held out the bottle to top off mine as well. “Maybe she’ll give you more of an answer than she gave me. I know you two fought some at the end—I didn’t know it at the time, but Nolene told me later—but it’s your daughter. Sefa might think she owes you some kind of answer. But don’t be too hopeful.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In the West Yard, in a cottage near the hospital. You remember Sharret Row from when you served here? It’s the fifth cottage from the end.”

  “I’ll visit her tonight.”

  “You do that,” Nemias said. “Then come back here if you need another drink. Geriald will know where to find me. Wake me if you need to.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  Nemias didn’t answer.

  Ketya

  Whitmount was about the same size as the palace in the Drowned City, but considerably more vertical. While towers held a prominent place in the palace I had lived in, most of the palace buildings clustered at approximately the same altitude, give or take a few stories above or below the encroaching sea. Whitmount, by contrast, had been literally carved into a mountainside, so all of it flowed between towers and plateaus and steep twisting stairways between levels. Until recently there had been an elaborate system of elevators and freight ramps, all of which relied on magic. So instead I had to take the ancient, heavily worn stairs built into the outer turrets that connected levels.

  I hadn’t exactly taken the most direct route to my goal, either: I wanted to walk off some of my anger, and losing myself on flight after flight of ancient stone blocks helped a lot.

  The aide Sperrin had assigned to show me to the kitchens and hospital seemed relieved when I told him I preferred to walk the endless stairs alone. He gave me precise directions when we left the kitchens and I felt free to storm upward without worrying about losing my composure in front of the well-meaning aide.

  Eventually I found the hospital on an upper plateau, a gray stone building set well back from the walls to allow for large windows that let in ample sunlight and the bracing mountain breeze. Neat rows of small cottages surrounded the hospital, mostly facilities for the old and convalescent, I had been told. Unlike the other levels I’d passed by on my way to the hospital, this one had only a small market, heavy on prepared food and children’s toys and used books and cut flowers: things you’d want close when you visited a hospital, or had limited mobility.

  I wondered how much medicine would even be possible without magic. Care and convalescence, surely. Setting a bone, maybe, though I imagined the pain would be excruciating. But how could you burn out infection or excise a tumor without magic? Short of cutting someone open with a knife and literally butchering them, I couldn’t think of any way to do it.

  My boots clacked loudly on the smooth stone floor. I entered into a broad atrium, with wide staircases of ginger-colored stone curving upward on each side. Both stairways had been roped off with thick, decorative cords. Apparently only this first level was in use.

  A tan-uniformed orderly entered the atrium from a side hall. “Is there something I can help you with?” he asked.

  “I’m looking for a soldier who was brought in today. Her name was Guthre.” A lot of soldiers were brought in today, I realized. That must have sounded idiotic.

  “I think I know the one. Rib injuries, cut
on her face, brought in ahead of most of the others?”

  “That’s her, yes.”

  “Follow me, please.”

  I had expected more questions, someone asking why I was visiting, perhaps. I wasn’t sure she had a good answer to that, other than she’s my friend. Which didn’t seem enough in this cavernous place in the heart of a fortress. In the palace I would have known what to say.

  “She must have done something very brave, to be brought in ahead like that. She was given a private room by order of the captain-general. It’s one of the rooms usually reserved for senior officers.”

  “Yes...yes, she was very brave. She helped kill four giants.”

  The orderly seemed to expect me to elaborate, but I didn’t really have the energy.

  “Why is it so quiet here?” I asked as we walked. From the end of the hall, I could hear a sort of murmuring, but otherwise the building seemed strangely free of hospital noises.

  “Many of the wards absorb noise, but really it’s that the hospital is nearly empty,” the orderly said. “You saw how the upper floors are corded off. This place is designed for wars, and there haven’t been a lot of survivors brought here yet. A few battle wounded and refugees, and the channelers, of course.”

  “Channelers? Some of them lived?”

  He gave an unfriendly laugh. “If you can call it living. You were a channeler, right?” He looked me up and down. “Don’t expect them to be as whole as you. Or even as whole as your brave friend.”

  He turned around, calling over his shoulder as he left, “Your friend is in the first door to the right. If any of the channelers are friends of yours, they’re all together in the ward at the end of the hall.” Then he was gone.

  I stood outside the doorway for a moment, unexpectedly struck by shyness. Then, steeling myself, I walked in.

  “Well, hello you.” Guthre’s low voice sounded unexpectedly full. She sat propped up on a bed in the sunny room. A table next to the bed held books, a porcelain pitcher and cups, and two bowls, one of dried fruit and nuts and the other containing some sort of mush. The orderly hadn’t exaggerated in his description of the room, either. It contained a round table and chairs, a couch against the far wall, rich curtains and a braided rug in bright colors. A dry sink in the corner held a washbasin, with towels stacked on a low table next to it. Battle paintings on the walls added a decidedly un-hospital touch.

  Guthre’s skin looked brighter, probably less from her continuing return to health than because they had cleaned her. After all, she had only been in the hospital a few hours. I saw that someone had changed Guthre’s bandages, more neatly than I had ever managed.

  “You look better,” I said to Guthre. Suddenly I felt self-conscious about my own unwashed state. On the trail it had stopped bothering me for a while, but now I felt acutely aware of being the least-clean person in the building. On the road, there hadn’t been bathhouses. In Whitmount, there were. But I hadn’t thought to stop; I’d come here as soon as Sperrin had left for his meeting, after practically forcing me to eat.

  “Thanks,” Guthre answered. “You look tired, and out of breath. And like you’ve been angry or crying, I’m not sure which. Why don’t you sit and have some water and tell me about it.” She gestured to a chair beside her bed, wincing a little as the motion tweaked her ribs. “There’s dried fruit if you want it. No fresh fruit anymore with the channelers who ran the hothouses gone, but they tell me they’ve been hoarding food like squirrels in this fortress since the Holy War days.” She picked a shriveled chunk out of the bowl. “They say this piece was picked by ’General Keir himself.”

  I forced a laugh, then sat in the chair.

  For a minute I sat without saying anything. I could feel Guthre watching me, but the scout didn’t break the silence. Then I felt tears on my cheeks. I tried to breathe and found myself sobbing uncontrollably.

  After a while I pulled myself together. Guthre had a supportive arm on my shoulder—her arm seemed to bother her less than her ribs—but stayed quiet until my sobbing subsided.

  “Rough day?” she said.

  That almost started me crying again. “I just...I feel dirty and betrayed and I don’t know who to talk to. We made it through all those dangers and now suddenly I feel like I can’t trust anyone.”

  Guthre looked puzzled. “You can trust me,” she said, a little tentatively. “I don’t know what happened, but you can talk to me if you want.” She looked around. “I don’t think anyone else is listening. I don’t know why they would be, anyway. We’re not exactly ’generals.”

  “Thanks,” I said with a sniffle. “And now I feel even dirtier. I need to find a bathhouse.”

  “There’s a washbasin in the corner,” Guthre said. “Clean up there, then tell me what’s wrong. You just got here, please don’t go yet.”

  Nodding shakily, I stood up and walked over to the basin. I washed my face and hands and thought about how filthy the rest of me was. Part of me wanted to sponge off, but I felt strangely self-conscious about undressing in front of Guthre. It wasn’t just the nakedness, although I felt unaccustomedly shy about revealing myself in front of the scout. I also didn’t know how I would explain the Snake Slayer armor (if it revealed itself) or the cased Talisman of Truce, still hidden between shirt and tunic at the small of my back.

  I didn’t think my father would get arrested before I could give it back to him. I felt anger surge in me again.

  Guthre saw the change in my features, apparently. “Come, sit and tell me about it,” the scout said.

  “They arrested my father,” I said. “Can you believe it? They won’t even tell me the charges.”

  Guthre snorted involuntarily, then caught herself. She seemed to choose her words carefully. “I know your father is very well-known. I’m sure they wouldn’t have arrested him without a very strong reason. It’s not like they’re going around arresting people for soldiers’ marriages or anything like that. Especially not now, when everyone is needed.”

  “There’s no reason,” I said. “It’s just politics. They see he’s in a weak position, so they want to get him out of the way.”

  “They?” asked Guthre. “Does anyone here actually benefit from arresting a popular leader like your father?”

  “Someone must think they do.”

  “Maybe,” Guthre said.

  “You think he did something wrong, too?

  “I don’t know him very well. So I really don’t know,” answered Guthre. “I know you love him, but it’s easier for me to believe that fathers can do evil things than it is for you. He never seemed to have a good word to say about you—he wasn’t even nice to you.”

  I brushed hair out of my face. “I know he loved me—he was just busy. And talking about his feelings for people isn’t his way.”

  “I don’t know, Ketya. He was pretty open with his feelings about a lot of people. You just never seemed to come up when he talked.”

  “The empire is in the middle of a disaster. He had much more important things to talk about.” I thought for a minute. “Besides, I don’t know why they arrested him, but I know they didn’t arrest him for not being nice to me.”

  Guthre shook her head. “Maybe not, but if he’d been a better person he would have been nice to you. Great leader or not, he couldn’t see what a wonderful, caring daughter he had.”

  Guthre took my hand to emphasize the point. Her grip felt warm, and reassuring somehow. I wanted to be angry at Guthre’s words, but instead found myself blushing, for no reason I could think of.

  Change the subject, I thought. “Guthre, what do you mean by ‘soldiers’ marriages’? I don’t think I’ve ever heard the term before.”

  “I guess you wouldn’t, in the palace. It’s a word for people who are in a relationship not set up by the Empress or her bureaucracy. It’s a way to be with someone you love, even if you would never be allowed to marry him or her. That’s the term for it in the army, anyway.”

  “Oh,” I said. The idea had never
occurred to me before. In my family, the Empress or her agents picked someone for you to marry, sent the marriage blossom that shared memories between you so you loved each other, and that was that. If I’d thought about it at all, I realized, it would have occurred to me that people probably fell in love all the time without magic involved. Mala had told me about her mother’s past relationship, after all, but it had never crossed my mind that it might happen often enough to have a name. “Do they really arrest people for that?”

  “Sometimes,” Guthre said. “It depends on how supportive your officers are, and how quiet you are about it. I don’t know how it works outside of the army. I guess the same way. A lot of people live that way for years, until the Empress or her agents pick out a partner for one of them.”

  I thought of Sperrin and the way his memories of wife and daughter had been lost. Not really the same thing, I supposed, but not so different in some ways, either.

  I realized Guthre and I were still holding hands, and felt myself blush again. But I didn’t let go.

  The brief conversation had visibly tired Guthre. She remained a long way from healed. I held the scout’s hand until Guthre’s eyes closed a few minutes later and she slept.

  Even if I didn’t agree with what Guthre had said, her words had calmed me. I remained upset, but much of the forcefulness of my anger had ebbed away while I watched Guthre falling asleep.

  * * * *

  Standing in the doorway of the hospital room, I stared out at the empty hall and tried to get my feelings under control. I knew I should ask Sperrin to help me visit my father when I got back, knew I should want to visit my father, but part of me dreaded the idea. It wasn’t that Guthre was right about my father—I knew how much my father really loved me, even if saying so wasn’t his way. I just didn’t have any answers for him. I still didn’t even know why he’d been arrested. To me it felt as if the moment had finally come when he really needed my help, and I was failing him—I didn’t even begin to know how to help him.