The Lost Daughters

by Leigh Grossman

  “I don’t respect him anymore,” I said.

  “Of course you don’t,” Guthre answered, but I hadn’t fooled either of us.

  I tried again. “I don’t begrudge his love for his dead wife.”

  Guthre shrugged again. “People move on. You don’t seem real broken up about my mom’s death.”

  “We’d been apart a long time. Even when we were still together.”

  Guthre nodded. “That’s about how I feel. She spent a lot of time angry, but not always at the people who actually hurt her. I don’t know if she was always like that.”

  “Not always,” I said. “But sometimes. She loved you when I knew her.”

  “Maybe. She didn’t show it much. She didn’t show a lot of feelings by the end.”

  “She made the best of the situation, I’m sure. My leaving must have hurt her. She’d had a very comfortable life up until then, even if I wasn’t in it much.”

  Guthre spat again. “You’re pretty quick to defend her,” she said. “But you weren’t there to see it when she didn’t defend me. Or when I was taking the hurts that beast of a man meant for her. She could have been grateful, instead of pretendng I didn’t exist. Instead of running away and leaving me alone with him.” She wiped a hand across her eyes, but I saw no tears.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry I left you behind.”

  “It’s not like you wanted to. The Empress made you leave. Blame her.”

  “I asked for the palace assignment,” I said. “I didn’t realize it meant losing my memory.”

  “And she didn’t tell you about it, either. Nobody did. You spent your whole life defending her and fighting in her wars, and she treated you like a pet or a doll.”

  “She was the Empress,” I said. “I’m sure she had her reasons.”

  “I’m sure she did.” Guthre didn’t even try to keep the bitterness from her voice. “And now she’s dead and I can’t say I’m sorry. I’m glad we’re getting the magic back, but I hope whoever is the next Empress knows the difference between playing dress-up with dolls and ruining people’s lives.”

  I didn’t answer. I honestly had never thought of anything the Empress did as good or evil or just or unjust. She was the Empress. The magic flowed through her. She did whatever she wanted and I had always assumed she had her reasons.

  Of course, the chancellor had his reasons too.

  * * * *

  The chancellor really wanted us to return to Westbarrow and the barrow entrance he had used. His enthusiasm made me more than a little suspicious. Guthre might be right about me retaining too much respect for the man, but that wasn’t the same as trustng him. The chancellor had his own agenda; I didn’t think it would bother him if we succeeded in restoring the magic, but he didn’t care if we failed, either. If he saw a way of returning safely to wherever it was the god had left his wife that didn’t require my assistance, the chancellor wouldn’t hesitate to betray us again.

  “Why are we leaving the trail early?” the chancellor asked me when I turned onto a sidetrack with hours of light remaining in the day. Ketya looked at me quizzically as well. She must not recognize the place in daylight, I thought.

  Then recognition colored her face as I turned the key in the lock and opened the hidden stone door. “It’s the mountain shelter,” she said, “the one where you started teaching me to use a knife.”

  I smiled. “I hope you still remember those lessons.”

  “Of course.” Ketya looked a little self-conscious about her knife skills in front of Guthre. “I mean, I’m not all that good, but I’ll do what I need to.”

  “You killed a wolf.”

  “I slowed a wolf down,” she pointed out. “You killed it.”

  They followed me into the mountain hideaway. Not surprisingly, no one had been here since our flight from the Drowned City. I dropped my pack on top of the pallet that hid the passage downward that Ketya and I had followed. It would wait until tomorrow.

  “Eat well, and get a good night’s sleep,” I told them all. “It may be a long time before we get to rest again.”

  Guthre smiled impishly at me. “Whatever you say, father.”

  Ketya

  The Mountain Road: Eight weeks after the Loss

  Sperrin and my father shared one of the barracks rooms, while Guthre and I took the other. With Guthre’s help, I dragged a tub into our room and filled it with buckets of water heated on the stove.

  “It seems like a lot of work,” Guthre told me, bemused. “I thought we were supposed to be resting, not carrying buckets of water.”

  “We can rest in a little while,” I said. “We are going to visit the gods tomorrow, and we are going to be presentable. I am not going to do it covered with trail grime.”

  “If it makes you happy.” Guthre shrugged. “Do you really think it will make a difference?”

  “It will make a difference to me,” I said. “If I have to talk to gods, I don’t want to be dirty and self-conscious.”

  Guthre laughed. “Ketya, you’re self-conscious about getting undressed in front of me. How are you going to be more comfortable with the gods?”

  I blushed. “That’s different.”

  “Of course it is,” said Guthre, but she didn’t tease any further. “Do you want me to go in the other room until you’re done?”

  I took a deep breath. “No. You can stay.”

  Guthre made a point of walking across the room and sitting with her back to me, so we could still talk while giving me some privacy.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m so shy around you.”

  Guthre seemed amused by that, but didn’t elaborate. “It’s all right. Just save me some hot water.”

  “I will.”

  “And don’t get so shy that you can’t check my bandages.”

  I was glad Guthre couldn’t see me blush again.

  Why am I so shy around her? I was never this shy at the Academy. Or around Tenia.

  I toweled off and got partly dressed, pulling an overshirt over the snake slayer armor so I wouldn’t have to explain it to Guthre. Then I relinquished the tub.

  Guthre seemed to have no shyness at all; I wondered if she was making a point. Nor did I turn away like Guthre had: I had changed Guthre’s bandages, but somehow seeing the scout walking naked to the tub felt different. Unclothed, Guthre looked thinner, too thin to run and fight as long as she had. Even from across the room, I could see half a dozen scars that I hadn’t seen before. Guthre stretched once, like a cat, then stepped into the tub. Only then did her eyes meet mine.

  I didn’t know how to read Guthre’s wolfish smile. Neither of us said anything until after Guthre finished bathing.

  The scout’s wounds seemed mostly healed, even if they still pained her. I checked all of them carefully and changed the bandages on the few that still required them. “Did I hurt you?” I asked, when Guthre jumped slightly at my touch.

  “I’m fine,” Guthre said, but I pulled back, afraid to hurt her again.

  We used the leftover water to wash some of our clothes, hanging them from the shelves near the stove to dry. Then I set a few extra candles near the room’s small mirror and started combing out my hair.

  “Your hair is so long,” said Guthre. “Doesn’t it get in your way on the trail?”

  “I guess. I hope we won’t be spending too much more time on the trail.” I thought about it for a moment. “I guess that cutting my hair would feel like admitting that we can’t fix the problem. And I don’t want to give up on getting the magic back.”

  “Sure,” said Guthre. “I can braid it if you want. Then it will be easier to manage on the trail.”

  “That would be nice,” I said.

  Guthre’s hands in my hair felt soothing. No one had braided my hair since my mother’s death. It brought back memories of a happier time.

  When Guthre started rubbing my shoulders, I felt myself leaning back, comletely relaxed. “You’re going to put me to sleep,” I said.

>   Guthre sighed.

  “Did I say something wrong?” I asked. My brain felt fuzzy. I hadn’t been this relaxed for as long as I could remember.

  “No, it’s all right. You really are sweet and innocent, you know that, Ketya? You deserved a better father than the one you got.”

  It seemed a strange thing to say. I didn’t really want to think. I just wanted to relax and enjoy Guthre’s hands on my shoulders. “Thanks, I think. You deserved a lot better than your stepfather.”

  “I learned from it. Deserve it or not, he made me stronger. I just wish I’d killed him.”

  Guthre kept massaging my shoulders and neck. Talking about her stepfather didn’t seem to disturb Guthre, the way I had trouble talking about my own father.

  “Besides,” said Guthre, “I have a better father now.”

  “You always did,” I said, drifting almost to sleep. “He just forgot.”

  “I’m still getting used to the idea,” Guthre admitted. “It’s weird. I thought I had a terrible father and turned out to have a good one. And you thought you had a good father and he turned out to be terrible.”

  “I know. It’s a little funny.” I felt like I was very far away, and somehow that made it easier to talk about my father. “You know, even after everything, I couldn’t hurt him. I still feel like he loves me, no matter what he says. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to him.”

  Guthre’s hands paused for a moment, then resumed, easing the years of stress from my shoulders and neck. “You know, it’s weird,” said Guthre. “I think Sperrin feels the same way. Your father might be the one person he can’t kill. He doesn’t like your father, but he has some weird sort of respect for him.”

  “My father’s not the only one,” I protested. “Sperrin wouldn’t hurt me. And he would never hurt you. Not now that he knows you’re his daughter.”

  “That will still take some getting used to,” said Guthre.

  “Have you two talked about it yet?”

  The question seemed to baffle Guthre. “Talked about it? Why would we talk about it?”

  When I felt so relaxed I couldn’t sit upright anymore, Guthre gently laid me on my side on one of the pallets. Then she curled up behind me and pulled a blanket over both of us. Guthre put an arm around my waist and held me close, and it felt nice.

  The last thing I heard before drifting into a peaceful sleep was Guthre’s voice feather-light in my ear, sounding a little wistful: “Next time we’re bathing together, remind me to tell you a bit more about soldiers’ marriages.”

  Chapter 26

  Ketya

  The Mountain Road: Eight weeks after the Loss

  Some bridges can’t be uncrossed. It was hard to believe just how utterly I had trusted my father the last time we had been in the mountain hideaway. I guess a part of me hadn’t trusted him completely, because I didn’t tell him that I had the Talisman with me, but even then I told myself it was just until he went back to being his old self.

  His old self had been responsible for killing almost everyone I knew.

  No one ever said I had great judgment—my father was the one who could read people by looking at them, not me. I just did what I thought he wanted me to, did my best to follow his lead and his instructions.

  I’d thought he was teaching me.

  The mountain hideout was when I started keeping secrets from him. When I took the Talisman from his room it was only an impulse, and I planned to tell him as soon as he recovered. When I went down the trapdoor with Sperrin, I was deliberately keeping what I was doing secret from my father. I hated lying to him.

  Now, we were back, and it turned out he had been the one lying to me all along.

  * * * *

  “How do we find Kedessen?” Sperrin asked as we uncovered the trapdoor the next morning. If the presence of the trapdoor surprised the chancellor, he didn’t show it.

  “I didn’t need to,” the chancellor said. “He found me.”

  “Is that right?” said Sperrin, looking at me rather than my father.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but I don’t think so. I think we need to call on him, at least the way I read the treaty.”

  “Think what you want,” her father said. “We’ll see who understands the treaty better.”

  “Clause 177,” I said, and noticed my father didn’t meet my eye.

  It felt strange. I had been so dependent on Sperrin and others for so long. Now I would be the one they were counting on to know the treaty and to keep all of us out of trouble. As long as my father couldn’t be trusted, Sperrin’s and Guthre’s lives were in my hands.

  How did I feel about that? Better than I would have a few weeks ago.

  Sperrin deferred a little to me when he opened the trap door again. He took the lead in case of danger, but made sure I had a chance to warn of any hidden dangers or old magic. Guthre protected our rear, her blade drawn.

  When we came to the hidden passage, I had to take the lead. Finally, I stood in front of the sealed door.

  “Anything we should know before unsealing it?” Sperrin asked the chancellor. “Since you’ve done this before.”

  “You would be a lot safer to take the passage from Westbarrow,” he said, but mostly he had given up that fight. “I would be surprised if you can open it. There are steps to follow.”

  Sperrin snorted. “You know the steps, right, Ketya.”

  “I think so. It will be my first try.”

  “Do it then.”

  “You’re sure?” Standing in front of the door with its magical bindings, I felt much less confident than I had in the chamber above.

  “You’re not going to make things any worse,” said Sperrin.

  That seemed true enough, anyway.

  Handing my candle to Sperrin, I put my palm against the rune of binding, felt its blue warmth. The rune flashed brightly. My shoulders tingled, as if a spark had shocked against the Snake Slayer armor I wore. As the binding faded, all of the other runes seemed to come unraveled. I stood in front of a blank door of heavy wood. Lifting the bolt, I swung the door open and stepped through.

  At first, little seemed to change.

  The candle flames flickered at the hint of a breeze ahead. After a few steps, I felt a burning in my calves. I reached down. My knives felt hot to the touch. I pulled them from my boots and dropped them hurriedly, then brought singed fingers to my mouth.

  “Oww,” Guthre said. “What’s going on?”

  “I think the gods don’t want us to bring weapons,” I said.

  “Something else your father didn’t tell us?” Guthre gave the chancellor a predatory look.

  “Do I look like a soldier?” he said mildly. “How would I know if weapons work or not?”

  Only Sperrin’s heavy black blade seemed unaffected by the otherworldly heat. “This sword is from the Holy War,” he said in answer to my questioning look. “It has faced gods before.”

  “At least one of us has a weapon,” I answered.

  “We will find others,” he said. Removing two thin-bladed black knives from sheathes in his sleeves, Sperrin passed one to Guthre and the other to me. “These were made with old magic as well. Everything else I have is just as unusable as your weapons.”

  We left the heated weapons piled haphazardly as we moved forward.

  “Your father had better be telling the truth about the sentries,” said Guthre.

  “Why would I lie when my life is at stake, too?” the chancellor answered.

  I shushed them both as we moved forward. The Snake Slayer armor had begun to warm against my skin. Not like the heat of the weapons, but a soothing warmth. It felt like the warmth when I had first put the armor on, but magnified. The armor belonged here, I could feel it. It hadn’t been made by the gods. It was made to face gods, I knew all at once. I felt protected. My arms glowed as the armor shone through my outer clothes. I wondered if the others could see it.

  Glancing back, I saw a similar glow around my father. As I had
supposed, he still wore the Mouse King suit.

  “Why are you glowing?” Sperrin asked the chancellor.

  My father shed his overshirt and revealed the Mouse King suit beneath. It glowed a sort of metallic orange in the darkness, its shiny cloth flickering as if aflame. The hood with its mouse ears hung over his shoulders, its glow illuminating his hair.

  “It is proper attire for this place,” the chancellor said. “The gods will not speak to anyone who is not dressed properly. It is a matter of respect. The treaty is quite clear on the point.” He smiled. “Be glad they will speak to one of us. Your hopes hinge on what you can persuade me to tell them.”

  “Is that so?” Sperrin said. He echoed the same mild tone my father had used earlier. “Perhaps you should look to your daughter.”

  Moving with deliberate slowness, trying to show the confidence I had lacked in front of Guthre the night before, I peeled off my own tunic, revealing the glittering silver filigree of the Snake Slayer armor beneath. I removed the Talisman from the small of my back and held it inobtrusively.

  My father’s smile faded, but he said nothing. After a moment we resumed walking.

  We found ourselves on stone stairs, winding slowly downward. The rough-hewn walls to either side widened gradually as the cavern grew less close.

  Candlelight reflected off the stairs as they grew smoother. Soon we walked on a polished staircase, white as milk. Reaching down, I touched the stone. It felt warm to the touch. The walls held no more blue runes now, as the old magical protections retreated before the land of the gods.

  We walked on silently, our boots making no sound against the alabaster of the stairs. The walls faded further to either side. After a while, I saw stars glimmering above: We had passed into the night sky of another world. The stairs spiraled downward through open air, lit by an impossibly full moon. Looking back up, the stairs seemed to spiral into the sky. I couldn’t see any signs of the cavern walls that had surrounded us, just a moonlit starscape. Far below, the stairs vanished into woodland. The ground seemed like a patchwork of woods and meadows and hilltop castles. Lights flickered here and there like fireflies, but none of the castles seemed to be illuminated, except by moonlight.