by JA Andrews
“And so they went, leaving the bodies of the ones they loved behind. They climbed through barren hills into Queensland, moving toward the town where the Keeper had been.
“Their eyes had seen nothing but drought and death for so long, they didn’t notice the shadows they crept through were cast by bare branches, and their footsteps were cushioned by dust and despair.
“When they found the Keeper, he lay in the corner of a cottage. His black robe, tattered and greyed with dust, was wrapped around a child. Their starved bodies clinging to each other in death.”
The whisper of the fire was the only sound among the Roven.
“The vengeance and hatred they’d brought into that place breathed its last, and crumbled to dust. The Baylonese went home empty, drawing out again their brittle, neglected prayers for rain and holding them gently on their parched tongues.”
The Roven before him were still. Will let the silence hang in the air, refusing to offer any more closure to the tale. He pressed his fist to his chest and bowed to the listeners, then to Killien. The Torch stared at Will with unreadable eyes. Not bothering to open up toward him, Will sat down.
Killien sat in the silence and looked at Will for a long moment. “Well,” he said, “the storyman knows how to spin a tale.”
It took a moment before the sounds of approval began. Exhaustion rolled over Will again as Killien called for more wine and the group around the fire dissolved into smaller conversations. Sora walked by, fixing Will with a look dripping with displeasure.
Hal moved over next to Will. “That was the most depressing story I’ve ever heard.” He handed Will a basket of bread and cheese.
Killien came over, passing small wineskins to Will and Hal. “That was quite a tale.”
Will shrugged. “You’re the one who asked for something about Keepers. I had something much more upbeat planned.”
“Next time let the storyman pick,” Hal said, taking a huge bite of bread. “I’m so depressed I can barely eat.”
“Agreed,” Killien said. “Next time he can pick. For now, let’s celebrate. We’re still alive.” He held up his wineskin toward Will. “And you put on quite a performance.”
“A performance depressing enough to lower even the spirits of the victors,” Hal agreed raising his wineskin.
“To the victors,” Killien said with a thin smile.
Will raised his as well, and took a drink. The wine slid down his throat bitter and rough while he watched the Torch walk away.
“What’d you do to piss off Killien?” Hal asked around a mouthful of cheese.
Will took another sip of his wine to give himself a moment to come up with an answer. “Maybe he didn’t like the story.”
Hal grunted. “No one liked that story.” He lifted his skin toward Will for a salute. “Tell something better next time. Something about dwarves.”
Will laughed. Starting the story of the dwarven princess who was so ugly she’d frightened a troll, he set about passing the time until the first watch changed and he and Sora could leave.
But before he’d reached the part where the trolls showed up, his eyes grew heavy.
“Don’t fall asleep on me,” Hal protested, shoving Will’s shoulder.
The big man slid out of focus.
“Will?” Hal’s voice came from a long distance away.
Huge hands shook his shoulders, but everything spun off in strange directions and his shoulders didn’t feel particularly well attached to the rest of him. The edges of the world began to turn black and Hal’s words grew more insistent.
The last thing Will heard was Killien coming closer.
“Hal,” the Torch said, his voice distant and cold. “Stop shaking the Keeper.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The walls, the floor, the very air was drenched with orange, like he lay inside a flame. Will’s tongue filled his mouth, thick and dry. When he pushed himself upright, a groan scraped out of his throat.
He sat on clay bed stuck to the clay wall, which curved up around him like a beehive. A cup and a bowl full of water sat below him on the floor. He grabbed for it and the tepid water felt like life rushing down his throat. He filled the cup three times before letting it fall from his fingers. A small window punctured the wall, showing still more orange clay. The tiny room was perfectly empty besides the cup, bowl, and bed.
He heaved himself to his feet. The world leaned to the left for a moment before pulling itself upright. Ducking through a low archway, he found another room with a wicker table and two chairs. Through the open doorway, bright sunlight raked down a cliff wall.
Will stumbled to the door.
Outside was nothing but stone and more clay. Across a thin path, no farther from the door than Will could reach, the ground dropped off sharply into a gully. Up the other side, barren cliffs rose at least three times his height. Behind him, another cliff jutted up toward a weak blue sky.
He was in a rift.
He stood at one end of it, on a path that wound past three more huts on its way to the far end where it zigzagged its way up the cliff to a pair of guards. Will cast out through the rift, but didn’t find a single hint of vitalle. There weren’t any living things closer than the guards.
He turned back, looking for the water and events of the goblin attack came back to him. He stretched his fingers and his palms ached, but not as terribly as before. They had begun to heal. A thin trickle of fear dribbled down his back. How long had he been here?
When he reached his room, a small lump at the foot of his bed caught his eye—a dead mouse. Talen knew where he was, for whatever that was worth. He sank onto the floor next to the water.
Killien knew he was a Keeper.
The thought thudded dully in his mind.
He let his head sink back against the bed. This felt…expected. As though it was only way this could have ended.
His eyes slid shut.
A scraping noise jolted him awake. Sharp pains ran down the muscles in his back as he jerked awake.
“Hello, Will.”
Will flinched at the calmness of the voice. Killien leaned against the wall relaxed, his face blank. Will opened up toward him and felt a surge of dark anger boil into his chest, dark and somehow cold.
“How do you like your accommodations?” Killien glanced around the room. “We call it the Grave.”
When Will didn’t answer, Killien ducked into the other room and sat at the table next to a plate of bread.
Will heaved himself up, suddenly ravenous. Three Roven guards stood at the outer door. Will sank down in the other chair, and a guard stepped behind him. None of them looked familiar. Or friendly.
“Why feed me if you’re just going to kill me?”
Killien pushed the plate closer to Will. “I wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of dragging you here if I was going to kill you.”
Will picked up the bread, his fingers clumsy around the bandages. It crumbled a bit with staleness, but no bread in the history of the world had tasted this good.
Killien settled back in his chair. “A Keeper. Right here in my clan.”
Will paused with a piece of bread half-way to his mouth.
“Sneaking and lying, right at my own table, right alongside me. For days.”
“What exactly would you have had me do?” Will dropped the bread onto the plate. “Introduce myself as a Keeper? That might have dampened our friendship.”
Killien’s face darkened. “We never had a friendship.”
The words struck deeper than Will expected, immediately followed by irritation that they had. “Would you have talked with me about books? History?” he asked, refusing to acknowledge the man’s words. “Would you have told me about your father?”
“I would have killed you,” Killien hissed, leaned forward. “And left your body to rot.”
“Then you can hardly blame me for lying.” Will picked up the piece of bread again. “If you’re so keen on killing me, why am I here?”
Kill
ien sat back, drawing in a breath, visibly trying to calm himself. “I’ve been reading your books.”
Will stiffened.
“You’ve been spying on the Roven for a year now. And you learned a lot from us…” Killien nodded to a guard who brought over a book. “Now I want to learn from you.”
The Gleaning of Souls glittered in silver across the blue leather.
Killien flipped open the book. Runes filled the page, similar to the ones Sini had given him. “Translate this.”
Will shook his head. “I can’t.”
Killien grew still, his eyes dangerous.
“I’m not saying that I won’t,” Will clarified. “I’m saying I can’t.”
“Queensland and the Sweep use the same written language, and the same runes.”
Will pointed at the runes. “These aren’t normal.”
“They’re ancient.”
“No. Ancient runes I can read.” He paused. “Sort of. These are different. I’ve never seen any like this.”
“I thought Keepers were brilliant scholars.” Killien’s voice was harsh.
“Most are. You captured the wrong one. But even if I could, I wouldn’t translate something called The Gleaning of Souls for a power-hungry Roven Torch.” Will shoved the book away. “So go ahead and kill me or whatever you have planned. Because I’m not helping you.”
“You do not understand—” Killien clenched his jaw. When he spoke, his calmness sounded strained. “I could kill you. But contrary to what you think, I’m not thirsting for the blood of my enemies. I’m looking for the quickest way to peace.”
Will let out a sharp laugh. “You won’t find that in a book by Kachig the Bloodless.”
When Killien spoke, it was quiet, spilling out onto the table like shards of ice. “I thought you might need convincing.” He motioned to the door and a guard stepped aside.
Ilsa walked in.
Chapter Twenty-Two
All the air left the room and Will’s body froze.
Ilsa gave the Torch a small bow and carried Will’s bag over to the table, never lifting her eyes off the floor. Her hair fell in a curtain across her face. Will opened up toward her and her nervousness rushed into his chest.
She set the bag down next to the table. Her eyes flicked up to Will’s face for the merest second, and he leaned toward her. She flinched away from the movement and his gut turned to ice at the spike of fear she felt. A guard took a threatening step forward.
“Thank you, Ilsa.” Killien waved her away, his eyes burning into Will.
Will started to rise, but the guard shoved him back down. Ilsa kept her head down and backed up against the wall.
“You’ll have to excuse Ilsa’s nervousness.” Killien spoke calmly, like he was discussing the weather. “Imagine her surprise when she found out she’d spoken several times with a Keeper. She’s relieved she didn’t anger you. She says you often seemed agitated.”
Will dragged his gaze back to Killien. “How…?”
“I told you that your books made fascinating reading,” Killien said.
Of course. His search for Ilsa had been written in his books starting long before he’d met the Morrow. She moved quickly back from the table and Will searched her face to see if Killien had told her, but she didn’t look like someone who was worried about anything as complicated as having a new brother. She was looking at him more the way one might look at a snake that might be poisonous.
Killien set his hand on Will’s bag. “They gave me so much insight into why you were on the Sweep. What you’ve been looking for all this time. I thought about keeping them for myself, but I’ve decided to let you have access to them, in case they are helpful to you while you work.”
Killien stood, leaning on the table until Will had to look up to meet his gaze. “Translate those runes, Keeper, or…” He let the threat hang unfinished.
Killien walked out the door, followed by Ilsa and the guards
Will dropped his head into his hands. It felt heavy, his arms hollow and shaky.
Killien had Ilsa. The thought stopped every other thing in his mind.
Whatever hope he’d had of freeing her from the Morrow crumbled to ash.
The gnawing fear of what Killien could do to her forced his head up. He pulled Kachig’s book closer.
The silver medallion was back on the cover, a drip of hardened resin running along the edge. Four daggers split the disk into quarters. Intertwined around the blades were strings of runes connected with thin, snaking lines. Or maybe they weren’t runes. There was something odd about them, something ominous. In the very center of the medallion, in a small square formed by the hilts, there was just smooth silver. Except it didn’t reflect light right. It was somehow both silver and dark at the same time, and that darkness made the emptiness into something horrible.
Will leaned forward, his gaze drawn along a path of the symbols. It pulled at him gently, but persistently. None of the runes were recognizable, and the daggers themselves were part of the path. A shadowy sort of haze fell over his mind and he wrenched his eyes away and flipped the book open.
The strange runes covered the page in faded black ink. There was no way he was going to be able to read this. He scanned the page, looking for anything he recognized. Each time he found one, age, exhaustion, coldness, death, there was something wrong with it. As though it had been broken and put back together with too many pieces.
Something scuffed outside and Lukas limped in the door, followed by Sini. She carried a large pitcher to the table.
“I don’t suppose that’s saso?” Will asked.
She shook her head, with a little smile and pulled a stack of small papers and a jar of ink from her pocket.
“Prisoners don’t get saso,” Lukas said. “Back away from him, Sini.”
“It’s alright, Lukas.” The girl added a short stub of a candle to the table.
“I’m not going to hurt her.” Will worked to keep his voice even.
Lukas set a book on the table and Will picked it up. It was a dictionary of runes. Lukas took a step and his leg twisted awkwardly. He grabbed the chair, a grimace crossing his face.
“I might be able to help with the pain—” Will stopped at the look of undisguised hatred Lukas shot him.
“Ah, the great Keeper will fix everything.” Lukas's knuckles whitened around the back of the chair. “You’re fifteen years too late to help me.”
Will lay the book down on the table, guilt snaking into him. “The wayfarers took my sister twenty years ago, but we thought it was an isolated event. No one knew they were still taking random children. If we knew—if the Queen knew—”
“Can you translate the runes?” Lukas interrupted.
Will fought against all the other things he wanted to say, before letting the topic of the wayfarers drop. “I’m working on it.”
“I for one, don’t think you’ll be able to.” Lukas turned and limped toward the door. “Which means Killien will kill you soon. I just hope it’s before I have to walk all the way out here again. Come on, Sini.” Without looking back, he left.
Sini gave Will a smile, half apologetic and half worried, and followed.
Queensland had failed these two. The Keepers had failed them. The wayfarers had been taking children all this time. He dropped his head into his hands, fury and impotence clashing against each other.
When he got home, he was taking this to the queen.
If he got home.
He forced himself to focus on the book again, and on the next page, one of the runes looked familiar. Grabbing his own bag, he unwrapped his books and flipped through one of them, searching through his writing for a specific page. Someone else’s handwriting caught his eye. Will had recorded what he knew about the death of Killien’s father, but underneath, in bold strokes, new words had been added.
Tevien, Torch of the Morrow, was betrayed by a man he trusted.
A man who lied about everything he was and everything he wanted.
&nbs
p; A man who befriended him to sneak and spy and destroy.
Will let out a long sigh and flipped to a page with six runes he’d drawn down the side, each formed in the same sort of odd way as the ones in Kachig’s book. He’d seen them months ago embroidered on a robe worn by a stonesteep in Tun. Will had walked behind him for ages memorizing the shapes so he could record them. Next to them were written guesses at their meaning, but they weren’t good guesses.
There was a flutter at the window as Talen flew in and landed on the table, a mouse hanging from his beak.
Will ran a finger down the hawk’s neck. “Good morning. How do you like our new home?” He pulled his bedroll out of his bag and took it over to the bed. “There.”
Talen flew over to the blanket and picked at it with his beak.
“Have you seen Shadow?” Will sat next to the bird. “Or Rass? I haven’t seen her since…” Before the goblin attacks. A little knot of worry for the little girl sat in his stomach. “Or have you seen Sora? She’s sharp enough to stay safe from Killien. Right?”
Talen let out a loud squawk.
“I wonder if I’m ever going to stop wishing you could talk to me.” Will slumped back against the wall. “This place is so…lifeless. I’m surprised you came back.”
Talen turned and launched into the air, flapping out the door of the hut, and soaring up into the sky.
Will stared after him for a moment. “Although I suppose this place isn’t as bad when you’re free to fly away.”
He trudged back to the table. There had to be a way to read these runes. He rubbed at his face, trying to push away his frustration and focus on the book.