by Rachel Dunne
“They’re just jealous,” Anddyr had said fiercely, proudly.
Anddyr reached the cappo’s side without seeming to attract any attention. He stood at the center of a mass of people and might as well have been invisible. It would have made his younger self furious, the Anddyr he had been who’d dreamed of drawing crowds, of commanding attention. It made him wince now, both the memory and the thought of actually attracting attention. He was a shadow, a thing that slipped by unnoticed.
Quietly, lips barely moving, Anddyr released the spell. No one else took any notice, but Anddyr could sense the slight thrum in the air, the feel of live magic. He could think of no other spells to prepare—that wasn’t true, but the one spell his foggy mind could always think of also made him think of blackened grass and charred bodies, and he doubted he’d ever be able to cast that one again. So he stood, hands and lips still, and waited amid the shouting and the swirling anger.
“I will leave,” the cappo was shouting, “when you give me what’s mine.”
A man stepped forward from the crowd, dressed in mixed scraps of clothing that were no better than rags, though a thick fur cloak lay across his shoulders. His hands were wrapped with stained leather, and curled around the thick haft of an axe. They chopped wood here in Aardanel, penance for the prisoners and useful for the rest of the realm when it was shipped south. Anddyr didn’t think the manacles around the man’s wrists would at all hinder his swinging the axe. “You’ll leave with what you’ve already got,” the man rumbled, his voice like grinding stone, “or you’ll leave without your arms. Man don’t taste much different from horse.”
Words died in the cappo’s mouth, and his face paled. Anddyr watched as he seemed to notice for the first time the crowd he’d drawn, the cold anger roiling around him. Anddyr saw the moment he realized the mistake he’d made. It gave Anddyr a little joy, though it was tempered by the fact that he might very well die alongside the cappo.
Joros held his hands up in a placating gesture, but Anddyr saw that his eyes had gone hard. He never made a habit of losing, and didn’t take well to it when it did happen. “Listen,” the cappo said levelly, “I think we misunderstand each other . . .”
The big convict-warden who’d been facing off with Joros spat at the cappo’s feet. “Heard you well enough, I think. You wanna start singing a new song?”
Anddyr wondered where the wardens were, the real wardens who didn’t have crosses and manacles. Surely they’d come disperse the crowd, calm the convicts and send them back to work. With a sick sinking in his stomach, Anddyr saw that there were blue-uniformed wardens among the crowd, and they had the same hard, hateful looks as the convicts. Men weren’t all that different, when it came to the simple things. There’d be no help from the wardens. It was left to Anddyr, and the cappo.
Anddyr had known from the start how this would end. There was only ever one way with the cappo.
Joros’s face settled into a sneer, and his fingers flicked subtly at Anddyr in a silent command. With his stomach twisting, Anddyr began weaving a different spell, one that would hit the warden-convict first and then go jumping from man to man, leaving behind blackened and dead flesh. Anddyr had always hated that spell, even before, when he’d been himself; it was one of the cappo’s favorites. “I will have all of my horses,” the cappo growled, “dead and alive. I will have what’s mine.” Anddyr winced as the cappo drew his short sword and brought it swinging around, aiming for the axe-wielder’s neck.
He might have landed the blow successfully. He had surprise on his side, and if he wasn’t a master swordsman, he still knew how to use the blade well enough. He might have taken the man’s head clean off, and Anddyr truly didn’t know if that would have ended the matter or brought the storm crashing down.
He would never know, because two crossed daggers caught the sword and twisted it down and away. Joros swung around to face the new assailant, and his eyes narrowed at Rora. She stood ready, body loose, daggers easy in her hands, but there was a fury in her face to match the cappo’s. He snarled as he wrenched his sword up and swung it again, aiming this time for Rora.
Anddyr dropped the spell, and any thought of weaving a new one. There was no thought save panic. The magic dispersed half-formed, a crackle in the air that made Anddyr’s hair frizz and sent sparks dancing along the cappo’s sword. Anddyr threw himself forward with a scream that might have been her name.
His chest collided with the cappo’s back and the force bore them both down to the ground, breaths exploding in simultaneous whuffs. Dimly Anddyr saw the cappo’s fingers fly open around the sword and he would have sighed with relief if he’d had any air. Rora grabbed the sword, and her eyes briefly met Anddyr’s. Her expression could have been gratitude.
She didn’t sheathe her daggers or the sword, but she held both hands up high, blades loose in her fingers. She was shorter even than some of the scrawny children that roamed Aardanel, but Anddyr could sense the crowd’s attention shifting to her. “We’ll leave,” she said loudly enough to be heard by all. “Let us go peaceful and we won’t give you any more trouble. We’ll take the three horses. You keep what meat you need—payment, for letting us stay here. We’re thankful to you for that.” Anddyr didn’t know how she did it with her hands full of blades, and he didn’t see her fingers move, but suddenly a heavy pouch hung from her hand. She shook it, and the clink of coins was loud in the waiting silence. “We’re real thankful,” she said for emphasis.
Faces transformed around them, anger melting away to greed almost too quickly to follow. They had no use for coin, so far away from the wider world, but Anddyr had learned over the years that avarice existed under any and all conditions.
“We’ll let ya leave,” the convict-warden said amiably. He stepped toward Rora with a smile on his face that was all teeth. “Just a misunderstandin’, like he says. No trouble.” He held out both hands, strung together by a heavy slithering-snake chain. “No trouble at all.”
Anddyr pushed himself up to his feet, his chest aching from the tackle, and the cappo rose like a storm cloud. Rora tossed the pouch, sending it high over heads and belatedly reaching hands, but she was turning before it had even left her fingers. “Come on,” she said as she brushed by Anddyr. He glanced at the cappo and hesitated a moment, but he’d already thrown the man down; if he was in trouble with the cappo, he was already in as great a trouble as was possible. He grabbed the cappo’s arm and pulled.
Anddyr wove after Rora’s slight form through the rank, pressing crowd, all trying desperately to go in the direction the money had gone. Panic was growing in Anddyr, the panic of fighting a river’s current, knowing that in enough time, the current would win. He flailed his arms, kicked desperately, choked on the rising tide—but finally they broke free from the bodies, washed up on the empty shoreline of humanity. Rora dropped all pretense, legs pumping as she ran in the direction of the gate. Anddyr let go of the cappo’s arm and raced after her, his chest pounding with a strange euphoria. He hadn’t died after all.
The merra and Rora’s brother were waiting at the gate, each on a horse, the merra holding a third. Anddyr was relieved to see the horses, even though two were missing from the five that had walked into Aardanel. He would mourn for them later, he promised himself, briefly touching the spot above his hip where the stuffed horse was tucked inside his robe.
Rora swung up onto the horse behind her brother, making it look the most graceful thing in the world. The cappo, his jaw set and his face holding all the storminess that had been directed at him so recently, claimed the riderless horse even though it was the Northman’s. It was strange, not having the man’s solid presence around. The cappo dug his heels into the horse’s sides, and she nearly threw him before he wrenched her chin close to her neck. Anddyr winced in sympathy, but there was nothing he could do for the poor thing. She left Aardanel at a trot that wanted to break into a canter.
Anddyr glanced at the merra, expecting her to glare at him. Her face was blank, though,
her eyes far away and troubled. There was an angry cast to her lips.
“Come on,” Rora snapped.
Anddyr climbed carefully up behind the merra, and she didn’t react or resist when he pried the reins gently from her hands. He knew this horse, he knew them all, and she wouldn’t be happy about the extra weight of carrying two riders, but Anddyr understood the importance of making a quick exit. He sent the horse after Rora, through the gates of Aardanel and into the blowing snow.
CHAPTER FIVE
If there was a lesson Joros had learned in all of this, it was that no one should bother doing the right thing. It was a good enough lesson to keep him warm on the long ride out of Aardanel, along what could barely be called a goat trail but was apparently the finest road in all the North. It might even be the only road in the North, since Joros had now seen more of the North than he ever would have wanted to, and if there were any other roads they’d been thoroughy covered by snow. This footpath was the closest thing to civilization he’d seen in weeks. It almost made him want to feel joy or relief or something foolish like hope, but he had to be careful—if he let things like that start seeping through his pervading anger, there was no telling what else they might bring with them.
The others were mercifully silent, even mumbling Anddyr, and he hoped they were considering their own lessons. The merra, who normally would have been filling any stretch of travel with prayers or ham-fisted preaching, was more shaken, it seemed, by the Northman’s departure even than Joros. Occasionally, as she stared relentlessly into the middle distance, her scar-seamed face almost took on a look of anger—though, with the mess of her face, one emotion looked very much like any other.
The Northman’s perfidy stung, for it left Joros severely lacking in the brute muscle he’d been planning to throw at any of the Fallen that tried to get in his way. A powerful and competent killer was an asset, and the best he had now was half of each: Rora, who was competent but a weak sneakthief, and Anddyr, who was powerful but laughably far from competent. That made Joros vulnerable, made his carefully laid plans vulnerable.
The Northman also made him think of the other recent betrayal—and that one had a sharper sting. Red hair and a ready smile and the lie that she cared, the lie she told him right until the end. Dirrakara had earned his trust, vowed she was always on his side, forced him to care—and then betrayed him for the prospect of advancement. It was the sort of thing terrible plays were made of.
He’d gotten his storybook revenge, though, the evil witch punished, Joros triumphant. She was gone, dead, her hold on him ended. He should be elated that he’d removed such a powerful pawn, that he’d gotten revenge for the personal betrayal. He should be celebrating.
But no, instead he held on to the anger, the sting of her betrayal, because he could feel—under the triumph and the joy and the relief—other things lurking . . . sadness, remorse, regret. Those were emotions for weaker men, and Joros had never been able to afford to be weak. It was better to hold tight to his anger, pure and catalytic, that let him keep his sharp edge of focus.
He kept seeing her face, because it was how he reminded himself how much he hated her, and he kept telling himself how necessary it had been. Dirrakara had been one of the brightest stars among the Fallen, and killing her was a sharp blow to their power. Killing her weakened the Fallen, helped his own cause. Killing her had been what he needed to do.
It was taking on the feeling of a litany.
The sun dipped behind the trees, sending shadows creeping along the pathetic little road. The merra blinked out of her daze; something about the creeping darkness seemed to shake her senses loose. “Fire,” she croaked, and the suddenness of her voice nearly sent Anddyr tumbling off the back of the horse they shared.
“We should probably stop,” Rora ventured. “Don’t think any of us’ve slept more’n a few hours the last few nights.”
Joros pulled back on his horse’s reins to stop it, and the rest of them took that for the sign it was. They went about setting up camp while Joros stood against a tree, staring at nothing and trying to keep ahold of his anger. Usually it was a matter of keeping his anger under control, keeping it from slipping the bit and dropping into a gallop of full-blown, incandescent rage. This was different, unexpected, and for the most part unprecedented—an anger that wanted to fizzle away into something soft and anemic.
It had been easy in Aardanel, surrounded by so much rampant stupidity. But here, with no dead horses, no pompous wardens, no traitorous Northmen . . . it was harder to feel that driving rage. He kept seeing Dirrakara’s face, and it made those weak emotions stronger, made them swell, threatening to overpower. Unlike the spiraling anger that had punched his sword—repeatedly—through her chest, it was all fading into an uncomfortable, foolish sort of melancholy.
He missed her.
Despite her betrayal, despite her siding against him, despite the fact that he’d only ever intended for her to be a useful tool, a means to his end, a pretty if idealistic pawn . . . despite all of it, he missed her.
When it came down to it, he supposed her betrayal hadn’t been her own fault—she’d fully bought in to the story the Fallen spewed, hitched her hopes to the seemingly hopeless. So when Valrik . . .
Ah. Now there was a stone against which he could sharpen his anger.
Valrik Uniro, the pompous leader of the Fallen, was either a world-class charlatan or the terrifying sort of zealot who deeply believed his own lies. That Valrik had stabbed out his own eyes, like a common drudging preacher, meant he had to be one of the two. And Dirrakara, blind to reason, had always trusted him—she’d seemed to regard Valrik as something of a father figure, though Joros had never seen him act anything like paternal.
Valrik had never made a secret of his distaste for Joros, and Valrik’s rise to power had changed everything. It had spelled the end of Joros’s power among the Fallen. Oh, he could have spent the rest of his days doing menial tasks for the new Uniro, letting Valrik take credit for Joros’s achievements . . . But in the moment, when Valrik had taken away Joros’s crowning achievement and dismissed him like a servant, the only reasonable choice had been to disavow the Fallen and instead vow to salt the earth in their plans.
He’d aligned himself with the Parents, because they were the only other option, and so he’d thrown his support wholeheartedly behind them. He was trying to do the right thing. He was going to save the world.
But it would be really fecking nice if anyone else could be bothered enough to help him. No matter how many plans he made, how many contingencies he thought through, inevitably one of the idiots stomped through and buggered everything.
Joros had never been the type to give up, and he wasn’t so broken now that his will would crumble like shattered stone. There were always choices, always a new tack to take. And now . . . now he had even more reason. He would continue to fight the Fallen, to abort their plans at every turn . . . and he would destroy Valrik, for what he’d done to Joros, and for what he’d forced Dirrakara to do to Joros. And he’d be damned if he was going to let anything stop him.
His temper had always held everything else in check—it swept over the weaker emotions, made him sharp and vicious, made him into the perfect weapon to cut through any who dared stand in his way. He could hold on to that honing anger, so long as he didn’t think of Dirrakara’s face. If she drifted through his mind, he vowed to instead think of Valrik, the bastard who would pay for all he’d done.
It was a darkly comforting decision, and he went to help the merra throw wood into the growing fire.
They had brought no food with them from Aardanel; all they had to eat were some berries Aro found and a bark Anddyr swore was safe for eating. Joros swallowed one foul berry at a time, choking them down like those weaker emotions, and let the pitiful meal further hone the weapon of his anger. In the sky, two red points stared at him—Sororra’s Eyes, and they burned into Joros like a judgment.
No one broke the silence until both the sun and the
berries were gone, the crack of the fire loud in the darkness. Finally Rora asked, “Where is it we’re going, then?”
“To destroy the other pieces of Fratarro’s body,” the merra said immediately, staring into the flames as she was wont to do. She looked intensely focused on whatever she thought she saw there; Joros was genuinely surprised she was paying attention to anything else.
Rora’s eyes flicked to her, then returned to Joros. She didn’t say anything; she clearly knew the value of a silence that needed filling. Much as he hated to admit it, Rora was his best chance now at any kind of success. In all his planning, there was no path to victory that wasn’t littered with at least a few bodies . . . and with the Northman gone, Rora was the only willing killer Joros had left.
There was a trick to roping in followers, and Joros had learned it well in his years among the Fallen. He’d led the Shadowseekers, a specialized group of preachers who, more often than not, had been unknowingly buoying Joros along in his rise through the ranks. The trick was to give enough information that they felt important, trusted, vital . . . give them enough back-patting that they wouldn’t start asking the questions he didn’t want to answer. For Joros, who’d been raised in a family of petty squabblers that hoarded secrets like coins, it was a delicate balance: share enough knowledge to stop the questions, and retain enough to keep the others from thinking they could start making their own plans. He said, “The Twins are tied together—bound together, if you will—at their very core. One cannot exist without the other, and if one is weakened, the other is made weak as well. Destroy one twin, and you destroy them both. Simple enough.” He even tried a smile—Twins’ bones, but it had been a long time since he’d had to charm someone. “Anddyr can trace the locations of four other limbs. If we can prevent them from ever piecing Fratarro back together, we can prevent the Twins from rising.”