by Rachel Dunne
The wailing leaked slowly out of her ears as her lungs filled up, and under it she heard the head black-robe say, “Hold, Cerren. We want to keep her. She’s a twin.” That killing blow never fell, but a cold ball of fear lodged in her belly under the burning pain in her chest.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When it became clear that Saval and his one remaining attendant weren’t going anywhere, Keiro took them to meet the plainswalkers. No one barred his entrance to the tribehome, and even though disappointment and anger still lurked behind Yaket’s eye, it was full, too, of curiosity.
Saval, to his credit, handled it well. He was of the Ventallo, a leader of men, and his mind was both quick and sharp. He stood among the staring plainswalkers, shorter than he by half a length, and gave them a winning smile. “Greetings, brothers and sisters!” he said. “It is truly a wondrous miracle to find the faithful here. I am Saval Tredeiro, Thirteenth among the Fallen, and I speak for the Twins.”
Elsewhere, that line likely would have brought awe, made the men respect him and the women fawn over him. It was not a lie; among the faithful, the Ventallo were considered to speak the will of the Twins. It was only that the plainswalkers knew Keiro, knew that he truly gave voice to the Bound Gods, and that was a greater truth than Saval’s. The plainswalkers stood in silence, long enough to make plain their doubt, and then they surged forward with questions dripping from their lips. The novelty of a preacher like Keiro might have worn off, but a Ventallo was not quite the same as a preacher.
Keiro stepped through them, leaving Saval and his near-silent attendant to the attention that Saval seemed to crave. Keiro stepped toward Yaket, who stood resolute as her tribe burst in a flurry of excitement. “May we speak?” Keiro asked her. She inclined her head and, wordless, turned into the grass.
They sat secluded, facing each other as they had two nights previous, and there was more tension in the silence than there had ever before been between them. Keiro could hardly meet her eye, and instead he spoke to his clasped hands. “I only wanted to warn you . . . change is coming, and perhaps soon. Saval is only the first. Soon enough, all the Fallen will come here, and . . . and they’ll be freed, Yaket. We’ll free the Twins.”
When her silence held, Keiro glanced up at her. She, too, stared down at her hands, and she, too, spoke to them. “I am an old woman. When I was young, when the knowing shone bright in me as it does in you . . . I dreamed of that day. That night, I suppose, the Long Night. When the Twins would rise, and face the Parents as equals, tear the sign of their tyranny from the sky and judge all equally. It was a good dream, and I was sure I would see it come true. Now . . . now I am old, and I am scared.” She looked up then, and their eyes met. “My people are good people, but . . . are they good enough? I worry that not all of them are. Should the Twins rise, and look into the hearts of my people, I fear not all of them will walk away from the meeting. You’re young still . . . I don’t expect you to understand. But it grows harder, with age, to think that the greater good is worth more than the lives of those I love.”
Keiro thought, unexpectedly, of Algi, the woman who had left him to walk a path of her own. A pagan, she would likely be struck down should the Twins be freed to pull the sun from the sky. “Faith is easier,” he said softly, “when the stories are only stories. I do not think there is any stopping this, Yaket—even if . . . even if we wanted to.” He didn’t want to, of course—that would be blasphemy, heresy. Keiro was not such a fool to ever speak something like that aloud. “This is beyond any of us. We can only have faith in the justice and wisdom of the Twins.” Keiro touched two fingers beneath the empty space where once he’d had an eye, their gesture of shared understanding. “We two,” he said, “we know.” She mimicked the gesture, and though there was no less sadness in her eye, there was a small smile upon her lips.
They walked together from the grass, a strange peace made once more, a deeper understanding strung through the space between them.
A large crowd was still gathered around Saval, listening to him tell a story. Others had moved away to cook or clean or otherwise tend to the tribe’s needs, but Keiro could see even these listening with half an ear. The only one not enthralled was Saval’s attendant, sitting away from the crowd and methodically shredding stalks of grass. With a small frown, Keiro left Yaket to her tribe and went instead to crouch next to the man.
“I don’t believe I learned your name,” he said softly, so as not to disturb the story.
The man muttered something under his breath before saying, louder, “Nerrin.” His voice had a touch of music to it, and when he turned, very briefly, to look fully at Keiro, he was shocked to see a woman’s soft features. The attendant had spoken so little that he—she—hadn’t drawn any attention to herself . . . not even enough for a proper glance, it seemed. Keiro looked at her now with enough intensity to make up for the oversight.
She had the look of the Highlands about her: tall, black-haired, sharp-featured. It was strange to see a Highlander in black robes; they tended to be as passionate about their one God as Fiaterans were about the Parents or the Twins, depending on who you asked. “You’re a long way from home, Nerrin.”
“I go where the cappo goes.” A strange shudder rippled through her, despite the heat. Her pupils were so wide that he could hardly see any color around them.
Frowning, Keiro reached out a hand to touch her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
She flinched away, another shudder rolling through her. “Forgive me. I . . . I’m not feeling myself.” She got to her feet, something that seemed to take more effort from her than it should have, and went stumbling away into the grass.
Keiro was not the sort of man to go prying into others’ lives . . . but something about Nerrin tickled a faint memory, and left a heavy taste lingering in the back of his throat. He rose, and quietly followed the woman through the grass stalks.
Nerrin was kneeling amid the grass, her back to Keiro, oblivious to his approach. As Keiro watched, great convulsions shook her, and a clench-toothed scream broke the silence of the grass. She crumpled as though her bones had turned to water, and lay trembling upon the ground. Watching with hanging jaw, Keiro saw a small jar roll from her loose fingers.
The near-forgotten memory flickered through Keiro’s mind: a madman, or a man driven mad, clutching to a preacher’s robes as she held a little jar just like that one. That was after the madman . . . the mage . . . had struck down his own father with a bolt of fire.
Keiro knelt by Nerrin’s side, reached out slowly to cradle the woman’s shaking head. “What has been done to you?” Keiro asked, half curiosity and half horror.
“I go where the cappo goes.” The same words she’d said before, bursting from her mouth as though from long habit, the cadence of a mantra. When her eyes opened, peering up at Keiro with vague confusion, they no longer looked so crazed as they had before.
“Nerrin . . . what are you?”
“I am the cappo’s loyal servant.” These words, too, had the sound of rote, though they were said almost tiredly, as if they were a thing that weighed her down.
“You’re a mage?”
“Yes.” Nerrin pushed herself away from Keiro, up to sitting, one hand held against her head.
Keiro reached for the little earthenware jar, careful not to touch any of the black muck within it. “And this . . . ?”
Nerrin’s eyes went wide, and she snatched the jar from Keiro’s hand, looking ready to spit like a cat. She quickly calmed herself, one hand finding the jar’s discarded lid and pressing it into place, making the jar disappear within her robe. “A private matter.”
There was a heaviness in Keiro’s heart. “Nerrin, I have been away from Raturo, away from Fiatera, for a long while. I do not claim to know how things have changed since my leaving. But . . . I have seen your like before. A mage who was, I believe, twisted against his will. I don’t know why. But . . . if you—”
Nerrin held up a hand to halt Keiro. “I am the ca
ppo’s loyal servant.” She spoke the words firmly, but her eyes . . . Keiro did not know her well enough to read her, but in any person he did know well, he would have said there was pleading in those eyes. Nerrin would say no more; she merely rose, and walked from Keiro, leaving him alone in the grass.
Keiro’s heart ached for the woman, ached with not knowing the truth or how to help, ached with a dull anger that something was being done to mages . . . and, beneath those whirling emotions, rang a single clear thought: a mage would be a useful thing indeed.
Keiro couldn’t stop thinking of Nerrin—or, more accurately, he couldn’t stop wondering how long it would be before she became as twisted as the last mage he had seen. If Saval—brash, thoughtless Saval—had brought danger to the plainswalkers, Keiro vowed the man would pay for it. Keiro was not a violent man, but he was protective, and the plainswalkers were as close to him as family—he would not see them come to any harm.
Dark thoughts, for a dark night. Keiro sat amid the grass, staring at the hanging stars, Sororra’s Eyes staring back from their place above the horizon. He wondered how much she saw through them, or if that was only an old legend. All the half-believed legends had been proven true, so far. Why not this one, too? Keiro raised his hand in a sardonic salute, a humorless smile plastered on his face—and regretted it immediately, burying his head in his arms.
He felt useless. If Saval was here, one of the Ventallo, what need would the Twins have of him anymore? With Yaket keeping her tribe from aiding the Twins, Keiro had been the gods’ best—their only—hope for freedom, but a much better hope had been dropped right into their laps. Saval could bring all the Fallen, unlike an apostate. Saval had proven himself enough to be raised to Ventallo. Saval had the aid of a mage . . .
For the first time in years, Keiro’s feet did not itch with the need to walk. He had found a home, a purpose, happiness. He didn’t want to leave it all, but it was growing more and more apparent that he was not needed, did not belong. He might need to take up his walking ways again soon, and the thought held little appeal.
Keiro lifted his head, stared back into Sororra’s Eyes. So be it. He would leave, if that was the way things were to be . . . but he would not leave the tribe in danger. There was that ringing certainty in him: the mage must be dealt with. He stood, and his steps were firm as he walked back to the tribehome.
They were sleeping, save for the shift of sentries who nodded to Keiro as he passed. He moved carefully through the tribe, feet quiet with practice, and stopped next to one of the dark-shrouded forms. Nerrin flinched when he touched her shoulder, eyes snapping wide, panic written briefly through them. Keiro held open his empty hands and the panic faded, replaced with confusion. “Will you walk with me?” he asked her, keeping his voice low so as not to wake the others, so as not to disturb Saval, who slept a few lengths away.
Nerrin half sat, her gaze flickering between Keiro and distant Saval. “I . . . I shouldn’t . . .”
“There are a few hours left in the night. We’ll be back before he even wakes.” Still she hesitated, speaking so softly to herself that he couldn’t hear the words. “Please, Nerrin. I would like to know you better.”
After a last, long look at Saval, she placed her hand into Keiro’s, let him pull her to her feet. Relieved, he led her back into the grass.
They walked in silence at first—or relative silence, for Nerrin’s muttering grew more pronounced, though Keiro still couldn’t make out any of the words. He waited until they were a good distance from the tribehome, where they couldn’t be heard or stumbled upon, and then he sat, motioning for Nerrin to join him. She crumpled like he’d pulled out her lynchpin, but her long limbs arranged themselves into a position that didn’t exactly look uncomfortable, so he let be. Above the waving grass-tips, Sororra’s Eyes watched them, a reddish cast to the starlit night.
“I spent a good deal of time in the Highlands,” Keiro told her. “You were born there, yes? You have the look of a full Highlander.”
“Yes,” she said, nothing more. Her eyes were fixed on him as unwaveringly as Sororra’s Eyes, which was a touch unsettling.
“Where were you born? I may have passed through your village.”
“Sertorat, near the Montevellese border.”
“I don’t think I know it—I never did make it too near to Montevelle. Will you tell me about it?”
Her descriptions were at first stilted, flat, as though she were reading from a page she was translating at the same time. But with more encouragement and gentle prodding, her words began to flow more freely, more naturally, and her eyes lost some of their unsettling hyperfocus. It was as he’d hoped: getting her talking made her seem more like a person than a puppet. There was nothing spectacular about her village or her life before going to learn at the Academy, but the longer she talked of it, the more passion filled her voice, the more memories made her eyes light. Keiro prodded her with every question he could think of—anything to keep her talking.
“You had five cats?”
“It wasn’t intentional! They just kept showing up at our door, and my mother had a soft heart for them. Though it might have been because I kept leaving food out at night . . .”
“Climbing the tree was how you broke your leg?”
“No, climbing the tree was how I broke my arm—the leg happened when I was running home to tell mother about my arm and tripped over a rock.”
“And your sister, you said she was older than you—did you look up to her?”
“Oh, of course. She was only a year older, but Neira was always much smarter, much more responsible, much more driven. She was the one who dreamed about being a mage, about getting into the Academy—I only wanted it because she did, because I wanted to be like her.” Nerrin sighed. “My power showed sooner and stronger than hers did . . . I think she resented me for that. When it was clear that it was time to take me to the Academy for testing, my parents insisted Neira come, too—it was a long trip from our home to the Academy, and they didn’t want to make it again in a month or a year or however long until Neira’s power inevitably rose. So we went to the Academy, together in everything. The masters accepted me right away—with the way my power was manifesting, it was clear I had the potential. But Neira . . . They said her power would never grow, that she was already as strong as she would ever be . . . and it wasn’t enough, not even close. She’d never be a mage.” Nerrin folded her arms atop her knees, rested her chin on top of them, and stared into the grass, seeing a different time, a different place. “That alone broke her heart, but that wasn’t the end of it. She didn’t have enough power to join the Academy, but she had enough power to be dangerous, if she was left as she was. It happens more often than the masters would like to admit.”
When she paused, seemed like she wouldn’t go on, Keiro prompted gently, “What does?”
“They had to lock off her power. Sever her consciousness from it, essentially. She’d never be able to access her power, and it would never be able to manifest. It was to keep her safe, to keep everyone safe. An untrained mage is an incredibly dangerous thing.” That last had the sound of something she’d been taught to recite, someone else’s words using her mouth. “It broke her, I think. I don’t know. I never saw her after that. I think she would have run away sooner, before they’d locked her off, but they didn’t give her any time. They told her what had to be done and then they did it, didn’t give her any time to run or argue or process. It was just . . . over. And she ran off, and I never heard from her again, and I don’t think my parents did either . . . though it’s been years since I talked to them . . .”
Keiro’s heart was loud in his own ears. He’d been circling so carefully toward this moment, loosening her tongue with inconsequential things so that she wouldn’t think to stop talking when he asked the real questions. “You haven’t talked to them since you were taken to Raturo?” He was guessing, but it felt an even better guess after all that she’d told him—Nerrin had loved her life, loved her home
. He didn’t think she would have left it by choice.
“No,” she said softly. “Not since then.”
“When were you taken?”
“Three years ago. I was going home to see them . . . my parents . . . I’d finished my training two years earlier and I’d decided to go back to Sertorat, to stay there, to make a life. But on the road . . . they . . . they . . .” Her hands were wrapped around her elbows, but Keiro could see how they shook, see the tightness in her knuckles.
Keiro ached, but was also certain he couldn’t stop. Not now, not when he was so close to knowing. He needed to know what Saval was doing, what all the Fallen were doing to mages to twist their minds, and why. If he knew what had been done to her, maybe he could help her . . .
Nerrin dropped her face into her arms, but not before he saw the tears in her eyes. Even thinking of it brought her to tears—how much worse would it hurt her, if he forced her to speak of it? How much more of a monster was he willing to be? It would be for the best, though, for the greater good, if he pressed her just a little further—there was no knowing how much her knowledge might help, and her pain would fade after time. Hurting her now, briefly, might help Keiro learn how to free the Twins, might tell him the Fallen’s plans, might make him useful once more . . .
His own voice shook, as badly as the hand he rested on Nerrin’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said, and she leaned against him when he put his arms around her. Keiro held her as she wept and muttered, and he said nothing more. No more questions. It was a foolish moment of weakness . . . but Keiro couldn’t bring himself to press her further. He held her until her madness turned him into a monster in her eyes, and then he simply sat as close as she would let him until the vision passed.
He was still unneeded, and this night had taught him nothing to make him useful. Nothing had changed. Nothing would change, if he were to leave the Plains—their lives would carry on as though he had never been there, never mattered.