Luca realized he was still wearing his nightshift. He needed something warmer. He walked over to Calio, began stripping his body. At least he would have something of his brother left if he wore his clothes. He cinched the belt around the large tunic.
“We need to give the men a burial.”
* * *
They labored off and on over the next day, pausing to chew dried meat when they tired. Finally, the last one was covered with earth, the last prayers said. The moon rose, its light cold and gleaming.
Luca became aware of hunger gnawing in his belly. “We have plenty of supplies now. Cook,” he told Yuvio tersely.
Later he wolfed down his food, getting a perverse pleasure from the bellyache that followed. He broke the silence. “What now?”
“You are still the Prime,” Yuvio said, “And I am your subject.”
“I need a friend. Not a subject.”
“I can be that too. But you must decide our path.”
Luca got up, his head spinning with dizziness. His hands were blistered and his nails broken. His brother’s clothes reeked of the fear that comes with impending death.
He shook his fist at the sky, filled with a ravenous hatred.
He would never forget the wrong done to his company. He would bring down the Elementals. Then he would deal with King Gale, who had lured him away, leaving his men to die without him. Once he had practiced killing on the monsters, he’d destroy the Water Demon.
Oh, and there was that damn wood with the soul snares. Too bad he didn’t have a couple of bags of fire powder for that.
The wedding with Illenn seemed like a joke now, though the fire powder would be handy. Oh yes. He could see lots of uses for the fire powder. Perhaps the Elementals wouldn’t shrug that off so easily.
“We’ve got work to do,” he told Yuvio.
Yuvio stood up, rubbing at his swollen eyes. He seemed to come back to this world slowly. A spirit kindled in his eyes.
“Are we going to fight?”
“Yes. Whistle for the weatherbeaters.”
“There are only two of us.”
Luca saw the fear on the other man’s face. He made his voice soothing and reasonable, though he wanted to roar out the words. “We’ll go to that dread place where the soul snares are. We’ll wait there for that Girl of Fire. She’s the appointed champion. Once we’ve helped her, the Mannites will trust us. Then we’ll use them to reach our goal.”
“Our goal?” Yuvio stammered.
“Kill every last Elemental. Then we circle back for this so-called Ally. King Gale will pay for his treachery.”
“You think you can get this Mannite warrior to trust you?”
Luca shrugged carelessly. “She may be a warrior, but she’s still a woman. And if I know one thing, it’s women.”
CHAPTER 45
Oberin
Oberin had asked Ilse to be his minder while he made his next sending. He met her at dawn, in the women’s sleeping chamber of the inn, now emptied for his use. A slow light seeped in from the window, illuminating the lace of frost. Soon the Month of Darkness would end, but the snows would not. Berona’s weatherbeater could handle the wintry conditions, but the other mounts would struggle. If they took Georsi and Hirschi along as Berona wanted, they’d have too few mounts.
Uncle Soa wasn’t going to be happy with their plan.
Ilse’s face was pinched in the dawn gray. None of them had slept well. “You should start your sending,” she said. “But you’re dreading what he’s going to say, aren’t you?”
“Soa won’t say anything. It’s not like we can actually talk when we do a sending.”
“You’re using your logic to be evasive.”
Oberin sighed and sank down on Berona’s bed, still warm from her sleeping form. He let his breathing gentle, attempting to block out Berona’s faint scent, which still lingered. He moved his legs, trying to get comfortable.
“Oh, for Krossos’ sake. Move over to my bed and calm yourself,” Ilse said, bitterness coloring her tone.
He did. Ilse’s bed was cool and smelled slightly like lavender. He lay back down, folding his hands. “Is it that obvious? About Berona?”
“You men are all the same.” She snorted. “You know she needs to be free of attachments to be an effective champion. That makes you want her so much more. It was the same way with Kea.”
“Was that it?” Oberin said, letting irony tinge his voice.
“Shandon commanded him to leave her alone. Kea does as he chooses, though.”
Oberin wondered briefly if Shandon and his own father had been conspirators, intent on keeping him from the woman he desired above all others. But Father’s speeches about Oberin’s destiny, and his advice to avoid a romance, began well before Berona. He sighed again, closed his eyes, and let himself drift like fog, untethered, and rise to the Shadow Plain.
* * *
The Shadow Plain had its own peculiarities. Sometimes beings took on a form that reflected their secret, true name rather than their body. Soa often showed up as a bear, and that was how Oberin found him now.
Oberin pictured the faces of Hirschi and Georsi, and the bear grunted in surprise. His image displayed chains.
Oberin shook his head. He countered with a picture of Berona holding hands with the two men.
No. The demurral was a push of energy against Oberin, nearly throwing him back out of his trance state. A counter suggestion: Kendall dipping deep into the money bag, sending some shadowed men to escort the prisoners to Yassin.
Oberin tried to see the faces of the men, but they remained unclear. That meant Soa had no clue how Kendall would get the prisoners to Yassin without abandoning the mission.
A sending wasn’t conducive to arguing. Oberin shook his head in frustration, letting gray creep into his energy; what Soa was suggesting was not a feasible plan.
Soa conjured the form of Kendall, towering over them in the honorary regalia of her office.
The Council had accepted their decision to travel to meet the Demon. It was Kendall’s suggestion that set them on this path. Kendall was in charge. Oberin was not. And Kendall was to deal with the prisoners.
* * *
He came to as Ilse gently touched him. He blinked. “I wasn’t quite done.”
“There’s something we just discovered. Kendall bought a stallion and left in the early hours of the morning. She left us all her gold, except for the coin she spent on the horse.”
He jumped up. “What?”
“She left a note for us with the stable boy. It says, ‘I’m not marrying Okan.’”
* * *
They assembled in the men’s room—Moab still dressing, Kilgad’s face puffy with sleep. Oberin read Kendall’s note out loud, checking Hirschi’s face. If the man showed some emotion, it might mean he was not so much under the sway of the Demon as they’d thought. But Hirschi looked down, and Oberin couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
Berona looked stricken. “I shouldn’t have challenged her.”
“She wrote that she left because of Okan,” Oberin pointed out.
Berona didn’t look convinced. “She was angry at me.”
Now their company was leaderless, and they did not have their best Mannite warrior. Although there was one warrior here who was even better than Kendall—the man who could deal death with his bare hands.
It was feckless of Kendall to leave. Unless her plan was to force them to use Hirschi instead. She must believe that he was no longer under the Demon’s control.
Or was it truly as Berona thought, a power struggle between herself and Kendall?
Everyone looked to Oberin now as he sat struggling to understand Kendall’s true intent. When he did not speak, Ilse said, “I can find her if you want. I’ve touched her pillow. But she’s far already.”
“I will protect Berona with my life,” Hirschi said quietly. “That’s more than Kendall would do.”
Rheyna usually stayed quiet, but now she spoke up. “How can we trust you after what you d
id?”
“You can’t. You have two Yellows here, Oberin and Ilse. Open me up. See what’s inside.”
“We shall, if Ilse is willing to help me,” Oberin said. “But first, can you tell us your story in your own words? Do you remember?”
“I knew you would ask. I have been preparing myself, and Georsi helped me coax out the tangled threads. Shall I tell you now?”
Berona did not take her eyes off the gaunt man as she instructed Kilgad. “Tell the innkeeper we must not be disturbed. When you come back in, lock the door.” Then she got up, graceful in her movement, and poured Hirschi some tea. “Speak.”
Oberin noted how naturally she assumed leadership now that Kendall was no longer here. He merely nodded, to punctuate her request.
CHAPTER 46
Hirschi
My story does not begin with my encounter with the Demon, but well before.
You know me as a fearless warrior, one who learned to fight with his hands and feet better than most men fight with a weapon.
No one has ever asked me why.
Did you assume I sprang from my mother’s red door with the skills of a warrior? I was a clumsy weak child, the only one my father begat. He was a farmer, not much richer than Kendall and Biruac’s parents. My mother spent our small savings taking me to the local Green, as I caught one ailment after another. Father disagreed with her, they quarreled, and he began to spend more time away. Sometimes I was better, sometimes worse. In the meantime, my father made some coin from staging dog fights; he liked it and would drink with his comrades, taking bets.
He had always had a volatile nature. Now he hit my mother when he came home, and I cowered behind her skirts, though I knew it was me he wanted to hit.
Then there was the day he gave her a clout to the ear, and she fell down. The coward did it while I was gone, working a farmer’s fields. I came home to find her still lying there, hours later. There was no sign of him. I helped her to bed.
Hirschi paused, gulped down the sorrow that closed off his throat. No one spoke, so he forced himself to continue.
I swore never to leave her at his mercy again. But how could I stay home every day, with no way to earn a meal or Father’s respect? My presence only prevented the worst of his abuse. Within the year, I abandoned her. I went to the Green and offered to be his servant. I did his every bidding, even emptied his chamber pot, and in return, he healed my body. A Red came by his house to get a flesh wound treated, and I left with the Red. I brushed his horse, mended his clothes, fetched him his bath water, and in the little spare time I had, I hired out for a day’s labor and brought him my coin, keeping none for myself. This was Umritz when he was a younger man. He taught me to fight, and I developed a taste for it.
It took years, but I bested him. I knocked him down and left him, much in the way my father treated my mother. I didn’t know why at the time. It took years to understand how much I hated my servitude.
Then I went home to punish my father and save my mother.
I found a graybeard in a house full of cobwebs, sucking on a crust of moldy bread and drinking small beer. He was not worth a fight.
My mother was dead. Nevertheless, I had anticipated this moment too long to take the higher road. I beat him black and blue.
That’s the kind of noble warrior I am.
* * *
Hirschi paused again. He’d never spoken of this—the crushing fear that he’d suffered under ever since at the onset of a fight. It would set his teeth to chattering and turn his bowels to water. He looked at the ground, wishing it would swallow him. When he looked up again, Berona’s eyes rested on him. Though she was young, there was compassion in her eyes, not judgment.
“Finish your story,” she said softly.
* * *
Every fight since then I dreaded, and fear rose up in me, the same fear I’d seen in the old man’s eyes as I kicked him in the ribs. Who could I talk to about the fear? Who could I tell? Umritz let me come back, and he declaimed I was the best. We never spoke about the day I left him on the floor, moaning, cradling a broken wrist.
Shandon never guessed how hard it was for me to fight. He admired me, but he had more courage than I did.
I was ripe for the soul snares.
The day I told Shandon to run to the forest for safety, I really did believe I would battle the Elementals. Once I struck the first blow, my terror would always turn into battle frenzy. Not that day. The Demon must have been slithering toward me, feeding off my terror, because I never even landed that first strike. The Elementals advanced, as inexorable as death, slowly moving closer. If they had rushed me, I would have fought reflexively, but as it was, all I could think about was how I feared my own cowardice. That made it worse. As soon as Shandon vanished into the haze and I knew I was unobserved, I ran.
It was the first time I’d ever fled, but now that I had given in, it felt like I could never be whole again. I ran heedlessly, my heels thrumming on the ground, until I fell. Blackness ate me.
When I woke up, I was in the Forest of Bones. Terror seized me—I was frozen to the ground. Then I saw a special light, a light just for me, a light that promised kindness. When I touched it, those memories faded; they seemed like a story that had happened to someone else.
The snare told me I would be her champion, her brave heart, her spy. I didn’t know who she was. I did not care. Anything to forget the truth.
The soul snare descended on me, and my mind left my body. I drifted in spun dreams as soft as satin; they smothered my will and my memories. I was not left to decay among the branches, though. She had a purpose for me. I was sent back to walk among you, barely living.
Then I saw something that woke me.
* * *
The company had listened spellbound, but now Oberin took charge. “What did you see?”
“I saw true bravery. True loyalty. I led the Chosen to our camp as I’d agreed to do earlier, the day Shandon died. The Demon had convinced me I was doing the right thing. Then she had to turn her attention away from me, to commune with the Elementals. She had to bid them to fetch someone; left on their own, they have an aversion to us, as we do to them. When she withdrew her attention from me, I collapsed. The Intercessor’s men carried me off the road and left me there. I had served my purpose.
“I was leaning against a tree, barely sentient, when Kea threw his spear at the Intercessor, diverting the Chosen from their pursuit of Berona. In that moment, I revived.”
“That would have been the time to come to Yassin and explain,” Oberin said.
“I couldn’t. To let them gloat over me, trap me in a prison, interrogate me. I would lose my freedom, never be able to take my revenge. I want my honor back.”
“The Council would have helped you,” Oberin said.
“Like the Council helped Georsi. Fobbing him off on his relatives.”
“We’re talking about you. Georsi will come next.”
Hirschi lost his forlorn look. His face hardened. “I have come to know the man, and he befriended me. Georsi knows what it is like to lose honor and to want to die from shame.”
“You and Georsi partook of moon poppies together. That is not true comradeship.”
Hirschi thought a moment. “You may sneer at us, Oberin, and think yourself perfect, as so many with metal resonance do. I suffered from that malady myself. But I will not accompany you without Georsi, and he will not go without me. He can tell you important things about the Book of First Naming.” He looked at Berona. “I will fight for you, die for you.”
“Will you submit to having your mind examined?” she asked.
“If that is your condition.”
“Then I propose we do the following,” Berona said. “Okan will be back here soon looking for Kendall. It would be best to have left by then. Oberin, you and Ilse will look deep into Hirschi right now.”
Ilse nodded and moved closer to Hirschi.
Berona continued talking. “Rheyna, I would have you gather supplies fro
m the kitchen and pack the carrier bags. Kilgad and Moab, please get the mounts fed, saddled, and bridled. Hirschi will take Kendall’s horse, and Georsi will ride with me on the beater.”
“What will you be doing while we get ready?” Oberin asked.
“I’ll be with Georsi. I want to hear all of his story. I think he will tell me.”
The company filed out. Hirschi flinched under their looks of pity and steeled himself for what would come next—the direct interrogation of his mind through magic.
He had told them everything, shared his most shameful memories. How much worse could it be?
Though the Demon might have made him forget certain things.
CHAPTER 47
Berona
My instinct was to rail at Georsi, who had kept the Book of First Naming all this time rather than returning it. Perhaps the Book could have saved one of the Mannites at Yassin. But my anger would not impress him.
I had to search for a fire trait that might cross the divide between us. Empathy. Heartfelt communication.
He was a sad old man, and now that I’d lost a loved one too, I understood how much that could hurt. I began with an observation. “When I first met you, you were about to throw the Book into the fire. I thought you were in league with the Water Demon.”
“No!”
“But burning the Book of First Naming would benefit her the most. It would not bring back the Elder Princess you loved.”
His lips pressed together. “It would have punished the Council.”
“That Council is long dead, except for you.”
When he didn’t answer, I said, “I lost Kea, the man I love. I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again. It was my fault for doubting his feelings for me. I pushed him into rash action.”
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