Dance of Thieves

by Mary E. Pearson

  I stepped in front of her path, blocking her again. “Ah, so there you have it—a list with the Vendan twist. Do your kind have any idea how hard it is to survive out here in the middle of everything and everyone? Surrounded by kingdoms on all sides? Everyone thinking it’s their right to enter your territory and take what they want? Moving in at the slightest sign of weakness? My world is not your world.” My temples burned and my voice rose. “Vendans sit behind their high, safe walls at the far edge of a continent, scribbling out new treaties and training their pretty, smart-mouthed, elite soldiers who have no idea what it’s like to fight to survive!” I lowered my voice to a growl. “And you, Kazi of Brightmist, have no understanding of the trouble you’ve caused me. I should be home with my family, protecting them, and instead I’m out here, chained to you!”

  My chest heaved with anger, and I waited for a caustic comeback, but instead she blinked slowly and replied, “I may know more about survival than you think.”

  Her pupils were deep black wells floating in a calm circle of amber, but her hands betrayed her, stiff at her sides, ready to strike. A war raged inside her, one she held back, biting it off like a poisonous snake with disturbing self-control.

  “Let’s go,” I said. Our worlds had an impassable gulf between them. It was useless to try to make her understand.

  We walked in silence, the clank of the chain between us suddenly amplified.

  Her steely control made me angry at myself for losing mine. It wasn’t like me. That was one of the reasons my father gave for naming me Patrei. I wasn’t the oldest, but I was the least impulsive. It was a strength my father valued. I weighed the advantages and costs of every word and action before I acted. Some saw me as aloof. Mason said, with admiration, that it made me a stone-cold bastard, but this girl had pushed me to a reckless burning edge I didn’t even recognize, and her calm reply only pushed me further.

  She knew something about survival. I wondered if she might even know more than me.

  Each other. Hold on to each other because that is what will save you.

  I hold back tears because others are watching, already terrified. I pile handfuls of dirt, brush, rocks, thing upon thing until his body is hidden. It is the best I can do, but I know animals will find him by nightfall. By then he will be far behind us.

  How many more will I have to bury?

  I shout into the air, a rush of tears and anger breaking loose.

  No more of us, I scream.

  The anger feels good, saving, a weapon when I have nothing else.

  I shove a stick into a hand. And then another, and another, until even the youngest holds one. Miandre balks. I squeeze my hand around hers until she winces, forcing her to take hold of her club. If we die, we will die fighting.

  —Greyson Ballenger, 14

  CHAPTER TEN

  KAZI

  I should be with my family.

  He’d been silent for an hour now.

  His father’s death had come as a surprise to me, and now I guessed it had been unexpected for him too. Even if Karsen Ballenger was the ruthless outlaw who harbored a stable of ruffians as the King of Eislandia had reported, he was still Jase’s father and he’d only been dead for two days.

  I doubted that Jase cared whether I liked him or that I called him a thief—but he did care about his family and he was not there with them to bury his father, or whatever it was they did with the dead in Hell’s Mouth.

  In the last months of the Komizar’s reign, I had watched Wren when she grieved her parents’ deaths. I saw her fall on their bloody bodies, slaughtered in the town square, screaming for them to get up, hitting their lifeless chests and begging for them to open their eyes. I had seen Synové days after her parents’ deaths, her eyes wide, unseeing, numb and beyond tears.

  It had been odd to envy their grief, but I had. I envied the explosion and finality of it—their sobs and tears. At that point, my mother had been gone for five years and I had never grieved her death, never cried, because I never saw her die. Her passing came slowly, over months and years, in the dull bits, pieces, and mundane hours that I worked to stay alive. Day-by-day she faded, as every stall I searched turned up nothing, and another piece of her drifted away. Every hovel and home I snuck into held no part of her, no amulet, no scent, no sound of her voice. The memories of her became disconnected blurred images, warm hands cupping my cheeks, a tuneless hum as she worked, words that floated in the air, her finger pressed to my lips. Shhh, Kazi, don’t say a word.

  I wondered if Jase had missed his chance to grieve too. A one night drunk was hardly a good-bye.

  “I’m sorry about your father,” I said.

  His steps faltered, but he kept walking, his only reply a nod.

  “How did he die?”

  His jaw clenched and his reply was quick and clipped, “He was a man, not a monster, as you imagine. He died the way all men die, one breath at a time.”

  He was still angry. He still grieved. His pace quickened, and I knew the topic was closed.

  * * *

  Another hour passed. My legs ached trying to keep pace with him, and my ankle was raw from the shackle. The thin fabric of my trousers was little protection against the heavy metal. I kept my eyes open for some bay fern or wish stalks to make a balm, but this forest seemed to have only trees and nothing else.

  “You’re limping,” he said, suddenly breaking the silence. Those weren’t the first words I expected from him, but everything about him was unexpected. It made me wary.

  “It’s only the uneven terrain,” I answered, but I noticed his pace slowed.

  “How’s your head?” he asked.

  My head? I reached up, gently pressing the knot and wincing. “I’ll live.”

  “I watched you in the wagon. Your chest. For a while, I didn’t see it move at all. I thought you were dead.”

  I didn’t quite know how to respond. “You were watching my chest?”

  He stopped and looked at me, suddenly looking awkward and young and not like a ruthless killer at all. “I mean—” He began walking again. “What I meant was, I was watching to make sure you were still breathing. You were out cold.”

  I smiled—somewhere deep inside so he wouldn’t see. It was refreshing to see him flustered for a change.

  “And why would you care if I was breathing?”

  “I was chained to you.”

  The hard reality. “Oh, right,” I answered, feeling slightly deflated. “No fun being attached to a corpse. Dead weight and all.”

  “I also knew you might be useful. I’d seen your quick—”

  He paused as if he regretted the admission, so I finished his thought for him. “Takedown? When I nailed you against the wall back in Hell’s Mouth?”

  “Yes.”

  At least there was some degree of honesty in him.

  * * *

  When we came upon a brook in the afternoon, we stopped to rest. The forest was thinning and there was little shade, the sun unforgiving. Jase said he thought we’d soon be out of the forest altogether and crossing the open plateau of Heethe. I looked up, judging the sun’s place in the sky. Only a few hours of daylight left. The cool of night would be welcome, but the prospect of an open plateau, a wide night sky, and sleeping without a tent was already a beast running a warning claw down my back. A tent. It was ludicrous to think of that now. Get a grip on yourself, Kazi, I thought, but it wasn’t that simple and never had been. It was not something I could just talk myself out of no matter how many times I tried.

  “Maybe we should stop here for the night?” I suggested.

  Jase squinted at the sun. “No. We can get a few more hours of walking in.”

  I reluctantly nodded. I knew he was right—the sooner to the settlement, the sooner I got back to Hell’s Mouth so the others would know I was still alive and the whole mission wasn’t abandoned. He was eager to get there too. In spite of dragging a three-foot length of chain between us, his pace had never lagged until he noted my limp. Bu
t sleeping out there, utterly exposed … it would be hard enough to sleep under the cover of these skimpy trees as it was. A loose breath skittered through my lungs.

  I dipped my hands into the brook, splashing my face, taking a drink and picturing myself a week from now, back in the middle of a crowded city. Jase knelt beside me, and fully dunked his head in the shallow water, scrubbing his face and neck. When he surfaced and smoothed back his hair, I saw the gash over his brow from when the hunters trapped him. The cut was small and the dried blood that had crusted his face was gone now, but it made me wonder why he had wanted me to follow him down that empty street in Hell’s Mouth. What had been his plan for me before he had been intercepted by the hunters? I didn’t think it was to share a cup of tea.

  I rinsed my neck and arms with more cool water, wishing the brook was deep enough to take a whole bath, but then I caught the silver flash of something even better. “Minnows!” A few feet away, dozens of shiny minnows darted in a dark pool of water created by a cluster of rocks.

  “Dinner?” Jase said, his tone hopeful. We hadn’t come across any berries or fungus or even a squirrel to spear with our walking sticks. Our only prospect for dinner had been water, so the fish, however small, lifted my spirits, and it seemed, his too. But catching the slippery angels was another matter.

  “Take off your shirt,” I said. “We can each hold a side of the fabric and corral them. We’ll use it as a net.”

  He eagerly pulled his shirt over his head, and my excitement for the minnows was replaced with discomfort, wondering if I should look away, but we were chained in close proximity and a strange curiosity took hold. He held his shirt in his hand and I watched the water dripping from his hair trickle down, traversing his chest, abdomen, and the muscles that defined them. I swallowed. It explained the force of his punch when he killed the hunter, and his grip when he pulled me into his arms in the river and held me against him. A winged tattoo fluttered over his right shoulder, across his chest and down his arm. My mouth suddenly felt dry. Synové would have plenty to say about this if she were here, but my thoughts and words stalled on my tongue. He caught me staring.

  “It’s part of the Ballenger crest,” he said.

  Now it was me who was flustered, and I felt my cheeks flush warm.

  He lifted his hand to the corner of his mouth, trying to stifle a smile, which only made me squirm more. I snatched his shirt from his hand. “Let’s catch some dinner, shall we?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JASE

  It took several tries to catch the slimy bastards. They were clever and easily darted past our makeshift net, but together we eventually perfected our technique, sneaking forward in unison, allowing the fabric to billow so we could scoop them up. I hooted when we snagged our first catch of two, and with several more sweeps we had a few dozen of the skinny, four-inch fish piled on the bank. They weren’t much, but right now my stomach thought they looked like a juicy roasted pig.

  “Cooked or raw?” she asked as she lifted one to her mouth.

  I pushed her hand down before she could eat it. “Cooked,” I said firmly, not trying to hide my disgust. The last thing I’d had in my stomach was a barrel of ale, and squirming fish were not going to swim in it.

  “Don’t look at me like I’m a savage,” she snapped.

  “We simply have different eating tastes, and mine include dead game.” I worked on the fire while she began skewering the fish onto two sticks for roasting.

  As the minnows sizzled over the fire, she looked at my chest again, this time leisurely, not looking away when I noticed. “Is that an eagle?” she asked.

  “Part of one.”

  “Tell me about the crest. What does it stand for?” she asked. “I didn’t know you even had one.”

  Of course she didn’t. She knew nothing about us. “It’s hard to tell you about the crest without telling the whole Ballenger history, and I doubt you want to hear that considering your low opinion of us.”

  “Try me. I like history.”

  I shot her a skeptical glance. But she sat there attentive and waiting.

  “It began with the first Ballenger, the leader of all the Ancients.”

  “All?” Her brows rose, already disputing the claim.

  “That’s right. Years after the Last Days—

  “You mean the devastation.”

  I knew there were a lot of different versions and words used to describe the gods’ revenge against the world. “All right, the devastation, but you can’t interrupt me after every word.”

  She nodded and listened quietly while I told her that the leader of the Ancients, Aaron Ballenger, had gathered a surviving Remnant spared by the gods, most of them children, and was leading them to a place where they would be safe. But before they could reach Tor’s Watch, they were attacked by scavengers and he died. As he lay dying, he charged his grandson, Greyson, with leading the group the rest of the way. “Greyson found this symbol,” I explained, sliding my hand over my chest, “when they reached Tor’s Watch—at least a version of it—at the entrance to a secure shelter, and he adopted it as the Ballenger crest.”

  “So he was your first leader?”

  “Yes. He was only fourteen and had to look after twenty-two people he didn’t know, but they became family. The crest has changed over the generations, but some parts are constant, like the eagle and the banner.”

  “And the words?” she asked, gesturing at my arm.

  I shrugged. “We don’t know what they mean exactly. It’s a lost language, but to us they mean protect and defend at all costs.”

  “Even death?”

  “All costs means all.”

  I glanced up at the sky. It was already a dusky purple, and a few stars were beginning to shine. “Too late to leave now. We’ll have to make camp here for the night.”

  She nodded and almost looked relieved.

  * * *

  The sun had been gone for hours, and we stared at the small fire crackling at our feet. Light flickered on the yellow-ringed trunks surrounding us.

  “I’ve never seen trees like this, so many and so thin,” she said.

  “Legend says the forest grew from bone dust and that every tree holds the trapped soul of someone who died in the devastation. That’s why they bleed red when you cut them.”

  She shivered. “That’s a gruesome thought.”

  I told her a few other legends that were less gruesome, ones about the forests and mountains surrounding Tor’s Watch, and even a story about the towering tembris, which became the footstools of the gods and held the magic of the stars.

  “Where’d you learn all these stories?”

  “I grew up with them. I spent a lot of my childhood outdoors exploring every corner of Tor’s Watch, usually with my father. He told me most of the stories. What about you? What was your childhood like?”

  Her gaze darted to her lap, a furrow deepening over her brow. She finally lifted her chin with a proud air. “Much like yours,” she answered. “I spent a lot of time outdoors.” She ended the conversation, saying it was probably time that we got some sleep.

  But she didn’t. I stretched out and closed my eyes, but time after time when I opened them she still sat there, hunched, her arms hugging her knees. Had my story about spirits trapped in trees spooked her? It was strange to see her looking so vulnerable now, and yet earlier she’d been aggressively reckless when she told the hunter a riddle, challenging him, knowing he would strike her. There hadn’t been a drop of fear in her then, when all odds were against her. I wondered if this was some sort of trick. Was she up to something?

  “It’s hard to sleep if you don’t lie down,” I finally said.

  She reluctantly lay down, but her eyes remained open, her chest rising in deep, controlled breaths as if she were counting them. Her arms trembled, but the night was warm. This was no trick.

  “Are you cold?” I asked. “I can add more branches to the fire if you need it.”

  She blinked several ti
mes, like she was embarrassed that I had noticed. “No, I’m fine,” she said.

  But she wasn’t fine at all.

  I studied her for a minute, then said, “Tell me a riddle. To help me sleep.”

  She balked, but only a little, and it seemed she was happy to have something else to occupy her mind besides what had been lurking there. She rolled onto her side to face me, settling in, comfortable. “Listen carefully,” she said. “I won’t repeat it a dozen times like I did for the hunter.”

  “You won’t need to. I’m a good listener.”

  She said the words slowly, deliberately, like she was imagining the world behind the picture she painted. I watched her lips as she formed each word, her voice relaxed and soft, once again confident, her golden eyes watching mine, making sure I paid attention and missed nothing.

  “My face is full, but also slight,

  I pale in the bright of light,

  I whisper sweet to the forest owl,

  I kiss the air with wolf’s sad howl,

  Eyes follow me from sea to sea,

  Yet alone in this world … I will ever be.”

  I stared at her, swallowed, my thoughts suddenly jumbled.

  “Well?” she asked. I knew the answer but I drew it out, offering several wrong answers, making her laugh once. It was the first time I had seen her laugh, genuine, without any pretense, and it filled me with a strange burst of heat.

  “The moon,” I finally answered.

  Our gazes held, and she seemed to know what I was doing.

  “Tell me another one,” I said.

  And she did. A dozen more, until her lids grew heavy and she finally fell asleep.

  Prepare your hearts,

  For we must not only be ready

  for the enemy without,

  but also the enemy within.

  —Song of Jezelia

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  KAZI

  I woke to weight pinning me down. The heat of skin on mine. A hand over my mouth. “Shhh. Don’t move.” Jase’s face hovered next to mine.