Brinn approached with hesitant steps, her gaze sliding from Velik to Sable and back to Velik again. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Making sure the Istraan isn’t causing any trouble,” Velik said, glaring at Sable.
Sable smiled, all teeth. “I’m flattered you think I could.”
His lips curled, and his hand flinched into a fist, but he wouldn’t strike. Not in front of Brinn. “I’m watching you, Scablicker.”
“Clearly,” Sable replied curtly. She cast one quick glance at a confused Brinn, then continued on her way.
Scablicker.
The derogatory term for those accused of protecting Sol Velorian refugees—Scabs.
Istraa had a history of protecting the refugees, and since Sable was easily identified as Istraan, with her coppery skin and onyx hair, she was rewarded with unfair prices by local merchants and, as in Velik’s case, an outright refusal to sell to her. Their treatment was what had turned her to thieving in the first place.
And, when she was being honest, it also felt good to get back at them in this small way.
The little hut was dark as she approached. She snuck through the back door and closed it behind her, careful not to wake Tolya, and she’d just hung her cloak on the hook beside the door when a lantern sprung to life.
Sable winced inwardly.
“Where have you been?” Tolya asked in a tone that suggested she knew very well where Sable had been.
With a deep breath, Sable turned to face her.
Tolya sat at the small table near the hearth, the lantern burning brightly beside her. White ringlets sprang out from beneath the wool blanket she’d wrapped around herself, but despite Tolya’s old age, those pale eyes were bright and clear and glaring at Sable with all the wrath and judgment of the Silent’s High Priest.
“The derriweed is gone,” Tolya said, slow and even, daring Sable to deny it.
Which, Sable knew from experience, was futile. “I know. I took it.”
“Why.”
Because Jedd would’ve died without it. Because she couldn’t bear to watch Mikael and Kat suffer. Because she had to pay for the wrong she’d done all those years ago. “Someone needed it,” she said.
Tolya slammed a fist on the table, and Sable jumped. The lantern rattled.
“Stupid girl! We need it!” Tolya growled. “Herbs are our only currency in this godforsaken land, and you just gave away your inheritance!”
Sable steeled herself. She’d known Tolya would be furious, and part of her hated herself for deceiving Tolya like this, but she hadn’t expected Tolya to say what she’d said, about Sable inheriting the business, and it humbled her.
“By the wards! What am I going to do with you?” Tolya rubbed her temples. The blanket slid from her head, freeing her wild mess of curls. Tolya dropped her hands and looked hard at Sable. “I will never recover that. Never. Do you understand, girl?”
Sable held Tolya’s gaze and nodded once. She didn’t apologize. She wouldn’t tell Tolya she was sorry when she knew that, if given the chance to go back in time, she’d do it all over again.
Tolya seemed to sense this as her eyes roved over Sable and then fixed somewhere above Sable’s ear. “Why are there pine needles in your hair?”
Sable reached up and patted her head. Sure enough, she pulled two sticky balsam ends from her hair. Thank the wards Velik hadn’t spotted them beneath her cowl. Tolya eyed Sable as she walked to the sleeping hearth and tossed them on the ash.
“You can’t keep this up,” Tolya said in a quiet voice. “This thieving.”
“We live in a town of thieves,” Sable snapped.
“We don’t steal from each other.”
“It’s not like I’m endangering anyone,” Sable said with exasperation. “I only take the excess. They hardly notice.” Which was true. The only one who seemed to notice was Velik, the stingy boor.
Tolya placed a hand on Sable’s arm, surprising her. Tolya had always been like a slab of granite. Cold, hard, and forever. It was how she’d survived—alone—in a place like this for so many decades, well before Sable had arrived, trembling in fear and self-loathing, on her doorstep.
“You think I don’t understand, but I do,” Tolya said suddenly, quietly. “It’s a cruel world we live in, and each of us tries to survive in the way we know how. A way that seems right to us.” Tolya hesitated, and her eyes softened. “But eventually you’ll get caught, Sable. This thieving, even for reasons that seem right to you, is still against the laws of this land, and it will get you killed, or worse. And I swore to the almighty Maker that I’d protect you for as long as He put breath in my old lungs. Promise me… promise me you’ll stop.”
Sable wanted to say that Ricón had promised to protect her too. But he, like everyone else, had let her go. He, like everyone else, had abandoned her to these cursed lands.
Tolya’s gaze didn’t relent, as if she’d heard everything Sable hadn’t said. Uncomfortable, Sable glanced down at the old and withered hand gripping her arm. It wasn’t a hand that’d touched her often, but it was the only hand that’d kept her warm and fed, and it’d provided a roof over her head for these past ten years.
And Sable jeopardized that. Over and over again.
“I’ll stop.”
Tolya searched her, looking for a fray in the oath.
“I promise,” Sable said. She meant it.
Satisfied, Tolya squeezed Sable’s arm, removed her hand, and grabbed the lantern. “I’ve stayed up long enough waiting for your skinny legs to return, and now I’m going to bed,” Tolya said with her usual deriding gusto. It made Sable grin.
“Wipe that smirk off your face, girl.”
Sable clamped her lips down.
Tolya hobbled back to her room and disappeared behind the curtain.
Sable lingered a moment in the darkness. A gust of wind pushed against the small hut, and the walls groaned. She glanced at the beaded curtain leading to her room. With quiet steps, she ducked through the narrow doorway and through the beads, then lit the small candle upon her nightstand. She set the candle on the floor, carefully lifted her nightstand and set it aside, so as not to make a sound, then knelt and tugged a floorboard free. A rectangular wooden black box stared back at her. She reached in, opened the lid, and raised the painted black flute to the soft candlelight.
At her touch, its etched glyphs pulsed silvery white, as if they’d been carved from moonlight. The flute had been a gift from Ricón on her fifth birthday. She’d been so enchanted by a flutist’s performance at a bazaar that she’d failed to join her guard at the designated time, inciting quite the uproar as the sar’s entire guard searched for his missing daughter. It’d earned her one month’s confinement to her chambers, but it’d also earned her this exquisite bone flute, thanks to an ever observant brother.
Her next exhale trembled through tight lips.
The glyphs hadn’t glowed in the beginning, but ever since that horrific night, they’d illuminated at her touch. She didn’t know what it meant, and she didn’t want to know. In fact, she’d tried getting rid of it. Four separate times. The first being the day it happened, when she’d left it behind on the travertine tiles. But when she was halfway to The Wilds, it’d suddenly reappeared in the pocket of her cloak. She’d wondered if someone had slipped it there without her notice, but when she’d chucked it into a river, only to find it in her pocket the next day—completely dry and unharmed—she grew suspicious. Again, she tried ridding herself of the cursed weapon when she’d passed over The Crossing by throwing it into the gorge. That time, however, her chest squeezed tighter and tighter the farther the flute fell, and by the time she reached the other side of the bridge, the flute had nestled itself into her cloak again. Her chest hadn’t relaxed till evening.
The fourth time had been her last, because when she’d tossed the flute into Benioff’s forge, her body responded as though she’d tossed herself into the flames instead. After that, she’d decided it was easier to just hide the cursed thing.
She might not be able to rid herself of the past, but she could certainly bury it beneath her feet.
Sable shut her eyes and sighed. She might’ve buried it, but it was still there. The plank of wood she always avoided, the spot in the floor her gaze subconsciously marked, checking grooves and woodgrain, making sure the board hadn’t been tampered with. Always fearing someone would notice and discover her horrible truth.
It was so easy to blame the flute. She’d found solace in it, initially. It was a Liagé weapon that had, unfortunately, found its way into her eager hands—she was innocent. For a little while, she even believed that. But as time matured, and guilt weighed heavier, she was forced to recognize that it was her hands that’d held the flute. It was her breath that had given it voice, and for that, she would never forgive herself.
She would never forgive herself for being the reason her little sister, Sorai, no longer lived.
A gust of wind rattled her window. Sable opened her eyes and stilled. The curtains weren’t shut completely, and through the exposed panes, she thought she’d sensed someone there.
Curious, and a little bit anxious, she set the flute back in its box and crept to her window. The small herb garden beyond lay dark, the world quiet, save the howling wind. An owl launched from the fence post and was swallowed by the night. Sable waited a moment, watching the shadows.
It must’ve been the wind, she thought with a frown, then tugged her curtains closed completely.
Sable returned to the hole in the floor, crouching beside it. The glyphs had faded.
“I can’t blame you for my actions anymore,” she whispered.
She closed the lid on her past and set everything back in its proper place, then changed her clothing and climbed into bed. Tolya was right. She needed to stop using the past to excuse her present before it got her killed.
He watched her from the shadows.
She was a curious thing, small and slight and inconspicuous. Not forgettable, exactly, but not at all what he’d imagined. However, he was not one to question the Maker’s will.
She cradled the flute in her hands as though it were a gift from the heavens—too precious, too sacred for human touch—though he did not think she knew what it was. He did.
Her eyes snapped open and fastened on the window. No, on him.
He ducked away in surprise. The girl shouldn’t have been able to see him, sense him. He checked himself; his power hummed true. But she set the flute down and crept toward the window.
It was time for him to go. He’d watched her long enough, and he’d gotten what he’d come for anyway. In a twist of wool, he switched forms and launched into the night. Sleep would have to come later, because he had a very important message to deliver.
He’d finally found her.
“Sorcery is death.
Like a temptress, it seduces with honeyed lips, beguiling man into its bed only to slaughter him in his sleep. For sorcery, a man’s existence is nothing more than a temporary diversion, sacrificed for mere amusement in homage to its implacable god.
Let us not forget the mighty Sol Velorians. Let us not forget how, though their kingdom stretched from the Vendaran Desert to the Western Lands, and though their prophets—the Liagé—had been given unnatural power, still they hungered for more. They hungered for us. And by the gods’ great mercy, the Five Provinces staved off that hunger by defeating them.
But we did not defeat sorcery itself.
It lives on in the darkest corners of our world, hiding from us. Its followers persist like weeds, encroaching upon our boundaries, sprouting inside our homeland, slowly spreading chaos and corruption. They must be plucked swiftly, lest the Sol Velorians rise again.”
Excerpt from the teachings of Gasta, Temple Head Inquisitor, the month of Aryn’s Light, year three and thirty A. R.
3
Twenty-six Scabs.
It was the largest group Jeric had scouted yet. It still amazed him how many Scabs existed from a war that’d happened nearly one hundred and fifty years ago. He tried his best to hunt them, kill them, enslave them. They couldn’t be allowed freedom, not after what their people had done. Not after what their survivors did still. A supposed religion of peace, and their sorcery had nearly annihilated the continent. If one ever forgot how dangerous power of that magnitude could be, a quick glance at the Forgotten Wastes proved an effective reminder. An entire land… destroyed, at the hands of their Liagé. Their so-called blessed for the sorcery they wielded. Sorcery wasn’t a rutting blessing. It was a curse upon the land, and Jeric refused to let that peaceful culture thrive on his watch.
But no matter how many Scabs Jeric caught or killed, there were always more, as if the earth kept spitting their dead from the ground just to keep him busy. Recently, small groups of them had been coordinating attacks, demolishing bridges and intercepting important trade routes, slowly cutting of their resources along Corinth’s southwestern border, where it touched the city of Highvale—trying to weaken Corinth. Godsdamned demon-worshippers.
And here were twenty-six of them.
He and his pack could take on twenty-six.
Jeric gave Braddok the signal. Braddok flashed a wicked grin and vanished around a rock. Which said a good deal about the rock, since Braddok was the size of a mountain. Jeric waited, crouched behind a tree, his sword, Lorath, in hand. A bird called from above.
Jeric grinned to himself. Gerald must’ve been practicing. He’d sounded less like a dying mouse and more like an eastern red-tailed finch.
Gerald made the call a second time. Jeric signaled the three men beside him. As one, they leapt out from the trees and bolted straight for the Scabs. Bolts zinged above. One Scab cried out and collapsed. Another fell right behind the first. Gerald was up there alone, but he didn’t miss. He never did.
The remaining Scabs drew weapons and sprinted forward, engaging Jeric and his pack. Jeric hacked through the first few while his men fought hard behind him. These Scabs were better fighters than most. Jeric actually broke a sweat.
“Wolf!” Braddok yelled. “Get down!”
Jeric dropped in a plank. A bolt whizzed overhead, followed by a wet snick. A voice cried out, and a Scab collapsed in a heap beside Jeric, a bolt sticking out between his eyes. Jeric gave a curt nod to the trees, exchanged a glance with Braddok, leapt to his feet, and kept fighting.
Braddok swung his hatchet, sending three Scabs flying backwards into a tent. Jeric sprinted for them as the tent collapsed, and they were dead within a minute. Jeric turned and wiped his brow. Scabs lay everywhere, broken and bleeding. A worthy sacrifice to the gods. Lorath, the god of justice for whom he’d named his sword, should be pleased.
Braddok was finishing off the last two when Jeric said, “I need one alive!”
“Pliss!” begged one in a thick Scárib accent—the language shared by Istraans and Scabs. “I swear to gott…” A red line spread across his throat, and his words gurgled and died as he slumped to the ground. Braddok wiped his dagger clean on the dead Scab’s thick, black ponytail.
Chez and Stanis shoved the last remaining Scab down upon her knees.
A woman.
Jeric sheathed his sword and strode over to her.
She glared up at him, all defiance. “Cowart,” she hissed and spat on the ground. “That’s why you slaughter us. Because you are cowarts. All of you. You are terrifite of our gott, of everything we repres—”
Jeric punched her square in the jaw.
The Scab reeled, but Chez and Stanis held her firmly on her knees. She flexed her jaw and spat blood at Jeric’s boots. Jeric squeezed her jaw and jerked it up. Her face strained against the pull.
“You’ll cooperate,” Jeric said darkly, “or what we did to your friends will seem a mercy. Understand?”
She grunted against the pain in her jaw, her eyes burning with hatred.
“Are there more of you?” Jeric asked.
She didn’t answer.
Jeric squeezed harder.
She wince
d. “No.”
Jeric searched her angular eyes. Scab eyes. Dark and deceptive, like the sorcerers they worshiped. But he didn’t think she was lying.
“What are you doing here?” Jeric demanded.
“We are heading to the Baraga Mountains…”
Jeric jerked her chin hard. “You’ve been heading east for the past two days. I’ve been tracking you. So, I’ll ask again. What are you doing here?”
The Scab seethed but didn’t answer.
Jeric slapped her face with his free hand.
Water filled her eyes, she blinked, and an angry red handprint blushed her cheek.
“Is Kormand leading you? Has he promised amnesty if you did his dirty work?” Jeric snapped.
She didn’t answer.
He slapped her again, harder this time.
She glared back at him, eyes narrowed. “And whose tirty work are you toing, Wolf?”
Jeric gripped her chin so hard she squeezed her eyes shut and a tear leaked out. “All you godsdamn Scabs are the same. Arrogant. Self-righteous. Rutting pains in my ass. We’ll see how far that gets you at the Temple.”
The Scab’s eyes opened wide with fear.
Jeric released her jaw. She slumped forward, and just as she began relaxing her neck and shoulders, Jeric kicked her in the stomach. This time, Chez and Stanis let go. She sprawled on the ground, clutching her stomach as she gasped for breath.
“Bind her,” Jeric ordered his pack, glaring down at the woman. “You should’ve answered my question, Scab. My inquisitors aren’t nearly as merciful as I am.”
“Gods, Gerald, slow down,” Chez said. “Some of us haven’t eaten!”
Gerald, who’d been helping himself to a third scoop of the tasteless slop, dropped the ladle back in the kettle and stepped aside with a grunt.
Chez picked up the ladle and eyed Gerald’s long and willowy frame. “Where do you put it, man?”
“I still think he’s got parasites,” Stanis said, glancing up from his bowl. He wiped dribble from his lips. “You been sleeping with Scabs, Gerald?”
The Gods of Men Page 3