“You’ve been quiet today,” Khosa says as he settles next to her.
“I have much to think over,” he says. “Sallin will bring Winlan around, and then what will be done?”
“He plans to bring Winlan and any others who wish to come back with us to Stille, so that they may show us how to build a fleet, teach Stilleans the ways of the sail and how to float upon the sea.”
“A fleet,” Donil breathes, somehow making the word sound poisonous to her ears. “How many?”
“As many as Stilleans wish to fill,” Khosa says. “As well as Hyllenians, and any from Hygoden and Sawhen as well. None will be left behind who wish to go to the new land.”
Though Khosa has been queen only a short time, she has learned much from her position. Her voice rings with authority and conviction in this cave, and she drops her head, ashamed that she has spoken to Donil as if she were the queen in truth. She would be only Khosa to him, and her hand slides across the cave floor to find his and squeeze an apology. He returns it, and their hands stay clasped.
“Khosa,” Donil says quietly, “have you not thought that perhaps the ship the Pietran Lures spotted in the histories was Winlan himself?”
“I . . .” Her voice catches on this bit of logic, a question she cannot explain away. “I had not,” she says eventually. “But even if it were, I would still go aboard and follow where my instincts lead.”
“Even if it leads to a horizon of endless sea?” He turns to her, eyes glaringly bright in the dark of the cave.
“I have ignored my instincts too long and avoided many risks,” Khosa says, lifting her hand to his face. She traces his lips, the fullness of them warm beneath her finger.
“I’m done living that way,” she says, and puts her mouth to his.
Once before they had allowed themselves to touch each other freely, in the walls of Stille and with the spines of the histories looking down upon them. There, Donil had put an end to it before it had gone too far. Here, with the sea wind carrying the tang of salt and the darkness of the cave promising secrecy, there is nothing to stop them.
And neither desires it.
Khosa wished to be only a girl, and Donil only a boy, all trappings of who they are lost in those words. And that is how it goes as their hands find each other’s bodies, mouths gasping for breath and for each other, clothes shed in a frenzy to become as close as possible and then, finally, to be one.
She cries out into his shoulder, her skin singing with his touch, a wave of her own building inside her body. Nothing is stronger than this, not the sea, not the call of a land far in the distance. In this moment her body wants only Donil, and she has him, to the very end.
CHAPTER 45
Dara
Gaul is up, his trudge echoing through the chamber outside my door. I hear it, one boot falling harder than the other, a misalignment of the hips that makes him favor one leg, a glaring weakness if I should fight him. I lean against the far wall, both hands on my spear. The killing end of it rests lightly on the small barred window, an incongruity to catch Gaul’s eye if he’s sharp enough to spot it. But he blinds himself with the torch instead, raising it in the hopes of catching a glimpse of my skin.
“How’d the night go with you, girlie?” he calls. “Getting cold, a bit.”
I give no response, as expected. His own solutions for warming me come soon after.
“I could slip you a blanket, if you’d like. We both get underneath it, and you’ll be warm within and without.”
I tighten my grip on the spear, brace my spine against the wall. Gaul leans closer, face pressed against the bars, eyes rolling in their sockets to find me.
“I don’t mind your spots, girlie,” he calls. “In the dark you could be anyone, as could I. You be the queen of Stille, and I’ll be the ki—”
I ram him, feeling the soft give of his eyeball and the light resistance of his skull as the spear tears through his head, breaking out the other side to scrape against the wall of the corridor. He hangs, suspended, jaw open in surprise as one hand flutters to the spear, questioning.
I don’t give him time to find the answers, hauling his body back toward me, hand over hand, until his face is against the window again . . . but he’ll speak no words to me now. The keys around his neck are within reach, the one that fits my cell easy to spot, shining with recent use. I twist my arm through the bars of my window, my newly healed bones crushed against the door. It is a bright pain, but a short one, as the door opens under my hand. The spear comes free from the jailer’s head with a tug, his body left behind in my cell.
“You’ll be cooling in here alone,” I tell him. “Blanket or not.”
My palms itch for my double blades, and I find them resting in a corner of Gaul’s room. It’s a surprisingly clean place, inkpot and quill aligned on the desk, stool pushed in underneath. He even made his bed before he came to pester me, the corners pulled tight, a slight depression in the middle where he sat, putting his boots on. My blades are out of place here, their Indiri nature speaking of trees that grow limbs in all directions and wild bursts of air tamed for only a moment, when pulled into lungs.
I ease the harness onto my back, welcoming the weight of the blades against my shoulders. I draw and spin, slicing the air of the jailer’s room to test the mend of my bones. They protest, but not loudly. My boots and bow are nowhere to be found; Gaul probably traded them, holding on to my blades for a larger favor, maybe to delay the building of his boat or getting someone else to do it.
I sit, resting on Gaul’s bed in the same spot he did moments before I killed him. It still holds a bit of his warmth, and I absorb it, pondering my options. In Stille my spots were tolerated, but here in Pietra I’ll be killed the moment I am seen. Before the Lusca nearly did me in, I had a chance to kill the Lithos with speed and cunning, or perhaps from a distance with my bow. None even need know it was an Indiri who loosed the arrow.
Now the Pietra know an Indiri is among them. They know my rotting name, I’m reminded, cursing myself to the depths for the moment where I forgot the boy who held my arm was not just a boy, but the Lithos. Any chance I had of surprise is lost, and the longer I tarry, the more chance favors the Pietra. I should leave, return to Stille, where at least I can be counted as a strength and not a weakness to be bartered against.
I rise, but hesitate. Though my mind is made up, my heart wants vengeance. I came into this place of stone broken and beaten. Their floors have drunk my blood, and to leave without doing what I came for goes against my nature. I draw my blades again, punishing the air in front of me for being empty. If the Lithos only stood there, I’d open him all over and be done with it. I sheathe my blades and swear in Indiri, but even my own language isn’t harsh enough to put words to what burns inside me.
There are torches in the corridor sconces, but I ignore them, pulling the ragged hood of my cloak to cover my face. One glance would tell anyone I don’t belong here, and so the shadows will serve me best. I pad barefoot up a stone stair and ascend another. The early sun has barely set the sky to gray when I come to the first window and a side door, set low. There are small sounds above me, people moving to rise with the morning, when I put my hand to the latch and walk free.
Speed will attract attention, and so I keep my pace slow, head bowed toward the ground. The handles of my blades brush the backs of my ears, reminding me that none in Pietra carry weapons such as these. I draw them and tuck them close against my side. I smell the earthy mulch of the stables and adjust my course, following my nose to the warm bodies of horses.
They nicker at me as I enter, thinking I come to feed them. Which means they are accustomed to a morning meal and the groom will be here shortly. I pass each stall, drawing in deep the smell of the animals, the hay, their grain, even what they leave behind them in their bedding. Pietra or Stille, all stables are the same, and the quiet here soothes me after the funk of the dung
eons and the whispered threats from Gaul. In the corner I find a fine animal, gray like the morning and tall as the cliffs. I smile at him, and he shows me his teeth. I pull my blades out, to show him mine.
“I like you,” I say in Indiri, and he snorts as if it means little to him, and I sheathe them across my back once more.
There is not time for tack and bridle, so I swing onto his back, and he starts underneath me, unaccustomed to a bare rider. But the walls have been around him too long and he wants air, so he argues little when I squeeze him with my knees and point his head toward the sun. We’re gone in a breath, stones behind me and trees ahead.
The horse is well trained and knows his own country, shying from Hadundun trees and saving my neck more than once with a quick sidestep. His rider may be a stranger, but the earth beneath him is not, and he runs as if afraid I’ll turn him back to the stables and a life of contentment.
I know his fear, have felt it myself, as the walls of Stille eased me into warm meals and soft beds, teaching me things no Indiri has ever learned. I’ll set this horse loose well short of the city, and if he returns to the stables of Pietra, it will surprise me greatly. We’re free of the forest, headed for open ground and what I’m sure will be a pace that will break my neck should I go over his head, when my stallion balks. I slip heavily to the side, my hair grazing the ground before I’m able to pull myself astride, hands buried in his mane.
The stallion’s ears are pricked, his sides heaving. Something has caught his attention, and I reach back with one hand, ready to draw against whatever forest horror Pietra has to offer me when I hear it too.
It’s the Lithos, calling his horse.
CHAPTER 46
Witt
Sleep teases me, calling in low tones that sound like my mother’s voice rolling back against the waves. I wake tangled in my bed coverings, the sound of the surf nearly covering the light knock at my door. Hadduk tends to burst in, hoping to catch me at some sport he can mock me for, unable to believe that I take no woman. The knock comes again, a light touch, and I erase any tones of fear from my voice before calling out.
“Come in.”
It is the Keeper, a lantern burning low in her hand. “Apologies, Lithos, a soldier came asking for you, and though the Mason would turn him away, I thought his words worth hearing.”
As a steady mind goes, I value hers over his, and so motion for the soldier to enter. It’s an older man, one I remember rallying troops to his side after his commander was swept up in the wave. He wears a band on his finger; he is a solid Pietran of good stock who has been allowed to take a wife and breed. If something has pestered this man to come to his Lithos in the dead of dark, it is worthwhile indeed.
“Speak,” I say, already pulling on my breeches and signaling for the Keeper to find me a shirt.
“My Lithos, I would not have—”
“Your Lithos calls for you to speak, not explain yourself,” I say. The man, a true soldier, responds by clicking his heels together and reporting.
“A clowder of cats has gathered in the forest.”
My fingers pause on my bootlaces as I question my judgment. “And? The Tangata wander here from time to time. Why is that remarkable?”
“They wander, yes,” the man admits. “But these cats seem to have purpose. Or rather, to be in search of some. They . . .” He breaks off, looking at the Keeper as if he would not voice horrors in her presence.
“Out with it,” I say, fingers back on my laces. “This woman has seen much and done more. You will not find her easily shocked.”
“Children pulled from a wagon, my Lithos. One dead before she could cry out. The other . . . she had the chance to scream, at least.”
“You know more of the cats than we do,” I say to the Keeper as I take a clean shirt from her. “Do they often act as such?”
“If restless,” she says. “Not so long ago, Stille sent the Indiri to us, after the cats became bold and stole some of our children.”
“And what did the Indiri do?”
The Keeper shrugs. “They were bolder.”
“I’ll ride out,” I say to the soldier, almost expecting him to tell me my presence is not necessary. I will argue that sleep evades me, and what better purpose for the Lithos than to see to his people? But the soldier does not contradict me, instead moving aside to let me pass by him to the door.
“You have men?” I ask him. He’s a lower commander, and not one who will have many to call to him, but enough that I will not fear for my safety against the cats.
As my door swings shut behind me, I hear an echo from my dream, my mother’s voice above the surf, and I wonder if I care so much for my own well-being this night, or any other. Should my life cease, so then would my dreams of her and my small brothers, in their boat with no oars. Then I think of Dara the Indiri, sleeping beneath my feet, and what would become of her at Hadduk’s hands.
I square my shoulders and sheathe my sword.
* * *
Cavallo is battle trained, but has never been tested against a Tangata. He wouldn’t be the first horse to panic in the presence of a cat, so I ask my groom to bring me a horse who has been, one that won’t shy at the sound of a hiss, or buck a rider to avoid a swipe. He gives me a mare, which I raise my brows at, but he hands me the reins with a confident nod.
“She’s seen the cats, my Lithos, and was not impressed.”
Rantoon, the soldier who woke me, is already mounted, as are his men. I’ll not delay them longer in an argument over horseflesh with a groom who is undoubtedly better informed than I am. I’m saddled and by their side in a moment, the heavy fog of the night breaking around us as we ride off, my groom rubbing his eyes as he returns to his bed.
We pass by a Hadundun tree with deep claw marks, filling in red where they cut to its lifesap. Tufts of hair in all colors litter the ground around it, handfuls of orange, black, white, and gray. I swing off the mare, holding one such clump in my hand. It’s soft and smooth, a misleading beauty that I know hides claws that catch and teeth that crush.
“They’re confused by the trees,” Rantoon says, reining in his own mount. “I’ve seen it on the edge of the forest. When the cats wander too close to a Hadundun they know only that they are hurt, and lash out at the source of the pain. The trees will heal themselves, and the cats move on.”
“Scarred,” I add, as the wind stirs the fur around my feet.
“Injured,” he corrects. “And angry.”
Rantoon makes a point, and one all the men who ride with us must heed well. We are tracking dangerous animals, some of whom are in pain and looking for a victim to give as they were given. I run my fingers underneath the mare’s nose, so that she is aware of what I ride her toward. She snorts, unconcerned, scattering the hairs I hold into the wind.
“Clever girl,” I say, scratching her neck as I climb back into the saddle.
The other horses are not so calm; a ripple of anxiety passes through them. Muscles flick, ears turn, heads rise, and nostrils flare against this strange smell on a cold wind.
“Easy,” Rantoon says to his own mount, as a crashing sound comes from our stoneward. He’s an accomplished horseman, but his horse is an animal, in the end, and harbors a deep fear of what he does not know. His fear spreads to the next horse, and the next, each man suddenly grappling with reins, speaking in low voices to calm them as they hear heavy movement in the brush.
The fog has lifted slightly, the first gray fingers of light reaching through the trees as I reach for my sword and spur the mare onward. The others may follow as they can, but I will not have it be said that the Lithos sought safety when on a steady mount, faced with cats that had taken children for their meal.
The mare pushes ahead, thorns tearing at my boots for purchase as we crest a hill and descend the other side, our party out of sight. My blade is drawn when she comes to a halt, confused, nostrils f
inding some scent that does not hold with what she expected. A tremor passes underneath me as she calls out, nickering.
And is answered by a voice I know.
“Cavallo?” I call, as confused as my mount.
My stallion answers me, honest and true. For him there is no reasoning to puzzle out. He is my horse and I his rider; how we both come to be here—and not together—is not his concern. I spur the mare on until the dawn light illuminates my horse, along with a rider who struggles to control him.
“Thief!” I yell, urging the mare onward. The groom was right to seat me on this girl. She senses my anger and responds as if her own were kindled, blood up, head held high and fearless.
Neither one of us is prepared for the attack that comes from behind.
A weight falls onto the mare’s back just short of my own, and I turn in time to see a Tangata grasping for purchase. Claws find their home, and the mare screams, rearing. I’m unseated and roll free of her flailing hooves, only to come beneath Cavallo’s.
He’s bucking, wild to rid himself of his rider. I dodge again, coming up with sword in hand to defend my mare, who is down. Her screams tear my ears as the cat digs deeply into her hindquarters. Another springs from the bracken to end her cries with a decisive snap of its jaws. Two more slink forward and crouch behind her body, growling, eyes on me.
There’s a crash behind me as Cavallo unseats his rider and the thief tumbles to the ground. I keep my gaze on the clowder, grown by three more as the others are drawn to the smell of fresh blood.
“If you have a weapon to fight these beasts, draw it in my defense, and I’ll forgive your crime,” I say over my shoulder to the fallen thief.
“I have two,” a calm voice says. “And my own skin to worry about, Lithos.”
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