Flight

by Jae Waller

  “He’s still alive.” Even as I said it, it didn’t seem real. “His family is still alive. Thank the aeldu—” I crumpled against a chair.

  It felt wrong to be relieved. Dozens of families grieved in Crieknaast. I could only hope none had lost their last source of strength and protection in the world — a parent or sibling struggling to keep a family together.

  “Kateiko.” Tiernan’s voice sounded odd. “There is a note here. A troop of soldiers rode to the tannery the day after the uprising. They found the entire place destroyed.”

  My eyes widened. I stepped closer to peer at the scrap of paper. “We were right.”

  “Whatever happened in town, you helped save those people from certain death at Suriel’s hands.” He glanced up at me. “That is worth something.”

  I flung my arms around him, but quickly pulled back. “I’m just glad they had a chance.” I lowered my eyes. “And that I didn’t make Ingard lead his own brother to his death. I . . . honestly don’t know if I could’ve dealt with that. Maybe that’s selfish of me.”

  Tiernan laid a hand on my shoulder. “It is human.”

  11.

  CALADHEÅ

  “Anywhere else you need to go?” Pelennus asked in the mosaic hall.

  “Well—” I glanced at Tiernan. “Maybe I should register in the birth records. So you won’t have to come with me next time.”

  He inclined his head. “If you like.”

  “You want the Office of the Viirelei, then,” Pelennus said. “Follow me.”

  On the way out of the pavilion, I saw Quintere talking to two men in plate armour. He met my eyes long enough to give a hint of a smile before gesturing the men toward the meeting room.

  Pelennus led us back into the gallery, up a steep staircase to a balcony, and past identical doors with engraved metal panels. She rapped on one and stuck her head in. “Visitors for you, Falwen.”

  “Tell them to wait,” a man’s voice replied.

  Pelennus closed the door and shrugged.

  I leaned over the wrought-iron balustrade. The gallery was filled with statues of soldiers on horseback, holding up swords or spears. Three elderly men were deep in conversation. From their loose, black robes I guessed they were councillors. Frost-coated windows looked out on the sprawling lawn.

  Tiernan fiddled with his gloves and kept looking over his shoulder. I wanted to say something but didn’t know what. I fidgeted with my bodice instead. After hours of riding, the boning felt out of place. I caught Pelennus watching, and she looked away as if in boredom. Two voices murmured in Falwen’s office, then I heard the door open.

  “Fuck,” Tiernan said under his breath.

  He never swore in Coast Trader. I spun to see who’d come out. An itheran in a long black coat and stiff-collared white shirt stared directly at us.

  “Who’s that?” I whispered.

  “Ignore him.” Tiernan put his head down so his dark hair covered his face.

  “I don’t think that’s an option.”

  The man crossed the balcony with a warm smile. “Heilind! I barely recognized you.”

  Tiernan leaned against the balustrade. “Yet you never change, Councillor.”

  My jaw fell. The man was nothing like Montès or the doddering old councillors in the gallery. He was tall for an itheran, with a strong jaw and sharp gaze. Straight black hair fell past his broad shoulders.

  “Who is this lovely lady?” the man addressed me.

  “Kateiko,” I stammered.

  He lifted my hand and kissed the back of it, showing several ornate rings on his fingers. “It is a pleasure to meet an acquaintance of Heilind’s. I am Councillor Antoch Parr.”

  Pelennus rolled her eyes.

  “I heard you were in Crieknaast,” Parr said to Tiernan. “Montès’s handling of the situation was a disgrace to the Council.”

  “Gods forbid the Council go a month without disgracing itself. The entire political body would die of starvation.”

  “Rest assured I am personally looking into the military’s actions.” Parr twisted one of his rings. “Speaking of which, an inquiry into Suriel is set to begin in the new year. I hope you might be willing to speak on behalf—”

  “Not a chance.” Tiernan set a hand on his empty scabbard. “Do me a favour. Make sure the Council knows I have no interest.”

  “Of course. Please let me know if you change your mind.” Parr gave me a deep bow. “Miss Kateiko, I apologize for the intrusion. Pelennus, good day.” He strode down the balcony and entered a door near the staircase.

  I smacked Tiernan. “What’s your problem?”

  Tiernan glared at me and rubbed his arm. “What?”

  “He was perfectly polite.”

  “Politicians will say anything to persuade people to do what they want.”

  I glared back. We returned to waiting in silence.

  The door finally opened again. A man beckoned. “Come. Hurry up. The mage stays outside.”

  He was unmistakably viirelei, tall and wiry like Fendul with cropped brown hair, but he wore a long-sleeved white shirt and a brocade waistcoat that hid his tattoos. It unnerved me to not know which jouyen he was from.

  I stepped into a room that felt cramped despite its size. An entire wall was plastered with maps. Long ink lines stretched far overhead. Wooden cabinets were wedged into every available space. The only respite was a set of tall windows that looked onto a covered stone loggia, the mountains and thin blue sky visible in the distance.

  The man sat behind a desk and pointed at a chair. “My name is Falwen. I represent every Aikoto jouyen from the Haka in the north to the Kae in the south. Whatever you need goes through me.”

  I perched on the hard chair. “That must be a lot of people.”

  “It is. I am very busy. So be quick.” He spoke as fast as possible, and his Trader was flawless.

  “I want to register in the birth records.”

  Falwen gave me a hard look. “Name and jouyen?”

  “Kateiko Rin.”

  “A respectable jouyen. Once.” He went to a cabinet and rifled through a folder. It looked nearly empty. “Are there others with you?”

  “Nei. No Rin, I mean. That mage outside brought me into the city.”

  “Does the itheran government know you are Rin?”

  “Nei.”

  He took out a larger folder and sat back down. “No Rin has lived in Eremur since the Second Elken War sixty-eight years ago. Few itherans remember the Rin-jouyen even exists. If you encounter trouble, at best the military will interrogate you. Do not ask the worst. From now on, to itherans, you are Iyo.”

  “Wait — just like that? What about my Rin tattoo?”

  “Keep it covered. If you are forced to show it, lie. Make up a meaning.”

  I shrugged. I’d planned to become Iyo anyway, and if it made getting past the city guard easier, I wouldn’t argue.

  Falwen laid a blank paper on the desk, dipped a quill into an inkpot, and asked a rapid string of questions. My birthdate, marital status, the description and location of my tattoos, my role in the jouyen.

  “Antayul,” I said to the last one. “Will I need an escort if I come back to the Colonnium?”

  “No. Water-calling is considered a lower form of magic.” His hand streaked across the page. “Attuned form?”

  “I’m not telling you that.”

  Falwen stopped writing. “Something to hide?”

  My fingers tightened on the folds of my skirt. “A wolf. Silver.”

  On another paper, he took notes about my family and everyone I knew in the Iyo, then handed me a creased list. “Choose a second name. If you cannot read, I will assign you one.”

  “Can’t I use Iyo?”

  “Not here.”

  I tried to make sense of the writing, but it disintegr
ated into a jumble. “Do I have to choose from this list?”

  “Not if it makes you hurry up.”

  “Sohikoehl.”

  Falwen’s harried expression slipped into surprise. “Sverbian. How provincial.” He jotted it down and stamped a sigil in red ink. “Listen carefully. You were born within Iyo borders but raised in the far north. That will explain your utter lack of knowledge about the south. Your family died of illness. Not in war. Understood?”

  “Yes.”

  He filled out a palm-sized card, stamped it, and placed it in front of me. “This is your identification. It allows you to enter Caladheå. Do not lose it. That is much more paperwork.”

  I picked up the stiff card. I recognized my name and a string of numbers. “Is that all?”

  “Yes. Now get out. And close the door.”

  Tiernan was waiting on the balcony when I emerged. “That was fast.”

  “Tell me about it.” I waited until Pelennus looked away before waterproofing the card.

  I knocked clumps of snow off leafless branches as I walked down Colonnium Hill with Tiernan, feeling more at ease with my weapons back on my belt. “I’m sorry about before. It’s none of my business why you don’t like Councillor Parr.”

  “Perhaps meeting him was for the better. I will rest easier if it dissuades the Council from seeking me out.”

  “Does that mean we can stop at the market before going back?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

  I stuck close to Tiernan as we walked deeper into Caladheå. There were no timber buildings like in the old Sverbian quarter, just red-brick structures packed into tight rows. From a single street corner, I could see more people than in all Aeti Ginu — talking, laughing, yelling, buying food or newspapers or fabric flowers from children on the sidewalk.

  I began to play a game with myself, guessing who was Sverbian or Ferish. Quickly, I figured it out by their clothing. Sverbian women wore simple brimless bonnets, either white or the same colour as their bodices, and the unchanging white dress. Ferish women wore brimmed bonnets decorated with lace and ribbons, and dark patterned dresses that rose high on their necks. Ferish men had stiff-collared shirts and coats like Parr instead of a jerkin and cloak like Tiernan.

  The street suddenly opened into a vast courtyard framed by tall brick buildings. People flowed in and out of laneways between rows of wooden stalls. The lanes were the only part of this district that didn’t feel vertical. A spired building loomed over the square, grey towers grasping at the sky like talons. I’d seen a drawing like that in one of Tiernan’s theological books — a sancte, he called it, a Ferish holy building. The peal of a bell echoed slow and deep.

  “Wait,” Tiernan said. “I want to show you something.”

  He led me along the edge of the square to a narrow shop with grimy windows. I stepped into a forest of books — shelves of coloured leather packed to the ceiling, coated with dust, small enough to fit in my pocket or too large to fit in my arms. Flickering lamplight illuminated the deep corners of the room.

  I turned in a circle. “Yan taku.”

  An elderly shopkeeper with a starched collar bowed stiffly. “Good day. Looking for anything in particular?”

  “I want a book written in Coast Trader,” I said.

  He blinked as if he’d just noticed I was there. “What’s the point?” he muttered.

  “We will browse alone.” Tiernan nudged my elbow.

  I edged into a gap between shelves, looking at gilt lettering on the covers. “I didn’t know there was this much to write about.”

  “If you have thought it, someone has written it.” Tiernan ran his finger along the spines. “What do you want to read?”

  “I don’t know. My friend in Vunfjel used to read me folk tales. I liked one about a fox that played pranks on people.”

  “I do not know that story.”

  “You must’ve had a boring childhood. What did you read?”

  “History books. And atlases.” Tiernan glanced at the carved signs nailed over the shelves. He pulled down a thick book, balanced it on his forearm, and flipped it open to a map covered with curving lines. “I liked dreaming about all the other lands out there.”

  “I guess you were born to travel.” I tilted my head to study the map. “Do you ever miss Sverba?”

  “All the time.” He shut the book. “Fiction is upstairs.”

  We climbed a creaking staircase to the second floor. Tiernan guided me to the mythology section where I pulled out book after book until I found one in Trader, the length of my hand with a worn green cover. It even had an illustration of the crafty fox stealing a fisherman’s bait.

  I hugged it to my chest and made my way back down the steep stairs. A woman in a fur coat and floral print dress was buying a book at the counter. She didn’t haggle, just handed over a few coins.

  As soon as she left, I held out the book. “How much is this?”

  The shopkeeper glanced at Tiernan. “Sure you want to buy her that, sir?”

  “How much?” I repeated.

  He squinted at the book through his spectacles. “Quarter sov.”

  I took a copper coin from my purse and set it on the counter. The man picked it up with a rag and rubbed it clean. I clamped my tongue between my teeth and shouldered the door open.

  “I apologize,” Tiernan said out in the frosty square. “I would have taken you elsewhere if I knew he would act that way.”

  “It’s not your fault.” I focused on stowing my book in my shoulder bag so he couldn’t see my face. “At the rate I read, his blood will be in the ground before I need to go back.”

  We wandered down a laneway where merchants crammed under low roofs, selling every item imaginable — painted ceramic dishes, wool stockings, liquor in green bottles, coloured lace, pots of ink, silk handkerchiefs, bins of dried fruit, brass buttons. I stood still as people flowed around me. Snatches of different languages and the scent of meat and spices wove together like the bolts of patterned cloth on display.

  “Show me some of your Sverbian food,” I said. “Something that reminds you of home. Just . . . nothing with animal heart.”

  Itherans in Vunfjel ate hearts from the mountain goats they slaughtered. Tiernan had been confused the first time he saw me gut a rabbit and bury the heart. The thought of eating a sacred organ made my stomach twist.

  The hint of a smile crossed his face. “How much do you trust me?”

  “I trust you not to kill me with food. I’m still not sure about the axe.”

  Tiernan led me to a stall radiating heat from a stone oven. He spoke in Sverbian to a woman rolling out sheets of dough. She stopped long enough to take our coins and hand us steaming dark brown pastries wrapped in paper.

  “Careful. The inside will be—”

  “Ah!” I spat out my mouthful.

  Tiernan sighed. “Hot.”

  I flailed my hand in front of my mouth and sucked in cold air. “What did you call this? Blødstavgren?” I asked when I could speak again.

  “Yes. Blødstavohl in rye pastry. It is a traditional midwinter dish.”

  “Goat blood stew, right?” I bit off a cooler chunk of meat and swallowed when I noticed Tiernan looking at me. “You didn’t think I’d like it!”

  He chuckled. “I did not expect you to know what it meant.”

  “There are plenty of things to learn just by listening, you know.”

  “Including how to not burn yourself.”

  I elbowed him and walked off with my pastry.

  After passing stall after stall of itheran merchants, I saw something jarringly familiar — the Iyo dolphin crest embroidered on a square of leather nailed to a wall. I stepped into the shop, brushing past a rack of tawny elk-skin cloaks.

  A woman with a dark brown braid and friendly wrinkles around her eyes ra
ised a hand. “Hanekei.”

  I smiled and returned the greeting. She didn’t comment on my accent. Maybe she thought I was from the Tamu-jouyen. They sounded like us, even though Iyo were closer in customs.

  Her cloak was plain. It went against etiquette for embroiderers to adorn their own clothes. Nili always decorated mine when she got bored. Iyo embroidery wasn’t as well-regarded as Rin, but the woman’s stitching was sturdy. I picked out mittens edged with cloud weasel fur as a gift for Marijka. I wanted something for Tiernan, but nothing seemed right.

  “Do you have any makiri?” I asked on sudden inspiration.

  “Only a few. Itherans don’t buy them.” She opened a box and showed me an assortment of stone figurines the length of my thumb. “My daughter carves them.”

  “They’re beautiful.” I had to admit Iyo were better at stonecraft. Carvers from both jouyen worked small to show their skill, but Rin made makiri out of wood instead. I sifted through seals and waterfowl, common attuned forms among Iyo, and chose a grey wolf speckled with mica, ears alert and one paw raised.

  “How far is Toel Ginu from here?” I asked after we settled on a price and I was counting out sovereigns and iron pann.

  “Five, six hours on foot. You might be able to see the fires during the Yanben ritual.”

  I thanked her and kept wandering. With the last of my money from selling furs in Crieknaast, I bought paper packets of herbal tea from an Iyo man and opened them up to breathe the familiar smell. I was just walking off when I saw an itheran boy swipe a tin and sneak back to his laughing friends.

  “Ai!” I grabbed his arm. “Put it back before I tell the shopkeeper.”

  He wrenched away. “What you gonna do, wood witch? Bite me?”

  “Fuck you. Just put it back.”

  “Ooh, she’s got a mouth on her!” The boy laughed. “I like a bit of mouth on a girl. Better dull those canines first though.”

  “Kaid ne aeldu,” I spat.

  One of his friends lurched toward me. “What’d you say?”