by Jae Waller
Jonalin showed up when the oil lamp was sputtering out. He looked about the same age as Airedain. Same dark brown hair, cut shorter, arms and chest corded with muscle under his tunic. He took one look at us laughing on the floor and went to bed. We kept our voices down after that. Airedain pulled the heavy caribou fur from his bed and draped it over us. I drifted into sleep with his hand on my elbow and the sound of his slow breathing next to me.
•
“Hey, Koehl.” Iannah stood in front of me wearing her blue-and-fawn uniform and her sword. “Good to see you.”
“You have no idea.” I got up from the sidewalk and hugged her. She went rigid, then placed her arms around me. I didn’t say anything when her hands grazed my braid.
We squeezed behind a table in Natzo’s. Everyone spoke rapid Ferish, so I wasn’t worried about being overheard. Iannah stuck with her steel spoon and green broth. I switched to a whalebone spoon and spianèzi te papriconne, wheat noodles in rust-red broth. It was so spicy my eyes watered.
“I never knew you were so attached to him,” Iannah said after I told her about Tiernan.
“Neither did I for a long time.”
It was hard to pin down when I realized I was in love. Maybe when I learned there was another Tiernan. I’d come to accept the man I knew — all his faults, all the ways he prickled my nerves, all the flashes of kindness. I didn’t want him any different.
Iannah listened until I talked myself out. When talking turned to crying, she handed me a frayed handkerchief, paid Natzo four pann, and held my hand as we wandered west from Bronnoi Ridge. People’s mouths tightened, but they kept their eyes down and their words to themselves. It was a relief after spending yesterday in Segowa’s stall. Iannah kept her head up, slowing her measured pace to match my steps. Soft rain drizzled down and cleared away again.
She filled the silence with news. The military had abandoned Dúnravn, but Mayor Vorhagind enlisted cragsmen to guide a detachment north of the pass where they caught a camp of Suriel’s Corvittai off guard. The navy sailed up Burren Inlet deep into the mountains, razing every port they found. Hit on both sides, the Corvittai funnelled down the central plains. Riders with Suriel’s sigil were slaughtering farmers and goatherds in the eastern Roannveldt.
“That doesn’t sound like Suriel,” I said. “He always warns people first.”
Iannah shrugged. “His army needs food. That’s probably why they destroyed Rutnaast — to clear out naval traffic on Burren Inlet so they could smuggle shipments past. Now their supply lines are cut. Starvation wins out over following Suriel’s orders. Food shortages will hit us, too. Caladheå already went through its stores feeding three thousand Rutnaast refugees.”
“Where did all these Corvittai even come from?”
“Our ranks, mainly. We checked the bodies. A few are known political dissidents. My guess is the Corvittai captain is Ferish and recruited mercenaries to match. Easier to manage on and off the battlefield.”
“So why does everyone still blame viirelei?”
“The Council won’t admit the war has left the mountains and come down here.” Iannah’s lips pressed together. “They’re okay with letting viirelei take the fall for razed farms and dead herders. Damned cowards.”
I wondered what Airedain would say if he knew how much an Antler sounded like him. “Will you get in trouble if you’re seen with me?”
She shook her head. “Who’s going to stop me?”
By late afternoon, we wound up on the cobblestone walkway in the docklands. The tide was out, revealing barnacles on the timber piers. Barrel-chested men unloaded crates from a creaking merchant galleon. I saw Jonalin among them and waved. Chattering seagulls hovered overhead. The noise was reassuring. Whatever happened on land, ships still came and went.
“Do you ever think about leaving?” I asked.
“No,” Iannah said. “There was nothing for me in Laca vi Miero. Other guards talk about returning to Ferland, but my grandparents left for a reason.”
I lifted my face to the grey sky and wondered if it was raining in Anwen Bel. “I . . . have something to admit. I didn’t just grow up in the north. I was born there, in the Rin-jouyen. Falwen registered me as Iyo so I could get past the Elkhounds.”
Iannah’s brow creased. “You’re the nation who left Caladheå after the Second Elken War.”
“You know about that?”
“Only from serving at the Colonnium. Rin aren’t mentioned in our history lessons. That’d mean admitting you left because we razed your district.” She tilted her head. “Why are you here if you’re not Iyo?”
“I hoped it’d be better here.” I closed my eyes as the ocean wind curled around me. “I keep wondering if I should go home.”
“Nobody can decide that but you.”
I thought about her words after she headed back to the Colonnium. She was right. But it was easier not to decide anything at all.
•
I found a new rhythm as spring passed. I built a campsite on the edge of North Iyun Bel and stitched a tent out of deerskin, like the ones Rin made long ago before we bartered canvas from itherans. Anwea grazed on the slopes leading to the tip of the Roannveldt plain. Rain and fog turned my campsite into an island among soaring spruce.
In Caladheå, I kept my head down like Rhonos warned me to. Still, more than once Airedain and I fled from itherans who shouted at us on dark streets, only to run into grey-armoured Elkhounds who shoved us against brick walls and demanded to know what we were doing. The guards on the Stengar bridge stopped me every time I entered and left Førstown. Airedain told me not to bother trying to enter through Shawnaast, the western district overrun by Ferish.
I saw Iannah once a week on her day off. We met Parr in the square one afternoon as we hid from sheets of rain gusting onto the stalls. He greeted us with a smile and stopped to talk. Iannah said he was the only councillor who went out in public without a bodyguard. She claimed it was a political tactic, but from what I’d seen he could defend himself. Now that I knew to look for it, I could see the faint outline of the knife under his coat.
Airedain introduced me to some Iyo in Ashtown and the Sverbian musicians he performed with. I got used to the burn of brånnvin, preferring the fennel-flavoured kind to straight vodka, and slept on his floor whenever I didn’t feel up to the hike north. Iannah gave me an unimpressed look the first time I showed up with a splitting headache. I swore she talked louder that day.
Segowa paid me to collect dyestuffs from the forest. Alder bark for red and yellow, lichen for orange and purple, stinging nettle for green, hemlock bark for brown and black. My hands were stained for days from stewing cottonspun and bleached linen in a field behind the Iyo flats. It was just enough money to get my boots patched by a cobbler, buy sugar for Anwea, and keep a flask of brånnvin in my bag.
Food prices went up as Iannah predicted, starting with itheran goods like rye, eggs, and goat milk. Ashtown flooded with viirelei selling a rainbow of forage. Orange salmonberries, leafy greens, red seaweed, golden brassroot for grinding into flour. After I saw Elkhounds arrest a Kae woman for selling tealhead ducks, I decided trapping wasn’t worth the money. Instead, I quietly traded creek trout for crab and fish oil from Jonalin.
I hitched a canoe ride to Toel Ginu for the wedding of another of Airedain’s cousins. I met Lituwa’s husband long enough to learn his name and Airedain’s friend Nokohin long enough to remember he made up the story about kinaru eating children. A few Rin who married into the Iyo-jouyen long ago welcomed me, but the gazes of other Iyo followed me. Dunehein, Rikuja, and I spent the rest of the night stargazing on the cliffs.
I visited Tiernan as promised. The first time, a fresh garden plot had been planted. The second time, he had Gwmniwyr harnessed to pull up stumps to clear land for a paddock. The yard burst with life. Neat rows of vegetables reached for the sky, vines climbed trellises, flowers spilled fr
om the windowsills. It smelled crisp and sweet and tart in the clean air following heavy rain. Marijka invited me inside, but I politely refused.
It wasn’t a life I’d call happy or healthy. I spent five days at my campsite shaking and coughing, too exhausted to maintain the waterproof barrier around my tent but too dizzy to climb onto Anwea. I went through my entire food store and couldn’t see well enough to set a snare. Just when I questioned my sanity in not staying at Toel Ginu, Airedain showed up.
He built a fire, peeled off my wet clothes, and lent me a waterproof bark cape. Nothing ever tasted better than the roots he boiled into broth. When the rain eased, he hung my clothes by the fire and resealed my tent with resin. I asked between coughs if he had to return to Caladheå for work, but he said they could manage without him for a night.
And he did stay the night. He slept next to me in my cramped tent, his warm back against me, but all I could think was that he wasn’t as warm as the burning man who was never mine.
It was a functional life at best. I watched ships come and go in the harbour while the days and grass grew longer. Storm clouds churned over the eastern mountains and tore themselves apart. Pinpricks of fire glowed on the Roannveldt, creeping west as summer approached.
23.
DESPERATION
When I went to meet Iannah one morning, the streets were flooded with soldiers. She pulled me into the trees along Colonnium Hill and told me some Ferish and viirelei had gotten in a fight near Toel Ginu. I asked her to walk me to Ashtown where I could hide out for a day or two. Instead, we found Airedain on the street outside his flat, shouting and throwing punches at two Elkhounds. One pinned Airedain’s arms down, but he twisted free and smashed his fist into the other guard’s face with a crack. His fan knife flashed.
Cold fear shot through me. “Airedain!” I shouted.
He whirled. A spear sliced through his arm. Blood sprayed over the cobblestones.
The guards seized him. They blurred into a tangle of glinting weapons, leather armour, grey and black cloth. Airedain spat out curses, twisting, kicking, knife ringing off steel.
Iannah wrenched them apart. She shouldered Airedain out of the way. “Go,” she told the guards with a glare that could melt iron. They backed away and ran. To me she said, “Get him out of here. Hurry.”
I wrangled Airedain’s keys from his pocket. His sleeve was torn, the black dolphin tattoo underneath stained red. I dragged him to the door in the brick wall, fumbled the lock with shaking hands, and pushed him upstairs into his flat. “What in Aeldu-yan is going on?”
Airedain slammed a fist against the door. It rattled in the frame. “Fucking pigeons killed Nokohin!”
“Wait — your friend from Toel?” I tried to seize his wrist.
“He wasn’t even a warrior!” He snapped his fan knife around, the blade spinning through the air. “If I find the fucking takuran who did it—”
“Listen, you bludgehead!” I grabbed his shoulders. “Don’t go picking fights. You hear me? It won’t bring Nokohin back—”
“How can you not be mad?” he shouted, wrenching away. “The bloody pigeons get away with it every time!”
“So you got in a brawl with the first soldiers you found? That’s not helping!”
“What, you on their side now, Rin-girl? That Antler friend of yours get in your head?”
“Iannah’s on our side. She just risked her post because you’re too proud to run from a fight—”
He laughed. “Right, you don’t have to care because it ain’t your jouyen. Your bloody crest made itherans think this is our fault, but Iyo are the ones dying.”
“Don’t you do that to me!” I shoved him into the wall. “You think I’m not mad? Itherans tried to kill Nili and me. They didn’t care which jouyen we’re from. So yeah, I’m fucking mad!”
He glared back, clutching his chest. “At least you survived. Noko didn’t! We’re getting hit from both sides and this ain’t even our war!”
“They made it ours.” I curled my hands until my nails dug into them. “I know it hurts, Airedain. I know. But getting thrown in prison won’t fix anything. Aeldu save me, the last time an Iyo killed an itheran—”
He slid down the wall into a heap, his tunic catching on the brick. His knife clattered to the floor. “I’m sorry, Kateiko. I just—” He put his head down and folded his hands over his neck. “I’m sick of worrying. Of being scared every time I go outside.”
I slumped next to him. “I know. Me, too.” I heard voices in the street and wondered if anyone had heard us. “I’m sorry about Nokohin. I wish I could’ve gotten to know him.”
“You woulda liked him. He was a better person than me.”
“That’s not hard,” I said, evoking a strained laugh from Airedain.
“Fuck. Noko’s parents will have to bury their last kid.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes. He was crying. “It ain’t supposed to be this way.”
I leaned my head on his shoulder. “None of this is.”
“They were heading to Crieknaast, the people leaving Toel. Noko’s family goes trading every summer.”
“Even now? It’s a mess out there.”
He nodded. “I saw him last week. He came by the Knox to see me play. You know what he said? ‘I’m not afraid of spirits out there. I’m afraid of people right here.’”
We fell into silence. Sunlight streamed through the shutters, casting bright lines on our legs. The beams of light felt like tiny beacons. A vigil for the dead.
“Tell me about Nokohin,” I said.
“He was an ass.” Airedain laughed. “We were always getting in trouble for shit. When we were ten, we had a competition to see who could hit the Yula with more snowballs. Noko hit the Okorebai-Yula in the face and blamed me. My temal was furious. He took my drum away.”
He flipped his knife around, tossing it up in the air and catching it, rods snapping against the blade. “But I loved Noko. He always told you exactly what he was thinking. Told me when I was being an ass. And he was one of the few people who visited me in Caladheå.”
Airedain paused. “He loved kids. Wanted a bunch of his own, just hadn’t found the right girl. My sister Liwa let him hold her baby before she let me. I went with him to Crieknaast a few times. He’d make up stories for itheran kids, and I’d play music to go along.”
I smiled. “I see why you were friends.”
“Noko was the first person I attuned in front of. Can’t believe he’s gone. Forever is a fucking long time.”
“His blood will flow into the ground.” I caught one of his tears before it ran onto his thin lips. “I don’t know what happens to the spirits of the dead, but . . . their bodies stay part of this world.”
He turned to me, dark brown eyes sparkling with water. “Who did you lose?”
“My parents, my cousin Emehein, all my father’s family. A lot of bloodlines were wiped out in the Dona war.”
“Aeldu save us. Your jouyen has had it rough,” he muttered.
“It was a long time ago.” I twined my fingers into his. His skin was warm and calloused.
“You’re wrong,” he said after a long while. His voice shook. “It ain’t pride. I always run from fights when I’m with you. Just . . . when I’m alone, I don’t care what happens.”
“I care. So does your family.”
“Dunno what they’d do if I wound up in prison. Or worse.” He ran a hand over his rumpled crest of hair. “It’s my nephew’s first birthday in a few weeks. My tema would kill me if I missed it. Liwa would hunt me down in Aeldu-yan and kill me again.”
“See? You have to be careful.” I nudged him. “We’ll get through this war. Just don’t get in any more brawls.”
One side of Airedain’s mouth twitched up. “Gonna work some magic, Rin-girl?”
I gave a hollow laugh. “Yeah. But first, let me clean that spear wound
.”
•
Airedain and the rest of the Iyo in Ashtown went back to Toel Ginu for the burials. Some stayed. Alone in North Iyun, I recited a death rite for Nokohin and the others. Iannah told me none of the survivors were arrested because the Elkhounds didn’t know who they were.
On a cold grey day when the sky drizzled with all the enthusiasm of a graveyard, Segowa asked Airedain and me to mind her shop. I stayed in the back sorting lichen while he dealt with customers. Pale pigeons with iridescent heads waddled in the shelter of stalls, cooing softly, different than the dark grey pigeons I knew from the wild.
“The fuck do you want?” Airedain said around midday.
“I’m looking for Sohikoehl,” came Iannah’s voice.
“I dunno who—” Airedain turned. “That you, Kateiko?”
I brushed lichen from my skirt and ducked under colourful skeins hung from the roof. “Aren’t you on duty today?”
“Councillor Parr pulled me off post to find you.” Iannah leaned on her spear. “He wants to speak to you.”
I leaned on a bolt of dandelion-yellow linen, feeling lightheaded. “Why?”
Iannah glanced at Airedain. “He didn’t say.”
At the Colonnium, Antlers opened the gates without a word. Iannah’s spear tapped on wet stone as we crossed the courtyard. She stayed by my side, through the cold marble lobby where the clerk Gélus took my weapons, all the way to Parr’s office. I took a deep breath and knocked.
Parr answered right away, smiling down at us. His black coat and breeches were crisp as new leaves, a silver elk pin by his collar, but his eyes were bloodshot and his dark hair was wavy from the damp. “Miss Kateiko, how nice to see you. Thank you, Pelennus. That will be all.”
I gave Iannah an apprehensive look as I stepped into the office. She shrugged.
Parr shut the door. “Come outside with me. I have just been enjoying the rain.”
What I’d mistaken for windows were actually glass doors, propped open to let in the cool air. I followed Parr out to the loggia. Sculpted cream pillars rose into arches overhead. Water dripped off a high overhang. Guards stood some distance down the balcony, spears as rigid as the pillars.