Outlaw: A Dark Fantasy Novel (On the Bones of Gods Book 2)

by K. Eason

  Snow stuffed that thought back into a corner. Covered it up. And worried that Briel had leaked through her blocks at all. A year ago, Snow would not have been able to stop her. Now she could shut Briel out, thanks to Veiko. She and Veiko and Briel, that was three, and anyone’s guess where Logi and Dek and Istel ranked in that pack. A sending spread out among several minds wasn’t as strong, as blinding, as impossible to ignore. Or maybe it was because Veiko was noidghe. Maybe it was because she was.

  That Briel had forced her way through suggested that Veiko had got himself into trouble, yeah, but he had Istel and Logi and Briel for help. She had no one at the moment. Solitude should have made a look-away conjuring simple to cast and maintain, except she had a godsrotted svartjagr hammering at her concentration. She’d had to stop and reconjure twice already, fuck and damn.

  Belaery could’ve turned the whole Suburba blind, walked from Tano gate to the Tebir to the Street of Apothecaries without anyone seeing her, or stepping on her, or ramming their godsrotted handcart into her heels. Belaery wouldn’t be sweat soaked and flirting with a backlash-sized headache from a half-dozen failed conjurings. Belaery wouldn’t be wishing Briel would shut up, or worrying about a partner who was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Belaery would be worrying about herself, ever and always.

  So try that, yeah?

  Snow reached into Illharek’s stone guts, into the moist and stinking air. Drew from the Jaarvi’s deep dark, from the Tano and the Jokki. Pulled from the real fire in the corner barrels: this street was two blocks too poor for witchfire street lamps. Its residents had to make do with whatever would burn. Drop it into the barrels, keep the street lit, never mind the oily smoke.

  Conjuring didn’t care what the fire burned or that the air stank. Conjuring pulled and shaped that fire. Borrowed it. Changed it and bent it so that eyes followed its light, and not her. Look away. Then she stepped back into the street, wrapped tight in a look away that she needed all the more because of the volume of traffic in the Suburban streets.

  There were just too many people, and the wrong kinds. Farmers should’ve gone home candlemarks ago. Fuck and damn, there were midtowners still here, when they should’ve gone up to their dinners a candlemark ago, with their robes hiked to just above ankles so the silk didn’t drag Suburban muck. Pretty little city boots, soft soled and embroidered and meant to show disposable income. A shopkeep saw clothes like that, she reckoned a customer. A cutpurse saw them, she reckoned a target. The Laughing God’s right hand, well, she just saw people talking. Information.

  Snow drifted toward the midtowners, close enough to smell stale perfume over sour, to mark thin-lipped fear on midtown faces, to hear hushed and half-panicked:

  “—we don’t have enough coin for an inn—”

  and

  “—can’t stay here, are you mad?”

  and

  “—the legion can’t stay on the ’Walk forever—”

  Oh fuck and damn. There were soldiers on the Riverwalk, cutting one half of the city off from the other. The legion had done that in Cardik. It must be the Taliri, then, finally arrived.

  Snow reckoned that was the reason for Briel’s distress. Raiders in the forests. Veiko might have had to move. He’d go north if he had any wits. Or west. Go away, out of Illhari territory.

  Pain rippled through her skull, jaw to crown. Settled in solid behind her eyes. That was an unholy trio of conjuring, svartjagr, her own roiling worry. She could let Briel in, find out what had happened—and lose the toadfucking conjuring again. Everyone on the motherless street would see her. And that was exactly what she did not want. Rata had eyes down here, which meant Tal’Shik did. And right now, they didn’t need to see her. She’d spent too much of the last two weeks parading one end of the streets to the other, drawing eyes and attention. Now she needed to pass unseen.

  Veiko was too smart to get caught, but sometimes smart didn’t matter. She needed someplace safe so she could let Briel in. So she could reckon what to do next.

  Go home.

  Snowdenaelikk scuttled and dodged the crowds, messy-fast now. The conjuring snagged and tore like an old cloak. Left bits of itself on whatever it touched, so that by the time she got to the Street of Apothecaries, she was visible. She was grateful, yeah, that this street was less packed than the others. Fewer people to notice a woman-shaped shadow flitting along the wall.

  She shed the conjuring altogether at the shopfront. The shutters were down. But she could hear voices inside, and shouting. Sinnike. Daagné. Kaj, oh yes, in rare volume. And light, leaking through the third-floor shutters. Her apartment, and someone up there in it. Not Kaj, if she heard his voice downstairs. Not Veiko, unless he’d come back, and—she stomped back the little lurch in her chest—if he had, then Briel would have found her already. So there was someone else up there.

  Fuck and damn.

  Snow went round the side of the building. Climbed the spikes and carved handholds, the slim iron ladder that Veiko had called treacherous and foolish and she’d called almost impossible with fresh stitches in her arm. The arm only tweaked a little now as she hauled and stretched and spidered up two stories. Then it was quickfoot across the roof, mind the beams and loose tiles, and down the ladder on the other side. She dropped to the balcony and heard the iron groan. Crouched and listened at the door.

  No oof. No chrrip. Shuffle-steps on the other side, stranger-steps, a gait she did not know. Faint click and creak as someone who was not Veiko crept up to the shuttered door.

  She put one hand on the hilt of her seax. Laid the other on the latch. Waited until it turned under her palm. Then she grabbed it and pushed hard, all her weight. Thump as the door hit someone solid, and a squawk as that someone fell back. Snow waited a breath, drew the seax, and followed her blade through the doorway.

  The body between her and the firedog cast long shadows. It was man shaped but not quite, something odd about the chest and forearms—fuck and damn, swinging at her, that was her toadfucking stool.

  Snow jagged sideways, blocked with the blade, felt metal bite into wood. The man swinging the stool was Dvergir, a stranger. Amateur, too: he would not let go of the stool when she wrenched her blade sideways. Let himself be dragged off his balance. And he wasn’t prepared when she reached over the stool and put the first two knuckles of her right fist into his nose.

  That was the thing about noses. Didn’t take much of an impact to get watering eyes, an instinctive flinch. An experienced brawler might keep coming despite all that, but this man let go of the stool. Staggered back with both hands clapped to his face. Tripped on his own heels and sat down hard.

  Snow jerked her seax loose. Stepped over the fallen stool and pushed the shadows aside without thinking. She wanted to see this toadfucker who’d come at her in her own motherless house. Then she’d take his head back to Rata and beat her to death with it.

  The stranger looked up at her, all eyes and hands. There was blood all over the front of his tunic, seeping between his fingers, mixing with snot and tears. The neck of his tunic fallen aside, so that she could see very clearly his House sigil.

  Fuck and damn. Snow lowered the seax. Caught her breath and damn near laughed out loud.

  “What is it with you K’Hess men?”

  “Snowdenaelikk?” It came out Thowdengeyelikk.

  And he knew her name, too. Perfect. She stole a fast look around the room. Nothing touched, nothing out of place—except there, yeah, that was Dek’s sweater crumpled on the table, the too-big grey and brown thing that had made her look like a walking collection of twigs.

  So. Szanys Dekklis had left her a gift. Well. Snow shoved the seax back in its sheath. “You have a name?”

  “K’Hess Soren.” He blinked. Took his hands off his face. “Szanys Dekklis brought me.”

  “I reckoned that. Where is she now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Of course you don’t.” Snow thrust her hand down at him. “All right. Get up.”

/>   He looked down at his hands. At the ruin of his shirt.

  Laughing God defend her from highborn manners. “Foremothers’ own sake, you want help up or not? I don’t care about blood, yeah, long as it’s not mine.”

  He blinked again. Then he put a hand in hers, let her draw him up. He wasn’t a small man, as highborn went. A little taller than Kenjak had been, a little broader, more like his First Spear brother. But he had Kenjak’s same highborn modesty, which made him look at the floor instead of her face. Blood dripped, and he tried to catch it.

  “Leave it.” The battle-rush abandoned her. Shaking hands, shaking knees, a distinct wish to sit down and drink. She righted the stool instead. Pointed at it. “Sit, yeah? Use your shirt to stop the bleeding. And then tell me why Dek thought I needed another injured K’Hess in my life.”

  “I was fine until you hit me.”

  “You’re lucky that’s all I did. Could’ve gutted you. Could’ve conjured you inside out, yeah?”

  His gaze flickered to her ears, her hair, and dropped like a stone to the table. “I didn’t think you’d come through the balcony door. I thought Domina Sinnike would’ve told you I was here.”

  “I didn’t check with her. Didn’t want to interrupt the domestic dispute I heard. Bet you’re the reason for it.”

  Soren had rucked his shirt up, had the excess pressed against his face. Flat-bellied, ribs and muscle sliding under his skin. He was older than Kenjak by at least a handful of years. Still trim, despite what must be soft living. Maybe Dek’d meant him for a gift. Something pretty to distract her. A hostage.

  Right. This time Snow did laugh out loud. She tried to imagine Dek staging a pre-Purge raiding, stealing men from her rivals’ Houses. Then imagined her giving that prize to a half-blood, oh, what had Dek called her? Assassin, heretic, general blight on all that was proper and Illhari.

  Soren rolled eyes at her. Wriggled out of the shirt altogether and rearranged it on his face, so that eyes and mouth were clear. “What’s funny?”

  “You, sitting there bleeding all over my floor. Why did Dek bring you to me?”

  “She said I’d be safe.” Faintly accusatory, quick stabbing stare.

  “Safe from who? Who’d you think was going to come through that window?”

  Soren got very still. Twisted his shirt between his fingers. Seemed oblivious to the trickle of blood running over lip and chin. “House Stratka’s gone back to Tal’Shik. All the daughters. The consul knows, but she’s scared. They were plotting against her. She knew it. Was trying to settle things. And it’s not just Stratka. I think—we think—it’s all through the Houses. Second and third daughters, mostly, a system of godsworn.”

  “We, who?”

  “The men. The consorts. Szanys Dekklis, too.” Defiantly now, for all that he would not meet her eyes: “They think we don’t have brains enough to wear boots, but we can see what’s happening around us.”

  “But you haven’t done anything.”

  He slashed the bloody shirt left and right like a whip. “I told Szanys Dekklis what I knew. I came here with her.”

  “And you’re attacking people with stools.” Snow caught the shirt and twisted it into stillness. “There a shortage of loose furniture in the First Tier? The rest of the consorts have no hands? What’s wrong with you men?”

  His turn to laugh, sharp and startled. Snow seized the opportunity. Leaned over and pinched his proud highborn nose and tweaked it straight again. Guided the shirt back over his face, caught blood and yelp together. She squeezed his fingers.

  “Hold that,” she told him. “Gently. Don’t press too hard. I’m trying to save your looks.”

  He blinked wetly at her. “You don’t understand. We can’t just . . . start fights. Up there. With them.”

  “No? You tried before? What’s the worst they’ll do, hit back?”

  “She said you’d say that. Szanys Dekklis.”

  “Yeah? What else did she say?”

  “You’re a conjuror. A chirurgeon.”

  “That’s obvious.”

  “And a heretic.”

  “Reckoned she’d slip that in, too.” Snow pinched the bridge of her own nose. Squinted past her fingers. “How long ago did she leave you here?”

  “A candlemark? I’m not sure. Not that long.”

  “Was she going back to the garrison? No, wait. You don’t know. She didn’t tell you, you didn’t ask. Fuck and damn you highborn. Listen. The Riverwalk’s got troops on it. No traffic’s getting into the Tiers. I thought it was because the Taliri finally got here. But from what you say, it might well be a new Purge starting. And it doesn’t matter. Dek might talk her way through the lines. Or they might arrest her.”

  Fuck and damn. Dek could say a lot if they asked hard enough. If they knew what questions to ask. Which, oh hell, with Tal’Shik’s godsworn in the Houses—they would.

  K’Hess Soren’s eyes were very wide, very dark. “What happens if they have arrested her?”

  “Then this place won’t be safe. Don’t worry, yeah? I know people who’ll hide you.”

  “The Laughing God’s people.” Faint smile that looked more like reflex. Something you did with your mouth when you talked to people. “I’ll go with you. Assuming I have any choice.”

  Snow wished for Aneki and Still Waters, yeah, wished for a safe place to put this man. But failing that, well, “You don’t.”

  Ari wouldn’t kill him. Ari would do whatever she asked, he was so stupid-happy the God had returned. He’d protect Soren, best he could, at the bidding of the God’s right hand.

  Snowdenaelikk pinched the bridge of her own nose harder. Eyes closed, deep breaths. Motherless headache. Motherless svartjagr. Motherless panic clawing its way up her throat. Hers, Briel’s, maybe both, didn’t matter.

  Bang! on the balcony.

  Soren startled almost off his stool. Snow came around the table, ripping the blade out of its sheath. A second bang, fainter. Bigger than a rock, whatever it was. Not enough force to be an arm or a fist. Something thrown. Two somethings.

  And then a hiss like cold water on coals. Snow’s headache spiked from bad to blinding as Briel forced the sending through all her blocks.

  See the shutters from the balcony railing. See a

  self

  Briel-sized dent in the wood. See Logi down in the alley, blood all over his fur. And no Veiko. Of course, no Veiko.

  Snow lost her seax along the way to the door, heard the clatter. Tore the shutters open to Briel, hissing and hopping on the railing.

  And drops of blood, one and two and twenty, plinking onto the iron balcony. Raining blood, hell. Raining idiots, more likely. Snow poked her head out and looked up. Found Istel coming down the ladder, one-armed, too late for wait and the hell are you doing?

  She put hands on his legs. Worked them up hips and waist and steadied him. Remembered, afterthought, to drag the shadows around them. Too late, yeah, half the street must’ve noticed by now.

  “You should’ve stayed in the alley,” she told him. “I’d’ve let you in.”

  “Don’t need the whole house knowing I’m here.”

  “Whole street’s better?”

  He grinned at her. He was grey around the eyes and mouth. “Grant me some skill, yeah? You didn’t hear me coming. And no one ever looks up.”

  “They will if it’s dripping blood.” She let him in. Dragged shadows and shutters after them. And turned to find Istel and Soren eyeing each other. Istel, at least, had not reached for a weapon. She wondered if he could, with his arm wrapped across his guts. Holding them closed, if Briel’s sending was accurate.

  “K’Hess Soren,” she said. “Second Scout Istel, Second Legion, Sixth Cohort. —Istel. He’s what Dek was up to.”

  “Huh.” Istel’s lips stretched tight. “Never thought she much liked men. ’Specially not highborn.”

  “Never thought she much liked anyone. Can you get to the couch?”

  “This is fine.” Istel sat, hard, on the heart
hstones. Leaned against the wall beside the firedog. “Couch is a long way.”

  This, from the man she’d left Above. He’d walked all that way. Fuck and damn. She knelt beside him. Plucked at the sopping wool shirt. “Who did this?”

  The hole in Istel went past skin and muscle. That was bone winking out at her, a rib where it shouldn’t be. And that wasn’t the worst she could see. “Rags!” she snapped at Soren. “And fill that basin.”

  “Leave it.” Istel closed his eyes. Tipped his head back. His breath leaked through his teeth. “I’m already dead.”

  “I’m the chirurgeon.”

  “Then you know there’s no point, yeah?” Istel looked at her, eyes steady and his mouth hitched up tight in the corner. He’d seen battle before. He took the bloody shirt back from her and repacked it into the wound. “Veiko needs you. Tal’Shik’s godsworn have him.”

  Her gut dropped. She traded a hot-coal stare with Briel. “Show me.”

  And Briel did, with the detail that Snow had trained her to notice, and a force Snow hadn’t felt since Veiko’s arrival. It went on a long time. And when it was over, the headache drove Snow to her knees. She gritted her teeth against a backsurge of nausea.

  Godsworn had him. Oh fuck and damn.

  “Snowdenaelikk?” in the near distance, a not-quite-stranger’s voice. A not-quite-stranger’s touch on her arm. Gentle man, K’Hess Soren, she could tell that from the way he touched her, from the way he asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” she croaked out. Bitter and bile scalded her throat. She blinked through vision hazed grey as river fog. But she hadn’t gone blind with the sending. And she would have if Veiko were dead.

  Believe that.

  She straightened. Wiped her mouth. Color came leaking back. The firedog’s yellow glow. The grey and brown of Dek’s sweater on the table. Briel’s hot orange stare. And a dying Istel, nodding I told you so at her.