by Amy Keeley
Krysilla remembered Ziria’s dream. One of his brothers is a Dog, she realized. But why didn’t that protection extend to Zhiv as well?
Taking a deep breath, Ziria said, “He’s just one man. And right now, my other brother is wanted for killing the royal family: King, Queen, and all their children. And this brother owes me.”
Zhiv chuckled. “Of course. It isn’t wise, Ziri.”
“You’ll at least try to stand against the Dogs that can’t be held back.”
“They’re children.”
“Not for much longer. And I’m afraid for my sons, Zhiv. Not just of the Dogs. That, I know. That, I can handle.”
Zhiv’s gaze turned sharp. “What do you mean?”
“Opportunities always pop up when the Dogs start sniffing. That’s all. A grudge here, a bit of envy there, and whether or not the accusation is true doesn’t matter.”
“They’re claiming you’re Ornic?”
“No, of course not. My husband’s too respected for that kind of talk. No, he’s respected enough that the conversation dies when I walk up to a group of chattering women. There are no accusations.”
Until someone decides the Dogs ought to know, Krysilla thought. Zhiv sighed. “They’re children, Ziri, and when Daegan shows speed will become everything.”
“I’m sure you have some tricks to help that.”
Zhiv stared at the table. “All right.”
Ziria clapped her hands and kissed his cheek. “I’ll tell the village they’re visiting relatives by the coast. My husband has a distant cousin there.”
“What will you tell him?”
“The distant cousin? I hadn’t thought of it. Perhaps—”
“Ziri.” Zhiv’s tone was part worry, part understanding.
“My husband is my concern,” she said, kissing the top of his head this time. “Not yours.” Giving his hair a ruffle, as if he were still a little boy, Ziria took back the bowls they’d used. “I’ll clean them when I get back home.”
“I don’t get a thank-you?”
“Of course not. And you know why.” She called out to her boys, told them they were staying the night with their uncle and that she would be back soon. They were ecstatic and, with Zhiv’s permission, were racing out the front door, across the pier, and into the lake, shedding clothes as they went. When Krysilla looked around for her, Ziria was gone.
“I’m sorry,” Zhiv said.
“For what? Making sure your nephews are away from possible death?” Getting up, she wanted to stretch yet didn’t dare, not with Zhiv’s eyes on her. “How much danger do you think she’s in?”
“Enough. But that’s not the only reason she’s sent the boys here.”
“Oh?”
“No. She knows I’m no danger at night, but during the day is an entirely different story, O young, newly divorced goodwife.”
Fighting against a blush, Krysilla busied herself with straightening the kitchen. “She has a high opinion of your self-control then?” she said, sardonic.
“Very. She knew me when I was younger, before I became bored.”
“I can’t imagine that,” she muttered, though not without a smile.
“And she doesn’t understand our arrangement. You’re family now. And if I’m to pretend you’re my cousin, once we leave this place, I can’t very well allow anything beyond that to form between us.”
She wasn’t sure whether she felt relieved or disappointed. Then, she heard him get up and move behind her, leaning in close enough for his warm breath to touch her ear. “Is this acceptable, cousin?”
Which part? she nearly said, but just then the door swung wide and Zhiv was suddenly on the other side of the house, answering his nephews’ questions about where they could and could not go, what they could and could not do, and sounding far more parental than she expected, as if he’d watched his nephews many times before.
Daegan didn’t show that day. None of them did. That night, as she’d promised earlier, Krysilla demanded the couch, while Zhiv took the floor. She slept lightly. He only woke her once, and she watched as he struggled against the spell that should have taken his life all those years ago. They didn’t speak of monsters, or the past. Instead, Krysilla told stories of her past, dressed up in the costumes of tales. He listened, amused, though she could not tell if it was because of her lack of ability, or because he truly found her stories amusing. Likely the former, she decided as she finished the last tale, and his eyes slowly closed.
And so the days passed. The boys explored close to the house or built small structures from unused, untainted wood leftover from when Zhiv had been experimenting with materials for portals. Rysil, the elder of the two, was a sober boy, and more prone to reading than building. His younger brother, Syril, had a great love for adventure tales that took place on the sea, and begged one out of his Uncle Zhiv at least once a day. Now and then, the boys and their uncle would swim, while Krysilla practiced reading Ornic inside.
She also noticed Zhiv reading himself, ancient looking things with script similar to what had been written on the wheels. And she realized he was trying to master that script.
As for Krysilla, she thought more than once of asking Zhiv to teach her magic, as he’d promised. And yet, she never did, focusing instead on trying to run the house without using much, if any, magic at all. We’re still recovering, she told herself. Both of us.
As the days wore on, and worry increased, Krysilla found herself very grateful to Ziria for sending her two boys with their rampant enthusiasm. Because of them, it was easier to ignore the days turning into weeks. But a distraction like that only lasts so long.
***
Razev Mikailsin crouched next to the pile of branches. Within, there was no magic detectable to an ordinary user. Commoners would only see a bag. Ratty one, at that. Not worth any notice.
But Razev swept his hand in front of him, his fingers inscribing sigils in the air that reached out like long fingers searching the woods. The sweep spread outward, far beyond the point of the bag, now clearly outlined in white. Only a Dog would see it. It’s like an Ornic minstrel’s singing spells, he had thought when the pack had first taught it to him. And, much like one of those spells, it was tied to identity, to the red vest they all wore.
Picking it up, Razev closed his eyes to get a sense of the spell. “Portal,” he finally said. “And locked with a keyspell.”
He knew the pack members with him wanted to groan. But they stayed quiet.
It wouldn’t be hard to break open. That wasn’t the danger. The danger was in using it.
As if it mattered. He had his orders. Find and destroy all means of escape until the Ornic is cornered. Then, strike. With a quick gesture and a thump of his staff on the ground, the bag and the magic portal inside it burned to ashes from the spell inscribed in the wood. From what he could tell, it hadn’t been used in years anyway. They moved on to the next target.
Lord Teranasin had played the crowds well after the death of the royal family. Full of righteous indignation, he’d sworn the Ornic would be caught, and sent out messengers to all the pack in every corner of the kingdom, letting them all know what awful deeds were done in the name of creatures long since buried. It had only taken a day though, before Razev had been called in by Lord Teranasin, those amber eyes watching him carefully, testing to see if he were bound to service, even to a dead king.
Apparently, he’d passed the test. Lord Teranasin had shown him the map they’d found, and sent him to investigate what he knew were alternate escape routes.
Not Razev Mikailsin, of course. Lord Teranasin spoke to Ulandi Jhohdi, who had no family besides his wife and children, and, more importantly, no association at all with the minstrel to the King. Jhohdi wasn’t even aware of the spell that “the Ornic” had placed on the parchment to duplicate the ink spots, setting up some of them to move across the paper when the folded map was touched by a stranger. Jhohdi felt himself smiling at the attempt the Ornic had made at cleverness, a rare thin
g to get any Dog to do, especially one who looked vaguely like the Ornic when he smiled. It didn’t last.
Razev, on the other hand, had wanted to berate his brother, Zhiv, for the third-rate job he’d done with the spells. What if Lord Teranasin had called a different Dog in that night, someone other than me? he had imagined himself saying. What would you have done then?
He could see Zhiv staring defiantly at him. And Razev felt once more the temptation to share everything he’d been taught to his dirt-for-brains brother who never stopped to think that a Dog could sense when a spell had been changed, and a good one might be able to track the changes.
But Ulandi had replied, when asked, that it was obviously escape plans. That the different colors corresponded to different levels of magic within each plan and route. That the information was scant, but traceable.
And then Lord Teranasin had given “Ulandi” his assignment to track “the Ornic” down.
Razev’s younger brother.
After he’d received the assignment, he’d gone home. Razev Mikailsin hadn’t turned on the Light when he entered the house. The children were asleep, and his wife as well by now. She didn’t wait up for him anymore. Hadn’t for years. She still slept lightly, though, as if part of her still waited for his return. He had paused, listening to the absolute silence, the peace and calm of his life wrapped in this single moment, when his children slept without fear, without hunger.
He’d do anything to keep this.
And so, he had gone out as the alpha of a small group of Dogs, one of three, all eager to be the first to capture a legend come to life. Almost all. Kirag, an older Dog, had specifically requested to become part of Razev’s group. They’d known each other since Razev had first joined the pack, and he’d been glad to hear Kirag wanted to join them. Where the others were eager, Kirag treated the situation as if this were any other capture.
Besides, it gave Razev a certain sense of stability. He needed that when the memories pressed in thick.
As they rode to the center of Pyorin lands, he could almost hear his sister, younger than now, unmarried, and furious, yelling at him for joining the Dogs. Zhiv had sat in the corner, saying nothing, staring at the dirt floor of their dugout. He’ll follow you, his sister had accused, pointing at Zhiv. I didn’t save both of you to see you destroy yourselves.
And Zhiv had said nothing.
He tried to ignore the guarded stares of the citizens as they went through the main street of Pyorin’s city. It was done to remind the citizens that the King may be dead, but the law lived on, dressed in scarlet and with spells more terrible than a noble.
Razev was twenty and Zhiv was sixteen. He could almost feel the heat of the sun in spite of the forest’s canopy as he rode beside his brother, who refused to look at him. “It’s the vest, isn’t it?” and he’d tried to smile.
“You look like them,” Zhiv had responded, fiddle case slung over his shoulder.
“You think I’m truly one of them?”
“I know you are. Only a Dog could forget their own family.”
He could still remember how cold his own voice had become. “Forget you? You’d best still your tongue or you might see what I’ve learned after all.”
Zhiv had smirked, unafraid. “You’re proving my point.”
Trying to exercise self-control, he had switched to reason. “What good is this life going to do you, Zhiv? You wander the countryside like a beggar, playing an instrument no one wanted you to learn—”
“I wanted to learn it.”
“—acting like a child when anyone tries to talk sense to you—”
“And sense is becoming like the ones who killed our parents?” He’d walked faster. “Or is sense giving up who you are so you can eat?”
“No one calls you by your name when you fiddle, why should you accuse me?”
“No one called me by my name in our tribe, either. It’s not that odd for me. For you, it’s a betrayal. Though it sounds like she’s pretty enough.”
“I chose this long before I met Niehsa.”
“Yes,” he had murmured. “I’m well aware of that. I just didn’t know you’d given a different name to ‘the pack’ until now.”
Desperate for a return to the days when they’d all been trying to survive together, he tried to make his tone light. “So what now? You’re going to play for the citizens of Hurush?”
“More than that. I’m going to kill the King. Care to stop me?”
And the King had let him into his world with an enthusiasm that none of the Dogs understood.
Torn between fury that his brother had once again managed to have the reward without the work, and admiration at his brother’s refusal to leave behind his true name, he’d watched, and made sure the pack had watched as well. Because he couldn’t forget the hatred in his brother’s eyes.
His group continued on to the manor of Lord Pyorin. He received them with all honors due to representatives of the King (living or not) and sat with nervous glances at them while they told him that Lord Teranasin had called a council of nobles, that they had been sent to search for the Ornic, as well as any who might have Ornic sympathies. Lord Pyorin nodded. “Of course. Anything you need. Should I gather the villagers in the square so you can test them?”
Razev hesitated. “The job of the Disciples is to search men’s souls. Not ours.”
“Ah.” Lord Pyorin had glanced nervously around the room. “Should I ask our Disciple to do it, then?”
“I cannot say. That is not for me to judge. You know your people best.”
“But you have the spells.”
Was this one more thing neglected in the teachings the nobles passed down? “Only for those who are suspected, or who have committed crimes worthy of our attention. Even then, unless they are an immediate threat, another must try them.”
Which would mean anyone who decided to improve a dusting spell, he could almost hear Zhiv taunting, though they didn’t speak after Zhiv arrived in Hurush. It wasn’t in either of their interests.
He was only surprised it took his brother nine years to go through with it. It spoke of a cunning that he hadn’t known Zhiv possessed.
Lord Pyorin let them stay in his house that night. A goodwill gesture every noble extended to the Dogs, and that the Dogs had been trained to accept as a sign that the Dogs were not interested in investigating them. In the morning, they left. Razev’s horse went lame from a stray rock in his shoe. He nearly laughed. This is not my trade, he could hear himself joking with Zhiv, who would promptly whisper to go ahead and fix it. No one was looking.
The Dogs are looking, he thought, and walked alongside his horse.
He was thirteen and Zhiv was ten. He was walking briskly toward Hurush while Zhiv followed. “I told you to stay home, dirt-for-brains.”
“I want to see them.”
“The Dogs? You run every time they appear in a town.” It was worse than that. His brother could sense them long before they showed, like a wild stag, picking up the scent of a wolf on the wind.
“Will you teach me their spells?”
“You’re learning fiddle. Why should I teach you something outside your trade?”
“So we can protect ourselves.”
Razev had whirled round at that. “I’m not going to teach you anything I learn. It’ll be a death sentence for us both.”
“Our parents didn’t do anything wrong and they still killed them.”
“They must have done something wrong.”
Zhiv had shrugged and looked beyond Razev, studying the road ahead. “Maybe. But...they looked like they enjoyed it.”
He couldn’t deny that. Even now that he was part of the pack, he knew all too well that some of the Dogs did enjoy it. They loved the feel of the execution spells, the knowledge that all they had to do was snap their fingers and magical cords would wind round the caster’s hands and fingers to keep them from defending themselves, the sweep of power through their frame when the execution spell triggered and wh
at was once a man was no more. And the man he now was knew that every Dog had been exercising every ounce of self-control to keep from going after Zhiv themselves. They must wait for orders. That was the rule of their existence and the reason they were allowed to exist at all. And a prize like Zhiv, an echo of an earlier time full of glory and blood and triumph? There were Dogs who would give all they had to join this hunt.
Then how will we protect ourselves? Zhiv had said back then.
And Razev had said, I’ll protect you. It’s why he joined. So he wouldn’t make another mistake.
I’ll protect you, he thought. The one who murdered the royal family. The one others now call “the Ornic.”
“Sir.” One of the Dogs, a young woman with hair almost as red as her vest rode up next to him. “I was thinking about the portal spells we’ve found.”
“Yes?”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to follow one of these portals instead of destroying them?”
I’ll protect you, he’d said. He hadn’t told anyone who Parlay actually was. He hadn’t even warned the King that Zhiv was going to try to kill him. He’d told himself at the time it was because his brother would never actually go through with it, didn’t have the stomach for it. All he did was warn the Dogs that the fiddler Parlay was to be watched. I’ll protect you. “And why do you think that, Mili?”
“It’s a straight line, isn’t it?”
He nodded, remembering how the Dogs had surrounded the camp when Zhiv was seven and he was ten. He remembered the Dog that had thumped his staff into the ground, the spell lashing out, coating his brother. He remembered the terror in his brother’s eyes. “It seems that way, doesn’t it?”
A couple of the men had heard him and chuckled.
“Let us consider what you’ve said,” he continued, not acknowledging their laughter. “If we were to enter one of those portals, and there were no traps, no wardings, no misdirection, if our Ornic, in other words, was incredibly stupid, which we cannot ignore as a possibility,” dirt-for-brains, “then it is also a possibility that he would simply turn to another of his portals and make his escape there. But, you may think, we will have our pack at all entrances. He’ll be met no matter which route he takes. True. We could spend the time, coin, and energy making sure every portal is guarded. But by doing so, we waste more time, not to mention the element of surprise.”