Heroes at Odds

by Moira J. Moore

  “It’s not identical to how a business contract is finalized, but there are similarities. The only significant difference was that there were no witnesses. Usually people who are not signatories observe the proceedings and sign the document as proof that everything was aboveboard. But the matchmaker didn’t allow anyone else in the room.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “Only that it went against tradition to do so. Something along the lines of a marriage contract being much more intimate than business arrangements, and as in most intimate situations, the fewer the participants, the better.”

  My stupid mind went to examples of intimate situations that my mother probably hadn’t intended. I could be immature at times.

  “What is this all about, Dunleavy?” my mother asked.

  I told them what Browne told me, leaving out her identity.

  Taro looked horrified, learning that his actions might have resurrected a contract that could have been left dead.

  Mother appeared disheartened as well. “And you believe this woman?”

  I nodded. “I can sometimes feel when spells are being cast. Have been cast. I felt something when the race was finished.”

  Taro suddenly tilted his head, frowning. Listening to something by the looks of it.

  “What’s going on?” Mother asked the room at large.

  I could hear it, then. People running around the house, pounding through the halls, talking and shouting over each other. Mika opened the door. “What’s going on?” I heard him ask.

  “The village is on fire!” someone female answered.

  “Hey! Wait!” my brother said, but no one answered.

  My gods. It just didn’t stop. One piece of bad luck after another. How much was Fiona supposed to take? How much were her tenants?

  I headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” my mother asked.

  “To see what I can do to help.”

  “That’s not one of your responsibilities.”

  I stared at her, appalled.

  She seemed a little appalled, too. “No, you’re right. But fighting fires is dangerous. Can you really blame me for wishing you to stay out of it?”

  I chose not to respond to that, and the others followed me out of the room. We all ran through the halls and down the stairs. Once we were outside, we could see people riding from the stable toward the village. I had no doubt Fiona was already on her way.

  I could see the smoke against the sky, shades from white through gray to black. A fine dust floated in the air, and I could smell the bitter scent of burning wood. People were running, but one man was standing in the middle of everything, shouting, “You’re all idiots!” His face was red and he was waving his arms, almost hopping about. He looked ridiculous. “It’s all hopeless! Good fortune has been drained from this land! You are charging to your deaths!”

  A woman paused by him and slapped him, a solid crack against the cheek. I didn’t know who was more shocked, him or me. He put a hand to his cheek and stared at her. “You’re making a fool of yourself,” she sneered. “Do something or get out of the way.”

  “You’re going to risk your life for a titleholder who can’t protect us.”

  “She’s not a coward.” And then she ran off.

  He didn’t move. He just watched her go.

  I started running. My boys ran ahead of me. I did my best to keep up, but it wasn’t long before my breath was burning in my throat and I was working hard to keep my legs moving. I’d be useless by the time I got there.

  I ran over a swell on the ground and then down the following incline. That was when I could see the dye maker’s cottage, built a little distance away from the rest of the village. The roof was gone; the glass had popped out from the window frames. Some of the flames were pure pink. The smell was horrific.

  There were a handful of people throwing buckets of water that accomplished nothing. The dye maker was one of them, tears pouring down her cheeks. Though that may have been due to the smoke rather than despair. The smoke hovered thick and low to the ground. It made my eyes sting and I couldn’t help coughing, thereby dragging in more smoke.

  Feeling any contribution I made to the effort to save the dye maker’s home would be useless, I moved on to the rest of the village.

  There were dozens of bucket lines, manned by everyone but the youngest of children. The tiny, temporary streaks of water looked pathetic against flames that stretched up so high into the sky. I had a feeling everyone was motivated more by desperation than any real belief they were going to be successful.

  The heat was blistering; my skin seemed to ring with it, stretching painfully over my bones.

  I noticed that not all of the cottages were on fire. I also realized that the cottages that were on fire weren’t necessarily next to each other. One cottage would be on fire, the next one wouldn’t and the one after that would be. How did that work?

  Marcus and Cars were in one of the lines, hauling water. I found that particularly decent of them. I saw Daris, too. That floored me. She didn’t seem to be too useful, though. She kept dropping the buckets.

  I joined a bucket line. I accepted a bucket from one person, than ran to the next. The buckets were heavy, the contents slopping against me, the constant running was exhausting, and I was sure it wasn’t doing any good. If only it would rain.

  If only it would rain.

  I knew of a spell that could call rain. I didn’t have the ingredients for it on me and, in my experience, I could successfully cast weather spells only when working through Taro as he channeled. I was currently useless.

  I shouldn’t have run to the village when I heard about the fire. I should have stayed behind and kept Taro with me and performed the spell in our suite. It would have been a hell of a lot more useful than carrying little buckets of water.

  Why couldn’t I ever plan ahead, think things through?

  Take the bucket, pass it along.

  How did these fires start, anyway? Had someone been cooking something and left the fire unattended? Was it something to do with the smithy? Was there any way to find out? And if the person who was the source of the fire was found, what would happen to them? Would they be held responsible by law? Would they be in danger from the other tenants?

  The water splashing up from the buckets soaked my skirt, wrapping the material tightly around my legs. The ground became muddy and slippery. I fell more than once.

  More tenants showed up, this time fishers and whalers. They didn’t use buckets, but larger items I’d never seen before. Shiny material hung from a square frame, the wooden edges a cubit in length each. The whalers seemed to handle them with ease, but I couldn’t imagine trying to carry them.

  They carried much more water than the buckets, and they were just as ineffective.

  It was hard to breathe. I felt like the dark thick smoke was coating my throat and filling my lungs. My eyes were densely filled with tears, so much so I could barely see, but I couldn’t spare the time to wipe them, and if I could, I wouldn’t want to. My hands were filthy.

  Roofs were gone, walls were crumbling into black chunks. People were giving up. Some dropped their buckets and stared. Others sat on the muddy ground and cried. A few screamed about how much they had lost. Those who kept working became slower and sloppier in their efforts. I doubted anyone really thought any of the cottages or their contents could be saved. They just didn’t want to face giving up.

  I kept carrying water until someone told me to stop. I didn’t want to stop, though I ached in every muscle I had and my hands were chafed and bleeding, but as I looked up I realized everyone else had abandoned their attempts to contain the flames. We watched the burning cottages disintegrate.

  What was it like to lose everything, things that took coin or trade to acquire, to replace? How would they recover from it? I was aware that many people in the village bartered for what they needed. How could they barter when they had nothing?

  I found Fiona. She was giving
orders about people billeting with their neighbors and getting food from the manor. I waited until she was alone before asking, “Was anyone killed?”

  She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. “No, thank Zaire.”

  I thought that incredibly good fortune until I remembered that having absolutely nothing could destroy lives, too. “What can be done for the people who have lost everything?”

  “I’ll give them something, their neighbors will give them something, and the rest they’ll get on credit. They’ll be all right. In time.”

  It was good to know people wouldn’t be cast out starving in the street. “Do you know how the fires started?”

  “Riders came by and started them,” Fiona said curtly.

  “What?” On purpose? “Seriously?”

  “That’s what the villagers said. The same riders who trampled Colm and Radek and the others.”

  Did they not hurt enough people the first time? They had to come back and do more damage? “Does this happen a lot to titleholders? People just attacking the tenants? What do they get out of it?”

  “I’ve heard of marauders, especially on country estates. Some do it for theft, some for entertainment, but I think these are different. I think someone is trying to convince me that I can’t protect my people. Just another burden I can’t shoulder.”

  “You think this is all Kent.”

  Fiona glanced about for listeners before saying, “Lokian is dead sure it is. Bon can be charming and can get people to speak more than they normally would. Then Lokian puts everything they say together, and what it all means is that Kent is deliberately creating an environment of chaos and distrust.”

  “I thought he was going to petition the Emperor.”

  “So did I. It’s possible he seeks to garner more evidence of my weakness. All the ’ristos in the area will hear of this, and Kent might be able to get one of them to speak against me in front of the Emperor.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I don’t know yet. If I could prove Kent is behind this, I should be able to complain to the Emperor, and he would—well, might—pass down sanctions. But he has no love for me, and he won’t act against a titleholder of Kent’s status on the basis of the opinions of two of my tenants.”

  That anyone could doubt it was Kent behind all of these events immediately after he had threatened to take Westsea from Fiona was ludicrous. No one with any intelligence could doubt they were all connected.

  Unfortunately, I had no faith that the Emperor would be reasonable.

  However, while the Emperor could dismiss the opinions of tenants, it wouldn’t be so easy to do so when it was a Source speaking. From somewhere an erroneous belief had sprouted that Sources couldn’t lie. Perhaps it was time we took advantage of it.

  The current difficulty with that was that Taro had seen nothing for himself, nothing of the perpetrators. Until he did, he couldn’t tell anyone anything.

  “Or, legally, technically,” Fiona continued, “I can launch an attack on his estate.”

  I frowned. “You mean, what, some kind of battle?”

  “It’s traditional.”

  “From a hundred years ago!”

  “It’s still legal.”

  Had her difficulties bruised her brain? “You can’t ask farmers and fishers to fight.”

  “You haven’t been here long. Some of these people brawl for fun.”

  “That’s not the same thing.”

  She sighed again. “This isn’t something you need to worry about, Dunleavy.”

  A polite way to tell me to mind my own business. All I could do was hope that Fiona’s head would clear once she was no longer so exhausted. I nodded and went looking for my family.

  They were all coated black, wet, and round-shouldered with fatigue. We were of no use to anyone there, not competent enough to safely dig through rubble, not familiar enough to anyone to provide any real emotional support, so we left. Taro started shivering during the walk back to the manor, and my brothers and mother looked miserable. I was proud of them for working so hard, but melancholy over our lack of success. It was just wrong that so much damage could be done in such a short period of time.

  It felt like it took hours to reach the manor, and I was ready to lie down anywhere, as filthy and wet and cold as I was. The stairs up to my suite seemed like one challenge too many. All that stopped me from just sitting on the steps and falling asleep was that I tried to have as few regulars as possible seeing me completely wrecked.

  Then, once Taro and I were back in our suite, I was afraid to touch anything or sit anywhere. I would create stains that would never wash out. I had no doubt Fiona’s servants were all in a similar state, and I wouldn’t dream of bothering them with requests for assistance at that time. So Taro and I scrubbed ourselves with the cold water in the water closet, scraping our skin raw, and threw our clothes into the empty fireplace, to be burned once they dried out. I didn’t think either the smell or the filth could be soaked out of them.

  I told Taro of Fiona’s suspicions, and he collapsed into a chair. “I’m sick of this,” he muttered. “There has to be something we can do.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Something. Distract Kent with some troubles of his own. We’re able to do things Shields and Sources can’t normally do.”

  How Taro had changed. He had gone from almost fearing his extra abilities and using them in only the most dire of circumstances, to volunteering to utilize them when not strictly necessary. I wondered if I should worry about that. “That could kill people,” I pointed out.

  “Not if we do it right.”

  “And what does doing it right involve?”

  “Go there some night, destroy something specific. Give Kent something else to worry about. But we’ll be careful, make sure no one is harmed.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “Why not? We have to do something.”

  “I agree, but it feels wrong. Dishonorable.”

  “Who cares? Kent isn’t bothering to be noble.”

  “And don’t we despise him for it?”

  “He’s hurting innocent people. He’s going to kill someone if this keeps up.”

  “I know, I know. I just really hate the idea of you using your abilities this way.”

  “I’ve done things like this before.”

  Not quite. Not really.

  “I’m going to do it whether you like it or not,” he declared.

  I glared at him.

  He raised his eyebrows in an expression of challenge.

  He wasn’t going to budge. “Fine,” I snapped.

  He nodded, looking a little smug. Aggravating creature.

  “When?” I let my tone remain sharp. He should know how irritated I was.

  “Not tonight,” he answered, to my relief. “I feel half-dead. But soon.”

  It was a bad, bad idea. I just hoped we didn’t kill anyone. Or destroy anyone’s livelihood. Or create any other problems with unforeseeable consequences I didn’t have it in me to imagine right then.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I’d been sick. I’d been exhausted. I’d been in pain. I’d even been poisoned.

  Yet I’d never experienced quite the sort of discomfort I was feeling upon reluctantly waking from warm, deep, black sleep the next morning. Each muscle I had was twisting and pulling with every movement, no matter how slight, and when I wasn’t moving, the muscles hardened into sharp unnatural shapes that seemed to scrape against the inside of my skin. It was ridiculous. The body wasn’t meant to feel that way.

  Sun was streaming through the window, a rather rare occurrence in Flown Raven, one that seemed to mock how devastated so many people were feeling. Or maybe it would warm them. Gray skies and drizzle were depressing to many.

  Taro was still in bed, asleep. He seemed to almost sink into the mattress with his unmoving fatigue. There were dark smudges streaked here and there on his face, missed during his ablutions the day before.

&
nbsp; He was one of those people who was a particular kind of attractive when they were dirty.

  Of course he was.

  He smelled like smoke. I smelled like smoke. We were probably drenching the sheets in the smell of smoke. Maybe even the whole suite. Was that something that could be aired out of a place?

  I wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep, damn it. Might as well get up. I rolled over, I sat up, I twisted to put my feet on the floor. Every movement was careful and slow and painful.

  All right. Get moving. Theoretically, it would loosen things up.

  I got as far as the sitting room and sank into a chair with a sigh. Had I ever been so drained before? It was such an effort to raise even a hand.

  There was no warm, soft, brown aroma of coffee. Because Hester, I had no doubt, felt as awful as I did. If I wanted coffee, I’d have to go down to the kitchen and make it myself. Which I could do, except the kitchen was so very far away, and getting there involved so many more stairs than were necessary.

  There had to be a spell that could make coffee out of thin air. Everyone would love it.

  And not long after I was thinking about coffee, I was thinking about food. I realized I was so hungry my stomach was folding in on itself. But getting food involved all the same difficulties as getting coffee.

  I leaned my head against the back of the chair. I stared at the ceiling and tried to count in my head how many steps it was from the suite to the kitchen. I had almost convinced myself the food and coffee would be worth the effort when I remembered I would then have to climb back up the stairs, and that was the end of that.

  I might have fallen asleep again, as I was unnaturally startled by the knock on the door. I glared at the slab of wood, knowing manners dictated that I should open it myself. Manners could go sink. As far as I was concerned, everyone should be too uncomfortable to be visiting. They didn’t deserve etiquette. “Enter.”

  Then I felt awful as the door was opened and Radia shuffled in, supporting herself with a cane. I stood up and took a step.

  She waved me down. “I know what happened and the toll it’s taken on everyone.”

  Still, I waited until she sat before sitting myself. “I’m sorry I have nothing to offer you.” I looked at the bell pull. “I could call for something.” I really didn’t want to. The servants had more important things to do, such as rest, than bring food to me.