Biting his tongue, Ashel flipped open his satchel and stuffed his lecture notes inside. “Only a weak faith is threatened by debate, sir.”
Jahant laid an arm across his shoulder. “And I encourage questions in my own classroom, but you’re not yet a Loremaster, and journeymen are supposed to stick to approved doctrine.” The master’s smile broadened. “But you have such a gift for lecturing—I’m honored the Harmony sent you to me.”
Mouth dry and sour, he ducked out of Jahant’s embrace. “Thank you, Master. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Of course.” The Guildschoolmaster closed his satchel and handed it to him, his eyes shrewd, regretful.
Outside the Guildschool, he passed yellow brick walls draped with ivy and crowned with potted trees. Mora straddled the Semena border, three hundred miles of dry grass between the city gate and the edge of Kiareinoll Fembrosh. Crossbows idle on their backs, guards on the parapets raised watering cans to greet passersby, yet all the greenery the city planted couldn’t conjure the deep shade of Fembrosh. Not in this yellow place. Yellow plain, yellow bricks and cobbles, even yellowed wallpaper in the parlor of his boarding house. In his room, the grimy walls and frayed carpet did little to ease his eyes. Splashing wine into a cup, he settled into a creaky chair, a boot on the windowsill. The day he moved in, a month ago as winter unfolded into spring, the river outside had reflected a sky brown with dust. The landlady had said it was from the vast steed herds, migrating north. Wait till we have a clear day, she’d promised. Today the sky was blue and endless. The water remained brown.
I like your view, Geram said.
Ashel swallowed a draught. One of the finest in the city, the landlady promised, when she still talked to me. Now she thinks I’m mad, always talking to myself.
Everybody talks to themselves, Geram replied.
Not like us.
No.
Geram, Ashel said firmly, as if shutting a door.
Ashel, the other man conceded.
The Archives at the Academy held an Ancient fable about a wizard who was haunted by his own shadow, defeated it by naming it. The wizard had sought to rejoin a split self, but Ashel and Geram named each other to try to separate, as they had ever since that terrible day in the Relmlord’s dungeons. Ashel gulped his wine, trying to drown the strident howls and sizzling meat assaulting his memory. His screams, his cooking skin and muscle, and Vendrael’s shrieks and burning flesh too. Elesendar forgive him, he’d felt nothing but satisfaction watching his torturer’s flesh burn, but since then, her screams had mingled with his own. Both memories became the chorus to Lornk Korng’s insidious whispers, which had slid into his ear, revealing the lie of his parents’ marriage. Ashel couldn’t say which agony had been worse, the burning flesh or the searing truth that Lornk Korng might be his father.
Geram had tried to block his pain during the burning, and something had gone wrong. Now, regardless of distance and time, they always knew each other’s mind. They whispered their names again, aloud. Sometimes, it worked. Not today—Ashel felt Geram push his eyes after a piece of trash floating on the river, his gaze lunging after it like a beggar diving for moldy bread.
I enjoyed your lecture today, Geram said after the detritus disappeared beneath the bridge. When I was a boy, the heretics used to gather in Aunt Celina’s tavern. I don’t remember anybody saying that belief by anybody but the believer isn’t important.
A memory slipped by, not Ashel’s, of a table full of youths and oldsters, teasing him as he passed drinks to them.
A tentative rap broke the reverie, and the landlady cringed past his threshold. “You have visitors, Highness.”
“Just Ashel, please,” he said.
“Of course, High—of course. They’re waiting in the parlor.” The landlady scuttled away.
His boots echoed on the stairs. She probably thinks Mother shipped me off here to get her lunatic son out of sight. Instead his Guild had pasted the shipping label on his head.
Your mother is meeting with the Eldanion Ambassador shortly, and I’m supposed to be there.
Anger stirred. Why couldn’t you just go home to Alna?
Your mother sends my aunt and uncle a pension. I can do more for my family Listening to patricians prevaricate, than hearing fishers’ fibs.
He began a retort, but his ire melted as he crossed the parlor threshold. “Melba!”
His Guild-sister, and oldest friend, flung her arms around him. “Master Jahant told me where you were lodged.”
“What are you doing here?” He looked between her and her companions. An older man wore his wiry hair dressed with clay and sculpted into a fan upon his head. On the woman, well-defined arms were crossed over a nearly bare torso. Only narrow leather strips covered small breasts set in a muscular chest.
She looks cold, Geram quipped.
An elbow jabbed Ashel’s ribs. “This is Joslyrn and Kelmair,” said Melba. “They’re Herders.”
Awe pushed out his right hand before he remembered the missing fingers. Awkwardly, he switched to his left. “Of steeds? My grandparents are horse breeders. I know it’s a sorry comparison, but . . . Shrine, it must be glorious to ride a steed.”
Joslyrn gripped the offered hand. “Do you think you could stay astride one, Highness?” He used his voice rather than mindspeech, as was common east of the Kiareinoll.
“I’d like to try,” Ashel replied aloud. People from the Semena plains considered mindspeech rude. “And please, Ashel is fine.”
“Might as well ride an ox as a horse,” Kelmair said silently. She kept her arms crossed, lips taut beneath narrow eyes. Angry weals circled her neck, and her head was shaven except for a glossy black topknot.
She’s Caleisbahnin, Geram said.
Anxiety squeezed Ashel’s gut. “I’m pleased to meet you, but why are you here?”
Melba drew him to the sofa. “They have a proposition for you, to get you out of your debt."
His debt. It seemed a small thing next to all he’d lost in Olmlablaire, but he owed Caleisbahn gamers a huge sum after one stupid, drunken night, a year and a half ago—a carefree time. “And how do they know about that?”
“Welsher,” Kelmair sneered.
“Kelmair, we’re here with honey, not salt,” Joslyrn said. “She has her own problems with the Archipelago, Highness, and my crew has its troubles, but there’s a way we could all help each other.”
What’s a Caleisbahn woman doing with Herders? Geram wondered.
Ashel voiced another question: “How did you find Melba, and me?”
“We met in Narath,” Melba said. “Joslyrn was there petitioning the Senate, and he caught my act at the Wind. We ended up chatting, and then I needed to get out here fast, so he offered me passage in exchange for introducing you.”
Ashel blinked. “Why did you need to get out here fast? And I still don’t understand how a Herder knows about my gambling debts.”
“The Guild expelled Wineyll.”
“What? Why?”
“They said she wasn’t meeting her quotas, but they haven’t given her any gigs, and she can’t bring in revenue if she can’t perform. There are some vile rumors circulating—it’s like the situation with her father all over again, and the Harmony doesn’t want any scandal.”
“They expelled her? She’s barely seventeen.” His anger stirred, amplified by Geram’s, over what Lornk had done to Wineyll in Olmlablaire. “Whatever those rumors say, the Guild should be sheltering her, not tossing her to the lupears.”
Joslyrn shook his head. “All the guilds are purging ranks, Highness, Herders included. Our guild demanded all Lathan members pay double the grazing fees or turn our herds over to Semena crews.”
“The Miners have culled too, and between the guildless and the discharged soldiers, Narath is full of trouble these days.” Melba said.
“You should be talking to my mother about all this.”
“I tried,” Joslyrn said, “but I
couldn’t get an audience.”
“Melba, you could have connected him with Bethniel—you didn’t have to come all the way out here.”
“I would have, and Wineyll would have asked Bethniel for help too, but she’d already left town on some mission for the throne.”
“We have a different plan, Shemen,” Kelmair said.
Melba gasped, and Ashel stared at the Caleisbahnin, a cold knot lodged in his stomach. Shemen. In the Archipelago, shemen were men deemed unfit for the sea. Geram knew the insult from the Alnan docks, where boys would sneer it at the weak or cowardly.
Melba cleared her throat. “While they were in Narath, Kelmair saw the Caleisbahn ambassador, and he told her the First will pay your debt if you spend a year at his court in Signon.”
“He wants to hire me as a minstrel?” he asked, trepidation snarled like wire in his throat as he glanced at Kelmair. Elite Caleisbahn commanders kept comely shemen in their harems.
Joslyrn nodded. “Yes.”
“The First likes music,” the Caleisbahn woman added, her lip curled.
“What’s your interest in this?”
“There’s a bounty,” Kelmair snapped.
Joslyrn’s eyes snapped heavenward. “Shrine, woman! Honey, not salt! Forgive us, Highness. The Caleisbahn ambassador offered to pay us if we brought you back to Narath. Until we pay the grazing fees, we’re outlaws. The money would clear our names and let us keep the herd.”
He frowned, torn between a desire to visit the legendary Archipelago and suspicion that something nefarious was afoot. These people wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t succumbed to temptation—but then a lot of trouble could have been avoided if he’d had better control over his impulses.
“You want me to go to the Guild and ask permission to take this job?” he asked Melba.
“I do. The Guild cannot expel you, Prince Ashel. If you came back, it would force them to stop using flimsy excuses to purge everyone who isn’t one of the Harmony’s sycophants. Losing those fingers doesn’t prevent you from singing. You should be headlining in Knownearth’s capitals, not stuck out here teaching! If you were a Master, you could take any gig you wanted, including this one in Signon. Come back to Narath and demand the Minstrel performance exam, or the Loremaster composition section if you like. You could still lecture when you want, but music is your true gift.”
True gift. He flexed the maimed hand, and Melba’s nostrils flared. “Maybe I don’t want to be a minstrel,” he growled.
“Ashel, it’s not what you want—it’s what you are.”
Vic had said something similar last summer when she rejected his offer of marriage. A few hours later, his father had been murdered in front of all of them. Sashal’s blood, hot and sticky, had soaked Ashel’s garments and filled his heart with a white-hot rage. He still carried that anger, banked but smoldering. Fury sparked embers, each with a glowing face: Lornk and all the guards and torturers under his command. Mother, for wedding someone so vile—even if they’d never declared, she had let herself be wooed and won. And Vic. Some things are unforgivable. Shrine, Vic’s face floated out of that pit of rage too. All those times he insisted he didn’t blame her for his lost fingers—those were more wishes than truth.
Scowling, he stood. “Joslyrn, I’ll think about your offer. Melba, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
A nervous smile rippled the old man’s mouth as he stood. “Would you at least like to come and see the steeds? We’re staying at the steed paddock outside the city.”
His ire faded, replaced by longing. “Is it true you can cover a hundred miles in a day?”
“Half a day, if need be,” Kelmair sneered.
“Steeds like to run,” Joslyrn said. “We could let you try riding one. A grandchild of horse breeders should make the leap easily.”
They agreed to meet the next day after his classes, and he returned to his room, where he marked essays until the landlady brought supper. The fowl dry, the grains undercooked, he washed the food down with the rest of the open bottle, finished another while sitting in the dark, watching the river run black under dim stars. Stretched out on a too-short mattress, he welcomed Geram’s dreams of crashing surf and seabirds, salty skin and gritty sand, then yelped out of nightmares teeming with dungeon noise and stink. Heart racing, he rubbed throbbing temples as dawn burnished the carpet a bright coppery bronze, like Vic’s hair. Mornings like this, he’d wake wishing to find her beside him, that bright hair tickling his chest. But half his bed was cold, same as half his hand was missing.
The Deadliest One
Dispossessed miners thronged the street, brandishing clubs and dirty faces, sending pedestrians scurrying onto jammed boardwalks. An elbow jabbed Vic’s ribs; her nose bumped someone’s shoulder. Arms aching, she hefted a tuber-filled basket, boosting it with just a touch of wizardry. Euphoria steeped at the back of her throat, and she longed to shoot skyward, out of the crowd. Swallowing the urge, she released the power, and pain bloomed behind her temple.
“I don’t have time for this crap.” Muttering more oaths, she plowed through the onlookers and into the tide of marchers, fording the street with a glare so fierce they lowered their cudgels and wove around her. Each step was a hammer blow against her skull, and nausea twisted her belly. Hurrying down a series of alleys, she emerged onto a street adorned with flower boxes wafting with spring. The Cobblestone beckoned from the block’s end, its half-timbered, ivy-draped walls promising respite. Pain squeezing her temples, Vic gritted her teeth and slipped through the side gate.
Bed linens billowed, wafting scents of garden herbs and brewing ale. Eyes closed, she pulled the aromas into her lungs, willing the sweet air to ease her ills. Another wave of sickness bubbled up, and she groaned. She’d have to visit Elekia soon, or hole up sick in her room until the queen sent guards to fetch her. It had already happened once since Bethniel had left.
You’ve fought battles feeling worse, she reminded herself, shouldering open the kitchen door. She could at least bring in the laundry. Leaving the tubers with the cook, she took an empty basket outside. Clean sheets, clean rooms, clean reputation, Helara always said. Vic unclipped a pillowcase from the line, cracked it smartly, snapped it into a neat square and pulled down a sheet. Birdsong trilled over the wall, and in the deeper tones of a nearby creek, she heard Ashel’s baritone. A shadow crossed the edge of her vision—her heart in her throat, she peered through the billowing linens. But it was only the water, a passing cloud, and wishful thinking.
You don’t love him, she repeated her litany.
“Vic,” Helara called sharply from the kitchen door.
Swallowing pain, Vic creased the sheet. “Almost done.”
The innkeeper came and put strong hands on Vic’s shoulders, her narrow eyes and stark cheekbones set in a fierce scowl. “Shrine, you’re green as a ghost. Come inside, now.” She marched Vic into her office and slammed the door. “I won’t have any trouble, you hear me?”
Vic’s cheeks tingled as if she’d been slapped. “What is wrong?”
“This is a respectable place.”
“I know. Why do you think I’m working here?”
“I will not have rumors going round about my employees.” She swiped up a crumpled Heralds’ pamphlet and flung it at Vic.
Smoothing the parchment against the desk, Vic laughed. The Heralds framed the facts of Olmlablaire’s destruction—that Vic the Blade had used wizardry to blast a hole in the Relmlord’s mountain palace—with an elaborate plot in which Kragnashians, the Caleisbahnin, rogue steed herders, and the Heralds’ favorite villain—Queen Elekia—sought to undermine the guilds and dismantle them. “Steed rustlers? This is preposterous!”
“You’re saying it isn’t true?” Helara demanded.
Guffaws fading, Vic wiped her cheeks. “When did the Heralds ever print anything but fabrications ginned up to sell their papers?”
“I asked for the truth, not sass.”
“This pamphlet
is full of lies.” Even if it wrapped the truth with them. “Why would you even think—”
“They say wizardry kills the wizard, Vic, and since you came back from the war, you haven’t been yourself. You always look hungover, and you jump whenever I walk into a room where you’re alone. I know you’re not drinking my stocks. You’re not smoking bliss, are you?”
“There are no bliss dens in Narath.”
The innkeeper raised a shrewd eyebrow. “Don’t be so sure of that, with all the miserable vagrants lurking about. I’ll bring in the linens; clean up the common room and get yourself ready for the evening rush.”
When she finished tidying, she climbed to the third-floor garret she shared with Helara’s daughter. A journeyed Tailor, Lora had gone to purchase fabrics in Erin, and Helara had allowed Wineyll to take Lora’s bed while she was away. Vic found the minstrel curled there, facing the wall, a position she occupied most of the time.
“Helara’s booked a trio for the common room tonight,” Vic said. “They said you’re welcome to play with them.”
“I’m not allowed.”
“You’re not allowed if Helara pays you. No one can stop you just joining in. Craftfolk sing along all the time.”
“I don’t sing. I played.”
Vic sighed. Pulling Wineyll out of her funk was hopeless, and as each day wore on, Vic struggled against a desire to kick the girl rather than comfort her. She wished Bethniel was here—the princess would know exactly what to say and do. “I heard you don’t have to be in a guild to perform as a minstrel in Eldanion. I’ll ask Elekia to speak to their ambassador and get you a place as a court minstrel.”
“You have to supply your own instruments, and I don’t have any money to buy them.”
Lips pressed together, Vic rubbed her temples. “You are a war hero, Wineyll. I’m sure Elekia would grant you a boon, or something.”
The girl flopped over. Her glare pierced Vic’s skull, cranking up the ache there. “I’m not a hero. As you well know.”
“Wineyll, nobody knows better than me how Lornk can wind you up and spin you into doing the last thing you’d ever want to. I know sometimes we just want to wallow in our sorrows, but eventually you have to get up and move along with your life.”
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