Thief's Cunning

by Sarah Ahiers

  Farther to the east, past the fields of curtains, water sparkled in the setting sun. Silhouetted figures bathed in the waves.

  I leaned closer. “Is that the sea?”

  Nev smirked, but there was no malice in it. “It is a lake.”

  A lake. Yvain had no lakes. Just the canals that twisted throughout the city. I wished we were closer, so I could gaze across its waters, looking for the other shore.

  I knew how to swim. Maybe I could find my freedom on the other side.

  To the south and north of the curtains, huge pastures and orchards flowed in all directions, fences and walls separating them from one another. We passed one on the right, and I peered past gaps in the wooden, slatted wall to see a strange deerlike creature, with horns that twisted into the air above its head.

  “The animals,” I said aloud, “for your menagerie.”

  We passed a paddock of horses and mules and other pack animals. I made note of their location.

  Nev nodded. “Yes. Many pens hold goats—they are food for us and the animals—but some are for the menagerie.”

  I scanned the pens for a glimpse of stripes. “Where do you keep the tigers?”

  “In a pit.”

  I looked at him then. “You keep them in a pit.”

  “Tigers jump very high. It is safer for them, for us, and all other animals if they are in a pit. It is fine. They were born here. They know no other way.”

  I remembered the tiger in the cage at the menagerie and his unseeing eyes. Surely he hadn’t been dreaming of a pit in the ground, of another cage . . .

  The wagon stopped. Nev exhaled slowly and glanced at me before he pushed the back curtain open and stepped out. I followed. There was no point in waiting. The sooner whatever was going to happen happened, the sooner I could make a plan for my escape.

  The setting sun turned everything orange and yellow. Even the blue curtain we’d stopped at, flapping gently in the evening breeze, had a yellow tint to it.

  Below each curtain seemed to be a hole. A large hole, rectangular in shape, but smaller than the curtains. Maybe they were one of the tiger pits Nev had mentioned.

  Two women stepped out of the hole beneath the blue curtain. The first one was heavily pregnant, and my heart sank, thinking about Beatricia back home. Maybe the baby had been born already. Maybe she’d had a boy, maybe a girl. Maybe everyone was so happy.

  The pregnant woman walked to us, hair pulled back in a tight plait. She had tanned, olive skin, sharp cheekbones, and hazel eyes. I looked at Nev. He had mentioned a sister who was pregnant. This had to be her.

  Behind Nev’s sister stood another woman, with curly brown hair that matched the color of her eyes, and brown skin. She smiled brightly at Nev and the other travelers, but when she saw me, her smile melted away.

  Nev’s sister strode to him and grabbed his chin. She turned his face to the left, then the right, examining his bruises and his cuts. She spoke to him in Mornian and he answered quietly back.

  His sister stared at me, expression unreadable. I returned her stare.

  Behind me the three other travelers dismounted.

  Nev’s sister released him and she strode to them, bypassing me completely. She confronted Perrin, barking at her in Mornian.

  Perrin looked askance at me, then spoke so I could understand her. “He let that one try to escape, Metta.”

  I snorted and glanced at Nev. If falling out of a wagon constituted an escape attempt, they were going to be pretty shocked when I gave it my all.

  “No one let me do anything,” I said.

  Nev’s sister—Metta—Perrin, and the other woman studied me.

  Nev stepped beside me. Part of me wanted to recoil from him, but another part was glad for his presence. He was a familiar stone in this field of uncertainty. Maybe I didn’t know him, not truly, but I certainly knew him better than I knew any of these strangers.

  “It was no escape,” Nev said to his sister, speaking so I could understand. “She was too ill.”

  “Lucky for all of you,” I said.

  “Why lucky?” Metta’s eyes focused on me. I fought against fidgeting, stilled my fingers from trying to pull a mask I didn’t have over my face. I tugged on my scarf.

  “She is one of Lovero’s murderers,” Nev said. “Clippers,” he corrected, eyes flashing toward mine.

  The woman with the curly hair stepped beside Nev’s sister and spoke quietly to her in Mornian.

  Metta continued to study me, as if I were a puzzle she could unlock if she only tried hard enough. Her mouth tipped in a slight smile, eyes narrowed.

  Plotting. This woman was a plotter. I would have bet money on it.

  “Yes,” Metta finally said to the other woman. Metta turned back to Perrin and spoke so I could understand. “Do not touch my brother again.”

  Perrin had been grinning during the entire whispered exchange, but now her smile vanished. She replied in Mornian but Metta cut her off.

  “I do not care. He is not yours to discipline. Find your own men if you must hit someone.”

  Perrin scowled and shot such a look of venom at Metta that I was surprised she didn’t flinch. Metta stood tall, shoulders back, head held high. She carried an air of pride about her, like she was someone important and Perrin was below her thoughts.

  Perrin strode to her horse. She mounted and called the other travelers after her. They left silently, heading northwest toward New Mornia and the buildings we had already passed.

  “Isha,” Metta said to the curly-haired woman, “the wagon.” Isha nodded without a word and led the horse and wagon away, until it was just me, Nev, and Metta standing together.

  Nev watched his sister, but she and I stared at each other.

  I understood pride. Pride offered strength of will. Pride offered strength of body. I let my own pride command me, lowering my arms to my side, looking down my nose at her.

  Around us, travelers climbed out of different holes in the ground, each beneath one of the colorful curtains. They skirted the pens and pastures with the animals. A few of them openly gaped at me—my blond hair made it abundantly clear I was a stranger—but most just went on their way.

  “My Family will come for me,” I finally said to Metta, “and when they get here, people will die.”

  It was a lie. Mostly. No one knew where I was. I was on my own.

  “Our gods protect us,” she said.

  The Three. Gods of song and safe travels, motherhood and animals, wealth and thievery.

  “My god is a god of murder and death,” I said. “How will yours of wealth protect you from that?”

  Metta rubbed her belly and smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

  She faced Nev, who’d been watching the exchange quietly. “She will stay with you. Answer her questions.”

  Nev stared at his sister. “There will be talk. People will not approve.”

  “People never approve. It is how we will win.” She grinned, though it didn’t seem to hold much joy. She placed her hands possessively on her belly, then headed back to the hole under the blue curtain.

  Nev rubbed his face, his palm tugging his skin. His chin was rough with stubble. He needed a shave.

  Finally, he sighed. “Come.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not going with you.”

  “Then what will you do? Sleep out here in the dirt? Sleep in a pen with the animals?” I’d exasperated him again. It was getting easier to do.

  “I could kill you in your sleep. Walk home. No one would even know.”

  He nodded. “Yes. But there are still ghosts, even out here. And like you said, your god is not Culda, She of safe travels.”

  Around us, the soft sound of music began to grow. I looked out past the pens and the curtains over the strange holes in the ground and saw a line of travelers, evenly spaced. They sang the same song I’d heard Nev, Perrin, and the other travelers sing on the way here. I watched them, listening to the song, memorizing the lyrics even though I didn’t know their
meaning. When the song reached its end, a light flashed between each person, but this flash stretched on and on, until I lost sight of it as it encircled what seemed to be everything.

  “All of Mornia?” I asked Nev as I turned the lyrics over and over in my head, committing them to memory.

  “Culda keeps us safe in the night.”

  I exhaled, then followed Nev.

  But I looked once more, out at the dark sky, past the curtains, the pens, and the buildings of New Mornia.

  There were always ghosts in the dark.

  I clutched the necklace—the singura—hanging from my neck, thinking about the traveler song.

  But there was freedom in it, too, for those willing to take it.

  twenty-three

  NEV LED ME TO A RED CURTAIN AND THE HOLE THAT hid beneath it. Stairs had been carved into the earth, leading downward.

  Nev descended, and I watched as his head twisted around, the stairs spiraling into the darkness below.

  But I’d grown up underground, in the safety of the tunnels below the streets of Yvain. The darkness beneath the earth held no fear for me.

  The steps were even under my feet, like generations of travelers had used them, their boots and feet smoothing the stone until it was soft and flat like glass.

  I reached the bottom of the stairs just as a light flared in front of me. Nev had lit a lamp. He covered it as it flickered, lighting the space.

  It was small. Smaller even than my room back home, the one above the shop with its window that let the moonlight spill through.

  Wait. Not home. Back in Yvain.

  The rectangular space stretched before me. At the other end was a sort of kitchen, with bowls and plates and pots. The cook space was blackened with years of use, and the char had embedded itself so firmly in the stone and clay surrounding us that I could smell it from where I stood.

  There was a small seating area, reminiscent of Nev’s room at the menagerie. Two stools and a table almost the same size were tucked beside the spiral stairs. Clearly he didn’t expect many guests for dinner.

  To the left a curtain hung over a door. A bathroom of some sort, I supposed. And to the right were two more curtains, though they were pushed aside to show niches carved into the walls. One of them was empty, but the other was filled with a plush-looking mattress and colorful pillows tucked into the corners.

  Shelves were attached to every empty wall space, and they were stacked with more supplies and food stores. Nev dug through a basket on a shelf, pulling out more pillows and blankets. He looked to the left and came face-to-face with a small wire cage. He paused, pillows seemingly forgotten as he contemplated something.

  I cleared my throat, and he turned away from the cage.

  “This is your home?” I asked.

  He nodded, then held up the pillows like they were some sort of explanation. “For your bed.” He pointed toward the empty niche.

  “Your sister—Metta is your sister, right?” He nodded. “She said you were to answer my questions.”

  He scowled and walked to my niche, throwing the pillows and blanket inside. “It is not my place.”

  “I don’t care whose place it is,” I snapped. “I want answers.”

  Nev pressed his lips together in a thin line, then returned to the shelf, digging around again until he pulled out a dark, thin bottle and two small glasses.

  The glasses were the same as the ones we’d used at the menagerie, when we’d played cards. I frowned, remembering that night. How fun and exciting it had been, kissing him in the dark of his room, befriending the travelers as we gamed together.

  It seemed like a lifetime ago. And clearly the travelers hadn’t been my friends.

  He pulled a knife off a shelf, using it briefly to pry the cork out of the bottle. He put it back and turned around.

  I yanked my gaze from the knife.

  Nev set the glasses and bottle on the little table and sat on the stool, gesturing for me to take the other one.

  I sat across from him and he poured oil into the glasses before corking the bottle once more.

  “I don’t want any oil,” I said. “I don’t want your hospitality. I want answers. I want to know why you took me, what you plan to do with me. I want to know why you sent Kuch to my home to attack my uncle.”

  I wanted to know why he’d sent me away, after the intimacy we’d shared in Lovero. I wanted to know if he’d never felt anything with me. If it had been easy to end it all, like it had been nothing more than dinner with an acquaintance instead of what it really was.

  Or what I had thought it was, anyway.

  I wanted . . . I wanted a lot of things, but for now I would settle for answers.

  “There are different oils for different times,” he said. “This one is for sharing yourself with others. Drink.”

  He pressed his own glass to his lips and tipped the liquid into his mouth. The oil coated the sides of the glass when he set it back on the table. He motioned toward my glass again, and from the look in his eyes I knew he wouldn’t answer any questions until I drank.

  I dumped the oil into my mouth, swallowing it all with a single gulp.

  It tasted rich, with a slight hint of something earthier. Mushrooms, maybe. I crossed my arms and stared at him.

  He exhaled slowly and leaned back on his stool, until his spine rested against the wall of his home. “I am not sure where to begin.”

  “Why don’t you begin with why you took me?” I snapped.

  He shook his head. “That is not the easiest place to start.”

  “Try.”

  He rubbed his face, carefully avoiding his healing lip. “Your singura. The necklace your uncle gave you. He should never have given it to you.”

  I slipped the necklace out from under my dress and held it in my hand. The three concentric circles swirled around the center of the stone. “Keep going.”

  “That necklace is holy. It is reserved for . . .” He paused.

  “Reserved for what?” I couldn’t help the impatience in my voice. The sooner I got answers, the sooner I could make my plans to escape.

  “There is not really a word for it in your language. What do you call yourself again?”

  “Clippers?”

  He shook his head. “The other word. When you speak about your place with your god.”

  “Disciples of Safraella.”

  “Yes, that.” He smiled, like we were friends, conversing before we sought our beds.

  “The necklace is for your priests?” I tried to get the conversation back to what was important.

  “Close enough. Only they can wear it. It means they are the ones who commune with the Three. The Three look to them, speak through them.”

  I shook my head. “Les wore this necklace for years. There were no gods speaking to him. It’s just a stone he took from his mother.”

  “He is a man. Only women speak to Meska, Culda, and Boamos.”

  “So because I’m not a man, and because I’m wearing the necklace, that’s why you took me?” The singura was my key to escape. But if it was the reason I was taken in the first place, then I didn’t need it.

  I slipped the necklace off, dropping it on the table before me. “You can have it, if it’s that important to you.”

  Pain struck my stomach. I gasped.

  I clutched my ribs and leaned over as my stomach rolled and my body shook.

  Poison. I had been poisoned. It was the only explanation. But how? I hadn’t eaten or drunk anything that Nev hadn’t sampled first.

  Nev jerked forward, panic on his face. He grabbed the necklace and yanked it over my head, painfully twisting some strands of my hair.

  My stomach calmed. The pain eased.

  I swallowed and took a deep breath, sitting back up slowly.

  “What was that?” I rubbed my mouth with the back of my hand.

  Nev looked up at the top of the stairs nervously, but there was nothing there. Just a black emptiness where the stairs led above and outside. />
  “Do not offer to give up the singura,” he whispered to me.

  “Why?” I didn’t bother to whisper. I didn’t care who heard me.

  “It can only be passed on in death. If you give it up willingly before then, the Three will take your life. You will die.” He gestured at me, and I knew he was referring to the immediate pain I’d experienced when I’d given him the singura.

  I licked my lips. So I couldn’t just give it up, then. Fine. That was fine. I was an expert in death. Surely if someone could avoid it, it was me.

  “Once you have worn the singura,” Nev continued, “it is your burden to bear for life. You are a samar. One who wears a singura. A true samar can use the singura to sing the ghosts away.”

  Sing the ghosts away. Travel anywhere, across the dead plains at least, to return to Lovero.

  I exhaled. “So what? I’m wearing this necklace. Why did you take me from my home for it? And why did you send Kuch for my uncle?”

  “Your uncle was a thief.” Nev said it matter-of-factly, leaning back once more, avoiding my gaze.

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “You serve a god of thievery!”

  “He is a man and should not have possessed the singura. And I told you only children steal.”

  “He was a child when he took it!”

  Nev paused at that, then pressed on. “We do not steal from each other. Do you kill other clippers?”

  “Yes! I told you that in your bed!”

  Nev blinked at me in surprise.

  “Safraella is a god of death and murder and resurrection. Every death at our hands serves Her, regardless of who it is or how it’s done.”

  “Our gods are different,” Nev said.

  That was clear. “So, because my uncle was abandoned as a child, and took one thing to remember his mother by, that was enough to earn him a death sentence at your hands?”

  “He was a snake. We sent him a snake in return.”

  “He was a child!” I was shouting now and I didn’t care if anyone heard me. “He was alone and frightened!”

  “No true traveler would have taken the necklace.”