by May, K. C.
Jora shook her head and scooted back so she could lean back and still sit upright. “I thought I saw him before I passed out.”
“Here, let me fix your pillows.” Mira positioned the pillows behind Jora’s back. “There you are. No, it was Hebb who carried you in here. Hebb Sayeg. I suppose he might look enough like Gunnar to trick a weary mind. Don’t know their relation but surely a cousin. Sayeg isn’t that common a name. Do you think you can take a bit of soup?”
Jora nodded gratefully, only then realizing that she’d been bathed and dressed in a sleeping gown. “Yes, that would be lovely. Thank you.”
Mira patted her arm and gave it a squeeze before standing. “They’ve kept it warm for you in the kitchen. Rayja might’ve saved you some beef and bread, too. I’ll bring what I can find.”
“You’re so kind. Thank you,” Jora said.
As soon as Mira left through the curtained doorway, Jora covered her face in her hands and cried. The people of Three Waters weren’t so different from the people of Kaild, and many shared distant relatives. Had a woman of Three Waters wandered into Kaild, sunburned and starving, she’d have been cared for, as Jora was now. Why weren’t people in Jolver kind to one another? Why were they so hateful, killing and stealing and making up lies?
“Here you are, dear,” Mira said. She backed into the room carrying a tray and let the curtain fall away when she turned. “Found you a bit of Rayja’s wonderful cabbage, too, though I think the meat’s what’ll get you on your feet the fastest. The pea soup is tasty and might go down easier. Why not try a bit of that first?”
Jora nodded, eager to dig into the meal. Mira set the tray across Jora’s lap. Beside the plate was a napkin with embroidered edges, and beside the spoon a yellow rose. She picked it up and breathed in its delicate scent. How could something so beautiful live in a world so ugly?
“Thought it might give you a smile. You look like you could use one.”
Jora nodded, fighting back more tears. “It—” Her voice caught in her throat, and she cleared it. “It’s lovely. Everything is lovely, and it smells delicious.”
“I’ll leave you to eat in peace,” Mira said, refilling the cup of water on the table. “If you need anything, holler. I won’t be far.” She smiled and took the empty pitcher with her when she left the room.
Jora picked up the chunk of beef with her left hand and tore off a mouthful. She barely chewed it, barely tasted it, before taking another bite. Never had she been so ravenous.
It occurred to her that an unchewed meal dumped into her stomach after going days without food might cause her body to rebel. The last thing she wanted was to throw it all back up before her body had a chance to leech nourishment from it. And she needed the replenishment badly.
She sipped her water, took a few spoonfuls of the soup, and forced herself to slow down, though the images in her head from the attack on Kaild made it impossible to enjoy the food.
Jora slept through the night and halfway through the morning. Though she was plagued by bad dreams, the rest and the meal had done her good. When she awoke, she felt hungry but ready to face the day. Her clothes, clean and folded, sat on the stool beside the bed, and she changed into them, wincing at the soreness in her muscles.
She staggered out of her room and discovered she’d spent the night in a convalescence inn. Most of the others there were elderly people unable to stand or walk, but the medics also tended a couple of children with fevers and a man who’d lost his foot to a shark while hunting for clams. A couple dozen people of Three Waters joined her for a late breakfast in a pleasant, grassy courtyard shaded by a mature oak. They gathered around to get a look at the almost bald woman from Kaild who’d wandered into their lives in such poor condition. She wasn’t sure yet what she would do or where she would go. Perhaps, if they were willing, she could settle here, though she would have to be careful about using the Mindstream to avoid being detected.
A woman approached and extended her hand. “I’m Lylah, lead councilwoman for Three Waters. May I?”
Jora nodded. She’d heard the woman’s name mentioned throughout the years. The people of Kaild had much respect for her. “I can’t thank you enough for your generous hospitality.”
Lylah sat down at the table across from her. “Of course, dear. We do for our neighbors, though we’d like to hear your story. What brought you here to us, Jora Lanseri of Kaild?”
“Some of the boys playing at the shore yesterday said they saw smoke rising in the distance,” said Hebb, the man who had Gunnar’s eyes. “We thought it was a forest fire until we met you on the road.”
Jora nodded. She clasped her hands together tightly, trying to both steel herself to deliver the tragic news and to assure herself that she was among friends. “Five assassins arrived in Kaild and murdered everyone during the night.”
Everyone gasped in shock.
“Everyone?” asked Danna, a woman Jora had known years earlier. Born and raised in Kaild, she’d left several years ago to marry a man her brother had served with in the Legion.
Jora nodded. Danna’s siblings had perished, as well as her parents and childhood friends. She felt Danna’s loss as she felt her own: with burning eyes brimming with tears.
“How do you know this? Did you see them?” Lylah asked.
“I witnessed it.” Jora gave a brief summary of the events from the time she beached the dinghy to her escape around the shoal. She left out Sundancer’s role. Having to explain how she was able to communicate with a dolphin would take more time, and she didn’t want to diverge from what was the most important topic right now: the slaughter of two thousand innocent people. “Then they set fire to the buildings. I tried to look for survivors, maybe someone who hadn’t died of their wounds, but the smoke was too thick. I couldn’t get close enough.”
“How did you escape?” Hebb asked.
“I got there after the assassins did. They didn’t know I was there, or I wouldn’t have.”
“Are you a Truth Sayer?” someone asked. “Your hair...”
Jora ran a hand over her tender scalp, feeling the tiny nubs of hair growing back. “I was.” Though she wanted to tell them everything, to reveal the Legion’s awful secret, she couldn’t. Not yet. Not until she knew for certain that the knowledge wouldn’t bring Kaild’s fate down upon the people of Three Waters, too.
“Why would someone issue a cull order on Kaild?” one of the older men asked. “Was it the Justice Bureau?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “but I’m going to find out.”
“What happened to you?” Hebb asked. “What need did you have to return to Kaild?”
“I needed the advice of my parents and the town council. I can’t say more quite yet. I’d only put you all in danger if I did, but one day, I’ll come back and tell you everything.”
Except for Lylah, they looked at each other with wide-eyed wariness. The councilwoman studied Jora with a steady gaze.
“Whose horses were those you arrived with?” Lylah asked.
The question was bound to be asked, though she’d hoped not to have to explain about Po Teng. “The assassins’. I slew them all as they were leaving.” Though that wasn’t the full truth of it, she had issued the command to kill them, and the one who issued the command was the one most responsible for the deed.
“You?” one man asked. He snorted and crossed his arms. “You could barely sit astride when Hebb and Turro found you. How did you kill five skilled assassins?”
“Five assassins who murdered an entire town,” Lylah added.
“Five men who first bested Kaild’s guard,” said another man.
Jora raised her hands to calm the arguments. “I admit, I didn’t do the deed myself. I had help. I have a powerful ally.”
“Who’s this ally? And where is he now?”
From the south she heard shouting. Someone screamed. Everyone who’d gathered around Jora now turned to the source of the scream, some shooting to their feet, all gaping as four mail-
clad enforcers rode into the town center on spirited horses, swords at ready. One was spattered with blood.
“Jora Lanseri,” called the one in front. He had thick black eyebrows and a hawkish nose. “Come with us.”
Her entire body trembled as she stood. She didn’t want to kill anyone else, but she didn’t think she would be able to convince them to leave peacefully.
“Jora Lanseri,” the hawk-nosed enforcer said, “show yourself now.”
“What do you want with her?” Lylah asked. “Are you responsible for what happened in Kaild?”
“This is none of your concern, woman,” Hawk Nose said.
“It is when you barge into my town and slay my guards to arrest my neighbor.”
A feeling of dread gripped Jora. “No,” she said, touching Lylah’s arm. She didn’t want to see Lylah struck down for standing up for her. “I’m here. I’ll come with you. Just allow me to gather my belongings.”
“No belongings,” Hawk Nose said, turning his cold eyes upon her.
One of his fellows leaned toward him and whispered something.
“The books. You have them?”
Jora nodded. “They’re with my clothes.”
The enforcer gestured with his arm to the one who’d whispered to him. “Go with her, but watch her.”
Jora’s heart pounded as she walked back to the convalescence building at the point of the enforcer’s blade. All eyes were on her. The most important thing was protecting these people. The enforcers had already shown they would kill to complete their task of bringing her back to Jolver.
Jora reached for the duffel bag. The enforcer poked her with the sharp point of his sword in the back. “Put it down.”
She obeyed and put her hands up to show she was unarmed. “Po Teng, come,” she whispered.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Your presence here fills me with trepidation. I was saying a prayer to Retar.”
He opened the bag’s flap and peered inside, then pulled out some of her clothes. “These two are the only books you have?”
Why hadn’t Po Teng come? What had she missed? “Yes. How did you know to find me here?” she asked.
He appraised her with a long look. “Hoofprints on the road leading away from two dead soldiers. How’d they die?”
With a shrug, she said, “How would I know?” When she sensed his wariness, she forced a laugh. “God’s Challenger! You’re afraid of me.” If he was afraid of her, she might be able to shame him into letting his guard down. After all, she was a slight woman and he was a large, burly man.
He snorted derisively. “You? Hardly.” He picked up the duffel and turned to leave.
“Would you mind putting my clothes back? I’m going to need those.”
He stuffed the cloth back into the bag.
“Neatly,” she said, stepping forward. “You’re making a mess of things. Move aside. Let me do it.”
The enforcer responded by pressing his sword tip against her chest. “A few wrinkles won’t kill you, but I might.”
“I doubt it,” she said, though she stepped back away from his blade. “I think Elder Sonnis will be quite irate if you kill me. He’s probably looking forward to doing it himself.”
The enforcer finished stuffing her clothes and the books into the bag and shoved her flute inside as well before replacing the cover flap and securing it with the loop. “Elder Sonnis does not seek revenge, only justice.”
“Little you know,” she said. “I witnessed...” Then she realized why Po Teng hadn’t come. She had to be in the Mindstream to call the ally. She had to play the opening line of the calling, but her flute was inside the bag. The enforcer wasn’t going to let her dig it out and play it.
“I don’t care,” he said. “Let’s go.” He picked up the bag by its strap and offered it to her to carry.
She opened the Mindstream and whistled, “Open way betwixt.”
The enforcer’s brows dipped, as if he wasn’t sure whether he should be alarmed.
“Po Teng, come,” she said.
And Po Teng came, appearing beside the enforcer with those eager eyes and clicking fingers.
“What in the—”
“Kill him,” she said.
The ally touched the enforcer with a single twig-finger, and the huge man went ashen. He thudded to the floor. His sword fell with a clatter onto the wooden floor beside him.
“Thank you,” she said breathlessly. “I guess the people of Three Waters are going to get a demonstration of how those assassins were killed. Come with me.” She debated taking the sword, but decided to leave it. She didn’t know how to use one anyway, and Kaild’s neighbors would find it and put it to good use.
She exited the convalescence house with the bag’s strap over her shoulder. Heads turned toward her. When she was followed not by the brute but by a brown tree-like creature half her own height, nearly everyone gasped.
“Po Teng, kill the three men wearing mail.”
Po Teng rushed to them faster than her eyes could track. One by one it touched the men with its twig-like fingers, and one by one they fell without a sound.
The people of Three Waters gaped. Some whimpered and clutched the arm of the person standing beside them; others clamped their hands over their mouths. One woman screamed.
Jora walked over to the three dead enforcers. “This is how I killed them,” she said, breaking the stunned silence. “This is my ally.”
For a moment, no one spoke. They stared at Po Teng with a mixture of awe and terror.
“What is it?” asked a girl of about twelve.
“Yah,” someone else chimed in. “What is that thing?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” Jora admitted. “I only met it yesterday, but it’s from another realm of perception. I’ve learned to command one of them.”
“Gatekeeper,” said a warbly voice from behind her. Jora turned to see a frail woman of at least eighty years, hobbling from the convalescence house with the aid of a cane. “We’ve not seen a Gatekeeper in Serocia since ancient times.”
Gatekeepers. That was what Bastin had called those who’d worn the red robes.
Jora shook her head, unwilling—unable—to believe that she could possibly be a Gatekeeper. She was just a Mindstreamer with a penchant for music who’d stumbled upon something more powerful than she’d imagined. And from her experience at the Justice Bureau, she knew that how someone handled power revealed more about their character than any other measure.
Looking down at the corpses at her feet, Jora shuddered. This was how she used power. This was what she had become.
“I think it’s time you moved on, Jora,” Lylah said. The fear in her eyes belied the confidence in her voice.
Lylah was right. Not only would the enforcers and soldiers keep coming after her, putting them in danger, but she was obviously making them uneasy.
“Yes, of course.” Jora dismissed Po Teng with a quiet command. “You’ve been more than kind, and I appreciate your hospitality. I’m sorry for... for this. For leading these enforcers to your home. For the death of your guard.”
“I’m not dead,” said a swarthy fellow whose shirt was stained with blood. He stumbled into the clearing propped up by another man, each with an arm around the other. “Not yet, anyway.”
Mira rushed to his aid and took him into the convalescence home.
Jora breathed her relief, but it didn’t change anything. She had to leave before Elder Sonnis sent an entire platoon of enforcers after her and slaughtered these people for aiding her.
She considered taking the skewbald horse, but to ride on horseback would make her vulnerable to an enforcer’s arrow. The boat would probably keep her safer, as she would at least have Sundancer’s help when she needed it. “I’ve a boat beached near Kaild,” she said. “If anyone is willing to ride with me, you can keep the painted horse as well as the other four.”
“I’ll go,” said Hebb. “I need to see what these assassi
ns wrought.”
Lylah nodded her approval. “Turro, would you go with him? If there’s anyone left alive, do what you can.”
Chapter 23
“I’ve prepared a package for you,” said Mira. She scurried forward, holding out a sack. “A bit of bread and cheese for your journey, and some jerky to keep you going.”
Jora thanked her and gratefully accepted a filled water skin from the council leader and a new hat as well. The hostler brought the painted horse, clean and saddled. With the aid of a stool, Jora strapped her satchel to the back of the saddle, mounted, and tucked the sack of food against her lower belly. Hebb and the other fellow, Turro, mounted their horses, and the three started back to Kaild.
The sun was warm on her arms and shoulders as she rode, and she was doubly grateful for the gifted hat that kept the sun’s touch off her tender scalp and neck. Soon, though, the road was protected from the hot rays by the forest, and she appreciated the cool shade.
The ride back to Kaild was uneventful, though she and her riding companions kept their eyes and ears open in case more enforcers were sent from Halder. By now, the Justice Bureau would know that the enforcers were dead, though they surely realized that to send more would mean more would die.
But the assassins who’d razed Kaild hadn’t been sent by the Justice Bureau. They’d been soldiers of the Legion. Their command of murder and destruction had to have come from one of the Legion officers. The ride from Three Waters to Kaild gave her time to consider what Boden had told the three soldiers who’d slain him.
He’d named his commander, Turounce. Was he the one who’d issued the so-called cull order on Kaild? By going first to her own past, then to Boden’s, she picked out Turounce’s thread and traced his stream backward, to a few days before Boden died.
She found him, a stern-looking man with a well-manicured goatee touched on the sides with gray, sitting in his office, signing a document to accept new soldiers into his company. That was him. She knew he had to have been the one responsible for ordering Boden’s death. There was something in his eyes, a rage barely tempered.