by Shae Ford
She charged past the Grandmot and stood in the middle of the speaking circle. Then she raised her hands to the sky and shouted something in the mots’ singsong tongue.
As her words rang across the valley, the mots gasped. They broke their silence and began to titter furiously amongst themselves. Even the Grandmot looked shocked for a moment — before she grabbed Hessa and flung her back to the guards. This time, the little girl walked away on her own. And she kept her chin high as she went.
“What did she say?” Silas hissed, pawing at Nadine.
But she didn’t answer him. Instead, she spun around. “I am going for a walk — alone,” she snapped, when Kyleigh tried to follow her. Nadine kept her eyes forward as she marched from the room.
“I feel as if I’ve missed something,” Jake said when she’d gone.
“It would take too long to explain, shaman. Go back to your trimmings,” Silas murmured. Then he stepped close to Kyleigh, pressing his chest against her shoulder. “We have to do something, dragoness — not for the human, of course. I just don’t like treachery.”
“Treachery is the problem, is it?” Kyleigh raised an eyebrow at him, but he just glowered back. She realized that she’d never get him to admit that he actually cared about what happened to Nadine. Cats could be such silly creatures. “Well, I ought to be able to come up with some mischief. But we’ll have to do something about those runes, first.”
She glanced at Elena, who gave her a rare smirk. “That shouldn’t be difficult.”
It was all settled, then. Kyleigh lay back on the bed of pelts, her head swimming with a dozen different ideas — each more devious than the last. Silas sat down beside her, as if he somehow might be able to keep her on task by breathing into her ear. And Elena went back to her corner.
Jake had finished trimming the longest bits of his beard, and now had a thick layer of mud slathered over his face. He fumbled with the razor for a moment, struggling to pop it open. Then he jerked back when the deadly silver blade sprang free.
He stared at the razor for almost a full minute, flipping it over until the sharp edge faced his chin. He seemed to have a difficult time deciding where to start: he turned the blade this way and that, like a man struggling at the keyhole.
Kyleigh was afraid he might cause himself real injury, and she was about to stop him. But Elena got there first.
“Hand it over.” She snatched the razor from his hand and took the cloth from his shoulder — whipping it over her own. She knelt in front of him, but he leaned back.
“What are you —?”
“You obviously don’t know how to handle a blade. And if you nick yourself, you’ll stink up the whole room with your blood. Now, hold still.”
Kyleigh made to jump to her feet, but Silas’s arm stuck out like a bar across her chest. His glowing eyes watched them, and a curious smirk bent his lips. Kyleigh was so intrigued that she decided to wait — but she still kept a sharp eye on Elena.
Her strokes were swift and sure. She brought the razor down the side of Jake’s face, leaving a line of clean skin behind her. As Elena worked, concentration softened her features: her mouth parted slightly, the harsh lines of her brows crept upwards. Her free hand rested gently under Jake’s chin.
Kyleigh knew she shouldn’t listen in, but it was obvious by the way Silas’s head was tilted that he was already doing it. So she strained her ears in their direction.
“I’m usually not quite this hopeless,” Jake said, as Elena paused to clean the razor. “But without a mirror —”
“Chin up,” Elena barked, and he tilted his head back obediently. She began to scrape the stubble from his neck, working carefully. “I saw what you did, the day your friends were captured,” she whispered. “You knocked the whole village off its feet with a single spell … I had no idea you were so powerful.”
Jake swallowed hard, and Elena took the razor away — so that she wouldn’t cut him as his throat bobbed up and down. “I’m not powerful,” he said scornfully. “I still carry a child’s impetus.”
“Why don’t you make a new one?”
“I would, if I knew how to go about it.”
“Aren’t there books you can read?” Elena’s mouth parted again as she concentrated on a tricky patch of hair beneath his jaw. “I thought mages were fond of learning.”
“We are,” Jake allowed. “It’s just a rather complicated process. I doubt that you would even understand —”
“You’re afraid,” she said simply, cleaning the razor against the cloth. “You hold back your powers because you’re afraid of the harm you might do, and you give no thought at all to the good.”
Jake opened his mouth to retort, but she pressed a thumb against his lips, closing them. He blinked impatiently as she swiped at the hair beneath his nose. “I do think about the good,” he insisted, the second she released him. “In fact, I think about it so often that it makes me miserable —”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I’m not good! Don’t you think I’d rather be the good sort of mage? I’d love to mix potions, or sell charms at the market — I’d even rather be one of those strange, hermit mages who live underground and chat with enchanted toadstools! But I’m not. I’m a battlemage. And blowing things up is all I’ll ever be good for.”
Elena finished the last bit of stubble with a few quick swipes. “So … you’re afraid of yourself?”
Jake huffed. “I suppose I am. What are you smirking about?”
She shook her head. “That’s a stupid thing to be afraid of. You are the only person in the Kingdom that you have any control over. What you should be afraid of is the rest of us — and people like me, especially.”
“Why should I be afraid of you? You're my friend —”
“What makes you think that?” she snapped. The softness left her features. Her eyes burned, and her brows dropped low.
Jake touched a hand to his face. “You helped me. That's something friends do —”
Elena pressed the razor against his throat, cutting his words short. Kyleigh smelled the danger and sprang to her feet. She stepped behind Elena, putting her within arm’s reach. If her wrist so much as twitched, even the minceworms wouldn’t be able to find all of her pieces.
But fortunately for Elena, she didn’t move. “I made it very clear why I did this, and it wasn’t because I'm your friend, mage. I would still kill you if it suited me.” She stood. And waving the razor furiously about the room, she added: “I would kill you all!”
“You could try,” Silas murmured.
For a moment, Elena looked as if she might skin him then and there. But instead, she threw the blade down and stomped off into the darkness.
“No, wait — come back …” Silas’s words trailed off into a string of chuckles. “I can't even pretend to care about her without laughing!”
Jake said nothing. He stared at the empty doorway, one hand propped against his clean-shaven face. There was a look about him that Kyleigh didn’t quite understand. But then again, magefolk were more difficult to read than the rest.
Jake gathered his things and said he was going to spend the night in the hospital: he suddenly wasn’t feeling well. She supposed that might’ve had something to do with it.
Kyleigh and Silas waited up for Nadine. When she returned, they didn’t speak — they simply got settled down for the night.
Sleep didn’t come to her easily. Kyleigh felt herself stretched out between two worries: her worry for her friends in the plains … and her worry for Nadine. Her thoughts pushed and pulled on her, stretching her heart thin as she struggled to find some peace.
When sleep finally did come to her, it wasn’t peaceful at all — it was torment.
A horrible pressure suddenly crushed her from her sleep. Her muscles convulsed, writhing like snakes under her skin, twisting painfully in every direction. Something shoved against the backs of her eyes. It filled her head so tightly that she thought her ears might burst from the effort of try
ing to hold it in. A scream built up inside her chest, swelling until her throat ached.
Then it burst free.
“Dragoness!”
She was vaguely aware of Silas standing over her, how his eyes were wide with fear and how his hands hovered close to her skin, as if he was afraid to touch her. But she couldn’t reach him. She couldn’t stop her muscles from writhing, couldn’t stop her nails from digging deeper into her flesh.
Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes, but they weren’t the normal sort of tears: they seemed to burn everything they touched — her nose, her face, her lips … and though they poured down, she couldn’t seem to shove them out fast enough. Her throat stretched and ached, straining against them, throbbing with the promise of another scream.
Kyleigh’s heart was the only thing in her body that seemed to belong to her, and it was as frightened as she was.
Just when she thought she might burst from her skin, she felt a pair of arms wrap gently around her shoulders. She was brought into the warmth, into a place where her tears could fall without burning. She felt a second heartbeat hum against her ear.
It was steady and deep. The rhythm matched the calming flow of the words — words that Kyleigh’s ears didn’t understand the meaning of, but her soul seemed to. Slowly, the aching left her body. All of the pain faded away, coaxed out by the words and the steady beat of the heart.
When Kyleigh opened her eyes, she realized that it was Nadine who held her. She held Kyleigh’s head to her chest, and as the last of her song faded, she whispered:
“Hush now, there is no shame in your sorrow. I know what haunts you. I have cried those same tears … perhaps my story will help quiet you.”
Kyleigh was still too weak to respond. She lay in a sweaty, trembling mass in the middle of the pelts. Silas stoked the small brazier the best he could, though the feeble light of the pebbles was hardly enough to make any difference. He sat beside the window; his eyes were unmasked and wide as they stared at Kyleigh.
He didn’t seem to want to be anywhere near her.
Nadine, on the other hand, settled Kyleigh’s head into her lap. She felt the soft tug on her scalp as Nadine pulled the tie from her hair. Her fingers ran gently through the raven strands, and it calmed her.
Kyleigh wasn’t used to having to be comforted. Very rarely was she hurt or frightened — and she’d never been wounded by something that she couldn’t wound right back. But this was a strange enemy, one she couldn’t defeat. She closed her eyes and let her ears tremble against the soft tones of Nadine’s voice.
“My life has not always been how I wished it to be,” she said quietly. “But I have had a good life. Hessa filled my heart with joy while I grew, and I thought I would never find a love more treasured. But when I was a young woman, I discovered a different sort of love.
“His name was Tahir.” Her voice cracked a bit as she said it, but she cleared her throat roughly. “By the laws of my people, a woman may choose for herself when she is ready to marry — if she is ever ready at all. A man has no power to ask her … except on one condition: if he saves her life, then he may ask. And she may not refuse him.” Kyleigh could hear the smile in her voice as she continued. “I was convinced I would never marry. I thought my duty to Hessa would make it impossible. But … I was wrong.
“Another tribe found their way into our tunnels one day, and I was called upon to fight them back. Our enemies were dark-fleshed men with blood on their faces. They wielded axes made of bone and rock. I underestimated their strength, and I was quickly thrown to the ground,” she muttered. “Tahir … he stepped over me, killing my attacker before my head could be crushed. And I knew I would be doomed to marry him.
“But he did not ask me.” Her hand paused against Kyleigh’s scalp, tickling her with its trembling. “When I asked him why he did not ask, he laughed at me. You are Nadine, our Dawn’s protector. I would not burden you with my love — but you may always hold it freely, and know that it was meant for you. It sounds more beautiful in our tongue,” Nadine mused.
Kyleigh thought it sounded rather beautiful in the Kingdom’s tongue. She couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to have such words spoken to her … and with a wrench of her throat, she realized that she might never find out.
She fought against a fresh wave of pain and focused herself on Nadine.
“Perhaps it was because he understood me so well, but I knew then that Tahir was my heart’s bond,” she whispered. “I asked him to marry me, and when he said again that he did not wish to burden me, I …” She laughed, shaking her head. “I cut my hair! That is what all of our married women do: we cut our locks and put them in our husband’s hands, as a symbol that our beauty will belong to him always. When I gave my hair to Tahir, I suppose he knew that I was serious. We were married and lived happily for several years, he and I — with Hessa as our daughter … and then the trolls attacked.”
Nadine’s hand trembled again. Kyleigh reached up to her, and Nadine wrapped both hands tightly around her fingers.
“They came upon us swiftly, in the dead of the night. We were chased out of our homes. My first duty was to Hessa: I wrapped her tightly in my arms and carried her out here, to safety.” She took a deep breath. “Tahir stayed behind in the tunnels. He led a company against the trolls, holding them back with the strength of his spear while the other mots escaped. They said he fought very bravely. If I have any honor left within our tribe, it is out of respect for Tahir. For I deserve nothing but shame.
“Long hours passed, and Tahir did not return. I was frightened for him. When Hessa fell asleep, I left her in the care of some of the other warriors and went into the tunnels to find my husband. I abandoned our Dawn,” she said miserably. “I left Hessa’s life in other hands — the very life I had sworn to protect with my own. And when I went into the tunnels, I saw that it was over … that Tahir’s men had been surrounded and swallowed up by the trolls. He was dead.
“I returned to the mountain, heartbroken. The Grandmot scorned me before our tribe for my betrayal. She took Hessa from me, and said I was not worthy to be the Dawn’s protector. From that day forth, she would be the one to watch over Hessa — and I would not be allowed to see her again. These blows echoed through my heart like screams through the tunnels, for my soul was already empty.” She spoke simply, as if this were a matter of fact and nothing more. There were no tears in her voice. “You asked me once if I wished to die, outlander — and now you know.”
She placed a hand against Kyleigh’s cheek. “I will not ask to hear who you cry for, but know that I understand. There are few hearts more desolate than mine. Sleep, now.” Her thumb brushed a soothing line against Kyleigh’s temple. “Sleep, and let the quiet of the night soothe your bones.”
Kyleigh closed her eyes, but she couldn’t sleep. Nadine’s story didn’t soothe her bones — it put a fire in them.
The mots were starving, they’d been driven from their homes, but the Grandmot didn’t care about any of that. She’d grown to resent Nadine for the power she held — power that Nadine hadn’t even thought about: Hessa’s love. And she’d done everything she could to try to reclaim that power. She’d even used Nadine’s grief as an excuse to take Hessa away.
But it was too late. Hessa already loved Nadine, already sought her wisdom above the Grandmot’s. The only slight chance the Grandmot had to take her power back would be if Nadine was out of the way — lying dead in the depths of some tunnel. That’s why the Grandmot hated Nadine. That’s why she wanted her dead.
Well, as long as there was fire in her blood, Kyleigh wasn’t going to let that happen.
Chapter 31
The Spring Sniffles
Things in the plains got steadily worse.
More guards came down from the castle, wielding wench-tongues instead of pikes, and they had no interest in being slavemasters. Whether or not the fields got planted wasn’t any of their concern: they were out for blood.
They swooped in among
the slaves, circling and waiting for a chance to strike. They walked the fields in groups, and would gladly pick off any man who strayed too far from his team. Giants were beaten senseless for walking too slowly, or being the last one out of the barn, or for no reason at all. One day, a giant was beaten so badly that he collapsed.
When the guards couldn’t get him to rise, they threw him into the back of a cart and sent it for the castle.
Brend watched the cart roll away, a heavy fist planted on his chest. “Don’t let him get to you, friend,” he murmured. “May Death find you before Gilderick does.” Then he dropped to one knee and ripped the next weed out of the ground with such force that it showered Kael with dirt.
They were deep in the vegetable patch, drawing out the many healthy weeds that had taken up residence amongst the beans and carrots. It was slow, tedious work. Kael knew that by the end of the day, every clump of grass would sit like stone, and their roots would feel a mile deep.
Some of the weeds were also rather vicious: the one Kael struggled with had a clump of tiny thorns hidden beneath its leaves, and it had already stung him once. He wrapped his fingers around a part he thought might be safe — only to find more thorns.
They bit into his fingers, but the sharp pain only made him angrier. He wrenched the plant from the ground with a roar and hurled it at the nearest guard. It struck his back with a satisfying thunk, showering bits of dirt and rocks into his armor. He spun, and murder lined his eyes as they lighted on Kael. But even though he clearly would’ve liked to beat him raw, he didn’t move.
Declan worked a few paces away, and the guards went out of their way to avoid him. Even now, all he had to do was look up from his work and stare calmly in the guard’s direction — and he immediately stomped away.
As soon as the guard was gone, Declan went back to weeding. He hadn’t spoken to anyone since the mind-walking incident — not even to Brend. And Kael was slightly relieved.