Hooded

by A A Woods

  Now Carlette was invisible to no one, her red hood and anchor tattoo marking her for what she was.

  Carlette tried to smile as the bitch licked her palm, the lanky dog whuffling in excitement as her puppies tumbled over each other. Their simple consciousnesses brushed against her own like berries; cheerful and small and ripe for picking. It would be easy, comforting even, to stretch out her power. See the world through their eyes. Command their writhing, panting, cascading bodies.

  But she was too distracted.

  Her mind kept drifting to the path ahead of her. It was a long walk to Tuleaux. The possibility of attack on either leg of the journey was as huge and ominous as Grand Mera’s trust, a crushing weight on her shoulders.

  But no, that wasn’t what had kept her up all night, brought her to the kennels before dawn to seek such primal comfort.

  She was going to see Mya.

  The round-faced matron of Tuleaux’s orphanage was as different from her sister as it was possible to be. Where Grand Mera was straight-backed, thin, and stone-faced, Mya was rounded and warm, cheeks always ruddy and voice as constant as any law of nature; either booming in laughter or shouting at the children that trailed after her like an obedient flock.

  As puppies licked her jammed-in fingers, Carlette thought of the orphans. Of the woman who had raised her.

  Of Quaina.

  She withdrew her hand with a sigh, ignoring the high-pitched, disappointed yips.

  It had been eight long years since she’d been alone with Mya. Eight years since the decision that had linked three fates together with iron manacles. And now Carlette had to face Mya as a forged weapon of the king, an object of destruction and war.

  What would she say?

  A mind larger than those of the hounds brushed against Carlette’s, accompanying the familiar smell of woodsmoke and dried lavender.

  “I thought I might find you here,” said a sweet, tentative voice.

  Carlette didn’t answer as Aheya paused on the final step of the ladder, red hair shimmering in the sunlight leaking through the open trapdoor.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” Carlette said, rubbing her face and leaning against a crate filled with restraints for the larger, wilder animals that lurked deeper in the tunnels.

  Aheya’s feet were whisper-soft as she padded over to her friend. Even now, Carlette could feel the human mind, complicated and tangled and so very fragile. As easily crushed as a butterfly. If those guards knew how strong she really was, she would be hanging from the wall before sundown.

  “Are you worried?” Aheya asked, sitting next to her.

  Carlette’s lips quirked.

  “It’s a dangerous journey.”

  “You’re the best,” Aheya said, wrapping long, sinewy arms around her knees. “Those rebels don’t stand a chance.”

  Carlette snorted. “It’s the traders I’m more worried about. The outpost will be filled with cretins on their final trips before winter. Remember what happened to Finn?”

  Aheya shuddered.

  “But you have those,” she said, nodding to the armguards Carlette always wore, her gloves pulled on over the pock-marked, sculpted leather. A weapon of her own design. They were Carlette’s secret, but Aheya knew her secrets.

  Except one.

  Carlette leaned her head back against the crate, watching the puppies tumble. “Let’s hope I don’t have to use them.”

  “I heard what happened today,” said Aheya in a soft voice. “On the training platform. Damn fool deserved to be sliced.”

  “With any luck the Bloody Paws will do our work for us.”

  “Carlette,” gasped Aheya, but Carlette was already on her feet, glaring down at the puppies who had become a squirming ball of excitement.

  “Do you really want to go to the warfront?” she asked, voice low and careful.

  “With all my heart,” Aheya said. Her response was schooled. Practiced.

  And a lie.

  Carlette shot her friend a sad, knowing smile. “Really?”

  Aheya shrugged. “It’s what we were made for.”

  Carlette nodded, watching the dogs. They, too, were made for this purpose. For training and breeding and chasing off rebels.

  Were they happy?

  “Carlette?”

  Aheya’s voice was a sparrow’s chirrup, filled with the coursing rivers of uncertainty and fear familiar to any in the Order.

  “What?”

  Aheya took a long moment to respond. In the strangled, stretching silence, Carlette could hear growls echoing from the tunnel’s depths.

  “There’s a… a rumor.” Aheya’s eyes flashed up for an instant and Carlette caught a taste of something more than fear, something electric and desperate. “Of a man in Tuleaux… who can… cure us.”

  Aheya’s voice trailed off. Her hands were shaking as they clutched her shins. There was so much longing in the implied question, an entire unlived life packed into two words.

  Carlette straightened, looking away. “I’ve heard of him too. Some drunk on the docks who promises to end a hood’s powers if they lie with him. Calls himself the Null. Aheya, it’s just a rumor—”

  “But it’s not,” Aheya burst out, shoving to her feet and grabbing Carlette’s arm. “I heard a scout talking about it the other day. She didn’t know I was listening, but they found a deserter. A blue hood who left her post on a merchant ship. They brought her before the Magistrate, but she didn’t have the eyes anymore. The white ring turned red and she couldn’t connect.”

  “And what happened to this woman?” Carlette snapped, pulling herself free.

  Aheya hesitated. Said nothing.

  “They killed her, didn’t they? She’s hanging on the fences, nothing more than bird food and a warning to us. Aheya, this is madness—”

  “Please,” Aheya whispered, “I have to try. If I can prove I don’t have powers, maybe they’ll let me go.”

  “And do what? Marry Dachen and make more half-breeds who won’t even have enough power to fight?” Aheya took a sharp breath but Carlette plunged cruelly on. “Best case, they’ll be killed at birth. But we both know you’ll never get that far.”

  Finally turning to face her friend, Carlette wasn’t surprised by the tears shimmering in the half-light, traveling down Aheya’s cheeks like brave explorers looking for a new world.

  Carlette took her hand, squeezing it. “You are a weapon. And weapons do not love.”

  Aheya’s lips quirked. “This one does.”

  Carlette shook her head and pulled the other girl into a hug. She was grateful that fate had spared her such a choice. As an outcast among outcasts with only one true friend, Carlette hadn’t had the luxury of fantasies. At that moment, she was glad for it.

  Because none of them could have what Aheya wanted.

  “Please, Carlette,” she whispered, pulling back from the hug. “Please. Just see what you can find. If there’s a chance, any chance…”

  The bells above them began to ring, signaling dawn, morning training, breakfast.

  And Carlette’s chance at a better life.

  “I’ll ask,” Carlette said, releasing Aheya and reaching for the ladder. “But you should forget all this. Move on.”

  Her smile, when she answered, was tragic. “There’s a reason all the best tales are love stories. They’re impossible to forget.”

  · · ─────── ·❅· ─────── · ·

  The Iron Bridge was a testament to Delasir’s power, a wonder of iron and steel and ice. Jokingly referred to as the cage, Durchemin was the only safe way to travel between Jemelle and Tuleaux. A web of metal nailed into the mountains themselves, sloping and winding down until it reached the cliffside edge of the Magistrate’s city, it hung like an ugly demon between the Shadow Peaks and the impossibly huge Goddeau trees of the Giant’s Wood.

  Carlette stood at Jemelle’s gates, waiting for the guards to check her papers. Even though she saw it every day, Durchemin still had the ability to steal her br
eath. Awe and excitement pulsed through her. She took deep gulps of frozen air, relishing the feeling of purpose, the path of a mission laid out before her.

  “You’re clear to go,” the guard grumbled at last, shoving Grand Mera’s edict back into Carlette’s palm. “You’re expected back by midnight tomorrow. If you don’t return on time, you will be labeled as a deserter and hunted down. Understand?”

  “I do,” Carlette said, pulling up her hood to cover ice-white hair, so pale it was almost indistinguishable from the snow dusting her shoulders.

  “Very good,” the guard said, voice gruff and disapproving. “Be on your way.”

  Smiling to herself, Carlette took a deep breath and stepped from the gate onto Durchemin’s wooden slats. The guard turned away with a huff, the set of his shoulders making it perfectly clear how he felt about letting students leave Jemelle without escorts. But Carlette barely noticed as she took the steps two at a time, her legs, strong from years of training, pumping with the drumbeat of her heart. The wind whipped at her cape and the cold began to bite her nose, but it was all worth it for the feeling of standing alone on the steep mountain face, the forest below her and the mountains above. No guards to dismiss her, no Erebus to leer. As she wove through muttering traders and caravans of slow-moving donkeys, Carlette’s smile unfolded into a full grin.

  For the first time in years, Carlette felt free.

  Chapter Five: Hidden Claws

  Staring at the lodge that squatted between two boulders, nestled into the mountain face with iron braces stretching in both directions, Carlette listened to her stomach growl. Its rumbling was almost as loud as the wind whistling through the small, square opening in the fencing behind her, just wide enough for messenger pigeons to bring in news from Tuleaux.

  Oh, how she wanted to keep moving, push through and reach the city where she could disappear into the crowds and get a hot meal without attracting unwanted attention. Even out here, she could feel the unwelcome eyes of mercenaries and scouts, eying her like a lost cow or worse, a slab of meat ready to be thrown to their dogs. With her chin held high and her white hair whipping in the wind, Carlette watched three burly men—Collectors no doubt—shove through the front door, voices loud and unwelcoming.

  Carlette sighed, putting a fist to her belly. She’d missed breakfast when Aheya had come to ask for help, and she’d been too excited to eat anyways. Now, between the altitude and the exertion, Carlette was beginning to feel the muzzy haze of fatigue settle over her.

  Thinking of the Magistrate and the other officials who might be there when she arrived, Carlette gritted her teeth.

  She wasn’t going to let a few mountain thugs ruin her chance to join the King’s Axe.

  As the door swung open beneath Carlette’s gloved hand, an assault of noise and smell greeted her like a warning. Smoke, body odor, spilled beer, sweet mead, roasting meat, and wood varnish all splashed into a cocktail of trailside comforts. Every table was full. A scrawny, freckled boy played an upbeat jig on his fiddle, barely audible over the shouted laughter and orders for more.

  Carlette pulled her cowl over her forehead, welcoming its shadow. The Collectors and scouts were already predisposed to dislike the Order, but Carlette’s features were uniquely unpalatable in this crowd. White hair, pale skin. Ebonal traits, found only in the deepest mountain wilderness beyond Jemelle. Her mother’s tribe was famous for their catastrophic violence and their unholy rage towards the settlers who had stolen their women, burrowed into their mountains, burned down their cities to build mining centers and military bases.

  And, worst of all, the Ebonals had produced the most infamous rebel.

  Voka.

  Carlette gritted her teeth as a fierce, wild-haired scout glared at her. How many ways could she wear her differences on the outside? How many wedges kept her from the rest of society?

  No matter, she told herself. At the warfront, I will be respected and honored. I will save all their sorry lives by keeping Nurkaij at bay.

  As Grand Mera always said, a dagger doesn’t need praise. It only needs to do its job.

  Carlette settled herself on a bar stool, watching the fiddler. The music was a sweet tune, out of place among the men and women who had absorbed Ferren’s savagery into themselves.

  “What are ye doing?”

  The bartender stood in front of her, arms folded, eyes merciless. He was a tall man, built like the mountains, with a six-barreled revolver on one hip. While the top of the man’s head was bald, the rest of his face made up for it with a thick bush of dirty beard.

  “I’m getting lunch,” Carlette said. “And a pint, if you please.”

  “We don’t serve deserters,” said the man, glowering down at Carlette as if she was something dangerous and contagious. His fingers twitched towards the gun.

  Carlette clenched her fists, feeling the tension in her leather armguards. The thongs around her middle fingers drew taut.

  Not now.

  With a hard smile, Carlette reached into the pocket of her hood and extracted Grand Mera’s edict.

  “I have been requested by the Magistrate for prisoner transfer,” Carlette said through gritted teeth. “I am no deserter.”

  The man’s eyes flashed to the other tables. Carlette saw them settle on a black hood in the far corner, surrounded by Jemelle guards. The poor boy looked miserable. Carlette wondered what had brought him to Tuleaux. A medical issue, perhaps, or discipline?

  Nothing pleasant, that was certain.

  “Sir,” Carlette said, drawing his attention back to her, “I won’t cause trouble. I only want to eat and drink and be on my way.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed, and she could see him looking for a reason to refuse her. To him, she was just as bad as the barbarians beyond the cage, the wild folk of the land who picked off Delasir settlers as if they were forest grouse. A lone hood made him nervous. She was unleashed, uncontrolled by guards or soldiers.

  Not that any of them could stop me if I wanted to kill you, Carlette thought, keeping that forced smile pinned on her face.

  Finally, the bartender huffed and reached behind him, slamming a glass down and filling it with mead.

  “Be quick about it,” he grumbled, throwing a ration of dried beef at her.

  “Thank you,” Carlette said, almost choking on the words. Sipping her flagon, she felt the rage inside her burble and grow.

  They have no idea what it’s like. Any of them.

  She had to believe that on the warfront, she would be valued. After all, as the Order was constantly reminded, before them the war had been at a stalemate. Delasir’s canons would take down Nuri airships and the dead zone between the countries grew and grew. The old king could only watch as his people starved, the resources of the south eluding them.

  But with the discovery of Ferren, Delasir’s luck had turned. Their home nation pushed south like an rockslide, gaining land. Growing on it. And now, Delasir had a strong foothold on the continent, demanding respect from the countries that had once dismissed it.

  Soon, the emperor’s Ziggurat would fall.

  Delasir would rule.

  And then what? Carlette thought as she yanked off a bite of jerky. What happens to people like me when the war is over?

  Her musings were interrupted by a hum of instinct. Carlette’s mind zeroed in. Her ears perked as she sensed a shift, a sudden silence. The fiddle had stopped. A few tables rustled and shifted, but it was subdued. Waiting.

  Watching.

  A hand came down on Carlette’s shoulder.

  “What have we here?” said a raspy voice. “A mongrel that slipped its leash?”

  Carlette’s nostrils filled with the stink of dried blood and musk.

  Bounty-hunter.

  She shrugged off his hand and spun to face him.

  “Move along,” Carlette said, her white-rimmed eyes meeting the man’s beetle-black ones. The hunter wore a thick fur hat and a belt of weapons. A rifle loomed over his shoulder, slung across his broad ba
ck, and three handguns burrowed in his belt like ticks. But it was his face that drew Carlette’s attention. Cruel, hardened, less human than her hounds, it was a thing of darkness, carved by the brutality of the world.

  I’m not the only monster here, Carlette thought as the man leered at her.

  “So you’re traveling with a pardon, eh?” rasped the man, leaning so close that Carlette could smell his last drink. Whiskey. “Think that makes you clean? I caught one of your kind just the other day. Begged for mercy before the guards dragged him off.”

  Carlette scowled, made to turn back to her meal. But the man grabbed her shoulder, held her there.

  “Uppity bitch, you think I can’t kill you right here? I have a pardon too, and it lets me do whatever I want outside those precious fences. You look like the kind of ghost-girl who needs to be taught her place.”

  He spat on the last word. Carlette flashed a look at the bartender, but the big man only frowned, arms still folded.

  “My presence has been requested by the Magistrate,” Carlette said, holding her temper with iron chains. She could feel this man’s mind, a simple, bristling thing with one purpose. It would be so easy to reach out and squeeze the life out of him, letting his brain tissue starve until there was nothing left to hold.

  Instead, Carlette clenched her teeth and allowed the man’s laugh to wash over her.

  “Of course you have,” said the mercenary, spreading his arms to invite the rest of the bar to join in. “You’re special, aren’t you? You’ve been picked out?”

  The black hood in the corner was sinking lower and lower in his seat, trying not to meet Carlette’s eyes. She didn’t blame him. If this escalated, she wasn’t the only one in danger. But the refusal to help still stung.

  Even in the Order, there was no one to depend on.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I need to finish—”

  “You don’t get to have manners,” growled the man, his face suddenly inches from hers. His traveling companions shifted behind him, their grins flickering uncertainly. “You don’t get to be human. You’re only good for one thing, and that isn’t eating our food and drinking our beer like you’re one of us. Whoever let you out made a mistake. One I plan to fix.”