“So Sinther is completely invulnerable?” she asked. “No one could ever hurt him? I’ve heard of a legend....”
“Yes. There is one special person, with a special power, who can hurt him. Just one.”
Aeolia laughed. “I wouldn’t like being that person! Imagine—Sinther would never let someone like that live. He’d send Lale across the Island to hunt him if—”
She froze in her tracks.
“She too is a Firechild,” Talin said, looking into her eyes. “But her fireflies are of another color, another kingdom. She is an Esiren, and hers are the golden fireflies. All Esirens can share thoughts, but this one can also share senses, even pain. She is the only one able to hurt Sinther past his stone skin.”
“Me?” Aeolia asked incredulously, and gave a mirthless laugh. She shook her head. “No, it can’t be.”
“Lale obviously believes you are.”
Aeolia remembered how she had hurt the rat, how she had hurt the ogre. She remembered what Lale had called her: the Esiren Firechild. Fear twisted in her gut like a knife. No, she told herself. It was impossible. She came from Stonemark! She was Stonish, not Esiren! Wasn’t she... ?
“Lale is crazy,” she said decidedly.
“May be,” Lale answered her, “but a madman with a sword can still cut.”
Aeolia screamed.
They emerged from behind the boulders above them, Lale and a score of Stonish soldiers, all with drawn swords.
“Run, Lia!” Talin cried, and together they stumbled downhill, pebbles avalanching beneath them. It came clear to Aeolia with a flash: Lale had never followed them; he had flanked them. Sharp bolts whizzed by as they ran, and one sliced Aeolia’s sleeve, scratching her arm. She cried out in pain and terror. Another dart scratched Talin’s cheek.
They leapt over a fallen log, crouched and pushed themselves against the rotting wood. Darts peppered the other side, jolting the log violently. Aeolia grimaced and covered her head with her arms. The log shook behind her, and she heard more darts whistle overhead.
“What are they shooting?” she cried.
“Stone splinters,” Talin said grimly, drawing Stormshard. Blood trickled down his cheek. “They shoot them from their fingertips.”
“We must run!”
Talin shook his head. “They’ll catch up, if they don’t shoot us down first.”
As the soldiers neared, the barrage intensified, the stone darts buffeting the fallen log with a deafening rattle. Woodchips and tufts of moss flew. Tears burned in Aeolia’s eyes.
“But we can’t stay here!” she pleaded and grabbed Talin’s arm, knowing only he could save her now. She saw him tighten his lips and glance around nervously, and she realized that he, too, was helpless.
Suddenly the log creaked, tilted, and nearly rolled over them. Aeolia glanced up and saw a Stoneson’s boots above her head. With a grunt, the soldier pushed himself over the log and landed before them on the pebbly hill. Aeolia whimpered and cowered back against the wood. Blood bespattered her face as Talin ran the soldier through.
She leaned her head against the bole and shut her eyes. She heard more soldiers crashing down the hillside. One soldier dead, Aeolia thought, and twenty more above. She knew Talin could not fight them all. The rumble of falling rubble and charging boots roared in her ears like a waterfall. She sought Talin’s hand and squeezed it.
“Talin....” She spoke hesitantly.
“What?”
“Do you think.... You said that... Lale will truly follow me anywhere?”
“Yes, Lia! But—”
The log above them creaked again, and two more soldiers leapt over. As they stood balancing on the slope, Talin slammed into one and sent him clanking down in his armor. He clashed steel with the second, kicked the man’s stomach and opened his neck. More soldiers came crashing down from above.
Shakily, Aeolia stood up, her arms wrapped around her stomach. Stone darts whizzed around her head.
“Lie down!” Talin said and reached out to grab her.
Aeolia stepped back, looking at him. The soldiers rushed down toward her, shooting stones. One dart sank into her thigh, and she gazed at it numbly. She raised her eyes to look at Lale, who was sauntering downhill, smiling. Their eyes locked. Lale’s smile widened. Aeolia stared at him, tightened her lips, then tore her gaze away. She turned and began moving downhill.
“Lia, where are you going?” Talin called. “Come back!”
Aeolia ignored him. He tried to grab her, but more soldiers came leaping over the log and engaged his sword. Aeolia continued descending the slope. She glanced over her shoulder and again her eyes caught Lale’s. He was following, a thin smile on his lips. Aeolia widened her stride. Scree cascaded beneath her bare feet. She began picking up speed, until she was running, racing down the hillside. A stone dart sank into her shoulder, but she barely felt it.
“You wanted me!” she cried, surprised at the strength of her voice. “Come get me!”
Wind roared in her ears. Her skirt and hair billowed. The surrounding trees and boulders smeared into blurry lines. She heard Lale running behind her, felt his eyes on her back, his smile cutting into her head. The wind seemed to lift her as she ran. Her arms pumped at her sides. Her feet barely touched the ground.
She heard the roar of the river ahead. Cold spray wet her face. Her feet pushed off the rocky bank, and with a great, cold crash, icy water flowed over her head. The current caught her at once, pulling her at breakneck speed. She flapped and kicked underwater, eyes open and stinging. She saw fish shoot by, stoneworts, mossy boulders... and Lale, swimming behind, still smiling, his silver hair sticking to his scar.
Aeolia’s lungs ached for air. She flapped mightily and her head bobbed over the surface. She drew a deep, ragged breath. The riverbanks rushed by her sides, all blurry lines of green and gray. The rumbling of the water grew louder, so loud it hurt her ears. A cloud of spray rose ahead. Aeolia saw the alder rushing toward her, daisies amid its roots. She took a deep breath and reached up as high as she could. As the current pulled her over the waterfall, she hooked her fingers around the alder branch, and clung.
Her feet pulled out from beneath her and dangled over the fall. She held onto the branch with one hand. Fifty feet below, the water crashed against boulders, foam swirled, spray rose in a cloud. Aeolia felt warm liquid trickle down her thigh.
In a flash, Lale came shooting beneath her, tumbling over the waterfall. In midair his hand lashed out and caught her leg.
Aeolia screamed. Dangling over the pit, Lale dug his fingers into her flesh. The branch Aeolia held creaked and bent. Tears sprung into her eyes. The height laughed beneath her. Lale swung up his second hand and grabbed her waist. Aeolia cried and let him climb her, too terrified to resist. The height was too awful. She couldn’t move for fear.
She shut her eyes, and behind her lids she saw fireflies, a million specks of swirling golden light, blinding her.
Her eyes snapped open. She kicked, and her foot found Lale’s face, and she felt his nose crush beneath her sole. She kicked again, and his fingers slipped down to her ankle, tearing her skin. She kicked a third time, and then, in a great relief, she felt his weight let go. His scream was lost beneath the roaring water.
Shakily she pulled herself onto the tree trunk. She lowered herself onto the bank and crawled into a myrtle. It was not long before the soldiers arrived, and Aeolia peeked between the leaves to see them gazing down the waterfall. She heard them conversing but could not grasp the words. When they left she crawled out of the bush. She felt faint.
“Lia!”
Talin caught her before she collapsed. She leaned against his chest.
“I can’t believe it,” he breathed.
Aeolia blinked at him. She looked back at the waterfall. She felt confused.
“What happened?” she asked.
Talin lowered her onto her back. “You’ve lost blood.”
Aeolia laid her head in the grass. More blood, she thought. But this is the last I�
��ll ever see. She leaned her head sideways, gazing into the spray. When she shut her eyes and listened carefully, she thought she could hear, behind the roar of crashing water, a man laughing.
Chapter Six
The Rooftops
Roen dreamed he was turned to stone. His muscles were frozen and he could not move, not even breathe. He stood helpless, staring into darkness, yearning for death, knowing it would never come. Statues could not die. Blood did not course through them. They were immortal. Fear filled Roen, an ineffable, nightmarish fear, so thick it was almost tangible. His stone eyes couldn’t even cry.
A Forestfellow woman stood beside him. She was nearly as tall as him, with slanted green eyes and two thick orange braids that fell over her shoulders. Roen thought her beautiful. As he watched, she too became stone, the grayness spreading over her, flowing into her mouth, turning her hair solid. Her eyes locked on his just before they, too, froze. Roen and she stood, gazing at each other, two sentient statues.
In the surrounding shadows, an echo laughed. There was no voice to it, only an echo, reverberating in the stone chamber where they stood. It was the laughter of King Sinther, Roen knew. He wanted to scream, to run, to hold the woman beside him, but he could not move. From the mists of terror inside him a single word solidified, a single word to somehow save his sanity, to cling to with the sliver of hope still throbbing in him. He grasped it with the tendrils of his mind. Aeolia.
“Aeolia!” he cried, and bitter fluid filled his mouth.
“Hush,” said a woman’s voice. “Don’t try to talk or you’ll choke.”
Roen grimaced at the bitter taste. He grimaced! Urgently he kicked and thrashed, reveling that he could move. Had the beautiful woman returned to flesh as well?
“Calm down, son! It was only a dream.”
Roen opened his eyes. Disappointment filled him. It was not the beautiful Forestfellow who gazed down at him, but a skinny, homely woman like a starving rat, with dusty yellow hair and a mug held in her bony hands. Only a dream, Roen thought, and then: where am I?
He surveyed his surroundings in the flickering candlelight. Walls of cloth draped around him. An old, ornate rug covered the sloping floor. He was lying in a bed of straw, and he wore strange clothes: baggy pants, a yellow woolen shirt, a rough-spun vest with big brass buttons. A pair of pointed leather shoes stood beside him.
“Where am I?” Roen asked. His voice was rusty. He remembered the stormy night when he had fainted feverish into a gutter. It was a wonder he could speak at all.
“Somewhere safe,” replied the woman and brought the mug to Roen’s lips. Again the bitter liquid filled his mouth. Again Roen grimaced.
“What is this stuff?” he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Laceleaf tea,” said the woman. “I found some in your pocket, I did. Lucky thing too, or the fever would’ve claimed you.”
Roen sat up in bed. “Is there any left?” he asked urgently. There might still be a chance to save his father.... “Spirit, is there any left?”
“Calm down, son. You’re still convalescing. Don’t worry, Smerdin is recovered.”
“You saw him? Where is he? Is he safe? Is he well?”
“Hush, Honeycomb! You’ll bring the fever right back, you will. Smerdin is well, but still imprisoned in the Dungeon. I am a cook there.” The woman grinned. “I smuggled him some laceleaf with his meal.”
Roen shut his eyes. His father was imprisoned, but alive.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” he said.
The woman touched his cheek. “You don’t need to, Roen.”
Roen opened his eyes. The woman smiled at him. I have judged her too harshly, he thought. She wasn’t as old as he had first guessed. She was probably closer to thirty than to forty. And she wasn’t even all that homely, if you ignored the frowzy hair, and her smile was pleasant.
“How do you know who I am?” he asked.
The woman laughed. “All of Heland knows you, Roen Painter. Your posters are all over Brownbury. There’s a twenty gold reward on your head, there is.”
At that moment the tent flap opened. A man of about thirty years stood at the entrance, the sun at his back. He had a hard, grim face covered with yellow stubble, and a patch hid one of his eyes. His good eye fixed Roen with a cold, blue stare.
“So the ground man is awake,” he said.
“He’s as much a rooffellow as us now, Grom,” the woman returned.
Grom ignored her and spoke to Roen. “You’re lucky you are still alive, ground man. We wanted to throw you back whence you belong. If it weren’t for Nepo here we would have. We might yet still.”
The man let the tent flap drop. Roen heard his footfalls walking away.
“Are you Nepo?” Roen asked the skinny woman.
“Aye, and that was my brother, Grom. You must forgive him. The Redforts nearly caught us the night they followed you here.”
“Followed me? What do you mean, where am I?”
“Go see,” Nepo said and opened the tent flap.
Roen pulled on his shoes and stood up. His knees wobbled slightly, but he felt strong enough to walk; a cup of laceleaf gave more strength than any meal. He shuffled outside, blinking in the sunlight.
When his eyes adjusted, his mouth fell open.
He was standing on a roof, and more rooftops spread all around him. He remembered fleeing the Redforts here in stormy darkness. The roofscape looked so different in daylight he could scarcely believe it was the same place. It no longer looked like a field of black thorns. It was now a colorful jumble of maroon tiles, bronze rooster vanes, redbrick chimneys, gilded domes, granite turrets, and below it all the narrow, twisting streets. The variegated patchwork spread for leagues around, flowing across the mountainsides. The height and colors made Roen’s head spin.
Scores of motley people crowded the roofs. There were elderly men with long white whiskers, pregnant young women, dour young husbands, frolicking children, even dogs and cats. Everyone was dressed in scraps, but decorated with tassels, scarves, kerchiefs, and baubles of scavenged junk. Some of the faces Roen recognized. There was One Toothed Ok, who years ago had escaped a public hanging, never to be found. Not far behind stood the buxom Friendly Fara, who had once owned Brownbury’s most expensive brothel, until customers started complaining about missing jewelry. Next to Fara, a gaggle of children clutching her skirts, stood the famous Liz Purplerobe, who had yesteryear embarrassed her lord husband by fleeing his fists and taking his heirs with her. Roen even saw Burnface Bas, whose fearsome countenance had graced wanted posters when Roen had been a child.
An outlaw community, Roen realized—right above the law’s nose. He had to lean over and hold his head. Unbelievable. And he had always thought it rats padding over his rooftop at night. No wonder the cheese always disappeared without springing his traps. And no wonder he never saw anything when he climbed up to replace it. Half the steeples and chimneys around him, he now saw, were actually tents painted with mock shingles or bricks. If he had not just stepped through one, he wouldn’t have believed it anything but limestone.
“So what do you think of our kingdom, ground man?” Grom asked, leaping over an alley to come stand before Roen.
“Impressive,” Roen confessed. “Do you lead it?”
The one-eyed man shook his head. His long, glass earring tinkled. “Every man is king of his own roof here above Brownbury, ground man. There is no queen and no law. There was no Guard until you led it here. If it hadn’t been pitch black, we’d have all been hanged by now.”
The surrounding men and women muttered agreements. The children made faces at him. They hated him, Roen realized, and for good reason. Twenty golds, he reflected. Even an outlaw would risk approaching the City Guard for such a sum.
“I’m an outlaw, too,” Roen said. “I’m one of you now.”
Friendly Fara laughed out loud. Grom spat.
“Up here we have only one rule,” the one-eyed man said. “If you bring th
e Guard, you fall to the ground. I let my sister tend to you for a while, but now your time is up.”
“Then I will leave,” Roen said.
Again Fara laughed, and even Burnface Bas snickered.
“You have seen our haven,” Grom said. “You cannot leave alive. You leave by falling.”
Grom snapped his fingers, and the burly Bas grabbed Roen and pulled him toward the roof’s ledge. Nepo rushed to stand before them.
“Stop, Bas!” she said and turned to face her brother. “Please, Grom. He’s one of us now. Can’t you see? I found him in the same place you found Ketya. It must mean something.”
Roen gasped. The girl who’d robbed his workshop! “You know Ketya?” he asked incredulously.
“You leave Ketya out of this!” Grom snapped.
Roen now noticed that while most of the outlaws had the blue eyes and blond curls of Healers, others had fine brown hair and amber eyes. Esirens. Like Ketya. Were they all refugees, fleeing Esire’s war with Stonemark? What were they doing on the rooftops?
Nepo put a hand on Roen’s shoulder. “Ketya used to live with us,” she said. “Her family had been slain by Butcher Joren, but she had escaped. For weeks the poor child crawled through Esire’s snowy mountains, living on bugs and worms and Big Brown bark, till she reached Heland half-starved. Grom found her sleeping in a gutter. I found you in the same place.” She turned to Grom. “You see, Grom? It must be a sign.”
“It means nothing!” Grom said. “It’s because of the ground man that Ket is now in prison.”
Nepo looked sad. “I know it’s hard, Grom. I love her too. She’s like a daughter to me. But you can’t condemn the boy to death for your grief. It’s not his fault.”
Grom turned his back on them. His fists clenched at his sides. “You did not see her when I found her, sister. You did not see how wet and frightened she was. I made a vow then. I vowed I’d kill anyone who harmed her again.”
Roen took a deep breath. “Then you must kill Hyan Redfort,” he said.
Grom spun around, his one eye blazing. “You speak high words for a ground man. Dangerous words. You will yet bring the Guard upon us.”
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