“What did he want with you, my lady?”
“To advance his political designs, of course.” Braith leaned back against the embroidered cushions and swallowed. “Cameria, I do believe I was just speaking with my most formidable adversary yet.”
Chapter 16
Tanwen
My mouth flew open as I watched another person crawl out from a hidden crate—a woman, older than me but younger than Karlith. Her hair was shorn off at her chin and black as night. Her milk-white jaw was set in a hard line.
And I’ll be blazed if she wasn’t wearing trousers like a lad. What’s more, she was strapping a sword belt around her hips as she hopped over the rocks toward me and Karlith.
She nodded at me and smiled a little. “Welcome, Peddler. They’ve finally got you here, have they.”
Wasn’t a question, the way she said it. “Aye. Guess they have. With the guard’s help.”
“The guard has a way of flushing us out, don’t they? I’m Aeron En-Howell.” She stuck out her hand for me to grasp.
I clasped it. “Tanwen.”
“En-Yestin,” Gryfelle added from beside a fire she was starting.
I looked at her. “Why do you keep on doing that, Gryfelle? You know something I don’t?”
Mor patted my back. “Gryfelle probably knows a lot of things you don’t.” He punched Aeron in the arm as he passed her. “Good to see you, En-Howell.”
She raised an eyebrow but didn’t really look cross. “Likewise, Bo-Lidere. I see you managed to squeeze by the guard again. One of these days you’ll end up with an arrow in your gut, you know.”
“Long as it doesn’t come from your bow, soldier.” Then he crouched beside Gryfelle to help her with the bitter-bean.
“Soldier?” I stared. “Are you a guardsman? Or a . . .” Had to think about the right word. “A guardswoman?”
Aeron glanced over. “Was.”
I turned to Karlith. “Never heard of such a thing. I guess they must all be in Urian. King’s guardswomen.” The word sounded backward on my tongue.
Karlith laughed. “No, I think Aeron was the only one—or one of a handful, leastways.”
I heard rather than saw the next arrivals to the Corsyth. A few muffled shouts and crashing sounded through the forest underbrush.
Karlith glanced at Mor. “Warmil and Dylun are back from watch.”
Mor rolled his eyes. “I hear.”
“No, no, no!” One male voice carried into camp. “When will you understand this is bigger than your personal agenda? There’s a principle here, and you’re so apt to lose sight of it I wonder if you aren’t going blind in your old age.”
Another voice growled. “Watch it, boy. You may use words as your weapons, but you forget I carry an actual sword.”
Two men suddenly appeared on the edge of the Corsyth pool and stopped short at the sight of me. The taller of the two, silver-haired and thin to the point of gauntness, pulled his sword from its scabbard. “State your name!”
The other one—shorter, stockier—snorted. “Warmil, she’s obviously the peddler they’ve been tracking. Might you remove the guard training from your brain long enough to be reasonable? Just occasionally. It’d be a nice breath of air.”
Silver-haired Warmil didn’t pull his gaze from me. “Just protecting your high-principled cause, Dylun. She could be a spy. She could have forced the others to lead her here under threat of death. They could be under duress right now.”
I glared at him. “If there’s been any duress, I’ve been the one under it.”
Zel glanced up from his seat on a rock, where he’d been quietly changing his dressing. “It’s all right, War. We fairly dragged her here with the guard at our heels. She ain’t a spy.”
Warmil seemed satisfied by Zel’s words and sheathed his sword. “I see they got a bite out of you.”
Zelyth kept wrapping his arm. “Not the first; doubt it’ll be the last.”
Karlith hiked up her dress and shuffled over to Zel’s side. “Don’t wrap it so tight. Let me get some herbs for that.”
Dylun stepped forward and took my hand. Then he bowed at the waist. “Dylun Bo-Ino, according to Tirian custom.”
Couldn’t quite guess what he meant by that, but I eyed his black hair and burnt-sugar skin. “I’m Tanwen. Are you . . . are you Meridioni?”
Dylun turned to Mor. “She is from the country, isn’t she?”
Flame leaped into my cheeks. “Well, excuse me, but some lasses haven’t had the opportunity to travel. A simple ‘yes’ would’ve been answer enough.”
Dylun seemed to consider this, looking me up and down. Then he nodded to Mor. “Yes. She’ll do.”
Mor laughed. Then his gaze flicked to me. “Aye, she will.”
The flame on my face blazed hotter.
“Glad you approve, Dylun,” Mor said. “Always makes things easier when you manage to.”
Whatever he meant by that.
“So . . .” My attention bounced around the Corsyth trying to swallow it all—seven people, plus me, all surrounded by streaks of color and dripping moss. “So you’re all weavers?”
Karlith smiled. “Of one sort or another, all run to ground by the guard for our art.”
“Not me.” Aeron turned and busied herself about something. “I’m not a weaver.”
“That ain’t strictly true, lass,” Karlith said. “And you know it.”
Aeron shoved a pair of boots onto a rock and began to polish one a little too hard. “It is if I want it to be.”
Gryfelle frowned at Aeron. “Is that how it works—we get to decide now? If only I’d known.” Bitterness laced every word.
Aeron didn’t look up from her boot.
After an awkward moment of utter stillness, I broke the silence. “If you’re not a weaver, why’re you here, Aeron?”
She stayed fixed on her polishing. “Warmil is my captain.” Finally she glanced up. “I mean, he was my captain when I was in the guard. I came with him.”
That mute fog of secrets settled around us, and I’d about had it with these people and their locked-up pasts.
“That seems a big leap to make if you weren’t an outlaw yourself,” I said. “Leaving your living, going on the run. Warmil must be some captain.”
Warmil glanced our way from across the Corsyth. Mor seemed to be fighting a laugh, whether because I’d said something funny or on account of his discomfort, I couldn’t tell.
But Aeron looked up and held my gaze. “Yes. He is.”
Fair enough. Least it was a straight answer for once.
I nodded and then stumbled my way over tree roots and rocks to Mor and Gryfelle, who finally had some water boiling over the fire. I set about helping with the bitter-bean. Although I didn’t care for it myself, I’d learned to make it when I worked a couple mornings a week in Blodwyn’s tavern as a little lass. She gave me a few coins for my trouble, and it helped me buy food before I could make a living peddling.
I spoke to no one in particular while I worked. “Mor says you’re not all story peddlers. Or storytellers, anyway. I guess you’re not peddlers if you don’t sell them. So, if you don’t tell stories, what do you do?”
“Master colors.” Warmil went back to cleaning his blade with no further explanation.
“Spin songs.” Gryfelle smiled and took the cup of steaming bitter-bean I held out to her.
“Storytellers, colormasters, and songspinners.” Karlith smiled, then glanced at Aeron. “All of us.”
“I heard of a songspinner once,” I said thoughtfully. “I would have sworn the old man telling me had lost his mind. Or was drunk. Actually, I’m sure he was drunk, because he always was.”
Dylun snorted. “Yes, I’m sure he was. He’d have to be to speak openly about songspinners, since they’re completely outlawed now.”
I frowned. “Totally outlawed? But aren’t there—I don’t know—song peddlers, or something? I mean, there’s only two songs, anyhow. How could a songspinner get into much trouble
with just two songs to sing?”
Seven sets of eyes bored into me, and I knew I’d said something wrong. But fried if I could tell you what.
So I kept talking. “I mean, right? ‘The Ballad of the Goddesses’ and ‘The Song of the King.’” They were the only two songs I’d ever heard in my life.
Dylun looked like he might pour steam from his ears. He jabbed a finger in my direction and turned to Warmil. “That! That is what our fight is about. Two songs! There are only two songs, she says!”
He stepped toward Warmil, and it looked like a threat. “Gareth’s work is almost complete. He’s already enslaved my people, the Haribians, the Minasimetese. And now he works to enslave his own people by stamping out every shred of human creativity that’s left. ‘Crowned’ stories, two approved songs, and no colormastery allowed at all, except to paint portraits of his royal backside!”
All of a sudden, his hands lit up with fire—true and actual fire. Flames licked his fingers and palms, and he threw one arm forward like he was chucking a snowball. A stream of flame tore through the Corsyth.
I screamed, stumbled over, and fell to the ground. The trail of fire slammed into a tree and burst into an image against the bark—a golden crown, half-melted in a wreath of flame.
Karlith held up her hand. “Peace, Dylun.” A stream of glowing water poured from her palms toward the tree. When the water splashed onto the tree, the melting crown disappeared, and the image in its place was a stack of wood with flames all around it, quite as normal as a campfire.
Karlith glanced at Dylun. “You’ll frighten the poor lass to her death.”
Dylun looked down at me like he’d forgotten I was there. “Apologies.” His voice still cut hard as edged steel. “Some things disallow proper manners.”
I swallowed hard and took a new look at the color-splashed trees around the Corsyth. Sure enough, the splashes weren’t random splatters of color. They were picture upon picture upon picture, all layered over each other and each telling a different story.
Flowers, horses, knights, trees, birds, castles, cottages, people, ships. Everything you could dream had been strewn about the place.
I’d never seen or imagined anything like it in my life.
After a moment of thick silence, I cleared my throat. “So what you’re saying is there’s more than two songs.”
For one dreadful minute, I thought Dylun might throw a stream of colormaster’s fire at me. Instead he burst into laughter. “Yes, Tanwen En-Yestin.” He grinned wryly. “There are more than two songs.”
“You mustn’t mind Dylun.” Gryfelle sipped her bitter-bean and spoke quietly to me. “He doesn’t mean harm. It’s harder on him than on some.”
I glanced at the young Meridioni man. “It’s not hard to see why he’s on the run from the guard. I can’t imagine he’d be able to stay out of trouble.”
“No, indeed. But it’s more than being a colormaster. He’s Meridioni, and that fact alone makes him worthy of slavery in the view of Gareth Bo-Kelwyd.”
I peeked at Dylun quickly, hoping he wouldn’t catch me. I’d never seen hair like his, so black it was almost blue, or skin such a rich brown. “How come he speaks Tirian so well? Better than me, like he had a fancy tutor or something.”
“Dylun was raised in the palace, like I was.” She paused thoughtfully, weighing her words. “He’s Meridioni but he was born in Tir. His family was a respected part of Caradoc II’s court.” Her face tightened. “All that changed when Gareth took over. No matter how noble-blooded or well-educated, every Meridioni in the palace was either executed for some crime or forced into servitude.”
My stomach twisted. “That’s . . .” For all my supposed storytelling talent, words failed me just then. “How did I not know that?”
Gryfelle shrugged. “How could you? You’re just young enough not to remember how it used to be. Imagine the next generation of Tirians Gareth is raising up. They’ll only know those who used to be our neighbors as our king’s subjects, and they’ll only know the crowned stories.” She smiled a little. “And two songs.”
My head drooped. I was making a pretty good run at being part of that generation. “You said you’re a songspinner, right?”
“Yes,” Gryfelle answered.
“Will you sing something for me—something besides those two songs?”
“Very well.” She paused, and something flickered over her face. “If I can remember.”
But in the next moment, the sweetest sound I’d ever heard drifted through the Corsyth. I couldn’t understand the words—Old Tirian, I guessed. But as Gryfelle sang, wispy strands of color and light danced around us—like story strands, but less solid. Airier. Thinner.
A blue wave of light, rolling like the sea. Then a tiny ship made of smoke.
The song seeped into my ears, filled my whole body all the way into my soul. I closed my eyes to listen fully.
Some minutes later, when Gryfelle’s melody wound to a close, my eyes fluttered back open. Her song still shimmered in the dim forest light, but to my surprise, a near-exact copy of it hovered right before me.
“Oh!” The thing crystallized and fell in my lap—a perfect, tiny glass ship. I looked up at Gryfelle. “Did you do that?”
She laughed. “No, you did.”
My mind felt like it could burst. Too many new things all at once. Story strands that appeared from mere ideas, not stories that had been taught, memorized, and practiced. Stories that crystallized into real, actual things, as Mor had conjured those rocks. Not crystal figurines, but actual stones. Stories that poured out accidentally while listening to a song, even when I couldn’t understand the words.
I didn’t comprehend how any of it worked. And how I hadn’t known any of it existed.
I felt a hand on my arm and turned to find Karlith smiling gently at me. “Do you understand now why we’re so dangerous to Gareth the Usurper?”
I shook my head dumbly.
“Art—real art, the way you see it here—has a queer way of revealing truth. And truth, in all its forms, would be the undoing of Gareth Bo-Kelwyd.”
Chapter 17
Tanwen
“About time Tanwen’s military training began, don’t you think?” Warmil tore at a hunk of roasted meat at supper. “The guard will be tracking you lot. No idea which of you has been seen, or where. Best to train her up sooner rather than later.”
“He’s right,” Dylun said, like it settled the matter.
I stopped chewing my roasted light-foot. “And what, exactly, is involved in military training?”
“You have to spar with Aeron.” Mor grinned. “You can borrow War’s sword.”
I made a face at him, then returned his smile.
Warmil didn’t smile. Ever. Seemed to be a habit of his. “You’ll take first watch tonight with Aeron and Karlith. Should be easy enough. Just a few scans of the perimeter.”
“If it’ll be easy, why’s it needed?” I asked. “If we’re being tracked, seems like we could get ambushed just doing a perimeter scan, or whatever you called it. Which is why you want me getting the practice in the first place, isn’t it?”
Dylun’s laugh crackled through the heavy forest air. “Ah, yes. This one will do nicely.”
Warmil almost broke a smile. “True enough, lass. Starting you out as easy as we can, then. That’s how we’ll say it.”
“Fine with me.” I squared my shoulders. If I was to stay around the Corsyth, seemed I’d have to at least pretend I was brave, even if I didn’t feel it.
“I’ll go too.” Zel’s voice fairly startled me, as he’d been so quiet and spent since we got to the Corsyth.
Gryfelle frowned. “Zel, you’re injured. You should stay at camp tonight and rest.”
“I’ve rested enough. I don’t want the ladies out alone with only Aeron’s sword for help.” He smiled. “Not that you’re not a lady, Aeron, or that your sword isn’t more than enough. But, you know. Doesn’t seem right to send the womenfolk out alone.”
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Warmil made a noise that I think was supposed to be a laugh. “Zel, no offense meant, but I’d trust Aeron’s sword more if she didn’t have you to look after too. But go if you must.”
Aeron, tough a lass as she seemed to be, turned pink in the cheeks. Suddenly her fingers didn’t work, and she dropped a piece of bread on the ground.
A thought struck me like a bolt.
I wagered I understood why she’d followed her captain into hiding. He wasn’t just some captain. He was some captain.
Tough Aeron was sweet on old Warmil. Wondering if the captain had any idea, I eyed his grim face from across the fire.
No. Definitely not. Warmil looked like he hadn’t even realized women were a thing, and even if he had, he hadn’t noticed they might be nice company to have once in a while.
If he ever did realize that, maybe he would smile more.
Karlith, Aeron, Zel, and I traipsed through the underbrush. Aeron tried to show me how to step so I wouldn’t make much noise. But I still felt like a marsh-grazer barreling through those crunchy leaves.
“This is as far north as we go during our perimeter sweep.” Aeron pointed another direction. “Then we head east, then circle back around to the river in the south. It’s not a wide sweep, but the Corsyth is well hidden. The guard would have to get pretty close to be able to find us.”
“Have they ever gotten close?”
“Once or twice. But those guardsmen didn’t live to tell their commanders about it, I can promise you that.”
I shuddered. Didn’t want to think about that, really.
“Zel,” I said, by way of changing the subject, “what’s your sweet-root–haired wife’s name?”
His face softened. “Ifmere.”
“What’s she do while you’re away?”
“She takes care of the house. Last I heard, my father and brother had taken over tending our bit of land for her. She’s . . .” He swallowed hard. “She’s expecting our first child soon.”
My walking slowed. “You’re going to be a father?”
He faltered. “Aye. If I ever get to see the little one.” He squared his shoulders and started walking again. “But now you know why it’s doubly important to keep her safe.”
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