His uncle tipped back his goblet, emptying it. “Not the vocation you expected?”
“No.” Kaden shook his head, careful to mask his distaste. “I thought you might apprentice me in the city or send me to Guardian.”
“A warrior?” Algar laughed and put his feet up on his desk, ankles crossed. “An odd vocation for one who can’t bear a simple execution. Your mother has softened you, Kadan. Without a father, it’s my responsibility to make you strong.”
A tremor rippled up Kadan’s spine. His uncle wasn’t wrong about the hangings. Yet, it wasn’t the execution of criminals wrenching at his conscience, as much as the indifferent butchery of all the rest.
“Influencing is a form of power, strength without the adversities of leadership.” His uncle dropped his feet from the desktop and poured another goblet of wine, draining the carafe. “Ruling requires a heavy hand, consistent and unflinching consequences to disobedience. You need look no farther than the warrens. Your mother begs for compassion for the children, but compassion signals weakness and opens doors to greater dissent. If I give in, they’ll have won. They’ll be satisfied until they desire something more. Ever more and more.”
His uncle rose and strolled to the window where blue Misanda and pink Sogul waxed in the violet night. “I’ll hang scores of them, without a second thought and regardless of the piteous pleas in their woeful eyes. You are intelligent, Kadan. And here’s why you will become an influencer and practiced in all the arts.” The man turned to face him. “Despite their oaths, my influencers’ loyalties lie with their guild and the realm. Our tie is closer, you and I. We have a bond of kinship, of familial duty. You’ll become skilled as an emotive, a sensorist, and a mercy. I require someone I can trust, and you owe me.”
Kadan waited, voiceless, expressionless, heart and head shut down and securing his poise until the man’s contempt subsided. When Algar paused to swallow the last of his wine, Kadan stood and bowed.
“I will make you proud, Uncle.”
With a smile, the man left the window and placed a hand on Kadan’s shoulder. “I am proud of you already. I know you will do well. Now, I suggest we tell your mother.”
***
The carafe sloshed as Kadan hurried through the corridors to his mother’s rooms. Algar would be pacing, impatient for his arrival, his temper curdling. At his mother’s door, Kadan paused to reposition the carafe and free a hand to knock.
“You shouldn’t force him to attend your gruesome hangings,” his mother chided on the door’s other side. “I don’t want him in the warrens with your underlings. None of this is wholesome. He’s a boy. You mustn’t expose him to all your ugliness.”
The sharp staccato of a slap prevented Kadan’s knock from falling, his body rigid.
“You are a guest, Livia, not the wardess.” Algar’s stony voice reached through the portal. “You do not dictate what I may or may not do.”
The soft weeping of his mother kindled old fears, childhood memories of cowering outside the door, small hands pressed to his ears. How many times had he heard his mother beg and cry while Algar grunted and threatened? Once, as a child of six, he’d confronted his uncle and earned a thrashing that fractured his arm. After that day, his mother had ordered a servant to escort him to the potted garden whenever Algar visited her rooms.
“My apologies,” Algar said after a long silence. “You know I detest it when you bait me.”
“It was not my intention,” his mother said. “It’s my fault, of course. I should be more grateful for your attentions.”
“You’d be whoring in the warrens without me. I saved you and your children and would appreciate your recognition for the effort.”
“We’re family, Algar. Your brother—”
“My brother is dead,” Algar said. “And you will do as you are told.”
“Yes, of course.”
Kadan knocked, and after a moment of rustling, the door slid into the wall. His mother awaited him on the other side. Her blond hair had come loose of its pins, and she was dressed in black, the color they both wore without exception. The high ward might believe they styled their attire after him, but in truth, they continued to mourn for all they’d lost and the wretchedness of what they’d found.
His mother smiled as if the red mark on her cheek were fresh rouge and the tears in her eyes mere illusions. She pressed her thumb and fingertips together in their signal for danger. “Come in, my love.” She accepted the carafe and glided to a table where she filled a goblet for the high ward. Kadan stepped inside.
Diaphanous blue screens shaded the luminescent tubes, casting the lavish salon in a chilly hue, an unwelcome pallor despite the beauty of its furnishings. On the walls, his mother displayed several of his paintings, gentle renderings of the landscape around Mur-Vallis. Beneath the filtered light, they appeared flat and drained of color. They looked ugly; Mur-Vallis was ugly.
Unwilling to enter farther, Kadan hardened his jaw and clamped his hands behind his back. He fought to contain a swill of rage and helplessness on the brink of pouring from his fists.
“Your wine.” His mother handed the goblet to Algar. She cast Kadan a warning eye.
“Ah, thank you, Livia.” Algar accepted the offer with a pleased sigh. “Now that Kadan has joined us, he will share his news.”
“You have news?” She sat on a settee, pale as a wraith.
“Mother.” Kadan dipped his head. “Uncle has decided I am old enough to pursue a vocation. I will be traveling to Ava-Grea to train as an influencer.” He met her eyes, sharing the horror and begging her not to scream.
***
The high ward’s residence and offices of governance, including quarters for esteemed advisors and influencers, encompassed the entire seventh tier. Covered walkways edged with potted winter greenery connected the various structures, all Founder-made.
An influencer. The prospect of mastering the skills of manipulation tangled Kadan’s stomach into a hard knot. What would his uncle require of him? To ease unsavory negotiations, to inflict torture, to smooth over the murder of children, to halt the beating of an innocent heart?
He walked to the tier’s edge and gazed across the ever-widening layers that petaled outward into shadowy markets hundreds of feet below. The moons cast an eerie light on the eldergreen forests and fields stained with freshly fallen snow. The Blackwater coursed through it all, an icy serpent winding to the distant sea.
By inches, he shuffled closer to the rim. His toes extended into the air, and he closed his eyes. For an endless moment, he teetered on the rim of a choice wholly his own. His actions were harmless, weren’t they? Or had he grown cruel, learned the high ward’s lessons of power? He couldn’t abide his life, couldn’t bear the commitment his uncle required. A raw breeze ruffled his hair, and he suddenly couldn’t wait to fall.
A hand grabbed his jacket’s collar. He gasped and his eyes flew open. Fighting for balance, he reeled backward onto the tier. His heart hammered in his ears as he spun and ripped loose of the grasp.
The influencer stepped back and offered a modest bow. “My apologies, I didn’t wish you to fall.”
“I was… thinking.” Kadan straightened his jacket.
“This province isn’t without its beauty,” the influencer said, stepping to the edge. Kadan didn’t move, the young man unfamiliar to him. He wore the blue jacket of an emotive, shaved head patterned with swirling woads.
“Are you here for me?”
The man smiled. “I’m Qeyon, from Ava-Grea. I don’t believe I am here for you, Kadan.”
In truth, Kadan wasn’t surprised the man knew his name. “My uncle is sending me to Ava-Grea for training. He wants my oath. He wishes to make use of me.”
Qeyon paused to gaze over the high ward’s tier. “Your uncle is a powerful man, and I imagine he is seldom crossed. Wait until you experience Ava-Grea, Kadan, before you decide to leap.”
Chapter Eleven
Springtime ushered the thaw south, and Mur-Valli
s shrugged off the snow and ice encrusting the province. Twice a season, all three moons shone in quarters, foretelling a day of steadiness in all dealings. After a two-week visit to the farm, Catling lazed in the wagon’s bed with Whitt and a dozen snuffling piglings.
Scuff chose Balance for his trips to market since he’d sworn off the tiers on hanging days. He held the reins with Zadie on the bench beside him, Gussy squirming on her lap and chirping like a sparrow.
At the market’s outer rim, Catling helped Whitt tether together the pen and load it with piglings. By the time they finished, Zadie and Gussy had already strolled off with a list from Wenna and stern instructions not to stray.
“Mind yourselves.” Scuff patted Catling’s head. “And don’t be late getting back, Whitt.”
The absence of her name in his last instructions never failed to sting, and she swallowed an urge to cry. She felt untethered, a bird without a nest, blown by the Fangwold’s fickle winds.
More generous than usual, Scuff palmed each of them a whole copper to waste as they wished. Catling eyed Whitt, and her grief faded at the sight of his crooked smile. His thoughts surely mirrored hers—sweets.
Long before the next bell, she idled on the docks, feet dangling above the Blackwater’s glittering luminescence. Whitt lounged beside her, licking the sticky residue of honeyed tarts from his fingers. Her own hands she’d dipped in the river and dried on her jacket.
Riverfolk moored up at the docks with skiffs bearing buckets of silver eels and glass bottles dense with luminescence. Ferries plied their way up from Ava-Grea delivering merchants and travelers from distant tiers. Pulled by waterdragons, the vessels bucked the swift current. The creatures’ green-scaled heads reared through the surface, tapered snouts sprayed clouds of mist, and fins stroked the water like wings. The voyage complete, tall rivermasters with white hair flowing like waterfalls beckoned the creatures in. They slipped off tethering ropes, and the waterdragons dove.
“Do you see them?” On her feet, Catling pointed over the boats. Whitt scrambled up beside her. Far downstream, the freed waterdragons undulated through the shimmering river. Mottled wings wheeled, slapping the water, and at the ends of their spiny tails, wide flukes splashed the surface before slipping below for their journey north.
She smiled at Whitt. Although a year younger than she, he now stood taller by a hand, no longer the stead’s runt. He’d lost his childlike thinness, his frame still slender but less bony, face angular but less hollow around the eyes. She too had grown. Almost ten summers, she felt ancient.
“I’d like to leave Mur-Vallis,” she confided. “Ride down the Blackwater to the Cull Sea.”
“I’m going to lasso waterdragons,” Whitt said, eyes on the river.
“I want to leave Mur-Vallis forever.” She looked sideways at him, measuring his reaction. “Gannon gives me coppers for sweets, but I don’t spend them. I hide them in the warrens like I used to before Scuff bought me.”
“Why?” Whitt’s forehead pinched as he faced her.
“Because I get headaches,” she replied. “Not as terrible as I did at the start, but—”
“No. I mean, why can’t you come home with us for good? Come Summertide it will be a year.”
Catling rubbed her eye. At the stead, she avoided the question since it always stirred a heated debate. Piper stood like a furious stump on one side, aligned with Gannon, every risk tolerable in the name of revenge, while Wenna and Whitt formed up the opposition. The rest of them endeavored to keep the peace, tottering between both sides. In the end, the choice always fell to her conscience, swayed by the stark memory of Shafter’s eyes.
“I can’t, not yet,” she said. “You know why. You were there.”
“Then when?”
“I’m helping to end the hangings,” she replied. “Because of Bromel, Brid, and Tum, and Wister too.” She did her duty, tendering a sacrifice they all understood if not condoned. The reminder that he didn’t approve sparked a flash of ire. “And it’s not only them. Every time Clio waxes full, more people hang.”
She gripped his hand, unwilling to squabble. “Gannon says I’ve made more progress in a year than he could have managed in ten. The tiers are in a flurry. The high ward moves his hangings to different markets and changes the time of day. Nothing he tries does him any good because most of the time we find him.” Her fingers rose to her eye. “I’m learning how to control it. Scarcely anyone laughs, and when he hangs children, the crowd turns into a mob.”
“Would the high ward hang you?” Whitt asked. “If he caught you?”
She blinked back a swell of emotion. “He won’t catch me. Gannon promised he won’t risk me.” Even as she uttered her assurances, she knew them for hopes and wishes rather than statements of fact. The high ward could set a trap with ease. And Gannon risked her already. He’d risked her from the very start, his singular goal of raising the warrens from poverty like a gem so sparkly it blinded him.
“When can you come back to the stead?” Whitt asked again. “You must have asked him. I want you to come back with me?”
Catling drew him close and rested her head on his shoulder. “Gannon says I’ve been blessed and cursed with a gift that will change all of Ellegeance for people like me. He says, when the warrens take their rightful place in the realm, I can go home in peace.”
***
“Don’t speak,” Gannon warned her. “I’ll handle any interest in you.” Already late, he strode at a pace that had her scurrying to keep up. Tiler tramped beside her with Hale bringing up the rear. A graybeard enforcer, Hale was loyal to the cause, and despite the permanent snarl, Gannon liked having him along.
“Where are we going?” Catling asked, out of breath.
“What did I just say?” Gannon didn’t break his stride.
“Don’t speak,” she repeated and scratched her stomach.
“And stop scratching. You’re supposed to be invisible.”
“I didn’t have time to dress properly,” she complained. “Farrow couldn’t find my underslip, and she put me in winter wool. Everything else is out for a wash. It itches.”
At Tiler’s snort, Gannon scowled over his shoulder. He’d placed the big man in charge of Catling for the next few hours and hadn’t the foresight to change his mind.
Tiler winked at Catling. “We’re meeting with a few nut badgers from the tiers.” Hale barked a laugh, and the girl scampered to catch up.
Gannon scraped a hand through his hair, nervous energy dampening his palms. He dragged in a breath and led them deeper beneath the tiers into his father’s den. There, the structures were sturdier, the hallways brighter. Artwork adorned the walls, and furniture carved of blackwood gleamed with a warm patina.
More time to plan would have suited him, but Maddox knew better than to afford anyone such opportunities, even his own son. No less secretive, Gannon hadn’t shared his designs with his father, a risky decision, depending on the outcome. Maddox hadn’t ascended to the title of underlord as a result of his forgiving nature.
Gannon’s chance to improve the lot of the warrens hung within his reach. Too late for gutless misgivings, he’d no choice but to grasp it.
Their destination lay ahead. He halted, ready to impart final instructions. Distracted by the paintings, Catling bumped into him with a yelp. He squatted in front of her, quelling his impatience, and guided her chin around with a thumb. “Now, this will be a touch tricky. Not for you but for us.” He indicated the other two men and himself. “I expect at least one other underlord in addition to my father, as well as a sampling of guards and enforcers. They’ll have an influencer with the tier wards and influence will touch every one of us from the warrens. I want you to do what you always do, shield us.”
Her lips between her teeth, she nodded, quiet as a moth.
“Tiler and Hale.” Gannon glanced up. “Watch her reactions. She won’t be shielded, so she’ll feel the influence. She smiles, you smile; she giggles, you giggle.”
Hale narro
wed his eyes and Tiler giggled. Catling smiled until Gannon glared at the three of them. “I don’t want anyone guessing our secret. We need to appear natural, and we won’t if we’re all frowning.” He straightened up, a hand in his hair. “Let’s see if we can get through this without wearing a noose, shall we?”
“Sodding cockthistles, Gan.” Tiler rested a hand on Catling’s shoulder. “Don’t scare us to death.”
“Then sober up and let’s go.” His party a shade more sedate, he led them around a corner to a set of double doors blocked by a cadre of tier guards.
“Eh, Gan, Tiler.” Nial nodded in greeting. The stocky guard looked as though he’d contracted every skin disease known to man and then attempted to cover them with hair. “You’re late.”
“How late?” Gannon removed a dagger from his belt and a curved fish knife from his boot.
“Missed introductions is my guess.” The bearded guard accepted the blades. “Maddox wants your stones.”
“I’m a wrinkle in my father’s forehead,” Gannon said. While Tiler and Hale stripped their bodies of weapons, he slipped the knife from Catling’s belt.
“You’re not taking her in there.” The guard shook his head. “In fact, I’m not letting all three of you in there at all.”
“Now, Nial,” Gannon leaned in. “I’m not leaving her out here with the likes of you. You’d lose her in a wager, and Farrow would have my head. If you want one of us, you can nursemaid Hale.”
“It’s your parts either way,” Nial said with a shrug.
Hale snarled and began reinstalling his various weapons around his body.
With his next breath, Gannon summoned up the confidence of a royal heir, and with a hand on each knob, he swung the double doors wide. He strode forward, rapidly assessing the wealth and power arranged at his father’s table. The assembly was smaller than expected, his father the only underlord present. A collection of unarmed enforcers and guards trimmed the walls, including two guardians in their distinctive greens.
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