by Jenna Rhodes
Sevryn lifted his jug to his mouth and sipped, obscuring his face should anyone feel his observation and look his way. He thought he’d escaped attention, but as they started up the steps, Lariel Anderieon halted and turned partially about, her gaze sweeping the area. She wore a flowing dress of dark, silvery blue that mimicked the colors of her silvery hair with its tones of gold in the silver strands of the fabric. She’d buckled her sword on for a quick cross draw, and he knew from that alone she would use it. Not only a queen of warriors, but a queen who could fight on her own. He’d heard that of her, and Gilgarran had always spoken well of her, despite her impetuosity. He shrank back a little against the building, slouched as if giving in to the drink in his jug and her gaze did not linger, but she turned to her brother and said something before taking the stairs and entering the Grand Hall. He would have been disappointed if she had not sensed something, however. The crowd watching continued to mill about until the mayor’s guards spread through them and, like honey stirred into a hot drink, they swirled about and then slowly disappeared.
He should leave. The mayor’s guard would be by again, to see if he’d left as he’d been told to do, and he’d seen what he’d come to see. The vision of both Jeredon and Lariel filled his soul for a moment until he realized he was like a starving man, and the vision but a sniff of the aroma of a banquet. He didn’t want to leave. He decided to wait until rousted, or until the meeting ended and he could see them again, and perhaps tail them to wherever they stayed while in Calcort. He thought he might get close enough to utter a few soft words that would both save his life for encroaching upon them and catch their interest. He held his jug close to his chest, for it would be his first weapon in case of trouble and watched the clouds drift through the sky overhead as the day wore on.
He must have slipped into a bit of sleep, more lulled by the beer and cider than he thought, for he woke, drowsy, to the sound of something padding by very quietly. They startled each other, he and the intruder, his head jerking back in wakefulness at the other’s closeness. The other bent down, hand pinching his neck, free hand dropping a half crown in his lap. Of shadow-dark material, the sleeved arm told him little except for indicating a certain wealth and eccentric taste in clothing, and a height from the reach and slenderness that indicated Galdarkan, Vaelinar, or mixed blood. No rings on the fingers but little scars from the handling of many blades, large and small, over time. He smelled of oil as well, weapon oil. Sevryn held himself very still as soft words drifted down to him.
“Go back to your tavern and drink well. A wise man would forget he saw me here.”
Sevryn stared dumbfounded at the coin, burnished gold, trying to catch sight of his benefactor from the corner of his eye. Tall, eyes of hazel, hair of flowing sable, Vaelinar height and slender, almost out of his vision entirely. But not quite.
Sevryn’s hand shot out to clutch the gold greedily and he mumbled something about food and drink and wenching.
The hand on his neck relaxed, and with barely another sound, the man behind him scaled the wall up to the fourth-floor roof with an uncanny grace and a few well-placed hooks to aid him.
Sevryn waited for the sound of shifting roof tiles before he moved.
“A wiser man would have known better than to leave me behind him.” Or to have tried to use suggestion on him, akin to but far clumsier than his own Voice. With an ironic twist to his mouth, Sevryn pocketed the half crown, striding into the courtyard where only a guard stayed by the front steps, and all appeared very quiet as even the carriage horses seemed to doze in the late afternoon sun. A moment touched him, and he knew beyond a doubt his future changed here, a moment he had not felt so keenly since that day he had shaken hands with Gilgarran. His vision darkened, then quickened, and lightning jolted through him, that swiftly, that intensely, that shivery and blinding, then gone. He hadn’t felt it in decades, and had thought it burned out of him, hammered out of him, by those lost years. His hand clenched reflexively.
What should he do here? No hint of that, only that what he would do, ultimately, would change his life forever. No going back, whatever decision he made. Sevryn inhaled.
Gaining the courtyard, he spread his feet and planted himself. He pitched his voice and called with all of his Talent, carrying through wall and roof and stone and wood, aiming it like an arrow for its target, knowing that Vaelinarran ears would not fail to hear him. Not queen or arms-man or assassin, though he could not help that. “Jedael, Lariel. Navakke renti!” Take care, Lariel. The enemy hunts.
He drew his blade, jug in his left hand as a clumsy shield, and waited for the effect of his cry.
Shouts erupted upstairs. Windows flew open, whistles pierced the afternoon. He could hear the crash of chairs and the clash of steel, one scream of pain, more yells and crashes. Then the assassin appeared on a second-story balcony and leaped, sword ready, with only Sevryn between him and freedom. His clothes of shadowsilk flowed about him as he landed, gathered himself, and lunged at Sevryn, eyes narrowed. No war lance could have hit him more surely.
Sevryn countered, but the other moved in with catlike quickness. He had the weight to put behind his hits, and drove the assassin back on his heels once. Shadowsilk rippled. The swordsman would have skewered him then, as Sevryn drove in, but the clay pot took the blow, shattering on his hand and protecting his rib cage. They exchanged another blow and parry before the front doors burst open, blades catching upon each other, ringing. The assassin gave Sevryn a look, stepped back, saluted him, and turned to sprint down the alley. Sevryn dropped his guard.
A poor move. The assassin turned in the middle of the alley, steel shining in his hand, and the thrown dagger hit home hard, punching Sevryn in the ribs and spinning him around and off his feet. He doubled over, curling down onto the street, his hand filling with blood as he clutched himself.
Guards engulfed him. He pointed down the alley, and boots thundered off. Two remained behind. He looked up to see Lariel, her hair in disarray, a bloodied sword in hand, and her brother with her as he knelt by Sevryn, unclenching Sevryn’s fingers to move his hand away from the dagger carefully, then nodding to Lariel. “He’ll be fine.”
He did not feel it. Blurriness edged his vision of her.
“Was it you who spoke?” She looked down on them, both imperious and concerned.
“Aye, my queen.”
She frowned, eyeing him. “Keep the dagger. Not many can say they met a Kobrir hand to hand and lived to tell about it.”
Sevryn blinked. He looked down at the dagger in his side, point scraping painfully against a rib bone, as blood welled out, and saw the intricate K worked into the hilt. Legendary assassin, for whom the Accords had no significance or honor. He killed without discrimination or hesitation, and few lived to say they had been a target! “I . . . thank you.” He felt a little faint, the sight of his own blood had always bothered him, and his thoughts spun a little.
“Get him up, Jeredon, and bring him back to the inn. I want to know how this street rat learned good Vaelinar. And how he managed to shout it up to us.” She brushed her hand over his forehead, lifting off the old hat of disguise and pushing away a shock of hair, to see his eyes. She traced a fingertip about one high-tipped ear before stepping back to let Jeredon at him. Her face puzzled, she let her brother lift him up, both grunting, one with his added weight and blood seeping out his own leg wound, and he with the dagger twisting in his rib muscles. Jeredon put his shoulder under his arm, hoisting him, and walked him toward the waiting carriage. She hesitated as the mayor and his guard thundered out of the hall.
“You’ll come with us, or we’ll leave you to the mayor’s kind ministrations.”
An invitation. Was it? His thoughts muddled a bit, and he concentrated. Jeredon stood at the carriage, waiting. She stood next to her brother, waiting as well.
“I’ll come with you.” He knew the moment. It had already come and gone, and he’d already cast his fortune with it.
Jeredon boosted him i
nto the carriage.
A step at a time, Sevryn moved into his future.
He only wished it was not with excruciating pain.
Chapter Seven
723 AE, Yellow Moon Month
“BOYS ARE STUPID, made of rotten wood,” Nutmeg chanted softly to herself as she sat on the grassy bank, picking and braiding willow grass with its tiny snowdrop flowers as fast as she could, deliberately ignoring her brother who knelt at the river’s edge to drink his fill of storm-cold water.
“Now, now, little bit,” Garner Farbranch addressed his sister. “Rotten wood? That’s a bit rough, don’t you think?” He gestured at their orchards framing the land as far as they could see on either side of the river, boughs heavy with apples and nuts, the wind still lashing them to and fro with the sound of a frantic sea.
She twisted away so she wouldn’t have to look at him, hands flashing with a nimble ease and quickness, her bow of a mouth curved in an intense study as she wove herself a willow-grass doll, amber curls tumbling heedlessly about her face, the sun bringing a blush to her cheeks and bits of cinnamon color to her warm brown eyes. She wore patched overalls, but a frilly blouse left no doubt as to her small but ultimate feminity.
He splashed a touch of brook water at her.
Her lips pouted. “Go ’way!” She moved her grass doll through the air. “Boys are squirmy ’cause they’re all wormy!”
Garner hid a laugh behind a cough as he settled back on his heels to watch her. “All this because we won’t let you climb the ladders?”
She flung an accusatory look at him. “I can do it! I can climb faster than any of you!”
“Without a doubt,” Garner avowed firmly. “Faster than me, Hosmer, or Keldan. But Da doesn’t know that, and he and Mom would skin us alive if they knew we were letting you climb. So you can’t, understand? The wind is still up, and the ladders are twitchy and it’s dangerous out there, so we can’t let you shinny up. The branches would throw you across the orchard.”
Nutmeg tossed her head. She danced her doll around in the air, claiming, “Boys are stinky ’cause . . . ’cause . . .” her childish voice faltered.
“Boys are smelly ’cause they’re covered in swamp jelly,” Garner teased back gently.
“Yeah!” Nutmeg crossed her arms. “I can help. I know I can.”
He scooted over next to her, the youngest of them all, and the only girl, and put his arm around her. She was half his size—one of his best memories was the day she’d been born and had wrapped her tiny fist tightly about his finger.
Nutmeg sighed at her brother. He smelled of apples and leaves and the last of the storm wind, and she leaned into him.
“Sweetling, there’s plenty of time for you to climb ladders. Really.”
“But that’s tomorrow, and today is now. It’s not fair. I can’t have a sister and now I can’t go climbing.” She wrapped her arms about herself tightly.
“And we’re all sorry about all of that. Listen, Mom’s going to need you tonight, when we’re all tired and dirty and the cider presses are going, and she’s in the kitchen ’cause we’ll be starving. You know that, don’t you?”
“But that . . . that . . . that’s work.”
Garner smiled wryly. “So is ladder climbing and harvesting if you do it enough. Trust me.” He hugged her again, and stood. “And I’d better get back, or Da will have a switch waiting for me, and we don’t want that!”
“Maybe you don’t,” Nutmeg pouted, “but I don’t care!” He tweaked her nose. “Course you do! I’m your favorite!” He dropped some apples for her to snack on and he sprinted off, the big canvas bag hanging from his shoulder flopping about his legs as he ran before she could pelt him in the back with her wicked aim.
“Favorite shmavorite!” she managed to yell after him. His wind-caught laugh came back to her, and Nutmeg smiled then, giggling at herself.
She sat back down with her willow-grass doll. “Sisters,” she told the doll, “would be as nice as brothers. Some day.”
Nutmeg lay back on the grass and watched the clouds till she yawned and decided a nap might be good. Her stomach growled faintly. First, an apple. Then a nap. She picked up the best-looking one, buffed it on her sleeve, and bit into it, abuses of power forgotten.
Tolby Farbranch emptied a canvas bag into the wagon bed, apples rolling about with a gentle thunder. “How is she doing, then?”
“Oh, she’s bored. She wants to grow up.”
Keldan, of the flashing blue eyes and jet-black hair, darted past his older brother. Hosmer had gray-gold hair, and Garner gray-brown hair like their dad’s brindled salt-and-pepper hair. Their mother sat on the wagon’s seat, watching them all with a smile. Keldan liked to tell them that he inherited all the hair worth anything in the Farbranch family though exactly where he’d inherited it from was something of a mystery. Lily had soft brunette hair that held some of the glimmer of her daughter’s amber hair, and, though pale, she rode the board seat firmly. She held bone needles in her hands, placidly knitting a scarf that flowed across her lap in the colors of the autumn sea.
“I don’t like her being by the flood banks,” Garner said, in the august if changing voice of the nearly grown. “The Silverwing can be treacherous.”
“She’ll be safe there,” Lily remarked. “She can swim even better than she can climb, and she can climb a caution.”
Garner and Hosmer had ducked their heads to gather up empty bags and make their way back into the orchard, but their mother’s voice rooted them to the ground and they traded looks.
“True,” their father grunted, giving his wife a peck on the cheek as he climbed out of the wagon and swung to the ground. He looked at his unmoving sons. “What? Do you think a father doesn’t know what his children are up to? Besides, Nutmeg was the youngest of all of you t’ climb out of her cradle. I doubt she stopped, eh?”
“Well, then . . . why don’t you let her harvest with us? We could use the extra hands.”
“Because she’d scare me out of a year’s growth, throwing herself up the rungs and over the treetops, and I need my height, such as it is, to stand up to those Kernan traders looking down their snooty noses at me,” Tolby declared.
“I do believe,” Lily said quietly, “they have far more to fear from you, my dear.”
Tolby looked up at his wife, and then cracked an ear-to-ear grin. “I’d hoped they’d forgotten!” he shouted, and reached up to slap her on the knee. Lily’s voice rang out in soft laughter, the first they’d heard from her in weeks, and it made all the boys jump with a laugh of their own.
Word was, Tolby had once had quite a temper, and it had been suggested that the Dweller would be better off out of the city and in the countryside, where he could knock heads with logs as thick as his rather than with his fellow citizens. His sons didn’t know the truth of that, one way or the other, only that their father commanded a rough respect whenever they went to any of the towns. He was known for his honesty, hard work, and good products, whether it be fresh or dried apples or cider or, rarely, hard cider. Still, he held a flash in his eyes and his sons traded looks again, as they took up their harvesting bags. Short though Dwellers were in the scheme of things, often up to another’s elbow or shoulder at best, their da could hold his own with any man. They had no doubt of that.
“I had a switch around here for slower pickers,” Tolby commented, looking about, and the boys scattered like leaves on the wind, with peals of laughter. He took the last two bags for himself, and lingered by his wife’s shoe. He curled his hand about her shod foot, and Lily smiled down at him. “How are you feeling?”
“I mend. I am doing well,” she answered. “Poor Nutmeg hurts worse than I do, and she can’t begin to understand.” She brushed a wisp of gray-and-brown hair from his creased forehead. “No more children for us, Master Farbranch. At least, not for a while, and not without the help of the Gods.”
He squeezed her shoe. “Should I complain? Three sturdy sons and a beautiful daughter? Lily, y
ou’ve given me all I could ever have dreamed, and more.” He blew a kiss up to her. “Now it’s back to work for me, or those three will decide to see if they’re big enough to threaten me with a switch for slacking off.” He chuckled and sauntered off, whistling, slinging a bag over each shoulder. Lily’s smile stayed on her face as she watched him go, and the sadness did not return to her expression for a very long while.
At midday, Hosmer trotted down to the small glen to check on Nutmeg, to find her curled up with one hand under her apple-kissed cheek, sound asleep. He reported his findings to his mother before returning to the harvesting where the wind threatened to do half their work for them, bruising tender fruits as it dashed them to the ground. The sound of the wind-driven sea rose in their ears till Keldan’s sharp, easily diverted attention caught the shrieks.
He threw himself off the ladder. “Mom, Da, it’s Nutmeg!” He pelted through the orchards toward the noise.
Ladders toppled as the Farbranch men bailed on their tasks, gaining ground on the youngest and passing him, Hosmer and Garner narrowly beating Tolby. Lily jumped down and managed a stilted run to catch Keldan by the shoulder. Without protest, he braced himself under her arm as a living crutch and they hurried after.
Nutmeg’s shrieks came excitedly, as she staggered toward them from the river, holding in her arms an oddly shaped bundle as tall as she was, and staggering from its weight. “She’s mine, she’s mine!” cried Nutmeg. “I found a sister and she’s mine!”