by Jenna Rhodes
They found a pickle barrel, still lidded up with its contents in brine, and a crate full of jugged cider, and little else in the upper cellar. The lower cellar had to be crawled into, only half-open to the day. Nutmeg burrowed in like a squirrel, but Rivergrace took long moments before following, her face as pale as the moon. Tolby pushed his stick down to them as the cellar had partially caved in and it held no room for anyone else. The alna soared above, darting back and forth, finding a current in the rising hot air and riding it leisurely.
Nutmeg pushed out a crackled leather pouch with a grunt. “What’s this, Da?”
“Likely that’s your mother’s stash.” He reached down to hand both of them out.
Sevryn took a clean corner of his shirt and wiped a swath of dirt off Rivergrace’s nose as Tolby hefted the pouch onto a stump of what used to be a front porch pillar. He unwound the rawhide string fastening it and opened the widemouthed container.
“There, Grace. See what’s in it.”
She scrubbed her palms on her pants legs again, although none of her was too clean at the moment, before reaching hesitantly in. Then she drew out an oilskin- wrapped parcel and began to peel away its layers as Nutmeg chanted, “What do you see, what do you see?”
“Nothing yet.” Her voice, muted. Her breathing barely coursing through her slender form. Sevryn stood at her elbow, unable to do anything more than offer his presence. Then the last layer shifted aside at her touch, and she drew forth a shimmering yet begrimed remnant of fabric into the light. A scarf, a blanket, knotted at one end still, soft chestnut hairs entangled in it as it dangled from her fingers. It had the look of a scrap that someone hand wove and knotted to extend it, and in that weaving, thread danced in runes and symbols, and he could read the Vaelinar in it. He caught her hand before she weakened.
“I don’t know this. How can I not know it? Tell me what it says.” Her eyes beseeched him.
He took a breath to answer her when the silence shattered. The alna sprang into the air with a sharp cry, wings bating in a frantic need to gain height. The goat sprang sideways across the yard with a frightened bleat, and echoing it, calls hooted down from the hillsides.
Sevryn grabbed up Rivergrace and threw her atop Black Ribbon. “Get to horse!”
Tolby and Nutmeg ran. He whistled sharply for Aymaran, and mounted with a running leap from the broken, burned planks of the front porch, pulling his bow free and grabbing for arrows. Better with knives and swords, he’d rather keep the attackers from ever getting to melee to test his skill, and nocked his arrow rapidly.
They poured out of the groves at the foot of the hillside, Bolgers riding with brigands, whooping as they charged. Sevryn aimed at the lead pony, bringing it down in a tumble of falling horseflesh and Bolger, even as he nocked a second arrow. Tolby gathered up the girls behind him. He wrapped a slingshot about his wrist, aiming with uncanny accuracy, sending stones stinging into their midst.
From behind, a hoarse Bolger cry made Sevryn wheel about. He raised his bow to draw down, but the Bolger circled him, whipping his shaggy mount on a dead run toward the attackers. Confused, Sevryn held his shot. Had they been encircled or not?
Tolby dipped his hand into what had been an empty toback sack and now seemed filled with sharp river stones, and let fire with a wrist sling. He winked at Sevryn before reloading the sling, as Sevryn took aim again and let his arrow fly, choosing a bandit as target. The man slipped his saddle with a guttural cry, crashing to the ground.
An apple tree branch whipped another horseless, as the very orchard seemed to join the battle, hindering those plunging through it. But it was the Bolger who’d come out of nowhere who swung the blow that broke their cowardly backs, taking down a huge, hulking fellow in the lead. The two of them clashed, the one with sword in hand, the other brandishing a knife and staff, their ponies wheeling about each other. The sworded Bolger parried blows, then drove his sword in low and deep, and the hulking brute collapsed with a cursing scream, somersaulting backward off his pony.
At his fall, the remaining attackers scattered, wheeling about and retreating the way they’d come, sharp whistles drawing the slackers with them.
The Bolger who’d struck the blow trotted his pony down to them and stopped a good pace away as Sevryn lowered his bow cautiously.
He gestured with his sword, and bowed toward Rivergrace.
“Rufus,” he said. He wiped his blade clean, and then gestured toward the back trail, and to Sevryn. “I follow.”
“Why?”
The leathery Bolger sheathed his weapon. Nearing the end of his prime, old and weathered, he eyed Sevryn and nodded to Rivergrace. “Keep safe.” He thumped his chest. “You remember?”
Sevryn stared at him, and then, slowly, shook his head. “You will.” With that, he kicked his pony and rode back downriver, and out of sight.
Rivergrace sat with her hands knotted tightly about her prize, struck wordless. Sevryn rode back to the stump, leaned out of his saddle to snatch up the leather bag and stow it inside his shirt. “We can’t stay.”
“We’ll camp downriver beyond the Barrel steading. I know a sheltered spot.” Tolby grabbed at the goat’s head-stall, catching Daisy by surprise, and led the way past them.
Sevryn paused as they moved out, looking back toward the Burning Mountains. He knew them. Knew their harsh, unyielding ridges, mountains that severed that part of the country with three ranges. The Bolger who named himself Rufus stirred his mind. He’d worn a smithy’s rough, scarred leather vest, and he had burn scars up and down his forearms, and the weapon he wielded had been crudely if effectively made. Sevryn had looked upon him with a faint jolt of recognition, without knowing how or why, yet not enough to admit to it. Another forge slave, gone free, and plying his trade among the towns. What interest would such a being have in Rivergrace?
If he followed the Silverwing back to the granite that birthed it, would he find the mystery from which she’d sprung?
The Burning Mountains had taken Gilgarran to his death. He remembered not the how of it, but only that it had happened. If he dared follow the Silverwing, would he find himself as well? It was not his choice to be made. A queen awaited them.
Chapter Sixty-One
LARIEL RAN HER HANDS over the fragment in her lap, saying, “Don’t blame Sevryn for not being able to read this. I can’t either.”
“Nothing?”
The queen stroked each thread, each knot, before looking up to meet Rivergrace’s eyes. “I would almost say that this is a remnant from the before times, except that it cannot be. What we have from then is closeted, kept very close, and protected. It’s a runic message, rather than our written language, and much of this is couched in expressions we’ve lost, when we lost our Gods and those who served our Gods for us.”
“I will never know, then.”
“Not true. There’s someone I think who would like to look at it, if he’s well enough.” Lariel nodded to Jeredon and her brother jumped to his feet.
“I’ll see if he’s up to visitors. Come over if I don’t return.”
Rivergrace stood alone in Lariel’s chambers, shadowed only by Sevryn, her Dweller family returned to their new home and catching up with days of hard work put aside. Lariel considered her carefully, the new sprinkling of freckles over her translucent skin, and bluish circles beneath her Vaelinar eyes that spoke of strain, before turning her attention to Sevryn.
“Now. The news you hold for me?”
“The countryside near the Farbranch holding showed a lot of raider activity. We found a number of places burned out or abandoned along the way, even stouthearted families that Tolby swore would have stayed until driven into the ground. The provinces are going to have to send guards there or lose the bounty, the farms, from these outlying areas.”
“By whose hand?”
“Bolger and Raver, and occasionally local bandits.” He paused, choosing his words. “I came across a Raver carcass.”
“Rare, even when we can k
ill them.”
“They are not human, m’lady Highness. I would judge them to be most like an insect, carapaced, so therefore self-armored, pincer blades for hands.” He took the piece out and placed it on the nearby table where it lay like a deadly shard, its ebony color bleached by death and sun.
“I’ve heard rumor of such. Anything else?”
“If they are insects, you have to consider the fact they may lay eggs in numbers and those eggs may hatch randomly or they may hatch in waves, and if they do . . . we could be facing an inundation of warriors the likes of which we’ve never really faced. They will devour anything in their path.”
Lariel’s mouth tightened. “That, I haven’t heard considered.” She brushed her hand over her face with a faint curse. “Of course. Waves. Sequential hatching. How could we have been so blind? Yes, that could explain much, brought over by the Raymy and left behind to seed our lands. Once ravaged, we’d be at the mercy of the Raymy, and we know there’s no such strain in them. This needs to be discussed, but I thank you, Sevryn, for confirming what a few of us have feared but obviously not feared enough.” She folded the scrap in her lap and pressed it into Rivergrace’s hands, closed the other’s trembling fingers over it. “One thing at a time. Let’s go see what Azel d’Stanthe can make of this.”
Two healers stood outside the isolated room, talking quietly, their hands weaving the air in animated discussion, which they slowed only enough to wave them inside. The woman murmured, “Not too long, he’s not as strong as he thinks he is.”
Even so, he sat up in bed, propped by pillows not only at his head but under his shoulders and arms, in conversation with Jeredon when they entered. Sevryn blurted, “You didn’t tell me this!”
“Oh, we only decided he was going to survive when he started complaining night and day.”
Sevryn clasped Azel’s hands tightly in his before stepping back. The librarian gave his attention to Lariel slowly. “Forgive me, Lariel, for not standing for you.”
“Old bear.” Lariel sat on the corner of the bed, as she had for many days, and put her hand on his ankle. “When you get out of here, the first thing I’ll fear is you chasing me about the courtyard!”
His eyes twinkled. “Perhaps, but I’m just a historian. What would I do if I caught you?”
“I’ll give you time to research it, first.”
He laughed, which disintegrated into a deep cough, but that, too, evaporated. Jeredon passed him a mug from the tray nearby to wet his throat. He drank before saying, “I hear you have something for me. The poison gone, I’m now dying of boredom.”
“Rivergrace has something for you, then. May I present m’lady, who has our blood in her and has been raised by the Dweller Farbranch family.” Lariel gestured at Rivergrace who hung back at the closed door of the sickroom, as if she might bolt back across the threshold any moment.
“Come close,” Azel said to her. “I don’t bite.”
She made a slight, fluttering movement like a startled bird, then caught her breath to say, “I don’t know. You look hungry to me.”
“Hear that?” He looked to Lariel and Sevryn, then back to Grace. “I envy you your upbringing, milady. No one has a sense for good food and good humor like a Dweller does.” He patted a space on the bed near his hip, his gesture weak but determined. “Sit here and show me what it is you’re carrying about.”
She started to press it into his hands, but he demurred, saying, “Spread it across my lap. My hands still shake too much to hold it still, but the bed seems quiet enough.” She smoothed it as he instructed, the small piece of blanket seeming even smaller across his large frame.
Jeredon stood watch at the window as the others gathered close. Azel studied it seemingly for eternity, his concentration broken only by an occasional wheeze from his chest. Finally, it seemed he drew a breath deep enough to speak.
“This,” he told them, “is why you have historians.”
Sevryn jerked his head impatiently. “Jeredon, shall I throttle him or will you?”
“Either will do. I think we can even get a commission from the healers outside. I hear he’s become an extremely irascible patient.” Jeredon leaned his hip against the windowsill, dislodging a flake of paint.
Azel’s chuckle rumbled in his throat, and he tapped a finger on the relic. “I doubt anyone has seen anything like this in centuries.”
“But what is it?”
“It is a Summoning, m’lady Lariel. It’s been rewoven from a wedding shroud, delineating the Talents of the two partners. This one,” and he outlined a rune at the corner which flared a little as he touched it, “signs Fire. This, Water with Sky . . . that would likely mean an affinity with weather,” he added.
“Do we know who?”
He shook his head. “The names are part of what has been torn or ravaged away.”
Rivergrace felt her chest tighten. A mother, a father, found only to be lost again, torn away by the erosion of time. “Any . . . anything else?”
Sevryn moved to put his hand on her shoulder.
“You mentioned a Summoning,” Lariel reminded him. “What is meant by that?”
“There is an enchantment threaded throughout this piece. Their Talents have been given up, their birthrights, to protect against further enslavement and the loss of their souls, to be poured into a Vessel, Summoned to hold that part of themselves. You’ve brought me history sprung to life, a working, a Way few would even think of creating. I’ve read a theological discussion on this once or twice but never seen it attempted before.”
“Azel.”
“Hmmm? Oh.” He looked up at Lariel. “Whatever wore or carried this may not actually exist but only be the Vessel which was Summoned, if you understand me. You found it where?”
“On me,” Rivergrace said faintly. “I wore it.”
Chapter Sixty-Two
SHE RAN FROM HIM. From all of them, but from him first, shaking off his hand and staggering across the room to fling the doors open. He bolted after her, but the two healers closed on him, thinking Azel had collapsed. By the time he disentangled himself, she’d disappeared and he’d no hope of catching her.
He found her where he thought he might, at the Farbranch brewery and press, the yard filled with wagons carrying kegs and barrels of drink out on contracts, and the Farbranches with rosy faces and sweat staining them pointed wordlessly to their inner yard. Nutmeg trailed him for a step or two, and told him, “She found that and opened it, and made sure the water was sweet. You’ll always find her near water.”
Dwellers, thought Sevryn as he outpaced her and she went back to Tolby at his call. Signs of Grace’s Talent all about them, and they had no inkling of it, for what Dweller didn’t have a feel for growing and nourishing things? They had never thought it odd or gifted in her. He paused in the wide, dusty inner yard of the brewery. A small garden took up a quarter of the area near an open shed barn, and Rivergrace perched near it. She sat on the edge of a well, one foot dangling over it, head bowed.
He dropped beside her. “Don’t send me away.”
She spoke looking downward, her voice echoing faintly against the water pooled below. “I have to. I’m nothing. I thought I’d find a mother, a father, instead I find . . . what . . . creators? I’m a shell existing only to be emptied someday. There is nothing to offer you, Sevryn.”
“I won’t let you believe that.” He started to hold her hand, but she moved away, rejecting his touch. “I won’t tell you how many, but I’ve kissed enough women that I know when I kissed someone real, someone living, someone who kissed me back as sweetly and truly as I’ve ever been kissed.”
“Still water is a mirror,” she answered. “Only that and nothing more.”
“What you’ve been given is a beginning. You’re Vaelinar, that bit of weaving tells you that, a Vaelinar with a strong affinity for water. You knew that, deep down, even if no one around you recognized it. We’ll build on that.”
“We?” She tilted her face toward him.
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“We,” he told her firmly.
“How?”
“If I have my way, we’ll go back up the Silverwing, as far into the mountains as we can to see where your journey started.”
“You serve the queen, and she needs you.”
“You need me more.”
She waved her hand helplessly. “What if I return, to the beginning, and . . . and all it does is unmake me. What if what I face is being emptied of all I am?”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“Can you fight Gods, Sevryn?”
“Sometimes I think that is all I’ve spent my lifetime doing.” He brushed his mouth against her cheek. “I’ll find a way for Lariel to let me go.”
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Come, lass! Were you raised by Tolby and Lily Farbranch or not? There’s no lack of spine in your family!”
“No,” she murmured, “there isn’t. Just remember, that vessels don’t always choose what they carry, and they often shatter.”
He left her in reverie by the well.
Daravan cloaked himself as he always did upon the roads, and when the sentries stopped him at the camp, they knew him but not as himself. He spat upon the ground. “Take me to Quendius.”
The younger one, still round of face, Kernan, told him, “Disarm yourself,” and his partner, lean, wiry, missing an ear and scarred, grunted a laugh.
“Try it,” Daravan answered. He balanced his weight alertly on the balls of his feet. The veteran poked an elbow into the youth’s rib. “This one allus carries.”
“We were told—”
“The smith knows this one.”
The young one shifted uneasily, then gave over to the other’s authority. “You take him in, then.”
“That I’ll do. I’ll bring back a pail of beer for us as well.”
Daravan moved between them in the direction of the canopied, double tent he knew Quendius favored in the field, not waiting for his escort or the quarrel between them to be settled. He had word he wished to deliver, and wished weigh the effect. He brushed past the curtain netting at the doorway, with the wizened sentry at his back calling out, “Halt!” as he entered. The man stumbled in at his heels.