Jet caught my eye, and with a subtle shake of his head, tried to caution me. I pretended I couldn’t see him in the dimness.
“Your people are going to start dying unless you surrender,” the Yiltak guard said.
I wished I knew where the city guard stood. Hoping for a clue, I glanced at the men and women near the front of their group. Unfortunately, I couldn’t discern anything besides a readiness to fight.
Beneath me, the boy with the injured leg whimpered. Most of the unarmed gutterborn had retreated, and those who could still stand watched from the alleys. Surveying Jet’s forces, I estimated about twenty men and women had come with him. During our last meeting, he’d informed me that he’d recruited and armed over two hundred. But we had a long border with the barracks to defend. After the problems with the mercenaries today, Jet would have left most of his fighters to defend the lower edge of our district. They probably had no idea what was happening in fountain square. Was there any way I could get a signal to them? Could they arrive in time to change the odds here?
And why was I considering letting this fight go on? Hadn’t I just told the gutterborn that we would only fight if given no other options?
“So if I surrender, you’ll let everyone go home?” I asked, playing for time while I thought.
“Don’t do it,” one of Jet’s men called. Jet silenced him with a sharp gesture. Meanwhile, I strained my ears for the sound of someone—anyone—coming to our aid.
“Depends on how quickly you make up your mind,” the Yiltak man called. “And how sincere your apology is.”
I glanced down at the cobbles, wondering how to get down from my perch. I really didn’t want to turn my back on the House guards.
The leader of the Yiltak men slapped the flat of his sword against a hardened leather bracer covering his forearm. “I’m giving you another minute. After that, people start—”
A shriek echoed off the buildings surrounding the square, cutting the man short. Down on the cobbles, guardsmen and wardens all spun, seeking the source of the noise. Eyes glinting in the dimness, I caught sudden motion as Nan’s leatherworker burst from the edge of the square, a disorganized mass of commoners following. Raising fire pokers and hatchets used for splitting kindling, leather punches and kitchen knives, they fell on the House guards.
Finally, the city guard acted, shoving into the flank of the Majkut House force.
As chaos gripped the square, I sagged back against the fountain’s pillar. I’d been moments from surrender, having decided it would be better than letting my people face these odds.
My gaze locked with the injured boy’s. The fountain’s pool was dark around his body, stained by his lifeblood.
What if he died tonight? It would be my fault. My choice.
Tyrak, this can’t happen now. Even if we win, it won’t be a victory.
I know, Lilik.
I can’t stop it.
You can.
How?
Jump, he said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“WHAT?” I SAID aloud, eying the square.
Jump, Lilik! Tyrak said, his voice urgent.
I stared at the fighting below. The drop from the fountain was at least the height of two men. If I leaped, I’d likely break something.
I can’t!
With a whoosh, Tyrak entered my mind. He filled my thoughts with the surety that I could leap and live.
Open yourself, he commanded in a tone I’d never heard. Jump.
Without thinking, I opened myself to the world of the nightstrands, bunched my legs, and leaped from the fountain.
The air around me warmed, buoying me as if I’d slid into a bath of hot water. On instinct, I went limp. As I fell toward the crowd, I felt a tugging at my scars. At first a sting, then a slicing burn, and moments later a searing pain like my nerves were being torn from my skin.
From the knobs on my spine, the scars crisscrossing my arms and palms, a force held me aloft, arms spread. Floating above the crowd, I spun slowly. It was both agony and ecstasy.
Beneath me, mouths opened. Eyes went wide, glinting in the night air. The House guards retreated, stumbling into one another. After a few heartbeats more, I lowered to the ground, alighting in a cleared area of cobblestones.
The pain ceased and Tyrak withdrew. My knees buckled and I fell to a crouch. Quickly, the crowd surged forward. Someone dropped a cloak over me, while others helped me to my feet.
“Everyone!” I yelled. “Leave! This! Place!”
The House guards scattered, vanishing into the dark of the slums. I had no doubt they’d regroup. I could only hope the gutterborn would be gone by then.
“This is not the time!” I called as Jet’s fighters surrounded me, shielding me from any potential attacks. “Go to your homes. Don’t give them the excuse.”
Moving in tight formation, the gutterborn wardens escorted me from the square. In their midst, I stumbled, exhausted from my . . . from whatever that was.
What happened, Tyrak? I don’t understand.
The spirits within Istanik are lost. Confused. But you are a channeler. If enough of them touch you, they can move you.
You spoke to them?
I have no way to contact them. They felt your need and they answered. My guess is they had little understanding why they came or what they did. It was instinct.
My escorts had guided me into a narrow alley. At the head of our group, a wide-shouldered man pushed aside a throng of onlookers.
“You heard the Councilor. Back to your homes,” he growled.
From behind, I heard a few shouts as at least a handful of House guards rallied. Moments later, my defenders turned, ready to fend off any attempts at my capture.
Before they could stop me, I cut to the side and ran. These people had done enough. I wouldn’t let them stand against House guardsmen.
“Jet,” I yelled once I was out of reach, “get them out of here. Melt away and fight another time.” Before I turned a corner, I saw him nod. Already, the wardens farthest from the guardsmen had started to break off, fleeing into the dark.
Alleys wound through the slums, a warren of tunnels through the night. When I spotted the glow from a light-bearer’s pole, I turned aside. Fortunately, years of egg deliveries meant I knew the district like I knew my father’s face. My roundabout route took three times what a direct path would have, but I arrived home safely.
Mother threw open the door when she heard my feet on the landing.
“Lilik,” she hissed. “Hurry.”
She snatched my elbow, tugging me inside. The glare of the lanterns blinded me, and I blinked against the light.
“I’m fine, Mum,” I said, pulling my arm away.
“Lilik. Thank the tides!”
I whirled at the sound of Captain Altak’s voice.
“You’re back!” I cried. “How did you find me?”
As my eyes adjusted, unease settled over me. The captain’s face was drawn, deep lines etched alongside his mouth.
“Your location isn’t a big secret amongst the gutterborn, Lilik. You ought to move more often. And yes, unfortunately, I’m back. Zyri’s Promise is in a small anchorage half a day’s ride along the coast. Lilik, there’s a problem.”
“What? What is it?”
“It’s Nyralit. We put in at Tuuk for resupply and to recruit reinforcements against the Ulstats. Unfortunately, Mieshk’s family had been there first. Our shore party was attacked. Gaff is hurt, a sword to the belly—he’ll live, I think. We thought we were dead until the raiders grabbed Nyralit. They ran off with her and left us bleeding. I had to decide between going after them—and taking more casualties—or getting Gaff back to a healer.”
While he spoke, Captain Altak’s hands trembled. I could only imagine how he felt, after being forced to abandon his beloved.
“But why?” I asked.
“We heard rumors, but I suspect you can figure it out without me telling you.”
“Ioene,” I said. “Mieshk
and Avilet are the only nightcallers remaining on the island. If the Ulstats want to build a full coven, they’ll need more. And Nyralit could train them.”
“That’s my suspicion as well. But there’s another implication—we’ve been distracted by the Ulstat presence here, and haven’t even thought about Ioene. If they get there before us, they’ll only strengthen Mieshk’s hold.”
“Why do they think Nyralit would help them?”
He shrugged. “Why do the Ulstats do anything?”
“If we got ships around their blockade here, could we stop them at Ioene? Do they have the strength to fight in both places?”
The captain planted his boots shoulder-width before his chair and leaned his elbows onto his knees. “Doesn’t really matter. All they need is one ship carrying nightcallers. It’s not soldiers that give her strength. It’s nightstrands.”
Rot. He was right.
“We have much to figure out,” the captain said. “But I did have a spot of good news for you.”
“Oh?” I wasn’t particularly convinced. Having just gained enough leverage that a return to Ioene seemed possible within the next few weeks, now it seemed I needed to solve the problem within days if I wanted any hope of beating the Ulstats to the island.
Captain Altak rotated and kicked the leg of the cot I’d been sleeping in. From underneath, a messy head of hair appeared, followed by narrow shoulders. When the boy looked up, he gave a wide grin.
“Geren!” I said. I whirled on the captain. “Where did you find him?”
“Skink here was living it up on the north shore of Orteshk Island. Apparently, after we set him free from the Evaeni, he landed in a small colony of shepherds and was quite persuasive when they sent a shipment of wool south to the Outer Isles. He’d been wandering from place to place using that grin of his to work his way back toward Istanik.”
Geren had squirmed the rest of the way from beneath the bed—collecting not a small measure of dust in the process—and sat on his heels grinning. “My mum was furious, but then I told her I knew Nightcaller Boket.”
I ruffled the boy’s hair. Yes, the news was nearly good enough to lift my despair over Nyralit’s abduction. Geren had stowed away on the Evaeni, and the Nocturnai leadership had had no choice but to sentence him to execution. The night before his death, the boy had been freed. Unbeknownst to me, that had been the leaders’ plan all along. After giving him a rowboat and directions to the nearest island, they’d left him behind. I’d hoped but never quite believed that he’d make it to land alive.
“Well, tell your mother that Nightcaller Boket thinks you should help with extra chores for the next ten years to make up for worrying her so badly.”
In response, Geren stuck his tongue out at me.
“I’m off to rest, Lilik,” Captain Altak said. “Let’s meet tomorrow. And try to do better staying out of sight.”
With that, he rose heavily from his chair and stomped to the door. Nyralit’s disappearance weighed on him, that much was obvious.
“We’ll get her back, Captain,” I said as he slipped outside, Geren on his heels.
The big man simply shrugged. “I hope you’re right, Lilik.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
IN THE MORNING, Mother and I organized our things in preparation to move. It seemed like we’d just arrived here, but I trusted Captain Altak’s advice. I needed to be hard to find if I wanted to stay out of the Council’s hands.
“That dagger of yours . . .” Mother said.
“Yes?”
“It’s nightforged.”
“Captain Altak gave it to me.”
She cocked her head. “Sometimes I have the sense that you’re speaking to it. I feel like if I could just concentrate hard enough, I could hear what you’re saying. Maybe even talk to it, too.”
I blushed, instantly embarrassed at the idea of my mother listening in on me and Tyrak. I didn’t respond right away. What would Tyrak want me to say? Would it bother him to have the whole history with me and Zyri out in the open?
You should tell her, he said.
Are you sure you can’t hear all my thoughts?
“There!” Mother said. “I just felt it again. You’re talking to it.”
“I can—I mean, I am. It’s because I have an . . . affinity for it.”
She folded a blouse, hand-embroidered and decorated with shells from an Outer Isles beach, and set it into her small trunk. “What does that mean?”
“Well . . . the Vanished had a practice of allowing spirits who were tempted by the fire to bond with a family heirloom. Descendants and anyone close to the person when they were alive could sense the vitality, even if they couldn’t speak directly to the soul within the object.”
“But you can. Are you a descendant of whoever’s—” She gestured at the dagger. “—in there?”
I shook my head. This was hard to describe. “When I was on Ioene, one of the nightstrands offered her memories to me. The soul in the dagger was her lover. His name is Tyrak.”
Mother’s brows raised. “I see.”
“Almost anyone who owns a nightforged object forms a sort of bond with it. My memories of Zyri strengthen ours, I’m sure. But I think my channeling talent gives Tyrak and me a stronger connection. He called it a shadowbond once.” I paused for a moment. “Have you ever sensed anything from a nightcrafted object?”
Her smile was amused. “You think I’ve ever had a chance to own something like that?”
I pulled my backpack off a nail on the wall and pulled open the drawstring. Unlike Mother, I had no proper trunk for my possessions. But a backpack was easier to move, anyway. “No, I guess not.”
“We have legends in the Outer Isles about rare objects with such beauty or craftsmanship they gained their own souls, gifts from the aether. Some sort of mixed up stories passed down from the Vanished, I bet. I wonder why no one ever realized what nightforging actually did. Until you, of course.”
“It’s not like I realized it either. The Vanished had to tell me.”
I stuffed the cloak I’d been given last night into the bottom of the pack. The edge of the coin pouch peeked from the rafters where I’d stashed it. At this point, there seemed little point in hiding it from Mother. She’d be with me until this was over. Anyway, she didn’t know about the other caches. I’d already emptied the pouches from three of them, but had eight left. Climbing onto my cot, I stretched up and pulled it down.
If she was surprised, she didn’t show it. “One of the stories is about a necklace. Your pendant reminds me of it.”
I hadn’t thought of Paono’s pendant in a long time, aside from the vague awareness of it settled against my breastbone. I wore it under my shirts to keep it hidden; Mother must have noticed it when I was changing clothes.
“Because it was a sea opal?” I asked.
“The swirling colors. Your necklace is nightforged, too, right?”
I nodded. “But I can’t speak with it.”
“Well, in the story, an Outer Islander found the necklace washed ashore—funny how so many legends begin that way. She wore it, and after a time felt as if the necklace had taken a part of her soul. Not because she was lacking, but because when she put it on, she felt more alive.
“At first, her husband believed her story about finding the necklace, but after a while, when she refused to take it off, he became jealous. He forced her to remove it and threw it into the waves. The woman was so sad after that she wouldn’t eat, hardly slept. Finally, the husband dove into the sea to look for it. The necklace was gone, the woman died of grief, and the husband vowed he’d never give up until he found and destroyed the necklace.
“Well, what he didn’t know is that a little girl from the village was like you. She’d found the necklace, and could hear it speaking to her. The spirit inside the pendant grieved for its previous owner and feared for the girl’s safety. It begged the girl to find a way to free it so that no one else would suffer the first woman’s fate. It took many years�
��the girl kept it hidden this whole time—but finally she found a priestess who claimed she could set the spirit free.
“The legend goes on and on, but eventually the girl and priestess sailed far into the northern sea. After weeks, they made landfall on shores of fire. There the priestess was able to remove the spirit, who kissed the girl one time on the forehead before vanishing. After that, the necklace was a simple, dull blue. The girl wore it in her wedding, and the husband of the dead woman didn’t even recognize it. But when the girl’s first child was born, sick and unlikely to live, the girl went to the sea and cried. A storm blew up, and the next day a flower lay on the sand. Thinking it beautiful, the girl brought it to her infant daughter, who immediately strengthened from the perfume. Always, she felt this was a gift of gratitude from her necklace spirit, and she wore the pendant until the day she died.”
While she’d spoken, my hand had wandered to Tyrak’s hilt. A shore of fire. Objects with spirits within. Could the legend truly have come all the way down from the Vanished? Peldin had said that the binding of soul to object was permanent, but if I could somehow free Tyrak and the others I could undo the horrors we’d caused with centuries of Nocturnais.
What do you think? I asked Tyrak.
You shouldn’t get your hopes up. We had many similar legends in my time, but no one ever separated a bound soul from their object.
“Well,” Mother said, “I thought you might want to hear the story. I know you regret what we’ve done to the nightstrands. Maybe we’ll find a way to fix it someday.”
“I’d like that, Mother.”
As I folded my spare tunic and stuffed it into the backpack, a knock came at the door. I hurried to the window and peered out a crack between the curtains, my hand upon the thick piece of wood we used to bar the door.
A woman I didn’t recognize stood on the landing. She wore a simple cloak, unadorned clothing, and scuffed boots, but something in her bearing suggested she moved in more trader circles than gutter slums.
Letting the curtain fall back into place, I slid to the other window which overlooked the alley. Aside from a couple of pigeons pecking through a small heap of apple cores and onion tops, the cobblestones were empty; if the woman had brought others with her, they weren’t showing themselves.
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