The Shattered Sun

by Rachel Dunne

  Aro’s straight-backed resolve crumbled a little, shoulders hunching forward. “I . . . I’ll need to tell her. Sharra. I . . .” He looked at Joros piteously, and Joros waited. This was something he’d needed to train out of Anddyr, too—the expectation that Joros would guess his thoughts or intentions. He waited for Aro to work up the courage and the words to ask in a whimpery whisper, “Will you . . . come with me? To tell her? I don’t . . .”

  “Of course,” Joros said, rising to his feet and aiming himself toward the estate. He’d been speaking the absolute truth when he’d said there had been enough wasted time; he didn’t intend to let another moment go by. Aro trailed in his wake, reminding Joros once again how often he’d compared the boy to a kicked puppy.

  “Go collect your things,” Joros told Aro as they passed through the gate, and he noted how the boy’s back snapped to attention, his eyes going sharp. “Pack whatever you think you’ll need, whatever you have, and then come to my room. We’ll find Sharra from there.” He hung back as Aro scurried off to do as he’d been told, for Joros had spied a familiar face lurking just inside the gate. Harin didn’t need more than a finger-flicking summons to hurry to Joros’s side.

  “Well?” she asked. “How is he?”

  Joros sighed heavily. “Truthfully? He’s in a bad way. I’ve seen a similar sort of thing happen with mages before, when they’re under too much stress, too much pressure . . . and it only gets worse if they’re forced to carry on.” It wasn’t even a lie. Mages who’d been addicted to skura were broken enough that they were only ever a few precarious steps away from shattering. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, and Harin leaned in eagerly. “I worry the Dogshead has become too focused on the short term. She can’t have missed Aro’s condition, and the fact that she’s done nothing to lighten the pressure on him . . .”

  Harin gnawed her lip, and Joros saw the unspoken agreement in her eyes.

  “I’m worried about him,” Joros said with another heaving sigh. He put too much heave into it, and felt one of his ribs twinge in protest. “I don’t think this . . . any of this . . . is very good for him.”

  “But the Dogshead won’t stop him,” Harin said, “not with things going so well as they are. And Aro’s got so much loyalty in ’im, he won’t ever think to stop on his own.”

  “Just so,” Joros agreed, and he started for the house with Harin tripping over her feet to follow after.

  After a silent handful of steps, she prompted, “So? What’re you gonna do?”

  “I’m going to take Aro away from here, and give him the chance to heal.”

  Another few steps of silence. “And you’re gonna fight the Twins, too, aren’t you? With Aro’s help?”

  “If he’s well enough,” Joros allowed.

  Harin’s steps stopped following; Joros could feel her watching him, and he smiled. Word would spread throughout the estate by the time he finished crowing to Sharra. Aro was well loved, and added some much-needed legitimacy to Joros’s cause. Joros would be sorely disappointed if there weren’t at least a handful of pack members waiting beyond the gate to join him and Aro when they left.

  There was something so deeply satisfying about pieces falling into place just so.

  Joros had little enough he needed or wanted to take with him: the battered but serviceable gear he’d taken with him out of Raturo so long ago, his shortsword, plainclothes that didn’t have a thread of black on them, all the jars and seekstones he’d collected.

  Almost all, at least.

  Joros stared down into the near-empty desk drawer. He’d packed away almost two dozen of the seekstones, all carefully cataloged in his mind and organized in his pockets and pouches, each one a starting point, each one like a smear of blood on the map in his mind. They would prove invaluable.

  But there was the last one. The seekstone that had been linked to a boy—a boy who was surely dead now, and in the boy’s place: a god. Anddyr had broken into convulsions the one time he’d touched that seekstone, and Joros had been careful never to handle it with bare skin since.

  It was a direct link to a god—a direct link to his enemy. It was, potentially, the greatest weapon he had at his disposal.

  Hovering above the near-empty drawer, his hand tremored slightly, and that made Joros growl. He wasn’t scared of a rock. He wasn’t scared of anything.

  He wrapped the seekstone in layers of torn cloth and tight knots, and stuffed it deep into one of his robe’s pockets, far away from all the others. It was important to keep powerful weapons safe, and secure.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Rora pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, cold iron brushing against her cheek from the chain. The pressing made her see stars, but it didn’t do a thing to block out the witches’ chanting, though if she pressed hard enough the pain could almost make her forget, just for a second or two, where she was.

  “We are safe,” the witches said all together, some quicker and some slower, some whispering it and others screaming it. “We are secure. We are strong.” It was like one of the deeper hells had opened up its mouth and the awful chanting was the thing that came out. They were all saying the same words, but different enough that the sounds hardly even sounded alike. Like nails on stone, or like nails through a skull. “We have each other. We are safe . . .”

  When they’d started the chanting, Rora’d put up with it for a while. It had to be a good few hours of nothing but the chanting, before it’d started to drive her mad as a witch herself. She’d screamed at ’em, then, told them they weren’t safe or strong and that having each other wasn’t worth a steaming pile of horse shit. It’d made her feel better, just for a little while—but the kind of crazy they’d gone after that had been a lot worse’n the chanting. She’d curled her arms over her head and rode it out, ignoring how she could feel Anddyr’s reproachful eyes on her like a punch as he started the chant up again, worked one by one to get the witches to join him at it until it calmed them all down and the fires all went out.

  “We are secure. We are strong.”

  It worked, she wasn’t saying the chanting didn’t work—but by all the fiery and bleeding and dripping hells it was damned annoying, and Rora didn’t know how much more of it she could stand before she tried to break her own wrist to get out of the manacle, and then she didn’t know what she’d do first: if it’d be better to slam her shoulder up into the cellar door until it or she cracked, or if maybe clawing down the not-wall would let her put her hands around Anddyr’s throat and choke the chanting right out of him.

  “We have each other . . .”

  The cellar door creaked open, and Rora wasn’t even ashamed at the sob that burst out of her. She was close to babbling thanks to every god she could think of, because even if other people didn’t stop the witches from chanting, at least it’d give her something else to do—but then she saw who it was coming down the ladder, and her mouth just hung open, empty.

  Tare was first, and then Joros, who Rora hadn’t seen since they’d got to the estate, and a few fists, and the last one down was Aro. Joros was the only one among ’em who looked anything like happy, with Tare looking about ready to tear someone in half, but Rora didn’t spend much more time thinking about either of them once she saw her brother.

  He looked like he’d come out of a deeper hell than the one that the witches’ chanting came from—his skin was gray, there were deep black smudges under his eyes, his arms were thin and crisscrossed with the red lines of dragging nails, and there was a bandage round his left hand that was half soaked through with blood. He walked bent over like there was something sitting between his shoulders, pushing his face down toward the ground.

  And she remembered how she’d decided to talk to him, next time she saw him, and how she still hadn’t come up with anything to say—but even if she’d thought up any words, they probably would’ve fallen right out her mind at the sight of him, half dead as he looked. Just like the last time, she couldn’t think of anything
to say but his name. If he heard her, he didn’t show it.

  Tare glared over at her, same as always, and even Joros gave her a look that was somewhere between smirk and sneer. But Aro just kept his dead eyes dead ahead as they all went to stand before the not-wall.

  Anddyr stopped his chanting and rolled up to his knees, and if it weren’t for his filthy clothes and ratty hair, he would’ve looked like any normal sane person. “What’s happening?” he asked, but no one gave him an answer.

  Aro raised his hands, the bandaged one leaking a slow trail of blood down his arm, and his fingers started weaving witch-signs. He closed his eyes, lips moving in soft mutters Rora couldn’t catch. Anddyr watched him like a starving man would watch a feast, keen and suspicious, and he muttered along like he was trying to follow the shape of whatever Aro was making. All the chanting had stopped, all the witches staring, and the only sound in the place was the muttering.

  One of the witches shuddered and moaned, an all-body shiver that Rora could watch walk up his spine. Anddyr’s eyes went wide and he said, just loud enough, “How . . .”

  Aro slumped forward, leaning his whole body against the not-wall. All the witches close to him scampered backward, looking close to hissing like cats. Aro’s hands, still now, pressed against the not-wall, too, and the one left a smear of blood on the solid air.

  “Is it done?” Tare’s voice cut through the silence like a gut punch.

  Aro leaned back from the not-wall, back straightening, eyes looking ahead but not looking at anything. “It’s done.”

  Tare stepped up to the not-wall and glared down at Anddyr. He was the only one who hadn’t scrambled back. “Witch,” she snapped, “try to get through.”

  She hadn’t even finished talking before Anddyr pressed his hands against the not-wall, his lips moving. Rora saw the not-wall ripple out from where his hands pressed against it. Then, all at once, like the street chanters Rora’d sometimes seen in Mercetta, the witches all groaned. Some of ’em grabbed at their heads or their bellies, some curled up whimpering, some just flinched, and Rora remembered how Aro had always flinched, every time he was in the cellar and one of the witches threw their body or their magic at the not-wall. Flinched, like it’d been him they were hitting. Anddyr’s mouth had dropped open to be wide as his eyes. “How?” he said again.

  She couldn’t see Aro’s sad little smile, but she could hear it in his voice, picture it clear as if he was pointing it at her. “Guess I learned something, huh?”

  Anddyr’s smile, which she could see, looked closer to a snarl. “You’ve learned cockiness.”

  “Wasn’t something he needed to learn,” Tare snorted.

  “You may think you’re clever,” Anddyr said, his fingers curling against the not-wall, “and maybe you are, maybe you’re the cleverest one in the room.” Joros and Tare both snorted at that, but neither Anddyr nor Aro seemed to notice—they were fixed on each other. “Maybe you’ve found a way to benefit from your informal training, from learning outside the strictures of the Academy. Maybe you have a more primal understanding of your powers than any mage with real training. But you are a fool if you think cleverness and novel solutions are enough. You are brash and thoughtless and naive, and mark me before God, before any gods you’d like—you will lose control if you do not learn it better, and your powers will consume you. And he will drive you to the edge of your control, and give you a hand down to boot.”

  He didn’t need to say who he was, and Joros’s nostrils flared to say he didn’t need to be told either. “It’s done,” Joros snapped at Tare. “The barrier will hold, powered by your captive witches themselves. Aro’s held up his end of the bargain. We’re done here.”

  “Oh, we’re done all right.” Tare’s voice dripped poison, a dagger that’d kill you with no more than a nick. “You’re free to leave. I won’t be stopping you.”

  “Leave?” Rora didn’t realize the word’d come out of her until they all turned to look at her. All of them except Aro, whose shoulders curled forward like he was trying to make himself small, like he was the little boy who’d thought he could hide from all his problems if he made himself small enough.

  Tare didn’t answer her, and Joros just gave her that sneer-smirk again, and all the fists stared at the floor like they wanted to be anywhere else.

  And then Aro said the first words he’d said to her since they got to the estate, since they rejoined their pack, since Rora’d got thrown in the cellar, and he said, “I can’t stand to be here anymore, Rora. I can’t.”

  “So he’s running away, again,” Tare piped up, glaring at Aro’s shoulder same way she always glared at Rora. “Just like old times, hey?”

  Joros stepped to Aro’s side and put a heavy hand on his shoulder. Aro flinched under it. “He’s not running. He has a greater purpose in this world than to swat at flies for your Dogshead. He needs to find his place within—”

  Aro twisted out from under his hand, and almost faster’n blinking he was standing in front of Rora, his hands twisting and his eyes huge. He looked the same way he’d always looked: her own face but softer, without any of the worry or the hurt carved into it, the version of Rora she could’ve been if she’d had someone taking care of her, watching her back, making sure she stayed safe and healthy and happy. Their father’d said Aro was the older one by a minute or so, but Aro was the same thing he’d always been. Her baby brother. Scared and lonely and stupid.

  “I have to,” he whispered. He stood close enough she could hear him, but far enough that if she stretched her chains, she wouldn’t be able to reach him. Just far enough away that it felt like he’d measured the distance. “I’m dying here, Rora, I am, and maybe I still will be out there, but I have to try, I have to be able to be more.”

  Rora’d spent so much time thinking what she’d say when she got to speak to Aro, when she’d got him standing right where he was now. She hadn’t found the right words, not in all her thinking, but she’d thought of what’d happen when she did find them. How Aro’s eyes would go soft in that way that meant he realized what she’d done for him, and he’d demand the key to her manacles from Tare, and then he’d pull her up and into a hug, and even though Rora’d never been much for hugging, she’d lean into it, because he was her brother, he was her other half. Because of something the boy-twin inside Mount Raturo had said to her: Without me, she’d tip. Without me, she’d mean nothing. He’d been talking about his own sister, but he might as well’ve been talking about Rora. She needed Aro, and so she’d forgive him, and he’d forgive her, and they’d bear their scars together, matching in everything.

  Rora’d spent so long thinking of the words that could make it all happen, the perfect words that’d turn like a key in a lock. With Aro standing in front of her, looking half melted and desperate for understanding, what she said was, “Then go.” And she turned to the side, her back to the others, her shoulder to Aro, and she wrapped her arms around her knees and pressed her face against the wall, and tried to make herself small enough she could disappear.

  Wasn’t much sound after that. Voices, Joros promising that Anddyr could fix all the witches, make them useful and less broken and worth the scraps of food they got; Anddyr being made to promise that he’d do it, that he’d make the witches well enough to keep the pack safe. Feet going across the floor and up the ladder, wood creaking under hands and feet and weight. Rora listened to all of it, because she couldn’t hear anything else inside herself to drown out the slow and steady thump of her heart.

  Footsteps stopped, in the same place Aro’d stood. Close enough to hear, but not close enough to reach. “I never understood why you stuck by him,” Tare said. She sounded the same way she had when she’d been training Rora, so long ago, curious why she’d chose one window over another, disappointed she’d chose the wrong pick for a lock. “Why you kept sticking your neck out farther and farther when all you ever got for it was scars. Never understood what Sharra saw in him neither—I knew her son, and your brother was n
othing like him, but she acted like he was Derro come back to life. I always felt like I was the only one who wasn’t blind. Like I was the only one who could see that all he ever was was a selfish little shit.”

  Rora said nothing; just curled up into a tighter ball, pressing her face harder against the wall, against her arms, against the cold and sturdy chain that held her fast.

  Eventually, Tare left, too. The cellar door crashed down behind her, raining dirt and leaving silence behind it. Leaving only the sound of her heartbeat, throbbing in her ears.

  “We are safe,” Anddyr said softly; of course he’d get the witches started back up again. Couldn’t let her have even a minute of peace. “We are secure. We are strong.”

  Rora wiped her eyes against her sleeve. She knew the words were for the witches, and she knew they’d make her murdery the longer the chanting went on . . . but for just a little while, she thought maybe the words could be for her, too, that they could make her feel calm and cozy as a witch.

  “We have each other.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  When they came to the village, there was no one.

  Scal raised his hand high into the air, and the others who were spread out behind him, obedient, stopped. In the surrounding trees, Deslan and the other archers would see, too. Would be readying their arrows and moving leaf-quiet to better range, to better sight.

  Vatri touched Scal’s arm, but even she was silent.

  Always, when they neared a village, they were met—by cheering crowds, or by suspicious ones that took up cheering when they saw Vatri’s robes, Scal’s blade. By nervous councilmen, or by solitary, armored sentinels. There was always someone to meet them, to sob with joy over their coming or to demand to know their business.

  But as Scal stood at the head of his band, on the empty forest trail that curved into the town, there was no one. The village, twoscore small and sturdy homes, was silent, was still.