Not until he’d learned why her innards churned the same way his did, anyway. Not until he understood why she’d jumped after him.
* * *
* * *
Consciousness came in spurts. An uncomfortable floaty sensation left Marli confused and reaching for something she couldn’t quite make out.
Where was Taren? Who was pulling her through the snow? She opened her eyes once to find herself propped in a depression of rocks while her once-betrothed, Barret, moved about piling snow into gaps in the little shelter. The sight made her sigh, even as she told herself it couldn’t possibly be him.
Her head hurt worse than it ever had, even during her Collegium days. She remembered using her Gifts quite a lot earlier, but not enough to have caused this pounding. Maybe she should ask not-Barret to take her to Healers?
He was beside her again, his eyes like storm clouds ready to pelt her with hail. Barret’s eyes weren’t like storms. They were like wheat—boring, unripened wheat. Wheat never talked to her the way storms did.
“Keep still,” said her companion, his storm eyes flickering like lightning.
Her Companion! Where was Taren?
But her head hurt so bad, and what concentration she had kept drifting back to not-Barret. She couldn’t form a single thought to send to Taren.
“Barret?”
“You’re not alone,” said not-Barret.
Marli fell back into unconsciousness.
* * *
* * *
When she woke again, she was stiff with cold. A tiny fire crackled and danced near her feet, and the drip-drip of water echoed off the rocks she lay against. Otherwise, all was silent.
The dripping came from the wall of snow that blocked nearly the entire opening of the little shelter. A channel had been dug leading to the open air to allow the smoke from the fire to escape. Though continued snowfall had tried to block it, the fire’s heat helped keep it open.
A heavy weight had wrapped itself around her, pressing against ribs that throbbed. Moving her head carefully so as not to spark more pain, she discovered the weight to be a person, arms and legs pressed close, sharing heat.
The bandit who’d attacked her.
The one she’d leaped after when he fell from the road down into the ravine.
Relief flooded her. She’d managed to save him, after all. He must have done all this work, finding and preparing their shelter, building the fire, making sure she didn’t freeze to death.
. . . Why? Shouldn’t a bandit have cut free the moment he could?
Then again, all the signs Marli had read of this storm had indicated a heavy snow and furious winds. Maybe her attacker-turned-caretaker had tried to leave her but had simply been unable to make any progress alone.
As if her thought roused him, the bandit awoke. He came awake all at once, like any Herald who’d spent time on the Karse border would. Or, she supposed, like someone who lived his life outside of society.
He saw she was awake and tensed as if he intended to reach for a weapon.
Marli knew she ought to work out how to defend herself, wonder where her own weapon was, or reach with one or both of her Gifts for something to use. But she was too hurt, too tired, and too busy staring at the bandit’s face to do any of the things her training had drilled into her.
Now that she got a good look at the bandit, she realized he looked nothing like the boy she’d once been promised to. His dark hair hung lank and dirty over his face like he had something to hide, and stubble grew coarse over his chin and cheeks. He was lean, nothing but muscle and bone, a body made of hardship and survival rather than a good day’s work and plenty to eat after. His very expression conveyed how closed-up he was, how little he had to say to the rest of the world, and how little he cared for anyone else’s well-being.
But his eyes remained as stormy as ever and, to Marli’s training, held no secrets from her.
He was worried about her, both scared she was hurt badly and nervous she wasn’t hurt badly enough. He was uncomfortable—not physically, he was too used to the wilderness to care about sleeping in a tumble of rocks, but emotionally. Something was moving in his heart, and he didn’t understand it, but he thought it had something to do with her.
Well, Marli knew what it was. It felt like when Taren had Chosen her, but sadder. It felt like when she’d first placed her hand in Barret’s, but with fingers meshed more tightly. She’d loved Barret with all her heart, and she’d cried her eyes to dust when she had to leave him. Though she had friends around her in her new life, though she put on a mask of happiness for their sakes, her heart had remained dry and crumbling.
This bandit was a raincloud drifting over her, heavy with strange water.
“It’s a Lifebond,” she said.
She read slow relaxation through his eyes before she sensed it in his body, still stretched against hers. He didn’t want to trust her, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Somethin’ you witchfolk Heralds do to keep honest men entangled?” he asked.
“Honest men don’t attack lone women before a snowstorm.”
“Lone women don’t travel afore storms, ’less they’re stupid.”
“A Herald is never alone. Or do you think my Companion nothing more than a high-bred saddle horse?”
The bandit colored. “So, you don’t know what it’s like, then.”
Silence descended, interrupted only by the continued crackle of fire and drip of melting snow.
Marli shuddered in the cold. Her ribs ached, probably one or two of them broken in the fall. “There’s different kinds of alone.”
Another long silence stretched. Then: “You ever been so alone you tried to rob a fancy lady of a bauble just to buy your way into a group of bandits for the winter?”
“No. You ever been so alone you threw yourself into everyone else’s problems just to forget how alone you are?”
“No. ’M pretty good at thinkin’ ’bout me.”
Marli sighed. Her entire body hurt too much for the cold to numb her, and she didn’t know whether to feel grateful or bitter about the scant warmth her bandit was sharing with her. Their physical closeness held no awkwardness, at least. There simply wasn’t the energy to be embarrassed.
Gingerly, she tucked her aching head under his chin. The stubble scratched at her scalp as he swallowed.
“My hold didn’t trust Heralds none. Hard to picture havin’ a whatever-bond with one,” he said. His chest rumbled against Marli’s forehead.
“Hard for a Herald to imagine being Lifebonded to a bandit,” she said, then frowned. “Didn’t? What changed?”
“There was . . . you know a couple summers past, when the heat got so bad you felt like breathin’ would scorch your lungs? Didn’t have enough water for the crops nor the animals, let alone . . . There was a fire.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Anyway. Do fine ’nough on my own the rest of the year. But I won’t spend another winter without someone around me. Can’t handle it. Bandits’r the only ones’ll take a vagrant like me in, provided I prove I can bring somethin’ to the table.”
“Winter is,” Marli said, struggling to get the words through her dry throat, “the worst time to not have a family anymore.”
The bandit pushed himself to his feet and moved to the wall of melting snow. Cold air swirled against Marli’s newly exposed side. She tried not to shiver harder.
“Here,” said the bandit, holding a handful of snow to her lips. “Eat some. Need water if you’re gonna get better. Think your horse is fancy ’nough to have gone for help?”
Marli let the snow melt on her tongue. “Taren isn’t a horse. He’s definitely gone on to Shaded Vale, where we were headed. They ought to have a Healer there, at least. And . . . thank you.”
“My fault in the first. Shoulda known not to take a
Herald woman for a mark.”
“Marli.”
“Marli, then. Kimfer.”
“The blizzard is over, Kimfer. If you can, you should knock down our snow wall. Once my head stops pounding so much, I can use Farsight to help Taren and the Healer find us here.”
Kimfer sat like a block of ice beside her. “And after that? What happens to . . . us?” He pronounced the word like it had a taste he’d never encountered before.
The storm outside had subsided, but the one in Kimfer’s eyes still boiled on. He looked as though he wanted Marli to soothe that storm, to do something to quiet it for him.
“I can’t change how the weather behaves,” she said. “All I can do is to read the signs and prepare accordingly.”
Kimfer looked at her for another beat of silence. Then he gave a curt nod and turned to open their shelter.
* * *
* * *
:I should have kicked him harder.:
:You shouldn’t have kicked him at all. I’m fine.: Marli winced as the Healer Taren had brought from Shaded Vale touched her injured ribs. :Or, I will be soon enough.:
Taren lashed his tail in disagreement and continued staring through narrowed eyes at Kimfer.
The bandit tended the larger fire he’d built in the middle of the ravine. The wind had blown the snow into piles high along the walls but had scoured the center clean. While he’d built, she’d shouted in Mindspeech until she finally found Taren and led him to her, finding the safest path through the fresh snow with her Farsight.
:You wouldn’t have fallen if it weren’t for him.:
:If you hadn’t kicked him, I wouldn’t have had to go after him!:
Taren’s tail switched harder. :You’re certain it’s a Lifebond? Maybe you’re just feeling grateful he didn’t leave you to freeze.:
:I’m certain, dearest.:
:Hmph. Well, we can fix him, then.:
Marli laughed, then winced again. :We can offer him help. Only he can fix himself.:
“I’ve done all I can here,” said the Healer, stepping away and wiping his brow. He’d worked himself to a sweat using his Gift on her. “There’s a bed at home with your name on it, Herald. Let’s get you up in the saddle.”
Kimfer turned from the fire and scowled. “She’s got broken ribs. Shouldn’t ride a horse with broken ribs, any fool knows that.”
Before Marli could calm Kimfer, Taren stomped through the snow until his nose was an inch from the bandit’s.
Whatever the Companion said to Kimfer, he kept private, even from Marli. But Kimfer’s face went slack with surprise, then red with discomfort, and finally turned ashen. He swayed as if he were about to lose his balance.
Finally, Taren came trotting back to Marli’s side, nose in the air and smug attitude pouring off him.
:Had your say, then?: Marli asked. Taren knelt beside her, and the Healer helped her get herself astride.
:Just giving him some incentive to fix himself, like you said he had to.:
Marli’s head still hurt too much for her to roll her eyes.
Taren rose, moving carefully to keep from jostling her. The Healer mounted behind her.
But before Taren could take off, Kimfer was at his flank, knife out. With a slice like a flash of lightning, one bell was separated from Taren’s harness.
“ ’M no bandit, horse. I work alone. But this is for me.”
Taren curved his head around to snort in Kimfer’s face.
Kimfer ignored it and sheathed his knife. He cast one final look at Marli, his eyes as stormy as the first moment she’d looked into them. But around the edges, light was showing through, like the distant horizon from the midst of torrential rainfall.
Then he clenched his fingers around the bell and turned away.
Marli still didn’t know how the future would play out for her, but the heartache of her past seemed more distant now. Maybe she’d never get to experience those milestones so common to everyone else: marriage, children, a family of her own. But she at least knew her future wasn’t quite as empty as she’d previously thought.
She’d read the signs. Now it was time to prepare.
She had a new storm to set her worrying nature to studying, but her heart whispered that her winters were going to be easier to weather from now on.
* * *
* * *
Kimfer stood at the foot of a path up and out of the ravine.
He could go to the hill bandits. He had the prize they’d asked for digging into his ungloved palm, after all. They’d have hot food. They’d have tents.
They’d hold the same beliefs about Herald women his holderkin had held. That alone would help ease his mind from its spinning. It would be comforting.
His chest still hurt, but he wasn’t at all certain it was from the witchhorse’s kick anymore.
But as he opened his fingers and looked at the tiny bell, a thread of warmth worked through him, and he knew the words he’d thrown out as a parting shot had been true: He would never return to the hill bandits. Let someone else try their stupid “trial.”
He worked alone. He survived alone.
Alone, and yet . . .
He tucked the bell away in his belt, right beside his knife. It was a little piece of her, something she’d recognize anywhere.
And with that witchsight of hers, she’d be able to find him anywhere.
A few moments passed before Kimfer realized he was smiling.
He would continue to work alone, but he would never be alone ever again.
Hunching against the cold, he started up the path.
The More Things Change, the More They Change More
Fiona Patton
Haven in late summer was a city at its finest: warm days giving over to cool nights, tree-lined streets in the upper quarters filling the air with bird songs, and markets and one-day fairs in the lower quarters filling the air with the sounds of bustling commerce.
As another beautiful morning dawned, casting an almost magical pink and orange glow across Valdemar’s capital, Padriec Dann stood on the roof of the tenement house where generations of his family had made their home and stared down the ten long blocks to the Iron Street Watch House, where generations of his family had made their living. Along both sides of the street, all manner of wooden signs, both painted and plain, swung gently in the breeze, proclaiming the industry of blacksmiths, tinsmiths, locksmiths, bell makers, braziers, kettlesmiths, ironmongers, and the dozen other trades that worked in or with metal. As the first of the shops began to open for the day, Paddy frowned.
He knew every one of their neighbors, from masters to apprentices, shop owners to servants, families and friends, rivals and enemies. He knew how long they’d been there, how prosperous, diligent, or honest they were. Or weren’t. He’d prided himself on this knowledge from the first day his ma had allowed him to climb down the tenement steps by himself and stand, staring out at the huge, brick and cobblestone world stretching out before him. A world protected by the Danns—his da, granther, brothers, cousins, and uncles, every one of them Watchmen. All he’d ever wanted was to stand beside them in the pale blue and gray uniform of the Haven City Watch.
He’d had it all planned out, too: sweeper at age seven, runner at eleven, Chief Runner at thirteen. He’d make lance constable, then constable, corporal, sergeant, and maybe even captain. He would live with his parents until he and Rosie, his first and only love since the age of six, started their own family. They would move across the hall or down a floor and raise a new generation of Watchmen to protect the street.
His street.
Then two years ago, everything had changed. His da had died in a fire in the Iron Market grounds, then his granther had passed away a year later. His brother Aiden and his family had moved to their own flat, taking their brothers Jakon and Raik with them, and his brother Hektor had married a
nd moved into Aiden’s old room, leaving Paddy to sleep alone for the first time in his life.
He’d thought it would make him happy, and it had at first—then all he’d felt was lonely.
Which was silly, he admitted, because Hektor and Ismy had two babies in the flat to liven things up, and his sister, Kassie, now a messenger bird apprentice at the Watch House, was still home. And their ma . . .
Turning abruptly, he left the roof, pounding down the stairs without caring how much noise he made. A moment later he was out on the street and running, not toward the Watch House but away from it.
Several blocks later he rocked to a halt, leaning against a pinmaker’s shop, breathing hard.
Everything had changed.
Everything.
He glanced around with a scowl, daring anyone to comment on his red face and disheveled appearance, but the only people out this early were four littles playing gameball in a nearby close.
His mood sank even farther.
He’d been the gameball champion of Iron Street until his growing number of responsibilities had allowed him less and less time to play. Last week, he’d given his prized possession, the pig’s bladder ball his granther had gifted him at age six, to his cousin Trebor. He’d thought he’d been all right with it at the time, but now he guessed he wasn’t. Not really.
And now the street itself had changed.
Strangely quiet for the last few days, people stopped their conversations when he went by, looking anywhere but directly at him. Everyone seemed too busy to stop and chat, nobody had time to even exchange a few words, and nobody would tell him what was wrong. This stung. Paddy knew everything, sometimes even before the people involved knew. He was trusted, confided in, but now . . .
He touched the black and purple bruise on his left cheek.
It had all come to a head yesterday.
“We’re not good enough for the Danns anymore now, huh? You gotta get all cozy with outsiders!”
Passages Page 20