by R. K. Hart
The frenzied dash continued for some time. Lorcan finally pulled to a stop next to a thicket of paper birches, their white trunks looming in the blackness. Lida was drained and trembling from the ride and from drawing without pause; her skin was on fire, there was so much power racing through her, all over her. Lorcan jumped from Midnight and ran to Sacred, grasping Lida’s waist and lifting her easily to the ground. He touched her forehead gently.
‘Stop,’ he murmured.
Lida felt the command in her mind, somewhere deep and secret. She stopped drawing; her legs gave way as the illae she’d gathered dissipated abruptly. Lorcan caught her under the arms as she crumpled, hauling her to lean against a tree.
She lifted her chin with difficulty and stared at him as she slid to her knees, exhausted and frightened and furious. She couldn’t speak; she didn’t know what to say.
Lorcan ran his hands through his hair, distressed, but he gave no explanation. After a minute of staring at her, his dark eyes very wide, he pulled a water flask from Midnight’s saddle and offered it to Lida. She ignored it, and he dropped the flask on the ground.
He crouched down before her and put his face in his hands. ‘I am so sorry,’ he murmured. ‘I am so sorry.’ He reached to take her hand.
‘Don’t touch me,’ Lida hissed, snatching them away. She would have run, had she been able to stand.
Lorcan’s mouth twisted before he could stop it; he stood and turned away so she would not see his face. ‘We should wait here for the others.’
‘What just happened, Lorcan?’
His shoulders felt like stone. He ran his hands through his hair again.
‘It is part of my gift,’ he said, so softly he did not think she had heard.
He was not so lucky. ‘You can … you can make people do things?’ she said, aghast.
He tipped his face up to the sky, resisting the pull of the angry clouds. ‘Yes.’
‘And you used it on me.’ Her voice wavered.
He turned back to her. ‘I did not know what else to do,’ he half-pleaded. ‘If we get caught in a death spiral, we die. You are not trained yet, and they are difficult to resist, even for full Illara and Illarus.’
‘A death spiral? Katrin was going to kill those men?’
‘What else could she do? They were capturing the gifted to sell, Lida. She read them, and then made sure they could not keep hurting us.’
‘What else could she do?’ she cried. ‘Anything. Knock them out and send them to King Triste, for a start. Is that what we do? Murder people?’ She paused. ‘Wait. You can resist the … the death spiral?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve seen people die before?’
‘Yes.’
‘Lorcan, have you killed people?’
Anger stirred in his stomach; a rumble came from the sky overhead. ‘Of course not.’
‘What, then? Is it normal for a trader’s son to have seen people die? Is murder normal to you? You are in Eilan. Are you not subject to the King’s law?’
‘Which law is that?’ he said contemptuously, brushing his hair from his eyes. ‘The law that allows kidnap? The laws that allowed your soft green Kings and Queens to torture and kill us in the past?’
‘How about the law that protects you?’
‘You?’ He laughed mockingly. ‘Do you not mean us, ais-la?’
The word slipped from his tongue without permission; he almost clamped a hand over his mouth in shock. He had thought it often - she was the last dreamer, after all, so the word was all for her - but he never thought he would be rash enough to say it. She did not seem to notice, though; instead, he was distracted from his slip by her unshielded wish that it was not us, that it was them. The wish - and the shame she felt - twisted through her stomach and engulfed her.
‘Ah,’ he said with a cold smile. ‘Do you still not wish to think of yourself as gifted, Lida? As one of us? Do you still hope it is all a mistake?’
‘No!’
He laughed again; it cut through the night. ‘Liar.’
‘Better than murderer,’ she snarled.
‘You are always so sure, Lida. So sure that you are right. It is simple to ignore the grey, when the black and the white are so easy, is it not?’ He ran a hand through his hair again, trying to regain some composure. ‘Have you ever read your Law of Tolerance? I suppose you never thought you would need to. Might I suggest you look it over?’ She hissed wordlessly at his tone. ‘Yes, the Law offers prosecution for offences against the gifted - but only if the damaged person brings their case forward in person and offers evidence to support their claim, usually in the form of at least one witness. I imagine it is quite difficult to plead your case if you are dead, or in slavery across the sea.’
He saw her hesitate. ‘What?’
‘Where do you think they would have taken us?’ The sky rumbled again; clouds were rushing to join the ones already overhead and he pulled his awareness back with effort. ‘There is no market for slaves in the four lands. But in Dena they pay a hefty price for the gifted, and in Autere, the Matriarch is busy turning her face away from the flourishing trade. It is incredible how many people go missing in ports, non? They prefer readers and shielders, of course, for they are most useful in protecting their masters. We are so few that we are a valued commodity, desired by the very highest and the very richest.’ He bared his teeth as her face set defiantly, disbelieving. ‘I cannot imagine what they would pay for you. Do you know how the ais-la Dana drove the green King Lucius mad? She found her way into his memories and twisted them against him. Into his memories, Lida, the mist that even readers cannot reach. If you can do that …’ He clenched his fingers into fists. ‘The Denan Emperor would sell his own sons for that skill. If you were very lucky, he might even make you one of his wives. I suppose the occasional rape and beating is preferable to the lot of most slaves in that country, who suffer such things daily. Those men were knowingly condemning our brothers and sisters to such a fate. Do you still think they deserved a trial?’
‘That is not for me to decide,’ she said stiffly. ‘A justice sitting would determine their offence and their fate, not me.’
‘A justice sitting? Led by your King, who would himself offer a hefty salary for your gift? He would pay you for your service and you would probably not be beaten, but if you tried to leave him you would find that it was closer to slavery than you might think.’
‘You lie,’ she spat.
‘I do not need to,’ he snarled back. ‘Ask Ava about her mother, if you choose not to believe me.’
‘Ava’s mother?’ She shook her head. ‘How do you know all this?’
His hands were back in his hair before he could stop them. ‘It is my job to know,’ he said flatly.
Lida laughed. It dripped with scorn. ‘Your job?’ she sneered. ‘You talk of my soft green Kings and Queens and yet you are second-heir to a fortune. What job could you possibly need?’
He did not answer; he kept his face still, though it was an effort. He forced his fingers to relax. Her eyes narrowed as she studied him; he looked back as levelly as he could manage, wondering if she could feel the thundering of his heart against his ribs. Fury was rolling from her; he strengthened his mindshield against it.
‘When I first saw your brother, he was dressed as a messenger,’ she said slowly. ‘But he’s not a messenger, is he? And why would the Kellith Priom-Oidre travel through Kingstown disguised? The King would have given up his own bed if Jakob asked for it.’ He did not answer, so she went on. ‘He said he’d come from Delta Port. And he needed to get back to the Illarum quickly. He couldn’t even wait the two days’ ride. He risked my health and his own to get us there swiftly.’ He watched her dig her fingernails into her palms. ‘Where had Jakob been, Lor? What had he been doing?’
‘I cannot tell you,’ he said calmly, ‘because I do not know.’
‘You don’t know? You don’t know what your own brother was doing?’
‘Where is Maya right now,
Alida? I am not Jakob’s keeper.’
She ignored the jibe. ‘No, but you are close. So close you can call him mind-to-mind across an entire country. So why would he not tell you? What are you not telling me?’
His hands bunched back into fists.
‘You owe me,’ she hissed, when he did not answer. ‘You owe me for what you just did.’
The sky growled its - his - discontent. He closed his eyes for a moment before he answered. ‘We protect, Lida. We protect each other. We protect the Illarum. We protect the gifted. As much as Caradoc’s students do.’
‘We?’ She stood shakily, forcing herself upright through sheer strength of will. ‘We?’ She took a step towards him.
‘We,’ he answered flatly. ‘Tiernan’s apprentices.’
‘How?’
‘In any way we can.’
‘In any way we can,’ she repeated. She shook her hair away from her face and drew her shoulders back proudly; Lorcan’s breath hitched. ‘You and Jakob. Your name. Your ships. You could get anywhere. You could command people. You could do anything you wanted. Get anything you wanted. There is nothing in your way.’
‘No,’ he interjected, unable to keep the panic from his voice. ‘That is not the way it works. I cannot just -’
She laughed wildly, cutting him off. ‘Oh, gods. You’re informants.’
‘We act as envoys, not informants.’
‘Is there a difference?’ she said coldly.
‘Yes,’ he answered emphatically. ‘And you do not -’
‘Me,’ she said, staring at him. ‘You. I found your dream before my testing. On my first day at the Illarum. You told Tiernan. That’s why he wanted to teach me. You suspected, even then. He wants my gift. You want my gift.’
His throat narrowed with shame. She had turned her face towards the storm, that very first time. She had looked so real, so solid, standing in the barley crop on the cliffs of his home, glowing with power, and he had known somehow that it was not him who had put her there. ‘I told Tiernan so that we might help you, Lida.’
‘Some help you’ve been,’ she snarled.
He jerked back as if she had struck him. ‘Lid -’
‘Don’t. Don’t Lida me as if you’re my friend. You lied to me.’ She took another furious, tremulous step. ‘Tiernan would use me just as you say the King would. It wouldn’t be slavery, but I wouldn’t be paid, would I? What would he have me do, Lor? What would you have me do? Do I get a choice in this?’
‘Of course you do,’ he snapped, leaning forward; she lifted her chin and glared at him, her face barely inches from his. She was drawing again, though he did not think that she noticed. The power sang to him, so strong and so wild that it set his blood alight. ‘You would never be forced, Lida.’
‘You just forced me!’ she shouted, her chest heaving. She tried to catch her breath; her eyes were shining with tears. ‘You forced me. How could you?’
‘Lida, you -’
They both turned as the sound of hooves rumbled through the night. Lida shifted her weight onto her toes, ready to flee; Lorcan’s fingers snaked out to catch her hand and his lips were pressed to her palm before he realised what he was doing. He felt her shudder.
‘Non, plaise, n’couse pas,’ he murmured. ‘Do not run again, Lida, I -’
She wrenched her arm away. ‘Don’t you dare.’
The blood drained from his face. ‘Lida -’
‘Don’t, Lorcan Merchant,’ she hissed. ‘I can’t bear to even look at you.’
She turned and, grabbing Sacred’s reins, she walked away from him and disappeared into the darkness.
Chapter Sixteen: Brinnica
The snow began to fall the next day.
The flakes danced in the air but didn’t settle, ending their journey instead in a slush of cold mud layering itself clingingly over the rocky ground. The fertile, rolling fields of southern and central Eilan were fading, replaced gradually by a world of dull brown grass and craggy hills and strong, freezing winds. Mountains loomed in the distance, their peaks so high they disappeared into cloud.
Lida hated it. She found little beauty in the alien place, and the low, grey sky made her claustrophobic. She was cold and miserable and she walked silently, sullen and angry, her hood pulled close around her face so that all she saw was the way forward. Sleep had deserted her during the night and she was exhausted; everything felt heavy. Half-way through the day slush started to leak into her boots and within half an hour her toes were freezing and her heels were rubbed raw against her wet socks.
She walked next to Ella, who was naturally quiet, and tried to stay as far as possible from Lorcan and Katrin. She dissuaded Alys and Dylan from conversation by responding to anything they said with a noncommittal grunt. She was struggling with the fact that Katrin had so easily taken three lives, disregarding the laws of the land she lived in as she might discard a coat. Lida was angry with herself, too, for the admiration and affection she had felt for Katrin, and for the trust she had placed in the beautiful Brinnican woman.
She had replayed the fight with Lorcan so many times that she feared she would run mad. She had no way to know whether what he had said was true; even so, she could not condone Katrin’s murders. Her fingers burned when she thought of him taking her hand, of his lips on her skin. The gesture had been one of tenderness and affection and of something more entirely, and the memory of it tied her up in knots and made the panic feeling flood her chest and throat. She was beginning to suspect that the feeling wasn’t panic at all, but instead something that was at once gentler and fiercer and far longer lasting. The knowledge had come too late, though; the realisation didn’t matter because her anger was stronger, and rage would come up from her toes in a flood and quench the other feeling whenever she thought on what he had done and what he had withheld from her. Jakob and Tiernan took their fair share of her impotent fury, too, but the largest measure of it was saved for the one who had given the most hurt.
To make herself feel better, she would imagine leaving the Illarum once they returned from Brinnica and trying to find Maya. Lida missed her awfully and badly wanted her advice, but no small part of the attraction in chasing her sister across the sea was the Isle of the Gods itself, which, rumour had it, was devoid of men.
‘Eianna take them all,’ she growled under her breath.
‘Did you say something, Lida?’ Katrin asked gently.
Lida ignored her.
It was so cold during the night that rest eluded her for a second time as she shivered and shook and crept as close as she dared to the fire. It warmed her face but nothing else, and half-way through the night she had to search her sleeping bag, panicked, as Siva’s ring had slipped from her shrinking finger. She found it eventually, but not before she dissolved into silent tears that started as fear and rage and ended as something more like grief.
The second day was much like the first; she did what she needed to do in silence, and Alys and Dylan gave up trying to speak to her. Katrin tried to be kind in other ways, which Lida determinedly ignored. She had never before been so angry for so long; her anger usually came and left swiftly, leaving her feeling burnt out but cleansed. This rage churned down her limbs, its source seemingly endless. It was ugly and overwhelming and it made her spirit sick.
The snow had stopped, but the slush remained, partially frozen, and it was too dangerous to ride the horses on the slippery ground. For a second day, Lida’s feet were soaked and icy and when night came, she lay on the cold earth wide awake and trembling, wishing she was anywhere in the world but there.
She must have fallen asleep in the early hours of the morning, for she opened her eyes a little past dawn to see a tiny bunch of snowdrops tied with black twine lying next to her pillow. For a moment she smiled, for they were her favourite flower and very lovely, newly unfurling, and surely impossible to find; she had not noticed any flowers for days. She reached out and traced a tiny white petal with her finger, but as she did so the memory of the illae-comm
and slamming into her mind resurfaced and she hissed, throwing her blanket back angrily. The others were awake, eating breakfast; she grabbed the tiny posy and tossed it into the campfire in front of them all.
Lorcan’s face didn’t change, but he set his breakfast carefully aside and rose, walking away from the fire towards the horses. The Brinnicans stared at Lida, three of them impassively, and Alys with utter dismay. Lida could feel illae in the air and knew that there was more going on than she was privy to, which made her even angrier.
‘How could you, Lida?’ cried Alys.
‘It’s none of your business, Alys,’ Lida snapped.
Alys flashed her the angriest look Lida had ever seen her make. ‘He’s my friend, so it is my business. You might have spoken to him privately, not responded like a toddler in a temper tantrum! How could you be so unfeeling?’
‘I am unfeeling? Why are you on his side?’
‘His side? Are you six years old?’
‘I may as well be,’ Lida spat, ‘if others make my choices for me.’
Alys’ anger changed abruptly to disgust. ‘Oh, grow up. If I had his gift, I would have done exactly the same. Do you even know what a death spiral is? What it does?’
Lida didn’t respond.
‘I thought not.’ Alys stood and took a step towards her. ‘The man who hit me, the landlord of the tavern, he was gifted. Not strongly - not even a hedgewitch - but enough. When gifted people die in fear, they draw illae. As much as they can, as quickly as they can, to try to hold onto life. It’s instinctive. They can’t help it.’
She took another step, her eyes furious. ‘It means they will drain anything within reach; the stronger the gift, the longer that reach is. If there are other gifted people within that reach who have not shielded … Well. You saw what overdrawing did to Jakob. You know what it did to you, when Jakob drew from your power to fuel his gift. It’s like that, only far swifter and harder to fight.
‘If you’re untrained, or you don’t recognise the signs … it begins as if someone near you is drawing normally, then it drags you down like a river current. You’re caught before you realise; you die before you have the chance to fight.’ Something flickered in her eyes. ‘My father was a healer, a fully-trained Illarus. He was strong and he knew the dangers. It is still how he died.’