A Season of Rendings Read online

  "Seth," Lyseira said. "If this is theirs, we can't―"

  "It's not theirs," Seth spat. "They don't own it. We were here first, and we're staying. They're just bullies. It'll be the same anywhere."

  "Bullies?" Gial smirked and started to turn to his companion. "Did you hear―" Then he lunged at Seth with his knife.

  It was a good bluff, but Seth wasn't fooled. He twisted sideways and chopped at Gial's wrist, tore the knife from his grip, and buried it in his side in a single smooth motion.

  Gial howled and went down. His companion surged forward with his own weapon, but again, Seth was too fast. He dodged the attacker's wild swings with two quick, slinking side-lunges before closing in and grabbing him by his hair. He slammed the assailant's face into the stone wall—once, twice, the knife clattering to the floor—then shoved him back into the alley, where he spilled into a thundering pile of loose stone and refuse.

  Seth pushed into the dark after him. By the time Lyseira had reached the door to follow, the rest of the attackers in the alley were already running.

  Gial sprawled just inside the doorway, his face quickly paling as he clutched the knife buried in his side. Blood drenched his tunic, doused his hands. "Sehk," he kept muttering. "Sehk, oh sehk."

  "They're gone," Seth said as he came back. When his eyes caught on Gial, he knelt to grab the knife the second attacker had dropped. Then he jerked Gial's head back and brought the weapon to his throat.

  Panic seized Lyseira. "Seth! What are you doing? Stop!"

  His eyes crinkled with confusion. "He's going to bleed out. There's no need for him to suffer."

  "Stop, for the love of winter!" She crouched in the widening pool of Gial's blood and pulled the weapon from his side. The young man howled.

  Realization came into Seth's eyes. "You can't," he said, incredulous. "We're in Tal'aden. If the Church hears about―"

  But she was already praying, her vision filling with divine light. The wound was deadly, but clean: it closed in seconds.

  "I'm sorry we took your shelter," she said as Gial fell into a dumbfounded silence. "We've nowhere else to stay. We only plan to be here for a month and a half, and then you can have it back. Is that a'fin?"

  The young man cast from her face to his restored flesh, his eyes wide with wonder or fear. Then he scrambled backward into the alley, and was gone.

  iii. Iggy

  The pigeon ignored the rain and fixed him with the intense black beads of its eyes. People, yes. People everywhere. You're people, he's people. Lots of people in the hard places. Can find people, yes. Found people already.

  Iggy sighed. This was proving harder than he'd hoped. I told you. Particular people. Two men, two women. A bald one with no marks on his head—

  Lots of bald ones, yes, yes. Found many bald ones. Bread now?

  With no marks? Iggy pressed.

  The bird bobbed its head, strutted two steps toward the fire, turned, and strutted back. Marks? Yes of course, all have marks. Many bald men with marks.

  No. I need a bald man with no marks. And a girl with long hair—

  Girl or woman? You say two women, now you say girl, is there an extra girl, plus two women, plus bald men—

  No, two women. Young women. They're all young, m'sai? A young woman with long, brown hair, a young woman with black hair just past her shoulders and green eyes—

  Which is it? Brown or black? Long or shoulder-length? And what is "green"? Means nothing. Pine green? Grass green? Angry-weather-green?

  I don't know, green like human eyes!

  Ah. Eye-green. Yes, yes.

  And the young men, one bald and one dark-skinned. Iggy winced. He probably should've led with that. There were likely few Bahiri in Tal'aden.

  Dark-skinned! Young! Man! Yes. Seen many.

  Or not, Iggy thought, and sighed again. Good, he whispered through the breeze, but were they together?

  Young dark-skinned men? Sometimes. Other times alone.

  No, were they together with the others I described?

  The other dark-skinned men?

  No! The other people!

  What people?

  The bald young man and the girl with—the woman with the green—eye-green green eyes . . .

  Oh! The pigeon cocked its head, fixed him with a penetrating stare. You're not looking for a people. You're looking for a flock.

  Iggy spread his hands. Yes. M'sai. A flock.

  Of people, he hurried to clarify. Not birds.

  Of course! Yes. I can find a flock, of course. I know all the hard places. Will be easy. The bird stretched out and shuddered its wings in anticipation. Promise bread?

  Iggy nodded. I promise.

  Good. Good. Now. The bird looked at him pointedly once more. What do the flock-members look like?

  Fifteen minutes later the animal flew away, Iggy's message tied securely to its left leg.

  Chuckler whickered. Well, that was easy enough.

  Iggy threw him a glare. Oh, hush. This only amused the horse further.

  "So . . ." Helix came over and offered him a damp pouch of berries for breakfast. "You can really speak with them?"

  Iggy glanced at him, the old defensiveness automatically rising in his chest, but he could immediately tell his friend was just curious. He considered pushing back, refusing to talk about it, but . . .

  In for a heel, in for a crown.

  "Yeah. In a way."

  "It's not like . . . talking-talking, right? More like general impressions of how they're feeling?"

  "No," Iggy said. "It's talking-talking. Just like you and I are doing right now, just . . ." He gave a resigned chuckle. "Some creatures are better at it than others."

  "Really." Helix gave a low whistle and sat. He watched the line of horses trudging through the rain as they pulled wagons up the main road, the squirrel darting through the wet grass, the sparrows twittering nervously in a nearby tree. "So they can all talk."

  "Yeah. If you can hear them."

  Helix fell silent. They watched the trickling flow of traffic on the road atop the hill for awhile—pilgrims and merchants, making their slow way toward Tal'aden. Iggy felt a sudden, shameful surge of gratitude that he wasn't in the city. If he had his way, he'd never enter a city again.

  "You think the pigeon will find them?" Helix finally asked. "Did it understand what you were asking?"

  "I think so." Iggy shrugged. "Might be hard in the rain. We'll know soon enough."

  iv. Lyseira

  She woke shivering with the cold, her muscles stiff from a night spent on hard stone. She was hungry, exhausted, and had to relieve herself. She could do something about one of those things.

  "Where are you going?" Seth asked as she approached the doorway.

  "Alley. No pot in here, is there?"

  "I'll come with you."

  "Angbar and Syntal are still sleeping. Stay and watch them. I'll just be a minute." When Seth looked unpersuaded, she sighed. "Seth, please. Sometimes a girl needs to pee in peace."

  His eyes were unreadable. She was just starting to fear she'd have to do her business with his eyes on her back when he finally relented. He'd crafted another simple spear on the road from Shepherd's Hill; now he handed it to her. "Call if you need me."

  She stepped into the narrow alley. The smell wasn't quite as strong this morning, but the air was still soaked with it. Her nose crinkled in disgust. Is it really any weaker, she wondered, or am I just growing used to it? Blood mottled the ground from the night before, but it had mostly dried, leaving a black stain ominously similar to several others on the stone. After the fight, the beggars had moved back into the alley; two of them slouched now near the street entrance.

  She tried to remember the certainty she'd felt after Akir had granted her a miracle of light, but the brutal realities of Tal'aden's slums had driven it away. This is Tal'aden? she thought. This is the holy city?

  What in Hel was she doing here?

  She rounded the back corner into a dark extension of
the alley, a small, outdoor courtyard framed by flaking stone. A few other darkened archways led into the bordering buildings, and an old sewer grate marked its far side.

  Gial stood next to it.

  "Sehk," he said, the puckered scar on his left temple crinkling as he peered at her. "Wait long enough, and the girl comes to you."

  Seth's name crouched on her tongue, ready to fly, but she jerked it back. She knew what his answer to Gial would be, and there was no need for it—yet.

  "What do you want?" Lyseira said, tightening her grip on the spear.

  He lifted his shirt, showed her the closed scar on his side. "I want to know why you did this."

  "You were hurt. I told you. We didn't know it was your place. I didn't . . . no one had to die over it."

  "No," he said. "That's not it. Why . . ." He nibbled at his bottom lip, face pursing in disdain or confusion. "Who are you? A priestess? A witch? What are you doing here?"

  "Why does it matter?"

  He licked his lips, glanced up and down the empty courtyard, then started nodding as if he'd figured it out. "It's really not enough, is it? You've already got us all in one place. All your dirt, shoved under the rug. We don't leave. We follow the rules, we all stay in Red, and now that's not even enough?" He spat. "Well, too bad. You've pushed far enough. We live here. We have a right to be here! Bring your fire, bring your swords. We'll fight back this time. You'll have to kill us. We're not leaving." Rage quivered in his tensed fist, flashed behind his eyes. "You'll have to kill us," he repeated. "When you go back, tell them."

  "I . . ." Lyseira set the spear against the wall and showed the man her palms. "I'm sorry. I have no idea what you're talking about."

  His gaze flicked to the spear and back. "Why are you lying about it? If the Church sent you, just―"

  A hoarse chuckle scraped out of her throat. "Hardly."

  His glare softened, just slightly. "Then you are a witch."

  Lyseira shook her head. "No. No. I work the miracles of Akir. No sorcery, no . . . no tricks."

  "Then what are you?"

  Kesprey. Ethaniel's word, from the book she'd found in the Safehold library. It drifted through her thoughts like a ghost, meaning nothing. "Just a girl." A sudden intuition came to her. "Listen. What is this really about?"

  Something unreadable flickered in his eyes, some struggle he wouldn't share. He ducked through the archway behind the grate, vanishing into the darkness beyond, and returned with a Bahiri boy on a simple litter. The child had no more than nine or ten winters behind him. Blood soaked his tunic.

  "God above," Lyseira breathed. She hurried across the courtyard. "What happened?"

  "What does it look like?" Gial sneered, but cracks of pain shot through the brazen words. "He got stabbed."

  "Who would stab a little boy?" She knelt and began searching for the wound.

  "He had money. They wanted it."

  The child was unconscious and burning up, his skin slick with sweat. The wound in his shoulder was deep enough that even if he survived the blood loss, he would never use the arm again. It would either end him, or hobble him for life.

  She refused it.

  Heat flooded her, Akir's mercy rushing through her veins like fire. Torn muscles regrew; rent flesh closed.

  The boy's breathing, shallow and gasping a moment before, evened.

  "Can you hear me?" she said.

  He opened his eyes slowly.

  "Akir has made you well."

  He met her gaze, quizzical but calm. When he looked at his healed shoulder, though, the peace curdled into panic. "Gial?" He looked up at the older boy, grabbed at his arm like a cat clawing its way out of a river. "My sei-sa can't pay, Gial! I told you, she can't pay!"

  "Chon! Chon, it's a'fin!"

  "She can't pay!"

  "It's all right!" Lyseira grabbed his hands and squeezed them. "Shhh, hey, it's all right. It's free. It's a gift."

  "What?" Chon rounded on her, eyes wild with suspicion. "What do you mean?"

  "Nothing!" Akir, he was so young. What had she done to scare him? "Nothing, I swear, I only wanted to help."

  "Gial?"

  "It's true, Chon." He actually laughed. "Sehk, look at you. You're fit to piss yourself. You―" He cut off, the smile vanishing as his hand dropped to the knife in his waistband.

  "Let her go," Seth said from the courtyard entrance. "Now."

  "Sehk," Chon whimpered. He clambered to his feet, tearing the makeshift litter as he lurched into the dark archway and vanished.

  "Hey, no trouble," Gial said, one hand up in surrender, the other hovering just above the knife. "No trouble." He backed away, stumbling briefly over the broken litter—then he, too, was gone.

  "Are you well?" Seth swept over to her.

  "Yes, I'm fine, I―"

  "That was the same one from this morning." His eyes flashed. "You should've called for me."

  "Would you calm down?" she demanded. "He wasn't here to hurt me. He didn't even ask about our little rat's nest. His friend was hurt. Stabbed."

  Finally, Seth noticed the snapped litter. "You healed him?"

  "Of course! I wasn't about to let him bleed to death."

  Seth gritted his jaw, his nostrils flaring. "Lyseira . . ." he finally began.

  "He was just a boy, Seth! A little kid!"

  Seth nodded, quietly, his eyes locked on the wall. "But that's two people now, and it's barely dawn. We haven't even been here a day, and word is already spr―"

  "I don't care." She stated the words like a declaration of war. It shocked her to realize she meant them. "Do you think Akir gave me this power so I could stand by and watch little kids die?"

  "But when the Church hears―"

  "Oh, let them hear. They stuck these people here―shoved them out of the way. They should be helping them, not me." She shook her head, suddenly furious. "Let them hear. Maybe it'll force them to think about what they've done."

  She returned to the hovel, and left him standing in the alley alone.

  v. Angbar

  "Angbar."

  He opened his eyes and took in a squalid ruin: molding wooden slats in a makeshift wall and worn stone littered with garbage. Since they'd left the Safehold, he would often awake with no sense of where he was, like he'd just spawned from thin air in the middle of a dream, and the feeling was on him powerfully now―a confusion as strong as vertigo.

  "Angbar, wake up." He looked at the speaker and saw a beautiful girl with green eyes. Syntal, her hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake.

  As if a scribe in his head were suddenly writing the tale, his memory came back―word by word, line by bizarre line.

  Rain. The slums. An attack in the night.

  Tal'aden.

  I'm in Tal'aden.

  "Kirith a'jhul," he groaned.

  "Sorry. I know. I didn't sleep well either." She threw a furtive glance to the empty doorway. "You can go back to sleep if you want, I just―Seth and Lyseira are outside, so I need to know . . . I'm going to look for the Hall of the Council today." She pulled her hand back, and he met her eyes: restless and desperate. "Are you with me?"

  Angbar sighed and sat up. His mouth tasted like old socks.

  I still think we should come clean with the others, he thought. I'm still not sure this is a good idea. I don't even want to be here.

  He sighed again, and said none of it. "I'm here, aren’t I?"

  Syntal squeezed his hand, eyes shining. "Thank you."

  "Yeah." He climbed to his feet in time to see Lyseira sweep back into the room. She went to her bedroll, pulled out a fistful of venison jerky, and started chewing.

  "Everything well?" Angbar asked. The girl seemed tense―not surprising, given the circumstances, but . . .

  "Yes." Her eyes flicked past him to one of the wooden boards, where a small grey pigeon was forcing its way through the space between the wood and the floor. "Look at that," she said, shaking her head. "Everyone wants into our little shack. Hey!" The bird had managed to pus
h halfway under the board, but now it had lost its footing, and was trapped. "What's wrong with you? You're gonna get stuck!" Lyseira stood and angled the board to free it, but instead of backing out and flying away, the animal kept shoving in.

  Angbar marveled. "Pushy thing, aren't you? If you're looking for food, little man, you came to the wrong place."

  Finally the pigeon made it past the makeshift curtain. Its eyes darted around the room, pausing only briefly on each of them―including Seth, who had just come back in. Then it hopped self-importantly over to Angbar and presented its leg.

  "I'll be damned," Angbar breathed, at the same time that Syntal said, "It's got a message!" Angbar pulled the paper off and read it aloud.

  If this works, we can talk like this. Reply. – Ig

  "Ha!" Angbar grinned. "He's just full of surprises."

  "Here." Syntal handed him a quill, and he wrote:

  It works. - Ang

  "Well, tell them more than that," Syntal said, annoyed. She took the quill back, dipped it again, and added:

  "I don't know that 'safe' is the right word," Angbar said, but she ignored him and glanced at the others.

  "Anything else?"

  "We'll be relocating," Seth said. "Don't give them any specifics."

  Lyseira pursed her lips. "We're not relocating. And she didn't give them any specifics anyway." She threw her brother a mock glare. "You"—she poked a finger into his chest—"need more practice with your letters."

  "Yes, we are. It's no longer safe here."

  Lyseira's attempt at levity died. She snapped her mouth closed, fuming.

  Angbar glanced back and forth between them as Syntal finished the note and released the bird. "Is something wrong?"

  "The thug she healed last night came back this morning with another wounded boy. She healed that one, too."

  "He would've lost his arm," Lyseira retorted, but she was looking at Angbar. "Someone had stabbed him in the shoulder, so deep you could see the bone. He could've died."

  Seth continued as if she hadn't spoken. "So now, there will be more. We can't be here when they come."

  Angbar felt his mouth working, but no words came out. They were looking at him, but they were talking to each other. Not good, he thought. He had never seen them like this.