A Season of Rendings Read online

  Everyone objected; even Syntal, who kept trying to wheedle Angbar into it. Helix ignored them.

  Something was changing. He could feel it. He hadn't had a vision. He didn't have any supernatural insights. But there were too many pieces converging now; they'd had too many revelations to ignore. Syn was right: if they got a meeting, it would be their only one. They had to know what they were talking about.

  "Make it quick," he whispered as they closed the door behind them and started for the stairs to the common room. "Did you do the chant again before we left the room?"

  "Didn't need to," she murmured back. "I never dropped it in the first place."

  This took him aback. Last fall in Veiling Green, maintaining a spell like that had worn on her; a few times, he'd been afraid it would kill her. She'd always released the spell whenever they stopped to eat or rest, stealing her respite wherever she could. This new spell had to be at least as taxing as that one, but she'd held her grip on it, and didn't even look tired for doing it.

  He thought of the lightning she'd called in Kesselholm, the eruptions of fire she'd summoned out in the Waste. She's getting stronger. Of course. He'd been a fool not to see it earlier.

  They sliced through the common area, straight for the door. No doubt she was trying to get this over with fast, but they had to avoid curious eyes, too—and he could already feel those eyes on his back as they made the street.

  "Slow down," he muttered. The split sun hung low in the western sky, its red half bringing the glare of sunset to the streets early. "You keep a pace like that, people notice."

  She gave no sign she'd heard him. "There." She nodded toward a common square half a block east: a thin crowd seated on benches or milling around a central fountain, feeding the pigeons. After a short walk, Syn approached a young woman laughing as she watched her son—a boy of maybe three winters—chase the birds.

  "Excuse me," she murmured, and the woman glanced at her, still smiling. "Do you have a moment to talk?"

  "About what?" A flicker of confusion stole through the woman's smile.

  "I just . . . saw you from the street there"—Syn pointed back the way they'd come—"and I could tell you were . . . special."

  Helix stifled a groan. Akir, Syntal, did you make any plans for what to say?

  The woman's smile melted. "I don't know what you mean."

  "The Pulse," Syn whispered. "I know you've heard it."

  "I . . ." She shook her head. "I don't . . . Jotab!" She hurried over to her boy, scooped him into her arms, and left.

  "It's all right!" Syn called after her. Helix elbowed her in the ribs.

  "M'sai. Enough. Let her go."

  "I wasn't trying to scare her." Again, they'd drawn eyes: an old man on the bench, a group of teenagers near the fountain.

  "Just keep your voice down. Come on."

  "She had to know what I meant," Syn protested—more quietly, at least. Thank Akir for that much.

  "No one's going to just admit it," Helix murmured once they'd left the area. "You can't just . . . confront them like that."

  "Right." A block over, she found another target: this one a middle-aged man, smoking alone outside a tavern. She approached him and said, "Don't be afraid. I'm like you."

  The man blew out a line of smoke. "Come again?"

  "I can hear it, too," she murmured. "The Pulse. Have you heard it?"

  He backed slowly to the tavern door and vanished through.

  Oh, by God. Syntal, you're terrible at this. "This isn't working. Let's go back."

  "One more," Syn insisted, and started down the street. This time she actually said the word witch before Helix was able to pull her away.

  "All right. That's enough."

  "I don't understand," she protested as he hauled her back to the inn. "I know they can hear it—that's what Ascension is."

  "Well, everyone's afraid of the Tribunal, Syn," he said under his breath. They'd drawn enough suspicious stares for one day. He couldn't help glancing around as they made their way back, trying to make sure there were no Justicars following them—a performance that only made him look like someone who should be followed.

  "They don't trust me," she said. "You're right. For all they know, I could be a Tribunal cleric in disguise. Maybe if I actually chant, to show them I'm not a part of the Church―"

  "All right, here we are." He ushered her inside and back up to Harth's room, cursing the reckless courage that had ever led him to go out with her in the first place.

  iii. Melakai

  "How many?" He asked the question grudgingly. It was an admission that, an hour ago, he'd never have expected. But the little bastard was persuasive—and tenacious.

  Harth did a quick count in his head. "Six," he said. "Seven if you count me—which you should, I'm coming."

  Kai growled. "I'll decide who's coming, if anyone's coming at all. And seven's too many."

  "Three, then," Harth said.

  "All witches?" Even drunk as he was, Kai had enough sense to keep his voice low. The Church had few friends in the Devil's Respite, but it didn't need friends where it had spies.

  Harth hesitated—just barely, but Kai noticed it. "Just one," he said.

  "Yeah?" Intuition kicked in. "That you?"

  Harth laughed. "Hardly."

  Sure, Kai thought. "Syntal, then." The kid hadn't given him many names, but that had been one of them.

  Harth nodded.

  Kai took a long swig from the bottle—the mug wasn't cutting it, tonight—and dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. "He's not gonna like this."

  "He might like it more than you think."

  "You don't know him," Kai said. "I do." Scores of witches in the city? Strange kids from Shientel Valley, at least one of whom had been publicly sentenced to death for the murder of Mad Matthew? Isaic would either triple his salary again, or exile him from Darnoth. The way he'd been lately—drinking nearly as much as Kai—he might even just hand the whole group off to Marcus. Wouldn't that be a kick in your balls, he thought, looking at Harth.

  Harth hunched forward, not dissuaded. "If he can reach out to these people, offer them protection—if he can work with my friend Syntal—they could be exactly the kind of resource he needs to stand up to the Church. If they know they won't be killed immediately just for coming forward, I'm sure they'd announce themselves."

  Kai glowered. "That's a lot of ifs." An automatic response, triggered by deep drunkenness and decades of practical reality. But inside, Kai felt a cautious spark of hope. This is exactly what I was trying to get him to consider, he thought, hand-delivered and wrapped up with a bow. He hadn't brought the idea up again since that last king's congress, before Marcus had arrived. Since then, it had become nearly impossible to meet with the Prince alone, anyway—Marcus or one of his goons was never far from the man. But that had been easing, lately. Isaic had been drunk so often that Marcus had finally started to relax. Yeah—he's relaxing because the kid is breaking. He's given up.

  He'll never listen to this.

  Kai was a good card player; none of these thoughts showed on his face. He could see the boy getting desperate. "There was Stormsign today," Harth said. "Did you see it? A split sun. A sign of change."

  Melakai scoffed. "I never believed in omens."

  Harth sighed and leaned back. He'd been at this for an hour; finally, he was wearing down. "Can't you just tell him? At least give him the choice?" He took out his coin purse. "Is there a . . . number, that might convince you?"

  Kai sniffed and finished his bottle. The room wasn't swimming, but it was getting close. "Who said I wasn't convinced?"

  Harth kept his face carefully neutral. Kai barked a laugh. "Yeah, I'll talk to him. I'll head up there right now. I'm as likely to get your meeting as I am to lose my head, though. You wait here. I'll have news for you by morning."

  "I—that's great, thank you, but I have to get back to the Damsel, my―"

  "You keep your cheeks in that chair and wait. I'm not huntin
g you down in Temple district to talk about legalizing witchcraft."

  Harth swallowed whatever argument he was about to make, and Kai left him in the bar.

  He got lucky. This was one of those nights Prince Regent Isaic had decided to get piss-faced drunk.

  He found his illustrious Highness sprawled in a corner of his dining room, muttering wet, clumsy enticements to a servant girl clearing the table. Marcus hadn't bothered to assign him a watcher tonight—that was good. The only other person in the room was Isaic's Preserver.

  "You can finish," Isaic insisted. He sounded remarkably lucid when he was drunk. "I'm not trying to get you in trouble. Just come upstairs when you're all done. I'll be waiting there."

  "I'm . . . married, Your Highness," the girl said, trying her best to keep her eyes on her work and get it done as quickly as possible. It sounded as though this weren't the first time she'd said it.

  "That never bothered my brother," Isaic said. "He has visits from married women all the time."

  "You're not your brother," Kai said as he entered. He nodded to the servant. "Give us a moment."

  The young woman nodded and darted out, clearly relieved. Kai shut the door behind her, fire on his tongue. You really want to be like your brother? A different woman every night, drunk and wasted and— But the fire died as soon as it came on. Kai himself was no better. They'd both given up. They were both failures.

  "Captain Melakai." Isaic made some overtures toward sitting up, as if suddenly concerned about his dignity. "Report."

  Kai sighed and helped the young man stumble to a chair. Then he sat opposite him, and took a long look. Whatever drunkenness the Prince's speech masked, his body blatantly betrayed. Red-rimmed eyes, glassy and lidded. A slight sway to his posture.

  Kai could feel Harad's eyes, like a dagger's point pressed slightly to his forehead. I'm really gonna risk talking about this in front of that brute, with the Prince so drunk he probably won't even remember? He felt the urgency leak away, the brief fire of hope doused by a familiar weariness, and sighed. "Come on. Let's get you to bed."

  "Bed? The night's just started." Yeah, and you sure didn't waste any of it before getting sloshed. "You didn't come here to haul me off to bed. Report."

  "Your Highness . . ." Kai shook his head. "Tomorrow, all right? You're in no state―"

  "I said report."

  Kai discovered just enough fire in his own belly to take the dare. "Fine. I just came from a meeting with a young man in Broadsides. Do you remember what we talked about a month ago, in the congress chamber?"

  Isaic stared at the table, swaying. Kai waited for him to pass out, or maybe to vomit. Just as he decided he could walk away and the kid wouldn't even notice, Isaic said, "I remember."

  There's no point pussy-footing around it, he suddenly realized. Harad was there when we talked about it the first time. He heard everything I said, and right now, he's the only cold-sober one in the room. He'll figure out any code I try to use faster than Isaic will. Kai threw one more baleful look at Isaic's Preserver, and came out with it. "Witches."

  Isaic nodded. "That's what I said."

  "Well, he wants to meet with you. He knows one, who knows a whole bunch more, and they want to talk about amnesty. Legal protection from the Church."

  A rueful laugh scraped out of Isaic's throat. "Last person I tried to protect from the Church vanished into a Tribunal dungeon."

  Actually, he's in your dungeon, Kai thought, but the distinction hardly mattered: the clerics could torture him the same no matter what heraldry marked the door, and Marcus's authority extended everywhere the Prince's did. "I think they understand that. I think, actually, it's more about them protecting you."

  Shiny eyes. That subtle sway. He could practically hear the gears grinding.

  "Protecting me?" Isaic finally parroted. "From who?"

  Kai darted a look at Harad. "Who do you think?"

  Isaic actually turned his head, took in the sight of his Preserver, and turned back. "Harad would never hurt me. He took an oath."

  "Not Harad, you―" Blithering idiot. He clipped off the word—drunk or sober, insulting the Regent was not a good idea. "The Church. You said they have all the power. This is a chance for you to get some of your own."

  "Wouldn't be mine," Isaic countered at once. "Would be theirs. Just a different master to serve." He tipped back a glass, and didn't seem to notice it was empty. "I'm tired of serving masters, Kai. They're supposed to be serving me. That's what my mom always said, that it's all backward, and they killed her for it. They killed the Queen."

  "I know. So make them pay for it. Let me set up the meeting."

  "So we can do what? Start a war with the Church? We'd never win."

  "Maybe not. But you could start small, like you did with the trials. Bring in this friend of his. Get to know her. Give it a chance. He said—this friend of mine—that there are scores of witches in the city already, they just don't know each other. He knows how to bring them together. They could do that under your banner. Swearing oaths to you. Or, you can wait while Marcus picks them off one by one."

  Another long silence, the slow gears of Isaic's thoughts grinding through the mud of alcohol. "Not tonight," he finally said. He looked at Kai seriously and confided: "I'm drunk."

  Kai chuckled despite himself. "You are at that."

  "Tomorrow."

  Kai didn't trust his ears. Was that it? Did he really agree? He glanced again at Harad, but the man stared intently at the wall, his face betraying nothing.

  Tomorrow. By Akir. "Yes, Your Highness. Understood. Tomorrow." He scrambled to his feet. "He's waiting for me. I'll get everything arranged."

  "No, no, no, wait. I mean—good, yes, do that." Isaic fumbled at a bottle, began sloshing it into the empty cup. "But first—another drink."

  iv. Lyseira

  It was the silence that woke her.

  The sounds of the midnight city traffic, her companions' familiar snores, the rustle of Seth's movements as he padded from the window to the door: their absence penetrated her dreams and whispered, Something's wrong.

  She opened her eyes to darkness, her groggy mind fumbling to remember where she was. Ordlan Green, it offered. Kesselholm. The road in Twosides. No, they'd passed all of those; they'd come to Keswick, finally, and they were in Harth's room at the inn. What inn? She couldn't remember the name of the place. The Maiden . . . something? The Maiden's Bedchamber? Or . . .

  Something jostled the bed; shadows clashing in the dark. Again, she heard no scrape of the bedframe's legs, no creak of its worn joints. Something's wrong, she thought again. She whispered Seth's name to the darkness, but her voice made no sound. Her heart trembled. She said it again, louder, and again: nothing.

  One of the shadows crumpled, the victim of a vicious, soundless blow to the head. There were more of them, she realized—at least a half dozen, crowded into the room all around her, kneeling over her friends as they slept on the floor. Her eyes, slowly adjusting, caught the glint of moonlight on a drawn blade.

  Akir! Help us! Holy fire filled her, roaring. She poured it into a brilliant prayer that ignited the room with clericlight, or would have. But the prayer died on her lips, stifled by the stillness, and went unanswered. Akir! she screamed again, scrambling now to sit up, reaching for the staff Seth had set by her bedside—and one of the shadows leapt atop her in the bed, hands closing around her throat like a steel vise. She kicked and thrashed, shrieked for her God, as her vision slowly dimmed.

  The last thing she saw was her attacker's impassive eyes.

  28

  i. Harth

  An hour went by, then two. He passed the time with card games and darts, going easy on the drink, watching the door for Kai and growing more disappointed as the night dragged on. Closing time came a couple hours after midnight. He offered to help clean up, and Moharren let him stay until the dishes were done. Eventually, though, even the barkeeper wanted to go home.

  And still, he waited. Staked out a place
near the street and kept his eyes on the eastern street. Why? he wondered more than once. Why in Hel am I sitting in the middle of a Broadsides street in the dead of night, waiting to be mugged? Syntal was beautiful, sure, and maybe there could be something there for him if he wanted to pursue it, but he wasn't wrapped around her finger. He didn't have to go to such lengths for her.

  He wanted this, he realized. Not for her or Helix or anyone else. For himself.

  He'd been killing time in this city for months now—learning his way around, slowly amassing money to send home—but none of it was for anything. Once he sent the twenty crowns back to Lorna, his ties to the orphanage would be cut. He didn't care about the Church—not really—and while Helix was a friend, ultimately he didn't think there was any chance he'd really be pardoned. There was only one thing that he truly wanted, and that was to Ascend and explore the Pulse.

  Every minute of every day, he wanted that.

  Syntal had gotten his attention not with her captivating green eyes, lovely as they were, but with five words: I made a new chant. He'd been wondering if such a thing was possible for weeks; in his dreams at night, his mind had already started trying to cobble the pieces together for something new. The thought of doing his own research, of crafting his own chants, was intoxicating, and her confirmation that it was possible had affected him more than he could admit.

  But the thought of doing so legally, in a city where the throne sanctioned such things or even requested them—

  You're getting ahead of yourself. That's never gonna happen.

  But the truth was, the promise of that idea—no, even the possibility of it—would keep him out in this street until Kai returned or hunger forced him to leave. A meeting with the Prince. Not out of pity, or desperation—but because Harth had something to offer him. Something of value.

  Something unique.