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Kay stood at the entrance to the church. Her stomach was still twisted into knots, and her hands hadn’t stopped trembling since the riot. She pushed those thoughts into the back of her mind and tried to focus on what she had to do next. But despite her best efforts, images of death and the feeling of eyes constantly on her still turned her skin cold.
She fingered the comfortable weight of the dagger that Mari had given her with one hand and her umi’s necklace in the other. It surprised her how much the chain comforted her. It was the first thing she had ever had that was touched by both of her parents, and she thought she felt the shadow of their warmth still on it like the embers of an extinguished fire.
Kay took a deep breath to calm herself. One. Two. Three. Four. Somehow, she began to breathe easier, wishing the entire time she had her old cloak back.
They had given her another one, but she didn’t like it much. It was faded black and too tight around the shoulders. But at least it had a pocket where she could place the familiar weight of both of her necklaces. It was a weird thing that the reina’s gold was probably worth a small fortune, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She wondered what that said about her.
She wrapped the cloak tighter around herself and flipped at her nonexistent hair.
Gad appeared wrapped in similar clothes. He shuffled awkwardly towards her like the boy she remembered, but now his jaw was tight and determined.
“I’m coming,” he said as he stood beside her.
“I know,” she sighed. If she knew him at all she knew that she couldn’t stop him even if she wanted to.
He leaned back, relieved.
Turo and a few guards gathered on the opposite end of the building. The ex-elevado was calling out orders like a seasoned general despite his insistence that he knew nothing of battle. Children crept by scared but curious at what was happening, but he sent Xavier, the cook, to herd them away.
“No argument?” Gad asked as they waited and watched.
Kay turned around and faced him. He was so tall now, almost as tall as her. Again, she wondered when her akhi had become so grown. So like their abi. She couldn’t help but see his large, mustached face whenever she looked at Gad.
“Would you stay if I gave you one?” She crossed her arms. “You’re old enough—and smart enough—to know when you have to do something for yourself. It took me a long time to figure that out.”
“Thank you,” he said, and then after a pause, “For everything.”
She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
“The only condition is that you hide if things get bad out there.”
The irony of telling him what Diego had once told her was not lost on her. Maybe there wasn’t any shame in running. There had to be a middle ground, she realized. There was a time to run, and there was a time to fight. Wisdom was knowing how to choose.
Two women and one man came over to them dressed in mismatched pieces of boiled leather. The three carried roughly made spears. One woman had brown hair and a mole on her chin. The other yellow hair and light eyes. The man she recognized was Raul. All three she knew to be fiercely loyal to Turo.
They smiled at Gad.
Mari followed behind wearing her usual flowing dress with hair in elaborate braids. Her skin was paler than usual. Kay wondered if she was sick. She was followed by Raymundo, the Alderian noble that Kay had met at the brothel. He wore a faded jerkin and notched sword on his waist, but he walked straight and with the fake confidence of a Real.
She didn’t know what to think of him. He was young, barely older than her, and had that innate attitude she hated in all nobility. Yet, there was something about him she couldn’t help but recognize as sincere. It was the same feeling she had about Diego.
Diego.
Her stomach clenched at the thought of the old man. She had liked him. He had made her feel seen in a way she didn’t know she had needed. The thought of him laying forgotten somewhere in the city was enough to bring tears to her eyes, but that would have to be an emotion for another day.
They all appeared to her like soldiers headed off to war. Was that what they were?
Turo came last, eying Gad next to her but saying nothing. He must have figured if Kay was okay with him going there was no place for him to say otherwise. A part of her wished he would, but another part trusted in her initial decision.
“This is Nalita, Yoli, and Raul.” Turo stood at the head of the party and pointed to each person in turn. “They’re three of my most trusted friends. I asked them to go with you. The rest of us will stay here and protect the children. Rest assured, I asked them to do as you say, Raymundo.”
Raymundo’s eyes opened in surprise at this. Raul had a frown etched so deep on his face it could have been carved from stone. Kay wasn’t as shocked as the others. The decision made perfect sense to her.
“What’s this?” Raymundo asked.
Turo eyed him curiously.
“I don’t see any other choice. You’re the only one here with any sort of experience in such things. Besides, it seems you’ve earned Mari’s trust, a task I would have thought impossible. That alone amounts to a great deal.”
“Don’t make us regret it, noble,” Raul muttered.
Raymundo seemed conflicted but didn’t disagree.
“Right. So that’s settled then—”
“Wait! I’m coming with you.” Juan appeared from behind a pillar. He had a pale color to him, and his skin seemed clammy as if he had been fighting with the decision for hours.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Raymundo eyed the fat elevado as if he was a fish that had suddenly sprouted wings.
“Pardon me for saying so, but I don’t care what you think,” Juan said.
Raymundo glared at the man but eventually shrugged in reluctance.
“Do what you must.”
“Juan, what about the reina?” Kay asked him. She didn’t necessarily like the elevado. She found him loud and as full of himself as any holy man she had ever known, but that didn’t mean she wanted him dead either.
“I’ve done all I can for her, Kay. She’s in the Mother’s hands now. Besides, Brother Turo will be here to look after her. Isn’t that right?”
“I’m no longer a Brother. But yes, I’ll do what I can for her.”
“Then it’s settled.”
“Will you be coming with us, Mari?” Gad asked, eying the tall Wanderer hopefully.
“I’m afraid not. There are things worse than those Guards at stake,” she said while giving a sidelong stare at Raymundo.
Raymundo nodded slowly, as if understanding what she was telling him.
Kay couldn’t think of anything worse but thought it best not to say as such.
Everyone went silent. They each stared at the other in turn, unwilling to be the first to suggest they leave the relative safety of the old walls. Kay knew, as they probably knew, that it was likely they might not return to them.
“Right. We head out,” Raymundo finally said.
As if waiting for the silence to break, they all walked out of the church. The sun was low on the horizon now, basking the city in half shadows. Usually, Kay loved this time of day. She would find a nice spot on a roof somewhere—maybe on top of the sweet-smelling bakery—and watch the sun go behind the peaks as she imagined different cities in different lands. She had always wanted to see the land where the hulking men in pelts came from.
But tonight was not one of those nights. This night, it was the smell of rotting things that assaulted her nose. It had been days since anyone cared enough to clean the calles of trash, but it was more than the stench of discarded eggshells and spoilt vegetables that came to her. The unmistakable smell of death was in the air magnified from the time Juan and her carried the reina from the hill.
She realized that this was what it must have felt like during the Red Sickness, the terror people must have felt behind their doors. She didn’t know how they were able to stand it for so long.
“We head north towards the wall,” Raymundo told them, “but first we need to scout ahead. Kay, can you get up there?”
Kay came out of her thoughts and saw where Raymundo was pointing. It was one of the other few buildings left standing in the scar. It was tall, probably what was once a bell tower, but was now nothing more than a sliver of stone that reached into the sky like the point of a knife.
“I think so.”
They followed her to the tower and watched her test the cracks in the stone for purchase. It crumbled beneath her hands as she touched it. In a year or so the whole thing was apt to come crashing down, but finally, on the eastern side of it where the flames hadn’t burned as hot, she found a grip that would do.
She hauled herself upward, taking particular care to test where she gripped lest the wall would crumble beneath her fingers. Each wall had its personality. Some were ostentatious and needed to be worked around, and some were easy like a whore at a brothel. Others were humble and plain. Those required more cajoling. This one was dead, a decaying corpse in a sea of corpses, which made the way slow.
At the top there was nothing left but the bones of what once a bell. Not confident the floor would hold her weight, she simply hooked her legs around the top of the wall and sat on the ledge.
Kay turned towards the city and took a sharp breath.
Dozens of fires were scattered throughout. Puffs of smoke wafted from the points of small flames like candles at a church. It was both horrible and eerily beautiful in the dying sunlight. The nearest one was only a few calles away. She knew of a young married lasiim familia with a small baby that lived somewhere around there. They had paid her to do chores a few times when the woman was pregnant.
She trembled even though it promised to be a warm night. Had it been this bad when she had come through before? She couldn’t remember. There were too many thoughts running through her head then. She pictured all the terrified faces she had passed on her way here. Yes. It was bad.
“How’s it going up there?” Raymundo called from below.
“I’m coming down,” she called back.
She climbed down and told them what she saw. Their faces were grim. Raul cursed several times and banged his spear against the ground. Juan was the only one whose face remained unchanged. Yes, he already knew. He was also the oldest among them, Kay realized, which meant that he was probably there when the riots of the Red Sickness first took hold of Alderas.
He already lived through this.
She pictured the elevado young, maybe as a shrine boy, praying to his gods, maybe even dancing in their church in that way of theirs while all around him piles of bodies stank from rot in the calles because not even the pyre builders could take them all away. She wondered if he had any familia that died from it.
“We’re all not very different,” she whispered to herself.
Gad stood close to her, and she had the sudden urge to tell him what she did to him. That she could have helped his friend but instead left him there to die. She forced the urge down. This wasn’t the place. She would tell him, eventually, and hoped he forgave her, but not now.
Juan saw her staring and understood what she must have been thinking because he gave her a sad smile, one that told her not to worry because this was survivable. He had done it, after all. As they marched northward, she made a promise to herself that no matter what for Gad it would be