Pain has taken me in its monstrous arms, laid me on its table, and now it’s eating me alive.
I feel the movements of its mouth. Every time its teeth close around me, the hot agony pulses from my shoulders to my toes. It’s rhythmic and steady and endless.
It grunts. “Stars, you’re heavy.”
My eyes snap open, but I’m surrounded by darkness. I’m curled into a ball, imprisoned in a cocoon of scratchy material that reeks of blood and animal musk. I squirm feebly against its stiff walls. My damp gown is bunched about my legs. My cloak is gone. My hair is tangled around my neck and face. My left side is mashed against something hard and cool and unyielding, and I’m held in place by a tight binding that presses against my hips and shoulders. I try to raise my head, but I’m completely enclosed. I try to tear at the fabric, but a grinding wave of searing heat scorches its way down my arm. I scream.
Pain stops chewing. And then he curses.
The binding around my hips loosens, followed by the release of the tension at my shoulders. The world spins and I’m falling, but my collision with the ground is surprisingly gentle. Something pokes at my head, and then the scratchy material is pulled away from my face. I wince as daylight jabs at my eyeballs. The blurry green-orange-yellow blobs around me slowly become trees. The wind gusts, and a few colorful leaves spiral down. The air is filled with a scent I can only describe as green. In the temple gardens, there were a few trees, but nothing like this.
Someone leans over me. I blink, trying to bring him into focus. A young man, perhaps a few years older than I am. Granite-gray eyes and dark-brown hair pulled back into a tail at the base of his neck. A few strands have worked their way loose and hang around his face. He has deeply tanned skin and some of the broadest shoulders I’ve ever seen.
“Thirsty?” he asks, his voice deep but hushed.
What? My lips move, but no sound comes out. My captor loosens the top of my cocoon and pulls it wide. Horror wells up as my gaze rakes from his leather boots to the knives at his belt, one a straight blade, one curved with a sharp barb at its end.
When he reaches for me, I slap at his face with all my strength. But since I have almost none, he easily catches my flapping arms and holds me by the wrists. “Cut it out,” he snaps. “You’ll start bleeding again.”
“What—what—what—,” I stammer, my voice so dry and hoarse that it sounds more like the squawks of a crow.
“Relax,” he says, looking down at my right hand and frowning. “I’ll get you some water.”
I glance down at my hand as it throbs with hot, fresh pain. It’s tightly wrapped in crimson-stained wool. “No,” I moan. Because I remember.
“Two fingers. Clean off at the knuckles,” the young man says, pulling a water skin from his satchel, along with several strips of dried . . . something. “You were lucky you didn’t lose the whole hand.” He scoots back over to me. “Either you were stupid with hunger, or you’re just stupid. Elk stick?”
“Elk . . . stick?”
He holds up a shriveled stick of brownish-red meat. When I hesitate, he pokes my lips with it. “Come on. It’s pretty tasty. And obviously you make terrible decisions when you’re hungry.” He grins as I open my mouth and tear off a piece of the dried meat with my teeth. It’s salty and chewy and greasy, and stars, I could eat a mountain of it. He feeds me half the stick, bit by bit, and then tugs the last section away as I try to snap my jaws over it. “Slow down. I don’t want to make you sicker than you already are. Especially not while you’re in my game bag.”
Game bag? Fear prickles across my skin, cold and sharp.
He cups his hand behind the back of my head and lifts me a few inches, pouring a tiny splash of water between my parted lips. I swallow, and he lets out a low chuckle as he gives me a little more. “Was it your trap?” I ask in a gargly voice.
He scratches at the dark stubble along his jaw. “No. I never use that kind. More?” He holds up the water skin.
I shake my head. “Why am I in a game bag?”
“Because you’re too weak to escape it, I imagine,” he says, then takes a few long pulls from the water skin. He lowers it from his lips and wipes his mouth with the back of his worn woolen sleeve. I look again at the material around my destroyed hand and then back at him. There’s a large swath missing from the side of his tunic. I can see the hard ridges of his ribs and stomach through the hole. Three slashing, silver-pink scars mar his side. He sees me looking and tugs at the fraying fabric as if he’s embarrassed. “I had to stop the bleeding somehow.”
“Thank you,” I murmur, closing my eyes.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he replies. “We’ve got a few miles to go.”
“Where are we going?” I whisper. I barely care if he cooks me over a fire and eats me for supper. The longer I’m awake, the more it hurts.
A rough fingertip nudges my cheek. “Hey. Hey. Don’t go anywhere.”
“Hmm?”
“Don’t die. If I have to stop to bury you, I won’t make it home by sundown, and it gets cold out here at night.” He tugs the scratchy material over my shoulders, but when he tries to pull it over my head, I begin to thrash, and he pauses. “Your head was lolling around back there and I started to get scared I was going to break your neck on the uneven terrain. If you promise to stay awake, we can leave your head out of the bag.”
“I promise.” I’ll do anything not to be encased in that smelly material.
His smile softens the hard edge of his jaw and makes the corners of his eyes crinkle. “Good girl.”
“Who are you?”
His dark, slashing eyebrows rise. “Me? I’m nobody. But you can call me Oskar. You?”
I let out a wheezy, bitter laugh and tell the truth. “I’m nobody too. But you can call me Elli.”
His gray eyes roam my face. “Done. And now that we know each other well, it’s time to get going.” He takes me by the shoulders and pulls me up so I’m sitting with my arms wrapped around my knees. I must look ridiculous, a lumpy burlap bag with a head sticking out of the top. Oskar picks up a length of thick rope lying on the ground next to me. “This is going to hurt.”
“Everything hurts.”
He stares at the ground for a moment, then gazes into my eyes. “The wounds on your back bled through the bandages. And your dress. Also, your wrists . . .”
My cheeks blaze and I look away. My wrists are scabby and stinging from the wounds left by the shackles.
“It’s all right,” he says quietly. “No one out here’s had an easy time of it.”
Oskar sits with his back to me and slides the thick straps of the hunting bag over his muscular shoulders, snugging me up against his body. Then he grabs either end of the rope and pulls it tight against my hips. He loops it around his waist and ties it across his middle. He winds the second section of rope around my shoulders and knots it over his chest.
“Up we go.” He leans forward, and I grit my teeth as he rises to his feet with his satchel in his hand. He slings it over one shoulder. I breathe slowly, trying to wish the pain away, but it’s still there, doing its work. As he begins to walk, I notice how high off the ground I am and realize Oskar must be well over six feet tall. The motion of his body as he moves over the rough ground makes me feel dizzy again. I lean my head against his shoulder blade and close my eyes. His hair, pulled to the side so the straps don’t tug at it, tickles my cheek. He smells like wood smoke, thankfully, and not like the inside of his game bag, which counts as a definite improvement.
As he hikes, I listen to the sounds of the forest, the crunch of his boots over twigs and newly fallen leaves, the twittering of birds above our heads, the rustle and dash of small creatures bolting up trees or into burrows. It reminds me a little of the hours I used to spend in the enclosed garden that contained the temple menagerie and aviary. I loved to run my hands over the silken fur of the gray rabbits and to watch the ferrets and badgers running in circles around their pens. I would sit so still, my hand held out to offer seeds and crumbs, and some of the blue jays and black-capped chickadees would come down and peck at my palm. We also had a grumpy crow and one majestic, silent eagle that had a cage all to itself. So did old Nectarhand, the grizzly bear, who used to loll, lazy and fat, in the beams of sun that came at midday. I used to toss him berries dipped in honey and watch his thick pink tongue slide out to capture them. His massive claws were so long that he could barely walk.
Something tells me the bears in this forest move a lot faster.
My eyes pop open. “Is it safe out here?” I whisper.
“Mmm?”
“The animals? Bears? Wolves?”
Oskar laughs. “Well, I’ve already claimed you, so the other predators are out of luck.”
The humor in his voice pushes fear out of reach. Or maybe the raging fever that’s eating my bones makes it impossible to care either way. “And are you planning to feed your family with my carcass?”
My cheek vibrates with his silent amusement. “Nah. Truth be told, you’re a bit too skinny.”
“I am not!”
He laughs again, and it’s a sound so free and happy that I actually smile. “Well, all right,” he says, “you’ve a nice heft to you, and I’m sure you’d be very tender with a delicate yet satisfying taste, but . . .” He trails off. “No, I’m not going to eat you. I’m taking you to a medicine man, because I’m fairly sure you’re going to die if I don’t get you some help in the very near future.”
Someone had mercy. It’s an island of relief in a vast lake of horror. I clear my throat, and it makes me wince. “Why are you helping me?”
Oskar’s steps are rock steady as he negotiates a steep downhill and then picks up a trail at the bottom. “No one else was there to do it,” he says, as if it should be obvious.
The trail leads out of the woods and across a stretch of grassland, strands of gold waving in the cool breeze. I’ve never seen such a wide-open space. It’s like looking out over the Motherlake, only instead of water, there’s land. No walls, no buildings. Oskar hikes like he carries people on his back all the time, frequently turning his face to the bright sun. He doesn’t offer any information about himself, and neither do I. Even though we’re not in the city, I would never tell anyone who I am.
Or really: who I was.
I’m so ashamed that I wish there was a way to remove my blood-flame mark, to scrub it from my skin. It’s been a point of pride for so long, but now even the thought of it makes me cringe. Have I deprived the people of their true Valtia? Will the Kupari fall because of me? It doesn’t matter that I didn’t have a part in this fraud; I still feel responsible.
Something else I feel responsible for: Mim. Did she make it to our meeting spot and find me gone? Is she looking for me, worried out of her mind? Or worse . . . was she caught somehow?
The farther we go, the more the grass gives way to craggy stone capped with wigs of scraggly weeds. Soon our path is bounded on either side with walls of rock, and we seem to be descending deeper into the earth. Even through the haze of pain, I feel a twinge of anxiety. “Where is this medicine man?” I finally ask.
“Where no one can threaten or harass him,” Oskar says in a hard voice. “Same as the rest of us.”
His tone, so different from his casual, joking words before, shuts me up. After several more minutes on an increasingly narrow trail, he stops, his feet skidding in loose rock. “I think this’ll go more smoothly if we pull the sack over your head. It’s not a great time to bring a stranger here. Sorry.”
Without waiting for my approval, he reaches back and pulls the edges of the sack up, then ties it over the top of my head. I tense as darkness engulfs me.
Oskar begins walking again, and only a few minutes later, I hear someone shout his name. “Oy, Jouni,” Oskar calls out in response. “Any trouble?”
“None,” says a deep buzz of a voice from somewhere above us. “We’ve been on watch all day. I expected the new Valtia to be at our doorstep by now.” He chuckles. “Or at least a horde of constables.”
My anxiety grows into a stab of fear.
Oskar lets out a growl of displeasure and begins to walk again. “Don’t let down your guard. Sig’s actions will bear consequences.”
There’s a grunt as boots impact stone, and then footsteps shuffle right next to Oskar’s. “I’m thinking the elders and city council are dealing with other troubles now,” Jouni says. “Between the Soturi threat and the fall of the Valtia, the death of a few miners seems a petty concern.”
“Now a human life is a petty concern?” Oskar mutters something about hypocrisy, and his pace quickens.
My arm throbs with pain, but my head throbs with knowledge: Oskar has brought me to the thieves’ caverns. And he’s talking to this other man like he belongs here.
I must squirm, because Jouni makes a sound of surprise. “What did you bag today? Beaver?”
Oskar snorts. “Wolverine.”
Jouni laughs. “And you’re carrying it on your back while it’s still alive? I’m all in favor of fresh meat, but . . .” I hear the hum of metal being freed from a sheath. “Do you want me to put it out of its mis—”
Oskar pivots suddenly, swinging me away from the sound of Jouni and his knife. “No,” he says sharply. “It’s not necessary,” he adds, gently this time. “The creature is mostly dead anyway.”
“Let me know if you need help skinning it,” says Jouni. “I’ll check in later.”
His voice is already fading as Oskar continues on his way. “Hey,” he says in a hushed voice. “Keep still until I tell you to move.”
“These are the thieves’ caverns,” I hiss, out of patience and plagued by hurt.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he says evenly. “You would have preferred to bleed to death honorably in the woods?”
I have nothing to say to that, so I huddle within his bag. Wherever he’s brought me, it’s getting colder. Oskar shivers, and his footsteps falter for a moment—but only for a moment. The needle pricks of daylight that reach me through the bag grow dim and gray, then disappear, replaced by the dull glow of several small fires. All around me, I hear people, laughing, arguing, discussing how best to season the stew, who’s next up for guard duty, who would like to join a game of Ristikontra, who’s stolen the only complete deck of playing cards . . . so many conversations . . . and the laughter of children. Children—in the thieves’ caverns! And their mothers, who scold them for straying too far!
Several people greet Oskar by name as he passes them by. A few joke with him about what’s in his bag. He gives a different answer every time—a wild pig, a few dozen squirrels, a coyote, a nice fat goose—and I stay very still and play dead so no one else offers to turn my pretend into a reality. One high-pitched voice, that of a child, asks him when he’ll be home, and Oskar says he’s not sure yet. A woman asks him where he’s going, and he says he’s taking his kill to Raimo because the man’s too skinny for his own good. I hear so many things, but I don’t learn much. Especially because my head is pounding, and my eyeballs are so hot that it feels like they’re going to burst like cherry tomatoes held over an open fire.
The voices fade after a while, and Oskar is hiking a dark, slippery path. Water plinks and thunks into puddles. Oskar shivers and curses and splashes and growls. He sounds a bit like old Nectarhand the bear in a bad mood. It makes sense—Oskar’s nearly the size of a grizzly too.
“Please tell me you’re still alive back there,” he finally says, breathing hard. “You haven’t moved in far too long.”
“You told me not to,” I say, my voice cracking.
“Stars, you sound awful.”
“So many compliments,” I whisper. I’m not sure he hears me. He clumsily makes his way along, and then comes to an abrupt halt.
“Raimo!” he calls out. His gruff voice echoes off cavern walls. “I’m coming in. Don’t try anything.”
From perhaps twenty feet away, there comes a reedy cackle. “Why, boy, would you actually defend yourself?” The voice is clearly that of an elderly man, but his tone is full of challenge.
Oskar lets out an irritable sigh and moves forward again. “I’ve brought you a patient.”
“I’m busy.”
“You’re playing solitaire.”
“I’m at a very tricky point.”
Oskar is silent. After a few moments, Raimo lets out that creepy cackle again. “Such a fierce glare. One would think you’re actually dangerous. Well, where is this patient—is he here? I’m not hiking all the way to the front cave.”
“She’s right here,” Oskar says, and by his movements I know he’s untying the ropes around his waist and chest. They fall away one after the other, and then he lowers himself to his knees. My world cants crazily as he slides the straps of the game bag down his arms, and then I’m on my side on a cold, rocky floor. It feels good. I’m burning from the inside out. Oskar opens the bag and pulls it away from my face. I can’t focus my eyes. All I can see is the dim glow of a fire and shadows dancing on wet rock walls.
“Try a waltz,” I murmur. Mim taught me once, and we spent all evening giggling and twirling, and the world is spinning like that right now. Thinking of her makes my throat so tight that it’s hard to breathe, and I let out a choked sob.
Oskar places the backs of his fingers against my cheek and curses. “She’s got such a fever.”
“I haven’t seen this one before,” Raimo says.
Oskar is staring at someone just out of my line of sight. “Found her in the north woods, maybe an hour’s hike from the city.”
Raimo makes an annoyed sound in his throat. “And what will you give me in return for my help?”
“Full beaver pelt,” says Oskar.
Raimo scoffs, “You insult me.”
“Two, then.”
“Take her away, boy. My cards await.”
“The next bear I take down,” Oskar snaps. “Meat and pelt.”
“You know that’s not what I want.”
“The answer is no.”
“Then take. Her. Away.”
“She’ll die!” Oskar shouts, his voice ringing through the cave.
“People die every day, boy, especially here. You have to stop collecting strays.”
“I recall you saying the same thing about Sig at first.”
“That kind of lightning doesn’t strike twice, as has been proven every time you’ve brought some other lost, sickly soul here to foist upon me. It’s been at least one each year, and you used up your allotment this past spring when you dragged Josefina in from the marshes. That mad old bat was a handful—and not an experience I’m eager to repeat, at any price.” He’s quiet for a moment before adding, “Except one.”
Oskar crosses his arms over his chest. “I’ll do it,” he says from between clenched teeth. “Just me, though. Not Freya. And you’ll stay quiet about it, or . . . I’ll kill you.”
Raimo’s laugh echoes loudly, making me wish I had the strength to cover my ears. “I have no interest in your sister, and you have no idea how silly you sound. But you have my word. It stays between us until you decide otherwise—or necessity dictates.”
“Oskar,” I whisper. “It’s all right.” I have no idea what he’s offering in exchange for Raimo’s help, but it sounds like it’s killing him.
“Where do you want her?” he asks, ignoring me.
“Over there. What’s wrong with her?”
Oskar lugs me across the cavern. He sets me down on something soft, making sure to place me on my side instead of on my back. “Lost two fingers in a bear trap. But she wasn’t in good shape before then. She’d been whipped, I think.”
“You think?” Raimo’s voice is much closer now, and it makes me shudder.
“I didn’t strip her naked and check,” Oskar says drily. “But she’d bled through, and I know what lash marks look like. I assume she was a servant in the town. Her dress is plain but well-made, and she’s got some meat on her bones.”
“A runaway maid. How romantic,” says Raimo. “Well, take your bag and go. I should have her fixed up by morning.”
By morning? As nice as that would be, I think it’s going to take longer than that.
But Oskar doesn’t seem surprised—he tugs the bag loose and carefully folds my ruined hand over my chest, then straightens my aching legs. His strong fingers close right over my blood-flame mark, and it pulses another wave of numb through my body.
“So you’ll help her,” he says, sounding hesitant. “You’ll do your best for her.”
“No, boy, I’ll butcher her and make myself a nice stew. Get back to your mother. Oh, and tell her thank you for the rye loaf, by the way. It was delicious.”
Oskar leans over me. His face is smeared with grime and sweat. “Raimo’s going to fix you up, Elli,” he says softly. “I’ll check on you later.” He touches the back of my left hand, his fingers cool, his voice kind.
I doubt I’ll see him again. My mouth is filled with the copper-iron taste of blood, and I think that means I’m going to die. I want to tell him thanks for trying, but I’m too tired to speak. He gets up and walks out. His footsteps fade soon after.
Another face leans over mine. Bald except for two tufts of white hair above his ears. Sunken cheeks. A prominent chin, from which hangs a stringy white beard. A long, hooked nose. Clever, calculating ice-blue eyes. “Name?” he asks.
“Elli,” I whisper.
“All right, Elli the runaway maid.” He clucks his tongue. “Let’s see the hand.”
I drift while he unravels the brown wool, then cry out as he peels it from my wound. I try to pull away, but his grip on my wrist is relentless. “Pity,” he says as he looks at my grotesquely swollen hand and the empty space where my pinkie and ring finger used to be. “What made you desperate enough to reach into a bear trap?”
I don’t answer, and I don’t think he expects me to. He disappears for a few moments and returns with a wet cloth. I roil with bubbling pain as he cleans the raw, bloody meat of my hand. His pale eyes meet mine. “I’m going to heal this, and then I’ll do your back.” He says it with confidence, as if I weren’t hovering on the precipice of death.
He takes my hand between both of his and stares intently at it. I feel faint flashes of heat, then cool.
Magic. This medicine man is a wielder. Here, in the outlands. In the thieves’ caverns.
And he is a healer. No one with that much magic could have escaped the elders’ notice—they would have found him as a child and brought him to the temple to serve like all the rest. They’d never have left him in the outlands to molder in a cave! For a moment, all my questions about who Raimo is and how he came to be here sharpen my mind and drag me back from the shore of oblivion. But then the old man moves my hand and another bolt of pain scatters all of them.
A deep wrinkle appears between Raimo’s bushy white eyebrows. He peers with even more intensity at my wound. More flashes of cold, then hot, then cold again, but I feel them only vaguely, like the idea of temperature instead of the reality.
And now Raimo is scowling.
He mutters to himself, then matter-of-factly unbuttons the back of my dress and pulls it down my arms. The action tugs at the bandages over my flayed back, and I writhe helplessly. Once again, I feel wisps of hot and cold, this time across my backbone. I have no idea how long it goes on, but when I’m jerked into solid awareness again, Raimo is leaning over me.
“You’re keeping secrets, my dear.” He uses the pads of his thumbs to lift my eyelids wide. “Ice-blue,” he says. He coils a lock of my hair around his finger. “And burnished copper.”
My heart skips unsteadily.
He moves closer, until his hooked nose is only a few inches from mine. He smells of fish and wet fur. “I am going to ask you a question, and it is very important that you answer me truthfully. Your life depends on this truth. Understand?”
I nod, though my heart is thumping madly.
“Do you have a mark?”
“Wh-what?” I whisper. “Why are you asking me that?” Panic swirls inside me. How could he know?
He smirks as he reads the fear in my eyes. “You’re not strong enough to stop me if I want to search for it, but it will be easier if you’d just tell me where it is. I’m not going to hurt you.”
I search for malice in his eyes, but I see nothing except ice. Cold, but not evil. I hope. “On my leg.”
He wrenches the hem of my skirt up. I know the moment he sees it, because he curses. “It’s certainly hard to miss. Oskar—has he seen this?”
“No.”
“Does anyone outside the temple know who you are?”
I think of Mim, but I refuse to expose her to more danger. “No.”
“Good. No one can know. Stars, I’ve been waiting so long for this.” He moves back up to my head and takes my face in his gnarled hands. “You were born the day Karhu and Susi aligned, yes? Do you know?”
“No . . .” But Kauko said the stars predicted my birth—was this what he was talking about?
Raimo’s chin trembles as he smiles. “You might have secrets, but you’re terrible at keeping them. You’ve been a princess all these years, haven’t you?”
My skin burns with shame, and I close my eyes.
“You’re the one who was found,” he says. “They thought you were her. But you’re not.”
A low sob escapes from my throat as he flays me with the truth. “How can you possibly know this?”
He lets out a bark of laugher. “Because I am very good at keeping secrets. So—what happened when you didn’t inherit the magic? Did you run away, or did they cast you out?”
“I ran. They . . . were going to kill me.”
He grins as if I’ve given him wonderful news. “Ah, they never figured it out!” He claps his hands over his thighs, which are covered in a black robe very much like the ones the priests wear. “Well, you’ve complicated my evening. Try to keep breathing while I prepare a few poultices.”
I frown. “But you were healing me with magic.”
The shadows nest in the hollows under his eyes and make his face look like a skull. “I was trying. But as it turns out, that won’t work.”
“Why not?”
Something akin to delight deepens the rows of wrinkles on his gaunt cheeks. “Because you, my dear, are completely immune to magic. It won’t help you.” He raises his eyebrows. “But it can’t hurt you either.”
I blink at him in confusion. “What are you saying?”
“There are more magic wielders in this land than you could possibly know.” His gaze strays down to my leg, where my blood-flame mark lies stark and red on my exposed calf. “And to every one of them, you could be either their most powerful asset—or their worst enemy.”