11

ELEVEN: Arrival in the White City

My first glimpse of Whitehold was from the window of that cramped train car. We took a wide turn and started up a large hill, rising up with the land and passing through a break in the trees. I spotted smoke rising under the late-day sunshine, and felt my heart start to swell up at the back of my throat again. I stood and pushed past where Kale was sitting to reach the window, almost climbing over him in my hurry. He’d been dozing during the ride, and I startled him awake.

“What is it?” Kale said, snorting.

“I thought I saw something.”

“Oh. Looks like we’re nearly there.” Somewhere, my brain registered a sense of glum finality in his tone, as though being forced to acknowledge what lay ahead. I was too distracted by what I saw to give any response.

Whitehold appeared. Quite frankly, if it was up to me, it was too large a place to simply call it a city, but I didn’t have a word that would suffice in its place. As we passed beyond the edge of the trees and started down into the valley below, I stared in awe at the sight of it. I couldn’t really help myself—the place was immense, appearing to stretch from one end of the horizon nearly to the other. Whitehold was gigantic. It was very, very big. The city was a creation of stone and wood and steel, with great clouds of steam and grey smoke hanging over it like a shroud. I also saw a great expanse of water stretching out into the distance beyond the city’s edge, a span too far for me to see what lay on the other side, assuming it wasn’t the edge of the world itself.

But to call the city by its own name also felt wrong to me. Whitehold was most definitely grey, not white—a dull and depressing hue, like a chimney soiled by too much wood smoke. Its buildings appeared to be made of quarried stone with slate or wood-slat roofs, rather than built out of wood and plaster like I was used to seeing; there wasn’t a thatched roof for kilometers around, I was sure of that. It made the place just look heavy to my eyes, like it might sink into the ground and be swallowed up under so much wet earth and water.

From the long storehouses down by the water’s edge; to tall spires and towers, stretching into the skies; to the squat, ugly shops and what I presumed to be homes; the city walls, everything was colored in shades of grey. I also spotted tall steeples atop larger buildings; many were adorned at their peaks by swords carved of grey or white stone, each pointed downwards in the shape of a T. Many of those buildings had large windows of colored glass that sparkled in the sunlight.

“What are those?” I asked, pointing towards the sword-topped buildings.

“Mm?” Kale looked up, then squinted out the window. “Those are churches, of course,” he said, with a tone that seemed to imply I should’ve already known what a church was.

The structure that stood out, larger than any of the others, was a thick-walled citadel seated on a solitary island out in the bay. That had to be the White Fortress, Clan Avard’s stronghold. It was linked to the mainland by a tall, sweeping bridge that rose and fell in several arches, and the splashing sea foam glistening in the sunlight made the structure seem to float above the surface of the water. Thick, impenetrable-looking walls of white stone were topped with things that looked like sharp stone teeth. A huge blue and silver flag, hoisted at the top of one of the towers, flapped in a wild breeze. It had the Avard family crest on it: a white snowflake on the flag’s blue field, one point stained red. Behind it was a white sword, pointing downwards.

“There it is,” I said under my breath. I’d come so far to see the White Fortress, and now I couldn’t help but be impressed by the sight of it.

“You made it,” Kale said. It sounded like congratulations, of a tempered sort.

“Hardly,” I said. It was hard to feel accomplished at getting this far when I still had so far to go. “There’s still so much left to—” I was distracted by another sight, something I’d never seen before—several oblong-shaped crafts, floating in the sky. “What are those?”

“Hm? Oh, those are dirigibles,” Kale said. He pointed to the closest one, which was tethered to one of the towers near the city’s walls, its bloated shape swaying and moving in the breeze. “The large, round shape is filled with a gas that’s lighter than air and allows it to float. The passengers sit or walk around rooms built into the bottom of it.”

“Passengers?” My jaw fell open. “People are riding inside those things?”

“Well, yes,” he said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“I… I can’t even imagine.” I sat down again by the window, trying to imagine myself so high up and feeling an unwelcome cold sensation in the pit of my stomach. We made the rest of our ride into Whitehold in silence—at least, I didn’t talk, and Kale soon realized I wasn’t interested in conversation. I heard the hum of excitement and anticipation from the other passengers boxed in with us, but I kept both arms tight around my waist and stared out the window.

Yenda Avard knew that I was alive. She had to know that I’d be coming. Maybe Commander Golova had already reported in, told her the train we’d be arriving on. Or Corporal Ribov. Or…who else was there? Was there anyone else? As the train arrived at a large station and slowed to a stop, I kept looking out the window for the tell-tale uniforms of silver and blue that would precede my doom, but they never appeared. No one was waiting to arrest me; no one was hurrying onto the train intent on carrying me off to some prison somewhere.

As the other passengers began to disembark, Kale stood first, then offered his hand to me. “Shall we?”

It was still hard not to eye that hand with mistrust. I forced myself to take it, and once he pulled me to my feet, I looked into those blue eyes that kept reminding me of my dead husband. “Shouldn’t we part ways here?” I said, pulling my hand away.

“Maybe,” he said. “But I’m famished—I haven’t had a single thing to eat since…well, for awhile.” A grim look came over his face before his shook his head. “Anyhow, I figured that if I was hungry, you likely would be as well, so…” His voice trailed off as he shrugged his shoulders, giving me a small, disarming smile.

“Why do you keep insisting on helping me?” I was reminded of Deathbringer’s warning, that I might owe him or Clan Isrodel a favor of some kind. “I said I owned you, but I didn’t know you’d take that so literally. All you had to do was get me onto the train.”

“Inga—can I call you Inga?” It wasn’t the first time he’d asked me that. His smile got a touch wider, as if he was trying to charm me. “You might be the most suspicious woman I’ve met in a very, very long time. And over what? A man talking about dinner. What’s there to be suspicious about that?” He opened his hand again, waggling his fingers at me. “You’re obviously a stranger to this city, and I know a place just past Brands Street that makes crab cakes to die for.” He kissed his fingertips, a gesture I wasn’t familiar with, not to mention that I had no idea what a crab was, or why someone would make a cake out of it. “What do you say?”

In truth I was starving, having not eaten a thing since Mistress Darya’s place, but I’d refused to think about food or eating anything since I worried that I’d just throw it all up again. Something about this man disarmed me, something I couldn’t put my finger on. But, he was right: I was a stranger to Whitehold, and suspected that the first thing I’d manage to do by myself was get lost. I needed a guide, and if Kale was offering, I’d have been foolish to refuse him. “Fine. Lead the way. But I’m watching you.”

“Yes, yes. I’ll be the soul of discretion.” He pressed one hand to his heart, then started for the door.

Following him, I took my first step into Whitehold itself. I was quite certain I’d never seen so many people in my entire life—it was a wild whirlwind of colors, faces, styles of clothing I’d never seen before, and more. I saw animals, both livestock and more exotic things, in metal cages. Men pushed carts loaded with packages and luggage, immense crates and locked storage trunks, moving them to and fro.

We stood on an open-air platform of stone and concrete. An immense roof of iron and steel hung over my head, supported by huge columns so wide I was sure that I couldn’t wrap my arms around one of them. At the apex of the great roof, an enormous clock told the time. Underneath it, some kind of machine or mechanism was playing out a show: clockwork figures were dancing and clapping, while others rode tall horses and thick white bears. A muffled song was playing that the figures moved in time with, but I didn’t recognize the tune.

One thing I took great interest in was a huge, wood-carved map of the entire continent hanging from the ceiling, high above the platform. The oceans were painted in shades of blue and grey, as were the inland seas, decorated with tiny white waves. Three mountain ranges cut across the center landmass in the shape of miniature white triangles in three places. Plains and grasslands were a mixture of green and grey. I also spotted a portion decorated with yellow dust in the southeastern corner—that had to be the Alami desert, a place I remembered hearing about in stories when I was a little girl. I mostly remembered it for the volcano I’d heard about that existed there, how the concept of fire being hot enough to melt rock fascinated me. Dark rivers carved through the landscape. Forests were swaths of green and brown. Cities and towns were noted with black markers or white stars, some with text or letters I couldn’t read. Black lines crossed the continent like the strands of a spider’s web. One particular star with large, bold script sat at the end of the northernmost black line—I presumed that to be Whitehold, the capital of the Northern Territory, where we now stood.

Beyond the roof’s edge, through wide skylights I could see that the sky was still blue, but the sun was sinking and would likely be gone in just a couple of hours. Large signs of carved wood hung overhead; I couldn’t read the text on any of them, or identify what the numbers next to each entry meant.

“Inga?”

I came back to myself when I heard Kale’s voice. I must’ve been staring again, so I blew out a breath and finally stepped off the train. “Sorry. Lead the way.” I resolved not to let myself get caught staring again; even I knew what a tourist was, and it seemed best not to let myself stand out anymore than I probably already did. As Kale led the way, I pushed up close behind him and tried not to gawk, in spite of the wonders that were unfolding all around me.

We saw even more people upon exiting the station. The street was wide enough that an entire barn could’ve fit comfortably between the rows of buildings on both sides. The sun was setting, and bright-steel lamps lining both sides of the street were beginning to flicker and come to life, flooding the air with their pale light. The streets were brick and mortar and resounded with the sound of foot traffic, of horse hooves and rolling wagons; I saw red-steel machines on wheels rolling under their own power, tall pipes billowing steam. With all the noise of shouting voices, ringing bells, the muffled howling of trains behind us, and a half-dozen other things that I could name and probably twice as many that I couldn’t, it all combined into a terrible chaos that made my head want to spin and fall right off of my shoulders. The smells were oppressive—fried food, burning coal, animal offal, sweat, the press of so many people in one space; it all combined into a miasma I’d never experienced before, one so thick that it made me want to gag.

Kale didn’t seem alerted or alarmed by the noise, the smell or press of people around him in the least. I caught hold of the back of his coat with one hand and held on for dear life. He navigated through all of it without hesitating or slowing down, and we soon left the crazed environs of Whitehold’s train depot behind.

The oppressive energy of so many people gathered together lessened somewhat as he turned down one particular side-street, which itself led down a sloped hill towards the water that I saw in the distance. I heard the sound of hammers falling, saw the glow of lit forges and caught the scent of coal fire, smoke and something metallic—the hot metal being worked, I guessed.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“Hm?” Kale looked back over his shoulder at me; I realized I was still holding his coat and let go, falling back a step. Either he didn’t notice, or he didn’t comment on it. “This is Brands Street. The eating house I mentioned isn’t far from here.”

“Why do they call it Brands Street?”

Kale shrugged. “Don’t know that. I do know they make spell-steel here, though.”

We stopped and watched for a few moments as a pair of smiths, heavy-set men with huge arms and shoulders in thick leather aprons and hoods worked a narrow slab of molten metal atop an anvil: one moved it into place with a long pair of tongs before the other began to pound at it with a heavy cudgel. Bright sparks flashed and leapt into the air with every strike. A few moments later, the one with the tongs lifted the beaten metal and carried it to a covered barrel. The other smith removed the lid, revealing a dark, copious liquid; a cloud of noxious smoke and a dark, coppery smell filled the air, the smell of it assaulting my nostrils.

“Is that…blood?”

Kale nodded. “It’s used as part of the tempering process. That’s what makes it different from regular steel, I suppose.” He motioned for me to follow, and we continued down the street.

“They use blood?” I wrinkled my nose. “That’s foul.”

“It’s just part of the process,” he repeated, shrugging again. “I don’t understand all of it. Are you interested in smithing, or something?”

“It just reminded me…” I fumbled for the right words. “There was a smithy on the farm where I lived.” I spied into the numerous shops as we passed them by, watching men—and some women—working in leather aprons and gloves, beating and turning red-hot metal into all sorts of shapes. “It belonged to Gareth, the Steadowner’s husband—I spent hours watching him repair equipment, shoeing horses…just doing whatever Mistress Pol needed him to do.” I sighed, fighting to push the memories away.

“I’m sorry.”

I stopped, and when Kale did the same, I looked at him for a long moment. “You really are, aren’t you?”

Kale nodded. “Truly.”

After a moment, I shook my head and motioned down the street. “Lead the way.”

We made the rest of our trip in silence, leaving the heat and sounds of hard work behind. By the time we reached the end of the street, I could start to smell salt in the air. The harbor was still some distance away, but I could see a small forest’s worth of wooden masts and rigging above the rooftops, vying for space with metal smokestacks.

The metal sign above the door Kale led us into showed a pair of fish, swimming in a circle. The common room was well lit and nearly half-full; most of the other diners gave us a curious glance and then turned back to their business. A woman sitting in the corner stood up and held out her arms. “Master Isrodel! Welcome back!” She was a tall, busty woman with an outfit to match—a low-buttoned blouse and violet skirt, which swirled around her ankles as she walked. “Saints above, it’s been a hound’s age since you were last here!”

“Mistress Gisette!” Kale greeted the woman with what seemed like a friendly embrace, giving a healthy oomph of a sound when she clapped him on the back with both hands. “Good to see you again. Are we too early for dinner?”

“‘Too early,’ he says.” She looked right at me when she said it, grinning like we were sharing some sort of private joke. “The man asks me about mealtimes, as though he doesn’t already know the answer.” Then Gisette finally noticed Kale’s bruised face and bloodstained coat sleeve, eyes going wide. “And what’s this? Master Isrodel, you should be in hospital, not blabbering on about dinner times!”

“What? It’s fi—” Kale flexed the arm where I’d struck him and winced, as though noticing the injury for the first time. “Really, Mistress, don’t trouble yourself. My acquaintance and I came all this way from Svolyn for some of your crab cakes. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll head right for the nearest clinic as soon as dinner is done.”

Gisette looked at me. “You believe a word of that, Miss?”

I paused, my mouth half-open, not wanting to be pulled into the conversation, but Gisette’s pleasant manner was infectious and I couldn’t help myself. “About as much as you can believe anything else he says.”

“Hah!” Gisette gave a bark of a laugh and stepped back. “That’s a smart woman right there, Master Isrodel, that she is. Both of you sit yourselves down and I’ll be back in a jiffy.” With that, the woman turned and strode towards what I presumed to be the kitchen, shouting orders that would’ve made Commander Golova proud as she disappeared.

“You have interesting friends,” I said.

“Who, Gisette?” Kale smirked and took a seat at a table near the corner, patting the other side with one hand in front of a chair, which I took. “I guess so. She’s got the best cooks on this side of town, believe me.”

Crab cakes, it turned out, were some kind of meat concoction fried in oil, each the size of my palm, all served on a metal platter. I thought they were quite tasty, though not at all like the sort of food I was used to. Gisette served them with mugs of beer, as well as dark, brown bread with thick pats of butter and slices of some foul-tasting yellow fruit—I took a bite of one, then promptly spit it out, gagging. “Gah! What is that?!”

Kale started laughing. “You’re not supposed to eat them! Here.” He took one, squeezing the juices over several of his cakes. “Like that.”

I shuddered and picked up all of my wedges, dumping them onto his platter. “Enjoy.” With that done, I took another bite of cake, eyeing the thing as I chewed. I was already on my third; I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. “Do all Whiteholders eat cakes of this kind?”

“I suppose so,” he answered. “Is that a bad thing?”

“It’s…different.” I shrugged. “One more thing I’ll have to get used to.” I twisted up my mouth as soon as I said it and took a long drink, not trusting myself to say more.

“Something the matter?” Kale said. He eyed my beer mug as I set it down next to his, but he didn’t take a drink.

There were so many things I could’ve said, so I chose the first one that came to mind: “Tell me about Bloodlust,” I said, keeping my voice low, looking him right in the eye.

Kale was in the middle of licking butter off of his fingertips. He froze on the latest finger, still stuck between his pursed lips, then pulled it out with a soft pop. “What do you know about that?”

“I know enough,” I said, keeping my voice down, mindful of the people around us. “That it’s one of a number of magic swords that are supposed to be special, for some reason. I know that it belongs to Clan Isrodel, which presumably you’re a part of, given how Alek and Golova were calling you a ‘rich boy.’” I took another bite of food, watching his face, how he reacted. Whether it was particularly mature of me or not, part of me did enjoy his apparent discomfort. “How am I doing, so far?”

“Well enough,” he said, setting down his latest cake, uneaten.

“Alright, then—tell me about it. What does its name mean?”

He was quiet for a long moment. “It’s a berserker’s weapon,” he said, raising his eyes back up, not looking right at me. “Anyone who uses it becomes a mad thing. Once they get going, they never stop until their enemies are down or defeated. Never.”

“You speak like you’re well-acquainted with a weapon like that.”

Kale put his head down, ran both hands through his hair. When he looked back up at me again, something on his face was different. “Inga—”

“Don’t ask me how I found out, Kale,” I said. “Just tell me why you kept it a secret.”

“Because it wasn’t something I wanted to talk about,” he answered. “We’ve known each other for…what? A day? Maybe two?” He leaned in closer towards me, a sudden intensity in his eyes. “I missed the part where you owning me meant I was obligated to tell you all of my deep, dark secrets.”

“What kind of deep, dark secrets?”

Kale didn’t look away. “My mother murdered my father when I was a boy—did you know that? I was twelve. Is that secret enough for you?” His voice was hostile, even angry. “And everybody in this city knows about it. That’s the worst part. Everywhere I go, if someone knows the name ‘Isrodel,’ they’ve heard about the time Elzbieta Isrodel murdered her husband. Like it’s some kind of folklore, something for people to chuckle at over a drink. That’s what it’s like, living in a Swordbearer’s family: your life’s an open book.”

It seemed to me that, having started the story, Kale couldn’t stop. “It was supposed to be some kind of ‘exhibition,’ just a show, put on for the Avardi Matriarch on her birthday, years ago. A dozen soldiers pitted against Bloodlust’s might.” His voice was dark, dripping with venom and regret. “That Sword’s power always burned my mother’s mind away every time she used it, like grease on a hot skillet. She snapped my father Selmin’s neck like a robin’s egg and never blinked an eye. When she came out of it afterwards…she was never the same.”

The tale was horrid, however short it might’ve been. I spoke more softly, even hesitantly, seeing that I’d dredged up such an old pain. “Why do you think she agreed to use it, knowing what it might do to her?”

The look on Kale’s face made it look like he’d swallowed a fistful of yellow wedges. “My father and the Avardi Matriarch were…involved. It happened before I was born. Selmin broke it off, and Yenda the Elder held a grudge about it ever afterwards. Everyone knew exactly what the Matriarch was doing when she asked my mother to show off Bloodlust’s power, and there wasn’t a damn thing my parents could do about it, at the time.”

“And then your mother still agreed to your engagement to Yenda?” I didn’t even try to hide my shock.

“My mother was a different person after my father died.” There was an old pain in his voice as he said it, one that I couldn’t begin to imagine the depths of. “Maybe she thought she had to go through with it. It was a chance to link the families of two Swordbearers, to permanently connect the bond between our Clans. Jaska and I… We’re the last Isrodels left. My mother never approved of Jaska’s marriage, and she still had my future to take care of.” He sighed again, scrubbing his face. “That sword’s been a curse on my family for generations. My sister has it in her house and refuses to hardly even look at it. We don’t talk about it. Ever. So, I’m sorry if I kept a few things to myself out of some sense of familial shame.”

“I wasn’t looking for all of your secrets.” I kept my voice calm in spite of the way my gut was twisting into knots. “I’m sorry for what happened to your mother, I truly am. Nobody should have to… Well.”

He sat back in his chair, limp for a moment. “It’s just so ridiculous. Spellswords are supposed to be the most valuable artifacts in the world, and if anyone knew the truth, most people wouldn’t take one if you tried to give it away. But, still…” He sighed again, and it sounded cleaner somehow, calmer, contented. “I suppose it’s good that you finally know. I’m used to everyone else knowing. It’s…freeing, I guess.”

I coughed, feeling awkward. “I only wanted to know why you didn’t talk about Bloodlust earlier.”

“Because you didn’t know who I was,” he said, looking back up at me again. “How could you? I was nobody to you. I went all the way to Svolyn to try and be nobody. I wanted to be nobody, especially after what happened with Yenda…” Kale looked troubled, letting his voice fall away. He shifted in his chair, looked down, then back up at me. “Never mind.”

“What?”

“I don’t know you well enough to talk about that yet.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Ah!” He raised a finger for emphasis. “But you wanted to. Admit it.”

“No, I didn’t. So what?” I shrugged. “Tell me or don’t. Help me, or don’t. You’re the one who offered to help me, remember? What’s in it for you? If you’re getting cold feet about getting married, there are other ways of getting out of that sort of thing.”

A shadow passed over his face—it seemed, to me, he was calling back an old memory he didn’t want to remember. On that, at least, I could sympathize with him. “It’s a long story.”

“Are you in any particular hurry?”

He shook his head. “You don’t get it. It’s different for you. Life is different for you.”

I tipped my head to one side. “How?”

“You’re a woman,” he said, as if that was all I needed to hear.

“Explain.”

“You get to vote; you can buy a house, start a business, choose who you marry, have children with; you have control over your life. I’ve always been a son with a noblewoman’s name and none of a noblewoman’s respect.” His smile was dry, humorless. He shrugged. “That’s the sort of life I have to look forward to.”

“So what happened?”

That shadow appeared again. “The Yendas happened—her and her mother.” He sat up straighter in his seat. “So now are you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“About everything!” The redhead spun one of his hands in a large, circular motion. He caught himself raising his voice, and so he repressed his enthusiasm while picking up a cake and taking another bite, gesturing at me with it while talking in fast, low tones. “About where all that blonde hair of yours went. About how I saw you die, but then you show up in Svolyn like nothing happened. About why you’re in such a hurry to get here and find Yenda. About why she seems to think you’re related to Katarina Alenir, of all people.” He finally took a breath after swallowing.

I wasn’t sure how to answer any of those things. I felt myself reaching for my scalp again, fought the urge and firmly folded both hands in my lap. “Is that all?”

“Everyone grows up hearing about Katarina and the Deathbringer,” he said, almost whispering the Sword’s name like a cursed prayer. “It’s something out of a nightmare: a weapon that can raise the dead. Yenda’s been obsessed about the Spellswords—all of them—for as long as I’ve known her. She showed up in Svolyn with some of her personal bodyguard, but she wanted more men. Most were like Alek and Lev who volunteered outright, but she asked for me by name.” Given his tone of voice, he didn’t sound too happy having to admit that part. “She paid the lot of us to escort them all out of town, talked about a special spell-steel weapon she was searching for. Wouldn’t talk about it any more than that.” He was putting the pieces together right in front of me; I could watch the realization slowly come over him, word by word. “And then, you show up again, after I’m quite sure I killed you.” His voice became more grim over time, and he dropped his cake back onto the plate, unfinished. “Saints… She found the real Deathbringer…didn’t she? I’m right, aren’t I?”

“You may be on the right track.”

“Wait.” He paused, frowning, then gave me a wary look. “She didn’t…bring you back, did she? Is she controlling you? Is that what happened?”

I gave him a flat, deadpan look. “Do I look like Yenda’s controlling me right now, Kale?”

“Well…no, not really.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation.” Now he looked around the room with a nervous energy, like he was expecting someone to leap out at him. He leaned in towards me, practically whispering. “Inga, I want to help you, I truly do. But do you have any idea what could happen if it’s discovered that the Deathbringer actually survived Katarina’s demise?” His eyes were wide, matching the emotion in his voice. “What the sword does is in its own name! It’s an evil thing, with an evil purpose. The Church teaches that it was cursed, that it made Katarina go crazy.”

“Which church?”

“The Church,” he repeated. “The Anointed Church, only the most powerful religious institution in the whole world.” He looked around the room again, as if worrying he’d be overheard. “Ask anyone about Deathbringer—from the Divine Mother down to the any priestess you like—and they’ll give you a week’s worth of sermons about why it was evil and why the Sword had to be destroyed.”

“What difference should that make?” I said with a frown. “Why should I care about what anybody else says about it?”

“Inga, I don’t think you understand. Deathb—that Sword was enough to drive a woman to start a world war. Katarina and her entire Clan was executed because of it. The whole Alenir name is cursed now because of it! And now, you’re cursed because of it, too.” In contrast to what Kale was saying, his pleading with me to try and understand, I only had Deathbringer itself: the Sword’s voice had always struck me as cold and calculating, choosing every word it said to me with deliberate intention, but it hadn’t said or wanted anything that I would’ve called evil.

I shook my head. “Curses aren’t real, Kale.” The look the man gave me said he obviously thought otherwise. “You’re real, I’m real. The Sword is real. What that woman did to my family was real. I know she brought it here to Whitehold, that it’s inside the White Fortress somewhere, and I’m going to get it back.” My voice went hard. “You saw with your own eyes what happened at Mistress Pol’s farm—at my farm. She ordered an entire settlement of people murdered just to cover up killing my mother and trying to kill me. That debt has to be paid, and she is going to pay it.”

When he spoke again, Kale’s voice was softer, thoughtful. “That’s a tall order for just one woman, Inga.” I didn’t flinch, so he seemed to decide on taking a different approach. “Look, in spite of everything that’s happened between us, haven’t I earned a little trust by this point? I offered to help. I didn’t try to give you up to save myself. I even took a beating for you.” Kale turned his head slightly, as if I needed a better view of his injuries. It felt a touch overdone, like he was rubbing my nose in it a little.

It reminded me of the wound Alek had given me, of the sensation I felt as it healed. “I suppose that’s accurate,” I said.

Kale went quiet for a long moment, a thoughtful look on his face. “Inga…about Yenda—”

Whatever Kale intended to say next, it was lost to the sound of the eating house’s door swinging open, banging hard against the wall. I heard a muffled call of thunder in the air, but it was lost over the sound of someone shouting: “So it is true!”

Looking over my shoulder, I saw a mountain of a man in the doorway, having to stoop just to fit inside. He wore an Avardi uniform and was red-haired like Kale, with a curly red beard cropped close to his chin, stretching up to his sideburns and into his hair. I thought his short curls looked soft, like lamb’s wool. “Oy!” The man turned, shouting back outside. “What did I tell you, lads? He really did come crawling back into town!” In response, I heard the sound of men laughing through the open door, guffaws that sounded more like mockery than amusement.

Kale groaned, looking like he wanted to drop his head into his hands again. “You have got to be joking,” he said, mostly under his breath.

“A friend of yours?”

“Not hardly,” he said, grimacing. “That’s Ruslan Avard—Yenda’s brother.”

INGA

Inga squeezed the trigger. The gun went off, its report much louder than her previous shots; she gave a yelp and nearly dropped it until a larger, stronger hand reached around to steady hers.

“Careful, careful!” Pyotr’s tone was calm and level. He was generally good-natured, but Inga could still sense some tension in him as he gently took the revolver away.

“Sorry,” Inga said, hoping she sounded contrite.

“It’s alright, you just startled me. Sometimes there’s a little too much powder packed into the brass, so be mindful of that.” Pyotr took the barrel in one hand, and with a grip on the handle in the other he worked a small hinge, allowing him to spill out the spent casings into his hand. He jerked a chin towards the old hay bale standing in front of a thick copse of trees, freshly-painted with red and white circles as a target. “You’re getting better.”

“Oh, that’s easy for you to say.” Inga huffed and rubbed at her palm; the skin felt tender, the nerves still buzzing. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to firing one of those things. They’re so…crude.” One of her mother’s proverbs came to mind: “You will learn how to fight with the weapon you have, or you’ve already lost.” Inga wrinkled her nose and silently shooed such unwanted thoughts away for a little longer.

“‘Crude?’” Pyotr kept his attention on his work, slipping a new bullet into each chamber, which he did quickly and methodically. “This from the woman who jogs across the entire farmstead every day, when you aren’t exercising or swinging that waster around until your arms are ready to fall off.”

“They are crude!” she objected. “Just point, click, boom.” Inga curled her fingers in a rough mockery of a handgun, aiming at the target, even dropping her thumb in imitation of the hammer falling. “There’s no finesse, no artistry, no skill. Anybody can use one, so everybody does.”

“Miss Ivanova.” Inga blinked, looking back to see Pyotr giving her a long look, one eyebrow lifted ever so slightly. “To hear you talk that way, I might almost be tempted to say you’re sounding…snooty.” He worked the hinge, closing the pistol with its new load of six fresh bullets.

“‘Snooty?’” Inga huffed and held out her hand for the gun. “I am not.”

“Are too,” he countered, handing her the pistol, but not before sticking his tongue out.

It was so unexpected that it made her laugh. “Are not!” She stuck out her tongue back at him—no reason for her to act mature if he wasn’t going to.

Pyotr winked with a quick grin before stepping around behind her. “Alright, Your Majesty, let’s see you shoot again.”

Inga snorted and rolled her eyes, but his grin was infectious and she found herself matching it. Planting her feet, she cradled her dominant hand with the other, aiming down the tiny metal front sight, focusing on the hay bale in the distance. “Pyotr?”

“Mm?” He was right behind her, a comforting weight and presence, his hands on her hips, his mouth close to her ear.

The warmth of the man’s breath made Inga close her eyes and give a soft shiver for a second, even though she deliberately ignored his wordless sound of pleasure when he noticed her shiver. Inga simply told herself that she’d wanted him to notice. “Why did you insist on teaching me to shoot?” She squeezed the trigger; there was a near-instant moment of hesitation as her body tensed up, waiting for the moment when the hammer fell, the spark ignited, and the gun fired. She was better prepared for the kick that time, and she made sure not to drop the weapon. A new pockmark appeared on the hay bale, another imperfection staining the white ring nearest to the center red-eye.

A moment later, he answered. “Because there might come a time when I won’t be around, and you should know how to.”

Inga considered that answer as she fired another shot. It was further down and away than the first and she grimaced, already knowing what he was going to say.

“You’re dropping your hands again.”

“Mm.” It wasn’t the first time he’d said so, and Inga fought to repress her perfectionist streak. “There were times you weren’t around before; I’ve never needed a gun then.”

“You think it’ll always be that way?”

The question surprised Inga more than she wanted to admit. Her third shot went wide, almost missing the bale entirely. Snarling—mostly at herself—she corrected and fired a fourth time before he could comment, feeling a smug thrill of satisfaction when she nearly hit the edge of the red-eye at the bale’s center. Lowering the pistol, she turned and looked up at him. “I don’t know if it’ll always be that way,” she said. “But I’m not worried about that—not for a long time, anyway.”

“Neither am I.” Pyotr’s smile was a small one, but heartfelt, and it gave Inga some comfort to see it. “But if it ever does happen, just remember two things.”

Inga turned back to the target, taking aim, waiting until she felt his hands on her again. She fired again, watching another black pockmark appear close to the center. “What are those?”

“One: always keep the gun clean and loaded, just in case.”

“And the second?”

“Never aim at anything you aren’t prepared to shoot.”

Inga concentrated, aimed, held her breath. She squeezed the trigger and the hammer fell.