6

SIX: Departures

My heart was pounding so loud in my chest that I was sure Nika could hear it. I was so distracted by the thought of the soldiers drinking downstairs that I barely noticed anything the other woman was saying as she led the way. This was the moment I’d been thinking about for days, but now it’d come so suddenly and I found that I wasn’t prepared for it. That fated moment had arrived, and I was so anxious I wanted to scream. The thought of trying to rest in the same place where my own killer was drinking seemed impossible.

I had to get out of there.

“There’s a communal bath house behind the building, which you can access by the stairwell out the back door,” Mistress Nika was saying. “You can take the evening meal at seven o’clock down in the common area, or bring it back to your room.” When she turned at one narrow intersection, I spotted a bright red door at the end of a short hallway. I let Nika take a few steps ahead, still chatting away like we were old friends, then hurried to the red door, opened it and slipped outside in silence, pulling it shut behind me.

I emerged behind the saloon. The evening air was cool, and I could still hear muffled shouting and cheering from the common room on the other side of the wall. There was no one else in sight. A set of wooden stairs led me down to the ground level where I saw the large bathing tent Nika had mentioned. Individual sections were separated by heavy cloth curtains—inside the nearest one, I spotted a wooden tub on a concrete platform, with a coal fire underneath meant to keep the contents warm. Several sections of the tent were already in use, and from what I could hear, they had several bathers apiece, and getting clean was probably the last thing on their minds.

I was too preoccupied for more embarrassment. If that red-headed soldier was already four or five drinks in, it wouldn’t be long before someone cut him off—men and alcohol made for a potent mix, especially when they had too much of it. Whatever the man’s reason for drinking at such an early hour, I suspected that he wouldn’t take to having that supply cut off too kindly. If he decided to go looking for somewhere else to wet his throat, that’s when I’d catch him.

As for what to do when I caught him…well, Darya’s knife could handle that. It was just up to me to use it.

I moved along the back of the building in the direction of the street, pressing my body close to the log wall, passing through the narrow gap in-between the saloon and the thick line of trees growing next to it. At the corner I stopped, pressed up close to the wall while taking one look over my shoulder—from my vantage point, I could see the rear door of the saloon, and now could spy the front door around the corner as well. If my killer took either way out, I’d spot him.

Several women approached with lanterns and long wooden poles in their hands. They followed the row of oil lamps lining both sides of the street, raising a lit flame on wicks at the end of their poles as the evening sunshine faded. For a moment I worried about being spotted, and pressed myself flat against the shaded edge of the Twin Moons. The woman’s lamp made my hiding place in the shadows even darker by comparison, so she never even saw me. After they passed, the street was all but empty, so I settled down on a seat of dead pine needles.

Then I waited.

The temperature began to drop. It was well into spring by that time, but the evening air was still chilly, and I was thankful all the more for the coat Ira had given me. Passers-by kept their collars pulled up and hats down to shield themselves against a fast wind blowing out of the north. Some entered the saloon, but more left it, some of them swaying so heavily as they walked that I half-expected them to fall on their faces in the dirt.

There was no sign of the Avardi soldiers.

I continued to wait. My anxiousness had lessened somewhat, but that was largely on account of the continued anger and hatred that stirred in my chest.

I watched the stars come out, and the moons with them. The nearest of the two moons, a round, heavy orb of silver light named Mother, hung near the horizon line where it would stay for most of the night; tonight, its silver face was more than half-full, flooding the street and countryside with its pale light. The second moon, Father, was burnt-grey in color and much smaller in size and shape—its scarred face was pockmarked by numerous craters, giving it an appearance akin to a death’s head, a mottled skull hanging on the periphery of its larger companion.

My knees and back ached, but I stayed in place, occasionally checking over my shoulder to make sure no one was creeping up behind me. Several bathers had gone back into the building by way of the back door, but no one had exited it, and so I kept my attention towards the front. In time, I was rewarded for my patience when I saw a flash of blue and silver in the lamp light. I went absolutely still and stopped breathing for a moment.

I saw the man who’d gotten too close to me inside, Alek. A moment later, the unnamed man followed behind. They both wore curved sabers in their belts, and each had a holstered pistol.

“Piss, it’s cold,” the second man said, scowling at the moons overhead as he rubbed his hands together.

“C’mon Lev, the night is still young!” Alek said in protest. “There’s plenty more we can do before someone drags us back to the barracks.”

Lev fished something out of his breast pocket. A moment later, I saw him slide a white stick of wrapped bacca weed between his lips, then strike a match that glowed bright yellow between his fingers as he lit the end of it before shaking the flame away. “What about the girl? Word is that the First Daughter wants us to keep a look-out for someone like her. And I swear I’ve seen her face before.”

Alek snorted in a show of distaste. “So what if you have? This town’s so small I can count the good-looking women on two hands—maybe another foot, tops.”

The other man snickered. “At the rate you pay for a woman’s company, it’s a wonder you don’t recognize her.”

Alek smirked. “Hey, I make sure they’re well-compensated. A man’s got to let off some steam somehow, don’t he?”

“Maybe…” Lev took a pull of his bacca stick, then blew out a bit of smoke. “But no, Alek, seriously.” The white thing bounced up and down as he spoke. “First Daughter’s paying good money—real good money. A Clan like hers has got some deep pockets.”

“Oh, the money’s good,” Alek said. “Seeing as she didn’t bother sticking around to see the job finished herself, we could make a name for ourselves if we handle the dirty work. The Commander sure isn’t going to do it.”

Lev snickered. “Golova’d sooner bite off her right hand than do the First Daughter a favor.”

“Hey, let me bum one of those off you.” Alek made a gesture, and Lev offered a small packet he was carrying; Alek slid an unlit bacca stick out, set it to his lips, and took advantage of the match Lev struck for him. It struck me as some sort of subservient gesture, Lev wanting the favor or pleasure of the other man somehow.

I narrowed my eyes, but couldn’t ignore the sharp, nervous chill that shot through my gut. Deathbringer’s prediction was right, it seemed—Yenda was looking for me, and had her soldiers doing the same. The fact that they were discussing the matter of my murder out in the open made me even angrier…but then, I’d been planning much of the same, after all.

“If Yenda Avard wants the deed done, one brunette is likely as good as another,” Alek continued. “We’ll make a name for ourselves and find a chance to get out of this worthless pit of a town. Besides: this girl bought herself a room, Lev, and with a silver Rial, no less; obviously, she intends to stay put for the time being. Assuming it is the girl that Yenda wants, she’ll be easy enough to find before morning.”

“What about Kale?” Lev said, blowing a thin plume of smoke that vanished in the breeze.

Alek plucked his stick out and spat into the dirt. “Leave him. Let that over-sized brute of a woman throw him out after he drinks himself stupid. It’s not our problem, and not our fault he got weak in the knees after what happened during that last assignment. If the man can’t handle the job every time it gets dirty without sobbing into his beer, I don’t want to deal with him.”

I felt a dark thrill burst in my chest: they hadn’t cut off the man’s drinks yet. With a little more time, he might be too drunk to do much of anything, and I could do whatever I liked to him. My enthusiasm was immediately dampened by realizing that Alek was admitting to taking part in the massacre as well; maybe they both had. I could only see their faces in profile by the flickering lights inside the Twin Moons, but I found that most of my recollections of that day had turned into a blur, overshadowed by more traumatic memories.

It would’ve been foolish to attack them at that moment, but it still took most of my self-control to stay silent. Instead, I watched the two Avardi soldiers—the two butchers—walk off down the street away from my hiding place, and let myself breathe properly again. I waited for several minutes to give them time to get away, promising myself that if I ever got the chance, I’d pay both men back in kind for what they’d done to me.

It was a night for plotting murder, and murder was most definitely on my mind.

Once both men were out of sight, I checked that the street was empty, then crept around the corner to the front of the building and slid up to one of the windows. It was bright inside from the light of the lamps, and although I couldn’t spot the bar where the soldiers were drinking through the first window, the second offered a clear view of it. I could see Mistress Nika and Tass through the glass, but the third soldier—the man Kale—was gone.

Hurrying back to my hiding place, I crept around towards the back door, wondering if I’d somehow missed another exit, some other way for the man to slip through my fingers. My mind was a frenzy of thoughts, of feelings, none of them particularly coherent or easy to define. That explained why I was rushing along, why I didn’t slow down when I should have.

As I turned the corner and put the bathing tents behind me, the Twin Moons was on my left, and a long stable house was on the right: a long, rough-wood and sheet metal building housing horses, buffalo, even a dozing black bear. It was the perfect sort of place for an ambush—the saloon had no windows on the back side of the building, and the lot was out of view of the main road. In my hurry, I had my head down and stumbled blindly into something; it startled me, nearly knocking me off of my feet. I smelled the stink of beer, looked up and saw a man’s face, caught a glimpse of red hair, saw him reaching for me.

I knew him instantly: it was the soldier I’d been waiting for.

Then I was screaming, my knife in my hand; I didn’t even remember drawing it. I went right for his throat, throwing all of my weight into the killing blow. I was already mentally prepared for the sensation, the resistance of steel sliding through flesh—Mother had told me about it a hundred times, told me to be ready for it. What I didn’t expect was for him to twist out of the way at the last second. His hands locked onto my wrists and he used my forward momentum against me, trying to pull me off of my feet. I stepped forward, thrusting one knee up, felt the softness of his gut as I jabbed him, heard the breath forced from his lungs. My opponent turned to one side, avoiding my blade and knocking me slightly off-balance as he ducked around behind me. I tried to turn around, but one of his hands got a hold of my hair and held on tight. Not wanting to lose either hair or the scalp with it, I pushed backwards on both heels, falling towards him, driving us both to the ground.

It was a quick, ugly struggle of thrashing limbs and hard, panicked breathing. The hand holding my hair tightened, making red sparks of pain flash in my vision. His other arm slid around my neck and started to squeeze. I sliced along the length of his arm with the shield-steel blade—his thick coat stopped me from going very deep, but when he cried out and pulled away in pain, the arm around my neck released the pressure on my throat. I spun around onto both knees on top of him, shifting my grip to press the knife to his neck.

Now I could see clearly that it was the soldier Kale: abandoned by the others, now at my mercy. I wanted to kill him, to spill his blood the way he and his brothers had spilled so much. The only thing that stopped me was seeing his wide, horrified eyes.

“Y-you! It is you! S-s-swords and Saints, you’re alive!” His pale face was spotted with freckles; his hair, cut short in a martial style, looked muddy orange in the evening light. He clutched at his injured arm, staring up at me in shock and surprise. Kale’s eyes were the same blue color as Pyotr’s; they practically glowed in the moonlight. Seeing them made my entire body go tense, pulled tight, ready to break at any moment. “B-but…your hair…! I thought—!” He sputtered, bouncing from one thought to the next with abandon.

“Don’t move,” I told him. He wasn’t wearing a revolver, and I made sure his hands were far away from his saber. All I had to do was to cut his throat. All I had to do was to kill him. He would be the first. I had to make someone pay. I had to. “Why’d you attack me?”

“What? You attacked me! I was just trying to defend myself.”

“You and those other butchers killed my husband, my mother, and my friends,” I said, teeth still clenched, holding the knife so tight my fingers ached. The edge of it would slide so easily into his throat, letting him drown in his own blood. All I had to do was push. “They’re dead because of her, and every soldier with her—like you.”

“H-how?” he said, eyes still wide in bewilderment. “How are you alive right now?”

“What does that matter?”

“I…I killed you! I watched you die!”

“Everyone I’ve ever known or loved is dead. All of them! I should kill you right now!” My voice quivered; my throat was swollen, burning, and my vision started to blur with tears that I had to blink away. Why hadn’t I killed him yet?

“No, no, no-no-no-no,” he said under his breath. “It’s not possible. It’s not—”

I pulled back my knife, grabbed the loose scruff of his shirt and gave him a hard shake, banging his head against the ground. “Listen to me! Someone has to pay the blood debt for everyone Yenda Avard ordered dead,” I said, starting to tremble all over. “I’m going to see it paid even if it kills me. And I should start with you.”

Kale kept both hands in sight, but I saw something on his face, something I hadn’t expected: the look of a haunted man. “I-I’m sorry!”

“Sorry? Sorry?!” I managed not to shout the word in his face, but just barely. “Is ‘sorry’ going to bring all of them back? Is ‘sorry’ going to give me my life back? What am I supposed to do with your ‘sorry?’”

“F-fine,” he said, looking away. “Just make it quick.” There was anger in his voice, but it didn’t seem directed at me; I saw his upraised hands curl into fists, a show of frustration and helplessness.

That was the last thing I wanted. Somehow, his invitation angered me even more than my own hesitation. If I was going to kill him, he could look me in the eyes when I did it. “Look at me,” I said.

He wouldn’t.

I shifted my grip and leaned in so close I could smell the stink of beer on his breath. “Look. At. Me.” The venom and shine of loathing in my voice got his attention: his eyes came up to meet mine, but he didn’t speak. More tears burned in my eyes, but I didn’t care if he saw them fall. Every time I prepared myself to end him, I hesitated—was it his eyes? Or how he wouldn’t fight back? “Not two days ago, you and your brothers-in-arms killed everyone I ever loved in my life. And now you’re going to play the helpless lamb and let me bleed you dry? What happened to all of that spirit?”

“You don’t know—”

“I know enough!” I said, spitting the words in his face. “I know what men like you are capable of. I knew it the moment you shoved your sword into my chest.”

Kale winced, as if in physical pain, looked away again.

The force of my teeth grinding together made my jaw hurt. “I should kill you right now because you’ve seen my face, and if I let you live, you’ll just go find more of your men and come back to finish the job.”

“Then why don’t you?” he said in challenge.

Yes—why didn’t I? What was stopping me? I wanted to scream and open his throat, watch his life spray all over my fingers.

“I already told you to go ahead,” he said. “You’d be doing me a favor.”

“A favor?” I frowned. “How would that be doing you a favor?”

“Because I didn’t want to be there, farm girl!” Now he really sounded angry. “I had my orders and I followed them, like every other soldier there. When somebody like the First Daughter of Clan Avard tells you to kill someone, you do what you’re told or she’ll get someone to kill you too! I should have said no; I should have tried to stop it. But I couldn’t. So if you’re going to kill me, do it. I won’t stop you.”

“You make me sick,” I growled. “You’re pathetic—so like a man, killing anything that moves when you’ve got the upper hand, but when you’re under the knife, you give up without a fight. Where was your guilty conscience when all of your company was doing Yenda Avard’s dirty work?”

“Just do it already,” he said, teeth clenched, still looking away in shame. “Or leave me be.”

I wrapped my empty hand around his throat and squeezed hard enough to get his attention, as his eyes flew back to meet mine. “I’m going to kill Yenda Avard,” I said. “Her and anyone else that I find out is responsible for what happened on Poledra Alekhina’s farmstead—like your two friends who abandoned you tonight.”

“They’re…not my friends,” he said. His voice was strained from my squeezing fingers, yet still he didn’t try to defend himself. Instead, he wrapped both hands around my wrist, holding tight but not trying to pull me away—it reminded me of Lev lighting his match, a submissive gesture, showing that he was at my mercy. “I swear—by Saint Dontae, by every saint in the calendar there is—that you were the only one that I…” He hesitated, swallowed, and continued: “…that I killed that day. There was no one else.”

I narrowed my eyes, easing my grip on him by the slightest bit. “You ‘swear.’ As though I should value your word for anything.”

“I swear,” he repeated. “I didn’t have the stomach for any more than that. And if I’m lying, may I fall on your knife myself.”

I wanted blood. I wanted pain, anger, and death. Someone had to pay for my lost loved ones, and this man was sticking his own neck out, waiting for me to finish him. I could kill him, and he wasn’t trying to stop me. But something else stopped me instead. Call it hesitation, fear, even weakness, but I just couldn’t go through with it. To look in his eyes meant remembering my husband’s dead face, and I didn’t want those memories. I didn’t want to feel this way. And there was the fact that if I murdered him there, someone might find the body and start looking for the person who did it.

“Snow and winter both take the Saints,” I said with a snarl, “and you too—you, the other men with you, Yenda the snow-blasted Younger Avard, and…argh!” I stabbed my knife once into the ground, which did nothing to satisfy my blood lust. Then I released my hold on him and stood up. “Don’t think this makes us even. Your life is mine now, soldier,” I said, pointing down at him with my dirty knife. “I’ll take it any time it suits me from now on. Wherever you go, for the rest of your Saints-begotten life, I own you.”

Kale didn’t respond or even move—he just stared at me, his blood staining the dirt. I wanted to start sobbing, but if I let myself cry now, I wouldn’t be able to stop. If what the other soldiers said was true, I couldn’t even afford to stay in Svolyn tonight without running the risk of being stopped, questioned, maybe even detained or worse. The clock was counting down on what remained of my life, and I refused to spend it inside of some prison cell, waiting for the inevitable end.

I had to get out of town. Tonight.

There was just enough time for me to stand up when I heard the sound of a forced cough. Both I and Kale turned, spotting Alek and Lev standing a short distance away; Alek had a pistol raised, pointed at me.

“Get away from him.”

KALE

It was planned as a night of celebration linking the fates of two noble lines, tying Clans Isrodel and Avard together. Ever since the War of the Swords a generation ago, most of the Swordbearer Clans had made similar unions in an attempt to shore up alliances, in hopes of avoiding more bloodshed in the future.

Kale knew that people thought it was a good match: he and his bride-to-be were the eldest children of both families, after all. But he thought it was humiliating—proving he was nothing better than a stud being put to pasture, his fate and future sold away to the highest bidder. He had his mother to blame for it, one of Elzbieta Isrodel’s final feats before she succumbed to illness, madness and death. Clan Avard had a reputation for being as cold and unwelcoming to outsiders as the frigid environs they controlled. It remained to be seen just how his future would fit into their plans, but his fate appeared to be sealed.

The last thing Kale remembered that night was the smell of elderberries. He didn’t drink often, but on a night like that he wanted to remember as little as possible. There were faces and names he’d never seen or heard before, relatives and distant relations he would be expected to remember. On other days, he would do as was expected of him, but on that night, he was still his own master. He drank early and often, letting the blood-colored wine carry him away.

When he awoke, it was to the sound of someone humming a song he couldn’t name. He was in an unfamiliar place: wrong colored walls, wrong decorations, wrong bedspread, wrong bed. His head felt like it was stuffed and mounted on his shoulders; forming a coherent thought took physical effort.

Kale’s first deduction was that he didn’t remember how he got there. The second was wondering where his clothes had gone. He sat up slowly, peeling himself out of the unfamiliar blankets. Across the room, Yenda was sitting in front of a hand-carved vanity. She had hair as black as the Pit, long enough to wrap both hands in from behind without giving her a crick in the neck.

…how did he know that?

“Yenda?” Kale’s voice sounded like he’d been gargling wet sand. “You’re naked as a vagrant.”

Her humming ceased. “So?” She didn’t look away from her reflection. Instead, she smiled, a smug look of satisfaction on her face. Yenda was beautiful, but that beauty glowed like the light reflecting off an oil slick: pretty, but foul underneath. “You didn’t seem to mind that so much last night.” A large, gilded clock of gold and blue gemstones ticked away on the vanity, but Kale’s eyes were too blurry to see what time it was.

“Last night? I didn’t sleep here last— Ohhhh, Saints…my head.” Kale slowly turned, setting his feet on the floor. Just moving sent black sparks shooting through his head, which felt ready to burst at any second. He let it fall forward into his hands, groaning for a long moment. “How…how did I get here? Where are my clothes?”

“Honestly.” Yenda set down her hairbrush and stood up. He heard the soft patter of her bare feet on the floor—it was Trescan marble, he noted, black with silver- and beryl-colored streaks. Everything in the White Fortress shared the same hues, as if the decor was suffering from various degrees of frostbite. When she stopped in front of him, set her hand under his chin, Kale gave an audible hiss as she gently but forcefully pushed his head back, letting his eyes run across every bit of flesh she wanted him to see. Yenda even wore her long hair across her shoulders and over her breasts, like a fresco of Saint Cosme. “You drank too much wine and said you wanted to come back here with me.” She melted into his lap, curling one arm around his neck while the other hand slid through his hair.

More of those black sparks made him want to peel his scalp off. “Stop that,” he said, firmly pushing her hand away.

“Are you upset?” she cooed, as one might to a child. “You were forceful last night, too. I liked that,” she added, whispering it into his ear.

“We came…back here,” he said, pushing past the pain and discomfort, giving her a level look. “Together. Just like that.”

“What, that story isn’t enough to convince you?” Yenda gave a little laugh and stood up again. She walked towards the center of the room, spreading her arms and turning around, as though showing off just for him. “What if I said you were passed out drunk outside my door? Or I drugged your drink and dragged you back here with me? Or maybe you crept into my room in the dark of night and raped me for your own pleasure?” Her face twisted into a fearful mask, and she started crying: hard, wracking sobs as she covered her face. “‘Why, Kale? Why are you hurting me like this? Stop! Stop it!’” As soon as she finished saying it, a sob turned into more laughter. She pushed her hair back, baring every inch of her body, but now it felt more like she was flaunting herself in front of him. “What does it matter? You’re here because I wanted you here. If I’m marrying someone of some lesser pedigree, I intend to see if he’s capable of withstanding my appetites.” Her smile was flat, empty. “You passed—this time, anyway.”

It took Kale a long moment to find his voice. “That’s…remarkably forthright of you.”

“Yes. Quite.” Yenda went back to the vanity and took her seat, picking up the hairbrush again. “Now, run along. You’ve started to bore me. Just don’t run off too far.” She gave Kale a calculating smile before going back to brushing her hair again, picking her little tune right where she’d left it, as though never stopping to speak to him at all.