7.

 

It was Ayae, not Hien, who helped Olcea pack the rest of the cart. It took just under three hours, the last of the boxes being packed and repacked for space, and by the time Ayae carried out the box and jar to the driver’s seat, the night sky had deepened and darkened into the early hours of the next day. “You never told me.” She pushed the last box in securely and turned to the witch, who was doing a final pass around the cart, checking the heavy tarpaulin and ropes, her wrapped hands pulling on the knots. “Why you were leaving?”

“There is an army approaching,” the other woman replied.

Ayae did not believe it. “You have been in fights before,” she said.

“A long time ago.” Olcea passed her on the other side of the cart and approached the black ox, her hand falling on his back. “But you are right, I have fought before. I thought to fight here as well. Mireea has been my home for a long time.”

“But no more.”

“No more.” She scratched the ox’s ear and, over the beast’s head, met Ayae’s gaze. “I am leaving and you should do the same. You could even come with me, if you wanted.”

“You haven’t even told me what you’re running from,” she said.

“Running?” Olcea laughed ruefully and patted the ox’s head. “I am too old to run, but I am too young to stay. There is too much power in this city, now.”

“The Keepers and—”

“Another.” She left the ox and drew closer to Ayae. “The dead have begun to bend.”

Ayae hesitated. In the witch’s gaze was a look she had seen in Fo and Bau, a knowledge that she did not have, but unlike the two Keepers, Olcea feared what she knew. “I don’t understand that,” Ayae said, finally.

“They move toward him,” Olcea said softly. “It is like corn in a field. The wind rises and it pushes it one way, then another, and it has not the strength to resist. I have never seen the likes of it before. The dead do not move easily, but even Hien tries to follow the call to him. He struggles to break the connection with his head, to leave the last of his flesh. I had been told before that the dead react like this to him, but to see it is another thing to experience. It is as if a myth, a tale told by witches and warlocks to their children, has emerged from the Five Kingdoms before me.”

“It ended over a thousand years ago.” Ayae wanted her voice to sound as if such a number meant nothing, but she knew that it did not. She felt dwarfed, insignificant, as if she were in the process of being consumed by horrifically large history. “So much has been lost.”

“This has not been lost,” the witch said. “This could never be lost. Not even for the thousand years we thought him dead, not even then could we forget. When, decades ago, he began appearing in cities and in towns, there was much panic. Qian, witches said. Qian, warlocks said. In each voice was a tremble much as you hear in mine, Ayae. They feared what he would do, and feared it even more when he did not. After a while, others began to say that he was not the same man he once was. He said the words himself to witches and warlocks and stories of him working with them began to emerge. In Faaisha, it is said he stood beside a witch who possessed a child, watched her work, and thanked her later. But in all those stories, the witches and warlocks are not like me. Each one of those has talismans made from the bones of their family, of the men and women who came before them, who taught them all they knew. Their legacy was to each other. When the witch in Faaisha dies, she will leave her own bones to her daughter, and her daughter will leave her bones for her child. Of course he would not strike her, or any of her kind. But I am not her kind. I was not given my power. I did not ask for consent. I took my power in fire and steel and the tragedy of blood.”

“He saved me,” Ayae said. “From a Quor’lo.”

Olcea nodded, briefly. “He found it later, and chased it beneath the city, to where all the old dead waited. Don’t stay, Ayae. Don’t stay for this. Come with me.”

It will not be long until a kindness is said. She heard Muriel Wagan’s words again, but knew that this was not the kindness she meant. It was clear that Olcea was being driven out by her fear—fear of Qian, fear of Zaifyr. Her old, bandaged hands shook as she pulled herself up onto the cart and took the driver’s seat. On the wooden bench, she hunched into herself as if to hide in a way that Ayae had never seen before. The witch looked, suddenly, as if she were old, much older than she was, and Ayae knew that her offer to come with her was not one born of friendship, but fear. She wanted Ayae to come with her because she was just like Zaifyr, because she was cursed.

“Are you going through Yeflam?” she asked.

The witch winced. “For the first time in over a decade,” she said. “I will find a boat there that will take me to Gogair, at least.”

“Drop by Faise, will you?” Ayae took a step back from the cart. “Tell her I’ll be by soon.”

Olcea’s grin was without mirth. “I would have said no too,” she said. “But I will visit. I will tell her that—but do not wait long. Even Samuel Orlan cannot protect you from the powers that are gathering in this city now.”

Ayae watched her ride away, the black ox disappearing into the night, the witch following, the cart last. For a while, she heard the wheels move along the paved stone, but soon, she could no longer hear that. For a moment, Ayae felt her frustration rise, her anger with it but it did not peak; instead, it fell in her, and left her standing alone beside the silent, old shape of Olcea’s house.

A house that was hollow inside.