“And don’t expect any sympathy if you catch your death out there,” she shouted. “You didn’t even pack an undershirt.”
“I expect nothing from you,” he shouted back.
She was determined he would not get the last word and shouted a whole lot more until she had no idea what she was saying.
Inside, she walked to Jasmina’s bed, thinking of her dream again. Not of the savageness and not of the confusion, but of the part that she remembered most of all. That it wasn’t Tesadora and Vestie who had walked the sleep with her, as they had each month before her pregnancy when it was Isaboe’s time to bleed. It was a different spirit now, one that almost shared her heartbeat. She stared down at her daughter but knew it hadn’t been Jasmina. She felt a kick in her belly and almost buckled, imagining the truth.
Had she walked the sleep of some savage beast with her unborn child?
“Froi?”
“Yes?”
“Are you awake?”
“I am now.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“What are you thinking?”
“About sad things, really. What if I never get to meet our little king, Froi?”
“Don’t say that. Don’t think it!”
“He’ll never know that the time I felt most brave was when I knew he was in my belly.”
“You were brave long before that, Quintana. Sleep.”
“Quintana?”
“Yes.”
“Are you awake?”
“I am now.”
“I can’t sleep,” he said.
“What are you thinking?”
“That time . . . that time you let go of my hand in the Citavita,” he said, “when you thought I would hurt you and the babe, where would you have gone?”
“Wherever our little king guided me.”
“He speaks to you?”
“No. But he used to speak to my sister, the reginita . He liked the sound of her voice. He’s very clever in that way. I think he’s gods’ blessed, like Arjuro.”
“And where did our little king suggest you all journey without me?”
“You’ll not believe it.”
“But I will.”
“Promise you won’t think me a fool.”
“With all my heart.”
“Then you’ll have to come closer, Froi. We can’t have the Avanosh lot hearing.”
“Quintana? I can’t hear you. Speak louder. You’ve got to speak louder. I can’t hear you. Quintana!”
“Froi!”
Don’t wake up.
“Froi!”
Fight it. Don’t let her go again.
“Froi, wake up!”
The times he loved most were when his eyes were closed. So he could imagine he was still in his quarters in Paladozza on that long night when they talked and talked and lay naked against each other. They were like a cocoon, she said. She had seen one in the gardens of their compound and had sat and watched it for hours. So there they lay with her rounded belly between them, protecting their little king, studying each other’s face as if trying to work out which part of them would belong to the babe.
With eyes closed shut, Froi could also imagine Gargarin and Lirah down the hall in De Lancey’s home and he could go back to that room time and time again and change everything that happened. Take back every word he spoke.
But sleep was already gone and with its loss came truth and a flatness to his spirit that rendered him motionless. Barely opening his eyes, he could see Arjuro crouched beside him, a cup of brew in the priestling’s hands that was sure to turn Froi’s stomach.
“She whispered it to me, Arjuro,” he said, his voice hoarse, and Arjuro lifted the cup to Froi’s lips. “I could almost hear her. I could almost hear the words telling me where she’d hide.”
“Drink,” Arjuro ordered gently. “She’s just about told you every night, Froi. For weeks now. You beg her in your sleep over and over again. Let it rest or you’ll drive us both mad.”
Arjuro lit another of the oil lamps, and then two more, and placed them in the crooks of the wall. It was the only light Froi had seen these past weeks, and he wondered what it did to a spirit to not feel sun on the skin or the wind on one’s face.
Although he shared the cavern with Arjuro, passages linked it to every other cavern in the underground godshouse of Trist. The rest of Charyn had been led to believe that the priests were hiding somewhere in the caves outside Sebastabol, but instead they lived beneath the city itself. It was a labyrinth so extensive that it had three main entrances: one through a grate in the ceiling that led to a hospital for travelers, and two through cellars of Sebastabolians who had an allegiance to the priests. It was outside one of those homes where Froi’s bloody body was left.
“You have a habit of turning up on our doorstep, Dafar of Abroi,” Simeon, the head priest, had told him the first time Froi woke. “Creating havoc in the kingdom beyond understanding.”
They were unable to tell him who his savior was. “You were left and he was gone without a word,” they said.
Froi dragged himself out of his bedroll and walked to the basin, where he dampened a cloth and wiped it over his face. Each morning had been a measure of how quickly he was healing, and his only relief today was that there was less pain than the day before.
“I’m ready,” he said to Arjuro.
“You said you were ready the day you woke up with eight barbs wedged in your body,” Arjuro muttered, mixing a paste that he coated on Froi’s wounds each morning. It produced a stench that made them both want to retch, but Arjuro insisted that the scars would fade and Froi would heal quicker. The faster Froi healed, the closer he came to finding her.
“Arm up,” Arjuro ordered.
Froi held up his arm as Arjuro smeared the paste onto the deepest of the wounds on Froi’s side. “It’s the one that brought you closest to death,” Arjuro said most days, and Froi would hear the break in the priestling’s voice each time.
The paste and Arjuro’s fingers were cold on his skin, and Froi flinched more than once, although he tried hard not to. It was Arjuro who had to be convinced of his strength. Arjuro, Froi had come to understand, was respected by the compound of Trist, and Froi could see that the priests and their families were desperate to keep him. He was the last of the oracle’s priestlings, and he still held a fascination for them all.
“Are you ready for the collegiati?” Arjuro asked. “You’re the most exciting thing that’s happened to them for quite some time.”
“You mean my injuries are,” Froi said.
“Yes, I suppose they will miss your wounds when you leave.” Arjuro chuckled.
Each morning, a group of young men and women, a little older than Froi, came to visit their quarters. Although not last borns, some were in hiding because they were believed to be gods’ blessed. Others were the children of the priests and priestesses who had hidden their families all those years ago when the oracle’s godshouse was attacked. That a school for the brightest minds in Charyn existed in the bowels of a province didn’t surprise Froi. In the nook of any given cave in this kingdom were a people refusing to give up.
“The way they grovel to you makes me sick to my stomach,” Froi said as he watched Arjuro arrange his tools of healing. Froi thought of them more as tools of torture. When he had first awoken from his injuries, one of the collegiati had told Froi how excited all in the compound had been when Arjuro returned to them.
“He was considered the greatest young surgeon in Charyn before the attack on the Oracle’s godshouse,” the girl Marte had explained to Froi. “My mother was one of his teachers in Paladozza and said that even as a boy he showed brilliance.”
Marte and her fellow collegiati were hungry for any type of learning, and they hovered around the entrance of Arjuro’s chamber all day long, just for a chance to spend more time with the priestling.
Arjuro found them as annoying as he found most people and would tell them exactly where he would prefer they go. But they
returned each day while he treated Froi’s wounds, which they analyzed and discussed, poking at Froi as if he were nothing but a slab of mutton. Froi would see their eyes blaze with excitement each time they saw his scars.
Whoever had taken him to these caves had tried to yank out the arrows, but once the shafts were pulled, they had come unstuck from their stems and Froi was left with eight arrowheads lodged inside his body.
“Catgut goes a long way, blessed Arjuro,” Marte said that morning when they all shuffled in. “The stitching is perfect.”
“But how did you remove the barbs, Brother Arjuro?” a collegiato asked in awe.
“With an arrow spoon,” Arjuro said, showing them the instrument.
There was much oohing and aahing.
“The spoon is inserted into the wound and latches on to the arrowhead,” Arjuro said, looking at Froi. “You might want to close your ears for this next bit, Froi.” Arjuro turned back to the others. “Next moment, the barb is ripped out and look what we have?” Arjuro said. “Beautiful.”
This was what produced joy for Arjuro. Inflicting pain.
“It’s a work of art, Brother Arjuro,” an annoyingly fawning collegiata said. “You’re a genius.”
“Yes, I’m going to have to agree,” Arjuro said, pleased with himself. “See how clean this one is,” he said, pointing to Froi’s shoulder blade. “But I think it could have been a tighter stitch. I only wish I had a chance to do it again. If I could get myself some bronzed wire, rather than using sheep bone, I think I could have done a neater job of this sewing.”
He caught Froi’s eye, a smile crossing his lips. Froi knew he was enjoying himself.
Someone ran a finger alongside the dent at the back of Froi’s head and Arjuro slapped the hand away. Froi had received an arrow to the head and they had been forced to crop his hair. Although not completely bare, it felt strange under his fingers. But what was even stranger was the collegiati’s reaction to it. Not a day went by without a hand attempting to feel its way across the cleft at the back of Froi’s skull.
“Are you going to tell me what’s there?” he demanded of Arjuro.
“A hard head,” Arjuro responded, and Froi saw the warning look he sent to the others. “It’s a good thing you have no brains and the arrowhead pierced nothing but empty space.”
It was the same joke each time, and Froi rolled his eyes when the others laughed at it again. “Can I put on my trousers now?” he asked. Never one to be bashful about his naked self, it felt different when the collegiati scrutinized every part of his body. The topic of foreskin was the most difficult to endure.
“He grew up in Sarnak. It’s what they do to their male young. A snip and then it’s gone,” Arjuro explained.
The men had flinched. The women were intrigued.
Arjuro ushered them all out.
“Brother Arjuro, what of warts?” one of the lads asked at the entrance of the cave. Nothing gods’ blessed about that one. Some were quite delusional when it came to the degree of their talents.
Arjuro stared at the young man.
“I don’t heal warts. If you want to learn how to heal warts, go to the soothsayer and she’ll feed you with an old wives’ tale or two.”
When they were all gone, Froi pulled on his trousers.
“They’re all half in love with you,” he said. “Men and women.”
“Yes, it’s a pity you didn’t inherit our looks,” Arjuro said. “You, too, could be as popular.”
Froi hid a smile.
“Gargarin was even more sought after,” Arjuro explained, sketching today’s image of Froi’s gut wound into his journal. “It’s because he ignored the world and, in turn, the world believed he was playing games.”
“Were you jealous of him?”
“Gargarin?” Arjuro looked up, surprised by the question. “Never. I told you. I was jealous of anyone who took him from me.”
“He could be happy with Lirah in Paladozza,” Froi said softly.
Arjuro sighed. “I can’t see my brother staying put while all this is happening.”
Froi imagined that “all this” was the question of Quintana’s whereabouts. He watched Arjuro carefully. “You know I’m ready.”
“I’ll tell you when you’re ready. Sit.” Arjuro pressed hard on the puckered skin across Froi’s gut.
“Does that hurt?”
Froi pressed two fingers against Arjuro’s shoulder with the same force.
“Does that?” he snapped in return.
“Oh, so we’re bad-tempered this morning, as well. Always good to see the Abroi spirit living on in our sprog.”
This time Froi couldn’t resist a smile, but then he grabbed Arjuro’s hand and pressed it against the back of his skull.
“What’s there, Arjuro? What are you hiding from me?”
Arjuro pulled his hand away with a grimace.
“Nothing we don’t already know, Froi. It was just hidden for so long. You were born with a mop of hair. Did you know that? It’s probably been there your whole life and no one ever saw it.”
“But what is it?”
“It’s the same style of lettering as Quintana’s,” Arjuro said finally. “We didn’t realize all this time that both of you were scorched by the gods or whoever it was.”
“If not the gods, who else?” Froi asked.
Arjuro shook his head. “I don’t know. I wish I did. I wish I knew what it meant.”
He placed a blue woolen cap over Froi’s head, almost covering his eyes and ears.
“Make sure no one outside these caves see it. Charynites are used to the sign belonging to last-born women,” Arjuro said. “I don’t know what would happen if they knew the very last male born was walking among us.”
Arjuro put his journal away under his cot. Froi saw a note poking out from one of the pages. He watched for signs of news all the time, and during the past day, Arjuro had received new correspondence.
“What’s in the letter?” he asked.
Arjuro didn’t respond.
“Tell me,” Froi begged.
Arjuro sat on the cot and thought for a minute. “We’ve received word back from the Turlans. Quintana never reached them, Froi. She’s not in the Lascow Mountains, either. We’ve sent out word to the provincari. She may have gone back to Jidia.”
“Orlanda made it clear that she would not protect her,” Froi said, referring to the provincara of Jidia.
“Regardless, if Orlanda’s hand is forced, she will protect the future king.”
“What of De Lancey? Quintana went searching for Lirah that time in the Citavita. Maybe she returned to Paladozza.”
“I’ve written to De Lancey. Let’s hope he responds with the news we want to hear.”
“Arjuro —”
“It’s all I know. Don’t ask me again!”
The hammering on Lucian’s cottage door woke him with a start.
“Lucian! Lucian!”
The voices belonged to Lady Beatriss and Tesadora, he thought, stumbling from his bed. Something had happened to Yata. He felt the all-too-familiar taste of bile fill his mouth as his mind raced with images of the worst.
But Yata was there the moment Lucian opened the door, his relief cut short when he saw the looks on all three faces.
“Vestie’s gone!”
“Taken from her bed, Lucian!”
He grabbed his coat and felt the sharp slap of wind against his cheeks as he joined them outside. Winter was outstaying its welcome for yet another day. He had never known it to drag on so long.
“One at a time,” he ordered as they traveled the path down to Yata’s home. “And everyone calm down! No one on this mountain would hurt Vestie, so there has to be an explanation.”
Lady Beatriss nodded and tried to do as she was told, taking a deep breath that sounded more like a ragged sob.
“I woke up and her bed was empty, and then I woke Tesadora and we searched Yata’s house. Nothing.”
“The door was unlatched,” Te
sadora continued. “From the inside.”
They reached Yata’s compound, which sat at the center of the mountain, and Lucian hurried to the bell in the courtyard. It had only been rung once since their return, after the younger lads broke into the cellars and got drunk. It was unlike the bell that Isaboe had insisted be placed on the mountain halfway to Lumatere. That one was a means of alerting the guards stationed there that something was wrong on the Charyn border; Yata’s bell could be heard only throughout the mountain village. Lucian rang it long and loud until the Monts emerged from their cottages, even from as far up as the slopes to the east.
Lucian’s eyes met Tesadora’s. She wasn’t one for dramatics, but she looked pale and he knew that Vestie of the Flatlands was precious to her. Very few people found a place in Tesadora’s heart. Finnikin spoke often about the love between Tesadora and Isaboe. Letters were exchanged between the two each week and it wasn’t rare to see Tesadora laughing as she read her correspondence. Both Isaboe’s and Tesadora’s bonds with Vestie were strong because they had walked the sleep together during the curse. Lucian could not fathom the thought of what would happen if Vestie was hurt.
“She could have responded to a knock,” Lucian said.
Tesadora, then Beatriss, shook her head.
“We would have heard it,” Yata said. “There was no knock.”
By now a crowd had gathered around them, calling out questions, realizing that this was no drunken foolery by the younger lads.
Lucian settled them down, knowing that their silence would be short-lived the moment he spoke the words “Vestie is gone.” And short-lived it was. Questions were shouted at him from all directions, the women crying out their fear as they surrounded Beatriss, alarming her even more. Worst were Jory and the lads, whipped into a frenzy of fury. Jory’s response to Phaedra’s death had been anger. The lad wasn’t aware that it was grief he was feeling, and perhaps Lucian and the Monts had not realized until these past weeks that Jory was no longer a boy.
“Stop!” Lucian ordered above the noise. He pointed a finger at the lads, who were the last to obey. He waited for silence again. “Everyone search around your homes. Jory, ride down toward the valley and ask the cottagers to start searching the middle mountain. You lot,” he said, pointing to his younger cousins, “check the woods. Knock on every door. Juno, take your lads and head toward Balconio.”