Recognition sparks, and I have the space of a breath to turn my head and see the Indiri girl, blades drawn, facing down three cats of her own. Then one lunges. She smoothly takes its paw off midair, and it falls at her feet, spitting hate. I don’t have time to see her end it, for a pair comes at me; one cat stays behind, content to tear into the flesh of the dead mare.
I take a cat as it leaps, a quick slash across the chest that won’t kill it but will make it think twice before coming at me again. It rolls to the side as it falls, and I have the chance to yell, “Downed cat to your stoneward,” and hear her grunt of acknowledgment before the other is upon me.
It gets a claw in the soft flesh of my ear as I duck underneath its pounce, and the entire thing goes, pulled away from my head with the same tearing sound as a cloak stuck on a branch in a brisk wind. Blood pours into what’s left of my ear, and I shake my head like a dog to clear it, spinning to see that the cat’s momentum rolled it off my shoulder and onto the Indiri’s back, where it hooked her cloak before falling.
She’s off balance as the cat pulls at her clothing, one sword defending against a cat in front of her, one swinging wildly behind to stop the other’s attack. I hear brush rustling behind me in the subtle scurry before a leap, but slice away the tail of her cloak before I turn to strike madly upward, catching this one cleanly in the sternum. It’s dead before it falls, but the eyes still burn bright with hate. The Indiri has handled her two, but more have arrived and we’re encircled.
I take a step back as one taunts me by shaking its haunches in a fake leap, my shoulder striking the Indiri’s. She presses back against me, her stronger sword arm shielding my empty one. We spin slowly, shoulder to shoulder, each of us assessing.
“Do they usually travel in clowders this large?” I ask.
“Does it matter how they behave at any other time than now?” she counters.
“Perhaps,” I say, our feet still moving as we survey the cats. “If they aren’t pack hunters—”
“Gray one,” she says briskly, and the animal charges us, forgoing the leap that had brought its brothers down. It’s a smart cat, going for my weak side so that my parry is defensive, opening up that side of my body to an attack—which an orange cat quickly makes use of. I see it coming, know that I can’t come about quickly enough to stop it, when the Indiri takes its head off with a single slice.
But the strength required for such a blow sends her spinning forward, opening her back to attack, which I quickly cover, ending the life of a black cat that would have bitten clear through her spine. We’re back-to-back again, but the girl, her strength flagging, doesn’t press as hard against me as she did before. My ear fills with blood, and I shake my head again, spattering us both.
“Can you hear?” she calls to me over her shoulder.
“Enough,” I answer.
“No more defense,” she says. “You’re hurt, and I’m weakening. I’ll take the three striped ones. The other two are yours.”
I want to tell her I’ll take three, but it’s been decided and she’s gone from my back, chilly air filling the space where she was. I charge my enemy, and they react as cats do, pressing low to the ground, a line of hair on their backs rising to make themselves seem bigger. But I know where their spines are, and their brains and their bones. I am driven by fear, the desperation of the wounded and—I realize as I strike the last blow—the sudden, enveloping need to protect the girl behind me.
Who needs nothing of it.
A fool, I turn to her with my sword lowered, to find her standing over three dead cats, two blades drawn, ready to fight me.
CHAPTER 47
Dara
My side is a blaze of agony, my wounded arm a dull throb. True strength has left me; all that keeps feet beneath me and hands on weapons is the fever of battle. The same thing is what sent me fighting alongside the Lithos as if he were my brother, his weak side the same as Donil’s, our backs together an impenetrable cycle of blade that cuts to bone. We fought well together. Defended each other, even.
I am sick with the knowledge of it.
Yet we were allies for a breath, and when he turns to me with sword down and—depths—a smile on his bloodied face, my swords falter. His blade is back up the moment he sees my stance, but I see in his eyes a brief flicker of betrayal.
As if we were bonded in that moment, when we fought, blade for blade, blood for blood. Each of us taking account of the other as we circled, defending, striking, always with the other’s strengths and weaknesses in mind.
“I have no weaknesses,” I say, to still my own thoughts.
“I believe you,” the Lithos answers, his sword edging downward as my own begins to fall, the morning light going dark in my vision. In the distance I hear shouting in the common tongue, and when my eyes go to his, I wonder if he sees the same betrayal there I spotted in his own.
“My men,” he confirms, sheathing his sword. “Indiri . . .” he begins, voice tense. “Dara . . .”
My name, soft on his tongue.
“Depths take you,” I whisper before my knees buckle and my hands unclench. The Lithos is down with me in a moment, blood dripping from his face onto mine. He doesn’t move my swords out of reach, and if I had the strength, I could grip one, drive it upward, and end whatever this odd moment is between us.
But I don’t.
Because I lack the power or the will, I don’t know.
Filthy fathoms.
I don’t know.
* * *
I awake in darkness, but can hear the breathing of another, so regulate my own, that they will not know I woke. The dirt beneath is familiar, as is the smell. It’s my own stench, the rot of the trees that left me as I shed tears of blood and spit mouthfuls of the same. I’ve killed a Pietran jailer, stolen the Lithos’s horse, and slaughtered a clowder of Tangata only to end up back in my cell.
I know the smell of him too, and hate myself for it. As we spun together in the forest, it filled my nose, not entirely unpleasant. The Lithos smells of the salty sea and the coldest of rocks, and he is here with me now.
“Did your horse pass through it?” I ask, knowing he will sit as long as I will, and I have no patience for waiting.
“A bruise on the foreleg,” he says. “And a slap on the nose from a cat, I believe. But he’ll live.”
“Seems a good animal,” I say. “Though he did throw me at the first sign of trouble.”
“He’s not seen a cat before,” the Lithos goes on, as if we were not beneath earth and stone, speaking to each other in a space dark as the grave. “They don’t often wander here, and rarely in numbers.”
“The mare you were on, that’s a loss,” I say. “She knew you rode for me and would have driven your stallion to the ground, given the chance.”
“Yes, a loss,” he agrees. “She knew her target and went for it, not seeing other paths. It was her undoing.”
“Ah,” I smile, following. “So in this parable, I am the mare, and you are . . . ?”
“I remain myself.”
“I would rather you were a cat dead on the forest floor, and I on my way home.”
“Stille is home?”
“Stille is . . .” My hand falters at my side, finding a clod of dirt. I toss it into the dark simply to hear it break against a wall. “Stille is Stille,” I finish.
The Lithos is mercifully quiet, and I regret the bitterness that edged my voice when I spoke the name of my adopted people, the place where my brother remains, as well as Dissa, and—I allow myself the bright stab of the thought—Vincent.
“I will tell you nothing,” I inform him. “It is not home, but it was my shelter for a time and still harbors those I care for.”
“Who is it that you care for?”
He has shifted, and I didn’t hear the movement. The Lithos is crafty, not moving closer but showing me that he could wit
hout my knowing.
“The Indiri first,” I answer. “Then those I call friend.”
“Who are?”
There’s no harm in my telling him what he already knows, so I lift my chin as I answer. “Dissa, former queen of Stille, and her son Vincent, king of Stille.”
My voice is strong, pride evident. But the Lithos is quiet for only a moment.
“That’s a short list.”
“Let me name yours,” I spit. “Hadduk—slayer of my people. Ank—betrayer of my father’s-father. Nilana—murderer of the same. The Keeper—mother of drowned children. The Feneen—rejected by their own blood. And lastly, every Pietra who ever drew breath and those who rot in the sea that took them moments before I would have opened your throat. I may have few friends, Lithos, but they are worthy of that title.”
“And mine very, very capable of hurting you.”
He’s moved again as I ranted, this time to my lee. I close my eyes against the darkness, finding the same within as without.
“Let them,” I say, the cold comfort of the inevitable filling me. “You tire me with this game. If it is to end in blood, then let it be spilled. I’ll chew through my own tongue before I say a word that benefits you.”
There’s a touch on my wrist before he goes, so quick and light I wonder if I’ve imagined it before I feel his breath against my face, his voice in my ear.
“I wish it were otherwise, Indiri.”
CHAPTER 48
Ank
My mother always lingers with me after I go, not just the nilflower that scents the air, but her face, worn more each visit. I put my hands upon her lined cheeks when I left this time, felt the goodness of her, the true, hard kernel of pure love at her center, surrounded by playful coyness and a deep knowledge of things that are to come. My mother feels of hope in the face of despair, yet I couldn’t help but think as I left this time that the despair had a sharper edge than ever before.
There are changes, small and large, as I head back to Pietra. Downed trees that fell when the ground shook, soil that clings to the roots now hard and crumbled, though the musky scent of rent earth still fills the air. Oderbirds fly, their feathers less vibrant as they grow older, and not many deep colors among the flocks. The trees that still stand bear claw tracks in their trunks, and clumps of hair in the lower branches.
The darkness that had settled in my middle swells at the sight, reminding me of what had sent me to Stille at the first, not long ago. Lusca on land, cats taking to trees, oderbirds refusing to make young. There is something deeply wrong in our world, and the animals know it. If Mother has seen what is to come, she did not share it with me, whether to shield me or in hopes of a different outcome, I do not know.
My horse tosses its head at a crevasse where there formerly was none, and I shiver at the sight of the deep earth, now open to the air. The skin of our island is breaking, its belly exposed. How long before sinews let go and bones separate?
I guide my mount in search of a different path. I had told Madda I would look for traces of the Indiri girl as I travel. But I see no people, only Tangata prints, bold in fresh earth. More than once, I feel eyes upon me, and know that some traveler has hidden at the sound of my approach, and cannot blame them. Those who walk on two legs have begun to feel whatever it is the four-legged already knew. Danger lurks.
I do not go in search of these travelers, not wanting to cause alarm. I doubt I would pass Dara without an arrow in my back, and though I would die at her hand, I’d do so knowing she still lived.
I shift on my mount, thoughts on spotted skin and bright eyes. Our world has long been weakened, the Indiri magic with it. Mother is right to worry that the girl’s pride could be her undoing, for skin can part under a Tangata claw or Pietran blade, no matter what color. Unbidden, I think of the earth itself cracking, water gushing forth instead of blood. I ponder the image, wondering if the lives of the Indiri are tied to the well-being of the very land I walk on. The idea carries merit, and I send a thought to wherever the girl may be, that she be safe.
* * *
Pietra is not as I left it.
I hoped to find my way to the chamber that Witt has given me. Though I would prefer to be with my people, I also know that the Lithos having easy access to my advice is more in their service than my presence among them would be. This room, with its stone walls and plain furnishings, has become something of a solace, I’m loathe to admit. A lifetime spent under open skies has given me freedom and understanding of living things, but the simple luxury of a bed is welcome in my old age.
I have neither freedom nor luxury as soon as my arrival is noted. I’m taken directly to the meeting hall, where Nilana, Hadduk, the Lithos, and the Keeper are deep in argument. Nilana glances up when I enter the room, the briefest flash of relief at my presence telling me how high tempers are flaring.
“What’s this?” I ask. “A gathering of minds while the best of them is away?”
“I’ll not listen to your glib tongue.” Hadduk comes at me immediately, finger raised to my face. “You can’t wander into the night and come back pretending to know all. An Indiri moves among us in your absence, or is this no surprise to you?”
“Bide, Mason,” the Lithos says, coming to Hadduk’s side. “Ank left under my command, and you can see by his face he did not know of the Indiri.”
Either Witt has become sharper at reading me, or I’ve not been able to hide my reaction. No matter which is true, I must step carefully.
“The girl or the boy?” I ask.
“Girl,” Nilana says. “If only it were the boy. He seems more . . . malleable.”
Hadduk shoots her a side glance, catching her tone, and I take the moment she’s given me to measure the Lithos.
He’s missing an ear, a nub of what’s left sewn to his head in something resembling the other side. A steady hand—the Keeper’s, no doubt—did the work, and did it well, though Witt’s lucky to have long enough hair to hide most of the damage. Not that such things matter to the Lithos, I think, remembering Nilana’s insistence that the boy refused to be distracted. And yet . . . there is something different about Witt beyond the wound, a change in the air around him that speaks to me in a language I haven’t quite deciphered.
“An Indiri moves among us.” I repeat the Mason’s words. “Does she still?”
“And then some,” Hadduk snorts. “Right out of her cell and into the forest, with a dead jailer behind her and a Lithos who won’t—”
The Mason bites off his anger and turns his back to Witt, falling just short of treason by a word.
“The Mason believes I have been somewhat soft in my dealings with the Indiri,” Witt says calmly, tilting his head as the Keeper puts some balm on the flesh of his ear, still the bright, angry red of a fresh wound.
“I’m confident the Lithos has acted as he should,” I say, shooting my eyes to Nilana to judge if I am speaking truth or not. She shrugs, almost imperceptibly. “Tell me, how did the girl come to be here and is there only the one Pietran body in her wake?”
Witt explains as the Keeper covers his ear, wrapping a linen around his head, which soon spots with red where he still bleeds. The Indiri has left not only the jailer, but also a Lusca and an Elder rotting behind her as she tears through Pietra. As the Lithos comes to the tale of her escape, and their own pitched battle in the forest against Tangata, I hear something in his tone that he reserves for very few indeed. Respect.
Nilana hears it too, as does the Keeper. I can see it in their shared glances, a small twitch in Nilana’s mouth and a larger one from the Hyllenian. Hadduk only fumes more, his back still turned to the rest of us, but the shaking of his head says fathoms.
“She is a fighter, my Lithos,” he says. “And a good one. But a fighter who has killed Pietra, same as her forebears, and she should be as they are. Let me make it so.”
Witt nods his thanks to the
Keeper as she ties off his bandage. “I cannot do that, my Mason,” he says, voice low and controlled. “The girl is necessary to draw Stille out to meet us in battle. She is not to be killed.”
Hadduk spins to face his commander, heat in his eyes. “Killed, maybe not. But harm is warranted, I think, and there is a message to be sent. Or do you shrink from hurting a woman?”
Witt stands, cold as the stones he lives among. “Have you not seen me open slim throats beneath Hadundun trees? Were you not present at the last Culling, where I sent many women to the sea? If either of us has a weakness for females, Hadduk, it is you.”
The Mason nods his assent, the proud jut of his chin somewhat lower than before. And yet, I do not think the man is a fool. That the Indiri girl is a female surely did not escape the Lithos’s eye, but it is her ferocity that has gained his attention. I see the Keeper watching him closely as well, and wonder if her thoughts follow my own.
“She cannot be killed,” I say, echoing Witt’s thoughts. “To be used against the Stilleans or to save our own skins. Did the earth shudder here as it did under my feet on that path to Stille?”
Nilana nods curtly to me, and I see the Lithos and Mason exchange a glance.
“It did,” the Keeper says. “And nothing like it have I ever known.”
“And not long after the Indiri was brought to you, torn by a Lusca and sick unto death from taking down a Hadundun tree, correct?”
“She dripped blood like she’d been drained of it,” Hadduk says, and spits. “Leaked out onto this very floor and would’ve pulled us to pieces with her hands if she’d had the strength to reach us.”
“Yet she did not,” I say, averting his anger. “She was nearly dead, and the earth shook at the thought. The Indiri are of the earth, Lithos,” I say, turning to Witt. “To put her to death is to murder the very soil you stand on, and invite it to abandon us all.”