“I already got a name,” she said flatly. “And it’s Auralia.”
To punctuate her declaration, she snatched up the vibrant stockings and waved them around in the air over her head like flags, streamers of red and gold, colors they might have absorbed from the fire.
Wenjee’s fingers curled into fists. “But…but who ever named you that?”
“And how,” whispered Mulla Gee, “did you change the color of them socks?”
“Auralia’s my name,” she said resolutely.
“But…what does Auralia mean?” sneered Lezeeka.
Auralia laughed. “Nobody knows, not yet already!”
Lezeeka rose and stuck her crooked snout into the firelight. “Nobody gets to make their own name.”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, who’d you get it from then?”
“And how did you change the color of them socks?” demanded Mulla Gee, getting to her feet.
Auralia smiled a secretive smile. “Don’t need to marry no prince of anything. Don’t need to bother with the king’s folk. I got things to do. Tracks to follow. And so much I still gotta see.” Her eyes were dark, sparkling. She skipped through the dust, set the canvas doors to flapping, and danced into the night. It was as though she’d found her feet, and so she ran, and there was no more mothering.
After that, Wenjee tried to persuade the others to accept her chosen name for the girl: Prinny. But everyone called her Auralia. Auralia was her true name. That they all knew, as if it were a secret they had only just remembered.
3
A BASKET OF BLUE STONES
T his was an hour for stealth. The evening sun, peering through an array of passing clouds, beamed ever-changing patterns of light and shade through the trees. When the wind rushed in from a vast and frozen lake, bare branches scraped against one another as if for warmth; ice fell in a clatter and snow in a chorus of whispers and splashes. A rider could pass ghostlike through this wilderness.
Captain Ark-robin had waited for this opportunity. He and his armored vawn were motionless, silent, hidden in brambles, listening.
Tap.
The captain’s grip tightened on the reins.
Tap.
Perhaps pieces of shell were splintering under blows of a crackerjaw’s beak. But it might also be a beastman’s claws, anxious, wherever it lay in wait.
Here, an hour’s ride from the outermost Gatherer huts, Ark-robin had found a trail of unfamiliar footprints through the snow beneath the old coil tree. The small tracks were still sharply defined. Recent. Strangely, the erratic prints of a massive fangbear wound along the same path. Perhaps the stillness meant the bear had caught its prey.
Ark-robin smiled, remembering how when he was just a boy he had practiced tracking—first his mother during her errand runs, then a vawn down Abascar roads, and later a wild viscorcat at the edge of the Gatherers’ camp. As his hunting skills grew, he dreamt of serving in King Har-baron’s ranks.
The world had changed when House Abascar’s kingship passed from Har-baron’s father to Har-baron and then to his son Cal-marcus. The soldiers Ark-robin adored in his youth, whose adventures filled the scrolls of the king’s libraries, had fought battles across the Expanse, resisting the poisonous, powerful magic of House Cent Regus. Today, Abascar soldiers traded the vigorous discipline of war for a routine of tedious surveillance. Cal-marcus ruled a kingdom well defended, with soldiers to patrol the borders, secure the trade routes to Houses Bel Amica and Jenta, protect the harvests, and monitor the Gatherers’ work. Ensnaring and killing the predatory beastmen, the deranged and ravenous remnants of House Cent Regus, were the closest things to war Ark-robin had ever enjoyed as a soldier.
What will the world become when King Cal-marcus passes his power to Prince Cal-raven? Ark-robin swatted a skeeter-fly from his ear. What pathetic duties will dull the lives of future Abascar soldiers?
Tap. A falling blue star flashed past him. A stone or a gem dropped from high in the tentacles of the tree. It landed in a basket strung up shoulder high with a twistvine.
Ark-robin’s scout had whispered when she told him of a meddlesome trespasser. She had whispered because no House Abascar scout wanted to admit she had been outwitted, especially by a child. A young girl. A troublemaker who eluded duty officers by leading them deep into the woods. “I suspect,” the scout had said, “that she is the source of the contraband we recently seized from the Gatherers. A thief, perhaps, robbing from House Bel Amica’s vanity, making deals with her stolen wares.”
Ark-robin vowed he would find her himself, this girl the Gatherers protected, and decide how best to deal with her. It was nothing like the adventures of King Har-baron’s famous house defenders, but it was more interesting than his daily inventory of guard towers and spies.
A gorrel sniffed beneath a bush, then emitted a happy, full-bellied sigh. Ark-robin relaxed. Gorrels fled at the signs of fiercer creatures—wyrms, bears, or beastmen—and they left behind a scent that could throw a town into turmoil. But here the air was pure enough to make an old man young again.
He removed his helmet, polished it with his cuff until his blurred reflection cleared, then combed his beard with his fingers and practiced a scowl of authority and intimidation. Securing the helmet again, he dug his heels into the vawn’s sides.
The armored mount burst through the brush and shook off the thorny strands that snagged it, wheezing and coughing in a flurry of snow. Ark-robin swept past the coil tree, putting on the pretense of a hot pursuit, then pulled up short and circled back to where the basket hung.
“Wild wyrms of Promontory Hill!” he shouted. With a quick stab of his sword, he snapped the cord that held the basket and caught it with his open hand. “What a fortune I’ve found!” he said for the benefit of whoever might be—and probably was—listening. He did not risk a glance upward. “Where do such stones come from? I have stumbled into an enchantment.”
At that he heard distant laughter, like the fluttering cries of a shrillow.
“My daughter will be so pleased. Unless, perhaps”—now he looked left and right in an exaggerated gesture—“these stones might already belong to someone.”
More laughter. Falling clumps of snow and drifting, dead wet leaves. He looked up.
Perched atop a high branch, there she was, squinting, smiling, but cautious.
“I’m so sorry, but I am afraid I cut your basket’s tether!” He beckoned to her, taking off his helmet again so he could appear friendlier. “Come down here. I’ll give it back.”
She began to descend the way a hungry tailtwitcher approaches a man with bread, testing each branch, pausing, reconsidering.
“You have nothing to fear. It’s my duty to protect those who live in these woods, for the Cragavar forest belongs to King Cal-marcus. I am captain of the Abascar guard and chief strategist for the king’s armies. And I must say, I’ve never seen you among the orphans that the Gatherers have been commanded to shelter.” He lifted up the basket like a tray of sweets. “You seem a fairer, friendlier sort than they. You remind me of my own daughter.”
It was a lie but a strategic one. He wanted to seem safe and assuring, to lure her closer. He could now see her clearly, a strange and worried waif, ragged as a finch after a fight with crows, garments tattered and muddied, silverbrown hair glimmering like soft hanging lichen. Young, perhaps eight years, but her features were already striking, bright, inquisitive.
Equally transfixed, the girl studied his elaborate uniform and the vawn, its scales gleaming yellow green, eyes small as coins, and a tail that ended with a heavy, spiked club.
“I’m gonna surprise some Gatherers with those stones,” she said. “I’m gonna hide them in their boots.” She drew one from her pocket and tossed it into his glove—clap. “But take this one to your lady.”
He turned it slowly. It cast tiny spots of light like diamonds all around the clearing. He was as bewildered by its beauty as by its sprightly collector.
“Cwauba bir
ds, Captain. They carry the stones from somewhere far off. North, I think. Cwauba birds are lonely, and they get tired of shoutin’ for others to join them. So they stick a stone in the crook of a branch where the sun’ll make it sparkle. The color does their shoutin’. It’s sorta like the way the Gatherer ladies dress up to tease the men or the way the men prance around to impress the ladies. It’s like makin’ some kinda promise. Do you like to climb trees?”
“I suppose you’ll use some of these to bait a handsome young Gatherer boy…Am I right? If I had a son, would I have to warn him to watch out for you?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No, no, no. Crazy old man. I’m too little, too loud. Gatherer ladies say boys want good daughters of Housefolk from inside the walls.”
“They say that, do they? I’m sure there are Gatherer boys who would like to marry my daughter, Stricia, if it meant they could live within House Abascar’s protection once again. Stricia’s beautiful, and she’s earning all kinds of honor stitches because she takes instruction so well. She’ll have suitors lining up at the door in just a few years. You could enjoy the same attention if you were to earn your way into House Abascar. How long have you been in our woods?”
“Eight summers, they say.”
Ark-robin frowned. “You said cwauba birds carry these stones from the North. You’ve been there? The North? You can tell me a thing or two about it?” He spurred his vawn around the tree, trying to keep her in sight as she clambered about.
“I don’t remember being there. But I can see it when I’m sleeping. Perhaps I was there when I was too small to remember…”
“You’ve heard the histories, no doubt—that the peoples of the four houses came into the Expanse to escape a life of nightmares in the North. I’ve seen some of the wild and untamed regions there. No one can survive on those mountains. It’s a frozen world. Dangers of every sort. You should be glad to live near House Abascar. Duty officers are always on patrol.” Ark-robin slid off the vawn, began to walk slowly around the base of the coil tree.
“Duty officers don’t take care of orphans.” The girl sounded sad. “They just call ’em nasty names. It’s Gatherers that feed and clean up and teach the orphans.”
“Gatherers care for orphans because they want to earn a pardon, not because they’re decent. You think they make good teachers? Is that why you take your little treasures to them? You feel safe among thieves and bullies and liars, do you?”
She cocked her head. “Never met nobody who wasn’t a thief or a liar once in a while. The Gatherers are just the folks who got caught.”
Ark-robin began to lose his friendly tone. “You talk as if they’re just ordinary folk, but the Gatherers are gross offenders of Abascar law—kicked out for spreading dissension, brawling, burglary. Some defy the Proclamation of the Colors, wearing colors that are forbidden to all but the people of highest rank. They disrespect the royalty. And so do you when you give those crooks such beautiful baubles. Treasures like that should be given to the king.”
He had found a way to make his point at last. “Cwauba birds may leave bright stones in the trees, but they don’t leave extravagant garments like those we have found hidden under Gatherer huts. If we catch the person responsible for giving the Gatherers treasures like those, there will be a reprimand.”
He reached up to the lower branches and knocked on the trunk of the tree. “Why don’t you just drop that handful into this basket, and I’ll tell the king you’re sending him a gift. Who knows? He may decide to show you some gratitude. There might be a place and a task for you within Abascar’s walls. I’ll make sure he remembers your kindness when the time comes for you to be tested at the Rites of the Privilege.”
“Get out of my woods!” Spry as a treecat, the girl bounded up three branches until she was just an outline through the boughs. “Get out of my woods. I’m not gonna be no Housefolk.”
“Oh, of course you will…Auralia!” When Ark-robin spoke the girl’s name, her mouth dropped open, and he laughed a hard, proud laugh. “You will join us in a few short years. These things we’re finding in the camps—some Gatherers say they came from you. ‘It’s Auralia’s fault,’ they say. Haven’t they told you about the Rites?”
“Oh yes.” Auralia reached around the back of the tree and lifted another basket full of stones. “Gatherers who have been good get pardoned. And orphans, when they’re sixteen years old, are invited to live inside the walls if they show the king what they can do.”
“Not just the king! You’ll stand in front of all House Abascar, Auralia, for the people risk much by letting someone like you inside. You will demonstrate for them what use you will be, and the king will decide your value to the house.”
“I know lotsa Gatherers who aren’t useful to the king, but they’re still worthsome, no matter what he says. And why does he think we gotta be inside the walls to be happy? Housefolk’re always scowlin’ and grumblin’ when I see them. Prob’ly cuz things’re so much more colorful outside.”
“Are you telling me you do not wish to return to the place you came from?”
“Ha!” Auralia bent her knees, dropped backward, and swung upside down from the branch. Her eyes flashed with wild secrets. “Didn’t come from Abascar.”
Seeing her face more clearly, Ark-robin held back a gasp. She was, certainly, from somewhere far away. It was not just her skin, although she was darker than even the Gatherers with their reddened, weathertough skin. It was her concentration, a fierce apprehension of everything. She was reading him.
He recognized his discomfort, something he’d experienced only twice before. Once he had felt it while standing in the presence of Abascar’s queen. The second time, he had run through a burning house, and he had seen things lurking on the threshold of death—things he would never mention to anyone.
“You did come from Abascar. You just don’t want to play by its rules.” He knew his smile was unconvincing. “Tell me how you came to be an orphan.”
Still upside down, Auralia grabbed a lower branch, unlocked her legs, and swung closer to him. Her toes hung just above the captain’s head, and she tapped them lightly on the top of his helmet. Then she let go and, light as air, leapt and landed, again out of reach, on another contorted black branch. Dislodged by her stunt, red-green leaves, a remnant from autumn, spun slowly down around the disgruntled giant. “Did they tell you I’m an orphan?”
“If you’re not an orphan, then you must have a family. And if your family lives beyond Abascar, then you are a trespasser. And if you are a trespasser, it is my duty to prevent you from trespassing further. You shall either quit these woods or live openly among Gatherers and come into our house at sixteen. During the next eight summers you might consider becoming a mosaicist. Or a roofpatcher. But I would recommend you consider weaving for the king. Those things we confiscate from the Gatherer huts show that you have a particular gift. And when you do come in for the Rites, bring the king some sign of your pledge, an exaltation of Abascar. He will put you to work. Maybe you’ll meet my daughter. Stricia could teach you a thing or two about what it means to be respectable.”
“I’m not gonna join the Housefolk. Don’t want to give up paths for roads. And woods for walls. And caves for Housefolk huts. And colors for…for that.” She gestured in the direction of the house. “The Gatherers blame that nasty queen who disappeared. She took away all the Housefolk colors.”
“They told you that story? Thieves and meddlers cannot be trusted.”
“You mean the Gatherers? Or the queen?”
Ark-robin’s eyes narrowed. “It was a royal proclamation, not a whim, that designated colors for the privileged. We’ll see how much you care about your colorful woods when that fangbear finally catches up to you.” The captain climbed back into his saddle. “Then perhaps you’ll wish you had followed my advice.”
Auralia’s brow wrinkled. “There’s no fangbear chasing me.”
“I’m a tracker, Auralia,” the captain boasted, pointing to the bear tracks
along the ground. “But surely you’re not so blind.”
“Oh, that fangbear. We were only just playing. I was chasing him. He got tired and needed a rest. So I thought I’d climb the tree.” She gestured to the trees just over his shoulder. “Looks like he’s got his strength back.”
Across the snow between the tree and the captain, the tall narrow shadow of Ark-robin upon his mount was suddenly eclipsed by a deeper darkness.
Ark-robin turned and saw the red blur of fangbear fur just as his vawn reared in terror. A moment later he was facedown with a mouthful of muddy snow, blue stones scattered all around his head. Auralia’s voice rang out in surprise and then—it would seem to him later as he reconstructed the memory—perhaps even a scolding. Pain seared through his shoulder. His fall had reopened an old wound. He heard a whistle and a furious roar and braced himself for the strike of razor claws.
Instead, the clearing quieted.
His vawn, grunting nervously, paced about the base of the coil tree. The bear was gone, and so was Auralia.
On a long and meandering route to the front gates, Captain Ark-robin found himself groping for excuses. He would have to explain the scratches on his face and the injury that would—he knew from experience—take weeks to heal.
As his vawn carried him through a clearing, a flock of starlings appeared, arcing up from the east, threading their way to the walls, where they massed and clamored at dusk. Thousands of small black birds gathered every sundown, a great winged tide as sure as the rising moon. Some called them “night-steeds,” for it was as though they drew the night up over the forest, pulling it on invisible tethers.
Ark-robin watched their migration until they disappeared over the last stand of woods between him and Abascar’s gates. With one hand he held the reins, and with the other he held the basket of Auralia’s stones, which, he marveled, still glowed with daylight.