“Drop the knife,” the glowing soldier said, his voice low and full of the promise of violence.
Evan looked down. He’d all but forgotten the blade still clutched in his hand. He allowed it to slip through his fingers so that it thudded into the sawdust by his feet. He had a smaller knife in a sheath in his boot, but it was no match for a sword.
Was it possible that this soldier mage had been sent down from the north by the empress? Mages were rare this far south. Evan had seen none in the backwater of Endru, and only a few of the empress’s ruddy minions since he’d arrived in Tarvos. But why would Celestine’s hired henchman settle down and start up a farm while he waited for his quarry to return?
No. It had to be Kadar. Kadar’s tenant, rather.
“And your amulet,” the soldier said. “Toss it over here.”
“Amulet?” Evan shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The boy’s jaw tightened. “That pendant around your neck.”
“That’s not an amulet,” Evan said. “It’s . . . a family heirloom.”
“Right,” the soldier said, drawing the word out like steel against stone. “Whatever it is, toss it here.”
Evan broadened his stance. It had been a bad day, and it was getting worse. He was looking for a fight, and this intruder might give him one. “Go to the Breaker.”
It was as if he’d handed the soldier the excuse he needed. Releasing his hold on his sword, he thrust his hand at Evan, growling something under his breath. A curse? Whatever it was, it sounded like death but felt like the brush of a feather. Evan felt a tingle run through him, and that was all.
The soldier frowned and looked down at his hand, working the fingers as if they might have malfunctioned.
“What’s the matter?” Evan said. “Did you forget to load your finger?”
Before Evan could draw another breath, the soldier had crossed the distance between them, gripped his throat, and slammed him up against the wall. Evan was vaguely aware of the burn on his neck when the stranger ripped the pendant off, the plink of it hitting the wall. His attention was riveted on the pressure of fingers against his windpipe, the black spots sliding across his vision, his desperate need for air.
The boy released the pressure a little, and Evan dragged in a breath. His vision cleared, and he saw that he was nearly nose to nose with the mage, all but drowning in his turbulent eyes.
The soldier’s fingers slid down to Evan’s collarbone, searching, raising gooseflesh all along the way. “What’s this—no collar? You mean the general turned you loose without one?”
Evan swallowed, acutely aware of the heat of the soldier’s touch. “Who’s the general?”
“I’ll ask, you answer,” the soldier said, now releasing icy tendrils of magic through Evan’s skin. “How did you find us?” He spoke Common with a familiar accent that Evan couldn’t place right away. His skin was paler than that of most of the tribes along the Desert Coast, though burnished from time in the sun.
“I don’t know . . . what you’re talking about,” Evan gasped. “I wasn’t trying to find you. If I’d known you were here, I’d have stayed away.”
“Is that why you were creeping through the barn with a dagger in your hand?” Again, the ice poured in. It seemed to run through Evan like rain through a gutter, leaving nothing behind.
Fire and ice, Evan thought. This boy is fire and ice, welded together with pain. He’s wounded, though the evidence is hidden under his skin.
The soldier was losing patience. “Say something!” he growled, giving Evan a bone-rattling shake, then slamming his head against the wall.
“Why the goats?” Evan blurted.
The boy blinked at him. “I beg your pardon?” he said, startled into revealing his blueblood roots. So he was a highborn soldier mage.
“Why the goats?” Evan repeated. “Why would you bring goats to an ambush?”
The soldier shook his head, as if to dislodge the words that didn’t belong. “I didn’t plan on being ambushed,” he said.
“You ambushed me,” Evan said.
“If you trespass on someone’s property, it’s hardly an ambush.”
“You’re the one that’s trespassing,” Evan said. “I’ve been living here for a year.”
“Really.” The soldier mage raised an eyebrow and took a slow, deliberate look around. “It didn’t look lived-in when we arrived.”
“I’ve been away,” Evan said, defensive in spite of himself. “I don’t spend much time here.”
“Obviously.”
“You didn’t see the books?”
“To hell with your bloody books,” the soldier said. “We own this property. We have a deed. Which means that if you’ve been living here, you owe us rent.” Clearly the mage intended to collect in blood.
“Did you buy it from Kadar?” Evan said. “You should know that he’s a thief and a liar, with a sideline in forgery.”
“Who is Kadar?”
“Who are you?”
“Never mind,” the soldier said, slamming shut like a book.
He’s got secrets, just like me, Evan thought, remembering what he’d said before. How did you find us? The revelation hit him like a runaway cart: He’s being hunted, too.
He didn’t sound like he’d come from the Northern Islands, either. In fact, he sounded like . . . “You’re a wetlander. Aren’t you?”
As soon as he said it, he knew it was a mistake—the last bit of evidence needed to convict. When he looked into the soldier’s eyes, he saw the promise of death, and this soldier looked to be good at killing. As if to confirm it, Evan heard the metallic hiss as the soldier drew his dagger.
5
THE RISK OF MERCY
Evan managed to force a few words past the pressure on his throat. “You’re going to kill me for sneaking into your barn?”
“Oh, now it’s my barn?”
“Whoever’s barn it is, it’s not worth dying for. If it’s that important to you, keep it. You’re the one with the goats, after all.”
“Mercy is a risk I can’t take,” the boy said. “It’s nothing personal.”
“Killing is always personal,” Evan said, looking the handsome soldier in the eye. “It’s the second-most-intimate thing that can happen between two people.”
The mage blinked as he thought that over, which was the distraction Evan needed. He brought his knee up, hard, into the soldier’s groin, folding him over, then followed with a fist to the face.
That combination should have dropped him where he stood, but it didn’t. Though he roared with pain, the soldier kept hold of his knife, flung Evan to the barn floor, and leapt to pin him, but Evan rolled to his feet and sprinted for the door. He was nearly there when the mage blocked his path.
Evan turned and charged to the far end of the barn, the soldier at his heels, though he knew there was no way out that way. He vaulted over the fence into the goats’ pen and crouched between two shaggy backs, trying to get at the knife in his boot. The goats scattered as the soldier landed in the midst of them. Evan stood, his puny knife in his hand, to find himself facing the business end of the soldier’s sword.
“‘Let’s finish this,” the soldier said, his voice clipped, icy. As he came forward, Evan retreated, evading the first thrust of the blade, though it sliced through his shirt. There was limited room to maneuver, though, and he knew his luck couldn’t hold forever.
Evan didn’t consciously reach for power, but it came unbidden. Small whirlwinds erupted all around his feet, sucked up a mixture of sawdust and straw, and flung it in the soldier’s face. He blinked and swiped at his face with his sleeve, while shaking debris from his hair. Evan tried to dodge past him, but he stuck out a foot and tripped him, landing him facedown in the mingled goat dung and bedding. The soldier came down on top of him, pinning him to the floor. Evan could hear his quick breathing, feel him shift his weight. Any second, Evan expected to feel cold steel sliding between his ribs.
A storm surge of magic welled up in him, and electricity crackled across his skin, as if the power that seethed beneath it was leaking out. In desperation, Evan reached for it and called down whatever weather might be at his disposal, figuring he was a dead man anyway.
Momentarily, he couldn’t breathe, as if the air in the barn had been confiscated. Then the barn exploded, detonating with a sound like Solstice fireworks. Wood shards, hay, and clay tiles rained down on top of them. Horses were screaming, pigs were squealing, cows were bawling—it was a cacophony of animal sounds.
The soldier swore and rolled off him, dropping his sword and protecting his head with his arms. Evan scrambled to his feet, waist deep in goats. They were at the center of a maelstrom that sucked up loose objects and flung them in all directions. Evan danced sideways to avoid being sliced in half by the soldier’s flying sword and covered his eyes with his sleeve.
The wind picked the soldier up like a bit of fluff and flung him into the wall. He went down hard, his leg bent at an impossible angle. With that, the twister died.
It was eerily silent, except for the screaming of the horses and the bleating of terrified goats. Evan retrieved the soldier’s dagger and crossed to where he lay crumpled against the wall. His eyes were open, staring up at Evan. Sweat pebbled his forehead and faint freckles stood out against his ashen skin. Given the look of his leg, he must have been in a great deal of pain, but either he was in shock or he’d been taught that screaming was an unacceptable show of weakness.
The soldier licked his lips and said, “But . . . you don’t . . . you can’t . . .” He gripped his pendant as if to reassure himself it was still there. “Magic doesn’t work on you, and you can cast charms without an amulet,” he said, as if confirming that Evan had indeed cheated on the rules of magery. He released a long breath and smiled faintly. “Like I said—let’s finish this, even if it’s not the way I . . . planned.” He looked straight into Evan’s eyes and waited for death.
He offers no mercy and expects none, Evan thought. That’s fair, I guess.
The soldier’s pendant—amulet?—seemed to be the source of much mischief. Evan pressed the tip of the borrowed dagger into the soldier’s throat as a warning and lifted the pendant over his head. Stepping back, he stowed the pendant in his carry bag and slid the dagger into the sheath at his waist.
“Stay there,” he said, though it wasn’t as if the soldier was going anywhere on that leg. He crossed to where he thought his own pendant had landed and began rooting through the debris on the barn floor. He could hear the soldier’s labored breathing, the heel of his boot scraping on the floor, and the hiss of pain as he tested the leg. Evan found the pendant next to the wall and draped the chain around his neck again.
He returned to the soldier’s side. His eyes were closed, but snapped open when Evan approached. Evan wasn’t sure what to do. He had no intention of killing him, but it seemed wrong to leave him lying in the ruined barn with a broken leg.
“Destin!”
Evan looked up, startled into drawing his blade again. A woman in a nightgown and boots stood in the doorway, taking in the scene—the missing roof, Evan standing over Destin with a knife in his hand.
What was he supposed to say—he started it?
“Mother!” the soldier gasped, raising his hands as if he could push her back through the door. “Run!”
Instead, the woman balled her fists and walked toward them, her jaw set with determination. As she drew closer, Evan could see the resemblance between them. They were both fine-boned thoroughbreds, and they shared the same light-brown hair and hazel eyes. She was not a mage, however.
“Please. Just go, Mother,” Destin whispered, without much conviction, as if he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Then he directed a warning glare at Evan that would peel the skin off a Bruinswallow pirate. Impressive for someone flat on his back, with a broken leg.
The woman faced off with Evan. “Before you act, you should know that I am not without resources,” she said in her clipped, blueblood voice. “I’m willing to more than match whatever you’ve been offered if you’ll agree to leave and say nothing about our presence here.”
Another wetlander, Evan thought.
“No, Mother,” Destin said. “Don’t bargain with him. Don’t trust him.”
She looked up at the ceiling, at the massive hole above the stalls. She shrugged. “What choice do we have?” she said simply.
Evan was enough of a pirate to be tempted. How much closer would that put him to a ship of his own? Maybe he deserved compensation, for being attacked and nearly killed and for having to find another place to live. He could even ask them to deed the place over to him so that he owned it free and clear.
But in the end, he was not that much of a pirate. Assuming Destin had told the truth, and they did own the property, he was the trespasser, and Destin would be laid up at a time that the barn needed immediate repairs.
“It was all a misunderstanding,” he said. “I’m a ship’s pilot, and so I’m gone most of the time, but I’ve been staying here when I’m in port. I thought it was abandoned, and I had no idea anyone had moved in here.”
“You’re a ship’s pilot?” Destin said, his voice thick with skepticism. “Of what—a jolly boat? A copperhead canoe?”
“Destin!” the mother said, as if her son was poking at a venomous snake.
Evan beat down annoyance. “Maybe we’re better sailors on this side of the Indio,” he said.
Destin and his mother exchanged glances. The message was clear. He knows we’re wetlanders.
Destin’s mother knelt next to him, seeming oblivious of the mucky ground. Gently, she ran her hands down his injured leg. “Is it just your leg? Is there anything else?”
“That’s it,” Destin hissed between clenched teeth. And promptly passed out.
Now would be an excellent time for me to get out of here, Evan thought. But his money was still stashed in the house. He needed to retrieve that before he left.
As if she’d overheard the thought, Destin’s mother looked up and said, “What’s your name?”
“Lucky,” he said. “Lucky Faris.”
She raised an eyebrow at the name. She and her son had the same eyebrows, the same way of raising them. “My name is Frances,” she said. “Wait here.”
Frances walked across the barn, rummaged in the corner, and came back with a fence post. Dropping it next to her son, she crossed to Djillaba’s old stall and lifted down the blanket hanging there. She returned and spread it out next to Destin. “Please, Mister . . . Faris, I could use some help rolling him onto this blanket and carrying him to the house.” She paused, then rushed on. “I’ll gladly pay you.”
Evan couldn’t help thinking that it was risky for her to tell someone like him that she had money around.
It was as if she read his mind. “Captain Faris, we’ve been on the run for two years now. Running was less risky than staying where we were. Now trusting you is another risk that I have to take.”
Well, Evan thought. He did want to go up to the house, so it was on his way.
Between the two of them, they managed to ease Destin onto the blanket, though he groaned and struggled as if the maneuver was painful. Evan took the head end of the blanket, and Frances the other end, and they managed to half-drag, half-carry him out of the barn. It took another half hour to get him up the stone pathway to the house.
As soon as they opened the door, a scruffy little dog sprang at Evan, growling, so that he nearly dumped Destin onto the floor.
“Breaker! Stop it!” Frances glowered at the dog, who slunk away.
Breaker, Evan thought. That’s a suitable name.
The interior was familiar—only better than before. It was cleaner than it had ever been when Evan lived there, and now there were rugs on the tile floors and curtains at the windows, and a few sticks of furniture, much of which looked homemade.
They carried Destin into the smaller of the two bedrooms and laid him on a mattress o
n a rope bedstead, even though he was filthy.
“Could you fetch some water and put it on to boil?” Frances said. “There’s a pump in the gathering room, and you’ll find a pot on the hearth.”
There didn’t used to be a pump, Evan thought. He did as he was told, one eye on the dog, who kept up a constant rumble of growling from the fireplace corner. When he returned to the small bedroom, Frances was examining the leg, her fingers probing around the site of the swelling.
“It’s broken,” she said, pressing her lips together as if disappointed by whatever gods she worshipped. She sighed. “Let’s do this,” she said, looking up at Evan, “while he’s still unconscious.”
“Let’s do what?” Evan said warily.
“Let’s straighten out his leg. Hold him down.”
Maybe it was because she’d been born to money and was used to ordering people around. Or maybe it was because Evan was curious about this odd pair marooned on the Desert Coast—the angry, wounded soldier mage and his blueblood mother. Whatever the reason, Evan ended up restraining his would-be killer while the boy’s mother straightened his leg and bound it to the fence post to keep it in position.
During this operation, Destin woke up and spewed an entire book of wetland curses. This time, Frances scowled at him as if disappointed, but said nothing. Afterward, she brewed up some willow bark tea mingled with turtleweed, and that put her son out like a sailor at Solstice. They returned to the gathering room and she brewed some tay for the two of them.
“You drink tay?” Evan said, surprised. “I didn’t think wetlanders went in for that.”
“I come from a family of merchants,” she said, not specifying where. “They brought back tay from abroad, and I acquired a taste for it. My brother had done business in Endru, so he was the one who arranged the purchase of this property years ago, in case . . . in case I ever needed it.” She had a way of seeming like she was confiding in him and yet, at the same time, holding information back.
Evan sipped his tay, wishing it were something stronger. Now he was homeless and jobless both.