“That during the five days of the unspeakable, the novices of Sagrami who lived at the edge of the Forest were taken to safety inside the kingdom walls through the east gate.”
Sir Topher was shaking his head. “You are wrong, Evanjalin. The priestess of Sagrami was the first to be burned at the stake. She was captured along with Seranonna and three other mystics and healers.”
“Then the novices would have been on their own,” Finnikin said. “Surely the impostor’s men would have attacked the cloister in the Forest first?”
“It would have been a slaughter,” Trevanion said. “The oldest of the girls was no more than seventeen.”
“And they had no one to turn to?” Finnikin asked.
Sir Topher opened his mouth to reply and then stopped.
“Sir Topher?” Finnikin asked urgently.
“There may have been one,” he said in a hushed tone. “Someone who had lived in the Forest cloister as a child. Tell me about the other who walks the sleep with you, Evanjalin. The one who is there for the child.”
“Whoever it is, they have a great knowledge of the dark arts. I sense their connection with the dead. With spirits.”
“Only Seranonna had such knowledge,” Trevanion said.
“No, there was another,” Sir Topher said. “One who was under Seranonna’s instruction.”
Trevanion frowned and then realization dawned on his face. “Tesadora? Seranonna’s daughter?”
Sir Topher nodded. “Did you know her?”
“No, but Perri did. They were mortal enemies. It was one of the few stories Perri would tell me of his childhood in the River swamp. From a young age, his father taught him to inflict as much pain as possible on those they considered inferior.”
“Was Perri ashamed?”
Trevanion sighed. “It was not a confession, just a fact. I remember his words. ‘How different our childhoods, Trevanion. You sailed your raft down the River and collected tadpoles and eels, and I held down the heads of Forest Dwellers in swamp water to see how long they could stay under without breathing.’
“Perri told me Tesadora once stayed under for five minutes,” Trevanion continued, “and still had enough breath inside her to spit in his face when it was over. His father thrashed him for allowing a Forest Dweller to get the better of him. So next time Perri made sure she didn’t have enough strength to even stand. They were both twelve at the time. On opposing sides, but both victims of hate.”
“By the time Tesadora was little older than you, Finnikin, she lived the life of a hermit in the Forest,” Sir Topher said. “But she spent her childhood in the cloister of Sagrami, and apart from her mother, the novices were her only contact with the world.”
“Were the Sagrami novices mystics?” Finnikin asked.
“Healers,” Sir Topher answered. “The best apothecaries I have ever encountered. The herbs and plants they grew in the Forest cloister were spectacular. If the priest-king had them in the fever camps, half our people would still be alive.”
Evanjalin leaned closer, her eyes alight. “The novices are now inside the kingdom walls, and they are hiding the young girls of Lumatere in the old cloister. And three days ago, the baker traveled in secret to see his daughter and picked cherry blossoms along the way.”
“You have no proof of that,” Finnikin said. “Even if Tesadora did survive and save the novices, do you think the impostor and his men would be so ignorant as to not work it out? Would they not have found their hiding place by now?”
“Perhaps they don’t need to hide. No matter what the impostor king decreed when he put the Forest Dwellers to death, he would fear the wrath of the gods if he stormed a temple of Sagrami,” Evanjalin said. “Remember, the novices worship a goddess that has cursed Lumatere, and the impostor king is just as much a prisoner of the curse as everyone else inside,” she argued.
“And if the novices are the apothecaries I think they are, they could easily find a way of sending the girls close to death,” Sir Topher said.
“These Lumaterans you speak of — the baker, the other fathers and mothers of the girls — are they worshippers of Sagrami?” Trevanion asked.
Evanjalin shook her head. “They worship Lagrami. Yet somehow both cloisters, Lagrami and Sagrami, are working together to protect the young girls of Lumatere.”
“How?”
She looked at them for a moment. “There are parts of this story . . . all of you might find . . . difficult.”
Finnikin stared at her in disbelief. “Evanjalin, Trevanion has spent seven years in the mines of Sorel. Sir Topher and I have seen everything there is to see in our travels.”
“But there are some things . . .”
“Evanjalin,” Sir Topher said firmly. “Finnikin is right. There is nothing we cannot endure.”
Evanjalin sighed. “The cook’s apprentice who mourned his friend had blood on his mind the night she died. The impostor’s guard dreamed of blood. Each time these girls ‘die,’ there are dreams or memories of blood. I believe they ‘die’ of the bleeding. They supposedly bleed to death. That’s what the impostor’s men and the rest of the kingdom think happens to the girls. Imagine. The impostor’s men come to the home of a family who has just lost their daughter. They demand to see the dead child. There she lies. Still. Perhaps in the way Sir Topher has suggested, due to the cleverest apothecaries in the kingdom. The impostor’s men demand to know what has taken place. They do not care for the dead girls or their families, but smell a conspiracy among the people. The women are clever. They begin to speak of the curse that visits young girls each month, for they know that the impostor and his men would pale with such talk of blood flowing from the loins of young girls like torrents of —”
Finnikin cleared his throat loudly. “I think I hear something . . . outside the cave,” he mumbled, getting to his feet. But the look on Evanjalin’s face stopped him from leaving.
“Blood!” Froi said, horrified. “Loins? Same loins you stick —”
“Froi!” Trevanion snapped.
“Flowing at times like a gutted pig,” Evanjalin said.
“Evanjalin!”
Evanjalin looked at Sir Topher and Trevanion, who suddenly seemed very interested in the contours of the cave walls.
“Did I not say that there would be parts of this story that might cause discomfort?” she said.
“It is not right for a young woman to speak of such things in the presence of men, Evanjalin,” Sir Topher said firmly. “And perhaps you are clutching at straws, making such a connection.”
“Am I?” she asked. “And what if I told you that I only walk the sleep during my own . . . time?”
Despite the flush in Sir Topher’s cheeks, he held her gaze and after a moment nodded for her to continue.
“Perhaps the impostor king’s men are led to believe that when a young girl experiences her first bleeding, she is also struck by a curse and bleeds to death. An unnatural occurrence, of course. But maybe they’ve been told that Seranonna’s curse is responsible. Her way of punishing the children of Lagrami. In truth, the young girls live inside the old cloister of Sagrami in the northwest of the kingdom. One of the few places the impostor king and his men will not enter for fear of Seranonna’s legacy.”
“Do you believe all our people know that the girls live?” Trevanion asked.
She shook her head. “I cannot be sure who knows the truth. If we go by the baker’s sleep, it is clear that the parents of the girls know. But I cannot be sure of the others. The cook’s apprentice certainly grieved.”
“But still we cannot be sure that Tesadora survived the days of the unspeakable or the impostor’s punishment,” Trevanion insisted.
She stared at him. “I have walked the sleep of one of the Sagrami novices, and her thoughts were on the day when one with a crown came to hide them.”
“Balthazar?”
“One with a crown is all I know.”
“Could it be . . .” Trevanion began, but he stopped himself and shook his head.
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“Someone smuggled Tesadora and the novices into the kingdom prior to the curse.”
“Someone with a crown?” Sir Topher said. “It does not make sense.”
“And a blood curse does?” Trevanion asked.
“It makes all the sense in the world that the other who walks the sleep with us, who may be able to break the curse, is a blood relative of the very person who created it,” Evanjalin said. “Seranonna’s daughter.”
“But Tesadora? Perri used to call her the serpent’s handmaiden,” Trevanion said.
“Coming from Perri the Savage, that is not good,” Sir Topher mused.
“Perhaps she is exactly what is needed,” Finnikin argued.
“Seranonna sent her to the north of the Forest as a child to live with the novices,” Sir Topher explained. “To keep her out of harm’s way from the other Forest Dwellers, who feared her. The Forest Dwellers claimed Tesadora was evil because her Forest blood was mixed with a Charynite’s.”
“Yet you don’t communicate with Tesadora?” Trevanion asked Evanjalin.
She shook her head. “Only the child. The first time was when I was twelve years old and had a strange, wondrous dream. Now I believe it was the birth of the child. Somehow when my” — she hesitated and looked at Sir Topher — “first blood began to flow, the child’s heart began to beat. I felt her in my arms.”
“And you never walk the sleep at . . . other times?” Finnikin asked awkwardly.
“Only once,” she said, swallowing hard.
“Your blood flowed another way?” Sir Topher asked.
She nodded. “Two springs ago. And that night, I walked the sleep of Lady Beatriss and she whispered the words, ‘The cloister of Sendecane.’”
“Why was your —” Then Finnikin realized and the word came out in a strangled tone. “Sarnak! Your blood was shed at the massacre of the exiles?”
She nodded.
“But how did you escape death, Evanjalin?” Sir Topher asked gently.
“Do you have a wound?” Trevanion said.
She opened up her shirt to reveal a patch of puckered tissue above her breast. It was an ugly scar, the wound poorly inflicted.
“They didn’t even know how to deliver a clean kill,” Finnikin muttered, unable to take his eyes off it.
“No, they were perfectionists,” she said. “They were hunters. I could tell. I watched them. Their arrows went straight to the heart, their daggers in and out. Precise. Our people were on their knees, begging, and were cut down with their hands still raised and clenched together in prayer. Others ran. And got an arrow in the back. The hunters made sure that those shot in the back were turned around, and then they’d plunge a dagger into the heart.”
“Yet your wound is the work of an amateur,” Sir Topher said.
“Because I did not run and I did not beg. Wherever there was movement, the hunters attacked. Those were the exiles killed first. But I was a coward, you see. I couldn’t turn my back. Could not bear the idea of the unknown. Of an arrow catching me by surprise. When those around me fell with an arrow to the heart, I knew the hunters would not return to check for their breathing. They returned only for those with an arrow in their back. So when one of our own collapsed at my feet with an arrow in his heart, I knew what I had to do.”
“Sweet goddess of sorrow,” Sir Topher gasped.
“Did you not play that game as a child?” she asked quietly. “Pretend death? It’s what you do to survive. You play the games of make-believe.”
Finnikin had played those games daily with the royal children. But there had been no pretending to take an arrow and plunge it into himself an inch above his heart. And no pretending to bite his tongue to keep his cries from piercing the air that was filled only with the grunts of satisfaction and retreating footsteps of men who had forgotten what it meant to be human. There was no pretending to grip the object embedded in his flesh with both hands, to tear it out of skin that was meant for soft kisses and caresses. There was no pretending to pick his way through family, searching the place for survivors. And no playing at walking two weeks barefoot to the cloister of Lagrami in godsforsaken Sendecane because a woman in his sleep whispered the command like a prayer.
What needs to be done.
“I was fortunate enough to be born under the star of luck,” Evanjalin said softly. “So I lived while others died.”
Sir Topher was the first to turn away. Huddled in his bedroll, his shoulders shook with a sorrow that he fought hard to hide.
“Sleep, Evanjalin,” Finnikin said gently. Dream of cherry blossoms and the laughter of the young girls who you want so desperately to believe live under the protection of the goddess of night.
When at last Finnikin heard the sounds of labored breathing, he turned in his bedroll and saw that Trevanion was still awake.
“What?” Finnikin asked. “If you discredit her story, I will be forced to challenge you,” he added gruffly.
Trevanion shook his head. “The girl does not lie, Finnikin. She just omits information. It’s the other part of the story, the young girls of Lumatere.” Trevanion leaned closer to whisper. “What could have possibly happened to force the mothers and fathers to feign the death of their daughters? What are those monsters doing to our people?”
The harbor town of Sif was the last port of civilization on the mainland of Skuldenore, accessed mostly by merchants, mercenaries, and reckless explorers. It was a departure point for those who wanted to disappear from the face of the earth. Trevanion’s informant in the mines had told him that his Guard could be found in one of the rock villages of Yutlind Sud. To reach the territory from Sif, they would need to travel by cog down the coast and around the cape, which would take them to the mouth of the Yack River and into the war-torn kingdom.
“No one travels to Yutlind Sud,” the captain of the Myrinhall muttered, eyeing Trevanion and Finnikin and spitting orange pips into the water below.
They were standing on the deck of the merchant cog, which boasted a crew of twenty men. It was a flat-bottomed vessel with a central mast carrying a square-rigged sail, sturdy enough to sail the open seas and compact enough to be steered down a river, ideal for navigating among the Yack’s shallow reed beds.
“We have been told you travel south today,” Trevanion said, “to collect produce and merchandise from Yutlind Sud.”
“If we get paid enough, we collect goods from the traders on the river’s edge, but we don’t take passengers. Could hardly convince my men to come along today. Foreigners don’t survive the Yack.”
“We need to travel to the rock villages close to the north-south border.”
The captain sent them a look of disbelief. “You come all the way south to travel north? You’d be better off going over the mountains and through Belegonia.”
“Ye gods, really?” Finnikin said sarcastically. “Why didn’t anyone tell us?”
Trevanion silenced him with a frown. “Take our silver and let us board,” he said to the captain.
The merchant looked beyond Trevanion to where the others of their party were sitting on the pier, waiting. “Want advice?”
“No!” Finnikin said, only to receive another glare from his father.
“Give it to you anyway,” the man said, spitting out another pip. “Leave the young and the old behind. Especially the girl.”
Neither Finnikin nor his father responded.
“Won’t be responsible for what my men or the Yuts want from the girl. Money up front. We leave the moment my men are on board.”
The captain walked away. Finnikin saw the hint of a smile on Trevanion’s face as he looked toward the horizon. He had read stories from the books in royal courts about the port town of Sif, where brave men set off for the undiscovered world beyond their land. Some believed the mythical stories of fire-breathing dragons and oceans tipping into an abyss, which kept the fainthearted away.
“Have you ever wondered what lies beyond?” Finnikin asked his father.
“A kinder world than this, I would hope,” Trevanion murmured.
“I say the merchant is right,” Finnikin said, looking toward the pier. “It’ll be safer if we leave them here. Yutlind’s a bloodbath and if anything happens to her . . . to them . . .”
Trevanion nodded as they walked toward the others. Evanjalin was instantly on her feet, picking up her bedroll and pointing to the provisions. “Make yourself useful, Froi,” they heard her order.
“You can do the honors of telling her she’s staying behind, Finn,” Trevanion said under his breath.
Mercy. Finnikin cleared his throat, trying to avoid her eyes. “We will be back in ten days,” he announced.
“Back?” Evanjalin asked, confused. She gave Froi another shove. “By the time we find the Guard, it will be safer and closer to cross over the Belegonian border. Why return here?”
“For you. For all of you.”
The crew of the Myrinhall jostled past. By the looks of them, they had been out all night. They appeared disheveled and somewhat sinister, especially when they caught sight of Evanjalin. Sir Topher glanced at them uneasily.
“It is safer for all,” Finnikin said firmly.
“You are leaving us behind?” Evanjalin asked in disbelief. “To return here would be a waste,” she hissed. “If we travel to the rock villages, then we are halfway to Belegonia heading north.”
“Why would I not know that, Evanjalin?” Finnikin asked, trying to curb his growing frustration at her inability to take orders. “It’s too dangerous. They say the spirit warriors guard the Yack River and could be a threat to foreigners.”
Froi sat himself back down, but Evanjalin pulled him to his feet. “We are not staying,” she said. “Sir Topher, tell him we are not staying.”
“We don’t know enough about these people, Evanjalin,” Sir Topher said. “The southerners may be Yuts, but they have different ways from the north and do not speak the same language. The south belongs to tribes of natives, and their king is in hiding. They are not going to take too kindly to foreigners in their land.”
“This is the only way,” Finnikin said. “It will be easier to hide if there are only two of us. It will be quicker. If we find Trevanion’s men, they can travel farther north to Belegonia and we will return for you. On my oath, we will, Evanjalin.”