“I was there in the crowd,” Sir Topher told the girl. “My king always believed we should not turn our backs on our people as they suffered. I don’t think anyone understood the rage Seranonna felt for what had been done to her people. Nor did they understand the extent of her grief for the queen and the royal children.”
Finnikin remembered how they dragged Seranonna into the square and she screamed with fury. Screamed the words, “Beatriss the Beloved is dead!” And the wails rose around him while Finnikin shook with fear at the sound of her voice. He had heard that voice before. She had spoken to him as he played with Isaboe in the Forest of Lumatere. Spoken words that had haunted him for most of his life.
“And then from her mouth came a curse so fierce that it split the earth,” Sir Topher said. “People were screaming, and those not even an arm’s length from me disappeared into the crack before it shuddered closed once more. Others ran for the path that led to the main gate. Cottages that were built high over the main road collapsed on top of those fleeing. I saw the blacksmith’s entire family disappear beneath the rubble of bricks and mud. Many were trampled trying to reach the gate.”
Finnikin shuddered. He remembered the Flatlander who had been holding the rope to keep the gate open, urging his terrified family through. As the gate began to shut, the rope tore at the farmer’s hands, and his wife and son were forced to let go. But the man’s daughter would not leave him, and Finnikin’s last image of Lumatere, as he slid beneath the jaws of the iron gate, was of a family separated. Then nothing. No sounds from the other side. And then a black mist appearing above the kingdom.
Finnikin felt Evanjalin’s eyes on him as Sir Topher put his head in his hands.
“Cursed land. Cursed people.”
Slowly Evanjalin picked up the hare again and resumed removing the skin, her hands shaking.
Speak, Finnikin wanted to shout at her. Lay blame. Shout. Rage. Rage!
“I think I may have frightened her,” Sir Topher murmured in Belegonian.
“You frightened me,”said Finnikin.
The fire crackled. Beyond it, the novice Evanjalin continued with her task.
“This year will be our last traveling, Finnikin. If he is alive, Balthazar will have come of age these past two years. If he hasn’t appeared by now, he never will.”
“You’ve never believed that he survived,” Finnikin said. “She’s lying.”
“For what reason?”
“A Charyn spy? A vengeful Forest Dweller? Perhaps she believes we will lead her to the heir, so she can kill him out of revenge for her people.”
Sir Topher placed a finger to his lips. Their tone was too obvious and they knew little of this girl. “She looks too much like a Mont,” he said, switching to Osterian. “The Forest Dwellers were as fair as you, Finnikin. Perhaps she just wants to get home to her people and knows that the only way to survive such a journey is under our protection.”
Finnikin felt his agitation rise. “This is a mistake, Sir Topher. We’ve never trusted anyone to travel with us. Never.”
“Yet your eyes stray to her frequently, my boy.”
“Out of fury,” Finnikin argued. “We could be doing something of worth. We were summoned to the cloister believing there was someone of worth.”
Like Balthazar, he wanted to say. Unlike Sir Topher, he had allowed himself to believe that the messenger would lead them to his beloved friend. And now here they were, burdened with this insignificant girl. Finnikin’s resentment toward her clawed at him.
“I thought you liked them fragile,” Sir Topher said, smiling. “I saw how you flirted with Lord Tascan’s daughter, Lady Zarah.”
“I prefer them sweet, not simple, and I like to hear their voices,” Finnikin corrected. “And a little refinement would be nice.”
He looked sideways at the novice. She was removing the entrails of the hare, her tongue resting between her teeth in her deep concentration. A simpleton indeed, Finnikin thought bitterly.
They ate dinner in silence. Later, the girl sat with her arms around her knees, shivering. Perhaps Sir Topher was right and the story she had been told would plague her sleep. In that way they were the same, Finnikin mused, for lately his sleep no longer seemed to belong to him. Usually his dreams were of the river, of traveling down it in a barge with his father. Other times he dreamed of Lady Beatriss and her soft lulling voice and the love he had seen between her and Trevanion. But from the moment the messenger had arrived to summon them to the cloister in Sendecane, Finnikin’s dreams had been filled with carnage. And tonight he was consumed with images of the novice Evanjalin, her hands soaked with the blood of the hare, screaming as she was burned alive. Screaming the name that had escaped her lips each night this past week.
Balthazar.
The town of Sprie in Sarnak reeked of rotten berries and boiled cabbage. Filth was embedded between the cobblestones beneath their feet and grime seemed to invade their skin. It was the last town before the Charyn border, and Sir Topher and Finnikin agreed that it was safer to buy provisions here than to stop in any Charyn town. Nevertheless, Finnikin sensed malevolence around him. Apart from Lumatere, Sarnak had suffered the most in the past ten years, and the fury of its people toward Lumateran exiles was boundless. Once, the Skuldenore River had flowed through Lumatere into Belegonia and Yutlind, and each day, the best of Sarnak produce was sent down the busy waterway into the rest of the land. Sarnak’s climate was perfect for growing almost anything, from succulent mangoes to sweet plump grapes. Their fresh river trout had graced the tables of kings and queens.
But without a trade route, such produce meant little. After the five days of the unspeakable, the river through Lumatere had disappeared into a whirl of fog, and the only passage now from Sarnak to the rest of the land was west into Sendecane or east into Charyn: one a wasteland, the other an enemy. Outside the exile camps, the poverty in Sarnak was the worst in the land, and two years past, armed Sarnak civilians had unleashed their wrath on Lumaterans camped on their southern border, a slaughter the king of Sarnak refused to acknowledge or condemn. And why would he, Finnikin thought, when there was no one to demand it except the First Man of a slain king and his apprentice from a kingdom that no longer existed?
On their first night in Sarnak, Sir Topher chose a place to set up camp deep in the woods. They would use it merely as a resting point to collect provisions and then move on. There would be no fire to keep them warm. Nothing to draw attention to themselves. Nothing to make them prey to a desperate people who needed someone to blame for their suffering.
Sir Topher and Finnikin made careful plans. They were not like the exiles who huddled in camps, waiting for someone to return them to Lumatere or for the captain of the King’s Guard to escape and save the day. Finnikin knew that if they wanted their people to survive, they needed strategies that would push them forward. Despite their detour into Sendecane and the presence of the novice and her extraordinary claim, he and Sir Topher were on a mission to find a piece of land for the exiles. And they always had a plan. Never a dream.
Sir Topher decided that Finnikin would go to the marketplace to purchase enough food to see them through to Sorel.
“Take the girl,” Sir Topher said. “They worship Lagrami here. They’re less likely to bother a novice and her companion. But don’t let her out of your sight.”
The town was a labyrinth of stalls and alleyways. More than once the novice seemed to become disoriented and wander in the wrong direction.
“Listen,” Finnikin said firmly. “Stay close and do not lose sight of me. Do you understand? Nod if you understand.”
She nodded, but he wasn’t satisfied.
“This whistle, I want you to listen for it in case we do get lost.” He whistled a birdlike tune. Twice. Just to be sure she understood. He watched her for a reaction, but there was none.
“I don’t expect you to learn it. But listen for it.”
She nodded again.
The sun was beginning to disappea
r, and vendors were packing up their wares. Finnikin walked over to purchase their supplies. A few moments later, he heard a furious cry and turned to see a young boy disappear into one of the alleyways. As he turned back to the vendor, he saw the novice stumble to her feet in a daze, but before he could call out to her, she was off in pursuit of the youth.
Stupid, stupid girl. In a moment’s frustration, he hesitated. It was a perfect opportunity to leave her behind so he and Sir Topher could continue on their way as planned. His mentor had promised him they would go searching for Trevanion’s men this autumn. This was his chance to go south, where a group of exiles had once reported seeing the Guard. But Lumatere had lost enough of its people to Sarnak, and before he could stop himself, he threw down his coins and raced after her.
Within a short distance, the alleyway branched out into a cluster of five others, each already seeped in darkness, indistinguishable from one another. Using instinct, Finnikin took the middle one, a mistake he realized too late when he found himself turning into yet another, which seemed to fork out into more and then more — never-ending high stone walls that seemed to conquer the light of the moon, forcing him to turn back until he lost track of where he had begun.
“Evanjalin!”
He caught sight of a flicker of her robe as she disappeared around a bend. He had smelled her fear when they arrived, had sensed the memory of her family’s death in Sarnak in every tremble of her body.
The light was disappearing fast. He called out her name as he ran after her, but there was desperation in her movements as she disappeared again and again. Finally she was brought to a stop by a dead end. But there was someone in the shadows, and before Finnikin could reach her, she was flung to the ground. Her assailant looked no more than fourteen or fifteen. Finnikin pulled Trevanion’s sword from its scabbard in an attempt to scare the boy rather than wound him.
Suddenly he felt the cold sharp tip of steel pressed against his neck. He felt little fear. From the moment he was born, Trevanion had taught him to fight, a skill Sir Topher made sure he continued to develop as they traveled from kingdom to kingdom. But when he turned, he could see four of them. Sensing that Evanjalin was no threat, the thieves had made Finnikin their target.
“Drop it!”
Not likely, he thought. He looked to where Evanjalin lay. When she raised herself onto her hands and knees, the youth shoved her and she fell again, whimpering. The young thief hammered her across the temple while holding her to the ground. Then he straddled her and began to search through the folds of her clothing, as if looking for something else of worth. This was why Sir Topher preferred they travel alone. No one to fear for. No one to protect. The girl would be their weak point until they left her in Sorel.
“Drop it!” The order came again.
Without taking his eyes off the novice, Finnikin reluctantly placed his sword on the ground and kicked it across the cobblestones. It stopped a few meters short of the girl’s feet, and he felt impotent rage as he watched the boy continue to fumble under her shift.
“Pockets first!”
“We have nothing. . . .”
The sword at his neck moved to his cheek. He felt it pierce his skin, and a trickle of blood make its way down his face. But he tried to keep his eyes on what was taking place with Evanjalin and saw the boy leap up and disappear into the night.
Evanjalin screamed the moment she saw his bloody face. Finnikin knew the odds were against them. Four men, all armed; his sword out of reach at the feet of a hysterical girl; and three knives tucked securely away. One on his sleeve, one in his boot, the other on his back.
“Tell the girl to stop the screaming!”
Finnikin willed her to stop. He needed to think. Quickly. Sword at her feet. Three knives on his person. Four men with weapons of their own.
“Stop her screaming, boy, or it’s her throat first.”
“Evanjalin!” he called out. “Stop!”
But the novice was too far gone, and her screams turned into piercing wails.
Think, Finnikin, think. Knife to the throat of the one closest to him. Other knife hurled at the man who was now standing guard at the entrance of the alleyway. Grab the sword of the one closest to him and plunge it into the third man, but that left one more and he knew that he would be dead before the second knife left his hands.
His head rang with her screams. No words, just sounds. Earsplitting.
“Evanjalin!” he called out again. And then he saw the man on watch advancing toward her.
“No!” he yelled, trying to push past the three men surrounding him. “She’s simple. She doesn’t understand.”
He succeeded in shaking free, but he knew it would not be for long. And yet that was all it took. One moment the novice was screaming, and in the next, the moon bathed her face with light and he caught a look in her eye that spoke little of fear and more of rage. Before he knew it, Finnikin’s sword was kicked toward him as she grabbed the man’s sword at his hip and plunged it into his thigh.
Finnikin was stunned, but the sight of Evanjalin fighting one of the thieves was all he needed to act. One man down. Then two. The daggers silent and deadly accurate. The third he fought with Trevanion’s sword, a weapon too quick for a bunch of useless thieves. From the sound made by the singing swords behind him, it was clear that Evanjalin knew how to handle a weapon. Still, when Finnikin’s third man went down, he swung around to deal with her assailant, only to find himself face-to-face with her. Eyes blazing, sword held upright in both hands. Steady. Waiting to swing. At her feet the man was writhing in agony from a second wound to his ear. She dropped the sword, and they ran in the only direction open to them.
They found their way out of the maze of alleyways and back toward the main road leading out of the town, only to realize that one of the assailants, with Finnikin’s dagger still embedded in his body, had managed to pursue them. The girl shoved Finnikin toward a horse tied to a nearby post. She grabbed Trevanion’s sword out of the scabbard at his side and, without hesitating, held it by the blade and swung its ruby-encrusted handle between the legs of their pursuer. He heard a crack and knew it wasn’t the handle that had shattered. The howl of agony was enough to wake the dead.
Finnikin mounted the horse. The girl handed him Trevanion’s sword, then planted one of her feet on the assailant’s chest for balance and yanked out Finnikin’s dagger. She held out her arm to Finnikin, and he swung her up until she was seated behind him, clasping his waist, with the dagger in one hand. He looked down at her hands, strong and callused and bloody, as they clung to him. He felt her face against his back, heard her ragged breath close to his ear. A sudden desire to hear her voice flashed through him.
Sir Topher stared at them in shock. Finnikin didn’t know whether it was because of the presence of the horse or the half-wild state of the novice. He helped them both dismount, but his eyes were on the girl.
“She was robbed,” Finnikin muttered, beckoning him away. “But she knows how to use a sword.”
“I warned you to keep her away from harm, Finnikin.”
“Sir Topher,” Finnikin said, keeping his voice controlled, “she handled a sword and used her wits. I tell you, she’s no simpleton. I don’t trust her.”
“Handled a sword better than you?”
“Obviously not, but she still managed to maim two men, last count. One who, in all probability, will not be fathering anyone’s child for quite a while.”
They both looked over to where Evanjalin stood, her nose pressed against the horse. Finnikin leaned forward to whisper. “All that silence. It’s not right.”
“That would be the vow, Finnikin. The novices take it very seriously.”
“I saw the novices of Lagrami often as a child. My cousin was one of them. They sang; they weaved; they planted roses. They did not fight like a feral trainee in the King’s Guard. They did not know the amount of damage the handle of a sword swung between a man’s legs could do.”
“Times have changed, an
d even novices have had to learn to protect themselves,” Sir Topher said. “Why can’t you just be happy that she used initiative?”
Finnikin was silent. He remembered how she had pushed him toward the horse while she took Trevanion’s sword to fight. He realized the truth. He was not irritated that the girl had shown initiative; it was that she had taken charge.
When they woke the next morning, she was gone.
“She left the horse and her pack, which means she plans to return,” Sir Topher said, agitation in his voice. “You’ll have to fetch her, Finnikin. Now.”
“She’s gone back for the thief,” Finnikin said, shaking his head in disbelief. “He took her ring, no doubt, and she’s gone back for it.”
One of Sir Topher’s rules was to never indulge in sentimentality, never return for what was left behind. Finnikin’s eyes strayed toward the road that would lead them to Charyn. From there, with the girl, they would have traveled south to Sorel. On their own, Finnikin knew they would spend time in Osteria, where peace reigned. It was where the Lumateran ambassador now lived, working as the minister for Osterian trade.
Regardless of how annoying Finnikin found their former ambassador, he pictured the extensive palace library with its well-stocked fireplace and never-ending supply of hot tea and sweet breads.
“No, Finnikin,” Sir Topher said quietly, as if he had read Finnikin’s thoughts. “We will not leave her behind.”
So Finnikin returned to Sprie, praying that he would not be the target of four maimed men and a peasant searching for his horse. He knew it would be difficult to go unnoticed. His hair was the ridiculous color of berries and gold, and he was lankier than the Sarnaks, slighter in build. He stood out easily in the daylight. As would the novice with her bare head and ugly gray shift.
He found her almost straight away, sitting huddled on a stone bench beside a stall, watching the activity around her with those strange dark eyes. Next to her, a desperate seller and a choosy buyer haggled over a small decorative dagger. At the far end of the square, Finnikin recognized the slave traders from Sorel. These were men who preyed on the plight of a people forced to sell one child to feed another. He had heard stories about how these children and women were used, and it sickened him to think that men were capable of such evil.