There were some he could not heal. A girl of twenty summers stared at him glassily. Sasha smoothed her hair and told Kjell how the girl loved the wildflowers in the rocks. But Kjell couldn’t hear anything but Sasha’s kindness. If the girl had a song, it was locked away somewhere he couldn’t reach. She was still breathing, her heart was beating, but she was gone. Another child, carried into the house in his mother’s arms, was also beyond healing. His mother insisted he was still alive—she screamed at Kjell when he shook his head—but the little boy’s limbs were limp and his eyes were cloudy. He’d been gone for hours.
One man, not much older than Kjell and riddled with pain, sat gingerly on the bed in front of him, but when Kjell asked him to lie back, he shook his head as if he weren’t ready.
“This is Gar. He’s very sick,” Sasha said softly, her eyes troubled, her lips tight. “His wife died last month,” she explained. “He misses her.”
Kjell placed one hand over the man’s heart and one on his back, easing him down gently. He didn’t have the time or empathy for indecision. The man began to weep, and Kjell ignored him, searching and finding the mellow strains of the man’s healing song easily. But when he tried to capture it, it changed, becoming a dissonant chord. Kjell didn’t know which note to sing. He hesitated, unsure, and the chord rose from the man’s skin, fluttered through Kjell’s fingers, and drifted—a tendril of smoke—higher and higher, until Kjell could no longer hear it.
When Kjell opened his eyes, he found Gar’s gaze fixed on the ceiling, his face smooth with peace.
“He didn’t want you to heal him,” Sasha whispered. “He wanted to go.”
“His song was so strong. I could have eased his pain,” Kjell argued, his sense of loss surprising.
“You did ease his pain,” Sasha replied simply. She closed Gar’s eyes and covered him with the pale blue cloth she wore over her hair.
“That’s yours,” Kjell protested. He didn’t know why it bothered him. She’d climbed the cliff to retrieve it and now she was giving it away.
“His wife was kind to me,” she explained. She left the room and immediately returned with three villagers. They carried Gar out, their eyes full of questions, and the process continued.
At one point, the sounds and songs began to run together, and Sasha refused to bring Kjell another citizen of Solemn. Instead, she pushed him down on the low bed he’d knelt beside for countless hours, placing a cushion beneath his head. Unable to summon a sound, he succumbed to her soft hands on his hair and her whisper of, “Well done, Captain. Well done.”
He awoke to sunlight and the scrape of a knife against his face.
“You are not my servant,” he murmured, opening his bleary eyes to the tickle of her unbound hair against his folded hands. She set her blade aside and scooted quickly away, pouring him a goblet of wine and helping him to sit. His body ached like he’d spent a week in battle or been dropped from the sky by a birdman. He downed the wine, and she promptly refilled it. It was mild and weak and far warmer than he liked, but it quenched his thirst. He fell back against the cushion, and she returned to his side, pulling his head into her lap.
“I will finish this. Then I will go. You’ve been asleep for two days,” she said demurely. “You’re turning into a bear.”
He snorted and her lips quirked, the corners lifting prettily before pursing in concentration once again. She used an oil that smelled of sage and made his skin tingle, and he closed his eyes and let her have her way. Her silence didn’t speak of secrets but of peace, and he let it wash over him. She was odd in her strange confidence, in her complete lack of pretense, and he felt an easing in his chest and a release in his head, like she’d loosened the past and tightened the present, making him more aware of the moment and less concerned with what had come before. He liked her.
“They will let you stay in Solemn. I will see to it. This home will be yours, and you will not be a slave. You will have nothing to fear,” he promised, needing to give her something.
“There is always something to fear,” she replied, her eyes on the blade she wielded. She said no more, and he was too drowsy to press the issue. He forced himself to remember the cool breezes of Jeru City, the shade of the trees, the sound of his brother’s voice, the clash of blades in the yard, the smell of fresh hay in the stables. He made himself think of home, yet he felt no pull toward it. Instead, it was his head in the lap of a slave, the silk of her breath on his face, and the tenderness in her hands that soothed him.
“You don’t look like the people of Quondoon,” he said simply, resisting the lethargy that wanted to pull him under again.
“No. Mina said I am ugly. My hair is not black and straight, my skin is not brown. I’m freckled and pale. My hair is the color of fire and it curls and tangles no matter how much I try to keep it smooth,” she said ruefully. “But it is the only home I know.”
“You are not ugly.”
Her back stiffened in surprise, and the blade paused on his skin for a heartbeat. He cursed inwardly, but when he avoided her gaze and offered no further comment, she turned the conversation away from herself.
“Do all the people in Jeru City look like you?” she asked.
“No. But there are many more people in Jeru City than in Solemn. There are more people in Jeru City than in all of Quondoon.”
“You are the brother of the king?”
“Yes.”
“So are you . . . a prince?”
“My brother is a king, and I am a soldier. That is all.”
“You look like a king,” she protested softly.
He was a big man—bulky even—layered with muscle and sinew hardened down by years of combat and grueling physical labor. He’d grown up in the jousting yard, dragging a sword before he could wield one, shielding himself from blows before he learned to land them. He looked like a soldier.
But he also looked like his father. And his father had been a king.
Kjell’s hair was just as dark and his eyes were the same pale blue. Cold. Flat. Cruel. His father had never claimed him, but it had never mattered. When people saw Kjell they always knew.
“You were born in Quondoon? Where is your family?” he asked, pushing his own paternity out of his thoughts.
“I am of Kilmorda. But Mina says I was born a slave, and I will always be a slave.”
“Kilmorda was destroyed by Volgar.”
“I am told I was the daughter of a servant in Lord Kilmorda’s household.”
“Lord Kilmorda and his family are dead.” The whole valley was a wasteland of Volgar nests and human remains. The villages were desolate, homes and fields were empty, and the carcasses of cattle and sheep were strewn across the country.
“Yes. That is what I am told.”
“You don’t remember?”
“My first memories are of fleeing to Firi with other refugees. I knew no one. I had nothing to eat. No clothes. No family. In Firi, I was indentured and sold and brought to Quondoon.”
“Solemn is a long way from Kilmorda.”
“Yes,” she agreed quietly, “but I do not miss what I cannot remember.”
“Why don’t you remember?”
“I don’t know. Mina said it was because I am . . . simple.” Sasha’s voice changed, and he couldn’t resist looking at her. “But I can read. I can read and I can write. The slaves here in Solemn do not read or write. I learned how . . . somewhere.”
“But you’re a Seer . . . surely you must have visions of your family.”
“I don’t see what has already been. I can only see what is to come, and even then, it’s like the breeze. I don’t call the breeze, it finds me. The things I see are like that. I don’t call them to me. They come. Or they don’t.”
She’d had no visions of her family. He wondered why. He could choose whether or not to wield his gift. She didn’t seem quite so lucky, though he supposed her choice lay in whether she kept the visions to herself.
“There was a man who walked with me from
Kilmorda to Firi. When my feet bled, he helped me bind them. When my mouth was dry he gave me water. And he told me stories. I was afraid, and he told me stories. I came to Quondoon with a head full of tales and no memories. No sense of myself. It was as though the Creator formed me from the clay, fully grown, like the Changer, the Spinner, the Healer, and the Teller. But even they knew from whence they came. They knew to whom they belonged.”
They knew to whom they belonged.
His brother had always had that sense of belonging. Tiras was arrogant in the way all kings were arrogant, but that was merely survival. Tiras’s opinion of himself guided the opinion others formed about him. A king had to act as if he belonged on the throne. Kjell would have never been able to convince anyone he belonged.
“But now I belong to you,” Sasha said firmly, and she dried his face with a cloth, indicating she had finished.
He sat up abruptly, startling her, distancing himself.
“No. You don’t.” He stood, and a wave of dizziness flooded him. She reached out to steady him, but he shrugged her away.
“You must eat. Sit. I’ll bring you food and more wine,” she insisted, rising beside him. Her hands were folded in front of her, her eyes cast down.
“Sasha.” He waited for her to lift her eyes to his. She was very composed, but her eyes shimmered with disappointment.
“You don’t belong to me. The people I healed, the people you helped me heal . . . they don’t belong to me either. That is not the way it works. I do not want a servant, and I don’t need a woman.” He spoke slowly as if he spoke to a child, and she nodded once, indicating she heard him.
“Mina said I was simple. She said I must obey her and I would be safe. But I am not simple. I am not stupid.” Sasha’s voice was almost musical in its tranquility, but beneath the surface there was steel, and the gleaming in her eyes had changed. He’d made her angry. Good. Some fury was in order.
“You are not stupid. But you are too forgiving and too trusting. You are a Seer, yet you don’t see the obvious,” he said.
“Most of the time the obvious blinds us to the hidden.”
Kjell sighed heavily, pressing his palms to his eyes. The woman had powerful opinions for someone so defenseless. He pulled on his boots and ran fingers through his hair, determined to dismiss her. She stood quietly by, waiting for his direction.
“Where are my men?”
“Jerick is outside. The others have been taking shifts, as you instructed. They are helping bring water from the mountain stream.”
He tried to thank her, but the words felt false, so he simply shook his head and left the house. He had business to attend to, and then he was getting on his horse and leaving Solemn and all her people behind.
***
The village had come alive. There was new life, and people scurried and scuttled. Children were underfoot, and an outdoor market, not all that different from the market in Jeru City’s square, lined the main thoroughfare. People were selling their wares and talking excitedly among themselves. A new well was being dug. A man from Doha was coming to Solemn. He was said to have the Gift to call water. He would walk without shoes, his toes curling into the dirt, and he could feel the water beneath the surface, no matter how deep. For the time being, the village had assigned all the able men to carry water from the stream near the cliffs.
Kjell was greeted with awe and tears. It made his stomach clench and his hands sweat. His name was called out, and food was pressed into his hands, presents laid at his feet. He tried to give it back, to refuse, but the people backed away, leaving their offerings and shaking their heads. One woman brought him a goat, tugging it behind her with a determination not to be out-gifted.
“No!” he roared. “I am a soldier. I can’t take your goat.” The animal bleated piteously, and the woman looked as though he’d struck her. She wore a pale green scarf over her hair. The material was soft and fine, and the color would not draw the heat.
Sasha had given her veil away.
“I will take your head covering. Give me that instead. You keep the goat.”
“But the goat is a better gift!”
“I don’t want it. I want the scarf. I need two more like it, in different colors. And three dresses. About your size. And boots. For a lady.” He reached for his coin pouch, but the people around him, enlivened by his requests, ran to fulfill them.
The woman smiled, nodding happily, and shyly withdrew her scarf. Her hair was as black as Sasha’s eyes, and Kjell’s mind immediately returned to the things he’d learned that morning. Sasha did not belong in Quondoon.
He brushed the niggling aside, immediately distracted by tradesmen and women, presenting him with veils and gowns and jewelry and shoes, sized to fit a tall, slim woman.
He pushed the ridiculous away—the jewelry and the slippers that would tear with any use—and barked his preferences with little fanfare, choosing colors that wouldn’t compete with Sasha’s hair or absorb the sunlight, and fabrics that wouldn’t abrade her skin or be difficult to wash. He’d never selected clothes for a female, and he spent more coin than he made in a month, just to be done with it. He paid two young boys to trail him with his purchases, but had hardly made it out of the market when he was hailed by the elder named Byron, the brother of the deceased Mina, Sasha’s master.
“Captain!” Byron called, his girth making him struggle to catch Kjell. Kjell stopped abruptly and turned, directing the boys to Sasha’s house and asking them to deliver the purchases to the woman who lived there. They seemed to know who she was—one of them called her the red witch—and trotted off, eager to do his bidding, his money in their pockets.
“We are grateful, Highness,” Byron said, bowing slightly as he reached him. “The people of Solemn will never forget you.”
“If it were left to me, I would have let you all rot. Your gratitude is misplaced.” He ignored the title. “You owe the woman a great debt.”
“I will give her to you,” Byron rushed, spreading his hands magnanimously.
“You will . . . give her to me?” Kjell asked, his voice flat.
“She may be of use to you,” the elder continued eagerly. “And she is no longer of use to my sister.”
“The elder said she’d been among you three years. How did she get here?”
“I was in Firi, in the employ of the Lord of Quondoon.” Byron puffed his chest proudly. “The refugees flooding Firi were numerous. You know that. She was with a group of people, many of them from Kilmorda, looking for work. I saw her on the blocks with a dozen other women. She was blank. Like a wall. I found it useful. The other women were crying. Traumatized. She wasn’t. I didn’t want trouble. I wanted a companion for my sister.”
Even the name Firi made his stomach knot and tighten. “I have no use for a slave,” Kjell said. “You will give Sasha her freedom. You will give her your sister’s home. And you will provide money for her welfare.”
“She is not safe here,” Byron protested, and he had the conscience to look embarrassed by the admission.
“You are a powerful man. You will see to it that she is.”
Byron swallowed, nodding.
Sasha thanked him with a smile for the packages he’d had delivered, but her smile slipped away when he told her he was leaving.
“This is your house. You will serve only yourself from now on.” He placed a small purse filled with gold coin on the table. “This is yours. There will be more. I’ve seen to it.”
Her eyes rose to his, dark and knowing, and his confusion and frustration writhed within him. She didn’t argue or count the money. She watched him walk from the house without asking him to take her with him, but he condemned himself with every step.
His horse had been readied, his men assembled, and within minutes they were riding back through the streets of Solemn, the farewell far different than the welcome had been. Children ran, people called out, and once again, a procession formed behind them, throwing bits of rice and wishing them Godspeed, as though
they were off to wage war, instead of leaving the battle behind them. On the outskirts of the town the other half of the King’s Guard waited, watching their approach, unsmiling, unimpressed by the change in the villagers.
Kjell wanted to turn his head to see if Sasha was among them. He wanted to look at her once more, to see if she had joined the farewell procession, but he resisted. He had restored her health, made arrangements for her welfare, and he did not owe her anything else. And she owed him nothing. She was free to go wherever she wished. He rode with his back stiff, his eyes forward, and he left the crowd behind, the well-wishes and cries fading into silence.
“She follows, Captain,” Jerick murmured beside him.
Kjell jerked around, finding the lone figure trailing them a short ways off. She appeared to be running. It was hot, and the temperature would make the travel slow. The horses would not be able to carry the soldiers far if they pushed them, but Sasha would hurt herself if she tried to keep pace on foot.
“Blast. Bloody hell!” Kjell swore softly.
“We grow farther away every moment. She will go back,” Jerick said mildly.
“No, she won’t,” Kjell stewed. He closed his eyes against his guilt and his strange elation. She followed. And he was glad.
“I can’t leave her. She was driven out of Solemn. If she doesn’t want to remain there, we need to take her somewhere else,” he said.
“I agree, Captain.”
“But where?” Kjell barked, wishing Jerick hadn’t capitulated so readily.
“Take her to Jeru City. She can work in the palace.”
“She cannot remain with a group of soldiers until we return to the city. It could be a month before we return.”
“You don’t trust your men to behave themselves? Or you do not trust yourself not to soften toward her?” Jerick asked, a small smirk around his lips.
“Stop speaking, Jerick.”
“She reminds me of our Lady Queen,” Jerick mused, ignoring him.