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 on 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.
“What happened in the barn?”
Evan looked up, startled. “Like I said. A misunderstanding.”
“I need more detail than that,” she said.
Evan found himself telling her the truth, without trying to pretty it up. By now, he was too tired to lie.
She frowned. “So . . . my son tried to kill you, and you defended yourself by blowing up the barn?”
“You’re giving me more credit than I deserve,” Evan said. “I’m sorry about the barn, though.”
“So. You’re a mage, like he is.”
“Well. Not exactly like he is,” Evan said, shrugging. “He seems to know what he’s doing. I don’t—not really. And there seem to be some differences in . . . what we can do, and how.”
She thought about this for a long moment. “Would you like to stay here?” she said, pouring more tay.
Evan all but spat out his tay. “Excuse me?”
“We could use some help,” she said, “especially until Destin’s leg heals.” Seeing the expression on his face, she rushed on. “I don’t mean it as some kind of penance for breaking his leg. You could continue to stay here, rent free, at least when you’re in port, and help with some things.”
Playing for time, Evan said, “I’ll tell you one thing—you’ll find it hard to make a living as a farmer in Carthis.”
“You’re an expert on farming, are you?”
“No,” Evan said. “I want nothing to do with farming. But I’m an expert on living in Carthis. It rains in the mountains here, not on the shore.”
“That’s why we bought a place on the river,” Frances said. “So the water would come to us.”
“Aye, it will,” Evan said, “along with the dragons.”
Frances turned a little pale. “Dragons?”
“There are dragons in the mountains that come down here to hunt. Livestock looks like lunch to them. You may come home one day to find your house in flames and your pastures empty.”
“Dragons,” Frances murmured, as if she were making a mental note. Fix the fence. Deal with the dragons. Then she returned to her topic like a dog to a favorite bone.
“We could pay you,” she said, sweetening the deal. “Destin could teach you more about magery,” she said. “He’s really well schooled in it.”
That’s what you get for admitting a vulnerability, Evan thought. Why can’t somebody teach me about magic with no strings attached?
“Why would he do that?” Evan said. “What’s in it for him?”
“I think it would be good for Destin.”
“I’m not a nursemaid.”
“I’ll be the nursemaid,” Frances snapped. “As long as he needs one. I was thinking he could use a friend.”
Evan rolled his eyes. “We didn’t exactly hit it off.”
Frances sighed. “He’s angry, and he has reason,” she said. “It’s hard for him to trust anyone.”
“Turning it around, why should I trust you? You said you were on the run. What’s to stop you from creeping in and cutting my throat while I sleep—just to make sure I don’t give your secrets away? What if whoever’s hunting you shows up? Am I going to be the innocent victim in a vendetta killing?” Evan felt guilty bringing that up, since it seemed more likely that the empress would show up than enemies from across the sea.
“It’s possible,” Frances said. She smoothed the skirts of her gown. “It’s a risk—just like it’s a risk for us to take you in. But you could have killed Destin—and me, too, if you’d wanted to. You didn’t. You showed mercy. I think you both have lessons to teach each other.”
Evan weighed the pros and cons. He needed a place to stay, and he could use a job in the near term. He could stable Djillaba here and save the cost of a stall in town. He wanted to learn about amulets and see if they might help him manage his power.
“All right,” Evan said. “We’ll try it and see how it goes.”