It was a rare cloudless morning of crisp blue sky. Fresh air was warmed with the fragrance of thannis, for though its taste was sour, its scent was sweet. The brightness of the day helped chase away my exhaustion. As if I didn’t have enough to think about, I couldn’t get Gaudrel’s book out of my head. Through the late night hours, I woke again and again, with the same thought: They were family. Morrighan was stolen and sold to a scavenger. Though it might be true that she had the gift and led a people to a new land, those she led were not a noble Remnant chosen by the gods, but scavengers who preyed on others. They had preyed on Morrighan.
“You slept well?” the Komizar called over his shoulder.
I clicked my reins to catch up with him. My sham was to continue today in the Canal quarter, at the washing grounds opposite the jehendra.
“Your pretense warms me,” I said. “You care not one whit how I slept.”
“Except for the dark circles under your eyes. It makes you less appealing to the people. Pinch your cheeks. Maybe that will help.”
I laughed. “Just when I think I couldn’t hate you more, you prove me wrong.”
“Come now, Jezelia, after I’ve shown you every kindness? Most prisoners would be dead by now.”
While I wouldn’t call it kindness, his remarks to me had grown less biting, and I couldn’t help but note he did something my father had never done in his own kingdom. He walked among those he ruled, both near and far. He didn’t rule from a distance, but intimately and thoroughly. He knew his people.
To an extent.
Yesterday he had asked me what the claw and vine design on my shoulder was. I didn’t mention the Song of Venda, and I hoped no one else would either, but I was sure that at least a few of those who had stared at it were digging it up from dusty memories of long-forgotten tales. “A mistake,” I had told him simply. “A wedding kavah not properly applied.”
“It seems to have captured the fancy of many.”
I’d shrugged it off. “I’m sure it’s as much a curiosity to them as I am, something exotic from a faraway kingdom.”
“That you are. Wear one of your dresses tomorrow that shows it off properly,” he had ordered. “That dreary shirt is tedious.”
And also warm. Only that was of little concern to him—not to mention, the dresses weren’t particularly suited for riding, again, inconsequential in light of his greater plans. I had nodded, acknowledging his demand, but I wore my shirt and trousers again today. He hadn’t seemed to notice.
When he wasn’t scrutinizing my every movement and word, I enjoyed my interactions with the people. They provided me with a different kind of warmth that I probably needed more. That part wasn’t a sham. The welcome of the Meurasi had spread to many clans. The moments of sharing thannis, or stories, or a few sincere words gave me balance, if not a few hours of relief from the Sanctum. My gift rarely came into play. A few times I was gripped with a sense of something large and dark descending. I sucked in a breath and looked upward, truly expecting to see a black clawed thing swooping down upon me, but there was nothing there. Only a feeling that I’d quickly shake off when I saw the Komizar smiling. He never missed an opportunity to turn it into something corrupt and shameful. He made me want to smother the gift instead of listen to it. It seemed impossible to nurture anything in his presence.
We reached a narrow lane and dismounted, handing off the reins to guards who followed us.
“Is it this?” he asked, tugging on Walther’s baldrick with his thumb. “Is this what continues to make you so testy?”
I looked at the strap of leather across his chest that I had managed to block from my vision by some magic of will. Testy? By the gods, they had stolen it off my brother’s dead body after they had massacred his entire company. Testy? I looked from the baldrick into his cool black eyes. A smile swept through them as if he saw every burning thought in my mind.
He shook his head, satisfied with my silent response. “You need to learn to let go of things, Lia. All things. Nevertheless…” He slipped his dagger from it, then lifted the baldrick over his head and placed it over mine. His hands lingered on my back as he adjusted it. “Yours. As a reward. You’ve been proving yourself useful these past days.”
I breathed with relief when he finally finished adjusting the baldrick and removed his hands from my back. “Your people already bend at your command,” I said. “What do you need me for?”
He reached up, and his hand gently glided over my cheek. “Fervor, Lia. Food supplies are shorter than ever. They’ll need fervor to help them forget their hunger, their cold, their fear through this last long winter. That’s not too much to ask, is it?”
I looked at him uncertainly. Fervor was an odd word choice. It implied something more feverish than hope or determination. “I don’t have words to stir fervor, Komizar.”
“For now just do what you’ve been doing all along. Smile, flutter your lashes as if spirits whisper to you. Later I’ll tell you the words to speak.” His hand slid to my shoulder, caressing it, then I felt the fabric of my shirt pinching me as he gathered it up in his fist. He yanked suddenly, and I winced as the cloth tore free from my shoulder. “There now,” he said. “Your tedious shirt is taken care of.” His fingers brushed over my shoulder where the kavah now lay exposed, and he leaned close so that his lips were hot against my ear. “The next time I tell you what to do, see that you do it.”
* * *
We headed toward the washing grounds without another word. I garnered stares for both my kavah and my flapping torn shirt. Fervor. That’s not too much to ask, is it? He was making me a spectacle one way or another. I was certain that in his own mind, the kavah was only something peculiar and exotic, or even backward. He didn’t care about the meaning, only that it might help fan this so-called fervor. An added distraction, that’s all he wanted, and nothing about it seemed right.
When we reached the washing grounds, I saw three long basins, the pressure of the river skillfully routed through them. Women lined the edges, kneeling to scrub their laundry on the stones, their knuckles split and red from the icy waters. Sickly sweet smoke drifted from one of the many nearby shops that circled the grounds, and the Komizar said he was stepping inside for a moment.
“Talk to the workers, but go no farther than the basins,” he said sternly, reminding me I was to do exactly as he said. “I’ll be right out.”
I watched the women hunched and working, throwing their washed laundry into baskets, but then I spotted Aster, Zekiah, and Yvet across the way, huddled in the shadows of a stone wall and looking at something that Yvet held.
They seemed unusually subdued and quiet, which was certainly not typical of Aster. I walked across the plaza, calling their names, and when they turned toward me, I saw the bloody cloth wrapped around Yvet’s hand.
I gasped and rushed over to her. “Yvet, what happened?” I reached for her hand, but she fiercely clutched it to her belly to hide it from me.
“Tell me, Yvet,” I said more gently, thinking I had startled her. “How did you hurt yourself?”
“She won’t tell you,” Aster said. “She’s ’shamed. The quarterlord took it.”
I turned to Aster, my face prickling with heat. “What do you mean? Took it?”
“A fingertip for stealing. A whole hand if it happens again.”
“It was my fault,” Zekiah added, looking down at his feet. “She knew I’d been aching fierce for a taste of that marbly cheese.”
I remembered the angry swelling stump of Zekiah’s forefinger the first time I met him.
For stealing cheese?
Rage descended, so utter and complete that every part of me shook—my hands, my lips, my legs. My body was no longer my own. “Where?” I demanded. “Where is this quarterlord?” Aster told me he was the metalsmith at the entrance to the jehendra, then clapped her hand over her mouth. She pulled on my belt, trying to stop me as I stormed away, begging me not to go. I shook her loose. “Stay here!” I yelled. “All of you! Stay here!”
I knew exactly where the shop was. Seeing me fly into a rage, several of the women from the washing grounds followed after me, echoing Aster’s words, don’t go.
I found him standing in the center of his stall, polishing a tankard.
“You!” I said, pointing my finger in his face, forcing him to look at me. “If you ever so much as touch any child again, I will personally cut every limb from your worthless body and roll your ugly stump down the middle of the street. Do you understand?”
He looked at me, incredulous, and laughed. “I’m the quarterlord.” The back of his meaty hand shot up, and though I deflected it with my arm, the force of his blow still sent me sprawling. I fell against a table, tumbling the contents to the ground. Pain exploded through my head where it hit the table, but my blood raced so hot, I was on my feet in seconds, this time with Natiya’s knife in my hand.
There was a hush, and the crowd who’d gathered around stepped back. In an instant, the quarrel they had expected to see transformed into something deadly. Natiya’s knife was too light and small to throw, but it could certainly cut and maim.
“You call yourself a lord?” I sneered. “You’re nothing but a repulsive coward! Go ahead! Hit me again! But in the same moment, I’ll be slashing your nose from your miserable excuse of a face.”
He eyed the knife, afraid to move, but then I saw his eyes dart nervously to the side. Among his wares, on a table equidistant between us, was a short sword. We both lunged for it, but I got to it first, whirling as I snatched it, and the air rang with its sharp edge. He stepped back, his eyes wide.
“Which arm first, quarterlord?” I asked. “Left or right?”
He took another step back but was trapped by a table.
I swung the sword near his belly. “Not so funny anymore, is it?”
There was a murmur from the crowd, and the quarterlord’s eyes shifted to something behind me. I turned, but it was too late. A hand clamped down on my wrist and twisted my other arm behind my back. It was the Komizar. He yanked the sword from my hand, threw it toward the quarterlord, and painfully squeezed the knife from my grip. It fell to the ground beside us. I saw him noting the carved handle that was distinctively vagabond. “Who gave this to you?”
I understood Dihara’s fear now. I saw the fury in the Komizar’s eyes, not just toward me but toward whoever had given it to me. I couldn’t tell him that Natiya had hidden it in my cloak. “I stole it,” I told him. “What is it to you? Will you cut my fingers off now?”
His nostrils flared, and he shoved me into the arms of the guards. “Take her back to the horses and wait for me.”
I heard him yell to the crowd to go back to their business as the guards dragged me away.
He rejoined us only minutes later. His rage was strangely tempered, making me wary.
“Where’d you learn to use a sword?” he asked.
“I hardly used it. I waved it a few times, and your quarterlord wet himself. He’s a bumbling coward who’s only brave enough to cut off children’s fingers.”
He glared at me, still waiting for an answer. “My brothers,” I said.
“Your quarters will be searched when we return to see if there’s anything else you’ve stolen.”
“There was only the knife.”
“For your own sake, I hope you’re telling the truth.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
“I’ll pardon your threat to my quarterlord this time. I told him you’re ignorant of our ways.”
“Me, ignorant? The cutting of children’s fingers is barbaric!”
He stepped closer, pressing me up against my horse. “Starving is barbaric, Princess. Stealing from the mouth of another is barbaric. The infinite ways your kingdom has kept us on this side of the river are barbaric. A fingertip is a small price to pay, but a lifelong reminder. You’ll notice we have very few one-handed people in Venda.”
“But Yvet and Zekiah are children.”
“We have no children in Venda.”
* * *
On our way back, we returned through the Velte quarter.
Again, he greeted those we passed in the street and expected me to nod in kind as if I hadn’t just seen a child mutilated by an ogre. He stopped our procession and dismounted to speak with a stout man who stood just outside an open-air butcher shop. I looked at his hands, all his fingers intact, large and stubby with neatly squared nails, and I wondered at how Gwyneth’s careful observations about butchers extended all the way into Venda.
“You butchered and distributed the horses I sent with Calantha for the hungry?”
“Yes, Komizar. They were grateful, Komizar. Thank you, Komizar.”
“All four?”
The man paled, blinked, then stumbled over his words. “Yes. I mean, there was one. Just one that I—but tomorrow I will—”
The Komizar drew his longsword from the scabbard on his mount, and the slow sound of freeing it chilled everything else to silence. He gripped it with both hands. “No, tomorrow you won’t.” In a move quick and precise, the sword cut the air, blood sprayed my horse’s mane, and the man’s head toppled to the ground. What seemed like seconds later, his body crumpled next to it.
“You,” the Komizar said, pointing to a man gawking in the shadows of the shop, “are the new quarterlord. Do not disappoint me.” He looked down at the head. The dead butcher’s eyes were still wide and expressive, as if hoping for a second chance. “And see that his head’s dressed up where everyone can see him.”
Dressed? Like a pig that’s been slaughtered?
He got back on his horse, gently clicked the reins, and we moved on without another word, as if we had stopped to buy sausage. I stared at the glistening red drops on my horse’s mane. Justice is swift in Venda, even for our own citizens. I had no doubt the bloody message was for me as much as it had been for the butcher. A reminder. Life in Venda was precarious. My position was still precarious—and not only quarterlords could be dispatched without so much as a blink.
“We don’t steal from the mouths of our brethren,” he said, as if explaining his actions.
But I was certain that the quarterlord’s deception was the greater crime. “And no one lies to the Komizar?” I added.
“That above all.”
When we dismounted in Council Wing Square, he faced me, his face still spattered with blood. “I expect you to be well rested tomorrow. Do you understand? No more dark circles.”
“As you command, Komizar. I will sleep well tonight if I must slit my own throat to do it.”
He smiled. “I think we’re beginning to understand each other at last.”