Eulogy Read online

  "What would you have had me do, Paien?" Haral said. "I couldn't just give them the sword. Yaron Kenn would shut down the shop, and he'd probably have us thrown in jail. That blade is worth more than we are, and—"

  "And Crest would kill us for it." Paien threw a handful of carrots into a pot. "It just seems like anything would've been better than letting Irreor stop them. Crest will associate our shop with Eenan Ark. There's no helping it."

  Haral grunted as Kipra ducked behind the door. He slowly dug his own grave, for he refused to hire anyone to guard the shop, insisting it was better to keep a low profile and hide from Crest. He was a fool—one of the only kind, gentle fools Kipra had ever known—and today proved it.

  Full night had descended over the city of Farren. A candle flickered in the kitchen, casting writhing shadows upon her bedroom wall. She sucked her lip, trying to ignore the pain in her face.

  Maybe Crest should associate the shop with Ark. Then he'll fear it like he fears the captain. Let them try to use me like they did my mother and Kleni. Let them!

  Haral and Paien still whispered, struggling to realize an answer they'd never accept: they must protect themselves. Kipra strapped on her shortswords, then tiptoed to the window, edged it open, and leapt outside. It was easier to avoid their disapproval this way. They didn't truly agree with her association with Ark—no woman should spend so much time learning the sword, they claimed—just as they certainly wouldn't approve of her nighttime excursion.

  She needed to talk to someone. Anyone. Words were simple things, yet they could sooth the burn of her shame. True, Ark had seen her struck, but he also knew how to prevent it from happening again.

  It was time to swallow pride.

  A breeze touched her cheek, almost as if the city wished to apologize. But the city lied. It didn't offer comfort, only taunts. Laughter and shouts echoed into the night. Few people walked the streets at this hour, only whores and bastards.

  Farren served as the hub of the kingdom of Alkar. It sat between Targ and Svart Harbor, the kingdom's two largest ports, so its inns bulged with merchants. Wagons surrounded the buildings, and horses stomped and neighed in the many stables, casting the stink of manure and hay across the city. Within the inns, patrons sang songs and pounded their tankards against the table.

  But they were men, and men used women. Even worse, women let them.

  A child screamed somewhere far in the distance—an orphan like herself, or a spoiled brat who'd lost his favorite toy. She ignored it as she ducked down a narrow alley. The Arks’ home stood at the end of it, gray boards nearly hidden within the shadows. Candles flickered in the windows.

  She knocked, and after several long seconds the door cracked open. Pernik Sylis glared at her. His shirt was unbuttoned, and the merest shadow of a beard sprouted from his face. He coughed, and the bite of whiskey tickled her nose.

  "Haral's youngest, eh?" He pulled the door open. "What do you need?"

  She knew him, in a way. The man worked under Captain Ark, patrolled the market more than anyone but the captain himself. He'd also been friends with Haral for many years, though she'd never spoken to him.

  "I need...." Irreor's name caught in her throat; she'd never been able to say it. The old officer looked her up and down. She crossed her arms to hide her breasts. "Where's Ark?"

  "Irreor is at the Stonehand's tonight. But don’t go now. No, not now. Tomorrow is better, when it's light. He'll need a friend or two, he will."

  The officer heaved a sigh and gently closed the door in her face.

  Kipra wrinkled her forehead. A friend for what?

  Her breath bounced from the door, warming her face in the chilling darkness. The officer had almost seemed kind, even regretful. No man was kind, though Ark and Bran came close.

  Ark was... he was... indescribable. He drew her in like a moth to the flame. A man with an anger to match her own, yet a certain gentleness dwelt deep behind his gaze. She'd grown closer to him than any other.

  He'd taught her the blade for years, careful to only touch her wrists and ankles as they worked through form after form. Oh, how she'd begged him to teach her so long ago. She'd needed a way to protect herself, desperate to be nothing like her mother or sister.

  But it could never go beyond a morning of training. Must not go beyond that.

  I won't be like my sister!

  The Stonehand's home was an hour's walk to the opposite side of the district. She again crept amongst the shadows, careful to duck away from the rare footstep or the sickly-sweet stench of a man.

  Something rustled ahead of her. She slowed, gripping the hilts of her shortswords. A hooded, robed man leaned against the alley wall. He didn't move, simply stared up into the sky, mouth agape, his flesh like ancient, cracked parchment. His fingers curled and uncurled as if he clenched an invisible weapon.

  She shivered, shuffled nearer, but halted as he moaned.

  A speck of white skin fell from his mouth and fluttered to the ground in the pale moonlight. Again he moaned, like a last breath, leaving her with a bottomless sensation in her chest.

  Void take me, what is that?

  She inched back to the alley's end, hands still to hilts, the sweat of her palms slick on the leather grips. Another piece of skin broke away from his face, fell to his feet. Again, he moaned—empty and sorrowful, wishing for something.

  She fled.

  Her heart hammered as she scurried to the cross street. Slowly, like the awakening of a sleeping limb, pain and confusion and anger returned. They nibbled the edges of her thoughts, but the memory of the parchment-like man remained.

  He would've tried to use her if he'd known she was there. She'd escaped him. But that moan and that skin and that deadened, eerie stare—they terrified her.

  Not for long.

  Ark would teach her more of the sword. She wouldn't have to fear men, wouldn't have to cringe away from their stares.

  She'd protect herself.

  Chapter Five

  A frosty breeze blew through the cave, and Villeen tugged her shawl around her neck. The cold penetrated the fabric, so heavy she could taste the snow on the wind. The Kurin Mountains, their old home, stood a hundred miles away. They'd fled to this place, a small cavern above the coast of the Ripple Sea, after they burned Torden.

  That was too long ago. More than a decade.

  A fire crackled in the hearth, and she scooted her chair closer.

  Rippon, capital of the island's northern kingdom, stood two miles to the south, but they rarely descended into the city. They needed nothing her gentahl couldn't provide. Only a narrow trail led down the mountain, but boulders blocked the path, and only the most stubborn dared squeeze between them. In some places, the trail required a rope to cross the gorges, but thick ice covered the braids on days like today.

  They could've transformed this place into a palace with their power. Gentahl could've crafted marble pillars, delicate curtains, opulent bedrooms. Instead, they'd kept it the same as their quarters in the previous cavern, with unadorned walls, a single table with two chairs, and two threadbare cots. The memories of that place—laughter and sorrow and hatred—drove her into her studies.

  "Close the window," she told her brother.

  Fier sat close to the blaze, huddled beneath a thick blanket, clutching their father's notes. Thick streaks of gray shone against the red of his hair, moreso than ten years earlier, when they'd first found their father's book. His teeth chattered. His lips had dried and cracked, and his tattoos stood stark and ridged against his skin. A flake of glowing ash landed on their father's notes, and he brushed it away.

  He rose to his feet and stepped to the window.

  "Use gentahl," she commanded.

  "No," he said. "I'd rather not."

  She waved him to the window—a crude hole in a wall of stone. In the past ten years, her brother used his gentahl very little. He shied from it as if it were a brand.

  "Why?" She gently closed her own book and set it aside. "We
have it for a reason—"

  "One we can only guess at," he said, then read from their father's notes. "'These nights beckon me as if they were a woman welcoming me into her arms. I can't feel her skin, or the arms, and I can only imagine their solace. But the nights are more than that.'"

  He had recited a passage from the first page, one she'd read countless times. This book held secrets. It held mazes and puzzles, perhaps designed for her and her brother, or perhaps the results of their father's deepening madness.

  He continued. "'Ah, they're terrible. They're the tree against my shutters, the water that overflows from my cup. I feel like those branches could stab me, or I could drown in that puddle. And yet, I could change it, if I wanted. No. I can't change it. The boy would whisper to me, he'd screech and scream and cry. I can't bear it."

  She snorted. "You're ignoring the rest of—"

  "I'm not."

  "'Yet I must do this,'" she said, finishing the passage. "'The people I'll forge, the love I'll discover, these things are more important than my fears. I'll do it, and they'll rejoice.'"

  He clenched his jaw, and for a long moment the fire crackled and popped, flinging fresh ash into the air. One flake, glowing red, pulsing even as her words echoed deeper into the cave, dropped to her hand. It burned, yet the pain couldn't compare to these past years, or to what her father had done. Every day she remembered her eldest brother's face as she'd plunged the knife into his chest.

  She'd forgiven herself for that, but she'd never forgive her father.

  Finally, Fier shook his head. "That's no reason to use gentahl."

  "But look at what he's done!"

  Again, he shook his head.

  "Either we use our power to stop it," she said, "or the entire island will fall to chaos, and it'll stretch to the Inner Empire. Do you want that to—"

  "No."

  "Then you've got to—"

  "I've got a choice, Vill, as do you." He shoved her back with a finger to her chest. "We choose to stop father's plans, or we let them continue. Maybe we must use gentahl to do that, and maybe we don't. How do you know what he's planned is terrible?"

  "Because it is."

  She swallowed her anger, but it tasted like a mouthful of sludge. This was a frequent argument between them and, in many ways, she knew Fier only wanted the best for their island. But he was naïve and always hoped for the best. Some small part of him, lost in a place she didn't care to find, believed their father would return.

  "People have been dying, one after the other, ever since our father fled," she said. "You've seen it just as I have—there's not as much food anymore, and shipments from the Inner Empire come with less frequency. Families are suffering. He caused it, and you know it. He described it to the last detail, maps and percentages and explanations."

  "I know, but—"

  "Today, I'll go to Rippon."

  He twitched an eyebrow.

  "I'll find Abennak, and I'll force him on the path father described. I'll twist the threads until they align. Everything will happen as he wants, as he's planned, yet—"

  "That's your answer?"

  "And then I'll snap them." She clenched her fists, hardening her voice until its jaggedness stretched deep into the caverns. "We'll draw him from his hole and force him to face us. We can convince him to release the island! If not, we'll kill him."

  "We could oppose him from the very start."

  "No."

  "You're wrong, Vill. We could—"

  "Father mastered manipulation long ago. He wrote 'The leaves will fall for her fortieth birthday, and then I'll give them war. I'll give them violence and blood and sorrow. My people will find their love. They'll know it and feel it. So will I.'"

  She released a slow breath. "I'll see forty autumns in a little over a year, that's the only thing he can mean."

  He nodded, hesitant, uncertain, and said, "You can't snap a single thread to—"

  "I can. Imagine a line of yarn. The thread alone is simple—cut it to disrupt it. But if you tangle the line, twist it and twirl it until one end is the same as the other... ah, that's almost impossible to untangle."

  Again he nodded.

  "If we snip a thread now," she said. "He'll simply find a new one. But if we wait until it becomes a ball of tangles and then cut it, he won't be able to find the end. He won't understand where to begin again. We'll draw him out."

  Fier scowled, lifted his voice. "And kill him if we can."

  Her brother didn't agree, but it didn't matter. Her father had chosen this when he'd killed their brother. Like any murderer, death was too good for him, but it's what he'd receive.

  I'll become justice.

  Another breeze drifted through their cavern, and she wandered to the window. Her brother sat peering into the fire. Snow fell beyond the cave, white and silent and peaceful. Beyond the peaks stood Rippon, and within that city stood Abennak.

  Her father's notes described him as the Mad King.

  Madness. Father is mad enough as it is, yet he expects us to keep two of them on our island? Void take me, what trouble could an insane king cause? She laughed to herself, bitter and angry. He'd wage war across the whole island.

  Exactly what their father wanted.

  "I don't have a choice," she whispered, then turned to her brother. "I’m going. You'll stay here?"

  "You think to walk in the city and announce ourselves? Pah! We'd not get past the first gate."

  A thread of gentahl uncoiled within Villeen. A touch to Fier's mind—and hers in that same instant—could transport them across a hundred leagues. It could close doors and open others, force weak men to see blue where they once saw red. Forge a dagger from nothing. Perhaps it could even nudge a man to madness.

  "We'll walk in, yes," she said.

  "Then—"

  "As shadows."

  He paled. "Vill, that's too dangerous. The idea is difficult, too complex. You couldn't force the suggestion on yourself, much less me. Go alone, if that's your plan. I've no wish to—"

  "I can do it."

  Most aspects of gentahl were nameless, but not this one. She called it a Shadow Step, and she'd practiced it many weeks. It shrouded her in darkness, blended her into the shadows. He'd seen her try it once and, because of the whiplash, she'd been sick for two days. Gentahl was easier to perform with just one mind present. It grew more difficult as the number of minds affected rose and as the idea became more complex. Shadow Step was a complicated idea, so she'd practiced alone, beyond Fier's eye and mind.

  "Foolishness piled atop foolishness," he said. "You expect Abennak to simply sit and listen, once we find him?"

  "Fools aren't always wrong, sometimes they're simply brash."

  "Sometimes."

  "I don't know what the king will do. Throw us out or behead us? I doubt that. He's not that type of king." She shrugged. "You'll go?"

  He offered a weak smile. "I'll go."

  Her brother feared the power, feared what their father planned, but he wasn't a coward. She knew that. He'd do what was required to help find their father. And when the time came, he'd not blanch as the knife fell.

  Gentahl slithered in her mind. It never left her now, not since the first day her father had taught her to recognize it. She gripped it, thrust it into Fier. Over the years, she'd grown used to the touch of his mind, and so she twisted and drove the thread without effort. In a way he'd been right; this was dangerous. The idea was complex, and changing the appearance of a person reached the very limit of her ability.

  A heartbeat passed.

  This was different than changing a person. Shadow Step didn't alter skin or bones. Like a mask, it only changed the outside. Gentahl pulled the mask on or off, but what was underneath remained the same.

  Two heartbeats passed.

  She yanked his mind—and her own—at the third heartbeat.

  Shadows converged on him, dense and black and writhing, just as they surely veiled her. His face vanished. His brown tunic and tattooed arms, si
mple leggings and long brown robes—all faded, and he melded with the cavern's dimness.

  She withdrew her gentahl and allowed herself a private smile.

  "Void's tit," he cursed, and he spread his arms wide, now more like inky, indistinct tentacles. "I don't feel anything different, but it is different. You shouldn't have done this, Vill. It's too dang—"

  "It's done."

  She swung back to the open window, then glanced over her shoulder to the fire in the cave's center. It would burn itself out, and the cavern would fall to darkness. "It's time we left."

  They trudged from the cave and, once outside, wind grazed their faces. The air bore the salty scent of the Ripple Sea. Ice slicked the ground. The narrow trail provided few handholds, and so they hugged the cliffside and placed their steps with care.

  Nestled deep within the Sterk Cliffs, this portion of the island—white and bleak and frigid—was different from the lands to the south. There, green plains and placid lakes covered the landscape, but here jagged peaks stretched high, like knives piercing the sun, and icy boulders waded deep into the sea.

  They hadn't descended to the city in over a year, yet she knew this trail well. At the first gorge, Villeen used her gentahl to melt the icy ropes, and they easily crossed. Thick pines had overgrown the path on the other side, but they slipped past the snagging branches and needles.

  She could've used the power to whisk them to Rippon's gates, but this walk cleared her thoughts. It allowed her to accept what she'd have to do. Her father's notes said Abennak would become the Mad King, and so she'd see it done in order to see her father fall.

  I don't have to like it. I just have to do it.

  A bird chirped somewhere deep within the pines.

  She forced herself to swallow past the lump in her throat. No one should want this, but her father had stolen her choices when he murdered Torden. Abennak was merely a block to stack upon another and, though she regretted the need for his insanity, there was a need.

  "Nothing will change your mind?" Fier said, as if he could sense her emotions.