No Quarter (17 page)

Unwilling to leave the Citadel, Vree made her way to the cloister where she and Magda most often spent their afternoons. With a minimum of effort—more for practice than anything—she slipped unseen into the Healers' Hall and then out into the cloister. Choosing a bench that gave her a clear line of sight on both doors leading back into the building, she sat and stared out at the herb garden, deserted because of the rain.

*What are we doing here?* Gyhard demanded, moving restlessly within the confines of Vree's mind. *If we're hiding, we're not doing a very good job.*

*We're waiting for something to happen.*

*Like what?*

*If I knew, we wouldn't have to wait. We could go looking for it.*

She reminded him of a cat, sitting by a hole gnawed in the wall, certain that, in time, a mouse would appear. It wasn't that she was focused—he could almost feel her concentration spreading out to cover all possibilities—it was that
all
she was doing was waiting. It made him very uncomfortable although he wasn't entirely certain why. *Did they train you to do this?* When she nodded, he wondered if maybe that was it; that perhaps she was, in a way, training him, and he didn't want to learn to be an assassin. He wanted to fidget, to pace, to twiddle his thumbs—

except that he didn't have thumbs of his own to twiddle. *Shouldn't we be doing something?*

*Like what?* she demanded in turn.

When Gyhard couldn't find an answer, he decided it might be time to change the subject. *Vree, about Bannon; I'm sure if you don't think you can face him, it can be arranged so that you don't have to.*

*First of all,* she snapped, * what makes you think I don't want to see him?

And second, what makes you think anyone here could stop him if he wanted to see me?*

Her mental voice suggested she'd be equally unaffected by either scenario, but she couldn't block the chaotic mix of emotions churning just below the surface of her thoughts. Though it was far from that simple, guilt, longing, and fear seemed to predominate.

*What are you more afraid of, Vree?* Gyhard asked quietly. That he won't want to see you or that he will?*

*Maybe I'm afraid that the moment you see him, you'll jump back to his body. It suited you well enough before.*

He couldn't be angry, not when he could feel her frightened uncertainty and knew she lashed out at him only because he was there. He could, however, be irritated by her desire to pick a fight rather than face an emotion or two. *I can't jump unless your body is dying or you push me out. So if I end up back in Bannon's body, it won't have been
my
choice.*

Just for a moment, he caught the memory of her thigh brushing his with nothing between them but scented water. Before he figured out whether it was his memory or hers, it was so strongly suppressed it took other, less heated memories, with it.

*There's just so slaughtering much between us.* Gyhard recognized Bannon in the plural rather than himself. *Or maybe,* she continued as she remembered a strained good-bye on the docks of the Capital, *it's that there's nothing between us anymore at all. That we used it all up. Besides…* she flicked one finger at a dead leaf back of the bench, the closest Gyhard could ever remember her coming to fidgeting. *He probably still hates you and you're still with me.*

*A lot of people don't get along with their sibling's partners.*

Vree snorted. *You're not exactly a partner. You're more like a…*

*A parasite.*

The lengthy silence became agreement.

She stared out at the rain, watching it bead on the broad leaves of the boneset, listening to it run down the cistern pipes, tasting it with every breath. Finally, she sighed. *We have to find you a body. Soon.*

Gyhard fought the urge to nod her head. *No argument here.*

The main door into the cloister flew open and Gerek charged through, momentum taking him right out into the garden.

*That boy is too good-looking,* Gyhard grumbled as Vree straightened out of her defensive crouch.

Murmuring a distracted affirmation, Vree stepped forward enough to be seen.

For a heartbeat, Gerek's worried frown disappeared, returning when he saw she was alone. Ignoring both the rain and the herbs crushed under his feet, he jerked forward. "Have you seen Maggi? I can't find her anywhere!"

"What's wrong?"

"The kigh are saying that Jazep is dead—it's all over the Citadel. He was one of Maggi's name-fathers. She's going to need me."

"Name-fathers," Vree repeated.

Gyhard made the connection first. *Didn't Magda tell us that Tadeus was one of her name-fathers?*

"Tadeus!" The name cast a deeper shadow over Gerek's face when Vree asked Gyhard's question aloud. "Of course! He's going to be in pieces. She'd have headed right for him!" Spinning on one heel, he ran back into the building with Vree close behind.

No one got in their way.

They raced into an ominously quiet Bardic Hall, took the stairs to the third floor two at a time, and pounded down the corridor. As they neared the end of the hall and began to slow, a door opened.

Magda staggered from the room, pushed out by the hoarse sound of crying.

When she saw her brother, her face crumpled, as though, seeing refuge at last, she'd let go of an artificial strength. She threw herself at him and burst into tears.

"Jazep…"

"I know, Maggi. I've heard." Enclosing her in the circle of his arms, he rested his cheek on her curls.

"I felt it when Tadeus found out," she sobbed. "I was on my way to a lesson and his pain, it just
hit
me and
hit
me and
hit
me. When I got here, he was Singing Jazep's name, over and over. It was like there was a whirlwind in the room with him—the kigh wouldn't let me get close to him. Then that Imperial fledgling he has, Ullious, he showed up and he Sang the kigh enough away that I could touch him and Tadeus just
looked
at me like his heart was broken and he stopping Singing and he started to cry and, oh Ger, I couldn't. I just couldn't."

"Couldn't what, Maggi?" Although his own face was wet, Gerek's voice was gentle and calm.

She twisted the loose folds of his shirt up in both fists. "I couldn't handle his pain and mine. He was… I was… It just
hurts
so much."

"Is Ullious still with him?"

"He is, but I'm
not
. I should be in there, Gerek. I'm
supposed
to be a healer!"

Trembling a little at the sudden rush of emotion, wishing there was a target she could hit to make it all better, Vree reached out and gently gripped Magda's hand where it was tangled in her brother's shirt. "Wounded healers need bandages themselves. You can't save anyone if you bleed to death."

"I'm not
bleeding
." Her protest emerged damp and muffled from Gerek's chest.

"Your heart is bleeding. You've done what you can for Tadeus. Now you need to heal yourself."

"But…"

"No buts," Vree interrupted. She gave the younger woman's hand a final squeeze, released it, and stepped back, holding tightly to her own control.

Gerek swung his little sister up into his arms where she clung to him, her face pressed into the angle of his shoulder, the curve of her neck below the tangle of dark curls looking vulnerable and lost. "I'll take her to her room and stay with her,"

he said. "Where will you be if she needs you?"

Startled, Vree stared at him. "Needs me?" she repeated.

Settling Magda more securely in his arms, Gerek rested an expression on Vree that held too many variables for her to understand. "Yes, needs you. Where will you be?"

"I guess my room, but…"

"No buts."

She watched him carry his sister down the hall and moved only when they disappeared into a stairwell.

* Where to now?* Gyhard asked, the tone of his voice reminding her of Gerek's expression.

*I guess to my room.* Wondering how much pain a blind man had to be in to
look
at someone as though his heart were broken, she turned on one heel and walked silently back to the room she'd been given.

Kovar arrived just as she did. His eyes were red and his lashes clung together in clumps. "Have you heard?" When she nodded, he swallowed and visibly squared his shoulders under the quartered robe. "How much?"

"Only that a bard named Jazep is dead."

*There's more,* Gyhard murmured.

*No slaughtering shit.* She opened the door and gestured for Kovar to enter.

"You look like you need to sit down," she said abruptly. "I can make tea."

"No, no tea, thank you." But he accepted the offer of a place to sit, lowering himself into a chair as though he'd broken ribs and not taken the time to have them bound. Lacing long, ink-stained fingers in his lap, he looked up at her and said, "We need your help."

Vree cocked her head to one side and moved her weight forward onto the balls of her feet. Not quite a fighting stance but ready for the eventuality. "You want me to kill the person or persons who killed Jazep."

The Bardic Second was so surprised his mouth opened and closed, but no sound emerged. Finally, he managed a strangled, "Not that. No."

"Then what?" Vree relaxed slightly, refusing to acknowledge the relief his answer gave.

"We need your knowledge of the abomination who was Kars."

*Kars?*

She couldn't entirely prevent Gyhard's cry from leaving her mouth. It burst past her lips as a truncated, wordless wail. Regaining control, she wrapped herself around him, protecting him as she would have protected Bannon had he been hit from ambush.

Kovar misunderstood. "I know. You're shocked. You thought that part of your life was over. But something is in Shkoder causing the dead to walk, and we can't think of who or what else it could be." He drew a shaking hand across his forehead.

"We have Karlene's recall, of course, but if we are to defeat this thing, we need to add your knowledge as well."

Vree waited. Silently.

"Yours and Gyhard's."

Gyhard stirred out of his shock. *They want to put
me
under recall?* When Vree repeated his questions and the bard nodded, he asked, his mental voice incredulous, *Do they know what that means?*

*They should by now.* "Sorry," she said, spreading her hands. "I can't risk that."

Looking as though he'd expected her response, Kovar nodded, somehow managing to sound both disappointed and relieved. "I understand, but I had to ask."

*Vree, what are you doing?* He could sense the lie but not what it was about, memories of Kars—as a young man, as an old man—kept getting in the way.

Before she could answer, Kovar continued, his tone so incredibly reassuring Vree suspected he was using some sort of bardic trick and she steeled herself against it. "We still need your memories, though, and I personally assure you there'll be no danger of Gyhard trying to take control while you're in recall."

*Why that suspicious, son of a…*

*Shut up!* Vree snapped and added aloud, "All right. When?"

"It'll have to be tomorrow morning. There isn't a bard in the hall who could do it tonight." His face folded along lines drawn by grief and he looked ten years older as he slowly pulled himself out of the chair and back onto his feet. He paused at the door. "Thank you for helping, Vree. We'll be Singing for Jazep at the Center tonight; you're welcome to attend."

As the sound of his footsteps faded down the hall, Vree closed the shutters, lit a lamp, and pulled her pack out from under the bed.

*Vree, what are you doing?*

*Kars is our business, not theirs.*

*I can't…*

*Can't what?* she interrupted. *Can't face him? You've said you failed him twice.* Gyhard jerked as her intentional blow hit home and, making no effort to block out the pain she'd caused him, she forced herself to go on. *I say that third time pays for all.*

*We don't even know where he is!*

*Then we eavesdrop a little and find out where the message came from. I can track him from there.* One of the bulky knit sweater things took up more room than she liked, but if it was about to get as cold as everyone said, she supposed she'd better take it.

*Vree.*

*What? You started this, Gyhard, don't you want to finish it?*

*Not exactly. I want it to be finished.* He could feel the memory of the ancient throat between his hands—Bannon's hands—could see behind the rheumy eyes the young man he'd pushed over the edge into insanity then abandoned an impossible number of years before. He could have—would have-killed him then, but one of the walking dead had intervened. He wasn't sure he could bring himself to that point again.

*You were alone last time. This time, you've got me.*

*Stop reading my mind.*

He felt her almost smile. *Strong emotions, remember?*

*But if you're afraid I'll take control…*

The almost smile disappeared. *Is that why you think I refused to let them recall you? You think I'm stupid enough to believe you'd try to take over with half a dozen slaughtering bards marching through our minds?*

*No, but…*

*What happened between you and Kars is private. You shouldn't have to share it with everyone who can carry a tune.* She bent over to fight with a stiff buckle and Gyhard suddenly realized she was embarrassed, that she was trying to distance herself from her words.

*I'm sorry.*

She shrugged. *It's all right.*

*And thank you.*

*Look, I said it's all right!*

He drew back before she could push him away, willing to give her what little space he could, maintaining too tenuous a hold on his own emotions to deal with hers.

Vree laid her daggers out on the bed and lightly touched the empty wrist sheath.

Allowing for slight differences in weight, Bannon had an identical set— except, of course, that Bannon still had a
set
.

For the moment, memories of Kars had wrapped Gyhard in an emotional soup too thick to see through. It hadn't yet occurred to him that in going after his past, they'd be avoiding hers.

Chapter Seven

Twisted up in memories of Kars, Gyhard had been paying little attention to Vree's preparations. He'd roused briefly when she'd discovered that the dead were walking in Bartek Springs and then allowed himself to be sucked back down into a roiling mix of emotions. As he hadn't noticed her turn off the lamp or open the shutters, it came as a bit of a shock to realize they were perched on the window ledge outside her room and he hastily quelled an urge to propel her body back inside. *Vree, why are we going out the window?*