Voice of Crow (21 page)

She exhaled hard. “Then your powers are fluctuating, the way they were when I was first pregnant.”

“The child’s in trouble.” Damen wiped his face with his sleeve. “This happened to my cousin. His wife had a hard pregnancy. In the month before their son was born, their powers swung from nothing to everything.”

Rhia nodded. As a healer, her mother had encountered several such cases.

With a shaky hand, he quenched the thanapras in the water bowl. “It’s my fault. Crow is punishing me.”

“He doesn’t take innocent lives to punish us. What do you think you did wrong?”

He angled a wary look at her. “I can’t tell you.”

“Damen, this secrecy has to stop. You wouldn’t have mentioned it if you didn’t want to tell me.”

He sat back against the edge of the berth and let out a long sigh. “I saw Nilik’s death. When he was born.”

“So did I.”

Damen stared at her, then blinked. “You have an excuse. You were tired and weak after the labor.” He hung his head. “I was merely curious.”

“About what?”

“About the Raven prophecy. Because of my own child. I thought if I could see how Nilik would die, it would tell me whether he was the one.”

“Did it?”

“No.”

The image burned her mind, and she wondered if Damen had seen the same one. “I saw him die young,” she said, “seventeen or eighteen, facedown in the sand holding a sword. There’s blood everywhere. I think he dies in the land of the Descendants. Which either means we won’t rescue him, or that someday our people will invade—”

“Wait.” Damen held up his hand. “Nilik won’t die in Ilios. He’ll die in Velekos.”

“Velekos?” Rhia grabbed Damen’s hand so hard she thought the slender bones would break. “Are you sure?”

“I recognized the place. It’s an hour’s ride west of the village, one of the few beaches without rocks.”

Her mind raced with the implications. “Then that must mean—”

“It doesn’t mean anything. He could still spend his life in Ilios and travel back to Velekos as a young man.” He grimaced as if in pain and drew his hand out of hers. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. It breaks the sacred law.”

“But there must be exceptions. Why else would Crow give us these visions if not to share them, at least with other Crows?”

“I don’t know. To test us? It’s not for us to question.”

“But it’s up to us to act the way we think is right.”

“So we just make our own rules?” He rubbed his temples, glaring at her. “Coranna was right about you.”

Rhia’s blood heated. “She wasn’t, because she never knew that my vision saved Asermos.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When I was fifteen, Galen tested me on his sick brother Dorius, Arcas’s uncle. Everyone thought he was dying, but I saw that he could live. Then—I saw his death.”

“Don’t tell me.”

“He was bleeding in a pile of golden oak leaves,” she said. “I thought it meant he would die in autumn.”

Damen put his hands to his ears. “I don’t want to hear it.”

She pulled his arms down. “No one in Asermos knew when or where the Descendants would attack, until Arcas gave me the gift.”

“What gift?”

“He’d changed the colors of the trees around the wheat field. He made a sunset for me.” She let go of Damen. “The golden oak was the sun.”

He drew in a short gasp. “So you knew the Descendants were coming soon.”

“I didn’t tell anyone how I knew, but they believed me. That was when I realized how much people respect the judgment of a Crow.”

“Which is exactly why we can’t abuse it.”

“I agree,” she said, though she wasn’t sure they held the same definition of
abuse.

He exhaled hard and lay back on his blanket. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Now I know how you feel, knowing your loved ones are in danger. I’ve been so cold about it.”

“Not cold. Realistic.”

“I’ve turned into Coranna, only more brittle.” He laid his arm across his forehead. “At least she was happy that way. She found peace in her stoicism. Me, I’m just…dead.”

She tucked the blanket around his trembling frame. “Not anymore.”

“Get up.” Mila’s voice cut through the haze. “We’re home.”

Marek opened his eyes all the way. He moved to peer out the round window next to his bunk, rattling the chain that bound him to the bed.

He saw what had blanched his vision.

Leukos. The White City.

He craned his neck to see the tops of the tallest stone buildings. Though he had lived his life in trees, the sight gave him vertigo.

“It must look strange.” Mila’s voice softened. “I’ll never forget what you did, bringing Neyla back. My prayers will ask the gods’ mercy for you.”

He turned from the window. “Can you get me to Nilik?” Since his escape in Velekos, they hadn’t allowed him near his child, hadn’t even let him leave this room filled with the stench of his own sickness. “I need to see my son.”

Mila glanced at the door behind her. “I—I don’t—”

“Don’t speak to him, Mila.” Sareb sauntered in with the burliest of the soldiers, who unlocked the manacle that held Marek’s chain to the bed.

“Please don’t take him from me,” Marek said as his wrists were tied behind his back and attached to another chain. “I’ll do anything.”

“Do you want to live? Then keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.” The captain pulled a clean cloth from his belt and wiped Marek’s face hard. “And look decent. If you’re lucky, she’ll make you a house or stable slave.”

“Who?”

Sareb poked Marek’s chest. “What did I say about speaking?”

They climbed two flights of stairs to get to the main deck outside. Marek squinted at the sun blazing off the tall white stone buildings. The strange sights begged his attention, but first he had to find his son. They couldn’t have come so far together only to be separated.

A plaintive cry pierced the crisp morning air.

Marek turned to see one of the soldiers who had taken him from Asermos. He was holding a baby basket. Marek lunged, but the chain jerked him back. Sareb cursed.

“You’re going to the same place,” the captain said, “so calm down, or I’ll send you to the mines.”

“I want to see him now.”

“When we get there, if she decides to keep you.” He pulled Marek closer. “To make us all happy and some of us rich, try to pretend you’re a good boy.” He clapped Marek’s shoulder and gave him a wide grin. “Understand?”

Marek nodded. Whatever it took, he’d stay with Nilik. As the line crept forward, he breathed deeply, straining for the scent of his son.

It occurred to him that if Rhia, Alanka and Lycas hadn’t rescued him from the Descendant army camp last year, he would have been brought to Leukos a captive, as he was now. For the first time, he wondered if there was such a thing as destiny.

A horse-drawn cart met them at the end of the dock, at the side of a busy street paved with flat, pale gray stones. The soldiers helped Marek into the back, where two of them sat on either side. Sareb sat across from him, wearing a self-satisfied smile despite the wails emanating from the baby basket in his lap.

The cart clattered over the street, jarring Marek’s teeth and bones. Nilik’s cries subsided soon after the rocking movement began. As they moved between the buildings, Marek’s throat closed with a trapped feeling. He peered around for anything familiar—a tree, even a shrub. No green met his eye.

They made their way uphill, where the buildings became shorter and wider. Many windows were bedecked with flowers of all colors, but he couldn’t see the soil in which they were planted. As they climbed higher, more of the city itself came into view.

White buildings lay astride narrow streets in long, crooked rows, like bricks waiting to be mortared. On every street they passed, workers scrubbed the buildings’ walls to maintain the pristine appearance.

Marek would have covered his ears had his wrists not been bound and chained to the seat. The rattle of cart wheels and the harangues of what seemed like a thousand pedestrians and drivers created a whirl of sound that set Marek’s nerves on edge. A hundred scents assaulted his nose—scorched food, raw sewage and the sweat of too many humans in one place.

Soon they reached a wide driveway of richly patterned paving stones leading to an iron fence about three times his height. The soldiers helped Marek out of the cart. Two guards approached the gate from the other side.

“Here to see Petrop,” Sareb said.

They swung open the gate. Beyond it lay a large open space, bordered on one side by a stable and, on the other two sides, by the back of a stone house—white, of course. Horses and humans mingled in the space, glancing at his passage.

Feet crunching on a surface of tiny pebbles, the soldiers led Marek to a door with no handle on the outside. One of the gate guards rapped four times and waited.

A wizened bald man opened the door, dressed in a smooth white shirt and black trousers. His uniform bore no insignia or other flourishes, but his upright bearing spoke of his status, at least within this household.

“I am Petrop.” He cast a narrow gaze at Marek. “What’s this one?”

“The child’s father,” Sareb said.

The man waved them away. “He can’t stay.”

“Let Her Honor decide that.” The captain lifted his heels and displayed a crooked grin. “Perhaps she’ll offer us all a token of her appreciation for this extra gift.”

“Enter, then.” Petrop sniffed. “If she’s not pleased, you’ll get a token of something else.”

They walked through a large, busy kitchen. The scents penetrated Marek’s nose and went straight to his stomach. He’d eaten little on the ship due to his seasickness; now his appetite had woken, ferocious.

On the other side of the kitchen, they entered a windowless stone corridor, lit by torches held in iron sconces along the wall. Marek glanced back at Nilik’s basket, which emitted louder fussy noises with each step they took.

At the end of the corridor an open archway led to a room with a long table—enough space for forty or fifty people. Marek’s mind swam at the size of this building and its chambers.

They passed through a room with a large stone staircase to the right, and to the left, an ornate wooden door—which Marek took to be the front door. Facing them was a smaller, cozier room that was nonetheless larger than his entire house in Kalindos. They stopped in the doorway, the soldier with Nilik standing next to Marek.

“Is it him at last?” cried a high, melodic voice. It came from behind the back of a long, cushioned bench.

A young woman rose to her feet and swept around the end of the bench, a flowing white silk skirt swaying above her ankles. Even from halfway across the room, Marek could see the eager spark in her bright blue eyes.

“It is him.” She came forward with a jerky gait, as if she were trying not to run. Her hands clasped and unclasped each other, and long golden curls bounced with each movement.

A few paces away, she surrendered to impulse, and leaped at the basket with such a predatory ferocity that Marek stepped back, startled.

The woman looked at him, just now noticing his presence. Her pale brow creased. “Petrop, who is this?” she asked without taking her gaze from Marek.

Her servant frowned. “The infant’s sire, Your Honor.”

“He reeks.”

Captain Sareb stepped forward. “Your Honor, he is quite docile and cooperative.” He gave Marek a subtle glance, no doubt warning him not to reveal the truth. “Despite his current wretchedness, his physique is strong. If it pleases you, he would make an excellent home slave.” The captain jerked his chin toward Petrop. “He’s certainly younger and more vital than some of your current household staff.”

The woman circled Marek, twisting the end of one of her curls as she examined him. “How much?”

“Three thousand,” Sareb said with a confident air.

“How amusing. Nine hundred.”

“He’s young and civil tongued, and he’ll clean up well. Two thousand.”

Marek fought to calm his breath. They were negotiating over his price as if he were a pony at auction.

“What skills do you have, boy?” she asked Marek.

He bristled at the word
boy.
She couldn’t have been more than five years older than he was—twenty-six or twenty-seven at most. “I can cook, clean, repair things, handle the horses. Anything you require, just please let me stay with my son.”

“Shh.” The woman stepped close to his side, and he realized that even in her slippers she equaled his height. She placed her hands around his upper arm as though measuring the muscle there. “Hmm. Could be meatier.” She ran her hand over his shoulder and across the top of his back. “And the hair would have to go, for certain.”

Marek flinched at the idea.

“The beasts only cut their hair in mourning.” Sareb inclined his head to her. “But if you buy him, you can do as you like.”

She stood less than a handspan from Marek, examining his face. He kept his gaze straight ahead, on the horse-bedecked tapestry covering the opposite wall.

“Were you a soldier?” she said in a low voice.

“No. Never.”

She made a small noise of surprise. “But you’ve taken a life, haven’t you?”

He looked into her gleaming eyes, etched with kohl into a feline shape.

“Maybe more than one,” she said. With the tips of her long fingernails, she tilted his chin down and away. “Don’t look at me like an equal.” She turned to the basket. “Let me see my child.”

Instinct made Marek step between them. “No.”

Her eyes flared. “Say no to me again, boy, and I’ll have you killed.”

Sareb cleared his throat. “With all respect, Your Honor, you can’t kill him if he doesn’t belong to you. Two thousand.”

“Fifteen hundred,” she said, her gaze locked with Marek’s. “You’d only get five from the miners.”

The captain chuckled. “Fifteen it is.”

“Pay him, Petrop.” She gripped Marek’s chin again. “I’ll take my child now. Step aside.”

It was the hardest thing he’d ever done—harder than killing Skaris, harder than withstanding a day’s beating in the Descendant army camp. He moved away and watched the soldier ease Nilik out of the basket and into the arms of the nameless woman.

Her face transformed in an instant. “Oh, he’s lovely.” Her eyes glistened, then she turned away with her new bundle. “How do they make them so beautiful?”

Marek’s arms already ached with the urge to seize his son, who didn’t even gurgle in protest at another stranger holding him.

The captain winked at Marek as he unbound his wrists and unlocked the chain. “Remember, be a good boy,” he whispered. He exchanged coins and papers with Petrop before swaggering out.

“Fetch the wet nurse,” the woman said to Petrop, then flicked her fingers toward Marek and her guards. “Have this one washed, shorn and fed, in that order, then return him to me.”

Marek nearly fell to his knees with relief. He would stay with his son. He knew he should already hate this woman for making him a slave, but she had spared him the one fate that would have killed him as surely as a sword to the heart.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” he whispered as the two men led him away.

As he reached the door, he looked back to see her staring at him in surprise.