Finnikin of the Rock

with gestures that needed no interpreting. As they pointed and purred, Finnikin heard Evanjalin give a snort beside him before going off to tether their horse.

Inside, the women had descended into the main room. Finnikin watched as Trevanion quickly became the center of attention. He remembered how the ladies of Lumatere would fawn over the captain of the King's Guard. The brutal years in the mines of Sorel had not altered the striking features of his face. With his knotted hair tied back and his dark beard cropped, he still had a presence that attracted the opposite sex, despite the unhealthy pallor of his skin.

Sir Topher returned, holding a key. 'Come, Evanjalin, I have booked us a room. Perhaps a rest?' he suggested, all too aware of what was on offer for the others.

Finnikin stole a glance at her, but then the women with wicked laughter in their eyes were upon them and he allowed one to take his hand.

Later, he stepped onto the tiny balcony beside the bed and watched the vendors pack away their stalls. The tavern girl playfully pulled him back toward her. He had enjoyed their time together. She had required nothing from him but pleasure. No intelligent banter, no request to save a kingdom or sacrifice a part of himself. But he resisted the temptation to stay and pulled on his clothes before grabbing his pack.

In the courtyard, he sat at a table and retrieved the Book of Lumatere. He thought of Evanjalin lying in the room above and remembered their conversation from the night of his arrest. He had trusted her, and she had deceived him. He flicked through the book, his fingers running over all the names he had recorded over the years. But then he turned to a page of unfamiliar handwriting, and his breath caught. There, in a small neat hand, was page after page of names, some written with self-assurance, others with a tremble.

He stood, about to make his way into the tavern to find her when he realized the horse post was empty.

'The horse?' he called out to the stable boy. 'Who took our horse?'

'You brought no horse,' the boy said.

'The novice did.'

'Who?'

'Girl. Blue woolen cap. Dressed like a boy.'

Recognition registered on the boy's face. 'She came back for it.'

'Where did she go?' Finnikin asked uneasily. The boy ignored him, and Finnikin walked away, trying to decide whether to call Trevanion and Sir Topher. Instead, he turned back to the boy. 'If I were to continue down the road to the south, what would I see?'

'Not another village for at least a day.'

'Nothing?'

'Nothing,' he repeated.

'And how far to the closest village going east?'

'I tell you there is nothing,' the boy said as Finnikin began to walk away again. 'Except for the camp.'

Finnikin's heart slammed in his chest. 'Camp?'

'Of the filthy exiles. Should round them up and —'

Finnikin did not stay to hear the boy's suggestion. He took the road out of town and headed east.

He smelled the camp before he saw it. But nothing had prepared him for the sight. It was spread over more land than the town he had left behind, but never in his travels with Sir Topher had he seen a camp more damned. Those standing at the edges watched him with empty eyes. This is not life, Finnikin thought, just day-to-day survival. He heard the heart-wrenching wails of babies crying from hunger.

When he saw no sign of the horse, he was torn between relief that Evanjalin might not be there and a fear of where else she could be.

'I'm looking for a girl. Bare head, dark eyes,' he said to anyone who looked in his direction.

When no one responded, he began to make his way through the rows of makeshift tents. Children with bloated stomachs stared at him with the vacant expressions they had inherited from their parents. Flies hovered over their faces and fed from their open sores.

A hand reached out and gripped his arm. It was a man, little older than Finnikin, his skin stretched taut over prominent cheekbones. 'You are heading toward the fever camp,' the man said. 'You had best be on your way, for it catches you fast.'

Finnikin looked past him. Excrement lined the path to the next camp, and he could hardly breathe from the stench of vomit and shit and death and sickness. He stumbled to the side and emptied his stomach of the mutton soup and ale he had consumed at the tavern. As he stayed bent, he stared with horror at the body of a woman in front of him, eyes wide open, flies feeding.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the man again, compassion on his face. Somehow compassion survives, Finnikin thought in wonder. He stood up, ashamed, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

'Are you looking for the priest-king?' the man asked.

Finnikin was stunned. 'The priest-king? Our blessed Barakah is here?'

The man nodded. 'In the fever camp.' Finnikin walked away, covering his mouth with his hand. 'Come back for us,' the man begged. 'Whoever you are, do not forget us.'

Beyond the tents, Finnikin saw a stretch of land that marked where the exile camp ended and the fever camp began. The fever camp was an assortment of the most basic living quarters, made up of sheets and blankets tied to posts. Bodies littered the space beneath them. Those who were bent over the sick looked like living dead themselves.

But worse was beyond the sick huts. A lad with a corpse slung over his shoulder walked by, and Finnikin followed him to a pit dug deep into the earth. Men. Women. Children. Those his age who would never lie with a woman as he had that afternoon. He saw girls, their hair the color of spun gold, or waves dark and thick. The beautiful girls of Lumatere. Dead. Piled on top of one another. Layers of wasted skin and bones. The lad passed him twice, each time carrying a dead body that he proceeded to throw into the pit of the dead. Finnikin noticed the boy's strong hands. Craftsman's hands. Made for rebuilding.

But there was no place for rebuilding here. Just burying.

He sensed her before he saw her. She was walking toward him from one of the blanket hovels, holding a baby in her arms. A baby so still, Finnikin knew it no longer breathed. Evanjalin looked up and their eyes met across the pit of the dead.

Look away, he told himself. Do not let yourself get lost in those eyes.

When she reached him, he watched her search for something, desperation in her movements.

'What are you looking for, Evanjalin?' he asked.

'His mother,' she said in a broken voice. 'She died earlier with the baby still attached to her breast.'

He wanted to walk away. Go back to the sleepy girl in the tavern who asked nothing of him but three copper coins. Who made him forget for a moment, when he was deep inside of her, this girl with large pools of night-sky for eyes.

Evanjalin continued to search among the bodies, and then he saw where her gaze ended. At a woman sprawled in a pit, arms outstretched. Evanjalin looked at the babe she held and crouched down. He could see that she planned to slip into the grave. And before he knew what he was doing, Finnikin climbed into the pit and she handed him the baby. Stepping around the bodies, he made his way to where the mother lay and placed the child on her breast, wrapping the dead woman's arms around her boy.

He felt dry sobs rising inside him, carving up his throat, and when Evanjalin held out her hand and pulled him out of the pit, he knew she could read it all on his face.

'Do not cry,' she said fiercely, but her own tears flowed. 'Do not cry, Finnikin. For if we begin, our tears will never end.'

He held her face in his hands, her tears catching in his fingers, his forehead against hers. Cursed land, Sir Topher had said. Cursed people.

The priest-king had altered so much since the old days of Lumatere that Finnikin hardly recognized him. Finnikin had been in awe of the holy man as a child. Even Lucian believed he was some kind of god in his elaborate robe trimmed with gold, each finger adorned with rings. Today he wore a grubby brown mantle and hood; his beard