Finnikin of the Rock

Finnikin cleared his throat loudly. 'I think I hear something... outside the cave,' he mumbled, getting to his feet. But the look on Evanjalin's face stopped him from leaving.

'Blood!' Froi said, horrified. 'Loins? Same loins you stick—'

'Froi!' Trevanion snapped.

'Flowing at times like a gutted pig,' Evanjalin said.

'Evanjalin!'

Evanjalin looked at Sir Topher and Trevanion, who suddenly seemed very interested in the contours of the cave walls.

'Did I not say that there would be parts of this story that might cause discomfort?' she said.

'It is not right for a young woman to speak of such things in the presence of men, Evanjalin,' Sir Topher said firmly. 'And perhaps you are clutching at straws, making such a connection.'

'Am I?' she asked. 'And what if I told you that I only walk the sleep during my own... time?'

Despite the flush in Sir Topher's cheeks, he held her gaze and after a moment nodded for her to continue.

'Perhaps the impostor king's men are led to believe that when a young girl experiences her first bleeding, she is also struck by a curse and bleeds to death. An unnatural occurrence, of course. But maybe they've been told that Seranonna's curse is responsible. Her way of punishing the children of Lagrami. In truth, the young girls live inside the old cloister of Sagrami in the northwest of the kingdom. One of the few places the impostor king and his men will not enter for fear of Seranonna's legacy.'

'Do you believe all our people know that the girls live?' Trevanion asked.

She shook her head. 'I cannot be sure who knows the truth. If we go by the baker's sleep, it is clear that the parents of the girls know. But I cannot be sure of the others. The cook's apprentice certainly grieved.'

'But still we cannot be sure that Tesadora survived the days of the unspeakable or the impostor's punishment,' Trevanion insisted.

She stared at him. 'I have walked the sleep of one of the Sagrami novices, and her thoughts were on the day when one with a crown came to hide them.'

'Balthazar?'

'One with a crown is all I know.'

'Could it be...' Trevanion began, but he stopped himself and shook his head.

'Someone smuggled Tesadora and the novices into the kingdom prior to the curse.'

'Someone with a crown?' Sir Topher said. 'It does not make sense.'

'And a blood curse does?' Trevanion asked.

'It makes all the sense in the world that the other who walks the sleep with us, who may be able to break the curse, is a blood relative of the very person who created it,' Evanjalin said. 'Seranonna's daughter.'

'But Tesadora? Perri used to call her the serpent's handmaiden,' Trevanion said.

'Coming from Perri the Savage, that is not good,' Sir Topher mused.

'Perhaps she is exactly what is needed,' Finnikin argued.

'Seranonna sent her to the north of the Forest as a child to live with the novices,' Sir Topher explained. 'To keep her out of harm's way from the other Forest Dwellers, who feared her. The Forest Dwellers claimed Tesadora was evil because her Forest blood was mixed with a Charynite's.'

'Yet you don't communicate with Tesadora?' Trevanion asked Evanjalin.

She shook her head. 'Only the child. The first time was when I was twelve years old and had a strange, wondrous dream. Now I believe it was the birth of the child. Somehow when my'—she hesitated and looked at Sir Topher—'first blood began to flow, the child's heart began to beat. I felt her in my arms.'

'And you never walk the sleep at...other times?' Finnikin asked awkwardly.

'Only once,' she said, swallowing hard.

'Your blood flowed another way?' Sir Topher asked.

She nodded. 'Two springs ago. And that night, I walked the sleep of Lady Beatriss and she whispered the words, 'The cloister of Sendecane.''

'Why was your—' Then Finnikin realized and the word came out in a strangled tone. 'Sarnak! Your blood was shed at the massacre of the exiles?'

She nodded.

'But how did you escape death, Evanjalin?' Sir Topher asked gently.

'Do you have a wound?' Trevanion said.

She opened up her shirt to reveal a patch of puckered tissue above her breast. It was an ugly scar, the wound poorly inflicted.

'They didn't even know how to deliver a clean kill,' Finnikin muttered, unable to take his eyes off it.

'No, they were perfectionists,' she said. 'They were hunters. I could tell. I watched them. Their arrows went straight to the heart, their daggers in and out. Precise. Our people were on their knees, begging, and were cut down with their hands still raised and clenched together in prayer. Others ran. And got an arrow in the back. The hunters made sure that those shot in the back were turned around, and then they'd plunge a dagger into the heart.'

'Yet your wound is the work of an amateur,' Sir Topher said.

'Because I did not run and I did not beg. Wherever there was movement, the hunters attacked. Those were the exiles killed first. But I was a coward, you see. I couldn't turn my back. Could not bear the idea of the unknown. Of an arrow catching me by surprise. When those around me fell with an arrow to the heart, I knew the hunters would not return to check for their breathing. They returned only for those with an arrow in their back. So when one of our own collapsed at my feet with an arrow in his heart, I knew what I had to do.'

'Sweet goddess of sorrow,' Sir Topher gasped.

'Did you not play that game as a child?' she asked quietly. 'Pretend death? It's what you do to survive. You play the games of make-believe.'

Finnikin had played those games daily with the royal children. But there had been no pretending to take an arrow and plunge it into himself an inch above his heart. And no pretending to bite his tongue to keep his cries from piercing the air that was filled only with the grunts of satisfaction and retreating footsteps of men who had forgotten what it meant to be human. There was no pretending to grip the object embedded in his flesh with both hands, to tear it out of skin that was meant for soft kisses and caresses. There was no pretending to pick his way through family, searching the place for survivors. And no playing at walking two weeks barefoot to the cloister of Lagrami in godsforsaken Sendecane because a woman in his sleep whispered the command like a prayer.

What needs to be done.

'I was fortunate enough to be born under the star of luck,' Evanjalin said softly. 'So I lived while others died.'

Sir Topher was the first to turn away. Huddled in his bedroll, his shoulders shook with a sorrow that he fought hard to hide.

'Sleep, Evanjalin,' Finnikin said gently. Dream of cherry blossoms and the laughter of the young girls who you want so desperately to believe live under the protection of the goddess of night.

When at last Finnikin heard the sounds of labored breathing, he turned in his bedroll and saw that Trevanion was still awake.

'What?' Finnikin asked. 'If you discredit her story, I will be forced to challenge you,' he added gruffly.

Trevanion shook his head. 'The girl does not lie, Finnikin. She just omits information. It's the other part of the story, the young girls of Lumatere.' Trevanion leaned closer to whisper. 'What could have possibly happened to force the mothers and fathers to feign the death of their daughters? What are those monsters doing to our people?'

Chapter 12

The harbor town of Sif was the last port of civilization on the mainland of Skuldenore, accessed mostly by merchants, mercenaries, and reckless explorers. It was a departure point for those who wanted to disappear from