Canticle

She’d picked up a hint of the kalla herself, having stealthily sampled her father’s pipe in years past. Jin Li Tam gestured to a chair and moved toward the furnace. A kettle of fresh water waited for boiling. “Would you like some tea?”

“I can make it, Lady Tam,” Lynnae said, but Jin Li Tam waved a hand at her.

“Nonsense,” she said. “I’ve not forgotten how to make tea.” She drew two ceramic mugs from the service cupboard and found the tea canister, measuring three round scoops of fragrant black leaf into the steeping pot, then returned to the sitting area to wait for the water to boil.

“How is Jakob sleeping?” Lynnae asked.

Jin Li Tam sat across from her and studied the young woman. In the days since Rudolfo left she’d seen much of Lynnae, but there never seemed to be enough hours in the day for them to spend any real time together. They met in one another’s rooms or in the hall or even here in the study; they exchanged minor pleasantries and mostly talked of Jakob. Even now, that held true. “He sleeps lightly,” she said. “I imagine he’ll be up soon.”

“Shall I take him this morning?”

Jin offered a tired smile. “It’s my turn. You need to rest.”

Lynnae shrugged. “I feel fine.”

But Jin Li Tam saw the truth in the dark circles beneath the girl’s eyes and the tightness around her mouth. Even now, Lynnae flinched and sucked in her breath. “Headaches?” she asked.

“Out of nowhere,” she admitted. “Like lightning. But again, it’s no problem for me to take him.”

Jin forced a smile and rubbed her own temples. “I appreciate your offer.” She looked at the girl again. She couldn’t be much past twenty years, if that, and despite her plain clothes she carried herself differently than most of the refugees Jin had observed over the last several months. She leaned forward. “This must be hard for you on the heels of such terrible loss.”

For a moment, Lynnae’s large brown eyes went wide with something like panic. She swallowed. “I would be lying if I said it wasn’t. There are times when I’m nursing Lord Jakob or napping with him and forget it’s not my Micah.”

Jin Li Tam saw the tears forming in the girl’s eyes and felt shame wash over her. “I should not have spoken of it,” she said, looking away.

But out of the corner of Jin’s eye, she saw the girl shaking her head. “No, it should be spoken of; that’s what the Francines would say. That we move the Fivefold Path with words and memory.”

Jin Li Tam looked back to her and saw that the tears had spilled out, running the length of her olive cheek. “I can’t even imagine the price you’ve paid.”

But she could. A husband killed by the sword; a child dead of fever. In the deeper places she feared the same fate for herself. Her own child had been stillborn, brought back by the River Woman’s careful ministrations, and even now only survived because of the powders she and Lynnae provided him. And her own husband-she could not count how many times he’d narrowly skirted a violent end during the war. And now, she imagined, he would sail soon for destinations unknown in search of her father, facing gods-knew-what along the way. The weight of it felt heavy on her heart and cold in her stomach.

She realized suddenly that they had fallen into a long and uncomfortable silence, but the boiling water interrupted it.

Lynnae stood up, wiping her eyes. “Let me, Lady Tam,” she said.

Jin forced herself to remain seated and watched as the girl went to the furnace and poured the hot water into the steeping pot. She placed it onto a tray with the two cups and returned, setting it onto the small table between them. Once Lynnae was seated, she changed the subject. “Is there any news in the world?” she asked.

Jin Li Tam looked to the basket and sighed. Soon enough she would be back to it, coding messages, ordering birds and reading over the reports of two dozen operatives at work on Rudolfo’s behalf. She forced her mind back to yesterday’s messages, careful to hold back anything sensitive. “Winteria has declared herself,” she said. “It was heard for five hundred leagues, I’m told. Pylos and Turam have stepped up their efforts to quell their internal strife while shoring up their armies. Ansylus was buried in state last week; the Ninefold Forest was not invited to attend but sent an ambassador anyway.”

Lynnae’s brow furrowed. “Any news of the Delta?”

Jin nodded. “Esarov and his Democrats have taken another city. There are rumors that Erlund wasn’t killed after all-that it was a double in his place.”

She nodded. “I’m not surprised. He has dozens of them, and-” She cut off the words, and Jin Li Tam noted the blush that rose to her cheeks.

She’s shared something with me that a refugee should not know. She opened her mouth to say something, but in that moment, someone knocked on the door. Studying the girl’s face quickly, Jin stood and went to the door, opening it a crack. A scout stood waiting, a small and still bird cupped in his hands.

“This has just arrived for you,” he said. “It’s not one of ours; it’s not one that we even recognize.”

But she recognized it; the yellow markings upon its tiny head gave it away instantly, and her breath caught within her as hope built. “What message does it bear?”

“The bird is wounded,” the scout said. “We saw your name upon the message and went no further.”

He extended his hands and gentled the small, shivering creature into her own outstretched palms. It lay and twitched, even as she carefully picked at the white thread of kin-clave that held the torn note to its tiny leg. Holding the bird with one hand, she worked the scroll open and read it quickly.

It was triple-coded and in an unfamiliar hand and script, but she knew this bird well. Of all her father’s birds, this was the one that could find her, wherever she might be, and he’d kept it near to him at all times. And it had found her, though it had spent itself on the winds and rains and snow to make its last, long journey.

Do not despair, Great Mother, the note read. Your father’s kinship will be restored by the Older Ways, and his blood will purchase our salvation. She blinked at the words and felt something ominous settle over her. It shrouded her with fear and she imagined the croaking voice of the kin- raven from her nightmares, though its words had been different there on the bone-strewn plains of Windwir: Thus shall the sins of P’Andro Whym be visited upon his children.

She shuddered. Forgotten was the mysterious girl who sat behind her, waiting for tea that Jin Li Tam no longer had the stomach to drink. Forgotten even was her sickly baby, restlessly sleeping down the hall from her. And the political debacle of the Named Lands with its grief-stricken nations also fell away, still reeling from Sethbert’s treachery when the blood scouts and their iron blades cut new heartache into the skin of their New World.

It all faded for the briefest of moments.

Instead, she was a little girl whose father was in grave danger, and she could not cast out the panic and fear that threatened to capsize her.

She looked back to the tiny bird-one of a long line her father had carefully magicked just so he could always find his forty-second daughter, no matter where she roamed. It lay still now, its tiny black eyes glassy in death.

You are a queen, some deep-buried voice asserted within her, wife of Rudolfo, father of Jakob. But more: You are the forty-second daughter of Vlad Li Tam.

Raising her eyes to the scout, she passed the dead bird back to him. “Send in the birder,” she said.

Turning, careful that her face mask the intensity of her sudden, strong emotion, Jin Li Tam forced herself back to the table and to Lynnae, to take comfort in the scalding bitterness of a dark cup that waited for her there.

Petronus

Petronus spent the better part of a week ordering his notes, carefully scripting them in code at the desk in his plain quarters. He left his rooms to take his meals, and occasionally, when he was available, Esarov joined him. The revolutionary looked weary but pleased with developments overall, and just the day before he’d told Petronus that it was nearly time for his people to approach Lysias with the offer of a truce and an exchange.

“And you truly believe this will work?” Petronus had asked him, sipping a hot bitter drink laced with rum.

Esarov ran his hands through his long graying hair. “I do,” he said. “But it will be challenging for you.”