Canticle

Lux than in the seemingly impossible task of finding her father’s fleet.

But the last one-delivered just this morning-was the one that finally staggered her and made the canvas walls of her tent press in upon her, sending her into the winter air with her son clutched close. Rae Li Tam’s coded message had found her-updating Jin Li Tam on all that had transpired for them at sea so far and calling for aid from the Ninefold Forest Houses if such a thing were possible. Even now a response-with pledged support of undefined specificity-winged its way back with Jin Li Tam’s query buried into it: My son is sick from the birth powders; can you cure him?

It should have been relief, she thought. But in that moment, hope changed. She didn’t know how to describe it. It became different inside her-a gnawing thing. And something that kept fear as its constant companion alongside of it.

“Lady Tam?”

The soft voice startled her and she looked up. A young woman in mismatched armor and sad eyes stood before her, her tangled brown hair capped with a helm that was too large and a massive silver battle-axe in her muddy hands. Her face was streaked with ash and dirt. Two Gypsy Scouts accompanied her.

Jin Li Tam blinked. She’s changed in such a short time. “Winters?”

Winters curtsied. “It is good to see you.”

The young girl’s eyes were the most different. Beyond the sadness, there was something else hidden there. Fear? Uncertainty? Yes, Jin Li Tam realized, it was those things but also something deeper. Something that smelled familiar and disturbing to her.

Betrayal. A rotten and deadly weed grew up among her own people and threatened them all.

Jin Li Tam inclined her head. “It is good to see you as well. Have you learned anything new?”

The girl shook her head. “My army scours the Marshlands now, turning every stone to find the root of this sudden evil. And you?”

Jin Li Tam shook her head. “Nothing you don’t already know. Reinforcements are en route. The first several attacks have taken heavy tolls on the rangers particularly. These skirmishers fight with no sense of self- preservation; they fight until they fall.”

Winters sighed, and her voice was quiet. “It’s the blood magicks. They know before they take them that it will cost them their lives.”

Neither of them had seen these blood-magicked scouts in action, but both had seen the field of flesh and bone they’d mowed. Jin Li Tam felt a stab of loss, remembering the night that Winters had been forced to take her throne. And now, she stood fresh on the heels of burying the Androfrancine dead from the Summer Papal Palace, her lands now steeling for invasion. New to her throne, and already threatened from within and without.

Jakob stopped suckling, and she adjusted her shirt and coat, shifting the baby to her shoulder to pat the air gently from him. “I’ve not told Meirov that I am bringing you,” Jin Li Tam said. “I think it is better that way. You will be under my protection as a part of Forest kin-clave.”

Winters swallowed and nodded. She shifted on her feet, and Jin read indecision in her body. She wishes to ask something but is uncertain how.

Jin watched a blush creep into the girl’s face even as her brown eyes darted away. “Is there. ” She paused. “Is there any word of Neb?” Her eyes returned, meeting Jin’s for a moment, and the blush rose even further on Winters’s cheeks. “I know he’s missing and that Aedric seeks him.”

Of course. The boy. Jin Li Tam tried to force a smile but knew she failed. “I’ve an entire company seeking him. I know he was well enough when he left Aedric in pursuit of Isaak and the other mechoservitor.” She wasn’t sure what else to say. These were hard times for love; bitter soil for it to grow in. And these weeks with Rudolfo off seeking a cure for Jakob-long stretches with no word from her new husband-she knew the sharp teeth of worry that chewed this young woman. I should say something to comfort her. “I know that if he could, Neb would get word to you. The birds don’t seem to hold their magicks there. We’re doing our best to find them.”

“He’s no longer even in my dreams,” Winters said, looking away. The voice was so nearly a whisper, and there was a profound sadness in it.

“Maybe your dreams are affected by distance,” she offered, but doubted it would help.

Winters shrugged but said nothing, and Jin Li Tam was uncertain what to add. She wasn’t very familiar with the Marsh Queen’s dreaming beyond what everyone knew about the War Sermons and the Book of Dreaming Kings. She knew even less of these supposed shared dreams she had with the boy, though she’d known there was a bond between the two of them from their time at Windwir. She’d certainly heard talk of the young romance even before she’d known of the girl’s true identity. But Jin’s attention over the last several months had been preoccupied with preparing the manor-and her own soul-for the small package of struggling life she now held. And the work of sorting what her life had been and what it was becoming. If those weren’t enough, the circumstances of the Firstborn Feast and Jakob’s troubled birth had also done their part to keep her focus elsewhere.

Still, she certainly understood the power of dreams. Her own had turned dark and violent that night-and had stayed that way. Even this morning, she’d clawed her way to wakefulness with her last memory still vivid before her closed eyes: a dark bird gobbling eyes in a field of faces that she knew too well.

She realized that the girl still waited for some further response. What do I tell her? There was more strength and certainty in her voice than she had hoped for when she finally found the words she needed. “We will find him, Winters, and we will bring him home safe.”

The girl inclined her head. “Thank you, Lady Tam.”

Jin Li Tam returned the bow, then looked to the face of her son, swaddled in the thick woolen blanket that had once held Rudolfo as his parents rode with him from Forest House to Forest House, presenting the younger twin along with his older brother, Isaak, to the Forest Gypsies they would someday serve. He was asleep now, his lips bubbling contently as his breath whispered in and out between them.

She saw the interest on Winters’s face and turned slightly so that the girl could see the infant more clearly.

“He’s so small,” the Marsh Queen said.

“Yes.” She paused. “There is little time before we must leave; would you like to hold him?”

The girl blanched, her face moving between fear and delight. “I don’t think I can. I’m-”

Jin clucked her tongue. “Certainly you can. Follow me.”

She led the way back around the tent, leaving the scouts at the flap as she and Winters entered.

Lynnae and the River Woman sat at a table together beneath a guttering lantern measuring out fresh scout magicks carefully into the small, string-tied satchels. They looked up briefly, but went quickly back to their work. In the corner, a small stove warmed the large space and a pail of wash-water along with it. Jin motioned to a narrow cot near the fire. “Sit,” she said. “And scrub your hands. There’s soap there, too.”

Winters propped the axe against the nearby table. Jin watched her washing up, wondering absently exactly how the Marshers managed with their own young in the midst of such filth. Unlike most in the Named Lands, she did not for a second believe that they were still caught up in the Age of Laughing Madness, left over from their dark master’s last and most desolating spell. She knew they were driven by a different insanity: the slightly more tolerable mystic variety.

When the girl’s hands were clean, Jin leaned over and shifted Jakob over into her arms. She tried not to wrinkle her nose, making a mental note to have Lynnae clean the blanket later.

Winters held him, awkwardness visible in every aspect of her posture. “He’s so small,” she said again. But this time, Jin noted the light growing in her eyes and the smile that pulled at her mouth.

“Have you never held a baby?”

Winters shook her head, her eyes never leaving Jakob’s face. “I’ve seen plenty of them. But I grew up alone. My friends were mostly books and dreams. And Tertius, my tutor.”

Jin wasn’t surprised. The sheer size of her own family insured her own exposure to the young, but she could see how, isolated and kept apart as Winters had been, a girl could reach the age of her own fertility without having seen up close and personally what her own body was capable of making with a little help. She suddenly grinned and felt a bit of wickedness rise up within her. “Perhaps I should send another company east to find young Nebios and fetch him back here for you,” she said, “so that you might make one of your own.”

For a moment-a brief moment-Winters became a girl again, blushing and giggling. “I don’t think I would know