Her long legs stretched out beside him. She wore her pack high on her shoulders, cinched down for easy running, and if she’d had her iron knives upon her narrow hips, she’d have looked the part of a scout.
They put three leagues between them and the wolves before he whistled them to a stop near a patch of scrub they could use as cover. Neb drew his canteen and passed it to her first, admiring the long line of her neck as she tipped back her head and drank from it.
The thought of her made him blush, and he cursed himself for it, hoping she would mistake the red in his ears for exertion.
Behind them, the wolves howled again, and Neb turned his thoughts away from the girl and to their westward flight. There was only so much care they could take along the way. But he’d killed prey and left it where he could, hoping the blood would draw kin-wolves to cover their flanks. He’d also poured taint-salts into the scarce watering holes they passed. Anyone who drank from them over the next three days would find themselves incapacitated by dysentery. Even the girl proved her craft, giving him tips on how to quickly erase the evidence of their passing every ten leagues or so. “But understand,” she had said, “that my sisters will also know these tricks and will know to look for them.”
He looked behind them, watching the blue-green as it danced over glass and stone. “We should cover our tracks and turn south for a bit.”
She passed the canteen to him. “I agree.” Her brow furrowed, and when it did, her scars shifted.
He lifted the canteen to his lips and took a long swig of the tepid water. It tasted like copper in his mouth, and he tried to remember that last cool, fresh drink he’d taken. It had been months ago, when he’d been recovering with Renard’s people. Even then, it had not been the sweet, cold water of the Ninefold Forest.
They covered their trail a half league behind them, established a false trail northwest and then turned south, chewing yet another bit of the root to carry them forward. As the juice took hold, Neb felt the elation seize him and gave himself to his pumping legs.
When the morning slipped upon them, they hid themselves in an abandoned Waste rat warren tucked in a crevice of pockmarked ancient stonework. The woman curled up and fell instantly asleep, and Neb watched her for a while, pondering her. She wasn’t a Marsher, despite her use of the blood magicks. Her accent betrayed her even as her posture and appearance betrayed her kinship with House Li Tam. He dug into his pouch and withdrew the phial, opening the lid and sniffing the foul contents. Somehow, she was able to survive her use of them-unlike the Marshers, if what he’d heard in the Gypsy camp near D’Anjite’s Bridge held true.
His eyes caught her again where the blanket fell free, exposing her bootless calf and foot. He forced them away again and tried to conjure up Winters’s face.
Holding it in the palm of his hand, Neb let the cloth fall away, exposing the black stone carving. He’d thought of it often since his first experience with it but had not let himself even bring it out.
“What are you doing?”
Her voice startled him and he jerked, spilling the kin-raven from the cloth and onto the floor. Without thinking, he snatched for it even as her hand found his wrist.
She cried out. “Don’t-”
But the rest of her words fell away as his skin brushed the dark bird. Suddenly, he spun away and found himself in a darkened room that smelled like lavender. Winters stood at the foot of a bed, unbuttoning her dress and lifting it up over her lithe form. Her breasts had grown larger and her hips were more pronounced, and Neb found himself suddenly-
— in a great white tower high above a deep blue sea. An enormous brown moon filled the sky, and beside him, Isaak clacked and clicked in time to the song that surrounded them, his eyes flashing bright and then dull. Neb felt the reverberation of the canticle lifting the hair on his arms and neck.
“Neb?” the startled metal man asked. His eye shutters flashed, and before Neb could answer, he stood on a hillside, looking out over a sea of glass. The thirty-second daughter of Vlad Li Tam stood beside him as winds from the north and east rushed down upon them and-
— his father cried into the black stone he lay stretched out upon. “Hold fast, my son,” his voice rang out. “Petronus rides for you.”
A sharp pain in his wrist caused him to cry out, and he released the kin-raven. He looked up and locked eyes with the woman, his mouth falling open. Her face was washed clean of any expression, but her eyes were fierce. She twisted his wrist again, and he tried to twist himself with her. As he did, her other hand shot out and snaked the thorn rifle from the loose grip of his left hand.
She moved fast, and he found himself suddenly falling backward as she raised the rifle and pointed it at his chest. He saw her fingers stroke the thorn bulb, and he suddenly realized by the way she held it that she knew the weapon even better than he did. The bulb undulated beneath her touch, and before he could say anything, she squeezed two thorns into him.
“What are you-?” His tongue filled his mouth even as his arms fell heavy to his sides and the sudden weight of his body dragged him to the ground. She blurred ahead of him, her face still a mask, her eyes now shining emeralds so sharp that they could shred him at a glance.
“I’m sorry, Nebios,” she said as the venom took hold and pulled him down toward thick, warm darkness.
The last thing he saw was her hand stretching out to take hold of the tiny black token. And the last thing Nebios Homeseeker heard before that dark swallowed him was her voice, low and suddenly sounding relieved.
“I have the Abomination right here for you, my sisters,” she whispered to the kin-raven. “Come to me.”
Chapter 12
Charles
Charles put down his screwdriver and lifted the tubelike monoscope by its leather harness. Outside, a steady snow fell, and the afternoon light that struck his work mirrors was barely enough to see by.
Of course, he could never tell if it was the lack of light or if perhaps it was just his age finally creeping home after years of squinting over his handiwork or over the words and specifications his order had dug from the ruins of the Old World and the worlds before that.
He pulled the monoscope over his head and cinched down the straps, blinking into the telescoping device as he spun gears to let more light into the tube and to adjust the lenses. He’d polished the Firstfall metal yet brighter before lining the monoscope’s interior with it.
He turned to the caged rat and dropped a bit of raw meat, finely coated with a pinch of scout powders, in front of the sleeping rodent. It started, grabbed up the bit of venison and started nibbling.
The magicks took the rat quickly, and unfamiliar with the sensations, it launched itself against the sides of the cage, shaking it with the sudden burst of strength even as it warbled out of focus and then became the faintest blur. Charles tipped his head so that the monoscope was pointed at the cage, aware of how heavy it was as it pulled at him.
They weren’t the blood magicks that the Marshers were using these days, but Charles hoped it was a close enough approximation to them. If so, he had accomplished a critical aspect of this work: The rat, now settling down and returning to the meat, was blurry but visible in the reflection cast into the silver of the scope.
Of course, the awkwardness of the device was another matter.
