“A shame. But I should not become distracted. You are a dangerous guard of my enemy after all.” Her prisoner became still at the words, her eyes flush with concern. Óraithe smiled at her. “And if I understand you correctly, you believe I have come to kill every elf in this city. And, though I have you held fast against the cold ground, unable to save yourself, you will not tell me what I want to know.”
“I will! I will tell you! Anything! My name is Flós! I was born and raised in the shadow of the southwest wall! I hate the guard! I did not wish to die! Of thirst, of hunger! I’m going to die, I know! I know! I’m sorry, mama!” The girl flew into hysterics, her voice giving over to an accent common to the far slums. Óraithe heard it rarely even in the same city. “I hate this city! And that Treorai! I hate it all! I’m so sorry!” She shook her shoulders back and forth so mindlessly that Óraithe expected she would hurt herself if something was not done. She could not let the girl free yet.
“Flós.” She said the words calmly, placing a hand at the girl’s cheek. Flós pulled away alarmed and Óraithe pulled her hand slowly back, smiling at her. “We have not come to kill any who do not deserve it. You will not have known, but I grew up…” She stood looking, the streets familiar as they had not been in days. Her stomach turned as she realized where she stood. “I grew up only a short walk from this street.”
She let the rocks fall away, almost without thinking as she stared at an intersection she had not seen in too long. Flós did not run, she only sat herself up staring at Óraithe. Scaa offered the girl a hand and she stood. Óraithe came back to the world as it stood around her and looked at Flós.
“You need not fight beside us, if you do not wish. I would ask you only for three things in such a case.”
Flós nodded, not saying a word.
“That you renounce the guard and your allegiance to the power that haunts this city. That you tell us all that you know of the guard, of Briste. And that you do nothing to harm us.”
When Óraithe finished, Flós immediately pulled leathers marking her as a guard from her body. She had only thin clothes underneath, but she did not hesitate.
“I will. I wish nothing to do with them. With Briste. But I fear I know little. I hope not too little, I would… I do not wish to die, is all. I joined the guard thinking the same. I hid, mostly. Even during patrols. The sergeants seemed not to notice or care.”
Scaa stepped forward, pulling a small blanket from her pack and putting it around the girl, who seemed bemused at the gesture. “No information is too little, Flós. We need all we can know.”
She nodded three times, nervously.
“Why were you here? In the Low District?”
“You do not know? They have locked us here. We can no longer pass back through the Palisade. And not only the lowborn. Others as well. I do not know why. They have abandoned us here… them here. I am no longer one of them. I am not.” She looked at Óraithe as she said it. “I swear it. It is just…”
“Natural, I know. I will not misunderstand you.”
“Do you have family here?”
“My ma… mother. My mother. She was a miller with my father. In Íobair. Came when my father’s father fell ill. She… she bakes now. Bakes.” Flós nodded again. “I… I as well. Bake. I bake. Do you need bakers?”
Óraithe looked at Scaa. It was Scaa who spoke.
“You are offering us help. That will put you in danger. And your mother.”
Flós looked at the ground, nodding to herself. “We’ve lost so much. She never smiles anymore. I have thought through it… Here. Now.”
“You have made no vow.” Óraithe spoke softly. “You need make no vow here. We would welcome you. Go and fetch your mother if you are resolute. And come to the central road square. If you should change your mind, do as you please. Just remember what I have asked of you. Go, now. Before you are seen with us.”
Óraithe’s suggestion was taken and Flós started away. She had not passed ten steps when she turned to them.
“Thank you. I do not know yet what for. Maybe many things. Maybe only for allowing me to live. I do not know. But thank you.”
She turned again and started away, this time at a jog. Óraithe and Scaa watched until she had gone around a corner. Scaa heaved a sigh when they were alone.
“Something unsatisfying when they turn out nice.”
“I agree. The uniform makes me wish to skewer them without a second thought. But they are not guards. Not like we knew. Those, I expect, are all at the other side of the Palisade. We will have our fill of them, I think.”
Óraithe’s eyes turned back to the intersection.
“Do you wish to go?” Scaa asked as she readied her pack.
“Go?”
“Do not play so coy. I know where we stand. His home is near, is it not?”
It was. Óraithe was curious, somehow. They walked to it quietly and stood in front of the door for far too long. The sign was torn and dirty. Cosain would have been livid. Such filth. She frowned and, without a word, walked through the doorway. A travesty, gutted by thieves and scavengers as they were. She saw footprints in the dirt on the floor, smaller than her own and recent enough to have not yet been filled. What were they after, she wondered? She looked up. The door to Cosain’s living space was still covered.
“Scaa! Help me. The hatch. Above.”
They searched for a ladder,
