A shout came. “Four coppers on the skinny one! He’s the Treorai’s favorite!”
Socair looked back at Práta as they edged through the mass of onlookers, she had heard it as well. They were at the right place, at least. The crowd was stuffed tight into the small room and ale splashed onto her from every angle. With great effort she had finally pulled herself to the spectacle that the patrons were so passionate about. Two naked men had been covered in oil and were taking part in something that fell between a fist-fight and wrestling. At the far side, a woman sat laughing and drinking deep from a large mug. She was dressed in clothes that seemed so out of place that Socair would have sworn there was a glow around her and the two women who flanked her. Práta joined Socair at the edge of the impromptu combat ring.
“Is that her?” Socair asked, pointing.
Práta nodded. “It is indeed. How very interesting.”
“That is a word for it.”
Socair stepped out into the ring and began to walk across. The crowd hushed and the fighting stopped.
Socair spoke when she was halfway across the ring, still walking. “Treorai, I…”
The short, cloaked girl at Rianaire’s side stepped forward. Something about her unsettled Socair immediately. She smiled eerily and her eyes were shut. Socair put her hand lightly on the hilt of her sword as a precaution.
Rianaire stood, looking her over.
“Be calm, Inney. Or rather, be reverent. A goddess has come among us.”
v
Óraithe
Of all the ailments that had come from her march through the open desert, it was her lips that would not give her peace. They stuck to one another only to rip and bleed and sting when she pulled them apart. The rest of her pains faded into the background, a dull hum borne of the pressure in her mind.
It was midday, she thought. The shadows were new shapes upon a new wall. She had stared at them for days, or her mind told her she had. She had seen people come and go. Or the shapes of people. They were blurred, either by a failure of her eyes or of her memory. Today was the first she felt a clearing in the fog of her mind. It was the sound of birds whose call she had never known that seemed to pull her thoughts back into order. She had been awake a few hours now, watching the ceiling, watching the walls. The roof had been patched. It proved the existence of the people she half-remembered visiting the room.
She could move, just. It pained her to even think of attempting it. Spikes of salty pain in waves so stark that she worried she would scream out. Óraithe tried as best she could to search in the pain for new wounds, something to tell her who it was that had her. Finding nothing, she returned her eyes to the shadows on the wall.
A plan was needed, she knew, but the specifics of it would depend sorely on who it was that held her now. Though her ears were filled with a constant noise like rushing water, Óraithe listened as best she could to the sounds outside her room. The birds were the only sounds she found herself sure of. Voices, only occasionally, and the noise of steel on steel, but no screams. She swore she heard laughter but what sort of creature made it, she could not be sure.
Instinct forced her to tense when a knock came at the door. Regret was too light a word. The searing pain ran up to her head and she forced the scream to die there. She lay as limp as she could and closed her eyes just enough that she could see whoever came. The door opened and an effete man in dirty roughspun came in carrying a tray.
“Ah, still asleep yet, eh Mistress Óraithe?” He placed the tray on a table at the far side of the room, beyond where Óraithe was willing to turn her head. “So tired these days.” He moved to her side and looked her over. Óraithe shut her eyes to be safe. “We are all so worried for you. The children have been praying to the Sisters. They’ve made a ritual of it.” He giggled to himself. “It’s precious. Your heart would stir to see it, I’m sure.”
The man pulled back the covers and looked her over. The breeze across her raw skin told her that she was naked beneath the covers. He sighed sadly and laid the thin blanket back over her.
“Still so raw. It’s a wonder you can sleep at all, poor thing. But it’ll settle. Abhainn’s Gift has been a boon. I do not know where we would be without that woman.” He laughed to himself. “Though it hasn’t been without its trials. The people have been in my ear without end asking after you. Mistress Scaa as—”
“Scaa…” Óraithe repeated the word almost instinctively.
The man huffed a laugh. “If only you repeated other words.”
He had said Scaa, she was sure of it. Óraithe forced her eyes open. “Where…” Her voice could not have even been a whisper. It burned heavy, like pushing words past hot sand. She gathered her strength. “Where is she?”
The man’s eyes widened and he put his hand to his mouth but quickly gathered himself. “Mistress Óraithe… this… you are still weak. I assist the healer and see to you when Mistress Scaa is forced to be elsewhere.”
“Where…”
“Yes, yes. Mistress Scaa. She is away, seeing to things at a house three down from this one. There is food, if you can take it. Stew.” He looked at it. “It is nearly always stew, but it is nutritious.”
As if summoned by the man’s words, the smell of the food hit her. Her mouth flooded with saliva and she swallowed with great
