She glanced at the brooding Tethyrian, his shoulders sagged. Studying him lifted her thoughts from the ratcheting of her guts. He seemed listless as he drove the wagon, adrift. He’d risked whatever status he had in his band for his friend. It was noble, at odds with the other brigands.
He did not fit. Her thoughts kept lingering on the young, shadowed man.
But it wasn’t the only question. Dualayn seemed to know this “boss.” She bit her lip. She had never questioned the older man’s judgment. He’d given her employment and a place to live since her fifteenth year. He tutored her on care and compassion. She couldn’t count the times she’d accompanied him to the Hospital of the Prism’s Grace and assisted him. After Chames died, he’d held her as she wept until she felt hollowed of all emotion . . .
The old guilt bruised her heart.
“Father,” she said, her words low, barely rising over the clatter of the wheels.
He glanced at her with those deep, brown eyes. Wrinkles radiated out from the corners, crow’s feet flexing as his brow furrowed. The tail of his graying hair shifted as he looked back at the patient. “You wonder why we are in this predicament.”
“I know why,” Avena said. “Men killed Ni’mod and captured us, but . . . who is this boss?”
“Leader of the Brotherhood.” His shoulders shifted, a flush darkening his plump cheeks.
She swallowed as a cold shiver ran through her. “Oh.”
“Oh, indeed,” Dualayn said.
Avena knew of the Brotherhood. Everyone living in Kash, the capital of Lothon, knew of them. Perhaps the entire kingdom, save the most backward areas, feared them. Once a guild of stonecutters and builders, they’d organized into something nefarious. If honest men worked with Elohm’s Colours, the Brotherhood delved into the Black. The forbidden. Tethyrian weed and other illicit drugs, girls or boys to satiate carnal pleasures, strong-arming honest men to pay for their “protection,” running dens of gambling and flophouses of lewd vice, smuggling, and a whole host of other trades. They vied with the Rangers. Street gangs, brigands, and thugs swore allegiance to one or the other group.
“How could you . . . ?” She trailed off, close to taking his actions in the darkest hue. She must be charitable. He’d earned that from her. “Did they . . . compel you?”
“Not then.” He glanced at her, his face sad. “They funded my research. I was desperate, you know. Still am.” He rubbed his gnarled hands together.
She couldn’t help but give him a comforting pat on his shoulder. She hadn’t known Bravine before her accident, but Dualayn cared for his catatonic wife. His quest to repair her had led him to invent one of the great miracles of the jewelchine revolution: the topaz healers.
“When I found a better source to collaborate, my colleague from the Democh Empire, I did not need the Brotherhood’s stained funds. I broke ties with them. My Demochian friends provided me Ni’mod to protect us against . . . reprisals. Honestly, I thought the Brotherhood did not care. They had exploited some of my inventions for their own gain. I let them know we were finished and had not heard from them until yesterday.”
“What will this boss do to us?” she asked, the sweep of fear washing through her. The sun sank lower and lower before them. The haze of the Border Fangs stretched purple beneath the blinding sphere.
“Negotiate,” Dualayn said, his face going even paler. “And, I am afraid, I have little to bargain with.”
She glanced at the Recorder as ice pumped through her veins. Her hands shook as she prepared the next dose of Carstin’s medicine.
*
Ōbhin’s stared at the ruined farmhouse ahead. Half the thatched roof had collapsed, leaving ragged holes. Other parts sagged. The fields before it sprouted with thick brush. His shoulders squirmed as he felt eyes upon him. He held the reins in his gloved hands, tension mounting.
What would happen here?
Ust quickened his pace, marching with a swagger like Ōbhin hadn’t beaten his face bloody hours ago. Ōbhin’s knuckles still ached from the impacts. He flexed his right hand against the tenderness as his eyes searched for the watchers.
A few surly men lounged around the farmhouse. They straightened at the sight of the approaching bandits. One leaned into the open doorway of the farmhouse, speaking inside.
Avena slipped over the back of the wagon and settled on the driver bench beside Ōbhin, smoothing her dark skirts. A strand of her light-brown hair brushed her pale cheek. She looked whiter than before. Cheap linen, his people called those who lived out on the distant Arngelsh Isles. Skin as light as linen, their emotions blushing through. Weak people were unable to weather a Qoth winter.
Of course, how many Qothian women would face down a bloodthirsty bandit leader? wondered Ōbhin, glancing again at the young woman, the profile of her face delicate. Enticing.
A man stepped out of the farmhouse. Grey Kalon, the leader of the Brotherhood of Masons and Builders. Even from a distance, Ōbhin could see the straight-back stance of the man, shoulders broad. He had near-black hair and a close-cropped beard following the lines of his jaw. Thick arms folded before him as he watched Ust approach.
“That’s him, isn’t it?” Avena whispered. “The Boss.”
Ōbhin nodded. He flicked the reins, guiding the wagon around a rut. The horses plodded on, not caring where they walked. One lifted a tail and defecated. The stench momentarily filled his nose before the wagon trundled on.
Ust pointed back at the wagon, gesticulating. Though he stood taller than Grey by two or three fingers, he seemed to cower before the man. Words drifted as the wagon trundled closer. Grey’s eyes fixed on them.
“So, you see,” Ust’s words became clearer as they came closer, “lost
