“Carstin never took muck being slung at him,” Ōbhin said. “He was bold, you know. The type who’d back you in a drunken brawl even if you started it with the biggest guy there.”
Smiles wiped the foam off his upper lip as he struggled to catch his breath, his face turning red. He leaned back and let out a final guffaw. “Knew a man like that. Good man, just complained about his wife all the time.”
Fingers frowned.
“Not you.” Smiles said. “‘Nother poor sod who couldn’t appreciate the Colours shinin’ bright on him.” He glanced at Bran. “You find yourself a good girl, like my Jilly. She’ll keep you out of trouble.”
“I do just fine.” Bran straightened. “You’ve seen the jacket I won dicin’ here the other night. Real fine.”
Fingers’s eyes narrowed. “Ōbhin don’t care ‘bout that.”
Ōbhin leaned back in his chair. A good girl . . . Did one exist? Foonauri flashed through his mind. “Carstin thought he found that.” He leaned forward. “This laundress. Last thing he told me.”
Smiles’s grin faded. “She don’t know?”
“I don’t even know her name or where she’s from. Kash, maybe, but how many people live here?”
“Two, three hundred thousand, I heard,” Bran said.
Ōbhin gave a sad nod. He lifted his mug. “To Carstin.”
I’ll do better, he thought as clay mugs clattered together. His eyes flicked over the three guards. I’m sorry I didn’t get to you in time.
*
Sleep eluded Avena.
She kept seeing that moment over and over. Carstin, his insides splayed open. He’d only needed to last a little longer. He’d come so far, survived longer than he should have, only to perish right there at the end.
Not like me, she thought, the cloying taste of whitewash filling her mouth.
She rolled over on her side, glancing at the curtains covering her window. Compassion was the brightest of the seven moons shining tonight, full and shedding orange light across the world with Forgiveness waxing gibbous, adding emerald highlights in strange places. Patience shone half-bright near the horizon, the others only slivers in the sky. Normally, moonlight soothed her. “That’s Elohm’s Colours shining down to peek through the Black’s cloak,” Daughter Heana had told a far younger Avena. “Look at scarred Honesty. She’s cratered and battered, but she survives. Just like you did. She’s strong, Avena.”
She’d only stared up in mute appraisal. That night, the white moon, Honesty, had a silvery shine to it, not the thick, chalky paste of whitewash. Avena had smiled and almost felt like talking that night, safe in the arms of Daughter Heana. In the distance, the Rainbow Belfry’s chime hummed, announcing the turning of the hour.
“ . . .and there she lay, the maid so fair, amid the moon’s bright light. Honesty did shine with silvery delight upon all her beauty revealed.”
The drunken singing drew her attention. It grew louder, the bawdy song’s lyrics making her blush with the description of the maiden fair. She slipped out of bed, her nightgown rustling down her legs as her bare feet padded across the faded carpet around her bed. She gasped when she reached the cold stone beyond the rug. She shuffled her feet as she reached the window and pulled it open. The glass, fashioned in squares the size of her palm and held together by thin strips of wood, was of high quality, not a single bubble or imperfection.
“ . . .if you bring me down a beam of red,” the guards sang as they staggered towards the servants’ quarters beneath her window. She had a room on the second floor not far from Dualayn’s quarters. Not that he used his tonight. After the funeral, he’d retired to his lab to study the Recorder. “And fashion me a frolicsome bed, I’ll share all my truths with you.”
Avena shook her head, spotting Ōbhin in the midst of the men, all drunk. He staggered, supported by Smiles and Bran with Fingers leading them. Their song faded as they reached the servants’ quarters. She stayed at the window, the weight of sleeplessness pressing on her. Eyes grew heavy with exhaustion, sandy and blurry. She felt the ache growing across her mind. She wanted to sleep, but those images wouldn’t leave her.
She let her gaze drift across the dark grounds. The grass resembled a frozen sea, dark with a mounting wave reaching up to the house. The moonlight picked out the wrought iron posts atop the encircling wall. Her eyes drank in the world, but her mind didn’t see anything save Carstin on the table, his breathing shallow. Weak.
Why do I care so much? she wondered. Other patients have died. No, she knew why. She’d latched onto saving him while dreading what the bandits would do with her and Dualayn. He’d given her strength, allowed her to maintain dignity, to be defiant, to not think about the emptiness.
Her eyes trailed up the blackberry hill to his grave as she trembled over the table, blotting up blood, hoping for the bandit to survive. She’d clutched to that fact and . . .
Movement flashed.
She frowned, staring at the hilltop. Were there figures atop it? She bit her lip, her right hand pressing against the cold glass pane. Winter’s chill still lingered at night and frost coated the edges. It bled into her numbing fingers. Her breath spilled beads of foggy moisture before her.
The darkness writhed atop the hill, the large tree blocking the two moons’ light. A chill swept through her. She suddenly felt eyes upon her. Baleful. A hatred dark and profound seized her. A new image arose in her mind.
The dark-skinned sorcerer with the black lightning gripping his head. Her nose picked up a fetid smell, the rotting scent of corpses. The terror of the unnatural dogs, the jackals, surged through her. She felt naked now despite her nightgown. The linen thin armor
