Page 116

CAREFUL STEPS

RANNOCH

W ren. Wren . The world breathes in and exhales, everything constricting and releasing around me.

Wren. If I never step away from her side again, it will be too soon.

Her eyes are red-rimmed, her face waxy and tallow white.

She doesn’t look bruised, or bloodied, but something is wrong, something is hurting her enough that it is written in the lines of her body. Where is Tahrik? Where is Tahrik ?

Wren is pieces loosely strung together, tiny tremors along her skin showing the cracks of where she has broken, and I want to kill whoever fractured her, but we are in a foreign place with unknown people, and as long as we are alive, I have to step carefully.

Pushing every other emotion aside, I focus only on her, reaching out to take one of her now tightly bandaged hands; questions regarding those will have to wait.

There are other, more pressing ones filling my throat.

Kaden does the same beside me to her other, and her frantic, white-knuckled grip belies the emptiness of her face.

“I thought you were dead,” she says, voice so hollow there is an echo in it.

Turning away from the man and woman who stand near us, hands on blades, violence carved in every sharp movement, she stares at us, breath rapid and shallow.

“I thought…” Swallowing ha rd, she tries to force the words out, sorrow thick in her mouth, nails digging into my skin. “You were so still. I couldn’t see…”

“What happened?” Kaden asks gently. The man beside us steps forward, clearly angry at being ignored, but the woman lays a cautioning hand on his arm and he stops, muscles taut with barely restrained fury.

“We woke to an empty camp, a dead fire…you, and Tahrik, and my horse gone.” The Trader attempts to smile, shaking his head ruefully.

“Raging headaches. And sick as dogs. We came after you as soon as we could. I promise .” His voice stutters; he clears his throat and continues.

“The first few days we were too weak to do anything other than stumble along like fools. Thank the Sea and Sky Rannoch is such a good tracker, or we would have missed you altogether.” No hint of the chaos that consumed us laces his words, no shadow of our howling madness, of the blinding panic that seized us in the helpless hours, drove us to walk until our feet were blistered and bloody, pushing on until our muscles failed.

Eyes darting quickly to the strangers near us, he lifts a sardonic brow.

“There were many, many trails. And all led different ways. For a group this size, such deception of movement is impressive.”

“What happened ?” I feel stupid, but we’ve been frantic since the moment we woke up, cold and shivering, mouths painfully dry, heads filled with shards of glass.

Kaden is smiling now, but threw up blood for the first hours of being awake.

For a time I thought he wouldn’t make it; he was close to the shadows between life and death until his stomach was empty, until he could finally keep down water, until I had a fire built.

Even then he shivered uncontrollably near enough the flames that I had to pull him back to keep him from burning himself.

And it still took all my strength to prevent him from leaving immediately, from killing himself to find Wren.

The nights stretched to eternity without her, not knowing what happened, if she was even alive.

Now she’s here, in front of us, and the person we’ve been dreaming of looks like she is trapped in a nightmare.

There is only so much we can do under strangers’ watching eyes; I don’t know what move I can make that is safe for her .

She’s quiet. So completely quiet, and I know whatever she is about to say is what changed her, what caused the canyons in her to open.

“Tahrik.” Her eyes fill, and though she blinks frantically, she is unable to stop the tears from falling, cascading down her cheeks in shimmering tracks. And can’t continue on, though she tries.

From behind us, the man speaks, steady, emotionless voice at odds with his tense jaw and tight shoulders.

“Her companion had her bound and gagged, thrown over a lame pony. He grabbed her, pressed her against a tree, though she fought.” He pauses, as though reluctant, in some way, to continue.

“We don’t suffer that treatment of women in my land, not that violence.

And so I interceded. I don’t regret my actions, only that my blade moved too quickly to realize that he was correcting his course, that whatever madness had overtaken him was draining from him.

I could only see half the picture, his back, her face, his hands, her wrists.

” Jerking his head towards Wren, he frowns.

“She says the end of him was not the whole of him, that he lost himself beneath open skies and horizonless pastures. But that he was, on balance, a good man. So we did our best to honor his body as she directed.”

“Wren.” Her name in Kaden’s mouth is velvet sympathy, but what else can be said? Tahrik did this? It’s unthinkable. That he would harm Wren in any way is…unthinkable.

“He drugged you, not to hurt you,” she whispers, staring down at our intertwined hands.

“Just to take me home. He was so desperate to go home. And so desperate for me to go with him, thinking that we’d return to who we were.

That everything would fit back together inside our walls.

” She’s grief-stricken; there is more that can’t be told in the company of many ears.

I want to take her in my arms, to wrap myself around her and comfort her, give her solace where she is safe to shatter, but this is not the place, and now is not the time.

“It wouldn’t have, no matter how hard you tried,” I murmur sadly, thinking of how far he must have traveled down a dark path alone, and she shakes her head.

“It wouldn’t have. And he knew it at the end, though I…” Her voice tr ails off again, and throwing off caution, I raise my hand to wipe the tears from her cheek.

“I am certain you gave him comfort in his last moments,” I offer, locking eyes with her shimmering ones, but the words are somehow wrong, and new tears spill over.

“Only the comfort he would let me give him. But I couldn’t hold water in a sieve,” she replies cryptically, fingers flexing against mine, shaking her head in a minute, barely there motion.

Kaden’s brow is furrowed in confusion, but he is not of our people and doesn’t understand.

Ah, Tahrik , I think, a knife in my stomach.

We hadn’t been friends, may not have become friends, but we had a common night sky, the same moon lighting up our darkness, and I can’t help but feel real sorrow at the choices he made, and anger at the ones he forced upon Wren.

“Oh, Wren,” I whisper, and she leans her head forward to rest it on my shoulder, letting go of Kaden and wrapping her arms around me.

I freeze for an instant; she’s never done something like this before, but then return her embrace, pulling her into me, murmuring soft, meaningless sounds meant to be soothing.

She’s cold in my arms and I tighten my own around her.

“Kaden, your cloak?” I half-ask, half-command.

It’s tucked against her almost before I finish speaking.

“There was nothing you could have done. Nothing.” I am as sure of this as I am of my own skin.

If she could have saved him, she would have, at any cost to herself.

She is quiet against my chest, not crying, just breathing, curled into me as though she’s been carrying a heavy weight that she has finally been able to release.

And maybe she has. Maybe this, the sharing of this with someone who understands, will give her some room for respite.

Kaden shifts beside me, rests a gentle hand briefly on Wren’s back, then turns to the other man, face surprisingly hard.

I haven’t seen the amiable Trader look like this before; he sheds his smile like a snake skin, and the violence simmering beneath his surface has me rapidly reassessing what I thought I knew about him.

“You did this?” he asks the man, almost conversationally, so casual it makes his tone all the more threatening.

“Killed her friend? Stabbed him through the back ? Caused this hurt to her?” Kaden is staring at the man, something dancing in his voice that the other recognizes.

The stranger drops his hand to the hilt tucked in his belt.

Beside him, the woman does the same, and the air crackles with the promise of blood.

Wren sighs deeply against me, then lifts her head slowly, as though it weighs a thousand stone.

“Peace, Kaden,” she says softly, surprising him.

“There’s no blood on Axton’s hands. He wasn’t at fault, at least in that moment.

And he doesn’t carry the weight of Tahrik’s actions. In this alone I’ll defend him.”

Kaden stares at her, face troubled, but nods in response.

Clearly Wren’s word is law for him, and he rocks back on his heels.

“Apologies,” he offers dryly to the man — Axton.

Even in such a serious moment I have to fight not to grin — it’s obvious to any listening that there is little sincerity in his tone.

The woman’s lips twitch in response; Axton is more inscrutable — he looks as if something is puzzling him.

All humor drains from Kaden; there is a warning in the wary confusion of Axton’s expression that puts the Trader on edge.

Slowly, as nonchalantly as possible, he rises to his feet, clasping a seemingly friendly hand on my shoulder that tightens down in silent warning.

Schooling his face almost forcibly back to the good-natured, pleasant look that I’m beginning to think is a masque as much as Wren’s empty, emotionless one is, he smiles at the strangers.

“Well,” Kaden says lightly, “thank you for… caring …for Wren. But we are here now, can take her from you. I’m sure you have roads to travel that don’t require our plodding feet. Our way is slowly north, yours looks to be quickly south. This seems a pleasant place to part.”

“Oh, I’m afraid not,” Axton replies, a cold smile on his face, no humor reaching his eyes.

“I’m really afraid not. Somewhat surprisingly, we’ve been enjoying the SoulBinder’s company, and would like to extend our visit.

At least for a little while. It’s been a long time since we’ve had the…

pleasure of someone with her particular talents.

And the two of you now add in a rare amusement.

It would be a shame to lose such entertainment so quickly. ”

“SoulBinder?” I ask Wren, and she shrugs in tired reply.

“I don’t know,” she says, a hint of frustration in her voice that gives me unexpected comfort.

There are still some sparking embers inside her; Tahrik’s passing hasn’t snuffed the flame completely.

“They keep calling me that. Well, that or Demon. Neither of which sounds particularly pleasant, to be completely honest. I find it…annoying.”

The woman lets out a quick bark of laughter, before attempting to cover it unsuccessfully in a cough.

“What is this, ‘SoulBinder’?” I ask Axton.

“I know Demon, and the BoneKeeper is neither. She is a gift. A treasure.” Indignation and astonishment war in my tone, but I can’t imagine anyone thinking Wren is a…

a demon. Even those in our village who understood her least thought her a vessel of the Gods.

Never, never a tool of the Ender, or any other of those chained in the deepest fires of the earth.

Wren smiles up at me, and though it’s wobbly and wavering, it’s beautiful.

“Why, Rannoch,” she teases gently, a quiet caution shadowed in her attempt at humor, “be careful, or someone will think you care for me.”

“Of course I care for you, BoneKeeper,” I reply respectfully, staring into her eyes, hoping she sees the truth my proper tone belies. “All from our home hold you in highest esteem. None would see you come to any harm.”

Her lips twist into a wry, barely-there smile at my words. “Thank you, Councilman.” The title is almost affectionate; for the first time in my life, I don’t mind it.

Axton watches our exchange intently before turning to the woman beside him.

She chirps at him — there is no other word for it — and he says something back in a tongue I’ve never heard.

Shrugging, the woman looks back at us, then silently and without warning lunges toward Wren, blade exposed.

Kaden shouts in alarm, flinging his arms out, and I surge to my feet, body fully in front of Wren’s.

They took our swords when we caught up to the tail of their camp, but my bones and life will be shield enough to stop the attack.

Wren, though, doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch, just sits placidly as though she isn’t inches from certain death.

The woman halts her sword a hair’s width from me, then laughs, completely unexpectedly.

“Binder, you are an unexpectedly amusing puzzle. But answers must be given. How did you know your companions were entering the clearing?” The question is a whiplash; the back and forth of the last hour a winding mountain path.

Wren sighs, face blanking, eyes unseeing, and I’m suddenly fiercely glad, some unrealized tension inside me easing. I know that look, know that she is seeking advice from her Protector, and wait patiently for her to speak.

Finally, she shrugs. “How else? The bones.”