Page 53 of The Shattered King
The brothel mistress studied me anew, foot to head, and raised an eyebrow.
“I-I was a servant,” I explained.
The explanation seemed enough for her. “Aye, I’ll keep an eye out.
You can stay, if you want. We could use a healer, whichever direction this war takes us.
They use them in Sesta, you know. Their numbers .
.. I’ve heard they’re not as good as ours, but they have crafters of all kinds.
Healers just heal the casualties, recycling their soldiers over and over again.
Maybe we’ll start doing that, too, huh?”
They seemed to have the wrong emblem, the Sestans. If their soldiers came back to life that quickly, they ought to bear the symbol of the phoenix, not the dragon. And we, the Canserens, would be the dragons—creatures of fancy hunted and slaughtered until we existed in fairy tales and nowhere else.
I kept the dismal thought to myself. “If I could stay the night, I would be grateful.”
Kari nodded. “I can’t pay you, so consider it fair trade. You can take my bed.”
I lay down on a thick mattress near the wall and wrapped my cloak around me.
Fatigue from wandering the city and using magic wreathed me and dragged me down to sleep.
I did not remember my dreams when morning woke me, only that, when I closed my eyes, I saw the vaguest imprint of Renn’s head on a spike, facing the rising sun.
I searched the city all the next day, starting in the east and combing the streets, evading soldiers, stopping to ask lingering citizens what they had seen.
I healed a few as I went, traded merits for pointless information, and returned to Kari’s brothel to lay my head down for the night.
I started again the next day and was cutting my way to the north end of the city, whispering to Ursa how I might find him, or news of him, or his body, when two Sestan guards stopped me.
“You,” the taller one asked, his accent thick, the silver markings on his collar denoting a lower rank. “What is your purpose here?”
I clung to the first possibility that came to mind.
“I’m looking for my daughter.” It proved surprisingly easy to summon tears; I was miserable and weary, and mention of my daughter only made me think of the babe I had lost four years prior.
A child I had never named, for I could not bear to.
“Have you seen her?” I described myself: “Brown hair, curls, gray eyes ... she’s only four . ..”
“Go to the tent city,” the shorter one ordered, two silver marks at his neck denoting him the first’s equal. “These streets are for Sestan business. Go.”
Tent city. Refugees outside the walls?
I turned and left, then curved around and went on my way, searching for a head of golden hair, or for someone, anyone , who might have seen him.
The sun had started to set when I leapt into a burned house, only its shell remaining, as I heard the shouting of Sestans farther up the road.
I cringed at their hard words, their curses.
Caught a few phrases: “Good for nothing!” and “Rot like the cur you are!” and “Where in the gods’ names is the mindreader?
” The definitive sound of flesh on flesh, and a whip.
Fear rooted me to the ashy wall, wondering what would happen to me if those dragons saw me, or if the earlier ones learned I had not left the city.
The men retreated, but I stayed put, holding my breath until I couldn’t anymore. Even Ursa stayed silent. Winter air rushed into my lungs and made me cough; I slapped a hand over my mouth and listened, but I heard no voices, no footsteps.
I needed to get back to Kari’s, though I did not think I’d make it before nightfall.
I peered out onto the street, the way dark without a lamplighter manning the lights.
A stray dog sniffed about to the south, away from where the men had been.
Fearing it would bark and give me away as I approached, or even attack me, I crept in the direction the soldiers had come from, meaning to take the first detour I found.
Cringed when I intersected their cruelty.
Their pale victim lay on the ground, supine, bleeding from numerous lacerations—
Oh my gods.
“Ard.” I shuddered and dropped to his side. “Oh, Ard, what have they done to you?”
He was missing an arm, the stump messily cauterized. He wore only ripped drawers and a single sock, his torn and mutilated skin exposed to the cold. The fingers of his other hand were broken. Blood soaked his undergarments over his groin.
I dowsed into him. Black bathed his lumis. The pinwheeling knots were thrashed, like a drunken man had taken an axe to them. I reached for fraying ropes and smoothed them, grasped two pieces and sewed them together—
Heard him groan my name.
I fell out of the lumis, back into the descending night. Ard was desperately trying to reach for me, his fingers attached to his hand at wrong angles.
“Speth,” he gurgled. “He ... Speth.”
The light vanished from his eyes. His hand dropped.
Too late, just like with Prince Adrinn. Too late, again. The horror of him blurred as tears pooled in my eyes.
I might have saved him. If I’d worked swiftly enough, perhaps I could have pushed back the cloud of death and returned him to health. I could not regrow his arm—those pieces would be missing from his lumis. But I could have saved him.
Somehow in their escape, the dragons had captured Ard. Perhaps they had known about the tunnel or had been awaiting him at a gate. I could picture it now—Ard readying his sword while Sten dragged Renn back into the shadows, fleeing deeper into the city ...
The mutilation Ard had endured was surely tied to the missing prince, and by the anger in the soldiers’ voices, I knew he’d told them nothing. He’d saved it for his dying breath. For me.
I searched for the right gods to praise. Thank you, Hem, for watching over Renn. Thank you, Zia, that there was no mindreader here. Bless this man for eternity, for he is loyal beyond measure.
Two tears hit the guard’s bare skin. The only tribute I could give him, for I dared not linger here in the streets.
Speth. I’d heard of it only in passing, and only because it was Sten’s hometown, somewhere north of Rove.
If Ard had perished to whisper me that place, then Speth was where I’d go.