Birthrights_Revisions to the Truth Page 19

  As she’d waited for Arlis to send her away, Kira had gone to great lengths to avoid Vernis Thrump—eating alone and staying hidden in her quarters during her free time. But to hope the tailor’s wife wouldn’t notice while living under the same roof was absurd. Time had continued to pass, and the tailor remained reluctant to act. That morning, she’d determined to confront Arlis Thrump the next time she saw him and demand he honor their bargain. When she heard footsteps approaching the workroom, she braced to make her case.

  The door swung open and slammed against the wall behind. A man she both loathed and loved towered in the doorframe. His hands were clenched in rage and blood was spattered across the front of his apron. “Father?” Drusus Skinner’s fist met her face with a sickening crack of bone.

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  When Kira regained consciousness, her head hummed as if someone were holding a bee to her ear. Through dizzying flashes of light, she could see the tailor kneeling before his wife as Kira’s father paced behind him. Though he’d removed the blood-covered butcher’s apron, Drusus Skinner looked no less menacing. Vernis, her hair still dusted with flour, stood before a pleading Arlis Thrump. The knuckles of both her hands were bloody, her face purple with rage. If not for the lack of apparent injury to Arlis, the look on her face would have led Kira to believe she’d bloodied them beating her husband.

  They were speaking, but with the humming in her head, Kira couldn’t make out the words. She started to call out but managed only a groan. Pain exploded from her jaw, the slightest movement excruciating. The groan, though, was enough to catch their attention. The conversation stopped. All three looked to where she lay.

  “You’re no daughter of mine.” Her father scowled. “I should’ve left you with the other whores in RatsNest.” A gob of spit landed on her forehead. She wanted to scream, to blame him for placing her in the care of this monster, but she could say nothing with her shattered jaw.

  Master Thrump, eyes wild, spoke next. “Temptreth!” He pointed at Kira with the finger he’d used to steal her maiden’s blood. “I should have thrown you out the firtht time you tried to theduce me. But I pitied you and feared your father.” He tore at his hair then shook his fists. “But when you promithed me an heir—oh, Vern, I’m tho thorry! Pleathe, I beg you! Forgive me!” He even managed tears as he prostrated himself at his wife’s feet.

  Vernis Thrump stood stiff-backed and unforgiving. She tilted her head toward Kira and spoke with casual indifference, as if assigning chores to a servant. “Skinner, I trust you’ll dispose of this rubbish? I’ll deal with Arlis.”

  Kira was consumed by hatred. She’d been raped, impregnated. For that, her father had broken her jaw. She hated Arlis Thrump. She hated Vernis Thrump. She hated Drusus Skinner. She hated herself.

  Welloch, Chapter 29

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  When a Daughter is chosen, the bonds of blood are broken. She may neither give birth nor marry—her people are her legacy. When Mother she becomes, a Daughter is chosen, and the bonds of blood are broken. Thus is the cycle and the way to keep faith.

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  —Excerpt from the Tungresh,

  the sacred scrolls of the Dragonborn

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  Welloch

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  Quint shivered outside the GreatHall, as a late fall snow drifted down from the heavens to wash the color from the mountains. He’d stood in the same spot the day before, and the day before that. At least when I used to barge in, the Mother had no choice but to listen. Nikla’s lessons had transformed the way most of the Dragonborn received him, but the Mother remained intractable. She treats me like a stray dog begging for food.

  The doors to the GreatHall opened. Quint tensed, hopeful. “Don’t give up, do you?” The man the Dragonborn called the Bone Reader stepped through the door, his patterned black and tan cloak in stark contrast to the pure white worn by the Mother and her attendants. Although he ranked second to the Mother among the Dragonborn, Quint had avoided interacting with him. The Mother frustrated Quint; the Bone Reader repulsed him. The man’s black-stained lips, granite eyes, and fetid breath made his skin crawl.

  “It’s my duty.” Quint clenched his teeth to prevent them from chattering, the morning much colder than the previous two.

  The Bone Reader closed the door, each breath a frozen cloud of white mist. “Your duty is to stand, ignored like the Forsaken?” He puckered his lips and sucked the cold air in through his stained teeth. Although veiled by the puffs of breath, his black lips looked like those of a dead man.

  “I must speak with the Mother.” Quint remained firm in his determination. Just go away!

  “You have something new to tell her? Something other than the same tired warnings of an approaching war?” The Bone Reader planted his staff in the snow in front of him and shifted his weight forward until the staff took most of the burden from his legs.

  Quint wanted to leave—anything to be away from the man—but he didn’t wish to offend the second ranking official. He knew there might come a time when he’d need the man’s support. “No, but the warnings are true. She’ll see this eventually.”

  “That wench will idle on her dais until the soldiers fire the GreatHall.”

  Quint’s jaw dropped, and his eyes darted to see if anyone had overheard. Since arriving in Welloch, he’d heard nothing but good things said about the Mother. He’d thought all the Dragonborn venerated her. Is he baiting me, or bringing me into his confidence? Quint remembered the Tellers using the same tactic—in private, speaking ill of a respected foe. Both parties knew, if repeated, the words would be disavowed. But the act of sharing the forbidden created a bond. Quint refused to bite. “The Mother will come around,” he said, certain of his statement, though not certain she’d do so before Welloch was burning.

  The Bone Reader shook his head. “When you decide you actually want to accomplish something to help the people you’ve come to save, you know where to find me.” He shifted his weight back to his legs and started down the stone steps, but stopped at the second to look back. “There are many others—including elders—who see the truth. You’d be wise to admit what you already know before it’s too late.”

  Quint’s eyes followed the Bone Reader’s footsteps in the snow until the falling flakes concealed the man’s figure. That last bit was a threat, not a warning. The words were ambiguous, but the man’s expression had made his intent clear. If only Dermot were here, he’d know what to do. Quint could never repeat the conversation to any of the Dragonborn. He doubted even Nikla, who detested the Bone Reader, would believe the man would say such things on the stairs of the GreatHall.

  He resumed shivering as he returned his gaze to the building’s closed doors. He’d thought of the Bone Reader as a crazy witch doctor, more tolerated than respected. From the way Nikla described him, Quint had attributed his existence more to a grudging respect for the past than real belief. But he knew now he’d underestimated the man and the position. He’d felt the certainty of power and influence underpinning the man’s words. Quint suspected, if he pulled back the layers of custom from the Dragonborn’s actions and words, he’d expose an intrinsic faith in the Bone Reader and the desert gods he represented. The man was the bridge Teller Salf had described. As long as a Bone Reader existed, there would be the temptation to return to their former beliefs.

  Quint wondered whether he’d also underestimated the Mother, if she stood to gain something by ignoring him. Before, he’d attributed the Dragonborn leader’s intransigence to ignorance, fear, or his own discourtesy in the way he’d provided counsel. But the situation was more nuanced, the power structure more fluid, than he’d realized. He had far more to learn than just the Dragonborn history and customs.

  Nikla was intelligent and, thanks to her
early turns spent with a mother who was a noted scholar, better-educated than most of the Dragonborn. But the accident that had stolen her parents’ lives and rendered her a peasant—the accident about which she refused to speak—meant she’d experienced little of the machinations for power among the tribe’s elders and leaders.

  Quint needed an additional teacher, someone old enough and experienced enough to understand what happened behind the scenes. The footprints in the snow led to such a man, but Quint resisted following them.

  Instead, he waited, shivering. Petitioners came and went. Elders entered and departed. He waited. When the sky grayed to match his mood, and the doors still remained closed to him, Quint left. He planned to get food then return to his tent to be alone with his thoughts—to determine what it was he already knew, and decide whether he dared to admit it.

  Near the Foothills of Colodor, Chapter 30

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  Careful not to be seen, Boel Evensong followed her son and his Steward wife through the tunnel. The first eight mixed couples who’d entered the volcano to give birth had returned childless. She was determined to do whatever she could to prevent that outcome for this birth.

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  Hidden in darkness, she listened to the cries of pain during labor that echoed down the passage. When the baby cried, she leaned against the stone with relief. But to her horror, her son’s wife stood and thrust the still-attached newborn into the molten earth that flowed through and warmed the birthing chamber. When she withdrew her hand, in its place was a smooth black stone.

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  Boel rushed to inform the Fei elders, who then summoned the other eight couples for questioning. Each produced a black stone they called Unum, claiming it was the product of the ritual the Stewards had taught them before the Breaking.

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  The elders were torn between their gratitude toward the Stewards for providing refuge and their revulsion to the ritual. Rather than stone the couples for murdering their children as the law demanded, they chose to leave. They led their people back to the land the Stewards had broken and left the nine couples behind. In time, the couples birthed more children, children who used the Unum of their bloodline to bond with the earth and access the powers of Amon. Thus, the Faerie were born into the world.

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  —Excerpt from The Rise and Fall of Magic—The Faerie Histories

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  Near the Foothills of Colodor

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  The group of chained men moved in synchrony, an intricate dance learned over moons linked together. Whym was yanked one way then the other, thrust into the dance before knowing the steps. Deep purple bruises encircled his neck and ankles.

  “Down,” Damin barked. Whym lurched to his knees amid clanking chains. “At ease.” A collective hush settled over the captives. The day’s march was finished.

  Whym’s spirit, like his body, was bruised and battered. Only when they stopped, did he realize how much he hurt. Marching without boots was so excruciating the pain had masked the discomfort in the rest of his body. Despite the cool fall weather, the sun had baked his exposed flesh to a tender pink hue.

  “Lemme see.” Murck grabbed Whym’s ankle to inspect his foot. “Cain’t have ya slowin’ us.” He pulled from his pack a half-filled jar of ruddy paste he slathered over the bottom of Whym’s foot. The paste felt cool at first, tingling as if it were drawing out the day’s discomforts. But the cool tingle turned into a mild sting, then a dull throb, then a burn like dipping frostbitten fingers into a scalding pot of water. Whym winced but gritted his teeth against screaming. When the pain intensified to the point he could withstand no more, though, he thrashed against his restraints, screaming until he emptied his lungs.

  “Help me hold him!” Tedel locked his hands behind Whym’s neck as three other chained men pinned him against the ground until he passed out.

  When Whym came to, his mouth was filled with a dirty strip of cloth. “So you didn’t bite off your tongue,” Tedel explained. Whym pulled out the cloth and curled his body to the point the chains allowed.

  Tedel moved closer to create some slack in the chain between them. “You’ll thank him in the morning. That paste’s made using the sludge from the poisoned creeks near the Blight. It’ll leave your feet better than new. You won’t even miss your boots.”

  Whym had never heard of such a paste, but he’d welcome that result. Kutan. He propped up on his elbow until he spied his friend, who was sitting upright, his legs pulled against his chest, head in his knees, rocking back and forth. Whym could see the same discoloration on his feet in the flicker of the firelight.

  Tedel noticed Whym looking. “He’s tough as two-turn jerky. Fought like a crazy man but never blacked out.”

  Of course Kutan would best me even in this. Whym turned back to Tedel and noticed a mound of dirt he’d scraped between them. “Headrest?” He couldn’t think of another reason to build the mound. None of the other captives had done the same.

  Tedel pissed into it as an answer and started mixing the dirt and urine into a ball of mud. “Lean closer before it dries.” Whym pulled away instead, jerking a surprised Tedel into the mud ball. He looked up angry, scraping mud from his elbow. “If you don’t want to be fried to a crisp, come here.”

  Oh, a shield from the sun. Whym realized why the other captives were covered with dirt. He’d thought it was accumulated grime from the long trek. He leaned in.

  Tedel smeared the entirety of the ball of mud across Whym’s neck, back and shoulders. “Get the front yourself,” he said, still testy.

  Whym had consumed too little water that day to be able to pee at will. Instead, he scraped together a pile of dirt then attempted to start a conversation as he waited for the urge. “If you were captured a moon ago, guess that would’ve put you in the Vinlands. You from there?”

  “The slavers don’t take locals,” Tedel answered. “They find men who won’t be missed.”

  “Then where are you from?” Whym couldn’t guess by Tedel’s accent.

  “North, near the Blight.”

  The response explained how Tedel knew about the paste, but not what he was doing in the Vinlands. Although there were some villages near the Blight, few people lived near the border, and their small numbers seldom warranted trade. “What brought you so far south?”

  “Searching for something,” Tedel answered vaguely. “Why were you two in Aldhaven?”

  “We have business in Colodor.”

  Tedel scoffed. “You’re a lousy liar. You’re not old enough to have completed five turns of service. I’ve met others like you on the road, though—deserters, scofflaws. Plain stupid to steal eggs from a town when there are farms around.”

  “I’m no thief,” Whym protested, hackles raised. “We bought those eggs.”

  “Sure you did.” Tedel lay down and turned away. “Doesn’t matter. You’re miners now.”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Whym seethed.

  Tedel, interest piqued, rolled back to face him. “Try me.”

  What could it hurt? We’re probably going to die in the mines anyway. “We’re seekers from Riverbend—apprentices anyway—and we’re to meet our master in Colodor.”

  Tedel looked intrigued but skeptical. “Why would they send Riverbend seekers to Colodor?”

  Whym felt a lie would be easier and far more believable. But he couldn’t think of a good lie, and he didn’t know why Stern had sent them to Colodor. “We’re seeking the last Steward.” He waited for Tedel to roll his eyes and turn back over.

  Instead, Tedel’s eyes widened and he leaned close. “He’s near Colodor?”

  “The Steward? No, we’re meeting—” Whym caught himsel
f before he revealed too much.

  “You believe in the Steward?”

  Whym was wary of sarcasm, but Tedel’s expression was serious. “I seek him as well. I’d heard rumors he lived in the Mysts, and was on my way there when they caught me.”

  “You’re also searching for the last Steward?” It was Whym’s turn to be skeptical.

  “My name is Tedel Evensong.”

  Evensong. Whym tried to recall where he’d heard the name then remembered. It was from a children’s song about the Faerie. Evensong’s one of the nine Faerie family names.

  Tedel read Whym’s recognition. “That’s right. I am from a village near the Blight—but the other side.”

  “You’re Faerie?” Although Whym knew the claim was ridiculous, for some reason—maybe he was just desperate for hope—he believed the man. “How could you cross the Blight?”

  “My ancestors created the Blight to protect our people, not to prevent our return.”

  Whym yelped as a whip cut into his back. He’d been so engrossed in the conversation he’d not noticed Ard’s approach. “Get to sleep!” Ard barked and snapped the whip in the air, making a loud pop that drew the captives’ attention. “Goes fer all yens.”

  Whym clenched his muscles, waiting for a second blow that never came. Instead, Ard’s footsteps crunched back toward the fire.

  Near the Foothills of Colodor, Chapter 31

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  With the outcome of the uprising certain, the Faerie families tried to surrender and leave in peace. But the leaders of the uprising, intent on eradicating magic from the Lost Land, demanded the Faerie forfeit their Unum. Unwilling to give up magic—what separated them from common men—the Faerie fled north, toward the uninhabited area beyond the Barren Plains.

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  The Akapinga chief advocated breaking their oaths and using Amon’s power in battle. Together, he argued, the Faerie could prevail. When the other seven chiefs refused, the Akapinga broke away and turned west toward the Endless Sand.