City of reckoning, p.18
City of Reckoning, page 18
A man like that was too wicked to live. He knew too much. He controlled too many people. And he was young. What would he be like in ten years? In twenty?
Her pulse raced.
Why couldn’t she be like one of those vigilantes of old?
Why couldn’t she kill Charris Pouden?
She was already a natural at stealth. Joining the military would give her a chance to practice the art of killing. And then she could come back and…
Kindy retracted her claws and squeezed her hands into fists. A familiar rage simmered within her—dulled by the drug, but still there, rumbling beneath the surface of her temporary calm.
“My family would be safer if he were dead,” she muttered. It could be one of her final acts for them. To protect them with the last of her life, before the drug took her.
What if, instead of wasting away in nobleman hell, she could do something? Be someone?
Kindy gazed up at the stars, letting the chilly night air chap her face. Would killing Charris make her a murderer, or a hero? Maybe it’d be a little bit of both. But did it really matter?
Her brow tightened. Alongside the rage, fear churned within her—fear of the unknown, of the horrors of war, of pain, of her own inadequacy. What she was thinking of doing—it was risky and crazy. So many things could go wrong. Terribly wrong.
But one thing was certain: She wasn’t afraid to die. She was already going to die.
Maybe, at least, she could bring her enemy down with her.
A cold, hard certainty settled deep in her soul, the decision made. Kindy slipped soundlessly off the roof, landed on the balcony in an effortless crouch, and strode inside.
She needed to move quickly, before her family could wake up and stop her. Before the fear could overpower her again and make her change her mind.
And she had much to do.
17
No candle burned in Kindy’s room, but with her night vision, she didn’t need one. Besides, she didn’t want anyone to realize she was awake.
Kindy stripped off her noblewoman’s dress, then yanked away the bindings for her wings, too. She groaned in relief as she let her sore, cramped wings stretch free.
“I’m never wearing you, you piece of shit, ever again,” she said, glaring at the long stretch of restrictive cloth in her hand.
She hurled it to the ground. “Ha!” She squished it under her heel, as if it were a bug. Quite absurdly, she felt victorious, as if she’d already vanquished her greatest foe.
“Curse you, you… thing,” she said, smashing it again for good measure, and kicked it under the bed.
Now naked and shivering, she marched to her wardrobe and slipped into a nightgown, letting her wings through the hole in the back. She rummaged around until she found her plainest-looking trousers and tunic. But she frowned when she perused her belts. They were all expensively engraved, and the clasps were made with shiny, polished bronze.
That was all right. She could fix this.
For the next few hours, she worked relentlessly, using a crafting knife to scuff up her chosen clothing and one of her belts. She scraped away carvings in the leather; she scratched at the bronze, making it look more commonplace. She frayed the edges of the fabric.
Then she did the same for one of her cloaks. She removed the fancy buckles—their symbols of nobility a dead giveaway—and replaced them with some broken hairpins. (She hoped no one would notice.)
She took her favorite pair of boots—made of durable, black leather, with a snug and comfortable fit, perfect for climbing trees and walking long distances—and scuffed them up a bit, too.
Her pulse racing with anticipation, with the thrill of rebellion and adventure, she pulled on her warm trousers and sturdy little boots, and started to put on her tunic—then paused.
Her wings. She forgot a hole for her wings.
Kindy laid the tunic back on her desk. For some reason, this felt like more of a commitment than anything she’d done so far. She hesitated for a long while, bent over her desk, knife in hand, its point hovering just above her tunic.
“No going back now,” she whispered, even as panicked thoughts raced about in her head. I’m crazy. What am I doing? This is insane. No, this is suicide. I can’t go out there like this! They’ll kill me. They’ll kill me!
She swallowed, and drew up all the determination she could muster, pushing back the doubts with a violent shove. “No more questioning,” she said, more forceful now.
She sliced into the fabric. Giddy excitement bubbled up inside her, and she giggled, unable to stop herself.
“I’m doing this. I’m doing this.”
When she was fully dressed, she regarded herself in the mirror. The quality of her fabric was too good for a peasant, but she definitely didn’t look like a noblewoman anymore. She could pass quite well as a merchant.
Seeing the dark shape of her wings, paired with street clothing, made her eyes sting and her chest ache. She’d always hated her wings. But right now… it was so obvious that they were a part of her. Like her arms, or her legs, they were a natural extension of her body. And somehow, they suited her. They just looked right.
Her wings never should have been crushed and forced into agonizing concealment. It was wrong, so wrong, that she had to hide.
But not anymore.
With a quivering breath, she spoke into the mirror. “Hello. No.” She started again, adjusting her accent to sound less noble. “Hello. My name is… mmm, Skeira Hanner. I’m from Taevro. My family sells… oh, shit. I will have to think about that.”
She smirked. The accent wasn’t difficult to feign. She’d never talked much like other nobles anyway. Their pretentious manner of speech had always irritated her. How many times had her mother scolded her for dropping an r or softening a consonant like the lower classes? Now she just had to remember to do it all the time, and to replace noble lingo with lower-class lingo.
Easy. She could do this.
Kindy packed her travel bag. She didn’t add much: an extra pair of underclothes for cold weather, a blanket, menstrual cloths, a few rolls of parchment, a couple sticks of graphite, and her moneybag, containing the meager remains of her last allowance.
There was only one thing left to pack.
She peered apprehensively at the desk drawer that held her dathal pills. What if she just… didn’t bring them? The only reason her imminent death was nearly certain was because of those horrible things.
How bad would the withdrawals be?
Anxiety coiled in her stomach.
She didn’t need to make the decision quite yet. She still had one more thing to do, and then she could… deal with the pill issue.
Kindy settled at her desk, dipped a quill in ink, and stared at a blank sheet of parchment. Her hand didn’t move. The ink dripped tiny little blemishes onto the page.
Drip… Drip…
All the optimism and smugness she’d felt in the past few hours drained away, like water in a bottomless mug. She couldn’t leave without writing her family a note, but she had no idea what to say. Her throat tightened with raw fear, and with something like grief.
Unsure what words her hand would form, Kindy pressed the quill to the page and began scratching the rapid, horizontal lines of the tabaro script.
Someone discovered our secret. I’m leaving, for your sake and mine.
Don’t tell anyone where I’ve gone, but you know where it is. I’m using a different name, so no one will trace me back to any of you.
Still, you should probably go to Uncle Blaen’s house for a while. You’ll be safer there.
Don’t worry about me.
To her surprise, hot tears spilled down the bridge of her nose and splattered on the parchment. She leaned back to prevent any more from hitting the note. She didn’t want her tears to blur the writing. She didn’t want her family to know how scared she was.
Especially her mother. It’d only make her anxiety worse when she read this. Better to make them all think she was braver than she actually was.
Kindy took a deep breath and wiped away her tears. She didn’t know what else to write. “I’ll be all right”? “We’ll be all right”? She couldn’t be sure if either of those statements were true.
She hesitated, then added:
I’m doing this to protect you.
Kindy immediately wanted to scratch the sentence off. To start the whole letter over. She wasn’t sure why. Something about those last words felt… vulnerable.
But parchment was expensive, and she hated wasting it. She reminded herself that the words didn’t have to be perfect. She needed to move on. She was running out of time; morning was soon upon her.
Please don’t be mad.
Kindy winced, and rapidly scrawled out:
Please make sure Sliki gets fed every other week. And let Sulda go. That’s the name of the other beetle on my desk. She won’t bite, but Sliki might. Don’t kill him though, I beg you. He’s a nice snake.
Love,
Kindy
Kindy set the note on her bed, where it’d be easy to find. She shrugged on her cloak, temporarily concealing her wings again, and slung her leather bag over her shoulders.
This was it. This was everything. Her gaze drifted from her fluffy bed, to her luxurious, brass bathtub, to her wardrobe filled with uncomfortable shoes and restrictive, too-feminine dresses.
It might be the last time she stood in this room, and looked at these things.
She felt entirely certain she wouldn’t miss any of them.
Well, all except for Sliki.
“Goodbye,” she whispered. The snake didn’t acknowledge her, but her heart still pinched. She hoped he’d be fed well.
Kindy reached for the doorknob.
An invisible string yanked her back, welding her feet to the floor.
“No, no, no,” she hissed. She glared at the desk drawer. “I’m not bringing them. I don’t need them. I don’t want them.”
She touched the doorknob. But she couldn’t make herself turn it. She ground her teeth, turned unconsciously toward the desk, then snapped back towards the door.
“No.” She pressed her fist against her forehead. “I don’t want to bring them. I don’t want to. Please. Please. I can’t. I can’t. Te grøshteir,” she swore.
Hating herself, and hating the pills even more, she snatched the little red-brown pouch of dathal from her desk and tucked it into her bag.
Maybe later, she’d be strong enough to get rid of the pills. But that wasn’t happening today.
Kindy crept out of her room, wincing when her door squeaked. She glanced down the hallway to her brother’s room, and her parent’s room beyond that.
No, no.
She covered her mouth, stifling a sob. She should say goodbye. A real goodbye. What if she never saw them again? She shouldn’t leave like this. It was wrong. Wrong.
But she couldn’t bear to look any of them in the eyes right now. She knew they’d all try to stop her.
No. This was better for them. And for her.
Kindy hurried down the steps and out the door. Outside, the sky was starting to lighten with the twilight before dawn. Ekra had long since set, and only a few dim stars remained in the dark-blue, cloud-mottled sky as a faint glow rose in the east.
The guard at the gate gave Kindy a puzzled look, but let her through. Kindy scuttled down the still-empty streets, her boots clacking against cobblestone. She yanked her hood over her head, drew it down over her eyes, and muffled her sobs with her sleeve.
She didn’t look back.
18
Kindy stood across the street from the town hall, clutching her cloak tightly under her chin. She blinked when a single, cold raindrop struck her eye.
On the other side of the street, at the bottom of the wide stairs, a man was busy setting up a roofed table. He hung a fluttering red banner with a golden, eight-pointed stair.
The symbol of Dorina.
Kindy’s stomach soured. She was still uneasy with the idea of fighting for the empire. It seemed almost wrong, to risk her life for the very force that had championed her persecution and caused her so much misery… but what other choice did she have?
She flirted, for an amusing moment, with the idea of fighting with Pirim and their Nocturan horde, instead. But no, the thought of betraying her people set a hard weight twisting in her gut. Besides, they had attacked her friends’ farms. One of them had almost killed her brother.
Those foreign Nocturans might have looked like her, but they were not her people. They were not her friends.
Kindy glanced up and down the street. So far, she was the only one here to enlist. It paid to be early.
The man, now finished setting up the enlistment table, settled underneath his little roof and set out a scroll and some ink, frowning at the ominous sky.
Kindy strode toward him. The rain was falling in earnest now, little drops pecking stone, splattering her trousers with tiny dark spots, and clinging to flyaway strands of hair.
When she reached the table, the enlister looked up, as if startled. Brown, mangy hair fell around a wiry, wrinkled face. He arched one eyebrow, scanning Kindy from head to toe.
“Are ya… here to enlist?” he asked, incredulous.
Kindy swallowed. I’m a merchant. I’m a merchant. “Yes, ote.” Was the presentation not convincing?
The enlister looked back down at his scroll, shuffling it uselessly. “Not sure you’re, ah… exactly qualified, lass.”
She narrowed her eyes, indignation flaring. “Oh yeah?”
In one motion, Kindy threw back her cloak, letting it billow to the wet ground, and spread her wings in the now-rapidly falling rain.
The man startled back, eyes popping wide. “Negyura mo’ish,” he swore. He gave her a second look. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen in the winter.” Rain streamed down Kindy’s face and soaked through her clothes. She shifted her bag, shielding it slightly with one of her wings.
“What’s your name?”
“I—”
“Kindy!”
She went rigid at the sound of a familiar voice, muffled in the rain behind her, accompanied by splashing footsteps. Fear shot through her. Without turning, she tried to make a sign behind her back: No! Stop!
But her brother either didn’t notice, or ignored her.
“Kindy!” Jensen came to a stop beside her, panting. Loose strands of wet hair stuck to his forehead over his bruise. His pale eyes drifted from the enlister to her wings, and widened in horror.
“Will you excuse me for a moment?” Kindy said to the enlister through gritted teeth. Without waiting for a response, she seized Jensen by the shoulders and dragged him out of earshot. “What are you doing?” she hissed when they were sufficiently far away.
“I could ask you the same thing!” he snarled. But there was pain in his eyes, and something like betrayal, and the ache and the guilt came surging back in Kindy’s breast.
This was exactly what she wanted to avoid.
“Isn’t it obvious?” She let go of him, stepping back. The sooner there was distance between them, the better. “Go home, Jensen. You’ll only make this worse.”
“I’m coming with you.”
It was only then that she noticed the sword strapped to his belt and the travel bag over his shoulders. Oh, for shit’s sake.
“Absolutely and most definitely not.”
“Kindy—”
“Listen. We are not siblings. We are not related. I am not a noble. Although, thanks to you, I can no longer say my first name isn’t Kindy.” She shoved dripping hair behind her ear. “Don’t you realize what will happen if they find out?”
Jensen looked confused. “But… the laws against hunting are out,” he said weakly.
“Do you really think they’re going to enforce that?”
“Interesting question,” he snapped, and glared in the direction of her wings.
“I’m willing to take that risk.” She shifted on her feet. Her undergarments were fast approaching the point of being utterly soaked. “But I’m not willing to see you and our parents in danger.” Her voice betrayed her, catching a bit on the last sentence.
His voice was affected, too, as he said, “What makes you think I want to see you in danger, either?”
“I’m always in danger. You don’t get to make that choice.”
“But I can choose to be with you. I can choose to protect you, however I can.”
Kindy stared at him, dismayed. This was all wrong, backwards. She was the oldest. She was supposed to protect Jensen, not the other way around. And yet… he was much better with a sword than she was.
She considered it, for a brief moment, but the thought was instantly torn asunder by images of him on a battlefield, killing, being—
“No.” She planted her hands on his shoulders, bending slightly to meet him eye-to-eye. “Go home.”
He wrenched away from her. “You just don’t get it, do you?” he said in a small, dangerous voice, nearly drowned out by the rain. “You can’t make me do anything, Kindy. And you can’t stop me.”
Kindy watched, frozen in horror, as her little brother marched up to the enlistment table. The enlister gave Jensen a thorough look. She wondered what the man saw in him, compared to what he saw in her. When she looked at her brother, all she saw was a skinny, fifteen-year-old boy, barely touched by adolescence. Despite the fire in his heart and the sword at his side, he was a child. He shouldn’t be here. Right?
“What’s your name, son?”
“Jensen… Yeldis.” It was a common noble name that wouldn’t raise many eyebrows.
“Your age?”
“Sixteen next summer. I—I can fight!” He whipped out his sword and demonstrated a few thrusts and hacks. “I have my own sword. I can also—”
“I see. I’ve seen enough.” The enlister pointed to the scroll with an approving nod.
Kindy’s heart sank.
