Errant, p.37
Errant, page 37
If Pike gained more power with his version of the Hanging Scale, how many farmers and shopkeepers would be paying him protection?
Strength nodded at a kid leaning against a wall and then led them through a huge open door in one of the storehouses. “You can stable the horses inside.”
It was massive and dim in the building. Aspen couldn’t tell by scent or sight what was stored in the jumbled stacks of boxes or piles of burlap sacks. There was a makeshift pen inside the door with straw covering the floor and a feeder full of hay, so she removed Mouse and Ruby’s tack, gave them a quick brushing, and left them.
“What is this place?” Charm asked Strength.
“It doesn’t have a name,” Strength said. “I’m not much for names and symbols and all that anymore. It’s just a place people come if they need something. Clothes, dry goods, help.”
Deeper into the building, there was a clearing among the stacks with a round table and some battered crates for chairs. Two were occupied by young people—one of the Earth and one of the Wind, with a gorgeous pair of speckled brown wings—scowling at their playing cards. A third had been pushed back from a table. The person who’d been sitting in it, large and heavily armed, was quietly conferring with a raggedly thin youth carrying a fussy baby and trailing another very small child by the hand.
“That’s Joy,” Strength said, indicating the person who’d left the card game. “A local who joined me a few years back. He’s not as mean as he looks.”
Joy, bearded and muscular and bristling with knives, could be less mean than he looked and still be pretty mean, Aspen thought. There was a little grey in his black hair and a long scar slashing diagonally across the pale skin of his face, so she put him in his 30s, at least. He handed the youth a burlap sack of something and then crouched down to smile at the child, who smiled back. The youth thanked Joy and then the small family went on their way, nodding at Strength as they passed.
“Aspen, you might recognize these other two reprobates,” Strength continued, indicating the pair at the card table. “They came with me when I left the Scale, though they were barely out of swaddling back then.”
“We’re nineteen,” said Earth one, aggrieved.
Aspen tried to picture their face six years ago. “Mercy?”
“You remember!”
They’d been a tiny slip of a thing when Aspen had last seen them, one of the orphans Integrity had taken in. It was hard to tell while they were seated, but she suspected they might be almost the same height as her now. They’d adopted a piratical air with little gold hoops along the length of each ear and geometric black tattoos encircling both their wiry, dark brown arms.
“And you,” Aspen said to Strength’s young Wind companion. “Your wings were a different color last time we met, Soar.”
The One Who Soars to Great Heights hunched her wings. A little color came into her freckled, sun-browned cheeks. “I was still a fledgling then. I was a late bloomer.”
Aspen and Charm had rescued a Wind boy recently, much younger than Soar, who’d come into his brilliant red feathers early in life. The eye-catching shade had caused him no end of trouble, so perhaps Soar was lucky, but Aspen didn’t have a chance to say so.
“Remember when you molted so much that I collected all your grey fluff and stuffed it into a second pillow?” Mercy asked. “That was the best pillow I ever had, you should molt again.”
“Remember last week when you tried to ask out Tenacity and they ran away?” Soar asked, shoving Mercy in the shoulder.
“Shut up.”
“I’m glad to see both of you again,” Aspen said to interrupt their play fight. She opted not to say the word alive. Strength was, apparently, not terrible at raising adolescents—if you didn’t get too picky about manners. “This is my friend Charm. She’s an actor.”
After the cessation of hostilities, Mercy and Soar had both settled on staring at Charm. Even without her usual adornments and in an uncharacteristically modest dress, Charm attracted attention. She gave a delicate little curtsy like she’d just been presented to royalty, making both teens giggle.
“I assume Strength already introduced me,” Joy said, coming back to the table. “Welcome. Please sit.”
They all pulled up crates. Mercy and Soar gathered up the card game and then went to fetch refreshments.
“Anything you want to say to me, you can say to them, even the young ones. They’re better trained than you’d think,” Strength said.
Mercy and Soar came back with a pitcher of water, some clay cups, and a tray of bread and cheese.
Strength said, “So let’s talk about what kind of trouble you’re in. Why don’t you give my friends the short version?”
“The Scale is hunting her,” Charm said shortly. “And by extension, also me. We hid in Ozhleh Zna for the winter, but we couldn’t stay there forever. We need to put a stop to this.”
“While I would gladly put a blade in Honor Huntsman Pike’s lying, treacherous heart, or his eye, or anywhere else, I do have a question or two,” Strength said. “When you say ‘put a stop to this,’ what exactly is our goal? Are we busting down the door and killing everybody? I don’t object to that—in fact I’m great at it—I just want to know in advance.”
Charm glanced at Aspen, letting her take the lead.
“I’d prefer to avoid a bloodbath,” Aspen said and pressed her lips together as Strength shrugged. “First, we have no guarantee it wouldn’t be our blood. There are more of them than us. Second, the Hanging Scale still operates out of Rennell Manor, Integrity’s townhouse in Harstead, but even if we storm the building, we’ll never catch every member inside. Some of them will be out in the hills working protection schemes, or who knows what else, and if they come home to a slaughter, they’ll come after me. That doesn’t solve our central problem, which is that I would like to live my life without spending every other day fighting off assassins.”
“Me too,” Charm said. “I would also like her to live her life without that.”
“So what then?” Strength asked. “You’re going to ask Pike very nicely to stop? Why’s he so obsessed with you, anyway? I didn’t go along with his bullshit, either, and he hasn’t sent me so much as a poison pen letter. Honestly, it’s hurtful. Do you get special treatment because you were Integrity’s favorite? Harvest God’s sickle, I bet that’s it. Pike was always jealous.”
“Um,” Aspen said. “It’s… not quite that, exactly. After Integrity died—”
“Was murdered,” Strength interrupted.
“Pike tried to blame me,” Aspen said. “I think he still holds me responsible. He must want to make an example of me.”
“I always thought it was bizarre that he revered Integrity so much when they had such opposite values,” Strength said. “Frankly, I always assumed it was Pike who killed Integrity.”
“I don’t think he revered Integrity, not really,” Aspen said. “He coveted what Integrity had—what he thought Integrity had. Power. Control of the whole organization. Do you really think Pike would have killed for that?”
“Aspen,” Strength said. “He would have killed for less. He probably does all the time.”
“But Integrity was beloved—”
“And Pike has spent years trying to spread rumors that someone else did it, even the nonsense idea that you might have done it,” Strength said. “If he can capture or kill you, it’ll be that much easier to frame you.”
“But why?” Aspen asked, genuinely puzzled. “It’s been years. The Scale belongs to him now.”
“Integrity’s still a powerful symbol to them, even if they don’t live by what he taught. And if Pike can focus everyone’s attention on an outside enemy—you—then maybe it helps him quell dissension in the ranks. But don’t brush off my first theory: Pike was always jealous of you. I’m right about that.”
“I… did have some influence with the younger members before I left,” Aspen said reluctantly. Left was a polite way of saying was chased out under a cloud of suspicion. “Pike never liked that. But I can’t imagine that any of those people stayed.”
“I’m sure they didn’t,” Strength said. “It made Pike look weak that he couldn’t win them back from you. He won’t have forgotten. This is personal.”
“If Pike wants to frame you,” Charm said, contemplating Aspen, “then maybe we should frame him instead.”
Strength snorted. “That’s not framing, that’s just solving the case. He did it.”
“We have no proof,” Aspen said. With proof, she’d have resolved this long ago.
“Neither does he,” Charm countered. “We just need to figure out what he’s planning and then turn it around on him. That’ll destroy his credibility, right?”
“I don’t know,” Aspen said slowly. “The people he’s cultivated might remain loyal to him through anything. It’s not like they have high moral standards. They’re working for him now. But if we could convince even a few of them not to follow him, that evens our odds.”
“This is sounding a lot more elaborate than busting down the door and killing everyone,” Strength said. “But if you need a woman with a sword—a second one, I mean, after Aspen—I’m in.”
“Me too,” Mercy said. “After Pike took over, he didn’t want Soar to stay, even though Integrity took her in and she’s my sister.”
“Yeah,” Soar said, leaning into Mercy’s arm around her waist. “I’m in, too.”
“Thank you,” Aspen said as solemnly as possible, even though she wasn’t sure how much she could use two bickering nineteen year olds. They were Strength’s wards and she didn’t want to risk them. She’d much rather have Joy’s help. At least he could throw his weight around.
“I was never in the Scale,” Joy said. “But I owe Strength my life. If she’s in, I’m in.”
“When have I ever not wanted to fight?” Strength asked him, flashing her teeth. To Aspen, she said, “I think I can get you at least a dozen more. I know that doesn’t give us the advantage of numbers, but they’re all good in a fight.”
“I’m no use in a fight,” Charm said. “But you know I want to do this. I can steal anything—information, anything—you need. And the troupe will help, too.”
At this declaration, Mercy and Soar had returned to staring wide-eyed at Charm. She winked, causing a cascade of startled movement that made the water slosh out of their cups. Despite herself, Aspen smiled.
“Speaking of the advantage of numbers,” Aspen said. “I’ve been thinking about this. I should go in alone.”
“You what?” Charm said. “Mists, have you learned nothing?”
“Hear me out. Pike won’t expect me to have allies. He was able to hound me out of the Scale and I’ve been on my own for years. He probably knows about you, but he certainly won’t expect Strength and her people, or any of the troupe members.”
“You want to trick him,” Charm said, approval in her voice.
“Yes.”
“Now that, I like.”
“So I’ll ride in alone and let some of Pike’s people capture me,” Aspen said. “If I let them take me alive, I’ll bet they’ll opt for that over killing me.”
“This, I like less,” Charm said. “But I’m listening.”
Over the next few hours, with arguing from all sides, a plan began to take shape.
Charm might share Aspen’s bed—for sleeping—but she’d never share her morning hours. When Charm deigned to stretch her arms over her head and blink her eyes open, Aspen was long gone, probably off doing some kind of unfairly sexy play-fighting with Strength.
Perhaps that was a reason to get out of bed, clamber down the ladder from this lofted bedroom into the larger warehouse, and go watch.
No, it would have to wait. Charm dug through yesterday’s discarded clothes until she found the mirror-shard pendant that was paired with Flickering’s and then warmed the glass with her breath, hoping her best friend in the Harstead Players troupe wasn’t too busy to answer.
“Flick?”
There was a clatter of wooden practice swords. The mirror revealed nothing but darkness. “Stop stabbing me! Charm wants to talk!” Flick shouted at someone, and then asked, breathless, “Charm? You’re alive?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? We talked two days ago.”
“I never know anymore, you’re always getting ambushed or caught in magical traps or wandering the wilderness,” Flick said. “And then you went to Ainbridge. I bet all kinds of people never come back from there.”
“So far it’s mostly depressing, not life-threatening,” Charm said. In the tiny glass shard, Flick was grinning at her from under a sheen of sweat, her tan skin and the green scales down her shoulder glowing. With a sudden, fierce ache, Charm missed rehearsing with Flick. The troupe in Ozhleh Zna had been wonderful, but they hadn’t been hers. “We met one of Aspen’s old friends who lives here now.”
“Why, under all the brilliant light of the Sun, would anyone choose to do that?”
“She’s helping people,” Charm said. “People like her and Aspen, I don’t think they know any other way to live.”
“And why do you sound so wistful about that? You’re not usually one for wist.”
“I don’t think that’s a word.” Charm settled back into her pillows, not caring that Flick could see her hair coming out of the silk scarf she kept it wrapped in at night. Bedding this good was a luxury to be cherished. She’d been in the wilderness too long.
Flick said, “Answer my question.”
Charm dropped her head back to stare at the ceiling and take the deepest possible breath. The sheets smelled like Aspen. “I think maybe we should help, Flick.”
“Help what, exactly?”
“You know Aspen’s in trouble.”
“Oh, you mean the reason you’ve traipsed all over the continent and left us without a leading lady since the beginning of Frost Moon? I’m great at it, obviously, but you know sometimes I like to be the leading man.”
“Please. I know Amity’s still got you playing Sassy Servant Number Two.”
“Now that you mention it, I don’t miss you at all. Stay across the river and I’ll keep taking all your parts. Anyway, yes, I am aware that Aspen has some kind of gang of ruthless criminals trying to kill her, and by extension, you. Hence why I asked if you were alive not three minutes ago.”
“You’re right. It’s too dangerous. I shouldn’t ask anybody in the troupe to take a risk like this,” Charm said.
“Why don’t you tell me the plan and let us make our own decisions?” Flick asked.
Charm did.
Spending a few days with Strength was good, but very different from seeing Ayzeh, though Strength had cobbled together her own little family, too. Their life in Ainbridge was rougher around the edges than Ayzeh’s domestic bliss in Ozhleh Zna, and there was still a spark of danger in the work Strength had chosen.
What she did for her family and her neighbors and her city was good. Still getting her hands dirty helping people, whether that meant providing food or shelter or judiciously applied violence, but finding time to come home to her loved ones, too was good.
Aspen could live that way—if she lived.
As of this evening, there was only one person she wanted to come home to, and when Aspen poked her head into the lofted bedroom, Charm was turned away from her, trying to reach behind herself to undo the laces of her dress.
Her curls were piled on top of her head. The line of her neck was so gorgeous that Aspen could hardly breathe. She didn’t want Charm to move.
Silently, Aspen crept up the ladder, rose to her feet, and crossed the room. She caught Charm’s struggling hands and dropped a kiss on her nape. “I could do that for you.”
“What the fuck, Aspen.” Charm huffed, more indignant than startled. “You scared me.”
“You thought someone else might have infiltrated this heavily guarded warehouse and climbed up the ladder to seduce you?”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
Aspen smiled against the warmth of Charm’s skin. “Is it working?”
“I thought I would have to seduce you.” Charm brought Aspen’s arms to encircle her waist. “Only I didn’t want to push you any more than I already had.”
They’d shared passionate kisses since their misadventure with the Moon witches in Nauvis, and they’d huddled for warmth during their travels through the wilderness, but no more. Aspen said, “I thought you’d want a proper bed, that’s all.”
Charm laughed, a soft, warm sound that vibrated against Aspen. “If you knew how many times I’d considered convenient closets, or alleys, or piles of dead leaves…”
Aspen kissed her way down Charm’s neck toward her collarbone, appreciating the expanse of smooth, brown skin and deep cleavage set off by her bodice. Then she set to work on Charm’s laces, loosening them until she could peel Charm’s clothes off layer by complicated, lacy, embroidered layer. They settled in colorful drifts around Charm’s bare feet.
Aspen still had her boots and everything else on, but she couldn’t be bothered to fix that, not with Charm gloriously naked in front of her. Charm raised one arm to hook it around Aspen’s neck, leaning back, letting Aspen take her weight. The unworried trust of the gesture made something hot and yearning bloom in Aspen’s chest. Charm was so at ease like this, luxuriant, inviting—demanding, even, like a queen expecting to be served.
Aspen wanted to serve. She ran her hands down the curve of Charm’s hips in awed appreciation, and then over the swell of her belly and up to the heavy weight of her breasts. She cupped and squeezed, indulging a desire she’d restrained for months. Charm let her head loll back and sighed with pleasure while Aspen drew her dark brown nipples to stiff points.
“I know you’ve been waiting a long time to do that,” Charm said. “But I’ve been waiting longer to feel your fingers inside me.”
That couldn’t possibly be true, but far be it from Aspen to disobey a command. She slid one hand down to the apex of Charm’s thighs and delved between their thick, soft flesh. Her fingers parted coarse hair to find slick, satiny folds, soaking before she’d slipped inside. Aspen had only ever done this to herself, but the way Charm moaned gave her the confidence to dip her fingers deeper. Inside, the silky, tight clench felt both like and unlike her own body. Her own arousal pulsed beneath her skin. Fully clothed with her thighs pressed together, she was probably as wet just from touching Charm, hearing her, feeling her squirm and bear down against every thrust.
