Wicked gods book one, p.10
Wicked Gods: Book One, page 10
But…if he's destroyed the Nightingale, that means he must have his crown piece with him. I could swipe it soon, while he sleeps. They'll have to stop eventually, won't they?
I take a moment to wrack my brain. The Sons of Serenity tutored us in geography. This was an effort to demonstrate how far the new faith, Centurism, was reaching and the efforts of the crusaders fighting the holy war, dubbed the Divine Reformation, to convert the resisting nations: Staygia, Godror, and Eclen.
Ethiyra's neighboring country, Triel, had fallen to the will of the imperial magistrate, and the new faith that came with it, over a decade ago. They proved an effective buffer between us and a hostile Eclen, but in the last year rogue Vagril, members of the old faith, slipped through, wreaking havoc on the border villages. Raiding farms. Burning churches.
"You're making your scheming face." Rowan feigns a cough when she speaks, covering her mouth so the pirates can't read her lips in the growing dawn.
"Am I?"
She nods. "Same face you'd make when you were about to give the Sisters a run for their eyrir."
I smirk at that. "Some of my fondest memories."
Her lips mold into a frown. "We need to be careful, Vale. These pirates are all Vagril, savage and ruthless. They truly think Crow is a god. They'll do whatever he says."
I almost chuckle but bite the inside of my cheek instead. She's lived a sheltered life at Blossom House. The Sisters and Sons would have us think anything and everything was death incarnate to keep us in line. Children who were placed in their care at a young age like hers had no chance to believe anything else. These men are dangerous, but not because they're Vagril— because they're pirates.
There's no point in saying this out loud. Not here, not now. Instead I nod absently and continue to watch the men around us. Thinking. Waiting. It's only a matter of time before one of them let their defenses down. Then, we run.
I've started to drift in and out of broken, dream filled sleep. But not dreams at all, really—memories. Vivid ones that feel real as the time lived.
My fever raged, a wildfire within my thin, wasting frame. Each breath was a rasp, each heavy blink a dizzying swirl of the dim room the Sisters had quarantined me off into. The sick room they called it—it stunk, bad, like unwashed bodies, decay, and a mix of vinegar and citrus they probably used to clean between the dead and dying.
Outside, the winter wind howled, a constant, mournful cry in tempo with the ache in my bones. All I could do was shiver under the raggedy sweat laced blanket and wonder. Wonder what human illness finally caught up with me. It’d been impossible to harvest herbs for Móðir’s tonic from the meadowy edges of the city—nothing grew under layers of bitter ice and sludge. The apothecaries were far too expensive this time of season, even in the Slags. It was not the pox, I’d surmised with some measure of relief. I’d seen what that disease could do, how it devoured its host from the inside out. There were no telltale red or black spots on my skin, no rim of putrid green surrounding them. No slobbering or festering or coughing up black puss.
Still, I lay there, a ghost of myself, ears ringing faintly beneath the matted strands of my hair. The Sisters of Silence had found me on the streets, a frozen waif they mistook for a child half my age. My small stature, a consequence of a year spent near starving, had been my temporary salvation. But I knew it wouldn't last.
A shadow fell across my bed. Not a Sister, but a girl. Slender, with eyes as dark and wary as a winter sky.
“I’m Rowan,” she whispered, creeping closer. "They say you're sick. Sick with something they have no name for." Her voice was barely audible above the wind.
My lips were cracked and dry, but I still managed to part them and croak. "They'll name it soon enough. When the physician gets here and looks me over."
I’d heard them, the Mothers Three, whispering to each other after they’d paid two beggars a few copper eyrir to lug me in from the cold, bundled tight but half frozen. They wouldn’t touch me—not yet. Not before a physician came with their bird-like mask to make sure whatever I had wouldn’t kill them all. After that they would test me with iron, to make sure I wasn’t one of the slaves, nymphs. To ensure there was no magick flowing through my blood.
Rowan's eyes widened. "The inspection. The iron...they say it burns nymphs. Like fire. Makes the worst pain. Steals their magick."
I nodded, a faint tremor running through me. I wasn’t afraid of iron; it had never done much more than irritate my skin if I held it too long. But the moment they saw my pointed ears, the ones I tried so hard to tuck out of sight under a cap or my thick hair, they’d realize.
I didn’t know why I should trust her—why I’d give myself away before I was even truly found out. Maybe because she was brave. Small, tiny, but determined. Fearless seeming, coming into a sick room despite what she could catch and what I’d heard the Mother’s Three threaten to do to any of the children who set foot over the threshold. My shaking fingers lifted on their own, tucking frozen strands of chestnut hair back to reveal my ears fine point. Not nearly as dramatic looking as a full blooded nymph, but there was no denying I was other. Not human.
"They'll know. The iron won’t hurt me; I’m a halfling, my father was human. But my ears will give me away."
To Rowan’s credit, her voice didn’t even warble and she actually inched closer when she asked, "What will they do?"
A brutal cough wracked my body, my voice a stale, dry whisper. "Send me to the Magistrate I expect. Maybe worse." Another cough. "I need my màma's potion; it’ll cure me so I can get strong and run. But the herbs—nightshade berries, bitter yarrow stem, dowl flower, and vervain leaves…they don't grow in this cold."
"They have stores," Rowan said, her gaze flickering towards the quiet hall. “There’s a locked pantry in the kitchens. The Mothers Three each wear a key, but we’re forbidden from touching anything in there." A slyness started to bloom under her neutral mask. And then a distant sort of stare, like she was calculating the risk. “I’m pretty quick though. And sneaky.” Her little smile revealed a missing front tooth. The adult one hadn’t grown in yet.
"Don't," I rasped. "Don't do it." I’d only been there a few days, but already gathered that this pretty veil of a place held thorns and pain beneath it.
A heavy silence fell, broken only by the wind's mournful song. Rowan sat a while longer until feverish sleep claimed me again.
Later, the Mothers gathered at my bedside, their faces grim and half covered by cloth.
"No word from the physician. Storm’s worsening,” one cooed into the dark.
“She's taking up a bed," the second complained, her voice sharp and strange. "Resources are limited. No skin spots, but she's not improving."
"We could return her to the streets," the third suggested. "She'll be dead before spring."
“One more night,” the first answered. “If the fever doesn’t break by tomorrow at dusk, she goes back out.”
It could have been the delirium of a fever raging so sharp and true it warped my mind, but I swore I saw that small shadow again listening by the door.
There was pale sun brimming through gray clouds outside the window when I opened my eyes again, skull aching, mouth burning from thirst. I’d already accepted my fate. There was nothing to be done so why bother crying over it? In a matter of hours I'd be back out in the cold. The fever would finish me, if the wild dogs roaming the Slags didn’t first.
But then that shadow lurked through the room again. Rowan returned, and her tiny frame bore the marks of punishment—red welts across her knuckles, a bruise darkening her cheek.
"What happened?" My voice was so weak. I couldn’t sit up without sharp spasms in my arms.
"I went to the pantry. They caught me." She winced, lowering herself onto a rickety little stool beside the bed, sounding older than her years—she could only have been what, ten? Eleven? A tiny little thing. The welts burned an awful red against her pale skin.
“I wish you wouldn’t have tried. Wasn’t worth getting in trouble for nothing.” Every word from my mouth was agony. My throat felt like it’d been layered in acid and fine shards of glass.
Rowan's lips curved into a sly smile. She reached into her pocket, producing a small pouch. "Let a lady finish. I think I got everything you need. Gave back the extra I skimmed as a precaution when they caught me. But this should be enough, right?"
I gaped at the herbs, a dangerous flicker of hope igniting within me. "You…you risked this….” My eyes jumped from the bag to her swollen hands to the purple mark deepening on her cheek. “...For me?"
Rowan shrugged, looking suddenly very shy and uncomfortable. "You needed it."
Together, in short time, wary of being caught, we ground the herbs and I swallowed it as she flitted away. Though hastily thrown together, the concoction worked.
Before the day was out, my fever broke. But my strength had yet to return, and my voice was all but vanquished. The Mothers Three seemed to anticipate my treacherous thoughts of fleeing into the night. They arrived together, forming a sort of barrier around the bed I had no hope of escaping.
“We need to inspect you, girl.” There was no room for argument. They simply ripped the thin blanket off, pawed at my ragged clothes. There wasn't enough time to lift my hands and try to stop them from pulling away the curtains of my hair when the first mother gasped.
“Nymph," one hissed. "Summon the Sons. Call the Magistrate."
"Wait!" Rowan leapt from the shadows, her voice surprisingly firm.
“You!” the second Mother snarled, trying and failing to grab the quick little creature. My heart leapt in fear for her, wondering what in the world she was doing. Was she utterly mad? I croaked, but no sound made its way out to defend her, or myself.
"She confessed! She's only half-nymph, says her father was human. She doesn’t have any magick!”
The first Mother looked quizzical before withdrawing an iron pendant from around her neck. Ignoring the others, she pressed the cool metal to my skin. Nothing happened.
Still, the second Mother growled, continuing to chase Rowan about the room, her fingers curved like the talons of a prey-bird.
Rowan was fast and not quick to relent. “Please,” she begged, “Verse seventeen in the Book of Hush says: ‘Mercy is the silent language of the gods, a whisper that echoes in the chambers of the heart. It is in the quiet moments of forgiveness that we hear their true voice. To withhold mercy is to build a wall between ourselves and the divine. For in the eyes of the suffering, we see the reflection of the sacred!’"
But the second Mother only hissed back: “Verse eleven: ‘Our path is laid bare, the truth etched in stone: the tainted must be cast from our midst. For within their blood, a shadow stirs, a darkness that threatens to consume the light. To harbor such corruption is to invite the wrath of the Sacred, to defile the purity of the Hush. Let them be cast out, that the flock may remain untainted, and the world may be spared the blight of their unholy presence.’"
Rowan sharply shook her head, dodging another swipe. “You’re wrong. The human side of her could be saved. Verse twenty: ‘Even the most twisted branch can be coaxed to grow towards the sun. The righteous one is the gentle hand that guides the lost back to the light.’”
“You insolent little rat, daring to quote the Hush to the Mothers Three—” She’d finally caught the child hard around her thin wrist and lifted a swift, boney hand to strike her when the first Mother interrupted.
“Wait, the child may be right. The iron does not burn her.”
The look on the second and third mother’s faces was almost enough to pull a laugh from me. The shock, the chagrin, near comical. “What?” they said together.
“You would believe her? The child of a völva?” the second mother demanded.
A tiny spark of shock leapt through me. Völva. Witch. Not a light accusation in a place like Helgate.
“I would see truth where it blooms. And opportunity upon divine presentation. Perhaps Ireus and Trine have willed it. We must clear it with the Sons first, of course, but I think good work could be done here. A point could be made. She could be used as an example, proof that the good work of Centurism is more powerful than even nature itself.”
“A protégé,” the third said, catching on.
“Raised among us, as one of us,” the second said, though more reluctantly than the others.
“Yes,” the third nodded, but something sinister flashed in her cold grey eyes. “And speaking of points.” She swept out of the room before returning a moment later, something silver caught between her fingers. A man’s razor knife that reflected the lanterns glow overhead. “She’ll need to conform immediately to show the Sons it is possible. We must start somewhere.”
At first I didn’t understand, didn’t even register what she was doing until she hissed to the other two, “Grab her.” She took hold of my ear, pressing the razor to it....
I jolt awake when the horses stop, ears stinging with the memory of the Mother's blade cropping the tips off my ears. My fingers find the rough, scarred edge of each one, a constant reminder of the Mother’s mercy.
There's talk of making camp. Rain streams around us, turning the road into a mess of slippery muck that sucks at the horse's hooves and the large wheels of the wagon. Rowan's asleep next to me again. She's gone more pale and sweaty, restless in her slumber. When I reach for her forehead, I find it burning. Her wound's making her sick. The seething rage boiling within me grows every time I glance ahead at Crow, sitting high in his saddle. Now he swings his leg over to climb down and direct the men towards a patch of woods, thick enough to hide us and maybe offer some cover from the rain.
"We rest until the rain lightens.” Crow tilts his head toward the twins. “Archer, Aizen, keep eyes on the road. If Cyprian's maps are accurate, a wide river borders the forest to the north here. The rest of you should fetch fresh water and find somewhere for the horses to graze."
“Aye, Captain.” One of the gray haired twins pauses thoughtfully. “Will the map maker be meeting us in Vireloche?”
“If he’s found what we need.”
The downpour makes everything around us a hazy sheen, and I tuck in tighter to the covered wagon, wondering how long before it soaks through the burlap canvas to drip down on our heads.
Rowan groans slightly in her sleep, unwoken by the sound of the crew yelling over the rain, and a spark of concern races through me again.
"Pirate." My voice is thick, sleep laced, and should be lost under the sound of the downpour and distant rumble of thunder, but his gaze finds mine immediately. Crow pushes rain soiled hair from his forehead and approaches, dipping his head beneath the canvas, the scent of the sea his ever lingering companion.
"Yes, Nymph?"
"Look at her. She needs healing or she'll die." I choke on the words, on a foreign threat of tears that stirs swelling at the base of my throat.
There's no give in his expression, no flash of guilt or even that…something else that'd been there when he healed my shoulder.
"And?" His raised brow sends a vicious pang of fury through my chest.
"And that's not an option!"
He looks away for a moment, staring off in the direction some of his men went before turning back to regard me with that dangerously cold stare. "Have you ever asked politely for anything in your life?"
Something seems to lodge itself deep in the pit of my stomach, surprise maybe, and it takes me a moment to swallow against it. To find my bearings and not roar at him. "Is it custom, wherever you come from, to be well mannered to your captors?"
That appraising look. I didn't realize before how long and dark his eyelashes were until now that they're a few inches away, glittering with raindrops. "In Skoyr you ask nicely or you take what you want by force. Something tells me, currently, you're incapable of the second."
His face grows expectant around the sharp edges. Heat drums through me. It pulses in time with my heartbeat as if the fire that lays somewhere far and dormant in me is desperate for release. Eager to prove him wrong, daring me to. But I can’t. I won’t gamble Rowan’s fate away. "Please?" The word slips through my gritted teeth like I’ve sucked on a lemon.
He lifts a dark brow and a look flashes quickly there and away. It's shock. Maybe even disappointment that I caved so soon. I don't care. Why should I? All that matters is the young woman next to me. She won't die for my pride.
"Please heal her."
Slowly, with purpose, his hand drifts to his belt line where that brown satchel hangs down from his shoulder. He frees a small parcel, hands me a dried leaf of some sort. "Place this under her tongue."
I stare at it for a moment. "Can't you just use the green potion?"
"The potions I have left are not cure-alls. Only amplifiers of natural remedies like that goldenseal. They work similarly to the ‘green’ potion, the læknir, but are less potent. I used the last of that to heal her ribs."
I concede, placing the near crumbling leaf inside Rowan's mouth with some awkward maneuvering. Not nearly as graceful as he'd been forcing the plants in my mouth at the beach.
His practiced fingers skim over the little vials, passing three before pinching up the fourth, a pale lavender mixture. He brings it to his lips, straight white teeth capturing the cork between them to unstopper it.
He spits the cork from his mouth and gestures to Rowan."Hold her upright."
I slide one hand beneath her clammy neck and use the other to push the deep auburn hair out of her face, angling her just right, so that he can trickle the strange liquid into her mouth. Though it's not the same concoction he poured down my throat back at the cove, I've never seen anything like it, even on Aurorae with our renowned healers and exotic remedies.
Rowan makes a face but drinks it all down, as though her body recognizes it for the cure it is.
