“Calm yourself, Merolanna,” he said. “You do not know as much as you think you do. Do you know what happened to Nynor?”
“Yes, of course! They pushed him out so they could give his honors and duties to your lickspittle factor, Havemore! Nynor’s gone back to his house in the country.”
“No, curse it, he’s dead. Hendon’s men killed him and threw his body in the ocean.”
For a moment the duchess faltered and if Brone had not been holding her hand, she might have fallen. She pulled away and sat down. “Nynor is dead?” she said at last. “Steffens Nynor?”
“Murdered, yes. He was talking against the Tollys and he spoke to someone he shouldn’t have. Word got back to Hendon. Berkan Hood dragged Nynor out of his bed in the middle of the night and murdered him.” Brone clenched his fists until his knuckles went white. “I heard it myself from someone who was there. They cut that good old man into pieces and smuggled his body out of the castle in a grain barrel. They can’t quite get away yet with slaughtering their enemies without even a mock trial. Not quite.”
“Oh, by all the gods, is that true? Killed him?” Merolanna abruptly began to cry. “Poor Steffens! The Tollys are demons—we are surrounded by demons!” She made the sign of the Three, then wiped at her face with her sleeve and tried to compose herself. “But that is all the more reason you must help me, Avin! There are things going on that...”
“No.” He shook his head again. “There are certainly things going on, and you don’t know all of them, Merolanna.” He looked around again. The guards were still not back, but he dropped his voice even lower. “Please, understand me, Your Grace—I have worked hard to convince Hendon and his party that I am no threat so I could put plans of my own into motion. I cannot afford for them to suspect otherwise. I will do what I can to find Chaven, because that would not seem unusual—the physician and I knew each other well. But I can do nothing else. I will not risk the small chance we have of saving Olin’s throne. Everything is balanced on a knife-edge.”
The duchess stared at him for a long time. “So that is your defense, is it?” She smiled a little, but her words had a bitter edge. “That you are already hard at work on other, more important things? Well and good. But I will discover this moon-piece myself if I must, and find out what happened to my child—our child—even if I have to pull this castle down stone by stone to do it.”
“You are no spy, Merolanna,” Brone told her gently.
“No. But I am a mother.” She reached a trembling hand up to touch her face. “Sweet Zoria, I must be a terrible mess. You’ve made me cry, Brone. I’ll have to repair myself before I go talk to Utta.” She gazed around the cluttered room, slowly and wearily now, energy mostly spent. “Look at this. We sit at the center of the capital of all the March Kingdoms but you do not even have a glass for an old woman to fix her face. How can it be so hard to find a simple mirror?”
Part Three
MACHINES
25. The Gray Man
The Firstborn were as large as mountains and as small as gems in the private earth. They came from all parts, choosing to side with either the children of Moisture or the children of Breeze, because the wounds would not close themselves and in the rising storm the only songs that could be heard were of blood and answers. Thus came the War in Heaven.
The children of Moisture first drew a ring around the house of Silvergleam, which had as many rooms as the number of times the People have drawn breath.
He hit me.
Barrick’s anger had shrunk to a cold, hard thing inside his chest but it was not going away. He was glad: it gave him life, of a sort—better angry than empty. He stared at Ferras Vansen, who was chewing a piece of stale bread. The rest of the prisoners, quickly sorted into winners and losers after the goblin guards had thrown the bowl of slops into the middle of the cell, were nursing either their meals or their wounds. Some of the smaller ones were so thin and undernourished that it was clear they had given up competing for food and were just waiting to die. But Barrick did not care about such hapless creatures.
He had no right!
Stop. Gyir pushed Barrick’s hand with the heel of bread in it. Eat. He brought you food.
But he hit me!
I would have hit you myself if I had been closer. You were acting like a nestling—no, not even that. No child of the People would be so foolish. This is a dangerous place— how dangerous we do not even know yet. There is no time to waste on such tricks. A percussive thump jarred the floor of the cell like a giant hammer falling in the depths of the earth below them. Barrick had heard the thunderous noise, like a cannon firing, many times since being captured; the other prisoners did not even look up.
Gyir pulled a chunk from his own loaf, one of the largest pieces any of the prisoners had secured, and slipped the rest into his cloak. What you don’t eat, save. We may need it later.
Why? Barrick asked, making the thought as bitter as he could. You don’t even eat, do you? Besides, this is a god who has captured us. What can we do?
No, I said Jikuyin was a demigod, not a god. Trust me, there is a world of difference. What can we do? Wait and watch—and, especially, think. They have taken our weapons but not our wits. The fairy hesitated for a moment, as if he had something more to say. Then, to Barrick’s astonishment, Gyir’s face peeled away from the bone, rolling up from his chin to just below his eyes.
No, that wasn’t it, the prince realized after a boggled moment. The featureless skin between what would have been the chin and nose on an ordinary man had folded back, flexible as a horse’s upper lip, exposing even paler flesh beneath, shiny with damp, and a small, almost circular mouth. Vansen was staring now, too. Ignoring them both, Gyir pushed a piece of bread into the toothy hole. Bones and muscles worked beneath the second layer of skin—his jaw was clearly hinged in a different way than theirs—as he chewed, then swallowed. The fairy stared back at his two companions as if daring them to speak.
Yes, your question is answered now, Gyir said at last. He seemed almost angry. This is how one of the Encauled eats. It is not pretty, But how do you breathe? Barrick asked. You keep it... your mouth...covered all the time.
Gyir brushed his lank, dark hair back from the side of his head. There are slits here behind my ears, like a fish’s gills. When necessary, I can close them. The next thought was a curious, wordless burst of something Barrick could not at first grasp. That way, I do not drown when it rains hard, he finished. The wordless sensation had been a laugh, Barrick realized, although not a happy one.
Gyir ate the rest of his piece of bread, then the flap of skin folded back down again, curling just beneath his chin like the skin of a drum, leaving him smooth as ivory once more beneath the red eyes. So, he said. Your curiosity has been satisfied. That is what it means to be born with the Caul. Now perhaps we can go back to thinking about what is truly important. Gyir rose and stretched. Several of the other prisoners scuttled away, but he ignored them. I feel stronger than I did—I think the power of our enemy’s voice has affected me, somehow—but I could not directly challenge a force like Jikuyin on my best day. Still, if he is as careless as he has been in the past, we have a chance.