Gilwyn flushed at the compliment. ‘I miss her. I would go back to see her if I could, but there’s so much to do. With Aztar growing bolder, I’m afraid to leave Jador. And there’s the kreel problem, still. We need more of them, Minikin. I have to find them.’
Whenever he brought this up, Minikin deftly changed the subject, for she did not want him to go in search of the valued reptiles. This time, however, the lady surprised him.
‘Speaking of kreels, that’s something we should talk about.’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Gilwyn eagerly. ‘If we don’t find more, we won’t be able to protect ourselves.’
‘That’s not exactly my meaning,’ said Minikin. She stepped back and sized him up. ‘Do you know what Lukien said to me? He called your handling of your kreel yesterday brilliant. He said he’d never seen anything like it, not by a Jadori or anyone. Do you think he’s a man given to exaggeration?’
‘He must be,’ said Gilwyn. ‘It was nothing, really.’
Minikin’s face grew cross. ‘Boy, why is it so hard for you to accept a compliment? He said you were brilliant and I know you were; I’ve seen you with the beasts. You have something special, Gilwyn. It’s something that needs to be nurtured.’
‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ said Gilwyn. ‘It comes naturally to me, that’s all.’
‘Remember when I said that it takes time to train the Inhumans to use their Akari? Well, I think we have waited on your own training long enough.’
A hopeful spark went off in Gilwyn. In the year since meeting Minikin, he’d been waiting to learn about his own Akari, a spirit the lady herself had given him when he was but an infant, marking him as one of her Inhumans. He knew that her name was Ruana, and that she had been with him since that day. But as many times as he’d begged Minikin to tell him more, the little woman deferred.
‘You mean you’ll show me Ruana? Finally?’ he asked.
‘Today I ride for Grimhold,’ said Minikin. ‘I will see to Carlan’s settling in, and then I will return.’
‘To teach me?’
Minikin became her inscrutable self again. ‘To talk to you about your gifts.’
‘Gifts? What gifts?’
The little woman turned and started back toward the waiting Carlan. ‘Do not think too much about it. When I return you’ll have plenty to fill up your mind. I will give White-Eye your regards when I see her. Now, will you fetch Lukien for me? We need to be off.’
‘Minikin, tell me more, please,’ Gilwyn implored, following her. ‘I’ve waited so long. Can’t you tell me anything now?’
‘Patience is a good thing for a regent, Gilwyn. I’ll be back soon. In three days or less.’ The little woman went to Carlan, took his hand, then led him toward their waiting kreels. The boy sensed the huge lizards at once, surprising them all by smiling. Minikin gave him over to one of the Jadori, who carefully hefted him onto a beast’s scaly back. When she was sure he was safe, Minikin turned expectantly on Gilwyn. ‘Gilwyn? Will you find Lukien for me?’
With a frustrated sigh Gilwyn put up his hands. ‘All right,’ he groaned, then went in search of the brooding knight.
6
A woman lay on a jutting shelf of stone, her eyes closed, her face free of her suffocating cloak, offering herself to the burning desert sun. As always, she had come to this place to be alone, away from her companions of Grimhold, to commune with her dark thoughts. Her hands, scarred and rutted like a crone’s, sat flat on the baked earth beside her, palms down, absorbing the heat that impregnated the rocks. Her blonde hair splayed out around her head. The sunlight dazzled the insides of her eyelids. Half asleep, she remembered with awful clarity the thing that had happened to her. .
She was young again. Free of pain. Safe in a bed in a little stone house with moonbeams slanting though the window. At twelve she was on the cusp of womanhood, and her body had started blooming. There was a boy down the street she had begun to love, but she had never seen him again, not after that night. She had no siblings, so slept in a room that she didn’t have to share. Her parents were still young enough for children, but for now Meriel was their one and only, and by the standards of their village they were quite well off. Meriel had been given love and enough food to grow healthy, and she remembered sleeping that night in contentment, oblivious to the catastrophe about to befall her.
Alone on her rock, the memory was like a dream to the woman. She could not silence it. As so often happened, it took control of her. In her mind, the nightmare blazed. .
Asleep, the girl had not quite heard her father’s scream. It had come as if from a great void, too distant to comprehend. Soon, though, it was joined by a roar. Meriel had never known that fire could roar. Jolted awake, she sat up to find an orange blaze outside her door, its burning hands reaching out to sear her, leaping up to lick the curtains, the lamp, the windowpanes. Night had fled, replaced by terrible brightness. At once the pain of it charged her skin, making her cry out. Now she heard her father’s voice again. He was calling her, screaming her name. Where was her mother? Meriel had no time to wonder. She needed to flee, but the threshold out of her bedroom had been swallowed by the flames. Soon it would swallow her, too. Her ears rang as its angry shriek erupted, shaking the little house. As the flames jumped she batted them away, burning her hands as she called for her father, pleading for a rescue. Smoke choked her throat and stung her eyes. Panicked tears soaked her cheeks. She was out of the bed with nowhere to go, backing up against the wall. She saw the window and knew it was her only escape. But the glass seemed so far away, and the heat was enormous. Then, like a miracle, the glass exploded into the room. A man — a neighbour — was there, climbing through the broken glass to reach her. Too fat to make it through, he looked at her, fixed her with a determined glare, and demanded she run to him.
His words made little sense to her, but the pain drove her toward the window. As fire swept the room, she bolted.
That was all the woman remembered. Later, she learned that she had lost consciousness not long after the neighbour man pulled her from the house. When she awoke, her mother and father were dead. The pretty little house had gone to ashes. And twelve-year-old Meriel, who had been a beautiful child, looked in a mirror and saw a monster staring back at her.
Slowly, Meriel opened her eyes and stared up at the desert sky. The merciless heat beat down on her cloaked body. Since that day six years ago, she always wore a cloak. Even here in Grimhold, where there were dozens who could rival her deformities, she hid herself. Minikin had taken her to Grimhold, and that had saved her life. Before that she had gone from town to town, begging, working where she could, hiding her face and never daring to hope for love, as she knew that no man would take so scarred a woman to bed, not even for a night. She had not even been able to prostitute herself.
In her groggy haze, Meriel looked up at the sky and could not weep. The pain in her body was enormous; it never left her. Without speaking, she asked Sarlvarian to help her. An angry ripple coursed through her mind. Meriel ignored him.
Her thoughts turned on Minikin. The little woman had saved her, had made her one of her Inhumans. But Meriel had never felt at home in Grimhold. She had even refused to take an Inhuman name. Of all the folk of Grimhold, only a handful were her friends. She loved Minikin like a mother, and she had warmed to the Liirians, too. Thorin Glass was a friend, mostly, and Gilwyn Toms might be someday. But of all of them, there was one who was never far from her thoughts, one who had been kind to her and never seemed to mind her maladies.