“Thank you for the walk, Sergeant,” she said, turning away.
He cleared his voice. “By your leave, Lady Tam?”
She looked up. “Yes?”
“You could not want a better man. There isn’t a member of the Wandering Army that wouldn’t lay his life down for Lord Rudolfo.”
“Thank you, Sergeant Edrys,” she said.
As Jin Li Tam walked back to the manor, she wondered how it was that her mind could see so clearly the brilliance of this strategy and yet her heart could only grieve it.
Then she wondered: How could her father have known so long ago they would need a strong, non-Androfrancine guardian for the remnants of Windwir?
The first snowflakes of winter drifted down, and Jin Li Tam felt a deeper coldness washing through her heart.
Neb
Winters avoided Neb’s eyes until the Marsh King returned, then she disappeared entirely. They hadn’t spoken, they hadn’t known what to say, and all of it was just too new and strange for him. Cryptic prophecies, strange dreams, unexplainable fits of glossolalia were not what he’d expected when he’d run after the magicked Marsher scout.
Now, the Marsh King stood before him and held court, asking Neb about the gravedigging operation, about the armies and even a bit about Petronus. Neb answered carefully about the old man-describing him merely as a wandering Androfrancine-and spoke honestly about the Entrolusians and what little he knew of Rudolfo and the Queen of Pylos, the few scraps he’d picked up listening to the soldiers speak.
The giant fur-clad man paused between questions, glancing to the idol of P’Andro Whym and occasionally askingItif follow up questions. Finally they fell into silence, and after a few minutes of this, the Marsh King spoke.
“You are on the edge of becoming, Nebios ben Hebda,” the Marsh King said. “A man is shaped not only by his choices but by the choices of those around him. You are being shaped by the Desolation of Windwir, and where some have taken up the sword you have taken up the shovel. I have seen in my dreams that your shovel will be the salvation of my people.” Here the Marsh King leaned forward, lowering his deep voice. “And I have seen in your dreams, too, the great sorrow that you will bear because of your great love.” The Marsh King paused. “I will summon you again in due time, Nebios ben Hebda. For now, I will leave you to your work and return to mine.”
With that, the Marsh King stood and departed. Eventually, Neb left the cave and went to the foyer that the tent created. A few minutes later, Winters appeared.
“I will escort you to the edge of the plain,” she said.
They walked slowly through the camp, and once again Neb wasn’t exactly sure where the camp gave way to the forest. It was getting colder, and the pools of rainwater were now staying frozen longer into the day.
As they walked, Neb looked at her out of the corner of his eye. How was it that she seemed prettier each time he looked at her? How was it that the dirt and grime seemed less and less prevalent and her eyes and mouth seemed more? And how was it that it felt so good to be near her, to have the musky smell of her in his nose? It perplexed him.
Certainly, he understood human sexuality at least in theory. They’d covered it in school, and he’d seen a bit of it as it played out around him during his life in the city. And he knew that a lot of people followed those promptings of their nature, but everything he knew said that as an Androfrancine, he lived above such things. It never occurred to him to ask his father about his mother or to ask how it was that Brother Hebda had not kept his vows to the Order. It was simple: His father had made a mistake. And the grace of P’Andro Whym covered that mistake, even providing a home and food and education for the product of that mistake.
Perhaps these were the types of feelings that took men down the path of error. Or perhaps the fit of glossolalia they had experienced together somehow bonded them in a deeper way.
Neb wasn’t sure, but he did know that the awkwardness grew and that she must feel it, too.
As if reading his mind, she stopped walking and turned on him. “I sense discomfort between us.”
Neb stopped. He wrestled to find the words. “I’m not sure what it is.” He thought about it some more.
“Is it unpleasant? amp;Oit it #8221;
He shook his head. “No. Just uncomfortable. I don’t know what it means or what to do or how to act or what to say.”
She laughed. “I feel that, too.”
Now that he’d started, the words just kept coming. “And then there’s your king and his dreams. It’s a way of knowing that cuts across the grain of everything I’ve been taught.” He felt a lump growing in the back of his throat, felt water building in his eyes. “And I really just want to go home, to talk with Brother Hebda about his latest dig, to finish my schooling and join the Order as an acolyte. But I can’t. Because my home is a field of blackened bones, my father’s among them. And there is no school, there is no library and soon enough, there may be no Order. Everything I have ever known and loved is gone from the world.”
She nodded, her brown eyes soft with something that might’ve been concern. “Then you will come to know and love differently,” she said, “and learn to live around the chasms. These are hard days, Nebios ben Hebda, but they are the travail of a woman with child. Through this pain, you will lead your people into their new home and it will be a home to you as well. I’ve seen it in the dreams.”
“I don’t want to lead anyone anywhere,” he said, and he heard the voice of an angry child in his words.
Winters sighed. “I understand that feeling all too well. But we do what we are made for.”
Suddenly, her hands were sliding up and around his neck as she pressed herself closer to him. Stretching up on tiptoes, she kissed him lightly on his mouth. Then she stepped back quickly, her cheeks turning red despite the layer of mud and ash. Neb felt his own heat rising along with stirrings elsewhere. “Why did you do that?”
She smiled. “I already told you. We do what we are made for.” Then she dug into her pocket and pulled out a small silver vial. “The Marsh King wants you to have this.”
Neb took it, and looked at it. “What is it for?”
“It’s voice magicks,” she said. “You’ll need them.”
He slipped it into his own pocket, and was going to ask her what he would need the voice magicks for, but he swallowed the question when his fingers felt the ring there nestled beside the Marsh King’s gift. One more thing that Brother Hebda had told him in the dream, one more thing that the Marsh King knew without Neb saying.
Winters must have seen the look on his face. “Do not be troubled,” she said. She brought her hand up and touched his shouldeOhede="r.
Then the sound of horses reached their ears and they turned. Moving through the forest, Neb saw a handful of horses-one large and white at the head of them. A slight, bearded man in a green turban and a long golden robe rode high in the saddle with an aloof confidence, surrounded by men dressed in multicolored wool uniforms.
“Is that-?”
Winters interrupted. “It’s Lord Rudolfo of the Ninefold Forest Houses. I’m afraid I will have to leave you here.” She took both his hands in her own. “Be well, Nebios ben Hebda.” She smiled at him, and for a moment Neb thought that maybe-just maybe-there could be some kind of peace or home at the end of this for him. “We will see each other again.”
Neb wasn’t sure how to respond, so he said nothing. He felt her squeeze his hands and he tried to squeeze back but it felt awkward.
Releasing his hands, she turned and ran back toward the camp.
Neb watched her go, still trying to capture and label the strange feelings she evoked. Then he continued south, breaking from the forest and making his way through the bones and ashes of Windwir.