“Stop it,” Churls said. “You’re not a little girl anymore.”
Fyra frowned. You don’t like it? I can do other things. I’ve been practicing.
Ice formed in Churls’s chest. “What other things, Fyra? What else have you done?”
I’m not alone, Fyra said. She let go of Churls’s hand and faced her mother. There are others here. They’re everywhere. Some of them teach me things, like the trick I used to save Vedas. Don’t tell me I shouldn’t have done it. He would have died, Mother. You would have missed him.
The child was smart, Churls gave her that. She kneeled, and though it pained her to do so, she stared her daughter directly in the eye. “That’s not what I asked, Fyra, and you know it. Don’t brag about what you can do, and then tell me nothing.”
Fyra reached out. Churls flinched, but resisted backing away. The child’s hand passed into her chest, but all Churls felt was the steady thrum of her heart. Fyra’s head cocked slightly to the side, and her eyelids fluttered closed.
I can see it, Fyra said. Your heart. I can see through you, like you’re made of ice. I met a dead man, and he showed me how to read what’s inside people. He taught me to fix things that have gone wrong. There was something wrong with your heart, Mama. I fixed it. I fixed other things, too. Clogs in your veins. Scars in your womb. When Vedas pulled your shoulder into place, he damaged your nerves. He didn’t mean to, just like I didn’t mean to hurt you when I used your body to save him. I fixed everything, and now everything is better. Me, I did. I’m not a little girl anymore.
Churls breathed long and deep through her mouth, pushed her fear to the side, and said the exact opposite of what she truly felt.
“I’m proud of you.”
Fyra’s eyes opened, flaring bright enough that Churls had to shield her own. Really, Mama? The dead people don’t tell me that. They tell me not to meddle. The world is for the living, they tell me, even when they teach me things. Don’t meddle, they say. They’re very angry that Vedas saw me, but I think they’re wrong about everything. It’s good what I’m doing, right?
“Right,” Churls said, throwing good sense to the wind. Considering how quickly her life had been hurled into disarray, how swiftly the revelations were coming, perhaps the best course of action was to embrace change. Never one for improvisation, always one for planning, she wondered how long she could sustain this philosophy before it drove her mad.
I have to go, Fyra said. It’s almost sunrise and they’re yelling at me to stop, but there’s one more thing I have to tell you. About the metal man with the blue eyes.
“Berun?” Churls’s heart leapt in her chest. “You saw him?”
Fyra beamed. He saw me. At the bottom of the lake. That made the other dead people really angry, but I didn’t care. I showed the metal man where to walk. I think he might have heard me, too. She turned away, staring into the distance. She bared her teeth, flickered like a guttering candle. Leave me alone! she yelled, and faced Churls again. I have to go. I hate them. Wait for the metal man. He’ll be here soon, even if they don’t let me show him the way. He’ll find you. You’ll wait for him, won’t you?
“I will,” Churls promised.
‡
She encouraged Vedas to keep sleeping, but the man would not rest. “We need to reach the city as soon as possible,” he said. “Who knows how often boats leave for Knos Min? We can’t afford to be delayed any longer.” Despite these words, he stopped often to listen. He looked over his shoulder, as though expecting a visitor at any moment. She read the pain on his face, and kept her mouth shut. In turn, he suppressed his curiosity about her impossibly rapid recovery.
She did not volunteer the information—did not even think about what Fyra had done. Finding a way to stay on the island long enough for Berun to reach them preoccupied her completely. She had no desire to deceive Vedas,
but she would in order to allow the constructed man time to find them. A day at least.
She need not have worried.
The diffuse light of dawn revealed Oasena to be little more than a township. Nothing larger than a fishing boat floated in her shallow bay—certainly naught capable of crossing a hundred-mile stretch of open water. Vedas enquired in a bakery and discovered that a thaumatrig, a vessel most likely similar to the drowned Atavest, arrived from Ynon once a week. It docked for half a day and then returned.
“Tomorrow,” Vedas said. “And it won’t leave dock until the evening.” The muscles in his jaw twitched as they walked to the inn the baker had recommended. Churls resisted the urge to ask about the fare. He would give the details when he was ready. In the meantime, she took in the town’s thatched single-floor houses, the somber flat-featured countenances of the townsfolk. The women walked bare-breasted, flat dugs hanging over short dresses woven from palm fibers. They rustled as they walked. The men looked much like the women, though their garments were of brown cloth. Churls noted their corded arms and thick thighs, how their bodies moved and their eyes tracked, and surmised they would be formidable opponents. An odd mood drifted through her. Not joy, no, yet it was a close cousin.
Despite Vedas’s dour air, she drank the sunlight as if it were an elixir. The corners of her mouth turned upward without her willing them. Somehow, she knew Berun would arrive before the ship left. They would arrive in Ynon safely. She considered the possibility that Fyra had rearranged her mind, but dismissed it. Pointless, to conjecture.
After a lifetime of useless and obsessive conjecture, this thought shocked her.
They reached the inn, and sat at one of its four small tables. A woman came from the kitchen, nodded, and went to fetch their food. “Only the one option, apparently,” Churls said.
Vedas glowered. “We won’t reach Ynon until late on the first.” Calculating quickly, Churls’s good mood faded. From Ynon it was perhaps seven hundred miles to Danoor. By all accounts, the trail to Danoor was well trod, but thirty miles a day for twenty-four days, during the darkest month of the year? It could be done, but she and Vedas would be exhausted by the time they reached the tournament. Undoubtedly, he had already made the calculation.
“The fare?” she asked.
“Six grams,” he growled. “They can extort because so few boats come to Tan-Ten.”
She smiled weakly. “But we have enough, Vedas. Barely. It can be done.” Neither of them had lost any money. Anyone smart enough to buckle her sandals carried her dust close to the body in waterproofed fabric. It was too easy to spill liquid and lose it all. Churls and Vedas had discussed their funds as they walked that morning, with one important omission. Before leaving Nbena, she had sewn a new pocket on the inside of her vest to hold the dust Gorum had given her. So far, she had not needed to touch it. Between the three of them, there should have been enough—she should have been able to keep her stash a secret. But who knew what had happened to Berun’s dust? Saying they could make it on what remained was a lie, and Vedas knew it.
Shit, she thought. There goes my gambling fund.
She reached inside her vest and removed the wallet. It lay on the table between them, an indictment. Proof she had kept it from him. Vedas stared at it, expressionless.
“It can be done,” she said. “We’ll make it to Sent in nineteen days, and rent horses for the stretch to Danoor. That’s forty, maybe fifty miles a day.