Shouts met his words, angry.
Perryl yelled to be heard. “He will not be harmed until the matter here is attended and the truth be known.”
The guards stopped, hesitant. Swords remained drawn.
Their captain took another step forward and spat in Tylar’s direction. He uttered one word, both curse and accusation: “Godslayer.”
2
She never liked cabbage.
Half a world away from the Summering Isles, Dart stared at the plate covered in a soggy bog of boiled leaf. She fingered through the pile, searching for a bit of carrot and maybe, if she were lucky, a chunk of raven’s egg. She liked raven, believing the keen senses of the aerial hunter would flow into her if she ate enough eggs.
As she bent to stare under an especially large leaf, something slapped the back of her head, bouncing her nose into her meal. She yipped in surprise.
“Enough!” the matron of the Conclave screeched at her, sounding like one of the feathered residents of the rookery at the top of the tower. “Eat or I’ll boil you into the next batch!”
Dart straightened, wiping cabbage drippings from her nose. “Yes, mum…”
The other girls seated along the two tables of the third floor commons laughed behind their hands. Fingers pointed.
Dart kept her face lowered. She was the youngest of the thirdfloorers, barely thirteen birth years, but she already stood a head taller than the eldest. In fact, Dart had been named after the dartweed, a hardy plant that sprouted stubbornly between the cobbles of the courtyard, growing fast enough for the eye to follow, shoving its yellow head up after the sunshine. Even her unruly thatch of straw-blond hair matched the weed’s hue. And like her namesake, she was considered a nuisance here, an eyesore, something to be trampled underfoot.
The Conclave of Chrismferry was one of the most distinguished schools for training gentle boys and gentle girls in the art of proper service to a god’s household. The finest families from the Nine Lands fought, bribed, and prayed for one of their offspring to be granted admittance.
Dart, on the other hand, came here by chance. She was not even from the blessed Nine Lands. The prior headmistress had discovered her among the hinterlands, where only rogue gods roamed, an unsettled and barbarous country. Dart, as a newborn, was to have been sacrificed to one of the rogue gods. But the headmistress, a willful and pious woman, had stolen her away, whisking her out of the hinterlands and into the Conclave. And though the woman died only three years later, Dart had been allowed to remain out of respect for the memory of the esteemed headmistress.
Unfortunately none of that respect had rubbed off on Dart.
“Finish your breaking fast!” the matron said, stalking away. “By the time I pass through here next, your plate had better be empty. That goes for all of you!”
Murmurs of dutiful assent followed in the woman’s wide wake until she left the room.
Dart pinched a leaf, studying its limp form with resignation. Sighing, she glanced under the table to where Pupp lay curled at her feet. “How about helping me with this?”
Pupp stirred. He cocked his head in her direction.
Dart frowned, knowing he couldn’t help. She popped the cold wet leaf into her mouth, attempting to chew without breathing. Every fiber in her being fought her valiant effort, but at last she succeeded and swallowed the slimy lump.
With a renewed determination, she set upon her plate, working down through the mountainous pile of boiled fare. Almost finished, she stared at the remaining leaves, disappointed.
Not even a sliver of raven’s egg.
Movement drew her attention back across the table. Sissup and Jenine shifted and allowed Laurelle to push between them. The eldest of the thirdfloorers reached over and dumped her load of cabbage atop Dart’s plate.
“What are you-?” Dart began to complain.
Laurelle straightened. “Did anyone see me do that? I’m sure they didn’t.”
Laughter followed from the other girls.
With a flip of her long ebony hair, freshly washed and oiled by her family’s servitors in residence, Laurelle glanced back to Dart. “Eat up, Dartweed. Maybe you’ll fill out that boy’s body you’re wearing.” Laurelle leaned a hand on the table and stuck out her chest, posing like some harlot.
More laughter met her antics.
At fourteen, Laurelle was already rounding into a woman. Boys in the school dogged her footsteps, pining for a nod from her, a wink. All the girls worshipped her, too. Laurelle was from a well-to-do family out of Welden Springs. She had her own servitors and showered small presents of honeycakes and cloth dolls to those in her favor. But of even more significance, rumors abounded that Laurelle would surely be hand-picked at the next full moon’s gathering, only eight nights away.
It was an honor they all craved: to be chosen as a handmaiden to one of the hundred gods of Myrillia. The best the remainder could hope for was to be assigned in some small measure to the court of a god, to bask from afar in such Grace. Yet worst of all, many would simply be sent back to their families, humiliated and rejected. This was the worry they all shared.
And even more so for Dart-she had no family and no other home. All that she possessed, her only family, lay curled at her feet.
Still, the Conclave of Chrismferry lay in the very shadow of the elder god’s castillion and, of all the Conclaves, this school produced the most handmaidens and handmen. The teachers stressed this fact daily, imposing hard rules and firm teachings. The matrons and masters were proud of their school, the foundation stone of which had been blessed four thousand years ago by Chrism himself.
Laurelle straightened with another flip of her flowing black hair. Dart smelled the sweet-water oil in it. She truly felt like a weed before a flower.
Suddenly Laurelle yelped. She danced from the table.
“What’s wrong?” Sissup asked. Jenine was already on her feet.
Laurelle shifted up the hem of her skirt, revealing an ankle in white stockings. A bloom of red spread out across the white lace. “Something scratched me!”
Sissup fell to her knees, searching under the table. “Maybe a nail?”
“Or a sliver!” Jenine said. “These cruel benches are as old as the stones.”
Dart knew better. Though no one could see Pupp, she motioned her secret friend closer to her. She ducked lower, pretending to search for what injured Laurelle. “Bad dog,” she whispered.
Pupp lowered his head, wincing, glancing back toward the bloody ankle. He gained his clawed feet and shoved between Dart’s legs, passing ghostly through the flesh of her thighs as he sought a place to hide under her skirt. The only sign of his passage was a slight chill on her skin. His face appeared from her hemline, poking through the fabric as if it were air. His head cocked up toward her, eyes mournful with shame.
She felt bad scolding him. He was simply too ugly to be mad at for long. His features were dreadful, all hard planes of beaten copper, with iron spikes in a mane around his face. His eyes were faceted jewels above a muzzle filled with sharpened blades; his tongue was a lap of flame. The rest of his body, squat and bulky, was a mix of armor and chain mail, with four thick limbs ending in steel claws. All of it glowed ruddily and seemed to flow and melt in swirls, subtly reforming her friend at every moment. Pupp was like a sculpture fresh from the forge, still molten from the flame’s touch.
She reached down to reassure him, but as always her hand passed through Pupp. He wasn’t real. Still bent over, she glanced to Laurelle’s bloody ankle. Dart knew Pupp scratched her. At odd times in the past, he had done such things, affected the real world. Dart didn’t understand how this could happen. In fact she had no idea what Pupp was. Only that he was her friend, her companion for as far back as she could remember. She had long given up trying to convince others of his existence. Only she saw him, and no one could touch him.