8 Northward
Healers, vigiles, and loved ones patterned the snow-powdered ground with bloodstained steps in a dance of desperation and defeat.
Sarai strode quickly toward the makeshift tent the Tetrarchy had set up around a table in the marketplace.
Scorched beetle corpses crunched under her feet.
The surrounding mob spewed accusations and threats as she passed, but all that penetrated was the bitter knowledge that she had no right to offer anyone consolation.
She had no answers, and Death had set her free twice and released Kadra from the afterlife’s grasp.
What right did she have to kneel among the grieving and tell them that she understood?
Some yards from the tent, Anek folded their arms while arguing with a cloaked woman. “I understand, but the Tetrarchy is presently preoccupied.” Catching Sarai’s eye, they wearily nodded in greeting.
“Temperance give me strength. I have information they need!” the woman snapped in a distinct northern accent, vowels elongated in comparison to Arsamea’s softer ones.
A Komis accent, just like Clanlady Dalvia. Sarai thought back to the other woman’s quiet desperation. “Is this about the plague?”
Anek’s conversant shoved back the hood of her birrus with a frustrated grunt.
Wary eyes stared back at her from a heart-shaped face framed by short, dark hair.
She looked around the same age as them. Anek let out a garbled sound, eyes climbing up all six feet of her, then down again.
Something that looked like worship slackened their jaw.
Sarai hid a laugh. Cassandane has competition.
“Petitor Sarai.” She bowed. “I’m Méherre, a Bridger. Weeks ago, I was hired to Bridge some asshole noble named Lucanus to Edessa, who certainly didn’t inform me that he was infected with the same plague that’s decimated my city. I just heard that he’s caused an outbreak. Let me help.”
Recovering, Anek subtly angled their armilla to show Sarai zosta’s glint. They’d been Examining Méherre. “Bridger make excellent assassins,” they muttered under their breath before turning to the woman. “Why do you want to help us when Edessa has been no friend to the north?”
“Is anyone?” Méherre threw up her hands.
“Yes, I abhor the Tetrarchy’s focus on the south and Edessa to the exclusion of everything else.
But all of us could perish at this rate.
My city, Komis, has been sealed to outsiders because of the beetle plague.
None are allowed in save by the Praetor’s order. Our time is running out. We need help!”
Our hourglass runs low. A reckoning has followed in your wake. Sarai flinched when Junia’s words reared in her head.
Méherre glowered at their silence. “If you think that I’m trying to harm the Tetrarchy, let me swear here and now that I have no intention of hurting them or either of you. The north has little respect for you lot, but killing you does not serve my purposes.”
Anek’s defeated breath said that she was telling the truth. “We could use your aid,” they admitted. “We’re equally at a loss.”
Méherre’s expression fractured. “A loss is twenty thousand bodies atop a pyre outside city walls, Petitor Anek. Not a handful of privileged lives and people who scream of omens in every other breath.”
Sarai went cold. Twenty thousand dead in the north? “We didn’t know.”
Méherre’s sidelong glance said that she doubted that the Tetrarchy would have cared even if they had.
“A loss is a loss, regardless of number,” Anek said pragmatically, unblocking the way to the tent. They squinted at Sarai. “Come to think of it, why are you dressed like that?”
“You’ll see.” Sarai sighed as they entered the tent, Méherre in tow.
All three Tetrarchs clustered around a map of Ur Dinyé, ink blots marking the spread of plague. An oil lamp burned at the center.
“There she is, our very own envoy of Ruin.” Harion drawled. “Any reason you’re killing us all?”
“Pure irritation. Watch out. You’re next.” Anek reared back with a sniff. “You’ve still got vomit on your robes by the way.”
Kadra’s gaze fell on Sarai and stilled. The ink pen in his hands fell to the ground. Silence settled over the cramped space as everyone within registered that she was dressed for travel.
“I’m going north,” she said quietly to Méherre’s start of surprise.
“We’ve northern riots and a northern plague that’s somehow made it past our city walls without any of the magi seeing a swarm.
Edessa has enemies but no answers.” She didn’t have every thread comprising this knot, but those she held hissed of danger.
“We need information before the Order wreaks havoc, and as a northerner, I have the best chance at investigating what’s been happening there. ”
A divot formed between Cassandane’s eyebrows. She’d abandoned her crimson robes as though sick of the colour and sported a simple gray dressing gown. “It’s a long journey.”
“Not anymore.” Anek indicated Méherre and filled everyone in. “I’ve Examined her. She can be trusted.”
Cassandane acknowledged the Bridger with a grateful nod. “Nevertheless, you could both be infected and then…” She gestured helplessly to the corpses that were still being removed from the marketplace.
Sarai drew the tent’s fabric shut. “I don’t think that’s a result of plague.” A boulder sank into her gut as she dared voice the theory that had brewed in her mind all morning. “It’s murder.”
Harion cast her an exasperated look. “Not everything is a fucking conspiracy. We’ve a godsdamned carpet of dead boil beetles outside. Certo, it’s them.”
“Beetles alone don’t explain any of this!
I was,” she sighed, knowing that she was giving him more fodder for abuse, “a snowgrape harvester as a child. I’ve seen boil beetles in infected animals, and they looked nothing like what’s outside.
And there wasn’t a single beetle at the Grains Guild’s horreum, was there?
” She exhaled when his mouth snapped shut.
“I examined one of the bodies there, and the heart and brain were practically liquid. No parasite would kill its host so quickly. These are serial killings. We just don’t know by whom or how. ”
“The whitesleep,” Kadra reminded softly.
She had avoided looking at him all this while. Risking a glance, she felt the ache in her throat worsen at his taut temples and grim eyes, when he’d looked almost carefree last night.
“A potential mechanism,” she croaked. “The victims so far seem to have been exposed to it—likely at the same den Junia spoke of. But that still doesn’t explain why they’re all raving about an upcoming reckoning.” And why they blamed me.
Anek blanched. “Sarai, you need a retinue of magi if someone up north is behind this. This isn’t the sort of power you face alone.”
“That’s just it,” she said bleakly. “I won’t be facing them. I think the perpetrator is here.”
Cassandane slapped her forehead. “Two massacres in two days.”
“The north could have been the culprit’s initial hunting ground before they came here.
It’ll have answers or, at least, help us rule out theories.
You’re needed here—well, most of you,” she amended with a dour look at Harion.
But I don’t think Edessa will miss me. “I’ll slip out without fanfare.
If I’m right and the killer’s here, I don’t want to alert them immediately. ”
Kadra remained dangerously still. With a wary glance in his direction, Cassandane leaned over the table.
The hollows under her eyes had never been deeper.
“It’s a sound proposition. We have no choice.
Head north and find everything you can. I’ll fence off the city and declare it a plague hub as I believe Komis has implemented the same.
No one will be allowed in or out—we’ll contain this if nothing else. ”
Méherre cleared her throat. “If I may, your people will blame the north. This could cause civil war.”
Cassandane surprisingly winked. “No, my position will be that the Grains Guild’s lax transport practices brought the plague here when their supply wagons returned from the north.
” At Kadra’s raised eyebrow, she offered a sheepish smile.
“Powerful allies also make powerful scapegoats. They hoarded enough grain to feed half the country, and their horreum was our first bloodbath. The story’ll stick. ”
Harion scowled. “I don’t see the need for false accusations.”
“Certo. I can always provide the truth—that you didn’t investigate the first few fucked-up bodies in Aelius’s Quarter, and now, we’ve a nationwide crisis,” Anek said sweetly.
Turning ruddy, he stormed out of the tent, muttering something about not being omniscient.
“I’ll go with her.” Kadra’s tone brooked no refusal.
Cassandane pressed her knuckles to her brow. “You know that isn’t sound. The city will riot if you both run off, and we need to find the whitesleep den at the center of this plague case.” She gave Méherre a once-over. “How good are you?”
Méherre didn’t back down. “I’ve done three round-trips between Sal Flumen and Edessa before. In a day.”
Cassandane whistled. “Then, you’ll transport our Magus Supreme the moment Sarai hits upon a theory and needs assistance.” She met Kadra’s gaze and winced. “Wrath’s blade, put those eyes away. I’m making a concession here.”
A vein pulsed in his temples.
At the corner of her eye, Sarai caught Cassandane giving Anek an utterly unsubtle elbow in the ribs, before the two sidled outside, dragging Méherre with them. Then, it was her and him.
She fought to keep her voice stable. “I’ll take my leave here. Better that no one knows I’ve left until—” He was before her in a breath.
“Did you not say,” he said hoarsely, “that you would give me your burdens?”
Tears brimmed at her lashes. “Aren’t I? I’m leaving you to a city gone mad.
” When he would have spoken, she gripped his forearms. “The survivors keep saying that this is my fault, but I think that the culprit is after you. Who would Aelius’s acolytes and the Order have gone after if I hadn’t offered myself as a target?
You. These bloodbaths that hint at an unearthly end?
You returned from the dead…” She trailed off when his hands fell to his sides, the aloof, cruel god she’d known at her Robing resurfacing in slow increments.
He’s guessed it too.
Grim lines deepened on his face. “This shouldn’t be your responsibility. Cassandane said that I gave you the weight of a country and the fear that you’d broken it. I ask you to endure too much, Sarai. Deny me.”
“I have it on good authority that the Order wants your head! I barely stopped them at the Hearing, Kadra. We need something more tangible now than rhetoric. You shielded me from Aelius and his ilk. Let me do the same.”
Perturbation darkened his gaze. He cupped her cheek. “Why did you really allow the Order to drag you to a Hearing?”
“I had to distract them. Because if they Examined or Probed me, they’d find nothing. But…”
“But?” The softest syllable.
If they Examined you…The knowledge she’d sat on for months slipped loose. “You’re Godstouched.”
He went stock-still. Fathomless eyes watched her for a long moment. “How long have you known?”
“I know you,” she said simply. “I didn’t want to force the truth from you, or—”
“Impose?”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes on a low sigh. Guilt and quiet pride softened his austere features. “My Sarai, you’ve borne so much.”
That was the straw that broke her self-control. She hadn’t shed a tear despite months of turmoil, but they rolled free now. Kadra’s jaw clenched before he pulled her into his arms.
“The hell of it is that I thought I was protecting you by staying quiet,” he murmured, holding her tight. “After your Fall, my purpose was vengeance. I burned everything down in its pursuit. Now, I seek to build. With you.” He wiped her wet cheeks. “I don’t know how.”
“Let me learn with you when this is over.” She took a deep breath. “Will you share your burdens with me then?”
With a bitten-off exclamation, he kissed her hard. “When this is over, I will give you everything,” he swore against her mouth. “Stay safe for me.”
When she left a short while later, it was without a backward glance. She knew what she’d find. Worry, yearning, and the man she wanted to protect.
The gates out of Kadra’s Quarter parted open. Méherre and a small contingent of vigiles waited there with their mounts.
The Bridger closed her eyes. A fissure ran through the air before it split open, a town blurred by snow on the other side of the hole through space. Silver laced the portal’s edges.
Méherre gave her a reassuring nod. Sarai steeled her spine.
One by one, they walked into the night.