20 Reckoning #3
“About those.” He looked wary. “Petitor Sarai, I reached this position through discretion, so no word of this will pass my lips to even the Head Tetrarch. But there is something you should know about those fractures. They were very old, and there were several.”
Foreboding threaded through her at his uneasiness. “How old?”
“Ranging from ten to twenty years back.” He gave her a meaningful look. “At least eight breaks.”
“He would have been a child.”
Destus nodded.
Kadra’s distrust of healers. Repeated spinal injuries over a decade, and a tolerance for pain that could rival Wrath’s. Shock and understanding pebbled her skin.
“I see,” she said numbly. “Thank you for letting me know, Destus.”
Nodding somberly, he moved on to his next patient.
Inside the tent, she found Kadra standing, rolling one shoulder back as though he was unused to having it move so smoothly. A faint but genuine smile widened his lips. She could have sworn he had gotten a little taller.
“Have you been in pain all this time?” she wondered. “All while I’ve known you?”
The elation in his eyes turned tender. “I barely felt it around you.”
Another secret. Her heart squeezed tight, aching like a bruise.
Yet, she smiled back, unwilling to cloud his joy of having a longstanding pain eased.
“I should’ve dragged you to a healer sooner.
” His gaze altered and turned probing the longer she kept the smile on.
“Anek pointed out something useful—Kadra?” She swallowed when he stalked across the tent to grip her shoulders.
“Yell at me,” he ordered quietly. “Curse me. Don’t pretend that you’re well.”
The ache spread to her throat. A shiver coasted her neck when he slid a hand across her nape, tilted her chin up, and gravely searched her eyes. “I’ve hurt you.”
Her eyes burned. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“I’m sorry.” His face tautened when a tear escaped her. “I was going to tell you—” He swore when Cassandane’s raised voice sounded some distance outside the tent. When his eyes turned to hers, they held remorse and determination.
“Kadra—” she squeaked when his mouth covered hers. She wrapped her arms around him with a muffled sob when he pulled her flush against him. He teased the corners of her lips with soft, urgent kisses, sinking in when she parted them.
“I’m sorry.” He gripped the back of her neck, drinking deep. “Sarai, I’m so damned sorry.”
Heat surged in her. She clung to him, raking her hands through his hair to suck on his lower lip. Nuzzling her neck, he murmured another apology when footsteps penetrated the haze enveloping them. He reluctantly drew from her and wiped her eyes. Seconds later, Cassandane and Anek burst in.
“We need to talk.” She searched for something to grip in the tent, and failing that, crossed her arms. “We’ve had—” She squinted at Kadra.
“Were you always that tall? Never mind. Many of the injured from the Aequitas are showing signs of being madness-struck. No boil beetle welts, but they’re screaming about eyes and laughing skies.
” Cassandane pressed her fingers to her temples like she was inches from an aneurysm. “I think we’ve lost.”
Part of Sarai agreed, wanted to sit down and stay there. “We haven’t,” she said instead. “Whatever the source of his newfound strength, it isn’t enough to raze Edessa.”
“Does he need to when he’s getting half the city to scream about eyes?” Cassandane muttered.
This was the part she had been dreading.
“That isn’t his doing. We’ve three separate sets of bloodbaths in the country.
Murders via whitesleep in the upper north, though those seem largely handled.
The beetle plague in the lower north that reached us.
And the madness-struck. I don’t think they’re related. ”
“And he denied responsibility for it all?”
“I Examined him,” Sarai said somberly. “He wasn’t lying.”
Cassandane blanched. Giving up all pretense of strength, she wobbled over to the tent’s sole pallet and sank onto it. “Then, we have nothing. A coup and a second unknown enemy.”
“I wouldn’t call Verentia unknown, Head Tetrarch.” Méherre raced into the tent, eyes still streaming from the smoke. “She’s coming.”
Beside her, Anek choked. Sarai eyed the other woman curiously. Soot still laced her short hair, a few burns still shining raw on her face, but there was a glow to the Bridger that she hadn’t noticed before. She seemed to be in her element.
“Did she always look that way?” Anek whisper-croaked to Sarai.
“You should see her smile,” she murmured back.
“If you need a place to hide, I have a home—a small one—in Aelius’s Quarter.
” The Bridger heaved a breath at Sarai’s slanted look of surprise.
“Land was cheap there after your Unraveling.” Méherre’s gaze rose to Kadra and dropped just as quickly.
“We need to hurry. Those priests are some two hundred strong. Is my offer acceptable?”
Kadra nodded, and Méherre released a breath.
“Alright. The Aequitas’s wards are still standing, so I can’t open a Bridge here. It’ll be the same spot I brought you, Sarai—”
“People of Edessa,” Verentia’s hard voice boomed across the grounds, amplified. “The gods have spoken once more, and our city reels with new dead and fresh madness. Help me end this. Petitor Sarai must submit to an exorcism before she destroys Edessa. I won’t ask again.”
Sarai’s jaw fell along with those of everyone in the tent. Her feet froze to the ground.
Anek clutched their head. “Wisdom and Wrath, I’d like to help her meet the gods myself. I could flatten her face with—do we still have any of Aelius’s scuta?”
“What if we—”
“Give her over, and I will raze Edessa to the ground, Cassandane.” Murder brewed in Kadra’s eyes.
“Gods and Saints, I’m not seriously considering it! I’m panicking! Let me panic—”
“Well, there’s our handmaiden to the Dark Elsar herself,” Harion drawled, parting the tent flaps to enter. “Ready to be exorcised?”
Sarai stared back. After today, hatred of the north would spike.
Noceo had taken their capital, but the south would resist. Was it right for her to go into hiding while people, north and south, still struggled for answers?
If they lost faith in an absent leadership, they would splinter, even look to Verentia for hope.
“Should I go?” she heard herself ask as if from very far away.
The tent fell silent.
Bloodlust yawned in the black eyes that met hers.
A muscle in Kadra’s jaw jumped seconds before he took her hand and drew her to the back of the tent.
“Sarai,” his voice was a gravelly rasp, “the Order isn’t like Aelius or Tullus.
There is no line they haven’t crossed in the name of religion.
If this is Noceo’s ploy, then know that he’s worse.
My Clan haven’t tied themselves to coin, or the gods, or power.
They do what they will, because they can. ”