Chapter XII #4
“I will let you see her,” Fia said, lacing up her vest once more.
“On the condition that you do as I ask. Take what I’ve brought for payment and feed your people with it, but first I need two dozen of your finest, those best fit to carry out the most covert of actions.
You cannot leave too soon—tonight would be best. When you return, and your task is done, come to the cloister. Then I’ll show you my Miriel.”
The bitterness Fia had seen in Nikolau before was nothing compared to the contempt radiating from him now. “You would bargain with our child?”
“With my child,” Fia said, and there was steel in the words.
“Yes, I would, though I don’t expect you to understand.
I do expect you to do as I ask, though. Afterward you may see Miriel once or twice a year, on the condition that she not be told who you are.
It’s a capital offense, colluding with deserters, and I won’t put her in danger. ”
“You’re a witch,” Nikolau spat, and Fia nodded.
“Yes. And I will have my way in this, as always.”
For what seemed a very long time, Nikolau only looked at her. Fia did not falter beneath his gaze, remaining motionless, expressionless, set in her purpose.
“Very well,” Nikolau said at last, spreading his hands wide in a mocking gesture. “I’m yours to command. You have your sell-swords.”
“Good,” Fia said curtly, bundling up her kirtle under one arm and leaving the shoulder bag of gemstones.
“Remember, you leave no later than tonight. Hurry on the road. And I want to hear nothing of this—not so much as a whispered rumor that there was some skirmish to the south of Caervallion’s capital.
I want this trouble dealt with so neatly, it’s as if it never arose in the first place. ”
“And I want to see the child, no later than harvest time,” Nikolau warned her.
“Done,” Fia said. “Our bargain’s struck. May Raea bear witness to it.”
“May Raea bear witness to it,” Nikolau echoed, sealing the arrangement between them.
“One more thing.” Fia spoke abruptly, knowing she was pushing harder than she ought to, but unable to keep from making another petition.
“You were a student of the body in Vesper, before you came to Honoria. You spoke of it often—of how most things, you were forced to learn. Honorian, covertcy, the habits of my people. But medicine was your choice. I need a physician’s knowledge of how to stop a flow of blood that’s refusing to end. ”
The way Fia phrased her request was a reminder of how Nikolau had referred to her when they were together.
I am a student of your body, he’d said, a servant of your blood.
The way he’d spoken the words, meaningfully, she always thought they must be some Vesperin turn of phrase for a lover, or a line of poetry, perhaps.
But she’d been singularly incurious about him when their lives intertwined, and it was too late to ask such questions now.
Nikolau’s gaze snapped to hers, and there was the same raw worry in it she’d shown at the idea of pressers harming him. “Your blood? From the child? She must be, what, half a year old? It’s been far too long for you to still bleed.”
Fia shook her head. “No. My concern is for a friend. This is personal, mind, not part of our other business. But she’ll die of her bleeding if it’s not staunched soon, I think.”
Nikolau ran a hand across his face again.
“I learned only the most rudimentary things before I left Vesper, and I would hardly call it medicine. They always intended me to be a taker of life—most of the knowledge I was allowed was of how to harm, not to heal. Understanding of what can be cut or crushed or poisoned in order to kill swiftly.”
“And I’ve told you before, healing is only killing worked backward,” Fia said stubbornly. “Please. Vesper is so far ahead of Honoria in such pursuits, and I promise you, this is a life worth saving.”
Nikolau relented. He went to a stack of crates along one wall, rummaging through them and coming up with an oilskin bag.
“This is something I keep at every meeting house and outpost I’ve ever put in place,” he told Fia. “You’ve never seen one because, thank Raea, you never had to. But these have saved dozens of deserters over the years. You can take this with you. It’s a hemorrhage kit.”
“Hemorrhage?” Fia asked, the Vesperin word awkward on her tongue.
“The type of bleeding you were speaking of. I’ll show you how to use each part of it, and then I want you to leave, and never call on me again. I, however, will come to you at harvest time, when you will make good on your promise to show me our daughter.”
Fia said nothing, hiding how his continued rejection stung.
Her mind was elsewhere as Nikolau instructed her in how to use the contents of the bag, but she paid enough attention to ensure she was capable.
When he’d finished, she nodded her goodbye tersely, and he did the same.
That was all that remained of what they’d once been to each other.
It was cruel of Fia to come back to him, to harass him, to use their child as leverage rather than to let him be. But she hadn’t seen any other way.
Fia did not look back as she left the storeroom. The sentry posted at the foundry’s door made no move to stop her, and she carried on until the faithful district was behind her, the labyrinth of Inverlyn’s streets growing livelier once more.
Only then did Fia slip into a shadowed alleyway and press her forehead to a cool stone wall. Knowing she’d made Miriel a pawn and filled with loathing over having done so, as well as how ill Nikolau viewed her now, only one thing served as a comfort.
The memory of Dolenza’s words as she’d sent Fia away.
Is there no one else you care for? No one else for whom you want—what is it you said? Peace and security?
She wished such things for Ariana. She wished them for Nikolau, in spite of his disdain. And she wished them in a faint, abstract way, which was growing more concrete with each passing sunrise, for Honoria.
Perhaps it was enough now. Perhaps Dolenza would see the way her vision of the world had grown, and welcome her home with open arms.
Let it be so, Bright Raea, Fia prayed fervently. Please, please, let it be so.