Wrayth

TWENTY-SEVEN Scattered Remains

The widow Vashill’s house had not been a good place to stay, and Sorcha had moved the remains of the Order on as soon as they had all that could be gathered. Vermillion was a shaken city, full of panic and disorder, and fallen into utter chaos. With no force of Deacons to fight geists, they were coming back. Vermin can always tell when the cat of the house dies. Sorcha recalled her beloved Pareth telling her that—but she had never thought it was a warning for Deacons.

Then there was the Emperor to deal with. He had survived somehow the destruction of the Mother Abbey, but lost none of his blind and foolish hatred of the Order. The Deacons had no doubt that he would come looking for them as soon as he regained control. After only two days, they got word he was hunting former members of the Order down.

So the Deacons and their companions filed out of the city in small, unremarkable groups, and formed up, once on the road, beyond sight of Vermillion. They marched for many days, covering their tracks and checking the ether as they went. Half of them had managed to take Breed mounts, and they carried what few provisions that they’d scavenged. The sooner they got into the hill country the better.

By the fourth day, everyone, man and horse, was exhausted, dirty and at the end of their tether. Sorcha gave the order to make camp off the road at the foot of a thickly wooded hill, and it was there finally that they were able to take stock of what had survived the mad escape from the city. They could also eat.

The Arch Abbot was not among them; dead or captured, it was impossible to know. Three of the Presbyters had however managed to escape: Thorine Belzark, a battered Melisande Troupe and most surprisingly the elderly Yvril Mournling. They were the most shocked of all of them, and barely spoke to each other let alone anyone else. Merrick commented that they only needed some time.

None of them could be sure how much of that they had. Sorcha sat in the grass and finally forced herself to count who was not with them. Garil was not among the ragtag group of leftover Deacons, but the stark raving Patternmaker was. Kolya had quietly taken up a place within the group, but kept to himself. Lujia and Sibuse, battered and bleeding, proudly took up guarding the rear of the caravan, since they still had some faltering runes at their disposal. The Patternmaker’s marks were, however, fading. A dozen of the crew of the far-off Dominion were still with them, along with a silent and brooding Aachon.

In total, sixty people, some once Deacons, some not, surrounded her on this grassy spot in the late autumn sun. It was not large enough a number to be an army, but not small enough to pass easily unnoticed.

“So then,” Raed said, dropping down to sit with her, “are we all to become outlaws and live in the forest?”

He laid the back of his hand tentatively on her knee. Along the Bond, his pain sang, but it was tinged with just the slightest hint of hope. She put her palm against his. “Perhaps, or perhaps something altogether different. I have been thinking on a new Order, one with all the strengths of the old one, but with none of the weaknesses.”

She took out the thin piece of wood that the Patternmaker had created in the cellar. The lines were disappearing from it as mud and blood lost its power. Soon enough, it would be useless.

Tracing her fingertip over the fading script, she whispered to him, “Do you realize this is the longest we have spent together without being chased since our time together on the airship?”

His laugh was low. “Here’s to a little more time then. I don’t think we are the only ones who would appreciate it.” He jerked his head to where Merrick and Zofiya were tucked under a tree, talking in low voices. For a moment Sorcha considered them. The Grand Duchess did not look so grand as she once had, but she was smiling, despite the situation. She was the kind of woman who could bounce back from even Derodak’s treatment.

“I hope they can find some happiness,” she said softly, “but unfortunately we cannot give that to them. And there is more…”

This was going to be the hard bit. She looked off into the distance and shared with him what she had heard from one of the scouts the previous day.

“The Wrayth have bred themselves another girl—one that looks something like your sister, and they have raised her in the west. Ten Princes have already defected to her banner.”

She knew that he had worked so hard to stop war washing over Arkaym—sacrificing much to the cause—and yet there it was. Sometimes no matter how hard a person strove, it was not enough.

He looked down at their intertwined hands. “You know, when my mother died under the Rossin’s claws, I thought that was the worst thing that could ever happen to me. Now I am not so sure. Fraine never really had a chance to be a normal person…a good person.”

Sorcha reached up and pulled his head down to rest against her shoulder. She wanted to give him some comfort. She wanted to have some time to cherish what little they’d been able to salvage from the destruction. That mattered more than food or rest.

She’d hunted in these woods, and she knew them very well. Standing up she held out her hand to Raed. “I’ve got something to show you.”

A frown creased his brow, but he got to his feet and allowed himself to be led away from the others. His faltering steps told her that he too was tired.

When they had gone a few minutes from the crowd, into the dappled shade of the forest, he smiled. It was a small hunter’s hut. Not much but woven walls, and a timber and fern roof. It was the kind of place where a lone traveler might find solace for a spell while tracking game.

Sorcha led him to it, unlatched the simple door, and when he was in, closed it behind him. Raed let out a long sigh, and cradled her head in his hands as they leaned against each other, forehead to forehead.

She traced the line of his cheek, and kissed his lips softly. Part of her was afraid that this spell would break and they would be flung apart again. Another part was fearful that they might find their feelings not what they thought.

“You are a good man, Raed,” she said to him, while her fingers unlaced his shirt, “and we all make our own choices in this world.”

He kissed her palm, and then ran his tongue up the inside of her wrist and around her arm, following the curve of the fading runes. He had probably already guessed what she meant to do, and she loved that he had said nothing of it.

They dropped back to the bed, which was merely a pile of heather covered in a blanket, but it felt as good as an Imperial piece of furniture.

“We don’t have long,” he breathed against her skin.

Sorcha nodded, knowing that they must move their ragtag group on soon, but she did not stop undressing him. “But we have enough time,” she replied, somewhat shakily, as his lips descended on her.

It could not be the passionate romp that they’d shared on the Summer Hawk, or even the fumbling delight of their time in Chioma, because they were simply exhausted. However it was its own special moment.

When at last they had sated themselves, kissed, and murmured and reacquainted themselves with each other’s flesh, they left the little hunter’s hut and returned to their companions.

Soon enough they were moving again, heading west once more, toward a series of caves Merrick knew of. Here at least they could make fires, have a little hot food, and everyone could get some sleep.

It was in these caves that Sorcha decided to finally reveal her plan to Merrick and Raed—though both of them, connected so strongly to her through the Bond, already guessed at it. However, she wanted to say the words and tell them because they were her closest companions. They deserved that, and so much more.

It was a long, hard road she was setting them on, but one guided by the past.

Her partner, young and battered though he was, still managed to raise an objection to her plan.

He shook his head. “Sorcha, you can’t know if this worked for your mother or not. She most likely died, and that was why you ended up in the Order. It could have been this process that killed her…”

He was right—she knew that. She’d only seen one vision of Caoirse in the nest of the Wrayth, and she knew deep down that she had died somewhere and somehow shortly after. Still she would not be put off. “It was far more likely to have been childbirth in that dreadful place that did it, and we have to try to get back some of what we’ve lost. The Empire needs the Order. We all know that.”

Her blue eyes held his brown steady for a long moment. Raed stood not far away and remained silent on the matter. Another reason she was falling in love with him—even on this longer acquaintance. The Young Pretender did not try to make her what she was not, or bend her to his will.

The Pattern is gone, and we need the Order. Without them we’ve lost Arkaym.

She pushed the words toward him, but Merrick did not hear them through the fading rune. Sorcha had been complaining and worrying about having the young man in her head ever since she’d made the Bond. Now, it was the thing she wanted most in the world.

“Besides, if this works we can find the Circle of Stars’ Pattern.” She grinned at him wickedly. “Once we do that, we can teach them how dreadfully uncomfortable it is to have that ripped away.”

“At least let me go first.” Merrick glanced over at Ratimana sitting ready and waiting in the corner of the cave. The old man had been cleaned up some, but his eyes still glinted with madness.

“No.” She said it as kindly as she could manage, but maybe a little of the old Sorcha came out in the command. “I am Wrayth—at least a part of me, and like the first Deacon I must be the one to take the risk.”

It hurt to admit to that part of her, but Raed was there. He understood. He had lived his whole life with a geistlord inside him, so whatever little portion she had, she could also make peace with. At least she didn’t have one talking in her head.

She kissed the top of her partner’s head. “I always wanted to be a saint,” she whispered into his ear. “Let me have that chance.”

This statement, said so very seriously, made him burst out into unexpected laughter. When he had recovered himself, Merrick snorted and shook his head. “When I first saw you, that was what I thought. That woman will be a saint one day.”

Sorcha grinned, masking her own lingering concerns, and then stripped off her shirt, quite unconcerned about her nakedness before these men who had seen everything about her. She even pinned up her hair so that the Patternmaker would have nothing to distract him from his work.

Ratimana waited for her, seated on the floor, legs crossed, looking relaxed and at peace. It was amazing what the application of a little water and soap could do for a person. He smelled a thousand times better than he had in that dank cellar. He was a gift from Nynnia, yet another person she had underestimated in her life. Now it was time to learn some lessons and trust herself.

She sat down and held out her bare arms to the Patternmaker. “What do you think?”

Ratimana ran his firm, practiced fingers down from her shoulders to her fingers. “I think,” he said, his eyes fixed on nowhere, “that there is room for each rune from here to your wrist. Your sigil you must carve yourself, into your palms.”

She swallowed hard, feeling a trickle of sweat begin to form along her temple. “We’ll do that last then.”

The Patternmaker nodded. “Then I shall begin with Aydien on your right shoulder.” His fingers slid over the instruments they had gathered for him: a pointed comb, a container of black ink and a little hammer.

Merrick came and sat down on her left, while Raed took up a place behind her. Sorcha looked across at her partner. His gaze was as steady and true as it had ever been.

Then she leaned back and felt Raed’s hands rest lightly on the nape of her neck. His grip was warm and constant. The other hand she held out to the artisan who stood ready with the tattoo hammer.

The Deacon’s voice when she spoke was firm. “Let us begin then.”