Her mother met her at the door. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Strangers,” she gasped. “Not soldiers. Something … different.”

  For one moment, her mother went still, and the folds around her mouth and eyes deepened—not in laughter, but in fear. As if she guessed all that Maryshka had sensed and seen. “Go fetch Jannik,” she whispered. “I’ll tell Papa and the others.”

  Maryshka nodded and sped up the winding dirt path toward Jannik’s home. The speaker lived alone, on the highest ridge, overlooking the rest of the village. Ditka Jasny appeared in her doorway and called out a question, but Maryshka shook her head. Talk could come later. She scrambled up the slope and fell against Jannik’s door, pounding the rough planks with her fist.

  “Jannik!”

  The speaker flung the door open. He wore only his trousers, hastily tied with a sash, and his hair hung loose, as though he’d just woken up, but he held a staff in one hand. He dropped the staff and caught her as she stumbled over his doorstep. “Strangers,” she said breathlessly. “Not soldiers. Not … I can’t explain it.”

  For a moment, she hung in his arms, trembling. She could not tell why. She hated that. But as he asked a few more questions, her trembling died away. How to describe that alien scent, the way her skin prickled, as if Toc himself had breathed upon her? It was all nonsense.

  “I woke you for nothing,” she said. “Just two strangers.”

  He smiled absently, his gaze searching beyond her to the village. “Not for nothing. It’s always best to be prepared.”

  True enough. Life this close to the border meant raiders, smugglers, and the like. But she had panicked, and she knew it. She pulled away. Hugged herself close and rubbed her arms, not daring to glance over her shoulder at the approaching visitors.

  “What frightened you so?” he said. “You aren’t a skittish girl.”

  She flushed in embarrassment. “I … I can’t explain.”

  “Try,” he said softly. “And be quick, before Louka starts a war.”

  She snorted back a laugh at the thought of Louka, charging off with his wooden spear. The panic leached away, and she could talk properly now, though Lir and Toc only knew if the story would make sense, even so. “I saw a horse and a rider,” she said. “The rider looked like a bag at first. All floppy and weak. And there’s another one on foot. Neither of them were soldiers, but … I smelled something very strange, Jannik. Like fresh-cut hay, or sun on the grass, or…”

  “Or like Lir’s breath upon the world, when all was new,” he said softly.

  She recognized the words as poetry. Jannik Maier liked such things. He was the only one in all of Ryz who cared about books. Nonsense, her father called it. But hearing the words spoken now, with the taste and scent of strangeness upon her tongue, she thought otherwise.

  “Just so,” she said. “Like stars in the moonlight.”

  Stars that shone brighter and sharper than any she’d seen. Her vision flickered, remembering the brush with that unearthly breeze. She shook her head, but she could not rid herself of that strong impression.

  Jannik nodded. “You were doubly right to warn me. Thank you. Now to deal with Louka and his warriors.” He took up his staff, then fetched a shirt.

  “They might be right,” she said. “Remember those bandits. And there’s talk of war…”

  Though he was turning away, he stopped. “I remember. For that, I ask you to take the children and old ones into the wood above.”

  He headed down the footpath into the village, drawing on his shirt as he walked, to where half the men and several women had gathered. Maryshka followed to the nearest cabin. Nela JanaČek had already emerged with her daughter, Agáta. “Trouble?” Nela said.

  “We don’t know yet,” Maryshka said. “But Jannik wants the little ones taken away.”

  It was one of the many drills that Jannik had insisted the villagers learn, ever since Vila Maier had died eight years ago and his son took over as speaker. Arm themselves for defense. Gather the youngest and oldest and take them into the forest above Ryz, leaving the grown men and women to fight. If those strangers were more than two wanderers, if something went wrong, they could retreat into the mountains and send word north to the garrison at Dubro.

  Nela disappeared into her cabin and reappeared with two knives. She gave one to Maryshka. “I’ll wake Eva and help her with the babies. And you,” she said to her daughter. “Go to Ela.”

  “I’ll help Vera with her monsters,” Maryshka said.

  She tucked the knife in her sash and swept down through the village, past Jannik arguing with Louka Hasek. Louka and a few others carried clubs, staffs sharpened to points, and other weapons. Maryshka wanted to shake them all, even the speaker. If those were bandits, they’d have us killed already, with everyone chattering.

  No use scolding them. It was the same panic that had infected her. She hurried to Vera JanaČek’s house and gave the news. Vera drew a sharp breath, but the next moment, she had scooped up her youngest and handed him to Maryshka. “Take him, please. I’ll get the others.”

  “And a knife,” Maryshka reminded her.

  Vera’s only answer was a wave of her hand. Maryshka left her to the rest of her brood. With a wriggling Priba JanaČek on her hip, she jogged on to the next house and the next. She gathered up children and led them up the main path into the thick green forests above Ryz. Others—younger friends and cousins—followed. Maryshka hushed their murmuring, glad they listened. It was her mother’s influence. They both tended Ryz’s sick and wounded, which lent them a certain authority. Renata Lendl and Alexej Zenkl were another matter. Old and stubborn, they both complained without a stop as Maryshka herded them toward the path leading around the barn and up the ridge.

  That left only the older boys.

  “Damek!” she called to her brother.

  He ignored her. Jan Hasek glanced around.

  “Damek. You and your friends. Follow me.” She pointed to the heights above. “I need all of you to help with the little ones.”

  To her relief, Jan and his brother Marek obeyed. The rest clustered around Jannik Maier with their weapons raised high. Stupid idiot boys. She marched over to her brother and grabbed his arm. “Do what I say,” she hissed. “Now.”

  He glared at her from under his disheveled hair. Only fifteen, she thought. Too young and too old at the same time, for all the things he wanted. “I need your help,” she said softly. “If you go, the others will, too.”

  Damek grinned. It was an obvious bit of flattery, to be sure. “Honey-talk isn’t like you. But I’ll do it.”

  He and Maryshka detached the remaining boys from the crowd. Meanwhile, Jannik Maier gave out orders to the men and women. “You.” Jannik pointed to Vilém Berger and Ilja Lendl. “Come with me. The rest of you pair off and take your positions behind the houses and barns…”

  The boys raced each other up the ridge. By the time Maryshka overtook them, she discovered that Priba JanaČek had escaped his mother and was sitting in the grass on the hillside. Maryshka shooed him back under the trees. She slid the knife from her sash and crouched behind a boulder. Her father was stationed by the barn with Martin and Ditka Jasny. Matej and his son Pavel squatted next to the speaker’s house. Others made a loose guard around the village.

  She watched as Jannik leaned close to Louka Hasek, who had remained behind. The older man made a rude gesture, but finally he, too, retreated to his post. Jannik glanced over his shoulder—Maryshka had the strongest impression that he could see into the dark green shadows of her hiding place. Only two remained with Jannik—she recognized Vilém’s striped shirt and Ilja’s unruly hair—but even they lingered behind as Jannik crossed that last and lonely stretch to the Solvatni.

  * * *

  ILSE ZHALINA SLOWED her pace and looped the reins around one hand. “Zp’malí,” she said softly to her mare. “Slow, slow, soft and slow.” Obediently, Duska came to stop and began to crop the grass. On this side of the river, the fields grew wild, overrun by thornbushes, patches of clover, and thick stands of coarse grass. A few hundred yards ahead, the land sloped down to a narrow river, where a stony ford broke the water’s dark surface. Beyond, on the opposite shore, planted fields and plowed fields, and higher up, a dozen or so wooden huts with a dirt path looping between them.

  She knew from the maps where she was. Ryz. A tiny village at the southwest corner of Duszranjo’s winding length. This narrow river was the upper end of the Solvatni River. From here, the land rose upward toward the mountains dividing Károví from Veraene.

  But it was the people in Ryz that concerned her the most.

  “They are awake,” she said to her companion.

  Bela Sovic laughed softly, though she clung tightly to her mount’s neck. “What else did you expect? They are farmers.”

  Farmers who expected trouble and knew they could not depend on Dubro’s garrison to defend them. Ilse had not missed the sudden tumult, as a dozen or more of Ryz’s occupants appeared from their huts, all of them wielding some kind of weapon. Their voices carried across the river, and though she could not hear what they said, the tone was not a happy, welcoming one.

  More arguments, more debate, took place. Now the farmers scattered to take up posts around the village. They don’t trust strangers. A sensible attitude, but one that might cause trouble for Ilse and Bela.

  Three men circled around the planted fields to approach the river. Ilse laid a hand on Bela’s shoulder. The woman’s jacket was soaked with fever sweat, and her skin was hot to the touch, even through the cloth. A strong residue of magic clung to them both. Magic might erase that same scent, but she suspected it was too late.

  “Should we go back?” she said.

  Bela’s answer was hardly more than a sigh. “I think we must stop here, if they let us.”

  That alone told Ilse how ill her companion had become. She tugged the horse’s reins, and with soft words, urged Duska forward at a walk, until they reached the banks of the river.

  On the opposite side, the men paused as well. Two of them were young, only a few years older than she was, she guessed. The third was older, his dark hair threaded with gray. Deep grooves marked his face, some from laughter, but more from grief and hardship. He had the same ruddy brown complexion as her father and grandparents, the same high cheekbones and a face running in swift angles. A touch of anger, which did not surprise her, here in Duszranjo. He wore nothing but a pair of patched brown trousers and a shirt tucked into them, laced halfway up.

  The older man, the leader, gestured to his companions. They both halted and fell into a waiting stance, their staffs held ready. Their leader swung his staff around and came forward, until his bare feet broke the current.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  His voice was mild, but she could tell from the lift of his chin, the way he gripped his staff, that she had not mistaken that anger. Strangely enough, she welcomed it.

  “Dobrud’n,” she said. “Hello. We are travelers.”

  He tilted his head and regarded her warily. “Most travelers come from the north,” he said, “when they come here at all.”

  He senses our magic, she thought. And he doesn’t like it.

  She met his gaze steadily. “My companion is injured and sick. I’ve used what magic I know to keep her alive, but it’s not enough. She will die if you turn us away. She might…” Her throat closed against the rest of her words, but she could not stop herself from thinking them. Bela might die, all because these men—these Duszranjen men—were afraid of magic.

  Bela stirred. Her hand brushed Ilse’s hair. “I might die anyway,” she whispered.

  “I’d rather give up after you do, not before,” Ilse said.

  Bela only laughed, a rocking wheezing laugh that held not a drop of humor. Ilse laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder, and murmured an invocation to the magic current, in spite of the staring men across the river. The current swirled around them, flowing from invisible to invisible, as Tanja Duhr once wrote. Its sharp green scent revived Ilse; its warmth seeped into her bones. Bela, too, breathed more easily.

  Still angry, Ilse rounded on the men. She saw with some satisfaction that all three had drawn back several steps. “So,” she called across to them, “do we die here, my friend and I? Or shall you let us pass so we might die in the mountains instead?”

  Their leader hesitated. Perhaps he heard the desperation in her voice, because he glanced over his shoulder at his companions. “Ilja, go tell Ana Rudny she might have a patient. Watch for my signal, though, before they come down from above. Vilém, stay where you are.”

  “What are you doing?” Vilém demanded. “Jannik, you said before—”

  “I know what I said before. Maybe I was wrong. I might be wrong now. Whatever the case, we’ll need Ana and her daughter.”

  Ilja and Vilém exchanged scowls. Then Vilém shrugged and Ilja jogged back to the village. He didn’t stop there, Ilse noticed, but continued up the slopes to a boulder-strewn ridge. Jannik watched, too, as if he wanted to make certain his orders were obeyed. An interesting clue. His authority wasn’t absolute, then.

  Jannik turned back to Ilse. “I am trusting you.”

  “Only a little,” she replied.

  He smiled faintly. “True. I’d like to examine your friend. Will you allow that?”

  “You are a healer?”

  “No. But I have good eyes.”

  And he wants to make certain I’m telling the truth before he gives Ilja and the others that signal.

  She nodded. “Do as you must, then.”

  Jannik picked his way through the rushing water. Ilse wondered why the ford existed, if most visitors came from the north. Traffic from the eastern plains must have been more frequent once. No longer, because she could see how the stone bed of the ford had shifted and sunk, leaving deep holes in spots. He seemed to know the best path, because he never once paused or lost his footing.

  He stopped at the near bank, the water swirling around his ankles. This close, she could see that he was not as old as she first guessed. He was built lean and muscled, and his gait as he crossed the river spoke of strength and grace. It was the silver-threaded hair and the lines etched into his face that had misled her. A life in Ryz would do that, she thought.

  Jannik stretched out a hand to the mare, which sniffed at him suspiciously, then blew a rattling breath. He smiled, a much warmer smile than he had offered to Ilse. Then his gaze flicked up to Ilse. “It will be easier,” he said, “if you do not stand next to me.”

  Wordlessly, she handed him the reins and stepped back. He drove his staff into the ground and gathered the reins in one hand as he ran his other over the horse’s nose, crest, and neck. The air stirred, and she caught a whiff of green. Ilse’s skin prickled and she remembered Jannik’s comment about having good eyes. She glanced across to Vilém, who waited almost patiently. Whatever she sensed, it was not strong enough to carry across the water.

  I’m tired. I’m dreaming up new dangers. Nothing more.

  Now Jannik touched Bela’s shoulder, just as he might the shoulder of another horse. Bela’s eyes slid open. They were red-rimmed and glazed with fever. Her face was mottled with a hectic coloring.

  Ilse reached for her friend, but Jannik blocked her path. The scent of magic intensified. From the air, from her own heightened sensibilities, Ilse could read her signature and that of Bela’s, that of starlight glancing through a mist of clouds, the shape of a hawk, hovering overhead. A magical signature was more than an image or a scent, but humans were wont to translate the extraordinary into the everyday.

  Her vision darkened. For a moment, it was as though the dawn had returned, and she saw its edge of light creeping over the dew-laden grass. A fragment of poetry hovered just out of memory’s reach—of magic and its nearly invisible imprint upon the ordinary world. Not Tanja Duhr’s words. A different poet, from a different life.

  She blinked, and saw Jannik studying her with narrowed eyes.

  “What is wrong?”

  Her voice came out too quick and breathless.

  “I wanted to ask you that same question,” he said.

  Again, she had the impression of strong emotion beneath that outward self-possession—more emotion than the situation could explain. She shook her head, uncertain how to translate those brief sensations into words. “Nothing that matters.”

  “I don’t quite believe you,” he said. “But we can talk about that later.”

  He turned and flung up a hand. Vilém came alert. “Get Ilja and Nikola,” Jannik called out. “And several blankets. Big ones. Hana or Zofie should have what you need.”

  Vilém nodded and jogged back to Ryz. A shout echoed down from above. Ilse glanced toward the ridge where Ilja had disappeared. Someone—several someones—had emerged from the fringe of trees. Ilse counted three people. One of them slowed long enough to hike up her skirts before she raced down the hillside.

  “Is that Ana Rudny?” she asked Jannik.

  “Her daughter,” he replied.

  * * *

  VILÉM RETURNED WITH Ilja and another man, who carried several blankets. While Jannik and Ilse fashioned a sling, the others lifted Bela from her horse. Bela hissed. Sweat was pouring over her face. Ilse quickly untied the scarf from around her head, knotted it several times, and set the cloth between the other woman’s teeth. Bela bit down hard.

  “What happened?” one of the men asked.

  “Rockfall,” Ilse said shortly. “It killed our other horse.”

  It had nearly killed Bela, who tried to roll free of her mount. She had not succeeded. Ilse recited the list of her companion’s injuries: Three ribs cracked. One foot crushed. Her leg scraped raw by the gravel, when she and the horse had slid helplessly down the mountainside. Ilse had managed to stop the bleeding with magic, but the wounds healed only partway. Within a day, they had begun to fester.

  She rubbed a hand over her face, suddenly aware of how exhausted she was. Two weeks since they had fled Taboresk. Five days since the rockfall. It seemed a dozen lifetimes.

  A hand rested lightly on her shoulder. “We will do what we can,” Jannik said. “Come. Let us get your friend to Ana and Maryshka.”

 

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