Unlikely (Kingdoms Gone), page 5
Whatever plans she’d had of her own evaporated in those dark, terrified eyes, in the face of one question, do you grant wishes? She had to stay now, and if it were in her power, she had to help. She had no problem with the Starlight gang, but if the look on Vane’s face meant anything, she would sooner or later.
“They tagged the blacksmith’s.” She sat on the stool she’d claimed for her own, combing the last few tangles from her hair. Hadja stirred the cauldron over the flames, and the earthy scent of tubers cooking filled the cottage, overpowering even the herbs. “Half the town, I suspect.”
The woman only snorted at the revelation and continued her cooking. “Eh. I suspect Cygnus can look out for his family. Don’t worry about your Skinner none, either. He knows how to take care of himself.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Probably crawled into a corner somewhere to wait them out.”
“They had that paint he uses.”
“Hmm.”
“He’s not my Skinner.”
“Did I say that?”
“Yes.” She stood up and pulled her hair back behind her shoulders, a silver cloud that hung to her waist and dripped tiny water spots on the floorboards. “You did, and he’s not.”
Hadja could take that little idea and stuff it in her pot. She hadn’t even tried to keep her assumptions to herself, and Satina feared she’d say or do something embarrassing if she let it go unchecked. Let the woman tease her about her figure again. She’d welcome that compared to the suggestive snickers anytime they mentioned Marten’s name.
“We’ll need another potato.” Hadja sniffed at her stew and gave it a fierce stir. “And a few more carrots.”
“I’ll get them.” She’d already fetched more than enough, but Hadja meant for her to earn her night’s sleep and then some. She pulled her cloak from the hook by the front door and slipped out. The moon already looked less full—she could feel it, the ebb of power. The air still held the day’s warmth thanks to a few low clouds. She wandered around to the back of the cottage to the only strip of well-trimmed lawn.
A crooked privy stood at the far edge, backed up to the line where trees began again. At the rear of the house a simple metal pump stood beside a wooden barrel that served as Hadja’s wash bin. Satina passed this and opened the door set into a lump of ground. A dark stair led down to the root cellar, and she risked a little of her own magic to make her cloak glow enough to guide her steps. Her dust pouch still lay on the bed with her other bags. In only her shift and the cloak, she trod barefoot into the cellar to pilfer the woman’s stockpile of roots.
The steps complained, creaking and releasing puffs of dust. At the bottom, the soft dirt floor chilled her feet. Sturdy shelves lined the narrow space, and every one overflowed with baskets of roots and vegetables and bundles of dried herbs. The space smelled like a musty version of Hadja’s home, and lit only by the glow of her cloak, the shadows danced and revealed more sigils. Even here, Marten’s hand had worked its magic.
She went directly to the potatoes, but her eyes wandered, reading each spell and understanding how they played into one another. Close to the stairs, the sigils spoke of protection, barriers to evil intentions. These would keep out the weaker-minded intruders. She snatched the fattest potato she could find and bent down to a basket of wilting carrots. Under the bottom shelf, a row of clay pots hunkered, and these glowed in the magical light, flaring with signs like fever, pox, croup and death. She squinted at that last one and made a note to keep on her host’s good side—or take her meals elsewhere.
Deeper in, the shelves spoke harsher warnings. Satina spied at least one curse on prying fingers, cringed and turned back toward the stair. A flash of something drew her eyes back. A shimmer near the floor reflected both her cloak’s light and the nearest sigils. A twist of sack cloth covered the item that leaned against the farthest wall. It stood shoulder high and had little depth, but the bottom corner didn’t quite reach the ground, and whatever hid beneath the fabric peeked out at her, shiny, smooth. Mirror.
Had the shard around Hadja’s neck come from this? A Kingdoms’ relic hidden amongst the woman’s stores? She paused and read the marks again, the blue glow that lined the shelf lips, the stairs themselves, even the ceiling supports. Her eyes drifted over one mark before she registered the symbol. Her breath caught, and she went back to it, examined it for any error. Four dark wedges, like pieces of a pie, Shades, without a doubt. Why would Hadja have a tag in the cellar?
She squinted her eyes and the symbols flared brighter. Some of them, a few twists in the corner, a symbol like a bird over the last shelf, she didn’t recognize. Dangerous to move then, with marks that could mean anything, with a Shade tag on the rafter overhead. But there on the next beam was the Starlight mark as well, a starburst around an empty circle. The two tags glowed from the same space, and neither one gave way. It made no sense at all.
She returned to the stairs and relative safety. At least the wards there were meant for obvious thievery. At the bottom step she looked back again, and this time she noticed more bundles. More sack cloth wrappings in the corners, beneath a shelf, under the stairs. Did they all hold relics like the mirror? Or was her mind conspiring with Hadja’s paranoia to lead her into fancy? They could be anything. Tools, sundries. Old Magic.
No. The sigils only had her spooked. Hadja’s secrets were not her business, but the woman’s stew was. She scurried up the steps to the door with the vegetables tucked into a scoop of her shift fabric. The cellar door weighed more than she could manage with one free arm, and she dropped the veggies into the grass long enough to close it. Once it was safely latched, she scooped the bounty up again and tripped lightly back to the cottage door.
Voices spoke inside. She could hear them, muted, but clear enough to recognize the exaggerated pitches of their visitor. It gave her a moment to steel herself, brush one hand through her damp hair, and shake her cloak forward enough to cover most of her thin shift. If Hadja had planned the Skinner’s visit, she did a brilliant job of looking both surprised and apologetic when Satina pushed her way back inside. The twinkle in her eye, however, hinted of mischief.
“There you are, Satina.” Hadja scrambled from the stool faster than she’d thought her capable. “Sit. I’ll take those.”
“Yes, Satina,” Marten lingered over her name. “Sit.” He perched on the other stool, leaving her the one their host had just vacated. There were already two bowls steaming on the table, two spoons set beside them.
“Stew’s ready.” Hadja didn’t make eye contact. She shuffled to the hearth with the vegetables that she quite clearly hadn’t needed. “I’ll eat by the fire.”
They’d given her little choice, had obviously conspired against her. Satina inhaled the delicious scent of the stew, gave in and sidled around Marten and into the space by the cupboards before taking her place at the table. She scooted the stool a touch further from his and perched on it.
“I smelled the stew all the way from town, Hadj.” The Skinner’s voice teased either her or the old woman. Satina stared at her bowl so as not to find out. “Her cooking is legendary,” he whispered so that his target could only be her.
Hadja grunted, and Satina scooped up a spoonful of broth and tasted it. The herbs blended into warmth and health on her tongue, delicious, maybe even legendary. “I can see why. This is really good.”
“What do you know?” Hadja squatted by the fire. She ladled a bowlful for herself and grinned like a gargoyle. “You’ve been on the road too long. Anything would taste legendary.” She teased him back now, and it relaxed the mood a tad. Satina settled more firmly on her seat and dug into her dinner with less decorum.
“How long have you been on the road, my dear?”
“Too long.” She set her spoon down and looked up in time to catch him watching her. His eyes darted away, and the twisty smile returned before she could pin any emotion to the look. “Long enough to look forward to a good night’s rest in a real bed,” she added.
“That’s too bad.” Now he twinkled again. His eyes flashed brighter, not quite a surge of power, but a tint of a secret he was dying to tell. “We have Tinkers in the woods tonight, and I thought you might like to join me for a visit.”
“Tinkers?” She couldn’t help the waver of excitement.
Marten’s amusement shone in his face, but she didn’t care. She wanted to go. Of course she did. He’d have known that all along.
“What are the Gentry doing mucking about in my woods,” Hadja grumbled from the hearth. “Bad enough the gangs have found us, if you ask me.”
“They’re in the pocket, Hadj. No need to worry. Your little patch is safe.” He rolled his eyes for Satina’s sake, earned only another grunt from Hadja. “If you’re not interested, I won’t be offended. I have some trading to do, but Tinkers can be a rowdy lot.”
“Well, I was looking forward to sleeping inside.”
He looked genuinely startled, and she enjoyed it for a few moments, scooped up another bite of stew while the muscles in his face warred over the proper reaction. She chewed the carrot a few times extra and then let him off the hook.
“I would love to visit with the Gentry.”
“You see.” His eyes flashed at the same moment the fire crackled. Satina scooped up another bit of potato and tried not to notice the old woman by the fire, rocking with silent laughter. “I just knew you would.”
Chapter Seven
He favored his right ankle. Satina followed him between the trees. Even in the dark she could tell he limped on that side.
“How did your shop fare?”
Marten stopped walking. He stood with his back to her, but she could still see the change, the softening of his posture, the shoulder hunch. “Nothing to worry about.” Even his voice pressed low under some weight. “But thanks for asking.”
He cackled and, just like that, sprang back to his usual self. When he stepped forward, the limp nearly vanished in his spring and swagger.
“Are we going to the same pocket?”
“You’re very chatty tonight.”
She didn’t think he meant that as a compliment. For the rest of the trek, Satina held her tongue, and focused on getting her bearings. They’d gone straight out behind Hadja’s cottage and into the woods that ran behind the very fields she’d passed on the way into town. That put them heading back in the direction of their staircase, far deeper in the forest and away from the road.
The underbrush tugged at her hemline. She’d insisted on throwing on a bodice and overskirt, but wished she hadn’t before they’d gone twenty steps. Her eyes took in Marten’s leather pants, his tight leg wrappings. They made moving through brush easy, didn’t fit loosely like a villager’s would. How much time did he spend traveling like this, through the thick of it?
He’d stopped short, and she stumbled to avoid him. The look on his face made little sense until she realized she’d been examining his pants. Her cheeks burned instantly and she shook her head in protest. His grin only widened.
“We’re almost there.”
“Good.” She stood taller and smoothed her skirts. “I’m not quite as appropriately dressed as you are.” It sounded defensive, even to her ears.
Marten’s eyes dragged down to her hemline and rose back to her face far too slowly. “A pity,” he said. “Brambles aren’t very forgiving on fabric, I’m afraid.”
“I’ll get by.”
“On the contrary,” He looked away then, let his gaze fix forward to a spot somewhere ahead. “I doubt you ever just get by.”
Satina tried to dig up a fitting retort, but he was off again, pulling himself over a fallen trunk and turning to offer her a hand. The underbrush in this part of the woods grew thicker, the berries and ferns choked right up to the base of the trees, and everywhere they had to step over fallen limbs and twigs. Silence would be impossible here, even with their sigils, but Marten didn’t seem concerned.
She took his hand and swung up onto the fallen giant. Moss coated the bark, making the surface slick and wetting right through both layers of her skirt. She shivered and rolled off the other side, landing on her feet where Marten had stood a moment earlier.
“You never told me,” He looked back over one shoulder, already marching toward the next obstacle. “How you managed to fall astray of the Shades.”
“I helped someone get out.”
“Get out?” He stopped again. “Of the Shades?”
Satina nodded. She sighed and waited for the next question.
“How?”
When she didn’t answer, he shook his head, laughed, and then walked on. The forest floor rose at an incline, and they scrambled the last few steps, not only over the mat of debris, but up the side of a short hill. At the apex, the trees stopped. Satina dragged up beside the Skinner and stared out into a cleared bowl of earth wide enough to hold the whole of Westwood and a few of its fields as well. Grass had grown thickly into the spaces between the walls, but nothing stood higher than the knee. Nothing grew here that could mask the area’s original status.
They looked upon the ruins of some great, stone building. The moonlight tinged the giant blocks blue-black. She’d seen stones like that in the ports, scavenged from the old castles and hauled away to be used in the roadworks, seawalls and even the huge Shade fortress on the bay. The size of this foundation, and the state of the few remaining walls and rubble said, perhaps, this very building’s stones had headed South on the gang’s heavy sleds.
“What castle was this?” She saw at least two stairways, much taller but not as neatly preserved as the one where they’d met. The farthest wall retained the most stones. It nearly rose to the third story in places. The rest was a ragged outline of rooms, hallways, and the partial curve of a tower base. Not much stood higher than three or four stones. Only a few of the scattered blocks remained on the ground to grow moss and sink slowly into the earth.
“Nothing major,” Marten shrugged, but the simple gesture didn’t fit the sight in that bowl. Here would be traces of the Kingdoms, maybe even a relic—maybe Hadja’s mirror. “A simple stronghold.”
He underplayed it, and they both knew it. She’d traveled more than most, and she’d only ever seen one ruin this well preserved—and none this large.
“Has it been stripped?”
“The trees.” He leapt forward, but landed roughly, staggering more than he’d intended on whatever injury he hid. That leg hurt him, though he tried to cover it with a flourish and wave of his arm. “The trees grow closer together around the site, ringing it in.”
“A defense?” Intriguing. Satina followed more carefully down the short slope. “Then it wasn’t looted?”
“Not entirely. They don’t keep anyone out, my dear. Just make it a bit more difficult to find.”
“Magically grown?”
“If I had to guess. Someone powerful lived here, judging by the size of the pocket they left behind.”
At the bottom of the bowl, he helped her up onto the outer wall at a spot where only one stone remained. Even so, they had to clamber up onto the giant block. Once, this had stood in defense of whatever ruler lived inside the walls. She didn’t care what Marten said, she’d seen the foundations in Westwood. That town, the one they’d built their own upon, would have served the lord of this castle. The fields and crops that fed the town would have belonged to him as well.
“Have you searched it?” She thought of Hadja’s cellar, of the bundled mirror and other shrouded lumps. The old woman, she felt certain, was no stranger to this ruin.
“A bit.” The grin said more than that. It fell away too quickly, though, and a crease formed between his eyes. “If the Starlights knew about this, you understand, my dear?”
“They’d never leave.” She shivered. Had he brought her here to see the Gentry, or as a test? She didn’t need his warning to know the Starlights were a danger to his town. Looking on the sprawl of stone and secrets only embedded that fully into her thoughts. Maybe that had been his intention. Maybe he was asking her for help, just like the girl had.
“Well then.” He hopped off the wall and held up a hand for her. “Shall we?”
She landed beside him and he started off between the walls that, even crumbling, towered over their heads. She stepped lightly and tried not to shrink in, to curl her shoulders and hide as she’d seen Marten do in the face of the town blacksmith. Suddenly, she knew how he felt. These walls intimidated. They ruled in the place of their lost master.
As they moved, she tried to get a sense for what room they might have been in, where than hallway led once, who had walked through this door. She squinted and scanned the castle for any trace of magic. The old mages wouldn’t have needed sigils. They’d have left no marks or overt showing of their arts, but all power made a print of one kind or another. The pockets were proof enough of that.
“Wait.” Marten froze in place. He held one palm up and peered through a gap in the wall they’d been following. Before she could wonder, he waved her up beside him. “Have a look.”
She peeked around the corner. A courtyard stretched from where they hid to the base of the largest staircase. Halfway between the stair and their position, the grass parted around a single pillar. This stone was not black, nor had it ever supported a structure. The surface shone like gray glass, and some long-dead hand had carved symbols on every available inch. The air around the menhir shimmered and stretched.
She’d never seen a pocket so clearly marked. Despite the rarity, the pressing urge to rush out and examine the symbols, a noise distracted her. She heard the soft pattering of feet and her gaze swung to the giant stairway. A cloaked figure ran up the steps.
Satina jumped back. Her heart pounded. Who else knew about the ruins? If the Starlights found it now, after showing up in town right on her heels, could she convince Marten she hadn’t brought it upon the town?
His hand landed softly on her shoulder. He slid in close to her, whispered near her shoulder. “Watch.” The proximity sent a tickle of heat across her skin. She reached for the wall, rested one hand there for support and looked into the courtyard again.
