The worst of it was, she’d died thinking I thought her weak and frightened, someone to protect. I’d been blind to her strength, when she’d been braver than any of us. I’d never get to tell her that.
“There,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, as I finished tying the bandage. “The physics will get that arrow out when they can. You just rest in the meantime.”
The group around me must have been the rebels defending the walls from our army, because most had arrow wounds of varying severity. I went between them, trying to steady the shafts and stop bleeding while the patients waited their turn with the physic. A small woman with a broad, flat face and the same brusque but kindly manner I associated with all physics, she raced between benches, seeing to the most severe cases as they arrived, and occasionally giving me instructions. “The heads are serrated,” she said, showing me one that had been removed already. “That’s why we have to cut them out so carefully.” I took the arrow from her. The point had rough edges clotted with blood, and the fletching was damaged and shoddy. It was an ugly thing. I shuddered to think of its siblings, buried in flesh around the room.
I secured another arrow, this one part of a trio peppering the back of an ominously silent woman. As I wrapped and pressed, I found myself staring at the fletching. The one closest to me was damaged. And so was the one beside it. And now I thought about it, quite a few of the arrows I’d just dressed had had tatty fletching. The conscious part of my brain asked, So what? But another part, the part I’d learned to trust, niggled at me, pick-pick-picking away at my thoughts. The fletching wasn’t tatty. It was missing barbs. A lot of barbs. So the army used some inadequate feathers, just like us, I thought. Again, so what?
I realized I’d been staring too long when blood leaked between my fingers through the wadding I held over the worst of the three wounds. I put extra on top, continuing to press, but my eyes locked onto the two damaged arrows, looking between them, something cranking along in my head.
I had to shift to avoid two men running past with a floppy body slung between them, and then, when I looked back at the arrows from a slightly different angle, I finally understood what it was.
The same damage.
Missing barbs, precise missing barbs along the length of one feather. It was the same pattern, the exact same pattern, on the two arrows. And when I looked down at the bucket holding my clean bandages and wadding, the arrow resting there that the physic had given me showed the same thing. Lines and spaces. Almost like … almost like lines and dots.
The part of me that processed patterns fired at last, and even as I scoffed at the idea—how could arrows be marked with a code only I knew?—I was fingering the barbs, counting, translating in my head, and I knew from the first few letters that the arrows were a message, not just any message, but a message to me.
The walls rushed in at me and my knees buckled. Jov, it said. Beware Aven.
I steadied myself on the edge of the bench. Only one person could have sent that message. The same person who had risked everything to seek Aven’s help.
“Hadrea,” I said, and she came over without a pause. “Help me?” I marveled at how she always knew what to say, or not to say. Despite the questions in her eyes, she helped me finish bandaging the patient in silence, waiting to let me speak. My voice sounded like another person’s as I told her, “Kalina didn’t die of deep cold. She was alive long enough to send me a message.” I fingered the arrow, throat clenching. “And she was alive long enough to figure out who our real enemy was.”
Hadrea frowned. “She did not die of the cold. But she is still…”
“I would say so.” I could have choked on the stiffness of my words. No tiny sprig of hope worked its way into me, not this time. Aven had no reason to pretend Kalina was dead if she wasn’t.
As we left the hall I thought I heard my name—a man’s voice, amidst the chaos of the room—but when I craned around, no one was paying me any attention. I shrugged and continued out of the hospital. Inside, I was slowly turning to stone as my thoughts condensed into plans. I had supplies to pick up and preparations to make. It would be a long night.
I had still lost my sister. But now I had someone to blame.
* * *
They came in together, Tain with a kind of dazed swagger, Aven with casual confidence. I showed them in and bade them to sit with a cup of the finest Oromani brew, taking the seat with its back to the door.
Tain gave me a tired smile. “Why here?” What had once been his mother’s sitting room, old-fashioned with fat, stuffy furniture unused for a decade and heavy velvet drapes decorating the walls, was over-warm and musty.
“It’s private,” I said. “There are so many people buzzing around the Manor, I wanted to make sure we could talk without being overheard.”
“What is it?” Heavy lines crunched between Tain’s eyes. I felt a surge of pity for my friend. He had lost almost as much as me, and I was about to rip those wounds wide open. I’d wanted to talk to him first, but he hadn’t left the Warrior-Guilder’s side since yesterday. It had to be like this.
“It’s about the traitor on the Council,” I said.
“Oh.” Tain nodded, grave. “I’ve told Aven what happened to Marco, and why.”
She nodded, giving me an approving look. “Tain told me of your bravery. You did much honor for yourself by killing that traitor.” She sighed. “I can’t tell you how ashamed and dishonored I am by having left him in charge. I never suspected him of disloyalty.”
I stood, pacing around my chair, then stopped, looking at them in turn. The stone inside me hardened a little bit more. “Except he wasn’t disloyal, was he?”
If I hadn’t been looking for it, I’d never have seen the malice that flickered across her flat black eyes, so calm did she keep her expression. It didn’t matter, though, whether she reacted or not. This was for Tain’s benefit as much as hers. He frowned, lines in his face growing deeper. “What do you mean?” he said, a touch of impatience in his tone. “Marco was the traitor.”
“Oh, he betrayed us,” I said. “But he was never loyal to us in the first place.”
Aven never blinked. Behind that cold, black surface, I fancied her mind turning, trying to work out what I suspected, what I knew.
I propped myself against my chair, holding eye contact. “I tried to reason out why Marco did what he did. What he hoped to achieve. The city falling? Then why work so hard on its defense? Killing Caslav and Tain? I suppose that was always meant to be the plan, but then Tain turned up early back in the city. What would have happened if we’d gone home with our planned transport? Bandits, I suppose? Well, he thought he’d finished the job eventually, though. And then, only then, did he send a bird.”
Tain rose. “Jov,” he said. “You’re exhausted. It’s been a … day. I think you need to rest. You’re not talking sense.”
“Oh, but I am,” I said, eyes still fixed on Aven. “Sit down, Tain. Marco killed all of our birds, or released them with fake messages, but I’m guessing he had his own hidden. Because he needed to be able to tell his leader when things were prepared.”
“In Perest-Avana, do you mean?” Tain asked.