They had written on the unmarked side, angry bold words in our own written language, setting out our sins.
“No peace for murderers,” I read, my voice sounding squeaky and shrill. “No peace for the unfaithful. No peace for spirit killers. The rotten city will fall and the—what does that say? The something will be restored?” I squinted at the mark I didn’t recognize in the last line. It was not a word, but a symbol of some kind.
“I do not know,” Marco said. “I have been in your country for nearly twenty years and still I cannot read your language well.”
“It’s not in our language.” Unlike Trade, or Talafan, or the various related wetlander tongues, written Sjon bore no relationship to spoken; the latter was the oral language spoken by modern Sjona’s tribal ancestors, the former the written language brought by refugees over the Howling Plains from Crede—including my great-great-however-many-times grandmother. The assimilation of the two peoples over time meant Sjona effectively had two entirely disconnected languages, one verbal and one written. And the symbol in that final sentence on the crumpled flag was not ours.
“Could it be a religious symbol of some kind, I wonder?” Its shape looked vaguely familiar, like something on a festival costume or a Darfri shrine. “Spirits, unfaithful … it does seem to fit.”
“What does that mean? Spirit killers? Murderers? What are they talking about?” Tain, rubbing his forehead, read the flag over and over. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Only then did I notice Marco’s silent, grim face, and my hand shook as it touched Jov’s shoulder to get his attention. He followed my gaze. “Marco?” my brother asked, his whole body going still even as mine shook harder. “What else?”
Marco dropped his gaze. “The flag was not the only message.” He picked up the dark cloth sack, still hanging heavy with unseen contents, and slowly held it out toward Tain. “Please … I know this is upsetting, Honored Chancellor, but I believe you need to see this.”
My lungs drained of air and my eyes burned, as Tain, stricken, opened the sack, the size and shape of which I abruptly and unwillingly recognized. He winced and looked away. Jovan took one quick glance, his face tightly controlled, and slowly met my gaze with a small shake of his head. I opened my mouth but nothing came out. My head spun.
“I’m afraid that no word will be reaching our own army,” Marco said quietly. “That is the second part of their message. They know we tried, and they are showing us that we failed. There were five other examples, Honored Chancellor.”
“The runners?” Tain whispered, and at Marco’s tense nod he pressed his hands into his face. I tried to swallow and found my throat too dry. Tain gestured sharply and Marco closed the sack, slipping it under the table again. Though hidden from my view, its dark presence still radiated like a baleful spirit. My head spun as the horror and enormity sank in. I couldn’t get my breath.
“They did this to all our runners?” Tain’s voice was a pale echo of its normal timbre, but as he spoke his words came out faster and faster. “Why? Why would they do something so monstrous? I think I’m going to be sick. They could have just captured them. Why would they do this? What am I going to say to their families?”
Everything seemed to be swirling around me in a very faint haze. Was I breathing? I couldn’t remember how to make my lungs work. What could Tain tell their families? He could not possibly show them these remains. Silastians might no longer be terribly observant of the old religion, but respect for our dead was something that bound us all together no matter what. To do … what had been done, was to dismember a person’s very essence so that they could not travel safely beyond. It was a deeply dishonorable, cruel act.
Jovan, still motionless, swallowed hard. He looked at Marco. “But who…?” His eyes trailed back to the grim sack. “I thought I recognized him, but that wasn’t one of our runners.”
Marco sighed. “He was one of our spies along the south border. I doubt you had met him, Credo, but the best spies have the most ordinary and familiar of faces. I have no involvement in our spy network, so I was as confused as you to find a stranger among our runners. The intelligence master identified him, though. He had failed to report in for some weeks. She suspects he may have learned of and infiltrated the rebellion but been discovered.” Marco inclined his head. “I chose the … what I just showed you, because I remembered that you knew some of the runners personally and I did not want you to see a familiar face.”
Jov squeezed my shoulder gently before answering. “Thank you. We appreciate that.” Oh, by the fortunes, he’d gotten there before me. If possible, everything grew darker still, and like Tain I suddenly wanted to vomit. Poor persistent, daft, likeable Edric, with his head in a bag somewhere. I couldn’t bear it. I tried to stand up and almost fell, but pulled away from Jovan when he tried to comfort me. I suddenly couldn’t handle the thought of anyone touching me. Tears blurred my vision. Without looking at anyone, I turned and fled.
Hazelnode
DESCRIPTION: Brown growth on rocks in particular conditions that hardens into glossy circular formations which can be removed and crushed into a toxic paste.
SYMPTOMS: Intense abdominal cramping, diarrhea, severe internal bleeding, eventual collapse and death.
PROOFING CUES: Taste is strongly metallic and lingering, smell faintly fishy.
5
Jovan
The news sucked what optimism we’d had away in one powerful stroke. Back to the beginning, only now we had fewer options, and less hope. Whenever I paused in any task, my brain tortured me with the faces of the runners we’d sent to their doom. They had died, alone and afraid, murdered by their own people in the most brutal, dishonorable way. Had it been my fault? Had I let them out too soon, or too late? Should we have opted for secrecy rather than distraction? We’d gambled, and they had paid for the mistake.
“We need to try again, sooner rather than later,” I told Tain. We waited in the Manor for Bradomir and Lazar, Tain still ashen but composed, me pacing and counting my steps in my head in equal sets of eight. Kalina hadn’t returned and though I worried for her, part of me was relieved. I had no words of comfort for her. “We can’t hold the city indefinitely, especially if they’re building siege weapons.”
Not to mention that there remained danger to Tain within the city. I patted my paluma, feeling the weight of my new purses disguised under the folds, and accessible through an unpicked slit. I’d diverted to our apartments and filled one with a selection of general antidotes and treatments, from simple charcoal and vinegar to zensu shell paste and river snake scale powder. The other now bore more dangerous fare: hazelnode powder, Malek’s acid, lavabulb seeds, and flare oil. Things I could use quickly in defense if necessary. At least one enemy was still in the city with us, and I’d not be caught without options, if it came to it. I wondered if my ancestors, back in more treacherous times, had carried such things with them as a matter of course.
I’d had to quiet the new worries this raised inside me. New situations called for new behaviors, I told myself, and if the core of our responsibility was to protect the Chancellor, was I not better to do so by more actively preventing harm from coming to him? After all, I was not proposing to use my tools like an assassin would, sneaking about to harm others in secret. I would just be providing one more kind of shield, one more layer to my duty. Duty and honor were everything. If I couldn’t meet my responsibilities, then what good was I to those I loved?