PROOFING CUES: In high quantities burning sensation in mouth is obvious and the smell rancid and pungent.
6
Kalina
When I finally burst into the hospital, it was barely recognizable. Pallets filled the cool, spacious entrance hall, physics and assistants threading between them in moving lines like great serpents. People bustled past and I tried to dodge but ended up jostled, always in someone’s way. I backed up against a wall to escape the chaotic mass for a moment, trying to see through the crowd.
“Lini?”
Tain slipped through the crush, people flowing around him effortlessly, and as he put his hands on my shoulders I grabbed one, relieved. “Have you seen Jov? Someone said he was here, but I can’t find him.”
He squeezed my hand, brushing my disheveled curls off my face. “He’s all right,” he said. “Jov’s all right.”
My breath fell out, relief drenching me like a sudden shower. “Where is he? How badly was he hurt?”
I was looking right at Tain, our faces close, and I knew his tells as well as my brother’s; the tiny glance to the side, licking his lips before he spoke. Though his words were reassuring—Jov was not badly hurt, no permanent damage—he was hiding something.
“We broke the rest of the ladders after that,” he finished. “And we got Jov to the hospital straight away. Thendra says he’s going to be all right.” He smiled wanly. “Come on, I’ll take you to him.”
He held my hand across the room and the noisy path gave me no space to speculate further about what was wrong. Once I saw Jovan, it no longer mattered. I dropped Tain’s hand and ran to my brother.
Jovan sat on a stretcher pallet, his head bowed so his hair fell over his eyes, his legs crossed, while the physic Thendra stitched a wound on his right shoulder. Purplish black shadows and zigzags of blood and dirt dappled his entire torso. At my approach, he looked up.
“Thank the fortunes,” he said. “You stayed away from the fighting.”
“You were worried about me?” My laugh caught in my throat. “Tain said you fell off the wall. Thank the fortunes you’re alive, you clumsy oaf.”
I perched next to him, taking his hands. His tight smile turned to a grimace as the physic pulled together ragged pieces of skin. “Thank Tain and Marco,” he said. “They’re the ones who rescued me.”
It was only then I realized Tain hadn’t followed me.
“Hold still,” I murmured as the physic worked her way down the wound. An ugly, jagged gash began with a burst of torn flesh a handspan below his shoulder and traced around to finish under the point of the joint like macabre bloody jewelry. I felt sick looking at it. Jovan’s face was drawn and his eyes unfocused, signaling that he had retreated into his mental space to try to stay calm. His whole body thrummed with tension as he suppressed whatever compulsion plagued him. I cleaned the blanket of grime, blood, and sweat from my brother’s arms with damp linen.
Thendra tied off the end of her stitching, neat and precise. “How many people got hurt?” I asked, trying to avoid looking at the ruin of my brother’s shoulder.
“I do not know for certain,” Thendra said. She rubbed the heel of her hand over her tired eyes. “At least two dozen dead, perhaps more.” She gestured to the far corner of the room. I followed her arm and winced at the sight of the covered, still figures, laid out on the floor together like dolls.
“They were ferocious,” Jovan murmured, scrutinizing the newly puckered flesh on his arm with dispassion, a look reminiscent of Etan. “Even with the ladders, I didn’t think they’d do much damage—we should have been able to hold them off. But they fight like…” He blinked, and his face turned thoughtful. “Like it’s more important than anything. When I was down there, they wanted to kill me. They hate us, and they’ll give us no peace, just like they said. They called me spirit killer and heretic. It’s religion driving this, I think, but I don’t understand why.”
I felt a strange sensation deep inside me, like an ancient but familiar wound. Religion had been part of what drove many of our ancestors to flee here centuries ago. That group of misfits and, yes, rebels had escaped a brutal religious state and sought refuge here. Doubtless those old fears had created a certain reluctance by some to mix the governance of a country with its spirituality, and perhaps led the gradual move away from religious practices in the cities over time. But Silasta had so much to offer. Designed as a testament against the worst civilization had to offer—violence, oppression, cruelty, and ignorance—it stood as a beacon of peace, learning, and grace. Perhaps the city had few temples and shrines, but a lack of shared belief couldn’t justify a violent rebellion. We were still the same people, and how could our supposed heresy harm believers out on the estates?
Jov drew his left leg up and rubbed the bottom of his shin as though it pained him, though I saw no wound. “There’s something more. Something … something happened down there. I can’t really…” He trailed off, tone turning embarrassed. “No, it’s nothing.”
“There,” the physic said, daubing the stitching with a pale ointment. “If the flesh turns red and hot, you must come back, yes?”
Jovan thanked her and stood gingerly. “Where’s Tain, do you know?”
I helped refasten the cording on his paluma, which had been pulled down to expose his shoulder. “There.” I pointed to a familiar dark, curly head by the main doorway. We wound through the throng, trying to block out the heartrending cries and moans from all around.
Tain was comforting a sobbing young man beside a woman’s body. Long corkscrew ringlets obscured her face and chest, but left exposed the ragged hole in her belly. Perhaps his mother, or aunt? His grief was infectious. My own breath hitched in my throat and my eyes burned. Etan would never comfort us again, or offer us wisdom. All we had was each other, and I could have lost Jov today.
Outside the hospital, the evening lay heavy around us, moonlight skimming the thick shadows. We sat on a bench by the canal in silence, listening to the lap lap of the water and the sigh of the breeze in the bushes. Tain’s posture was rigid and he avoided looking at Jovan.
“Honored Chancellor,” someone said, and we looked up. A boy wearing a messenger’s sash and carrying a bottle and a cloth parcel, hopped from foot to foot. His hair stuck up in the middle of his head like a little crest. He looked vaguely familiar—possibly a child of one of the Families, though he was only ten or twelve, too young for identifying tattoos. “Credo Marco asked if you could come to the Warrior Guildhall when you are available.”
“Thanks, Erel,” Tain said. “Did he say what it was about?”
“Yes, Chancellor. It was to do with the deserters, he said.”
“Deserters?” Jov asked, frowning. “We’re in a siege! Where can anyone desert to?”
“Marco’s trying to work out what to do with people who aren’t showing up to their sectors for their duties. I imagine he’s worried about how many people didn’t respond to the call today. He’s calling them deserters, for want of a more appropriate word.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.