Brightly Woven (5 page)

North held up his hands in surrender, and we spent the next few hours in silence, with only the sound of the bugs in the tall grass and the dim lights of a distant city to guide us.
The moon was under a cover of clouds, which didn’t make navigating through the fields any easier.

With my eyes on the city ahead, I didn’t see the hole at my feet. I did, however, feel it as my body careened forward and the ground rushed up to meet me. My chin came down hard against the ground as my fall knocked the air from my lungs. I wasn’t sure how long I was on the ground, but I couldn’t pull myself back up, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

North’s heavy boots came shuffling toward me.

“Don’t,” I protested weakly.

His hands lifted me to my knees and released me just as quickly. He removed the bag from my shoulders and placed it over his own. I felt better immediately, but it didn’t stop the hot tears that spilled onto my cheeks all the way to Dellark.

Somewhere amid all his ramblings, North had mentioned that Dellark was a major port on the river. I saw several wooden ships, but mainly I saw bridges, dozens of them, maybe even hundreds. The bridges over the river were wood, rising and falling with the passing ships. Those that rose over the streams branching from the river were smaller, built from the same old gray stone as the buildings. It was an intricate network—a maze, truly.

Above us, the purple banners of Palmarta were flapping in the evening’s breeze. North and I crossed two of the larger
bridges before I stopped outside a grim-looking tavern. The sign hanging above it had rotted to the point that the wording on it was indecipherable…but I had to stop. If I moved one more step, I was sure I would collapse.

“I have a little money if you want to sleep inside tonight…,” he began.

“Here,” I said.

“Fine.” North pushed the door open, his dark hair hiding his face. He looked filthy, but I probably looked worse. It only made me despise him more.

North dropped our bags down at the only free table and headed straight for the large blond man behind the bar. I dropped down into my chair and rested my head against the table. There wasn’t a part of me that didn’t throb with exhaustion. Barely able to keep my eyes open, I hardly noticed the uproar of laughter and song. On the wall opposite me were two portraits, one of the king when he was still young and beautiful, and the other of the fair-haired, blue-eyed Queen Eglantine.

My eyes drifted shut against my will, but I couldn’t slip into sleep. The smell of a pipe from across the room instantly recalled dinners at Henry’s house, his father puffing rings of smoke to amuse the twins. Was it possible…?

I brought my head up to see where the smoke was coming from, looking past North at the bar, around the animal heads and dead fish mounted on the walls to a far, dark corner. The man smoking the pipe wore a pale overcoat and a hat that
covered his eyes. It wasn’t Henry’s father—of course not—it was just my stupid mind playing tricks. As if sensing my gaze, the man leaned forward in his seat and gave me a slight nod. For a moment, it looked as though he would stand.

A plate slammed down in front of me. I glanced at the shreds of meat and pile of vegetables and pushed the plate away.

“This is all he had left for the night,” North said, settling across the table. “Sorry it’s not much.”

He had his own plate, strangely less full than mine, and two pints, both for him, I realized. He downed one in a single swig and reached for the next.

“You know,” he continued, “I get that you’re angry. I know you don’t want to be here with me, but you not eating isn’t punishing me. You can starve yourself all you want, but it won’t do anything other than slow us down.”

“Why did you bring me, then, if you knew I was only going to hold you back?” I asked.

North glanced up at the ceiling.

“Tell me,” I said, leaning back in my chair.

“I don’t know. Perhaps I thought that burning hatred in your eyes would give way to some faster walking?” North stood up to refill his pints. “I just wanted a lovely assistant?”

“Don’t you mean slave?” I called after him.

He glanced over his shoulder. “Assistant, though, if you’d prefer…”

He was right not to finish that thought.

I waited until his back was to me before I looked down at my plate again, my heart fighting with my stomach. I would eat it, I thought, but only because I needed to be strong enough to keep going tomorrow. We still had an entire country to cross.

Looking up to make sure he wasn’t watching, I brought a spoonful of vegetables to my mouth and didn’t stop eating until the plate had been cleared. And even then, I was still hungry.

North had had only four pints, or at least four pints that I had seen, when he lurched forward in his seat.

“Syyyyd,” he whined. I turned my head away sharply, disgust settling in my stomach like a rock. The man in the pale overcoat was still there, hours later. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, trying to dodge his gaze.

An hour later, the tavern still throbbed with life and offkey ballads, but my head just throbbed in pain. And North? He was singing at the top of his lungs in the midst of them all. His usually deep and melodic voice was hoarse by the time he collapsed back into his seat. Another man sent an appreciative pint his way, which I promptly poured out at his feet.

It was like watching a man transform into some kind of beast, I thought. North’s unshaven face, usually lit with a
carefree ease and an uneven grin, had taken on a pinched expression. The dark eyes that I once had thought kind, even intelligent, were glassy and framed with red. The sharp angles of his high cheekbones flushed pink with fits of laughter, which rang out loudly and unevenly over the deafening clamor.

“Syd, Syd, Syd,” he said, shaking his head.

“What?” I asked flatly. “Can we go up to our rooms yet?”

“Rooms!” He laughed. “What makes you think I got more than one? I’m not a money bag, you know.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. “That is
completely
inappropriate! It’s—It’s not proper, but apparently
you
wouldn’t know that. You wouldn’t know a moral if it slapped you in the face.”

North leaned back in his chair, whispering conspiratorially to the man sitting behind him. “Not proper, she says. After everything we’ve been through!”

The other man shook his head, as if he had been privy to our entire story. “You’ve caught yourself a cold fish, my friend,” he said, and the other men and women at his table laughed.

North rocked forward in his chair again, narrowly missing my foot. He leaned—fell, really—across the table, reaching for my hands. I snatched them away immediately. The heat was rising in my face, no matter how many steadying breaths I took. I could hear my father’s voice in the back of my mind, whispering an old proverb.
Of all things in life, forgiveness is
the most difficult. If we can forgive, we can let go of the insidious anger that moves our souls to grief
.

It was the most difficult—too difficult.

“Give me the key,” I said. “I’ll go upstairs by myself.” All I really wanted to do was weave myself into a mood that resembled calm. North dug around in his pockets for the key.

He waved the thing through the air with great fanfare and ceremony before placing it in my hand. I closed my fist around it, wondering if I could lock him out.

“If you want, Syd, you can share my…my…” North’s voice trailed off.

I kicked my chair out of the way, pushing through the crowd toward the stairs.

“Syd!” he called, and everyone else quieted down. “Syd, I was going to let you have the bed!”

The woman to the left of me laughed so hard she was practically sobbing into her pint. I knocked into the next man, nearly taking him down to the floor. I couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“I hope you choke on your tongue, you miserable human being!”

“Wizard,” I heard him correct me weakly. “I…am…a wizard!”

“Some wizard you are!” I whirled back around. “How about using some of your magic to sober your sorry, drunken self up? And stop calling me Syd!”

I stormed up the staircase, ready to slam our door shut
against the tavern’s laughter and North’s infuriating smile. My hand was tight on the railing, my eyes firmly on the trail of muddy footprints leading to the upstairs hall. The suffocating heat and movement of the tavern was behind me, but its smell was inescapable.

The single window in the hallway was propped open by a thin book. I went toward it and forced the stubborn wood frame open the rest of the way. When it finally gave, a rush of cool air was my reward.

I stuck my head out into the night, and for one peaceful moment, I just breathed. We hadn’t stopped moving since leaving Cliffton, save for the few hours each night I could convince the wizard I needed to sleep. He was always talking, always moving, never stopping.

At this time of night, the bridges of Dellark were haunting but not frightening. Every now and then a couple would cross a bridge, laughing, so wrapped up in each other’s company they didn’t notice the full moon’s reflection in the dark water. Its face hovered there among the stars until a breeze came along and smeared them all away.

I leaned back, retreating into the warmth. The stars weren’t nearly as bright as they were in Cliffton, though I could make out each constellation. Astraea the magic giver, Salvala the sword bearer…

I barely noticed the tap on my shoulder, but it was impossible to ignore the full, flushed face of the man who had appeared behind me.

“Has anyone ever told you your hair is the color of Astraea’s?”

He was almost as short as I was, with hair that was unnaturally blond, almost tinged with orange. He wore a light blue velvet coat, and a greasy smile lit his face.

I took a step away.

“Yes…,” I said.

“A golden shade of red,” he mused. “The hair of our goddess, but the color Auster chose for their uniforms and flags. It’s all a bit ironic, don’t you think?”

“Not really,” I said. “Salvala is Astraea’s sister. They have the same coloring.”

A young man, no older than myself, appeared behind the man in the blue coat. He looked like Billy Porter, Henry’s cousin, and the thought wrenched my gut.

“What have I told you about keeping up?” the man asked pleasantly enough.

“Sorry, Mr. Genet,” the boy said.

Mr. Genet leaned over and muttered, “George is just my assistant; ignore him if you like.”

“You’re”—I thought quickly—“a wizard?” North had been so warm and I had thought the same would be true for all wizards, but it wasn’t as easy to identify them as I had thought.

“One of a few in the city, but the best of these parts—number one hundred twenty-two.”

“One hundred twenty-two?” I asked helplessly.

Genet let out a delighted laugh. “What a simple girl you are! That’s my rank in wizarding society. Out of over four hundred wizards, I am the one hundred and twenty-second most powerful. It’s quite an accomplishment, you know. My magister, the great Alfred Ollman, fell over himself to accept my application for training when he recognized what a child prodigy I was.”

I nodded, trying to move past him, but he blocked my path.

“You’re a special one, aren’t you?” he asked. “It took me a moment to realize it, but I felt it the moment I came out of my room. Join me for a drink downstairs?”

Genet must have misinterpreted my stare of open horror for awe, because my hand was suddenly in his, pressed to his droopy—and drooling—lower lip. I ripped it away.

“Sir!” I said. “Please!”

He reached for me again, catching my arm and pulling me back so hard I let out a shriek. His assistant took my other arm, and it was a long struggle among the three of us down the hall. I dug my feet into the wood and clawed at their arms, but once we reached the narrow stairs, I was wedged between Genet’s protruding stomach and his assistant’s sharp elbows.

I did it without thinking, though the moment my teeth bit down on Genet’s arm I regretted it. He let out an awful shriek of pain, pushing me down the last few steps and back into the tavern. I landed hard on my knees, knocking into the feet of two tavern patrons.