Starcrossed (4 page)

But we were city brats; neither of us had been able to imagine a life outside of Gerse. The spiraling streets, the crowded squares, the tumbledown buildings of the Seventh Circle — that was home in all its squalid glory. Tegen had always said we’d still be there when Marau sent his crows for us.

And he’d turned out to be right. I pressed my eyes closed, blinking away the vision of blood coating his beard, the last taste of his lips on my mouth.

Raffin skillfully steered the
Swan
into the queue of merchant vessels, liveried barges, and water transports ferrying citizens out of the city. As we waited, my companions fished about for their documentation — municipal papers or house seals that would allow them free passage past the gates, onto the King’s Waterway. I froze. What was I supposed to offer up — Chavel’s letters?

I grabbed Durrel’s arm. “My papers — I don’t have —”

Raffin turned his head back and grinned. “Peace, sweetling. I’ve got you covered.”

“This should be interesting,” Durrel said under his breath.

At the checkpoint, a young Greenman leaned out over the water for our passports. He barely looked at us, but I found myself studying his face for anything familiar. It had been dark and confused at Chavel’s, but I should recognize
something
; one of the Greenmen who’d grabbed me would have a swollen jaw, at least. If not a couple of missing teeth.

“What about her?” the guard said.

“She’s our spiritual advisor,” Raffin said. “Don’t you recognize the colors of the Divine Mother?”

Horrified, I glanced at him — then somehow heard my
own
voice saying, “Peace and plenty to you, brother. Praise Celys.”

“
She’s
a holy sister.” The guardsman’s voice was flat with disbelief. “Prove it.”

“My good man,” Raffin said, sounding affronted. “Surely you know the Daughters of Celys are not required to carry documentation when traveling abroad. The Divine Mother’s aura
is
her identification.”

“I don’t care if she’s the Matriarch at the Celystra. I still need her passage licenses.”

Next he’d be asking to see my earthstones and my lunaria. I thought frantically, scrambling for ideas — but apparently I’d drained my well of lies for one morning. Raffin was starting to get flustered. This scheme was moments from collapse.

And then, who should pipe to our rescue but . . .
Merista
?

“Oh, please,” she said, her soft voice pleading. “Can’t you see she’s just an Aspirant? They haven’t issued her robes yet, but she had to give up her papers when she joined the order. We’re taking her to visit her family before she takes her vows and enters the Celystra forever.”

Merista’s eyes were shining and sincere as she leaned toward the guard. I grabbed her lead. “Oh, sir, please — this may be the last time I ever see my . . . grandmother. She was so proud when I decided to take orders, but she’s been so frail lately —” I broke off as something sharp jammed into my foot.

“
Don’t overdo it
,” I heard Durrel’s faint murmur.

We must have looked ridiculous, the lot of us, smiling stupidly up at the guardsman, in our rumpled clothing, reeking of wine and flesh. But after one last suspicious glance, the Greenman handed back their papers, and I’m pretty sure I saw the glint of silver move from Raffin’s hand to his. I wondered if he’d bribed the guard with the money that he’d offered to me, or if he had just an endless supply of coins at the ready.

“Fine. Just see to it that she stays out of trouble.”

Raffin and Durrel hauled us past the gates and into open water. “My dear man,” Raffin murmured as we left the city behind, “I have no intention of it.”

We sailed in silence after that, as the broad highways and crowded river of Gerse gave way to farmland and open waters, leaving me to watch the endless water and reflect upon my own situation. And fortify myself a little for the journey ahead. Raffin Taradyce, at least, had a purse bulging with silver marks. He wouldn’t miss a few.

Had it been a wise move, throwing my lot in with these people? I was completely at their mercy. They’d been nice enough so far, but once they slept off the drink and came to their senses, who could tell what they were planning? All right, maybe they weren’t going to turn me over to Greenmen, but there were other dangers in the world. Raffin had picked me up for some reason, and I wanted to be ready when I figured out what that was.

I studied them. If I had to, I could probably take
one
of them out. But which one? I could summon the initiative to stab Phandre — but sweet, ner vous Merista? Durrel? I’d thought my days of defending myself that way were far behind me. But what happened to Tegen showed me how naive I’d been.

And even if the Pleasure Boat Four truly had no dark designs on me, what was I going to do once we reached this Favom Court?

As the sun rose higher, chasing off the moons, the fields and pastures were replaced by more and more trees. I had never seen such trees — vast, haunting things, stretched up into the heavens, reaching their branches over the water as if they would snatch me from the boat. Was this Celys’s land, then? In the chill air from the water, I shivered.

I couldn’t go back. With Tegen gone, and Hass missing, there wasn’t anyone in the city I trusted enough to take me in. My rooms, such as they were, had surely already been searched, if not planted with Greenmen lying in wait. How long would they look for the girl that had been with Tegen? Hass was connected; he knew people at all levels of society, from street scum like me, to men like Lord Taradyce. I had no illusions about who he’d side with, when pressed.

And —
be honest, Digger
— there was no reason to suspect Tegen hadn’t given me up.

They wouldn’t have killed him outright; that wasn’t the Greenmen’s way. Sometimes people just . . . disappeared. We all knew what that meant.

Dungeons.

Torture.

The Inquisition.

I pulled my knees into my chest and pressed my cheek to my skirts. I knew what could happen. I had always known it
could
happen, but that was worlds away from the men in green stepping out of the shadows and drawing their swords in your face, jamming their hands up your skirts as you twisted and screamed, kicked and bit —

I rubbed my wrist, where the short one almost had me. I’d have pulled hard enough to break my wrist, I think, if I’d needed to. I’d gotten a good kick in. Tegen could have that to remember, as they bent his beautiful fingers back, one by one, waiting for him to scream.

“What’s the matter?” said a soft voice beside me. Durrel.

I sniffed and lifted my head, hoping my face didn’t betray too much. “I think I’m just tired.”

He reached for my hand but recoiled as I snatched my arm back and pulled my sleeve down over the wound.

“You’re injured.” There were all kinds of questions in that brief sentence.

“It’s nothing. I — fell, going over the temple wall. On the roses.” I met his even gaze, willing him to ask me nothing else.

Finally his set jaw relaxed and he sat back. “You’re freezing. Here.” He pulled a damask robe from the bench and draped it around my shoulders. “Why don’t you rest a while? We won’t be at Favom for a few hours.”

I heard another sentence beneath the words:
Nothing can happen to you out here.

I wasn’t safe, but I was safe enough, for the moment. As I lay back into the bench, my head cradled on Durrel’s balled-up cloak, I wondered at him. Raffin Taradyce’s boat, but I was here at Durrel’s whim.

Before I could give that any more thought, I saw something in the distance and shot upright, my eyes locked on the shoreline.

“What — what is it?” Durrel frowned and turned his head to follow my gaze. “Gods,” he swore, and lunged for Merista.

“What are you doing?” she cried, but he held her tight, pressing her face into his shoulder.

“Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, don’t look,” he repeated over and over.

Phandre and Raffin had stirred as well, and were silent as we sailed past. There on the northern bank stood the Adonia Laia, one of the royal palaces that had been converted to gaols during Bardolph’s reign. But it wasn’t the golden sandstone towers or the glint of the famous colored-glass windows that had snagged my attention.

It was the row of spikes lined up before it, thrust into the earth like a grisly fence line. Eleven of the spikes bore the severed and rotting heads of those who’d died in the Inquisition, victims of Werne the Bloodletter. I could not stop myself from counting, from searching for . . . Some were bare skulls, bleached white in the sun; some still had ribbons of flesh and hair clinging to bone. Some were hideously recognizable, if they had been your friends or loved ones. All of them topped spikes hung with shredded violet banners — a warning to anyone who might even sympathize with those who followed the goddess Sar.

Not seeing Tegen didn’t make me feel any better. It only meant they hadn’t gotten him up there
yet
.

A little apart from the row of heads stood a gruesome scarecrow, something white and tattered fluttering in the breeze behind its broken body. I pressed a hand to my mouth, feeling sick. A magic user — or one so accused, flayed and put on display. Beheading was too good for anyone with the gall to claim mysterious powers from Sar.

Something caught me by the arm, and I jumped, my hand flying to my boot cuff. My fingers found — nothing. My ankle sheath was empty, and suddenly I felt naked. I must have lost the knife during the fight. I didn’t even remember drawing it.

The grip on my arm got my attention. It was Durrel, still clutching Merista. I read his message clear enough.
This
girl was important to him. So far, he had acted to protect me, but only so long as I was not a danger to anyone on board. If it came to a choice between Merista, or Raffin, or Phandre — and me . . . If it came to a confrontation with the Greenmen . . .

I nodded my understanding and dropped my hem, easing back against the cushioned seat.

“Gods, what a world we live in,” Raffin said.

“What was it?” Merista asked, rubbing her face as she sat up from Durrel’s crushing embrace. She looked us over and went sober. “Oh. Did we go through Traitors’ Pass?” There was nothing to see now except pallid blots against a wall of gold. “It’s so awful,” she said. “How can the Inquisition do that?”

“They’re savages,” Phandre said with surprising bitterness. “And you, Celyn Contrare, or whoever you are, had better be grateful you didn’t let those Little Daughters of Celys get their filthy hands on you!”

At long last, the wine and the sleepless night caught up with them and, one by one, my companions dozed off. I took swift advantage of the moment. It was easy enough lifting Raffin’s purse, even with Phandre draped all over him, but Phandre, oddly enough, wore no jewelry. Disappointing — I’d have enjoyed stripping her of some of those fine feathers.

I found myself reluctant to steal from Durrel, but Merista wore two long strands of silver necklaces, tucked deep into her bodice. One silver link was worth a week’s food, five could buy passage on a vessel sail ing to Talanca. As she slept on her cousin’s shoulder, I carefully worked the clasp and slid the chain free of her hair and dress, coiling it down my sleeve.

But as the silver snaked away, Merista’s pale skin seemed to give off a strange, ethereal light of its own. As she breathed, a wavering, misty haze swirled across her neck, lifted her dark hair with colorless luminescence, spun like dust motes across her bare cheek and plump fingers. I yanked my hand back like I’d been burned. The silver gone, it was as clear to me as moonslight in a dark room.

Merista Nemair had magic.

Marau’s
balls
.

Two thoughts bound themselves together in my mind: Did the others know? Did they
see
? The first was dangerous for Merista — but the second put
me
at risk. By some twisted humor of the gods, I’d been born with the cursed skill to see the Mark of Sar, wherever that goddess had touched — the faintest traces of magic, eddying swirls of power that were invisible to everyone else.
I
wasn’t Sar-touched; I had no magic of my own. But for whatever reason, for me, magic gave off a kind of glow, which lit up the user or the object like sunlight on water.