The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) (52 page)

Dasira raised a brow. 
You wouldn’t have talked to me like that before.  But then, you were afraid of Darilan.

No.  It’s not the skin that’s changed, it’s the situation.  We’re not enemies now.

I think.

Aloud, she said, “I don’t know.  All I can tell you is what I’d expect from experience, and right now I’d expect a Gold assault team.  Pikes, this town has a Light temple.”  She pointed out a six-winged spire in the distance, looming above the peaked roofs.  “Vriene said it has an Imperial garrison too.  So obviously there’s someone watching.  The question is if they understand what they see and have reported it.”

Lark bit her lip, gaze flicking to the spire then back to the building façades she had been scanning.  Most were thoroughly whitewashed but a few had red Trifolder marks on their doors and windowsills, and some others had black smudges like charcoal—Shadow Cult way-signs, Dasira guessed.  “We’ve been here for days.  If they’d noticed us, something would’ve happened by now.”

“
They noticed us the moment we came in.  You saw those guards at the wall.”

“
Fiora dealt with them.”

“
Maybe.”

“
At least Cob looked like himself while he was sleepwalking.  I remember how he used to look when the Guardian took over.  Heh.  There’d be no hiding that.”

Dasira’s mouth twisted into a near-smile.  Their first encounters with the Guardian had been at the same time, during the disastrous fight at the Shadow tavern.  She wondered if it had been as shocking for Lark as it had been for her.  Knowing intellectually what Cob was had not helped at all.

“I think he knows about you,” said Lark.

“
He does.”

“
What are you gonna do?”

“
I don’t know.  I’ll figure it out when he gets back.”

“
Hoi…we’re friends now, right?”

Dasira gave Lark an incredulous look, but the girl returned it soberly.  “I covered for you,” she said, ticking points off on her fingers.  “I helped you with the Corvish.  I lent you Rian’s aid, I shot people who were after you, I got Ilshenrir to take you along, I claimed you as Shadow Folk, I got the eiyets to not eat you, I—“

“You’ve been helpful.  I get it.”

“
Just listen.  You could’ve killed me in Bahlaer, or tortured me, or turned me over to the Imperials.  Made me give up my people.  Yes, you used that dagger on me, but it’s not like it hurt.  You could’ve actually bound me but you just tricked me.  You could’ve led me and the Corvish into a trap but you didn’t.  You opened up to me—I still don’t know why.  Maybe just because you were desperate.  But you never hurt me, and I know you’re a nasty piece of work but you’ve never turned that on any of us.  You climbed up the piking spire on your own because you knew you were the only one who could.  You’ve been willing to sacrifice yourself for Cob this entire time, as well as watch our backs and fight your own people.  So whether you agree or not, I think we’re friends.  All right?”

Dasira stared at her in silence.

“I’m asking this because I want you to know you can talk to me.  I mean, I listen when you complain about Fiora though I don’t really get it.  I’m not really sure what you see in Cob either.  But, y’know, if things are weighing on your mind, if you don’t know what to say yet…  I can be your audience.  You know I won’t laugh.”

“
Because you know better,” Dasira said flatly.

Lark grinned.  “I’m not a fool.”

Evidently not
, thought Dasira, and looked away.  There were so many things she knew she should say.  So much information, just as Lark suspected, that would help them on their trek to kill Morshoc.  But she could not bring the words to her lips.  They were too integral to what she had become—too personal, too close to this life she regretted having lived.

“
I’ll think about it,” she said.

“
That sounds like a no.”

“
Look, don’t pester me.  Just because I haven’t fed you your teeth yet doesn’t mean I won’t do it now.”

Lark smothered a laugh, and Dasira considered following up on her threat right there, but let it go.  It wasn’t worth the effort.

“Well, I suppose that’s your way,” said Lark.  “But if you don’t want to talk, mind if I do?”

“
Was that speechifying just a way to trick me into listening to you whine?”

“
I don’t whine—“

“
Oh no, it’s so cold, oh my legs hurt, oh the wilderness is awful, oh I’m hung over…”

“
I don’t whine!”

“
You said you wanted to know what I thought.”

“
Not about
me
.”

Dasira smirked.  That was familiar.  Almost like being in the Imperial court again.  “Well go on then.  I can’t exactly escape you.”

Lark put on a pout, then abruptly dropped it.  Still scanning the buildings’ façades, she began, “It’s about Bah-kai.  Or…about the Kheri in general, I suppose.  After Vriene tried to recruit me, I started thinking…”

“
Oh gods, don’t tell me you want to be a Trifolder.”

Scowling, Lark said, “Don’t be ridiculous.  They’d drive me crazy; I know that just from Fiora.  But sometimes I think Vriene is right—that I’m not suited to the Kheri.  Not that I know what else I’d do, since my major talent seems to be talking, but even within the organization, what are my options?  Cayer was training me to head the kai, but that’s just because I’m unblood and halfway educated.  It’s like he’s determined to spit in the eyes of the Regency.”

Dasira made a noncommittal sound.

“
And even as a kai leader, I could only do so much.  The Regency gives the orders and we carry them out.  Were it really a business, I’d push for some changes, like with the nonviolence edict.  It only matters for shadowbloods because the eiyets are always around them, so the unblooded troops should be allowed to fight the Empire where and when and how they can.  But since it’s—I hate to say this—more a faith than anything, we’re all bound by its laws, down to the last little detail.  Do you know how easy it would have been to clear you—  Clear the Crimsons out of Bahlaer when they came looking for Cob?”

“
I know you opened some kind of door to the Hungry Dark.”

Lark grimaced.  “Eiyenbridge left active too long.  Nobody wanted that.”

“Right.”

“
I’m serious.  If the mage hadn’t come along, it would’ve eaten us all.  Strange to say but I’m happy the Crimsons won that one.”

Glancing up at her sidelong, Dasira said, “So what, you want to quit?”

Shaking her head, Lark said, “I don't know.  But I think I’m being forced out.”

“
Why?”

“
They won’t let me go back to Bah-kai; they just keep telling me to observe, report—first Cob when I was with you, then the Corvish, now probably they'll insist on Cob again.  I'm not a field agent!  I went to the Corvish to be a liaison but then suddenly there was a war!”

Arching her brows, Dasira said, “So?”

“So I’m the second-in-command of Bah-kai!  I should be with Cayer, not here!”

“
And who would replace you?”

“
A ‘blood, that’s the problem.  Cayer’s been filling all the Bah-kai leadership posts with unbloods; it’s just a matter of time before the Regency gets sick of it and—“

“
I mean here.  With us.”

Lark stopped and blinked at her for a moment, dark face carved with confusion.  “I don’t know, someone used to this kind of thing.”

“Like who?”

“
A fighter, a survivalist or something.”

“
Why?”

“
Because we’re fighting!”

“
Are we?” said Dasira, folding her arms loosely.  In her old body, this position would have put her fingertips on Serindas’ hilt, but her current situation required the blade hidden, so instead of tapping her fingers there, she tapped them on her belt.  “I stabbed a few wraiths, yes.  And there were Gold soldiers getting in our way.  But our job isn’t to fight, it’s to get that idiot to wherever he thinks he needs to go so he can be free.  Whether that needs blades, or bribes, or magic, or—what was that you said?  Talking?”

Lark made a face.  “I’m not here as Cob’s advocate.”

“You’re a liaison, aren’t you?  With the goblin.  To the Corvish.  To the Guardian.”

“
But—“

“
Who else could have convinced Cob to step into the mist and trust a wraith?”

“
I didn’t convince him, I just offered—“

“
He knew you.  Pikes, I knew you.  It’s why I didn’t keep trying to stab you in the face.  Like it or not, we need you here because you’re familiar, you’re…a friend; there’s no way a strange Kheri could replace you.  I assume your people know that.”

“
If they did, they could’ve said as much,” Lark grumbled, looking down at the cobbles.  She had her layers wrapped tight around her, fingers clenching and unclenching on the fabric.  “I know it was important at the start, and I told myself it was good experience, but Shadow’s Heart, I feel so pointless here.”

“
Don’t make me slap you.”

“
I do!  You all have—“

“
Eiyenbridge away from the spire.”

Lark gave Dasira a recalcitrant look, but shut her mouth.

Exhaling through her teeth, Dasira turned forward and resumed walking.  “Don’t expect me to puff up your ego,” she said as she heard the girl fall in beside her.  “Yes, you could do more, and you could certainly whine less.  Like now.  But if you’re looking for an excuse to flee back to your safe little headquarters, I’m not gonna give you one.”

“
Cayer—“

“
Do you really think the Kheri are plotting against you?  Because if so, why are we going to meet with them?”

“…
Well, we need supplies.  …And I had this idea.  Remember how in that town where we found you, you were going on about the blonds?”

Dasira allowed herself the margin of a smile.  That speculative tone boded well.  “Mm.”

“I don’t know that much about the Empire, but I’m aware that I’m basically waving a big ‘foreigner’ banner just by having my face.  So I was thinking about options.  Disguises, makeup, magic, there are all sorts of ways, but without knowing what we’re doing beyond ‘invading the Palace’, it’s hard to plan.”

“
Mhm.”

“
Then I thought about your trick.  With the ribbons, remember?  There was actual magic in them, though it wasn’t what you said.  But since I had no experience with mages or magic, how could I tell?  All it had to do was look and act like some kind of life-binding and I’d believe it because it was too dangerous to test.  So I—  Oh, hoi, here we are.”

Dasira restrained her reflexes as Lark grabbed her by the sleeve and tugged her toward a storefront.  They had progressed past the residential and home-and-shop districts and were now among buildings with workyards in the back—the bigger, less pleasant operations near the northern outskirts.  Tanneries, chandlers, soap-makers; beyond them the slaughter-yard, hog pens, nightsoil beds.  The temperature minimized the smell, but even blunted by the Trifolder influence, Dasira’s senses were full of the reek of animal and filth and lye.  Shrubs grew thick between the buildings, probably planted for their fragrance but skeletal now.  In the distance, a boar bellowed and its sows chorused their deep replies.

Lark pulled her up the porch of the chandler’s shop, with its sign of crossed candles and odd black smudges.  Tarp-covered crates crowded the steps.  “You’re coming in, right?” she said as she raised her hand to knock on the door.

Dasira shrugged.

The Shadow girl made a face, then straightened at the sound of a bar being withdrawn from the door.  It cracked open, and Dasira made a point to stay a few steps back and watch the street as Lark and the occupant exchanged cryptic phrases.  Grey darkness had settled fully over the town, and in the few pools of light cast by open shutters, she saw no movement.

“
Hoi,” called a man’s voice finally, and she looked up.

The Kheri in the doorway was heavyset, Amand-ruddy, but with shadowblood marks on his cheeks and jaw, half-hidden by his beard.  His eyes were dull black, his shoulders broadened by the studded leather gear he wore.  Though his expression was locked in doubt, he beckoned to her.  “She says you’ve paid in blood and gold.  Guess you can come in for now.”

Dasira quirked a brow at Lark, but the girl was already slipping inside.  She followed to find a tiny shop area—hardly more than a counter and a few candle-racks—with a door at the back that led into storage.  The smell of tallow and wax was so thick as to be a miasma, but among the stacked crates and tubs and drying racks was a short table and a handful of chairs.  A lantern sat in the middle, the eye-shaped slots cut into its shade casting a shifting pattern on the walls.