Tollan crumpled onto the bed, as if his spine had all but gone out of him. “While I was away, my brother was … he got married. She was a foreign visitor—a princess. A Vagan princess. It seems my brother and Princess Elsha fell madly, deeply in love within just weeks of her arrival and refused to be separated. She’s been living in the palace, ever since.”
“Are you suggesting she’s a mage woman? Do you think he’s somehow magically compelled to be with her?” She shook her head and spat as if dispelling a foul taste. “If it’s mage work, then there isn’t a damned thing you could have done,” Gemma said soberly. She moved toward Tollan—almost as if she meant to comfort him—but she stopped short, her mouth twisted downward. “And if you hadn’t been sent away, then you’d probably be the one married to the Vagan princess.”
Tollan stared at her. As much as Wince could see he wanted to deny it, Tollan knew she spoke the truth. If he hadn’t been away, he’d have succumbed to his father’s will, or to Elsha’s. Wince barely heard Tollan as he said, “When I returned, six weeks ago, she and Iven had already married. Uri was in the ground. Everything was different, except … except my father. He was the same.”
Wince couldn’t listen anymore. He couldn’t let the conversation continue to dwell in the depths of the pit he only allowed himself to fall into when he was alone and drunk. “We need to know more,” he blurted. “We don’t know shit about magery or about the Vagans. Both halves of Yigris strut around pleased as prick that they’ve got a secret pact. We closed what was left of our borders for a hundred years, pretending we could banish anyone who wields the kind of power that the mages do, and then”—he rubbed his hands together—“we forgot about the whole damned mess.”
“How did the king’s mage women seem?” Gemma asked Tollan. “Have you noticed any increase in hostilities?”
Tollan chuckled bitterly. “You’ve not actually met a mage woman, have you?”
She shook her head. “I mean, I saw the one who was with you …”
“The mage women haven’t spoken since the war, since they were signed over as part of the truce. They are silent, emotionless servants to the crown.”
“Signed over? I thought they chose to stay.” Her eyes grew hard. “Do you think they see themselves as servants to the crown, Tollan?” she asked. “Because they sound like slaves to me. You noblemen do love to keep your women prisoner, don’t you?”
Tollan opened his mouth then closed it again.
“So what do we do?” Wince asked, thankful to the goddess that the conversation had swerved far away from his grief. “Can we talk to them? Can we set them free?”
“Prick that,” Tollan growled.
Gemma’s gaze cut hard and fast at Tollan as she snapped, “Goddess-damn you, with your prickling morality and your noses turned so far up to the sky that you trip over your own feet. Aegos! Wince’s smallclothes were so twisted about who I let stick what where, in my body, that he could barely speak, but keeping people locked up against their will, using them and …” Gemma spat on the floor again. “And you bastards have the balls to call us evil.”
Wince felt color rise to his cheeks. She didn’t have to be quite so descriptive.
“The mage women might have murdered my father,” Tollan grunted.
“They might have murdered Melnora, too,” she barked, and Wince saw, without a doubt, just how dangerous Gemma could be. “I imagine that you’d also be ready to kill someone if you’d been chattel for a century.” Her hand rested on the hilt of her knife. “What the Void am I supposed to do about …”
A small bell tied to a velvet rope that ran across the ceiling and down the wall rang softly and all three of them jumped.
“Aegos,” Wince said. He drew his sword and turned to Gemma. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” she said, pulling the key from beneath her shirt and heading for the door.
Wince stood next to the door as Gemma opened it. The prayer keeper, Brother Elam, stood in the hallway, his face pale and his shirt blood spattered. His glasses were askew, and it looked like he’d been crying. “Gemma, hurry,” he said as soon as he saw her.
Gemma followed him at a dead run, leaving Wince and Tollan to hurry behind.
By the time Wince and Tollan caught up with Gemma, she was in the hospit on her knees beside a low cot. A large man, bald with smooth skin was spread out, his feet hanging off the end.
Tollan wore an expression of bewilderment, so Wince whispered to him, “Aw, Aegos. Fin the Fish.”
Understanding settled on his friend’s features.
“Oh, no … no … no.” Gemma moaned, clutching at Fin’s hand. There was blood everywhere, as if he’d been gutted like his namesake, and when he tried to speak he coughed more onto her face.
“Shhh,” she said, squeezing his hand and leaning into him. She kissed his cheek and whispered into his ear, but he kept struggling, fighting to talk.
“It’s going to be all right,” she said, smoothing hair that wasn’t there and caressing his cheek. “The priests will fix you up, and you’ll be good as new.” Her tears fell on his face, and he opened his mouth to form words but no sound came.
“Fin, I don’t know what you’re trying to say.” She sobbed.
He coughed once and thick, dark blood bubbled from between his lips. He hacked out a single word.
“Dev.”
She stopped moving for a heartbeat, then stood up. “I have to go. Fin, if he needs me, I have to go. Is he hurt? Is he … dead?” There was a tremor in her voice.
Fin shook his head—or at least Wince thought he did—it was difficult to tell because at the same moment a shudder ran through the Balklander and his breathing stilled.
Gemma’s knife was in her hand. “I’m going to gut whoever did this, Elam,” she snarled. “I’m going to cut them from carotid to cock, I prickling swear it.”
Elam squeezed her shoulder, leaving a bloody handprint on her shirt, then looked at Fin. The prayer keeper’s eyes brimmed with tears. He snapped his fingers twice, and though Wince didn’t understand it, something about that made Gemma stand straighter.
Gemma took a moment longer to turn back toward the gurney where Fin’s body rested. Though the Balklander had been bigger than any man she knew, he’d had a kind heart and a gentle tongue. Even when he’d punished her as a girl, he’d always hugged her after. In many ways Gemma believed that she had grown to be the woman she was because of Fin the Fish’s guiding hand—a hand that now swung lifeless off the edge of the cot, fingers covered in blood.
Elam sagged to the floor and sobbed raggedly. “I wasn’t ready to say goodbye,” he choked, and Gemma reached down to wrap him in her arms.
The other prayer keepers gave them a wide berth. Though the church was officially a branch of the Guild, it was rare for one of their ranks to have come from Under. Most of those within the walls of Canticle Center had been sent there by their merchant fathers and stayed, having found the voice of the goddess a willing mistress. Elam was an oddity, so it was no surprise that no one else in the Heart cared about the man Fin had been. Elam swallowed a choking sob and wiped his face on his tunic, staining the silk with his tears.
A young woman wearing the light-brown robes of a prayer keeper in training approached them, eyes wide with fear. “Brother Elam. Regency,” she said, bowing respectfully. “There may be a fire. Father Mahpir has ordered the immediate evacuation of Canticle Center.”
Other novice prayer keepers rushed into the hospit from the Slit, carrying out patients and gathering supplies. Elam looked down at Fin’s body, but Gemma turned her back to it. It was said that the kings of old used to be burned on great funeral pyres and sent to the goddess with all of their wealth, and if ever she had known a king of men, it was Fin. Elam leaned down, closed the Balklander’s empty eyes and kissed his forehead. “May Aegos welcome you with open arms and legs, my friend. Give Melnora my love, and send us any luck you can spare. I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”