“You don’t know that,” the kid said, adjusting the tube packed with arrows that was slung over his back.
He had twenty, maybe twenty-five in there—a bristling bouquet of white, black, and gray feathers. The other archers had a similar number. Moya remembered how she had fought a demon with only six, back when arrows had stone tips, and arrow meant a tiny spear with a row of markings. Now everyone had unmarked iron-headed shafts with three feathers placed to align properly with the notched end, and no one had any idea where the term arrow came from. Maybe one day if someone else learned to read Brin’s writing, they would know.
Out across the ford, she could see the Fhrey army. Such straight lines.
“Don’t let fly until I tell you,” she shouted, and the order was repeated up and down the line. “Wait for my signal.”
“How’s Brin?” Tesh asked.
“You know, if you weren’t here with me, you could go up to the Kype and ask her yourself.”
“But then I wouldn’t be able to kill elves.”
Moya bent her bow, hooked the loop of the bowstring, then looked over at the kid. “You hate them, don’t you?”
“Don’t you? They slaughtered my family, my whole village, the entire clan. I just want to return the favor.”
“We live with them, you know. I’m even—sort of—with one.” She didn’t know how else to put it. “Don’t repeat that, by the way—not even to him.”
“Tekchin?”
“Yeah, the ugly one.” She tested the weight of the draw. “Not all of them are bad.”
She caught a glimpse from Tesh that wasn’t the look of a child. Too cold, too hard, too ruthless to be the eyes of innocence.
“C’mon, even you have to agree with that—you saved Nyphron’s life.”
That look again. He wiped it away and didn’t answer, but in his eyes, she spotted something he sought to hide, something dark—an awful, pitiless hunger that had no place in the face of a man much less a boy. For that brief instant, Moya was reminded of the raow. They all had the same famished look, and for the first time, Moya felt frightened of this barely ex-child whom she’d taught to kill from a distance.
She was still staring at him when the world began to shake.
* * *
—
They had Suri on the cot, a blanket pulled up to her neck. Padera listened to the mystic’s heartbeat while willow bark stewed on the furnace. At first, it was just Roan and Padera. The little men waited outside with the rest but came back in when Roan asked them to stoke the fire. Tressa came with them. She was the one who had filled the bucket with water for boiling the bark.
Roan had grown up three houses away from Tressa. Her primary memory of the woman was the parties held at Tressa’s home; at least they sounded like parties. She had listened to singing and laughter late into the night and would lie awake imagining what it might be like to laugh like that. Roan was never invited. Tressa hadn’t been the sort to mingle with the slave of a woodcarver the way Moya, Padera, Brin, or Gifford had. Roan always wondered why—not why Tressa had refused to acknowledge her existence, but why Moya, Padera, Brin, and Gifford hadn’t.
Everyone hated Tressa because her husband, in his ambition to become chieftain, had killed Reglan, and he’d tried to kill Persephone, too. Tressa had steadfastly denied knowing about her husband’s plans, but no one believed her. Moya despised Tressa. Brin hated her, too, and as a result, Roan felt she should as well; but she didn’t. Roan understood what it was like to be the outcast, to be the one who didn’t count. As a result, Roan smiled even while Padera scowled at Tressa.
Tressa drew back. “What are you grinning at?”
“Thank you for the water.”
“I didn’t bring it for you. I brought it for her.” Tressa pointed at Suri.
“Since when do you do anything for anyone other than yourself?” Padera asked.
“Why do you care? Needed the water, right? Need it to make your witch’s brew, so there, you got it.”
“Fine,” Padera said. “Now leave.”
Tressa frowned and turned toward the door.
“She doesn’t have to go,” Roan said.
“She doesn’t have to stay, either.” Padera rinsed a folded cloth in the bucket.
“This is my smithy.” Roan spoke with unaccustomed firmness.
This brought a sidelong squint from Padera and an incredulous look from Tressa.
“This isn’t your smithy,” Tressa said. “All of this belongs to the Fhrey.”
“Which right now belongs to Persephone.” Padera placed the cloth on Suri’s forehead. “You remember Persephone, don’t you, Tressa? The one you and your husband—”
“I don’t care whose smithy it is,” Roan said in a raised voice. “She! Can! Stay!”
Padera and Tressa and even the three dwarfs looked over, surprised.