She did that a lot.
Brin first started writing about growing up in Dahl Rhen, focusing on her parents. Then she jumped forward to the trip Persephone led to Neith. She went to great literary effort to eviscerate Gronbach the dwarf, recording his treachery as legendary, the very definition of evil. Then, Brin jumped even further ahead and wrote about life in Alon Rhist. Fhrey and Rhunes mingled about as well as fire and ice, or Gula and Rhulyn, who also had problems coexisting. A number of outbursts had resulted in some deaths. Persephone decided to segregate the tribes before riots broke out. The cold weather helped to cool tempers, but both were warming up again.
Since sleep wasn’t an option, she thought she’d do some writing, but before starting, she decided to reread the section where the Gilarabrywn ate the raow, her favorite part. The night was cold, and she grabbed a blanket from her bed and was searching for a lamp when she heard voices coming from the street below.
Who is out chatting in the middle of a chilly night?
She returned to the window and leaned closer.
Whoever it was spoke softly, and in Rhunic. “No! I forbid it. And you know better than to be out here.”
“I’m hungry!” the voice said in a hoarse whisper, just like in her dream. Brin shivered.
“I’ll arrange it, like I did with Jada. You have to trust me. Haven’t I taken care of you in the past? You need to be patient.”
“It’s been a long time. I’m tired and need to sleep.”
“We have an agreement! Spring is here, and the time is approaching. Until then, you need to stay hidden.”
“I can smell them—all of them—so many. The wind blows south. It’s—it’s maddening!”
“It won’t be long now. I promise. Then you can kill for me. Now, let’s go back, and don’t slip out again, or we’ll both be killed.”
With every ounce of courage she could muster, Brin pushed the window open wider and stuck her head out far enough to look down. All she saw were a pair of shadows disappearing around the corner of her building. In the dark of her room barely illuminated by the pale moonlight, she drew the blanket tighter and shivered.
* * *
—
Early the next morning, Brin stood in front of her adopted home, looking up at the bedroom window. The house was one of the many two-story, whitewash-and-timber buildings. This was no warrior’s home. Its carved door, tile-and-stencil work, branching stair banister, and flower beds filled with perennials already beginning to bloom spoke of a place once cherished. Brin felt guilty being there, and in eight months, she hadn’t so much as moved the furniture.
Persephone had insisted they weren’t conquerors of Alon Rhist, but allies, what Nyphron referred to as liberators. A fair number of Fhrey had packed up and walked out. Persephone let them go. Huhana Hill, one of the nicer parts of the city, became the first to empty. That previous autumn when the Fhrey fled Alon Rhist, Huhana Hill became a neighborhood of abandoned houses, and Persephone filled the vacant buildings with surviving inhabitants of Dahl Rhen, creating the Rhune District. Given that most of the other clans had homes to return to, Huhana Hill became known as Little Rhen.
The house that Padera, Roan, and Brin shared was one of the finest. There were bigger and more elaborate ones, but inch for inch, this one was the most pleasant. Brin was certain that wasn’t an accident. Persephone would have invited them to stay with her in the Kype, if such a thing had been practical, or desired. No one—not even Persephone—liked the stark, cold fortress filled with intimidating male Instarya. More of the Fhrey in the city were female, and while they didn’t exactly welcome the Rhunes, they didn’t protest, either, at least not publicly.
Over the winter, Little Rhen had begun to resemble Dahl Rhen, if it had died and gone to Alysin. The well in the center of the tree-lined square was frequented by the likes of Arlina, Viv Baker, and Autumn, whose husbands—like most of the able men—were in training and bunked at the fortress. Gifford lived in Little Rhen, too, as did Tressa, Habet, and Mathias Hagger, who was too old to walk up the Hill’s steps alone. Padera was the first to call it Little Rhen, and that’s how Brin—how everyone living there—had come to see it. But on that morning, looking up at her pretty new home, Brin saw that part of town as sinister.
They had stood right here.
She looked around, trying to gauge the exact spot where the two speakers had held their conversation.
They didn’t sound human.
Brin imagined them as a pair of raow, but that was most certainly the result of her nightmare.
And they had spoken Rhunic, not Fhrey.
Near the corner of the block, just below her window, was a flower bed. The four delicate sprouts that had emerged with the warming weather had been crushed, pressed down in the soft dirt. She bent over to look at the depression in the soil.