*
In theory, rummaging through someone’s trunk was easy. Each of the five barracks was simply one long room, and the cadets weren’t permitted locks. The problem was, someone was always in the barracks, just back from a night run or catching a quick nap before Blood Time. Lin would have raised eyes and turned heads if she just started rifling through the sniper’s belongings, and so for a few days Valyn let the worry eat at his gut, tried to focus on his training, on his studies, and the upcoming Trial. Late each night, he would meet up with Laith, Gent, and Lin in their corner of the mess hall and exchange pointless observations and suspicions, marking time until Lin could find a way into Annick’s trunk.
On this particular night, however, Lin was late. Valyn noted the moon through the window, measured it against the horizon, and shook his head.
“Calm down,” Laith said. “Lin’ll be fine.”
“I know,” Valyn replied, but he couldn’t stop drumming his fingers on the tabletop. Ha Lin outweighed Annick and she was the better fighter if it came to fists and knives. On the other hand, most confrontations were decided by one simple rule: The person to strike first was the one to walk away, and Valyn worried that, in the crucial moment, Lin might hesitate. Annick would not.
“You ought to be concerned about yourself,” Laith added, gesturing with his glass. It was filled with water, but he waved it around as if it were a tankard and he were seated in an alehouse. “You’re the one slated to go against Annick in the sniper test tomorrow.”
“Thanks for the cheerful reminder,” Valyn said.
“You’re fucked.”
“And for the optimism.”
“Just trying to bring a healthy realism to the discussion.”
Once more, Valyn shook his head. It didn’t help matters that he more or less agreed with Laith’s assessment. Valyn was a capable sniper and a reasonable hand with a flatbow, even by Kettral standards, but Annick was a ’Shael-spawned ghost. She’d lost only one sniper contest, to Balendin of all people, and Valyn was pretty sure the leach had found some way to cheat.
To make matters worse, if you went up against Annick, you usually ended the morning with a black eye, busted jaw, or chipped tooth. None of that was part of the contest—you were supposed to sneak close enough to shoot a bell before your opponent, and that was that—but Annick made it a point of pride to shoot the bell, then the trainers scouring the field with their long lenses, and then her opponent. She used blunt training arrows—stunners, the Kettral called them—but they could still break a tooth or knock you stone cold. A year earlier some of the cadets had complained to command. If Annick was good enough to pick her shots, they argued, she was good enough to shoot for the chest rather than the face. Annick’s response, which the trainers had accepted with a sort of sadistic pleasure, was that if the people lodging the complaint didn’t want to get shot in the face, then they should learn to keep their faces out of sight.
“This close to the Trial,” Laith said. “I’d find a way to beg off.”
“There’s no way to beg off.”
“There’s always a way. I’ve spent the past five years dodging the worst of the shit. It’s why I became a flier.”
“You became a flier because you like to go fast and you hate running.”
“As I said—dodging the shit.” Laith’s smile faded. “In earnest, though, Val. If Annick really is trying to kill you because of what you know about Amie, you don’t want to be within a mile of the sniper field with her.”
Valyn had thought much the same thing, but he’d be shipped to ’Shael before he let another cadet, murderer or no, scare him out of his training. “There’ll be two trainers watching the test with long lenses,” he reminded his friend. “She’d be crazy to take a shot at me then.”
“Suit yourself,” Laith said with a shrug. “I’ll pour some ale on your grave.”
It was supposed to be a joke, but it struck too close to the memory of the night they had buried Amie. Laith took a long swig of his water, scowled as though wishing it were something stronger, and the two fell into a gloomy silence. Lin found them in much the same position when she finally burst into the hall.
“I found something,” she began, eyes fierce.
Valyn motioned her to a seat, then glanced over his shoulder to make sure they had the hall to themselves.
“You know what the girl uses her ’Kent-kissing trunk for?” Lin asked as she slid onto the bench next to Laith.
“Epistles of unrequited love?” the flier suggested.
Lin coughed out a laugh. “Guess again.”
“A small orpaned infant that she has been secretly but tenderly nursing back to health?”
“Arrows,” Lin said.
“Just arrows?” Valyn asked, confused. It hardly sounded like a revelation.
“Must be more than a thousand of them in there,” Lin went on. “She makes her own. Strips the shafts, hammers out her own heads at the forge, even fletches the things with some kind of strange feather—northern black goose, or some shit. She’s got enough to kill everyone on the Islands a few times over. I almost didn’t bother to dig through them all.”
“Well, it’s hardly surprising that the best sniper in the cadets has a fondness for arrows,” Laith observed.
“But there was something else,” Valyn said, reading the truth in Lin’s eyes.
She nodded grimly while she rummaged in the pocket of her blacks, then drew out something golden. She tossed it across the table to Valyn.
He caught it and stared. It was a lock of hair, light, soft, and flaxen, tied with a ribbon. “Is this—,” he began, but he already knew the answer. By the time they found Amie, her body was a horrible rotting ruin. The flesh had started to sag on her bones, flies had picked over her tongue, and her eyes were already moldering in their sockets. The girl’s hair, however—that soft, flaxen hair—had practically glowed in the pale moonlight.
“Well, holy Hull,” Laith breathed. “I’ll be buggered blind.”
It was a tantalizing discovery, but they realized, as they bandied about possible explanations, that it didn’t actually tell them anything conclusive. Annick had known Amie. So what?
“Could be a trophy,” Laith said.
“Does Annick seem like the type to take trophies?” Lin countered.
“Maybe it’s proof of some sort,” Valyn suggested. “Proof that she killed Amie.”
“Pretty shitty proof,” Laith replied. “Heads are good proof. If you ship someone a head, chances are you killed the owner. Hands are pretty good proof. But hair?” He spread his hands.
“Besides,” Lin added, picking up the lock and inspecting it once more, “what’s it proving to anyone when it’s stuffed in the bottom of her trunk?”
The more they talked over the possibilities, the more frustrated Valyn became. As Lin pointed out, Annick didn’t even necessarily take the hair from Amie herself; someone could have given it to her to mark the target. Aside from Juren’s suggestion, they couldn’t be sure that the sniper had even been on Hook the day Amie died. By the time the wick in the lamp burned down to a charred stump, Valyn was ready to barge into Annick’s barrack, confront her with the hair, and demand answers.
“That sounds like a good plan,” Laith said dryly. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to cooperate.”
Valyn waved him off, weary and irritated at the same time. “You’re right. You’re right. ’Shael bugger me bloody, you’re right.”
“It’s a step,” Lin said, laying a hand on Valyn’s shoulder, her grip at once strong and soothing through the fabric. She met his eyes with her own. “‘No one can run a thousand leagues,’” she said, quoting Hendran, “‘but anyone can take one step, then another step.’”
“The next step I’m going to take is toward my rack,” Laith groaned, stretching in his seat like a cat. “I’ve got predawn flight drills in a couple of bells.”
Valyn nodded toward the flier. “We’ll put out the lamp and follow you out.”
Laith glanced from Lin to Valyn with a sly smirk. “Never too late for a tickle under the trousers.”