“When I found Ha Lin,” Valyn continued, “I knew something was lying across the floor yards before I reached her.” He closed his eyes and let the memory wash over him, the whispering currents of air eddying over his skin, the faintest scent of her hair in his nostrils. He hadn’t noticed anything like that since leaving the cave, but then, since leaving the cave, he’d been overwhelmed with more ordinary sensations: a new Wing, training runs, arguments with Gwenna. Now, however, with his eyes shut, he let his breathing slow and just … waited.
There was a crack in the wall, he realized, a few feet above his head and to the left; the draft lifted the hairs along the back of his neck. He could hear the wick fizzling in the lamp. He could … he squeezed his eyes shut tighter … he wasn’t sure if he was seeing or feeling, but he knew right where Talal was sitting, even something about his posture.
The leach remained silent, still.
“I knew it was her,” Valyn went on, voice quiet, eyes still closed. “I didn’t believe it at the time. I didn’t want to believe it, couldn’t believe it. Lin.” He shook his head. “I knew. Even dead, even in the pitch dark, I knew her.”
There were tears in his eyes when he opened them, but he met the leach’s gaze defiantly. She was my friend, he told himself. There is no shame in weeping for her. They were the first tears he had allowed himself since finding her, and for a long time they just streamed down his cheeks, puddling quietly in the table’s ruts. After a while, they stopped. He wiped his cheeks roughly with a palm.
“If you speak a word of this,” he said, his voice ragged, “to anyone on the Wing, I’ll rip out your throat and we’ll make do without a leach.”
“Iron,” Talal replied, voice quiet but sure.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Iron,” the leach said again, gesturing to the knife at his belt, the rough bracelets around both wrists. “That’s my well. Of course, we don’t carry much iron, but there’s plenty of iron in steel, enough to do the job.”
Valyn put his palms flat on the table, trying to stow his own emotions and make sense of the claim. There was every chance the leach was lying to him, and no way to know for sure. He considered those dark, still eyes.
“Why isn’t it more powerful?”
Talal shrugged. “Not that much iron around most of the time—a few blades, a few arrowheads. Enough to work with, usually, but rarely enough to do anything impressive.”
“If we were going in after a fortified position,” Valyn asked warily, “could you bring it down?”
“Not a chance.”
“What about something that wasn’t built out of stone? Something less sturdy—like a wooden palisade?” Or an alehouse on stilts, he thought to himself. What about Manker’s?
Talal considered the question. “If there was a great deal of steel present—as there would be on a densely packed battlefield—maybe. And if the structure was already flawed in some crucial way.” He spread his hands. “Then I might be able to manage it. Or I might not.” He shook his head ruefully. “I’m sorry, Valyn. I’m sure you were hoping for more out of your Wing’s leach. Aacha could have knocked down a stone gatehouse when his well was running strong. Same with most of the leaches.” He frowned. “Bad luck. I’ve got enough power to get me hanged, but not enough to protect myself. It’s why I had to get so handy with the blades,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder to the twin swords sheathed across his back.
That fact, more than anything else, carried the question for Valyn. Soldiers gravitated to their strengths, as much as their trainers tried to beat the tendency out of them. Annick carried that bow of hers everywhere, Laith preferred to be on the bird’s back, and Gwenna never seemed happy unless she was blowing something up. Deception or no, it was hard to believe that Talal would have devoted so much time to his blades if he had a powerful, secret well to draw upon. Anything was possible, of course, but sometimes you had to play the odds.
“What about Balendin?” Valyn asked cautiously. “Could he knock down a building?”
Talal nodded slowly. “He hides his full strength pretty cleverly, but I’ve seen him manage some things.…” His eyes drifted with the memory, then snapped back. “He’s dangerous, and not just because he’s cruel.”
“Any new ideas about his well?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you have any guesses?” Valyn pressed, wary and impatient all at the same time.
“I’ve had about a thousand of them.”
“He keeps those dogs of his close—”
“That’s the obvious thing,” Talal agreed, “but the obvious thing isn’t usually the right one. We’ve all got our masks and disguises.” He gestured to the stone amulet hanging around his neck, to the gold hoops in his ears. “And then there’s the whole business of intentional deception. Before I started flying with you, I would avoid using my well on random days, even if it meant losing an exercise or contest, just to keep the others off my scent.” He grimaced. “It’s a bad way to live. Always lying. Always trying to lead people on.…”
Valyn had never considered it that way. In the stories, the leaches were always the villains, the nefarious meddlers behind the scenes, the ones pulling the strings, the ones making the world dance their own unnatural jig. He had never thought that their power might force them to dance.
“Thank you for telling me,” he said finally, awkwardly.
“I always figured I’d tell someone eventually,” Talal replied. “You keep something like that hidden for too long—” He shook his head slowly. “—there’s no telling what it might do to you, no telling what you might become.”