Symphe had never locked the cell door. I walked out of it, thought for a moment, and then tossed the brass ring of keys to the floor. I left that door closed but unlocked. Let them puzzle about that.
My mind moved faster than the wind before a squall. I could flee. They would hunt me through the halls and rooms. And they would find me, for I did not know any way to escape from it. They would find me with Symphe’s knife and her keys, they would see the stains of oil and serpent slime on my clothes. They would know me for what I was. An assassin, like my father before me. The Destroyer from their dreams. They would find me and they would kill me.
I didn’t want to die.
Wolf Father spoke. For now, hide your true self. Be what they think you are.
My true self? I handled that thought reluctantly.
What they have made you. He sounded both sad and proud. The feather hammered into a blade.
I hurried now for I could not tell how much time had passed. I left the cell and the ugly table and foul smell behind me. I closed the door. I went back the way we had come. When I reached the main floor I recalled carefully how Capra had led me through the stronghold. I returned to the washing courts and was pleased to find clean garments identical to the ones that I had soiled still hanging on the drying lines. I took what I needed and respaced the hanging garments on the laundry lines to cover up my theft. I splashed my hands and feet clean and dried them on my dirty clothes. I rolled my soiled garments up into as small a bundle as I could manage and buried them in one of the flowerbeds. Then I climbed the stairs to the cells where they had held me. I moved as softly as a ghost as I opened the door and entered the hall. The lamps were out and only the stars and moon looked down on me. The guard was nowhere in sight. Doubtless that was Symphe’s arrangement but now it worked to my advantage. I filled my thoughts with sleepiness and slipped past the few occupied cells. No one stirred. Fitting and turning each leashed key was more difficult than I had expected. I had not realized there would be a set order to them. Luck aided me on my third try. I entered and closed the door as quietly as I could manage. It was harder to lock it from inside and I was sweating before I discovered that the order of the keys to lock was the opposite of unlocking them.
I had both a set of keys and a dagger to hide in my sparsely furnished cell. Inside the thin mattress was my only option. I cut the seam just enough to allow me to insert both. I lay down on the mattress and closed my eyes. I could not find the way to sleep. The serpent spit magic coiled strangely through my body and my mind. I could not calm myself.
‘So. No Symphe.’
The black voice reached me quietly from the next cell. I held my breath. He would think I was asleep.
‘You killed then. I am so sorry.’
I closed my eyes and was very still. The serpent magic twisted through me like a parasite in my belly. I felt it mingling with my Farseer magic. For a terrifying instant, I could feel Prilkop in the cell next to me. I knew there were six other prisoners on this level, and that one of them was pregnant. I felt my magic go reaching, reaching, reaching … I slammed my mind shut. If I reached out, who might reach in? I doubted Vindeliar would be the only one they had dosed with serpent spit. I would be small and hard as a nut. I would be still as a stone. I made all things still within me. To my surprise, tears still leaked through my lashes and trickled down the side of my face. I did not weep for Symphe or Dwalia.
I wept for fear of what I had become.
TWENTY-EIGHT
* * *
Unsafe Harbour
This dream does not belong here. It isn’t an important dream, except to me. I only write it down here because I want to keep it forever, for myself.
In the dream, I am working in the herb garden with my mother. The sky is blue and the sun is out, but it is early in the day, so it is pleasantly warm, not hot. We crawl along the rows on each side of her lavender beds. She has strong hands. When she grips a weed and pulls, it comes up with a long white root. I am trying to help her weed, but I am just pulling off the top leaves. She stops me and gives me a little trowel. ‘It is worse than useless to do things halfway, Bee. For then you think the work is done, but someone must come behind you later to do it all over again. Even if you must work much harder and get less done, it is better to do the whole task the first time.’ Then she showed me how to push the trowel into the earth and pop up the weed I was not strong enough to pull.
I woke up with the sound of her voice in my ears. It was so real, but the peculiar part is that even though it was exactly something my mother would say to me, I have no memory of such a day. I have drawn here my mother’s hands, strong and brown, as she draws the weed from the earth, root and all.
Bee Farseer’s dream journal
My foolish choice, often made, is that I do not sleep well and long on the night before a momentous task. A harsh dream of a rabbit screaming in a trap stirred me to groggy awareness. The feel of the ship had changed. Sometime in the night we had anchored. I’d slept through that?
I’d finally mastered the art of getting out of a hammock, and even in the dark I managed it well enough. I could hear Lant’s snoring and Per’s childish breathing. My head still felt heavy with sleep and I had no idea of how much time had passed. The belowdecks lantern did not cast light so much as destroy the total darkness. I groped for my boots, pulled them on, and found the ladder to the deck by touch. I yawned, trying to waken myself more fully. I felt dulled and deadened.
On the horizon, there was a promise of light to come. I rubbed my eyes, my body still protesting at being awake. I drifted aft and avoided Althea and Brashen standing close together, looking out not at the city but at the sea outside the harbour. I found my own quiet place on the railing and stared at Clerres as light grew in the sky. The city was even prettier by dawn, a place of manicured greenery and tidy dwellings of pink and pale green and sky blue. I watched the city begin to awaken. I smelled the elusive fragrance of fresh baked bread, and watched several small fishing vessels leave the harbour. I saw the tiny figures of a man and donkey cart descend from the gentle hills to the awakening city. There was only one large ship in the harbour, her figurehead a carved bouquet. So peaceful. My body longed for more sleep. I blinked my eyes, feeling as if I had dozed off standing there.