“Will you? Where will you go, and how? It is the monsoon. You are at death’s door yourself. What safe refuge will you take her to?”
Unar had no choice but to surreptitiously push up one edge of the blindfold so that she could see. She bit her tongue, hard, to keep from crying out. In the cold blue light of the death-lanterns, she saw dark, bruised stripes across Marram’s face, neck, and chest. He stood, swaying, close to the edge of the roof, wearing a bone amulet she hadn’t noticed him wearing before.
One of his arms was knotted with vines in a way that suggested his collarbone was broken. But the worst was the front of his left leg; some kind of creature had eaten away the flesh from knee to ankle, so that the shinbone where the spines were grafted was exposed to the air.
Unar let the blindfold drop. Everything was black, but she could still imagine Marram there, a living corpse. Only the magic that maintained his grafted spines could be keeping him on his feet.
“Marram, I’m safe here,” Unar called. “Please, go back.”
Kirrik spun to face her.
“I did not give you permission to speak, Nameless,” she said, and pushed Unar backwards. Little hands caught her as she stumbled. Frog had somehow crept around behind her.
“Fly away, Marram!” Unar tried to scream, but no sound came out of her mouth, and Kirrik used her magic in some way that she couldn’t see. Vines grew around her, pulling her backwards by the throat. Frog moved away from her, and Unar found herself roped to the road, vines holding the ear bone against her mouth so that when she breathed out she couldn’t help but breathe into it. When she breathed through her nose, she felt Frog’s little hands again, this time pinching her nostrils shut.
Marram made no sound. Was Kirrik choking him with vines, too? Unar tried to take control of her own gift, but something struck her in the place in her belly where her control came from, like a mother slapping a child’s hands away from a pot of honey, and the only thing she could think of to do, to deny her power to Kirrik, was hold her breath.
Curse you, Core Kirrik. What’s happening?
Trussed and blind, she listened to the blood pulse in her ears, straining for a hint of Marram’s movements, but Kirrik wasn’t even breathing hard, and Frog was silent, too.
Unar couldn’t hold her breath forever.
She twisted so her lips were to one side of the bone flute, though the vines cut off the blood flow to her head.
“Frog,” she gasped, light-headed almost instantly, “he helped save you from the demon!”
Then she had to relax back into position and her breath flowed through the bone, giving more of Audblayin’s life force to a woman who wanted to use it for death. How could it obey Kirrik? Why would it not obey Unar herself?
“May I speak, Core Kirrik?” Frog said at last.
“Speak.”
“The man did ’elp me escape a dayhunter. ’E gave me food and shelter.”
“How can that be? A fool such as this. He comes all but naked into the forest. It is obvious he has fallen from a height. Only the chance of vines in his path has saved him, and yet, instead of crawling home, he has come here, without so much as a pair of bracers to keep the spotted swarm at bay.”
“Is that not courage, Core Kirrik? Could you not use ’im? Could you not put ’im with the others? Nameless the Outer can be used to heal and slow ’im. I am sure Audblayin’s power will work as well as Atwith’s, and she has affection for ’im. I would have slowed all of them, if only we had not left so suddenly.”
Unar tried to follow the conversation, limp and useless in her outrage. Her breath was being stolen by a woman who would have been a slave in Canopy. Her own sister was helping that maggot-faced witch. Kirrik and Frog had been worried they couldn’t use her to kill enemies, but any green, living thing could be used to choke a person!
Kirrik didn’t answer, not right away.
“’E is almost dead, Core Kirrik,” Frog said softly. “Without air, ’e will not wake, and we will have one less warrior when the time comes. Better than any heightsman I ever saw, I swear.”
“I will indulge you this one time, Frog the Outer,” Kirrik said tightly. “The next favour you ask had better be for me to cut your throat for disloyalty.”
Unar struggled to understand the change in the dynamic between them. Only moments ago, Kirrik had been telling her how Frog reminded her of the Master’s son. How she had saved Frog’s life. Now there was a coldness about her, a bloodlessness, as though her body had been taken over by another. Or an act she had been making an effort to maintain, now unnecessary, had been dropped.
“Yes, Core Kirrik.”
Again, Unar’s breath transformed into some shape she couldn’t see.
“Take him, then. Put him with the others. Take the bone flute from Nameless the Outer. The very sight of her angers me. It would not do to lose my temper and kill her accidentally. Let her sleep outside. Do not bring her food until she begs to obey.”
“Yes, Core Kirrik.”
Frog took the ear bone and the blindfold away. Unar couldn’t turn her head because of the vines still across her throat. She blinked away the rain that fell into her eyes. Kirrik had already gone back into the dovecote.
“You are failing,” Frog hissed. “You must try harder!”
Unar didn’t say anything. Words could be stolen and used against her. She gave as much of a nod as she was able. Frog pulled the knife at her belt and cut the snug vines around Unar’s throat. Yet she couldn’t do it without cutting Unar’s skin.
“Core Kirrik told me not to heal you,” Frog muttered, “but say something, and I will close the wound.”
You’ll close the wound? Not if you don’t love me!
Unar would rather bleed than be faced again with the reality that her ability now belonged to these women. She shook her head, jerking her chin in the direction of the doorway, hoping that Frog would understand that Unar intended to obey.
“So you are a little bit afraid of ’er,” Frog said. “Good. You should be. I am.”
She went back inside, and Unar was alone.
*
WHEN MORNING came, the door opened.
Unar watched black skirts approaching from her facedown sprawl on the wet walkway. She supposed she should beg to obey. She supposed she should beg for food. But she couldn’t even make herself feel hungry.
Kirrik stared down at her.
I won’t ask what happened to Marram. I will stay. I will learn.
“Did you sleep well, Nameless the Outer?”
That chill. That inhuman quality.
“Yes, Core Kirrik.”
“You have not used Audblayin’s powers. You make no move to strike me, though you know what vines can do. Can you be trusted to meet the Master now, Nameless?”
Unar crawled in an awkward scrabble to kiss the hem of Kirrik’s skirts.
“If you think I should, Core Kirrik.”
Kirrik laughed.
“Yes, I think you should. Come inside. Follow me.”
Unar went on hands and knees after her, as far as the long, dark corridor, where she used her hands against the walls to gain her feet and stagger after Kirrik towards the blocked spiral staircase.