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  The soldier yelled, and more soldiers came. But the villagers were gathering too, in the square opposite Mistress Mor’s house.

  “Rin, stay with her,” Isi said, pulling Dasha and Enna out into the road.

  Villagers with their draping sleeves hefted rakes and shovels, brooms and sticks. Soldiers in leather or chain-mail vests eyed the villagers. The soldier who lost his sword was still hollering in Kelish, pointing at Mistress Mor’s house. The three girls stood like guards before her threshold.

  “You’re hurt?” Rin asked.

  Mistress Mor winced, shaking her head. “Just . . . the ankle. Just the ankle.” Then she said something in Kelish. Rin felt pretty certain it was a curse. She helped Mistress Mor to her feet, supporting her as the woman hopped back into the house and lay on her bed. Rin placed a rolled-up blanket under her calf to support the leg.

  The noise outside continued. Rin’s middle felt like a winter pond. Isi had told her to stay back. It was exhausting, this wishing to be Isi but being trapped in useless Rin.

  A sudden shout made her run to the door. Perhaps two dozen mercenaries stood facing the girls, their swords waving. The villagers huddled together, some yelling back.

  “Tell me what happens,” said Mistress Mor from the bed.

  With anxiety clawing at her chest, Rin could barely think, let alone speak. She took a deep breath. “The mercenaries and villagers are shouting at one another. But my friends will take care of it. Don’t worry.”

  Rin worried.

  “How many soldiers? How many you seeing?”

  Rin counted. “Twenty-one.”

  The old woman shook her head. “There are more in Cathal, and they are not for liking this.”

  A cry pierced the silence, as fierce and desperate as a starving crow. Enna’s eyes flashed toward the far side of the village. Rin could hear her say, “Isi, there’s fire.”

  Enna ran off, leaving Dasha with Isi. When the mercenaries moved forward, the ground under their boots was suddenly muddy. Wind raged around them, the mud slippery beneath their feet. When they fell down, the hilts of their swords burning, Isi and Dasha ran after Enna.

  Rin crossed the room to peer through a shutter on the back wall. She could see smoke and hear shouts and the sounds of metal striking metal.

  Here I am, she thought, watching again.

  A sensation like a dark sludge pouring moved inside her and made her want to be sick.

  Rin sat beside Mistress Mor on a low stool. She stared at a chip in the daub and listened to the cries, running, curses, and sometimes gaps of silence. One altercation seemed to be nearby—a woman’s voice shouting, a man’s voice answering, a strike like wood on metal, and a scream. High and soft, the call of a small child. Then silence. Rin’s blood chilled.

  Someone began speaking in a whisper so stiff and urgent it quivered like a tent rope. It was a woman’s voice. Rin looked at Mistress Mor. Her face was white with pain.

  “Did you hear that?” Rin asked.

  Mistress Mor nodded. “My neighbor, Aileann, I think. She is saying, ‘Please, please.’ Aileann has little girl.”

  Rin half-stood, hesitated. “Will you be all right?”

  “Yes, yes, I am fine enough. You are going. Go.”

  Rin nodded and fled through the door. She followed the sound, sidling between two houses and stopping in a shadow.

  There was a wild-haired woman facedown on the ground, one hand pressed palm to dirt, the other reached out and up, pleading toward a mercenary. Her face was streaked with dirt, clean lines where tears ran, and a bruise was swelling the side of her face. Beside her lay the pieces of a shovel, its wooden shaft broken in two. The mercenary was short and thick like a big toe, his wide nose wrinkled in a sneer, and his eyes were crazed. His arm squeezed the neck of a child of about four years. She squirmed and cried, flinching away from the short sword he held across her belly.

  The mercenary’s eyes flashed, half-mad with fierce amusement, and the way he spoke to Aileann, Rin guessed he knew her well, perhaps had been housed with her. The little girl was surely Aileann’s daughter—they had the same stormy hair that stuck up and around, half-covering her face. Rin could not see the girl’s eyes, but she could see the worried mouth, the chin that trembled.

  Aileann repeated that same word over and over, please, please, please. It seemed to be all she could say between terrified sobs.

  That little girl. She was about the same age as Rin’s niece Genna, she had the same hair color as her nephew Incher, the same round, simple face as Tusken. Little Tusken. No one should hurt a child. And yet there was someone with a sword, someone who did not care about another’s pain, someone who might kill. Rin looked around, desperate for help, but the girls were nowhere near.

  Ma would never allow a bully like that mercenary to hurt a child. But she was so far away, Rin could not think what her mother would do. Isi would use her fire to burn the sword out of his hand and the wind to blow him off. Rin held no weapon. All she could do was speak. The idea sent waves of nausea pulsing through her, but there was no time to worry.

  Rin stepped out of the shadow and into moonlight. The mercenary’s eyes found her at once.

  He began to speak in Kelish, but Rin interrupted.

  “Do you understand me?” He did not answer, but she could see he did. “Please don’t hurt the girl. Listen to me first.” Her teeth were chattering, she was so angry and so scared, and so unsure what to say. Since the age of seven, she’d trained herself never to tell anyone what to do. Doing it on purpose felt like trying to forget how to walk.

  “If you hurt her, you’ll regret it powerfully, you’ll wish you’d just slit your own throat. So don’t. Just don’t.”

  His eyes were wild, open and darting from Rin to Aileann to the houses around them. His sword trembled. “Are you to stop me? Ha!”

  The little girl moaned, soft and tired now, as if she had no more voice to cry. Her mother wailed with new terror, her hand still reaching in hopeless desperation.

  “Shh,” Rin hissed at her. The man was so twitchy, she was afraid a loud noise could set him off. Anger boiled her bones and made her feel hot and dangerous, though her teeth were chattering so hard now that her slamming jaw shook her vision.

  She studied his face, remembered the way he had looked at the little girl, as if she were a mangy cat, barely worth notice and good for nothing but casting aside.

  Rin moved toward him, as slow as a shadow inching with the sun. She opened her hands, showing she had no weapon.

  “I can’t hurt you,” she said.

  “You are for hurting me?” His voice boiled. “She was putting milk in my boots this morning. She is trouble every day I am on this village. She is no girl, she is demon. You keep closer and I am eating her for supper!”

  “Not yet,” Rin said, her voice shaking, her throat nearly closing off. But somehow the words vibrated with ease and confidence. “First I want to tell you a story. About her. About the little girl. She loves to run so fast she imagines her hair turns into wind. And she loves to climb trees and eat pine nuts out of the cones. When she’s six years, and ten, and twelve, sometimes her mother will let her curl up on her lap like she still does now, and they’ll rock by the fire, humming together. She loves her ma so much.”

  Rin meant to attack him with words, challenge and demand and tear away his confidence, as she had with . . . A memory flashed behind her eyes of the night with Wilem, the things she’d said. She clamped it down. Never mind that. Never mind. But attacking did not seem right for the mercenary—attacks could anger him and get the girl hurt. Calming is what he needed. She wished she could make him feel what she used to feel when at home with her aspens.

  “She has older brothers, but her ma loves her best. Loves her like her own self. When she gets older, she’ll worry that her ma loves a stranger.” Rin swallowed, but her tongue was dry as bark. She kept her eyes on the little girl and forced more words out. “When she’s fifteen she’ll go on a journey, b
ecause home just won’t feel right anymore. The journey will be hard, and scary, but she’ll meet people who are like her and can help. She’ll worry sometimes about her ma, worry that she won’t ever get to go home and that will break her ma’s heart. But in the end, she’ll change, like an apple gets rosy in the sun, and she’ll go home again, and this time it will feel like home. This time she’ll stay forever, and her ma will be so happy.”

  The mercenary was frowning. The sword in his hand lowered, just an inch. Rin kept talking.

  “Someday when she’s grown with children of her own, she’ll still love to run so fast she’ll think her hair is turning into wind, and she’ll still climb trees as long as her knees can bend. And her whole life will be long and good too, because you let her live. Because of you.”

  While Rin spoke, she kept moving forward, very slowly, and the armed man’s feral eyes stayed on her. The girl still hung from his arm, tears leaving streaks on her dirty cheeks, just like her mother’s. Aileann had not moved, though she gasped and sobbed with her mouth open.

  The man seemed confused. He looked at the girl again, as if he did not know what kind of beast she was after all.

  “How . . . how you are knowing?” He sounded as though he believed Rin, every word.

  “I know,” said Rin, then she was close enough to touch him. Her hand reached out, but her eyes strayed to his blade, held there inches away, sharp enough to swipe through her wrist in one stroke. She trembled all over. “She needs to keep on going. She’s got running to do and a boy to meet someday, and children waiting to be born. You should let her go run so fast her hair can turn into wind. Let her go. Fast as wind.”

  Twice Rin hesitated, but finally she placed her hand on the man’s arm. She used to soak in the calm of the trees when she was touching their bark, breathing in the exhale of their leaves—perhaps she could offer this mercenary some calm in her touch. Perhaps she could be his tree.

  “Nothing wrong in all the world,” Rin said softly. “No need to make a fuss. Let her go running, let her grow up to be a ma—a ma like your own, who cuddled you close and kissed you fast. No fuss at all.”

  His eyebrows furrowed, and he looked at the girl, then down at her mother.

  Please, the mother said once, her voice exhausted and final.

  The mercenary let go.

  The little girl yelped as he dropped her. She scrambled into her mother’s arms, and they sat on the ground, gripping each other and sobbing, their eyes shut.

  Rin began to back away very slowly, not wanting that mercenary’s attention to return to her, not with that sword in his hand. He was staring at the child and shaking his head.

  Another mercenary ran past, heading north of town. He saw his companion and stopped, asking him a question in Kelish.

  The squat mercenary looked at his friend, half-dazed. “I was . . .” Then he pointed at Rin and spoke in Kelish, sounding confused and half-asleep.

  The new mercenary growled. He came at Rin so quickly that she spooked and fell backward, striking her head on the ground, the sweep of his sword cutting the air just above her. Her tongue was salted with the taste of blood. Dizzy, she searched for sight of the mercenary’s sword—there above her. He was swinging for another strike. She covered her head with her arms.

  Sorry, Ma, she thought. Sorry, Razo. And Wilem too. Sorry.

  Chapter 13

  Rin hid her face, her whole body tense as she waited for the sword to slice her. But nothing happened. She heard a gurgle and peeked. The mercenary’s face was red, and he dropped his sword, his hands flying to his neck. The gurgle was coming from his throat. He fell to his knees, tearing at his shirt, slapping at his lips. When he leaned over, water poured from his mouth, but still he choked, scratching at the earth and coughing. His wet hand reached for Rin, and she scuttled back on her hands and feet.

  “Go away!” Rin pleaded. “Go away!”

  The squat mercenary grabbed his comrade around the shoulders and ran away. Rin could hear the man heave the last of the water from his lungs, gasp and breathe at last. But they did not stop running.

  Aileann and her child had fled too. Footsteps hurried toward her from behind, but she did not flinch, guessing who it was.

  “Are you all right, Rinna?” asked Dasha. “Come on now, let me put my arm around you, that’s right. Let’s go back to Mistress Mor’s, shall we?”

  Rin wondered why Dasha seemed to be trembling harder than an aspen in a windstorm. After a few missed steps, Rin realized she was the one still trembling.

  Inside the cottage, Isi was kneeling beside the bed, wrapping Mistress Mor’s leg with strips ripped from the queen’s cloak.

  “Good luck for opening home to travelers,” Mistress Mor was muttering. “Good luck break my bone.”

  “Mistress Mor—,” Isi began.

  “No, no, it was good luck. You gave us reason for ridding of pests. They come here months ago, leave sometimes, always come back and eat as if no winter comes. Sometimes slap women, sometimes push children.” She sucked air in through her teeth at the pain and began speaking more quickly, adding occasional Kelish words in her haste. “I go to Castle Daire for complaining. I go with some men, but I did no trusting them to be smart, so young and stupid for carrying swords, du konish. Many soldiers at castle now, and they no letting us by gates. Some woman say queen in Kel orders soldiers to our town and say no for talking to us. Banner flying in castle tower, mom pinken, yellow lily, banner for queen. If King Scandlan married again, he no for telling us.”

  “Which is strange.” Isi rubbed her eyes. “Is the king even aware that a so-called queen resides at Daire and is amassing an army of mercenaries?”

  “I am wanting for going to Bressal and for talking at King Scandlan. Not with this ankle now, limish tom, lim fartik . . .”

  Enna came through the door, wafting a strong whiff of smoke—some wood smoke and some not, announcing other things had burned. It was not a comfortable scent.

  “All’s quiet, and the fields are full of fleeing villains,” Enna said, dropping onto a stool. “The cowards. They love a midnight attack when there’s no one to fight back, but one little push and they run away. They make me want to spit in their eyeballs.”

  “And the villagers—,” Isi began.

  “None dead,” said Enna. “But not for lack of trying. Those goat-faced pigs went crazy as soon as the villagers started fighting back. This would’ve been a slaughterhouse. I saw women setting up house for those whose roofs were burned through. I think they’ll be all right, Isi, if you’re thinking we should scurry after a certain queen.”

  “That’s where the mercenaries are headed. We’d be wise to go on, finish this before she can send more soldiers in retribution.”

  Mistress Mor eyed the girls. “You are . . . yunik fam . . . how do you say?”

  Isi smiled. “Odd?”

  Mistress Mor nodded. “Odd, yes. And dangerous too.” She laughed with her head back, and seemed pleased to do so. “My son will come soon for seeing me. You go.”

  They were at the door when the woman gestured to the table where the loaves of bread sat under a white cloth. “And one bread for taking, please.”

  All four girls sighed with relieved delight, then giggled at their joint sigh.

  “I would politely decline,” said Dasha, “if that amazing smell hadn’t been teasing me to near insanity.”

  They thanked Mistress Mor, Isi placing something in her palm that most likely was round and gold. Then they jogged to the edge of the village, each tearing into a chunk of the bread. The crust was crisp and thin, the inside nutty and dark, and Rin could not remember ever enjoying food so much. It smelled like home, but it tasted different—new and strange and full of hope. She let the first bite mellow on her tongue, let the softness dissolve until the flavor changed.

  “Enna, did you find any signs of horses we might buy?” Isi asked.

  “There weren’t many to begin with, and the cowards took those as they fled.” />
  Dasha sighed. “It will be a long walk to Daire.”

  Rin was secretly relieved. She felt tilted and quavery from her encounter with the mercenary, and she wanted to feel herself moving, use her walking muscles, not clutch to the saddle of an uncertain beast.

  Enna began to trudge northeast. “There weren’t any fire-speakers in the village tonight, near as I could tell. Those fires were started by cowards with torches, punishing the villagers for fighting back. Filthy-fingered, litter-born, rancid—”

  “I can’t fathom what is happening,” said Isi. “A queen in Kel, a secret queen, who attacks Geric, attacks us, houses mercenaries on the border with Bayern. What ever the reason, we have to stop her—or whoever is behind these attacks.”

  “We are in Kel now,” said Dasha. “Shouldn’t this be King Scandlan’s matter?”

  “When fire-speakers burn houses and attack people, that’s my matter,” Enna said. “And if the burners are hiding behind a queen in Kel, that’s where I’ll go.”

  “You’re right, Dasha,” said Isi. “We’re stepping into dangerous diplomatic territory. But our ambassador in Kel was dismissed, and Scandlan has been unresponsive. If we go to Bressal first, it could take weeks to find safe paths through the bogs of Kel. We need to act quickly before more people are hurt.”

  “Still,” said Dasha, “this seems risky.”

  Isi nodded, her eyes sad. “But I think it’s a risk I need to take. Dasha, if you are at all concerned about being involved—”

  “I am concerned,” said Dasha, “but I still want to be involved. You’re right that something is amiss in Kel, and by virtue of our talents, we are bound to help.”

  “Thank you. We’ll need to get inside the castle and take down the fire-speakers as quickly as possible. Wind can push back fire attacks, but with your water, Dasha, you might be able to stop them cold.”

  “I am ready.”

  “Good,” Isi said. “I want to lock up whoever is behind this for Scandlan to judge. Let’s always keep in mind that we’re in Kel, and if we trip up, Scandlan might feel it his duty to declare war on Bayern. Especially if this person really is his wife and the rightful queen. So we tread carefully.”