Path of Fate Read online

  The Blessed Amiya gifted but a few of Her precious children to the people of Kodu Riik. Most hoped and prayed fervently for a questing animal to seek them out, but only a small portion were fortunate enough to be chosen ahalad-kaaslane.

  Most dreamed of bonding. Reisil shuddered. Being ahalad-kaaslane meant unending demands and constant travel. She did not want that, any of it, for herself.

  But who was she to refuse such a gift?

  Nothing but a stray, abandoned by her parents in the hour of her birth, a worthless foundling. Except for her talent to heal.

  “They need me here,” she argued to the still morning, willing the Lady to hear. “What do I know of being ahalad-kaaslane? I don’t know how to shoot an arrow or use a sword, ride a horse or spy. But I am a good tark. Besides, I owe this town. Kallas raised me, paid for my schooling and apprenticeship. They didn’t have to do that. They could have indentured me, or sent me to the Temple orphanage to become a scullery maid or a serving girl.” Reisil shook her head and licked dry lips, her heart still racing as she tried to convince both the Lady and herself. “I know I can serve better here as a tark than wandering across Kodu Riik. I know it.”

  She stopped, staring up at the featureless azure sky as if waiting for a response. None came. She waited a few more seconds, then drew a steadying breath. She clambered to her feet, turning her mind with effort to practical matters.

  “All right then. It’s all over. I’ve made my choice. The bird is gone and won’t be coming back. Time to get back to work.”

  Reisil took up her empty bucket and lugged it to the well.

  She hadn’t gone more than a dozen feet when she was halted by the sound of the city bells clanging an emergency. Hurry, hurry, they cried. Trouble, trouble.

  Reisil dashed to her cottage. She snatched up her pack, already well stocked in readiness for her afternoon rounds, and then glanced at her shelves. What could have happened? Fire? An accident? What catastrophe? Something big to ring the bells. What would she need?

  With knowing fingers she sorted through her carefully harvested stores, snatching up several pouches and a half dozen wax-sealed jars. She added these to the supplies in her pack before securing the flap. Then she was running back out the door, yanking her pack over her shoulders as she went.

  The path from her cottage led along the river bluff and disappeared into a shady wood. Reisil raced along beneath the box elders, hawthorns and maples, the bells continuing to peal, goading her faster. Her booted feet pounded over the moist leafmeal, silencing crickets and songbirds. She leaped over the rivulet bisecting the path, missing the bank and splashing her legs. Her breath rasped between her lips as she ran. In what seemed like an hour, but was no more than a few minutes, she emerged from the wood out onto the crown of a sloping hill. Above her perched Kallas, circled by its dusky-pink stone walls.

  Reisil followed the footpath around the hill and out through the exterior commons to the road. A wagon rumbled by, kicking up a plume of dust. Down by the quay Reisil could see a motley swarm of welldressed merchants, sweat-stained stevedores and shaggyhaired river rats hurrying up the road in response to the summons of the bells.

  Reisil hurried after the retreating wagon. Sweat dampened the collar of her tunic and trickled down her back. Puffs of dust rose with every step. The wind brushed her face with thirsty fingers, and on its back rode the pungent scent of white hellebore—an ominous odor. The poisonous plant flourished in the brackish flats north of Kallas on the Patverseme side, where treacherous bogs pooled with fetid water, despite the drought.

  Wrinkling her nose at the cloying smell, she jogged faster. The flowers’ odor seemed to hint at something dire. But just as she arrived at the gates, the sound of the bells ceased, the air still reverberating with their clarion call.

  “What has happened?” she demanded of a guard whose name she did not know.

  “No one’s hurt, Reisiltark. There’s news from Koduteel. Something about the war,” he said, his face stern. “The mayor’s called a meeting up at Raim’s khovhouse.”

  Reisil stared at the man for a moment, taken aback. Sodur had said that a peace could be coming soon. Was this it then? Or did the ringing of the emergency bells indicate the war was beginning again?

  Aware that the guard was watching her, she schooled her expression into one of cool professionalism, nodded and passed inside the gate.

  Out of sight, she leaned against the corner of a brick warehouse, her legs trembling. No accident. No injury or fire. She closed her eyes, relief surging through her, followed quickly by concern. She stiffened. The war. Had Patverseme broken the truce? Was it coming to Kallas at last? Or—

  Reisil’s mind fled to Kaval as it did a dozen times a day since he’d left to steward his first caravan. Her mouth flattened, thinking of bandits. Every trader and tinker who came through Kallas told terrible stories of butchery and depredations—from outlaw soldiers to desperate, homeless crofters to mythic wild beasts—nokulas —they called them. Spirit beasts. But no, Rikutud, Kaval’s father, was no fool. He didn’t take chances. He would have sent his goods with ample guards. Kaval would be home soon, back in her arms, safe and sound.

  Unless the war had begun again. Would he have to fight? Kaval had passed the last years of fighting watching after the business, while his father ran supply wagons for the Kodu Riikian army. Her heart stuttered. Her joy at the prospect of peace had as much to do with Kaval as anything else.

  Reisil made her way through the mostly deserted streets of Kallas, forgetting all about Saljane and her refusal of the Lady’s gift, absorbed by a nightmarish wash of dreadful possibilities: of Kaval surrounded by a pack of Patversemese soldiers with shining red eyes and black holes for mouths; of Kaval lying on the ground, eyes blank, his chest crushed; of Kaval fending off the blazing magic of a wizard attack, blood matting his hair and drenching his clothing crimson.

  At last she came out of her dark ruminations to realize she had missed her turn and was wandering off in the wrong direction. With a muttered imprecation, she ducked through a narrow alley between the mercantile and Taktitu’s jewelry shop. She emerged onto the wide circular avenue forming the hub from which the streets of Kallas branched out in spokes. At the center lay a wide grass-and-paved plaza dotted with trees. Skirting its edges were a number of the town’s more upscale businesses. Among them was Raim’s kohv-house. Raim served the best food Reisil had ever eaten, and he always had a ready plate for Reisil, which she took advantage of as often as possible. It was here that she was headed, though it appeared she was one of the last stragglers to arrive.

  Too aware that until she was confirmed as tark, her position in Kallas was tenuous, Reisil swung into a fast walk, trying to appear composed and serene. If they were going to let her stay, the townspeople must believe in her, trust her to be steady, controlled and capable in a crisis. Such were the hallmarks of a good tark, and this news from Koduteel—whatever it was—might be an excellent chance to really show her abilities.

  An accusing voice niggled in her mind. What would they do if they knew that less than an hour ago she had refused to become ahalad-kaaslane, the greatest honor in the land? Her mouth went dry. If anyone in Kallas should find out—

  They’d despise her. They really would turn her out so as not to incur the Blessed Lady’s wrath.

  So make sure it was worth it, she told herself firmly, refusing to consider the possibility, refusing to let fear and guilt undermine her decision. Be the tark you know you are and both the town and the Lady will forgive you.

  Sunk in the mire of her anxiety, she was caught up short when a bony hand on her sleeve stopped her.

  “Please, is there work? My children have to eat.”

  Reisil guessed the woman was about her own age, though she looked a decade older. Her straw-colored hair was unevenly cropped short, eyes beginning to look bugged in her emaciated face. She bore a boy child on her hip, maybe two years old. His bones protruded sharply beneath his papery skin and his b
elly pouched out, distended with hunger. Two more children clung to her ragged skirts with gaunt fingers, lips dry and cracking, flies crawling along their cheeks to the corners of their eyes.

  Seeing them, Reisil felt a shudder of repulsion and a simultaneous wash of pity. They’d come a long way to get to Kallas, to get away from the war and find refuge. But the town had absorbed all the refugees it wanted. And so with superficial generosity, it fed and clothed the rest and then firmly sent them on their way, closing the gates at night and shooing loiterers away at the point of a pike, at least as far as the squatters’ village in the copse.

  Reisil remembered the conversation she’d overheard between Sodur and Upsakes. Maybe there was something they could do for her. She opened her mouth to speak, but the woman forestalled her, anticipating refusal.

  “Please. There must be work here. Something. Anything. You have so much. The war hasn’t come here.” The woman might have cried, if she had any tears left, if her body didn’t need every resource just to keep her standing.

  “Let me find you something to eat,” Reisil said, grasping the woman’s hand to steady her as she swayed.

  The woman shook her head violently and yanked her hand away.

  “We need work, a home. What is the other? A meal? A moment? What then? Go on to the next town? And they have less, and they struggle just to survive. The wind blows hot and dry. There will be little this year, even if the fields aren’t burned or ravaged in battle. This place has plenty. Surely there must be work. I work very hard. Very hard,” she begged.

  In Kallas there was no work. And no real charity. If the ahalad-kaaslane hadn’t decided to do something for these people, there would be nothing Reisil could do. But Reisil hesitated to speak of the overheard conversation. She might not have heard correctly. She might be offering false hope.

  “Please, take these and eat,” Reisil said, digging in her pack for the raisins and bread she carried against emergencies. “Your children are hungry.” She thrust the food, into the woman’s reluctant hands. The woman continued to stare at Reisil and she flushed, feeling the stir-rings of anger. The woman needed work, but her children needed food, and right now. They were starving for their mother’s willfulness. Reisil reined in her spurting anger, the gray and faceless specter of her unknown parents rising in her mind. She thrust the image away. It wasn’t a fair comparison. At least this woman was trying to take care of her children and she had enough pride to hate handouts.

  Reluctantly she said, “There may be something for you. I don’t know what exactly, not right now. But the ahalad-kaaslane may have something planned. For you, and others like you.”

  The woman stared at Reisil, unsure whether this was merely a way of brushing her off.

  Reisil nodded. “It is true, but I will have to find out more.”

  The certainty and reassurance in Reisil’s voice convinced the woman and she smiled, her lips trembling. Reisil fingered the silver tree and circle brooch on her collar. Helping people, healing, this was what she was meant to do.

  “Reisiltark! Why aren’t you at Raim’s? Didn’t you hear the bells?”

  A middle-aged woman with a braided crown of graying blond hair thrust open the doors of the jewelry shop, wringing her apron in her hands. Her voice sounded high and breathy, as if she’d been running, and her face was pale beneath her freckles. Normally staid and unflappable, Meelaru trembled with emotion.

  “I heard them, Meelaru. I’m going to Raim’s now. Do you know what has happened?” Reisil spoke in soothing tones. When Reisil was growing up, Meelaru had been a buoy of comfort. Though she had little time to spare from her own family, she always made time for the stray girl, always had a hug and a smile, a cup of milk and a slice of sweet bread.

  “It’s a herald. All the way from Koduteel. He’s brought awful news, just awful.”

  “The truce is over? Was there an attack?” Reisil’s jaw tightened and she crossed her arms over her stomach. Kaval had gone to Koduteel. The capital city was desperate for goods after the winter, and the long trek fraught with bandits was worth the return, or so Kaval’s father had said as he waved his son out of the gates. Was the herald to report an attack on the caravan? Reisil kept her face expressionless as fear clutched her throat.

  “I don’t know.” Meelaru put her fingers to her trembling lips. “Taktitu wouldn’t tell me, but I’ve never seen my husband so upset. Everyone is.”

  “I’d better go then.” Reisil looked at the beggar woman and her children as if she’d never seen them before. For a split second she didn’t recall them at all. She turned back to Meelaru. “This woman and her children need to eat, a place to rest. Can you look after them? I’ll come back for them later.”

  Meelaru gave them a hard look then a short nod, her round cheeks jiggling. Her expression firmed and color seeped back into her cheeks. Reisil almost smiled. Meelaru could be depended on to get things done in a crisis, and she never turned away needy children. Reisil ought to know. Meelaru motioned the woman and her children into the shop, tsking at the dirt and dust.

  “Mind you come back and tell me what you hear. Taktitu’s bound to forget,” she said to Reisil, her voice sounding more like herself.

  “Yes, mind you do, little sister!” came a taunting voice behind Reisil. She spun around, clenching her teeth. Juhrnus.

  He stood opposite her, a spiteful grin stretching his lips, his legs braced wide, his head tipped in challenge.

  He watched her, his lip curling as he stroked the yellow-and-green-striped head of his ahalad-kaaslane. He cradled the sisalik on one arm, its claws clamped around his wrist. The lizard’s black, fleshy tongue whispered across the back of Juhrnus’s hand affectionately. Mean-spirited and malicious as he was, she still couldn’t understand why the Blessed Lady had chosen him.

  Or me either.

  “Poor girlie, missing your Kaval? Afraid he’ll get lost on the way home? Or maybe you’re worried that he’s bedded every serving wench, merchant’s daughter and trull between here and Koduteel and has caught himself a pox. Got your potions all ready for that, have you? The ladies do so love our handsome Kaval, don’t they?” He shook his head and tsked. “He has such a hard time keeping his . . . eyes . . . from wandering. I do hope he’s got enough strength left to wave his flag for you.”

  Reisil kept her expression composed with some effort, though she flushed at Juhrnus’s none-too-subtle crudity. She and Kaval weren’t a secret. But that really wasn’t the point. Juhrnus had made it his personal mission to harass and embarrass her since the first moment she’d returned from her apprenticeship. Six months and he’d dogged her heels every single day as if she hadn’t been gone for thirteen years, as if she were still ten years old. She’d hoped after being chosen ahalad-kaaslane he might have better things to do, something more important occupy his time, but apparently she was wrong.

  Her glance flicked to Meelaru, who watched the exchange with avid curiosity. There was a frown between her eyes, as if she were waiting for Reisil to put Juhrnus in his proper place.

  And just what is that? she thought wrathfully. He’s ahalad-kaaslane. Who can speak against him? Who can bring him to heel? He’s the Blessed Lady’s own chosen. Bad choice as that might be, she brooded, trying to sort out some reply that wouldn’t damn her in Meelaru’s eyes, but might give her back a little of her own.

  In the back of her mind, a malicious voice wondered what he’d say if he’d knew she’d been chosen too. She quashed the thought with a spurt of fear. She must not ever reveal that to anyone! Least of all Juhrnus!

  “Come, little sister. Cat got your tongue?” Juhrnus smiled, daring her to say something. Reisil’s fingers curled. He’d taken to calling her his little sister when they were very young, disguising his attacks on her under the name of familial sport, all goodnatured and affectionate, just brotherly teasing. After all, she belonged to everyone’s family and nobody’s, moving house to house as she had. Even after years away, whenever she encountered him, she felt
as if she were a child again, homeless and helpless.

  “Hadn’t you better get up to Raim’s, Juhrnus? You ought to buckle down, now that you’re ahalad-kaaslane. What would your grandmother say if she knew what a wild thing you still were, and here with all this responsibility?” Meelaru asked suddenly, and Reisil felt a rush of relief clash headlong against a staggering sense of humiliation. Meelaru was rescuing her.

  Red seeped into Juhrnus’s cheeks and his eyes narrowed. But he flashed Meelaru an impudent, bitter-edged grin. “She’d be speechless with surprise that I hadn’t yet drunk myself into the river like my mother, or got myself killed in the war like my father.” He sauntered forward past Reisil, then turned back and gestured for her to accompany him.

  Left with little choice, Reisil fell in beside him, her jaw tight with anger. He chuckled softly.

  “Little sister, what will you do when I leave Kallas?”

  “It can’t be soon enough for me,” she gritted between her teeth.

  “Ah, you don’t mean that. But never fear. I plan to devote all my attention to you before I go.”

  “Some ahalad-kaaslane you are,” she returned. “If you are so intent on me, how will you find time to help Kallas and Kodu Riik?”

  Reisil was gratified to see him wince as her dagger hit home.

  “I am not the only ahalad-kaaslane in Kallas. There are three others,” he said stiffly, not looking at her.

  Reisil snorted. “Felias is no more experienced than you. And you want to spend your time bullying me.”

  “Make hay while the sun shines.”

  “Whyever did the Blessed Lady choose you?”

  Juhrnus jeered at her. “Hidden depths, little sister. My talents are valuable to the Lady, as no doubt Kaval’s are to you,” he added with a suggestive wag of his brows. He bent and made a kissing sound next to her ear and then brushed past, dashing up the wide flagstone steps to disappear inside the double doors of Raim’s kohv-house.