12 – 5
Juliana gives us all a long and steady look. In her narrowed I see the worry and fear she does so well to hide. For the people of the Port, maybe; what they might do to each other at their worst. For her knights, perhaps; how they'll bear the brunt of what's to come, because she can trust no one else. Save for Clarke and me, but what can we do that she can't?
What can I do, I should say, what can I offer? Of the three, I am not the magi. Nor am I the knight. I am the girl who cannot seem to keep apace with what's happening to her. From rain-and-mud, to ash-and-water, to tooth-and-talon, it has taken all that I have to merely survive. The rolling rattle of the wagons is all but gone. The trail-dirt their wheels threw high settles slow back to the ground. I curl my hand to catch the last touches of that ox's warm fur. Nothing. That is the answer.
“When you get to the room,” she says to us, “lock yourselves in. Don't light the lantern, don't open the window. – Stay inside –, no matter what you hear. Don't open the door for anyone except me, Flint, Hull, or Turner.” She sighs. “Look, you'll be fine. I'm probably overreacting. Just...humor me, will you?” Our agreements seem to give her some small relief. She nods and says, “I'll see you soon. Flint, not a – hair – out of place, alright? On any of you.”
“Ma'am,” nods Flint.
She looks back to us. Takes us in. “Soon,” she promises, then she's gone. Back up the gentle slope to the fog-shrouded town and its many murdered. She leaves us, a knight, a magi, and a girl. We watch her go, until the fog has swallowed all but the sound of her boots, until even that is gone, and only then does Clarke speak.
Her blue eyes are wide and bright, her face pale. Her fingers flutter at the hollow of her throat, tracing the silver wire that binds her piece of ice She believes Juliana as much as I do, it would seem. “Is she?” she asks. Flint hums, confused. “Overreacting?”
Flint hums, understanding. Waves for us to precede him. Nothing keeping us here anymore. The trail-dirt is settled, the rattling quieted, and the warmth gone. So we go; me first, Clarke following, and Flint himself behind. He answers in his gruff-and-growl voice, “No,” he says, “She's not.”
Clarke's breath hitches, trembles on its way out. Glance over my shoulder, see her force the next one steady. See her stop herself from tracing the ice's facets with her thumb. She nods and says nothing more. Beyond the sound of our breathing, the rustle of Flint's armor, and the sigh of dewy grass parting around our boots, there is no other sound. The fog takes it. The disorienting oppresion of the surrounding gray brings my thoughts to ever darker possibilities; not of Juliana's lie, the 'why' of that is clear enough, but of what she fears the coming hours will bring.
I have heard the tear of flesh, the break of bone.
I have felt the pain and terror of playful, deliberate cruelty.
It always comes back to it. The bramble-beast. A line of fresh ache pulses in my back, in time with the beat of my heart. Drops of sweat sting through the cracks in the scab, salting the smooth scar growing beneath. It's not enough for it to haunt my dreams. No, now it must lurk in my waking mind. I will never be free of it, but in the persistence of its memory there is a blessing. Just one.
I'm not afraid. Juliana said I don't know what people can be like, what they can do to each other. She's wrong, and even if she wasn't, it wouldn't matter. What is the Windrunner, the drowner, the throat-cutter, under the ram's-horned shadow of the beast? What would they do if came for them? They would suffer. They would suffer its teeth, its talons, and its terrible games until it found them fun no longer. Only then would they be allowed to die.
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Shouting from up ahead, muffled and muted by the fog. Wisps of torchlight, little dots of orange-red on a canvas of endless gray. Long, cool fingers curl around my arm and hold to it tightly. An icy star flickers to life beside me as Clarke hisses, tight and terrified, “What's that?!”
She's afraid, and I've done nothing. What is wrong with me? Why didn't I do anything? Why did I just leave her to feel it alone? Too busy congratulating myself for not dying, I should think. What a lover I'd be. What a friend I am. I put one hand on her far shoulder, the other atop hers on my arm. “It's –”
“Word's gotten out,” Flint stops beside us, folding his arms. His growl is welcome after so long in gray and silence. He eyes the wispy light and works his jaw like a horse, “Faster 'n I thought.”
“They're leaving?” I ask, “Everyone?”
Flint bobs his head, “Some,” he answers, “Tryin' to, anyway.” He hums, thoughtful. The road isn't far. Its traffic should be easily heard, but strain as we might to listen, there's nothing to be heard. So, he doesn't ask, what's stopping them?
- - -
It's the gate. Port Viara's weathered portcullis of flat, thick iron bars is down. Shut, trapping the three of us outside of the city, and its own people within. The gateway arch is cramped with them, their torchlight dancing across drawn, tired faces with frightened, desperate expressions. Some have carts, others wagons, and most simply carry in their arms or on their backs what they value most. The shouting comes from the front, where a group of men are split by intent into two groups. The first strain and sweat to lift the portcullis by hand. The second, accusing each other of things. The only accomplishment either have to show for their efforts are red faces and a fraught, growing tension in the air.
Who closed it, and why? It must have happened after Juliana passed through, or else she'd also be stuck out here. It might've been her, but that still leaves the 'why'. To keep the killers, the drowner and the throat-cutter, from escaping with the crowd? If that were the case, then she would surely be here, looking for them. If she is, I can't see her.
But if not her, then who? Fog swirls around Flint as he moves in front of us, drawing attention. Awareness of him starts with the red-faced men, finished with catching their breath. Their shoulders roll and share encouraging pats to arms and elbows. Just before they set to, they see Flint. Stare at him in shock for a moment. One of them, a balding man with butcher's forearms and a drinker's belly, calls out, “Oi! Oi! Who're you, then?!”
He's loud with his surprise, tinges it with fear. He's not to be blamed for it. A stranger comes sudden and quiet from the fog, grim of face and dark in eye. Dressed in leathers and mail, and behind are two others, too obscured to see. I'd be frightened, in his place.
Flint shifts to answer, but before he can another does on his behalf. The bald man's call had shut the accusers up. Now one of them saw, and took, an opportunity to hear his favorite voice. “I know who he is,” this opportunist says. He's fully and finely dressed; a silver ring on the finger he points at Flint. “I saw you, sir, skulking around, lurking in dark alleys! You're a thief, a common cutpurse! No doubt you caused this – this –” he waves that pointing hand around, ring gleaming in the light of torches, “this – logjam –, in order to relieve us of our valuables!”
Flint looks his accuser over. The man is tall and broadly built, beard and hair shot with lines of gray. “I'm no thief,” Flint answers, smoother and more gently than usual. “I'm a knight. A Knight-Scout, in fact. Dary Flint, here under orders from Knight-Captain Morrow. As for the gate...” he shrugs, “I don't know how to close it, let alone from the outside.”
Now that they were all friends again, another one of the accusers sidles up to the first, so he could quietly say, “He's got a point, y'know.”
“Shut up! I didn't ask you!” the bearded one snaps. Then, begrudgingly admits, “Morrow's an ugly brute of a woman, but I know she's here. You say you're under her command? Fine. What about them?” His gaze passes behind Flint, lands on us. Clarke's nails dig into my arm. My breath catches. It doesn't matter that we're mostly obscured by fog, I do not like how he's looking at us.
“Kids out visiting some friends before they left. They lost track of time, and next thing they knew, it was night.” Flint not quite lies, with another shrug, “I'm escorting them home. Not safe around here after dark, you know.”
“Local kids, you say?” The man asks, suspicion thick in every word. Flint nods. “Might know 'em, then. Come on out, kids! Let me have a look at you!”
Neither of us so much as lift their feet. Clarke's hold on me is so tight as to be painful. I glance at her, see her unwavering, horrified on the man's hand. “Zira...” she whispers.
“Come on out!” he calls again, now impatient and suspicious.
Flint says, “Maybe you're scaring them?”
“What?” I whisper back.
The man scoffs, “I could be their neighbor, what's there to be scared of?”
“You.” Flint offers, “Your friends. All of this.”
“His ring,” she hisses into my ear, “Look at his – ring –, Zira!”
The man's hand is flat on his chest. He's offended and outraged at the very idea of us fearing him. He defends himself, but I'm not listening. I'm not listening because, set into the band of that silver ring, are three small gems. Each one of them is a shade of pale, icy blue I've only in one other place.
Hanging from a ribbon, at the hollow of Clarke's throat.