CHAPTER SEVEN
A Hand in the Hearse
He saw me. There was no doubt about that.
Just as the echoes of the strange man’s departure ceased, the hearse lurched forward, displacing Leta from her hiding place. She sat up on the floor, crumbling up the shroud and throwing it atop the mound of bodies.
It was time. Leta needed to figure out what was happening with Clark, the soldier, and her mother. And more importantly, where she was to go from here. Her itchy fingers wanted to take her knife, jimmy the drawbar free, and run as fast and far as she could. That was no good, of course. She was barely off the grounds of the Sjlunroca and still in the Sourlands, where rolling fields of dirt spread in all directions, broken up only by patches of low weeds. It would take almost no time for her captors—or pursuers—to find her.
Leta realized with a furious start that she had been kidnapped. Lessons about what to do if she was abducted came back to her from her childhood, but there was no one who would post a ransom for her that she would want to meet. However, she now had some distance from the entirety of the watchman’s guard, which might be an improvement.
A sliver of light shone through the bottom of the hearse’s back doors, waking Leta’s eyes to her surroundings. With the back of her hand, she tried to wipe away tears that had maddeningly begun to fall and reluctantly turned to survey the pile of bodies to her left. She knew what she’d find before seeing it, and through the saltwater clarity of tears, she recognized her mother’s hand.
It hung free from between two other bodies, moving gently with the motion of the carriage. Gods, it was so small. Smaller than Leta’s own, even. How had she never noticed before? The dim light and Leta’s tears blurred out the scars and hid the deathly pallor.
Her mother’s hand.
Like a half-opened sandbag, the weight of Leta’s situation fell upon her and buried her past her eyes. She missed her mother and father with the demanding want of a child. And before she could stop it, it was happening again.
* * *
Leta hadn’t wanted to go to the dinner. Typically, her father was too busy to mind where she was, and her mother was happy to let her eat in the kitchens with her hand servant, Ally, and the other staff. But not tonight. Tonight, she had to dress “appropriately” and be in Echo Hall directly after sunset.
Ally broke the bad news to her: “Your father and mother are to be joined by some of their advisors from the other dominions. You’ll probably be excused early, but you need to start learning how to be a proper lady and act royal.”
Leta threw her head back and groaned at the coffered ceilings of her bedrooms, but she stuck her arms out to her sides and let Ally get on with the dressing, brushing, and cleaning up.
Of the six dominions left after the Cattoleiri’s descension, Leta knew theirs was the most important. So, she didn’t see why they had to make nice to the others if they were the ones in charge. But she’d tried that argument before, and it didn’t work. Her new plan was to sit and eat dinner and think about what she would do tomorrow to pass the time while the grownups talked about whatever grownups talked about. Money, probably, and borders. Gods, they were always talking about borders—more like borings. Leta laughed at her little joke; it would be the last time she laughed like that: silly and carefree and as a child.
The dinner always came to her in flashes. Her father red-faced and laughing a bit too hard. The tang of malted vinegar on fish. Nanny Spry, seeming out of place in a plain but formal dress rather than her usual floor-length denim skirt and kerchiefed hair.
Then, from nowhere, her mother, in full evening regalia standing and shouting, “For the good of Umara!” and swinging her left arm across to bury a knife in her father’s chest.
A growing spot of blood, the sound of a broken decanter, screams, then a horrible white noise buzzing, encompassing her mind in a confused fog, leaving only one feeling, one sensation.
The need to undo.
To rewind the past hour, to make it not have happened. Then—blackness. She was told she passed out—from the shock, she supposed. They had to tell her of it when she came to, lying in her bed. Back when she thought that the death of her father was the worst thing that would ever happen to her. The death of her father and the betrayal of her mother. The blood of her father on her mother’s small hands.
Her father’s blood had splashed onto Dagna as she was seated at his right hand. How much of his blood lived on in Leta’s? How much of her mother’s? She shook her head. Her hands were sweating, and her pulse was up. She told herself what she always told herself. There is no undoing, there is no unbecoming. Just carrying on.
It was strange to her—her mother’s actions—that she’d killed Otto, of course, but more so, her motivations. Leta had never thought that she’d cared too much for the people of Umara, certainly not enough to risk her comfortable life. And Bonne, for her part, had not a word to say about it.
In the weeks to follow, Bonne remained completely and steadfastly mute. She did not speak to defend or explain herself. And even when she began talking again, she never spoke of what had happened—of what she had done.
“Mad,” they had said—the members of the parliament. And so they sent physickers and clergymen to find the source of madness. They found nothing wrong with her, which worried them all the more. If there was nothing to fix, there was nothing to be done…except to lock her up and send her away.
Leta didn’t know who suggested that a key to Bonnelle’s madness might be found in the blood, but she and Dagna also had to undergo a battery of tests. Like their mother, nothing was found—nothing until the final day.
Their final arbiter was a man with hair much too black for his thin skin and foggy eyes. He said very little as he entered the physicker’s rooms. With a wave of his hands, he excused the aids and healers, leaving him alone with the two girls. Leta wanted to hold Dagna’s hand for support but thought Dagna would find it childish, so she’d missed her last chance.
The twins sat beside each other, with the man across from them.
“Mirror twins,” he said, then circled his gnarled ring finger at them, a gesture to ward off evil.
Leta fought the urge to share a glance with Dagna. They had been told to look straight ahead and do what the man said.
“Give me your hands.”
Dagna reached out to him with her left hand while Leta extended her right. The old man made the warning gesture again, then placed their forearms on the table, face up. The girls were as still as possible, but he admonished them to “stop moving” anyway.
He barely took his eyes off them as he drew two knives from his pocket. They were identical: clear with a wicked edge and iridescent glow. Taking one knife in each hand and starting from between the sisters, he pulled the knives apart, meaning to drag the tips over their forearms, halfway between elbow and wrist.
“Wait!” said Dagna. “I couldn’t wait. I’ve already tested my blood. Please. Just use the same wound.” The man was off put by Dagna’s demands, but he did as asked. She had cut herself on her lower thigh and raised her skirts to expose the cut.
The man still managed to cut the two at the same time. Dagna on her thigh, and Leta on her wrist. Dagna gasped in surprise while Leta choked back an angry word with the cut.
“Be still,” he said. There was no emotion behind his words, and he cleaned his knives quickly with two towels and sheaved them. Then, he took a sprinkle of gun powder, expensive and rare in Umara, and sprinkled the open wounds with them. His work done, he turned and left without a word.
After their eyes finished following the old man out of the room, they turned to look at their matching cuts. The two women were now permanently different with large and ugly scars marking their body forever. But that wasn’t the most disturbing difference. That still haunted Leta to this day: while her sister’s blood wept red, Leta’s congealed as it exited her arm, a thick and tarry black. Leta, like her mother, was cursed with the root.
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There was a bump in the road, and Leta hit her head on the back wall, thankful for the pain. It brought her back to the present.
She thought of Dagna, of the last time they were together, wanting to have someone to hold on to for comfort. Her mother’s hand still dangled before her. Leta reached up and held her mother’s hand for what seemed like the first time and what would be the last. Now, she held it in her own, and as she held it, it…crinkled.
Out of habit, she looked around and sat up straight from her hunch. That was no death rattle or mortis crackle. It was too dark to get a good look at her mother’s hand, so she felt around until she felt something grasped in her mother’s clawed hand. She carefully pulled the item from her mother’s fist and laid Bonne’s hand to rest gently down afterward.
It was a piece of paper, all crumbled and smeared with blood along the edges. Given the dimness of the damned hearse, Leta couldn’t make anything out on the page. Could it give her some idea of what’s going on? The hearse was only twenty minutes outside the Sjlunroca’s bounds, but Leta couldn’t wait another breath. She tried again to ensure there wasn’t enough light to see by, but it was still too dark. And besides, something told her that time was almost up.
She found a dry part of her jean’s leg, smoothed the paper against it, then folded it carefully and secreted it away in the satchel under her shirt. Now, she would have to reach her feet and the back of the hearse. She didn’t know who had helped her escape, and if she didn’t know them—or, more importantly, their motives—they couldn’t be trusted. She also decided her only way to escape would be from under the tarp that served as a ceiling. As tempting as it was to use her knife to dislodge the drawbar, it would cause a riot of slamming metal and wood and likely a mess of bodies falling out behind her.
No, it would have to be over the sides of the hearse and under the tarp. Luckily, the carriage was separate from where the drivers sat and steered the horses.
The road beneath the wheels was rutted and rocky; she’d have to be careful as she stood to avoid finding herself face-first in a pile of rapidly decomposing bodies. Luckily, in the early springtime, the weather was still temperate. She couldn’t imagine what this would be like in the heat of summer. Leta counted herself lucky that she’d been distracted by the young soldier as her nose adjusted to the smell.
Her abdomen tightened, and she stood crouching, focusing on keeping her balance. She carefully shuffled towards the back doors of the hearse, managing to crunch only one body part underfoot (she did apologize afterward). Once she reached the back, she barely got a hold with her fingers and pulled herself up over the edge enough to survey the surroundings beyond.
Perhaps she would have experienced a sense of wonder at seeing the world outside of the ‘Roc for the first time in a dozen years, even if it was just the Sourlands, but she was distracted by the sounds of voices from the cab. Of course, she had known that people were driving the hearse but hearing them made it all too real. She could only make out one voice that seemed to monopolize the conversation: the young soldier. More terrifying than his voice, however, was the fact that it stopped.
Leta lowered herself back into the hearse, making no noise or movement. Her pounding heart distracted her from the movement of the road beneath her until it was too late, and she realized the hearse, too, was coming to a stop.
Instincts failed her. Leta’s movements became jerky and senseless: arms and legs looking for somewhere to go before her mind could answer. She thought of Nanny Spry and what she might say—her authoritarian confidence was what Leta needed at this moment. And there it was, the voice like a rake against stones. Don’t complicate things, girl. If you dig deep enough, There are only two answers to a question.
Move or stay. As much as her body wanted to flee the situation, she didn’t have enough information about what was going on. She needed to wait to see if she could hear the reason for their stopping. They weren’t close enough to their destination yet. Clark said the journey would last at least until nightfall. That meant their stopping must be due to external factors, Clark would want to get Leta far from the Sjlunroca as soon as possible. Or, said a little voice in Leta’s head, he lied to you, and you ate it all as greedy as a rat. The thought angered Leta, but even if it was true, she was pretty sure she could outrun Clark. While she knew little about his traveling companion, he looked too clean and whole to have seen many fights. Certainly not of the type she would bring him. Get in close enough to smell his breath and never stop moving. Thorne had taught her to fight, and she had seen the Dalinese prisoner wrestle an escaped hoofhound to the ground, with an eye tooth and his left great toe his only losses.
Leta tightened her satchel around her and rose to wide-legged crouch, Wordsfail in hand, heart in her throat. She wasn’t ready, but she was Leta Tallum—Baroness of the Divine Sjlunroca and purveyor of damnation.
Besides, you can’t hurt a dead girl.
* * *
She couldn’t hear the fucking conversation. Couldn’t see shit either. Leta had been straining her tired ears and eyes to reach beyond the confines of her hearse. Something was wrong. She thought she heard the soothing tones of Clark’s speech brush up against the clipped tones of another. It wasn’t the strange soldier that had closed her in the hearse, however. This voice was too harsh and gritty, the voice of an old general, though no general would be found in the Sourlands. The crown would sooner burn than protect it.
The desire to burrow back in between the bodies was strong, but her pride was stronger, if even just slightly. She couldn’t be found cowering amongst the rot. She wouldn’t give that to her pursuer. Leta would stand and face them if only to figure out what the fuck was going on.
Wordsfail seemed to move towards the double doors on its own accord, its sharp tip aiming for the sliver of light just below the black bar of shadow. The lock bar was lighter than she imagined it would be, and she jostled it up until it rolled off its hinges and fell against the side of the hearse with a clang. Leta didn’t wait to hear the men’s responses but used her shoulder to open the door and jump down. Ready or not, here I come.
Leta landed in a crouch, her knees taking most of the impact against the hard-packed soil of the Sourlands. No grass here to cushion her fall. A dust cloud rose about her feet in the quiet light of day. But the quiet didn’t last long. Footfalls raced towards her from the front of the hearse. Clark’s voice had raised in pitch and intensity, calling the men back, but they didn’t listen. Three unfamiliar men reached her before Clark or his accomplice and Leta wished she had stayed between the putrid and decomposing bodies.
* * *
It is no surprise that Leta and Dagna lived an atypical childhood. Their mother’s extreme caution extended to every aspect of their lives. They were not allowed to climb trees, for fear that they’d fall, they took daily tinctures from physickers to ward off sickness and were never allowed to leave the The Aria unaccompanied. Even if they wanted to go for a horseback ride through the orchards, there would be two guards assigned to watch them. One guard could never do, lest the girls be separated, and he had to choose between them. After years of this treatment, Leta, Dagna, and their guards fell into something of a rhythm. The girls knew when the change of guard was and would plan activities accordingly. Despite the fair weather, they never went horseback riding in the early morning, lest Welter be one of their chaperones, for he masked his own acute fear of horses by keeping a tight reign on his horse and a tighter one on the girls. He would yell and demand they slow down to no more than a canter, his contempt for their girlhood antics clear through his voice. Anand, on the other hand, would set up races and other games for the girls, often laughing just as hard as they did.
Now, standing face to face with Anand, there was no joy in his aged face, no indulgent smile. The Royal Guard uniform he wore was neatly pressed and carried more honor flags than the last time she’d seen him. Would he win one for this?
“Leta Tallum, by order of the crown, you are under arrest and will be tried for the crime of escaping a Divine prison and for murder.” His voice cracked on the last word, and he tried to cover it by clearing his throat. Leta was not fooled.
“Anand, you know me, please, you know I didn’t do this!” To Leta’s horror, her eyes filled with tears, like telling a loved one about your terrible day. She just couldn’t keep it in anymore.
“You will receive a fair trial,” said Anand, not meeting her eyes. He reached out one hand towards her, like gentling a mad horse, but Leta could only see the cuffs he held in his other hand.
Leta wondered how effective handcuffs would be on top of her cuffs. They would probably have to secure them tight and close to her hands; it would be painful.
“Please drop your weapon. We’re not looking for a fight.”
The sounds from in front of the hearse told another story. It seemed as though their stand-off had ended, and the grappling had begun. Three Royal Guards stood before Leta; how many was Clark facing? And if he failed, what would that mean for her?
Then, like a weighted blanket, Leta’s exhaustion and sorrow caught up to her and covered her tip-to-tail. Dagna had won, and Leta had lost. The fight for resources that had begun in the womb had played itself all the way out.
Leta, Dagna, Bonne: Monsters, all of them. Danga had figured it out first, but Leta saw it now. There existed no world in which three monsters like these could live together. Dagna had emerged victorious. She was the most ruthless, the most tireless. Fine. If she wanted the mantle, she could have it. Leta would win no laurels, but perhaps someone would throw a flower on her grave. The knife dropped from her hand and landed handle up, its devil’s edge piercing the hard dirt to the handle.
“What are you doing?” a new voice yelled, wrenching Leta’s attention from her own self-pity. It was the young man that had closed her into the hearse. He sprinted towards her, wielding what looked like a shepherd’s crook. The image was quickly dispelled as it came slashing down towards Anand’s legs, cutting his right shin cleanly in half.
Leta was transfixed. She watched the place on the ground where blood quickly pooled. It took a long time for the blood to seep into the hardpacked dirt, and there was almost a full puddle worth of blood before Anand crashed horribly to the ground, landing in the puddle, screaming and holding the remains of his lower right leg.
The horror before her was ripped from her vision as a strong arm grabbed her around the waist and carried her clean off the ground. Leta struggled, but she was no match for her captor, who seemed to be carrying her with hardly any effort. “Cut them loose!” The scream was close to her ear, and the voice was the same that had admonished her not a dozen seconds earlier. It was the soldier from the hearse. He didn’t seem to mind her struggling as he rounded the other side of the hearse and raced towards the horses. Clark was astride one horse and holding the reigns of the other. The man set Leta atop the horse like a groom seating a child, then swung up behind her. He reached his arms around her to grasp the reins, and in unison, both men snapped the reins down and spurred their horses on. “I’m Kiran, by the way,” the man behind her shouted in her ear. “Pleasure to meet you.”
Leta barely heard him. Instead, she turned to look behind them and saw the royal guard members scrambling back towards their carriage. All but one.