Breath of Winter, A (10 page)

“She can’t stand when she isn’t the center of attention,” Ghedi said.

Henri came to my side. “I wonder.”

I glanced up at him. “What now?”

“If it’s because you’re both female, if she views you as competition among so many males.”

“It’s obvious we’re family.” I wrinkled my nose. “There’s no need to compete.”

“She might be unable to tell.” Henri studied my face before glancing at each of my brothers.

“Or she may not care.” That sounded more likely. “Besides, what difference does it make to her how many males are present or what their interest is in me? She’s dead. Her kind can’t reproduce.”

Of course he had a theory of his own. “I’m not as certain as you seem to be that she is dead.”

I groaned. “How did I know you were going to say that?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “You told me risers are dead bodies. She doesn’t look like a corpse to me. How long was the journey from Cathis to Erania? One week? Two? After several days of exposure to southland heat, your ward would have begun to decompose rapidly. Obviously, that’s not the case.” He shook his head. “Her wound, where you stabbed her, it’s healed. Only living flesh could mend the way hers has. What distinguishes a harbinger from a riser, I don’t know, not yet, but they aren’t bound by the plague in death. Therefore, she may very well be interested in procreation.”

Henri was making far too much sense. “If harbingers can procreate, why infect living hosts?”

“It’s one of many things I don’t know,” he said, “but you could help me find those answers.”

“I can’t.” Not for curiosity’s sake. “Do what you will with our ward, leave the others alone.”

“What distinguishes the two for you?” he pressed. “She was every bit as Araneaean as the risers were. What has she done to earn your spite that these other creatures haven’t? Help me understand.”

A clacking sound distracted me from answering. Our ward clutched the bars, clicking her nails.

She was far too intent on our conversation for my comfort.

“Risers have been reduced to mindless, slavering beasts.” I met her gaze. “She chooses to kill.”

If I had blinked, I would have missed her slow grin. A second later it was gone, and so was she. With a hop in her step, she retreated into the far corner of her cage and sat on the ground.

I turned a slow circle. “What is that chiming sound?”

“I’ll get that.” Henri eased around us and opened the hatch.

Braden stood in the lab, his thumbs hooked into his belt. He gave a nod to Henri then raised his brows in Ghedi’s direction. “Storm’s rolling in. Are you helping or aren’t you? We’re on our way up now.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a tiny scroll with a wax seal on its lip. “This came for you.” He tossed it to Henri. “Came with dinner instead of a roll. I’ll be speaking to Edan about that.”

“You do that.” Henri closed his fist over the paper. “Zuri, are you finished here?”

I watched him pick absently at the seal with his thumbnail. “I suppose.”

He grasped the handles on my chair. “Then I’ll escort you back to your room.”

“All right.” I shifted in my seat. “Ghedi? If you do go, bring me back something to talk about.”

His broad grin assured me nothing short of Kaleb latching on to his leg would stop his departure.

“I’ll do that.” He hesitated. “You’ll be all right alone for a few hours?”

I patted my armrests. “I’m sure I can find some way to occupy myself.”

I had transportation and, thanks to Braden and the note he had delivered, I was chaperone free.

Yes. I was quite sure I could find some way to occupy my time.

Chapter Five

Gods above, my shoulder hurt. Blood spotted my bandage and my gown. As I sipped a generous cup of tea, grateful I was alone with my agony, aware I had no one to blame but myself for the hours I had spent exploring the tunnels, I was thankful for Ghedi’s absence. With any luck, he would find me stretched out under the covers snoring and not looking the least bit guilty after my overexertion.

At last I understood Ghedi’s quandary. There were tunnels aplenty for walking—or rolling—but they led nowhere. Several dead-ended, a few looped. None were as well lit as the stretch between the stables and Henri’s laboratory, so I’d stuck to that path while acquainting myself with the limitations of my new chair, which were surprisingly few, and mastering its use, which was surprisingly simple.

After I removed the sling from my arm, that is. Thinking of it shot a fresh current of pain through my shoulder, and I polished off the last bit of my tea with a gulp. Setting the cup aside, I eased onto my back.

When my eyes drifted shut, I drowsed until hearing shuffling footsteps outside my door.

“Hold him down,” Braden yelled. “Don’t let him break loose.”

“What happened?” Henri demanded. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s been bitten,” Braden snapped. “That’s what. Keep him still until I can tie him down.”

“Bitten,” Henri echoed. “Bring him inside.”

As abruptly as the scuffling began, the hall fell silent.

Straining my ears, I picked up nothing but the pounding of my heart.

Bitten.
Who? By what? An ursus?

Braden was accounted for. That left Asher…I swallowed hard…and Ghedi.

“Hello?” I called.

No answer. Not that I expected one.

I slid on my hip down to the foot of the bed to where I’d left my chair. Experience had taught me the pitfalls of urgency. Though it pained me, I took the time to angle my chair so I set my good foot on the tile when I stood. Carefully, I reached behind me and grasped the armrests to steady the chair before sinking slowly onto the cushion. I exhaled when I sat without incident then hefted my cast into place on the support. Wiping the sweat from my brow, I wheeled myself nearer to the nightstand and poured myself another cup of tea. I tossed it back and coughed when it burned all the way down.

Before the tea hit bottom, I was rolling toward the door. It was an awkward affair, twisting so I could turn the knob then angling so my leg got through without jostling it. In the end, I left without closing the bloody thing, but nothing in that room was worth stealing and none of it belonged to me.

Cautiously, I wheeled myself into the tunnel. No one was there now. All was quiet. I had almost convinced myself I’d dreamed the exchange until spotting the blackish, viscous spatter on the hall tiles.

A shiver swept up my spine. I glanced over my shoulder, but I was alone.

I was also unarmed.

Though my shoulder pain had ebbed to a pleasant throb, I pushed myself and reignited the burn.

When I reached the laboratory, I pounded on the hatch with the flat of my fist.

No response.

I darted a glance over my shoulder. Nothing was there. The hall was empty, except for me.

Use what the gods gave you, Zuri.
Think.

I snapped my fingers. The chimes. Braden had triggered them from outside the bastille. He must have pressed a button or pulled a lever from inside the laboratory. If Henri had set chimes in the bastille, surely he’d hung them inside the laboratory too. All I needed was to figure out what I was looking for.

“You shouldn’t be out here alone.”

I whirled around to find Asher standing in the center of the tunnel. “What’s out here to fear?”

He started toward me. “Nothing. Yet.”

“I don’t understand.”

He reached over my head, flipped a piece of metal aside and pulled a thin lever. “You will.”

I fisted the back of his shirt. “What is that supposed to mean?”

He was spared from answering when the door swung open.

Braden’s gaze slid over me. “Good. You brought her.”

I released Asher. “You were coming to get me?”

“Aye.” He grasped the handles of my chair and pushed me into the laboratory.

“Why?” I asked anyone who might answer.

No one did.

Through the cluttered aisles, we navigated toward the large hatch concealing the bastille.

As I expected, this door was locked too.

Asher performed the same task as before, revealing and pulling a delicate lever.

Moments later, Henri cracked open the door. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”

“Why was I expected to come at all?” I asked as Asher wheeled me in and the door was barred.

Inside, the bastille buzzed with frantic activity. Our ward flung herself against the bars of her cage. Yellow blood poured down her forehead. Her eyes were wild, and her shrieks pierced my ears.

Behind Henri’s back, Kaleb was signing to me, but they had never taught me their language, and I wasn’t going to magically understand a flurry of hand gestures just because he used extra emphasis.

I waved my hands in front of my face. “I don’t understand. What’s happened?”

Henri stepped aside, and I saw what had caused the commotion. Ghedi. His clothes were torn. His cheeks were scratched. A dark red stain spread over his shoulder, saturating the front of his shirt.

Henri’s voice jarred me to attention. “Kaleb wants you to check Ghedi’s shoulder.”

I noticed Ghedi watching me and stifled my reaction. “How can you make any sense of that?”

Henri appeared baffled by my hostility. “Tau has been teaching me.”

“I see.”

Comprehension spread across his face when he matched my anger to the fact I had to ask him to translate. I was their sister. I was blood. I was clan and yet Henri having dangly bits trumped all that.

Tau, who agreed with Ghedi that I shouldn’t be taught
mkono
, was teaching Henri? I had to remind myself to breathe. This was an old fight, and it wouldn’t be won tonight. Besides, it wasn’t our fault we were raised to believe a person’s worth was measured by what hung between their legs.

The part where I had outgrown those backwards notions and they hadn’t? That was their fault.

“Take off your coat,” I ordered Ghedi.

“Not hardly.” He tugged it tighter around him. “I’m freezing.”

“I’m sweating.” My thin gown clung to my back. “Take off your coat.”

“Look at him. He’s feverish,” Henri murmured to me. “We’ll have to strip it off him.”

“Don’t touch me,” Ghedi bellowed.

I clutched my armrests, fighting the leg braces to stand. “Ghedi, you have to calm down.”

Henri pressed on my uninjured shoulder to pin me to my seat. In his other hand, he flipped a slender tube over his knuckles. It might have been a writing tool, except that it was hollow, with two blunt ends.

Ghedi spotted that tube, and recognition must have flickered because he roared.

Ghedi charged Henri, his blade drawn, his lips peeled from his teeth.

I shoved Henri. “Run.”

He didn’t budge an inch. He brought the tube to his lips and huffed through it.

A brightly painted dart sailed through the air and plunged into Ghedi’s throat. His eyes rolled to white a second later. Momentum brought him crashing to the ground at Henri’s feet. Kaleb and Tau stared at Henri, their eyes as wide as mine must have been, as though we had never seen him before.

“What have you done?” I slid from the chair and crawled to Ghedi’s side.

“He would have killed me.” Henri pocketed what I realized now was a miniature blowpipe.

“We could have stopped him.” I pulled the slender dart from Ghedi’s neck.

“Before or after he carved out my heart?” Henri flattened his palm. “Hand it to me. Don’t touch the tip.” One good look at the fury I was nurturing made him rescind his offer. “Then again, perhaps it might be wiser if I asked you to place the dart onto the table for disposal.”

He was right, an inch closer and I might have stabbed him out of spite for scaring me spitless.

When I felt Ghedi’s pulse strong beneath my fingers, I asked Henri, “What was on that dart?”

“A powerful venom-based sedative.” He rapped the counter with his knuckles.

Relief made it easy to drop the dart and roll it toward him. “There. Take it.”

“As high as I’m sure his fever has spiked,” Henri said, “venom won’t immobilize him long.”

Kaleb nudged me aside and knelt in my place. He peeled away Ghedi’s grubby coat to reveal his gray shirt had gone brown with blood. Ripping the fabric, he exposed the round of Ghedi’s shoulder. A chunk of meat was missing from the dense muscle tissue. Fresh blood oozed over its clotted edges.

“In the hall, Braden said
he’s been bitten
.” I braced myself. “By what?”

Henri softened his voice. “A riser.”

My palms went damp. “There are risers here in Erania?”

“Don’t know what you mean by risers, but I swear there are bodies up there walking around like they don’t remember they’re dead.” Braden’s face flushed. “That’s what made the holes in the fence. They were clawing their way in to get to the ursus. The bastards slaughtered three of my best sows.”