Duskfall (3 page)

She waited for her father to speak, wondering if he would. Her father was never much for words.

“Your eyes are your mother’s,” he finally managed. “Dark as the sea at midnight.”

She smiled, trying to keep the sadness from her face. “So you’ve told me, once or twice before.”

“She would be proud of you, Winter.”

Would she?
From what her father had told her, her mother had always been an independent woman. Winter wasn’t sure her mother would approve of her daughter giving up so easily.

“I hope so.”

Her father sighed, and waved a hand. “Bah. Enough, Winter. I know you’re not happy about this. I know this isn’t what you wanted.”

Winter stared at her father. “You do?”

“Of course I know. You think I can’t tell when my daughter is trying to suffer in silence? You are just like your mother, that way. I know you have concerns. But Knot
is
a good man. He’s not the type of human that would… he’s a good man, Winter. He’ll take care of you. He’ll give you a life that I never could.”

What he said was true. Even someone like Knot, with so little, could give her so much. If they moved to the city, somewhere they could make a fresh start…

“What if I don’t want that life? What if the life I want is exactly the one you
can
give me? Or Lian? What if I want to make my
own
life, Father?”

“Goddess rising, you are so like her it’s amazing,” her father said.

Winter sat down. Even as she said the words, she knew it wasn’t possible. There was no making her own life. Knot was her only chance. She needed him.

“Here’s the thing,” her father said, taking her hands in his. “You’re marrying this man. There’s no stopping that. But you haven’t signed your life away. It is what you make of it. Knot may surprise us all and turn out a tyrant; if that’s the case, you have my permission to murder him in the night and escape to make a life of your own.”

Winter smiled, although the joke was uncomfortably close to a few situations she had heard of in the city.

“But I don’t think that will be the case,” her father continued. “I think he’ll want you to be happy, and I think he’ll want to help you do whatever you need to find that happiness. Don’t underestimate that bond, my dear. Marriage, done right, can be much more freeing than we give it credit for. I think the two of you need each other.”

Winter was about to ask what her father meant by that when a knock sounded on the door. “Holy Canta calls her maidservant,” a woman’s voice said. “Will she answer?”

The priestess was ready.

Winter glanced at her reflection in the small looking glass opposite her. The girl who gazed back at her was confident, calm. That girl could almost be happy. Could almost believe what her father was telling her.

“Winter,” Bahc said, “today is your day. Accept your own happiness.”

Winter cleared her throat. “She will answer,” she called, in response to the priestess’s summons. She turned and walked towards the door, pausing to kiss her father on the cheek.

“I love you, Papa,” she said. Then she opened the door, and walked into the chapel.

* * *

She did not flinch as the small dagger slit her palm.

“And do you, Danica Winter Cordier, covenant through blood and in the presence of Holy Canta that you will give yourself to Knot now and forever, through frost and fire, storm and calm, light and dark, dusk and dawn and throughout the turning of time?”

“I so covenant, by my blood,” Winter said. The priestess, a rotund woman in her middle years, looked approvingly down at her from a large square pedestal. She took Winter’s hand and placed it in Knot’s. He had received a similar wound moments before.

Winter looked at Knot. He wasn’t smiling, but Winter knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t. But he was content. His eyes were peaceful.

“By the power of the Nine, whom Canta chose,” the priestess continued, “whose power flows in me, I bestow these blessings upon you.”

The words buzzed in Winter’s head, and she found it difficult to concentrate. She was new, now. For better or worse, her life would be forever different.

“That you will love one another,” the priestess said.

Winter gazed out at the small chapel. Torches cast a flickering glow up into the rafters of the elongated gable roof, but left the wide wings of the building in shadow. Darrin and Eranda’s daughter Sena stood close by her. She was the only tiellan girl close enough to Winter’s age to serve as a handmaid, though still not much more than a child.

“That you will serve those around you.”

Lian and Darrin sat on the front row of polished, smooth benches, as did Eranda. Gord and Dent sat a few rows back. Winter could not thank everyone enough for coming, but she felt another pang of disappointment that the other pews were empty. It was irrational, she knew. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to go through with the ceremony, but she wanted more people there to watch? Yet, had the ceremony happened a few years ago, the chapel would have been packed with tiellans.

“That you will be protected from the Daemons of this world and beyond, and that your souls will never fade into Oblivion.”

Then, as if summoned by Winter’s thoughts, a group of men entered through the large set of doors at the back of the chapel.

These were not the type of wedding guests Winter had had in mind. It was hard to tell from this distance, but she could only assume that they were human; they all stood as tall or taller than Lian and Gord. Were they Kamites? She swallowed hard.

She counted six of them, each wearing a dark-green robe with a hood that hid his face in shadow. And they were armed. Swords and daggers, shields and spears.

Winter was vaguely aware of the priestess’s grip loosening. “What is the meaning of this intrusion?” the woman demanded.

The men stood for a moment, torchlight flickering on their robed frames. They looked back and forth from the priestess to the congregation.

Winter began to fear they truly were Kamites, advocates of the reinstatement of tiellan slavery, and, barring that, the death of all tiellans. They were not a popular group, nor a very public one, but rumors said they had a presence in Pranna.

One of the men, taller than the rest, stepped forward. “We aren’t exactly intruding,” he said, with a clipped, harsh accent. He sounded Rodenese. Not a Kamite, then. The Kamite order had not spread beyond Khale’s borders. Winter sighed, but not in relief. The Rodenese had other ways of dealing with tiellans.

The tall man removed his hood and walked towards the front of the chapel. He was ugly. His blond hair was thinning, his nose hooked and too large. A deep scar ran along one side of his face, from where one ear should have been to his cheek. “We should have been invited, after all,” he said. He reached the front of the chapel where Winter, Knot, and the priestess stood. He put his hand on Knot’s shoulder. “We’re old friends of Lathe, here.”

Winter looked at Knot, eyes wide. Was that his real name? Did these men know who Knot was?

Knot tightened his hold on Winter’s hand.

Bahc stood. “Knot, son, if you know these men—”

“I don’t,” Knot said, his voice soft. He kept his eyes on the man with the hand on his shoulder. “Best thing you can do right now, my lord, is turn around and walk out.”

The authority in Knot’s voice surprised Winter. She had heard him speak like that on the boat, when relaying Bahc’s orders, but otherwise he was calm, soft-spoken.

“Is that the best thing I can do right now… Knot?” The man’s eyes narrowed. “Suppose you’d know, wouldn’t you? Always seemed to know what was best for everyone else. Well, do you know what’s best for all of your friends, here,
Knot
? Do you know what’s best for your new bride? Give yourself up and no one gets hurt.”

Winter looked around nervously. What were these men doing? What was
Knot
doing? She felt frozen, as if watching the moment from far away, engrossed but unable to do anything.

The priestess obviously felt differently. “How dare you storm into a Holy Cantic—”

There was a flash of movement, and for a moment Winter thought the tall man had shoved the priestess. The woman gasped and stepped backwards. Winter looked back at the tall man, one of his arms still on Knot’s shoulder. In the other he clutched a dagger, dripping blood.

The priestess crashed to the floor.

“Damn shame,” the tall man said, still staring at Knot.

“Oh, Goddess,” Winter whispered.

The man looked at her, his face split by a scar and a grin. “Don’t think She’s here today. Maybe you should check back later.” He looked back at his men. “Take them!”

Winter was lost in the sudden chaos that followed. Her father stared at her, pale-faced, shouting for Eranda and Sena to flee. Gord, face red, rose up from his pew. The disciples scurried this way and that, shouting for the Goddessguard.

Knot pulled Winter towards him, his hands strong and sure. Some of the torches must have gone out, and the room was darker, the flickering orange light eerie. The only thing that brought Winter back to focus was Knot’s voice as he turned her towards him. His hands held her face, locking her gaze to his. She felt his blood on her cheek, still fresh from the priestess’s dagger. There was a glint in his eye she had never seen before, cold and sharp, like a flash of lightning on the water in a dark winter storm.

“I won’t let them hurt you,” he said.

Winter shivered at the sound of his voice.

Behind Knot, Winter saw a shadow and a glint of steel—one of the robed men charging them with a sword. Before she had time to scream, Knot spun, grabbed the man by the wrist, and somehow used the robed man’s momentum to spin full circle and slam him face first into the floor. Knot bent the man’s arm back, and Winter heard a horrible snap. Her breath caught in her chest, and she stepped away. The whole thing hadn’t taken more than a second. The torchlight flickered; half of Knot’s face was drowned in shadow.

Perhaps the light had tricked Winter’s vision. And yet, there was the robed man, groaning on the floor. Knot stared at his own hands.

“Knot,” she said, “how…?”

He looked up, his eyes wide. He shook his head. “I don’t know.” His voice was barely a whisper. Then someone screamed and Knot turned away, towards the chaos.

The tall man held one of the disciples in front of Knot, a dagger at her throat. Behind him, another disciple lay on the floor, blood dripping from her mouth or her nose, Winter wasn’t sure which. People were shouting, the disciples screaming.

Then Winter heard her father.

Bahc was lying on the floor, groaning and clutching his belly. He looked up at her, but Winter could not see his expression. The room was too dark, and shadows obscured his face. Blood seeped between his fingers. One of the dark-clad men stood above him.

Winter screamed and rushed towards Bahc, but someone grabbed her. A dirty hand covered her mouth and an arm locked around her neck. She felt her own breath trapped in the hand as she screamed, and a wetness against her cheeks. Whether it was Knot’s blood or her own tears, she wasn’t sure. She struggled vainly, but could barely move. The arm tightened around her neck, and her head felt like it was about to burst, both heavy and light at the same time. Looking around wildly, she saw Knot. Two of the robed men lay on the ground near him. She saw the cold gleam in his eye again. Knot lunged, his palm jutting up into the face of a robed man. The man’s head snapped back, and then Knot was moving too quickly for Winter to keep track of him.

Years ago, Winter’s father had caught a dragon-eel in a net of deepfish. She remembered him guiding her tentatively to the water-hold where the net had been released. Pointing down into the hold, he told her to watch a real predator in action. “Where is it?” she had asked. There were hundreds of flopping, floundering deepfish, their wide, flat bodies bouncing in the shallow water. Winter couldn’t see any dragon-eel. As far as she knew, they weren’t even real. Then, faster than she could follow, a slender, sinuous black shape had burst forth from the water, shredding deepfish with razor teeth. The eel was in one corner of the hold, and then the other, then in the middle, then leaping through the air, wreaking chaos among the struggling fish. “It isn’t eating them,” Winter had said. “Why isn’t it eating them?” “Because a dragon-eel doesn’t kill for survival,” her father had said. “A dragon-eel kills for the pleasure of it.” The water had already turned red with blood, and Winter had backed away slowly, never wanting to see a dragon-eel again.

Now, as the man’s hold around her neck tightened and blackness threatened the corners of her vision, that image of the dragon-eel was all she could think of as Knot wrought havoc, a blur of brutality in a room of helpless, floundering deepfish.

K
NOT WAS AFRAID
.

The fear itself didn’t trouble him. No, the dark pull from his throat to his gut was a familiar feeling. What troubled him was that he wasn’t afraid of the men who had just attacked his wedding; he was afraid of how easy it’d been to kill them.

The frozen wind from the gulf whipped through Knot’s cloak as he made his way to Darrin and Eranda’s home. Winter was unconscious in his arms, a curious warmth against the chilly air. Snow had begun to fall, white flakes settling and then disappearing on Winter’s face. The snow was peaceful, and that was cruel.

Knot had left nine bodies at the chapel. The robed men were unknown to him, and he had no idea how he he’d dispatched them. Yet he
knew
, as soon as he realized the men were a threat, that he could defeat them. He’d known it in his bones, on some level far deeper than his mind. His body had done the work quickly and easily.

The priestess and two of her disciples were both dead, killed by the robed men. The other disciple had run away in the chaos. Knot had killed four of the intruders, while Lian, Gord, and Dent had taken down another; Dent had lost his life in the process. The tall, scarred man, the one who had first approached Knot, had escaped.

And there was Bahc.

Knot knew he should never have stayed in Pranna. But he’d stayed anyway, and now the guilt carved at him.