Vlad Li Tam heard the familiar sound. He followed her gaze and his breath caught. An iron vessel rounded the point at the harbor’s mouth, steaming in slow.
My children.
Another followed close behind, and after that, another. The flags of House Li Tam were struck, and no flags flew in their place. His legs threatened collapse as the weight of it pressed him. Five of his ships approached, and on their decks he saw his family lined up-men, women and children-while dark-garbed soldiers moved among them and barked orders. He looked again and realized his flagship was missing from the small fleet.
Finally, his legs gave out and he sat down, heavy, upon the dock. When he found words, his voice was low and his mouth tasted like sand. “What is this about?”
When she looked down at him, he saw love in her eyes and it terrified him. “It is about redemption, Vlad.”
He reached for another question from the thousands that swam behind his eyes. “Who are you?”
“I told you,” she said. “I am your Bloodletter and your Kin-healer.”
The ships slowed and he heard the whine of the engines as they wound down, heard the clanking of anchor chains. Two men pulled him to his feet, and he watched as the first of the longboats started ferrying his family ashore.
Her words echoed in his mind. Bloodletter. Kin-healer. As the first of the boats approached the lower docks below them, he saw fear on the faces of his grandchildren.
In that moment, for the first time in his life, Vlad Li Tam knew powerlessness and despair.
Jin Li Tam
Her dreams frightened Jin Li Tam awake, and the bone-strewn plains of Windwir fell away with the kin-raven’s words still ringing in her ears. Soon I shall dine upon your father’s eyes.
If the nightmares hadn’t started before her labor, she would’ve thought them to be some strange side effect of the powders she drank. But she knew better.
She sat up, rubbing the tears and sleep from her face. Beside her, Jakob stirred and she looked to him. His tiny face was gray and soft in sleep as he breathed in shallow gasps. She pulled on a robe and padded first to the glass doors leading out to her snow-covered balcony. It was a clear night, and the stars beat down upon the sleeping forest city. A full moon cast its watery light over Library Hill, limning the massive cornerstones of its construction in a blue-green glow. It would be several hours before the sun rose and the Ninefold Forest stirred itself awake.
She went to the door and opened it, whistling low for a servant. A girl, her face freshly scrubbed and her hair still damp, awaited.
She still hated to leave his side but could not bring herself to risk waking the baby. His sleep was fitful enough. “Sit with Jakob,” she told the girl, “and bring him to me when he wakes up. I’ll be in the study.”
The girl curtsied. “Yes, Lady Tam.”
She waited until the servant came into the room to take her position in a rocking chair near the bed. Satisfied, Jin slipped into the hallway and padded quietly down thick-carpeted floors.
Rudolfo’s study lay behind ornate double doors made from a dark, polished wood. She slipped an iron key into its lock and turned it easily, pushing the well-oiled door open just far enough to slip inside.
Locking the door behind her, Jin went to the desk and lit its single lamp. Already, new messages awaited her in the simple basket Rudolfo kept for incoming work, and she sighed. She didn’t know exactly how he kept up with it all, though she knew he rose notoriously early most days. She’d been at the desk from before dawn until after dusk the day before, and she’d finally seen the bottom of the basket. Now, it was a third full and more would arrive with the dawn.
The life of a queen, she thought. She reached for the top message, then forced herself to leave it. Instead, she slid open the drawer on the desk and drew out the knife belt. Glancing to the door, she slipped out of her robe and let it drop to the floor. Then, she buckled the belt over her short cotton shift and moved to the center of the room. She dug her toes into the carpet and struck the pose, curling her fingers around the bone-handled blades at each hip. Drawing the knives, she launched into her morning’s dance.
The time abed had softened what had once been firm muscle, and though she’d not gained significant weight with her pregnancy it was enough for Jin to feel uncomfortable. But between the knives and the afternoon runs she’d started three days past, she was slowly taking back her body from its long captivity.
Her feet moved to silent rhythm, and her hips joined them as she shifted, dodged and leapt. The knives flashed in the dim light as she swept them around her and over her, leaning into each thrust and twisting, turning with each upward or downward slash. As she danced, she found memory pulling her back to the last time she’d drawn blood. Had it been escaping Sethbert’s camp with Neb? No, she remembered, it was the night she and the Gypsy Scouts magicked themselves and rescued Rudolfo from the so-called Pope Resolute in his Summer Papal Palace.
It seems so long ago now. And in many ways, she realized, it was. She and Rudolfo had consummated the strategic marriage her father had brokered, but she’d had no idea at that time how deeply she would come to love and respect the Gypsy King. Or comprehend how a tiny life could change someone so profoundly.
She danced with abandon, recalling the wrist-jarring catch of the blades in bone, the gentle resistance of cloth and skin and the warm slipperiness of blood wetting her fists. She moved across the floor, increasing in speed as sweat broke out on her forehead and over her lip. Her breath came more labored to her than she wanted, and soon, her shift was wet and sticking to her skin. Still, she danced on even as her arms and legs ached and felt heavy from the unaccustomed movement.
After an hour, she sheathed the knives and fell into an armchair, panting. There was the slightest of knocks at the door and she stood slowly, stretching and hearing the crack and pop of her joints. “A moment,” she said.
She unbuckled the knives and draped them over the chair. Then, she pulled on her robe and went to the door. She unlocked it and opened it.
Lynnae waited, her face pale and her curly hair tangled from sleep. “Good morning, Lady Tam,” she said. “Myra told me you were awake.”
Jin Li Tam held the door open. “Come in.” The girl did not look well, but she didn’t imagine that she looked much better herself. “Not sleeping?”
Lynnae shook her head. “Some. Not enough.”
She nodded. “Me, too. It’s the powders.”
“The panta root, particularly,” the young woman said, and Jin Li Tam felt her eyebrows raise.
“You’ve studied alchemy?”
She shrugged. “Some. Delta Scouts chew bits of the panta to stay alert. There’s also kalla and maybe a touch of vesperleaf.”
She’d picked up a hint of the kalla herself, having stealthily sampled her father’s pipe in years past. Jin Li Tam gestured to a chair and moved toward the furnace. A kettle of fresh water waited for boiling. “Would you like some tea?”
“I can make it, Lady Tam,” Lynnae said, but Jin Li Tam waved a hand at her.
“Nonsense,” she said. “I’ve not forgotten how to make tea.” She drew two ceramic mugs from the service cupboard and found the tea canister, measuring three round scoops of fragrant black leaf into the steeping pot, then returned to the sitting area to wait for the water to boil.
“How is Jakob sleeping?” Lynnae asked.
Jin Li Tam sat across from her and studied the young woman. In the days since Rudolfo left she’d seen much of Lynnae, but there never seemed to be enough hours in the day for them to spend any real time together. They met in one another’s rooms or in the hall or even here in the study; they exchanged minor pleasantries and mostly talked of Jakob. Even now, that held true. “He sleeps lightly,” she said. “I imagine he’ll be up soon.”
“Shall I take him this morning?”
Jin offered a tired smile. “It’s my turn. You need to rest.”
Lynnae shrugged. “I feel fine.”
But Jin Li Tam saw the truth in the dark circles beneath the girl’s eyes and the tightness around her mouth. Even now, Lynnae flinched and sucked in her breath. “Headaches?” she asked.
“Out of nowhere,” she admitted. “Like lightning. But again, it’s no problem for me to take him.”
Jin forced a smile and rubbed her own temples. “I appreciate your offer.” She looked at the girl again. She couldn’t be much past twenty years, if that, and despite her plain clothes she carried herself differently than most of the refugees Jin had observed over the last several months. She leaned forward. “This must be hard for you on the heels of such terrible loss.”
For a moment, Lynnae’s large brown eyes went wide with something like panic. She swallowed. “I would be lying if I said it wasn’t. There are times when I’m nursing Lord Jakob or napping with him and forget it’s not my Micah.”
Jin Li Tam saw the tears forming in the girl’s eyes and felt shame wash over her. “I should not have spoken of it,” she said, looking away.
But out of the corner of Jin’s eye, she saw the girl shaking her head. “No, it should be spoken of; that’s what the Francines would say. That we move the Fivefold Path with words and memory.”
Jin Li Tam looked back to her and saw that the tears had spilled out, running the length of her olive cheek. “I can’t even imagine the price you’ve paid.”