Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2) (47 page)

He stared at me silently.

“She could’ve sold us out to Chasca,” I said. “Or that guy in Kye Wodor. Kekataugh.”

“Allies of Gates’s. And no stronger.”

I looked across the room.

As though she could feel my eyes, Mizzy turned. She only met my glance for an instant.

“I don’t think that’s it. I think she was after immortality.”

“Hunter’ll make you mortal damned fast.”

I remembered with a shudder the green man that’d pursued my sister-in-law in the spring.

“Look, this is all guess work. There’s no evidence Mizzy plans to sell us out.” Then I remembered a key fact. “Besides, Nolanders aren’t hunted anymore.”

“Bullshit. We’re all hunted. You’re only as safe as your owner’s strength makes you.”

I stared at him for several seconds before realizing my mouth was hanging open.

“But —”

“Enough,” he said. “Quit being stupid. You don’t know shit. You want to stay alive, do what I tell you.”

“You know, if —”

“Shut up.”

I sat back, steaming. I’d been thinking better of the man, but apparently the post-rape-attempt grace period was over, and he was back to his asshole self. I felt like punching him. He blamed me for being “stupid” but wouldn’t give me the answers I needed to make better decisions. It was infuriating.

I stood, mustering what dignity I could. “Being a beginner is not the same as being stupid.”

He looked bored. “Not a tutor.”

“That’s too bad, because there’s no one else.”

I walked over to Ida and Mizzy.

“You two arguing?” Ida said, glancing across the room at Williams.

I plopped down into a chair and motioned for the barmaid. “No, not exactly.”

There was an awkward pause as they waited for me to explain and I didn’t.

Mizzy cleared her throat. “When are we leaving?”

“Soon. Don’t bother unpacking.”

As soon as I said it, I wondered if I should’ve lied and said “not for a few days.” I just had no idea.

Oh for crying out loud
. Now he had me trying to set traps for people.

“Hey,” Mizzy said softly, “what’s wrong?”

I summoned a smile. “Just wishing we could stay here longer. That tub …”

“Amen to that,” Ida said, and we all laughed.

The barmaid showed up, and I ordered a big lunch.

“Hey,” I said after she’d left, “where’s Kevin?”

“Upstairs,” Mizzy said. “He said he felt ill.”

“Reverse sea-sickness, or something?”

She shrugged. “I guess. Or maybe just mooning over that piece of tail he picked up on the boat.”

“That boy is a fool,” Ida said. “Always has been. He doesn’t know what a fine woman he has in Joanna. And Kite — the best son a man could ask for.” She shook her head. “Damned fool.”

“He was born too pretty,” Mizzy said. “Remember, Ida? That little rosebud of a mouth?” She turned back to me. “Honest to god, he was the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen. The most beautiful child, too.”

I nodded, momentarily put off-balance by the reminder of Mizzy’s age. “Well, hopefully he’ll get his priorities straightened out.”

Ida shook her head. “Second ‘amen’ of the day to that.”

When I got back up to my room, I pulled off my shoes and turned down the bedclothes. They were coarse but thick and very clean. This was going to be the best nap I’d had in ages.

Someone knocked firmly at my door.

“Yes?” I called out in Baasha.

The door opened to reveal Williams. He didn’t look happy. “Powell’s gone.”

“Are you sure?”

Instead of responding, he jerked his head and headed down the hall.

I got up and followed him to Ida’s door. This time he didn’t bother knocking.

Ida and Mizzy were sitting on the floor going through their saddlebags.

“Where’s Powell?”

Ida looked up blankly. “In his room?”

Mizzy grasped the situation more quickly. She jumped up and rushed out of the room, calling for Kevin. If it was an act, it was a really good one. She sounded terrified. I heard her clatter down the stairs, still calling out for him.

“Kevin’s gone?” Ida said. She shook her head. “He’s just down getting dinner or something.”

“He’s not downstairs,” Williams said flatly.

“Then he went out to get it somewhere else,” she said. “He’ll be back.”

A long handful of seconds passed in silence.

Williams’s face hardened. “Get your things. We’re leaving.”

“We can’t leave him,” Ida said. “He’ll come back.”

Williams stalked out, ignoring her.

She turned to me. “Beth, please. We can’t leave Kevin here. We have to wait.”

“We’re not leaving anyone behind,” I said firmly. “Of course not.”

But the conversation I’d had with Williams downstairs was already pushing into my mind.

Too damn many powers.

“Who’s the lord of Emden?”

“It’s a lady — Lady Mary.”

Deep in my mind, a closet door swung open and a forgotten bit of Yellin’s lessons crawled out.

“Mary … it’s not Mary of the Flowers, is it?”

Ida nodded. “Yeah. Her.”

My stomach tightened. “We have to get out of here. Now.” I started to leave but paused at the door. “I’m sorry about Kevin.”

I hurried back to my room, Ida’s despairing cries chasing me down the hall.

The total number of powers wasn’t large, and the known great powers were a small subgroup. Yellin had given me a list of seventeen of them to memorize — their full names, their territories, their supposed places and times of origin, their supposed power levels and abilities.

Cordus had been on that list. So had Mary of the Flowers. She was bad news. Really bad news. The oldest and strongest of them all — and utterly mad. If there was even a chance Kevin had run to her, we were in serious trouble.

I shifted in my saddle, uncomfortable after so many weeks off horseback.

Plus, I hadn’t had a chance to dig out my chaps, and I was pretty sure my wrinkled jeans were giving me saddle sores.

Mizzy and Ida were riding in front of me. Williams rode to my left.

Every so often, I could hear a stifled sob from Ida. Mizzy was silent, but I swear I could see pain in the lines of her back.

It was almost midnight. We’d been on the road for nine hours.

Williams had rushed us out of the inn in thirty minutes flat, telling the innkeeper we’d just learned of a death in the family.

Not far from the truth, that. Kevin was basically dead to the people back in Free. Bill Gates might give his people the freedom to do as they pleased, but Kevin’s new lord or lady, whoever it turned out to be, would not be so generous. Kevin would very likely spend the rest of his life here.

I gathered this from what Ida had said in her initial grief. I would have to ask her or Mizzy about it later.

The night deepened, and what traffic had been on the road faded to the occasional straggler.

We’d pressed the horses hard at first. Now we were shifting between a walk and a trot, trying to keep them going as long as possible.

At every crossroads, Williams consulted with Mizzy. When I asked her about it, she said he wanted to take a different route north — one that would run through the holdings of powers thought not to be allied with Mary of the Flowers.

We continued for another two hours and then stopped to sleep and rest the horses.

I did indeed have saddle sores. Ida kindly healed them. Afterwards, I set about finding my chaps. Mizzy helped me dig through and then repack the saddlebags.

By dawn, we were back on the road.

Even that early in the morning, the road had traffic — farmers and traders moving their goods toward the city. As the sun rose, the traffic increased, but by mid-morning, it had tapered off.

The land we rode through was postcard pretty — lush rolling hills divided neatly into fields and pastures, quaint stone farm houses, flocks of sheep and herds of milk cows. It was about as picturesque as you could get.

I moved my horse closer to Mizzy’s, intending to ask about Demesnes. She glanced over at me, blinking quickly. Embarrassed, I reined away. Intruding on her grief was the last thing I wanted to do.

“Do you have a question, Beth? I’d welcome some distraction.”

“You’re sure? It’s not important.”

“Yeah. Please.”

“Well, how does this all work? Do powers own all the land and lease it to normal people?”

“No, they don’t own the land, exactly. But they do hold territories and tax the people who live in them. And any strong workers who emerge belong to them.”

Without thinking about it, I glanced up at Williams.

When I looked back at Mizzy, she mouthed, “Is he a Second?”

I put on my best beats-me expression and shrugged. “That doesn’t sound much different from how things work with Nolanders in the F-Em.”

Mizzy was looking at me oddly. Maybe she thought I should know this stuff.

“It’s not, really. The main difference is that here the powers usually don’t bother people who can’t do much. Over there, they scoop up every last person who sees through.”

I could see why. People who see through workings could tip humanity off to the existence of Seconds. In the F-Em, they posed a threat. Here they didn’t.

“How do the powers divide up territories? Everyone must want a bigger one, right?”

A bigger territory would mean more taxes and more strong vassals.

“Yeah, they’re ambitious that way. They squabble and go to war with one another all the time. Weaker powers ally with one another so they can withstand stronger ones.”

I looked around at the countryside. “It doesn’t look like there’s been a war in a long time.”

“Actually, Demesnes had a major war fifteen years ago.”

“What happened?”

“No names,” Williams said.

I looked around. We were alone on the road.

“Right,” Mizzy said. “Well, in brief, four middleweights banded together to destroy one of the heavyweights who’d been giving them a hard time. They killed her and took her land. Some of the other heavyweights decided a message needed to be sent, so they attacked the four middleweights. All the other middleweights rallied to their defense. When the dust settled, the number of powers holding land in this stratum had gone from one hundred twenty-two to eighty-six.”

“Wow.”

“Now it’s down to thirty.”

“Eighty-six to thirty? How did that happen?”

“Without the middleweights there as a cushion, the heavyweights started gobbling up the small fry.”

The idea of “small fry” powers seemed oxymoronic. Then I remembered that Nolanders’ capacity was graded exponentially. Someone who saw through at eight would be twice as strong as someone who saw through at seven. Someone who saw through at fourteen would be more than a thousand times stronger than someone who saw through at four. Maybe it was the same with powers.

“It’s a scarier place now,” Mizzy said quietly. “There are a whole lot of powerful people sharing borders. On the other hand …”

“What?”

“Fewer powers mean fewer people who could extradite us back to Lady Mary’s territory.”

“We can’t be extradited. We haven’t broken any laws.”

She rubbed her thumb over her saddle’s horn, as though it had a smudge. “Beth, you can’t just pass through another power’s territory without getting permission. Well, I mean, you
can
. But it’s considered an aggressive act.”

It took me a painfully large number of seconds to realize Mizzy’s “you” meant
me
, specifically.

Oh my god. She thinks I’m a power.

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

We rode on in silence until evening. I tried to think of other things — to focus on the acres of green pastures and pretty stone cottages — but every so often, I’d realize I was about to cry, and a split second later, I’d remember why.

Once we’d set up camp and I’d crawled into my bedroll, I let the tears come.

The thought of being a power was unbearable.

Knowing there were “nice” powers out there, like Bill Gates, didn’t make me feel much better. He might’ve done a lot of good in the past, but eventually he’d had to make a deal with the devil. He couldn’t really protect his people, now — in the end, they were subject to Cordus. That’s what it’d be like to be a power — every relationship you had would be based on strength versus weakness. It’d all be about who you served and who served you.