The First Binding, page 9
I pushed the thought away as I realized how we could both get what we wanted. “I’ll tell you everything, though I’m not quite sure where to begin.”
“You, the Storyteller, don’t know how to start your own tale?” A chiding grin spread across her face.
“I’ve spent the years painstakingly crafting enough variations of my story to leave any two men arguing over the true accounting. All that time, all those little lies. I suppose I know where to begin, but…” I trailed off and gave her a knowing look.
“But”—she rolled the word around her mouth, stressing it like she knew it was coming—“you want something in return.” Eloine propped her chin on balled fists, eyeing me and batting her lashes. “What could it be? What would a storyteller ask for? What’s burning away at his heart and mind?” She paused, pursing her lips thoughtfully. “Let me guess. My story?” She widened her eyes, parting her mouth in mock surprise.
“I could think of nothing more wondrous than that to trade for.” I leaned closer to her. At this distance, even though she’d been washed with rain, I could smell subtle traces of sandalwood and juniper.
She shied away from me. “It would be a sad story—a tragedy. Not the sort of thing to tell in taverns through the world. Not the sort of thing you’d want to hear.” Eloine’s mouth curved into a forced and brittle smile.
The sight of it banded my chest with hot iron, but I kept the feelings from my face. “I think I’m best suited to decide what stories I do and don’t want to hear, hm? Besides”—smoke and stone filled my voice—“what makes you think my story is any different?”
She perked up at that, watching me intently.
The innkeeper returned before she could speak. He stood much like his statue, looming over us. His fingers twitched before he rubbed an index and middle finger against a thumb.
I inhaled slowly, returning to the folds of my mind, but keeping them empty. “How much?”
“Chocolate’s pricey.” It was a matter-of-fact statement.
I nodded.
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, eyeing the pair of us. His gaze seemed to linger a bit too long over Eloine before he turned back to me. “Stew was leftovers, but still good meat. Good meat runs a good cost.” He was giving me a run, believing he could get away with it. “All in all, twenty pewter bits.”
I didn’t miss a beat as I raised a hand to stay him. “Water’s free, that is if I remember my Etaynian history. Like Solus blessed Antoine to never thirst, so shall all Etaynians never thirst for water. No man or woman crossing these lands will be far from Solus’ blessing. All tongues wet. All mouths quenched.”
He bristled, but remained silent.
“Going rate for chocolate is about five bits for ten pieces of ten grams, yes?” I didn’t wait for his answer. “Don’t bother, I’ve traveled with enough traders of late to know it is. Now you didn’t use close to that for two mugs of this. The stew? Good meat, surely. But leftovers are leftovers. You made it regardless and not fresh for us. Ten bits, and I’m being generous.”
His eyes turned to slits and heavy creases formed above his brow. The lines of jaw visibly hardened as he held the look. It was impressive, but all puff.
He relented a moment later and held out his hand.
I didn’t bother with my purse, producing the bronze septa I’d earned earlier from Dannil. People had odd reactions to being given foreign currencies, and that’s all that sat in my purse at the moment.
He took it, eyes lighting up.
I knew the calculations going through his mind. “I know it’s clear I’m not from here, but let me warn you that I know more than the worth of chocolate and stew, sieta?”
He worked his teeth against each other before giving me a brusque bow of his head. “Sieta.” The owner pulled free his own purse, dropping the coin in as he fished out the appropriate change. His mouth tightened as he plucked ten pewter bits to drop on the table unceremoniously. He repeated the action until sixty of the notched triangular coins littered the wooden surface. “Disfra e comi, basha.” The innkeeper cinched the pouch and left, making it clear he had no intention of coming back to check on us.
Eloine had stiffened beside me when he’d finished speaking. “You should have whittled him down for more.” Her voice could have peeled curls of wood from the table.
“You understood that?” I had only grasped one of the words he’d spoken. Despite my travels, Etaynian was one of the few languages I never bothered to pick up, as they spoke the Trader’s Tongue as well as their own speech.
“He told us, ‘Enjoy your meal, trash.’”
“You’re not Etaynian.” I collected my coins, stuffing them into another pocket in my cloak.
She gave me a cool and calculated look. “Oh, am I not?”
“You could pass, of course. But for our dark features, we’re not of this land, or any nearby I know of.” I hooked a thumb to my chest. “I know of my home, but yours?”
Eloine gave me a smile that made the lingering aftertaste of chocolate seem bitter in comparison.
I exhaled, raising my hands in a gesture of resignation. “Fine. Back to our previous conversation, then. My story for yours.”
“You’d hold your story hostage?” She readopted an expression of feigned astonishment, going so far as to place a hand to her breast. The action drew my eyes from hers and down to the hollow of her throat. A few rogue beads of rainwater still sat along the exposed line of her collar, glistening even now in the candlelight.
“I would.” I flashed a roguish smile. It’s not the first time I’ve had to do so. Though I wished the first had been the last. “And it’s the greatest story you’ll ever hear. This I know to be truth.”
“That is a devilish thing to do to a woman.”
“Haven’t you heard the stories? On account of several of them, I am a devilish man.” My grin turned wolfish.
Eloine’s face went tight, visibly fighting the urge to smile. Her eyes twinkled as she lunged and jabbed my ribs with an elbow. “You know full well I’ve only heard parts of the stories. Clearly not the good parts, like how you came by this.” She reached out, pausing an inch from brushing my cloak, then pinching a bit of the material between a thumb and forefinger. “It’s still slick to the touch, but”—she wiped her fingers together—“nothing.”
“Is that where you’d like to start?” I gave her a teasing smile. “Would you like to know how I came to possess a blood-red cloak?” I pursed my lips, looking up at the ceiling. “Hm, it’s a good ways into the story of my life, and it leaves out a great deal.” I stopped there, letting the words sit for a moment, knowing they’d rile her.
“The beginning.” She bounced in her seat almost like a child, giddy at the prospect of hearing all about my past.
It warmed a part of me to see that.
Everyone wants their story to matter, and they do. But people forget that. Everyone wants someone, just that right someone, to listen attentively with wonder and happiness to the greater moments of their life. And everyone wants someone who’ll sit by and listen without judgment over the moments we fell. Especially when we’ve gone too far, at least for ourselves.
I think I found that person in Eloine.
“Very well. From the beginning then. You’ll give me a moment to compose myself?” I looked ahead, but shifted my gaze to the corner of my eyes to stare slyly at her.
She matched my laugh. “I’ve heard something similar from men before, but the following performances, mhm, lasted too short for my liking.” An impish smile spread over her with the light to match the one burning in her eyes. “I hope yours delivers something more fulfilling—longer.”
I blinked, cheeks growing hot.
It’s not proper for a storyteller of my caliber to lose their poise. I cleared my throat and dove into the folds of my mind, splitting it into two before making it four. Each blank state of my will and imagination mirrored an endless plain of white, much like a painter’s canvas. The perfect field with which to bring something to life, whether it be a story, or a firmly held belief to shape my surroundings with.
But I turned it elsewhere now. Another place, and another time. To a place unlike Etaynia in almost every way imaginable. A place that I could have called “home.”
The door to the tavern crashed open, and the trio who entered looked used to bulling people around. Two men stood to either side of a woman I marked to be a decade short of midlife. The pair around her were dressed in chain mail, white cloaks hanging from their shoulders, trailing down to their knees front and back. A golden ring, lined with spiked edges, emblazoned the pristine fabric.
A sun. The clergos. I swallowed what little saliva had built in my mouth, turning away from them, though my eyes lingered.
The woman’s features were stone and razor. Her face, hard and angular with all the severity of cold metal drawn to a point.
She wore a coat the color of dried plums, leather pants a shade of olive, and a blade on her hip that prompted me to take a longer look. A thin hilt with a curving wire guard.
That’s a sword for nobility. Or an officer. I frowned. The clergos were the Etaynian knights of the church. Bound to serve the religious body to the extreme. And they did just that. If a member of the church with any power commanded them so, the clergos would burn man and mortar alike, letting Solus sort out the rest. They were ruthless, fanatical, and the perfect instrument of terror for a theocracy like Etaynia.
I leaned close to Eloine. “I feel my story will have to wait … for obvious reasons. Not the sort of people I want knowing who I am.” A rueful grin spread across my face, fading just as fast when I saw her expression.
Eloine had frozen. Her lips were parted, eyes wide, moisture beading at her throat. “They’ve not a care for who you are, past or present.” She took a breath that sounded choked off. She turned, bending closer to her bowl of stew while bringing up an arm to shield her face. She passed the gesture off by propping the limb on the table like she was weary and needed the support.
I slid closer, taking the silent cue. My cloak billowed in agitation as my blood pressure rose. I spread an arm wide, casting my garment over Eloine as I held her close. “Hope this isn’t terribly presumptuous of me.”
“Presume away.” Her voice shook, her fire and humor now cold and distant.
“Innkeeper.” The woman’s voice was ice over iron. Hard. Resolute. Ringing the way only someone accustomed to absolute authority could do.
The man from earlier bustled into view, muttering a string of obscenities and dark curses before drawing up short. He stammered for a second before collecting himself. “Ah, Justice—”
“Yes.” She cut through the innkeeper’s sputtering with a sharpness that could rival her sword. “It’s late. You sent word?”
Word. Sent? What she had said hung in my mind, but it left a question: For what purpose?
“Uh, yes, Justice…” The innkeeper wrung his hands together, shying away from meeting her eyes.
“My name is of no consequence, sieta? Only my rank.”
The innkeeper nodded before tilting his head in my direction.
I stiffened, hand gripping my staff tighter. Nothing rash. I considered the thought, stifling a laugh at my advice. It was good. I wouldn’t follow it.
I never did.
The justice was atop me in the time it took to exhale. She loomed, giving me a look that carried all the contempt for someone beneath her she could muster.
I did the only thing I could in that situation. The thing to rankle the elite and those who think silver and gold flows through their veins rather than the same red as us all. I gave her a look, staring at her less as the sword of the church, and more like the village sweetheart you’d moon after. “Twice blessed I am, for now I’m surrounded by another face of stunning beauty.”
Her nose twitched. “If you want beauty, find a mirror. You’re pretty enough to preen after yourself.”
I didn’t let the comment alter my perfectly staged smile. It only pushed me to raise my performance. “And what would happen if we found a mirror large enough for the both of us. That would certainly paint a picture of unrivaled looks.”
The justice said nothing, then raised an index finger with the stiffness of steel. She touched it to a pendant at her breast. It was a circle of solid metal, ribbed with a fan of curved edges like the tips of flames. A ring of fire much like the corona of the sun. An iron one.
“Do you know what this is?” Her eyes narrowed in the faintest of amounts.
“I do.”
She gave the briefest of nods. “I carry the iron judgment of the pontifex himself. His iron arm”—she gestured with a thrust of her chin to her sheathed blade—“and sword.” The justice touched two fingers to the iron ring. “This means my words ring with the authority of Solus himself. I say. It is truth. I think. It is done. This means you will address me with respect, sieta.” It wasn’t a question. “You will answer me, sieta.”
I inclined my head, but didn’t turn to fully face her. Any further movement would force me to pull my cloak away from obscuring Eloine. Taking the chance to will my garment to cover her in that situation would only reveal the unnaturalness of it.
“You are not from here—not Etaynian.”
I shook my head.
She scrutinized me, still looking down her nose at me. “Ah, the storyteller.”
“The Storyteller.” I emphasized my title and the singular fact I was the best of the whole damn lot. I didn’t spend all those years building my reputation brick by brick to be lumped alongside any old spinner of tales.
It was in my blood. The gift of my people. And I had earned the right to become the greatest of them.
She sniffed once, a gesture of dismissal. “And she is?” The justice shifted her posture a shade, leaning to the side to try and get a look over my cloak.
“Tired. Hungry. Road-weary and in need of a good meal to enjoy”—molten iron flooded my eyes and voice—“in peace.”
The justice’s mouth parted. The boldness and heat of my comment jarred her, something she wasn’t used to in her position.
I’d bet a good septa that her intimidation routine and rank served well enough to get her way without so much as a disgruntled whisper.
The justice drew her sword in a smooth and practiced motion. A length of silver emerged, catching the errant candlelight along its edge. The blade held its form like a strip of grass, narrow and fine and ever so sharp. She leveled it, point first, before my right eye.
I didn’t blink, having been threatened at swordpoint many times before.
“If I run you through with this, no one would question it. No one would care. No one would remember you by the time your blood ran cold.”
“That’s a shame. I would have sworn I’d built a better reputation than that.” I pursed my lips in mock thoughtfulness. “We could fix that. Give me ten minutes of your time alone—I’m a fast worker—and I’m sure I can have you remember me.”
She went as pale as a girl in the deep of winter before color flushed her face like someone after their first kiss.
The two clergos by her side traded wide-eyed looks between themselves and quickly set to searching the room almost as if wanting a place to hide.
Her icy composure finally shattered. The justice’s lips twisted into a snarl, giving way under a rolling scream. She lunged at my cloak and ripped it free from where Eloine sat. “You’re doing a poor job blending in, basha.” The word dripped with venom.
Trash. Her? I thought back to the innkeeper’s earlier comment and put it together. It wasn’t an errant insult hurled at us for coming in late and being troublesome. He’d directed it at her. Eloine’s reaction had made it clear she’d heard it before and that it only stung mildly by now.
Eloine swallowed a lump in her throat as she faced the justice. Her eyes remained on me the whole time, however. “I hate that word.”
The justice’s mouth twisted into something cruel. A razor’s slit in a sheet of ice. “We feel the same about your kind.”
Something hot and angry took me over, burning to the heart of me.
One of the clergos must have noticed the expression on my face. His hand went to his weapon, a short and stocky club of dark wood. Iron bands were fastened along its head to give it an extra weight and impact.
The justice moved her sword from me to the hollow of Eloine’s throat. “Running you through would be like killing a pretty little lamb. People would celebrate if they knew what you were. But”—dark and dangerous light flecked to life in the justice’s eyes—“taking you before the church would be better. A public showing, then.” Her twisted smile widened. “Take her.”
SEVEN
A DEVIL IN RED
My mind tumbled into a fold. Then another. Within the span of a second, I’d folded it a dozen times. Each space within my imagination carried this single mirror thought: my voice bound to the air itself, proud and shaking. A thunderclap over the quietest of days.
Whent. Ern.
I stood to my feet. “Enough!” The sound rocked the wares on the table, sending the clergos a step back on their heels. And the wooden statue of Solus looked to flex under the weight of my bolstered voice.
The justice went rigid.
“Run.” I said the word without truly raising my pitch, but the binding I’d worked blew it into a leonine roar.
True fear, the sort overtakes a rabbit’s eyes when it’s spotted by the hawk, filled Eloine. In that moment, all of her subtle insecurities and panicked minor motions were clear to me. Her chest heaved. Her eyelids fluttered as if she could blink the trouble away. And her bare toes curled anxiously against the wooden flooring.
“Go!” The final bark shook her from the reverie, driving her forward as if shoved by an almighty gust of wind.
She didn’t spare me a second glance as she tore toward the doorway.
The clergos closest to her reached out, trying to grab the loose and flowing material of her shift.
I kicked the base of my staff and whirled it about. It thumped hard against the knight’s armored wrist, batting it away.
