The Silvered (32 page)

Today, he walked by and across the Aydori Road and into Abyek.

Shadows had started to gather by the time they reached the outskirts of the city. Tomas chafed at their pace—Mirian’s insistence on wearing her boots, on needing the social standing they provided, had slowed them considerably. She still limped as they passed between a double line of houses spreading out from the city to meet the farms, but at least she limped faster, the heat and pressure of her feet having softened the leather.

She had also taken the time to retrieve the farm worker’s abandoned clogs, and Tomas had finally, reluctantly, put them on when his own feet had started attracting attention from men and women hurrying home from work at the end of the day. Not the attention he was used to as Pack, but sideways glances that lifted the hair off the back of his neck and kept a low growl rumbling intermittently in his throat.

“They don’t look frightened, exactly,” Mirian murmured, moving close enough they could speak without being overheard. “More like they’re not comfortable in their own skin.”

He’d almost gotten used to his world having been divided into the scent of Mirian and the scent of everything else. Under scents layered on by work and time, the sweat of the people passing by them smelled sharp. Strained. “There’ll be Imperials here. This is the new edge of the empire, so they’ll be building a garrison. I guess it takes a while to get used to being conquered.”

The road split and split again, the houses built closer together until they became long rows of two-story brick built tight to the road. The people on these streets kept their eyes to themselves. Scent crowded on top of scent and Tomas breathed shallowly through his mouth to keep from being overwhelmed. It was no more crowded than parts of Bercarit or even the old, non-Pack parts of Trouge, so he knew he’d eventually be able to push most of what flooded his nose to the background. It didn’t help that the scent of the coaches had been buried, and he couldn’t stop himself from casting about for them even though he knew—at least his head had known—he wouldn’t be able to track them all the way to Karis.

As the road they followed came out from between two five-story tenements and into a market square, four Imperials entered from the opposite direction. They were the first he’d seen since the bullet had shattered his shoulder. The blind rage he thought he’d overcome pulled his lips back off his teeth and one arm out of his jacket…

“Stop it.” Mirian stepped between him and the soldiers, both hands trying to tug his jacket back up onto his shoulder. “You can kill those four, but what about the twenty after them?”

“They won’t have silver.” His fingers sank into her upper arms, but instead of shoving her out of his way, he hung on.

“And the hundred after them? You said there was a garrison here. Enough damage will kill you even without silver. Then how do I free the Mage-pack? Tomas, stop reacting and think!”

“They killed…”

“I know. If not these men, then others like them.”

Muscles knotted across his back with the effort it took to keep from charging across the square. Mirian had moved so close—or he’d pulled her so close, he wasn’t sure which—that the only air for
him to breathe in was air she’d already breathed out. He closed his eyes and matched his breathing to hers; as hers slowed, his slowed. After a moment he nodded. “You’re right.” When he released her arms, she made a small pained noise and his eyes snapped open. “I hurt you.”

“Small price to pay to keep you alive.” She smiled, mouth a shallow arc, lips pressed together. If it was supposed to make him feel better, it didn’t. “I know how strong you are, and I still stepped in front of you. I’m fully capable of taking responsibility for my own actions. Besides…” This smile actually did make him feel a little better. “…it was the first time for miles I haven’t been thinking about my feet.”

He couldn’t stop himself from smiling back. “I guess I’m happy to have been a distraction. But I’m still sorry I hurt you.”

“I know.”

It wasn’t exactly forgiveness. When she stepped away and he dragged his jacket up into place, he realized the whole thing had happened in a matter of minutes; the four Imperials had only just reached the center of the square.

It had been a market day although only one stall remained open, the owner hurrying to finish a final sale, splitting his attention between the soldiers and his customer and the sky. While three of the Imperials stood scanning the doors and windows facing into the square, muskets cradled loosely across their left arms, right hands purposefully cupping the trigger guards, the fourth pushed past a small group of older children waiting to use the well—young enough to still be at home, but old enough to be helpful—and stepped up onto the housing.

He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and bellowed, “This is to remind the citizens of Abyek that curfew is in place from dark until dawn. Anyone appre…appre…”

One of the children giggled and the soldier flushed.

“Anyone
breaking
curfew will be added to the garrison work detail. No exceptions.” Brows drawn in, he stepped off the housing directly into the group of children. When they scrambled to get out of his way, he shoved the slowest hard enough to knock her down, stepped over her legs, and joined his waiting squad. As the children hauled their fallen companion up onto her feet, the body
language of every one of them was as much anger as fear. Sooner or later one of them would challenge Imperial authority and probably get shot.

“We can’t get through the city before dark,” Mirian said softly.

Tomas glanced at the sky. “We might not be able to get out of this square before dark.” The square was empty of everyone but them and the children, waiting for one last bucket to fill. The stall owner had disappeared down an alley, pushing his barrow before him, and the soldiers were heading out of the square to the north. “It’s all right, though. Once everyone’s off the streets, I can keep us away from the patrols.”

“We have to eat and sleep.”

Because that was the sensible thing to do. “As the coaches get farther away.”

“And Karis stays right where it is.”

He’d pretty much decided that her certainty was equal parts reassuring and irritating.

“The children have noticed us.”

He turned in time to see a whispered conversation, hidden more by accent than by volume. As the others scattered with their water, their ambassador clomped across the cobblestones toward them. Only her scent gave away gender. Her hair cropped short like Mage-pack hair, she was dressed in faded brown trousers, a fraying sweater, and the same type of wooden clogs he wore. Hers were
also
a little too large and she nearly kicked out of them with every step. A split lip, almost healed, and scabs across her knuckles only just visible under too long sleeves marked her as a fighter. If she were Pack, she’d grow up with scars and try for the Alpha three or four times before she was actually ready.

“If you don’t got nowhere to go,” she said, glancing toward where the Imperials had disappeared, “the Sisters of Starlight, they got a place that way.” A grubby finger pointed east. “Two streets. They painted it white.” Her eye roll reminded Tomas of Mirian. “I hear they feed you, too, but you gotta listen to them talk.”

“And what are the Sisters of Starlight?” Mirian asked.

“Dunno.” The shrug was dismissive. “They come along behind the army. My da says it’s some stupid Imperial religion.”

“Thank you.”

She swept a shrewd gaze over Mirian from boots to hair and snorted a nonverbal
you don’t belong here
before she glanced up at the sky. “Better hurry,” then she spun around and ran, the clogs ringing out her progress until she disappeared into one of the buildings across the square.

Lights were already showing in a couple of upper windows.

Tomas slipped his feet out of the clogs, no point announcing their position to Imperial patrols. “If it’s the Sisters of Starlight, we’ll have to run to beat curfew.”

It was the Sisters or the street.

Mirian took a deep breath. “We run.”

Running the edges would attract less attention; right across the middle of the square would be faster. When Mirian stumbled halfway, Tomas tucked both clogs under his right arm and grabbed her hand in time to keep her on her feet. To his surprise, she hung on, fingers wrapped tightly around his.

A white house in a row of dirty brick was easy to find even as dusk turned to dark.

The door was still open a crack when they reached it, Tomas nearly dragging Mirian the last few feet. A middle-aged woman dressed all in white who he assumed had to be one of the Sisters opened it the rest of the way, peering out into the street. “I saw you come. Hurry, hurry.” Her accent was different yet again, and she smelled strongly of lavender. Tomas shoved Mirian over the threshold and followed. As the door closed emphatically behind them, he checked her forward motion and slid past her. If it was too dangerous to stay, he needed to know before they were any farther in. Before the door was locked.

There were eleven other people in the room. Seven men and four women who all looked older than they smelled. Ten of them looked down quickly rather than meet his gaze, the eleventh looked hopeful for a moment, then sighed and closed his eyes. There were two obvious couples and a woman who sat alone, as far from the others as she could get and still be in the same room. She wore trousers and one sleeve of her heavy workman’s jacket had recently been soaked in gin. There was no furniture, nothing anyone could use as a weapon, only what looked like layers of worn rugs. The glass in the single window in the front wall had been
painted black. Besides the gin, the room smelled of old blood and urine and stale sweat.

And lavender.

Behind him, a steel bolt slid home. Bolts were easy enough to open from the inside. He could do it in fur if he had to.

“Is safe. Is safe.” The Sister pushed by him. Tomas’ eyes watered a little as the scent of lavender grew momentarily stronger. “No soldiers get in. No abominations get in.”

Mirian wrapped her hand around his and pushed up against his side. “Abominations?”

Distracted by the contact, Tomas managed to pull himself together enough to wonder why she bothered asking. Who knew and who cared what Imperial Starry Sisters thought were abomination.

The Sister turned back to face them, hands tucked under the loose fall of cloth that made up the top layer of her costume. “The new Prelate of the Church of the Sun,” she said, as though that was enough to make everything she was about to say the absolute truth, “has declared the beastmen abomination.”

“What does that mean?” Mirian asked pushing closer to him. He could feel himself sinking into softer parts.

“That they are not been cleansed by the fire.”

Mirian’s grip on his hand tightened enough it started to hurt. “But what does that
mean
?”

The Sister looked confused for a moment, then her face cleared and she smiled. “Oh, for the abominations. That they are not given the protections of the law and in their death, they will not be reborn in the fire. Now go, take your young man to sit. There will be food.”

It took Tomas a moment to realize what
the beastmen
meant. Took him a moment to realize it meant him.

The Sister had started through a door in the back wall before he put it together.
He
had been declared an abomination by someone who’d never met him and knew nothing about him. How could a church declare a whole people abomination? It didn’t make sense. He’d begun to form a protest when Mirian used her entire body to shift him to an open bit of carpet against the wall no more than three feet from the front door. He snapped his mouth closed and tried to pull away, but was too afraid of hurting her again to use the effort necessary.

She smelled better than everything else in the room combined, but he really
was
afraid of hurting her. When she tried to maneuver him down to the floor, he locked his knees.

“We can’t stay.” He breathed the words into the curve of her neck and tried not to inhale.

Mirian curled one arm up over his shoulder, stroking her fingers through his hair. He started to jerk away until he realized the sudden familiarity was to cover his ears. “If we’re caught after curfew, the soldiers will find out.” The words were warm against his cheek.

“They won’t catch
me
. Not in the dark. Not on four legs. I’ll go. You stay.”

“I can’t walk another step, and you will not leave me with these people! They smell terrible and they’re filthy.”

Tomas pulled back. There were dark circles under her eyes and a crazy gleam in them. Nothing about the way she held onto him said seduction. She clutched at him the way a much younger Mirian would have clutched at a rag doll. “
We’re
filthy.”

“Not the point!”

A hand clutched at his trouser leg and he looked down into a hopeful dark-eyed gaze. “You got a drink?”

“No.”

“I need a drink.”

Mirian leaned past his shoulder and showed teeth. “He said
no
.”

They suddenly had a larger area of open carpet around them.