Meek

The next morning, his sparks blocked all of her darts ... but the next afternoon, they only blocked half of them. Apparently she'd been going easy on him.

So when she prowled from the forest like a fierce-eyed fawn, to share a meal, he took his revenge by buffeting her with his sparks. He shoved one between her shoulder blades. It wasn't strong enough knock her over but she stumbled.

He gave a victory whoop and she reached for her blowgun and loaded a dart with impressive speed. So he stuffed the other spark into the pipe and tugged it sideways a moment before she blew.

"Hey!" she said, after the dart flew wide.

He smacked her arse with his free spark. "See how you like it."

"You absolute burl!"

She chased him through the trees, bonking him with her blowgun until he begged for mercy between gasps of laughter.

That evening found them at another forest pool. They swam together, him in his braies and her in a white underdress that clung to her with scandalous transparency.

He suspected from the lilt in her voice that she knew precisely what effect she was having, so he tried to ignore her. She was still too young. Though Eli's father had been ten years older than his mother. And Lara was an adult. Plus, she didn't seem as fragile anymore, so maybe ...

No. It wasn't her youth. She'd just been through too much. And he'd been through too much.

And mostly, sleeping with a woman like Lara wasn't just a pleasure, it was a promise. One that he wasn't ready to make. There was no good reason to rush into things.

There was no good reason to look, either, but his blessdamned sparks showed him everything in a complete sphere. In the end, he banished them behind a boulder and focused on his core until he got a grip on himself.

Then he told her about the swimming hole from when he'd worked for the hayward, and she told him about the streams of the Glade, including one that plunged underground. "You hold your breath and the current brings you to the surface farther along, a minute later."

"Sounds terrifying."

"It's fun." She floated in a lazy circle. "Remember what Mist-Below told you?"

"Mist-Beneath."

She splashed him. "There's a difference?"

"Dryad, dryn, same thing."

"Oh, good point. Remember what Mist-Beneath told you about the ritual? How she learned it from a Dream? She saw the Celestials doing a similar ritual, to change people in the valley? "

"Yeah."

"And she didn't mean 'change' like during the Three Moons. She didn't mean possessing them as angelbrood. She meant something different. Something worse."

"More like me."

"Even worse than you. Now, hush. This is your purpose."

"Oh, you're finally telling me?"

"Yeah, this is the reason for you. You remember what Mist-Beneath said?"

"You just told me. A Dream taught her how to transform me into a half-troll and a broken mage."

"She didn't transform you into a mage, Eli. That came from inside you. The troll blood just healed your magic before the last lingering scrap died away and now it's something ... new."

"How do you know so much about magic?"

"The Glade. Now do you want to hear the reason for you, or not?"

He raised his hands in surrender.

"Good." She lowered into the pool until the water lapped around her chin. "According to Mist-Beneath, the Celestials had four successes, right? What did she call them?"

"Uh, snake venom? Snakebites?"

"'Four drops of killweed poison slipped into the goblet of the valley.'"

Huh. Lara remembered his memories better than he did. "Yeah."

"And why do the Celestials send angelbrood whenever the moons weaken the ward?"

"Because they're Celestials."

"They conquered the whole world--except for this valley. They want to hurt us, to punish us until we surrender. Until we turn into them or, or invite them through the ward ourselves."

He blinked at her. "You've heard about the heaven cults?"

"Only rumors." She froze. "Bury my bones, Eli, don't tell me they're true."

"All I heard was rumors, too."

When she exhaled, her breath rippled the surface of the pool. "Another rumor I heard is that the outbreaks are getting worse."

"Probably. That kind of information isn't available in any archive I ever saw."

"Well, they're not getting better." Her gaze turned challenging. "Do you see now? Your purpose? Your goal?"

"I see what you think it is."

"Tell me."

Eli watched Fern lap at the edge of the pond. "The Celestials changed people, like Mist-Beneath changed me. Except she wanted me to save the trolls, and they want their ... their 'killweeds' to destroy the valley."

"Exactly."

"So that's my purpose, to stop the people that the Celestials changed?"

"Yes. Of course. That's what you're for, Eli. Who better than you? Than us? Nobody else even knows they exist. The four killweeds. Our job is to find them, and end them."

He didn't respond for a moment, just sitting with her words. Then he said, "I'm not a warrior, no matter how many darts I block. I'm not an assassin. I almost died trying to kill the marquis. Twice. I'm not half-snake, like Chivat Lo. I'm not quiet and stealthy and clever. I'm half-troll."

"You're scared."'

"Of course I'm scared! This is too much. It's too big."

"You wouldn't be scared if you disagreed. You'd just say no."

"No," he said.

"How long did it take you to admit that your sister was right about the squire?"

"Shut up," he said.

"What you did to those torturers ... " When she shrugged, her linen-draped shoulder broke the surface of the pool. "I know you still want to kill the other one, the skinny one. I don't blame you, but revenge is stupid and boring and useless. Who cares? Who does it help?"

"The next guy who gets locked in that cell."

"Sure, because they can't hire another torturer."

He lowered his gaze and didn't answer. He wanted to kill the torturer because he wanted to kill the torturer. Because his blood turned to acid if he thought of that man sitting on a shaded bench, enjoying a glass of wine. Living his untroubled life. He wanted to feel his hands around the man's throat, he wanted to squeeze.

The core inside his chest thrummed with more than power and awareness; there was a terrible implacability there, too.

"You want to fight, Eli?" Lara said. "Fight for something. Fight to save someone, like you did for the trolls. The entire valley is at risk. Including your troll brother and sisters. And me, and your family and the junior scribes and those kids you watched rolling hoops in the street."

He didn't respond.

"Am I wrong?" she demanded.

"No," he said.

"The Dreamers work in mysterious ways. Do you honestly think they gave Mist-Beneath that Dream for no reason?"

"I never thought about it, but if--" He stopped himself from saying, If they'd mysteriously worked to throw me in that dungeon cell, I'll slit their sleepy throats. "But maybe."

"What happened to your father and sister is the oldest story in the valley. Happens all the time--but by the Glade it shouldn't happen. And things aregetting worse."

"You don't know that."

"I do. There's never been killweeds before."

He scrubbed his hair with his fingertips. "You're not wrong. You're not wrong, but I'm not like you. I'm not a dryn. You believe in honor. You want to wash your soul clean and return home with your head high. I'm not sure what I believe in."

"I don't care what you believe. I know you. You will not stand idle while the brood slaughters a family at a country estate. The scribe is dead. Use your sparks to look at yourself. This is who you are now. This is what you are."

An hour after a silent breakfast, Eli stopped to watch an emerald-breasted hummingbird hover just above a funnel web. A spidercatcher. He pricked at the web with his delicate beak until the spider took the bait, then he fed.

"So how do we find them?" he asked Lara.

"The killweeds?"

"Yeah. Like you said, we're the only ones who know what they are. So how do we find them?"

Lara lifted her head from lacing her boot. "We follow the trail of destruction. That's why they're here. To destroy."

He snorted. "If we start looking for people doing damage, that's a long list."

"Well, there's a shortcut," she said.

"Yeah?"

"I already know where one of them is."

"You do not."

"I'm pretty sure, yeah."

He said, "Lara."

"Okay, okay." She chewed her lower lip. "I, uh, didn't want to tell you earlier in case, uh ... " She paused. "And also this is part of the secret you didn't want to hear."

"I do now."

"Okay, here goes." She took a steadying breath. "Last month, a woman from Leotide City visited the Keep."

"And?"

"And she kept asking questions, uncomfortable questions. Well, uncomfortable for the marquis."

"Such as what?"

"Such as, 'Where are the legal agreements from after the Warding, that obligated every province and sub-province to send funds to capital for communal defense?'"

For a moment, he didn't understand. He knew those words, he knew exactly what Lara meant, exactly what she was saying, yet despite that he still groped for comprehension.

He said: "No."

"Yes. The woman's name was Lady Brazika Savradar, the Steward of the Office of the Stipend Geld."

"She came? The one who sent the letter? The letter that started everything? She came in person?"

"She wondered what happened to the Head Clerk. She wondered what happened to his assistant."

"No," he said again.

"She's official, so the marquis couldn't throw her in a dungeon. He needed her to leave the city alive--and never return. His spymaster gave the job to Chivat Lo."

"Gods damn," he breathed.

"And Chivat Lo," she continued, "produced paperwork proving that the marquis sent the money to Leotide City. But you and Head Clerk stole it."

"Me? Us? He framed us?"

She winced. "We framed you."

"You helped?"

"That's the secret."

He waited for a surge of anger, but didn't feel anything. "Huh. Well, it's a boring one. That's what got you so upset? I was already a half-troll by the time that happened. Nothing you did could've hurt me--or helped me."

"I should've told you."

"And now you did. What happened next?"

She eyed him briefly, like she expected more of a reaction. Then she said, "Chivat Lo paid eyewitnesses to claim that you and the Head Clerk were working for Shimyn of Ehrat. They said--"

"Nobody's from Ehrat."

"I don't know about that, but the witnesses claimed that you two brought her chests of gold and sapphire. And Chivat Lo convinced--I don't know how--Lady Brazika to take her mercenaries and retrieve the treasure herself. Because he knew she'd die at Shimyn's hands."

"Who the halo is Shimyn?"

"She's also known as the Bloodwitch. She's one of the killweeds. She has to be."