“You wouldn’t make it far in the canyon, anyway,” Jacen added, somewhat defensively. The two of them had trained together; he knew very well that Seth’s survival expertise began and ended with melee combat. He had the outdoorsmanship of someone raised in a palace. “I think we need to hire someone . . . discreet.”
Alarm still brimmed beneath the surface of Seth’s demeanor, but he had a rein on it now. “You’re not wrong.”
There were decidedly few advantages to running the seediest chapel in Zivora, but Jacen had become acquainted with all manner of useful—if unsavory—people. In exchange for liquor ata discount, he took regular confession from a man who knew a bounty hunter or two.
But Seth said, “Ysira Naktis.”
The name bounced around the inside of Jacen’s skull for a few seconds before he fully processed it. “She’s alive?”
“It’s complicated.” Seth grimaced. “She’s in Guard custody. Saraida told me last night.”
Jacen had known Ysira in his novitiate days—even called her a friend. He remembered a tall, striking girl with black eyes and a thorny temperament. She came from less than nothing, and to Saraida Ancarath she’d become something between a surrogate sister and a charity case—a conveniently inspirational ornament for a magnanimous heiress who would always be her better.
Out of what Jacen assumed was sheer spite, Ysira had secured a Knight Candidacy, typically reserved for scions of Zivora’s wealthiest. The first time they’d sparred, she’d put Jacen flat on his back, after he’d made a retrospectively humiliating performance of not wanting to hurt her.
“She left the Citadel after graduation,” Jacen recalled. She’d fallen short of the requisite ranking to become an officer of the Guard. “I assumed she never wanted to speak to any of us again.” He shook his head. “And you want to hire her? Why would she?—”
“She’s Neri’s mother,” Seth said.
Jacen blinked at him. “I thought Neri’s mother was Harvested.” “Yes, well, that’s the easy thing to say in this city, isn’t it? ‘My business partner didn’t abscond with your fortune; he was Harvested.’ ‘My wife didn’t leave me; she wasHarvested.’” Seth lifted his shoulders and sighed. “Whatever happened between them . . . Ged doesn’t talk about it. I only know Ysira turned up pregnant, several cycles after anyone had seen her last. Lilaya made Ged take responsibility, but Ysira wouldn’t stay. I can’t say I blame her.”
“And Neri has no idea.” “None whatsoever.”
Seth’s regret was palpable for an ugly history he’d been powerless to change. He was the sort of man who loved quickly and easily, and people tended to reciprocate—in that sense, Jacen and Ysira had both been anomalies. She was something of an angry outsider, not inclined to romance in the slightest, and so naturally, Seth had been smitten with her. It seemed that part of him had never faded. Perhaps Ged had even known just how to hurt him.
“I see,” Jacen said.
He lacked Seth’s faith in a mother’s unconditional willingness to risk life and limb for her son. His own parents, as far as he knew, had given him up to the Church when he was five years old. But . . . he trusted Seth. It dismayed him to find that, even after years apart, there was no one alive he trusted more.
“She left because she felt she had to, not because she never cared,” Seth insisted. “When she hears Neri’s in danger, she’ll help. I know it.”
6
COVENANT
YSIRA
Ysira dreamt of a red thing in the desert. Redder than the sands, redder than blood . . . it pulsed and writhed, made her head hurt to look at it. In the primordial, unfocused realm of her subconscious, she could not discern its shape. It reached toward her as though calling, with beckoning tendrils of burning shadow. She reached back.
Then, agony. Her skin blistered and blackened as her head pounded with the helpless rage of a trapped beast. Her insides convulsed like something trying to break free. Too much power, with nowhere to go.
A hand clawed its way up through her esophagus with tearing strength. She doubled over, choking, shaking uncontrollably—tossing and turning off the stone slab where she slept, onto the floor.
She swore and eased herself to a sitting position, massaging her shoulder that’d borne the brunt of the impact. It was the same one the thorn eater had bitten two nights ago, and she grimaced to find a tooth still embedded in the scar tissue. It musthave worked its way up overnight as the strange processes that kept her body intact recognized it didn’t belong. It took a few seconds of digging to get it out. She wrinkled her nose, hoping this scar would fade quickly—it ruined one of her most visible tattoos. The blood red patterns, reminiscent of thorns on telkaan vines, spiraled all over her body.
By the warm yellow light of the globes in the wall, she assumed it was late afternoon. She hadn’t meant to sleep all day, but sheer boredom had gotten the better of her. It also seemed to irritate her guards.
As soon as they tried to transfer her to the deep river docks, she would find a way to escape like she always did. Of course, she’d have to make sure Saraida never saw her again. Perhaps it was time she left Zivora altogether.
The thought didn’t fill her with enthusiasm. The demon priests’ Cataclysm had ravaged the world; not much remained beyond the Black Sun’s dominion. Certainly nowhere as secure as the Palestone City. This place sucked up the lifeblood of the surrounding lands like a bloated, failing heart, sustaining itself while its limbs withered and rotted. To the west, the nomads of the Glass Sea killed each other for food. To the south, the waterlogged lands of the Fractured Peninsula festered with disease.
Green places remained in Alendal, to the west. Or maybe she could venture farther north, beyond the Church’s reach, to whatever lay past the volcanic wastes of the Burning Hills. If anyone could survive such a journey, it was Ysira.
But all she’d ever known was the Scar. She loved the dry desert air and the red adobe of the Knots, its streets alive with laughter, haggling traders, and the rich sounds of her own language. The smell of roasting chiles. The lumbering kirikil dragging their carts through the dust. For all its shortcomings, this land was home.
Someone banged on the door. A rank-and-file Guardsman hauled Ysira up by the arm, steered her out of the cell and down the hall. Spite compelled her to slip the tooth into his pocket. She only regretted she would not be there to watch him find it.
He shoved her into a new room with a palestone table and stools. Ysira was bracing to tell Saraida to eat shit but found her in the company of two men. Her stomach dropped as she recognized Seth Semira.
