A Court for Thieves

Just thinking about it made Sophia feel nauseous, although maybe that had something to do with the constant rolling of the cart as well. Did the nuns know what they’d sold her into? She knew the answer to that: of course they did. They’d joked about it, and about the fact that she would never be free, because there would be no way for her to ever pay off the debt they’d imposed on her.

It meant a lifetime of slavery in everything but name, forced to do whatever her fat, perfumed owner wanted until she was no longer worth anything to him. He might let her go then, but only because it was easier to let her starve than to keep her. Sophia wanted to believe that she would kill herself before she let all of that happen to her, but the truth was that she would probably obey. Hadn’t she obeyed for years while the nuns abused her?

The cart ground to a halt, but Sophia wasn’t foolish enough to believe that they had reached any kind of final destination. Instead, they had stopped outside a hat maker’s shop, and Meister Karg went inside without so much as a glance back at his charges.

Sophia rushed forward, trying to find a way to get to the bolts outside the bars. She reached through the gaps of the wagon’s sides, but there was simply no way to reach the lock from where she was.

“You mustn’t,” the girl with the bruised mouth said. “He’ll beat you for it if he catches you.”

“He’ll beat all of us,” another said.

Sophia pulled back, but only because she could see that it wasn’t going to do any good. There was no point in getting hurt when it wouldn’t change anything. It was better to bide her time and…

And what? Sophia had seen what waited for them in Meister Karg’s thoughts. She could probably have guessed it even without that there to make her stomach clench with the fear of it. The slaver’s cart was not the worst thing that could happen to any of them, and Sophia needed to find a way out of it before it got worse.

What way, though? Sophia didn’t have an answer to that.

There were other things she didn’t have an answer to either. How had they found her in the city, when she’d managed to hide from hunters before? How had they known what to look for? The more Sophia thought about it, the more she was convinced that someone must have sent news of her departure to the hunters.

Someone had betrayed her, and that thought hurt worse than any of the beatings had.

Meister Karg came back, dragging a woman with him. This one was a few years older than Sophia, looking as though she had already been indentured for some time.

“Please,” she begged as the slaver pulled her along. “You can’t do this! Just another few months and I’d have paid off my indenture!”

“And until you pay it in full, your master can still sell it,” Meister Karg said. Almost as an afterthought, he hit the woman. Nobody moved to stop him. People barely looked.

Or your master’s wife can when she becomes jealous of you.

Sophia caught that clearly, understanding the horror of the situation in that moment through a combination of Karg’s and the woman’s thoughts. She was called Mellis, and had been doing well in the profession she’d been indentured to. Well enough that she’d been about to be free, except that the hat maker’s wife had been sure her husband would leave her for the indentured woman as soon as she paid off her debt.

So she’d sold her on to a man who would ensure she was never seen again in Ashton.

It was a terrible fate, but it was also a reminder to Sophia that she wasn’t the only one there with a harsh story. She’d been so focused on what had happened to her with Sebastian and the court, but the truth was that probably everyone had some sorrowful tale behind their presence in the cart. No one would be there by choice.

And now none of them would have a choice about anything they did in their lives.

“In,” Meister Karg snapped, throwing the woman in with the rest of them. Sophia tried to press forward in the moments the door was open, but it slammed shut again in her face before she could get close to it. “We’ve a lot of ground to cover.”

Sophia caught the flicker of a route in his thoughts. There would be more meandering through the city, picking up servants who were no longer wanted, apprentices who had managed to anger their masters. There would be a journey out of the city, into the outlying villages and as far north as the town of Hearth, where another orphanage waited. After that, there was a ship moored on the edge of the Firemarsh.

It was a route that would take at least a couple of days of travel, and Sophia had no doubt that the conditions for it would be awful. Already, the morning sun was turning the wagon into a space of heat, sweat, and desperation. By the time the sun reached its zenith, Sophia doubted she would even be able to think with it.

“Help!” Mellis called out to the people on the street. She was obviously braver than Sophia was. “Can’t you see what’s happening? You, Benna, you know me. Do something!”

The people there kept walking past, and Sophia could see how useless it was. Nobody cared, or if they did, nobody felt as though they could actually do anything. They weren’t about to break the law for the sake of a few indentured girls who were no different from all the others who had been sold from the city over the years. Possibly, at least a few of those there had their own indentured servants or apprentices. Simply calling for help wouldn’t work.

Sophia had an option that might, though.

“I know you don’t want to interfere,” she called out, “but if you take a message to Prince Sebastian and tell him that Sophia is here, I have no doubt that he’ll reward you for – ”

“Enough of that!” Meister Karg shouted, slamming the handle of his coachman’s whip into the bars. Sophia knew what was waiting for her if she was silent, though, and she simply couldn’t accept that. It occurred to her that the street people of the city might not be the right ones to ask for help.

“What about you?” Sophia called to him. “You could take me to Sebastian. You’re just in this to make money, aren’t you? Well, he could give you a profit on me easily, and you’d have the thanks of a prince of the realm. He wanted me for a fiancée two days ago. He’d pay for my freedom.”

She could see Meister Karg’s thoughts as he considered it. It meant that she shrank back the instant before the whip handle struck the bars again.

“More likely he’d take you and not pay a bent copper for you,” the slaver said. “If he even wants you. No, I’ll make my money off you the sure way. There’s lots of men will want a turn on you, girl. Maybe I’ll have a taste when we stop.”

The worst part was that Sophia could see that he was serious. He was definitely thinking about it as the cart rumbled back into motion, heading into the outer spaces of the city. In the back of the cart, it was all Sophia could do to shut her mind to the prospect of it. She huddled down with the others, and she could feel their relief that it would be her and not them that the fat man chose tonight.

Kate, she begged for what seemed like the hundredth time. Please, I need your help.

As with all the other times, the sending went unanswered. It drifted off into the darkness of the world, and Sophia had no way of knowing if it even found its intended target. She was on her own, and that was terrifying, because alone, Sophia suspected that she couldn’t do anything to stop all the things that were going to happen next.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Kate trained until she wasn’t sure she could take any more deaths. She practiced with blades and sticks, fired bows, and threw daggers. She ran and she jumped, hid and killed from the shadows. All the time her mind was on the circle of trees and the sword that lay at their heart.

She could still feel the pain of her wounds. Siobhan had dressed the thorn scratches and the deeper puncture with herbs to aid healing, but they had done nothing to stop it hurting with every step.

“You need to learn to work through the pain,” Siobhan said. “Let nothing distract you from your objectives.”

“I know about pain,” Kate said. The House of the Unclaimed had taught her that much, at least. There had been times when it had seemed like the only lesson the place had to offer.”

“Then you need to learn to use it,” Siobhan said. “You will never have the powers of my kind, but if you can touch a mind, you can distract it, you can calm it.”

Siobhan summoned the ghostly forms of animals then: bears and spotted forest cats, wolves and hawks. They struck at Kate with inhuman speed, their claws as deadly as blades, their senses meaning that they could find her even when she hid. The only way to drive them off was to throw thoughts their way, the only way to hide from them, to soothe them into sleep.

Of course, Siobhan didn’t teach her that with any patience, just had her killed again and again until Kate learned the skills that she needed.

She did learn though. Slowly, with the constant pain of failure, she learned the skills she needed the same way she’d learned to hide and fight. She learned to drive off the hawks with flickers of thought, and to still her thinking so thoroughly that it seemed to the wolves as though she was something inanimate. She even learned to soothe the bears, lulling them into sleep with the mental equivalent of a lullaby.

All through it, Siobhan watched her, sitting on nearby branches or following along while Kate ran. She never seemed to have Kate’s speed, but she was always there when Kate was done, stepping from behind trees or within the shadowy recesses of bushes.

“Would you like to try the circle again?” Siobhan asked, as the sun rose higher in the sky.

Kate frowned at that. She wanted it, more than anything, but she could also feel the fear that came with it. Fear of what might happen. Fear of more pain.

“Do you think I’m ready?” Kate asked.

Siobhan spread her hands. “Who can tell?” she countered. “Do you think that you’re ready? You find in the circle what you bring to it. Remember that when you’re in there.”

Somewhere in that, a decision had been made without Kate even realizing it. She was going to try the circle again, it seemed. Her still healing wounds hurt just at the thought of it. Still, she walked through the forest beside Siobhan, trying to focus.

“Every fear you have slows you down,” Siobhan said. “You are on a path of violence, and to walk it, you must look neither left nor right. You must not hesitate, from fear, from pain, from weakness. There are those who will sit for years becoming one with the elements, or agonize over the perfect word with which to influence. On your path, you must act.”

They reached the edge of the circle, and Kate considered it. It was empty save for the sword, but Kate knew how quickly that could change. She crept through the thorns, not disturbing the plants now as she slipped through them, moving silently into the circle. She slipped in with all the stealth she’d learned.

The other version of her was there waiting when she got through, the sword in her hand, her eyes fixed on Kate.

“Did you think that you could simply sneak in and take it?” the second self demanded. “Were you afraid to fight me again, little girl?”

Kate moved forward, her own weapon at the ready. She didn’t say anything, because talking had done her no good last time. In any case, she wasn’t good at talking. Sophia was better at that. Probably, if she’d been there, she would have already convinced the second version of herself to hand over the blade.

“Do you think that not talking does you any good?” her mirror image demanded. “Does it make you any less weak? Any less useless?”

Kate brought her weapon to bear, striking out high and low, keeping it moving.

“You’ve been training,” her mirror image said as she parried. She struck back and Kate managed to deflect the blow. “It won’t be enough.”

She kept attacking and Kate gave ground. She had to, because the other version of her was exactly as fast, exactly as strong again.

“It doesn’t matter how much you train, or how fast you get,” her opponent said. “I will have all the same advantages and none of the weaknesses. I won’t be a scared little girl, running from the pain.”

She thrust at Kate, and Kate barely managed to dodge the worst of it, the blade cutting a line of fire along her ribs. Kate swayed back, cutting a wide slash with her practice sword in an attempt to keep the other version of herself at bay.

“Just a frightened, weak thing,” her mirror self said. “How does it feel to know that you’re going to die?”

Kate forced herself to smile. “You tell me.”

She kept attacking, ignoring the fear, ignoring the voice that told her she wasn’t enough.

“You’re just trying to hide what you are,” her other self said, although now there was a note that didn’t sound as confident. Her parries weren’t coming as fast either.

“You think I’m scared?” Kate asked. “You think I’m in pain? Let me show you what those mean.”

She bundled it up then, all the pain that she’d felt in the House of the Unclaimed, all the fear that had come from being on the street alone. She took the hurt of not having her sister with her, and the loss of her parents, the fact that she’d had to leave Will. Kate took that pain and compressed it into a cannon ball of agony. She flung it at her mirror self.

The other her reeled back, clutching at her head. In that moment, Kate struck. Her practice blade was only wooden, so she didn’t try to thrust it through the heart or open one of the big veins of the leg. Instead, she lunged with its tip for the throat, the wood slamming home and sending the mirror her sprawling.

“I am not weak,” Kate said, striking again. “I have survived!”

The blade Will and Thomas had made tumbled from her opponent’s hand. Kate snatched it up, testing the weight. The mirror self lay there, her hands scrabbling for the wooden sword, her eyes pleading for mercy.

Kate thrust the sword through her and she vanished.

For what seemed like forever, Kate stood there, breathing hard, her heart hammering in her chest. The blade in her hand had blood on it, and Kate wiped it clean with a handful of grass, trying to use the repetitive movement to calm herself. She could feel the grooves of the runes on the blade every time she passed over them, along with flickers of… something.

“You’ve done well,” Siobhan said, walking through the thorns around the edge of the circle. They gave way for her like courtiers bowing out of the way of a queen. “You’ve pushed aside the things holding you back. The fear. The weakness. The mercy.”

That last part scared Kate a little. She’d thrust her sword through the simulacrum without even hesitating. It hadn’t been real, but even so, there had been blood on the sword. Kate might not have killed anything real there, but she had killed something. Guilt rose up in her with the inevitability of a rising tide.

“You say that as though it’s a good thing,” Kate said.

Siobhan put a hand on her shoulder. “You have sharpened yourself into the weapon you need to be.”

“For what?” Kate asked. She should have guessed that there would be a reason why Siobhan would help her to become a better fighter. There had obviously been a reason why Siobhan had demanded a yet to be named favor as part of the price for her help.

Siobhan didn’t answer. Instead, she tended to Kate’s wounds, applying fresh herbs and cooling salve where they had opened.

“For what?” Kate repeated.

Siobhan stood, looking Kate in the eye. “There are things that are coming. Things that threaten those like me. You have seen an army coming, and you think that it is just a human kind of war. It is that, and many will die if you fail, but it is more, it is far more.”

“How much more?” Kate asked.

“There are things in this world that destroy all they touch,” Siobhan said. “This is not the time to talk about them.”

That wasn’t good enough for Kate. She wanted to reach out and grab the other woman. She wanted to demand real answers. She knew that she was being used; she just wanted to know in what way, and why. She wanted to have the kind of choice that had never been given to her back in the House of the Unclaimed. She would force an answer from the other woman if she had to. She would —

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