The Blood Sigil (The Sigilord Chronicles Book 2) (12 page)

"Hold on now," Woss said, taking her bags and putting them in the wagon. "No sense in you carrying this all the way to the port by yourself when we've got a horse and a perfectly good wagon."

Cailix's mind ran through a list of possible excuses she might use to decline the offer.

"We're not letting you say no, so don't even try," Bayard said. He jumped into the back of the wagon and extended his hand down to her.

She took it and he pulled her up.

For most of the trip, Woss remained silent while Bayard and Drayna talked and laughed about everything from getting ready for the next festival—only a short three months away—to teasing Bayard about his on-and-off relationship with Emma Downey. Their chatter avoided the topic of Cailix's departure and the vacant seat in the front of the wagon next to Woss.

The wagon finally slowed to a stop by the pier, the pier she remembered as though she had only arrived yesterday. As foul as they smelled, she was going to miss Huster's gloomfish.

Tied to the pier in his usual spot, Huster's boat bobbed up and down on the gentle waves. He stood on the pier, waiting. A figure obscured by the early morning fog sat in the back of his boat. Cailix wondered if taking people out to the large boats in the harbor was some kind of side business for the gruff old man. He did seem to have business all over the island.

She slid out of the wagon and Bayard handed down her bags.

"Stay safe," he said.

"We love you, Cailix," Woss said, climbing out of the driver's chair. "And you know Orla did too, with all her heart."

"I know," Cailix said, unable to fight back the tears. "I think maybe I loved her too. I don't know what that feels like, but I think that's what I felt for her."

"This is what it feels like," Woss said, wiping a tear from her cheek.

"But it hurts."

"That's the price we pay. We know that loving people can hurt, but having people we love in our lives makes it worth it. We're not really alive unless we have people to love. It hurts now, but would you trade it? Would you choose never having met Momma Orla if it meant you could take away the pain you feel now?"

Cailix thought hard about that. All her life she had pushed people away, knowing that connections could make her vulnerable; that caring about people was a weakness that threatened her ability to survive. And besides that, nobody had ever cared about her before, so not caring about anyone was easy. The monks had treated her like she wasn't there; the farmer before them used to beat her. Aside from the Jepps family, the only person she had ever cared about was Urus, and he was gone too.

"No, I wouldn't trade it," she said.

She gave Woss a hug, squeezing him tight. He smelled like soap and the farm and hay. She had grown to love that smell. She said goodbye to the people who had become her family, who loved her in spite of all her problems and the trouble she had brought upon them, and then she turned and walked toward the pier.

Off in the distance, still standing on the shoreline waiting for their master to return, were the suits of armor that had escorted Urus to the island so many months ago. She remembered how the people of Aldsdowne had all stood on the shore, watching as she used her power to slaughter their livestock for blood to fuel her attacks against the blood mage navy. To top off the already outrageous magic on display, Urus had arrived on the beach accompanied by a troop of animated suits of armor, but had been taken away before he got a chance to explain any of it.

She sighed. So many people would have been so much better off had they never encountered her. Shaking off the despair, she focused instead on her anger. Anderis would pay for what he had done to her, and for what he had done to her family.

Out on the pier, Huster grabbed her bags. "I managed to convince a captain to let you stow away to Niragan," he said. "Only cost me a half load of gloomies."

"People actually eat those things?" Cailix joked.

"Aye, the crazy ones," Huster said with a smile, and tossed her bags into the boat next to his other passenger.

"Colin!"

He flashed her an awkward smile. "Cailix."

"What in the hells are you doing here?" she demanded, hands on her hips.
 

"I'm seeing you to Niragan," he said plainly.

"Get out of this boat before I throw you overboard. You are not coming with me."

"You two can argue about this on the way, but if I don't start rowing us out you'll miss your ship," Huster said, slipping into the boat. As ever, he moved with the grace and dexterity of a man half his age.

"That means get in the boat, Cailix," Huster grumbled. "The story I gave the captain is that your family died here and you're heading to Niragan to live with an uncle. The best lies are the ones closest to the truth."

She got in the boat and folded her hands across her chest, glaring at Colin. "Don't think this means you're coming with me."

Huster laughed as he pushed the boat back from the pier and started rowing.

"I'm leaving because Anderis is going to come for me," Cailix said. "And when he does I'm going to kill him. I can't do that with you tagging along like some lovesick puppy."

"Lovesick puppy?" Colin's expression quickly darkened. "You listen up, because I'm only going to say this once. You may think I'm just some dumb simple farmer with a crush on a beautiful worldly girl, but let's get something straight…"

He thinks I'm beautiful?
Cailix thought as he continued, his voice rising.

"…I know you don't think much of me, but right now I don't have time to prove you wrong. Right now you're about to get on a ship for a city you've never been to and put your life in danger again, and I'm coming with you."

Cailix was speechless. Gone was the innocent face of the farm boy, replaced by the stern look of a determined young man who would not take no for an answer. Could she have misjudged him? It didn't really matter. The more people she cared about, the more potential weapons Anderis had against her.

A sudden urge to cough came over her. She wheezed a few times, trying to hide it, then finally let it out. She absently stroked the bloodstone with her thumb, its normal red hue nearly black in the morning light.

"You be careful to stay warm and dry, lass," said Huster. "Sounds like you could be getting a nasty chill."

Cailix ignored the comment, irritated that she'd shown weakness in front of them.

"I want Anderis to come for me in Niragan so he won't be able to use the people I care about against me," she said. "That's why they're staying here and I'm leaving, and that's why you're not getting on that ship with me."

"So you do care about me," Colin said with a grin.

Cailix huffed and grumbled, kicking the boat and refolding her arms across her chest. "You don't know what you're getting yourself into," she said.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, to gently take her hands into his. "I was there during that fight, remember? I stuck my pitchfork in that man twice, and instead of dying he vanished like a ghost. Months ago I watched you turn sheep into flying fireballs and save this whole island from an invasion. I know exactly what I'm getting into, and who I'm getting into it with."

"You're not coming with me," she said, though when she heard herself say the words, they lacked the conviction they should have had.

"Try and stop me," he said with a smile.

Cailix rocked forward and pushed Colin overboard.

Chapter Eight

Goodwyn shivered and shrugged into his cloak as he watched the light snow fall onto the still, dark waters of the bay. Pori had been ordered to take them out to the abandoned island of Findanar, once a thriving and attached part of Niragan, now a sinking relic filled with rotting buildings.

And perhaps a murderer, a murderer capable of ripping someone's limbs clean off.

"Does it snow like this all the time?" Therren asked, also shivering.

"This? This is just a little reminder that fall is nearly over. In the dead of winter most of this bay is frozen over and the city and countryside spend two or three months under layers of snow," answered Pori, his gaze distant as he rowed them through the snow and fog toward Findanar's grey silhouette.

"How do you survive the cold?" Goodwyn asked.

"I suppose the same way you de—you survive the desert," Pori said.

"Demons? Is that the word you were looking for?"

"I am sorry, sir. Old habits."

"Bad habits," Goodwyn admonished. "You should be ashamed."

"Sir," Pori said with a low, humble bow.

They made the rest of the trip in silence. The falling snow seemed to absorb sound like a blanket. Goodwyn found the effect eerie.

"It's too quiet out here," Therren said, echoing Goodwyn's thoughts.

"Findanar has been abandoned for years. You will find nothing there," Pori offered.

"Then come with us."

"N-no," Pori stammered. "I will stay with the boat."

Goodwyn turned, struggling to tear his gaze away from the mesmerizing falling snowflakes. "You fear ghosts inhabit long-dead buildings and you think us demons for no reason other than our appearance. You people are so strange."

"You see anything, Wyn?" Therren asked.

"Nothing but the shadows of that island."

"Not with your eyes, with the other thing."

"If you call it a quobber again, I will push you out of this boat," Goodwyn replied with a smile. "No, I haven't seen anything. I can't control it—sometimes I see the possibilities, but most of the time I don't."

They nosed up to the broken remnants of a stone walkway and Pori pulled them in close with his oar.
 

"This is as far as I go," he said. "I will wait here until you return."

They thanked him as they fumbled their way out of the boat, barely managing to stay dry in the process. No matter how many times he boarded a boat, Goodwyn would never get used to the feeling of water beneath him.

"Where do we start?" Therren asked as they reached the first intersection of canals. The elevated walkway had long since fallen into the water in all but one direction.

"Seems like that way is the only choice." Goodwyn pointed down the only functional road, which led west, toward the center of the island.
 

He studied the buildings as they walked. They seemed to have been erected haphazardly, the only plan pattern determined by the water. In some cases the canals snaked smooth curves between the buildings, while other parts of the island remained above water and the two could walk on cobblestoned roads. Debris from decaying buildings littered the streets and waterways, leaving not even a single wall without some hole. The entire island seemed perforated with rot.

"See anything yet?" Therren asked in a whisper.

"Nothing that you don't, just a bunch of rubble."

They continued on through the snow and fog, awed by the sheer size of this abandoned place. The island was probably a quarter the size of Kest's central section. Their path zig-zagged as they were forced to turn at each intersection to avoid a street blocked by fallen bricks and huge wedges of stone.

"There's something wrong here," Goodwyn whispered.

"Other than the snow? I can't imagine how these people survive months of this. Ice that falls from the sky—it's ridiculous."

"No, not the snow. I think we're being herded."

"Why are we whispering?" Therren asked.

"Shh, let me think."

Goodwyn took in the surroundings. By his judgment they had to be close to the island's innermost quarter, but they had taken a long and winding path, forced at each block to change direction. The arrangement reminded him of Kest's inner walls, which were built so that to reach the next wall, one had to go all the way around to the other side. It kept the enemy busy, allowed them to be flanked, and made them vulnerable to archers perched on deeper walls.

"What if that debris isn't an accident? What if it's put there to force invaders into a long, weak line, like a keep defense?"
 

"Who would want to invade this place?" said Therren. "And even if they did, there's nobody here and nothing worth taking."

"I know, it's stupid. But the debris on the roads—it just doesn't feel random enough."

"Someone's putting up defenses?"
 

Goodwyn nodded, whispering, "That's what it feels like to me."

"Whoever…whatever killed those people back in the leather quarter, trying to keep us out?"

"That's a lot of stone for a single person to move."

The sound of wood clattering against stone reverberated against the buildings down a narrow alley nearby.

Gripping his deadly suzur, Goodwyn motioned for Therren to stay quiet. The two crept toward the source of the noise, pressing their backs against the wall of a short house that still carried traces of the blue and white paint that once covered its stone surface.

Goodwyn's heart raced as he poked his head around the corner. An enormous rat scurried out from a toppled barrel, ran across the alley, and slipped into a hole in the adjoining building's foundation.

He relaxed, loosened his grip on the suzur, and stepped into the alley. "It was just a rat."