Chapters (68)
“Is he well? Is he safe?” I was squeezing her hand too hard. I let go. How many years had I woken up at night in a sweat, thinking of the Ioph Carn bursting into my parents’ home?
“He’s fine,” she said. “Don’t worry.”
That never boded well. What reason would I have not to worry? As if worry were a thing I could sheathe and put away.
She took in a breath. “The bog cough—”
“What? He’s sick? Why are you here? Who’s taking care of him?”
“No, stop! Let me finish.” She waved her hands as though trying to ward off biting flies. “He’s fine; he’s not sick. But the bog cough is spreading on Anau. Emahla’s mother caught it, and then her father. He’s helping their daughter take care of them.”
My mind raced. Emahla’s younger sister would be grown now, too. I couldn’t wrap my thoughts around it. “He’s not young anymore. He needs to stay put in the house.”
“What would you ask him to do? They’re practically family. Everyone is falling sick and someone needs to take care of them.”
“The Emperor is here to ask about the caro nut shipment,” I said. “She’ll make sure some gets sent to Imperial and the surrounding isles. Anau is close by. You’ll get some.”
And I hoped it would be quickly. I couldn’t see the sun behind the clouds, but the light around us was fading. Lin would have my head for being late to dinner, folk hero or not.
“Can you watch over my mother?” I asked the guards at the gangplank. “Find her a place to sit and have some tea? I need to get to the palace.”
Somewhere beyond the docks a commotion had started. Raised voices, a woman’s sobbing.
My gaze focused over my mother’s shoulder.
Two of Lin’s maidservants were dragging the third woman between them. Their deep blue dresses were dark with blood, their faces spattered with it. I moved as though through a nightmare, my footsteps pounding against the dock yet never feeling quite quick enough. The handmaid they carried was limp, her dress torn in the middle. I couldn’t make sense of the flesh beneath, couldn’t tell exactly where the gashes began and ended. It looked like a piece of meat a dog had been given to gnaw on.
Her blood dripped onto the cobblestones, mingling with the mud.
“What’s happened?” I took over from one of the maidservants, whose left arm was lain open.
“A group of war constructs,” she said, tears cutting trails through the blood on her face. She pressed a hand to her wound. “They came running through town and went straight for us.”
23
