Peter Brett: The Daylight War

She was losing hope when Melan gave a jerk and pulled her upright with a splash. Inevera’s hair was plastered to her face, and she coughed, gasping breaths of thick, steamy air.

‘-just walk in here,’ Melan was shouting, ‘speaking to the Damaji’ting like she was your pillow friend, and learning the bido weave in three tries!’

‘Three tries?’ a girl asked.

‘We should kill her just for that,’ another added.

‘Thinks she’s better than us,’ a third said.

Inevera glanced around desperately through her matted hair, but the other girls watched impassively, their eyes dead. None of them looked like she might lift a finger to help.

‘Melan, please, I-’ Inevera sputtered, but Melan tightened her grip and thrust Inevera back under the water. She managed to hold her breath, but that soon ran out, and she was thrashing wildly again by the time Melan let her up to gasp another breath.

‘Do not speak to me,’ Melan said. ‘I may be bound to you for one year, but we are not friends. You think you can come in and take Kenevah’s place overnight? Over my mother? Over me ? I am Kenevah’s blood! You are just a … bad throw.’

She produced a sharp knife from somewhere, and Inevera flinched in terror as Melan slashed it through her hair, cutting off thick locks. ‘You are nothing.’ She flipped the knife in her fingers, catching the blade and handing it hilt-first to the next girl who approached.

‘You are nothing,’ the girl echoed, grabbing another lock of Inevera’s hair and slicing it off.

Each girl came forward and took the knife, cutting at Inevera’s hair until all that remained was a ragged and uneven shadow, patched and bloody. ‘You are nothing,’ they said in turn.

By the time the last of the girls drew back, Inevera was on her knees in the water, limp and weeping. Again and again she broke out coughing, the convulsions tearing hot fire through her throat. It was as if there was some last bit of water in her lungs they were determined to expel.

Kenevah was right. The Dama’ting Palace and the Great Bazaar weren’t so different after all, but here there was no Soli to defend her.

Inevera thought about Manvah, and her final words about Krisha. If she could not match sharusahk with Melan and the other girls, she would deal as her mother had done. She would keep her eyes down and do as she was told. Work hard. Listen. Learn.

And then, when no one was looking, she would find Melan’s storage tent and put vermin in it.

333 AR Summer

30 Dawns Before New Moon

Renna kissed Arlen again. A gentle breeze swept across the thin sheen of sweat on their bodies, cooling them as they panted on the hot night.

‘Been wonderin’ if you were tattooed under that cloth nappy,’ she said, nestling in next to him and putting her head on his bare chest, listening to his heart.

Arlen laughed and put his arm around her. ‘It’s called a bido. And even my obsession has limits.’

Renna lifted her head, putting her lips to his ear. ‘Maybe you just need a Warder you trust. It’s a wife’s duty to take good care of what’s in her husband’s bido. I could paint you with blackstem …’

Arlen swallowed, and she could see his skin flush. ‘The wards would distort even as you drew them.’

Renna laughed, wrapping him in her arms and dropping her head back to his chest.

‘Wonder sometimes if I’m cracked,’ she said.

‘How’s that?’ Arlen asked.

‘Like I’m still sitting in Selia Barren’s spinning room, staring off into space. Everything since has been like a dream. Wonder if my mind just took me to a sunny place and left me there.’

‘You’ve a poor imagination if this is your sunny place,’ Arlen said.

‘Why?’ Renna asked. ‘I’m rid of Harl and that corespawned farm, stronger than I ever imagined, and dancing in the naked night.’ She swept a hand around her. ‘Everything’s awash in colour and glow.’ She looked at him. ‘And I’m with Arlen Bales. How could my sunny place be anywhere else?’

Renna bit her lip as the words rushed to them. Words she had thought to herself many times, but never dared say aloud. Part of her hesitation was fear of Arlen’s reaction, but much of it was her own doubt. All the Tanner sisters had been willing to run to the bed of the first decent man they met, but had any of them ever been in love?

Renna had thought she loved Arlen when they were children, but she only knew him from afar, and understood now that much of what she cherished had been her imagination of what he was like in close, rather than the boy himself.

Renna had convinced herself that she loved Cobie Fisher this past spring, but she saw the lie of that now. Cobie hadn’t been a bad sort, but if any other man had come to Harl’s farm, Renna knew she would likely have seduced him, too. Anything to get away, because anywhere was better than that farm, and any man in creation was better than her da.

But Renna was done lying. And done biting her tongue.

‘Love you, Arlen Bales,’ she said.

Her courage fled as the words left her lips and she held her breath, but there was no hesitation as Arlen tightened his arms around her. ‘Love you, Renna Tanner.’

She exhaled, and all the fear and doubt left her.

Charged as she was with magic, Renna found no sleep as they lay, but she would not have wished for any. Warm and safe, she wondered almost idly how she and Arlen could have been fighting a demon prince and its servants on this very spot a few hours before. It seemed a different world. A different life. For a short time, they had escaped.

But as the sweat dried and the glow of passion faded, the real world began to creep back into focus, terrible and frightening. They were surrounded by the bodies of dead corelings, black ichor splattered all over the clearing. One, the shape-shifting demon, still wore her form, its head neatly severed and leaking ichor. Not far off, Twilight Dancer still lay with his legs in splints after nearly being killed by a mimic demon.

‘Going to need to heal Dancer again before he can walk,’ Arlen said. ‘Even then, it might be another night or two before he’s at full strength.’

Renna looked around the clearing. ‘Don’t like the idea of staying here another night.’

‘Me neither,’ Arlen said. ‘Corelings will be drawn here tomorrow like worms to a rain puddle. I have a safehold nearby with a cart big enough to carry Dancer. I can fetch it and be back not long past sunrise.’

‘Still have to wait for nightfall,’ Renna said.

Arlen tilted his head at her. ‘Why?’

‘Horse weighs more’n your da’s house,’ Renna said. ‘How we gonna get him in the cart without night strength? Who’ll pull the thing, for that matter?’

Arlen looked at her, and even through the wards tattooed all over his face, his expression told all. ‘Stop that,’ she snapped.

‘What?’ Arlen asked.

‘Deciding whether or not to lie to me,’ Renna said. ‘We’re promised now, and there oughtn’t be lies ’tween man and wife.’

Arlen looked at her in surprise, then shook his head. ‘Wan’t gonna lie, exactly. Just tryin’ to decide if it’s time to talk about it.’

‘Is if you value your skin,’ Renna said. Arlen squinted at her, but she met his eyes and after a moment he shrugged.

‘Don’t lose all my strength in the day,’ he said. ‘Even under the noon sun I reckon I could pick up a milk cow and throw it farther than you can skip a brook stone.’

‘What makes you so special?’ Renna asked.

Arlen gave her that look again, and she scowled, shaking a fist at him only half mockingly.