جهان پشت سر 7

SEVEN

Lyrisa

The river washes clean most of the blood. If not for the water, I would be soaked in it. Orrian’s, mostly. That tends to happen when you remove a head.

It doesn’t wash away the memory. I doubt anything ever will.

The river fumed behind him, rising like the wings of a predatory bird. On either side, his friends lunged at me, slowed by their drunken state. The worst of them was Helena, but she was at the far end. A strongarm like me, she would have been difficult to kill.

But I could only look at Orrian, screaming beneath me, trying to rise from his knees. There was fire in his eyes. No, that was the ship, the cargo hold catching alight, exploding from either end.

“You will be mine,” he hissed, even as my hands closed on either side of his head. In that moment, I saw my life as it could have been, as so many had lived before me. Resigned to a crown, unhappy and spreading that unhappiness. Miserable in my strength and power. Inflicting my pain on everyone around me, and my children after me.

I would not have that life for myself, not even if the alternative was to die.

I felt the spray of the river as it trembled over us, claws reaching for my throat. I grabbed and pulled. I don’t know what I expected to happen. For him to die, certainly. Perhaps for his skull to break before his spine. Instead his neck tore clean, like I was removing the top from a jar. I didn’t know a body could do that.

I didn’t know there could still be so much blood, a heart still beating even without a head.

Strange, his water saved me. It crashed as soon as he died, falling upon us both even as the ship burned. I dove as fast as I could, my wet clothes reluctant to catch fire. Even so, I felt the searing pain of the flames behind me, consuming everything and everyone still left on the ship.

I feel them now, hot and angry. They’ll need tending, but I doubt I’ll find a skin healer at the confluence. In Memphia, maybe. For now I’ll have to make do with what I can cobble together from the market town.

It was the right thing to do. Keep low in the water, watch the bank. Wait for Ashe and his crew to move on. Let them think I died with Orrian. Let no whisper of me travel down this river. Let no one else follow my trail.

It’s the only way to get away properly. Leave no trace.

I’ll have to be more judicious with my coin. Luckily, the pouch on my belt survived the explosion and the river. It should be enough, if I spend it wisely.

First things first, I manage to trade my Lakelander uniform, soaked as it is, for better-fitting clothes. The coveralls stink, but they’ll do, and I’m eager to get out of a dead woman’s clothes. The market town is larger than I anticipated, with hundreds of stalls spread out across dirt streets and the docks. Keels, ferries, and even larger boats crowd the riverbank, loading and unloading cargo and passengers. It won’t be difficult to book passage to the Gates. It won’t be hard to leave this world behind, as I have so many others.

The ground beneath my feet shifts from earth to wooden plank to earth again, this part of the river junction crossed by smaller canals and shifting streams. I keep my head down, my ears open, and my hair loose to hide my face. I catch snippets of conversation here and there, some of it about the “commotion” at the confluence. The rest is jarringly normal. Traders exchanging news, boatmen reuniting with friends, gamblers advertising games, merchants their wares. I pass it all quickly, aiming for the main docks where the larger boats wait.

Until one voice above the rest gives me pause.

A sly voice, familiar, with a confident smirk behind it.

I turn to find a small crowd gathered, ringing a table with two chairs, one of them occupied by a kindly, smiling ox of a person. He offers a hand to another large man as he gets up from the table, rubbing his arm with a grimace.

“No hard feelings?” Ean says, still smiling in his gentle way.

The Red opponent turns without another word, cursing under his breath. He leaves coins on the table as he stomps off, his footsteps shaking the planks beneath my feet.

Ashe is quick to scoop the coins into his jacket pocket, still drying beneath the afternoon sun. He claps Ean on the back.

“Well done, Ean,” he says with a grin, before turning back to the market crowd of travelers and traders. “Come on now, anyone else want to try Big Ean? Strongest arm this side of the Freelands! All or nothing, first arm to touch the table wins the coin!” I shouldn’t stop. I should keep walking. Pay my way onto a boat and go.

Instead I find myself parting the people in front of me, my coin purse in hand.

I smirk as I sit, laying my money out slowly. Then I put my arm out, elbow to the tabletop, hand open and ready.

Big Ean balks, but I only have eyes for Ashe.

He stares at me, his face impassive for a second. Then his lips curve into a grin.

“I’ll take that bet,” I tell them both.