Northlight Read Free

holding lap harps and a small drum. They settled into a melody, the drum marking the beat and the men’s voices weaving in and out of the woman’s clear soprano. First they performed a courting tune, followed by a jig-dance that had me and everyone else stamping our feet.
    Then an old, old song:
    â€œHarth now dons her robe of glee
    Flow’rs and trees embrace her.
    We go forth in harmony,
    Children of one Mother.
    For as we this glory see,
    All the sacred season,
    Reason learns the heart’s decree
    And hearts are led by reason.”
    Led by reason. I shivered. The lighted room seemed dim and far away. The saddlebags slipped from my shoulders to lie in a lump on my feet.
    Led by reason. Maybe here in Laureal City. But out on Kratera Ridge, there was no University to be the safeguard of all learning, no Guardian, no Senate. Only a handful of Rangers between these rich fields and the hungry north.
    Led by reason. Not me, and not here.
    The performers packed up their instruments and left the dais for a drink with their friends. I headed for the clerk’s office. A hollow-eyed man looked half asleep behind the desk. How could he serve me? he asked.
    â€œA room and a meal, meat if you’ve got it.”
    â€œNo, magistra, we keep to the old ways here.”
    â€œBeans then, and plenty of bread but none of that yak-piss you call ale. What’s the charge for a bath?”
    â€œNo charge, magistra, it comes with the room.”
    Ah yes, I sighed, this is Laureal City.
o0o
    I left nothing in my room except a pile of dirty clothes. Bags, boots, and knives all came with me. The big wooden tub was set halfway into the tiled floor, with a shallow step outside and an inside ledge for sitting. It would probably hold four or five people if they were friendly. Hand-painted tiles in flowery designs decorated the floor and wood-paneled walls. I hung the pink cotton robe the inn supplied on a wooden peg.
    Despite the illusion of safety, I double-checked the bar and hinges of the door. There were no windows, only a pair of narrow ventilation grilles that ran the length of opposing walls, and they were only about six inches high. I kept my long-knife right where I could reach it.
    The steaming water smelled herbal and astringent. I sighed and lowered myself inch by inch. The heat turned my skin red, except for the whitened knife scars. Straight and clean-edged — hands, arms, shoulders, chest, thighs. One fool’s cut low on my ribs. Behind my back, where I couldn’t see them, knotted ridges twisted like threadworms, strips of skin that had neither feeling nor memory.
    I should add that to my list of things that scare me. Remembering.
    Remembering Aviyya’s fingers, light and quick. Her indrawn breath. We weren’t lovers yet, when we took leave together at Darmaforge. I didn’t know why I let her talk me into the steaming rock pools in the hills above the public bath house. I told myself afterwards it was curiosity. I told myself it was the dark, only one moon and all those stars. The truth was, we’d been in three skirmishes that week and something in the still being alive, the hours and moments of fighting back to back with her, had left me half crazy and hungry in ways I couldn’t name. And there was something in Avi — a wildness, a secretness, a loneliness, Mother only knows. But it was hard to look right at her. I turned away, fumbling for the lantern, and she touched me.
    â€œAhhh, Kardith...”
    I fled into the shadows. I couldn’t face her, couldn’t show her my back again. Her eyes — the color of rain, the color of steel — were wide and dark. It was my own soul I saw in her eyes. Her throat moved, jerking up and down. No words, only that whisper, as weightless and persistent as a feather.
    â€œYou forget I’m not Laurean,” I said slowly, searching for words. “On the steppe, to the east, we call ourselves the Tribes.”
    I