The Sins of The Brother Read online

they're waiting for us."

  The boy looked up, face pale, but at least he did start moving again. She half expected to see his bottom lip trembling. Mind you, from the look on Wolpan's face, he might have some reason for fear. The Four Knot looked like she'd been chewing rocks.

  Better to lead by example. Pevan strode ahead, heard Atla's boots pattering on the road as he hastened to catch up. The four Gifted had stopped talking to watch her approach; her step hitched as their attention landed on her. She took a deep breath and fixed her eyes on Wolpan. This was a conversation she could not afford to lose control of.

  "Good morning." She nodded to the Four Knot, whose glare didn't waver. Pevan offered her hand to shake. "I'm Pevan Atcar, Gatemaker of Federas. Sorry, I know this is a bad time for me to show up."

  Wolpan left her hanging. "Relvin's sister." There was no ambiguity in her tone; she thought anyone connected to Rel was bad news.

  "Is he still here?" Pevan narrowed her eyes slightly. Wolpan's stare was barely a shadow of Dora's, but Pevan was tired and the sea breeze was stiff. "Atla said he'd gone, but I need to catch up with him. I'll be out of your hair as quickly as I can."

  "Your brother is an escaped criminal, and this town wants a reckoning from him." Wolpan folded her arms as Pevan lowered her hand back to her side.

  She had to be careful not to give too much away. Trying to buy a little time, she swallowed. Her throat was a little too tight to try playing the innocent card. Instead, she frowned. It wasn't hard to summon up exasperation. "Criminal? What did he do this time?"

  That, at least, seemed to crack Wolpan's hostility, just a touch. Pevan tried to put on a face that said you’ve only had to deal with him for a month, I’m seventeen. When the Four Knot spoke, though, her voice was still hot and harsh. "Look around you. All this is his fault."

  Wolpan waved her hand at the ruins, and Pevan’s gut clenched. For a moment, she struggled for words, to try to say otherwise, but the Four Knot was right, probably more right than she knew. What could Pevan say to that?

  "Be fair, Wolpan." The man spoke up. Atla had gone to stand behind his shoulder, so maybe he was the Guide. He looked like a Warder, though. Guides were normally smaller. He spared a quick, weak smile for Pevan, keeping his voice cool and benign. "The Clearseer played a part, to be sure, but we don't know what happened down there yesterday."

  Pevan, who did know, bit her tongue and looked down at her hands. She tried to encompass the whole squad with her shrug. "He's always been reckless. I'm sorry for his part in this. We really need him back in Federas, though. We can't afford to be without a Clearseer."

  "The boy's a liability," Wolpan spat.

  "That's uncalled for." The tiny woman spoke up. She barely came up to Pevan's chin, but her eyes were wide and attentive, the set of her face intent but not hostile. Up close, everything about her screamed 'Clearseer'. When she turned to glare at Wolpan, the roundness went out of her cheeks. "The poor girl's not her brother. Didn't their Four Knot come here with him, too?"

  Pevan looked around the group again. The third woman - she had to be the Warder, though she looked a little precious for that role - slouched with her arms folded, a lopsided frown broadcasting her scepticism. The Guide and Atla both offered Pevan sympathetic looks, but Wolpan held their attention.

  Well, at least they weren't all trying to melt her the way Wolpan was. Pevan said, "Not technically, but Dora's replacement wasn't properly trained before she left."

  "A habit Federas could do with getting out of." Wolpan actually sneered at her.

  Pevan tensed, heat rushing through her. What did a provincial Four Knot know about the North, and-

  She held herself back, remembering how Dora would deal with Rel. A deep breath let her relax enough to get her voice back down and level. "Really? That's a cheap shot, Four Knot. If you want rid of me that badly, just tell me where Rel went." She turned, deliberately moving her feet around so that she had her shoulder to the Four Knot. It wasn’t good politics, but it was the best she was going to manage. Hopefully her cheeks were rosy enough from the cold to hide the hot shame flooding her veins.

  The snub stunned Wolpan enough that the Clearseer got in first. "We don't know where he's gone. You can appreciate he's not been top of our priority list since he got away. We've not heard from any of the Wildren who were holding him, either."

  "Actually, Ton said he thought he saw a Wilder heading East at speed after the quake last night, with a couple of bodies in tow." The Warder spoke up, her voice prim and high.

  A lump of ice settled in Pevan's gut. "Bodies?" Shame vanished, taking its heat with it. If anything could kill Rel, it would be two Gift-Givers.

  "Could have just been carrying them so they could travel faster," the Clearseer said, quickly. "I've seen Wildren do that before." She reached over, past Wolpan, to pat Pevan on the shoulder. "Our Sherim's about four days' travel East. She might have taken your brother to the Court for trial."

  That certainly made sense. She couldn't think why Taslin might cart Rel's corpse all the way to the Second Realm, but that didn't mean much. At least it gave her a lead to follow.

  "When was the last time you ate, love?" The Warder stepped forward and took her arm, interrupting her moment's reverie.

  Pevan shook her head, her forehead loaded with the weight of the last couple of days. Besides the sudden weakness in her neck, she felt only the cold of the wind. "Um... before the quake, yesterday. After that I came here as quickly as I could."

  Stiffly, Wolpan said, "Get her some food, Bersh, but come back straight away. Atla can look after her. Thia, Marit, you have your tasks."

  The Four Knot turned on her heel and stalked off down the street. The Clearseer patted Pevan on the arm again before leading the Warder off in the same direction. Pevan nodded to the two Guides and let herself be led back towards the waterfront.

  The Guide deposited her in a warehouse on the fringe of the old city that had been taken over by the townsfolk as a refuge. Partitioned down the middle, this half had been laid out with crude planks-on-bricks benches and trestles. At one end, a handful of women whose exhaustion had turned them ghostly or cadaverous staffed a bench, passing out rolls and cups of water. Every so often, someone would come through from the other half, with slack cheeks and grey eyes, and just lean on the partition. Most had blood on their clothes; that would be the hospital, then.

  The looks on the faces of those taking sustenance at the tables around her were little better. Most of the motion she could see was automatic, mechanical. The only exceptions were where people moved around, into or out of the warehouse. They came in pairs, always, one, injured, leaning on the other – the lucky one.

  After only a minute or two tearing at her own ration, Pevan lost her grip on the cold private shock of Rel’s possible fate. As a feeling, it was in too much good company. Vessit as a whole felt like that hard patch in the gullet that makes you desperate to cry but lets no tears past. Seeing the buildings had been bad enough, but the people showed too clearly that most of those buildings were homes.

  Atla, propped up on his elbows, his chin resting on interlocked fingers, was clearly no less affected. He alternated between staring at her bread – had the lad had anything to eat during the vigil for the Sherriff? – and staring at her face, and if his eyes held their unnerving directness, his eyelids were tight, leaving a narrow strip of white at the top and bottom of his irises.

  She took another bite of the roll – plain fare, but welcome – and lowered it to the table. Atla’s eyes followed it down. After a moment, his head dropped too, into his hands. He was trembling, and for a moment Pevan took it as a sign of crying, but no tears fell to the bare plank under his elbows. Down the other end of the trestle, a broad-shouldered man of about Rel’s age glanced at the Guide, his face sickly.

  Pevan leaned forward a little, so she could keep her voice low. "Chin up, Atla." Even at a murmur, she made the words forceful. The boy’s head came up sharply, and she wondered if she’d m
isjudged, but those wide eyes of his clearly saw something in her face that checked him. He waited, and, still keeping her voice down, she explained, "You're Gifted. These people need to know you're keeping them safe. Sometimes, all that means is not looking beaten when you feel you are."

  He looked around, flinching away from actually looking directly at anyone at all. When he spoke, his tone was sullen. "You weren't here."

  "But I do know my job." She took a sip of water, trying to pretend it wasn’t brackish. The kid was so green. "It's hard, I know. And sometimes it feels like it can't make a difference. These people need you, more than they realise." Hard though it was, she forced herself to crack a lopsided smile. "It's okay to doze, everyone knows you were up all night. But prop your head up when you do it."

  "I can't do much for them as a Guide." Atla bounced a fist very softly off the tabletop.

  "So?" Pevan ripped another bite from the roll, spoke around it. "Do what you can for them as a person."

  He looked around, head up and neck straight, like a puppy alert to a strange new sound. His eyes settled on something behind Pevan and before she could turn to see, he was half-way out of his seat. The fellow at the other end of the table, and his similarly-sized companion, turned to look, even as Pevan hauled Atla back down.

  She used his moment of bewilderment –