Deathless (Editing)

Chapter 3: Redux

I knew nothing of Lords, Commanders, High Commanders, Lord High Commanders, or the Ministers of the Right or Left. Indeed, when I pulled myself up, head swimming with horror and nouns, I nearly toppled over. The soldier, however, was swift to balance me, pulling me back with a gentle hand to the arm.

For all his sword pointing, he seemed rather gallant. It also helped that he was handsome. Even more so now that he was alive. His features smoothed into a look of amusement when I rocked back onto the balls of my heels, my legs steadying under me.

"It takes a lot out of you," he murmured against the shell of my ear.

How did he know? Was dragging men out of the Shade, as he had called it, some commonly-had skill among soldiers?

Mistress immediately found her will and crossed the floor, a fire in her step. "You are going nowhere with my apprentice," she snapped, too close for him to do any more of that sword pointing unless he was willing to make good on the threat.

Which he wasn't.

Instead, he lifted his head. His lines shifted into the regal long, lean conformation that I normally associated with the soldiers of the Imperial Guard. He was probably three heads taller than Mistress, and, when he straightened, he nearly had to dip down to loom over her.

An easy smile broke across his face, "She belongs to the Imperial Guard now," he replied.

"You belong with the dead," she seethed.

He pulled away, eyes alive and shining in the lantern's effulgence. "Perhaps, but," and, then, he turned to me, forcing my gaze to meet his, "she could be of great use to us on the Veil. Far more use there than here."

Mistress frowned, tilting her chin up, as she searched for the right thing to say. And, Gods, was I hoping she found it. The thought of serving on the Veil nearly short-circuited my brain. I could barely think of such a fate. I'd be sent back to the Silts locked in a casket within a day.

"She's a girl. Only sixteen, too young to be conscripted," Mistress began, voice growing more strident with every syllable, "the law forbids such unauthorized takings of children."

"Sixteen?" he murmured, lips curving into a wolfish grin, "the girl is in the Silts and sixteen," he repeated, as if Mistress was too daft to have realized what she had said.

I realized her mistake the instant she revealed my age. Sixteen was a terrible age for the children of the Silts. It was our Harvesting Year. On the thirty-first day of the tenth month, we would be corralled in the town square, like a herd of cattle, where wealthy foreigners from all over would be waiting to inspect us and bid on us. Those who were "harvested" worked as slaves, serving the foreign lords until they tired of us. Those who were not selected remained in the Silts to care for the dead or dying or to clean refuse from the streets and canals. The proceeds of the Harvest went either to the child's Master or Mistress (if the child was fortunate enough to have a sponsor) or to the Morning Priest (if the child had no sponsor), the cleric who governed the region.

"She isn't Sullied," Mistress spat, voice dark and low.

"Does she have papers to confirm that?"

Mistress turned her cheek at his words. He had her there. Neither Azure nor I had papers. We had washed up on the banks of the River Lee like waste. It was a small fortune that the townspeople had not declared us minions of the Bone Priest and slaughtered us.

"As I thought," the soldier murmured, folding his arms across his chest triumphantly.

"The Morning Priest will not let her slip through his fingers so easily," Mistress warned.