Page 113 of Minor Works of Meda

“As is your loyalty: as cheering as it is wasted.” She shook her head. “Tonen, fetch your fiddle. And somebody get the burned wine. The night’s too quiet.” A fellow with a scruffy beard stood and dusted off his pants. He vanished from the circle, then returned with a four-stringed golden fiddle and a ceramic jug. He passed the wine to Karema.

“What would you hear?” Tonen asked, as he elicited a mournful sigh from the instrument with a sweep of the bow across the string.

“My mother’s song.”

“Samira’s Fall?” he said softly, pulling the bow away. “I’d rather play something with a little cheer.”

“They should hear it. Before they throw their own lives away.”

“Samira?” Oraik asked.

“Karema’s own mother,” Tonen said. “She chanced the Ward nearly forty years back.”

“Why’d she risk it, if it’s such a terrible thing?” I asked bluntly.

Tonen was silent, staring at Karema. Karema was silent a moment too, staring into the fire. The others shifted uneasily around the circle. One of the other women added wood to the flames; one of the men got up to check the horses.

“Sorry,” I muttered, realizing from their reaction that my question might have been rude. Karema shook her head.

“The year after my birth she was called to work in the silver palace, like many of us are.” Karema said. “The very place you wish to visit. Work is a kindness. She was ‘chanted, like all their human servants are. Just as your witch friend like as not is.” Karema gestured for the ceramic bottle, which had made it three seats away from her, to be passed back. There was a dissatisfied grumble from those who’d been awaiting it, but hand by hand it was sent back to her. She took a deep drink and held onto it. Her story continued.

“It’s said the Sorrowing Lord fell in love with her and wed her, never mind she was still married to my fa. All the time she was ‘chanted. But once he’d gotten a child in her belly? In his vanity he believed she’d love him. As if anyone could love a man who’d stolen her from her family and chained her to his will. So he lifted the spell.”

“…and?” I asked.

Oraik frowned at the ground, his arms around his knees.

“And she awoke to find years of her life vanished, an unwanted child in her belly, and a cruel lord for a husband. She fled. Ran straight for the Ward. We never saw her again. By the time my father went looking, there wasn’t a trace of her left.”

“She died?”

“She was pregnant with a faerie’s spawn. Of course she died. There was magic in her, whether she had her own or not. Wolves must’ve dragged the body off.”

“She could have made it through,” I said.

“And how would you know?” Karema snapped. She took another swig of the drink and at last passed it around the circle again. “You’re quite confident for a warder, aren’t you?”

“Because a pregnant woman did pass through the Ward, a few decades back,” I said. My mouth felt dry. “Thirty-eight years ago. With a faerie child in her. She didn’t die. Neither did the baby. He was too unformed to have magic yet.”

Nobody spoke. The only sound was the crackling fire, hissing and popping as the flames licked around the logs and turned them to embers. I shielded my eyes for a moment as the smoke blew towards me. Then it moved away again.

“That’s impossible,” Karema breathed at last. “What was her name? What did she look like? It couldn’t have been her.”

Tonen settled back to the ground, his fiddle across his lap. He put a hand on Karema’s back. She shrugged him off, staring at me intently with a bright, fire-licked hunger.

“I never met her. But it’s true, beyond any doubt,” I said.

“I don’t know why you’d lie about that, but…”

“I wouldn’t,” I said. “Her child was Kalcedon. The one we’re following. Please, I need to know everything you can tell us about the Sorrowing Lord and his palace.”

Chapter 52

We stood at the edge of the woods, on the bank of a wide, flat river. The water ran so clear I fancied I could see each individual stone at the bottom.

Karema crouched on the ground in front of us. She carefully untied the twine wrapped around a woven cloth bundle, then unfolded its edges. The rest of her group stood a short distance away, tents and belongings packed on their horses.

“Here. If it’s my brother you’re going after…” She said brother with a strange, disbelieving texture. Karema straightened with two of the twine-and-clay necklaces in her hands. These each had just one disk.

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