WIND RIDER

Chapter One

Under the shimmering, cloudless sky and the dawn harmonies of bird-song, Luce trudged up the beaten path to her home. Her hair stuck to her face with sweat, her fingers and forearms burned where barbs had pierced the skin, and spiny stems pricked her through the front of her overdress—but no matter. She had gathered the herbs on her own and in the proper way, and her grandmother would be proud.

As she walked, bearing her hard work in the folds of her overdress, her grandmother’s figurine swaying in her pocket, Luce imagined Niyi’s reaction. She wasn’t expecting anything exuberant. Nothing demonstrative. But a quiet pride, maybe a smile—that would be nice. It had been a long time since Niyi had smiled. But once she convinced Niyi she was capable of taking over as healer, there would be reasons enough to smile. Niyi would be able to rest, slow down, receive some healing herself. And Luce would be able to prove her worth.

The brush thinned, the canopy parted, and her grandmother’s cottage came into view. When the morning light hit it just right, the home seemed illumined from within, alive. The stalks of lavender hanging in the windows, the sky blue of the curtains, the wild green growth of the forest around it, all seemed to fill and release, expand and settle, with a still awareness. Such moments were magical, and she treasured them. When she became a travelling healer, she’d sleep in whatever room or shed her patients’ families could spare. But her grandmother’s cottage would always be home.

Luce crested the hill and stopped before the cottage. The door was slightly ajar, creaking slightly in the still air. Had Niyi left? But no, her staff was propped against the bench outside. The windows were shut tight, the curtains closed. Her home had never looked so empty.

Heart thudding in her chest, Luce gathered the front corners of her overdress in one fist and pushed the door the rest of the way open. The shaft of light spilled into the dark room, her shadow stretched along the well-swept floor, and at the edge of the light she saw an arm: her grandmother’s arm, hanging limply over the edge of the table.

Herbs and flowers shushed to the floor and scattered softly. The shadows around the body moved. Color flashed at the corner of her eye. Hands reached out of the darkness.

She ran.

She ran around the side of the hut. There was a slight hollow between the thorny bushes and vines, impossible to find if you didn’t know it was there. She dove.

Brambles tore at her skin and stuck prickly, tugging fingers into her overdress. Birds squawked and rushed from the overgrowth. She fought her way through. Swearing erupted behind her, and she heard a tangled scuffle. She prayed the vines were winning.

Ripping herself free from the brush, she bolted into the dim of the forest. Dappled sunlight fought and lost against the darkness that reached for her. Over her huffing and panting she heard the calls of the men. She looked over her shoulder.

The men picked their way through the forest with ease. The grim set of their jaws, the cold opacity of their eyes, the way their black clothes melted into the shadows…. She bit her lip and tasted blood, stumbled over a knob-kneed root in her distraction, her small figurine flung from its pocket. She fell to the ground and clutched at the dirt and undergrowth for her treasure. Finding it, she pushed herself off the ground and darted forward; she couldn’t afford to lose time looking back again.

Through her thin slippers she felt every rock and root and twig and every pounding thrust of the hard ground against her. Her heart beat a frenzied cadence in her chest. Away, away, away.

The forest that had been her home now concealed a stranger at every turn; the trees pressed close and hid treachery in their twisted trunks and gnarled limbs. In this realm of tricks and traps, her footfalls drummed against the earth a relentless refrain: dead, dead, dead.

She tumbled down a small ridge, unable to break her fall with her hands tight around her treasure. When she rolled to a stop, the knees of her overdress and pants were slick with grime and blood, but she forced herself forward. No time to rest, not when killers’ hands could grab her at any moment. Niyi, Niyi, Niyi.

Then she couldn’t hear anything over her own choked breathing, her footfalls, her heartbeat, the scream that had been rasping at her throat since she saw what she saw. She stifled her cry. In biting back sound she heard silence and felt an emptiness and she wondered if she was okay, if she had lost them, if she could stop running and stop holding in the gnawing ache that was eating her from inside.

“There—I see her!”

The gruff voice came from close, too close, behind her. She ran and ran but she could only run so hard. Clenching Niyi’s figurine in her palm, she closed her eyes and dashed headlong past looming trees and creeping vines. Please! She cried out from some innermost place that still believed in such things as goddesses and wish-granting.

The forest roared. Something approached with heavy, pounding steps. Shouts gave way to screams that flattened into silence. A yowling gust rushed from behind like a hand pushing her forward. She kept her eyes closed, kept running, though her body seemed weightless, her footfalls light. When the whistling wind vanished, when the branches of the trees slowed their lashing, she dared to stop and open her eyes.

The men were nowhere to be seen. In all directions, there was only empty forest. Only the gentle fall of leaves broke the stillness. Sunlight spilled down in puddles on the forest floor. Her breath slowed.

Fear turned first to wonder. Had the forest swallowed them up? Had her grandmother’s goddess, the cackling Crone of the woods, cast some magic to save her?

Then wonder turned to grief, and the forest gave way to memories: the pungent smell of herbs, the fresh-swept floor, the table, the—

Her mind shied away, hurtled to what came next—the men. Those awful men. A flash of color. What was it? An image came. Black jacket, vivid crest: a staff and a—What was it?—a zigzag, gold against bright blue.

She would remember. She swore she would remember the men who—

A sob tore from her throat. She clapped her hands over her mouth and froze. The lone cry lingered in the deep silence of the sunlit wood, and suddenly it seemed impossible that this forest and the forest of mere moments before were one and the same. Despite all practical reason, she felt she was alone. The danger was over.

Ahead of her, a great brightness beckoned. She staggered forward, blinking back tears and sunshine, out of the trees.

The sight astonished her out of her crying. A grand city, the grandest she’d ever seen, spread out before her like the stuff of Giant’s tales. Surrounding the city was a wall built brick by brick in a tapestry of bronzes, reds, and other colors for which she had no names. Beyond the wall, she could see the rooftops of hundreds of buildings and, rising above them all, towers that competed to touch the clear sky, their domes capped in gleaming gold. Below the wall, caravans of wagons and carts crawled toward the entrance gates along a wide road.

With nothing to go back to, and nowhere else to turn, the choice was easy enough to make. She wiped the wet from her eyes and stumbled down the ridge to join the press of people entering through the gates. She did not know it yet, but she had reached Listhin, the capital of Ptolika. It was late summer. She was sixteen years old. She was alone.

Chapter Two

To a village girl whose biggest venture was to Imric, a town notable only for a main road capable of holding two horse carts side by side, Listhin was a revelation. When she first entered the gates, she hurried to a corner between a wall and a vendor’s stall. The rough stone against her back kept her from reeling.

Listhin was a cacophony of color and noise. It was a riot. Throngs of people passed her as they made their way further into the city. Hundreds of them, all talking, shouting, laughing, pushing, shoving. Fistfights erupted and resolved before her eyes, deals were made and broken, friendships dissolved and forged anew. Life happening in haste.

She pressed back into the stone, into a little dark space made by high walls and slanted light. It was too much, too soon, too vibrant, not when she felt like—not when—

Her hand brushed against something firm, something covering the stone. It was a vine thinner than her little finger, but strong, breaking through the stone of the wall and blooming with red flowers, none larger than her thumbnail. She followed the vine with her eyes and saw it burst up here and there from the dirt and cobblestone to trail up the walls of homes and storefronts. The tiny buds grounded her; here, at least, wild earth still prevailed. She would have stayed there amid the flowers and shadow, except for the faintest stirrings of music.

She left her corner to follow the sound, though she kept to the sides of the street. People jostled her without apology and she fought to keep moving forward. Finally, she found a barrel to stand on, and, head and shoulders above the crowd, she could see and hear them: troupers playing flutes and drums, barefoot children jumping and dancing, onlookers waving brightly colored scarves overhead. A little boy saw her watching and smiled. His gap tooth charmed her, and she smiled back. Then she hesitated.

She hadn’t wanted to like the music. She hadn’t wanted to smile at the boy. Such acts seemed a betrayal when—

Her vision blurred. Niyi, her guardian, gone. Her home, tainted. She couldn’t go back, not when murderers might be prowling about, not when—

—and it wasn’t a home anymore, was it? There was no home for her anywhere.

A new sound, the jangling of a tambourine, brought her back to the crowd and the street music. Despite her best intentions, her foot tapped in time to the rollicking drumbeat. Her eyes widened at the trilling of lively flutes. Her heart cavorted like a filly trying out brand new legs in pasture. And it seemed to her the antidote for death was life.

Forgive me, Niyi. She scrubbed away her tears. And though she tired and ached, though thoughts of food and shelter clamored in her mind, she jumped from the barrel, pressed through the crowd, and made her way to the music.

With her eyes filled by flowers, vibrant scarves, and smiles, Luce did not see the hunger. The dogs growling over scraps; the young man approaching empty-handed but leaving with heavy pockets; the boys kicking a beggar’s cup and scrabbling for the coins; the girls shifting hips in invitation to divert from their haggard expressions.

But the hunger saw her.

The way she hovered near the dancers, bouncing on her heels, touching her left pocket at regular intervals, lost in the music—she was an easy mark. When she turned from the music and began walking up the street, a trio of boys made its way to her.

“You look lost—need any help?”

Luce paused before an alley entrance. Three boys a little younger than her stood there, their smiles lighting up faces covered in muck.

Her hand darted to her pocket; she crossed her arms to cover the movement. “Thank you, but no. I’m fine.” She smiled, not wanting to seem rude.

“What’s in your pocket?” The boy on the right, whose tousled curls made him look like a fallen cherub, tilted his head.

“Hm?”

“Your pocket. You went to touch it. What is it?” The boy’s eyes were wide and curious.

Luce grabbed her figurine. “Oh, it’s nothing. It’s just a gift from my—my grandmother.”

“Show us,” one boy said.

“Please?” another added.

The smudgy cherub looked at the ground. “It must be nice, having a grandmother.”

“Oh, well…” She brought out the figurine and clutched it to her chest.

The boys’ eyes were expectant. She unfurled her fingers.

Within a flash, the cherub had the figurine in his hands and was examining it closely. His fingers left smudge marks on the burnished metal. “What’s this? Just a doll.”

“What’s it made of?” Another boy looked over.

“Please—” she tried.

“Dunno. No metal I know.”

“You dunno anything.”

“Bet the Underground would know.”

“Give it—”

“Could fetch a tidy sum.”

“They’ll sell anything.”

“OW!” The cherub looked at her in astonishment as he pressed a hand to his cheek; his fingers came away bloody.

Luce struggled to keep her voice calm. “Give it back.”

“That’s not how this works,” one of the other boys said. He took the figurine and tossed it from hand to hand, her grandmother’s figurine, her treasure. “This is an entrance fee. You entered Rats’ territory. You pay the fee.”

“S’like a tax,” the third one said, turning. The trio began to walk away.

She clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms. She saw her grandmother’s body. Saw hands emerging from darkness. Saw a blue-and-gold crest. The rush of anger cleared her head. “Give it back.”

The cherub looked over his shoulder. “And don’t think I’ll forget this.” He pointed to his cheek. “Rats have good memories.”

I’ll give you plenty more to remember. Jumping on the boy, she raked her nails across his face until the others dragged her off. A hand reached for her; she bit hard and refused to be shaken. The others pounded at her. She took each blow and returned it in kind. She did not see the bystanders gathering and whispering. She did not see the boys exchanging looks of disbelief. She saw only her grandmother’s figurine disappearing from her forever, as surely as her grandmother had, and so she elbowed, kneed, kicked, and flung herself at each boy in a whirlwind of limbs. She didn’t realize it, but she was growling, as wild as the strays slavering over scraps just a few stalls down, and when at last she wrenched her treasure from its captor’s hands, the boys took off, yelling “she’s crazy” and “she’ll die soon enough” and “Rats never forget.”

With a terrible pressure building behind her temple, Luce staggered away from the gathering crowd and into the darkness of the alley. She collapsed to the ground and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes until she felt she could hold it together. Then she let her hands splay open in her lap, the figurine cradled in her palm.

Life continued outside the alley, people called and strolled and lived just steps away, but there, in the shadows, she felt removed from it all. Fractured—as if she held the broken pieces of her mind in her hands but was unable to fit it all together, or unwilling, for if she saw the whole picture, something deeper in her might break. As she sat there, it seemed that pieces of her sank out of sight, out of awareness, and a cold practicality came over her, and she became aware of her present state.

Finding a clean patch of her overdress, she polished her figurine until it gleamed, and she took stock. Empty stomach, parched throat, dirty cuts and scrapes—these she could deal with. After that, she would think about the rest.

She took a deep breath and coughed on dust. If Listhin was like elsewhere in Ptolika, rain was impossible to come by, water a scarcity, and she’d seen no wells in the city. Food then. She had no money, but those boys had taught her something about how the city worked. She’d learn the lesson well.

She stood and walked to the main street. Soon she found a likely suspect. It was a boy a little older than her with a rat’s nest for hair and thin wisps on his upper lip that might have been dirt. He sauntered past her alley with his hands in his pockets. He wore a lazy expression, but his eyes were alert. She followed him at a distance.

Sure enough, six stalls down the road, his pockets were heavy with food. He turned down a side street. By the time she reached it, the boy was gone. She looked for another teacher. They were a dime a dozen once she knew how to pick the miscreants out. She followed them until she thought she had the hang of it.

A sort of cocky walk, where you don’t look toward the target at all, but straight ahead, as if you have things on your mind, better things to do, only you’re watching sidelong the whole time, waiting for your chance, and then making your move, no hesitation. Over-thinkers get nabbed.

Luce thought she could do it. She wandered the main street until she found her target—a bread seller who left his loaves out in flat trays and who kept turning to restock the trays with fresh bread. She walked past a short ways, took a deep breath, and prepared to circle back around. Her heart galloped in her chest, but she did exactly what she saw the others do. Confident walk, bored expression, hands loose at her side. She timed it just right, too—as she passed the stall, the vendor turned to a stack of trays behind him. She grabbed a loaf; her heart leapt into her throat.

Halfway down the street, the bread warm in the folds of her overdress, she let herself smile.

A hand clapped onto her shoulder. A man dressed all in black stood there. He hefted a club in his other hand.

“Yes?” she asked.

“You’re new to this, aren’t you?”