Terms of Surrender (3 page)

Nessa Fieri woke with the dawn, stretching languidly under stiff, scratchy sheets while a cock crowed outside the dusty window. She sat up, pulling aside the covers, and arched an eyebrow. Mari Renault slowly pushed herself up from the floor just inside the closed door, her patchwork leathers and ragged blond hair making her look like a sleepy scarecrow.

“Mari.” Nessa glanced over at the other bed. The sheets were unwrinkled. “Did you sleep on the floor?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding over her shoulder. “In front of the door. So if anyone tried to come in during the night, it would wake me up right away.”

Nessa rolled her eyes. “That’s
stupid
. Who would even—”

She paused, watching Mari’s face fall and her head sag, just a little, along with her shoulders.

Nessa didn’t like it. That was the only description she could put to the sudden pang in her heart, the way Mari’s disappointment made her want to take back the last few seconds and say something, anything, differently. She just didn’t like it.

“I mean…it was unnecessary.” Her bare feet touched down on the cold, rough floorboards. She approached Mari in her dressing gown, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “We’re both very light sleepers, after all. But it
was
thoughtful of you. I’m pleased that you took the initiative.”

There it was, that tiny, puppyish smile on her knight’s lips. Nessa liked that better.

My knight
, she thought.
Mine
. She liked that, too. She had explored the contours of the young woman’s mind, ferreted out all of Mari’s innermost hopes and dreams, and carefully, methodically, twisted them to her own liking. Breaking her had been a pleasure.
Rebuilding
her, though…that was a new kind of game to play.

All the ingredients were there. Mari’s obsession with becoming some kind of storybook knight had laid the groundwork Nessa needed. Devotion, service, the hunger for a worthy liege. That oaf Werner, with his simpleminded piety and his drugs, had done his best to blunt Mari’s claws for good—but Werner was dead, and Mari had a new teacher now. One who could take her fantasies and illusions, along with the violent past Werner had tried to bury forever, and merge those two Maris into a new creature entirely.

A coven knight.

“Fetch my glasses,” Nessa said, her tone light. They were on the bedside table, closer to Nessa, but Mari didn’t hesitate to scurry around her and pick them up. Nessa beamed, standing still as Mari slipped the big, round wire-frame lenses over her liege’s eyes. The blurry world swam into sharp focus.

It was going to be a good day.

“Get yourself cleaned up,” she said, “while I contact my family. There’s just one last thing to do before you truly enter my service.”

“Name it,” Mari said, suddenly wide-eyed, “anything. Whatever I have to do, just name it.”

Nessa reached out, trailing a fingertip along the rugged line of the taller woman’s jaw.

“Your initiation,” she replied.

*     *     *

Mari paced the rustic cabin. The weathered gray floorboards creaked under her boots with every anxious step. Nessa had locked herself away in the back room an hour ago, maybe two—time was hard to track. It was hard to think at all.

I can have this
, she thought.
I can have everything I ever wanted
.

But witches are evil. Everybody knows that.

But Nessa isn’t evil. She’s my friend. She helped me. Taught me. She was the only one there for me when
…

The memory hit her like a fist. The knight from the Order of the Autumn Lance slamming her down into the mud. Trampling her dreams.
Laughing
at her.

“
Get this through your head
,” he’d growled into her ear after beating her bloody. “
We don’t want you. Nobody wants you, and nobody ever will
.”

But Nessa wants me
, Mari thought, and the thought wrapped the wound in her heart with warm gauze.
Nessa wants me
.

She paced faster and faster, nervous tension driving her footsteps, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. When she’d become…agitated in the past, Werner always suggested she spend some time meditating. She unconsciously reached for her hip pouch, where the brooch she prayed upon rested.

Then she remembered throwing it into the river, watching it sink beneath the cold black waters.

Her weapons. Her practice. That solace was always there for her. She stopped in her tracks and drew her batons, dropping into a battle stance. She slowed her breathing, ignoring her pounding heart as she spun her arms in slow, serpentine motions, stepping through each of her fighting forms in order. The rhythms of her breath fell in line with the rhythm of her weapons. The sticks became an extension of her body, an extension of her will. No thought, no anxiety, only the dance.

The bedroom lock clicked. The door creaked open.

The dance ceased.

Nessa had traded her usual blue dress for a gown of ocher brown that blended with the tawny feathers of her cloak. Her lips were painted as black as her long, straight hair. Her eyelids, too, sapphire eyes bright behind her glasses.

“Are…are you a moonseer?” Mari asked.

Nessa gave a tiny shake of her head and gestured to her face.

“No, I simply find the affectation amusing. Mari, where do you think the Lady’s miracles come from?”

She tilted her head. “From the Lady. Where else?”

“Sweet, naive girl.” Nessa closed the distance between them, her cloak sweeping out behind her. “Mari, there
are
no miracles. The Lady of Five Hundred Names is as real as any other god, which is to say, not at all. It was only ever
us
. The art of the wise, in the hands of the clever. Simple witchcraft.”

“What do you mean?” Mari fumbled for words, her mind stumbling over a dozen questions at once. “
Why?
”

Nessa laughed, though kindly, and replied as if the answer was obvious.

“So they’d stop
killing
us for it. A man will accept from a god what he cannot accept from his wife or daughter. After all, how dare we have gifts that others do not? How dare we have avenues of power that self-styled
authorities
cannot control or steal for their own? How dare we be free? So much safer, then, to claim the mantle of a humble priestess, a helpless bystander to the power she secretly commands.”

Nessa slowly circled Mari, reaching out to brush a fingertip down her knight’s arm.

“All those years you spent in pious devotion. Praying to the Lady. Meditating on her virtues. Did she ever answer your call, even once?”

Mari shook her head. Very, very slowly.

“And tell me, Mari, what would you rather believe? That the Lady was never real…or that she is real, and she doesn’t love you?”

Nobody wants you
, said the voice in the back of Mari’s mind,
and nobody ever will
.

Nessa took hold of her hand, fingers twining tight with hers.

“But I am real,” Nessa told her. “Have faith in
me
.”

“So…the moonseers hide what they really are. But you don’t,” Mari said softly. “You don’t hide. Not like that.”

“A true witch,” she replied, “is cautious, but she does not hide. She merely waits.”

“Waits for what?”

Nessa squeezed Mari’s hand, then let go.

“For a day like this. Are you ready, Mari? You don’t have to say yes. If you come with me, if you join us…that’s forever. You know that, don’t you? There’s no going back.”

Mari’s gaze flicked away. Memories of the past washed over her and pooled on the floor at her feet. Her refugee years, a war child in Belle Terre. Winter’s Reach. Meeting Werner. Losing Werner. Her dream, beaten out of her. Her faith, drowned in a river.

She shook her head, leaving it all behind.

“I don’t have anything to go back to,” she said.

Nessa smiled. “Then let us begin.”

She reached under her feathered cloak and drew out a knife. Copper-bladed, with a handle of cherry-stained wood. She balanced it between her outstretched fingers, so Mari could see.

“I own many blades, Mari, but this one is special. It’s called a Cutting Knife.”

Mari peered at the blade. “All knives are cutting knives.”

“Not like this. Watch.”

Nessa turned to the side, brow furrowed in concentration as she pointed the knife’s tip at empty air. She whispered, a singsong chant that Mari couldn’t quite make out spilling from her lips in a sibilant stream. She didn’t seem to inhale at all—the whispered chant went on and on, without pause, one impossibly long and twisting word drawn from the witch’s lips like an endless stream of colored handkerchiefs from a street performer’s pocket.

Mari’s vision slipped into a dreamlike haze. Or maybe that was the cabin itself, the sunlight turning to shades of sepia and silver, the air growing sluggish and thick. So thick she could barely move, the air pinning her arms to her sides, her breath flowing like molasses in her lungs.

The last syllable of the one-word chant slipped from Nessa’s lips and wriggled through the open air as she drove the knife forward and pierced…nothing. The gleaming tip vanished, impaled inside something Mari couldn’t see.

Then Nessa dragged the blade downward with both hands, scowling with utter determination, and cut a gash in the world.

The air sagged, curling at the edges of a midnight void. A tear in the fabric of reality, some five feet long and a few inches across. Wide-eyed, Mari stepped to one side, circling it like a wary cat. Nessa sheathed her knife and wrapped her fingers around the edge of the tear, pulling, stretching it wider.

“Don’t be afraid,” Nessa said. “It’s just a doorway. A shortcut, through the Shadow In-Between.”

“In between what?” Mari said, her eyes fixed on the tear.

“In between
everything
.”

Nessa reached out to her, fingers outstretched, holding the tear open with her other hand.

“Mari. Come with me. Take my hand.”

She took a halting step backward.

“I…I don’t know if I can.”

“You
can
,” Nessa said, “but it has to be your choice. You have to want it. I’m going to the coven glade, Mari. With you or without you. You can take my hand, or you can say goodbye forever, but you have to choose for yourself.”

The ragged edges of the tear whipped like flags in a windstorm, agitated, the world trying to knit itself back together again. Nessa held it fast in a white-knuckled grip.

“Do…do you really want me to be your knight?” Mari asked her.

Nessa smiled. “Oh, Mari. More than anything.”

Mari reached out and took her hand. And Nessa pulled her into the darkness.

There was velvet shadow, and the scent of roses, and the faint far-off sound of wind chimes.

Then Nessa and Mari emerged into a forest clearing under the sliver of a new moon, dew-damp grass under their feet. Standing torches dotted the clearing, casting their yellow glow across towering pine trees. Mari still clung to Nessa’s hand, even as the tear at their backs whipped shut with a scratching, sucking sound.

“How is it nighttime?” she asked. “It was just morning when we left.”

“This,” Nessa said, “is a faraway place.”

Mari looked up to the moon, and the world dropped out from under her feet. Her mouth hung open as she stared at the night sky. The canopy of stars was one thing too many, one step too far, and it paralyzed her.

“Nessa,” she breathed.

“Yes, Mari. What is it?”

“The stars. You’ve been teaching me the constellations.”

Mari raised a trembling finger to the sky.

“
Those aren’t our stars
.”

Nessa gently pulled her hand from Mari’s grip and touched her shoulder.

“I told you,” Nessa said, “this is a faraway place.”

Around the clearing, more tears in the world billowed open, new arrivals squeezing and clawing their way from the black, rose-scented void. Most wore masks of bone, a menagerie of moths and magpies, lionesses and zebras. The two robed figures approaching them, though, didn’t hide their faces. Mari recognized them—the tall, gangly, and olive-skinned Carcannan man and his shorter, pearly-toothed counterpart—in a heartbeat.

“Ah, just in time,” Nessa said. “Mari, I’d like you to meet my students, Despina and Vassili. Or, as they’re known to our coven, Shrike and Worm.”

Jarred from her horror, Mari blinked. “I…I
know
you. You were those merchants, who gave us a ride to Reinsbech.”

Vassili bent low in a courtly bow. “Our apologies for the deception, Mari. You see, Nessa wanted very much to meet you, and we’d heard reports of bandits on that road. So my sister and I were instructed to ensure you reached her safely.”

“We heard about what happened to Werner,” Despina said, frowning. “We’re…so sorry, Mari. He seemed like such a good man. A
noble
man. His death must have been terribly painful for you.”

Mari bit her bottom lip, eyes downcast.

“Nobody could have foreseen his loss,” Vassili said. “We’re just glad that you and our mother escaped safely.”

“Mother?” Mari asked, looking between them. “I knew you were brother and sister, but…” She paused, studying Nessa’s face and trying to gauge everyone’s ages.

“Not like
that
,” Nessa said with a chuckle. “You see, Mari, our coven is a family. The only actual birth relations here are Despina and Vassili, but everyone else uses…well, whatever appellations reflect their heart at the moment. Often I’m an aunt, very rarely a mother; most here will be ‘cousin’ to you.”

Despina swooped in and locked up Mari’s arm in hers.

“
Sister
, as far as I’m concerned. She’s proved herself deserving of it.”

“Sister,” Mari echoed, her voice faint, not daring to say it too loudly. Speaking the word felt like taking something that didn’t belong to her.

“Would you like that, Mari?” Despina’s eyes glittered.

“A family?” Mari asked. “For…for me?”

“Everyone should have a family,” Vassili said, taking her other arm and pinning Mari between them. “A family who cares for you, and who you can care for. Don’t you think?”

Mari didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. She blinked, her eyelashes suddenly damp.

“Is everything prepared for Mari’s initiation?” Nessa asked.

Despina nodded sharply. “Exactly as you requested, mistress. We had no difficulties.”

“Nor would I expect you to. Off with you, then.”

Despina leaned in, as her arm snaked away, and pecked Mari on the cheek.

“Be brave,” she whispered. Then she and Vassili were off to mingle, the clearing now crowded with hoods and robes and masks. Mari gazed about in wonder. There had to be thirty, maybe forty people milling about on the grass, a quiet expectation hanging in the air. They were waiting for something. Waiting, but eager.

“I
did
,” piped up a small voice to Mari’s left. “I
did
kill them all.”

A young woman of nineteen or so, garbed in a hooded saffron robe, the corners of her eyes glistening with coppery paint reminiscent of a serpent’s scales, held a much smaller girl—maybe five years her junior—in a headlock.

“Viper and Mouse,” Nessa murmured, glancing sidelong at Mari. “They get along about as well as their namesakes.”

“Well, I think you’re a filthy little liar,” Viper said. She tightened her hold around Mouse’s neck, forcing her to one knee. “You’re a filthy little liar who’s just trying to save her own hide. Just wait until Fox gets here. I want to see you try and tell
him
your ridiculous story.”

Viper grabbed hold of Mouse’s ear and twisted it until the smaller girl yelped. Mari, eyes narrowed to slits, took a step toward them. Nessa stopped her with a touch to her arm.

“Niece,” Nessa said, striding in, “is it jealousy that blinds you, or pride?”

Viper blinked, holding the squirming girl tight. “Huh?”

Nessa waved her hand. Viper reluctantly let go. Mouse straightened up, wincing as she rubbed her ear.

“It’s in the eyes.” Nessa gently took hold of Mouse’s chin, lifting her face, studying her. “You can always tell by the eyes. You’ve been blooded, haven’t you, Mouse?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “Yes, Miss Owl.”

“More than one.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Bandits,” Mouse said. “I poisoned them.”

Nessa let go of her chin and nodded her approval.

“Poison is a good choice for you, I think. It will serve you well.”

Viper frowned, looking cheated. Her glare snapped toward Mari. “And what’s this? Lunch?”

Nessa slid one hand behind Mari’s back, fingers curling over her shoulder.

“This is Mari, my knight. Mari, this is Viper, your new cousin.”

Viper snorted. “No relation of mine ’til she’s blooded proper. And a
knight?
She doesn’t look like much to me.”

“Try me,” Mari replied. “Or do you only spar with girls half your size? I could get on my knees and fight you that way, if it makes you feel safer. And I’ll still win.”

Viper froze, one hand dangerously close to the feather-bladed knife on her belt. Then she broke into a grin, showing off canines chiseled to jagged points.

“Yeah, all right, all right. You might be fun to have around. For a little while. You’d best learn the pecking order around here before you open your mouth again, though. Far as I’m concerned, you’re nothing but a gussied-up servant, and I don’t take lip from servants.”

“Pleasure meeting you too,” Mari said. “Cousin.”

Viper stalked off in search of an easier target. Mouse looked up at Mari, eyes bright and curious.

“I’m Hedy,” she said. “Are you really a knight?”

“She will be,” Nessa answered for Mari. “Provided she passes her initiation. You never made it to Lerautia, I presume?”

Hedy bowed her head. “No, ma’am. I was trying, though, honest. As soon as the sabbat is done, I’ll try again. I mean, if…if Master Fox doesn’t…hurt me.”

Nessa leaned in close, locking eyes with Hedy.

“And why would he do that?”

“He wanted me to, um…” Her voice trailed off. The girl seemed to shrink where she stood, her shoulders tensed.

“He wanted you to obey my orders,” Nessa said, “but you were to report your findings to him first, instead of me.”

Hedy’s chin bobbed, barely a fraction of an inch.

“But you know what you
should
do.”

“I’m afraid,” Hedy said. “I’m afraid he’s going to kill me.”

Nessa shook her head, firm. “I won’t allow that.”

A horn blew. It was a low, droning hum that sent flights of night birds fleeing from the pines, spiraling up toward the alien stars. The hum made Mari’s bones shiver, like the call to a funeral march.

“It’s time,” Nessa said and took Mari’s hand.

They walked with the crowd toward the clearing’s edge. A trailhead waited for them, a narrow road carved through the tangled forest and paved in spongy chips of cedar. It turned and twisted under leafless boughs, skeletal limbs folding overhead like the bars of a wicker cage.

The path emerged into a second clearing, and in the clearing stood an altar. Behind the altar leaned a crooked tomb, its open door illuminated by two guttering torches.

The altar was a slab of black basalt. The grass around it scorched yellow, twisted and dead. And upon the altar, bound by knotted sailing ropes at his wrists and ankles, lay a naked man. He squirmed, letting out muffled, frantic pleas, gagged under the burlap sack draped over his head.

Nessa led Mari to the altar as the coven circled around them. All eyes were upon the tomb door, though, a stairway leading down into stony darkness.

Nessa let go of Mari’s hand and raised her arms to the crowd.

“We gather tonight in celebration,” she said. “In celebration of our way and our creed, and in celebration of welcoming new blood to our veins. Dire Mother, will you witness?”

The answer came on a gust of fetid wind billowing from the mouth of the tomb. An ancient whisper that carried to every ear.

“
I will
.”

Nessa turned to the tomb, arms still outstretched.

“And I ask for us all: will you lead us to Wisdom’s Grave?”

“
I will
,” came the Dire Mother’s reply.

Nessa lowered her arms and flashed a cruel, hungry smile.

“Tonight,” she said, “we rekindle a tradition long lost. This woman at my side has petitioned to enter my service. A coven knight! She will prove worthy.”

One figure, taller than the rest, shouldered his way to the front of the crowd. Mari’s jaw clenched. She recognized him at once, from his snouted mask to the ice-blue knotwork tattoos on his beefy arms.

“This is an outrage,” Bear shouted. “She’s a witch hunter. She’s killed one of our own! You insult us all by bringing her here.”

“She is no such thing,” Nessa replied. “She was misled by our enemies, and she is…properly penitent.”

“Then let her prove it.” Viper put her hands on her hips and glared at Mari. “Blood for blood!”

“
Blood for blood
,” came the whisper from the coven, then again. And again. A chant. A command.

Nessa waved her hand, sharp, and silenced them all. Then she led Mari to the altar.

“Only one person complicit in Squirrel’s death has not been punished,” she explained. “That changes tonight.”

She tugged the hood from the bound man’s head.

Mari knew him. She remembered their last meeting like it was yesterday.

*     *     *

“You can’t do this,” Mari had pleaded. She could barely hear her own voice over the din from the village square as the executioner bound the young girl to a post. Kindling piled around her feet.

The mayor sat placidly under an open tent at the edge of the square, counting out copper coins from a dented lockbox. He didn’t look at her, let alone answer her.

“You don’t even know she’s guilty,” Mari said. “You won’t even let her
talk
.”

Werner’s big hand rubbed the back of Mari’s neck, trying to calm her. She looked over her shoulder, seeing the terror in the girl’s eyes as the executioner stepped back. And lit a torch.

“This is insane.” Tears brimmed in Mari’s eyes. “Werner, make him
stop
. This is so wrong, you know it’s wrong—”

The mayor poured his handful of coins into a cheap leather pouch, offering it to Werner.

“This transaction is concluded,” he said primly. “Kettle Sands thanks you for your service.”

Werner took the pouch and gently tugged Mari away from the table.

“C’mon, Mari, this isn’t any of our business.”

The torch arced through the air, landing in the kindling with a
crump
of flame and a puff of black smoke. The girl shrieked through her gag as the flames inched toward her.

“You bastard,” Mari shouted, lunging at the mayor with fists flailing and her cheeks wet with tears. Werner got his arm around her waist and hauled her back. “You fucking
bastard
, you can’t
do
this!”

The mayor glared at Werner. “I suggest you shut your apprentice’s insolent mouth and leave town before sunset. Otherwise, we might have to find
more
witches to burn.”

*     *     *

Mari recognized the man on the slab. The mayor recognized her, too. Mari could see it in his eyes. Pleading eyes. Like Squirrel’s had been that hot afternoon in Kettle Sands.

“Everyone has been punished, save one. That changes tonight,” Nessa said, taking Mari’s hand. She pressed a dagger with a wavy blade—long, gleaming—into Mari’s palm and curled her fingers around the corded hilt.

“And you, Mari, will be the instrument of our vengeance. The instrument of justice.”