Followed by Fros(37)

“Why would I lie to you, Smitha?”

It was strange to hear my name pronounced that way again. The way it was said back home. I turned from him, hugging the blanket to me.

“Two boys?” I asked. “Did . . . did the cold take any others?”

“Do you really want me to tell you?”

“Yes. Please.”

He spoke of two newborns, a boy who had slid on the ice and cracked his head, and an elderly woman who’d died of fever. Each name ate at me, making me colder and colder until I lingered on the verge of numb. Tears came to my eyes and froze on my lashes. My very heart was sculpted in ice.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

Sadriel stood. “No need to apologize to me,” he said. He strolled over to my fire and crouched beside me. “These people,” he continued, softer, “will turn their backs on you, eventually. I won’t. You can’t hurt anyone in my realm.”

“Only watch as you do.”

“What is life without Death?” he asked, tilting up the rim of his hat. “Will you punish me for doing that which I was created to do?”

I drew my knees up to my chest and shook my head, tears falling onto my cheeks, freezing to my chin.

“Come with me.”

“I can still help them,” I whispered, little more than a breath. “The drought—”

“The drought.”

“I have a home here.” I met his eyes. “I have friends.”

He snorted. “For now, perhaps. But they can’t change what you are any more than you can. They’ll realize the consequences of your curse soon enough.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and sobbed, the tears gluing my eyelids shut. By the time I had worked them off—losing a few eyelashes in the process—Sadriel had vanished.

I cried the rest of the night with my face pressed close to the fire. The coals sizzled faintly with each tear.





CHAPTER 16





I didn’t sleep that night. I wished and prayed and begged for sleep, to blow myself out like a candle just for a little while, but sleep eluded me. Once I had cried myself dry, I tried to remind myself of all the people I had saved by curing the drought. I replayed Imad’s praises over and over in my mind, but they did little to relieve my guilt.

At least I could hurt no one out here. The Finger Mountains were too steep for farming or habitation and too far from Mac’Hliah’s community for any who lived there to fall prey to my storm. Here I could be sure my curse stayed only with me and did not touch anyone else.

The next morning I dressed in my fuchsia clothing and braided my hair over my shoulder. I admired the intricate plaits Aamina wore, but I doubted my fingers were deft enough to manage such a pattern. I left off my head scarf and waited for Rhono. The helpers Imad had appointed to me usually came mid-to late morning, but Rhono stayed away.

With little else to divert me, I decided to wash my laundry. I did not sweat, so the clothes only needed to be cleaned of stains. I soaked the hem of my mustard dress to get the snow-wetted dirt from it, handling it carefully with my gloves, then scrubbed it with my toothbrush. I didn’t mind that it was my toothbrush—I had grown so accustomed to dirt in my years alone I honestly didn’t think twice about it.

I left my clothes by the fire to dry and read through The Basket Bearer to cheer myself, for it was a pleasant tale with a happy ending. I reread The Fool’s Last Song as well, a more complex story that held subtle commentary on the balance of justice and compassion, told from the point of view of an executioner on the verge of retirement. His last criminal to eliminate was the king’s jester, who’d been thrown in prison for being too honest.

Fitting that this would be Lo’s favorite.

A knock sounded at my door near sunset. After setting down my dinner, I hurried to the door, wondering why Rhono had come so close to dark.

When I opened the door, I was surprised to see Lo outside instead, warmly bundled with a mashadah wrapped around his head. Behind him a few snow harvesters with shovels cleared snow from the ground.

“Lo,” I said, stepping aside. He had a heavy leather bag over his shoulder.

“I found this on your doorstep,” he said, holding up a set of clothes, wet with snow. I recognized Kitora’s handiwork.

“Thank you,” I said, taking them from him. “Rhono must have left them outside.” I must have been frightening to her, the poor woman. But she had come, and for that I was grateful.

I took the clothes—a lovely pale gray dress and salmon head scarf—to the fire to dry and took down my others, quickly tucking the undergarments out of sight. “It’s late,” I said, glancing at the cracks around the door. “Dark soon.”

“Do you not stay up late?” Lo asked, removing his mashadah and coat. Instead of his usual indigo uniform, he wore a plain brown shirt with no markings, and loose sirwal slacks that cinched at the ankle.

I nodded, thinking of our exchange about goat bladders and curses in Shi’wanara. “But it isn’t safe to travel in the dark, not through my storm.”

“It doesn’t concern me. I work long shifts; this was the best time for me to come. I can leave, if it bothers you.”

“No!” I said, perhaps too animatedly. “No, it’s fine. Please, sit.”