When the doors to Az’Kabek opened, it was an issue of great importance. When the doors to Az’Kabek opened, merchantry stopped and schoolchildren craned through windows to see. When the doors to Az’Kabek opened, Ravena never bothered to stay on the ground.
It was useless for seeing anything at her height. Instead, she slipped off the rope around her waist—the one tying her and all the girls her age together—and scrambled up a lamppost to see.
It was easy. It was not difficult. Very little was difficult for Ravena.
The gate opened with a ponderous and grinding sound that reminded her of sword-shaping. (The lamppost she gripped between her feet buzzed, but she did not fall.) She craned to see. Who would they open those doors for? Refugees stopped coming years ago, and the Merchants no longer walked the Salted Road. She grinned, imagining. Maybe it would be a clutch of dragons, dripping with jewels now useless to them in the dying outside. Or maybe big, ugly trolls whose strength no longer served them, or more Fey who smiled prettily and sparked with magic from ear-tips to toes.
It was none of those things. The doors had opened for some weird guy wearing some weird clothes.
He looked so human. His brown hair boasted great, big curls (she wouldn’t have been able to resist the baby-desire to yank on them, had he been closer). His sorrowful green eyes were large, his gaze steady, his lashes thick. The robe-thing he wore looked like one white sheet wrapped around his body, and he had bothered with neither shoes nor spears nor hood. If he was a Merchant, he’d brought little to sell. A small leather pouch hung around his waist. That was all.
The man’s green eyes were a little hard to look away from, actually.
The gates opened for this? He had to be someone special. So many had pleaded outside Az’Kabek before the storms took them away, screaming for help and ignored by the terrifying Guardians atop the walls.
The man walked in as if he belonged here already. Along those walls, the Guardian Saqalu froze. Oh. Oh, no. They leaned forward, crouching like pouncing animals. Their light-jewel-wings spread and quivered and cast accusatory light across their owners’ faces. Oh, no. This was about to turn awful. Oh, no. Didn’t he know he was in danger? Apparently not. He simply looked around at the stalls and soldiers, standing there like he belonged, like he did this all the time, and no more feared the Saqalu than he would piece of fruit.
The gates swung shut. Everyone stared or stole glances, pretending they were still doing normal marketplace business.
A soldier approached, pointing his double-bladed spear. “Name yourself.”
The man looked at him slowly, taking his time, somehow making this simple question into one of poetry and quiet humor. “I have been called Blessing,” he said, and his voice was soft, a pleasant caress. “I have been called Blood, and Night, and Friend. I do not think that latter applies to you yet.”
Unfortunately, he had Pael for an interrogator, and Pael had neither a sense of humor nor an ounce of poetry in all his bones. “Your name, or your blood on the ground!”
The man ignored the spear as easily as he ignored Pael’s tusks and bright blue mane, and his courage and defiance sent a shiver down Ravena’s spine. “I have chosen a name for myself,” he began.
Pael decided not to wait, and tried to scratch the delicate skin of the man’s throat with his spear. And then a thing happened, and she didn’t understand. Pael thrusted, and then the man wasn’t there anymore, but somehow behind Pael instead, and then the wind… moved.
Moved as if the man had commanded it, moved with a concentration and power making outside-the-walls storms seem tame, moved with such force that it lifted Pael through the air and into the closed gates with a gong like a bell.
People screamed.
The Saqalu swooped down, plunging, landing in a show of power and threat. Their wings spread, encircling the man, and their power rippled between them and leached the air of color and light. The man, now gray, sank to his knees.
Oh, no! Pael started it! Ravena saw! She slid down from her pole, running toward them as fast as she could.
The Uisge got there first.
Mighty hooves pounding, sending sparks through the marketplace, carrying the enormous black equine that was the Uisge near, and he galloped directly into the circle without hesitating because he did not have to. The Saqalu parted, withdrawing their wings, providing him a path as they bowed out of the way.
On his knees, panting, the man looked up.
Ravena skidded to a halt. “Pael struck first!” she shouted. Her voice was young, but large. She had, so she’d been informed, no sense of chain of command, and nor should she. Why should her opinion be less than anyone else’s?
It was a little awkward right now, though. Dead silence pillowed it, and though Az’Kabek’s walls made no echo, it seemed to her that her words bounced back anyway, unheard and pointless.
Uisge, General of the Seven Armies, Black Hoof of Abaddon, and Kelpie’s Own King trotted forward, snorting and tossing his magnificent mane. Everyone in the marketplace bowed; many murmured thanks or words of worship, and Ravena found herself murmuring them, too. He’d saved her. He’d saved them all. Without him, she’d be….
“I see you have found your way here at last, Night-Child,” said Uisge the great and mighty, and he stomped one hoof.
(Night-Child? Surely that couldn’t be the man’s name.)
Everyone reacted as though he’d shot a cannon. They bowed lower, genuflected, fell silent.
Instead of the man, it was Adam who answered. “This one carries such threat.” His voice, low and smooth, belied the frissoned black light of his wings, and the tips of his bone-blades peeked between the edges of his incorporeal feathers.
“Threat, perhaps,” said Uisge. “But does he intend to slaughter?”
Adam did not answer.
Ravena knew how the Saqalu worked because everyone did because that was how they didn’t kill you. Ability, desire, intent; so the man had the ability to slaughter, and maybe the desire, but not the intent. Oh; oh, that was so very frightening. She shivered, but she still stood strong. “Pael struck first!” she declared.
Someone took her arm. “Come now, leave them to this.”
“No!” She jerked away and ran toward them.
One of the Saqalu scooped her up, his sapphire wings curving around her like hands, and calm spread through her mind and body. She stopped fighting. It would be all right. Everything would be all right—
The green-eyed man looked toward her, then back at the general. “Horse,” he said.
Ravena’s jaw open. Horse?
“I am glad to see you returned,” said Uisge, apparently taking no offense. (Unbelievable!)
“I am here.” The green-eyed man reached into his little leather bag and took out a coin—a coin Ravena knew. “I have brought the coin, as bidden. Now what must I do?”
She gasped. Only those worthy of entry were granted coins.
“Continue to ask that question,” said Uisge, “and I will continue to answer. This is now your new home. Do you accept this?”
The man looked around. “If it provides me with what I seek.”
“To stay here, only one thing is needful. Only one, and no more; you must swear yourself to me. You will love what I love and hate what I hate; you will protect the things I find precious, and stomp underhoof that which I abhor. Do you so swear?”
The man’s brow knit.
So this had gone far beyond the apparent assault on Pael (who was fine, being helped to his feet by a healer, looking so embarrassed that his blue fur turned green). That was ritual wording. The man not only had a coin, but Uisge clearly thought him worth binding already. She stared at the man, this Night-Child, (whatever that meant), pushing on the Saqalu’s hands around her waist as if that could help her see better.
“Do you swear?” repeated Uisge.
“I swear,” said the green-eyed man.
Oh! He’d said it. He’d just said it, like it meant nothing more than a vain promise to pick flowers. He hadn’t even gotten up from his knees, and had already said it! Did he fear nothing?
Uisge shook his mane again. “To be here, to find your path, to be granted forgiveness, you must be mine. I will protect you, Night-Child. I will guide you—if you swear yourself to me, and only me. Do you swear?”
“I swear,” said the green-eyed man, and over their heads, clouds began to twist, stealing the stars, hiding the sky with a rumble she could feel but not hear. It made the inside of her head hurt.
“I will shape your path; I will feed your mind. You will follow my hooves all the way to the end, and I will give you your earned freedom. Do you swear to follow me?”
There it was. The third question to make three-times-an-oath. No one moved in all the world, waiting for the answer, waiting for the reply, waiting for the green-eyed man become Uisge’s own.
The man eyed Uisge for a long moment, unafraid of him, unafraid of anything, even Pael with his spears and the Saqalu with their wings and Uisge with all his authority, and in that moment, Ravena knew a great and terrible envy. His fearlessness; his power; the way he’d faced them all, faced everything, without concern of reprisal, able to defend himself and make his own way. “I swear,” he said.
Thunder clapped above, sounding again and again through the narrow stone ways, startling some into ducking and crying out. Ravena did neither; she watched the green-eyed man as the Saqalu put her down, no longer concerned about her interference.
Everyone lost concern. Now that the man was sworn, he could be no threat, even if he tried. The Saqalu flew back to the walls, a flutter of jewel-light and feathers, and the air immediately lightened, easier to breathe.
“Welcome, Night-Child,” said Uisge. “Welcome to your new home. Behold, my people! This is Night, and he is my own!”
To a backdrop of confused applause, the man stood. He swayed a little; shook his head, as if the spell he’d just taken upon himself left him dazed, and that made her envy more. She remembered taking the oath. It had knocked her out for two days. What kind of power must he have? He looked human!
“Come,” said Uisge, leading this Night away.
Ravena watched until they were out of sight in the warrens. He was the most amazing man she’d ever seen—the only man, too, who showed no fear in the face of all that was here.
She loved him, a little. She hated him, a little. She would know him better soon, now that he was safe to know, and see if his power could be learned. Ravena raced back to her concerned teachers and the stupid confining rope, kicking her way through dead leaves, and dreamed of owning the wind.