The Carnelian Way

3.1

The carved oak doors closed with a thud, trapping the heat in the room and leaving the group of young women in a world dusted with ice. As if slapped awake by the cold, the girls ran off down the cobbled street, slipping and sliding, despite the trail of salt sprinkled over the stones, then scattered at an intersection.

A cloud of white escaped Rina's mouth. About her, frost sparkled on stone, wood and glass, reflecting the red light of the late sun. She pulled up her hood, shoved her hands into the deep, wool-lined pockets, and started to walk, Safiya's question running through her mind.

What does it make him?

There was a simple answer. It made Mai their saviour. After what the Denese mages had done to him, his uncle, the Eurans, hell, to themselves, he had rescued them and given them a home—protected them, in defiance of that threat within—taken that abomination that bubbled away in their souls. Again and again and again.

Her skin prickled, and she shivered, even with the lingering warmth that moved through her veins. The feeling of invisible eyes slithered across her. Olav? A treacherous part of her wanted it to be him. The narrow thoroughfare was empty, though. She shook her head and ambled on, something more pressing than that meeting with Olav and Media two weeks before knawing at her.

Where did it go, the taint? For some reason, she'd never asked the question—such an obvious and important one. So why had she never asked it?

Because it's blasphemous and ungrateful, Rina, she told herself.

Her uncle's reservations must be rubbing off on her. Pietro had never had them before. Not until that injury three springs ago. He'd rescued a child in the field from an overturned cart, his maimed fingers slipping on the wood after he'd lifted it so the boy could scramble to safety. His back had buckled with the unexpected movement, and the wagon fell on him. The medics performed a miracle, but a damaged spine would never be the same, or so her healer friend, Martha, had warned Rina before she left for Nebia. Nor would her uncle. After rest and rehabilitation, he'd been unable to work the same hours as before and was assigned half shifts in the field. Rather than come home exhausted like most Denese, his idle mind ticked away, and his hands clapped for people to listen.

The clang of a blacksmith's hammer echoed from a smithy, and metal scraped against the rock as a man shovelled pungent horse dung into a cart, ready to be taken to the fields.

Rina nodded at him, nose twitching, and he nodded back.

"Rina."

She waved and gave the man a grin. "Evening Isaac. I'll see you and Iskra at tonight's forsaking?" Isaac's mate, Iskra, was heavily pregnant, and soon would need to rest up and await the birth.

The barrel-chested man wiped perspiration from his face with a stained sleeve and blew a lock of dark hair from his brown eyes. "Nay, Rina," he panted, breath frosting. "We've been reallocated."

Rina frowned. This was unusual. Reallocations happened, from time-to-time, to accommodate a change in duties or a woman's cycles. And yet, the way Isaac's eyes shifted, drifting to that steaming pile of manure beside him, instead of talking to his neighbour, confirmed there was something he did not wish to say. Well, if he didn't want to tell her, she wouldn't force him.

"Send her Mai's blessings for me."

Isaac lifted his hand and bent to his task with a grunt, the scraping of his shovel sending goosebumps shooting up the nape of Rina's neck.

When she came to the end of the street, she halted. There was time to go home and eat a hot meal before the forsaking, but she had come to dread what she might find there, and her feet had a life of their own as they led her uphill.