Iron Binds

.0. The Huntress

She's too valuable to put down. That's what they say; that's what Taghi Parvash tells her, and his judgement has yet to fail.

The gallery is full when the Architect puts the training glaive in her hands. The Valiera himself watches, flanked by his augur on one side and the Mentor on the other. The training ring is hushed, despite the swell of interest in proceedings. She hears the shifting of the sands beneath her feet as crisply as the whisper of breath from her opponent's lungs.

His pedigreed name is Valiera's Amidego III Vazal. He is a Gallida, larger, older, and more experienced than herself. He wields a heavy battle-axe, and he is too slow. She would kill him in the space of three moves, if their fight were anything more than mummery.

At dawn, she is dressed in parade leathers and gold. Someone clasps golden cuffs around her neck and over the freshly oiled sweep of her horns. Delicate chains and beads of amethyst hang from her hair and horns and shoulders. The leathers are black, cut and styled for beauty rather than function.

The new crew arrives piecemeal as the lower servants dress her. She must suppress a brief and foolish jolt of disappointment when the new Medic arrives; he is not Taghi Parvash. He could never be mistaken for Taghi Parvash: he is nearly tall and broad enough for hunting himself, his strength poorly concealed under a loose linen shirt. Was he chosen for his size? Do they think he could restrain her? He speaks intermittently during his physical examination, but she knows her role; she barely hears him, let alone discerns his meaning. She is not meant to respond to any words not spoken by the Mentor or the Valiera.

A deployment, no matter the circumstances, is a grand event attended by nobility and labourer alike, stratified though they might be into the upper and lower street. Merchants line the thoroughfare called White Dog Road for its rows of ancient sillar statues; people are wedged into the spaces between people and buildings, hawking food and ale and mementos. The smell of bergamot and cloves hangs heavy across the thoroughfare; somewhere, someone plays a lively rendition of Trulla Restinus Astamila* on the mandolin.

The Olunaria awaits them in Siren's Bay, and few words are exchanged between the new crew members until the ship has sailed and the towers of the Valiera villa have disappeared behind the white stone foothills of the slumbering volcano, Mount Nevica. Her cot is in the cargo hold, near the Medic. He continues to speak, and she continues to hold herself in mental retreat, but over the course of the journey some few words penetrate her enforced lack of awareness: They talk about you in the capital, he says. I almost expected to find a demon here, and all I see is you.

She fights the jab of shame his words inspire. She does not flinch but withdraws further into her mental stronghold.

Do you want to know what I've heard?

She does not. The question makes it easier not to hear him.

Apla is a small farming village with less a port and more a collection of docks with dilapidated fishing boats hitched to rusted cleats. A few fishermen are loitering on the dock when they arrive, watching from a distance and drinking from clouded bottles of brown liquor. They whisper and stare, as is typical of provincial citizens. Apla is a long way from the Isle of Knives, let alone the central islands of the empire.

She keeps her eyes forward, following the Mentor and ignoring the pointed whispers of people who don't know she can hear them, clear as day:

What is that? Is that the hunter?

Do they all look so monstrous?

She seems a monster herself—is that the secret, then?

Hush. There'll be no questioning the Regia in this house, boy.

I just don't know if she's any less of a terror than the hag, is all. Why replace one beast with another?