lest they tear away even more of my clothing. They watched me closely. If I strayed at all from Alaria’s side, Dwalia would hit me with a stick. Every night, she bound my wrists to my tied ankles and tethered them to her wrist. If I shifted in my sleep, she kicked me. Hard.
And with every kick, Father Wolf would snarl, Kill her. As soon. As possible.
‘You and I are the only ones left,’ Reppin whispered that night to Alaria after Dwalia slept.
‘I am here,’ Vindeliar reminded them.
‘Of the true luriks,’ Reppin clarified disdainfully. ‘You are no scholar of the dream-scrolls. Stop spying on us!’ She lowered her voice as if to exclude Vindeliar. ‘Remember when Symphe herself said we were chosen as the best to help Dwalia discern the Path. But from the beginning she ignored our advice. We both know that girl has no value.’ She sighed. ‘I fear we have strayed very far from the way.’
Alaria sounded uncertain as she said, ‘But Bee did have the fever, and the skin-change. That must mean something.’
‘Only that she has some White heritage. Not that she can dream. Certainly not that she is this Unexpected Son that Dwalia claimed we would find.’ Reppin dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘You know she is not! Even Dwalia no longer credits that. Alaria, we must protect one another. No one else will. When Symphe and Dwalia proposed this mission, Capra and Coultrie both insisted that we had already endured the Unexpected Son; that he was the one who freed IceFyre and put an end to Ilistore. So Beloved told us when he came back to Clerres. He said that one of his Catalysts, the noble assassin, was the Unexpected Son. Among his people, they called Ilistore the Pale Woman. And she was defeated by the Unexpected Son. All know that! Three of the Four say that the dreams related to him are fulfilled and those prophecies should be discarded now. Only Symphe thought otherwise. And Dwalia.’
I held my breath. They were speaking of my father! I knew from poring through his papers that the Fool had said he was the Unexpected Son. But I had never grasped that in some far-off land he had been the fulfilment of a prophecy. Furtively, I edged closer.
Reppin dropped her voice. ‘Symphe believed her only because Dwalia showered her with obscure references that said the Unexpected Son’s victory would be absolute. And it was not, because Beloved came back to us and was recaptured. And remember that Dwalia served Ilistore for years and was infatuated with her. Dwalia always bragged that when Ilistore returned, she would raise her to power.’ She barely breathed the next words. ‘I think Dwalia only wants vengeance. You recall how she was about Beloved. She holds him responsible for Ilistore’s death. And you know whose home we stole Bee from? FitzChivalry’s.’
Alaria sat up in her blankets. ‘No!’
‘Yes. FitzChivalry Farseer.’ Reppin reached up to tug her back down. ‘Think back. Recall the name Beloved shouted when his foot was being crushed? The name of his true Catalyst. He’d held that back, saying he’d had many: an assassin, a nine-fingered slave boy, a ship’s captain, a spoiled girl, a noble bastard. Not true. His one real Catalyst was FitzChivalry Farseer. And when I followed Dwalia into that house, in a room full of scrolls, she stopped still and stared and smiled. And there, on a mantelpiece, I saw a carving. One of the faces on it was Beloved’s! As he looked before he was interrogated.’ She nestled deeper into their bedding. ‘She wanted to take it. But just then, Ellik’s men came in and began to push over shelves and throw things around. They took a sword from there. So we left. But that’s who Bee is. The daughter of a Catalyst.’
‘They said the house belonged to Badgerlock, Tom Badgerlock. Bee said that was her father’s name.’
‘So. You are surprised that the biting little bitch lies?’
‘But she is a White, too?’
Alaria’s whisper was soft. I strained to hear Reppin’s reply.
‘Yes. And think now how a thing such as that could come to be!’ Her words were triumphantly scandalized, as if my very existence were shameful.
‘Vindeliar is listening,’ Alaria cautioned her. She shifted, pulling the coat more closely around them. ‘I don’t care about such things. I just want to go home. Back to Clerres. I want to sleep in a bed and have breakfast waiting for me when I awaken. I wish I’d never been chosen for this.’
‘My hand hurts so badly. I’d like to kill that brat!’
‘Don’t talk like that!’ Vindeliar warned them.
‘You shouldn’t talk at all. It’s your fault, all of this!’ Reppin hissed at him.
‘Sneaking spy,’ Alaria rebuked him, and they all fell silent.
It was not the only time they whispered at night, though most of what they said made little sense to me. Reppin complained of her bite, and they discussed the politics of Clerres with names I did not know and fine points I could not understand. They promised to report all they had suffered when they returned home and agreed that Dwalia would be punished. Twice they spoke of dreams about a Destroyer, who Alaria claimed would bring screaming and foul fumes and death. In one, an acorn brought into a house suddenly grew into a tree of flames and swords. I recalled my own dream of the puppet with the acorn head and wondered if there was any connection. But I had also dreamed of a nut bobbing in a stream. I decided that my dreams were very confusing. Almost as bad as Reppin’s, for she had dreamed just darkness and a voice that announced, ‘Comes the Destroyer that you have made.’
I gleaned what facts I could from their whispering. Some important people had not agreed about allowing Dwalia to go forth on her mission. When she persisted, they had relented, but only because Beloved had escaped. From my father’s writings, ‘Beloved’ was also ‘the Fool’. And ‘Lord Golden’. ‘The Four’ had warned Dwalia of what would befall her if she failed to produce results. She had promised to deliver to them the Unexpected Son. And I was all she had.
Vindeliar was excluded from their discussions, but he so craved their attention that he had no pride. One night, as they whispered under their furs, he broke in excitedly to say, ‘I had a dream, too.’
‘You did not!’ Reppin declared.
‘I did.’ He was as defiant as a child. ‘I dreamed that someone brought a small package into a room and no one wanted it. But then someone opened it. And flames and smoke and loud noises came out and the room fell apart all around everyone.’
‘You did not dream that,’ Reppin exploded with disdain. ‘You are such a liar! You heard me talking about that dream and just repeated what you heard.’
‘I did not hear you say such a dream!’ He was indignant.
Alaria’s voice was a low growl. ‘You’d better not claim that dream with Dwalia, because I already told it to her. She will know you for what a liar you are and beat you with a stick.’
‘I did dream that,’ he whined. ‘Sometimes Whites dream the same. You know that.’
‘You are no White. You were born broken, you and your sister. You should have been drowned.’
I caught my breath at that and waited for Vindeliar to explode with fury. Instead he fell silent. The cold wind blew and the only thing we truly shared was misery. And dreams.
Even as a small child, I’d had vivid dreams and instinctively known they were important and should be shared. At home, I’d recorded them in my journal. Since the Servants had stolen me, my dreams had grown darker and more ominous. I had neither spoken of them nor written them down. The unuttered dreams were lodged inside me, like a bone in my throat. With every additional dream, the driving compulsion to speak them aloud or write them down became stronger. The dream-images were confusing. I held a torch and stood at a crossroads under a wasp nest. A scarred little girl held a baby and Nettle smiled at her although both Nettle and the girl were weeping. A man burned the porridge he was cooking, and wolves howled in anguish. An acorn was planted in gravel, and a tree of flames grew from it. The earth shook and the black rain fell and fell and fell, making dragons choke and fall to the earth with torn wings.