Tavia’s glare reappeared and Karam couldn’t help but laugh at her outrage.
“You’ve got something on your face,” Tavia said, her voice a stale monotone.
Karam stopped smiling.
“There.” Tavia crossed her arms over her chest in satisfaction. “All gone.”
“Guard up,” Karam said. “Or I may stab you for real this time.”
“No, you’re way too fond of me now. We’re practically best—”
“We are not friends,” Karam interrupted.
Though mostly she said it out of habit rather than truth. Like a game between the two of them, insults a common currency of affection. Tavia had a knack for being simultaneously very unlikable and very, very endearing.
If only she had the same knack for being good with her fists.
As it was, when it came to teaching Tavia how to fight, Karam had her work cut out for her. It wasn’t that the busker had no skills whatsoever, just that none of her skills were the right ones, and so Karam spent half her time sighing in despair and the other half trying not to punch Tavia in the face.
“After this, we’re moving on to magic lessons,” Tavia said. “That Nolan bastard had some damn good charms that I’ve been waiting to try out. I’ll be teaching you how to turn your enemies into literal dust in no time.”
Karam grimaced.
Not because of the violence, but because using magic still made her skin itch. She preferred her fists and being able to feel her enemies’ bones rattle. There was a strange comfort that came with a good old-fashioned brawl. It was simple and certain.
Magic was like a question with no answer, or an answer with no question. It was there one moment and gone the next, in all things and part of nothing, existing entirely outside of the world and yet responsible for each and every particle of it.
Karam’s most dreaded days were when her lessons with Tavia finished and Tavia’s lessons with her began.
“Don’t give me that look,” Tavia said. “This was the trade-off. You teach me how to be a stealth assassin and I teach you how to be a damn fine trickster. If we’re going to survive this war, we need magic and fists to work together.”
“A very inspiring speech,” Karam said.
“Not as good as the one you gave about how to poke someone’s eyes out. I still have nightmares about that.”
Karam merely shrugged. “I am a firm believer that every woman should know how to blind her enemies.”
Tavia laughed, loud and unabashed one moment, only for it to be cut short with jarring finality the next.
She stared ahead, to a space beyond Karam, all the joy gone from her face.
Across the way, Saxony was talking to a group of Crafters in her Kin, and Tavia watched her with all the curiosity of a hunter watching prey.
“Do you think she’s trying to rally them to her side?”
“They follow her amja,” Karam said simply.
“A woman too scared to lead properly.” Tavia pocketed her knife, a sign she was done with the lesson. “Saxony should just take the reins from her and become Liege already.”
Saxony gestured with her arms wide and one of the Crafters, a man a little shorter than she was, shook his head.
“I do not think it is that simple,” Karam said, watching their interaction. “They will not follow Saxony because she asks them to. I believe she has to show them that she is the right choice. She has to earn it.”
“And the way to do that is by standing around with her thumb up her ass?”
Karam didn’t bother turning to glare at Tavia.
She kept her eyes on Saxony, who looked up to the sky with a defeated exhale. Karam almost felt like she could hear the sigh from where she stood across the camp. And then, as though she could sense Karam’s focus, Saxony turned to look at her.
She gave her a small, secret smile and Karam’s heart pounded furiously.
Even now. Even still.
Everything Saxony did made her pulse quicken.
Probably because the moments they spent together were so fleeting and nearly constantly interrupted, leaving Karam to grasp at the smallest things for satisfaction and building a thirst for Saxony that could never quite be quenched.
When Saxony began to walk over to them, Tavia cleared her throat like she was preparing for an onslaught.
“Good conversation?” Tavia asked. “You looked like you were really getting through to them.”
“They’re just as scared as my amja is,” Saxony said. “And they won’t go against an acting Liege.”
“I guess that means I’m the only one pulling my weight in this war, then,” Tavia said.
This time, Karam did glare at her. Not because she disagreed that the steps the busker had taken were necessary, but because she was getting a little tired of having to play peacemaker and diplomat in this newly fractured group.
Karam was a warrior. A guard. A soldier. She was not a mediator and it seemed she spent too much time these days ignoring her strengths in favor of fixing other people’s weaknesses. Sometimes, she couldn’t help but feel that she’d be better used somewhere else in this war, doing something that really mattered.
She would have said as much if a delg bat hadn’t then swooped down from the sky, cutting through the trees. It circled overhead, around the three of them, squeaking mercilessly as it awaited the code word it needed to land.
“Who would be sending bats to us?” Karam asked. “Everyone we know is here, in this camp.”
Everyone except for Wesley, of course. Though none of them would draw attention to that if they could help it.
“Relax,” Tavia said, and then, looking up toward the sky, she called, “Truce.”
The messenger bat darted downward and landed on Tavia’s outstretched hand with all the speed that it took for Karam to blink. Tavia stroked its head and the creature nestled into her fingertip. Karam had always thought they were awful things, not because of their appearance but because they could find anyone, anywhere, delivering a message even to the spirits. It seemed too much power for one thing to hold.
And then, of course, there was how they delivered their messages, with someone else’s voice trapped in their throats. It made Karam shudder to think of.
“Speak to me, little guy,” Tavia said.
The bat seemed to nod, and stretched out its wings like a curtain. It opened its mouth and Karam braced herself for the transformation of its voice.
“I have kept my promise,” the bat said in a croak.
Karam recognized its tone as belonging to the underboss she had heard Tavia dealing with before.
Casim.
“I have four dozen buskers ready to send your way,” it said. “I’m talking to the other underbosses, but you’ll understand it takes time and I must be careful. Once we have your location, my forces will be with you within the week. Give Wesley my regards and let him know that I’ve put my faith in him.”
“Good job,” Tavia whispered into the creature’s ear.
A few dozen more buskers wasn’t something to scoff at with their armies so depleted, and so Karam clapped Tavia on the back in a way she hoped said that she was pleased.
“I have to tell Casim where we are so he can send the buskers,” Tavia said. “But I promise that he’s too scared of Wesley to betray us.”