The slave's mouth quirked to one side. "Perhaps," she acknowledged. She scooped more of the mud off of him. "Very clever-and very brave. Are you hurt?"
Tavi shook his head, shivering uncontrollably. "Sore. Tired. And cold."
She nodded, her expression worried, and smoothed more muck from his forehead. "All the same, thank you."
He struggled to give her a small smile. "There's no reason to thank me. I'm Tavi of Bernardholt."
The girl's fingers went to the collar at her throat, and she frowned, lowering her eyes. "Amara."
"Where are you from, Amara?"
"Nowhere," the girl said. She looked up, sweeping her eyes around the inside of the magnificent chamber. "What is this place?"
"P-princeps' Memorium," Tavi stuttered, shivering. "This is the mound on the Field of Tears. The Princeps died here, fighting the Marat, before I was born."
Amara nodded, still frowning. She rubbed her hands together roughly and then laid her wrist over Tavi's forehead. "You're burning up."
Tavi closed his eyes and found them too heavy to open again. An odd prickling ran over his skin, slowly replacing the bitter, aching chill of the mud. "The First Lord himself made this place, they say. Made it in one day. When they buried everyone. The Crown Legion. The Marat didn't leave enough of the Princeps' body for a state funeral. They did it here, instead of taking him back to the capital."
The slave took his hand and urged him to his feet, though she, too, shook with cold. He let her, struggling to stand through the heavy, sweet lethargy in his limbs. He latched onto the words he was speaking, using them to hold on to consciousness. "Strong furies here. The Crown's furies. It was said they would have to be strong to keep the shades of all the soldiers
at ease. Couldn't take them home. Too many dead bodies. Strong furies would protect us. Stone mound. Earth against air. Shelter."
"You were right," Amara said. She eased him back to the floor again, and he sank gratefully back against a wall. He could feel a distant heat, through the tingling in his body, something wonderful and soothing. She must have taken him over to one of the fires.
"All my fault," Tavi mumbled. "I didn't bring Dodger in. My uncle. The Marat are here."
There was a startled silence. Then she said, "What'? Tavi, what are you talking about? What about the Marat?"
He struggled to say more, to answer the slave's question, to warn her. But the words became a jumble on his tongue and within his mind. He tried to force them out and found himself shaking too hard to get them out clearly. Amara said something to him, but it didn't make any sense, random sounds jumbled together. He felt her hands on him, then, scooping the half-frozen muck off of him and rubbing roughly at his limbs, but it felt very distant, somehow, very unimportant.
His head fell forward. It became a labor even to draw breath.
Blackness fell over him, dark and silent and complete.
Chapter 11
Isana's heart twisted in her chest, and her throat tightened. "No," she whispered. "No. My brother isn't-he's not gone. He can't be."
Old Bitte looked down. "His heart. His breathing. They've both stopped. He just lost too much blood, child. He's gone."
Stunned silence fell on the hall.
"No," Isana said. She felt dizzy, stunned, and she had to close her eyes. "No. Bernard." The enormity of that simple finality, of death, fell on her like a mile of chains. Bernard was her only living family, and she had been close to him since before she could clearly remember. She could not picture a world without her brother in it. There had to be something she could do.
Surely, something. She had been so close to securing the help she needed. If Kord and his sons hadn't been interfering, if they had only kept to themselves, there would have been two skilled watercrafters attending to Bernard before she was even awakened.
Let the crows take Kord and his murderous little family, Isana thought viciously. What right did he have to jeopardize the lives of others in order to protect his own position? Bernard could have been cared for. He could have lived.
She needed Bernard. The steadholt needed him. Tavi needed him.
Tavi. If anyone could find Tavi now, if anyone could help him, it was her brother. She had to have his help. She had to have him beside her. Without him, Tavi could be gone forever. He, too, could-