Empress of Dorsa (The Chronicles of Dorsa)

“Ahh.”

Megs tried to piece together the clues around her to make some kind of sense. She was staring up at spruce trees. A squirrel chattered in the background, so did the musical babble of a stream. And Linna was here. Megs turned her head first in one direction, then in another. On one side of her was the shape of some kind of crude shelter of woven fir branches, on the other was a narrow brook.

“Where are we?” Megs asked. “Where’s…” she started, but she didn’t know who to ask about.

Memories flooded back. The camp burning. Rom dying, telling Megs before she finished him off that her people had fled to the old barrow. Then she and Zandra and Linna ran north and –

Zandra was dead. Killed before Megs’s eyes, and not even by a tribesman but by an ex-soldier wielding a mountain man’s spear. The same man had knocked her unconscious. She remembered nothing after that but fragmented fever dreams.

“What happened?” Megs managed at last. Her tongue was still thick, her voice hoarse from lack of use. It made her think of another question. “How long have I been … like this?”

Linna sat down next to Megs, pushing Megs gently back down when she tried to sit up. “Easy,” she said. “Don’t try too much too soon. You’ve ripped your stitches out enough already during your delirium. The skin’s mostly healed now, and I really don’t want to have to stitch you up again.”

“Where is … Where are my people?” Megs asked again, her voice – and her thoughts – getting clearer.

Linna’s face shifted into something Megs couldn’t read. It looked like anger at first, then it morphed into something that was more like … sympathy.

“I’m sorry, Megs,” she said softly. “You’re the only one I could save.”

Megs didn’t understand. She knew her people had fled to the barrow, and she knew the mountain men had been smoking them out, but her people couldn’t be dead. Not all of them, anyway. There were always survivors. Even in the Battle of the Empress’s Last Stand, the last battle she’d fought as an Imperial soldier, even then, there had been survivors.

Megs didn’t like this game Linna was playing, so she reached out and grabbed the girl’s wrist, determined to force the truth out of her, to make Linna stop toying with her like this. But Megs’s grip wasn’t what it had been; she was hardly able to hold onto the girl.

“Where are the others?” Megs repeated. “Grent and Ryland and Wymer a-and …”

But she stopped, because she remembered finding Ryland and Wymer now. They were dead. And maybe if she didn’t say Azza’s name aloud … Maybe there was a chance that … Perhaps Azza …

Gods, not again.

Linna shook her head very slowly. Gently, she pulled Megs’s hand off her wrist and held it with both of her own. “I went into the barrow after I handled the rest of the tribesmen and slavers. Your people were inside, but …”

She swallowed, and even though they were Megs’s people and not Linna’s, there was genuine grief on the girl’s face.

“What?” Megs demanded.

“Megs, I … I’m sorry, but I think your people preferred death to capture.” Linna hesitated. “They took their own lives.”

Megs shook her head. No, she wanted to say, but she couldn’t remember how to open her mouth. No, not my people. You don’t know them. My people are strong; they’re survivors. They’ve lived through more than you can possibly imagine. They wouldn’t do that.

But then Megs thought about what Azza had been like when they’d first rescued her. She thought about how Azza’s beautiful brown eyes had been wide and wild, like a cornered animal’s, how it had taken weeks before Azza had trusted Megs and the rest of the crew, weeks before she stopped stealing food and hiding it in case she needed it later.

Months before she allowed Megs to touch her. Months more before they shared their first kiss. And even then, after a mere kiss, so innocent that it had practically been the awkward exploration of two teenagers, Azza had cried for hours.

Azza never would have let herself go back to being a slave of the mountain men. None of Megs’s people would have. They were strong, but they were also too proud to be slaves, so proud they would rather die than allow themselves, their children, their brothers and sisters, their friends and their lovers become the chattel of brutes.

“You should have left me there,” Megs whispered. “I should have died with the rest of my people.”

“Don’t say that.”

Something tugged in Megs’s belly. “I’m going to be sick.”

Hastily, Linna helped her up into a sitting position. Megs managed to turn her head just in time to avoid throwing up on herself. Still propping Megs up with one arm, Linna produced a semi-clean rag in her free hand and dabbed at the corners of Megs’s mouth.

Linna could be wrong. Some of them might have found a way out – a backdoor to the barrow that Megs and Rom had never discovered. And if there was a backdoor, Azza might still be alive. Azza might be out there somewhere, cold and hungry and waiting for Megs to find her.

“I need to see them,” Megs said. “The – bodies.”

Linna nodded. “I know. I expected you to say that.” Her hands still busy with Megs, she used her chin to indicate the campsite around them. “We’re not too far from where it happened.”

“You never told me how long I’ve been like this.”

Instead of addressing the question, Linna nodded at the pile of furs beneath Megs. “May I lay you back down?”

Megs checked her stomach and nodded. “I think I’m done.”

Linna lowered Megs gingerly, then brushed a few stray hairs from Megs’s cheeks. The gesture was practiced and affectionate – definitely not the first time Linna had done it.

It made Megs frown, the unsolicited familiarity from this stranger.

“To answer your question,” Linna said, “this is the longest you’ve been awake – and the first time you’ve made sense – in about a week.”

“A week?” Megs gasped disbelievingly. “The battle was a week ago?”

“No… The battle was about a fortnight ago. But you were in a coma for … a while.” Linna hesitated. “I’m sorry you had to wake up to me instead of – instead of the people you care about.” It seemed as if Linna had almost said something else, and Megs wondered who else’s name she’d said in her delirious state besides Milton’s. Linna glanced away, thoughts clearly traveling elsewhere for a moment. “I know what that’s like. To wake up one day and find the people you love are all gone. Gone or just …” She trailed off with a shake of her head.

Dead,Megs finished silently for her.

“Who did you lose?” Megs asked.

Linna let out what sounded like a bitter chuckle. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

Linna gave her a long, appraising stare. At last she said, “Have you ever heard of Joslyn of Terinto?”

“The Heroine of Port Lorsin? Of course.”

Linna looked away. “She was my teacher.” There was a pause. Then she spoke again. “In Terintan, we say ku-sai – it means ‘teacher,’ but more than that. Ku-sai is like … mentor and parent, blended together.”

Megs considered that. It seemed rather unlikely that Joslyn of Terinto, the Commander of the late Empress Natasia I’s Palace Guard, the same legendary woman who’d supposedly rescued the last Shaman’s Blade from the Shadowlands and then saved the city of Port Lorsin almost single-handedly from an entire army of shadow-infected, had been Linna’s teacher.

No, it sounded more than unlikely. It sounded downright delusional, the kind of grandiose claim that Strange Sellis, Druet Village’s resident madman, would have made.

Yet everything about Linna was unlikely – a teenage Terintan in the middle of the wilderness, wearing the finest armor Megs had ever seen and wielding a sword like she was born with it in her hand. Imagining that the legendary, long-dead Joslyn of Terinto had been the one to teach Linna how to fight like that seemed about as likely as any other explanation.

And also, Linna didn’t strike Megs as a liar.

But when Linna glanced back down at Megs, Megs realized that her long, contemplative silence must have been interpreted as disbelief.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter now.” Linna waved a hand dismissively as if brushing off the fact that she’d just announced the Empire’s most celebrated war hero in recent memory had been her teacher. Had been her … what word had Linna used? Something that meant half-teacher, half-parent. “We’re only about a mile or two from the barrow,” Linna said. “I’ll take you there as soon as you feel up to it.”

“I’m ready now,” Megs said. She tried to sit up, but pain immediately flared in her side. She laid back down.

Linna smiled at her. It wasn’t mocking or ironic; it was compassionate. Gentle. “Megs, you can’t even sit up right now. Give it a few more days, alright?”

Neither of them spoke for a while. Once Megs closed her eyes and pretended to sleep, Linna stood up, stirred the fire that had died down during their conversation. Megs listened to the crackling logs, listened to the sound of Linna blowing until the fire blazed.

But the sound of fire made her flash back to that fateful night, to the sight of her camp engulfed in flames, to slipping the knife between Rom’s ribs, to the semi-circle of tribesmen and ex-soldiers as they fanned smoke into the burrow where her people hid.

Had an entire fortnight really passed? Two full weeks of Megs slipping in and out of consciousness while Linna played nursemaid? It didn’t feel like two weeks; it felt like the night before.

Azza.

The name came unbidden, an ache deep inside Megs’s heart. Azza had begged Megs not to leave with Zandra. She’d said she had a bad feeling about the scouting trip, but Megs had brushed it off, had promised Azza she’d be back within a day.

Megs had kept her promise, but she’d still been too late.

Why, oh why, hadn’t she listened to Azza?

If Linna could hear Megs’s quiet sobs, she didn’t say anything. She let Megs weep in peace.