Kady's Vengeance

Kady Maguire watched the snow drifting down across the yard of her home, as she sat at her husband's bedside, feeling numb past tears. His chiseled features had become gaunt, his cheeks sunken, and dark purple shadows made pools beneath his eyes. Kynyr could not keep down solid food, and subsisted on water and broth.

He had been poisoned with an arcane substance that mimicked the effects of Black Mountain Fever. The physicians and healers were treating the symptoms while looking for a cure. Drugs reduced Kynyr's fever, eased his pain, and mitigated the seizures. The most frightening thing to Kady was the fact that Kynyr's legs stayed cold and cramped despite any and every thing they did. He was in constant pain throughout his body, especially his muscles. Lesions had formed in spots along his spinal column. The high-level bio-alchemical Readers, loaned to Kady by the Assassins' Guild of Hadjys the Dark Judge, had found them days ago.

Kynyr Maguire would never walk again. She had forbidden the healers and others from informing him of it. After his grandfather, Claw Redhand, had been crippled by a fall on the stairs, Kynyr had told several of his closest friends that he would rather die than live like that.

The possibility that Kynyr might try to take his own life once he knew the truth overshadowed Kady's hopes. She would rather have him crippled and alive than lose him to death.

She thought about how every time that the enemy had knocked him down, Kynyr had picked himself up and gone after them again. He had defeated them at Hell's Widow, wiped out their followers in Wolffgard, and then ... they finally managed to bring him down forever.

Death would have been kinder. Every time that Kady overheard one of Kynyr's friends say that it made her stomach clench. It made them seem like traitors in her heart.

Death might yet take him, but Kady refused to surrender him to it without a fight.

He lay propped against a pile of pillows. His heavy blond hair had become so matted from sleeping on it, that Kady had – regretfully – cut it short. Kynyr's Aunt Mary brought a bowl of broth in, placed it on the bedside table, and withdrew. Kady lifted a spoon of broth to Kynyr's lips.

He turned his head away, refusing it with a dull listless expression. "I'm not going to make it, Kady." He sounded so weary and forsaken that it tore at Kady's heart.

"Don't say that, Kynyr. Don't say that. You're not going to die."

Finn MacIver came into the room. He had white blond hair that he wore in a tail down his back, a long narrow face, slightly flaring at the cheeks, and a hound dog nose that overpowered the rest of his features. He and Kynyr were spiritbrothers, friends since birth, united against the Dreaded Horde – their name for their combined sisters, Finn's eight and Kynyr's six – who were always trying to prevent them from going fishing. He settled into a chair next to Kady. "Claw gave me an extended leave, so I could keep you company, Kynyr."

"How's Searlait?"

Finn tensed and glanced at Kady for permission to tell him. Kady averted her eyes with a tiny nod. Finn's lips tightened and he expelled a breath through his nostrils. "She's dead, Kynyr. She drowned."

"When?" Grief harshened Kynyr's voice.

Searlait had always enjoyed sneaking from the manor at dawn to sit by the Bonnie Draw River and think. Kynyr had discovered Searlait's secret place and walked her home each morning to ensure her safety. Two days after Kynyr collapsed, Searlait died in the swirling waters of the Bonnie Draw. Most said it was an accident, but a few like Finn believed she had been murdered.

"Just over two weeks ago."

"I begged her, Finn." Kynyr struggled with his words. "I begged her … to stop … going out alone."

"Sheradyn says that she must have had a stroke and fell in."

"We need a lawgiver," said Kady. "There must be one we can get."

Lawgivers were chosen by the position of the stars and moon at the time of their birth, and trained from childhood by the oldest lawgiver in the village. Most of their people were illiterate or semi-literate, so the laws and customs were committed to memory, often in the forms of poems.

Finn looked thoughtful for an instant. "You know, I just remembered. Old Phelan at Three Stones. He's got three in his family."

"That's a week's ride northeast, isn't it?" Kady glanced hopefully at Finn as she removed the empty bowl from Kynyr's bed table and then the table itself.

"Closer to three in this weather. Two in good."

Kynyr's face twisted into a grimace, his eyes narrowing into a slant of suffering as his brows knit, and his color faded. He stiffened, his fists clenching against the pain. "Gaahds. Bad one."

Kady gestured at a table across the room, and Finn lunged for it. "Narcantha and Amphereon."

She filled the syringes as Shaheeramat had instructed her, making certain there was no air in the cylinder, cleaned Kynyr's arm off with a swipe of astringent and injected him with the drugs.

He eased and settled against his pillows, sliding into sleep and breathing easier. The only way to stop the episodes of seizures and pain was to sedate him so heavily that nothing woke him.

Last summer those syringes, which Kady had begun to appreciate, were just pictures in an ancient text from the lost civilization of Louistrana. Cahira Sinclair, Kynyr's grandmother, had translated most of one book and the Creeyans were already busy trying to recreate the simpler things.

"You ought to get something to eat." Larena entered the room.

"I don't think I could swallow anything." Kady averted her gaze to hide a frown. Larena always disappeared for a few hours in the morning, and Kady suspected that her sister was simply trying to avoid doing her share of the chores.

"Think of the cub, Kady." Larena gave her a look of firm and insistent concern.

Finn nodded. "Come on. She's right, Kady. You need to eat something."

Kady exhaled heavily. She could argue with Larena, but not Finn – all past attempts had failed. "Take good care of him, Larena. I dosed him for pain, so he should be out for a while."

"I'll take very good care of him."

Kady rose and walked slowly toward the stairs. The closer she came to the stairs, the more her feet dragged. The kitchen was on the lower floor. It had always been her favorite place to sit and visit before Kynyr's collapse. Visions of all the times she had sat there with him filled her mind. Kady laid her hand upon the balustrade and then drew back. "Bring me something up, Finn?"

"Where will you be?"

"The north drawing room."

The mansion had so many rooms that Kady had long ago given up trying to count them. Before she had gotten so far into the pregnancy, she had enjoyed exploring and making lists of them. The larger her belly became, the more tired Kady felt.

GODWAR CENTRAL

Kady's Vengeance