We Leave Together, стр. 49
There’s no Night King and you know it.
What do you know? You only just got here. I bet you never knew Djoss at all.
I heard Djoss was last seen alive with this Senta. Senta’s screaming and screaming at him, but he acts like he don’t hear. She says all kinds of stuff about how he’s going to get himself killed if he doesn’t give up the pinks, but he don’t listen to her. He just keeps walking. Then he tells the Senta to toss off. She was messing with the fellow’s push, you know? So this Senta conjures up all this ice and it surrounds big Djoss like a prison. Why in bloody Elishta some Senta taken a personal interest in some tossing pinker is too big for my head. Anyhow, Djoss pushes and he pushes on the ice and then he cracks it loose. He tells the Senta to toss off. She doesn’t listen. She keeps yelling at him. Then the Senta makes this wall of fire all around Djoss, and he doesn’t care. He jumps through it. Then, this Senta brings down a storm. And bloody Elishta, this storm is like the Breaking all over again.
You don’t even know what the Breaking is.
I don’t know why he got a mark on him over a Senta, but I heard it was because of a Senta. Those bloody gypsies are nothing but trouble.
Do, too. It’s a big, tossing storm. Let me tell the story. These foundations cracking all over the Pens because they’re all flooding out from this storm. And she’s screaming about how lightning’s coming for Djoss if he doesn’t turn home. And he doesn’t listen. He keeps going to the pits. Lightning strikes him right on his head. He gets blasted into the air three blocks away, big explosion and all that stuff. He gets up like nothing happened, dusts himself off and goes down into a pit. Never comes out. I hear he kept climbing down and climbing down and the Senta opened up the earth so he would keep climbing down to get to his pinks and he just keeps going. Then, he just keeps going until he’s down in Elishta and baatezus eat him up. That hole’s why we got so much demon fever. It’s coming up from the hole that Senta made in the ground to swallow that pinker.
That didn’t happen.
Did, too!
Look, we know Djoss is dead because he crossed the Night King and he ain’t around anymore. It’s that simple. Happens all the time. How he crossed the Night King, I don’t exactly know. Lots of ways to do that. But, you know the thing I heard was like everybody been saying. Fellow was a pinker, and he roughed up the wrong fellow when his head was all cheese. There was a woman involved, and I know that, too. That’s the way it is, you know? Anyway, you gonna give us apples or aren’t you? We’re hungry. We told you everything we know and you said you’d give us apples.
CHAPTER 14
What is the difference between a palace and a prison?
That is what I think when I see it. It’s a huge building, far from the nobleman’s Island, deep in the heart of the city, where the city’s oldest huts were consumed by the courtyards and fields and walls.
There were enough windows to make a glass smith very rich if a strong-enough storm blew through. They were colored, too, and spotted with jewels. If we were closer, we could make out the images they contained, and decipher the symbols. None of that mattered, though. The king was not permitted so close to the windows that people could see, and people were not permitted so close when there were enemies in the world that could strike down a king.
The matron herself rode in with us. The Anchorite had not left her order’s walls since she was sequestered there, but she told us, in her letter, that her duties were clear, and she would help us because though we were incorrect in our faith, we were never known to be dishonest in our old alliances. She did not speak to us when her carriage arrived to take us in, nor did we speak with her. She smiled to herself and looked at the city outside the carriage windows. She did not speak.
When the guards came, she held out her hand through the glass, with her insignia on her finger. The men seemed to shiver. They backed away and waved us through, shouting at each other to let us pass.
“Did you know I am the cousin to the king?” she said.
I shook my head.
“I am. It is how I could maintain such a place of honor, and never marry a man against my will. Imam has been good to his servant. I have had such a good life.”
We said nothing.
“Aggie was such a bad girl. She was a thief. She was disobedient. She refused to submit no matter how many beatings we gave her. She never cowed to the rod. A spirited girl. If we could only have gotten her through. She could have walked away from us if she had just been stronger. I pray Imam took her soul to rest. I pray every day since your awful letters came.”
“We told you the truth, as I saw it in the mind of a demon child.”
“I know,” she said. She scratched her chin. “I am grateful to know the truth. Despite our squabbles, I am very glad you came here. We pray and pray and… I don’t even recognize this city anymore. I don’t even know where I am and I’m only a few miles from my place of birth.”
“You should get out more,” said my husband. “There are sins in this city that cannot be washed clean with prayer.”
She looked up at him. “Prayer is a greater power,