“Blacksword will bear her scars,” Fevre said, “As we all will. What about the other one, Mer? Bilal, right?”

  Bilal nodded. Mer grabbed his kit, relocating it beside Bilal as he worked to close the gash on his forearm.

  Chapter 13

  Ponto

  Ponto stalked the early morning streets, blue lights surrounding him on all sides. Each point of light looked like a tiny firefly, visible when he focused but not bright enough to banish even the faintest of shadows. When Priest Itan had first opened his eyes to the world of dead souls pervading Jaruna, the sight had terrified him. It had taken months to learn how to see them himself; there were so many it was hard to believe he’d ever missed them. The knowledge they contained – secrets of hundreds and thousands of lives – pressed in on him until he felt he would collapse beneath their weight.

  Every once in a while Ponto’s consciousness would brush against one of the oldest, making him shiver and groan. Time had erased nearly everything about them, leaving nothing but a longing for release. They didn’t beg for the promise of the Everlands, but simply to not be anymore.

  Elysa had shown him tricks for dealing with them. He breathed in their souls, using his will to pull them within himself. His memories became their memories; his desires became their desires. In return, they brought him strength.

  The familiar smell of baking bread wafted toward him. He breathed deeply, allowing himself to be carried away by the sour, seedy notes. Not that long ago, I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from stealing a loaf. Or, at least, attempting to.

  One of the greatest gifts Priest Itan had given him was also the simplest: the gift of a full belly. Starving children couldn’t be good children, no matter how much they might want to be. But once food was no longer top of mind, Ponto had found he was able to pay attention to the lessons of his elders. He had energy to help others instead of stealing from them.

  A girl darted out of the shadows in front of Ponto, slipping a loaf of bread from one of the baker’s trays with barely a pause in her stride. She took off at a sprint, diving into an alley at the right side of the street.

  Before the baker had even noticed what happened, Ponto took off after the girl. His legs pumped, gaining a stride on her for each three he took. She glanced back at him – her smile of recognition quickly gave way to panic when she saw he carried no bread of his own. It wasn’t unheard of for the orphans of Jaruna to rob each other, and Ponto wasn’t innocent of that crime.

  Reaching the end of the alley, the girl paused for a moment before continuing down a larger street to her left. Ponto growled, reaching out as she narrowly eluded his grasp. Their feet kicked up dust as he followed her out into the street. He managed to get a hand on her shoulder halfway across, spinning her around. His fingers sought the still-warm loaf she held, prying at it with all of his might.

  It ripped in half; the girl fell to the ground, curling up into a ball to protect what was left.

  Ponto regarded her with a pang of sadness. He fished into his pocket for a few coppers, tossing them toward her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I only wanted to return the bread you stole. Elysa’s asked me to spread the word: the orphans of Jaruna need not go hungry anymore. We need not steal, either. The mortuary temple has reopened. The next time you’re hungry or need shelter for a night, seek out the temple.”

  The girl glared back at him. But one of her hands shot out to grab the coppers, which he took as a good sign.

  Ponto turned back toward the bakery with a sigh. He studied the half-loaf he’d managed to reclaim; it was mangled and ripped, hardly worth returning. But he still plodded back down the alley. You must show your fellow urchins thievery will not be tolerated, Elysa had told him. Children who are raised to steal and cheat become adults who steal and cheat. I would save you and your friends from such a miserable fate.

  The baker was still inside his shop when Ponto returned. He knew the man’s face well – lined with age, bearing snowy white brows and gaunt cheeks. When Ponto stepped inside, the baker barely looked up from his work.

  Ponto cleared his throat. “Excuse me, sir? I’ve come to… well, to return this.” He raised the half-loaf, a pitiful thing to his own sight. “I wasn’t able to get the rest of it.”

  The old man’s hands worked on a lump of dough, rolling it out with heavy knuckles. “She only got half a loaf, then? That seems hardly enough for a child to survive on. Looked like such a small thing, too. Surely you could have left her with more.”

  Heat surged through Ponto’s cheeks. “Excuse me, sir? You don’t want orphans stealing from your shop, do you?”

  “I recall a time – not so long ago – when you were one of those orphans.” The baker looked up from the shaggy pile of dough he was working. “I suppose it’s an improvement you brought it back instead of taking it for yourself. Are you being well taken care-of, then?”

  The man’s reaction put Ponto on his heels; he’d always imagined the baker as a nemesis, one of the many food vendors who cursed orphans and the poor for stealing his wares. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled, his eyes glued to his feet. “Elysa and Priest Itan are making sure I’m fed. They’re teaching me how to be a death priest. But not one of the bad ones – I’m going to make sure no one uses our souls for… evil things.”

  “And your lessons involve stealing food from girls?” the baker asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “No, sir. Not the death priest lessons, at least. Elysa calls this a bein’ good lesson.”

  The old man sighed, a pained look crossing his face. “Okay, come with me.” He brushed his hands against his apron, leaving white splotches of flour.

  Ponto followed him around the large oven that dominated the space; he was surprised to find there was a significant amount of room behind, filled with several shelves of bread. They came to a stop at one of the racks toward the back, piled high with mismatched loaves.

  The baker put a hand on the rack. “This is where I put the bread that’s not good for sale. Some of it’s gone old, some of it’s misshapen, some of it got burned. Does any of it look familiar to you?”

  “No, sir. It looks like the bread I’ve seen out front.”

  A smile slowly spread on the man’s face. “Exactly. A lesson I learned decades ago: if the children think they’re getting one over on me, they’ll take this bread happily. If I try to offer it to them, they mistrust it. They look for something better.”

  “So it’s a trick?”

  “In a sense. Even the best bakers have some amount of waste. Some of my guild friends have arrangements with farmers, some of them – the ones who have it harder off – save what can’t be sold for their families, and some of them choose to give it to the less fortunate.” He paused, studying Ponto’s reaction. “Haven’t you ever noticed some bakers will hand-wrap each loaf before tossing it behind their store?”

  A rush of embarrassment swept over Ponto. “I just figured they did that for selling and never bothered to undo it.”

  “Well, now you know the great secret of bakers of Jaruna: we aren’t enemies of the poor. Most of us try to help, in our own small ways. Does that make you feel better?”

  Ponto squeezed the half-loaf in his left hand, staring at it as some loose crumbs fell. “I feel both. Better about having taken loaves before, worse about taking this from the girl. I gave her a few coppers, though. That makes it better, right?”

  The baker shook his head. “I cannot absolve you of crimes against another. You’ll have to ask the girl.”

  “I will,” Ponto said.

  “And, if I may, please don’t share this secret with anyone else. I do what I can, but if word got out I’m afraid I would soon find my shelves empty.”

  “I won’t tell anyone. Promise.”

  “Good man. If your newfound luck runs out, come find me. My son went and got himself enlisted as an ambassador to the young king, so I could use a new apprentice.”

  Ponto nodded. He made his way back through the store, his mind reeling with the implications of what the baker had shared.

  It was nearly mid-day by the time he arrived back at the temple. Heck and Padme – two other orphans who had recently begun their death priest training – were in the main room, eyes screwed up in concentration as they stared into nothingness.

  Ponto knew that expression well. He had spent several months in a similar pose, struggling to discern the faint glow of a soul in the midst of the light of the real world. He noticed Heck’s fingers were nearly touching one. It wouldn’t be long until he got it.

  Despite his apprehension, he approached Heck. “You’re nearly there,” he said. “You just have to concentrate a little harder.”

  A stiff arm knocked him down. “Shut up, Ponto! You think you’re so good, huh?”

  He scrambled to his feet, raising his fists for an attack that didn’t come. Instead, something within him gave way; he collapsed in a convulsive fit, his face smacking against the hard stone floor. Moments later he was lost to the world – try as he might, he couldn’t convince his limbs to obey him.

  “Elysa!” Padme shouted. “It’s happening again!” Ponto heard her run off, but since his spasm had him facing the floor he couldn’t be sure where to.

  Sweat filmed on his skin as his arms writhed. Death take me, he thought. The thought was a long time in forming, delayed as his mind seized along with his body.

  Elysa’s voice cut through the hold on his mind. “Hush now, child. You have taken souls within you. I can feel it. You must force them to your weakened limbs, just as you took them into yourself.”

  He struggled to do as she said. It was hard to get a grasp on the two souls within him; they fought his will, rebelling against what he planned to do. Strong hands flipped him onto his side, tightening on his arms and legs to keep him still.

  With a snarl, he forced one of the souls to obey. He felt a current of cold run through his veins as the light of the soul went out. His legs ceased their twitching. The other succumbed soon after, its light extinguishing to silence the rest of his muscles.

  Ponto’s eyes twitched open. Until that moment, he hadn’t been aware of closing them. He sought out Elysa. “How long?”

  “Not long. A quarter hour, perhaps. Less than a third as long as your last one.”

  Priest Itan – who had been the one to pin his limbs down – released him, helping him find his feet. “What did you do?” he asked, his voice quiet with concern. “I felt something within you go dark. It… wasn’t pleasant.”

  Elysa answered for him. “He has eased the suffering of a pair of feral souls. They longed for an end, and he gave it to them.”

  A dark emotion flashed through Itan’s eyes. Ponto would have sworn the only thing stopping him from attacking Elysa was the grip he had on the boy’s back. A grip he relinquished moments later. “I’m glad you are okay,” he said stiffly, retreating to the temple’s second floor.

  “More than okay, I would say,” Elysa said. “I bet it will be some time before your next attack of that kind. With time and repetition of this exercise, you may even be cured entirely.”

  Ponto glanced from her to the staircase where Priest Itan had disappeared, then to the ground. At some point in his thrashing, he’d squashed the half-loaf that he’d taken from the girl earlier. “I don’t think the souls wanted to do that,” he said.

  Elysa frowned sympathetically. “Come with me.” She guided him away from Heck and Padme, both of whom avoided Ponto’s eyes.

  Outside of the temple – in front of the tomato garden – she turned to face him. “I know how you must be feeling. Similar doubts plagued me after my first experience with the power you wielded moments ago. I will ask you but a few questions that I hope will assuage your guilt. First, were those souls not suffering before you made a home of your body for them?”

  Ponto hesitated, then nodded.

  “Yes, of course they were. Even Itan would not dispute that. Second, did they not become a part of you during their time with you?”

  Ponto nodded again.

  “And must not the part yield itself to the whole? If you had a third arm and you could chop it off to be rid of your affliction, would you not do so?”

  “I’d cut off an arm to be cured, extra or not.”

  Elysa chuckled. “Thankfully, you will not need to take such extreme measures. But there you have it. You gave them a renewed purpose. Without you, they were as nothing. But as a part of you, their ending had meaning. That’s nothing to cry about, is it?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “Very good. I’m glad you agree. Now, how did your assignment go? Were you able to find others to share the word about this place?”

  Ponto chewed at his bottom lip. The baker had asked him not to share his secret, but he felt telling Elysa wasn’t a betrayal of that trust. Elysa was good – she would be glad to hear the orphans were being taken care of by others.

  “I caught a girl stealing bread,” he said, “And I… I took some of it from her. Told her she could find food and shelter here.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t know if she trusted me. So then I tried to take the bread I took back to the baker, but I don’t think he wanted it. He showed me a bunch of extras he keeps for orphans like me, said he puts them out front in case we decide to grab something. Even asked if I wanted to be his apprentice.”

  Elysa’s eyes narrowed for the briefest moment, replaced almost immediately by an encouraging smile. “How kind of him. And how trusting to share his secret with you. Would you show me where this bakery is? I would like to thank him for his generosity in person.”

  Ponto led Elysa to the bakery, waiting outside as she spoke with the baker. At first he felt bad about revealing the secret, but Elysa’s praise was so loud he heard it outside the store. They clasped wrists, the baker’s eyes misting over at something Elysa had said.

  She reappeared a few minutes later and asked Ponto to join her on her rounds of the city. “Today you know everything you need to know about death priest-ery,” she said. “It’s time you learned a bit more about caring for your fellow man.”

  They visited the middens; Elysa stopped at each shack lining its edge, addressing the inhabitants by name and asking after their family’s health. One man who was twice as tall as Ponto complained of a dislocated shoulder. Elysa sized him up and pressed one hand against it. Blue light flashed – a similar shade to soul-light – dissipating into his arm. The man tested the range of motion, a look of wonder crossing his face when he found the pain gone.

  “No doubt you are wondering,” Elysa said as they left the middens, “Whether the power I used on that man was the same as you used to conquer your spasms.”

  Ponto nodded at a questioning look from her.

  “It’s a similar power, but one that requires significantly more mastery. A soul that is inside your body gradually becomes a piece of you, as you have experienced. But once it has found a new home, it will be loath to leave it. The further you would project the power, the more effort it requires. And the less you will be able to accomplish with that power. I flatter myself to think I am one of the few masters of this power in all of Accalia, but working on others I can do little beyond mending broken bones and cuts. Anything more leaves me exhausted for several days.”

  They continued on, Elysa leading the way toward a section of the city Ponto wasn’t familiar with. He knew it belonged to the nobles; before his mother had passed, she’d warned him never to go begging in that section of the city unless he wanted to end up in a cell.

  “That man only had a hurt arm,” he said, gathering up his courage. “Did he really need magic to heal him? He probably would have gotten better himself.”

  “Perhaps,” Elysa answered. “But he has three little ones who depend on him. If he was out of work for even a week, some of them might have ended up on the street.” Her pace slowed. “You are wondering how this fits into the questions I posed to you earlier?”

  “Yes, Miss Elysa.”

  “You may not be ready to hear it yet. But I will share my thinking with you and maybe you’ll come to understand it with time. Those around us are little different from ourselves. If they had the time and aptitude, they might learn how to wield the same power. If so, they would be able to take souls into themselves, and be faced with the same choice you faced earlier: whether to sacrifice the part to maintain the whole. No doubt they would choose the same as you and I.

  “And so, who are we to deny them such a choice simply because we have been fortunate enough to be gifted with both time and aptitude? Once you realize those who seek your help are no different from you, the choice of whether to help them becomes easy. Do you understand?”

  “I think I do,” Ponto said.

  Elysa laughed, tussled his hair. “No, you don’t. Someday, perhaps.” She continued on to the noble estates, leaving Ponto to wait behind the gate of a two-story mansion. Once she emerged, she guided him back to the temple and left him to the afternoon’s lessons.

  Supper that night was a dull affair. Heck and Padme barely spoke to Ponto – through jealousy of the attention he’d gotten from Elysa or for some other reason, he didn’t know. Priest Itan had withdrawn into himself, saying few words to anyone.

  And so Ponto had little to distract from the tasteless gruel they had prepared. He hunted for burnt bits of rice in his bowl; the charred flavor was bitter and strong, but at least it served as a contrast to the relative tastelessness of the dish.

  Deep bells rang out, interrupting their meal. Priest Itan shot to his feet. “Stay here,” he commanded, heading into the street. The three orphans shared a look before scrambling after him.

  Out in the street, it was easy to see what had provoked the bells. Dark smoke rose over a nearby section of the city, fading from black to gray before disappearing into the night sky. Priest Itan ran toward the source, joining a group of men forming a hasty bucket brigade.