Antiphon by Ken Scholes Page B

this time, he saw the woman who spoke. Her close-cropped hair was blonde, and the cuttings upon her flesh were similar to those upon the woman he watched over.
    “We know you see us, Abomination, despite our magicks,” she said as her smile widened. “And we see you as well, there in your glass cave.”
    It is the stone.
Somehow, the count had escaped him, and he still held his finger to it. Neb yanked back his hand and scowled down at the carving.
    What had he just seen? And was it real? Mechoservitors in dark, forgotten places who spoke of dream tamps. The ghost of his dead father warning him of runners in the Wastes—something Neb already knew, in an uncharacteristic prophetic failure. And a Winters who no longer wore the mourning hope of her promised home.
    And what had the woman in the Wastes called him?
Abomination.
    He tucked the book into his pouch alongside the flask, but for the longest time he sat and stared at the carving, suddenly unwilling to touch it again.
    Finally, he scooped it up into a bit of cloth and tipped it into his pouch as well.
    Then, he settled back against the wall, his thorn rifle across his lap. Beyond his cave, a kin-wolf bayed beneath a rising moon. Behind him, the scarred woman whimpered and cried out in her sleep at whatever darkness rode her dreams.
Jin Li Tam

    Jin Li Tam sheathed her knives and wiped the sweat from her face and neck. The evenings grew cooler now as the winds picked up, sweeping south from the Dragon’s Spine. With the sky still purple from the setting sun, she felt that breeze now as it kissed her wet skin.
    Taking in a great lungful of lavender and roses, she tested herself to see if the evening’s knife dance had settled her.
    Yes,
she realized,
I feel better.
    After the audience with Ria and her evangelists, Jin had left Jakob with Rudolfo and stormed away to rage privately for an hour. But it had not been enough. In the end, between breaks spent feeding Jakob, a run and a dance or two with the knives had dulled the anger as she suspected it might. There was a time when she would not have known that about herself, but there was also a time when she wouldn’t have realized that she went to anger first when she became afraid.
    She was there in the room with Rudolfo for hours biding her time.
How long had she hidden there? How much had she heard? And had she hidden in other rooms, too? Was she here now, watching? She felt another stab of anger.
    Jin Li Tam took another breath. Then, she looked to the house. The windows were lit now, beckoning, and she found the one she knew belonged to Rudolfo. No doubt, he sat in his study and took dinner in the midst of reports and messages to digest and respond to.
    She set out for the manor and paused near the edge of the Whymer Maze. Faint footfalls reached her ears, and she saw a young woman emerge from it. Winters, she realized, no doubt returning from Hanric’s Rest at the center of the maze, near the Whymer meditation bench.
    There is much to meditate upon.
    Jin whistled the low, soft note of a Gypsy Scout on alert.
    Winters looked up, startled. “Lady Tam,” she said.
    Jin stopped. The look upon the girl’s face was consternation and fear. To a degree, it made sense—Ria claimed to be her older sister, thought dead in infancy, and certainly by now Rudolfo had told her about their magicked guest. Still, she had to ask. “Are you okay, Winters?”
    The girl shook her head, and for a moment, Jin thought she might burst into tears. “I don’t think I am. I failed my people. And I think I saw Neb.”
    Neb?
Jin Li Tam looked around. “You think Neb is home?”
    Winters took a deep breath. “No, not like that.” She swallowed. “More like a dream. He was in a cave made of glass. There was a woman with him. Only, he didn’t look like himself. His hair’s too long, and he’s too gaunt. He looked at me and said my name, and then he was gone.”
    Jin knew the two of them had somehow shared dreams together before