A Court for Thieves. Морган Райс

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СКАЧАТЬ upon the world!” the masked nun called. “You leave here shaped into boys and girls ready to serve the world as you are required. This one sought to run before her indenture. She took years of safety and instruction here, and she tried to run from what it costs!”

      Because what it cost was the rest of the orphans’ lives, spent indentured to whoever could afford the cost of their upbringing. They might theoretically be able to repay the cost, but how many did that, and what did they suffer in the years it took them?

      “This one should have been indentured days ago!” the masked nun said, pointing. “Well, tomorrow, she will be. She will be sold as the ungrateful wretch that she is, and there will be no easy time for her now. There will be no kind men looking for a bought wife, or nobles looking for a servant.”

      That was what passed for a fine life, an easy life, in this place. Sophia hated that fact almost as much as she hated the people there. She hated the thought of what might happen to her too. She’d been about to become the wife of a prince, and now…

      “The only ones who will want a wicked thing like this,” Sister O’Venn said, “are cruel men with crueler aims. This girl brought it upon herself, and now she will go where she must.”

      “Where you choose to send me!” Sophia countered, because she could see from the masked nun’s thoughts that she had sent for the worst people she could think of. There was a kind of torment just in being able to see that. She looked around again at each of the masked nuns there, trying to stare through the veils to reach the women beneath.

      “I’m only going to people like that because you choose to send me. You choose to indenture us. You sell us as though we’re nothing!”

      “You are nothing,” Sister O’Venn said, shoving the dowel back into Sophia’s mouth.

      Sophia glared at her, reaching out to try to find some speck of humanity somewhere in there. There was nothing that she could find, only cruelty masquerading as necessary firmness, and evil pretending to be duty, without even real belief behind it. Sister O’Venn just liked to hurt the weak.

      She hurt Sophia then, and there was nothing Sophia could do except scream.

      She threw herself against the ropes, trying to tear free, or at least find some iota of room in which to escape the scourge ripping out penitence from her. There was nothing she could do, though, except scream, begging mutely into the wood she bit into while her power sent her screams out into the city, hoping that her sister would hear them somewhere in Ashton.

      There was no reply except the steady whistle of braided leather through the air and the slap of it against her bloodied back. The masked nun beat her with a seemingly interminable strength, long past the point where Sophia’s legs could hold her up, and past the point where she even had the strength left to scream.

      At some point after that, she must have passed out, but that made no difference. By that point, even Sophia’s nightmares were things of violence, bringing back old dreams of a burning house and men she had to outrun. When she came back to herself, they were done, the others long gone.

      Still tied in place, Sophia wept while the rain washed away the blood of her beating. It would have been easy to believe that it couldn’t get worse, except that it could.

      It could get so much worse.

      And tomorrow, it would.

      CHAPTER TWO

      Kate stood above Ashton and watched it burn. She had thought that she would be happy to see it gone, but this wasn’t just the House of the Unclaimed or the spaces where the dock workers kept their barges.

      This was everything.

      Wood and thatch caught light, and Kate could feel the terror of the people there within the wide circle of houses. Cannon roared over the screams of the dying, and Kate saw swathes of buildings falling as easily as if they were made from paper. Blunderbusses sounded, while arrows filled the air so thickly it was hard to see the sky beyond them. They fell, and Kate walked through the rain of them with the strange, detached calm that could only come from being in a dream.

      No, not a dream. This was more than that.

      Whatever the powers of Siobhan’s fountain, they ran through Kate now, and she saw death all around her. Horses ran through the streets, riders cutting downward with sabers and backswords. Screams came from all around her until they seemed to fill the city as surely as the fire did. Even the river appeared to be on fire now, although as Kate looked, she saw that it was the barges that filled the broad expanse of it, fire leaping from one to another as men fought to get clear. Kate had been on a barge, and she could guess at how terrifying those flames must be.

      There were figures running through the streets, and it was easy to tell the difference between the panicked citizens of the city and the figures in ochre-colored uniforms who followed with blades, hacking at them as they ran. Kate had never seen the sack of a city before, but this was something awful. It was violence for the sake of it, with no sign of stopping.

      There were lines of refugees beyond the city now, heading out with whatever possessions they could carry in long rows heading out into the rest of the country. Would they seek refuge in the Ridings or go further, out to towns like Treford or Barriston?

      Then Kate saw the riders bearing down on them, and she knew that they wouldn’t make it that far. There was fire at the back of them, though, so there was nowhere to run. What would it be like to be caught like that?

      She knew, though, didn’t she?

      The scene shifted, and now Kate knew that she wasn’t looking at something that might be, but something that had been. She knew this dream, because it was one that she had far too often. She was in an old house, a grand house, and there was danger coming.

      There was something different this time though. There were people there, and Kate looked up at them from so far below that she knew she must have been tiny. There was a man there, looking worried but strong in a nobleman’s velvet, hastily thrown on, and a curled black wig discarded in his rush to deal with the situation, revealing cropped gray hair below. The woman with him was lovely but disheveled, as if it normally took her an hour to dress with the aid of servants and now she’d done it in minutes. She had a kind look to her, and Kate reached out to her, not understanding why the woman didn’t pick her up, when that was what she usually did.

      “There’s no time,” the man said. “And if we all try to break free, they will just follow. We need to go separately.”

      “But the children – ” the woman began. Kate knew now without being told that this was her mother.

      “They will be safer away from us,” her father said. He turned to a servant, and Kate recognized her nurse. “You need to get them out, Anora. Take them somewhere safe, where no one will know them. We will find them when this madness is done.”

      Kate saw Sophia then, looking far too young, but also looking ready to argue. Kate knew that look far too well.

      “No,” their mother said. “You have to go, both of you. There is no time. Run, my darlings.” There was a crash from somewhere else in the house. “Run.”

      Kate was running then, her hand held firmly in Sophia’s. There was a crash, but she didn’t look back. She just kept going, out along corridors, pausing only to hide as shadowy figures passed. They ran until they found an open set of windows, heading out of the house, out into the darkness…

      Kate СКАЧАТЬ