"We told Lark and Niko," replied Sandry, hiding her face in Tris's hair as a pirate killed a novice close by.
"Aymery?" Tris asked Briar.
He shook his head. If she hadn't seen, he didn't want to be the one to tell -
The air filled with a powerful glow that made even their magical barrier turn dim, leaving no shadows, no area where mischief could be worked unseen, no place to run. That was Niko. Frostpine and Lark revealed their presence when cloaks, necklaces, bracelets all came to life, twining around pirate arms and legs, tripping and wrapping, hobbling. Swords jumped into the air on their own, to come down hilt-first on pirate heads. Within seconds, the invaders were disarmed and surrendering, their hands in the air. The attack was over.
Lark, Frostpine and Niko approached the barrier, and the children let it down. "Are you all right?" Lark demanded. "What happened? How did you come here? Where -"
Tris looked around frantically. She'd seen her cousin knocked flying after he'd punched her, right before she'd blacked out.
Aymery lay near a giant tree that had lost all its leaves. Moaning, she went to him, streaming tiny lightnings as she ran, making the air hiss as she passed. Putting her ear by his open mouth, trying to hear him breathe, she rested a hand in the middle of a huge soggy patch just under his breastbone. It came away almost black in the over-brilliant light that Niko had made, black and rippling with tiny sparks. Speechless with horror, she stared at her cousin's face. He stared back, dark eyes wide and unblinking, looking not so much terrified as surprised.
Tris began to rock, small bits of lightning jumping from her to him. She wanted him to wake up. She wanted him to stop scaring her. "How dare you hit me!" she cried, and pummelled him.
No one wanted to touch her. Even Niko was reluctant to venture near the fiery darts that played around Tris. Sandry was just as afraid as anyone else: Tris was scary now. She was also in pain. Afraid or not, Sandry couldn't let that continue. Making herself take first one step, then another, she approached her friend. Steeling herself to actually put a hand on Tris's shoulder was a little harder, but she did it.
The lightnings played around her hand, tickling her skin. Her hair struggled to rise out of its braids.
Tris looked up at Sandry, her eyes red and puffy. Then she took a deep breath, and held it. Releasing it, she breathed in again. The lightnings faded, then vanished. With a sigh of relief, Sandry put both arms around her friend.
"It was for money," Tris muttered into Sandry's nightgown. "He said they enslaved him, but he didn't seem to mind. He was going to let everyone die for, for gold."
Daja and Briar heard this as they came over. "That's what jishen do," said the Trader grimly.
Sandry and Briar tugged the redhead to her feet, and turned her away from Aymery's body. "Let's go home," Sandry whispered.
"I think it's for the best," Niko said quietly. "There's a lot of sorting-out to be done here." He had come over to talk to them by himself. Lark was already helping wounded dedicates to the temple steps; Frostpine was helping a dedicate in red to round up all of the prisoners. "I'll speak with you later - Moonstream and Skyfire, too, in all likelihood. For now, you should go. We need to get this gate repaired," he said loudly, walking towards the dedicate working with Frostpine.
Daja tugged on Tris's arm. "Leave him," she said, meaning Aymery. "He would have made slaves of us all."
Tris shook her off gently. Kneeling, she unclasped the earring from her cousin's flesh. Then she let her friends lead her home.
Even there, she had little peace for the next two hours. The four had to explain matters to their teachers, and to the dedicate who had been in charge of the North Gate guard. From the dedicate-guard they learned that the spell-net which protected the temple walls had been left inactivated along the north road, so nearly fifty villagers could reach Winding Circle. Now the guards suspected that the villagers were dead or enslaved by the pirates, who had come ashore and made their way around Winding Circle's protections, to seize just this chance.
The story was told again, after a groggy Moonstream and Skyfire examined Aymery's belongings. By then, Tris had heard Briar tell of Aymery's death, and the mist that she had blown out of the northern part of Winding Circle had returned. When she heard the clock tower's fog-muffled bells strike two in the morning, she retreated to her room to sleep.
Chapter Eleven
The starling woke Tris, squalling for breakfast. The people in Discipline were still asleep as she staggered down to warm milk and honey for her bird. Little Bear, hardly able to walk in a straight line after his drugged supper, had to be let outside. Tris waited until he came back, then closed the door against the fog that still clung to everything.
An hour later, Tris lurched downstairs again to feed the nestling meat-and-egg paste balls and water. She began to think she would have done better to drown him. Any worries she had about making him ill through ignorance had evaporated. No dying creature possessed such lungs.
When he woke her for a third time, she gave up. She cleaned her teeth and dressed, then went to heat his goat's milk and honey. There were signs that someone else had been up, made tea, drunk it and gone. Sticking her head in Lark's workroom, she saw that both Lark and Niko were missing - the chair-bed and the pallet on the floor were empty.
Stopping now and then to feel Aymery's earring, tucked into a shirt-pocket, Tris drew water from the well and set it to boil. She washed the juice and tea cups left by their after-midnight visitors, started the porridge and put more tea-water on, and dusted the main room. She lost herself in small chores, keeping grief at bay as well as she could.