It wasn’t her first memory, just the first to arrive. Geneve felt it slot into place like a wooden piece from a child’s puzzle. It had the same bright, lacquered edges children love, painted in brilliant vermilion.
She stood in a town square. Or above it: her feet were on wooden planks, coarse cut and rude. To her left and right were the tall faces of her fellow slaves. Tall, because she was five, but for all she was young she felt something was terribly wrong.
A slave to her right was Feybrind. Worn, faded pelt. Patchy, because even they got old. Emerald green eyes undimmed by time, because the People weren’t made to cower. Her name was Time of Waiting, and she’d volunteered to be here, because Geneve’s mother wasn’t.
No, that wasn’t right. Geneve’s mother was below in the square. Her throat was cut ear to ear, lending more dramatic red to the sea of it soaking the cobbles. Sightless eyes searched for everything and nothing. Her hand clutched the air, clawed it, trying to work a way back to life, but her time was done.
{Don’t look,} Time of Waiting said. {Don’t see.}
To Geneve’s right stood a pale-haired woman, terrible as Cophine, final as Khiton. She held glass in one hand. A circle of empty lay about her, a perfect margin scribed in the bodies of the dead. The dead wore mail. Their fallen weapons were cut, shattered, and bent, as if they’d been thrown by a giant to break against a wall. Her name was Vertiline, but then-Geneve borrowed that name from now-Geneve.
The slaves with Geneve on the auctioneer’s stand were frightened. They tugged at their chains, striving for freedom. Doom approached, and the doom was a dark amber-skinned man with hard, unforgiving eyes. He held a massive glass sword, his Tresward armor gleaming in the afternoon sun.
When he looked on Geneve, his eyes softened, and she wondered why she cried.
* * *
Geneve’s next memory was years earlier. One of her first, perhaps when she was two or three. She was in a small house. Not poor, nor fancy, but for servants. A great lord owned this place, and her mother was one of his lady’s attendants.
Her mother held the giant, dark amber-skinned man close. This time, he wore no armor and carried no sword. His eyes were softer than before, and so very warm. But sad, and also afraid. Geneve didn’t know why, but it made her want to hide her face.
The big man crouched. “I’m—”
“Don’t tell her,” her mother warned. “For your sake, and hers. The Tresward don’t have children. It’s forbidden.”
The man tousled Geneve’s hair, then rose. “It’s not forbidden, Elvige. It’s impossible. Our girl is a miracle.”
“Still.”
“Still,” he agreed.
Her mother—Elvige—sighed. “You must help us.”
He frowned. “How?”
“Come away with us.”
“I can’t leave the Tresward.” His words were like stone, heavy and unbreakable.
“But you can leave your daughter?”
“It’s different.”
“That’s right,” snapped Elvige. “It’s different because it’s wrong. It’s fine to turn your back on those who need you, and serve those who don’t.”
“I’m not—”
“Because it’s evil,” she hissed. “What would your Tresward say if they knew?”
* * *
Another memory, playing in the sun with the big man. His eyes were kind, but shadowed, like he was so very tired. Elvige was the same: always tired, always on edge.
* * *
{You learn fast,} said Time of Waiting. {Perhaps you should become one of the People.} Emerald green eyes sparked with humor.
{I can’t be a cat,} Geneve laughed. {I’m too little.}
{Size doesn’t change perfection.} The Feybrind’s eyes left her for a moment, and Geneve felt cold. {Hush now.}
The lord walked toward them. No, not them, but their house. Geneve and Time of Waiting played outside, while the man opened the door. He considered Geneve for a moment before entering. She remembered him as ancient, over a hundred years old, but that wasn’t right. He was a little older than Elvige.
The door shut, but Geneve didn’t forget. The lord came to their house many more times. Ten. Twenty. A hundred? She didn’t know how to count, but a hundred sounded right. It was a big enough number.
Whenever he came, Time of Waiting played with her. Geneve didn’t know what her mother did while she learned handspeak.
* * *
She was five again. Elvige was dismissed. Her mother cried a lot. She said they didn’t have enough regals, or even barons.
There was no money. Elvige’s face was old and tired, cracked by hardship. The big man didn’t come any more.
* * *
It was the morning of the auction. She was in a cage. It was hard and cold. Others were with her, including Time of Waiting. They were to be sold for coin. All were unwanted, castoffs, worthy of a handful of regals at best.
Her mother sobbed fifteen meters away but took the money anyway.
* * *
Before the auction, Geneve had iron clasped around her thin wrists. She’d kicked the man who’d bound her and got a slap for her troubles. The iron around her wrists was so heavy she couldn’t raise her arms. They’d padded it with sheepskin because her wrists were smaller than anyone else’s. Maybe they didn’t put children on the platform very often.
Her mother was below her, arguing with the big man. His armor was sun-bright, brilliant, radiant. Geneve wondered where he’d been. A pale-haired woman stood at his side. Her face was young, teeth bared. “Iz, what’s going on?”
“Is this your new whore?” her mother spat. “Is this why you never came back?”
“I wasn’t allowed.” The large man looked at Geneve. “This stops now.”
Her mother cackled a broken smile. “They won’t get the money back.”
“Perhaps both of us share enough evil for the world,” the big man mused.
“Iz,” said the pale-haired woman. “We can’t be here.”
“That’s right.” He swung toward Geneve, climbing the steps toward her. She remembered the way his armor hurt to look on, how bright it was, how perfectly he walked.
A guard made to stop him, and fell, broken. Geneve didn’t understand how it happened. One minute the guard was alive, hand out, face hard, then he was gone, a tumble of limbs that didn’t work anymore.
Someone in the crowd screamed. Someone threw something. It flew fast and true. The big man drew his sword fast as thought and cut down the missile. Two halves of a crossbow bolt landed at Geneve’s feet.
The big man stood before. “I want just this one!”
Geneve didn’t remember what happened next. She didn’t want to.
* * *
The cart to the Tresward chapel took a long, winding path through cold countryside. The pale-haired woman left her with the big man. She rode on ahead, to “fix this tremendous fuck-up.”
The big man nodded, his eyes back to being happy and sad. Geneve rode beside him, the cart’s seat smoother than the slaver’s docks had been beneath her feet. “Are you a Knight?”
“Perhaps,” he said. “I thought so.”
“What are you now?”
“I’m your father.” He glanced at the sky, looking for rain. “I’m Israel.”
* * *
Another man met them on the road. He wore white robes, a silver sash with nine bars across his chest. Israel stepped from the wagon, walking to meet the newcomer.
Geneve remembered how deeply Israel bowed. So low, his forehead touched the wet and muddy ground. “Cleric Justiciar Ambrose.”
“Israel.” Ambrose held a hand out for Israel’s. “Who’s this?”
“This is Geneve.” Israel sighed. “She’s my daughter.”
“Impossible.”
“And yet,” Israel said, neither agreeing or arguing.
Ambrose answered Israel’s sigh with a heavier one. Bigger, and full of weary sight of the future. “I can help you.” At Israel’s startled look, the Cleric Justiciar held up a placating hand. “She must never know.”
“What do you mean?” Israel’s voice broke on the last word. Geneve thought she knew why. He’d done so much to get here.
“I mean exactly that. You can’t be her father, Chevalier. You’re a Knight of the Tresward. You must think of the Three above all else. But she can join us. We’ll protect her.”
Israel clenched his hands. “You want her to become a Cleric?”
“No. She will be a Knight, like her father. To protect the land. Its people, under the Three’s protection. Perhaps, even, to undo some of your terrible … mistakes.” Ambrose said the last word like killing people was an accident.
“What of me?”
“She must never know you, Israel.”
“But—”
Ambrose held aloft a small crystal on a silver chain. “This will keep a piece of her separate. Everything from this moment back, to the time of her birth. It will be as if she’s made anew in the Three’s eyes, and in their service.”
Israel’s throat worked. “But she will never know … me?”
“Never.” Geneve thought she saw a curl of malice in the old man’s face, quickly gone, or maybe never there in the first place. “But she’ll live. And so will you. This is the line of our secret. You, and me, and the child. We take her memories. Does anyone else know?”
Geneve thought of the pale-haired woman, thinking to speak, but Israel shook his head. “No one else, Justiciar.”
“Then it is done.” Ambrose strode to the wagon, holding a hand for Geneve. She took it, joining the Justiciar on the muddy road. The dirt didn’t cling to his robes. Her feet were muddy and small beside his. He crouched low, holding the necklace before her eyes. “It’ll be our little secret.”
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