Sunshield

by Emily B. Martin

  She drops my sleeve like it’s poison, steps back, and slings her sword toward my face. I’m still in a half crouch, and if she hadn’t had the decency to give an angry yell, she probably would have landed her blade right between my eyes. But her roar startles me, and I haul my buckler impulsively to block my face, bracing against the impact.

  “Hey!” I shout, scrambling to find my feet. “What’s wrong with—”

  She swings around again, and this time, I pull my sword out in time to lock her hilt in mine, hoping to wrench it out of her grasp. But just as I clamp my hand over her wrist, I’m hit with an intense, unmistakable smell, rippling off her clothes. The stink of guano.

  Without warning, a memory floods my unguarded mind.

  Clouds of little black bodies streaming out from cracks in the rocks, cheeping, swooping, their calls not quite drowning out gasps of pain, the ragged grind of a bow saw. The reek of ammonia mixed with the thick scent of blood and sweat and liquor.

  I suck in a breath at the rush of vivid sights and sounds that awful smell has conjured. I drop her wrist and leap back, our swords disentangling with a metallic whine.

  “Utzibor?” I say without thinking.

  She grits her teeth and readies her sword again, but I don’t wait to parry her strike. I wedge my foot in Jema’s stirrup and slap her rump before I’ve thrown my other leg over. She starts forward, her hoofbeats clamoring with the string of Moquoian curses the traveler is shouting. I glance back over my shoulder—the woman is yelling with her fist in the air.

  I don’t even care why—perhaps she recognized my tattoos and realized who I am, but all I can focus on is the ugly memories dredged up by that smell. My stomach boils with a misplaced sense of dread. I whip back around and urge Jema faster. We break from the scrub and out into the sage flats.

  Sure enough, Rat is hopping around the girth of a dun-colored mule, its reins dangling freely. For a brief second I consider scaring the mule farther away, or even taking it with me, to keep the woman off my tail, but I’m overridden by the desperate desire to get far away from that stench and the sick memories it’s brought with it. I whistle to Rat and kick Jema into a canter, veering north for the distant road.

  Utzibor. Nothing good happens at Utzibor, nothing, nothing, nothing.

  I just want to be back home.

  Veran

  I clatter down the hallway, unsteady but rushed—my shave and hairstyling took longer than I anticipated, and I’m running late. The Bakkonso Ball starts in just under fifteen minutes. I’m a little surprised Eloise didn’t come find me—it probably means she’s sitting expectantly in her parlor, ready to give me an earful.

  I rap on her door and stand back. But there’s no call from inside or quick rattle of the doorknob. I wait, shifting on my blisters.

  I knock again. “Eloise?”

  There’s a tread of approaching feet, and the door swings open to reveal Rou, holding a mug. His collar’s undone, and his face is stoic.

  “Oh good, you’re here,” he says. He hands me the mug. “Hang on to that while I hunt down a fresh pot.”

  “What?” I ask as he sweeps past me. “Is Eloise ready? We should be heading to the ballroom.”

  “She can’t go,” he says. “She’s not feeling well.”

  His grave tone makes my stomach plunge, but then Eloise calls from the other room. “I’m fine, Papa, don’t get everyone worked up! Veran, come here!”

  Rou hurries away down the hall, and I turn for the bedroom. Eloise is propped up in bed, her hair wrapped in her silk bonnet. A small caravan of mugs waits on the bedside table.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, adding the mug Rou gave me to its fellows.

  “It’s nothing. Just sniffles from all the damp.” She waves at the window, streaked as always with rain. “And you know how Papa is. He thinks every hiccup is consumption. I’m fine.”

  My thoughts fly to the reports of rainshed fever, despite her windows being sealed shut. “Are you sure?”

  She nods and sips from one of her mugs. “I’m more irritated than anything—I wanted to go to the ball.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell you all about it.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t really care about the dancing. But I wanted to start trying to clear things up with Iano, now that we know some of what’s bothering him.”

  I’d filled Eloise in on the attack on the previous ashoki and Iano’s apparent persisting shock. I’d left out my confusion about the involvement of the Sunshield Bandit, as well as the extent of my failure with Minister Kobok, only telling her that he’d declined to share his colors with us and leaving out the part where he suspected we were only here to frame him for having a hand in her sister’s abduction fifteen years ago.

  Eloise sips from her mug. “It’s no matter, I suppose—Papa’s not going to let me out of bed as long as I’m sniffly. You’ll just have to do it instead. Try to get him alone, if it’s possible. Tell him that we’re sorry for his grief, but that we had nothing to do with the attack—and then make it clear that if we can go through with some of our original agreements, we can bring the desert bandits to justice. Emphasize that especially—building the Ferinno Road could stamp out not just slavery, but banditry, too.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I say hesitantly. Already my stomach is turning anxiously at the thought of attempting such a verbal dance on my own, particularly after my debacle with Kobok.

  “I know you will. Come right up after the dance—I want all the details.” She coughs, delicately at first, but then it deepens. She turns her head away—I grab for her teetering mug as her chest spasms.

  “Ugh.” She takes a deep breath, pressing her palm to her chest.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be all right?” I ask.

  “I’ll be fine with some rest. Too much running around.”

  “Have you considered . . .” I begin hesitantly. “It’s just . . . that fever, you know.”

  “I’m not feverish,” she says with finality. “And I’ve kept my windows shut, just like they told us to. I’m just run-down. I’ll be fine in a few days.”

  She takes her mug back and savors a sip. “Why don’t you go on—you’re going to be late enough as it is. Papa should be along shortly if I can convince him I’ll survive the hour.”

  The door to the hall swings open, followed by Rou’s voice. “Eloise?”

  “Still alive, Papa,” She rolls her eyes at me, but I can’t help noticing the rattle in her breath. I bite back a comment, though, and get up as Rou comes in with a fresh pitcher of steaming water to add to the flock of undrunk tisanes on the bedside table. I slip out as quietly as my shoes allow as he swoops down to check her forehead and throat and pupils, plying her with endless questions.

  I hurry through the atrium and down the staircase, clutching the rail all the while, my thoughts back up with Eloise. I hope she’s right, that whatever she has is just a passing illness. Surely if she had been exposed to the mosquito-borne fever, others in the palace would have been, too, and then the place would be in a panic.

  Right?

  I’m so distracted I barely notice where I’m going, and as I pass through the doors to the social wing, I’m startled to be plunged into darkness. I pause as my eyes adjust—it’s dim, but not completely dark, and it’s certainly not silent. An accented beat punctuates a rousing bass line of strings, threaded with the murmur of moving crowds. Lining the hall are burly lanterns, their flames burning behind thick indigo shades. A flash on my chest catches my eye, and I look down—the pearl in my firefly pin’s abdomen is gleaming bright white under the strange lamps.

  A figure approaches me, and I jump—the servants are even more invisible in the dim light. To my surprise, it’s Fala.

  “Oh, hello,” I say.

  She bows. “Good evening, lord. May I take your cane?”

  I hand it over, hoping I can keep my balance without it.

  “Where is the princess?” she asks.

  “Not feeling
well,” I say. “She sends her regrets.”

  “What a shame.” She hands me a little drawstring bag, bulging but weightless. “Your powdered adoh,” she explains. “Watch the caller for cues to throw it—and try to avoid getting it in your eyes.”

  “Thank you,” I say, relieved. “Is that what I do with it? Throw it?”

  “Only on the cues. You’ll hear them. I’m sure you will do marvelously, lord.”

  I’m decidedly less sure, but another group is entering behind me, and Fala turns to approach them with her basket of adoh. I grip the drawstring bag and hurry toward the ballroom.

  It’s a sight unlike anything I’ve seen before. In a perverted way, the closest comparison I can make is my folk’s firefly revelry. But unlike the fireflies, there’s nothing gentle or quiet about the scene in the ballroom. The darkness is punctuated by streaks of bold blue-white, glittering underfoot, peppering clothes, dusting hair. Folk grin, their eyes and teeth dark against their luminescent skin. I spot Iano circling with several others near the center of the room. A caller up near the orchestra lets out a shout, releasing a pinch of dust from her bag. In response, with a great deal of whooping, a hundred other hands arc through the air, streaming with glowing adoh. It settles in a haze over the dancers.

  “Blessed Light,” I mutter aloud, utterly at a loss. How I’ll describe this to Eloise, to Mama, earth and sky . . .

  I inch along the periphery of the room until I spy what must be the royal balcony. The queen is there with her entourage. I spy Kimela, the newly appointed ashoki, as well as Minister Kobok. I swallow, and my gaze goes to Iano’s embroidered capelet draped over an empty chair near the rail—perhaps he’ll return when he’s not dancing. I’ll wait there, station myself by his seat so as not to waste any time.

  That’s what I tell myself, anyway. I’m being proactive, not spooked by the alien frenzy of Bakkonso.

  I edge through the crowd, my ears full of the driving drumbeat and hollers from the dance floor any time the powder is tossed into the air. I climb the steps to the balcony, relieved to find the noise and fever diminished.

  Two guards block the entrance at the top.

  “Good evening,” I say. “I’m, um, trying to get in, please.”

  They stare, silent.

  “I’m Veran,” I say. “Greenbrier. I’m with the ambassador? He’s—not here yet.”

  Nothing.

  Heat rises under my collar—what if I can’t get into the balcony at all? What if I waste all my time waffling in front of the guards? What would Eloise do if she were here? What would she say to prove her credentials?

  “Ah, Prince Veran Greenbrier.”

  I look past the guards to see Queen Isme standing past them with a glass of tul in her fingers. She brushes the shoulders of her guards with a feathered fan.

  “It’s all right, let him through.”

  Wordlessly they part, and I sidle between them. Trying not to pant or shake, I bow to the queen.

  “Thank you, Lady Queen.”

  “Of course. It wouldn’t do to miss your first Bakkonso because of a few stubborn guards.” She smiles warmly, gesturing me to the cluster of seats she had been occupying. “Where are the ambassador and the princess?”

  “I regret Princess Eloise is unable to attend tonight,” I say, trying to salvage my manners. “She is feeling unwell at the moment. Ambassador Rou should arrive shortly.”

  “I am sorry to hear that. I hope she recovers soon.” She speaks slowly and clearly to me, probably used to Rou’s occasionally mangled Moquoian. Smiling, she gestures to an empty seat on her opposite side beside Kimela. Minister Kobok is one chair over, regarding me over a cup of tul clutched loosely in his hand. Turns out he’s wearing pale greens today—almost exactly the same shade as Kimela, which makes sense, given her color title Chartreuse. If I’d thought harder about it, I might have guessed, but I was too preoccupied with the news about the Sunshield Bandit. He eyes my eggplant-colored jacket coolly—the color Eloise hoped would match the chairwoman, though I haven’t seen for myself.

  Queen Isme, also in light greens, waves to a chair. “Please sit. I believe you have yet to formally meet our new ashoki.”

  Growing ever more anxious—a cozy chat with the queen and her most influential associates was not at all what I’d anticipated—I sink into the proffered chair, remembering to bow halfway through to Kimela, producing an awkward tilted crouch. “I’m honored to meet one of the fabled ashoki at last.”

  Her smile grows. I wonder if she’s making mental notes for her debut performance in a few weeks. “The pleasure is mine, Prince Veran of the Silverwood Mountains. I regret that I have not seen your home country myself—I have only made it as far west as the border of the Ferinno, and I found it much too dry and brown for my liking. But your country is more akin to our own, is that right?”

  “Yes.” I glance at the dance floor—another cloud of glittering adoh has gone up. Partners spin in the falling cloud, catching the powder on skirts and jacket tails with the loudest cheer yet. “We have chestnuts the span of a six-horse coach, and poplars as tall as the palace, but nothing comes close to your southern redwoods.”

  “I hear your silver mines have great potential,” Kobok says.

  It seems an odd thing to say—our silver mines have been in production for centuries. I think I’d move that past potential. Before I can think up the right answer, Kobok clarifies his point for me.

  “My sources tell me there’s a fleet of restrictions in place designed to limit production, instated by an old political faction. Why artificially force a low yield? Does it cause civil unrest?”

  By the Light, he means Mama and the Woodwalkers. Artificially force a low yield . . . responses race through my head, each one of them in rapid Eastern. Unrestricted mining destroys the slopes and waterways, you twit, it kills hamlets and resources, it affects timber and roads . . . and how could our mines have lasted this long if we were in a race to deplete them? How exactly do you run your mining operations, Kobok?

  “Ethnocentric! Bias!” Colm yells in my head, though I can’t be sure if he’s yelling at me or Kobok.

  “Oh, Minister, you bore our guest with industry,” the queen says merrily while I gape like a beached fish. She waves an airy hand at the surging dance floor, her wrist jeweled with white beads that glow like teeth under the indigo lamps. “Tell us about your dancing, Prince Veran—how does ours compare?”

  “Marvelous,” I manage automatically, unable to think of a real response. Earth and sky, I wish Eloise was here. Down below, with a final tremendous chord, the dance finishes. A haze of powder settles over the crowd as they applaud the musicians, and then there’s a milling of bodies as the dancers leave the floor. I spy Iano weaving toward the staircase to the balcony.

  “And the rain?” Kimela asks with a touch of amusement, waving to the distant glass overhead, black as night. “Do you have our rain?”

  I try to pull myself together. “We certainly have a lot—but not as much as you. And no domes of glass, either—we instead have the fortitude to bear the elements.”

  Her smile goes from amused to stoic, and oh damn, I realize I’ve gotten my translation muddled. I meant to imply that her folk had the technological advantage over mine, but somehow it morphed into a jab. My cheeks go hot.

  “I . . . er, that’s not what I . . .”

  The queen makes a flat little hum and sips her tul. “Such an amusing group, our Eastern ambassadors. So witty.”

  “Very witty,” echoes Kimela, scrutinizing me. Kobok doesn’t say anything. The ashoki’s lips are pressed permanently into that inscrutable smile, and too late I recall that our delegation might be mistakenly tangled up in the death of her predecessor. And I’ve just made a joke at her country’s expense.

  The dancers are reassembling into two wide circles, fluid with the ripple of skirts. It looks like a ladies’ dance—all the men are lining the walls, taking drinks from near-invisible servants. Where is Iano? I glance back
toward the guards, trying not to appear as if I’m planning an escape. The ashoki leans forward toward me, her silk rustling. A smudge of adoh gleams on her cheek. “Be careful how much you compare the customs of your culture to ours. It doesn’t do to compare the virtues of a tree to a seed.”

  “Yes—no, I . . .” Suddenly I’m flushed with that familiar stuffy heat. An immediate sweat breaks out around my collar and under my arms. The slips and glares of blue white stand out bold as midday sun, fuzzing my vision. The panic of that old feeling momentarily untethers me completely, and I lurch to my feet, shoving my chair back a few inches. The queen and the others all give little starts of surprise.

  At that moment, Iano materializes on the balcony, and my knees nearly give out in relief. He doesn’t seem to see me, though—distracted and glowing faintly, he drifts to his empty chair. A small battalion of servants approach him as he sits—a server with a plate of sweets, another with a chilled glass of tul, one with a towel, one with a letter on a silver tray.

  The music begins, and a great hurrah goes up with arcs of adoh. I jerk my gaze back to Kimela, who’s still looking at me despite the spectacle below.

  I bow, making the burning blood slosh around my head. “Forgive me—I would like to talk to Prince Iano about the dancing. I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance, Ashoki Kimela. I look forward to your first performance.”

  “Yes, be sure you’re there,” she says.

  I don’t know what to say to that, and my brain is fizzling anyway, so I simply turn and hurry for the other side of the balcony.

  To my surprise, Iano has risen from his seat just seconds after sitting down. He’s rigid, gripping the rail of the balcony with one hand and staring at the commotion below. The air is bright with powder, lighting the ladies’ hair and bare arms.

  I try surreptitiously to loosen my hot collar as I sidle alongside Iano. His valets have dressed him for the occasion down to the smallest details—his normally gold hairpin has been swapped out for one of bone and pearl, to shine in the indigo lamps, and twin studs gleam similarly in his earlobes. His jacket is dark, the better to show off the intricate white embroidery. If it weren’t for the powder glowing faintly on his skin, he could pass for a miniature galaxy.