Endless Water, Starless Sky

by Rosamund Hodge

  Runajo had enslaved her and destroyed her clan. Juliet had sworn a vow never to forgive her. She didn’t intend to break her word.

  And yet she desperately wanted Runajo to help her willingly.

  “Yes,” said Runajo.

  The last time Juliet had gone to the Lower City, she had been with Romeo. He had kissed her as they sat on the rooftops together, and he had asked her to marry him.

  It was very different now, and not just because Runajo walked silently at her side. The streets were the same seething, chattering chaos of people. The buildings were the same maze of dead stone, no glowing traceries lit by the power of the city, painted bright colors or covered in grime or both.

  But there was a tension now to the people as they bustled through the streets. There were City Guards standing at corners. When a corpse wagon rolled past, people shrank away from it.

  The Lower City was afraid. Lord Ineo, with all his sacrifices, couldn’t stop the dead from rising faster than they ever had before, and people were afraid.

  They were also, possibly, starting to resent those sacrifices. Juliet had seen some of the looks that people gave Runajo, who might be wearing a threadbare tunic she had stolen from the laundry, but who still had clearly Mahyanai features and the briar tattoo of the Sisterhood.

  Suddenly, above the din of the crowd, Juliet heard the strumming of a lute, and a voice raised in song. It was a street musician, sitting on a corner and singing to passersby for coins.

  “O mistress mine, where are you roaming?

  O, stay and hear, your true love’s coming,

  That can sing both high and low:

  Trip no further, pretty sweeting;

  Journeys end in lovers meeting,

  Every wise man’s son doth know.”

  For a moment, she couldn’t move. Her throat ached. She had heard another musician sing this song once, but she hadn’t been able to make out the words, and Romeo had sung them to her.

  “What is love? ’Tis not hereafter;

  Present mirth hath present laughter;

  What’s to come is still unsure.

  In delay there lies no plenty,

  Then come kiss me sweet and twenty;

  Youth’s a stuff will not endure.”

  She had kissed Romeo after he finished singing, kissed him twenty times over, until she was breathless and drunken with delight. It was the first time she had truly, truly felt that she was only a girl in his arms, and he was only a boy, and all the walls their families put between them didn’t matter.

  She was wretchedly homesick for that sunlit afternoon, for that easy peace. But she had kissed him, and sealed their journey’s ending, and now she had to pay the price.

  “Juliet?” Runajo asked softly.

  She meant to say, It’s nothing, but what came out instead was, “Romeo sang that to me.”

  Runajo stiffened, dropping her gaze as if she were ashamed. Juliet felt abruptly sick, because for once she hadn’t meant the words as a rebuke or punishment.

  “Come on.” She seized Runajo’s hand. “We haven’t any time to lose,” she said, and dragged her forward down the street.

  Justiran’s house was in one of the better neighborhoods of the Lower City, where the streets were mostly clean and the houses were carved from a warm, golden stone. Juliet didn’t hesitate as she strode to the door and knocked sharply.

  Justiran answered the door. His eyes widened.

  “Is Romeo in this house?” Juliet demanded. She hadn’t felt anything, but she wasn’t sure, this long after his crime, how easily she could sense him without seeing him. She had never before gone so long without killing somebody who was guilty.

  “No.” Justiran was still staring at her as if she were the dead come back to life—and Juliet supposed that she was, but she had been no secret for the past month. Surely he’d gotten used to the idea by now.

  “I need you to give him a letter,” said Juliet. “Will you let me come inside and write it?”

  She had brought paper and ink with her; she hadn’t dared write the letter out in advance, in case she got searched.

  “Come inside,” said Justiran, pulling the door wide as he gave the street a worried look. “Who’s this?”

  “I’m her Guardian,” Runajo said flatly.

  “She’s helping me,” said Juliet, stepping into the house.

  Then she stopped. Because Justiran hadn’t been alone: there was a boy sitting at his table, leaning lazily back in his chair. He wasn’t Mahyanai or Catresou; he dressed in the style of the Lower City, and his dark hair was in braids, decorated with blue beads.

  He was looking Juliet up and down, much too carefully.

  “Well,” said the boy. “I suppose that answers whether I’ve ever accidentally killed a Mahyanai.”

  Juliet had appeared unmasked at two public sacrifices now; it wasn’t impossible for the boy to recognize her, but her skin still prickled with unease.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  He grinned as he stood. “I’m Vai dalr-Ahodin, captain of the Rooks and King of Cats.”

  “You can trust him,” said Justiran. “He’s a friend of Romeo.”

  “Romeo would befriend anyone,” said Runajo.

  “Very true,” said Vai, stepping forward.

  The next moment, he had Runajo shoved against the wall, a knife at her throat. “I can gut you before you get a word out. Juliet, did you bring her for us to kill?”

  It had happened too fast for Juliet to react and now—her heart was pounding with the need to move, move, move, but she didn’t know if she could pull Vai off Runajo before he cut her throat.

  Looking over Vai’s shoulder, Runajo met her eyes, and Juliet knew they were thinking the same thing: that she wouldn’t have to move until Runajo was already dead. Then she would have to kill Vai, and then she would probably go insane as so many Juliets did when they lost their Guardians—but she would be free. Truly free, not just without orders as she was now.

  It would be a really excellent plan.

  Juliet was still carefully not touching Runajo’s mind, but she was absolutely sure that Runajo was thinking this, and approving.

  “Vai,” said Justiran, in an infinitely calm voice, “what is this?”

  “Either a rescue or a really amusing story to tell later. I know what a Guardian is, so I know what that means she’s done, and I don’t mind shedding her blood.”

  “No,” said Juliet.

  “Are you sure?” asked Vai, not moving his knife.

  “I am a Mahyanai now,” said Juliet. “And I don’t want her dead.”

  The second part slipped out before she was aware of thinking it, and her hand went to her mouth as if she were still a child who thought covering her mouth could make people forget what she’d said.

  At the same moment, Justiran reached out. His hand touched the side of Vai’s throat for barely a moment—she saw his thumb trace some sort of pattern—and then Vai fell to his knees, barely managing to catch himself with his hands so his face didn’t hit the floor.

  “There will be no killing under my roof,” said Justiran.

  “What did you do?” Juliet demanded. Her knife was out, she wished she had brought a sword, and her heart was pounding as hard as when there had been a blade at Runajo’s throat.

  “That was obviously magic,” said Runajo, sounding breathless and annoyed at the same. “What, was that more of the sacred words?”

  Justiran knelt beside Vai. “Ready to behave?”

  “He’s not the first person to put a knife to my throat,” said Runajo.

  Justiran laid three fingers against Vai’s forehead. And Vai, whose face had been blank and slack, stirred and straightened.

  “That was a little more than necessary,” he said.

  “You were a little more than necessary,” said Justiran.

  “That’s what everyone always says. But I was waiting for the Juliet’s word.”

  “What,” said Runajo, “are you a
friend of the Catresou?”

  “No,” said Vai. “The Juliet’s nothing to me and so are the Catresou. But she was everything to Paris, and he was my friend.” He grimaced. “And I might have opinions about people who force other people to slaughter their families.”

  “Well,” said Runajo, “she’s already sworn to have her revenge on me, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

  “Enough,” snapped Juliet. She looked at Justiran. “What was that?”

  “Magic, obviously,” said Runajo.

  “I have read an ancient book or two,” said Justiran.

  Juliet snorted. “Don’t take me for a fool. That was nothing like the art of the Catresou magi. What is that power you used, where did you learn it, what have you done with it, and do you know anything about the necromancer who’s still loose in the city?”

  Justiran’s eyebrows raised slightly. “I am not calling you foolish,” he said gently.

  Juliet crossed her arms, and Runajo felt a sudden ripple of frustration from her. An echoed memory of the Catresou elders who had liked her but thought she asked too many questions. Juliet had let them silence her, had hidden her doubts away and confessed them to no one but Romeo and—just one time—to Paris.

  Now Juliet crossed her arms and looked Justiran in the eyes.

  “The walls of the city are failing. The dead are rising after only one day. There is a necromancer turning others into the living dead. My people have been slaughtered, imprisoned, or forced into hiding. If you still want to keep secrets now, then you are a fool, and Romeo was a fool too for ever trusting you.”

  For a moment, Justiran stared at her. Then he let out a laugh that was half a sigh. “You remind me so much of her.”

  “That is not an answer,” said Juliet.

  “It’s the start of one,” said Justiran. “You remind me of my daughter. I loved her very much. And then she died.”

  “She wasn’t the first or last,” said Juliet.

  “You might say she was both,” said Justiran. “She died a hundred years ago.”

  19

  THERE WAS A MOMENT OF silence. Runajo turned the words over in her head—she died a hundred years ago—and yes, Justiran had really said that, and it sounded impossible but he had no reason to lie, and if it was true—

  Numbly, she thought, He saw the Ruining start.

  He had to have helped cause it. How likely was it that somebody, for some unrelated reason, would become immortal at the exact same time the nature of death changed?

  “Did you start the Ruining because you wanted to live forever?” she asked.

  “You jumped to that conclusion quickly,” said Justiran.

  “I’ve done research,” said Runajo, bristling—Because nobody would help me learn, she thought.

  “—so I happen know that there was another Ruining three thousand years ago, that it destroyed the Ancients, and it was begun when they used the sacred words in an attempt to live forever.”

  And the amusement drained out of Justiran’s face. “I researched that too,” he said, and looked at Juliet. “I didn’t want to live forever.”

  “Then what did you want?” asked Juliet.

  Justiran shrugged and smiled sadly. “I told you. My daughter died.”

  Runajo remembered her mother kneeling beside her dying father, and kneeling herself by her mother’s deathbed in turn, and she felt a strange, sharp pang of fury.

  Her mother had wept so much. People had told Runajo they felt so sad for her. As if there could have been any other ending.

  “That was a stupid reason,” she said. “Didn’t you know she was mortal?”

  “I did,” said Justiran. “But you see, I killed her.”

  He looked at Juliet again. “She was very like you: she fell in love with a Mahyanai boy. Our peoples were not friends even then. I could see no future that would give them any joy. So when his family called him away, I told her that he was done with her. That he’d told me he was no longer in love. But she couldn’t believe me. She demanded to know the truth, so finally I . . . I told her that he was dead. Murdered by our kin when they caught him trespassing. And she killed herself. She left me a note saying she would not accept any world that could be so cruel to one whose only crime was loving.”

  Justiran’s voice remained soft but steady, as if he’d told the story a thousand times before. And maybe he had, in the privacy of his own mind at least. Runajo could have recited the tale of how she bound Juliet to the Mahyanai in just such a voice.

  She didn’t want to think she had anything in common with the selfish idiocy of someone who would start the Ruining to heal his private grief. But she had destroyed a clan and betrayed a friend to save herself from bereavement. She was just as bad.

  “It was my fault,” said Justiran, “so I sought to change it. I learned from the Catresou magi, and when they would teach me no more, I sought other teachers. I found the boy my daughter had loved and got him as my ally, and together we tore the world apart, looking for secrets. Until at last we found it: the sacred word for life.”

  The same that the Ancients had tried to use, when they destroyed themselves. A chill ran down Runajo’s spine.

  “We broke into the sepulcher and stole my daughter’s body. We wrote the word over her heart and raised her back to life. But she never smiled. The only thing she would say was that she wanted to die. She tried to kill herself, again and again, but the power of the sacred word was such that she could not die, no matter what she did. Until at last she climbed into a furnace and burned herself to ash.”

  Justiran stared blindly at the ground, and for a few moments he was silent. Then he sighed and went on. “What else is there to tell? By that point, the fog had already crawled across half the continent. We fled, as so many did. We discovered that we were no longer mortal. And in the end, we came to Viyara.”

  “Why are you immortal?” Runajo asked curiously. “There were no sacred words written upon your skin, were there?”

  Justiran shrugged. “When we raised her from the dead, we broke the balance of life and death. It is my theory that, being at the center of such powerful magic, we were also changed.”

  “So you came back here and set up shop as an apothecary,” said Juliet.

  “There was no way I could amend what I had done. I thought at least my skills might help someone.” Justiran looked her in the eyes again. “I dared hope for nothing more, until Romeo brought you to visit me. And I thought that I might set one thing right, by helping you to be with him.”

  Runajo’s fury was a sudden, white-hot thing. And then she realized that it wasn’t just her revulsion that she felt; it was Juliet’s, spilling through the bond unbidden. She saw what Juliet was remembering: the first time she had met Justiran, when she was drunk on the freedom of walking the city without a mask, and all the world seemed fresh and new, because nobody looked on her as anything except another girl.

  With quiet intensity, Juliet said, “I did not fall in love and nearly die for it so you could feel better about your daughter. I was not born to give you peace.”

  Justiran’s eyes widened, and then he dropped his gaze.

  “If you had really wanted to make amends, you could have gone to the Sisterhood and compared notes,” said Runajo. “Do you have any idea how desperately we need this sort of information?”

  And that was when someone knocked on the door.

  The curtains were drawn, but Runajo could tell with a glance that it didn’t matter, because the window didn’t have the right angle for seeing who was at the door.

  “It’s probably just a customer,” said Justiran, but Runajo barely heard him because she was overwhelmed by the stark rush of fear she felt from Juliet. There were no words, but she knew why Juliet was afraid: because Romeo was quite likely to come here. Because if he was here, she would have to kill him.

  “Order me upstairs,” said Juliet.

  “Go,” said Runajo without hesitation. As Juliet bolted up the stairs, Runa
jo called silently after her: Stop your ears and do not come down until I tell you. If Romeo is here, do not kill him.

  “It’s probably not Romeo,” said Vai, getting to his feet. “But that’s a clever precaution.”

  Justiran opened the door.

  And Runajo found herself staring at Romeo’s tutor, Mahyanai Makari.

  His dead tutor.

  Beside him stood the living dead boy who had attacked Runajo a few nights ago. Paris.

  “You,” said Justiran, sounding weary and sad.

  Runajo was too stunned to move. Vai was not. He lunged forward, drawing his sword. Instantly Paris counterattacked, and for a few moments they fought, swords flashing. At first they seemed evenly matched. But Paris was too fast, too relentless. In a flurry of strokes, he drove Vai back against the wall, and held a sword to his throat.

  “Stop,” said Makari.

  And Paris went still.

  “If you keep fighting, King of Cats,” Makari went on, “Romeo dies.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” said Vai with a strange intensity, but did not struggle.

  Runajo’s head was whirling. If Makari could command the living dead—if he had been dead himself and come back, but was not bound to obedience—

  She remembered blood spattered across the floor of the Cloister.

  “You’re the Master Necromancer,” she said.

  He smiled. “Yes. And you are Romeo’s friend Runajo, the girl who stole the Juliet from me. You’re going to give her a message.”

  “What is it?”

  “I need the Juliet for my purposes. She must deliver herself to me by sunset. If she doesn’t come, Romeo dies, I bring him back as living dead, and I send him to fetch her.”

  “That seems a very poor bargain,” said Runajo. “She’s going to kill him as soon as she sees him, and then he’ll be a revenant anyway.”

  “You seem to believe that you’re negotiating,” said Makari. “Allow me to assure you, the only choice you have is how gracefully you submit.”

  “Zaran,” Justiran said softly.