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Iriyat
19
Nightward
ZHENEV’S WAGON JOLTED OVER THE cobblestones and Ev bit her lip. Henny was holding her hand, and Ket was driving as slowly as possible, but movement was still painful.
The week had its good moments, but it had mostly been dull, when Ev was foggy from the medicine, or tense, when the whole brothel went silent because another guard was at the door. As grateful as Ev was to Madam Zhenev and everyone who lived in her house, leaving was a relief.
Or it would have been, if she weren’t rattling around in the back of a cramped, dark wagon. But once this wagon ride was over, they’d find some village inn, and that would be a relief. No matter how grungy the rooms were, they would be immobile. It would be a long journey to Estva, but Henny and Ket had offered to accompany them all the way there. Ev wouldn’t have to ride a horse or walk long distances.
Alizhan and Thiyo were sitting in the back of the wagon in unnatural silence. Alizhan had somehow convinced Thiyo to accompany them Nightward, early in the week when Ev had been unconscious, and whatever they’d said to each other, their rapport had hardened from something easy and fluid to something brittle. They were still wary of each other.
In some ways, they had all recovered.
Ev’s wound wasn’t infected. It was healing clean.
Alizhan had suffered a nearly lethal fit from being in a crowded street in Laalvur only last month, but their stay in Zhenev’s very full house had hardly affected her. She’d practiced controlling her touch with Henny, Ket, and Thiyo throughout the week. And here she was in a wagon with three other very tense people, breathing as easily as it was possible to under the circumstances. The prospect of living in extremely close quarters in Estva—and perhaps her brief touch with Ev at the wedding—had lent new urgency to her practice.
Thiyo’s broken fingers were splinted, his hand was bandaged, and Henny had even convinced him to wear a sling. She thought that if he exercised his fingers properly once the splints came off, he might regain most of the use of his hand. Ev wished she’d been unconscious for that conversation. Thiyo had delighted in asking questions about what exactly constituted a “proper” exercise of his fingers. Henny, a professional, was amused, not abashed. Ev had wanted to die.
In other ways, Ev thought they might never recover.
She had killed a man. Perhaps it was only fair his blade had scarred her side for the rest of her life.
The wagon halted. Had they already arrived at the city walls? Ev heard a brief, indistinct conversation outside: Ket and the guards. Ev held her breath, but only a moment later, they began to move again.
“They forgot to check, just like that,” Alizhan said, keeping her voice down.
“That was an extra stop,” Henny said. “We can’t be at the walls yet.”
They made slow progress. There were two more stops before they reached the city walls, one at the walls, and one outside the city. All the stops followed the same pattern: Ket had a conversation with the guards while the four of them held their breath in hiding, and after a few tense moments, the wagon began to move again. The guards never looked inside the wagon.
“A useful man to have around, Ket,” Thiyo said. “Nice when they’re on our side.”
“Thank you,” Ev said to Henny. “We’ll have to make sure Ket knows how grateful we are, too.”
“Anyone suspected of ‘unnatural tendencies’ is put to death,” Henny said. Ev thought Henny meant this as a reminder of the risks Ket was taking, but she continued, “We might’ve died in that prison, if not for you. We owe you.”
“Is that why you were in prison? They caught you?”
There was just enough light through the wooden slats for Ev to see the coppery glint of Henny’s hair as she shook her head. “Not using magic. Ket and I went out dancing. There was a raid. Ket could have got away, but instead he got himself arrested along with me like a damn fool. He thought he could get me away from the guards. But there were too many for him.”
“Couldn’t you get yourself away from the guards?” Alizhan asked.
“With my touch?”
“You put Thiyo to sleep,” Alizhan pointed out.
“I can’t do that with a flick of my fingers!” Henny said. She must have witnessed Alizhan knocking Ket unconscious, the one bad moment in their week of lessons. “It takes concentration. And I’d’ve needed four more arms for that many guards, and a lot more strength, besides. And once Ket got himself caught, I just wanted to make sure we stayed together. We thought we’d be able to slip out of the cell, but we had to wait for the right moment. We were in there six triads before you opened the door. The guards almost never came in, and besides, there were those other women in the cell, and we were worried they’d turn on us if they figured out what we were.”
“Even if you were helping them escape?” Alizhan said.
Henny nodded.
“This place never ceases to amaze,” Thiyo murmured.
“People are afraid of us,” Henny said. “Usually it’s because they don’t know anything about us. Other times, it’s because they do.”
This last sentence was uttered with a look in Alizhan’s direction. Alizhan didn’t react visibly, but she did say, “It was an accident.”
“I know,” Henny said. They must be talking about Alizhan knocking out Ket. “But it was one hell of an accident.”
The conversation lapsed into silence. Ev closed her eyes, but even with Henny’s help, sleep was impossible in the rattling wagon. They paused occasionally along the way to rest the horses and stretch their legs. Ev stayed in the wagon. Getting up was too much trouble unless she absolutely had to, and every time Henny left her, even lying still and breathing made her side ache. It was a long time before they rolled to a stop at the village.
“This’ll be Ernyetzva,” Henny said. “Would you believe it’s the farthest from home I’ve ever been?”
Alizhan leapt out of the back of the wagon, eager to be away from them, and Ev heard her gasp. It was several long, uncomfortable moments before Ev could join her, since both Henny and Thiyo had to support her as she sat up and climbed down from the wagon.
Ev gasped, too.
She’d never seen the sky so dark. It was as if God has spilled ink over the dome of the heavens, and it had washed down to stain the walls of the sky Night blue.
Night blue. She’d never understood that phrase before.
“Look,” Thiyo breathed, pointing at something just over the horizon. Little white gems of light twinkling against the blue. “Stars.”
The Night sky lost its charm for Alizhan about five minutes after she first saw it in Ernyetzva. Night was cold. Her body started trembling uncontrollably, and every time she sucked in a breath, it shocked the back of her throat. She hated it.
Meanwhile, five triads and five sleepy villages later, everyone else was still thrilled. Henny and Ket thought this whole affair was a grand adventure, instead of a terrifying slide into uncertainty that was taking Alizhan and Ev farther and farther from home. And Thiyo and Ev wouldn’t shut up about how beautiful the sky was, and they talked about the stupid poetry of it every time they went outside.
So much for Thiyo being worldly and cynical. So much for Ev being practical and stoic. They were unbearable romantics, both of them. They kept talking about how clean the air was, how pure the snow, how stunning the stars.
Alizhan’s snot was frozen inside her nose. Where was the poetry in that?
And weren’t they cold? Alizhan was shivering even inside the stupid smelly fur coat that Thiyo and Ev had bought for her, and she had her hands shoved down into her pockets, her equally furry hat pulled down as low as possible, and her chin tucked into the thick collar of her coat. The fur of her collar was tickling her nose.
“And to think you had to convince me to come here,” Thiyo said. Somehow he and Ev both looked heroic and dashing in their furs. If Thiyo could sense her thoughts, he’d say of course I do, d
arling, which was exactly why Alizhan didn’t say anything. “You’re so small and yet so full of rage,” he continued, amused. “Why is that combination so endearing?”
“Next time you have an inappropriate thought, I’m telling everyone.”
“Please. I’ll tell them myself.”
“You’d talk yourself to death, Alizhan,” Ket pointed out. “And he wouldn’t even be embarrassed. You need a better plan.”
“And some of us don’t want to hear Thiyo’s inappropriate thoughts, so we’d all suffer,” Ev said. She took a step closer to Alizhan. “Here, you poor thing, you look miserable.”
There was one nice thing and one nice thing only about the cold: Ev could wrap her arms around Alizhan and hug her tight with no worries. With so many layers between them, there was no danger of accidental touch. Ev was the warmest, safest, most solid and reliable thing in the world, and if she hadn’t recently been wounded, Alizhan would squeeze her as hard as she could. Happily, Ev was generous with her hugs, so Alizhan could make up for all the lonely years where only Iriyat had touched her, and never as much or as affectionately as she wanted.
Ev yearned for this—and more—just as much as Alizhan did. Alizhan could feel it like a second embrace.
Somehow, Alizhan would learn to do this without protection, as casually and carelessly as anyone else. She’d thought of touching Ev’s hand at the wedding so often it was a miracle the memory wasn’t faded and cracked like an old, well-loved book. Next time, she wouldn’t need wai.
“I’ll listen to your inappropriate thoughts, Thiyo,” Henny was saying, “but men usually pay me for that sort of thing.”
“You’ll have to educate me,” he said. “As of right now, all of Nalitzva has read mine and I haven’t seen one single tyek of profit.”
He pulled his bag out of the wagon and headed for the door of the village inn.
“He made a joke about it,” Ev marveled. “He must be feeling better.”
The words had tasted frosty and bitter, and it hadn’t been the Night air. But Ev couldn’t sense what Alizhan could. Thiyo might joke and tease, but he was hurting, and she didn’t know how to help him.
Hours later, lying awake, Alizhan regretted mentioning Thiyo’s inappropriate thoughts. It had been difficult to sleep for the whole journey, surrounded by people, but now her mind had seized on the moment and wouldn’t let go.
Ev had lied.
She did want to know Thiyo’s most intimate thoughts, no matter what she said.
She wanted Alizhan, too, of course. No doubts about that. But it was possible to desire more than one person at a time. Alizhan had sensed from the beginning that there was an attraction simmering between Ev and Thiyo. Ev was deep in denial about it and would be incredulous, embarrassed, and upset if Alizhan brought it up. “I don’t even like him,” she’d say, and Thiyo would laugh and agree that she didn’t. But he’d be pleased, because he was always pleased when people were attracted to him, and because he liked it when Ev was flustered, and because he was attracted to her, too. And they were starting to enjoy each other’s company.
If Alizhan didn’t mention it, neither of them was likely to act on the feeling—Ev being in denial and Thiyo being heartbroken—but it was there all the same.
That was the question that kept her awake: should she mention it? So far, she hadn’t wanted to explain it to them. Let Ev think her feelings for Thiyo were pure irritation. Let Thiyo sit with his sadness. Let the two of them be oblivious and stubborn together. But was she being selfish? Was she jealous, like Thiyo had said at Madam Zhenev’s?
Alizhan wanted Ev, but she also wanted Ev to be happy. It would be a long time—if ever—before Alizhan could touch Ev the way she wanted to be touched. And Alizhan wanted Thiyo to be happy, too. What if they’d be happier if she told them? After the initial embarrassment and resistance, they might be.
Thiyo and Ev could touch each other, here and now, with no effort and no trouble. Maybe she should encourage them to.
She’d know if they did, of course. She’d know every last stroke and moan.
And there was the real problem. Did she want that? Was it wrong to want that? It felt wrong, the way that Merat Orzh publishing Thiyo’s poetry without his knowledge was wrong, even if Thiyo was shameless the rest of the time.
It had taken Alizhan weeks to admit to Ev that she could feel attraction and desire, that no matter how impossible it felt, she wanted to learn to act on them. She wanted to touch Ev, to kiss her, to do the things she saw in Ev’s dreams—even if it took years. But confessing that to Ev had made her feel like she was standing on the edge of a cliff. The view made her heart soar, but one wrong step and she’d plummet to her death.
And now she wanted to make things more complicated? The whole situation was absurd. A hysterical laugh bubbled up and she suppressed it.
There was no way she could tell them. Alizhan rolled over, pressed her face into the pillow, and prayed for sleep.
Alizhan kept her thoughts confined to the artificial darkness of the bedroom. She was so quiet, riding in their wagon the next triad, that Ev gave her a reassuring one-armed squeeze without being asked. Alizhan was grateful, but not surprised.
Then, at their first stop, Thiyo drew her aside to ask what was wrong.
Out here, the road cut through snowy plains and the darkness permeated everything. The silence was only interrupted by their wagon wheels rolling. It terrified Alizhan to contemplate how much of the world was plunged into darkness. The natural state of things here was lightless and soundless. The pinprick stars above were an interruption, just like the sound of their wagon and their voices on the road.
None of that was really what was wrong. Thiyo was standing close to her, waiting for an answer, the air around him tinged with concern. “Nothing. The cold.”
“I deserve a better lie than that.”
“Do you want to talk about what’s making you unhappy?” Alizhan asked, because she knew the answer.
“Nothing. The cold.”
“Exactly. Except it’s an even worse lie in your case, because you love it here.” Would they talk about their feelings if they were friends? Were they friends? Alizhan could read Thiyo some of the time, and she still didn’t know. He was helping them, but his motivations were mixed. Occasionally, he thought of himself as repaying a debt, but he wasn’t like Ev. He didn’t have a strong sense of duty. If there was somewhere he wanted to be more, he’d already be gone. But there wasn’t. The only thing keeping him from feeling totally lost and aimless was his sense of curiosity. He’d never met anyone like Alizhan or Ev, and he’d never seen the script that was in their mysterious book. Alizhan had brought him a puzzle he couldn’t solve, something no one else had ever been able to do.
“Well… no,” Thiyo said. “I don’t love the cold. Or the constant dark. But I’ve never been so far Nightward. I’m interested in it. It’s new.”
And that was it. Like the snow and the stars, Alizhan and Ev and all their problems were a novelty. They’d have Thiyo’s attention until a better distraction appeared.
That was the key to making Thiyo hurt less. A simpler method than trying to play matchmaker. He liked riddles. “Have you made any progress with the book?”
“You know I haven’t,” he said. “It's impossible to work when we’re on the road. Maybe you can help me. Tell me about the book. No, actually––tell me everything. How you got here. What you’re caught up in. And Iriyat.”
Parts of the story had come out during their stay at Madam Zhenev’s, but Alizhan and Ev had never told him the whole thing in order. They’d glossed over a lot. If she were being honest, Alizhan could acknowledge that she was afraid to talk or think about Iriyat—afraid of what she might have to do to stop her—but it was always easier to be honest with other people than with herself.
The others had finished their business, and Henny was helping Ev settle back into the wagon. Alizhan and Thiyo went to climb in behind them. Thiyo sat down next to Alizhan s
o they could continue their conversation. He’d come alert at her mention of the book and now it was all he wanted to think about. There’d be no wriggling out of his questions.
“Why Iriyat?” Alizhan asked, but she already knew. The book was a locked box and he was feeling his way around the edges. Weighing it and tapping it and shaking it, pressing his ear to the outside to listen for what might be inside. But Alizhan didn’t want him examining her insides as well as the book’s.
“The book belongs to her, doesn’t it? I’ve heard enough to gather that she’s the one you’re running from. And you think she looks like that shriveled-up old bitch Merat Orzh.”
Ev spoke up. She was lying on a pallet they’d made in the bottom of the wagon. She could sit up now, but still found it easier to rest if she was flat on her back. On the other side of the wagon, Henny was sitting on a bench, but she had one hand on Ev’s. “She was actually quite beautiful for a woman of her age.”
Thiyo huffed in disagreement.
Alizhan had no opinion on Merat Orzh’s face, but she knew what Ev was thinking. “Rich people,” she said with a smile. “They don’t break themselves with labor, and they can afford whatever creams and powders and treatments are in style to keep themselves looking young.”
“Who are we talking about?” Henny asked. “And can I rob her powder room?”
“A woman at court. Lady Merat Orzh,” Ev said. “She’s the one who had Thiyo thrown in prison.”
“Well, let’s rob her bank vault, too, in that case.”
Alizhan liked Henny.
“But I think Thiyo wanted to talk about Iriyat,” Ev said, because she was far too perceptive. “It’s like when you told us about your childhood training—you needed a teacher to learn those other languages. To give you something to work with. That’s what you’re asking Alizhan to help you with.”
He was genuinely grateful, and Ev was pleased to have remembered something useful. Alizhan’s stomach twisted.
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