Finding my feet, I snatch up my spear. I launch into a sprint, intent on closing the distance, to put myself between the lion and Nisai. I’ve got a start on it, but it’s so much faster. It narrows my lead in a few leaps.
Blood pounds in my ears.
I’m not going to make it.
Turn upon turn of Shield drills show me the only choice. I can’t reach Nisai, but I could still reach the lion. I angle my strides towards it. With mere yards to spare, I throw my weight into its path, skidding through the scree.
The lion rears on hind legs, fixing me in its golden stare.
I should bury my spear in its chest, but against all instinct and training, I hesitate.
It’s a moment too long.
Huge paws thump on to my shoulders, my knees threatening to buckle. Pain sears down one side of my chest, snatching my breath and the spear from my hand.
I’ve got to reach my swords.
I try to twist away. Claws hook into my flesh. Every muscle goes rigid as a voice tells me from somewhere deep, somewhere primal, that this is a mortal embrace. One false move and my lung will be pierced.
The lion slumps further to the side, its breath hot and rancid against my neck. My vision blurs. I clench my jaw and shove down rising terror.
Then something gives way and I’m crumpling to the ground beneath the lion’s weight, both of us bellowing in agony as we fall.
On my back in the gravel, I barely register a silhouette above me, axe flashing in the sun. The figure draws itself up to full height, weapon raised. The blade comes down, and the lion’s crushing weight stops struggling.
Iddo drops his axe and somehow rolls the beast off me.
Nisai’s face swims into view beside his brother’s. He’s covered in blood. Panic seizes me until I realize it’s the lion’s. And mine.
He reaches out a hand. “Can you walk?”
I wave him away. “Just a scratch.”
His eyes tell me he sees through the lie.
CHAPTER 7
Rakel
“Where are you taking me?” I demand.
Nobody answers.
I’d expected to be dragged off to spend the next ten turns wherever Zakkurus keeps his indentured servants. Instead, the stepped pyramid looms up before us, sending me lurching from anger to confusion to dread.
My escort is the veteran soldier from the trials, another of the Eraz’s guards, and a pair of firebirds who met us at the temple gates after keeping us sweating in the sun for only stench-knows how long. Enough time to think up a dozen plans to escape or get word to Father. Enough time to dismiss every one of them as futile.
Outside the temple estate, the streets are dusty. Inside, rows of cistus flowers and vetiver grass stretch between high walls, spring-fed canals keeping the crops lush. A paved boulevard lined with bay trees leads to the pyramid’s entrance.
The priestesses usher us along. I find small comfort that it’s Father’s old comrade, Lozanak, marching in front of me, her fingers twitching for her sword hilt the way mine itch for my locket. I wonder what has the soldier spooked.
I’ve got reason enough: my mother used to walk this path.
And after I learned the circumstances of her death, I swore I never would do the same.
We pass through a stand of orange trees dotted with apiaries. Buzzing fills the air. Under different circumstances, I may have revelled in the heady scent of neroli as much as the bees. Today the floral notes are soapy enough to curdle my stomach.
The priestesses halt when all that stands between us and the temple is a terrace carpeted in green.
“That will be all,” the older firebird tells the guards.
Lozanak gives my shoulder a squeeze, her expression an apology. “Stars keep you.” She brings her fist to her chest and turns on a heel.
I watch her go. Her loyalty was to Father, not me. But now she’s gone I feel truly alone.
The priestess gives an exasperated sigh and points to my feet. Both firebirds have already slipped out of their sandals.
I tug my boots off and defiantly take my time about clapping them together to dislodge the dust. Then I shove them into my already bulging satchel – at least they let me keep it – and set out across the lawn. Three steps in, I realize it’s holy thyme. Our footsteps release its rich, herby aroma, preparing us to supposedly cross from the mortal realm into the house of the gods.
A massive sandstone portico extends from the temple’s entrance, portal guardians carved into either side. True firebirds – creatures from the edge of memory. The details of their feathers have weathered over the centuries but the expressions on their human faces remain fiercely beautiful, the claws in place of women’s feet no less cruel. As we pass under their gaze and into the shade, a shiver snakes down my spine.
The main hall is cool and dim; the only light beyond the entrance comes from widely spaced sconces and the glow from the odd doorway. Both priestesses face ahead as we pass, but I crane my neck at each opening.
Right now, I need all the information I can get.
The first doorways reveal scribes hunched over tablets and scrolls, their scalps shaved like the other firebirds. Further on, zig-counters balance weights against substances more valuable than silver or gold: frankincense resin, orris root crystals and tiny vials that I can’t smell from this distance.
The firebirds turn us up a staircase that climbs and climbs until my thighs burn. How many feet did it take to wear these stones so smooth? Did their owners have a better idea what they were walking into?
Then we’re emerging into open air.
I shield my eyes against the glare. It’s some sort of garden. Set back from the edge of the pyramid’s upper level so that it is only a dark smudge from below. Rock figs grow in clay urns taller than Barden, leaves rustling in a breeze that never reaches the lower city. Here, the air smells fresh.
Blinking, I draw a long breath. I’ve never seen so far across the desert. Towards the west, I sight my village, a tiny oasis tucked between the dunes. There’s the snaking line of the canyons carved by the shifting river bed – places Barden and I used to explore before he enlisted. Beyond that, the horizon stretches into mountains I’ve only glimpsed on clear days.
Anyone standing here can take in my whole world with a single glance. It’s dizzying, like I’m weightless. Like I’m nothing.
I turn back to the firebirds. But there’s only the dark maw of the stairwell.
I’m alone.
Except for a figure wearing plain linen as they tend a garden bed near a pavilion of stone pillars and arches. As if she felt my gaze, the woman lifts her shaven head.
The shade takes on a deeper chill. I shouldn’t be surprised by now, after all these turns, after today. But who knew the most powerful woman in Aphorai got her hands dirty?
Sephine returns to planting out tiny seedlings. “Do you know the road you travelled to this place?”
I doubt she means the streets between the plaza and the temple. From what I’ve heard of Scent Keepers, they’re not the literal type.
“I’m sure you’re just bursting to enlighten me.”
“Sarcasm will not serve you here.” She sets aside the seedlings, gently covering them in damp cloth to protect against the blaze of afternoon.
Fluid and graceful, she unfolds from her kneeling position to stand head and shoulders over me. Her eyes, completely black so I can’t tell where her pupils end and irises begin, are unnerving.
If sarcasm won’t serve me, maybe silence will.
I lift my chin and meet her impenetrable gaze.
After what seems an eternity, she retrieves a tablet from a stand, then sits at the edge of a contemplation pool and begins to run her fingers across the clay. Is she reading with her hands?
She makes an amused sound that could be a distant cousin of a laugh. “There are many different ways of seeing. Now. The indiscretions that paved your way. Interfering with an official selection trial for the Eraz’s perfumery.”
“Interfering? I saved that fool.”
“Trafficking regulated substances.”
“Camel scat. You think I’m that witless?”
“Bribing an imperial official. The Chief Perfumer, no less.”
“Prove it,” I retort.
She raises her hand. “I need not be truth’s champion. The Chief Perfumer has spoken …”
That reekin pile of—
“… and the trafficking charges corroborated by the sworn testimony of a palace guard whose wisdom surpasses his age.”
My chest seizes. There’s only one other person who knows I’ve been selling on the black market.
Barden.
I struggle to breathe as questions ambush me. What does she have over him? His family? His sister Mirtan’s pregnant; maybe Sephine threatened withholding the temple’s blessing from the child?
Or maybe it’s more direct? Does she think him an accomplice to my black-market deals? Scenes flash through my mind – convicts working in construction gangs, the skin where their noses used to be red and puckered, the holes plugged and cauterized with molten metal in one excruciating moment. I wince, sucking a breath through my teeth.
But all those thoughts are like smoke on the wind compared to one.
Why?
Why has my best friend betrayed me?
The Scent Keeper reaches for another tablet, this one still on its supporting board, dry on the surface, but unfired. And there at the bottom, the all too familiar imprint of Father’s signature seal next to the whorls of my own thumb.
“You breathe the smoke of the incense you light.”
No. This isn’t happening.
“I have purchased your contract.”
I take one, two steps back, and stumble into a tree planter. My hands go to the fired clay rim, thankful to find something solid. This woman decided my mother’s life wasn’t worth saving. Now she talks of mine as if I’m a camel in the market pens, auctioned to the highest bidder.
My fingers tighten their grip on the urn, the chill I felt earlier replaced by rising heat.
Sephine’s gaze is unwavering. “Suffice to say, I own you.” “In the sixth hell you do!”
Her black eyes bore into me, unblinking. Then she tilts her face to the sky as if she’s talking with her gods, not me. “I kept my distance for seventeen turns, Rakel. But your nose has led you astray. You are your mother’s daughter.”
“Don’t you dare speak of her. My father will –”
“Your father.” She sniffs. “I cannot divine why Yaita fell for him. What did he tell you of her? That it’s her aptitude you’ve inherited? Did he tell you she could have been Aphorai’s Scent Keeper after I go to the sky?” Her voice is quiet now, and almost soft. “Did he tell you your locket was my gift?”
“That’s a lie!” My hand goes to my most precious possession. I’m momentarily reassured by its familiar shape, of how my thumb can pick out each tiny star engraved in the silver. “My father gave me this.”
“As I instructed. So you would remember Yaita. I made a promise to her when she knew she didn’t have much longer with you: watch over you, ensure you had what you needed to survive.”
How can I believe the words of this woman? She could have made an exception to the temple’s laws forbidding priestesses to have children. And yet she had still let my mother be cast out, Sephine could have saved her from the birth fever. If what they say about Scent Keepers is true – she could have healed my mother with her bare hands.
But she didn’t.
And my mother paid the ultimate price for bringing me into the world.
“If you really cared so much,” I say through clenched teeth, “why didn’t you help before?” I glance to the edge of the platform. The temple may have stood for centuries, but it bears the scars of a hundred groundshakes, cracks and pockmarks webbing the brickwork, just waiting to become hand- and footholds. Maybe there’s a way to navigate down the outer steps of the pyramid. Maybe.
Ten turns indentured to Zakkurus was a hideous thought.
This is worse.
“I did what I could without drawing attention. Where do you think your father’s pension comes from?”
“He served the Eraz for twenty-five turns. A full cycle.”
“Dishonourable discharge forfeits any pension.”
“He retired a hero!” It comes out almost a shout. There can’t be any truth to what she says. But then why do I feel like I’ve swallowed a stone?
“A man is not noble for facing a field of enemies if he cannot face his own downfall. He put his whole company at risk, hiding his condition for so long.”
I bark a scornful laugh. “You don’t get to say anything about being noble. You let my mother die. You chose not to save her. Was that in the name of ‘not drawing attention’, too?”
“Complexity begs sacrifice, though it be difficult to grasp.”
“Try me,” I sneer.
“In good time.”
I cross my arms. “Sun’s high. Light breeze. Perfect day for stories.”
She fixes me in her unnerving stare. “There is no drug to cure a stupid man. Or girl, for that matter. Prove to me you can think for yourself, and you will have your answers. Show me you can learn, and when the starwheel turns, I will teach you how to heal.”
“I can already do that.”
“Then why haven’t you healed the father you’re so eager to defend?”
“There’s no cure for the Rot!”
“Death is not sated with simple bread, true. I have dedicated a lifetime to deciphering that contagion. How many of your turns have you given to that cause?”
I twist away to stare out over the city. The breeze tugs at flyaway strands of my hair. I don’t attempt to smooth them.
“Come,” Sephine says, gliding towards the stairwell.
I don’t move. “You’re not keeping me here?”
“Impossible. You are not ordained.”
“Then where are you taking me?”
“My quarters on the Eraz’s estate. An imperial delegation is on its way, and there is much work to do with the Flower Moon nigh.”
I swallow the bile rising in my throat and follow in the Scent Keeper’s footsteps.
My new routine is mind-numbing.
Rise at dawn from my tiny pallet in my tiny cell. Sweep Sephine’s rooms, beat the dust from the ancient reed-woven mats, refill the vases with fresh flowers. Empty the ash from the incense holders and install new sticks: spicy clove for when the first moon waxes, smoky labdanum for when it wanes, and some concoction called onycha reserved for when the second moon goes dark.
Scent Keepers move freely from palace to temple, honoured and respected in both. They are the go-betweens. I’ve tried to predict when Sephine will appear at the Eraz’s estate, but every time I think I’ve sniffed the pattern, she does the opposite. I try asking questions of the other servants I pass in the halls, the gardens, by the fountains, angling for an opening that could lead to someone, anyone, agreeing to take a message to Father. But they either shy away and flee, or stare straight through me.
So, I clean.
Every. Single. Day.
The only thing keeping me going is that even if Sephine hasn’t found a cure for the Rot, I’ll possibly find something here I can at least use to help prolong Father’s life.
This morning, her quarters are serviced so I move on to her common supplies, kept in a series of rooms and a cellar further along the wing.
I dust the drying bunches of thyme and lavender. Check the racks of orris root are free from mould and fungus. Then move on to cleaning the equipment Sephine leaves on the shelves outside her laboratory door. It’s locked, as always.
I scrub blown-glass vessels left from last night. Judging from the scent, they were used for a steam distillation of frankincense. I wonder if there’s some way I could smuggle some out for Father. Maybe if I lean something against the wall and climb in through the high window…
I al
most jump out of my skin when a voice, her voice, rings out behind me.
“Tomorrow you shall lift and divide the saffron crocuses. East gardens, second tier. You know how, yes?”
I huff my hair from my face. “I’ll do it. But at least tell me this: after all these turns, are you close to curing the Rot?”
She keeps her all-black eyes fixed towards a point above my head. “A Scent Keeper may call on the divine will to heal an individual but not the throngs of Afflicted.”
“Can you talk straight for once?”
“Words are never simple.”
I bite down on the inside of my cheek so hard the taste of copper fills my mouth. I’m still not sure whether she enjoys baiting me, or whether it’s pure, cold indifference. Still, I refuse to react in case it gives her satisfaction.
“However,” she continues. “I believe in Asmudtag, and Asmudtag wills balance in all things. Every shadow comes from light. Every ill must have a remedy.”
“Asmudtag?”
For the first time, her mask slips, annoyance flickering across her features. “The primordial. Self-willed into existence. What has your father been teaching you all these turns?”
I rinse out the now squeaky-clean flask and place it with exaggerated gentleness on the bench. “Oh, you know, useless things like how to ride and care for horses, survive in the desert, not cut myself on my knife.”
“Your first knife, was it bestowed upon you during infancy?”
“Of course not,” I scoff. “Who would give a blade to a baby?”
“Indeed.”
And with that, she strides away in a swish of black feathered skirts.
CHAPTER 8
Ash
Time is a mirage beneath the desert sun. Caught between glaring white sky and burning red pain, I silently pray to Kaismap for focus. Iddo rides behind me, his hawk-eyed gaze boring into my back. But I heal quick. Blood has stopped soaking through the bandage Nisai’s valet wrapped around my torso. And if I don’t? It’s almost a comfort, knowing Iddo will be the first to call me unfit for duty.
It’s early afternoon when we crest a great dune to look down on the province’s capital. Where Ekasya is a city of black stone glinting like the night sky, Aphorai is a city of mud. The only buildings faced in stone are the outer walls, the manse atop the hill which I assume is the Eraz’s estate, and the adjacent temple. The latter is as large as its Ekasyan counterpart – the only impressive thing about this place.
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