The Darkest Bloom

by P. M. Freestone

  “You’re saying the Prince was poisoned by a god?”

  I shake my head. “Not by a god, by a poison from the time of the gods. None of the palace physicians have any idea how to approach the cure, do they? They’re not trained for it. None of them have seen it before. It hasn’t been seen for lifetimes in the Empire, possibly since even before the Empire. Sephine was the oldest Scent Keeper in Aramtesh, and even with all her scentlore she died trying to save him, and Emperor Kaddash drove the Scent Keepers out of Ekasya, the only people who might have known how to help his son… The only people who know about … magic.”

  Barden exhales a low whistle.

  “But that doesn’t matter now. None of it matters. What matters is that I’ve worked out why the cure didn’t work on Nisai. Why it worked on Ash. We were missing an ingredient. Ash is the key. He’s not just a Shield, he’s a shadow warrior. A child of Doskai.”

  Barden grimaces and glances towards the mouth of the alley. “If what you say is true, how are you going to get to him? He’ll be in the dungeons by now, if he’s not yet dead. You’ll never be able to find him, let alone get close to him.”

  I fold my arms. “I thought you said you would do things my way from now on. Or was that talk of yours all smoke and no scent?”

  “I won’t be a part of you going back into the lion’s den.”

  “The world is the lion’s den for me now. If I escape the city, and that’s a big ‘if’, then Ash dies. The Prince dies. If the Rot hasn’t taken him already, my father dies, soon enough. And stench-only-knows what kind of chaos will follow. I can’t walk away knowing I might stop this before it’s too late.”

  “Last word I had from our village, your father’s still alive. My sister said he’d been visited regularly by a caravan trader bringing supplies.”

  Luz. Whoever the girl who sprang me from the Aphorain dungeons was, it seems she’s true to her word. A part of me that has wound so tight over the past moons begins to slowly unravel in relief.

  “When was this?”

  Barden taps his fingers as if counting off days. “Mirtan’s had her hands full with the new baby. Sometime in Borenai, I guess?”

  Last moon. My nerves ratchet tight gain. If there’s anything I’ve learned recently, it’s that a lot can change in a moon. And even when things seem bad, they can still get a lot worse.

  I take a deep breath and square my shoulders. “This is bigger than us, Bar. We have to find a way to get to Ash. We have to.”

  Hours later, I find myself taking one last look up at Shokan, the larger moon full but for a slivered edge, before descending back into one of my worst nightmares. Last time I faced a sewer, I was breaking out.

  This time, I’m breaking in.

  I don’t want to separate the scents, don’t want to know about the cured meat experiment that went wrong in the kitchens, don’t want to know that half the staff had bad river fish for dinner last night and it’s been troubling them all since.

  Even Barden presses his arm to his face, his nose and mouth hidden in the crook of an elbow as he leads the way.

  We didn’t dare bring a torch, fearing it might be seen at a junction or through a grate in the floor of some cellar. So I’m listening to the changing tones in the flow of effluent, the slightest of breezes that tells me there’s an opening up ahead as well as back the way we came, the feel of the stone wall under my hand as I pick my way along the narrow path.

  If I didn’t have a nose, I might be able to admire the genius of a waste system that fully contains every rotten thing the palace produces, carrying it away from the buildings and streets to a place where anyone who is anyone in this city doesn’t have to get the barest whiff.

  I suppose it has to come out somewhere. Presumably that somewhere is further downriver. Oh. On the last night Ash and I camped before arriving at the city, I bathed downriver.

  I push the thought away.

  The only thing I have room for now is keeping one foot moving after the other on the slick stones and making it to Ash. Because if he’s anywhere, Barden says, he’ll be in one of the prison cells deep below the palace, like the one I was in before I fled Aphorai.

  On a curve in the tunnel, my foot slips. A section of path breaks away, plopping into the sludge. My breath catches in my throat, bringing with it the very taste of sewer. It’s a struggle to keep my stomach from rebelling.

  “Stick to your left,” Barden’s hoarse whisper seems uncannily loud down here. “The edge is crumbling.”

  “You don’t say,” I retort.

  I’ve lost track of how many turns we’ve taken, junctions we’ve crossed, grate-covered openings we’ve wiggled through when Barden calls a halt.

  “If he’s anywhere, he’ll be on the lowest level. That’s where they keep the most dangerous prisoners. There’s a vent in the next passage.”

  “And you know this how?”

  I imagine him shrugging in the darkness. “People say all sorts of things in front of servants. And I’m quick at making, ah, friends.”

  I roll my eyes. “How could I forget your friendly disposition?” If Barden was ever elevated to aristocracy he’d henceforth be known as Lord Flirt.

  He ignores that. “Once we’re through into the dungeons, I’ll stay by our exit route and keep watch. You remember filching oranges from Old Man Kelruk when we were kids?”

  “Uh-huh.” The burst of citrus sweetness each time I dug my thumb into the fruit’s skin will never leave me.

  “You remember the plan if we got caught?”

  “You’d puff up your chest and pretend to be the newest orchard boy who’d just caught me orange-handed?”

  “Exactly. We’ll play it the same. If anyone comes along and we’ve got no other choice, I’ll make like I got there first and arrest you.”

  “You really think that kind of smoke will rise?”

  “I’m pretty convincing when I want to be.” I can hear the smirk in his voice.

  “But what if they figure out you’ve helped me already? From the throne room?”

  “They won’t.”

  “How can you know for sure?”

  “Nobody who witnessed you leaving the throne room lived to tell the tale.”

  “Oh.” I grimace in the dark. Except you.

  “And, Rakel?”

  “What?”

  “Be careful. Please.”

  After the time I spent locked up under Aphorai, I would have been happy not to see another dungeon for the rest of my life.

  The Ekasyan version is worse. Cheap tallow torches smoking at regular intervals, stinking of rendered animal fat. Hot, fetid air. Guess the black stone retains the heat of the sun. It makes it seem like I’m descending into the belly of a beast.

  Further down the corridor from where I crouch, someone moans in pain. An all-too-familiar reek reaches my nose. I flinch, imagining Father’s bandaged ulcers. I hadn’t noticed a single infected beggar as I ran through the streets above. There wasn’t time to think on it earlier. Now, a shiver slinks up my spine, lifting the hair at the back of my neck. Barden’s “the most dangerous prisoners” takes on a whole new meaning.

  Anger simmers up from my core. Does anyone who gets the Rot in the capital get thrown down here?

  I’m so preoccupied with my outrage, I almost walk straight past Ash’s cell.

  Unlike the other prisoners I’ve passed, he isn’t just locked behind bars. He’s shackled to the wall, arms wide, wrists pinned by manacles fixed into the stone.

  Dark blood cakes his face. One eye has swollen completely closed. If it weren’t for his tattoos, I might not have even recognized him. The weak light of the torches flickers across his chest and I gasp. All his wounds from the throne room are healed, apart from where the scars from the Aphorain lion hunt have reopened.

  I’m about to whisper through the bars to him when I hear the hollow bang of a door. Heavy boot strikes start down the corridor towards me.

  I slink back out of the light.

&
nbsp; CHAPTER 44

  Ash

  The cell skitters with rodents.

  A slow drip plinks on the stone, though I couldn’t tell if it’s in my cell or the next or the next. My wrists are bound in iron manacles bolted into the wall above me in unwilling surrender. I don’t know how long ago I lost feeling in my arms, but my shoulders make up for it. The joints scream in agony.

  If I could just keep my legs beneath me, it might be better.

  But I’m tired.

  So tired.

  The wounds from my episode have healed. How long have I been down here? I chew my lower lip, half expecting to find beard, but there’s no more than when we arrived in Ekasya.

  I’ve always mended fast but this is something else. The skin beneath my tattoo is smooth, except for the lines of scar tissue where the lion raked its claws down my torso in the Aphorain desert. Those wounds have split. Judging by the heat that pulses through the surrounding flesh, they’re not in good shape.

  Any other damage came courtesy of the guards who dragged me down here. Lacerations and bruises, a gash across my brow, one eye puffed closed.

  If only they’d finished me off. The big Aphorain had his chance. Azered take him for not following through with it.

  A change in the light seems a ghost at first. Then it becomes real – flickering through the bars. Have they scheduled my trial already and come to drag me to the headsman’s block?

  I lift my chin from where it lolls on my chest. Pain shoots down my neck with the movement. My good eye squints at the invading light, so used to the dark have I become. Fitting.

  Then there’s the tell-tale scrape of boots on stone. Ranger boots.

  The cell door swings open, the moan of the hinges almost as loud as those from the other prisoners in the endless night.

  The silhouette in the torchlight is much taller than the jailers. “Those are some nasty-looking gashes you’ve got yourself there, house cat. Cut yourself on your own claws?”

  “Iddo.” The name comes out thickened in the middle by my split lip, broken at the edges from parched thirst. “Have you come all the way down here to taunt me?”

  “Nobody could frequent this place for mirth.”

  “Get on with it, then.”

  “You’re hardly in a position to give orders.”

  “And you’re now in a position to give even more of them. Regent? How well you’ve benefitted from your brother’s downfall. Almost suspiciously so.”

  “You went rogue, house cat.” He grates. “We needed information. Where do you think we would find the most information? From the perpetrator of the crime. You cost us that, and then you failed to get justice for my brother.”

  “All this time you’ve been seeking justice. Your justice. I was trying to save him.”

  “Saving? The massacre up there? I’d think you a traitor if you weren’t too much of a fool.” He takes a deep breath, visibly reining himself in. “I won’t stand here and justify myself to you. My brother’s welfare is no longer any of your concern. There’s nothing you can do now except bring more shame upon him than you’ve already wreaked.” He holds the torch out towards me and I cringe back from the light. “You hear the truth in my words, don’t you?”

  Bring shame to Nisai? Yes. With a messy, public execution during which I might lose my nerve. Because that’s how any trial of mine will end. There’s no escaping it. I can’t be tolerated, not after serving the imperial family for as long as I have and yet putting them in danger day in, day out.

  Iddo takes my silence as agreement, if not acceptance.

  “I’ll promise you this. You can go to the sky knowing my brother will be avenged. I’ll make sure of it.”

  He holds something in his other hand. It takes me a moment to realize it’s a sword. One of my own. He steps forward, leaning it against the wall beside me.

  “He would have wanted me to afford you this dignity. I only desire to save you both the disgrace of a trial. Because my brother knew, didn’t he? He never breathed a word to me, one of the people who needed to know the most. But he knew.”

  A flash of the horror in the throne room jolts me. Iddo’s right. Whatever his future is, or his legacy, Nisai is better off without me. They’re all better off without me. It’ll be a relief if I die, if not at the hands of the guards, then here, by my own hand. Better. For everyone.

  I stare hopelessly at Iddo before letting my head slump to my chest again. There’s nothing to say.

  Moving almost gently, he reaches up to where my manacles are bolted to the walls. A key scrapes. The locks release, and I crumple to the dank floor in a knot of chains and agony.

  I catch my breath, then ask: “Will there be a chance to at least say goodbye?”

  “Goodbye?”

  “I know I can’t see him in person. But a letter perhaps? For if he ever wakes? At least to … explain.”

  “A letter? No, Ashradinoran. You said your farewell when you slunk off into the Aphorain night. And after what your desert rat girlfriend did, I doubt my brother will read anything ever again. He’s been shifted to the temple.”

  I flinch. The temple? An image appears behind my swollen eye – Nisai’s body laid out on a pyre at the summit of the stepped pyramid.

  Iddo watches me for a long moment. Then he nods to the sword. “I’ve done you this courtesy; my conscience is clear. Now it’s time to fulfil your last duty as Shield.” With a sigh, he turns and leaves the cell, shutting the door behind him. It clangs into place with morbid finality.

  As his footsteps recede, I hear him muttering. I can’t make out all the words, but one part does make it through. “It didn’t have to be this way, house cat.”

  I contemplate the sword leaning in the corner.

  If I don’t use it, a trial is inevitable. If a miracle happens and Nisai wakes by then, would he speak out for me? Surely he’d see that would be a catastrophic move to make before his reign has even begun. They’d find out that he knew about me. That he knew all along and didn’t denounce me, didn’t leave me on the street that day all those turns ago. He’d condemn himself.

  After this, it’s undeniable. I’m a throwback to the Shadow Wars. Children of Doskai, Nisai said my kind were called back then, when the Lost God was still commonly worshipped; when the Lost God was yet to be lost. When soldiers’ wraith forms made up the vanguards of armies, fighting battle after battle until daylight turned dark and the rivers bled with rage.

  Just like the throne room bled.

  Because of me. Because I wanted to escape the slums. Have a chance at a better life, one with meaning. Because I’d never had a friend before Nisai. And look how I repaid him.

  Iddo’s right. There’s only one more thing I can do now to honour my duty. Protect the Prince. Even if it’s from himself.

  I take up the sword and wrap both hands around the hilt.

  CHAPTER 45

  Rakel

  “Ash,” I whisper.

  He doesn’t answer; he’s too intent on the sword the Commander left. I only caught hints of their conversation from the alcove I hid in nearby, but enough reached me to know what the weapon is for.

  There’s no way I’m going to let that happen.

  I creep closer. “Ash!”

  He doesn’t get up from the floor but does tilt his head towards my voice. “Rakel?”

  I point through the bars to the sword. “Tell me you’re not going to use that.”

  He turns away. “It’s the only way I can honour—”

  “Honour? Honour can go broil in shit and sulphur. I can’t believe he got to you. This is the last thing Nisai would want.”

  “Just like your father didn’t want you to be a fugitive, presumably?” There’s a dark edge of self-loathing in his voice.

  “That’s not fair, and you know it.”

  He heaves a sigh. The movement makes him cringe and press a hand to his side. “You’re right. But so am I. Your father wouldn’t have wanted this, but you cared about him so much that
this is where we are. It’s the same with Nisai. I must do what is best for him, even if it isn’t want he’d want. You were there. You saw what that thing did. What I did.”

  “That wasn’t you.” My voice is steady, but my heart wavers in guilt-ridden beats. Did Ash know what he was doing? Did he have any control over that thing? Could he have stopped the air filling with screams and the stench of death? But then I remember him unmoving on the throne-room floor, blood pooling across the marble. “It wasn’t you.”

  “Then who was it, Rakel? Everyone will be better off without me. Safer. That includes you.”

  I wave that away. “Nisai was researching how to help you, wasn’t he?”

  He hangs his head. “Nisai’s been trying to find a solution for half our lifetime. If there was an answer, he would have found it by now. And even if he was on to something, his research is long gone, no thanks to me.”

  I pat my satchel. “It didn’t get far.”

  “You have it?” He pushes himself to his feet, taking an unsteady step away from the sword.

  I retrieve the notebook with a flourish.

  He moves closer, squinting into the torchlight, hands wrapping in tight fists around the bars.

  Good. There’s a spark left in him. I need that. “You said it yourself. Our futures are inseperable. The Commander isn’t going to let me go, even if I can help Nisai. I need you to stay alive, as a witness to everything that has happened. And I need something else, too.”

  “What?”

  “Your blood.”

  “My what?”

  I wave the book, trying not to let my voice rise with enthusiasm. “The cure? It wasn’t based on the poison craft of each province. It was from the time of the gods: the Shadow Wars. It worked on you because you’re Doskai’s part in the poison, and the cure.”

  I hold the book up, flicking to the page I’d found. “See, look at Nisai’s translation. That symbol is ‘shadow’. That one is ‘beast’ and I’d bet my nose that third is the Lost God. Those very same symbols were in the smudged note on the scroll. It’s you, Ash. The final ingredient is you.”

  He staggers back, snagging the sword with his heel. I cringe as it clatters to the stone floor, the noise echoing up the hall. We both catch our breath, waiting to hear if any footsteps follow the commotion.