“You think any of you wouldn’t be hunted down were you to disavow yourselves of the Enclave’s protections?”
At this, Esrin and Dilara looked uncomfortable, while their sister, Esmeray, fumed.
“Go,” Prayna said, motioning to the door in the corner.
“You think any of you wouldn’t be taken and tortured and killed?”
“Go!” Prayna’s command echoed in the harshness of the wooden-walled room. “You won’t be told a third time.”
Anila took them in with a disgusted look. “Cowards.”
Before she could say more, Davud raised his hands and stepped between them. “Enough,” he said, and took Anila by the arm.
“Don’t touch me!” She ripped her arm free and stalked from the room.
When the door closed behind her with a boom, Davud faced the assemblage. “I came here with two hopes. While you’ve denied the first, I hope you won’t deny the second. You know Anila’s story. Necromancers need an anchor, a tie to the world of the living. With Hamzakiir’s death, that tie is fading, and her connection to the farther fields grows stronger every day. I would save her.”
Prayna lifted her hands, palms facing outward, and put on a look as if that one simple gesture had absolved her of all responsibility. “I fear that’s beyond us.”
“Surely you have some knowledge amongst you. Or texts that might illuminate her condition, perhaps even point to a cure.” He looked pointedly to Undosu. “And you in turn, may have more questions for us.”
Before Undosu could say a word, Prayna waved toward the door. “Steer clear of the Enclave and its interests, and none of us will do you harm. Beyond that, you’re on your own.”
The fading of her heartless words took the last of Davud’s hope with it. It wasn’t enough that they’d condemned Davud to a life of being hunted; their decision was a death sentence for Anila. “I remind you we’ve done nothing wrong. King Sukru, if he has his way, will destroy us for killing his brother, the Sparrow, a man who for centuries has preyed upon those who might otherwise have entered your ranks. You are the poorer for that, and you’re the poorer for the decision you’ve made here today.”
Davud could see that Undosu, the old Kundhuni, regretted what had happened, but he spoke no word in his defense, nor did anyone else. As they’d been on the way in, Davud and Anila were blindfolded and bespelled before being led away and deposited in the boneyard where they’d fought Esmeray. Fezek was already there, staring at his own gravestone. The Enclave had at least had the decency to find him new clothes and a hooded cloak so that he didn’t look like, well, like what he was. A ghul.
“Come,” Davud said, and led them away.
With the twin moons bathing the city in a soft silver light, they headed back to the cellar they’d rented in the Shallows. Once inside the dank, lightless space, Fezek sat in the corner and leaned back against the cool mudbrick.
“Would you like me to recite a poem to help you sleep?”
“No, thank you,” Davud said. His poems were terrible.
“A sonnet, perhaps.”
Before Davud could respond, Anila lay down and stared at the candle by her bedside. “Tell me again about Meiwei.”
Fezek was deflated, but thankfully took the hint and fell silent. Davud, meanwhile, crossed his legs on the bed and leaned his back against the wall. Anila, who had seemed so indomitable a short while ago, now looked defeated, a woman ready to accept whatever the fates had in store for her.
She sensed his reticence, his unwillingness to dredge up the past. “I need it, Davud. Tell me what you remember.”
Since learning of Hamzakiir’s death, she’d insisted Davud share his memories of their fellow graduates from the collegia. He knew very well it wasn’t the memories she was interested in, per se, but the horrors they’d been put through. Their abduction. Their travel by ship to Ishmantep. His and Anila’s escape and subsequent return to the caravanserai in hope of freeing the friends they’d spent years studying with, only to find that they’d missed Hamzakiir by minutes, the man who had done this to them all, the one they’d hoped to exact their revenge against. Worst of all for Davud was his personal horror at having used Anila’s blood, which left her like this: halfway between life and death.
There were times when he felt like this macabre ritual of reciting tales was hurting Anila more than it was helping—the tales might feed her anger, but they also ate at her soul. Yet he’d found no more effective ways to help her. So, as the candle’s light shone golden on the snakelike patterns in Anila’s skin, Davud told her all he remembered about Meiwei. How pretty her smile was, how her notes were always a mess but how she very often had the highest marks on their tests. How shy and polite she was, and how she would skip when she was excited to tell you something. He told her everything: the funniest memories, the saddest, the most touching. Through it all, Anila’s eyes were closed.
“Now Collum,” she said when he was done.
Davud found he could no longer look at her, so he lay down and stared at the wooden beams running across the ceiling. He told her Collum’s tale, but instead of giving in to the anger, he recounted memories of affable Collum in a way his fellow graduates would approve of: with grins and laughter, a gleam in his melancholy eyes.
Davud woke to the feeling of being watched. He lifted his head and looked toward the corner. He shivered as he saw Fezek staring back at him. Fezek was sitting in the exact same position as earlier, his unblinking eyes glaring like lanterns at Davud. “Gods, Fezek, what is it?”
“I’m sorry about yesterday.”
“What do you mean?”
“The woman. Esmeray. I nearly . . .”
Nearly killed her, he meant. Davud could still see the crazed look in his eyes as he’d raised his foot high, ready to bring it down on top of her skull, and his subsequent rage when Davud tackled him.
“It’s all right, Fezek. It’s what we told you to do.”
“Yes, well, it’s not like me. I don’t know what’s happened.”
It’s no mystery, Davud wanted to say. Anila brought you back from the dead, and now you’re not all there. They’d had this conversation before, though. Bringing it up only made Fezek more upset. “It’s all right,” Davud said soothingly.
Fezek smiled half-heartedly. “Thank you,” he said. “You can go back to sleep.” But those cloudy eyes of his didn’t budge.
“Look, I don’t mean to be rude, Fezek, can you please stop staring at me? It’s ghastly.”
“More ghastly than me being dead?”
“They’re both ghastly. Now will you please stare somewhere else?”
With an affronted look, Fezek raised both hands and turned his head away. “Heavens forbid you become uncomfortable when the dead poet stares at you. I mean, it’s not as if I’m doing it to remember my time amongst the living, a thing that comforts me like a warm blanket in winter. No, why would you think that?”
Before Davud could say anything else, there came the sound of scraping from outside the cellar door. It was rhythmic and getting louder. Someone was descending the steps. Fezek’s hearing wasn’t very good, but his head now swiveled toward the door, and his eyes widened. As Davud swung his feet off the bed and placed them on the cold, packed earth, Fezek rushed to the door, opened it, and lunged into the night.
There came a yelp of fright, then sounds of a struggle. “Let go of me!”
Fezek dragged a woman with dark skin and wild hair into the room. By the gods, it was Esmeray. Fezek had her by the wrists, his grip so tight Esmeray was wincing.
“Enough, Fezek,” Davud said. “Let her go.”
Fezek complied, his expression wary as he stepped back into his corner. Esmeray seemed as angry as she’d been in the boneyard, but her look softened as she turned her gaze to Anila, who was still lost in her dreams, her eyes moving wildly beneath her lids. Davud thought
about waking her, but decided against it. The dreams helped, not because Anila found them restful, but because she’d found a way to dream of exacting her revenge against Hamzakiir.
“What do you want?” Davud asked.
Facing Fezek, Esmeray raised her hands defensively, but Fezek apparently no longer saw her as a threat and squatted down in his corner once more. Keeping one eye on him, she turned toward Davud and crossed her arms. “If it’s true what you said, that King Sukru took your blood, it won’t be long before he comes for you.”
Davud stared at her open-mouthed. “Which was precisely why I was seeking sanctuary!”
She motioned to Anila and went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “And even if he doesn’t, she won’t last much longer. Isn’t that right?”
Davud felt his face growing hot. “If you’ve only come to rub my nose in it, you can leave.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that you have other options?”
“Like what? Attacking Sukru while he sleeps?”
Esmeray’s tattooed eyes went unexpectedly wide with pleasure. “Precisely that. Let Sukru have his way and he’ll take you at his leisure. But take the fight to the Kings and you might stand a chance. Or at the very least you’ll not be taking it like some old, useless mule waiting for the hammer blow.”
It was so strange to see a woman who’d been ready to scratch out his eyes offering him advice that Davud smiled. “Why ever would you care?”
Her look was proud, even flinty, as if she were fighting a host of difficult memories. “I lost someone I loved dearly to the Kings. I wish I’d had the courage then to fight harder for him.”
“Couldn’t you still?”
Her look turned incredulous. She stabbed a finger at his chest. “Why do you think I’m here?”
“Wait, you’re offering to help us?”
“Me and one other, a Qaimiri lord who came begging for the Enclave’s help, a man who, despite his compelling story, was conspired against by the inner circle. His request, like yours, was denied.”
“Why would I care about him?”
Esmeray’s bright white smile made her look like a thief who’d stumbled on easy prey. “Because you could help one another. The Kings are after him as well. As is the city’s new queen.”
“Queen Meryam?”
“Just so.”
Davud shook his head. “This man’s name?”
“Lord Ramahd Amansir.”
Chapter 22
IN THE WEEK FOLLOWING THE ATTACK by the diseased asirim, Brama witnessed a hundred more being brought to the Mirean hospital ship. Knowing how dangerous it was for any to tend to them, he decided to remain on the ship and help where he could.
The two physics, the old woman and the young man, died a week after showing signs of the disease, but before succumbing they offered up a host of ideas for how to fight it. Some of the afflicted had been placed on fasts. Others were put in sweat lodges. Others still were blooded with leeches. All treatments had a minimal effect, some made the symptoms worse. And the medicinals applied to new patients’ skin had only seemed to ease the pain of the necrosis, not treat the condition. Queen Alansal had given up a small amount of a fabled liquor called brightwine in hopes that it would help. It gave those who imbibed it hours of bliss, but when it, too, proved ineffective, the queen put an immediate end to the practice.
Brama had hoped that the sickening sense of joy he felt while near the afflicted would vanish, but it didn’t. If anything it grew. It was nearly enough to make him stay away from the ships, but he buried the thought the moment it reared its ugly head. Whatever discomfort he might experience, it was nothing compared to the suffering of the afflicted. Still, it had the effect of compounding his growing hatred of Rümayesh and the fact that he was becoming more like her by the day.
Several more times he heard the same strange trumpeting sound he’d heard while walking with Juvaan days ago. It came from beyond the camp this time, well beyond the oasis, and was accompanied by clouds of dust. Brama asked what it was, but the only thing anyone would ever say was gui shan. The calls reminded him of the elephants he’d seen brought to Sharakhai years ago, though the sound of these animals was deeper, rougher, more resonant. “May I see them?” he asked several times, intensely curious.
But the answer was always an emphatic no.
Nine days after the attack, Brama was changing the sheets of a fallen soldier when several new patients shuffled into the infirmary. Brama gasped when he recognized one. “Gods, no,” he whispered, and made his way toward her.
Like all of the Damned, Mae’s hair was closely shorn along the top and sides of her head, with a long braided tail at the back. She stared at him with her vivid green eyes and put on a pleasant face as Brama neared. She was a brave woman, but gods, the fear behind her smile. “I was so certain the gods had shone on me,” she said, referring to the way she’d been spared from the disease so far.
Indeed, so had Brama. Mae had been there when it all began and had escaped the first wave of victims, while her twin sister, Shu-Fen, had succumbed to it. But now here she was, her lips turning gray, her eyes turning red. Brama sat on a stool by her bedside and took her hand. “Some have beaten it.”
“Only six,” she replied.
“And you’ll be the seventh. Seven is a lucky number.”
Her smiled turned genuine. “Not in Mirea.” Then she paused and became pensive. “I more scare for Angfua than I am for me.”
Angfua was her qirin. As with Shu-fen’s qirin, Angfua would die if Mae succumbed to the disease.
“How did Angfua find you?” Brama asked. It was a terribly personal question, as he well knew. It was taboo to ask the Damned of their crimes or the circumstances around the bonding with their qirin. But he was not Mirean, and he wondered if the Damned themselves wouldn’t like to talk of it from time to time.
At first Mae only picked at the fringe of her blanket, and he thought she would decline to answer, but then she looked at him defiantly. “I kill the man who rape my younger brother.” Her jaw worked, as if the memories were working themselves out in ways she couldn’t express. “They suspect him of other crimes like this, but he was constable in the village, and town elders stood behind him.” She shrugged. “I didn’t see how a man such as this should be allowed to live.”
“Understandably,” Brama said. “Justifiably. Shu-Fen joined you?”
“Shu-Fen try to stop me, but they didn’t believe us, and sentenced her to a life in the queen’s mines alongside me.”
“I’m sorry,” Brama said. “That’s how you found your qirin? You called for one?”
As Brama understood it, any accused who thought themselves in the right, even when committing a terrible crime, could forego a trial and call for a qirin to judge them instead. If they were chosen, the bond was forged. If not, the qirin would find them unworthy and gore them to death.
Mae shook her head. “Judgment pass already. Angfua and Jin come to village square where Shu-Fen and I would be whipped. They touch their horns to the ropes that bind us, and the knots come undone. We rode them from village and no one stop us.”
Brama wondered at the bond created between them, one of love and respect. So different from the one I have with Rümayesh. “Is there no way to release Angfua?”
Mae’s smile was strained. “I wish it—” She paused. “Possibril?”
“Wish it was possible.”
She nodded, embarrassed. “I wish it was possible, but our bond, it made for life.”
“And the Damned? I thought the queen selects them herself.”
“She do. We wanted no more dishonor on our family, so I travel to the capital to beg the queen to join her service. She is wise, our queen. She agree, and asked Shu-Fen to come as well.”
Brama’s thoughts were interrupted by a commotion near the entrance. Brama turned and found Juvaan st
anding there, beckoning to him. “Queen Alansal summons you.”
Brama nodded, then squeezed Mae’s hand. “In the desert, there are seven gods. Seven will be your number. Just you wait and see.”
With a stony expression, Juvaan led Brama to the queen’s pavilion, refusing to say why she wished to speak with him. But when Brama entered and found several of the Damned watching him from behind their grinning masks, their diamond-tipped arrows at the ready, he was fairly certain it wasn’t for tea. He wondered, given how closely linked he and Rümayesh were, whether those arrows would affect him the same way they would her, but he tossed the thought aside as useless. The desert, as the old saying went, holds a thousand and one ways to die. What was one more?
In the center of the dais, sitting cross-legged on her wooden chair, was Queen Alansal. She wore a resplendent dress of blue silk with a bright orange sash across her waist. Her hair was intricately coiffed in a headdress with two steel pins holding it in place, but she looked haggard, with dark bags beneath her eyes, and while some of her grim determination remained, she looked small just then, like the fabled fox who’d challenged the hyena and been eaten for his trouble.
“What progress in contacting your mistress?” She sounded weary, but there was a clear note of desperation as well. She would not remain patient much longer, but what could Brama say?
“I’ve been trying, your Excellence. But I’m afraid she’s not responding.”
“Where has she gone?”
“I don’t know.”
Alansal straightened her back. “What would you think was happening, were you in my position?”
“I would think that ehrekh are mysterious, and their purposes cannot always be known to us, and that we should trust her at her word when she says she is here to help us.”
“Us?”
Brama hadn’t meant to say it, but he supposed it was true. Despite the fact that they were sailing to wage war against the city that birthed him, he felt sympathy for these people. At least, for those who might die at the hands of this dark disease. They didn’t deserve long, lingering deaths. If things continued as they had been, the plague might swallow the entire Mirean fleet whole.
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