Lilia waited. Gian nervously tugged at her hand. Mohrai coughed a few times, and whispered something to Alhina.
“Will they come?” Alhina asked Lilia.
“She’ll come,” Lilia said.
They had attracted crowds from both armies. The army on the other side of the table, the Tai Mora, all sat outside their tents, watching. Some stood, sipping tea from metal cups. It seemed to Lilia like an extravagant use of metal.
There was a ripple among the army further back; Lilia followed it with her gaze.
The crowd parted, and two women and two men strode forward. The woman at the front wore chitinous red armor, but no helm. Beside her was a woman wearing a Dorinah-cut dress. The men behind both wore armor as well. The armor was the blue she associated with parajistas. Lilia had wanted to bring parajistas too, but knew that if things went very badly at this table, no amount of parajistas would save her.
The two women at the front she knew. The woman in the armor was the Kai, the one who had attacked her mother with a willowthorn sword while Lilia stood on the other side of the rent between the worlds, screaming. The other was Isoail, the woman who wore Lilia’s mother’s face here, the one who had happily sent Lilia off to the slave camps before realizing she was more useful than she first realized.
Lilia’s stomach knotted. She had to let go of Gian’s hand, then, because she was going to grip it hard enough to hurt her.
As the Kai approached, Lilia reached for some sense of calm, the same calm she had when others were grievously injured, and she had to concentrate wholly on their problem. She felt her fear bleed away. Her hands ceased to tremble.
The Kai was just a woman. Women died.
And Isoail… she should not have been surprised that Isoail had switched sides.
Kirana reached her seat. Placed her hands casually on the back of it. “I was promised your Kai, ugly bird,” she said to Lilia.
“I am the Catori of Dhai,” Mohrai said. “I speak for the Kai. You must excuse his absence. He was called away on other matters.”
“He lost his nerve, you mean,” Kirana said. She sat in her seat, and waved at the rest of them. “Sit, sit. Let’s get this over with.”
Isoail sat beside Kirana, but the men did not sit.
Lilia sat opposite Isoail. Mohrai sat opposite the Kai, with Alhina to her right. Gian sat at Lilia’s left.
The serving staff removed the covers on the food. The smell of it made Lilia’s stomach growl. She had not eaten properly in days. She could not keep herself from looking at the piles of the forsia tubers, their honey-smelling steam dominating the other scents.
“You know I won’t eat anything,” Kirana said. “I’m not so great a fool as that.”
“Eat what you like,” Lilia said. “But it’s polite here, to parley over a table, especially during this festival season.”
“A festive season.” Kirana laughed.
“You and I know one another,” Lilia said. She asked Mohrai to pass her one of the forsia tubers. Mohrai raised her brows as if to ask “So soon?” but she passed it nonetheless.
Gian took one as well, though her fingers trembled as she did. Mohrai and Alhina did the same before adding other dishes to their plates – the fiddleheads and rice, the honeyed onions and oily kale.
Kirana touched nothing. Lilia started to panic. If she would not eat, it meant they needed to drag this distraction on a very long time, long enough for the civilians pouring out the back entrance of the temple to make it a good way to the woodlands. Hours, maybe. She could not imagine sitting with this woman for hours.
Kirana tapped her glass. One of the men came from behind and filled it with something from a flask at his hip. “Do I know you?” she said. “I know many people.”
“You killed my mother,” Lilia said. “So I destroyed your mirror.”
Kirana smiled broadly. It was Isoail who looked like she wanted to bolt. “You did?” she said. She drank the amber liquor in her glass. Smacked her lips. “You killed your own mother in the process. How did that feel?”
“I could tell you, if I felt anything anymore,” Lilia said, “but I’ve given that up for embroidery.”
Kirana laughed. It sounded like a genuine laugh, deep and long. For a terrible moment, Lilia imagined a world where they could have been friends, or lovers. Different worlds. Different choices.
“Isn’t it right that we get along?” Lilia said. “We both love this world.”
Kirana smiled. “Let me take a stab. Poisonous, is it?” she said. She pushed at her plate again.
Mohrai and Alhina were already eating, but neither had dared touch the tuber.
“There’s nothing wrong with any of it,” Lilia said. “You insult me.” She began to carefully cut up the tuber. Gian watched her plate, too intently. Lilia should have left her in Kuallina. Taigan had a less easily read expression, but Taigan had abandoned her, and Gian had only run from her. Lilia tried not to smile too broadly as she ate the first bite of the rich, spongy interior of the tuber. It tasted nutty-sweet. Like revenge.
Kirana peered at Lilia’s plate. Lilia’s stomach squeezed. It was very possible they had the same kind of plant over there. If it was recognized, they’d take Lilia’s head now. She may as well take it off herself.
Instead, it was Isoail who took one of the tubers from the plate. She set one on Kirana’s as well, and served her rice and fiddleheads too.
Isoail did not exchange a single look with Lilia. She began to cut up the tuber. She removed the skin, as Lilia had. But as Lilia watched her cut it up she noted Isoail missed the translucent, veiny spine of it. The part filled with the poison. Isoail took a careful bite. Rolled it around on her tongue. Her eyes lit up. Surprise. Joy.
“That’s very fine,” Isoail said. “Just as I always read.”
“Yes,” Lilia said, though what Isoail was tasting was something Lilia never had. Her mother said forsia was the most delicious delicacy in the world. The most sublime. Unforgettable. The inner, edible tuber was nothing compared to the ecstasy of the poison. And Isoail knew what it was. She ate it gladly. Isoail was not a traitor. She was another captive, with no way out.
Isoail continued eating while Kirana talked. Lilia tensed with each bite Isoail took. Lilia ate her own, de-veined tuber slowly. Each bite tasted like stones now.
“Let’s get to the point of this meeting,” Kirana said. “I believe we’re to have an exchange. What is your proposition?”
“We ask for immediate cessation of hostilities,” Mohrai said. “In exchange we are willing to turn over a woman of some interest to you. Yisaoh Alais Garika.”
Kirana took a long, slow drink. “Why should I cease this assault for just one woman?”
“If she is of no interest to you, then we are at an impasse,” Mohrai said. “We will send her home.”
“She is in Kuallina?” Kirana said. Too quickly.
Lilia knew, then. Yisaoh was someone to her. The double of someone close to her.
I know your weakness, Lilia wanted to squeal, but Isoail was washing down the poisoned tuber with more water. Refilling the glass. Extreme thirst was the first sign of poisoning. Lilia could do nothing. Could not speak. Could not yell. This was Isoail’s choice. The woman with her mother’s face.
“Water?” Gian asked. She was filling their glasses. Lilia nodded absently.
“She has asked for harbor in Kuallina,” Mohrai said, “but if we cannot work something out, I suspect she will return to the woodland.”
“You’ll just turn her over to me, like that?”
“We understand our position,” Mohrai said.
“It seems like a very easy choice,” Lilia said, “but you can think on it here as you eat. We’ll have drinks, after, and decide then.”
“I have no interest in dragging this out,” Kirana said.
Lilia stopped eating her tuber and picked at her rice. As she scooped a bit of it to her mouth, she saw a black thread in it, right before eating. Her stomach heaved. It was
a bit of the poisoned vein of the tuber. She set it back on her plate.
“We are in no hurry,” Mohrai said.
Kirana leaned forward. “Is that right? Well, I am. If this is a serious offer, let’s say this – you bring me Yisaoh, alive or otherwise, it makes no difference to me, and we withdraw for one hour. We let your civilians leave the fortress. But your jistas and your militia stay. Their lives are forfeit.”
“Unacceptable,” Mohrai said.
But Lilia wondered, for a long moment, if they should take it. They were here risking their own lives to save those civilians, to give them a few precious hours to escape. Could they not turn over Yisaoh? Yet the Kai would never permit it. Mohrai would know that too.
“That is my offer,” Kirana said. “Convenient as it is for you to deliver Yisaoh to me, even if she runs, I will find her eventually. I find all those who oppose me, and I give them a fitting end.”
Her gaze swept the table. She made some imperceptible nod and served herself up some kale and weed plantains. Lilia tried not to stare as she poked at the tuber on her plate.
Lilia concentrated very hard on her own food, making a moat around the tainted rice.
Alhina spoke, suddenly, words spilling loudly, “You will love the forsia tuber,” she said. “It is such a delicacy.”
Lilia stiffened. Fool.
Mohrai said, “I will consider the offer. We will, of course, have to speak to the Kai.”
“I doubt that,” Kirana said. “You forget we share faces as well as temperaments. My brother was always a coward. I suspect this Ahkio is no different.”
“In that, you are wrong,” Mohrai said. “He is one of the most compassionate, honest and trustworthy human beings I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.”
Kirana raised her brows. “There are some differences, then,” she said, and laughed a little as she began to skin the tuber.
Lilia tried to measure how much time had passed since they had left the hold. Nearly two hours? The Kai would be awake now, and angry, but Yisaoh would have already begun the retreat into the woodlands.
“Did you recover many omajistas?” Lilia asked Kirana. “The ones the rebellion sent to other worlds?”
Kirana paused in her peeling. “We recovered a great many,” she said. “They were on the wrong side of this conflict, and all of them knew it. It’s too bad you yourself burned out.”
Mohrai and Alhina turned to stare at Lilia.
Heat moved up Lilia’s face. “Why do you think that?” she asked.
“Because Isoail here has had you in a palisade spell this whole time, and you have yet to attempt to counter it,” she said.
Lilia met Isoail’s look across the table.
Isoail’s gaze was warm and very frank. She did not look away as she pulled the black mushy center of the tuber from its heart and pushed it into her mouth.
Of course Isoail knew what forsia was.
Isoail gagged almost immediately. She vomited on the table, so violently it splattered Mohrai and Alhina, who shouted and pushed away.
Lilia pressed her hands to her mouth, but did not move.
Beside her, Gian gagged. She knocked over Lilia’s wine glass. Fell to the floor. Began to convulse.
Lilia stared at her, not comprehending. She grabbed Gian’s plate and saw the broken tendrils of the of the forsia plant mixing with bits of her rice and fiddleheads. Gian had accidentally eaten it, just as Lilia had almost ingested it herself.
“Gian!” she scrambled after her, and held her in her arms. Gian vomited black bile. It splattered across Gian and Lilia both.
“Parajistas!” Kirana’s voice.
The voice that called for the destruction of Lilia’s village, for the enslavement of her mother. The voice that would bring the whole world to its knees.
Now that voice would smite her, once and for all.
Something flashed in the sky overhead.
Lilia held Gian’s convulsing body close. Black bile oozed from her mouth and nose now, and her eyes were glazing over, so very dark, just like the other Gian… the other Gian… so many Gians, all dead. So many worlds, all dead.
Flickering in the sky. A wash of violent light.
Lilia looked skyward. Two stars blazed in the sky where there had only been Para a moment before. As she watched, Para blinked out, leaving the great purple mass of Sina blaring balefully upon them. A great, thunderous rumble shook the clear sky.
“Gods,” Lilia said.
The parajista walls. The barricades around Kuallina. Their entire defense relied on Para’s breath.
Kirana started shouting again, a different order. She had left the platform. Mohrai and Alhina, too, had fled, running back toward Kuallina through the broken barricades.
“Sinajistas! Raise the flags! Raise the flags! Burn that fucking hold down while it’s vulnerable!”
Lilia held Gian a breath longer. She ran her fingers through Gian’s long, silky hair. On the other side of the table, she saw Isoail’s prone form covered in black bile. They were the only three still on the dais.
Lilia – ungifted, forgettable once again. Her greatest gift was appearing too ordinary and powerless to bother killing when there was a whole defenseless stronghold at one’s mercy, and she had already murdered all of her greatest allies.
47
Heat and darkness. Roh saw the world in bands of color – blue lavender sky, the white slash of the tundra, a yellow wrap against a woman’s brown skin. Voices in Dhai, and then not-Dhai. It was a language so close he felt he must know it. Maybe he didn’t understand it because he was stuck in some kind of dream. Some nightmare.
He thought ascending to Sina would be faster and less confusing. But the journey continued while he shook and sweated and screamed at bulky violet apparitions bleeding great gouts of orange light from their mouths.
When his fever broke, he was unsure of the season. He wasn’t even certain where he was, until he heard one of his captors say, “Caisau.” They were so far north that seasons felt meaningless. All he knew was that most of the snow was gone. It persisted only in rotten patches in the shade of stunted undergrowth. He saw no trees this far north, but the implacable tundra was gone, too, replaced by jagged pillars of stone that snarled up from the rocky ground like the teeth of some band of snarling animals. He knew they were in Caisau because it was the only word that his captors spoke that he understood.
Roh spent a long time trying to work out their language every night, peering at their mouths and gestures. It was close enough to Dhai that he should have taken to it easily, but some terrible thing in him had shifted, and now the world looked very dark, and every task seemed difficult. Even though the days were absurdly long, he found it hard to wake up in the morning before he was kicked. He wanted to sleep forever.
The first time they tried to humiliate him, throwing stones at him until he took off his clothes and ran from them as they wanted; too weak to go far and easy to capture again, he cried when they caught him and beat him. It should have been easy to fight them, if he had a full stomach and Para at his call – but Para was lost to him, and he was so weak and exhausted he could barely lift his head most days. Whatever sickness had burned through him, it took much of his strength with it, and the pace they kept did not let him recover properly.
Caisau rose up from the snarled pillars of the rocky landscape, a massive living hold so breathtaking that even Roh – in his depressed, exhausted state – felt a surge of awe. Caisau, once called Roasandara, the seat of the Dhai two thousand years before. It was like stepping into some history book. They broke through the forest of pillars and onto a wide bowl of stone like a shallow crater. Caisau was made of dozens of linked domes and spiraling towers that encircled a central dome so great it seemed to touch the sky. The skin above the great red sandstone walls was blue-green, and shimmered like the skin of the Dhai temples. Far past the vastness of Caisau, he saw the sea, still bobbing with great icebergs, and a harbor filled with bone boats that looked
like crooked finger bones.
Around the walls of the hold were artisan houses, merchants’ stalls, and homes made from the same brown stone as the jutting pillars. For a city the size of Caisau, it did not seem very busy. As they moved through the great main streets, tiled in red stone, he saw why – there were no Saiduan here. They were all Tai Mora. A few looked up as their party passed, but most ignored them, faces open and boisterous. Roh had only seen the worst of their soldiers, but these were clearly civilians, or at least soldiers out of armor, and the way they laughed and carried on business brought tears to his eyes because it was like walking through some other world where the Dhai had never lost Caisau.
The Tai Mora had come home.
His captors brought him through the great shuttered eyes of the round gates. He kept thinking he would see signs of Dhai culture here, some art style or architecture that he recognized, but the fortress was completely foreign to him except for the living skin of it. Massive creatures carved from red stone and smoothed nearly featureless by wind and time leered at him from the walls. Some of the frescos had clearly been defaced and redone. They carried stories of Saiduan battles, not Dhai ones.
They passed into a foyer so high it made Roh dizzy to gaze up at it. The ceiling was patterned in green and blue geometric shapes, faced with mirrors that spilled light from its windows all across the floor.
His captors conferred with a tall, regal woman in a bulky fur-lined coat stitched in silver. She sat behind a bronze podium speaking to two pages. They argued for some time. The woman peered around them at Roh.
The woman was Tai Mora, but the pages or servants or assistants or whatever they were didn’t look like Tai Mora. They were finer featured, paler, with brown hair and yellow eyes.
“We’ll wait here a few minutes,” one of his captors, the broad, pock-faced woman they called Kosoli, said.
“Longer than that,” the man, Borasau, said.
The group of them sat against the far wall on a ring of benches. The little brown-haired assistants brought them tea and sweet cakes. Roh was starving, and they let him eat. He hated that he was so grateful for it.
The Worldbreaker Saga Omnibus Page 91