Vessel

by Sarah Beth Durst

  She was silent. Raan would have argued with him. Pia might have agreed. But Liyana couldn’t think of any words that felt right. Standing beside him, she faced the sculptures too. She noticed that all of them were desert totems: falcon, tortoise, raven. . . . He must have chosen them to inspire him as he invaded her home. She spotted her clan’s totem on the lowest shelf, and she knelt to see it better. Every detail was perfect, from the tuft under the goat’s chin to the curve of its hooves.

  He knelt beside her and lifted the goat statue from its shelf. He placed it in her hands. She held it up, and it flickered in the rays of sunlight that crept into the tent.

  “Some in the empire believe that your deities do not exist,” the emperor said. “Yet you were willing to die for your goddess. You and I, we are not so different.”

  She looked at him, surprised to hear him echo her earlier thought. He was close beside her. She could see the rise and fall of his breath in his chest. Only a few inches closer, and she thought she’d hear his heartbeat. “We are not so different,” she repeated.

  He held her gaze. “Help me save my people, Liyana.”

  “At the cost of my people’s freedom?”

  “Do you and your people value freedom more than your lives?” he asked. His eyes were as endless as the night sky. Intense, they nearly blazed. “You cannot survive without the empire.”

  He said it with such surety that her breath caught in her throat. He knows, she thought. Her hands began to shake, and she held tight to the glass statue, her clan’s totem animal, Bayla’s totem. . . . Oh, sweet goddess.

  There was one sculpture for every clan.

  One for every deity.

  Vessels of glass.

  “The desert people would have the full rights of every citizen of the empire—access to all of our resources,” the emperor said. “In exchange, we ask only a fair contribution to our economy, obedience to our laws, participation in mutually beneficial trade, and assistance in matters of concern to our combined people.”

  She peered into the depths of the statue. It looked to be hollow. Inside, colors caught the light and swirled. Turning the statue in her hand, she thought the colors spun more than they should have, as if they spun on their own. She saw markings on the base that matched her tattoos. She bet each statue had similar markings, transforming each of them into false vessels.

  “Of course, we would not interfere with your culture or traditions.”

  Liyana clutched the statue to her chest. “Except to imprison our gods.”

  “Except to free you!” He placed his hands on her shoulders so that she could not turn away. “Don’t you want to save yourself, as well as your people, Liyana? If you had another option, a way to have both, wouldn’t you at least consider it? You could return to your clan. You could see your brother again, see him grow up!”

  She closed her eyes, trying to grasp an inner calmness that was slipping away with the emperor’s proximity. Opening her eyes and looking directly into his, she said, “I am my people’s King of the Fields.”

  “You aren’t anymore,” he said quietly. “You are free.” Releasing her shoulders, he folded his hands around hers—around Bayla’s statue, the false vessel—and they held Liyana’s goddess together.

  She heard the flap open, and a man’s voice cut across the tent. “Your Imperial Majesty.” She tried to pull back, but the emperor continued to hold her hands. “An urgent matter has arisen in the east camp,” the soldier said.

  “I must attend to this,” the emperor said to Liyana, “but I will return and ask you one more time. Join me. Be my ambassador. Save your people and mine.”

  Liyana blinked. “You’re leaving me with her?” she blurted out before she had thought. She bit her lip and wished she could recall the words. She didn’t want to be forced to relinquish Bayla.

  “You cannot break the statue,” he said. “Besides, I know my stories. Even if your goddess were free, you could not summon her without a magician. The chant must be infused with magic.” He rose. “Hold your goddess in your hands, Liyana. Think about your life. Think about your future.”

  He swept out of the tent, and Liyana was alone with the trapped deities.

  Her hands shook. “My goddess,” she whispered. Could Bayla hear her? She looked at the statue of a raven, Korbyn’s intended prison. She shouldn’t have kissed him. She’d stolen that kiss from her goddess. It was not right.

  And no matter what the emperor said or what pretty promises he made, it was not right for her to sacrifice her clan’s freedom to save her own life.

  She wasn’t supposed to have a life anymore. She had said good-bye to her family, to everything she knew and loved. She was not supposed to see them again or sleep in their tent or see the stars with them or share a meal with them or . . . All the moments she had had since the ceremony were stolen, just like Bayla had been stolen from the Dreaming. She had to fix it and restore everything to the way it was supposed to be.

  This was her chance.

  Steeling herself, she brought the statue down hard on the corner of the desk. She expected it to shatter into a thousand pieces. Instead, it only dented the wood. She bashed it again and again. It didn’t chip.

  It’s not glass, she realized.

  She held it up, turning it so that it caught the light. “Diamond,” she said out loud. This was why the deities hadn’t broken out themselves. There was no natural process to speed or slow. Magic could not break diamond.

  Liyana drew the sky serpent knife out of her sash. Knives couldn’t slice a sky serpent scale. Arrows couldn’t pierce it. She laid the blade against the statue. Taking a deep breath, she pressed down.

  In her hands, the statue cracked.

  Quickly she concentrated and pictured her lake. Pulling on the magic, she chanted the words that Talu had spoken so long ago. “Bayla, Bayla, Bayla. Ebuci o nanda wadi, Bayla, Bayla, Bayla. Ebuci o yenda, Bayla, Bayla, Bayla. Vessa oenda nasa we.” She sent the summoning words wrapped in magic into the fractured statue as she carried it to the center of the tent. She laid the shards down on the silk cloths. She thought of magic and of emperors and of kisses.

  And she danced.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Emperor

  The emperor surveyed the expanse between the encampment and the border hills. Brittle grasses filled the slope. On the other side of that rise was the desert. “Tell me about the prisoners who escaped,” he said.

  “Two women,” one of his lieutenants said. Several other lieutenants stood silently at attention. “One of them was blind. The other needed to be subdued. They claimed to be from the Silk Clan and Scorpion Clan—”

  Hairs on the back of the emperor’s neck prickled. Mulaf had stolen the deities from both of those clans. They slept in their diamond statues inside the emperor’s tent. “Did either of them have tattoos on their arms?”

  “I do not know. Your Imperial Majesty, please accept my apologies. Interrogation of a blind woman and her companion was not a priority.” Fist over his heart, he bowed low.

  “I should have been informed of their capture immediately,” the emperor said. The prisoners had been taken only a few hours before Liyana walked into his camp. He didn’t believe in coincidences. “Why was this not brought to my attention?”

  The lieutenant fell to his knees. “Forgive—”

  “Stand,” the emperor said crisply. “Answer my question.”

  “We often apprehend desert men who stray too close to the border,” he said, rising. His head hung low like a dog who had been struck. “We did not think it warranted Your Imperial Majesty’s attention—”

  “You were mistaken.”

  The lieutenant cringed and began to babble. “Until their escape, there did not seem to be anything unusual . . .”

  The emperor breathed deeply and pictured the lake as the soldier continued to rattle through excuses. As always, the lake calmed him. “Demote this man. Devote resources to recapturing these women. Alive. Bring them di
rectly to me when you have found them.”

  Another lieutenant saluted. “Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.”

  The emperor strode back toward his tent. Everything inside him shouted to run, but his people could not see their emperor afraid. Compromising, he lengthened his stride. It had been a strategic move to leave Liyana alone. She valued her independence, and he wanted to demonstrate that he would not seek to control or force her, or her clans. He pushed open the tent flap and halted.

  She lay alone in the center of the tent. Beautiful and peaceful, she could have been asleep. “Summon a doctor,” he ordered his guards. He felt his heart beat painfully in his chest. In two strides he was beside her. He knelt and pressed his fingers to the pulse in her neck.

  She moaned. Alive.

  “Stay back, Your Imperial Majesty,” one of his guards said. “We don’t know the cause.”

  The goat statue lay beside her. Its neck was severed. She must have used the sky serpent blade. This was his fault. He’d returned it to her. “Summon the magician as well.”

  One of the guards bowed and exited.

  He stroked her forehead. Breaking the false vessel should not have hurt her. If she had conducted the ceremony . . . But how could she have without a magician? And why would she have? He had offered her freedom! Life on the desert was bleak and cruel. He’d offered all her people an escape. She could have led them to a better life.

  He felt her pulse again. Faint but there.

  A doctor burst into the tent. He wore an ill-fitting uniform. A protective surgical cloth obscured his face. All that the emperor could see was his eyes, but those eyes quickly assessed the situation. Without a word the doctor knelt next to Liyana and began examining her. She was breathing shallowly. Every few seconds she twitched and moaned.

  The emperor paced around them. He picked up the broken statue and turned it over and over in his hands. Spasming, Liyana screamed, and the emperor hurled the statue against the wall of the tent. It smacked against the tarp and tumbled down. In a calm voice he said, “This was an unnecessary waste of a life.”

  “She still lives,” the doctor said. “But I must take her to my tent. I have supplies and equipment there that may be of use.” He waved a hand. Three doctor’s assistants, also dressed in blue uniforms with the traditional face coverings, scurried forward with a stretcher. They loaded Liyana onto it.

  “Accompany them,” he ordered the nearest soldier. “Ask her name when she wakes. If she answers ‘Liyana,’ return her to me. If she answers ‘Bayla,’ kill her immediately.”

  She was carried out of the tent, and he turned away to face his shelves of statues. He touched his cheek. It was damp. Absently he rubbed his tears between his fingers and thumb. Funny that he should mourn the loss of one desert woman while he prepared his army to invade. In the end, though, eliminating the deities would free the desert people. They would see that their best course was to join the empire. In the end they would be grateful.

  “Alert my generals,” the emperor said. His eyes were clear. “We move out at dawn.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Liyana felt as if she had swallowed the desert. Sand poured into her body and flowed through her veins. It pressed against her from the inside out until she felt as if her skin might break. She tried to scream. But sand filled her throat.

  She knew it wasn’t possible. She wasn’t in a sandstorm, and there was no sand inside the emperor’s tent. It had to be magic. Mulaf! He must be trying to stop her from saving Bayla.

  As if she were working magic, she concentrated on her body. She felt her breath fill her rib cage, and she felt her pulse throb through her arteries. She focused on the shape of her skin, the curve of her legs, the length of her arms. Limb by limb she forced out the sand.

  The sand changed to water and swept through her body, filling her lungs until she forgot how to breathe. She fought back. There is no water, she thought. There is only me. Breathe! She inhaled and exhaled. She felt how each breath came in through her mouth and flowed down her throat and filled her lungs. She imagined the air dispersing within her, displacing the water. One breath at a time.

  Slowly she regained the feel of her body again.

  The third assault was air. It whirled inside her, as if it wanted to rip her away. She clung to herself with her memories: how it felt to dance, how it felt to ride for hours, how it felt to sleep protected between bodies, how it felt to kiss Korbyn.

  She heard a voice. It echoed as if the speaker were within a vast cavern, and each word were a stalactite plummeting from the ceiling to the floor. You. Must. Cease.

  Liyana tried to speak, but her voice wouldn’t obey her. No! she thought at the voice. I will not fail my clan! She would protect this body. It belonged to Bayla, and she would not let it be torn by imaginary wind, or wrecked by water and sand.

  Howling, the voice battered her with all the ferocity of a storm. With sheer volume it threatened to overwhelm all other senses, but Liyana was entrenched in her skin.

  She tried to open her eyes to see who spoke to her. Her eyelids felt like heavy metal plates, fused shut with fire. She concentrated, bringing all her awareness and determination to bear on her eyes.

  Slowly her eyes opened.

  She saw Korbyn. He wore a new, ill-fitting uniform, and a blue cloth obscured most of his face, but she’d know his eyes anywhere. Beyond him she saw shelves of labeled jars, stacks of bandages, and a row of cots. She was no longer in the emperor’s tent. She lay on a table. Beside her was a tray of silvery knives, as well as more bandages.

  “Is she awake?” Pia’s voice. Anxious.

  Korbyn’s eyes bored into hers. Liyana tried again to speak, but her vocal chords wouldn’t respond. She took a deliberate breath. “Still unconscious,” Korbyn said. He cupped her cheek in his hand, shielding her eyes from view.

  Liyana closed her eyes. Immediately she was assailed by wind again. This time it screamed through her, erasing all external sound.

  Stop! Liyana thought at the wind. Please, stop!

  Let me free, the voice said. Strangely, it felt as if the voice were coming from inside of her, not from someone in the tent. Let me live!

  A terrible thought bloomed in Liyana’s head. It wasn’t possible. Two souls couldn’t be in one body. . . . I am Liyana, vessel for Bayla of the Goat Clan, Liyana said. Are you . . . Are you Bayla?

  All trace of wind vanished.

  Silence, then a whisper: This is not possible.

  Oh, my goddess. Cringing, Liyana lowered her mental voice to a whisper. Forgive me. She’d been fighting against . . . The thought of it made her stomach churn.

  Leave this body, you insignificant speck of sand!

  About to apologize again, Liyana hesitated. I am not insignificant, her mental voice whispered. Vessels were cherished by their deities. Their sacrifice was honored.

  Bayla did not seem to hear her. I will wreak revenge on he who dared confine me! Liyana felt a cyclone build inside her—sand, water, and wind. You have played your last trick, Korbyn!

  She felt pressure in her arms as if her muscles wanted to raise themselves. She knew, though she couldn’t explain how she knew, that the goddess intended to wrap her hands around Korbyn’s throat. Liyana arched her back, fighting to keep her hands pinned down. Her fingers curled, digging into the table.

  You say you are my vessel yet you will not relinquish control of this body. Bayla’s voice felt like a lick of fire.

  Korbyn is not to blame, Liyana said. He came to save you!

  And this is his rescue? A jail of flesh instead of a jail of stone? Bayla’s voice was so loud inside Liyana’s skull that it hurt. I will show you what happens to those who cross a goddess. Suddenly the pressure inside her vanished as if the goddess had left.

  Alone in her head, Liyana drew a full breath. She imagined the air spreading through her body, and her arms and legs trembled. “Korbyn,” she said.

  “Bayla,” Korbyn breathed into her ear. She felt the tickle of h
is breath. “Do not move. We are in danger.” She felt his hands on her shoulders, holding her down on the table. She lay still.

  “I’m not Bayla. I’m Liyana.” Opening her eyes, she saw his face close to hers. He was bent over her, and behind him she saw a white-clad guard. Quickly she shut her eyes again.

  She wasn’t quick enough. The guard pulled Korbyn away from her. “Speak your name,” he ordered. She felt hard coldness on the hollow of her throat.

  She opened her eyes again. A sword tip touched her throat. “Liyana,” she croaked. She pressed her back against the table as if she could sink away from the blade.

  The guard raised the sword . . . and then returned it to his scabbard. Scowling at her, he grunted. “The emperor wished her to return.”

  Korbyn shielded her. “She isn’t well enough to move—”

  “Carry her,” the guard said.

  “I can walk,” Liyana said. She pushed herself up to sitting—and the wind slammed through her again. She collapsed backward as the world snapped into darkness. This time it felt much worse. Instead of merely Bayla’s soul, she felt the magic of the lake flood into her, and she instantly expanded to feel the tent, the sand, the camp, the plains, the desert, as if she were them and they were her. . . .

  No! she cried. She focused on her body, rejecting the magic and huddling within the confines of her skin. I can’t let you hurt Korbyn. Or endanger my friends.

  Bayla’s voice increased to a howl. I was tricked and trapped and—

  And you will be free! Liyana promised. But you must let me help first! You don’t know the situation—

  Wind and sand battered her insides. She felt as if her blood were churning in her veins. I am your goddess, Bayla said. You belong to me!