Trial of Stone

by Andy Peloquin

  “Powerful men,” Briana retorted. “With more power and influence among the Dhukari and Alqati than you.”

  “But with the Pharus?” Aisha asked.

  Both pairs of eyes—so similar in their almond shape, their dark color, and the bright, burning anger—turned toward her.

  “The Pharus himself sought you out to welcome you back,” Aisha continued. “From what you’ve told me, that doesn’t seem like the sort of thing he’d do needlessly, even to keep up appearances.”

  Arch-Guardian Suroth’s eyes widened a fraction. “You speak truth, Ghandian.” He turned to Briana. “The Council knows that the Pharus favors me—perhaps simply because I am not Necroseti and have no desire to control him. That could be one of the reasons they moved against me by capturing you. They know that I will turn the Pharus against something they intend to do.”

  “So speak to the Pharus, then,” Briana insisted. “Tell him your suspicions.”

  “It will achieve nothing unless I can prove the truth.” Suroth’s expression soured, then grew pensive. “Perhaps I may have a way of doing precisely that.”

  He rounded on Aisha. “As soon as your companion returns from convincing Ennolar to give him the map of the Serenii tunnels, get Briana back home.”

  The words stunned Aisha. It took her a long moment before she could remember the hand signs to ask, “How did you know?”

  Suroth’s expression went flat. “I am Arch-Guardian of all the Secret Keepers in Shalandra. I know what each one specializes in, where their interests lie. The moment I saw Kodyn heading toward Ennolar, it was a simple matter to decipher his intentions.” He nodded. “A plan I intended to suggest to you on the morrow. It is good to see that your companion is as clever as you are strong. When I move against whichever of the Councilors were behind the plot to abduct Briana, I will have need of wits as well as brawn.”

  Aisha nodded. “We will stand with you, Arch-Guardian.”

  To her surprise, gratitude filled the man’s eyes. “Thank you, truly.” It remained a moment, barely a glimpse, before hardening once more. “Now, I’ve got to make contact with my sources in the Necroseti. I will return to the mansion late. I trust you with my daughter’s life.”

  Aisha squared her shoulders. “A trust I do not take lightly.”

  “Good.” Suroth squeezed Briana’s hand quickly and bustled off into the crowd. Within moments, his brown Secret Keeper robes disappeared among the mass of swirling gold, silver, blue, and white.

  Aisha searched the crowd until she found the cluster of black amid all the dazzling color. The Kish’aa hovered around the Keeper’s Priests, clinging to them like shadows. A shudder ran down Aisha’s spine—she could only imagine what the Necroseti had done to these poor souls to tether them so close in death.

  Her attention returned to her surroundings as Kodyn came over to them, a look of triumph in his eyes. “Tomorrow at noon.”

  “Good.” Aisha swallowed the acid swirling in her throat and turned to Briana. “Now I think it’s time we do as your father says and get out of here.”

  “I won’t run scared just because of a threat,” Briana protested. “Even from a member of the Keeper’s Council.”

  “I’m not asking.” Aisha gave Briana a stern look. “We’re here to guard you, and right now, I’m telling you that it’s time to leave. There will still be enough traffic moving around the Keeper’s Tier that we can travel safely. And the fact that no one’s expecting you to leave so early means we’ll be out of here before anyone realizes we’re gone.”

  Briana’s face fell and she opened her mouth to protest, but Kodyn spoke first.

  “Aisha’s right.” He shot Aisha a nod. “Our job’s to keep you safe. Let us do that. Once we’re back safe in your mansion, we’ll be able to figure out our next step.”

  “Remember,” Aisha whispered, “you just found out that the most powerful people in your city have it out for you and your father. That’s not a threat anyone should take lightly.”

  Briana looked ready to protest, but common sense prevailed. “Fine, but at least allow me to say farewell to—”

  “No!” Aisha shook her head. “We leave before anyone knows we’re out of here.”

  The look on Briana’s face made her displeasure clear. At that moment, the Shalandran girl’s pleasure was the last thing on Aisha’s mind.

  * * *

  The night air in Arch-Guardian Suroth’s rooftop garden was cool and comforting. The gentle breeze set the leaves rustling and carried the delicate aromas of a hundred exotic flowers to her. Aisha basked in the darkness and silence—peace after what had been an intense day.

  The return journey to Suroth’s mansion had passed without event, though Briana had bordered on sulky as Aisha and Kodyn fairly dragged her out of her own celebration. She’d barely spoken two words to Aisha as they hustled her inside and deposited her and Hailen, the strange pale-skinned servant boy, in the care of Nessa.

  At Aisha’s insistence, Kodyn had given the exterior of Arch-Guardian Suroth’s mansion a thorough examination. His years as an apprentice Hawk had taught him to spot hidden ways in and out of buildings even as fortified as this. If there was a way assassins or kidnappers could get at Briana—from the ground or the rooftops—he’d find it.

  She’d stood silent guard outside Briana’s room until Kodyn relieved her.

  “Go, get some sleep,” he’d told her. “I’ll hold the door until morning.”

  He meant it as a kindness, but Aisha couldn’t even begin to even consider sleep. She’d come straight to the garden, the only place in the massive house where she could be certain of solitude.

  She lifted her right hand and held it in front of her face. The darkness highlighted the tiny spark of energy that danced around her hand. Crackling, surging, a little rush like lightning that leapt from finger to finger like a firebug.

  But this was no bug. Growing up on the plains of Ghandia, Aisha had spent many summer nights chasing the lightning bugs with her baby sister. The bugs glowed a soft golden yellow, but this light shone a pure white.

  The power of the Kish’aa.

  She’d never understood it when her father spoke of the energy a Spirit Whisperer could control. To her, the gift conveyed the ability to see the spirits of the dead, even speak with them and call upon their aid. Now she knew what it meant to wield the power of the Kish’aa.

  Her eyes wandered toward the flower-covered vine dome in the heart of the garden, but she knew she wouldn’t see the ethereal, translucent blue form of Radiana floating there. Briana’s mother had gone, her spirit dissipated on the wind, the spark of her life absorbed into Aisha. She felt it in the core of her being, like the last glowing ember as the fire died. But when she focused, she could see it glimmering within her veins and darting between her fingers.

  Her father had tried to explain it to her once. “When a fire dies, its heat is not lost forever. Instead, it simply reunites with the air around it, dispersed until it can no longer be felt. But, when the fire is rekindled, the heat returns to its source. Thus it is with the Kish’aa. A Spirit Whisperer can gather the heat unto himself until he becomes the fire.”

  The words, so confusing at the time, had begun to make terrible sense. More than once, she’d thought she caught a glimpse at that same energy within her father. Always from the corner of her eye, and always gone when she turned fully toward him. What she’d written off as her childish imagination now revealed the truth to her.

  My father wielded the Kish’aa like fire, and it consumed him.

  She glanced to the west, toward the Keeper’s Crypts where the dead clustered like a storm cloud. Those spirits held a terrible power—if she dared to approach them and claim their sparks for herself. Yet the memories of her father’s descent into madness haunted her. The laughing, quick-tongued man had transformed into an emaciated husk, nothing remaining but two empty eyes that stared into a world she could not see.

  With effort, she tore her eyes away from the
tombs, but found her gaze now resting on the bright blue petals of the Watcher’s Bloom. The plant that had enhanced her father’s ability and stole his mind.

  “Can’t sleep either?”

  Aisha spun to find Briana coming up behind her. The Shalandran girl wore a loose linen dress and a shawl pulled tight around her petite shoulders. Bare-footed, she’d moved with such silence that Aisha, distracted by her worries, hadn’t heard her coming.

  “Don’t worry.” Briana smiled at her. “Kodyn understood when I said I needed to take a walk in the garden, to clear my head. And when he saw you here…” She trailed off and glanced over her shoulder. “He’s waiting at the gazebo. Giving us space to talk. Sometimes, only another woman can understand what you’re going through.”

  Aisha forced a smile but could find no words to explain the tempest brewing within her. How could anyone understand the truth? The Einari worshipped the Thirteen Gods of Einan, while the Shalandrans held the Long Keeper in reverence. They could never understand the power of the Kish’aa. Worse, they could think her mad.

  Yet the burden had grown heavy, almost too much for her to bear alone. If she didn’t tell someone soon, she feared she’d crack beneath its weight.

  “This plant,” Aisha began hesitantly, pointing to the flowers Briana had called Keeper’s Spike, “you say it causes hallucinations, yes?”

  “Correct.” Briana shot a curious glance at her. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I never expected you to be a Deadener.”

  Aisha’s brow furrowed. “Deadener? I’m not familiar with this word.”

  “Someone who deadens their pain through drugs or drink,” Briana explained. “Here in Shalandra, the people who take Night Petal are called Deadeners. As the plant drowns out their pain, it slowly deadens them to the world until they are nothing but empty husks, the walking dead.” She fixed Aisha with a piercing stare. “I know you’ve endured a lot in your life, but—”

  “No.” Aisha shook her head. “It’s not that.”

  “Oh.” Briana’s face relaxed, relief visible.

  Silence hung between them for a long moment. Aisha couldn’t bring herself to share all the details, but Briana seemed at a loss for words.

  Aisha spoke first. “You know what happened to me and the others of House Phoenix?”

  “Kodyn told me,” Briana said in a quiet voice. She almost looked embarrassed. “I asked him about it back in Praamis, after I saw that look in your eyes, the one that speaks of deep-rooted pain and loss. I see it in my father’s eyes every time he speaks of my mother.”

  Aisha felt a jolt in her chest, as if Radiana’s spirit reacted to the words. Perhaps the woman’s life force hadn’t truly gone, simply absorbed into Aisha’s soul, where it lived on.

  “The ones who held me prisoner, the Bloody Hand,” Aisha went on slowly, “they gave me a narcotic, Bonedust.”

  Briana winced. “My father has told me about it. Truly horrible.” She placed a hand on Aisha’s. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry that you had to endure that.”

  Aisha nodded. “Yet, without that, I would not be here right now. Right where I need to be.”

  Her gaze went once more to the Watcher’s Bloom. “That plant, back in Ghandia we called it Whispering Lily.”

  “What a pretty name!” Briana’s eyes lit up. “I like it a lot better than either Watcher’s Bloom or Keeper’s Spike.”

  “Some of those who took it said they could…” She didn’t want to say “speak to the dead” for fear she’d sound crazy. “…see things. Even hear things.”

  “That makes sense,” Briana said. “Hallucinations, both visual and auditory, are one of the flower’s side effects.”

  “But it did more than that.” Aisha hesitated. “It affected their minds. Made them…empty, like one of your Deadeners.”

  “Oh.” Briana’s expression registered her understanding. “Someone close to you?”

  Aisha drew in a deep breath. “My father.”

  Briana squeezed her hand, her slim fingers surprisingly strong and comforting on Aisha’s. “I’m sorry. That’s difficult for anyone to see.”

  “Yes.” A lump rose to Aisha’s throat at the memories of her father’s vacant stare. She swallowed for fear tears would overwhelm her. “But, I thought, maybe with your father’s expertise, he might know of something to counteract the effects of the plant.”

  Briana’s brow furrowed. “You mean, like the hallucinations without the plant dulling your senses?”

  Aisha nodded. “The day will come when you, too, must answer the call of the spirits, bindazi,” her father had said. “The Whispering Lily will attune you to the Kish’aa. On that day, you must be ready to make the sacrifice. It is the only way to hear what the spirits have to tell you.”

  But what if she could somehow use the Whispering Lily without sacrificing her sanity? Her father had told her that she would find her destiny in the City of the Dead. What if her destiny was to save the Spirit Whisperers of Ghandia from madness by bringing them a cure? She’d watched the Whispering Lily drive her father mad. She knew the high cost that came with the gift of the Kish’aa. Perhaps she’d been sent to Shalandra to find a way to spare future generations of Umoyahlebe from that suffering.

  “I’d have to ask my father,” Briana said, “but I think you might be on to something.”

  Excitement surged icy hot within Aisha’s chest. “Really?”

  “Well, the psychotropic properties in the Keeper’s Spike…er, sorry, the Whispering Lily act on specific parts of our brains.” Briana’s brow furrowed in concentration. “But, if we could somehow come up with something to neutralize or diminish those cognitive effects, we might actually have a real solution.”

  Aisha didn’t understand half of what Briana was saying—the Secret Keepers delved into every complex discipline of science, something she, a simple warrior, didn’t have a hope of understanding. But the light in Briana’s eyes made Aisha think there really was a chance.

  She threw her arms around Briana’s slim shoulders. “Thank you!” The words burst from her chest.

  For the first time since she’d discovered her gift, Aisha had a sliver of hope.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  As Issa met Hykos’ angry glare, a thousand excuses ran through Issa’s head. She could lie, could invent a story of where she’d been. But that didn’t sit right with her. Hykos had been kind to her, even helped her in defiance of Invictus Tannard, his superior officer. Lying to him felt paramount to spitting in his face.

  “I went to visit my grandparents,” she said. He’d earned her honesty.

  For a moment, Issa feared he would snap, shout, or threaten. She hadn’t been explicitly ordered to remain within the Citadel of Stone, but she’d sworn to the Elders of the Blades that she would sever all ties to her past. Her choice to sneak out had been made knowing full well that there could be consequences for her actions. What those were, remained to be seen.

  To her surprise, Hykos just nodded. “Good. Everyone needs someone to cling to in the tough times.” He fixed her with a small smile. “I was fortunate enough that my older brother was chosen to join the Indomitables. He was my rock through my training until I was able to stand on my own. Without him, I don’t know if I would have made it through to become a sworn Blade. And my training wasn’t half as challenging as what Tannard is putting you through.”

  Issa’s jaw dropped. “You’re not…angry?”

  Hykos shrugged. “The Invictus told you a Blade needed to be clever and stealthy. The fact that you chose this avenue of escape and that I alone saw you leave proves that you will one day be both.” His expression grew wry. “Let us say you simply interpreted Tannard’s instructions a tad more obliquely than he intended.”

  For a moment, Issa could do nothing, stunned by Hykos’ response. Then she threw her arms around his neck.

  “Thank you!” she whispered.

  Hykos stiffened, equally surprised. Issa remembered herself and pulled away befor
e he recovered.

  “Er…right.” The normally calm, composed Archateros seemed flustered. “Unfortunately for you, dawn is almost upon us. You’ve just enough time to arm yourself before Tannard summons you for your morning run.”

  Issa groaned. “Keeper’s teeth!”

  “That’s the spirit.” Hykos grinned. “Now hurry before someone else sees you out and about.”

  Issa raced through the corridors that led toward her rooms in the Citadel’s western wing. She fairly flew, taking the stairs two and three at a time. Her heart was light, her mind at ease. Now, she just had to survive another day of Tannard’s brand of brutality, then another. As her grandmother had told her, she specialized in impossible.

  She pulled on her armor as quickly as she could, fumbling with the buckles, straps, and cinches. After more than a week of wearing it, she’d grown accustomed to the many fastenings required to hold the heavy, segmented plate mail in place. Her eyelids drooped but she forced herself to blink away the sleep. She’d be ready to face Tannard when he came for her.

  By the time she strapped the last of her armor in place and slung her baldric and sword sheath over her back, the first rays of morning light had begun to appear in the eastern sky. Her stomach tightened in expectation of the harsh banging on her door that would announce Tannard’s presence and the beginning of her day’s torments.

  Yet it never came.

  She splashed water on her face and hurried out of her room, anxiety lending wings to her feet. He’s going to be waiting in the courtyard and give me some fresh punishment for showing up late for my morning run.

  The courtyard stood silent and empty, save for Hykos.

  “Tannard?” she asked.

  “Not here yet.” Hykos seemed as surprised and confused as she.

  “We’d better get on with our run, then,” she told the Archateros. “That way, he won’t have any excuse to torment me when he finally shows up.”