by Emma Hamm
Raheem pressed a hand to his throat, making sure no blood dripped from a wound he couldn’t feel, and nodded. “That’s what I thought. Who are you?”
Staring down at the man was a little more difficult than he might have expected. There was something sinister about this one, unlike Nadir. It was the aggression in his shoulders, the way he tilted his head down and looked up rather than looking down his nose. He’d need to be a lot more careful than this if he wanted to be successful in impersonating the sultan.
“My name is Solomon,” he gruffly replied. “I was sent by the Alqatara to take the sultan’s place while he is trained amongst their ranks.”
Raheem stiffened. “The Alqatara have awakened?”
“They have an interest in this sultan as no other. A Beastkin man ruling the kingdom is a good step toward a better future, but it must be the right Beastkin man.”
“And you are?”
“The one who can take his place believably should something arise that keeps the sultan away longer.”
Gods, Raheem thought he knew what that meant, but didn’t want to consider the idea. He knew the sultan’s story wasn’t as cut and dry as the others believed. Hakim had a different look about him than the boy. He leaned much more toward his mother’s side of the family. Whereas Nadir had a faraway appearance that always made him different. And he hadn’t looked like the sultana at all.
“What does that mean?” Raheem asked. “And be straight with me, I don’t want any of the veiled truths the Alqatara are so talented at giving.”
“I don’t know if I can trust you.”
“My entire life has been dedicated to keeping the sultan alive. Not Hakim. Not the bloodline. Nadir. He saved my life when I had nothing left, and I have vowed to make decisions that benefit that boy.”
“Like leaving with the dragon who destroyed this place?”
Raheem wanted to punch the man. How dare he question motives that were pure? Motives that benefited Nadir? He straightened his shoulders and glowered at Solomon. “I followed her, because she is everything that is good in Nadir. She was the one who taught him to realize there was more to life than sitting in an opium den with women on his lap. She is more important to this story than others could ever imagine.”
The pretender watched Raheem’s words with rapt attention, then slowly nodded. “My mother is the leader of the Alqatara. She is the first woman to train the many armed assassins, the highest of our guild. She is also the woman who brought Nadir into this world, and then gave him to his father.”
Raheem’s mind reeled with the knowledge. Nadir wasn’t truly the royal bloodline? A bastard on the throne was sure to be removed if anyone found out. “Why?”
“There is a prophecy. That a dragon shall arise to the throne and bring about a new age for all our kind. The time of the Beastkin has long since thought to be ended. We disagree.”
“The Alqatara are Beastkin?”
“How do you think we were named the eight armed assassins?” Solomon reached up and removed the wrapping covering his face. “There is more to this world than you could possibly know. The Sultan needs to be prepared as no other.”
“That doesn’t include a war right now then. How are you going to stop this madness?”
“In whatever way it takes.” Solomon finished pulling off the bindings and looked Raheem dead in the eye. “If you try and stop me, I will be forced to kill you. I am a Qatal. You will not stand in my way.”
If Raheem could have spoken, he would have said the boy didn’t frighten him. There were many who wished for his death, and none had survived it just yet. But he couldn’t say a word to the haunting face before him.
Solomon looked like Hakim, a strange thing to realize when Hakim wasn’t closer to the other two by blood. They were all half-brothers. Each a bastard in their own way. Hakim would never have lead the Beastkin, because he wasn’t tied to them other than through his father. Nadir could never lead the Bymerians, because he wasn’t truly royal. And this one, this boy, would never lead anything, because his mother was viewed as a monster.
What had happened to this family? What poison had spread through the line of the sultan that had cursed his offspring so?
Raheem blew out a ragged breath, turned on his heel, and made his way toward the desk. A bottle of brandy awaited him in the bottom right drawer, as it always did. He planned to make good use of it.
Uncorking the bottle, he pulled out two glasses and gestured with one toward the cut on Solomon's face. “Was that your plan?”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Solomon nodded in agreement to the drink, and put his blade back into its sheath at his hip.
“Just barely. They won’t believe you forever, and as good an actor as you are… not everyone will believe you’re the sultan.” He handed the assassin a glass and toasted with him. “You’ll need me if you want to convince them.”
“How so?”
Sipping the brandy, Raheem lifted a brow. “You aren’t so foolish as to immediately deny a need for assistance?”
“We are the Alqatara. When help is offered, we take it.”
“A wise motto. Better than I expected.” Raheem sank into the chair behind the desk and stared around the room where the boy had grown up. This place was as toxic as it was beautiful. Even the flowers here were poisonous. It was no wonder Nadir had become a rather vain, arrogant man when this place had groomed him so.
Perhaps the Alqatara would teach him to be even better. Sigrid had opened his mind to a different future, one he could already see the sultan had placed into his kingdom. Now, the Alqatara would change him even further. Would he recognize the man who returned?
Solomon sat in the other chair, crossed his legs, and sipped the brandy. “How can you help, Captain?”
“If I believe you are who you say you are, others will follow. Of everything, I am the closest to the sultan.”
“They are so easy to fool?”
“Oh, they won’t be fooled. This place is full of those who are dangerous and poisonous, but look like flowers in a garden. Being a royal is a game that you must play the right way, or you’ll lose your head. I can help guide you.”
Solomon coughed. “You were banished from ever entering the kingdom again.”
“And yet, I’m here without a single word from anyone.” Raheem set his glass on the desk, then touched the ring mark from where Nadir always set his glass. “Let me be your shield between the viper’s pit and the spitting cobras.”
“Why would you do that?”
“For Nadir. For the boy I helped raise and the man I always knew he would become. I think you can help. Or perhaps, the Alqatara can help. If this is the plan, then we’ll see it through to the end.”
Solomon lifted his glass once more in a toast. “To changing the kingdom.”
Mimicking the other man’s movements, Raheem slowly lifted his own glass and stared at the amber liquid within. “To changing the world.”
13
Sigrid
She stepped through the ice and into a world that didn’t seem possible. Man and beast living side by side inside a tomb made of cold air and frigid water. Homes were carved into the ice and into the mountainside beyond. Animals scurried past, some Beastkin, others not.
Her heart caught in her throat. These people, they were… perfect. Every inch of their bodies contained modifications she couldn’t have imagined. Though they were all tribal, with furs and tattoos flashing as they moved, they were also intrinsically working together to survive.
Each of the houses had a kind of marker over them. Some were leaves and dried flowers bound together in a rope-like structure, hung over the opening of the doors. Others were carved directly into the ice or stone.
The Beastkin here were massive. They were all the same height as her. Some even larger. They walked by her with faces bared, unlike the medicine woman who had come to collect her. Tattoos marked their skin, designating who or what they were.
A man strode past he
r with his arms full of logs. Scales had been tattooed from his chin to forehead, and a forked tongue stretched out of his mouth. His gaze locked onto hers, golden eyes turning to slits. And she swore he flicked out his tongue when she passed, tasting the air and her scent.
“Eivor?” she called out.
The medicine woman had disappeared in the flood of Beastkin making their way around their homes. A small dog ran by her with a startled yelping call. Children raced after it with sticks in their hands.
She’d never seen a life like this, where humans and animals were so… together. A woman walked by with a snake around her shoulders, another with squirrels that chattered on either ends of their perch. A man spoke quietly to the bear which lumbered beside him, and Sigrid thought she caught the tail end of their conversation which had something to do with getting more logs for the great fire.
The medicine woman popped out of the crowd in front of her and gestured with her hand. “Come, come. We’re going to be late, Sigrid, and I don’t want you to miss this.”
“Miss what?”
The woman was already disappearing into the crowd again. Sigrid raced after her, apologizing to those who she shoved out of her way. One man tried to grab her, apparently recognizing that she wasn’t from the enclave, but she pointed in the direction of Eivor and that seemed to change his mind.
Who was this strange woman to them? She didn’t make sense to Sigrid at all. A medicine woman was, of course, important, but that didn’t mean she should be feared or revered. The people reacted to her existence like a king or sultan had slapped them.
They flinched out of the medicine woman’s way, soon leaving a clear path to her side. No one wanted to touch her. A few of the Beastkin even hissed when she got too close to them.
Sigrid slowed when Eivor did, then leaned over and whispered, “Why is everyone afraid of you?”
“The keeper of souls can take a soul if touched,” Eivor replied. Her face didn’t reveal any discomfort at the people’s reactions. She seemed almost… used to the odd reactions.
“That’s why you haven’t touched me,” Sigrid murmured. “You think you’ll take my soul?”
“I know Grim wants it very much, but I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I don’t think you can take my soul, Eivor. Thank you for being cautious but… if it pleases you, please touch me. I want you to be as comfortable as they are.”
They walked through a sea of people parting in front of them like twin waves. Eivor looked over at her, mask blank and body moving as if she could really see. “You don’t mean that, little dragon.”
“I do mean it.”
“Your soul is the most precious thing you have to offer the world. It’s the only thing which remains when you leave, and offering it to me only means you’ll remain when you do not wish to. I will use your soul as I see fit.”
“Isn’t that what my entire life has been?” Sigrid twisted her body, so she didn’t bump into a horse which looked on with wide eyes. “I have given my life, my body, my time to all Beastkin. I don’t mind if my soul stays to continue that work.”
“You’d mind after death.”
Enough with this kind of talk. She was tired of people telling her how she felt or why she should feel certain things. Sigrid reached out and grabbed onto Eivor’s wrist.
The entirety of the Beastkin around them froze as one. They all stared at the contact as if she’d done something horribly wrong, including Eivor who tilted her head down. The bones beside her head swayed in the air.
“What have you done?”
“What someone else should have done a long time ago.” Sigrid twisted her hand, twining her fingers through Eivor’s, making certain she didn’t cut herself on the long nails. “See? My soul is still intact, and is exactly where it was before. You cannot take a dragon’s soul so easily, Eivor. And now I won’t lose you in the crowd. You move much faster than I do.”
The medicine woman’s voice hitched when she replied. “The matriarch won’t like it.”
“The matriarch has not yet met me. She will like it, because I say it is fine, and that will be the end of the conversation.”
Whether it was the right thing to say or not, Eivor continued through the crowd and it was easier to follow her. Connected by their hands, she was a much better guide. Over and over, Sigrid avoided the eyes of the crowd who stared in fascination.
Sometimes she heard them speaking in the common tongue.
“Who is this newcomer? What has she brought with her?”
“Why did the medicine woman go out into the storm? For this little creature? Certainly not.”
“Is this the dragon?”
The rest was said in a language she didn’t understand in the slightest. There was something odd about it, although lyrical. It sounded as if the Beastkin around her were actually singing the words they spoke.
Finally, Eivor untangled their hands and pointed toward a large door carved into the edge of the mountain. Vines and blooming flowers made out of stone guided the viewer into a cavern that seemed almost endless.
“The matriarch awaits,” the medicine woman said, ducking her head and turning to leave.
“You aren’t coming?”
Eivor paused, and Sigrid swore a smile crossed her face. “We’ll meet again, little dragon. I promise.”
The medicine woman, Soulkeeper, disappeared into the crowd of tattooed barbarians behind her. They parted like a wave, but soon even that was too far away for Sigrid to see. She was left with their questioning stares, their wandering gazes, and the lingering question that hovered in the air between them.
Who was she?
She turned down the corridor into the mountain depths. The vine carvings continued down the narrow path, trailing up and down in waves of movement that guided her toward the center of something great. Something new.
Sigrid reached up and touched her fingers to the meandering lines. The movement soothed her. The stone was smooth under her fingers and slightly flattened, as if touched by thousands of people before her. Deep in her bones, she knew this was where she’d come from. That long ago ancestors, a great-great-grandmother, had walked these halls in the same way.
The corridor opened up into a bright mouth where water fell freely. Lush and vibrant, the waterfall was so blue it nearly burned her eyes. The music it made as it tumbled down the rocks was like the low murmur of a hundred voices lifted in song.
There was nowhere else to go but forward. Sigrid glanced around for another passage, or some secret she hadn’t grasped in her first cursory glance.
Beside her, a strange club leaned against the wall. Bulbous at the end, carved with swirling runes, there had to be a reason for it. She reached out, picked it up, and hefted it in her hand.
Not quite as heavy as she imagined, but it would do the trick. Sigrid held it over her head and dipped it into the curtain of water. It parted around the club. A narrow opening in the falls appeared, just enough for her to get through without drenching herself in the process. She slipped through, pausing at the last second to toss the club back to the wall in case others were following her and needed to use the item.
She turned and surveyed the cavern beyond the waterfall. She was on a precipice. A single, long stretch of stone that arched from one side of the cavern to the other. Each side dipped so far down she could barely see the end, and even then, all she could see was ragged stones that would rip and tear at a falling body. If they survived the fall.
The center of the long stretch of stone bulged out, nearly in a perfect circle. There, six stone pillars stood in equal distance and a large, flat altar in the center. Small stones had been placed in a path to them, swirls and intricate painted pieces making the entire path seem slightly magical. Reflective pieces bounced light spots onto the walls.
Long vines had grown down the walls, lush and green. They swayed with a wind she couldn’t feel as she made her way toward the center.
The closer she got, the faster she rea
lized there were people standing beside the stones. The humming sound, the song of the waterfall, was coming from them. Their mouths were open in a quiet song and their arms raised toward the sky.
A single woman stood at the flat altar, her head tilted back, dappled light reflecting on her face. In a way, the woman was familiar. Sigrid thought it was like looking at a reflection of herself.
The woman’s skin was much darker than Sigrid’s, burnished by the sun and worn down by years of work. Her face was heart-shaped, lovely bowed lips, with crow’s feet wrinkles spreading out from the corners of her eyes.
Long, white hair fell straight as the waterfall behind them. The ends touched the back of her knees, swaying only slightly as she breathed. A strip of leather wrapped around her torso, covering her breasts, while two other matching pieces fell from her waist in a makeshift skirt.
The dismissal of decorum didn’t bother Sigrid. This woman didn’t look like a barbarian, or if she did, Sigrid couldn’t see past the way her lips moved in time with an ancient chant that echoed in Sigrid’s own heart.
She forced her eyes to move away from the woman, to look at the other people who stood at the pillars.
Her gasp should have startled them, or made them falter in some way, but it didn’t. Their eyes remained closed and their shoulders squared.
Could they feel her eyes on them? Could they sense the way her gaze had sharpened and her mind had fractured?
These weren’t people, but they weren’t Beastkin either. Each of the women and men standing at a pillar were some kind of twisted version of the two. The woman nearest to her stood tall and strong on legs that bent the opposite direction, covered in a dusting of feathers. A man stood in the corner, lifting arms that ended in taloned hands like a vulture. Another’s face had elongated into that of a canine, while the rest of his body remained like a man.
What were these people? They weren’t Beastkin, not that she’d ever seen before. Beastkin were only beast or man. They weren’t some strange amalgamation of the two that created the monsters in front of her.