Dearest Sister,
I have arrived in Sagaan and secured shelter for the night. Though this was far more difficult than anticipated, as the city is horrendously overcrowded. The winter grazing lands are an icy wasteland, and there are scores of homeless shepherds. I’ve been told the Sun Stokers have been detained at the war front, however, I know you would never sanction such an order if you knew how acutely our people are suffering. I urge you to come at once and see the devastation.
Yours in obedience,
En
P.S. How is Serik? Has he weathered the worst of the abba’s wrath?
It takes an hour of coaxing and both remaining strips of goat meat to convince Orbai to deliver my message during the storm, but eventually she launches into the snowy sky, screeching her displeasure.
I burrow back into my nest of leaves and pull the blanket over my head. The cold and night continue to batter me like Zemyan arrows, but I wrap my arms around myself and compulsively rub the moonstone until my muscles grow slack and my eyes grow heavy, and the blessed darkness of sleep pulls me under.
CHAPTER NINE
MORNING DAWNS CRISP AND BRIGHT AND FAR TOO EARLY. Beams of sunlight stab my eyelids, and birdsong scrapes my ears like clashing blades. I sit up, clutching the crick in my neck and cursing the pounding in my skull. I’m soggy and shivering, but alive—thanks to the blanket.
Orbai is back. I can hear her up in the tree, clicking her beak and ruffling her feathers. She clearly hasn’t forgiven me. I unwrap two of the hard, tasteless barley cakes the monks consider a delicacy and choke one down. The other will be my peace offering.
I crawl from the lean-to, stomp down the drift of snow that collected in front of the boards during the night, and squint at the blinding sunlight reflecting off the fresh powder. It looks like piles of sugar and I scoop a handful into my mouth, pretending it tastes like sugar too. Unfortunately, it does little to wash away the sawdust taste of barley cake.
Orbai screeches down at me.
“I’m going to be groveling for days, aren’t I?” I say, holding the other cake aloft.
She lands on my shoulder, devours the disgusting lump as if it’s sweeter than a winterberry pie, and pokes around for more. That’s when I notice the roll of parchment lashed to her leg, the edges embossed in gold.
I untie and unfurl the letter in a rush, swiftly reading Ghoa’s tiny, precise handwriting:
Dearest Enebish,
I’m most pleased to hear you reached Sagaan safely. I understand your concern for the shepherds, especially given how long you’ve been kept from the affairs of Ashkar, but I assure you, I’m aware of the conditions and doing all I can to help. Have you learned anything of Temujin?
Your loving sister,
Ghoa
I let out a relieved breath and tuck the note into my tunic. Of course Ghoa has implemented a relief effort. I just couldn’t see the progress last night during the storm. Everything will look better in the light of day.
I pack my meager belongings and make my way back toward the center of the encampment, trying to decide which sector of the city to comb first for Temujin and his Shoniin. Would they hide among the shepherds, hoping to blend into the chaos? Or is he the type to mock the king outright by placing his hideout near the Sky Palace? Or maybe …
A pack of children darts in front of me. I frown as they slip down the snowy road, barefoot and whimpering. The entire campsite appears to be waking up. All around me, women emerge from mud-spattered tents, bouncing wailing babies on their hips. Old, leather-skinned men with sunken eyes stir pots of watery stew. And the younger men argue in circles about where to go. What to do.
Pressure builds in my chest, making it impossible to swallow. The conditions look every bit as dismal as they did last night. Maybe even more so. I readjust my pack, suddenly staggering beneath the weight of the gray wool blanket. I had assumed a fellow refugee took pity on me, but they clearly have nothing to spare. Most of them haven’t enough to survive. Their cloaks and blankets are so ragged and worn through, more than a dozen souls didn’t make it through the night. A group of men tug a small wagon through the tents, collecting the frozen bodies.
So who helped me? And where in the bleeding skies is the relief effort Ghoa mentioned? I know the situation at the war front is dire, but it can’t be more dire than this, can it?
I smear fistfuls of mud across my cheeks to hide my traitor’s mark. Then I unwind my braid so my hair hangs in my face. In the warmer light of day, no one would speak to me with my hood drawn and my face concealed behind a scarf. Once I look as rumpled and filthy as the other shepherds, I hobble to the nearest tent, where a group of women are gathering dung to fuel their fire.
“Excuse me,” I say with a bow. “I just arrived in Sagaan and am wondering how long you’ve been here? Are arrangements being made for better accommodations?”
The three women exchange glances and laugh bitterly. At first I think they’re laughing at me, but then the oldest of the three turns her milky eyes on me—sorrowful and downcast. Not mocking at all. “We arrived during the last moon cycle. Earlier than usual, but still too late. The inns and barns were already overflowing. The only prayer we have of acquiring better shelter is if someone with a room runs out of coin and is tossed to the street.”
“So you plan to stay here all winter?” I ask.
“What other choice do we have?” one of the younger women says. “We had no warning the Sun Stokers would be detained at the war front. Even if we had, where would we have gone? The winter grazing lands are the only fields that sustain grass during the great freeze.”
I chew my lip. “What about the southern deserts of Verdenet? That would be more comfortable, if nothing else.”
“It’s too late in the season to survive such a trek—the snow squalls have already begun—and it would be useless besides. We may be more comfortable, but the desert provides little food for our animals. They would still starve. Which means we would starve.”
Not knowing how to respond, I thank them and continue on my way, stopping to talk to a man who’s barking orders at new arrivals. I assumed it meant he had some sort of authority, but it turns out to be nothing more than a foul temper. Farther down the road, I chat with a boy of eight who sniffles as he skins his pet goat. “A last resort,” he tells me glumly. “And the meat will keep us for less than two weeks. What then?”
I shrug helplessly. Ghoa’s relief plans clearly aren’t being carried out, and I’m about to return to my lean-to to compose an urgent letter explaining this, when a gong sounds from the Gesper Temple.
A hush washes through the encampment, and I turn slowly to look at the old obsidian structure. It hasn’t been in operation for nearly fifty years; the gongs should have been removed decades ago. Yet they clang with wild fervor—vibrating through the pit in my stomach.
The woman nearest me drops her bucket of water and runs in the direction of the temple. Tattered blankets are tossed aside and streams of people emerge from their tents like rabbits darting from burrows at the first sign of spring. In a breath, I’m caught in a flash flood of bodies and washed along the teeming current toward the Gesper Temple, the gongs still crying.
“Another delivery!” someone shouts as they shove past.
“Twice as much as before,” another voice says.
The excited murmurs build to a roar as we press closer to the Gesper Temple. “What’s happening?” I look to the man beside me, but his elbow slams into my ribs as he jostles past. I tug on the vest of the woman to my right, but she doesn’t notice. There are too many people, knocking and sifting like flour through a sieve. They heave toward the temple with outstretched hands, and I haven’t a choice but to shuffle along with them—a tiny snowball in the avalanche.
When I reach the front of the line, I find a dwindling pile of small burlap sacks. I haven’t a clue what they contain, but I grab one, tuck it into my tunic, and dash away from the swarm. Once I’m free from the worst of it, I do
uble over gasping. This is ten times worse than the Qusbegi Festival. Maybe even a hundred.
After easing down on a rock, I remove the parcel from my tunic and turn it over in my hands. It’s about the size of my fist with crude stitching and a shoddy drawstring. My fingers recognize the rough weave and slight weight at once.
Military rations.
As a member of the Kalima, we were allotted better foodstuffs than the magic-barren warriors sent to the front, but I survived on a sack of food like this during my first training camp, when I was eleven.
A satisfied breath rushes from my nostrils and hovers around my face like steam. Finally a glimpse of the relief effort.
I rip open the sack with my teeth, and a handful of nuts and a few strips of dried beef tumble into my palm—just as I remember. But when I turn the bag over, the king’s seal—a golden sun rising between twin mountain peaks—is barely visible beneath another image. A ram, dark and charred, has been branded over the top. A ram that looks exactly like the one stitched into the corner of my blanket.
Chills tiptoe down my neck.
Didn’t Ghoa say Temujin and his Shoniin raided imperial supply wagons?
But why would a criminal feed starving refugees? Or give me a blanket?
We need you. Find us.
A few nuts spill to the ground, and Orbai swoops in immediately. I laugh as I empty the rest of the sack for her. “You are the hungriest bird in the empire. I’ll starve to death, thanks to you. What do you make of all this?” I ask as she pecks around for crumbs.
If the rations are from Temujin, I should report them to Ghoa immediately. But as I glance across the square, at a group of children devouring their meager portions like jackals gnawing bones, an ache clogs my throat. Ghoa and the king could punish the shepherds for accepting stolen imperial goods. And they will cut off any future deliveries and send the rations back to the war front.
Where they belong, I remind myself. But a tiny, niggling part of me wonders if the food truly belongs to the army. Of course it’s important to keep our warriors well-fed, but what about our people?
I nearly reach for my quill and parchment to ask Ghoa, but decide to do some investigating first. The food is too sorely needed to report it on a mere hunch. I need proof that the ram is connected to Temujin.
Slinging my satchel over my shoulder, I roam from campsite to campsite, watching and listening, inserting myself into conversations. I follow a group of old Verdenese men as they amble between sheep pens with feeding buckets. “Five pleas to the Sky King ignored outright,” one of them mutters. “It’s as if he thinks we’ll simply vanish.”
“We will vanish,” another says darkly. “Like King Minoak. According to the newest arrivals, he hasn’t been seen in months. An imperial governor sits on the throne of Verdenet.”
“What?” I don’t realize I’ve spoken aloud until the men whip around and scowl at me. I try to make my eyes wide and innocent, but the men scrunch their brows and shuffle away.
Later, when I’m peeling shriveled turnips with the other girls my age, I muster up the courage to ask, “Have any of you seen who delivers the rations? I’ve heard it’s a handsome boy with golden eyes.”
“If that’s the case, I wish he would deliver more than rations,” one of the girls blurts. Everyone howls with laughter, save two who exchange a quick glance. The same two who just so happen to have the same tiny ram embroidered on the underside of their shawls.
When one of them volunteers to do the scrubbing after supper, I choke down the rest of my bland stew and follow. We trudge to the river in silence, the pots rattling between us. I know I should try to lull her into a false sense of security and extract my information, but before the dishes can even hit the water I blurt, “The rations are from Temujin, aren’t they?”
“I’m not sure,” the girl says, keeping her eyes on the river. “Every few days the gongs sound and the bags simply appear. As if they rained down from the sky.”
As if they rained down from the sky.
Just like Temujin and his comrades when they rescued me during Qusbegi.
Heart thudding, I lean closer. She smells of sweat and horse manure, but I don’t crinkle my nose. I know for a fact that I don’t smell any better. “He told me to find him. Where should I look?”
“If you’re looking for someone, perhaps you should consult the Bone Reader. I hear she has a knack for uniting people. Her shop is on the southeast corner of Diylar Square.”
I shoot to my feet and squint in the direction of the marketplace. Bone reading is an old outlawed practice from Verdenet. An ancient method of conversing with the First Gods that I haven’t witnessed since my grandmother died when I was six. A tingling sensation courses through my limbs. The same bone-deep rightness I feel when praying to the Lady of the Sky or singing my mother’s old tribal songs.
“Go,” the girl urges. “I can manage the dishes.”
The marketplace at Diylar Square is located between the slums of Sagaan and the winter grazing lands. To say the neighborhood is rough would be akin to calling the great freeze merely cold, and this sector is even dodgier than the rest. As soon as I slip into the maze of tattered tents, the pungent smell of hashish burns my nose and shouts erupt from a gaming hut. Pulling my hood low, I speed past a spice shop that clearly specializes in poisons and an armory offering a large selection of Zemyan blades and spears, all of which are illegal in Ashkar due to their wicked magical properties.
There are a handful of tales of Ashkarian warriors who attempted to wield Zemyan blades in battle, doubting the rumors that the steel was tainted with magic. In the most gruesome story, a warrior swung his sword at a charging Zemyan, but the blade retracted and burst through the opposite end of the hilt, impaling the foolish man through the heart.
I shoot the arms dealer a disapproving look, glad Serik isn’t here to see this reminder of his father, and hurry to the Bone Reader’s stall. It’s a crooked little hut covered with a conglomeration of exotic furs—snow leopard and grizzly and fox. Swells of sage and pinion incense pour through the door flap, tickling my nose.
Orbai settles on a tent across the aisle—she’s never been one for small, dark spaces—and I feel her eyes on my back as I duck inside. Dripping tallow candles balance on tables and crates, and a fire crackles in the center of the space. Behind the fire sits a petite, wrinkled woman with a shock of dark hair. Her legs are crossed beneath her and her hands are busy prodding the coals with a poker. The heat is thick and oppressive.
“Are you the Bone Reader?” For some reason I feel compelled to whisper.
“That depends who’s asking.”
“My name is En—” I mash my lips together at the last second. I cannot blow my cover in case the Bone Reader isn’t in league with Temujin and his Shoniin. “En-Eniira,” I stutter. “My name is Eniira.”
It could be the flickering light, but the Bone Reader’s lips seem to twitch as she eyes the scarf tucked around my face. “Sit, Eniira.” She gestures to the woven mat before the fire.
I ease down and stare into the red-gold flames. They curl and snap in the dark of the tent. The Bone Reader prods the bleached-white knobs nestled among the coals, and a blast of orange smoke puffs into the air. The tendrils of darkness hovering overhead surge toward the corners of the tent, as if retreating from the heat. After several minutes of quiet, the Bone Reader seeks out my eyes through the smoke. Time folds in on itself, and my vision bends until I see, not a stranger, but my grandmother chanting before the fire.
The Bone Reader taps my foot with her poker. “What do you wish to know? Who you will marry? Where to obtain your fortune?”
“I’m looking for someone. And I think he’s looking for me.” I emphasize the he, hoping she’ll catch on, but she simply nods.
“A family member lost in the chaos of the overcrowding?”
“No. I don’t know this person, but he helped me and I wish to thank him.”
She gazes at me, unblinking. “A noble p
ursuit.”
“Yes,” I agree, but the lump in my throat isn’t so sure. Temujin may have abandoned his post at Novesti, but I’m fairly certain he’s feeding half the city.
“You look troubled,” the Bone Reader muses.
“No. Just eager to offer my thanks.” I force a tight-lipped smile. “I’ve been seeing this symbol everywhere.” I hold up a ration sack and point to the ram. “It’s Temujin’s symbol, isn’t it?”
The old woman’s lips twitch again. “You don’t need a Bone Reader to tell you that.”
“Does that mean the rations are from him, rather than the Sky King?”
“When has the Sky King ever offered a gift that did not benefit himself?”
“The king built the aqueducts from Namaag and ended the drought,” I say before I can stop myself. “He may not be a perfect ruler, but he saved all of Ashkar.”
“Which also stopped the riots and strengthened his claim to the throne,” the Bone Reader responds without hesitation.
“He offers prosperity and safety to the Protected Territories,” I try again.
“Only so he can conscript and exploit them.”
“What are you talking about?” I stare at the Bone Reader and she stares right back, her jowls clenched and her pinprick eyes glinting. Clearly, we’re never going to agree on this. Not when her view is so negative and skewed. “Where can I find Temujin?”
She drags a smoldering shank bone from the fire and taps it with her poker. It hisses and jagged splinters cleave through the brittle white. She studies them, muttering to herself and pushing matted strands of hair from her face. “Use the head, girl. That’s the way.”
“Do you mean use my head?”
“The head,” she whispers three more times in quick succession.
I let out a frustrated breath and climb to my feet. “What does that even mean?”
The Bone Reader tosses her hands into the air. “It’s so simple, a child could lead you there.” She places a strange emphasis on the word child and gives me a pointed look. “Now go, Enebish. I have paying customers to attend to.”
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