“I have honeyed nuts. I forgot about them until now.”
She plucked one from his palm. It was shiny, golden, hard; it barely looked like food. At home, honey kept the consistency of butter, not stone. She popped it into her mouth and rolled it on her tongue, tasting sweet and salt together. She reached for a second, but found herself thinking of Beyon’s wives instead, and no longer felt hungry.
“I can see why you keep these in your belt,” she said. “They’re delicious.”
“They’re not for me. I usually give them to the slave children.”
“You like children?” she asked. The Bright One rose in her mind, though she couldn’t see it.
He frowned, studying the floor, where a god Mesema didn’t recognise held a hammer aloft. She realised with a pang that Beyon did not wish to discuss children with her now that his wives were dead, now that she had told Eyul to kill them.
But he forgot his own nature. He had threatened to behead Banreh; he had made Sahree, Tarub, and Willa disappear.
“Beyon,” she said, wiping salt from her fingers, “listen. What did you do with Sahree and the other body-slaves from the desert?”
“The dungeon.” He frowned again. “Probably still there.”
“With everything that’s happening, will the guards remember they have them?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
Mesema imagined the kindly old servant starving to death on the cold floor of a stone cell.
He must have seen something in her expression, for he raised his hands in a defensive gesture. “They could have seen your moon-mark. I did it to protect you.”
“Exactly,” she said, meeting his eyes. “Beyon, listen. I didn’t want your wives to die. Cerana brought me here, and Cerana brought the marks to you and me. Cerana has its terrible gods and the prices they demand. The rules of this game were made long before I started playing.”
“I know that.” He sat down beside her again. “But it’s not just Cerana. The rules of Settu are the rules of the world.”
She thought about her father, surrounded by the men in his longhouse. He and Banreh huddled together over ink and lambskin, planning war and alliances. There was always blood to pay, always a sacrifice. “I don’t know,” she said, but she thought she did.
“You think I’m angry at you because my wives died?”
“I thought, maybe.” Tears welled in her eyes. “It was a terrible thing.” Atia of the haughty eyes, Chiassa of the golden curls, Hadassi of the pouting mouth and her attention to rank, Marren of the wink and the joke.
He took her hands. “It’s true, but not the way you think. If my wives had been kept alive and screaming, I would have gone to save them- not because I loved them; I didn’t. They were my mother’s creatures; all of them spied on me from the moment they came to the palace. But they were my women, and my responsibility. Tuvaini knows me well. He knows what will draw me out.” He drew a breath before continuing, “You were right to protect me from charging in. It’s only… When I heard you say the words, I couldn’t help but think that the palace had corrupted you-that I had corrupted you-and I was sorry for that.”
She looked at their joined hands. “The palace corrupted you as well.”
“I was born to it. Sometimes I think that’s what the pattern is: the palace’s own stink, written on my skin.”
“I don’t think that.”
“You are a good person, Zabrina,” he said, kissing her hair. “I’ve told Eyul to kill many times, and it wasn’t always the right thing to do. I thought fear and cruelty were my best tools, but now I see there are other ways to rule. Tuvaini may well be a better emperor.”
“I don’t believe that. You want to be the emperor.”
He laughed. “Of course I want to be the emperor, but that doesn’t mean I’m a good one. Those are completely different things.”
“I like you better now than when you were the emperor.” That was true.
“Now, maybe, but we’ll see about tomorrow, right?” They both laughed.
“That’s about right,” she said.
“Mesema,” he said, surprising her by using her real name, “it’s all slipping away-my throne, my wives-I can barely feel them any more. I can only feel the end coming.”
She lifted her head and listened.
“Sometimes I tried so hard to be what an emperor should be, but really all I could think of was having a great tomb, like Satreth. Part of me always just wanted to join my brothers.”
I think you will. You will. She pressed her moon-mark to his as she blinked away tears. “Don’t slip away just yet. You have a brother who is still alive.”
The memories came, happier, but fainter this time: Pelar, running with a red ball. Beyon, cuddled with Sarmin and a book, both boys so small they had room to share on one cushion. His sisters, running after a shaggy dog. Laughter. Sarmin swearing his fealty, Beyon’s hand on his head. Mesema on her horse, the wind in her hair.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Eyul crawled through the secret ways, his blood drawing an invisible path behind him in the dark. He’d taken an arrow below his ribs and a dagger above his knee, but he had overcome the Carriers in the end and Govnan rested safely in the Tower. Now Asham told him to find Prince Sarmin. It hurt. All of it hurt, ever since Amalya; it was right to be wounded, bloodied, to be so damaged. Now he looked the way he felt.
The Knife kept him awake. Whenever blackness appeared before his eyes, or his arms collapsed beneath him, the voices prompted him to keep going. “Only twenty bridges and five hundred steps to go,” they said at first, then, “Only thirteen bridges and three hundred steps.” Eyul couldn’t fathom how they were keeping count; he just crawled on.
He met no other denizens of the secret ways, neither Carriers, nor women, nor aristocrats going about their clandestine business. The Knife guided him, and his path lay clear. At this moment he could see a lantern moving upwards across the chasm: two figures, climbing stairs with ease. A man’s voice drifted across the black, but his words eluded Eyul. Could it be Tuvaini with Azeem, perhaps? Herran, with a young assassin? It didn’t matter; they wouldn’t come to Eyul’s side of the way.
Peering at the dark figures made him dizzy and he rested his head against the cool, rough stone.
“Don’t stop, Knife. Only eleven bridges and two hundred and thirty-two steps to go. We must see Sarmin.” Asham was always serious, determined. “Sarmin,” echoed Fadil, his voice dreamy.
Eyul placed a hand on the next step, and pulled himself up. A corpsesmell filled his nose. Whether it rose from below or from himself, he did not know. “And then what?” he asked, the question released between his teeth.
“He will know what to do with us,” Asham said.
“Our brother!” Pelar could not contain his excitement.
“I will die?” The thought occurred to Eyul, but he found he cared little. Silence.
Eyul reached for the next step.
Night fell over the desert, bringing relief from the heat of the sun. Grada moved between the dunes, listening to the song of their whispering sands. The wind played the wastes as a musician would his strings, the tune rising and falling to match her footsteps, up and down, back and forth.
Discordant sounds threw off Grada’s rhythm; a distant neigh of a horse caught her ear and then, a second later, the clash of men’s voices. She scrambled crosswise on a high dune, then crosswise in the other direction. Easiest way to get to the top. There were things she knew, now, that she hadn’t known before: Carrier things, though Sarmin had freed her. She balanced on the crest, watching a waggon-train moving north under the moon. Behind them followed soldier upon soldier, ten abreast, the line trailing all the way back to Nooria.
“My Prince. Sarmin.” She knew she was always welcome to call on him. She smiled. Just thinking he would join her made the water-pouches feel light across her shoulders.
She must have drawn him from sleep, for he was foggy and slow to form his thoughts. She saw only i
mages: his room, the emperor in his grand robes, and a pretty girl with sand-colored hair. He suppressed the last as he gathered himself.
“Grada.”
“An army moves north. Is that your brother?”
Sarmin shuffled through his knowledge, gained from books and scraps of conversation. “Do they wear blue hats?”
“No, white.”
“Show me.”
She opened herself to him, guided his eyes.
“One of the generals.” He reached back through his mother’s words. “Arigu just came from the north; perhaps he returns.”
Only one rider lacked a white hat, a man with golden hair and pale skin. He wore a loose-fitting, colorful tunic. He turned and looked in Grada’s direction as he passed, but his gaze went past her, to the dunes beyond. She could not read it.
She felt the spark of Sarmin’s interest. “That one. He reminds me of someone.”
The girl. Grada said nothing, but kept her eyes on the blond man. It stung when Sarmin hid his thoughts from her.
“They go north,” Sarmin said at last, returning to her with confidence, “to the Wastes. Stay out of their way and they will not bother you.” And then, softer, apologetically, “Thank you for showing me.”
“Of course, my Prince.”
He withdrew, and she continued across the sands. For the first time she felt alone.
Sarmin must have slept, because when he opened his eyes his lamp had burned out and a man was calling his name.
“My Prince.”
Sarmin felt under his pillow. The dacarba was still gone.
“Prince Sarmin.”
Sarmin opened his eyes. He recognised the man sitting on his bed from his travels in Carrier-dreams. Iron hair, strong arms-but the eyes were different. They were softer than he remembered. He sat up in his bed. “You’re the assassin Eyul. You killed my brothers.” For an instant Sarmin saw him clearly through the years, through the broken window and across the palace yard, Kashim at his feet with the blood spreading, looking up, returning his stare, unreadable.
Eyul hunched over, one hand on his abdomen, his face drawn and pale. He said, “I am… the emperor’s Knife. I brought them peace.”
“And now you bring this peace to me?”
Eyul shook his head. The broken shaft of an arrow protruded between the red fingers on his belly.
Sarmin could sense the blood now, feel it resonating with the courtyard and the soldiers’ halls, and with his own blood, drying on his bed. “You’re injured.” He took no joy in it, and that surprised him.
“Shot through the gut.” The assassin grimaced. “Took me… a long while to get here. The Knife wanted to come to you.”
“My knife?” But the dagger Eyul drew was of dull metal with a twisted, bloodstained hilt. Sarmin pulled back from it.
“Can… you hear them…? Pelar and Asham-?” Eyul wobbled against the bedpost. He took Sarmin’s right hand and pressed the ugly weapon into his palm. “No damnation,” he whispered.
In the instant of that first touch Sarmin felt the blood throb in his veins, in the palace, in the ways, the yards, the Maze, all the spilled blood pulsing to his design, ready to flow in new patterns. He felt the wrongness and the rightness of it, like impossible decisions: kill the one for the many, the many for the one.
Sarmin pushed back his covers and stood, the knife in his hand. “There was a time I’d have relished this moment. I’d have slit your throat and still not felt the debt repaid. But you didn’t take my brothers from me-neither did my father, not really. You are the emperor’s Knife, the sharp edge of his decisions. And the emperor is the empire, the voice of its will…’
Eyul’s head lolled, his attention turned inwards, to his blood and pain.
Sarmin frowned. “Lie back. You’re hurt.” He examined Eyul’s wound. “I have no skill in medicine. I can take things apart… making is harder, mending more so, I imagine.” Sarmin took Eyul’s hand and settled beside him. “I would call Govnan if I could. He might be able to help.” The assassin looked old, older even than when he had woken Sarmin just moments before. Age wrinkled around his eyes; a thin string of drool crept from the corner of his mouth. Sarmin held his hand. It’s not good to be alone. He spoke in a quiet voice, like the old mothers to small children. “It was the empire, you see, the empire that protects us all. There must be sacrifices. On the Settu board you cannot make the Push without losing pieces. The Pattern Master understands this. I understand it now.”
Eyul raised his head and smiled. “The Knife,” he said.
“Yes, I have it.”
“No damnation… but I am sorry, nonetheless.” Sarmin felt sure the man was dying. “Grada!”
He found her in her travels, sand between her toes, sun hot on her back. “My Prince.”
“There is a man dying here. What should I do?”
She showed him images: her father, her sister, her neighbour. Life in the Maze was fleeting and desperate. If hunger or disease didn’t catch you, then likely the violence would. She had sat by many deathbeds, helped dig a dozen holes. He cried for her.
“Hold his hand,” she said, “speak of Mirra.”
“I would have taken her fishing.” Eyul spoke in whispers, his eyes fixed on the ceiling gods, not seeing.
Sarmin pulled him close.
“It’s not right-” Eyul’s words came with his breath, “-the things they make us do.”
And they sat together and Sarmin held the assassin as he once held his brother, and spoke of Mirra.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Mesema dreamed of riding Tumble. She crashed through the tall wheat and took the sharp turns by the riverbed that only her father’s best Riders would attempt. She galloped back up the hill and jumped the sheep fence, scaring the animals and the Red Hoof thralls in the pen. She raced along the mountain road, avoiding the mud and waterfalls of spring, until she had a view of the plains stretching beyond her father’s lands and into the realms of the traders-who-walked.
The wind blew, raising dust from twenty thousand horses and fifty thousand feet. She saw Windreader, Black Horse, Blue River, Flat Earth, even Red Hoof ribbons raised aloft on spears. The Cerani marched beside them, breastplates bright in the sun, their lines straight, their shoulders proud. The enemy poured down to meet them from the eastern mountains, descending on strange shaggy mounts, so many that she couldn’t see the stone beneath their feet. The enemy’s cloaks made a pattern of shifting colours and light, unmistakable once recognised, not the Pattern Master’s design, but threatening nonetheless. It spread over the grass and reached beneath the feet of her father’s men. Mesema tried to shout a warning, but her mouth would not open.
“Mesema.” Someone shook her shoulder. “Mesema, dawn approaches.”
“I’m awake,” she said, sitting up and opening her eyes. Her voice sounded loud, and she realised Beyon had been whispering.
“You had a bad dream.” He fiddled with a bundle under his arm. “I got blankets and food.”
“You shouldn’t have gone. It’s dangerous.”
“It’s dangerous to stay here. In fact, I was thinking we should hide in the tomb until nightfall.”
“We are in the tomb.”
He motioned behind him. “I meant in the tomb. It has airholes-we can close the lid. That way if anyone comes in here they won’t see us.”
Mesema looked with horror at the sarcophagus. The lid had been turned diagonally to its base, as if someone had put something inside it, or taken something out. “I think we should go back to the ways, find Sarmin.”
“At nightfall.” He paused. “The ways are full of Carriers.”
“They didn’t catch you.”
“I know. I can hear them.”
“How long have you been able to hear them?”
He bit his lip. “For a few hours.”
Mesema looked again at Beyon’s tomb. She wondered if Carrier voices could influence him, compel him, without his knowing. She shook her head. “How do
es it make a difference if we find Sarmin by day or by night? We should go now.”
“I’m tired,” he said, and she wondered if he meant something beyond sleep. “I need to rest.”
Mesema wanted Sarmin more than anything in that moment, his soft voice, his kind face. The way he could look at something difficult and give it a name, change it. Mesema glanced at Beyon. She knew he was different from the night before, but she couldn’t say how. “All right, we’ll rest. And then, if the coast is clear, we’ll go straight to Sarmin.”
“Good. I’ll lift you over.” But when Beyon hoisted her above the rim of the gold-and-silver-filigreed tomb, the feeling of wrongness overcame her once again. The silk wrappings meant for his corpse already waited in place. A ceremonial sword made of gold rested on its side, along with an elaborate crown. Beyon would never wear such a crown or such a sword. A strong resin smell rose from it all, a smell of storage chests and funerals.
“No! It’s not right-put me down. Put me down!” Fright overwhelmed her caution.
“Shhh.” He pushed her over the edge and began his own climb.
She knelt among the rich silks of his shroud. “Listen. I don’t like it. I really don’t like it.” Something terrible is going to happen.
He settled beside her and rolled open his bundle. “You’ve always been so brave-I can’t believe you’re screaming about a tomb.” Between the rough material of his stolen blankets Beyon had hidden bread, cheese, dried meats and fruits, and even a skin full of liquid.
Mesema stared at the feast. “I’m very hungry.”
“Then eat.” He turned his attention to the lid, pushing it in line with the tomb, closing them in.
She could see the weight of it written in the straining of his muscles. She didn’t think she could open it alone. She swallowed, and tried to stop her heart from beating so quickly. The stitches, do the stitches. She embroidered a garden of flowers in her mind, lily, rose, and thorn. The lid settled into place, and the filigree dappled the morning light, putting Beyon’s face half in shadow. His marks looked darker of a sudden.
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