by Lori M. Lee
I hadn’t done much exploring yet, but I’d followed the wall as it wrapped around the westernmost section of the White Court. The ground beneath my feet had been loose and grainy, like sand. I’d even found the remnants of wooden posts and planks, evidence of a dock that had been long buried. It was strange to think that, once, the walls of the city hadn’t existed; instead the city had opened to a vast sea speckled with fishing boats.
The Watchmen had found me a short time later and ordered me away from the wall. The White Court wasn’t as expansive as the North District, but there was still a lot to see yet, and I wanted to see some of it at least with Reev.
Even though I’d been content making do in the Labyrinth, I was glad that Reev didn’t have to worry anymore about supporting us. Now, he was free to do whatever he wanted with his days instead of working long hours at the Raging Bull.
I took a deep, cleansing breath. Even the air smelled better in the White Court. It didn’t have that sour tang from garbage tossed into the gutters or the bitter mustiness of the river.
But I missed the river. Not its stench nor the rickety bridge that lost another few planks every year, and definitely not the pleasure houses like the Raging Bull lined up behind the docks. I missed the walks that Reev and I used to take along the bank, and how he’d taught me to skip stones and where to step so my feet wouldn’t sink into the thick mud.
A scout—a sleek, single-rider Gray in the form of a large cat—sped past, its sentinel rider guiding it around traffic. The scout turned onto the main road and bounded through the gates of the twenty-foot walls that separated the White Court from the North District.
“Where do you think they go?” I asked, watching until the scout disappeared from view.
Avan gave a slight shake of his head. “I’ve never thought to ask Kalla.”
“What has she been doing lately?” I asked. Kalla had been known as Death among those who lived in the North District because she’d been Kahl Ninu’s executioner. After I’d learned about the Infinite, I discovered she was, in fact, Death. It was with her scythe, disguised as a common knife, that I’d been able to kill Ninu.
I hadn’t seen her in weeks. Not that I minded, but it made me suspicious when the Infinite were so silent.
“Breaking in the new Kahl. Apparently, it’s a rather involved job,” he said wryly. “She’s trying to win over the ministers. It’ll be easier to work with the existing officials rather than having to appoint entirely new ones. I think they’re cooperating.”
“At last,” I muttered, and Avan made a sound of agreement.
When Kalla had announced Kahl Ninu’s successor, the ministers had been vehemently opposed. Taking their cue from the sentinels, who had scattered in the wake of Ninu’s death, the ministers had insisted that a Kahl who could not even command the loyalty of her personal guard had no right to rule anyone. They hadn’t known that the sentinels’ “loyalty” to Ninu had been due to their collars and that his death had meant their freedom.
Many sentinels had since returned of their own volition. After a brief attempt to hire the sentinels for themselves—an endeavor Kalla had swiftly ended—the ministers seemed to have at last realized that their own livelihoods, and political ranks, were at stake.
There was some irony in the fact that, in spite of how everything else had changed, Avan was still my best source of information.
As Avan switched to talking about a street smithy he’d met, my gaze kept returning to the open gates leading into the North District. Avan guided the Gray to the left toward Penny’s Bakery, my favorite shop in the White Court.
I gripped his forearm. “Let’s go into the North District.”
Avan hesitated, his arm tensing beneath my touch. But a moment later, he swung the Gray around and we turned onto the main road.
“I thought you didn’t like it there,” he said.
“I never said that.” I just didn’t like the constant reminder of Avan’s absence. Which was illogical because every moment I spent with him reminded me.
This would be the second time I’d ventured into the North District since we returned to Ninurta. The first time was when I discovered the Labyrinth’s leaders had cleaned out the freight container I’d shared with Reev and given it to new tenants. I hadn’t yet the courage to visit Avan’s parents. When he’d left with me to find Reev, he hadn’t said good-bye to them. They didn’t know where he’d gone or why he hadn’t come back—why he might never come back. I owed them an explanation. But I couldn’t face them yet.
Our Gray alone wouldn’t draw much attention, but our clothing would. Now I wished I’d dressed more plainly. People from the White Court didn’t stroll around the Alley, and when they did, it was usually with curiosity and disdain. I felt a pang of self-disgust that I would be seen in this light by the Alley folks. Maybe we should go back and change.
But Avan was already slowing our mount as we approached the Watchman on duty. Avan let him know in brisk, authoritative words that we would be making a trip through the North District. The Watchman, the same one who used to wave me through the gate when I’d worked as a carrier for the District Mail Center, nodded agreeably. He seemed like a decent guy, but his eagerness to please Avan was due to the color and style of Avan’s tunic.
The tunic was dark red, and tailored perfectly to fit Avan’s broad shoulders. It fell to below his hips, and was belted with a braided length of leather. The sleeves and hem were trimmed in a distinct gold pattern that echoed the Ninurtan emblem—the sword and the scythe—which only a few were allowed to wear. Paired with black pants and leather boots, the whole uniform was as clear an indication as any that Avan was a member of the Kahl’s private council.
The Watchman bowed first to Avan and then to me, giving me a polite but impersonal smile. He didn’t recognize me. Not that I expected him to. The last time he’d seen me, I was just another mail carrier from the Alley, weary and underfed.
Avan nudged our Gray forward and we passed into the North District. As Avan guided our mount, I surveyed the familiar weathered streets. The storefronts with their ripped awnings and peeling paint hadn’t changed. Nor had the plain brown buildings with the occasional broken window. Despite the conditions, and the way the people on the sidewalks cast us distrustful and even hateful glares, a wave of nostalgia washed over me.
“Kai.” Avan’s head turned enough so I could see his profile. “Where to?”
“Let’s go this way,” I said, pointing at the corner ahead, which led into a much smaller street.
The muscles in Avan’s back had tensed the moment we’d entered the North District, and he had yet to relax. His unease made me want to laugh, but not because it was funny. Okay, it was a little funny, but not entirely. My Avan had been so good at pretending to be okay, even when the situation called for panic. Sometimes it was refreshing that this Avan was so open.
“Do you remember any of this?” I asked.
As far as I knew, this was his first visit to the North District since Kalla had brought him back from death, and I could see his answer in the way he stared a little too long at his surroundings. His gaze followed a jagged pothole in the street to a web of cracks that fractured the sidewalk. The ruptured stones were left from Rebirth, when the frenzy of a magical and technological war had shaken the world, leveling mountains, scorching the oceans, and cracking open the earth.
His brows pinched as he tilted his head back to study the lines of laundry strung above. His hesitant observations were strange to watch. He’d once known these crooked buildings and dark nooks as well as I did. Probably better.
“No,” he said softly, but there was a note of uncertainty that lit the barest ember of hope in me.
“What do you remember?” I’d been hesitant to ask this question, not wanting the specifics of how lonely he must feel. I didn’t need to imagine what it must be like, to know nothing of yourself other than what you could touch and see and feel in that exact moment.
The curiosity a
nd the stirring of hope had won out, though, and I awaited his response.
He took his time replying. “I remember too much and too little. There are memories from the Conquest before me and the one before him—images of things I’ve had to look up in the history texts in order to understand, as well as moments with a strong emotional connection. It’s all jumbled,” he murmured, “like pieces from separate puzzles tossed together, and no way of ever forming a complete picture.”
I soothed my thumb against the back of his arm, offering my wordless support. Given his circumstances, it was a wonder he’d been able to sort himself out at all.
“What about your life before? Not as Conquest, but as . . . Avan?”
He took even longer to answer. “It’s hard to describe,” he said finally. “It’s like . . . looking at storm clouds and knowing what’s to come—the cold shock of the first few raindrops striking skin, the crack of thunder and the way it can shake the ground beneath your feet when it’s right on top of you—but not being able to recall where the knowledge comes from.” He glanced back at me. “Or how, even before Kalla introduced us, I could have described to you the exact color of your eyes.”
My thumb continued to rub circles on his arm as I mulled over his words. In truth, he seemed to have a better foundation on which to stand than I had when I was eight. I gestured for him to lead us into another left turn and then pointed to the intersection ahead.
“Pull up here,” I said.
Avan guided our Gray closer to the gutter. He stopped us at the corner. On the sidewalk, a dented lamppost was plastered with a poster too faded to be legible. Avan looked back at me, one eyebrow raised in question.
Across the street at the opposite corner sat a shop. It had flaking green paint and the name Drivas painted above the window front. The shop looked much the same as Avan had left it, except the window had been broken and was now clumsily boarded over. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine Avan sitting on the sidewalk in a gray tunic with a cup of water in hand.
A pair of boys on the sidewalk slowed as they passed us, and I gave them a hard glare. We were too conspicuous, standing here like a beacon to street gangs and thieves. Avan and I wouldn’t be easy targets, even without my powers, but we looked like we might be.
Avan’s gaze had fastened to the shop sign across the street. I could see only his profile, but he was frowning, as if trying to remember.
“Drivas,” he said quietly to himself. “My last name.”
Please. Please remember.
“Avan?” a voice said.
Cold dread spilled down my spine. For a fleeting second, I toyed with the idea of ignoring him and telling Avan to get us back on the road.
But I couldn’t. So I turned, knowing whom I’d find.
CHAPTER 3
“WHAT IS THIS?” Mr. Drivas gestured broadly at Avan’s refined clothing and hair. All I got was a dismissive glance. “Where have you been?”
The half-eaten apple in his hand slipped from his slack fingers, and it rolled off the curb into the gutter. He didn’t notice. He had the same olive skin tone as Avan, but it was quickly darkening with anger.
Drek. I’d been expecting Avan’s father to be either tending to the shop or laid out in his bed upstairs, drunk as usual. The last thing I’d wanted was to force a confrontation for which neither of them was ready.
“You disappeared without a word,” Mr. Drivas said, his voice rising. The people on the street who hadn’t already been gawking at us were definitely staring now. “Your mom thought you were dead!”
“My mom?” Avan murmured, looking back to the shop.
I realized I was digging my hands into his hips and forced my fingers to relax. Avan was tense, but he didn’t seem afraid, only wary. This Avan had no reason to fear his dad.
“Nothing to say for yourself?” Mr. Drivas’s mouth twisted into an ugly sneer. He might have been a handsome man if not for how the years of drinking had ruined him. His attention rested on me now, and the look there made me want to climb off the Gray and reacquaint my boot with his crotch. “I see how it is,” he said to Avan. “Finally whored your way up to someone with money.”
Avan made no response, but I drew a small, stunned gasp. Fury flushed my cheeks. In an instant, I was standing on the ground, shouting into Mr. Drivas’s face. “You’re a despicable person. How can you say such terrible things to your son?”
Mr. Drivas gave me a once-over before taking a threatening step forward. I let him, staring him down. He didn’t intimidate me. One swift rise of my knee and he’d be curled up on the sidewalk. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Go on then, protect your pet,” he spat with a disgusted glance at Avan. “Who the drek are you anyw—” He cut himself off, his eyes narrowing at me. “You.”
The way he said it—so much venom packed into a single word. I flinched.
Behind me, I could hear Avan dismount. “Kai, what—”
“I should have known it was you,” Mr. Drivas said. He shoved his finger at me, jabbing it into the skin beneath my collarbone. He was so close I could smell his sour breath against my face. “Always coming around, distracting Avan from his duties, acting like you’re so much better.” His gaze darted back to Avan, and his scowl deepened, as if Avan’s lack of fear infuriated him. “I should have put you in your place a long time ag—”
He was suddenly torn from me. I blinked, rocking back on my heels. Avan had grabbed him by the front of his tunic.
“If you ever threaten her again, I’ll rip out your tongue and make you wear it around your neck,” Avan said. Every word penetrated the air with the blistering power that he had, until now, kept leashed. The gold of his eyes smoldered as if a furnace burned inside him.
“Avan,” I said as Mr. Drivas shrank in Avan’s grip. Fear pulled the lines of his face taut. I pressed a hand against Avan’s shoulder. “Stop.”
He released his dad, who stumbled away, ashen.
“Who are you?” Mr. Drivas asked, regarding Avan with eyes so wide that I almost expected them to fall out.
I grabbed Avan’s arm and tugged him back to the Gray. “We should leave.”
Fortunately, Avan didn’t argue. We were back on the main road within minutes.
“I’m sorry,” I said, rubbing an ache in my temple. “I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have taken you there. I thought it might jog a memory or something.”
He shrugged, but the motion looked forced. “I’m assuming that was my father.”
“I wasn’t expecting him to be outside.”
Avan didn’t respond. I left him to his thoughts as we neared the gate to the White Court. At either side of the road, people had stopped on the sidewalk. The murmur of their raised voices finally reached my ears now that I was paying attention. What were they all looking at?
I peered around Avan’s shoulder. Up ahead, black smoke billowed from Death’s tower.
CHAPTER 4
BY THE TIME we got back to the White Court, it was nearly impossible to wade through the crowd pressed up against the tall iron fence that enclosed the palace grounds. Avan maneuvered our Gray between the others gathered outside the entrance. Watchmen saw us coming and wedged the gate open wide enough to let us pass.
Avan directed the Gray off the path, cutting across the lawn. Other government buildings blocked the view around the base of Kalla’s tower, but dark plumes were still rising into the sky.
“Where are the sentinels?” I asked, glancing back at the Watchmen who’d shut and barricaded the gate against the surge of gawkers. Sentinels should have been guarding the palace grounds, not Watchmen.
“Engaged,” Avan said.
I turned forward again to see what he meant. Kalla’s tower had come into view. The glass doors were thrown open, belching smoke as a frantic red glow danced inside. Hollows and sentinels collided in the chaos. Hollows were former sentinels who were now loyal to Ninu’s brother Irra. I cringed as a hollow smashed his fist into a sentinel’s nose with a meaty c
runch. What was going on?
Amid the fighting and the smoke, I picked out a bright spot of sandy hair.
“Mason.” Mason was a hollow I’d met during my search for Reev a few months ago. He’d since become one of my dearest friends.
He was fighting off a much larger sentinel. I turned, about to swing my leg over the back of the Gray, but Avan stopped me with a hand on my thigh. My breath hitched. I brushed away his touch, irritated with my body’s response.
“He’ll be fine,” Avan said. Our Gray shot forward, weaving through the fighting bodies and straight into the choking heat spilling out the doors.
I tucked my head into Avan’s back, coughing as smoke assailed my nostrils and singed my throat. The lobby was ablaze. I covered my mouth and nose with the sleeve of my gown and slid from the saddle to crouch closer to the ground. Avan pushed ahead on the Gray, and I squinted through the haze to see what was happening.
Up ahead, an archway led into a staircase that spiraled up through the full height of the tower. A group of sentinels was gathered before the archway. Avan pulled his mount short of them, its metal hooves skidding against the gleaming tiles. Irra stood a few steps above the landing. I could feel his looming presence like a cold vacuum, siphoning the heat that suffused the lobby.
Behind him, a considerable portion of the staircase had rotted away. Only blackened dust and pocked, shriveled stone remained. Irra’s handiwork. As the physical embodiment of Famine, he possessed a withering touch.
Irra was not one to demonstrate his power needlessly. For a moment, fear slid beneath my ribs.
The sentinels shifted restlessly on their feet, probably working up the courage to attack him. I counted ourselves lucky that Kalla had seized every sentinel’s torch blade months ago. They had only their fists against Irra’s terrifying power. It wouldn’t be much of a fight, even with their enhanced physical abilities. They had to know that.