She found her opening. Swung low. Mari felt the burn as the assassin’s knife arced over her shoulder to open her back. Her dagger punched through armor. Pierced the assassin’s inner thigh. The knife came out followed by a torrent of blood. A bit-down curse. The assassin stumbled backward. Mari’s blade opened the assassin’s chin, rather than the throat as she had intended.
Blood trickled down her back. Her ribs. The final assassin came on. Flowed from foot to foot. It seemed as if his body swayed, an illusion of movement. At the last minute he leaped forward, knife a blur. Mari bent aside. Felt the horrific force of the blow as fist, not steel, hammered into her.
The assassin she had wounded rushed forward. She sheathed her knife behind his collarbone.
Yet her footing was off. There was too much blood on the ground. The assassin’s body, driven by momentum, crashed into her. Mari was forced back. Bent painfully over the rail.
She expected it would not have been hard for the last assassin to kick her feet out from under her. To push on his fallen comrade. To spill them both over the railing, into the gulf beyond.
History, the word echoed in her mind. What was becomes is. Makes what is, what will be. The ripples of her past struck the riverbanks.
Falling.
Impact drove the air from her lungs. Cold, wet stone. Sliding. She may have imagined the sound of her ribs creaking, though not the pain. The pain was very real.
Mari flung her arms out. Grabbed a handful of the bougainvillea that climbed the arched aqueduct, some ten metres below Nanjidasé. She tried to settle her mind into the lelhem—the meditative state where the warrior-poet could ignore pain, or fatigue. It failed miserably.
Her body an aching mass, Mari clambered down the vine-wreathed arch that held the viaduct aloft. Had she been flung even a meter further, there would have been nothing to stop her descent into the lantern-bright radiance of the city below. She tried not to think about it. One hand after the other. Find her footing. Get down to solid ground.
Above her the heavens opened up. Rain poured down.
Eyes narrowed, she stared up at Nanjidasé. It was too dangerous to return, in case more assassins waited. Indris was too far away, the Wanderer out in the Shoals. Head down, Mari forced her tired, aching body through the rain to somebody she knew would help.
“Don’t you have any other friends?” Ziaire joked as Mari cracked open her eyes. “Why does it feel like I’m the one you always come to when you need your sorry hide patched up?”
Mari tenderly pushed herself up in bed. The pain was a lot less than she had expected. She prodded at the dressing on the wound on her flank. Ziaire was reading from a thick stack of parchments in her hand. Other houreh came and went, adding to or reducing the stack one by one.
“Actually, it was Femensetri who healed me the first time at Samyala and Indris the second time at the Healer’s Garden. You just happened to be there,” Mari gestured to her healed wounds. “Who did the honors this time?”
“A lot of Pearl Courtesans have come to Avānweh for the New Year’s Festival.” Ziaire handed Mari a bowl of watered apple juice. The famous courtesan was radiant in her layers of pearl-gray silk. Hers was the kind of beauty other women did not find threatening, any more than one did extraordinary art. “One of our houreh from Tanis studied with the Nilvedic Scholars. He’s quite a gifted healer. In time he’ll go on to replace his father as the Prime of Tanjipé, governing the House of Pearl’s interests there, as I do here. But you were lucky this time. Your wounds weren’t so bad.”
“Maybe I’m not trying hard enough?”
“Oh, no. You’re quite trying.” Ziaire grinned. “You had some cuts that looked worse than they were and bruises that will heal. Otherwise you’re fine, you poor baby. But now it’s time for you to get up. It’s a beautiful day and I’ve an assignation. Come with me. We need to talk.”
Ziaire showed Mari to a room where she could bathe and change. She stared at herself in the mirror, noting the hardness around her eyes and mouth. As memories from last night shot across her mind, she started to tremble violently. Her breath came in short gasps. Sweat prickled her hairline and upper lip. She grasped the edges of the mirror, knuckles white. Forced her breathing into a regular rhythm. Caught and locked her reflected gaze until the trembling ceased. She washed and dried her face, startled at Ziaire’s voice at the door.
Joining her friend, Mari’s face relaxed into a smile. Ziaire threaded her arm through hers as they took to the streets. Neither said much of consequence as they wove through the midmorning crowd. The two women passed beneath the shadow of an aqueduct. Flowering ivy had crept up the arches that supported the old waterway, red buds like drops of blood amongst the leaves. In the distance, over the background hum of city life, Mari heard the basso groan of waterwheels and the dull twang and creak of gondola cables. Green-coated kherife walked past, nodding their heads politely. Nanjidasé was nearby as well as the Habron-sûk. Whether in recognition of sende, or simple respect, courtesy was a safe course to take. Mari could not help but to flick her gaze around, searching for killers in the shadows.
Ziaire stopped near a shaded well, tiled with a mosaic of vividly coloured birds and flowers. She took a ewer from a hook, wiped it with a bandanna she had folded in her sleeve. With casual elegance, the courtesan held back her sleeve as she dipped the ewer, then took a deep drink. She offered the vessel to Mari, who finished off what remained. The water was cold and clean on her tongue. Ziaire took Mari’s arm again and they walked on.
“What happened?” the other woman asked quietly.
“I cut myself knitting,” Mari muttered sourly. Ziaire laughed even as she squeezed Mari’s arm hard enough to hurt. “What? Alright. Assassins tried to kill me in Nanjidasé.”
“Assassins?” Ziaire’s expression flowed into worried lines. “Why do you think they came for you?”
“My list of sins is long and colourful,” she mocked, then sobered at Ziaire’s glare. “Erebus’s balls, you’ve no sense of humour today. And no, I don’t actually find it too funny myself. If I think too much about it… I didn’t escape, so much as avoided being killed. As for why? Ziaire, it could’ve been for anything. My part in Vashne’s death? My betrayal of my House? The chance I may command the Feyassin? A jilted lover, of which there’ve been more than—”
“Are you going to do it?” Ziaire asked abruptly. “Command the Feyassin, I mean? Nazarafine needs to know, Mari.”
“It’s a lot of work and I don’t know if I’m ready to exchange my father’s yoke for Nazarafine’s so quickly.” Mari struck a pose, one fist on her hip, the other held palm upward as if balancing the world in her hand. “‘Make them as great as they were in the days of the Awakened Empire, Mari’. I don’t know that the Speaker for the People appreciates how difficult that will be.”
“Probably not. But that’s your problem,” Ziaire eyed Mari shrewdly. “Or not.”
“The Poet Master’s Schools aren’t what they used to be. Where elitism hasn’t culled numbers, the soaring costs of training have. I’ve been here ten days and haven’t made the progress I’d hoped. If Nazarafine wants the Feyassin to be what they were in the old days, I’ll need to recruit outside the warrior-poet schools. Some of the other academies have students with real talent. They can be given the additional training they need.”
“How many Feyassin does she want?”
“During the Awakened Empire, each of the twelve Great Houses sponsored a company from their own Prefecture. They also trained new recruits. Even if I could get the six remaining Great Houses—”
“Five at the moment, with Far-ad-din gone.”
“Siamak will replace him, I’m sure. Even with six companies, that’s only six hundred Feyassin. More than we’ve had, but less than she wants. The golden age of the warrior-poet is long past.”
Gone were the days when being a warrior-poet was a call to service. These days most warrior-poets graduated, then took on contracts with foreign nobles. Or become p
ampered teachers to entitled students with more money than skill. Worse, her father’s agenda against Far-ad-din had made the rahns and the sayfs nervous. They wanted to keep as many warriors as they could to defend their own interests.
“But you’re not bitter.” Ziaire’s lips twitched in a smile. Mari rolled her eyes in response. “Nazarafine chose you for a reason.”
“Her sense of humour?”
“She’s likely to be Asrahn, Mari,” Ziaire said bluntly. “You’ve walked away from your Great House. What else do you have?”
“A future with Indris,” Mari replied. “The luxury of making my own choices? The freedom to go wherever I want?”
“Don’t count on it. Roshana plans to arrange a marriage between Indris and the Sky Lord’s granddaughter—” She stopped talking suddenly, hand over her mouth. Her laugh sounded forced. She squeezed Mari’s arm and bestowed a dazzling smile. “I’m sorry, Mari. I don’t know what I’m saying today. Rumour and innuendo as cures for boredom, you know how it is.”
You always know what you’re saying, Mari thought. Her face flushed. Roshana was trying to arrange a marriage for Indris? Indris had said nothing of the kind.
“What do you know of the explosion yesterday?” Mari asked tersely, simmering anger hardening her tone. Hardly the best question to lighten a mood, though the words were out of her mouth before she could rethink them.
“Not much,” Ziaire admitted. “Apparently some Humans, Mantéans from the look, were found dead amongst the rubble near the Arbiter’s Tribunal. It answers the questions many have been asking about the Iron League stepping up hostilities…”
“… because my father may become Asrahn. You may as well say it. I wonder whether all the murders and disappearances in the city will be laid at his feet also?” Whether he orchestrated them or not, which is anybody’s guess. “Some of the deaths I’ve heard about have been…”
“Monstrous?” Ziaire chewed her lip. “I’d heard the same. Bodies mauled, as if by an animal. Throats torn out. Blood missing. That’s where there’s a body to be found. Some are saying it’s the Humans, sending Nomads into the city as part of their effort to disrupt the Assembly and the election.”
“Or, somebody who’d find it convenient if Humans were accused of such things.”
Ziaire gave Mari an appraising look, seemed about to speak, but remained quiet.
They came to a gallery overlooking the plaza that led to the Iphyrone, the great horse and sports track of Avānweh, which had been carved through ravines in the mountain. Diorite columns shaped into rearing horses supported filigreed bronze arches so fine they seemed spun from sugar. Sunlight streamed down, a syrupy glow thick with lazy motes of dust that flared like golden pinheads. The sounds of hooves, iron-shod wheels, and the roar of the crowd swelled from shadowed stone corridors. Those who loitered there were privileged. Curious heads turned in Mari and Ziaire’s direction, faces partially occluded by hoods, parasols or awnings held aloft by bound-caste servants. Ziaire flicked open her steel-veined fan, silk panels painted with cheerful flowers. Mari recognised a few faces, though none belonged to people she was curious enough to approach. She wondered whether the person who wanted her dead was among them.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been to the races,” she said instead of voicing that thought. Memory brought the taste of tobacco, whiskey, and rich over-priced food to Mari’s tongue. “And I’ve never seen the Näsaré Flying Cirq, which I mean to remedy. What’s on today at the Iphyrone?”
“Chariots this morning.” Ziaire spared a smile for those who sought her attention, expertly weaving herself and Mari away from those who sought conversation. “Then hart mounted archery and rifles this afternoon. The various sûks will be having their competition of the weapons forms. Bensaharēn, your old teacher, is here having some good-natured fun with Nirén of the Habron-sûk. Delfyne of the Grieve arrived this morning and proud young Jarrah of the Saidani-sûk. Only the Beys didn’t send their Poet Master: apparently there’s more trouble brewing with the Fenling and the marsh-puppeteers in the Rōmarq. There’s rumour of a gryphon or wyvern race, too. Neva, the Sky Lord’s heir, will no doubt win the gryphon race. She always does. Have you met her? She’s quite a woman.”
“No, I’ve not,” Mari said tersely.
“I wonder whether your father will be here?” Ziaire scanned the crowd as if oblivious to Mari’s tone. “His status is still in question after Amnon.”
“It’s no more than he deserves,” Mari was unsurprised at the sour taste of the words in her mouth. She had tried to save her father from his destructive course. There had been no stopping him. Not then, not now. “I’m tired of being what my father wanted me to be and I’ve no intention of walking in his shoes. Given what he’s done, justice was bound to catch up with him.”
Ziaire shrugged. “The Arbiter’s Tribunal is still deliberating.”
“Did many witnesses from Amnon come forward?”
“Some,” Ziaire rested her hand on Mari’s. It was soft and dry, the skin unblemished by the sun. Bands of red and yellow gold encircled her fingers and thumbs, shining brightly. “But it’s out of your control, Mari. Let it go.”
“I could’ve testified!” she snapped. She had been there, seen her father slice into Vashne’s hearts. It had been her most shameful day, the day she had betrayed the man whose life she was sworn to protect. Try as she might to give fate the chance to redress the balance of her crimes, Mari had lived.
Ziaire’s look was hard. “Nazarafine didn’t want you involved—”
“Wait a—”
“No,” Ziaire shook her head. “As a Feyassin you serve the Crown. The Speaker for the People, our monarch until the election, forbade you from testifying. If you testify you become implicated and Nazarafine didn’t want that. The Arbiter’s Tribunal has all the evidence it needs to make a judgement.”
“And my father has enough gold to buy one.” Even after everything, people still underestimated her father’s influence. “I’d heard my father called all his old allies back from their exile.”
Ziaire nodded. “With Vashne gone, many of them have returned to Shrīan.”
“All their old titles and positions have been given to new sayfs. It’ll be a free-for-all. I wonder how many bodies will wash up in the canals, conveniently opening positions of power?”
Ziaire waved to a plain, somewhat serious-looking man who stood in the shade of a fountain. Mari recognised Selassin fa Martūm, one of Vashne’s nephews. He had often called on the Asrahn to intervene in some financial disaster or another, more often than not sourced in an addiction to gambling and courtesans.
“Martūm?” Mari asked.
“It’s a favour to Nazarafine,” Ziaire said dourly. “With Vahineh sick as she is, they want to present Martūm as the potential new head of the Great House of Selassin. I’m to take a look and see whether he may be the man for the task.”
“His reputation says otherwise.”
“They generally do about people who actually want power.” The courtesan kissed Mari farewell. “But duty calls and we must be professional about these things. Keep your beautiful head low, Mari. I’m rather fond of where it is.”
“You and me both.”
Mari remained in the gallery above the plaza after Ziaire left. Blushing orchids, vines of honeysuckle, and leafy ferns swayed in the southerly breeze. The ground was dampened by the fine spray from a small waterfall nearby. She allowed the buzz of voices around her to drift into background noise. For people to become sunlit, shadow-etched shapes, abstract patterns of movement in her periphery.
Until conversation was stilled.
A stream of women and men passed under the southern arch of the plaza. They were a mismatched group. Some were dressed in outdated Shrīanese styles. Others in the vivid silk coats and jewels of Tanis, or the scaled serpent leather of Kaylish. Some wore the flamboyant shirts, breeches, and high boots of the Marble Sea corsairs, while others the supple leather and felt of th
e Horse Clans of Darmatia. No matter their choice in fashion, from their features and carriage they were clearly upper-caste Avān.
The Exiles. Mari’s heart thumped when she caught sight of a face she remembered. Somebody she had not seen in many years. As if sensing her, he looked up to scan the crowd. Saw Mari and smiled.
Nadir was leaner then she remembered in his Tanisian silk coat and trousers. Two gold-washed, sharply curved daggers were thrust through the sash at his waist. A row of small emeralds was affixed above his left eye. He was tall, with a high brow beneath red black waves of shoulder-length hair. His nose had been broken and poorly set since she had seen him last. The pale tracery of old scars, a claw wound perhaps, lined his cheek. His eyes were dark as polished jet. She remembered the way his voice had sounded, smooth and deep when she had rested her head on his chest. Nadir had been a fellow student at The Lament before his parents had taken him from the school in his graduating year.
His sisters, Ravenet and Kimiya, were with him. The two women were a few years younger than Nadir. Ravenet was patrician and aloof, while there was something of the wanton in Kimiya’s gaze and bearing. They looked exotic in their Tanisian silks and bracelets of golden bells, hair plaited with amber and emerald beads. They lifted their chins in challenge, smiles knowing.
Jhem of the Family Delfineh, Nadir’s father, idled next to them. His dark eyes were ophidian, hooded under the buttress of his brow. Grey-flecked dark hair was swept back from his high, lined forehead. A tall reed of a man, he eyed those around him dispassionately. Mari heard people whisper the man’s name, which brought a wry smile to his lips. Jhem. The Blacksnake.
Nadir caught Mari’s gaze and held it. Her skin flushed. He smiled. She looked away. The Exiled warrior represented a history she preferred remain in the past.
Mari fled as subtly as she could. She hastened down several flights of stairs, patterned with floral shapes that shone through the nearby wooden screen. Her footsteps echoed hollowly in the quiet places, where only the moist air and the gentle vibration of nearby cataracts kept her company. The stairs exited on a jacaranda-lined street that crossed the shallow cradle of Avānweh. Heading south she reached the bustle of the waterfront promenade known as the Gahn-Markesh. Looking around she saw Nadir in her wake, his hand raised in greeting as she turned, mouth opened to shout something she would never hear over the crowd—or respond to even if she did.
The Obsidian Heart Page 4