The guard waved a boy over and bent to speak into the messenger’s cherubic face. The boy took off at a run.
Calev and I traded a look. It wasn’t much to hang our hopes on, but it was something.
Hours passed and the rain finally let up. Radi and I sat in the back of the cell, in the corner opposite that humming madman.
“Is this all right?” I set my head on Radi’s shoulder.
My right eye kept twitching. I was so tired. Too tired to sleep. I couldn’t stop staring at the far gates leading to the city, straining to see that messenger boy or a woman who looked well-dressed enough to be a handmaiden in the royal household.
“Of course, it’s all right.” Radi’s voice rumbled in his chest. His knobby hands rested on his thighs and his breathing was a little uneven.
“Are you feeling sick?” It wouldn’t have surprised me. This wasn’t exactly a kyros’s tent out here in the chill and wet and knowing we could be put to death at any second.
“No. I feel great. Considering.”
I sat up, the ground wet under my palm, and looked into his face, at his crooked tooth and lopsided grin. “You’re not breathing right.”
He pinched his lips together. “I have a beautiful girl practically in my lap. How do boys usually breathe in these situations?”
The skin over my collarbone prickled. “I…I don’t know.”
I froze, not wanting to move. Scared to move and do something wrong. Something to make him stop thinking I was beautiful or I don’t know… I felt like a sail tie that had been unwound and left to fly in the wind. I might break free of the knot and soar into the clouds. I might lash someone in the face. I might fall into the sea and drown.
A final drop of rain rolled down my cheek. Radi touched it, too rough at first, then easing. He dragged it across my face, then cupped my chin.
“May I kiss you?”
“Now? In prison? When my sister is dying?”
“It’s terrible. I’m sorry. I’m terrible.”
The world wasn’t storming anymore, but my heart and mind were still being thrashed by worry and fear and anger and frustration. I suddenly wanted the heat of his lips on mine and the tiny, brief relief of knowing someone was right there beside me in this storm.
“Please do,” I said.
“Please kiss you?”
“Yes.” Tears welled in my eyes, hot and blurring Radi’s face.
Gently, he set his peaked upper lip against mine, then his slightly chapped lower one. The chill went out of me and left me so, so warm. He pressed lightly, just once, then pulled back.
I wanted to say Thank you for being here for me, for helping me and risking everything for a person you just met. But I could only manage to say, “Now my breathing is uneven.”
“Radi.” Calev’s voice rode across the air.
Radi shot to his feet, leaving me in a heap on the ground. “Calev ben Y’hoshua.”
I got up, anger warring with curiosity.
Calev stood in his cell, arms crossed and face cloudy. “If we escape this, we will need to talk.”
“Yes. Of course,” Radi said, his cheeks going dark.
I smiled sadly. I was blessed to have a brother in Calev. He wouldn’t be too harsh with Radi. He was only protecting me. As long as he didn’t get too carried away…
A bright shape came over the hill from the city. A woman. The messenger boy trotted by her elbow.
“Calev. Look!”
The guard approached a woman—Meekra, maybe?—and he gave the woman a small bow. She was older than Kinneret, but not by much, and she wore a fine, black kaftan and a pink sash. Black hair flowed over a shoulder, hair like Radi’s. When the guard pointed to our cell, her smile—lopsided like Radi’s—slid off her face. She slipped a small bag to the guard, a coin to the boy, then turned right back around and left.
“Wait!” I called out.
The guard hurried over and banged his dagger’s hilt against the bar. “Hush, girl. You’ll get your food portion soon enough.”
“I’m not hungry. I—”
The guard leaned so close that I could smell the spiced chicken he’d eaten earlier. “Trust me. Hush.”
Radi and I gave Calev a loaded look and we settled back into our corner.
“Did she pay him off? What’s going to happen?” I asked Radi like somehow he would know.
His lips came close to my ear, sending a shiver over my neck. “She definitely paid him some coin. But I don’t know what for.”
I squeezed my hands, pulling my skirt into my fists. “I guess we’ll have to wait. I’m not good at waiting.”
“No one is, are they?” Radi’s gaze drifted over my face like he was trying to figure me out.
“I guess not.”
Three guards brought flatbread into the cells. I took one, knowing I’d need my strength no matter what happened, and worked my mouth around it, trying to soften it enough to take a bite.
Radi frowned at his piece and turned it over. He must’ve been lucky enough to avoid stale food until now. I hated I was the reason he was eating it now.
The madman stopped humming. I turned, thinking he’d be eating, but he was staring at the door.
“Little birdies may fly,” he whispered in a rasping voice. “Little birdies. Little birdies.”
I choked on my bread. “Radi. The door. The guard left it unlocked.”
“Come on.” He dropped his portion, heading to the front of the cell.
I picked up the bread, tucked it in my sash for later, and followed.
The guards both had their backs to us, eating a much better meal.
Calev stood by his own door. He reached out a hand and pushed it open with a slight creaking noise. His was unlocked too. Flinching at the sound, he eased out of his cell. The people in with him just stared at the guards.
I opened our door and we took two steps. Shutting my eyes for a second, I prayed no one would say anything. My sandal caught on the cell door’s frame. Heart tripping, I grabbed the bars, my breath leaving me in a gasp. Radi touched my back in support.
The middle-caste guard who’d taken the coin from the woman laughed loud and smacked the other one on the shoulder. He met my gaze with those puffy eyes of his, and my lungs froze. With a word, he could have us killed for trying to escape. But he gave a nod no one would notice except us and went back to his joking and eating and keeping his friend from turning.
We joined Calev and hurried into the shadows cast by the walls and highlighted by the moon. I swore he’d aged a year in a day.
“Ideas on what to do now, sister?”
I set my forehead on his shoulder for a second. “Act like we’re supposed to be walking through these training fields and into the city instead of escaping?”
We walked as fast as we could without being noticed, thankful for the dark and dripping weather that camouflaged our shapes and our noise.
“So that was Meekra?” I asked as we passed through the back gates. Every guard gave us a questioning look. One started to call out a question, but we slipped into the city’s darkness before he could sound the alert to our presence.
“I guess,” Radi said.
“You knew she was born in Akhmim?”
“No. I guessed. It’s a town near here.”
“I doubt you guessed right,” Calev said, not unkindly. “I’d bet she was only helping us out despite your error. Her mistress seems very open-hearted. It wouldn’t surprise me if the woman at her side was the same.”
I didn’t care who helped or why. I just wanted to get out of this city and back to Kinneret with Calev and maybe Radi too since I doubted he could return to his family’s cart. With every quick step, I glanced over my shoulder, just knowing there’d be fighters coming at us, ready to lock us back up or kill us on sight.
9
Calev
On this side of the city, things were quiet. So different from the opposite side of Akhayma, where I’d lost the agreement and my only chance to show F
ather I could be the man he hoped I could be. I gritted my teeth, wishing more than anything that I could go back and do everything over again, the right way.
Canals gurgled as we passed through an area of dark, quiet tents. A man snored like a congested camel and a child called for his mother. In the market, tables were all folded up and put away. The sounds and smells of earlier had been washed away by the night’s chill air, the sage and dust smell of the desert not so far away. We stopped near one of the booths that served as a home too, its striped walls gently lit from within.
Radi eyed the front door—slats of wood in a frame set over fabric lengths matching the walls. “I have to tell my cousin what’s going on.”
“But you’re going to come with us, right?” Avi’s admiration of this Radi colored her voice. “They’ll find you here.”
“I…guess I do have to come with you. Unless we hear something from Meekra.”
“Could she manage to have you pardoned?” I asked.
“Anything is possible, I suppose.” Radi slipped through the door.
We waited in the near dark. My ears strained to hear soldiers shouting that we’d escaped or dogs braying and on our scent. But so far there was nothing but the normal city sounds.
“Do you hear anything?” Avi grabbed the front of my tunic, her eyes bright and scared.
I cupped her hands with mine. “No, but—”
Noise exploded from the back of the city.
I ripped Radi’s door open, sending the interior woven flaps fluttering. “They know. We need to go. Now!”
His family blinked and spoke rapidly in the desert tongue, handing him a bundle and shoving him toward us.
We took off down the street, Radi leading. Horses’ hooves pounded the ground behind us.
“We’ll never outrun them,” I said.
“This way.” Radi jerked my arm and I pulled Avi along as we sidled into an alleyway.
It was dark as the pitch Kinneret used to seal her boat. “What now?”
“Hopefully, they’ll go past us,” Radi whispered.
Avi bunched her hands and pressed them to her mouth. I put an arm around her and kissed her head, hoping to settle her down so they wouldn’t hear the caste bells shaking on her clothing. Thankfully, Radi wasn’t wearing any. He must’ve been purely of the desert blood.
The sounds grew louder. We huddled farther into the tight space between the tents. No noise came from the tents, so these must’ve been used as shops only during the day hours. The scent of oiled wood and a damped fire told me the one to our backs was a carpenter’s place.
“No one’s in there.” I jerked my head at the tent. “Can’t we slip under the wall and hide?”
“That’s a big offense,” Radi said. “If we’re found in someone else’s place, we will definitely be hanged. They take crime seriously here.”
“It didn’t seem to keep my attackers from stealing my things.”
“Crime has increased. Because of the kyros. He raised taxes. Some of the low-castes and even a few middle are feeling the squeeze, so to speak.”
The horses’ pounding and the soldiers’ voices rolled closer still. Then they were passing us, slowing, talking. One horse knocked against the carpenter’s shop and shook the tent’s posts and lines, pushing us.
Avi gasped.
The soldiers went quiet.
My heart beat against my temples, and I held Avi’s fingers tight. Heat poured down my chest. Radi swallowed loud enough for me to hear.
Feet crashed to the ground. Someone had dismounted. Footsteps approached, grit crunching under boots.
Radi waved to us. He wanted Avi to wiggle deep into the alley of cloth walls, but there wasn’t any room. The carpenter’s place came together with the neighboring tent. Was there a passageway between the walls of striped wool?
I lifted a foot, trying not to scrape the ground, and nodded to Avi. She held my wrist with her cold fingers, clutching to me like her life depended on it. As if I could save her. But I couldn’t. I could only follow Radi and hope we weren’t heard.
At the spot where the tents came together, Radi pressed a hand out. It was so dark. I could only just now see more than the white stripes of the walls and the rough shape of Avi and Radi. There was the pale yellow of Radi’s sash and the light streaming from the street where they were searching for us.
A man shouted and rushed into our hiding place. Avi pushed against me. Radi heaved himself through the tiny opening between the tents.
I spun and tried to help Avi through, but large fingers hooked my shoulder and arm and yanked me backward. Avi came with me and we landed in a pile at the soldier’s feet, my hip hitting the ground sharply and Avi swearing and sounding like her sister. Radi hadn’t been found.
The warriors hauled us out of the alley, not saying a word, features hard under their shining helmets. The middle-caste guard who’d left our cell doors open was nowhere to be seen. He probably fled with that money as soon as he could get away from the others.
An Empire fighter with a long face tugged my arms behind me and lashed them together with twine. The rope bit into my skin as he looped a knot over the saddle and began trailing me along like I was a prisoner of war. An enormous, bearded warrior bound Avi up, tying her to another mount.
Would this be it? After all we’d been through?
Kinneret would die without us there to say goodbye. Avi and I would hang or be whipped until dead, whatever horror the unpredictable kyros decided we deserved.
My legs were filled with lead weights and if I hadn’t been tied to a horse, I would’ve crumbled to the ground.
They herded us back toward the Kyros Walls. At least Radi had escaped. I didn’t know where he’d go. They’d probably know him by sight. Maybe they wouldn’t bother going after him for such a minor infraction. It seemed Avi had been the one to really break the rules.
Avi tried to walk closer, but the fighters edged their horses between us, hooves inches away from our sandaled feet.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Kinneret. Worry ate at me, biting here, gnawing there. I’d be nothing by the time I escaped again, if I ever had the chance. They wouldn’t have to kill me. I’d die from fear for her.
They brought us to the main tent even though it was full night and no one seemed to be around. Inside, Avi and the warriors passed hands over the Holy Fire bowl while I went to my knees to wait, showing respect in advance.
Seren, Pearl of the Desert, slipped from a back room and into view. I should’ve studied her gaze for some kind of hint as to what she planned to do to us, but I couldn’t stop imagining Kinneret and the sickness chewing at her bones.
Hands pushed my head down to bow lower, like Avi already had.
When we were allowed at last to stand, Seren frowned, studying me. The woman I believed to be Meekra, her handmaiden, came up beside her.
“The Holy Fire gave me an idea about your Kinneret tonight,” Seren said. “So I couldn’t let you leave. Not yet.”
Invisible arrows pierced my heart. My breath stuck in my throat. I glanced at the Holy Fire bowl near the door. Its blue-orange Flame shimmered as if it knew we were talking about inspiration, all the blessings given to those the Fire chose.
“Is she…” My tongue couldn’t create the horrible word—dead.
Her eyes seemed to tip downward at the edges, her lips going into a frown. “She may be soon.”
Snakes slithered over my heart and I fisted my hands. “Can I save her?”
“I don’t know. But I know you won’t make it if I don’t help you.”
“So you believe my story about the agreement and Old Farm and the thieves?”
“I do. The Fire told me I need to send you home with a new agreement marked with Kyros Meric’s personal sigil. I’m not sure how to make that happen though.”
“The kyros still doesn’t believe me.” I didn’t think it was a good idea to point out the fact that he obviously didn’t believe the Fire had told her anything either.
Or she hadn’t told him for some reason.
“He may listen to me if I…put the idea in his head properly,” she said.
I nodded.
She began to twirl a piece of green wool she had tucked into her sash. It looked like a piece of the clothing people wore in the mountains beyond the desert and I wondered what it meant to her.
“Take them back to the cells,” she said, her gaze faraway. Meekra’s mouth opened like she wanted to argue, but Seren held up a hand. “I have a plan.”
The cell door clanked shut and we were imprisoned again. Seren’s guards sent the rest away and took up positions to watch us through the night.
We were left in the dark to wonder if tomorrow would mean Seren’s success and our freedom, or her failure and our death.
10
Avi
The sun rose as I wiped tears off my face.
Sister, I’m trying to get him home to you. We’re trying.
I still didn’t regret coming. I couldn’t have stayed there and watched her waste away. But nothing had gone as planned.
Seren’s guards—the big man with the beard, the one with a face like a horse, and the thin one who’d captured us in the city—took us from our cell and brought us to a tent near the stables.
Bows, yatagans, and axes lined one wall. Two long tables crowded the front of the room. The man who’d been at the kyros’s side when I’d seen him earlier stood near two other soldiers.
He crossed his arms and his gray eyebrows drew tightly together. “The Holy Fire gave my kyros an idea last night.”
My knees shook. I tried to take a deep breath to keep from falling over. Meekra wasn’t here. No Seren either. We were doomed.
“He said,” the general continued, “the Fire told him it was in the Empire’s best interest to believe your story and send you on your way with your agreement approved.”
I was a drowning girl suddenly pulled out of the waves. Air whooshed into my lungs, bringing me to life. We had a chance! A chance to save Kinneret!
Calev rushed to hug me, his hands sticky with nervous sweat.
Fever: An Uncommon World Novella Page 6