UW02. Plains of Sand and Steel

by Alisha Klapheke

  They used the same two bowls as before to dig up Meric’s body.

  Death’s scent ghosted from the wrappings as they brought him up. The subtle odor clung to their damp skin as they brushed the dirt away from the fabric. With the ka’ud smoking, they peeled back the wrappings, and with wet cloths, cleaned Seren’s former husband’s face, hands, and feet. Not too much of the sandy earth dirtied his clothing, but it had sneaked into his ears and around his hairline. Touching him, even through the cloth, sent shudders rippling through her. She’d never forget the feel of his dead flesh, the stillness of his chest and eyes.

  Lucca helped to lift him onto the bed and clear away the last of the dirt.

  “Kyros?” Meekra’s voice streamed through the door.

  Seren’s heart jerked like an arrow had struck her back. “Come in. No one saw you? Followed you?”

  “I don’t think so.” Meekra held a stack of cut cloth, a shroud, and a crockery tub tied with twine. “Everyone is too worried about themselves right now. And all anyone wants to talk about is you freeing the slaves. Some of the nobles are angry. They’ll have to pay their workers now. All of them, Blessed Pearl.”

  “I’ll meet with the district heads soon. We’ll figure out some solutions together. Maybe by then Adem will have accepted things the way they are.”

  Seren took the crock from her with careful hands and a whispered prayer, like this was a part of Meric’s funeral. She hadn’t loved him. But he had been her husband. And everyone, no matter how they acted, deserved at least a little respect in death. She dipped fingers into the translucent mixture and smoothed it over Meric’s eyelids, cheeks, hooked nose, thin lips.

  With a look that asked permission, Ona reached for the crock and Seren nodded. Ona took a portion and ran it along Meric’s forearms and hands.

  Meekra, showing her skills as the daughter of a physician, expertly wrapped Meric from his feet to the crown of his head, securing the strips of linen with more ointment.

  Seren scrubbed her hands in a bowl of cold water. Lucca stood with his arms crossed over his chest, staring at Meric’s body.

  “What was he like?” he asked quietly.

  Goosebumps drifted over Seren’s arms. “He was…” She didn’t want to speak ill of the dead.

  Ona laughed without any humor and put her feet on the floor. “Your face says it all.”

  “Meric didn’t respect me. He ignored almost all of the ideas the Holy Fire gave me and he shouted often. Even though nothing he was angry about was ever my fault. He was mercurial.”

  “He was a horse’s back end,” Ona said.

  Lucca made an indeterminate noise.

  Erol cracked the door open, but kept his gaze on Seren. He had to know everything that was going on. All of her guards did. Thankfully, they were steady as rock, unwavering in their position. “Kyros Seren. We have news. The Invaders are here. A small party with a cart and what appears to be a trunk of silver.”

  Closing her eyes, Seren breathed deeply. “The ransom.” Then she looked at Lucca, who held himself silent as a memory, his eyes giving her that same feeling, that illusion of safety in this dangerous, dangerous world.

  Ona clapped a hand on Seren’s shoulder. “We better get our units ready. Just in case.” With a wink, she was out the door.

  On his way out, Lucca touched Seren’s arm. A tingling warmth pooled under his fingertips, heating Seren’s skin like his touch was another kind of healing balm.

  “I will be by your side. I will keep eyes on Adem.”

  “Why are you so loyal to me?” A touch of guilt twinged inside her, but she needed to understand. She knew Ona’s motivation. Revenge. Ona believed Seren was the key to getting it. But what did Lucca see in Seren?

  “I’ve followed three people in my life.” His hand fell away from her arm. “One. My father.” His lip twisted as some past event cut him. “Two. A Silvanian king.” He looked to the tent’s striped ceiling in exasperation at this king. “Three. The leader of our mercenary group, Dom. All of them are cunning as foxes. None hold others higher than themselves though. You do. You truly care. I never realized it, but I think I’ve been looking for a leader like you all my life.”

  Seren took his hands in hers, soaking in his presence as best she could before she had to leave and deal with complicated enemies she was sure were far wiser than her.

  Lucca’s gaze dropped, his cheeks going a little darker.

  “I will do everything, everything in my power to deserve your loyalty,” she whispered.

  The Holy Fire in the bowl behind them flickered and snapped.

  Lucca kissed Seren’s hand and left.

  Please, Holy Fire, she prayed, give me the ability to live up to that man’s hope.

  12

  ONA

  Lucca’s snores woke Ona. At least he was finally asleep. Now if only she could do the same. It’d been the longest couple of days in the history of the world.

  Moonlight from the edges of the door lit Lucca’s upturned face. Ona pulled an overly tasseled pillow from under her head and threw it at him without any real force. He grunted and rolled onto his side, one hand resting on his shoulder, fingers twitching in a pattern she knew as well as the hilt of her sword. Ring finger, pointer, pointer, small and ring together. The first tune he played on the ocarina every time he picked the silly thing up. He had hands like her aunt’s—muscled but graceful. Memories fevered Ona like a sickness. Her aunt’s face floated to the surface of her mind, then shattered into sharp pieces that stung and pressed against her head. Losing someone never got easier, no matter what stupid people said.

  Lucca’s blanket slipped to the floor.

  Ona crossed the room and put the ridiculously ornate blanket back on him. “Filthy wild man.” She smirked. “You’ve come a long way from the forest floor.”

  Shaking her head, she lay down and remembered the day they met.

  She wasn’t sure when she’d started running that day, the blood covered palette knife still in her hand, but she’d ended up in the forest beyond her town, across the river. A very confused group of strangers had faced her. They had weapons. Loads of them.

  Lucca wasn’t the first one she’d seen. It was Dom. Tall, fair, bearded, and possessing a scar the length of her favorite paintbrush. The badly stitched line ran from hairline to nose, and diagonally to his ear, where a silver bob dangled.

  “You don’t look like much either, if you don’t mind my saying.” Dom’s voice was strong, but had a watery quality like thinned paint.

  If she opened her mouth, she’d start screaming for her aunt again, so she settled for the most obscene gesture she knew to combat his tone and make him think twice about using the club at his belt.

  “Oh!” Dom laughed and the others with him.

  Their fire ring—stones hastily stacked—was cold and black. They knew better than to light a fire that might alert the still-roaming Invaders.

  “I suppose you’ve met the nasty Western pigs, then?” He motioned to a girl about Ona’s age and she brought her a cup and a cloth.

  Ona didn’t know what to do with that either. Horror had stuffed her head full to bursting.

  “So you can abrade me with your fingers but can’t seem to figure out what to do with a generous offer of wine? Hm.”

  And that’s when Lucca appeared. He’d been stretched out by the fire ring, one knee up. A position Ona now knew he took every time he sat on the ground. He’d stood, and pushed his black curls out of his face. His eyes matched his hair and he had a mouth her cousins would’ve swooned over. Ona preferred boys with sharper features, like the trader’s oldest son, Cesco.

  Cesco was dead too. She’d seen his body on her flight out of town.

  They were all dead.

  Dead. Dead. Dead.

  Lucca frowned at Dom and waved at Ona’s hands. “After that…” She wasn’t sure if he was talking about her palette knife or her obscene gesture. “…yes, I think she’s a born fighter.”

 
He looked into her face like he was reading a map of some far off place. He took the cloth from the girl and wiped her free hand clean. “I’m going to take this palette knife now.”

  “What? Oh. Good.” Her voice was a stranger. She was so cold.

  He uncurled Ona’s fingers from the metal and wood. Her muscles and tendons quaked. She’d been gripping the thing like it was the key to unlocking the door holding her in this nightmare.

  Dom snorted as Lucca rubbed the blood from Ona’s nails. “Planning to keep her, Lucca?”

  Lucca’s gaze seared the other man, then he turned back to her and his eyes gentled. “You’re welcome to stay with us until you feel like yourself again.” He must’ve read the road she’d been down on her paint and blood-stained face. “Or, at least until you make a decision about who to be now.”

  “Wh-what are you?” A few new faces peered at her as she shivered. None of them looked like her aunt or her or anyone in town. Their features were straight, strong, and confidence beamed from their every move. One cleaned a sword with a dirty rag. Another held up a jeweled necklace and made some joke about it with their friend. Shiny-coated horses and two ponies tore greenery from the base of a tree where another man used his hands to explain the layout of the next town down the river.

  The smell of her aunt’s villa burning pushed her out of the now for a beat, and the ice in her gut spread. She put her palms on her knees.

  Lucca’s fingers gripped her arm. “Eh, you’re all right. It’s over.”

  She opened her eyes. “You never answered my question.” Her voice sounded more familiar. She willed her heart to stop quaking.

  “We’re mercenaries, military for hire. I am Lucca Hand of Ruination. I’m a condottieri, along with Dom. We lead this band and fight for the families that hire us.”

  “I know what mercenaries are. I’m seventeen, not stupid.”

  Lucca barked a laugh. “I think she’s going to be fine, Dom. And we’re going to want to train her.” He looked at her palette knife where it rested beside the cup of wine. “You could wield a better weapon against those who’d like to take things from you.”

  A surge of some unknown emotion heated Ona’s freezing insides. She felt alive again. “A better weapon.” Her smile cracked the cut on her mouth. She licked the new, salty blood. “I’d like that.”

  A year later, Ona was the youngest ever to become a condottieri, a leader like Lucca. That cold helplessness would never hold her again. She refused to let anyone or anything make her feel like that. She would get her revenge. She would see the Invader king dead. Nothing, absolutely nothing, would stand in her way.

  The now-familiar sensation of heat rolled down her body, just under her skin, starting at her head and searing its way to the tips of her toes and scarred fingers. She didn’t need any Holy Fire to justify her actions or lead her into this war. She was a living, burning, scorching flame made into flesh, armed to protect the only loved one she had left and to exact justice for the loved ones brutally stolen from her.

  13

  SEREN

  A river of calming, comforting sounds poured from the stables’ open double doors and into the cool night. Seren knew she shouldn’t be here. She should be planning and plotting. But she needed space and quiet. Just for a little while. Horses shuffled their heavy hooves in the dusty straw, the tips of their shoes clipping and knocking the wood floors. Fig’s half door squeaked lightly on its curlicue hinges as Seren slipped inside, laying a hand on the mare’s suede nose. The horse snuffled against Seren’s fingers and found the sugar lump she’d brought. Fig’s proud, black head rose, and twisting her swan neck, the mare nuzzled against her owner.

  Seren’s mind loosened as she smoothed Fig’s sun-hued mane. She truly wished she could sleep here in the barn. So much had happened, but the stables remained quiet and comforting. But so much had happened. Meric’s death, for one. She didn’t really miss him. Not in the way she should’ve. He hadn’t been kind. Or respectful. And they hadn’t had that fever that Father used to talk about when he remembered Mother. He’d claimed he felt a rush of heat when he looked at her. Said there were moments when the fever was less, but it was always there.

  But Meric and his father had saved Seren from a horrible fate and given her Akhayma again, a new family that couldn’t replace hers, but that she loved nonetheless. Meekra, Barir, Cansu, Hossam, Erol—all the people of the city. She couldn’t mourn Meric as a wife should, but she’d honor him by doing everything within her power to save their people from what her first family went through. She didn’t want another Empire girl to lose her sisters and father right in front of her eyes. Ever.

  The fever had Seren thinking too.

  Really, the only instance she’d felt something like that fever Father had taught her about was when she looked at the city, the faces, and heard their voices, their varied languages. She was in love with them. Holding Fig close, she savored the feel of the mare’s pulse near her own beating heart. Fig snorted lightly into Seren’s hair. She smiled, tension leaking away.

  Fig knocked a hoof against the door, her foreleg a bright white against the black of the rest of her. Grinning at the demand for more stroking, Seren began to fashion a tiny braid between Fig’s ears. She used to braid her little sisters’ hair like this. Her heart surged in her chest. She swallowed. There were days when she’d coiled her sisters’ light brown locks in a way similar to Ona’s. Maybe that’s why she felt so close to Ona already. It wasn’t just Ona’s hairstyle. It was the way she plunged into life like her sisters, Beti and Cati, had. Ona definitely would’ve approved of how they used to sneak pastries from Mother’s tin and point to Father in blame. Beti and Cati would’ve grown up to be a lot like Ona if Seren had to guess.

  Seren smiled, sadness a familiar song in her heart. Ona was so strong. A blessing to have on her side. And Lucca. Seren’s heart reared its head again, but in a completely different way. A warmth traveled up her chest and into her face. Hm. It felt much like a fever.

  She shook off the feeling. “I know it’s late, Fig. But are you up for a ride?”

  Fig snorted approval and pushed to leave the calm of her stall.

  WARRIORS ON PATROL watched Seren as she wedged arrows between her fingers. When she nudged Fig into a gallop, the mare tossed her yellow mane. Her black body shot forward past a line of flickering torches.

  Despite the fact that, tomorrow, Seren would face men set on tearing her world apart, she smiled wide enough to hurt her cheeks. Maybe because of it. She wouldn’t let them destroy those she loved. She’d enjoy her horse, her archery, her people, her city. Their threats wouldn’t stop her from living her life. The ransom would work. Or it wouldn’t. Nothing could keep Seren from feeling gratitude, such fantastic, beautiful gratitude.

  The first barca’s painted circles and stars dared her to hit them. She raised her arm, aimed, fired. One to the center, a second to the right. The next target proved wilier. It lay on the ground, and she had to point her elbow to the stars as Fig blasted past, hooves raising dust that clouded Seren’s already dulled night vision. Her shot went right and she snarled in frustration. One more barca. She twisted in the creaking saddle to launch a last arrow behind her, at a target positioned opposite of the first. The shot thudded into the thick leather, but too far right. Again.

  Finished, she tossed her bow gently on a haystack. She pressed a heel into Fig’s side to turn her. “Run, girl. Run.”

  The horse snorted in agreement and her sides heaved as her hooves pounded the earth. Fig wasn’t the most expensive mount in the stables, but she was fast and she was Seren’s friend.

  Cool wind rushed over Seren’s head, unspooling the ribbons of her hair, and she urged Fig to go even faster. They tore around the training field. The stables, the watching soldiers, and the surrounding walls blurred, leaving only sound. The tightness in Seren’s shoulders fell off her and she wasn’t the Pearl of the Desert or kyros. She was just Seren.

  Fig threw her head and snuff
led. Seren let her slow down and rubbed the dip below her left ear, her favorite spot. Her warmth was better than any blanket. Fig trotted up to a thick-framed boy recently taken on to man the horses at night.

  The boy gave Fig a gentle rub. “Kyros Seren. Our Fig might be in a different stall while they put in the new feeder systems, if it pleases you, my lady.”

  Seren dismounted and picked up her bow. “Ah. Yes. Because she doesn’t care for the hammering.”

  “Of course, we may not be putting the system in now that…that we are…” The boy’s throat moved and he stared at the walls as if he could see the Invaders beyond them, readying for the ransom that would hopefully come tomorrow and end all of this.

  Seren touched his arm. “It will be fine. Replace the feeders. Start on it tonight if you think it won’t wake everyone.” Staying busy sometimes means staying sane, Mother had always said.

  “I’ll be happy to fetch your arrows, my lady.”

  Thanking him, she headed back to where Cansu and Erol waited on the path toward the city gate. Sleep wasn’t going to come tonight. She knew that. But Meekra wouldn’t rest until she returned, so Seren hurried back to her quarters, praying every step along the way that the next day would go as planned.

  14

  SEREN

  Six men worked to open the city gates. Four tugged at the wooden posts of the cranks, and the other two swept sand and rock from the doors’ path with wide metal flats like fans. With a shudder, the gates thudded against the city walls and a plume of dust clouded into the air. Seren drew her shoulder blades down toward her spine and lengthened her neck, as Meekra had shown her. A long neck can do wonders for the will, she said. Seren had sent Meekra to stay with her family, to help her parents protect her sisters. Just in case.

  Ten Invaders in red and white surcoats and metal boots surrounded a large cart that transported wooden trunks through the towering doors. Coins clinked inside the chests, and the jointed metal on the enemies’ feet grated together, sounding remarkably similar to a venomous dune beetle’s warning.