UW02. Plains of Sand and Steel

by Alisha Klapheke

  A guttural scream clawed its way out of her mouth. Lucca’s lips parted. Shaking overtook her sword arm and she dropped her weapon. Her scream matched the Invaders.

  No. No. No.

  She couldn’t understand them, their love-hate feeling for battle. Never. She couldn’t be like them. Ona had thought she’d seen her worse day in this uncommon world already. But this, this was the worst.

  “To me!” a bright voice called out in the desert tongue. “Rise, Akhayma, and fight!”

  Ona grabbed her sword. As she fought a bear of a man, she strained to see who was shouting.

  The Empire warriors called out and surged forward, renewed by whomever this was.

  A tall figure in simple trader’s clothing rode a stomping, black stallion and sliced his way through Invaders on the edge of the battle. That was no trader. Power practically poured out of the man’s vicious gaze. Whoever it was, she wanted to meet him. If they lived through this.

  Arms aching, Ona brought another enemy to his knees, then looked around. All the Invaders were either dead, scrambling back over the walls amid arrows flying, or held by Empire fighters.

  The Empire, Lucca and Ona too, had won.

  It was over.

  The tall figure who’d rallied everyone raised his yatagan high. “I salute you, Akhayma warriors. And I, High General Varol, invite you to feast with me tonight!”

  Varol. Meric’s younger brother.

  Lucca turned to face her, blood coloring his chin. He didn’t need to look at Ona like that. She already knew this was going to make announcing Meric’s death and claiming it’d just happened a lot more dangerous. But Varol had saved them. The Invaders would’ve won if he hadn’t showed up. How had he snuck into the city?

  Bumped by other injured, battered fighters, Ona found herself following Varol’s steed out of the carnage and toward Seren’s force at the front gates. Varol gestured widely, taking up space. He was tall, but it wasn’t his height that made him larger than everyone else. It was the way he moved. How he commanded. Questioned. Demanded. She stared as he doled out orders about prisoners and securing the front gates and sending warriors out of the city to follow the retreat and make certain it was genuine.

  Lucca trotted up. “Seren has her work cut out for her now,” he whispered, keeping an eye on Varol who had maneuvered his horse back a little to speak with Adem.

  Ona tried to concentrate on his words, but she was still buzzing from the battle. He’d cleaned his face. She hadn’t. She wore Invader blood like a testament to how much she’d loved her aunt and how much she hated the Invaders. Part of an old Silvanian poem flitted through her mind. With battle, with blood, she painted her love for the lost.

  “Ona? Are you listening?” Lucca leaned into her face. “You all right?”

  “I’m fine. So Varol is here. That might be a problem.”

  Annoyance flickered over his face. “She has to announce the death before Varol even gets back to the main tent. It’ll look suspicious regardless, but if he finds his brother’s body, it’s all over.”

  Seren’s force streamed away from the front gates. Kaftan sleeves billowing around her, she shouted an order to give the prisoners water, then take them to the cells.

  “Water,” Ona scoffed. “She should kill them all.” A bitter taste sat on her tongue. “Why is she keeping them? Does she enjoy torture? I could try that idea on, but she doesn’t seem the type.”

  Lucca crouched and drew his sword across a little mound of sand gathered against a lotus tower. Some of the blood came off the glinting metal. He sheathed it and glanced behind them. “I guess she has a strategy.”

  “They’ll turn on her the second they get the chance.”

  “She won’t give them the chance.”

  “Won’t she? I’ve seen the bleeding heart inside her. I like her—don’t give me that look—but she seems the type to forgive too easily.”

  “You think anyone who forgives at all does it too easily,” Lucca said.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You do.”

  Ona gritted her teeth. “You’re wrong.”

  “All right. Maybe, maybe, you’d forgive someone on your deathbed. Never a moment before.”

  “What’s the problem with that? You can’t forgive them when they still have the opportunity to hurt you again.”

  Lucca squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “We need to find you a tutor.”

  She nudged her horse into his, nearly bumping him from his seat and knocking him into Nuh, who walked beside them. Lucca nodded toward Ona to show Nuh who to blame. Nuh gave a tired smile.

  “I don’t need a tutor, idiot,” Ona snapped.

  “You don’t understand the meanings of some words,” Lucca said, using his older brother voice. “Like forgiveness.”

  “Do you grip the meaning of this?” She flared her fingers at her forehead, making Nuh suck a breath.

  He cupped her hand, ruining her beautifully rendered obscene gesture.

  “Give Seren a chance,” he whispered. He said her name like a strange chant made stronger through whispering.

  “She was actually going to ransom the king.” Ona hadn’t realized how mad she was until now. Fighting had pushed all that away for the last three hours.

  “For peace. To avoid a siege. Don’t pretend you knew what they were up to.”

  Ona’s normally loud and perfectly functioning mouth jumbled into a mess of anger and tight lips.

  Seren had lost her pretty head if she thought Ona would sit idly by while she actually ransomed the king. Ona had thought it was Seren’s ruse to gain silver. A ruse gone bad when the Invaders showed how much they valued an agreement with the Empire. Ona bumped her fist against her thigh as she stormed away from Nuh and Lucca. Seren had tried to release the king! Seren making deals with Invaders was like watching a mouse fight a rattlesnake. Bad idea, mouse. If Seren wanted to win against snakes, she had to become a snake. Ruthless. Unforgiving. Striking first, not waiting for peace.

  Ona had to talk to Seren, to make her see sense. The king had to die. He was the head of that army and the head had to be severed. There was no making peace with Invaders. How could she even think it? She’d come so far—getting over that dead husband of hers, claiming the title of kyros, showing Adem what she’d put up with and what she wouldn’t. Why give all that up and go soft? She’d end up as a meal and the rest of Akhayma as a side dish.

  16

  SEREN

  Varol was here. Chilled to her core, Seren drove Fig back toward the Kyros Walls. She needed to meet with the kaptans, but before that, she had to do something about Meric. Varol’s sharp silhouette rode ahead of her, dark and slim. With Hossam at her side, astride a black gelding, she set a hand on Fig’s neck, soaking in the familiar warmth. If Varol made it back to the main tent and found Meric’s body, it would be difficult indeed to explain everything—to lie about everything—before he ordered her death. She couldn’t imagine him listening patiently. Definitely not.

  Ahead, warriors on horseback and on foot, kaftans torn and voices rough, moved through the city, following Varol like he was the star in the sky that could lead them home. One man handed Varol a skin of water. Varol tipped it high, drinking all without a thought to the thirsty, dust-coated fighter he’d taken it from.

  “Kyros Seren, I congratulate you on your win.” Kaptan Rashiel bowed from his saddle, his hair falling over a bruised cheek.

  “Thank you, Kaptan Rashiel.”

  “I can’t wait to hear how High-General Varol managed to sneak into the city.”

  “Me either.” Seren tried and failed to keep the worry out of her words.

  Hossam made a noise that said he felt a similar distrust of Varol.

  Rashiel gently kicked his horse to get closer. “I am your ears and eyes when you need me, Kyros Seren.”

  Lucca’s voice rode over the crowd, his accent punching through the chaos. “Kyros Seren! I will make sure no one disturbs this hard-won reprieve.�
� Skin subtly glowing from the fight, from his chanting, he cut his eyes right, over the crowd and toward the tent where Meric lay. Reluctantly, she followed his gaze, then nodded.

  “Hossam, a little help?” she said.

  “Clear the way for your kyros, please!” Hossam raised his fist and urged his mount onward.

  Slowly, too slowly, Seren and Rashiel took up Hossam’s wake and sailed through the merchants injured in the fighting they hadn’t been trained for, the mothers who’d taken the strike of an Invaders’ shield to defend their families, and the exhausted warriors.

  Inside the Kyros Walls, Lucca disappeared into the main tent with Nuh at his side to check on the rotating guards, to see that nothing was amiss. Lucca knew as well as she did that something must be done now. This very moment. Seren hurried to dismount, handing Fig off to a stable boy. Rashiel held the heavy doorflap open for Seren. Varol wasn’t beside the high table. He wasn’t standing at the Holy Fire bowl. He wasn’t here at all. Good.

  Seren stopped to pray at the Holy Fire bowl as Nuh spoke to Lucca at the door to Seren’s chambers.

  She needed help with two things.

  Spinning the tale of Meric’s death and thinking up a way to finally defeat the Invaders. They would set up a siege. It was only a matter of hours before that horrible white tent went up in the plains beyond the city walls. There’d been so many of them. There would be more.

  The Holy Fire bowl burned bright and promising. Flames brushed Seren’s palm as she prayed silently about Meric, about everything.

  I need a strategy to fight the Invaders, to defeat them without losing all of my army. I can’t sacrifice every warrior. Then, I’d only rule a city of the dead.

  There’d be no Fire Ceremony with hope and happy faces, no Age Day rituals, no weaving in groups as people told stories and sang songs. It would be a city of mourning. A city without enough hands to keep it from disappearing into the unforgiving sands of the Emptiness.

  Pale shapes flickered in Seren’s mind.

  Clouds?

  She squeezed her eyes tight and focused on them, trying to see them more clearly. They disappeared into darkness. Seren stepped away from the bowl and put her head in her hands, her fingers still warm from the Fire. Why couldn’t she see anything that made sense?

  She’d have to come back later. Varol could arrive any second.

  Leaving Rashiel to his own prayers, she hurried toward Lucca and Nuh.

  The men bowed and held up their palms. Nuh hefted a spear from the corner and took up his stance on the opposite side of the doorframe. Lucca’s skin was its normal olive tone again. Seren fought the urge to touch the blood on his chin, to make sure it wasn’t his. She put her hand on her dagger’s hilt instead.

  “Is Ona all right?”

  His mouth pinched a little, but he said, “She’s fine. Now, what can we do?”

  “Just be here.”

  “Always.”

  His dark eyes, the piney scent he carried, his devotion—Seren suddenly felt empty. The muscles in her legs, stomach, and arms tensed, like they were ready to close the distance between Lucca and her. She wanted to enjoy the fullness she knew she’d feel in his arms.

  Blinking the ridiculous feeling away, she pushed into her chambers. Her mind buzzed with the horror of battle, Varol’s arrival, Adem’s mercurial support, the pull she’d felt toward Lucca, the pained look that crossed his face when she asked about Ona, and this—Meric’s body on the bed. Ka’ud smoke swirling around her head, she turned quickly and simply stood at the closed door, staring into the stripes of wool instead of at the wrapped corpse in the room. She took a deep, slow breath, tasting sweet-dark ka’ud.

  I can do this. For my people, because I’ve been called, I can do this.

  At the back entrance, she spoke to the other guards. “I need rest. See that no one disturbs me, please.”

  Both men nodded. “Of course, Kyros Seren.”

  Varol wouldn’t barge in. She had given herself a little time. Hopefully.

  The door opened and Seren’s heart reared. But it was only Meekra. “Let’s clean you up, my lady.”

  Seren trailed her into the side chamber, both of them knowing they didn’t want to remain in the same room as Meric’s body. Meekra poured a bowl of water, dipped a cloth, and motioned for Seren to sit on her stool. Seren closed her eyes as Meekra wiped blood from her cheeks and neck. She brushed her hair out, humming a melancholy tune that made Seren want to cry. But she was too overwhelmed to cry. Worries and dark images of the long, long day flitted through her mind like bats. She lay on the bed in Meekra’s chamber for a while, not sleeping, as all that had happened washed over her. Varol wouldn’t stay away forever. He’d be here soon and she had to figure out how to handle it.

  DRESSED in an emerald kaftan decorated with silver buttons the shape of phoenix eyes, a pair of lime green pantaloons tied tight at the ankle, and an orange sash—clothing she hardly remembered putting on—Seren pushed her chamber door open and returned to the main tent.

  Lucca was there, talking quietly to Nuh. Both had cleaned themselves of blood and dirt, but dark circles under their eyes said neither had rested. Lucca’s gaze found her and her heart jolted at the concern in them. He blinked and a wrinkle flashed between his thick eyebrows as he touched his full, bottom lip with a knuckle like he was thinking. Cansu and Hossam had returned, and everyone bowed to Seren. The atmosphere in the tent was like the brief time between thunder and lightning as Seren stood beside the high table and tried to think of what to say, what to do, how to act like the leader the Empire needed.

  The main tent’s door opened. The bleeding dawn brought in Varol and Adem, who walked side-by-side toward the high table—lithe Varol, in his prime, with smooth skin and a cobra’s stare, and weathered Adem with his cold, calculating gaze that measured Seren, sizing her up. Seren’s bones felt brittle and weak. She had to be strong, to believe she was strong. Imagining the Holy Fire, she called up the memory of that first vision. Her mind showed her Meric in the pale ivory death shroud and the storm churning beyond the city walls. Her hands fisted, nails cutting into her sweating palms.

  She had to do this. It couldn’t wait any longer.

  One more breath as the two men in her way stared her down, advancing, nearing, closer, closer.

  “Kyros Meric is dead,” she said.

  Varol took three decisive steps, raised a hand like he was going to hit her, then froze. “How?”

  Her guards put hands to their hilts, but she stayed them with a look.

  Adem simmered behind Varol, the early sun oozing through the tent and over his studded vest and graying hair. If he didn’t suspect anything, he wouldn’t have looked so angry. He would’ve been shocked, saddened. But she had to plow through, keep to the plan.

  The ka’ud burned her nose, the scent like fingers scratching at her eyes. “The cough that always bothered Kyros Meric grew worse.” She focused on Varol. “He developed a fever. I’m sure you’ve heard this from General Adem.”

  Mixing truth with a lie helped it soak into its audience. Seren hated herself for knowing that, for using what she’d learned at Father’s side as he dealt with politicians and back-stabbers. Father had never been dishonest. It was one of the reasons he’d been practically forced into early retirement.

  “He has been very ill since then,” she said. Lucca’s gaze warmed Seren like a touch. She wished Ona was there too, ferocity shining in her face. Seren needed more of that fierce demeanor to rule here. “His life flickered to dark just as we had word of the Invaders arriving. Then there was the attack…I wrapped him myself so his body would be clean for his funeral.”

  Hands shaking, her gaze flicked to Adem. If she could talk him into believing her version of the timing of Meric’s death, he would lead Varol her way. But only anger colored Adem’s features. Was he really so sure she was lying or was she misinterpreting all of this?

  Varol inhaled sharply, tugging her attention to him. Rage tore at his sharp feat
ures, distorting them so she couldn’t tell what made him angry. Did he know she was lying? Or was he furious that he’d been denied saying farewell to his brother? Or was he grieving?

  As one, Varol and Adem practically pushed past Seren—not touching, but oh so close—beyond the rotating guards, and into the sleeping quarters. Seren began to follow, heart clicking like a beetle on its back.

  Lucca caught her arm. His fingers dropped away quickly, but his gaze stayed on her. “Should we come in with you?” He glanced at her guards.

  Seren had to handle this without looking guilty. “No. But thank you.”

  Lucca’s mouth tucked into a grim half-smile as she pushed the chamber’s flaps open, riding Adem’s heels.

  Meekra, quiet and steady, slipped in too, and stood at the back entrance of the inner chamber. The lotus pillar partially shadowed her face from the flickering oil lamps.

  Ka’ud smoke billowed around Varol and Adem as they bent to examine Meric’s wrapped body. Meric looked like a grotesquely large doll, nothing like a person. No humming presence came from him anymore. His spirit was tightly bound inside that shell of a man. He had to be burned soon so his essence could rise to the heavens.

  Varol hovered over his brother’s covered face and tensed. His hand went to the bed’s edge, long fingers clutching at the silver-tasseled hem. Seren thought Varol might fall to his knees, grief shoving him down, but he straightened and turned. Chewing the inside of his cheek, he dragged his gaze over Seren’s face. The unspoken accusation was there, visible as the hooked nose on his face.

  Seren found she was suddenly very angry. She wanted to snap at him, to tell him that he had no right to look at her like that. She’d supported Meric. His death wasn’t her fault. Sure, she’d woven lies around the tragedy, altered outcomes to suit her goal. But her goal was only to insure the safety of the Empire, to rise to the Holy Fire’s call. She needed to say all of this, but the words wouldn’t wake up. They slept inside her, quiet as the dead. Again, she wished for Ona’s fiery determination, blazing courage, powerful voice. The same courage Seren’s parents had both possessed in bulk.