UW02. Plains of Sand and Steel

by Alisha Klapheke

  One attacker held small daggers in each hand. Tapered fingers fanned out and heat jabbed Seren’s thigh. Seren looked down, whirling to get behind a lotus tower. A line of blood streamed down her leg. A tiny knife lay on the ground beside her slipper. She dipped to pick up the weapon, a slight pain curling around her shallow wound. She cursed herself for not carrying a good weapon.

  Erol watched Lucca fight. Why wasn’t Erol moving? Was he too shocked? But he was a trained warrior. “Erol!” She threw the dagger that had been in her leg at the slim attacker.

  Erol rolled a shoulder and drove an elbow into an attacker’s face, dropping her to her knees as Hossam stepped back. His attackers were faster than him.

  “Scatter!” Seren shouted.

  Her guards and Meekra split down the alleys and streets, disappearing into the night. Seren’s wound screamed as she pounded down the stony road, heading back toward the Kyros Walls. If she could get to the enclosure, someone would defend her, hand her a weapon, something. She was a fool for not carrying her own yatagan. All she had was her jeweled dagger, which was near to worthless against a well-armed fighter. Her lungs burned as she pulled in as much air as she could. The road went right in a quick curve and as her foot landed in the turn, the pressure in her cut threw stars into her view of the Kyros Walls gate.

  “I am your kyros and I need your protection!”

  Guards stepped away from the gate and drew their yatagans, their movements too slow. Were they confused? Or bought? One jolted away from the walls and ran at an attacker following Seren. The man attempted a chant. The two clashed together as Seren passed through the gate. The second guard dashed after her, slowing as she did, alarm written in his features.

  “I didn’t realize what was happening, my lady. Forgive how slow I am!” His gaze went to the blood on her kaftan.

  “It’s fine.” Her breath wouldn’t come. Her heart was trampling through her chest. “Leave. Find Meekra, my handmaiden. You know her?”

  “Yes, yes. Of course. Where do you think—”

  “Somewhere between here and the physician’s tent. Barir. Her family. To the East. Go! Go!”

  Nodding, he sped off, his boot scooping out the dusty earth near the edge of the cobblestone pathway and his yatagan drawn and ready.

  A crowd was already gathering around Seren in the dawning light. She straightened. Was it Varol or Adem? Or both? The attackers had their faces covered so they didn’t want to be seen coming after her. The plot had failed to kill her. So far. She spun and the faces around her blurred. A financial advisor. A clutch of ore masters. Two clan chieftains with hot tea still in their ringed fingers. And Kaptan Rashiel.

  “Kaptan.”

  He bowed deeply.

  “Please escort me to my chambers.” Her leg hurt, but it wasn’t serious. “I need to wrap this cut.”

  “Of course, Pearl—kyros.” The poor man didn’t know how to address her.

  “I am still your kyros,” she said, her declaration sounding too much like a sad little plea.

  Rashiel bowed again, holding a fist to his chest. “Of course, my kyros. May I ask what happened to your guard? And are you certain I shouldn’t call for your physician? And just so you know, there is talk about Varol. He is planning something,” he whispered as he came close, keeping the others at bay.

  “I think he was planning this.” She gestured to her leg, then to the city beyond the walls where only the Fire knew was happening to Lucca, Erol, Cansu, Meekra, and Hossam.

  Then there was a shout and Seren turned to see Hossam, Erol, and Cansu hurry through the gate. Her heart relaxed a little. Erol was bleeding from the eyebrow. Cansu held one arm against his side and Hossam had a large gash down his arm, the fabric of his shirt lying open like dead skin.

  If she admitted to being attacked, it might only encourage others to side against her. Since she’d stopped the practice of slaves wearing the tall waist-to-head contraptions, there had been talk against her.

  “I arranged a practice attack to prepare my guards for assassins in case the Invaders try to kill me or take me to trade for their king,” she said loud enough for all to hear. Please, Holy Fire, let Meekra be safe. Please let Lucca be safe.

  “Very wise, my kyros,” Rashiel said. “And brave.”

  “My lady!” Hossam’s booming voice echoed off the pale stone walls. His eyes were round and worried.

  “I’m fine. I trust you did well during our practice attack?”

  He looked to Erol, who of course frowned, and then to Cansu whose lips parted. “Ah,” Cansu said, realization of what she was doing dawning on his face. “Yes. We drove all of the sparring partners away.”

  “And Meekra? Did you escort her to my chambers or maybe to her home?”

  They exchanged tight glances. “No,” Hossam said. “She ran away from the action. Seeing as she isn’t trained, that was wise, yes, my lady?”

  “Very. And the mercenary?” Seren twisted her wool piece and swallowed the bitter taste at the back of her throat.

  “I haven’t seen him yet, my lady.”

  Seren tried to swallow, coughed, and tried again. “You three go tend to your wounds. Kaptan Rashiel will escort me to my chambers.”

  “You’re sure, Kyros Seren?” Cansu’s voice was an oud string about to snap.

  “Yes.” She was far from sure about anything, but cowering beside her wounded guards wasn’t going to fix anything.

  The older scout from yesterday appeared at Rashiel’s side. “My kyros, Varol called a pre-dawn meeting with the kaptans. He did not include Lucca Hand of Ruination.”

  Everything was falling apart. Seren couldn’t help but imagine Meekra and Lucca bleeding to death in the street and the Invaders readying to change the color of their tent and sharpening their blades.

  Holy Fire, help me.

  23

  ONA

  Varol stood at the front of the room looking exactly like what Ona wanted in her life. No one whispered while his dark gaze swept through the room like a storm. Every kaptan here straightened sash and weapon and back under his eye, his natural command whipping them into their best. What had he done to them—what kind of reputation did he have—to get this kind of response out of such a varied group? Ona grinned. He was absolutely terrifying. Most of the kaptans were here, or so it seemed. But Lucca was nowhere. Rashiel wasn’t here either. Hadn’t Lucca heard the horn? Hadn’t Adem or Varol sent him a messenger boy? Maybe not. Maybe they knew Lucca was too infatuated with Seren to get any real work done.

  “Kaptans.” Every head turned to watch Varol. “We come up against the beast we hoped never to see again. The beast is vicious. Unwavering. But we have made it bleed already.” He grinned and Ona was pretty sure it matched her own smile. “We insulted it with our victory. We made it whimper and run.”

  Murmurs floated up. Some might’ve been questioning—maybe Seren’s supporters—but Varol was what was important here and now. He was the solution. He was the key to revenge.

  “We have a plan to deal with this little siege.” Varol cocked his head and glanced at Adem, who stood silent in the tent’s shadowed corner.

  Little siege? Well, that wasn’t Varol’s best comment. Although Ona hadn’t seen a siege herself, there didn’t seem like there was anything little about it. But he was just being delightfully arrogant, right?

  “Yes we do, Kyros Varol.” Adem stomped his feet, and with a look, encouraged the rest of the room to join in. Some did. Some didn’t. Varol didn’t seem to notice either way as he spread a map on the table and began to talk strategy.

  A man next with a thin beard leaned closer, interrupting Ona’s conversation with herself. “What do you think of this, Kaptan Onaratta Paints with Blood?”

  “Varol is the one to follow.”

  “You truly believe that?”

  “You don’t?”

  The man cast a look at Adem, then the door. “I know what Kyros Seren says about him. That he is ruthless. As spoiled and rash as his brothe
r was. More cruel and selfish.”

  “When did she say this?”

  The man cleared his throat and coughed. “Um, well, I overheard her at Kyros Meric’s Age Day feast.”

  Ona painted Varol in her mind. Dark slashes of that strong, hawk nose. The slant of his cunning eyes. She unwound the scarf from her neck and tied it to her belt, suddenly really warm. “He’s a take-charge kind of person and that’s what we need. Seren shows too much mercy when it comes to prisoners.”

  The kaptan grinned. “You’d kill them all.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Probably.”

  “Then we’re agreed.”

  BACK AT THE GUEST TENT, Lucca paced a line in front of the brazier. Fresh blood marred the shoulder of his brigantine.

  “What happened to you? Why weren’t you at the kaptans’ meeting?”

  “Because I was busy being attacked by Adem and Varol’s fighters.”

  “What?”

  “They tried to kill Seren.”

  “How do you know it was Adem and Varol?”

  Lucca stopped, lifted his chin. “Ona. Really.”

  “I bet there are a bunch of people who want to take her down. She keeps the Invader king like a pet, frees slaves—which I’m fine with of course but still it’ll anger the people who used to benefit from it—and now she’s taking an Invader’s advice on weapons to fight his own siege! She’s being an idiot!”

  “They cut her leg up, Ona. They tried to kill me. And Meekra. They were this close to slicing Seren’s throat open.”

  Ona’s stomach turned. She knew what that looked like and didn’t want to imagine it on a person like Seren, a good person like her aunt had been. Suddenly, a weight sat on Ona’s shoulders. “She doesn’t deserve that. I, I’m sorry.”

  “Well you didn’t do it. Don’t apologize.”

  Ona rubbed her stomach and stretched her neck. “Maybe they weren’t going to kill her. Maybe they were just going to lock her up or something.”

  Lucca’s knuckle pressed into his mouth and his eyes shut in thought.

  Ona grabbed a skin of water and drank down the contents. The liquid cooled her throat, but it didn’t taste like water should. She missed Silvania.

  “You aren’t going to like what I have to say.” She threw the empty skin on her bedding.

  Lucca turned, his big brown eyes looking right into her. She pushed on.

  “Seren should be restrained. For her own good.”

  Lucca’s eyes flashed, quick and mean as lightning. “Ona.”

  Ona fought the discomfort of disagreeing openly with Lucca for the millionth time lately. She didn’t want them to be at odds. But… “She is at risk. You said it yourself. Varol could decide her actions with this foreign engineer constitute treason or—”

  “What are you really worried about?”

  “I’m worried about Seren.”

  “And?”

  “She wants to undermine Varol’s authority. She said she wanted to get Adem alone and talk to him. If she disrupts what Varol is trying to do, if she asserts her claim as kyros—there are a lot of those with the same blood as her, and they’ll support her—we’ll be mired in an internal fight while we lose the real war.”

  A ragged sigh slipped out of Lucca. His fingers tore into his thick head of hair. He had to know Ona was right. “She deserves to rule,” he said. “Just because she isn’t of royal blood…I can’t believe I have to argue this with you.”

  “It’s not an argument.”

  “It’s feels like one.”

  “Well, it’s not. I don’t even think she wants to rule. She should. But she doesn’t. She’s too fearful. Stop shaking your head. I’m right, and you need to shut your mouth and listen. Varol has the steel to finish the Invaders—you’ve seen how he commands—and he has the right to rule. We don’t have time to let Seren get in the way. This war is only beginning and you know it.”

  She knew full well he was picturing exactly the same thing as her.

  The tent the Invaders had probably already put up today. The red tent. Even if Akhayma surrendered now, they would cut down every man in the city. Tomorrow would see the black…No city survived an Invader siege. If Akhayma did surrender, which they never would if Ona had any breath left in her body, the city’s population would be turned into slaves, beaten, tortured. They’d be lower than the Invaders’ underfed camp dogs.

  Ona grabbed Lucca’s arm. “Our only advantage is that we have their king. And Seren wants to risk losing him and use this new weapon she developed with one of the enemy!”

  “You supported her—”

  “Before she began trusting an Invader. How can you not see this is madness? Stupidity. The division she could cause, it will cost us the win!”

  His face hardened. “I am loyal to Kyros Seren. I pledged my sword to her. As you did.”

  On her toes, Ona leaned into his face, heart shuddering, fingers pulsing against the hilt of her blade. “No. You pledged your prick and it’s ruined us.”

  Spinning, she blasted out of the tent, ignoring Lucca’s calls and half-hearted attempt to catch up.

  ONA WAS BACK in the kaptans’ tent before anyone could stop her.

  Two guards she didn’t know leaped inside after her, their big hands grasping her shoulders and a hunk of her hair.

  She glared at Varol, who stood over a table, a map laid out before him. The lantern hanging from the ceiling nearly touched his head. He met her gaze with his amber, snake-sharp eyes. Fire lashed through her body, and she swallowed, fingers twitching, longing to draw the lines of him. For a second, she thought maybe he’d order her cut into pieces and hung from the walls. But by all the sand in the Empire, she wasn’t about to tremble.

  “I need to speak to you.” It probably would’ve been better if she’d waited to talk.

  He did nothing more than give the guards a glance, but they scurried out, leaving them alone.

  His breath was steady, quiet. He straightened, graceful and lean, walked around the table, and stood not a hand’s width away, his chest moving slowly, surely. His cheeks, above his trim beard, had to be soft as the finest sand. Charcoal could sweep across the surface, easy and smooth. She could draw his kingdom there beneath those flickering eyes. The dramatic rise and flats of the hammadas. The long stretches of peaked dunes beyond the city. Hawks circling. And the bodies of his enemies like wheat broken by the scythe. Varol was more than a man. He was a Place, the Power of that Place, and the Strength to beat back those who’d ruined Ona’s life.

  “The Pearl of the Desert means well,” Ona said in the trade tongue. Her voice was quieter than normal, but she didn’t hate it as she would’ve guessed. “But she plans to undermine your authority.” She stumbled a little over the words, hoping he wasn’t behind the attack on Seren. “You need to restrain her or some of your warriors will rise up. We’ll lose the siege before it’s begun.”

  “You know a great deal, mercenary,” he said.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “There is a steep punishment for barging into my presence uninvited.”

  Ona grinned, sparks punching under the skin of her neck, back, and thighs. “Try it.”

  He had his emerald-heavy dagger unsheathed before she finished her whispered chant, but she still drove him back and onto the ground. Her knee pinned his wrist before he could draw blood.

  “You are fast,” he breathed, his throat moving, his eyes like death. His gaze touched on her chin, on her palm raised to strike, on her eyelashes. “Why do you look at me like you do?”

  This was the strangest, most exciting conversation she’d ever had. No pleasantries. No polite talk easing into an understanding. It cut to the quick.

  “Because I wish I could draw you.”

  “You are an artist?”

  “I used to be.” Ona spat the words, wanting them out of her mouth before they could soften her. “Before the Invaders ripped my life apart.”

  “Why do you want to draw me?”
<
br />   “I like powerful people. Especially handsome ones.”

  His smile was the strongest sword, a storm in the desert. So even though she seriously enjoyed the feel of his body under her, she let him up.

  “Does that mean you’ll tell me everything you know, mercenary?” He brushed himself off and sheathed his curved dagger. “Do you know anything about what happened to my brother?”

  A chill brushed over Ona’s skin.

  A guard pushed into the tent, his freckled face pinched as he passed his hands quickly over the Holy Fire bowl. “Kyros,” he said, bowing. “The Invaders replaced the white tent with the red.”

  Varol rolled up his map and tucked it into his sash. “How many now? Any more troops?”

  “We don’t have an updated count yet, my kyros.”

  “Get the others.” Varol downed a cup of something and slammed it back onto the table. “Meet me at the parapet. Send for Adem.”

  The guard dipped his head and hurried out of the tent.

  Ona’s hands curled into fists. “Are you going to hang their king from the walls?”

  A shadow flitted over Varol’s eyes. “What is your name, mercenary?”

  “Onaratta Paints with Blood.”

  He smiled again. A shiver flashed through her body, all the way to her toes.

  “I’d bet that is a fitting name for you, little falcon.”

  Ona bristled. “Little?”

  He lifted a finger and traced his lower lip, thinking. “All the better to surprise and cut deeply.”

  “I’ll take it.” Ona owned the night, owned her life a bit more, as he swept out of the tent to begin the destruction of her enemies. She’d never felt so satisfied.

  24

  SEREN

  Hossam, Erol, Cansu, and Meekra flanked Seren as she sat in Meric’s chair and listened. A line of supplicants, all in mourning brown, waited to speak to her inside the main tent’s shade. Varol and Adem had turned them away. She understood reducing supplicants’ pleas during this war, but pushing them all away with no explanation? That wasn’t the way to keep the city calm and cared for.