UW02. Plains of Sand and Steel
Page 26
It wasn’t beautiful. It was war. But her voice had proved strong enough to protect the city that had become her home, and for that, she’d never stop being grateful.
35
SEREN
Meekra draped a deep purple kaftan over Seren’s shoulders and looked toward the door, smile widening. “I’d tell you that you shouldn’t be here, but I believe I’d be outvoted.”
Seren turned to see who she was talking to. Lucca ducked inside.
Sadness hung on his shoulders like a thick, unwanted cloak he couldn’t seem to shed. She still saw Ona every time she looked at him. She was sure he still saw his friend everywhere. In his sword. The scars he’d made when they fought side by side. Under the trees, though the ones here were nothing like the green giants they’d lived under back in Silvania.
“Ah, my noble mercenary,” Seren said, working to raise the corners of his frown.
His gaze drifted to the ground and he sighed, pulling himself up as best he could these days. Then humor lit his eyes and he smiled, setting his grief aside for a little while.
With his chin tilted down like that she could almost see what he’d rather be doing than letting her have time to prepare for the Fire Ceremony.
Meekra left through the back. “I know when I’m not wanted.” A laugh hid in her words.
Lucca took Seren’s fingertips in his but glanced Meekra’s way. “If your mistress is late for her appointment, rest assured it’ll be for a good reason. A great reason.”
“Stop bragging, Silvanian,” Meekra muttered, her voice fading beyond the tent walls.
Seren kissed him. “You’ve been into the spicy tabouli I ordered for the feast.”
“I thought it might improve my chances. Increase your attraction to me.”
“Like you need help with that.”
A sly grin pulled at his mouth. “Now that you have undisputed control of half the globe, I wondered…” He shrugged.
She grabbed his face and enjoyed the widening of his eyes. “Slave or kyros, I am yours and you are mine. Besides, you’re the reason I have the role I do. You and Ona.”
She pressed lips to his palms. Though it’d been months, losing Ona still burned. It was so much worse for Lucca. He looked to the floor, studying the blue star shapes and black calligraphy woven into the rug. She wished she could take a measure of his hurt and help him carry the weight of it.
He shook a little, then blinked. “Don’t frown for too long. There will always be losses.” His silver ring caught the firelight as he put a finger to her chin. “Life is a battle.”
“If that’s true, I think all in all, we are winning.” She set her forehead against his and the next half hour was pleasure and healing, breath and hearts beating, the joy of being alive.
THE STRIPED TENTS of the city sat in rolled bundles along the lotus towers. The canals glittered and showed all the constellations of the plains. The Basket, the Stallion’s Neck, the Old Man’s Hand. Women holding family Fire bowls and smiling men wearing their darkest black gathered with children around the oasis pool.
And there was Fig’s half-brother, the colt she’d named Flame, held gently by Meekra’s sisters. He danced a little sideways as they braided pink blossoms into his mane and tail. He’d never, ever replace Fig, but he would ease the hurt in Seren’s heart as he grew and became her primary mount, a new friend.
Volunteers from every merchant group had scrubbed the mosaic tiles holding the water and the pieces shone like rings. The moon was a pearl in the sky and again in the water. Everything was rich, beautiful, and so very dear to Seren.
Akhayma was not her birthplace, but it was home.
Nobles and successful merchants filled the silver basin with more lahabshjara leaves, then lit the emerald heap. The Holy Fire danced into the night and painted children’s cheeks yellow. The workers pulled the ladders clear of the basin, and stepped aside for Adem, who was walking tall and straight around the pool. His reflection moved across the silver bowl as he approached.
In his shining helmet, he bowed deeply and came close. “My kyros, I would like to again offer my apologies for—”
“Stop.”
He looked up.
She came closer, waited for him to rise. “We’ve been through this. You only did what you thought was best for the Empire, for our people. For that, I can’t fault you. I consider you my most valued general and advisor. As long as you stay in line anyway.”
He sighed and bowed again. He’d changed in good ways so far. Reducing punishments for lesser crimes. He himself had put forward the idea to reduce the silver required for lower castes to move into higher castes. General Adem was becoming a veritable leader on the trail into the future.
“I will forever be your old steed, stubborn and true, Kyros,” he said.
“May the Fire hear your will.” Seren couldn’t seem to stop smiling as he maneuvered the blue steps into place below the Holy Fire’s bowl.
With Lucca standing beside Adem, and the city gathered and kneeling, she climbed the three steps to come face-to-face with the holiest of Flames. Her hand found Ona’s sword at her sash, the metal cool and sure.
I wish you were here, Seren whispered to Ona, wherever she was. They’d never found her body. Lucca had led a Silvanian funeral for her anyway.
Seren lifted her palms and raised her voice. “Holy Fire, grant us the Flame of your strength and invention. May we see ideas flicker from dreams and into reality.”
A red glow illuminated the center of her outstretched hands and turned her fingers to sunlight. Heat touched her forehead, gathered in front of her eyes, then drew power from her palms and spun into a visible flame, floating. The small curl of Fire turned inward at the top and bottom, rose up, then cascaded into the roaring Holy Fire. The sacred Flames reached toward the moon and her people sighed, her name on their lips.
“Kyros Seren, our Pearl.”
EPILOGUE
Cold seeped into Ona’s pores and came out through her shaking teeth. She clamped her mouth shut and hoped that might make it easier to see where she was. A big white striped something loomed in the distance, bouncing as she flew away.
Flew? No. She tried to move her hands. Only her left responded. Splintered wood supported her cold, cold, cold body. She was in a cart. But she still had no idea what that big white striped something was.
She’d been hit hard over the head before. During a raid on the ocean-facing villas near Holy Iacopo’s Piazza when she first began her mercenary work.
She thought maybe she’d been hit hard again.
But she’d never been this frozen. That was new. She closed her eyes and began to thaw a little. The shaking in her teeth moved as she warmed. The trembling faded into a larger feeling she hadn’t been warm enough to notice until now. A heat, aching and wrong, pulsed out of her chest, right above her heart.
A face appeared above her. Though he had brown hair laced with a copper hue, his chest was covered in the blood red and ghostly white uniform of the enemy.
Invader.
She tried to sit up and both the cold and the heat swallowed her whole. Before the black took her again, words—first in the Invaders’ tongue, intelligible, then in Silvanian—crept over her ears.
“You’re alive.” The Invader’s gray eyes flickered with something that might’ve been hope, but Ona was too dizzy to know for sure. “You might soon wish you aren’t. Don’t tell the others I speak this tongue. It’s not difficult to kill someone who is already mostly dead.”
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alisha Klapheke is the author of the Uncommon World series including Waters of Salt and Sin, the novella Fever, Plains of Sand and Steel, and the upcoming Forests of Silver and Secrets which will continue Ona’s story. She also wrote the Edinburgh Seer series which will release this fall.
When Alisha isn’t crafting new worlds, she can be found teaching kids, teens, and adults Muay Thai kickboxing, Krav Maga, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu with her h
usband at their school. Much of Alisha’s inspiration comes from traveling to far off museums, ruins, and markets across the globe.
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http://www.alishaklapheke.com
@alishaKlapheke
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Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
1. Seren
2. Ona
3. Seren
4. Ona
5. Seren
6. Seren
7. Ona
8. Seren
9. Ona
10. Seren
11. Seren
12. Ona
13. Seren
14. Seren
15. Ona
16. Seren
17. Seren
18. Seren
19. Ona
20. Seren
21. Ona
22. Seren
23. Ona
24. Seren
25. Ona
26. Seren
27. Ona
28. Ona
29. Seren
30. Ona
31. Seren
32. Seren
33. Varol
34. Seren
35. Seren
Epilogue
About the Author