by L M R Clarke
Reality spread across Emmy’s vision like tendrils of ink in water. If the Masvams were heading for the encampment, Commander Pama and the others certainly didn’t know it. The soldiers were getting ready to march, not to protect themselves.
Reality hung heavy upon them, like the stifling air before a Decos storm. Zecha was the first to speak again. “We have to go back.”
The truth of those quiet words ached in Emmy’s ears. Her own reluctance to do so shamed her. If the ships were this close and Commander Pama had done nothing, it could only mean she truly didn’t know. If she didn’t know, the encampment was as good as destroyed—and the only ones who could warn her were the four who were running away.
Rel remained very still, her eyes unblinking as they remained fixed on the ships. Behind her, Charo shook her head and closed her eyes. “No, we don’t have to go back,” she said.
“But Charo,” Zecha began.
“No!” Charo’s shout echoed into the distance. “The Althemerians kidnapped us, pretending to save us. We don’t owe them anything.” Her voice hitched, and tears budded in her eyes. “They made me a slave again when I had been freed. No. We don’t have to go back. We owe them nothing.”
Ever-good Zecha reached out to comfort her, but she batted his hand away. “Charo,” he said, “if we don’t warn them, who knows how many will be killed?”
“And without the soldier-slaves of the camp,” Rel continued, “when they do sail for Athomur, the city will fall. Then the Masvams will march on to Kubodinnu. Once they have the capital, Althemer is lost.”
Charo’s silver tears spilled. Emmy’s stomach churned. Rel was right, but so was Charo.
It was a choice of saving themselves or saving so many others. Emmy had been an almost-slave to Krodge, then taken as a slave by the Masvams. Saved by one Althemerian hand, but enslaved again by the other. She owed them nothing. This was their chance to escape. Surely with the Masvams sailing for the encampment, that would make their path to Kubodinnu clearer.
The thought kept circling in Emmy’s head. They owed them nothing.
Yet so much blood will be spilled, she thought. There will be so much death.
In her head, Emmy made one choice. But in her heart, she made another.
“Zecha’s right,” she said softly. The truth of her words pained her. “The Althemerians may be just as bad as the Masvams who took us in Bellim, but at least they spared our lives and there’s a chance to be freed.” Her brand seemed to burn anew. “I don’t want to go back, but we have to, Charo.”
Trembling, Charo wouldn’t nod agreement. Instead, she looked away, back towards the horizon. In front of her, Rel finally broke her gaze from the ships. Suddenly she looked as old as the sea itself.
“We must go back,” she said. “Consider it the way to repay your debt. Then we will go to Kubodinnu with clear consciences.”
Charo said nothing and kept her face averted, but the shake of her shoulders told Emmy her tears were flowing freely.
“We’ll be okay,” Emmy said.
But the words fell flat even to her own ears.
Turning Jawbone around with a nudge to his left flank, Rel urged him back the way they came. As she did, her eyes locked with Emmy’s for a moment.
We will survive.
The words were as clear in Emmy’s head as if Rel had spoken aloud. But her lips remained shut as she rode onward. As Emmy pulled Skitter around, Zecha tightened his grip around her waist. “We’ll be okay,” he repeated.
Hearing it from his mouth was no better than hearing it from her own.
Rel kicked Jawbone into a run, and Emmy did the same with Skitter. They pounded back along the sandy cliff path, up towards open ground, and this time thundered along the well-beaten road instead of hiding amongst the trees. Jawbone’s sable fur was edged with white, rather than cloaked in shadow.
It was the right thing to do, Emmy knew, as she kept Skitter on Jawbone’s strong paws. But that didn’t make the reality any lighter on her heart. They were free. Now they were going back.
And whether they would live or die was entirely unknown.
THE MORNING WAS CLAMMY. The wool of Emmy’s tunic clung to her skin, pasted beneath the heavy stiffness of her leather surcoat. The daggers Rel had given her hung like boulders from her belt. She stood some distance away from the healers’ building, watching the harried preparations for attack. Everything since they’d returned to the camp had been a blur.
Charo had been spirited away back to her barracks, no excuse now for her being away. She was required to be with her fellow soldier-slaves as they prepared for battle, lining the edges of the camp and battling down in defenses Emmy didn’t try to understand.
As night turned to morning, dewy mist hung in the air. The sharp tang of salt and seaweed languished, rising from the waterline. As the sun rose, the mist burned away. Now, as Emmy saw the sea again, she wished it would return.
Enormous ships floated in the distance. Their masts rose like thin talons, pointing to the sky in supplication.
The Masvams were ready to strike.
Emmy had escaped the healers’ building, thinking anything was better than the suffocating silence of anticipation, of empty stretchers awaiting the injured. Sometimes shadows morphed from the corners of the room, swirling into figures on the cots. Sometimes they were faceless. Sometimes they were Charo and Zecha.
As many of the ill and injured as possible had been deployed back to their barracks. Only those unconscious or unable to move remained, silent in fear or oblivion.
But the sight of the Masvams was worse, and Emmy turned away, weaving between the rows of soldiers and messengers as they assumed their positions and ran messages across the camp. At the sight of her red sash and tsimi cloakpin, one heavyset Althemerian lieutenant grabbed her by the collar of her surcoat and thrust her in the direction of the healers’ building. “Get to your post!” he snapped.
Head spinning, Emmy stumbled into a run and headed back to the building.
As she approached, her pace slowed. She stared at the weeds growing between the cracks in the parched earth. She looked up, shielding her eyes against the light of the rising sun.
The moons, though gone from sight, hung in her mind like silver baubles.
“Protect us,” she whispered. “Please.”
Understandably, there was no reply.
Emmy pulled the door open and entered on silent feet. She bit her lip. Burning braziers cast a dim light across the walls. Shadows crept across the stonework.
How likely was it that they would all live? Charo was gone, and Zecha had been co-opted into helping run supplies. Rel was still in the building, but neither that nor the wooden walls would offer much protection, Emmy knew.
Perhaps none of them would survive.
Shipbait, as Commander Pama was fond of saying, was nothing more than arrow fodder. Even if Emmy somehow stayed safe from the battle, Charo and Zecha would surely perish—and Emmy didn’t want to think about that.
Medicine-Yarim and Medicine-Asri slunk in corners and alcoves, arms hugging themselves as if to keep the battle at bay. Medicine-Yarim caught Emmy’s eye and for once didn’t glare. Emmy nodded as she passed, not knowing what to say, and disappeared behind Rel’s curtain.
Rel sat on her cot with her head bowed. The long box Emmy had seen before lay across her lap. As Emmy entered, Rel opened the box. Emmy’s breath caught at the beauty of what was inside.
It was a sword. Its scabbard was elaborate and beautiful, inlaid with intricate patterns of lacquered wood. It made the daggers slung at Emmy’s waist seem no deadlier than blunted kitchen knives.
Emmy sat beside her on the cot, words caught in her throat. Rel reached over and took her hand, squeezing lightly. “You’re scared,” she said.
Swallowing, Emmy nodded. “Yes.”
Rel squeezed her hand again. “I’m not scared,” she said. “I’ve faced death many times. That doesn’t concern me.” To prove the point, she jangled the
bracelets on her right wrist, then patted her sword’s scabbard. “No, I’m not scared.”
Her weapon’s hilt was long and wrapped with soft leather. The pommel was large, a deadly weapon by itself.
“Where did you get that from?” Emmy asked. Perhaps it was a futile question, but in the face of death it seemed like any question was a good one.
Rel took the sword from the box, stood, and in an impossibly swift movement unsheathed the sword. Emmy jerked back as she arced it through the air.
“This is Haelo,” Rel said. “She’s been my weapon for many cycles—a gift from my friend.” She swept the sword forward and twisted around, thrusting its tip towards Emmy. She withdrew it as quickly as she had driven it forward, then held the hilt to Emmy. “Hold her.”
Emmy hesitated, but at Rel’s bidding, she rose and took the sword in both hands. She staggered under its weight, the tip scraping the ground. She tried to swing, but her arms burned with the effort to wield it. Rel didn’t laugh. She slipped behind Emmy to rearrange her grip.
“Haelo is strong,” Rel said into her ear. “She knows me, but she doesn’t know you. Haelo doesn’t like to be held by anyone she doesn’t trust. She makes itself too heavy for the untrustworthy to lift.”
As soon as Rel’s hands were on the hilt, it was as if the weapon was hewn of air. Emmy’s jaw dropped as Rel guided her arms. “How?”
Rel did laugh this time, and withdrew her hands from the sword. As soon as she did, the blade sank, half-wrenching Emmy’s arms from their sockets.
“Haelo becomes heavy because I let it go,” Rel said.
“But how?” Emmy asked. “How can that be possible?”
Rel retrieved her weapon and returned it to its sheath. She adjusted the belt slung at her waist and attached the scabbard to it. “My friend,” she said.
Fear bloomed like a black spot. Emmy grunted and planted a hand on Rel’s arm. She gripped hard. “Tell me more about your friend and the Uloni,” she said. “If I die, I want to die knowing as much about my folk as I can. I—” Her voice cracked. “I don’t want to die feeling alone.”
Rel enveloped Emmy in her strong arms. The gesture made Emmy’s throat close, and she stiffened, but something made her relax into Rel’s embrace.
“You’re not alone, Emmy,” Rel said. “You’ve never been alone.”
She pulled backwards and held onto Emmy’s upper arms. “I wanted your first meeting with my friend to be in the flesh,” she said. She gave a low chuckle. “Now is perhaps not the time, but I need you to know you’re not alone, Emmy.”
Emmy blinked at the sudden light in Rel’s eyes. It started low, like a mild haze behind her pupils. She placed her hands upon Emmy’s shoulders, and the blue glint spread like unfurling petals.
“I’ll show you, Emmy.”
Rel blinked, and the whole round of her pupils came up bright and shimmering like twin stars. Her skin and armor morphed to her natural blue and purple. Emmy couldn’t look away.
“Rel? What’s happening?”
“You’re going to see you are not alone.”
Her eyes glowing the brightest of blues, Rel touched a claw to Emmy’s temple.
The world pulsed and undulated like a storm at sea, and Emmy found herself rolling on waves of bright blue light. She clung to Rel as they hurtled through the brightness, blinded by fear and confusion. Something drew them forward, some kind of power. Rel’s heart quickened. Emmy’s beat in time with it, as if they were one.
They soared up from the saltwater shore, and the world spilled around them. The moons rose, impossibly bright as they caught the light of the sun. Everything else washed out like a faded pattern. Emmy heard voices, a thousand voices, a million voices, all at once. Talking. Laughing. Crying.
There was only one possibility. This thing that was happening that wasn’t meant to be, this unexplainable leap from reality into the rolling blue.
This was magic.
Moon Rogue. The words came as an echo.
Magic.
Moon Rogue.
Emmy couldn’t breathe. It didn’t feel like the evil others painted her with, like the sharp taint of a curse or a spell woven from darkness and malice. Rel was there, and they were joined at the hand. There was no evil. There was only togetherness and the pulse of their lives, entwined.
Then Rel loosened her grasp.
And Emmy was falling, falling, falling...
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Mantos
Mantos, Mantos... Dear brother, I will find you...
“No!”
Mantos jerked upright in the bed, his chest heaving. Sweat cooled on his brow. Realization slowly returned. Pain singed as if he had been burned. Another nightmare, he thought. The same cursed nightmare.
Twilight stretched along the horizon. It had been light when he last looked. He stared at the mound of blankets, at the soft rise and fall of Fonbir’s breathing. He sleeps in peace, he thought. I wish I could do that again.
Mantos perched on the edge of the bed, staring through the window as his breathing settled. When he’d had enough of trying to count the pinprick stars, he turned and began cataloguing every detail of the night, the room, from the soft shift of color from brown to gold to white of the fur bedspread, to the gentle beat of Fonbir’s breathing.
They hadn’t been together before Mantos returned from the dead. Their love was confined to letters dancing across pages, hidden from prying eyes. Now they had been together, it was everything they thought it would be and more. It was something they’d never thought, too. In their adolescent scribblings, even their older princely communications, the sentinels at the door were only to protect them, to allow them to exist in their new world. They were Fonbir’s most trusted guards, but they were tasked to keep more than secrets. They had to keep Mantos in. That was never written. It shouldn’t have been.
A touch at Mantos’ shoulder made him turn.
Fonbir, wrapped in blankets, white eyes hooded with fatigue, gave him a sympathetic smile. “What pains you, Toketa?” he asked. “Did you not sleep?”
It took some time before Mantos answered. “When I sleep, I dream,” he said. His words felt like an insult to the silent night. “I don’t want to dream and thus, I don’t want to sleep. Yet I do, and I’m tortured.”
The bedding rustled as Fonbir sat up. His hands went to Mantos’ shoulders, working at the knots of tension. “I had a dream,” he said. His breath was warm on the nape of Mantos’ neck. “I dreamed we were together. Then, when I woke up, I found it wasn’t a dream, but reality.”
Mantos managed a smile as Fonbir pressed gentle kisses to his shoulders.
“Do we live in dreams?” Mantos asked. “Or do we live in nightmares? Do we live somewhere in between?”
Chuckling, Fonbir wrapped his arm around Mantos’ neck and brought their cheeks together. His talons played with the chain around Mantos’ throat. “I’m no philosopher,” he said. “I haven’t read as many books as you have.”
Mantos shifted and took Fonbir’s face in his hands. “I’ve read books, but I’m not godly,” he said. “You might not have read as many books, but you are good and pure. Your hands aren’t tainted as mine are. I have the blood of innocents upon me. You don’t.”
Placing his hands on Mantos’, Fonbir drew his brows low. “Toketa, please tell me what’s wrong,” he said. “You’ve never been so maudlin before. I worry.”
“I don’t feel myself, Nabi,” Mantos replied. The pet name was awkward on his tongue. He chuckled. “How long has it been since I said that aloud and not in a letter? My Nabi, sweet and pure.”
Fonbir’s frown deepened. “Don’t change my course with sugared words,” he said. “Why do you not feel yourself? Is it the nightmares?”
Exhaling slowly, Mantos shuffled backwards, stretching out along the bed. His tail spilled out, lingering on the rushes. Flashes of memory made him flinch.
“I don’t think they’re simple nightmares,” he said. “Nightmares change
. This one is always the same. Every detail is identical.”
“You dream of Bandim,” Fonbir said. “You dream of your fears surrounding him.”
“Yes,” Mantos replied. “I do. But these images aren’t puppet theatre of the mind. They aren’t my fears manifested as symbols, like some would say. They’re real, and they’ve become so much worse since I told your mother all I know. They seem more...real. As if the events aren’t dreams but are actual, like I’m pulled from my body and into another world. And the pain, it gets worse every time. It isn’t even pain any longer. It’s agony.”
Memory surged forth.
“I...I...” He rubbed his forehead as a touch of dizziness swirled out of nowhere. He was still disoriented by the dream. “I cannot but think Nunako despises me for surrendering my brother.” He blinked and rubbed harder, but the bedroom continued to tip one way and the other. He reached for Fonbir’s hand, but couldn’t find it. The dizziness transformed into pain, as if his head were cleft in two.
No! I’m not sleeping. I’m awake. I’m awake!
He couldn’t think his way out. It was like his eyes were stitched open as he watched, unblinking and unwilling. Once more he was torn apart, ripped at the seams, destroyed by his own brother.
Mantos...Mantos...
Jerking and twisting in vain, all he could do was succumb to the pain. Yet he fought back. “No!”
Mantos woke on the floor, his throat half-closed. Fonbir screamed for the guards. “Get Bomsoi! Now!”
“No,” Mantos said, though the words were little more than squeaks. “Not... Not her...”
Fonbir returned to his side, brushing fronds from his face. “Shh, shh,” he said. “You were overcome by an evil of shaking, but Bomsoi will know what to do. Stay calm, Toketa. Stay calm.”
Mantos gripped Fonbir’s claws as another tremulous wave rolled over him.
Mantos, Mantos... Dear brother, I will find you...
No, Bandim. No...
He was ripped apart, the dream proceeding as if its teeth were sharper, its mouth hungrier. But two hands dipped into his dream world, hands that were blue and purple, hands that scooped up his pieces, slotted him back together.