As another wail came, she used it to mask the soft creak of the right shutter as she pulled it back. After making sure there were no Maidens along this section of the wall, she launched the spool of thread through the window. It arced into the chill air, easily clearing the wall.
Then it was Çeda’s turn. She crouched on the sill, pulled the shutter nearly closed, and leapt down to the parapet. Gathering slack from the spool below, she lay the string carefully so that it hugged the surface of the stone walkway, ran at a right angle up to a crenelation, and then to the battlement’s outer edge. Satisfied that no one would easily spot it, she slithered through the crenel and dropped to the ground, absorbing the impact with a perfectly timed roll.
Choosing a path among the scrub bushes that would hide her movements, she moved fast and low away from the wall. Then she stood and began jogging up the slope toward the top of Tauriyat. The darkened city sprawled below her as she skirted the palaces along the slope. She heard crashing sounds coming from the north, then screams, which were quickly cut short. She could feel the hunger of the asirim who’d come to feast, but was grateful she felt it only distantly. Had she not closed herself off to them, she would feel not only their unfiltered glee as they murdered the living, but the self-loathing that always followed.
On she went, passing palace after palace—Külaşan’s, Ihsan’s, Yusam’s. Eventually she was higher than even Eventide, King Kiral’s palace. As the moons approached their zenith, the slope began to ease, and she reached level ground. The city below was now a mottled black blanket, the desert beyond a roll of unfurled silk.
A rocky promontory, the very peak of Tauriyat, lay only a few hundred paces away. Nearer, larger rocks surrounded a clearing. She approached it with care, nervous, though she knew not why. She thought she heard someone speaking in the distance. She peered into the gloom, moved to one side to get a better look around one large stone, but found the clearing empty.
She glanced up at the bright moons, and realized the sounds were coming from above, as if the goddesses were holding a conversation in secret. She tried to pick out the words, but it was a like a leaf tumbling in the wind—one long susurrus, the words indistinguishable. When she took a step closer to the clearing between the stones, however, the whispers grew tantalizingly close. She heard a word. Fields. Then, wither.
It reminded her of nothing so much as Sehid-Alaz. When they’d met in the night-darkened streets of Sharakhai, he’d been standing close enough to touch, reciting part of a poem. Unmade, he’d said, then betrayed and fallen and, the clearest of them all, rest will he ’neath twisted tree. She recalled the pain and wonder she’d seen in his face. The curse laid upon him by the gods forbade him from speaking of such things, and yet he’d found the strength to do it.
This, Çeda realized. The whispers are what my mother came for. The silver trove. She took another stepped forward, more curious, more eager, than she’d been in years.
“I’m afraid I can’t allow you to go any farther.” A dark figure resolved from the stones to her left.
Çeda took a step back and drew River’s Daughter.
“That won’t be necessary.”
She knew that voice, that lilting tone. “King Ihsan.”
As he stepped closer, she recognized his slight build, the way he clasped his hands before him when he walked. The thread of gold in his dark clothing reflected the moonlight. The gemstone in his turban sparkled. “Before we go any farther, Çedamihn”—he waved toward River’s Daughter—“sheathe your sword.”
There was power in the timbre of his words, and with it came a desire to obey. She resisted, but it led to an indescribable discomfort inside her. Like stones being stacked on a pane of glass, the tension grew, threatening to break her from within. And when she became desperate and thought to lift the sword to stop him, the pain became bright as the burning sun. Only when she’d slid her blade home did it ease.
His smile shone in the moonlight. “I wondered when you’d come. I must say, I thought it would have been before now. Now back away. The two of us should have a chat, but free of the whispers.”
Again came the feeling of power, and the desire to obey. She saw no reason to refuse him, and wondered if that was part of his power, to make her think it was her idea to begin with, or at least to make it unobjectionable. She backed away until the feeling of tension eased.
Ihsan followed calmly, as if he’d expected nothing less. “You’ve been a particularly sharp thorn in the side of the Kings. Two dead by your hand. Another nearly taken by a poisoned arrow. The same King nearly felled by your own blade some months later.”
“Don’t tell me you’re surprised. You knew, and allowed me to remain in the House of Maidens. You had Zaïde train and advise me.”
In the moonlight Ihsan’s smile looked beatific. He waved back the way Çeda had come. “You’d have enjoyed the fury in the House of Maidens when they learned of your treachery. Melis was angry, though no more than one would expect. Kameyl was murderous. Sümeya, however, was inconsolable, which was rather surprising given how even-handed a commander she’s been. It makes me wonder what you meant to her.”
Çeda’s mind flashed to the night she’d lain on the sand with Sümeya, the two of them kissing, their skin hot on that cold winter night.
“She launched an inquisition,” Ihsan went on. “Every single Blade Maiden was questioned. Their past inspected carefully. Zeheb was in attendance for many of them, in hopes of ferreting out untruths. They managed, in fact, to uncover one who had been feeding information to Malasan for years. Sümeya flayed her personally in the Maidens’ courtyard for all to see, though I rather think she wished it were you being lashed beneath her whip. And then there was Yndris.”
Bakhi’s bright hammer . . .
“Yes,” Ihsan said, perhaps noticing her reaction. “Yndris recovered. She was gleeful to be proven right about you. She’s still not fully healed, especially in her mind. She was always a cruel child, but now she’s twisted. So twisted Sümeya almost refused to take her back.”
Çeda had no idea why he was telling her this, but at the moment she didn’t much care. “How did you know I would come?”
Ihsan waggled his finger at her like a scolding father. “No, no, oh White Wolf. The night is already half past, and there are things I must learn from you, such as where you’ve been since leaving Sharakhai.”
“Then let’s trade for it. There are things I would know as well, things that would help me to take down Onur, a thing I suspect you’d very much like to see happen.”
“What do you know?” he asked sharply.
She was compelled, but it was no great hardship for her to share how she’d left Sharakhai, how she’d been taken by Onur. Much of it he would already know. But she spent a good amount of time telling him how angry Onur had been, how eager he seemed for revenge against all the Kings, but especially Ihsan.
Ihsan considered this. “We’ll come back to Onur. There are things I need to know about the riot at the southern harbor first. Just before you quelled the riot, you said you went to the ship to free the blazing blues. I believe your excuse was that you saw one escaping the hold. When told of a woman with plaited blonde hair walking unobstructed through the crowd, you reported that you hadn’t seen her. But you did see her, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Who was she?”
“The goddess Nalamae.”
Ihsan paused, a thoughtful smile on his lips. “Well, well. The goddess incarnate, walking along the quays of the southern harbor. You spoke to her, did you not?”
“No,” Çeda said. “She walked toward the ship, knowing I would see her. I knew in that moment that there would be something in that ship for me to find, something to help quell the riot. I wanted to speak with her, but by the time I made it to the hold she was nowhere to be found.”
“The riot wasn’t the first time
you’d seen Nalamae, was it?”
“No,” she said. “I saw her when I was young.” It felt a like a terrible betrayal. “My mother took me to see her several times, and once she showed me visions in her tree.”
“It’s quite the riddle, isn’t it? Nalamae, of all the gods”—he waved toward the clearing—“missing from this very place that night so long ago. She refused to come when all the other gods did. And what has she done since? She’s been hounded. Reborn. Made anew over the course of centuries.” Ihsan paused, staring at her as if he could hear her thoughts whispering like the voices in the clearing behind him. “Tell me about the visions.”
“There were many. I saw them in the glass that hung from the acacia in her garden. I saw the Night of Endless Swords. I saw River’s Daughter being handed to me by Husamettín. I saw my mother giving birth, alone and ashamed. I only knew the goddess as Saliah, then, and I think that’s how she saw herself as well. When I told her about my visions, she seemed as shocked as I was. I think she was using me to—”
Çeda felt like she’d been struck by lightning.
Ihsan frowned. “Go on.”
“It’s why she sent my mother away . . .”
“What do you mean?”
“She was using me to find herself,” Çeda said, as confident about this as anything she’d ever learned about Nalamae. “I think what she saw led her to a choice. On the surface it was to take me in at my mother’s request or refuse. In truth, though, I think she was finding her way, stumbling forward like the blind woman she was.”
Ihsan remained silent as he searched her face, but for the moment Çeda didn’t care what he thought. She could still see the look of shock on her mother’s face when Saliah told her to return to Sharakhai. She remembered the cold calculation, the resignation. “That was the morning after she came here to find the silver trove. That was the night she met you, wasn’t it?”
Ihsan nodded, transfixed by what Çeda was telling him.
“I thought you might have lured her here with lies.” Çeda waved to the clearing beyond Ihsan. “But now I know they’re true.” She considered Ihsan’s presence, and more pieces fell into place. “You come here to guard them. To make sure no one can hear Tulathan’s words.”
Ihsan remained perfectly still. “In a manner of speaking.”
Çeda’s mind was afire, pulling together the clues, picturing everything that had happened during those two fateful days. “When she came, you stopped her before she came near enough to hear the whispers. She learned they were Tulathan’s poems, and you worried my mother had learned too much, so you compelled her to return to the House of Kings the following night.”
For the first time, Ihsan seemed surprised by her assertions. His expression had shifted. He seemed wary, perhaps wondering just how much she knew. A wiser woman might have stopped there, but Çeda refused to. She’d come this far, and she wanted to know more. She needed to know more. She’d never have this chance again. “You sent her to kill Azad.”
The wariness in Ihsan’s face turned feral. He displayed a hunger that would look more natural on a man disposed to violence, like King Sukru or Cahil. “I did,” he said simply, as if here and now, just this once, he could admit it.
For so long Çeda had thought herself a piece on an aban board, with moves being made by the likes of Ihsan and Macide and Hamzakiir. She’d thought she might rise to make moves of her own, but after all she and Ihsan had discussed she felt as if the Kings were pieces as well. How could she rise above her station when it was the gods themselves playing the game?
In the city, an asir howled. On and on it went, sounding very much like a woman crying.
“Why have you come here?” Çeda asked, suddenly and keenly interested in the answer.
Ihsan seemed confused by the question. “My reasons are my own.”
“I doubt you’ve been sent by the other Kings.” She looked past Ihsan to the clearing, all but ignoring him. “You must want to come. I wouldn’t be surprised if you come most holy nights. But why would a King scratch at a wound so?” She looked to him. “Does shame force your hand?”
And then she saw something most amazing. Shock in the eyes of the Honey-tongued King. Shock. Which meant she was right. He did feel shame. About it all. Beht Ihman. The asirim. All that had happened since.
“Is that why you wish to remove the other Kings from this mountain? To help you forget your own shame?”
“Be quiet.”
“It won’t work,” she said, stepping past him.
“Stop!” he roared.
She felt the physical need to obey, but in that moment the asirim in the city felt so near that she went against her earlier promise. She drew upon their sorrow, their unending anger, heedless of whichever Kings might sense her presence. Her right hand flared with bright pain. She drove forward, and the power of Ihsan’s words grew. As did the pain.
A deep ache seared her joints and muscles. Her skin lit afire, and she came closer to hearing more of Tulathan’s poems, enough that she heard more from the spectral whispers—weep and desert deep.
But when Ihsan shouted, “Cease!” her body obeyed. She willed herself to move, focused on listening to the whispers, but it was impossible. Her body was screaming in pain. There was pity in the asir, but bitter amusement as well. What did you expect, favored of Sehid-Alaz?
Ihsan’s footsteps neared. He entered her field of vision, his face a mask of fury. “Step back, child.”
She did. The whispers faded.
“Take the kenshar from your belt.”
She tried to deny him. Her right hand was afire with the effort. And still she drew the curving knife and held it before her, as if she were offering it to him.
“Now hold the tip to your breast. That’s it. Very good, child. Now draw it toward you.”
With both hands holding the point of the kenshar to her chest, she pulled, using ever more force. The knife forced its way through the boiled leather of her fighting dress, then pierced the skin between her breasts. Her breath came rabbit quick. The pinpoint of pain was surrounded by a growing sense of warmth as blood seeped from the wound.
“Enough,” Ihsan said, and she complied, keeping the point of the knife where it was. “You are not without your usefulness, Çedamihn, but I will hurry your departure to the farther fields should you disobey me again.”
Sweat rolled down her face, chill in the cold night breeze.
“You said it yourself. We both work toward Onur’s death. So let us make a bargain, you and I. I’ll give you his bloody verse. Then you will return to the desert and take his head. Return to me with it, and I’ll tell you a thing you’ve been most eager to learn.”
Çeda hardly dared speak. “And what is that?”
“Why, the name of your father.”
With sudden clarity she felt the wind across her face, felt it tug at the tail of her turban. She felt the vastness of the desert open up around her, though instead of feeling like something small, she felt powerful in a way she never had before.
“Give me Onur’s weakness.”
Ihsan smiled, a fox before the vole. “Our good King was given a terrible, unending hunger for flesh of many sorts, but foremost among them the flesh of man. In order to feast, he changes shape, most often into a panther with skin as black as night. It is a thing you should be wary of when approaching him, for he is terrible in that form. But once he gives in to his temptation and feasts, he is weakened, often for days. Find him then, and he will be yours.”
He took her head in his hands and kissed her on the lips, stared deeply into her eyes, and she felt a deep will to please him.
“Go,” he said, releasing her. “Fulfill your duty and return to me.”
She stepped away. Turning, she slipped her kenshar into its sheath with familiar ease, then jogged back down Tauriyat. She never looked back, not once. S
he was still filled with the fire of Ihsan’s command.
But there was also a growing awareness along the edge of her consciousness. An asir, a broken woman with shriveled black skin, was now limping toward the blooming fields under the crack of Sukru’s whip. A host of nightmares, memories of things the asir herself had committed, haunted her. They haunted Çeda as well, sobered her, made her aware of what she was doing in a way she might never have been otherwise.
We are slaves to the same master, you and I, the asir said to her.
No, we are not, Çeda said as she jogged along the moonlit path. You grant me the wisdom to see my plight, and the strength to disobey, and for that I am in your debt.
She felt a sour sort of satisfaction from the asir. Go then, child. Go, and see our people freed.
Chapter 30
ÇEDA CREPT EVER CLOSER to the House of Maidens’ interior wall. She took great pains to move soundlessly, but knew she couldn’t tarry. The Moons had set, and the only light to speak of was the occasional brazier spaced along the walls, but dawn was not far off.
After watching two Maidens pass the wall on their rounds, she rushed to the silk thread she’d left behind where it hung down from the wall above. She pulled on it, which drew the coiled rope out from the window of Sayabim’s office. She climbed the rope hand over hand, gained the parapet, and swung over to the Hall of Records. Instead of climbing up to the window, however, she dropped to the ground. She couldn’t leave the House of Maidens. Not yet. She had one final task to perform before she returned to the tunnels in the savaşam.
She was glad for the cloak of darkness around her as she padded along the wall and the paved path to the barracks. When she reached the large courtyard that separated the Hall of Records from the barracks she pulled her veil from her face and allowed it to hang down. Maidens didn’t wear veils unless they were on duty, so, while it felt as if she were announcing her presence to every Maiden and Matron within these walls, she let it be and walked with her head held high. She was sure at least one of the Maidens on the western wall saw her, but no cry of alarm was raised as she entered the building that had been her home for nearly a year.
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