Umbertouched

by Livia Blackburne

  “Do you want to kill them?” she asks.

  “Does it matter?”

  I spoke more loudly than I meant to. The birds around us go quiet, and my face goes hot.

  But Zivah seems unperturbed. She looks down at her hands. “I dream about Mehtap and Jesmin, sometimes even Arxa. And I try to tell them I’m sorry.”

  “What do they say?”

  She frowns, as if surprised I’d ask this question. “Sometimes they forgive me. Most times they don’t. Sometimes I think, ‘Why should I be sorry? I’m the one who’s sick because of the empire’s abuse. I’m the one whose homeland has been invaded.’”

  “Were Mehtap and Jesmin friends to you?” I ask, strangely curious. “True friends?”

  “At the time, yes,” she says with a sad smile. “Who knows what they think of me now. Mehtap—” She stops abruptly.

  “What?”

  She shakes her head. “Nothing, I just miss her.”

  I’m tempted to let the conversation end here, keep her from knowing the extent of my madness. But it’s not a secret I can bear by myself any longer. “It’s not just dreams for me.”

  She looks up. “What do you mean?”

  “That night on the riverbank near Taof. You ask me how it was that they captured me. It’s because I saw a soldier’s face turn into Masista’s. It was only for a moment, but it was enough.”

  Her brows furrow.

  I keep talking before I lose my nerve. “It still happens. Gatha turned into Arxa the day we came back.”

  She blinks. “And this happens without warning?”

  “Yes.”

  Zivah frowns. “It must be the residue of the memory potion. Your mind is used to living that other life. It intrudes now.”

  “So I’m still two people.” I’m still split into pieces. “Will it stop?”

  She shakes her head, and I see deep, helpless grief in her eyes. “I don’t know,” she says softly. “The potions were never meant to be used for these purposes.”

  She’d warned me of this when she first treated me, that there were things we didn’t know. If something went wrong, I could lose myself. She looks at me now as if expecting me to hate her. And I suppose I should, but I can’t muster it up. We’ve been wandering in the dark this entire mission, taking steps as best we could and hoping not to trip and fall. I could yell at Zivah, tell her she should have done her part better. I could point at the shattered parts of myself and tell her that it’s her doing. But then I would still be stumbling in the darkness, only this time, I’d be alone.

  I don’t know why it took me so long to admit it to myself, but I miss her. “Remember those walks we used to take in the rosemarked compound?”

  It takes a moment for her to understand me. “In Sehmar?” I wish she wouldn’t look so surprised that I’d bring them up.

  “When we’d circle the compound, or go sit inside Mehtap’s villa.”

  A faint smile comes across her face, and it warms my chest. “I suppose we made the best of that place, even though it wasn’t exactly the emperor’s garden.”

  “Well, there was the courtyard of Mehtap’s villa. The shady spot underneath the cedar.”

  “And the pool of polished stones,” she says. “I loved those colors.”

  “I used to snack on your herb garden,” I say. “I’d pick the leaves off the plants and chew them while I waited for you to come out.”

  Zivah laughs. “So it was you who did that? My poor seedlings kept wilting. I spent so long trying to find the culprit.”

  I throw up my hands. “It couldn’t have been just me. I only took a little from each plant. I swear I know better than to massacre innocent herbs like that.”

  She crosses her arms over her chest and tries to pull off a frown. “It was always about your stomach, wasn’t it?” There’s a sparkle in her eye, but somehow it makes me uneasy. “I still remember the candied rose petals you brought me when you first joined the army. Those early weeks, I was so worried about you being found out, and instead there you were, eating your way through the marketplace.”

  I realize what it is that bothers me, and with it comes a lance of bitterness. “I should go.”

  She blinks. “So soon?”

  “I have scouting rounds.” A lie. I wonder if she can tell.

  She touches me lightly on the arm. “Will you be all right?”

  “I will.” I try not to pull away, but a flicker of hurt still crosses her face.

  “If there’s anything I can do to help...” she says, uncertain now.

  “Thank you,” I say. “I may come back later if Gatha doesn’t need me.” But I know I won’t. Because just now, I’ve realized two things. One, that I’m still in love with her. And two, that she’s still in love with the Dineas from Sehmar City. The version of me that never existed.

  A scout comes sprinting into camp two days later, shouting loud enough to wake the emperor of Mishikan: The Amparans have arrived on the opposite coast. Before that scout catches his breath, dozens have already taken off running toward the ocean. Several hours later, a crowd of us gathers, breathless, atop the cliffs to watch the soldiers pouring onto the opposite shore. So many of them, so few of us. It’s just a matter of time before they attempt a crossing.

  We move our own camps close to the shore, within marching distance of the three beaches they’re most likely to attempt. As the native warlord, Gatha has high command of our fighters. She divides all the Shidadi into scouting groups of three. I’m put in command of two warriors. Hashama is a fighter under Vidarna who’s the same age as me. He’s tall, broad shouldered, and I’ve never seen him crack a smile. He has a strange habit of gazing over people’s heads when he’s walking or talking, and seems like the type of person who would have been bullied mercilessly as a boy, except that he’s one of the fastest runners I’ve ever seen and a solid fighter all around.

  Sarsine, from Karu’s tribe, is fifteen years old, as tall as Gatha but half as wide, with a hooked nose and stubborn chin. If humans grew like trees and she keeps adding rings, she might look like Gatha in thirty years. Over the past weeks, I’ve gotten the sense that Karu’s tribe had a hard time surviving on Iyal Island, which is saying a lot considering the rest of us weren’t exactly living in luxury. Almost every Karu fighter I’ve met has been skinny and scarred. Most of them act pretty beaten down. Sarsine is skinny and has her share of scars, but she also has quick, intelligent eyes and a constant energy that gives the impression she might run off in three different directions. She also reminds me of myself. For one thing, she’s a devil with dual swords. She’s also umbertouched.

  I can’t help but notice that Gatha has put me with soldiers from Karu’s and Vidarna’s tribes, instead of my own. Part of me wonders if this should bother me more, but it’s a relief to have some respite from the suspicious glances and veiled comments coming from those who should be my family.

  We’re assigned to scouting rounds every two days, walking along cliffs where we can get a good view of the Amparan shore. As we scout this morning, Sarsine holds forth on the implications of rose plague for fighters. “It’s like a different sort of battle, isn’t it?” she says. “You against the gods. There’s no way to train against it, really.”

  “Does Karu let you talk this much on a mission?” I ask.

  “No. But it’s not as if the Amparans will hear us from the opposite shore.” Without missing a beat, she draws a bow and shoots something in the underbrush. Hashama frowns as Sarsine wades out of the forest with a skewered quail. “See? I’m paying attention.”

  I turn my head to hide a smile. I shouldn’t encourage this kind of insubordination, but I can’t bring myself to discipline her. My friend Walgash in the Amparan army was much like her, sounding off on all sorts of topics at length. The habit was annoying at times and strangely comforting at others. I’m not the only one who lingered close to Walgash’s campfire on long missions to be entertained by his chatter. After Naudar died, Walgash spent an entire evening r
ecounting stories about him, from pranks to battles to everything else in between. That, more than the memorial service weeks later at the capital, had been what really laid Naudar to rest for me. Of course, the last time I saw Walgash, he’d found me out for a traitor. And the last image I have of him is the anguish in his face as Arxa ordered him to beat me into submission.

  We stop to look out across the strait again. What used to be beach is now covered with soldiers, flags, and tents.

  “What’s that?” asks Sarsine. I look where she’s pointing to see two giant warships skirting the Amparan shore toward the enemy camp.

  “I thought warships were useless on our shores,” says Hashama.

  “They are. We have too many rocks for them to maneuver around.” At least I thought so. I whistle for Slicewing and scribble a quick note to Gatha. We keep watching.

  The ships get closer and closer to the Amparan camp, though they make no move to cross the strait. One stops parallel to the shore, and the other one pulls up next to it on the Monyar side. In the distance, two more warships make their way closer.

  “They’re boarding,” says Hashama.

  Indeed, a handful of soldiers are boarding the ship that dropped anchor closer to the beach. My pulse starts to race. Is this it?

  “Give me the horn,” I say.

  Hashama hands me a ram’s horn, and I blow an alarm call to the troops below. From my vantage point, I see our people spring into action. Those on the beach run to their stations as others march in from the forest.

  But something’s off. There’s only one ship being boarded, and now a third ship comes and takes position on the Monyar side of the other two ships, parallel to the shore but nowhere near it. Then the crews start taking down the sails. Half an hour passes, and then an hour. Men scurry around the decks, but the ships don’t move. If anything, it looks like there’s construction going on, pieces of wood getting moved about and hammered into place.

  Our army’s might does not simply lie in the skill of its soldiers. Do not discount our engineers, our supply trains, and our tent makers.

  A fourth ship pulls into place. And the realization dawns on me with disbelief and dread.

  “I know what they’re doing,” I say. “We need to talk to Gatha.”

  The hammers of the empire ring in my ears as we hurry down the cliff.

  “They’re building a bridge across the strait.”

  I’m back at the clearing where Zivah and I first met with the leaders. She sits next to me, watching me with a puzzled expression. Vidarna and Karu stare at me as if I’ve lost my mind. Even Gatha and Tal look doubtful.

  I continue. “They’re lashing warships together to form a bridge, and then they’ll bring their entire force on us at once.”

  “You’re talking about hundreds of ships,” says Gatha. “Lashed together, against the waves and the wind?”

  “A bridge will make much better use of their numbers,” I say. “They can send their cavalry across even as they deploy boats on the side. Our fighters aren’t trained to stand down a cavalry charge in battle. They’d roll right over us.”

  “They wouldn’t employ a cavalry in the mountains,” says Karu.

  “But they could send it in simply to overrun the beach if they need to,” I say. “Ampara has resources.”

  “If that’s true, it would be a waste of lives for us even to try and hold the beach,” says Vidarna. “We need to move to the second part of the plan. Disappear into the forests. Leave nothing behind that they can use. Burn the houses and the fields. Fill in the wells.”

  Zivah blanches at the suggestion.

  “Out of the question,” says Tal. “I can’t ask our people to abandon a lifetime of work.”

  “Either we destroy the village, or they do,” says Karu. “If you cling to your houses, you’ll lose your lives.”

  Gatha frowns. “He may be right, Tal. Staying here would just be inviting a slaughter.”

  “But to abandon our village without even trying to defend it?” says Zivah.

  “I owe my people better than that,” says Tal. “What if you attack the bridge preemptively? Keep it from being completed?”

  “Send our warriors out in rowboats against warships?” says Karu. “They’ll pick us out of the water like so many fish.”

  Our home is nothing more than a piece of terrain. The words ring in my mind with the force of Zivah’s anger. I can see why the Shidadi leaders don’t want to defend the beach, but if Dara had been our ancestral village, I don’t think we’d be so quick to abandon it.

  I clear my throat. “If a full attack is too dangerous, maybe we could try a smaller sabotage mission. Go at night for cover. Bring pitch and fire arrows to burn what we can.”

  Zivah looks at me in surprise.

  Gatha makes a doubtful sound in her throat. “You’ll be dashed against the rocks without light to see by.”

  “Some of us know this beach well enough to navigate blind,” I say. “I can lead it.”

  “Sending a small group of volunteers may not be entirely foolhardy,” says Gatha. “We wouldn’t risk greater casualties that way.”

  Karu narrows her eyes at me. “You would lead such a dangerous mission? Your kinsmen don’t even trust you to live among them.”

  I stare at Karu in disbelief. Am I so hated by my tribe that even the other leaders would speak openly about it?

  “Karu,” Gatha warns.

  Vidarna lets out a resigned sigh. “Karu may have been out of line in saying it,” he says, “but she does raise a good point. Dineas may not be able to lead an effective attack if those under him don’t trust him.”

  “If no one volunteers, then we won’t go,” I say. “Don’t gnash your teeth on my behalf. Just tell me if you’ll let me try.”

  “You have no objections from me,” says Gatha.

  “If your warlord approves,” says Vidarna, “then it’s not my place to stop you.”

  All eyes turn to Karu.

  “If it’s only volunteers,” she says, “I have no objection.”

  I catch Dineas by the shoulder before he has a chance to leave the field. “Thank you.”

  He meets my eye just briefly. “Don’t get your hopes up,” he says. “Those army engineers know their trade. That bridge will be hard to damage.”

  “But you’re willing to try. That means a lot to me.”

  He tilts his head at me.

  “To all of us,” I add.

  He shifts his shoulders as if I’d laid a too-warm cloak on his back. There are hollows in his cheeks. I wonder when was the last time he’d slept, and I feel the heavy truth that the ghosts keeping him awake are of my making. I was never foolish enough to think our troubles would disappear at Monyar’s shores, but somehow I thought our burdens would at least lighten.

  “Have you been sleeping?” I ask.

  His mouth quirks. “Have you?”

  Again, our eyes meet. I look away. “When will the mission go out?”

  “Tomorrow night, perhaps. The sooner the better.”

  If he’s going out to face the Amparans, I have to tell him about the promise I made to Mehtap on his behalf. I don’t know why I’ve put it off so long, when I’m not even sure it would upset him. But even now, it’s hard to get out.

  “What is it?” Dineas asks.

  I suppose I’m not as good at hiding things from him as I thought. “There’s something I haven’t told you about Mehtap.”

  He waits.

  “Back at the capital, when Arxa had you imprisoned, she was the one who helped me sneak into the palace to break you out.”

  “I know.”

  “She also asked me to swear that neither you nor I would harm her father.”

  He frowns, not quite comprehending. “You made a promise for me?”

  “I was trying to get us out of Sehmar City.”

  He still looks as if he’s trying to unravel my words. “You promised Mehtap I wouldn’t harm Arxa?”

  “She wouldn’t help
me otherwise.”

  Disbelief begins to color his voice. “So you felt it proper to make a binding oath on my behalf?”

  “It wasn’t a binding oath. The gods wouldn’t hold you to it.”

  He rubs his temple. “But you let her believe you could convince me to go along. You shouldn’t have done it.”

  “If you’ll remember, I didn’t have many other options.”

  Dineas shakes his head. He speaks deliberately, as if trying not to lose patience with a child. “You have no idea what a vow like that could do in battle. A moment’s hesitation on my part when I’m surrounded by enemies—that’s all someone needs to slip past my guard and kill me, or, worse, kill one of my kinsmen. And I assure you, Arxa won’t have the same hesitations about me.”

  His self-righteous indignation tries my patience. “You’re right. I don’t know what it’s like on the battlefield,” I say. “But I know what it’s like to be tossed into an Amparan prison. I know what it’s like to fight my way out with a handful of scorpions and drops of my own blood. And I know what it’s like to break into a dungeon full of Amparan soldiers to rescue someone from its depth. Would you rather I had abandoned you there?”

  “Do you know what Arxa did to me?” I flinch at the same time he realizes how loud he is, and he lowers his voice, stepping closer and continuing in a hiss. “What he did to the other Shidadi he captured? He would have tortured you too if we hadn’t escaped.”

  We’re so close we’re breathing the same air, but I refuse to back down. “Don’t act as if the man’s your sworn enemy. You’ve said yourself that you might not be able to kill Arxa. He was good to you once, and he was good to me. Mehtap saved both our lives, and her father is all she has.”

  He makes a disgusted snort. “You speak of Mehtap as if she’s an innocent child. She’s an assassin with a child’s face, and she’s lived an easier life than most.”

  “You owe her your life, Dineas. Doesn’t blood debt mean something to your people?”

  He blanches, and his face twists with loathing. “You really know nothing about us, do you? Blood debt doesn’t mean ‘something’ to us. It means everything. That is why it ‘upsets’ me so much. My fellow Shidadi already don’t trust me. If word gets around that I owe my life to an agreement with Arxa’s daughter, that I’ve been sworn not to raise my hand against an Amparan commander...You should have left me in that prison. At least then, I’d still be able to hold my head high.”