“That’s why we don’t have him join through the normal channels. We introduce him directly to an Amparan commander, through a personal acquaintance.”
A gasp sounds from Zivah’s direction.
Tal breaks into a slow smile. “You never did miss much, did you, Zivah?”
I exchange a glance with Gatha. The healer has personal sway with Amparan commanders? It doesn’t exactly make me trust her more.
Tal speaks again. “Zivah nursed Commander Arxa from the rose plague, and he was greatly impressed by her service. After he returned to the capital, he invited her to study at the Imperial Healer’s Academy, but she had fallen ill herself by then.”
Zivah looks down at her hands. Her face twists the same way mine does when someone mentions the Amparan dungeons.
Tal continues. “The messenger yesterday brought a new invitation for Zivah to work as a healer in Sehmar City’s rosemarked compound.”
“Leader Tal,” Zivah says firmly. “I can’t accept that invitation.”
“Hear me out, Zivah,” says Tal. He faces us again. “Suffice it to say that Arxa has taken an interest in Zivah, and he will personally see to her placement in the colony. If Zivah were to introduce him to a plague survivor with exceptional fighting skill, the soldier could likely get assigned to a unit close to the capital.”
“There would still be the need for papers,” says Gatha.
“Plague victims get abandoned at the colony all the time. Very few have papers.”
“And some come out of the fever with no memory of their past,” Zivah finishes softly.
It takes me a moment to catch on. “Wait. You’re proposing that I should pose as a plague survivor with no memory? And somehow, I’m to charm myself into the commander’s good graces?”
“It’s a dangerous mission,” says Tal. “Can you keep up a pretense?”
My chair clatters backward as I jump to my feet. “You want to send me, alone, into the heart of the Amparan army and pretend, day after day, that I don’t remember who I am? That I don’t want to kill every last one of them?”
The whole thing feels wrong. It’s one thing to kill a man honestly face-to-face. But to pretend to be something else…
And could I even pull it off? I think about what happened yesterday when Arxa’s name threw me into the past, how I’d stood there, blind and deaf to the world while the memory held my mind captive. If even the sight of one of these soldiers debilitates me, how can I possibly join their ranks? The thought fills me with shame. If Gatha knew just how much my imprisonment has broken me, she’d never put me on the battlefield again.
“Dineas has already been imprisoned once by the Amparans,” says Gatha. “I can’t demand this risk of him.”
Rather than relief, Gatha’s words only increase my guilt. We’ve been searching for an advantage for so long.
A traitorous voice inside me whispers that it might have worked too, if I wasn’t so broken. I speak Amparan like a native, since we lived on the main continent until I was twelve. And since our Shidadi share the same forefathers as the Amparans, our peoples look decently similar—certainly more similar to each other than to the lighter-skinned, black-haired Dara. Shidadi fighting styles have changed over time, but different tribes have adapted to so many different circumstances that no one style would be recognized as distinctly ours.
Zivah shifts in her seat. “Leader Tal,” she says. “You said that recent events have made you fear things will get worse for our village. Why is that?”
Tal gives her a tired smile. “Things have changed since the Amparan battalion fell ill while in our care. There’s been no official word from the emperor, but the military presence around here has increased, and there are more demands. The messenger yesterday, he says that our tithe will double this year yet again. I don’t know how we will meet this new demand, and they know it will be hard for us. It’s almost as if they are probing for some resistance on our part. I fear they blame us for the rose plague outbreak.”
Zivah wraps a mottled hand around the edge of her chair. “But the soldiers fell ill only five days after they arrived. That’s far too soon for us to have done this.”
Gatha’s laugh grates like sand across my eardrums. “Do you think a difference of five days matters to the Amparan court? Fear doesn’t listen to reason.”
“The main problem,” says Tal, “is that we simply don’t know enough about happenings in Central Ampara. All the news we get is indirect, and our ignorance could be deadly. We need our own eyes and ears inside Sehmar City. We need to know what Ampara truly thinks of Monyar and its people, and what her plans are.” He takes a breath. “We need to know what really happened to the battalion that fell ill here months ago. That knowledge could save us.”
“If Ampara catches us at this scheme,” Zivah says, “their wrath would fall on us even sooner.”
“That is a true risk,” says Tal. “And one you and Dineas will have to take seriously, since the worst of it would fall on you. For the village though, it’s a choice between bleeding slowly to death or taking a chance. If we wait too long to act, we may be too weak to fight. We may already be too weak.”
I watch the emotions play across Zivah’s face as the true danger to her people sinks in. For once, I pity her. I’ve lived under the threat of extermination all my life, but it must be hard to see it for the first time. Her face settles into intense concentration, and I wonder what she’s thinking.
Then she looks straight at me. “If you’re simply worried about being able to keep up a pretense, I can help,” she says.
I blink. “What do you mean?”
She speaks with an evenness that signifies either determination or shock. “You say you can’t pretend to be amnesic among the Amparans. I can make it real for you. I can take away your memory.”
My mouth drops open.
Zivah puts up a hand before I can object. “Only temporarily, until your mission is done.”
What is this, some kind of sick joke? “What kind of sorcery do your people practice?”
“Not sorcery. Just a good knowledge of venoms and herbs. Your muscle memory won’t go away. You’ll be able to fight just fine, but you won’t remember who you are. If I do it right, I could even restore your memory from time to time so you can send reports to Gatha.”
“Is it safe?” says Gatha.
Zivah’s lips curl into something that’s not quite a smile. “Is it safe to go into battle against Amparan soldiers? I have the knowledge, but this is not something I’ve ever done. We study these venoms in order to protect the mind. The venom of the soulstealer snake has plagued our people for generations, and we’ve learned ways to counter its effects, to control or delay them. Through our studies, we’ve gained an ability to manipulate the mind itself. Nevertheless, things could go wrong. If I make a mistake, he could lose himself.”
Gatha wipes the sweat off her brow. She doesn’t scare easily, but I can see Zivah’s offer has shaken her. “This is beyond my ken, Tal,” she says. “I’ll send a soldier into honest battle, but this…”
She’s right. I didn’t live this long by trusting foreign healers I don’t even know. I open my mouth to agree with her, but then I stop again, because now I’m thinking about my mother, my father, the countless others lost to the empire. What would I give to gain some real foothold against Ampara? And beyond that, there’s a more shameful temptation. As I ponder Zivah’s offer, the screams from the emperor’s dungeons echo in my mind, and once again I erupt in cold sweat. Is it wrong to want those screams out of my head? Is it cowardly to be tempted by the possibility of a moment’s peace?
I look her in the eye and hope I don’t regret this. “Tell me more about your potions.”
Kaylah sits quietly as I tell her the events of the past day, of the Shidadi nomad who broke into my shed, and of Tal’s proposal. Surprise flickers across her face more than once. When I finish, her expression is somber.
“This is uncharted territory,” she says
. “You know what the Goddess has commanded regarding knowledge she gives us.”
I knew this objection was coming. Our vows as healers are very clear—to use the knowledge we have to help the ailing and not for our own personal ends. “You could argue that I’m still saving lives this way, if indeed Ampara bears ill will toward us.”
“It’s dangerous to play such games with the Goddess’s commandments.”
Why should I take so much care to honor the Goddess’s wishes when she clearly hasn’t given much consideration to mine? It’s a heretical thought, and I thrust it aside.
“But what if Tal is right? If Ampara thinks we infected those soldiers, you know what they would do to us.”
Kaylah looks away from me toward the bamboo groves, and I’m surprised at my nerves as I wait for her answer. I have my own doubts about this mission—how could I not? Sitting under the awning this morning, listening to Tal propose a plan that could kill us all, or worse…the entire thing had felt surreal. I’d been ready to tell him he asked too much, that I’d sacrificed enough already.
But Tal’s words about the Amparan threat rang true. We’ve all heard countless stories about what happens to Ampara’s enemies. Villages razed to the ground, entire families sold into slavery. And while I don’t want to believe that the emperor would blame us for the battalion’s illness, I can’t deny the possibility.
“It would be harder for you there in many ways,” says Kaylah. “You’ll be locked away with the other rosemarked. They won’t treat you like a human being.”
“But there will be other healers there who would work with me.” I know I haven’t lost her yet, if she’s still talking. Kaylah has no authority over me—I could go whether she permits it or not, but the idea of continuing without her blessing scares me.
Kaylah lets out a long sigh. “This is a slippery slope, and it pains me to put you in such danger,” Kaylah says. “But I will help you.”
Over the next days, I prepare my potion with Kaylah’s advice. The principles behind it are simple. The soulstealer snake sweeps away your memories, and the only protection against it is ziko root potion, which weighs the memories down so they’re not permanently lost. Someone who’s taken ziko root and gets bitten still becomes amnesic, but his memory can be restored if we purge the venom from the body with a tincture of nadat root. A weak tincture restores the memory temporarily, while a strong one restores it completely. With Dineas, therefore, I’ll act as both snake and healer. I’ll give him snake venom and ziko before the mission, and nadat root after his mission is over.
The potion is the easy part. Perhaps that’s why I spend all my time on it, obsessively refining my mixtures, rather than face the last issue I must settle before I leave. I’ve not yet told my family. I don’t know what I’ll say, and I’m not prepared for their reactions, especially since I cannot tell them the whole truth. They’ll be safer if they don’t know the real reason for my quest. To them, I’ll simply be studying and serving in the rosemarked colony as a healer. Finally, with a few days left to spare, I gather my courage and summon them to my cottage.
My mother’s reaction is just as I expected. “Why?” she asks me. That simple word breaks my heart. “Why so far and why now?”
“And it’s not an easy journey,” adds my father. He’s more stoic, though his voice is equally heavy. “Not for anyone, much less a rosemarked woman.”
“Tal will provide me with escorts,” I tell them. “And exchanging knowledge with the Amparan healers would be good for everyone. I can learn from their doctors and send the knowledge back to Kaylah. I could treat the patients of Sehmar City.”
Leora puts her hand gently on my mother’s shoulder. “Zivah needs to live her life,” she says gently. “We can’t keep her out here alone, simply for our sakes.” Her words resonate more than I’d like to admit, and I wonder how well I’d really hidden my feelings each time she’d visited me in my exile.
“But aren’t we part of your life?” Alia says. Tears have started to run down her face.
“Alia, I…” As I falter, Alia jumps up and runs into the forest. I hear her sobs long after she disappears from view.
Leora looks after her, and then back at me. “She’ll understand with time.”
My mother’s teary too, though she doesn’t leave. She looks at me, eyes filled with love, as only a mother can. “We want what’s best for you,” she says. “If this is what you truly wish to do, then go with our blessing.”
Something shatters within me, and I look down to hide my face. “Thank you,” I whisper. And there’s nothing more I can say.
A fortnight later, Dineas knocks on my door. It’s just the two of us this time: the rosemarked healer and the soldier with no fear of her disease. Together somehow, we are to steal Ampara’s secrets.
I don’t know what to say to him. Any greeting seems trite. I wonder how he’s spent the past weeks. Has he had second thoughts as well? Did he have family to say good-bye to? Does he wish to stay, or is he eager to go?
After an awkward silence, I simply step back to let him in. He crosses the threshold gingerly, passing so close to me that his tunic brushes my sleeve. It catches me off guard. After so many months with the disease, I’ve grown used to people keeping their distance.
Dineas’s eyes dart around my house, going from my cot to my jars of herbs. Then he checks my wrist.
I hold it up to show him it’s bare. “Diadem sleeps there.” I nod to a cage by my table. I’ve felt safer having her in my room these past weeks. To be honest, I’d feel safer now if Diadem were still on my wrist.
He regards me, a grudging respect apparent in his body language. “You don’t worry about getting bitten yourself?”
“My body is resistant to the venoms.”
He furrows his brow, then shrugs. “Where should I…?”
“Sit down on my bed. I’ll need to examine you.”
He settles on my cot, plants his legs sturdily in front of him, and props his forearms on his thighs. I frown at the way he’s pushed my neatly folded blankets into a pile. He glances at my expression and his mouth quirks in amusement, though he makes no move to put the blankets back in place.
I’m falling into my old healer’s routine already, looking over his body with a practiced eye. He’s young and healthy, but too thin to be at his full strength. I estimate his weight to be around eighty ingots, though with more food he could stand to gain a good ten or fifteen more. His coloring is good. Even with the abundance of umbermarks covering him from head to toe, his olive complexion is warm and his brown eyes are clear.
I reach for his wrist. “May I check your pulse?”
“Are you going to tie me up again?” he asks. But he holds out his arm.
I hesitate for the briefest moment before touching him. Again, I have to remind myself that he can’t catch my disease. His skin is warmer than mine but not feverish, and his pulse strong. In addition to the umbermarks, a network of scars crosses his exposed skin, though his face is unmarred. It makes me wonder if he’s vain of his appearance, and if he gets much attention from the young women of his tribe. He certainly carries himself with that swagger. When he turns his head, I see that his ears are puffy and misshapen. I’ve heard that ears can become this way with repeated blows, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it up close.
“You’re healthy enough. Your body should be able to handle my potion.” I’m starting to feel jittery, so I go to my table and spoon the ziko I’ve prepared into a bowl. Then I add seven drops of venom. “If all goes well, I’ll take away your memory today, and then restore it for our journey.”
He doesn’t respond. Instead, he cranes his neck to inspect the ceiling, tracing the length of the bamboo beams with his gaze. “The empire makes their slave cages of bamboo,” he says.
I pause in my mixing, unsure what to say. It’s true that the majority of the empire’s bamboo comes from our groves.
Dineas snorts in disgust. “Must be nice, buying your safety with the
blood of others.”
And now I’m glad I’m bent over my herbs so he can’t see my jaw clench. “We do what we must. And we’ve had our share of suffering.”
“Blind kittens, groping at the teat. And they’re surprised when they’re thrown into a bag to be drowned.”
Heat floods through me at his words. “And where has fighting gotten your people? Does it comfort your dead in their graves?”
For a moment, raw fury flashes across his face. My heart pounds in my chest. I know I’ve overstepped, but I’m too proud to back down. Dineas glares at me as if he’d like to run me through, but though his jaw works, he stays silent. Perhaps because he sees the folly of truly angering me at this very moment.
Diadem hisses from the corner, and we break our gaze. I look down at my herbs, trying to gather my spiraling thoughts. I don’t know this nomad, and our few interactions have not inspired any particular good feelings toward him. But if we are to do this mission together…
I let out a breath. “We have our differences, but our paths seem to converge for a while. I want you to know that I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe. Do you believe me?”
My words seem to catch him off guard. He shrugs. “I don’t know anything about you or your people, but I trust Gatha, Gatha trusts Tal, and Tal trusts you.”
I shake my head. “That’s not enough. You must understand that the injection I prepare is different from anything we do in our normal lives as healers. If all goes well, it should make you forget everything that’s happened in your life thus far, but still leave you functional and able to regain your memories with the right antidote. If it doesn’t…” I pause, trying to pick the right words. “I’m good at my craft, Dineas. I’ve combed the scrolls for knowledge, and I’ve discussed my plan with my master. But there’s always the chance of something going wrong. You might lose part of yourself. I ask you again. Do you trust me to do this?”
A crow caws outside. Dineas stares out the window. His silence unnerves me, but at least I know my words have gotten through to him.
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