Rosemarked

by Livia Blackburne

  Such is war, I tell myself. Sacrifices must be made. If only believing something were as easy as saying it.

  And I know there’s no point in delaying the inevitable.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. And I lower the torch.

  The oil catches fire quickly. I draw my sword and dagger, charge for the exit—and find myself face-to-face with Masista. I block his strike, then slash at his arm with my dagger. I can’t tell if I drew blood, but I don’t have time to check because Kosru is rushing me from behind. I duck to the side and give him a push as he careens past me, and he has to scramble to keep out of the flames. We face each other, panting. Somehow, in that scuffle, they’ve managed to stay between me and the door.

  It’s starting to get hot in here. Beads of sweat run down my skin. The smoke is thick in the air now, and it’s clear we can’t stand here forever. The others are sneaking looks at the door as well, edging closer to the fresh air. They’re no longer attacking, and I realize they’re just going to wait it out.

  The smoke is getting to me now. My head feels stuffy, and I’m wheezing—I’m running out of time. Masista and Kosru stand side by side in front of the door, and I charge them, at the last minute ducking to the left. Kosru’s caught off guard. He turns, but he’s off-balance, and I easily deflect his sword. I’m close enough to the door now that I can feel the fresh air coming in.

  Something big and heavy collides with the back of my head. My knees buckle, and black creeps in on the edge of my vision. Someone drags me out the door by the collar.

  “I’m smart enough by now not to try and match your fancy moves,” says Walgash. I struggle and try to stand, but he simply throws me to the ground and pins my arms together. Rope twines around my wrists and digs into my skin. As I lie there, hacking my lungs out into the dirt, I hear Walgash yelling for help with the fire. Finally, he drags me up by one arm.

  “The general will want to see you,” he says. There’s a mournful cast to his eyes. I wish I could tell him the whole story, but who am I fooling? That wouldn’t change anything.

  We track soot the entire way back to the barracks. They drag me into a shed, and Walgash pushes me into a chair. I crumple into it, sending a silent apology to Gatha and Zivah for my failure. In my mind, I count the hours since I took Zivah’s last dose of potion. I don’t have to hold out for long. Another couple hours at most, and I’ll fade away. Then they can torture me all they want.

  The others in the room jump to their feet, and I know Arxa has come. By habit, I almost stand as well, before I realize there’s no longer any point. An hour or two, I tell my beating heart. That’s as long as I need to last.

  Arxa might as well be Neju himself, the way he strides in. He looks at me, and then at the others.

  “I’ve never seen such depth of treachery,” he says, and his voice is as low and dangerous as a snake’s. “Who are you really, Dineas?”

  I stare at the ground in front of me. I am stone. I feel nothing.

  Arxa looks at Walgash, who comes forward, his forehead creased as if pained. Reluctantly, the big soldier takes hold of me by the shoulder, and drives his fist into my gut. Scars, that man can pack a punch. My lungs feel like they’ve collapsed. Several more of those and I’ll be coughing up blood.

  “Judging from your timing,” says Arxa, “you’re Shidadi. Who else is working with you? Are there others in the city?”

  I can’t talk. All I manage is a small cough.

  Another punch. I gag and thank the gods my stomach is empty.

  I spit on the ground. “Zenagua take you all.”

  Walgash pulls back his fist, but Arxa shakes his head. “No, he won’t break easily. We’ll have to be careful not to kill him before he spills his secrets. Take him into the interrogation rooms, then secure the grounds. Triple the guard and scour everything to see if anything else has been tampered with.”

  The general looks at me, and the deepest disappointment is written on his face. “Then I’ll come back to him and see what he has to say.”

  The first thing I notice is how cool it is, and how everything hurts. When I try to shift my weight, hard metal restrains my arms. Stone presses against my back. I’m chained to a wall.

  I push my eyes open, but it’s almost as dark in this room as it was behind my eyelids. I’m in some kind of cell. The prison?

  My head feels as if it’s been crushed between two boulders and filled with sand. How did I get here? I wrack my brain. I was in the rosemarked compound with Zivah. She’d given me a potion. After that, nothing.

  Time ticks by, though I have no way to measure its passing. I do know I have wounds that need tending. I feel as if I’ve been fighting, but I don’t remember any of it. Did the city fall under attack?

  “Is anyone there?” The walls absorb my voice. It’s just me, in the darkness, with the sound of my own labored breathing.

  Just as I think I’ve gone mad, I hear footsteps coming down the hall. I pull at my chains, unsure if it’s friend or foe approaching, but the shackles hold tight. The door opens, and my eyes water at the torchlight flooding in. Then I make out Commander Arxa’s features, and I melt in relief.

  “General Arxa.” I do my best to stand up straight. “What’s happened…”

  I trail off at his expression. The only time I’ve seen him look this cold was when he interrogated the Shidadi prisoner. And now he’s looking at me in the exact same way.

  He sets the torch on a wall sconce. “I’m disappointed, Dineas. Disappointed in you for throwing my trust back in my face, and disappointed in myself for giving you that trust. But we’ll right things now. You will tell me how you came here. How you ended up in my army. You’ll tell me who sent you, what you learned, and what information you sent back. Once I’m satisfied, then you can die.”

  I understand the words coming out of his mouth, but they make no sense. “General, what’s happening? Why am I…” I trail off in horror as another man enters the cell. I recognize him as one of the prison interrogators, and my skin erupts in cold sweat as he starts setting out strange implements on a table.

  “Don’t try my patience,” Arxa says. “You’ve made a fool of me already and caused untold damage.”

  Perhaps this is a nightmare, some dream brought on by the potion. “General, I swear I’m not playing games. I have no idea how I got here.”

  Arxa grabs me by the throat and slams me against the wall. Pain explodes at the back of my head.

  This is a nightmare. It has to be, but the pressure against my windpipe is real. I thrash against my chains. “I swear on Neju’s sword, I woke up here after seeing Zivah this morning, and I don’t know how. I know it makes no sense, but I’m telling the truth.” It becomes harder and harder to speak. My vision starts to blur around the edges. But then Arxa releases his grip. I crumple over, coughing.

  “Look at me, Dineas.”

  I’m aware of the torch being moved closer to my face. The heat feels sinister against my skin, but I meet his eyes.

  “Tell me again what you just said.”

  I cough. “I left this morning to go to the rosemarked compound for my treatment. I took a potion, as I always do, and then I woke up here.”

  “You didn’t go to the rosemarked compound this morning. You were in the training fields with the rest of Neju’s Guard.”

  I shake my head. “That can’t be. We had the morning off today.” Arguing with him will just bring another blow, but I’m so confused I no longer care.

  Arxa continues to stare at me, his face hard with suspicion. I try not to think about him shoving the torch into my eye.

  “How often have you been seeing Zivah?” he says.

  I hesitate. Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought her up, not to this monster with Arxa’s face. “Twice a month for my treatments, as you commanded. More often recently.”

  “More often? Why?”

  “She said she’d had a batch of bad herbs recently.”

  “When did the visits pick up?”

&nb
sp; “Only this past week, maybe a little longer. It’s nothing, sir, I didn’t mean—”

  Arxa silences me with a glance. “Since Kiran came to power…” he says under his breath. He storms out of the cell, only to return a few moments later. He holds up some clay shards for me to see.

  “We found these vials among your things,” he says. “Did Zivah give them to you?”

  I can see that they are the remains of shattered vials. “I don’t remember anything like it,” I say. And I steel myself for another blow.

  But Arxa simply curls his hands over the shards. “If you are lying to me,” he says, “you’ll soon learn what a grave mistake that was.”

  He signals to the interrogator, and they both leave.

  Mehtap runs to our cell door when Arxa enters the building, but he shakes his head. “Not now.”

  As she steps uncertainly back, Arxa looks at me, and I know that something has gone horribly wrong. Over the past months, it’s been easy to think of him as a generous patron, the father of my friend, but not at this moment. He regards me with the flint-hard gaze of an Amparan general, and I once again remember what a dangerous man he is.

  “We captured Dineas last night,” he says. “He set fire to a building full of valuable chariots and supply wagons. It’s likely he would have done even more, had we not stopped him.”

  My bones go soft. It is just as I feared.

  The general continues. “When he awoke, he claimed not to remember any of what transpired,” he says.

  My heart clenches at the thought of Dineas waking up blank in the dungeons, not knowing how he got there.

  And now Arxa’s eyes lock on me. “The last thing he remembers is visiting you and drinking one of your potions. He claims to have no memory of what happened after that, even though it’s been days.”

  My mind races for a response, but there’s nothing I can say. Nothing he would believe.

  Arxa doesn’t seem surprised at my silence. “I’ve heard rumors that your type can manipulate the mind. It seemed far-fetched to me, but you’ve certainly accomplished your share of miracles in our hospital. I can’t decide, though, whether you simply manipulated Dineas with your potions, or if he’s been with you from the beginning. He did arrive soon after you.”

  Goddess help me. “Dineas is innocent. I gave him a potion to render him suggestible, and I told him to sabotage the effort. I couldn’t stand by and watch while my people bore the burden of another prolonged battle campaign.”

  Arxa’s lips curl in something that isn’t quite amusement. “The first confession is never true, not when it comes so quickly. He’s been your ally from the beginning, then.” Once again he shakes his head. “I’ve misjudged you, Zivah. Gravely. To think I brought you so close to the emperor, and that you would have let my daughter take the fall for his death.”

  Behind me, Mehtap draws a sharp breath. I could deny Arxa’s accusation, but what would be the point? He wouldn’t believe me, and it wouldn’t change my fate.

  Arxa pushes away from the bars. “I’ve failed badly, though I will remedy my errors. The campaign will continue as before, but we will not be nearly as kind to Dara now. If they’ve thrown their lot in with the Shidadi, then they will die with them.”

  A guard comes in and opens the door to our cell. I shrink to the back, but Arxa simply takes Mehtap’s hand. “Come,” he says to her. “You are no longer under suspicion.”

  He lays one hand protectively on his daughter’s arm, and once again looks at me. “I’ll return to deal with you.”

  Mehtap doesn’t look me in the eye as they leave.

  After they’re gone, I crumple against the cell wall, gasping for breath as the reality of my situation finally strikes me. I’m alone, imprisoned in a foreign land. My one ally is in prison awaiting torture and interrogation, and soon I will join him. Spots dance before my eyes, and I fight a wave of spiraling panic. This is not the way I would have chosen to die.

  I gouge trails into the sandy floor of my cell, thinking about soldiers coming down on Dara, burning our houses and taking my sisters captive. It will happen because of me—Arxa made that plenty clear. Sand forces itself under my fingernails, but the pain seems fitting. What do I do when Arxa comes back to question me? Do I try to stay silent and hope I have the strength? Do I confess everything? Tell him what I learned about Kiran and hope he believes me? Hope that buys something for my people?

  In the corner of my eye, a tiny movement catches my attention. A lone scorpion crawls along the edge of my cell. It’s a small brown variety, not as poisonous as some we have in Dara, but with a formidable sting nonetheless. Every few steps, it scrabbles at the wall, as if trying to get out. The bricks are laid tight though, and there are no cracks for it to disappear into, but it keeps going. It doesn’t give up.

  I look at the curve of its tail, the deadly needle at the end. I’m not ready to give up either.

  Gathering my skirts, I creep toward the wall on my knees. The scorpion continues to move forward, and then freezes when it senses my presence. I stop crawling and send my hand closer, little by little. Then I grab for it, pinching right behind the stinger. It scrabbles its legs. I dump it into my lunch bowl while I tear off a part of my skirt to fashion a makeshift bag. And then I drop the tiny creature inside.

  Over the next day, two other scorpions join the first. It seems a small number of creatures to entrust with my fate, but I can’t afford to wait to see if any more will show up.

  That night, when I leave my empty dinner tray by the cell door, I drop one of the scorpions in the bowl. The creature crawls around, exploring the space, but the sides of the bowl are too steep for it to escape.

  Finally, the building door opens and the late-night guard comes in. He’s a gruff umbermarked soldier, and he growls at me to stand against the back wall as he takes out the keys to my cell. In my apron pocket is my bag with the two remaining scorpions. The cloth twitches almost indiscernibly.

  He opens the door, and I keep my head bowed, my breathing even. I wonder if he can hear the rapid beating of my heart.

  I can feel the man’s eyes on me, not the tray, as he lifts it off the ground. I wait until my bowl is close to his face before crying out, “Be careful! There’s a scorpion in the bowl.”

  He looks down. Jumps. Almost drops the tray. I push off of the wall, dumping the other scorpions into my hand. One of them stings me, sparking a burst of pain in my palm. I raise my open hand long enough to make sure the guard sees the contents, and then throw the creatures onto him. He drops the tray, and I snatch the keys from his belt as he brushes desperately at his clothing. Then I run out the cell door and lock it shut behind me. The guard shouts in outrage.

  “Demon!” he snarls at me. But he doesn’t run for the door or try to reach through the bars. He’s still too busy shaking his clothes off.

  “Stay still,” I say to him. “They won’t attack unless they’re provoked. You can survive one bite, but it’s doubtful you can survive two.”

  A string of curses trails behind me as I run for the prison door. I know that the next change of guard doesn’t come in until tomorrow morning, so with any luck, my absence won’t be found out until then. The door is heavy, and I brace my feet to pull it open. Cool air rushes in. I stumble outside—and nearly run straight into a second guard.

  It’s a wonder we don’t collide. He’s the one who jumps back, windmilling his arms for a couple of steps before he regains his balance and draws his sword. I stumble back against the wall.

  Two guards. Why hadn’t I realized there were two guards watching us? And then I see the smooth, unmarked brown of his face and realize the answer. He’s never had the plague. The shifts must be arranged so that an umbertouched guard was always here for closer contact with us, while a second unmarked guard provided backup against outsiders.

  He steps squarely in front of me, blocking my way to freedom. “Where’s the other guard?” he asks.

  The man is bigger than me, stronger than me,
and he has a weapon. I can’t outrun him. I hold back a frustrated sob.

  The guard takes a threatening step toward me. “Get back in the building.”

  He’s blocking my escape, but he keeps his distance. Why hasn’t he attacked me yet?

  And then I understand. I remember the whites of his eyes as he jumped back to avoid colliding with me. He’s afraid of getting too close. A skilled soldier might be able to subdue me at sword point without touching me, but this man is clearly not ready to take that chance. He’s a big man, and I’ve no doubt that he’s brave in battle. But bravery comes in many flavors, and years of tending the ill have taught me that sometimes the most fearless soldiers on the battlefield will quail at the thought of a long, wasting death—an enemy that cannot be defeated with a sword.

  In a split second, I make a desperate decision. With the keys in my hand, I score the underside of my arm as hard as I can. Blood wells out, and I let it pool in my palm for him to see.

  “Your friend can’t help you,” I say. “You’ll have to put me back yourself. And when you do, your life will be forfeit.”

  He wavers again. “The commander will have my head if I let you escape.”

  “And Zenagua will take you if you don’t. Or you could let me go. The guard doesn’t change until morning. You have many hours to concoct an excuse to save your skin. Maybe I released scorpions on you like I did to your friend.”

  He blanches.

  “Or you could run. You can make it far away from the city before dawn. With the campaigns about to march, they won’t spare the men to come after you.”

  Still he hesitates. I back away from him, holding my arm between us like a talisman. “I’m leaving.”

  He doesn’t stop me.

  It’s a cold night, and I hurry across the sands. I check behind me for pursuit, but none comes. My arm stings, and I pick up my pace.