Rosemarked

by Livia Blackburne

  Bile rises in my throat. I’ve delivered dozens of people from the bite of the purple-crowned serpent. Tonight is the first time I’ve killed someone with it.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. I take out a dart, and he watches with wild eyes as I scratch his skin. It will put him to sleep and save him from the worst of the pain when his organs begin to fail. “This is the best I can do.”

  I feel ill. Using the herbs against Utana was nothing compared to this. But I’ve no time to linger. There will be other soldiers coming soon. The herbs I brought in are still smoking, and I leave them there. On the belt of one of the men is a ring of keys. I take them, along with his dagger, and run toward the holding cells.

  The cell doors have sliding panels, and I run from door to door, checking each in turn. As I finish checking the third room, a guard emerges from the stairwell at the end of the corridor. He pauses, puzzled at the sight of me, and I shoot him before he recovers.

  I keep going, finishing with this floor and then moving down. Finally, I slide open a panel to see Dineas’s familiar profile. I can hardly hold the keys steady as I try them one by one on the door. The lock turns.

  He’s chained to the wall. His eyes are closed, and he doesn’t react to my coming in.

  “Dineas!”

  He’s still—frighteningly so. I run to him and turn his face toward me. His skin is warm and covered in sweat and grime. He’s marked by bruises and scabs, but he’s alive.

  “Dineas,” I say, more insistently this time, and he groans. I take my keys again and work at the shackles around his wrists. The first one gives way, and then the other, and he sinks to the ground. It’s all I can do to slow his fall.

  I sit down next to him and cradle his head in my arms. “Dineas.” My voice breaks. “Wake up, please.”

  Zivah visits me in my dreams. She holds me close and whispers my name.

  “Wake up,” she says, but I don’t want to. Because if I open my eyes, I’ll be back in my living nightmare, and she’ll be gone. The past few days have been bad enough. Just give me a moment of peace.

  But she keeps calling me, and a cold cloth passes over my face. I groan. “Don’t make me go back.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispers.

  If she’s really sorry, she wouldn’t be trying to wake me up. But it’s no use. I’m drifting back to reality. I open my eyes, and the hateful walls of my cell appear around me, the jail I don’t even remember entering. Gods, how did this happen?

  I expect Zivah to waver and disappear, but she’s solid, holding me close even though I’m covered in grime.

  I don’t understand.

  “Did they arrest you too? If I’ve gotten you in trouble…”

  She shakes her head. “I’m here to get you out,” she says. “But we don’t have much time. You must come with me now, and I need you whole.”

  “Whole?”

  Zivah rummages in her bag and takes out a vial. “I need you to drink this.”

  In my mind, I see the vial fragments Arxa had shown me. “What is it?”

  “It’s a potion to help you remember.”

  I pull away from her. “They say you manipulated me with your potions. That you made me lose my mind.”

  Zivah glances at the door, and when she looks back, her eyes are sad. “I can’t prove anything to you. You have to decide whether to trust me.”

  She unstoppers the potion and puts it in my hand. It smells foul as always, and I wrinkle my nose. Can anything good come from something that smells so bad?

  She’s getting restless now, her eyes continually drawn to the door and the corridor beyond. “Please, Dineas. You need to trust me, and you need to do it now, or we’ll both die.”

  I stare at the potion. I’ve been missing pieces of my past for months now, and I suppose I’ve learned to trust my instincts. My instincts tell me that Zivah doesn’t mean me harm.

  And with that, I drink it down.

  I’m back in the place I never wanted to be again. The cursed stone walls that haunted my dreams and even now make my soul shrivel inside of me.

  “Are you back?” asks Zivah.

  I look over my arms, my shoulders, the angry welts on my wrists. They haven’t yet had time to do much damage. “I didn’t think you’d come for me.”

  She’d started to offer me a hand, but now she hesitates, and something like hurt flickers across her face. “Is it really that hard to believe? I wouldn’t abandon you here.”

  Briefly I wonder if the other me would have been so surprised. “How long will my memory stay this time?”

  “Forever. I gave you the permanent antidote.”

  Strange that I feel a sense of loss at her words. It’s almost as if I’d lost a friend. Well, that’s another thing I can mull over when I’m no longer in a dungeon full of Amparan soldiers.

  She hands me a dagger. “We need to go.”

  “What’s out there?” I ask.

  “Most of the guards are asleep. One’s dead.”

  “You killed him?”

  “Snakebite.” She doesn’t look at me.

  I head for the door, then stop. “Wait, there’s Tus. We have to go get him.”

  She’s silent for a moment. “Other guards will be coming soon,” she says. But she says this as a warning, not an argument.

  The walls press in on me as we go. I grit my teeth and try not to think about suffocating as I run from door to door, peering in the small windows. Finally I see Tus, almost unrecognizable with his hair matted and the rest of him covered in filth. Zivah hands me a key.

  At the sound of the door opening, Tus snaps awake. He shrinks away from me, almost animallike in the way he moves, and it feels like a dagger to the gut.

  “Tus, it’s me. I’m back,” I say in Shidadi. He looks at me, uncomprehending. I take the key and start working on his shackles. “I’m sorry.” I shake my head at how inadequate the words are. “I’m so sorry.” I repeat the words over and over, though the mantra does nothing to absolve my guilt.

  Tus’s bloodshot eye darts frantically to Zivah, and then back to me. “This is the healer who took away your memory?”

  “Yes, but it’s back now. And I’m getting you out.”

  “I can’t,” he says.

  “If I can get out, so can you.” I throw his arm over me and haul him up, suppressing a gag at his smell, but he lets out a sharp cry and collapses. He muffles the rest of his moans against his arm.

  “Dineas, his leg,” says Zivah. She reaches out to unwrap a dirty bandage from around his calf. If I thought he smelled bad before, what pours out from under the bandage is ten times worse. Zivah gasps, stricken. Even I know what this means.

  “It’s badly infected,” Zivah says quietly. “Very badly. Even with the best treatment, in the best of circumstances…”

  I drive my fist into the floor. Curse them. Zenagua strike them all. Tears of frustration build behind my eyes.

  “Dineas, we can’t take him with us,” Zivah says softly.

  Tus quiets abruptly, then turns wild eyes to us. “Go,” he says. “Go back to Gatha. Finish your mission. Tell her I gave the Amparans nothing.”

  “We’re not leaving you here.”

  He grabs me by the wrist. “Then don’t. But the only way out for me is through Zenagua,” he says. “Help me find her.”

  It’s like a boulder has been dropped on my chest.

  Next to me, Zivah shudders. “I can give him a sleeping dart and a bite from Diadem. He shouldn’t feel pain that way.”

  Her words snap me out of my stupor. “No. A Shidadi should die by his own hand.” Tus is a warrior, the man who cared for me after my father died, who protected Shidadi secrets to the very end. That’s who he really is, not this quivering broken thing in front of me. My hands tremble as I give him my dagger. “May Neju carry you straight to Zenagua’s paradise.”

  He’s so weak that the dagger dips toward the ground before he musters the strength to lift it. “Go,” he rasps. “I’ll make pea
ce with the gods alone.”

  My last glimpse of Tus is of him leaning against the wall, staring at the blade. As Zivah and I flee down the corridor, we hear a muffled groan and a soft gurgle. I lift up one last prayer for him. That’s all I can afford to give.

  The first floor looks like it’s been worked over by assassins. Bodies lie sprawled everywhere, and a smoky haze lingers in the air. I give her a sideways glance. “You did this?”

  “Hurry” is all she says.

  “Neju help me if I ever insult a Dara maiden again.”

  She’s right that we need to hurry though. I scan the soldiers and strip the livery off the one closest to my size. Zivah turns her back as I change, though I’m fairly sure she’s seen me bare plenty of times by now. I lift a sword and a new dagger off the same man, and then we’re out the door.

  “How did you get in?” I ask her.

  “There was an unlocked gate in the garden. Nobody challenged me in this dress.”

  True, many soldiers will look the other way rather than confront a powerful lady. “Let’s go that way. I’ll pretend to be your bodyguard.”

  She walks ahead, and I trail behind her, though it’s hard to play the menacing bodyguard when everything hurts. There’s also a question of how often noble ladies walk around the barracks at night. The hair on my arms stands on end every time we pass another soldier, and she gets her fair share of looks and knowing grins. Still, no one stops us.

  A short distance out, I’m enveloped in a cloud of feathers as all three of my crows try to land on my shoulder. There’s quite a bit of jostling and my head gets buffeted by wings several times. Still, the crows are a welcome sight. “Good to see you too,” I say, “but I can’t have you attracting attention. Scout.”

  They take off again, though Slicewing manages to shoot me a reproachful look before taking off. “I know, I’ll make it up to you,” I mutter.

  I find myself counting our steps, measuring the distance to freedom. We’re a third of the way to the gardens. Halfway

  there.

  A bugle splits the night. Zivah tenses, and I swallow a curse. Someone’s discovered the mess at the prison.

  Immediately, the barracks come to life around us. Soldiers stream out of the buildings, and I know more will follow. I catch up to Zivah. “Quick, off to the side.”

  We duck into a corner shadowed by bushes. More soldiers are coming out, reporting to their commanders. Everything is chaotic at the moment, but the confusion won’t last.

  “We won’t get to the gate in time, will we?” says Zivah. She’s right. The entrances into the aristocratic portions of the palace are likely already locked down.

  “Probably not,” I admit. Then the wind changes, and the distinct smell of horse manure reaches my nose. It’s an intriguing thought.

  Zivah must smell it too, because she turns to me. “Will they be checking the stables?”

  “Yes, but we might be able to get there first. You in?”

  She pauses a moment, then gives a deliberate nod.

  The stables have already started to stir by the time we get there. A stablehand stands in front of the door, scanning in all directions. I hear horses stomping inside. I walk straight up to the door, doing my best to exude authority.

  “What are you doing out here?” I snap. “Get back in. Someone might be after the horses.”

  The boy stumbles, his mouth falling open, and he rushes back through the barn door. I’m right on his heels, and as soon as we’re inside, I whack him over the head with the hilt of my dagger. The poor fellow slumps to the ground.

  “What’s going on out there?” a voice calls from the back.

  I suppose it was too much to hope that a clueless stable boy would be the only person sleeping here at night. “Just making sure the stables are secure,” I call. “A prisoner’s escaped.”

  A man steps into view on the other side of the barn. He looks suspicious…and very muscular.

  “Where’s the boy?” he asks.

  “The boy?” I need to work on my innocent face.

  He puts up a hand. “Stay right there,” he says. “No one’s allowed in here.”

  I hold out my hands, but I keep walking. Maybe ten more steps until I can get to him. “No harm intended…Just passing along the news.”

  “Stop. I mean it.” He reaches behind the stall and picks up a stout-looking club. I brace my feet and reach for my sword as the man comes at me. I hope I can still fight after my stay in the dungeon.

  The man grabs at his neck and falls over.

  I turn to see Zivah holding a blowgun. “Get us a horse,” she says.

  Right. I look through the stalls and see the roan stallion Arxa had identified as Rovenni breeding stock. The fences at the far end of the riding fields are the farthest and hardest to guard, and this creature should be able to carry both of us there with no problem. Plus, I’m guessing a certain Rovenni tribe would be glad to see this horse again.

  That is, if this stallion will mind me. His ears flick back and forth as I come closer, and he paws at the ground. I think back to what I saw the Rovenni do, holding up the brand on my arm so he can see it.

  “Easy, there,” I say. “I’m a friend.”

  To my surprise, he calms down. I saddle him up, haul the unconscious stablehands outside, and tie the horse to a post, leaving Zivah out there as I run back and start opening the other stalls. Two horses come out right away, but the others stay put.

  No, that won’t do. We can’t have all these horses around when the Amparans muster up pursuit. I gather a handful of straw at the back of the barn and hold it to a candle flame until it catches. Smoke curls through the air. A few horses stomp their hooves and whinny.

  Neju help them, these horses are too calm for their own good. I put my fingers to my lips and whistle for the crows. A few moments later, Slicewing and Scrawny dart through the door. They give the smoking straw a wide berth before landing on the wall of the nearest stall.

  I point to the mare nearest the barn door. “Drive.” This better work, because my eyes are starting to water.

  The crows take off, screaming and diving at that poor horse until she bolts out the door. Another horse follows, and then it’s a full-on stampede out the barn. I follow, coughing at the thickening smoke, and then I realize that the crows’ calls have changed. They’re no longer screaming to scare the horses. They’re giving warning calls….

  Zivah.

  I run outside. Zivah stands in front by the stallion. The stablehands are nowhere to be seen. Cutting off Zivah’s escape are five soldiers, two of whom are archers with bows pointed at her. And leading them is General Arxa. As I come out, one of the archers shifts his aim to target me.

  So much for sneaking up unnoticed. I raise my hands and move to stand next to Zivah. She has her blowgun pointed at the general, which is probably the only reason they haven’t captured her yet. He must not know that it would only put him to sleep.

  Arxa’s face is a dark cloud, and he doesn’t look surprised to see me at all. “To think I trusted both of you. Will you still hide from me who you really are?”

  The fire of the barn is catching now, and I hear the screams of fleeing horses in the distance. And I decide that I’m tired of all this deception. “I am Dineas, son of Youtab and Artabanos of the Shidadi, warrior under Gatha.” My voice gets stronger as I continue. “I spent months in an Amparan dungeon until I was stricken with rose plague and the guards threw me out to die.”

  “Shidadi, of course,” says Arxa. “You’re cold-blooded, to fight your kin like that.” I shift my weight, and Arxa puts up his hand. “Don’t tempt me, Dineas. You know what our archers can do.” He turns to Zivah. “Dineas disappoints me, but it’s you who shocks me the most. It’s hard to believe that someone so seemingly selfless can foster such deception. That’s my daughter’s dress you’re wearing, isn’t it? Have you no shame?”

  Zivah’s voice trembles, though her weapon remains steady. “I love my people. It pained m
e to deceive you, to steal Mehtap’s clothing and break your trust, but I had no other choice.”

  The fires continue to crackle, and I can feel the sweat pouring down my skin. It’s only a matter of time before the soldiers take their chances with Zivah’s blowgun. I look again at the two archers with arrows pointed toward us. Does their aim have to be quite so steady?

  “I met a minister named Utana in the rosemarked compound,” says Zivah. “He told me that Emperor Kiran betrayed you. He was the one who poisoned your troops.”

  I see shadows flitting behind the soldiers, a flash of feathers. As Zivah continues to speak, I whistle low under my breath.

  “Lies,” says Arxa. “You’ll tell me the truth in the dungeons. Don’t think your rosemarks will protect you.”

  “Get the arrows!” I shout. Preener and Slicewing swoop down and snatch the arrows from the archers’ bows. As everyone gawks at the crows, I cut the rope securing our stallion and all but throw Zivah on, then clamber up behind her and kick the beast into motion. The creature needs no coaxing with the fire so high, and he bursts into a gallop as the soldiers in our path throw themselves out of the way. And then we are off, racing down toward the riding fields and into the darkness beyond.

  We have several close calls—a short skirmish with guards at the city gate, and two more encounters with riders on our tail. Several times, arrows pass perilously close to my head, but our horse is fast and agile, and finally we’re riding alone in the open desert. Dineas urges the horse north until finally we come to an abrupt stop in the middle of nowhere.

  “What is it?” I ask as he dismounts.

  “Help me,” he says. He grabs a large rock and starts digging. After a moment, I drop down to help him. The dirt we clear away grows moist under my fingers as we dig deeper.

  “Got it,” Dineas says. The dirt falls away as he pulls out a long oilcloth-wrapped packet. He lays it on the ground to unwrap it, and reverently lifts out one of his swords. The moonlight reflects off the blade as he draws it. I watch without speaking as he squeezes his eyes shut and takes a shaky breath. I don’t know what thoughts are running through his head, but I sense that he needs this moment.

  Finally, he opens his eyes. “We should go,” he says.