Sunbolt (The Sunbolt Chronicles)

by Khanani, Intisar

  I almost choke trying to keep from laughing. It’s going to be a while before I let Kenta live down that particular snub.

  The Degaths settle into their room quietly, Lady Degath making a single cutting remark that assures near silence from her children. The Ghost glides out after a moment or two, pausing in the hallway. I can just make out his form, backlit by the candlelight. I expect Rafiki is keeping watch at the back door. Kenta glances up at the Ghost, head cocked as he waits in the hallway. Together, they start down the hall to the door.

  “We need to lock the door,” the Ghost says, his voice barely audible.

  “If Hitomi were here, she could have done it,” Rafiki observes. I blink in surprise. I never would have thought Rafiki would stand up for me. “Too bad she ran. Didn’t even get the carriage. You just can’t trust a mgeni.”

  Strike that.

  “That’s enough, Rafiki,” the Ghost says, sounding peeved. Then, “We’ll need to bar it from inside.”

  I rise, stretching out my legs before making my way down the hall. I pass the Degaths’ room, keeping away from the light, but I can’t resist a look inside.

  Lady Degath sits against the wall. On the ground beside her lies a blanket for her two daughters. The youngest, Alia, has already lain down. Saira lifts up a small mirror to inspect her hair. Her hair? Maybe the girl is crazy.

  I continue on to the back room. “All right, boys,” I say sweetly. Rafiki and the Ghost both whirl around, daggers jumping to their hands. Kenta’s teeth gleam in a laughing smile. “Since you missed me so much, I guess I’ll just have to come help out again.”

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” the Ghost says, his voice hard.

  “Who’s going to lock the door for you then?”

  “We’ll manage.”

  “Right. Rafiki, you leaving to find that carriage?” I really hope he doesn’t go to Master Khalid’s inn first. Not that the story of what I’ve done won’t get out soon enough anyway. I’d just rather the Ghost not know tonight.

  Rafiki backs out of the door. “I’ll be back soon,” he assures the Ghost, and hurries off. I can hear Kenta’s nails click against the floorboards as he slips away deeper into the building, leaving us to fight alone.

  “Hitomi.”

  “Save it. Two sets of ears are better than one.”

  He sighs. “There’s Kenta.”

  “Fine. Three sets are better than two,” I amend, stepping past him. I interpret his sigh as a sign that he’s giving in. I swing the door shut, plunging the room into near darkness. This far away, the candlelight from the Degaths’ room is no help at all. Still, it only takes a moment to lift the pins and turn the lock. “This is my fault. I’m not going to leave you to deal with it alone.”

  “It isn’t a question of fault,” the Ghost replies.

  I shrug, even though he can’t see me in the dark. Maybe he believes that, maybe he doesn’t. “I can help here,” I say. “Let me stay.”

  Granted, it might be difficult to send me away through a locked door, but making the request offers him some semblance of control.

  What he says next takes me by surprise. “I don’t like the feel of this.”

  I rock back on my heels, peering blindly towards his voice. This may be my first time sneaking out fugitives, but the Ghost has helped a handful of other families escape before tonight. He would know if something felt off. “Is it the older girl?”

  Silence. Okay then.

  “What do you think she’ll do?” I ask.

  “I can’t tell.”

  I wish I could see what he looks like. I hadn’t realized until now how much I’d learned to read of his moods from how he holds himself, even without being able to see his face.

  “We’ll keep a watch on her,” I promise. “Do you want me to stay in the room with them?”

  “No. Don’t let them know you’re here.” I hear the rustle of his cloak as he shifts. “It’s best we get them out of Karolene as fast as we can.”

  “Faster than we planned?”

  He doesn’t answer immediately. “We’ll see. The dhows are all out fishing tonight, so there’s nothing we can do until dawn. I’ll send Kenta to the beaches to see if we can move the Degaths out as soon as the fishermen have unloaded their catch.” He doesn’t name the dhow owner, his words sounding slightly awkward. I realize he’s being careful because of Saira.

  “Hole up wherever you were before,” the Ghost continues. “Stay there until we leave, then follow us out. There’s no reason for the Degaths to know you’re here.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Here,” he says, by which I gather he means the back room, keeping a watch on the door. Kenta must have taken the front door.

  “Let me know if …” If what? Even I’m not sure what might happen here. “If I can do anything,” I finish awkwardly.

  “I will,” the Ghost says.

  I stand up and start back towards the hallway, using the faint fall of candlelight as my guide. The Ghost comes along behind me, no doubt to tell the Degaths to blow out the candle.

  “Hitomi?” the Ghost murmurs as we near the door.

  “Hmm?”

  “Be careful.”

  I turn my head to look at him over my shoulder. I can’t make out a thing in the darkness. A hand touches my shoulder, and then the Ghost steps past me to the Degaths’ room.

  I wake with a jolt as the first magical ward flares to life. Leaping to my feet, I turn blindly towards it—it’s the bead placed by the front door. I take the hallway at a sprint, skidding into the back room where the Ghost waits.

  “What is it?” he whispers from somewhere on my left.

  It’s impossible. I shake my head in disbelief as the wards along the windows flare up one by one, tracking the presence of the soldiers surrounding us. The only ward that hasn’t been triggered yet is the one by the Degaths’ window. That isn’t a coincidence: they’re leaving space there for anyone who decides to jump out.

  “We’re surrounded,” I whisper.

  Kenta growls. I hadn’t heard him following me down the hall.

  The Ghost shifts, straining to listen. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” he says, almost to himself. “How could they have found us?”

  The realization hits me like a slap in the face. “Saira—the older girl. She had a mirror.”

  “Mirror?”

  “A locator spell.”

  A moment follows that should have been filled with the sound of a curse, but instead holds the Ghost’s silence. Then he moves past me. “Hide.”

  I don’t answer. Instead, I follow him to the Degaths’ room. His footsteps pause as he lights the candle again, leaving it burning on the floor. The Degaths barely have time to register his arrival before he crosses the room and hauls Saira to her feet.

  “The mirror,” he snarls as she yelps and tries to pull away. He shakes her. “Now!”

  The others scramble to their feet, Degath pushing past his wife to reach for his daughter. And then Saira laughs.

  “Oh, the mirror. Why didn’t you say so?” She pulls it from her skirt pocket and holds it out to the Ghost. He releases her and takes it, stepping back. From the door, I can just see the milky white surface looking back at him.

  Degath stares at it, then turns to his daughter. “What is that?”

  The Ghost drops the mirror and grinds it to pieces beneath his boot heel. “A locator spell. We are surrounded.”

  “A—what?” Degath stumbles.

  The girl straightens her back, smoothing out her clothes. “It’s okay, Baba. He promised our safety in return for the Ghost. A safe house would have been nice, but it’s the Ghost he really wants.”

  “Who told you that?” Degath asks, his voice hoarse.

  “Master Blackflame himself,” she says proudly.

  Degath raises a hand to his face, shielding his eyes as if he cannot bear the sight of his daughter.

  T
he Ghost turns towards the door, then pauses. “Degath?”

  “I did not know—”

  “Give your wife and your other daughter blades—you have weapons?” The man nods. “If they go down fighting, they might have an easier end.”

  “We’re not in danger,” Saira insists, her voice growing shrill. “Baba—”

  “There must be a way,” Degath begins, ignoring her.

  The Ghost shakes his head. “We are surrounded.”

  With the stairwell collapsed, there’s no other escape. I drop into a crouch. “Kenta,” I murmur to the shape beside me. Kenta tilts his head toward me, his body coiled as tight as a spring. “The stairs have fallen in, but the floorboards are sound. We can boost the Ghost up …”

  Kenta meets my gaze.

  “If he won’t go willingly, we’ll have to make him. Help me?”

  He dips his head.

  The Ghost sweeps out of the room.

  “This way,” I murmur, and he turns, following me. The faint sound of boots scrapes at the edge of my hearing. The soldiers are in position. Any moment now they’ll begin their attack.

  “We need to get you out alive. We can boost you up the stairs.” I grab the brooch that secures his cloak and yank it open.

  “I’m not leaving.” The Ghost backs up, away from my hands.

  His cloak slides half off his shoulders. I yank the cloak the rest of the way off. “You’re the Ghost. You can’t die here. The League needs you. We’ll boost you up the stairwell. Climb to the next floor and hide.”

  “They’ll know I’m gone.”

  “Not if I’m wearing your cloak.” I swing the heavy fabric around my own shoulders.

  “No—”

  “She betrayed us, don’t you understand? Blackflame must know about your informants! He planned this in advance, gave that mirror to Saira knowing the League would help Degath. If you die here, the League will fall apart. Your informants might already be dead—”

  Something rams against the back door, rattling its hinges. At the same moment, a similar assault begins on the front door. The Ghost’s hand drops to the hilt of his sword, as if the only support he needs is Kenta, who has no weapon but his teeth, and me, with nothing but a slim knife strapped to my calf. But he doesn’t draw his sword.

  “I know,” he says softly, surprising me. “Blackflame planned this well. I’ll go up, but you’re both coming with me.”

  “It won’t work. We’re surrounded and they won’t stop until they find you. Kenta—” I mean to call for Kenta’s help, though what I expect him to do I don’t know. I can barely hear myself think over the pounding on the doors.

  The Ghost glances up into the stairwell, barely lit by the faint glow from the Degaths’ room.

  “There’s no time,” I nearly shout.

  Kenta steps forward in his human form, his bare chest rippling with muscles, and whacks the Ghost over the head with a length of wood.

  I step back, speechless. The Ghost stumbles against the wall, shaking his head to clear it. That wasn’t quite the kind of help I’d intended.

  “Move,” Kenta says, grabbing the Ghost by the shoulders and propelling him beneath the overhang of the floor above.

  “Kenta,” I say, as he offers his hands, fingers interlaced, for the Ghost to put his boot in. The Ghost glances blearily between the two of us. “Kenta! He’s not going to be able to jump now.”

  Wood shatters—the back door has given in. Kenta whirls towards the hallway.

  “Come on.” I grab the Ghost by the shoulder and hustle him under the broken stairs to where I had hidden before. He definitely isn’t doing well: he doesn’t even protest. “Kenta!”

  The Ghost sits down heavily, his back against the wall, just as Kenta appears at my shoulder. “You too,” I hiss. “Someone has to keep him safe now that you’ve knocked his brains loose. You’re a better fighter than me.”

  “They’ll see us,” Kenta murmurs as he drops down beside the Ghost.

  “They won’t,” I promise. Kenta transforms to his tanuki form in the space of a breath. I try to gather my thoughts. No time, I think, as feet pound down the hall, coming to a stop before the Degaths’ door. No time. I kneel before them, center myself for what I have to do.

  “Hitomi.”

  I glance up, ready to curse the Ghost, and find him handing me the hilt of his short sword. His hand wavers slightly as he holds it out. His sword. If they go down fighting, they might have an easier end. I snatch the sword from him and pull my mind back to my spell. Fortunately, I’m surrounded by what I need most: darkness. Reaching out, I gather the shadows around me and lay them over my friends like a velvet cloak of night and smoke, pulling and tugging at the shadows until I can barely see the two men even though I kneel before them. It’s a clumsy spell, made too fast and with wrinkles and snags that might unravel at any moment, but it’s the best I can do. Distantly, I realize I can hear screaming.

  “Don’t move,” I pant, my body drenched with sweat.

  But an arm reaches out of the shadow and pulls off the boy’s cap I wear. I’d forgotten it.

  “Don’t move.” I pull up the cloak’s hood to complete my disguise. As far as I can tell, the spell has fallen back into place around my friends. “Good-bye,” I whisper. Then I run—or try to. The magic-working has unbalanced me, and I stagger as I start forward, barely managing to keep my feet.

  A faint light still spills through the Degaths’ doorway. I can hear shouts and cries, can see the flicker of shadows through the doorway. But all I can truly make out are dimly lit forms and the brief gleam of light on blades as the soldiers in the hall turn towards me. These aren’t your usual soldiers, but an elite squad. They turn with practiced ease, swords in their hands, every move calm, calculated. Completely unworried.

  I smile, a wild, feral thing Kenta would have been proud of, and launch myself at the foremost soldier. I have to make this look like a struggle, at least a little, before they kill me. The narrow hall works in my favor: only two can face me at a time. However, the fact that I never learned swordplay, and that I’m still off-balance from my last spell, makes the fight brutally short.

  The first soldier meets my sword with his own, blocking my swing and throwing my arm back towards the wall. I duck and twist, just avoiding another blade, and bring my sword back around in time to clumsily block the second soldier’s attack—and lose my footing as my sandal skids on the floorboards.

  I stagger, throwing myself sideways as a blade slides past my ribs. I’m not quite fast enough to outstep the second blade the soldier uses. It knocks my own sword from my hand. I twist away as it skitters across the floor, yanking my knife free from its sheath. A woman screams—Lady Degath?—but there’s no way I can reach her. I throw myself forward, slicing my knife towards the soldier’s chest, and another sharp edge flashes in the corner of my vision.

  I don’t look at it, expecting it to cut into my neck, kill me. I see the eyes of the soldier facing me flicker, and then the flat of the blade slams into the side of my head.

  I fall to my knees, stunned. A boot plows into my back. My face meets the splintered floorboards, and then a man’s weight slams down on me, pinning me to the floor. He rips the knife from my grasp, and, with the help of another soldier, binds my hands with ruthless efficiency. They search me quickly, checking my pockets, frisking my arms and legs, checking the empty sheath at my calf. I stare across the floor, trying not to think about what I’ll do if they realize I’m a girl, and find myself looking through the Degaths’ doorway into the glazed eyes of Lord Degath. A few drops of blood trickle from his lips to form a perfectly round coin of darkness on the floor. I swallow back bile.

  “Who’d have thought the Ghost couldn’t fight worth shit?” one of the soldiers sneers as they haul me to my feet. They wear the uniform of the sultan’s soldiers rather than Blackflame’s mercenaries, and yet they don’t seem any different.

  I look up, catch the measured gaze of the second soldier—not a soldi
er, I realize, taking in the embroidered rank marks at his collar. A captain.

  “He wasn’t trying to kill us,” he says.

  “Then what the hell—”

  “He was trying to get killed.” The captain steps forward, holding my gaze. “Isn’t that right?”

  I force a smile through bruised and bloodied lips. At least they haven’t figured out I’m neither a boy nor the Ghost. “Some people don’t mind blood on their hands. I do.”

  The man holding me spins me around and backhands me across my face. I fall against a wall. My vision jumps, and all I can think of is how the Ghost must have felt when Kenta hit him with that board.

  “Hold.” The captain’s voice rings out through the hallway. “We bring him in alive as we were ordered. You will not let him taunt you into killing him.”

  “If only you’d been as stupid as the rest of them.” I turn my head to meet his eyes. He offers me the shadow of a smile, one fighting man to another, I suppose. Then he turns and walks into the massacre he had ordered.

  I follow him with my gaze, forcing myself to keep looking past Degath’s sprawled form. Behind him lies his wife, her eyes rolled back, showing only white, her face taut with a pain now departed. Blood stains the front of her dress.

  At the back of the room, the two girls cling to each other. I crane my neck to see the third form crouched beside them: their brother, clutching his arm to his side, blood seeping through his fingers.

  A part of me is sorry, sorry that the little girl and her brother are still alive, that they will pay the price of their father’s choices and their sister’s betrayal. Just as I will.

  The soldiers had prepared well for their raid. Outside, we’re loaded into a prison carriage: a metal box on wheels, with one small, barred window in the rear door. Further on, a wagon waits to take away the dead.

  “You can’t do this!” Saira cries as she is pushed up into the carriage behind me, her sister clinging to her in silence. “Stop! Master Blackflame promised—you weren’t supposed to kill anyone! Wait—where is my brother?”

  She gets her answer a moment later when Tarek is shoved into the carriage, the door slammed shut behind him. Leaning my head back against the cold metal wall, I listen to the lock click. If I still had my lockpick set, picking it would have been a moment’s work.