Demon's Arrow

by Rachel Devenish Ford

  Ivy leaned over and touched it as well.

  “It’s not too bad. No one wants to be friends with someone with a perfect face, so I’d have to say I like you better.”

  “I’m happy to have it. I’ve been healed by the World Whisperer, so I’ll carry this with me as a sign. Lucky, lucky me.” He smiled at Isika and she smiled back at him, then swayed where she sat.

  Ivy pulled her up and helped her over to the cushions against the wall. She lay on them and closed her eyes.

  The old woman muttered to herself and brought tea that burned Jabari’s throat and brought strength back to him. Then she brought bowls of thick stew and flatbread to scoop it with.

  “We need to plan,” Brigid said, stroking Isika’s hair.

  “We do,” Ivy said, “though these two aren’t good for much right now.”

  “I’m fine,” Jabari said. “Isika healed me, remember?”

  “I’m fine too,” Isika said. “Just a little sleepy.” She yawned. “Let’s talk about it though. Jabari, did you speak with the horses?”

  “Yes,” Jabari said, frowning. He remembered how he could hardly get through brushing them, and why he had been so tense. The altercation with the brutish guards had nearly driven it from his mind. “They know we will come for them.”

  The plan was for Jabari and Isika to join the parade. Herrith would get two guard costumes for them and the decoration necessary for the shiny, brushed horses. While Aria was being named heir, everyone except Isika and Jabari would overpower the guards at the stadium prison, and open the doors to set the prisoners free. Herrith had told them that most of the guards would be occupied at the parade and ceremony, so it would be the easiest day to do it. Then, when the ceremony was finished, Jabari and Isika would take advantage of the chaos of the prison break, and spirit Aria away, escaping with her through the tunnels. Olumi had suggested that Isika should bring her staff and wear her circlet under the guard uniform. She couldn’t imagine why she would need them, since their plan didn’t involve any fighting, but she had agreed.

  “There’s something we’re missing,” Isika said, her voice soft and slow. She seemed barely awake. “I can feel it.”

  “We’ve gone over everything,” Jabari said, trying to keep his impatience from showing. “We know exactly what we’re getting into and why. We know where she will be. We know the closest safe spot with access to a tunnel. We might even be able to get her down the alley before anyone notices, if the skirmish at the stadium is big enough.”

  “It’s just that something doesn’t feel right,” Isika said. “I can’t explain it.”

  “I feel it too,” Brigid said. “But there doesn’t seem to be a better plan.”

  Jabari felt a squirm of worry for his brother and Benayeem in the palace. Would they all get out of the city alive and uninjured? It did feel like too many things could go wrong, and he wondered for a heartbeat whether Gavi was right. Maybe taking Aria by force wasn’t the best thing. But the heartbeat passed and he shrugged it off.

  There were only three more days. They couldn’t let these captives be shipped across the sea as slaves. So they would go through with their plan. They had to take Aria with them! If she was named heir, the backlash of betrayal magic might cripple Isika and Maween beyond repair. No matter what Gavi said, the ceremony had to be stopped.

  But it took Jabari a long time to get to sleep that night.

  Chapter 32

  Herrith walked with his head down, wearing something he had never in his life dared to wear—a brown robe. A brown robe said he was a regular palace servant, with none of the privileges or powers of a red robe. He could be killed wearing a brown robe by the people, who didn’t respect a brown robe, or by the king, if Herrith was ever discovered wearing a brown robe.

  But he had gone back and forth from Mara’s house, the home of the resistance, too many times recently. The king’s spies knew the old woman had been Herrith’s nurse when he was a boy, so they ignored his visits. But Herrith had begun to notice odd effects rippling out around him. Did King Ikajo have suspicions about his most loyal red robe, the cousin who had always been by his side? It seemed Herrith might finally be found out.

  Wisdom would counsel that he lay low and stay in the palace, but he couldn’t. This was the time to act. He needed to continue his work, but very, very carefully.

  So he wore a brown cloak and stuffed the two guard uniforms that were for Jabari and Isika deep in its folds. Head down, moving quickly, he didn’t see the woman until it was too late, slamming into her roughly and knocking her down. He caught himself before he landed on the scummy street with her, then held out a hand to pick her up. It was one of the moments when he was torn by who his role needed him to be, and who he truly was. He wanted to apologize, to claim fault, to say, “Sorry for making you fall in the scum that people throw out of their windows,” but no one from the palace would do that, and acting out of character would start another ripple.

  “Be more careful,” he said gruffly, then turned and left the woman to shriek at him about how he had knocked her down and he was the one who needed to be more careful.

  He was used to being hated. He was hated by everyone except a handful of people who knew who he truly was. He would have hated himself if he was who everyone thought he was, the loyal servant of an evil man.

  It was why he loved Mara’s house. The old woman had known his true identity since he was a small boy. She knew how he must behave so the king would keep him close. She had been with him when his father gave him lessons in duplicity, in keeping an evil face, in the delicate balance between weak and too strong that the king wanted him to hold. Not pathetic but not a threat. This was his life. He had been raised for it.

  But with the coming of Aria, a window had cracked open and the fresh breeze outside whispered to Herrith. He dreamed of good, of how it would be to walk openly as a good man, in a place where it was safe to be good. It tormented him like a tray of flat bread cooling on a windowsill torments a starving man.

  Meeting Isika had only strengthened the goodness he felt. For the second time in his life, he was tempted to leave the palace. How could he continue, surrounded by evil, filth, and hatred, now that he had felt the presence that Isika carried with her? Now that he had smelled that fragrance that didn’t curl his toes or make him blink like his eyes were filled with dust?

  His heart thudded with grief. If he left, it would mean the abandonment of his people. The Gariah would be without a gold cord, a prophet from the line of prophets that had begun with his ancestors. And he wouldn’t be able to face the Shaper, not even in his dreams. So he determined to stay, even while Isika made plans to take Aria and leave. He mourned his birth, he questioned everything, but he would not leave. He would not leave.

  He was nearly there. He worked at clearing his face of grief. He would present strength and clarity to the children who held the fate of his people in their hands.

  The first time he was tempted was when Amani left, begging him to come with her. If she asked him now, he just might go. But back then he was so sure of the strength of his role the gold cord, so full of the idealism passed to him by his father, who had been friends with Queen Azariyah herself. It was barely even care for his people, back then, that made him stay. He stayed because of his principles, and felt righteous doing it.

  He spit on the side of the road now. If he knew then that he would never see Amani again . . . if he knew that she would die believing that Aria had been sent to her death . . .

  He wasn’t doing a very good job of pulling himself together.

  Amani was gone, and with her his heart. So he might as well stay here. She had died in the great tide of poison that came from the Great Waste. He was holding out against the tide with all his might, but if he had to be brave like Amani and die without seeing the true light . . . so be it.

  He knocked his special pattern on the door.

  * * *

  Later, sitting with the others, he submitted to questi
ons about Aria, Gavi, and Ben.

  “Have you seen Ben lately? How does he look?” Isika asked, leaning forward. “Does he have that pinched look that he gets when he’s hearing too much insanity?”

  “I saw him last night, and I don’t know about a pinched look, but he seems to be doing okay. He was with Gavi.”

  He watched as Isika exchanged a long glance with Jabari—desert spines, the feelings between those two!—and waited for more questions. Jabari shook his head and stared at the ground, and Isika huffed a sigh, then leaned forward again.

  “And Gavi? How does he seem?”

  Ah, that was it. Something had happened between the brothers. He had wondered about the new grimness around Gavi.

  “He seems fine. He’s concentrating on cooking for Aria and speaking to her when he can.”

  “Has Ben seen Aria?”

  “We don’t feel it’s safe for her to see him. She could so easily betray him.”

  “But she hasn’t betrayed Gavi.”

  Herrith shifted where he sat.

  “We believe that is because the poison of the arrow leaves him untouched in her mind. But it makes her angry with the two of you.”

  He watched as Isika’s face folded up on itself, an endless well of grief just beneath the surface. He wished he could take back his words, but they were the truth. Aria must not learn that Isika and Ben were nearby until the very last moment, when they had her and could break free with her. Herrith believed she had forgotten that she had seen Ben in the king’s chambers. She never spoke of him.

  “Where will you go when you have her?” he asked. “She is still very sick.”

  “We will take her to the Karee,” Jabari said, speaking for the first time. “We believe that their healer will be able to save her.”

  Herrith nodded. And them? Their plan? The Gariah? But he knew no further than this moment. His ability to understand the will of Nenyi extended to Aria returning and Isika coming after her. It was the moment he had been waiting for since the night Amani escaped. As he watched his beloved disappear into the night, he had been struck by a vision of Nenyi that left him weak and shaking—the perfect alibi. He had been sick in his bed for weeks, feverish and uncomprehending. The king had assumed that Herrith knew nothing of the escape.

  He had never even kissed Amani. Never once done anything more than rest a hand on her shoulder. When they were young, they had held hands, but then she had been married to someone else against her will and he had been forced to retreat, except as a friend.

  He bowed his head. What was this? Why would Nenyi prepare him for this moment for so many years, only to have Isika come and take Aria away, leaving him alone again? He didn’t understand it, but he would serve these children, as he had promised the Shaper on the night Amani had gone from him forever.

  * * *

  He slipped back up the streets to the palace without incident, changing cloaks in a dark alley in the upper streets, then brushing past the guards and into the bright light of the evening palace.

  That night, Aria seemed restless in her father’s chambers, playing with her food when he insisted that she stay with him for dinner. She fiddled with her braids and refused to meet her father’s eyes.

  “What is it?” he finally barked. She looked up then, startled.

  “Sorry, Father?”

  “What is wrong with you? Your naming day is tomorrow, one of the most important days in the history of Gariah, and yet you sit and sulk.”

  “I’m sorry, Brilliance. I am not trying to sulk. I am nervous. There is something wrong . . . I feel something . . .”

  Herrith cast an eye at one of the senior guards, who stumbled into a slave and knocked her to the ground, where the plate she was carrying shattered.

  “Whip her!” the king roared.

  “No, Brilliance, punish me,” the guard said, falling to his knees. “I fell and shoved her.”

  The king stopped, his mouth hanging open. He was more likely to order a guard to his death than whip him, as everyone in the room knew. Herrith held his breath, nodding three slaves forward to clean the mess, while the king considered the giant of a man, his largest guard, his boasting point, his favorite.

  “Be less clumsy,” the king said finally, and Herrith breathed again. The king turned back to the table, but Lena had already whisked Aria away. With a puzzled look, the king fell back to eating his enormous plate of food.

  * * *

  Herrith found Aria in the garden with Lena. The night was mild, a small breeze playing among the trees in the garden. The stars were out, and he sat on the bench beside the girl, but kept his eyes trained on the sky, searching for the Shaper.

  What is it you would have me do? How can I be your prophet if I do not hear from you?

  “Something is very strange, Uncle,” Aria said then, and Lena got up and left them. “Something will happen tomorrow, and I think . . . I will be attacked, but I know that it will not hurt me.”

  He looked down at her, spooked by the sound in her voice.

  “Nothing can hurt me anymore.”

  * * *

  He needed to warn the others, but when he hurried down to the house, all of them were gone. The house was gone. He looked for them as though he was in a bad dream, running up and down streets, asking neighbors, barely able to speak, unable to hide his face as he knew he should. He went back to the palace. This was it, the king would find him and kill him. Only the king’s magic could hide the Circle from him. But when he stepped into the king’s chambers, the king was asleep. It wasn’t him. Even he couldn’t make a spell that big while he was sleeping.

  He found Gavi in the kitchen, and began to tell him what had happened, but Gavi interrupted. His eyes were red.

  “She won’t eat,” he said. “She’s in some sort of trance. She keeps saying they are here.”

  It was Aria, Herrith realized with a sinking feeling, falling to his knees. She had blocked him from the Circle with her magic, far more powerful than any of them had realized.

  He fell for a long time, and when he landed, he was suspended in a net in a dark cavern, lost in his own trance. Nenyi paced before him like a giant, like the father of the giant guard that the king was so proud of.

  “She won’t go,” Nenyi said. “Her place is here for now. And it will get worse, but then it will get better, and all will be well. Believe me as I say these words to you.”

  Herrith tried to get something out through his cracked lips.

  “It has been so long,” he gasped.

  Nenyi laughed, then turned and grasped Herrith’s chin with a gentle hand.

  “It has not been so long. You still haven’t learned, dear one.”

  “I need to warn the others,” he said.

  “I cannot allow you. They have to go through many trials to break this great poison. You cannot save them from it. I have touched you in your sleep. You will wake up when you are needed.”

  Herrith’s last thought before he sank into blackness was that he hoped he hadn’t fallen in the kitchen fire.

  Chapter 33

  Ben and Gavi half dragged, half carried Herrith to the little closet off the kitchen where Gavi slept. Gavi kept trying to talk to Ben, but Ben hushed him. He was listening and Gavi needed to be quiet. The music coming from Herrith was strange—wild and angry, but not menacing or tinged with evil, the way much of the palace music was.

  “Are you quite finished?” Gavi asked.

  Ben looked up, startled. “Yes, I think so.”

  “What is happening? First thing tomorrow morning Aria is going to be named heir. I was counting on Herrith to help keep her safe.”

  “Safe from . . .”

  “From Jabari and Isika and their plan to steal her!” Gavi roared, and grabbed two fistfuls of his hair.

  Ben had never seen Gavi like this. He was alarmed. “I’m confused. Do you mean that you are going to work against Isika and Jabari tomorrow?” Ben felt a flash of fear and bent to take Herrith’s shoes off. He needed
to hide his face. He straightened from his task and looked around, avoiding the older boy’s eyes.

  Gavi’s closet room was tiny and neat. On the wall, near the corner of the bed, he had pinned a drawing of his family—Andar, Laylit, and there were Jabari and Gavi, their arms thrown around each other.

  “Ben,” Gavi said. “Look at me, Ben.”

  Ben dragged his eyes away from the drawing. He couldn’t understand the unfamiliar music he was hearing from Gavi.

  “I would never fight or lay a hand on my brother. I hope you know that. But I am convinced that he is wrong, that his plans are wrong. You know Yab, though. He has never listened to me in his life.”

  Bitterness. That’s what the music was. Bitterness, from sweet Gavi who was the one to always find a good way to view the world. Ben felt shock. What had happened? They had to get out of the palace.

  “Gavi, I can hear things in you that I never heard before. We need to leave. There is barely anything left of Aria, and the king’s music spreads. I feel like I can’t breathe. We can’t stay here. Aria can’t stay here. And you—you are changing.”

  Gavi stared back at Ben, arms crossed. Finally he sighed and relaxed his shoulders.

  “Perhaps you are right, little brother. Maybe it is bad for me to be here, away from beautiful Maween and the bright air. But I know with complete certainty that Nenyi has asked me to be here, and that trying to steal Aria will only make things worse for her.”

  “How can Nenyi ask you to do something that is bad for you? It doesn’t make sense! Look at Maween. The Shaper has given us a good way to live and we do well there. The Uncreated One wouldn’t ask you to stay here! She wouldn’t do that to you!”