The Firebird's Vengeance

by Sarah Zettel

  At that same moment, Tsan Nu staggered to her feet, grasping the tile to her chest as if it weighed four hundred pounds. She stumbled to the edge of the wall, raised the tile over her head, and hurled it down.

  The ash demon dove after the tile, but it was too late. The red clay hit the stones and burst into a thousand pieces. At that exact moment, the Left Gate swung open and the mob, roaring its relief as it had a moment ago roared its frustration, poured through, spreading out like a flood of water, heading for the hills or the river, wherever they thought they could go for safety.

  In front of Mae Shan’s eyes, the ash demon scattered on the hot winds. She lowered her spear and wiped the sweat from her face. Tsan Nu stood before the battlements swaying on her feet. Mae Shan reached her just as she began to crumple, catching her thin, limp body and laying her down gently on the stones. She bent her ear to the child’s chest and heard her heart beat fast but steady, and felt the rise and fall of her chest. Tsan Nu was alive, and she would stay that way. She was only exhausted beyond her young endurance.

  “Rest then, mistress,” said Mae Shan, lifting the girl into her arms. “Chen, Kyun, we must be gone.”

  The boys gaped at her, and she could see that for once they were coming to understand what it truly meant to be a soldier and to serve until you had nothing left to give. Their parents should be proud, thought Mae Shan, for they both picked up their burdens and marched after her as she led them down to join the crowd and flee the city without once looking back.

  Chapter Ten

  Sakra stood outside the door of Ananda’s study, trying to rid himself of the childish wish to be elsewhere.

  The golden-haired page girl reappeared. “You may enter,” she said carefully, as if she were new to her post and still needed to make extra sure she spoke her piece correctly.

  Sakra gave the girl a smile he hoped was reassuring as he passed her. How old was she? Nine perhaps? The age of Bridget’s daughter.

  In the study, Ananda sat at her new-made writing desk, placing the cap on a crystal inkwell. Light streamed in through the tall windows in the solarium that had over the past three months been converted to a study for her private use. The bright sun had topped the walls and the beams slanted through the tiny diamond panes, throwing warmth, gold bars, and tiny rainbows across the floor lined with rushes and the carefully dried petals of last year’s roses, raising up a faint, fresh perfume that spoke of the coming of summer.

  On the other side of the room, her secretary, Mathura, worked steadily and quietly at his own copying. For the empress there was a great deal to be done. The long, slow dark season of contemplation, reading, and thoughtful conversation began to break up like the ice, opening clear, crooked paths that would turn into wide canals, and the torrent of the Isavaltan summer would soon flow free.

  He had lived in the north for six years, but this still felt strange for Sakra. In Hastinapura where the clime ranged from warm to torrid, life proceeded at a steady pace. The only pause came with the first and second rains, and those lasted a total of two months. Snow and cold came only in the high mountains on the border of Hung-Tse. Elsewhere, planting, growing, reaping, and travel, these things were continuous and there was no need to hurry them.

  But here, there were but a few short months before the cold came back, and the rasputitsa was the time when the whole world began to tense itself for the rush of warmth, green beauty, and dry roads that came with the spring.

  For all administrators, it was a time to write letters, to examine old accounts and note down plans for putting into play all the ideas that came in winter’s night. For Ananda, it was also the time to write to her parents in Hastinapura and give them all the news, and ask for all the news of family and the Pearl Throne. The ships would be leaving even sooner than the overland messengers. There was no ambassador from Hastinapura in Vysthavos. Medeoan had sent the last one back in disgrace, declaring him a thief and a womanizer, and there had been no chance for a new ambassador to arrive before the harbors froze. So there was only Ananda to tell her father, and the court of the Pearl Throne what had happened here, how Mikkel had come to the throne, and how all was now well.

  Or would have been well. Sakra’s jaw tightened.

  “Imperial Majesty,” Sakra said, dropping automatically into the language of their old home as he gave the salute of trust. She touched the back of his head, signaling that she accepted the fealty of his gesture and he could stand straight again. They had only resumed formalities since Mikkel had ascended the throne, and Sakra had been able to return openly to Vyshtavos. Ananda said she missed the casualness their clandestine meetings had enforced, but Sakra insisted. She was empress now, and they would celebrate that truth with all the honor it merited.

  Sakra straightened. He hoped she didn’t see how tired he was. His skin felt as if it had stretched itself tight across his bones. After Bridget had found her way to sleep, he had done nothing but walk the corridors, trying to understand what he felt, trying to decide for the first time since he was a boy what he wanted.

  “Marutha, I require privacy,” said Ananda. Marutha had apparently anticipated this, for his ink was capped and he laid a protective sheet of linen over his completed, dried correspondence. He reverenced, and took himself from the room.

  “What’s wrong, Sakra?” asked Ananda as soon as the door closed. She waved him to a chair. Of course she had seen it. They knew each other well. She looked weary herself, and he wondered what was the matter. He should not be here like this. She did not need any more troubles.

  I have looked after this girl, this woman, all of her life. Can she ever truly be less than the thing uppermost in my mind?

  “I am only tired, Majesty,” he said.

  “And you have something difficult to say,” prompted Ananda. “What news do you bring me, Sakra?”

  He knew her small, slightly apprehensive smile better than any other expression. His parents’ faces and the sights of his old home had long since settled into the deeper recesses of memory, but Ananda was ever before him, as it should be.

  Yet, all of a sudden he couldn’t look at her. He turned his face to the window. Below them spread Vyshtavos’s garden, the black and grey trees shedding their winter coverings of snow, and waiting for spring to bring their green robes. The imperial canal was a straight black line between banks patched brown and white like the coat of a mongrel dog.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw how Bridget looked the night before when she had fallen asleep. Her face had softened, and he saw how she might look in times to come, when the years of loneliness and struggle were put behind her, when she had a life with friends who esteemed her. When she had love.

  He remembered how he had been struck when he first saw her. Even when he thought she was Ananda’s enemy and therefore his, he found her magnificent. Not just for her beauty, although she was beautiful, nor for her power, which was blinding, but for the sheer strength of self and spirit in her. She would never bow, never bend, but meet her fate proudly.

  Even if it broke her. Sakra hung his head. Even if he broke her.

  How would it feel to meet Bridget’s child? To see her as a mother? How would it be to live beside her, to care for another child as he had cared for Ananda? Could he? Would duty permit?

  Did duty allow him room in his heart for anything but duty itself?

  I hate this place, he thought suddenly, vehemently toward the thawing garden. I hate this barbarian wilderness where its people dance through the chaos and don’t even realize there is a better way. It gets into the blood and the brain, and makes a new wilderness within. It is this place that has done this to me. I should not be thinking these things. I should not be feeling so for this woman. I am bound to Ananda, and that is my life until hers is over and I am freed, if I am freed, for there will be children and they too will need me.

  Mother Chitrani help me, for I also do not want this wilderness to forsake me.

  Without turning around, Sakra told Ananda of his co
nversation with Bridget the previous night, and of his conversation with Mistress Urshila earlier that morning. He heard no movement from Ananda. She sat still, drinking in his words, most likely trying to understand what in them was so important that he could not even look at her as he spoke. A child, a child thought dead and now alive. Ananda hoped for a child of her own soon. Sakra knew he would never have any. It was one of the prices of being a sorcerer. One, it seemed, of many, many prices.

  “Thank you for coming to me with this,” said Ananda, her voice tense and breathy beneath the formality of the statement. “I’ll now be ready when Bridget comes.”

  Sakra turned toward her again. “What will you say?” He felt as brittle as glass, and feared for a moment her answer might break him in two.

  She looked at him with startled eyes. Surely you know what I must say? her expression told him before she could speak. “That such a quest must wait until we know whether we have anything to fear from the Firebird.”

  Sakra was silent. She was so different from the girl he had shepherded to this wilderness. He wondered if Ananda herself even knew all the changes that had taken root within her. She was a diplomat and negotiator. She could give an order as frostily as any Isavaltan lady and command obedience as readily as her mother the First of All Queens did. She could see what was best for the realm she now ruled, and do what she had to, whether she wanted to or not.

  “You do not believe she will take such news well,” said Ananda with exaggerated mildness.

  He knew the remark was intended to raise the smile. He could not oblige.

  “What’s the matter, Sakra?” asked Ananda.

  What is the matter? Sakra’s arms tightened until the individual fibers spasmed beneath the skin. “I am betraying her,” he whispered, for there was no shout loud enough to release the anguish in him.

  Ananda simply frowned. “How is this betrayal?”

  For a moment Sakra was stunned. How could Ananda not understand at once? Surely it was obvious. “She does not know I am speaking with you, and she does not know I have spoken with Mistress Urshila. She does not want others making what she believes is a deeply personal decision.”

  “But you know it is not,” Ananda pointed out. “Nothing that concerns the well-being of Isavalta can be.”

  The room suddenly seemed too empty. There was too much room. There was nothing to hold the emotion in, no propriety, no witness to help keep feeling contained. For a moment Sakra thought he would overflow with what he was feeling, and he wondered what Ananda would do if he did. It would be as if the birds flew north for winter. He cared for her, he soothed her feelings and solved her problems, saved her life. He served her. She did not serve him.

  In the end he could only find words for part of the truth. “I do not want Bridget hurt.”

  Ananda was trying to understand, he could tell that much from her eyes. She was trying hard to fathom all that he had not said. She did understand he was distressed. “What would you have me do?”

  Release me from my bond. Leave me free to be with Bridget. Do not need me anymore. “If you could, Majesty, I would have you take her story at its face when she comes, and let us go.”

  “Why, Sakra?” she said, but in his mind, he heard her answer the words he had not spoken. How could you ask such a thing, even in your heart?

  “Because Mistress Urshila is right, and so is Bridget. We must not forget that the Vixen is involved in this, and thwarting her can only make what will be bad worse.” Because I am infected by Isavalta’s wilderness. Because I am in love.

  “You believe the Vixen is using Bridget?” Then you are as false as the lokai’s queen.

  “I do.” No, Ananda. I swear. I did not look for this. I never wished for release from my bond.

  “Does she realize this?” Can you even know what such love is? How can you be certain these feelings are true?

  “She does not wish to.” I can’t. I can only know they burn as if they were true.

  “And you will let it happen?” So you would have your oaths broken and abandon me for what might be nothing more than lust after a woman’s body and power?

  No. It was not that. He loved Bridget. He loved her smile and the light in her eyes. He loved her wit and her bravery. He loved the way he felt beside her, talking with her, sharing a joke or a fleeting touch. These things were real.

  “She is in danger. She denies it. She sees only her child, and that is the Vixen’s intent, and for the sake of duty and empire, and …” Heart. He could not speak the word. Not to Ananda. Not yet. He could barely speak it to himself. “I can only walk beside her into danger.”

  Walk beside her, to her other world, into the Vixen’s trap, because he could not abandon Bridget any more than he could abandon Ananda.

  “I will need you here, whatever comes.” That was nothing less than the truth too. Lord Daren, the other court sorcerers, they still saw Ananda as a “southerner,” as duplicitous as they feared all such were. It was out in the open now, how she had successfully pretended to possess the invisible gifts for the years of Mikkel’s enchantment. They looked at such a successful liar and their minds, honed by years of plotting in the court and out of it, walked the paths of suspicion. She needed someone she could trust who understood the world of magics. She needed the one who had been beside her in all other troubles. She would not be safe, or sure, if the Vixen took Sakra away.

  Or if Bridget took Sakra away.

  He couldn’t breathe. His lungs seemed to have shrunken, leaving no breath for speech. “I wish to be here,” he managed to whisper. That is true, that is true, I swear it is. “But I am afraid for what will happen if I do not walk with Bridget.”

  “What will happen if you do?”

  Sakra shook his head, his gaze wandering back to the window and the melting gardens. “I don’t know.”

  “You are not afraid of what will happen when you are gone?” Ananda tried to speak in a light tone, a gentle tease, but the attempt fell flat and her voice only sounded tremulous.

  “You mistake me, Majesty, I am terrified of what will happen.”

  Ananda was twisting her hands together in her lap. She pulled them apart ruthlessly, laying them on the chair arms. A thousand images ran through Sakra’s mind. Ananda looking up from a book in the queen’s library and grinning at Sakra, because she’d just read her first sentence. The thin, sprightly girl pouring her heart out to Sakra because she was twelve and getting love letters from someone who would not even sign his name, and she was sure she loved this anonymous someone more than anyone in the world. The touch of Ananda’s hand, right before she had to walk down the gangplank and set foot on Isavalta’s soil for the first time. All the hurried meetings, the desperate consultations, the hundred deceptions that her life in Isavalta became, and all the time spent, a whole life spent, if not beside her, out there, working for her, protecting her.

  “You love her,” Ananda said.

  “Yes.”

  Sakra met Ananda’s eyes, and saw the deep distress there. For one wild moment he wondered if she was jealous. Had she ever looked on Sakra with that kind of love? No. He was her older brother, her guard and guide. Mikkel was her lover, and Sakra had moved Heaven and Earth to bring Mikkel back to her, and they had both believed her gratitude to be boundless and the need for deceptions over.

  But here they were again, in a secret conference, voices hushed, heads bowed, afraid someone might hear what was said between them.

  It was her turn to look away. She looked at the letter she had been just beginning. She had written To My Beloved Father.

  What would come next?

  He thought Ananda was probably wondering the same thing. “I never thought of you loving anyone but … I never thought of it.”

  “Neither did I.” The words were rueful, but he was surprised to find there was wonder underneath them.

  “We knew things must change.” Platitudes. At such a time they had more between them than platitudes.

 
“Yes.” Sakra touched her hand, and Ananda stared at him, even though it was a gesture he had made a thousand times before. “But we did not know they would be like this.”

  She needed him. The set of her face, the dimness of her eyes, her whole being told him as much. She had thought once Mikkel was free, the worst would be over. But there had been no time to adjust, no real time to plan. No time to review and rearrange. The court was still largely the place Medeoan had made it, scheming, selfish, and petty. The lords master all gave their oaths eagerly, but did they all mean to keep them diligently? There was no way to tell, and so few that she could trust.

  And Mikkel still shuddered in his nightmares, still struggled with his duties. He needed her and she needed Sakra.

  “You’ve told me the Vixen plays long and complex games,” said Ananda, grasping at faint hopes. “Can we wait to make this move?”

  “I don’t believe we can.” He made a decision. If he framed his words carefully, perhaps he could spare them both some pain. “I will be no more than a day or two, depending on how fast we can make the crossing. I don’t believe the child can truly be alive. We will go swiftly and come back, and then you will have both Bridget and I to aid in whatever may come.”

  Outrage burned in Ananda’s eyes and Sakra knew he had made a disastrous mistake.

  “You don’t believe that,” she said. “You don’t.”

  Sakra closed his eyes, pained. He lied to her. He had tried to lie to her.

  “I hope,” he said, trying to undo what had just happened. “I hope only. I believe …”

  Grieved and furious, Ananda blurted out, “Must I order you to stay?”

  “You may order me to stay.” There was nothing but resignation in the words. He knew what he had done, and he accepted the consequences. “I am your servant.”