The Last Namsara

by Kristen Ciccarelli

  Safire strode into the tent then, her eyes sweeping the premises before coming to settle on Asha.

  “Saf,” she pleaded. “What’s happened?”

  “Come on.” Safire slid an arm around her shoulder. “I’ll bring you to him.”

  “When you didn’t return to our tent, I went looking for you,” Safire explained as they strode through New Haven. “Halfway up the valley, I found a group of Haveners in the woods, cursing someone curled on the ground, feeding kicks into his gut and back.”

  Safire swept aside the flap of a small tent. From inside, Asha heard raised voices.

  “They tried to break his leg, but I stopped them.”

  Inside the tent, Asha found a row of cots, a dirt floor, and . . . a shirtless Torwin reaching for the bundle of clothes Callie held behind her back.

  “The physician said you need to rest!” Callie’s index finger sliced the air, pointing to the cot.

  “Give me my shirt,” Torwin snarled. His hair was damp with sweat and his eyes seemed strangely hollow.

  “Get in the cot!”

  He was about to shout something back when he noticed the newcomer. At the sight of her, the fight rushed out of him.

  “Asha.”

  Torwin looked her over, as if checking her for wounds. When he didn’t find any, he shook away the relief in his eyes and turned back to Callie.

  “I’ll stay if Asha stays with me.”

  Callie shook her head in disbelief. Giving up, she marched right past Asha and out of the tent, taking his clothes with her.

  In spite of everything, Torwin smiled a victorious smile, just for the scarred girl standing in the entrance. It made Asha wonder if he even noticed the way Callie was around him. If he had any inkling at all.

  Thinking of Dax’s warning, she said, “I just came to make sure you’re all right.”

  Torwin moved toward her, a little stiffly. He was obviously hurt, his leg in particular.

  “I can’t stay,” she said, stepping back. “This is what happens when I’m near you.” She forced herself to turn, to head for the entrance. “I’ll see you tonight. At the—”

  “They gave me a sleeping draught.”

  Because you need to rest, she thought, fingers reaching for the tent flap.

  “Do you know what it’s like, being trapped inside nightmares all night?”

  Asha faltered.

  “Nightmares . . . about you.”

  She didn’t turn back. Just stared at the tent flap, where Safire waited on the other side.

  “They’re always about you,” he whispered.

  The words wrapped around her heart and squeezed.

  Torwin reached for her wrist, his fingers gentle. Asha let him turn her. Let him draw her in close. When she didn’t pull away, his forehead fell against her shoulder, as if Asha—only Asha—was the balm for a hidden wound.

  “Over and over again, I watch them hunt you down.” He shuddered. “And I can never stop them.”

  She looped her arms around his neck, holding him tight, the way her mother used to do in the face of her own nightmares.

  “I’m right here,” she said, pressing her cheek to his. “I’m safe.”

  Asha ran her fingers through his hair, trying to soothe him. But her fingers caught. And when they came free, a sick feeling coiled like a snake in her belly.

  Very slowly, she pulled her hand away. Stepping back, out of his arms, she stared down at her hand.

  A thick clump of his hair lay in her palm.

  The past rose up before her. Asha suddenly remembered stroking her dying mother’s hair. Remembered the way her fingers caught the dark strands coming out in clumps.

  Asha choked on a startled sob. She raised her eyes to Torwin’s thinning face.

  “No . . . ,” she whispered. But Torwin only stared at her, confused.

  A fierce and desperate anger swept through her.

  “Are you telling the old stories?”

  He frowned at her, his confusion deepening. “What?”

  “The stories!” she demanded, her hand closing around his hair. “Are you telling them?”

  He shook his head no. “I don’t know them well enough.”

  “Then it must be the dragons.” She started to pace, tried to think. “I’ll get someone else to train the riders. You can stay in the camp. . . .”

  He reached for her. “What are you talking about?”

  Asha let him take her hands in his trembling ones, stopping her pacing footsteps.

  She looked down at their interlaced fingers. His were flecked with freckles, hers were hardened with scars. He still wore her mother’s ring.

  The ring.

  It was the same ring Asha’s mother wore on her deathbed, carved and given to her by the dragon king. The dragon king was always carving things out of bone for his wife to wear.

  It should have been burned with her other possessions, but it wasn’t. Her father kept it. And then he gave it to Dax.

  Dax, who shared all their mother’s symptoms . . .

  . . . until he gave it to Asha.

  But Asha had only worn it a day before giving it to Torwin as a promise. And Torwin had been wearing it ever since.

  Now he too was showing signs.

  Father carved it out of bone, she thought. Why would . . . ?

  A story flickered in her mind. A story about a queen who poisoned her guests with dragon bone ash. The slaves found the guests dead, their bodies like hollow shells.

  The horror of it dawned on her. Asha grabbed Torwin’s wrist, needing to get the ring off.

  “Ouch! Asha, you’re—”

  She twisted, then pulled hard.

  The ring came free.

  Asha had spent eight years hunting dragons. She knew how to bring one down. Knew how to skin one. Knew what all the various parts could be used for.

  And she knew one thing most of all: when someone was burned by dragonfire, the only thing strong enough to draw the toxins out was the poison of dragon bone. But used alone, in small amounts, it was just as deadly as dragonfire, slowly leaching the body of life.

  As she stared down at the ring, Asha thought of the queen who had killed her enemies by putting a pinch of dragon bone ash in their food at night. The ring on Asha’s palm—the ring her father made for her mother—was made of that same deadly substance.

  “He murdered her,” she realized aloud. “And then he tried to kill Dax.”

  Torwin stared as if she were speaking an unknown language.

  “Come with me,” she said, taking his hand in hers.

  Torwin obliged, letting her lead him out of the tent.

  She found Dax and handed him the ring. With Torwin looking on, Asha explained: it wasn’t the stories that killed their mother. It was the ring. And maybe more than that. Everything their father ever carved for his wife to wear, Asha was willing to bet, was made out of the poisonous dragon bone. It only seemed like the stories killed her, because that’s when the symptoms started.

  Thanks to the eavesdropping slaves, everyone knew the dragon queen had been telling her daughter the old stories. Everyone knew she was committing a criminal act.

  “And what better way to prove the stories were wicked than with the death of a storyteller?”

  Dax stared at her, his jaw hardening, his hands turning to fists. She could see the thoughts churning in his eyes. The pieces of a puzzle coming together.

  “What if it wasn’t just one storyteller?” he whispered, as if to himself.

  Asha frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “If the old stories were never deadly,” he said, looking at her, “what killed the raconteurs?”

  Or rather, who killed them?

  The question unearthed something in Asha.

  She thought of a certain tapestry hanging in her father’s throne room. Of the woman who was queen at the time of the Severing. A queen who needed to prove the Old One had turned against her people.

  “You think our grandmother pois
oned the storytellers?”

  Dax said nothing. He didn’t need to.

  The world spun.

  If the stories were never poisonous, if they never killed anyone, then they were never wicked. Which meant Asha was never wicked for telling them.

  Not only had the dragon king turned his daughter against Kozu, the Old One, her own self . . . he had killed her mother. And then he had tried to kill her brother.

  He’d tried to strip Asha of everything she ever loved. Which made her new purpose sparklingly clear: she would do the same to him.

  Forty

  Asha called twelve dragons over a span of five days. By the time the caravan arrived from the scrublands, she was beyond weary. She wanted to rest for a month. But the wedding was tonight, and tomorrow they went to war.

  There was no time for rest.

  At dusk, Asha and Safire set out for the center of camp, cleared of tents for the ceremony. Asha wore a dress the color of blood and fire. It was a simple, modest dress that laced up at the back and fell to her knees. It had been waiting in their tent. She asked Safire where it came from.

  “Jas, I think. He came by earlier. He says he’s hoping to dance with you.”

  “I hope you told him I don’t dance,” she said, looking around her. New Haven—full of dirty, stinking rogues just that morning—had transformed into a polished, respectable collection of scrublanders, skral, and draksors, all waiting for the bride to make her way to the binding circle. Lanterns were lit and placed on the ground, forming a circle in the dirt around Dax, who wore what seemed like the only clothes he’d brought with him.

  Another crude circle made of cedar benches ringed the lanterns. The logs had been chopped and fastened that morning, and as Asha sat down on one, she breathed in the sweet smell.

  From farther down the bench, a conversation caught her ear.

  “How could I turn down that offer?” said an elderly skral with short, graying hair. She sat next to a young draksor, sharing her ale jug.

  “But you’ve lived in Firgaard all your life. It’s your home.”

  “Is it?” the old woman leaned toward the girl. “Or is it a cage I’ve just gotten free of?”

  The draksor passed her the jug. “So you’ll go to the scrublands after all this is over.”

  The skral woman took a swig, then wiped her mouth with her wrist. “I reckon most of us will. There’s land out there. The scrublanders say if we can work it, we can have it. If we stay in Firgaard, most of us will be homeless and starving by month’s end.”

  “Lord Dax would never let that happen.”

  “Lord Dax will have plenty more to worry about than us skral. Trust me, girl. I’ve lived through three uprisings.”

  “Failed uprisings,” the draksor pointed out.

  The skral woman only shrugged. “Even if Lord Dax wins tomorrow, he could fail the day or the month or the year after. He’ll be making a lot of enemies if he takes his father’s throne. And those enemies will want to take it out on someone. I’ve spent my whole life among you. I know exactly who that someone will be.” She tapped her chest with her index finger. “No one’s going to look out for us. We need to look out for ourselves.”

  She offered the jug back to the girl, who shook her head.

  “It might be worse out there.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” said the skral, taking another full swig of ale.

  A hush fell over the camp. Roa had left her tent. As the silence descended, Asha watched the scrublander girl move through the parted crowd. She wore a sleeveless cotton dress with a neckline that scooped wide but not low. Her skin gleamed in the lantern light and her eyes shone like dark pools.

  The moment she stepped into the circle, something shifted. Asha saw a girl who was already a queen. Roa, daughter of the House of Song, was graceful, dignified, and . . . a little bit fierce.

  “What is bound here tonight can never be unbound!” said Jas. There were no guardians present to perform the rites, so Roa’s brother had stepped in. “I weave these lives together as one. Only Death can break these threads and tear them asunder.”

  Roa recited the words first, her voice shining like a blade: “May Death send his worst! Cold to freeze the love in my heart. Fire to burn my memories to ash. Wind to force me through his gate. And time to wear my loyalty away.”

  Her eyes held Dax’s as Willa’s words spilled from her lips, ringing with power.

  “I’ll wait for you, Dax, at Death’s gate.”

  Shivers ran across Asha’s skin.

  Dax repeated the lines. Where Roa’s voice had been steady, his trembled with emotion.

  “May Death send his worst! Cold to freeze the love in my heart. Fire to burn my memories to ash. Wind to force me through his gate. And time to wear my loyalty away.”

  He took her hand in his with a startling gentleness.

  “I’ll wait for you, Roa, at Death’s gate.”

  After their wrists were bound, they raised their clasped hands for the camp to bear witness. Cheers rose up like waves. Chaos descended as draksors lifted Dax high above their heads. Scrublanders lifted Roa, chanting now, intent on carrying them both to Dax’s tent.

  Asha watched the couple’s eyes meet. Watched her brother smile a little nervously. And then they were gone, whisked out of sight.

  Forty-One

  After the ceremony, musicians played within the circle of lanterns as draksors and scrublanders danced around them. Asha sat on one of the benches ringing the dancers, waiting for Safire to return with food.

  Separated from her by a sea of revelers, a certain lute player kept time in the dirt with his heel while his fingers coaxed song after song from his lute strings. The scrublander beside him, a broad-shouldered man with a round belly and sparkling eyes, beat out a rhythm on his hand drum, striking it with his palm and singing the words, while Callie played the reed pipes on Torwin’s other side, dancing as she did.

  Suddenly, someone stepped in front of Asha, cutting the musicians off from view.

  Asha looked up into kind eyes framed by thick lashes. Jas, in all his handsome glory, smiled down at her. He smelled like cardamom and citrus.

  “I don’t dance,” Asha said before he could ask.

  “So I’ve been told.” He pointed to the empty space on the bench beside her. “Can I sit with you?”

  By the time she opened her mouth to say it was reserved for Safire, he had already taken it.

  They sat in silence a moment, staring at the dancers, who were a blur of color and limbs and faces. Asha watched Callie’s dress twirl around her thighs as she spun, barefoot, in the dirt.

  “Dax says you love the old stories,” Jas said, watching a scrublander girl with gleaming black curls that spilled down her back.

  Asha looked at him. “I suppose he’s right.”

  “He also said you burned the only copies in the city.”

  Asha flinched at the memory.

  Seeing her reaction, Jas went on. “I wanted to extend an official invitation to the House of Song.” He glanced back at the dancing scrublander girl, and from the affectionate look in his eyes, Asha thought she must be a friend. “So many stories are lost, but our library has a small collection. If you came to visit, you would have access to it. You could transcribe them, if you wanted to.”

  Asha couldn’t remember the last time a stranger had been so kind to her. It made her smile. Just a little.

  Seeing it, Jas smiled too. It was a bright, shining thing that lit him up from the inside.

  “As for the forgotten ones,” he said, “maybe you could find them.”

  Asha frowned. “Where would I even start looking?”

  “You’re a hunter, aren’t you? Instead of hunting dragons . . .” He paused, checking to see if he had offended her. “You could hunt down the lost stories and bring them back to us. Restore our traditions. Make our realm whole again.”

  But stories couldn’t save the realm. Only the death of Asha’s father could.

&nbs
p; Jas was so full of optimism, though, she didn’t say this aloud.

  “And now I think you should dance with me.”

  Asha looked at him, her lips parting in surprise. She looked to the dancing scrublander, her curls spilling over her shoulders, her face turned up to the stars as she danced with two other girls.

  “Why don’t you ask your friend?”

  Jas looked where Asha looked. “Who? Lirabel?” He bit his lip, as if the thought scared him a little. “She already has two dancing partners.” He turned back to Asha. “Besides, I’m asking you.”

  He seemed determined to be her friend. Her. A girl he’d been taught to despise. Because he was a scrublander, and she was a draksor.

  It made Asha feel . . . strangely honored.

  “I don’t know how,” she admitted.

  “Neither do I, really.”

  Asha bit down on a smile. “All right. One dance. But if it ends horribly, it’s not my fault. You were warned.”

  Jas grinned. He rose and pulled her to her feet. But as they moved into the sea of dancers and skirts flared against her legs, Asha’s palms started to sweat. She remembered why she never did this: it made her feel clumsy and foolish.

  She looked to Callie, her feet moving to the tune of her reed pipe. She looked to Jas’s friend, her smile as bright as the moon. Dancing was for other girls. Not death bringers.

  Jas slid his arm around her waist.

  “Ready?” he asked as the next song started up.

  Asha wasn’t ready. In fact, she was starting to panic. But even if she could find her voice to say so, the beat of the drum and the chime of the lute and the whisper of reed pipes would have drowned her out.

  And then, just as Jas’s fingers slid between hers, ready to lead her in the steps, something caught her eye.

  Torwin stood at the edge of the dancing circle—where Asha had been sitting just moments ago. He wore a simple white shirt, unlaced at the throat, revealing his sharply defined collarbone.

  The sight of him tugged at her heart.

  Asha glanced to the musicians. Next to Callie, a gangly draksor boy stood plucking the strings of Torwin’s lute.

  She looked back to Torwin. He’d caught sight of her and was now watching her and Jas dance, his lips parted in surprise, his eyes full of . . . hurt.