by Pat Esden
Lotli bent close, watching the circling egg. “Ask it how we can get out of here.”
“Show me a doorway,” I said. But the ache in my chest told me my heart longed to ask a different question. Where is Chase? Help me find him?
“You probably should be more specific,” Dad whispered.
I nodded and took another breath. “Where is a doorway that leads to what lies just beyond these walls?”
The tightness in my chest intensified. I lowered my palm and held the pendulum out in front of me, letting it swing as I walked forward: left, right, left, right, forward, back . . . changing direction when I went the wrong way, like the ticks of a metal detector homing in on a buried coin.
The egg stopped swinging and began to circle in front of a slender carpet decorated with a knife embraced by a long-stemmed white rose with clawlike thorns. I’d seen the design before over the door to the harem: the insignia of Malphic and Sovereign Mistress Vephra.
“This one,” I said.
“Good choice.” Dad nodded to a sheathed sword, leather gloves, and a long scarf hanging on a rack beside the carpet. Genies wore scarves like that because the realm’s salty air weakened them slightly. Most of the time, they just kept them looped around their necks. But when they wanted extra strength, they’d use the scarf to shield their mouth and nose from the air. It was the sort of personal item Malphic might want quick access to.
“If this is Malphic’s inner sanctum, I’m willing to bet this carpet might not change as often as the public ones,” I said.
“We think so as well.” Lotli started toward the carpet.
But before she beat me to it, I leaned forward. The carpet’s threads diffused into colored mist, and static shocks snapped against my skin as my face pressed through it. Beyond the carpet a narrow enclosed stairwell led steeply downward toward an opening illuminated by an eerie lime-green and orange glow, most likely nighttime darkness and firelight mixed with the realm’s ever-present auroras. The air echoed with the distant clank of metal against metal and lots of masculine grunts and groans. Chase. Maybe the pendulum had answered both of my questions.
I glanced over my shoulder at Lotli and Dad. “It’s a stairwell. There are men sparring, I think. But I can’t see anyone.”
“Chase,” Lotli cooed. Her hood might have shielded her face, but I knew there was a nasty glint in her eyes.
I bit my tongue, refusing to be baited into her trap. Instead I fixed my gaze on Dad and asked a question that was eating at me. “What did you stab the shadow with?”
He gave me a wink. “Remember the story about your great uncle Harmon and the Canary Islands sirens?”
“A salt shank?” I said, gaping at him. Harmon had escaped from the sirens by using a knife made out of salt. Kind of like how modern prisoners make shanks in jail by melting Jolly Ranchers. But when had Dad had time to make one? And, if he had, then why hadn’t he made them for all of us?
He tucked his hands into his pockets, his body going a bit too still. “Unfortunately I only had time to whip up one.”
I felt my face pale. He was lying for the second time today. My gut told me so. The way he was controlling his body language said it as well. But what was he hiding? It was possible that he’d swiped the shank from Moonhill’s treasury, instead of making it as he’d claimed. But I couldn’t imagine why he’d bother to lie about that. However, it made perfect sense for him to not want me to know he had another shank stashed if he intended to use it for a very dangerous and specific purpose. Something he didn’t want me involved in. Revenge.
CHAPTER 19
Perhaps it was the way Chase didn’t flinch when Malphic held the branding iron against his skin, or the way he protected the younger boys. But that child was different. I believe Malphic saw it, too.
—Susan Woodford Freemont
We slipped through the carpet and crept down the enclosed stairwell, our boots shushing against the stone treads. All around us, animal skulls studded the walls, their dark eyes and fanged jaws lit by glowing oil lamps. As we neared the stairwell’s mouth, the clang of metal and grunts grew louder, and the tang of the realm’s harsh air and bonfires filled my nose.
When I reached the last step, I held out my arm to stop Dad and Lotli. Cautiously, I walked out of the stairway’s protection and onto a broad landing that overlooked what couldn’t have been anything other than a training yard. Torches and fire pits flashed light across a maze of crowded fighting rings, some raised and others nothing more than worn spots in the dirt. Low, barrack-like buildings enclosed what I could see of the yard. Everywhere, dozens of boys—shirtless, skinny, and dirty with long, scraggly hair and sunburned skin—wrestled, boxed, or sparred with staffs and swords. Men and older teenagers shouted at them, jeering and giving sharp commands. Servants and eunuchs scurried through the haze of smoke and eerie light.
Chase had told me the daylight hours in the realm were too hot even for the genies’ fiery nature to do anything except rest. At night, their natural heat mixed with adrenaline, amplifying their abilities, as well as those of the half-genie slaves. Still, it was surreal to witness, bizarre and barbaric, like Attila the Hun might step out at any moment and announce a challenge.
But it is real, I reminded myself. It was also where Chase had grown up. This was his childhood. Kidnapped. Branded as a slave. Fighting to survive.
A deep sadness pressed against my chest. One time, Tibbs had talked to me about Chase’s life before he escaped and came to Moonhill.
Tibbs’s hands had stilled. “He fakes it real good, but Chase doesn’t get the same stuff we do, inside jokes about old TV shows or movies. He didn’t listen to the same music we did, snap selfies, or do any of the stuff normal kids did. He grew up training and watching friends die because they weren’t good enough. He grew up protecting people.”
That day, what Tibbs said only partly sunk in. But I hadn’t seen this yet.
“Impressive,” Lotli said, coming up beside me. “Yes, very much.”
Dad rested a hand on my shoulder. “I doubt Chase is down there, but you should try your egg to be sure, before we take off to find your mother.”
Lotli tsked. “No need for magic tricks. You may not see him. But we feel his presence.”
“Of course you do,” I said tartly.
She wet her lips. “We are surprised you don’t.”
Heat roared through my body, my anger a million hot spikes. I gritted my teeth. Evil bitch.
Dad squeezed my shoulder. “You all right?”
“Fine,” I snapped. “Let’s get going.”
His grip tightened. “First, I need both of you to promise you’ll let me do all the talking from here on out. We don’t need your womanly voices giving us away, eunuch doesn’t necessarily equal feminine. Agreed?”
“We agree,” Lotli whispered demurely.
“Yeah,” I said, wriggling from his grip.
He raised a finger, signaling he wasn’t done. “If we get separated or something worse happens, come back here. With its wards broken, the inner sanctum weak point is our best chance for escape. Understand?”
I nodded that I did. But there were a lot of ifs involved with escaping here or anywhere for that matter. If Malphic or his magi didn’t notice the broken wards and restore them. If we weren’t detected and lived to make it back to here . . . Ifs and more ifs that none of us could afford to think about at this point.
I strode away from Dad and Lotli toward a set of wide stairs that led down to ground level and the entry to the training yard. But I forced myself to stop and let them catch up. I couldn’t let my worries, or my temper for that matter, make me stupid. I was better than that. I had to be.
Together, we headed down. As Dad had pointed out, Lotli and I needed to be careful about talking, but that wasn’t the only thing. Olya had padded the shoulders of our robes. Our boots had thick soles and heels to make us taller. Of course our eyes were shadowed with kohl. Still I came across as a particularly small guy, and Lot
li looked more like a boy. All we could do was hope we’d fade into the background of eunuchs and servants in general.
“Looks like your pendulum was right,” Dad said, nodding at a colonnade to our left and in the opposite direction than the training yard. It was clear now that we’d descended from a squatty tower that sat atop the colonnade. Just beyond it was the horseshoe-shaped arena where I’d broken the egg and Chase had been forced to fight. Past that, the ornate spires and domed rooftops of Malphic’s main palace rose, ghostly light glowing behind its curtained windows. As the egg had indicated on my palm, we were outside the part of the fortress I was familiar with.
“Chase is that way.” Lotli jutted her hood toward the yard.
I resisted the urge to remind her that we’d planned to get Mother first. The truth was, both my heart and pulse were screaming to find Chase.
Dad put a finger to his lips and bowed his head as a group of servants carrying bottles of wine and bowls of shriveled mushrooms and half-rotted apples hurried past us into the training yard. Once they were a few footsteps ahead, he whispered, “Since we’re so close, we should at least locate Chase.” Then he took off, leading us into the yard, like we were just another group of servants.
Two brown-robed eunuchs rushed by us, their arms weighted down with blood-splattered clothing. When we passed a group of buckets filled with water, Dad snatched one by the handle. Good idea. It would make it look like we were on our way to do something specific. I grabbed another with a rag draped over its side.
Lotli’s hood brushed against mine. “A slop bucket. Suits you,” she snickered, too low to travel beyond my ear. Her voice took on a dangerous edge. “Remember. He belongs to me. . . .”
As her voice trailed off, a shooting pain slammed into my belly, agony ricocheting through my guts and down my legs. I hunched over, my fingers tightening around the bucket handle as I rode out the spasms. I wanted so badly to swing the bucket at her head. Drop her in her tracks. But I couldn’t call attention to us, or we’d all be dead. Not just me or her. But Dad, Mother, and Chase as well.
“Forsake,” she whispered. And the pain vanished, totally and in an instant.
“Screw you,” I spat. But she knew I would do as promised. She knew I didn’t have a choice.
I lengthened my strides, leaving her behind, moving ahead of Dad as well, past teams of naked boys wrestling on the ground. Bruises mottled their faces and bodies. Some had fresh gaping wounds. Others’ knuckles were wrapped in cloth, dirty and bloodied. All had brands on their collarbones, the youngest ones still pink, the older ones scarred over. Slave brands like Chase’s. I longed to locate him, and get this over with. But in a way, I hoped he wasn’t here. Finding him after Mother would give Lotli less time to screw with his head. I didn’t want to confuse him. I didn’t want him to think I didn’t care.
A dull headache throbbed at the front of my skull, and anger, frustration, longing, desperation—every emotion in the book—boiled inside me.
On a stone platform, a pair of teenage girls punched and kicked a boy whose hands were tied behind his back. Blood ran from his nostrils and speckled his ripped tunic. Shadow-genies and werewolf-like lealaps circled around cheering. Nearby, a man reprimanded a boy. The marks on the man’s body glowed like blue fire. Scars cross-thatched his face. The lower half of his body whirlwinded into a cyclone, and he slammed his fist into the boy’s neck. The boy dropped to the ground, vomiting. “Defend yourself, little bastard, or I’ll kill you,” the man snarled.
Dad started toward them. Holding tight to my bucket, I snagged his arm with my free hand and turned both of us away from the sight. But I could still hear the squelch of the man’s fist hitting flesh, hear the retching and smell blood and vomit—
My body went numb. I stopped walking and stared. On the farthest end of the yard near what most likely was the fortress’s massive outer wall, a blue glow burst upward from a large well or cistern. At least that’s how it appeared. It was hard to tell through the crowd and haze.
Adrenaline coursed into my veins. Could it be? Was it Chase’s aura?
I let go of Dad and hurried toward the well, the water in my pail sloshing. In a second, Dad and Lotli caught up with me. This time it was Dad snagging my arm to hold me back. “Be careful,” he whispered.
Sweat drizzled down my face, stinging my eyes. “It’s him. I know it.”
“Yes, it is,” Lotli purred.
We weaved through the crowd. Once we got closer, I could see the well was about twenty feet across with a waist-high stone wall surrounding it and an iron grate overtop. The blue light flared up though the grate’s bars, strobing like heat lightning.
A group of teenage boys in short, grubby tunics banged on the bars.
“Kill him!” one of them shouted.
Another shook his fists. “Use your knife! Gut him.”
Two women my age with swords strapped to their backs gazed downward, whispering to each other. I wormed my way in next to them and caught a few words.
“Satan’s balls, he’s as crazy as a stallion,” one of them said.
The other one giggled. “I’d ride him—even if he goes berserk.”
I set my bucket down and leaned over. In effect the grate was the top of a tall, narrow cage. Twenty or maybe thirty feet down, two shirtless men were fighting. Swirls of glowing marks covered their skin, brightening and dimming like heartbeats. Dirt and blood caked their arms and shoulders. The larger man leapt onto the cage’s bars, his long black braid snaking out behind him as he screamed like a banshee and cartwheeled back down, dagger glinting in his hand. The other man growled and spun, flowing white pants flaring, fist catching the larger man off guard. My heart screamed that he was Chase, but I couldn’t see him well enough to be sure.
A flash of firelight struck his face, and I was certain. Chase. Eyes wild. Blood trailing from his nose and mouth.
Lotli’s fingernails dug into my wrist. “Hurry. We must help him.”
She let go of me, snatched my bucket, and fled away from the hole. Dad gave me a puzzled look, but I didn’t take the time to answer. I gathered up the hem of my robe and sprinted after her. No matter how much I hated her, I knew hate wasn’t what she felt for Chase. She was up to something. Something that would help him.
CHAPTER 20
We are the Hexad. The banished ones.
The song of the stars. We whistle to the
wind with our grandmother’s bones
and drink the hummingbird’s power.
—“Song of the Hexad”
Lotli skirted around a line of punching bags and vanished through an arched doorway set into the fortress’s outer wall. Of course. It made perfect sense. There had to be a way down to the bottom of the fight cage, and this door was the closest one to the grate.
With Dad inches behind, I went under the archway and into a stifling-hot room that buzzed with flies and smelled like rancid milk. There were lines of wooden tables and benches. A boy slumped at one of them, sleeping with his head buried in his arms.
Lotli was a few feet away, desperately scanning the room, the bucket clutched against her stomach. I squared my shoulders and started searching. There were no other slaves or genies in the room. Narrow windows. Two other doors. The shape of a half wall struck me. It was the top of a stairwell.
I fast-walked toward it, dirt crunching under my boots. I was about to start down, when gravelly voices echoed up from below and three beefy men dressed in midnight-black leather tunics came into view, shoulder to shoulder, marching up the stairs toward me. Shit. I knew those uniforms, midnight-black with silver bracers, lots of tattoos, and scarves looped around their necks. These weren’t just any genies. They were members of Malphic’s guard.
I stepped to one side and cupped my mitt-covered hands behind my back, staring at the floor while I waited for them to reach the top. I could only guess it was the respectful thing to do. It seemed wiser than trying to plow through their ranks. I could only hope Dad and Lotli had do
ne the same thing.
Cold sweat iced my body as they slowly moved upward. I wished they would hurry. We needed to get to Chase. On top of that, it would be a miracle if none of them picked up on the fact that we weren’t eunuchs they’d seen before.
“Glad my watch is over,” a guard with a rough voice said. “I don’t want to be around when that one snaps.”
I scuffed backward, my chills transformed into sheer terror. He sounded like the Hulk, a guard I’d run into the last time we were here. He would have forced himself on me if I hadn’t threatened him with a knife and said I was a gift for the Sovereign Mistress’s pleasure.
Careful to keep my hood close around my face, I glanced at him. His skin was a deep russet and he had a curly black beard. Definitely not the Hulk. He’d been clean-shaven, except for a narrow strip of beard.
Curly Beard stopped on the top step and swiveled toward the other guards. “Malphic’s going to regret not gelding that bastard.”
The tallest guard snorted. “If he lives.”
Curly folded his arms across his chest. “Fuck. You remember what he did to Malphic? Beat the hell out of him and claimed his knife as a prize. He was a snot-ass kid then—not a berserker.”
“Death Warrior,” the third guard corrected.
“I don’t care what anyone calls them,” the tall guard scoffed. “This guy isn’t going to make it that far. Did you see his eyes? He won’t make it through another fight.”
I could barely breathe. They were talking about Chase. I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. How long were they going to stand there bullshitting and blocking the stairway? Couldn’t they see we were waiting?
Finally, their conversation died. They came up the last step and marched past us without a single glance.
I darted down the stairs, Dad and Lotli trailing. With each step, the light from above faded, darkness growing deeper. The air filled with the sharp reek of body odor and urine.