“I’m sorry, Mae,” he said, then let it slip from his hands.
He walked for a long while among the blooming fields. When he could take it no more, he found a tree as misshapen as any he’d ever seen and lay down near its base. There he wept, while above him, around him, the trees swayed with a sound like the world was breaking.
He felt Rümayesh rising up once more, and this time Brama did nothing to stop her.
Chapter 50
NIGHT HAD FALLEN over Sharakhai by the time Davud arrived at a stately home just north of the collegia grounds, the latest and most opulent of the many safe houses they’d hidden in over the course of the past several months. He entered through the front door without knocking. Inside, near the hearth and its dying fire, a man sat in a rocking chair knitting what looked to be a rather lumpy head scarf. As Davud added a few logs and coaxed the fire back to life, the old man, bald on top with white hair sticking out everywhere else like a horsehair brush, stared into the flames, ignoring Davud entirely. He was a wealthy caravan owner whose entire family had been killed during the Malasani invasion. The fates had spared him when they’d sent him to the western harbor to conduct a bit of business. Now he chose to live alone, keeping to himself, leaving room after room empty and unused.
Davud adjusted the shawl around his shoulders so he’d be more comfortable, then took the nearby stairs up to the third floor and entered the largest of the home’s generous chambers. Esmeray lay in the bed, half covered by the rich sheets, reading a book of poetry by lamplight.
As Davud began to undress, Esmeray’s gaze flicked up from the pages. “The fates were stingy, I take it.”
He hopped naked into the bed. “They’re always stingy.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She flipped a page. “They shone on you when they led you to that cemetery.”
Davud tried to stifle a laugh, failing miserably. She was referring to the day they met, when she’d attacked him and the ghul, Fezek, had come to his rescue. “Some might consider it a curse.”
“A curse on me!”
He took the bottle of scented oil from the table on his side of the bed and pulled back the covers. After pouring a drizzle over Esmeray’s belly, he rubbed the oil into her skin using slowly expanding circles that centered on the well of her bellybutton. The air smelled of cloves. “Is this what you call a curse?”
She shrugged. “It’s the one thing that isn’t.”
He felt how tight her muscles were as they rolled beneath his fingertips, then smiled as they relaxed. Esmeray seemed to enjoy these intimate moments, but they were a solace for Davud as well, a glimpse of normalcy in the madness that made up their lives.
Esmeray’s eyes floated down the page as she read the poem. “And where did you go searching?” She asked as if she didn’t care about the answer, but Davud could tell she did.
“The dormitories,” he said. “I spent over an hour in Cassandra’s old room.”
“Nowhere else?”
Davud closed his eyes, knowing she already knew the answer. “Fine, I went to Nebahat’s lair.”
She lay her book down. “We agreed, Davud. You said you’d leave that place alone.”
“I know, but I wanted to find Nebahat’s assistant again. He knows Nebahat’s secrets. I’m sure of it.”
“I don’t doubt that he does”—she’d begun reading again, but her face was so screwed up in anger he doubted a single word of it was sinking home—“but what good is that if you’re dead?”
Davud’s hand slowed over her stomach. He admitted it. He was entranced by the strange young man they’d stumbled across. He had the uncanny ability to counter and defeat magical spells, but more than that, Davud suspected he was a storehouse of information. The way he’d used the books to tell stories made it clear he’d read many of the ancient texts Nebahat had hidden away in his lair below the collegia.
“It wasn’t worth it,” Esmeray went on. “Not unless you’re willing to give the rest of it up. The Enclave, Queen Meryam, the tributes she’s sending to the blooming fields.”
“You’re right.” It had been a stupid risk that jeopardized everything. “I won’t do it again.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
She pulled the book aside and stared along the length of her body. “Promise me on my belly.”
Davud’s face suddenly felt very hot. “You’re not . . . ?”
She paused, confused for a moment, then laughed long and hard—a genuine laugh, not the sort she used to mock. “Good gods, no, Davud. I know the right herbs to use. Now promise me on my belly!”
He leaned over and kissed her stomach. “I promise,” he said to her bellybutton, then kept rubbing. “You said you were going to see someone who works in the Sun Palace?”
The woman he was referring to was the palace’s primary archivist. At Esmeray’s urging, the woman had made friends with Basilio, Queen Meryam’s vizir. They were hoping to find someone, anyone, who might tell them what Meryam hoped to do with the tributes, and whether or not she still hoped to lead Davud and Esmeray to their graves.
“She’s made inroads with Basilio,” Esmeray said, “but he hasn’t said much. He did let slip that Queen Meryam just returned from Mazandir.”
They’d known that Meryam had left. It was the sort of secret one couldn’t keep for long in a place the size of the Sun Palace. She’d been gone for nearly two weeks, but they’d never learned where.
“Mazandir,” Davud mused while kissing her bare shoulder. “What’s there?”
“Basilio wouldn’t say. Something big, apparently.”
“Well,” he said, placing another kiss on her bared breast, “she’ll just have to ply him for more secrets.”
She set her book aside with a grin. “Perhaps you have thoughts on the best way for her to go about it? A way for her to ply, as it were.”
“I do . . .” He was just running his hand down one hip and along her thigh, but froze when he felt a tingling sensation inside his chest.
Esmeray noticed. “What is it?”
He threw back the covers. “Someone’s coming.”
They both threw on their clothes. Esmeray rushed to the nearby window while Davud headed for the chamber door, planning to head downstairs. That’s when they heard the entrance door open below.
“Davud!” barked a voice that sounded distressed, in pain, perhaps.
“It’s Undosu,” Esmeray said.
They rushed down the stairs but hadn’t even reached the first landing before they heard a thud, as of something heavy falling. They found Undosu unconscious and curled up in a ball near the base of the stairs.
Esmeray crouched beside him. “Gods, what happened?”
His eyes fluttered open. His hat was gone, and he was bleeding from a bad cut to his scalp. A sheet of crimson stained his dark, wrinkled skin. Worse, he was holding his left arm tenderly. His forearm looked badly burned, but not from a fire. The skin had bubbled, revealing patches of raw flesh beneath.
“This old man wasn’t careful enough,” he said through gritted teeth. “They found me.”
“Who?”
“Prayna and Nebahat.” He tried to pull himself up. Esmeray pushed him back down, but paused when Undosu began shaking his head violently. “They’re coming, girl! We have to warn Meiying.”
Just then the front door creaked. It shook and rattled, then bent inward, straining against the hinges.
“Get down!” Esmeray yelled.
They ducked as the door exploded inward. Wood flew everywhere, shards embedding themselves in the furniture or the walls. A sound like sizzling meat filled the air as wood and plaster fell against the hardwood floor.
“The back door,” Esmeray hissed, and pulled Undosu to his feet. But they hadn’t even taken a step toward the hall leading to the rear of the house when they heard the back doo
r explode as well.
“Upstairs!” Davud hissed. “I’ll slow them down.”
Esmeray helped Undosu up the stairs as rapidly as the old man’s shaking legs would allow. Davud, meanwhile, called a shimmering blue shield into being. As he backed up the stairs, his eyes fixed on the entrance, he saw the old man, their benefactor, cringing behind the wood cradle. Stay small, Davud thought. Stay silent.
He reached the landing at the top of the first staircase and had started up the next flight when a blast of green fire streaked up the stairway, ricocheted off his shield, and plowed into the ceiling. More plaster rained down. By then Davud was sprinting up the stairs to the third level.
On the floor above he felt Esmeray constructing the framework for a spell. It was a spell she couldn’t execute—her ability to use magic had been burned from her—but she and Davud had learned how to work together. She created the frameworks, he brought the spells to life. It allowed them to cast more spells than Davud could alone.
He was just infusing the spell with power when footsteps resounded on the stairs below. “Come quietly, Esmeray, and we’ll spare you!”
It was Esmeray’s brother, Esrin, which meant her sister Dilara was likely the one who’d blown the back door in.
“Come upstairs,” Esmeray barked from above, “and you’ll see what happens to those who break into my home.”
Davud felt her spell spread along the stairs behind him. It cascaded like a waterfall, and where it touched, thin shoots grew. They thickened into switch-like branches, which grew thorns and began to wave wildly in the air. Soon the stairwell was choked with them, and Esrin was caught in it. He gave a sudden cry of pain, which was followed by the crackle of flames. Flickering light filtered through the branches, then a thick, black smoke roiled up the stairwell. Davud’s nose burned from the noxious smell of it. His eyes itched and began to tear.
By the time Davud reached the third floor, Esmeray was guiding Undosu toward the small patio at the back of the house, creating the framework for another spell as she went. As they burst through the patio doors, Davud poured his reserves of raw power into her spell. The wooden table, the chairs around it, and the awning above shattered into a thousand pieces and rearranged themselves, forming a narrow walkway that bridged the distance over the alley behind the house to the building directly opposite.
They’d made it only halfway across when a great ball of flame lit the alley below and streaked upward, narrowly missing them. “You shouldn’t have run!” Dilara called. “It’s just going to go harder on you!”
Esmeray glanced down. “Eat shit, Dilara!” she cried, then dove as a spray of needles screamed up from the alley below, catching Davud across the calf of one leg.
Davud sucked air through his teeth against the pain. They paused only long enough to remove the barbed needles, then sprinted as quickly as Undosu’s infirmity and Davud’s wounded leg would allow. After crossing the roofs of several more buildings, they made their way down to street level and headed toward Tsitsian Village, the immigrant neighborhood where Meiying lived. They managed to stay ahead of Esrin and Dilara, but only just. Undosu could hardly walk, and the spells Davud used to hide their presence never seemed to work for long, the blood magi on their trail somehow managing to pierce them. By the time they came to the street where Meiying lived, Davud was flagging badly. He’d never cast so many spells in so short a time.
“She’s just there,” Esmeray said, pointing to a wooden archway lit brightly by the red lanterns hung along the street.
The three of them stopped short, however, when they saw someone walking down the center of the crowded street straight toward them. Gods, it was Nebahat, wearing a rich khalat of earthen tones, his forehead painted orange with a bright yellow circle at its center. The women and men outside the brothels watched, many with amusement. More and more, though, were backing away from a confrontation they were just starting to realize would be healthier to be as distant from as possible by the time it began.
As the street devolved into a panicked rush, Esmeray pointed to the nearby archway. “Through there, quickly.”
Undosu groaned as they all but carried him through the arch. They were met with a rock garden with sculpted sand for a bed. In the center of it stood a woman, half of her lit in the ruddy light of the distant lanterns. It was Prayna, and at her feet, sprawled on the white sand, was a woman in a silver silk dress—Meiying, unconscious.
Moments later, Nebahat prevented their retreat when he stepped into the archway they’d just passed through. Dilara and Esrin were right behind him.
“Please,” Davud said, his breath coming in great heaves, “we needn’t be enemies—”
“Watch out!” Prayna called.
Davud hadn’t realized it, but Undosu was drawing a sigil in the air. The next moment Dilara had her hands to her chest, her eyes and mouth wide in an expression of pure pain. And when Undosu jerked one hand back, the front of her jalabiya snapped outward with a brittle crunch.
She cried out, a sound of simple surprise, while staring down at the strange lump in her chest. Her hands pressed against the wound, as if she might hold it all in and in so doing save her own life. Then she simply collapsed.
“Dilara!” Esrin cried, and dropped to her side.
Nebahat, meanwhile, released a bellowing roar and sent a snaking line of green light toward Undosu, who had been trying to erect a shield. The shield, shimmering in the air ahead of him, burst into a cascade of golden light as Nebahat’s spell pierced it. Undosu was struck along the top of his skull. Red shone, bits of white. A moment later, he collapsed to the ground.
“Esrin, don’t!” Prayna shouted. “I wish to speak with them!”
Davud had been so preoccupied with Undosu he hadn’t noticed Esrin coming to a stand. He stared at Davud with naked fury while a ball of flame roiled between his outstretched hands. Strangely, the flames shrunk and fizzled a moment later. He tried again, and this time only a spark was lit before the spell was snuffed out.
Prayna scanned the darkness, looking for the new threat. She sketched a sigil in the air before her, but nothing happened.
Davud had seen such things before, had felt them, in fact, when Ramahd Amansir, the Qaimiri lord, had sapped the energy from his spells. He’d felt like a child all over again, powerless to prevent the gutter wrens from stopping him and stealing his caramel sweets.
No sooner had Ramahd’s name come to him than the man himself appeared in the street behind Nebahat and Esrin. Beside him came another. By the gods who breathe, it was Hamzakiir. Two more stood behind them. Davud knew them both, though it took him a moment to recognize them. One was a tall man in black armor with a bloody great two-handed shamshir in his hands. The other was shorter, and held a gleaming war hammer easily in his right hand. They were Husamettín, King of Swords, and Cahil the Confessor.
A third King joined them a moment later: King Ihsan, hands raised in a placating gesture. “Now why don’t we discuss this like civilized people?”
There was a long, pregnant pause, and then the garden exploded into action.
When Esrin sent a quick but weak spell toward Husamettín, Husamettín lifted a shield and blocked it, then both he and King Cahil charged. Cahil threw his hammer, which smashed through a forming, scintillating spell and crashed into Esrin’s face. Esrin cried out in pain as he was thrown backward over a lump of rock.
Hamzakiir, meanwhile, was gathering a ball of inky darkness. Nebahat managed to throw one spell at him, an orb of fire, cast with blinding quickness, but Hamzakiir lifted one hand away from his spell and blocked it with astounding ease. His other hand released the spell of darkness, which flew hungrily toward Nebahat, twisting and turning like a midnight bat, and struck him dead in the chest. The spell sunk into his ribs and flesh, devouring hungrily, gouging a hole so large it looked like a bone crusher had been at him for hours. Arms flailing for purchase, Neba
hat fell backward and lay still as the sizzling darkness continued to devour him.
Things were happening so quickly Davud hadn’t noticed the throwing star in Prayna’s right hand. He couldn’t have done anything about it if he had—he was too exhausted to cast another spell—but he saw who she was aiming for.
“Ramahd!” he called out, but too late.
Prayna’s arm snapped forward. The star flew through the air, catching Ramahd in the shoulder. Two more followed and sunk into his flesh as he was stumbling backward from the first.
At the same time, Esrin stood from where he’d fallen and flung his arms high. The sand and rocks in the garden lifted and swirled, worse than a sandstorm. They stung and they bit, sometimes cutting deeply where skin was exposed. Davud, powerless to stop it, held Esmeray to his chest and waited for the storm to pass.
When the wind finally died and the air began to clear, Prayna and Esrin were gone.
Chapter 51
QUEEN MERYAM SAT AT THE CENTER of the table in the Sun Palace’s grand council room, the seat once occupied by Kiral, King of Kings. A terrible sandstorm had swept through the city, and dust was kicking up in droves everywhere, even here in the palace. It made Meryam’s eyes itch. Made her lips crack and bleed.
As they waited for Queen Nayyan to arrive, the lesser Kings and Queens chatted. Meryam ignored them entirely, cradling a brew of her own making between her hands, a combination of kahve, ginseng, and the finest Mirean schisandra her physic had been able to procure. With the fabled elixirs all gone, the last consumed before reaching Mazandir, the revitalizing mixture was necessary. Still, Meryam could hardly keep her eyes open. They stung, and not just from the dry air. Her body ached. Every time she sat still she felt as if a black hole were opening up inside her, threatening to drag her down into slumber. She was tempted to let it. She could just lay her head down on the table and sleep while the others prattled on.
When Jackals Storm the Walls Page 45