Zadikah shut the door behind them. Kiran said to her, “Water has nothing to do with your plan. You sent them away on purpose.” He’d spent too much time around Dev to miss the gleam of calculation in her eyes. “What didn’t you want them to hear?”
Zadikah said, “Let me offer Janek to Yashad. For a surviving child of her house, she’ll give me any charms I ask. She won’t have any hint of your involvement, so you’ll have no need to worry over messages.”
Cara stiffened, but Kiran wasn’t entirely surprised by Zadikah’s proposal. Dev had been worried she’d figure out Janek’s identity. Only one thing he didn’t understand. “If you believe Yashad would want Janek so badly, why haven’t you already used him to regain her favor?”
“Because…” Zadikah heaved a sigh, glancing at Raishal. “Because I’ve been trying to make better choices. Plain enough that Dev didn’t want the boy’s family known. I don’t understand why he wouldn’t want Janek reunited with his only kin, but I didn’t want to ignore that and give him to Yashad solely for my own gain. But now—the sooner you get those charms, the better, and Janek is by far the fastest and least dangerous route.”
“No,” Cara said, flat and immediate. “I’m not using a child as a bargaining token. Not even for this.”
Zadikah’s teeth showed in a sharp grin. “Your beloved Dev did. Or didn’t he tell you how he convinced Yashad to free him from the black-daggers?”
Cara snapped, “I don’t care what Dev’s done. He’s not the one who’s spent weeks in the mountains with Janek. That child deserves happiness, not a life playing shadow games. If he was your child”—she jerked her thumb at Raishal’s rounded belly—“answer me honestly: would you give him to someone as ruthless as Yashad?”
Raishal’s frown had turned puzzled. “But she is his family. Do you Arkennlanders truly think so little of blood ties?”
Kiran said, “Dev wanted Janek to have a choice. Not have kin-bonds forced upon him.”
He’d spoken with more feeling than he intended. All three women turned to look at him, Cara with sharp sympathy.
Zadikah said, “Yashad won’t hurt Janek. Far from it. No daughters of her house remain; if she succeeds in raising Prosul Akheba from the ashes, Janek may rule here one day.”
“That’s exactly what I fear,” Cara said. “Power’s no substitute for happiness, and physical pain isn’t the only way a child can be hurt.”
Kiran knew that for truth. Ruslan’s punishments had not been half so terrible as his love. Newly determined, he said, “We don’t need to use Janek. All I have to do is stop Yashad from sending a message.”
Zadikah said, “Don’t kill Yashad. She’s the only one holding the remnants of this city together.”
“I didn’t mean killing.” Kiran still meant to keep his promise to Teo. “I was thinking more of—”
The door slammed open, and Melly burst into the room. “Cara! We have to get up the tunnel right now or we’ll never catch Janek!”
Cara caught her collar before she could vanish out the door again. “Slow down. What’s happened?”
“It’s my fault, I’m so sorry—I wanted to know why you were sending us away, so we listened through the door, and Janek heard about Yashad. He—he said he was going to be like me and save people, by getting us those charms—and he ran! I tried to stop him, but he got through a door on the other side of the cave and barred it against me—I saw a stair through the crack—”
“The courier’s stair.” Raishal exchanged a dismayed glance with Zadikah. “If he’s barred the door, you’ll never catch him. The stair climbs straight up through the butte to the citadel. The tunnel’s meant for wagons—it takes twice as long to spiral up the same distance.”
Melly said furiously, “I tried to tell him he’s doing it all wrong! He can’t be the one to bargain. Once Yashad has him, she’s got no reason to hand over the charms. But he ran up the stair so fast, I don’t think he heard me.”
From what Kiran knew of Yashad, he thought Melly was right to fear she’d simply take Janek and ignore any requests he made. He said to Cara, “Janek’s only a child. He might not find it so easy to talk his way past Yashad’s guards even with his necklace for proof. If we can find him first—”
“Not you,” Zadikah said. “Cara and I will go. You stay with Raishal. I don’t want Yashad to get wind of you yet. Rai, take them up to our quarters. We’ll meet you there.” She charged out the door.
Melly tried to follow, but Cara shoved her back. “No! You stay too.” She sprinted after Zadikah.
Melly’s small face set in mutinous lines. Kiran hastily shut the door and planted himself in front of it. “They can run faster without you.” Ruefully, he added, “Without me, too.”
“I know. I know!” Melly dashed a hand over her eyes. “I hate not being Tainted. If I were, I could’ve stopped Janek, easy. Instead I have to go crazy with waiting.”
“Well, you can walk while you’re fretting,” Raishal said. “We’ll be climbing the tunnel too, just at a far slower pace. Help me pack up these supplies. And you”—she tossed Kiran a swath of cloth—“cover that demon-pale face of yours. The fewer people see you, the better.”
Kiran wound the cloth around his face so only his eyes showed. Even Melly looked brighter at the prospect of leaving the storeroom’s cramped confines. She readily followed Raishal’s stream of orders, packing away food and bandages and retrieving the waterjar that Janek had discarded when he ran.
The vaulted cavern was empty of workers, though a ghostly line of figures straggled toward the Khalat, obscured by blowing ash that had turned smoky orange in the light of the setting sun. Raishal sparked a glowlight charm to lead Kiran and Melly up the rising spiral of the tunnel. The passage was broad enough for multiple carts to pass easily abreast, the walls carved with martial figures worn smooth from the touch of countless hands. Melly zigzagged from wall to wall with jittery energy, obviously wishing their pace were faster. In truth, Raishal was not walking half as slowly up the incline as Kiran had expected. Much as his nerves appreciated a quicker trip to the citadel, he couldn’t help eyeing her rounded belly, wondering if he should urge her to slow down.
Trudging along, Raishal shot him a sour glance. “You needn’t look at me like you’re afraid I’ll drop the baby right here. I assure you, I know what pace I can handle.”
“Sorry,” Kiran said. “I just—I want you and your child to be all right. When we saw the city burn, we were so afraid you were among the dead.”
“You were right to fear,” Raishal said. “I didn’t see the fire fall—I survived because I was in a room deep within the healer’s tower—but even there, I heard the screams…” She was silent for a moment, her eyes dark and distant. “The surviving Seranthines have been glad of my help. Their healers are still taxed hard, treating the injured.” She glanced again at Kiran, her expression not exactly friendly, but far less black than it had been. “If Dev should live, he might like to know the apt-Scholar he saved from the black-daggers made it alive to the city. A good thing, too. Trenell is no healer, but she’s good at organizing people and making sensible plans. Something the Seranthines need, with their matria dead.”
Kiran said, “Dev will be very glad to hear she survived.” If Dev should live… Shards of memory sliced through his head, bloody and terrible. Urgency rose in Kiran until he wanted to scream with it. Grimly, he clung to control. Ruslan was still on his way to Ninavel, and like Yashad, he was practical despite hate. He wouldn’t stop to indulge himself in hurting Dev or even Marten. But when he reached the city…
Raishal said abruptly, “Zadi said she asked Teo to return to Prosul Akheba. Does he intend to come once he’s finished helping this mage friend of yours reach Ninavel?”
“I don’t know.” Kiran hesitated. “Do you want him to come back?”
Raishal’s pace slowed. She pulled the little kitfox from her tunic and turned it over in her hands. “Zadi still loves him. For her sake, I could try to set aside a
nger. Even if I don’t know how, when I miss Veddis so much.” She pressed the kitfox to her mouth, its bone ears peeking through her fingers.
That was far closer to forgiveness than she had been before. Another spark of hope in the darkness. Yet try as he might to savor that spark, Kiran couldn’t escape the mire of his worries.
Melly veered back over to them, her face strained in the soft glow of Raishal’s charm. “How much longer does this tunnel go?”
“Two more spirals and we’ll reach the citadel,” Raishal said. “We—”
A rapid thump of booted feet echoed down the tunnel, and two men rounded the curve. They wore far larger glowlight charms than Raishal’s, and more charms glittered on their wrists. Their tunics had only ragged holes where a house crest had been cut away, but bands of black cloth marked with a jade-green crescent moon were bound around their biceps.
Melly sprang to Kiran’s side. He took her hand in his, muttering, “Stay close.” The newcomers might be on some errand that had nothing to do with them.
But the men halted the instant they spotted Kiran, Melly, and Raishal. The shorter of the two men bowed—a shallow bow, his eyes never leaving Kiran—and said in heavily accented Kennish, “Kiran of Ninavel. Yashad abi Mahar wishes to speak with you on behalf of her grandnephew.”
So Cara and Zadikah had failed. Beyond question, Kiran must ensure Yashad’s silence.
Spells could do more than kill. Ruslan was busy running for Ninavel, not lying in wait for him to release his barriers. He’d feel Kiran cast, but he might not stop to strike.
With his clothes still coated in the ash of Ruslan’s victims, Kiran did not like to depend on that “might.” Raishal had backed away, her arms locked protectively around her belly. She was afraid of what he might do. Melly too was tense, watching him.
Kiran said to the guardsman, “I will speak with Yashad.”
Relief showed plain on both men’s coppery faces; they must know he was a mage, though presumably Yashad had not mentioned what kind. Kiran bent to Melly.
“Find Cara. Tell her where I’ve gone, but tell her not to worry. I’ll handle this.”
“All right,” Melly said, though questions remained in her eyes.
“And give me a blood sample.” Kiran didn’t want to leave her without the assurance he could find her again.
Melly obeyed as swiftly as if she were his akhelysh. She took the knife from his belt and pricked her forearm on the blade. Kiran unwound the cloth from his face—no point in disguise now—and used a clean patch of fabric to blot her wound.
While he was knotting the stained cloth around his waist, Raishal drew close and whispered fiercely, “If you are at all the man you seem, you will not endanger this city again.”
The best thing he could do for Prosul Akheba was destroy Ruslan. Kiran took his knife back from Melly and made sure the nervously fidgeting guards saw him sheathe the weapon before he approached them.
The two men stayed well in front of him, darting many a wary glance over their shoulders as they hurried up the incline. The tunnel ended in another elaborately carved arch that opened onto an oblong courtyard. Statues of strange beasts lined the courtyard’s polished walls. Ash lay in drifts against the statues, though the courtyard floor was worn clean by the tracks of countless feet. Streaks of cloud overhead burned the bloody red of sunset.
The guards led him past piles of slagged metal into a lane winding between blocky towers. Kiran saw more evidence of life: lanternlight shining through shutter slats, strings of prayer flags fluttering from windowsills and roofs. Passing doorways, he heard the occasional thin wail of a baby, the chatter of children, the tired, sometimes sharp voices of adults.
Kiran followed the guards into a courtyard where the statues were not just burned black, but toppled and broken into pieces—the latter damage caused not by magefire but by far cruder tools, if Kiran’s eyes weren’t deceived by the fading light. He suspected he now walked ground formerly owned by the Zhan-davi, and those who hated them had not been content merely to destroy their rule.
But not all was destroyed. A squat tower at the courtyard’s center was encased in wards so powerful the song of their magic thundered loud through his barriers, like hearing the roar of a waterfall despite plugged ears. In his mage-sight, the entire tower was sheathed in viciously bright citrine fire. But no hint of the wards’ magic showed in Kiran’s ordinary vision, not even any tracery of wardlines; the magic contained a veiling. The Zhan-davi had spared no expense in hiring the mage who created the tower’s protections.
Kiran slowed, wary, remembering Zadikah leading him straight into Lizaveta’s trap. Down in the ash-fields, the aether remained so saturated with death-born power he could easily leap into the demon realm if need be. Up here in the citadel where fewer had died, the fading remnants of Ruslan’s massacre were far less strong.
The tower doors stood open, flooding the courtyard with pale, silvery light that shone from a hallway of polished marble. The guards stopped just shy of the short flight of stone steps leading to the tower entrance.
The shorter guard called out, “Kadimah Yashad, the mage has come.”
Yashad appeared in the doorway, stopping just inside the blaze of the tower wards. She looked even more ancient than Kiran remembered from his clandestine observation of her in the desert. The pouches beneath her eyes were a bruised purple, and her raddled cheeks sagged with weariness. Yet her bearing remained proud, her black gaze sharp with intelligence. The braided cords laden with charms that Kiran had seen her wear in the canyon were strapped over the lavender silk of her robe.
She flicked a hand at the guards. “You may go.” They bowed and hurried for the courtyard exit, skirting wide around Kiran.
“So,” Yashad said, studying him. “You are the reason my city burned.”
She thought herself safe behind the wards because their magic had stood against Ruslan’s attack. But Ruslan’s magefire had been meant to burn flesh, not destroy wards. If Kiran were like Ruslan, willing to tear life from the survivors huddled in nearby towers, he could shatter the wards in moments with a targeted casting.
He was not Ruslan. Still, he put every ounce of Ruslan’s cold arrogance into his answer. “Say, rather, that I am the one who will destroy the man who burned your city.”
“Hah,” Yashad said. “The confidence of youth. What are you, eighteen, nineteen? Tell me, boy, what makes you think you can destroy a mage who has centuries more experience and cunning than you?”
Kiran was abruptly aware of how filthy he was, covered in ash and grime and wearing clothes as rough as a streetside laborer’s. Hardly the picture of a mage with power to match Ruslan’s. Yashad had called him here to judge his chances, and just as Zadikah had warned, she was deciding against him.
“I’m kin to demons, and Ruslan is not,” Kiran said. “No human mage can match Shaikar’s children—isn’t that what your stories say?”
“You certainly have beauty to match the tales—or you would after a good scrubbing,” Yashad said, dryly amused. “But according to my grandnephew, you have not a demon’s cruelty like your master. If age has taught me anything, it is that the gods favor the cruel.”
“Ama Yashad, that’s not so!” Janek ducked around Yashad. She gripped his shoulder, holding him back from the wards’ invisible fire. “The man who stole me from Prosul Varkevia was cruel, but the gods didn’t favor him. He lies dead while Kiran and his friends live, and so do I, thanks to their kindness.” Janek offered Kiran a shy, anxious smile. “Ama Yashad recognized me as her kin right away. She says—she says she can see my father in me. She’s given me all the charms you need. Look, I have them here.” He hauled a bulging satchel into view. Solemnly earnest, he added, “You don’t have to worry. I told her if she sends any messages, I’ll run away like my father did, so far she’ll never find me. She promised she’d do nothing to drive me away.”
How Kiran envied Janek’s innocent belief in that promise. Yashad wheezed a chuckle. “
Ah, child, let us hope you are not half so wild as your father in his youth. I am not sure I could survive another such ordeal. But yes, I will keep my word.” She took the satchel from Janek and tossed it down the steps. The bag landed with a heavy clink at Kiran’s feet. “There. Take your charms, young mage, and go. I’ll pray for your success.”
But Kiran did not think she would hold to any promises. Nor did he want to gamble that Cara and Melly could reach the gate chamber ahead of Ruslan receiving a message. Always you underestimate me, Ruslan had said. This time, Kiran would not underestimate anyone.
“Before I go, I must ensure I have what I need.” Kiran knelt and opened the satchel. The charms’ magic was strong, but simple enough in pattern to read by touch. Two veiling charms, three barrier charms, another two that would burn through whatever surface they touched, one that would spit forth a spectacular jet of flame—at least Yashad had been honest in her gift, even if she intended betrayal otherwise.
He could not break the wards protecting her without blood magic. But he was kin to demons; he didn’t need blood magic to pass wards. All he needed was enough power to reach the demon realm, and Yashad herself had given him the means.
He clenched a hand over the flame charm, settled the satchel’s strap over his shoulder, and straightened, smiling.
Yashad backed a step despite the wards between them. Kiran threw down his barriers, ripped a sweet rush of magic from the flame charm, and pulled every scrap of death-born power he could reach in the aether. One burst of the magic singing bright in his blood, and he stepped into the frigid chaos of the demon realm. The tower wards were strong enough to bleed through into the currents, but here their magic was little more than an insubstantial shell of warmth that he had no trouble sliding through. He reached for the taste of the wards’ blazing magic to anchor his return, and stepped back into the human realm.
He stood within the tower, right next to Yashad. She screeched and leaped back, snatching for a charm at her chest, but he was faster. He grabbed her bony wrist with one hand, Janek’s slender shoulder with the other, and yanked power straight from the charms Yashad wore.
The Labyrinth of Flame Page 57