by Ginn Hale
Across the open field Kiram spotted Javier in the midst of cleared the stone wall that surrounded the fairgrounds with Elezar close on his heels. Nestor followed behind them a little more clumsily. The three of them strode across the open field, heading towards the remains of the Irabiim camp.
"I'm putting a great deal of trust in you, Kiram," Alizadeh said.
Kiram nodded, overwhelmed with relief. He thought he might agree to anything if it meant that Javier would be safe. "I know and I can't thank you-"
"Just listen." Alizadeh caught the lotus medallion that Kiram wore. "Rafie and I will ask the duke to take you home with him-a little duera will ensure that you look worn out. Once you have the duke alone you'll need to convince him to allow you into the shajdi again. I'll be able to see the extent of the shajdi's corruption through you."
"And if you decide that the shadji is contaminated, then what?" Kiram asked.
"Then I'll have to strip the shajdi from the duke by any means possible." Alizadeh glanced to Javier briefly. Then he returned his attention to Kiram. "I don't want to harm your duke-"
"He has a name," Kiram said.
"Javier, then," Alizadeh conceded. '1 don't want to harm him. If I find that the shajdi is still intact, then there may even be a way that I can help him to destroy the shadow curse. But I must see the shajdi myself to know."
"If you're lying-if you're using me to hurt him, I won't ever forgive you."
"No, I can't imagine that you would." Alizadeh smiled for the first time since they'd left the fairgrounds. "Fortunately for us both I'm telling you the truth. So, will you help me or not?"
"Yes," Kiram said.
"Good." Alizadeh suddenly leaned close and lifted the lotus medallion to his lips. He whispered a strange word and a shudder passed through his body. Then he let the medallion fall back against Kiram's chest.
Alizadeh swayed and then caught himself. His face paled but his expression was calm. Rafie came to his side, placing a supporting hand casually on Alizadeh's back.
"Drink a just a little of the duera," Alizadeh told Kiram. He gazed up into the sky.
Kiram hesitated only an instant before he accepted the vial from Rafie and took a quick sip. "Now what?"
"Sit down," Rafie said. "Before you fall down."
Kiram took his advice and leaned back against the wagon as the familiar, lightheaded feeling of the duera came over Kiram. He didn't try to fight it. Instead, he watched Javier approach. He strode past groups of heavily bangled Irabiim youths and they averted their gazes. In the trees overhead crows took flight. Javier's dark eyes scanned the camp and in an instant Kiram found him staring straight at him. His intense expression softened and a slight smile curved his mouth.
Kiram lazily lifted his hand and waved. Nestor waved back at him enthusiastically and then rushed ahead of both Javier and Elezar.
"Kiram!" Nestor shouted. "We've been looking all over for you." Nestor bounded out of the way of a sleeping dog and then skidded to a stop in front of Rafie and Alizadeh. He bowed to them.
"It's good to see you again, young Master Grunito," Rafie said in flawless Cadeleonian. Alizadeh smiled at Nestor but said nothing.
"Good to see you as well, sirs." Nestor beamed at them but frowned when he turned his attention to Kiram. "You look done in."
"His arm was hurting him," Rafie said. "I gave him a little duera for the pain but I think he may need to rest as well."
"What's this? Kiram's injured his arm?" Elezar asked. He and Javier had just reached the edge of the cooking fire. Thin trails of smoke drifted from the dying embers. Elezar waved them away from his face. Javier simply stepped past. Even in the squalor of the half-abandoned Irabiim camp, an air of elegance seemed to surround Javier. Kiram tried to remind himself that this giddy enchantment was just an effect of the drug.
Javier offered Rafie and Alizadeh a cursory half bow and Elezar followed his example. Kiram found his gaze drifting back to Javier's lips and remembering the soft heat of them against his skin.
"Now what's happened to your arm, Kiram?" Elezar demanded. Kiram opened his mouth but didn't quite trust himself to reply.
"He was wounded the first day of the tournament fighting Ariz Plunado. You lost three crowns to me in the wager, remember?" Javier glanced at Kiram with a slightly worried expression.
"I remember losing the money," came Elezar's sulky response.
"My arm started to act up again this afternoon," Kiram explained.
"You should have mentioned it," Nestor chided him.
"I didn't want to be a bother."
"It's not a bother," Nestor said. "Except that we had no idea why you vanished so suddenly. I was worried that. something.had happened to you. So were Javier and Elezar."
"I'm feeling better already," Kiram said though he thought the words came out a little slurred. He straightened and addressed his uncle. "Do you think it would be all right if I went to look around the fairgrounds with my friends?"
Rafie nodded, his expression one of quiet concern.
Alizadeh turned his attention to Javier. "You are his guardian, Lord Tornesal, so I would ask you to please look after him. You must not leave him alone while he's in this state."
Javier stepped closer to Kiram. "Of course, I'll stay beside him."
"We had planned to lodge with the Irabiim this evening but obviously that will not be possible." Rafie waved his hand at the three remaining travel wagons of the dismantled Irabiim camp. "Kiram will need somewhere to spend the night."
"He is welcome at my home," Javier offered quickly. "As are the two of you. I would be honored if you would stay at the Tornesal townhouse with me."
"We would be delighted." Alizadeh's smile became predatory. Neither Javier nor the Grunito brothers seemed to notice.
"We would be glad to accept your hospitality later this evening," Rafie said. "For now, we still have some business to arrange with our friends here. We should be able to join you before the fifth bell."
"Very good," Javier replied. "Kiram and I will see you then."
Again Alizadeh gave a pleased nod.
"Take care," Rafie told Kiram. He placed a soft leather coin pouch in Kiram's hand. "Buy yourself something to eat. It will steady you."
"I will." Kiram slipped the pouch into his pocket. "Thank you."
"No chance of Labara wine, I suppose?" Elezar asked once they were back on the fairgrounds.
"Not today," Javier replied. He caught Kiram's elbow and pulled him back from a fascinatingly large boar.
"I've seen him before," Kiram said.
"Yss, you're old friends, no doubt," Javier replied. "Duera goes straight to your head, doesn't it?"
Kiram would have disagreed but then a brilliantly plumed bird caught his attention. Javier laughed at him but Kiram was sure the bird gave him a knowing wink.
Most of the afternoon passed in a relative haze. Kiram ate several rolls stuffed with cabbage and pungent meat and he purchased an assortment of odd, glittering trinkets that struck him as wonderful gifts for his friends in Anacleto. At one point he suggested that Nestor could make a small fortune selling pictures of Javier to the gaggles of young women who were always eyeing him. Then he challenged Elezar to a game of ring toss and proceeded to throw his rings everywhere but onto the mounted bull's horns.
As the afternoon grew late, he and Javier returned to the Tornesal townhouse. When they were alone in Javier's bedroom, Kiram asked Javier to open the white hell so that he might read another passage from Calixto's diary. Javier laughed and reminded him of the price they had agreed to. Kiram pulled Javier close, kissing him deeply.
Javier embraced him tightly and Kiram was not sure if the rush of heat was the white hell or the surge of his own passion. Then the luminous depth of the white hell opened around him. From the center of his chest, just where the lotus talisman lay, an icy chill sparked and spread through him with a terrible, cold blackness. Kiram tried to grasp Javier, but he couldn't see him. He tried to call his name but
nothing came out. Kiram's legs buckled. He fell but did not feel his body strike the ground.
Chapter Twenty-Four
He woke in Javier's bedroom, tucked beneath warm blankets. Golden firelight outlined Javier's silhouette, casting his features into shadow. Strands of black hair fell into his eyes and he flicked it aside.
"Ybu need to get a haircut," Kiram remarked. His voice sounded strange and weak.
"Kiram?" Relief sounded through Javier's voice. "You're awake?"
"Yfes." Something about the darkness of the surrounding shadows and the quiet made him suddenly think that it must be night. He remembered falling when Javier had opened the white hell but it had only been late afternoon then. "What happened?"
"You collapsed." Javier touched the edge of the bed and for a moment Kiram thought he might take his hand. Instead his fingers clenched around the corner of the comforter, crumpling it. "I couldn't wake you."
"The duera was probably too strong," Rafie said from across the room. Startled, Kiram rose up onto his elbows. He had been so focused on Javier that he hadn't noticed either his uncle or Alizadeh sitting before the fire only a few feet from the foot of the bed. Firelight glinted along the long spiraling curls of Alizadeh's hair. He gave Kiram a sly wink. Rafie's expression was more troubled. He rose from his chair and went to Kiram's side.
He touched Kiram's forehead lightly and then placed his warm strong fingers against Kiram's throat, checking his pulse.
"Do you have any pain?" Rafie asked.
"Not really." Kiram sat up. He felt oddly groggy. "My arm hurts but not badly. I'm a little tired."
"I think he could use a glass of bitter water. Do you have anything like that here?" Rafie asked of Javier.
"I'll have some brought up to him at once." Javier gazed down at Kiram for a moment and his concern seemed so obvious that Kiram had to drop his own gaze to the clean surface of his blankets. Javier turned away and left the room.
The moment the door closed behind him, Alizadeh bounded from his seat to Kiram's side. He caught hold of Kiram's lotus medallion and held it against his palm, where it glowed dully from between Alizadeh's fingers. As the medallion grew luminous, the dizzy sensation in Kiram's head faded; then at last Alizadeh laid the medallion gently against Kiram's chest. Then he stood silently with his eyes closed and his head bowed.
Seconds passed while Rafie nervously eyed the door. "Young Lord Tornesal will be back soon."
Alizadeh nodded and opened his eyes.
"Kiram was right. The shajdi has not been contaminated. It is changed, more linked to this physical realm, but its essence is pure. I should have been able to see all of this without harming you, Kiram, but I underestimated the defenses your duke has placed around himself."Alizadeh gestured to the vast expanse of symbols drawn across Javier's floor and inscribed into his ceiling. "I'm sorry if I pained you."
"It's all right. I needed the rest anyway."
Kiram was far too relieved by Alizadeh's assessment of the white hell to complain about the brief, terrible chill that had swept through him just before he had lost consciousness.
"He's very attentive, your duke," Alizadeh said.
"Too attentive," Rafie added. "We couldn't get him to leave your side, until just now."
Kiram couldn't help grinning at the rush of happiness he felt upon hearing this.
"I did tell him that you were entrusting Kiram's wellbeing into his care," Alizadeh commented to Rafie.
"Yfes, but who thought he'd take you so seriously? He's what…eighteen? You'd think he'd be bored by staring at Kiram after a few hours."
"I don't think he would." Alizadeh still gazed at the symbols on the floor. "The more I find out about Lord Tornesal the more I'm inclined to agree with Kiram. We should do what we can to protect him."
"Really?" Hope made Kiram's voice rise almost childishly. "You'll break the curse that's been set against him?"
Alizadeh frowned. "I told you before, it isn't a curse. It's something else disguised as a curse."
"Wouldn't that make it easier to destroy than a real curse like the Old Rage?" Kiram asked.
Alizadeh just shook his head.
"I understand curses," Alizadeh said. "I know the very essence of them, but this is something very different. It moves like the Old Rage but it feels empty. If it has no pain or anger then I have no way to appease it or to bind it." Alizadeh scowled at the floor. "I've never encountered anything like it and I would be a fool, risking my life as well as your duke's if I attacked blindly."
"But you said-" Kiram began.
"I said that there might be a way to save your duke. And there may be." Alizadeh laid a hand on his shoulder. "I have to meet with the Circle of the Red Oak in Anacleto. If this shadow curse has been active for nearly eighteen years then someone may well have knowledge of it."
"If they don't?" Kiram asked.
"Then we'll have to depend on the information that you can gather here at the duke's side." Alizadeh shrugged. "It's the only way."
"He's just a boy," Rafie said with a pained frown. "And not even a Bahiim."
"The shajdi must not fall into the hands of the man on the hill." Alizadeh's expression was serious. "And to be honest I'm nearly as loathe to leave him here as you are, but he is the only one with access to the academy as well as the duke. He shouldn't be in any danger so long as the man on the hill remains focused upon the Tornesals." Alizadeh gave Rafie a reassuring smile. "And the duke certainly seems dedicated enough to Kiram's safety."
"I don't like this," Rafie replied.
"I know," Alizadeh said. "But it's vital that we keep someone close to the duke. And I don't believe we could hope to place anyone closer to him than Kiram is already."
"He's too young," Rafie insisted. Kiram wanted to argue that he was not, but held his tongue. Alizadeh already supported him, and no one else had as much experience or success convincing Rafie to change his mind.
"We don't have the luxury of being sentimental now, my love." Alizadeh caught Rafie's hand and lifted it to his lips, pressing a kiss into his palm. "You saw how Kiram fought on the tournament ground; he's plainly not a child anymore."
Rafie shook his head but offered no further argument.
Deep pride welled up in Kiram's chest. Not only was he being allowed to stay at the academy, Alizadeh was entrusting him with a mission.
"While you are at the academy you must wear the medallion I gave you at all times," Alizadeh told Kiram. "Once a week hold it over a candle flame until the lotus turns white. If something threatens you or your duke, I'll know and do what I can."
Kiram nodded but had no time to ask more of Alizadeh. Javier returned a moment later. A nervous servant followed him, carrying a tray of powdered bitters and a steaming apothecary pot which he deposited on the bedside table. With a bow that was more of a convulsion of fear, the servant then fled the room, careful to avoid stepping on the profane writing. Kiram thought he saw Alizadeh stifle a laugh at this performance. Javier didn't seem to notice any of it, his attention fully focused on Kiram.
As Rafie stirred the bitters into the pot, sharp, herbal scents rose on the steam.
Javier returned to his bedside chair but didn't sit. Instead he leaned over the back of the chair and watched while Kiram drank the steamed bitters. Kiram tried not to make a sour face as he gulped down the hot, astringent liquid.
"You should get a little more sleep," Rafie told Kiram.
"I can't," Kiram replied. "I have to check in with Master Ignacio-"
"You're nearly two bells too late for that," Javier said.
"What? He's going to kill me." Kiram almost choked on the bitters. "I've got to go."
"He's not going to kill you." For the first time since Kiram had woken Javier's usual tone of mocking amusement returned. "He told me to make sure you were well and rested for the tournament tomorrow."
"He's not angry?"
"I didn't say that, but he knew you were injured and after he saw you for himself he was satis
fied that you weren't feigning illness."
"He came here to see me?" The image of the war master scowling down at his unconscious body sent a chill snaking down his spine.
"When neither of us reported he came storming in," Javier replied.
"Into this room?" Kiram couldn't imagine any Cadeleonian barging into Javier's bedroom, not when trained footmen practically pissed themselves just delivering a glorified teapot.
"Up to the threshold." Javier smirked. "He didn't come any further, but he didn't need to. As soon as he saw your uncle redressing your arm he told me not to bother waking you."
Kiram glanced down at his forearm and for the first time noticed that the bandages had been changed. Only a few spots of blood colored the white cloth. "It doesn't look that bad."
"It looked bad enough this afternoon." Javier crossed his arms over his chest. "You were white as clay and cold."
"I feel fine now."
"You boys are so resilient," Alizadeh, who had drifted back toward the fire, commented. "I envy your youth."
Kiram almost laughed at Alizadeh envying anyone's youth. The man hardly looked older than Javier in this flickering firelight.
"Finish your bitters," Rafie said.
Kiram obeyed his uncle, then slowly sank back into the bed. The warmth of the fire and the soft blankets engulfed him. Kiram closed his eyes, feeling both relaxed and satisfied. He'd convinced Alizadeh to take Javier's side. He would be staying at the academy. Relief welled through him like an opiate and he drifted.
"I know that these circumstances must seem terrible." Javier's voice was soft and seemed distant. Kiram thought he must have been talking to Rafie or Alizadeh. "But I assure you that Kiram is safe here. I give you my word that I will devote all my resources to his protection if you just allow him to remain at the Sagrada Academy."
Kiram opened his eyes. He couldn't see Javier's face but looking over his shoulder he glimpsed Rafie's serious expression. Sitting in a chair, Alizadeh bowed his head over a small talisman in his hand. He mouthed soft words but made no sound. He seemed unaware of the rest of them.