I sucked in a breath through my nose. What sort of man was I marrying? My gaze met Catane’s. He looked confident and sure.
“I must amend my statement,” the general said.
A look of alarm filled Catane’s eyes.
“I witnessed Catane Nyota kiss the promised consort of the High Tazmin.”
The crowd sucked in a breath.
“Thank you for your gift of truth,” the priest intoned. “Our witnesses may be dismissed.”
Around me, the crowd began to disperse towards the path. I couldn’t catch my breath. My eyes were locked on the city far below the cliffs. They were going to throw him off the cliff. I couldn’t watch. I couldn’t close my eyes.
“He’s been named heir. They can’t touch him now. Only the High Tazmin can,” the guard’s words were low, but fierce. “Pull yourself together. You can’t faint on me, now. We need to leave. Now!”
“The High Tazmin,” I repeated.
“Yes. The general is a clever one. He told the truth, but he spared Catane’s life.”
“His life.” He’d risked his life to kiss me. I hadn’t realized, but I should have, shouldn’t I? I should have known what kind of fire we were toying with.
“The sun must have dazed you. Come on, the Son of the Stars told me to care for you if you needed it.”
He tugged on my arm, but I was rooted in place.
“The priests expect us to leave. Look, everyone else is almost around the bend in the path.”
I glanced where he was pointing and saw the last figure leave.
“Don’t make it worse for him.”
I let him guide me towards the path, but my gaze kept wandering towards Catane. The priest behind him moved suddenly, wrapping an arm around the general, and then quick as lightning, he slit the general’s throat. I spun, the scream lodged in my throat, but my mouth and eyes open so wide it felt as if I was screaming in my own mind. The guard pulled at me, but I couldn’t look away. Catane! Catane was going to die … just for kissing me. What kind of a monster was I marrying?
The general’s blood poured out across the white stone of the cliffs, and the priest dropped his body like an unwanted burden. Catane dropped to the ground beside him, and as a shadow passed over the sun I saw a raised brand burned into Catane’s skin beneath the golden tattoos. Had he been trying to hide it? He sobbed over his fallen friend, hands hovering over him as if he wished to weave him back together, but you can’t weave the dead back to life with magic.
Catane slumped forward, and I lunged towards him, but the guard caught me, holding me back. A priest stepped forward, taking the cuff on Catane’s wrist – the one that bound him to the general – in his hands and weaving a key out of the Common. It was invisible to the naked eye, but even from here I saw the glowing weaves of the Common. I could replicate what he did easily. He slipped it into the cuff, twisted, and the tether fell from Catane’s wrist.
He lunged to his feet, but they were quicker, weaving a cage around him out of nothing but the Common and the air.
“Amandera!” he called, “Run!”
Priests poured from over the horizon of the cliff top, surrounding both him and me.
I tried for days to get near him, but he was surrounded by priests. Every time I moved even a step towards him, one of them would stand in my way.
“Let me turn your attention to the ridgeline,” the priest would say. “The landscapes are gorgeous on the road to Azaradi. I would hate for you to miss any one of our wonders.”
The original guard who’d watched my back on the Cliffs of Canderabai remained with us. His name, it turned out, was Luto.
“Why doesn’t he get out of that cart?” he asked on the second day.
The cart they were transporting Catane in was drawn by a pair of donkeys. It rocked and swayed and bumped mercilessly.
“There’s a cage around him that you can’t see. It’s made of air woven by the Common.” The guard had no link to the common, but to me his cage was as clear as that ridgeline the priests kept drawing my attention to.
“But he can unweave anything a man can make.”
“Unweave?”
“His magic unravels where everyone else weaves something new. It’s not right to cage a warrior like him. He took the Kingdom of Hazad for the High Tazmin last year. He’s not an animal to be caged.”
He glanced at me with guilt in his eyes and then looked away. There was no way for him to know that I agreed, that I would fight them myself if only I had the strength to fight a dozen priests. I almost went to the meditation world to ask Drusica for help, but what would be the point? She would think we had received our due. I was meant for the High Tazmin, not for his son.
It was on the third day that I finally had my chance. We were close to a village somewhere and a traveling entertainment troupe was blocking the road. When the fire-eaters began their display, the last of the priests moved up to the head of the donkeys to get a better look and I crept on hands and knees to the edge of the cart.
“Catane?”
“Amandera!”
“Let’s get you out of here.”
“They are holding the weave. I can’t unweave it quickly enough.”
I was silent for a moment. I had envisioned myself breaking him out, but what could I do now?
“It wasn’t supposed to end this way. I had plans. Plans to unravel this empire and build something new.” He sounded hopeless.
“We still can.”
“There’s no more hope of ‘we,’ princess.”
“I won’t give up on you.”
His laugh was hollow. “It would take something extraordinary to save my life now, much less my vision for this world.”
“Can I turn your attention to the fire-breathing display?” The priest came from behind me, and he was not alone. I’d lost my chance.
The priest looked so proud that he could barely contain himself. “The High Tazmin himself, has arranged to see you before your formal arrival to Azaradi. The messenger arrived with the news just now.”
My palms were sweaty as I realized we were only a day away. I was running out of time to save Catane and soon I would meet my groom. What would he be like? What did it mean that he planned to see me first? Did he know about what had happened in our journey? Would he want me to pay for my sins? Or worse, would he come to “test” me as Catane had at first?
“He will bring his escort as is prescribed in the scrolls, but he has requested that they wait at the bottom of the Rainbow Shrine. We are also asked to wait there, and only you, his bride, will ascend the four hundred steps to the height of the shrine. You are privileged with greatness, lady. Please remember me when you rise to High Tazminera.”
I held his gaze a moment, keeping my face expressionless while his was lit from within with a smug fire.
“I shall not forget a single moment of my journey here or any of those who took a part in it.”
He bowed, folding himself completely in half. It was all I could do not to look across at where Catane slumped in his cage, his head hanging between his knees.
We left the main road when Azaradi was barely in view on the horizon, climbing upwards and then descending into a narrow river valley, verdant with palm trees and large-leaved plants. Colorful birds called to one another. It was so unlike the rest of Canderabai, and so much like home, that I felt a pang in my heart.
“This is the High Tazmin’s private park.” The priest puffed out his chest as he spoke to me. “Without his express permission, it is death to set foot here.”
Of course it was. The thought of Catane in a cage when the High Tazmin had a private park made me grind my teeth.
Elephants trumpeted and snorted ahead of us, and then the palm leaves parted and we entered a green basin, with the river running through the center. At the far end, was a waterfall so high that it was nearly impossible to see the top. A rainbow arced across the sky over it, and here in the basin a thousand warriors sat their elephants in lines parallel
to the river. I gasped. The priests led us past the warriors towards the far cliff. There, midway up and on top of a rock that jutted out from the center of the falls, a shrine was built. It was white, like the water, and iridescent in the mist and rainbows. Hundreds of metal-lace steps led up to the shrine, and now I understood what the priest meant about climbing the steps myself. The steps were too narrow for more than a single person at a time to ascend or descend.
I glanced one last time at Catane, but he didn’t look up from where he was slumped in the cage. I knew they were feeding him. Why did he look like a discarded robe? I swallowed hard. The only person left who might be able to spare him was the High Tazmin, and the only person who could ask him to do so was me.
I stepped past the priests where they whispered to the soldiers in the elaborate armor of leaders. Some of them stood in the same manner as the general had before his throat was slit. Perhaps it was because of him that Catane had lost all hope. Surely, they would have been close after years chained together.
I placed my foot on the metal-lace steps and slowly, deliberately, began the journey upward. There was a rail for my hand, but even with the rail, the journey heavenward was slick and dangerous. Cold spray coated the steps and the railing, and soon it coated me, wetting my long black hair until it hung in ropes around me, smearing the kohl under my eyes so that it ran down my face, and wetting my sarette so that it clung to me and bound around my legs.
One hundred steps upwards, and my breath was heavy. Two hundred, and my legs ached so much that I barely managed to continue on. At three hundred, I would have stopped, but my pride carried me on. I could be seen by those below, and I did not dare let them think I was weak. My only hope was that the High Tazmin had also had to climb these steps and that he may be as weary as I was. On the four hundredth step, I stepped through the arched door, my legs jelly and my lungs burning.
The shrine was elaborately carved from the stone of the falls in a whorl and star pattern that I recognized from Catane’s tattoos. At one end of the tiny shrine was a strange metal door but everything else, even the small benches, were carved out from the stone.
Standing in the center of the room was my groom, dressed in the flowing costume of Canderabai. It was worked with opulent white embroidery on black, but something about how he stood told me that it would be no impediment if he chose to act. In his hands he played, idly, with a wide-bladed sword. It shone so bright and clear that occasionally it reflected his face in its broad blade.
I eyed him up and down critically, while he did the same with me. He was an attractive man in his late-forties, I judged - an older version of Catane. He was well-muscled just as his son was, tattooed with the usual black tattoos, rather than Catane’s golden ones. It was hard to decipher their pattern against his black skin. Above his ears, his hair was frosted with age, and tiny lines surrounded his eyes. If I had been choosing a man based solely on looks, I would not have turned my nose up at him. More than that, his stance and confidence spoke of the power and authority he held, and he handled the sword like he knew how to use it. His eyes sparkled like windows into a keen mind. No, he was not a shabby choice for a husband … if things had been different. If I hadn’t already fallen completely in love with his lion of a son.
His voice was baritone when he spoke. “A gem of the south, and well worth the wait, but I can see from the look in your eyes that you belong to another.”
My heart skipped a beat. Did that mean that he would let me embrace a future with Catane instead of marrying him? He tapped his chin with his forefinger.
“What shall I do with you, little princess? I would like to add you to my collection, but I demand full devotion. Do I need to kill this man you love to achieve it?”
“No,” I gasped.
The High Tazmin let out a long sharp whistle, as if he were calling someone or something, and then he took a step forward, circling me, his gaze trailing over my clinging sarette and ruined makeup. When he was finished he reached out and tilted my chin with that same forefinger.
“I like what I see. I shall keep you. Your heartstone speaks of power. You are a powerful weaver, this is true?”
I swallowed, fighting to keep my expression stony. “Yes.”
He smiled with so much charm that I wondered if he could have been High Tazmin even if he had not inherited the role. He certainly had all the qualities men looked for in a leader.
“I thought so,” he said. “But there is the matter of loyalty.”
I heard a scuffling, and then the High Tazmin strode to one of the huge recto-arch windows that filled three of the four walls of the shrine. He moved his hands and I saw him weaving the Common with skill and ability like I had never seen before. His weaving was perfect, each strand controlled with precision. I could tell he was pulling something heavy up to the window with nothing but the strength of his weaving. Whatever it was caught on the edge of the window beyond but then he tugged quickly and the heavy object flew over the window ledge and tumbled across the mosaic floor. I leapt back, gasping.
Moaning, but springing to his feet with volcanic energy, Catane was no longer huddling in a priest’s cage.
“So, you have decided to kill me face to face. I respect that,” Catane said.
The High Tazmin looked back and forth between us, lightning fast. “So, it is him that you have given your loyalty to, little princess. I can’t allow that.”
“Please,” I said. I’d never seen anyone as powerful as him. “Don’t hurt him and I will marry you.”
“That is already assured. But will you give me your full loyalty? That is what I want.”
“Leave her out of this,” Catane snarled. “Set me loose and return my stone and we’ll fight man to man.”
I realized, then, that his flashing heartstone was gone. I swallowed, instinctively clutching my own. Without it, I would be helpless as a babe – as he was right now – unable to touch the meditation world, or the Common.
“He won’t be leaving this tower by the stairs, Amandera Mubaru of Aradivia,” the High Tazmin said, smirking. “And so, I put it to you. Shall I fling him from this shrine for his crimes – and yes, I know what they are – or let him leave through this door?”
I sent a frantic look to Catane. Where did the door lead? He shook his head.
“No one knows where it leads,” the High Tazmin said. “It might be the gate to hell. We are the only three people in this generation who have ever seen the inside of the High Tazmin’s Rainbow Shrine.”
I swallowed. It was a door. That had to be better than falling through the air to his death.
“And he will be free beyond that door?”
“As free as any of us are,” the High Tazmin said, “and you will swear your loyalty to me.”
I looked at Catane. What did he want?
“Don’t look at him, look at me!” the High Tazmin snapped. I sucked in a breath, my gaze shooting back to him. “This isn’t his decision. It’s yours. Decide.”
I swallowed. The answer was obvious, wasn’t it? But that was what made it so bad. What could be behind that door that made it worse than falling to your death? I had been avoiding Drusica, not wanting to hear what she would say about my problems, but now I threw my soul into the meditation world.
“Drusica? Are you there? Help me!”
There was no reply. It was just me, the High Tazmin, and Catane. I would seal myself in the hell of my own choosing today.
“The door,” I whispered.
“And?”
“And my loyalty is yours.”
He smiled, walked to the door and there were some clicking noises as he worked a device on the doorframe, and then it opened, inwards. On the other side a rocky, barren landscape spread out. There were no flames of hell, no ravenous beasts, or deadly drops, but the moon was up and it was huge, bright, and singular. I had never seen just one moon in a sky before.
I sought Catane’s eyes and he sought mine, both of us trying to communicate in one look
everything we were feeling. The High Tazmin pushed him forward with a weave of air. He stumbled through the door, glancing back at me with fear in his eyes. Already, the High Tazmin was weaving it closed. I caught my last glimpse of him standing tall and straight, his back to me, with the wind howling around him. I hoped that my tears blended in with the water on my face.
“If you ever speak his name, I will find out, and I will raze Aravidia to the ground,” the High Tazmin said. “I will see you in two days’ time. My slaves have prepared a dress for our wedding like nothing ever made before by man. You will look glorious in it.”
I nearly stumbled on the first step back down, but he caught my arm. “Don’t fall, beloved. I don’t want to see you dead.”
It never occurred to me to try to challenge him. Not now that Catane was gone.
I hadn’t heard so many instruments in my life. The sound of festive tunes drifting up to my balcony made Azaradi seem even more foreign than the strange spice burning in the incense holders in the room beyond me. If I could have chosen, I would be out dancing in the streets with the long lines of cheering, drumming people, twisting like snakes across the streets of Azaradi. They would dance and feast for four more days.
In a moment, I would shed the white sarette with the long train and dance the lasharanta – the one I had practiced in the desert – for a man who had easily banished his son just to force my loyalty. And I would do it skillfully without ever letting him see my mask crack. He must never know that my heart still beat with the silhouette under the single moon.
“Brides shouldn’t pout,” Drusica said from beside me. “If I had known about the son, you know I would have put a stop to it.”
“I should have tried weaving something, should have tried to stop him. There was no one else in that shrine.”
She spat. “Ha. If you had tried to weave, I would have seen you and I would never have allowed your link to the Common. The disaster of prophesy will come soon, the one of legends, and you must be ready for it. Your place as a consort of the High Tazmin will give you the power and position you need to save this world. Never forget it.”
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