Sarah K. L. Wilson
TEETH OF THE GODS
Unweaving Chronicles 1
First published by Sarah K. L. Wilson in 2016
Copyright © Sarah K. L. Wilson, 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
First Edition
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Contents
Silken Gardens
Omens
Ancestors
Waiting
Palanquin
Moonlight
Wringing
Lightning
Bones of Al'Karida
The Blue Feather
Bridges
Prince of Hawks
Ra'shara
The Cliffs of Canderabai
The Mark
San'lelion
The Race is On
Heartless
The Accident
My Own Way
Unweaving
Caught
Ring Around the Heavens
Tea in a Pot
Practicing Unmaking
Midnight Moonlight
Alsoon
Ring Around the Mountains
Leap of Faith
In Amandera's Hands
Flight
Ancient Ways
Teeth of the Gods
Don't Let Me Down
Cataclysm
Tomorrow Awaits
Other Books by Sarah K. L. Wilson
About the Author
Acknowledgments
1
Silken Gardens
I always thought my mother would protect me from anything really bad, but it turned out that the one thing she couldn’t protect me from was losing her.
Did everyone feel nervous when they were trying to escape? Did their hands sweat and shake? I wiped mine on my trousers for what felt like the thousandth time. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was as dry from waiting as my eyes were from crying these past days.
Where the waving almond trees gathered thick along the banks of the raging White River, the moon always seemed larger than life. By the angle of the moon it was just about time to sneak from my spacious room in the Silken Gardens and steal along the corridors to the stables. A bead of sweat started at the base of my neck, and spilled icily down my spine. I shivered. Was my mother lying out on the ground under that moon, stiff and frozen in death? How long did it take before a corpse became unrecognizable? Master Ashan didn’t cover that in his Natural Studies classes.
The scent of lemons wafted on the warm air as it swirled through the filmy curtains in my open windows. My windows were so wide that a grown man could walk out of them, but my bedroom was on the second floor of the palace. No sneaking out that way, but there were easier ways out of the safety of my home. Now, to find the courage to take that first step out the door. If they caught me, I’d lose my chance for good. Jakinda’s squinting eyes hadn’t left me since I received word about Mother’s death and I knew she suspected that I’d try to go.
I traced the intricate mandala carvings on my wide yellow door and tried to remember everything I’d been rehearsing all week . Wait for the sound of the guard. He always made a sound when he turned the corner down the hall. I focused on my meditation, reaching deep into it so I could hear more precisely. Could my heart beat any louder? There. That was the sound.
The footfall of the guard was barely discernable as he walked his path through the halls. He was there to keep me safe. Safe! As if that was my only concern! Seven days ago when they told me the news, I knew I’d never really be safe again. How could anyone be safe if the only person who ever loved them was dead?
My eyes stung and I blinked them quickly to clear the tears forming. Why did eyes feel dry when they’d been wet for days? It didn’t make sense. I bit my lip and tasted blood. I had to stop doing that or it would be bloody for the rest of my life.
I glanced around my moonlit room. Maybe I’d miss this someday. I wiped my sweaty palms on my short pants. It turned out that my heart could beat louder. Was I really going to do this? There would be no coming back if I left.
Beyond the perimeter of the Silken Gardens lay a harsh world of hunger and pain – or so they told me. I was no soft flower and they’d all know that when they saw what I was going to do. On the other hand, I’d miss the hot meals and soft beds and the safety of this place. I was missing my mother so much that all that hardly seemed to matter. Did mother think of all the memories that we’d never make in her last moments?
I clenched my fists. No point terrifying myself out of this at the last minute and no point dissolving into tears again. There had been enough of those. The messenger said that my mother was killed on a diplomatic visit to the Kosad Plains. He said that recovering her body for burial had not been made a top priority. Well, it mattered to me. I would go, and I would find her and lay her to rest. My hand twitched with excitement. I willed it still.
The footfalls of the guard passed my door and echoed down the hall. I slipped, whisper-quiet, out of my door. Good thing I stole those velvet-soled shoes and close-fitting black clothing from the back of the merchant’s cart three weeks ago. That was even before I even knew that my life had shattered. Did some part of me that know this was coming?
The marble halls were wide and bright in the moonlight, the elaborate carvings standing out starkly. I’d spent many idle hours tracing those carvings with my eyes to pass time as I meditated. I knew every one of them by heart. They were so ancient that they preceded my family in these sun-kissed lands and they would likely last long after my death. I wouldn’t miss them, though. Out in the world beyond there were likely a thousand better things to see.
I ghosted down the hallway, holding my mental focus so that I could ease every step into place without making a sound. I should have done this years ago. Why had it never occurred to me to sneak out in the night? I’d had twelve years to try. Behind the other wide doors my half-sisters were probably sleeping in tranquil obedience. If they only knew how thrilling this was!
In the Silken Gardens perfection was drilled into us. Some people from outside seem to think that the daughters of the High Tazmin are kept in the Silken Gardens because we are soft and vulnerable. They forget that silk is one of the strongest substances known to man. I was silk. I was smooth and strong in the night.
At the top of the stairs I paused in the shadow and listened. A nightendahl sang sweetly in the trees. His song was for the stars, but I needed it, too. It told me that there was no trouble ahead.
Across from me sat the ancient bronze plaque, a relic of a time so long ago that its origins were lost in history. A slave whispered to me once that it was torn from the twisted metal tower outside in the East Garden, but what do slaves know?
The words from the plaque came to mind even though it was too dark to read them:
This daughter of the stars trained intensely: physically, mentally and in the place between the stars…
I’d always wondered what came after those words and what could possibly have cut them off and twisted the bronze into a ragged gash where the rest must have been. They trained me by these words. They say that daughters of the High Tazmin should strive to reach these goals laid out for us by our ancestors. Good thing that’s what they wanted. If it were not for years of physical training I
would not be able to creep so lightly down these stairs. I fought down a nervous shiver. I couldn’t afford such weakness. I needed to be precise in my movements.
The stairs were made to creak if they were stepped on without care. I thought I had them figured out though. Step there, and then twist just so and then another step and then, ahhh. Silence and the bottom of the steps. The creaks weren’t made for me, anyway. I was no thief come to raid the place. I was an eighteen-year-old girl who wanted to know why her mother, the High Tazmin’s least favorite consort, was sent on a diplomatic visit to a country we knew hated us. I was an eighteen-year-old girl who was going to bury my mother, and get some answers, whether anyone wanted me to or not.
The edge of the guard’s cloak fluttered as he turned the corner ahead of me. When my foot finally reached the ground floor, I let out a sigh of relief and then quickly covered my mouth. Did he hear me?
His footsteps were still receding. He probably thought it was inconceivable for anyone to be sneaking through the Silken Gardens. My half-sisters would never break their honor, and no intruder could come so far into the palace compound.
I needed to hurry now or I’d run into the next guard past the koi pool on his loop back. I slipped along to the wide-domed door and through onto the terrace. The stones were cool on my feet through the slippers. Don’t think about that. Keep focussed!
The koi pool lay beside the terrace and the passion fruit and lemon trees swayed in the warm zephyrs beside the pond. They were gifts over the years from the Lesser Tazmins who were given royal wives from among my kin. Perhaps, if I were not leaving, my own husband would have gifted an exotic tree to the gardens. It’s a good thing that I’m leaving. Imagine! A tree with a tiny bronze tag to tell the world that I married well.
The sound of lapping water concealed my soft footfalls and the shadows of the trees disguised my dark form. I rushed along the tiled path, careful not to tread on the yellow flowers that sometimes grew through the cracks. Crushing them was a bad omen and I couldn’t afford anything inauspicious tonight.
I was nearly at the stables. Just around one more corner. A voice rang out and I leapt backwards, clutching the wall behind me. Had I timed the guards incorrectly?
Their voices were too low for me to make out the words. Why am I doing this? It’s crazy. No. Leaving my mother to rot on an open field or to be thrown in a mass grave by strangers - that is crazy. Someone who loved her ought to be the one to lay her to rest. Was I the only one who loved her? Her husband was fighting a war to avenge her, but then he’d sent her there in the first place.
The voices faded down the path. I swallowed the lump in my throat and darted to the stable door, sliding the woven panel open and slipping inside. The lanterns suspended from the high-peaked roof threw emerald light throughout the wide stables. Snuffling sounds and stomping feet comforted me with the mixed smell of fresh fodder and animals. Home.
My mount was in the twenty-third stall. I rushed to his stall and opened it, smiling widely as I was reflected in the ebony of his thick-lashed eyes.
“Alsoon,” I breathed.
He ducked his head low and I leaned my forehead against his, caressing his huge head with my hands as his trunk wrapped around me. As our foreheads met, my elephant’s thoughts sought mine.
Girl. There was a flicker as he saw me in his mind, first as I am now: tall, eighteen, flowing black hair, and black muscled limbs in the dark clothing I’d chosen for sneaking out. And then as he remembered me: a tiny girl, my black hair a bird’s nest, and my black limbs sticking out of a frothy pink dress. Was he remembering the day mother had gifted him to me? Wild Girl.
Yes. It’s Wild Girl, Alsoon.
Ride?he asked.
I smiled, warmth filling my chest. My oldest friend had no hesitation helping me.
Yes. We ride.
I stepped back and begin to gather his tack, preparing him for our journey. It would be a long one. The ride to our borders was three days. He snuffled happily behind me.
I pulled the bag I’d stashed from under the straw. Good. No one had found it. I was about to place it on his back when a voice called out to me, “Tylira?”
It was harsh and grim. In the green light a woman built of muscle and little else stepped into the door of my stall, her boiled leather armour and bronze cuirass and arm guards glistening in the green light. Extending above her shoulder was a small flag with orange and white flags flowing from it. I jumped. Thud. The bundle I held hit the ground. At her back were six hulking shapes. Guards dressed just like her, but missing the bronze indicators of her rank.
She flexed her fingers. They made terrible popping sounds and I grimaced. “If you think you’re leaving, you can think again.”
2
Omens
“I will not allow my mother’s corpse to be left for ravens, Jakinda,” I said, lifting my nose into the air and assuming my most royal posture. My tutors always say that to be shown respect one must play the part. Maybe if I played it just right I could convince them.
“No one is going to leave her for ravens to eat, girl,” Captain Jakinda Alruha said with a shake of her head. She and the hulking shadows behind her, my personal bodyguard, were selected from the best of the High Tazmin’s soldiers. If only I had any hope of slipping past them, but I’ve been watching them train for years. Their skills are no mystery .
Jakinda sighed and ran a hand through her short hair. “They’ll have buried your mother already.” She glanced at me, shook her head and elaborated. “It’s been seven days since she died and by now the army will have beaten that sorry upstart nation into the ground. By the time that you arrive there won’t be anybody left to bury. She’s gone, Tylira.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. Jakinda was treating me like a child. Worse, she was right. But what was I supposed to do? Sitting here and just accepting her death like I’ve had to accept everything else in life seemed like a betrayal. No more accepting and surrendering. If there were decisions to be made I should be the one making them.
“You could come with me,” I offered, twisting my fingers in the black silk of my clothes. “You must be as sick of guarding me in these small gardens as I am of living here day after day.”
“I’d hardly call them small,” Jakinda said with a smirk. She was softening. “They’re one hundred acres of land with trails, pools, a river, terraced gardens and riding stock. We train with the best equipment and eat fine food every night. It’s what every armsman dreams of.”
“Then you are growing soft here in the Silken Gardens,” I said, provoking her. “Maybe some time spent toughening up would put you all back in form, and then you’ll be selected for a better posting than the bodyguards of a teenage girl who is so far down the succession line that she may never even set foot in the High Tazmin’s palace.”
“You think I’m soft?” Jakinda asked, raising a threatening eyebrow. “Come at me and see for yourself.”
I rolled my eyes. Really? Fight Jakinda? She’d been training in armed and unarmed combat since long before my mother was chosen as a consort for the High Tazmin.
Jakinda held a fight stance for a few moments while the men behind her snorted and chuckled. I felt like chewing horseshoes. They were mocking me with this ridiculous charade.
“I think I’ve made my point,” Jakinda said after a moment, as she relaxed back into an easy position.
I gritted my teeth and said nothing. Did they think that I’d cave and do what they wanted just because I liked Jakinda. I scowled. Surely there must be a way to convince Jakinda to let me go, or to come with me. She let me off without telling on me when she caught me stealing sweets as a small child, and she’d even delivered the news of my mother’s death herself. She wasn’t unkind. I opened my mouth, and Jakinda cocked her head.
A tremor in the earth shook me, it started subtly like the shaking of an old woman’s hands but it increased in strength until the stables were heaving like a drunk the morning after. I clutched the side of the
stable door, keeping my distance from Alsoon. He and the other elephants stomped and trumpeted at the shaking, kept down only by their thick tethers.
One of my guards cursed loudly, while two of them lost their feet. Jakinda swayed with the ground, balancing on the waves like she did this every day, her compact frame looked like it was made for this. What were these terrible shakings and creakings in the ground? We’d suffered through months of them and still no one knew their cause.
When the ground was finished rippling and the dust fell back to the earth I shook myself and straightened.
“Worse than the others,” one of my guards said. “They get worse every time.”
“Hush,” Jakinda said.
“Somethings gone wrong, some black omen,” the man continued.
“Do I need to teach you how to obey orders?” Jakinda snapped, but he was right. The tremors were worse, and they surely meant something. They were a portent of doom coming upon us.
There were whispers in the halls when my tutors thought we weren’t looking. The slaves talked of nothing else since winter, and even one of the High Tazmin’s consorts, who had been visiting her daughter here, let slip that the Lesser Tazmins were making demands. After all, was not the High Tazmin the ruler of our land to protect us from such portentous omens? But what magic could he possess that would calm the earth when she was unsettled?
Jakinda smoothed her cuirass and touched her spatha and buckler almost automatically to be sure they were still in their places. Around her my other guards followed suit.
Teeth of the Gods (Unweaving Chronicles Book 1) Page 1