by Rin Chupeco
“Tea, leave one of the stones untouched if you can! I’ve got an idea!” Zoya clapped her hands above her head, and a sinkhole opened underneath most of the men, sending them tumbling down.
“Copycat,” Fox murmured.
“I’m saving your ass, you ass!” Zoya had been around Polaire more often than she should have.
Kill, I told the azi, not wanting to prolong the fight and Fox’s pain, and we unleashed more torrents of fire in the savul’s direction. It avoided the onslaught, leaping high into the air again.
Its attack patterns told me the savul preferred close fighting, relying on its camouflage to get away unscathed. I kept ourselves still, one of our heads remaining immobile and presenting itself as an obvious target as the nearly invisible daeva descended toward us, its talons primed to strike. I shoved away my disgust and poured myself into the azi’s mind, anticipating the blow.
It never reached us. From behind the savul, both our other heads lashed out, jaws snapping at either side of the savul’s neck. A fountain of blood spurted into the sky.
The frog-like daeva squalled. It thrashed its nearly decapitated head frantically from side to side, but that did nothing to stop the torrent of russet-colored blood from flowing to the ground, staining and rotting everything it touched. The Daanorian soldiers stumbled back, clutching at their heads. The Compulsion surrounding them lifted briefly, and I could finally see the source: two of the men carried glowing orbs hidden within their clothes, and I wasted no time reaching for one with my mind and destroying it quickly.
“Over there!” I yelled at Zoya, pointing at the second man, and the asha moved with great speed. A small hurricane all but slammed the man to the ground, knocking him out.
I tried again. My Compulsion bored straight into the savul’s mind without any other interference. I could feel a part of it struggling still, furious that someone else had been given access to its brain.
And then, just as suddenly, I found myself punted out of its thoughts as the other presence occupying its head took back control.
Howling, the savul dissolved from view. I could hear it leaping, this time away from us, and just as quickly, its presence was gone.
The pain in my head diminished. Fox staggered to his feet, breathing easier, and dropped his sword as Princess Inessa hurled herself into his arms, heedless of his bloody state, and buried her face against his chest. Slowly, his arms closed around her waist.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Zoya rise from beside a fallen soldier. She caught my eye, smiled grimly, and carefully pocketed the seeking stone she had extracted from him.
Thank you. I was never sure to what extent the azi understood me, but it was enough. I stepped away from Kalen and allowed the azi to caress my face, nuzzling at my neck and shoulders as if searching for injuries. Finding none, all three heads cooed.
Master.
I watched the azi rise, tired but triumphant, to resume its exploration of the skies as it had been before we had interrupted its peace.
I turned to find Kalen looking back at me. He smiled, and I found myself smiling back, a warm glow settling over me. “We didn’t kill it,” I said, feeling foolish for stating the obvious.
“But you hurt the daeva badly. For now, that’s good enough.”
One of the men rose behind him. The Daanorian already had a knife drawn, too close for Kalen to turn in time, much less respond. One look at his mind told me this Daanorian was not being compelled, that he acted of his own volition.
I reacted on instinct. The Compulsion rune still hummed in the air, but the man was already swinging his dagger—
Die!
—and missed Kalen completely, the blade ramming into his own stomach.
Blood bubbled up from the soldier’s mouth; wordlessly, he fell. Shocked, Kalen turned to see the Daanorian collapse on the ground, dead. But the man’s eyes stared blankly back at me, wide open and accusatory.
The man had arrived in the early morning, and like the princess, no one barred his entry at the gates. He showed no fear before the daeva that guarded the doors. His sword was useless in the face of the horrors, but he held it as if that made no difference. His clothes told me he was a military official of some importance. He was tall and broad shouldered, and his long hair was tied back from his face. But he had the Dark asha’s eyes and coloring and the same stubborn set to his mouth as hers did. He had visible cuts around his face and arms, old wounds that showed no signs of healing.
The monsters attempted intimidation; the nanghait drew its two faces close to the man’s and hissed out its venom. A snarl rose from the soldier’s throat, and the beast flinched. The savul took a small hop forward, but the man moved swiftly, flinging out his arm so the blade he carried was a hair’s breadth from its flattened snout.
“Try me,” he seethed, though the savul did not. “You are lucky, you blasted toad, that I no longer feel pain from your nearness, but I will slice off your legs if you so much as blink those hideous eyes. Where is Inessa? I swear by every god I know, Tea, if you have gone so far as to harm her…!” He swung his sword in an arc to include both the taurvi and zarich in his threats, both of whom were endeavoring to sneak up behind him. “And leash your beasts!”
Lord Kalen stepped through the doors of the palace, Princess Inessa behind him. The man’s gaze slid to her face. Reassured by what he saw there, he turned to the Deathseeker. “They said you were dead.”
“What difference does that make? You are still against us.”
“I have never been against Tea.”
“Not from where I stand.”
“She killed people, Kalen. She raised the undead to massacre soldiers!” His voice shook. “They ate men under my watch!”
“And your men would have massacred these Daanorians if she hadn’t. What makes you any better?”
“You’ve changed since dying, Kalen. Are your feelings for my sister hindering your judgment?”
“Are your feelings for the princess hindering yours, Fox?”
They stared at each other, stubborn to the end, convinced it was the other that was wrong, like the disagreements all wars were made of.
Lord Fox moved so quickly that it took the sound of steel meeting steel for me to realize the fight had begun.
“Stop it!” Princess Inessa cried, but she was ignored. This was not the playful sparring sessions between friends that the bone witch had so fondly recalled. This was a brutal fight, waged by familiars who fought despite knowing neither one could be killed by the other.
A stroke of Lord Fox’s blade was parried; a swing of the sword by Lord Kalen was countered. It was the Deathseeker who first drew blood. A flick of his wrist and a cut appeared over the other man’s shoulder, though the latter showed no pain. Lord Kalen dealt a second blow to his side and then a third across his cheek, but Lord Fox rallied with two slices against the other man’s shin and hand.
“Enough!” The air crackled from the force of the words. Both combatants froze in midstrike. The bone witch stood by the entrance, hands fisted on either side of her. Princess Inessa stood with her, arms folded over her chest and looking just as furious.
“You’ve been practicing,” Lord Kalen said. “You’re much better than when we last fought.”
“And still I struggle to keep up with you,” Fox conceded wryly. “You’re stronger than I remember. Inessa snuck out of camp to come here,” he added in a quieter voice as they both turned to face their fuming paramours. “You were defending Tea. Why are we the ones in trouble?”
Without changing expression, the Deathseeker replied, “I don’t know.”
22
The engagement celebration would push through regardless of the army’s losses; Emperor Shifang insisted it would. “It is not the custom for the emperor to rescind his own orders,” Tansoong informed us. “He is infallible.”
“Half
his army has fallen victim to someone else’s Compulsion, and he worries about his infallibility?” Zoya was in a fighting mood. Her attempts to explain the spell had fallen on deaf ears. It took all our persuasion to keep the emperor from executing the soldiers for treason, finally getting him to understand the nature of Compulsion, if barely. The only good thing to come out of this was the emperor honoring his promise to let us into the city, to finally find the old forger. Not for the first time, I cursed my inability to act then, to seize the azi and turn on these Daanorians. But the old Heartforger was still somewhere in the city, and Inessa continued to insist on diplomacy despite everything.
“There is little to be learned about Kalen’s would-be assassin,” Shadi spoke up. “His name was Leehuang, and he was a loner. What is strange is that he joined the army voluntarily instead of waiting to be conscripted, like most.”
“Did he have a family?” I asked quietly. “Children?”
Zoya and Shadi glanced at each other. “No family or friends,” the latter said gently. “It’s not your fault, Tea.”
“I killed him. Of course it is.”
“You told me he wasn’t under any Compulsion,” Zoya chimed in. “The chances that he was in league with one of the Faceless is likely. This isn’t a man who was being forced to act against his will.”
“What about the other man? The one I killed when I destroyed the seeking stone on him? Did he have family?”
“Tea…”
“Did he have family?”
“A wife and a son.”
I bowed my head. We had gathered in Khalad’s room, with Princess Inessa and Likh conspicuously absent. As the guest of honor, the Kion princess was preparing for her engagement party that night, convincing the court concubines that she needed only Likh to help her dress. Shadi and Kalen had combed through the palace, hunting for any more seeking stones in the vicinity, and came up with nothing.
Some of the dead soldier’s blood had gotten under my fingernails. I rubbed my hands frantically against the sleeve of my hua, but try as I might, I could not rid myself of it.
“Are you OK?” Fox asked me quietly.
“I’m fine.”
Do you want to talk about it?
No.
I think we should talk about it.
There is nothing to talk about.
Tea.
There isn’t!
“What about the Shaoyun boy?” Shadi asked. “The missing suitor. Any word of him?”
Zoya shook her head. “They’ve questioned his family. They haven’t heard from him in more than a year, but they also say that’s not unusual. He travels frequently and spends most of his time in the cities.”
“That makes our jobs harder. I hope the old forger’s OK. Baoyi hasn’t found any reason to think he’s injured or worse, but it’s hard to be sure when we can’t find him ourselves.”
“Inessa’s finally convinced the emperor to let us visit the city tomorrow, at least. Now that we know there are Faceless agents inside Daanoris, let’s err on the side of caution. Likh says he might know how to remove the wards.”
Everyone turned to Likh, who had just entered the room.
“It’s only a theory,” he mumbled, blushing.
“Any theory’s worth discussing at this point,” Khalad said, encouraging him.
“Well,” Likh began shyly, “the main problem is that there’s not a separate ward in each room. It’s one large ward woven throughout the castle, so I can’t undo one part of it. But without access to any runes, I don’t see how I can—”
“And that’s why I’m brilliant,” Zoya said with a grin, fishing out the seeking stone she’d taken during the savul fight. “The Unraveling rune doesn’t need as much effort to channel. We can probably muster enough magic with this to destroy the wards, as long as we focus on the one spot that will undo the whole spell.”
“I can start this instant,” Likh babbled, jumping to his feet. “It might take a few days to figure out the weakest point, so the sooner I begin, the better.”
“Don’t dismantle anything until we find the forger,” Zoya cautioned. “They might stage some new devilry if they knew what we’re doing. Khalad, go with Likh.”
“Why?” Khalad asked.
“Why?” Likh echoed.
“The forger’s good at untangling complicated spells,” Zoya told them brightly. “He’d be a big help. Get on with it already.”
“Zoya,” Shadi remonstrated. The asha shot her an innocent look.
“Usij isn’t at the Haitsa mountains then,” Kalen said suddenly after a beet-red Likh led a slightly confused Khalad out. “Everything points to him being in Santiang.”
I killed my first man when I was fifteen, Fox continued doggedly. I threw up for an hour afterward. I know how you feel, but you can’t let it take over you.
Leave me alone.
Tea, I’m only trying to help—
“Well, you’re not!”
Startled faces look back at me. “Tea?” Zoya asked.
Flushing, I scrambled to my feet. “I have to get ready for the party,” I mumbled, avoiding my brother’s gaze. “I’m going ahead.” I hurried out before anyone could stop me.
The long walk back to my room felt like it took forever, and my legs gave out the instant I reached my bed. I threw myself onto the covers and spent half an hour weeping furiously.
I’d never killed anyone before. Perhaps it was foolish of me to think I never would. Even worse, I knew I would do it all over again. I felt revulsion; I felt sick.
But I felt no remorse, not even for the poor soldier with the wife and son. With the assassin, all I could remember in those moments leading up to the kill was anger, fear that he would kill Kalen—and a curious sense of satisfaction.
Am I a bad person?
I hadn’t expected Fox to answer, given how I’d left him, but his words came quickly, wrapping around me like a warm cloak.
You worry too much about being a good person to be a bad one.
I killed someone.
So did I. Many times. Does that make me a bad person?
Of course not.
I can’t say that it gets easier, Tea. We may hold the sword, but it’s circumstance that deals the killing blow. He sighed. I don’t know how to make this easier for you, love. That’s always been the problem—it never gets easier. But taking a life is not supposed to be easy, and you are a good person. I never had any doubts about that.
Thank you. I smiled into the darkness, the weight off my shoulders for the moment. Still, I looked down at my heartsglass, half expecting to see the beginnings of black there, as Aenah promised it would. But all I saw was silver.
• • •
Kion royal parties and balls were extravagant affairs, but the Daanorians put those memories to shame. I do not know how much was spent to finance this ball, but I was certain it surpassed the annual budgets of other smaller fiefs. Fireworks dotted the sky with explosions of color and light, and the resulting smell of gunpowder was an odd contrast to the scents of incense, roses, and perfume hanging heavily in the air.
Ice sculptures taller than I was depicted scenes from Daanoris’s past: the successful war against Tresea; the first emperor of Daanoris, Golgolath, leading his soldiers into battle; his marriage to the beautiful Faimei. Some of the sculptures were not as historically accurate. One ice scene had the Great Hero Anahita the Mighty riding the skies on the azi, and the Daanoris’s subsequent battles against Istera had not been as triumphant as these scenes made them out to be.
Five long tables were piled high with food, most of them delicacies I was not familiar with: roasted crackling pork belly, dumplings surrounded by soft, silken curds made of soy milk, spicy noodles in red and green pepper sauces, and braised white chicken in ginger-oyster dressing. I parked myself in front of the banquet table and he
lped myself. Morose as I was, I did love food.
Not for the first time that night, I wished Fox were there to make amends with, though no doubt he thought I needed more time to myself. The language barrier made it difficult to initiate conversation with the Daanoris, but a few of the noblemen persevered. Word had spread about the fight with the savul. Since the azi was venerated by the people of the kingdom, I soon attracted, much to my horror, a throng of male admirers clamoring for a dance.
Asha are trained to be more than fighters; we are entertainers, conversationalists, listening companions. Not wanting to cause a scene, I accepted the men’s invitations, trying to inject as much cheer as I could with the little Daanorian that I knew.
Already I’d seen Shadi and Zoya, each with their own bevy of admirers. Much to my amusement, it was Likh who attracted the most number of men, and the terrified expression on his face only spurred them on.
Khalad approached the group surrounding the male asha, oblivious to the dark stares thrown his way. The boy’s face lit up when he saw the forger approach and wilted somewhat when the latter began to talk. A few seconds later, and Likh was excusing himself from his admirers, glancing wistfully at the dance floor and then ruefully back at Khalad as they left together. For someone whose job was to examine heartsglass, I thought, Khalad was woefully inept when it came to reading Likh’s.
“Pet azi?” my dance partner asked, my seventh for the night. Every suitor I’d danced with had asked a variation of the same question, and it was becoming harder not to force my smile.
I had racked my brain for the Daanorian equivalent of “equal” earlier on but had given up. “Yes,” I lied, for the seventh time that night. “Pet azi.”
There was the sound of drums, and all heads turned to look at Emperor Shifang at the doorway with Princess Inessa on his arm. The Kion noblewoman was stunning, decked in gold and silver from head to toe, handmade embroidery trimmed the edges of her dress. There was a hush over the onlookers as their ruler led his betrothed to the ornate thrones and then the sound of knees falling to the ground as everyone prostrated toward him and their future empress.