by Evie Manieri
‘Stirred up trouble, that’s what she did,’ Shairav began severely, but Daryan was spared the rest of the lecture as the sound of footsteps echoed down the corridor towards them. The Shadari all turned towards the sound.
‘They’ve found us!’ someone cried out.
‘The White Wolf!’ gasped someone else, but Daryan recognised the rag-doll’s tangle of reddish hair as a dark figure slipped through the door and hurtled towards them.
‘Oh, Shairav’Asha, it’s the governor’s daughter, please, it’s Lady Isa,’ Rahsa panted, throwing herself at the old man’s feet.
‘What’s wrong?’ Daryan asked quickly.
Rahsa looked up at them, her eyes swimming in tears. ‘I was taking the laundry up, like they told me, and I— I didn’t mean to—’ She stopped to gulp down the sob rising in her throat. ‘I never expected anyone to be there so early. They were outside your room, Daimon—’
‘Rahsa,’ Shairav interrupted severely, ‘you know you must never refer to Daryan as the daimon, even when only we Shadari are present.’
Rahsa dropped her eyes. ‘Yes, Shairav’Asha, I’m sorry.’
‘My room?’ Daryan asked quickly, but she was already hurrying on.
‘I couldn’t see over the bundle I was carrying and I knocked into her, and then I tried to help her up, and I touched her arm—Please, I didn’t mean to do it. Please hide me! I don’t want to be—’
‘Rahsa, calm down!’ Daryan bent down and forced the hysterical girl to get to her feet, thinking how unfortunate she was to be pretty enough for temple service; the sensitive ones never fared well. ‘You couldn’t have hurt her badly if you only touched her for a moment. It might have stung a little, but that’s all. It was just a mistake. She’s probably forgotten all about it by now.’
Rahsa looked up at him with a reverential gleam in her eyes. ‘Do you really think so?’ she asked hopefully.
‘I’m going to take Lord Eofar his breakfast right now – I’ll talk to him about it. It will be all right, I promise you. Go on, now. You should be getting back.’
Before he could say anything further another Shadari dressed in stableworkers’ brown, Shairav’s fawning new assistant Majid, came through the door. ‘Shairav’Asha,’ he said in a low voice, ‘you’re needed in the stables. The White Wolf is already awake and the whole garrison is preparing to ride out.’
Most of the other Shadari, having quickly realised that Rahsa’s dramatics did not concern them, had already left the funeral chamber to resume their duties. Just as Daryan turned to slip away with them, his uncle thwarted his escape, calling, ‘Walk with me.’
‘Of course, Uncle,’ he said, suppressing a sigh. He took his place at Shairav’s side and they strode off towards the stables where his uncle’s beloved dereshadi would be having their messy breakfast of rotting goat. The refectory where Eofar’s breakfast was waiting to be fetched lay just beyond the stables. He could think of no good excuse for going a different way from Shairav but he knew what would happen the moment they were alone together.
Shairav did not disappoint. ‘I do not want to hear that woman’s name mentioned, by you or anyone else, ever again,’ he said as soon as they were alone. The old man hated her, of course. Until Shairav had taken over as breedmaster, the dereshadi had been steadily dying out. Harotha had been the only one with the courage to point out that without enough dereshadi at their disposal, the Dead Ones might not have been able to maintain control of the colony.
Daryan found himself compulsively counting the empty brackets between the few torches the Dead Ones – who could see in almost total darkness – allowed the slaves to light. Two, three, four, five …
‘Daryan. Did you hear what I said?’
‘I’m not the only one who thinks she should be honoured,’ he argued, carefully keeping his tone amiable. ‘Her mother and father were both ashas. Her family has produced at least one asha in every generation as far back as anyone can remember—’
‘And they died, along with the others. So her parents were ashas; she was not – the presumption, coming here and demanding to be shown the secret staircase, expecting me to ordain her—’
‘So she could carry on if something happened to you,’ he put in. ‘Otherwise all the knowledge of the ashas will die with you.’
‘She wanted power for herself,’ Shairav said dismissively, ‘and she would have used it to destroy everything you and I have spent our lives preserving. Do you think it has been easy for me to keep my vow not to use my powers? And if I had broken my vow, do you think you and I would still be alive?’
‘I know that,’ said Daryan, looking down at the stone floor. ‘If you hadn’t brought me here I’d be choking on black dust in the mines or sweating blood in the smelting shacks, or laid out on a pyre, just like that girl.’ He had already forgotten her name. Was it Inara? ‘But what about the other things Harotha did? She and Faroth were organising the resistance in the city, and she allowed herself to be brought to the temple of her own free will—’
‘Which was foolish. And look where it got her.’
‘Dead,’ he murmured darkly, rubbing at his smoke-stung eyes. ‘Falling down the stairs.’ He shook his head with a grim laugh. ‘Someone like Harotha just hits her head and dies. It’s not right.’
‘It was the will of the gods,’ Shairav intoned. ‘She was not your friend. She was using you.’
‘She wanted the daimon to be more than just a name,’ Daryan mumbled to himself. He could almost hear her, exhorting him to action in that firm but cajoling voice of hers. She had expected more from him; she had wanted him to expect more from himself. And here he was, months after her death, so useless that he couldn’t even give her a proper funeral. ‘She wanted me to do something.’
As they entered the stables the reek of spoiled meat assaulted Daryan’s senses. The vast cavern, shaped like an inverted bowl with the bottom knocked out, was already abuzz with activity. Soldiers in white capes with great swords slung across their backs strode around waiting for their mounts to be saddled. The light was dim and the faint glow of the Dead Ones’ skin stood out clearly. Dereshadi sleepily leapt or glided down to the straw-covered floor from dark berths chiselled high up into the cavern walls, and then lumbered about, rolling their massive heads, and endangering slaves and Dead Ones alike with lazy stretches of their fleshy wings. Slaves hustled about with complicated harnesses or lugged heavy saddles from the storerooms. Feet whispered among the straw, booted and sandalled and bare, and metal clanked and leather creaked, but no voices were raised except for the occasional sibilant whisper.
‘You give our people hope,’ Shairav was saying, ‘the hope that the Shadari will survive this torment and will someday, with the gods’ help, triumph. You are the preserver of our way of life—’
But Daryan was no longer listening to the lecture.
Isa was there.
Chapter Five
Isa whisked aside the red curtain hanging across the doorway to Frea’s chambers.
Isa adjusted her white shirt where it had slipped off her shoulder. It was one of Eofar’s cast-offs, and too big for her. The brown leggings were Eofar’s as well. The black boots had been Frea’s. Importing cloth and leather was expensive, and Isa, as the youngest, was expected to make do. Her father hated waste.
snarling wolf gleamed atop the dark furs. The only other piece of furniture in the room was the carved wooden stand displaying her black-bladed imperial knife, given to her by their father on the day she had assumed responsibility for the mines. It was nothing compared to Eofar’s sword, of course, but he’d still needed special permission from the emperor to make it for her.
Isa hurried out into the hall after her sister.
They turned another corner and suddenly, right in front of them, was the archway leading into the stables. Through it Isa could see triffons lumbering across the floor, others lounging in their tomb-like berths. The rustling of their wings sounded like a swarm of insects massing in the dark. Then the smell of damp hides, dirty straw and spoiled meat hit her. She drew back and reached her hand out to steady herself against the wall.
Frea turned to her, her silver-green eyes glittering in the darkness behind the visor. she said.
Isa snatched her hand away from the wall. She could do this – she had to do this.
Isa stopped and looked around. She’d lost her. All around her were uniformed soldiers, meek slaves and triffons, but her sister had disappeared. Sweat crawled underneath her shirt. She could not see the way back to the archway they’d just come through. Worse, she couldn’t see any of the other entrances either. And people were beginning to notice her. She could tell the Norlanders were gossiping about her precisely by what she couldn’t hear them saying. And the Shadari: she could feel them staring at her, and whenever she looked they turned away with a particular expression on their changeable faces. The heat and the smell were stifling. It was getting harder to breathe … harder to think.
Then across the room she saw Daryan. He had been looking at her, she could tell, but when she looked towards him he turned away just like the others. She saw him touch another slave on the shoulder, perhaps asking him a question, but she knew by the way he clutched briefly at the curls straggling over the back of his neck that he was well aware of her gaze. A warm, unpleasant flush travelled down her arms and into her fingertips. Disgusted with herself, she turned sharply away.
And there was Frea again, standing beside her triffon, Trakkar, while the slaves finished buckling on his saddle. Her silver helmet turned slowly as she surveyed the preparations in the stables.
Frea suggested with a trill of cruel merriment.
This was usually the point where Eofar would step in and tell Frea to leave her alone, but Eofar wasn’t there.
Isa whirled around and addressed the first slave she saw. ‘Get my sword,’ she commanded. The words scratched and clawed at her throat and fell heavily onto the voiceless silence of the room. Then she picked another slave. ‘You. Saddle Aeda.’
Frea was right. What good would it do her to carry her mother’s sword if she couldn’t fly? She could do this. Eofar wasn’t here to stop her, and anyway, she wasn’t a little girl any more, relying on him for everything. No, this was possibly her last chance to prove that she was just as much a Norlander as anyone else here. Her mind was made up: this time would be different.
There was a subtle movement from the crowd around her and then Daryan was suddenly there, right in front of her. His eyes were wide, but his usually soft, mobile mouth was as hard as stone. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he whispered to her. ‘You know you can’t—’
Frea clouted him from behind: a tremendous, sweeping blow with her forearm that snapped his head around with terrible force and dropped him to his knees on the hard stone floor. Then she thrust her stiff boot into his back, sending him sprawling onto his face in the dirty straw. The other Shadari gasped: a harsh, involuntary sound that rent the silence.
The Shadari stared stupidly at Daryan, their tasks forgotten. Isa had the sense that they would have rushed to him if they hadn’t been too afraid of Frea. She saw him roll over on to his side, breathing hard. Blood – red Shadari blood – smeared the side of his mouth and his face was creased with pain. He kept his eyes fixed on the floor in front of him.
Isa walked forward. Trakkar swung his big head around and she saw his slippery black eyes, like weedy, bottomless pools. she told Frea.
Isa hooked her left foot into the near stirrup, just over the point where the tough ridge of cartilage joined Trakkar’s wing to his body, and then reached up and grabbed the pommel of the saddle. In one smooth motion, she lifted herself up an
d straddled her right leg over, then searched with her foot until she found the other stirrup. The floor of the stables looked much further away than it should have been. Frea’s saddle felt hard and uncompromising, as if it knew she didn’t belong there. In front of her was the harness, a complicated framework of tough leather straps and burnished brass buckles.
She saw that Daryan was sitting up now, wiping at the blood trickling from his mouth. He was not looking at her, but everyone else was. She could feel their eyes on her, Norlander and Shadari alike. She reached out for the harness, but when her fingers touched it, she felt nothing. Her hands had gone numb. She shook out her wrists and flexed her fingers but the tightness had started in her chest and the next breath she took lodged somewhere in her throat. She reached down and gripped the side of the saddle with both hands as her head began to swim. A drowsy blackness rolled through her and she felt herself listing. She was going to fall. Blindly she kicked her right foot out of the stirrup and brought her leg up over the saddle. She was trying to get down, but her left boot caught on the stirrup on the other side. She clung to the pommel, swinging crazily, until her foot finally came free and she crashed backwards down on to the floor.
She didn’t think about anything then. She just got up and ran away.
Chapter Six
Daryan raced past the refectory without stopping; his master’s breakfast could wait, especially since he never ate it anyway. He dragged his fingers along the wall as he rushed through the corridors, a habit left over from childhood when the bad light and blank walls had made him dizzy; when he reached Eofar’s room he found the curtain over the doorway still pulled shut. He halted before it, rolling his stiff jaw and calling softly, ‘Lord Eofar?’ When no answer came he called again, a little louder; then, with a sour feeling in his stomach, he brushed past the curtain and into the room.