by Evie Manieri
‘Amai and Shof are gods,’ Nisha reminded him sternly. ‘The war they fight stalemated at the dawn of time. If they both want her, what can we do about it? I’ve prayed to Amai to release her claim; you have prayed to Shof, but it’s no use: we’re a stubborn people and we have stubborn gods.’
He circled his arm around her waist and hugged her to him. ‘Mother, I’m not coming to the gathering with you,’ he told her gently. ‘I can’t leave things the way they are. I have to go back – I have to know what she’s trying to do. I may have to stop her from doing it.’
He felt her stiffen in his embrace. ‘Are you going to tell her the truth?’
‘How can I?’ he demanded bitterly, releasing her. ‘I’m the king of the tribe of Shof, the king of the Nomas. I don’t know what she’ll do if she finds out the truth. My first duty is to my tribe. I haven’t forgotten that.’
She put her hands on his shoulders and looked at him through a blur of tears. ‘You are a king, Jachi, and you do have a duty to your people, and that’s all well and good. But you’re afraid to tell her the truth, for the same reason I am: you’re afraid she’ll hate you for it.’ Her tears spilled over and he hugged her, burying his face in her sea-swept hair.
‘There,’ she said finally, disentangling herself and plunking a motherly kiss down on his cheek. ‘You don’t need to worry about the gathering. Come here,’ she commanded, holding out her hand to him. Her rings flashed in the sun. ‘Come!’
He took her hand suspiciously and allowed her to lead him past her tent, over to the other side of the ridge towards the desert, away from the temple and the Shadar. The undulating dunes, tinged red and yellow and white, stretched to the horizon. He felt a sharp pang of homesickness at the sight of them. Somewhere out there his tribe was getting ready to see the wives and daughters and sisters and mothers and lovers who had not set foot on land in the rising and setting of six moons. Even now he could see the dust cloud on the horizon that was probably his tribe, journeying towards the traditional meeting-ground, eight long days’ journey from the Shadar.
She pulled him right towards the edge of the ridge. ‘Look!’ she said, putting a hand on the back of his neck and tilting his head downward.
A patchwork of riotous colour, a small city of brightly hued sailcloth tents crouched in the shadow of the mountain: the tribe of Amai. The camp swarmed with activity. The shrill voices of children floated up on the breeze and a hundred fires danced. Jachad glanced back out at the dust cloud on the horizon. It was hard to tell, but now he could see that they were moving towards the Shadar, rather than away from it as he had first thought.
‘There’s no law that says the tribes have to meet at that old place in the desert. We’re tired of lugging our tents through the sand,’ Nisha informed him with a touch of defiance. ‘We beached the boats in the usual place and just came here instead. I sent word of the change to your caravan twelve days ago. I knew that with you away, no one would dare contradict me. The men will be here by tomorrow. Besides, I think a change of scenery will do everyone some good.’
For once Jachad was at a complete loss for words.
She smiled. ‘There, you see, Jachi? Simple. You come to us when you’re ready. And if you need us, we’re your people, and we’re here for you.’ Then she caught at his hand and held it tightly, holding it to her cheek. ‘Bring her back to us, if you can.’
He nodded, took her hand and kissed it.
Chapter Sixteen
As Isa reached the top of the stairs she could see the heat rippling the air in front of her. Greasy cooking smells came in waves and she paused, waiting for a sudden surge of nausea to pass. From the refectory doorway just up ahead she could hear knives clattering on clay plates, and every now and then a strained word of command to the slaves. Occasional bursts of light flared out through the open archway as fat dripped down onto the cooking fires.
Frea wasn’t in the refectory. Isa didn’t have to look inside; no wall in the temple could conceal the frigid intensity of her sister’s presence.
She shut her eyes. Sweat sheeted down underneath the stiff new leather of her fighting clothes. She could feel the heat pulling her back towards the darkness of her room, the softness of her bed, the filminess of the gown she’d left lying in a heap on the floor, pulling her back towards sleep and the greedy way it devoured the long, pointless hours of her life.
But no, not this time. Now she was made of ice. No amount of heat could thaw her. She was frozen as solid as the statues in the emperor’s palace at Ravindal. Her fingers were icicles.
Her breast was a snowdrift. Her heart was a glacier.
Her eyes flew open. Rho was standing in the shadows at the far end of the hall. All she could see of him was a long face and two indistinct hands hovering in the darkness.
She greeted him coolly, keenly aware of the shiny newness of her leather suit. The sleeveless jacket was supposed to be worn with a shirt underneath, but it was just too hot here. She tugged at the buckle across her chest to make sure it was still fastened.
she said breezily. She didn’t want him to know that after she’d left Daryan alone in the bathing room, she’d wasted the rest of the night away sitting half-dressed on the edge of her bed, lost in a miasma of feelings she couldn’t even name. She had left herself only enough time to put on her clothes and tie her hair back like a boy’s.
For a moment, all of the breathable air disappeared from the corridor. Nothing was left but the lung-searing heat.
Ice, she reminded herself.
Made of ice, like a Norlander. Like Frea. Like Rho.
Something was different about him – she should have noticed it right away. The aristocratic disdain that was the mainstay of his personality felt forced. And why was he standing so far away from her? She started down the hallway towards him.
The dark pupils in his silver eyes roamed up and down her frame.
She didn’t understand the comment, but she felt the criticism.
Isa felt him as oddly distant, as if he were talking to himself, without quite realising she was there.
She tossed her head and took a step back from him.
Now, even through the buzz of her own anger, Isa could feel some dark emotion churning up beneath his genteel posing.
She turned back to him.
He didn’t bother to contradict what they both knew was a lie.
His silver eyes flashed in the dark hallway.
She was too furious to respond. She stalked off down the corridor, hands trembling with rage.
She stopped halfway down the stairs and turned back to him warily.
Isa regarded him suspiciously.
She considered his proposal.
She looked past him, towards the doorway. All of those bodies. All of that heat.
He was right. She’d fail again, just as she had before.
Chapter Seventeen
Daryan stopped at the junction of two passages, his momentum gone. He told himself that he should keep going, but he felt incapable of propelling himself any further. Isa had played with a wooden toy when she was little, a Norland animal – he had never known what it was called – on rackety wheels; no matter how hard you pushed it, it never travelled more than a few feet across the stone floor before stuttering to a halt. That’s what he felt like now.
He didn’t know where she’d gone after she’d left him alone in the bathing room. That had been hours ago. He should have been helping to restore order in the wake of the earthquake, and Shairav was looking for him. He couldn’t just stand here brooding, going nowhere, doing nothing. People were hurt; they were afraid. He was the daimon. He had responsibilities. He wasn’t a child any more.
But neither was Isa.
Finally he heard footsteps, light and quick, too light for a man, too quick for a woman, and only a soft pattering, not the percussive strike of boots or the slap of sandals. And as the source of the footsteps solidified out of the grey darkness at the far end of the hall, he understood quite plainly that his mind had snapped – temple sickness, his people called it, from living too long in the dark. He had gone mad.
Because it was a child: a little curly-haired Shadari child, just like Daryan himself had been when he first came to the temple. It was a likeness, an echo, conjured up from his own memories. The apparition walked towards him without slowing, and he would have not been at all surprised if it had passed through him as easily as if he were made of smoke. But the child stopped in front of him and looked up into his face.
‘Hello,’ said the boy brightly.
Daryan bent down. The warm, fresh smell of the boy’s hair and clothes – a mixture of bleached sand and hearth fires and sea-salt – made his head swim with longing and loss. ‘Who are you?’ he asked faintly. ‘Where did you come from?’
‘I’m Dramash. From the Shadar.’
‘But how did you—?’
‘I’m going to live here now and help take care of the dereshadi.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘The White Wolf. One of the soldiers said he’d teach me how to fight, too. I don’t know his name. What’s your name?’
‘Daryan.’
The whites of the boy’s eyes widened. ‘Oh! I’ve heard of you! I know all about you.’
‘Do you?’ he asked, smiling, but he was not really listening. He heard more footsteps coming their way.
‘My father told me,’ said Dramash. ‘He says you’re a coward.’
Daryan’s stomach muscles
screwed up tight. He was careful to keep his face turned away from the boy. ‘Does he?’ he asked, struggling to keep his voice level. ‘Why does he say that?’
‘He says if you didn’t like it here you would have done something by now. He says you get to lie around here while other people are dying in the mines,’ the child continued blithely.
He was just repeating what he’d heard, Daryan reminded himself. He was just a little boy.
‘He says that you don’t really care about the Shadari at all. He says that if we wait around for you to do something, we’ll be waiting forever.’
Now Daryan did hear the scrape of boot-nails and he recognised that long, confident stride. ‘That’s the White Wolf – come here, quickly!’ He grabbed the child by the hand – a small, moist hand – and yanked him down the hallway to their right.
‘Hey!’ the boy protested, pulling his hand from Daryan’s grasp. He skipped away before Daryan could grab him again. Frea’s silver helmet gleamed as she passed and he waited in the shadows with his heart in his mouth for her to notice the boy. She never even broke her stride, but the boy – Dramash – fell into step behind her heels and padded after her like an obedient puppy.
He watched, dumbfounded, until he lost them in the darkness.
‘Oh, Daryan! I’m glad I found you,’ a voice called out from behind him, and he started, nearly knocking his head against the wall. He turned around and found another slave advancing down the corridor towards him.
‘Shairav wants me. I know,’ Daryan said tightly. As usual, he had to search frantically for a name. ‘You can tell him I’m on my way, Veshar.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Veshar uncertainly, ‘but Shairav didn’t send me. Lord Eofar has come back. Aeda’s just landing now. I thought you’d want to know.’
‘Are you sure it’s Lord Eofar?’ he asked eagerly, not sure whether he was glad that Eofar hadn’t left the Shadar, or sorry that he hadn’t found Harotha.
‘Well, we weren’t at first, actually,’ said Veshar, eyeing him quizzically, ‘because he’s brought someone back with him.’