by Evie Manieri
‘He has?’ He grabbed the startled man by the shoulders. ‘Who?’
‘I couldn’t really tell,’ the slave answered hurriedly, ‘but it looked like a woman. A woman with dark hair.’
He released Veshar and ran towards the stables. The scene he rushed into was even more chaotic than usual, with dereshadi everywhere: circling in the grey sky above, diving in to land, trundling along on the ground, flopping heavily into their berths. Shairav’s brown-robed assistants were ubiquitous, unsaddling, feeding and watering the creatures before bedding them down for the day. Dead Ones crowded near the walls, wary of the dawn, shrugging out of cloaks and peeling off gloves smeared with all kinds of grime and effluvia. And as Daryan waded in among the crowd, he kept hearing the same phrase, whispered over and over again by the Shadari.
Trouble at the mines.
He touched the arm of the first slave he recognised. ‘Rasabal, is Lord Eofar here?’
‘I think he just landed over there somewhere,’ she answered, pointing.
He wove through the confusion, craning his neck this way and that, trying to spot Eofar or Harotha. Just as he caught sight of a tangle of black hair, someone grabbed his arm from behind and jerked him back sharply.
‘Run,’ Shairav hissed into his ear.
‘What?’ Daryan cried out, recoiling from his uncle’s touch.
‘Run! Get away from here!’ he insisted again, circling in front of Daryan and staring into his face. The old man’s skin was slick with perspiration and his eyes bulged with fear.
‘Run? From Harotha?’
‘That,’ Shairav growled, ‘is not Harotha.’
Just then the crowd parted and he saw her. In the first instant he could do nothing but stare at the black eye-patch. Then he saw that her other eye was fixed on him, staring at him with a strangely intimate intensity. He couldn’t look away. Even in the uncertain light he could see the smoothly shining scars written across her face like a cipher. He thought at first that she was smiling – a mocking, half-smile – but then he noticed the scar pulling up one corner of her mouth.
‘Who is that? I’ve seen her before,’ he told his uncle, adding in a low voice, ‘haven’t I?’
A stablehand paused his vigorous saddle-scrubbing long enough to lean towards them. ‘That’s the Mongrel.’
‘The Mongrel? No, it can’t be.’ Daryan stepped around Shairav to get a better look.
Eofar trudged along behind her with his head down, unaware or uninterested in the sensation his companion was causing. They disappeared behind a stack of hay-bales and as they emerged on the other side, Daryan saw the woman stumble and fall heavily against the bales. She fumbled in her clothes for a moment and brought out a flat silver flask, but as she tried to unscrew the stopper the flask clattered to the floor. Eofar retrieved it for her and she gulped down a few swallows. Then she stowed the flask away again beneath her vest and took another moment to adjust her eye-patch before straightening up.
‘Run!’ Shairav cried out again, clutching his shoulder as the strange woman started towards them once more, but Daryan couldn’t have obeyed if he wanted to. His legs had turned to stone.
He knew her. He didn’t know how, or what it meant, but he knew her: she was part of something he had forgotten; something he’d been meant to forget. And she wasn’t supposed to be here. He didn’t need his uncle’s histrionics to tell him that; he could feel it with every step she took towards him: like an alarm bell, ringing louder, and louder, and louder.
She stopped in front of Daryan but she aimed her gaze over his shoulder, at Shairav.
‘No welcome home, Uncle?’ she asked softly in Shadari.
Before Daryan could react, the Mongrel reached out and raked the tips of her fingers under his chin. Her touch, delicate as an insect’s wing, shot through his limbs and raised every hair on his body.
‘He’s pretty,’ she murmured thoughtfully, and then bent her head down next to his. She whispered into his ear.
When she lifted her head, Daryan stared desperately into her scarred face. ‘I don’t understand,’ he whispered back.
The Mongrel focused her flat brown eye on Shairav once more. ‘What do you think, Uncle?’ she asked, in that same soft drawl. ‘Was he worth it?’
Then she stepped back and walked past them both, through the doorway just behind them and out into the corridor. Shairav made a strangled cry and lurched after her. Daryan followed, but as soon as Shairav entered the corridor the old man crumpled against the wall, clutching his heart.
‘Lahlil!’ he cried out into the darkness after her. ‘Lahlil!’
Lahlil.
That name again. The echo of it boomed in his head, thumping like a drumbeat. A name he’d completely forgotten until Isa had brought it to his mind tonight; and now, in defiance of any kind of probability, here it was again. So he really did know her; he even knew her name.
‘Uncle,’ he breathed, turning to the old man, but Shairav buried his face in his hands and fled back out into the stables. Daryan thought he heard him sobbing as he passed by.
He was about to run after him when a rasping voice beside him spoke his name.
‘My Lord,’ Daryan exclaimed. He hadn’t noticed that Eofar had let the Mongrel go on ahead of him. ‘Who is that woman? What’s happening here?’
Eofar said nothing for a moment. Daryan thought he looked even sicker than he had earlier. ‘Tell me the truth,’ he choked out. ‘You, and Harotha.’
‘The truth?’ he repeated, confused. ‘My Lord, you’re ill. Let me take you to your room—’
His master broke into a wracking cough. ‘Tell me,’ he insisted again. His shoulders were hunched and he stared dully down at the ground. ‘Were you in love with her?’
‘No, my Lord,’ he answered with complete candour, despite the fact that his heart was pounding wildly. ‘I could have been, I think, but she made it clear from the beginning that she didn’t want that.’ He braced himself. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’
‘No. She’s alive.’ Eofar leaned back against the wall, ignoring the sword still in its scabbard across his back, and shut his eyes. ‘I found her – everything was just as it had been, and we talked about leaving together. Then her brother and his friends came and she ran from me. She told everyone that you were the father of her baby. Not me. You.’
‘Her brother was there?’ Daryan asked, thinking quickly. ‘Then she was protecting herself – and your baby.’ He chuckled appreciatively; he knew exactly how Harotha’s mind would work in that situation. ‘Clever. They won’t dare touch her now, no matter how much they might suspect her.’
‘Why not?’
With a start, he realised what he had just opened up.
‘Daryan, what do you mean? Why won’t they dare harm your baby?’
This was what she had always wanted from him, wasn’t it? She had brought him to it at last. How many times had she told him to stop listening to Shairav, to stop waiting for something to change and to make change happen? Well, if not now, when?
He could still feel the frost on his lips from Isa’s kiss.
He stepped closer to Eofar and looked into his eyes. ‘Because of me. I’m the daimon.’
Eofar’s shoulders rolled back and he straightened up. ‘You’re the what?’
‘I’m the daimon,’ Daryan told him again. ‘That’s why Harotha told her brother that lie. You can believe me when I tell you, Harotha and I were never together.’
Eofar was too shocked to speak. He looked at Daryan as if he had never seen him before.
‘My Lord, who is that woman you brought here? I feel like I’ve seen her—’
But before Daryan could finish speaking, Eofar started violently and cried, ‘I have to go,’ and was already heading off down the corridor in the direction the Mongrel had gone. ‘Wait in my room. I’ll come to you,’ he called back, as he sped off after her.
Daryan was still staring after him when Majid, Shairav’s assistant, rounded a corner just up ahea
d. ‘Oh, Daimon, there you are! Shairav has been looking for you all night.’
‘I know. And please don’t call me—’ Daryan began. But then he stopped.
‘Daryan?’ Uncertainty shifted behind the man’s eyes. ‘Daryan? Are you all right?’
With a thin smile Daryan said, ‘You can tell him I’m on my way.’
Chapter Eighteen
She stepped down from the portico, took the cup from the soldier – Falkar, Frea’s lieutenant – and drained it in one swallow, stifling a shudder as the alcohol burned her throat.
Four dozen or so bare-chested guards were sprawled around the large room. Through an aperture on the far wall adjoining the kitchens she could see cooking fires, and red-faced slaves swam out of the heat-haze at intervals carrying platters of meat, fish and bread to the long wooden tables. Threads of morning sunshine scored the floor just underneath the windows as the sun found a way through the shutters’ slats. Originally this room had only been used for cooking; the benches and tables had been appropriated from the windowless dining hall several levels down, where Isa’s father had presided over their meals before he fell ill. No one ate there any more.
She was still deciding whether to sit down or remain standing when she felt the attention suddenly shift away from her and focus on something behind her. She turned around.
A young Shadari child was standing on the step, looking around him with wide, dark eyes.
Rho was nicely hidden by the portico’s wide columns, so no one could see the mess on his clothes or his bruised face. He leaned back against the wall, as if he were too weary or too indifferent to come any closer, and said laconically,
The boy trotted down from the step, past Falkar and Isa and over to one of the tables, returning the stares of the Norlanders with startling aplomb. He sniffed at the meat heaped onto the platter in front of him. ‘Can I have this?’ he asked Rho.
‘Help yourself.’
Before Rho had even finished speaking, the boy was shovelling food into his mouth until his cheeks bulged.
Moments before the ringing sound of Frea’s boots ricocheted up the steps, around the corner and into the refectory, Isa felt her sister’s anger heralding her arrival. The Norlanders nearest to the boy jumped away from him as if he were on fire.
A piercing cry sounded from the Shadari boy, who flew across the room and vaulted up to the portico by Frea’s side. ‘Are we going now? To see Shairav and the dereshadi?’ he demanded, hopping up and down in his excitement. ‘Can I really be his prentice? Did you ask him?’
Isa tensed, waiting for Frea to silence the boy with a slap, or worse.
Instead, Frea turned to Rho.
Rho half-walked, half-stumbled towards the door, but just before he disappeared into the corridor Isa felt him in her mind: a little push, a little urge.
She stepped forward.
Her sister barely glanced at her.
Isa drew her sword. The scraping sound echoed off the stone walls. Ice crystallised in her veins; her eyes were as cold as hailstones.
No one moved.
Frea’s silver-green eyes looked over Isa, down and then up again.
Make it a matter of family honour. That’s what Rho had said.
Frea whirled.
This time Isa wasn’t pretending. This time she could really feel the ice hardening to the strength of diamonds under her skin.
Kharl leapt up from the table where he’d been sitting. He circled the boy as warily as if he were a poisonous snake before shooing him through the doorway.
Frea stepped down off the dais and stalked towards Isa, who felt a sudden flush of panic. Rho’s strategy had worked. The moment of her redemption was finally here. Now all she had to do was see it through. Now she had to win.
Frea reached back over her shoulder and drew Blood’s Pride with an impatient jerk. The other guards jumped up from the tables and formed up in a ring around the room, snatching up benches and pushing the heavy tables out of the way.
Isa slid into her guard stance, but Frea walked right past her and past the soldiers who hurriedly cleared the way. With her free hand she drew the black-bladed imperial knife and flicked it towards the windows. The blade, unerringly guided by her thoughts, came down precisely on the latch of one of the shutters and split it apart. For a stunned moment nothing happened; the knife itself, wedged into the wood, kept the shutter closed. But then the knife gave a wriggle and yanked free, and a wall of deadly sunlight bisected the room, sending the Norlanders stampeding into the shadows.
The light was so bright that Isa saw only flares of hectic colour, searing rainbows that moved with her wherever she looked. Then she felt her sister grab her arm and haul her over to the open window.
She blinked her eyes frantically, trying to focus. Frea shoved her up against the wall. The angle of the sun kept her safe from burning,
but she could feel the heat crawling over her flesh like a swarm of insects. Far down below, the Shadar’s white rooftops blazed like beacons. A weight dropped in her stomach and she felt insubstantial, as if her feet were no longer anchored to the ground and nothing was preventing her from spinning off into space.
Frea’s other hand was still on her arm and she could feel the cold. She focused her eyes on the Shadar, feeling every inch of the distance between her and the ground. With imaginary fingers as cold and merciless as the ones that gripped her arm, she grabbed hold of the fear dancing in her chest and squeezed it as hard as she could.
Isa looked down. She felt the screams in her sore and swollen heart and she squeezed that too, burying the treacherous organ under layer after layer of ice so strong that it choked off every pulse; she kept piling it on, letting all of her senses slide away into numbness, and still the ice spread outward, encasing her, so that nothing – not the soldiers’ embarrassment, not Frea’s disdain, not the sunlight’s piercing rays, not the memory of her mother’s screams, not the deadly pull of the city below – could get near her.
This is what I’ve always wanted, she realised placidly. This is what it feels like to be Frea.