by Evie Manieri
She tried to stand up, but the ground swung beneath her again and she felt Rho’s hands catch her as she listed forward.
As the pain began to subside, she looked up and saw that Daryan had stopped a little distance away and was looking out over the sands. Suddenly she understood why he was hanging back; he wanted to give her a chance to tell Rho what had happened to her.
She could feel Rho’s weariness, but his silver eyes were bright and clear in the shadows beneath the cowl. The bruises on his face had nearly healed and he looked almost like himself again, only stripped of his normal sardonic veneer. Except for her brother he was the only Norlander in the temple she had ever trusted, or who had ever shown any interest in her.
She reached up and unhooked the clasp nearest her throat, holding the folds of the cape together with her hand.
Rho, bemused, watched as she pulled the cloak open just enough for him to see. Instantly his eyes darted away – then he forced himself to look back again at the knotted sleeve swinging beneath her shoulder.
She heard his breathing, quick and ragged over the stillness of the desert, as she did up the clasp.
She began to feel calmer. The pain was becoming bearable again.
He released her and stood up.
He kicked his boot into the sand, hard, and the grains scattered around him.
She started to stand up.
She glared down at Truth’s Might shining in the sand.
She got to her feet, half-expecting him to offer her a hand, which he did not. She picked up her sword and returned it to its sheath.
Daryan was still standing in the same spot, glancing over at her uncomfortably from time to time, and now Harotha and Eofar were coming towards them, flanking Dramash. The little boy looked just the same as when she’d last seen him in the refectory; she had a very hard time believing a child that size could topple a castle of blocks much less destroy a whole city. He anxiously called out Rho’s name.
Suddenly she felt Rho’s cold lips brush her forehead.
Daryan was instantly at her side. ‘You told him.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said, feeling like a burden had lifted. ‘He doesn’t think I should tell the others, but he said I made the right choice.’
‘Do you still think so?’
She swallowed against the dryness in her throat. ‘I’m alive. That’s enough for now.’
Eofar and Harotha walked up and they all gathered next to the fallen spy; Eofar had a coil of spare reins from Aeda’s saddle.
‘Everything go as planned?’ Daryan asked Rho.
‘Yes.’
‘What about the White Wolf?’ asked Harotha. Isa noticed how her voice sounded harder when she spoke to Rho. ‘Is she trapped in the temple?’
‘For now.’
Isa asked, ‘And Lahlil? Did anyone see her?’
‘Who’s Lahlil?’
‘The Mongrel,’ said Daryan.
‘Oh. She and King Jachad went to ask the Nomas for help. They said they would meet us at the palace.’ Rho kicked the spy’s leg. ‘What are we going to do with him?’
‘His name is Elthion,’ said Harotha. ‘He’s one of my brother’s men. He must have followed Daryan and me from the beach.’
Isa looked at Harotha closely for the first time. She hadn’t changed much despite the pregnancy: full cheeks; smooth skin; brown eyes flecked with gold and just a bit lighter than Daryan’s; lips a deep coral pink. She was very beautiful, but Isa had known that already.
‘We’ll have to leave him in the cave,’ Daryan mused.
They couldn’t be sure they’d ever be able to return and release him. They might be sentencing him to death.
‘We don’t have a choice,’ agreed Eofar.
‘All right, let’s get him inside. At least he’ll have shelter, and we’ll leave him whatever water we can spare.’
Eofar moved forward with the reins, but Harotha put her hand on his arm. ‘I think Daryan and I should leave for the palace now, alone,’ she said. ‘If my brother is sending people to spy on us, it means he’s already suspicious. It’s too dangerous for us all to be seen together.’
‘If you think that’s best,’ said Eofar. Harotha couldn’t feel how deeply it pained him to be parted from her again, but Isa could.
Daryan’s eyes swept over all of them. ‘No, no, no,’ he said suddenly, his mobile mouth moving in distress. ‘No, this is all wrong – I shouldn’t have— You, Harotha and Isa should leave, right now. None of you should be here.’ He looked at Harotha. ‘Go somewhere and have your baby – be happy, please. Forget about the Shadar, forget about this alliance. It was all a mistake.’ He blinked away the tears welling up in his eyes and growled at Eofar, ‘Take them away! Don’t you understand what’s going to happen?’
‘Daryan, listen to me,’ Harotha said gravely, even as Isa was still struggling to make sense of what he was saying, ‘we’ve all made our own choices; you’re not forcing us to do anything. Tonight there will be a battle, and some of us will get hurt. Some of us will die. You’re going to have to accept responsibility for that and still be able to live with yourself. That’s what it means to be a leader.’
‘I’m not a leader. You’re—’
‘That’s what it means to be a leader,’ she repeated firmly. ‘That’s what you are. You were right about Rho, and you were right about this alliance. This is the only way to stop the White Wolf.’
He looked back at her for a long time without saying a word. At last he said to Eofar, ‘You told me you wanted to take Isa and Harotha away.’
‘I know. I was wrong,’ Eofar replied. ‘I have to make sure Frea doesn’t get the chance to do the things Harotha saw in her vision. Isa and I are the only family she has; th
at makes her our responsibility.’
Daryan turned around to face Isa. ‘You won’t go either,’ he asked her softly, ‘not even if I beg you?’
‘Not without you.’
They both understood that their brief moment together, that tiny glimpse at happiness, was all they were going to get for now. It wasn’t enough that they belonged to each other: he was a king, whether she liked it or not – and she was afraid she was already losing him.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Rho leaned his shoulder against the empty doorframe in the ruined, roofless hall of the abandoned palace – a doorway leading from nothing, to nowhere – and wondered sickly when all of this would be over. Here they all were, the partners in this weird alliance: the Shadari, more than a hundred of them, ranged along one side, baking in the sun; the Norlanders huddling dispiritedly on the other side, hiding in the shadows of the broken walls, and the Mongrel in the middle, her every move scrutinised by the Nomas king. Rho’s only certainty was that they all hated and feared Frea just a little more than they hated and feared each other.
He straightened up uncomfortably; every time he moved the fabric of his shirt tugged at his wound. He pressed his forearm hard against his side and tried to dull the throbbing, while his eyes kept returning to the curved sword stuck through Faroth’s white sash. Reunite Dramash with his people: that had been his goal. Get the boy away from Frea and back where he belonged; that would make everything all right again.
When did I become such an utter fool? he wondered.
One look at Dramash asleep on the ground with his head in Harotha’s lap, flanked by Faroth on one side and Daryan on the other, was enough to tell anyone with half a brain that reuniting Dramash with the Shadari had solved nothing. In fact, everything was certainly not all right, and he was beginning to doubt that it ever would be.
‘He’s the only real weapon we have,’ Faroth was saying to Harotha, ‘and you want him to hide? You’d make him watch his city burn around him, knowing that he might have stopped it?’
‘Do you want him to kill people?’ She spoke softly so as not to awaken Dramash, but Rho couldn’t miss the ferocious look she aimed at her brother. The likeness between them was startling. ‘How is that any different from what the White Wolf wants to do with him?’
‘Of course it’s different – he’s a Shadari. He should do whatever is necessary to defend his home, like all Shadari.’
‘He’s a little boy. You can’t ask him to—’
Rho looked at his countrymen: no more than fifty of them, while Frea had nearly twice that number at her disposal. Many of those, like Ingeld and Ongen, were fanatically loyal to her, while most of the men sweating in this ruin were supporting Eofar as the lesser of two evils.
Just as Eofar started to speak, Dramash stirred on the rug beside Harotha, and every other sound and movement in the ruined hall ceased. The boy murmured something unintelligible and kicked at the dirt. Harotha swiftly laid her hand on the boy’s back and began rubbing it in soft circles. He made a tiny grunting sound and for a moment it looked like he was settling back into sleep – but then he stretched his arms out over his head and opened his eyes.
‘Is she back yet?’
‘Who, Dramash?’ Harotha asked warmly, smiling down at him, but Rho noticed that she’d stopped patting his back so that he wouldn’t feel the obvious trembling of her hand.
‘Mama,’ he said, yawning. ‘Is she back from the mountains? Did she find the lost goat?’
Daryan leaned forward and gripped Harotha’s shoulder. She bit her lip.
‘Not yet,’ Faroth answered smoothly before Harotha could say anything. ‘She’s still looking. She’ll be back soon.’
Rho closed his eyes. The ground beneath him felt unsteady and he was glad for the support of the doorframe.
‘I want her to come home,’ Dramash whined, and then yawned again before snuggling up against his aunt and closing his eyes.
No one else moved.
After a long moment, Harotha looked down at the boy, then nodded.
Rho, like everyone else, exhaled the breath he’d not realised he’d been holding.
‘Here to pick our bones, I’ll bet,’ one of the Shadari muttered.
‘Why would she bother setting fire to the city?’ Daryan asked. ‘You said she was going to attack Norland, so why would she waste her time here?’
‘She needs Dramash and she doesn’t have enough men to search the whole city,’ the mercenary explained. ‘She’ll try to force him out into the open – make you use him against her.’
The Shadari daimon looked down at Dramash. ‘So Harotha’s right: we do need to hide him. But he can’t stay by himself – someone will have to watch him. Someone he trusts. I think it should be her.’
Harotha looked up at Daryan, and then they both looked at the Mongrel.
‘Agreed,’ she said.
‘I’ll leave some of my men with them,’ offered Faroth, ‘to protect them.’
‘No.’ The Mongrel’s tone brooked no further discussion. ‘No one goes near them. No one – Shadari or Norlander – is to know where they are.’
Faroth glared at her. ‘No one but you, you mean?’
This was Rho’s opportunity. He straightened up again and stepped forward.
He was again struck by the strange impression that somehow the Mongrel knew more about him than he did about her.
He was about to press his point further when Daem jumped up from the broken column on which he’d been sitting and asked,
the Mongrel again.
The Mongrel waited for Eofar to translate Daem’s suggestion to the Shadari – minus the sarcasm – then replied, ‘Frea won’t retreat and she won’t leave reinforcements. Tonight the imperial ship will drop anchor in the harbour. If they notice anything wrong, if no one comes from the temple to escort the emperor’s ministers ashore, they’ll sail on the next tide for the nearest port. Frea has to overtake that ship before it’s out of range of the triffons. She has only one chance to strike and she knows it.’
‘But Daem has a point,’ said Eofar. ‘If the ship doesn’t arrive for some reason, or if she doesn’t find Dramash in time, she’ll have to return to the temple. There’s nowhere else for her to go. And we still have people trapped there – my father’s clerks and physics, for a start.’
‘And some of the slaves,’ put in Daryan. ‘They must have been hiding when the rest of us escaped.’
Rho felt something new in the Mongrel’s hesitation, an uncertainty that went deeper than just the weighing of the facts; it worried him. Finally she told Daem, ‘If you want to go to the temple, I won’t stop you.’
He frantically racked his mind for some subtle way of bringing up the subject of Dramash’s escort again, but to no avail. He could have strangled Daem.
Then Isa called over quietly,