Here we will rise.
Gardens topped the roofs of Shenutep, even over the workshops, places to grow herbs, squashes, beans, yams, even fruit trees. Fronds and shrubs grew from the rooftops, rustling in the wind. The cavalcade passed between these walls of stone and leaf. The ivory chariot rattled over the cobblestones. The street seemed unnaturally quiet, the only sounds the thumping feet, the wheels, the wind in the leaves. No crowds. Not even the birds sang.
Cicero frowned and lowered his hand, nobody in this gauntlet to wave to.
But Imani waved.
Her hand rose, and she waved mightily, and she cried out, "Nur! Nur! Nur!"
And from the roofs and workshops, hundreds of voices rose in reply.
"Nur! Nur!"
Imani leaped off the chariot an instant before arrows flew from the rooftops, and dozens of Nurians burst out from the workshops, swinging swords and thrusting spears.
Cicero cried out and whipped his horses. The chariot lurched forward, and the horses wailed as they charged over iron caltrops, the metal shards digging into them. One horse fell, slammed into another, and knocked it down. The other two horses charged onward, and the chariot slammed into their fallen comrades, overturning, spilling Cicero onto the road.
"For Nur!" Imani cried, grabbing a spear from one of her comrades.
"Nur!" cried her warriors, men and women wielding the swords they had forged for Aelar, the swords that would now redeem them. Her brother, Adai, leaped from a roof, swung a gladius, and cut through a legionary. Other Nurians charged down the street, clad in patches of armor, spearing the enemy. The elephants trumpeted and reared, the lions roared, and some animals tore free and fled. Blood washed the road, this gauntlet between brick walls.
The legionaries did not fall quickly though. The warriors of Aelar reformed their lines, raising their shields, thrusting their swords.
"Kill them!" Cicero screamed, rising to his feet. Blood dripped from a gash on his forehead. "Kill all the savages!"
A legionary advanced toward Imani, gladius raised. She hissed at him, body tense, spear raised. She wore the raiment of a queen—white muslin embroidered with gold and inlaid with jewels, a crown on her head, earrings and bracelets gleaming—but she was a warrior queen, and she would shed blood for her home or die defending it.
With a roar, she leaped forward, spear lashing.
The legionary swung his blade.
The weapons slammed together. Her spear screeched along the gladius, raising sparks, then drove forward, and Imani cried out, shoving her weapon, driving the spearhead into the legionary's face. It crashed through his cheek, scraped upward, entered the eye socket, and clanged against the back of his helmet.
Two more legionaries raced toward her. Imani tugged her spear back and ducked, dodging one blow from a sword. She screamed, thrust her spear again, and impaled a man's thigh. Her heart thudded. Her breath sawed at her throat, and sweat drenched her, and blood splashed her. She snarled, a lioness of the savanna, a queen in a corner, a warrior of Nur. The second legionary swung his gladius, and Imani leaped back. The sword scraped along her arm, tearing skin, cracking one of her serpent bracelets. She thrust her spear with both hands, pushing with her legs. The blade was Nurian iron, forged here on this street, and it crashed through the legionary's armor like an axe through wood, plowed between the man's ribs, and entered his heart.
Imani tugged the weapon back with a shower of blood and screamed—a great battle cry, the cry that had been rising in her for years, the cry of a youth who had lost her mother, a youth thrust onto a throne, a puppet, a woman who had seen the fall of her proud kingdom, a woman who would see that kingdom rise again. She cried for blood, for pain, for freedom.
"Nur rises!" she cried.
Adai stood at her side, raising a red sword, blood on his arms, the corpses of legionaries around him. "Nur rises!"
All across the street, they fought. The arrows flew from the rooftops. Warriors from both sides died on the street. More kept emerging onto the road—rebels and legionaries alike. An elephant reared and fell, pierced with spears, crushing men. A lion leaped onto a legionary, clawing at the armor, tearing out the man's throat.
Imani knew she had only moments before the legions poured into the gauntlet with their full might. She hefted her spear, eyes narrowed, teeth bared. She spun around and saw him there, slick with blood, thrusting his own spear.
"Cicero," she hissed.
He spun toward her, smiling thinly, and kicked aside a Nurian corpse. He held his spear in one hand, a gladius in the other.
"And so, the Slave Queen shows her fangs." Cicero stepped over another corpse, crushing its head beneath his foot. "Do you know what I did to your mother?"
Two Nurian rebels howled and charged toward the governor, but Cicero thrust his spear, cutting one down. With a swing of his gladius, he slew the other. All across the street, rebels and legionaries battled, falling fast, filling the road with corpses.
"You murdered her," Imani said, leaping toward him. She drove her spear forward.
He swung his own spear, knocking her blow aside, and lashed his gladius. The sword grazed her hip, showering blood, and Imani screamed.
"Oh no, I didn't murder her," Cicero said, smiling, her blood staining his armor. "I brought her back to Aelar with me though."
He swung his blade. Imani cried out and arched her spear, barely parrying the blow. The steel sliced her hair, scattering black locks, narrowly missing her scalp.
"You murdered her there!" she cried, spear thrusting. The blade banged against his breastplate, scraped across the metal, slicing off golden filigree but barely denting the iron beneath.
"No, sweet child," Cicero said, spear flashing. The blade cut her leg, and Imani shouted and nearly fell. "I kept your mother alive. I paraded her across Aelar. I displayed her in a menagerie for the crowd to gawk at, as they gawk at monkeys and elephants. She lived for quite a while before my brother, glorious Emperor Marcus, slew her in the Amphitheatrum for the delight of eighty thousand onlookers." He advanced toward her, sword flashing down. "And your fate will be the same."
Imani cried out and raised her spear, desperate to parry the blow. His gladius slammed into the shaft, shattering it. Shards of wood flew, slamming into Cicero's armor, cutting into her flesh. The iron spearhead clanged to the ground. Imani reached out to grab it, and Cicero's foot slammed down onto her hand, crushing her fingers. She yowled.
"Sister!" Adai cried. Her brother stood down the street, three legionaries surrounding him. The Prince of Nur fought in a fury, sword in hand, trying to parry. A blow hit his side and he fell. "Imani!"
She tried to rise. She tried to keep fighting. She pushed herself onto her elbows, and Cicero drove down his fist. His knuckles slammed into her face, splitting her lip. She tasted blood. A thousand stars floated before her.
"Nur, Nur!" rose the cries around her, muffled now.
"The barbarians die squealing!" a legionary cried and laughed.
Cicero leaned down, grabbed her hair, and tugged her up. Strands tore. Imani was nearly blinded with pain. Her hand swelled and throbbed. Her hip and leg bled. She lashed her nails, scraping his face, caught the corner of his mouth and tore it open. He snarled—a horrible, dripping, bleeding snarl—and grabbed her throat. He yanked her madly, bending her arm behind her back. Imani cried out as her arm dislocated. The pain was greater than anything she had ever felt. The governor pulled her off the ground, and shadows filled her eyes.
"Queen Imani!" someone cried in the distance.
"Sister!"
She flailed, popped her arm back in, screamed. But she couldn't free herself. Though old and gaunt, Cicero was too strong. A horse reared and whinnied, and before she knew it, Cicero had dragged her into his righted chariot.
"Ride!" he said, whipping the beast.
The chariot's other three horses lay dead, their reins severed. The last mare burst into a gallop, trampling over corpses and living men, dragging the chariot behin
d. Cicero swung his sword, cutting down one Nurian, and his spear tore through another. The chariot's scythed wheels plowed through flesh. They raced out of the gauntlet and onto a wide dirt road. Hundreds of legionaries came running forth.
"To Copper Road, kill them all!" Cicero shrieked to his men.
Imani struggled, trying to leap off the chariot, but Cicero held her fast. A blow from his elbow shattered her nose. Blood flowed into her mouth, and his arm wrapped around her neck, constricting her, pinning her to him. He tugged her hair, ripping it.
"You miserable little maggot," he hissed. "I made you a queen. I sat your pretty backside on a throne. You spat on me. Now you will pay."
They rode down the dirt road, legionaries running all around. Nurians cried out from across the city.
"Imani, Imani!"
"Free Nur!" shouted another man, hurling a rock. The missile slammed into the chariot, chipping off jewels. Cicero kept riding.
They rode toward Castrum Nuria, the bastion of Aelar's might in the south. The legionaries at the gatehouse barely had time to pull the doors open before the chariot charged in. Corpses filled the courtyard, hanging off crosses, burned down to bones. The stench of death hung heavy here, mingling with the smell of Imani's own blood.
"You won't burn, savage." Cicero tightened his arm around her, twisting her head, constricting her. She thought he would snap her neck. She gasped for air, finding none. "Not yet. You're still mine to torment."
He rode his chariot toward a limestone fortress and dragged her off the chariot. Legionaries stepped forth, snickering and joking among themselves. One man slapped manacles around Imani's wrists, binding her arms behind her back, and the other bound her ankles. Imani screamed, leaped toward Cicero, trying to bite him. He backhanded her, and the soldiers laughed as she hit the ground.
The governor grabbed her by her bound wrists and tugged her into the fort. She dragged behind him, her arm nearly dislocating again, her heels sliding across the floor.
"You cannot win," Imani managed to rasp, blood in her mouth, blood leaving a trail behind her. "Something has begun here. Nur is risen."
"Nur is a cockroach I will crush under my foot," Cicero said.
He dragged her down a flight of stairs, through a doorway, and into a dark chamber. He shoved her. With her wrists bound behind her back, she couldn't block her fall. Her knees banged against the floor, and her head spun. At first Imani thought this a dungeon, a prison cell underground. But when Cicero lit a few lanterns, and light filled the chamber, Imani realized that it was far worse.
The chamber was palatial. Gold and gemstones coated the walls, reflecting the lamplight. Thousands of gems shone here—sapphires, amethysts, emeralds, tiger eyes, and many others mined across Nur. Giltwood tables displayed trophies plundered from the savanna: ivory figurines, decorative blades, rhinoceros horns, even a complete elephant tusk as long as a man. Stools made from elephant feet stood along the walls, and the heads of giraffes and lions were mounted above them. Zebra pelts covered a mahogany bed.
Worst of all were the living trophies.
Several Nurians were caged here, both men and women, naked but for suits of feathers. Their eyes were downcast, their bodies bruised.
"Do you like my pretty birds?" Cicero said. "I collect them. You'll be one of them, Imani. I will make you into one of my precious pets."
Imani stared at the prisoners, her eyes damp. How long had they lingered here, serving him? How many more would Cicero claim? How much longer would this land suffer in the talons of eagles?
She glanced toward the treasures across the giltwood tables, then back at Cicero.
"You've won, dominus." She lowered her head. "You defeated me. I showed you my claws, and you struck me down, and you showed me who rules in Nur. I am yours. Claim me. Claim my body. I will serve you." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I will pleasure you, dominus."
His eyes widened, full of lust. He shoved her onto the bed. Imani lay there on the zebra pelts, chained and bleeding, as he began unstrapping his armor. Her wrists were bound behind her back, the manacles digging into her spine.
"Yes, you understand now, Imani." Cicero tossed his breastplate onto the floor with a clang. "You people are no better than animals. You were put in this world to serve us, the Aelarians, the master race." He removed his vambraces and tossed them aside. "I gave you a chance to serve me as a queen. You threw that chance away. And so you will end up here, a slave, a pretty bird to pleasure me."
He took a step toward the bed.
"When I was a child," Imani told him, "I used to sneak away from the royal hall, to join the acrobats and contortionists who performed for the nobles. I trained with them, becoming flexible, able to bend my limbs in ways that none other can. I was known for being able to bend my legs behind my head."
Cicero's cheeks flushed slightly. He licked his lipless mouth. "I'll enjoy seeing your talents."
He stepped closer to her, pulling off his tunic, exposing his nakedness.
Imani stared into his eyes. Lying on the bed, she pulled her knees up toward her face. She saw the lust grow in him. He lowered himself toward her—just as she slid her chained wrists under her backside, then around her legs and over her knees.
"What—" he began when Imani drove her feet forward, slamming them into his face.
He stumbled back, blood gushing from his crushed nose. Imani leaped up, her chained wrists now in front of her body. She swung her fists, slamming them into his head. He swayed, hit a cage, and knocked it over. The slave inside cried out.
"You miserable little whore!" Cicero screamed, lunging toward her.
She grabbed the elephant tusk from the table. "I am a queen."
As he charged toward her, she held out the tusk. Cicero was moving too quickly. He couldn't stop. He impaled himself on the tusk—through his naked gut and out his back—and paused with his face an inch from hers. His mouth twitched, full of blood. His eyes stared into hers, full of terror.
"You lost," Imani whispered. "Know this before you die. You lost."
She shoved him back. He stumbled, the tusk—no doubt one he had hacked off himself—still impaling him. He stumbled toward the door, trying to call out, to flee . . . then collapsed and hit the floor. He rose no more.
Imani turned away from the corpse. She would waste no more time contemplating him. A ring of keys hung from the wall. She took it and opened the cages, helping the slaves out.
"Come, children of Nur." She armed them with the decorative blades on the tables. "We are free now. We are warriors. Nur rises."
They were trapped underground, an entire fortress of legionaries above them. They were a single rebellion in an empire of eagles. They were alone.
But we're free, Imani thought. And if we must die today, we die fighting.
She grabbed a dagger and left the chamber, leading the freed slaves, leading her kingdom in rebellion.
MAYA
She awoke on the hard floor, dawn spilling through the windows, ready for her first day of learning Luminosity.
She stood up and stretched, joints aching. She had never slept on a floor before. Even the desert had offered a bed of sand for weary bones. The chamber was bare, more like a prison cell than a school. The floor, the wall, the ceiling—all were built from the same clay. A round window peered out to the olive grove. Maya had to stand on tiptoe to see outside. The room's only furnishings were a wooden chair and a table, the latter topped with many candles, a quill, and an empty scroll. There was a toilet at the back, built of limestone, its opening revealing an underground brass pipe flowing with water, like the Aelarians used in their empire. One advantage of mastering Muse, Maya supposed, was building good plumbing.
Her mind strayed back to yesterday. Namtar, the old mistress of the school, had led her through the house of Luminosity, but Maya had glimpsed little. A small library full of scrolls and clay tablets. A classroom where young women glanced at her, then quickly back at scrolls, heads lowered. A pantry and a sta
ircase leading to a second story. And finally here—to this small chamber, this cell with nothing but the table, the chair, the empty scroll, and all the thoughts in the world.
"Stay in this chamber," Namtar had instructed her. "You will begin your studies tomorrow."
Maya had barely slept. How could she? Excitement had kept her awake more than the hard floor. Finally after so many years—years of absorbing the lume, that material nobody else in her family could sense, years of refining it into the soft, feathery light they called luminescence, years of dreaming of learning about the Four Pillars, of becoming a true lumer—finally Maya was here. In a school for Luminosity.
Standing in the dawn, she didn't care that her body hurt, that her stomach growled, that she was weary, or that outside the hounds of Dagon awaited her.
Right now, this dawn, she had found her dream.
The beam of light from the window had crawled across the floor to the tabletop when the door opened, and Mistress Namtar stepped into the chamber.
The old woman wore a simple tunic of homespun that hung down to her ankles, and a rope formed her belt. Her gnarled staff tapped as she walked on bare feet, and her white hair hung down to her waist. She placed a bowl of gruel on the table.
"Eat," she said.
The gruel tasted like sawdust, but Maya was famished. She inhaled the meal, then pushed the empty bowl aside.
"Teach me, Mistress Namtar," she said. "I'm ready to learn."
The old woman nodded, eyes hard, and gestured at the table. "Sit."
Maya sat on the small wooden chair. The scroll lay on the table before her. It was a massive scroll, wrapped around two wooden rollers, each the size of her arm. The parchment seemed long enough that, if unrolled, it could make its way across the desert to Zohar. Maya was sure she could not lift this scroll. It must have taken two strong men, one at each roller, to carry it in here.
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