By the time I entered Kankara, I was shaking with cold. I stopped at the first open doorway with firelight radiating into the hall and peeked in. The spring-fed pools below the castle would be better, but the ten-minute walk was too far for my shivering body, chattering teeth, and shaking hands. I needed heat now, and as soon as I could be sure I wouldn’t fall down the stairs, I’d go to the hot springs—not only did I want to warm up but . . . Freezing pits. I needed some time to process what I’d learned.
“Jäg!” Synam bellowed, striding down the corridor. The leader of the Hamada, and personal guard to the Queen, was dozens of years my senior, but he was the closest thing to a father I’d had for the last decade.
I jerked my head at the room with the fire and shuffled in. If I stood in the hall and talked to him, I’d be like ice on stone. Thankfully, the room was tiny, a sitting room meant for warming, instituted out of necessity. I shoved one of the stone chairs up to the hearth and then stood next to it, letting the heat thaw my frozen leathers.
“You’re back early,” Synam said, walking in and then pulling a chair toward the fire. He stopped a few feet away and sat, facing me. “And without your cloak? Did something go wrong?”
Wrong? There were so many things I could say, but . . . “Not really. I left it in the desert, buried. It’s too hot to wear a cloak in Zafi, and I was in too much of a hurry to stop and dig it up on the way back.” I fixed him with a hard stare and added, “What’s going on? Because there’s no way you’re going to convince me the Bidi aren’t making plans. They’re training troops in Datti. Legitimate troops.”
The fire popped, and I shifted toward the door on instinct, letting more of the firelight illuminate the Hamada leader. Synam was one of the oldest of the Saki, his face lined with wisdom and insight from his extensive experience. He wore the traditional leathers of our people, refusing to adopt anything from the Bidi. The ox hide we used for our garments was reinforced in the areas most often used to shield from attack or what would help keep us warm. He had only his short blades on him, but Synam didn’t need a weapon to be fierce or deadly.
He stared up at me, and the silence stretched. “If I tell you, it stays between us until after the attack is over. No one else can know, not even your unit, right?”
“Agreed.” I nodded, playing like his words were expected, but . . . A unit of my own? The respect was finally happening.
“The Bidi are amassing an army. For centuries, they’ve fought amongst themselves—their sovereigns held it in check for a time, but more recently, there was a coup. At first, we were uncertain what would happen, but when the new leader emerged, he seemed sympathetic to our people. King Traj and your father reported the takeover, but with the friendly trade, we believed the agreement in good faith. A few months later, the Tadaan attacked our men. After King Traj was killed, we sent in our best Hamada spies and discovered the Tadaan is more than a group of radical patriots.”
“How much more?” I asked.
“These men are fueled by hatred for our kind, and they fan the flame of distrust among the Bidi. Their numbers are big, but their abilities are limited.”
“There was never just a small group of Tadaan? Why keep that information from the Hamada?” I shoved the chair to my left back from the hearth, next to his, and then sat in the warm stone and let the fire warm my front. “Why not let us know what was really going on?”
The grizzled warrior nodded. “You are only just entering your second decade and have witnessed only one treachery. In two centuries, I’ve seen more betrayal than you have years. I lost my own brother to the Tadaan, so I know your pain and your desire for vengeance. But if you don’t know who you can trust, you also don’t know who you can’t. We didn’t know why the Bidi betrayed their oath, why Kyan betrayed Traj, or why the Tadaan were gaining such popularity. Queen Clyn needed answers. Over the last ten years, we’ve lost fifty of the Hamada to the Bidi, but not one of them could reveal our evolving plan to our enemy.”
Because none of the Hamada knew the plan. I wasn’t even sure we’d had a plan—until now. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, and glanced at Synam. “What is the plan?”
“Did you make it to the center of Datti?” he asked.
Of course, he knew they were there. “To the garrisons of troops? Yes.” This was why I’d gone. “There are more than four dozen buildings there, and each one could easily hold two dozen men, maybe more. You will need all of the Hamada if you are going to take out those men, even the ones barely out of training. If those are the Tadaan, they are not living in secret in Datti.”
“No, they’re not.” He took a deep breath and shifted in his seat, staring into the fire. “And, yes, those are the Tadaan.”
Attacking a city that size, at least five thousand strong, and only killing the soldiers wasn’t even reasonable. “You’re going to wipe out all of Datti.”
“Can you think of any other way?” he asked, not bothering to glance my way.
My chest felt as though he’d carved out most of the organs on my left side. These were the radicals who wooed my father to betray his best friend and sovereign. Yet, I didn’t believe Ariya held any responsibility for the murder of our king.
“Did Traj and my father go to Datti a lot?” I asked, looking at Synam.
He pursed his lips and then slid his gaze my way, barely turning his head. “Probably not any more than they went to other cities in Zafi. But I rarely traveled with King Traj, so my information may not be accurate. Why?”
Was I jumping to conclusions too quickly? I’d barely talked with Ariya, and she hadn’t given any information about who her father was. “Just curious. It’s the first major city outside the gate. I guess I would’ve expected him to have a preference, but . . .” I shrugged my shoulders. “Sometimes I feel like I’m missing pieces of the picture.”
He blew out a loud breath and leaned back in his chair. “Jäg, I’ve felt that way for over ten years. Nothing about Traj’s death makes sense. But then, why would the Bidi ever need us? Why sign a treaty for ice and stones? Why sign a treaty and then kill our king? Something’s not right.”
I wiggled my toes in my boots, my extremities still cold but no longer numb, and mulled over Synam’s questions. “We really didn’t give them anything else?”
“Ice and rocks were the goods we brought them.” He stood up and tilted his head toward the doorway. “Let’s go confirm the Bidi’s numbers to Queen Clyn.”
My anxiety spiked, as it did every time I was called into the throne room. After five years, I shouldn’t be worried about anyone discovering I was Maciji. Still, I stretched my feet to the flames, soaking up every last bit of heat as I procrastinated. Synam stepped out the door, and I reluctantly stood.
“I hate being cold,” I grumbled as I followed after the general.
The granite used to build Kankara did little to insulate from the frigid air. The windows blocked the snow and wind, but the air seeped in through the cracks and crevices, permeating anywhere there wasn’t fire. Sakari’s seasons consisted of cold, bitter cold, frigid, and glacial—one eternal season of ice. The stone absorbed the outside temperature, and anywhere not being actively heated grew cold. As wood and coal had grown scarce, more of Kankara’s rooms remained unheated—like an increasing number of the homes in Sakari.
Catching up to Synam, I asked, “Did you already know there were close to a thousand troops in Datti?”
I suspected he did. Synam was old but not at all stupid.
“Yes,” he muttered. “Last week, I took a unit of Hamada to scope it out. The men were hungry and wanted to stop in the market. I scouted ahead but only got a glimpse of the garrisons before I turned around—the men were taking too long. In truth, I had a bunch of foolish pups—two of those boys were barely weaned. One of those youths picked a fight with a group of Bidi soldiers, and I got back in the middle of it. Both sides lost men, but the Bidi have been training. There are still plenty of fat, indolent sloths among them,
but their rising generation has some bite behind their bark.”
“How long before we attack?” I didn’t even want to admit to myself what was running through my head.
“They have three days of festival, starting the day after tomorrow. We’ll attack at midnight, after the first day. We can’t continue like this in Sakari; we’ll all be dead in a few years unless we do something—probably less. If we get rid of the largest base of Tadaan, hopefully, their sovereign will open peace talks.”
“Bring them death until they sue for peace,” I muttered, repeating the mantra—only this time, the words were weighted with dread.
We arrived at the throne room.
“Gentlemen,” the sycophant named Soja said, bowing slowly. “May I announce your—”
Synam didn’t even bother to stop and address the official crier. The leader of our army breezed right through the doorway and bellowed, “Everybody out!”
I strode into the cavernous throne room. The warmth wrapped around me, but the acrid stench of wet wood burned my nostrils and made my eyes water. With a deep breath through my mouth, I propped myself against the wall and waited for the trickle of courtiers to leave. My stomach churned, but every spark in the throne room was blue.
The fires flickered in their hearths, all six of them, making the shadows in the large room dance in the smoke. At the opposite side from the doors, two thrones sat next to one another on a raised dais. The seats were carved out of the same dark gray stone that made up all of Castle Kankara, but dozens of furs and cushions allowed the rulers some measure of comfort from the severity of Sakari. A realm of ice and stone.
I hated this place—ironic because as a child I’d been happy here. But the Sakari of my childhood didn’t even exist anymore. Every time I returned to this icy realm, my father’s betrayal rushed out to meet me. The weight of his actions had hung like a millstone around my neck, reinforced by the sneers of the courtiers and the glares of the other Hamada—not that I could blame them. My father had been second in command before aligning with the Tadaan to ambush King Traj. But Kyan had trusted the Tadaan, and they’d killed him too. Now, finally, I would get a chance to scrub the black stain of Kyan’s treachery from my name and take my revenge.
I nodded to the two Hamada guards, and once they’d closed the doors again, and Synam had announced the all clear, I approached the dais.
“Jäg,” Queen Clyn called from her throne, resting her hand on her swollen belly. “You’ve come home.”
I forced a smile and then bowed my head in deference. I darted a glance at King Shaidan—he refused to even look my way like most of the Saki—before addressing my sovereign. “I am your servant.”
The truth for the entire realm; the laws dictated absolute fidelity to the crown or death. While it had always been thus, after King Traj’s murder, the enforcement of Sakari’s edicts grew so tight that opposition was strangled out of existence. Some would say the queen’s expectations were unreasonable, but those who breathed such treachery were escorted past the borders of our country and left to fend in the freezing wasteland where no opportunity for amends survived. Sakari was a land at war, and each individual was either for or against the crown.
“What have you discovered?” Queen Clyn asked, tapping her fingers against her thigh.
I gave her the same information I’d given Synam, and a moment later, she dismissed me.
With a nod to Synam, I left the throne room and headed toward the hot springs in the lower level of the castle. Maybe I could convince myself I didn’t know Ariya, so there was no reason for me to care if she died.
But my heart refused to listen.
I took a deep breath, leaned my head back against the stone lip of the pool, and let the heat pull the tension from my muscles. I exhaled, repeating, not my fault, inside my head. Wasted tundra, it wasn’t even my doing. The Tadaan were responsible, so the vengeance extracted on the Bidi tomorrow was a direct consequence of their inability or unwillingness to root out the extremists among their own people.
The dark cavern of hot springs was the only place in all of Sakari that still held natural heat. The pools of water here were fed from some source deep in the ground, and my father once told stories of how the Maciji gathered here in this cavern when a boy reached manhood. I had no idea what kind of indoctrination occurred, but the older I got, the less I cared—a lie I tried to convince myself was truth—like so many others: I didn’t care about my father’s betrayal of our king. I didn’t care the Maciji were practically gone. I didn’t care innocent Bidi would die, women and children as well as men, who had no affiliation with the Tadaan radicals. If the people of Zafi chose to harbor the Tadaan, then the Hamada motto was right—death would be dealt to Zafi until they sued for peace. That was justice. But with my next breath, I felt Ariya’s lips against mine, and guilt twisted my insides.
“Nothing I can do about it,” I muttered into the darkness. With King Traj and all the Maciji gone, very few ever came down to the sulfurous pools, so I didn’t expect anyone to respond to my grousing.
“Probably not,” Synam said. “Though I’m not sure what you’re referencing, so I can’t really be sure.”
I sat up and blinked, forcing my Maciji vision forward, and then I pretended to scrabble for my lantern and turned up the wick to extend the light.
Synam stood by the door, wearing only a towel around his waist, a similar small lantern in his hand, the pale light just enough to illuminate him and a few feet in either direction. His chest was a map of scars from battles long before my time, and his features were twisted with a look I barely recognized on him. Regret? Sadness? Pain?
The water rippled as I moved away from the stairs, and Synam made his way through the cavern to the largest pool where I sat. A moment later, he started down the steps into the hot water.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you sound thus,” he said and then set the lantern on the stone, just far enough away from the edge of the pool that it wouldn’t be knocked in but close enough to still give some light. He faced me and squinted. “Why are you feeling helpless, Jäg? Is there something more that happened in Datti today?”
“I couldn’t help but see the people while I was there, and I’m feeling a pang of guilt for the innocents who will be killed tomorrow,” I answered honestly. “Perhaps I shouldn’t care, but . . .” I stopped before saying anything about Ariya. I wasn’t quite ready to admit what she was, not out loud. I couldn’t even admit that I’d found one of the Bidi fascinating, let alone attractive. There must be something wrong with me.
“Compassion isn’t a weakness,” he said, settling on one of the rocks spaced throughout the pool as makeshift seats. “I wouldn’t expect you to be so calloused that you didn’t care. If that happens, you’ll no longer be fit to be Hamada.”
I grunted. “You’re telling me it doesn’t get any easier?”
“Not easier, just different . . . and it takes a long time,” he said, leaning back against the edge. “You’ll find how to choose your perspective and what you need to focus on to stay strong.” He was silent for a moment and then continued. “In ten years, we’ve garnered very little knowledge on the leadership of the Tadaan. We still don’t know much about their rhetoric except they hate us. And we only found the base in Datti because of the number of young men traveling in the sands at night.” He quirked a brow and added, “I think you were the one to send us that report in fact.”
I nodded. I’d given the report to a group of Hamada at the gate over a year ago. Was that why Synam went to gather more details? A year seemed a long time to wait.
“Even now, we can only gather limited information. The only thing we know beyond Datti is what you brought us yesterday. The men—trained Hamada, mind you—we’ve sent to infiltrate, every one of them has been discovered by the Tadaan, and we’ve found our warrior’s heads just outside the gate, usually on a pike. The Tadaan are ruthless and brutal.”
He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t al
ready know. “But certainly not all of Zafi . . . not all the Bidi are this way.”
“I’m sure you’re right. But how should we differentiate? How do we separate the good or innocent from the evil while our people are starving and freezing to death and the Bidi glut themselves on abundance? We’re running out of time. I told you years, but truthfully, most of Sakari will not survive another year. Our stores were depleted five months ago. If you’d been here more, you would’ve noticed.”
I nodded. I’d heard the Hamada complain, and when I was here, I cinched my belt, but I did better than most because I spent enough time in Zafi to get some sustenance. “I understand. And I know this is what is best for us.”
But I still feel guilty.
“If you don’t want to come tomorrow, I’ll not hold it against you,” Synam said. “Though you’ve been on plenty of raids, this type of assault is different.”
We’d been raiding Zafi for well over a decade, I personally for five years, but we’d never gone for an entire city—and never tried to annihilate everyone therein.
“Thank you,” I said, feeling a twinge of defensiveness. Synam might not be my father, but I was as loyal to him as if he were. Besides, as the leader of the Hamada, I needed to impress him to advance. “I want to be there for this. There is a measure of vindication, as well as the opportunity to gather for our people. I serve Queen Clyn and Sakari.”
But it was more than just proving loyalty. I needed to mete out justice to those who’d murdered our sovereign.
“I understand that, too. And I’m honored to have you in the Hamada.” He closed his eyes, and his breathing slowed.
I did the same until my body felt limp from the heat. I heard Synam leave a few minutes later; typical of the Saki, he could only handle a few minutes of the punishing warmth. I was pushing my limit if I wanted to remain concealed. With a sigh, I waded to the stairway and climbed out, stopping to pick up my cold, dark lantern. I paused at the entrance of the cavern, taking the time to dry off and get dressed before returning to the upper levels of Kankara.
The Monster Ball: A Paranormal Romance Anthology Page 32