The Theft of Sunlight

by Intisar Khanani

  I pull away a little from the cold stone walls and close my eyes. I can’t sleep, not properly, but the hour is late and I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I try to clear my mind, let myself drowse, but I jerk upright periodically, fear snapping through me. Each time, there is no one here; if I am to die, it is not quite yet.

  Finally, I register the snick of a lock. Irayna shoves the door open at the end of the hall. I jump to my feet, moving forward to squint at her in the sudden light from the doorway. She surveys me with raised eyebrows. She holds a breakfast tray, a faint whiff of steam rising from the bowl of spiced oatmeal.

  “I’m impressed,” she says, sliding the tray beneath the bottom bars of the door. They are just high enough to allow the bowl to pass underneath. “I didn’t think you had an escape like that in you.”

  “He said he’d kill me,” I observe. “Why wouldn’t I try?”

  She shrugs. “Just didn’t think you had it in you. Better hurry’n eat that.”

  I take another step forward. “Is there any news? Has Red Hawk sent word?”

  “No. Had a messenger in just before dawn, but he wasn’t from Red Hawk,” she says. “The Scholar likes you, though. Can’t say why.” She looks me over, eyeing my rumpled clothes, her gaze lingering on my turned foot in its custom boot. “Anyway, he likes you, so he’ll do it quick. Else he’d make you scream.”

  “Oh.”

  “He has the musicians play,” she says, clearly relishing the look on my face. “Says it helps him enjoy the moment. And he uses small knives. But with the ones he doesn’t mind, it’s just a quick slash.”

  I had thought him cultured. His mind educated, enlightened. Not only does he kill, but he does so with pleasure, painfully. How is it possible to be both a gentleman and a monster?

  “What happened to your face, anyway?” Irayna asks when I don’t respond. “Got yourself a nice old bruise there.”

  “Accident,” I say, and look down, waiting until Irayna loses interest. There is no way I want the Scholar to connect my bruise to that of the princess’s attendant. Once Irayna departs, I force myself to eat. The oatmeal is freshly made, spiced with cinnamon and sweetened with honey, and on any other day would have made a welcome meal. Today, I can barely make myself swallow each bite. But if I meet with another chance to escape, I’ll need my strength to take full advantage of it.

  I am nearly finished when a pair of armed men enter. I set down the bowl and rise to watch them. They unlock the door and step back. “Go on, and no tricks, girl. We’re right behind you.”

  I nod and step out. They flank me, escorting me up and through the hallways to a well-sized foyer where the Scholar waits. He is dressed in the same manner as the day before, though his clothes are clearly fresh and well-pressed. He inspects me, one quick glancing review, before saying, “There has been a change. We are going visiting.”

  “Visiting?”

  He gestures to the door. “If you attempt to escape again, my men have orders to kill you without hesitation. You understand?”

  I nod and follow him out the door.

  A carriage has pulled up for us, gray in the faint light of dawn. The Scholar and I climb in, while his men take up their stations on posts behind the wheels and up beside the driver.

  The curtains are drawn across the windows, leaving us in a shadowy underworld. The Scholar in his black robes seems to fade into the darkness of the cushions opposite me. We lurch forward, rattling on over the cobbles.

  “Will you tell me where we are going?” I ask, trying to make out his expression. He seems distracted, detached.

  “To see what I can get in trade for you.”

  “What!”

  “I have received a proposition,” he says slowly, as if he is still considering it himself. “We are going to learn more of it.”

  My hands clutch each other so tightly my nails dig into my skin. “What of Red Hawk?”

  “What of him?”

  I shake my head, not understanding this turn of events. “You said—”

  “If we have not heard back yet, I doubt we will. This proposition, on the other hand, has merit. If I act on it before sunrise, you may still keep your neck intact. Or at least”—he smiles, a gleam of white in the near-dark—“I will not be the one to cut it.”

  “I see,” I say, though I’m not sure I do.

  “My honor,” he explains, his voice patient in the darkness. “The only way you live is if Red Hawk ransoms you, which apparently he will not, or this proposition goes through. If the proposition is not to my advantage”—he shrugs—“you die. But if it is, then I have every reason to consider it.”

  “And the proposition?” I manage, my throat hoarse.

  “That remains to be seen.”

  We ride the rest of the way in silence. The carriage pulls up to an old building, the door before us made of solid oak, plain but strong. Two armed men answer, watching the Scholar and his men with grim faces. I glance either way up the cobbled street, but it lies empty of any who might help me, the few people present studiously ignoring us, and the Scholar’s hand is firm on my elbow. Not that I would attempt to run, surrounded as I am.

  The guards escort us through a dark entryway, down a narrow corridor, and from there into a great atrium, the high walls open to the brightening sky, exquisite mosaics adorning the space. Halfway up one wall an iron railing abuts a closed door—an upper-room access to the light of the atrium. As we enter, a man rises from where he sits at a small table and chair, a pot of tea before him. His voice and bearing are equally hearty.

  “Well, old man! It’s been some time, hasn’t it? How are your books keeping you? Not starting to molder among them, are you?” He laughs at his own jest.

  The Scholar regards him icily. “It seems you are the same as always, Bardok.”

  I start, my eyes finding out the man’s hands. His right hand lacks the final digit. I stare, unable to believe this. Why would we come here? What could Bardok Three-Fingers possibly want with me? And how did he hear about me?

  “Nah, nah,” Bardok says, crossing to us. He is even bigger than I thought, a good head taller than the Scholar, and built like a bear. He wears light armor even here, in what must be his home. Or at least, a safe house in his own territory. “I’ve put on a bit more.” He pats his belly, which looks more muscle than fat from what I can tell. “It’s the women, you know. Or”—he snorts with laughter—“you don’t.”

  The Scholar, done with such inanities, cuts to the chase. “Your message was intriguing, but I have only so much patience. This is the girl. What would you offer in return?”

  “That’s her, eh?” Bardok looks me over. “Not much to her.”

  I clamp my mouth shut, seething. What does he know?

  “Now what does Red Hawk see in her?” he continues on, musing. “See that jaw? She’s no bed warmer.”

  I make a strangled sound. The Scholar’s hand tightens into a vise on my arm just in time to keep me from snarling at the man. Which would be foolish. Suicidal, even. But oh, to wipe that smile from his mouth, even for a moment.

  “I expect not,” the Scholar says, sounding bored. “What you would want with her is more to the question.”

  “You put a price on her head, I hear,” Bardok says with a grin. “A bit too high to get your ransom. Me, I’m not so hard to please. I want something of Red Hawk, and he’ll give.”

  “Will he?”

  Bardok winks at me. “She might be able to charm her way into a quick death with you, old friend, but I won’t offer her death. Red Hawk may be stubborn, but he’s got his honor too. And like I said, I won’t be demanding coin.” He rubs his hands together. “I’m looking forward to a good game.”

  The Scholar’s hold eases somewhat on my arm. “And why should I give up my game to yours?”

  “I could tell you,” Bardok says, his hands coming to rest on his hips, one hand unconsciously caressing the hilt of his short sword. “But I’d much rather show you. This way.”


  We follow Bardok out of the atrium and up a staircase to a second level lit by periodic luminae stones. Thief lords certainly don’t lack for money, or the connections to get what they want.

  “Here we are,” he says, swinging open a door and stepping in. The Scholar pushes me in before him, as if I were a shield. I have a moment to take in the room before he steps through: an open window opposite, a guard seated on a stool halfway between door and window, his back to the wall, and across from him, two men. Chained. No mosaics here, just a small inset tile above the men’s heads, a strange design of connected curves and crisscrossing lines painted onto it. It looks oddly familiar, but I can’t place where I’ve seen it before.

  I feel the Scholar start. Looking back, I see a fleeting emotion cross his features before his face ices over—disbelief? Or fury? “I see,” he says.

  “Good men,” Bardok says cheerfully. “But they didn’t just wander into my territory; they tried to spy on my own. Now, normally I would slit their throats and be done. But then I thought, sure you wouldn’t want to exchange these two trespassers for your one. You can rough ’em up a bit, as you like, and so long as I’ve your word I won’t see them again, I’ve no problem giving them over to you.”

  From the look of it, the men have already been “roughed up”: both sport bruises, split lips, and black eyes. One man cradles his arm awkwardly in his lap, the other sits hunched, one hand at his temples. Their eyes, dark and glittering beneath the purple bruises, appear half-crazed with desperate hope as they look at the Scholar.

  I avert my gaze, my stomach tight as a fist. The guard against the wall catches my eye. He tilts his head toward the window and mouths one word: Jump.

  I stare at him, hardly registering the conversation continuing around me. The guard looks toward his charges as if I were not there at all, but I didn’t imagine what he just told me. Why would he help me escape the thief lord he serves? It makes no sense. On the other hand, he can’t truly have been serious. Jump? From the second story? With the Scholar holding me tight and Bardok Three-Fingers between me and the window?

  But Scholar’s grip has slackened somewhat, and Bardok has moved forward to kick one of the prisoner’s ankles. The man scrabbles away, pressing against the plain plaster wall.

  “They’re your men,” Bardok says with disgust. “Why not trade for them?”

  “I don’t sanction trespassing,” the Scholar replies. “You can kill them as well as I. Why should I give up the girl for that?”

  I’m dead. I’m dead if I stay, and dead if I jump. I might as well jump. But I have to get away from the Scholar first. With my bone knife wrapped up tight at my waist, I have no weapon to turn on him, not without fumbling about for it and losing any element of surprise I might have had. I will have to find another way. My mind flashes over the single defensive lesson I’ve had, what way I might best break the Scholar’s hold on me.

  “She’s useless to you,” Bardok says. “The men you can make an example of.”

  “You’re right,” the Scholar says suddenly. With a vicious twist, he yanks me around, changing his grip from elbow to wrist, a dagger flashing out of his robes. “She’s no use to me. But I don’t give up bargaining pieces to anyone, Bardok.”

  The dagger presses against the pale brown of the inside of my wrist. The world goes quiet in my ears, though I am aware of Bardok speaking, the Scholar smiling as he looks up, past me.

  I won’t be able to pull my wrist away without slitting it. But oh, he won’t expect me to move toward him.

  With a shout, I piston my wrist in, landing a rather weak punch to his chest. The dagger slides up my arm, cutting sideways. I step in, snapping my knee up between his legs as he shifts his grip on his dagger. He shouts, hunching over in pain.

  I twist my wrist free and use that same move Matsin taught me, slamming my other palm into the Scholar’s shoulder and sending him half falling backward. I dart around Bardok, who is doubled over with laughter, and throw myself at the window, tumbling over the sill and down, limbs knocking against the wall as I fall.

  I land with a bone-jarring thump, then slide sideways a pace or two before hands grab me and ease me—down? I gasp for air, my vision spinning as I find my feet. A hay cart. I landed in a hay cart.

  “Run,” my helper says, shoving me forward. I can hear shouting above me. I sprint as best I can down the road, still struggling to breathe, knowing that any of the Scholar’s men could catch me while going at a steady jog. Curse my stupid foot! My breath sobs in my chest as I reach a cross street.

  “Here, Rae,” a man says, standing a pace down the alley to my right. I stumble, staring at him. He whips back his hood, gesturing to me impatiently. Artemian. The moment I turn the corner, he is beside me, one arm wrapping around me to carry me forward. Two more paces and he pulls me through a doorway and down a connecting hall to another alley. Darkness swirls around me, but I think it must just be the running. And the fall.

  “Get in,” Artemian says, pushing me forward again as we exit the hall. In the alley, a small carriage waits, its door open. I scramble up, Artemian following and yanking the door shut behind him. The driver whips the horses into a gallop, jerking the carriage forward and sending me to my knees.

  “Easy,” Artemian says, catching my elbows and raising me to the bench. “What’s this?” His hand is slick with something dark. He grabs my hands, bending closer to inspect me in the dim confines of the carriage. “You’re bleeding.”

  “Oh,” I say. Right. “The Scholar had a dagger.” I take a shaky breath and find that I’m trembling all over. “Shock, probably,” I add. I don’t think the cut is deep.

  “Hold on, Rae,” Artemian says, his voice grim. “I’m going to wrap this up. We’ll get you patched up in no time.”

  “Right,” I say, holding my arm up as he directs. I can feel the wetness now, soaking my sleeve and dripping onto my skirts. I think of the Scholar, the darkness in his eyes, and of Bardok’s laughter booming through the room.

  “Gonna take a pretty big patch,” I say, and try not to let out the half-hysterical laugh caught in my breast. I don’t quite succeed.

  Chapter

  30

  It’s her snoring that wakes me. The old woman sits on a woven cushion a few feet away, her back against the wall and her head tilted sideways, mouth gaping, giving all her breath and voice to a stream of snores that could wake the dead. Certainly worked on me.

  I shift, inspecting the room, and a slicing line of pain runs up my wounded arm. My memories come tumbling back: the brickmaker’s boys, the Black Scholar, the archer’s journal, Bardok Three-Fingers, the dagger, jumping from the window. I squeeze my eyes shut for a breath. I’m safe now. Or at least, I should be.

  But where am I? The room offers no clues. It looks to belong to a wealthy, though probably not noble, family. A small band of mosaic runs along the top of the walls, and beneath the woven rugs layered on the floor, I catch the occasional patch of bare mosaic, neither overly fine nor crude. I lie on a low bed; beside me, a carved table bears a tray with a cup of water. Then there is the snoring woman, a window I have no intention of jumping out of, and a door.

  I consider the door. It is cracked open, which means I won’t have to worry about locks. I could go out without waking the woman, and see if I can figure out where I am. Because if I need to escape, I suspect this is the best chance I’ll get.

  Artemian brought me here, I remind myself, though I don’t remember much past the carriage. It must be a safe place, even if it is clearly not his own home. Still, I’m not sure I trust my assumptions enough not to check.

  I sit up carefully, pushing back the blankets with my good hand. My temples ache, pounding loud enough to almost drown out the woman’s snores. I stay sitting, one foot flat on the rugs, the other as flat as it gets, until the pounding in my head recedes to a dull thud. It takes me another moment to remember what I’m doing. Then I push myself to my feet, take one step as the room spins on its axis, and my
knees fold. I land with a yelp, my wounded arm glancing off the carpets and bringing tears to my eyes.

  The woman shrieks, jumping to her feet, her eyes wild. I hunch down and bite my lip to keep quiet against the waves of pain.

  “Who’s there?” she calls, still looking over my head.

  “Me,” I say. It is almost a question.

  She glances down, sees me, and her whole body shudders with relief. “Ah.”

  The door swings open. I look up to see Bren poised in the doorway, a silver glint in his hand. I can’t help the rush of relief I feel when I see him: I must be safe after all. He glances from me to the woman, and his face transforms from angles and hardness to amusement. He palms his dagger with a flick of his fingers. “Kelari Bakira, is all well?”

  The woman flutters her fingers at her breast, the motion at odds with her large physique. “I woke with a start, kel. My apologies. The young lady is on the floor.”

  “So I see.” Bren meets my gaze, his lips curving into a smile.

  “Hello,” I offer cheerily. His pants are rumpled, his hair unbound, and his tunic missing altogether, baring a lean, muscled chest. Kelari Bakira isn’t the only one I woke up.

  “Hello,” he replies. He glances into the hallways, shakes his head and murmurs something, and I hear the faint sound of footsteps receding. He looks back in on us. “Kelari, would you fetch some food for our guest?”

  “Yes, kel,” Bakira says, bustling toward him. “At once.”

  He steps in, holding the door as she passes, and then closes it behind her. I take the time to readjust myself, making sure my skirts cover my legs and turned foot, trying not to giggle over the ridiculousness of looking proper in the company of a half-dressed man. Not that I haven’t worked beside our own stable hands many a sunny afternoon and thought nothing of their taking off their shirts. But this is different. I think.