The Theft of Sunlight

by Intisar Khanani

  I start forward, my foot aching with each step. I need to find the princess, tell her all this at once. But if I tell her about Garrin, then . . . then what? There are the mages involved, and who is to say the crown itself is not involved? I don’t believe Kestrin knows, but what if the king does? I can’t wrap my mind around the ramifications of what I’ve learned, but I need to tell someone. I need to make sure I’m not the only one who knows. And the only person I can trust right now with this is Alyrra.

  I’ll tell her, and if she cannot do anything, then I’ll tell Bren as well. Perhaps there is a place for thieves—at least honorable thieves—when the government has betrayed their people so deeply.

  The next servant I see, I ask for directions back to the royal wing. He directs me to familiar halls, and from there I head toward the back hall with its stairway up to the guard room. I pass a few servants, a young noble on his way somewhere, and then, as I round the corner to the stairway, I see a young page crouched on the ground. He looks up as I pause, his face set in hard lines and furrows.

  “Are you all right?” I ask, moving toward him.

  “F-forgive me, kelari,” he says, ducking his head. “I’ve just turned my ankle.”

  I know that pain well enough. “Let’s have a look,” I say, coming to a stop beside him, my mind running through how I can tell Alyrra. Will the asphodel be enough of a connection to convince her?

  The boy proffers me the injured ankle. It isn’t swollen yet, but when I ask him to rotate his foot, he winces and freezes up. I can’t tell if it’s only a strain, or something worse. My usual patients are horses.

  “Can you stand?” I ask, glancing toward the back stairway, then the other direction. There’s no one to hand him off to, though.

  “I’ll try,” he says.

  I offer him a hand up. Between that and the wall, he’s able to stand, but the first step he takes leaves him gasping and clinging to me. My ankle throbs as I take his weight.

  “Looks like we’d better get you to a healer,” I say as cheerfully as I can. “I’ll walk you there. Come.”

  The going is slow, for I must support the boy without putting too much strain on my own ankle. We stay close to the wall, and I periodically pause to let him lean against it so that we can both rest. My mind spins around and around what I’ve learned, trying to ferret out the best way to phrase my explanation to the princess.

  As we reach the next courtyard, the boy gestures with his chin. “There’s a shortcut that way, kelari. Servants’ passages, if you don’t mind.”

  Anything to deliver him to the healers quicker, get this additional weight off my ankle, and go on to Alyrra. We turn down an empty hall, the sound of our passage echoing slightly. I don’t see any servants, but the hall is certainly nowhere near as ornate as the usual palace halls, or as wide. Most of the doors opening onto the hall are closed, but here and there one stands open. I glance through the first to see an empty storage room.

  “Not much farther,” the boy says, as if comforting me.

  “No,” I agree. I’ll start with Garrin’s absence during the fight on the boat—

  An arm snakes around my throat and yanks me back, pulling me off my feet. My mouth gapes open, but I cannot get any breath, my feet scrabbling beneath me as I am hauled backward.

  “Got her,” a voice says.

  I claw at the arm as it clamps tighter—chokehold. A vision of Matsin in the carriage flashes before my eyes, his gaze steady as he talks me through this. I reach up, following the line of my attacker’s arm to his hand, grasp his finger, and yank.

  I feel bone crack and my attacker swallows a cry, shoving me away from him. I land on all fours, my mouth open as I gulp great lungfuls of air. Vaguely, I can hear someone laughing. I need to get up.

  I push myself up and then a hand grabs my arm and twists it behind me. I give a gasping cry, trying to pull away, but my arm is pinned behind me, and then another hand shoves a gag into my mouth. The force of it pushes me against my captor, the muscles of my arm crying out in a protest I can’t voice.

  I cast about wildly—and catch sight of the page. He watches me, perfectly balanced on his feet, a line between his brows as if he were slightly perturbed. He makes no move to call for help, no move to do anything at all.

  My captor turns and propels me into the empty room we passed only a moment ago. The second man follows after us, shutting the door behind him.

  Chapter

  55

  The guards—for guards they are—leave me gagged and bound on the floor of the storeroom and depart without a backward glance. The door closes on the sound of the second guard mocking the first for his broken finger.

  I lie in the dark, my cheek pressed against a fine layer of grit, the tiles cold against my skin. My arms are tied behind me, my ankles bound together. They did not bother searching me, and so did not discover my calf sheath with my bone knife, but no matter how I try, I cannot reach my fingers around to where it is hidden beneath my skirts.

  I swallow, my breath coming hard through my nose. I cannot seem to breathe properly, for all that it is only my mouth that is blocked. Is this what happened to Kirrana? Was she left bound and gagged and forgotten? Do they intend to come back for me, or will they leave me here, unable to cry for help in a room no one may enter for weeks?

  No. I squeeze my eyes shut, force them open again. I’m going to escape. My family will hear this story from my lips, no one else’s. I won’t be a sad disappearance, an inescapable casualty.

  I twist, trying again to reach my calf, my fingers barely managing to catch on the fabric of my skirts.

  A door opens in the wall. I start, staring, for there was no door there before, was there? A golden glow falls through the new doorway, and then a figure steps out, luminae lamp in hand.

  I tense, every instinct screaming at me to run, but I’ve never been able to do that before, and even less so now, bound as I am. So instead I lift my chin and look straight at Garrin.

  “A shame, kelari,” he says softly, and strangely, he looks far more regretful than the page who tricked me here. “Every chance you had to save yourself, you kept putting yourself forward. Why would you do that? Have you no sense of self-preservation?”

  Is he actually blaming me? Him? This despicable excuse for a noble who sells children into slavery?

  He sighs. “I am going to cut your legs free. I suggest you come quietly. If you do not, I will have to bind you again, and bring others to carry you. I would prefer not to take such drastic measures.”

  He doesn’t mean to kill me. The thought sends a flash of relief through me even as I realize I should have known that. If he wished me dead, the guards could have done that easily enough. There was no need for him to come here himself.

  He kneels beside me, head tilted as he studies me. I glare up at him, the gag filling my mouth.

  He winces. “I’m not a murderer, kelari. I’ll see you out of this alive and well, if you will only comply. I simply can’t have you here anymore.”

  He sounds so reasonable, so very civilized. He and the Black Scholar would no doubt get along very, very well. Garrin isn’t about to send me off to the country and set me free. I’m not sure what “alive and well” constitutes, but I doubt we’d agree on our definitions.

  “Will you come quietly, kelari?” he asks.

  I consider my options, but they aren’t many. Better to allow him to cut my ankles free and follow quietly, watching for an opportunity to escape, than refuse that chance altogether. I dip my head.

  “Very good.”

  Once I’m on my feet again, he sets a hand on my arm and lifts the luminae lamp. I let him guide me to the doorway, stepping into a narrow stone hallway.

  “A moment,” he says, turning back to the door. I lean against the wall beside me, resting my foot. My throat aches, and my wounded arm throbs. I wriggle my wrists in their bindings, but they are too tight to work a hand free.

  Garrin swings the door shut, then pulls a lev
er that seems to retract the door until it lines up perfectly with the wall. Alyrra once mentioned that the palace contained secret passages, and so did Melly. I would have much preferred never to see them at all.

  Garrin looks at me, shakes his head. “You’re so predictable,” he says, almost as an apology. “I knew if I put a wounded child in front of you, I’d have you. There’s not a noble lady in the palace who would have seen to the boy herself. But you? Of course you would.”

  I grumble a curse at him through the gag. He must have set the page to waylay me after our report to Alyrra and Kestrin. It was only the worst coincidence of timing that he caught me on the way back from the portrait gallery.

  “I should have preferred it, really, if you were a bit more selfish,” Garrin says, and taking my arm, guides me along.

  What? Does he actually feel bad for what he’s doing? Not bad enough, or I wouldn’t be here, shuffling through dark stone passages. I keep an eye out for doors, for any sign of life. If I can just alert someone to my passing, perhaps I can be rescued.

  But there’s no chance of that, for Garrin keeps me pressed against the opposite wall of the two doors we pass, and the third is the one he wants. We step out into another storage room, this one stacked with crates.

  “In you go,” he says, nodding to the nearest crate, its lid beside it.

  I pull back, horror getting the better of me.

  Garrin very carefully sets down the lamp and meets my gaze. “You may get in on your own,” he says, “or I will force you in. Either way, you will go. Again, you will not be harmed. What do you choose?”

  I hold still, listening, but there’s no sound from beyond this room, no indication that anyone is out there and might take note of a disturbance. With a terrible sort of resignation, I dip my head and move to the crate. With my hands bound behind me, it is almost impossible to climb in without tipping over—until Garrin catches my arm and steadies me, helping me in. The gentleness of it rankles, as if his manners could offset the evil he is committing.

  I only just fit in the crate, my knees bent to my chin, and my back curled forward to fit my arms behind me. Garrin lifts the lid and sets it down, shoving my head between my knees. I cry out, but it’s a faint, muffled sound, easily lost beneath the pounding of nails into the lid of the crate.

  By the time he is done, I can barely breathe, even though there are air holes drilled into the sides. I feel like the gag is choking me, and I’m trembling now, the sides of the box closing in on me. It’s dark without even the faint glow of the luminae lamp through the air holes. I’m alone, my senses reeling. I feel I might be sick all over myself—only I can’t, because then I will choke on my own vomit, and I can’t die like that. And there’s no getting out of here, no escape, no one who cares.

  Not true. I inhale hard through my nose and hold that breath, then slowly let it out and inhale again. I’m going to get out, I tell myself on the next inhale. There are people who care. With each breath I remind myself of who: Mama and Baba. Niya, whom I promised I’d grow old with. Bean. Melly. Filadon. Alyrra. I will get out—of this crate, of this future Garrin has consigned me to—and once I do, I will not rest until I’ve brought his actions into the light.

  Eventually, a pair of workers enter the room, lift the crate, and carry it out. I scratch my fingers against the wood at my back, try calling to them through my gag. If they hear me at all, they ignore me. The crate is set down, then shoved back, the side air holes blocked by things on either side of me—other crates?

  I catch my breath speeding up again and it is all I can do to slow it, focus on the fact that they will not keep me in this crate forever, whoever they are. Whoever Garrin is sending me to.

  Eventually the crate rattles forward, and I deduce I’m riding in a wagon. The air is slowly growing more and more stale, but there’s a faint fall of light from a single air hole somewhere above my head. There’s air. It will have to be enough.

  The ride does not last long. I’m unloaded and transported some distance and then taken down a set of stairs. As before, whoever carries me seems not to care about the faint sounds emanating from my crate. Of course they don’t. These are Garrin’s men, or the snatchers themselves.

  “We supposed to let her out?” a man’s voice asks as the crate is set down.

  “Aye. Put her in the first cell.”

  I wait a painfully long time as the man locates a bar to pry the lid off with. Then I look up into the faces of two men, half-lit by a grimy lantern. We’re in a small, dank bricked hallway, smelling of must and the acrid stink of urine. At the other end, a darkened stairway leads upward.

  “This one’s old,” the first says to the other.

  “Same as the last,” his friend responds.

  Kirrana. Surely that’s who he means. Whatever happened to her, at least now I’ll have some idea.

  The first man hunkers down to meet my gaze. “We’re going to get you out, girl. You try anything, and you’ll go right back in. Got it?”

  I nod.

  They cut my wrists free and lift me out by my arms, which has me crying out in pain around my gag. Then I’m dragged forward, my legs too numb to hold me, and deposited inside a cell.

  “Here,” says one, and grasps the gag, working it out of my mouth as I lie on my side, my hands too numb to use. I want to thank him, but all I can do is swallow down great gulps of air, my mouth aching. But no, I remind myself, I don’t want to thank him. His removing my gag doesn’t change the fact that he’s holding me captive and sending me on, most likely to enslavement.

  “What’s this?” the man says, tilting his head.

  He’s found my knife, the only thing I have left—

  But instead of reaching for my leg, his fingers snag at the chain around my neck, tug. “Got yourself a pretty gold necklace, do you? Don’t think you’ll miss it if we—” He breaks off with a curse and drops the chain as if burned, the hawk pendant sliding down to fall upon the stone with a soft clink.

  The other man lets out a low whistle. “Wouldn’t take anything off of her, if I were you. It’ll be your death, you try to sell that.”

  “Not about to,” says the first man, wiping his fingers and backing away from me. “Best tell him upstairs as well.”

  “He’s not going to like it,” the second says. “You found it; I think you get to do the talking.”

  “You’re the one who accepted the delivery. Don’t see why I should have to report on it.”

  They leave still bickering, shoving the heavy wooden door shut behind them. I hear the faint creak and snick of a bolt being slid into place.

  The air is dank in my cell, moisture and decay filling my lungs. I look around slowly, forcing myself to take note of where I am. Light filters in through the gap beneath the door. The cell I’m in is no bigger than a closet, hardly large enough to sit in with my legs stretched out, should I manage to sit up. Instead, I’m curled up at the center, my legs barely able to unbend. There’s a scattering of moldy hay beneath me, and a bucket in the corner that adds a faintly putrid scent to the room, and that is all.

  They knew the hawk pendant, at least. Whoever the man in charge is, he cares enough about Red Hawk that his men were concerned by my pendant. Which would suggest he’s a thief himself, or closely involved with them.

  Not Red Hawk, not with how much he’s done, how dedicated Bren has been to helping me. Bren’s own history. But the Black Scholar, or Bardok? I could easily believe it of the Scholar, at least, remembering both his intelligence and his cool detachment. He’s been growing in power. Perhaps he’s funding his growth through the sale of children to the snatchers. And if he has me now—if he comes downstairs and discovers me—there’s no way I’ll live to see the inside of a slave ship. I stare across the room as the possibilities run through my mind, the stones damp and gritty against my cheek.

  That’s curious. There hasn’t been much rain the last week; not since the day at the brickmaker’s yard. Where else would the water come fro
m? The Black Scholar’s prison was dry as a bone: it would be, given his prized book collection. The Scholar’s prison also didn’t look like this. I force myself up to a sitting position, staring down at the damp gleam of wetness across the floor. Either it’s not the Scholar upstairs, or this is a separate prison he keeps.

  I half crawl, half drag myself to the wooden door with its small, barred opening at face height. I force my feet under me and stagger upright, my good hand grabbing at one of the bars to keep myself standing. I look between them, out into the hallway, where a faint fall of light illuminates the opposite wall. On that wall hangs a plaque with a familiar ward. A ward I have seen not twice but three times, I now realize, though I didn’t recognize it that second time. I was too frightened, too distracted, and it was made differently then as it is now: a painted tile rather than carved wood.

  I’m still standing there when a man descends the stairs, his tread heavy, the light from the lamp he bears gaining strength as he approaches. I back up a pace from the door and lift my chin. “I would speak with Bardok Three-Fingers,” I say, my voice strangely calm and collected.

  “Would you?” A familiar chuckle rumbles in the hallway, and the door swings open. He wears the same light armor as before, his thick hair pulled back in a warrior’s knot, one hand lifting the lamp to light my face. “Well, who would have thought?” A grin stretches across his broad face. “If it isn’t the Scholar’s little runaway.”

  Chapter

  56

  Bardok sets his lamp down just inside the doorway and steps forward, a smile on his wide face. “This just gets more and more interesting. So you’re a royal attendant, are you? Ha! Poor Scholar never knew what he had in his hand, did he?”