Kodyn nodded and turned to Aisha with a questioning look.
“Go,” Aisha told him. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”
“Allow me to bring you something to eat, my lady,” Kodyn said in a loud voice.
“Thank you.” Briana gave him a little curtsy, her dazzling smile returning.
Kodyn squeezed Briana’s hand before slipping his arm free of her grip. He strode toward the far end of the banquet table, scooped up a golden platter, and began heaping it high with treats and delicacies—the sort of thing a young girl should enjoy. He continued until he stood beside the Secret Keeper.
“The Black Widow sends her greetings,” he said in a low voice. At the same time, he turned up his hand and uncurled his fingers to reveal the silver spider-faced coin he’d palmed from his pocket.
To Ennolar’s credit, he managed not to stiffen or twitch, but simply turned a silent, questioning glance toward Kodyn.
“She has sent me to collect a map of the…” He didn’t remember the hand signs for Serenii. “…tunnels beneath the city.”
Now surprise cracked Ennolar’s stoic expression. “You know our language?” he signed.
“I am the one who saved Briana.” He met the man’s gaze. “She taught me.”
Ennolar gave a little nod of understanding. “Dare I ask why the Black Widow wants the map?”
Kodyn shrugged. “You can ask her. I’m just the messenger.” He had to spell out the last word—yet another sign he hadn’t yet learned.
After a long, silent moment, Ennolar’s fingers flashed again. “So be it. The Temple of Whispers at noon tomorrow. But not you. Your pale skin makes you stand out. Send someone in your place, someone you trust. Give them that.” He thrust his chin at Kodyn’s right hand, which held the coin. “And tell the Black Widow that this cancels our debt.”
Kodyn nodded. “Noon, then.”
Their exchange ended, Kodyn moved around the Secret Keeper and continued filling Briana’s plate. Finally, once he’d heaped the sweetmeats high enough, he turned away from the table.
Excitement thrummed within him as he strode back toward his comrades. One step closer to getting my hands on the Crown of the Pharus and completing my Undertaking! With the map, he’d know how to get into the palace using the underground Serenii tunnels. There were still a lot of details left to figure out—chief among them, how the hell to get into the Vault of Ancients. Hopefully he could convince Suroth to fill in those gaps.
When the time came—and it seemed to be coming sooner than he’d anticipated—he’d be ready to make his move and prove his worthiness to be a Journeyman of the Night Guild.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
As Aisha steered Briana through the crowd toward her father, she felt the tremor running through the young Shalandran. She squeezed Briana’s arm, a gesture intended to help calm the girl. But when Briana turned toward her, Aisha caught the spark of anger burning bright in the girl’s eye. The interaction with Councilor Madani hadn’t scared her; it left her enraged.
“The smug bastard!” Outrage tinged Briana’s harsh whisper. “You heard him. He all but confessed!”
Aisha nodded. “It proves your father’s theory right. The Necroseti really did plan to take you. Maybe they actually managed it, but somehow the Gatherers got their hands on you. That just means we need to be doubly cautious about keeping you safe. Maybe we should—”
“If you’re about to recommend that we leave, you’d better rethink that.” Briana rounded on her, eyes flashing. “Madani did that to rattle me, to send me running scared and send a clear message to my father. I may not be a warrior like you and Kodyn, but I’m not some little girl to hide at the first sign of danger.”
Aisha couldn’t help admiring Briana’s spark of defiance, her resilience. She’d known too many others that had crumbled during their enslavement by the Bloody Hand. Only a handful of girls—those that had stayed in Praamis to join House Phoenix—had walked away from the horrors of their captivity stronger in body, mind, and will. Briana hadn’t endured the same things she had, but she recognized a kindred spirit.
Briana’s face was a mask of polite courtesy, but she fairly stomped through the throng toward her father. Arch-Guardian Suroth looked up from his conversation with a Dhukari and a furrow rippled his brow at the sight of his daughter.
“What is the matter?” his hands flashed.
Briana’s fingers moved so quickly Aisha could barely keep up. The angry gestures made the emotions behind the message clear.
The concern in Arch-Guardian Suroth’s eyes turned to white-hot rage. For a moment, as he scanned the crowd, Aisha thought the Secret Keeper would storm off and hunt down his fellow Councilor. Aisha had seen his fighting stance when he first discovered their true purpose for being in Shalandra. He was a dangerous man even with nothing but a crystal goblet in his hand and the fire of fury burning in his chest.
“I will not let his actions go unanswered,” Suroth signed, his face a mask of anger.
“Nor should you,” Briana responded. “But we need to move carefully. You know better than I just how much power the Necroseti wield.”
Suroth scowled. “Accursed priests!”
Briana’s eyes widened. “Father, beware you do not blaspheme yourself. They are the Keeper’s chosen!”
“They are no more chosen than the stone beneath our feet or the wine in our glasses.” His grip tightened around the goblet until Aisha feared the delicate crystal would shatter. “They are but men, regardless of their title.”
“Powerful men,” Briana retorted. “With more power and influence among the Dhukari and Alqati than you.”
“But with the Pharus?” Aisha asked.
Both pairs of eyes—so similar in their almond shape, their dark color, and the bright, burning anger—turned toward her.
“The Pharus himself sought you out to welcome you back,” Aisha continued. “From what you’ve told me, that doesn’t seem like the sort of thing he’d do needlessly, even to keep up appearances.”
Arch-Guardian Suroth’s eyes widened a fraction. “You speak truth, Ghandian.” He turned to Briana. “The Council knows that the Pharus favors me—perhaps simply because I am not Necroseti and have no desire to control him. That could be one of the reasons they moved against me by capturing you. They know that I will turn the Pharus against something they intend to do.”
“So speak to the Pharus, then,” Briana insisted. “Tell him your suspicions.”
“It will achieve nothing unless I can prove the truth.” Suroth’s expression soured, then grew pensive. “Perhaps I may have a way of doing precisely that.”
He rounded on Aisha. “As soon as your companion returns from convincing Ennolar to give him the map of the Serenii tunnels, get Briana back home.”
The words stunned Aisha. It took her a long moment before she could remember the hand signs to ask, “How did you know?”
Suroth’s expression went flat. “I am Arch-Guardian of all the Secret Keepers in Shalandra. I know what each one specializes in, where their interests lie. The moment I saw Kodyn heading toward Ennolar, it was a simple matter to decipher his intentions.” He nodded. “A plan I intended to suggest to you on the morrow. It is good to see that your companion is as clever as you are strong. When I move against whichever of the Councilors were behind the plot to abduct Briana, I will have need of wits as well as brawn.”
Aisha nodded. “We will stand with you, Arch-Guardian.”
To her surprise, gratitude filled the man’s eyes. “Thank you, truly.” It remained a moment, barely a glimpse, before hardening once more. “Now, I’ve got to make contact with my sources in the Necroseti. I will return to the mansion late. I trust you with my daughter’s life.”
Aisha squared her shoulders. “A trust I do not take lightly.”
“Good.” Suroth squeezed Briana’s hand quickly and bustled off into the crowd. Within moments, his brown Secret Keeper robes disappeared among the mass of swirling gold, silver, b
lue, and white.
Aisha searched the crowd until she found the cluster of black amid all the dazzling color. The Kish’aa hovered around the Keeper’s Priests, clinging to them like shadows. A shudder ran down Aisha’s spine—she could only imagine what the Necroseti had done to these poor souls to tether them so close in death.
Her attention returned to her surroundings as Kodyn came over to them, a look of triumph in his eyes. “Tomorrow at noon.”
“Good.” Aisha swallowed the acid swirling in her throat and turned to Briana. “Now I think it’s time we do as your father says and get out of here.”
“I won’t run scared just because of a threat,” Briana protested. “Even from a member of the Keeper’s Council.”
“I’m not asking.” Aisha gave Briana a stern look. “We’re here to guard you, and right now, I’m telling you that it’s time to leave. There will still be enough traffic moving around the Keeper’s Tier that we can travel safely. And the fact that no one’s expecting you to leave so early means we’ll be out of here before anyone realizes we’re gone.”
Briana’s face fell and she opened her mouth to protest, but Kodyn spoke first.
“Aisha’s right.” He shot Aisha a nod. “Our job’s to keep you safe. Let us do that. Once we’re back safe in your mansion, we’ll be able to figure out our next step.”
“Remember,” Aisha whispered, “you just found out that the most powerful people in your city have it out for you and your father. That’s not a threat anyone should take lightly.”
Briana looked ready to protest, but common sense prevailed. “Fine, but at least allow me to say farewell to—”
“No!” Aisha shook her head. “We leave before anyone knows we’re out of here.”
The look on Briana’s face made her displeasure clear. At that moment, the Shalandran girl’s pleasure was the last thing on Aisha’s mind.
* * *
The night air in Arch-Guardian Suroth’s rooftop garden was cool and comforting. The gentle breeze set the leaves rustling and carried the delicate aromas of a hundred exotic flowers to her. Aisha basked in the darkness and silence—peace after what had been an intense day.
The return journey to Suroth’s mansion had passed without event, though Briana had bordered on sulky as Aisha and Kodyn fairly dragged her out of her own celebration. She’d barely spoken two words to Aisha as they hustled her inside and deposited her and Hailen, the strange pale-skinned servant boy, in the care of Nessa.
At Aisha’s insistence, Kodyn had given the exterior of Arch-Guardian Suroth’s mansion a thorough examination. His years as an apprentice Hawk had taught him to spot hidden ways in and out of buildings even as fortified as this. If there was a way assassins or kidnappers could get at Briana—from the ground or the rooftops—he’d find it.
She’d stood silent guard outside Briana’s room until Kodyn relieved her.
“Go, get some sleep,” he’d told her. “I’ll hold the door until morning.”
He meant it as a kindness, but Aisha couldn’t even begin to even consider sleep. She’d come straight to the garden, the only place in the massive house where she could be certain of solitude.
She lifted her right hand and held it in front of her face. The darkness highlighted the tiny spark of energy that danced around her hand. Crackling, surging, a little rush like lightning that leapt from finger to finger like a firebug.
But this was no bug. Growing up on the plains of Ghandia, Aisha had spent many summer nights chasing the lightning bugs with her baby sister. The bugs glowed a soft golden yellow, but this light shone a pure white.
The power of the Kish’aa.
She’d never understood it when her father spoke of the energy a Spirit Whisperer could control. To her, the gift conveyed the ability to see the spirits of the dead, even speak with them and call upon their aid. Now she knew what it meant to wield the power of the Kish’aa.
Her eyes wandered toward the flower-covered vine dome in the heart of the garden, but she knew she wouldn’t see the ethereal, translucent blue form of Radiana floating there. Briana’s mother had gone, her spirit dissipated on the wind, the spark of her life absorbed into Aisha. She felt it in the core of her being, like the last glowing ember as the fire died. But when she focused, she could see it glimmering within her veins and darting between her fingers.
Her father had tried to explain it to her once. “When a fire dies, its heat is not lost forever. Instead, it simply reunites with the air around it, dispersed until it can no longer be felt. But, when the fire is rekindled, the heat returns to its source. Thus it is with the Kish’aa. A Spirit Whisperer can gather the heat unto himself until he becomes the fire.”
The words, so confusing at the time, had begun to make terrible sense. More than once, she’d thought she caught a glimpse at that same energy within her father. Always from the corner of her eye, and always gone when she turned fully toward him. What she’d written off as her childish imagination now revealed the truth to her.
My father wielded the Kish’aa like fire, and it consumed him.
She glanced to the west, toward the Keeper’s Crypts where the dead clustered like a storm cloud. Those spirits held a terrible power—if she dared to approach them and claim their sparks for herself. Yet the memories of her father’s descent into madness haunted her. The laughing, quick-tongued man had transformed into an emaciated husk, nothing remaining but two empty eyes that stared into a world she could not see.
With effort, she tore her eyes away from the tombs, but found her gaze now resting on the bright blue petals of the Watcher’s Bloom. The plant that had enhanced her father’s ability and stole his mind.
“Can’t sleep either?”
Aisha spun to find Briana coming up behind her. The Shalandran girl wore a loose linen dress and a shawl pulled tight around her petite shoulders. Bare-footed, she’d moved with such silence that Aisha, distracted by her worries, hadn’t heard her coming.
“Don’t worry.” Briana smiled at her. “Kodyn understood when I said I needed to take a walk in the garden, to clear my head. And when he saw you here…” She trailed off and glanced over her shoulder. “He’s waiting at the gazebo. Giving us space to talk. Sometimes, only another woman can understand what you’re going through.”
Aisha forced a smile but could find no words to explain the tempest brewing within her. How could anyone understand the truth? The Einari worshipped the Thirteen Gods of Einan, while the Shalandrans held the Long Keeper in reverence. They could never understand the power of the Kish’aa. Worse, they could think her mad.
Yet the burden had grown heavy, almost too much for her to bear alone. If she didn’t tell someone soon, she feared she’d crack beneath its weight.
“This plant,” Aisha began hesitantly, pointing to the flowers Briana had called Keeper’s Spike, “you say it causes hallucinations, yes?”
“Correct.” Briana shot a curious glance at her. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I never expected you to be a Deadener.”
Aisha’s brow furrowed. “Deadener? I’m not familiar with this word.”
“Someone who deadens their pain through drugs or drink,” Briana explained. “Here in Shalandra, the people who take Night Petal are called Deadeners. As the plant drowns out their pain, it slowly deadens them to the world until they are nothing but empty husks, the walking dead.” She fixed Aisha with a piercing stare. “I know you’ve endured a lot in your life, but—”
“No.” Aisha shook her head. “It’s not that.”
“Oh.” Briana’s face relaxed, relief visible.
Silence hung between them for a long moment. Aisha couldn’t bring herself to share all the details, but Briana seemed at a loss for words.
Aisha spoke first. “You know what happened to me and the others of House Phoenix?”
“Kodyn told me,” Briana said in a quiet voice. She almost looked embarrassed. “I asked him about it back in Praamis, after I saw that look in your eyes, the one that sp
eaks of deep-rooted pain and loss. I see it in my father’s eyes every time he speaks of my mother.”
Aisha felt a jolt in her chest, as if Radiana’s spirit reacted to the words. Perhaps the woman’s life force hadn’t truly gone, simply absorbed into Aisha’s soul, where it lived on.
“The ones who held me prisoner, the Bloody Hand,” Aisha went on slowly, “they gave me a narcotic, Bonedust.”
Briana winced. “My father has told me about it. Truly horrible.” She placed a hand on Aisha’s. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry that you had to endure that.”
Aisha nodded. “Yet, without that, I would not be here right now. Right where I need to be.”
Her gaze went once more to the Watcher’s Bloom. “That plant, back in Ghandia we called it Whispering Lily.”
“What a pretty name!” Briana’s eyes lit up. “I like it a lot better than either Watcher’s Bloom or Keeper’s Spike.”
“Some of those who took it said they could…” She didn’t want to say “speak to the dead” for fear she’d sound crazy. “…see things. Even hear things.”
“That makes sense,” Briana said. “Hallucinations, both visual and auditory, are one of the flower’s side effects.”
“But it did more than that.” Aisha hesitated. “It affected their minds. Made them…empty, like one of your Deadeners.”
“Oh.” Briana’s expression registered her understanding. “Someone close to you?”
Aisha drew in a deep breath. “My father.”
Briana squeezed her hand, her slim fingers surprisingly strong and comforting on Aisha’s. “I’m sorry. That’s difficult for anyone to see.”
“Yes.” A lump rose to Aisha’s throat at the memories of her father’s vacant stare. She swallowed for fear tears would overwhelm her. “But, I thought, maybe with your father’s expertise, he might know of something to counteract the effects of the plant.”
Briana’s brow furrowed. “You mean, like the hallucinations without the plant dulling your senses?”
Heirs of Destiny Box Set Page 26