Starless

by Jacqueline Carey

  Less than a day in the palace made me realize that for all the strictness and discipline that my life at the Fortress of the Winds entailed, in some ways, I had been very well protected. What dangers existed were simple and straightforward—heatstroke, predators, a fall from the heights, a sparring accident, a successful supplicant. I would have trusted any one of the brothers with my life.

  And for my entire life, that had been the bedrock of my existence.

  Here, the terrain was unfamiliar and the footing was treacherous. I would have to be very circumspect.

  The Brotherhood departed at dawn. “If you have need of us, know that we are always there for you,” Brother Merik said softly, his callused hand squeezing my forearm. “You are one of us. You have but to send word.”

  I returned his grip. “I draw strength and comfort from the knowledge, brother.”

  Once they had gone, Captain Laaren informed Vironesh that he was to report to the barracks of the City Guard, on the second level.

  Vironesh fixed him with a level stare. “If you don’t mind, I’ll wait with Khai until he’s summoned.”

  The captain shrugged. “As you will.”

  I was grateful for his company, for it was some hours before the summons came; not, as I expected, from one of the king’s guardsmen, but a quartet of guards in white linen robes with golden sashes, each one carrying a spear with a gilded, leaf-shaped blade. Although they were all well above fighting age, all of them were smooth-faced and beardless and lacked the broad-shouldered physiques of the warriors with which I was familiar.

  “Those are members of the Queen’s Guard,” Vironesh murmured to me. “Cut at an early age so they might serve in the women’s quarter.”

  I swallowed, understanding that would have been my fate had I been born into a boy’s body. “I see.”

  “Khai of the Fortress of the Winds.” The fellow who addressed me wore a gold collar inlaid with pale gems around his neck. He planted the butt of his spear on the floor. “I am Tarshim, captain of the Queen’s Guard. We are bidden to escort you to the Hall of Pleasant Accord.”

  I saluted him, then turned to Vironesh. “I’ll see you anon?”

  The purple man nodded, then caught my arm. “Khai, listen. I know I haven’t been as forthcoming as you might have wished, but there’s nothing I could say to prepare you for what you’re about to experience. But when it comes to life within the court, trust no one save your charge,” he said in a low voice. “And even then…” He paused. “Listen to your head as well as your heart.”

  “I will,” I promised.

  “You’ll try.” Vironesh put on one of his humorless smiles. “But you’ll find it more difficult than you think. Do your best, and I’ll tell you what I learn of the Children of Miasmus.”

  With that, we parted ways.

  The Queen’s Guard escorted me through the same tunnel passage. When we emerged into the bright morning light, I noted that there were additional gates to either side that led into the main courtyard, manned by members of the Royal Guard who searched every cart that sought entry. I surmised that there must be roads from this uppermost level to the lower levels on which merchants or servants traveled to and from the market, supplying goods to the palace.

  Inside the palace, Captain Tarshim set a brisk pace through the honey-colored marble halls and up a series of broad staircases. “As you are desert-born, may I assume you are ignorant of the ways of the court?” he inquired.

  It sounded like a cutting comment, and yet I sensed no edge to it, only a blunt pragmatism. “You may.”

  “The Hall of Pleasant Accord lies between the women’s quarter and the rest of the palace,” he said. “It is a place where the Sun-Blessed fathers and sons and brothers, mothers and sisters and daughters of the House of the Ageless, as well as other esteemed and privileged members of the court, may freely commingle.”

  “Only there?” I asked.

  The captain of the Queen’s Guard gave me a sidelong glance. “Within the bounds of propriety, yes. It is also one of the only places within the palace walls where the Sun-Blessed are oath-sworn to conduct themselves in a spirit of harmony. Neither violence nor intrigue is permitted.”

  It was telling that such a place needed to be designated. “And is this oath honored?”

  Captain Tarshim hesitated. “To the best of my knowledge, yes. No one has ever violated the proscription against violence. I would not swear upon my life that the same holds true for intrigue.” It was a sensible answer, and I was glad that he was willing to be honest with me; I was not so glad when he continued. “You’ll need to be examined before you enter, of course.”

  I halted. Servants with downcast eyes detoured around us. “Examined?”

  “To confirm you’re what they say,” Captain Tarshim said impatiently. “Bhazim, or at least cut. We cannot afford to take you at your word. Shadow or no, it must be confirmed before you’re allowed to serve in the women’s quarter, let alone allowed to bear weapons there.” He gestured toward the door ahead of us. “Unless you’re deceiving us, it will take but a moment.”

  “I am not lying,” I said. “And no one told me of this.”

  “No doubt it was assumed you would expect it,” he said. “These are the royal women of the House of the Ageless. Did you think to find us careless of their safety?”

  “I did not think to find such mistrust leveled at one chosen by Pahrkun himself,” I retorted.

  He gave a thin smile in reply. “Then you are naive.”

  And so I allowed myself to be escorted into the antechamber of the Hall of Pleasant Accord. There, behind a silk-paneled screen, I untied the drawstring of my breeches and let them fall to the floor. The captain examined me with an impersonal gaze, gesturing for me to widen my stance as he lifted the hem of my tunic and peered between my thighs to make sure I was hiding nothing.

  Humiliated, I endured it, gazing at the top of Captain Tarshim’s bent head and thinking how easy it would be to kill him. I reminded myself that he was merely doing his duty, and of how Brother Yarit had said it was better to be bhazim than a eunuch. Satisfied that I was what I claimed, the captain retreated to allow me the small dignity of pulling up my breeches in private.

  My physical nature confirmed, I was permitted to bear my weapons into the Hall of Pleasant Accord. Four men in the crimson-and-gold silks of the Royal Guard were posted on either side of the entrance that led to the hall beyond. At a word from Captain Tarshim, they opened the doors to admit us.

  Did I gape? I’m sure I must have, for it was a splendid space. Later, I came to know it well, but my memories of that first glimpse are bright and fractured like shards of broken glass. I recall sunlight spilling through the tall windows. I recall there were a dozen or so members of the royal family in attendance, their robes seeming to glow in the light. Sun-Blessed, indeed. I recall there was a long carpet covered with so many shining pitchers and heaped platters that they obscured its intricate design. There were cushions strewn around the edge of the carpet. Some of the Sun-Blessed were lounging at their ease, laughing and picking delicacies from the platters. The women were unveiled and wore their hair in ornate braids, with gold bangles on their arms and anklets with tinkling bells as Brother Yarit had told me long ago.

  I recall plants in great pots, date palms and others I did not know by name. I recall King Azarkal, his crowned head bowed as he spoke to a small figure seated on a low stool with curved sides.

  Zariya.

  Although I had tried in vain to picture her a thousand times, I knew her at a glance, I knew the attentive angle at which she held her head. Everything changed in that instant; everything. I felt myself turned inside out. Vironesh was right, nothing could have prepared me for what I felt. I was dumbstruck by tenderness, I was honed to a fierce, keen edge with protectiveness. I knew her; I knew the curve of her cheek and brow, I knew the tilt of her chin. I could have picked her out of a crowd a hundred times this size.

  Oh, I wanted to say, it’s
you.

  King Azarkal straightened at our entrance and clapped his hands. The murmur of conversation died. The captain and his guards joined others posted around the perimeter of the hall, gazing straight ahead. The king made an announcement, but he may as well have been speaking Granthian for all that I heard of it. The focus of my world had narrowed to a single living being.

  Zariya.

  My heart ached at the sight of her. It seemed an invisible cord stretched between us, drawing us together as inexorably as the moons beneath which we were born draw the tides, binding us together with ties stronger than iron. The Sun-Blessed watched in silence as we gazed at each other in wonder. Zariya leaned forward on her stool, hands gripping the curved sides. Her kohl-lined eyes were dark and lustrous and awestruck, her carmine-painted lips parted in amazement.

  I daresay my own expression looked much the same. Every empty space within me that loneliness had carved out was being filled at once, and it felt as though my heart could barely contain it. I could have laughed aloud for the sheer joy of it and wept with grief at the enormity.

  I had found the light to my shadow, the fire to my wind.

  Somehow I made my way across the hall and knelt on the tiled floor before the stool on which she sat.

  “Oh,” she whispered. “It’s you!”

  “Your Highness, I would give my life for you,” I said simply to her. “All that I am is yours.”

  “I know.” Her slender hands rose to cup my face, thumbs stroking the mica-flecked scars on my cheekbones. “And I yours. We belong to each other now, don’t we?” A delicate furrow of concern emerged between her finely arched brows. “Oh, my poor darling! Did it hurt?”

  I gazed up at her. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me.” Zariya’s voice was soft, but firm. She took her hands away. “But you must know the whole truth from the beginning. We must never be less than honest with each other. Nalah, my canes?” A maidservant in a white linen dress and a sheer veil over the lower half of her face stepped forward to present the princess with a pair of gilded canes. Zariya used them to lever herself to her feet with difficulty. I rose with alacrity to assist her, but she shook her head at me. “No, you must let me do it,” she said breathlessly.

  “My youngest contracted Dhanbu fever as a child.” King Azarkal came over to place a gentle hand on her shoulder. “It left her thus. But as you can see, she has the heart of a lion nonetheless. Lest it need be said, do not speak of her condition,” he added. “No one outside the palace walls is aware of it.”

  “I hope you are not disappointed,” Zariya said to me.

  “In you?” I stared at her in disbelief. “Never! I could never be disappointed in you!”

  “Well, I trust you were not expecting to find me a warrior,” she said. “But I’m sure you were not expecting a cripple, either.”

  There was a touch of wry, self-deprecating humor in her tone that reminded me of Brother Yarit. “I had no idea what to expect, Your Highness, and thus no expectations,” I said to her. “You are beautiful and gracious, while I am a child of the desert and ignorant of the ways of court. Are you disappointed?”

  “In you?” A hint of color flushed Princess Zariya’s cheeks. Leaning on her canes, she laughed, eyes sparkling at me. “Khai of the Fortress of the Winds, you are the fiercest and most wonderful thing I have ever seen! Do not ask me foolish questions, my shadow.”

  The remainder of that morning passed in a blur.

  Let your mind be like the eye of a hawk, Brother Saan had taught me, but my heart was too full of strange new feelings to allow my mind to soar impartially above the fray I had entered.

  Oh, and it was a fray. Despite the sumptuous setting and the courteous manners on display, there was no mistaking it for aught else. Everyone was pleasant enough to me, but I could sense the mixture of curiosity and resentment lurking beneath the superficial politeness. All five queens including Zariya’s mother were in attendance; I know that because the Palace of the Sun was their permanent dwelling. King Azarkal, of course. His eldest surviving sons, Elizar the collector from whom the Teardrop had been stolen, and Tazaresh the second-born. I do not recall that Dozaren was present that day, though I could be mistaken. There were so many unfamiliar faces, and so many of them possessed an uncanny youthfulness at odds with the subtle markers of age in their demeanor. It was disconcerting.

  The one member of the House of the Ageless to whom I took an immediate liking was Princess Nizara. A tall woman in crimson silk robes, she was the king’s eldest daughter, the one who served as the High Priestess of Anamuht. She wore a headdress like the matriarchs of the desert tribesfolk, although the veil was pinned back. It was strange to me to see so many women’s unveiled faces, but Nizara’s features were grave and kind, and it was obvious that she bore genuine affection for her youngest sister.

  “The bond between Sun-Blessed and shadow is forged in accordance with the will of the Sacred Twins,” she said to Zariya and me. “I am pleased to bestow my blessing upon it in the name of Anamuht the Purging Fire.”

  I saluted her. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  Princess Nizara smiled. “I have held the role of priestess far longer than that of a princess. I was there when Pahrkun the Scouring Wind chose you, Khai. You may call me Elder Sister if you like.”

  It made me feel a little less adrift, and I was grateful for it.

  Once introductions had been made, all the Sun-Blessed sat on low cushions around the elegant carpet to enjoy the repast.

  “How shall I attend you, Your Highness?” I asked Zariya uncertainly. “I have been trained to detect poisons.”

  “You have?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, but we do not speak of such things in this hall, my shadow.”

  “But—”

  “Every dish has been tasted, young Khai,” Sister Nizara said in a quiet voice. “Do not fear.”

  The apothecary had said as much to me. Feeling rude and uncouth, I inclined my head in apology. “Then I shall abide with the Queen’s Guard until you have need of me, Your Highness.”

  “What?” Zariya laughed. “You will do no such thing. You are my shadow, not my servant.” She patted the cushion beside her. “You will sit next to me and tell me every last little thing about you.”

  I sat.

  What did we speak of that first morning? I recall that I did my best to heed Vironesh’s warning and be circumspect; I had already been unwise in blurting out that I had been taught to detect poison. I was out of my depth here. And so I was careful to say nothing of my training in the ways of the Shahalim Clan, speaking lightly instead of such things as Brother Saan’s injunction to squeeze rocks three thousand times a day.

  It was difficult, for I wanted to tell Zariya every last little thing. And I wanted to know every last little thing about her.

  But no, this was neither the time nor the place for such candor; and despite what Zariya had said to me, I was quite certain she was more than aware of it. By all the fallen stars, I wanted to be alone with her! I wanted to be free to talk and talk and talk … what a strange feeling.

  Prince Tazaresh, who had a warrior’s keen gaze, asked me questions regarding the weapons with which I had trained; I spoke of the yakhan and kopar, and nothing else, mindful of the brace of throwing knives strapped to my left forearm, the garrote that tied back my hair.

  Prince Elizar the collector stroked the trim mustache that adorned his upper lip and looked bored by the entire affair. He would not be so bored if he knew what was hidden in my flesh, I thought.

  Whatever factions existed, they were not in evidence that morning in the Hall of Pleasant Accord. Still, it was a profound relief when the interminable gathering was dismissed.

  Zariya allowed me to help her rise from the low cushion. Farewells were exchanged and the Queen’s Guard escorted the women in attendance into the guarded sanctuary of the women’s quarter.

  I had entered a world within a world.

  COURT

 
TWENTY-TWO

  In the Hall of Pleasant Accord, the demeanor of the royal women had been reserved and demure, deferential to King Azarkal and the princes of the Sun-Blessed. All of that changed the moment the doors to the women’s quarter closed behind us.

  “Well, you got what you wanted,” Queen Adinah said tartly to Sanala, who was Zariya’s mother and the most junior of the queens. “I daresay your broken-winged dove is officially his favorite pet. May it bring you more joy than it did me.”

  “Yes, and a target painted on her back,” Queen Sanala retorted. “I didn’t ask for this.” She looked me up and down. “We’ll have to procure proper attire. She looks like some desert chieftain’s son. It’s unseemly.”

  “Khai is bhazim and a trained warrior marked by Pahrkun himself.” Sister Nizara folded her hands in the sleeves of her crimson robes. “His attire is appropriate.”

  Someone gave a humorless snort. “Bhazim, is it?”

  “It’s unseemly,” Sanala repeated in a fretful tone.

  I glanced at Zariya and saw her flushed with anger and embarrassment, and suddenly I was angry, too; anger rising in me like Pahrkun’s wind. I looked for the spaces between that existed in this bickering exchange and drove words into them like a blade. “I do not answer to you, Your Majesties,” I said to both Adinah and Sanala in the coldest voice I could muster. “Not in this or any matter. I do not answer to anyone save Pahrkun the Scouring Wind.”

  For the first time since I’d caught sight of Merabaht, I was not the one gaping.