Starless

by Jacqueline Carey

  “Is there anything else you require, Your Highness?” she asked Zariya.

  “No, thank you.” Zariya was watching me. “You may take your leave and see that my shadow and I are undisturbed.”

  And then we were alone together in the lamp-lit darkness, a soft breeze blowing through the room.

  I felt Pahrkun’s wind stir within me in answer, black and crystalline and distant. My body was strung taut with desire; I was tongue-tied with it. Zariya sat on the bed, arranging her legs. She beckoned to me, sparks flickering around her fingers. “Come here.”

  I went to her, knelt on the bed before her, and cupped her face in my hands. Her skin was so very soft. “Zariya, I know nothing of lovemaking.”

  She smiled. “Nor do I, my darling, but I have sixteen years’ worth of gossip in the women’s quarter on which to draw. It ought to be good for something.”

  I laughed and kissed her.

  She wound her arms around my neck and kissed me in return, and sparks crackled in my hair.

  It was exhilarating.

  I kissed her lips, kissed her eyelids, kissed the soft skin beneath her delicate earlobes and the hollow of her throat, the places where the pulse of khementaran might beat one day; but not today, no. Pahrkun’s wind flowed through me, flowed through Zariya, into all the spaces between us, until there were no more spaces. My skin came alive under the cool fire of her touch. Piece by piece, I removed her garments, revealing her deceptively fragile beauty; and I was glad, now, that we had not shared the bath, for her nakedness seemed new and wondrous. With deft fingers, Zariya did the same.

  It was only when I was stripped bare of my attire that self-consciousness descended upon me.

  Clothed, I knew myself: Khai the boy, Khai the warrior. I had even made a tentative peace with Khai the girl, the stranger in the mirror who made my mother smile. Naked, I was unsure of myself.

  Zariya understood. She had always understood.

  She stroked the mica-flecked scars on my cheekbones with her thumbs, her dark eyes grave, her lips swollen with my kisses, then placed one hand on the hard plane of my breastbone, spreading her fingers. Gazing intently at me, she clicked her tongue softly in the rising and falling Elehuddin intonation for a person who is both male and female at once.

  A tight knot in my chest eased, and I felt tears prick my eyes.

  “Your body is a beautiful weapon, my darling,” Zariya whispered, lowering her gaze and tracing my collarbones. “Oh, such a very beautiful weapon! But I will teach it to sing a different song.”

  Oh …

  I was wrong, I think, to believe that the gods had not joined us for the purpose of love, for surely their blessing was upon us that night. It was fierce and tender, frenzied and wild and sweet, and if I thought I knew nothing of lovemaking, my hands and lips and tongue and every part of me said otherwise. We were ourselves, we were Khai and Zariya, so very young even though our youth had been lost to us in a hut on Papa-ka-hondras, lost to us fighting our way across the plain of Miasmus toward the end of the world, weapons singing in our fists, lightning crackling from our hand, the corpses of the risen dead crunching beneath our feet.

  We were Sun-Blessed and shadow, born within a heartbeat of each other, born into destiny.

  We were star-fire and night wind, each of us fraying into the other while the children of heaven danced above us.

  At length we slept, mortal again.

  In the morning, I could not stop smiling. Zariya was sleepy-eyed and amused by my buoyant energy.

  “There is one thing I did not ask you,” I said to her, and she raised her eyebrows at me in inquiry. “Did you know you could summon the lightning without the aid of the rhamanthus?”

  She laughed and shook her head. “No. I didn’t think about it. I just did. Though I do not think I could unleash it unaided,” she added. “But perhaps we might keep that to ourselves.”

  That, I thought, was wise.

  Along with Prince Dozaren—soon to be King Dozaren—and a contingent of Royal Guards, we escorted our companions back to the harbor. A crowd gathered, watching at a respectful distance as Kooie called to Aiiiaii and the great sea-wyrm emerged from the deep waters and glided to the quay, her head held high and her blue-green scales shimmering beneath the morning sun. The ooalu-wood ship that had been our home for so many months bobbed atop the rippling water.

  It hurt to say farewell, and I could not help but think of our fallen comrades. I could only hope they were proud of us.

  “I will miss you all so very much,” Zariya whispered, leaning one-handed on her canes and embracing Kooie and Tliksee and Jahno in turn.

  Jahno gripped her shoulders. “We are family,” he said simply. “We will always be family. Come find us when you are ready.”

  “We will,” she promised.

  Aiiiaii stretched her sinuous neck and laid her great chin on the dock, iridescent eyes luminous, making the gathered crowd murmur in wonder. I hugged as much of her as I could reach.

  “Thank you,” I said to her. “We owe you our lives, all of us; you and Eeeio.” The sea-wyrm gave a soft trill in response, her vast, scaled cheek sliding along mine, her folded fins tickling.

  Hand in hand, Zariya and I stood on the quay and watched them sail away, bound for Elehud.

  Two days later, we departed for the desert.

  Prince Dozaren sought to persuade us to delay our departure, as did Princess Fazarah, arguing that as a heroine of the realm, Zariya ought to stay for the coronation ceremony and see her brother take the throne, lending her prestige to the formal proceedings. Zariya heard them out patiently, and in the end, refused. “I do not think you understand,” she said to them in a calm tone. “I am done with your expectations. I am done with obligations. We have fulfilled the will of the gods, Khai and I, and now we will do as we see fit.”

  Her half brother Dozaren, charming schemer, amoral murderer, and surprisingly adept ruler, offered her a rueful salute. “Then I wish you well.”

  So.

  They sought to impose an escort on us; this, too, Zariya refused. “There at the end of the world, Khai carved a path through the armies of the risen dead,” she said in her new resolved and implacable manner. “My shadow is all the escort I have ever needed.”

  In the end, she got her way.

  We crossed the River Ouris on the ferry, our fellow passengers gazing speculatively at Zariya’s unveiled face and the marks of Pahrkun on mine. For two days, we journeyed alongside the river. I had chosen a gentle horse for Zariya and she swayed upright in the saddle, one hand on the pommel and the other gripping the reins, grateful to have four strong legs beneath her.

  On the third day, we turned toward the east and the desert, leaving the world behind us.

  It had been a long time.

  A very long time.

  I breathed deep of the desert air, filling my lungs. Spring was nigh, and I could taste the promise of rain.

  We traveled in the cool morning hours and the twilit evenings, taking shelter during the midday heat. At night the sky was impossibly vast, the stars scattered like diamonds over the black canopy, the flashing eyes and teeth and the fierce beating hearts of the children of heaven shining above us.

  It was strange, though, to sojourn across the desert and think that never again would I catch sight of a column of wind or a column of fire in the distance; that never again would I see the Sacred Twins striding across the sandy plains.

  On the fifth day, I said as much to Zariya.

  She loosened the length of scarf wrapped around the lower part of her face to reply. “I have been thinking the same thing, my heart,” she said thoughtfully. “I have seen Anamuht the Purging Fire in her glory, but I shall never see the Scouring Wind; nor shall any child born since the ascension. The world is changed. Generations will pass and memories will fade. One day, folk will find it impossible to believe that the gods once walked the earth and showered mankind with their gifts.”

  I nodded. “It saddens me
.”

  “Me, too.” Zariya favored me with a smile. “But I have also been thinking that it gives us a purpose.”

  “Oh?”

  She fixed her gaze on the eastern horizon. “Let us collect their stories, you and I. All the stories. Let us collect them and preserve them and write them down, so that one day our grandchildren’s grandchildren shall know what trial Khai of the Fortress of the Winds underwent at the behest of Pahrkun the Scouring Wind; so that they shall know what counsel Kephalos the Wise, the Oracle of the Nexus, offered the defenders of the four quarters; what horrors Shambloth the Inchoate Terror engendered in the forests of Papa-ka-hondras; what tricks Quellin-Who-Is-Everywhere played in Drogalia, and what bargains Galdano the Shrewd offered in his temple.”

  “All the stories,” I echoed.

  “Yes.”

  “It will be a considerable undertaking,” I observed.

  Zariya gave me a sidelong glance, her eyes sparkling. “Yes, but who better to undertake it, my darling?”

  “No one,” I said slowly, thinking about the coffer of rhamanthus seeds stowed in the satchels our patient and plodding packhorse carried. “It is the work of a lifetime; perhaps a very, very long lifetime. But what happens when we have outlived mortal memory, Zariya? What tales will we tell then?”

  She laughed, and the wind caught her laugh, sending it skirling across the empty desert floor, raising acrid puffs of ochre dust. “When there are no more tales to tell, we shall invent our own, my dearest. We shall invent such gods as no one could have imagined, inspiring hope and courage and dreams of honor beyond honor.”

  I smiled at her. “Then let us do so.”

  Zariya smiled back at me, her eyes as bright as the stars in the night sky. “Oh, but we have already begun.”

  TOR BOOKS BY JACQUELINE CAREY

  Kushiel’s Dart

  Kushiel’s Chosen

  Kushiel’s Avatar

  Banewreaker

  Godslayer

  Miranda and Caliban

  Starless

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jacqueline Carey is the author of the New York Times bestselling Kushiel’s Legacy historical fantasy series, as well as the Sundering epic fantasy duology, postmodern fables Santa Olivia and Saints Astray, and Miranda and Caliban. Carey lives in western Michigan.

  Visit her online at www.jacquelinecarey.com, or sign up for email updates here.

  Twitter: @JCareyAuthor

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Cast of Characters

  Desert

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Court

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Sea

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Tor Books by Jacqueline Carey

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  STARLESS

  Copyright © 2018 by Jacqueline Carey

  All rights reserved.

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates

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  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.

  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-0-7653-8682-3 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-0-7653-8683-0 (ebook)

  eISBN 9780765386830

  Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

  First Edition: June 2018