by K A Doore
Illi was done, too. Done with staying in this lab. She’d made the decision the night before, but she hadn’t been willing to act just then. She’d read and reread every scroll, had picked over every cabinet, every drawer, every bench in Merrabel’s lab. She’d pried the sajaami for more information, but it had stayed smug and silent. And Merrabel’s captain hadn’t bothered to threaten her again.
It was as good a time as any for her to explore the city.
Some things were better done in the darkness of night, so Illi passed the time by rereading the scrolls and the notes she’d written. Exhaustion clung to her and more than once she stared longingly toward the bed in the other room, but she’d made her decision. Getting out would help her feel better. Of course she felt so thin and frail—she’d been stuck in this small room for over a week.
As she read, she periodically let the sajaami reach past the door. There were only two guards now, which was both a compliment and an insult: that Merrabel didn’t trust her not to try again, and that only two would suffice. If she’d wanted to leave and never return, Illi could have thrown open the door and been through the two guards in moments.
But she just wanted some air; she didn’t want Merrabel to throw her out. Even though it’d become painfully clear that the general was dragging her feet instead of finding a way to destroy the sajaami, Illi was learning too much to burn through the trust they had, however tenuous it might be. Besides, it was refreshing to be treated like a pupil for once, instead of another piece of lab equipment.
Illi checked the time; the sand had almost fully run through the hourglass, which she’d already turned several times. It had to be closing in on midnight; there’d be no better time for her attempt.
The blade slid easily across her palm and blood welled in the wound like a welcome friend. She crossed to the door on bare and silent feet, muttering the few words of binding she knew under her breath. She pointed at where she’d last felt the guard and as blood rolled down her wrist and arm, she felt the thread grow taut.
She pushed, sending a sensation of urgency through the connection. The guard grunted and then she heard a low murmur of words just on the other side of the door. A clank of metal. Then a thud of boots retreating.
Illi allowed herself a small smile. From Merrabel’s scrolls she’d learned that the balance between jaani and body was so intertwined that the needs of one were indistinguishable from the needs of the other. Just a little push had been enough to convince the guard he desperately needed relief.
Now she wiped the already drying blood from her arm, steadying herself against the door as another wave of dizziness washed over her. She was just tired. Fresh air would fix that.
But to get that fresh air, she had to do something she’d been avoiding. She could make one guard leave through a weaker connection, but she’d need to physically be in contact with the remaining guard to bind him to her will. While influencing another living person was one thing, controlling them was a step too far. That left her only one other way she could safely take the guard out of commission: use the sajaami.
She’d just have to take the risk.
The sajaami eagerly reached when she brushed her hands across the door and this time she didn’t draw it back when she felt the warmth of the guard’s jaani. Illi let the sajaami slide like a knife between the guard and their jaani.
Her wrists flared with fresh pain as the bracelets turned hot, but she steadied her breathing and kept her focus. If she lost control for even a heartbeat, the sajaami would snatch up the jaani for itself. It pushed against her, its yearning for just that leaching into her until her jaw ached from clenching against the need.
One, just one, and you could be so much more powerful—
Illi hummed a half-forgotten prayer deep in her throat and pushed away the sajaami’s wants. Quiet. That was all she needed: to quiet the jaani. She wasn’t even sure she could, but the scrolls had gone on at length about the role of the jaani and its body, and how one animated the other. Which meant that, if she was right, then—
Thump.
Illi let out the breath she’d been holding, warm relief stirring inside her. But as her focus relaxed, so did her control, and instead of letting go of the guard’s jaani, the sajaami tightened around it. She was so tired, so drained, so hungry—
Illi snapped back, stumbling away from the door as horror replaced the relief. Frustration lodged in her chest like a foreign object. Her bracelets were as hot as midsummer glass and she felt something warm trickle down her wrist and across her palm. A growl clambered up her throat and she wasn’t sure if it was hers or the sajaami’s.
She was tempted to wait and regain her composure, but she knew she’d only have a minute or two before the other guard returned. Still shaking from having almost lost control and killed the guard, Illi picked the lock and opened the door.
The guard was slumped on the ground, head nearly touching their boots. But their back moved with breath, so Illi allowed herself a small amount of pride. She’d quieted a jaani. Not only that, she’d quieted a jaani still tied to its living body. She doubted even Heru had ever done something like that. She pictured his look of skeptical incredulity when she told him, and smiled.
When. Her smile faded as she searched the guard for a key and relocked the door. She’d turned on Heru, abandoned him, and all but forgotten him. If that wasn’t the most thorough way to burn a relationship, she didn’t know what was. And for good reason, too—he’d used her, he’d lied to her, and he’d refused to see her as a person.
Yet returning to Ghadid without him felt wrong. She might never fully forgive him, and he forgive her, but he was still Heru, the only person who’d known how to clear the plague from Ghadid’s water, who’d found a way to quiet wild guul, the one person she never had to pretend to be okay around—she could just be. When this was all over, when she’d learned all she could from Merrabel, when the sajaami had been destroyed, she’d return to Ghadid with Heru.
Assuming he would even want to go. Assuming she could find him. Assuming he was all right.
Intermittently letting the sajaami reach, Illi found the courtyard without running into anyone. She’d had to stop and hide a few times, but no guards came thundering through the hallways. As she’d hoped, the guard must have woken up and, feeling ashamed at falling asleep on duty, said nothing. A twist of the doorknob would prove that it was still locked, and no one could have escaped if that were the case.
Each time she let the sajaami reach, though, dizziness blew through her and her wrists ached even more. When she stepped into the night-blanketed courtyard, she stopped reaching. No one would be looking for her out here.
The courtyard reeked of jasmine, the scent weighed down by the water in the air. Small, lit torches lined the path to the towering doors, and Illi welcomed their brush of warmth as she passed. Then it was a simple matter of pushing open one of the doors and walking through the arch—and she was free.
The moon’s light flattened the warm, vibrant colors of the doors and windows along the street. While the streets were certainly quieter now, there were still more people out and about than Illi had expected. That was for the best; this way she wouldn’t stick out so much.
Illi breathed deep. Merrabel’s lab had a window, but nothing compared to the movement and sensation of open, fresh air. She caught whiffs of jasmine, of other flowers she didn’t recognize, of roasting meat and hot almonds and spiced apricots, of sharp salt and something else, something too sweet like decay.
She picked a direction and started walking. She didn’t have a destination in mind, or a plan—it was enough to be out. It was enough to be free. Maybe it was small of her to need to commit this act of defiance, but could she be blamed when Merrabel had insisted on locking her up?
Besides, she’d never been in another city before. And Hathage was unlike anything she’d ever imagined.
The buildings were all several stories high with neither beginning nor end, blending seamlessl
y together for blocks at a time. Ahead both they and the road curved out of sight. Most of the walls were white, with the occasional gray or beige thrown in. But the doors were splashes of blue, red, and yellow, and equally colorful braids of cloth hung from windows and balconies. Bells jangled in the constant breeze.
And the trees—
Before the Siege, a few drum chiefs had cultivated date palms. But those seemed small, mean things compared to these trees, which stretched over her head farther than she could reach. And there were so many trees. One grew every other door.
Her gaze followed the line of buildings curving away until they abruptly stopped at the solid gray wall that had cut behind the palace. The wall drew Illi down the street, its implications gnawing at her. What did it keep out? What did it contain?
She wanted to know. And those towers spaced along the wall would offer a perfect view of the city, of everything she’d been denied.
The wall loomed higher over her head, blocking out more and more of the stars and the moon’s light until, from one step to the next, she walked through shadow. Then the street diverged sharply east and west and the buildings ended suddenly, as if cut by a knife. The only thing ahead was the wall, so expansive and monochrome that Illi could believe the world ended right here.
The sharp reek of salt was stronger now and cut with something pungent, bright, and only a little off-putting. Like vinegar, if mixed with winter and sunlight. But overwhelming it all was the familiar and alluring taste of water lingering in the air, as if there’d just been a storm. But no clouds blocked the stars, and even deep within the palace, Illi would have heard thunder.
Merrabel had mentioned a drought; if this was a drought, what was it like normally?
West now, she followed the base of the wall until she came to one of those towers. It was a simple construction, metal that bulged from the wall itself with no decoration or fanfare. The whole thing was very utilitarian. There should’ve been carved images or geometric designs or something, but the wall was just flat metal, occasionally interrupted by a rivet. Whoever had built this wall hadn’t cared about aesthetics or beauty; they were solving a problem.
The entrance was an open arch that led into a confined space with the only options either back out or up the steep, narrow steps that twirled upward and away. Illi began to climb.
As her foot came down on each step, she imagined what must be on the other side. Another city, cut off from this one after they’d betrayed some ancient rite. The desert, dropping away and away to an endless horizon and filled with nastier monsters than the Wastes. Or the detritus of a terrible plague, the wall their only solution.
She heard it first: the distinct slap of water against metal. But even as she recognized the sound, so much like water sloshing inside of a flask, she couldn’t comprehend it—it was too vast.
Then the stairs ended and Illi stood in another open doorway, the breeze slapping her with that same sharp, salty reek that had thickened on her way up. Her eyes teared up and she pulled her wrap tight; it was much colder up here.
The top of the wall cut through the night sky. To the left, the city, startlingly white even in the darkness. To the right—
It looked like metal, glittering under the stars and the quarter moon. Metal that stretched to the horizon. Metal that moved. Metal that rippled and undulated like a bowl of water, sloshing quietly. But magnified a hundred times, a thousand times. It wasn’t metal like water, though.
It was water.
The water was mesmerizing, glittering as it slammed into the wall over and over and over again, throwing up spatter and spray that flickered like diamonds in the moonlight. So much water, endless water. It was unreal. Impossible. And yet.
Shoe scuffed against stone. Illi snapped back to herself, her hand going to her empty belt before she remembered she still had no knives. Her thumb brushed across her rings and she remembered Thana’s gift: she had something far deadlier, if it came to it.
Someone stood in the doorway, in clothing so colorful even the moonlight couldn’t dull it. Swaths of green fabric swirled with blue mingled with red and the whole ensemble was held together by a beaded belt that useful for anything but decoration. But the same dusty red tagel covered their face, if lower than Illi had last seen it, and Illi would have known those eyes, warm as sand, anywhere.
Illi sucked in a breath. “Canthem?”
Those eyes smiled. “Just Illi.”
Illi felt suddenly very fragile, as if someone had replaced all of her bones with sand and the slightest breeze might send her toppling. Her heart thudded too loud in her ears, masking the sound of wind and waves, and her stomach might as well have been filled with shattered glass. She was torn between grabbing Canthem to find out whether or not they were real and putting as much distance between her and them as she could.
She did neither. Her feet could’ve been glued to the spot. She opened her mouth to speak, but all the words she might have said stuck in her throat.
Canthem’s smile wavered, crashed. “Are you all right?”
Illi looked down at the water on one side, the city on the other. At any moment, she could topple either way. “Yes.”
Canthem sighed. “You don’t have to lie to me. I’m just concerned. You look … unwell. And down below, you walked right by me, like you weren’t fully there.” They paused, cleared their throat. “You went with the general, didn’t you.”
It wasn’t a question, so Illi didn’t answer.
“Are you sane?”
That startled Illi into answering. “Of course. Why…? Does your beloved general usually rattle the brains of those she’s around?”
“I would never speak ill of my general,” said Canthem carefully. “But she doesn’t limit herself when it comes to her country. There are rumors about what she’s willing to do. What she’s done. And she’s taken an interest in you.”
“I’m fine,” said Illi, lifting a hand to brush a braid back over her shoulder. “I can take care of myself.”
Canthem stared. “Your hands…” They cleared their throat again, a tick that was beginning to irritate Illi. “You didn’t have those scars when we first met. I would’ve remembered.”
Illi dropped her hand and curled it into a fist so her palm wasn’t visible. “You’re observant.”
“Illi…” started Canthem, then they stopped, shook their head. Tried again. “I’m sorry. I can’t pretend I don’t care about you. And I can’t pretend I’m not worried. When the general returned and you disappeared from the caravan, I assumed the worst.” They laughed, but the sound was humorless and dry as dust. “I thought you were dead.”
“Clearly I’m not.”
“No. Not yet. But those marks—I know what those mean. You’re binding jaan. Don’t, Illi. It’ll ruin you.”
“But you’re fine with Merrabel—”
“General Barca has already sold her soul,” said Canthem earnestly. “She accepted the price, and she would accept it again in a heartbeat. But you don’t need to do that.”
“You don’t know what I need,” snapped Illi. “Nor what I’ve already sacrificed. What’s a little blood?”
“You do know the cost, right?” asked Canthem, their eyes searching hers.
“It’s blasphemy.” Illi shrugged. “But so what? G-d’s back has been turned on me for a long time.”
“No,” said Canthem, sounding almost angry. “Binding jaan—it’s the blood, Illi. The connection. There’s a cost, there’s always a cost, and the cost of binding is your own jaani.”
A chill wound through Illi along with a thought not her own, They’re not wrong.
Then why didn’t you say anything? she bit back.
What need do I have for your jaani?
“That doesn’t make sense,” she said, trying to buy herself time to think. Then, “How do you know all this?”
“My mother was an en-marabi,” said Canthem, sounding bitter. “She was reckless.”
“And it killed her?”
“No, the general did.”
Illi stared. “But you serve Merrabel.”
Canthem looked away, fingers curling into fists. “Yes. Because it was the right thing to do.”
“Oh … I…”
“Your mother didn’t dabble in en-marabi magic, I hope.”
“No,” said Illi. “She only dabbled in dirt. She was a glasshouse gardener.”
The words came out as easily as if she talked about her mother every day. What would her mother think of her now? Alone in a foreign city, collaborating with the very person who’d threatened Ghadid? Illi had slipped away from her home and her cousins in the cold stillness of morning, had betrayed the one person she’d felt safe around, had extinguished the warmth of guul and jaan alike. She’d committed multiple blasphemies without a single hesitation.
And she was prepared to commit more.
Illi balled her hands into fists, felt the scars on her palms pull and itch. It didn’t matter what her mother would think. Her mother was dead, her jaani one of hundreds lost to the Wastes. And yet, a small piece of her flushed with shame.
Illi turned to the vast and impossible water, pushing those thoughts away. “What is this?”
Canthem followed her gaze. “The sea?”
“The sea,” echoed Illi, turning the sound of it over in her mouth.
She took a step, then another, until she stood at the edge of the wall. There was no railing, no ridge to keep her from falling. She’d stood on the very edge of a platform once, her toes overhanging nothing, a drop of over a hundred feet between her and the sands below. Even though this water was much closer, Illi felt the same rush of adrenaline, the same inexplicable, self-destructive urge to jump.
Yet now there was something else, a chill of fear deep in her chest that seemed to be pulling her back even as she wanted to step forward. The sands would have been an instant death, clean. This sea, however …