by Evie Manieri
He counted the empty brackets along the wall: two, three, four, five.
The corridor ended in a sharp turn to the left with a doorway in the wall directly up ahead, a low doorway even for the Shadari. He had spent more pointless hours than he cared to admit skulking outside that doorway and now he felt his steps slowing as he approached. She always went there when she was upset or hurt or lonely. He stopped beside the doorway where he could look in unobserved and a soft touch, like a gentle hand, moved the curls on his forehead: a breeze from the skylight in the room beyond.
She was there, standing just where he expected her to be, on the topmost of the three stone steps. Her back was toward the door and her white head was bent over the polished stone of the sarcophagus. Starlight filtered in from the skylight above her and both her hair and the stone gleamed with the same soft radiance. She was perfectly still, and the stillness was profound, both deeper and more resonant than ordinary silence. It was the stillness of a pause; of a breath, held, which must by necessity be breathed out again.
In an instant, the last twelve years vanished and he was ten years old. He had been in the temple exactly two days. The governor’s family, the higher-ranking soldiers and the more favored servants had gathered in this room to witness the internment of the mangled body of the governor’s wife, Eleana, in its hastily prepared tomb. Shairav had clapped his hand in front of Daryan’s eyes—he could still smell the oily reek—and he was trying to look through the old man’s fingers. He didn’t care about the dead body; he had seen his fair share of those already. He was trying to get a better look at the little white-haired girl pressed up against her brother’s leg. She was watching the bearers shove a crude stone slab over her mother’s crypt with unblinking silver-gray eyes. Whispers curled into his ears, floating down to him from the half-covered mouths of the slaves. Her fault, they were saying, shaking their heads at the little girl. All her fault.
The tomb had changed since then. The polished lid, grooved and etched with symbols and images, had been imported from Norland. Stone steps had been placed against the near side. But the pause that had begun that day still hung over them all. They were still waiting to breathe out.
She knew that he was watching her. She remained as still as ice, but he could feel it. She wouldn’t turn around, not as long as he stood there, and he wouldn’t go in to her, no matter how badly his loneliness urged him toward the open doorway. Such was their unspoken agreement, ironclad and irrevocable, reached silently and spontaneously one awkward, confounding day three years earlier. Now they lived by its prescripts: never to stay in the same room together longer than necessary, and never alone; never to look directly at each other; never to speak to one another, not even in private, except to issue or acknowledge a command. He had broken their agreement once already tonight in the stables, in a moment of unreasoning concern for her safety. Doing it again, now, when he had the time to consider the consequences, was unthinkable.
Daryan backed away from the doorway and walked on down the corridor. Empty brackets passed by: three, four, five. When he reached his room, he had no memory at all of anything he had seen since leaving the tomb. He stood looking down at his disheveled bed and knew that sleep would never come to him now. Instead he lit the lamp on the little table, then moved aside the bedclothes and burrowed down into the rushes. He drew out his treasure, untied the strings and folded back the flaps of protective cloth.
His history of the Shadar: twenty-seven pages, so far. He tossed the cloth onto the bed and brought the pages up close to his face, breathing in their special scent. Hours of rumination had gone into each meticulous line. Each page represented a meal not eaten, or a rest passed over, or a duty neglected. This was the one victory he could claim; the one thing he had been able to do for his people, even though most of them would have thrown his gift on the fire, and him after it. But that would change one day. He had already taught Harotha to read, and there would be others. The Shadari would have books and libraries just like the Dead Ones. The Shadar of his dreams was a serene place of learning, a place where the pursuit of knowledge was godly, and complacency and ignorance were sins.
He took the sheet of stolen paper from his pocket and fished underneath the table for the hidden shelf where his writing implements were stored, but just as his fingers brushed the smooth side of the inkpot he heard a noise from the hall. He blew out the lamp and listened into the darkness, heart thumping. Shairav wasn’t above spying on him—he had done it before. He wormed the manuscript underneath his robe, and it was only then that he remembered Eofar’s knife. He needed to return it to Eofar’s room as soon as possible—he had been mad to accept it in the first place—but for now, he tied his sash as tightly as he could and pulled up the front of his robe to conceal the bulky objects. He moved silently to the doorway.
“Daimon?” a timid voice called to him from the hallway.
He jumped at the sound but at least he knew it wasn’t Shairav spying on him. “Who’s there?” he called back.
“It’s Rahsa, Daimon.”
“Rahsa,” he breathed out. “You know you’re not supposed to call me that.” He stuck his head out of the door. The shutters had been opened for the evening and there was enough light for him to see her standing there, playing with a tendril of her reddish hair.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” she said, “but I heard that Lord Eofar had left the temple and I wanted to ask if you’d had a chance to speak to him about what happened.”
He sighed and stepped out into the hall. “It’s fine, Rahsa. Everyone’s forgotten about it. You should, too. What are you even doing here? Isn’t there something you’re supposed to be doing?”
“It’s just that Lady Isa frightens me, she’s so odd,” she whispered confidentially, as if any Dead One within a hundred paces wouldn’t have been able to hear her no matter how softly she whispered. “Is it true that she was on the dereshadi when her mother fell off and died?”
“Yes.”
“And the White Wolf, she was there, too?”
“It was a long time ago. They were just little girls.”
“Ugh.” Rahsa shuddered. “So it was her fault?”
“No one knows for sure. They think Isa wriggled out of the harness and her mother fell off trying to strap her back in. The sun was rising. If Frea hadn’t taken the reins and flown the dereshadi back here, both girls might have burned to death.”
“Oh!” she exhaled in excitement. “And that’s why she’s so odd? Why she doesn’t ride the dereshadi and never leaves the temple like the other Dead Ones?”
“I guess so. Rahsa, don’t you have some place you need to be?” he asked again. “I know you’re new here, but if you just concentrate on your duties, you’ll be fine. It’s really not a good idea to stand around gossiping.”
“I’m— I’m sorry,” she stuttered, paling so suddenly that he stared at her in alarm. She looked as if she was trying not to cry. “I’ll try to do better—I promise.”
“It’s okay,” he reassured her guiltily, “I didn’t mean—”
At that moment another Shadari turned the corner just ahead and caught sight of them with a little exclamation of relief. Daryan searched for his name.
“Oh, there you are! Thank goodness. Lady Isa wants you. She sent me to find you.”
“Tebrin,” Daryan greeted him in relief, before a chill slid across his skin. “Wait— what did you say?”
“Lady Isa. She wants to see you.”
“No, that can’t be right.” He stepped further out into the hallway. He could still see the shine of Isa’s hair in the starlight. “Are you sure? Why?”
“I don’t know,” Tebrin answered. “It seemed strange to me, too.”
In the dim light, Daryan thought he detected an odd look on his face: not exactly fear, more like unease. “All right, I’ll go. Where is she?”
Tebrin glanced at Rahsa, then wet his lips nervously. “She’s— She’s in the bath.”
Chapter T
welve
Isa stared down through the water at the bumpy shapes of her knees, then pulled them up to her chest and circled her legs with her arms. She’d sent the servants away and the room was silent except for the gentle lapping of the water; the little lamp flickering on the other side of the cavern cast the only light. She lifted her chin and let her head loll back against the tub’s polished stone rim. She’d had a thin notion that the bath would wash away some of the taint of failure she’d brought away with her from the stables. She’d been wrong.
A drop of water plunked down into the cistern in the corner.
She sat up again and flung her arms out with a splash. Little gleaming rivulets ran over her iridescent skin and pattered down onto the dry stone floor. Her arms looked odd, unfamiliar, like a pair of snakes lazing on the edge of a pool—like they didn’t belong to her at all.
Brooding over her failures was a waste of time; she already had a new plan. Frea and her soldiers would not return from the mines until an hour or so before dawn, so when she went back to the stables there’d be no gawking Shadari or snickering Norlanders, and no taunting sister to jangle at her emotions and disrupt her concentration. She had sent someone to find Daryan; he knew how to saddle a triffon. Shairav was his uncle, after all, and he had practically grown up in the stables. No one else would know anything about it until she landed at the mines and gave Frea the surprise of her life. It would be easy this time, just her and Daryan, in the stables, alone—
Another drop of water fell into the pool and the sound broke into her thoughts like a rebuke. A guilty flush welled up from the pit of her stomach. She had to do this—she had to take action—bold, immediate action—before the last flimsy remnant of her Norlander soul burned up in the Shadari sun.
Unable to stand the inactivity any longer, she rocketed up with a great splash and floundered her way out of the tub—and just at that moment, Daryan came in through the doorway.
He instantly dropped his eyes to the ground, bending his head so low that the dark curls fell over his forehead and obscured his eyes completely. He appeared to be holding his breath. “Mistress,” he murmured, “you sent for me.”
Isa found herself watching Daryan’s bowed head with irrational fury as she retrieved her robe from the back of a chair. With a sick feeling, she realized that she wanted him to look at her.
A slight whisper of movement caught her ears and she looked up past Daryan. Someone was lurking in the corridor outside the door, someone clearly too inexperienced to realize that Isa would be able to see her in the darkness. She dropped the robe over her shoulders and yanked the sash tight.
“You, out there,” she called out, pitching her voice as far as she could. The girl in the hallway jumped with a little squeal.
“Rahsa, what—?” Daryan whispered through his teeth, clearly surprised to see her there.
Isa thought the girl was going to run away for a moment, but then she stepped meekly into the doorway. “You don’t belong here,” Isa told her. “Go.”
The girl glanced at Daryan, who was still staring down at the ground. His shoulders were stiff as a board.
“Go!” she commanded again, and as the girl’s large eyes swung back to her, Isa finally recognized the skittish creature who had accosted her in the hallway outside Daryan’s room. For a startling moment she thought she saw something like defiance in the girl’s face, but then the slave scuttled backward, taking her leave with an exaggerated subservience that Isa found distasteful. She watched until the girl was out of sight.
Now they were alone.
She opened her mouth to speak, but for a moment nothing came out. Another drop of water fell into the cistern.
“You sent for me, Mistress,” Daryan reminded her.
“Aeda,” she said finally, stumbling a little over the unfamiliar syllables. Her horrible, croaking voice sounded much louder than his. “Saddle her for me.”
He made some kind of displeased exclamation. For a moment his eyes darted up to her face, but then just as quickly dropped back down again. “I’m sorry, Mistress. Your brother has taken Aeda. He might—” Daryan paused oddly. “He might not be back until morning.”
So, here it was again. That all-too-familiar feeling of the thing she wanted—whatever it was—sliding away from her, just beyond her reach. She turned away from him and gripped the slick rim of the tub with both hands. The water was perfectly still, and without the glow of her skin beneath it, perfectly black. She was sure that Eofar had found out what had happened in the stables and had taken Aeda away on purpose. He knew full-well she had no chance at all of riding any of the less well-trained animals successfully.
She felt Daryan step closer. “Mistress?” She continued to stare into the dark water. “You don’t have to do this tonight, do you?”
Another drop of water fell into the cistern.
She turned back around and saw his lips still slightly parted. “Yes,” she answered, unequivocally. She ran her fingers through the wet ends of her hair, feeling the damp robe clinging to her shoulder blades. “I need to name my sword before the emperor’s ship comes.”
The expression on his face changed. His eyes grew darker and his mouth drooped. “Why?”
“I’m going back with them.”
He stood very, very still, as if the air had grown too dense for him to move. She felt a drop of water slide down behind her ear and trace a path down her neck and between her breasts.
“What are you talking about?” His voice sounded different, tighter. And he had stopped calling her mistress. Isa felt the self-imposed distance between them beginning to shatter. “Your father wouldn’t send you back now, not when he’s so sick.”
“He doesn’t know,” she told him. “No one knows.”
He stepped back away from her, tugging at the curls on the back of his neck. “Then you’re choosing to go?”
“Yes.”
Very distinctly, he asked, “Why?”
“You know why.”
His face changed again, this time to an expression she’d never seen before. He was tall for a Shadari, she realized. It had been so long since she’d stood this close to him that she hadn’t noticed that her eyes were nearly level with his. Or that he still had the long eyelashes that had always made his eyes seem so large. He had a fresh scrape on his chin, and she remembered the way Frea had knocked him about in the stables. Her eyes came to rest on his mouth. It was always moving, as if he were struggling to hold something in.
“You were born here. You belong here,” he told her.
“I am a Norlander.”
“So is Eofar, and your sister, and your father,” he pointed out. “They’re not going anywhere.”
“They have work here,” she told him. She couldn’t hold his gaze any longer and found herself staring at his chest. “They have something to do here. Frea—she even has a Shadari name.”
“The White Wolf?” He laughed in a way she had never heard before and it stung her. “Is that a joke? That name isn’t meant as a compliment. Is that what you want, to be like her?” He kept on laughing in that ugly, brittle way. “To terrorize everyone in the Shadar until they hate and fear you? To make them despise you so much that they can’t even stand to say your true name? Because I’ll tell you a secret, you don’t have to go to Norland for that.”
She felt a dreadful ache in her chest. “You don’t understand.”
He abruptly stopped that dreadful laughing and passed his hand over his face in a gesture that she couldn’t interpret. When he looked at her again his eyes had softened, and when he spoke his voice was so deep that she could feel its vibrations. “Yes, I do,” he said. “You know I do.” His eyes moved slowly over her face and he moved a little closer to her, as if he wanted to see her better. “And I have a Shadari name for you. I just thought of it,” he told her. “It’s ‘Lahlil.’”
The lilting word filled the space between them. It shivered through her, resonating with something far below the surface, some de
ep place she had locked away. “Lahlil,” she repeated, closing her mind to the shred of memory that flicked by, quick as a moth.
“It’s a flower—a very rare flower. It grows in the desert, and it has to stay where it’s taken root. If you take it out of the sand, it withers and dies.” Another drop of water plinked down into the cistern. “I’ve never seen one, but I hear they’re beautiful. They’re the most beautiful things in the world.”
He was closer now. Isa couldn’t be sure whether he had moved closer to her or she had moved closer to him, but she could feel his warmth. She blinked, and something cool touched her cheek.
He reached out an unsteady hand and with his fingertip radiating heat like a flame, he smoothed away the single icy tear. “I see the problem now, Mistress,” he whispered to her. He let his finger remain where it was for a moment, not quite touching her cheek. “I think the Shadar is melting you.”
With the languid, half-conscious volition of a dreamer, she leaned forward until her lips brushed against his. His warmth shot through her, deeply, and her breath stopped. But she didn’t pull away and neither did he. There was something on the other side of that burning pain, and she wanted it. His fingers grazed her cheek, guiding her closer. Then with a surge of heat like a blast furnace, his lips pressed against hers.
A strangled, inarticulate cry broke from the doorway. Isa froze as Daryan jumped away, snatching his hand back to his chest. Then Rahsa emerged from the hall like a specter, pale and wild-eyed. One look at her face told them that she had seen and heard everything.
“Rahsa,” Daryan cried out, but as he turned, he knocked into the chair that Isa had left sitting by the tub. He stumbled across the floor, trying to regain his balance, but as he twisted, an object dropped out of his robe and hit the ground with a clang. She watched it skid to a stop a few paces in front of Rahsa.