The Desert Prince

by Peter V. Brett

  Rojvah’s tinkling laugh is triumphant. “It seems you’re a princess after all, Selen vah Gared. We were starting to wonder.”

  Selen doesn’t rise to the bait, but I can smell her irritation.

  “Who can blame them for opening the curtains?” Arick asks. “It’s dark enough for an alagai in here.”

  “Darin Bales, born in darkness,” Rojvah echoes the Damajah’s greeting. Together with Arick’s demon talk, it puts me on edge. I can never tell when my Krasian cousins are teasing or serious.

  Steeling myself, I find a steady breath as I walk to the curtains and draw them open myself, pretending it doesn’t feel like leaping into a boiling tub as I fill the room with sunlight. I turn and let the fire lance across my back, holding up my arms to stand in the light in front of everyone.

  Abban coughs gently. “I bring you these, as well.” He holds out a tied bundle of black silk.

  “Warrior blacks?” I’ve been itching to get out of Arick’s garish robes, but I don’t understand.

  Neither does Arick. I can smell his jealousy. “Why does he get blacks?”

  “He’s right,” I say, before his jealousy can spark into anger. “I’ve never killed a demon.”

  “Shot one, though,” Selen puts in, ignoring my irritated stare. “Wrestled one to the ground to keep it from eating your friend.”

  “Whatever your exploits in the night,” Abban says, “my master deemed them enough to award you these, and his word is law.”

  “He isn’t even Krasian,” Arick complains. “The robes should be green, at least.”

  “Perhaps,” Abban agrees. “When next you see him, explain to the Shar’Dama Ka why the Par’chin’s son is unworthy of black robes, and when he is convinced by your wisdom, I will happily procure robes of whatever color desired.”

  Arick pales. Abban’s words are pleasant, but his rebuke is not. Abban is khaffit—the lowest caste in Krasian society—but he is also rich beyond measure, and when he speaks, it is with my bloodfather’s voice. Arick may be half Krasian, but he’s even further from the throne than I am.

  I smell my cousin’s shame and humiliation, and can’t help but empathize. Arick and I were never friends—not really. Just kids of an age thrown together while our parents had a visit. But I remember his joke about family, and how we don’t have to like each other to be on the same side.

  They won’t let Arick take the black because his da was a famous Jongleur. Why shouldn’t he be jealous that I get a set just because my da killed a lot of demons?

  “No,” I say. “Arick’s right. Don’t want those any more than this.” I lift my foot, showing off a bright orange slipper. “I want a proper set of Northern clothes. Denim britches, a green shirt, and a soft brown leather jacket with button cuffs.”

  Something about the request turns Arick’s scent angry, and while the patient smile never leaves Abban’s face, there is surprise in his scent. “When next you see him, explain to Shar’Dama Ka—”

  “Cut the demonshit, Abban,” I say. “My parents never dressed Krasian, and I’m not going to, either. Either you get me clothes to replace the ones you all burned, or the next time you see my bloodfather, you can explain to him why I’m walkin’ around in a bido.”

  Abban eyes me, trying to see if I’m bluffing, but I ent. Mam says Krasians like to play games without telling you the rules. Got to put your foot down sometimes, to keep from getting sucked in.

  After a moment, Abban spreads his crutches and bows. “Very well. I will have clothes made for you in the Northern style.”

  Selen quietly clears her throat. “For Selen, as well,” I say.

  “Of course,” Abban says. “But it will take some time.”

  I hold up my palms. “We got nowhere to be.”

  Abban bows again. “Apologies, son of Arlen, but I am afraid you do. After you have broken fast, I am to bring you to the Damajah.”

  Selen perks up at that. “Is there news of Leesha and Mrs. Bales?”

  Abban shakes his head. “Not that I am aware of. The Damajah has more questions.”

  * * *

  —

  Abban has servants rush to the bazaar, reappearing within the hour with a variety of Northern clothing for me to choose from while they take measurements for a custom set. The britches are a bit stiff, but they’ll wear in, and the shirt is something like the Seventhday best folk wear back in the Brook. I feel closer to regular than I have in months.

  Yet Arick’s angry scent burns my nostrils, laced with jealousy, shame, and resentment. But at whom? I keep looking his way, hoping to catch his eye, but he keeps his head down, giving me no chance.

  Rojvah drifts over, her scent full of curiosity rather than its typical amusement. “You really don’t understand, do you?” Her voice is less than a whisper, barely a breath at all, but it’s clear to me.

  “Understand what?” I whisper. “Why your brother’s cross with me even after I took his side?”

  “He did not want you to take his side,” Rojvah breathes.

  “Don’t make sense,” I whisper. “Said himself we were family, and family sticks up for each other.”

  “Sometimes,” Rojvah agrees. “And sometimes we respect each other enough to let them fail with dignity.”

  “What does that even mean?” I ask.

  Rojvah shakes her head like I’m the class dunce. “By standing up to Abban where he could not, you only shamed him further. Then you likened Sharum blacks to the filth-covered sole of your foot. There can be no greater insult to a warrior.”

  “I…” I pull back, nonplussed. “What?”

  No mistaking her scent, now. She thinks I’m an idiot. “You said you didn’t want Sharum blacks any more than ‘this’ and pointed to your foot. Men have been killed for less.”

  Horror comes over me as I recall the gesture. “Night! I only meant the color! Black, green, orange—they all feel like pretending to be something I’m not.”

  Rojvah throws back her head and laughs, making everyone look up, even Arick. She lays a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. “Oh, cousin. You have so much to learn.”

  Rojvah doesn’t say anything to Arick for me, but when Abban appears with an escort of eunuchs to bring us to the Damajah, the twins join us.

  They walk us not to court, but to the Damajah’s wing of the palace, and then down into her underpalace, cut deep into the hill upon which the palace stands. The walls throb with magic as we descend below natural light, and I feel wisps of it clinging to me as we pass, restoring the powers that dawn burned away.

  We descend even further, leaving rich palace halls for tunnels of solid stone, cut deep into bedrock and carved with powerful wardings. The air is cold, stale, and stinks of unwashed bodies and despair.

  It smells like the Bunker.

  Indeed, we find the Damajah waiting in a goal cell where four Krasian men kneel with black hoods over their faces, bound wrist-to-ankle. I look at her curiously.

  “Go on.” Inevera whisks a hand at the men. “Smell them.”

  I shift uncomfortably, eyeing the door. I don’t like being in a cell, especially in a place designed to keep folk like me from getting away, but I know what she’s playing at, and my curiosity overcomes my anxious nature. I walk over to the men, sniffing the air.

  It’s been a long time since I found the spoor in Lord Arther’s office. It was weak even then, partially absorbed by the alomom powder, but there is a faint aroma of alomom on these men even now. I inhale deeper, sifting for scent markers of diet or habit. Their food is blander than the other tribes, no doubt to mask their scent further, but that is telling in its own way. In this hot dungeon, they cannot help but sweat, and that tells me all I need.

  “It’s them,” I say.

  Selen looks ready to shout, but Inevera raises a hand to stop her. “Are you certain, son of Arlen?”r />
  I nod, and Inevera flicks a finger. A eunuch kicks one of the men onto the floor in front of us. “This is Kai Tomoka, of the Nanji. Their tribe of Watchers once served the Majah, but pledged to your bloodfather when the Majah fled Sharak Ka to return to the sands. But it seems Nanji honor is thin.”

  The eunuch produces an alagai tail, the harsh barbed whip used in Krasian punishment. A single stroke opens a line on the man’s back, and I smell fresh blood, but even as he screams, there is a mocking laugh in his throat.

  “I will go to Everam pure of spirit!” he claims. “It was not only the Majah who were betrayed on the Night of Hora!”

  The Night of Hora was the infamous coup of Jardir’s son Asome, who had his twelve dama brothers, one from each tribe, murder their Damaji to cement his rise to power. Only the Majah brother failed.

  Inevera flicks a finger again, and the eunuch resumes lashing Tomoka with the alagai tail until the laughter is beaten from him. I flinch with each strike, backing away as the room fills with a nauseating stench of sweat and blood.

  The others don’t seem to mind. Inevera observes with a serene indifference that Rojvah does a fair job emulating. Abban studies his nails even as the kai’s screams ring so loud I fear my eardrums will burst. Selen and Arick watch like hawks. If eyes were a lash, they would be doing the whipping themselves.

  At last the Damajah signals the eunuch to stop. Tomoka lies shivering on the ground, still bound wrist-to-ankle. Blood covers his back and dribbles from his lips as he coughs out a breath.

  “I am going to ask you some questions, Tomoka,” Inevera says quietly. “I will know if you lie, and all Nanji will suffer.”

  For long moments, the man gasps for breath, then, in a hoarse wheeze, he speaks. “I would never lie to the Damajah.” Near as I can tell, he means it.

  “Where is Princess Olive?” Inevera asks.

  “Beyond your reach in Desert Spear,” Tomoka says. “Shar’Dama Ka’s Second Wife had dama’ting magic to spirit Olive across the sands. No doubt they have been there for months.”

  “Why?” Inevera’s voice remains placid, but she smells furious.

  “The dice say Olive must shed blood for Majah, if Desert Spear is to survive,” Tomoka says.

  “Belina told you this?” Inevera asks. “Were those her exact words?”

  Tomoka nods.

  “And you believed her?”

  Something about the bruised and bloody Watcher chuckling sets my nerves on edge. “I am Sharum, Damajah. I have learned not to question the dama’ting when they speak of dice.”

  “Not a complete fool, then,” Inevera says. “And Micha?”

  “She fought with surprising skill,” Tomoka says. “It took two Watchers to subdue her, and not without wounds of their own.”

  “So she is alive?” Inevera asks.

  Tomoka nods. “She proved a valuable incentive for Olive’s behavior.”

  “The Majah are without honor,” Arick growls. “This cannot stand.”

  “That is not for you to decide.” As if remembering we are still present, Inevera tilts her head in our direction. Her eunuchs move in immediately, ushering us out of the cold stone Nanji cell and escorting us back to our warm silk one.

  * * *

  —

  Seems like every time I settle into an evening bath, someone steals my clothes. Only this time I ent bothered, because the new ones are made to order…sort of. Abban’s seamstresses have given the garments a distinctly Krasian flair—loose limbs tapering to tight button cuffs and a matching scarf to keep out dust and sand.

  They used sturdy Northern denim for the britches like I asked, but unlike the stiff pair from the bazaar, this cloth is already massaged to softness. The silk shirt and bido are a gentle breeze across my skin. The jacket is a brown so dark it is nearly black. It has no collar to put up against the sun, but it buttons tight, and the silk scarf is long enough to cover my head and face if I wish.

  But even with the trappings of Northern style, these are clearly a warrior’s garments. They are sturdy and light, meant for protection and ease of movement. Pockets in the lining of the jacket and britches are meant for armor plates, but I reckon I can find other uses for them.

  “I take it the son of Arlen is pleased?” Abban asks with an exaggerated bow as I come around the screen.

  “Love ’em,” I say.

  Selen smells equally pleased in her new leggings and coat. No doubt some of the Krasians will be scandalized, but Selen has a better claim to warrior garb than I do, and it seems the Damajah respects that. She’s already experimenting with the armor plates.

  “The young master will be pleased to know that I have also procured him a horse,” Abban says. “A light Angierian courser like your father’s, barely more than a colt and stronger than a camel. You will look regal as you accompany your escort back to Hollow.”

  Don’t much care for the sound of that, or of seeing Uncle Gared. Going home feels like giving up. What home do I have anyway, without Mam? The Warded Children are gone. The Brook is too small and isolated, but Hollow with all its crowds and noise is worse, and it would be no better here in Krasia. Long as I was with Mam, they were all just places to visit and set awhile. Now I’m going to need to pick one.

  It’s been over a week, with no word from Jardir and no sign of Inevera. They let us stroll around the family wing and the palace grounds with our eunuch escort, but no farther. Our every need is taken care of instantly, except the need for more information, or freedom.

  “What does everyone think?” I ask, giving a turn in my new clothes.

  “Gonna leave a lot of doe-eyed girls sighing as you ride by,” Selen says. It’s a tampweed tale, but I feel my face color anyway.

  “You look well enough for a chin peasant.” Rojvah brings me back to the ground. “But a man’s clothing should shout. These are barely a whisper.”

  I look down at the muted colors, unlike the stark black or white of most Krasian clothes, or the flamboyant colors of children and khaffit. “Like it that way.”

  Arick doesn’t smell as angry as he did a few days ago, but neither does he answer. He comes every day with Rojvah to join us for meals and walks in the gardens, but he gives all his attention to Selen and his sister.

  “Appreciate you making our captivity more pleasant,” I tell Rojvah, “but you don’t have to spend all your time here, if you don’t want to.”

  Rojvah laughs. “Is that what you think, cousin? That we visit your silk prison during the day and leave at night?” She shakes her head. “It is you who are visiting ours. In a few days, you will be gone, and the dama’ting will drag me back down to the Chamber of Shadows to continue my studies.”

  “Ent fair, for you or Arick.” I poke a finger into a large pocket in my jacket, meant to hold the armor plate that protects my heart. I think of Olive, locked in a tower somewhere. “Or for any of us.”

  After Abban leaves, Selen paces our chambers like she’s about to give a speech before a crowd. “How long you think this is going to take? The general’s going to be here in a few days, and Olive’s da still ent back.”

  “Already taken too long,” I say. “Doubt it took two hours for Bloodfather to fly to the mountains. If there was a city there, he’d spot it faster’n a hound sniffs out a rabbit hole in the barley field.”

  “Perhaps Grandfather found this city, but it was only the beginning of the trail,” Rojvah says.

  “Or perhaps he found something you did not on the battlefield, and is investigating,” Arick says.

  “For goin’ on ten days without sendin’ word?” It doesn’t feel right.

  “You’re worried they got him, too.” Selen’s flat tone tells me I’m not the only one thinking it.

  “Ridiculous,” Arick says. “Ahmann Jardir is Shar’Dama Ka. He carries the Crown and Spear of Kaji. No alagai c
an stand against him.”

  The words are like a cold blade in my heart, and it’s a conscious effort to hold back tears. “That’s what I used to think about Mam. But it looks like the corelings knew she was coming. What if they were expecting Jardir, too?”

  “How’s that possible?” Selen asks.

  “Core if I know,” I say. But with every day that passes, it seems more and more like the only answer that makes sense.

  “All we can do is wait, and pray,” Rojvah says.

  “Sit on our arses, you mean,” Selen growls, “while Olive, the ripping duchess of Hollow, is held prisoner.”

  “The Damajah has foreseen the gates of Desert Spear will not open without bloodshed,” Rojvah says.

  “If that is what the gates require,” Arick says, “then we should drown them in treacherous Majah blood.”

  “Ay, maybe,” Selen says. “But maybe we could just throw a rope over the wall, if we weren’t locked up.”

  Arick snorts, but Selen has a point. I’ve got a knack for squeezing into places other folk don’t fit.

  “Only locked up as long as we want to be,” I say.

  “Ay, maybe you are,” Selen says, “but I can’t slip through the crack under the door, or jump out a window without breaking my neck.”

  It’s the moment on the road all over again. Could I have caught Olive’s kidnappers if I’d left Selen behind and run on my own? What would I have done if I had?

  “But every day we wait is a day they’re trying to force some Majah prince on Olive,” Selen says.

  She’s right. I spring to my feet. We’ve waited enough.

  “Where are you going?” Rojvah asks as I climb the wall to a high window, opening it to the cool night air.

  “To see your Tikka and get some corespawned answers.”

  Rojvah laughs. “You will not make it to the first hall before her guards surround you?”

  “The eunuchs?” I sniff. “They won’t even see me.”

  “I would not be so certain of that,” Rojvah says, “but the eunuchs are servants, not guards. Those you see only when they strike.”