Braid of Sand

by Alicia Gaile

  “Where is it? Tell me, or I kill you now!”

  But finally, the phoenix abandoned Castien to flap its large wings at Kephas. A shower of sparks flew into his face until he let Raziela go. Castien ducked under the bird and caught Kephas’ wrist.

  “The mission’s failed. Get out now!”

  Another lightning bolt struck, blasting apart a tree two rows over. There were several loud pings as the first stinging drops of rain pelted Ilya and Lorcan’s armor. The phoenixes screamed as sizzling steam rose from their wings. They soared away in a scarlet and gold swarm. Castien thought it was the rain until he saw the blackened sky beyond the Tower where the clouds were massing to form a tornado. At the heart of that wailing, shrieking vortex he could have sworn a face formed.

  “Aeris!” Raziela gasped.

  “Go!” Kephas shouted, running for the Temple. Castien went to one knee beside Raziela and grabbed her sleeve.

  “We have to get out of here.”

  She whirled on him, driving a fist straight into his face. Only his quick reflexes saved him from a broken nose.

  “You betrayed me! You led them here!” She swung again, but Castien caught her wrist this time. His arm shook as he tried to control her strength. A snarl rippled from her chest like a lioness. He shook her arm to try to focus that wildness on their situation rather than at him. He brought his face close to hers, keeping an eye on her free hand in case she took another swing.

  “So long as you live, you are sworn to serve your goddess. Everything you worked for dies with you if you don’t come with me now.”

  She snarled. The sound lifted the hairs on the back of his neck.

  “I will find a way to atone, Mother,” she murmured, though he wasn’t sure she realized she was speaking out loud. The flames that engulfed the cart caught her attention. A shudder wracked her from head to toe.

  Lorcan and Ilya grabbed a basket each before bolting after Kephas for the Temple. Thamar watched them go in disbelief and swung around to face Castien. Something in her face changed when she saw him kneeling beside Raziela. She started to make her way over to them, but Castien waved her toward the Temple after the others. Before she could move, the wind picked up Raziela’s braid and flung it into the air so that it sailed toward her like a massive snake. She threw her hands up to shield herself, but it tangled around her.

  Castien didn’t look to see if she extricated herself. Returning his attention to Raziela, he jerked her to her feet. She swayed, but her knees locked into place.

  She looked so fragile that long-buried instincts urged him to lift her into his arms and carry her away. One look at her face though, and he knew if he was foolish enough to try it she’d turn back into the warrior who’d nearly strangled him to death with her hair.

  “Let us go, Great Mother,” Raziela said in a voice bleak as the Scorching Wastes. “Spare us, and I will make sure these defilers never trouble you again.”

  The tornado ripped the ceiling tiles from the Temple roof. Stones, flew off and the trees in the orchard bowed against the unstoppable force. Lightning bolts stabbed into the soil like pitchforks hunting a rat in a pile of brush. Flying leaves ignited as they sailed into the fire, and the wind flung the flames into the boughs of the orchard like a child throwing rocks.

  Castien threw himself on top of Raziela.

  The roar of the wind was like a freight train barreling through their ears. Strips of grass and gravel ripped from the ground. Castien seized a nearby root and held on for all he was worth.

  Behind them the Tower shuddered, no match for the storm. Castien and Raziela looked up in horror as the gray mass of wind swallowed it. Just before it disappeared into the tornado, the top half of the Tower ripped off.

  Chunks of stone and debris hurtled through the air. Castien forced them both up and used his body to cover Raziela as much as he could as he ushered her toward the temple.

  The curved walls buckled as they passed through the doorway. Before he could drag her toward the altar, something struck the back of his head, and everything went black.

  22.

  The wrath of the goddess was enormous. The storm wasn’t contained to the Realm of the Gods. Even after her feet touched down on solid earth, Raziela was whipped and beaten by gales that seemed determined to tear her apart.

  Sand mixed into the air, raking at her skin like invisible claws. She had to squeeze her eyes shut, but she didn’t want to hide from the sandstorm. If this was her punishment for failing to guard the Tower, then she deserved whatever she got.

  A warm body folded over hers, shielding her from the worst of the wind. Raziela tried to fight him off. She knew from the broad expanse of chest against her back that it had to be Castien. He gave a little shudder and moan rumbled in his chest.

  Anger flooding back into her at the thought of him anywhere near her. She redoubled her efforts to get free, but between his weight, the wind, and her own disbelief, she didn’t have enough fight left in her.

  Eventually she went limp, forcing him to bear her weight with the arms he had banded around her. If he was going to insist on holding her then she was going to make it as difficult for him as possible.

  She couldn’t say how long the storm raged. It seemed to take forever for the shrieking wind to blow itself away across the harbor she could make out through the cloud of brown dust.

  Castien lifted his head to test that the worst of the storm was gone. Raziela sank her elbow hard into his ribs and was rewarded with a quickly-stifled ‘oof.’

  She scrambled out from underneath him, but her legs wobbled traitorously when she tried to stand.

  “I need to go back! How do I get back?” She spun, looking for a gateway or portal to step through to take her home. No one moved. No one offered to help.

  She whirled on Castien and grabbed the front of his jerkin.

  “How do I do it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said in a voice low enough the others couldn’t hear. “The last time I just asked and I was there.” Dismay swamped her. Had the Great Mother shut her out? She blinked rapidly, refusing to let him see her tears.

  Her hands fisted in his jerkin. Lashing out was far more appealing than dissolving into a heartbroken mess. But he made no move to protect himself. Pity was the last thing she wanted from any of them. He could take his pity and choke on it for all she cared. She jerked her face away, unable to stomach the understanding in his stare.

  The trees were gone. Not even bare, bent-backed trunks remained. Raziela remembered a grove of olive trees just beyond the outer gates of the Temple from when she was a young girl, but not so much as a twig remained. Nothing but barren earth stretched all the way to the sea. Perhaps it was winter. Her mind grasped at straws. Perhaps the land was simply waiting to flower in spring. The possibility made her feel a little bit better. She hated the thought that the Great Mother had destroyed everything because she was angry with her.

  Somehow, she would have to find out what day and year they had returned to, but she would shave off what remained of her pledge to the Goddess before she gave Castien the satisfaction of asking him.

  With a soft scrabble of loose stones, the younger of the two women in his band approached and knelt beside her. She kept her movements slow and deliberate, as if Raziela were some wild animal she was hoping to tame and take home as a pet. Her hair was shorn on one half of her head and braided in countless, tiny black shoulder-length braids on the other. Raziela glowered, daring her to show her compassion or kindness or any emotion other than the rage and loathing that she sought.

  The young woman’s eyes were gentle as she looked at her.

  “I am Thamar, Priestess. I’m not going to hurt you. Can you stand?”

  Raziela shook her head and dizziness swamped her. Before she realized what she was doing, she reached up behind her and touched the ends of her cut hair. Gone. The brute hadn’t given it half a thought. A hundred years of servitude all thrown away for nothing.

  But she deserved
it. Even with her suspicions that the Shadow Striker would come back to steal from her again she had done nothing to improve the security around the Temple. In that, she had failed the Great Mother, and she had no one to blame but herself. Had the soldier not done it for her, she would have felt compelled to cut it off herself.

  Thamar extended her hand, but Raziela refused to take it. She didn’t care how kind and patient the woman’s eyes were, she had come to her temple with the others—with him! She had helped destroy the home Raziela had worked so long to build. She had helped them take it from her. How dare she offer her kindness now?

  Raziela pushed herself to all fours and her head seemed to float unattached to her neck as her body grew accustomed to the lack of weight hanging from it. She reached behind her and unclipped the gorget. She had no use for it anymore.

  “Where are we?” she asked, and her voice came out hoarse from screaming.

  “Temple Hill, Priestess, and I am Barak.” Another of their band nudged past the young woman. They resembled each other in the way Castien had resembled the man who invaded the tower. Brother and sister, she guessed. Perhaps even twins, for it was impossible to guess which one might be older.

  “What will you do with me?” She wanted it out in the open. What fate had been decided for her?

  “That’s hard to say,” Barak answered, looking uncomfortable. Her eyes narrowed. That didn’t mean he didn’t know.

  A prisoner, then. Well, that was nothing new. As the Shadow Striker had so charmingly pointed out, she had always been a prisoner.

  “We need to move.” There was an edge to Castien’s voice Raziela hadn’t heard there before. Judging by the lack of notice any of the others took, this was him in his true form. Here was the leader of this pack of wolves, not the sheep who’d come begging for shelter at her door.

  Raziela looked away from him, disgusted with herself that she had fallen so easily for his tricks.

  “If Kephas made it back, he will already have spun his account. The sooner we get back, the more likely we’ll be able to undo some of the damage.”

  She noticed that the moment he spoke the others grew alert, as if his word was not to be disobeyed or questioned. A man known as the Shadow Striker would not be someone who tolerated dissenting opinions among his ranks.

  “Even if he hasn’t, The King would never—” Barak started to speak, but Castien silenced him with a look.

  “He will hear me.”

  23.

  A grinding pain radiated throughout Castien’s head with every pump of of blood through his temples. Even without reaching up to touch it he could feel a goose egg throbbing behind his left ear. He’d only lost consciousness for a moment, but a blow like that to the head was never good.

  “What are you doing with my hair?”

  The growl in Raziela’s voice had him reaching for his hunting knife even before he turned to see what she was snarling about.

  Her hands were tight fists at her sides as she drew herself up to her full height. Thamar and Barak knelt gathering the long braid that Thamar must have brought back with her. They were coiling it into a tight loop.

  In the face of Raziela’s fury, Barak hunched his shoulders and looked shamefaced. Thamar, on the other hand, flashed a winning smile. The charm of that smile was lost on Raziela though.

  “The wig makers have had a shortage of human hair to work with lately. They’ve resorted to using horse hair. This is perfect!”

  Raziela flinched as though she’d been struck.

  “You want to give my hair to someone else to wear?”

  “Give?” Barak did a scandalized double-take. “Do you have any idea what those women will pay for stock like this?”

  Castien repressed a sigh and for once didn’t blame Thamar for clipping her brother in the back of the head. Raziela practically vibrated with outrage. Barak held up both hands.

  “Hey, what’s the big deal? You’re not using it anymore. There’s no sense letting it all go to waste.”

  “I made a vow that I would never cut my hair so long as I served the Great Mother. That man broke my vow when he cut off my hair, and you want to sell it to the highest bidder as if it means nothing?”

  “Sounds like Kephas did you a favor, if you ask me. Besides, you can’t tell me it’s not a huge weight off your shoulders.” He grinned at his own pun.

  “That’s right, Barak. Keep digging,” Armelle muttered, picking up an orange from the ground near her feet.

  “What? It’s just hair. It might take another ten years, but it’ll grow back.”

  Nobody moved. At long last, Barak seemed to realize he might have gone too far, but he continued to look unrepentant.

  “She was held in that world for a hundred years, Barak,” Castien said in a voice like gunsmoke. His teammates flinched. Raziela bristled again at the sound of his voice. She refused to look at him.

  “Priestess, despite what my moron of a brother says, we aren’t trying to make light of what happened. But since it did happen, there are plenty of people who could benefit from your sacrifice. You can take what Kephas did to you and turn it into something good for someone else.” Castien’s respect for Thamar rose a notch. Raziela, however, put her hands on her hips.

  “If your intentions were really altruistic, you wouldn’t care about the potential for profit.”

  Thamar had the grace to blush, but she gave no sign of backing down.

  “Even the Temple collected dues in its day, Priestess. Just because money changes hands doesn’t mean good can’t still come from it.”

  Raziela glared at her and then at the braid in her hand. Her lower lip quivered. Armelle averted her face under the pretext of peeling her orange. Osee had his eyes on the horizon while he pretended not to listen. Barak continued to look confused, and Thamar shifted her weight from one foot to the other trying not to look uncomfortable. Finally, Raziela spun away.

  “Do what you wish.”

  CASTIEN DRAGGED HIS hood low over his forehead to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun. There was a hot, pulsing ache in the back of his head where the flying debris struck him. He tried to ignore it, but his stomach roiled with nausea any time he moved. He pinched the bridge of his nose with a weighty sigh. A concussion then.

  Despite the grinding sensation in his temples, his mind raced over what had to be done. It was possible they could smuggle Raziela away from Phalyra, but judging by her confrontation over the future of her hair, she had no intention of slipping away unnoticed. Stowing her away within the city would be next to impossible and too dangerous for anyone involved with keeping her hidden from the King. Which left taking her to Herodes.

  It was no less dangerous than any of the other options, but it at least gave them the ability to force the confrontation on their terms.

  But first they needed to make it back from Temple Hill. Castien took one look at the steep, rocky terrain before he turned his head and promptly threw up.

  “You all right?” Osee drifted over to his side, mindful not to step in the mess he’d just made. Castien started to nod, felt another wave crest in his stomach, and held his breath to force it back down. He wiped his mouth on his scarf.

  “I’ll live. We need to get her away from here.”

  “Kephas got back before us. The King will already have his eyes on all our usual hideouts. Here.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a flat, round tin. The contents rattled as he shook out a small white capsule. Even arching a brow in question sent pain splintering through Castien’s skull.

  “Not everything that comes out of SIAR Labs is useless,” Osee said with a shrug. “This ought to take the edge off the pain long enough to get back, but I’ll warn you, you’re going to have a mother of a migraine once it wears off.”

  “Better make the most of it then.” Castien tossed the white pill down his throat. It lodged there for a moment, and he could feel the muscles of his esophagus forcing it down.

  “Looks like the storm blew some of the
food from the Sacred Grove back with us. Gather what you can find and by then this painkiller ought to have enough time to kick in.”

  Gingerly, Castien seated himself on a nearby boulder while Osee relayed his orders to the rest of the team. It surprised him when even Raziela bent down to pick out the least-bruised of the peaches and oranges, but he reminded himself that she was a soldier first, and she understood the necessity of having sufficient supplies.

  She didn’t look at him, didn’t meet eyes with any of them. Her hands shook. He couldn’t tell if it was from anger or grief. She had more than enough cause for either. And it was all his fault.

  He had to concentrate on keeping his eyes forward as they descended Temple Hill. Osee’s medicine kept the worst of the headache at bay, but Castien could feel it burning around the edges of his mind, and he wasn’t so certain he wanted to be conscious when the pill’s effects faded.

  By the time they reached the bottom of Temple Hill, he had a fist clenched against his belly and a grimace carved into his face. Osee drew level with him and threw a discreet look over his shoulder.

  “So, where to, Boss?”

  “Waverly Hall.” Squinting, Castien could just make out the roofs of the mansions along the cliffs overlooking Sestrand Harbor. Osee clasped his hands behind his head.

  “You think taking the girl to Pomona is a good idea?”

  “She’s about to face the fight of her life. The least we can do is arm her for it.”

  Osee snorted.

  “The least we can do is leave her to fend for herself. It’s no more than we’d do for anyone else.”

  Castien ignored the probe for information.

  The mansions along the southern rim of Sestrand Harbor were once owned by the wealthy nobles who desired a fine view of the ocean. Now that the sea reeked with the scent of rotting fish, those who could afford to move preferred to live as far inland as possible. Rather than let the gorgeous architecture go to waste, the huge manors had been converted into apartments.