Braid of Sand

by Alicia Gaile

  Perhaps all wouldn’t be lost. While they might not revere the Great Mother, she knew Castien and his band understood the necessity of protecting the Sacred Tree.

  She let out a shaky breath and began slipping knives into her various sheaths.

  When she emerged five minutes later, Thamar was just returning from relieving herself behind the cave. She’d changed out of her black leathers into a velvet rust-colored gown. A gold cord crisscrossed her midriff, cinching the fabric here and there to accentuate her form. She was stunning, looking every inch as regal as a noblewoman.

  Osee whistled when he saw her and she struck a dramatic pose. Armelle’s brows went up, Barak rolled his eyes, and Raziela’s mouth dropped.

  “Barak. Osee. Load up the boat. We’re running out of time.”

  Castien didn’t even glance at her.

  Some of the light went out of Thamar’s face, and she slowly lowered her arms. Oblivious to the shift in her mood, Castien groped for a duffle bag stuffed with fruit near his foot. His brows puckered and he patted the straps lightly before curling his fingers around them both.

  Watching him struggle, Raziela cocked her head. Was he ill?

  He swung the heavy sack onto his shoulders with his usual easy grace, but there was a vague, distant air about him as he stood back to let Osee lead the way down to the boat.

  “Have you noticed anything strange about Castien lately?” she asked.

  Thamar sniffed before storming off in the opposite direction. She nearly collided with Armelle who was adjusting the straps of her wrist guards.

  “What’s the matter with her?” Raziela asked as Thamar swatted a mango branch out of her way. Armelle followed her gaze and snorted.

  “Oh, nothing. She’s just spent the past year building up a fantasy where she and Castien run off into the sunset together and she’s finally realized it’s time to let it go. Don’t feel sorry for her. She did it to herself. Besides, it’s her pride that’s bent out of shape, not her heart.” Armelle rolled her eyes and peeled a mango with her hunting knife. Raziela blinked at the flood of words from the normally close-lipped Armelle.

  “Her pride?”

  “Thamar’s always been the best at everything she’s tried. She’s smart, she’s pretty, she’s lethal. The only man in Phalyra with a fiercer reputation than hers is Castien, and she just assumed that meant they were made for each other.”

  “They aren’t?” Thinking of the way Thamar had looked in the red gown, Raziela could easily picture her standing beside Castien’s darkly handsome looks laughing and fighting by his side.

  Armelle choked on her bite of fruit before cocking her head.

  “Priestess, I know you were young when the Temple was destroyed, so don’t take any offense from what I’m about to ask.”

  “Okay,” said Raziela, her shoulders tensing anyhow.

  “What do you know about love? I mean the romantic kind.”

  “I know what it is,” Raziela said, insulted in spite of Armelle’s warning.

  “Knowing about it and knowing it are two different things. From what I’ve picked up about your time in the Realm of the Gods, you didn’t have too many opportunities to fall in love with anyone. It’s the kind of emotion that changes you. You’ll find yourself doing things you wouldn’t ordinarily do.”

  “So, she knows he doesn’t love her because he hasn’t changed?”

  “Oh, he’s changed all right.” Armelle shoved a whole sliver of fruit into her mouth. “He just didn’t change for her.” She patted the bare space beside her to indicate Raziela should sit.

  “Castien is—well, he’s different from the rest of us. The things he’s been through—it’s given him a certain reputation...” She said it with a meaningful quirk of her eyebrows and because Raziela didn’t see any reason to hide it from Armelle, she nodded.

  “They call him the Shadow Striker.”

  Her eyebrow shot up.

  “How did you know that?”

  Raziela tilted her chin toward her sculpture

  “Whenever someone prayed to the idols, I caught a glimpse of them in the Garden. Herodes must have ordered them all destroyed because I started seeing fewer glimpses, but toward the end, the prayers that I did hear were often asking for protection from the Shadow Striker. I just didn’t put together that the people who still worshipped Naiara had the most reason to fear having the Shadow Striker sent after them.”

  Raziela sighed and hung her head.

  “A few days before he came to the Tower, I saw him kill a man in cold blood.”

  “You mean Bulderic?”

  Raziela combined a nod and a shrug.

  “He was only trying to protect the food for his people...”

  Armelle took a long, deep breath.

  “Priestess, the reason we were at that camp is because Bulderic stole from our people first. His men slew four guardsmen before making off with enough food to feed an entire street. He was a thief and a murderer. The world is better off with him gone.” Armelle’s voice went cold, warning her she didn’t want to hear the terrible things the man had done. Raziela sighed as the last string of doubt within her snapped.

  “Castien may have been right about the Great Mother wanting to keep the truth hidden from me.”

  Armelle was polite enough not to agree with her.

  “My parents were trappers in the mountains. I’m well-acquainted the monsters in the north. If you’re foolish enough to enter their territory they’ll kill you without a second thought. He’s like them. He wants nothing to do with anyone outside of this band. But from the moment he got back from the Realm of the Gods everything he did was about trying to get back to free you.”

  Raziela wrapped her arms around her knees and tried to decipher the emotions crashing through her. She thought she caught the gist of what Armelle was telling her, but after being out of the world for so long she didn’t want to be too sure and wind up making a fool of herself.

  Thamar chose that moment to come stomping back up the hill, kicking at the sand like a petulant child. Since she didn’t know they were sitting there, her spray washed over their backs, and Armelle leapt to her feet with a snarl.

  “Gah, you’re worse than your brother!” She raked her fingers through her hair trying to shake out the sand. Thamar apologized, but her attention was clearly elsewhere.

  “Come on, girls. Barak wants to leave while the tide’s still high.” Osee sauntered toward them swinging his long arms. At the word ‘girls,’ both Thamar and Armelle’s expressions hardened. Osee rolled his eyes.

  “Women, females, hags... Whatever you’re calling yourselves today, pack it up and let’s go.”

  The three of them exchanged a look before chasing him down to the boat pelting his back with handfuls of sand.

  36.

  Raziela sprang from the boat as soon as they pulled up alongside the pier. Castien stepped up after her but missed the rope when he reached to steady himself. His foot slipped. Darting forward, Raziela managed to catch his arm before he fell between the boat and the pier. Barak snorted.

  “That was graceful.”

  With Raziela’s help, Castien hauled himself onto the dock. He kept his hand on her shoulder as he turned to face the others. His expression remained distant and distracted, as if the near-miss never happened.

  “Get this food to the Square. She and I will go ahead to make sure Dr. Laninga keeps her word.”

  Osee and Armelle nodded. Thamar folded her arms with another soft huff, and Barak executed a sarcastic bow.

  With a slight pressure on her shoulder, he turned Raziela around and nudged her into a brisk trot toward the shore.

  “Are you all right?” She waited until the others were out of earshot.

  He squinted toward the narrow streets and didn’t answer.

  “The King will be at the assembly. He’ll have extra security teams combing every inch of the square before he steps one foot outside the palace.”

  She opened her mouth
to argue when he pinched the bridge of his nose with a grimace. Raziela touched his arm.

  “Is your head still bothering you? Why didn’t you say? One of the others could have come with me.”

  He twisted to study her hand on his scarred skin.

  “My head’s fine.” But there was something he wasn’t telling her. The air charged with words and questions they weren’t willing to speak. She pulled away, but he caught her wrist. He didn’t say anything, just squinted into her face.

  “What?”

  “It’s could have been any priestess I found in that tower, but I’m glad it was you.” He released her and just that quickly Castien’s warmth extinguished and the cold Shadow Striker was back. He rolled his shoulders and strode up the street with his ground-eating strides. Raziela had to work to keep pace, but her chest thrummed.

  They had to take an unconventional path over rooftops and through back streets. He was more cautious than she’d ever seen him, double—sometimes even triple-checking the distances before he leapt between buildings.

  She couldn’t blame him for being careful. Over two stories above the ground, a mistake could be fatal.

  “We’ll have a clear view of the podium from the Dancing Goat.” Castien paused to catch his breath. “This last jump’s the longest. Do you think you can make it? If not, they keep crates of empty wine bottles stacked up in the alley out back we could climb up.”

  “I can do it,” Raziela said, stepping to the edge of the roof and judging the distance to the street. They had to jump down from the flat roof of a clothier’s shop onto the sloped shingles of the Dancing Goat. The two buildings were nearly touching, but it was still a good twelve-foot drop. Her heartbeat picked up speed.

  “Don’t take unnecessary risks. We should climb down. We still have time before the ceremony starts.”

  It wounded her that he thought so little of her abilities. Without pausing to reconsider, she took a running leap. His muffled curse chased her through the air as the peak of the Dancing Goat rushed up to greet her. Clay roof tiles cracked under the weight of her landing. Her ankle rolled out from beneath her, and a sharp pain shot up the side of her leg.

  Before she got her feet under her, Castien was already hurtling toward her.

  He misjudged his trajectory.

  His shoulder slammed into her sternum, knocking her toward the edge. She sank her teeth into her lower lip to keep from screaming. Her arms pinwheeled. Her calves strained. Balancing on her tiptoes, she hovered on the edge.

  His strong arms wrapped around her, dragging her back against his chest. His heart hammered so strongly she could feel it pounding against her spine. Relief sagged through her.

  He lifted her bodily and settled her on her feet.

  “Sorry,” he said in a shaky voice, resting his chin on top of her head. It might have roused her pride if she didn’t feel the tremble in his arms. She shook her head.

  “I should have listened when you said it was too far.”

  They stayed that way for a long moment, his forehead pressed to her hair and her back curved against his front.

  “That’s where Dr. Laninga will be giving her speech. They’ve already set up the stage.” He stepped around her, and Raziela was thrown by the sudden change of topic. Talking to him was like playing with the zephyrs. One moment he was there, and the next moment he was somewhere far away.

  “Can you see Kephas or the King?” He went to the edge of the roof and crouched low, scanning the faces of the men and women milling around the platform. Raziela mimicked his stance, but she didn’t see any faces she recognized.

  Their shoulders were nearly touching and the heat of his skin seemed to burn through her sleeve. Raziela glanced sideways at him.

  “You really believe this plan will work?”

  “I wouldn’t be running around on rooftops on only two hours of sleep if I didn’t. Why?”

  “It’s hard for me to judge what people will do or think. Just when I think I know what to expect someone says something that surprises me.”

  “Like?”

  “The others say you treat me differently, that you’ve been different ever since you came back from the Tower.”

  “Now is not the time for this.” A rush of color swept up his neck. She nodded.

  “No. You’re right. I just... is it true?”

  “Why are you asking questions you already know the answers to?” Somehow, it was a stronger declaration than if he’d said yes or no.

  A flock of birds took wing inside her stomach.

  “After this is over... We can talk then.” An enormous ‘if’ hung over the promise. She nodded.

  “Out of the way, you! What do you think you’re doing here?” Shouts from the square drew their attention to a pair of guards shoving a beggar who stood off to one side of the platform. Even from a distance, Raziela could see the man’s mind was gone. For all their threats and curses, he didn’t blink, didn’t resist. He just toppled over and went on staring like a living scarecrow.

  “That man. I’ve seen him before. I nearly ran into him when I was running from the guards.” Raziela shuddered, remembering how his onyx eyes had looked straight through her.

  “People took to calling him Old Linus,” Castien murmured. “But no one knows who he is or where he’s from. When the fields dried up people flocked to the city in droves only to find things just as bad here as anywhere else. Whoever he used to be, all that’s left of him is that broken shell down there.”

  “Gentlemen, is that really necessary? Who do you think you’re going to impress by beating up a harmless old man?” Lady Pomona’s strong voice cut the air. Castien cursed under his breath.

  The guards went down on one knee the instant they recognized her face.

  “Your Majesty!”

  “My Lady will do,” she said tersely. “Now, if you’ll kindly escort that man to the sidewalk without brutalizing him further I’d like to take my seat.” The guards shrank from her gimlet eye before she turned in a swirl of indigo skirts. A fierce smile curved Raziela’s lips. Lady Pomona was a lioness.

  “What is she doing here?” Castien narrowed his eyes at the back of his mother’s head as if he could read her intentions through her scalp.

  Raziela didn’t blame him for being worried. It would be next to impossible to protect her if things took a turn for the worst.

  A figure in a rust-colored dress hurried to take the empty seat beside her. Thamar. The two regarded each other for a long moment before Lady Pomona swept her skirts aside to give Thamar room to sit down.

  “It’s less inconspicuous than we’d hoped for, but at least she’ll have a clear view of the King from there,” Castien said through clenched teeth. As more of the upper class arrived to fill in the seats around Lady Pomona, they began whispering and shifting to get a better look at her.

  A blast of trumpets announced King Herodes’ arrival. Everyone stood as his servants brought out his preposterous throne on their shoulders and set it off to the left of the stage. Herodes descended the palace steps flanked by four guards on either side to take his seat on the throne without so much as a wave or smile for the crowd. He was clearly distracted.

  “Today is a momentous day in Phalyra’s history. The accomplishments of our past will lead us into a better and brighter future. Before I say more, I’ve invited Dr. Keres to discuss the unprecedented accomplishments SIAR Labs has achieved this past year.”

  He plopped onto the cushioned seat on his throne and his two servants began fanning him with their large paper fans. He waved his hand impatiently for the proceedings to begin. His eyes landed on Lady Pomona in the front row and he froze.

  With her back to them, it was impossible to see her face, but she made no gesture to acknowledge him, and after a moment he slouched into his seat and waited for his first guest speaker to step up to the podium.

  Dr. Keres was a tall thin man who wore his robes crisp and impeccably white. He launched into a brain-numbing lecture about
statistics and lab results that held no meaning for Raziela. Judging by the way his audience fidgeted, it didn’t mean much to them either. Lady Pomona remained straight-backed and alert though, even waving Thamar away when she leaned over to whisper something in her ear.

  When he finally got tired of listening to himself speak, Dr. Keres straightened his robes, cleared his throat, and invited Dr. Laninga up to speak.

  Like him, Dr. Laninga wore the a white lab jacket, but hers was tailored to resemble more of a knee-length dress. Her thick, salt and pepper curls were twisted back in a large heart-shape beneath her small white cap. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, but her face blazed with purpose as she carried her folder with her speech onto the stage.

  Clearing her throat, she reached into her pocket and placed the idol Raziela had given her on the edge of the podium.

  “Good morning. May the light of the Great Mother shine down on all of us this blessed day.”

  Raziela smiled. Castien did a double take.

  “Talk about jumping in with both feet,” he murmured.

  The crowd, which had been listening in bored silence, went eerily still. King Herodes gripped the arms of his throne and glared at the podium as if he thought he’d misheard. Dr. Laninga brushed her fingertips across her collarbone, careful not to look at him and continued.

  “Thanks to the research conducted by the brilliant men and women at SIAR Labs, we’ve experienced the largest harvest in recent years. All of the public granaries are filled to the brim. There’s more than enough to sustain Phalyra through the winter—but what then?”

  Unease gathered. Dr. Laninga pretended to be oblivious to it as she cleaned her spectacles on her sleeve.

  “Three years ago, when the first nutrient analyses were being conducted on plots sprinkled with GrainGro, I voiced my concerns about the long term effects several of the synthesized amendments would have on the soil—namely, they disrupted the balance of phosphorus necessary to facilitate plant growth.” She paused to straighten her notes, scanning the crowd to pick out every one of the King’s soldiers.