Bright Smoke, Cold Fire

by Rosamund Hodge

  It is the presence of death in life that summons them, Vima had told her about reapers.

  Was this what happened, if a soul somehow resisted the pull into the Mouth of Death? Then why didn’t Juliet have the power to call forth reapers?

  Runajo managed to sit up. Her head had started throbbing.

  “What is this?” demanded the High Priestess from the doorway.

  So here she was, back in the Hall of Judgment, facing a circle of priestesses.

  Again? said Juliet. You do not have the wisest habits.

  At least I haven’t died yet, said Runajo.

  They had told the truth. All the truth, because Runajo needed the Sisterhood to know exactly what they were supposed to do now, and Juliet would never lie.

  So far, the priestesses had refused to believe that a ghost used Vima’s blood to form himself a body and slip out of the temple. They admitted that Vima’s pendant was ancient, but proclaimed no knowledge whatsoever of any key, and they swore that the scroll would not show them anything but blurred, corrupted text. That the fall of the Ancients had been a similar cataclysm they dismissed as Runajo’s wild fantasy.

  They did believe that there was a reaper, and that Juliet had once died and therefore must die again. They blamed her presence for its spawning, which Runajo had to admit was fairly logical.

  “Mahyanai Runajo,” the High Priestess said finally, “you have shown devotion to our city, but also extraordinary pride and blasphemy.”

  Don’t tell me you ever expected anything different, Runajo thought, and heard the quick huff that was Juliet’s replacement for a laugh.

  “I am ready to pay for my sins,” said Runajo out loud.

  “Good,” said the High Priestess. “You will sacrifice the Juliet, here and now, in recompense for the necromancy you both have perpetrated. In time and with sufficient penance, you may be counted one of us again, but I do not guarantee it.”

  Runajo heard the words with a sense of absolute calm. She had known this would happen. It was not a surprise.

  Still she said, “Could she not be useful to us for a little while—”

  “If you were not a child,” said the High Priestess, her voice low and harsh with an anger that Runajo had never heard before, “you would know that there is no such thing as ‘a little while’ when it comes to cheating death. I myself have slit the throats of six necromancers, and all of them desired only a little while with their beloved dead. Count yourself lucky, child, that I believe you foolish and naive.”

  Runajo’s heart was beating fast; her stomach and her fingertips were tingling. Her breath was also coming quickly, but that was something she could control, and did. Slowly she breathed in and out. Then she said, quite calmly, “So there are necromancers at large after all? Is lying the duty of every Sister, or just the High Priestess?”

  “There are no necromancers at large because we kill them all,” said the High Priestess. “And my duty includes preventing panic. What do you consider your duty, besides obeying your every whim?”

  “Telling the truth,” said Runajo. “So believe me when I say I am a Sister of Thorn, and I will obey.”

  She had known it would come to this. And it was right. Juliet’s life could only throw the world more out of balance—and if Runajo was obedient, and lived, she might still be able to convince the Sisterhood of the truth.

  Her mind was filled with the terrible absence of surprise from Juliet.

  I also knew that it would come to this, said Juliet. When he was a killer, and yet I took him to my bed, I knew that I would die for it.

  Oh, now you can bear to speak of love without blushing? asked Runajo.

  I am almost dead, said Juliet, and there was a peculiar, heartbreaking triumph in her thoughts. I have no more need of shame.

  Somebody had taken her hand. It was Miryo, and she wrapped Runajo’s fingers around the hilt of a sacrificial dagger.

  “You must do it now,” said Miryo. Her voice was almost gentle.

  We live as those already dead, thought Runajo. There is no time to waste.

  She turned. She laid a hand on the side of Juliet’s neck. Fitted her thumb to the side of her jaw. She could feel the swift heartbeat beneath the warm skin.

  The knife was razor sharp. It would slide in very easily right below Juliet’s ear, where the tip of Runajo’s thumb rested now. There would be one quick, easy slice; after the first blood had sprayed across Runajo, Juliet would sink to the floor, where her heart would pump out the rest of her blood in less than a minute. Runajo could see it all in her head, and her stomach twisted as she realized that Juliet had probably seen it too.

  I have watched the Great Offering every year, said Juliet. I am not ignorant of how this works. You’ll get a better angle standing behind me.

  You cannot be this calm about it, said Runajo.

  Juliet’s face was set like stone, but her silent voice trembled with laughter. I promise you, I can. After all, I am going to find my husband, before he fades away entirely. You’re the one who will still have problems to solve.

  She wasn’t lying. She was perfectly happy to die, to leave Runajo alone and covered in her blood.

  Runajo’s body felt like it had turned to ice and stone, but her mind was whirling faster than it had ever gone before.

  She had always known she could sacrifice anything. That was still true. But Runajo had excelled in the sacred mathematics. She knew how much blood was in Juliet’s body; she knew the different ways of shedding it, and exactly how much power that would give the city. She could put a price on her life.

  Inkaad. Cost and price. The Sisters said that was the heart of the world. That Juliet, in her essence, was no more than blood and breath and bone, and the power to be gained therefrom.

  But Juliet had hungered after justice, something infinite and eternal, and that meant she had thought of it. To think of something was to hold it in your mind, and to hold something infinite, you must be in some way infinite yourself.

  And that meant there was no appropriate price. To treat Juliet as something bought and sold and bargained for—

  That was wrong. That was obscene.

  She could not kill this girl who had infinity behind her eyes, and that meant she could not kill anyone, because the capacity to comprehend the infinite lay in all people.

  And that meant Viyara and the Sisterhood were built on a lie.

  Runajo had lived and been prepared to kill for a lie.

  And she had only moments left to find a way to save Juliet.

  She dropped her hand from Juliet’s neck. She looked Miryo straight in the eyes and said, “Please. First, may I speak to my novice mistress?”

  She could see the surprise in Miryo’s face—she could feel the surprise from Juliet, but she ruthlessly thought of stone, because Juliet wouldn’t understand this.

  “I have done you wrong,” Runajo went on, still looking at Miryo. “And before anything else, I want to beg your forgiveness.”

  “You don’t want my forgiveness,” said Miryo, once they were in a little side chamber together.

  “No,” said Runajo. “I want to point out that you’re a fool if you let that girl die.”

  Miryo raised an eyebrow.

  “Think,” said Runajo. “That is the Catresou’s Juliet, bound to serve their every command. Only now she is bound to me. What do you think that would do for our clan, if the Juliet were ours to command?”

  And though Runajo had never found a single thing to admire in Miryo, now she found this: the woman visibly choked back the insults she wanted to fling at her, and thought over what she had said.

  “Do you really believe you can make her obey you?” she asked at last.

  “Yes,” said Runajo, desperately, recklessly. She knew how much she was offering. “She has to obey me. She has no other choice.”

  For several infinite moments, Miryo looked at her, obviously thinking through the situation. Runajo waited, remembering Inyaan’s voice as she said, You re
ally think the people outside don’t control us?

  Inyaan had better be right. (Sunjai would laugh if she knew Runajo was following Inyaan’s lead.)

  Then Miryo said, “If you have strength enough, there might be a solution.”

  Immediately, she gripped Runajo by the ear and dragged her back into the Hall of Judgment.

  “I have spoken with her,” she said in a clear, ringing voice. “And I do believe she has repented. I also believe that this punishment is too lenient and too wasteful. Let her and this undead Juliet both do penance for several days first, so that when she cuts her throat, it will not only be an act of justice, but a sacrifice that will strengthen the city.”

  “That will not suffice to make her one of us again,” said the High Priestess.

  Miryo snorted. “Nor should it. But neither should she be allowed to cut away her sin before she has been made to fully understand it.”

  Runajo could see the confused glances, the eyebrows raising or drawing together in surprise. But this one thing was in her favor: everybody knew how much she and Miryo hated each other. So nobody would suspect that they had conspired together.

  “Very well,” said the High Priestess, after a long silence. “But you will be given charge of her.”

  What are you doing? Juliet demanded as they were led from the hall.

  Saving you, Runajo replied, not looking at her.

  What are you hiding?

  Nothing that will dishonor you, said Runajo. Trust me.

  The next two days were difficult. Miryo kept her to a rigorous schedule of prayer and penance; even with the healer’s ointment and the bloodwine, the cuts and holes in her arms never had the chance to fully heal. They barely took any blood, so she was in no danger of dying, but she was barely allowed any food, either.

  She couldn’t stop being afraid of the cords stabbing into her skin. She tried to be brave, but she couldn’t.

  And she could never relax, because Juliet was always there in her head, and had to be kept out.

  Juliet was always there, and Juliet was always furious, because she could tell when Runajo drew the knife across her skin, and when the slender strands plunged into her arms, and when she had been on her knees, head up and back straight, for over an hour.

  Runajo could tell that the other girl was undergoing some kind of penance herself, but she couldn’t sense the details as well, or maybe Juliet was better at shielding them. She certainly didn’t seem to think it was important how much damage was done to her own body.

  Juliet was already dead, and Runajo probably shouldn’t care about how much she got hurt on the way to her final death, but she did.

  Besides, if the Sisters had been wrong about sacrifice and inkaad, then perhaps they were also wrong about Juliet needing to die.

  Runajo hated that she had been wrong; she hated far more that she had assisted in the Sisters’ ceremonies—even if she had never held the knife herself, she had willingly helped. She had woven the power they gained by blood into the walls surrounding Viyara. She had felt proud of herself for doing it.

  And yet that power, however ill-gotten, kept the people of Viyara alive day after day.

  Sometimes she thought of the key, and of the necromancer, and she wanted to scream in helpless frustration. They’d had hope. They’d had a chance, and then he stole the key and now was going to do who-knew-what with it, and nobody would believe her.

  That was another reason she had to survive and get out and keep Juliet alive: she had to track down the necromancer and the key, and Juliet was the only one who would help her.

  If you told me what you were planning, said Juliet, breaking into her thoughts for the hundredth time, then I could comfort you.

  I do not need comfort, said Runajo. That statement would probably be more convincing if she were not lying sprawled on her stomach, hardly able to bear the feeling of her clothes on her back, because this time Miryo had hooked her into the city by her spine. But then, Juliet couldn’t see her.

  And Juliet couldn’t read her thoughts anymore, because she was being very careful.

  It turned out that all she really needed to become good at shielding her mind was absolute desperation.

  You’re crying, Juliet pointed out, and Runajo squeezed her eyes shut against the betraying sting.

  You shouldn’t be able to know that, she said.

  In fact, said Juliet, it is much easier to hide specific thoughts than to conceal physical sensations. This bond was made for my Guardian, do you not remember? We were meant to fight the enemies of our clan together. We must be able to tell when the other is injured and how.

  Runajo breathed slowly and thought of stone. You will just have to trust me for a little longer, she said.

  I do, said Juliet, and Runajo blamed it on her back when she started shaking with tiny, snuffling sobs.

  Juliet would be so terribly angry at her, when she found out. But there was no other way to save her—not only from the Sisters, but from her stupid, stubborn loyalty to the family that had used and nearly destroyed her.

  They had taken her name away from her; they had taken away her hope—false, but still hers—of eternal life. They had molded her into a weapon, made her proud to declare that she had no other purpose, and they had prepared to shackle her to a keeper so that even her thoughts were not her own. They had made her ashamed of loving, and they would have branded her a whore and an outcast if they found out she had loved anyway.

  The slow burn of hatred was deeply comforting. It would serve them right when their Juliet belonged to the Mahyanai. It would serve them right.

  And someday, Juliet would forgive her for it. Someday, Juliet would understand that family should not make you into a slave.

  28

  “I’M NOT SURE HOW YOU Catresou put up with wearing these masks all the time,” said Vai as they walked down the darkened street together.

  “You’re complaining about the mask and not the dress?” asked Paris.

  He hoped his voice sounded normal. They’d had to wait eight days for the next Night Game, and at the time, it had felt like forever. Now that they were on their way, it was all happening much too fast, and Paris was horribly afraid. If they failed, they would all be dead or worse.

  Vai twirled, the skirt of his dress flaring out. “Not everyone is as obsessed with trousers as you lot.”

  It was certainly true that among many of the peoples that had ended up in Viyara, the men wore some sort of tunic or robe. But the dress Vai wore was a very definitely female piece of clothing by anyone’s standards, and it was a little frightening how good he was at moving in it. Not to mention how feminine his slim neck and high cheekbones were capable of looking.

  But if the Night Game realized that Paris was bringing the King of Cats to their party, things would get very unpleasant very quickly. Vai was the one who had come up with the idea, and who actually had to wear the disguise, so Paris couldn’t very well object on the grounds that he was feeling a little uncomfortable.

  “At least neither of you is blindfolded,” said Romeo, who was gripping Paris’s arm so that he didn’t walk into walls.

  “Blindfolds are much more comfortable than masks,” said Vai.

  Paris rubbed at the edge of his mask. Vai had gotten it for him; it was made of blue-painted leather, nice enough material and reasonably broken in, but subtly molded for someone else’s face. He’d thought it would be a relief wearing a mask again, but now it just made him remember all the ways in which he wasn’t a worthy Catresou anymore.

  But there was no time for regrets; they were making their way to the Night Game. Vai had stolen the invitation from Meros’s study, Paris had flushed all over with shame because there didn’t seem to be anyone in his clan who cared about zoura, and now they were on their way to the meeting place.

  It was a nook between two buildings, beside a little fountain that dripped water unenthusiastically from a lion’s-head mouth. They only had to wait a few minutes before their escort
appeared: three men in dark clothing, unmasked, their faces bland and unmemorable, drawing with them a small carriage with no windows.

  “Invitation?” asked one of the men, and Vai handed over the piece of creamy paper.

  The moment that the man spent examining the invitation seemed to go on forever. Paris wondered what would happen if the man realized it was stolen: would he attack them, or only turn them away?

  Did he work willingly for the Night Game, or was he one of the living dead? What color would he bleed?

  “Get in the carriage,” said the man, handing back the invitation, and Paris felt dizzy with relief.

  They climbed inside. Because there were no windows, they weren’t blindfolded, but that still left them in utter darkness as they jostled through the streets.

  Their destination turned out to be a house in one of the richer neighborhoods. It was made of pale stone, with the faces of all nine gods carved into its facade. A footman answered the door; when Vai presented the invitations, he drew the door wide to reveal a hallway with a red-and-gold floor, and three guards. Paris strongly suspected that there were also guards behind them, hidden in the shadows of the garden.

  The footman led them past the guards and down a narrow, twisting stairway. It was impossible not to imagine that they were descending into the land of the dead.

  Then they reached the bottom of the stairs, and it was—if not like the land of the dead—like another world.

  The room was huge, and round, and hung with red-and-gold tapestries. To one side of the room, musicians played a slow, elegant dance; on the opposite side sat an iron cage full of men and women and children, all blindfolded. They also all seemed to have been drugged; none were trying to escape, and some had curled up to sleep, while others sat with heads lolling to one side.

  In the center of the room danced a crowd of lavishly attired guests who all wore masks—huge, elaborate masks decorated with strings of beads and sheaves of feathers. That part, at least, should have felt familiar to Paris, but there was something slightly off about the way that the masks were shaped and decorated. He could tell that none of them had been made by a Catresou, and that made the whole scene feel even more like a nightmarish fever dream.