In the Skin of a Nunqua (26 page)

“But Baylova’s portrait was not of a benevolent queen who rules justly,” Shanti said. “You want me to spare her life so she can lead Willovia by instilling fear in its citizens. I don’t understand.”

“The portrait can change, Shanti.”

“What kind of fortune-teller are you? You show me the future, then tell me it’s not necessarily the future. Everything can change. This information is useless.”

“I show you the pathways; you choose the path. If you do become queen, you must work to avoid the famine, and you mustn’t run away. Please remember that.”

“Why didn’t you die when the owl was killed?” Shanti asked.

“For the same reason Baylova didn’t die when you killed the bats. It’s a simple matter of intent. Baylova wanted to hurt me. She used her power to break my arm, show me her strength, and stop me from interfering in her plans. The guard who killed the owl had no knowledge of my presence in the room. He had no power over me. Understand this, Shanti: to take a human life requires more effort than simply killing a possessed animal.” Madiza rose from the chair, supporting her injured arm. “There’s something important I must share with the Guardians. I suppose it can wait until tomorrow. Good night. Get some rest.”

Madiza left the house, escorted by the burly Guardian, to stay at an inn for the night.

*

Shanti lay on a couch inside Aiden’s family’s house and stared up at the wooden beams in the ceiling. Horrible thoughts of the tunnel, Serova, and the bats swirled in her brain, and she couldn’t sleep. She wished Madiza had hexed her with a sleeping spell before leaving. She also wished she didn’t know the future, the awful possibilities.

Guardians gathered the next day in the home. The burly man told Shanti, “Your saddle and horse are in my stable.”

“I was wondering if I could sell my horse or exchange it somewhere,” she said. “It’s a good horse when it’s not possessed.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” he said.

Guardians, including Aiden, his father, and three other men, congregated around the old woman with the broken arm. “I know who let the Nunqua warriors into the castle,” Madiza said. “The monks have bought rare herbs and spices from the Nunqua for years to make their potions. They use the caves to conduct these secret transactions. These rogue warriors entered through a seldom-used area of the caves. Their superior eyesight gives them an advantage. They had no intentions of harming Baylova; they only wanted to create a reputation for themselves.”

Shanti closed her eyes and leaned against a wall as Madiza droned on. She was tired of such dreadful topics: civil war, famine, kidnapping, death, poisoning, treachery. She left the Guardians and entered the kitchen.

Kiana and Aiden’s sisters were making bread and soup for their guests. An opening in the brick chimney was situated above the fireplace where the bread was being baked. The warm kitchen smelled like dough. “May I help?” Shanti asked.

“Of course.” Kiana gave her an apron.

Shanti rolled up her sleeves and kneaded dough while listening to the girls chat cheerfully about innocuous topics: studies and books and boys and dancing. It had been a long time since she last made bread. Her mother had taught her how to cook when she was a child. It was simple, comforting, and useful—a joyful task that cleansed her spirit, like helping deliver babies.

Shanti patted the soft ball of dough. Flour dusted her hands. Somewhere in life, she had taken a wrong turn, and now she traveled on a path that led only to devastation.

26

Burning Books

J
un limped into
the open-air arena. Tiered benches, some wooden and some carved out of solid rock in the side of a hill, surrounded a flat field with entryways in the north, south, west, and east. It was a filthy hole where most of the spectators, Nunqua men and women, watched in a drunken revelry. Armed warriors guarded the area and watched the show. Two men wrestled in the pit. Plumes of dust rose as their bodies smacked the ground and their feet kicked up dirt. Noisy onlookers placed bets and jeered. Jun would not fight like an animal to appease the Nunqua, and he would not kill a Willovian. He would rather be flogged.

Zindar stood on the other side of the pit and lifted metal balls that fit in the palms of his hands, preparing his muscles to fight. He wore the black uniform of the Nunqua and chatted with the warriors. He appeared clean, well fed, and properly groomed. A sudden fury burned inside Jun.

The wrestling match ended, and Zindar moved to the center of the arena, sword in hand.

General Delartay spoke to Jun. “He challenged you, Willovian. This has nothing to do with the war. Zindar wants revenge for the scars on his back.” A short Nunqua, leather bands around his biceps, gave Jun an ordinary sword. Delartay continued. “Win, and you win food for your tent. Lose, and Zindar will kill you.”

Jun stayed where he was. The short Nunqua shoved him into the pit. Jun could not bring himself to look at Zindar.

“I’ve heard rumors of how good you are with a sword, Commander Jun. Let’s find out.” Zindar swung puckishly at his opponent. Jun blocked the blow but did not fight in earnest. “What’s wrong with your leg?” he chortled through his teeth as he continued fighting. “I heard you hurt your knee trying to escape a jealous husband after he found you and his wife together in bed.”

Their swords clanked. Jun locked Zindar in a sudden arm hold. “Their defenses are weak at the east entrance,” Jun said. “Horses are tied just outside the arena. We can fight the Nunqua and escape if we’re quick enough.”

Zindar’s black boot kicked Jun’s sore knee. He yelled in pain and listened to his opponent once again laugh through his teeth.

“You’re a rapist and a traitor,” Jun said. “And a dead man.”

Jun limped as he exchanged blows with Zindar. He was hungry, tired, yet winning. The audience roared at the display of skill against strength. Jun cut Zindar’s leg. The black uniform gaped open, blood flowing down and obscuring the color of skin. Zindar’s heavy blade swung futilely again and again. Jun sliced open Zindar’s side, the cut not deep enough to kill. He cut Zindar’s back, then his chin, like a cat playing with a mouse. Zindar dropped his sword and raised his hands.

The audience waited for Jun to end the match, hissing at the delay in their entertainment.

Delartay, along with two other warriors, entered the pit. “Either cut his arm or cut his neck, Willovian.”

Jun tossed the sword into the dirt.

“Then I shall do it for you.” Delartay unsheathed his own sword, and the noise of the crowd quieted to an expectant murmur.

“I’m Willovian,” Jun said, “not Nunqua. I will not mark his arm. Zindar is Willovian. I want him brought into the same camp, the same flea-infested tent, where I’m forced to sleep. And I want him wearing the same black uniform he wears now.”

“No!” Zindar reached for his sword on the ground, but a warrior stepped on the blade to stop him.

Warriors forced Zindar out of the arena, and spectators groaned in disappointment, denied the opportunity to witness a gory ending to the death match.

Delartay said softly to Jun, “I do not die so easily as this.”

Jun shuffled back to the prisoner-of-war camp, escorted by warriors on horses, a short chain hobbling his feet. He surveyed the land and Nunqua defenses, trying to deduce a means of escape. They pushed him into the fenced-in camp. Soon after, Zindar was pushed into the same prisoner-of-war camp, weaponless and wearing the black uniform of a traitor.

Warriors found Zindar’s corpse the next morning near the fence, beaten and killed by his own kind, the ruby ring still on his finger.

*

Shanti rode a brown and white paint into the Hedgelands. She entered the secluded camp in the woods and tethered her horse to a tree. Dried leaves had been blown inside the pavilion where the soldiers once ate. Wasp nests clung to the rafters. It was early spring—too cold for the insects to be active. A string hung from the rafters, the tuft of Mr. Pascha’s hair gone, probably taken by birds to line their nests.

Shanti went to the stump in the middle of camp. She traced the grooves of the dragon carved by Aiden, its paint now faded. Things had changed so much in a year, it made her feel old. She took a small knife from her saddlebag and scratched the name “Pirro” into the stump as artistically as she could.

Shanti hiked on the narrow path winding through the woods to the picturesque spot by the stream. The cairn of rocks she had assembled in the fall was still there, although the topmost stone had fallen. She moved the rocks, then stabbed the earth with her knife to loosen the dirt. She dug into the cold ground with her hands, mud scrunching up under her fingernails, and pulled out the blanket—brown now from being buried in the soil for so long. She unwrapped Bayla’s sword, which she had stolen at the obstacle course, hidden under her bed, and buried when she was alone at camp and the other soldiers were gone playing war games. The engraved dragon twisted around the blade, which was still shiny and sharp.

Shanti sheathed the sword and slung it over her shoulder. Two swords now crossed her back in the shape of an X. She knelt next to the cold stream to rinse the dirt from her hands, and a sudden queasiness twisted her gut. She couldn’t bring herself to touch the water.

The strap from the weapon irritated the skin on her collarbone. She tugged the strap away from the bite wound to ease the painful itching, and spread mud on the wound, but it didn’t help. The pocketknife could hack away the scab from the bite wound. Holding the dirt-encrusted blade to her neck, she prepared to scrape it across her skin.

The hole in the ground where the sword had been buried widened, and dirt around the edges fell into the depression. A pale hand emerged—a phantom escaping its hellish abode. Serova crawled out of the pit, her lips black and her dress tattered. She crept toward Shanti, smelling like meat left in the sun too long.

Shanti stabbed Serova with the pocketknife and encountered nothing but air. The hole was only a two-foot pit in the earth. She was alone in the woods, or had she descended into another dimension? Was she having a vision?

She pressed a cold, dirty hand to her scorching hot forehead and prayed for sanity. The journey would be long, and she was very sick. She must find Caravey.

*

“The monks?” Baylova questioned Commander Kyros. She placed her hands on the desk, her abdomen resting against the edge. The skin beneath the fingernails of her left hand was stained black from the poison, as it would always be. Sunlight poured through the windows and created elongated patterns on the floor. Six colorful flags decorated the walls of the room.

“The monks buy rare herbs and medicines from the Nunqua through the caves,” Kyros said.

“It can’t be. I had a vision of warriors at the camp in the Hedgelands when I returned to the castle for my father’s last days. These warriors knew Shanti; I’m sure of it. She’s the traitor who led the Nunqua into the castle—not the monks. Where did you get this information?”

He didn’t want to tell her that the information came from a fortune-teller, communicated to him by Aiden. “My sources have been investigating the matter.”

“Monks? Do you believe this information to be correct?” she asked.

“I do,” he said.

Baylova paced back and forth in front of the desk. “But Shanti was a warrior—
is
a warrior. Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

She stopped pacing. “You don’t know, or you won’t tell me. Where’s the old monk?”

“Imprisoned at the south end of the royal guards’ training grounds.”

“Has he been interrogated?”

The question surprised Kyros. The monk was a fragile old man. “No.”

“Take me to see him, Commander. Let’s ask him what he knows. Bring ten guards at least. We leave now.”

Kyros bowed to her command. He gathered ten of his best guards. With the queen, they rode through the city streets to the prison.

The frail old monk, dressed in the blue robes of a learned man, sat nobly in a Willovian jail cell. Baylova remained outside the cage, flanked by Kyros and the royal guards.

“Is something wrong?” the monk asked.

She grasped the bars, scanning up and down their length. “Why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Help the Nunqua warriors into the castle.”

“You’re mistaken.”

The queen spoke softly, her eyelids half-closed. “You know the castle even better than I do.”

“Baylova, reinstate the order,” the old monk pleaded. “We can work together to defeat the Nunqua. We can save the lives of many.”

“It was you.” Her eyes closed. “I can feel it.”

The monk’s attitude changed, and his lips curled into a snarl. “More will die.” He rose from the hard chair, staying away from the bars and out of reach of Baylova and her guards. “Where’s our brother you so favor? Does he remain at the castle, or has he gone?”

Bayla looked at Commander Kyros. Kyros signaled that the young monk, Tobian, was no longer a guest at the castle.

“My brothers are out there, waiting to return. You have to believe that we act with a sense of duty and responsibility. If you break the ancient pact, then you break Willovia. Accept your fate, or Willovia is doomed. It doesn’t end with me.”

“No, it ends with me. I will have no heirs to appease your bloodlust. The royal line of Willovia dies with me.”

“You need us. Our powers of prophecy are essential to your rule. Reinstate the order!”

“Never.”

“I know many things, Baylova,” he said. “Commander Kyros, would you like to know the future? Would you like to know how you die? I can tell you. Baylova, I can tell you who is loyal to you and who isn’t. Isn’t that important for a monarch to know? What do you say? Reinstate the order, and I’ll tell you everything.” He chuckled from behind the bars, hands clasped in a virtuous posture in front of his chest.

Baylova bent her fingers in the shape of a claw. She lifted her hand over her head, then slashed downward in a startling gesture toward the prisoner.

His laughter increased at her childish behavior—until four deep scratches appeared on the thin skin of his face. Black ooze seeped out of the cuts. He felt the cuts and gaped at the dark fluid on his fingertips. “You’re as evil as your mother.”

“I will make sure you never say anything to anybody, ever again.”

She sliced her clawed fingers sideways through the air. He opened his mouth, and black liquid spattered out. The monk choked on the thick fluid and spat out his tongue. She had cut it off. Disgust overwhelmed everyone in the jail as they watched the old man struggle.

“He will survive,” the queen calmly informed the guards. “I want the monks found,” she said to Commander Kyros. “All twenty of them. Put them in separate jail cells, in separate towns if need be. Find Tobian, and bring him to me. Burn the monastery. Make sure the guards salvage nothing from that building. To do so would bring grave misfortune down on Willovia. I’ll go with you.”

Kyros momentarily looked away from the sputtering monk to acknowledge the queen’s command. He returned his gaze to the spectacle. The inky substance ran down the prisoner’s chin and onto his robes.

The Queen and her guards left the prison. Commander Kyros stayed to watch the old monk try to speak. With an agility that belied his advanced age, the prisoner sprang at him, eyes bulging in hate. His arm reached through the bars to grasp at Kyros’s clothing. Kyros backed away and left the imprisoned monk alone. The old man was now physically unable to enlighten anyone else with his twisted, foreboding secrets.

*

Tobian lurked in the shadows of buildings. He watched as flames consumed the monks’ former residence. His eyes were rimmed in red, and it appeared as if some unknown illness ravaged his once strong body. Every day, he felt weaker without the miraculous potion that could save and enlighten him. He reached into his shirt and touched the last beaker, the only surviving sample of the mystical elixir. No, there was more, but it was walking around in the body of Baylova. Tobian longed for another taste of the future.

Baylova had imprisoned his mentor, set fire to his home, destroyed the vital history books of Willovia. She shouldn’t have burned those books. The queen had too much power and was becoming a tyrant. He must destroy her. He hung his head, and reason fleetingly overtook the power of the spell. He must destroy the potion.

But Tobian could bring himself to destroy neither the queen nor the potion in his pocket. He ran as far as he could, away from the burning building and away from the capital city of Erbaut, but he could not escape his curse.