The Burning City (Spirit Binders) (5 page)

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Authors: Alaya Dawn Johnson

BOOK: The Burning City (Spirit Binders)
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Yes.
There was not much purchase for love, she supposed, after that sort of betrayal. So she had left, and he must still think he was better off without her. She turned away from the ocean, wiped her eyes, and continued on her way. The fire temple was in the third district, a long enough walk from the eastern edge of the fourth that she should have hired a rickshaw or flown, but she did neither. She was afraid her flight over the city might cause a riot, and she hated the expressions on the faces of those forced to serve her. Better to see the city and breathe its sooty air.
The third and fourth districts were still strictly under the Mo’i’s control, but rebels had managed to turn whole neighborhoods of the first district into a battlefield. There were three checkpoints on her walk to the fire temple, manned by stone-faced types from the Mo’i’s own personal guard as well as new conscripts drawn from throughout the city. Their uniforms were the bright orange of ground turmeric, which made them easy to identify—and easy targets. Their faces barely flickered as they waved her through, as though she were just another Esselan. She had seen them harass and search the other pedestrians in a way they would never dare with her. There were some benefits to being a black angel.
She came upon the fire temple sooner than she would have liked. Neither of her previous visits had yielded anything more than an abiding frustration with the head nun and a conviction that everyone she spoke with hid secrets from her. Not that these necessarily had anything to do with her mother or Akua, but everything she learned pointed back, in some way, to the fire spirit.
That woman was there again, sitting out front in one of the gardens with her baby, when Lana walked up to the main entrance. The baby gurgled and laughed, but the woman had left her shirt off so the child could find her way back to the breast if she so chose. It was a large, beautiful baby with olive skin and dark red hair—the color of cooling lava, Lana thought unexpectedly, and then nearly made the sign of warding.
The woman caught Lana staring and nodded coolly. Her arms were stiff, as though she were afraid, but she didn’t grip the child to her breast or call out.
“What’s her name?” Lana asked, just to set the woman at ease.
“Lei’ahi,” she said. The baby, apparently sensing its mother’s distress, stopped gurgling and looked at Lana. Her expression—curiously, if such a young child could even be said to have an expression—was nearly as quiet and wary as her mother’s.
“I’m not sure if she likes you, black angel.”
Lana felt a sad smile curving her lips. “And no reason why she should.” That baby couldn’t be much older than the eruption itself.
Lana looked at the woman more closely, startled. Of course. That accent, her constant presence at the fire temple. Her identity should have been obvious, just from the rumors. The Mo’i’s child, it was whispered, had been birthed in the flames of his folly. Lei’ahi. Daughter of fire.
“Good day, Nahoa,” Lana said, and walked into the temple.
Makaho, the head nun, was waiting to greet her. “Ana,” she said, bowing low, so that her breasts lightly smacked against each other. “To what do we owe this honor?”
The woman was old, and her face seemed to have grown crueler with age. Lana could deal with bad temper alone, but Makaho set her teeth on edge with an obsequiousness that barely masked her unscrupulous cunning.
“I’d like to ask you more questions about that woman I’m searching for.”
“But, Ana,” she said, “as I told you before, neither I nor anyone at my temple has ever seen a one-armed woman of that description. You would be the first to know if our paths should ever cross. . .”
Lana pursed her lips against a sharp reply. “Perhaps you never saw her, but it’s possible someone else at the temple did. I have it on strong authority that Akua did have some contact with the fire temple just before the eruption, and that she might bargain with it still.”
Makaho narrowed her eyes. “On what authority, if I may be so bold?”
“A geas.”
“A witch, too? And I’d taken that for idle gossip.”
Well. Lana could play that game as well. She kept her voice pleasant. “You mean to tell me you have never spilled a little blood for power?”
“It defiles Konani’s sacrifice for his officiants to spill for any other.” Her frown reflected perfect piety.
“Perhaps his other servants are not so dogmatic.”
“Ah, yes. Perhaps not. May I assist you with anything else?”
Lana forcibly stopped herself from gnashing her teeth. This woman! Lana knew that her mother’s trail started here. She knew that Akua and this horrible woman had met. And yet she could prove none of it. What was she to do? Don a disguise and follow her around? That would have been unlikely even before she’d received the wind’s gift, and it was impossible now.
“Yes,” Lana said stiffly. “Perhaps you could show me to your stables? I understand that you wouldn’t sully yourself to speak to your laborers, but they might have seen Akua.”
Lana had the deep satisfaction of seeing the head nun’s eyes widen with the shock of a point scored. But then she was all solicitousness.
“Oh, of course. But perhaps it would be best for me to inquire myself and report back to you? The servants, I’m sure you understand, have less of an understanding than I of your. . .peculiar situation. They might panic.”
Oh, she was good. She’d barely spoken to Lana, and yet had managed to ferret out her singular vulnerability. Everyone was afraid of her, from the baby in the courtyard to old women in the streets. And she hated to force her presence on people who despised her. But in this case, she would.
“I don’t care if I start a riot,” Lana said. “They’ll speak to me.”
Makaho paused and then inclined her head. The stables were secreted to the side of the temple, hidden by dense foliage and cracking garden walls. The fire temple had four carriages and several mounts—not half as many as a rich family in Okika, but more than enough for the densely populated Essel. The streets were so narrow that if the rich didn’t want to dirty their feet they made better use of rickshaws or palanquins than horses and carriages. A young girl was shoveling manure while another about Lana’s age was on her back in the packed dirt, adjusting an axle. Both of them scrambled to their knees when they saw Lana and Makaho.
“Get up,” the nun snapped. “The black angel has some questions for you. For all the good it will do her.”
They stood up, but the only one who darted a look at her face was the youngest.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your work,” Lana said, “but I’m looking for someone you might have seen a few days before the great eruption. An older woman, with olive skin and graying hair. Her right arm is missing.”
The older girl shook her head slowly. “I apologize, Ana. I never saw anyone like that.”
The nun smirked, but Lana wondered if she detected the faintest hint of relief. “There. You see? I suggest you try another corner of this city for your search, Ana. There are many other places fire is worshiped besides this humble temple.”
Lana was about to concede defeat as gracefully as possible, when a slight movement from the younger girl caught her eye. She hadn’t answered, had she? And yet Lana thought it likely that the presence of the head nun would stifle any information the girl might have to give.
“Then I’d appreciate if you could spare a carriage to send me home.”
Her smirk turned into a full grin. “Of course. Uele’a will see to it. Now, if you’ll excuse me. My duties are numerous in these trying times. I trust you won’t hesitate to ask if you require anything else.”
After the nun left, Lana tried to think of a discreet way of taking the young girl aside, but it turned out she had no need. The girl approached her after the older one led the harnessed carriage outside.
“You wanna know about that lady?” the girl said softly.
“Have you seen her?”
The girl clucked her tongue. “Great black angel like you’s gotta have a lot of kala.”
Lana would have admired her cunning, if not for her frustration over this added delay. She fished into her pocket, pulled out the handful of half-kala coins she had left, and tossed them in the girl’s outstretched palm. “You want more,” she whispered, “come to the fourth district and find me later. But tell me now what you know.”
The girl stared boldly at Lana’s wings, then straight into her face. Lana bore it. Even this awed scrutiny was better than fear. “The woman with one arm? Yeah, I seen her. She came late at night, a few days before the blow. The old bag met her, but I woke up because Sweetstraw was nervous. The day of the blow, Uele’a was supposed to drive her carriage, but I had to do it because she got sick. Your woman picked up someone else down at the market and I took them to the docks. They went on some merchant ship. That’s where I saw Nui’ahi. Right there, by the water. And I thought, you know, how could something like that be so pretty? That’s what you’re like, isn’t it? Just like that.”
Something the girl said resonated. “She picked up someone in the market? Who? What did this person look like?”
“A woman. I didn’t see her real well. But she was younger than the one-armed lady. And darker, like you. She was buying some pomegranates, I know, cause they fell out of her bag.”
Lana realized she was trembling and bit her lip to stop. It was suspicious enough, interrogating the girl like this. She couldn’t let her know she’d learned something important. “Find me this evening,” she said again. “Fourth district, near the docks. Ask anyone. They’ll know where to find me.”
The carriage was ready, and the older one looked at the two of them anxiously. Lana shook her head and made a show of seeming disappointed. “I suppose that couldn’t be the one I’m looking for, then,” she said loudly as she climbed into the carriage. “It’s too bad.”
The older girl relaxed her shoulders. Lana closed the door before her face could reveal any of the triumph she felt.
Lana dozed on the roof of the boarding house, only waking when the sun gave way to the nearly full moon. She stretched and looked blearily at the streets below. Even this far from the volcano, the marks of its eruption were unmistakable. Aside from the omnipresent ash, there were simply more people visible everywhere. Those made homeless by the disaster huddled in makeshift shantytowns near the docks. They begged and worked for what money they could, and their haggard, dirty faces had become as much a backdrop of the ravaged city as its blackened buildings and piles of cooled lava. Lana shivered—she knew how lucky she and her father had been. They had money and a place to live far from the center of destruction. If not for her black wings, if not for the constant ache of her missing mother, Lana thought they might well have been able to pretend that nothing much was wrong at all.
The air was chill on her skin, but it was so lovely out here with the stars for company. She was blissfully alone. Even the death had faded away entirely, as it had done occasionally ever since the eruption. Her current protective geas was steady enough for now, but she knew that wouldn’t last much longer. She would have to think of some other way to bind it. She could do so easily enough with Akua’s bone flute, but felt terrified at even the thought. She shook her head. Her father wasn’t going to like the new scars that a death binding would likely require.
She had finally gathered the energy to climb down when a rattling sound, too close, startled her. She nearly stumbled over her wings before she could peer over the edge of the roof. A tiny figure was hurling something. Pebbles.
“Black angel,” the figure called. “I came like you asked.” A girl’s voice, and not very hard to place, at that. Lana smiled.
“Then I’ll come down for you,” she said. Why not give the girl a show? She looked to be about eleven, young enough to be awed by her power but not cowed by it.
Lana unfurled her wings and launched herself into a lazy updraft blowing in off the ocean. It felt so good to fly after so long, to stretch out the muscles that had gone stiff from disuse. She found herself climbing higher and laughing. Her back ached and burned, but even that felt perversely marvelous. She always forgot the simple joy of flying. Like diving in some ways, though it replaced the silence and teeming life of the ocean with the wind’s shrieking voice and endless distance. She spiraled as though she could reach the moon and then turned and plummeted. She caught a current just in time, spreading her end feathers as wide as they could splay, and letting her sore muscles take the brunt of her sudden descent. She landed with barely a noise in front of the girl, who was grinning in unmitigated delight.
“How’d you get those wings, black angel?” she asked. “Can anyone have them?”
“No,” she said, and something in her face made the girl take a step back.
The girl swallowed. “So, you promised me a reward.”
Lana gave a rueful smile. If only she’d been half as bold as this girl when she was that age. She took her back inside the apartment. Kapa seemed surprised to see Lana’s young guest, but smiled gamely.
“What’s your name?” Lana asked the girl.
“Sabolu,” she said. “You gonna give me the money?”

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