The Burning City (Spirit Binders) (6 page)

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Authors: Alaya Dawn Johnson

BOOK: The Burning City (Spirit Binders)
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Lana looked up at her father and shrugged. “Could you give Sabolu some kala, Papa? I promised her for helping me.”
He took a few stone coins from his pockets and handed them to her. “Where are you from, Sabolu?” he asked.
Sabolu shrugged. “Dunno. Here, I guess. My parents never said and they died ages ago. You eating catfish?”
Lana looked and saw, indeed, that her father had brought back a meal of fish and taro mash. Kapa spread his arms. “Would you like to join us?”
Sabolu grinned and dashed over to the table. Lana looked at her father fondly. “Soft heart,” she whispered. He just shrugged.
“I see lots, black angel,” Sabolu said, when she’d stuffed herself. “You want, I can come back here and tell you if I hear more about that one-arm witch and the old bag.”
Well, she could certainly use an unobtrusive ear in that den of secrets. “If you hear anything else interesting, we’ll pay you for it. But I don’t want you to get yourself in trouble. Don’t do anything too dangerous.”
She shook her head. “No one notices the stablegirl.” She left soon after, and Kapa sat silently before the remains of their meal, frowning.
“What is it, Papa?”
“That girl. . .she’s so young. Are you sure you should use her like this?”
“She practically begged me, you saw.”
“Still. . .”
“Papa.” She made her voice hard. “Do you want me to find Mama or not? Sabolu is the only one who’s seen her.”
Her father didn’t argue, but he didn’t meet her eyes the rest of the night.
 
Nahoa sent for Kohaku the afternoon after she spoke with the black angel. Her daughter’s reactions mirrored her own feelings for the infamous woman quite accurately, as it turned out. Ambivalence, but perhaps a glimpse of someone she might like. She certainly liked how the black angel had left Makaho in a lather after their encounter. Why, the head nun had been so distracted and frenzied that Nahoa nearly had a delivery boy send the black angel some mandagah jewels in gratitude.
“The stablegirls, indeed!” she heard Makaho mutter as she stalked to the privy.
And so fortified, she sent word to the Mo’i that she would be willing to meet him on the grounds of the fire temple in a private room an hour before sundown. She came armed with the list Pano had given her the previous morning. He had claimed they were all innocent, but she wasn’t as naive as all that. Pano and his people were fighting an armed resistance, and she knew civilians numbered among its casualties. Though she had firsthand knowledge of her husband’s cruelty, she wasn’t sure how she felt about the costs of resisting it.
Makaho seemed quite ambivalent herself that afternoon, when one of her servants finally deigned to mention what Nahoa had conveniently forgotten to tell her: that after two months of begging, the Mo’i would be allowed to see his estranged wife and daughter.
“It was very irresponsible of you not to tell me, dear,” Makaho said, with that syrupy tone and fake smile that turned her face into a death’s head of wrinkles.
Nahoa grimaced and contrived to sound both stupid and contrite. “I’m sorry, Makaho. I didn’t know you’d care.”
Makaho’s smile grew even wider. “I care about your welfare, dear.” Nahoa heard the subtext:
I care about your powerful husband.
“I hope you’re not considering going back to him.”
I hope you’re not thinking of removing yourself from our power.
Nahoa shook her head and did not have to feign her frightened earnestness. “No, of course not. I only thought. . .it’s been two months, and he hasn’t even seen his daughter. At least I could do that for him?”
Makaho sighed, apparently satisfied that Nahoa was firmly hers. “I suppose. And it will be good for him to see that you are well.”
It will solidify our hold over him.
“Yes,” Makaho said, visibly warming to the idea. “I think it will do quite well. Only you must keep someone in the room with you the whole time. For your own safety. Malie perhaps?”
Nahoa clenched her teeth but managed to blush. She had grown used to the servants constantly monitoring her behavior in the temple, but for this she had to be alone. Perhaps Malie herself was involved with the rebels, but she couldn’t be sure. “I’m sure I will be safe enough, Makaho. I don’t intend to go back to him, of course not, but he is my husband and it has been quite a long time. . .”
The head nun stared at her for so long Nahoa thought she could feel sweat beading on her forehead. Playing stupid was flaming exhausting. Only Ahi’s sleeping weight reminded her why she was doing this.
Then Makaho grinned and Nahoa knew she’d won. “Well, that’s understandable, my dear. Perfectly understandable. We’ll just leave a guard stationed outside the room for your. . .privacy. Just call out if you need anything.”
Nahoa knew that these guards would be listening quite carefully through the bamboo-reed walls, but so long as no one was physically in the room with her she ought to be able to contrive to send Kohaku the message.
She was so giddy with her victory, and Ahi so perfectly content against her breasts, that she forgot to be nervous until the temple guards led her to the meeting room. Then, her heart began to pound so loudly that Ahi wiggled uncomfortably against her chest. What would Kohaku say? When he tried to convince her to return, would she be tempted? Because—despite everything—Nahoa missed her husband. She remembered how he had been on the ship when they returned to Essel, and the gentleness with which he had always treated her. Her ma would say this mess was all her fault for falling in love too quickly, and Nahoa was inclined to agree with her. What had she known of Kohaku before she had married him? Only that he was educated, and some tragedy had befallen him that led him to offer himself as a sacrifice to the fire spirit.
She hadn’t known about his sister, who died trying to rid herself of a baby. Her married lover, a famous Kulanui professor named Nahe, hadn’t much cared about the safety of the potion he procured to get rid of it. She hadn’t known of Kohaku’s expulsion from the Kulanui after he attempted to confront Nahe. Would she have fallen for him if she had? He had a kind smile, but his earnestness had masked an implacable, even paranoid need for revenge. But maybe she still would have wanted him. He was so unlike anyone else she had courted, so learned and sure of himself, despite the tragedies in his life.
And if she had not loved him, she wouldn’t have Ahi.
Kohaku entered the room before Nahoa was ready, when she had relaxed just a bit and offered Ahi her breast for the third time that hour. She could have sworn her heart stopped when he stepped through the door. He froze a few feet away from her, as though similarly stricken. He looked much thinner than the last time she had seen him, older and more careworn. And yet he had a new air of maturity that she didn’t remember. It made her want to study his eyes and run her fingers through his russet hair to comfort him.
“Nahoa,” he said, his voice rough, and Ahi tore herself from her mother’s breast as though startled.
Nahoa flushed and turned her daughter around so she could see her father. She seemed immediately delighted with him, which made something twist deep in Nahoa’s belly.
“You can go,” she said to the guard, who merely nodded and backed out of the room, sliding the screen door shut behind him. They had the appearance of privacy at least.
Kohaku repeated Nahoa’s name and then, moving as jerkily as a gasping fish, knelt on the cushions across the table from her.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
She bit her tongue and looked away, dangerously close to tears. She had been afraid that this would happen.
“Lei’ahi,” she said softly, lifting her daughter onto the low table. “Here’s your father. Would you like to greet him?”
Ahi was too young to crawl, so she sprawled with evident happiness on her belly, oblivious to the tension taut as a rope between her parents. Kohaku looked at his daughter for the first time in either of their lives and smiled at her with a tenderness that made Nahoa rub her eyes furiously. Why had she fallen in love with a doomed man who had sold his soul for survival? Why couldn’t they have met earlier, before his sister died, before he became destitute and homeless, before he became Mo’i? Maybe then they could have been a normal couple, with normal problems and normal loves. Instead, she’d become a willing pawn in desperate intrigues in order to hide from him. Instead, her daughter was growing without a father.
Kohaku caressed Ahi’s hair, only a shade darker than his own, and let her grab one of his fingers with her chubby hands.
“She’s beautiful,” he said, and Nahoa only nodded because she could not trust herself to speak. He played with Ahi for a few moments more, and then looked at Nahoa until she was forced to meet his eyes.
“Will you come back? Please, tell me you’ll come back.”
“I can’t. You know I can’t, Kohaku. You shouldn’t even ask.”
He looked devastated, although she didn’t know what other answer he could have expected. “Why? Is it because of Nahe? You
know
what he did to me. He used my sister and left her to die, and yet you think I should have let him go free and get old—”
“I don’t think you should’ve. . .”
Tortured him
. “…done what you did to him. It was cruel. Pointless. If you want justice, give them a trial. Don’t toss them in a secret dungeon and string them up. That makes you just as bad.”
His eyes narrowed. “Something tells me we’re not just talking about Nahe.”
“How do I know what you’ve done to the others? Sometimes I don’t think I know you at all. How you could do. . .”
Blood everywhere, and that stench
. She choked. “…that.”
He was furious, but just as aware of the guards on the other side of the door as she, and so kept his voice low. “I love you, Nahoa. I want us to be a family. And you won’t come back because of
politics
?”
“It’s not politics. It’s torture. It’s treating humans the way you wouldn’t treat a dog, that’s what.”
Kohaku laughed, and Ahi made a hiccupping sound like she was about to cry. Nahoa picked her up again. “Politics,” he said again. “You won’t come back because you disapprove of my policy decisions.” He shook his head.
“Chopping people up while they’re still alive is not a policy decision, damn it!”
“And I thought the fire temple was just manipulating you. But here you are, plotting right with them.”
“Will you stop that? You know I’m not plotting anything. You don’t have to be a rebel to think that you’re hurting everyone with these disappearances. With torture.”
“Well,” he said, his voice a strangled whisper, “what would a barely literate sailor know, anyway?”
Ahi began to cry in earnest, breaking into the argument and defusing it. “Shh,” Nahoa whispered, knowing that her daughter could hardly fail to respond to their angry voices.
“Here,” she whispered, letting Ahi’s plaintive wails cover her own voice. She pushed the worn piece of paper Pano had given her across the table. “I may be barely literate, but I can read this well enough. I want you to free these people. All of them.”
He picked up the list and looked it over quickly. “
Not
about politics? Half of these people are known rebels. Or do you think it’s good for the city to fight a civil war two months after 20,000 died in the disaster?”
“No, of course not,” she whispered, and almost wished Ahi would cry louder so she could be sure the guard outside wouldn’t hear. “But don’t you see, Kohaku? This list is half the reason
why
the people are fighting. Act less like a tyrant and maybe they won’t fight you like one. You have judges, you have a court—”
Kohaku slammed his hand on the table, and Nahoa got her wish. Ahi began to wail so loudly that they both winced. “You will
not
lecture me about this. You couldn’t possibly understand. I’m doing all I can to help these people and—”
“Would you like to hold her?” she interrupted. Kohaku looked shocked, but he didn’t object. Nahoa stood and walked around the table so they were seated with barely an inch between them. She handed him the screaming infant, and he managed well enough even with one hand. Ahi began to quiet almost immediately. Perhaps she liked Kohaku’s smell as much as her mother did.
“Nahoa. . .” he whispered.
“Free those people,” she said, even more quietly. “Or I swear you’ll never see your daughter again.”
“One of them. . .the apothecary, Lipa. She helped murder my sister. . .”
Nahoa stared, for she remembered his halting tale of Emea’s death, and even six months ago he had credited the apothecary with doing all she could to save his sister’s life. Now he blamed Lipa for Emea’s death? She’d known he was succumbing to paranoia, but she hadn’t realized how firmly it held him in his grip. Perhaps he truly was insane, like they all said. But all she said was, “Even she. Do you understand?”
And Pano must have understood something about her husband that she didn’t. Kohaku had just called her an illiterate sailor, but now he looked at her mutely and nodded. She had that power over him. “All right,” he said.

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