The Drowning City: The Necromancer Chronicles Book One (32 page)

After they dressed, Suni took them back to the room and found tea and fresher food. Zhirin forced herself to eat rice and
jackfruit; wasting away with grief wasn’t something she could afford to do, not until they were truly safe. She wasn’t sure
she could even imagine that anymore.

They were free to roam the camp, Suni assured them, but Zhirin was happy enough to stay inside. Isyllt was content with silence;
she doubted Jabbor would give her that luxury.

Neither, as it happened, would fate. No more than an hour had passed before voices rose outside and the door opened again.

“A council is gathering,” Suni said. “Jabbor says you’re both to come.”

The rain had returned, drumming on the roof of the long council chamber. Benches and mats lined the edges of the room, and
nearly all of them were taken. The gathered spoke in restless mutters, half drowned by the rain. Zhirin braced herself for
Jabbor’s pity as she sat beside him, but his face was grim and he only squeezed her hand quickly. Voices rose in anger and
curiosity when the Tigers saw them.

“Who are they, Jabbor?” a man called, not quite a challenge.

“Some of you have met the Lady Iskaldur,” he replied. “She offers us aid from Selafai. And more of you know Zhirin Laii, first
daughter of Cay Laii.”

She wasn’t first daughter anymore, she realized, but silently thanked Jabbor for the omission. She didn’t think she could
recount the story yet.

Jabbor cut off the next question with a raised hand. “This isn’t the time. We have something more important to discuss now.
Are we all here?” he asked the guards at the door.

“As many as could be found.”

“Bring her in.”

An expectant hush settled over the crowd. The door opened and Kwan Lhun entered, an armed escort at her back. Her eyes narrowed
as she saw the gathering.

“Damn you, Jabbor. Must we make a circus of this?”

“Tell them.”

Whispers rippled through the room and Zhirin leaned forward. Kwan had been close in Jabbor’s confidences for as long as she’d
known them, high-ranked amongst the Tigers. To see her under guard was unsettling; her hip was bare where her kris should
hang.

Kwan snarled, then shook back her long hair and drew herself straight. “For years now, my cousin Temel and I have been doubling
for the Dai Tranh.”

Voices rose and Jabbor shouted them down.

“We believed the Tigers too soft,” she continued, staring at the wall behind Jabbor. “Too willing to compromise and dance
with the Khas, too unwilling to take the measures necessary for Sivahra’s freedom.” Her gaze shifted to Jabbor, and Zhirin
beside him. “I still believe that.”

Jabbor smiled, though tension tightened his jaw. “I know all about my shortcomings, Kwan. Get to the point.”

Zhirin swallowed, trying not to fidget on the hard bench. She’d always thought that Kwan’s dislike for her was half born of
jealousy; her cheeks stung as she realized her own childishness.

“The point,” Kwan said, biting off the words, “is that I no longer stand with the Dai Tranh. The Tigers may be soft, but the
Dai Tranh goes too far, and means to go further still.”

She turned to face the room, one hand reaching for her absent sword hilt; she tucked her fingers into her belt instead. “The
Dai Tranh found a diamond mine in the forest on the far side of the mountain. The Khas has been harvesting soul-stones for
years, using Sivahri prisoners.”

Voices rose again, louder and angrier. Jabbor couldn’t quiet them, but finally Kwan shouted them down.

“That’s right. And that’s the fury you should feel—but Selei Xian has let her rage madden her. She means to sabotage the mountain
itself and let its fire destroy the mine and the Kurun Tam. The others won’t gainsay her.”

“What?” Zhirin’s voice carried in the stunned silence, and her cheeks burned. Kwan turned to face her and she rallied her
wits, pushing herself to her feet. “Never mind the madness of it—they’d burn their own lands as well—but the mountain is warded.”

Kwan smiled. “Oh, yes. But we—they—have someone inside the Kurun Tam. Did you think you were the only one, little mage? They
know about the wards and how to destroy them. The plan is insanity, but I believe they could do it. That’s why I’m here. Lhun
lands will burn, and that I cannot allow.”

Zhirin sat, catching Jabbor’s arm to steady herself. The one thing taught above all other lessons at the Kurun Tam was respect
for the mountain. Vasilios had shown her text after text from the Assari histories, painstaking illuminations of the volcanoes
found in the southern empire and the devastation they caused when they erupted.

The council became an ocean of angry voices, and she used the confusion to explain the conversation to Isyllt. By the time
she’d finished, Zhirin couldn’t tell who was yelling what.

“Enough!” Jabbor finally shouted, his voice carrying from floor to rafters. “Whatever the arguments, do we at least agree
that burning Sivahra is…ill-considered?” The Tigers nodded, a few snorting at his dry tone. “Kwan, how much time do we have?”

“They’ll move tonight. I imagine they’ll stage a distraction for the Khas first. And there’s more. You’ve heard the rumors
of the White Hand? Well, they’re true. The Dai Tranh witches have recruited the unsung dead to fight for them.”

Another silence filled the room and Jabbor spoke before it could erupt. “Then it’s lucky we have a necromancer with us, isn’t
it?”

After breakfast, Selei divided the warriors into groups. The Ki Dai, living and dead, would go to the mountain—it would take
all their witchcraft to break the wards. The rest would provide distractions to keep the Khas and the Kurun Tam busy.

Riuh frowned as they were separated, but Xinai was glad of the reprieve. Between her cramps and the task ahead of her, the
last thing she needed was him lingering at her side, or her mother’s smug and knowing glances.

As the witchless groups began to slip away, a warrior pulled Selei aside for a whispered conversation. A Lhun, Xinai guessed
from his nose and broad cheeks. Not many other clans had joined the Dai Tranh—Lhuns and Khans, a scattering of clanless. And
her.

As she stared at the broken walls and empty houses of Cay Lin, it was hard to share Selei’s optimism. The thought of babies
was foreign, and for all of Riuh’s affection, she had no desire to marry. Not even Adam had made her think of family, and
there had been a time when she’d imagined spending the rest of her life with him. Not that a mercenary’s life was often long.

Not that a revolutionary’s was any longer.

Worry about it later
, she told herself. If they survived the night.

Selei finished talking to the man and shooed the last stragglers out of camp. When they were gone, she turned to the Ki Dai.

“We’ve been betrayed.” She raised a hand to forestall questions. “Not to the Khas, I think, but the Tigers will know what’s
coming.”

Mutters rippled and died and witches exchanged glances. “Do we change the plan?” asked Phailin.

“No. If the Kurun Tam gets wind of it, we won’t get another chance so easily.”

“Do you think they’ll try to stop us?” someone else asked, a boy barely old enough to wear a kris. “The Tigers, I mean.”

“If they do, be merciless. They’ve had opportunity enough to join us, to hear the truth. We can’t let their weakness stop
us now.”

The boy’s throat bobbed as he nodded.

Z
hirin marked the wards on the Tigers’ maps, but after that she was useless as they prepared for battle. She wasn’t as helpless
in a fight as she’d once thought, but she had no gift for strategy. Isyllt stayed with the council, leaving Zhirin to retreat
to their room, where she rubbed her mother’s ring till her fingers ached and watched the light change as it slipped down the
wall.

Jabbor came later in the afternoon, and now his face held all the pity and concern she’d feared. He eased the door shut and
sat beside her, not quite touching. His warmth and familiar wood-sweet scent would have been comforting, had he not obviously
had something to say, something that left him awkward and nervous.

“What is it?” she asked, after a few moments of listening to him draw breath but not speak.

“I—” He swallowed. She’d never seen him so nervous. “I know how hard a time this is for you. I’m sorry.”

She swallowed an unkind reply—his parents had died when he was young. Maybe he did know.

“Thank you,” she said instead. “And thank you for taking us in.”

He shrugged it aside and took her hand, his broad palm engulfing hers. “Zhir, I know this isn’t the best time, but…”

“You want help from Cay Laii? I’ll do whatever I can, but I need to talk to Mau—”

“No, no.” He cut her off as her chest began to tighten at the thought. “I mean, yes, we’d welcome any help Laii can offer,
but that’s not what I want to ask.” His hand tightened on hers, and the heron ring dug into both their flesh. “Zhir, would
you marry me?”

She opened her mouth, closed it again, and turned to stare at him. A lattice of light fell over his face, caught splinters
of gold in his eyes. “Are you—You’re serious.”

“Yes. When this is over. If I don’t get killed by the Dai Tranh or the Khas.” His lips twisted. “Not the best marriage offer,
I know, but will you consider it?”

Would she? Dizzying, to realize that the choice was hers alone. She’d always assumed her mother would make a match for her
when she finished her apprenticeship, had considered it as inevitable as the tide. But now she had no mother, no master. And
now that the Khas knew her loyalties, she had no one to hide from anymore.

Jabbor watched her, brow creasing as her silence stretched. A month ago his proposal would have left her giddy.

“I will,” she said at last. “I mean, yes, I’ll marry you. But I need time, Jabbor. First Vasilios, and now my mother, and
I don’t know what Clan Laii will say—”

“Of course, of course. I don’t want to rush you. I just wanted you to know how I feel, before—”

She nodded and leaned in to kiss him. He wrapped his arms around her and she sank into his warmth. But the cold, hollow feeling
in her chest wouldn’t go away.

The Ki Dai left Cay Lin before dusk, changing their route in case the Tigers were waiting. The gibbous moon had already risen,
a milky ghost through the clouds. Xinai and Phailin had spent the day making charms, weaving owl and night-heron feathers
with night-vision spells. They’d turned to nightjars when they ran out of larger birds, but every witch and warrior with them
could see in the dark now. Safer than smuggler’s lanterns, though they carried those as well.

They could never reach all the wards in one night, but hopefully they wouldn’t need to. If they could destroy enough of them,
the circuit would be sufficiently weakened for Selei’s invocation at the cauldron to work. Or so they prayed.

Xinai tried not to stare at the sullen glow of the mountain as they worked.

She ended up teamed with Phailin and the young boy who’d been reluctant to fight the Tigers. The wards closest to the Kurun
Tam were their task.

The boy, Ngai, might have been too young to shave, but he knew his witchcraft. The three of them picked at the web of magic
until it weakened, then dragged the post from the earth. The spell made a sound like a snapping silk cord as it broke.

They grinned when the first ward fell, but by the third they were sweating from the effort as well as the humidity, and worked
with silent frowns. Closer and closer to the walls of the Kurun Tam they moved, scanning the jungle as they crept from post
to post. Through gaps in the trees, Xinai saw a plume of smoke smudging the sky over the city, nearly lost in the low clouds.
The first distraction was under way.

They were close enough to the Kurun Tam to watch the second begin.

She heard the warning shout first and looked away in time. A heartbeat later flame blossomed inside the walls. Glass buoys
filled with oil made lovely firebombs. The flames had spread by the time they ripped down the last ward. Shouts and cries
and the screams of horses carried from the courtyard.

“Give the signal,” Xinai said, “then let’s get out of here.” Bowstrings twanged from the walls and pistols cracked.

Trembling and sweaty, Ngai unhooked the lantern from his belt and scrambled up a tree, flashing the light when he cleared
the canopy. Though it would be a wonder if Selei would see it against the larger blaze growing nearby.

“Aren’t you coming with us?” Phailin asked as Xinai waved them away.

“I have to meet Selei. Get to safety or join the others.”

The girl nodded and dragged Ngai into the cover of the forest.

Xinai looked up at the moon—nearly midnight. It would all be over by dawn, one way or another. She shook off her fatigue and
began to run.

Even with Kwan’s warning, they arrived too late to save the closest ward-posts. Those along the mountain road had been uprooted,
their spells unraveled. Scraps of magic still flickered around the carven posts; Zhirin thought she could have repaired them
if they’d had the luxury of time.

“There aren’t enough of us for this,” Jabbor muttered.

The Jade Tigers had gathered perhaps a hundred warriors tonight—they guessed the Dai Tranh to have twice that, though how
many were in this White Hand, no one was certain. The Tigers split up to cover more ground and could only hope the Dai Tranh
didn’t travel in larger packs.

Sweat dripped down Zhirin’s back as they climbed, pasted her borrowed shirt to her skin. She took a certain grim comfort in
Isyllt’s ragged breathing and sweat-drenched face; at least she wasn’t the only one not used to so much exercise.

As they drew closer to the Kurun Tam, Zhirin felt movement in the trees around them. Humans, which might be other Tigers or
cautious Dai Tranh, and the quicksilver flicker of spirits. And colder flashes that she thought must be ghosts. Isyllt’s ring
glimmered softly, and the necromancer scanned the woods as they climbed.

They heard the shouts before they crested the last hill and saw the flames. As they scrambled up the slope, Zhirin gasped.
The fire burned inside the Kurun Tam’s walls.