The Kingdoms of Dust (16 page)

“Khalil?” Her whisper caught in her throat. “Mother said not to disturb you, but—”

No response, not even a snore. She clenched tingling hands. Had he died in his sleep? Nerium would have known. Wouldn’t she?

Melantha crept first to the window, tugging one curtain aside. Shapes resolved in the gloom, familiar lines and unfamiliar: the same old desk and shelves full to bursting; a new chair; the bed had been moved away from the wall. At the floor at its foot rose stacks of…bricks?

“Khalil?” She drew back the hangings, her throat tight and dry. He couldn’t be dead. She would smell it—

She touched the hand folded on his chest and let out a harsh breath of relief. Cool and dry and papery, but not cold. When she eased two fingers against the bone of his wrist, a faint pulse answered. But so weak, so slow.

“Khalil, wake up. It’s me.” He often lost track of her names and usually called her
child
—she loved him enough to abide it.

Once, when she was very young, she’d asked if Khalil was her father; her mother said no. Years later she realized the tightness around Nerium’s eyes when she said it was one of her few tells. By then it was obvious that her mother would never tell her the truth, and she had decided it didn’t matter—she loved Khalil regardless.

It still didn’t matter. Kneeling beside him, his hand limp in hers, watching the faint rise and fall of his breast, nothing mattered but the pain in her chest. She loved him, and he was nearly gone.

She laid her head on the bed, only to recoil from the stench of myrrh. The sheets might have been soaked in it. In fact, she thought they had been. His robes, as well. Peering closer, she saw his usual gold earrings had been replaced with amber, and more chunks of resin were woven into his long white braid. His hands curled over a fist-size chunk of it. As always, she expected the stuff to dent at her touch, but it was hard and slick, neither warm nor cool. The bricks stacked by the bed weren’t clay or stone, but rock salt.

Melantha backed away, scrubbing her hands on her trousers. She might be kamnur beneath all her shadow tricks, but she had studied as much thaumaturgy as any mage. Amber and salt and myrrh were preservatives—if she searched the bedclothes, she’d likely find honey as well.

She felt the shifting darkness that heralded Kash, but didn’t look up until one clawed hand settled on her shoulder.

“Don’t look,” he said, drawing her gently around. “This is not for you.” She couldn’t tell if his care was mocking or not.

“This is my mother’s work.” She had to tilt her head to meet his gaze, all the more unsettling when he was close enough to embrace. “What is she doing?”

“I am forbidden to speak of it.”

“Damn you!” She slapped his chest. “I’ve sworn the same vows she has! I need to know.”

“Actually, you haven’t.” His second set of hands enfolded hers, pressing it to his hollow breast. Now the mockery was clear. She tried to pull away, but his grip was cold and unyielding as iron. “You swore to protect the order, its secrecy and its goals, with your life.
She
swore to keep the sleepers bound, to protect the world from them, no matter the cost. As for needing to know, I imagine that you do. But I am still forbidden to speak of it. And forbidden to let you intervene. Luckily, I wasn’t ordered to report your intrusion. Not in so many words.” He winked, an ashen membrane sliding sideways across his eye. “All the same, you should leave.”

She tugged again and this time he released her. Her fingers tingled bloodlessly where he’d held them.

“This is madness.”

“Is it?” His wings lifted in a shrug, all his usual caustic scorn returned. “The vagaries of the mortal mind are lost on me, I’m afraid. You’re all mad to me.”

Melantha fled, and his laughter chased her.

I
n the dream, Isyllt fought her way through a crowded night market, pushed and elbowed by shoppers who looked past her as if she were a ghost. The pain of each shove against her bruised back indicated otherwise. The bazaar was packed wall-to-wall, and the roar of voices rose like a whirlwind.

Ahead she saw Moth through the forest of shoulders and arms and veiled faces, farther away with each glimpse. Isyllt called to her, but her voice was lost in the din of the storm. She tried to run but the press closed tighter around her; she reached for magic to force the crowd back, but her hands were bare and inside her was only a hollow place where her magic should be.

A merchant leaned across his table, exhorting her to buy a chicken. She ignored him, but he shook a black cockerel and a sudden rush of black feathers blinded her. Iridescent darkness sliced her face like glass knives and she stumbled and fell.

Feather-knives vanished, and she knelt alone and bleeding on a dusty street. The noise of the market receded behind her like the distant rush of the ocean. Moth watched her from an alley mouth, on the threshold of a greater shadow. A woman stood beside her, veiled all in black, one hand resting on Moth’s shoulder.

Isyllt stood, shaky and aching, but the air held her like cold honey when she tried to step forward. Her voice locked tight in her throat.

The woman drew back her veil, revealing Kiril’s face, cold and lifeless. Bloodless lips parted, but Moth’s voice spoke from them.

“I don’t love you.”

Isyllt woke with a jolt, her stomach roiling with the juddering lurch of the carriage. Sweat soaked her shirt and stung in the healing scratches on her face. Her heart beat hard in her throat, and her chest ached with each breath.

Siddir leaned back against the far side of the coach, a pillow held before him like a shield. “Wake up,” he said, in the cautious tones one might use on an animal or a madman.

She shuddered, shoving at the cushions that entombed her. The muscles in her back felt as if they’d been knotted and dried in the sun. “Sorry,” she said at last, tongue thick and sticky in her mouth. “Dreams.”

“I know.” The words held a world of understanding. He passed her a water skin. “Drink. You can sweat to death even in the shade.”

Whose faces did he see in dreams? What voices called to him? She nearly asked, but drank instead. The water was tepid, but it rinsed the salt-sour taste of sleep from her mouth and the clinging web of dreams from her mind.

Siddir drew back the curtains, letting in dust and warm afternoon light. “We’re here.”

Once Ta’ashlan was the Nahil Oasis, a shining green pool amidst the sweep of red sand and scrub, a gathering place for wild goats and jackals and the spirits who rode the desert winds. The green and wet drew men as well, who brought roads and walls and still more men. Now it was the largest city in Assar, home to the Lion Court and the Cathedral of the Sun, with five hundred thousand people packed within its walls. Merchants came from all across the empire to trade; pilgrims came for the blessings of the Illumined Chair; scholars and sorcerers came to study at the university. The Nahil was now a covered well, half forgotten in the center of the crumbling Garden Quarter, and the city’s water ran through the great arching aqueducts and underground qanats that ran between the Nilufer and the Ash.

The carriage turned east onto the aqueduct road, a ribbon of dust unwinding behind it as it descended into the shallow Valley of Lions. Great sandstone arches stretched to either horizon, carrying water between the two rivers and beyond. Grass and trees grew in their shade, green with stolen moisture, vivid amid so much dry earth.

Isyllt sat beside Asheris on the driver’s bench, squinting against the wind at the city below. She had known it was far older than Erisín, and far larger, but the width and breadth of its sprawl still impressed her. Buildings crowded together, brown and pale and square as sugar crystals. Domes and spires rose gleaming above the maze of streets—green and cerulean and white. Shouting over the rattle of hooves and wheels, Asheris pointed out landmarks: the palace’s gold and crimson dome and green lawns; the university’s latticed stone observatory tower; the cathedral, with its twin gold-chased spires—the Pillars of the Sun.

The sun sank behind them, throwing their shadow long against the stones of the road and paving the sky with carnelian and amber. Dusk washed the walls of Ta’ashlan not blue and violet, but a warm sepia red.

They neared the western gate when the first peal of a bell carried through the heavy air. Voices rose from distant temples, from houses, from guard stations along the wall. Thousands of voices lifting together, slow and sonorous as the sunset. The force of it washed over Isyllt, prickling her skin with its power.

Asheris hissed in pain, doubling over on the bench. The horses snorted and sidled at their driver’s distress and the carriage tilted alarmingly to one side. Isyllt slid, clutching at the edge of her seat and the side rail. She heard a thump from inside the coach, followed by Siddir’s muffled curse.

Heat rolled off Asheris in waves and she smelled scorching leather as she grabbed the lines. His white-knuckled grip didn’t loosen; when she finally yanked them free, the straps came away smeared with blood and sweat and flaking char. The horses were no happier with the reins in her hands—she was an adequate rider at best, and had no experience with carriages. She thanked several saints when Adam drew his mount alongside the team, catching the left front horse’s harness and drawing all four to a stamping, lather-slick halt.

“Asheris!” Isyllt grabbed his clenched fist, wincing as she leaned into his heat. She tried to tilt his face toward hers, but jerked away as a blister rose on her palm. The padded leather beneath them was crisping, the wood behind beginning to scorch. She reached for him again, only to be blinded as flaming wings burst free of his back. A horse screamed; Adam swore.

Warding herself against the heat, she grabbed the front of Asheris’s robe in both hands and hauled, pushing him over the rail. The impact drew a breathless shout from him; it sounded like a raptor’s shriek. She followed him over the side, jarring back and shoulder and ankles. And thank the Black Mother herself they were alone—she didn’t know how she’d explain this to passersby. In a fair fight Asheris would outmatch her, but distracted as he was by pain and fire, she dragged and shoved him off the road and into the ditch.

“Asheris! Damn it, listen to me!” Straddling his chest, she slapped him once, hard and sharp. His eyes snapped open, but nothing human looked out at her, nothing sane. His skin scalded her, his sweat drenching both of them. Four burning wings beat frantically, searing grass and weeds. He shrieked again and a eagle’s head rose from the man’s like steam—its wicked beak snapped an inch from her ear, and Isyllt was just as happy not to know if it was solid.

The jinni would burn them both to ash to be free of its prison of flesh, and burn itself out in the process.

Spells of binding rose to her lips, harsh and clipped. If she could have reached the kit in her pocket she might have used salt and silver; without it she had only her will and long training, the cold strength of her diamond. She had bound dozens of ghosts and spirits, but nothing as powerful as a jinni.

Over the stench of nerves and sweat, dust and singing hair, she smelled cinnamon and clove and the turned-earth tang of patchouli.

The eagle receded into the man, sliding and twisting beneath dark skin. Asheris’s burning gaze focused on her, and she’d never seen so much rage and hate on his face before. Not even when he’d tried to kill her.

“Enough!”

He surged beneath her, flinging her backward with inhuman strength. Tears of pain blinded her. She lay still, breathless, staring at the crystalline sunset sky, and waited for him to strike.

Instead he sobbed, crawling through the dirt and weeds to kneel at her side.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. His face was a mask of sweat and smeared dust, eyes flashing white.

“So am I,” Isyllt muttered. “Haven’t we done this already?”

He laughed, the sound tinged with hysteria, and helped her stand. They leaned against each other as they stumbled out of the ditch. The sky had cooled to slate and amethyst behind the towers of Ta’ashlan. The temple bells were silent.

Adam and Siddir stood on the edge of the road, watching the mages and each other simultaneously. Adam’s hand was tight on his sword-hilt, and she caught the flash of Siddir’s dagger as he sheathed it. The spy grimaced apologetically; Adam’s expression didn’t change.

“You’re friends now?” he asked softly, offering her a hand. “I’m glad we’re not that sort of friends.”

She might have blushed, but her blood was busy throbbing in all her burns and bruises.

Asheris leaned against the side of the carriage. The horses snorted, calmer now but still sticky with foam. “I can’t go in there like this. The songs—it feels like they’re flaying me alive.”

“You’ve lived there for years. What’s happened now?”

“Ten years,” he said, scrubbing a hand across his face. “Ten years like this. And I don’t know.” She’d never heard such despair in his voice, either. She preferred the rage. “Maybe I’ve finally run mad, as all demons must.”

Isyllt felt Adam tense beside her, only the faintest shifting of weight to betray his surprise. She had never told him—Asheris was worn thin indeed to speak of it openly.

“I’ve known more mad demons than sane ones, but I’m not convinced it’s an inescapable fate. In the meantime, though, I would prefer not to spend the night on the side of the road. If you try to burn the palace down, I’ll stop you again.”

Asheris’s eyes narrowed, and sparks glowed in their depths. “I’ll try to restrain myself then, lest I be subjected to further bindings.”

They rode slowly to spare the horses; they rode in silence to spare themselves. The moon had risen pale and ghostly when they reached a narrow side gate into the palace, and Asheris had collected himself enough to get them quietly past the guards. Siddir vanished once they were inside.

Asheris led Isyllt and Adam across darkened lawns and paths lined with rustling date palms. She smelled gardens and kitchens and stables, glimpsed carven trellises and light glowing through keyhole windows, but they didn’t pause long enough for her to appreciate the scenery or get her bearings. Granite glittered in dim lamplight as they passed through arching corridors and columned arcades. Distant laughter and conversation drifted through the halls.

Asheris cornered the first servant they passed, giving her a long set of instructions that sent her hurrying off in the direction they’d come. Another series of corridors and walkways led them to a dark wing that smelled of plaster and sawdust. From the depth of the silence, Isyllt guessed they were far from the central hub of the palace.

“Renovations,” he said apologetically as they passed scaffolding and stacked lumber. “But at least you’ll have privacy.”

“And it’s out of the way if more assassins come.”

“That too.”

He opened a door at the end of the hall and ushered them into a dark suite that smelled not of dust, but of long disuse. Stillness radiated from the plaster walls, the kind born of the absence of people.

“I must report to the empress,” Asheris said, kindling a lamp. “Your luggage will be brought, and food. Wait here, please, until I come for you.”

With her nodded agreement, he was gone.

Adam and Isyllt stood in the warm circle of light. After a moment Adam shrugged and found a second lamp, and began to inspect the rooms.

Wide and high-ceilinged: They would have been airy with the shutters open. The walls were pale plaster, the arching doors and windows crowned with stucco friezes. Blue-veined marble tiles covered the floor. The only furniture was a cedar wardrobe, a table with a single chair, and a low bed shrouded in netting. A smaller set of rooms adjoined the first, just as clean and empty.

The brief tour complete, Adam paused in the doorway. The lamp haloed his spiky hair in gold and painted his face with shadow. “What he said on the road…You knew.”

“Yes.”

“And you trust him, even so?”

“I do. And he trusts me even more to bring me here, knowing what I do.”

Adam sighed. “Always secrets.”

“You should have gone to the mountains,” she said as he turned. She meant it to tease, but the words came out flat and bitter.

He paused, his broken-nosed profile against the light. “I should have. But I didn’t.”

His tone was not soft, precisely, or gentle, but it conjured a not-entirely-unpleasant fluttering sensation in the pit of her stomach. If she’d been less tired, perhaps, less filthy and reeking of horse and sweat—

“Rest,” Adam said, a smile hooking one corner of his mouth. “I’ll wake you if more assassins show up.”

Isyllt woke to the smell of food and a soft
otherwise
touch. The food kept her from starting out of bed at the intrusion; killers rarely brought breakfast.

She couldn’t remember falling asleep—she’d only lain down a moment to rest. The bed creaked as she stirred: a wooden frame and leather straps held the reed mattress off the floor. To let air circulate, she assumed, and to keep stray insects from crawling over one’s toes.

The lamp still burned on the table, sharing the space now with a tray of food. Asheris sat in the chair, clean and freshly dressed, her luggage piled beside him.

She cocked an indignant eyebrow. “Watching me sleep?”

“Not long. I can’t keep the food warm forever. Don’t worry—you don’t drool much.”

She snorted, pushing herself up. She’d fallen asleep fully dressed, and now sand lined the creases in the sheets. More scraped inside her clothes and itched in her hair.

“I took the liberty of drawing a bath. I’ll find you servants who aren’t too squeamish of necromancers, but it may take more than a few hours’ notice.”