by C. L. Clark
Bastien’s office was sparse compared to the rest of the house. A single desk and chair. A brazier in the back for the cold nights, far from the full but tidy bookshelf. Faintly scented candles lit the room. It smelled like smoking dens in the city.
All of Bastien’s energy uncoiled as he stepped inside. He sprang toward the desk to a book, which he placed, open, in front of Luca. “Oh, sit, do sit,” he added belatedly, pulling the chair out for her.
“The Letters of Doctor Ay-yid as annotated by Dr. Travers. It’s a science text of all things, about medicine! I would never have imagined.” Now that they were crammed into his office, Bastien let his ebullience pour out. “See here,” he said. “Travers points out how heavily medical science in Balladaire was influenced by Qazāl ages ago, with these letters. It was an exchange.”
He waved his hands at the oh-so-dismissible past as if it hadn’t led to precisely this moment swelling in Luca’s chest. The page delineated a medical debate. Dr. Ay-yid, a Shālan doctor, maintained that contracting certain diseases could eliminate or lessen the effect of worse diseases. The annotator, Dr. Travers, was clearly on the side of the unknown Balladairan recipient of Ay-yid’s argument, who claimed that this idea was nonsense. Luca was inclined to agree.
She sat and pushed up her spectacles, searching for what had excited Bastien so. It was easy to find, triple underlined. She saw Bastien’s marginalia first, tight, tidy letters that suited him: Our own birthright, abandoned?? Her heartbeat quickened.
But Bastien had underlined none of the theory. He’d underlined a portion of Ay-yid’s letter farther down, an aside: “This is true. My god has given me the gift of understanding this. If Balladaire and Briga were cursed to lose their gifts, that doesn’t fall upon my head.”
The room was so silent that Luca could hear the tinkle of laughter from the youths outside. She realized she was holding her breath, and yet she couldn’t let it out. Beside her, Bastien was nodding hard.
“Bastien.” Luca ran her fingers over the words again. Pointed to his marginalia. “You don’t think—” This was historical evidence. This was more than a manipulative rebel’s goading.
“I do. I do. Balladaire used to—”
“Have our own magic.” This could be true.
A gasp from the side of the room where Guérin and Touraine stood. Touraine stood rigidly, trying and failing to keep her face neutral. Guérin, however, looked as if she was slowly, finally realizing something. Just like Luca was. Like Bastien had.
Maybe the Brigāni woman had been telling the truth. Luca recalled the tapestries in the rest of the Beau-Sang house. The fields of corn, the orchards. A god of the fields. She looked down at the braided-wheat embroidery on her coat.
“How can we find out more? These letters are from the end of my grandfather’s reign.” And Balladairans hadn’t worshipped a god for centuries. She would have to go back home. The Royal Library, her mother’s private collection—how had she overlooked this?
Bastien shook his head. “Here? Not in Qazāl. The First Library would have to have it, though, don’t you think? It’s old enough to have records—historical, political—something that could tell us—” He caught himself. “Tell you what you want to know.”
Luca pulled herself away from the page, pulled the reins on her heart. “Does anyone else know about this?”
“Of course not.” He flushed a pretty shade of pink. “I thought you might want to explore it on your own.”
Oh, but she did. If she could figure out what had happened to Balladairan magic—she would leave more than a mark on the empire. She would shake its foundations and make Balladaire stronger than ever before.
She met Bastien’s wide blue eyes. His blond hair had flopped into his face again, making him look sweet, hapless, a little lost in his books. Luca knew better. This was a calculated trade.
“Thank you, Bastien. This won’t be forgotten. I’ll take this, if I may.” She gathered up the book. She wanted time to read through it in its entirety for context. She also wanted to keep the original on hand so that it couldn’t be used against her. If she was going to dig even deeper into religiosity, she needed to keep her guard up.
In the future, perhaps she could change Balladairan perceptions of magic and gods. In the future, perhaps she would even be able to use magic.
That thought made her stomach churn a little. Too far, too fast. Small steps first.
She glanced at Touraine, whose mouth was tight, as if she already knew what was coming. No matter what the rebels said, Luca was going to the Second City. She would learn about magic without the rebels’ help.
There were moments that defined empires, that determined how a reign would be remembered. Luca would look back on this day, years later, and know that this was one such moment.
A thousand years ago, the First Library, the Scorpion Library, had been built to stand. Built to protect. In fact, saying it had been built was almost a lie. It had been carved out of three massive rocks that overlooked the river. For years, careful masons carved shelves out of the stones, creating a shelter that would stay dark and dry in the hot and humid climate. They were large enough to store all the world’s known knowledge, even as the world grew and grew.
It was not so hard to imagine Brigāni scholars recording what they knew of Balladaire hundreds of years ago.
Luca stood on a precipice. When she crossed the river, she would become one of the first Balladairans to enter the Scorpion Library since the city had been abandoned. Since before the mad Emperor Djaya had gone on her rampage in Balladaire. Luca could hardly imagine what else she would find.
She could barely let herself think about what she really sought.
The river stretched perhaps over a mile wide at this point, and in the distance, the massive stones of the Second City rose like teeth, biting the stars out of the sky. The River Hadd was magnificent enough to create the border for two nations, once part of a single empire. It was the largest river in the world—thus far—and reduced to nothing but a thumb-wide line on her maps. It was easy to forget how it dwarfed so much of her human world, especially when the docks were so far from the city proper and even farther from the Quartier and the compound that she rarely saw it.
Gil hovered close behind her, jaw tight and eyes sharp. Like Touraine, he did not approve of the venture.
The boat they approached was a narrow thing with a small, furled sail and a pair of paddles. A recent payment to the crown by a merchant whose taxes, Luca found, came up short in Cheminade’s finance records. After double-checking against the financial officer’s records, Luca had issued a polite invitation. Now she had a boat and a few strong-backed Qazāli to convey her across the Hadd.
Lanquette brought up their rear, and Guérin approached the boatmen, her shoulders broad and straight, exuding that no-nonsense confidence she had. It helped, surely, that she was taller than all the boatmen.
At Luca’s other side, Touraine also stood stiff backed, if for a different reason. She had fought Luca all week to reconsider. Like Gil, she had surrendered. They had to understand. Our own birthright. If she restored Balladaire’s own magic, she would be a hero. The rebels’ offers of magic came at too steep a cost when she could find it on her own.
She grabbed Touraine’s arm. “Look at it. It’s so close,” she whispered.
Touraine didn’t flinch at her grip, but the other woman did give her a long look, her question clear: Are you sure? And that was brazen for the quiet, obedient woman.
Luca was certain.
“Come down, madame, come down.” One of the boatmen held a hand out to lead Luca onto the dock. The boat bumped gently against it, still tethered at both ends. Luca hesitated, but Guérin took her hand instead.
“Steady,” Guérin said. She left Luca’s title off for disguise’s sake. Luca had even left her cane at home so it wouldn’t be so obvious what young, three-legged Balladairan had visited the docks.
The dock sang beneath their weight, and Luca ye
lped in surprise. Sky above. “It’s all right. Just startled.”
“You certain, madame? The Hadd, in it, danger. We warn you.” The boatman looked skeptically between her and the water. He seemed to be the one in charge and spoke to the other men in some kind of patois that wasn’t quite Shālan. His irises had a yellowish cast in the moonlight.
“Yes, I’m sure. It was just a creak.” Luca’s face warmed with embarrassment.
She followed his gaze. Something moved in the river, sleek and glimmering on the surface. Luca forced herself not to jump. “Sky above and earth below.”
“What the sky-falling fuck?” Touraine whispered.
“Luca.” Gil’s voice was soft in her ear. “For the love of your parents’ memories, if not your own good sense, please. Let’s turn back.”
He sounded like the voices in her head, the same ones she’d been debating with for over a month, since her meeting with Bastien. The dark shape swam up the river, south, undulating just below the surface until it disappeared. Gil was right, and he was wrong. Luca’s father would understand; he’d chosen his risks, too. For Balladaire, she would do this.
The boatman with the yellow eyes hopped lightly from the dock into the boat and reached an arm out, beckoning for them.
“Let’s go,” Luca said before she could lose the nerve. “Guérin, you first. I’ll follow. Touraine—”
As Guérin stepped onto the boat with the boatman, Luca reached back for Touraine. Touraine was looking still farther back at Lanquette, who was scanning the empty dock road, back the way they’d come.
Luca cleared her throat. “The sooner we finish, the sooner—” She turned back in time to see the yellow-eyed boatman shove Guérin into the river.
The guardswoman almost caught her balance. Her strong legs, her grace—her quick hands, reaching out for the boatman’s shirt—but the rock and sway of the boat wasn’t usual, and her boot heel caught something on the bottom of the boat. Guérin screamed and disappeared off the far side of the boat with a splash.
Luca startled so sharply that her leg gave out, and she sprawled painfully on the wood. She pushed herself up to her good knee. Behind her, Touraine, Lanquette, and Gil fought with the other boatmen on the dock—and several new shadows. The dock groaned and shuddered with the betrayal of an ambush. The yellow-eyed boatman balanced easily as his craft rocked, staring into the river. Then he turned to Luca.
“You don’t belong here,” he said with a heavy accent. “We don’t bend like Qazāli.”
Luca’s blood ran cold at the threat in his words.
“Help!” she yelled. Touraine, Gil, and Lanquette each turned at the sound of her voice, but it was Touraine who broke away from the fighting on the dock. Luca pointed at the man in the boat. It took only a breath for Touraine to see the boatman and note Guérin’s absence.
The boatman jumped back onto the dock and met Touraine with his bare blade. Luca’s heart pounded in her ears. She felt ridiculous as she crawled to the edge of the dock, staying low, dragging herself across the moss- and mildew-covered wood. Ridiculous, but not useless.
“Guérin!” yelled Luca, searching for the other guard in the churning river.
Pale hands clutched at the near side of the boat, and Guérin pulled her head above water. Relief washed over her face as she saw Luca. The guardswoman was barely a foot away, wedged between the boat and the dock supports.
Luca slithered on her belly and reached. Guérin caught her forearms and soaked the sleeves of Luca’s coat with cold water.
“Up you come.”
Guérin clawed up Luca’s jacket, teeth chattering, hair plastered to her pale face.
Then the guardswoman roared in pain as she was pulled backward into the water by something below. With Guérin’s fingers still knotted in Luca’s sleeves, Luca slid with her along the rough planks, dragged like a doll toward the water. Luca didn’t have time to cry out or to tell Guérin to hold fast. Her heart seized in her chest, and she braced for her own splash.
Guérin let go of Luca’s arms.
“No!” screamed Luca, lunging forward, but a yank on her collar choked her back. Touraine pulled her to the ground, her body heavy over Luca’s, her breath harsh in Luca’s ear, while Guérin clutched the dock support, screaming and sobbing.
A monster with a mouth longer than Luca’s arm clamped itself on Guérin’s leg while the guard hugged the support with her whole body.
A crocodile. With each lash of its massive tail, the guardswoman cried out. With each cry, Luca felt Touraine flinch.
A gunshot.
For a sickening moment, Luca hoped someone had shot Guérin out of her misery. But another thrash from the beast and it went still. A bloody hole leaked right in the middle of its head. It hung suspended on the surface of the river, bobbing against the boat before the river dragged it away.
Touraine caught Guérin’s sleeve as the woman’s eyes rolled up into her skull, slowing the woman’s sinking body enough that Lanquette could help heave the guardswoman out.
Lanquette put an ear to Guérin’s mouth.
“Is she alive?” Luca whimpered.
He nodded. Guérin’s leg, however, was a tangle of shredded cloth and flesh and splintered bone.
Only then did Luca look back toward land. Gil put away his spent pistol and pulled the other, watching the rest of the docks, which were suddenly and suspiciously quiet. She let out a strangled sound of disbelief, a close relative to a relieved sob, at the trail of bodies her guards had fought near the dock. The boatman who had pushed Guérin lay on his back, eerie eyes staring up at the moon, with his own knife jutting from his throat.
“Are they all dead?” she asked, her throat tight.
“If they aren’t, they’re about to be,” Lanquette growled. He jumped up and proceeded to heave the bodies into the river.
Meanwhile, Touraine unwrapped her scarf, took off her belt, and used the accessories and her sheathed knife to make a tourniquet above Guérin’s knee.
“Won’t you need that?” Luca asked, indicating the knife.
“I didn’t.” Touraine nodded back to the bodies, where Lanquette was dumping the last ones into the water. Touraine snapped at him, “Lanquette, come on. I can’t carry her alone.”
He came back, his face tight with fury. “I have her.”
With Touraine’s help, he hoisted Guérin across his shoulders with a hiss. He’d never looked particularly strong before. Luca had taken him for granted. And Guérin, too. If Guérin hadn’t stepped into the boat first… Luca shivered.
Gil led the way with Touraine jogging half-backward to scan behind them. Luca wished for her cane and the sword inside. When she started to fall behind even Lanquette and his burden, Touraine caught up with her and ducked beneath Luca’s arm. They weren’t invisible, but they might as well have been. No Qazāli wanted to be associated with Balladairans in trouble.
“The rebels betrayed us,” Luca hissed to Touraine.
The soldier shook her head. “No. They warned you. Why would they warn you and then—”
“Take advantage of me? Why not? It’s what anyone would do in their position.”
Touraine gave her a sidelong glance. They were too close for Luca to get a good look at her face. If Touraine turned, Luca could have even kissed her on the cheek, but that jaw was tight with effort or anger or both.
Finally, Touraine said, “It wasn’t them. Remember, they said someone else controls that territory.”
Surprisingly enough, that didn’t make Luca feel any better.
They finally made it across the Mile-Long Bridge, and Luca’s heart sank. The coach wouldn’t be expecting them so soon. It wasn’t there.
Lanquette sagged under Guérin, legs trembling, but he didn’t put her down. Touraine sucked her teeth as she weighed the situation.
“I’ll go.” She spoke to Gil, not to Luca, and waited until the guard captain nodded before lowering Luca to the ground and loping south and east, along the outer wall of the ci
ty as it curved away from the river. It wasn’t the shortest journey to a carriage, but Touraine was less likely to get lost this way. Even through her sudden exhaustion, Luca wondered what that must feel like, to set yourself free like a horse galloping across a plain. That was the whole point of the Balladairan standard. Strength, majesty, endurance.
The thought put a bitter taste in her mouth. She snapped at Lanquette. “Put her down before you drop her.”
He laid her down gently, checking her vitals once more before stepping back through the gate to keep watch behind them. Guérin didn’t wake up. Her hands were freezing to the touch.
Luca waited for Gillett to speak to her, but he didn’t. When she finally looked up from her place on the ground, he was looking south, toward the desert. Not too far away, a dark hump in the horizon indicated the edge of the slum city, full of tents and lean-tos to make a third “medina.”
When he finally looked down, his gaze drifted to Guérin and then back to Luca. His frown lines were deep with night. He sighed before turning his back on her again.
“This was unworthy of you, Luca.”
Luca held her head in her hands and pressed her palms to her eyes, as if she could push the tears back in.
They waited for Touraine in silence.
CHAPTER 21
GRAINS OF SAND
A battlefield after battle was never really quiet. The wounded would keep you company until you were a mile away. They screamed or begged or wept as they died or were cut or were drugged. Touraine never did the cutting. She’d never had the stomach for it. She said it took the shittiest kind of bastard to be the army chirurgeon. Pruett said only the kindest could do it. She and Pruett and Tibeau had been sewn up more than once, but they were the lucky ones.
Not like Guérin.
Luca insisted on keeping Guérin in a guest bedroom and bringing the best doctor in the colony to her. Which meant Touraine couldn’t escape the sounds.
The doctor did his best.
