The Unbroken

by C. L. Clark

  “But if it isn’t,” Luca said sharply. “If it isn’t, I want to know who and I want to know how.” She softened. “I know this must be difficult. I’m asking you to turn on your people.”

  The lieutenant grunted. “They’re not our people, Your Highness. Not anymore. And anyway. It’s not food we’re hungry for.”

  “Then what are you hungry for?” Luca asked. “The pay raises weren’t enough for you? You seem to be enjoying your new uniform well enough.”

  The soldier stopped midstep and looked down at herself. The horror blooming across her face like spring tulips set a smile growing on Luca’s. The new uniforms weren’t quite as well made as Touraine’s had been, but they were a far cry from the scrap material their regular uniforms had surely come from.

  “You’re welcome,” Luca said.

  Pruett’s nostrils flared. “Your Highness.” She ducked her head once then looked away, intensely focused on the vista beyond the wall.

  And then, inexplicably, Luca felt ashamed. Touraine had accused her of buying away her guilt over Guérin’s injury. This wasn’t much different. Luca hadn’t decided if Touraine was right or not.

  “I’m sorry,” Luca said. “I know I don’t deserve your approval and that I do deserve the things you said before. I’m working to earn your loyalty from now on.”

  For several steps, Pruett didn’t respond, the silence bordering on insulting, but Luca waited.

  Behind them, the men’s boots scuffed gently. The sun burned down, so she tilted her tricorne down low over her brow. Lieutenant Pruett kept her face turned so that Luca could see only the other woman’s sweat-darkened curls clinging to her neck, and the muscles clenched in her jaw.

  “You really don’t know?” Pruett’s voice was rough with some kind of emotion that didn’t make sense.

  “Know what?” Gently, gently. Luca didn’t want to scare her away from whatever truth—confession—was coming.

  Pruett laughed harshly, tinged with a manic edge. “It’s Touraine.”

  The red fury returned faster than Luca thought possible. As her hand gripped her cane so hard the handle bit into her skin, she calculated how much force it would take to tip Pruett over the wall and break her neck. She stopped, and Pruett turned back to her with a wry, bitter expression.

  “Understand me. I am your queen. Earning your loyalty does not mean I’m your mate to have a joke with.”

  Lieutenant Pruett snapped to perfectly erect attention and still managed insolence. “Oh, I understand, Your Highness. I’m telling you the truth, or you can hang me like a dog on your little gallows. If it pleases you.”

  “What do you mean Touraine is behind this? Did she leave a plan to be followed upon her death? Are you saying you’re responsible? You, the Sa—the conscripts?”

  Pruett quirked her mouth at the casual slip of the pejorative name for the conscripts but enunciated slowly. “No. We’re not. Touraine is.”

  “By which you mean to say, Touraine is alive.”

  “I do mean to say that, Your Highness. She’s working with the rebels.”

  Luca let herself consider the possibility for a moment. If Touraine was alive—that would mean the woman who had betrayed her was alive. The woman she had begun to… care for… was alive and working even now to undermine her rule.

  “When I… visited you at the guardhouse, you said you watched her die yourself.”

  “That I did. Apparently, I was wrong. She paid me a visit, too.”

  A pang in the chest, a writhing in the gut. Pain and jealousy twined together like complementary theories from cruel philosophers. If Touraine was truly alive, why hadn’t she visited Luca? She is a traitor. Why would she visit you?

  “And you didn’t tell me this.” Luca tried to keep the tremble from her voice.

  There was proud malice in Pruett’s eyes. “You haven’t stopped by since your last visit. It’s why we call it news, Your Highness. It’s new.”

  Lanquette stepped between them smoothly and looked down at Pruett with cold eyes.

  “You’re addressing the queen, Lieutenant,” he said. His voice was like the whisper of his sword in its scabbard, but his hand was on the butt of his pistol.

  “My apologies, sir.” Pruett saluted him first and then bowed nearly in half to Luca.

  “Thank you for the information, Lieutenant. You’re dismissed. When you get back down, go directly to the offices, and fill out a report on this visit from Touraine like you should have done before. I want every detail, no matter how personal.” Luca’s stomach quailed to think what she might receive. Maybe Pruett would elide those details anyway. No—she’d probably take a perverse pleasure in the description. “I want it delivered to my desk before you return to the guardhouse.”

  Another salute. “Aye, Your Highness. No detail spared.” There was still half a glass of her avocado juice, and she gulped it down indecorously, throat bobbing and glugging. She wiped the last trace of green from the corner of her lips with the back of the hand that held the glass, and then she raised the cup to them all before she swaggered away.

  Touraine. Alive.

  CHAPTER 31

  A WARNING

  Two weeks passed in a haze of smoking meat and bleating animals. Slowly, Touraine began to blend in with the other Qazāli. With a scarf wrapped around her head to cover her face, she helped herd the animals deeper into the desert, where the Balladairan patrols were weak and Niwai’s Many-Legged would retrieve them. At the temple, she helped Aranen and Djasha make daily meals and ration them out to the Qazāli. Their gambit had cost everyone in the city, not just the Balladairans. The rebels would take care of the Qazāli.

  Touraine was in the main hall of the Grand Temple, filling a bowl with couscous and vegetables to hand to a young man with an attractive swoop of dark curls, when someone pounded on the temple’s main door.

  The boy flinched so hard that he nearly dropped the bowl of food—nearly. His grip on the bowl was as tight as Touraine’s grip on her knife.

  The knock came again, harder, more insistent.

  Aranen frowned, but she remained leaning over the table where they served the food. Her flat palms were pressed hard against the stone, though. Once, it might have been an altar. “There’s no meat here. If they ask, it’s only charity.”

  Touraine went to the smaller side door, the one that all the Qazāli came through, and cracked it to scout the danger.

  Through the door, she saw a single soldier kicked at the ground in aimless irritation, muttering a stream of curses, all of which mentioned Touraine by name. Aimée was about to slap the ornate knocker on the decorative doors again.

  “Psst. Hey.”

  Aimée spun around, into a fighting crouch. When she saw Touraine at the door, she straightened and walked over, mouth hanging open.

  “You sky-falling ugly fuck. You—but you—”

  Touraine wanted to say something clever back, but emotions blocked her throat, forcing her quiet.

  Aimée kept sputtering. “Pruett said—she named you—when the princess asked who was responsible. I thought it was a shit joke. How—sky a-fucking-bove—”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Touraine said, her voice low. “If the blackcoats catch you here, you’re—they’ll kill you.”

  “No, you shouldn’t be here. I’m on orders for the lieutenant.” Aimée meant Pruett. “We’re supposed to be hunting for your merry band, but—look, can I just come in?” Aimée craned her neck to look past Touraine’s shoulders to see inside the temple.

  Touraine had never seen her like this. Eager. Earnest. She’d spoken more than five words without swearing. After Touraine hesitated a second longer, Aimée pushed past her and into the temple. The other woman took two steps before she stopped, gaping at the ceiling with its marble and the glitter of gold and colored stone swirling through intricate geometries. Touraine felt a tender warmth, even as she chuckled. This was what she must have looked like the first time she saw the inside of the temple: mouth slack,
head tilted, trying to take it all in.

  Ecstatic.

  Aimée walked to a nearby pillar and placed her palm flat against it.

  “No wonder Beau would never shut up about this place,” she murmured. Aimée had been turned into a gleeful child. Touraine couldn’t help a small bubble of pride. She shoved Aimée in the shoulder playfully.

  “Fine, just invite yourself in.”

  Aimée’s rueful gaze was only half a joke. “You should have invited us, Lieutenant.” She spread her arms wide to encompass the vastness of the temple hall. An entire company one hundred soldiers strong could sit for lunch on the marble floor if they moved some of the “unused” altars.

  “I mean, look at this place,” Aimée continued. “Plenty of room for all of us. Sky above, it smells, though. Like a cross between soup and some rich asshole’s powder room.” She crinkled her nose.

  Touraine nodded at one of the smoking incense bowls. “You get used to it.” In a hushed voice, she added, “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

  Aimée didn’t answer at first. Just closed her mouth and peered around, taking in the small crowd of Qazāli on the other side of the temple and their bowls of food, the worn rugs and poufs where a person might sneak in and pray in secret to a forbidden god.

  “What’s amazing is you, here. How the sky-falling fuck are you alive?” Aimée turned and pushed Touraine in the chest. “I saw you go down. You didn’t fucking get up again.”

  Touraine rubbed the spot, already feeling the possibility of a bruise. She shrugged, uncertain how much to say. She trusted Aimée, but Aimée hadn’t joined the rebels, and she didn’t know whether to trust her with the secret of the Shālan magic.

  “I was never dead. Just a bad shot. The Qazāli still have a few good doctors from before, you know.”

  With narrow eyes, Aimée scanned Touraine up and down, as if she could see the scars from a cutter’s surgery through Touraine’s clothing.

  “What do you want with us?” Best to change the subject quickly. And to figure out if they should expect more guests soon.

  Aimée’s scrutiny didn’t let up. “Pru’s orders. Your pillow friend called her to the compound, looking for answers.” She turned the scrutiny on the others in the temple.

  Touraine’s lips twisted sourly. “My pillow friend. Answers for what?”

  “You do know what’s been happening in the city, don’t you?”

  “Let’s pretend—for just a second—that I’m supposed to be a corpse. I wouldn’t get out much, would I?”

  “Maybe not. I’m sure there’d be worms to get you whatever sky-falling news you wanted in your little hidey-grave.”

  “Say there weren’t. What’s happening to the Sands?”

  “Well, your princess wants to know if we’re responsible for it. Barring that, if we know where you are.”

  Alarm locked Touraine stiff. “If you know—how does the princess even know I’m alive?”

  The other woman shrugged, but Touraine could tell Aimée was pissed. “Pru told her. Surprised the sky-falling fuck out of the princess, to hear Pru tell it. Surprised the sky-falling fuck out of me, too. Said you were responsible for the attacks and then laughed like a madman in the princess’s face.”

  “What else did she tell her?” Touraine asked through gritted teeth.

  The air felt too thick to breathe. She would have to tell Djasha and Aranen that she’d been compromised. Blackcoats would be on their way. Jaghotai would be insufferable.

  “Nothing, I guess.” Aimée shoved her hands in her pockets. “Fuck if I know why, but Pru said she didn’t know where you were. Then she sent me here to warn you off. She’s hunting you and the rebels.”

  Even though she feigned casualness, Aimée kept seeking Touraine’s eyes. Touraine kept trying to shrug the looks away, eyeing everything from a volunteer’s worn trousers to the faded fabric of an embroidered cushion.

  “I know why,” Touraine said wryly. “She may hate me now, but she hates Luca more.” Pruett never wanted to rebel against Balladaire outright like Tibeau had, but she had a petty streak. Touraine imagined Pruett was more than happy to hurt Luca with the truth or hamper the hunt for Touraine. The thought that Pruett would rather see Touraine slip the blackcoats’ clutches than hang was a small comfort.

  Aimée gripped Touraine’s arm. “Is there a reason she wouldn’t tell the princess where you were?” she asked quietly. “Are you with the rebellion?”

  Finally, Touraine looked up. How did Pruett know she’d stayed in Qazāl? Had Touraine been seen, or did Pruett just know she couldn’t stay out of trouble?

  Whatever Aimée saw in Touraine’s face must have pleased her. She nodded once. “How can I help?”

  Touraine wanted to lead Aimée over to the Qazāli waiting for their rations. She wanted Aimée to know what she was doing. She wanted some of the Sands to see, to approve. And secretly, selfishly, she hoped Aimée would spread the word and convince the others to join them. She wouldn’t admit that she was lonely, but she was surrounded by people who didn’t understand where she came from, how she had lived. Even living with Luca had felt less isolating; at least then she had understood the language and expectations.

  Instead, she tightened her shoulders and let them fall. Then she shook her head. “There’s nothing you can do without risking yourselves. Pruett already told me the Balladairans are breathing down your necks.”

  Aimée looked hurt. “Some of us want to help. Pruett said you wanted guns, right? I can do that.”

  “No!” Touraine said sharply. Aimée jerked back.

  More gently, Touraine repeated, “No.” She put a hand on Aimée’s shoulder. “I risked everything to keep you lot safe. If you want to help… could you keep an eye out for the people around here? The blackcoats like to target the Qazāli near the temple. On suspicion of religious practice.”

  Their eyes met for a long, silent moment, then Aimée gave the ration line one last look.

  Aimée shrugged out from under Touraine’s hand. “As you like, Lieutenant.”

  After Aimée left, Touraine swore so loudly that everyone turned in her direction. Sky above. Pruett had hardly done enough to head Luca off. Even if Luca didn’t know where Touraine was, she knew that Touraine was alive, and Luca wasn’t the type to rest until she sussed out the truth.

  The rebels were committed to their path now. They wanted the Balladairans out, and they were willing to sacrifice for it—even the Qazāli who weren’t active rebels donated a few extra supplies here or shared information about the blackcoats there. Touraine doubted that Jaghotai and the others would consider any more deals from Luca, but maybe, just maybe, Touraine could try negotiating one more time.

  Otherwise, it was going to take a lot more blood before the rebels got the rain they wanted, and the Sands wouldn’t be the only unwilling casualties.

  In her sleeveless shirt the brown red of a dry scab, Touraine looked like any other Qazāli laborer. There were few enough to recognize her face as she walked from the Old Medina to the Quartier, even if she weren’t wearing the common hood and sand veil.

  And in her pocket, she had the writ of passage Luca had given her. It was crumpled, and one edge was brown with old blood, but Luca’s signature and stamp were clear.

  When the trio of blackcoats at the entrance to the Quartier stopped her, she held it out.

  A blackcoat with a sergeant’s wheat pins took the paper and looked Touraine up and down. She stepped close enough that Touraine could smell her cologne, a heavy, sweet thing that mingled well with her sweat. “Who are you, to have something like this?”

  Touraine swallowed and kept her head down. She wasn’t sure what Luca had said about her or how things stood between the blackcoats and the Sands right now.

  “It’s classified, sir. She wanted me to report as soon as I was able.”

  “Are you a Sand?” The sergeant tipped Touraine’s chin up. The other two soldiers flanked her.

  Shit.

  “Si
r. Yes, sir.”

  “Then where are your pins?”

  “I’m—I’ve been secret, sir.”

  “Well. Seems to me that we could use some more proof. So how about you go with my boys to see the captain, and we’ll see what she thinks. It’s a tricky time, you understand. You can’t be too careful, especially not with Her Highness’s person.”

  Touraine stepped back reflexively, and a blackcoat behind her moved closer. She couldn’t afford to be taken in. There were too many unanswered questions about her position as a not-quite-dead traitor to the queen and informant for the army. A tight spot, all right.

  One of the blackcoats locked Touraine’s arms behind her and began to frog-march her to the Quartier guardhouse, where she’d be fettered more adequately.

  Touraine struggled, but the blackcoat’s grip held firm, and the sergeant wasn’t moved. “The pass is valid. I have information about the rebellion. The princess will want to see me—”

  “I’ll want to see whom?”

  Touraine hadn’t noticed the carriage driving up from the direction of the compound. The disembodied voice came from the open window.

  Surrendering to the blackcoat’s grip, Touraine called, “Tell them it’s me, Your Highness. I have news you’ll want to hear.”

  Touraine held her breath too long waiting for an answer. Finally, Luca leaned forward enough to show her face through the carriage window. Her eyes widened only marginally.

  “Escort her to my home, Sergeant.”

  “You’re lucky I was on my way back into the Quartier. They would have taken you to Cantic.” Her smile was a cruel quirk of the lips. “You and she are apparently quite close. Only, she’s less inclined to consider you a hero now that she knows you’re helping starve her city.”

  Luca’s body betrayed her cold insouciance. Her face was pale as a corpse in snow.

  At the side of Luca’s salon, Guard Captain Gillett stood somberly. Lanquette’s sharply arched eyebrows had jumped up his face when Touraine pulled her veil down. Now he feigned stoicism, too.

  “I’m sorry.” She stepped forward and surprised herself by kneeling, head bowed.