by C. L. Clark
With a heave, the priestess opened the door.
“Sun shine upon you, sirs.” Aranen greeted the visitors in the Balladairan she used only with Balladairans—and Touraine.
“And upon you, I’m sure.”
Touraine’s stomach was seized with rage and fear the moment she recognized the entitled lilt of a Balladairan accent.
“I’m Captain Rogan. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?” His voice oozed insincere charm; the word pleasure dripped with condescension. Touraine could see the expression on his face without even peeking around the pillar.
She swore under her breath. In battle, a second could be the difference between life and death. Wait too long to act, and you could lose an advantage. Move too soon, though, and you could lose an entire company. She let Aranen speak, waiting. Her forearms strained as she gripped the stick, and she forced her hand to relax.
“My name is Aranen. I’m not practicing religion here, if that’s why you’re here.”
“Then what is it, exactly, that you use this place for?”
“We feed the hungry, as we can, and we use it as an overflow space for any wounded who need care.” Aranen’s voice turned sharper as she said, “We’ve had so many of both, of late.”
“And you are a doctor, then?” Rogan asked idly.
“Yes,” Aranen said defensively.
“Excellent. Arrest her.”
A sudden rush of movement and Aranen’s protests rose to a shriek. A soldier cried out in pain, and Touraine remembered Aranen’s knife as she dashed out from her hiding spot. Good.
They were already dragging Aranen from the temple as Touraine sprinted headlong through it. It went against every instinct she had except the instinct to hurry. Sometimes, all you needed was a strong charge to break an enemy.
This wasn’t that time.
Touraine managed two solid cracks on one blackcoat with the heavy stick, and he fell. A third hit on a second soldier, and then her element of surprise was gone, and Touraine had to reckon with the eight other blackcoats in front of the temple.
She was ducking before the first pistol fired, running toward the pair holding Aranen between them. Another shot, though, and Touraine jumped back.
Aranen struggled weakly in front of her, lip swollen and bleeding. Touraine dashed for her again, but this time a blackcoat locked an arm around Touraine’s neck, yanking her back and off her feet. The stick fell with a clatter and rolled uselessly away.
“Take the witch and go,” Rogan snarled. His noble veneer was cracking. If he hadn’t recognized her already, Touraine was sure he would soon.
Let go of her! Touraine wanted to scream. She struggled to meet Aranen’s eyes as her vision splotched from hopeless tears and lack of air both.
Aranen shook her head and yelled to her in Shālan. “They want me alive. Run. Tell the Jackal.”
At first, the Shālan was too quick, but comprehension came. Aranen was a doctor. They wouldn’t hurt her, because they wanted what she knew. The magic. Luca wouldn’t need to make a deal if she could take it by force.
“Shut your mouth.” Rogan slapped Aranen across the face. “Get her out of here.”
As the other soldiers dragged the priestess across the plaza to a carriage, Rogan approached Touraine with a leisurely bounce in his step. The cold fear flushed out the heat of Touraine’s anger and froze her stiff. A smile of smug recognition spread across Rogan’s face, a dark eyebrow quirked up. She could see him again, that night, coming at her while she was pinned against the brick wall of the barracks.
No. Not now. Touraine forced herself back into her body. Focused on the heat of the soldier’s body behind her. The slick sweat between their forearm and her own neck. The sour smell of old cigarettes on their breath. Her body knew how to fight if she kept her mind out of it. Tibeau had put her into locks like this in their training all the time. The memory was in her muscles.
Touraine went limp in her assailant’s arms. Caught off guard by her suddenly falling weight, the blackcoat’s grip slackened, and she twisted herself free, then heaved a fist into their gut. She didn’t even stay long enough to watch them double over.
She realized too late that her scarf had definitely slipped. Not the biggest problem at the moment. There was nothing but the animal fear in her now. That and the flooding sense of shame as she obeyed the priestess’s orders.
She ran.
Touraine arrived at Djasha’s house winded and ready to be sick, her heart thundering in her ears. The Brigāni woman was frowning at her before Touraine had enough breath to close the door behind her.
As usual, Jaghotai hovered like a gargoyle on a cushion beside Djasha, arms crossed, but the others—Malika and Saïd, the ones least likely to gut Touraine first and ask questions of her corpse later—were gone. It looked like the two women had been talking.
“What happened?” Jaghotai hopped to her feet immediately, ready for a fight.
Touraine shook her head as she gulped in air.
“Someone’s coming,” Djasha said.
Touraine shook her head again. She couldn’t say it. The truth of it stole her voice more than sprinting from the temple had.
The single room still smelled of last night’s food, but the echo of ease and joy was gone. It seemed like the emptiness held danger in its corners.
“I was at the temple,” Touraine finally whispered.
Djasha’s dark skin went ashen. “Where is my wife?”
Touraine looked anywhere but at the Apostate. Dishes from someone’s breakfast waited on the low table for someone to pick them up. Crumbs or dried sauce still clung to them. She didn’t look at Jaghotai at all.
“Touraine. Where. Is. My wife?”
Jaghotai grabbed Touraine by the collar and shook her. A tremor ran from the Jackal’s hand up to her mouth. “Answer her,” she growled.
Touraine didn’t even fight Jaghotai off. “The Balladairans took her.”
“Took her but not you?” Jaghotai’s wide nostrils flared. “The missing traitor?”
“I tried,” Touraine croaked. “I’m sorry. I tried—she told me to go—”
“She saved your sorry life and you left her?” Jaghotai shook her again, and Touraine hunched her shoulders.
“Jak, put her down.” Djasha spoke quietly, but her voice was hard as the temple’s marble.
“But she—”
“Put her down.”
When Jaghotai put her down, Touraine knelt down in front of the Brigāni woman.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “But she said they wanted her alive. And they did, or they would have—”
“Why?”
The whole mad sprint from the temple, this question had run through Touraine’s mind. Only one thing made sense.
“The magic,” she answered.
“But why now?” Jaghotai growled, grinding her stump into her hand.
“I’m sorry, Djasha.” Touraine ignored Jaghotai to meet Djasha’s gaze instead. Touraine wasn’t afraid of Jaghotai. She was afraid of the golden-eyed woman whose face was utterly calm in her grief. That calm steadiness that meant she was beyond the reach of irrational lashing out. Whatever came out of her would be calculated.
“I can’t do anything with an apology,” Djasha said, disgusted. “We lost half of our priests this morning.”
“What?” Touraine asked, startled.
“Malika brought word,” Jaghotai said, scowling. “Blackcoats are taking doctors and anyone who’s been seen lingering at the temples throughout the city. Half a dozen missing at least.”
“They know too much,” Djasha said grimly.
“I told you we should never have trusted that bitch,” Jaghotai snapped at Djasha.
Djasha closed her eyes, and for a moment, her illness and grief combined to make her seem impossibly fragile.
A new guilt rose. Luca was the only one who knew about the magic. Touraine had gone to Luca, showed her the extent of what the magic could do. She’d only meant to enc
ourage another alliance, not this.
“Let me talk to the princess one more time,” Touraine said.
Behind her, Jaghotai scoffed, but Djasha stared Touraine down. “You want to see if she’ll make another trade.”
It would be impossible to fix every betrayal on her shoulders. Too many of them were contradictory. She wished she could fix them all at once, tie them together like the laces of a boot. This was what it meant to be responsible for a company. Not every choice was a good one; usually good choices didn’t even exist. Even so, she had always been honest with her soldiers on the field.
“She said she’s willing to make another deal if you are.”
“We made that mistake once already,” Jaghotai snarled.
Djasha, however, was quiet. Her eyes narrowed minutely. “You’ve already spoken to her.”
Guilty heat flushed Touraine’s skin. “I only went to help. I thought if I could end this sooner, it would be better for everyone.”
“You what?” roared Jaghotai from behind her. She stormed around to stand over Touraine and Djasha. “You did what?”
Djasha went still on her pallet.
“I told her the truth. I told her the magic is real and you might be willing to send Balladaire healers if she agreed to leave—”
“You invited her to take a bite out of our ass!”
“Touraine, do you know how hard we’ve worked to keep the extent of Shālan magic a secret?” Djasha asked coldly.
Touraine swallowed. She suddenly remembered, all too clearly, how quickly and efficiently Djasha had stuck her knife in the young woman’s ribs at the dancing circles. That was what the rebels did to people who went against council orders.
Jaghotai waved her amputated forearm in Touraine’s face. “This. This is how much that secret is worth.” The Jackal turned to the Apostate. “Djasha, we’re fucked. She’s not going to stop until she has it or we use—”
Djasha shook her head, with a sharp nod at Touraine. They didn’t trust her anymore. Maybe Jaghotai was right and they never should have. Touraine was nauseated with the shame of it.
“She won’t stop,” Touraine agreed, with resignation. “But she said if you give her healers and a cease-fire now, she’ll turn the colony into a protectorate after she has her throne. It’s not the best, but surrender and promise the healers will work with her willingly, and maybe we can get your people back safely.” Now that Luca had the healers, the rebels were running out of leverage.
“Fuck her,” Jaghotai growled. “Fuck this. What right does she have to our magic? To our god? To our land!” Her voice softened in a way it never had for Touraine. “We’ll get Aranen back another way, Djasha.”
“Let me at least try,” Touraine pleaded.
She shot a glare up at Jaghotai, who loomed over her, arms crossed, her fingers digging into her biceps. Like she was trying to keep herself from flying apart. Or from wrapping her hand around Touraine’s throat instead of her collar. Her breath came in heavy puffs, like a bull’s.
With a massive grunt, Djasha pushed herself up from the pallet, surprising Touraine and Jaghotai both. She swayed a little but ignored both of their hands when they reached out. Instead, she stepped haltingly over to the kitchen area, which Aranen reigned over so handily. She ran a finger over the lip of a bowl, the handle of a knife.
“I’m not dying without seeing her again, Jak. If not this, something else. Soon.”
Djasha didn’t see Jaghotai’s eyes close in defeat or the dampness on her eyelashes. Her back was turned. She probably didn’t hear Jaghotai’s voice crack when the fighter whispered, “Fine.”
Djasha didn’t, but Touraine did.
Touraine stood, stepped gingerly behind Djasha. “If we surrender, she might release some of them.”
Djasha’s thin, hunched back heaved with the weight of her sigh. The Brigāni woman turned, her golden eyes seeking Jaghotai’s across the room. Her fingers played idly over the kitchen knife. Something passed between them that Touraine couldn’t read, and Jaghotai nodded, her jaw tight.
“Touraine,” Djasha said, “there is no ‘we.’ The only reason you’re not dead now is because I asked my wife to heal you. It would be a waste. Go, and this time, don’t come back.”
And yet Touraine felt like she had been stabbed, for all she’d expected it, for all she deserved it. She tried to step back, but her legs wouldn’t obey. She opened her mouth to plead her case, but nothing came out.
Jaghotai stepped in beside Djasha, and they made a threatening wall.
“Get out.”
Touraine backed out of the room on unsteady legs.
The last time Luca had ducked into the cool dark of the compound jail, she’d offered Touraine a choice. She’d never imagined that choice would lead her here. A miscalculation of strategy. She could never have predicted it, in this combination.
Less than a year, and so much had changed.
The jail was louder than she remembered, the stench stronger. The blackcoats had come back with a dozen doctors or suspected priests, or at least Qazāli suspicious enough to warrant questioning. Each of them is your fault, Touraine. You chose this for them.
Some of them cursed her from their cells. They clung to the bars, the better to aim their insults in the dim lantern light. The jailer barked back, kicked through the gaps, even if he could understand only half of the disgusting things they said. Some of them ignored her, kneeling with their hands folded in their laps or sitting with their knees pulled up to their chests. Meditating, thinking, praying. To find peace somewhere like this—they had to have some god. Whatever their outer appearance, she knew they hated her deep down, as much as those swearing at her did. They had to. She would, in their place.
Would you do it again?
She was queen. This should be the least she was capable of. So why did it turn her stomach?
She steeled herself before entering the side room where Cantic waited with the woman who would have the answers.
Cantic sat on a stool, looking for all the world as if she were in a commoners’ public house. Which, Luca realized, might be as much a mask as her own icy facade. Strangely, it reminded her of Touraine. False casual, always on edge. If Touraine were colder.
Touraine, who was alive. Touraine, who had been healed.
Aranen din Djasha sat across from her, hands in irons behind her back, feet locked together. Bruises lined her face in fresh purple and stale yellow. Her crisp short hair stuck up at all angles as if tousled by sleep.
“Good afternoon, Aranen din Djasha. I’m sorry that the general’s soldiers were so rough with you. I hope the military medics were sufficient?”
“Their hands are rougher than necessary, Your Highness.” Though the woman spoke to Luca, her eyes never left Cantic. They burned with fascination.
“Do you know the general, Doctor? General, are you two acquainted?”
The deep triangle of lines around the general’s mouth deepened as she frowned. She leaned this way and that to get a better angle in the flickering of the lantern light, but she shook her head in the end.
“The general knows my wife, Your Highness.”
“Djasha din Aranen, leader of the rebel council?”
“The one. Also called the Brigāni witch by some.” The doctor blinked brown eyes slowly at Cantic.
Cantic stiffened at the mention of the Brigāni, like she always did. There were some mistakes that left scars in you no matter how long ago you made them. Was Luca making a similar mistake, or would she look back on this and feel justified?
She was too close not to try.
“Why is she called the witch? Did she have anything to do with Lieutenant Touraine’s healing?”
In that fateful court-martial months ago, Touraine mentioned a Brigāni witch, and it was Djasha who had promised magic.
Aranen straightened, the irons around her wrists banging. She met Luca’s eyes for the first time. “No. She didn’t. I did.”
General Cantic barked a
laugh, but the dismissal didn’t have the same effect when her body went erect. Luca held up a hand. She hadn’t told Cantic why she wanted Aranen and the other doctors and rumored priests.
“By ‘healed,’ Doctor, what do you mean? You plied your trade as a physician?”
“You know that’s not what I mean, Your Highness.”
Cantic stood so quickly that her stool fell back with a clatter. The muscle in her jaw flexed, and her hands clenched. “Your Highness, we’re being baited.”
“For someone who was so eager to find the source of Shālan healing magic thirty years ago, you’re quite reticent now, General.” Aranen sat back in her chair, a small smile playing on her lips. “I’m not here to bait you. Unlike my wife, I’m willing to tell you what you want.”
“Why?” Luca asked.
“Because. I am a priestess of Shāl. We practice peace above all.” The doctor-priestess shrugged and smirked at the general. “Forgive me. I’m not perfect. If you give us peace… I’ll tell you everything.”
Luca rolled her pen between her fingers. “And what exactly do you mean by that? Peace?”
“Don’t listen to this nonsense, Your Highness.” General Cantic had governed herself enough to hold her volume in check, but her voice still strained with anger. “It does us no credit to entertain believers.”
“It does you no credit to pretend you never did.”
“Balladaire is more civilized than that.”
“You were plenty interested in our god when you went hunting down Brigāni tribes. I heard that one of the Brigāni came back for your company.”
Cantic had Aranen by the collar before Luca understood what was happening. “Hold your tongue!”
“General!” shouted Luca over the clatter of iron and chair and the grunt of the scuffle. “Release her immediately, then go see to the state of the compound, if you please.”
Cantic loosed the priestess, then scrubbed her face with her hand. Something disbelieving showed in her face, and Luca wondered at it. The general had been fighting this fight, or something like it, for at least thirty years. If Luca ended it now, with this conversation, what did that mean for the decades of Cantic’s life? Would the soldier feel wasted or relieved?
