Sunshield

by Emily B. Martin

  The door is open. The door is open and hinging against my rib cage.

  In the doorway is a crouched figure, blurred face half covered by a dirty cloth, holding a bintu knife and an ornamental hairpin. The jewels gleam red.

  “It’s okay,” he says in Moquoian, though the panicked look in his eyes suggests things are absolutely not okay. “You’re okay, Tamsin.”

  He thrusts the knife and pin into his pockets and stoops down. He loops his arm under my shoulders and lofts me upright.

  Oh, blessed colors, my body is not ready to be vertical—my vision gutters, and I sag on watery legs. He wobbles at my fall, spreading his feet wide to keep us upright. He coughs violently.

  “It’s okay,” he croaks, and he takes a few steps forward. My feet drag behind us—I can’t make them move. The air is painfully hot, singeing the hair on my arms and legs. A chunk of the roof falls in a shower of sparks—he ducks and staggers to one side to avoid the burning timbers. But he stumbles, and in a lurch of pain and panic we’re suddenly crouched on the ground, and Beskin’s face is right there in front of mine—only it’s half her face, quickly being seared by the line of fire that’s already engulfed her torso.

  He mutters something, something fast and frantic in Eastern. He places his feet to haul us up again. I try to help but it’s all I can do to lean, to hold, to not immediately die. But I’m too heavy for him, and the smoke is too thick, and more of the roof is falling, and we’re just not going to make it, my friend—it was a valiant attempt, but we’re not making it out of this with our lives. Beskin’s face is gone, swallowed by flame.

  There’s a burst of fiery timber, but it’s not from above—it’s from ahead of us, just a little way down the hall. A door has been smashed inward, and standing suddenly in our midst is a specter of shadow and flame, a sword and a shield glaring with light, burning eyes set between black hat and black cheeks. But it’s not some sun guardian come to guide us to the hereafter—the sword is sheathed, and the figure lunges forward. My world tilts once more, and my feet leave the ground, and then we’re running, bounding through the shimmering hall toward the open door.

  The blaze of heat shivers away—cool air slides over my skin. My body bounces and jostles like the braces on a stagecoach. There are urgent words, a grappling of arms that bloom new pain, tipping, tilting, sliding. My brain fuzzes into half consciousness. And then there’s a new movement—rocking, rollicking. The sound of crackling timber gives way to a cycle of pounding hooves.

  I don’t know how long this lasts. My vision is still dark. My mind slips and sloshes. Every now and then something prods me—fingers clamped over my wrist, a hand held close to my mouth. Pulse, breath. Checking for life. I can’t be sure if they’re finding it or not.

  I don’t realize we’ve stopped until my body tilts in a different direction. A web of arms are sliding me into open space. I drift to the ground.

  The shuffling of fabric. Words in Eastern. Words in Moquoian.

  “Tamsin? Tamsin, I’m going to prop you up. I have water here. Can you drink?”

  The words are slanted, accented with vowels a little too broad and consonants a little too sharp to truly be from home. Something bumps my lips, and I do my best approximation of swallowing, spilling a generous amount. Even lukewarm, the water soothes my scratched throat and burning mouth.

  There’s water on my forehead now, too. Someone is sponging me off.

  I slit open my eyes. Against a bakksi-indigo sky thick with stars are two shadowed figures. One of them is occupied with something—there’s a flick and a sizzle, conjuring a flare of light. I squeeze my eyes again. Some murmuring in Eastern, and then the light fades to an ambient glow behind my eyelids.

  “Sorry—the candle’s lowered. You can open your eyes.”

  I’m not so sure I can, but I give it a shot anyway. Shadowed in the dancing glow are two faces, one wide with worry, the other sharp as flint. Both are smeared with grease and soot and—on the worried one—bruises. Nearby comes the sound of fast, labored breathing—flopped on the ground is a dog, panting anxiously, tongue lolling from its mouth.

  “Hi,” greets the worried one a little lamely. He shifts his arm under my head. “Uh—I’m Veran. And this is Lark. We’re friends. Iano sent us to find you.”

  My eyelids flutter. The sharp one says something in Eastern, her voice desert rough. He replies in some kind of affirmative, his voice worried.

  “Rä, isten slo . . . Tamsin, can you—do you understand me? Do you remember Iano?”

  Do you remember Iano? I was trying not to, thanks. It hurt too much. Then I lost the last shreds of self-discipline and I couldn’t stop.

  The worry on his face deepens at my silence, but I gesture for the water again, my hands mothlike. He holds the canteen to my lips, and I drink with more conviction this time. I wipe my mouth.

  The sharp one speaks in Moquoian. “Your mouth hurt?”

  I wince. My mind’s clearing up, enough so that I can catch the gist of the next exchange.

  Of course she is hurt, I’m just trying to figure out—

  No, look at her mouth, look how she’s drinking. Why isn’t she saying anything?

  She’s probably hallucinating, she probably doesn’t know where she is, she might not remember . . .

  While they bicker, I inch my fingers along the dirt, to where the single flame dances in the corner of my vision. They both realize what I’m doing as my fingers brush warm wax.

  “Do you need the light?” asks the worried one. “Here, Lark—dit’isponse lell . . . oh, you want to hold it yourself?”

  The sharp one keeps a hold on the candle as I lift it and bring it close to my face. The worried one lifts a hand to push it away.

  “Careful, it’s dripping—Tamsin, careful, not so close . . .”

  I push his fingers away and draw the flame next to my lips. Its heat bathes my skin. While they both stare, their eyes glinting wide, I tilt back my head and yawn.

  I watch them react, watch them blanch as the light washes over the split cut neatly into my tongue.

  Veran

  Both Lark and I stare at Tamsin. Her tongue has been split in two.

  “Blessed earth,” I stammer, before switching back in Moquoian. “Tamsin . . . they . . . they cut your tongue?”

  She closes her mouth and nods, settling back against the crook of my arm.

  “By the Light. I’m—I’m sorry. We’ll . . . we’ll get you to a healer . . .”

  She flutters a hand, in equal parts dismissal and nonchalance. Her meaning is clear—a healer might be able to keep the wounds free of infection, but nothing’s going to knit the muscle back together again. I exchange a glance with Lark—her lips are pursed, her brow furrowed.

  “There are a few scraps of parchment in my pack,” I say. “And some charcoal—can you get them out? She can write down responses instead.”

  “Let’s try to get some food in her first—she looks starved.” Lark sets the candle down and opens up my pack. “Ask her if she’s hungry.”

  “The easiest thing I have is honey . . . but that’s not enough.” I rack my brain, trying to recall all the passages I’ve read on reviving someone who’s collapsed, all the times Mama described treating ill scouts, all the times I’ve been roused, aching, from the floor. “She’s going to need salt, broth . . . something more substantial . . .”

  “And we can get it in Pasul, Veran—right now we just have to do the best with what we have.” She pulls out the jar of honey. “Try this for now.”

  I reach for the honey, but my fingers close on Lark’s sleeve instead. It was a blind race in the dark from the collapsing building to this patch of desert, and I’m only just now noticing the tears in her sleeves, the singed edges, the shiny skin below—burns. And—by the Light, that’s not a shadow along her shoulder, it’s blood.

  “You’re . . . you’re hurt.”

  Her head is tipped forward, her hat brim hiding her face. “Yeah, it better not have screwed up
any of my tats.”

  I dip my head and catch sight of the dark spatters on her nose, her bandanna. “Lark—”

  She shakes my hand off her arm. “Come on, Veran—focus on Tamsin. The stronger she is, the quicker we can get to Pasul. We can be there by tomorrow evening if she can hold up.” Her gaze slides from my eyes to around my ear. “And anyway, you’re hurt, too.”

  “I am?”

  She brushes her thumb over my temple, bringing a sting with it. I follow her touch and feel a raw patch near my hairline. She leans forward to examine it, her face just a few inches from mine. The candle flame gleams gold in her eyes. My stomach swoops with the suddenness of one of the Utzibor bats.

  Her gaze shifts back to my eyes, and she hurriedly straightens again. “I’ll clean it out later. Focus on Tamsin right now.”

  She goes back to the honey jar and pops the cork off. I look back down at Tamsin slumped in my arms. She’s leaning her head against my shoulder, but her eyes are still open. She looks worlds different from the pencil portrait in Iano’s room. Her cheeks and eyes are sunken, her skin paled to gray, her lips cracked. Her thick, shiny hair has been shaved off, and not gently, either—there are rough patches where razor cuts have scabbed over. But she’s eyeing me with that same wry discernment the artist depicted in her portrait, the gleam of an ashoki who has a truth to tell.

  I shift into a more comfortable position, easing her upright a little more. Lark rummages in my pack for the cook kit and comes up with my wooden spoon.

  “We have some honey here,” I say. “Would you like to try to eat some?”

  Tamsin nods. Lark dips the spoon and holds it to her lips. She takes it from her and eases it into her mouth. Her gaze flicks over me, squinting a bit as if in thought. With her other hand, she pokes me in the chest.

  “What?”

  She gestures to me, and then at Lark.

  “You want to know more about us?”

  She nods, sliding the spoon out of her mouth and dipping it again in the honey pot.

  “I’m Veran Greenbrier, son of King Valien and Queen Ellamae Heartwood of the Silverwood Mountains. I’m the translator for the Eastern delegation. I traveled with Princess Eloise Alastaire and her father from Alcoro to Moquoia.”

  She nods in understanding and dips the spoon again.

  “And Lark . . .” I look to her, unsure of how she wants herself described.

  “I am helping,” she says in rough Moquoian.

  “She’s my friend,” I say, before I realize I’ve said my friend instead of the generic a friend that I had been going for. It hangs in the air for a moment. I wait for Lark to scoff or snort, but she doesn’t. Maybe her Moquoian isn’t polished enough to have caught the difference.

  Tamsin is eyeing Lark, her gaze drifting to the back of Lark’s hand. She sets the spoon in the pot and slowly closes her fingers over Lark’s wrist. The last time I tried that, I got a buckler to the face, but Lark allows Tamsin to hold the back of her hand to the candlelight. The flame flickers off the rays of her sun tattoo.

  Tamsin’s eyebrow lifts.

  She knows.

  “Um . . . so, Lark is known to some as the Sunshield Bandit,” I say quickly. “But she didn’t attack your stage outside Vittenta.”

  Tamsin rolls her eyes.

  “You knew that already?”

  She nods and dips another spoonful of honey. “Uah.”

  It takes me a moment to realize she’s spoken. Her voice is raw and cracked. So she can speak a little—the Moquoian word for yes has no tip-of-the-tongue consonants.

  “Do you know, then, who attacked you?” I ask.

  “Hire,” she says.

  I lean forward. “Who?”

  She looks pointedly at Lark, cupping her hands to form parentheses. “Hire.”

  Understanding blooms in Lark’s expression. Her jaw clenches.

  “I should have known it,” she says in Moquoian. “The woman with one eye—when she sees my brand . . . I should have understood.”

  Tamsin nods, but I’m still lost. “Understood what?” I ask Lark.

  She shakes her head and switches back to Eastern. “When I ran into that woman in the desert, she caught sight of my brand, and she immediately went on the attack. I didn’t think much about it at the time—a lot of people in the desert don’t like me—but now it makes more sense. She was a Hire. They’re this crazy group of fanatics—they see people under bond as the lowest members of society, working without the dignity of wages, as if we do it out of laziness, or carelessness.” She looks at Tamsin again and asks in Moquoian, “She has the curved tattoo?”

  Tamsin nods and points to her ankle.

  “Some Hires—not all, mostly the really dedicated ones—get tattoos,” Lark says to me. “Two half circles, not quite touching—sort of like the circular brand slaves get, only not complete. Open-ended.”

  “Not bound,” I say, aghast.

  “Right.”

  I goggle at her. “I’ve never heard of them.”

  “It’s not an affiliation one might want to parade around court,” Lark says, holding the honey pot so Tamsin can dip the spoon again. “They have a lot of swagger when they’re among their own kind, but in greater society they tend to be looked down upon.”

  “That’s . . . that’s terrible. But—this is good, too. These are answers.” I look back at Tamsin, sliding back into Moquoian. “We know who attacked you, and she’s dead now. You’re safe—Iano’s safe. The court . . .”

  But Tamsin is shaking her head. Gingerly, she slides the spoon from her mouth and covers one of her eyes with her hand, still shaking her head.

  “The woman with the eyepatch?” I ask. “She’s dead, we saw the bandit kill her . . .”

  “It wasn’t her,” Lark says in sudden comprehension. “You are saying it wasn’t her who attacks you? Who hurts you?”

  She lowers her hand and nods.

  “No’ her,” she says, and then winces at her pained words.

  “Not her,” I repeat, dumbfounded. “What about the other woman—the one we saw in the hallway?” I try not to picture the flames crackling across her skin.

  Tamsin shakes her head again.

  “Iano was getting threatening messages from a big man with a bintu knife,” I say. “Was there anyone like that?”

  Again, she signals no.

  I chew my lip. There goes that brilliant plan of mine—that Tamsin would know who the traitor in court was.

  Is.

  “That means whoever it is,” Lark says in Eastern, voicing my own thoughts. “Whoever’s doing all the plotting—”

  “They’re still out there,” I agree.

  We’re silent a moment. Tamsin sips some more water and eats another spoonful of honey.

  “Well . . . we’ll figure it out, I suppose,” I say. “Iano’s waiting for us in Pasul. Maybe he’s found some answers. He’s going to be beside himself that you’re alive . . . what?”

  She’s closed her eyes in a slow, aggrieved movement. Her brows knit together.

  “What’s wrong? Don’t you want to see Iano?”

  She opens her eyes, but she doesn’t look at either one of us. She stares past us, up to the starry sky overhead. Her expression is something very close to resignation. Lark and I exchange a glance. This might be more than a yes-or-no conversation.

  Lark checks the horizon behind us. “Listen, why don’t we get a little farther away? It would be smartest to cover as much ground as we can now and rest once the sun rises. If sparks from the fire hit the flats, it’s going to spread in a heartbeat. And I can’t be sure Dirtwater Dob won’t pick up our trail.”

  I glance at her. “He got away? I thought I saw bodies . . .”

  “He was on the ground when I ran into the compound. He wasn’t there when I left.” She looks away. “I killed the one with the missing tooth, and I finished off the one you brained with a pickle jar.”

  Her voice is flat, straightforward, but not entirely steady. I hadn’t
wanted to kill anyone. Now I realize she hadn’t wanted to kill anyone, either.

  She looks back at me, her face shadowed and smudged with soot and blood. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Right, okay. Tamsin, we’re going to try to go on a little farther. Is that okay?”

  She nods and fumbles to put the cork back in the honey. I finish the job for her. Lark snuffs out the candle and bundles things back into my pack. While she brings the horses over, I unhook my cloak and wrap it snugly around Tamsin.

  “Do you mind riding with me?” I ask her.

  Tamsin’s eyes are closed again, and she gives a slight shake of her head. The fabric of my cloak rumples, and her hand emerges from the folds. She unfurls her palm to me. My folk’s gesture of thanks. This must be in some Moquoian primer on Eastern culture somewhere. I clasp it and give her a squeeze.

  Lark brings my horse alongside. “You mount. I’ll lift her up.”

  I climb into the saddle, but instead of stooping to Tamsin, Lark rests her hand on my knee.

  “Are you okay?” she asks. The moon is half full and low on the horizon, but it slants off her eyes all the same. Like she really is made of sky.

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “You’re tired,” she says. “It was bright in there.”

  Something stirs in my chest, something other than the shame I might normally feel, something warmer. “I’m okay right now.”

  “Tell me,” she says, her grip tightening. “Tell me if you don’t feel okay.”

  I nod. “I will.”

  She lets go and crouches down. She cradles Tamsin and straightens, settling her in my arms. She’s almost weightless, birdlike. I clutch her close to my chest and take up the reins. Lark mounts her own horse—stiffly, I think, slowly. Light be damned, she’d better not be more hurt than she’s letting on.

  She situates herself in the saddle and whistles to Rat. With a jerk of her head, she starts us forward into the night.

  Tamsin

  We ride through the dark. At some point I fall asleep—I wouldn’t have thought it possible, woozy and swaying on the horse’s back, but one minute I’m leaning against Veran’s chest and the next I open my eyes to a deep midmorning shade.