“I just want to help,” I assure her. “I’ve been searching for the king. I need to bring him back—”
“Of course you’ve been searching for him! Everyone has. All you empire dogs are desperate to finish the job after I killed the first assassin.”
It takes a moment for Ziva’s words to compute. When they do, my mouth slowly drops open and I appraise her in a new light. “You stopped the assassin?”
“Yes,” she says quickly, before her voice breaks and fades away.
“Who are you?”
She draws her shoulders back and her honey-brown eyes burn into mine, as fierce as the desert sun. “I am Zivana Bonwatu Yimeni, Crown Princess of Verdenet, and I will end you if you lay a finger on my father.”
I had almost forgotten the king had a daughter. She was so young when my village burned; they hadn’t even performed her hastening ceremony yet. Now here she is, on the run, trying to nurse her father back to health when she’s barely old enough not to need a nurse herself.
“I’m no empire dog, and I don’t want to kill your father,” I tell her again. “Quite the opposite. I am Verdenese. Minoak is my king. I want to see him restored to the throne.” I gesture to myself—my tattooed calves, tanned skin, dark hair and eyes.
“I don’t care what you look like. A loyal citizen of Verdenet would never throw a star at me, chase me through the desert, and threaten to bring the entire mesa down on us. You’re clearly one of the Sky King’s warriors.”
“What makes that so clear?”
“Everyone with power is.”
“Does that mean you’re one of his warriors?” I raise a brow at her. “We seem to have a lot in common….”
“I don’t know what this is”—she holds up her hands—“but I do know I’m nothing like you. I would never help a greedy pig ravage my country.”
“Neither would I. That’s the entire reason I’m here. I want to free Verdenet and the other Protected Territories. I want to place King Minoak back on the throne. But I obviously needed to find him before I could accomplish any of this. All of those people hidden in the caves are of the same mind.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That’s fine, but it’s the truth, and if you come back with me—”
“We’re not going anywhere with you.”
“What other choice do you have?” I look gravely at the chalk-faced king. His hand clutching his side is entirely covered with blood and his lips murmur unintelligible words. He’s thin beneath the rags and furs. As thin as the girl.
“I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out without your ‘help,’ ” she says, dismissing me.
I scoot closer. “You’ve done an impressive job keeping your father hidden and alive, but he needs medical attention—you both do.” I nod at her burned leg. “And food. It’s okay to change course and accept help.”
It isn’t lost on me that this is the same speech Serik has been giving me since we left Sagaan. But the circumstances are completely different. The shepherds don’t actually want to help. They want me to fail. They offer aid with one breath, then slander me with the next. While I, on the other hand, am willing to do anything, sacrifice anything, to save my king and my people.
King Minoak coughs again. Thick, wet droplets of blood speckle his lips. When the fit finally releases him, he loses consciousness, his head lolling onto Ziva’s lap. While she screams and grips him by both cheeks, commanding him to wake up, I sidle even closer.
“Without you and King Minoak, we’ll never be able to reclaim Verdenet. My group will perish in the caves or be forced to enter Lutaar City, where we’ll be subject to the imperial governor. And without treatment, your father will die of these wounds, no matter how hard you’ve worked to protect him. We need each other.”
“We don’t need help.” Ziva stubbornly shakes her head.
Burning skies! I’m tempted to mold the darkness into a giant hand and smack her across the face with it. Instead I huff out a breath and look to the Lady of the Sky. “You’ve set me with so many impossible tasks—and it’s my honor to perform them—but I beg you to have mercy on me this once and soften the heart of this belligerent child.”
Ziva gazes at me, head cocked to the side. I’m certain she’s going to give me a tongue-lashing for calling her a child, but she says, “You worship the Lady and Father?”
“Of course I do. I don’t know how many ways I must tell you: I am like you. I am with you.”
She narrows her eyes even further. “Swear on your immortal rest in the realm of the Eternal Blue that everything you’ve said is true.”
I laugh at the irony of her request. At how I thought I had already reached the Eternal Blue.
“I don’t see how any of this is funny,” she snaps.
I bite my tongue and look down. “I’m not laughing at you. I’ve just been used and lied to so often, it’s strange to have someone believe I am doing the double-crossing.”
“Are you?”
“If I wanted to kill the king, I could easily do so now.” I gesture to King Minoak’s limp form. “But everything I’ve said is true. I know how it feels to think you can’t trust anyone, to feel like the entire world is against you, but I swear on the memory of my parents, who perished ten years ago during the Zemyan raid of Sangatha, I’ll do everything in my power to see your father reinstated.”
Ziva glances down and trails a finger across her father’s bearded, weatherworn face. “Fine. We’ll return with you. But I won’t hesitate to call the night at the first sign of trouble.” She raises her hand, fingers outstretched, and I quirk my lips with amusement. She drops her hand and looks sheepishly at her feet. “I forgot that my threats mean nothing to you. You’re much stronger.”
She waits, as if she expects me to encourage her, but I nod and say, “I am.”
While Ziva gathers her things, I unfasten my cloak and lay it on the cool stones beside King Minoak. He’s still unconscious, and he weighs twice as much as a sand cat, but I manage to roll him onto the cloth. Then I remove the fur from his shoulders, press it to his wound, and bind it with strips of cloth I tear from the hem of his robe. It’s crude and far from sanitary, but it should control the bleeding while we hike back to the caves.
When Ziva returns, she surveys my handiwork and gives a small nod.
“Did you get everything you need?” I gesture to the satchel slung over her arm, and she hastily pushes it behind her back. Out of my sight. As if I’m a skies-forsaken caravan raider. “Honestly? I was just trying to make conversation.”
Ziva lifts a corner of the cloak and throws her weight forward. “Less talking, more pulling.”
CHAPTER FIVE
ENEBISH
AT THE MOUTH OF THE CAVE, ZIVA HESITATES AND GLANCES back at her gray-faced father splayed across my cloak. “Are you certain—”
“We’ve been searching for him since we left Sagaan. They’ll be overjoyed.” I charge into the tunnel, forcing Ziva to follow, eager to present King Minoak to the shepherds. Here’s proof I was right: the king of Verdenet lives. And I found him, just as I said I would, despite their impatience and skepticism and sabotage.
If this doesn’t earn their respect and their trust, nothing will.
“We’re saved!” I holler as we trudge through the tunnels. We’re a long way from our cavern, but I can’t help myself. I need to scream the good news. I’d rearrange the stars and write it across the sky if I could. This changes everything. This fixes everything. We can finally leave these caves without compromising our freedom.
The closer we get, the faster I walk. By the time we skid into the vastness of the cavern, I’m practically running, Ziva panting beside me. Her father is as still as ever on the cloak, but he’s here. Living, breathing hope.
“King Minoak lives!” I shout, my booming voice rebounding off the limestone walls. I release the cloak and step aside so the group can see Minoak for themselves. “Now we can enter Lutaar City and proceed with our plans to liberate Verd
enet.”
The bustle of the cavern abruptly ceases. Women look up from their cook pots, spoons still in hand, and the youth hauling buckets of water and scraps of food to the animals pause mid-step. Even the most difficult, loudmouthed men, like Iree and Azamat, quit squabbling and turn.
I’m not sure if it’s the early hour causing them to blink and gape—dragging King Minoak back across the dunes took the better part of the night. But they’re staring like they can’t see the massive Verdenese man lying at my feet. Or maybe they’re unable to grasp the magnitude of what it means?
“How is he going to save us?” someone shouts.
Ziva shifts from foot to foot, her sandals creaking. “You said they’d be overjoyed.” Her hands clutch the sides of her tattered dress, making her look far younger than she did in the colonnades of Sawtooth Mesa. Smaller too.
“Is he even alive?” the same voice yells. I’d wager it’s Emani—Bultum’s cantankerous wife always has something to say.
“Of course he’s alive!” Ziva lunges in front of her father and clenches her fists. The darkness thickens. I reach out to steady the threads, but they squirm and twist with confusion, unaccustomed to heeding two masters.
Stepping protectively between Ziva and the shepherds, I grit my teeth into a smile and force a laugh. “What sort of welcome is this? We’ve found the Verdenese king! We should be celebrating! Our plan is in motion.” I clap my hands and stretch my smile wider, willing the shepherds to let me have this small victory. But they continue to stand there, frozen and frowning.
It was foolish to envision a triumphant return, like the parade of warriors that marches through Sagaan after hard-won battles, but I expected more than this. The shepherds have never been so quiet. Not even when a battalion of imperial warriors marched past our caravan on the grasslands, and our lives literally depended on staying silent beneath my blanket of darkness.
It’s because they don’t want this. They never wanted this. They never believed in you or your plan.
“I can’t win, can I?” My voice trembles like Ziva’s. Except where hers was timid and frightened, mine is furious. “No matter what I do, it will never be enough.”
There’s a flash of movement near the back of the cavern. Serik spills from the adjoining tunnel, the trackers behind him. “Enebish! You’re back, thank the skies.” His entire body seems to unclench, and a look of pure relief washes over his freckled face—despite the fact that I kneed him in the stomach and bolted.
If anyone should be angry, it’s him. But he’s jostling through the throng of shepherds to reach me. Coming to my aid yet again.
My chest floods with the same emotion I felt when he appeared through the smoke in Kartok’s burning xanav—a welcome ache that tantalizes my insides like warm vorkhi.
“Where did you go? And why is everyone standing around …” Serik trails off as he notices King Minoak splayed across the cloak. His hand leaps to cover his mouth. “Who’s that? They look like a bloody carcass left to rot on the side of the road.”
Ziva flinches. “You try tending a knife wound in the desert without herbs or bandages!”
Serik appraises the girl through narrowed eyes. “And who are you?”
“This is Ziva, the Night Spinning food thief I chased from the cavern,” I say.
Serik sputters and his eyes constrict even further. “Why in the skies would you bring her back? She stole from us! And we already have too many mouths to feed.”
“Because this is her father—His Royal Majesty, King Minoak of Verdenet.” I plead with my eyes. If Serik reacts well, the shepherds will follow suit. He’s who they trust—he’s who they look to.
But Serik is Serik, and he’s never had to set any sort of example.
“This is King Minoak?” he says with disbelief. “How will he lead us anywhere?”
The shepherds resume wailing, and I glare at Serik, my warm fuzzy feelings drying up. “Thanks for that,” I snap. He tries to apologize, but I’ve already turned back to the group: “I know King Minoak isn’t his strongest at the moment”—the understatement of the century—“but we’ll have him fixed up in no time.”
“How much time?” several people demand. “And with what supplies?”
“Look at him! It will take months!”
“Months we don’t have!”
“King Minoak is our only hope of freedom,” I say, trying to stay calm as I explain for the hundredth time, but even I can hear the desperation creeping into my voice. “Please, just trust me—”
Their shouts pelt me, one after the next.
“I knew following a criminal was a bad idea.”
“We should enter Verdenet.”
“What good has trusting you done us?”
You’re not a human icicle, frozen on the grazing lands! I want to scream. And you won’t be slaughtered when Temujin and the Zemyans conquer Sagaan.
I could go on, but I grind my teeth together because telling them does no good. They see only what they want to see.
As the chaos builds, Ziva melts to her knees at her father’s side and shields him from the assault, as if their words are arrows. I throw another desperate glance at Serik, but he tosses his hands and shakes his head. We’re both so far out of our depth, we might as well be drowning in the Zemyan Sea.
You were a fool to think this would work, an insidious voice whispers in my ear. A fool to think even desperate people would follow you. A crushing weight presses down on me—heavier than the league of rock and sand above my head—and my ragged breath is so loud, I almost miss Ziva’s shattered voice, rising from her huddled form.
“W-what if I asked you to trust me?” she yelps. Her words are so faltering and the shepherds are so loud, she has to repeat herself three times and climb onto a tall protrusion of rock before they hear. And it would have been better if they didn’t.
“Why would we put our trust in a child?” an ancient shepherdess barks.
“And a thieving one at that!” someone else growls.
Ziva clutches her skinny arms around herself. She begins to shrink, but then she peers at her father and stands back up. She pushes her chin-length curls behind her ears, looking more like the fiery girl I chased to Sawtooth Mesa.
“I’m not a child!” she shouts at the ornery old woman. “I’m thirteen. And I know how strong my father is. He will retaliate against the empire, once he’s able. I also know that running to Lutaar City is futile. The imperial governor feeds people one day, then executes them the next. It isn’t a long-term solution.”
“We don’t have long to wait!” Azamat calls.
Ziva purses her lips. “When did I say anything about waiting?”
“Do we have another choice?” Serik asks.
“We go to Namaag,” Ziva says, as if it’s the simplest, most obvious solution in the world. And maybe it would be if it wasn’t exactly what Temujin predicted King Minoak would do when we sat and speculated on this very subject in Kartok’s false Eternal Blue. The Shoniin and Zemyans could already be lying in wait along the route.
I shake my head, but Ziva continues, her voice growing with conviction. “My aunt Yatindra is married to the vice chancellor. Relations between our countries are strong, and Ashkar’s presence has always been minimal in the marshlands, so there’s little threat of being caught. If you help me transport my father to safety, I’ll convince the Namagaans to join us in our march against the imperial governor.”
For the first time since we entered the caves, the shepherds aren’t yelling. I can see them turning the plan over in their brains: Food. Shelter. Protection. Reinforcements. It’s only a weeklong trek to Uzul, the Namagaan capital. One week, and their suffering could be over. It’s a good plan—essentially the same as mine, only we’d be recruiting the Protected Territories in a different order. And the shepherds aren’t outright saying no, which is a victory in itself. But when Ziva looks at me with a wide smile, I shake my head.
“It won’t work.”
“W
hy not?” She leaps down from the boulder and plants her hands on her hips.
“Because you could use us to transport you and your father to Namaag, then cast us out.”
Ziva recoils, her dark eyes glassy with hurt. And beneath the hurt, a quiet, simmering rage. “Do you honestly think I would abandon the people of Verdenet? My father is the king! I am the crown princess. I’ll return to fight for my country with or without this group.”
“Don’t take her cynicism personally, little princess.” Azamat throws a venomous look my way. “That one thinks we’re all traitors—accused me of stealing the food she set me to guard.”
“I don’t—I never …” My voice takes on a desperate edge. “We must also think of her family’s ties to Namaag. Scores of assassins are hunting King Minoak. They’ll surely be waiting along the caravan route.”
“Enebish refuses to believe any of us are capable,” Lalyne, the tracker, says to Ziva. “She accuses us of insurrection and incompetence, no matter that she set us with an impossible task. We never would’ve found you or your father—not while you were hidden beneath the cover of night.”
“Which is exactly why we don’t have to worry about assassins or Shoniin scouts spotting us as we travel to Namaag!” Serik jumps in. “Now we have two Night Spinners to conceal us.”
“What?” I demand.
“We all know how exhausted you are, En. Ziva can help.”
“You can’t be serious!” I retort. “She doesn’t know the first thing about Night Spinning.”
Ziva jerks back as if I’ve slapped her. “I knew enough to steal food out from under your nose!”
“I didn’t know how to wield my power either,” Serik continues. “But you learn quickly when you’re thrust into the fray. And you can teach her, En. Mentor her. She’s already shown promise. She concealed King Minoak all this time.”
The shepherds whisper and nod more eagerly, pulling away from me like the threads of darkness at dawn.
Sky Breaker (Night Spinner Duology) Page 5
