by Sabaa Tahir
"I don't think it's like that," I say. Through the trees, I see the sparkle of sun on water. "There's no alone or together on that side. I think it's different."
"How do you know?"
"I don't," I say. "But the spirits can't move on until they've dealt with whatever ties them to the living world. Love or anger, fear or family. So maybe those emotions don't exist on that side. In any case, it will be better than this place, Izzi. This place is haunted. You don't deserve to be stuck here."
I spy a path ahead, and my body moves to it instinctively. I think of a pale-feathered hummingbird that once hatched in Quin's courtyard, how it would disappear in winter and return in the spring, guided home by some unknowable compass within.
But why do you know this path, Elias, when you've never been to this part of the Forest before?
I brush away the question. Now is not the time for it.
Izzi leans on me as the path leads down to an embankment padded with dried leaves. The trail drops suddenly, and we step down. A slow river whispers at our feet.
"Is this it?" She gazes out at the clear water. The strange, muted sun of the Waiting Place shines in her blonde hair, making it appear almost white. "Is this where I go on?"
I nod, the answer coming to me as if I've always known it. "I won't leave until you're ready," I say. "I'll stay with you."
She lifts her dark eye to my face, looking a bit more like her old self again. "What becomes of you, Elias?"
I shrug. "I'm"--fine, good, alive--"alone," I blurt out. Immediately, I feel like a fool.
Izzi tilts her head and puts a ghostly hand to my face. "Sometimes, Elias," she says, "loneliness is a choice." She fades at the edges, bits of her disappearing as delicately as dandelion fluff. "Tell Laia I wasn't afraid. She was worried."
She releases me and steps into the river. One moment she is there, the next she is not, gone before I even raise a hand in farewell. Something lightens within me at her departure, as if a bit of the guilt that plagues me has melted away.
Behind me, I sense another presence. Memories on the air: the clash of practice scims, footraces in the dunes, his laughter at the endless teasing about Aelia.
"You could let go, too." I don't turn. "You could be free, like her. I'll help you. You don't have to do it alone."
I wait. I hope. But Tristas's only response is silence.
*
The next three days are the worst in my life. If my seizures take me to the Waiting Place, I am unaware of it. All I know is pain and the Warden's white-blue eyes as he bombards me with questions. Do tell me about your mother--such a fascinating woman. You were dear friends with the Blood Shrike. Does she feel others' pain as keenly as you do?
Tas, his little face worried, tries to keep my wounds clean. I can help you, Elias. The Skiritae can help.
Drusius softens me up every morning for the Warden--will never let you get the best of me again, you bastard--
In whatever bits of lucidity I have left, I gather what information I can. Don't give up, Elias. Don't fall into the dark. I listen to the guards' footsteps, the timbre of their voices. I learn to identify them by the little bits of shadow that pass by my door. I figure out their rotations and identify a pattern in the interrogations. Then I search for an opportunity.
None appears. Instead, Death circles, a patient vulture. I feel his crooked shadow approaching, chilling the air I breathe. Not yet.
Then one morning, footsteps thud outside my door and keys rattle. Drusius enters my cell to give me my daily beating. Right on schedule. I let my head loll and my mouth hang open. He chuckles to himself and saunters forward. When he's inches away from me, he grabs me by my hair and makes me look at him.
"Pathetic," he spits in my face. Swine. "I thought you were supposed to be strong. The all-mighty Elias Veturius. You're nothi--"
Stupid man, you forgot to tighten my chains. I drive my knee up, straight between his legs. He squeaks and doubles over, and I chase the blow with a brain-jarring head butt. His eyes go glassy, and he doesn't notice that I've wrapped one of my chains around his neck until his face is already turning blue.
"You," I snarl at him when he finally passes out, "talk too damn much."
I let him down and search his body for keys. I find them and clap my manacles on him in case he wakes up before I want him to. Then I gag him.
I peer out the slats of the door. The other Mask on duty hasn't yet come looking for Drusius. But he will soon enough. I count the sound of that Mask's bootsteps until I'm certain he's well away from me. Then I slip out the door.
The light of the torches stings my eyes, and I squint. My cell is at the end of a short hallway that branches out from the main hallway of the block. This hall has only three cells, and I'm certain that the one next to me is empty. Which leaves only one other cell to check.
My fingers are useless from the torture, and I grit my teeth at the long seconds it takes to paw through the keys. Hurry, Elias, hurry.
Finally I find the right key, and moments later, I unlock the door. It squeals wildly, and I turn sideways to squeeze through. It squeals again when I close it, and I curse softly.
Though I was only in the torchlight for a moment, it takes my eyes a bit to adjust to the darkness. At first, I cannot see the drawings. When I do, my breath catches. Tas was right. They do look as if they'll come to life.
The cell is silent. Darin must be sleeping--or unconscious. I take a step toward the emaciated form in the corner. Then I hear the rattle of chains, the pant of harsh breath. A ravaged specter leaps from the darkness, his face inches from my own, bony fingers around my neck. His light hair is missing in chunks from his head, his bruised face is criss-crossed with scars. Two of his fingers are stubs, and his torso is covered in burns. Ten hells.
"Who in the bleeding skies," the specter says, "are you?"
I remove his hands easily from my neck, but for a second, I can't speak. It's him. I know it instantly. Not because he resembles Laia. Even in the dim cell, I can see his eyes are blue, his skin pale. But the fire in his gaze--I've only ever seen that in one other person. And though I expect his eyes to be mad, judging from the sounds I've heard, they appear completely sane.
"Darin of Serra," I say. "I'm a friend."
He responds with a dark chuckle. "A Martial as a friend? I think not."
I look over my shoulder at the door. We have no time. "I know your sister, Laia," I say. "I'm here to break you out at her request. We need to go--now--"
"You're a liar," he hisses.
The echo of a footstep outside, then silence. We don't have time for this. "I can prove it to you," I say. "Ask me about her. I can tell you--"
"You can tell me what I told the Warden, which is bleeding everything about her. No stone unturned, he said." Darin glares at me with a searing hatred. He must be exaggerating his pain during interrogations so that the Warden believes he is weak, because from that look, it's obvious he's no pushover. Normally I'd approve. But right now, it's damned inconvenient.
"Listen to me." I keep my voice low but sharp enough to cut through his suspicion. "I'm not one of them, or else I wouldn't be dressed like this and with wounds of my own." I bare my arms, marked with cuts from the Warden's latest interrogation. "I'm a prisoner. I broke in to get you out, but I was caught. Now I have to break us both out."
"What does he want with her?" Darin snarls at me. "Tell me what he wants with my sister and maybe I'll believe you."
"I don't know," I say. "Likely he wants to get into your head. Get to know you by asking about her. If you're not answering his questions about the weapons--"
"He hasn't asked any questions about the bleeding weapons." Darin runs a claw across his scalp. "All he's asked about is her."
"That doesn't make any sense," I say. "You were captured because of the weapons. Because of what Spiro taught you about Serric steel."
Darin goes still. "How the hells do you know that?"
"I told you--"
"I've
never told any of them that," he says. "As far as they know, I'm a Resistance spy. Skies, do you have Spiro too?"
"Wait." I hold up a hand, baffled. "He's never questioned you about the weapons? Only about Laia?"
Darin juts his chin out and snorts. "He must be even more desperate for information than I thought. Did he really think you could convince me that you were a friend of Laia's? Tell him one other thing about her, from me. Laia would never ask a Martial for help."
Footsteps pass in the main hallway. We need to get the hell out of here.
"Did you tell them how your sister sleeps with her hand on your mother's armlet?" I ask. "Or that up close, her eyes are gold and brown and green and silver. Or that since the day you told her to run, all she has felt is guilt, and all she has thought about is somehow getting to you? Or that she has a fire inside her that's more than a match for any Mask, if only she's willing to believe in it?"
Darin's mouth gapes open. "Who are you?"
"I told you," I say. "I'm a friend. And right now, I need to get us out of here. Can you stand?"
Darin nods, limping forward. I put his arm around my shoulders. We shuffle to the door, and I hear the approaching footsteps of a guard. I can tell from the gait that it's a legionnaire--they're always louder than the Masks. I wait impatiently for him to pass.
"What did the Warden ask about your sister?" I say as we wait.
"He wanted to know everything," Darin says darkly. "But he felt around for the information. He was frustrated. It was as if he wasn't quite sure what to ask. As if the questions weren't his to begin with. I tried to lie at first. But he always knew."
"What did you tell him?" The guard is well away now. I reach for the door handle and pull it open with painful slowness, lest it creak.
"Whatever I could to make the pain stop. Stupid things: That she loves the Moon Festival. That she could watch kites fly for hours. That she likes her tea with enough honey in it to choke a bear."
The pit of my stomach drops away. Those words are familiar. Why are they familiar? I turn my attention to Darin in full, and he looks at me uncertainly.
"I didn't think it would help him," he says. "He never seemed satisfied, no matter what I told him. Anything I said, he'd demand more."
It's a coincidence, I tell myself. Then I remember something Grandfather Quin used to say: Only a jackass believes in coincidence. Darin's words swirl in my head, linking to things I don't want them to, drawing lines where there should not be any.
"Did you tell the Warden that Laia loves lentil stew in the winter?" I ask. "That it made her feel safe? Or--or that she didn't want to die without seeing the Great Library of Adisa?"
"I used to tell her about the library all the time," Darin says. "She loved hearing about it."
Words float through my head, snippets of conversation between Laia and Keenan overheard as we traveled. I've been flying kites since I was a boy, he'd once said. I could watch them for hours. . . . I would love to see the Great Library one day. And Laia, that night before I left, smiling as she drank the too-sweet tea that Keenan handed her. Good tea is sweet enough to choke a bear, he'd said.
No, bleeding hells, no. All that time, lurking among us. Pretending to care about her. Trying to get in good with Izzi. Acting like a friend when he was really a tool of the Warden.
And his face before I left. That hardness that he never showed to Laia but that I sensed was there from the beginning. I know what it is to do things for the people you love. Damn it all, he must have told the Warden of my arrival, though how he could have gotten a message to the old man without using the drums is beyond me.
"I tried not to tell him anything important," Darin says. "I thought--"
Darin falls silent at the sharp voices of approaching soldiers. I close the door, and we back up into Darin's cell until they pass.
Only they don't pass.
Instead they turn down the hallway leading to this cell. As I cast about for some way to defend myself, the door flies open and four Masks pour in, truncheons raised.
It's not a fight. They are too fast, and I am injured, poisoned, and starved. I drop--I know when I'm outnumbered, and I can't withstand any more serious injuries. The Masks desperately want to use those truncheons to pound my head in, but they don't, instead cuffing me roughly and yanking me to my feet.
The Warden strolls in, hands behind his back. When he sees Darin and me confined next to each other, he doesn't appear surprised.
"Excellent, Elias," he murmurs. "Finally, you and I have something worthwhile to discuss."
XLII: Helene
The redheaded Scholar reaches for his scim but halts at the simultaneous hiss of two blades leaving their scabbards. With a slight shift of weight, he eases himself in front of Laia.
She sidesteps him, her glare formidable. She is not the same, frightened child I healed in Blackcliff's slaves' quarters. That bizarre protectiveness grips me, the same emotion I felt for Elias in Nur. I reach out and touch her face. She starts, and Avitas and Faris exchange a glance. Immediately I pull away. But not before I discern from the touch that she is well. Relief sweeps through me--and anger.
Did my healing mean nothing to you?
She had a strange song, this girl, with a fey beauty that raised the hair on the back of my neck. So different from Elias's song. But not discordant. Livia and Hannah took singing lessons--what would they call it? Countermelody. Laia and Elias are each other's countermelodies. I am just a dissonant note.
"I know you're here for your brother," I say. "Darin of Serra, Resistance spy--"
"He's not a--"
I wave off her protestations. "I don't bleeding care. You'll probably end up dead."
"I assure you, I won't." The girl's gold eyes spark, and her jaw is set. "I made it here despite the fact that you were hunting us." She takes a step forward, but I give no ground. "I survived the Commandant's genocide--"
"A few patrols to round up rebels is not--"
"Patrols?" Her face twists in horror. "You're killing thousands. Women. Children. You bastards have an entire skies-forsaken army parked in the Argent Hills--"
"Enough," the redhead says sharply, but I ignore him, my mind is fixed on what Laia just said.
--an entire bleeding army--
--the Bitch of Blackcliff is planning something. . . . It's big this time, girl--
I need to get out of here. A hunch has taken root in my mind, and I need to consider it.
"I am here for Veturius. Any attempt to rescue him will result in your death."
"Rescue," Laia says flatly. "From--from the prison."
"Yes," I say impatiently. "I don't want to kill you, girl. So stay out of my way."
I stride from the cave into the heavy snowdrifts, mind churning.
"Shrike," Faris says when we've nearly reached our camp. "Don't take off my head, but we can't just leave them alive to carry out an illegal prison break."
"Every garrison we went to in the Tribal lands was short on soldiers," I say. "Even Antium didn't have a full complement of guards for the walls. Why do you think that is?"
Faris shrugs, bewildered. "The men were sent to the borderlands. Dex heard the same."
"But my father told me in his letters that the border garrisons needed reinforcements. He said the Commandant requested soldiers too. Everyone is short. Dozens of garrisons, thousands of soldiers. An army of soldiers."
"You mean what the girl said about the Argent Hills?" Faris scoffs. "She's a Scholar--she doesn't know what she's talking about."
"The Hills have a dozen valleys big enough to hide an army in," I say. "And only one pass in and one pass out. Both of those passes--"
Avitas swears. "Blocked," he says. "By the weather. But those passes are never blocked so early in winter."
"We were in such a hurry, we didn't think twice about it," Faris says. "If there is an army, what is it for?"
"Marcus might be planning to attack the Tribal lands," I say. "Or Marinn." Both options are disa
strous. The Empire has enough to deal with without a full-scale war. We reach our camp, and I hand Faris the reins to his horse. "Find out what's going on. Scout the Argent Hills. I ordered Dex back to Antium. Have him keep the Black Guard at the ready."
Faris's eyes shift to Avitas, and he tilts his head at me. You trust him?
"I'll be all right," I say. "Go."
Moments after he leaves, a shadow steps out from the woods. My scim is half-drawn when I realize it's a Fiver, trembling and half-frozen. He silently hands me a note.
The Commandant arrives this evening to oversee the cleansing of Kauf Prison's Scholar population. She and I will meet at midnight, in her pavilion.
Avitas grimaces at the look on my face. "What is it?"
"The Warden," I say. "Coming out to play."
*
By midnight, I ghost along the base of Kauf's high outer wall toward the Commandant's camp, eyeing the friezes and gargoyles that make Kauf almost ornate when compared to Blackcliff. Avitas follows, covering our tracks.
Keris Veturia has erected her tents in the shadow of Kauf's southeast wall. Her men walk the perimeter, and her pavilion sits at the center of the camp, with five yards of clear space on three sides. The tent backs to Kauf's ice-slick wall. No woodpiles, no wagons, not even a bleeding horse to use as cover.
I stop along the far edge of the camp and nod to Avitas. He takes out a grappling hook and heaves it at a pinnacle atop a buttress about forty feet up. The hook catches. He hands me the rope and silently backtracks through the snow.
When I'm ten feet up, I hear the crunch of boots on snow. I turn, expecting to whisper-shout at Avitas for being so damned loud. Instead, a soldier lumbers out from between the tents, unbuttoning his pants to relieve himself.
I scramble for a knife, but my boots, slick with snow, slip on the rope, and I drop the blade. The soldier whirls at the sound. His eyes widen, and he gathers his breath to shout. Damn it! I prepare to drop, but an arm wraps around the soldier's throat, choking off his air. Avitas glares up at me as he grapples with the man. Go! he mouths.
Swiftly, I snake the rope between my boots and pull myself up hand over hand. Once at the top, I take aim at a second pinnacle thirty feet away, directly over the Commandant's tent. I let the grappling hook fly. When I'm certain it's secure, I tie the rope around my waist and take a deep breath, preparing to drop.
