Vessel

by Sarah Beth Durst

  His concentration broke, and his cyclone collapsed.

  Wind and sand knocked Liyana backward against the tent. She clung to the tarp and to her knife. Wolves howled around her. She saw their shapes as shadows rushing in circles around them. Sand stung her eyes.

  She tried to yell, “Korbyn!” but sand poured into her mouth. She coughed and gasped for air. She felt arms wrap around her and yank her down. Her cheek was pressed against Korbyn’s chest. Sand pounded at her back, and the howls shook her bones. One of the horses screamed.

  He needed to drive the wind away. But to do that, he had to quit protecting her and let her protect him. Into his ear she shouted, “Forget me! Stop the storm!” She broke away from him.

  Eyes shut against the blinding sand, she held her knife ready and listened.

  She heard a howl, and she sliced at the sand. She felt the blade hit. She struck again. And again. And again, as the wolves lunged for them.

  An eternity later, she felt wind, clear wind, push from behind her, pushing the sand away. Korbyn’s wind intensified, blowing harder and faster. The howls receded.

  Slowly, eventually the wind stilled.

  Behind her, Korbyn collapsed.

  Liyana was coated in sand. Her eyelids were caked with grit, and her eyes burned. She tried to wipe her eyes with her sleeve, but she only smeared more sand onto her face. With shaking hands she tucked the knife back into her sash, and then she collapsed beside Korbyn.

  * * *

  After the sandstorm, no one objected to Liyana’s magic lessons. The wolves had come too close for anyone’s comfort, and everyone knew it was sheer luck that the horses had survived. At every stop, Liyana practiced.

  Occasionally Raan joined her, though she lacked the concentration to picture the lake for more than a few minutes. She wasn’t able to pull magic from it at all. Liyana, on the other hand, continued to improve. When at last she caused a desert bush to burst into bloom, all of them, including Pia, cheered. Liyana bowed before she collapsed in the sand.

  An hour later she opened her eyes. “Ready for lesson two?” Korbyn asked.

  Shaking the sand out of her hair, she sat up. “Your turn. I promised you dance lessons.” She got to her feet and held out her hand toward him.

  He shot a look toward Fennik, Pia, and Raan, who were watching from the other side of the fire. “With an audience? How will I continue to impress with my omnipotent divinity once everyone has seen my feet fumble?”

  “Think of them as musicians, not an audience,” Liyana said. “And no one is all that impressed anyway. Fennik, I’ll need a steady drumbeat.”

  Unable to suppress his grin, Fennik fetched a pot and hit it with the heel of his hand.

  “Keep it even. Like a heartbeat.” Liyana hauled Korbyn to his feet. “First step is to feel the music inside as if it’s your heartbeat. Bum-ba, bum-ba, bum-ba.” She placed her hand over his heart, and she put his hand on her heart. For an instant she couldn’t move, feeling the warmth of his hand.

  His eyes were fixed on hers. “I feel it.” She wondered if he meant the drums, her heartbeat, or her.

  “Good.” She looked away and was able to breathe again. “Step with the beat. Shift your weight. Little movements for now, just your heels, until you have the rhythm.” Her hand on his heart, she shifted from side to side. His hand on her heart, he swayed with her.

  Stepping back, she dropped her hand. He did the same.

  She swallowed, and her throat felt dry. She told herself this was no different than teaching Jidali to dance. “Raan, can you keep this beat?” Liyana clapped out a staccato rhythm. Raan mimicked it. It was syncopated with Fennik’s drum. “Pia?”

  Pia sang a melody as light as air. It danced over the tent and up toward the sky. Liyana felt her feet itch. She wanted to twirl and leap. She hadn’t danced in so long!

  “This will be a disaster,” Korbyn warned.

  “Listen only to the drum,” she said. “That’s your center, your source, your . . . Think of it as your lake. You’re connected to it. Everything else is simply layers on top of it.”

  “Bum-ba, bum-ba, bum-ba,” he said. “Got it.”

  She smiled. “Not yet you don’t. Run with me.” Grabbing his hand, she pulled him after her. Her feet hit the sand in rhythm with the drum. He fell into step beside her, and she ran with him until the beat faded under the sound of the night wind. Pivoting, she ran back toward the camp. The wind was cool in her face. It caressed her neck and tossed her hair. His footfalls matched hers.

  By the fire, Liyana caught Korbyn’s free hand. She swung in a circle with him. “Feel the beat! Bum-ba, bum-ba, bum-ba.” She released him. He continued to move with the beat. She raised her arms to match Pia’s soaring melody, and she let the music take her. Her feet danced to Raan’s syncopated rhythm while Korbyn stamped out the central heartbeat. Letting go of her thoughts, she spun around him.

  Korbyn turned with her, and she felt his eyes on her. She orbited around him, the moon to his sun. As the melody dipped, she twirled closer. She lifted her hands, palms forward. He lifted his, and they pressed their hands together. Palm to palm they danced.

  As the song rose above the desert, Liyana felt as if the wind were dancing with them. Sand churned under their feet. She tilted her head backward as Korbyn cradled her back in his hands. He spun her in a circle, and she saw the stars spin above them. He raised her up, and their faces were only inches apart. Slowing, they swayed to the heartbeat-like drum. His eyes were like the night sky, deep and endless and full of stars.

  He slowed, still swaying. So did she.

  The melody ceased.

  She realized that the drums had stopped as well, though she didn’t know when. She and Korbyn were swaying to their own rhythm. Liyana stopped. She couldn’t read his expression, but his eyes were fixed on hers as if nothing else in the world existed. Both of them breathed fast.

  Releasing him, she broke away. His hand reached toward her and then fell back. “You’re ready for Bayla,” she said. Her voice sounded thin to her ears.

  She didn’t look at any of the others as she ducked into the tent. Curling up in her sleeping roll, she pretended to be asleep when they all came in for the night.

  Chapter Eighteen

  We are leaving the desert,” Pia announced.

  Liyana pulled on the reins, and Gray Luck slowed. In the distance, she saw the silhouette of hills—the eastern border of the desert. Black trees with bare branches marked the peaks. On the other side of those hills was the Crescent Empire. “She’s right,” Liyana said.

  “Different birds,” Pia explained.

  Liyana heard them, unseen to one another, calling in low caws and piercing trills. They hid in the thorned bushes and dried grasses that pockmarked the land, and they perched on the twisted trees that grew out of boulder-filled hollows. The branches of the trees were so knotted that they looked like misshapen fingers folded into fists.

  “You want us to leave the desert?” Fennik asked, scandalized.

  Raan rode past Fennik. “And where exactly did you think we were going? The fair?” She sounded so pleased that Liyana expected her to break out in a whistle.

  “Why would anyone in the Crescent Empire want our gods?” Fennik asked. “The empire has always left the desert alone and vice versa.”

  Liyana had imagined a lone madman or a rogue clan. She’d never thought about an enemy from beyond the sands. She’d never met anyone from outside the desert. She didn’t know any of their stories.

  “Horse boy does have a point,” Raan said. “Why mess with our sand? They already have fertile fields, rivers full of fish, cities of surpassing wealth . . .” The note of longing in her voice was clear. We’ll have to watch her again, Liyana thought. She felt a sinking in her stomach as she remembered Raan’s lack of tattoos.

  “Besides, don’t they have their own gods?” Pia asked.

  All of them looked at Korbyn.

  “Fennik, keep your bows accessible.” He urged h
is horse forward. Liyana followed, her horse stomping on the bushes. Branches crackled under Gray Luck’s hooves.

  By afternoon they reached the border hills. Miniscule, white flowers coated the slopes, and lichen painted the rocks in orange, green, and white. Liyana spotted rodents scurrying between the rocks. As they rode uphill, she thought about setting snares for them, and she wondered if there was larger game in the hills, perhaps gazelles or wild goat.

  Korbyn crested the hill. Immediately he yanked his horse’s head around and trotted down the slope. “Down,” he ordered, and they followed him.

  At the base, Fennik said, “Tell us. What did you see?”

  Korbyn swore, borrowing some of Raan’s favorite words as he dismounted. His horse plunged his snout into the nearest bush and began stripping the leaves off it. On foot Korbyn trotted back to the hill without answering Fennik.

  “Go on,” Pia said. “I’ll stay with the horses.” She patted hers on the neck. Leaving her, Liyana, Raan, and Fennik crept up the slope behind Korbyn. All of them poked their heads over the ridge.

  Beyond was a broad plain of golden grasses.

  It was filled with tents.

  Hundreds of dark green tents lined the plain like crops. Around them, horses grazed—not sleek desert horses but large, muscled horses. Men and women in white uniforms paced between the tents.

  Liyana tried to count the number of tents and gave up after the fifth row of twenty. The encampment was larger than a clan. In fact, it was larger than five clans.

  “You didn’t expect this,” Fennik said to Korbyn.

  Raan snorted. “He’s been making it all up as he goes along.”

  Liyana flinched as Korbyn shot her a look. Not meeting his eyes, she studied the encampment again. Deep within the rows, a banner emblazoned with a crescent sun waved over a large, golden tent. At this distance, the white-clad soldiers who circled the gold tent looked like moon moths around a candle flame.

  “You can quit glaring at her. She didn’t give up your precious ‘secret,’ ” Raan said. “It’s been obvious that you’re winging it.”

  Fennik drew back from the edge. “Can we have this argument down the hill?”

  Silently they retreated down the hill and rejoined Pia and the horses. Liyana still felt exposed. She watched the top of the hill and wondered if there were patrols that watched the border. If so, how often did they pass there?

  “Please, tell me,” Pia said.

  “It’s an army,” Fennik said. “Korbyn either deliberately neglected to tell us, or—”

  “Does it matter?” Liyana interrupted. “I’d say we have a lot more important issues than what Korbyn knew or didn’t know, and did or didn’t tell us.”

  Pia clutched her horse’s reins as if she were on the verge of fainting. “Army?” she squeaked.

  “Crescent Empire,” Korbyn said.

  “See, he knows something!” Fennik said.

  “Don’t be too impressed,” Raan said dryly. “They had flags, you know. Also, that is the Crescent Empire’s land, so it’s a good bet that it’s their army. I doubt they’d let another army wander through.”

  “But . . . Why? What do they want?” Pia’s voice trembled.

  “Looks like they want the desert,” Raan said. “It would hardly make sense for them to invade themselves. But I can’t imagine why. We don’t have anything they need.”

  Liyana shook her head. “ ‘Why’ doesn’t matter, at least to us. Our job is to rescue our gods. Once they walk the world, they can handle the army.”

  “We don’t even know if they have our gods,” Fennik said. He looked pointedly at Korbyn. Korbyn’s gaze was fixed on the ridge. Liyana wasn’t convinced he was even listening to them.

  “Our gods were summoned east, and there’s an army east,” Liyana said. “I have trouble believing that’s a coincidence.” Somewhere in that encampment, Bayla waited for Korbyn.

  “Fine,” Fennik said. “But we don’t know where they’re being held. Or how. Our gods could be trapped in anything. Or anyone.”

  Pia gasped. “Oyri, in another?”

  Gaze still fixed on the border, Korbyn spoke. “Once, there was a god who mistakenly entered his vessel’s companion. This was in the time before vessels were marked with tattoos. The results were disastrous—inside the wrong body, the deity couldn’t work magic. And so, the god drank poison, killing the body and freeing his soul to return to the Dreaming, where at least he would not have to watch the suffering his mistake had caused. One hundred years later, he returned to a decimated clan and built it back to a sustainable size. But he was never the same after that. Every time he returned to the Dreaming, he hid in a cave of his own making so the souls of the clan he failed would not find him. And ever after, vessels have been marked with tattoos so his mistake will not be repeated by another.”

  Raan’s hands were clenched into fists. “That is a hideous story.”

  “If it’s true, it means you can summon your goddess without tattoos,” Liyana pointed out. “All you have to do is dance while a magician chants.”

  Raan turned away from her.

  “First, though, we need to free the deities so they can be summoned,” Fennik said.

  “Will we . . . will we have to kill anyone to free my goddess?” Pia’s voice quivered.

  Still watching Raan, Liyana shook her head and answered for Korbyn. “No. If they were in a person, they’d have killed themselves already.” Raan blanched at that, but Liyana continued. “Whatever trap they’re in, it has to be something they can’t destroy. We will have to destroy it for them.”

  “Then how do we—” Pia began.

  “I thought it was obvious that I’m winging it.” Korbyn smiled, and the smile lit up his entire face.

  “Ooh, big powerful deity has a plan,” Raan said.

  “As a matter of fact, yes, I do.” Korbyn swept his hand to indicate the horses. “Fennik and I are horse traders. We have come to view their horses and show them ours in the hopes of establishing trade between the Horse Clan and the Crescent Empire. Once within the encampment, Fennik distracts them with fancy talk about horse fetlocks while I determine the location of the captive deities.”

  All of them were silent. Liyana stroked Gray Luck’s neck.

  “That’s the entire plan?” Pia asked.

  “Simple plans are the best,” Korbyn said.

  “Think of another plan,” Liyana ordered. “You could be caught.”

  “I’ll be tricky.” Korbyn wiggled his fingers at them. “Trickster god, remember?”

  “And what are we supposed to do while you are being ‘tricky’?” Raan asked. “Twiddle our thumbs and hope for the best?”

  For once, Liyana was in complete agreement with Raan. He couldn’t expect her to sit idly by and wait for him to be captured, or worse. She put her hand on his arm. “If they’re kidnapping gods, you can’t just wander in!”

  “I won’t wander; I’ll ride,” Korbyn said. “You three need to find a grove of trees. Stay hidden. Stay safe. Liyana is skilled enough to take care of your food and water needs. Once I know the situation, Fennik or I will return for you.” He patted her hand.

  Abruptly she realized she was clinging to him. Releasing him, she backed away. She felt as if she heard roaring in her ears. “A million things could go wrong. Please, Korbyn.”

  “Have a little faith.” He grinned at his word play.

  “Your body is mortal with mortal limitations,” Pia said.

  Liyana reached out again. Her fingertips brushed his cheek. “Korbyn, you think you need to save the entire desert by yourself. You keep forgetting you’re not alone.”

  His grin faded. “My problem is that I can’t forget that.”

  Liyana’s breath caught in her throat as he held her gaze.

  “She must be rescued,” Korbyn said gently.

  * * *

  In the light of dawn, the encampment seemed to spread endlessly in all directions. Liyana wondered if this was what the sea
looked like—each tent a wave crest, all poised to roll over her beloved desert. She watched Korbyn and Fennik lead the horses down the slope. They slowly picked their way around the rocks and bushes. At the base, they allowed the horses to graze for several minutes before they waded forward into the tall, golden grasses.

  Liyana felt as if she were the one exposed out there on the plain. Every muscle felt like a knot, and her heart thudded inside her chest. She watched Korbyn and wished she could see his face. “Keep him safe,” she whispered, though she knew no one would hear her prayer.

  The slow speed had been Korbyn’s idea—he’d said it would present them as harmless. Fennik had agreed, and they’d spent the bulk of the night meticulously planning their approach as if it were an elaborate performance. But watching their show was torture.

  As they reached the halfway point, a trio of guards cantered toward them. Crisp white, their uniforms reflected the sun. Brimmed hats shielded their faces from the sun and from view. Scarlet scarves covered their necks. “Please,” Liyana whispered, again to no one.

  Liyana saw Fennik sweep his arms open to gesture at the horses. She imagined she could hear him say the words that they’d rehearsed last night. The guards didn’t unsheathe their swords—she would have seen the metal flash in the sun—but they were too far away for her to tell if their hands were on their hilts.

  “Lovely to see the boys working together, isn’t it?” Raan said behind her.

  Liyana jumped. Absorbed in the show on the plains, she hadn’t heard the other girl approach. “I should have insisted on going.”

  “You’re needed to babysit me in case I decide to avoid my ‘fate’ by crossing the border.”

  The bitterness in Raan’s voice felt like a slap. Liyana didn’t know what to say—Raan wasn’t wrong, though none of them had voiced that concern out loud. Side by side, in silence, they watched the figures of Korbyn, Fennik, and the guards on the plain.

  Softly Raan asked, “If I find a way to save the clans and our lives, will you do it?”

  “And save the deities?” Liyana asked.