The Desert Prince

by Brett, Peter V.

  A glance around shows the other students looking as awestruck as I feel. In my head I know it is a tactic. An orchestrated revelation of the power of a warrior’s sacrifice right before we are asked to pledge our lives to the First War.

  But my heart cannot deny the power around us. What sacrifice could be more honorable than giving one’s life to keep others safe?

  Belina turns to face the columns of nie’Sharum. “It will take some time to cast the alagai hora for all of you. Those of you in need of healing will be tended before your foretellings.”

  White-robed nie’dama’ting step forward, sorting the students into groups and assigning them numbers, but there is no line for Chadan and me.

  Chavis is waiting in the outer hall, and for a moment, there is a spike of fear in Chadan’s placid aura. It subsides quickly, but Chadan looks like he’s walking to a whipping as the ancient Damaji’ting escorts him away.

  “Come, boy.” Belina takes my arm gently, but the move draws my attention to the blood-locked armlet—a reminder that she is in control here. I imagine lunging at her, trying to pierce her skin with the tiny spear that holds the armlet together. Just a drop, and the blood lock would be open.

  But then what? Where would I go? How far could I get before being run down and shackled again, or worse?

  We come to a private chamber, and Belina kneels, spreading her pristine white casting cloth on the floor. “Kneel, boy.”

  Cautiously I kneel opposite her as Belina draws her hanzhar. “Hold out your arm.”

  I hesitate. Belina made it sound like a command, but I know from Favah’s teaching that blood must be surrendered willingly or unknowingly for a casting to work. To take it by force is forbidden. It is a violation that colors the blood’s magic, fouling the cast.

  There are loopholes, of course. Belina might find and collect my blood from the streets of the chin quarter, if she could distinguish it from the rest. If she knew the truth about me, she could even use one of the wads of stolen bido cloth I bleed into each month, if I was not careful to throw them in the fire when no one is looking. But here and now, if I refuse, Belina cannot insist.

  That seems reason enough to deny her. I don’t know this woman. It may be she is as honorable as her son, putting the greater good above all. Or she might only serve herself. Either way, I know Belina will never consider my interests. Only my value.

  Yet I cannot stop thinking about the glow of heroes’ bones. About the thought of Konin and Rekaj and the others added to this place. A monument to fallen nie’Sharum, glowing gold. How many generations of my forefathers are interred here, sacrificed before their time so others could live their full allotted span?

  Maybe Chadan is right. Maybe it is inevera that a part of me should long to be part of this place. But I will not give her what she wants without a bargain. “Why should I?”

  Belina looks at me as if I am a fool. “You cannot take the black until I cast the dice.”

  “This is not my home,” I say. “You are not my people. Why should I surrender my fate to you for some meaningless title?”

  “Meaningless?!” Belina’s aura flashes hot. Like me, she has a temper even meditation cannot fully control. “You look at the bones of the warriors who guard this place, and think it meaningless?”

  It’s like she read my thoughts. Like Mother sometimes seemed to do. Now she’s trying to use them against me. It only strengthens my resolve to resist. “You forget I was tutored by Dama’ting Favah. I know your tricks and dissembling. It doesn’t take a title to die fighting on alagai talons, and that is all the Evejah requires. The title, the black veil, the casting, they are tools to manipulate men. The sacrifice of Sharum is not meaningless, but neither is it reason to surrender my blood to you.”

  “You would prefer to remain nie’Sharum forever?” Belina asks. “Kept in your bido as all your brothers are raised to the black? Training alone in the yard until a new crop of boys arrives, and another after that, ever younger, even as the years wither you away?”

  I smile. “We both know that fate doesn’t fit your plans for me.”

  “We have no plans for you,” Belina says. “All our plans were made for Princess Olive.” She holds up the dice. “Now, young prince, we need a new plan.”

  “How did you get the first?” I ask.

  “You were such an active child.” Belina smiles. “Our Watchers did not have to wait long for you to have a scrape in the yard. They stole into your chambers for the bandages, but only one escaped alive. Someone—your sister, presumably—found and killed the other.”

  “Should I have sympathy for a man who breaks into my home to steal my fate?” I ask. “If I failed to have a scrape, I assume they would have arranged one?”

  Belina sits back on her ankles. “Of course.”

  I break out in gooseflesh, thinking of a lifetime oblivious to danger, of taking Micha for granted even as she put herself between me and every possible threat.

  I pull my thoughts back to the present. “Casting me as male will show a different fate? How can fate be changed so easily if it is inevera—part of the Creator’s design before our very birth?”

  “Everam created infinite worlds, child,” Belina says patiently. “Each like our own, but for the choices we make. The dice can guide our choices, showing us a glimpse of the futures most likely to occur, but Everam does not lift every foot and script every word of our lives. In the end, our fate is the shape we make it.”

  It makes sense. The dice are vague by design, giving hint to a portion of infinite possibility. A list of variables, some more likely than others, that a skilled seer can build into a story of what might be.

  What did it matter, if Belina saw my fate? Despite her crimes against me, I do not think her evil. Despite Chadan’s doubts, I know what I saw in the corelings’ eyes. They knew me. They hunted me. The storms will keep coming, so long as I remain in Fort Krasia. The dice might be the only way to prove it before the city is overrun. What is my privacy, against the lives of thousands?

  And perhaps I can glean something, too. I’ve never been good at reading the dice, but neither am I entirely unschooled. I know more than Belina is likely to suspect.

  I take on Mother’s regal tone. “Tell me what the first prophecy said.”

  “It is forbidden—” Belina begins.

  I cut her off with a snort, folding my arms and sitting back. “We both know that’s a lie dama’ting tell men. Nothing forbids you from sharing a prophecy.”

  “Perhaps,” Belina agrees, “but that does not make it wise.”

  “Tell me the prophecy, swear by your hope of Heaven that it is complete and true, and I will give you seven drops of blood for this casting.”

  Belina is moving before I finish, putting her hands on the cloth and pressing her forehead between them. “By Everam and my hope of Heaven these are the precise words Damaji’ting Chavis divined:

  “The storms will end when the heir of Hollow joins blood with the Majah, and the princess stands in the eye.”

  I wait a long moment, wondering if I can trust her, wondering if she has omitted something, or twisted a phrase, but the more I think of it, the more I believe her.

  “Perhaps I do not stand in the eye,” I say. “Perhaps I am the eye.”

  “Eh?” Belina’s eyes narrow.

  I tell her everything I told Chadan. What happened in the Maze, and in the streets of the greenblood quarter. I tell her of the attack on the borough tour, and my belief the demons are hunting me.

  “Nonsense,” Belina scoffs. “You are a child. What would the Father of Demons want with you?”

  “Let us ask.” I take the hanzhar from my healing pouch, putting the point to the pad of my left index finger. The skin breaks effortlessly, and a drop of blood wells.

  Belina does not hesitate, pulling out her hora pouch and shaking the
seven demonbone dice into her hand. They are black, like polished obsidian, but in wardsight they shine bright with power. Not the pure gold of Sharum bones, but something more primal, held in tight check by the wards cut into their faces.

  She holds them out and I stretch my finger over them, letting a single drop fall on each die. Belina closes her hand, rolling the dice together to distribute the blood. “Everam, giver of life and light, your children need answers. Tell me the fate of Prince Olive asu Ahmann am’Paper am’Hollow.”

  As she speaks, the wards on the dice brighten, throbbing with power. She throws, and there is a flash as the magic chooses their arrangement. Whatever my reservations about the dice, the throws are never random, and never the same twice, unless the question is repeated verbatim.

  Both of us stare at the throw, eyes scanning the wards and where they fell in relation to one another. I wish I had my textbook, however vexing it might be.

  “Tsst.” Belina’s veil billows slightly with her quiet hiss. I tilt my head, trying to make some sense of what I see. There is domin—the symbol for two—a warrior symbol, and a clerical one.

  “I don’t understand.” I don’t want to reveal that I can read the dice at all, but I need to know. “Am I the warrior or the cleric?”

  Belina points a long nail at the domin symbol. “You are divided. Your mother chose to raise you as some kind of greenland dama’ting, but if you walk the path of the warrior, you will be a great one.”

  “And if I walk the other?” I ask.

  Belina’s eyes narrow behind her veil. “Your father, too, was called to alagai’sharak before his time. The Damajah sent him to Sharik Hora to train with the nie’dama before he was allowed to take the black.”

  “Like Chadan does?” I ask.

  Belina nods. “Your Nie Ka has been training to be a kai since he took his first steps.”

  “Is that what will happen to me?” I ask.

  “There is no time,” Belina sweeps her hand over symbols for air, sand, and lightning, swirling around the warrior and cleric symbols at the center of the cast. “A storm is coming.” She points to the mind ward at the top of the pattern, and my stomach sinks. “I fear you may be correct. A prince of the abyss hunts you.”

  * * *

  —

  I am still reeling from the reading—all my fears come true—when Belina escorts me to court. Chadan is kneeling in front of the seven steps leading to the Skull Throne. His grandfather sits atop the dais, leaning to hear Chavis’ soft-spoken counsel. At the base of the dais, Iraven in his white turban stands at the center between the councils of dama and dama’ting. White-sleeved Arms of Everam guard the exits.

  “Wait here,” Belina says, leaving me at Chadan’s side to ascend the steps. The conversation pauses as she bends to whisper her own foretelling in the Damaji’s other ear. Aleveran eyes us both as Chavis and Belina raise their gazes and begin conversing directly.

  At last, the Damaji raises a hand, silencing them. “Enough debate. The dice have spoken.”

  I look at him, wondering if he will let me go so easily. If the Father of Demons is hunting me, the only hope Fort Krasia has is to send me away.

  My eyes flick to Chadan, and I feel my skin heat at the sight of him. I want to reach out, to take his hand, to let him know it is fate pulling us apart, and not my desire. But there is nothing I can do with so many eyes upon us.

  “Chadan asu Maroch.” Chadan puts his hands on the floor, pressing his forehead between them. “Nie Ka. Ajin’pel. You have served your brothers and your city with honor and distinction. For the glory you have won in the night, you will be raised to the black, and wear the white veil of kai’Sharum. No doubt many, if not all, of your nie’Sharum brothers will be raised before the day is out. They will be yours to command.”

  It is a great honor. With four full classes of nie’Sharum, Chadan will command one of the largest units in the Maze, with warriors of all castes. Our brothers may lack experience, but their youth may prove an advantage in learning to fight as one.

  Chadan rolls up to sit on his ankles, back rigidly straight. “The honor belongs to all my brothers, Grandfather. Inevera, I will be worthy of them.”

  “Of that, I have no doubt,” the Damaji says. “Olive asu Ahmann.”

  All eyes turn to me. I know I should put my hands on the floor and make obeisance, but even now, I cannot. Not to this man, who took me from my home. Not before these people, who watched me lashed in this very place just weeks ago. I look up, meeting the Damaji’s eyes, instead.

  “Still insolent,” Chavis mouths quietly to Aleveran.

  “You, too, have proven your valor in battle,” the Damaji says, “and it has not gone unnoticed that your…dama’ting training has saved the lives and limbs of many of Majah’s warriors. You shall also wear a white veil with your blacks, as Chadan’s second.”

  The words fall like a death sentence. He is not sending me away. How many will suffer for that decision, tonight, and in every new moon to come?

  But one word keeps repeating itself in my head.

  Second. Domin.

  Two kai’Sharum, warriors trained by clerics. I remember the prophecy Belina spoke, and my stomach drops. She misunderstood it, all those years ago, when she thought me a woman. It was “princes,” not “princess.”

  Princes, in the eye of the storm.

  34

  THE TWINS

  I stare at the knife in my hands, watching the wards pulse and glow. Mam says there’s no demonbone inside, but it holds power the same way hora weapons do.

  Magic’s like a thing alive, Darin, Mam used to say. Ent got a will of its own, so it’s drawn to emotions like a moth to light.

  There’s a lot of emotion imprinted on Mam’s knife. More than other weapons that saw heavy use in the war. Its mystery is deeper—darker—than just killing demons. Its aura is…hungry.

  Folk in Tibbet’s Brook always kept their manners when Mam was about, but I could smell their fear. There’s a story there, and the knife is part of it.

  I rub its bone handle, worn smooth from decades of use. I could Read the knife—pulling magic through the blade and into myself in an attempt to unlock its secrets—but it feels like a violation of Mam’s privacy.

  She’s dead, I remind myself. Ent got a need for privacy anymore.

  But I don’t want to believe it. Reading the knife would be admitting she’s gone forever. Ent ready for that.

  My fingers drift along the blade and the cutting wards throb, pulling at my aura even as they sharpen the blade, eager to bite into my flesh.

  “Darin.”

  Selen’s voice startles me out of my trance and I sit up straight, suddenly realizing how light the sky has become.

  “Sun’s comin’ up,” Selen says. “We should head out before someone realizes we’re sleeping in their hayloft.”

  Sleeping. I want to laugh. Don’t think I’ve had more than an hour a night since we found the remains of the Warded Children. Since we found Mam’s knife.

  Selen cried herself to sleep for the first few nights, but now she’s more focused on finding Olive than mourning her sister. I wish I had her strength of will, but I can’t stop staring at the knife, feeling lost, like I’m drowning, like Da must have felt when he was pulled down into the Core.

  The father waits in darkness…

  I suppress a shiver, sliding Mam’s knife back into the sheath I’ve made, uncured leather looped through my belt. My hand drifts to it instinctively now, assuring myself it’s still there a dozen times a day.

  It’s taken longer than expected to make the journey. A well-provisioned Messenger on horseback can make it from Cutter’s Hollow to Everam’s Bounty in two weeks. On foot it’s taken thrice that, but I don’t dare use magic to speed our feet again, not unless all the Core is at our heels. We were lucky to survive it the once.


  Selen had some money when we started out, but it quickly dwindled, then vanished entirely. We’ve had to stop periodically to hunt, find shelter from the weather, and do odd jobs for food and lodging. We’ve kept the hoods of our warded cloaks up in the night, but there’s been no sign of demons.

  “They’ve got a pile of logs in back,” Selen notes. “Might give us breakfast if I chop them.”

  “Where did a princess learn to cord wood?” I ask.

  “Still a Cutter.” Selen smells indignant. “Da taught me to swing an axe as soon as I could lift one.”

  We climb down from the hayloft and back to the road while it’s still dark, finding a shady spot to clean up and handle our necessaries while I acclimate to the dawn. I can hear folk rousing at the farm, and once they’re up and out in the yard, Selen and I appear on the road, making no effort to hide our approach.

  Banner in the yard tells me the owner of this property is a warrior of the Mehnding, the second largest tribe in New Krasia. The next thing I notice is the casual dress. The women working the fields and yard wear scarves in their hair, but they don’t cover everything, and vary in color. Their faces are bare. Their dresses are conservative, but no more so than women wear back in the Brook. Certainly ent the wrist-to-ankle black robes Nanny Micha used to wear. I wonder if she’s all right.

  The women look up as we approach, eyes flicking first to the bow slung over my shoulder, and then to Selen’s leggings and bare arms, but they make no comment.

  “Is there work we might do in exchange for some food?” My Krasian is out of practice, but I can make conversation when I need to.

  Soon Selen is swinging an axe and I am at the archery range, having tea and making awkward small talk with the warrior who owns the farm and his sons while we take turns shooting. I’m good at shooting things that aren’t rushing to kill me. Ent an eye sharper than mine, and I can sense even the slightest breeze. I hold my own against the sons, and think to let the father win to spare his honor, but he is everything Mehnding archery masters are said to be. With every bull’s-eye we take a stride back, until we’re just firing into the sky to arc the shots. Still he hits center target every time.