“But they did leave me with my cloak”—Serik holds the fabric out like wings—“so I got a little crafty.” He turns to display the back, where a small panel of goldwork has been ripped from the hem.
I stare at him in wonderment. “But isn’t that just thread?”
“I always thought so, but I spent so many hours rubbing the stitches in frustration, I discovered it was actually gold thread wound around wire. That’s what makes it sturdy enough to create these intricate designs. I shaped the wires into a pick and let myself out. Then I may have accidentally spilled a jug of vorkhi as I was leaving, which may have soaked a rather large pile of clothing. But that’s hardly my fault. That place was so cramped and cluttered with junk and rusted sabers lying around, I’m not surprised a random spark set it ablaze.”
His eyes squish into delighted crescent moons, and I pinch his ear, imitating the abba. “I’m so relieved you’re safe, but did you have to set the shack on fire?”
“Yes! They’re lucky I didn’t torch this entire awful place.”
I slap a palm to my forehead. “You realize this doesn’t help our cause? They’re never going to trust you now.”
“Good! I don’t want their trust. I want nothing to do with them.”
“You are the most difficult and vengeful person I know.”
Serik preens as if it’s a compliment. “Just wait until they see what I have planned next. I’m going to steal their precious Night Spinner. Do you want to walk, or should I toss you over my shoulder so it looks like I’m kidnapping you? We need to be convincing, after all.” Serik makes a playful grab for me, but I dodge back.
His smile falters, and he holds up his hands. “Fine, you can walk. I was just joking—”
“This is no time to joke,” I cut in. “What’s your plan, Serik? Temujin and the others will return any second, and they’re not going to be happy to see you.”
“What do you mean ‘What’s your plan’? I’m free, which means we can leave this godforsaken place. I assume you know how to get back to Ashkar after completing your missions? Grab a satchel and fill it with anything useful.”
He starts rummaging through Inkar’s belongings, tossing a red ribbon, a single dress that isn’t Shoniin gray, and a little felt prayer doll embroidered with the name Taimar to the floor.
The sight of it drives needles of guilt into my side.
“Don’t just stand there,” Serik urges. “You’re the one who said we need to hurry.”
“I can’t do this.”
“It’s just a few tunics and some food. I promise she won’t miss it.”
“No, Serik, I can’t run away.”
The rations in Serik’s arms hit the floor. “What are you talking about? We’re not running away. We’re escaping. They’re holding us hostage—and blackmailing you, in case you somehow forgot.”
I let out a long, slow breath and try to collect my thoughts. “Temujin’s methods can be extreme, but his intentions are noble. He’s doing so much good.” Serik scoffs, but I speak over him. “The Shoniin are feeding the shepherds starving on the winter grazing lands, as well as the people suffering in the Protected Territories. They are rescuing children from the war front—boys and girls who were stolen from their beds and sent to fight without a day of training. Did you know conscription is mandatory in the Protected Territories, as repayment for induction into the Unified Empire? And the only reason the Shoniin are encouraging desertion is so we’ll have leverage to force the Sky King into a compromise. I’ve been helping Temujin draft the missives to Ghoa. The Shoniin are offering to unite with the Imperial Army against the Zemyans, but only if the king agrees to give the Protected Territories the support and prosperity he initially promised.”
Serik laughs—a forced pop of breath. “Listen to you! You sound like a fully indoctrinated member of the group.”
“If you saw the conditions at the war front, you’d understand. There are heaps of bodies as tall as manure piles. We have no prayer of winning if things continue as they are. And it’s even worse in the Protected Territories. The Sky King is executing Verdenese men who refuse to remove their earrings. He tore down every marketplace, making it impossible to earn an honest living. My people are suffering.”
“Since when are you so concerned with Southern affairs?” Serik blurts, pointing to the prayer doll Temujin brought me, still clutched to my chest.
He says Southern affairs as if the people and customs from Verdenet are as strange and repugnant as Zemyan magic. As if I am strange for wanting to preserve them, for wanting to salvage a piece of my original identity. “Why shouldn’t I be concerned for my homeland? It’s the only connection I have to my past, to my family. Remembering them helps me not to feel so alone.”
Serik drags his hands down his face. “That came out wrong. I’m not asking you to turn your back on them. Of course I’d never want that. I’m just asking you not to turn your back on me, as you have Ghoa—to hell with your former life and everyone in it.” His voice is small and cracked, and he adds, “Have you truly felt alone all this time?”
My indignation dries up instantly.
I take him by the hands and look into his eyes, worming my way into the innermost part of his soul, like he did to me on our journey to Qusbegi. “I haven’t turned my back on anyone. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. I want to work with you and Ghoa and the Shoniin. Ending this war will require all of us coming together. I know you’re angry with Temujin for keeping you detained, and you have every right to be, but I’m not asking you to trust him. I’m asking you to trust me. This is the chance we’ve always dreamed of—all those days we spent lying in the grass. We can finally make the king, and all of Ashkar, see that we’re good enough. That we’ve always been good enough.”
Serik gazes back at me from beneath his brows. His eyes are the same murky green-brown they’ve always been, but now they look different. Vacant. As if a curtain has been drawn shut, and I’m on the outside. “In my dreams, we were free in our realm. Not some otherworldly hideout surrounded by deserters. And I don’t give a damn what the king thinks. Why should we risk our necks to help him and the people now when they’ve made it perfectly clear this isn’t our battle? They don’t want us. We aren’t warriors.”
But that’s where Serik’s wrong.
I will always be a warrior. I will always prefer a saber to a cooking pot. A quiet life, tending a flock of sheep, will never fill me with the same buzzing in my limbs and ringing in my ears as charging toward the enemy. The Lady of the Sky blessed me with a portion of Her power. She trusted me to use it to protect Her land and people. I cannot shirk my responsibility. And I don’t want to. I have finally unburied Enebish the Warrior. I finally feel like myself again. I’m not ready to give that up. Not now.
Not ever.
“I can’t run away. It’s not who I am.” I look up at Serik, not begging, but with a steady gaze and firm jaw. A girl who knows where she stands. A girl who hopes her best friend will choose to stand beside her. “I don’t think it’s who you are either. Apologize for burning the supply shack and pledge your loyalty….”
“I can’t.”
A tear slips down my cheek, and I scrape it away with a vicious swipe. “You can’t or you won’t?”
“I won’t. Temujin is a damned snake charmer, mesmerizing all of you with his noble promises and flashing that flawless smile so no one will suspect when he strikes. I don’t know what he’s really up to, but I won’t be part of it.”
“So where does that leave us?” I ask.
Serik adjusts his cloak and takes a step back. “I’ll go my way, and you’ll go yours.”
“Where will you even go?
Serik shrugs. “Anywhere is better than here.”
“But it’s not! If you return to Ashkar, Ghoa will be hunting you. And Temujin has scouts everywhere. If they realize you’re alive, they’ll do whatever it takes to silence you. You know too much; you could compromise the location of the Ram’s Head.
” My hands flutter like frantic birds. I have to bury them in my tunic to keep them from digging their talons into Serik’s wrist.
“Except they know I would never endanger you. We may not be on the same side of this dispute, but that doesn’t change how I feel about you.” His eyes find mine, peering at me from beneath his lashes, and a thick knot of emotion lodges in my throat. I part my lips to tell him I don’t know what he’s talking about, that I don’t know how he feels about me, but that would be a lie because I do know.
I have known for a long time.
It’s written in his every action: the long, charged looks when I swear he can see straight into the core of me; the amused, knowing smirks and playful nudges; the hours we lay in the monastery grass, planning for a future that could only be together; all the vile curses he flung at my tormentors and the impious jokes he made so I would laugh instead of cry; how he defended me stalwartly and believed in me completely, even when no one else would; how he pushed me to wish for more than my pitiful existence in the monastery.
No one has ever loved me more, or loved me better, than Serik. And I love him too. I have always loved him, since the first moment I arrived at Ghoa’s parents’ estate and found him huddled in his oversized sunburst cloak. But I never allowed myself to consider loving him like that because it was impossible. Our worlds rarely crossed—I was serving in the Kalima and he was pledged to the brotherhood, bound forever to the abba and Ikh Zuree. And when we were finally reunited, I was a criminal, one misstep from the gallows.
But now …
I look up at the endearing crinkles around his eyes and the perpetual crease of his brow. He isn’t obviously handsome like Temujin, but all the little subtleties that only I would notice—like how his copper freckles look like a constellation of floating lilies, and how his ears turn pink when he’s angry, and how his long, taut muscles fill out his holy robes—add up to more than the sum of their parts. He is messy and exquisite, volatile and perfect, and as I grapple for words to adequately describe what he means to me, he steps closer. Closer. Until we’re chest to chest.
Heart to heart.
His hands cup my cheeks, trembling and tentative at first. When I don’t pull away, his fingers slide into my hair. Fire builds in my belly, heating me like a coal, and I grip the front of his red robe, like I’ve secretly imagined doing so many times. I trail my fingers over the stubble of his hair and steal a glance at his lips, remembering how red and full they looked in the cold at Qusbegi.
It’s all so familiar. So right, my heart cries.
I could close the breath of distance between us and press my lips to his. I could follow him back to Ashkar and lose myself in his moon-eyed smile. If I had no one to consider beyond myself. If Zemya wasn’t charging across our border.
If our warriors weren’t being slaughtered like sacrificial lambs. If thousands of people in the Protected Territories weren’t being stripped of their beliefs.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?” His eyes are so wide, his expression so anguished.
Tears blur between my lashes, and I force myself to take a step back. Just one step, but far enough that Serik’s hands fall away from my face. It feels like a canyon has cleaved open between us—a perilous gap too wide to jump, too treacherous to cross. There will be no following him.
No coming back.
I reach into my pocket and offer him a blue bonfire stone. “Temujin gave me one extra, in case of emergencies. This will take you back to the Ram’s Head. Go to the globeflower field and toss it into the air.”
Serik studies the stone with a strange expression before tucking it into his fist. Then he backs toward the door.
An icy knife plunges into my heart, carving out my flesh with every step he puts between us. When he bends through the flap, I sob and chase after him. The sky outside is hotter than ever, thanks to the fire, but I can’t stop shivering. “Join a caravan west to Visva. Or I hear you can make a decent living mining copper in the Ondor Mountains. Just get out of Sagaan. Keep yourself safe. And when all of this is over, find me.”
His eyes are pools of water, clear and wet and deep. His voice is thick and warbling. “Goodbye, En. I hope you’re happy. I honestly do.”
I bury my face in my palms so I don’t have to watch him walk away. And so I’m not tempted to follow him. Pain and exhaustion from my mission the night before slam down on me with double the force, like armor made of iron. Tears spill over my knuckles and run down my wrists.
By the time I finally compose myself and look up, Serik is gone. And he took part of me with him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
WHEN I WAKE THE NEXT MORNING, MY BODY FEELS A thousand years older: my legs have grown long roots into the earth, my face is raw and crinkled from tears, and I can’t muster up the strength to leave my bedroll.
Serik did what he thought was right. I can’t begrudge him that. But I can begrudge the ragged, bleeding Serik-shaped hole he left in my heart.
I groan and pull my blankets over my head. I can’t dwell on it. I’ll waver if I do. The weak and selfish part of me will be tempted to put my personal desires above the needs of the people. This is the right choice for me—the right choice for us both.
If it’s so right, why doesn’t it end with us together? I’m tempted to shout at the Lady of the Sky. Instead I turn on my side and command myself to go back to sleep. In my dreams, at least, I can pretend the separation is only temporary. I picture us lying side by side in the grass at Ikh Zuree. The morning gongs are sounding, calling us our separate ways for the day, and we wordlessly part, knowing we’ll reunite later. We always do.
We will reunite later, I assure myself.
Not if you waste time wallowing in your bedroll, Enebish the Warrior scolds.
I have to get up and see this through. I need to ferry more recruits and end the war. I need to remake Ashkar into a place where a former monk and redeemed criminal can be together.
With a bone-weary sigh, I drag myself up from the floor, pull on a gray tunic, and shuffle to Temujin’s tent to prepare for another mission. “Where am I going next?” I ask without preamble as I shuffle through the door.
Temujin is seated at his desk, with Inkar and Chanar perched on either side, as usual. They jump so high at my sudden appearance, a stack of scrolls cascades to the floor.
“Enebish! What are you doing here?” Inkar bustles over to greet me while Chanar and Temujin scramble to pick up the mess. “You should be resting! You need to process and recover from last night’s tragedy. We’ve postponed your missions for a few days at least—”
“No need,” I say brusquely. “I’m fine.”
Inkar nibbles her lip and looks at me with wide, worried eyes. “But—”
“Crying in a tent isn’t going to change the fact that Serik’s gone.” I purposely avoid the word dead. If I don’t want them to lie to me, I probably shouldn’t lie to them. But the longer the Shoniin assume Serik is dead, the safer he will be.
“I know I wasn’t able to be there for you last night like I should have been.” Inkar places a tender hand on my forearm and steers me toward the door. “But now I can stay with you as long as you’d like. You must have so many emotions you want to work through.”
“What I want is to stop the Zemyans and finish this.”
Inkar looks back at the boys, who are shoving the last of the mess into a drawer. I don’t know why they bother; Temujin’s tent still looks like a cyclone tore through it.
“I’m ready,” I insist.
The three of them exchange a look like I’ve lost my mind, and maybe I have, but I’m afraid if I pause, for even a moment, the doubt and fear will catch up with me. Or I’ll somehow miss my opportunity to defeat Zemya and redeem myself. All of this will be for nothing.
Chanar is the first to speak: “Stop mothering the girl, Inkar. If Enebish says she’s ready, she’s ready.”
Inkar frowns, and I try not to be annoyed. Her hesitance is born of con
cern, which means I should probably be offended that Chanar is willing to toss me back into the fray so quickly. But I don’t want to be coddled and protected. The time for timidness has long since passed. We must all take risks. Make sacrifices.
Temujin studies me, and for the first time since I met him, I do not squirm or bumble or retreat. I look him dead in the eye, and a slow grin spreads across his lips. “Sometimes action is the best medicine of all.”
I live and breathe for nothing but my missions. I sneak into Ashkar every other night and shepherd dozens of recruits from encampments along the war front. Then I sleep the entire day and night in between. Never stopping, never thinking. Reveling in the blackness of exhaustion—where the pain of missing Serik can’t reach me.
I expect my success to slowly fill the howling emptiness in my chest, but the pain grows more acute with each mission because I catch myself scanning every face, hoping Serik changed his mind. My eyes snag on every cloak, looking for the golden sunbursts.
As the weeks wear on, the Shoniin try to cheer and distract me. Inkar takes me to train the children, which I love, but I cannot watch them wave their sticks without thinking of the little boy and girl who used to spar on Ghoa’s parents’ estate.
Oyunna drags me to the bonfire revelries and paints my face with thick white makeup to hide my traitor’s mark, like the noblewomen in Sagaan, but all I can think is that Serik would hate it.
They’re turning you into someone you’re not. Someone I don’t recognize.
Not even Orbai can fill the void. Mostly because she’s always up in the clouds. On the rare occasion she does answer my call, she screeches and beats her wings against the walls of the tent until I release her. I don’t blame her. If I could sail through the infinite blue skies with the Lady and Father, I wouldn’t want to be trapped on the ground or confined to a tent either.
Surprisingly, Temujin is the one who offers a small measure of comfort. Despite his busy schedule, he sits in my tent and recites songs and tales of the First Gods. Sometimes he distracts me with reports of the recruits’ training progress or asks for help drafting more missives to Ghoa. When our scouts in Verdenet bring word that King Minoak’s golden suit of armor vanished from Nashab Market—where it has been kept for the last seven hundred years, and can only be unlocked with the king’s signet ring—we spend the day speculating excitedly, brainstorming all the places he could be hiding.
Night Spinner Page 22
