Around us a few of the other lascars are doing the same thing. They clasp their hands in front of them and bow their heads, stone bracelets hanging from their wrists. And they’re all reciting the same words over and over again.
The noise that blanketed the ship has quieted, and I can feel the moment weighing on my shoulders. I feel like I should be doing the same, like I should be praying with them, but I look to Aliya to see if she knows what to do, and she just stands there, silent. Instead, I look around, taking it all in. Even though Arzu’s head is bowed, it looks like she’s glowing. Light shines from her. Maybe it’s the way the sun hangs in the sky. Maybe it’s the way the sunlight bounces off the waves like shards of glass. But it looks like her hair is on fire and her body is bathed in sunshine.
“The sky is our ceiling, the earth our bed.”
As we get closer, the black dots on the mountains turn into people, and I see them walking the jagged rocks and stopping every few paces to pick something up from the ground and slip it into a waist pouch.
All the people praying continue to murmur, then Arzu says beneath her breath, “May my hand and my heart find Balance.” She’s silent for a few moments, then she looks up and sighs.
We near the docks, where all sorts of people—merchants, lascars, pilgrims—scurry or amble about. It’s like a tiny version of Osimiri.
I look at Aliya, and she glances at me, then her eyes widen.
“Taj, you’re glowing.”
I look at my arms, and she’s right. The same light that radiated off Arzu is reflecting off my sin-spots.
A cloud passes over the sun, and my skin returns to normal. Arzu and Aliya are still staring at me, and when I turn around, so are a bunch of the other lascars. I knew I should’ve covered up. I guess I thought that once we left Kos for good and were free of Queen Karima and the bounty on my head, it didn’t matter if I was Marked or not. I can feel the shame boiling in my belly and starting to rise in my throat. But then I see that Aliya and Arzu are smiling. Arzu’s eyes are wet with tears.
“What’s going on?” I ask, and Arzu puts a hand on my arm.
“Olurun welcomes you,” she says.
“Olurun? Is that who you were praying to?”
Arzu nods. She’s still smiling.
“All these people, the lascars, they’re from your land?”
She nods again. “My land and others.”
I look to the sky. The cloud slides away from the sun, and everything shimmers again except me. Same old sin-spots. I look at my naked arms. “What happened?” Even though the lascars have gone back to work, a few of them still shoot looks my way. I can’t tell if they’re afraid of me or if they’re glad I’m here. “And why is everyone looking at me that way?”
“Because you’re tastahlik, Taj.” Arzu claps me on the shoulder. “You are revered for what you can do.”
I remember everything Arzu told me earlier about the tastahlik, aki who live among her people and consume the sins of others but are respected for it. People look up to them. When I’d first heard of them, I’d puffed my chest out at the idea of people respecting me, not kicking me aside in the street, not underpaying me for Eating the sins of the royal family. But now it feels like this massive weight on my shoulders.
Arzu and Aliya both stand next to me, and we all watch the people on the mountain, picking up what I realize are pebbles, blowing the dust off them, and putting them in their pouches to make more prayer strings.
At least, in this moment, things don’t seem so heavy.
CHAPTER 10
IN THE CHAOS of the docks, Arzu finds a stablemaster, and the two go back and forth in a dialect I can barely follow. Then we’re led to a small barn and each given our own horse and saddle.
I’d seen pictures of horses before, read about them in the books I spun as a child. But to see one in real life, this close, is something else. After adjusting their saddles, Arzu and Aliya mount with ease. I try to follow their movement—one foot in the stirrup, then swing the other leg over—but I swing too hard and almost fall off. I’m scrambling, and I know I’m seconds away from toppling onto my head when Arzu catches me.
My cheeks burn from embarrassment.
“The horse is your friend,” she whispers, quiet enough that only we can hear. Then she’s off, and we manage to leave the shoreline without my supposed new friend bucking and flinging me into the sky.
Arzu leads, and we head down the rocky trail through the valley and out into the desert plain. The land rises and dips unexpectedly. Little mountains surprise us, and sometimes when the descents get too steep, we end up having to find another way around. We try to find as much shade as we can, but the farther west we go, the more punishing the sun gets. Eventually, there are no more trees.
When we get to a small outpost, I practically fall to the ground and praise the Unnamed. With the coins we have left, we get some flasks of water and those wide-brimmed hats I remember seeing on the man at the kiwi orchard back when Aliya and I were being chased by murderous armored inisisa. I glance at Aliya, wondering if she’s thinking the same thing. She’s looking up at the sky from under her large straw hat, her brow furrowed in concentration. It’s like she’s looking for stars in the daytime.
Fog rises from over the horizon, and before long it has swallowed our horses’ ankles. As the day goes on, the winds pick up. The breeze smells like it’s coming from the coast, and it drives the mist off into the distance, westward. Mountainous, red-tinged sand dunes lie ahead. We climb until we can see the first traces of the burnt-up settlement: ground turned gray with salt, every blackened building like a skeleton of its former self. Our horses dance underneath us, and it takes all of Arzu’s skill to quiet them down. Even though we stand at the edge of the village, our horses know something horrible is waiting for us.
When we come on the town at last, we see that every building has been burned. Some of the remaining buildings lean sideways under their own weight. A rancid smell, like when the tanners light their fires and burn whatever it is they’re burning in the Forum, clings to the base of each home and runs along their upright, formerly wooden supports. On the dusty thoroughfare, I see footsteps and hoofprints; they make zigzagging formations and convoluted paths. Like people and animals frantically trying to get away.
There isn’t a single living thing in this whole place.
I can feel the inyo in the air. The settlement is thick with them. I listen closely, and I can hear the uncleansed souls moaning in the wind.
I turn to Arzu. She has one hand holding her scarf over her mouth, the other gripping her reins. Aliya wipes a tear from her cheek.
Bo was here.
* * *
• • •
After we pass into a field of tall grass with brown-green stalks angled in the wind, Arzu’s left arm stops working. I notice her bring it into her lap so that she guides the horse with one hand, pretending like she’s letting her arm rest. But when it slips, it just hangs limply at her side. As she rides, I notice her rubbing at her neck. The scar I saw before must be bothering her.
“Arzu, let’s rest,” Aliya says. “There has to be water nearby, given the nature of this flora. We can find a stream and wait until nightfall, when the air will be cooler.”
“I’m fine,” Arzu says. It sounds like a croak in her throat.
We continue on until we make it to the stream Aliya had sensed earlier, but when we dismount, Arzu’s left leg collapses beneath her, and she tumbles to the ground.
“Arzu!” I shout as Aliya and I rush to her side. We lay her on her back. She starts coughing. Blood streams down the sides of her mouth. I put my palm on her forehead. She’s boiling to the touch. “Aliya, what’s going on? How did she get this sick?”
Aliya’s about to answer when Arzu’s hand lashes out and grips Aliya’s wrist, a pleading look in her eyes. Something unspoken passes between them.
Then Arzu gulps a few times and seems to summon strength from somewhere deep within herself. “River water.” Another gulp. “There’s a blanket in my pack. Soak it in river water at dusk so that it may remain cool and sodden for as long as necessary.” Aliya leans in farther when Arzu lowers her voice and whispers further instructions. We make a pillow out of my pack. Then there’s nothing to do but wait anxiously until dusk to do as Arzu says.
I get Aliya’s attention and nod to a patch of clear field not far from the stream, out of earshot but still close enough to keep an eye on Arzu.
I get up. Aliya follows. “What’s going on between you two?” I whisper.
“What are you talking about, Taj?”
“If you know something about her sickness, tell me now.”
Aliya frowns at me, almost like a parent looks at a child who’s talking about something beyond his comprehension. It makes me so frustrated I want to scream. But I know that would scare away the horses, so I just grit my teeth.
“Well?” I ask.
Aliya takes a moment, then lets out a sigh. “We will do as Arzu asks. She knows her body better than either of us.” She turns away and heads back to the stream. I watch as she takes cloth out of her pack and soaks it in the nearby river, then folds it and lays it on Arzu’s forehead. They talk and talk, and I don’t even bother trying to listen anymore.
The toughest thing in the world to do is stand by and watch someone you care about suffer. But if that’s what they’re asking me to do, then, by the Unnamed, I guess I have to do it.
So I rejoin our little campsite and smile at Arzu whenever she has enough energy to look my way.
Dusk arrives.
When the blanket’s wet enough, Aliya and I wrap it around Arzu to make a cocoon. Arzu’s face turns blue, and she shivers as nighttime washes over us. There’s nothing I can do but watch her, anxious and frustrated. Every time she wakes up and we unwrap her, her eyes grow duller, more vacant. The light that once glowed under her skin is dimming and dimming.
In the nighttime, when Arzu is asleep, I inch over to where Aliya lies. I’ve spent much of that time in between thinking and thinking and thinking, and when I realized what was going on, it hit me like a mule kick to the chest.
“It’s a sin, isn’t it?” I whisper to Aliya.
She says nothing in return.
“If it’s a sin, why don’t you call it forth and I’ll consume it? We can save her life. It’s not like we haven’t done this before.”
Aliya shakes her head. All the while, she’s been staring at the ground, at the pebbles that glow blue in the moonlight and the bugs and beetles that amble over and underneath them. “No.”
“What? What do you mean, no?” I point at Arzu’s body. “Our friend is dying, and if we don’t do something, the guilt will eat her alive.”
“No.”
I feel my chest tighten. “Why not?” My voice cracks, and tears spring to my eyes. “Why aren’t you going to do it?”
“She asked me not to.”
My breath catches in my throat. “Why?”
Aliya refuses to look me in the face. “Whatever sin it is, Arzu is willing to wait it out until we arrive at her village and meet her people. The tastahlik can help her.”
“But, Aliya, I’m tastahlik.” I slap my chest with my hand. “You both said so on that ship! This is something I can do! I can help.”
“Taj, no!” Aliya shouts. She glances over at Arzu, clearly worried she’s woken her, but Arzu just turns over in her sleep. Aliya drops her voice low. “Respect her wishes.”
When I realize there’s no changing Aliya’s mind, I head back to my makeshift bed. We all try to sleep, but Arzu twists and turns in her cocoon. I can’t even imagine the visions plaguing her. Whatever she’s dreaming, it must feel like it’s killing her. Her teeth grind against each other in her sleep. There’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep. I want to help her, to save her, and I can’t deal with feeling this powerless.
I’m still awake when dawn hits. Sleeplessness has made me antsy, and my heart hammers in my chest. My fingers and eyelids twitch. I have to do something.
That’s when it hits me.
In the forest, right after we’d escaped Kos. I’d called forth a sin-beast. I close my eyes and vividly remember the stew of feelings that rumbled inside of me as the pain lit my head on fire. I remember falling to my knees. I remember my head swimming with images of my betrayal: going against Karima, fighting Bo, and having to abandon the others as I fled Kos. I’d thought I was Crossing at the time, but I was calling forth my own sin.
I can do it. If Aliya won’t save Arzu’s life, then I will.
I sneak a glance at Aliya to make sure she’s still asleep.
Then I tiptoe over to Arzu, wrapped in her blanket. I don’t remember having said any incantation or having done any of the things Mages normally do when they call out a sin. And I don’t remember having set myself in the middle of any pattern on the floor. It just sort of happened. So I put one hand to Arzu’s stomach and one hand to her forehead, because it feels like the right thing to do. Then I close my eyes and try to bring myself back to that moment in the forest when I vomited the sin of my betrayal into the grass. If this all goes as planned, I can call forth the sin, control the inisisa, kill it easily, and Eat the sin. And Arzu will be healed. The thought excites me, but I stuff it down. It’s time to concentrate.
I squeeze my eyes shut. It slams into me without warning. A twisting in my gut, then an explosion in my heart that makes it seem like my body is vanishing. I’m reaching into some other space in my mind. It’s like I’m melding with Arzu—becoming her—in order to bring forth her sin.
A dark, dank space. Water dripping, chains sliding against stone. Someone counting. Then outside, wind slapping my face. A daga, blood staining steps. The Palace steps. It comes to me in flashes. Too short and too many to make sense. Like a million mirror shards.
Then my body seizes, and I’m snapped back into reality.
I fall back. Nothing’s changed. Arzu’s completely still.
Suddenly, she coughs, and black ink spills from her mouth. I move her onto her side so that she doesn’t choke on the sin. It flows and flows and flows from her mouth, and with each spew, her body quakes. Her eyes are closed, and I can’t tell how awake she is for this or how much of the pain she feels, but it seems to go on forever. It’s as though the sin is big enough that it would have ripped her apart from the inside had I not called it forth.
After what seems like an eternity, she stops. I set her head back, and when I rise, I look around me. It’s dawn, so it’s light enough for me to see.
I’m standing in it. I’m standing in a pool of sin that stretches all the way to the river at one end and past nearby trees at the other end. It is even leaking beneath Aliya’s pallet while she sleeps, completely unaware of what I’ve just done.
I start to shiver but clench my fists at my sides. I know what needs to be done, so I wait for the sin to make itself into an inisisa. I’ve killed sin-dragons before. This shouldn’t be a problem.
The puddles explode into streams that arc in the air and land in puddles around me. In an instant, each one takes the shape of a sin-wolf.
Multiple sins? I’ve called forth multiple sins?
They form a circle around me, snarling snouts dripping thick strings of saliva and hairy black hides streaked with lightning that pulses beneath the skin. I try to summon whatever it was that I had in me when I’d controlled the inisisa that trapped me and Aliya in the forest. I hold my hands out.
One of the wolves cranes its neck, sniffing at the air, then they all turn at once to see me.
They take one step forward.
Why isn’t it working?
I stagger back and fall into the dirt. I have no daga, no weapon, I realize too late.
What was I thinking?
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CHAPTER 11
THE WOLVES GROWL and bark. I can smell their hot breath in the air as they get closer and closer. The leader of the pack lunges toward me, and the rest follow. I raise my arms to defend myself, but just then a flash of lightning cuts through the sky. Thunder cracks, and the first wolf bursts open over me in a shower of shadows and ink. Parts of it spray the ground like rain. I turn and cover my head. Through the spaces between my fingers, I see a girl skid to a stop in front of me. She glows. Before I can get a good look at her face, she leaps over me, her blade carving straight through the second wolf, its hide coming apart as if it were a bale of straw.
I scurry back toward the campsite to wake the others if they’re not up already, but thunder booms and dirt erupts into the air, hurling me back to the ground.
The warrior stands over me. Pieces of the inisisa drip from her fingers and her face. She’s covered in their insides. But, slowly, they slide off her glowing form. It’s like staring straight into the sun, looking at her. I can’t move, and I don’t know if it’s from the pain shooting through me or from shock or from something else entirely. I’m frozen where I lie. Even when I hear the lone, snarling sin-wolf charging my way, I can’t rise to fight back. I look up to see its fangs bared. I stiffen, preparing for an attack, but another blade of light pierces the thing’s skull. The inisisa spasms before going limp and dissolving into a puddle of ink. With a flick of her wrist, the warrior casts the remains of the inisisa from her sword and onto the desert floor.
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