Shay turned toward the whisper. In the doorway of a nearby house, a young woman stood, face pale in the flickering lamplight. She looked her over, grateful for the soot mask. What she saw jolted her to the core. Eyes, the same as her own. A gift from her father.
Also passed to her sister.
Simza.
Behind the woman, a young Nomori man, no doubt her husband, stood. Eyes wide, rapier clutched tightly, he was no doubt praying to his Protectress to be saved from the mad nivasi girl who had cut down six grown men in front of them.
She hefted her weapons. Fire distilled to its purest form—light. It had taken years of training for her to master the gift they had nearly killed her for. Now, that control slipped as sweat trickled down her neck. Her brother-in-law brandished his rapier, but she could see its blade quivering, mirroring the flickering light of her own weapons.
Her breath came fast. They feared her. Her own kin. Her sister could not possibly know it was her, and yet the nivasi in her blood was enough. My sister, afraid of the dragon waiting in the dark. Nothing had changed since Simza’s betrayal had revealed her abilities to their Elders. Here is your chance for closure. Speak to her. The roar of blood rushing past her ears drowned out that sensible voice. The blades of light in her hands flickered out suddenly, leaving the street in darkness.
Shay turned and sprinted away, heart pounding with the unmistakable tremor of fear.
Chapter Four
Stars still hung above as Nadya made her way through the crooked streets of the second tier before dawn. Several murmurs of Nomori scum were cast her way, muttered under hard breaths, but muttered curses paled in comparison to the open hostility this tier usually bore her people.
She had not been able to sleep since Kesali’s and Marko’s visit, and so she’d deemed an very early walk through the streets of Storm’s Quarry a good idea.
She’d certainly had better.
A chorus of cries broke on the edge of her hearing. Nadya frowned, trying to pinpoint the sound. There, nearly three hundred paces down the street, two men stumbled out of an alley, clutching their arms. The sharp scent of fresh blood split the duller scents of disease and waste. She could not make out if they were Nomori, Erevan, or Cressian. She was starting toward them when a glint of light caught her eye.
On the rooftop overlooking the alley stood a figure dressed in fitted black. A woman. The wind lightly tossed her short tresses. Black paint around the eyes hid her features, but the dark tones of her skin shone through it. “Nomori,” Nadya whispered.
In her hands she held dual blades, but not weapons that had been forged in any mortal smithy. They shimmered, brilliant white, moving as if a river of light had lost itself in a sword’s shape. The Nomori woman watched the men leave, her mouth half twisted in a satisfied smile. Her eyes moved, and they met Nadya’s.
Nadya’s breath froze. It couldn’t be possible that across such a distance any eyes but her own could make out fine details. And yet it felt as if this woman saw into her soul. The figure looked away, sweeping the street, and Nadya breathed again.
Suddenly, the blades of light disappeared. Not sheathed, or dropped. Just…gone.
The woman followed, backing away across the roof until she faded into the shadows of the stonework. The men she’d scared had long since made themselves scarce, and the early morning crowds on the street did not seem to notice the lone figure.
The weight of the stranger’s presence and vanishing, however, anchored Nadya to the ground. Wintercress soldiers inexplicably guarding wells now seemed like the least of Storm’s Quarry’s problems.
“No,” she whispered to no one and to everyone. “Not just Nomori. Nivasi.”
The chill that clawed under her skin, too deep for even her seal to warm, was not the dread of another Gedeon. Nor was it the reluctant hope of this mysterious woman being another nivasi like her.
It was the fear that this new nivasi might prove no difference existed between the two.
*
Her first instinct was to rush after the nivasi, to see how another one of the dangerous Nomori bloodline had come to be in the city, whether by sneaking in or the concealment of her abilities until now.
She squashed that urge. It was the same instinct that she’d followed to confront Gedeon without taking the time to gauge the threat, and people died because of that. By her hand. She would not make the same mistake twice.
So she did not deviate from the morning’s plan: go to train with her father before attending the Wintercress negotiations with Kesali and Marko.
“Good, but do better,” her father said as she hit the ground again.
She wiped her forehead and got up. They had been sparring without weapons for half an hour, and despite her abilities, she had yet to land a single blow. “How do you know just how to knock me down? Every time, I’m sure I have a firm stance, but you just swipe my feet right out from under me.”
Shadar grinned. “Years of practice. You need to align your center. The meditation will help. Use your senses to be aware of your surroundings. Not just the physical, but the way your opponent breathes, the way his muscles move. You can hear a heartbeat. Use it.”
Nadya drew a deep breath as he said, “Again.”
He circled her, and her muscles tensed. Nadya followed him, trying to concentrate on the minutiae of his movements. He charged, fist coming down at the joint where her hip met her torso. Only her reflexes saved her, letting her skip away just in time. Shadar resumed his original stance, and Nadya did the same. Her breath came fast.
Control. She needed it now more than ever, with another nivasi on the loose. Just find your center…
She closed her eyes. The world disappeared for a moment, but then it came back. Not in image, but sound and smell and the slight touch of wind on her skin. Slowly, the room settled into focus, and when Shadar moved, she did more than see. She sensed it, and Nadya ducked just as his blow came down. Eyes closed, she twisted and grabbed his arm as he finished the attack.
Her father hit the floor, Nadya on top of him. Her eyes snapped open, and she let go, her hands almost burning. “Are you hurt?”
“Only my pride.” He got to his feet. “Nice job. You put away the distractions.”
“But I did not have control.” Nadya still shook in the aftermath of the bout. Images of how wrong it could have gone raced through her mind, bloodstained. “I could have killed you!”
“Have a little more faith in my abilities, Nadya.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “You did not. Not because of my fighting skills, but because you were in control. You could have snapped my arm—you didn’t. Do not dwell on how things could have gone. First rule of combat.”
She looked up at him, and her chest grew tight as the dark thoughts fled her mind. Did I ever believe this could be? Nadya wondered. The two of us sparring as he teaches me, unafraid of what I am? Her father risked everything to maintain their relationship, and yet he did so, and never treated her differently for it. Nadya wasn’t sure she deserved such love.
“I thought the first was to never underestimate an opponent,” she said, letting a real smile through.
“One thing you learn from training with the Guard is that there are many first rules of combat.” Shadar squeezed her shoulder and let go. “I understand how hard it is for you, being able to trust yourself after what that…nivasi did.”
She couldn’t quite give him the lighthearted expression she wanted to. “No, Papa, you cannot.” No one could. To know what it was like to be trapped in one’s own body, a forced observer to the atrocities committed by one’s own hand—there was not empathy powerful enough in the western lands to understand without experiencing it.
“Maybe not. But there is something else on your mind, something distracting you.” Shadar waited.
She had been trying to find the words to explain all morning. It had just been easier to let the training go as usual. What will his reaction be? Kill the nivasi? Can he easily separate me from the re
st of them? Nadya searched her father’s face but found nothing in the familiar lines of the white scars on his chin, the softness of his eyes that would give her any answers. How do I even want him to react?
“I saw a nivasi,” she said quietly. She looked at the ground so she would not see his expression. She did hear the soft intake of breath, the half curse that came out in only air.
“Where?” In that tone, her father had vanished, and only the captain of the Duke’s Guard remained.
She swallowed and looked up at hardness in his eyes. “In the second tier, early this morning.”
“You are sure?”
The blades of fire stood so clearly in her memory that she nearly felt their heat against her ribcage. “Yes. She—I’m pretty sure it was a woman—held swords made of white light. They vanished into the air. I think she was roughing up some Erevans, though I do not know why.”
Shadar was silent for a long moment. “It does not bode well, another so soon after Gedeon.” After you was left hanging in the air. “Such an ability does not sound familiar to me, but I will speak to your grandmother. She and the Elders will know if such a child was ever born in the city. You are sure this woman was Nomori?”
“Yes—well, I think.” Nadya frowned. “She has to be, right? Nivasi cannot come from Erevans. Or Cressians. Only Nomori.”
“There are many strange things in the world beyond Storm’s Quarry. And the people out there no doubt regard the Nomori with just as much wonderment. Regardless, we will need to be ready.”
“With the Protectress’s aid, we will get through this.” She did not believe her words, but Shadar’s expression softened.
“I hope you’re right. Training’s over for today. Wash your face and put on something your grandmother would approve of. We are going to meet the Cressian dignitary, after all.”
*
Nadya was glad to have washed her face. She would have felt more out of place, if that were even possible, with dried sweat staining her brow.
She wished she could stand with her father at the edge of the ornate parlor, one of the four uniformed guardsmen in attendance. But Marko had pulled a chair out for her, so she sat between him and the Cressian delegation.
A delegation of one, if one did not count the soldiers in tight white leathers who lined up against the far wall.
“The Lady Aster, Councillor to the High King of Wintercress and ambassador to Storm’s Quarry.” Duke Isyanov, looking older than Nadya remembered, his once red hair turned a deep silver, made the introductions.
If the Duke looked worn, then Councillor Aster appeared practically a portrait of vibrancy and poise.
In the bright light of midmorning, her hair shone gold. Set against her stark white dress, an unfamiliar style that tapered just below her modest breasts and flared out into a wide skirt, her locks looked to be spun of gold. Tasteful silver buds adorned her ears, and more tempered silver encircled her neck. No gems from the mines of Storm’s Quarry. How much of a statement was she making?
Nadya swallowed. She glanced at Kesali, who had taken up a carefully blank expression. Resentment simmered beneath her calm gaze. Nadya suddenly realized why they wanted a Nomori psychic there. Through presence alone, Aster managed to throw everyone off balance. Although the Duke’s crest hung on the wall, it was she who commanded the room.
“You have met my son, Marko Isyanov, and his betrothed, Kesali Stormspeaker.” The Duke turned to her, and Nadya’s insides flipped. “Nadezhda Gabori, of the Nomori Gabori family. A truthseer.”
Aster’s gaze nailed her to the air. The councillor looked right through her, and Nadya suddenly wanted to cover the wrinkles at the edge of her tunic and the strands of hair that never seemed to stay within her braid.
“You think I will lie to you, Your Grace?” Councillor Aster continued to stare at her, as if assessing the danger of a wild animal. Not a bear or snake, though. More like a badger. A seagull.
Something to be shot and trod over.
“Of course not, milady. In the decades since the Nomori settled our city, I have found that having a truthseer present only helps the course of negotiations. Though lacking the power of her grandmother, Madame Gabori, matriarch of the family, Nadezhda has proven herself a valuable advisor.”
Nadya wished for the ground to swallow her up. Aster stared at her for another moment before nodding once. Her gaze returned to the Duke, and Nadya had the feeling that her entire existence had just been evaluated and dismissed.
If only you knew…
“You wished to return to trade negotiations, Your Grace?” Aster asked.
“Yes, to the trade of the Cressian compound in particular. Your aid has kept our city afloat these past months. Although the future remains uncertain,” he began, and Nadya bit her tongue at his vast understatement of the city’s struggles, “I am happy to announce that we will begin paying for the compound you have so generously provided.”
“That will not be necessary.”
The wingbeat of a swallow would have been deafening in the moment after Aster’s words. Nadya looked from the Councillor to the Duke, wondering if there was something she’d missed. Why wouldn’t Wintercress want payment of gems for their precious compound?
“I must insist that we compensate your people for their generosity,” the Duke said.
Councillor Aster laughed, a sophisticated giggle. Nadya wondered how many hours she had sat in front of a mirror practicing that laugh. “Your Grace, that is really not required of you.”
“I am afraid that it is. We will not take advantage of your kindness. Our mining productivity has fallen off, but we have great reserves. Name your price. For the lives of my people, nothing is too much.”
A year ago, before her introduction to the world of politics, Nadya would have thought the Duke weak for such an offer. Now, she knew it did not come from a place of strength, but honor. To do nothing, to let Wintercress save the people of Storm’s Quarry, rescuing them as a mother would a drowning babe, that was true weakness.
It was an offer not easily refused. The wealth of Storm’s Quarry filled tales far beyond its walls.
“No.”
Councillor Aster, it seemed, was not dazzled by such stories.
“No?” Marko asked before his father could. “Surely there is something you want.”
“There is nothing Storm’s Quarry has that I desire, milord.”
Marko’s eyes shifted to Nadya, who shook her head. Aster’s heartbeat rang clear and steady across the table. One did not need an ability, nivasi or Nomori, to know that she spoke the truth. Confidence in her words radiated from her every pore, her strong posture, the slight tilt of her chin, the way her gaze, spectacularly blue-silver, was both storm and summer puddle.
She knew the hand of cards she held. No bluff was needed to win the prize.
But what is the prize she seeks? Nadya wondered.
“Our compound is manufactured in a nearby stronghold. Eagle’s Reach.” She paused.
Under his breath, Nadya heard her father’s mutter, “Nearby indeed.”
“It will be delivered on every third day. We can negotiate other aid. Caravans of food and workers receive a hearty reception here. I am sure they will not go unused.”
The Duke inclined his head. “You are too kind, milady. Your great-uncle truly did choose wisely to send you here.”
Faint color crept along her neck. “Your Grace flatters me.”
Nadya leaned forward. There, something in her demeanor changed. Just a peek beneath the mask. Councillor Aster was young, and she could not have been the first pick of the High King of Wintercress. She had done something to impress him, no doubt.
Councillor Aster stood. She curtsied to the Duke, then nodded deeply to Kesali and Marko. Taking their cue, the rest of the table stood.
“I have many letters to write, I’m afraid. Cressian nobles are known for their spirit, and their cooperation is vital for our continued aid to your people. I must beg your leave. Your Gra
ce, milord, milady.” She did not look to Nadya or her father. “Peace be with you.”
“And with you,” Duke Isyanov said.
Councillor Aster swept out of the room, and Nadya was sure she wasn’t the only one standing around the table feeling dismissed.
She could only give apologetic shrugs when Marko asked her if she got anything else from the Councillor. “She spoke only the truth. Her words only got emotional when your father spoke of the High King. Nothing that can be used against her.”
“I do not wish for ammunition,” Kesali said, shaking her head. “I only want to know what she wants.”
Nadya could not give an answer.
She thought she might be able to escape the palace unseen, but her father caught up with her as she exited the main gate.
“There is something else I wish to speak to you about. Something that has no business in the world of politics and masked intentions.” Shadar stood in front of her, grasping both her arms.
She looked up at him, inwardly cursing herself. “Yes, Papa?”
“Your mother—”
“Here? I am not ready, and I don’t think she is either. Papa, tell me I am wrong.” She could not put it into words, the reason she dreaded going home to their little house in the Nomori tier. She had not even seen Mirela since her mother used her psychic gift with jewelry to read Nadya’s secrets off her seal of the Protectress. If she was to be truly honest with herself, she was terrified of seeing Mirela’s fear, her hate that had been taught to her since she was a child, the ancient rules of the Elders regarding the nivasi. To see that in her mother would be more frightening than anything Gedeon, Wintercress, or this new mysterious nivasi could ever be.
“Nadezhda…very well.” Shadar stepped back. “I will see you tomorrow morning. If you wish, I am assigned to the ration lines tomorrow afternoon, and you may come and help. Until then, stay safe.” He kissed the top of her head.
Stay safe, for my sake, or the city’s? she thought as the sun bathed her back in angry warmth. It coaxed her senses beyond the top tier of the city, downward. The cries of the diseased, their boils and blisters swelling in the day’s heat, rose from the lower tiers. To the east, a regiment of the Guard shouted orders to recruits too raw to be serving, except out of dear necessity. In an unfamiliar tongue, the Cressian soldiers did the same. They marched through the city as if they owned it, and in the aftermath of meeting the Lady Aster, Nadya wondered if that was not true.
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