by Kate Elliott
He reached to embrace her. She extended a hand, palm out, to stop him.
The future, a bolt of shimmering first-quality silk, unrolled before her. An elaborate compound furnished just as she wished, with painted screens and embroidered pillows and a spacious counting room for her mercantile business fitted with drawers and cubbies and writing desks, and that irritating Keshad as her chief accountant. She would insist on living in a town, or preferably a city like Toskala with a substantial market, whose streets and alleys and stalls she and Miravia could browse at their leisure. She would become a woman of means, using the coin she had herself earned, nothing gifted to her, and no doubt she could demand a position on the council which naturally no council would deny her. And Anji, for a day or a week or a month at a time, in her bed. His kisses and his warm embrace.
She enduring the cage for the sake of the boy, as Anji’s mother had done all those years locked up in the women’s palace within the emperor’s palace in the Sirniakan Empire. All that she was, having meaning only because of the precious boy and a powerful man’s desire for her.
“That’s your offer,” she said, drawing down her market voice and her market face. “Now here is my counteroffer.”
“Mai,” he said softly, with a soft smile that cut as sharply as steel, “there is no counteroffer. There never was. Not since that day in Kartu’s market.”
The thing about Sheyshi stabbing her is that it had anticipated the pain yet to come. This pain, severing flesh and bone and blood, she must absorb without letting any trace of it show on her face. She must lock it away now and only later let the agony tear through her.
“No.” She eased her hand away from his chest, not sure what she would do if he were to move in to kiss away her defenses, but the word was shield enough. His brows drew down; his gaze narrowed in that way it did when he felt thwarted. “I will not be your second wife, and have my son call another woman ‘mother.’ I want my son back and to be your partner, as we were before.”
He laughed bitterly, his hand darting in to grasp strands of her hair that had fallen over her shoulder, to twist them between his fingers. “Oh, Mai, however much I might wish it, it’s impossible. We’ve crossed under the gate. There is no going back.”
She turned her head away, and he released her.
“This isn’t about going back,” she said. “But we can go forward on the path we were set on before. I had my business ventures, my warehouse. You were captain of Olossi’s militia . . .”
She faltered.
He, who was now in all ways but in name the ruler of the Hundred. The Qin commander, accustomed to conquest.
To think she had mistaken him for the hero of the tale.
Flowers swayed as the wind danced through them. A high-pitched shriek of excitement rang: her child’s voice. Then there was silence but for the rustling leaves and the mournful ripple of the awning. The unweighted corner of the map rose, as invisible fingers pried for secrets, and sagged down again.
Tuvi took her hand in his with the affection of an elderly uncle who has seen a great deal of the world and knows what to value. In his measured expression she saw the chief she had grown so very fond of. “Mistress, he will treat you well. Be sure of that.”
“No.”
Tuvi’s smile was like the last spark of the sun before darkness swallowed day, more farewell than comfort. “A lilu would have said yes. If you leave now, Mistress, you can never return.”
“If she leaves?” cried Anji. “She can’t leave!”
The market was her territory. Here, she knew what to do. “I have coin enough to pay you in full what you paid to my father.”
His was an anger chained and bound. “You are not my slave. I have never treated you as a slave. But you cannot leave, Mai. I will not allow you to go out into the world where some other man will claim you. Then I would have to kill him.”
“And me? Would you have to kill me?” she asked sadly. “Neh, Tuvi-lo, stand aside, for it’s better if I know the truth.” With a sigh Tuvi took a step away, leaving Anji to face her.
He wanted to touch her—she could see it in his posture, his hands, his expression—but he refrained. “You know I could never harm you, plum blossom. I have never even raised my hand against you—except that one time. Mai, when I look at you I see all that is best in the world. Your beauty, your generosity, your intelligence, your honor. How can you expect me to step back and let that go?”
“Anji, there’s something I must tell you.” Because there is always a counteroffer. “When Sheyshi stabbed me, when I fell into the pool, I lay in a place which is caught between the life of the world and the Spirit Gate beyond. When I woke, I thought it was the same day, that only a few breaths had passed while I struggled to reach the surface. Do you understand me? Months passed for you, but for me—for my body—it was less than a pair of breaths.”
She had taken him off guard.
“I’m pregnant, Anji.” She couldn’t lie outright. But he was vulnerable, and so she must strike. She need only speak a name, and he would presume the rest. “Joss.”
The veil ripped asunder. She had one glimpse of sheer brutal throat-choking fury.
“Tuvi, give me your sword.”
The chief coolly interposed his body between them. “No, Captain. You’ll regret it later.”
“Tuvi, give me your sword.” He wasn’t a man to grab at things. He expected to be obeyed.
“No, Anjihosh.” Keeping his back to her, Tuvi said, “Mistress, return by the way we came to the reeve hall and don’t ever come back.”
“Tuvi, where are Priya and O’eki? Please tell them that I live, and that they should stay with Atani if they must, to care for him, but if they are at all unhappy, then they must—”
“I’ll tell them. Go.”
She fumbled at and opened the door. Even then she thought perhaps Anji might call after her, might realize how ridiculous his suspicions were, might change his mind, might see a different path, the one she wished for rather than the one he had chosen, but after all, he did not.
53
THE NIGHT IS dark, and the sky is hazy, and a campfire is burning like a friendly beacon, three figures seated companionably if forlornly within its fragile aura. Folk like to tell tales and sing around campfires, especially if they are seated at the edge of an abyss as threads of fire flicker like lightning across the stone ledge on which they rest.
The brigands raged in,
they confronted the peaceful company seated at their dinner,
they demanded the girl be handed over to them.
All feared them. All looked away.
Except foolish Jothinin, light-minded Jothinin,
he was the only one who stood up to face them,
he was the only one who said, “No.”
“And then what happened?” a woman asked with a rough-timbred, sexy laugh just exactly like Marit’s, the laugh of a woman who is not afraid to see the humor in just about anything because she’s learned that’s one way to make sense of life. “I mean, truly what happened? Did you start talking on and on and on until—”
“Until they fled out of boredom? Until they expired for not having any air to breathe after I had used it all for my lengthy speech? No, indeed, that is not what happened, even if you think it must be. I’m deeply saddened and grievously wounded that you would even insinuate such a thing.”
Marit laughed again.
“In the tale,” said a third voice, “you cry aloud about the injustice. You gather crowds, who listen, who gain courage. The bandits cut you down for they fear to hear you speak the truth. And then the people rise up in noble anger and drive them away, and the girl—” Here her raspy childish voice took on a shine of intensely smug contentment. “—is saved and never troubled again.”
The man sighed lengthily and with much effort in drawing out the exhalation to its last lingering wisp. “Well, now, I wish I could say it transpired all so neatly as you say, Kirit, but in truth—”
He tried to rub the haze out of his eyes, for there came Marit scrambling up from the fire and running toward him with a grin like a blaze of joy.
She dropped to her knees beside him. “Joss. Do you know who I am?”
For answer, he embraced her and then, because her body crushed against his body felt so cursed good, just as it ought, he kissed her. Oh, the kissing was good. He’d never forgotten the taste of her, and the way she had of—
Memories cascaded so hard and fast that he broke away and clapped his hands to his head as if he had the headache that afflicted him when he was drinking too much. Only his head didn’t hurt at all.
“Aui!” She laughed. “That wasn’t the greeting I was expecting. But I admit, it’s the one I would have wished for.”
He lowered his hands “You’re dead, Marit. Twenty-one years dead. To think I could never let you go, for I tell you I missed you so badly and then would go on and on blaming myself for what wasn’t truly my fault. Eiya! I’m remembering—” He pressed palms together, pinched himself, smoothed his hands down his thighs. He was wearing his reeve’s leathers, although they were dusty in some spots and in others smeared with a stain that slid with an oily slime under his testing finger. “I hesitate to say this, but I have an odd memory that you are a ghost pretending to be a Guardian haunting my gods-rotted dreams and that I was . . . I was . . .” Yet it was all haze, a smeary, oily confusion of arrows flying and men shouting and one man—could that be himself?—desperately trying to shield his beloved companion. What in the hells?
She grasped his hand in one of hers. A death white cloak shivered at her shoulders: a demon’s cloak.
Neh, not a demon’s cloak. That had been someone else’s word for them. That had been Anji’s word.
“Joss, there’s no easy way to say this. You’re dead. I don’t know how you were killed. Or how long ago it happened. But Jothinin and Kirit and I found you, and we’ve done our best to help you awaken.”
“Awaken from what?”
“From death.”
“Marit, no one awakens from death. You pass through the Spirit Gate and cross to the other side.”
“Except for a few of us, a very few, who as it says in the tale must walk the lands to establish justice. If they can. A rather heavy ‘if’ in days like these. Or in any days, I suppose.”
“You’re talking about the Guardians.”
“I am. And you are. Because you’ve been—well—you’ve been claimed by a cloak, Joss. Jessed, if you will. Don’t take this the wrong way, but the cloak that’s wearing you is the one that used to belong to Lord Radas. Not that that means anything, mind you. It’s not the cloak that corrupts the Guardian. I don’t believe that. I think it’s something inside the person that weakens and breaks, so just because you’re wearing the cloak of Sun doesn’t mean you’ll become corrupted as he did.”
He felt its weight dragging like stone on his shoulders, and yet its power coursed through his body like a river’s streaming current or the wind’s blustery push or a flame’s fiery snap. It draped over him, whispering against the stone on which he sat. An arrow was half hidden under the fabric. When he picked it up, it fit easily in his hand.
Across the ledge a glittering labyrinth flowered as if the arrow’s touch on his skin had brought it to life: the maze that led to the altar and its hidden pool spread in patterns that winked and tempted. How easily he could walk it now! Those twists and turns ignited memories, banished the haze.
“Captain Anji killed me. Only he didn’t really kill me. He didn’t dare strike at me. That gods-rotted bastard. He had his soldiers kill—”
“Calm down, Joss. You’re upsetting Scar. Here now, give me a kiss.” She tipped his chin up and kissed him lightly once, twice, thrice, until he laughed and, behind her, that cursed envoy of Ilu—what was he doing here?—spoke.
“Yet again we have proven women believe sex solves everything.”
“He was getting agitated!” retorted Marit, but she sat back on her heels and smiled in a way that made Joss’s ears—and more—burn. “The hells, Joss. Not that you weren’t a pleasant armful before, but you were just not this cursed handsome when you were young. What happened to you?”
He was working back through her words, spinning the arrow once around slowly. “What do you mean? I’m upsetting a scar?”
“Ah.” She rose, walked back to the fire, and poured liquid from a leather bottle into a cup. Beyond her, three horses stood close together, heads and necks drooping, one with a hind hoof tipped up on the toe. A bulky feathery bulk sprouted from their shoulders and folded back along their flanks all the way to their croups.
“Those are winged horses,” he said indignantly as she returned.
“Drink this.”
It was a tart cordial, just the way he liked it, with real bite. And he was cursed thirsty all of a sudden. But he set down the cup.
“Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that I’m awake, and not dreaming or plowing my way through some manner of drunken stupor. Let’s just say those are three winged horses. Let’s say I’m wearing a Guardian’s cloak, for I’m certainly wearing something like it. And that this arrow in my hand is somehow connected to the cloak of Sun. Let’s say that you and these two individuals are also Guardians. I can’t believe I just said all that.”
Now he did knock back the cordial, and it seared his throat and made his eyes water in a most satisfactory way.
“Do you remember what Marshal Alard used to say, Marit? If you have to choose between what seems the most reasonable explanation, and what the cold, hard evidence reveals—”
“Go with the evidence,” she finished.
“There you stand, wearing the cloak of Death. Him, the cloak of Sky, I suppose. And her—” The firelight must have been playing tricks on him, for she looked like a ghost, not like a person. “My apologies, verea. We’ve never met.”
Marit tugged him up, biting her lower lip in that way she did with her eyes so inviting. She chuckled as he flushed. Eihi! Now he remembered what he had been doing not long before he’d died, and it hadn’t been with Marit but rather with that gods-rotted magnificent hierodule Zubaidit, and it had been cursed energetic and tremendously wild and hot and—
“What are you thinking about?” she demanded, really laughing now. “Neh. Never mind. For I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know. And now, thank the Lady, I don’t have to.” She led him by the hand over to the fire, where she introduced him to Jothinin and Kirit. The girl was a cursed odd-looking person, an outlander, ghastly pale with almost colorless eyes and hair like straw. Fortunately, she was quite young, likely not more than sixteen or eighteen, and treated him with the reserved deference due to an uncle never before met.
They had a nicely spiced porridge and several ripe sunfruit and mangoes, not that he was particularly hungry, and more of that wonderfully tart cordial. He had a curious idea that he didn’t actually need to eat, but the act was comforting, and the food was tasty, and he had anyhow lived all his life eating in company. It would have seemed strange not to do so now.
Jothinin was a talker, just like the foolish Jothinin in the tale, but he had a pleasant voice and a great many entertaining tales to tell, many of which were a joke on himself. But at length even he fell silent as the fire sparked and popped, and Kirit, its keeper, gifted more wood to its flames.
“So let’s say it’s true, that I’m a Guardian,” said Joss. “What does that mean? For here are four of us. Anji has the other five cloaks. He’s bound them with chains into chests and I’m pretty sure he means to hold them. I admit, seeing what happened with Radas and Night, it’s not entirely surprising Anji believes the cloaks dangerous and corrupting.” Yet when he pulled the fabric of his Sun cloak through a hand, he felt no shadow, no dark seam cracking wide to eat out his heart and turn him into a lilu. Not that he couldn’t crack. Not
that every person wasn’t vulnerable in some way. But it wasn’t inevitable, as Anji had claimed.
“We weren’t sure what happened to the other cloaks. But we’re the ones responsible. For we—Jothinin and Kirit and I—told him what he needed to know to kill Guardians.”
Kirit said, “But the bad ones are gone now. Isn’t it better they’re gone?”
“So there we lie, between the sea and the shore, just like in the tale.” Marit turned to Joss. “What if it is better that they’re gone? It seems the Hundred is settling into peace again. Folk can labor and live without the fear they had before. Because the outlander rules with his army. They rule the roads, the gates, the assizes, the markets. You see where I’m going with this. He’s not a cruel master. Life prospers. The crops are good. The roads are safe. Children sleep in peace. But we daren’t get close. His soldiers and his reeves are hunting us. Hunting Guardians. Now that he knows he can kill us, he means to rid the Hundred of Guardians. And what if he’s right to do so? Who among us is free from the threat of corruption?”
Jothinin scratched his head. Kirit stared into the gulf of air, as if the night held answers.
“No one is,” Joss answered. “Not us. Not Anji. Not any man or woman. What are you all looking at me like that for? It wasn’t that cursed wise a comment.”
Kirit’s eyes had gone wide and she shrank down as if to curl herself into a ball. Jothinin shifted to place himself between the girl and the fire. Marit rose as the ground made an odd shushing sound behind him and a light tremor vibrated up through the stone into Joss’s body. The horses woke, and one—two—three they spread their fine bright wings and galloped off the cursed ledge and into the night.
“Why are there only three horses, if there are four of us?” he asked.
“Aui! That was the other shock, the one we’ve been waiting to drop on you. Just stand slowly, and turn around.”
