“Who are you?” she asked.
“I could ask the same of you?” His gaze wandered momentarily toward her exposed midriff before he caught himself.
“I… I...” Between sheer exhaustion, relief that Kazimir was gone, and the overwhelming presence of the man standing before her, she could hardly speak.
The man looked down at the two dead Shesaitju warriors, then to the smoldering wake left behind by her magic where Kazimir had stood only moments before. Some cloth smoked amongst the embers as if she’d completely vaporized another attacker.
“You did this?” he asked.
Sora hesitated. If she said no, she’d need to tell them about Kazimir. Who would believe there was an upyr chasing her through the streets of Winde Port? If she said yes, they might lash out and kill her on the spot. Again, she was rendered silent.
“Very impressive,” he said. “My people were ordered not to touch a single dwarf or Panpingese. They clearly deserved their fate. Am I right men?” The soldiers flanking him said nothing. They stood silent beneath terrifying, golden, serpentine masks.
“Our people have no qualms with you or yours, mystic,” the man continued. He went to touch her shoulder, but, instinctively, she recoiled. However impressive he seemed, she couldn’t ignore the rage growing inside of her. His was the gray skin of the people who had senselessly slaughtered Troborough.
“You deny me, mystic?” he questioned, his features hardening.
She was about to correct him—to tell him she was no mystic and he was responsible for burning down the town she called home. She was also about to summon fire to the tips of her fingers and burn him to a crisp. Then she remembered Whitney and the man after them.
“No, my head is just fuzzy from the fight,” she lied. If she tried anything rash, she’d die with him. Which meant Whitney, wherever he was hiding, would be left alone against Darkings, Kazimir, and an army of Shesaitju who wanted all Glassmen dead.
“Well, I assure you, I will have word spread that any of my men caught harming one of your people will be punished in kind.” He lay his hand upon the dilapidated wall and closed his eyes in deep thought. “This place… it is a graveyard for your people. A cesspool of filth and no place for one of such stunning beauty to dwell.”
Just then, Aquira skittered out from behind a pile of rubble. The snake-faced warriors moved to attack.
“No, stop!” Sora shouted. “She’s mine.”
“Yours?” the man said, raising his hand for his men to obey. “No one can own a dragon.”
“She is my companion,” Sora corrected. “But she is also no dragon. She’s a wyvern. I know as well as anyone, dragons are no longer with us on this plane.”
“In that, I’d argue you are wrong, mystic. My people believe there are plenty of dragons who remain, but like so many in Pantego, they’ve retreated into solitude in response to the heavy hand of the evil, vile, King Liam and his ilk.”
“Is that what this is?” she asked. “A battle for freedom?”
“That is how it began.” He took a step toward her. “But then the Child-King Pi dared imprison our great Caleef. His unprovoked attack—”
“Unprovoked?” Sora interrupted. “Your people burned towns to the ground. Homes and businesses—destroyed people’s lives.”
“How dare you speak to Afhem Muskigo with that insolent tone!” One of the snake-faced men moved toward her, readying the back of his hand to strike her.
“Stop,” Muskigo demanded. The soldier froze immediately. Never had Sora seen a man command such respect. His baritone voice even raised the hairs on her arms. “She is right.”
Sora wasn’t sure who was more surprised at the response, her or his men.
“War makes villains of us all” Muskigo said. “I’m not proud of that which must be done.”
“What must be done?” She recognized the name Muskigo from so many rumors on the road to Winde Port. He was the rebel who caused it all. Again, the rage built in her, the storm now crashing upon the shores, tearing trees at the roots and foundations from the earth. She could feel Elsewhere reaching through her very pores, the energy desperate to explode out of her and claim vengeance for Wetzel and so many others.
And then Muskigo spoke again. “You saw those villages?”
Sora thought carefully about how she would answer, and as she did, she noticed the unmistakable pangs of sorrow in his eyes. She didn’t know many people throughout her secluded life, but she’d seen that same look every time after Wetzel used to scold her.
“No, but we hear horrible things here at the center of the world,” she said, trying to fight back the surge of energy in her fingertips. If she told Muskigo she was in one of those villages, he might know that she was as unimportant as the folks living in the Panping Ghetto. But she still wore her fine dress from the guild, tattered as it was. And he’d seen her with a wyvern, using magic like a true mystic of old—he didn’t have to know it took leaking blood for her wounded body to summon it.
Use my assets, she thought.
Suddenly Whitney’s lessons didn’t seem quite so asinine. She remembered the way Muskigo had eyed her figure when he first saw her. The same way the boorish mercenaries in the caravan by the gorge did. If Whitney—the most cynical and sacrilegious man she’d ever known—could pretend he was a priest of Iam, she could pretend she was more than a girl from Troborough. Until the time was right.
“But I suppose you’re right…” Sora said, edging closer and standing up straight, no longer cowering. “They’ve held us down for far too long. There are likely many of my people in this city who are grateful for your… interference. I would count myself among the lucky for my powers to be put to use against the petulant King and his crazed Queen Mother.”
Muskigo exhaled. “It is good to see someone with reason. May I ask, are you from this city? I don’t mean to presume, but… a wyvern… practicing magic, you don’t—”
“I am not,” Sora interrupted. She knelt and extended her arm toward Aquira. The wyvern quickly slithering into the crest of her arm, terrified. “I’m from Yaolin City, but I moved here with my husband, Tayvada Bokeo when we joined the Winde Traders Guild.” She hated using poor Tayvada’s name like this, but at least it may help her stay alive long enough to get vengeance on the man who murdered him.
“The Traders Guild?” Muskigo said. “I hadn’t realized they took on people of your descent. You and your husband must have great influence in your homeland with the Order of Mystics dissolved.”
“Late husband,” Sora blurted, almost forgetting to hang her head in sadness.
Stupid, Sora. Remember what Whitney would do—keep the subject of your lie wanting.
Despite her mistake, the word “late” put a sparkle in Muskigo’s eye which he couldn’t mask even if he’d tried.
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” he said. “I hope it wasn’t due to this unfortunate fighting?”
“No, he was murdered. Some time back. But he lives on in Elsewhere, always waiting until the day I may return to him.” A bit of truth never hurt the illusion. She wasn’t sure if Whitney had told her that, but was sure she’d learned it from watching him. Tayvada was indeed murdered, and from her studies, she knew that her ancestors didn’t fear Elsewhere—the spirit realm—the way the children of Iam and other gods did. To them, it was merely the next step in the soul’s journey reflective of a life lived on Pantego.
“I hope that day is long from now,” Muskigo said. The sincerity in his voice was unmistakable. “We came here to strike the heart of the Glass Kingdom. Yet seeing how your people are forced to live beneath them, the glory of your ancestors thrown aside, forced into churches of a God in which you don’t believe, forced to ignore the flicker of power so many of you are blessed with—I see now that perhaps we have come here for more people than my own.”
Sora stuck her chest out and stated, “Or have you merely come here for more allies?” She felt ridiculous, the way she fully annunciated each syllable l
ike the men and women she’d seen in the guild that night. Like she’d grown up in some fancy mansion on the right side of town and not in a basement below a dilapidated shack.
Muskigo’s cheeks went a darker shade of gray. “You see right through me…”
“Sora,” she said, bowing slightly.
Muskigo returned the bow. “Beautiful name. Though it doesn’t sound Panpingese? And your speech; even I can hear you have not the slightest hint of your home in your voice.”
Sora’s heart raced as she somehow maintained a stoic façade. She knew her chances of survival were slim if she didn’t play her cards right. Maybe the Shesaitju were sparing her kind, but not those who try to trick their ahfem. Especially not those who wanted him to pay for his crimes.
“My parents were worldly, or rather… they had to be after the Glass Kingdom disbanded the Order.”
Muskigo’s dark eyes lit with wonder. “They were Council Mystics?”
Sora nodded and cursed herself inwardly. Stop spiraling further! All Whitney’s dumb lessons were garbled around in her head, but she knew that the more layers she added to her lie the easier it’d be to slip up. Simple is better.
“What surprising things we find here at the edge of despair.” Muskigo went to wrap his arm around her waist, earned a growl from Aquira, then lightly took her arm instead. Even the way he stepped was not so brazen anymore, which meant Sora had him intrigued… she hoped. The noblest man she’d ever met was Torsten Unger, and he was impossible to read.
Muskigo regarded her arm, sliced and bleeding in more than one location. “My men did this to you?”
She lowered her head. “They were not so kind as their leader.”
“Again, I cannot express how sorry I am. What can a simple afhem do for a true daughter of the mystics to make amends?”
“I… I could use a good meal and some rest.”
“Of course, where are my manners? If you waited any longer, you might mistake me for a Glassman. The men of the Black Sands treat our women as we treat the palms…”
His words trailed off there as if he expected her to finish. She tilted her head, then regarded Aquira, who was now starting to get more relaxed.
A crooked smile formed on Muskigo’s face.
Is he nervous?
“…We never shake them.”
“Now,” he continued, “join us within the prefect's estate, and you’ll have all the food and rest you need. And I’ll ensure one of our physicians examines and cleans your injuries immediately. In fact, all Panpingese men and women are invited to share in the festivities while we will finish the work we’ve begun; bringing Yarrington to its knees.”
Without so much as another thought, Sora took a step forward, and Muskigo’s men parted, inviting her into the inner circle. They led her through the city, past the carnage of their wake. She’d missed it from the rooftops of the ghetto because Muskigo wasn’t lying, his people didn’t seem interested in that place. And her people probably barred their doors shut and closed the shutters like they did every time there was a ruckus in the better parts of town.
Glass soldiers littered the ground like trash. But not just them, civilians too. Merchants, chimney sweeps, anyone born west of the Great Ravine who got caught in a wave of Shesaitju warriors. A few of their ashen bodies stained the ground, but more of them stood. Hundreds, everywhere, being forced to stack the bodies of the dead on carts to wheel them off to Iam knows where. Sora couldn’t help but scan every single one for Whitney’s ridiculous Traders Guild outfit.
“So many dead,” she muttered. The air felt trapped in her lungs. She squeezed Aquira for comfort without meaning to, but the warm creature didn’t seem to mind. Suddenly, Troborough felt so small and far away, and all Muskigo’s talk of heroics, which actually had her questioning her dark desires, melted away.
“A forgettable foundation of blood for a brighter future,” Muskigo replied.
“Are the lives of these people so frivolous?”
“That is an unfair word. Their deaths will be with me forever. It is the weight I bear, so others don’t have to. But it is not only the lives of my enemies who mar these streets and will stain them further tomorrow.”
Muskigo stopped and knelt beside a Shesaitju warrior, writhing on the ground, a spear through his gut. He extended his palm and one of his men handed him their sword. He leaned in, cupped the dying warrior’s neck, and whispered something into his ear.
Sora knew what was coming. She fought her best intentions to stay quiet. With enough of a blood sacrifice, she knew she could heal him. It would drain her so much she’d probably pass out, but she could. However, it would show Muskigo that she was little more than a blood mage. Plus, why him and not another?
While indecision wracked her mind, Muskigo plunged the blade into the man’s heart. Sora had to look away as the life fled his eyes.
“You see?” Muskigo said as he wiped the blade on his skirt and returned it to his guard. “You may look away, for only I need wield the blade that brings their end.”
He rose, and they began walking again.
“You could have not brought them here in the first place,” Sora said.
“They’ve pledged their lives to this cause and were all too eager to fall for the glory of our Caleef.”
“It must be nice to be so devoted to one man.”
Muskigo stopped and in doing so, brought their whole company to a halt.
“Caleef Sidar Rakun is no mere man,” he said. “He, like all those who came before him, was birthed from the depths of the Boiling Waters and the churning sand. He is the embodiment of god.”
“Which god might that be?” she asked. She knew she might be pushing her luck but couldn’t help herself. As much as she hated him for what he’d done, as much as she wanted to give in to the power begging to leap from her body… so too did she hope to understand why her home had to be destroyed, and everyone she knew had to die. “I’ve heard of many so-called gods, but none of them have lived up to the hype.”
Muskigo’s dark eyes fell upon her. For a moment, she thought the man would lash out at her, bringing a swift end to her the way Kazimir had to her attackers. Instead, he laughed. “That does not surprise me, Sora of Yaolin City. You have not seen the likes of the God of Sand and Sea.”
“I thought your Caleef is your god?”
“He is, and he is so much more. He does not hide behind a name or scripture like Iam, but instead, walks amongst us.
They started moving again over Winde Port’s grand, central canal. She ignored the Glass Soldier lying face down on the frozen water but then, she saw worse. All down Merchants Row, the palisade wall surrounding the city was visible. The heads of soldiers dotted the stakes, overlooking where she and Whitney ate on their first day in the city. Her stomach did a spin.
“Speak your mind, Sora of Yaolin City,” Muskigo said. Apparently, she hadn’t been as proficient at concealing her disgust as she’d hoped.
“It’s just…”
“Yes?”
“These people… what did they do to deserve this? The towns you burned. Those were lives, families, people like you and me.”
They stopped again, and Muskigo placed his hands upon Sora’s shoulders. She winced.
“This is war, mystic. You should know as well as any the consequences of battle. Are you too young to remember the Third Panping War?”
She wondered the same of him. His beard was dark and thick, and his skin was smooth—signs of youth—but his eyes held great depths within. Having lived in Troborough most of her life, she didn’t have tremendous experience with Shesaitju. Did they age slower? She wasn’t sure if Afhem Muskigo was twice her age or less… or more.
“My parents fled after the war, but I was so young I remember very little of it,” she said, allowing herself to look up at the heads.
Crumbs of truth.
She didn’t remember a thing of her true parents, but she had a single memory of her ancestral lands. Chaos and screami
ng… It was why she never cared to go back until her memories of Troborough were forced to be the same.
Muskigo finally decided to wrap his arm all the way around her. Aquira grumbled in disapproval, glare fixed upon the afhem’s hand as if daring him to try hurting her. Sora again flinched at his touch, but she didn’t fight it as he guided her away and continued their walk toward the palace.
“My father died at the hands of that wretched killer, Liam. To his people, Liam was the great conqueror—uniting Pantego under the banner of his God. In peace.” The word left Muskigo’s mouth as if it were poison. “But what about us? Did we ask to worship Iam?”
“I suppose not,” Sora admitted.
“And now they’ve imprisoned our Caleef. Would the Glass not have done worse to get their own king back? What would their crazed queen do?”
Sora remembered the bodies hanging from the Yarrington walls in the Queen’s mad quest to save her son. It was her first, and she hoped only impression of the Glass Castle.
Before she had a chance to respond, they stopped in front of a beautiful two-story estate. Marble columns supported a balcony that jutted from the upper story. Vast, green, gardens were visible in the courtyard through the lower floors arcade—lush despite the bitter cold.
“Welcome,” he said, spreading his arms. “My new home belongs to you. It belongs to all who have long suffered under a Glass boot.”
The inside of the palace was as grand and luxurious as the exterior. In the center of the lofty greeting hall was a great hearth set in stone. Shesaitju soldiers sat around the blaze, drinking and laughing as if it were any other day. As if there weren’t dead bodies littering the streets of a foreign city just outside the door.
Muskigo snapped and a handmaiden, dressed in clothing more appropriate for a desert than the land north of the beaches, approached them. He whispered something in her ear, and she bowed. Her face was covered by a shawl, but the skin around her eyes was creased with age.
“Now, I have business to attend to preparing our defenses,” Muskigo said. “Shavi will take care of anything you need. We shall speak soon, Sora of Yaolin City.”
Winds of War Page 19
