by Cari Z
“I activated my last defense.” Xian sighed, slowly sinking until he was sitting against the cool stone wall. Rafael knelt with him. “One I’ve had in place for half a century now. It was the same rock we grind to make our flash bombs, shaped and hardened in the fashion you observed.”
“That rock doesn’t explode in such a manner.”
“Not in the quantities you’ve seen. I had a stockpile beneath the floor, enough to take out the room, the dome, the house… Probably my neighbors’ houses as well—at least the near ones. That’s where the fire fled to, pet.”
“You’ve known for fifty years you might do this?” Rafael asked, obscurely hurt at the thought that it wasn’t for him alone that Xian would wreak such carnage.
“It all hinged on finding the right motivation, the right set of circumstances,” Xian said with a small smile. “You’re worth far more to me than any house, Rafael, more than anything else in my life. Believe me.”
It was the closest thing to a declaration of love that Rafael had gotten from Xian, and it warmed him to the core. “I do. I love you.”
“My Rafael.” Xian pulled him forward and kissed him, knowing unerringly where his eager lips were. Their embrace was sweet, flavored with exertion and exhaustion and pain, and Rafael reveled in it.
Xian pulled back too soon, ruefully. “I would keep you here with me, pet, but things are moving fast now, and you have friends to care for.”
Of course. Feysal and Mina. “I’ll come back for you soon,” Rafael promised.
“You may not need to. In a few hours my eyes will be healed and I’ll be able to move freely. The shadows are already lengthening, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll be fine. See to your friends, but wait until we’re together again to go after Daeva.”
“You don’t trust me to take care of him?” Rafael asked, not too defensively, he hoped.
“I don’t trust him not to emulate his former mistress. Myrtea has surprised me badly several times, Rafael, and I don’t want to make the same mistake with her pupil. Wait for me. Please.”
“I’ll wait,” Rafael said after a moment, although really he wanted nothing more than to hunt Daeva down and cut his throat now, hopefully before he could do any more damage. “Unless I have no choice.”
“Good.” Xian kissed him again, then let him go. “Watch where you step.”
Rafael grinned. It was the same send-off Xian had given him every time he sent him out during his apprenticeship. “I’ll see you soon.” He turned and moved into the light, forcing himself not to gaze back at Xian like some lovesick suitor. Xian would be fine.
Chapter Ten
Rafael cleaned himself up a little bit before heading into the more populated areas of the Lower City, more conscious than ever of the need to be inconspicuous. He still clung to shadows and alleys, as good at being ignored and unseen as always, but everything he looked at seemed brighter and sharper than before.
Anticipation thrummed through his veins, heartening him and pulling a smile to his lips he wasn’t even aware of. He was leaving Clare, with Xian. Leaving these worn cobbled streets and tall buildings that leaned precariously into one another, supported as much by magic these days as masonry. His senses drank everything in, absorbing the thronging people, the cacophony of their commerce and the thick, smoky scents of their lives. He ran his fingers lightly along the walls he passed, stone and wood and cloth-draped stalls, engraving the feel of Clare into his mind.
In less than half an hour, he reached Little Heaven and Feysal’s establishment, tastefully subdued on the outside but opulent enough to satisfy a king inside. Something was wrong, though…the doorman was missing. Looking at the slender windows facing the street, Rafael couldn’t see any light, which meant the candles in the antechamber weren’t lit. He froze for a moment, his chest congealing with dread, before forcing himself up the steps. The door was locked, but that was remedied in a moment. Rafael stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind him. The sound was negligible, but it prompted footfalls from the closest hallway. Rafael tensed, a hand going to one of his knives before his memory caught up with his reactive mind. He knew those footsteps. “Feysal?”
“Rafael?” His friend appeared in the open doorway, his face as incredulous as his voice. He was dressed plainly today, with none of his usual finery on display. His dark hair was braided and pulled out of the way, doing nothing to conceal the tension in his face or mask the tired slump of his shoulders. “Gods, where did you come from?” They reached for each other at the same time, meeting in a fierce embrace in the center of the abandoned room. “I heard two nights ago that you were taken by the High Ones, that they were going to execute you… I feared you were dead.”
“There was a change of plans, thanks to Xian.”
“Your former master?” Feysal pulled back for a moment and looked searchingly into Rafael’s face. “Have you found some comfort with him at last?”
“Found it, yes. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep it yet, but that’s an issue for a later day. What happened here? Where are your people?”
“I sent them away this morning,” Feysal said, his lips thinning with anger and grief. “I didn’t think it was safe for them to stay with me. Mina is missing.”
“Mina?” A sudden vision of Feysal’s daughter filled Rafael’s mind, a girl just leaving the awkwardness of adolescence behind and developing into a graceful young woman with her mother’s calm demeanor and her father’s alluring beauty. “Since when?”
“Last night, just after sunset. I sent her on an errand, to buy scented oils in the spice market. Something she does every week. She didn’t come back. I spent the night searching for her… I closed the establishment and sent my people to search for her. I told the guards she was missing, for all the good that did me.” He drew back and closed his eyes briefly, squeezing them tight against some inner torment. “I only just got back perhaps an hour ago. I sent my people home and was getting ready to go out again. I haven’t been to Daeva yet but—”
“Don’t go there,” Rafael interjected. “Don’t go to him. Things are…things are happening, Feysal, Clare is changing. It’s going to get bad here. I came to try to persuade you and Mina to leave the city.”
Feysal grimaced. “Leave my home and my business? Leave my life, on a whim of your master’s?”
“Not a whim, my friend. I would never ask something like this of you lightly, I know what an agony adjusting to a new life can be.”
“It’s immaterial anyway. I can go nowhere without Mina. I have to speak to Daeva, he may know what’s happened to her.”
“I’m sure he does,” Rafael said sourly. “Fuck. Fucking hell.” He ran one hand through his tangled hair. “If he has her, I’ll get her from him. You can’t go to him, you have no defense against someone like Daeva. He’ll just use you or kill you.”
“Nothing will matter if I don’t get her back, Rafael.” The raw fear in his friend’s eyes made Rafael throb with sympathetic pain. “Nothing. Mina is my only child, she’s all I have left of Halima. I have nothing to live for without her.”
“I’ll get her back,” Rafael swore, and at that moment he knew he’d die to repay this debt, even if it meant betraying Xian’s faith in him and all the sacrifices he’d already made to keep Rafael alive. “I will. I swear it, but I have to be able to focus all my attention on it, and I can’t do that if I’m worrying about you. Stay here.”
Feysal looked mutinous.
“Please, damn it, please stay here. Give me until an hour after sunset.” By then Xian would be able to help him. “If I’m not back by then, do whatever you feel you have to, but give me until then to bring her back to you safe. I can do this, Feysal, but I’m begging you to wait here for us to return.”
After a long, tense moment, Feysal nodded. A little of the strain left his face as he murmured, “You know how I like to hear you beg.”
Rafael smiled in relief. “I do, and I’ll beg yo
ur forgiveness after I’ve brought her back to you.”
“Rafael…” Feysal shook his head slowly. “This isn’t your fault.”
“You were targeted because of your association with me.”
“You don’t know that. Even if that’s true, I know you. You would have done everything possible to keep Mina safe.”
“I tried,” Rafael whispered, remembering his last conversation with Daeva. “Apparently I didn’t leave enough of an impression.” His next heart-to-heart conversation with Daeva would involve more than threats.
Both men were distracted by yelling outside, a growing clamor that pulled them out of the house. People were thronging to the far gate of Little Heaven, where there was a clear view into the rest of Clare and the Upper City. It wasn’t dark yet, but both of them could just make out the edge of flames beyond the dividing walls and the apprehensive murmurs of the watching crowd. “Damn it,” Rafael muttered. “It’s spreading fast.” He was surprised that the High Ones hadn’t put the fire out already.
Feysal turned and looked at him, one brow arching incredulously. “Did you set the Upper City on fire?”
“Not…exactly.” Rafael winced. “It was more of a controlled explosion, and it was Xian who set it off, not me.”
“Holy Gods,” Feysal said, looking from him back to the rising flames. “This is your change?”
“This is a part of it. There was an unexpected… I mean, it wasn’t supposed to… Fuck it, never mind. I have to go.” The thought that the flames might already be breaching the walls in certain places, possibly even where he had left Xian, thinking it was safe, thinking he’d have time to recover… “I have to go right now. I’ll find her, I swear it. Just wait for us. Wait.”
“Until one hour after sunset.” Feysal’s expression was grimly calm. “Then I go.”
“I’ll be back before that.” Rafael embraced his friend again, feeling relieved when Feysal wrapped his arms slowly around him, as though he wasn’t sure that was where he wanted to be until he was there. Then Feysal held Rafael so tightly he could barely breathe.
“Be careful for yourself as well,” Feysal whispered.
“I will.” They kissed each other gently, with a sense of finality. Then they both let go and Rafael melted into the crowd, leaving his friend standing alone and desolate in the door of his shattered peace.
Rafael wove in and out of the crowd now, not bothering to conceal himself other than to raise his hood. The streets were packed with people, gawking, speculating, some working themselves toward hysteria. The wiser ones weren’t on the streets but were packing up their most treasured belongings and heading for the docks, sensing that before long space on any vessel fit to float―and some that were not—would be in desperate demand.
While his feet moved faultlessly, Rafael’s mind was talking itself in circles. Daeva had Mina, Rafael was almost certain of it, but for him to have stolen her last night, before the fire, before the city’s plight became so obvious… What had forced his hand? Or had he always been planning to betray Rafael like this, and the opportunity had presented itself? He couldn’t have known Rafael would survive. Hell, Rafael hadn’t even known that with absolute certainty until this morning. Was it something else? Was he guessing, calculating chances?
It didn’t really matter. Daeva was a master manipulator, brilliant in his own twisted way, but Rafael wasn’t planning on negotiating with him. He was going to kill him as soon as he’d assured himself that Xian was well and found him a different place to recover. Perhaps he could see now, it had been over an hour…
The area where Rafael had left Xian was the closest section of the wall to Xian’s former home, and by the time he was within a hundred meters of the storm drain, Rafael knew he was too late. The fire was feeding on the ages-old structural magic, plunging the fairy-tale buttresses and spires of the Upper City into utter ruin, collapsing the ground beneath the immense stone edifices and forming ravines. Where the storm drain had been was now a pit, with no trace of the ancient stonework left behind for several blocks. There was no sign of Xian.
Rafael stared, silently, for a long moment. He wondered distractedly how many shocks his heart would take before it gave up in despair. Logically he knew Xian had probably escaped the collapse. The High One had senses that were developed beyond normal reckoning—he’d no doubt have known that the destruction was coming. Even if he couldn’t see, he could easily have gotten himself away.
But to where? The crowds were seething, panic was mounting by the minute. Where could Xian go where he would be safe while he recovered? Abnormal senses aside, the man was still blind. This section of the city wasn’t too far from the commerce district, and that was where the heart of Daeva’s nascent rebellion was housed. If Xian was seen as easy prey, he would be attacked. He wasn’t easy, not even without his sight, but enough attackers could bring even a master assassin down. Hadn’t Rafael argued the same point with Daeva just a few days earlier? At the time he hadn’t conceived that his argument would hit so close to home.
Rafael looked up at the sky. It was several hours past noon and the sun set quickly in a city that cast so many shadows. Still, he had time to look for Xian. He needed to think about how he wanted to approach Daeva anyway, and he had to prepare to get Mina out at any cost.
Rafael skirted the edge of the yawning pit, searching for any sign of Xian. He didn’t expect his master to leave a trail behind for him to follow, but if anyone had taken it into their heads to attack him, then there would be collateral damage. Rafael picked the streets that led toward the docks as the most likely, and climbed to the rooftops to avoid the pressing throng. He looked down from the wide brick chimney of a glass factory and surveyed the scene, relaxing his eyes instead of trying to focus on individuals.
Patterns appeared in the at-first dizzying array of people who crammed themselves into every available space as they fought their way toward the docks. There were areas that they avoided, though. They weren’t yet panicked enough to wade through the gutters that lined the edges of each cobbled street, or trample the crippled beggars who plied their trade in the shade of tattered paper parasols.
Nor, it seemed as Rafael looked closer, were they yet willing to tread on the dead, although they did seem to be in too much of a hurry to move the body. No. Bodies. One, two, three men, simple opportunistic footpads from the look of their clothes. Close together in one alley, their corpses sprawled gracelessly where passersby had prodded them out of the way. Rafael moved closer, leaping easily from one roof to the next. He didn’t descend, not yet, but took in what he could from four stories up. He could see from here that one man’s throat had been cut, nearly far enough to take his head off. A slightly wild strike for Xian—he only bothered to decapitate High Ones. The strike of a blind master assassin, skilled enough to know where to cut but not quite how deep. Still, it made Rafael feel reassured to know that Xian was more than capable of defending himself. But where from here?
Rafael moved down the alley, looking for more disruptions, more bodies, more anything. He followed it until it dead-ended into a sewer grate, then turned and followed the path leading away from the docks. There was nothing more, though. No other sign of Xian, no other clue. Certainly not the man himself. It disturbed Rafael more than he wanted to admit, not to know where his lover was.
Now he was faced with a dilemma. Xian had asked Rafael to wait for him before he went after Daeva, but that was before Rafael had learned of Mina’s kidnapping, before he’d seen the fire spread, before Xian had been forced to flee. Rafael wanted to find Xian, but he couldn’t afford to wait much longer before pursuing Daeva or night would find them and the High Ones would descend from the Upper City. Rafael had no doubt that Myrtea would be coming for them, and she knew much about Daeva’s schemes. She knew where to find him. So they had to be gone before she got there.
Rafael estimated there was another hour or so before the city was dark enough to make it possible for a High One to skulk about, and perha
ps a half hour after that before the sun truly set and they could move with impunity. Myrtea wouldn’t wait, and neither could he. He needed to go after Mina now. He slowly turned his back on the docks and began making his way to the commerce district, toward the butcher’s shop that Daeva called home.
Chapter Eleven
The small meat market set up in the plaza in front of Daeva’s headquarters was crawling with people. Some of them were trying to escape the city but more of them Rafael recognized as members of Daeva’s band, and their expressions were eager and excited. Deciding the best way in was the simplest, Rafael descended from the rooftops close to the door. Jill, Daeva’s secretary, was milling there, trying to organize things and generally being ignored, but she recognized Rafael the moment she saw him.
“Did you do this?” she called out as he came closer.
“What, exactly?”
“This, this!” Jill gestured frantically at the hundreds of people, wincing at the sudden loud crack of tumbling stone and the screams that accompanied it. “We weren’t ready! You should have waited before starting the rebellion!”
If he’d been in a slightly different mood, Rafael would have laughed at that statement. As it was, he couldn’t muster enough sarcasm to bother. “I need to see Daeva.”
“Well, he needs to see you!” she snapped, her plain features haggard with worry. “He’s upstairs but—”
That was all Rafael needed to hear. He pushed past Jill, ignoring her shriek of outrage, and made his way up the stairs. Strange, how suddenly quiet it was here. Apparently Daeva’s reputation was enough that even the mob outside didn’t quite feel right barging into his space. He made his way down the narrow hall and to the single door at the end of it. It was shut but not locked, and Rafael didn’t bother to knock as he entered.
Daeva was there, sitting at his desk, as calm as ever. Mina sat across from him, her arms tied down to her chair. Her eyes were open and she was staring silently at her kidnapper, swaying slightly. Daeva looked up as Rafael entered.
