The Iron Phoenix

by Rebecca Harwell

  Both of them sat on the stone floor around the knee-high table, illuminated by the morning light streaming in through the window. Nadya was relieved to see the color was back in her mother’s cheeks, but she looked at the setup with suspicion. Was this an attempt to broach the subject of marriage again? Or—

  Her thoughts stopped. “Apple jam?”

  Shadar patted the ground next to him. “I don’t envy that nose of yours when you go up to the second tier, but yes. Come and eat breakfast.”

  Toasted hard rolls filled a basket to the brim on the table, and next to it sat a small pot of jam that made Nadya’s mouth water. She plopped down beside her father, who tousled her hair. Her mother patted her leg from the other side and set two rolls on her plate. Steam rose in the damp air of the room.

  Nadya looked from one to the other. “This must have cost a fortune. Why—?”

  “The storm is over,” her father said, smiling. “When you get to be our age, you start celebrating the little things. We are still together as a family, our house did not fall, and we did not kill one another while we were cooped up in it.” He ruffled her hair again, and Nadya dodged away.

  The first bite was heaven in her mouth. The steaming bread had warmed and melted the jam until it turned into a sugary soup with chunks of apples. Nadya wiped her chin with her fingers, then licked them. Only then did she use the napkin. Her mother laughed, and she realized it had been a long time since she had heard that sound.

  They ate, laughing and talking, and all of a sudden, they were a family again. The lung rot wasn’t mentioned. The dire situation facing the city in the aftermath of the Great Storm did not enter their conversation. Nadya’s mysterious absences were not brought up. This had been life when she was fourteen years old, and she wished it could return.

  “You will be able to see Kesali again, once the streets are free of water,” her mother said after Nadya finished chewing her fourth roll. “She has probably moved into the palace, but that shouldn’t stop you from being able to go say hello.”

  The last of the bread stuck in her throat. “Maybe.”

  “I would have never thought a daughter of Jaelle would ever settle down, much less with an Erevan, but seeing the two of them together, you have to think it’s for the best. For them, and for the city,” Shadar said as he spread jam on his own roll.

  Mirela nodded. “The Erevans may dread having to bow to a Nomori, but their betrothal fills our people with hope. For twenty years we have lived in a place that was promised as a home, and instead is a vipers’ den. Kesali and Marko can bring our two peoples together. They can give us our Natsia.” She looked up at Shadar, and they shared a smile born of the pain of years.

  Nadya shifted uncomfortably and changed the subject. “Mama, you do look better.”

  “The medicine you brought me did a world of good. I only hope it will still be available, even with the shortages that are sure to come. How did you get it again?”

  Nadya looked at her knees. She did not want to lie, but she could not tell the truth either. “A physician in the fourth tier,” she mumbled.

  Her father cleared his throat, and Nadya waited for them to accuse her of stealing it. She expected her mother to whisk the breakfast away. Her father would march her up to the prison, or worse, to her grandmother’s house, in pursuit of the truth. The truth would come out, and their family would be broken.

  She waited, eyes on her knees.

  “Thank you, Nadezhda,” Mirela said finally. “I don’t think I would have done as well during the storm if not for it.”

  Her father nodded. “It is good for you to be looking after your mother. Your duties here will only increase, and I am glad to see you taking them so seriously. The medicine was—thoughtful.”

  The taste of the rolls and jams, delicious just moments ago, turned to ash in Nadya’s mouth. Her parents did not meet her eyes, but neither did they pepper her with accusatory questions.

  They knew she stole it, and they also knew, if asked, she would just lie.

  She tried to swallow the ash down, but it would not go.

  *

  It takes two sides to make a war. The thought had consumed Gedeon throughout the storm. He was holed up in an abandoned house at the edge of the second tier. He did little else but pace, only remembering to eat from his paltry store when he felt faint. The effects of his two attacks on the city’s elite had provoked a physical reaction in the Erevans. Though the courtiers in the fourth might only sip tea behind locked doors and debate the ramifications of a civil war, Gedeon knew there were plenty of people in this city all too eager to make it a reality.

  But it took two sides to make a war, and four days after the rains stopped, as soon as the streets were walkable, Gedeon found himself in the grimiest, piss-smelling district of the second tier after midnight. Erevans stumbled in and out of alehouses, vomiting on the filthy cobblestoned street. Their vomit floating away, swirling on storm water as if drained down a culvert through the Nomori tier and eventually to the deep trenches on the inside of the walls, where it would be pumped out and over to the sea on the other side.

  He kept his cloak tight around him as he walked. The wealthy clothes of a courtier would be as much of a target here as in the Nomori tier. A man stopped in front of him to relieve himself in the middle of the street. Gedeon quickly skirted around him.

  “They think they can murder us in our own beds?” a drunkard yelled to the handful of men drunker than he was who gathered around him at the mouth of an alley. He stood on a creaking wooden box and took a swig from a canteen every few words. “We’re gonna make them see that Storm’s Quarry belongs to us. The Duke’s blinded by their witchcraft. We can’t depend on his Guard. It’s filled with Nomori scum. They caused this gods-cursed storm. We’ve got to take it into our own hands!” His final proclamation was met with a drunken chorus of approval.

  Gedeon let himself have a small smile as he passed them. A few simple actions on his part, and he would watch as the city tore itself apart. It would have been fine without the floodwaters, but with them, the city was a war ripe for the prompting.

  He kept his gaze sharp, looking for a good candidate. He lost track of the alehouses he walked past until a man stumbled out of one and practically into his arms. Gedeon recoiled from the stench. The man burped and looked up at him. “Got a bite to spare, mister?”

  Gedeon opened his mouth to dismiss the cur, but paused. The man before him was tall and strong looking, even if he was swaying from liquor. His power could take care of that. This man had the air of a criminal about him, and Gedeon didn’t think for a moment that anyone would have trouble believing him capable of some great evil.

  “Ay. Come, I can take you to a place where you will be fed.” Gedeon held out a hand.

  The tall man, mind clouded with drink, took his arm and walked obediently as Gedeon led him through the narrow streets of the second tier, down the marble stairs, and into the Nomori tier, where the water remained ankle deep. They had to stop twice for the man to relieve himself. Gedeon put a hand over his nose each time and politely looked away. The drunkard hardly seemed to notice.

  The Nomori tier was mostly empty this time of night. Gedeon wove through the neighborhoods, at times dragging his companion along. If any saw the odd pair, they made nothing of it.

  “We there yet?” the tall man asked.

  Gedeon stopped, steadying the man, in front of an impeccably kept house. “Yes, we are.” He turned the man to face him, drawing up the power at the same time. It latched onto the hatred this man carried for the Nomori and burrowed in. He blinked, his black stare completely devoid of drink.

  “There is a woman in this house. Kill her.”

  His eyes full of Gedeon’s power, he nodded and turned. Gedeon watched as he broke the lock on the door and disappeared inside. He waited, half-concealed by shadows, until he heard the scream.

  Gedeon nodded, then disappeared into the night.

  Chapter Nine

>   After four days spent helping out around the house and anxiously waiting a chance to run through the city, Nadya could barely feign sleep. She tossed and turned. She wore only a long shirt, lying without covers on her pallet, yet the oppressive damp was thick as a down quilt. Several hours passed. Just when she was sure both her parents slept, she opened her eyes and smiled. Finally, time to run.

  “Nadya.”

  She lurched up. Her forehead hit the slanted roof of their house once again. Wincing and rubbing it, she saw her father.

  Shadar stood on the ladder. “Sorry to wake you, but we need to leave.”

  “Leave?” She couldn’t help the disappointment that leaked into her voice. Would she have to wait another night before she could run?

  “There’s been another murder. Lord Marko sent a messenger requesting both of us. Shhh. Be as quiet as you can. Your mother is sleeping, and she needs her rest.” Shadar patted her on the knee and then descended the creaking ladder.

  For a moment, Nadya wrestled with herself. Seeing Marko would be almost as bad as seeing Kesali. She never begrudged him the power that came with being heir to Storm’s Quarry, nor the training he received from her father, though that made her buzz with jealousy. This was different. He could marry anyone in Storm’s Quarry and beyond, but he chose Kesali. What would it be like, to have the fates hand you everything wonderful in the world, Nadya wondered, bitterness dripping from her thoughts. She sighed. Her deceit about Jurek’s murder lay heavy in her thoughts, heavier than her resentment of the Duke’s son. Perhaps she could make up for it. All plans of running tonight evaporated. Automatically, she grabbed trousers and a vest from the neat little pile of clothing next to the wall on the ledge. She swung her legs over and pulled on the trousers.

  Her father nodded silently when she stepped off the ladder and put her other arm through the vest. They walked through the room, skirting around her parents’ pallet. Nadya smiled at her mother’s sleeping form. The medicine must have been helping. Before, most nights, her mother could not sleep for coughing.

  When they padded out into the damp night air, Nadya was surprised to see her father turn west, away from the marble stairs and the rail that would take them up to the palace. He led her deeper into the Nomori tier. She followed without asking.

  It was still some hours before dawn. The tier was lit only by the occasional torch and the starlight filtering through heavy clouds. A faint wind blew across the empty streets, scattering bits of discarded paper and ruffling the fur of scavenging rats. Water pooled in every depression, so she had to keep her focus on the ground to avoid soaking her boots. The steady buzz of the steam pumps filled the air. Nadya looked up at the wall as she walked a step behind her father over dirty cobblestones. In the darkness, the faraway palace glowed with an eerie ghostliness.

  She wondered if Kesali was there in her rooms at the palace, sleeping untouched by all that transpired on the Nomori tier. Had she even heard the rains amidst all that finery?

  Shadar said nothing as they walked. His mouth was a hard line, and Nadya suspected that he knew more than he let on about what they were about to walk into. He turned down a narrow street, his heavy boot tread echoing. Nadya heard the rustling of others before her father stopped in front of one of the nicer houses in the Nomori tier.

  Lord Marko, surrounded by five Nomori guardsmen, stood before the house, speaking in low, angry tones to an Erevan man pressed up against the wall. His eyes were wild; he shook. His hands, clenched into white fists at his side, were stained an awful crimson. The smell of it nearly sent Nadya reeling, but she planted her feet and breathed through her mouth. It didn’t help much.

  A man unfamiliar to Nadya stood off to one side. He wore the heavy bangles and necklaces characteristic of Erevan courtiers. His right hand held a book and pen, and his left played with one of the jeweled bracelets on his wrist. He looked to be about thirty. Nadya’s face grew red as she realized he was staring at her, his expression unreadable.

  Drina was also there. She acknowledged her son-in-law and granddaughter with a weary nod. She still wore her nightdress, and wisps of silver hair had escaped her braid. She stood next to a still form lying on the damp ground covered by the purple funeral cloth of her people.

  Nadya swallowed. The victim was Nomori.

  A limp hand stuck out from the cloth far enough for her to see the glint of a bronze seal, and with a jolt, Nadya realized where they were. She had visited this house before, alongside her grandmother, when she was younger. That particular seal of the Protectress belonged to the matriarch of the Draba family. Her name was Jastima, and her psychic gift of sensing illness and poison in food and water was nearly as powerful and sought after as Drina’s.

  They had also been fast friends, this dead woman and her grandmother.

  Nadya reached out and took her grandmother’s wrinkled hand. It was cold, but Drina managed a tired smile for her.

  “Thank you for coming, Captain, Miss Gabori.” Marko also looked exhausted. His skin was especially pale in the lantern light. Nadya almost felt sorry for him. Almost. “Madame Gabori,” he continued in near flawless Nomori, “would you like a chair to be fetched so you can—”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped. “Let’s get on with this.”

  Marko gestured for Nadya and her father to come closer to the man pinned up against the wall. “This man was caught leaving this house with blood on his hands by a Nomori guardsman. The body of Madame Draba was discovered a few minutes later.”

  Behind her, Nadya’s grandmother heaved a rattling sigh.

  “We need to find the truth. Here. Now. The repercussions of this murder could be the spark that sets this city alight, and it must be contained. I do not want him taken to the prison, not without knowing some answers. This cannot be allowed to get out of control, so we question him here.”

  At a hand signal from her father, the guardsmen fanned out, blocking off this part of the street from any drunks or rebellious youths that might stumble upon the scene.

  “Tell us your story,” Marko ordered the man. He then turned to the well-dressed stranger who kept staring at Nadya. “Magistrate, I would like everything recorded and stamped with the seal of my father.”

  He nodded and sat right down on the damp cobblestones. He opened a leather-bound book on his lap, turned to a black page, and posed a pen over it, waiting. Still, he sneaked another look or two at Nadya. She shivered and focused on the suspected murderer.

  The detained man’s face screwed up in defiance, and Marko drew his rapier in one swift movement.

  “All right, all right, I didn’t do anything.” The man’s voice was harsh and raspy. “Name’s Anzor. I live in the second tier. Look, I was out tonight, searching through garbage for something to eat. It isn’t easy to earn a decent meal, ’specially when the only guards anyone is willing to hire are so-called superior fighters, those Nomori bast—”

  Shadar shifted. His white-knuckled hand clutched the pommel of his rapier.

  Anzor visibly swallowed. “Anyway, I couldn’t find nothing up a tier, so I came down here. That’s not illegal. Anybody’s free to travel between tiers. I was rooting around here, and then I was attacked by that Nomori guardsman. I didn’t kill the old lady. I don’t know how her blood got on my hands. I’m innocent of murder, all right?”

  Silence reigned for a moment, the only sound the faint scraping of the magistrate’s pen as he finished putting down Anzor’s words.

  “But no one would suspect you guilty of decency,” Marko said, spitting at Anzor’s feet. “Madame Gabori, what is your reading of him? Please copy it exactly, Magistrate.”

  The magistrate nodded and joined everyone in looking toward Drina.

  Her grandmother’s eyes were sharp, piercing abysses of black. Her entire body shook as, through clenched teeth, she hissed, “I…I am not sure.”

  Nadya could not believe it. Her grandmother was as sure as the dawn.

  Drina hesitated. “He killed Jastima. That I know
. But he tells the truth about the rest of it as well. They are…confusing, his emotions. I recognize some of the same from the guardsman, Duren. At the time, I did not think of it, but…there is something similar here.”

  Shadar shook his head. “That cannot be.”

  She rounded on him. “Do you think I would lie to protect such a worthless piece of Erevan shit when Jastima is lying here, murdered? It took all my honor to tell the truth.”

  Her father murmured apologies as Lord Marko looked at Nadya. “Can you tell us more?”

  Nadya swallowed. She had paid close attention to the man, noting his heart rate and condition before and during his words, and there had been no mistake. His heart began beating even faster the moment he said he did not murder Jastima. The scent of sweat nearly overpowered the smell of blood. He was lying, or at least his physical body was telling her so.

  “I think I might have an idea.”

  Marko nodded. “You sense something different?”

  Avoiding the gaze of her grandmother, Nadya looked directly at the Duke’s son as she spoke. “It’s…hard. I guess the only way I have of describing it is that his body knows he is telling a lie, but his mind is not so sure.” She flushed. “That doesn’t make much sense.”

  “It’s something,” Marko said.

  “Hey, I ain’t lying. That Nomori girl doesn’t know what she’s talking about, milord. You have to listen to me. I—ugh.” He crumpled to the ground. Shadar stepped away, rubbing his fist from giving the man a solid punch in the stomach.

  “Thank you, Captain,” Marko said. “I believe we have all we need for now, Magistrate. My thanks as well.” He looked to Drina as the magistrate closed the book, groaned, and stood. “Is what she says possible?” Marko asked in Nomori.

  Nadya felt her grandmother’s burning gaze. Slowly, she raised her eyes to meet hers. Nadya’s heart hammered in her hand, going twice as fast as Anzor’s had been. She clutched her fists at her sides, fingernails digging crescent-moon furrows into her palms.