The Bloodprint

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  He won’t come for me again, I do not wish it.

  He’s put away the things that made him who he is—the book, the silver sword.

  She tried to focus on the journey ahead. Their escape from Candour was a temporary reprieve. The road to Hira was plagued by hazards. Talisman patrols lurked in the hills. No one dared traverse the open road. It was how the Talisman maintained control of the south, shutting up the villages, choking off the transmission of knowledge through the trade routes.

  Silence and isolation were the legacy of the wars of the Far Range, the countryside despoiled and dangerous, outsiders viewed with suspicion and distrust. Women caught in the open were sold to slave-chains. Men were conscripted to the Talisman cause.

  And so the vast, wild country of Khorasan had shrunk into these pockets of ignorance and fear.

  Most often, Arian and Sinnia had found themselves alone. And when they’d encountered Talisman, Arian had put all of her training to use.

  Daniyar’s training, she thought. And once more, her mind couldn’t escape him.

  She thought of the first time he’d tested her, the memory warm in her mind. She hadn’t been able to lift the sword he’d placed in her hands.

  He asked her to step back but as soon as she did, the sword crashed to the ground. His smile was softly indulgent.

  “I forget that you have but half my strength.”

  Arian struggled to raise the sword. His smile broadened when it crashed down again.

  “Half the strength but twice the heart,” he amended, striding to the armory to find a blade better suited to her ability.

  He stood behind her, showing her how to hold the blade, how to lunge and block, how to parry a blow. The firmness of him against her back, the feel of his arm alongside hers stole her concentration. It took all of her willpower to focus on the lesson at hand.

  When he raised his sword before her, she forgot to bring up her own.

  “If you stand there so still, I think the enemy will be most obliged.” The smile lingered in his voice.

  Color rushed into her face.

  “You will think me a most inapt pupil, my lord, but I cannot recall your instruction.”

  “No matter,” he answered. “We have time.”

  He moved behind her again, positioning her arm, teaching her how to strike and parry. She moved better, fitting her body to his, learning the rhythm of his steps.

  “Much better,” he said. His praise was all the incentive she needed to improve.

  This time when he came round, she was ready.

  Back and forth they pressed, sparks striking as swords crossed, then fell away.

  He circled her and she mimicked the movement, the shield arm up to block, the sword arm waiting for an opening. He quickened his pace.

  She matched it.

  Over and under her blade dashed, a little slower each time, blocking the advance. She was giving ground, falling back to a corner. She lunged for his shield arm, reversing their positions.

  “Very good,” he commended her. She realized he hadn’t even quickened his breath, while she was all but spent. His sword came down and she blocked him, then quicker than her eye could follow, he fell back and lunged again. This time she was too slow to pivot. His sword struck her hard on the shoulder. Her own sword clanged to the floor.

  “Truce,” she said, reaching for her blade, surprised to find herself caught in Daniyar’s arms, his hands searching for the wound.

  “Forgive me, that was clumsy of me. I should have seen you were losing ground. Did I cause you injury?”

  How blind he is, she thought. There is only the injury to my senses whenever he touches me.

  His hand was massaging her shoulder and though nothing had ever felt so good to Arian, she stepped back from him, a smile sketched on her lips.

  She was a Companion of Hira. She could never forget that, no matter the attractions of her partner.

  “How else am I to learn, my lord? I shall doubtless fall many times before I prove myself worthy of your guidance.”

  His hand stroked over the soft strands of her hair. Then thinking better of their intimacy, he moved away.

  “A gallant spirit is all that I can ask. Shall we try again?”

  “I am at your service, my lord.”

  She didn’t sleep that night for thinking on the warmth in his eyes.

  “As long as I haven’t winged you, Arian.”

  It was the first time Daniyar had spoken her name instead of using her title.

  “Arian?”

  Sinnia’s gentle voice called Arian back to herself.

  “Drink,” she said. She passed Arian her waterskin, her fingers warm and steady. She wanted to reassure Arian, repay some of the kindness her friend had so often shown her. To hunt and ride and kill, day after day, month after month—Sinnia couldn’t guess at the toll it had taken. If the beautiful one had joined them, things might have changed for the better.

  Sinnia shrugged off the thought.

  She had long since accepted that the Companions of Hira relied only upon each other.

  She was eager to return to Hira, to applaud as Arian’s great achievement was celebrated by the Council.

  The Sacred Cloak was a gift and a blessing unlike any other.

  It would change the future, as it honored the past.

  But she stole a look over her shoulder, in case the beautiful one had followed after all.

  6

  North of the Empty Quarter, in a hillside covered with broken stone, was a small cave known as Hira. Destroyed during the wars of the Far Range, it had lent its name to the new gathering place of the Council of Hira, buried deep within the well-guarded walls of a brick fortress on a hilltop. Before the wars of the Far Range, the Citadel had stood at the center of an extensive trade route, serving alternately as a royal palace, a treasury, a military garrison, and a prison.

  Now it was the stronghold of the Council of Hira, the sanctuary of the Companions.

  As Arian and Sinnia rode up the ramp that crossed the moat, they faced a series of rounded towers that marked off the Citadel’s perimeter. Patrolling the battlements of the fortress were the sentries of the Citadel Guard, charged with the protection of the Citadel and the safety of the Council.

  Lately there had been rumors, questions of loyalty. Reasons to wonder about changes to the Citadel Guard, and the hidden objectives of the High Companion.

  Perhaps the Citadel was no longer the place of safety it had been. Arian was finding it difficult to think of Hira as home since Ilea’s ascension to the rank of High Companion.

  In a city whose beauties of construction had been directed by the far-seeing vision of a royal matriarch, the Citadel was the one building that offered nothing beyond its mud-baked strength. As they passed beneath its archway, Arian read the motif that was still the Citadel’s motto, sketched out in disintegrating tilework.

  Never to be altered by the encircling tremors of time.

  An idle boast, in a time when vanity was ill-afforded. And yet there was some truth in it, as well: there would be food, comfort, warmth, and stables for the khamsa.

  They were led to the stables by an escort of young recruits to the Citadel Guard. In their leather armor, with their weapons a secondary consideration, the guards’ clean-shaven faces and hopeful eyes were a welcome sight to Arian.

  She was treated with deference, but when Sinnia dismounted, the young men stared. Arian patted down Safanad with a smile.

  “A Companion from the country of the Negus,” she said. “The first in Khorasan.”

  With her close-cropped hair and ebony skin, Sinnia was of a race unknown to the Citadel Guard. They were schooled in stories of the hijra, but to see a woman of the Negus was to see myth spring to life in their midst.

  A young man in green leather armor stammered, “We’ve seen none like the Companion on the slave routes.”

  Sinnia flashed her dazzling smile at the guard.

  “The women of my country do n
ot submit to slavery, though skin like mine is prized beyond lajward.”

  She used the Khorasan word for lapis lazuli and it struck home, the guards nodding to each other in wonder.

  Sinnia did not add what the slave master had screamed aloud before her dagger had found his heart.

  Kill the black.

  She had heard some variation of the same during each of their raids, but similar prejudice had been directed at the pale-skinned boy whose eyes were set in epicanthic folds.

  What the Talisman hated was difference.

  As the Companions relinquished their horses to the care of the guards, the khamsa whinnied with pleasure, rejoining the other mares. Quickly, they found the white mare with the delicate head who had mothered them all. Like the wind, she was called Khamsin, and her name came to them from the legend of a horse born of thunder.

  Khamsin would bear only the High Companion of each new age.

  Arian looked on fondly as Safanad fell in with her kin, grooms brushing her down and checking her hooves.

  “The Council is convened,” the young recruit instructed them. “The High Companion awaits you. You are wanted at the All Ways.”

  She shook her head. The Summons reflected the age-old power struggle between Arian and Ilea.

  “I thought to rest and bathe first. Sinnia also.”

  She caught the quick look that passed between the guards. She raised an eyebrow at his hesitation.

  After a moment, the first recruit said, “As you wish, Companion.”

  Arian considered. If the guards were to be punished for Arian’s delay, better that she be swift to attend the Council.

  Ilea doesn’t believe in the innocence of messengers.

  “We will refresh ourselves quickly and come,” she decided. “What is your name?”

  “Azmaray.”

  “Azmaray,” she repeated. The name of a lion. Would this guard be lionhearted in her defence? “Is it a full gathering of the Companions?”

  Another look passed between the guards.

  “Most of the Affluent are present, but not all.”

  Something was wrong.

  Is this not my home? Why do I anticipate anything other than welcome?

  They passed through the courtyard under armed guard, Azmaray at their head. On other occasions, Arian’s progression through this loveliest of Hira’s courtyards had been slow and tranquil, her palm brushing each date tree as she passed, her senses caught by blooms of jasmine and honeysuckle vines, and that rarest fragrance, the roses of the coming spring.

  Now she was hurried along by guards who offered to take their packs, an offer both women declined. Sinnia was adept at reading her body language. The stiffness of Arian’s limbs spoke of danger, so Sinnia’s hand curled about her whip.

  Arian paused before the door to her chamber, prepared to say farewell to her escort. But then Azmaray stepped forward to unlock the door from keys he held at his waist.

  “Wait.” She stopped his movement with a gesture of her wrist. “Since when does a member of the Citadel Guard hold the keys to the chambers of a Companion?”

  Azmaray appeared startled.

  “It has always been so. We have just completed our training as the Guard’s newest inductees.”

  Another deliberate gesture of her wrist, and Azmaray yielded his ring of keys to Arian, his face agape in astonishment.

  “It has never been so. The High Companion ordered this?” And when he didn’t speak, she prodded him. “Ilea?”

  Azmaray gasped at the sense of pressure against his skull.

  “Yes. It was the mistress.”

  “And who else joins the Council of Hira tonight? Other than the Companions?”

  The guard frowned in concentration.

  “I wouldn’t know. I hold the lowest position among the Guard.”

  “Indeed.”

  Six men had accompanied them to Arian’s quarters. Young, fresh-faced, frightened. A third gesture of Arian’s wrist released Azmaray from her hold.

  “We need no further escort. Tell your mistress we shall join her presently.”

  He nodded, backing away. Regaining something of his confidence, he stepped smartly to the right, calling his men to fall in behind him.

  In the solitude of Arian’s chambers, Sinnia spoke first.

  “What has happened?”

  “No man may enter these chambers. Ilea may well be the High Companion, but she possesses no real control over the sisterhood—the rank of Companion is a vocation, not a command. Tell me, Sinnia. Where does your loyalty lie?”

  Sinnia shook her head. “You ask me this, after all these months together? Always with you, sahabiya.”

  “I ask because it was Ilea who appointed you as my companion.”

  “She chose well,” said Sinnia with her wide sardonic smile.

  Arian pressed her hand. “I do not disagree. I simply wonder what game the High Companion plays. She sees some other purpose in you.”

  “Yet you answer her Summons, as I did.”

  “Until now, Ilea and I have not been at cross-purposes. Things have changed in the months I’ve been away.”

  “Yet everyone here knew you, as they didn’t know me.”

  “I was brought here as a child. And though Hira has been my protection all these years, I have only known this time of darkness. It’s why I went after the Cloak, instead of remaining at the Citadel. I don’t know if retrieving the Cloak will change anything, I can only pray that it will.”

  “As your friend warned us. The beautiful one.” She quirked an eyebrow at Arian.

  “I knew whom you meant.” She wouldn’t say to Sinnia how bleak the empty horizon behind them had seemed. For how could Sinnia understand any of the sensitive transactions that had passed between Arian and Daniyar?

  “Come, let us prepare. And, Sinnia. If you are loyal to me, say nothing of the Cloak until I speak of it.”

  “As you command, sahabiya.”

  “And keep your weapons well hidden.”

  7

  Arian led the way to the Upper Citadel. She and Sinnia crossed the hammam with its playful fountains, passing by the exquisitely inlaid tile of the Citadel’s blue tower, to climb the second flight of stairs that led to the Council Chamber.

  For their own reasons, the Companions flew no flag. It was a relief to Arian not to behold the bloodstained page that symbolized the Talisman’s authority for the first time in long months. Here in the stronghold of the Citadel, the written word was a thing to be cherished. A superb collection of manuscripts was guarded in a dungeon beneath the Lower Citadel. A place that had once held Khorasan’s most dangerous prisoners now preserved its imperiled treasury.

  Arian and Sinnia had donned the white silk dress of the Companions. Their hair uncovered and fragrant, their bare arms aglow with the circlets that distinguished them from all other women of Khorasan, they found their sisters in the lantern light of the Council Chamber.

  A quick glance at the White Throne in the center of the chamber revealed the absence of the High Companion. An imposing black chair, its lacquered back fanning out like the tail of a peacock, had been placed beside the High Companion’s throne, both closed off from the rising tiers of the circular chamber by a square of murmuring fountains.

  This was the All Ways. Its waters rose and fell in an impenetrable design.

  Motifs in emerald and indigo ran the length of the chamber, a red spray of roses at the head of each of four raised tiers. The fountains of the All Ways were tiled in a cascade of blues that mirrored the play of the water. Each alcove in the patterned walls held a lantern worked in silver, descending from a golden stanchion.

  A verse was inscribed above the White Throne.

  There is no one but the One. And so the One commands.

  A dictum Arian preferred to the false bravado of the Citadel’s motto: Never to be altered by the encircling tremors of time.

  Because things were changing even as she and Sinnia took their places among the Compa
nions, exchanging the embraces of women who could never be sure they would meet in friendship and faith again.

  The dozen or so women who filled the chamber were of nearly every race, every color, every background. They had come from lands beyond the Empty Quarter, and from all the lands of Khorasan. Many of their race names were lost to the tidal sweep of history, but their customs and dialects remained.

  Each woman in the chamber was an Oralist gifted with some part of the lost language of the Claim, each holding a piece of an ancient, mystical puzzle, a language the Companions hoped to reclaim, to redeem the Age of Ignorance.

  Each in her own way worked toward this end. Some were scholars, some were teachers, others were agriculturists or astronomers. Several were soldiers. Arian was the only linguist. Each was a thread in Hira’s overarching design.

  Arian made her count as she glanced around the tiers of the chamber: Dijah, the Trader. Ash, who held the influential rank of Jurist. Psalm, the General. Half-Seen, the Collector. Ware, Zeb, Saw, Moon, Rain, and Mask. Mask on their Council was a healer.

  And at the center of their Council stood the High Companion, who had joined them without troubling to announce herself. She had no need to. She was a rarity at their Council—neither from the lands of Khorasan, nor from the frozen lands above the Transcasp—as a woman of the Far Range, her presence commanded attention.

  She had stepped into Hira out of legend—her bloodline a secret, her knowledge of their Tradition preternatural. For the weight of history she carried, Ilea was small and slender, her stature no indication of her power. Her delicate features were set beneath a crown of gold hair, arranged in a coronet with a single long braid. She wore the circlets of the Companions, along with a golden diadem—a sapphire at its center blazed from her forehead. As she took her seat upon the White Throne, her blue silk dress swirled about her ankles.

  Her gold eyes made her own count of the Companions, coming to rest upon Arian.

  “There is no one but the One. And so the One commands.”

  The Companions echoed the words back to her in the ritual submission.