The Bloodprint

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  “Useless excuse for a miscreant child,” she muttered under her breath. “How did a woman of the Negus get stuck with you?”

  Daniyar waited to address the boy until he’d finished eating.

  “You were hungry,” he said. “Perhaps for a long time. Do you know how long you’ve been with the Talisman?”

  The boy spat at the ground at Daniyar’s feet. Sinnia let out a shriek.

  “No,” he said, wiping his mouth clean with the back of his hand. “Always, maybe. I don’t remember when I was small.”

  If he hadn’t been so undernourished, Arian would have guessed his age as fourteen or fifteen. His eyes were wide and watchful, perhaps because he didn’t know how long he could expect anyone’s kindness to last. Or when he would have to shift for himself again.

  “Did you have a name before the Companions found you?”

  “Hazara,” he said. “But I like Wafa better.” His face became pinched. “You can’t have it,” he said to Daniyar. “You can’t take it back.”

  Daniyar studied the boy across the fire.

  “I haven’t come here to take anything from you.” The boy’s eyes stole to Arian’s face. “Much less the Companion who acts as your guardian. You have nothing to fear from me.”

  The boy pointed to the crest at Daniyar’s throat, the thrust of black against green.

  Shin War, the boy mouthed, no sound leaving his throat.

  Daniyar cleared up the meal without waiting for help, stowing their supplies on the barge, motioning Sinnia aside when she tried to assist. He returned to warm himself before the fire, watching the smoke trail vanish into the sky.

  “The Shin War existed before Talisman came to these lands,” he said finally. “We have our own history.”

  The boy pointed to Daniyar’s crest again.

  “You wear their colors, you ride with them.”

  Daniyar glanced at Arian. “I have my reasons for doing so. They are not just my tribe, but my family. Commandhan Hask was my cousin.”

  Arian stared at Daniyar over the boy’s head, her heart thudding in her chest.

  A hard smile edged his lips.

  “I will suffer no man to touch you. Not even my own kin.”

  A charged moment passed before he added, “I will see you safely to Marakand, by way of the Wandering Cloud Door.”

  Sinnia pressed her fingers to her lips, startled by the suggestion.

  “You yourself arose from myth, now you speak to us of legends. The Cloud Door, the Ice Kill, the vanishing lake known as Lop Nur, the Damson Vale.” She kicked dirt over the last traces of the fire. “These are stories told to children, stories of dragonhorses and ghost cats.”

  Daniyar smiled at Sinnia, who caught her breath at the beauty of it.

  “The Wandering Cloud Door is more than a story you were told in the lands of the Negus. It’s the passage beyond the settlement at the Ice Kill.” He glanced at Arian. “You know that I’ve been to the Damson Vale.”

  An arrow of pain stabbed at Arian. How often Daniyar had spoken of the beauty of the Damson Vale with its apricot orchards and vineyards. And how often she had refused to journey there by his side.

  “The Ice Kill is the southernmost point of the Cloud Door. We would pass through the valley to the Fire Mirrors—the mountains in the north. The Damson Vale lies on the other side of the mountains.Then we would outflank the Wall to reach Marakand, by far the safer road.”

  Arian did not doubt the Silver Mage—yet her Audacy seemed much more treacherous now. Ilea had not marked this road for her. Nor had the Black Khan hinted at these obstacles.

  “But a longer and more difficult climb.”

  “Yes. But there’s more. It’s a journey we cannot undertake unless we have something to trade for passage through the Cloud Door. The dwellers of the valley will forbid our trespass otherwise.”

  The mountains had been silent for as long as Sinnia could remember.

  No one inhabited the Cloud Door—that was part of the lore she’d been taught. But when she asked the Silver Mage to reassure her that she hadn’t misheard, he dipped his head in response.

  Arian considered the road ahead. There was little of value they would find on this ruined road, and they carried with them nothing except their provisions. She felt a sudden chill.

  The path Daniyar had described would take them past the Sorrowsong.

  “You mean to suggest we trade for our passage with lajward, the blue stone found in the mountains. But you know who holds the quarries of the Sorrowsong mountain. The Talisman war is driven by lajward. You said we would gain our safety by taking the river east.”

  Wafa sidled closer to Arian, frightened by something in her voice.

  Daniyar turned to her, regret in his eyes.

  “The river ends well before the Ice Kill. We must reach the Blue Mountain on foot.”

  “We would be walking straight into Shin War lines.”

  Daniyar nodded. Arian knew the dangers as well as he did. The Shin War controlled the lajward mines to defend their network of privileges, control they had wrested from the tribe of the Zai Guild. The pass to the Sorrowsong would be heavily defended.

  He could use his ties to the Talisman, and she the power of the Claim, but it would come to the same thing in the end.

  A man, a child, and two women braving a Talisman redoubt.

  To capture the stone of heaven.

  Symbol of the Eternal Blue Sky.

  22

  They took turns piloting the barge, giving Wafa and Sinnia a chance to rest. Sometimes the river ran deep and smooth, in other places the current raged against them, white eddies forming around the barge. During the nights, Daniyar took over, his eyesight keen in the dark, aided by his familiarity with the terrain. From time to time, they would hear the sound of ice cracking around the barge.

  The High Road merged with a second river as they approached the Valley of the Awakened Prince, a river that curved and followed the bend of the land, a joining forged by the shifting of the earth in the aftermath of the wars of the Far Range. Before those wars, the river had spent its force in the plains of Hazarajat. Now it twisted to the east.

  As the river wound ahead, the first crust of ice broke over the blue gleam of the Five Lakes, far out of their path to the north.

  The plains of Hazarajat were empty, some of the deserted villages still smoldering, the white flags that marked the pathway to escape invisible to all save the Hazara against the snow. The river slowed past the hollows where icons of an ancient civilization had once gazed upon the valley, their faces cut away from the hills, their contemplation of history lost to time. The hills were pockmarked with scars, the signs of a calculated violence.

  In place of the head of the giant statue that had occupied the embrasure, a flag was nailed to the cliff. The Talisman flag with its bloodstained page. Daniyar frowned at the sight.

  “The blood on the flag is fresh.” He lowered his voice so the boy couldn’t hear. “Hazara blood. A warning to flee, ahead of their descent upon Hazara villages.”

  Something hung over this valley other than the flag. A foul wind rife with ill will.

  The river picked up speed, turning north.

  The air grew cooler around them, the river shallow, until their paddles were striking against rock. In the pallid light of the moon, they could see streaks of blue in the water.

  “Residue from the mountain,” Daniyar told them.

  The source of the river was high in the mountains, the Blue Mountain dwarfed by others in the jagged chain of the Death Run.

  They moved in its shadow, ever forward.

  After five days on the river, their small company had passed through the deserted ruins of Hazarajat, with no sign of the Talisman presence.

  “Do you know the approach to the Sorrowsong?” Arian asked Daniyar, as he found a place on the banks to moor the barge.

  “We have a trek of several days on foot before we find the approach,” he answered. “We’ll need to
replenish our supplies. Stay with the barge. Wafa and I will hunt.”

  Sinnia protested at once. “I am the hunter, my lord. The Companions have always fended for themselves. We need no one to provide for us—ask Arian.”

  She had no need to draw his attention to Arian. She did it to tease him. The Silver Mage was possessed of a single-minded intensity. As he spoke of hunting, he thought of Arian’s safety.

  A corner of his mouth eased up. He tossed Sinnia a sharpened spear. “Perhaps you could try your hand at fishing. There’s light enough from the moon.”

  Sinnia was affronted. “I was raised on the shores of the Sea of Reeds. I’ve no need to try my hand at anything. You underestimate my skill, my lord.”

  He laughed softly. Sinnia pressed a hand to her heart, amazed at Arian’s indifference to the sound. Did she not feel the power of Daniyar’s attraction? How could she resist such a man?

  “In that case, I’ll look forward to my supper.”

  Their voices trailed away from the barge, Wafa casting a reluctant glance back at Arian.

  “She’ll be fine,” the Silver Mage assured him. “Did she ever tell you of the time she shot me with an arrow?”

  Sinnia joined Arian at the side of the barge, claiming a spot in the moonlight.

  “Let me look,” Sinnia said. “My vision at night is keener than yours.”

  She held the spear in her hand, high above her shoulder.

  They stood side by side without speaking, watching the rush of water over stones in the riverbed.

  After a time, Sinnia murmured, “You shot the Silver Mage?”

  Arian grimaced. “Not on purpose, Sinnia. He was trying to teach me archery. You know it is not my best skill.”

  Sinnia grinned, wide and bright as the moon.

  “Your talents lie with books, not arms. It’s why Ilea chose me for you.”

  “There!” Arian’s slender finger had no sooner pointed to the water than Sinnia flung the spear like an arrow. Blood spurted into the water.

  “Lower me.”

  Arian held Sinnia by the knees. The spear had struck the shallows of the riverbed. Sinnia was able to dig up the spear, the carp still attached.

  “A net would make this easier,” she said, flinging her catch to the deck.

  “But somewhat unsporting, oh woman raised at the Sea of Reeds.”

  Sinnia glared at her, until Arian started to laugh.

  “What?” she asked. “You said it with such conviction, I thought you’d been fishing the reeds all the days of your life.”

  Sinnia laughed, too, a touch of impatience in her voice. “A man like the Silver Mage should not think of a woman as helpless.” It was her turn to tease Arian. “Unless it is at the sight of him, as any woman would be. Your ability to resist him astonishes me.” She raised the spear again, finding the patch of moonlight. “Enough talk,” she said, giving Arian a respite. “This won’t be enough for all of us. Wafa will swallow this down by himself.”

  She made several more attempts, turning up snow trout, silver carp, a stone loach, and a catfish. When she was satisfied with her catch, she turned her attention to gutting the fish with the dexterous movements of a boning knife.

  Her skill and speed were such that Arian was reminded that indeed Ilea had chosen Sinnia as her companion for a reason. Sinnia may have been young, but she lacked nothing in confidence or ability.

  Sinnia tossed a second knife to Arian.

  “Are you planning to help or just watch?”

  She found she was glad that Sinnia no longer treated her with the reverence of their first meeting, as if Arian was a piece of storied celadon porcelain. She took up the knife and knelt at Sinnia’s side.

  “It’s good to see you get your hands dirty. Though if I were you, I would occupy my hands with something more rewarding.”

  The two women shared a smile.

  “You mustn’t say such things to a Companion of Hira.”

  Sinnia was unrepentant.

  “He looks at you like a man who is starving before a feast. You never told me—what is he to you? Who is he to you?”

  She flung the skeleton of the catfish over the side of the barge.

  Arian’s actions were slower, less sure. Sinnia motioned her away.

  “Clean up,” she said. “I’ll finish this.” She nodded at Daniyar’s pack. “He carries most of the supplies.” She moved on to the bones of the snow trout, sectioning the fish with steady, proficient movements. “Bring me a pan for the flesh.”

  She had asked the question that occupied her thoughts, but she had also given Arian the chance to deflect it if she wished.

  Bent over Daniyar’s pack, Arian’s voice was muffled as she said, “I am not indifferent to the Silver Mage. In Candour, he was—everything. Now nothing, as he chooses.”

  Sinnia sat back on her heels, the pearlescent flesh of the fish spread before her. Arian passed her a pan from Daniyar’s pack. Sinnia’s dark eyes were shrewd.

  “If that is what he chooses, why did he follow you? It’s not an easy road ahead. And I see that he doesn’t let you off this barge unless he is there to protect you.” She snorted. “You are First Oralist, Companion of Hira—hardly in need of any man’s protection.”

  No, Sinnia thought to herself, remembering their first meeting in the Citadel’s scriptorium, hardly in need at all.

  Arian was at work before a writing box, a Kamish pen in her hand, her parchment illuminated by a ruby glass lantern.

  The scene mesmerized Sinnia—fixing in her mind a sense of awe that was never entirely dispelled by daily contact with Arian.

  The ebony veneer of the box was richly inlaid with sadeli mosaics in ivory and bone. A six-point star dominated the composition, floral panels to either side, a vegetal vine flourishing at the borders. A marvel of symmetry and artistic execution, the writing box was an object of such beauty that only the woman seated before it could eclipse it.

  The woman held a pen in her hand—a pen cut from reeds that grew along the Sea of the Transcasp, its pointed tip black with ink that she blotted with likka, raw silk fibers designed to soak up the excess.

  She applied the pen to a sheet of vellum, a delicate script springing up beneath her hands.

  She was writing.

  An act Sinnia had never witnessed before.

  She choked back her tears, the sound alerting Arian to her presence.

  The First Oralist rose from her desk, the ruby lantern casting a blush over her skin. She wore a gown made of ab-e-rawan, the sheer muslin known as running water, a crown of rubies set on the long, dark hair dressed in a single plait. Fastened to the plait was a winding gold ornament that trailed down Arian’s back. It glowed with a string of rubies, casting a red fire over her hair.

  She wore no rings or bracelets. But on her arms was a pair of tahweez identical to Sinnia’s.

  “Forgive me, First Oralist,” Sinnia gasped. “I’m not dressed for the honor of your presence.” She blushed at the thought of her dusty riding clothes, her skin too dark to give the blush away.

  The First Oralist’s answer was kind.

  “These are ceremonial robes. I’m dressed to receive an emissary from the Empty Quarter, but he is capricious and chooses to keep me waiting. I thought I would pass the time in the scriptorium, pursuing a little of my art.” She looked down at her ink-stained fingers, the gesture rueful. “You are much more sensible than I am. I find the Citadel quite cold.”

  She rubbed her arms below the golden circlets, leaving smudges of ink on her skin.

  A woman who valued the written word more than any of the ornaments of the world.

  In that moment, Sinnia loved her.

  In the many months that had passed since, she had never seen Arian dressed in the regalia of First Oralist again. In Hira’s Council Chamber, Arian had dressed as any other Companion, the ruby crown stored away. Tonight, the smell of freshly cleaned fish strong in the air, showed just how little Arian cared for trappings.

 
; The First Oralist sank down beside her on the barge, Daniyar’s pack in her hands.

  A rush of affection surged through Sinnia. The woman who had worn a crown was just as happy to have her hands in the innards of a snow trout.

  “Do you need anything else?” she asked Sinnia.

  “Does he carry any spices?”

  Arian rooted through the pack, well aware that she had given Sinnia half-answers to her earlier questions about Daniyar, and why he was with them now.

  I loved him, but he no longer loves me.

  Such is the price of betrayal.

  “What of you, Sinnia?” she asked. It was not a subject the Companions had broached with each other before. “Did you leave someone at the Sea of Reeds?”

  Sinnia flicked aside the head and tail of the trout.

  “No one. I was destined to be a Companion from birth. The Negus kept me sequestered from the men of his court.” She finished with the trout, moving on to the carp. “But I’ll tell you this, Arian. If a man like the Silver Mage wanted me the way Daniyar wants you—I wouldn’t think twice. I would already be in his arms.”

  “What of Hira?” Arian asked.

  Sinnia nodded at the pack. “I would find a way to be true to both.”

  The words echoed through Arian’s thoughts. Absently, she searched Daniyar’s pack. Her hands slid over something hard and smooth. Curious, she reached for it. A leather band four inches wide and two inches thick, it unfastened between her hands, its sides separating from a heavy, metal lock. It was an object she recognized, one that she loathed. A slave collar for a woman’s neck.

  What was Daniyar doing with a slave collar?

  Sinnia’s response to the collar was matter-of-fact.

  “I told you he wanted to own you.”

  Arian stared at her, breathless.

  And then she started to laugh.

  23

  Daniyar heard her laughter from the trail. His keen eyes searched for her in the moonlight. She was standing against the rail of the barge, her head tilted up to the moon, close and unutterably lovely.