The Bloodprint

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  His pulse quickening, he moved faster, hurrying Wafa along.

  There was warmth and welcome in Arian’s face, such as he hadn’t known in the course of many hard years in Candour. Barren years, empty of Arian’s laughter.

  But he had stolen her laughter long before this moment.

  On that last day, she waited for him in the Library of Candour, her hair caught by the wind like a curtain of silk on a clear blue morning.

  The sight of her unbound hair still had the power to break him.

  He buried his face in the silk of her hair, inhaling the scent of jasmine she wore so lightly. And then he took note of her attire.

  “You’re dressed for the road.”

  He dropped the arms that held her. It was an argument they’d had many times before. He was out of patience with it.

  “You’ve decided, then. You intend to pursue the caravans, putting your life at risk.”

  “You know why I must go. I would never leave you otherwise.”

  “And what of the promises you made me?”

  In that stolen time when the dictates of Hira were forgotten. He felt the tantalizing brush of her body, the warmth he had longed to claim for himself. In an instant, his anger dissolved, giving way to desire.

  “If I kissed you now, you wouldn’t be able to leave me.”

  “Daniyar—”

  “Arian,” he mocked her. “What would you have of me?”

  He pulled her close, his eyes smoky with threat.

  “This?”

  He tasted her lips with his own, probing the sweetness of her mouth.

  “Or this?”

  His mouth slid to the side of her neck, lingering under her ear.

  “Don’t,” she whispered. “Whatever path I take, I will always be a Companion of Hira.”

  “Then why are you still in my arms?”

  He kissed her until she was shaking in his embrace. When he opened his eyes again, he was shattered by the sight of her submission, the soft lips seeking his own, the delicate hands tangled in the hair at his collar.

  He pulled away. In scant minutes he had disarranged her hair, trapping her between his chest and the wall. His blood stirred at the sight of her captivity, but he struggled to clear his thoughts of desire.

  “Give me your hand,” he said gruffly. When she had placed it in his own, he slipped his gift onto her finger. He pressed his forehead to hers, his voice a raw slide of silk in his throat.

  “I am not patient,” he warned. “Nor am I tender.” His actions belied the words, for he touched her as though she were breakable, the arms that held her careful and reverent. “I am possessive by nature, and I will not share what is mine. You will leave the Council of Hira.”

  The supplication in his voice contradicted his words.

  Give yourself to me, it said. I will make you forget everything else.

  “Arian?” he prompted, for still she had not spoken. “I know I deserve your silence, but will you not tell me your thoughts?”

  The strain in his voice woke her from her reverie. He drew away to look into her eyes. Humbled by what he read there, he bent to kiss her hand.

  “Answer me. Tell me if you will wear it.”

  He turned her palm over to show her the ring.

  “It’s priceless to me,” she said. But her eyes were fixed on his face and when he challenged her, she could not tell him the color of the stone.

  He was moved beyond his ability to convey.

  The Silver Mage was coveted, sought after—but he had never been loved like this.

  “Please look at it.”

  She looked down at the ring he had placed on her forefinger.

  The ring of the Silver Mage.

  A silver-white band with a stone that captured a quicksilver light, bright and glancing like Daniyar’s eyes.

  The stone was inscribed with a single word.

  Iqra.

  Read. Learn. Teach.

  The oath of the Silver Mage.

  She had come to the moment of decision.

  “We found our way to each other,” she said quickly. “My path led me to you and I—I accept you, lord.”

  His sudden kiss was fierce and dark.

  “Daniyar,” he warned.

  She linked her arms around his neck.

  “Daniyar,” she repeated.

  He watched her for a moment, desire hard and brilliant in his face.

  “Then you won’t deny me what is mine by right.”

  She bowed her head before him. He had to lean in to catch her words, scorched by the heat of her skin.

  “I cannot deny you anything.”

  One hand tugged at her hair, needing to be sure. Her lashes lifted to reveal such helpless longing that he was the one vanquished.

  “Arian,” he groaned. “Don’t look at me like that. I am not one of the Bloodless.”

  Her lashes fell again but not before he’d witnessed the constraint in her eyes.

  Like a fool, he hadn’t known what it meant.

  At the end of the night, when he’d returned from his conference with the Shin War, Arian was gone. She had left behind his ring, a message tucked inside it.

  Forgive me one day, my love. I cannot abandon Lania.

  And now they had come to this.

  The decade she had spent in the Talisman south had shown him what he’d refused to accept in Candour. She would take her own path, honor her own commitments. There was nothing he could do to dissuade her, nothing he could offer that was worthy of her love.

  She was no ordinary woman.

  She was a woman who belonged wholly to Hira—her laughter could only remind him of his loss.

  With her brow quirked, Sinnia held up the pan full of fish. The Silver Mage had failed to hunt any provision.

  “You’ve come back empty-handed, my lord.”

  “My hands have always been empty.” A note of grief colored his voice.

  The laughter died on Arian’s face.

  He took the slave collar from her hands.

  “It’s not what you think it is, Arian.”

  Arian’s glance was quizzical. She settled on a sigh of resignation before she answered, “I think you’ve decided on a ruse.”

  24

  They were climbing to dizzying altitudes through passes heavy with snow, the warm light of morning a myth against the thinness of the air. Their breath burned in their lungs, making each step ponderous and difficult, ice freezing over in places, secret crevasses giving way, demanding a hasty reassessment of the path. The Sailing Pass had taken the lives of many who’d thought to find their way to the valley beyond its ridges.

  It cared little for their purpose.

  As the light broke over the mountain in waves, the river unspooled beneath them, a thrumming thread of green, softening the harsh mysteries of the world. Clouds spun away on the empty horizon, making their own small notations against the wind.

  “You said the snows would melt in the spring,” Sinnia gasped. “I don’t see how we can climb higher. Are they mining this stone in heaven itself?”

  The boy didn’t speak at all, or look anywhere but at his own feet. He followed behind Daniyar, his smaller feet falling into the path laid by Daniyar’s boots.

  The wind was high, and there had been no recent snowfall. For an immeasurable distance ahead, they could see no footprints save their own. Far in the distance, the timid grass of the Valley of Five Lions cracked open beneath the snow, a green murmur of spring.

  A glimmer of light several passes away caught Arian’s eye. It was the strike of the sun against a pair of field glasses.

  “The Talisman are closer than I thought.”

  To Sinnia, the thought of warfare along these narrow, deathly ridges was preposterous. Daniyar didn’t agree.

  “The patrols haven’t seen us yet, or they would have sounded their Avalaunche.”

  “I’m from the south,” Sinnia said. “I feel as though I’m breathing ice. So what, my lord, is an Avalaunche?
”

  Daniyar looked back briefly. “A warning horn, the first defence of the Sorrowsong. There have been skirmishes with the people of the mountains; the Avalaunche warns against encroachment.”

  Sinnia was skeptical. “If I lived at this altitude, a horn wouldn’t frighten me away.”

  “It doesn’t just sound the alarm, it triggers a landslide of snow. An avalanche is a suffocating force. It buries men in moments.”

  Arian looked up from her study of the trails that crisscrossed the peaks of the Death Run.

  “Do the avalanches not block the passes to the Sorrowsong?”

  “When you have lives to spend against the snow, you do not worry about outcomes.”

  Daniyar’s words sobered the boy. Wafa had suffered many things at the hands of the Talisman, but the men of the plains had not fed him to the raw forces of nature. The very thought of the men at the Sorrowsong terrified him. If the Silver Mage’s plan was forestalled, what use would the Shin War put him to?

  “Why not take the low road?” Sinnia asked. “The valley looks safe enough.”

  Daniyar spared her a glance. “The Valley of Five Lions is a battleground between the Shin War and the Zai Guild. In history it belonged to a different people. Though it is held by the Shin War, the Zai Guild make fresh incursions each day. We will find no safety there.”

  For a long while no one spoke, preserving their air to combat the steady encroachment of the altitude upon their strength. When Sinnia could travel no further, they camped inside a hollow in the ridge. Here they ate cold rations, drinking sparingly of their water.

  The night and the next several days brought more of the same: close calls along the ridges, the occasional glint of light against field glasses covering the passes ahead, light-headedness, thirst, and always the rigid cold.

  When it came, the snowfall was thick and furious, a glittering whirl of destruction. The sun was high in the sky, the passage ahead blind. They had passed over the valley, the thin lash of the river wending out of view in the soaring peaks of the Death Run.

  Arian’s breath huffed out in gasps, lingering in the swirl of snowflakes.

  “We must stop. We’ll fall to our death.”

  But there was nowhere they could take shelter. Their supplies were nearly finished. The boy had not complained, dogged in Daniyar’s tracks despite the increasing difficulty of their passage through the run. He simply trudged on.

  Arian caught Wafa by the waist. When Sinnia reached them, Arian motioned her close. She called out to Daniyar, lost to her sight. The glare of the snow made her temples pound. Where was he? Still forging the path ahead, unaware that his companions had gone astray? Or had he lost his way, straying from the path to a perilous fall? Her mouth went dry at the thought.

  The snow muffled sound and light alike. They held hands to warm each other. And then something brushed against Arian that she could not see, something warm and solid.

  At first she thought it was a mastiff.

  She waited a moment; it brushed past her again. The boy let out a choked cry.

  Through the thick clouds of snow, she caught a glimpse of blue eyes.

  She began to hum, a gentle working of the Claim in her throat, a sound mild enough to entice the creature closer. She blinked, trying to make out a pattern of markings against a white slate of snow. She felt a warm mouth nuzzle her arm.

  The boy tried to pull away, terrified. Arian held him fast, keeping her voice even and deep. The mouth nuzzled her again.

  She released her hold on the others, dropping down to kneel on her haunches.

  This time the creature appeared in full, no longer disguised by the snow.

  “Shan,” she murmured softly, inserting the name alongside tender verses of the Claim. “How beautiful you are.”

  “What is it?” Sinnia asked. The boy looked on, dumbstruck.

  A velvety head turned in her direction, giving her an impression of the creature’s blue eyes. It nuzzled Arian’s throat and face, knocking its graceful head against her shoulder. A pattern of black markings stood out against its coat.

  “A ghost cat,” Arian answered, running her hand over the cat’s dense fur. “A name given to the snow leopard in these parts.”

  Arian stroked the cat under its chin, eliciting a deep rumble. She held out a hand to Wafa, encouraging him to do the same. He shrank away.

  The snow leopard yawned, exposing a double row of fangs. The boy pointed to her claws.

  “She won’t hurt you, Wafa. She came to us for a reason.”

  “Why didn’t we see her?” Sinnia asked.

  “Ghost cats are camouflaged by snow. It makes them effective hunters.”

  Wafa shivered. “How do we know she’s not hunting us?”

  Arian rose to her feet. “She’s a creature of the Claim. She is tied to its majesty. Come, she’s leading us somewhere.”

  The cat bounded ahead a short distance. Her markings stood out against the blinding white of the snow.

  “She is choosing to let us see her. She wants us to follow.”

  Arian took a length of rope from her pack and tied it around her waist. She linked herself to Sinnia and Wafa, doing her best to disguise her worry for Daniyar.

  The ghost cat moved ahead on the ridge, sure-footed and calm, keeping her charges in view. Their steps were sluggish behind her, often miscalculating the depth of the snow, sinking waist-deep before fighting their way out again. The chatter of the boy’s teeth could be heard against the mountain’s vast solitude. They continued on like this for a time.

  “There!” Arian pointed to a shadow on the ridge where the ghost cat had disappeared. “It’s a break, perhaps a cave.”

  They fought their way through the snowfall. The snow leopard leapt ahead and returned, urging the small group forward. A depression in the side of the mountain led inward into darkness. The carcass of an ibex lay frozen at its entrance.

  “It’s her lair,” Arian said. “It’s where she takes shelter.”

  A voice sounded out of the cave’s interior, familiar and welcome.

  “I knew our friend would bring you to safety.”

  “I thought you had fallen,” Arian said to Daniyar.

  He helped them unloop the rope from around their waists, his touch lingering on Arian.

  “Not without you. I sent Astara to you.”

  The ghost cat approached at the sound of her name, butting her head against the knees of the Silver Mage, purring as his hands caressed her head.

  Sinnia shook the snow from her shoulders.

  “Only lay such hands on me,” she muttered. “You should be jealous,” she said to Arian. “The ghost cat receives what you can only hope for.” Sinnia grinned, oblivious to Wafa’s scowl.

  “We’ll wait out the storm here,” Daniyar said. “We can use the time to rest. We’re nearly at the threshold of the Sorrowsong. There’s a Talisman patrol at the entrance to the mineshaft. No doubt they’re expecting us.”

  “Can Astara help us? Does she know of another entrance to the Sorrowsong?”

  Daniyar shook his head. “The Shin War blasted the other tunnels closed. The only way in is the road they defend.” He stroked the cat’s head. “I’m afraid Astara will come no further with us. The Talisman hunt the ghost cats for their fur.”

  Wafa sidled up to the ghost cat. In the close confines of the cave, her giant paws and lustrous tail were a wonder to behold.

  “She speaks to you?”

  Arian answered him. “All creatures of nature can be read by the Authenticate because they are creatures of truth. They recognize each other.”

  Astara paced around the boy in a circle, taking swipes at his face with her tail. He fell back on his heels, bewildered and pleased.

  “Astara,” he said, putting out a hand to stroke her. “Nice cat.”

  They arranged themselves in a huddle against a wall of the cave. Once they had eaten, Astara came and settled herself beside them, lying over their bodies like a thick fur blank
et. The boy rested his head against hers, a smile playing on his lips. For a while they slept, listening to the wind rage against the walls of the cave.

  Hours later, when the storm had passed, the ghost cat vanished. Arian woke to find herself cradled in Daniyar’s arms, the boy lying against her feet, Sinnia huddled beside him.

  For a moment, she savored his heat and strength against her back, the soft brush of his breath over her skin. Then she moved away.

  “You don’t have to do this, Daniyar. You are one of the Shin War.”

  His mouth tightened at her withdrawal.

  “The risk is greater for you if the ruse fails. These men haven’t seen a woman in months. If I take you there as my prisoners, your rank will not protect you. It would be wise to remove your tahweez.”

  The words didn’t frighten her.

  Not when he had sworn, “I will suffer no man to touch you.”

  But what he asked of her . . .

  “You know the bond with the tahweez is one that cannot be severed. The tahweez may betray us, but they will also protect us. We will use the Claim when the time is right, when you’ve bartered us for the lajward.”

  They woke the others, rehearsing the plan with haste. Daniyar passed a tally-taker’s crop to Wafa. He produced slave bracelets from his pack, fitting them to the women’s wrists. The leather collars were next. Like the bracelets, he left them unlocked.

  “These weren’t part of the ruse,” he told Arian, his hand on her collarbone. “The Shin War use a dagger to the throat. The collars will protect your use of the Claim.”

  His lips brushed her ear. “Nearer to you than your jugular vein.”

  His fingers slid under the collar, finding the pulse at the base of her throat.

  It hammered wildly beneath his touch.

  He savored the small triumph before he let her go.

  It was nearly nightfall, a treacherous time to descend. They walked single file, Daniyar at the head of their group, Wafa to the rear, the tally-taker’s crop in his hand. The frugal light of the moon illuminated their progress.

  A horn sounded, sharp and commanding.

  Sinnia and the boy tensed, but Daniyar calmed their fears. “It’s not the Avalaunche. They’re asking us to identify ourselves.” He called out the Shin War greeting in the language of his tribe.