The Bloodprint

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  He marveled over the parchment she had shown him, memorized it quickly, then asked her to hide it away. She pressed it between the pages of the Candour.

  “We can bring war to the Wall,” he agreed. “Beginning with Jaslyk. Or we can find the Bloodprint. As you decide.”

  The last choice Arian had made had cost Turan his life, a parallel that made her think of the significance of the green mirror.

  She shivered at the thought of it.

  The Dome, the tomb, the Verse.

  She had won the Verse and lost Turan.

  This time, the choice was simple. She chose Sinnia and the route to Jaslyk.

  It was Larisa who persuaded her otherwise.

  “I know Jaslyk as you do not. Elena and I will find your friend before further harm can come to her. We’ll have Basmachi to aid us—Avazov and Alimov, two of our best.” She scanned the battalion of Ahdath dead with something like bitterness. “They won’t be so quick now I think, to hunt us in the calligrapher’s market, or throughout the Hazing.” She scowled at Illarion. “You’ll need time to count your dead.”

  “I’ll go with you,” he offered. “My presence will distract them.”

  Larisa rejected his offer out of hand. “Why would I trust you? You’re one of the Ahdath.”

  Daniyar studied the other man, using his gifts as Authenticate.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t know who he is, but he isn’t just Ahdath.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Larisa said. “Elena would kill you the moment she laid eyes on you.”

  Illarion canvassed the fallen bodies of his comrades in the square.

  “I think you’ll find I’m not so easy to kill.”

  The Silver Mage decided the matter, his articulacy so compelling that only Arian realized he was using the Claim. Both she and Illarion could feel its effects. Larisa and Illarion were commissioned to set about the rescue of Sinnia, after Illarion secured them safe passage, serving as their escort to Black Aura Gate.

  He’d taken a moment to warn Arian in farewell.

  “Black Aura is the city of death. As much as you’ve learned to be wary of the Authoritan, you must guard against his consort.” He hesitated. “No matter what you’ve heard, the Khanum is twice as dangerous.”

  Arian learned nothing further of Illarion, nothing of his motives in not giving away Elena, nothing of the reasons Illarion had survived the havoc she had wreaked in the Registan. And nothing of why he now wished to come to Sinnia’s aid. But the Claim was an arbiter she could not doubt, and Daniyar had confirmed its judgment on Illarion. Beyond that, her mind was too crowded with thoughts of the danger ahead to wonder at his motives, the loss of Turan a black stone pressing against her heart.

  And now, all she felt was the menace of the Clay Minar.

  As they approached the old city by stealth, she heard a frightful cry. A body fell from the heights of the tower, followed by another. She heard the bones shatter in the courtyard.

  A third man screamed as he waited his turn to die. His cries for mercy went unheeded, his body crashing to the ground. Others followed, thrown from the tower by members of the Ahdath.

  She was close enough to stand as witness, close enough to make use of the Claim.

  But something disturbed her. Something about the way her throat and tongue and mind had felt after she had used the Verse of the Throne. Something she had shared with no one.

  She hadn’t meant to use the Verse of the Throne to kill.

  Men had died in the past when she had used the Claim, but only as she had defended herself or others from their violence, and not because she’d used the Claim as an instrument of destruction.

  Nor had she tried to do so in the square, when her voice had brought down the Registan.

  Then, the Verse of the Throne had spilled from her throat as the purest expression of grief.

  At what point the grief had melded with her loneliness and rage to express the losses of a decade, her futile counterpoint to the Talisman ascent, she didn’t know.

  She had grieved the death of a good and just man, who’d been her friend unknown through so much darkness. And now he was gone, and she was different.

  The Claim felt different in her mind.

  She wasn’t certain she could trust it.

  Daniyar was waiting for her to act. She shook her head, a hand to her throat.

  “The Verse of the Throne did something to my voice.”

  His glance at her was sharp. For the briefest instant, she’d forgotten he was the Authenticate. There was nothing she could hide from him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said at once. “I don’t want to kill, not like this.”

  He didn’t argue with Arian about shadings of morality. His beautiful face showed only concern.

  “I would not urge you against your judgment, but did you not intend to rescue Sinnia by making use of the Verse?”

  Arian hesitated. “I’d hoped the Verse would aid us in subterfuge. You must know I didn’t intend what happened at the Registan.”

  This wasn’t a lie. It was as much of the truth as Arian knew herself.

  “It’s changing me,” she whispered. “And I don’t know how.”

  If there was more to be said, she didn’t know how to say it.

  Daniyar took her hand and squeezed it. They would have need of the Claim again, and soon, but his thought was always for Arian. He would use his own skills in lieu of hers, even if they were lesser in scope.

  “Leave combat to me, then. Use the Claim only as far as you are able.” His eyes scanned the tower again. “We’ll be visible to the Ahdath soon. Where do we go from here? Did the king’s grave yield anything other than the parchment?”

  Besides the parchment, Arian had found nothing at the tomb of the king. The hiding place of the Bloodprint was still a mystery.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I can’t think of anything I overlooked.”

  Daniyar considered this for long moments.

  “There must be something more to the parchment. Something we haven’t understood.”

  Wafa asked for water. He was weak from his session in the Blood Shed.

  As Arian passed him the ewer from Daniyar’s pack, her thoughts dwelt on the notion of Oneness. She had fitted the medallion back into its groove on the side of the ewer. And she wondered for the first time why the second clue to the Bloodprint hadn’t been the medallion itself. A pitcher was a cumbersome thing to carry around.

  Wafa drank from the pitcher.

  He’d learned manners from Sinnia, using a cloth to wipe his mouth. The cloth came away discolored.

  Arian dismounted.

  Of all the attributes described in the Verse of the Throne, Oneness was the most significant.

  She dampened the cloth in the river. It came back wet, its color intact. She reached for the ewer and poured water over the cloth. It discolored the cloth again. She sniffed the ewer. The faintest trace of apple wafted from it.

  “What is it?” Daniyar asked, joining her.

  The guardians of the Bloodprint would not have poured water over the Verse of the Throne. The parchment was too fragile to risk. But the scent of apple that rose from the pitcher was noteworthy.

  “I think there’s something more written on the parchment, invisible to our eyes.”

  She removed the parchment from the Candour. She sniffed it, then passed it to Daniyar.

  “Apple,” he said. He took the parchment from her fingers, holding it up to the sun. At first, nothing happened. Then, warmed by the sunlight, a word appeared in the right-hand corner.

  Written in the High Tongue, the word was Call.

  Amazed, Arian and Daniyar stared at each other.

  Call.

  It had no meaning that Arian could think of, no connection to the Verse of the Throne. Perhaps it had been rendered invisible to protect the sanctity of the Bloodprint. She was at a loss.

  “What does it say?” Wafa asked, hopping from one foot to the other, his thirs
t forgotten.

  “Call.”

  “Call what? Call who?”

  And just like that, Daniyar knew. She could see the realization in his face. He urged them away from the river into the shelter of the forest. He pointed to the looming tower, to the gallery of arches at its peak.

  “It means the Call to the people of the Claim. A call given to summon the faithful.”

  Arian was doubtful. “But why this tower out of so many others? The Bloodless wouldn’t choose such a place as the safehold of the Bloodprint. It’s an execution site.”

  Silver eyes settled on Arian’s face.

  “This was the tower.”

  “The city is crowded with minarets. How can you be certain this is the one?”

  “The Clay Minar.” He ran the words together. “The Claim Minar. The Tower of the Claim.”

  49

  There was a moment when the Silver Mage considered not breaching the ramparts of Black Aura to skirt the defences of the Clay Minar, where soldiers patrolled the perimeter, their movements brisk with purpose.

  The city that should have been soft with apricot and fig trees stank of nothing but death, the scent of blood intermingled with the wretchedness of decay. Shards of smashed jade were scattered through the courtyard. If Black Aura was home to a populace other than those who’d been thrown from the tower, Daniyar saw no sign of it.

  He could take Arian and Wafa and insist they flee to the Damson Vale, setting aside the quest for the Bloodprint. And ask that Sinnia join them.

  He knew that death was waiting in the tower, calling to him, stretching out its fingers.

  He was the Authenticate, not an Augur, yet he felt the pull of fate, the brittle conclusion of destiny. One step in the wrong direction . . .

  One missing, one to fall.

  He knew he should not take Arian to the tower.

  She’d risked outcomes so abhorrent it terrified him to contemplate them. How often could the Claim protect them? The fetid air, rank with an inhuman odor, the blood-baked brick, the sun casting its baleful eye upon them—these were portents of the doom that awaited them.

  Arian was stunning in her resolution, priceless to him beyond anything the Bloodprint could offer. He wished he could think in those terms—the salvation of Khorasan—but all he could see was the woman before him, the woman he’d always loved.

  “Arian,” he said. He wondered if there was any way to persuade her against her Audacy. If he spoke plainly to her now, would it change anything?

  Her use of the Claim was more muted now, small sounds, a low hum casting a pall upon the courtyard, a stifling of sight and hearing. It gave them the cover they needed to creep across the courtyard.

  Relief gladdened Arian’s face as they escaped detection, sheltering behind the shell of a storehouse.

  It pained him to see it.

  She was hastening them to ruin.

  “Don’t worry,” she assured them. “If this is the Tower of the Claim, we will find a way.”

  Daniyar touched her hair. He made up his mind to try.

  “Arian,” he said again. “I would ask you to relinquish this quest. We have the Verse of the Throne, let us take it and be free of this. There’s a place I would take you, a valley of peace.”

  Her pale eyes widened, the same shade of green as the leaves of persimmon trees. She fought back a surge of joy.

  “You would take me to the Damson Vale.” Daniyar had described it as a paradise on earth. “And I would love you there.” He caught his breath at the words, words she hadn’t offered him before. “For a time, there would be peace. But what of Candour? And Hira? War comes to Khorasan, what would you have me do?”

  He took her in his arms.

  “I would have you love me,” he said, his voice rough. “As you wouldn’t before.”

  The words struck her, caught her, made her weak.

  “I have my Audacy,” she whispered. But she knew it was no longer enough, just as she knew she couldn’t confess as much to Daniyar.

  Not now, not yet.

  Disheartened, he let her go, silver eyes scanning the door that led to the top of the tower.

  “Ready yourself, then. There will be guards.”

  I choose you, she should have said. I will take the Bloodprint to Hira, then I will come to you in the Damson Vale, or anywhere else you ask of me.

  She kept the Claim muffled in her throat, as low and raw as the pain of denying him.

  When she had left him in Candour, stealing away in the night, she couldn’t have guessed she’d be given another chance at his love. Their paths should have crossed many times, but he’d never come to Hira, the betrayal too bitter, coloring his memories of her love for him.

  She wasn’t to be trusted. A Companion of Hira would always choose Hira.

  Except that she hadn’t.

  In the valley of the Cloud Door, she had forgotten Hira, forgotten Lania, forgotten the Audacy. Her heart had cracked open, scorched by an urgent, immaculate heat. The white fire of Daniyar’s love, the indivisible peace of giving herself over.

  She should have fled with him through the Cloud Door, her heart locked in his, the world of the Talisman abandoned, to the Damson Vale, the last green harbor of her hopes.

  In the Damson Vale, the night would be covered with stars. She would know joy and a love out of time.

  There will be a time, she promised herself.

  Won’t there?

  She couldn’t look at Daniyar. To look at the beautiful face or the passion that blazed from his eyes was to see everything she most wanted turned against herself in wretched disavowal. She knew what it was to be hungry and in pain.

  She couldn’t hurt Daniyar without suffering the damage herself.

  “Wait,” he said. “There’s a new patrol coming in.”

  A troop of Ahdath swept the square around the tower, the bones in the courtyard snapping beneath their boots.

  Twenty men, strong, disciplined, focused, their crimson armor flashing against the tower, a harbinger of blood to be spilled.

  They waited for the patrol to sweep by.

  Half the Ahdath took up the collection of bodies in the courtyard.

  Six more took over from the guards at the perimeter.

  Straggling at the back, four men guarded a young man in chains, his face wearied by pain, his body desperately thin. Tracks of tears marked a path through the bruises on his face. He shook with fear as the door to the tower was wrenched open.

  “Take him up,” the commander told the others, holding the door.

  “Please,” the young man begged. “Please, not this. Send me to Jaslyk instead.”

  An Ahdath soldier spat in his face.

  “Basmachi scum. You’ll die where you’re meant to.”

  The commander was kinder, if kindness could be found here.

  He touched the prisoner’s shoulder with a hand, their eyes meeting briefly.

  “You won’t believe it now, but this is better than Jaslyk.”

  The door shut behind them, the young man’s sobs echoing through the tower.

  Daniyar motioned to Arian.

  “Will you risk the Claim to gain the tower? You could save him.”

  “What about you?” she whispered. “I can’t leave you to fight a patrol on your own. There are too many men.”

  “Use the Claim to shield me, allow me to draw close. Then head for the door.”

  She tried to stop him, her hand grasping his arm, her fingers flexing against its strength.

  He shook it off, reaching for the knives he carried on his back.

  “Daniyar—” She wanted to plead with him, make him believe in her. He jerked away.

  “Don’t,” he said. “We came for the Bloodprint. Nothing else matters.”

  Arian couldn’t bear it. She had suffered this torment too long.

  “You’d be a fool to think you don’t matter more than anyone.” Her pale eyes blazed with the truth. “And I believe you told Zerafshan you are not a fo
ol.”

  And when he still didn’t speak, she said the words unreservedly at last.

  “I love you, Daniyar. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t.”

  He stared at her, stunned.

  All noise ceased in the courtyard.

  Then he seized her in unyielding arms, while his mouth sought hers with the fervor of a man rekindled to life. His lips burned her skin everywhere they touched. Possessive, hungry, unrelenting, the kiss was everything she wanted. A thousand pricks of light flaring under her skin, she kissed him the same way.

  They stood locked together as if there was only this, the desire for a long-withheld consummation, the world falling away at their feet.

  He kissed her until she could no longer stand, and when he drew away, her mouth followed his, blindly seeking his lips.

  “My love,” he murmured, his breathing ragged in his chest. “Would you still pursue the Bloodprint?”

  The sounds of the Ahdath patrol returned. They broke apart, suddenly conscious of Wafa, who had bashfully retreated to the shadows.

  Arian pressed her hand to her swollen lips.

  My love, he had called her.

  The sweetest words of any language.

  Her eyes searched his.

  “Only if you are with me.”

  “Then use the Claim.”

  He kissed her once more, then with a last look, he broke cover.

  50

  The Claim was clumsy in her throat, coating her vocal chords with misery. Wafa covered his ears, thinking of Turan, of the men lying dead in the Registan.

  It didn’t happen.

  Instead, a ribbon of mist welled up from the ground, snaking around the ankles of the men collecting the bodies in the courtyard. Then it faltered, vanishing as swiftly as it had come.

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

  Arian took a deep breath, invoking the calm the Claim had always brought her, seeking to cleanse the words of the Ahdath’s corruption. Looking across to the tower, she murmured the words again, this time with more force.

  Mist descended on the courtyard. Daniyar raced across it.