by Matt Larkin
Too much time wasted already. Chandi closed the chest, tucked the papers into her sarong, and listened at the door again. Quiet. She slipped back into the hallway. A Glamour to lighten her hair from black to dark brown. Make it seem to run halfway down her back, rather than end at her shoulders. Shift her clothes from blue to red. If anyone saw her, they’d notice a different woman.
Head high and back straight, Chandi traversed the harbor, clenching her hands at her side to keep them from trembling. She needed privacy. An alley.
Just around the corner, she slumped against the wall as the illusion fell away. Sweat ran down her face and stung her eyes. Instead of wiping them clean, she leaned her head against the wall and clenched them tighter. Stupid to try the disguise. Revealing her Blessings wouldn’t get her and Ratna home any faster.
Ratna. Chandra’s surging tides, she didn’t have time to waste. Interest in the baby had made it easier to break in. But Ratna’s handmaid would be missed at the birth. And who would that baby be? A child of the Solars. The heir of Kakudmi, the master of all those who had taken Anusapati from her. Except this child would also be Ratna’s child. Chandi’s own blood. However much she might hate Kakudmi and the Solars, she could hardly hold a baby to blame.
She ran. She’d gone running through the city most nights to relax herself, but not in the Harbor District. Ignis and Solars crowded the district, hawking wares, pawning fish, or toasting the imperial birth. Chandi dodged around them all. Her arm caught the edge of a banana stall and sent the contents skittering over a pier.
“Cinders and chamber pots,” the man cursed at her shouted apology.
Chandi didn’t slow. She’d have to remember the profanity for future use.
Since Ratna had announced her pregnancy Chandi hadn’t been able to decide how she felt about it. Her first, irrational instinct was to feel Ratna had betrayed her own people. As if she had done something wrong in doing exactly what her father had wanted. In leaving Mahesa for Kakudmi.
“Handmaid,” someone shouted at her.
Chandi stumbled as she spotted the man. The potential from a year ago who rode the Warak Ngendog. Hard to forget him. Naresh. He now wore the cerulean uniform of the Arun Guard, a sleeveless baju, through which she could see the glittering sunburst tattoo on his upper arms and shoulders. From all she had learned, that tattoo was the source of their power. If she could only learn how they got such power in the first place, maybe she could offer her uncle the means to finally break the Guard.
Travel sack slung over his shoulder, he approached her.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry, handmaid?”
Cinders and chamber pots.
“The empress is giving birth. I have to get back to the palace.”
“His Radiance will have a son? Glad to hear it. But what’s her handmaid doing away from the palace?”
Chandi scanned the Igni and Solar vendors that crowded the harbor. A fine-looking teahouse bearing the sign of Rangda Demon Queen. No, not likely. She needed a ship? Right. Sure. “I needed to find a gift.”
Naresh cocked his head. “Why not the Market District, then?”
“I needed … I mean, I was frazzled, not thinking clearly. My mistress is giving birth.”
Naresh watched her a moment, before shrugging. “All right, handmaid. We’ll both get gifts here. Best hurry.” He waved her to follow.
Chandi sighed under her breath, but fell in behind the Solar. At least the Guardsman didn’t window shop long. He selected a pair of embroidered silks from Mait. Maitian and Tianxian traders came to Puradvipa, and Solars brought the goods from all the Isles to Kasusthali.
“Charge it to the Arun Guard, by Naresh,” he said.
“Yes, Pak Naresh,” the Igni said.
Naresh handed her one of the silks. Soft and lush, with golden embroidery not so different from Lunar songket. A fine gift that would have cost her a heavy pearl. And why shouldn’t she spend the Arun Guard’s coffers?
Naresh had already started for the tube down into the city. She couldn’t afford to rouse more suspicion, so she followed. The Guardsman set a brisk pace. Only all those nights running through the city kept Chandi from growing winded.
“I haven’t seen you around since the wedding,” Chandi said, then regretted it.
He glanced over his shoulder without slowing. “I was training.”
And becoming Arun Guard. The greatest enemy of all Chandra’s children. The greatest threat to the Lunar Empire.
She followed him through the Civic District without speaking. Chandi had long since ceased to wonder at the underwater fountain before the palace. The gate guards paid them no mind as they entered the great hall. Kakudmi sat upon his throne, fretting. The Radiant Queen stood beside him, seeming to restrain him with her presence.
Naresh approached the pair and Chandi took the chance to break away. She ran up to the fourth floor where the Solars had given her and Ratna adjoining rooms, taking the stairs two at a time.
Ratna’s screams echoed down the hall. Still in labor. Chandi swung open the bamboo door and slipped inside the room. A young midwife already held the baby, was drying it. Ratna crawled across the floor, crying, trying to reach the midwife.
What in Rangda’s frozen underworld? Chandi turned. The midwife wasn’t drying the child. She was suffocating it. The woman saw her, and their gazes met for an instant. Then she flung the baby at the wall.
Chandi had drawn her Potency Blessing and launched herself on instinct. She caught the infant, wrapped it in her arms as she collided with the wall, and shifted her gravity to lessen the impact.
The midwife jumped from the window to the sea just below. Chandi rushed to Ratna and put the baby in her arms. She lifted her cousin to the bed before she called for help.
Before anyone arrived, Chandi had already run out the window. Gravity shifted to the wall, she ran down to the sea. The midwife had swum to a patio at sea level and slipped into a lounge. Chandi ran along the side of the building, drawing her Potency Blessing harder, making herself faster. She leapt from the building to the patio and dashed past startled servants.
The midwife’s wet trail descended stairs to the third floor. Chandi ran, leaping down the steps three, four, five at a time. Faster. She leapt to the wall at a corner and ran along it.
Fruit and sweet vendors clogged the third floor because of the celebration. The midwife darted around stalls in the open central lounge. Chandi dashed around several, almost colliding with a man selling gudeg.
She was losing her.
Chandi dove right through the next set of stalls. Goods and the owners scattered in all directions.
“Stop!” a palace guard called as she neared.
Chandi grabbed his hand when he reached for her. With a twist she stepped behind him and flipped him. She’d dashed around the corner before he hit the floor.
The door to a guest room swung back and forth. Chandi raced in to see the midwife running for a servant’s exit. With her speed, Chandi reached her before the woman had gone three steps. A sweep kick had the midwife on the ground.
“Who sent you?” Chandi demanded.
When the woman didn’t answer, Chandi punched her in the gut, careful to release her Blessing first.
“What kind of monster murders a newborn?” she said, punching the woman in the face. “You think Surya wants that?”
The woman sneered. “Surya?”
Not a Solar. “Igni?” Chandi asked. The woman’s hesitation answered her.
The door swung open before she could say more. Naresh, keris in hand. He took in the scene in an instant.
Chandi stepped off the midwife, and Naresh hauled the woman to her feet with one hand.
“Well done, handmaid,” he said.
“My name’s Chandi.”
Naresh shoved the woman forward toward the palace guards gathered by the door. “I’ll remember that.”
CHAPTER TEN
Though the Igni District featured a crystal dome like t
he rest of Kasusthali, there the similarity ended. Instead of glistening white-gold stone, the buildings were rattan shanties. Only the oldest areas were carved, and even there it was a lifeless gray stone.
The wooden structures looked like any ramshackle village in Swarnadvipa. Except that here, sunlight passing through the water above cast Chandi in a dancing pattern of light and shadow.
The Ignis stared at her. What would prompt these harmless people to murder a newborn? Chandi eyed each with care. She needed to find their leader before the Arun Guard arrived, blades in hand. She’d come here planning to kill anyone involved in the attack on Ratna and Revati. Ratna had told her the baby’s name in a fit, as if fearing something more might happen before she could name her daughter.
Entering this district was like walking into another world.
Ragged children rushed by her, playing with an ultop. The blowgun-like toy cracked like a whip, but caused no other harm. Chandi refused to let the children see her jump.
A year in the Solar city, but she’d never seen such poverty before. These people ate enough to stay fit, true, and if not cast next to the majesty of Kasusthali they might not seem out of place. Was that why the Solars secluded them? Or did the Ignis seclude themselves?
As near as she could tell, the fire priest Semar led them. Officially they had no government, but they looked to their priests in all things.
Finding the Shrine of Sacred Flame in the maze-like District proved no easy task. By the time she located the building—stone, like the rest of the old section—the priest waited outside, by the brazier.
“Semar?”
The man nodded. Tall, with hair just longer than hers, and bright blue eyes unlike any she’d seen. Foreign ancestor?
“Welcome, Chandi.”
Chandi bristled. She hadn’t given her name to any of those she’d asked for directions. These people had tried to murder Revati. And didn’t Ignis use the Solar titles of respect?
Empu Baradah had posted guards all around the woman and child. And Malin was there now. The Macan Gadungan would never let so much as a mosquito near them.
“I need words with you, priest.”
Semar nodded, but led her not back to the Shrine, but to the Circuit. The circular tube connected the Igni District and other secondary districts to the main tubes. Though fear had kept her in the palace the first month, after that, Chandi had often taken to running the Circuit at night. Long after most Solars slept, she ran through the darkened tubes, until she knew her way by the undersea landscape around her. Nine districts composed Kasusthali—eight beneath the domes, and the Harbor District, where Semar seemed to be leading her.
Chandi shook her head. “One of your people tried to murder the empress’s baby this morning.” Should she have been more subtle? Rangda take subtlety. These were murderers. She ought to drag the man into an alley and bludgeon him to death. She hadn’t come to Kasusthali to deal with these damn fire worshippers. She had enough problems trying to uncover the secrets of the Arun Guard.
“Some say such things. Most who say them, say them quietly.”
Chandi sped up to keep pace as he entered the sloping tube that lead up to the harbor. “Don’t expect courtesy. I’ve a mind to turn you over to the Arun Guard.” Or worse. “But I’m willing to hear your reasons first. Justify yourself, if you can. Where are we going? Would you look at me, dammit?”
Semar clasped his hands behind his back, but did glance over his shoulder at her. The Solars would come, of course. “You think it necessary for me to justify myself, even if I did not order the woman to kill the child?”
As they entered the Harbor District, she spotted the Serendibian captain who had brought her here a year ago. Bendurana. The man followed a flock of parakeets, parrots, doves, kingfishers, nightjars and other birds she couldn’t identify. A rainbow flock, soaring in impossible intersecting circles over one of the piers.
Despite her desire to speak with Semar, Chandi followed the birds to the pier, Semar trailing behind. They drew her, just as the birds themselves seemed drawn by forces beyond themselves. She stood beside the Serendibian captain, but he never saw her. Hundreds of people had gathered, cheering at the display. The birds seemed to follow the command of a woman, an Arun Guardswoman by the cerulean baju. Her long black hair blew with the breeze, glistening in the sunlight. Chandi had seen that woman before, the day she came to Kasusthali. The Solar stood, arms outstretched to the sky and eyes on the birds, and the flock responded to her every gesture.
“The Solars revel in the imperial birth,” Semar said. “Most will never know how close to tragedy they came today. How would this crowd react, were you to tell them?”
Then, in a heartbeat, it all stopped. The birds flew off in their own directions, as if waking from a dream. Whatever beautiful, unreal dream the Arun Guardswoman had worked on them. The people dispersed like the birds, flocking to vendors selling gudeg or other sweets for the celebration.
Chandi followed Semar into the Rangda Teahouse, pausing at the inauspicious name. The windows were thrown wide for the last days of the dry season, casting the room in streaks of light. Bamboo walls separated the rows of tables on each side of the teahouse, creating the illusion of privacy. Scents of tealeaves, spiced satay, and cloves filled the room.
Semar took a seat at a table. The Igni owner brought them tea without a word from the fire priest.
Chandi glared first at the teacup, then at the priest who offered it. “I want answers.”
“You haven’t decided on the proper questions yet. What do you think would happen if the War King’s grandchild died on the watch of the Arun Guard? How well would the empress take that? How well would the War King?”
The Fifth War. If the Solars allowed Revati to be murdered, Rahu would have to respond. He could never allow such travesty to visit his own family without response. Maybe part of her wanted that war. If she let go of her hatred, she was going to drown here, in the Solar city. But she could never allow harm to come to Ratna’s child.
“You want the Lunars to attack the Solars again?”
“Why would I want that? After four wars, who of us is better off? The Solars say it was your people who broke the Pact. But they cast out the Ignis as well. More than a thousand years have passed, and who has gained? Maybe the Solars, though they have lost much as well. Certainly not the Ignis. Once the three dynasties kept the Astral Temple in trust together. Now? Now the Ignis are servants to the Solars because they held to their traditions. Because they wouldn’t convert to Solar ways.”
All the more reason to hate the Solars, even if it didn’t maker her love the Ignis. She couldn’t afford to let these fire worshippers distract her from her true mission, but she had to be damn certain no one would come for Revati again.
Chandi blew out a breath through pursed lips, watching her teacup. Unlikely the owner had poisoned her tea. She sipped it, let the warmth fill her. Maybe Semar had nothing to do with what happened. Maybe the midwife had acted alone. The Solars would see her pay. And if Semar hadn’t ordered her, to murder him would make her as bad as that woman.
The Igni proprietor brought peanut satay, though still Semar had ordered nothing. Chandi looked from the dish to the priest. A Lunar dish. Without taking his eyes from her face, Semar pulled a piece of the satay off the stick, dipped it in the peanut sauce, and ate it.
Her chase through the palace had left her famished. Chandi pulled a piece of the satay off the stick. “You want the Temple, too.” The peanut sauce didn’t quite have the kick Swarnadvipan sauce did, but close enough for Solar lands.
“What use is warring with Solars and Lunars over a building that was left in the care of all three dynasties? You think because the Ignis live like this, scorned by the Lunars for their weakness, disdained by the Solars for supposed inferiority, that such a life means there is nothing more to lose? There is always more to lose, Chandi.”
Chandi rose, licking the peanut sauce from her lips. “Ignis might not want war
with the Solars, but you all but admitted many would welcome war between Solars and Lunars. If I feel so much as a tingle of a threat to Revati or Ratna, we’ll find out what you have left to lose.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Arun Guard waiting in the hall did little to reassure Malin of Ratna’s safety. The girl hadn’t wanted him there for the birth. Just as well. Didn’t want to be there. Still, his absence had almost cost her daughter’s life. His failure, his weakness. Hadn’t wanted to see Ratna in pain.
Failure!
Malin paced the shadows of Chandi’s room. Ratna wanted to rest alone with her daughter. For the first phase she hadn’t let him leave her sight. But exhaustion, fear, they took their tolls. Malin hadn’t wanted to leave her side, but the girl insisted and Ratna was used to getting her way. Still treated him like a damn slave.
So instead he crouched in darkness, muscles itching for the sun to set. Itching for vengeance he couldn’t afford to take. While Chandi walked the streets alone, looking for murderers. The foolish child had run off searching for Ignis before Malin had even found out. With Chandi in danger outside the palace and Ratna in danger within, his insides were being ripped in half. Which way to go? Who needed him more?
He’d sworn not to fail them again. Malin cracked his neck, left then right. Rahu shouldn’t have sent them here. Shouldn’t have sent his own daughter into a nest of vipers. As soon as Chandi found what they needed, Malin would pull the girls out. Revati, too, now. Couldn’t forget his newest charge.
Footsteps, soft. Chandi’s scent preceded her into her room. The girl tossed a purse of pearls on her dresser, then dropped back onto her bed. Her hair fell about her face, splayed over the silk sheets he had bought her, imported from Au Lac. Chandi didn’t look up as he approached, but jolted as his shadow fell over her face, launching herself into a fighting stance on top of the bed.
