The Burning City (Spirit Binders)

by Alaya Dawn Johnson

  He shrugged. “Wrong, and not wrong. The fire spirit has power. Twenty thousand dead to prove that. But the Mo’i doesn’t keep it at bay. Oh no, my lady. Your husband helped make this happen.”

  Nahoa didn’t deny it. She, too, had spent long nights brooding over the implications of Kohaku’s missing hand. “You’re going to ransom us?”

  The man fell silent. Ahi flailed for the half-dissolved candy lying on the edge of her pallet and then began to cry.

  “Shh, Lei’ahi,” Nahoa said, hauling herself to one elbow. She uncovered her breast and now, finally, Ahi was ready to drink. She rocked Ahi back and forth, whispering to her and growing less and less aware of the man in the room. Pano. She knew she should be afraid, but she couldn’t find the energy. He seemed too kind to be cruel.

  “No,” Pano said firmly, as though coming to a decision. “Not against your will.”

  Nahoa regarded him impassively, and he met her gaze. Still kind. That was good. Her daughter had proved to be an excellent judge of character.

  “My will is to go back to Kukicha, tell my mother she was right and I should’ve never left. But there you go, that ain’t happening, and I have choices to make. What’s yours?”

  His eyes crinkled, but his lips stayed solemn. An odd expression—it reminded her of an old temple officiant back in her hometown. Something about age and joy and disappointment. He reached into a pocket in his vest and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, soft with overuse. She opened it with the hand not supporting Ahi. A list of names, none of which she recognized.

  “Lipa the apothecary, Rololo the carpenter—” She looked up at him. “Who the hell are these people?”

  “Men and women your husband has tossed in his dungeons.”

  “Couldn’t they have died in the fire?”

  “They were known to be alive after the eruption.”

  Nahoa put the list down carefully. Maybe this man wasn’t as safe as she’d thought. Ahi smacked Nahoa’s chest, as though wondering what was wrong.

  “Well, so what if you’re right? What can I do about it? I’m stuck here, and you know I can’t go back to him.” Just the thought made her throat tight.

  Pano shook his head. “Nothing like that, lady. But we know the Mo’i asks you to see him every day. And we know you have always refused. All I ask is that you agree to see him if he agrees to free these people.”

  Nahoa stared at him, but it appeared he was deadly serious. “How…why the hell would he agree? If he put them in jail, wouldn’t he want to keep them there?”

  His smile reached his mouth now. “I think, lady, that you underestimate how much he wants you.”

  Her stomach twisted. “What would you know about it?”

  “His cook tells me he orders two meals every night. Just in case you come back.”

  “I’m not coming back!”

  He shrugged. “He doesn’t know that. Will you help us? Every person on that list is innocent. And you know what might happen to them if they stay.”

  Nahoa looked away. He was too polite to rub her face in it, but somehow he had an idea of what she had discovered in her husband’s secret dungeons. She still had nightmares about Nahe’s wordless grunts, his panicked signing over and over, begging her to kill him. She could smell the blood, and it wouldn’t leave her nostrils until she buried her face in Ahi’s hair.

  She pulled Ahi from her breast abruptly and set her down on the pallet. She felt nauseous.

  “Okay,” she said, still avoiding Pano’s gaze. “I’ll try.”

  “Thank you,” he said, so sincerely that she looked back up at him. He stood.

  “How did you get inside?” Nahoa asked, belatedly realizing the unlikeliness of his presence here.

  “There’s many paths inside the temple,” he said, and winked to acknowledge that he had not answered her. He walked to the door and then paused.

  “Why weren’t you afraid when you first woke up and saw me?”

  “Ahi liked you.”

  He smiled again, and left.

  2

  THE NEXT MORNING, in the apartments she now shared with her father—on the coast of the fourth district, far away from Nui’ahi’s carnage—Lana took a knife and a bowl of water and attempted a scrying. Her left wrist was marked with an orderly row of scars and scabs from her previous efforts. She’d taken to wearing long-sleeved shirts after she noticed her father’s bleak, silent appraisal. But he knew she was trying to find her mother, and they both wanted her back too much to comment on the cost.

  Her father would still be asleep at this hour. When she was younger, he’d been an early riser. Was it grief over her mother that led him to stay in bed hours past sunup? Or had he slept this late for years, and she had been too distant to know it? It depressed Lana that her life had been so removed from her parents that she didn’t even know these simple details. But then, her father had only just now learned of her red mandagah jewel. They all kept secrets from each other, large and small, and no one could ever completely know another person. Not even Kai. Not even the death.

  The death was not allowed over the threshold without an invitation, so it hovered outside the window. It faced the ocean, but she knew it was as carefully aware of her as she was of it. She had performed this ritual in its presence many times now. She lifted the knife above her ridged wrist and looked into the bowl of water.

  “I call on the spirits of earth and fire. Show me my mother, Leilani. Show me what has become of her and the witch Akua.”

  Lana cut her wrist. A sure stroke, just deep enough, with no hesitation. She barely noticed the pain, only the sudden rush of power in the room. Heady, as though she had just smoked a bowl of amant, or spent a minute too long on a dive. She kept her breathing shallow.

  The water in the bowl turned cloudy with blood and power. She focused on it, unblinking, willing the glassy smooth surface to reveal what had every other time remained hidden from her.

  A ship? Or at least something that creaked in bad weather, with wind and a spray of seawater. She pushed on her arm, dripping a little more blood into the water. The image resolved itself for a moment more: her mother’s hair, grayer than she remembered, but unmistakable as it blew in the wind. The turn of her mother’s cheek, a curious light in her eye, as though something had just amused her.

  “How long ago were you young?” asked Leilani, and Lana’s heart seemed to leap into her mouth, so strong was her sudden longing. But to whom did her mother speak?

  The image dissolved then, as it had every other time, into a cacophony of fire and bright lights and screaming death. And then, all other senses deadened, Lana heard Akua’s voice, dry as tinder: “Your daughter is listening.”

  Lana seemed to go blind for a moment. The images vanished like a candle flame snuffed. Lana groaned and accidentally knocked over the scrying bowl as she fell. Bloody water puddled around her, and the power leaked from the room as though through a sieve. She shuddered on the floor and gripped her throbbing wrist. She felt as though one spirit had frozen her bones and another had melted her skin. She could hardly move after the effort to push through Akua’s barriers. But this time she’d had enough skill, or used enough power, or just—finally—had a stroke of dumb luck. Because this time she had seen Akua. She had finally scryed more than the screaming jumble of impressions that had tormented her every time before. A smile began to curve her lips, and it quickly spilled into a laugh. Her mother was alive and Akua had taken her. Presumably against her will, though Lana wondered at the hint of easy companionship she had seen in her mother’s expression, and in Akua’s reply.

  Lana shook her head and sat up slowly. So Akua had kidnapped Leilani, but this time Lana had finally discovered a clue. They were somewhere on the water—not very specific, but still, that ruled out the inland towns. More importantly, the geas that guarded Akua from Lana’s scrying was clearly fire-born. Strange, since Lana had reason to be familiar with Akua’s affinity for the death. She considered that Leilani had vanished j
ust an hour before the great eruption, and that the fire spirit had found a way to break some of its bonds. Akua—whatever her ultimate goal—was clearly meddling with the great spirits.

  “Lana, are you. . .”

  Her father stood in the doorway to the sleeping room they shared, his face exhausted and concerned. He glanced at her wrist and then away, pursing his lips.

  “It’s okay, Papa,” she said, hastily rolling down her sleeves. “I just needed a little blood for the scrying. And guess what? I found something this time!”

  She stood up hastily, folding her wings behind her with barely a thought. Kapa stayed where he was, but some of the worry left his expression.

  “You mean. . .Leilani?” He almost choked on her name and Lana’s heart twisted a little. Her mother would have known whether Kapa liked to wake up early or sleep late. She would have known how to reconcile him to the red jewel around Lana’s neck and the wings on her back. But now they only had each other.

  She nodded. “I saw her. Just for a moment, but I did see her, Papa. She seems okay. She’s with Akua—”

  “Don’t tell me you still trust that witch!”

  Lana winced at her father’s emphasis. “Of course not. But Akua doesn’t do anything without a purpose. If Mama’s still alive, that means Akua has some use for her. And I’m going to find out what it is, I promise.”

  She walked closer to her father, as though she might embrace him, but he held himself so carefully still that she gave up and went instead to the kitchen.

  “I’m going out,” she said, taking some leftover spicy red beans and breadfruit mash. “I’ll be back by this evening. And you, Papa?”

  “They need me at the shelters.”

  Lana nodded. The shelters for those most affected by the eruption always needed aid, but spending every day tending to the wounded and homeless had worn at Kapa. No wonder he could hardly bear to look at her. If Lana herself heard vicious whispers about her responsibility for the disaster, then what must her father hear? She could barely hope that he didn’t believe them.

  She bolted down the food and left the apartment quickly. The death appeared by her side the moment her sandals hit the seashellpaved street. “And where do you go today?” it asked, its normally sepulchral voice almost eager.

  She smiled. “To the fire temple,” she said.

  “You’ve been there twice already. Or do you like the head nun’s company?”

  Lana grimaced. “She’s enough to make me wish the temple hadn’t been spared. But my scrying worked this morning. I have some more questions.”

  The death fell in stride with her. Though the sun had barely cleared the horizon, the streets were still busy with people. Most of them were used to her presence in the neighborhood, and drew back at her passage with a murmured “Ana” and a warding sign. Every once in a great while, someone would stare at the death as though it were a shadow he couldn’t quite account for.

  She finally understood what Kai must feel like when he ventures from his shrine. The water guardian might not be a creature so fantastical and terrible as a black angel, but people had good reason to be wary of anyone who had grown too close to the spirits. And Kai looked so alien, with his pale skin, reflective hair, and everchanging eyes. Lana paused as the road turned away from the docks to watch the red dawn sun rise over the ocean. The citizens of Essel had grown used to violent sunsets and sunrises since the eruption—it had something to do with the haze of ash that even now rained down in bad weather. Where was Kai now? Fighting his own battle with the spirits in the outer water shrine? Or had events forced him to leave, to track down the other guardians, or even travel to the inner temples? Whatever his duty, he obviously had no intention of finding her. It had been two months since she left him. Since he had forced her to leave. And even now she couldn’t think of that separation, or the reasons for it, without lingering grief.

  Lana had killed Kai’s aunt. Or, more accurately, she had trusted Akua when she should have known better, and used Kai’s aunt Pua as an unwitting sacrifice. Lana had avoided calling on the power of Pua’s matched mandagah necklace until her mother fell deathly ill, but then she had used it to save Leilani’s life. Lana had doomed herself to be eternally hounded by her mother’s death—and she had taken Pua’s life in exchange. She’d been horrified when she learned of what she had done, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret it. When Kai asked her if she would do it again—if she would trade his aunt’s life for her own mother’s, knowing everything she did—she had been forced to answer truthfully:

  Yes.

  There was not much purchase for love, she supposed, after that sort of betrayal. So she had left, and he must still think he was better off without her. She turned away from the ocean, wiped her eyes, and continued on her way. The fire temple was in the third district, a long enough walk from the eastern edge of the fourth that she should have hired a rickshaw or flown, but she did neither. She was afraid her flight over the city might cause a riot, and she hated the expressions on the faces of those forced to serve her. Better to see the city and breathe its sooty air.

  The third and fourth districts were still strictly under the Mo’i’s control, but rebels had managed to turn whole neighborhoods of the first district into a battlefield. There were three checkpoints on her walk to the fire temple, manned by stone-faced types from the Mo’i’s own personal guard as well as new conscripts drawn from throughout the city. Their uniforms were the bright orange of ground turmeric, which made them easy to identify—and easy targets. Their faces barely flickered as they waved her through, as though she were just another Esselan. She had seen them harass and search the other pedestrians in a way they would never dare with her. There were some benefits to being a black angel.

  She came upon the fire temple sooner than she would have liked. Neither of her previous visits had yielded anything more than an abiding frustration with the head nun and a conviction that everyone she spoke with hid secrets from her. Not that these necessarily had anything to do with her mother or Akua, but everything she learned pointed back, in some way, to the fire spirit.

  That woman was there again, sitting out front in one of the gardens with her baby, when Lana walked up to the main entrance. The baby gurgled and laughed, but the woman had left her shirt off so the child could find her way back to the breast if she so chose. It was a large, beautiful baby with olive skin and dark red hair—the color of cooling lava, Lana thought unexpectedly, and then nearly made the sign of warding.

  The woman caught Lana staring and nodded coolly. Her arms were stiff, as though she were afraid, but she didn’t grip the child to her breast or call out.

  “What’s her name?” Lana asked, just to set the woman at ease.

  “Lei’ahi,” she said. The baby, apparently sensing its mother’s distress, stopped gurgling and looked at Lana. Her expression—curiously, if such a young child could even be said to have an expression—was nearly as quiet and wary as her mother’s.

  “I’m not sure if she likes you, black angel.”

  Lana felt a sad smile curving her lips. “And no reason why she should.” That baby couldn’t be much older than the eruption itself.

  Lana looked at the woman more closely, startled. Of course. That accent, her constant presence at the fire temple. Her identity should have been obvious, just from the rumors. The Mo’i’s child, it was whispered, had been birthed in the flames of his folly. Lei’ahi. Daughter of fire.

  “Good day, Nahoa,” Lana said, and walked into the temple.

  Makaho, the head nun, was waiting to greet her. “Ana,” she said, bowing low, so that her breasts lightly smacked against each other. “To what do we owe this honor?”

  The woman was old, and her face seemed to have grown crueler with age. Lana could deal with bad temper alone, but Makaho set her teeth on edge with an obsequiousness that barely masked her unscrupulous cunning.

  “I’d like to ask you more questions about that woman I’m searching for.”
<
br />   “But, Ana,” she said, “as I told you before, neither I nor anyone at my temple has ever seen a one-armed woman of that description. You would be the first to know if our paths should ever cross. . .”

  Lana pursed her lips against a sharp reply. “Perhaps you never saw her, but it’s possible someone else at the temple did. I have it on strong authority that Akua did have some contact with the fire temple just before the eruption, and that she might bargain with it still.”

  Makaho narrowed her eyes. “On what authority, if I may be so bold?”

  “A geas.”

  “A witch, too? And I’d taken that for idle gossip.”

  Well. Lana could play that game as well. She kept her voice pleasant. “You mean to tell me you have never spilled a little blood for power?”

  “It defiles Konani’s sacrifice for his officiants to spill for any other.” Her frown reflected perfect piety.

  “Perhaps his other servants are not so dogmatic.”

  “Ah, yes. Perhaps not. May I assist you with anything else?”

  Lana forcibly stopped herself from gnashing her teeth. This woman! Lana knew that her mother’s trail started here. She knew that Akua and this horrible woman had met. And yet she could prove none of it. What was she to do? Don a disguise and follow her around? That would have been unlikely even before she’d received the wind’s gift, and it was impossible now.

  “Yes,” Lana said stiffly. “Perhaps you could show me to your stables? I understand that you wouldn’t sully yourself to speak to your laborers, but they might have seen Akua.”

  Lana had the deep satisfaction of seeing the head nun’s eyes widen with the shock of a point scored. But then she was all solicitousness.

  “Oh, of course. But perhaps it would be best for me to inquire myself and report back to you? The servants, I’m sure you understand, have less of an understanding than I of your. . .peculiar situation. They might panic.”

  Oh, she was good. She’d barely spoken to Lana, and yet had managed to ferret out her singular vulnerability. Everyone was afraid of her, from the baby in the courtyard to old women in the streets. And she hated to force her presence on people who despised her. But in this case, she would.