The Burning City (Spirit Binders)

by Alaya Dawn Johnson

  “Oh,” she said, remembering Black Angel Papa and his strange message. “Do you know a Leipaluka? She’s a dead rebel soldier. And there’s another, one of the Mo’i’s, called Edere. I think it’s a code for the black angel.”

  Malie frowned. “I’m not sure. A rebel and a Mo’i soldier?” And then the wife tugged on her sleeve and the two of them left. Sabolu leaned against one of the horses for warmth. She thought of how much money she’d earned in promises this day and smiled. It was good. This war was treating her very well, for all she didn’t like the smell of blood. She and Papa would get their house in less than a year at this rate. And then she’d be out of the stables forever.

  “Though I might miss you, Sweetstraw,” she said, burying her face in the gentle mare’s mane. She didn’t mind horses, really. Manure smelled miles better than blood.

  The stable doors always creaked and groaned when they opened. “Uele’a?” she called. “That you?”

  But no, the owner of the footsteps came into view a moment later, though he was still silhouetted against the open door.

  She recognized the graying ginger hair, even if she had never seen his face very close before.

  “The old—I mean, the head nun ain’t here, if that’s what you want.”

  “That’s not what I want,” he said, and his voice was very still, like a film of ice over a spring—

  —frozen, but with something powerful bubbling up beneath. That’s not what I want. The girl was so young. It made him angrier, it made him want to lock her up with the others, hang her from the ceiling like Nahe for daring to do what she did to his child, to his baby, how could anyone be so depraved it made him want to spit and so he leaned back for a moment, back into the snow and the cold morning air and spat with remarkable violence into the white drifts. He turned back. The girl was babbling at him, something about a rebel soldier called Leipaluka and one of his own called Edere, he didn’t understand a word, only that she didn’t know enough to be afraid just yet. He stepped forward—

  —and closed the door. Malie had wanted to ask Sabolu for a knife or a pair of shears, because Pano’s pants had stuck to the wound, but she didn’t dare interrupt the Mo’i, whatever secret business he might have inside the barn. She heard Sabolu mention that soldier’s name, Leipaluka, and thought perhaps it had something to do with her spying for the war. So she turned back to the gardens. Inside, Nahoa was doing her best, but Malie winced at how her hands trembled when they attempted to pull the cloth away from the wound. Someone—possibly Pano himself—had already wrested out the arrow itself.

  “Flaming night, my lady, you’d think you were dressing a chest wound.”

  She knelt and pushed Nahoa gently aside. Pano was holding Ahi, which Malie didn’t think was quite the best idea, all things considered, but she was aware of the futility of questioning the gardener’s trustworthiness with my lady.

  She looked up at Pano, but he was gazing at Nahoa with the sort of expression that made Malie’s stomach sink. Had this war made everyone insane? The gardener loves the crazy Mo’i’s wife. And the wife? Well, she hid her emotions about as well as a macaque in mating season.

  “My lady?” Malie said, her tone, as usual, betraying none of her inner frustration. “Could you go to the kitchens and fetch some water and a cloth? And a knife, if one won’t be missed?”

  Nahoa, apparently grateful to be given this simple task, stood on shaky legs and practically fled down the passageway. Malie waited until her footsteps had receded before rounding on Pano.

  “Her husband will kill you,” she hissed, and though Pano looked mildly surprised, he did not seem confused. So she was right. Until this moment there had been some sliver of hope, some remote possibility that he had shown so much partiality to Nahoa for a different reason. Now she saw the doom they were both walking so blithely toward, and she could strangle them.

  “I’ve done nothing,” he said, and she had to admire how even his tone was, given how much she expected the wound must be hurting him.

  “Thank the spirits. And for how long will you do nothing?”

  He shrugged. “I’m a gardener. She’s the wife of the most powerful man in the world. What could I do?”

  Malie crossed her arms. “A little more than a year ago she was a sailor. And now she’s at the center of a dozen political conflicts, not to mention a war, estranged from her husband, who has gone insane, and caring for his baby alone. In you dance, as calm and caring as you please. You think it hasn’t gone to her head?”

  “Gone to her head?” Pano repeated, sounding the syllables out as though they were in some ancient language whose meaning he might eventually parse.

  “Yes, you bloody fool, and if you don’t do something to stop it, you both are going to—”

  But Nahoa’s footsteps in the hall cut her off and she had to settle on glaring meaningfully at Pano while he stared back at her, dazed and abstracted and a little in awe.

  “Sorry,” Nahoa said. “I had to chat before I could get away.”

  Malie got to work, efficiently cutting through the pants leg and then soaking the wound in water until the cloth could pull away cleanly. The puncture wound looked nasty and deep to her, but Pano told Nahoa it wasn’t as bad as it could be.

  “Perhaps not,” was all Malie said, before she rubbed in the horse liniment and bound his thigh in yards of hemp.

  “This might be over by tomorrow,” he told Nahoa, while Ahi slept peacefully against his neck. Malie had to admit that the child did seem particularly fond of him. But she was a baby who loved the world and this could in no way be construed as evidence.

  “There really are people fighting for you from the north? Who are they?”

  Pano shrugged, his face full of the same wonder that Malie had seen when he looked at Nahoa. “No one knows. There are rumors that they’re a diplomatic delegation from Okika. Of course, there’re also rumors they’re barbarian warriors from the wind island, so anything’s possible.”

  “Okika?” Malie said. “You know what that means, don’t you? The Maaram wars, a thousand years later.”

  “Maaram?” Nahoa repeated, and Malie refrained from rolling her eyes. Honestly, she’d grown to love Nahoa, but sometimes it was galling to be reminded how low Malie had fallen and how high this former sailor had flown.

  “The Maaram empire. It used to be centered on Okika. There was a war here, right around the time of the first spirit bindings. Essel defeated them and colonized all the islands.”

  “But the islands aren’t colonies of Essel. Not anymore.”

  Pano smiled at her, his indulgence far more gentle than Malie’s. “No, that changed after the spirit bindings. Slowly. No one could fight wars, so all the islands got their autonomy in the end. Trade agreements, different systems of government. Essel always at the center, of course.”

  “And now you think they want to change that? By fighting against the Mo’i?”

  Pano’s face went as blank as a wall, and even Malie felt too sobered to do more than twist her lips in disgust. So Nahoa understood the implications. Eliki and Pano had unleashed a monster, just as Malie had known they would. If a war could be fought in the heart of Essel, then a war could be fought anywhere. Okika might help the rebels now, but perhaps it wouldn’t be very long before they decided they could be much better managers of the city than the Esselans.

  Pano said he had to leave. She hoped it was to rush straight back to that unnaturally pale rebel leader and plead for an immediate truce, but she had even less faith in Eliki’s judgment than Pano’s. Malie made a few quick stitches to close the gap in his pants leg and he wrapped his deep-hooded cloak around himself once more. Ahi started to scream as soon as he handed her back to Malie, which made her look nervously down the passageway. Luckily, Ahi’s screams gave way to more gentle whines.

  Nahoa and Pano took their leave of each other without once touching. It seemed to Malie that they might as well have kissed for all the longing looks they gave each other. Gr
eat Kai, but she hoped Pano was smart enough not to confess his feelings to Nahoa. Pano left without a backward glance and Malie dragged Nahoa away before she could stare feelingly at the shut door. They approached the stables but turned back when they saw their guard had vanished. Had he noticed their escape? Or perhaps the Mo’i had sent him elsewhere. The temple itself was a scene of orchestrated chaos. Wounded soldiers poured in—some on their own feet, some on litters—and even the hallways were being used to accommodate them. Ahi seemed confused and upset by the chatter and the moans and the strange smells. She started to cry again and Malie bounced her up and down, whispering nonsense.

  The main entrance and the offshooting fire room were still clear of the war traffic. In fact, the hall was eerily silent, empty except for the three of them.

  “My lady.”

  The four of them. They both turned. Makaho was sitting on the floor in the doorway to the main fire room. Her body was streaked with ash for some reason, and she had never looked older. Her face sagged as though drawn down by invisible weights. All the years Malie had worked in Makaho’s orbit, she had never learned what truly drove the head nun. It couldn’t just be power. Her disdain for her own wealth had never been for show. But what other reasons could she have? Obscure revenge? Immortality? Piety? That last would have made Malie laugh in other circumstances.

  “May I speak with you alone, my lady?” Makaho said, all obsequiousness. Nahoa looked uncomfortable, like she always did in the head nun’s presence. It said a lot that she had chosen to come here rather than stay with her husband those many months ago. But then, Malie knew some of what she had discovered in that room in Kohaku’s cellar.

  “Those wounded soldiers,” Malie said, remembering Sabolu’s odd message. “Is one of them called Edere?”

  Makaho shrugged, a gesture of such weariness Malie was surprised. “How should I know their names? We have two hundred at least, and more dead. Why?”

  “Oh,” Malie said, wondering if she should say and then deciding it couldn’t hurt. “Sabolu was asking after someone named Leipaluka. A dead soldier with some connection to Edere. But I’ll go,” Malie said. She could do nothing more to delay Nahoa’s conversation with the head nun. Makaho gave her a tired smile, full of the peculiar sort of fondness—

  —that perhaps Makaho had always felt for her. Malie had been born a pampered merchant’s daughter in Ialo, Okika. She had traveled the world on a private ship, had taken lessons from private tutors, and might have even attended the Kulanui if not for the unfortunately spectacular downfall of her father’s business. With his wife and two daughters in penury, he had thrown himself over the edge of the great waterfall. Makaho, sensing an opportunity, had offered the oldest daughter a job that paid well enough to support her family. She had accepted.

  Nahoa watched Malie leave with a particularly bleak expression.

  “Come inside,” Makaho said, levering her stiff limbs from the heated floor. “I promise not to eat you.”

  Nahoa had the grace to look embarrassed. Makaho allowed herself a moment of regret for how she was about to further burden this girl. It was too much that all of these responsibilities had been placed on her shoulders, just as it was too much for the black angel, herself even younger than Nahoa. Makaho had become the head nun of the fire temple when she was just a few years older than them. She’d risen above those older and better qualified. She’d schemed and stolen and even poisoned to become the first elected supreme head of the fire temple who harbored napulo sympathies. She hid herself well, but the few napulo scattered throughout the city had known, and she had felt the pressure of their approval like a lead chain all her fifty years in office. She was so close now. Kohaku, that fool of a Mo’i who had only undertaken the holy action to get revenge, had done so much of the hard work for them all. Now, with this great Ana, a napulo disciple for the death spirit, Makaho had a chance to see two great unbindings in her own lifetime. It was a prospect that kept her up late at night, bowing and feverish before the great fire.

  “Your rebels are going to win,” Makaho said. Nahoa looked at her sharply—as well she might, Makaho thought with grim amusement.

  “They’re not—”

  “They would have lost, you understand. Even with this snow the water guardian nearly killed himself over. The rebels fought because someone gave them plans for the one weapon they could not build on their own. And so they followed these plans exactly—as of course they would. But nobody there knew that the strength of a bow is fatally compromised when the wide middle isn’t shaved nearly flat. Nobody would have known until firing four or five arrows—perhaps the precise number one might fire to test it, just to see if it works, yes? But after that, snap! The bow falls apart. Useless. But they didn’t know, and their army is already engaged. And the snow may fall, but it can’t fall forever. And when it stops, their bows will still snap and our bows will still shoot true. And they would have lost.”

  “But now. . .now they won’t.” Nahoa seemed very frightened.

  “Yes,” Makaho said, more gently now. “A new player has entered the ring. I didn’t foresee that this might spill outside our borders. That sort of thing hasn’t happened in a thousand years.”

  Nahoa stared into the fire and kept her gaze there when she spoke. “The plans were fakes.”

  “Yes,” Makaho said.

  “You meant to trap me into sabotaging the rebels.”

  “Not you in particular. Just their informant. I didn’t realize it was you until you took them. I was surprised.”

  “But you didn’t give me the guard until three days ago. You must’ve known about the plans for weeks!”

  “I didn’t give you the guard because of your disloyalty, Nahoa. I told you—he was for your and Ahi’s safety.” Makaho shook her head, remembering her conversation with Kohaku less than an hour before. She had told him what he demanded to know. Oh, great fire forgive her, but she had told him. “I told him to attend to his other duties. There’s no more need for him now.”

  “You. . .tell me what you mean.”

  Makaho had to admire her directness. “I know who laid the geas that poisoned your daughter.”

  Nahoa waited, her face a picture of silent anguish. Makaho relented. “Sabolu,” she said. “Though not of her own volition. The orders, the geas, and the object it was tied to, came from a mind far more calculating.”

  “Yours?” Nahoa said, though Makaho could see in her eyes she was flailing.

  “Of course not, my lady. Even were I not an essentially decent human being who would never harm a child for political gain, I have absolutely nothing to gain by killing Ahi. And everything to lose.”

  “Where is she?” he had asked, his face a mask of rage and his voice as calm as still waters. Great flame, great flame, what have I done?

  “Then who?”

  “The rebels.”

  “Not Pano!”

  Makaho shrugged. “I don’t know who among them.”

  This information shocked Nahoa into tears, which told Makaho all she needed to know about the depth of her loyalty to them. She had thought that perhaps she’d informed occasionally out of spite, but it seemed the ties went deeper than that.

  “You will not follow me,” he had said. And she did not. She waited, but she did not follow.

  “There’s something else,” Makaho said, though the girl was still struggling to control her sobs. Was her worldview cracking? Had she imagined herself to be some flaming revolutionary? “Your husband wanted me to discover who tried to kill Ahi. I gave my word to tell him what I knew.”

  Nahoa’s head snapped up. She wiped her eyes. “You told him about Sabolu.”

  What could she say in the face of that horror? It was just a mirror. “Yes.”

  Without a word, Nahoa stood and walked out. She went straight down the main temple steps and around the front to the stables. This time, Makaho followed. The door had not been latched. It swung wide in the wind. From the outside, they could hear the horses sn
orting in some kind of agitation, but nothing else.

  “Sabolu!” Nahoa called, before she stepped over the threshold. A name like some sort of talisman, a light held before her to banish the darkness. Makaho stood half naked in the snow, hesitant as a little girl, until she heard the sound of Nahoa retching onto straw.

  Great flame, great flame, what have I done?

  Makaho walked inside. As if in a dream, she saw what Nahoa must have, before she turned away for her sloppy grieving. There was a great deal of blood all over the dirt and straw floor, and the smell seemed to be agitating the horses, particularly a tawny mare who kept nosing the body as though to push it awake.

  The body. Kohaku had cut her throat. No, that wasn’t accurate. He had ripped out her throat, vocal box and all. He had stabbed her in the chest, though it was unclear if that had happened before or after he killed her. Her expression was slack, her eyes closed, and yet she still gave an impression of agony Makaho knew she would never forget.

  “So many dead already,” Nahoa whispered. “So many dead. And you told him.”

  Great flame. “She almost killed your daughter.”

  “She was a child! She couldn’t have known what she was doing.”

  “And if she did?”

  “You think she deserved this?”

  Makaho accepted the withering scorn as her due. She should not have asked that.

  “Leipaluka,” Nahoa whispered.

  “The dead soldier?” Makaho asked.

  “Sabolu gave us the name. She was trying to find anyone who knew her. Now they’re both past the gate.”

  “Se maloka selama ua ola,” Makaho began—