The Kinder Poison

by Natalie Mae

  * * *

  This time, I’m not put to sleep.

  Kasta rides behind me, still and silent as ever, and the Healer yawns on the brown horse, and the Shifter trots behind us as a jackal. But something still feels different. I’ll admit I hoped there’d be a kind of ease now, some small reassurance from Kasta that would indicate he’d started to yield. But if anything, he’s tenser than before. He keeps his hood up, his eyes forward, his hands tight on the reins.

  We’re not approaching the city from the usual route. Roads crowded with people and mounts color the desert on either side, I assume thanks to word of Sakira’s presence. I can only imagine the kind of parties she’s been throwing. I can’t even make out individual buildings yet and I hear music. A great way to win the people’s favor . . . not a great way to stay alert in case the race dynamics have changed. I hope Jet wrote her that Kasta had taken me. Not that I trust her to return me to him, but at least the company would be improved.

  Our route takes us west, far out of range of the tall, expansive estates that make up much of the city, where rows of strategically placed palm trees block the residents’ view of the storage huts we’re approaching. Tents are set up outside of them, a dozen sunbleached squares closed tightly against the sun. A group of people converses before one with their eyes on the city. The patched state of their clothing and the worn tracks between structures make my chest squeeze when I realize what we’re coming across.

  Forsaken.

  Wild rabbit skins patch holes in roofs; mud reinforces edges where tents are fraying against their frames. River reeds bind rough tables of driftwood topped with chipped, sunbleached bowls. There’s no shade, and no well—they’ll have to make the long trek to the river for water. Still, I’m hoping to spot one of the Mestrah’s food barrels within the slit of tent doors, until I remember he doesn’t provide for them. They’re expected to leave Orkena when they’re old enough. A journey symbolic of what awaits them in the afterlife, where they’re destined to forever wander the sands between the mortal realm and Paradise, since tradition forbids them to be buried with the amulets that permit the rest of us to cross over.

  Of course, considering how dangerous my escorted journey has been, it only makes more sense to me why even these conditions are preferable to braving the desert.

  A girl in a too-large tunic, her ivory skin blotched from the heat, turns as we draw near. She can’t be much older than sixteen. She tugs the elbow of the man next to her, who shakes his head, but whatever he’s declining, she sets her jaw and starts toward us.

  “Tanda,” he calls. “Tanda, don’t!”

  The girl ignores him, striding for us like a soldier. The wind blows her hood back. Her long hair trails behind her, white-blonde and thin, and Kasta’s hand slides to the hilt of his sword, and my heart lurches into my throat.

  She draws closer, within striking distance.

  “Please,” she says, her eyes as gray as the dark circles beneath them. “They won’t let us work during the race. We were barely scraping by as it was, and now we’re out of food, and they’re saying we can’t work again until next week. Please, can you spare anything? Rice? A bit of gold?”

  My throat clenches in pity. Even if the priests would tell us the Forsaken deserve this fate, Fara would say it’s not for us to judge, and he wouldn’t hesitate to help. I glance at the new leather saddlebags, useless as they are since Kasta didn’t pack food, but he must have gold. I wish I could slip her some coins.

  Kasta keeps his gaze ahead, of course. Royalty is not even supposed to acknowledge Forsaken, as unfavored by the gods as they are.

  The girl clearly doesn’t recognize him. Her gaze shifts to me. “A soldier shoved my mother this morning for trying to return to work. The fall cut her ankle, badly. I can’t even buy a scrap to cover it.” Her voice cracks, and she moves closer. “You have to help us. We have elderly, too . . . a week without food could kill them.”

  I brace myself at her nearness, but whatever threat Kasta feared, his hand moves away from the sword, and relief floods me that ignoring her is all he’ll do. I force myself to look forward, heat prickling my eyes. I wish I could throw her the saddlebag. I wish I wasn’t more worried about what would happen to my chances for escape if I did.

  The girl stops. We’ve gone past the last tent, and she knows we’re not going to help her.

  “Go on then,” she growls. “Pretend you can’t see us, like everyone else. And when you lie down tonight on your padded beds, after you’ve gorged yourselves on cake and thrown your leftovers to your dogs, you can thank the gods they gave you enough power to hide your cowardice.”

  Kasta stops the horse.

  A sick feeling hits my gut. She’ll pay for saying that. He’ll have her whipped, or order her to pack up and leave, and then her mother will certainly suffer, if she can even survive the journey to the next town. But just as I’m bracing for all the terrible ways this will end, Kasta moves his hand to the saddlebag.

  I hold my breath as his fingers hover over the latch. He can’t be getting something for her, so what is he doing? Is there some worse horror he carries that would scare her more than a sword? But I can’t think of what it would be, and when I look over my shoulder, I’m stunned by the expression on his face. It’s pinched and uncertain, and goes smooth as soon as he catches my eye, but it’s far from anger.

  The moment passes. Kasta’s fingers drop, and without a word—without a single reprimand—we ride on.

  But Kasta does not relax until the tents are far behind us.

  XXI

  I can make no sense of what just happened.

  It was such a small thing. A hesitation; a crack in Kasta’s stone. If I hadn’t been riding with him, I would have thought he’d almost had the girl punished. But the more I think about it, the more certain I am that what he intended to do wouldn’t have harmed her. Kasta has never held back on the opportunity to doom someone who’s wronged him.

  I think . . . he almost helped her.

  I remember Jet saying something changed with Kasta; something Jet had yet to understand. I had assumed it was the destruction of his laboratory, but what if it was something worse? Something to do with the Forsaken, for I’m certain now that the tension I felt was in anticipation of crossing them. He chose the route in; he knew we’d pass the tents. As though fearing something he might see.

  Or perhaps, fearing to see someone.

  “Kasta,” I say as he pulls the stallion to a stop. “Did you lose someone who was Forsaken?”

  “Get down,” he growls, gripping my arm.

  We’ll revisit that later, then. I slide off the saddle, unsettled, and force the heartbreaking scene from my mind. We’re on the edge of the valley of storage huts, dozens of little cake-shaped structures made of mud and topped in straw. The city rises behind them in a wall of white sand and brightly dyed canopies. People are just visible through the gaps in the houses, hoods up against the heat, their laughter ringing above the lively music.

  “You’re going without me?” I ask when Kasta doesn’t dismount.

  “Take her inside.” He looks to the Shifter, still in jackal form. “We’ll be back.”

  He turns the black stallion and sets off with Christos, who gives me a meaningful look that I can’t place. Maybe it’s simply a “thanks” for not using him, even if my stomach is now snarling in regret. Or maybe he’s suggesting I take advantage of this time without Kasta. We are in a big city now, with lots of people.

  And lots of travelers whose mounts have been all over Orkena. If I can convince one to take me home . . .

  The Shifter growls as if she knows exactly what I’m thinking. She points her nose toward the nearest hut, and just as I’m pondering whether she could stop me if I ran, her fur begins to melt. Right off her skull.

  I don’t wait for her to finish transforming. I dart for the nearest huts, heart hamm
ering as I decide how far I’ll go and which I’ll dive into, when a tattooed hand jerks me around and I look into a poisonous glare that makes it clear I will not be reaching the crowds. I will not be going anywhere without her permission ever again.

  I force a smile. “It was just a thought.”

  In answer, she tugs me around the nearest hut and across its dark threshold. As my eyes adjust, I realize with a sickening pang that it’s lined with wheat.

  Bags and bags of it, enough in this single space to feed a small village, while the Forsaken starve outside.

  “Gods,” I say. “The city can’t share even one of these with them?”

  The Shifter grunts and releases me. This girl and her questions.

  I freeze with my fingers around a spear of dropped wheat. That was a thought. Not something the Shifter spoke aloud, but a different voice in my head that pushed over my own. Did I imagine her answer? I could hear her thinking when she was in animal form, of course, but I shouldn’t be able to hear human thoughts . . .

  Except, she isn’t human.

  I swallow and turn around. “How long is he going to be gone?”

  The Shifter lounges against the far wall, beside the open doorway. Not long enough. Not that it matters, anyway. You’re the last person in the world who’d be able to outrun me.

  “Hey. I’m not asking so I can escape. I’m just curious.”

  The Shifter’s attention snaps to me. Her eyes narrow as they scan my body.

  It’s like she knows what I’m thinking. She’s better at reading others than I expected.

  “I know exactly what you’re thinking,” I say, feeling overly pleased with myself as her eyes widen. “So you may as well speak to me outright.”

  You can hear me? she thinks, her arms unfolding.

  “Every word.”

  She straightens suddenly, a feral, jerky motion that makes my heart race.

  Gods, she thinks. All this time I could have . . . Her eyes flash back to me and she snickers. A Whisperer. Of course. Why didn’t I ever think of that?

  “Think of what?” Her joy is starting to alarm me. If someone could read my thoughts, I’m not sure I’d be thrilled about it.

  You can hear me, she thinks, definitively this time. I have not spoken with anyone in . . . She thinks a moment, brow creasing. Four years.

  “Four years? Can’t Shifters—um, is that part of the curse?”

  It occurs to me that might be an insensitive question, but then I remember her dragging our gelding down and biting into Jet’s hip, so I feel it’s more than an even trade.

  The girl’s eyes glint with a terrible light. She clasps her metal mask and pulls it free, and I expect it to be like one of those travelers’ tales where she’s scarred beyond recognition or has knives for teeth, but she’s so shockingly normal I actually feel a bit disappointed. She is pretty, but her cheeks also look hollow, as if she hasn’t been eating well.

  But her face isn’t what she’s showing me. She opens her mouth and sunlight glints off her teeth . . . off something dark at the back of her throat. I don’t understand what she wants from me until I realize it’s a stump.

  Her tongue is missing.

  I close my eyes and exhale.

  It’s not part of the curse, no, she thinks, replacing her mask. Shifters can talk. We’re actually very good at it. We can mimic anyone’s voice we wish, simply by having heard the other person speak. She sighs. Which is why, when the Mestrah discovered what I’d done, it was the first thing his commander took from me.

  I shudder, remembering how Shifters are assimilated into the army—and suddenly I know what the runes circling Kasta’s neck are. If caught, Shifters are sentenced for life to use their terrifying abilities to serve the Mestrah. The exception being that something has to be created to keep her power under control, as well as protect whichever general has her in their command. Maia’s been bound to that rune collar for four years. By law—and for his own safety—Kasta would have to wear it for the race. I’m suddenly feeling lucky such collars are otherwise highly illegal. I have no doubt Kasta—well, probably Sakira, too—would have ordered one for me if they could.

  “That’s awful,” I say.

  Awful? She scoffs. Aren’t you going to say I deserved it?

  “Did you?”

  She chews her cheek, gaze shifting as a hot wind slides into the doorway. Not back then.

  “How did it happen?”

  I remember Kasta speaking of who she was before, of how she’d been destined for great things. In my mind I’m conjuring all sorts of horrible explanations for how their friendship could have ended this way. He said she’d betrayed him, but what could have been bad enough to sentence her to this?

  Her thoughts go suddenly flat, a subtle shift in silence like moving from a grand room to a closet.

  I don’t remember.

  I have a strong feeling she’s lying, but I can sympathize with not wanting to recount painful memories, so I let it go.

  So what did you do? she asks.

  “Me?”

  I can feel the touch of the priests on things. Their magic makes me ill. She points a tattooed finger at my scar. I don’t feel sick around you at all.

  That’s the kind of statement I feel I should thank her for, but I just lift my arm and rub the mark with my thumb. “I insulted the soup.”

  She grunts. He’s getting touchy.

  “I also accidentally talked to Jet, and now Kasta thinks we’re conspiring against him.”

  You and the rest of the kingdom.

  “There’s got to be a way to get through to him,” I say, pulling my cooling cloak back over my wrist. “He started to listen to me, at the palace. I don’t think this is who he wants to be. If I can just make him see—”

  The Shifter laughs; a hollow, bitter sound.

  Let me save you some time, she says, leaning back against the wall. Four years ago, I thought the same way you did. That if I was kind enough, supportive enough, I could pull the light from his darkness. Because it’s there, maddeningly so. But believe me when I say it’s a false light. You can’t kindle it, because it’s not really there. And even if you make an unspeakable sacrifice—

  Her fists clench over her knees, and she exhales. Her gaze shifts to the far wall.

  The only person you should be worrying about saving right now is yourself.

  The feeling of loss settles over the room like a weight. It’s getting stranger and stranger to think of her as a monster. On one hand, the priests say Shifters are a temptation created by Apos, the god of deceit: a way to test if we’ll defy the life we’ve been given when incredible power is only a murder away. Even if one finds us, we’re expected to prove our purity by subduing it without killing it. On the other hand, she’s not nearly as evil as I expected. I suppose the stigmas surrounding Shifters come because the kind of people who kill for power are already ruthless and wicked, but she’s just a person. A person who refused—as I am—to accept death on someone else’s terms.

  I know Kasta already introduced us, the Shifter thinks. But it’s been too long since I could do it on my own. I am Maia.

  “Zahru,” I say.

  Footsteps scuffle near. The Shifter—Maia, I really should be calling her—tenses, but they march behind our hut without incident. When she relaxes, I settle onto a small stack of bags, rolling the spear of wheat in my hands.

  “I don’t suppose you can just let me go?”

  Her brow pinches, and though I can’t see the memories she’s referencing, I feel her thoughts intensify. She drums her fingers on her knee. Maybe. I’m bound to his will as long as he’s wearing the rune necklace, and I can’t go near it. But if you take it . . .

  “How?” My blood jumps that she might actually help me. “He’ll know what I’m doing as soon as I look at it. And he’s literally not plannin
g on sleeping until the caves.”

  You might have to get creative. She raises a shoulder. It should be easy enough. You’re good with words.

  “But that’s what I’m already doing. I think he’s starting to yield, but asking for those runes . . . that’s a completely different level of trust.”

  You don’t need to get close emotionally, Zahru. I can’t see it, but I swear I feel her smirking beneath her mask. The runes are around his neck.

  It takes me a pause to realize what she means.

  “You want me to seduce him?” I say this much too loudly in a hut Kasta will soon be returning to. But the thought of being that close to him again, and especially of lying to him when so many other people have lied . . . sounds like the makings of a very dangerous game.

  He’s conflicted about you. I can tell. He wants to believe you, and it’s been a long time since he’s let anyone close. Use it to your advantage.

  “I—” I exhale, wincing. “I don’t know. I’ll get the necklace, but let me try talking to him again. If I’m still getting nowhere, I’ll consider your way.”

  It might be your only chance. If you don’t make your move soon—

  Her thoughts stop, and she jerks away from the wall so suddenly that I crush the piece of wheat. Her eyes cut to me and she clenches her jaw, stooping to fit beneath the roof.

  We have to go, she thinks. He’s calling me.

  She grips my arm and hauls me to my feet, and we stride into the blinding heat. My eyes don’t adjust until we’ve curved around several huts, each as full as the first. All this food just sitting here, waiting for when the city might need it.

  “Sabil,” I curse as we pass a hut overflowing with corn. “Do they not know how badly off the Forsaken are?”

  Of course they do, Maia thinks. Orkena harbors little care for those not “blessed” by the gods.

  “This is cruel. Someone has to do something about this.” I make space for a worker carrying another bag of corn, but Maia nearly drives me back into him. “Can we slow down? I can’t walk this fast.”