Shadows of Blood

by L. E. Dereksen

  I could see the disaster unfolding: the Hall barrelling forward with their plans, Melanyr confronting them, refusing cooperation, threatening to withhold the services of the Temple, the Al’kah sending off a grand expedition anyway. And someone would come back dead. It wasn’t a question of if, but how many. And that’s when things would get ugly.

  I groaned. “Yl’avah’s might, tell me this wasn’t your idea!”

  He folded his arms, scowling at me.

  “You incomprehensible ass!” I cried, throwing my hands into the air. “No! That’s my answer: no. You get none of my people. Do you understand? You need to stop thinking only of yourself and your own ambitions. Threatening my father like you did, taking what wasn’t yours—”

  His scowl deepened. “I threatened no one. You have no idea—”

  “So you said. That was between you and him, and for some unfathomable reason, my father defended you. Fine. I trust my father. But I will not let you bully me into whatever you want. Do you understand? You don’t get healers.”

  He studied me. I saw a flash of regret in his eyes.

  There was more going on here. There were things he wasn’t saying. And rather than coax him into sharing, I had slammed the door in his face.

  Sands.

  “Vanya . . .”

  He shook his head. “Forget it. I thought I’d come to you first, friend to friend. I thought I’d give you a chance. Next time, the Hall won’t be as kind.”

  I watched him go. I considered running after him to apologize, but I doubted it would do any good now.

  Besides, I was right. It was a horrible idea. Light and all, I had to figure out what was going on here and fast.

  Chapter Twenty

  Ishvandu ab’Admundi

  Night watch ended without incident—again. I knelt for the Dawning, forehead pressed to the ground in honour of Yl’avah. I might have dozed off—just for an instant.

  The Al’kah’s voice jolted me awake: “May it be so.”

  I leapt up, echoing back the words, then forced myself through the prayer, moving with as much precision as possible despite the sleep heavy on the back of my lids. Despite the pulsing of the Unseen, harder to ignore in my exhaustion. The thing behind the Unseen. The source . . .

  As we ended in first movement, I tottered, then stumbled towards my room.

  Umaala intercepted me. “Your preparations are going well, Guardian. Atali sai’Neraia has agreed to join the expedition. She will recommend a contingent of Labourers by tomorrow.”

  I nodded. “Yes, sal’ah.”

  “But what of the Crafters? You need a logistical building plan. Have you chosen and consulted yet with the brickmasons and builders?”

  “Not yet, sal’ah.”

  I wavered, desperate not to let my eyes close.

  “You should. And quickly. Today.”

  “Now?”

  He frowned. “Is that a problem, ab’Admundi?”

  I wanted to sit on the floor and weep, I was so tired. “I’ve been awake all night, sal’ah. I’ve been working on this expedition for days. I need to sleep, or I’m going to pass out.”

  “What you need is to follow my orders. The Avanir is dry, and that well is not going to build itself. Find a way to make it happen. Dismissed.”

  He strode off, leaving me with a mounting urge to scream.

  Make it happen.

  I couldn’t do this. How could he expect me to ride to the Craftsquarter, round up a worthy brickmason, explain the details of a highly secret expedition to him, and get him to draft plans for it on the spot? I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t.

  I stopped. Make it happen.

  I turned and hurried to find the third. They would be taking the morning meal, as sparse as it was this far into Kaprash. I found them eating around one of the low tables, a somewhat more subdued atmosphere than usual. I saw Koryn and Nolaan, Breta and Jil. I frowned.

  “Where’s ab’Tanadu and Mani?” I asked as I approached.

  “Not back from night patrol,” said Koryn, tearing the tough bread with his teeth. He watched me. We’d informed the rest of the third about the expedition two nights ago, and Koryn knew it for what it was. His control on the kiyah was slipping. The expedition was mine, and I’d gone to Mani and ab’Tanadu for leadership—not him.

  Well, this was his lucky day.

  “Koryn, I need your help,” I said.

  He laughed. “Do you? You seem to be handling everything just fine without the rest of us.”

  I bit back an angry retort.

  “Well, I’m not. I’m exhausted. There’s too much to do, and Umaala is demanding results from the Craftsquarter today. I’m shit at this sort of thing. Can I get some help? Please?”

  “I’ll do it,” Breta said.

  I hesitated. Breta lacked all kinds of tact. The person who really should be speaking to the Craftsquarter was Tala, but she was on duty today with the fourth, already busy with Lidyana. I’d have to take what I could get.

  “Alright,” I said. “Here’s the task.”

  By the time I explained what I needed, and the delicacy with which she had to handle the situation, I was bone-weary. I crawled towards my room and fell face-first on the pillow. I was already asleep.

  I woke groggily to a strange sensation. Something was pulsing against my leg.

  “What . . . ?” I mumbled, slapping my thigh. It felt like a squirming rat in my pocket.

  Still half-asleep, I fished into my robes, then stared at it, struck again by the insistent glow. It was like holding a heartbeat. I could feel it: tha-thump, tha-thump.

  The Sending stone.

  “Huh.” I heard a voice. I gulped and looked up. Tala was sitting against the wall, watching me with open curiosity.

  I stared at her, my mind desperately trying to catch up to the situation.

  “It’s . . . it’s . . .” I closed my fist over the stone. “Tala, what are you doing here?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Really? Are we going to pretend I didn’t just see that?”

  “No, but . . . we’ve barely had time to talk, and a lot has been going on since you . . .” I bit my tongue.

  “Since I lost the baby?”

  “Yes,” I admitted, holding my breath for her pained reaction.

  She looked at me, a surprising lack of anger in her eyes. Instead, she assessed me quietly.

  “You’re right,” she said at last. “So let’s talk.”

  “About . . . ?”

  “Everything. This expedition of yours. What happened in the desert. That thing you’re hiding. You know, catch up.”

  “You won’t be angry?” I winced.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you just said . . .”

  She sidled across the floor, almost pouncing on me, and kissed me on the nose. “I reserve the right to be angry at you whenever I feel like it.”

  “I’m . . . confused.”

  “That’s okay.” She chuckled, then softened, leaning over me, one elbow propped beside me. “I wanted to tell you about Lidyana. She heard me, and she’s agreed to work with us. I have some names already for the expedition. I got the evening off and I wanted to come tell you. Then I found you sleeping like the dead, so . . .” She shrugged.

  “You wanted to come see me?” I grinned. “Like see me, or . . . see me?”

  She leaned closer. “You pick.”

  It wasn’t until our lips touched that I remembered what I was holding. Tala hadn’t. She slipped it out of my fingers, then leapt back with a cackle of triumph.

  “Tala!” I cried aghast.

  Her eyes lit up as she held it. “What is it? Is it a pretty stone for me?”

  “You tricked me!”

  “Oh, don’t look so betrayed. We’ll pick up where we left off in a moment. But how do you expect me to focus when you’re clearly keeping an enormous secret from me?”

  “Tala, this is serious. That thing—I’m not supposed to have it. Or I am, since the High Elder g
ave it to me, but no one else knows, and it’s strictly forbidden.”

  She arched a brow at me. “You’re not supposed to have it, but you are, and it’s forbidden?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  She settled against the wall, holding it up for inspection. “We’ve got time.”

  “It has to do with . . .” I lowered my voice. “Do you remember the stranger in the desert?”

  She nodded.

  “Before he sent me back to Shyandar, he gave that to me.”

  “The exile gave this to you? But Vanya, if I didn’t know better, I’d say this was ytyri.”

  I winced. “It is.”

  Her eyes lit up again. “Is it?” She studied it, turning it over in her hands, watching the light pulse, peering closer, then holding it at arm’s length. “It’s marvellous. What does it do?”

  “It’s called a Sending stone. I can . . .” I hesitated, then moved closer, lowering my voice to a whisper. “I can send an image of myself to anyone I want, anywhere. I can speak with them—as if I’m actually there.”

  “Huh.” She thought about it. “And have you?”

  “Once. It was . . . very strange.”

  “And you’ve been using this to communicate with the exile?”

  “No. Well, yes—but only once. It’s part of the reason I was sent here as a boy. Remember they called me a thief? The High Elder, he took it from me when I returned from the desert, and I tried to . . . I tried to take it back.”

  Tala laughed. “Light and all, you’re lucky you weren’t roped, you little scamp.”

  “I know.” I flushed. “But it was mine to begin with. I wasn’t stealing. I wasn’t.”

  “You tried to take something from the High Elder. Ask anyone in Shyandar, they’d call that stealing.”

  “Whatever. The point is, he gave it back. Just before he died, he wanted me to have it again.”

  Tala shot me a raised brow. “That’s a stretch, Vanya. Even for you.”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you, Tala. I would never. That’s the truth.”

  “The whole truth?”

  “I’m not finished.”

  “Uh huh.” She leaned back. “So what’s the catch?”

  “Exactly. The High Elder made me swear, before he returned it, that I would do something for him.”

  “And did you?”

  I nodded miserably, the weight of it sinking against me. “The thing is, Tala—I don’t think I can carry it out.”

  “You gave him your oath?”

  I nodded.

  “Your word as a Guardian?”

  “On my blade.”

  “Then you have to.”

  “It’s not as simple as that. Tala, he’s asked me to . . . to kill a man.”

  She hardly blinked. “The exile.”

  I nodded.

  “And what was his crime?”

  “That’s just it. The High Elder refused to tell me, and by the time we got back from the expedition, he was dead. Tala, I can’t kill someone without proof. I can’t!”

  She frowned, wrapping her hand around the stone as she began to grasp my dilemma.

  Then she took a deep breath. “Vanya, when the Circle orders an execution, the evidence has already been weighed and the verdict decided. The executioner doesn’t need proof—the proof is in the Circle’s orders.”

  “But this doesn’t come from the Circle.”

  “No. But you gave a Guardian’s oath—foolishly, perhaps, but given nonetheless. You can’t ignore that.”

  “I know.”

  “And this is High Elder Ethanir ab’Estaldir we’re talking about—a good man, not someone who’d give such an order lightly.”

  “I know.”

  “And on the other hand, we have an exile . . .”

  “He saved my life. Twice.”

  “Yes, and he also endangered you, a boy, by sending you back with a forbidden ytyri relic. And if he’s an exile, then he’s already committed—”

  “He’s not.”

  She tilted her head at me.

  “Tala, he’s not an exile. I know it.”

  “Then what is he?”

  “I don’t know. I think he’s from the Old Lands. Maybe they all use devices like this beyond the desert?”

  “So if he’s from the Old Lands, why is he here now?”

  I thought about the Avanir, about the Chosen. Go to the source. He knew. And he was daring me to talk to the thing. Why?

  I knew I should tell Tala, but something held me back. A warning. A doubt. Tala believed in Shyandar and the Avanir. She believed in the system. She was a part of it. She worked with the Labourers every day. If I thought it was hard for me, how much worse would it be for her, to lie to those under her care? My job was in the desert, and I was acting as best I knew how. But could she? Maybe it was best she didn’t know. Maybe this pain, at least, I could spare her.

  Tala sighed. “I know, Vanya. I know.”

  My heart almost stopped. “Know?”

  “I know you want to go back. I know you’ve always wanted to go back. To leave Shyandar. And you think this man can take you. But, my love, I don’t trust him. And I trust this even less.” She handed the stone back to me. It had stopped pulsing, returned to its quiet, steady glow. “If you gave your oath, you have a responsibility now. It’s that simple.”

  But it wasn’t. I didn’t want to fight with her, not when we’d finally begun to warm to each other again. So I took her hand. I nodded. “You’re right,” I said quietly.

  But she was silent, brows furrowed. A new troubling thought had occurred to her.

  “Tala?” I whispered.

  She shook her head.

  “Tala, what is it?”

  She sighed. “You remember Nyashal? The woman who was attacked by Sumadi?”

  I winced, recalling my brusque dismissal. Let her die. “Yes. I remember.”

  “I would go and speak to her sometimes, when I was recovering in the Temple. The healers said she wouldn’t speak to anyone, only me and Kulnethar.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.” I took her hand. Tala was braver than I was.

  “She called me Warrior. Just like she called you Traveller-Between. Did you know that? I wasn’t the warrior, just Warrior. Like a name. A title.”

  “Because you are.” I smiled. “If I were Sumadi, I’d be terrified of you as well.”

  She shot me a look. “She wasn’t Sumadi.”

  “No. But they were in her head. And you’d just killed three of them on your own. See? Terrified.”

  “That’s not the point. She seemed to know certain things, to see us differently, to be almost . . . visionary.”

  See us. Save us.

  My skin chilled.

  “She was just a poor broken woman.”

  “Yes, in a way. But something she said. She wouldn’t just speak to me, Vanya—she sought me out. She would come find me. Send him, she kept saying. Send him.”

  “Send who? Me?”

  Tala nodded.

  “Send me where?”

  She was quiet a moment. Then she sighed and looked at me. “Vanya—I think you’re supposed to be Chosen.”

  I stared at her, too stunned to speak. I could feel the black hole of the Avanir, the Kaprash, pulsing against my mind, terrifyingly strong. Reaching. Devouring. Like the cold hands of Sumadi, the clawing behind my eyes.

  “No,” I whispered, and my voice broke. “Tala, how could you say that? I won’t. I . . . never.”

  “Then you’ll never go back. You hate the Avanir, I know. But maybe this is the answer you’ve been waiting for. Maybe the Chorah’dyn will show you, and maybe then you’ll understand. And maybe—Vanya, you see the Unseen. You walk where no one’s gone before. You’ve dared to ask the impossible. Maybe you can change something after all. Maybe you can be the difference, like you’ve always wanted to be.”

  “Not like that.” I shook my head. “I don’t want . . . Tala we’re supposed to go together.” I gripped her ha
nd. “You and I. Into the desert. Explorers. Guardians. We’re supposed to find the Old Lands together. If I’m Chosen, then I’m just . . . I’m just another of them. Is that what you want? You want to send me away to die?”

  “No.”

  “Then come with me!”

  She sighed and leaned against me. “I love you,” she said.

  A strange panic gripped me, sudden and terrifying. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Can’t I say that I love you?”

  “I’m not going to be Chosen. I’m not leaving you, Tala. Together—remember? You and I. That’s what we said.”

  “I know.” She shook her head. “Forget it. Forget I said anything. Just one step at a time, okay? First the expedition, building the well. Let’s see how that goes. Let’s try not to get ourselves killed a day’s ride out. Alright, my love?”

  She glanced up at me and smiled, though the corners of her eyes were troubled. I reached a hand to her face, trying to smooth away those lines.

  She loved me.

  Light and all, I had missed her. And here she was. Together with me now. Gazing up at me.

  “Tala, I’m not leaving you.”

  “Of course you’re not.” She put a hand over mine, leaning into me. “Just let it go, hmm?”

  “I missed you.”

  “I know.” She smiled.

  “I thought of you every day. Every day you were in the Temple. And then in the desert, I imagined you close to me. I’m sorry I couldn’t help more. I felt so powerless, you know? You were hurting, and I didn’t know what to do.”

  “I know.”

  “I just wanted to do the right thing. To—”

  “Vanya?”

  “Yes?”

  “Shut up and kiss me.”

  I gave a chagrined smile. Right.

  I kissed her and she leaned in to me. I pulled her towards me. The questions slipped away, and with her now, in this moment, everything was certain. Everything known.

  We dozed in each other’s arms, relieved to finally have some time to ourselves in the waning light of the day. At least until Darkening, and the summons to prayer, and back to the wall.