There was a long silence. Paris tried to comprehend what Justiran had just said. He couldn’t. He tried to disbelieve it, but he couldn’t do that either.
There weren’t words for this depth of treachery—against what it meant to be Catresou, against everyone in the city. Against Juliet.
She had accepted becoming the Juliet, though it meant she lost all chance at the Paths of Light. And her father had planned to use her devotion for this.
“Then Juliet’s death saved us all,” said Romeo quietly. “She would have liked that, at least.”
Paris swallowed, wishing that he wasn’t feeling Romeo’s grief prickle at his own eyes and tighten his own throat.
“They’re going to make another Juliet,” he said.
“We’ll stop them,” said Romeo, quietly certain. “We won’t let them hurt one more girl that way. I swear it.” He paused. “I have an idea for that, actually. You two can be the guests, and bring me along as your sacrifice. That way I’ll be in a position to help free the other sacrifices when we make our escape.”
Paris had thought he was used to the horrifying idiocy that came out of Romeo’s mouth, but apparently he was still able to be shocked.
“No,” he said, “that is absolutely—”
Then he realized that Vai was looking at Romeo with a terrifying smile.
“I think I can work with that,” said Vai.
Paris didn’t have any other plan to suggest, but he didn’t have to like it. After Vai had left, he said furiously, “I cannot believe you would propose such a plan.”
Romeo only smiled. “You’ve been telling me and thinking at me since we met that I was an idiot,” he said. “I can’t believe this would surprise you.”
Actually, he had a point. Using himself as bait for human sacrifice to get them into the Night Game was entirely typical of Romeo.
“I thought you’d stopped trying to get yourself killed,” said Paris. He remembered how hollow-eyed Romeo had been at first—how every touch of his mind had ached with grief. He had changed so much over the last few days. Still sad, but also alive.
“I’m not trying to get myself killed,” said Romeo. “I’m trying to avenge Juliet. And save people from these necromancers.”
“If you meant that,” said Paris, “you wouldn’t have proposed such a foolish plan.”
“It’s a good plan,” said Romeo. “Vai thinks so too, and he’s taken over half the gangs in the Lower City, so he should know something about strategy.”
“He’s probably lying about that,” said Paris bitterly.
“It’s a good plan,” Romeo repeated. “We ought to do it. And I ought to be the bait because—” He cut himself off, but they both heard the words that he thought: Because I’m disposable.
“You see?” said Paris. “That is why you are completely useless.”
At that, Romeo turned and met his eyes. “I’m not being useless,” he said. “And I’m not trying to die, either. I’m being realistic.”
“No,” said Paris, “you just think it would be poetic to die like Juliet. Without even a thought for the people you would leave behind.”
“Because there’s nobody!” Romeo shouted, flinging his hands up in the air and sending a wave of frustration through the bond. “Do I need to make it any clearer? Juliet is dead. Makari is dead. Runajo never needed me. Nobody will miss me when I die.”
I would, thought Paris, and then slammed the wall between their minds.
But that just made it worse, because once he wasn’t drowning in Romeo’s frustration, he was able to imagine Romeo being dead. And it felt awful. Worse than when he’d thought he would lose his duel in front of Father and be sent to the City Guard.
Romeo was foolish and ridiculous and a Mahyanai. He had killed Tybalt and helped get the Juliet killed.
And somehow, without Paris noticing it, he had become a friend. The only friend that Paris had ever had.
Romeo didn’t seem to have noticed anything; he went right on ranting. “Not to mention that I killed your cousin and will probably be executed as soon as the Guard catches me. Of course I’m disposable. But that’s not even why I want to do this. It’s for Juliet’s sake. Not because I miss her. Because I want, just once, to do something that would make her proud.”
He paused, and though Paris had blocked off his emotions, he could still see the raw vulnerability in Romeo’s face.
“I’m not like you,” Romeo said quietly. “I never cared about my clan. All my life, I never cared about anyone except Makari and Runajo. Then I met Juliet, and I cared about her more than anything. And she cared about everyone, all of the city, even though none of them cared the least bit about her.” He paused. “I don’t think she ever realized just how selfish I was. I’m not sure she could have loved me if she had. But that’s why I have to do this. For Juliet, and for her city, and so I can be a little worthy of her before I die.”
“Because it’s correct,” Paris said quietly.
“Yes,” said Romeo.
“That is not dishonorable,” said Paris. “That is . . . not unlike zoura.”
He remembered sitting with Juliet in the cool silence of the sepulcher. It seemed he could never resist caring about people who cared about zoura.
Maybe that wasn’t entirely a bad thing.
26
FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS, Runajo studied the laments with Vima and studied the scrolls with Juliet. It was curiously peaceful, except when she remembered the revenants beneath their feet and the necromancer somewhere within their walls.
She remembered often.
But Vima was one of the less insufferable people who had ever been put in charge of her. And Juliet was surprisingly . . . Runajo honestly didn’t hate Juliet. It was rather strange.
On the third day, Sunjai was waiting outside her door when she got up.
“You’re going to go see Inyaan,” she said, and for once she wasn’t smiling.
“Why?” asked Runajo.
“They won’t let me see her because I am too attached and might disturb her meditations.” Sunjai rolled her eyes as if it were a stupid joke, but her voice was quick and tense. “They will let you.”
“But why should I go see her?” asked Runajo.
“I need to know how she’s doing,” said Sunjai. “You need me not to slander you to the Sisters.” Then she paused, looking suddenly more unsure than Runajo had ever seen her. “Besides, we’re comrades, aren’t we?”
The fact that they had sat in a room weaving the city walls and hating each other meant precisely nothing, except that they were all very good at weaving, and they all hated each other. Runajo nearly said that. But she remembered Sunjai warning her about Miryo, and the matter-of-fact way she had said then, We’re comrades.
If Sunjai had really meant that, she was a fool.
“We are nothing to each other,” said Runajo—and why did Sunjai dimple at that? “But I will look in on her if you leave me alone afterward.”
She thought about sneaking in during the middle of the night, but in the end it simply seemed easier to tell Vima—who still, bafflingly, liked her—that she wanted to see Inyaan, and Vima arranged for her to bring Inyaan’s daily flask of bloodwine.
Despite the name, bloodwine was not made with blood, nor was it red—it was a clear liquid fermented from a cactus whose thorns were traditionally used in penance. Regular bloodwine was the favored drink of the Old Viyaran nobility, but in the Cloister, bloodwine was brewed with special herbs and drugs. It speeded healing and gave strength to withstand blood loss; it could also dull pain. It was used mostly by Sisters who were very old, or very new and still adapting to heavy penance.
Inyaan’s daily portion was insultingly large. Somebody did not think her strong enough.
There were special rooms set aside for ascetic seclusion; their white walls were painted with twisted red patterns of thorns. Inyaan sat cross-legged on the floor, her back to the wall, her hands resting in her lap. Six slender white tubes grew o
ut of the wall, and three bit into each of her arms. Where they plunged into the skin, they blushed dark red; farther away, they faded to white veined with pink, and then to pure white.
Her eyes were screwed shut. Silently, between deep breaths, she was mouthing words to herself.
Runajo remembered her own penance—the awful, unnatural horror of living stone jammed into her skin—and Sunjai’s worry seemed a little less absurd.
But this was the Cloister. They were the Sisters of Thorn. Inyaan had known that when she came, and if she couldn’t bear it, that was her own problem.
“I brought your bloodwine,” said Runajo. “And Sunjai wants to know how your glorious seclusion is going. You’ll surely be famous among the novices for this.”
She wouldn’t be so famous if the amount of bloodwine she needed got out. All the Sisters loved to boast of how much penance they could take without drinking it.
Inyaan opened her eyes and briefly glowered at her; then she looked at the floor.
“You’re as friendly as ever,” said Runajo. “I’ll pour for you.”
The little red cup sat next to Inyaan on the floor; Runajo poured the bloodwine and held it out to her.
No movement.
“Nothing will ever make me like you, so you don’t need to try to impress me by looking strong.”
Inyaan lifted her head. “You,” she said venomously. “You’re like my brother.”
Like the Exalted, ruler of Viyara and descendant of the gods? Inyaan’s insults needed work. Unless she meant that Runajo shirked all her duties.
“The point is, I’m not a cup holder,” said Runajo. “Do you want it or not?”
Inyaan let out a heavy breath and looked away from her again.
“Enjoy your seclusion, then.” She set down the cup and rose.
“Don’t leave me,” Inyaan whispered suddenly, desperately. “Please.”
Runajo stared at her. “You don’t even like me.”
“But you’ll stop me,” said Inyaan. “Won’t you? If I try to kill myself. Like the others.” Her golden eyes were wide with fear. “Please stop me.”
It felt like the floor flipping over to leave her hanging upside down. Runajo had never considered what the other novices might be thinking of the deaths. Inyaan had no idea the Sisters had been murdered, that there might be a necromancer at work. She only knew that two Sisters had killed themselves without warning, and the High Priestess did not want anyone asking questions.
What could she think, except that some strange power was forcing them?
“I know I’m a coward,” Inyaan muttered at the floor. “But I don’t want to die.”
“Then you shouldn’t have come to the Cloister,” said Runajo. “Don’t they tell you royal children what we do here?”
Inyaan started laughing. Choking, nearly soundless laughs that were almost sobs.
“We know,” she gasped. “We are.”
The pain in her voice was making Runajo’s skin crawl. She didn’t want to see this. She didn’t want to know this. Inyaan wasn’t supposed to be this gasping, helpless girl; she was haughty and composed and never afraid. She was too busy despising them all as beneath her, too . . . silent and refusing to meet their eyes.
For the second time in as many minutes, Runajo felt like the ground was sliding out from under her. What if she had always been wrong about Inyaan? What if her silences had been fear instead of disdain?
“We have the blood of the gods. We have to shed it every day.” Inyaan’s mouth twisted. “I couldn’t bear it. I cried every time. So I ran away to the Cloister, where you only have to bleed when you’re assigned.” She took a shuddering breath that was almost a sob. “My brother . . . thought seclusion would be amusing. He’s going to keep me here till I die.”
“You think the Exalted arranged this for you?” said Runajo. She could imagine the Exalted was that cruel—she’d heard enough terrible stories about him—but she couldn’t believe he would take that much trouble.
Inyaan’s mouth twisted. “You really think the people outside don’t control us?”
There were tears on her cheeks. Runajo knew that she was supposed to feel compassion, but all she felt was a sense of stomach-churning revulsion. She had thought, when she entered the Sisterhood, that at least she would escape people weeping over things.
“You aren’t going to kill yourself,” she said. “Atsaya was murdered. I saw the body. Tell anyone I told you and I’ll slit your throat. Try to stop being a coward.”
Her hand shook as she whirled and left.
She found Sunjai in the water gardens. They were vast: the lower half of the city spire was honeycombed with halls where lamps glowed ceaselessly with the same white-gold light as the sun. Beneath the lamps, corn and rice, tomatoes and carrots, peas and strawberries, bamboo and flax—and a hundred plants more—grew in giant glass vats of water. Beneath their roots swam shoals of fish, nibbling at algae, living and breeding and dying, food for the plants and food for the people.
It was an elegant arrangement, all things eating each other. Like Viyara in miniature.
Sunjai was kneeling, hands pressed against the glass walls of a vat, blood smeared between her fingers as she adjusted the magic governing the water. When she heard Runajo approach, she dropped her hands and stood.
“Well?” she asked grimly. “How is she?”
“Weeping,” said Runajo. “Blaming her brother.” The words jangled and scrambled out of her mouth. “I don’t think you should go see her; you might stop adoring her, if you saw her act so pathetic. Though she does think she’s been sent to seclusion to die, so maybe we can excuse her a little.”
There was a sharp crack as Sunjai slapped her face.
“How could you,” she said.
It wasn’t as hard as she’d hit Runajo in their first week together. There was no reason for the cold feeling behind Runajo’s ribs. It was not as if they had ever been friends.
“I went to see her,” said Runajo. “I told you the truth about her. Was there something else you wanted?”
She knew that she shouldn’t be saying these things, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. It felt like the only way to stop Inyaan’s horrible weeping from crawling under her skin and infecting her.
“Did you expect me to care about her?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Sunjai. “We are comrades. We weave together. It has always been the three of us—”
“You nearly broke my nose because I didn’t worship her enough the first week,” said Runajo.
“You were bullying her,” said Sunjai.
Runajo remembered the fear in Inyaan’s face—if it had always been there, if those lowered eyes and mumbled words had never been disdain—
If she had, all this time, been horribly cruel.
“And then you changed,” said Sunjai. “When you started being kinder, I thought you changed. So I thought we could be friends.”
Changed? Runajo had just decided it wasn’t worth the trouble to say what she thought of them. How could Sunjai have been stupid enough to mistake that for friendship, and why was that thought like trying to swallow acid?
“Why do you care about her?” asked Runajo. “She’s nothing.”
“She is my friend,” said Sunjai. “If you had a heart, you’d understand.” She shrugged. “But I suppose you don’t. Good-bye.”
And then she walked away, without looking back.
Her face was sticky with blood from the hand Sunjai had used to slap her.
“Why do you hate her?” asked Juliet that evening, when Runajo came into her room to read the scrolls.
“Who?” asked Runajo.
“I don’t know her name,” said Juliet. “But I caught a glimpse. A girl tied up and bled like an animal for slaughter.”
“It is an honor and she should feel it.” Runajo’s voice was icy. “Besides, she’s a murdering Sister of Thorn. Shouldn’t you want her dead?”
Juliet was silent.
“Her n
ame is Inyaan,” said Runajo. “She’s always hated me. Maybe. I’ve always hated her, definitely. She’s in ascetic seclusion, and Sunjai is furious that I didn’t weep for her. Don’t feel that angry. You wouldn’t have wept for her either.”
“No,” said Juliet. “But Romeo would have wept for her. He even wept for me.”
“Romeo was a fool,” said Runajo. “And it doesn’t matter. I have no tears in me. I didn’t weep for my own mother or father. You think I’d care about this girl enough to cry?”
“I think Romeo was better than any of us,” said Juliet. “He would care about anyone. Mahyanai, Catresou, Old Viyaran, it didn’t matter. He wept for me. He smiled for me. He thought I should have a name. You, who have always had one, cannot understand what that meant.”
And she was right. Runajo couldn’t understand it. But she could imagine a little of it, because she had spent years practically nameless in her own home, watching her mother and father cling to each other—watching her mother long for death—knowing that she was nothing more than an afterthought to either of them. A trinket, kept to prove that their love had been fruitful.
“If you have felt that way,” said Juliet, “how can you despise her?”
“I still don’t understand why you have suddenly decided that we don’t all deserve death and suffering,” said Runajo. “How recently did you tell me that we lived in a charnel house?”
Through the bond, she felt something like a flinch from Juliet. Then there was silence, and the sense of a wall between them.
After several moments, Juliet said quietly, “I do not—perhaps—wish to see you dead.”
“That’s boring and inconstant,” said Runajo. “If we deserve death, then wish us dead. Don’t indulge in half measures and wish us alive to keep on killing.”
Bright Smoke, Cold Fire Page 23
