“I got you out of the Cloister,” said Runajo. “Out of that room.”
The last time she’d seen Inyaan, she had been locked in a room for “ascetic seclusion” by order of her brother, the Exalted. That meant having tubes of the Cloister’s living stone burrow into her arms every day and drain her blood to feed the city. When Runajo had brought Juliet to Lord Ineo, one part of her bargain had been that he’d use his influence with the Exalted to get Inyaan out.
Inyaan’s lips stretched into a flat grimace. “For what part of that should I thank you?”
She twisted her arms, tilting the insides up. Runajo barely kept herself from recoiling. Inyaan’s skin was livid with half-healed cuts and scars.
She remembered now what Inyaan had told her the last time they spoke in the Cloister: that the royal family of Viyara, being of divine blood, were required to offer their blood every day. That while they could use the same ointments to speed healing, they were not allowed the drugged bloodwine that the Sisters drank when they needed to dull the pain of sacrifice.
Inyaan had been so desperate to escape the seclusion, Runajo hadn’t thought of anything else.
“I am out of that room,” said Inyaan. “But I am still in seclusion. Except now my brother laughs at me as I bleed.”
Runajo swallowed. She was so tired of hurting people.
“Then don’t thank me,” she said. “Plan out a way to punish me. You won’t be the first, and unlike some, you do have the power. But don’t ignore me.”
“Why?” asked Inyaan.
Why does nobody ever want to listen? Runajo thought.
“Because this city is dying,” she burst out, “and right now, Lord Ineo and the High Priestess are going to turn it into a slaughterhouse. You have heard, haven’t you? The offering of Catresou prisoners? That’s blasphemy by your own laws—and it’s not going to fix the Ruining, just slow it down. There will be open war with the fugitive Catresou, and of course we’ll win, but when they’re all dead, what next? Start slaughtering the rest of the city?” She drew a trembling breath. “I think I have another way to strengthen the walls and buy us time without death, but I can’t work the calculations by myself. Not nearly fast enough. I need help.”
Inyaan stared at her. “So?”
So you have to help me, Runajo wanted to scream. You have to help me or you’re as good as a murderer. But Inyaan wasn’t going to care. It was so easy not to care, after all. To pick one thing you wanted—power for the Mahyanai, prestige for the Sisters of Thorn—and let the rest of the world burn for it.
Hadn’t Runajo done the same?
And then she knew what to say.
“Because this city is dying, and Sunjai is in it. Are you ready to let that happen to her?”
Inyaan was very still except for her hands, twisting at each other. Then she said, “No.”
The room Inyaan took her to was modest, compared to the rest of the palace: the walls were decorated only with simple, shallow spirals, and the little wooden table was unadorned.
“Wait here,” said Inyaan, and left.
Runajo waited. It felt like forever before Sunjai strode into the room, her smile just as obnoxious as ever.
“So I hear you finally need someone’s help,” she said. “I’ll remind you that when I asked for help, you told me we were all going to die.”
“Did Inyaan tell you anything?” asked Runajo, straightening up.
Sunjai crossed her arms. “Maybe. But I wasn’t listening too closely. It was time for me to give her the daily dose of healing creams.”
Runajo felt a sick pang as she remembered the half-healed cuts on Inyaan’s arms.
“You think she was better off in ascetic seclusion?” she asked.
“At least her brother wasn’t there,” said Sunjai, her voice low. “And I think you had no right to do as you willed with her, simply because you fancied it.”
It was true, wasn’t it? Runajo had wanted to help Inyaan, so she had simply done as she pleased, without a thought for the consequences. The same as she had done with Juliet.
“Well, right now what I fancy is keeping the city alive,” said Runajo. “And stopping Lord Ineo’s sacrifices.”
Sunjai’s mouth flattened. “I still haven’t agreed to help you.”
“You will,” said Runajo, “because Inyaan sent you.”
But then she remembered Sunjai saying, back in the Cloister, We’re comrades, aren’t we?
There had been a time when Sunjai thought they were friends, or something like it. Runajo hadn’t ever realized it until it was too late, just like she hadn’t realized . . . anything, it seemed.
She never learned, until she had hurt people.
“I’m sorry,” she said. The words were soft, but still hurt in her throat. “I was never kind to you or Inyaan. And I’m sorry.”
Sunjai rolled a shoulder. “You don’t need to be kind to me.” She paused. “I’m going to help you, but I want to know: why did you get yourself thrown out for that Catresou girl?”
Runajo wasn’t sure how she could even begin to explain that.
“Why did you spend all your time following after Inyaan and wiping her tears?”
It was something she had actually wondered about. Once, she had thought Sunjai just wanted the prestige of being the only friend of the Exalted’s younger sister, but she knew now that she had been wrong.
“She’s the blood of the gods,” said Sunjai, deadpan. “I owe her all that and more.”
Runajo rolled her eyes. “No, I mean, truthfully. Can you even explain why she’s your friend?”
“She’s the blood of the gods,” Sunjai repeated, and suddenly Runajo realized that her voice was quiet not with deadpan sarcasm but absolute sincerity. “She deserves all my loyalty and worship. But she’s kind enough to call me her friend.”
“You . . . believe in the gods,” said Runajo.
Mahyanai didn’t believe in the gods. Everybody knew that. It was something they were all proud of: that while the rest of the world might cringe and beg before imaginary masters, might require the dream of a second life in order to face death, the Mahyanai were brave enough to bear the truth.
“Why do you think I joined the Sisterhood? The pretty clothes?” Sunjai’s voice was bitterer than Runajo had ever heard it. “Our people are parasites who mock the holy rites that shelter them. I wanted to make recompense. To please the gods with my penance. I’d pour out every drop of blood in my body for that.”
Runajo’s skin crawled. Because while she didn’t care what Sunjai chose to do with her own blood—if she believed in the nine gods, if she longed for penance, then she believed the sacrifices were holy. She didn’t think they were a tragic necessity, she thought it was holy and right when the High Priestess cut someone’s throat before the face of Ihom.
And then she realized: this was why Sunjai was going to help her.
“Then,” she said, “you surely don’t like that Lord Ineo has taken the sacrifices into his own hands.”
Sunjai made a noise of disgust deep in her throat. “I’d like to see him led out to pollute the sacrifices with his unwilling blood.”
“Good,” said Runajo. “Because I know how to make it stop. Do you want to help?”
Sunjai looked her up and down, and her mouth curved up as she said, “Yes.”
13
ONE DAY LEFT.
Juliet woke, and remembered instantly: the next day, the sacrifices would begin. Her people would die and she would safeguard their slaughter, so the rest of Viyara could live.
Runajo wasn’t there in the bedroom. She was never there now, and Juliet reminded herself that it didn’t matter if she never slept, because she was only paying for her own choices.
At the breakfast table, Juliet forced herself to eat, barely noticing what, until Arajo burst into the room and sat down beside her.
“Just look at that,” she said, dropping a little square of paper on the table, and yawned.
Juliet stared
. Two lines were written on it, in rather wobbly script:
I saw the stars through the window,
But they were not as lovely as you.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Karu,” said Arajo, as if Juliet should know who that was. “He was delightful in bed, but that poem? That handwriting? Ugh.”
Juliet’s mind was still clogged with the sacrifice. It took her a moment to put together the slip of paper—so like the ones Romeo had given her—and Arajo’s words, and realize that this was a morning-after poem.
She knew what the Mahyanai permitted their women to do, but it still sent a hot flush crawling across her face.
Arajo giggled. “Of course, I say that, but I’m not too good for him. I’ll send him a reply and pretend his poem was lovely. I just had to tell someone first.” Then she looked at Juliet. “What, you’re blushing? You’re not a virgin either, you know.”
Juliet couldn’t help flinching at the word virgin. That remark would have started a duel among her own people.
“And I’ve heard Romeo was terrible at poetry too,” Arajo went on, “so I hope he made up for it in other ways.”
“Don’t,” Juliet snapped. “Don’t talk about him that way. He was my husband.”
Arajo gave her a pitying look. “Husband, lover, truest of all true loves. You do realize it doesn’t matter anymore? You’re not still among those monsters who’d cast you out just for kissing him.”
They would have. There probably was not one Catresou who would have forgiven Juliet for kissing Romeo, let alone taking him to her bed in a ceremony they would not have acknowledged as marriage.
They were still her people.
And she was going to help kill them tomorrow.
“I’m sorry,” said Arajo, the laughter melting from her face. “You loved him and he’s dead, and—and I’m the worst. I think a thing, and I can’t help saying it. Ask anyone.”
She was genuinely sorry. That was the worst part. Arajo didn’t want to hurt Juliet. She just couldn’t imagine that Juliet having to slaughter her own people might hurt.
The Master Necromancer didn’t want them to stop the sacrifices.
Romeo could not believe that the Catresou were going to accept it.
“There will be a better revenge soon,” said Meros. “When he has gained his full power, he will drive the Mahyanai from their homes and slaughter them as they meant to slaughter us.”
But meanwhile, twenty of the Catresou prisoners would be killed, and they would have no Catresou burial. Romeo was furious at the injustice of it, and he wasn’t even one of them. He was baffled when he saw the other Catresou lords nod in agreement.
“It’s not right,” said Romeo. “They’ll burn the bodies—”
“Paris,” said Meros, “silence him.”
The slap across Romeo’s face was precise, stinging; the next moment, Paris’s cold hands were wrapped over his mouth, muffling him.
Romeo couldn’t help begging silently, Paris, please—but he knew that Paris couldn’t hear him. The bond had been broken when Paris died.
“Don’t imagine that obeying our orders once gives you the right to tell us what to do,” said Meros, and Romeo felt like a fool. He’d only made sure that the other Catresou would want to obey Meros so they could spite the enemy in their midst.
But later that day, when he was cleaning weapons under supervision, Gavarin said to him, “What’s it to you, if our people don’t get buried?”
“Don’t you need it to rest?” said Romeo.
“Don’t tell me you believe in the Paths of Light.”
“No,” said Romeo. “But Juliet did. You do. And I swore to serve your people.”
“What does your obedience mean to you?” asked Gavarin.
Romeo went still, his hands halted on polishing the blade. “What do you mean?”
“We Catresou, we live under obedience. To the Lord Catresou, but to zoura first of all. And our lord has told us to obey the Master Necromancer and leave our people to die. Some of us would rather obey zoura. How about you?”
If he disobeyed Meros’s orders even once, he would be killed. Romeo had no doubt of that, and he was not unafraid. Even now, after everything, he did not want to die.
He also didn’t want any more Catresou to die while he could do anything to stop it.
“Yes,” he said.
Half a day left.
“Supervising sacrifices is not my usual duty,” said the subcaptain to Lord Ineo. She was a tall woman; her white-gold hair wrapped around her head in a six-strand braid, marking her as not just an Old Viyaran but an aristocrat.
“Nothing is usual about this situation,” said Lord Ineo. “And who better than you? After all, you helped bring the Catresou necromancers down to begin with. The Exalted greatly desires you to have this honor.”
The subcaptain tilted her head slightly and regarded him. She didn’t seem the least bit impressed by his status as the Exalted’s right hand. Juliet would have liked for her that, if she hadn’t been preparing to assist in murder.
“I’m told you have an extra weapon for me,” said the subcaptain, her gaze sliding beyond Lord Ineo to Juliet and Runajo.
“Several. I’m sending eight of our best guards, and also the Juliet.” Lord Ineo reached back, laid his fingertips on Juliet’s shoulder, and drew her forward. “Juliet, this is Subcaptain Xu. She will command all the guards at the sacrifice, including you.”
“Is this also the will of the Exalted?” asked Xu, studying Juliet the way outsiders always did: like an exotic artifact.
Juliet stared back at her. The woman at least met her eyes, which was more than many did.
“Yes,” said Lord Ineo, proving that he didn’t lack for either nerve or influence. “We must show the city that the Catresou will never be a threat again.”
“The Exalted is wise and glorious,” said Xu. “But I’d prefer to command soldiers who follow orders.”
“That won’t be a problem,” said Lord Ineo. “She can’t disobey her Guardian, and Runajo will command her to obey you.”
“We both saw that girl kill two men,” said Xu, “one of them against orders and the other her own father.”
Juliet was aware of Runajo flinching behind her. But her own heart didn’t skip a beat. She’d lived with that memory every day: the moment she’d looked in her father’s eyes and felt the power of his blood guilt seize her. The moment after, when her hands inevitably gripped his head and snapped his neck. She’d remembered it so often, she no longer flinched from it.
Of all the blood on her hands, her father’s was not the worst. At least he had actually been guilty.
So Xu was the subcaptain who had been there on that terrible morning. Juliet remembered that she had protested Lord Ineo seizing a Juliet for himself and claiming the old Catresou right of swift vengeance. She might be as vile and murderous as all the Old Viyarans, but at least she cared for the Accords.
“Keep the Mahyanai guards alive,” said Juliet, “and I won’t be a problem. I don’t need to avenge any of your blood.”
Xu’s eyebrows rose; then one side of her mouth turned up slightly, as if reluctantly pleased. “I’ll see what I can do.”
He was having trouble with his name. Some days he knew it, but not today.
He could remember hearing somebody say it. Somebody calling it, voice alight with desperation.
That boy. The one he had seen when he killed the traitor family. There had been a speech that his master wanted him to deliver.
Had he killed that boy, or left him alive? He could remember seeing him among the main body of the Catresou, but he now he couldn’t remember if that had happened before or after.
The question bothered him more than it should have. Whatever he had done, it had been his master’s will. He told himself he could be sure of that, and that was all he needed to know. That was the only real thing.
Now his orders were to guard the Little Lady, and stop her if she tried to harm he
rself again. His master had been very firm about that, as if it were likely to happen. But she had sat in the chair for hours, not a single golden curl moving.
He thought he understood what drove her. Sometimes the cold weight of his flesh and blood and bones was almost too much, pressing him down with the helpless desire to be forever still. If he had thought that tearing open his veins would make that happen, maybe he would try it too.
No, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, his master wouldn’t want it. Nothing was real and nothing mattered except for making his master happy, and he couldn’t understand why the Little Lady would ever try to displease him.
His hands were shaking, his dead heart frantically pumping.
The doorknob rattled, and he was on his feet in an instant. But it was only his master, come home at last.
“Anything happen?” his master asked.
“No. Nothing.”
His master turned to the Little Lady. She finally moved, raising her eyes to meet him; he took her hand and drew her up out of the chair.
“There’s going to be a lot of death tomorrow,” he said gleefully. “Not at my hands. I’m still going to need a final Night Game. But the Catresou are dying. They’re going to pay for everything they did to me and you.”
He cupped his hands around her face, and kissed her. She kissed him back greedily, her fingers tangling in his hair, drawing welts down his neck.
“Master,” said the dead boy.
His master turned and looked at him. “Yes?” he said.
“What’s my name?”
His master shook his head. “You really are stupid.”
This was true.
“Your name is Paris. You used to be a Catresou, but now you help me control them. Sometimes you kill them. That’s really all you’re good for.”
“Oh,” said Paris.
“And right now, you’re going to leave me alone with my lady.”
“Yes, master,” he said, and was out of the room in the same breath.
But as he walked down the hallway, he found himself thinking about his name again. Trying to patch together the memory, and hear that strange boy’s voice as he said, Paris.
The night was endless.
Runajo waited in her room, but Juliet never came back to sleep. When the last light had drained from the sky, she panicked and went looking for her, terrified that somehow she had found a way around Runajo’s order not to kill herself.