Endless Water, Starless Sky

  But it seemed she was still determined to make sure that Juliet could do nothing to prevent the destruction of her people.

  Because they would be destroyed over this, Juliet was very sure. Lord Ineo would not forgive nor forget the raid. He would hunt them down, and Juliet would be the one who killed them.

  It was her duty. She was the sword of the Mahyanai.

  She had decided to accept that.

  So Juliet curled her hands into useless fists at her sides and went to do her duty by sitting vigil over the Mahyanai dead.

  The Mahyanai did not keep vigil the same way, now. Lord Ineo was too careful for that. All five bodies were laid out together in a single large room, watched by three guards with polearms; they were to be taken away at noon, less than twelve hours after they had died.

  Even so, not many were willing to sit vigil. Everyone knew how dangerous the dead had become.

  So Juliet was surprised to find Arajo there. She was even more surprised to see her kneeling beside the old serving woman who had died first.

  Without a word, Juliet knelt beside her.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Arajo after a moment, her voice small and tightly controlled.

  “You’re my people now,” said Juliet. “This is what you do for your dead, isn’t it?”

  Arajo drew a shuddering breath.

  “Why are you here?” asked Juliet.

  “She was my nurse.” Arajo’s voice wavered. “I loved her more than my own mother.”

  Juliet looked at the old woman’s still, horribly pale face. If somebody had told her, the day before, that Catresou men would break into Lord Ineo’s estate and kill a helpless old woman, she wouldn’t have believed it. The Catresou weren’t like other people in the city, who sent their women to join the City Guard; they understood that women were meant to be protected.

  But they were desperate now. And angry.

  “They said you killed them. The men who killed her.”

  “Yes,” said Juliet. She remembered her sword slicing faster than her own thoughts, cutting them down in moments. And she remembered comforting one of the men as he lay dying, holding his hand and whispering the prayers to send him safely into death. “Yes. I avenged her.”

  “Good. I’m glad.” Arajo’s hands, resting on her knees, curled into fists. “Monsters like that deserve to die.”

  She was right. It was monstrous to cut down an unarmed woman, no matter how desperate you were.

  It was monstrous to order an entire clan destroyed, just because the leaders had been practicing necromancy in secret, against the laws of the clan itself.

  It was monstrous to live in a city whose walls were maintained by human sacrifice.

  Once, in the Cloister, Juliet had told Runajo, You live in a charnel house, and you’re all guilty and dripping red. She had only meant the Sisters of Thorn, because they poured out human blood in sacrifice. But it was true for everyone in Viyara, wasn’t it?

  She stared at the old woman, who had deserved and not deserved to die, and she wished that Romeo were alive. Because he would know the answer. He had known there was a way for Juliet to be more than a sword. Surely he would know of a way for Viyara to be more than a city of monsters.

  Juliet only knew how to see guilt and render judgment.

  She remembered, suddenly, the Catresou boy she had fought the night before. He had so terribly reminded her of Romeo. Not just the smile she had glimpsed in the darkness, or the impulsive way he had charged to attack. But when they had dueled on the rooftops, it had been like the sword dance where she first met Romeo: the way they had slipped into an easy, perfect rhythm without even trying, as if the whole world had come into being so that they could dance together.

  For one moment, she dared to think, I am here among the Mahyanai. Could he—

  But Juliet had seen Romeo die. When the magic they had tried to harness went out of control, it had dragged them both into the land of the dead. Runajo, sitting vigil at the Mouth of Death, had dragged Juliet back before she had been entirely lost. But there had been no one to draw back Romeo. He had truly died.

  And there was only one way that dead souls returned to the land of the living: like Paris.

  That boy she had fought on the rooftops was alive. So he was not Romeo: he was a Catresou boy who certainly wanted Juliet dead, and who probably would have been happy to help kill Arajo’s nurse if he’d been given the chance.

  “Teach me how to fight,” said Arajo, startling her out of her thoughts.

  “You have teachers already,” said Juliet. “I’ve seen you practice.”

  “I know the sword forms,” said Arajo. “But you’ve killed people. You know how it’s done.” Her voice wasn’t wavering now; it was soft and dry and viciously determined. “The Catresou won’t stop trying to kill us. I want to be ready next time.”

  “I’ll protect you,” said Juliet.

  “I don’t want to be protected! I want to kill them back. I want to be like you.”

  You shouldn’t, thought Juliet. Arajo had a chance to be free, to be a girl instead of a weapon. She was absolutely guaranteed never to be enslaved to her enemies and forced to kill for them.

  But the Mahyanai gave their women swords. Juliet supposed that, as their Juliet, she couldn’t try to stop them.

  She couldn’t tell Arajo not to want vengeance either, not when her own heart pounded with the need to kill every time Mahyanai blood was shed.

  “I’ll try,” she said, and that seemed to satisfy Arajo.

  So they sat together in silence for hours. The sun rose closer to noon, and more people came to sit brief vigils, and many of them stared at Juliet and whispered.

  Juliet didn’t listen. She stared at the dead woman, and thought of all the blood that had been shed, and dreaded what was still to come.

  You live in a charnel house. You’re all guilty and dripping red.

  10

  “YOU HAVE A PLAN TO hunt down the rest of the Catresou?” Runajo asked, once Juliet had gone.

  Lord Ineo gave her a look of weary patience. “You don’t need to pretend. I’m well aware of what your friend Sunjai must have told you.”

  Runajo’s heart thudded. But there was no reason to hide what she knew.

  “The sacrifice,” she said. “You’re really doing it?”

  “I’d rather prefer the city not to fall five days from now,” said Lord Ineo. “So yes. In three days, there will be a Great Offering the like of which this city has never seen.”

  Twenty lives, their blood running across the white stone dais in the grand court. The thought made Runajo feel sick, but what could she do? Lord Ineo would never listen to her if she said it was wrong. And if he did listen to her . . . everyone in Viyara would die. Because she had failed to find another way.

  “You’re not planning to tell the city how close we are to destruction, are you?” she said.

  He shook his head. “Of course not. The people are already near enough to panicking, especially in the Lower City. We’ll tell them the sacrifice protects them from the revenants, and they’ll be grateful.”

  Runajo nodded. “And once it’s done . . . then you’ll hunt down the Catresou?”

  She didn’t want them to fall into his hands. She knew what Juliet would think of her urging him forward. But the living dead girl was her last hope. The sacrifice surely would not protect the city for long; Runajo had to find a way to talk with Death if she wanted the city to live. If she wanted Juliet to live.

  “Oh, you’ve finally started to want justice for their crimes?” Lord Ineo half smiled. “Then rejoice. They’re going to supply the victims for the sacrifice.”

  Runajo stared at him. “But . . . they won’t volunteer,” she said numbly.

  The Great Offering that held up the walls of Viyara was meant to be a free offering. The three high houses had a duty to take turns providing victims, but those victims were supposed to be willing. True, it was an open secret that the Catresou sacrifice was
usually somebody the clan didn’t want, who had been told that “volunteering” was better than what life would become. But they at least followed the form of the law. The thought of anyone dragging out a prisoner in chains was . . . until now, it had been unthinkable.

  The gods had offered their blood freely, and just as freely, men must pour out theirs. This was the ancient, sacred law of Viyara. Even when Runajo had come to believe that the offering was wrong, she still trusted in that.

  Lord Ineo snorted. “No Catresou has ever been brave enough to volunteer,” he said. “It’s why they always sent a criminal to die. Now they’re all criminals.”

  Her heart was pounding. “Simply because they are your enemies—”

  “Our enemies.”

  Lord Ineo’s voice was soft, and the look he gave her was mild. But ice slid down the length of Runajo’s spine.

  She hadn’t come to Lord Ineo out of loyalty to her clan. She’d offered to serve him so that he would protect Juliet, when the Sisterhood had wanted to sacrifice her.

  Juliet stayed safe only so long as Lord Ineo stayed pleased.

  Runajo dropped her gaze and let her shoulders relax. “They attempted necromancy,” she said, in the same meek voice she’d used when humoring her dying parents. “But we never proved that they managed to raise even a single person.”

  “They attempted more than simple necromancy, though, didn’t they?” said Lord Ineo.

  The cold at the pit of her stomach got worse. Because it was true: the ceremony that the City Guard had interrupted at the Catresou sepulcher had been necromantic in nature, that was certain. But there had been no body or bones they were trying to raise. And while those who’d known the full plan had died that night or the next day—like Lord Catresou—there were still some left who had repeated confused rumors about opening the gates of death.

  “And a month later, the dead began to rise faster,” Lord Ineo went on. “I’d say it’s clear they succeeded in tampering with death. After last night, it’s clear that none of them will ever consent to obey our laws. Somebody must die, or else we all will; and I won’t ask good Mahyanai to sacrifice themselves so that Catresou necromancers can continue to live.”

  The world is ending, Runajo wanted to say. Why do you care if they defy you?

  But she already knew the answer, and it wasn’t just his pride. The stronger the Ruining grew, the greater the danger of revenants and chaos and the walls collapsing, the less he could afford the risks of conflict in the city.

  All her life, Runajo had argued and disagreed with everyone. Nobody had ever been able to persuade her.

  She couldn’t think of a single argument to use against Lord Ineo now.

  “Why are you telling me this?” she asked.

  “Because you’re the Juliet’s Guardian,” said Lord Ineo. “I’m sure the renegade Catresou will try to stop the sacrifice. I mean to have her guard them. You’re going to make sure that she succeeds at her duty.” His mouth slanted. “I’m not fool enough to believe she failed last night by accident.”

  Runajo’s body felt numb and dazed, but her mind was working perfectly and very fast.

  If she didn’t obey him, Juliet would die. Nobody else could protect them from the Sisterhood, and there was nowhere to run, because outside the city walls lay only death.

  If she found a way to stop him, everyone would die. There was no more calculating risks; the equations had become unbearably simple. They must make this offering, or the city would fall.

  She knew what Juliet would say: that it was better for them to die innocent than live as murderers. But Runajo had already become a murderer. Nobody in the city was innocent, because its very foundations were built on blood.

  And she couldn’t let Juliet die.

  Runajo looked up into his eyes. “I would be honored to serve my clan,” she said.

  The Sisters of Thorn said that there was one governing concept to the world: inkaad, a word that literally meant “appropriate payment.” It was the sacred mathematics, the holy law of bargain and exchange: life for life, price for price. It was how they justified killing someone every six months to maintain the spell-walls that kept the Ruining out of Viyara. The world had been created from the blood of the gods. It was now sustained by the blood of men.

  Runajo had never believed in the nine gods. She had stopped believing in inkaad when the Sisters had told her to sacrifice Juliet, when Runajo had looked into her eyes and realized that her life was infinitely precious, and there was no appropriate payment to be given in exchange for it.

  And if Juliet’s life was that precious, then so was everyone’s. Viyara and the Sisterhood were built on a murderous lie.

  In one heartbeat, Runajo had come to believe that.

  In the next, she’d become a murderer herself.

  To save Juliet from the Sisterhood, Runajo had handed her over to the Mahyanai. She’d bound her to avenge their blood and ordered her to obey Lord Ineo. And Lord Ineo had used her to slaughter and capture the Catresou.

  Now he was going to use her to kill the rest of them. And Runajo was going to help. Because for all her pride, she was no different from anyone else in the city. She wanted to live, and she wanted Juliet to live, and she would wade through blood to do it.

  Runajo thought about this all afternoon. She knew that she had to tell Juliet—Lord Ineo was going to make his proclamation the next morning, and Juliet deserved to hear it from Runajo first—but she couldn’t make herself say the words just yet. So she sat in the study and stared at a Catresou record of the ancient Juliets until her eyes ached and her vision swam.

  Finally, when the sun slanted low through the windows, she went to find Juliet. She had ordered Juliet not to reach out to her through the bond—after she had tried to destroy Runajo with it—but though she could no longer feel Juliet’s every emotion, she could still vaguely sense where the other girl was.

  It was this sense that she followed through doors and around corners, until she stepped out into a colonnaded hallway that ringed a courtyard paved in red tiles.

  Sunlight dazzled her eyes. Outside in the courtyard, metal flashed blindingly bright. Runajo blinked, and realized Juliet was holding a Mahyanai blade—long, single-edged, and slightly curved—while talking to a girl her own age. The girl had her own sword, and twisted it as they talked quietly.

  Suddenly Juliet whirled into motion, dancing through the cuts and slices of a Mahyanai fighting form with the same speed and grace she’d used fighting revenants in the Sunken Library. Then she stopped, caught her breath, and looked back at the girl.

  She was smiling.

  A cold ache wove through Runajo’s ribs. Juliet had never smiled at any of the Mahyanai before. She’d never been willing to forgive a single one of them for belonging to their clan before.

  It was only fair. The girl might be Mahyanai, but she hadn’t wronged Juliet the way Runajo had.

  She strode out into the courtyard. Her eyes ached in the bright light.

  “Juliet,” she said, and instantly Juliet stiffened, her face turning back into a mask.

  Runajo stopped a pace away. The girl was looking at her curiously, but she didn’t matter now.

  “Come with me,” she said, “now,” and instantly turned and strode away. Her skin crawled with the awareness she was being stared at, but it did not matter.

  Nothing mattered, except what she had to do.

  Juliet followed her into the cool shadows of the hallway. She said, “What are your orders?” and Runajo thought her heart was going to crack, because Juliet wasn’t speaking in the same dead, obedient voice she’d used for the past month. She sounded wary but . . . alive.

  Runajo turned to face her, but she stared at the wall behind her head as she started to speak.

  “The Sisterhood has decided we must act to save the walls. In three days, they’re going to offer twenty lives. Lord Ineo is going to use the Catresou prisoners for the sacrifice.”

  She heard Juliet’s stuttering
breath, but couldn’t bear to meet her eyes.

  “The adults,” she added. “Not the children.”

  Silence. Runajo finally dared a look, and for the first time in weeks saw actual shock on Juliet’s face.

  “He can’t—”

  “You know he can.”

  Juliet closed her mouth, pressed her lips into a tight line. Her hands tightened into fists. Then she said, her voice low and controlled, “You could stop this. If you told someone outside this clan, he could be stopped. No Viyaran would accept it. Even by their laws, it’s obscene.”

  Runajo had thought this herself. But only for a moment.

  “Who,” she asked bitterly, “in this entire city, would want to save the Catresou? Who isn’t terrified of the dead rising faster? People will hate that he’s offering prisoners, but they won’t hate it enough until we run out of Catresou and have to start killing someone else.”

  “So you will help him,” said Juliet.

  “Yes,” said Runajo. “And you will stand guard on the sacrifices, to stop any fugitive Catresou from interfering.”

  They both knew that wasn’t the real reason. Lord Ineo wanted a show of power, of how totally he had destroyed his enemies. He was going to get it.

  “This won’t just destroy my people,” Juliet burst out, suddenly passionate. “Don’t you care what this will do to the Mahyanai? Do you want your clan to be murderers?”

  “The walls are going to fall in five days,” Runajo said bluntly. “The Sisters have worked the equations. There is no other way to save us. If your people don’t die, somebody must, or we all will.”

  Juliet stared at her. And then she said in the dead, flat tones that had become so familiar, “Do you have any other orders?”

  “No,” said Runajo. “You can go.”

  This much of inkaad was true, in this way the Sisters of Thorn were right: everything was bought in blood. Nothing was preserved, except that something else was destroyed.

  Runajo had decided to save both Juliet and Viyara, and now she was drenched in blood. Her whole clan was guilty was well. It wasn’t right. But it was the only way there was.