Bright Smoke, Cold Fire

  And there was a knife pressing at his throat. Again.

  “Do I need to teach you a lesson?” the man growled.

  “That doesn’t look friendly,” someone called out from above.

  The knife left Paris’s throat. He twisted his head to look up.

  Quite casually, as if it were nothing, a boy Paris’s age balanced on one of the ledges of the building above them, one hand hooked on a windowsill. The next moment, he had leaped to the ground below, as light as a cat.

  “You’d better let him go,” the boy said pleasantly, drawing two sticks painted in a swirling pattern of blue and black. They were a little longer than his forearms, and not half as wide; they didn’t look like they would be of much use against the two men, who were both larger than him.

  “Or we could skip to the part where I thrash you,” the boy added.

  The man who wasn’t holding Paris gave a growl, and lunged at him.

  The boy moved so fast Paris could barely see, but he could certainly hear the sharp crack as one of the sticks bounced off the man’s head, followed by two thuds as they slammed into his middle.

  Paris felt the pressure on his back lift as the man holding him wavered; with a sudden burst of energy, he wrenched himself to the side. A moment later the new boy was bearing down on the man. But he didn’t try to fight; he grabbed his whimpering friend by the arm and hauled him into one of the nearby buildings.

  “Sloppy,” said the boy, watching them go. “They could have used you for a hostage against me, if they’d been thinking.” He looked at Paris. “You all right?”

  “I—” said Paris, and couldn’t get any more words out. He realized he was trembling and gasping for breath.

  “Lean against the wall,” the boy advised. “Your first fight?”

  Paris nodded. He knew he looked pathetic, but for once, he wasn’t embarrassed; he was still too shaken. And the boy didn’t seem interested in sneering at him. He was almost the same height as Paris; he had dark-brown skin and a head full of tiny black braids. He wore a black tunic and coat with a bright-blue kerchief around his neck, and blue beads dangled from his braids.

  “Well, don’t worry,” said the boy. “They’re just fetching the rest of their gang. From their headquarters in there.” He jerked his head at the dingy building they had disappeared into.

  “Gang?” Paris asked faintly. “Shouldn’t we run?”

  “You can,” said the boy cheerfully, “but if you do, I can’t protect you. I’ve been hunting them all day; I’m not giving up this chance.” His voice suddenly swelled to a shout. “Are you here yet, you filthy cowards?”

  As if in answer, the door swung open. Out came the men who had tried to rob him, followed by at least ten others, all wearing yellow kerchiefs, including one really large and angry-looking man carrying a huge cudgel.

  “Who’s the boy who thinks he can mess with my men?” he demanded.

  “Nobody,” said the boy. “Just the King of Cats.”

  The words made the gang draw up short; obviously the title meant something to them, though Paris had never heard it before.

  “It’s a very simple situation,” the boy went on. “You can join the Rooks and follow my orders without question. Or you can immediately decide that your territory starts east of here. Screaming as you run is optional.”

  Paris suspected that it would be a good time for him to scream and run, but the situation had a sort of awful fascination. The boy was definitely, absolutely mad, and they were both going to be pounded to death, and he couldn’t look away.

  “Or you can fight me over it,” said the boy. “Care to wager your gang on a duel?”

  The leader hesitated a moment; then he sneered, “So long as you fight fair.”

  “Nobody gets anything but what he earns from me,” the boy said pleasantly as he strode forward. He bowed like a duelist; the leader of the gang grunted. Then the boy’s sticks whirled into motion, tracing out an elaborate flourish of defense around him. It looked exquisite, and skillful, and not terribly useful, and Paris was about to give up and run while he could, when in one swift motion the boy tossed his sticks up in the air and kicked the leader of the gang in the neck.

  He collapsed. The boy caught his sticks out of the air and said, “Anyone else?”

  There was a moment of strained, incredulous silence.

  “I should warn you that the rest of my crew is here now, so you’ll need to fight them as well,” the boy went on. Paris looked back, and coming up the alley behind them was another group. They were all wearing bright-blue kerchiefs, and most of them were openly carrying short swords, in blatant violation of the law.

  Not that anyone in the alleyway except for Paris seemed to care about the law.

  The men from the other gang hesitated; then four of them grabbed their leader and fled. The others reluctantly tore off their kerchiefs and dropped to their knees.

  One by one, the boy went to each of them, hauling them to their feet and clapping them on the shoulder. “Welcome to the Rooks,” he said. When he was finished, he called out to the rest of his gang, “Take them inside and start explaining things to them.”

  As they streamed past, he turned to Paris and said, “Let me guess. This is your first trip to the Lower City.”

  “Yes,” said Paris. And this boy clearly led one of the gangs that infested it.

  “Good.” The boy’s mouth was tilted up slightly, but his dark eyes were cool. “Run home and don’t come back. You aren’t going to survive around here.”

  Paris felt his spine straighten. “I’m not dead yet,” he said.

  “Because I helped you,” said the boy. “But I’m not planning to follow you around the city. And I’d rather not trip over your dead body.”

  “Who are you?” Paris demanded.

  The boy grinned, all white teeth and sudden glee. “Didn’t you hear? I’m the King of Cats.”

  “Stop being so mysterious, Vai,” one of his own men called over his shoulder.

  “Also known as Vai the Bloody, Vai the Terrible, Vai the Bloody Terrible, and more importantly, Vai dalr-Ahodin, captain of the Rooks.”

  “And King of Cats,” said Paris, who still had no idea what that meant. The Rooks were clearly Vai’s gang of blue-kerchiefed men; Paris would think that there was just another gang called Cats, but everyone seemed to think the title was even more important somehow.

  “Yes,” said Vai, “and I really did mean what I said. Get home or learn to survive.”

  “I didn’t come here for fun,” Paris said, and then a thought struck him. Some of the gangs in the Lower City were really powerful; if Tybalt had been organizing something for Lord Catresou down here, he had probably met with at least a few of them.

  “Have you ever met Tybalt Catresou?” he asked.

  “Met him, defeated him, and why do you ask?” said Vai. He was still smiling, but there was a sudden edge of menace to his voice.

  “I . . .” Paris trailed off, realizing that he hadn’t bothered to plan out how he was going to ask people questions about Tybalt without revealing what was going on.

  The next moment Vai had shoved him against the nearest wall, and it didn’t matter that they were of a height. Paris could feel how strong he was, and he knew which one of them would win in a fight.

  “You seem pretty naive, so I’m going to go easy on you,” said Vai, his voice pleasant but deadly. “Down here, this is my city. Catresou who want to live had better stay out.”

  Then he shoved Paris away and strode after the rest of his gang.

  Paris knew he should follow him. Vai had fought Tybalt and hated him, and that meant he probably knew something about him. But Paris’s feet didn’t care; in a moment he was limping back the way he had come as fast as he could.

  Vai was clearly not going to talk to him. If he died in an alley, he would never get justice for Juliet. Paris told himself that, but he knew the simple truth was that he was afraid.

  Paris had trudged across th
e city and nearly died, and all he had to show for it were scrapes and bruises, and a reminder of his own cowardice. Short of Lord Catresou appearing on the street, he wasn’t sure how things could get worse.

  And then he heard Romeo’s voice in his head, calling, Paris?

  Paris nearly turned and fled in the opposite direction. There were only two problems. One was that he didn’t know where Romeo was.

  The other was that he felt a horrifying need to walk straight toward him.

  Where are you? Romeo asked.

  Paris slipped back out of the alley onto the main street. He couldn’t remember its name, so he tried to send Romeo an image of the spot.

  You went there?

  Paris felt his face heating. I was trying to find someone who had spoken to Tybalt! I didn’t know where else to go because you wouldn’t help! And what is it to you, anyway? I thought you were planning to just lie on the floor and weep while cursing our clan.

  For that matter, why did Paris care what Romeo thought? Of all the people he’d disappointed in his life, surely the Mahyanai who got Juliet killed was the least important.

  I know, said Romeo, and there was something strangely quiet in his voice. I’m sorry. I was angry, but I should not have pretended that you didn’t care about Juliet.

  That was . . . the last thing Paris had expected to hear.

  I’m nearly there, said Romeo, and now Paris could feel his presence approaching: a faint, directional warmth like the winter sun.

  A minute later, he heard steps and turned to see Romeo. For a moment they stared at each other.

  Then Romeo squared his shoulders. “I’m prepared to help you,” he said. “Please come back.”

  “Why?” he asked. “I thought you hated the Catresou.” He could still hear Vai’s voice, telling him to stay out.

  “You were right,” said Romeo. “She’d have no use for me, if she saw me being such a coward. And she loved her clan. She would want me to help them.”

  “So just for that, you’re going to help me? What happened to weeping forever?” Paris knew he shouldn’t be trying to drive Romeo away, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.

  “For Juliet,” said Romeo, “I would do anything. Wouldn’t you?”

  He sounded naive and sentimental and stupid and . . . completely in earnest. And he was right: Paris would do anything to make up for failing Juliet.

  He would even work with a Mahyanai.

  Paris shouldn’t be feeling this kind of desperate relief at being helped by an enemy. But he had no one else.

  “Let’s go back,” he said.

  14

  THEY BURNED ATSAYA’S BODY THE next morning. Like every other Sister who died, she was not sent to the great furnaces where all the other dead of Viyara burned; rather, she went to the sacred furnace reserved for Sisters and the royal family. It was in a huge round room whose white walls and floors were inlaid with a dizzying pattern of black stone stripes. At the center was a great bowl of the same black stone, ribbed with pale metal; here Atsaya—washed and anointed and naked—was laid to rest. At a gesture from the High Priestess, the metal ribs of the bowl grew, writhed, and then folded together like the legs of a dying beetle. When they had tightened themselves into a lid, the fire leaped up to devour the body.

  All four hundred fifty-eight of the Sisters were present, and together they sang to Atsaya. Runajo didn’t even try to join in. Her eyes were swollen; her head felt too heavy and too light at the same time. She hadn’t slept after finding the body. Miryo had questioned her, and then dragged her away to be questioned again by some of the other senior Sisters, and then she’d had to wait for the High Priestess to speak with her. And then the bells were ringing, calling for the Sisters to wake.

  She wasn’t sure she could have slept, anyway.

  Atsaya was dead. Atsaya had been murdered.

  And the murderer was in the Cloister.

  Juliet couldn’t have done it. Runajo had specifically ordered her not to kill any of the Sisters, and even if she had found a way around the order, she was locked in a room that only Runajo could open.

  But that meant one of the Sisters must have done it. Nobody else was allowed past the outer visiting rooms; it was why they held the Great Offering outside in the grand court.

  A Sister had cut Atsaya’s throat and dribbled her blood into a spiral. That wasn’t just murder; that was a ceremony. Magic. Somebody in the Cloister wanted a terrible amount of power—enough to feed the city walls for half a year—and she was willing to kill for it.

  Runajo had thought she had already faced death. Her father. Her mother. The top of the tower. The Great Offering. But those deaths had been, if not arranged, then known in advance. They had been nothing like this.

  She had always thought she had a heart of stone, but maybe it had only been ice, now melted to water. Because when she thought of the murderer lurking in the Cloister, ready to strike again at any moment—when she thought of facing the revenants, of them ripping her throat open with their bare fingers—

  She couldn’t bear it.

  For the first time, Runajo wondered if she was too much of a coward to accomplish her plans. But if she couldn’t . . . then there was no point to anything she had done.

  The song ended. The High Priestess spoke into the silence, her voice clear and ringing: “For love of the gods and the city, Atsaya offered her own life. Let us remember her, for we live in her death.”

  Then she began to chant the prayer for someone who has died in sacrifice, buying the city’s life with her own blood.

  In the hours before dawn the High Priestess had said, You are distraught. Atsaya died by her own hand.

  The memory burned: not that the High Priestess had lied to her, but that for a moment Runajo had thought she wasn’t lying. She had actually tried to convince her.

  Did you see the body? she had demanded. How could she have done that?

  There is much about sacrifice that you don’t understand, the High Priestess had said calmly. If you repeat these wild ideas to anyone else, you will be punished.

  And that was when Runajo knew her for a liar, and knew she should not have protested. Better to have held her tongue and let the High Priestess think she was fooled. Now she was being watched, to make sure she didn’t try to tell anyone.

  Runajo would obey. She could not afford to be punished now. But she fumed in silence as the High Priestess continued with her lying prayers. Much that she didn’t understand? She understood quite well that Atsaya could not have spread her blood in a spiral after cutting her own throat.

  The High Priestess’s prayer ended. As one, the Sisters all prostrated themselves in silence.

  Runajo pressed her forehead to the cold floor. There was no sound except the muffled crackle of the fire. She was surrounded by women who were supposed to be as sisters to her, and she was all alone.

  She was running out of time.

  That was all Runajo could think, all day long. Somebody in the Cloister was murdering to gain magical power, and the High Priestess was doing absolutely nothing to protect the rest of them. That meant everyone was in danger, especially Runajo, since she had found the body. Somebody would gossip. And then whoever killed Atsaya would have reason to want Runajo gone.

  Runajo didn’t have a hope of catching the murderer first. So it didn’t matter how much of a coward she was, or how unlikely she was to survive the Sunken Library. She had to go now, while she was still breathing. Even if the thought made her hands go numb with terror.

  But what was she to do with Juliet? It was no use leaving a note in her room, telling the Sisterhood to get Juliet out of her prison if Runajo didn’t come back. Since Runajo’s blood had made the room, only Runajo’s hands could open it.

  She didn’t want to be a murderer. But that was what she would be if she left Juliet locked in the room while she herself perished in the Sunken Library.

  “What is it?” asked Juliet that evening. “Working yourself up to send me out fo
r my first kill?” She threw out the words flippantly, as if they were nothing to her, but she didn’t meet Runajo’s eyes.

  “No,” said Runajo, and remembered a throat torn open. She swallowed convulsively.

  “Then what happened?” asked Juliet.

  Runajo shrugged, trying to look like she didn’t care. “One of the Sisters is dead.”

  Juliet shrugged. “So?”

  “She was murdered. I know, because I found the body.” Runajo’s fingers twisted together and clenched.

  “So?” said Juliet again, loud and irreverent and drowning out the memories. “Aren’t you all supposed to live as if already dead? What does it matter to you?”

  Runajo looked back at her. “I didn’t know your people ever bothered to learn how we live.”

  “‘What you would destroy, first love,’” said Juliet, in a prim voice that made it clear she was quoting something.

  “Is that why you married Romeo?” asked Runajo.

  She’d meant the words to sting, but for a moment Juliet’s expression was nothing but openmouthed pain, as if she were being gutted.

  Runajo sighed. “Atsaya was murdered. Her throat was cut from ear to ear. But the High Priestess told everyone this morning that the gods inspired her to sacrifice herself. It’s not right. And people are going to die for it, because the murderer is still at large. Is it so very strange to you, that I might care?”

  “Yes,” said Juliet. “What is one more death to you?”

  “Well, you have only your ignorance to blame for that,” said Runajo. “And I know you were trained to kill, so you should stop pretending we are somehow more heartless.”

  “I’m the sword of the Catresou,” said Juliet. “I was born to kill.”

  “Anyone Lord Catresou tells you to,” said Runajo. “I know.”

  “No,” said Juliet. “Anyone that justice tells me to. That’s what makes me different from you.”

  And then Runajo remembered the enchantments that the Catresou placed on the Juliet.