Bright Smoke, Cold Fire

  “We’ll just have to wait for her,” said Paris. “She came here once. She’ll come again.” He looked around the square. “We’d better sit apart, so that we can see more at once.”

  It was a sound plan, but when Paris settled into his corner alone, he was uncomfortably aware of what had happened last time he’d gone off without Romeo; and while the other boy was close, Paris knew quite well how quickly it was possible to be dragged into danger.

  He wished that, like Romeo, he had brought his sword to the sepulcher. He didn’t like being defenseless.

  The morning wore on. And then the afternoon, and so far the only real danger had been from boredom. Romeo must have been feeling the same, because he started reciting poetry to himself—not out loud, but saying it in his head, and Paris couldn’t help hearing it.

  Pale flowers like snow have covered the ground, said Romeo in Mahyanai, and waited.

  It was a very pointed silence. He didn’t need a word or a look to let Paris know that he was waiting for a response.

  You know what comes next, said Romeo.

  No, I don’t, said Paris.

  Except he did. He could hear the next line in the back of his mind: The year has turned to spring, but the ground is still cold. If he just opened his mouth, the words would flow out in perfect, unaccented Mahyanai.

  Yes, you do, said Romeo, sounding gleeful. Because even though Paris had trained for years, somehow Romeo was able to slip past his walls and speak in his head.

  Is there a point to this? Paris demanded.

  To pass the time, said Romeo. Do you Catresou never play at turning phrases?

  I have no idea what that means, said Paris, craning his neck to examine a new clump of people forcing their way into the marketplace.

  It’s a game. One of us says a line from a poem, the other says the next. Back and forth.

  Sounds like a game for girls, said Paris.

  Juliet liked it, Romeo said agreeably.

  Juliet liked you, said Paris. I don’t.

  The next moment, someone stumbled into him. “Sorry!” Paris said without thinking, catching at the person’s shoulders.

  It was a girl his own age. She was quite pretty, with a heart-shaped face, a bronzed complexion, and sleek black hair.

  “Thank you,” she said breathlessly, sliding out of his hands.

  And then he felt Romeo’s shock as he said, That’s her. That’s the one.

  16

  EVERY EVENING, THE SISTERS ALL dined together. Around the top of the great hall ran a gallery full of storage cupboards. It was the perfect place for Juliet to hide and watch them. All Runajo had to do was go to dinner with the rest, then announce that she felt ill once the food was served. As soon as she was into a corridor with an empty wall, she pressed her hands to the smooth white surface and pulled open the door to the room she had crafted for Juliet. Then the two of them slipped up the stairs into the gallery.

  “Can you see them all?” Runajo whispered. They were in one of the most shadowed corners of the gallery, so they shouldn’t be visible from the floor, but echoes carried.

  Juliet was silent.

  Runajo touched her shoulder. “Is one of them guilty?”

  Still silence. Every moment was another risk.

  “Tell me and do not lie.”

  “Her,” Juliet said promptly, pointing at the High Priestess. “And her.” She pointed at Sunjai. “And her, and her, and you.” She turned on Runajo with a terrible, teeth-bared smile. “You live in a charnel house, and you’re all guilty and dripping red.”

  Runajo felt the slow burn of resentment start. “You said you would help,” she said.

  “I did,” said Juliet. “I can’t see any difference between them.”

  “I told you not to lie!”

  Juliet huffed out a breath. She said, “Look again.”

  Without thinking, Runajo looked down into the hall.

  Blood.

  Everywhere below, blood.

  She didn’t exactly see it. She could look at every individual Sister, at every plate and cup, and see only the colors that they should be, not red. And yet the whole room seemed to be dripping crimson, and every Sister was drenched. Sunjai threw her head back to laugh, and spattered the floor with red; Inyaan hunched in on herself, crimson lines dribbling between her eyes.

  Runajo could smell it. She could practically taste it in the air, and it felt like being drenched in all the blood she had ever seen spilled: Atsaya’s sliced throat. The sacrifices at the Great Offering. The tumors on her father’s body, split open and bleeding and foul.

  She realized that her breath was coming in desperate, sobbing gasps.

  I thought the bond had failed, said Juliet, and her voice wasn’t in Runajo’s ears but echoing in her head, cold and calm and full of disdain. But you simply don’t know how to use it. You were blocking me without even knowing it. But this is what it means to be the Juliet’s Guardian. You hear what I think. You feel what I feel. You see every guilt that I see.

  Runajo pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to get control over herself. This wasn’t possible. She had heard rumors, yes, that Juliets and their Guardians could speak mind to mind, but there was no such magic known to the Sisters, so she had always assumed—

  Not rumors, said Juliet. Truth.

  She could feel Juliet’s emotions: fury and grief and sheer, burning determination. They were all around her, washing over her skin, sliding down her throat and choking her. There was no escape.

  You can feel it now, said Juliet. You know what we have to do.

  She did, and she didn’t know how Juliet wasn’t already mad. It was like a hot wind, swirling around and around her, whispering in her ears: Kill the guilty. Kill them. Kill.

  Give me the order, said Juliet, and I will kill them all in minutes, and then we can surrender ourselves to the Catresou. They will use us for justice.

  It wasn’t the vision of blood or the whispering need for vengeance that nearly made Runajo say yes. It was the simple, absolute certainly in Juliet’s voice as she said the word justice: as if it were holy, and as if it were hers. Runajo felt like she was slipping, sliding, sinking into and drowning in that fathomless conviction.

  Get out of my mind, said Runajo. She meant it as a command, but it was more like a plea.

  I can’t, said Juliet, ruthless and strong as Runajo had always wanted to be. We can never escape each other.

  Runajo couldn’t lose herself like this.

  She refused.

  Grimly, she made herself look Juliet in the eyes and say, Then go back to the way you were this morning.

  Instantly the pressure was gone, and Runajo staggered with sudden relief. She could still feel Juliet’s emotions, but they were something separate from her, nearby but not overpowering.

  Go sit by the door to the gallery, she said. Don’t talk to me until I come near you.

  Without another word, Juliet walked around the corner of the gallery to the door. Runajo sat down with a thump and gasped for breath. She felt ragged and hollow and slightly sick.

  Not her mother nor father, not Romeo nor the rest of her family, not even the entire Sisterhood of Thorn had ever been able to change her mind about anything. They spoke and she rendered judgment—in her head, if not out loud—and acted accordingly. Her mind was a fortress that no one had ever breached.

  Until Juliet walked in without even a battle. For a moment Runajo had been—she had nearly—

  She commanded you to feel as she did, and you felt. She enslaved you, as you enslaved her.

  The thought was cold, and it was comforting, because she knew this was her own self speaking: this was the ruthless analysis that had brought her to the Sisterhood, that had brought her to the vigil. That did not fear anything, not death or even the truth.

  She is a warrior and there is war between you, and she will always take whatever advantage she can.

  Maybe she was listening right now.

  Let her listen. Runajo was
no warrior, but she had never been defeated, and she was not about to hand the keys of her soul to a bloodthirsty Catresou who thought mass murder was justice.

  I will be stronger than her, thought Runajo. I have always been stronger than her.

  And now, as her heartbeat slowed, she could finally grin as she admitted to herself: that had been a ruthlessly determined attempt. She could almost like Juliet for it.

  But she didn’t intend to die for her, so it was time to get her hidden again before anyone found them. Runajo got to her feet, took a breath, and went to Juliet.

  The other girl sat formally by the door, her pale face as much a mask as the gold and silver contraptions that Runajo had seen the Catresou wearing. Her feelings were muted; Runajo could still sense that they were there—she wondered if their earlier communion had destroyed some fundamental separation between them, so that neither could ever fully shut out the other again.

  Juliet looked at her, but did not move or speak.

  Stand, Runajo told her. Come with me.

  Juliet stood and followed. There was a terrible . . . containment to her motions, as if she were concealing a storm, but Runajo wasn’t sure what it could be. Another plan to rend her mind open?

  Perhaps it was time to test this new bond.

  Once the door to the gallery had been eased shut behind them, Runajo turned to Juliet and pressed two fingertips to her neck. She felt warm skin, and the muscles shifting as Juliet swallowed.

  She felt what Juliet felt.

  There was grief and anger, but also fear. Enormous, all-encompassing fear that had probably been there all along, but that Runajo had been too dazed to feel.

  She remembered the vision Juliet had given her of the blood-spattered hall. For the first time, she wondered what it would really mean to be so convinced of the Catresou beliefs, and yet be trapped among the Sisterhood.

  Juliet had died, and then wakened to a world of monsters, and found herself enslaved to one of them.

  “Satisfied?” asked Juliet, meeting her eyes.

  Runajo couldn’t tell if she knew what Runajo had discovered or not.

  “There are no secrets between us,” said Juliet. “Very well, I am afraid. What is that to you?”

  She didn’t sound angry now, just . . . weary.

  “I’m surprised you thought slaughtering the entire Sisterhood was a good idea,” said Runajo. “Satisfying, I’m sure, but aren’t you supposed to live for duty?”

  “You are all abominations against justice,” said Juliet. “It is my duty to kill you.”

  And how had Runajo missed the desperation in those words before? Juliet had to kill them all because that was the only part of herself that she had left.

  “What about your duty to the Catresou?” asked Runajo. “If you, their holy Juliet, were to slaughter the Sisterhood, nobody would ever believe your own family hadn’t ordered it. You would all die by the knife before the next sunset, and then all the justice in the world would not matter to them. Not to mention that without the Sisterhood, the walls would fail and the Ruining would overtake the city and not a soul would be left alive.”

  Juliet leaned her head back against the wall. “We should never have accepted that bargain,” she said.

  “And died outside the walls of Viyara? That’s a harsh fate to wish on your own people.”

  “I wish we had undefiled honor,” said Juliet, and thought—not at Runajo, but too loud to miss—I wish that I did too.

  “What defiled you?” asked Runajo. “That you wedded Romeo or that you bedded him?”

  Juliet flushed, but she still met Runajo’s eyes as she said, “That I thought I should be more than the sword of the Catresou. It is a lesson I will not soon forget.”

  It was not a threat so much as a promise.

  “Well, for now you’re my sword,” said Runajo. “I can’t change that.”

  “You don’t have to kill them,” said Juliet. “Take us out of here, submit to the Catresou—”

  “No,” said Runajo. “Submit myself to superstitious fools, who wish they were necromancers, who cannot find the courage to accept death or break the law? I’d rather die.”

  Juliet showed her teeth. “I have died. It was not helpful. And none of us wish to be necromancers.”

  “And yet you cannot stop devising spells you hope to use after death,” said Runajo. “Do you truly think—”

  A hand landed on her shoulder. Someone had found them. Runajo’s heart thudded as she whirled.

  And found herself face-to-face with a nightmare.

  It was not a Sister. It was not a revenant. It had never even once been human.

  Two arms, two legs, one head: it had the accoutrements of being human. But the skin was chalk white, stretched taut over the bones of a face a little too long and narrow. A web of white threads covered the eye sockets, while a single new eye, yellow and baleful, had burst open in the center of the forehead. Instead of lips, it had a polished gray beak. Small, dark feathers grew along the arms, the neck, the cheekbones. Every finger was tipped with a long, slender claw.

  It was a reaper.

  Revenants were the dead that had inevitably risen again, dragged into a parody of life by the Ruining. They were terrible, but they were known. They were history and current fact.

  Reapers were a legend. They were practically myth: tale after tale said they were the children of Death herself, spawned when she made love to the uttermost shadows. Runajo didn’t believe that—not even all the Sisters did—but one thing was certain: reapers had never been human. They did not rise from graves; they formed themselves out of the shadows in places overrun with revenants—outside the walls of Viyara, or down in the Sunken Library. Not here in the very heart of the Sisters’ sanctuary.

  Clearly the theory needs adjustment, thought Runajo, unable to breathe, unable to move, unable even to fear.

  Then Juliet knocked her to the side. Runajo slammed into the wall, and for an instant she was dazed with the pain and sudden movement.

  Then she realized she was on the ground, that the feeling like icy spikes was fear, that she might be about to die. She staggered back to her feet to see Juliet fighting the reaper.

  Gone was the stillness, the weariness, the expressionless face. Juliet fought like she was dancing, ducking and whirling and slamming kicks home, and she was smiling in pure delight as she danced.

  Runajo knew the delight was pure because she could feel it, and it was the same absolute satisfaction that she felt when she helped to weave the city’s walls.

  The reaper grabbed Juliet by the shoulder and lifted her off the ground. Runajo felt an echo of the pain as claws sliced into skin and muscle, but it didn’t seem to affect Juliet. She gripped its wrist to brace herself and kicked the reaper in its one working eye. The creature screamed; Juliet kicked it twice more, then wrenched herself free as it staggered. An instant later she had seized its head; there was a crack as she snapped the neck, and then an awful tearing sound as she kept wrenching, and the head came off. Dark gray blood spurted everywhere.

  Runajo turned away suddenly, gasping for breath. She wished she hadn’t seen that. Heard that. It was nothing like the dead body she had found last night—it didn’t smell like blood, it smelled like old water and leaves rotting in the gutter—but the pattern of the droplets was the same, as they splattered dark across Juliet’s face.

  Hands gripped her shoulders, and she flinched.

  “It’s all right,” said Juliet. “Breathe. It’s dead.”

  Runajo sucked in a breath, then shoved Juliet’s hands away. It didn’t matter that she was shaking all over; she had a situation to evaluate.

  She forced herself to turn and look at the twisted body, the head lying next to it, unattached. Ignore the nausea; focus on the situation.

  Juliet had killed a reaper.

  Runajo had heard stories, read histories of how terrible they were, how they had harried the refugee caravans as they fled toward Viyara. Revenants killed from hunger
; they would eat one victim before moving on to the next. Reapers did not eat, only destroy; it was said they had torn apart half the Mahyanai before they made it to safety.

  That was why people called them the children of Death: because they had no desire but to make the whole world dead.

  And Juliet had killed one with her bare hands.

  “Now you know how my people survived,” said Juliet, “and in somewhat better numbers. We only lost one in four.”

  “Are you always going to know what I think?” Runajo demanded.

  “Only until you learn to put your shield back together,” said Juliet. “You really are a terrible Guardian.”

  But for once there was no bitterness in the words.

  The reaper shivered. Runajo bolted to her feet, heart pounding, but it didn’t try to stand; it writhed, like a burning piece of paper, and then it crumbled into ash and then even the ash was gone. They were alone in an immaculate hallway.

  Runajo looked at Juliet. The blood splattered on her face was flaking away, turning to dust and disappearing.

  As if nothing had ever happened.

  “I suppose that means it’s no good telling anyone,” said Runajo.

  “Don’t you have other reasons to keep me secret?” said Juliet.

  Runajo waved a hand. “If they needed to hear about this, I would tell them and take the consequences. But they’ll never believe me without proof, so I might as well save my death for another occasion.”

  “Did it kill the Sister?” asked Juliet.

  Runajo wanted to say yes. It would be neat and nice and comforting if they had just dispatched the killer. But reapers killed their prey as fast as they could and kept on killing. They didn’t stop at one victim, and they wouldn’t ritually bleed their victims like a sacrifice.

  “Yes, that’s definitely the work of a Sister,” said Juliet.

  “I do not like it when you do that,” said Runajo.