“You lead her well, Jadorr’a,” she said. “You’ve only taken one wrong turn so far. You’ll arrive at the maze’s center soon.”
Naji gave her this annoyed stare, and I knew, suddenly and without explanation, that his magic showed him the way through the maze, and he hadn’t taken a wrong turn at all.
“Girl-human,” she said to me. “I am glad to see you have not died.”
“Yeah, me too.”
The manticore looked different now that she was home. Her mane shone like copper, and her coat was smooth and silky. Her eyes were ringed in red powder that made her look feral and haunted all at the same time.
“The servant-humans have promised you many delicious items for the feast,” she said. “Fruit and fish and honey.” She wrinkled her nose when she spoke.
“My father is most grateful that you have returned me,” she went on. “Even though you could not bring us the Jadorr’a uncursed–”
Naji sighed.
“Still, he would like to meet with you, to thank you personally, and to offer you a boon.”
“She isn’t well enough,” Naji said.
The manticore looked at me with concern. “But you are walking through our gardens!”
“A walk through the gardens isn’t quite the same thing as a meeting with the pride leader.” Naji stepped in front of me like he was protecting me, even though I wasn’t in danger from the manticore.
She didn’t seem to notice, though, just tossed back her mane and pawed at the ground. “At the feast, then. He is anxious to meet with you.”
“At the feast.” I nodded. “Looking forward to it.” I pushed Naji aside. He stayed close, though. He’d been staying close a lot lately. Closer even than when we’d been stranded on the Isles of the Sky and had to stay close cause we were the only two humans around other than Eirnin.
“The feast!” the manticore cried, chiming with delight.
The night of the feast, Marjani and Naji and me all walked from the servants’ quarters to the garden together, along with the braver crewmen – including Jeric yi Niru, who Marjani didn’t want leaving on the newly repaired boat alone. The manticores’ servants brought us clean clothes, soft cotton robes dyed the color of pomegranates and saffron, and they gave us steam-baths and lined our eyes with red powder, the way the manticores did.
Naji had his face wrapped up in a scarf.
I wondered if he really thought the manticores cared about his scars.
The feast was in the garden, with long low tables set up beneath the fruit trees. We sat down in the grass, lining up on one side of the table, and waited.
“The pride will join you soon,” said one of the servants, who tilted her head when she spoke and never looked any of us in the eye.
The sun was just starting to set, and the light in the garden was purple and gold and turned everything into shadow. A trio of servants began to strum harps and sing in a language I didn’t recognize, and soft pale magic-cast lanterns blinked on one by one up among the trees.
“Why’re they making us wait?” I asked Marjani.
Marjani shook her head. “I don’t trust manticores.”
“They won’t do anything,” Naji said. He leaned forward on the table, drumming his fingers against the wood. “As many deals as Ananna has made with Ongraygeeomryn, there’s no way they’d risk killing her now.”
“What? Why?”
“Their elaborate system of boons and favors.” Naji looked at me. “You’re lucky,” he said.
I knew he wanted to say more, but a loud, reverberating trumpet cut through the thick air.
All the servants scrambled to line up behind us.
The music twinkled on in the background.
The manticores marched into the garden.
It was the entire pride, I guess, cause there were about fifteen manticores in all. They walked one after another in a long procession. Ongraygeeomryn came in toward the end, flanked by an older lady-manticore and man-manticore. They sat at the center of the table, right across from me.
The man-manticore reared back his head and trumpeted, and this was the loudest trumpet I’d ever heard. It seemed to echo out for miles.
The music stopped playing.
“Girl-human,” he said, turning his golden eyes to me. “Do you have a name?”
The silence in the garden was so thick I thought I might choke on it. All the manticores stared at me expectantly.
“Yes,” I said. “Your Grace.”
“Don’t call me that. I am not a human king.” He leaned forward, sniffed the air. “What is your name?”
I glanced at Naji. Should you tell a manticore your name or not? He must’ve known what I was thinking, cause he kinda nodded at me like it was alright.
“Ananna of the Nadir.”
Ongraygeeomryn smiled at me.
“Ananna,” the manticore leader said. “I will gift you a boon in exchange for rescuing my daughter from the foul Wizard Eirnin.”
The other manticores trumpeted and flapped their wings and furled and unfurled their tails. I saw Marjani shrink down out of the corner of my eye, but nobody let loose any spines.
“You will receive the boon tonight, after the feast.” He nodded at me. “It is rude to divulge the nature of the boon in public, but Ongraygeeomryn told me what you would like most in the world, and I am confident in her judgment.”
That got my suspicions up a bit, cause much as I liked the manticore I wasn’t convinced she knew what I wanted most in the world. Mostly cause I didn’t know what I wanted most in the world. I used to think it was being a pirate captain, but I wasn’t so sure of that anymore.
Still, I knew better than to say something. When it comes to dealing with people who think of themselves as important, it’s usually best to keep your mouth shut.
“You will find the boon most satisfying,” she told me. “I am certain of it.”
I nodded and plastered on a smile that I hoped came across as polite.
“Servant-humans!” bellowed the manticore leader. “Bring us food!”
The servants disappeared into the gardens and then reappeared with heavy stone platters laden with fruits and little savory pies and bottles of Empire wine. They set them down first, and I could see all the manticores trying to act like it didn’t turn their stomachs.
Then the servants brought out more stone platters covered with slabs of raw meat, pink and glistening in the candlelight. I knew it wasn’t sheep.
“We thought this would be more comfortable for you,” Ongraygeeomryn said to me, nodding her head at the piles of meat.
“Yes,” said her father. “Normally we catch them alive.”
Marjani and I glanced at each other.
“We appreciate your thoughtfulness,” Marjani said, though her mouth twisted up when she spoke.
Naji didn’t say nothing, just slipped his mask into his lap and picked up a lemon-salt fish.
I’d never been to a proper feast before, just the big drunken parties that pirates call feasts. Nobody got up and danced on the table, or groped any of the servant girls – even the crewmen we had with us seemed too terrified to do anything but pick at their food. The music playing in the background was soft and fancy. The conversation was polite and didn’t say nothing of any substance. The only thing that made me realize I wasn’t up in the palace with the Emperor was the way the manticores ate: they leaned forward and tore chunks of meat off with their teeth, and red juices streamed down their faces and tangled up in the manes.
After dinner, the servants came around with cloths and wiped the manticores’ faces clean. One of ’em came at me with a cloth but I declined polite as I could. So did Marjani, though she sounded like a right proper lady – “I don’t require your services tonight, thank you.” The servant kind of smiled at her. Then she turned to Naji, his scars shadowed and deep in the dim light. He scowled at her until she shuffled away.
When all the platters of food had been cleared, all us human stared at the manticores like we ex
pected something bad to happen. I didn’t think they were going to eat us or nothing, but I was still a little concerned about the boon.
“We would be most honored if you would share a dessert wine with us,” said the manticore leader. “Ahiial. It is a delicacy from the northern part of our island, and a very precious nectar indeed.”
“What’s it made of?” I asked. Somebody had to say it.
“It’s derived from the pollen of the ahiiala flower,” said Ongraygeeomryn. “The only plant we consume.”
“The stories say it has magical properties,” said a lady-manticore with pale white dappling on her coat.
Marjani and me both looked at Naji.
“It’s fine,” he said.
“Of course it’s fine!” boomed the manticore leader. “Servant-humans, bring us the wine!” He smiled, and he only showed the points of his teeth. “You will not be able to drink any of that human swill after tasting ahiial.”
Naji shrugged, and I got the sense that he’d had it before.
The servants trotted up to the table, half of ’em holding shallow porcelain bowls and the other half holding rough-hewn stone goblets. They lined ’em up on the table. Then another row of servants marched out, this time carting huge carved pitchers. They made their way around the table, slowly pouring a bit of ahiial for each guest.
The ahiial was pale gold, the color of morning sunlight and a manticore’s fur. It smelled sweet, like honey, like a man’s perfume.
We all waited till everybody’s cup or bowl had been filled. Then the manticore leader lifted one paw.
“To Ananna of the Nadir,” he said. “Who saved my eldest daughter, the heir to my pride. I am indebted to you.”
Naji squirmed beside me. I remembered what he’d said to me back on the Isles of the Sky – you made a deal with a manticore? And the way he said it, too, like I’d just confessed to killing my own mother. I could just about see him remembering it himself.
Well, too late now.
The manticore leader bowed his head and lapped at his wine. Even Marjani, who knew as well as I did how rude it was, hesitated.
But I also knew poison wasn’t how a manticore killed – not poison in a glass of wine. If they wanted us dead they would have shot us full of spines or launched across their table with their mouths wide open, showing us all three rows of teeth. So I picked up my glass and drank.
It was sweet, sweeter than honey, and the taste of it filled my mouth up with flowers.
When I didn’t keel over dead, or jump up, bewitched, and start clearing away the table like a servant, the rest of the crew followed suit. Jeric yi Niru knocked it back like a shot of rum. Marjani sipped it like a lady in a palace. Naji finished his off in a trio of gulps.
“What do you think?” the manticore leader asked me.
“Delicious,” I said. And stronger than a barrel of sailor’s rotgut. The whole garden was filled with light. All the flowers were glowing. Overhead, the stars left bright trails across the black sky. I laughed, suddenly full up with mirth, the way it happens when I get drunk under good circumstances, with a boat full of friends and the ocean stretching out empty and vast before us.
“Wonderful,” the manticore leader said. He nodded his head and the music struck up, some bawdy song I recognized from whenever Papa’s crew made port. “Servant-humans!” he called out. “Bring us more ahiial!”
CHAPTER NINE
I sprawled out on my bed, music still drifting in from the garden through my open window. The manticores had proceeded back into their palace of rocks, and the rest of the crew had come crawling off the boat to flirt with the servants and drink ahiial and rum, which was when I decided to slink back to my room. My injury left me too tired to deal with a true pirates’ feast.
Every now and then laughter exploded into the nighttime, drowning out the music. Men’s laughter, women’s laughter. The ahiial left me so happy I didn’t even feel left out.
Somebody knocked on my door.
“Who is it?” But I felt a wriggle in the back of my brain, and I knew–
“Naji.”
I sat up. “Ain’t locked or nothing.”
Naji pushed the door open. He had his mask on but his hair was all tousled from the wind. He hadn’t been dancing after the feast, I remembered. Just sat on the sides and watched.
“You need to change the… the spell that was making me better?”
He shook his head and stepped inside. Came up right close to me, close enough that I could smell him: honey and medicine. He kept his eyes on me.
It was weird, and it confused me, but my heart pounded loud and fast from the way he looked at me.
Like I was Leila. The river witch. His old lover.
“Can I ask you a question?” he said.
I was too nervous to speak. I shrugged.
He took off his mask, yanking it hard away from his face. He let it drop to the floor.
“Do you remember when you told me I wasn’t ugly?”
I stared at him. I couldn’t get past the light in his eyes.
“You don’t, do you?”
“Of course I do,” I said, and my voice came out real small.
“Did you mean it?”
“That I don’t think you’re ugly?”
He nodded.
I couldn’t think straight. All I knew was my heart slamming against my chest and his eyes drinking me up like ahiial. How many times had I thought about the answer to this question? How many nights had I spent trying to figure out the exact way to tell him what I thought of him, what I thought of his face and his hair and his body?
Too many to count.
“Of course,” I said, voice hardly a whisper again. I swallowed. “I think… I think you’re beautiful.”
His face didn’t move. “I thought you don’t trust beautiful people.”
“Not beautiful like that. I mean… I don’t ever want to stop looking at you.”
The funny thing is that I couldn’t actually look at his face while I said that cause I was so embarrassed, and so I looked at his throat instead, at the little triangle of skin poking up out of his shirt. He’d taken off the pirate coat.
For a minute I wondered why the hell he was asking me this anyway.
And then he was kissing me.
I ain’t kissed many boys before, but Naji knew what he was doing better than any of ’em. He put his hands on the side of my face and pressed himself close to me and the whole time it was like he and I were the only people in the world. My hands kept crawling over his chest and shoulders, trying to memorize the lines of his body, and I was dizzy, but in a good way, the way you get when you swing through the ropes on a clear sunny day. That was what kissing Naji was like: the best day at sea, warm sunlight and cool breeze. Happiness.
Kissing Naji was happiness.
When he pulled away from me he smoothed my hair off of my forehead. I was too stunned to do anything but stare at him.
“Is this alright?” he asked.
“Uh. Yeah.” I frowned. He kissed me again, and I worked up the nerve to press my hands against his hips. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close, and the smell of him was everywhere, and I swear I could feel his blood pulsing through his veins. The closeness of his body was so distracting, so wonderful, that I forgot to be nervous.
He lay me down on the bed, still kissing me, and my thoughts were a jumble of confusion and excitement and desire – his desire and my desire both, like two pieces of silk braiding together. I couldn’t believe this was happening, couldn’t believe he was gazing at me like he wanted me.
“Why are you doing this?” It came out wrong, kinda accusatory. He stopped.
“You said it was alright,” he said.
Oh, now you’ve gone and messed everything up, I thought.
“It is.” I reached out, tentative, and cupped the scarred side of his face in my hand. He jerked at my touch, but didn’t pull away, and for a moment he looked as vulnerable as I felt. “I mea
n, I just don’t understand… why now…”
He traced the line of my profile, one finger running over my forehead and my nose and finally my lips.
“I should have done it sooner,” he said. “I should have done it on the Isles of the Sky.” And he kissed me before I could say anything more. I got lost in it, the kissing. It went on for a long time. My lips thrummed, and my body was hot and distracted.
After a while, he pulled away, just a little, and we lay in silence, looking at each other.
I touched his scar, the skin rough and slick at the same time. He flinched away. I dropped my hand.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“No,” he said. “No, I just… no one’s ever… before.”
“Oh.”
Another long silence, and then I lifted my hand and touched him again. This time he only blinked.
“I like it,” I said.
He didn’t answer. His face was so serious, like always. Except for his eyes, which were gentle right now. Almost kind.
“Why don’t you ever smile?”
“What?”
I traced a line from the unscarred skin of his brow down across the folds in his flesh to his chin. “I’ve never seen you smile.”
“You don’t want to.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
He pushed away from me. A coldness settled over me: he was going to leave.
“Wait,” I said. “I’m sorry. I just… Ain’t you happy right now?”
“You don’t want to see me smile.”
“But I do. Ever since…” There was no point. His eyes had gone cold and stony again. I’d ruined everything.
And then something dislodged itself in my brain.
I thought about him showing up at my room for no reason.
I thought about the kissing.
And a realization lit up bright and blazing as the sun.
“Oh,” I said. “Oh, Kaol. You ain’t happy at all.”
He looked at me, pained, like he wanted to protest. But he didn’t.
“This isn’t you,” I said, and the words turned to panic in my throat. “This isn’t… you wouldn’t on your… the boon.”
Naji looked stricken. Confused. He didn’t deny anything.