Steelflower

  Chapter 38

  Witch and Power

  “This taih’adai will give you the beginnings of fire-calling, which I do not suggest you practice anytime soon. You are likely to burn down a few of these tents. You will learn the beginnings of zaradai, too. Twill also begin teaching you what to do with your Power instead of letting it fester in silence.” Janaire’s eyes met mine. “If you go down into silence again, Anjalismir Kaialitaa, it will go ill with your s’tarei. You cannot afford to act thus. You are not a child now.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from replying, watching the small silver sphere in her hand. Atyarik sat behind Janaire, his face dark with anger. She ignored him. Her tone was one I remembered from hearing the Yada’Adais address large groups of G’mai girls, a firm, clear voice that brooked no disobedience.

  Redfist sprawled on a pile of rugs, his green eyes winking between ginger eyelashes. He stroked the haft of his axe, meditatively. “Seems a bit of magic, K’ai,” he rumbled, and I was grateful for the distraction.

  “Tis G’mai.” I stared at the sphere the way a bird might stare at a snake. The sight of the silver spheres caused a queasy not-quite-excitement right under my breastbone. “Not quite the same thing.” I am not certain I should do this in the midst of a Shainakh army camp.

  Darik lay the boy down on a rug and covered him with a blanket, tucking him in.

  “What’s the difference?” Redfist looked interested, almost inordinately so.

  “Well, the witches push Power into people until they reach their capacity,” Janaire told him. “It forces all the doors in their house open, so to speak. It takes intense training for a witch to deal with the trauma. G’mai are different. We are born and bred to Power, and our entire way of life fosters it. We grow slowly into using it—except for Kaialitaa here.” She looked at me, her small teeth chewing at her lower lip, and I saw again how young she was. “She will be more like a witch, since she’s denied herself for so long. Tis a hard road to travel. But she is G’mai, bred to adai. Twill only make her stronger.”

  Speaking of me as if I am not here. Irritation rasped at my throat. Darik dropped down next to me and touched my shoulder, a friendly contact.

  She is explaining to the barbarian. His tone carried equal parts of amusement and concern. You are pale.

  I do not wish to do this. Especially in a Shainakh army camp, with a riddle to solve.

  True enough. I sensed he did not know quite what to say. The silence between us had grown delicate, fraught with unsaid things.

  The silver light threatened to thrust me out of myself, to remake me into something more like Janaire—a sweet, fragile G’mai girl, talented with Power but helpless without a s’tarei.

  Darik’s response to this was a laugh he stifled with a cough. None could ever consider you helpless, Kaia’li. Your dotanii will convince them otherwise.

  I had feared, three nights ago, that he had been wounded badly enough to risk death. In that moment, the prospect of life without a certain G’mai princeling had frightened me deeply.

  Too deeply.

  “Well, hand it hence.” I interrupted Janaire’s further explanation with all the grace of a criminal expecting execution. “I might as well do quickly, if I am to do at all.”

  She passed her hand over the taih’adai, and it began to glow. “Watch. Tis responding to me.”

  The silvery light was low and soft, and I waited for it to intensify to the customary blinding glow. It did not. “Why does it glow so differently?”

  “Because your Power is so much.” She offered the taih'adai with both soft hands. I glared at the vibrating sphere, smelling the peculiar tang of G’mai adai’in—something I had not had in so long I had almost forgotten the scent of it. “Take it, Kaia. It does become easier, I swear.”

  I did not believe her, but I cupped my hand and took the heavy silver sphere. It brightened immediately. Light streamed between my fingers, making shadows stand out knife-sharp and black as Darik’s eyes.

  I will keep watch, Kaia. Darik said, but I was already gone, locked in a world of silver light.

  Chapter 39

  Be Discreet

  Warmth, and softness. A persistent movement, shaking me, calling me out of the deeps of sleep. I groaned, softly, wanting nothing more than to burrow into the blankets.

  The whistle of second-watch in an army camp pierced the night. I opened my eyes.

  “Tis the second watch, K’li,” Darik whispered in my ear. “The boy sleeps, and everyone else too. Shall we go night-hunting?”

  I blinked, looked up at him. The familiar sounds of a Shainakh army camp sounded outside the tent’s silken walls. He sat back on his heels, twin dotanii spiking up over his shoulders. “Second watch?” I remembered nothing but silver light, and the taih’adai whispering inside my head, light filling the space behind my eyes.

  Memory, flooding back. Rikyat. Ammerdahl Rikyat was rebelling against Azkillian, the God-Emperor of Shainakh. Except there was a wrongness in the pattern. Three wyverns, a Blue Hand sorcerer, and something Rikyat had not revealed.

  Rikyat. A god, speaking to Rikyat. Twas not entirely impossible—but the fevered glitter in Rikyat’s eyes, his preternatural self-confidence, was enough to disturb me mightily.

  I have seen the goddess Taryina-Ak-Allat speak through her priestesses in their drugged trances, each woman speaking a different word in the chorus of the goddess, sometimes all of them at once, the High Priestess with her blank, pale eyes watching from a huge gray throne with its crystals glowing like moons under the huge fringed silken canopy. I have seen the ecstatic dances of the Hain, blank faces lost in contemplation of infinity as their bodies whirled through space. Gods do not use their mouthpieces gently. What did the Shainakh gods want of Rikyat?

  I had little concern for myself—the Moon is jealous of Her children, and a G’mai, even a flawed G’mai such as myself, does not have much to fear from other gods. Yet Rikyat looked like a dreamweeder, his eyes too bright and his cheeks flushed, total foolhardiness and drunken confidence shining from him.

  I pushed myself up, slowly, and yawned. “Can you be silent?” I murmured in G’mai. I found that it felt natural to speak to him with the most personal inflection possible. “I do not want us caught.”

  “I will not fail you.” He whispered in G’mai as well, and his inflection was unbearably intimate. “I am used to discretion.”

  “So it seems.” I pushed back the blanket he had settled over me. It was strangely satisfying to see him upon waking. “My thanks, D’ri.”

  “For what? Discretion?” He handed me my dotanii, encased in its sheath. I smiled, standing up and stretching, strapping the sheath to my back.

  “For standing guard while I am in the taih’adai.”

  He turned slightly to glance over my shoulder, checking the tent as I stretched again, joints cracking. I found I had more to say to him. “What do you see, when the light takes me?”

  “The light, and your face,” he answered softly, turning back to me, cupping my face in his callused hands. He examined me, his mouth straight and severe. “You look peaceful.”

  He was perhaps as surprised as I that I allowed him such closeness.

  I managed a shaky smile. His skin was warm and slightly rough. “Peaceful? Not I, s’tarei'mi.”

  He smiled, I saw it clearly even in the dark, and felt it against my skin like sunshine. The lamps were snuffed and the tent was full of shadows. I thought perhaps he would kiss me, but he did not. I had no idea what I would do if he tried. The thought of him seeking to do so was strangely pleasant, too.

  “What do we seek, K’li?”

  “I do not yet know. We shall see what we can find.”

  Outside, the night was full of the sounds of a Shainakh army camp. Faint music played somewhere, and the roar of men drinking and dicing—any excuse for a celebration, here among an army at rest.

  I ghosted from tent to tent, listening, Darik drifting behind me. I made two dis
coveries in a very short period of time. The first was that our tent was loosely watched. Perhaps Rikyat was not as sure of me as he wished me to think.

  The second discovery was that Darik would make a good thief. He moved silently, drawing the darkness over him as a good thief always does, taking his cues from my actions. When I ceased moving, he did too; when I stopped breathing, he did as well. He followed me like a shadow, like my shadow.

  Like a s’tarei.

  I quartered the camp, staying away from the well-lighted lanes and using the ‘bedmate’s alleys’—the little avenues between tents only dimly lit and mostly deserted except for surreptitious visits between lovers. The army seethed quietly, as if my coming was a yeast added to it. Whispers held my name—that the gods looked with so much favor upon Ammerdahl Rikyat, even the elvish of the Blessed Lands came to his cause.

  Gods, how I hate that word. Rikyat was indeed skilled in the art of rumor. It is impossible to be otherwise, in a Shainakh army. He had managed to turn my arrival into a mark of favor from the gods. Clever of him, if it did not turn against him.

  There were other, darker whispers too.

  Rumors of assassinations, the Blue Hands moving through towns and taking everyone suspected of rebellion. Sightings of strange lights to the west, over the sea. And faint whispers of two supply caravans carrying a cargo of gold through Vulfentown and leaving waggons on the beach for the tide to take, the rest of the caravan coming to rejoin the army and the oxen going to pay off a shadowy ally.

  That gave me chills.

  Rikyat would be moving on Shaituh next. Would the city defend itself, or would it welcome him like a Rijiin courtesan? And what of the supply by sea? Did he have a naval force? If so, who commanded it? Or was he relying on the fickle winds of commerce to keep him safe from naval attack? The Shainakh were not so fond of shipboard fighting, except against starving pirates.

  I finally circled the guard perimeter of Rikyat’s great tent, and found three different approaches I could use, if I was careful with the timing. I chose one and slipped up to a pool of shadow near the tent’s back wall, listening intently.

  “—dangerous.”

  I heard the strike of flint and steel, and the brief fizzle of incense tossed on burning charcoal. A moment later my nose flared sharply to catch the scent—shaina, the heavy, perfumed musk Shainakh preferred. Twas a heavy scent, unlike the clean smells of G’maihallan or the floral cloying of Hain.

  “Of course she is.” Rikyat sounded no more drunk than I, and I found myself smiling. The mere soldier I had known would not have used such craft, but of course his noble family had taught him well. A good head for drink was a prerequisite of an officer. “No sharp tool is fully safe.”

  “What of her companions?”

  “Good fighters.” Now Rikyat sounded a little peeved. “Dear gods, Brunhor, you sound like an old woman. Kaahai is to be trusted. I know her. Her word is given. It should not take much to ease her into our errand. The Steelflower kills for red gold, that is well known; I have never seen Kaahai to be overly squeamish. Azkillian is enough of a tyrant to satisfy even her conscience.” He trailed off, meditatively.

  My blood began to pound in my head. Oh, Rik. Rikyat, how could you?

  “Killing an Emperor is unwise. The blood-guilt is too much.” The voice sounded nervous.

  There was a full handspan-of-moments’ worth of silence. Then Rikyat said, very softly, “I will pretend I did not hear that mumbling. Azkillian has lost the protection of the gods.”

  “Tis a dangerous thing, to kill an anointed one.” This was a hoarse female voice, one I knew very well. So Shammerdhine Taryana was here? A cool, canny fighter. What attraction could Rikyat hold for her? She was of one of the oldest noble families in Shainakh, intermarried with Azkillian’s clan. An old, hard-line noble. For a Shammerdhine to be here was a sign the God-Emperor had lost more popular support than I had ever thought possible.

  Little pieces of the puzzle fell into place. I have never been stupid, or willfully blind. Well, perhaps once or twice. But now my eyes were opened, like a newborn child’s. Ammerdahl Rikyat had sought to use me.

  Use me, the Iron Flower, Anjalismir Kaialitaa. I had not survived beyond the borders of G’maihallan by being amenable to those who sought to use me.

  “Unless he has lost the backing of the priestesses of Silesh,” Rikyat said. “And I will not kill him. The Gemerh care little for our gods, Tarya. They worship the Moon, and some silver ships, tis said.”

  “What of the one that follows her? Gossip marks him a prince.” Brunhor did indeed sound fretful.

  “Good. As long as Kahaai is distracted by him, she will not notice she is our killing hand,” Rikyat said. “Now pay attention to the maps, and stop twittering like a boydhar. Hashai has revealed to me the locations of the garrisons. The Burning One also revealed to me that the assassin Hrunmuth was killed last night, by steel, water, and fire at once. He brought the Steelflower into our arms as neatly as a beloved into a bride’s embrace.”

  “Steel, water, fire—probably the only thing that could kill him,” Tarya mumbled, and laughed. “Good. We are rid of one loose thread. Do you think she guesses?”

  “It matters little,” Rikyat said. “Is the second act in place?”

  “Ready and waiting, my lord.” This voice, male and very low, sent chills down my skin too. It spoke High Shainakh, a dialect I did not have much experience with, and every muscle in my body recognized it as a killer’s voice. My spine turned to ice. I motioned Darik back. I had heard enough.

  We retraced our steps to our tent, and slipped inside with none the wiser.

  As soon as I reached that dubious safety, I found myself biting my lip again, gnawing it worriedly.

  So. It explained much, and opened a gallery of yet more questions.

  Had I killed Hrunmuth the assassin? Steel, fire, water—it was passing unlikely twas someone else. And yet, how would Rikyat have known of it if a god—or a witch—had not told him, indeed? Hrunmuth the Blue Hand had known my name. Do you think she will guess?

  Rikyat had set an assassin on me to set me against the God-Emperor.

  Set him, and set him at a place where he knew I would be passing: it would not take much effort to find I was in Hain; even if I had been up the coast or coming in from Antai I would have had to pass Vulfentown, I arrived in Shaituh almost every harvest-season. All an assassin would have to do is wait; if that assassin was Hrunmuth he had also served Rikyat’s purpose in keeping the coast-road clear of spies.

  A cool finger traced its way up my spine. I turned to Darik. “He means to use me to kill the God-Emperor of Shainakh.” The disbelief in my voice was only countered by the worry plainly visible on Darik’s face.

  Twas shocking enough, that my stone-faced Dragaemir could look worried at all, much less this worried, with his brow furrowed and his mouth turned down. “How? In open battle?”

  I shook my head. “No, D’ri. I am an assassin. And a passing-fair one. He seeks to induce me to penetrate their Palace in the middle of their Holy City. Good gods above, what on earth could he—”

  I stopped, surveyed my sleeping companions. Surely Rikyat would not harm them?

  I was not naïve enough to believe he would not.

  In the morning I would send them away. Rikyat might seek to use them against me. I will stay, with D’ri, and see what must be seen. I owe Rikyat, and if the coin I must use to repay that debt is the life of a crazed tyrant, so be it.

  Yet Rikyat set the Hand on me, if I understood this aright.

  Gods above and below, that does not cancel out the debt. The gods are playing with me even now.

  “I cannot believe you are seriously contemplating this, Kaia.” Darik looked even more worried.

  “If I take this commission, I will have an Emperor indebted to me. Unless it is too much a risk to let me live or Rikyat fails, in which case I will have to escape the Holy City and the entire land of Shainakh, overrun by civil war.” I whistled
softly through my teeth. “Gods, G’maihallan might actually be a holiday, compared to that.”

  “Kaia—” he began.

  I lifted my hand to still him. “I have accepted coin in good faith. We shall see what he seeks to ‘ease’ me into. If there is anything of the old Rikyat inside that gods-burning shell, he needs me.” My jaw set, and I felt Darik looking at me through the tent’s darkness, his eyes moving over the planes of my face. “I have been called Kaahai, and tis perhaps time he found what a balky kaahai I can be.”

  My stunned disbelief still haunted me. I would have done whatever Rikyat asked, if he had merely asked me. Had he sent an assassin after me? A Blue Hand sorcerer? But how had he seduced a Blue Hand, since they were largely thought to be incorruptible?

  Then again, if the Shainakh gods were with him, twould be no large matter for Rikrik to find a Hand that could be bought. Even in the God-Emperor’s service there were men less-than-honorable.

  Especially in the service of power were such men to be found.

  “If you do indeed owe a debt, I shall help you pay it. And what after that, Kaia? Would you return to G’maihallan with me? I have little taste for the palace, but we may find a small House, in the mountains, and live perhaps unmolested.” Twas the most fantastical thing I had ever heard him say, but I was too worried about Rikyat—and the tale of Hrunmuth the assassin—to muster any anger. Or even to remind him I never wished to see G’maihallan again.

  I chewed my lower lip, sliding my weapons-harness off. “Gods. I had not thought…the Emperor. Gods, D’ri. That would almost be a commission worth taking, if only to see if I could.” And if Rik had not lied to me.

  “The others will not leave.” He spoke in G’mai, and his tone was worried and intimate in equal measure. And I do not believe you would kill a man merely to see if it were possible, Kaia.

  Not even if I was starving? The silent speech between us rode a different path than the words we spoke aloud. “I may convince Janaire to leave, if I take all the taih’adai as soon as possible. Redfist and the minstrel, too. Tis madness to accompany me on this. Especially for coin, as Atyarik would say.”