She held still while the girl scrubbed away a week’s worth of grime and blood. Once, Maran’s huge belly pressed up against Nelay’s arm and she could feel the baby squirm. She started and looked down to see Maran’s stomach writhe through her tunic.
“The baby’s always wiggly after I eat breakfast,” the girl said.
Nelay glanced up at her beaming face. “Does—does it hurt?”
“Sometimes, if I get a foot to my ribs or a fist in my bladder.
Nelay stared at Maran’s belly in fascination.
“You’re a priestess?” the girl asked.
Still staring at what was surely triplets, judging by the amount of movement, Nelay nodded.
“That must be frightening—always being in front of all those people.”
Nelay’s gaze snapped to Maran’s. “I like being in front of people.”
The girl studied her as if trying to decide whether she was serious or not. Finally, she helped Nelay dress in new Idaran robes in midnight blue. Then she left to fetch clean water. When she came back, she helped Nelay lie face down, her head hanging off the edge of the bed. Then Maran massaged soap into Nelay’s scalp, rinsed it, and rubbed expensive oils into her damp hair. The soothing scents calmed her.
“Why are you doing all this for me?” Nelay asked. It wasn’t like she could pay for any of it. The Clansmen had taken all her coins.
“Rycus paid for it,” Maran said.
Instantly Nelay felt more awake. She’d become more of a risk than she was worth. The businessman in him had to realize that.
Maran disappeared for a while and came back with a platter of lamb chops cooked with almonds and dates. Nelay ate eagerly. The flatbread was especially tasty.
Once Nelay finished eating, Maran gathered up her things and left. Nelay stared out the narrow window, watching as the trees began swaying to the ovat, which blew a little gentler here due to the proximity to the desert. It still drove everyone indoors.
Nelay turned toward the door when Rycus appeared, sand in the creases of his clothes. He brushed it off and removed his headscarf. He must have washed himself at some point, because most of the grime was gone.
He pulled out her baldric and slipped in a new set of throwing knives. “You look almost like a priestess instead of a beggar.”
“Why did you come back for me? It can’t be for the money—though you remind me of it at every turn. The risks far outweigh the rewards. And you’re too savvy of a businessman to be ignorant of that.”
He took a deep breath, shut the door, and pressed the back of his head against the rough wood. “Did you really think I’d leave you to become a Clansmen slave?” The anger in his voice surprised her.
“It’s the logical thing to do.”
He took a step toward the bed. “As logical as you coming after your family?”
Suddenly it was hard to breathe. “I couldn’t live with myself if I abandoned them—believe me, I tried.”
Another step. She felt the tug in her belly again. She wondered if he felt it too—if that was what drew him closer. “So you care about them?”
“Of course.” Now he was close enough she could reach out and touch him.
“Even though it defies all logic?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He knelt beside her, his entire body leaning forward as if anchored to her, yet he did not attempt to touch her. “Some things defy all logic.” His gaze was soft.
She breathed deeply, taking in his scent. And she realized it was familiar to her, that it brought her comfort. Somewhere along the way, Rycus had become a part of her. Part of her as her family was part of her. She reached out, cupping his cheek. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.” She might kiss a few men here and there, flirt and tease, but she was always very careful not to form attachments. She was to be the high priestess. There wasn’t room for anything else.
He stroked her cheek with one long, lean finger. He came in closer, his mouth hovering over hers. “If it makes you feel better, my high priestess, I didn’t mean for it to.”
She felt the words touching her skin. And then his lips claimed hers, a light brushing. Again and again and again. Nelay had never been kissed so sweetly. No passion, just tenderness.
Fire and burning, it had taken him long enough.
Nelay stirred to the sound of silence—the ovat had died out. Something had woken her, but she wasn’t sure what. She sat up slowly, testing her back. The pain was less but she was very stiff and still weak. After listening for a moment and hearing nothing, she looked down at Rycus, his thick lashes fanning out across his cheeks. In his sleep he looked innocent, almost boyish. And he was sleeping beside her. What was she doing? There was no room in her life for a man—especially not one who was a criminal. She was going to be the next high priestess, burn it!
She was considering how to get out of the bed without waking him when she saw a spider—the same kind she’d burned to a crisp in the fire. She had to resist the urge to find a knife and kill it as it scurried across the floor and up the wall. It paused at the windowsill, one of its eight legs tapping against the glass.
A sick sense of foreboding washed over Nelay. The fairies’ help never came without a steep price, and they’d helped her numerous times over the past few days. She dreaded the day of reckoning, even as she knew she would take the help. She didn’t have a choice.
The spider turned back to her, waving its legs before disappearing altogether. Nelay gasped and shook Rycus. “Something’s wrong.” He sat up and squinted at her. She rolled out of bed and grimaced in pain as she bent down to pull on her own boots.
Shouts sounded outside. In an instant, Rycus was wide awake. He bolted to the window and threw it open. “Their fore guard has attacked!”
He ran to the bed and dropped his cross baldric over his shoulders, then jerked on his boots.
“Where are my swords?” Nelay asked.
He scooped up her baldrics from the chair they were draped across and tossed them to her. She caught them, wincing as her back seized up.
Scand appeared at the doorway, sword in hand. “We’ve got to move!”
The three of them ran down the hall and burst into the main room to join Bahar, Cinab, Ashar, and Delir. The door had already been bolted. The parchment-covered windows were too small to worry about.
Maran burst into the room from the kitchen, fingers caked with dough. She took one look at the swords in Rycus’s hand and said, “The cart is already loaded out back.”
He headed in that direction, but not before footsteps sounded outside. The door shuddered and then shattered. A dozen Clansmen poured through. Ashar killed the first, Delir the second. And then the battle became so mixed up Nelay couldn’t tell who was who. There were just swords and axes and arms and legs and men rolling around on the ground.
For a moment, Rycus’s gaze shifted to her. “Go with Maran!”
“No, I—” Nelay began, hurt and angry at once.
“You’re a liability and you know it. Go!” He charged forward, ducking a swing, his swords twisting around him.
Nelay’s mind spun as she tried to force the players into a position where she could help Rycus. But he was right—she was slow. He’d spend more energy trying to keep her from getting killed than fighting his own battle. She had to run, to leave him to face this without her. Ignoring the pain, she forced herself to move.
Frozen, Maran stared, horrified and open-mouthed at the Clansmen with their axes and shields fighting against Tribesmen with their twin shamshirs.
Nelay grabbed her arm. “We have to go!” They stepped into the kitchen to find an Idaran man hiding on the other side of the fireplace. Nelay shot him a look of disgust. “Get a weapon,” she said to Maran. “A sword. A knife. A big stick. Something.”
Maran snatched a ridiculously ornate sword from above the doorway and a knife from a tub of soapy water. Taking the knife for herself, she passed the man the sword. “Sedun! We have to go!”
Th
e man jerked as if suddenly coming awake. Without a word, he lumbered to his feet after them just as the fight moved to the kitchen.
Rycus had downed one of the Clansmen, but he and his men were still outnumbered two to one. It was only a matter of time before one of the Tribesmen was struck down.
“Help him!” Nelay shouted at Sedun.
He jumped as if her words had slapped him. “How do I know what to do with a sword?” He disappeared outside, pulling Maran behind him.
Nelay forced her mind to come up with a solution. She pulled one of her throwing knives, but she could feel the tension in her back and didn’t trust herself not to hit one of her friends.
“Nelay,” Rycus said through gritted teeth when he saw her.
Growling in frustration, she went out the door and jogged toward the stables, her wound throbbing with each step and her muscles feeling watery and slow. Sedun pulled open the stable door. Inside waited a water buffalo hitched to a cart full of huge wine pots and reed baskets of food. The animal lowed nervously at them, but Sedun was already untying three saddled horses that had been tethered to the back of the cart.
He and Maran climbed on two of them. Nelay took the reins of the remaining horse and heaved herself up. By then, the battle had moved behind the inn, with the six Tribesmen fighting ten Clansmen. Sedun and Maran took off, abandoning the agitated ox and the wine. Nelay held back. “Rycus!”
A dozen more Clansmen rounded the inn, angling to cut the Tribesmen off. Rycus saw them, saw her. “I won’t leave my men. Go! I’ll catch up!” He ducked a wide swing from an enormous man with an enormous axe. “Full retreat!”
The six of them ran, their path a thirty-degree angle from Nelay’s, their strides long. The Clansmen split up, most going for Rycus and the others, the rest headed for Nelay.
Maran and Sedun were already far ahead of her. The players of the game spun, and once again, she had no choice. Nelay kicked the horse after them. The animal started climbing a worn path up the side of one of the mountains. The Clansmen were on foot, so it wasn’t long before the horses outdistanced them on the steep slope. They passed an active mine, pickaxes and ore carts abandoned at the entrance.
The horses breathing hard and covered in sweat when Nelay, Maran, and Sedun emerged onto the top of the table mountain. Nelay looked back. Sopora was burning. She studied the road leading from the village toward the city of Dalarta. She could make out people moving, but she was too far away to determine whether they were Clansmen or Idarans.
How would Rycus find her? Had he and the others even escaped? Nelay turned away, forcing her questions and fears back inside the dark pit deep inside her. “You better find me, smuggler,” she muttered.
Keeping a hard pace, the trio wound down the mountain. Sedun knew the back roads, which they followed, fearful of the Clansmen. They rode long into the night, letting the horses pick their way with their superior night vision.
The journey took its toll on Nelay. The pain had returned with a vengeance, her wound so tight she couldn’t speak. It took everything she had to keep herself from falling out of the saddle.
At one point, her horse bumped into Maran’s and staggered to a halt. Nelay looked up. She hadn’t even realized the girl had stopped. “Sedun,” Maran said.
The man glanced back at her. “We need to put as much distance between the Clansmen and ourselves as possible.”
“I can’t go any farther,” Maran said. “And neither can Nelay. We both need to rest.”
Nelay looked closely at the girl and saw the strain on her face as she hunched over, obviously in pain. “You’re in labor!”
Sedun jerked the reins and brought his horse around. “Maran, we can’t stop. The Clansmen—”
Her eyes were pinched shut. “Sedun, the baby is coming.”
His face went slack. Only then did Nelay realize he was Maran’s husband. If she’d had half her wits about her, she would have noticed earlier.
In the moonlight, Nelay could make out Sedun glancing around. “There’s an abandoned mine about a mile from here,” he said. “Can you make it?”
Maran gave a tight nod. “I can make it.”
When they finally arrived at the mine, he tossed his reins over a branch and dismounted, then motioned for Nelay to give him the sword. She complied and he pulled aside the brush in front of the entrance and entered sword first. Sometimes leopards or hyenas took over the abandoned mines, though she saw no tracks or scat of either.
She heard the murmur of voices coming from inside. Seconds later, an old Idaran woman emerged, striding straight for Maran. “Havva,” Maran cried in relief.
“Who are you?” Nelay asked as she looked between the two. “Why are you here?”
“Come inside,” the old woman hissed. “Before the Clansmen see you.” She helped Maran down and the two shuffled back in.
Not long after, children, led by a girl who looked about twelve, surrounded Nelay and helped her down. Maran must have sent them. Nelay managed to walk into the cave and turned to see Sedun wrap his robe around the eyes of one of the horses and lead it after her.
Just past the entrance, the space opened into a natural cavern. A river churned through the far end until it disappeared under a natural bridge of rock just wide enough for a mule and small cart. Beyond that was the entrance to another tunnel. Nelay could smell the minerals used to make luminash. Against the wall to the right, a small fire burned well back from the entrance. Havva settled Maran beside it, and the children sat there as well.
Sedun removed the jacket from the horse’s eyes and stepped back outside, presumably to bring in another.
“We thought you were Clansmen,” Havva said.
Maran panted. “I’m glad to see you.”
Nelay moved toward the light of the fire. Bracing herself against the wall, she slid down next to Maran. Soon, Sedun brought in the last horse and squatted on the other side of the fire.
“Is she really in labor?” Nelay directed the question to Havva.
Havva pressed her hands to Maran’s belly as the girl’s face screwed up. “Her pains might stop if she rests.”
Nelay looked around. “Where are the children’s parents?”
“Not here,” the old woman said with a pointed look.
Nelay clamped her mouth shut.
The oldest girl poked the fire. “When the Clansmen came to the village, I ran with my parents and my brothers and sisters. I thought we’d gotten away, but they caught us in the dark. Father said to run and hide.” The girl’s haunted eyes met Nelay’s. “Havva found us. Brought us here.”
This would have been what, a few hours ago? Chances were, the parents had been captured or killed. “How far away from here were the Clansmen?”
“Not far,” Havva said softly.
Sedun wiped his mouth with his hand and started for the exit. “Where are you going?” Nelay called after him.
He paused but didn’t turn back. “I’m going to keep watch. If the Clansmen find us here, we’ll be trapped.” Then he was gone.
Havva was still pressing on Maran’s stomach. “How long have the pains been coming?”
Maran tensed up, the cords of her neck standing out. After a long moment, she let out her breath. “They’ve been building since we left Sopora.”
“Can you stop it?” Nelay asked. “This is a bad time to be having a baby.”
Havva shot her an amused look. “Children have a knack for bad timing.” The old woman began squeezing parts of Maran’s stomach. “Head down. This is good.”
Nelay let out a relieved breath. “You know what you’re doing?”
The old woman didn’t turn to her. “I have daughters and sons’ wives, plus a few grandchildren.” She grabbed a homemade torch of pitch and bark and lit it. Murmuring reassurances, she helped Maran to the mouth of a tunnel on the other side of the moving water.
Nelay studied the children, who only looked back at her. She couldn’t help but feel they needed something from her, but she had
no idea what it was.
Maran whimpered again. As much as Nelay didn’t want to go back there, all these children staring at her with broken gazes was worse. She took a few steps toward the tunnel. Before she got there, the old woman came out. “Maran will have the baby this night. And you will help me deliver it.”
Nelay backed away, but the woman caught her arm. “Men go into battle to kill, but women go to battle to bring life. There are casualties and wounds, but our sacrifice leaves the world a better place when we are gone. And we will not allow her to go through this battle alone.”
Nelay took a deep breath to steady the trembling inside her and stepped around the corner.
Nelay held the tiny bundle in her arms. Gently, she wiped away the gore, revealing perfect, soft skin. The baby, a boy, squirmed and cried in protest.
Long ago she had held her dead brother in much the same way. She’d sworn then she would never be a mother. Never sacrifice the way her mother had, burying so many of her children along the way. Never be dependent on a man the way her mother had.
But as Nelay held Maran’s tiny baby, something in her softened and an ache formed. Some instinct within her . . . wanted a child of her own. Unsure what to do with such foreign emotions, Nelay finished drying the infant, then swaddled him in a ripped tunic and handed him to his mother.
Maran, her face pale and her body shaking, burst into a radiant smile. Nelay rubbed her glass pendant as she watched, feeling something swelling inside her. Joy and pride in womankind. She was part of this sisterhood. Part of the something bigger and more complex than she’d ever imagined.
Havva helped Maran uncover her breast and began teaching her how to feed the baby. Nelay hadn’t known it was something that needed to be taught.
Someone suddenly pushed past her from behind. Sedun took in the scene before him and his face paled. “Clansmen are coming. At least a dozen of them. We must go now.”
Havva pushed herself stiffly to her feet. “She cannot ride, not yet! She’ll surely bleed to death!”
Maran was trying to sit up, but she was shaking too much. Havva gently held her down. “There are only three horses. We won’t all fit.