Chapter 3 Sirsha #2
The Adah coin warmed at Sirsha’s throat. It grew hot when their bond was strong. Cold when it was weak. Through it, she could feel Quil’s emotions. The raw, consuming worry after Sirsha disappeared. The fear as he searched for her. The despair as months passed and he heard nothing.
It would have been so easy to speak to him. To tell him everything. Even if he hadn’t figured out how the coin worked, she knew. She could hold on to it and talk to him every day if she’d wanted.
But every time she was tempted, she stopped herself.
Quil didn’t know Div had attached herself to Sirsha. And she didn’t know what Div might do to Quil, how Div might exploit the magic of the Adah bond. Div could harm Quil, manipulate him into doing things for her. He had magic, too. Div could poison it, as she’d poisoned Sirsha’s magic.
“Your necklace.” Div’s flat eyes seemed to glow for a moment. “It is magic. Who gave it to you, little witch?” Div sat beside Sirsha like a docile hound. Sirsha shrugged off the question, as if it wasn’t worth answering.
In truth, the Adah bond was powerful magic, so deep that for as long as Div was attached to Sirsha, Quil wasn’t safe from her. For now, Sirsha needed to stay the hells away from him.
Sitting against the tree, considering all this, Sirsha wanted to scream. She was tired and hungry and dirty and cold. Her clothes were shredded. Her hair was a mess—she’d lost her hairpins. She wanted a single night somewhere warm and safe and free of Div.
Div, observing Sirsha’s misery, tutted in sympathy. Unwillingly, Sirsha looked at the creature, still wearing the skin of Sirsha’s mother.
“It will be easier if you accept my help, little witch,” Div said.
“I could procure you food or clothes. Kindle flame so you are not cold. Fly you to your family so you are not lonely. You are my anchor to this world, true, but I offer you much in return. My magic is boundless, if only you give me leave to use it.”
Sirsha gave the creature a withering look. The Jaduna made a deeper study of magic than anyone else in the known world. A few days in the libraries of the Jaduna capital city, Kotama, might answer many of Sirsha’s questions about Div.
“My family has no interest in seeing me,” Sirsha said. “And I haven’t forgotten your taste for magical hearts. I’d die before I let a gluttonous fiend like you feast upon my own.”
“Your own.” Div sniffed. “They cast you out. Told you that if you broke your banishment, you’d be drowned and your body left for the carrion eaters. I saw this, in your mind.”
“Well then, maybe we should go there,” Sirsha said. “They can murder me, and you’ll be stuck without an anchor you like.”
Div’s face tightened. Sirsha took note.
She curled up in her cloak, hoping to shiver herself into slumber, a relief from the hunger, at least. But sleep did not come.
“Shall I tell you a bedtime story, little witch?” Div asked with a silken voice. “To help you dream?”
Sirsha maintained her silence. She wouldn’t make a deal. But perhaps she could get Div to share something useful.
“You always spout half-truths and they’re boring.”
Div circled her, eyes glittering in the gloom as she tried to understand Sirsha’s intent. Sirsha shrugged and closed her eyes.
“I don’t care either way,” she said.
“A true story, then,” Div offered after a moment. Sirsha kept her eyes closed, seemingly uninterested.
“Long ago,” Div said, “I was a simple woman, preparing to attend a wedding.”
Sirsha nearly turned to face Div. The creature had never spoken of her past before. Never even hinted at it.
“ ’Twas a desert wedding between a beautiful, kind bride and a handsome, noble groom. I set out deep in the night, for I wished to reach my destination by the next evening. I had prepared my dress, procured a gift, found my way to the fine city where it was to take place.
“But the beautiful bride and the handsome groom must have had enemies, for as we all rose to witness their union, a hideous creature entered the assemblage. It cursed the bride, the groom—all of the guests. Magic-users in attendance saved the bride and groom and the guests. They saved the fine city. But they didn’t save me.
I was cursed by the creature. That is how I became thus. ”
“What kind of curse?” Sirsha’s curiosity overruled her caution, and she sat up—too quickly.
She broke into a sweat and bent over, retching bile, her stomach seizing so hard she could only wait it out.
After long minutes, body shuddering, she looked up at Div, who had pulled her robes back, her distaste clear.
“You should think less about me,” Div said, “and more about your own survival. Jibaut is not far from here.” She shook a spider from her robes.
It fell away, shriveling into a ball of fear.
“A few days, due east. Go and recover yourself. You have a friend there, no? I’m sure he’d be happy to see you.
You could sleep. Eat.” She wrinkled her nose at Sirsha’s smell. “Bathe.”
“For a creature that gobbles up hearts for a living, you’re mighty fussed about hygiene suddenly.
” Sirsha turned her back on Div so the creature wouldn’t see her expression.
She needed to tread carefully. If Div learned Sirsha wanted to go to Jibaut, she would sabotage the plan to force Sirsha into bargaining with her.
“It is not your hygiene I’m concerned with,” Div said. “It’s your survival.”
“I don’t believe you,” Sirsha said. “Maybe I’ll stay here.” She looked around. “Seems like a peaceful place to die.” She nestled her head in her arms, feigning despondence. If she could extract some kind of promise from Div, she might have a chance at getting to Kade without interference.
Div paced, agitated. “You cannot die here, little witch. Go to Jibaut and recover yourself, and I’ll stay away until you are yourself again. I swear it.”
Sirsha only looked up with one eye, like she was still suspicious, even as her heart thudded in relief at this tiny victory.
Over the next few days, Div kept her promise. She did not appear. But Sirsha could sense her presence nearby, heavy and reptilian, as if Sirsha wore a cloak of snakes she couldn’t shake off.
On the morning that Sirsha was to reach the city, Div’s presence faded. And when, by noon, Div had still not materialized, Sirsha began to feel the first stirrings of hope. The creature was gone, for at least a little while.
Which meant Sirsha had an opportunity. If ever she wanted to talk to Kade about how to rid herself of Div, now was the time.
The evening air was cool and clear, the stars emerging when Sirsha arrived on the outskirts of Jibaut.
It was more like its old, irreverent self instead of the broken place it had been after the Kegari invasion last year.
The pirate city had served its purpose, and there were few sky-pigs roaming the streets now.
Instead, the port was teeming with people from all over the Southern Continent.
There were plenty of Jibautian sailors drinking and cursing.
But she also saw Karkauns in their furs and Mehbahnese sappers haggling with a Jibautian shipwright.
A group of Brijnan villagers passed, speaking in their lilting, musical tongue.
Unbidden, a long-buried memory washed over Sirsha.
She was twelve and riding with her family, Kin Inashi. They slowed their horses as they entered a Brijnan village. Sirsha wished the members of her Kin would stop talking, because the Brijnan language sounded like song and she wished to listen to it.
The villagers were expecting the Inashi, and the headwoman came to greet Ma, who was Raani of their Kin and the leader of their party.
“Where is he?” the Raani asked.
“—repent and fear, for her arrival is nigh!”
The shrill shriek of a proselytizer took Sirsha out of her memory. She shivered, uneasy at the way the old recollection had come upon her so suddenly. She tried to never think about that day in Brijna.
“She will be linked in spirit to our savior, and they will become one. Seek her and bring her to us!”
Sirsha quickened her step, eager to be away from the sharp voice. Jibaut was filled with swindlers. Usually, zealots were quickly driven out. Sirsha grimaced as the woman went on. Her cadence of recitation set Sirsha’s teeth on edge.
“She is chosen by our savior, chosen as the Vessel! Our savior can give you anything you desire. Our savior’s magic is boundless—”
Sirsha slowed, skin prickling. My magic is boundless. Div’s words.
“Seek her and bring her to us! Seek her, that we might finally meld our savior’s spirit to a body and free her from her bonds!”
Sirsha couldn’t make out the face of the speaker, but the hair rising on the back of her neck told her to move. Quickly. As Sirsha scurried away, understanding gripped her like a hand tightening around her throat: the proselytizers were speaking of her.
Bleeding hells. Was this what Div wanted? It made sense; with a body of her own, Div wouldn’t be bound to the will of any human. She could hunt and kill and eat the hearts of children at leisure.
“Seek the Jaduna girl, Sirsha.” The proselytizer’s voice faded behind her. “And our savior shall reward you!”
Sirsha’s blood turned to lead in her veins. She hadn’t realized anyone else was even aware of Div’s presence, let alone that she was chained to Sirsha. Whoever the zealots were, they knew too much. And they worshipped Div. They wanted her to walk free.
This was why Div wanted Sirsha in Jibaut.
She was serving Sirsha up to the zealots like a goat to the slaughter.