Chapter 44 Sirsha
Sirsha
In full sunlight and with the encampment packed with people celebrating the Kegari retreat, Sirsha knew she could not remain frozen beside the mess tent.
Anyone could see her lurking here. Quil might come around the corner of the tent and realize that she had heard everything he said to Sufiyan.
But she could not seem to get her feet to cooperate.
Breaking a coin to summon the jackals is a powerful enticement. More powerful than an amorphous threat.
Diriya said Sirsha would suffer. She said she didn’t foresee her survival. I need to tell her.
Sirsha wasn’t an idiot. She knew immediately that Quil and Sufiyan were talking about the jinn. But what was this coin they spoke of? Quil hadn’t mentioned it, not once.
Then again, she’d told him to stay far away from her.
She hadn’t planned on eavesdropping. From the moment Sirsha stepped out of the infirmary, Sufiyan and Arelia had attached themselves to her.
Throughout the bombing, one of them had remained by her side.
For a few hours, Sufiyan’s little sister Zuriya had appeared, greeting Sirsha in a soft voice, speaking to her brother for a long time before returning to the infirmary.
While Arelia slept, Sirsha had passed the night playing cards with Sufiyan, who surreptitiously attempted to glean advice on how to woo “a girl—not anyone specific” when she was “smarter, much smarter, and generally unimpressed by things like looks and carnal prowess.”
That elicited Sirsha’s first laugh since the breaking of the Adah oath.
When he had finally left the cave in the morning, it was with a dozen warnings to Arelia to stay put, watch her like a hawk, or Quil will shout holes into our ears, and I’d like to keep my hearing, thank you very much.
Right after, Sirsha asked Arelia if she would explain mantis flight mechanics again. Arelia got up to find some leaves to demonstrate and the moment she turned her back, Sirsha was off, her old tracker’s instinct tingling, telling her she needed to follow Sufiyan.
This was why. Quil had a coin that would bring the jinn right to her. Doing so would mean the jinn must help Quil defeat the Kegari. The Jaduna were formidable. But the jinn, Sirsha suspected, would be unstoppable.
For a moment, she wanted to follow Quil and kick him. He should have told her about the jinn offer the moment he got it. She understood he was trying to protect her, but it was her life to sacrifice. She’d been suffering.
The faster she could bind Div, the better. If a sacrifice was necessary, so be it.
But first, she needed that coin.
Arelia appeared shortly after Sirsha overheard Quil’s conversation. Reli was frantic and breathless, lugging both their packs.
“I thought you left!” she said. “I was looking everywhere—”
“Sorry.” Sirsha took her things from Arelia. “The cave was stifling. I wanted air. And I think you are needed.” Sirsha nodded to a ravine blocked by rocks, as well as the soldiers clustered around it, attempting to figure out a way to remove them.
“Fools,” Arelia said. “They should be using pulleys and sledges, and instead they’re shoving everything, which will lead to a broken leg at some point.” She took a step toward the ravine before shaking herself and turning back to Sirsha.
“I won’t leave without letting you know,” Sirsha said, for at the very least, she could promise Arelia that. “Tell Sufiyan, too, please. The entire camp is packing up. He should be helping the healers in the infirmary instead of worrying about me.”
After Arelia left, Sirsha walked purposefully to the mess tent to offer aid.
The military cook in charge immediately set her to moving supplies from the tent to a row of nearby wagons.
It was hard work, especially because her hand hurt like the hells after punching Elias.
But she needed some mindless movement while she pondered how to get that coin.
The mess tent was central, with large, open sides that gave her a good vantage point of the camp—and most importantly, of Quil.
Moving thousands of civilians and soldiers was no easy task, but as Sirsha walked back and forth between the tent and the wagons, she marveled at how Quil handled all of it with seeming ease.
Sirsha had witnessed many sides of Quil. She’d held his body as they lost themselves in each other, watched him dream as the moon shone down on him. She’d observed him as an implacable warrior, a canny strategist, a dedicated protector. She’d seen him lost and worried, angry and hopeful.
She’d seen him with Sufiyan and Arelia and Tas.
But she’d not seen him with large numbers of his people.
She had not seen the way they spoke to him, the way they oriented themselves around him, moths to a light.
Nor had she realized how much of himself he gave to them, transforming into what they needed.
He was exhausted and heartsick and teetering at the edge of broken, but with his people, he seemed whole, again. A prince. A future emperor.
That truth had been unclear until now, and it cast into relief Sirsha’s own sorry state.
She did not know if she would survive whatever the jinn had planned for her and Div.
It was unlikely. Even if she did survive it, Sirsha did not see how she could make a life with Quil.
She had shattered their bond. Betrayed him.
And before, she’d been running from herself.
Her past. Her sins. She hadn’t reckoned with any of it yet.
What happened in Brijna all those years ago—it was still an open wound in Sirsha’s mind. One she did not know how to fix.
It’s the now that matters. Quil had shared that tidbit of wisdom on their travels months ago, after they’d first met. She could not think of later, because she didn’t know if there would be one. There certainly wouldn’t if she didn’t get to the jinn.
By midafternoon, the wagons were packed and Sirsha spotted the Blood Shrike shooing Quil into a tent. To rest, Sirsha hoped, but she knew him. He’d be planning and worrying and pacing. She excused herself from the mess tent and felt for Div. But thank the skies, the creature was not nearby.
Sirsha lurked near Quil’s tent for a full fifteen minutes before getting up the courage to finally approach. After considering the conversation she’d overheard and everything she knew about Quil, she’d decided the only way to get the coin was to steal it.
Which would require her to get close to Quil. Very close.
The guards moved aside as she approached, as if they’d been awaiting her. Which, she realized when she stepped into the tent, they must have been. For Quil was not resting or even pacing. He was at a table, frowning as he added powder to a gelatinous substance in a bowl.
“That was quite a punch you laid on Elias,” he said without preamble. “Figured you’d need something for it.” He lifted up the bowl. “Next time, you don’t have to wait outside for quite so long. Tent flap is always open to you.”
“Is it?” she said, oddly breathless. Probably because she was about to thieve from him, which she knew would sadden him.
You must get to the jinn, she told herself. This is the fastest way. Stop agonizing and get on with it.
He nodded to a pair of seats and took the one across from her. Sirsha considered letting him apply the poultice but instead took the bowl herself. She didn’t know what his touch would do to her. Not after the breaking of the coin. And she needed her wits about her.
“I’ll handle it, thank you,” she said. “The last time I let you patch me up…”
She thought of the night they’d escaped Jibaut. His hands had been so warm, so sure against her skin, his pale eyes wary as he worked. He’d been suspicious of her then, for she’d been deceiving him and he knew it.
And here she was, doing it again. Hells. She didn’t deserve Quil as her Adah.
“You were a little aloof that night,” Sirsha said. “You probably don’t remember.”
He gave her a swift look, a flare of heat in his eyes that penetrated down to her marrow.
“I remember,” he said quietly. “It was the first time you started to trust me.”
“Are you—” Bleeding hells, why was she so awkward? She’d shared a bed with this man. Multiple times. And yet she felt undone at the way he was looking at her. “Are you leaving?” she said. “The camp?”
“Aiz wishes to deliver terms,” Quil said. “I’ll go with my aunt to the meet.” He raised his eyebrows. “I thought Div would have told you?”
“Div?” Sirsha stiffened, the mention of the creature like a dousing in ice water. “How would she know?”
“She was listening,” Quil said. “I can feel her when she’s close. My ears usually pop and the air feels…heavy. I tried to use my magic on her. See what memories she had, but she hissed at me and warned me off.”
Sirsha frowned. “You shouldn’t be able to feel her,” she said. “Not now that the Adah coin is broken.”
Why could he feel her? Sirsha’s heart raced. Her bond with her mother had no tangible object to symbolize it—and Div managed to take advantage of it. She might be able to do the same with Quil, even without the coin. Oh no. No.
“She’s not here now,” Quil said. “Stop worrying.”
“I don’t know when she’ll be back,” Sirsha said.
“You saw what she did to my mother—” Sirsha shuddered.
“If she took your power or twisted it, I couldn’t live with myself.
She is clever, Quil. Vengeful. She wants to break away from me.
To roam free, without being linked to my will.
Sometimes, she seems docile, but she is always wearing on my willpower.
Always looking for a weakness. I don’t want you to be my weakness, Quil. I—I don’t want to love you.”
He took her hands in his, bringing her knuckles to his lips. “But you do love me. And I love you. To you, that’s a problem. To me, it’s a gift.”
She closed her eyes as he lifted his hand to her cheek, caressing her face. Featherlight, and yet the rush of desire that flooded her made her head spin.
“We wouldn’t have worked,” she whispered, though she knew it was a lie. “Without the Adah oath. Maybe—maybe we weren’t meant to be, Quil.”
“We were meant to be.”
“You don’t know that.”
He stood, pulling her up and toward him until she could feel his heat, his hips against her, his hand at the small of her back, his chest hard and unyielding.
“We were meant to be, Sirsha Westering. We are meant to be. In this life. In any other.”
He wove his hand through her hair. She wrapped her fingers around a strap in his armor, and there was no Adah coin, but that searing pain faded as he tipped her face toward his.
Quil’s lips were sunlight in the deep winter, and Sirsha fell into the kiss with an abandon so heady that everything faded but him. He was equally ravenous, and for long moments, Sirsha forgot that he hadn’t held her in ages, that he was leaving to face Aiz—
And that she was here for a reason.
She imagined, just for a moment, that there was no war and no Aiz.
No Div and no jinn and no coin. There was just the two of them, his body beneath her hungry hands, his fingers tangling in her hair.
He would lift her, she would wrap her legs around him, and that touch would break something loose in both of them.
He would be her whole horizon, and she his.
But it could not be. For there was a war and a meeting with Aiz, a monster to defeat and jinn to summon.
“Your Highness,” a voice called from outside the tent. Sirsha recognized it as the Blood Shrike’s. “The sun sets. Flames to the east. It’s time.”
Sirsha pulled away from him.
“Wait.” He grabbed her hand, breathless. “Don’t go to the jinn yet. Wait for me. Please, Sirsha, you don’t have to do this alone.”
Sirsha sighed. “You are crown prince, Quil. Your people need you.”
“Highness,” the Shrike’s voice came again, impatient now. “We need to move.”
“They can spare me for another minute,” Quil said, and Sirsha smiled at his wishful thinking. “Sirsha, we do not go to this meeting with the intention of settling terms. We will end Aiz tonight. And after that—”
“You will need to drive the Kegari from your country. Rebuild. I don’t have time to wait, Quil. I don’t have the will to.”
“It’s a few hours. Please—” he said. “Must I beg? I’ll get on my bleeding knees if that’s what it takes. Only promise me you’ll wait. I cannot let you face this alone. I will not.”
“Quil, damn it—oh—” The Shrike stepped into the tent and looked briefly awkward before she stood a bit straighter. “We need to leave. Now.”
“I’ll wait,” Sirsha said. “Go.”
He gave her a last, lingering look, as if to impress upon her that he’d heard her promise. That he expected her to keep it. Then he swept up his weapons and disappeared out the tent flap. Voices called to him in greeting and then faded beneath the sound of hoofbeats thundering away.
The tent was quiet. But Sirsha was not alone. Div’s oily presence oozed in from wherever she’d been hiding and she materialized beside Sirsha, who pulled the plain wooden jinn coin from her pocket, turning it over in her hands.
“Ah, little witch.” Div cocked her head as she looked up at Sirsha. “How beautifully you’ve learned to lie.”