Chapter Fifty-One
Tiyung
Idle Prison, Yusan
Ailor tells good stories, and he hasn’t tried to kill me, which makes him my best friend in a place like Idle Prison. Well, we’re friends inasmuch as cellmates can be friendly. I like having him here, and I don’t want anything bad to happen to him. I’ve come to believe that he’s not a spy. I think he simply happened to be thrown in with me.
I should say: I’m sure someone powerful has something planned by putting us together, but I don’t believe Ailor is in on it any more than I am.
Ailor is forty years old and from a city near the Strait of Teeth. He has a grown son, a wife who died long ago, and a donkey named Sticks, whom he misses. Since he retired from the king’s guard, he primarily spends his time growing lemon and olive trees and trying to forget what he saw and did as a soldier. The last part is speculation. I’ve told him I have done things I’m not proud of, and he just said, “Kid, you have no idea.”
We’ve been exchanging stories in the dark because the oil for the lantern ran out long ago. There’s been no sign of Hana for twenty meals—which I think is somewhere between five and nine days, but it gets harder and harder to keep track.
The food she left ran out a while ago, and my stomach has been clamoring ever since. It roars like the iku, and I wrap my arms around my waist.
“What I wouldn’t give for another block of cheese,” I say.
“It’d be nice,” Ailor says casually.
I can see his form but not every expression. I’ve become skilled at reading his tone, though.
“Been through worse?” I ask.
He nods. “You’re probably too young to remember the famine around twenty years ago. I would’ve happily eaten this prison food if I could’ve gotten my hands on it. I had more than most because I was a soldier, but that’s not saying much. We had some rice provisions, and we were left to fend for ourselves for anything beyond that.”
He’s right—I don’t remember the famine. I was a year or two old when it happened. But I’m sure even if I had been older, I’d barely recall it. I’m certain my family didn’t experience any hardship. Those at the top never do.
But I am no longer a noble. And I don’t think Hana is coming back to help. The thought twists a knife in my side. Or maybe that’s hunger pangs, too.
Our meals come, and once again I think about chancing it for some spicy pork and glass noodles. How infested could just the noodles be? But I also don’t want to soil myself in front of Ailor or make the cell reek. Instead, I just have the bread and water.
Hana explained that prison food is left over from what the palace kitchens feed the many servants in Qali. What isn’t eaten is brought here to feed the guards, and then finally left out until it’s dished to the prisoners. That is why it smells good. Some meals will be edible, and some will be well-spoiled by the time the food makes it to our cells.
A little after our trays are taken away, keys jangle and turn in the lock—someone is here.
Ailor and I both startle. I scurry, while Ailor steps back in a dignified, ready fashion. I think we’re both expecting the guards to pull us out. He still hasn’t told me what he did to be in here, but I haven’t been forthcoming, either. We’ve told detailed past stories, particularly about the antics of his donkey, but vague recent ones.
“Put your hands over your eyes,” I say. “It will help you adjust to the light faster.”
The door opens, and someone comes in. I brace myself for the bright torches of the guards, but instead it’s a small lantern.
Hana?
I remove my hand and squint in her direction. It is her.
Joy races through my body, my heart filling. I hadn’t realized how worried I was about her until she just reappeared. Maybe it’s all for selfish reasons—for the help she gives me—but I don’t think it’s ever a bad thing to want to see someone alive and well.
My happiness, though, is snuffed out by the haunted look on her face. She seems like she was tortured. She’s still beautiful, of course, but there’s a hollowed-out gauntness to her. Something about her seems changed for the worse.
I can only imagine one thing that could throw her this much: Sora is dead.
My mouth goes dry, and my head feels light and woozy, but I keep my composure. I brace myself to ask. I don’t want to, but I have to know.
“What happened?”
My pulse beats, pounding in my neck as I wait for her to tell me that all hope is lost. My heart thuds like it wants to leap out to get the answer faster.
Hana shakes her head and sets down the lantern. Then she takes a deep breath, puts her hood down, and faces us. She looks collected, more like someone who simply didn’t sleep well last night. But it’s an act.
“Is Sora all right?” I press.
She nods.
I breathe out a sigh of relief, but that reprieve is short-lived before worry sets in again. Because if it’s not Sora, then who? Why does she look this way?
“I see you’ve met.” She gestures to Ailor and me.
“It took me a while to find him, but eventually we did,” I say.
The side of her mouth turns up. “Do you know who he is?”
“Ailor,” I say.
I glance over at him and see that he’s studying Hana. He doesn’t know her. The way she asked the question means that he’s someone important to me or her. My face flushes and I feel immensely foolish because I don’t actually know that much about him. He’s been in here with me for probably a week, giving me all the time in the world, and I didn’t ask the right questions.
“Who are you, miss?” He stands very straight, attentive to her. Ailor, like most men, is apparently swayed by beauty.
“I am Zahara—the royal spymaster.”
He smiles, running a hand over his hair. “That’s impossible.”
She tilts her head, but it’s clear she was expecting that reaction. “And why is that?”
“Because my son is the royal spymaster.”
Oh gods, that’s why he reminded me of Mikail—Ailor is his father. He’s young to have a twenty-four-year-old son, but things happen. Mikail’s mother must have died when he was only a young child, since Ailor said he lost his wife twenty years ago.
“You’re Mikail’s father?” I ask, turning toward him.
He raises his chin, evaluating me. Then he nods. “I am. You know him?”
“I… I do.”
He frowns. “Then I doubt either of us will make it out of this alive.”
“King Joon ordered Tiyung’s accidental death the same as he ordered you to be placed in custody,” Hana says to Ailor. “I thought that together, you could help me save the people we love.”
“And how do I know you’re not just trying to trap my son?” he asks.
She shrugs. “You don’t. You’d be foolish to trust me at all. The king saved me from Tiyung’s family and gave me a life of prestige. Because of Mikail’s betrayal and fall from grace, I’ve now, temporarily, taken the position of royal spymaster. It’s something most commoners can’t ever hope to achieve. Therefore, you can believe that I love someone and something more than this exalted position…or not. It’s your choice.”
Ailor is silent, stroking the short, brown beard that’s grown in his time here.
“Where have you been?” I ask.
She draws a breath as if the words will be painful. “I was spreading Daysum’s ashes.”
Daysum’s…ashes. No. Oh gods, please no.
I shake my head, denying it, but I know in my core that it’s true. My cheeks tingle as blood drains from my face. That was the look Hana had when she came in. She knows what Daysum means to Sora. Daysum was her reason for living, and now, without her…
I pray she doesn’t know, but someone like Hana will tell her. She loves Sora too much to hide the truth.
“They said Daysum died of a laoli overdose in one of your uncle’s pleasure houses,” Hana says quietly. “I had to arrange for an investigation while her body was preserved and rushed here. I burned her myself and said the prayers.”
My uncle’s…? Kingdom of Hells, my father sold her. He sold Sora’s sister as a pleasure indenture.
Daysum had told Sora that she thought she was dying, so she might have simply passed—a kindness from the gods. But it’s equally likely that my uncle killed her. They give out drugs in his pleasure houses, so an overdose is possible. Lord Sterling loses many indentures to drugs and violence. His houses advertise new indentures weekly, the girls and boys replaced like fresh horses.
But gods… Daysum. The cell feels like it’s spinning. I try to get my bearings, but I can’t.
“Your uncle is also ashes,” Hana says.
That catches me off guard and grounds me. I raise my eyebrows.
“He was found in his bed with a blade in his neck.” She speaks with all the passion of a shrug.
I would think Hana killed him, but even by fleet carriage it would take a week to reach Gain and another to return. She simply didn’t have the time.
“From whom?” I ask.
She shrugs. “We aren’t sure. As you can imagine, there are over a hundred likely suspects. Including Daysum.”
I try to find some sympathy or grief for my uncle. He never did anything wrong to me, but he was far from a good man. If Daysum killed him, it was well deserved. Now I have a new mystery, in addition to why my father is in Khitan, why the king planned his own assassination, and why he needed Sora. I suspect the king knew about Sora because of Hana, but why would she put Sora in harm’s way?
Ailor has been quietly observing us. “You really know her,” he says to me.
I nod. “From when we were children.”
“Can I trust her?”
I hesitate because I don’t know. I had nothing to lose, but he does. His death wasn’t ordered—just his captivity.
“Oh, I forgot to bribe you. Here,” Hana says.
She takes out a cloth sack twice as large as before. I think about diving for it, but she won’t take it away so long as I cooperate. Ailor remains standing still, skeptical.
Instead of tossing it to the ground, she hands the food sack to me. I can smell truffle oil through the cloth.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t come for a while, Tiyung,” she says. She looks sincere. “There was much afoot. More than just Daysum and Lord Sterling’s deaths.”
“Such as?” I ask. It takes all my reserve to follow her conversation as my stomach churns. I want to tear through the bag, and I’ve noticed Ailor’s eyes have landed on it more than once.
The moaning sounds of the iku shake the walls, and she leans in between us.
“Soldiers are on the move,” she whispers.
“To where?” Ailor asks.
“North,” she says. “They are headed north.”