Chapter 2 Kasira
KASIRA
KASIRA WOKE WITH A SCREAM ON HER LIPS.
It was several moments before her mind caught up to her eyes, and in those protracted seconds between nightmare and wakefulness, she was back in her cell in Belvar, the walls too close, the stale air too thin.
Then her vision resolved into the sloping outline of Revna’s slumbering form, the deep rumble of her snore filling the tent.
It wasn’t the first time her dreams had woken her.
She hadn’t slept through the night since before Belvar, when the woman beside her had been a thief so clever Kasira had spent her teenage years desperately chasing her skill.
Back then, it was so easy to believe that nothing would ever change.
Now she knew that worlds could collapse on the turn of a wind.
With her heart beating painfully against the cage of her chest, Kasira rolled out of her bedroll and donned her boots, slipping silently out into the light of a harvest moon.
A slurring voice emanated from a nearby tent, fighting its way through the garbled final refrains of “In the King’s name, the beasts we will slay.
” The camp was quiet otherwise, the last revelers from the night’s victory celebration drunk on watered-down ale and passed out on their bedrolls.
Anywhere else in Kalthos, such debauchery would have been condemned, but not among Haidra’s chosen.
Born from a group of Haidrin priests when the religion flowed south, the Malikinar’s ranks had swelled over the past several decades, now firmly rooted beneath the crown’s military despite their church ties.
Kasira was convinced half the Malik only joined up for the lax restrictions, tired of being told they couldn’t drink or swear or fight lest they tarnish their souls.
She started walking, but it wasn’t long before her breath began to quicken with nerves, and she slid into the Isherwood.
Sometimes, the openness of the sky made her feel as though she were drowning.
She had spent so many years locked inside a cell that cramped spaces made her nervous, but even worse were the ones that felt as endless in their vastness as the sea.
This isn’t real. She summoned the familiar refrain as she walked. This is only temporary.
She made it all of thirty yards before she reached the bodies, still stacked in a pile and waiting for the Paratal to set them alight in tomorrow’s Burning.
The Alkatirs’ white-furred limbs lay bent at awkward angles, feathered wings snapped like paper kites.
She covered her nose against the stench, unable to look away from the open, staring eyes of the dead beasts.
The orphanage’s priests had drilled into her that beasts were the manifestation of human sin.
That when one trespassed against Kalish law, when they lied or cheated or stole, their sin led to the birth of another beast. The only way to purify one’s soul was through dedication to Haidra, or by killing beasts as part of the Malikinar.
Only then, once the world had been purified of sin, would their goddess return to them in the flesh for the Final Forgiveness.
Never mind that the Library’s international laws permitted killing beasts only in defense of human life.
If anyone asked, the Kalish government would spin some story about how the pride had attacked a town, and there had been no time to call for help, but everyone would know it for the cleansing that it was.
Looking at the corpses before her, graceful even in death, Kasira felt anything but clean.
Something rustled in the brush, and Kasira stilled. A creature barely smaller than her slunk from the trees, the moonlight catching on a sleek white body and a single golden eye, the other a ravaged mess.
The Alkatir cub.
The beast sniffed the pile of corpses, making a pained keening sound.
“Hush,” Kasira hissed. “They’ll hear you.”
The cub turned on her, snarling and trying to lift its wings to look bigger, but one remained limp at its side.
Kasira stepped toward it, arms spread wide. “Go!” She clapped once, hard, and the cub scurried back into the forest.
“Kasira?” called a slurring voice.
A broad-shouldered form detached itself from the shadows.
Commander Dessen’s usually stiff gait was loose from the mylak he indulged in too freely.
One of the few magical artifacts that the Library deemed safe not to confiscate, the enchanted wine tasted different to anyone who drank it.
She suspected Dessen would say his tasted of beast blood and good Kalish steel, his possession of the wine a secret as open as the grave behind her, as he often shared it with Malik he favored.
Commander Dessen leered down at her with dark eyes, one hand caressing the whip at his side. “I thought I saw you go this way. Inspecting your handiwork?”
“It was a good kill, Commander.” She immediately stood taller beneath his attention. Feet together, shoulders back—a good soldier, just like he expected to see. He needn’t know that he repulsed her nearly as much as the pile of carcasses.
“Come now, Kasira, I’ve told you before. It’s Harker when we’re alone.”
They weren’t alone. Jevin and another Malik stood at the tree line at his back, but their eyes were set on the woods beyond in a clear message: We see nothing.
Dessen swayed where he stood, but his eyes were steady on her, pupils blown wide and black. His hand tightened on his whip. “That said, no matter your reason for coming here, you are still breaking curfew. That’s two infractions in one day, criminal.”
Kasira was painfully aware of her lack of weaponry. She had a single knife, her sword left behind in her tent, though this was not the sort of problem steel could solve. Next, Dessen would illustrate how delicate her situation was before pressing what he really came for—her.
“Come here.” He crooked a finger. She didn’t move.
His face darkened. “I don’t care how many beasts you slay.
You remain here by my good graces alone, and I can just as easily return you to where you came from.
” To Belvar, to her jail cell. To the four-by-four room of stone walls with no window, no light, no air.
“You’re making a mistake,” she warned. Her voice was calm, but her mind ticked through possibilities.
Dessen was too drunk to be dissuaded with logic and just conceited enough to go through with this.
She had been preparing for this moment ever since he’d arrived, his attention too quick to settle on her, but her contingency plan wasn’t ready yet.
Dessen emitted a low sound of frustration. “The mistake is yours. You are disobeying a direct order from your commanding officer.”
For most, that meant ten lashes, atop the ten for breaking curfew. For her, it would mean returning to Belvar. But obeying meant losing what little strength she had left.
Some part of her had wanted this confrontation.
To be backed into a corner so tight she had no choice but to fight her way out.
It was the same part that knew what she had been doing the past four years was a poor imitation of living, that even if she made it to the end of her ten-year service, there would be nothing left of her.
That was Dessen’s true mistake: He didn’t know what she was willing to do to survive.
Satisfaction bloomed across his face when she strode toward him. He expected her to bend to his will, to yield to the power he held over her.
He did not expect her to drive a knife into his leg.
His scream tore through the clearing, and she jerked the blade free, swinging for his neck. Some semblance of Malik training must have kicked in because he seized her by the elbow and wrenched her arm, forcing her to drop the knife.
She caught it with her other hand and drove it back into the same leg.
His guards reached them then, dragging her away as Commander Dessen clutched his thigh. His leathers would have taken the brunt of the damage, but he didn’t seem like the type who handled pain well. He didn’t hold it close, a familiar companion.
“On her knees!” Dessen shrieked.
“Sir, your leg—” began Jevin.
“Now!”
They forced Kasira to her knees with her back to Dessen, Jevin hissing in her ear, “About time someone put you back in your place, Kott.”
She only stared into the trees.
Con artists had many skills, from a knack for reading people to a talent for remembering details, but Kasira had never excelled at anything more than lying.
To her marks, to her friends, even to herself—she crafted fallacies so intricate she sometimes lost herself in them, but she never let anyone see the truth.
Guard your heart, Loraya’s voice whispered, ever the teacher. Never let them see your fear. They will only use it against you.
Jevin and the other Malik drew her arms out to her sides, and she fought the reflex to brace for the first blow. She had been lashed before. The first time, she had struggled so violently they had made a mess of more than her back. After that, she had learned to stay still.
It came without warning, the whip tearing through her tunic and into the scarred skin of her shoulders in a searing line that took her breath away.
Dessen struck again and again in quick succession, and she knew he would not stop until her back was a bloody, ravaged thing; that he had no intention of letting her survive; that if by some miracle she did, he would leave her here for the beasts.
All she could think was that at least it was not the cell, the darkness so thick she didn’t know where it ended and she began.
At least, perhaps, she would see Loraya again.
“Stop!” The word cut through the roar of blood in Kasira’s ears. She felt the brush of the whip as Dessen snapped his hand back in time to restrain the blow. The voice spoke again, then the Malik shifted her around. A hand found her chin, holding her face up to the pale blue glow of a balestone.