Chapter 15 Karinna
Karinna
Aba had insisted on mind-training all his children. There are people and creatures of this world that would pick your thoughts from you for sport. Don’t become their prey.
It was difficult to practice, but whenever Karinna’s grandmother, the Bani al-Mauth, came to visit, she’d test her grandchildren. In truth, only Ruh and Karinna had ever been any good at the training. They tried not to lord it over their siblings. But secretly, they were gleeful together.
Sufiyan wears his emotions like fine clothing and escapes the repercussions with his charm, Nan said.
Zuriya’s brain is like a labyrinth, so let us hope anyone digging around in there merely gets lost. And you two—she’d looked between Ruh and Karinna—you’re like your father. Minds like steel traps. You’ll be fine.
As Karinna followed Musa and the sky-dog out of the Resistance cave and to the clearing where they’d stowed a Sail, she silently thanked Aba and Nan.
Because now she knew how to erect a barrier around her mind, smooth as the glassy walls of the Sher Jinaat, the City of the Jinn.
She didn’t do it because she feared her thoughts being read.
She put up the walls because she wanted to be taciturn.
The walls helped keep her obvious confusion and anger from satisfying the people who hated her most in the Resistance.
She still couldn’t believe they’d tried to get her kicked out. Thinking about it made her blood boil. But it also made her chest burn in embarrassment. Her mother’s words came to mind. She’s so unknowable. She doesn’t have any friends…
It was nearly midnight when she exited the cave. She held her head high, trying to ignore the snickers and muttering that trailed her.
Good luck to that poor Kegari bastard.
What do you bet she picks a fight and kills him before the day’s out?
She’s only here because her father begged Musa.
For a brief and foolish moment, she wanted to shout at all of them. What did I do to you? Why do you hate me so much?
“Good riddance, Keris.”
It was Khunnor who spoke, and Karinna whirled at the insult, a knife at his throat before he could so much as blink.
“You’re a sorry lot,” she said to him—to Bhadboo, standing at his back. To all these idiots. “Enjoy cleaning latrines while some of us go on a real mission.”
Khunnor stared her dead in the eyes, disdainful and surly. “Musa’s just getting rid of you, sand-rat. Sending you off as a nanny to the sky-pig so the real fighters can do the work.”
Karinna almost leapt at him. Almost wrapped her hands around his stupid, fat throat.
Make good choices, daughter.
She sheathed her blade and walked away. Karinna knew why they hated her.
Because she was a better fighter and strategist than all of them put together and she wasn’t afraid to tell them so.
She sneered, even as Khunnor turned his back on her.
The others did too, but she left before she saw the last of it, holding on to her pride even as her chin trembled.
She was a Veturia. Daughter of Elias and Laia.
Granddaughter of the Bani al-Mauth. She would show no weakness. Not to anyone.
Ahead of her, Musa and the pilot were deep in conversation, the former gesturing to what looked in the night’s shadows like a pile of canvas and sticks on the ground. The sky-dog was spinning a ring on his finger, brow furrowed.
“That’s my design,” the sky-dog said. “But the materials—”
“We have engineers in the Empire, too,” Musa said. “As talented as yours. It was easy enough to copy. And, as Karinna will be behind you, we’ve added a communication apparatus so you can talk during flight.”
The pilot began to inspect the sticks, and Musa dropped back to speak with Karinna.
“I can trust you to see this through?” he asked Karinna, and she gave him a dark look.
“When a superior officer gives me orders, I follow them,” she said. “Unless they’re stupid orders, but you don’t usually give those.”
“Why, thank you,” Musa said dryly, and glanced at the pilot, who watched as the canvas and sticks lifted and transformed into a Sail. Musa dropped his voice.
“You completed the first part of the mission when you brought him in. You know the second. Now for the third.” He met Karinna’s eyes, his own deadly serious.
“We have no idea what the risks of this journey are, only that they’re significant.
You’re to obey Cero’s orders unless they directly counter your mission—”
“Cero’s orders?” Karinna said, and the Kegari glanced over at the sound of his name. Karinna scowled at him until he looked away, and lowered her voice. “The sky-dog’s not my commander—”
“For this mission, he is. And I’m not done. In addition to following his orders, you’re to stick to him like a damned burr, no matter what. You’re to protect him and bring him back alive, Kari. By any means. Any means.”
“The wights,” she ground out. “I know.”
“They are loyal companions once you win their trust. Give it time. Ah—” He smiled. “Someone else has come to bid you farewell.”
Karinna glanced down, feeling something soft at her ankles. Abzi, gazing up at her with keen green eyes.
Two-legs, she said. You go?
Yes, I go, Karinna said. I’ll miss you, Abzi. Thank you for being my friend.
Abzi purred, wending between Karinna’s legs, then padded off to sniff at the Sail. Karinna felt a surprising pang of sadness. She’d miss the only creature in the immediate vicinity who appeared to tolerate her company.
“We should leave soon,” the Kegari called out. “Harder to track a Sail at night.”
“We’ll go when I’m good and ready, sky-dog,” Karinna snarled before turning back to Musa.
“Work at your magic the way you work at combat, Kari. It will serve you just as well.” Musa took her shoulders. “Can I count on you to carry out the mission? That includes not calling him sky-dog, by the way.”
Karinna looked to the cave where the Resistance fighters had insulted her. They were still back there, waiting for her to fail. Waiting for her to give Musa a reason to toss her out.
“You can count on me,” she said.
“Then good luck,” Musa said, and as he looked down at her, he wasn’t the strict commander she’d seen the past few weeks but the old friend she’d known since she was a child. “I believe you can do this, Karinna, and do it brilliantly. Always victorious.”
Karinna stood a bit taller, the motto of Gens Veturia sending a bolt of confidence through her. “Always victorious.”
Moments later, the sky-dog—Cero, Karinna corrected herself—approached and gestured her toward the seat behind the pilot’s spot.
“We’ll head to Jibaut,” he said as she poked at the seat. “I know someone who can—”
“I don’t bleeding care,” Karinna said. “How do I make sure I don’t fall out of this thing?”
Cero began strapping her in. “First flight can be overwhelming,” he said. “Try to focus on—”
“I don’t need advice from a sk—from you.” She tried to grab the buckles from him. Karinna didn’t like him so close that she could smell him, even if he didn’t exactly smell bad. But he pinned her with his eerie green gaze, his irritation clear.
“Let me do this,” he said. “Unless you want to fall a thousand feet to a gruesome death.”
“Then buckle me in tight, pilot,” Karinna said, and he looked down slowly when he felt her knife pressing into his flight leathers. “Because I’m going to check, and if I’m not pleased, I’ll gut you.”
“You’ll try.”
“Seems easy enough. You’re no fighter if that beating you took in Antium was anything to judge you by.”
“It wasn—”
“Will you two ever leave?” Musa drawled from behind them, and Karinna jumped because she’d forgotten he was still here. “Or do you plan to bicker until I’m dead?”
The Kegari pilot’s jaw was clenched, a vein at his temple jumping. Karinna grinned at how easy he was to rile up. At least the trip wouldn’t be boring.
A shout in the distance. The smirk dropped off Karinna’s face. Cero turned, hands lifted as if to call on his magic.
Then a telltale whistle, a streak of darkness falling from above. The earth trembled and an immense fireball exploded behind them—right where the Resistance hideout was.
The Kegari had found them.