Chapter 31 Quil #3
“It is a living metal.” Raani Sh’ban finally spoke.
She did not look at Arelia, however. Her comments were addressed to Quil.
“Not asleep, but not sentient, either. Ikfa lives somewhere in between. That is why your smiths struggled to temper it. Such smithing requires magic, and Spiro Teluman, talented as he was, did not have enough.”
The other Raanis looked at her in horror. “Sh’ban,” D’arju whispered. “Silence.”
“That makes sense,” Quil said. “And it’s not the only living metal you have experience with.” He was reeling from what he’d seen in the Raani’s memory. But he had no time to ponder it, to mull over the next best step. He had to act. Now.
“You have Loha,” he said. “You provided it to the Augurs.”
Tas’s eyebrows shot up; Sufiyan looked at Quil askance, clearly wanting to support his friend but wondering what the angle was. But Arelia nodded, her face lighting up.
“Of course,” she breathed, and turned to Quil.
“The buildings, Quil. I was trying to tell you—it cannot simply be magic holding up these structures. No human would have the will to keep them upright for so long. There must be a—a foundational support system of some kind. Something to keep the magic stable even when humans aren’t here. ”
Quil glanced around at the receiving hall with its carpet of flowers and intricate hangings.
“You hid it,” Quil said. “All this time the Kegari have been looking for Loha in the Empire. Torturing our people. Murdering them by the thousands. It didn’t matter that we didn’t have it. The Kegari didn’t stop. And all this time you’ve been hoarding it.”
“Enough!” Raani U’qaya said, and her panic told Quil that they’d hit on something the Jaduna desperately didn’t want them to know.
“We have heard your query, Prince. We have rejected it. I advise that you leave quietly, lest our treaty be rendered meaningless. You would not want to be at war with both the Kegari and the Jaduna—”
“No.” Raani D’arju spoke up, and her voice bit like a mountain wind. “He cannot leave. None of them can.”
“That’s how you got rid of the Ikfa,” Arelia burst out.
“The jinn said Ikfa can’t be destroyed, only contained or transformed with its opposite.
Ours was transformed into mud, but I didn’t understand how.
Even if Loha was its opposite, how could anyone have enough of it to transform the amount of Ikfa we had, when Loha seems so scarce?
There must be some magical rule you don’t know, Arelia, I thought.
” Arelia’s yellow eyes narrowed in anger, her nostrils flared.
“You killed Spiro Teluman,” she spat at them. “You didn’t have to bomb the Ikfa, you could have just quietly used the Loha on it, but you didn’t want us to know you had Loha!”
Quil exchanged a look with Sufiyan and Tas as the air in the room shifted. The Raanis were gathering their magic, and even as Quil reached for his scim, he knew it wouldn’t be enough.
“You’re supposed to be our allies.” Quil tried to keep the wrath out of his voice.
He needed their help, no matter how angry he was.
“Not monsters who condemn an entire population to death. So much suffering could have been avoided if you’d helped us.
It can still be avoided. Give us the Loha.
We’ll trade you whatever you want for it. We’ll offer it to the Tel Ilessi—”
“We cannot give it to you, Prince,” Raani Sh’ban said. “We hardly have enough to maintain our own city.”
“But—”
“No.” Raani A’yaneh spoke up. “The Empire’s future is a harvest of its past. You have sown blood. And so shall you reap it.”
“Take them,” D’arju said. “U’qaya, the Adah bond—”
“N’dia veiled it before they entered,” U’qaya said.
“No—” Quil thought of the way the coin had gone cold. “Stop this!”
A rustling behind them. Jaduna filled the room, all of them wearing triangle coins. The Raan-Ruku. Sufiyan stepped in front of Arelia as one of the Raan-Ruku attempted to grab her.
“Don’t you dar—”
A flash of light exploded from one of the Jaduna, and Sufiyan collapsed. Tas landed a few clever strikes with his daggers before he, too, was overcome. Arelia screamed, trying to shove toward Suf, even as another Jaduna held her back.
“Don’t hurt them!” Quil said. “Please—”
Arelia was gagged and bound, and Quil’s arms were wrenched behind him. The last thing he saw before a hood came down over his head was Raani D’arju shaking her head.
“I am sorry, Prince,” she said. “I wish to the skies you did not know of the Loha. I wish you had not come. For now you may never leave.”
They were dragged out of the meeting hall, Sufiyan still bellowing—they hadn’t gagged him. Quil’s mind raced through ways to escape. If he could just reach his scim—
A soft touch on his arm. A featherlight voice spoke in accented Serran, almost in passing.
“I hear you are resourceful. Honorable. Strong. My daughter would not fall in love with anyone without these qualities.”
Raani Sh’ban.
Her hands brushed at his nape, the swiftest touch on the chain of his Adah coin. Warmth filled him: Sirsha—he could feel her presence. She was near.
“A gift,” the Raani whispered. “Use it wisely.”