Chapter 33
Sometimes I wonder if we are ever looking at the same moon, the same stars. Or if it’s just me, and everyone else is looking at the dirt.
—Letter from Kiyan to his family, unsent
Kiyan
“Where is she?” I had returned to the bookseller’s stall a few moments later but Yaseema was nowhere to be found. I knew better than to think she was walking around the bazaar, not when her stack of books was still piled in the middle of the stall and the one she’d been looking at was flipped open.
The bookseller shrugged, avoiding my eyes.
I gave him a thin smile. “I would bet a giant’s weight in gold that you know exactly who I am, and what I am capable of. So, let’s stop pretending, shall we?”
He swallowed thickly, his toady throat bobbing with strain. “They dragged her that way. You shouldn’t leave unenthralled humans alone if you care for their safety.”
I whipped toward the direction he pointed, a small laneway off the bazaar. I raised what little power I still had in my veins, and this time it wasn’t the breath of life I conjured, but the whisperings of death.
I bolted into the alley, sniffing the air for her distinctive scent.
There.
They’d taken her out of the village, and down to the woods at the back of the bazaar.
I was a blur of wind and leaves and vines as my feet pounded the earth, wishing I had my iron-footed steed. But Yaseema’s scent grew stronger with every step, and when I started to hear voices, I slowed my pace.
Yaseema was tied up on the forest floor, her hands behind her back and a gag in her mouth.
I slipped behind a eucalyptus tree, taking in the scene.
There were two peri males, armed with daggers, and black masks over their faces.
They were as big as any warriors I’d fought in the ring in Charvellan city and large enough to give me pause.
They had taken her from the market instead of trying to kill her, which meant they either planned to ransom her, or worse.
My fists curled so tight my fingers bit into my palms, a deep rage beating at my chest.
Yaseema kicked out, thrashing against her bonds.
She had blood on her mouth and I couldn’t tell if it was hers or theirs.
The gag in her mouth stopped her from screaming, but she made several muffled groans.
I’d never been more excited to gut someone in my life, a grim smile curling my mouth as I watched the two masked peris.
I crouched down, and a twig snapped under my feet. The two males arguing didn’t look up, but she did.
We made eye contact over the brim of her golden spectacles, which were askew and sitting oddly. She stopped struggling and watched me, blinking furiously as I put a finger to my mouth.
Wait, I tried to communicate to her. I’m here.
You’re safe.
“She’s only a human; how did she manage to do that?” One of the peris was gesturing to a wound on the other one’s cheek. I couldn’t see his face that well given they were both masked, but I could tell there was blood running down it.
Good girl.
“Because she’s a wild cat! She’s worse than a swamp pixie with those nails.”
“By the River, just restrain her. I knew I should’ve brought someone else.”
“Do you think the captain will be after her?” Fear coated his voice and I nearly answered for him.
Yes, he will be.
“He came with her to the bazaar, but the distraction we sent will have preoccupied him for a while.”
The dark anger inside me twisted into something hot and consuming. They had planned this, pulled me away from her, and now they would pay for it.
“You should have occupied me longer,” I bit off, my words no more than a growl I didn’t wait another moment before leaping from the underbrush and tackling one of them, dagger in hand.
My vines burst through the soil, wrapping themselves around the other peri, who hadn’t been prepared for my attack.
The one underneath me kicked out, aiming for my kidney. His hands were on my knife as I attempted to slide it underneath his ribs. For just a moment I raised my chin and met his eyes, and pure shock and recognition hit me.
I swore and leapt off him, the knife in my hand unbloodied.
He scrambled away, crawling backward and pushing to his feet.
I sliced open Yaseema’s bonds and pulled the gag from her mouth. She grabbed my outstretched arm, and I lifted her up from the ground. Her eyes were wild and red-rimmed, but after a quick assessment she didn’t seem to be injured.
“Wait for me at the edge of town, by the bazaar. You can see the torchlight over there.” I pointed towards the flickering golden glow of the Tashuna bazaar.
Yaseema glanced at her attackers, then back at me, her lips bloodless as she took in my expression.
“Don’t kill them,” she whispered, her hands on my cloak.
I raised a brow, but didn’t answer her plea. “Wait for me at the edge of town,” I repeated, my voice low.
She nodded, releasing my cloak and fleeing in the direction I had told her.
When she had left, I turned to the two rebels. One was wrapped in my vines on the forest floor but had ceased struggling.
The other stood silently, watching me through the dark mask that could not hide the eyes I knew nearly as well as my own.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Tal?”
His hands came up and he roughly removed the mask tied around his face, revealing his smug grin that gleamed in the moonlitthe forest. “Did you miss me, brother?”
I scowled at him. “Fighting in the ring didn’t make us brothers.”
“What does, then? Our united resistance against the Court of Salt?”
“You don’t know what you’re doing. You went directly against me, Tal.”
“The Viceroy can’t have her.” He jerked his chin in the direction Yaseema had gone.
“You can’t have her either,” I growled, my hand drifting toward my knife.
Tal raised his hands. “Easy, we were just here to—” he cast a glance at his co-conspirator. “For River’s sake, can you free Badar? We won’t harm you.”
I called on my vines to recede, and his friend breathed with relief and sat up, rubbing his forearms. He too removed his dark mask, though he was much less smug than Tal.
He actually had the good sense to look afraid.
I didn’t recognize him, which wasn’t surprising.
There were many in the Rebellion I did know, with more and more coming to our side every day.
“The Viceroy cannot have Queen Azari’s crown, you know what he will do with it,” Tal continued, echoing the same thoughts I’d had myself. “We can’t risk it, brother.”
“And what exactly do you propose I do? Kill her?” I bit off, frustration spilling into something more feral.
Tal just looked at me, his face stony.
Yes, he was saying to me, without voicing the word aloud.
Yes, we should kill her.
I growled a low sound. “No. Absolutely not.”
“Nothing stopped you from killing before,” he said viciously. “Even members of your own Court. Which she isn’t.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“You think I don’t dream of every single person I’ve ever killed and know that? You think I don’t wish I had another choice for them? This won’t end if we still can’t attack Reza or raise a fight the Court of Salt. Our powers are still limited, and Rusul’s crown protects him from being attacked.”
Tal snorted. “Do you think I’m a fool? We know you want Azari’s crown to lift the curse on Tirich Mir and free the royal family. It isn’t just about the River Court.”
I went still, not even daring to breathe. “There’s no proof Azari’s crown will do that. No magic can break that curse.”
He jerked his chin. “Hers might.”
I shook my head, my heart sinking even as I said the words I knew to be true.
“Queen Azari was powerful, but that curse is impenetrable. I doubt even her crown would be enough to find the entrance and allow us inside. Whatever she used is old magic, something once triggered, impossible to overcome.”
“I didn’t mean the Queen, you fool. I meant your little scholar.” Talal tilted his head. “Quite pretty, isn’t she? I mean, for a human.”
I snarled at him. “Shut your mouth—”
“This isn’t useful, friends.” Badar raised his hand, startling me because I’d nearly forgotten he was there in the middle of my argument with Talal. “Kiyan, we have no quarrel with you. We acted on opportunity. The Red Jasmine doesn’t want your human giving Reza the crown.”
“She won’t,” I bit off. “I won’t allow it.”
“Then why even go through this?” bit off Tal.
“Ask our leader,” I nearly shouted. “This is her plan. I’m just helping to follow it through. Maybe it’s time you talk to the other members of the Red Jasmine before acting on opportunity. Tell her I’m bringing the crown back and she can fucking have it. But she doesn’t get the girl. Nor do you.”
They both looked at each other then, eyes widened in surprise.
Tal folded his arms across his chest a look of understanding flashing across his face. “She wants the rebels to steal the crown from him?”
“It isn’t my job to make sure you know what you’re doing. Everything is in place. Maybe you should all talk to each other before messing with a plan and causing the entirety of Reza’s army to come down on you in a shitstorm of epic proportions.”
Badar had the decency to look worried.
“I can protect you from him to some extent, but not if you take her. She’s the only thing that’s given him any excitement lately besides ripping the wings off river pixies.”
Tal shuddered and looked away. “Can she really find it?”
“She can find anything,” I breathed.
Tal lifted his chin, a new gleam entering his eyes. “Even the entrance to the Mountain?”
My eyelids fluttered closed, briefly. “Maybe even that.”
“So that’s why you want her.”
“Yes,” I said, letting him believe the lie.
The truth I suspected, was much more troubling.
* * *
Yaseema waited at the edge of the village, as I had instructed her, her arms wrapped around her shoulders.
She was illuminated by one of the streetlights and looked so small in comparison to the two warriors I’d just spoken to in the forest—even though she’d managed to make Badar bleed with a vicious scratch down his throat.
“Are they dead?” she asked bluntly.
I rubbed my hand across the back of my neck. “No.”
“Good. They didn’t harm me, you know.”
“They could have. They likely wanted to. And why do you care so much about the well-being of rebels?”
“Why did they take me?” She ignored my question.
“They don’t want Reza having an advantage.” I shook my head. “No, that’s not right. It wouldn’t just be an advantage if he found the crown, it would be catastrophic.”
She took that information in, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “And how did you manage to convince them otherwise?”
“I told them that if you went missing, Reza would wipe the entire eastern corner of the River Court off the map. It simply wouldn’t exist anymore.”
She huffed a breath. A cold breeze lifted the curls around her face and she gave a small shiver. My anger slowly leaked out of me at seeing such a human reaction. I unclipped my cloak and draped it around her shoulders, silencing her when she protested.
“We are heading back to the caravanserai before any other member of the resistance decides to abduct you.”
I took her hand in mine, and she glanced down in surprise, though I hadn’t thought about the casual intimacy of it. I just wanted to make sure she didn’t disappear again.
She can find anything.
Even the entrance to the Mountain?
I’d be lying if I hadn’t thought about it, if I hadn’t wanted to try to see if she could give us a way into the cursed Mountain.
I had no idea if the magic of Queen Azari’s crown would break the curse but if it took away the Court of Salt’s power, it was the only chance we had.
We wove through the cobbled streets, and she didn’t pull her hand from mine, nor object to my pacing. The streets were quieter now, the night bazaar closed. Villagers still gave me a wide berth, eyes flickering to the crystal embroidered on my sleeve, knowing that I worked for the Salt Court.
At last we made it back to the caravanserai. The main hall was already full of sleeping travelers, but there wasn’t any way I was leaving Yaseema alone after tonight. Instead, I walked her to her room, exhaustion settling into my bones.
“I’ll sleep out here, to make sure you don’t get absconded with in the night.”
She glanced down at the floor by her door and then back up at me. “Don’t be foolish. There’s plenty of room for you to sleep in here. There’s even a chair.”
The journey, coupled with how much I had to be around Reza, had seeped into my skin, weighing me down with fatigue, like lead in my veins and it smothered all my protests. I allowed her to usher me inside, stepping through the open door and gave her a stiff nod of thanks.
A fire raged in the hearth, and she unclipped my cloak from her shoulders, draping it over the chair.
“Your cloak is so heavy, I don’t know how you can walk around with it all day.”
Her words reminded me of something, and I strode over to her, lifting my cloak from the chair.
“This might have something to do with the weight.”
I pulled a book from the pocket of my cloak, one of the thicker ones she’d been reading at the bazaar, A Compendium of Magic in the Seven Courts of Peristan.
“What is this?”
“I swiped it from the bookseller in the bazaar, when he decided to lie about not knowing where you went.” I shrugged. “I figured you might want to keep reading it.”
Her mouth dropped open, and she took the book with tentative hands. “Thank you. That’s. . . .” She looked up at me with big, dark eyes, and I found myself arrested by them. “No one’s ever given me a book before,” she whispered.
I nodded at her, not knowing what to say. It looked suspiciously like gratitude in her eyes, and I was the last person anyone should be grateful for.
I was the one using her to get what I wanted, and giving her nothing but a book in return.
She placed the book on the small table next to the fire and began rummaging in her bag. I turned around as I realized she was getting ready for bed and busied myself with removing my boots and weapons.
“I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“The bed is huge, and I don’t mind.”
She slipped under the covers and turned her back to me.
It seemed innocuous to lie down beside her, but my heart pounded as if there was an imminent threat at any moment. I was being a fool. But if I slept on the floor now, it would seem as if I were admitting to a problem. She certainly didn’t feel uncomfortable about sharing a bed with me.
I exhaled slowly and slid under the covers beside her, staying fully clothed.
It was the first time I’d ever slept beside another person without a knife under my pillow, and my body felt like it was a vine unfurling into sunlight for the first time.
I held my breath until I heard the steady sounds of sleep overtaking her.
Then I lay on my back, staring at the wooden beams of the caravanserai ceiling, wondering when the lines started blurring between us and how much I could do to stop them.
And if I even wanted to.