7. Chapter 7
Chapter 7
T hey were able to get two rooms at the inn, which was a miracle considering the holiday and the wagons that had come in from the surrounding settlements for the celebration. There was a flat area at the back of the village where travelers had pitched tents beneath the trees or thrown canvas tarps over their wagons to create a space for their families to sleep. Small cook fires flickered like fireflies, and some of the travelers were selling small things, from produce to trinkets to jewelry and clothing.
As the sun sank below the horizon, the roasted pig was pulled from the pit where it had been cooking for the better part of two days. Isabel watched in delight as the meat was pulled and prepared, and people gathered around in excitement .
“This reminds me of our celebration of the coming of the rainy season in Ineti,” Karim said as they waited in line to get a plate.
“Do you roast a pig?” Isabel grinned.
His mouth tipped up. “Goat, actually. It’s hot and dry for most of the year where my clan lives. We get very little rain, so most people raise animals. But when the rain does come, we celebrate with food and drink and dancing.”
She tried to imagine Karim dancing and couldn’t. She wondered how different the dances he’d grown up with were from the whirling reels and jigs she’d danced in the village. She caught herself watching Karim. She was struck again by how little she knew about him, about his life before all this.
They each got a plate filled with meat, simmered beans, and a plethora of roasted vegetables, as well as a mug of ale. Karim pointed out an empty table on the other side of the bonfire, and they made their way over and sat down.
“All right,” he said, peering at her over his mug of ale. His eyes flashed. “We need to talk about your magic.”
Isabel rolled her eyes. “I thought you said the point of this little venture of ours was fun.”
“I also said my goal was to get you to talk to me.”
“You are talking to me.”
“Isabel. ”
She leaned back in her chair. “What do you want to know? What happened earlier today...I told you already. That’s never happened before. Well, except in the Mediran dungeon.”
Karim nodded. “I’ve been thinking about it. About why.”
Isabel’s shoulders tensed. “And what did you come up with?”
“I told you before that my affinity is weaving wards to make things...more like themselves.”
She nodded.
“And yours is to draw shadows to you. Existing shadows.”
She waited for him to go on.
“It’s— I think it’s me. My magic. It coaxes yours to be more of itself. More shadow. And it’s like”—he waved a hand in the air—“I don’t know, we became shadow.”
Isabel stared at him. Became shadow. A new hollowness settled in the pit of her stomach.
“It’s not like anything I’ve heard of before. Or even read about.” His fingers curled around the mug of ale. “It was like our power amplified. Like one fed the other. The more my affinity coaxed yours to become more of itself, the more shadow there was to coax. An infinity of expansion. ”
A chill spread across her body. “Okay,” she said, trying to wrap her mind around his words, trying to keep the panic at bay. “When does this, this magic, transform from the good kind of magic you described before and become something twisted like what the Sorothi chanters practice?”
“I don’t think it does,” Karim said, taking a sip of his ale. “We aren’t forcing things to do what they weren’t intended to do.”
“Aren’t we?” she said. “At some point, the shadow must grow beyond what it was meant to. You said it was an infinity of expansion. So what? We end up engulfing the entire world in shadow? When it dissipates, it must go somewhere.” Her fingers clenched nervously and then released. “How long until this blows up in our faces and we pay the consequence?”
He was quiet for a moment, regarding her with a thoughtful expression. When he finally spoke again, his voice was soft. “My grandfather had an affinity for wards and things, like I do. If magic is passed down in a family line, then I certainly got my ability from him. He was the one who taught me to imbue objects with protective wards and the like.” He nodded to the knife that still hung at her belt, to the sheath he’d given her that morning. “He coached me to make that. To tell it that it was a dagger, meant to protect. And it seems it’s done its job.”
The wards in the knife flared briefly at his words, as if it were listening, basking in his approval.
“And what does that have to do with...with what happened today?” she asked, a lump forming in her throat.
“I’ve practiced what the chanters are teaching.” He leaned forward, his voice earnest. “I knew from the first moment I saw what they were doing that they were twisting the world to their will, not letting the world be as it was supposed to be.”
She watched as more people filled their plates bursting with food.
“You remember the man from today? The one with the scar who tried to convince me to come with them?”
Isabel nodded. He had seemed impossibly sad—a man caught in a position he’d never imagined himself in.
Karim’s gaze traveled beyond her shoulder. “His name is Paarsav Amanakar. He’s one of Sethos’ many cousins on his mother’s side, the eldest son of one of the most powerful families in Ineti.”
Isabel frowned. She did not envy those who had to deal with the complicated bloodlines of the Inetian throne. “And he was the one who led your group to the Sorothi enclave?” she ventured .
Karim nodded, his gaze darkening. “Paarsav knew my uncle. He knew what had happened to my family—that we’d been sent back to our clan lands in disgrace. He knew my uncle was seeking revenge on the emperor. Paarsav was the one who convinced my uncle and my father to join the cause.” His jaw tightened. “And he was the one who convinced me too.”
Isabel watched him quietly, waiting for him to go on.
“I had my entire life mapped out before me from the time I was born. My father had a prominent position in the Inetian military, and I was to follow in his footsteps as the oldest son. My magic affinity was just something that could help me rise in the ranks even faster. I attended the most prestigious military academy in Ineti, and I excelled .” His hand clenched around his mug of ale. “I was poised to rise higher than my father ever had. And then my uncle’s fall from grace came, over nothing more than the emperor’s jealousy. Something so incredibly petty, it’s not worth repeating.”
He continued, an edge to his voice. “I lost my place in the military. My uncle, my father, and our family were sent back to our clan’s lands in the far west of the empire, ostensibly with jobs that were of the ‘utmost importance to the empire’, but that were little more than a means to get our family out of the way. ”
He shook his head. “I was angry. Angry that everything I had ever wanted had been taken from me on a mere whim . I wanted the emperor to pay. It was not right that someone so full of himself and careless of the well-being of others could sit on the throne of such a vast empire.”
“Kind of like the Mediran king,” Isabel said.
Karim nodded. “ Exactly . Except a thousand times worse.” He sighed. “What Amanakar was offering seemed like everything I wanted. I could finally use my affinity for something I deemed to be good . I thought that anyone deserved the throne more than the emperor himself did. And so Akil and I went willingly, excitedly, to Medira.”
He stared out toward the embers of the bonfire. The sun had fully dipped beneath the horizon now, and shadows flickered off his hands and across the table. “We’d only been at the enclave two months before the explosion that took Akil’s life.” His fingers curled again around his mug. “I knew at that point that what we’d been sent to learn was stupid, dangerous. And I was furious. We’d been used again, and Akil had been discarded, as if his life had never mattered at all.”
Sorrow curled in Isabel’s gut. What a waste. A waste of life. A waste of skill. A waste of power. A waste of human beings who wanted better lives for themselves, for their families .
“And you know the rest. I’m wanted by seemingly every damn nation that’s ever meant something to me.” He took a long swig of his ale.
An ache of sadness settled in in Isabel’s chest as she looked at him in the flickering light. His entire life had been torn apart by greed and power. He was without a land, without a family. He had made some bad choices, yes, but they had arisen mostly from circumstance. And Isabel could understand that. More than understand that. And yet, he was here with her, life blazing in his eyes, with a desire to stop the injustice that had torn his life apart. Something softened in her chest.
“Do you miss it?” she asked. “Ineti, I mean. Your old life.”
He glanced up at her in surprise. “Some things, yes,” he said softly. “I miss sleeping with my family on our roof on the hottest nights of the year, feeling the breeze on my skin and knowing that everyone I loved was near.” His mouth tipped. “It meant that I was safe, that I could sleep easy. I haven’t had a night of peace like that in . . . I don’t know how long.”
Isabel’s mind skittered to his warmth at her back when she’d woken in his bedroll this afternoon, a strange sort of peace and safety settling along her skin. She violently pushed that thought away .
“So, you see,” he said. “I know the difference. I can feel it. What happened today and at the Mediran palace, that wasn’t magic that was meant to tear the world apart.”
Isabel wrapped her arms around herself almost involuntarily. What did it mean if he was right?
He leaned toward her, his eyes blazing with intent. “ Why are you afraid, Isabel? Your magic is a part of you, of who you are. Isn’t that something that’s taught in Rendra?”
Afraid. All thoughts of peace and safety scattered to the wind. She hated that he could see through her like this.
“It’s not that,” she started, trying desperately to keep her voice even, to not let him see how much his words had rattled her. “It’s just that everyone in my life before I came to the capital was just waiting, Karim, waiting for me to turn into an Archer-forsaken monster. My whole village knew about what I could do with shadow simply because I didn’t realize that no one else could do what I could, so I’d never tried to hide it. I spent my childhood being whispered about, pointed at, having other kids called away from me when I tried to join a game.”
The old hurt flared in her chest, but the words were coming quickly now, and she couldn’t stop them. “My parents told me over and over that I was normal, that the others in town didn’t know what they were talking about. That I was their child and could never disappoint them. But it was hard to keep those other voices out. The ones telling me I was a thing of darkness because of what I could do.”
Something wild and angry flashed in Karim’s gaze. “Do you truly believe that about yourself, Isabel?”
She dropped her eyes to the plate of food that was growing cold in front of her. She had tried for so long not to believe that about herself. But then her magic had erupted with blackness and power and rage, just as the villagers had always claimed it would, and now she had a hard time pushing those voices away again.
“My sister never believed that about me,” she said softly, running a finger absently along the edge of her plate. “Sophia. That was her name.”
Karim didn’t move.
Isabel’s throat closed. It had been a long time since she’d talked about her sister to anyone. “She was two years younger than me. Our parents were good to us—more than good. They loved us unconditionally. I was always the dark, stormy one, but Sophia, she was brightness and laughter. Our mother died when we were young. And then, after our father died, I convinced her to come with me to the capital. There wasn’t much for us left at home except to get married and . . . that wasn’t an option for me. Not there. I was sure there would be more work, more of a life for us if we got out, away.”
Her voice wobbled. “She was so excited to be in the city, in a place so much bigger than where we had grown up, a place so full of life and people. We had some money and were hired as scullery maids in a larger villa near the palace.” Her hands ached at the memory of the endless hours of scrubbing dirty dishes and pots and pans in scalding, soapy water, her fingers raw and cracked, especially in the depths of winter. “It was hard work, but Sophia thought it was all rather exciting. I was willing to put up with it because we needed the income and because she was just so . . . happy.”
Isabel picked up her fork and absently stabbed it into a piece of meat. “Then winter came, and she came down with a cough. At first, neither of us thought much of it. Sickness is rampant in the servant’s quarters, especially in winter. But it kept getting worse and worse. And eventually she came down with a fever.” She could see her sister now, shivering in her bed in the maid’s quarters in the heart of the city, her body slick with sweat. “I tried to take care of her between my shifts in the kitchen. I tried to help her, but I—” Her throat closed further, and she shook herself, willing the pain away. She had had almost three years to work through this grief .
“She died,” she said after a while. “On a cold day in January. It was snowing.”
Karim’s gaze was unbearably soft across the table, his features cast in firelight.
“I left my job,” Isabel continued. “I couldn’t bear to stay there. Too many memories.” She shook her head. “I was lost. Alone and grieving. And I knew I couldn’t go back to that kind of work, not when I was on my own. So that’s when I had the insane idea to . . . get the attention of the queen’s shadow. I had nothing left to lose. It was either grasp for the kind of life I wanted or . . .” She trailed off. “Luckily, Cassandra was the type to be impressed with a stunt like that rather than infuriated. She gave me a job, and then rooms in the palace. Everything Sophia and I had ever dreamed of.”
“Isabel,” Karim whispered. “I’m . . . I’m sorry.”
She looked at him then, at the softness in his gaze, the orange light of the bonfire casting shadows along his cheekbones and jaw. Her heart gave a sudden, irrational thump.
“I know you lost your brother,” she said quickly. “And I know watching my sister waste away from illness is nothing compared to what you went through—”
“No,” Karim said sharply. He learned forward, his gaze earnest, intense. “Don’t say that. One loss is not worse than another. You lost your sister and that hurts. Just as much as it hurt to—to lose Akil.”
The lump in her throat expanded suddenly. “I’ve always been a thing of darkness, Karim. Everyone I love . . .” She trailed off.
“You are not .” Karim’s eyes flashed at her across the table, an intensity in them that made her shiver. “You know that’s not true. You are not a thing of darkness. You are not a monster. It’s your choices that turn you into a monster. And as far as I can tell, you haven’t done anything that leads me to believe you are monstrous.”
She let out a shaky breath, not daring to raise her eyes to look at him. She had never spoken those words out loud before—her fears, her worry. And now he had come and somehow pried it out of her, and then he had to go and say that , as if he could see through her into the deepest part of her soul, to the grief that had lingered there for so long.
She stared at him across the table, and there was something heavy, tangible, hanging between them. A moment she didn’t want to break, didn’t want to end. Her heart gave that traitorous thump again.
He was the one who finally leaned back. He gave her a shaky smile. “There,” he said. “I got you to talk.”
Her mouth curved. “Traitor. ”
His eyes widened for a second, and then he snorted. “You’re walking on thin ice there, Algerin.”
“Have you ever seen ice before?” she asked pointedly.
“No,” he said. “But I’ve heard it’s remarkably changeable.”
The heaviness that had hung over her since she’d sprung him from the Mediran prison lifted for a moment. She smiled at him, suddenly feeling strange and giddy and light all at once.
There was a sudden cheer, and a trio of fiddles on the other side of the fire struck up a jaunty tune. People were on their feet in an instant, chattering in excitement as they joined hands in a ring around the bonfire, feet kicking and hands clapping as they fell in step with the reel.
Isabel’s heart leaped, and she couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face. She knew this song. Her foot started tapping unconsciously. She hadn’t danced in so long. Too long. It had been the one thing she could do at village celebrations where she felt so utterly and totally herself. Where she could move and whirl and forget that she was the girl of shadows, the girl to be feared. In the midst of the dance she could become invisible, part of a whirling whole, where nothing else mattered.
Karim leaned forward, his mouth curving dangerously. “You don’t strike me as the type who likes to dance. ”
Isabel’s eyes flashed, and she matched him stare-for-stare. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Saad.”
“I’m figuring that out,” he said.
There was a beat as they stared at each other across the table, the world seeming to narrow, the space between the infinitesimally small. Isabel’s heart gave a thud, and she pushed herself out of her chair.
Karim stared up at her, the orange light of enchanted orb fire casting a shadow along his jaw. Isabel swallowed, then said as lightly as she could, “I remember you saying the point of this night was to have fun. So, I’m going to.” Then she turned toward the circle of whirling dancers and thrust herself into the fray.
Her body remembered the steps, the movement of the music, before her brain did. The jigs and reels she had grown up dancing, the energy of the crowd, the laughter, the movement, as the people around her lost themselves in the music. Laughter bubbled up in her throat as she joined hands with one partner and then the next, legs kicking, body whirling, moving in an interconnected circle. For a moment, she could forget herself, forget the darkness of the world, and just be .
Then a hand slid into hers, warm and solid, and Isabel found herself staring up at Karim. He gave her a smile, uncertain and boyish.
“So, you do dance?” she said.
“I don’t know if what I’m about to do can be counted as dancing,” he said. “But I have danced before.”
Isabel grinned. “You’ll pick it up.”
“Will I?” he asked.
And then the music started again, and they were dancing. It was immediately clear that he didn’t know the steps, but Isabel did her best to stay beside him, dragging him where he needed to go, nudging him when he missed a step. He caught on quickly.
And then they were whirling with the laughing, moving crowd, and Karim’s face was brighter than she had ever seen it. The reel wound to a sweeping crescendo, and they joined hands and turned away again, clapping to the rhythm, then swinging back again.
They danced another, and another, and then another, until they were laughing and drenched in sweat and gasping for breath, and Isabel couldn’t remember when she’d ever felt so light.
Then just as suddenly as it had begun, the music stopped. Cheers and applause echoed up into the night air .
A rush of people moved past them, some heading for their seats while others hurried to join the next reel while the musicians paused for a swig of water or ale. Karim grabbed her arms and pulled her back against the eaves of the nearest house to get them out of the way, and Isabel found herself giggling at the absurdity of it all—the noise and the dancing and the way their magic had flowed together and his hands like fire on her arms.
She looked up at him as the crowd swelled around them, her eyes glowing. He grinned down at her, his cheeks flushed from the dance.
She swallowed, suddenly realizing how close he was, that his face was hardly inches from hers, his hands still gripping her arms, steadying her from the jostle of the people around them. His breath was warm on her face, and she could see the sweat beading on his brow and his pulse beating a rhythm against his throat. There was one beat, and then two, when neither of them moved, neither of them said anything, and the night bloomed around them with life and sound and euphoria.
His gaze darkened, and she was suddenly feverishly aware of everywhere their bodies touched. She knew she should move, knew she should get out of here and run away from whatever it was that was lingering dangerously between them beneath the eaves of a house on an autumn equinox in Medina Acil. Something that she couldn’t allow herself to want.
His hands slid up her arms, pulling her closer, and her fingers pressed against his chest, twining into the fabric of his tunic, thundering with the heat and feel of him. Her own pulse roared maddeningly through her body, but she didn’t move, didn’t pull away, and with a wild kind of terror, she realized that she wasn’t going to stop what was about to happen.
“Isabel,” he said roughly, his head dipping as his nose brushed against hers. She tipped her chin up, their breaths mingling so close she could almost taste him.
A cheer rent through the night as another reel picked up. They both started, and Isabel leaped back as if she’d been flung from a catapult. What was she doing?
“I— It’s late,” she stammered. Her eyes were wide, and she was sure her pupils were dilated in the dim light. “We have a long day tomorrow. I should probably—”
He looked like she had punched him in the gut. “Oh. Right,” he said. His mouth opened and then closed, as if he were still trying to work out what had just happened. “Long day tomorrow. Rest.”
His eyes caught hers for a moment, and that dizzying wave of longing, of desire, came sweeping back over her. He opened his mouth, his hand coming up as if to reach for her again, but she shook her head.
“Goodnight, Karim,” she said firmly, more to convince herself than to convince him.
“Right,” he said, his hand dropping back to his side. Isabel could still see the tension coiled through him, the same tension that was winding maddeningly through her. “Goodnight, Isabel.”
There was another beat where neither of them moved, and for a moment, Isabel allowed herself to think about what would have happened—what would be happening now—if—
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said shakily.
“I— Yes. Tomorrow,” he said.
She turned and fled.