Chapter 5 Rasha
Rasha
Langzu – the sinkhole mines west of Bian
Before restoration, Kashan held yearly games – contests of falconry, races on horses and camels, feats of strength, tests of skill.
The Queen presided over these games, doling out the prizes herself.
Travelers braved the barriers to see this spectacle, and a great many animals and crafts were bought and sold at the market.
After Kashan’s restoration, the games were declared obsolete, and indeed, the animals the mortals had used to partake had all been transformed.
In a restored realm, what meaning did these contests hold anymore?
The weight of the godkilling blade at my hip felt both familiar and strange. I’d always worn a dagger there, but this one glowed with violet light, the power within a deadly, whispering thing.
Khatuya, in front of me, scratched at the back of her neck.
Sweat ran into the cracks of her bark-like skin, settling into the grooves.
The collar of her gray robe was damp. “I always thought I’d enjoy getting out of the dens more when we were fully fledged godkillers.
Never thought I’d want to go back and just lie there in the dark. ”
“You always knew we could be sent to unrestored realms,” Naatar said from my side. He kicked a boot into the dust at his feet, sending up a cloud. The brown scales on his cheeks folded as he wrinkled his nose.
“Well that makes me feel better about my decisions,” she said dryly.
They exchanged wry looks, though I found I couldn’t quite work up any humor.
I was in Langzu, and Langzu was where my sister was.
There was no longer an aether barrier separating us, and though I didn’t know where she was, the idea that she could pop up at any moment swirled every so often in my mind, leaving me feeling slightly dizzy.
I kicked at a loose rock. The mining camp was a dirty, stinking place.
And though most of the tents had been packed up, leaving behind some random pieces of garbage, I couldn’t imagine it had been much more pleasant when it had been at full operation.
This was where Hakara had lived and worked for ten years as she’d tried to find a way to get back to me. That was what she’d told me, at least. I still wasn’t sure whether she’d been telling me the truth. I nodded toward a tent set near a collapsed sinkhole. “Let’s start there.”
They fell in behind me so we formed a tight triangle, our godkilling blades visible at our sides. I knew the sight we must make, our gray robes billowing behind us, the multiple white eyes sewn onto front and back. Our altered features – we must have looked terrifying to the mortals of Langzu.
Which could only work to our advantage.
I burst through the tent flap. A startled liaison looked up from his notebook, the chain that tied him to his chest of gems clinking.
His bodyguard stood behind him, idly sharpening her blade.
It smelled of sweat in here, the muskiness of clothes that had been worn too many times without laundering.
I marched up to the man while Naatar and Khatuya began overturning the contents of the tent.
“Do you broker gems to the clans?”
It took him a moment to answer. He looked up at me with wide black eyes, his gaunt face like leather stretched over a frame and left to dry in the sun.
The grooves that ran from his eyes to his jowls spoke of a hard, rough life.
“N-no.” He held up his box. “Everything is here. Everything is accounted for.”
God gems always went missing in spots – Kluehnn knew it, we all did.
But losses were to be expected, and he’d been generous in allowing these illicit activities to slide beneath his notice.
It wouldn’t do, he’d told me, to react with too much harshness when most of Langzu’s citizens were good, pious folk.
The last time we’d met, though, he’d expressed different sentiments. A corestone was gone, and he either needed it back or he needed a replacement. I’d watched his venomous tail lash from side to side. It was time to stop being lenient.
He’d sent other cohorts to the clans, but he’d sent us here to the camp. Overturn it, he’d said. Look for any smuggled gems. Recover them. Execute the perpetrators. Make an example of them.
I took the proffered box. The liaison’s bodyguard held the key out to me wordlessly, her fingers so limp it nearly dropped from them before I could take it.
I knew how I must appear to her. I stood a head taller than she did, large, curling horns sprouting from my forehead, my teeth sharp.
There were times I didn’t mind appearing monstrous, and this was one of them.
It gave me power, authority. It let me grasp them by their fear, turning them to my whims.
I turned the key in the lock and opened it.
A handful of glowing gems sat in the cushioned bottom.
Without asking for permission, I picked up the notebook, turning it to the latest page, comparing the logged inventory to what lay inside the box.
It matched, though I’d expected it would.
No one was going to leave a written record of their smuggling.
“Come now.” I let my voice drop into gentleness.
“You think Kluehnn doesn’t know that his liaisons like to skim a little off the top?
That he knows gems are bought and sold in places where the perpetrators think he can’t see?
” I dropped the notebook, brushing my hand over the embroidery of the eyes on my chest. “He sees everything. He knows.”
The liaison licked his thin lips. “It’s true that I’ve seen others engaging in smuggling. Miners will sometimes hide the gems when they come up from a sinkhole, and the enforcers, well, they’re not always thorough with their searches. Everyone benefits in little ways, you see.”
I slow-blinked, my mouth pressing in a line, letting him see that I was growing impatient.
“But not me,” he added quickly. “I stay well away. I know the consequences and I’m faithful to Kluehnn.
Never doubted. Not once.” He lifted his hands, the chain rattling once more.
And then he nodded westward. “I’ve seen the other liaison here smuggle a couple gems. But never thought it was my business to turn her in.
Just thought she was desperate. I’m sorry.
” He flung himself forward. “Please, may Kluehnn forgive me.”
I reached down and seized his hair, my claws scraping against his scalp.
Naatar and Khatuya had nearly finished their search of the tent.
Clothes lay scattered, the rug upended, the mattress moved to the center.
“Kluehnn always forgives. He is merciful. But his memory is long, and he cannot forget.”
I let him go and nodded to Naatar and Khatuya.
Next tent. If this liaison was telling the truth, maybe we’d find something in the other liaison’s quarters.
The air that breezed into the tent as Khatuya and Naatar ducked out felt like an intake of breath, a turning of one moment into another.
The danger, for this man, had passed. He’d have to pick up his things, but he’d continue on, would probably pack up and move to a different mining camp, though he’d still tremble anytime he saw a godkiller.
He’d remember not to smuggle away gems, no matter how much he might be tempted.
I stopped on the threshold, an overturned book catching my gaze.
Something about it felt familiar. I’d seen a copy of it in the deep parts of the den back in Kashan, in the room with the crates of books.
The cover was different, but the title was the same.
The Aqqilan Empire and the Time That Was Lost. This one was a fair bit thicker than the one I’d seen.
“Naatar. Khatuya. Wait.” I heard them padding back toward the tent as I knelt and picked up the book.
I thumbed the pages. There. A sheaf stuck – glued – together.
My heart beat faster. If we could find another corestone hidden here, we could return triumphant to Kluehnn.
He would have the means to restore Langzu.
The disaster of the Unanointed raid would be forgotten.
Everything could go back to normal instead of this strange limbo we’d found ourselves in.
There would be no reason to go after Hakara, my treacherous mind said. She would be safe.
With the tip of my claw, I cut an opening between two edges and pried the section apart. The liaison and his bodyguard had gone still. They couldn’t stop me. Whatever happened next was inevitable.
“Yen, you old fool, what have you done?” the bodyguard whispered.
Two gems tumbled out. One red and one yellow – a rarer sort. Still, a pittance to risk a life over. I shook the book, hoping for more. Hoping that somehow a corestone would fall out, would make this next part worth it. Nothing.
I caught glimpses of pages as I ruffled through them.
Someone had recorded Aqqilan stories – of gods and men and long-dead cities.
An illustration flashed past – buildings carved into a cliffside, hung with colorful square banners.
Something in my heart leapt. It reminded me of the flags flown during the yearly Kashani Games.
I snapped the book shut, finding it somehow hard to swallow. I cleared my throat.
“Hold them,” I told Naatar and Khatuya.
As they approached the cowering liaison and his bodyguard, I tucked the book into my pack.
I did not relish what came next. I was a godkiller – my truest purpose was defending mortals from their ilk, not slaughtering mortals themselves.
I understood the necessity, but the whole process felt beneath me.
These were desperate people, scraping the bottom of a dried-out barrel in the hopes of finding one last drop.
I drew my godkilling blade, heard Khatuya and Naatar draw theirs, the brightness of the gems in their hilts casting the inside of the tent in violet hues. “You have been caught smuggling god gems, the penalty for which is death. Your bodyguard has failed both you and Kluehnn.”
They fell beneath our blades, soft mortal bodies that had only hoped for more than this dusty, stinking place had been able to give them.
And Kluehnn would remain unsated.