Smoke and Steel, page 21
Zisu collapses, sliding to the ground between Nanshaie and Sari. Sari lifts her up, throwing her over her shoulder, and takes off into the desert, Nanshaie rallying the survivors to keep following her. As they near two buttes, Nanshaie points to an outcrop of rocks that look like stairs carved into the side, and at the top is a small cavern. “Into that cave! We’ll be safe there!” Her voice takes on the tone of prophecy.
The survivors, panting and exhausted, follow Nanshaie’s lead. The wind continues to mock them, and the rain continues to pelt them; the only bit of hope lies in the fact that at least the rain has made the sand so wet that it no longer flies through the air.
The survivors scramble up the carved steps, Nanshaie waiting at the bottom, encouraging people to climb. “Go,” Sari tells her. “I’ll make sure the rest get up. Just take Zisu.”
The Oracle shakes her head. “I must see everyone up.”
The Oracles says she must stay at the bottom until all are safe—not Nanshaie. Sari nods; she would insist if it were Nanshaie she was speaking with. But it isn’t, not right now. She hoists Zisu into her arms, and climbs the butte.
It feels like a sanctuary, a refuge from the calamity outside, when she steps inside. Sari finds a small alcove and sets her sister down. “Zisu? Wake up. We’re safe now.”
But Zisu does not respond. Sari checks her sister’s pulse, but finds none. She shakes her head. No, no. Not now, after everything… Not now. She leans down, her ear on her sister’s chest, but there is no heart beat. She holds a hand just above her sisters mouth, but no breath passes her lips.
“No, no…” She lays down next to her sister, pulling her lifeless body to her chest, running her hands over her tangled hair. “You can’t leave me,” she whispers, kissing her sister’s forehead. “I told you that you could go to university, remember? You can’t go before—”
As the hours pass, survivors huddled in their cave, the rain and hail are replaced with fireballs plummeting from the sky. Sari stands at the entrance to the cave, clutching the royal seal in both hands, and watches as each scorching object crashes into the sands, setting the scattered detritus ablaze. The desert is an inferno, and Sari swears she can hear the screams of fright on the wind, carrying from all corners of Sua.
When, at last, the nightmare ends and all that remains is ash and sand, Nanshaie leads the survivors in a ceremony to mourn the dead. Sari carries her sister outside, searching for somewhere that she can cremate her remains in peace. It is customary for royalty to be cremated as a showing of strength, of bravery, and courage. Proof that the heat of the desert is no match for the fire that burns in the veins of the royals. But now, that ceremony seems inappropriate. Zisu did not want to be royal. Not in life and certainly not in death.
Nevertheless, Sari lights the flame and sinks into the sand, ignoring the tears welling in her eyes, telling herself that it’s the sting of the smoke penetrating her veil and not the grief cutting through her armor.
“May I join you?” Nanshaie says, startling Sari.
Sari glares at the Oracle, an anger in her chest that she cannot describe or explain. “No.”
Why didn’t I believe her? If I had…
“There was nothing you could do,” Nanshaie says.
“How would you know?” Sari lashes out, her claws extending.
“I’ll leave you alone,” Nanshaie says, her face pale.
As soon as she no longer hears the soft footsteps of the Oracle, Sari screams until her throat is sore and the only sounds left inside of her are sobs.
She wants to step into the flame, let it take her, too. Zisu was the only person who had loved her, without reservation, without condition. Zisu had trusted her, relied on her, had faith in her.
And she deserved none of it. If someone handed her the Heart of Aodhe right now and told her that she could have Zisu back if only she spread this inferno across all of Ahnlisen…
She wants to say she would do it. She wants to say she would tear down the sky and uproot the earth if it meant Zisu would return, would smile one more time.
But she knows that if she did that, Zisu’s smile would not be for her. Zisu would still love her, but she would not ever speak to her again.
She had chased down the map instead of getting Zisu to a healer. She had chosen her throne over her sister. She had chosen power over the only person who would ever love her.
I am too broken. She runs her claws through the sand, drawing the sigil of Yshuld. Too broken, too shattered. Her soul is a dozen scattered pieces, each worn down so that the pieces do not even fit together anymore.
The few pieces of herself she can still hold onto; resentment, anger, rage… but at the center of all of that is shame. She hates who she is, who her parents made her, who she allowed her parents to make her. She could have chosen differently, Zisu did.
She wants to scream again, but her throat is too raw, too dry. She’s too far down this path to turn around, she doesn’t know how to be anyone except the ruthless mar’sahr’dan’i; it is too late to learn how to be anyone but the daughter of Sumalika mat Qa’taru and Balshazzar mar Alshu—an instrument of death, a weapon of destruction.
She is the kahbush’a and always has been. There is no escaping it. A shura can’t change its fur.
The sun should be setting by now, but the sky is still filled with red-black clouds. The flames consuming her sister flicker, dancing invitingly. Sari could step into them, accept fire’s sweet entreaties. She could join Zisu, make up for all of her sins by accepting the execution that should have found her all those years ago.
She’s been running for too long from death, denying Xana what is hers. It would not be accepting defeat, it would not be abandoning her shattered dreams. She has been a chaotic force of smoke and steel, but she can change. She can. Burn away the resentment, sear away the anger, melt the metal into something softer, something brighter. A qatu of silk and sunlight.
She holds out a hand, wanting to run her broken fingers through the heat, wanting to feel the first licks of death; the only redemption available to her now. She holds her breath, frozen at the crossroads of tomorrow.
Twenty
Sari sits atop the taller of the two buttes, clutching the royal seal tightly in her right hand, the sun just cresting over the horizon, shining onto the desolate desert in a mockery of radiance and hope. Beneath her, the Amyrdine Bara are building a camp between the two buttes; erecting edin’tus and creating makeshift weaponries and smithing furnaces, setting up a mess tent, and establishing an area for the sick and injured to be triaged. They have decided that the cave they have been staying is will be used solely as sleeping quarters, it is too cramped to fit everything that they need.
Some have gone back to Izmyri to search for survivors and pillage the wreckage for supplies. But the screeches that rip through the night sound far too much like the kahbush’a for many to risk venturing too far into the desert without appropriate protections.
Someone is calling her name from behind. She whips her head around to see Kegan approaching.
“They are calling for you,” the Fayn calla says, taking a seat the the edge of the butte, feet dangling over the edge.
Sari’s scowl deepens as she carefully studies Kegan’s face. The Fayn calla can run hot and cold, vacillating between emotions, shifting moods without warning.
“Why won’t you come down? They’re wanting to talk strategy.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Our goal was to save Sua from Ashur,” Sari says, throat burning. The Amyrdine Bara goal had been to save Sua from monarchs. Her goal had been to save her throne from any threat. She has no right to say ‘we’ and lump herself in with the savitus.
“So?” The calla asks, tilting their head to the side, eyes wide.
“He destroyed it. Look,” she says, sweeping her hand in front of her, the smell of smoke still heavy in the air. “Sua is dead. And her people destroyed.”
“And yet the sun rises.”
“Must you always speak in riddles?”
“Must you always speak in absolutes?”
Sari leaps to her feet, determined to end this pointless conversation. “I’m not joining them, there is no strategy to talk of, only survival.”
“Aren’t those the same thing? I’m much better versed in ancient languages, but my handle on Suan isn’t bad. I thought ‘strategy,’ ‘victory,’ and ‘survival’ all shared the same root word in this language.”
Sari glares at Kegan. “So?”
“Here I thought you were a fierce warrior. I guess I was told wrong.”
“And what do you know of war and ferocity? You’ve spent your life in cushy chairs in comfortable libraries in Fayn.”
“My entire clan was murdered. My village burned when I was barely old enough to walk and talk. It was a group of slavers, and when we fought back, they decided we’d be more profitable as pelts.”
The calla before her shows no signs of tragedy etched in their eyes, no screams trapped in their throat, no agonizing nightmares replaying in their mind. “You never said anything.”
“I don’t tell people. I escaped. I lived on the streets until I found someone kind enough to take me in. I lived, I learned. I fought another day.”
“So, you escaped a bad situation and got to live a cushy life, must be nice.” Sari crosses her arms. “I’ve been fighting my whole life.”
“It’s not a competition,” Kegan says. “I survived, and then I fought with the Red Front, and now Amyrdine Bara. The woman who took me in, Aine, she died. Our hideout was found, and she created a distraction to allow me to escape. I watched her hang on the gallows. But that kinship with her, it reminds me even though she is gone, that there is good and love and kindness in this world.”
“She was your—?”
“It was not romantic, but our bond was deep. We were committed to each other in every way. I loved her.”
Sari’s gaze shifts to the welts on her left hand. “The only love and kindness in my life died, too.”
“It’s hard,” Kegan says. “Recovering from the trauma of the past. It’s hard and it never ends. I still have nightmares of the night my village was burned, I still wake up thinking I will smell burnt coffee and need to scold Aine for overexerting herself and making her condition worse. I still live with one foot planted in the past. You live with two in the past. You have to learn to forgive.”
“Forgive? How? How do I forgive my parents for what they did? They pitted us against each other! They made me maim and murder my siblings, they made us fight until we were almost dead, they made us all have sexual relations with their advisors or other people in power to gain favor and information, they saw us as less useful than pawns on a chequ board. At least they cared if they lost a pawn on the board; if they lost a mat’sarh’dan, they could just make another. Having more qitus is easy. How can I forgive them for that?”
“It is not your parents that you have to forgive; you have to forgive yourself. You have to forgive yourself for believing what your parents said; you have to forgive yourself for internalizing what they told you, and you have to forgive yourself for the ways your own actions hurt you more. You are someone who is worth loving and who deserves love, but you can’t keep pushing people away.”
“You aren’t angry? The world was cruel to you, yet you harbor no anger?”
“I do have anger,” the calla says. “Lots of it. And sometimes it explodes out and my friends get caught in the blast. I’ve had to learn how to hone it, how to wield it like you wield a spear; only aiming it where I want to direct it. I try to use it constructively, to motivate me to make a better future, not shackle me in the past.”
“I can’t forgive my parents for what they did.”
“And do you deserve forgiveness for what you have done? The crimes you have committed? Should your friends forgive you for not trusting them? For the people you’ve killed?”
“That’s different.”
“How? Because you are ‘damaged’?”
Sari swallows.
“It’s not different. Where do you think your parents learned how to do what they do?”
“From their parents…” Sari says.
“Do you want to continue the cycle or break it?”
“I can’t forgive them.”
“I’m not telling you to. But you have to forgive yourself for trying to gain their approval. You were a child. But you aren’t anymore. Don’t forgive, don’t forget. But make a promise to be better in the future and maybe you will find a spark of love in yourself and you can nurture that love instead of resentment.”
“I don’t deserve forgiveness.”
“Maybe not right now. But you can work towards it.”
Sari frowns; Tinanna had said something similar. “Maybe. How?”
“Joining us for the strategy meeting, you daft fool.”
Sari nods. Join the Amyrdine Bara and truly bring an end to the sahres and isiaqs. An end to the cycle of qitus being honed into ruthless weapons, an end to the cycle of innocence being wrung out of the young and long nights of children yearning for a small acknowledgment, pleading for an iota of love from the parents who treat them as disposable tools.
Kegan stands at the front of the gathering, two Amyrdine Bara holding up a large map for the rest to see. The sun is slowly setting, and the screeches of scavenger birds and the kahbush’a echo across the sands. Kegan has marked several points on the map. “I believe that Ashur and Ia have gone to the Arkae Ar’a.”
“What’s that?” Miramis says.
“The Arkae are ancient sites of historical power or significance. Eoi was built on the Arkae Mi’ia.”
“Never heard of that either. Aga, come here.”
Amata ambles over. “You need something?”
“Have you ever heard of the Arkae? Arkae Ar’a? Arkae Mi’ia?” Kegan asks the historian.
Amata crosses her arms and taps her foot. “No, I can’t say I have. Does that book say something about it?”
“Not directly. There were some papers I translated that did.”
“Do you have them with you?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“After this is all over, I must insist that you visit the university here. We have an amazing linguistics department, and I am sure that we can scrounge up some grant money—”
“Aga, not now.“ Miramis’ tail flicks in annoyance.
“My apologies.”
Sari does not care about any of this. It does not matter how they got to this point. What matters is finding Ashur and Ia so she can kill them or die trying. She is willing to die to atone for her crimes, but Kegan hasthe given her an idea for a different way to do it. If she must die, she is taking them with her. End this all before the cycle can repeat again.
“I believe that the same is playing out again here. This High Priestess, Ia, is using whichever royal scion she believes can be bent towards her agenda in order to unlock the power of another Arkae for the Araelta.”
“What kinds of powers do they have? How do you unlock that power? What are they used for?” Amata sits down, pulling a folded piece of parchment from her pocket and snatching a piece of coal from the fire to write with.
“I do not know. The texts that I have access to are vague on those points. But it is believed that they were successful in unlocking the Arkae in Fayn, although currently that location is heavily guarded.”
“Why do you believe that that is the location of this ‘Arkae Ar’a’?” Amata asks.
Kegan’s ears flatten, and their tail flicks, glancing at Imogen. “Clues from the other documents.”
Sari rolls her eyes. They are lying; she doesn’t know why this is something that the Fayn revolutionaries would lie about. She doesn’t have any choice, though. They are still the best lead she has on Ashur and Ia.
“You say these are points of power? What kind of power? Do the scholars studying the one in Fayn believe that it is something we could harness? And use for good?” Amata does not look up from her parchment, scribbling in the worst handwriting that Sari has ever seen.
Kegan takes a deep breath, shoulders sagging and tail twitching. Sari recalls earlier conversations about the Heart of Aodhe; a weapon that was not originally a weapon. “The events of the other night? I believe that that was them opening another Arkae—I do not know which one, though. I suspect Nu’ra’na. The same thing happened, to a lesser extent though, the night they broke the Arkae Mi’ia in Fayn. What do you think will happen if they break Arkae Ar’a? Tell me; can this power be harnessed for good?”
“How many of these are there? Where is Nu’ra’na? And they are going to open a third—do you think it will be worse?”
Kegan points to the map, the delta of the Alleghenaie River. “I would guess here is where the Nu’ra’na Arkae is at.”
“That’s the old fortress, he was hiding out in there. But he left,” Sari says.
“Guess he went back after we cleared out,” Miramis says. “And if he opens a third one?”
Before the Fayn calla can say anything, Nanshaie screams. “They are coming!”
Everyone turns to look at the Oracle; Sari notes that this time even the Fayn looks at her in reverence and not suspicion. Her tragically correct premonition has instilled in the Fayn a respect for her and the “mysterious” ways of the Esiri.
“Who is coming?” Tinanna says.
Nanshaie screams again, cradling her head in her hands. “They will kill you! Tinanna, they want to kill you. They will… You will die…”
Sari pushes through the crowd to join Tinanna, kneeling next to Nanshaie. “Who is coming?”
“I can’t control it!” Nanshaie shouts. I can’t control my visions. Why are you asking me who is coming? I can’t see that!”
“Just focus on the details you can see. What are they wearing?”
Nanshaie closes her eyes and covers them with her hands. “No, I don’t want to see more. I don’t want to see any more of this.”
