Shadow Caste (The Melderblood Chronicles Book 2), page 10
Aviama gasped. “You buried him. You moved me out of the way and made the hole in the ground. It was you.”
“No.” His voice was firm, angry even. Loud enough that she jumped. “I moved you because they’re not always precise with their work. Last time, Juni’s leg was buried along with the dead guy, right up to the thigh. It took some time to get him free, and we were lucky nothing worse happened. They have no training. They don’t have the control we do.”
“If you have so much control, train them yourself.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
Aviama stepped up close to him, peering into his face. Something in his voice checked her, some unspoken pain. But she had plenty of her own pain, and she hadn’t been afforded the luxury of using it as a shield.
She jerked her chin up toward him and stabbed a long finger into his chest. “Where is Chenzira? I might not have gotten to know him very well, but I respected him. Did Ramta kill him? Is he dead? Is the pawn of a radical criminal all that is left? You’re a prince. Act like it.”
A muscle in his neck twitched, and fire sprang to his eyes as he looked down at her. His voice was a rasping whisper, so low she barely made out the words. “He’s not dead.”
Aviama stared back at him, and her throat closed up again. Her chin quivered, and she took in a shaky breath. An emptiness in her middle seemed to rip open into a great chasm, an unshakeable ache, an impenetrable loneliness. She swallowed, but her voice still shook. “Then why has he abandoned me?”
The door to the shop opened, and Arjun peered out. “It’s time.”
Aviama ignored him, searching Chenzira’s face. Give me something. Anything. But though he met her gaze like a man wounded, she could not tell what it might mean. Pity? Regret? Self-loathing? None of them did her any good. She’d still be in Shiva’s arms the next night for whatever announcement he had planned, with Darsh expecting her to play his game or die as his enemy.
She was still just an orphan girl, outnumbered and surrounded on every side, threatened, blackmailed, and crumbling—before the one person left whom she’d hoped might care.
Aviama turned for the door as the first hot tear trailed down her cheek. Chenzira’s hand shot out and caught her wrist, spinning her back to him. He caught her with an arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her in close enough to whisper in her ear, his breath sending goosebumps down her neck. “I won’t let you marry him.”
15
Chenzira released her, and Aviama staggered backward. She backed toward the door, eyes still locked on Chenzira, until she nearly tripped on the step and finally turned to follow Arjun through the opening.
The sensation of his strong arm catching her about the waist. The tingling of his breath on her neck. The rasp of his voice in her ear. All of it lingered in her body as she followed Arjun into the back room of a shop. He had a lantern with him, gently swinging it as they passed a row of crates and a smattering of fallen feathers on the floor. Chenzira followed, and Aviama hoped he couldn’t see the goosebumps still prickling the skin of her arms as she walked.
She folded her arms, rubbing them as if to ward off the chill of night, as they slipped into a second room filled with cages of pigeons. Floor to ceiling, all along one wall, the birds seemed to wake in a flurry of fluttering wings and warbles at their approach. The smell of dust, birds, and uncleaned cages hit her like a wall, and she wrinkled her nose. Sacks of grain stacked the second wall, but a set of folded clothes captured Aviama’s attention on top of a crate to one side.
Aviama leaned in toward Arjun and whispered, “Did you talk to someone here?”
Arjun lifted a finger to his lips. “Say nothing from here on out. They don’t want to see or hear you, and you won’t see or hear them. You were never here.” He handed her the clothes, and she confirmed they were what she suspected—the uniform of palace servant women. “Put these on and leave the clothes you’re wearing in their place. I’ll take care of them. We’ll stand right outside, and when you’re done, knock twice on the door. Then we’ll get you into the wagon.”
Arjun and Chenzira stepped out and shut the door, and Aviama peeled off her damp, muddy dress and borrowed mantle and slipped into the servants’ garb laid out for her. She raked her fingers through hopelessly tangled tresses, folded the dirty clothes as best she could before setting them back on the crate, and knocked twice on the door as instructed.
The door opened, and she sucked in a breath as she came almost nose to nose with Chenzira. He was standing closer to the door than she’d expected.
I won’t let you marry him.
What did it mean? Would he betray Darsh? Convince him to change course? Would he really stop the wedding—and could he stop it, even if he tried?
Arjun gestured for her to step aside, and he moved into the room to collect her sodden clothes. He returned a moment later and indicated she follow Chenzira back through the first room and out to the door. Chenzira opened the back door, exposing a wagon hitched to two black horses she hadn’t heard rumble up to the building while they were inside. Chenzira walked down the couple of steps to the cobbles and lifted a hand back up to help her down.
She wasn’t wearing heavy skirts or swishing gowns. He could hardly have expected her to need assistance down the few steps. And a commoner from Waif’s Garden would never have offered his hand to a palace servant as they both went about their menial daily drudgeries, up and down the busy streets of Rajaad, with their unending list of errands.
But a lord would offer his hand to a lady.
A prince would show courtesy to a princess.
The question was, if he was showing deference to her as a princess…would she let him be a prince?
Her own words came back to haunt her. It had been her idea that he act like a prince, after all. She’d implied she didn’t respect Ramta. He’d passed her an olive branch.
Part of her wanted to storm down the steps. Part of her wanted to leave him and his judgments and Shadow dealings in the dust in her wake as she let bitterness catch her up in its wave.
I won’t let you marry him.
She took his hand.
Chenzira looked startled, but smiled, and she found herself smiling back.
Biscuits, she’d lost her mind. He’d betrayed her and was shipping her back to Shiva. But as she allowed him to help her down the steps and up to the wagon, she almost didn’t want to let go.
Arjun shot Chenzira a look. Aviama wondered if it was a reminder to blend in as Chenzira had demanded of Arjun only an hour or two ago. Whatever its meaning, Chenzira didn’t care, and he helped her up into the wagon with just as much effortless grace as before.
Arjun jumped up on the wagon and pulled back the boards. The wagon had a false bottom. He offered her a hand to get down into the narrow space, but she ignored it and hopped down into the hole herself. Arjun handed her a balled-up sack and indicated she could cushion her head with it, so she stuffed it into the hole under her head and laid down. He knelt on the boards beside her and spoke in a hurried whisper. “When you get there, wait until everyone is gone, then get in the laundry cart. Good luck, and we’ll see you again soon.” He turned to go, then leaned back down once more. “I’ll tell Murin you’re safe. She’ll be glad to hear it.”
Aviama opened her mouth to speak, but Arjun replaced the boards on top of her before she could say anything. The wagon creaked as he moved to the side of the wagon and jumped off the side, back to the street. The burlap sack scratched her face, and she shifted onto her back so its coarse surface dug into her hair instead. Her knees bent sideways, cramped against the edges of the small space. Receding footsteps told her Arjun and Chenzira had left her alone in the alley in the compartment of an unmanned wagon.
Two minutes later, several sets of footsteps approached, and the wood boards creaked under their weight as they loaded crates, sacks, and cages overhead. Birds cooed and warbled, and the musty scent of straw and pigeon poop and feathers itched at her nose again. Several more trips went on and off the wagon, and Aviama knew she should be staying alert, but now that she was in one place, unmoving, with the dark pressing in around her, fatigue tugged at the edges of her mind.
Her eyes drifted closed, and she pinched herself to stay awake. Someone sat on the seat and snapped the reins of the horses, and Aviama noticed for the first time how none of the men loading the wagon or the driver had spoken at all. No good mornings, no instructions to move this here, or load things this way or that. Then the horses pulled, the wagon moved, and against her every effort, the rumblings of the wheels and steady rhythm of the horses’ hooves rocked her to sleep.
Aviama woke with a start as someone jumped on the wagon, their heavy boots landing three inches from her nose. She gasped, but the creaking of the wood and soft warble of the birds covered the sound. Pricks of early morning light peeked through the slats of the wagon, and the rustle and heave of sacks and crates and cages told her men were already unloading.
Had she slept through the gate? Were they inside the palace, or had the carrier pigeon delivery been accosted for search? Aviama held her breath and shut her eyes as dust and dirt shook through the cracks down onto her face.
The wheels of a cart rumbled nearby, coming to a stop maybe two meters from the wagon. The swish of horses’ tails mixed with the grunt of men and talk of a few servants as they went about their morning duties.
“There’s a new dovecote for these birds. Keep them separate from the others. Not like that—gently! Were you raised by wolves?”
“Old man, if you want it done differently, then do it yourself. I’ve got better things to do.”
“You paid for delivery, and they’re delivered. I’ll be on my way.”
“Are these birds where they belong? Is the feed where it belongs? I didn’t think so. I’ll show you up to the roof.”
Someone dropped a sack on the ground, and the wagon rocked as the driver got down off the seat and grumbled off with whoever had been doing the unloading. A moment later, all was quiet. Aviama froze in the compartment beneath the wagon floorboards, pulse beating in her ears. Was she supposed to get out now? If she did, and there was someone waiting, she’d be captured. But if she didn’t, and now was her chance, she’d miss her escape route and stay stuck in the wagon. Escape route was probably the wrong phrase. Could she really be escaping, if she was going back to the place she’d just escaped from mere hours before?
Her muscles ached, and a cramp was building in her calf. She didn’t hear anyone, and she was dressed in servants’ clothes. Better now than never. Aviama reached up and pushed the lid of the compartment up and over, squinting as hazy early morning light spilled down on her.
The wagon was staged in a courtyard next to three stacked crates and a bucket. Three servants were visible at the far end of the courtyard, busied with tasks of their own, but it seemed the palace was not yet fully awake. The sky retained some gray from the night, with streaks of pinks and purples drifting up in the east to announce the imminent coming of the sun. And next to the wagon, a laundry cart.
The laundry cart was becoming somewhat of a habit, but Aviama didn’t dare complain. She pulled herself up out of the compartment in the wagon, replaced the lid in the floor, and slipped over the edge, across the grass, and dove headfirst into a massive pile of laundry. Aviama jerked to a stop in the base of the cart, a pair of pants falling in around her head, her feet still kicking uselessly in the air. Heart in her throat, she yanked her legs in after her.
Except one foot was stuck. Something near the surface of the clothes pile had caught her ankle, leaving a human foot sticking out of the top of the cart to wave at any passerby. Dread washed over her. Aviama clutched at her leg in the sea of cloth, tossing tunics and whatever else to the side in her haste. It didn’t budge.
Biscuits. This is not the way she wanted to die! Although, on second thought, it was probably better to be executed by a guard than have her throat ripped out by the queen’s hyena. Unless the guard brought her to the queen, and the queen sent her hyena after her anyway. Maybe the king would have her beheaded. Maybe Shiva would devise another round in the arena, but one she wouldn’t survive…
Firm hands seized her ankle. She nearly screamed. And then the hands ripped something off her foot, threw weight against her body, and shoved her further into the cart. Aviama let out a stifled grunt and curled her legs tight to her body. The laundry moved on top of her, rearranged to hide any sign of her. And then they were moving.
The cart wheeled out of the courtyard, rocked back once as it hit an obstacle, and then shoved forward over a ledge with a bump. But the courtyard meant the ground floor, and Aviama’s room was now on the third. No way was the cart going up a spiral staircase. Maybe there was a pulley system or dumbwaiter apparatus for large, heavy things. Or maybe the wrong person had picked her up, and they were driving her straight to the throne room for an unpleasant, uncouth dumping onto the floor before death by hyena.
Aurin’s spear. She really couldn’t get the hyena out of her head.
Rumble, rumble, rumble. Aviama braced herself inside the cart. Any moment now, someone would reach in and snatch her out, or the cart would stop and she would be abandoned, left alone again in a room full of snakes. Not literal snakes, but still. Honestly, she’d been left in a mud pit of literal snakes before, and she would probably prefer it to the Tanashai family right about now.
The cart stopped. Wheels creaked. Something itched on the back of Aviama’s head, and she reached up and realized the burlap sack she’d used to cushion her head in the wagon had caught in her hair and was along for the ride.
Shifting feet. The sound of metal clinking against stone. One, two. Footsteps. A moment later, someone rapped twice on the outside of the laundry cart. One, two. More footsteps.
And then silence.
16
Here we go again.
Aviama took a deep breath, shoved the burlap sack to the bottom of the cart, and pushed her way up through the laundry. As she got to the top and took stock of her surroundings, she noticed the cart was full of servants’ uniforms. Aviama blended in perfectly.
To say Darsh knew what he was doing was an understatement. The contrast between his forethought and her own haphazard hope for luck as she stumbled through the treacherous sands of the House of the Blessing Sun could not be overstated. Aviama grimaced at the thought, then pulled herself up through the rest of the laundry.
The hall was empty, but that was likely arranged. It wouldn’t stay that way forever. And the cart had been left directly in front of a spiral staircase. Aviama kicked her leg up and over the cart’s edge, landing on the marble floors with a rather unceremonious thump before taking the stairs two at a time.
She loved beautiful gowns. She loved them with her whole heart. But Aviama had to admit, at times like these, the lighter garments of a long tunic and pants had their benefits.
The spiral staircase was empty, and she flew up two stories fast enough to leave her breathless at the top—and a little dizzy from the spinning. But the hall was familiar, as she’d been positioned at the closest staircase to her own chambers. Aviama flew down the hall and reached her door in record time.
Her unattended door. No guard, dead or alive. She turned the handle and stepped inside.
A gasp stole her breath as she shut the door behind her. Her room was immaculate, save for the tea tray by the bed and her sketches from the day before still sitting on the easel in the sitting area. But it was the steaming bath that captured her heart.
No servants. No witnesses. No friends, either, but her loneliness only weighed heavier in the presence of people she could not trust. After the peril of the last twelve hours, the bath was a balm to the soul.
Aviama stripped free of the servants’ clothes and stuffed them in a ball under her pillows. It occurred to her then that she needed some secret space to stow things if she were going to be forced to continue living here and would be called upon to engage in shady dealings from time to time. And then, glory of glories, it was time to wash the grime and mud and tension and terror of the night from her mind and body.
She yelped at the heat of the water when she first stepped in, but she couldn’t afford for anyone to see her in her current state. And the sunrise was already smiling at her through the window. Slowly, Aviama sank down into the water, grabbing the bar of soap and running it along her skin like a hungry dog catching its first scrap from a table of cooked meat. Her stomach grumbled. She needed to stop making food-related analogies in her head.
The heat of the water eased into her muscles, breaking up some of the tension throughout her body, soothing her stiff arms and legs. She reached up to her hair and snatched her hand back. A bird’s nest! Had it been this matted when she was with Chenzira, after the rainstorm? Or only after the wagon ride?
Idiot. He’s sold himself out to Darsh. He doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter what you looked like.
It was true enough, right? But the last words he spoke were frozen in her brain.
I won’t let you marry him.
What did it mean? Chenzira had still voted to kill the guard. He hadn’t admitted it outright, but that must have been his choice. And he’d still followed Darsh’s orders, joined the Shadow, and delivered her back to the palace. Even if he wanted to stop the wedding, without Darsh on board, he likely had few more resources than she did.
And just because he didn’t want her to marry Shiva didn’t mean he cared about her personally. Maybe Chenzira recognized he owed her his life, or he had his own agenda he was willing to get her out for. Regardless, he’d betrayed her. Abandoned her. Aviama had no guarantee that she could trust him. Why did she so desperately want to?
Because you’re an idiot.
A knock came at the door. Aviama quickly dunked her head underwater and tried to work her fingers through the tangles of her hair. Her fingers immediately caught a snare too severe to work through. The door swung open, and Bhumi appeared.
