The Windward King, page 20
“. . . third fight in the last hour,” grumbled a man in a dishevelled patrol uniform to his companion. “Thought I’d be breaking up drunken coronation celebrations.”
“Or at one.”
Shara’s shoulders slumped, and he held the sunspot basket closer and drew in a deep breath of honey-scented air. Foolish as it was, the aroma represented everything good about Barath and its people. All the reasons he had to keep going. All the reasons he would miss it when . . . when . . .
He sniffed the sunspots again—with rather more determined concentration than the task required—then paused. Sniffed once more.
A familiar odor wafted down the street, sharp and warm. The scent drew him back to the mountains, to nights telling stories and singing his people’s histories amidst the thick, swirling smoke of massive bonfires.
But no one built bonfires in the middle of a city.
Something nearby was on fire.
No sooner had the thought blossomed than a glider swept past, its pilot shouting to someone below. “It’s the herbary!”
Shara’s insides froze.
The herbary.
Korith.
>><<
Shara pelted down the street, feet pounding against the cobblestones, each thundering step shooting painfully up his legs. An orange glow peered over the rooftops like a miniature sun, growing brighter every second. Was Korith in his apartment now, unable to escape the flames? What if he—
He buried the thought and ran faster.
Again and again he shoved past people who moved so slowly they might have been statues and leapt around others who swerved into his path at precisely the wrong moment.
He was about to shift despite the delay it would cause when he careened around a corner and nearly crashed into the crowd gathered about the building. Firelight flickered across his vision, and he shrank back with a whimper, then steeled himself and shouldered his way forward.
“Korith!”
No response, only flames and shouted orders, smoke and bodies pressing against him . . .
“Korith!”
Sweat streaming down his face, he dashed into the empty space between the crowd and the burning house. Heat seared his skin, and his body thrilled in warning. Shift. Escape.
Instead he spun, searching the onlookers. Silver hair glinted in the firelight, but no Korith. No cheerful smile, no waving cane—
“Shara!”
Na Mithel barrelled into him and wrapped him in an embrace. The rest of the family gathered around them, all safe.
“We were so worried!” She stepped back to examine him. “Are you—”
“Korith,” he blurted out, shoving the basket of sunspots into her arms. “Have you seen him?”
Her wide eyes darted to the building and back. “No, we— Shara!”
He’d nearly reached the door when a woman in a uniform caught his arm. “Young man, you need to—”
“Lord Aman—is he still in there?”
The officer yanked her sweat-soaked shirt from her neck and raised her hands as though trying to calm a spooked horse. “It’s all right. Everyone from the shop is safe.”
“He wasn’t in the shop; he’s up there!”
He pointed, and when the woman looked, he ran. Please let him not be there. Korith was expecting him, but he might have gone out for food or drink or to buy another pillow.
The foolish thought nearly made him stumble as emotion welled in his throat. Pushing forward, he burst into the shop, and the cries from outside were swallowed in a rush of fire.
He’d caught a single look at a blazing bouquet of flowers when a groan and the horrendous sound of splintering wood echoed overhead, and the staircase came crashing down. Shara gasped, gagging on smoke and staggering back out the door.
A pair of hands seized him. “Reckless boy! Get back and stay out of the—”
He raked his claws over his captor’s hand, and whoever it was cursed and released him. Again he ran, but this time up the street, away from the house and crowd. He tore down the first alley he came to. The air stank of refuse, but it was cool and free of smoke, and he drew several heaving breaths before slamming his eyes shut to shift. His limbs crackled like lightning, and he didn’t waste energy cursing his lack of toresh or counting the heartbeats. Korith needed him to focus.
Dragon tail lashing, he launched into the air, beating his wings in fierce strokes until he hovered above the city. His stomach turned—flames and smoke poured from one side of the upper floor. The building was stone, but the roof and rafters and furniture were not.
He dove, bellowing into the night, and plunged through the window. Glass and pain and blazing heat exploded around him. Smoke clawed at his throat and eyes.
Flames engulfed half the room already—an oily scent suggested Korith’s visitor had used something to help it along—and what wasn’t burning lay in ruins. The Guide’s shrine had been knocked over, the little malir table had lost two of its legs, and the portrait wall stood bare, all of Korith’s effort and care chewed up and spat out into fluttering bits of charred paper.
And in the far corner, huddled between the bed and the wardrobe, slumped Korith, one hand pressing a wad of blue fabric over his mouth and nose, the other gripping the Guide figurine. Sweat soaked his body, and a dark stain spread beneath him.
“Shara.” His eyes flooded with relief and fluttered closed. A weak swirl of wind magic vanished from around him, noticeable only in its sudden defeat.
Shara bounded forward, butted his nose against Korith’s chest, and leapt away with a shriek. His cave-brother’s torso was drenched with blood.
Don’t panic, don’t panic . . .
Trying to steady his trembling body, he tilted his head so Korith could grip his horns. Inch by inch, Korith dragged himself upright, yanking on Shara’s head with every shuddering cough and gasp of pain.
“Sorry,” he rasped.
Nostrils burning, his head smeared with Korith’s blood, Shara buried the urge to be sick and growled reassuringly. Something behind them groaned, then crashed in a spray of golden sparks. Pain spiked up his tail, and he lurched out of the way. Korith staggered forward and knocked Shara’s head against the bed frame.
“Sorry.” He made a sound that might have been a laugh. “Now’s me . . . apologizing . . .”
Stop talking. Muscles straining, Shara heaved him the rest of the way to his feet and sank into a crouch. Korith more fell than climbed onto his back, a blood-soaked weight that didn’t move even when Shara tried for a deeper breath and convulsed with hacking coughs.
The smoke had thickened so much he could hardly see, and the heat seared his eyes when he dared open them. Giving up, he squeezed them shut and let a wisp of cooler, fresher air guide him toward the window. His rear foot rolled over something hard on the ground. A pencil.
He paused, jolting with sorrow and a stupid desire to rescue everything that hadn’t burned, each pillow and pencil and even the piko seeds.
His first human home.
The weight of Korith’s unmoving body pressed down on him, and the thought vanished. With a final lurch toward the cooler air, he climbed onto the sill and launched himself into the night.
Chapter 30
Keep Fighting
Silence covered the healing room like a shroud.
Korith lay motionless on a bed in the far corner, stripped to the waist, his skin pink beneath the shining layer of salve Shara had applied. With nothing else to do, Shara stared at the long, ugly gash splitting Korith’s side. Despite the ministrations of the elderly doctor cleaning the wound, it still trailed blood onto the bed’s ivory blankets, and no matter how intently Shara stared and prayed, the cut refused to heal itself.
He didn’t know the doctor’s name, so he’d dubbed her Willow for the thick, bushy hair draping around her squat frame and the brusque manner that reminded him of his willow-alvithi grandmother. She hadn’t said much except to issue a few hurried instructions and chide Shara for opening the window beside the bed. She’d not told him to close it, though, much to his relief. If he had to breathe in any more smoke or blood or stringent medicines, he might be sick.
As it was, he might be sick anyway.
Eyes stinging, he gripped his cave-brother’s too-warm hand before clutching again at his mother’s coat. Only after settling Korith on the bed had he recognized the blue fabric. Like everything else, it stank of blood and smoke, but in a few places, Korith’s scent still clung to the fibers.
It was the only thing holding him aloft.
Aloft, but alone. Alone and small, like the figurine of the Guide Korith had been clutching. It sat on the bedside table now, still and watchful and as useless as Shara. But it, at least, represented someone good and powerful.
Eagle. Please.
“Green.”
He handed Willow the green salve and forced himself to watch her apply it, keeping all his concentration on the path of her gnarled fingers along the wound, the way the sticky substance mingled with Korith’s blood and—
No, he didn’t want to focus on Korith’s blood.
He didn’t want to dwell on the fire, either, but it rose in his mind, and with it, the only solution he could think of—the attacker must have known Korith had Iliath’s files. What other threat could he have posed? Unless someone had discovered his secret?
But Shara couldn’t begin to guess who might be threatened by learning Korith was a Tear. The files, on the other hand . . . Either there had been something in them, or the attacker had feared there might be.
But now they were gone. Burned or stolen. Korith, on the other hand, was still here, his life hovering in uncertain skies.
Throat working, Shara clenched his fists around the coat and buried his face in its folds. His chest burned, each breath drawn as if from a mile away.
“Bandages.”
Willow unwrapped the first of the long, white bandages and gestured to Shara, who set aside the coat and practically leapt forward, grateful for the distraction. Layer after layer, Korith’s wound disappeared beneath the unnaturally white, too-clean strips of fabric. Sedated with alsum, Korith stirred only once, his words raspy and unintelligible.
At last Willow stepped back to survey the results, then indicated the medicines cluttering the table. “I’m going to start cleaning the air in his lungs. While I do that, I need you to mix those.”
Shara faltered, the shadows of his inadequacies suddenly looming larger than ever in the dim lantern light. Willow might remind him of his grandmother, but she didn’t know his history with healing. “Are you sure? I’m not very good at—that is, my brother Shomar is much better at—”
“At putting herbs in a bowl?” She raised her bushy eyebrows. “There’s nothing to be better at. I’ll tell you the measurements; you put them in there.”
He swallowed, his own throat still scratchy as his body healed itself. “All right.”
“Good. Start with the blackroot shavings; that dish there. Two scoops.”
He’d added the first when the telltale sting of magic bit at the tip of his tongue. Willow settled a hand gently against Korith’s throat and suspended the other over his face. To Shara’s horror, slender streams of sooty air began rising from Korith’s mouth and nose.
“That’s—”
“A spoonful of the elden powder.”
She pointed, and Shara hastily added the second scoop of blackroot before moving on to the pale yellow elden.
He tried not to look at Korith while they worked, but his eyes kept catching the movement of the darkened air.
“He was smart to cover his face,” Willow said, nodding toward the coat and guiding a plume of pure, clean air over Korith’s mouth.
Even so, Shara couldn’t quell his dismay every time another stream of smoke shadowed the air, a gathering storm determined to snuff out Korith’s sunlight.
Think of something else. The assassin. Hands shaking, he poured water into the bowl of herbs and stirred them carefully. Who could have known about the files?
Immediately his heart grew heavy. Tishel knew. Gepar knew. Shara had blurted it out not hours ago. The guards standing outside the room might have heard, and given Korith’s method of listening through walls, there was every possibility someone else had been doing the same.
Water sloshed over the edge of the bowl. Was this his fault?
“Careful.” Willow steadied his trembling hand before he dumped any more herb concoction on the floor. “Your friend needs that.”
“Right,” he mumbled. Needs that, but not me.
A whimper climbed up his throat as his eyes settled on Korith. And then it wasn’t Korith but Omatha, another victim of his carelessness, his mistakes.
But Omatha was alvithi. Alvithi healing couldn’t fix Korith.
Neither could Shara. He couldn’t fix anything.
Teveth.
He sagged against the table. He was so tired of this feeling, this pervasive ache, like having Korith’s illness in his soul instead of his body. So tired of that word. Hearing it, saying it, thinking it. Being it. Maybe if he said it aloud, Korith would sit up and correct him in that infuriatingly positive tone, and everything would be fine. Actually fine. The fine of sunspots and a cool afternoon breeze off the bay, of sunlight on his wings and Korith whooping into the air while Shara dove in a daring spiral.
A choked sob escaped into the stillness. “Is he going to be all right?”
Willow accepted the bowl of steeping herbs, and at her direction, a fine mist rose from the surface and travelled through the air to Korith, disappearing down his nose and mouth.
“I’m hopeful, but I can’t say for sure,” she said after a pause. “I’ve cleared as much soot as I can, and this”—she indicated the herb mist—“will soothe any burns and reduce swelling in his throat. He’s breathing well, all things considered, and most of his burns are superficial and could have been much worse. There is still the blood loss and the possibility of poisoned air from the fire, though.”
From somewhere in the middle of a vast hollow, Shara heard himself say, “Oh.”
He didn’t dare ask her to elaborate or guess at Korith’s chances of recovery. In this case, Korith had the right idea: stubborn optimism.
“You should rest,” Willow told him, moving another cloud of mist toward Korith. “Thank you for your help, but I can manage alone from here. I promise I’ll do everything I can for him.”
He hesitated, then shook his head. His chest constricted at the thought of remaining all night in this room, waiting in uncertainty, but if the assassin suspected Korith had survived . . . “I can’t. Thank you, but I have to stay.”
Willow glanced between him and Korith, her head tilted in thought. “You think they’ll come and finish him.”
Shara’s blood went cold, and his claws shot from his fingers. “How do you—”
“No need to worry.” She raised her hands, placating, and gestured to Korith. “I know wounds, that’s all. That cut? These marks on his arm? He was attacked, no question. Fought back, too.”
The adrenaline drained as quickly as it had come, and Shara slumped against the wall, gaze clinging to Korith while he tried not to picture the scene.
“You can stay if you want, but you should know I spent thirty years as a medic in the navy and fifteen before that as a sailor.” She jerked her head toward the table, where several knives glinted amidst the supplies. “Your friend is safe with me.”
Her words settled into the room’s heavy silence, at once a reassurance and a dismissal. Shara’s gaze strayed from the door to Korith, and isolation threatened to smother him. He might still have Gepar and Tishel, but without Korith . . .
No. Korith would be fine. Shara would come back tomorrow and find him awake and recovering and—selfish though the thought was—ready to offer advice and encouragement again.
Until then, Shara would have to make do with his heart and instincts.
He pushed himself upright. Staring down at his cave-brother, he traced the Eagle’s sign over Korith’s chest and gripped his hand again, squeezing hard in case Korith could feel it. Keep fighting, you molting idiot.
He nodded to Willow. “Thank you.”
“Go and rest.” She patted his arm.
He pulled the coat from the bed and slipped it on, ignoring the blood staining one sleeve. With a last look at Korith, he turned to the door, mind already churning.
He had no intention of resting.
Chapter 31
Different
Halfway through the night, Shara remembered the blood trail from the throne room, driven from his thoughts by his confrontation with Gepar and everything that had happened since.
Beating his falcon wings, he shrieked with relief at having a new scent to follow and wheeled back toward the palace. His search had gotten him nowhere. He’d scoured warehouses, light towers, a few abandoned buildings, even a rocky cave. No sign of a missing prince anywhere, nor even whispers or suspicious behavior from people nearby.
What did the kidnapper want? Why had there been neither a demand for ransom nor any attempt to expose Shara as an impostor?
Why kidnap a prince but try to publicly assassinate his replacement?
Shara couldn’t see how the two fit together, but at this hour, he couldn’t see much of anything beyond the palace walls rising ahead, silvery grey in the moonlight.
A window near the throne room jutted outward a few inches, and he pushed his way through the crack and hopped to the floor, his talons chittering on the slippery stone. Regaining his balance, he shifted into a cat, shoving aside the memory of the last time he’d worn this form.
The hall stretched silently into shadows, the portraits on the walls reigning over an empty domain. Iliath’s family, all gone now. Just like Iliath himself. Shara kept to the wall, pausing frequently to listen. Some reckless part of him, still boiling with images of Korith’s battered body, imagined a contingent of dark-clad, prince-kidnapping assassins creeping around the corner, and there he was, bursting with unprecedented toresh into dragon form to confront them. To end this.
