The Emperors Knife

CHAPTER Thirty-Seven

Mesema dreamed of riding Tumble. She crashed through the tall wheat and took the sharp turns by the riverbed that only her father’s best Riders would attempt. She galloped back up the hill and jumped the sheep fence, scaring the animals and the Red Hoof thralls in the pen. She raced along the mountain road, avoiding the mud and waterfalls of spring, until she had a view of the plains stretching beyond her father’s lands and into the realms of the traders-who-walked.

The wind blew, raising dust from twenty thousand horses and fifty thousand feet. She saw Windreader, Black Horse, Blue River, Flat Earth, even Red Hoof ribbons raised aloft on spears. The Cerani marched beside them, breastplates bright in the sun, their lines straight, their shoulders proud. The enemy poured down to meet them from the eastern mountains, descending on strange shaggy mounts, so many that she couldn’t see the stone beneath their feet. The enemy’s cloaks made a pattern of shifting colours and light, unmistakable once recognised, not the Pattern Master’s design, but threatening nonetheless. It spread over the grass and reached beneath the feet of her father’s men. Mesema tried to shout a warning, but her mouth would not open.

“Mesema.” Someone shook her shoulder. “Mesema, dawn approaches.”

“I’m awake,” she said, sitting up and opening her eyes. Her voice sounded loud, and she realised Beyon had been whispering.

“You had a bad dream.” He fiddled with a bundle under his arm. “I got blankets and food.”

“You shouldn’t have gone. It’s dangerous.”

“It’s dangerous to stay here. In fact, I was thinking we should hide in the tomb until nightfall.”

“We are in the tomb.”

He motioned behind him. “I meant in the tomb. It has airholes—we can close the lid. That way if anyone comes in here they won’t see us.”

Mesema looked with horror at the sarcophagus. The lid had been turned diagonally to its base, as if someone had put something inside it, or taken something out. “I think we should go back to the ways, find Sarmin.”

“At nightfall.” He paused. “The ways are full of Carriers.”

“They didn’t catch you.”

“I know. I can hear them.”

“How long have you been able to hear them?”

He bit his lip. “For a few hours.”

Mesema looked again at Beyon’s tomb. She wondered if Carrier voices could influence him, compel him, without his knowing. She shook her head. “How does it make a difference if we find Sarmin by day or by night? We should go now.”

“I’m tired,” he said, and she wondered if he meant something beyond sleep. “I need to rest.”

Mesema wanted Sarmin more than anything in that moment, his soft voice, his kind face. The way he could look at something difficult and give it a name, change it. Mesema glanced at Beyon. She knew he was different from the night before, but she couldn’t say how. “All right, we’ll rest. And then, if the coast is clear, we’ll go straight to Sarmin.”

“Good. I’ll lift you over.” But when Beyon hoisted her above the rim of the gold-and-silver-filigreed tomb, the feeling of wrongness overcame her once again. The silk wrappings meant for his corpse already waited in place. A ceremonial sword made of gold rested on its side, along with an elaborate crown. Beyon would never wear such a crown or such a sword. A strong resin smell rose from it all, a smell of storage chests and funerals.

“No! It’s not right—put me down. Put me down!” Fright overwhelmed her caution.

“Shhh.” He pushed her over the edge and began his own climb.

She knelt among the rich silks of his shroud. “Listen. I don’t like it. I really don’t like it.” Something terrible is going to happen.

He settled beside her and rolled open his bundle. “You’ve always been so brave—I can’t believe you’re screaming about a tomb.” Between the rough material of his stolen blankets Beyon had hidden bread, cheese, dried meats and fruits, and even a skin full of liquid.

Mesema stared at the feast. “I’m very hungry.”

“Then eat.” He turned his attention to the lid, pushing it in line with the tomb, closing them in.

She could see the weight of it written in the straining of his muscles. She didn’t think she could open it alone. She swallowed, and tried to stop her heart from beating so quickly. The stitches, do the stitches. She embroidered a garden of flowers in her mind, lily, rose, and thorn. The lid settled into place, and the filigree dappled the morning light, putting Beyon’s face half in shadow. His marks looked darker of a sudden.

“I thought you were going to eat.” Beyon’s eyes flashed towards her.

“I am, I just…” A puff of air escaped her mouth.

Beyon cocked his head, as if listening to something she couldn’t hear.

Mesema put a date in her mouth and pressed it with her tongue.

“Mesema.” He touched her cheek. “Do not be frightened.”

“I’m trying.”

He took her chin in a gentle grip. “Now, chew.”

She chewed and swallowed. It did help her feel better. She reached for a piece of cheese, and then a piece of bread. She opened the skin and took a swig, only to make a face. “That sour stuff.”

“Ale. You should drink it anyway.”

She took another swig and reached for some meat. “Aren’t you eating?” Do Carriers eat?

“I didn’t wait; I ate before. Sorry.”

She took one more date and rolled the fruit back into its bundle. “I think we should save this.” She placed it in the corner and then, after a moment’s thought, removed Sarmin’s dagger from her belt and put it together with the food. I can’t stab him without a weapon.

“What do they sound like? The Carriers?” It frightened her to ask, and so she felt she must.

“They’re always in the background. It’s like standing outside a room full of people. Sometimes you can hear what they’re saying, sometimes you can’t.” Beyon arranged the silks and blankets into a comfortable pallet. He held out an arm to her, and she lay down facing him, watching his eyes. Carrier eyes were blank and dead. His were tired but alive, and they crinkled when he smiled.

“It’s still me,” he said, tracing her cheekbone with his thumb.

“I know.”

“And you’re still frightened.”

“Not of you.”

“Then because you feel trapped in here?”

She spoke without thinking. “I’ve been trapped since my father decided to send me to Nooria.”

Beyon said nothing, only running his finger across her bottom lip.

“What are you doing?”

“If you have to ask, I’m not doing it right.”

Mesema thought of Banreh and the touch of his skin. She remembered how his lips sent a shock through her body. She wondered what kissing Sarmin might have felt like. She hadn’t given up on her prince just yet.

“You aren’t going to kiss me very hard again, are you?”

“No.”

She looked down at his chest. “Shouldn’t I touch our marks together?”

“No. I’m all right.”

“When you were out, did you happen to see the stars?”

He withdrew his hand and pillowed it under his head. “I’ve been thinking about what we discussed before. About Tuvaini being the emperor.”

“Oh?”

“Sarmin would be better.”

“What about you?”

Beyon looked down, and Mesema felt her stomach twist. She searched for words. “What about the desert? Just yesterday you said…” When he didn’t respond, she kept talking. “Sarmin is… He’s not used to people.”

“You can help him with that.”

“I would be stuck in the women’s wing.”

“You wouldn’t have to be. My mother wasn’t. Mesema, promise me you will help him.”

Mesema squeezed her eyes shut. Too many promises—to Eldra, then Sarmin, now Beyon—too many to keep, and no way to fulfil them. She thought of Eldra’s feather, so far away now, at the bottom of her trunk in the ocean room. She’d meant to have it in her hand the day she stopped the pattern.

She couldn’t stop it. She never would.

“Mesema.”

“All right.” She put a hand over her mouth to keep from crying.

“Thank you,” he said, closing his eyes. “I’m just going to rest for a minute now.”

He fell silent, and she watched the play of light over his marks. She watched his breath rise and fall in his patterned chest. She had failed him; she never should have agreed to hide in this coffin. Now he would die. She watched him and she waited.