Sword Catcher (Sword Catcher, #1)

Mez began to play again, this time a slower song, a sweeter refrain. Sparks from the lamps were flying up, salting the air with firefly light. Lin was hot from the dancing and the wine, but the space between her shoulder blades was clammy-cold.

She sat watching the dancing, the couples circling under the glowing lanterns. She did not know all their names, she realized—not the younger ones, who had not been in school with her and Mariam. It was almost as if she were observing a play, or a performance in the Arena. Some part of her ached. These were her people, their ways her ways. And yet even as one song blended into another and the moon glided across the sky, Lin did not move to join them but sat and watched, a spectator.

“Lin!” Mariam hurried up to her with Natan following, hands in his pockets. He had a nice smile, Lin thought, an easy smile. “How long have you been sitting here?”

Lin glanced over the walls of the Sault, at the Windtower Clock rising against the sky. To her surprise, some hours had passed; it had felt like only a few moments. Midnight was looming on the horizon.

Mariam said, “I saw Oren with you—”

“It’s fine,” Lin said quickly. “We danced, that’s all.” She turned a smile on Natan. “I had wanted to ask you—”

“If I saw your brother on the Gold Roads?” Natan said. “I did, actually. At a caravansary near Mazan. Josit seemed well,” he added, hastily. “He told me that if I made it back here before he did, I should send his love to you both.”

“Did he say when he might be coming back?” Lin asked.

Natan looked mildly puzzled. “I don’t believe I asked him. He’d bought a pet monkey, though,” he added. “Off a Hindish trader. It was stealing people’s hats.”

Natan, Lin was beginning to think, might be handsome, but was not that bright. “Hats,” she said. “Imagine that.”

Mariam shot her a chiding look, though she looked close to smiling herself.

“I doubt he had any news as exciting as yours,” Natan said. “The Crown Prince, in the Sault? I doubt that’s ever happened before.”

Lin wondered if she should start telling people that Conor had come to see her because he had some terrible version of the pox and desperately needed treatment. That seemed, however, like the sort of untruth that would get you arrested by the Arrow Squadron.

“He was looking for Mayesh,” she said. “That’s all.”

Mariam grinned. “Everyone says he’s going to sweep Lin away to a life of luxury on the Hill.”

Lin thought of the Hill. The brilliance of it, the colors. The way people spoke, as if every word were dipped in sweet acid. The way Luisa had wept in humiliation. The way Conor had watched her when she danced.

“Well, that’s just silly,” she said around the tension in her throat. “The Prince is as good as engaged, and besides, he would never marry an Ashkari woman.”

“He wouldn’t,” Natan agreed. “There is no alliance to be made there. We are a people without a country, and kings do not marry people. They marry kingdoms.”

Perhaps Natan was cleverer than she’d given him credit for, Lin thought.

“We do have a country,” said Mariam. “Aram.”

“I have passed through Aram, on the Roads,” said Natan. “It is a blasted land. Nothing grows, and there are no resting places—the land is too poisonous to sustain life for even a short time. One must travel through without stopping.”

The music paused. Lin looked quickly toward the Windtower Clock. It was thirty minutes to midnight. The ritual of the Goddess was about to begin.

She barely noticed as, with a polite murmur, Natan excused himself: The young women and young men were separating from each other, as the ritual required. Dancers vanished from the square, melting back into the crowd.

Lin’s heart began to beat faster. She could feel her own pulse in her throat, her spine. It was starting. The ceremony. The Maharam had appeared at the Shulamat door.

He came slowly down the steps, carrying his walking stick, which had been engraved with the name of Aron, the first son of Judah Makabi, and the numbers of gematria. He wore his sillon, woven of midnight-blue wool, the cuffs and collar gleaming with talismanic equations picked out in glass.

Beside him was Oren Kandel, staring straight ahead. If he saw Lin at all as he escorted the Maharam to his chair on the dais, he gave no sign.

Mez’s lior trilled, a summoning chime. Mariam took Lin’s hand, and together they moved with the other narit into the space before the dais. A crowd of girls and young women in blue dresses, their hair full of flowers, looked up as the Maharam took his seat in the garlanded chair. He gazed out over the gathered crowd, smiling benevolently. Lifting his walking stick, he laid it lengthwise across his lap.

“Sadī Eyzōn,” he said. It was the Ashkar’s own name for themselves: the People Who Wait. They did not speak it to the malbushim, to any outside their own company. “The Goddess is our light. She illuminates our darkness. We are in shadow, as she is in shadow; we are in exile, as she is in exile. Still, she stretches forth her hand to touch our days with miracles.”

He raised his staff, which burst into flower: Blossoms and almonds bloomed from it, as if it were still a bough on the tree. The crowd gave its small gasp. Though it happened every year—in every Sault, at every Tevath, in the hand of every Maharam—it never failed to elicit wonder.

“Today,” said the Maharam, “we celebrate the greatest of Adassa’s miracles, the one that changed our world and preserved our people.” His voice began to fall into the rhythm of a chant, the lilt of a story so often told, it had almost become a song. “Long ago, long ago in the dark times, when the Goddess was betrayed, the forces of Suleman rode against Aram. They expected an easy victory, but they were denied. The people of Aram, led by Judah Makabi, held off the Sorcerer-Kings of Dannemore, with all their might and power, for three long days and three long nights.” The Maharam’s gaze raked the crowd. Though they had all heard the story countless times, his eyes seemed to ask: Can you believe this? This miracle of miracles?

“And when at last the walls fell, and the enemy armies poured into Aram, they found it an empty land. Under cover of shadow, Judah Makabi had already led our people to safety. But Suleman knew the Goddess was not finished with her work.

“He raced to the top of the tower of Balal, the tallest tower in all of Aram. She was there, Adassa, our Goddess. There in all of her terrible glory. She was dreadful and wonderful to behold in that moment. Her hair was flame, her eyes stars. Sulemon cowered before her, but he could not flee, for her gaze held him fast. She told him, ‘In striving for my annihilation, you have only ensured your own. The power you wield should not be wielded by any man, for it only causes destruction. And now it shall be taken from you.’”