“Yes, ma’am.”
She snorted. “Said so easily and ignored just as quickly too!” She sat down on the bed beside me. “Oh, Tea,” she sighed. “What are we to do with you? If you’d been my own child, I would have given you such a throttling! Unfortunately, the elders do not think so.”
“The elders?”
“The asha-ka association wants to speed up your novitiate,” Althy said. “You will be made an asha by the end of the year and sent off to tame your first daeva.”
Cold fear gripped me. Polaire nodded knowingly.
“Since you are this eager to confront daeva, they are doing their best to quicken the process. We will accompany you, of course. As will a Deathseeker—and Zoya too, unfortunately. She is skilled in the runes, and the disadvantage of having her for a sister has come back to bite us in our behinds. Fortunately, you will be kept too busy to get into too much mischief.”
“What about Likh?”
“Likh is fine. The elders have not yet called on him. Worrying about it now will not change anything.” Polaire snorted. “There is some trickery at work here, and I suspect these elusive Faceless have been busy. If they have found some way to control the azi, then we’re in trouble. Which of the three do you think did it? As far as I know, Usij is still shackled at his Daanorian fortress, but it would be easy enough to sneak out when no one is looking. There have been no sightings of Druj in the last few weeks, and no one’s quite sure if he’s still in Yadosha. Similarly, there has been no word of Aenah in Istera, though the bulk of her sect has been imprisoned.”
“Quite disturbing,” Althy agreed.
“Can I see Lady Mykaela?” I asked.
Polaire looked at my empty plate, at the rinds that were all that was left of the runeberries. She looked back at Althy, who nodded.
Lady Mykaela was sleeping in her bed, her face white against the pillows piled up around her. Her lips were bloodless, and the dark circles around her eyes were more pronounced. My heart broke for her.
“You are not as quiet as you think you are,” she said, opening her eyes. But she smiled, and a bit of color returned to her cheeks.
“I’m so sorry.” The tears began before I’d reached her bedside, and they wouldn’t stop. Every fear and small terror I had felt during the play, the growing dread of knowing they would farm me out the way they had farmed Lady Mykaela out to the daeva, like cattle led toward a high cliff, bubbled to the surface, and I wept. I looked at Lady Mykaela and I saw my future, and I knew then that I did not want to lie in her bed, wearing her stretched skin and her sunken eyes.
Thin hands enveloped me. “It would appear that I owe you my life,” Lady Mykaela whispered in my ear. “I hope they did not go hard on you, even so.”
I made her promise to never draw the raising Dark again, but it rung as hollow as the vow I had given Polaire so many minutes ago. And in my mind, the Darkness curled at that strange corner, waiting—but for what, I didn’t know.
The stranger came as a surprise. I woke at dawn to find him wandering the beach, staring up with dread at a massive skull. He started upon seeing me. “I didn’t think there would be anyone else here,” he explained, speaking in Daanorian.
I took an immediate dislike to him. He wore too many rings on his fingers, his heartsglass nearly hidden by the copious glitter of jeweled embellishments that littered his neck. He stank of magic; even I, who have had no training, could smell it on his person. My Drychta upbringing rose to the surface as much as I tried to stem its ascent; like Istera, Drychta have no love for Daanorian folk.
“Are those things real?” he asked, staring up at the hideous bones that stuck out from the sand. His heartsglass glittered, more green than gold. I did not need to be an asha to read what was written there.
“As real as you or I,” I responded shortly.
“To find such a skeleton intact is a rare treat,” the man marveled. “Is it daeva? Imagine how many millions of li it could sell for at the black markets! It is just what she told me!”
“She?”
“The woman in my dream. I followed the blue moon over twenty hills in twenty days and found her standing underneath the bones of a great beast. She spoke of valuable cargo that I must deliver and promised the most precious of rewards if I obeyed.”
I began to tremble. “What is her name?”
“I do not know. But she has soft brown skin and dark hair, and a dragon lines her robes. Her eyes—” And he too shuddered.
“You are Lu Ren of Daanoris. A governor of the Santiang province.”
Neither of us heard her approach. The man recoiled at the sight of her, with her hideous pet taurvi trotting by her side.
“A daeva!” He stumbled and fell onto the sand but continued to scramble away.
“Stay,” the girl said gently. Lu Ren stopped. He turned in compliance to her wishes, his face a mask of anguish.
“In three days’ time, Daanoris will be overrun by daeva, and Santiang will be among the first to fall. They will scorch your lands and destroy all that they see. They will enter the capital of Tuadan, and nothing will remain of your houses nor of the palaces of your emperor and his royal court.”
The merchant swayed on his feet, wringing his hands. “But why?” he cried.
“Because it is necessary,” the girl told him sadly. “Because the man who sits on your throne is a cruel emperor and an obstacle in my path. And that is why you are to return to Santiang immediately, to warn your people of what is to come. You will order them to flee the cities and to take refuge in the mountains. Save as many as you are able. Spread the word to other towns, and encourage them to do the same. In five days, Daanoris will fall—do not let your people fall with it.”
The man recoiled, but even in the face of such tragedy, his avarice struggled for dominion. “And my reward, Mistress?” he asked. “The most precious of rewards that you promised?”
“You leave with your life intact, good merchant,” the girl replied, and the taurvi raised its head and meowed at the terrified Daanori. “Surely that is the most precious of rewards? Now, go.”
And so the merchant turned with a cry of despair and began his trek back toward Santiang, leaving nothing but his footprints behind.
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