The beasts slept outside the cave, black, misshapen outlines against the heavy twilight. There was no sound save that of waves lapping at the shore, the rush of tides as they ebbed and flowed back into the black, unforgiving sea. I was terrified at first, fearful that one may wake without the influence of their mistress, but I wrapped what bravery I had left into my soul and walked on, making no sound as I made my way through the sand, away from the Dark asha and her creatures.
She found me a mile away from where I began. She sat beside the grave, its polished stone bright despite the dim. Fear gripped me and I stood stock-still, waiting, certain she would kill me for my betrayal.
“You misjudge me,” she said before I could say a word. “I compelled you to come here, with the blue moon as your guide. I admit to that.” She carried something under her arm; it was the sapphire-hued bezoar of the indar, the bezoar that discerned truth from lies. “But I swear on this grave that you were never under any obligation to remain. You only needed to ask, and I would have granted you safe passage anywhere you desired.”
The three-headed dragon on her hua gleamed at me, their bright eyes remonstrating. The blue bezoar shone radiant and true as she spoke.
The girl pointed toward the east. “When you reach the end of the beach, you will find a path leading out into the plains. Follow the road you see there, and it will take you to the borders of Tresea twenty leagues out. Or take the road on the left, and several days will find you in Santiang, though I would advise you not to linger.”
“How do I know that this is not a trick?” I dared to ask. “What proof do I have that what I choose to do is not from your Compulsion?”
“This is how you know.”
The strange blue moon blazed to life above us, as bright and as magnificent as the day. At the same time, I felt my feet move through no desire of my own, forcing me back to where the girl sat staring out onto the sea.
“Stop.”
I stopped.
The girl drew out a small pin from her hair and pressed it into my hand. It gleamed like ivory, plain save for its strange silver sheen. The peculiar pressure in my head eased, and the blue moon faded from view.
“One of the strongest spells is woven into this hairpin. It will prevent anyone else from directing your thoughts. Keep it close by you at all times and not even I can command your actions. If you still wish to leave, then you are free to do so. If you wish to stay, then I will tell you more. Look at this bezoar I carry and see that I do not speak false.” And she held out that blue stone, which continued to glitter like gems, proving the truth to her words.
“Thank you for the company,” she said gently.
The girl walked back in the direction of her cave, leaving me to make my decision alone.
The daeva woke before the sun rose again the next morning. I watched them frolic among the waters like children at play. The girl sat atop the taurvi and smiled at me when I approached, wearing her pin on my shirt.
“I am glad,” she said.
27
The loss of twenty Deathseekers came as a blow. We learned of this two weeks later, long before the royal messengers came trickling into Ankyo, armed with grief. We learned of it when the silk merchants arrived, pale and trembling, speaking of the heavy, black smoke that moved across the Odalian landscape like an angry storm. We learned of it when the wagons returned from Kneave, from refugees fleeing the carnage that ravaged the small towns littering the borders of Kion.
We learned of it when the Heartforger and Khalad returned to the Snow Pyre cha-khana, both grim and sober. “It caught them unawares,” the old man said. “Went through the troop like butter—they died before they knew what was happening to them, a blessing if you can call such a death by that word. Looks to me like you’ve been made asha at the right time, Tea. If there is no more fortunate time to draw in the Dark, it is now.”
I remembered it again when an old woman came through the doors of the Valerian and begged me to raise her son from the dead.
“He’s barely twenty, milady,” she wept. “Fresh off his training, only to be sent off to die. You can raise him from the dead, can’t you, milady? That is what they say. I have no other sons for my old age. I beg you!”
I could only stand there, numb, as she was gently guided away, still sobbing, by two of the many soldiers that took to roaming the city for a sense of security that no one believed, with the whole of Ankyo tensed in expectation of a war they did not know for sure would ever come. Not for the first time, I plumbed the depths of my mind, seeking for answers in the strange presence curling up at the furthest corners. I had sensed nothing wrong until the horrible news had come, and I was desperate, wondering if I should have investigated further. But the azi’s mind slipped easily away from me, and all I could find was darkness.
I looked at Fox, and we did not need our bond to know what he was feeling or for him to know what I was feeling.
I found Polaire waiting for me among the ruins of the graveyard sometime later, where twenty new headstones now stood out among the older tombs with their pathetic shininess. “No,” she said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“But I know what you plan. When Lady Mykaela was as young as you were, she thought to do the same thing. It will kill you, child. Raising twenty men at once is not the same as raising one brother. You do not have a seeking stone this time to amplify your powers.”
“But I do!” My hand went to the small stone I still wore around my neck, beside my heartsglass. I was grief-stricken. I was angry.
“The Forger shaped it to protect you, no longer to draw strength from. And even if you could, you will draw in too much and take in the darkrot, and we will have to put you down all the same. The seeking stone is gone—it is too dangerous in anyone’s possession. Mykkie has done all she could to save your life. Do not repay her by dying for the sake of twenty men.”
Later that, day a new contingent of Deathseekers, Kalen among them, left Kion to join their surviving brethren in Odalia.
? ? ?
“You have barely served your three months as an official asha, and now you seek to know better?” Mistress Parmina was in full fighting form, less about my safety and more about my inability to take in money if I were to take a leave of absence. “Asha who have been at it far longer than you are frequently denied leave. What makes you think you would be any different?”
“I know where the azi is.”
I said it quietly, but the effect was immediate. Mistress Parmina sat up straighter among the cushions and Lady Mykaela, recuperating in bed, opened her eyes.
“Are you sure about this, Tea?” my sister asked me gravely.
I chose my words carefully, for my heartsglass could have betrayed me. “When I first confronted that dragon during the darashi oyun, I saw into its mind. I could sense how it felt, and all it knew was a desire to go home. And home for it was a boundless lake of black salt.”
“That’s a good description of Lake Strypnyk,” Polaire conceded from her perch beside Lady Mykaela. “But you could be mistaken.”