A Torch Against the Night (18 page)

“Perhaps,” Afya says through clenched teeth, “you should keep your mouth shut about things you don’t understand and stick to seducing
Zaldars’
daughters.” She turns to Elias. “Drop your blades and tell me what you want—and why. No explanation from you means no favor from me. I don’t care what you threaten me with.”

Elias ignores the first order. “I want you to personally escort my companions and me safely out of Nur and to Kauf Prison before the winter snows and, once there, aid us in our attempt to break Laia’s brother, Darin, out of the prison.”

What in the skies?
Just days ago, he told Keenan we didn’t need anyone
else. Now he’s trying to pull in Afya? Even if we did reach the prison intact, she’d turn us over the second we arrived, and we’d disappear into Kauf forever.

“That’s about three hundred favors in one, you bastard.”

“A favor coin is whatever can be requested in a breath.”

“I know what a bleeding favor coin is.” Afya drums her fingers on her desk and turns to me, as if noticing me for the first time.

“Spiro Teluman’s little friend,” she says. “I know who your brother is, girl. Spiro told me—and a few others too, from the way the rumors have spread. Everyone whispers of the Scholar who knows the secrets of Serric steel.”

“
Spiro
started the rumors?”

Afya sighs and speaks slowly, as if dealing with a small, irritating child. “Spiro wanted the Empire to believe your brother passed his knowledge to other Scholars. Until the Martials get names from Darin, they’ll keep him alive. Besides, Spiro always was one for foolish tales of heroism. He’s probably hoping that this stirs up the Scholars—gives them a bit of backbone.”

“Even your ally is helping us,” Elias says. “More reason for you to do the same.”

“My
ally
has disappeared,” Afya says. “No one’s seen him for weeks. I’m certain the Martials have him—and I have no wish to share the same fate.” She lifts her chin to Elias. “If I reject your offer?”

“You didn’t get to where you are by breaking promises.” Elias drops his scims. “Grant my favor, Afya. Fighting it is a waste of time.”

“I cannot decide this alone,” Afya says. “I need to speak with some of my Tribe. We’d need at least a few others with us, for appearances’ sake.”

“In that case, your brother stays here,” Elias says. “As does the coin.”

Gibran opens his mouth to protest, but Afya just shakes her head. “Get them food and drink, brother.” She sniffs. “And baths. Don’t take your eyes off them.” She glides past us and through the tent flaps, saying something in Sadhese to the guards outside, and we are left to wait.

H
ours later, with evening deepening into night, Afya finally pushes through the tent flaps. Gibran, his feet up on his sister’s desk as he flirts shamelessly with both Izzi and Laia, jumps up when she enters, like a soldier frightened of a superior officer’s censure.

Afya eyes Izzi and Laia, scrubbed clean and clad in flowing green Tribal dresses. They sit close to each other in a corner, Izzi’s head on Laia’s shoulder as they whisper back and forth. The blonde girl’s bandage is gone, but she blinks gingerly, her eye still red from the scouring it got in the storm. Keenan and I wear the dark pants and sleeveless hooded vests common in the Tribal lands, and Afya nods approvingly.

“At least you don’t look—or smell—like Barbarians anymore. You have been given food? Drink?”

“We got everything we needed, thank you,” I say. Other than the one thing we need most, of course, which is the reassurance that she won’t turn us over to the Martials
.
You’re her guest, Elias. Don’t irritate her.
“Well,” I amend, “almost everything.”

Afya’s smile is a flash of light, blinding as the sun glinting off a cheaply gilded Tribal wagon.

“I grant your favor, Elias Veturius,” she says. “I will escort you safely to Kauf Prison before the winter snows and, once there, aid you in your attempt to break Laia’s brother Darin out of the prison in any way you require.”

I eye her warily. “But …”

“But”—Afya’s mouth hardens—“I won’t put the burden on my Tribe alone.

“Enter,”
she calls in Sadhese, and another figure comes through the tent flaps. She is dark-skinned and plump, with full cheeks and long-lashed black eyes.

She speaks, her voice a song.
“We bid farewell, but ’twas not true, for when I think your name—”

I know the poem well. She sang it sometimes when I was a boy and couldn’t sleep.

“
—you stand with me in memory
,”
I say, “
until I see you again
.”

The woman opens her hands outward, a tentative offering. “Ilyaas,” she whispers. “My son. It has been too long.”

For the first six years of my life, after Keris Veturia abandoned me in Mamie Rila’s tent, the
Kehanni
raised me as her own son. My adoptive mother looks exactly as she did the last time I saw her, six and a half years ago, when I was a Fiver. Though she is shorter than me, her embrace is like a warm blanket, and I fall into it, a boy again, safe in the
Kehanni
’s arms.

Then I realize what her presence here means. And what Afya has done. I release Mamie and advance on the Tribeswoman, my rage building at the smug look on her face.

“How dare you bring Tribe Saif into this?”

“How dare you endanger Tribe Nur by foisting your favor upon me?”

“You’re a smuggler. Getting us north doesn’t endanger your Tribe. Not if you’re careful.”

“You’re a fugitive of the Empire. If my Tribe is caught helping you, the Martials will destroy us.” Afya’s smile is gone now, and she is the shrewd woman who recognized me at the Moon Festival, the ruthless leader who has brought a once-forgotten Tribe to glory with remarkable swiftness.

“You put me in an impossible situation, Elias Veturius. I’m returning the favor. Besides, while I
might
be able to safely smuggle you north, I cannot get you out of a city with a full Martial cordon around it.
Kehanni
Rila has offered to help.”

Of course she has. Mamie would do anything for me if she thought I needed aid. But I won’t see anyone else I care about hurt because of me.

I find that my face is inches from Afya’s. I glare into her dark, steely eyes, my skin hot with wrath. At Mamie’s hand on my arm, I step back. “Tribe Saif is not helping us.” I wheel on Mamie. “Because that would be idiotic and
dangerous
.”

“Afya
Jan
.” Mamie uses the Sadhese term of endearment. “I would speak with my impertinent son alone. Why not prepare your other guests?”

Afya gives Mamie a respectful half bow—aware, at least, of my adoptive mother’s stature among her people—before gesturing Gibran, Izzi, Laia, and Keenan out of the tent. Laia looks back at me, brow furrowed, before disappearing with Afya.

When I turn to Mamie Rila, she’s eyeing Laia and grinning.

“Good hips,” Mamie says. “You’ll have many children. But can she make you laugh?” Mamie waggles her eyebrows. “I know
plenty
of girls in the Tribe who—”

“Mamie.” I recognize an attempt at distraction when I see it. “You shouldn’t be here. You need to get back to the wagons as soon as you can. Were you followed? If—”

“Shush.” Mamie waves me quiet and settles onto one of Afya’s divans, patting the seat next to her. When I don’t join her, her nostrils flare. “You might be bigger than you were, Ilyaas, but you are still my son, and when I tell you to sit, you sit.

“Skies, boy.” She pinches my arm when I comply. “What have you been eating? Grass?” She shakes her head, her tone serious now. “What happened to you in Serra these last weeks, my love? The things I’ve heard …”

I’ve locked the Trials deep within. I have not spoken of them since the night I spent with Laia in my quarters at Blackcliff.

“It doesn’t matter—” I begin.

“It has changed you, Ilyaas. It does matter.”

Her round face is filled with love. It will be filled with horror if she knows what I did. This will hurt her far more than the Martials ever could.

“Always so afraid of the darkness within.” Mamie takes my hands. “Don’t you see? So long as you fight the darkness, you stand in the light.”

It’s not that simple
,
I want to shout.
I’m not the boy I was. I’m something else. Something that will sicken you.

“Do you think I don’t know what they teach you at that school?” Mamie asks. “You must believe I am a fool. Tell me. Unburden yourself.”

“I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want anyone else hurt because of me.”

“Children are born to break their mothers’ hearts, my boy. Tell me.”

My mind orders me to stay silent, but my heart screams to be heard. She is asking, after all. She wants to know. And I want to tell her. I want her to know what I am.

So I speak.

«««

W
hen I finish, Mamie is quiet. The only thing I haven’t told her is the true nature of the Commandant’s poison.

“What a fool I was,” Mamie whispers, “to think that when your mother left you to die, you would be spared from the Martials’ evil.”

But my mother didn’t leave me to die, did she?
I learned the truth from the Commandant the night before I was to be executed: She had not abandoned me to the vultures. Keris Veturia held me, fed me, and then carried me to Mamie’s tent after I was born. It was my mother’s last—her only—kindness to me.

I nearly say as much to Mamie, but the sorrow on her face stops me. It doesn’t make a difference now anyway.

“Ah, my boy.” Mamie sighs, and I’m certain I’ve put more lines on her face. “My Elias—”

“Ilyaas,” I say. “For you, I’m Ilyaas.”

She shakes her head. “Ilyaas is the boy you were,” she says. “Elias is the man you have become. Tell me: Why must you help this girl? Why not let her go with the rebel, while you remain here, with your family? Do you think we cannot protect you from the Martials? None in our Tribe would dare betray you. You are my son, and your uncle is the
Zaldar
.”

“You’ve heard the rumors of a Scholar who can forge Serric steel?” Mamie nods warily. “Those stories are true,” I say. “The Scholar is Laia’s brother. If I can break him out of Kauf, think of what it could mean for the Scholars—for Marinn, for the Tribes. Ten hells, you could finally
fight
the Empire—”

The tent flap bursts open, and Afya enters, Laia trailing and heavily hooded.

“Forgive me,
Kehanni
,” she says. “But it’s time to move. Someone told the Martials you entered the camp, and they wish to speak with you. They’ll likely intercept you on the way out. I don’t know if—”

“They will ask questions and release me.” Mamie Rila stands, shaking out her robes, her chin high. “I will not allow a delay.” She closes on Afya until inches separate them. Afya rocks very slightly on her heels.

“Afya Ara-Nur,” Mamie says softly. “You will hold your vow. Tribe Saif has promised to do its part in assisting you. But if you betray my son for the bounty, or if any of your people do, we will consider it an act of war, and we will curse the blood of seven generations before our vengeance is spent.”

Afya’s eyes widen at the depth of the threat, but she merely nods. Mamie turns to me, rises on her tiptoes, and kisses my forehead. Will I see her again? Feel the warmth of her hands, find comfort I don’t deserve in the forgiveness of her eyes?
I will.

Though there won’t be much to see if, in trying to save me, she incurs the Martials’ wrath.

“Don’t do this, Mamie,” I plead with her. “Whatever it is you’re planning, don’t. Think of Shan and Tribe Saif. You are their
Kehanni
. They can’t lose you. I don’t want—”

“We had you for six years, Elias,” Mamie says. “We played with you, held you, watched your first steps, and heard your first words. We loved you. And then they took you from us. They hurt you. Made you suffer. Made you kill. I don’t care what your blood is. You were a boy of the Tribes—
and you were taken
.
And we did
nothing
.
Tribe Saif must do this. I
must
do this. I have waited fourteen years to do this. Neither you nor anyone else will take it from me.”

Mamie sweeps out, and as she does, Afya jerks her head toward the back of her tent. “Move,” she says. “And keep your faces hidden, even from my Tribe. Only Mamie, Gibran, and I know who you are, and that’s how it needs to stay until we’re out of the city. You and Laia will stay with me. Gibran has already taken Keenan and Izzi.”

“Where?” I say. “Where are we going?”

“The storytellers’ stage, Veturius.” Afya arches a brow at me. “The
Kehanni
is going to save you with a story.”

T
he city of Nur feels like a damned powder keg. It’s as if every Martial soldier I’ve released into the streets is a charge waiting to be lit.

Despite threats to the men of public whippings and reductions in rank, they’ve had a dozen altercations with the Tribesmen already. No doubt more are coming.

The Tribesmen’s objection to our presence is ridiculous. They were happy enough to have Empire support in battling Barbarian pirate frigates along the coast. But come into a Tribal city looking for a criminal and it’s as if we’ve unleashed a jinn horde upon them.

I pace the rooftop balcony of the Martial garrison on the western side of the city, looking down at the teeming market below. Elias could be bleeding anywhere.

If he’s here at all.

The possibility that I’m wrong—that Elias has slipped south while I’ve been wasting time in Nur—offers a strange sort of relief. If he’s not here, I can’t catch him or kill him.

He’s here. And you must find him.

But since arriving at the garrison at Atella’s Gap, everything has gone wrong. The outpost was undermanned. I had to scrape reserve soldiers from surrounding guard posts in order to muster a force large enough to search Nur. When I arrived at the oasis, I found the force here depleted as well, with no information about where the rest of the men were sent.