Empires of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 2) (3 page)

Koyee turned away from the
mirror. She stared at her chamber, the humble abode of a yezyana. Fur
blankets topped a simple bed. A few silk dresses hung on pegs,
dragons and stars embroidered upon them. Her flute and several books
lay upon her bedside table. Her father's katana, the legendary blade
Sheytusung, was hidden inside a rolled-up blanket under her bed. It
was a simple place far from home. Perhaps this was her home now.

She looked out the window and
saw them outside—the Timandrians troops, conquerors of her city.
Somewhere out there, among them, he waited for her. Somewhere he was
thinking of her, seeking her, dreaming of crushing her with his mace,
of hushing all whispers of his shame.

"Ferius," she
whispered. "We would've welcomed you into our family, even after
Mother died. We would've given you a home with us—with me, my
father, and Okado." She lowered her head and finally her eyes
watered. "But you invaded our land. You slew our people. You
would slay me, and you would slay all the children of the night if
you could." She grimaced, reached for her sword, and drew the
blade. "But I will not let you. I swear to you, my half-brother.
I hide for now in shadow, a yezyana named Madori, but I do not forget
you. I do not forget your sin. So long as I can wield this sword,
deep within me I am still Koyee of Oshy . . . and I remember."

Shouts rose from downstairs in
the common room.

"Madori! Madori Mai! You
will play your flute now. Madori Mai!"

She blinked and squared her
shoulders. She lifted her clay mask from her bed—the mask of Madori,
a hidden musician, a living doll. She hid her scars behind it. She
placed down her sword and lifted her flute. It was a costly silver
instrument and it played beautifully, but she often thought it worth
less than her old bone flute, which she kept hidden under her
mattress. She had played that bone flute upon the streets, an urchin
in rags, and it had saved her life; perhaps it was now too precious
to play.

As she stepped downstairs and
entered the smoky common room, men cheered and tossed coins her way.
They were soldiers of Timandra seeking ale, song, and women to leer
at. She stepped onto her stage, and she played her silver flute for
these men, but behind her mask she thought of Ferius, and she thought
of her sword.

Torin frowned at his book and
struggled to form the words.

"
Ceshe
—
shee
—"
he said, wincing.

"
Ceshuey
!"
said Koyee, tapping the book with her fingernail. "Shuey . . .
like . . .
seleshuey
fen
, remember?"
She frowned at him. "
Ceshuey
."

Sitting on the bed beside her,
Torin placed the book down on his lap, groaned, and shook his head.
It seemed a remarkably complicated word for such a small, humble
creature as a spider; he wondered when he'd even need to say 'spider'
in Qaelish, the tongue of this city.

They sat in her bedchamber in
The Green Geode, the pleasure den where she played her flute. From
downstairs in the common room, Torin could hear the sounds of
singers, musicians, and drunken crowds; Koyee herself had only
finished playing moments ago. It sounded like a good time, and Torin
longed to step downstairs and join the fun, but Koyee glared at him
and slapped the book again.

"Look at book!" She
spoke in his tongue of Ardish, her accent heavy. "Try again. Or
you never learn."

Torin sighed. "These words
are too difficult to pronounce," he said, reverting to Ardish
too, his tongue of sunlit lands. "Was Qaelish invented to break
men's teeth?"

Koyee rolled her eyes and
slapped his shoulder. "No! Qaelish is beautiful. Qaelish is . .
. how you say . . . words of poem?"

"Poetic?" Torin
suggested.

She nodded. "Poetic. In
Qaelish we say
laerin
.
Like . . ." She made a movement with her hand. "Like wind
and water.
Laerin
.
Like flute music."

Torin looked at her in wonder.
Her accent was thick and her speech slow, but in only six months she
had picked up a remarkable amount of his language. He had taught her
some himself; she had learned the rest by simply keeping her ears
open on the streets, listening to the soldiers occupying her home.
Meanwhile, Torin had spent these six months struggling to learn her
tongue—the language of this empire Torin found himself lost in.

"
Laerin
,"
he said hesitantly, struggling to wrap his tongue around the foreign
word. "
Qaelish
laerin tesinda.
Qaelish is a musical language."

She groaned and shook her head,
hair swaying. "No!
Qaelish
tesinda laerin.
Like
that. Not like in Ardish. First the . . . how you say? The main word.
Then the . . . other word."

"First the noun, then the
adjective," he said, feeling rather clever now that he was
speaking Ardish again. "I understand. In your tongue I would
say: Qaelish language musical."

She nodded and finally allowed
herself to smile. "Yes! You learn. Slowly. You little stupid.
But I teach you."

Her words were sharp but her
eyes were soft. As much as Torin marveled at her skill with
languages, he marveled at everything else about her. Her lavender
eyes gleamed, as large and oval as chicken eggs. Her skin was snowy
white, her hair long and smooth like cascading milk. Three scars
stretched along her face—one halved her eyebrow, the other trailed
across her cheek, and the third raised the corner of her mouth. And
yet Torin thought her beautiful; these lines did not mar her face, he
thought, but made her seem more enchanting, fierce, and strong. Her
body, clad in a blue silk dress, seemed just as alluring to him,
lithe yet curved in just the right places, and—

"Torin!" She jabbed
her finger against the book. "You look here. Not at me. Look at
book."

He swallowed, nodded, and
quickly returned his eyes to the book. He felt his cheeks flush. She
had caught him admiring her too many times, and Torin cursed himself.

I'm
a soldier of sunlight occupying her city of the night,
he thought.
I cannot
let myself think of her . . . like that.

Yet
by Idar's beard, for the past six months, he had barely been able to
banish these thoughts from his mind.

He flipped a page in his book,
cleared his throat, and tried to keep reading. This was only a
children's book, full of myths of old philosophers who would wander
the darkness of Eloria, yet Torin still struggled with the words.
Ardish was written with a phonetic alphabet, left to right, but
Qaelish utilized a complex system of runes inscribed top to bottom.
He read out loud, speaking the story of Xen Qae, the wise founder of
the Qaelish nation, who could communicate with animals and speak with
the stars.

"
Fenea—
"
he said, stumbling over a word. "
Fenaexe
—"

She leaned close, and her hair
fell from behind her ear, grazing his arm. When she pointed at the
book, her fingers brushed against his. He looked up at her and met
her eyes, and he was struck by how close their faces were; he would
only have to lean forward for their lips to meet. He felt the heat of
her body, a warmth like embers during a winter snowfall. She stared
back, then lowered her gaze shyly and withdrew her hand. A soft smile
touched her lips.

"
Fenae
xeluan
,"
she said. "A hundred kisses." Now her cheeks were those to
flush. "This is story of how Xen Qae met his wife, the beautiful
Madori. I am named after her when I play flute." She met his
gaze again, then blushed deeper and looked away. "I must play
flute again now. I must go downstairs."

She quickly rose from the bed,
turned away from him, and left the chamber.

Torin remained sitting on the
bed, and a sigh rolled through him. Six months ago, he had marched
into this city with a host of a hundred thousand Timandrians, his
people of sunlight. Six months ago, he had slain a man, watched
thousands die around him, and brought the wounded Koyee to this very
chamber for healing and safety. Since then, he had returned to this
chamber every hourglass turn, seeking her company. He told her that
he wanted to learn Qaelish, that she was the finest teacher he could
find, but the truth he kept hidden.

I
keep returning here to see you, Koyee,
he thought, gazing at the door.
To
look into your eyes. To feel your fingers when they accidentally
brush against mine. To hear your jokes, talk to you about animals,
and make you smile. Because I—

He shook his head wildly. Again
these thoughts had come unbidden to his mind. Koyee might be
intelligent, beautiful, and kind, but she was also Elorian, a
daughter of the night. He was Timandrian, a soldier occupying her
land. She was forbidden to him, and he vowed he would never return to
this chamber again—the same vow he made every visit, the same vow he
knew he'd break again.

He rose to his feet and cracked
his neck. He wore the steel and colors of Arden, one of Timandra's
eight kingdoms of daylight. His steel breastplate was engraved with a
raven, sigil of his people, while vambraces and greaves covered his
limbs. A checkered cloak of gold and black draped across his
shoulders. His sword hung at his side; he had not parted from this
weapon since invading the night, and he often thought of it as a
fifth limb, a part of him he hated but could not rid himself of.

He had joined this army almost a
year ago, and yet he still did not feel like a soldier, only a
gardener. Often he missed his gardens back home—the rustling
euonymus bushes, his flowerbeds of many colors, and the trees he grew
from seed to sapling. But that was back in Timandra, the sunlit half
of the world. No plants could grow here in Eloria, a land of eternal
night. Often Torin wanted to run, to make his way upriver, to return
to sunlight and start a new life away from this war. But always he
stayed.

"For you, Koyee," he
said, gazing out the window at the city of Pahmey, this great hive
his people had conquered. Timandrian troops marched along the
streets, swords drawn, thugs in steel puffing out their chests as
Elorians cowered before them. "I promised to protect you. So
long as danger marches along these streets, I will stay with you."

He left the chamber, walked down
a hallway, and made his way downstairs into the common room.

When
first arriving in The Green Geode, this pleasure den among the towers
of Pahmey, he had found a lair full of bearded, frail spicers—men
addicted to
hintan
,
the purple dust they paid their fortunes for. Back then, the spicers
had lain upon mattresses, smoking from hookahs, filling the room with
green smoke. All that was gone. The city of Pahmey had new masters
now, and The Green Geode served new patrons. A hundred Timandrian
soldiers sat at tables where once mattresses had lain. Where spicers
had once smoked in stupor, soldiers now drank ale and wine and cried
out lustfully at the women performing on stages.

The yezyani of The Green Geode
wore flimsy silks, their faces painted, their jewels gaudy.
Professional performers and flirts, they danced, sang, played music,
and one—an impish little thing named Atana—made marionettes dance.
Soldiers hooted from the tables, tossed empty mugs their way, and
called for the women to sit on their laps or warm their beds. The
yezyani laughed, batted their lashes, and winked at the crowd;
promptly coins were tossed toward them.

All but Koyee, that was. She
stood upon a pedestal, a single calm pillar in a storm. A clay mask
hid her face, painted white, for men across the city still sought the
Girl in the Black Dress, the one who had slain so many Timandrian
soldiers. On her pedestal, however, Koyee became only a masked
musician, a ghost of sound. She held a silver flute to her lips and
played soft, sad music that nearly drowned under the roar of the
crowd.

"Come here, little woman!"
cried one soldier, a scruffy man with a yellow beard and red face.
"Come play here on my lap."

Another Timandrian soldier
guffawed. "He's a drunk! Ignore him and join me in my chamber.
Elorian men are weak as boys; I'll show you a real man."

Other soldiers, cheeks red with
booze, catcalled at Koyee and reached out toward her, but she ignored
them. She kept playing, eyes closed, until the soldiers grunted and
turned to call out toward more receptive yezyani.

"You don't belong in a
place like this, Koyee," Torin said softly, his voice drowning
in the din.

He had seen her fight against
armies, a single woman with a sword. He had seen her courage and
wisdom. And yet . . . a young orphan girl, only seventeen, unwed, the
monks of Sailith hunting her . . . where else could she hide but
here?

At the thought of Sailith, Torin
grumbled and clutched the hilt of his sword. The monks of sunlight
had almost killed him and Koyee during the invasion of this city.
Since then, the Sailith Order had spread through Pahmey like rot.
Their banners rose upon the old temples of starlight. Their monks
presided in columned halls, judging Elorians to die for crimes as
petty as busking on the streets or daring to meet a Timandrian's
eyes.

"And they're hunting you,
Koyee," Torin whispered. "Since you wounded Ferius, he
hasn't stopped hunting you."

As if to answer his thoughts,
the main door creaked open behind him.

Torin spun toward it and his
heart sank.

"Speak of demons," he
grumbled.

In the doorway, holding a
lantern, stood the monk Ferius.

Short of frame and broad of
shoulders, Ferius stared into the pleasure den, lip curling. His
beady, far-set eyes narrowed in disgust, as if he were staring at a
rotten carcass. His black hair was receding from a broad, thrusting
brow, slicked back like some oily rag. He seemed to Torin like a
hairless, rabid dog prepared to strike. In the past six months, the
monk's superiors—aging preachers of hatred from the capital—had
mysteriously fallen to Elorian daggers, rotten meat, and other
accidental deaths. Though still a young man—not yet forty—Ferius
now ruled the Sailith Order, a group of hundreds of monks and
countless worshipers among the Timandrian host.