Empires of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 2) (5 page)

"Torin!" she said
again, trying to free her hand from his grip. "I no scared of
him. Let him come back." She snarled. "I stabbed his leg
last time. Next time, I stab his heart."

He stopped walking, though he
still held her hand. In his eyes, she saw haunting memory and pain.
It wiped the smile off her face and chilled her belly. She touched
his cheek. His skin was still darker than hers, though with every
moon in the endless night of Eloria, it grew paler.

"What wrong?" she
whispered.

He lowered his head, took a deep
breath, and looked around the street. A group of Timandrian soldiers
stood outside a nearby pottery shop. A knight rode down the street
upon his horse. Only three Elorians could be seen—young women
rushing home from the market, mushrooms and fish in their baskets,
quickening their steps as the Timandrians catcalled and jeered. Koyee
heard one soldier mumble, ". . . too scrawny, these savage girls
are, but I'd take the short one to my barracks."

Eyes darkening, Torin led Koyee
into an alleyway. The facades of a teahouse and a barbershop flanked
them. Two stray cats—animals that had come unbidden aboard the
Timandrian ships—hissed in the shadows and scurried deeper into the
darkness.

"Koyee, Ferius is . . ."
Torin began, and even though he spoke his own tongue now, she could
tell the words pained him. "He is more dangerous than you know.
Especially now that he rules the Sailith Order. He's capable of evil
you cannot imagine." He squeezed her hand. "I told you that
he's your half brother, but . . . I haven't told you everything. It
hurt too much. Oh, merciful Idar."

She caressed his cheek. "What
is it, Torin? You can tell me."

He
clenched his jaw and could not meet her eyes. "I was there when
he died. Your father." Finally he looked up and met her gaze,
and she saw the ghosts within them. "I saw him burned at the
stake. The man who judged him, who lit the fires, who murdered your
father . . . was Ferius. And if he can, Koyee, he will murder you
too. He will murder everyone in this city. Please don't goad him.
Hide
."

Koyee felt as if the alley—no,
the entire city—crumbled around her. All the lights of Pahmey, from
the lanterns in the boulevard to the gleaming towers on the hilltop,
seemed to vanish, and even the stars lost their shine.

Stars
above, my father . . . I fought the man who killed him and . . .

A snarl rose deep inside her,
fleeing her lips like steam. She ground her teeth. She reached into
her rolled up blanket, grabbed the hilt of her sword, and shoved past
Torin.

"I will kill him now,"
she said, eyes burning. "I will find him and . . . and . . ."

The rage and pain flowed over
her. She no longer knew where she stood. She felt arms wrap around
her, and she tried to free herself, but they held her firmly. She
struggled. She kicked. But he kept holding her, her Torin, the boy
who was her friend, the boy who had saved her, and she let him hold
her. She let him stroke her hair. She trembled against him until she
could see again.

"We will kill him someday,"
Torin said. "I promise you. You will be avenged. I will not rest
until Ferius sees justice for his crimes, until my people are
cleansed of his poison. But not now. Not in this city. Not like this.
He's too strong now, and if we face him, we will die."

She snarled up at him, gripping
his arms. "I will not spend my life hiding!"

"I don't ask you to."
He held her waist and his eyes softened. "I just ask you to bide
your time. That's all we can do now. This nightmare won't last
forever. Help will come for Pahmey."

She gave a mirthless laugh and
switched to speaking Qaelish, hoping he understood her words. "And
who will help us? The Ilari Empire, our neighbors of the night? They
hate Qaelin; they've raided our southern shores and butchered our
people with us much relish as Timandra. The wise old Leen Empire in
the northern darkness? No. Their people hide in forests of crystals,
worship the stars, and care not for affairs beyond their island. We
are alone, Torin. There is no help for us."

"The Emperor of Qaelin will
help," he said, still speaking his own tongue. "They say he
lives in a great city, that he commands an army as large as Arden's."

Koyee shook her head, hair
swaying. "Then where is he? Where is this army of Emperor Jin?"
She blew out her breath, blowing back strands of hair. "I don't
know if this emperor even exists, if this great city of his—Yintao,
they call it—is more than some ancient myth. If we bide our time, we
will fade into endless despair. Let us strike Ferius now! You and me.
Your friends too. We will sneak into Ferius's temple and—"

"And find hundreds of monks
in armor, all bearing maces," Torin finished for her. "Please,
Koyee. You are hurt now, angry, and afraid. I am too. Now is not the
time to strike. The tree cracks in the storm; the rushes bend and
survive."

"We have neither trees nor
rushes in Eloria," she replied; she was still speaking her own
tongue while he spoke his.

"But you have me, and I
swore to protect you. If I die, I will have failed. Please. Don't
hide for the memory of your father. Don't hide for your people. Hide
for me."

She tore off her clay mask and
tossed it down; it clattered onto the alley floor.

"Look at my face, Torin.
Look at my scars. The whole city knows what I look like. At The Green
Geode, I could wear a mask. Hiding isn't very easy if it's outside a
pleasure den."

Torin looked down at the
discarded mask and took a deep breath. "There's one more place
where your face can be hidden. You won't like it, but it's the safest
place for you—a place where monks fear to tread, where no eyes will
gaze upon you. Come with me. We go there now."

She nodded weakly, her belly
roiling with fear and pain, and lifted her mask. They left the alley.

They walked along the streets of
Pahmey, a soldier and yezyana, a son of sunlight and a daughter of
the night. They walked through marketplaces where Elorians shopped,
silent and quick as Timandrian soldiers watched from every corner.
They passed by columned temples where Elorian philosophers had once
worshiped the stars, where monks of Sailith now chanted for sunlight
and sunburst banners waved. They passed the Night Castle, a pagoda of
brick walls and five tiers of blue roofs, the place where soldiers of
Pahmey had once trained . . . and where hundreds of Timandrian
soldiers now lived, including King Ceranor. Everywhere they walked,
those sunlit soldiers marched and stood, sentinels of steel,
occupiers of fire, ready to deal death to any who glanced their way.

After walking for what felt like
miles, Koyee saw the building Torin was leading her to, and she
stopped in her tracks.

"No, Torin," she said.
"No. Not there."

"It's the only way."
He stared ahead. "It's either stay here or leave this city and
seek your luck in the wilderness."

"Then I choose wilderness."

He looked at her. "You will
not survive on the dark, lifeless plains of the night. Not with hosts
of Timandra sweeping across Eloria. Arden has conquered this city;
the other seven sunlit kingdoms march across the rest of the night."
His voice softened. "Come, Koyee. We'll step inside together."

She returned her eyes to the
building and grimaced. The Hospice of Pahmey loomed above her like a
mausoleum for giants. Upon a hundred pedestals, bronze incense
burners scattered their scent, barely masking the stench of decay
from within. Beyond the smoke, columns supported a roof of black
tiles. Through tall windows, Koyee glimpsed healers moving to and
fro. Each wore thick leather robes and a beak-shaped mask.

"The Sisters of Harmony
wear beaks full of incense to protect themselves from disease."
She shivered. "Torin, this place is full of illness."

"Which is why Ferius will
never seek you here." He flashed her a rare smile.

Koyee
had begun to roll her eyes when wails and chants rose behind her. She
turned and covered her mouth.
Oh
stars of Eloria . . .

A group of women walked toward
the hospice, clad in robes of boiled leather and iron bolts, their
masks mockeries of beaks. True birds—wingless creatures as tall as
horses—walked among them, pulling a wagon. Twenty or more Elorians
lay in the wagon, shivering and sallow, moaning with disease. Boils
covered their skin, and their hair had fallen, revealing spotted
scalps. They gazed at Koyee, whispering with toothless mouths,
pleading, begging for death.

"They have the sunlit
curse," she whispered.

The plague had come with the
Timandrians, borne upon their ships like the feral cats. A decade
ago, it had culled those of Timandra susceptible to its miasma. But
in Eloria the disease was new, and it struck everywhere. Some
Elorians never caught the illness, even when close to those infected;
others fell at the first whiff of its stench.

"Bless you, my friends,"
Koyee whispered as the wagon rolled by. She raised her hand to the
stars. "May Xen Qae heal you."

As they walked by, the robed
women—the Sisters of Harmony—turned slowly, their suits creaking.
Their leather beaks faced her, long and strange; the women seemed
like vultures hungry for flesh. The masks spread across their faces;
their eyes remained hidden behind smoky glass lenses. Wide hats
topped their heads, and their robes trailed along the ground,
clattering with iron bolts and buckles. Not a speck of their flesh
was exposed; they could have been automatons of metal and leather,
great toys with gears and springs inside.

"Beware the curse of
light," one said, voice deep and eerie inside her mask. "Beware
the wrath of boils, the raw gums, the blood that blackens. Leave this
place, daughter of the night. This is a place of pain. Seek solace in
the shadows, for the sun rises."

Koyee stared into those dusty
lenses, those inhuman glass eyes, and shivered.

Here
is a place,
she realized,
that
I must enter.

She
too would wear this mask, becoming a strange vulture of nightmares,
and she too would watch so many perish.

The Sisters of Harmony turned
back toward the hospice. They kept walking, taking their wagon of
disease with them. The dying Elorians wailed, slumped together like
discarded skins. The healers led their charges between the columns
and into the great mausoleum.

"No one ever emerges from
there alive," Koyee said.

"Those who catch the plague
do not," Torin said. "But you will be a healer, not a
patient. You will wear the beaked mask and none will hurt you."
He squeezed her hand. "You've been with me for half a year now.
I do not believe the sunlit plague favors you, or it would have
struck already. But Ferius would kill you . . . and so here you must
hide."

She shuddered and they stepped
forward.

The incense burners crackled at
their sides. Smoke wafted. They stepped between columns and into the
darkness of the hospice. The stench of the dying flared, and the
screams washed over them like waves.

 
 
CHAPTER FOUR:
THE QUEEN OF SUNLIGHT

Linee the First of House Solira,
Queen of Arden, arrived in the dark city of Pahmey with a cavalcade
of splendor—knights on horseback, musicians in motley blowing
trumpets, jesters juggling silver balls, and Dalmatians running
alongside her carriage with silver bells ringing from their collars.
Yet no fanfare could soothe her now. She leaned toward the window,
peered outside her carriage, and wrinkled her nose.

"It
absolutely
stinks
,"
she said. She cuddled her puppy to her chest. "Doesn't it,
Fluffy? Absolutely
stinks
."

She
didn't understand how anyone could possibly live in this place. The
night was just . . . just
awful
.
First of all, it was too dark everywhere. Linee had known it was dark
in Nightside—this place the natives called Eloria—but, well . . .
she had imagined that at least the sun emerged
sometimes
to shine. As it was, she had been traveling through Nightside for
twenty hourglass turns now, and she hadn't seen so much as a single
sunbeam, only those awful little spots people called stars and that
hideous, bloated face they called the moon. For so long, the
wilderness of endless darkness had spread around her, just shadows
and rocks, and every creak of a soldier's armor, and every bump on
the road, made her squeal with fright and imagine an army of demons.

And
now, after so long in the dark wilderness, they finally
finally
reached the city, they
finally
arrived in this fabled metropolis called Pahmey, and it was just
dreadful. Linee had expected to find civilization in the darkness.
Instead she found a place more nightmarish than any she could have
imagined.

"Look at them, Fluffy,"
she whispered, holding her puppy to her breast. The little terrier
whimpered, pink ribbons in his fur. "They're . . . they're like
naked cats or something."

The Elorians were everywhere.
Once Linee had gone with her husband, the noble King Ceranor, on a
hunt. While he'd run off spearing boars, she had tried to collect
flowers for him, and insects flew everywhere, and not even nice ones
like butterflies, but nasty things like bees and mosquitoes. She had
cried and begged Ceranor to take her home, and this was even worse.
This was the worst thing Linee had seen in all her twenty-one years.
Thousands of the pale, thin nightfolk filled this city, staring at
her carriage with those huge, weird eyes, their silvery hair flowing
like shrouds, their skin white like corpses.

"Don't
they know that Pahmey belongs to me now?" she said. "My
husband, the brave king, conquered this place for
me—
for
somebody pretty and
decent
,
not for these weird creatures." She shivered and hugged her
puppy as close as she could, even as Fluffy squirmed.