Radiant: Towers Trilogy Book One (26 page)

“Did you hear that?” she whispered.

“Hear what?”

“I thought I heard a voice. Calling.”

“I didn’t—”

The voice came again, louder this time: “Hello?” A woman’s voice, faint and echoing.

“It’s just past dawn,” Xhea said softly. She rose from her seat, practice forgotten. “Almost no one’s out yet.” It would take half an hour or more for the streets to fill, safety assured as daylight chased away the last of night’s shadows. Whoever approached did so with caution, not wanting to be seen; and even her voice was hushed by more than the distance between them.

Again the woman called, closer this time: “Please. Is anyone there?”

Xhea swore and backed toward the service hall that led behind the vacant fast food counters and away. Shai did not move. She hovered as if caught in midair, her face gone paler than death, the fingers of a single hand pressed to her lips.

“Come on,” Xhea urged.

But Shai only said, “No.”

“You’re staying? Why?”

Shai turned away from the escalator and met Xhea’s eyes; her silver-pale irises looked almost white with the magic shining behind them. Because of the light, it took Xhea a moment to realize that the ghost’s eyes glistened with tears; a moment more to believe she was truly crying. After all that had happened—even Shai’s death—this was the first time Xhea had seen her weep.

“Xhea,” Shai said. “That’s my mother.”

Surrounded by dust-coated countertops, cash registers, and faded photos of greasy food, Xhea listened as Shai’s mother called again. Hearing the echoes, she knew that the woman was near the external doors on the floor above, only one long flight of escalator steps away.

“Is anyone there?”

This time Xhea answered: “Yes, I’m here.”

For a moment, silence was the only reply. “Can you come out where I can see you?” the woman asked at last.

Xhea moved from the shadows to the base of the escalator where a band of early morning light fell, and looked up at the woman standing just inside the dirty glass doors. Her pale hair was cut to curl and kiss the line of her jaw, and small earrings hung from each earlobe, their sparkle brighter than mere diamonds. Her outfit was simple, pants and a tailored blouse, though even at a distance Xhea could tell that the fabric was far finer than anything she’d known.

Discomfort was written in every line of the woman’s body, from the set of her shoulders to the way she held her hands as if fighting to keep them from fists. As Xhea watched, those hands began to shake, and a rivulet of sweat tricked down from her forehead—and she hadn’t even begun to walk below ground. The spells that had guarded the door were gone; brushed away, Xhea could only assume, as easily as she might brush away an errant lock of hair.

Shai’s mother took a few slow breaths before speaking again. “I’m looking for Xhea. Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“You can be a difficult person to find.”

“Intentionally, these days.”

“Is that so?”

Xhea inclined her head, using the movement to hide her glance back at Shai. The ghost had remained in the shadows, out of her mother’s line of sight. Xhea caught a glimpse of Shai’s expression. Shai stared at her mother with such naked pain, such hurt and sorrow and longing, that Xhea briefly wished she could take the ghost’s hand or curl an arm around her shoulder. Yet it wasn’t Xhea from whom Shai wished comfort, and Xhea bit her lip as she turned away.

“Would you mind coming closer?” Shai’s mother called, her voice echoing. Xhea could only hope that Torrence and Daye had not yet entered the complex this morning. “It’s a little difficult, shouting down to you like this.”

“Rather not, thanks. It’s safer for me here.”

“Safer?”

“Big set of stairs between me and you. I like that sort of distance until I know why you’ve come.”

“Even though I could just walk down the stairs?”

“I think you’d find that more unpleasant than expected.”

A pause. “Is that a threat?”

“Simple fact. Citizens don’t like to go below ground level. It’s rather painful, I’m told—but you’re welcome to give it a try.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself.

“I know who you are, Ms. Nalani,” Xhea said. “Though I can’t say I know why you’re here.”

“Councilwoman Nalani,” the woman said with a hint of a smile, “but yes.” She had the same smile as her daughter, Xhea saw, a slight upturn of her lips that spoke both of soft humor and sorrow.

Councilwoman?
Xhea raised an eyebrow. Shai shrugged and bowed her head—apology if not explanation—and Xhea could not help but wonder what other secrets the ghost had hidden, or how much more of Shai’s strange past she would have to encounter by surprise.

Each Tower was run differently; Xhea had never quite managed to grasp the intricacies of the political structures that governed each—nor wanted to. Yet she knew that each had a Council, a controlling body that was government, economic control, and judicial system wrapped into one, accountable only to the Tower’s citizens and the Central Spire. If Shai’s mother was on Allenai’s Council, she was not only in a position of great power and influence—if Wen were to be believed, she also helped rule one of the most prominent bodies in the City.

And she stood at the top of a dusty mall escalator with her shoes caked in mud.

“As for why I’m here,” Councilwoman Nalani continued, “I thought you would know that better than I.”

“Did you?”

“Please, child,” she said, and if her tone was patronizing, it spoke equally of grief and exhaustion. “Don’t play games with me.”

Abruptly, Xhea remembered that despite all that had happened, this was a woman whose daughter had just died. She would never hear her daughter’s voice again, nor feel her touch; could only mourn the child she would never see grow to adulthood. She hadn’t even been there for her daughter’s passing. Sometimes it was too easy to forget the pain that death brought.

Yet what did she expect Xhea to say?
Ah yes, you must be here about the ghost of your magical daughter, the one whose ghost is hiding behind me.
Or perhaps:
You must have come about the traps laid for me—or is it the attempted kidnapping that you’d like to discuss?

Instead, Xhea simply replied, “Nor you with me. Speak plainly, or I’m leaving.”

“I could find you again if you ran. Track you down.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a way to gain my cooperation, and I doubt I’d make it so easy,” Xhea said. “Still, your choice.”

The Councilwoman hesitated, then sighed and briefly closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I just . . . this isn’t going how I wanted.”

“And what did you want?”

“I thought that I’d find you, and I could take you for breakfast, and we could . . . talk. Just talk. Much has happened, and it seems that you might be the only one with certain answers.”

“A talk over breakfast. How civilized.” At the Councilwoman’s look, Xhea hastened to add, “Not that I’m complaining. It’s just that no one’s made quite that offer before.”

“Then you accept?”

Xhea hesitated. “Only breakfast? You’re not going to try to take me anywhere, capture me, anything like that?”

“Capture you?” Councilwoman Nalani sounded surprised, even shocked. “No, I promise, only breakfast. I don’t mean you any harm. I won’t let anything happen to you while you’re with me.” She spoke with her hands spread, palms upward. She was a politician, Xhea knew, and lying was in her job description. Still, she sounded sincere.

“I just wonder if I can trust you.”

Again, that smile, lips wreathed in sorrow. Softly Shai’s mother said, “I wonder the same thing.”

Into the silence, Shai said, “She can be a hard woman, my mother, but she’s never broken her word.”

“Okay.” Xhea sighed. “I’ll make the leap of faith for both of us.” All of us, she mentally amended, sparing a glance at Shai.

“You’ll come out?”

Xhea nodded. “I hope I don’t regret this,” she whispered.

She thought she’d spoken softly enough that only Shai would hear, but the Councilwoman replied, “I hope that I don’t, either.”

More than her promise, it was that brief admission of reluctance that compelled Xhea to climb the ancient escalator and walk out into the early morning sunlight. At last, it was a reaction that she recognized.

Councilwoman Nalani gestured down the dirty street with a perfectly manicured hand. “Shall we?” she said. Side by side they walked, Shai trailing silently behind.

Councilwoman Nalani led her toward the skyscrapers and the well-preserved shops in the center of their uneven protective ring. Here, there were areas where the roads and buildings were mostly uncracked, the sidewalks smooth, the stone façades posing little threat to those passing below. Coming to these few blocks felt like stepping into another world, a city almost frightening in the way it brought the ancient to life; and it was this, as much as the silvery presence of Orren behind her, that made the back of Xhea’s neck crawl.

It felt strange to walk here unhurried, with another at her side—not spirit but flesh and blood. Strange to hear the sound of shoes on asphalt, high heels echoing, falling in time to Xhea’s own. Their breaths puffed in the chill, early morning air: two clouds of white, rising. The strangeness asked for her silence, and willingly she gave it, not mentally mocking the imitations of riches in the stores that they passed, not scoping out the few people on the street for the dangers they might pose—not wishing or hoping or thinking of things that could have been—but walking. Simply walking.

They came to a restaurant, its entrance marked by a slim sign. A string of bells on the door announced their presence; the narrow flight of stairs leading upward creaked beneath their weight. The woman waiting at the top greeted them, hung up the Councilwoman’s coat, and led them to a small table made private by a folding wooden screen. The server poured tea into small cups and promised to return with food.

Xhea blew the steam from her cup, staring at the tea to avoid meeting the Councilwoman’s eyes. She could just see Shai, who hovered at the window behind her mother’s back with her arms crossed tightly across her chest. With each moment, the expanse of table seemed wider, the presence and unspoken expectations of both mother and daughter pressing down until Xhea struggled to breathe. She took a swallow of the scalding tea just to break the tension.

By the time she’d finished choking, the server had returned with a towel-covered basket and a tray with small dishes, tiny spoon handles protruding from beneath their lids. At the Councilwoman’s gesture, Xhea drew back the top layer of the towel to find baked goods—crumbly-topped muffins and puffy buns filled with sweet bean, scones and rolls—fresh and steaming, hot to the touch. She took a few almost at random, intoxicated by the smell alone, then peeked inside the dishes, finding berry jam, lime marmalade, butter, and honey. She slathered a muffin with butter and jam and began stuffing it into her mouth.

She’d never tasted anything so good.

Halfway through the muffin, she looked up, met the Councilwoman’s eyes, and momentarily forgot to chew. Shai’s mother had broken open a scone that now lay untouched on the plate before her. Hands folded on the tabletop, she watched Xhea eat. She looked so much like Shai, Xhea realized then. They had different hair and a different nose, but something in the line of her cheekbones and curve of her jaw, maybe something in the cast of her eyes, was so similar that not even the creases of age and weariness could disguise their kinship. Xhea kept herself from looking from mother to ghost, but only just.

She swallowed, and Councilwoman Nalani smiled sadly. “You’re hungry,” she said.

Xhea shrugged. “Of course.” She couldn’t be embarrassed by hunger. She was again reaching for her muffin when she understood the Councilwoman’s expression. Xhea folded her hands on the table in purposeful mimic and stared back.

“Don’t pity me,” she said, voice hard.

“Pity you?”

“I’m not starving. I don’t
need
this.” She pushed away her plate.

The Councilwoman sighed. “Relax, child. I didn’t say you did.”

“Don’t lie to me, either.”

Anger stirred in the Councilwoman’s expression. “The truth, then. It’s not just you. I pity all of you here, living in dirt and ruin, no way to make yourselves anything more, anything
better
.”

She shook her head, and Xhea saw the tears she tried to blink back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t . . .” She looked at her untouched scone as if it held answers. “I feel the weight of my privilege, these days. My responsibilities.” As if that were explanation enough—and perhaps it was.

Xhea pulled her plate back and took a bite of her muffin. Reached out, and picked another from the basket.

“Are you not hungry?” she asked, as if their conversation were only beginning.

“No. Not even a little.” Councilwoman Nalani looked down at her scone, sighed, and slowly spread butter over its surface. She watched the butter melt, then bit and chewed as if it were a chore.

“She doesn’t eat when she’s stressed,” Shai whispered. “Or when she’s upset. I had to remind her. Bring her meals in her study.”

“You haven’t been eating.”

“Of course I haven’t. My daughter is dead.” Then, slower but no less bitter: “But then, you know that, don’t you?” It took Xhea a moment to realize that it was a real question; a moment more before she nodded.

“Can you tell me how you know?”

Xhea raised her eyebrows. She suppressed a desire to say, “Are you asking if I killed her?” That, she knew with cold certainty, was not a subject she wished to broach with the Councilwoman. Not ever.

“I’m not blaming you for anything,” Councilwoman Nalani continued. “I’m just trying to understand. My daughter is gone and I’m just trying . . .” She took a deep breath.

“I see ghosts.” Only that.

“That’s what I heard.” The Councilwoman failed to hide her skepticism. “But that’s also what I don’t understand. If the reports I’ve received are true, then my husband sought you
before
Shai’s death. Now why would he do that?”