The Burning City (Spirit Binders) (23 page)

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Authors: Alaya Dawn Johnson

BOOK: The Burning City (Spirit Binders)
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“Let this one see,” she muttered, and his eyes widened. She’d never manipulated a geas quite like that before, and so felt a distant, secondary pleasure at her growing mastery.
“I think,” she said, over his quiet shock, “that we are probably going there for quite different reasons.”
He grinned. “I don’t doubt it, keika. I’ve read what they wrote about you. It means a lot to know the black angel believes in the cause.”
Lana nearly grimaced. She couldn’t tell him that her support was prompted far less by belief than by circumstances and expediency. So she forced a smile and said, “I trust you understand how dangerous it will be if the fire temple learns of my visit here.”
He took an extra pastry from the warming coals and handed it to her. “We haven’t survived so long without learning to keep our own counsel. We’re as tired of One-hand as everyone else in this city.”
There was something about the force of the statement—as often as she’d heard things like it for the past several months—that made Lana feel nearly ashamed of her own ambivalence. She thanked him and went off quickly.
It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in the rebels’ cause, but violence could bring an even greater disaster to Essel and the rest of the islands. The more she saw of what Kohaku had done to the city since the eruption, the more she sided with the rebels. But the fact was that secret imprisonment and occasional assassination, however unjust, would do nothing to disrupt the great spirit bindings. A full-fledged civil war certainly could. And as the rebels hadn’t taken leave of their senses or their morals, she felt like they bore more responsibility for understanding this existential threat and ceasing hostilities. Was the nominal freedom of the island worth a hundred thousand more deaths?
And yet. . .she paused on the sandy, seashell-lined road. That didn’t entirely explain her position, did it? Even if she didn’t approve of the escalating violence, she could certainly use her newfound influence to curb it. She could help them organize. She could help them negotiate. She could do all in her power to aid their mission without war. And what was she doing instead? Desperately trying to find a one-armed witch and her mother, a situation of almost oppressing importance to her personally, and increasingly insignificant given the other crises confronting the world.
But it was just like with Pua, wasn’t it? She knew what she
should
do, what she
should
feel. It did not stop her from feeling entirely the opposite. Saving Leilani still eclipsed every other consideration.
Dunes covered in pampas grass and twisted bushes stretched for a quarter mile from the road to the ocean. On her other side, goats nibbled the scrub brush, and if she squinted she could just make out a few jackfruit trees at the start of the farms. Only the occasional bird call and the comforting crash of the waves disturbed the quiet. Even her sandals crunching on the road seemed embarrassingly loud.
She began to feel the strain of her disguising geas and so let it go. At that instant, the death appeared beside her again. She glanced at it with mild curiosity, but it remained silent and she didn’t feel compelled to speak first. Besides, she could just see the house, raised on stilts like all the other buildings in the Rushes, but made from acacia wood so well-cured it had turned an almost fiery red. Grass grew on the flat roof, but that was the only real indication of its abandonment. She wondered what she would find there. Pano’s information had been vague enough that she didn’t truly think she’d just walk in on her mother and Akua unexpectedly. But she still hoped that whoever had decided to move into this spirit-haunted place would be able to give her some clue, some guidepost on her quest.
Someone had left sandy footprints on the stairs. Lana paused for a long moment, straining to hear any noise besides the ocean and her own rapid breathing. But the house looked utterly abandoned, like the vendor back in town had insisted. Surely even temporary squatters would leave some sign of their residence? The windows were dark and soot-streaked. She wondered how the glass in them had survived through the centuries.
“Spirits?” she muttered.
“They’re all around us, you know,” the death said, and she had to laugh. But then, if she closed her eyes, she wondered if she could almost feel their presence. Some sort of power emanating from this strange, abandoned place. There were ancient geas here, palpable in their strength and longevity.
She shook her head to clear the image and climbed the stairs. The door opened easily on hinges that did not squeal or groan. But now she doubted that was a sign of recent repair. She stepped inside.
The air was cool, but not stale or musty. From the light that streamed in through the encrusted windows, she saw that the main room was entirely empty of any furniture, and the only thing that could be charitably interpreted as a sign of human habitation was the surprising lack of dust on any surface. The house was entirely open, though on either side of her she could see empty grooves where sliding screens might once have gone. A few steps further inside and she could have sworn she was being watched. She whirled around, but it was only the death, waiting balefully at the threshold of the house.
“Mama?” she called, just to be sure. The waves crashed. An osprey sailed silently past the open doorway. There was no one here. “Akua?” she said, after a long moment, and then, “Damn you, Akua, what do you want with me!”
She made a cursory circuit of the house, but discovered nothing. Just as she was about to leave she noticed the package the fire temple had for some reason delivered to this house. It had been bundled into a basket of straw, and when Lana bent to open it she saw quickly that it hadn’t been disturbed. Pano’s information had been accurate: it contained some clothing, a few jars of preserved fruit, and dried grains, but no mandagah jewels that she could find, even when she upended the basket onto the floor. Did that mean that someone was living here? Or that Pano had been misinformed? Perhaps they’d even been stolen. Lana had heard that mandagah jewels now fetched nearly ten times the price they had when she’d been a diver. Finally, she gave up. Without even bothering to put away the package, she left the house and started back down the long road. She was exhausted already, and it would take until nightfall at least to go back to the rebel camp.
“I will find her,” she said fiercely to the death floating serenely along beside her. “I will find them both. I will save my mother and I will make Akua explain herself.”
“Will you now?” it said.
“And you can tell her so!”
It said nothing.
Halfway back to the rebel camp, a man in a burro-drawn cart drew up beside Lana and offered to give her a lift. Her feet had started to ache in earnest, so she accepted graciously. The sun was setting and a wind from the greater bay had turned the day frigid. Lana settled her wings for warmth and was grateful that the man seemed as little inclined to speak as she was. He started down the road that followed the seventh district border and intersected with Sea Street. On this new route, Lana saw several of the medical tents and food lines that Kohaku had established in the worst-hit parts of the city. He hadn’t done a terrible job of responding to the crisis, Lana thought. And as he had access to far more resources than the rebels, he was in a far better position to give more help to more people. Yet he had caused this suffering in the first place. Does one forgive the murderer because he clothes the widow? Back in Okika, when she’d been apprenticed to Akua, she’d watched the witch cripple a man to save his wife and daughter’s lives. Akua had also treated the man very well afterward. Lana knew that it hadn’t lessened his hatred.
On a whim, she asked the man where his ultimate destination lay. The fourth district, it turned out, not far from where she lived with her father. It had been several days since they’d last seen each other. Perhaps she could even convince him to come back with her and help the rebels. After she and the man parted ways, she walked the remaining few blocks. Her father wasn’t home yet, but there was food in the larder. As she ate, she looked around. Her father had barely disturbed the place since she had left. Her scrying materials were in the corner, already collecting a fine patina of dust. She wondered if she should take them with her. Perhaps the thirtieth try would give her something new. She sighed.
“I wish you’d at least talk to me, Akua,” she said. The witch didn’t answer. But her father did come home a few minutes later, humming a little tune to himself that Lana recognized as one he’d been working on for the last several weeks. She caught herself grinning and rose to meet him.
“Papa!” she said, rushing forward to embrace him, “It’s good to see you.”
He was clearly surprised to see her there, but he returned the embrace. “You’re back? Are you okay? They said someone shot you.”
“Kohaku sent an assassin. I know,” she said, at his shocked expression, “I couldn’t believe it either. But I’m fine. It missed everything important. I’m just a little sore.”
Her father gave her an uncomfortable glance and then looked away. “I’m glad,” he said gruffly. But he didn’t look glad. He looked worried and upset. “Sabolu, that girl from the fire temple? She came here a few times looking for you. She said she had learned something about that witch.”
“What did she say? Did she leave a message?”
“She said to tell you the witch asked after some disciples of the napulo. And the head nun gave her the information—I suppose the fire temple keeps tabs on those fringe groups? She says it must have been a few weeks ago, at least, but it was probably the tiny fire shrine in the fifth district.”
Lana didn’t understand why Akua would be involved with the napulo, but finally! Some clue that she hadn’t just vanished with her mother like sea foam. She hugged her father again. “Oh, Papa! This is better than I’d hoped. I hope you paid Sabolu.”
His smile was fleeting. “She’d never have left, otherwise. I played her a bit of music, since there’s a new piece I’m working on.”
“The tune you were singing just now?” she said. “Does it have words? Maybe I could play it with you sometime.”
“That would be nice. I don’t have any words yet. It’s about the city, and all the lost and missing—” He cut himself off, as though all the air had left the room. Lana averted her gaze until he regained his composure, but her chest felt tight.
Oh, Papa
.
“She’s still alive,” she said. “I’m sure of it. And unharmed.”
Her father nodded reflexively. “Yes,” he said, though she wasn’t sure he believed her anymore.
“I’ll find her,” she said.
But at this, instead of turning mute and shuffling away, her father raised his head. His lips had thinned to a white line. His eyes were wide. He’s furious, she thought in amazement. She’d never seen her father angry before.
“And
how
will you find her, Lana? How? Because I hear rumors that the black angel has thrown her lot in with the rebels. That she’s fighting with them now and is doing a good job of getting herself killed!”
She’d never explained to her father the nature of her bargain with the death. She’d never made it explicit that her mother would die if anything happened to her. But he understood it, regardless. If not in the particulars, in its general shape: she was his only link to Akua. Without Lana, he had no chance of finding his wife again.
“They saved my life,” she said quietly, unsure how to meet his fury. She felt his accusation like a knife in her gut. She also had thought herself a bad, undutiful daughter for accepting other obligations while Akua still held her mother. But then, she had thought herself an amoral person for only caring about her mother’s fate. What did that make her father? Maybe it was like she had said to Kai—most people aren’t good; they just never have to make the decisions that would reveal their failings.
“They promised to help me if I allowed them to print what I said about Kohaku.”
“What help are a bunch of starving laborers, Lana? You
know
Kohaku! If you had just stayed quiet, you could have had the help of the Mo’i of Essel.”
Lana thought she might just vomit the food she’d bolted down so quickly, but part of her agitation was due to anger. How dare her own father judge her so harshly? “I don’t want Kohaku’s help. He’s responsible for thousands and thousands of dead—”
“And you’re responsible for your mother!”
They fell silent. He looked nearly as stunned as Lana felt. He’d never said it before. He’d always skirted around even the implication. Her mother’s abduction, when it was spoken of at all, existed in a world devoid of all cause and effect. Stripped of all mention of Lana’s relationship with Akua and the lost year she had spent away from them, being chased by the death.
“And you?” she said, her voice rising with fury. “You’re so free from blame? I was your
child
, she was your
wife,
and you left us to come here on some mad dream that nearly killed us all! Build instruments in Essel? Why not find real work in Okika? Why not stay with us? Maybe then we’d still be a family and Mama would still be here with you and she wouldn’t have nearly died and I wouldn’t be a spirits-blighted
black angel,
with death always at my heels!”
“Lana.” His voice cracked. “I didn’t—”

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