The Burning City (Spirit Binders) (29 page)
Read The Burning City (Spirit Binders) Online
Authors: Alaya Dawn Johnson
“Haven’t you ever thought that some of us would miss you?”
How did the world look through Kai’s eyes? She didn’t know. She had thought she did—she had thought she understood his anger over Pua—but she realized now that she’d only been looking at one half of everything. The other side of his anger had always been his love. She faced death every day; it had become commonplace to her, unremarkable. But she understood now that it had never been that way for Kai. He had always been afraid for her. He had always wondered if perhaps, this time, the death might win.
“Kai,” she said, putting her arms around him. He didn’t return the gesture, but he didn’t break away. This close, she could feel his shoulders tremble. “We’re all of us inches from the gate,” she said slowly, remembering something Parech had said in Ino’s black book. “And every day a few of us stumble through.”
“Not all of us lean against its bars and dare them to open, Lana,” he said, but he hugged her.
“I don’t want to die,” she said softly.
“But you’re willing.”
Nahoa kept the plans under her shirt and didn’t tell even Malie what she’d seen and heard from her roost in the garden. Her maid suspected something, but was wise enough to keep silent. Ahi swatted at the bundle of paper near her mother’s breast, but otherwise seemed content to keep the secret. Nahoa waited for two days, frantic that someone would discover the plans were missing and search the temple compound. But nothing of the sort happened—even if Makaho had noticed the loss, she could hardly proclaim that she was helping supply the Mo’i with advanced weapons against his own people. Even in the most loyal parts of the city, support for the Mo’i was grudging at best. She heard rumors of a battle the morning after she took the plans and was nearly frantic with her inability to contact Pano. He’d always come and gone as he pleased, and she imagined that he’d be busy now with the casualties. Kohaku’s attacks on the rebel encampment had grown more frequent ever since he had sent that assassin to kill the black angel, ever since someone in the fire temple had nearly killed her child.
She did not intend to let Ahi’s perfect health make her complacent about the ongoing danger. Someone had tried to kill her baby. Considering how much it would hurt Makaho’s political position, she doubted it would be anyone loyal to the fire temple. And she could believe many things of her mad husband, but she knew in her bones he’d never hurt her or Ahi. Which left. . .who? A madman? The rebels? But Pano had saved Ahi’s life by taking them to the black angel. She had seen his face. She knew him. Why poison Ahi and then heal her? To gain Nahoa’s trust?
“But he’d already had that,” Nahoa whispered onto Ahi’s downy crown, as her child suckled. “He still has it. I wish I could find him.”
So some other faction. Some piece of the political puzzle she didn’t know about. Great Kai knew that in the aftermath of the eruption, politics in this island had fractured like a dropped plate. No one could keep track of all the rival gangs and interests scrambling to take advantage. But she would just have to find out, wouldn’t she?
Since she had no way to contact Pano, Nahoa tried to forget the treasonous paper tucked under her shirt. The rebels needed the information, that much was certain. She was afraid of what would happen to them in a pitched battle if they had to fight with sticks and knives against bows and arrows. But in the meantime, she would keep her ears open. She wondered what Pano would think of her industriousness, and grinned.
“Well, if a gardener like Pano can start a war, I don’t see why a sailor like me can’t gather some information. Am I right, baby?” Ahi, finished with her meal, shook her head in a way that might be construed as agreement.
“Who do you think is loyal to the old hag?” Nahoa asked, pitching her voice low in case someone could overhear her at the door.
Malie looked up from the socks she’d been mending. “Are you speaking to yourself, your child, or your maid, my lady?” she asked, with some acid.
“Not many others to talk to, are there?” Nahoa said. “And some are better at conversation than others, ain’t they, Ahi?” Ahi giggled.
Malie continued her careful stitches. “You seem to get on well enough with the gardener king.”
Nahoa glared at her and stared at the door, though she supposed that Malie’s voice had been quiet enough. “There’s an antechamber and solid stone behind us, my lady. We’re safe.”
But Nahoa had grown wary since her foray in the garden. The few times since that she’d passed by Makaho, she’d been sure there was some glint of suspicion in the old hag’s eyes, some careful appraisal. She knew Makaho looked at everyone like that, but that didn’t stop Nahoa from being afraid. So she scooted close enough to Malie that they could converse in whispers.
“Pano saved Ahi’s life,” Nahoa said.
“He’s also fighting a war against your husband.” Nahoa glared at her and Malie looked down quickly. “You know Makaho thinks she can make you take him back on her terms.”
“Then she’ll have to make another wish.”
Malie snorted. “No doubt. You want to know who’s loyal to her? The whole temple is afraid of her, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t found other opportunities worth the risk—like we have.”
Nahoa liked that “we.” She trusted Malie out of necessity and what she judged were their mutual interests. But it was still hard to know where her true loyalties lay.
“So who should I suspect?” Nahoa asked.
Malie laughed again and plucked Ahi from the floor. “Well, how should I know? It’s not like we go around wearing purple slashes and proclaiming death to the Mo’i. But you want to know who I suspect might keep secrets?”
Ahi reached out and grabbed a tuft of Malie’s hair. “Ura, the one who brings supper most days. I think he must be one of the napulo—he has the ridges on his wrist from the prayer braids, and he’s always making offerings. Little Sabolu in the stables seems eager for an opportunity at least. Hell, even the old hag herself. With Makaho, unfortunately, you never know which side she’s truly playing.”
“But she couldn’t’ve—” Nahoa broke off. They both looked at Ahi, settling herself against Malie’s shoulder.
“No,” Malie said softly. “This one’s too valuable to her alive.”
“So Ura and Sabolu. I think both of them touched Ahi that day. I was going out to market.”
But Malie shook her head. “Don’t trust anybody. Make a list. It was
someone
, my lady. The black angel told you so. And what I know is little enough.”
someone
, my lady. The black angel told you so. And what I know is little enough.”
Nahoa nodded thoughtfully and went back as best she could through the two days before Ahi got sick. Ura the servant, Sabolu the stablegirl, Makaho, and two serving girls whose names she didn’t know. No strangers. No one who made much sense.
She drew Ura into conversation that evening when he brought their food. Malie was right; he seemed nervous—his eyes constantly darting to the door, wiping his fire-scarred palms on his trousers. But though she played with Ahi ostentatiously enough, he seemed to regard her daughter with no more than polite interest. Nahoa wondered about the imprints of sennit braid on his wrists—why would someone who subscribed to a creed that so violently rejected the spirit bindings come to work in the fire temple itself? Could some of the napulo have aligned themselves against her? But if so, what good did it do to hurt her baby? Nahoa let him go, inexplicably worried. He might be a good actor, but his clear unease said otherwise. She doubted that whatever he was up to had anything to do with her daughter. After all, her husband had recently made being napulo punishable by death. Ura had more than enough reason to be nervous.
Having dismissed Makaho for political reasons, Nahoa sought out the two kitchen maids that night. She brought a sleepy Ahi with her, and asked for a glass of warm milk.
The girls were young and probably related; they had the same wide almond eyes, though one was a bit taller than the other.
“Oh!” said the taller one, after she had gotten over the shock of seeing the Mo’i’s wife in the kitchens. “The baby keeping you up, lady? Our mama was always complaining when she had our brother.”
Nahoa nodded, though it was unfair to Ahi, the sweetest, most agreeable child there ever was. It was an excuse.
“We’re so glad she’s doing well, miss,” said the shorter one abruptly, as her sister busied herself with the milk. “We heard she was so sick those weeks ago. They said she might die, but we didn’t believe it and look! Healthy as an eel. She’s beautiful.”
“She is, isn’t she?” Nahoa said, beaming despite herself. She should be interrogating these girls, subtly ferreting out their secrets. But the longer she spent with them, the more absurd her suspicions felt. These girls—from somewhere deep out in the islands judging by their accents—were young and naive and trusting. She doubted they could even manage to steal salt from the larder, let alone poison an innocent baby. So she took her milk and walked back slowly to her apartments. On her way she passed by the doors to the main fire room and was surprised to see one of them still open. Makaho was seated alone inside, her naked back rashed with heat as she bowed repeatedly to the fire. She mumbled, but no words Nahoa could make out. Something about her seemed almost frenzied, but after a minute Nahoa shrugged and walked away.
The hag was crazy. Everyone knew it. Even after Nui’ahi, no one believed regular humans could pray to spirits. It took a sacrifice like Kohaku’s, or a particular person like the black angel, to make them obey human will. Makaho bowing up and down like a string-puppet struck her as pathetic, absurd, laughable. So she chuckled, and Ahi burped against her chest.
The two guardians sat across from Kohaku, fire and water allied in righteous wrath. They had refused his polite offer of refreshment with an almost synchronized shake of their heads. Kohaku found himself possessed of an eerie conviction that he was staring at an ancient sculpture of a two-faced god. One pale as a white-capped river, the other dark as charcoal; one with eyes variable as the sea, the other with glowing orange embers set in his face like gems. For all their dramatic outward differences, Senona Ahi and Kaleakai looked like nothing so much as alien brothers.
Kohaku shifted in his backless chair, uncomfortable under their twin gazes. They said nothing, and Kohaku floundered for some method of breaking the tension. But growing terror slowed his thoughts.
“I’m afraid they might stay there forever unless you say something, brother.”
Kohaku closed his eyes, but he could still hear her. “They think you’re insane, you know,” said the ghost of his dead sister. He opened his eyes and saw that she knelt between the two guardians, who seemed as oblivious to her presence as everyone else.
“Why are you here?” he said. The words seemed to drain the air from the room. Kohaku had to force himself to breathe.
“And you used to have such skill at diplomacy,” Emea said. Kohaku glared at her. The fire and water guardians shared an enigmatic look.
“We have come to warn you,” the fire guardian said. His voice was a deep rumble, like stones before they spit sparks. “The fire spirit still struggles against its bonds.”
“Well, I hardly needed you to tell me that,” Kohaku said.
The water guardian, Kaleakai, leaned forward. His eyes changed as he did so, losing their irises in favor of a storm-churned ocean. “You show remarkably little remorse, for a mass murderer.”
“It looks like he knows you, brother.”
“Quiet!” Kohaku yelled, before he could stop himself.
“You deny—” the water guardian began, but Senona Ahi raised a hand to silence him. Senona’s nostrils flared, as though he could smell something. He turned his head. For a moment, he and Emea stared straight in each other’s fire-filled eyes. Then Emea guttered out of existence and the fire guardian shook his shoulders, like a horse dislodging a fly.
The water guardian tilted his head. “Senona?”
“Nothing we didn’t already know. This one thinks he can play with a great spirit.”
The ghost of his sister might make him want to scream, but he felt as though he could hardly think without her. What did these two know? Would they kill him for what he’d done?
“Is this about the ramblings of that mad black angel? You can’t prove anything. Leave before I call the guards.” Each sentence came out fainter than the last.
Senona Ahi shook his head. “We have no time to play these games with you, Mo’i. You sacrificed your hand to weaken the bindings. We know this. I assure you the black angel has nothing to do with our knowledge. Indeed, I’m rather impressed she figured it out.”
“Are you going to kill me?” Kohaku didn’t mean to ask it. He certainly didn’t intend the hint of longing that infused his words.
But the fire guardian laughed. “Of course not,” he said.
“If that would solve the problem,” said Kaleakai, “I promise we wouldn’t be speaking to you right now.”
Kohaku could think of no response to that.
“The trouble,” said Senona Ahi, “is that you have unleashed something. You don’t think the fire spirit has made that offer to thousands of other penitents over the years? People desperate with your particular combination of despair and thirst for revenge? And yet only you succeeded. That makes you a powerful person—the only person who can stop the fire spirit before it breaks its bonds entirely.”
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