The Burning City (Spirit Binders) (31 page)

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Authors: Alaya Dawn Johnson

BOOK: The Burning City (Spirit Binders)
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“Some of it must be hers,” Lana said. “The three in the black book built it, I think, but there must be something important about this house. Some reason she came here.”
“You think the black book is that important?”
She shrugged, frustrated. “Ino nearly killed himself to give it to me. He wouldn’t have done so without a reason.”
“But you still have no idea what it is. And it’s distracting you. What makes you think this house is anything other than what it seems? The book. And who gave it to you? One of Akua’s creatures.”
“You think Akua
meant
for Ino to give it to me?” She remembered the look of anguish on Ino’s face as he collapsed into the mud at the lake’s edge. “Impossible. You weren’t there. You wouldn’t understand.”
“You don’t think she’s devious enough?”
“I don’t think Ino is! That whole time, he was the only one who cared about me.”
Kai put up his hands. “All right. I can understand friendship at least. But you have to acknowledge that Akua could have bound him in such a way he had no choice.”
“But why this elaborate game? Why give me a book that means nothing to her?”
“We’re here, aren’t we? Chasing down mysteries a thousand years old.”
“Makaho sent something here—”
“Makaho is a spider. She’s involved in everything and strives to turn everything to her advantage. This house could be related to a dozen of her schemes. You want Akua, Lana? Then design a geas that can break through her defenses. Or better yet, Makaho’s.”
Lana looked at him, astonished. “I should have thought of that.”
They left the house together, but on the threshold she paused and looked over her shoulder. Utterly empty, just as it had been before. But she was overcome with the sensation of watchful eyes, and she shivered as an oddly warm and gentle breeze briefly caressed her wings.
10
 
N
AHOA FOUND SABOLU. The girl was lazing in the hay, fiddling with a cloth of intricately dyed red-and-blue barkcloth. She scrambled up when Nahoa approached, straw sticking out wildly from her hair like a fool’s crown.
“Should I fetch a carriage, my lady?” she asked.
Nahoa shook her head and regarded the girl carefully. She seemed a bit guilty, but that was just as likely from being caught dawdling as anything more sinister.
“I just thought you might be able to help me,” she said.
Sabolu nodded—maybe a bit too eagerly—and quickly tied the barkcloth in an inexpert knot around her tousled hair. How had she afforded such fine cloth, anyway? In these scarce times, it was hard enough to pay for a meal, let alone a frivolous luxury item. Surely the fire temple didn’t pay her so well. She had to be running errands on the side.
“I can do plenty,” said the girl, lowering her voice, “but I’ll need something for it. And I don’t like kala much no more.”
Nahoa thought. “I have a barkcloth skirt. You could take it in with pins.”
Sabolu grinned so wide Nahoa could see a gap in the back of her teeth. She was opportunistic, sure, but enough that she would deliberately murder a child? Nahoa felt sick just thinking about it. But
someone
had to be guilty.
“What d’you want, then?” Sabolu said.
“I want to make a geas. Something that will hurt a person without them knowing it.”
The smile fell from Sabolu’s face as fast as a ripe coconut. “What would I know about any of that? I look like a witch?”
Not really
, Nahoa thought. But she said, “I just hear that you know people. The sort who might be able to find me a geas.”
Sabolu hugged her elbows and looked around the deserted stables. “I might. But those things are dangerous, lady. You don’t have enough trouble with that old hag? She knows about geas, too.”
Nahoa was glad she hadn’t brought Ahi. Sabolu’s fear was infecting her—she checked the stables again and nearly jumped when a mouse scurried into a corner. “Not Makaho,” Nahoa said. “Someone else.”
She felt as though her heartbeat was loud enough to echo off the walls by the time Sabolu spoke again. “I can’t. . .I don’t work with geas no more. Why don’t you ask the black angel? Word is she knows all about them.”
Nahoa swallowed. Careful, now. “Where is the black angel, though?”
Sabolu seemed relieved, as though this were more comfortable territory. “With the rebels. I ain’t seen her there, but that’s where her papa said she went.”
Sabolu clammed up after that, as though her relief had let her say too much, but Nahoa didn’t mind. She was eager to leave anyway. Sabolu had done something wrong with a geas, and she didn’t want to think that this eager girl had done anything to her daughter. But who else could it have been? Sabolu had warned her about Makaho, warned her about the geas, but then she’d also implied that she’d been in rebel territory. What business could even a precocious girl like Sabolu have west of Sea Street? Everything seemed to be leading her back to either Makaho or the rebels, but she couldn’t believe that any of them would want to hurt Ahi. So perhaps that left a mysterious third party.
She sighed and took a long walk in the gardens before going back to her apartments.
She heard Ahi’s squeals and giggles long before she slid open the door. She expected to see Malie, but there was someone else in the room. He was lying on the floor holding Ahi high above his head. One would think the child had never been so happy in her life.
“Oh what, sweet one? Should I put you down? Or should I tickle you. . .here!”
Ahi squealed again, and Nahoa felt something warm spreading from her stomach to her tender breasts, to her neck and cheeks and ears until she was overflowing with it.
“She loves you,” Nahoa said, surprising herself.
Pano gently put Ahi down and let her play with one of his large, rough fingers. “I think this little one loves life.”
Nahoa didn’t argue. She didn’t want to lose that sense of profound happiness she felt when she looked at the two of them. Malie was seated by the door, reading a book, but Nahoa could tell she wasn’t paying it much attention.
“Is it safe?” Nahoa asked her. She didn’t remember seeing anyone in the hallway on her way here.
“As safe as it may be. I hope that one knows enough to be careful.”
Pano grimaced. “Malie seems to think it is impossible for a gardener to also be endowed with good sense.”
Malie snapped her book shut. “Not when that gardener is fool enough to think he can win a war against the Mo’i himself.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think we can win. Eliki thinks we’ll lose, and soon, without access to a harbor. And she might be right.”
“If you’re going to lose either way, then surely you’re better off not killing so many in a pointless war first!”
Pano considered this carefully, but Nahoa felt as though her words had hurt him. “Do you think,” he said finally, “that Bloody One-hand will let us off so easily if we surrender?”
Malie blanched and looked down. Nahoa rushed over to hold Ahi and remembered, though she wished she didn’t, what the two guardians had said about her husband in their meeting the other day.
“If you’re going to fight a war,” Nahoa said, her voice a little thick but otherwise steady. “You might want these.”
She undid the top buttons of her shirt and handed the plans, now slightly damp, to Pano. His gaze was blank and distant as he took them. He seemed exhausted. The preparations for this new battle had to be taking their toll on him. He looked at the plans for so long that Ahi fell asleep. His expression was one of wonder, tempered by bitter resignation. She realized with a flash that she had just guaranteed the war that he didn’t want to fight.
“How did you find these, Nahoa?” It was the first time he had addressed her as an equal, by her name. It gave her enough courage to tell him what she had done.
“Eliki will be pleased,” he said, when she finished. “You might have just saved our lives.”
But many would die, she understood. She’d never seen a war—no one alive on the islands had—but she remembered that much from the stories.
“Why did you come here, Pano?” she asked, and then wished she hadn’t because he suddenly seemed so worn down and sad.
“I thought that you might speak to your husband again. Ask him to do the right thing.”
What right thing?
Nahoa thought frantically. Kill himself? Had the two guardians told the rebels of their solution? But Pano was continuing, “Tell his troops to stand down. Promise to stop the secret detentions. Give those imprisoned a fair trial. Work with us to help the victims.”
Nahoa’s expression must have been wild, because Pano took her by her shoulders and made her meet his eyes. “It’s okay if you’re too afraid. He’s unpredictable.”
Of course he is
, Nahoa thought.
Two of the spirit guardians told him he’d be better off dead!
But she knew that Kohaku had been unstable long before that. “I’ll speak to him,” she said. “He won’t listen to me, but I’ll try.”
He rolled up the plans and slipped them in the band of his trousers. “If you need to reach me, ask the young one in your stables. She can get into our camp with a message.”
Nahoa was momentarily speechless. “She’s working for you?”
Pano laughed. “Among others, I imagine. The child has a head for business.”
After he left, Malie gave her a speaking look and went off to find their dinner. Nahoa stroked Ahi’s head and wondered at the anatomy of betrayal. It wasn’t Pano. She wouldn’t believe it. She’d believe Kohaku before Pano. And so that left Makaho, who had so much to lose by the death of this child that Nahoa thought she must either be insane, or playing a game that none of them could guess at.
 
There would be war. Lana would have guessed this from the quiet, determined industriousness that had engulfed the rebel camp in just the one day since Pano had returned from visiting Nahoa. But she heard more than she’d ever wanted from Eliki and Pano about the battle plans and strategy for pushing rebel territory north to the old piers. Kai helped them. He said that if there was going to be a battle, it should be done cleanly. Lana wasn’t so sure. She thought that they should try harder to negotiate with Kohaku, no matter how fruitless it seemed. Surely anything was better than further destabilizing the spirit bindings?
But sometimes Lana thought that Eliki didn’t believe in any spirits at all. To her, the only harm was political. The only solution was violence. Or, at least, violence was the primary option. Lana kept to the room Eliki had given her, for the whole of the first district had dedicated itself to making as many of the coveted bows and arrows as they could. Thanks to Nahoa’s ingenuity. Lana wondered what it must have taken for her to break with her husband like that, to give his mortal enemies his most deadly secret. Kohaku had become notoriously cruel—she wondered how much of that cruelty Nahoa had witnessed firsthand.
The main hall of the rebel camp was now filled with ten or so soldiers, sanding down boughs of wood and fitting sharp triangles of alloyed copper onto notched hafts. Eliki and Pano spent a great deal of time huddled close to the fire, poring over maps and reports from their soldiers and spies, which came in at odd intervals. Late one evening, when Pano was out on one of his long errands, Lana even spotted Sabolu receiving whispered instructions from Eliki. Sabolu’s eyes widened when she saw Lana observing her and she nearly fell on her face as she stumbled out the door.
Lana frowned and squatted by the fire. Her hands always felt frozen these days, so she held them up as close to the licking flames as she dared. “I hope you’re not putting that one into danger,” Lana said quietly to Eliki.
The rebel leader’s cool, pink-eyed stare was unnerving. She managed to convey contempt without so much as a flicker in her expression. “And what makes you think I can choose that for her?”
“She’s young. Too young to understand what might happen if she gets caught.”
Eliki tilted her head and blew a derisive puff of air, as though she couldn’t be bothered to laugh. “Oh, you’re suddenly so concerned for her welfare? You paid the child to spy for you, too. She knows Makaho better than either of us. I think she understands precisely what she’s risking.”
Lana thought of the startled fear in Sabolu’s eyes and wondered if Eliki might not be right. But still. . . “You’re about to start a war,” she said.
Eliki frowned; on her normally smooth and controlled features, it had the force of a snarl. “This has always been a war, black angel. Do not mistake that.”
“And if you lose it?”
“Then I imagine the spirits whose disposition so concerns you will make all of our lives so miserable that Sabolu will have far greater problems.”
Lana sighed, outmaneuvered but still uneasy. “Isn’t there some third way? Something other than all this?” She gestured to the room, where one rebel soldier was testing the fit of an arrow into a newly made bow. It made her back ache just to look at it.

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