Vengeance of Dragons (Secret Texts) (38 page)
BOOK: Vengeance of Dragons (Secret Texts)
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Being understood was disorienting, but pleasantly so.
Kait got out of bed and began dressing, too. “What about the bed sports you mentioned?”
He looked at her sidelong, and his smile teased her. “Your lovely body and wondrous kisses will wait. I have no wish to become your next meal.”
Kait and Ry negotiated their way along the quarter’s raised walkways and over crossing stones at intersections, while the muddy torrents of rainwater roared beneath their feet and sheets of rain poured down on them. They were nearing the end of the rainy season, but had obviously not yet reached it. Calimekka, however, did not let itself be distracted by the vagaries of weather. The business of the city went on.
In the market district, they found a few eateries already doing brisk business with day laborers and merchants who would be opening their shops and stalls soon. Kait and Ry joined a few who stood, soaked and shivering, beneath the bright red awning of a pie-seller’s shop; the two of them debated the merits of adder, rattlesnake, venison, monkey, parrot, turkey, and grasshopper as fillings before settling on a large combination pie that sat steaming on the shop sill. The various meats had been sweetened with chunks of mango and tanali and made richer with sliced manadoga root and coconut, and the thick crust had been glazed with a savory nut butter.
Kait forced herself to eat slowly. If she weren’t careful, she could give away her nature simply by eating in front of strangers. She thought of how often people said to each other that they were “dying for a good meal,” or “dying for an ice,” or “dying for a big slab of juicy mutton,” and considered that, unlike most of them, she could literally die for a meal. The thought injected a little needle of unpleasantness into her lovely morning.
She and Ry wandered hand-in-hand through the profit-gate into the maze of covered stalls in the inner market. They found a peccary stand where the shopkeeper used netting to keep most of the flies off the carcasses he had hanging from hooks along the front. Kait thought this was a nice touch, and picked out a plump little piglet that had been roasted on a spit, and that the pig-man had braised in its own juices, without spices. She split that with Ry. Still hungry, she led him even farther into the increasingly crowded huddle of shops, and brought them up to a place that sold one of her favorite treats—honey-dipped roasted parrots on sticks. The price was reasonable, and she ate two, wishing that she dared to have more, but knowing that she would draw too much attention to herself if she did.
By the time they reached the street again, the rain had let up and the sun was beginning to show through the clouds. The streets steamed in the heat, and the arcs of three rainbows marked the sky.
“Shall we go back to the inn now,” Ry asked, “or do you think you need to get a sweet or two to hold you over to midday? Say, a basket of melons or some lucky shopkeeper’s entire stock of sweetened ices?”
She laughed. “You don’t need to sound so prissy. You’ll have your turn before long.” She looked down the street in both directions. There were other shops that sold things she would enjoy, but though she could eat, she thought she’d let her appetite regain its keenness before she did. “I’ll live till the next meal. We can go back to the inn.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, and his warmth and his scent made her suddenly hungry in other ways. She ran a fingertip down his chest and flashed a wicked smile. “In fact, I’ll race you there. If you can catch me”—her grin grew wider—“you get to keep me.”
He grabbed for her, but she leaped out of his reach and bounded down the street, arms pumping and head up. She shot across the crossing stones, touching down only in the center of the street, pounded along one raised walk after another, and careened around corners, oblivious of the danger any obstacles might pose to her . . . or she to them. She ran flat out, putting everything she had into the race, exhilarated by the fun of the chase.
When Ry popped up in front of her, not even winded, as she hurtled past the alley beside the inn, she burst out laughing. He caught her in midstride, wrapping his arms around her waist and lifting her into the air. Her momentum spun the two of them around in a circle.
“Caught you,” he said.
His fingertips touched at her navel; he held her with her back against his chest, with her feet dangling a hand’s breadth above the ground. She lay her head back against his shoulder and looked up at him. “So you did. Clever of you to find that shortcut.” She was panting, still breathless from the run. “So now I’m yours. What are you going to do with me?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Not really. I’ll be just as happy if you surprise me.”
He shifted her around, sliding one arm under her knees and the other along her back, and when he held her cradled, he kissed her slowly.
“You can put me down now,” she said after a long moment.
“I could. But you belong to me now, and I don’t want to.”
He carried her into the quiet tavern, and through to the stairs that led up to the rooms. Halfway up, they met Dùghall coming down.
Kait got one look at his face and something inside her grew still and wary. In all the years she’d known him, she had never seen his eyes look lifeless; she had never thought of him as truly old. In that moment, however, he looked both ancient and unwell.
“Put me down,” she whispered to Ry, but he was already swinging her feet to the floor when she spoke. “Uncle, what’s wrong?”
“I’ve been waiting for you to get back.” His voice sounded like death. “We have to leave. Quickly.”
“Leave?” She frowned. He was pushing past her, already heading down the stairs. “What’s happened? Have the Dragons discovered our hiding place here?”
He didn’t even look back at her. “Worse. Come. Your things are already packed. I’ll explain when we’re on our way.”
She and Ry turned, and Dùghall led them out a side door, where Hasmal, Yanth, Valard, and Jaim waited. Trev drove up on a rickety farm wagon pulled by a pair of spavined horses, his pale round face bleak and frightened. The wagon was full of straw bales.
“We’ve hollowed out a place in the center,” Trev said.
And Dùghall said, “In. Quickly.”
They climbed over the outer row of bales and crouched down on their bags, which covered the slatted wagon floor; when all of them were hidden, Trev tipped the inner bales toward each other and piled a few on top to form a makeshift roof.
The wagon lurched, the wheels rattled over the cobblestones, and everyone jostled into each other, knees and elbows poking uncomfortably. They hardly had breathing room.
Lucky, Kait thought, that there weren’t any more of them. Then she realized Ian was no longer with them.
“Where’s Ian?” she asked.
The haunted look Dùghall fixed on her made her think that he was dead.
But Dùghall said, “He was gone this morning . . . took all his belongings with him. He left a note telling Hasmal that he would be back after midday, by the end of Nerin at the latest, that he’d thought of something that would help us. I trusted him, but Hasmal suggested that we do a viewing on him to see what he was doing. We gathered a few hairs from his bed and linked him to them.”
He shook his head and fell silent.
“What?” Ry asked. “What did you find?”
“He sold us out. We tracked him to Sabir House. When we saw him, he was telling a lesser functionary that he knew of a plot against the Sabirs headed by Ry Sabir and his inamorata, Kait Galweigh. He said if they would hire him, his first act as a Sabir employee would be to give the plotters over to the Family.” Dùghall sighed and rubbed his temples. “If you had come back any later, you might have found the Sabirs waiting for you. I believe the only reason they weren’t was that Ian had trouble convincing the House functionaries to grant him an audience with the people he needed.” He leaned against the bale of straw behind him and closed his eyes. “As it is, they might find us before we can get out of the city.”
Kait pressed her head into Ry’s chest. Ry kept his arm tightly around her. She’d made her choice, and Ian had made his.
Ry said, “I should have killed him when I had the chance. Then he couldn’t have betrayed us.”
“He helped us,” Kait said. “You can’t kill an ally because someday he may turn on you. Anyone could turn on you someday.” She remembered Ian dragging the Mirror of Souls across the rough plains of North Novtierra, of him fighting side by side with Hasmal and the now-dead Turben and Jayti, of him taking charge and getting them to safety in the Thousand Dancers—of the multitude of other things he’d done for them and with them. She remembered, as well, the nights she’d spent in his bed, in his arms, and his happiness when she was with him.
Then Kait recalled the expression on Ian’s face the night before, when he saw Ry’s arm around her shoulder. His eyes had flashed from pain through anger to a strange, flat blankness that made him look hollow. She recalled the deadly coldness in his voice when he wished his brother happiness.
She knew she’d hurt him then, but she hadn’t thought he would be capable of the sort of betrayal he’d committed. She’d expected him to accept her decision. Maybe be angry, maybe hostile. She’d considered that he might not speak to her, or that if he did, he would be cold. She even thought he might choose to leave their little group and return to the sea. She’d misjudged him badly, but from the start she had brushed aside her gut feelings about him and allowed herself to trust him because she needed him.
She closed her eyes, seeing the choices she’d made and watching them lead to the moment where Ian sold her out, and she could see where she’d chosen badly time after time. She knew the night she first approached Ian Draclas to take her across the ocean in search of an Ancients’ city that he wasn’t trustworthy. That night she’d expected him to try throwing her overboard once he was sure of the city’s location; she’d done what she could to eliminate any such attempt from his plans. He’d claimed to be a smuggler, but in her darker moments she’d suspected him of piracy, and she had always heard that there were no honorable men among pirates. She’d seen the avarice and the power-lust in his eyes from the first, and had noticed the way he looked at her when he didn’t know she was watching—as if she were the gold prize in a contest. She’d seen the ease with which he assumed different characters and acted different parts and became complete strangers, and yet she let herself believe that the man he pretended to be around her was somehow more real than those other faces he created. Knowing that she was Karnee, and that her curse affected the way men reacted to her, she nonetheless let herself believe that he loved her—and because she believed he loved her, she allowed herself to trust him.
In that, she’d been a fool.
She closed her eyes and wished she could hate him. He’d sold her out to her enemies; he’d sold her
life
. He had
earned
her hatred . . . but she didn’t hate him. She’d allowed herself to like him too much—she recalled the way he’d rescued Rru-eeth and the slave children from torture and death at the risk of his own life, and the way he fought beside her against the airibles, and the way he had held her in his arms. She’d spent too much time discovering things about him that were honorable and kind and courageous, and when she thought of him, those were the pictures her mind summoned first.
life
. He had
earned
her hatred . . . but she didn’t hate him. She’d allowed herself to like him too much—she recalled the way he’d rescued Rru-eeth and the slave children from torture and death at the risk of his own life, and the way he fought beside her against the airibles, and the way he had held her in his arms. She’d spent too much time discovering things about him that were honorable and kind and courageous, and when she thought of him, those were the pictures her mind summoned first.
The instant Ian discovered he wouldn’t get what he wanted—that he wouldn’t be able to marry her and acquire the Galweigh status and power and the rights to the Novtierran city she owned—he went straight to the people who would pay the most to get her. He hadn’t just turned on her, though. He’d turned on Dùghall, whom she believed he had liked a great deal. And worse, he’d betrayed the Reborn. More than anything else, she couldn’t understand how he could do that.
“Dùghall, you helped Ian touch the Reborn, didn’t you? Several weeks ago?”
Dùghall looked at her with anguish in his eyes and nodded.
“Quiet back there,” Trev said suddenly. “Checkpoint coming up.” Everyone in the cart fell silent. The cart clattered and shook, and came to a stop, and the city noises flowed in. Bells rang; herders and farmers and craftsmen shouted to each other or explained their cargoes to the taxmen who waited at the checkpoint to collect their transit taxes; in the distance some crier from a minor sect of Iberism called her faithful to prayers; children shrieked with laughter; and over it all, the city breathed with every door that opened or closed, and its arteries pumped with the people and their belongings that moved through its countless streets and alleys.
Checkpoints. The gates that pierced the many walls of Calimekka were remnants of a time when the city fit within smaller borders. They had, over the years, been claimed by the Families, who maintained the walls around the gates and the strips of road near them, and who taxed those who passed through them for the privilege of using the gate. The checkpoints also allowed the various Families to keep an eye on everyone who entered or left their domains, what they were doing, where they were going, and whether or not they were welcome on that Family’s land.
Kait imagined the taxman at the upcoming gate demanding that Trev unload the first bales from the wagon so that they could see those behind. She could just see one of the big guard dogs shoving his nose into the straw and barking the alarm that the cargo hid secrets within. She closed her eyes and offered her own strength and put that into a shield that she cast over the whole of the wagon, and everyone in it . . . and even the horses. She designed the shield to make Trev and his cargo appear innocuous, and to deflect suspicion. She couldn’t understand why Hasmal and Dùghall had not already cast such a shield, but both of them looked sick. Perhaps they were too sick to manage the magic.
BOOK: Vengeance of Dragons (Secret Texts)
10.83Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
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