Days of Blood & Starlight

It had been a long time since she was even a soldier, and she was afraid. Of responsibility, of the Empire, of the odds against their survival, and most of all, of Thiago himself. Right now, she was afraid of seeing that malice in his eyes again.

“Maybe another day,” she had said to Zuzana, closing Haxaya’s thurible and setting it aside. “Right now, let’s just try to make the Wolf happy.”

And he was happy with their work.

“Well done,” he said, when they presented him with the five new soldiers. His mask was back in place. He was all mild benevolence at dinner, even pouring wine—wine? That was a rare commodity, and Karou hadn’t brought it—he raised a glass to the five new revenants. “To survival,” he said, and she wondered: Whose?

Turning over these soldiers to him—these weapons—she did not forget for a second what he would use them for, and it sickened her, but open defiance would not serve. She saw the way the others watched him: with an avid mixture of awe and fear, hoping for his notice, and beaming when they received it. And she saw how he worked the crowd, winning his soldiers again and again, making them feel like his chosen hands, his strength at the end of the world.

She watched him pour the wine, and when she saw the orb shape of the bottle, she lost her taste for it. It wasn’t chimaera grasswine, so called for its pale greenish color, but a seraph vintage, rich and red; one of the soldiers must have brought it back from some town they’d sacked.

She sat back in her chair, stirring her couscous with her fork.

“No wine for you?” Thiago asked, taking the bench at her side.

“No, thank you.”

“Some believe it’s bad luck to refuse a toast,” he said. “That its blessing will pass you over.”

What, his toast to survival? “So if I don’t drink your wine, I won’t survive?”

He shrugged. “I’m not superstitious. But it is good wine.” He drank. “Our pleasures are so few in these times, and we agreed earlier, today is a good day. Five soldiers join the fight, Issa is come to us… somehow.” They both glanced at Issa, who sat farther down the table with Nisk and Lisseth, who were Naja—though Naja as reinterpreted by Karou. “And, of course, you have your friends.” He tipped his head in the direction of Zuzana and Mik.

The humans were sitting cross-legged on the floor in a circle of soldiers, pointing at things and learning more Chimaera words: salt, rat, eat, which unfortunate combination led to Zuzana rejecting the meat on her plate.

“I think it’s chicken,” Mik said, taking a bite.

“I’m just saying there were a lot more rats around here earlier.”

“Circumstantial evidence.” Mik took another bite and said, in passable Chimaera and to guffaws of laughter, “Salty delicious rat.”

“It’s chicken,” insisted one of the Shadows That Live. Karou wasn’t sure which it was, but she was flapping her arms like wings, and even producing chicken bones to prove it. Now I’ve seen everything. The Shadows That Live, doing chicken impressions.

Her friends’ presence changed the tone of the kasbah so much, and so much for the better, and she had loved having their help today as much as she’d loved their company. But watching them from Thiago’s side and knowing what she now knew, she began to get a bad feeling.

“Yes,” she said, striving for a light tone. “I have my friends. But they’re just visiting. They’ll be leaving soon.”

“Oh? What a shame. They’ve been so useful. Surely they can be persuaded to stay.”

“I don’t think so. They have commitments back home.”

“But what could be more important than helping you?” Karou felt her field of vision narrowing like a lens, zeroing in on her friends. Here, then, was to be his new game. Thiago’s voice was velvet. “I would hate for you to lose them.”

Lose them? There was a rushing in Karou’s ears. Thiago’s threats were as clean and pristine as he was, but she had no doubt that what lay beneath them was blood. Her friends were a vulnerability. She cared about them. Clever fingers and math notwithstanding, Thiago would keep them here for one reason: as a means of controlling her. She dropped the pretense. “I’ll have Ten back instead,” she said softly. “Just let them leave.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. Ten has many fine qualities, but I think we can agree they serve her better in compelling the resurrectionist than in being one herself.”

“I don’t need to be compelled. I’ve done everything you’ve asked.”

“Where did Issa come from?”

The question caught her off guard. Her hesitation was fractional, but it was there, and provoked a wan smile from him. “I already told you,” she said.

“Indeed.”

Karou felt turned to ice. She sat there watching as Zuzana fashioned the chicken bones into a rattly marionette. It had joints of twine and a chipped bowl for a head, but she somehow made that damn thing seem alive, sidling up to soldiers begging for scraps. The soldiers clapped and beat the drums Karou had brought, and Zuzana danced her marionette until its head fell off, after which they urged Mik to play for them.

“Try the wine,” Thiago said, getting up to go. “It’s very rich. You know what they say about angel wine? The bloodier the better.”

She didn’t drink it. Later, with Issa in the court, Karou watched him, but he only sat against a wall, alone, with his head tipped back and his eyes closed, listening to the music.

Other eyes were open, though. In heavy shadow, in the gallery, Ten paced. She was watching Karou, and didn’t try to disguise it, and didn’t shift her gaze even when she pivoted to change direction in her pacing. Back and forth, back and forth, untiring. She might have been the Wolf’s hostility made flesh—animal flesh, along with predator instinct and sharp teeth, hungry for the kill order she had been cheated out of.

Karou’s skin prickled all over and she scanned the assembled soldiers, all held rapt by Mik’s playing. Some eyes were closed and others were open and she didn’t know what she was even looking for. “I don’t think I did you a favor by resurrecting you,” she said softly to Issa. What was it Issa had said before, that stasis is kind? “You were safer in the thurible.”

Issa’s reply was equally soft. “My safety is not important.”

“What? It is to me.”

“You are important, Karou. And the message is important.”

The message. Karou was mute. A space hung between them—a silence that was deeper than the music, waiting for her to fill it with a question. What had Brimstone wanted her to know? It was time to ask. She would never again hear his voice, but there were his words at least, his message. “Is it good or bad?” she asked Issa. The wrong question, she knew. She just couldn’t help herself.

“It’s both, sweet girl,” said Issa. “Like everything.” 

61 A Lot Of Dead Akivas

“How did the Stelians get into the inner sanctum?” Hazael mused. “If Akiva could figure that out—”

Liraz cut him off. “Even if he could, we’re not assassins.”

“Not for lack of trying.”

In the wake of the basket of fruit, it was reported that Joram kept to the Tower of Conquest, and had even suspended his audience with citizens. There was no way to get to him. At least, none that they had figured out.

“You know what I mean. We’re not sneaks, and we’re not the Shadows That Live.