“I know the way.” It came out harsher than she meant, and he began to turn away. “But I don’t mind the company. Thank you.”
She bathed in the clan bathhouse and dressed in hunter’s clothes-calf-length trousers and loose tunic under a snug vest. In traditional clothes, she was suddenly aware of her shorn hair. Practical, but out of place among clansfolk’s long beaded braids. Such a ridiculous thing to worry about, but she tugged a cap over the damp spikes anyway.
A group of girls led by Riuh’s lovely cousin Phailin left the village for the stream and Xinai and Riuh went with them, ducking quietly into the woods along the way. No telling how many eyes the Khas had watching Cay Xian.
They crossed the stream-a narrow tributary of the Mir, but wide enough to survive the dry season-and headed northeast toward Lin lands. They walked in silence, but she felt Riuh watching her. She tried to ignore it, to ignore the way his hand lingered on her arm when he helped her up steep slopes and over fallen trees. Think of Adam, she told herself, think of the job, but the forest swallowed such things, filled her head with warmth and jade-colored light and the smell of sap and earth.
She nearly missed the marker. The stone had fallen, half-covered by mud and vines. Crouching, Xinai brushed away dirt and leaves, bared the carved bear clan-sign. Cay Lin was only a league away. Whatever was left of it.
Riuh stopped, wiping a thin sheen of sweat off his brow. “Would you rather go on alone?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“I’ll be here.”
He didn’t tell her to be careful and she liked him more for that. She smiled, quick and clumsy, then turned and began to climb the bramble-choked slope that led to the village.
The woods weren’t empty; all around she felt watchful eyes. Not soldiers, but ghosts and spirits. Her charms shivered around her neck. Wise to be gone from here before nightfall, though the thought galled. She should have nothing to fear on her family’s lands.
Should or not, she knew she did. Many spirits resented human incursion into their lands, or simply found them good eating. And a clever spirit was more cunning than a tiger when it came to stalking prey, and had more than claws and teeth to bring it down.
Trails were long overgrown, landmarks reclaimed by the jungle, and it took her more than an hour to reach the stone walls. The sight of them struck like a blow in the pit of her stomach and she stumbled to a stop.
The wooden gates had rotted away, only a few moss-riddled timbers fallen in the opening. Vines crawled the walls, crumbling the arches. Wind rustled the leaves of the canopy and spears of light danced across the ground.
Cay Lin. The clan-heart. Her home. Home to nothing but ghosts now.
She crossed her arms to still her shivering, then forced them down again. Lifting her chin, Xinai stepped through the ruined gate.
The emptiness was a solid thing, a weight in her chest. Nothing dwelled here, not even animals. Shutterless windows stared like accusing black eyes; she couldn’t meet their gaze. Somewhere in these leaf-choked streets was her house, the houses of her friends, the shops they’d frequented. The well she’d drawn water from, the pool where she’d tossed wishing stones-dried now. She saw no bones, though she could still remember where the bodies of her kin had lain untended. Time and weather had erased them, or the earth swallowed them.
The banyan still lived, though its leaves curled and drooped in the dry heat. Its root-tendrils had spread, stretching throughout the walls, dripping through broken roofs and pulling down houses. A forest made of one tree. Yellow dust puffed under her feet as she crossed the root-tangled yard. The slap of her sandals echoed like hammers.
A charm shivered warning a heartbeat before she walked into the trap, but she couldn’t stop in time. Magic enveloped her in a rank miasma, a net of pain and suffering distilled with time and purpose. Xinai tripped on a root and fell, bruising her hands on dry earth. The gentle cacophony of the jungle vanished as long-walled-off memories broke loose to swallow her.
She shudders as the lash falls. She lost count of the strokes after the fifth, can’t even feel the individual blows anymore, only the twigs that gouge her stomach, her nails cracking as she claws the ground. Pain is a red sea and she so much flotsam.
She only realizes that it’s stopped by the absence of the whip-crack over her sobs and roaring pulse. Booted feet rush around her; she feels them through the yellow earth beneath her cheek. Muddy now with blood and tears and sweat. Others still cry and curse and scream. At least they’re alive.
Xinai pries open her good eye and blinks away a film of tears. The other is swollen shut-she feels that pain clearly, and it nearly makes her laugh.
“Is she dead?” one of the soldiers asks. A boot lands in front of her face, leather dull with dust. She wonders if he’ll kick her, but she has no strength to flinch.
“Not yet,” another answers. “Do you want her for the work-gangs?”
The boot nudges her shoulder, flips her over. The blur of leaves and sky washes black as her back strikes the ground. She means to scream, but all that comes out is a teakettle whine.
“No.” The man above her is a blur of Imperial crimson. Red as poppies, their uniforms, red as blood. “She’d be dead before we reach the mines. Let her rot with the rest.”
She tries to roll over but only manages to turn her head. Through the forest of boots and red uniforms she sees other bodies limp on the ground, the earth trampled and soaked dark. Other villagers are roped together and dragged through the broken gates-neighbors and friends, clan-kin all of them.
“Mira,” she whispers, scraping uselessly at the dirt. “Mira.”
“What’s that?” the soldier asks in Assari. He crouches beside her, hands loose between his knees. His tone is nearly genial now that she has no fight left.
Another man’s shadow falls over her and she squints against the glare of sky through banyan leaves. Not a red-coat, this one. He wears green, with red stripes on his sleeves. Sivahri-a local guard. She closes her eyes against his traitor’s face.
“She’s asking for her mother,” he says, his Assari barely accented.
“She’s the leader’s brat, isn’t she? Your mother’s right over there, girl. You want to see her?”
“Captain-”
“What? She made her choice, didn’t she? She should see the cost.” He slides a hand under her shoulder and hoists her up. Not roughly, but she shudders as his fingers brush a weal. Her braids swing across her back, snagging on blood and torn flesh. “There.” The captain points toward the heart-tree.
No, Xinai told herself, struggling for control. It’s not real. It’s over. But she couldn’t break free.
Her mother slumps against the root-trunks, chin against her breast, long black hair wild over her shoulders. Her hand curls as if to hold her kris, but the blade is gone.
“Mira-” She rocks forward, catching herself on one forearm; the other arm crumples when her weight hits it. Like a three-legged dog she creeps forward on hand and knees. Pity the Assari should see her crawl, but she has no strength left for pride.
Her mother’s flesh is still soft, not even cold, only drained to pasty yellow-gray. Blood spills down her chest like a necklace of rust and garnets. The air reeks of raw meat and bowel and she can’t tell the smell of her mother’s death from her own sour metallic stink.
If the captain laughs, she knows she’ll throw herself at him, fight until he kills her and she joins her mother in the twilight lands. But he turns away, indifferent to her grief as he is to her life, and begins overseeing the removal of the last prisoners.
The Sivahri guard watches her, weary lines carved on his face. Forest-clan, she guesses. He could be kin to any of the bodies that litter the dust. His uniform is damp with blood and sweat.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly in Sivahran.
She was wrong-she does have some pride left. Xinai spits. It strikes the dirt yards from his boots, but he flinches as if it hit him. She lowers her head to her mother’s lifeless shoulders and closes her eyes, waiting for the darkness to claim her.
