festival. Never mind that they were arrested days before it happened.” She put her back to the square as they reached the bench. “What happened with Asheris?” she asked, testing the stone for dampness before she sat.
“He’s keeping me close. It’s all very polite, but I can’t leave the Khas.”
“What will you do?” Zhirin set her plate on the bench, nudging it toward Isyllt.
Shadows rippled across the woman’s face as she frowned. “I don’t know. Escape would only give him reason to arrest me.”
“You could leave, couldn’t you? Go home. You’ve done what you came to do.”
“Not until the supply ship arrives and Jabbor has the cargo. I won’t leave the job half finished.” Isyllt took a pastry, tearing off a bit of crust.
The job. Zhirin picked at a black-marbled egg. Revolution must be easier if you didn’t have to stay to watch. If you didn’t have to live in the ashes.
“What is it?” Isyllt asked, watching her.
She almost held her tongue, but she’d trusted the woman this far…“It’s more complicated than we realized.” Haltingly, she told Isyllt about the diamonds, about the warehouse raid and the conversation with her mother.
Isyllt whistled softly when she was finished. “That’s quite a thing to keep hidden. And why bother, when the Emperor could simply claim the stones as tithe?”
Zhirin shook her head; her mouth was dry and tepid wine did nothing to help. The sour smell of the eggs turned her stomach.
She nearly dropped the goblet as Isyllt grabbed her arm, cool fingers digging into her flesh. She followed the woman’s nod in time to see a man and a woman cross the terrace; lantern-light flashed on long brown hair and the man’s familiar hook-nosed profile. They walked to a shadowed corner and the hedges blocked the sight of them.
“Can we get closer?” Zhirin whispered.
“I have an easier way.” Isyllt reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out a silk-wrapped shape. A mirror- black glass gleamed as she unwrapped it. “Be quiet. Sound travels both ways.” She turned toward Zhirin and held the mirror between them.
The surface shimmered like water and images rose and vanished one after another-strangers’ faces, lights and ceilings and floors, a dizzying series of angles and views. Finally one remained, a scattering of darkness and light. After an instant Zhirin realized it was water dripping into a puddle, as seen from below the surface. Looking closer, she saw a man’s outline reflected in the rippling pool.
“What is it?” Faraj’s voice drifted faintly from the mirror, dull with annoyance or resignation.
“The Laii girl has been snooping around.” Jodiya. “She may already know about the mine, and she keeps company with the Jade Tigers. I can make sure she doesn’t talk.”
“No. I need her mother’s ships, and if Fei Minh even suspects we hurt her daughter, she’ll make more trouble than Zhang could have dreamed of. I’ll tell Fei Minh to keep her quiet, but you don’t lay a finger on the girl.”
“What about the foreign witch, the necromancer? She’s taking more interest in Asheris than I like.”
“Her you can dispose of, if you need something to keep yourself occupied. But for the love of heaven, not here. The last thing I need is an international incident. Make it quiet, and quick.”
“They’ll never find the body.”
A moment later they were gone, and Isyllt wrapped the mirror again.
“What are we going to do?” Zhirin whispered. Her hands shook and she clenched them tight in her lap.
Isyllt shrugged. “Be careful. Watch our backs.”
“I could go into the forest with Jabbor.”
“And that will be exactly the excuse that little assassin needs to kill you when she finds you and blame it on the Tigers. And we still don’t know who murdered Vasilios. If it wasn’t Faraj or his killers, then even more people want to put knives in our backs.” Her expression softened. “Stay quiet and don’t draw attention to yourself.”
Zhirin shook her head hard enough to shift a braid in its pins. “How do you do it? How do you live like this?”
Isyllt smiled, quick and rueful. “I don’t remember any other way.”
Clouds rode the jungle canopy, blurring the tops of the trees in gray. Not yet heavy enough to rain, but the air below was thick and sticky and clung to Xinai’s skin in a clammy false sweat. The ground was soft with rain, the soggy leaf-litter crawling with beetles and centipedes. Already plants half-dead from summer heat greened again, and the smell of jasmine and satinwood flowers threaded through the richer scents of wet earth and leaves, rot and moss.
Shaiyung returned an hour or so after they left Xao Par Khan, her chill presence stronger than ever. She didn’t speak, and Xinai was happy not to be distracted. So many years away from home had dulled her sense of the jungle, and she struggled to keep up with Riuh as they moved through the dense vegetation.
They took game trails when they found them, but much of the going was scrabbling up muddy slopes and slipping down the other side. More than once birds took flight at their passage, and once a long-tailed macaua flung a half-eaten pomelo at them in startlement. At least the lands north of the mountain were scarcely populated-most of the clansfolk had gravitated toward the river and the city, or fled to the northern highlands where the Assari rarely ventured. Xinai couldn’t remember which clans had lived in these hills, and shook her head at her own ignorance. How many villages lay in ruins, choked by the jungle? How many ghosts haunted dying heart-trees?
They followed the ward-posts that circled the mountain, but gave the markers a wide berth. Xinai couldn’t read the nature of all the magic woven into them and didn’t want to risk tripping any alarms. Her lip curled at the sight of the things.
They kept on till dusk settled and even tracker’s eyes strained against the gloom. The familiar fatigue of a forced march dragged at her, but the diamond’s pulse was stronger against her chest and she knew they were going the right way. Anywhere from two to five more days, she guessed, depending how far around the mountain they had to go.
They slept in watches; neither had caught any sign of pursuit, but they’d crossed several sets of three-toed claw marks in the mud. Kueh tracks-flightless birds taller than a man and vicious if startled. And there were always tigers in the mountains.
In the middle of the rain-soaked third watch, Xinai slipped out of their woven-leaf shelter to relieve herself. When she returned, the air beside her cooled. A nearby nightjar fell silent, though insects and frogs continued their songs; only animals large enough to attract attention feared ghosts and spirits. Only men were brave enough-or stupid enough-to seek them out.
She crouched in a tangle of hibiscus shrubs and listened to the rain and distant thunder and Riuh’s soft snoring. Hunger sharpened in her stomach, till she fished a strip of jerky from her pouch. Dry and salty, but she always craved meat before her courses came and they had no time to hunt. The silence stretched and she shivered as her wet hair chilled.
“Hello, Mother,” she murmured at last.
Shaiyung materialized, shimmering and pale. Stronger now, clearer, the color of her skin less sickly. The wound in her throat still gaped-the unsung dead would always bear their death-marks while they lingered.
“That stone you wear,” she whispered. “It’s an ugly thing.”
“I know. I hope I won’t wear it long.” Xinai swallowed salt and a dozen questions. “Can you scout ahead for us?”
Shaiyung shook her head. “It’s still hard for me to see when I’m not with you. Hard for me to leave the Night Forest. I can find spirits and ghosts, but not works of man.”
“What’s it like, the twilight lands?”
“Strange,” Shaiyung said after a pause. “Even after all these years. Before you came home, there was only the dreamtime. I saw things…distant cities…I can barely remember now. I hear the songs of our ancestors on the eastern wind.”
“Will you go to them?”
“One day, perhaps.” Her smile was kind and ghastly. “When Cay Lin is rebuilt. When I see your children playing by the tree.”
“Mother-” Xinai shook her head, frowned at the half-eaten piece of meat in her hand. “I know how much this means to you, but what you did by the river-” Even now she couldn’t force the word past her teeth. Possession. “You can’t do that again.”
