“It would have been good luck, a child conceived with the rain.”
“Worry about the Khas first. I won’t be much use in a fight if I’m pregnant.”
Shaiyung’s eyebrows rose. “The northlands made you soft. I was leading raids a month before you were born. My mother still had enemy blood on her hands when I came. Your foremothers are warriors, child.”
Xinai turned her head, cheeks warming. “I haven’t forgotten.”
“It’s not the fighting, is it? You’re still thinking about that foreigner of yours.”
She pulled a knee close to her chest, her heel digging a rut in soft earth. “I know I shouldn’t-”
“Oh, darling.” A cold hand stroked her back. “I know. Your father wasn’t the first man I cared for. I know what it’s like to lose, to let someone go. You can’t help what you feel. But you can’t let it cloud your thoughts either, or dull your blades.”
“I know, Mama-”
Leaves rustled and Xinai stiffened. But it was only Riuh. He rolled over, propped himself up on one elbow. “Who are you talking to?” He blinked sleepily, but his knife was in his hand.
Xinai let out a breath. “Just ghosts.” Her mother’s coldness faded.
Riuh stared at her for a moment, the question-
She wasn’t sure if she was grateful for the reprieve.
Chapter 13
Thunder came in the dead hours of morning, with wind to rattle the windows and arcs of blue lightning. Despite her bravado with Zhirin, Isyllt barely slept. Twice she woke from nightmares of faceless assassins and cold blades, of seeing her body lifeless in the street as uncaring crowds stepped around her.
As the storm eased into a gray dawn, she finally started to doze again, only to be startled awake by a knock at the door. Louder and more insistent than Li. Fumbling for her robe, she rose to answer it. Assassins didn’t usually knock first.
“I’m sorry to wake you,” Asheris said when she opened the door, “but I have a favor to ask.” He wore riding clothes and carried two oilcloaks over his arm.
She stepped aside and waved him in. “What is it?”
“I’ve had reports that something’s happened in one of the villages on the North Bank.”
“Something?”
He shrugged wryly. “They’re sketchy reports. But I’m told people are dead, and that ghosts or spirits may be involved. You’ve no obligation to help, but I still don’t have a necromancer on staff.”
She blinked sleep-sticky lashes.
They collected half a dozen soldiers before they left the Khas, and horses from the stable by the ferry. As they climbed the high road they left the rain below, a shifting sea of gray covering the city and harbor. Rainbows shimmered along the tarnished edges of the clouds as the sun rose, and Isyllt soon shed her cloak as the day warmed.
They turned off the road to the Kurun Tam onto a narrower trail and met a group of local soldiers waiting at a bend in the path. The captain straightened, saluting Asheris. His skin was ashen and sweat stained his uniform.
“What happened?” Asheris asked.
“The villagers in Xao Par are dead, sir.”
His eyebrows rose. “All of them?”
“I’m not sure-we can’t see through that damned fog. Things are moving in the village, but I don’t think they’re alive. Forgive me, my lord, but we couldn’t stay in there.”
“What fog?”
“Up the road. You’ll see, my lord.”
Asheris cocked his head, and Isyllt turned her horse up the path. One of the soldiers rode first, then Asheris, and Isyllt followed close behind. The trail sloped into a narrow valley, shadowed like a wrinkle in a velvet skirt. The jungle rose up on either side, damp and green and much too quiet.
Her ring chilled first. An instant later the wind gusted, pricking gooseflesh on her arms. Tendrils of mist snaked between the trees. Above and below the day was clear, but inside the valley a gray brume gathered. She didn’t entirely understand the science of weather, but she knew it took cold and heat combined to produce a fog, like breath misting on a winter day.
Or a hot day and something very cold. Her ring burned like a band of ice; the bones of her hand ached with it.
Within a few yards the fog enveloped them, damp and algid. The horses balked, tossing their heads and sidling. Isyllt could barely see past her mount’s nose.
“Go on foot,” she called, drawing rein. “We’ll be trampled if the horses panic.”
The animals were all too happy to comply and cantered down the hill as soon as their riders released them. Isyllt moved closer to Asheris, whose warmth was a beacon in the chill. The soldiers gathered around them, swords and pistols drawn. She hoped none of them were nervous on the trigger.
Things moved in the fog, flickering shapes that set her neck prickling. The diamond sparked and glowed, and every breath drew the taste of death into her mouth. Something white and faceless wafted past, and one of the soldiers whimpered softly.
“Ghosts?” Asheris asked softly.
“Oh, yes.” The mist was full of them; their hunger pressed on her. The souls in her ring stirred restlessly and she stilled them with a thought. Water flowed close by, the rush and splash of a narrow rocky stream. A few paces more and they reached a bridge, boards echoing beneath their boots.
“The village is close now,” one of the soldiers said, voice soft as if he feared something would snatch it away.
As they reached the far side, a shape solidified out of the haze. A woman with skin like buttermilk, dressed all in white. She smiled and beckoned; a soldier moaned.
Not a ghost, just an opportunistic spirit. “Not today,” Isyllt said. Did Sivahri spirits understand Assari?
Maybe so-the woman smiled and winked at her, then turned and vanished into the fog with a flick of her white fox tail.
The mist was thicker on the other side and Isyllt’s teeth began to chatter. The ground squelched underfoot; they’d wandered off the path. A soldier shouted and a pistol shot echoed. Isyllt spun, tripped over a rock, and landed on hand and hip in wet earth. Furrowed wet earth-a garden.
“Something touched me!” the soldier gasped. His gun smoked, mingling with the fog. “A hand-”
Isyllt pushed herself up, scrubbing mud onto her trousers. Something moved beside her, retreating as she turned toward it. Not cautious-mocking. She took a step back and her foot hit something more yielding than stone. She glanced down at a slender dirt-streaked arm and swallowed.
“Can you clear this?” she asked Asheris.
He hesitated. “I’m no weather witch, but maybe I can manage something. Step back and brace yourselves,” he called to the guards. “And cover your eyes. You too, meliket.”
Isyllt raised a hand to her face, peering through her fingers. Asheris cupped his hands and blew gently into them. His breath steamed, and the diamond flared at his throat.
The breeze spiraled away from him, strengthening into a tame whirlwind. Isyllt winced as the heat of it struck her and gooseflesh stung her skin. Leaves rattled, ripped free of branches; dirt and twigs filled the air and Isyllt closed her eyes against the stinging debris. Something hissed and wailed-nothing human.
She opened one eye and saw the fog receding, the air around Asheris shimmering with heat. Then the wind died, leaving only a thin gray haze clinging to the ground, and morning sunlight washed over the village.
Bodies littered the ground, curled like womb-bound babes or sprawled prone, fingers clawing at the soil as if to crawl. Isyllt knelt beside the nearest corpse, a boy no older than thirteen. Dirt and weeds stained his hands, dark crescents under his nails and sap green and sticky on his fingers. Beneath the garden grime his nails were blue, as
