“I was only cleaning out my shoe, General.” I lower my voice until it’s soft, even a little terrified, which isn’t entirely difficult in front of the kingdom’s two most powerful Sky Warriors.
“A dirt licker.” The tip of an atashban raises my chin, forcing me to look directly into Major Shayla’s pale-brown eyes. “A handsome one at that.”
Major Shayla is nearly as tall as I am, her graying hair cropped to her skull. The hair is the only concession she has made to fit in with the mostly male contingent of Sky Warriors, most of whom she outranks as indicated by the four red atashbans embroidered on the front of her uniform. Unlike the other women, she does not make any attempt to flatten her curves; if anything, Shayla’s uniform emphasizes her form, her cheeks bronzed by the sun, her full lips painted the color of blood. My gaze wanders to the top of her left ear, where three tiny firestones blink against the auricle.
“Didn’t know you liked rolling in the muck with the filth.” General Tahmasp’s voice is calm. He looks older than he did when I first saw him—especially around the eyes and the mouth—a weariness that emerges from things other than time. Unlike Shayla, who wears the sky-blue tunic and narrow trousers of a Sky Warrior, Tahmasp has a uniform as white as a cloud in sunlight, a simple lightning bolt threaded in silver over his heart.
He does not look at me, not even when Shayla decides to prick the underside of my chin with the tip of her weapon, drawing blood.
“You’re right,” Shayla says. The atashban stops short of making a deeper wound and withdraws. “I do despise filth.” She points at her dusty boots. “Clean up, boy. Put that tongue to good use.”
Bile rises to my throat. Forcing a non-magus to lick the dirt off magi shoes wasn’t an unusual punishment a few years before and during the Great War, even though it was banned by the king afterward. A ban, however, will not stop someone like Major Shayla from abusing her power with little or no consequence.
“We don’t have time for your antics today, Major.” Tahmasp’s voice is harder than I’ve ever heard it.
Shayla stares at him and then laughs. “I’d forgotten how sympathetic you are to these abominations. Don’t be mistaken, General. These dirt lickers will do anything—even sell their own mothers—for a bit of coin.”
I try not to flinch or express any outward sign of relief under her gaze, which still assesses my body as if it were a slab of cut meat at the bazaar.
“Get back to work,” Tahmasp says, and I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or to Shayla.
I bow again, careful not to show either of them my back. As I rise again, I see it: the flash of concern in the general’s eyes when he looks at me, the slight stiffening of his mouth before he turns around, joining his long stride with Shayla’s.
I wait for several long moments after they leave, partly shaken by the encounter, partly relieved at the prospect of finally providing Latif with the information he needs. Ignoring the thin trail of blood seeping down my neck, I reach into my pocket again and rub my thumb hard against the green swarna before whispering Latif’s name.
A moment later, grass erupts from the ground surrounding my feet, long and green, growing so fast that it’s already up to my shoulders in a few seconds. This is the sort of magic Latif performs whenever he feels we need a shield from prying eyes—or if he feels like showing off. I never get tired of watching the grass, can never stop the growing sense of claustrophobia it causes whenever it surrounds me.
“What news, boy?” Latif’s voice is a thousand whispers scraping my inner ears, his gray face growing disembodied from the leaves.
“The Spider is here,” I tell him quietly. “With the Scorpion.”
Memories rush in: the snake in the grass, stepping in to save the general. Only now, I’ve become the snake.
Have you, really? the voice in my head asks. It’s not like General Tahmasp is anything to you. He has done nothing for you except offer a single moment of kindness and then chosen to ignore your existence.
Even now, had it not been for his own aversion to being touched by a non-magus, he would have let Major Shayla have her way with me, would have simply watched as I licked the dirt off her boot. “The Spider’s horse has been to the Desert of Dreams. And the Scorpion does not know,” I say.
“Interesting,” Latif says. “Really interesting. Do you remember what I told you last? At the moon festival?”
“Remember the girl you saw.” I repeat Latif’s words.
“And do you remember her?”
“Gold eyes. Brown skin. Black hair worn in a braid. Skinny. Short.” I am careful to keep my voice detached and aloof, even though I haven’t been able to forget the thief. Even now I can picture her with an annoying ease.
But Latif’s words also make me wary. The only other time he asked me to remember someone like this was around the same time last year. A boy—General Tahmasp’s personal servant—turned up suspiciously dead in the Walled City, his broken body found lying a few feet outside the Sky Warrior barracks.
As irritated as I was with myself for stupidly rushing to the thief’s rescue at the moon festival, something within me tightens at the thought of her ending up like that boy, the sparkle faded from her eyes.
“Good,” Latif says. “Make sure you don’t forget.”
“Why? What does she have to do with you? Or me?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Latif tells
