“Shh!” Navid hushed. “You want all our neighbors to hear you?”
His frantic tone told Naomi that Navid was no trader for the Merchant’s guild. Thinking it better to keep moving than risk being involved, Naomi crouched lower and peered into the dark gap between buildings. A stray cat stared back for a moment, looking thin and mangy, before disappearing behind a stack of garbage. For a second, Namoi swore she had been looking into a mirror. That second of hesitation gave a clear line between Navid’s pleas and Naomi’s heart, even though his words were intended for someone else.
“Please, my love. A war is coming, and this time it will not stop with a few spats over marketplaces and transport routes. They mean to rip this city apart, at its very foundation, and it will crack wide open from servant boy to sultana. To stay is to die.”
“You are being overdramatic,” Hettie dismissed, but the fear lacing her words matched the way Naomi’s heart had crawled up into her throat as she crouched beneath the open window. “These scuffles will pass with the wind, like they always do, and the paradunes will settle once more.”
“Hettie, I beg of you to listen. When the paradunes settle this time, they will be drawing lines across a ruined city! So sayeth the Fire.”
Hettie gasped loudly.
Naomi startled, bumping her head on the windowsill above hard enough to make a soft thud. She bit her bottom lip to keep from gasping, too. The Fire? Who was this Navid that he could speak to the Fire and have it answer back without being burned? A lucky fool, Naomi surmised. Or, a very dangerous man.
She froze beneath the window as footsteps creaked closer over old wood flooring. A large shadow broke apart the lantern light as Navid leaned out of the window. Naomi cupped her hand over her mouth and flattened herself against the roughly plastered bricks. After a moment that stretched on into an eternity, the window shutters closed and Navid’s footsteps retreated.
“The Grand Emissary’s caravan is leaving for the Red City in four days,” Navid continued, his voice muffled by the shutters. “My brother will get us travel papers.”
“You mean he will forge them,” Hettie said. “If we are caught, we-”
“If we stay, we die,” Navid interrupted, and Hettie fell silent.
The Fire had spoken. The Earth and the Water were in agreement. Naomi stared off into the dark courtyard, seeing a ruined city within the weeds and broken stones. The paradunes would not settle, the Earth had already warned. War was coming, the Water had promised. And the city would fall, so now sayeth the Fire.
Soft sobs from Hettie joined cricket song as Naomi held fast to the cloth over her pounding heart. Naomi had never considered leaving Ka’veshi, free of a mark though she may be. For all its corruption and troubles, Ka’veshi was her home. She knew its streets like they were parts of her body, and she knew how to survive. Beyond the guarded gates and high walls lay an unknown wilderness. But, if the Fire had spoken, then the fates were set and the caravan may be her only chance to get out before all of Ka’veshi burned.
25
With Jenny and Dnara upon his back, Rupert reached the knoll just as dawn broke along the eastern horizon. Nestled at the southernmost ridges of the Axe Blade Mountains, the hill rose upwards in stark contrast to the flat, rolling farmlands and meadows to the south. As Athan had said, a densely packed grove of dead, ash colored trees topped the knoll, along with a watchtower whose stone outer walls had long ago fallen away to reveal rotten wood beams and a stairway that no longer went all the way to the top. That tower had a story, Dnara believed, just like the tower waiting for her in the Thorngrove.
Jenny stopped Rupert next to the tower remains, under a skeletal tree with thick branches that spread out like giant hands overhead. When Dnara’s feet touched the earth, her ride-weary legs wobbled. It felt like they were still moving, riding fast through the night and leaving her exhausted.
Jenny unpacked a bedroll from the saddle and spread it out under the tree. “You should get some sleep.”
The idea sounded wonderful, but the sleeping blanket only had space enough for one. “What about you?”
“I’m fine,” Jenny said with clarity in her eyes as she surveyed the area. “A blackrope can go days without sleep. Part of the magic, ...and the madness. I’m going to walk the perimeter. I don’t think we were spotted, but it won’t hurt to set a few warning traps.”
“All right.” Dnara settled down on the bed, her legs sore and muscles twitching. Setting the dark everbright lamp near her head, she silently wished for Athan to return quickly to her side. Being left alone frightened her more than being discovered by the King’s Guard. She glanced up at the blackrope’s back. “Not... not too far?”
Jenny’s diligent expression softened into a smile and she knelt down, lifting the bedding’s top blanket for Dnara to slide into then tucking it tightly around her body. “Not too far,” Jenny promised, as a mother might her daughter. “Besides, Rupert here will let me know if I need to come back. Now, get some rest.”
Jenny hesitated a moment more, her hand touching Dnara’s hair with eyes clouded in memory, then she stood away
