What could she see? Dirt, yellow brown like everything else here. Her boots, worn, polished leather, well trusted. The clay wall of the building opposite her, just two paces away. Another cart woman, dark skinned with braids, out on the street, pushing whatever remained of the day’s wares. But Touraine’s vision blurred and her eyes crossed.
She could hear the wheels squeaking away. They sounded familiar, as if the sound of cart wheels in the city streets were a constant. The night sounds of a city, so loud but so easily lost to the background, like the buzz of insects. She’d never lived in a city. Then the buzz faded, as if her ears had been stuffed with wax. Then her blurry vision went dark.
Touraine woke on her stomach, ankles tied to wrists behind her. The ropes dug into her flesh, and she tried to stay as still as possible. A muscle cramped along her lower back. With her face pressed into the floor, every breath tasted like dirt. Sand gritted in her teeth.
Sky above and earth below. Where was she? Other than fucked. The last thing she remembered was collapsing in a heap against the wall, her head too fuzzed to think straight. She hadn’t been that drunk.
She rocked, trying to tilt onto her side, but the ropes that bound her were held up by something else. All she got for the effort was a wrenched shoulder.
“How are we feeling?” A woman’s voice? Speaking accented Balladairan.
Touraine tried not to give away her surprise, but her heart beat faster. “Good,” she grunted in Shālan. It was one of a handful of words she remembered from Tibeau.
The stranger laughed, harsh and barking. “Didn’t hear that,” she said. Then she repeated the word, smoothing out Touraine’s rough pronunciation. Her boot pulled back in slow motion, and Touraine braced herself. When she kicked Touraine in the stomach, Touraine groaned through her teeth. Curled in on herself by reflex, only to strain her shoulders in their sockets.
“All right, Balladairan dog.” The woman crouched in front of Touraine. She wore dark trousers tucked into heavy boots, and one of those Qazāli vests, with the hood up and the dark veil pulled over her nose and mouth. Lantern light reflected on dark, dark brown eyes shaded by angry eyebrows and outlined in crow’s-feet.
She’d been taken captive by rebels. She was double fucked.
“We don’t really want to hurt you,” the woman said, giving no sign that this was true. “We should be on the same side. You and the other dogs—you’re slaves, too.”
Touraine’s laugh scraped her throat. “You’re sky-falling crazy.”
The Balladairans could—would—flay them all alive. Or whip them just as near. It baffled her, how stupid the rebels were about the balance of power: the Qazāli had nothing. Balladaire had numbers, equipment, supplies—they were winning, had been winning for decades. Some of the Sands might miss their families, their pasts, but it would be better to stay on the Balladairan side of the conflict. She’d kept that in the back of her head even as she’d wanted to strangle Rogan in the past.
“You want food, you talk to me. Let’s start small—where are your guns?”
“Can’t talk,” Touraine whispered into the dirt.
The next kick to her side cracked something. Sky above, she was going to look like a lavender field the next time she took her clothes off.
When she caught her breath again, she said, “We don’t have guns. You like my baton? You can have it. We keep them on our belts.” The familiar rod dug into her hip. It was almost a relief when the woman tilted Touraine over casually and unhooked the baton from her belt. Almost.
The woman flipped it through the air to catch it several times, as if she already knew its weight intimately.
“You’re soldiers without guns?” she asked.
Touraine imagined the disdain and suspicion on the woman’s face. It probably matched hers when she learned she wouldn’t have a gun.
“Ridiculous, I know.” Years of training, to find out the gun was hers only before an engagement or in active war, to be returned immediately after. Any soldiers who refused were to be shot.
“I’m not an idiot. Where are your guns? Or tell me how your shipments come in. Or your guard rotations.” The boot swung back again.
“I’m not lying!” Touraine said harshly, watching the boot. The kick wouldn’t break her mind, but it could break something else, and sky above, she hurt. She couldn’t help thinking about the cut on her arm, which now seemed like the one place she didn’t hurt. “I’m a Sand. They don’t tell us shit.”
“So tell me what they do tell you,” the woman hissed. Her dark eyes were almost black in the dim room.
“Fine.” Touraine relaxed a hair. “I set guard ro—”
The final kick ripped a scream out of her, and it broke down into a dry sob.
Sharp words outside the door in Shālan made the woman growl, irked. She stalked out.
A thick, metallic paste of blood and dirt coated Touraine’s tongue.
The door opened again. She had a brief glimpse of light from the courtyard before a shadow blocked it out.
“Let me help you.” A new, calmer voice came from behind her in crisp Balladairan. It sounded like her tutors in Balladaire and was a pleasant change from the bitch with the boots and the growl.
The relief, however, was short lived.
The world lurched as she laid Touraine on her side. She groaned gratefully at the sudden lack of tension. This captor wore a scarf that covered all but her golden eyes, which dazzled in the lamplight, emphasized by dark kohl.
Touraine’s breath stopped in her chest. A Brigāni. The woman’s long dark robe puddled around the floor as she knelt next to Touraine. According to the Tailleurist history books, the Brigāni were the cannibal Shālan witches from Briga, the country across the river from Qazāl. They drank their enemies’ blood to
