beside her.
“Tuvaini’s dacarba.” He made a sound somewhat like laughter and twisted it from her grasp as easily as taking a toy from a baby. “This could come in handy.” He put it in his belt and gathered her up.
It was Sarmin’s knife, but she didn’t correct him. “Listen. Don’t give that back to me.”
He looked down at her. She felt small and warm in his arms, and his fire-and-spice smell brought smoking besna leaves to mind. Some barely remembered spring evening in the longhouse, far away in both distance and time, came back to her, together with the sensation of being cradled in the dark.
“No need to decide that now,” he said. “The prince must have given it to you for a reason.”
He’d startled her for the second time. “How do you know the prince gave it to me?” The smell of blood on her clothes overcame his scent and her nostalgic moment was lost. She wriggled in his grasp: this was not her father, and this was not the longhouse. This was a strange man, a killer, and she’d been lost in his arms thinking of her childhood. Something in his strength and his stillness had comforted her, something she never would have believed possible when she saw him the first time outside the temple of Herzu.
“I know every weapon in this palace.” He put her down and frowned. “Hurry, now; I have other things to do after this. Too many things. Step where I step.”
Before long she wished he carried her still. The way was dark, the arched bridges narrow and the stairs crumbling, and on either side of their path lay the chasm. A loose stone slipped under her foot and she counted four seconds before she heard its soft thud below her. At times she wished she could crawl rather than walk, but the man moved so fast that she knew she’d soon lose him, and she didn’t want to find herself alone in the darkness. She wished they were going to see Sarmin and not Beyon.
They descended a flight of stairs. There was a wall on her left, and she leaned on it with relief before following him down another flight, and another, until at last they stood on some sort of platform. The man scratched something on the wall and a door swung open. Beyond she saw bright colours, sunlight, and something that looked like a bed.
Her captor produced a length of cloth and wrapped it around his eyes. “Here we are,” he said.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Eyul watched the horsewoman sleep. Pale, she was. He could see the blue veins running beneath the skin of her throat. He wanted to press his finger there, to feel the life he’d become so expert at cutting away.
Blood crusted her garments, though it was not her own-not yet, though she would suffer soon enough for taking their side. Men died when they lost; women were punished. It would be so easy to pull the blade over that white flesh, to let her bleed out peacefully in the cool light of day. He put a hand on his Knife. The whispers writhed around the hilt, buzzing at his fingertips.
“No.”
“No.”
“ No. ”
He turned away from her and leaned against the far wall. Since Amalya, he had lost his way. He had killed something in himself where he thought nothing still lived, and with it went all sense of balance, until only the whispers held him now, dead children keeping him true to his oaths.
It smarted where she’d cut him, a long, shallow slice. He hadn’t seen her dacarba-she’d surprised him. Something about that reminded him of Amalya.
The sun crept across the floor, lighting Mirra’s face in the mosaic of ceramic, stone and glass; Her features came alive in golden hues, a burst of glory before the dark of evening. Eyul grew impatient for Beyon’s return, for the time when he could go and hunt Govnan.
The horsewoman stirred and woke, studying the floor a while before sitting up and scanning the room. She looked soft and childlike in sleep, but awake, her face took on angles and edges. At last she looked in his direction and her eyes widened, but she didn’t scream.
“I fell asleep?”
He spoke in a low voice, emulating Tuvaini’s soothing tone. “We must keep our voices down. They are looking for us.” “Who is looking for us?”
“Well,” he said, letting humour colour his words, “just about everyone.”
He reached into his robes and she tensed. “Food.” He produced the bread and cheese he’d lifted from the soldiers’ hall, wrapped in a piece of old linen. He stepped forwards and put it on the floor, a man’s length from where she sat.
She slid across the tiles on her knees and reached for the bundle. “His Magnificence will return soon, heaven bless him,” he said, although in fact he didn’t know where Beyon was; he’d slipped away before dawn to wander the secret ways. It worried Eyul that Beyon could be cut down by a few Blue Shields while he waited here.
No. Govnan would die first, and then Beyon could be saved. He told himself it was so.
Eyul retreated to listen at the door, wrapping the linen about his eyes before stepping out of the shadow. Soldiers’ boots or assassins’ slippers would signal the same thing. Then, if she wanted it, he would open that white throat.
The horsewoman consumed everything in the napkin and then picked up the crumbs with her fingers. She wasn’t dainty. Eyul could imagine Beyon liking that about her.
“My name is Mesema.” She stood, facing him, one hand on the crusted blood of her gown.
“I am Eyul, son of Klemet, Fifty-third Knife-Sworn.”
“Knife-Sworn? An assassin?”
“Yes.”
Her throat moved as she swallowed: more scared than she looked, then. “Where are we?”
“This was once the women’s wing.”
She looked around again. “It’s less grand than the one I’m in. Was in.” She took a step forwards. “Why did you cover your eyes? Are you injured?”
More than you know. “The light hurts my eyes, that’s all.”
“Beyon’s wives- Did you-? Have they been killed?”
She knew; she saw it in him, that he could have done it-that he would have done it, if things were different. Again she reminded him of Amalya. “No. I did not-and only I can kill a royal. They will still be alive.” He watched her consider this. This was no naive young girl, nor any wild savage. She might manage what lay ahead better than he’d thought.
“One of the soldiers killed Hadassi.” Mesema watched the floor, as if she could see it there.
“No!” Eyul half-drew his Knife. For an instant he felt foolish, as if murder were a small crime when set against murder by the wrong person. The whispers coiled around his fingers again as the Felting woman turned towards the door.
“He comes.”
“He comes.”
“ He comes.”
Mesema’s stomach rolled when Beyon crashed into the room; his presence washed over her like music with all the wrong notes, or a room full of men fighting. He was not like Sarmin, and certainly not like Banreh. He walked straight over to her.
“Are you well?”
She nodded, avoiding his eyes. Purple triangles asserted themselves against the honey color of his cheeks and her finger itched, wanting to reach for them, but she dug her nails into her palms instead. It had been days since she’d seen Beyon, but she was always aware of him, aware of his marks and his memories. Beyon embodied everything she feared in the palace, including herself. The vision still pressed against her mind. Do not forget that you chose to stay, foolish girl. She looked through the window-screen. Down in the courtyard, white-hatted soldiers were hammering three stakes into bases.
“My lady, you should keep clear of the window.” Eyul spoke from where he still knelt on the floor, his head to the tiles.
