The Forbidden City (The Dragon's Legacy Book 2) Page 26

  Daru sat up straight so quickly that the pain in his broken arm brought tears to his eyes. He blinked, brought the book even closer to his face, blinked again. Somnus had found more than the library, and he had found more than the exceptional children, here in the Downbelow. There, in a very precise hand, Somnus had drawn a perfect, detailed, beautiful map.

  “Pakka,” Daru whispered, as though the ghosts of the past might hear and swoop down to catch him. “Pakka, look. Look!”

  “Pip-peee-rrup?” Pakka skittered closer, tipped her head this way and that at the open book.

  “It is,” he answered, tracing the lines and words with a trembling finger. “Pakka, this is a map, he drew a map of the Downbelow! Look here, see, this is the library,” he showed her, voice rising with his excitement. “Here are the chambers and the teaching rooms and the sleeping rooms for the children. Here is the sewer where you caught that rat, and—”

  He all but yelled the last.

  “This is the way out!”

  THIRTY

  They were waiting for him when he walked from the sea and into the world of men. Bright in lacquered armor from the four corners of Sindan—yellow and black, red and white, the colors of the four roads to enlightenment, the four blooms of everthorn. They were armed and dangerous, but Jian felt more dangerous still.

  Xienpei stood at the head of a hunting party. The soldiers behind her stood with their feet shoulder-width apart, hands to the hilts of their swords, to their bows, clenched at their sides. These last, Jian thought, were men he might wish to speak with later, in private. He noted those soldiers who had drawn their weapons and those who had not, for the road to Khanbul was a deadly game. He needed to know which pieces on the board belonged to his allies, which belonged to his enemies—and which of those he might steal.

  Xienpei strode toward Jian and met him upon the beach. She eyed the clothing he wore—a tunic and leggings of sea-blue and sea-gray, woven of thistledown so light and fine it shed water even as he stood with the sea kissing his ankles. She stared at his sword, the blue steel seeming to ripple like storm-tossed waves in the high sunlight. Last she looked at his eyes. Long and hard she looked, and her mouth pursed in a hard little pucker.

  Jian looked past his yendaeshi, through her. He had eyes only for Tsali’gei. She stood some distance up the beach, clad in bright robes of yellow and white and peacock-teal, with pearls in her hair.

  “You were gone so long, Daechen Jian,” Xienpei said, “that some believed you had been lost to us.”

  “I have returned.” Jian looked into her eyes. I am taller than her by a head and a half, he thought. Why have I never noticed this?

  “You have returned,” Xienpei agreed, and her smile was wide and wicked as a blood-sky dawn. “Fortunately so. Your Tsali’gei was so worried, I feared she might die of it, and your mother…” She shook her head, mouth downturned in a mockery of sorrow, her eyes never leaving Jian’s face. “I am afraid this was all a bit much for her poor old heart. She is quite ill, and has taken to bed.”

  Jian felt his chest tighten, his mouth harden, and knew—too late—that he had let it show. Xienpei nodded, victorious.

  “Word of your disappearance has reached the emperor’s own court,” she continued. “He was so concerned for your wellbeing that he sent me to ensure your safety. Now that the wicked Karkash Dhwani no longer has his ear, his Brilliance has shown a great deal of interest in the sea-born.” She took a step closer and reached out, as if to help Jian onto land.

  He reached for her without hesitation. They clasped arms, and she pulled him close into an embrace.

  “Your fortunes have risen with mine, Daechen Jian,” she whispered into his ear. Her breath was warm and wet, and smelled of dragonmint tea. “Do not think they will continue to rise without me, or that you have flown so high I cannot shoot you down.”

  “I do not understand, Yendaeshi.” Jian squeezed Xienpei’s forearm in a companionable manner. “I should think you would be happy that I have returned safely to your side, that I might continue to serve.”

  “Yet whom do you serve?” Her lacquered nails bit into his flesh like wicked little teeth.

  “I serve the emperor, of course,” he replied easily. “As I serve you. As my dammati serve the emperor through me.” At that moment he noticed Xienpei’s avoidance of the honorific “Sen-Baradam.” It was no oversight, of that he was certain, but the title was not hers to give, nor to take from him. The presence of the emperor’s troops, and the fact that they had not yet killed him, told Jian that his position was still secure.

  As secure as anything might be, he thought, so close to the Forbidden City. None of our lives will ever be truly secure, as long as the emperor holds the city like a blood orange in the palm of his hand.

  “Good,” Xienpei responded. “That is good.” She released her hold but her wink gave him to know that she did not believe his lies. “The emperor will be pleased to hear of your safe return. As I said, he holds a growing interest in the sea-born, and has specifically asked to meet one of you. As your mother is not well, you must of course remain by her side while work is completed on your estate.”

  Akari Sun Dragon soared high into midmorning, and the rays of his brilliance caught in Xienpei’s jeweled smile.

  “Tsali’gei will accompany me as I return to Khanbul,” she continued. “Such a pretty thing, and the sea-born are so rare as to be a novelty yet. The emperor will be delighted to have her at court.”

  Jian looked up toward Tsali’gei, and knew that Xienpei had him. If I do not bend to her will, he thought, it is not only I who will be broken. He could feel his dreams failing, much as the sun’s warmth fades into twilight.

  “You should kiss your bride goodbye, Sen-Baradam,” Xienpei told him. “We leave for Khanbul immediately.”

  * * *

  Jian swallowed his fury with every bite of broth-soaked bread he coaxed his mother to eat. Her face, her sweet face was a mess of dark bruises, her eyes swollen shut, and she was missing two teeth. Jian would not insult Tiungpei by asking her what had happened, and she would not insult him by insisting that she was just a clumsy old woman. Neither would fish for a lie.

  “Enough,” she said finally, waving the spoon away with a trembling hand. “Enough. I am full.” Jian wiped her sunken mouth with a soft cloth. He pulled the thin blanket up to her chin and leaned close to kiss her forehead gently, gently.

  “You are a good boy,” she whispered, then grimaced and worked her mouth, poking with her tongue at the empty space where teeth had been. “A good son.”

  “I will kill them for what they have done to you,” he said, wishing that he could take back the words even as he spat them out. Tiungpei did not need to worry about her son’s treasonous plans, on top of everything else.

  “I know,” she said, and the ghost of a smile played across her lips as his mother closed her eyes. “Is that not what I just said? You are your father’s son, you know it now. But first you were mine.”

  Allyr, he wanted to tell her, my father’s name is Allyr. How much did she know of him, he wondered. Did she ever think of her sea-lord lover, met on a moonstide night? Certainly Allyr remembered her, but before Jian could catch the questions that swam round his head like so many little fish, her breathing deepened, her face fallen slack as Tiungpei waded away into the sea of dreams.

  A sea-queen diving for pearls.

  * * *

  That night, as Jian drowsed by the bedside and watched his mother not dying, a knock sounded at the door. Rat-tat-tat tap-tap, it sounded, tap-tap. Perri, then.

  “Come in,” he said, keeping his voice soft and low. The door opened a crack, wider, showing a glittering sliver of starlit night. Perri poked his head into the room. He was blushing.

  “Sen-Baradam?”

  “Yes, Dammati?” Despite his weariness, and bitter worry, Jian felt his curiosity stir.

  “Uh, there is a girl here to see—ow!” Perri’s head jerked backward and his blush, if possib
le, grew even deeper. “A woman here to see you, Sen-Baradam. She says, she says you know her?” Perri’s eye was so wide that Jian might have laughed on any other day.

  Perri squeaked in unmanly surprise as the door swung wide, and a young woman swayed into the room. She was, she was…

  She is, Jian thought, terrifying in her perfection.

  Her skin was white as fine parchment, and her hair a fluff of snow, of sea fog and moonslight. Her almond-shaped eyes were the deepest black of a starless night, and her lips painted the same deep scarlet as her shimmering, silken robes.

  She was a comfort girl, Jian realized, even as he realized that he had half-jumped, half-fallen to his feet. He had heard of the emperor’s comfort houses, of course, and the girls and boys who worked there, but he had never met such a person, outside of his most embarrassing dreams. He bowed in a clumsy attempt to cover his confusion and growing alarm.

  “My dear, ah, my… I am afraid I do not—”

  Tsali’gei would tear my throat out, he realized, if she could see me now. With that thought he cleared his throat and stood straight, though he feared his face was as red as Perri’s. “If we have met before, I am ashamed to say that I cannot recall.” There, that was better. He glanced at the bed where his mother lay sleeping. “And it is a little late for… my mother is…” He grimaced.

  The girl laughed, a sound like smoke and water over cold stones.

  “I am Giella,” she told him, keeping her voice low. “The White Nightingale, they call me. Neither do you know me, but you may have met my mother during your… recent travels.” She turned her head, and Jian saw that she had a small spray of red feathers behind one ear.

  “Ah,” he said, remembering the red-crested woman among the Twilight Court. “Yes, I believe I have. My apologies, ah, Daezhu Giella?” When she nodded, he went on. “As you can see, my mother is… she is ill, and she is sleeping.”

  “She is not ill, Jian Sen-Baradam,” Giella scolded with a small and angry laugh. “She was beaten half to death by that horrid she-beast Xienpei and her sao-re dan followers.” Smiling at his shocked expression, she swayed deeper into the room and took a seat by the fire. She brought forth a small harp and busied herself with the strings. “I will make sure that your mother does not wake—and that we are not disturbed. We have much to discuss tonight, de Allyr.”

  De Allyr. Heart pounding, Jian sat by his mother’s side again, and nodded to Perri, who backed out with obvious relief and shut the door softly behind him.

  “So you know my father.”

  “Jian Sen-Baradam.” She laughed and began to play. “Everyone in the Twilight Lands knows your father.”

  * * *

  They spoke long into the night, though Giella’s voice was such that her words came forth in song, and Jian found his own voice rising and falling in a cadence to match hers. Before long this seemed easy, natural, more right than the human way of speaking. Giella played her harp, and his mother never woke, nor were they interrupted.

  Her music was magic, then. Dae magic unsanctioned by the emperor and therefore illegal. Their actions spoke of treason, highest treason, and the words they sang back and forth, had those words been put to script, would write their names in blood on the executioner’s book.

  “Jian,” she sang to him that night, “by the salt and water that flows deep in your heart, by the wind in your lungs and the earth in your bones, we call upon you now to take up the sword wielded by your father and his father before him, that the song which was shattered be sung once more, and the lands that were sundered made whole.” Her fingers danced like pale shadows over her harp-strings, tugging at his soul.

  “Join with us, those of the Daezhu and Daechen, the dammati and Sen-Baradam who have sworn loyalty to the lands of our fathers and mothers. There our loyalties lie, not with this”—Her fingers struck an ugly discord, and her voice was gorgeously harsh—“this walking lie, this soulless usurper who has stolen us and has stolen from us our families, our lives, our bodies and souls.”

  There it was, then, a white nightingale bright in the full light of day. The twilight lords would have their kin overthrow the emperor of Sindan, and put one of their own in his place.

  My father, most likely, Jian thought. His heart roared like a bear in a cage, desperate to break free. But—

  “I cannot,” he told her. “I cannot. My mother…”

  “She is an elder,” Giella told him, voice soft and implacable as the river in spring, “and she is beloved of a twilight lord. She will not be alone, Jian Sen-Baradam, that much I can promise you.”

  He shook his head. “They have Tsali’gei, hostage to my continued good behavior. They would kill her—”

  “Jian,” she interrupted him, and her harp fell silent. “My sweet Issuq brother, I am grieved for you, but they will kill her either way. Surely you know that. A spoonful of honeyed poison is still poison, de Allyr, and telling yourself different will not make it hurt any less.”

  Jian closed his eyes tight against the pity in the bard-girl’s dark eyes, and against the truth in her sung words.

  “That may be,” he said, “but I wish to think on this before throwing in my lot. I will consider your words.” He opened his eyes and stared into hers. “Your honeyed words, before deciding whether I should swallow them.” The corners of Giella’s mouth twitched at that.

  “Oh, de Allyr, you tease,” she crooned. “It is always better to swallow.” Jian blushed and she laughed again, light and lovely as a killing frost.

  “I will consider your words,” he said again, and rose. “Thank you for your visit, cousin. Perri will show you the way back to your, ah, your house.”

  “Oh, no need for that, brother,” she assured him. “A nightingale sings best in the dark… and I know my way home.”

  * * *

  Jian stood for a long time after she had gone, staring at the closed door, thinking of the wide world beyond it, and the treacherous roads—yellow and red, black and white—that all seemed to lead to Khanbul.

  I know my way home, too, he thought, but I can neither take my family to the Twilight Lands, nor leave them here to die. For me, and for them, the only possibility of freedom lies in throwing in my lot with those who would overthrow the emperor—and in doing so, I most certainly condemn myself and those I love to death.

  Well is Khanbul named the Forbidden City… all roads lead there, but whichever I choose leads to a fate I cannot accept.

  Out in the darkness, a nightingale began to sing.

  THIRTY-ONE

  The silence was long and dark, as if the entire Valley of Death lay between them. It was a comfortable silence nevertheless, the kind of peace that can be found only when killers take the measure of one another.

  Hafsa Azeina bit into a plum and it burst upon her tongue, sticky-sweet juices dripping down her chin like the heart’s blood of an enemy.

  If the merit of a sorcerer could be measured in blood spilled, she thought, this man would cast as long a shadow as my own. Nor less his little apprentice. The girl had never made much of an impression upon the dreamshifter, one way or the other, quiet as still as a hare might be beneath the shadow of hawks, she had thought.

  Looking across the narrow table, she saw that those wide jade eyes held nothing of a prey’s fear, and all of a predator’s patient cunning.

  Interesting.

  The Quarabalese, like the Zeeranim, obeyed the ancient laws of hospitality. Bread and salt were shared, the niceties observed, and then three of the most dangerous people in the kingdom reclined at their ease. Hafsa Azeina drank sweet water made tart with the juice of a whole lemon. Aasah drank one of the brandies Leviathus had described to her with such excitement. The girl Yaela drank ale that was black and thick, a great deal of it, and when she set her horn down it left an amber moustache above her full mouth. She licked her lips, and was the first to break their silence.

  “Queen Consort,” she began formally, casting her eyes down as if impressed by the titl
e, “you have come to beg our aid. What is it you seek?” And what is it you offer? her eyes added, deliberately avoiding the bundle of leather that lay to one side.

  Beg, indeed. The dreamshifter snorted into her water. She had been playing such games before this girl’s mother first set eyes on her father, and would not be so easily baited.

  “Say rather that I come to make a bargain,” Hafsa Azeina corrected, “and neither do I come to your… master… empty-handed.” The girl’s lush mouth flattened in irritation. It occurred to her that perhaps Aasah was not, in truth, the girl’s master, nor she his apprentice. That is very interesting. The girl’s eyes flicked to hers, and she smoothed her face into a perfect, lovely mask. The dreamshifter reminded herself not to underestimate the enemy.

  You are so sure she is your enemy, Khurra’an noted. He sounded regretful.

  Everyone is my enemy, she responded. Save you, save my daughter.

  You are not as alone in this world as you believe, Kithren, he chided, but in his weariness the words held no salt. Not by half. Hafsa Azeina shrugged mentally and returned her full attention to the here, the now, and to the enemies who sat before her. Aasah wet his lips with the brandy and gave her an odd, deep smile.

  “With what do you think to cross my palms, Dreamshifter? By now you know that I dream neither of salt nor of lovely women, however salty they may be.”

  She inclined her head. “You dream of a new homeland for your people.”

  “Indeed. The Dragon King has offered land—land enough for the few remaining Quarabalese to settle upon, can we but get them here from the Seared Lands. Land, crops, livestock. He has offered us life, Dreamshifter. What can you possibly have to offer us that is greater than life?”

  Belzaleel chuckled. Yaela’s eyes flicked toward the sheath at Hafsa Azeina’s hip. But Hafsa Azeina had no more time for hunting mysteries. She retrieved the raggedy bundle, pushed aside wine and water and salt, and began to unroll her package before the shadowmancer’s eyes.