Crown of Smoke Read online

  The tendons in his neck leap up, and he clenches his fists, like he’s visibly restraining himself. I’d posit the desert heat is flaring his temper. After all, even I’m struggling to keep my nose powdered out here. But knowing what he is, this isn’t just the swelter of Aphorai. Even when he stayed in the Eraz’s palace before the Prince was poisoned, my reports said he was throwing back the highest dose of Linod’s this side of stopping his heart. But now…

  It’s true. He’s far gone.

  A pang of melancholy briefly aches in my chest. If he was born in Aphorai, perhaps Sephine would have saved him. Now, ending things will be a mercy in itself.

  Just as soon as I have my information.

  “What happened in the capital?”

  The question takes him off guard. He scowls and looks away.

  “You’d better find that tongue of yours if you want to see your Prince again.” The lie falls easily from my lips, even if I don’t care for the taste of it.

  He looks as if he’d love nothing more than to lunge for me and wrap his hands around my throat.

  “You can’t win this one with your fists, Shield. Tell me what happened in the capital, and I’ll take you to your Prince. He’s safe. As is Rakel. Now, speak.”

  The truth serum would have already loosened the lips of all but the most restrained. A thought of grudging admiration courses through my mind. Perhaps he does have more control than I’ve given him credit for. But resisting a truth serum is one thing. Resisting the call of the Lost God when your very blood runs with it is another matter entirely.

  “I’ll not say a word until I see the Prince.”

  My sigh is the epitome of boredom.

  All I need do is uncap the setting on my ring. One prick from finely wrought silver, a tiny break in the skin, and the poison will begin to work its way through his veins. Paralysis would soon set in. And then it will be but a flick of the wrist for a blade to bleed the life from him. If he has nothing to say, it’s simply a matter of making sure he never speaks again. Right here and now.

  Elegant in its simplicity. Clean. Neat. As I like it. And keeping to the tenet I vowed to uphold.

  Mercy until maturity.

  Though do I truly believe that is the best course of action here?

  There is no easy path to certainty. Not with the confluence of power in the capital. Not when we still don’t have a deliverable cure for the Affliction, to bring the provinces and their people to our side. There are simply too many variables. Too much unanswered. So many players in this game have changed, so many new threats on the field. It’s not even clear if we’re playing on the same game board any more.

  But to doubt the Order is to doubt Asmudtag, is it not? I must trust in the ways that have ensured we were able to maintain balance since the Shadow Wars. Otherwise I’m but a mercenary.

  My thumbnail finds the ring’s cap and flicks it open.

  If he won’t speak, there’s naught much for it.

  One little nick, that’s all it will take.

  CHAPTER 13

  ASH

  “Stand down, Sandbloom. And release them.”

  I don’t recognize the woman’s voice or the style of green robe she wears as she steps into the light. I do recognize that she may have just prevented me from being heavily sedated. Or, more likely, dispatched. Nobody wears a ring like that without purpose.

  The operative – after turns at court I’d like to think I know a covert agent when I see one – produces a small blade that cuts through my bindings like a hot knife through soft cheese.

  I flex my fingers, then climb to my feet, one hand steadying myself on the cave wall. For a heartbeat, I think I see an additional shadow flickering in the campfire’s glow. Whatever was in that powder bomb, it was potent.

  Then the operative retreats several steps, revealing a second figure beside the woman. I blink and shake my head, trying to clear the last remnants of fog. Oh, farseeing Kaismap, do my eyes deceive me?

  It’s the last sight I expected.

  Rakel runs straight at me, flinging her arms around my neck and burying her face in my shoulder. In the circle of my arms, I feel her body being wracked with silent sobs. Stunned, I can only lean against the rock and hold her to me, resting my chin on the top of her head. The scent of desert rose seems to bring me back to myself for the first time in moons.

  It’s her. It’s truly her.

  The operative leads Ami and the other newcomer – a woman – from the cave. That one has a strange code of conduct, though I’m not about to complain about the breathing space she’s created for us.

  Rakel draws back a little, amber eyes rimmed red, tears glistening as they run down her cheeks. “I never thought I’d see you again,” she whispers, as if to say it out loud would risk it coming true.

  “I wondered the same thing every day,” I return quietly, so it’s only us who can hear.

  “And then when I heard you were alive, and they said you were… They said Luz was going to… I thought I’d lost you all over again.” She hides her face in me once more.

  “The thought of reaching you kept me alive.” The last is murmured into her hair. It’s so much shorter since I last saw her, and it tickles at my nose in the most welcome irritation.

  I want to ask so many questions – what has she been through, how has she been holding up … did she know where I was? But I start at the start.

  “Do you know these people? Are you safe?”

  “Safe enough.”

  “And Nisai?”

  “He’ll be back in Aphorai City by now. His mother left Ekasya, so he’s gone to her and his uncle.”

  More tension drains from my shoulders.

  “How did you find me?”

  “I had help…” She trails off, glancing back to the cave mouth. “It’s a long story. But not one for here.”

  She’s right. There’s so much to say, so many gaps to fill, but this hardly seems the place for those long discussions.

  She takes my hand, her fingers warm in mind, and leads me out on to the canyon floor.

  Just beyond the mouth of the cave, the operative sets about lighting a campfire. I’d have said it too much of a risk, but once the flames begin to feed on the bone-dry deadwood, it burns smokelessly. And if anyone is close enough to see the light, they’re already upon us.

  Ami’s sitting on a smooth shelf of rock, chatting animatedly to the green-robed woman. Did her parents never tell her it isn’t wise to be so open with strangers?

  When she sees us, she stands, dusting off hands that were until recently bound. “You’re Rakel?”

  “Who’s asking?”

  The palace library curator holds up her hands, signaling peace. “I’m Ami. Ash has told me a lot about you.”

  Rakel’s eyes widen. “Esarik’s Ami?”

  She nods.

  “I’m sorry. I can imagine what you’ve been through.” She looks to me at the last. “It must be hard to know he’s gone. Even harder given the why of it.”

  I tense. Ami and I are at an uneasy truce. The last thing either of us need is to reopen this wound. “Ah, can we perhaps—”

  “Don’t worry,” Rakel interrupts. “The Prince knows she had nothing to do with his betrayal.”

  Ami reels as if the final word had slapped her. “What are you talking about?”

  I’m confused, too. Betrayal? Esarik had been true to Nisai until the last. He helped discover what had poisoned Nisai and decipher the clues to the antidote formula. He even risked his father’s wrath to return to the capital in an attempt to source the true amber we needed.

  “You didn’t know?” Rakel asks, genuinely surprised. “Esarik set the fire in Aphorai. Sent the dahkai plantation up in flames, triggered the poison that Nisai had been primed for.”

  I stiffen. This is what Zostar spoke of in the dungeons. The assassination attempt was his strategy, but he hadn’t completed the final stage of poisoning himself.

  Rakel gives Ami a pained look. “
I mean, he had his reasons. You were being held hostage.”

  “By Zostar,” I say. “That’s who blackmailed Esarik?”

  “I don’t know. But reasons don’t undo treason. And they don’t undo the deaths he caused.”

  “You’re lying,” Ami says flatly. “Esarik wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  I cringe inwardly. Rakel is not going to be able to let that go.

  “Why would I lie?” she asks, voice rising. “After what I’ve been through? After what we’ve all been through?”

  “You have no evidence.”

  “Oh, but we do. In the throne room, before he died, he gave me a letter. It explained everything. Yes, he’d been blackmailed, but he did it.”

  “No, my Esarik would never—”

  Rakel jabs a finger into the air. “Your Esarik wrote the letter in some sort of secret language he’d made up with the Prince when they were young. What do you make of that?”

  Ami’s face blanches paler than the boughs of sun-bleached wood. She takes a step back, stumbling over rock. Then she turns, fleeing into the night.

  I move to start after her. Even if I’m the last person she’d want comfort from, who knows what’s waiting out there in the dark.

  “At ease, Shield.” It’s the operative. “I’ll see to her. You eat.”

  Rakel lets her hands drop from where they’d been balled at her hips. “I didn’t mean to drive her away. But … it’s just…”

  “I know,” is all I say.

  “I do feel for her. What’s she’s lost.” She shakes her head, all fire gone now. “This is not what I pictured when I let myself dream of finding you.”

  We’ve all lost something since this started.

  And among it all, perhaps we’ve lost the possibility of happy reunions.

  Rakel and I eat our meal at the edge of the circle of firelight.

  She explains that the mysterious operative is Luz, who is also somehow the Chief Perfumer of Aphorai. But the biggest surprise is the woman who stayed the operative’s hand. The so-called Magister in the Order of Asmudtag. Who also happens to be Rakel’s mother.

  It’s a lot to take in, even after the events in Ekasya and since Ami and I escaped.

  Luz soon returns with a stone-faced and red-eyed Ami, who sits on the opposite side of the fire. After the awful revelations about Esarik, I don’t blame her for needing some space. My mind wrestles with my guilt so that I can barely concentrate on the food – trail rations. I focus instead on the feeling of Rakel sitting beside me, not close enough to touch, but close enough that I can feel the warmth of her. A warmth I’d dreamed of for moons.

  How can two such conflicting emotions exist in the same moment?

  “You’re a loquacious bunch,” Luz drawls.

  Nobody replies.

  “There’s going to need to be a conversation eventually, you well realize, no?”

  She’s met with nothing but conspicuous chewing.

  “Capital. How about a tale to start the incense burning, then? Get you in the storytelling mood? What’s a campfire meal without an epic or two, anyway?”

  Nobody objects.

  She rises to pace before the fire. The flames leap and fall, casting shadows over her face and the walls of the cave behind her. She draws herself up to full height, so that her stage is a patch of starlit sky above.

  “Hearken, and let us weave the tales of the heroes and the cowardly, the noble and the corrupt. Ours is a story of the ilk of fine perfumes, composed of disparate chords blended in harmony. Let us begin, then, with the base notes of our tale: the clash of the small kings, who each believed they commanded half the world, and in the dark parts of their mortal souls burned to conquer the other.”

  Where before the silence was uncomfortable, it’s transformed into something different – a curious hush. This one’s a born storyteller, like the bards that frequented social gatherings in the imperial court – a handful of words and your heart is in their fist.

  “Which of the Younger Gods, whom among Asmudtag the Primordial’s children, made the kings quarrel?” She spreads her arms wide and turns in a circle, taking in all of her audience. “Was it the twins of the waterways, Zir and Tro? Kaismap the all-seeing? Mother Esiku? Azered, merciful mistress of death? Or even youthful Riker?”

  The storyteller’s question hangs in the air for several pointed heartbeats, until she sweeps an arm back towards the fire. “Nay, it was Doskai, the last of Asmudtag’s progeny to spring from the sacred mountain, who ignited the feud. For Doskai felt slighted when he compared his domain with those of his siblings. By night, he held sway over the near moon, but the stars were not his to command. By day, he imbued the shadows, but the sun dictated their potency. His resentment simmered over the centuries, until it had built into a sense of entitlement that took offence even at happenstance. Thus, Doskai challenged his parent, demanding dominion over more of the world.”

  “Asmudtag regarded their wayward son and sighed. ‘Look to balance,’ said they, ‘and you shall find peace.’ But Doskai instead went to the mortal King of Hagmir and whispered from his shadow: ‘Bring war to your neighbour, and I will grant you riches beyond your dreams.’ He went to the King of Trel, and threaded moonlight through his sleep: ‘Take war to your neighbour, and I will grant you power beyond your dreams.’ Thus he visited each and every small king until the forces of the realm of men met on the golden plains of Los, all believing one was more entitled to rule than the next.

  “Now Doskai truly believed he was most deserving of all the Younger Gods, that his right to reign supreme was his destiny if he could but seize it. His gaze roamed the soon-to-be battleground, settling on the few who had prostrated at his shrines. And lo, he broke the laws of his brethren by imbuing these loyal mortals with his divine will and cloaking them in shadows. His warriors fought as demons, with the strength of six men, storming the field like a winter torrent. As long as blood ran warm from their wounds, they harried every rank, untouchable by spear or sword.

  “Darkness descended over the battlefield. Broken and rent bodies strew the plain. The dreadful perfume of sweat and blood, fear and rage, reached the noses of the other Younger Gods. They begged Asmudtag to intervene. For if all devoted worshippers perished, no longer sending prayers up to the heavens, so would the Younger Gods wither and fade into the aether. Asmudtag relented. In exchange for the Younger Gods’ pledge that they would never again descend from the heavens to walk among mortals, the Elder granted their high priestess, Kaiseth, a weapon to counter Doskai’s shadow army.”

  “For turns, the forces struggled. But, one by one, the priestess and her sisters vanquished the shadows. When it was done, Kaiseth ordered pyres to rival the Primordial’s sacred mountain for the slain, with boughs of sweet wood to bear the wretched souls to the sky. And Asmudtag caused the earth to revolt, the rock rising up, the ground splinting and bleeding noxious fumes, so nought would grow over the falling place of the Children of Doskai, and all who heard tell of the Wastes of Los would know the terrible price their forebears paid.”

  At the last, Luz bows her head. When she raises her gaze again, it’s fixed on Rakel’s mother. “It was sworn that thereafter the Order would dedicate themselves to preventing power from becoming concentrated in the wrong hands. Guarding against a time when men with the will of Doskai in their hearts may once again seek to control the world. The Brotherhood of the Blazing Sun fight for the opposite. They believe that the next time a shadow army is raised will be the last time. That the forces of Doskai will triumph over all, with the followers of all the other gods either converted or eliminated. Thus, shall the Lost God return to the mortal realm.”

  Ami gives a nod of approval, and I find myself looking at the palace library curator, not the grieving girl. “Well told. True to the account sanctioned by the Losian historians. Likely the most accurate version that survives.”

  Luz bows with courtly flourish. “Now,” she says, businesslike. “See how easy it is to share, my friends? It
’s time we pooled our knowledge of the situation. Who is in charge of this foul operation in Ekasya? The Second Prince?” The emphasis is clearly on second. And it’s a distinct contrast to what I’ve heard others calling him for the past moons: Regent. “Is the Emperor’s Physician working on his behalf, or is it the other way around?”

  “Zostar?” Ami scowls. “He’ll only be working for Prince Iddo if it serves his own ends.”

  “Know thine enemy,” Luz says. “What can you tell us of him?”

  “Zostar was a scholar until he was expelled from his professorship at the university, suspected by the board of engaging in experimental work outside the ethical rules that have been honoured since Awulsheg II’s reign. When investigated, he claimed his experiments were in service of the Empire. I believe his exact words were “a necessary discomfort to protect and evolve Aramtesh”. He said he was feeding and clothing his subjects, who would not have otherwise had two coins to rub together. The implication was that he was doing them a favour.” Her nose wrinkles at the last, as if to utter the word was to breathe in a particularly heinous stench.

  “After his dismissal from the university, he disappeared, perhaps for a dozen turns. Then he resurfaced, calling for members of the medical faculty who were disillusioned with the university’s ‘antiquated sensibilities’ to join his pursuit of ‘true’ innovation. He convinced a handful the first turn. They convinced a handful the next. Soon his group of disaffected surgeons had formed the Guild of Physicians, with rich donors backing them.”

  “Ah.” Luz taps her nose. “Friends in high places.”

  “Including the Emperor,” I agree.

  “Esarik…” Ami’s eyes dart to me at his name, then to Rakel, then to her hands, which she busies with picking crumbs from her trail bread. “He had his suspicions. As did I. That at the heart of all the Guild’s talk of research and empirically proven methods, there was a desire for discovery no matter what the cost: dignity, pain, life. Now I know it’s probably what made us a target. He needed us out of the way.”

  I scowl. “Esarik was right. Zostar … did terrible things to me to discover the root of my curse. And now that I’m gone, he’s going to be using the others.”