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The guard wheeled the cart closer to the bed where Sinnia lay chained.
She wanted to scream, but the sound died in her throat. She wrestled with the chains they had fiendishly attached to the circlets on her upper arms. One of the guards held her down. The other raised her head so the third could fit the mask over her head.
Her body bucked on the bed. The inside of the mask smelled of horror and fear. It suffocated her. Her breathing constricted, she mumbled the Claim to herself. There would be words, there had to be words, to stop this.
In the name of the One—
In the name of the One, the Merciful, the Compassionate—
Ah, by the powers of the One, where were Arian and Daniyar? Surely they would save her from this … unless somehow they had fallen or been taken at the Ark. She wished she could think of them, pray for them … but in this moment of extremis, she could think only of herself.
She could see through the bulbous eyes of the mask. The guard at the cart flicked a switch on the canister. A terrible gurgling sound came from the hose at the back of Sinnia’s neck. She breathed in sharply, her mouth filling with the acrid taste of smoke. With her first inhaled breath, the nozzles at the base of the mask fastened to her neck. She felt a searing pain.
Inside the mask, she cried out. Her mouth and throat filled with gas. The three men loomed above her.
Burning tears scalded her eyes. When they misted over her skin, the tears seemed to catch fire. Sinnia screamed again. The men didn’t touch her, didn’t tear at her clothes. One of them produced a small bundle wrapped in a leather cover. He watched Sinnia with careful attention. Then he began to write.
He held a book in his hands.
A book that chronicled her torture.
Four days later, she was at the perimeter again. They had gassed her every day since, but when the mask had been removed, Sinnia had recovered consciousness to find herself alone, still chained to the bed by her circlets. Though they monitored her reaction to the gas, no one seemed to be observing her in the cell.
They didn’t know she drew comfort from the circlets that were the secret strength of the Companions. Whatever the gas had done to her, and it had done something, it hadn’t stripped her of the Claim. Over time, her use of the Claim had weakened the links of the chains. She snapped them with a surge of renewed strength, taking a moment to breathe.
The chamber reeked of the gas. Her skin smelled fetid and damp, a mix of the strange compound of the gas and the odors of sweat and blood. She knew now why the men of the Crimson Watch wore masks. They were shielding themselves from the consequences of their macabre experiments. The terror the masks invoked was a side effect of their work.
Sinnia ran a hand over her neck, feeling the tender areas where the nozzles had raised the skin. She shuddered to think of her disfigurement, but she tried to focus on the door. Each time she escaped, they added another padlock. She could see them now from the hole at the top of the door that passed for a dreary window. She had yet to see another inmate, but she sometimes heard painful, muted whimpers as she sidled past the other cells.
She should try to use the Claim to free the others. She doubted the strength of her skills; her failure might bring them to the same fate she faced—a renewal of the attentions of those who gassed her. She considered the risk and decided against it. She pictured her whip and bow in her mind and formed a resolution.
If she could discover a way out, she wouldn’t forget the desperate halls of Jaslyk. She’d find a way to return and do some damage, a vow she made to herself.
The red eyes of the watchtower settled on Sinnia again. Horns sounded like heralds of a hastening end, a palpable assault on her hearing. The scars on her neck began to throb in anticipation of the agonies of the mask. The guards dragged her by the arms, their studded gloves scoring her shoulders with dozens of bloody strikes.
She sang out verses of the Claim—the music of it seized up in her throat.
She had asked herself this question many times. Why did the Claim deliver Arian from every difficulty while she was able to summon it only in small bursts? What did this say about Sinnia as a Companion or as a member of the Council? Was she not worthy of the Claim? Had the Negus of her country chosen her as his emissary to Hira in error?
She made her body as heavy as possible, forcing the guards to drag her by the heels. They barely slowed their pace as she bumped along the bloodstained floor, pausing for a moment to study the shattered padlocks. Sinnia fought with all her physical strength, aggression and panic rising together as she heard the sound of the cart rattling down the length of the corridor.
She made a temporary break from the arms of her captors, leaping across the hall and crashing against the door of another cell. She fastened her arms on her circlets, holding fast to the strength of the Companions. She choked out one verse of the Claim, then another. For the briefest moment, the actions of the Crimson Watch were suspended—the cart held still, the guards with their bloody palms motionless in the air.
A moan sounded from behind the door. Sinnia glanced up. A man was standing at the hole for the window, his hair matted and wild, his thin face bloody. His eyes burned like two black coals. They fell to Sinnia’s circlets.
“Sahabiya,” he gasped. “You’ve come to us at last.”
At his words, there was a murmuring along the length of the hall. Other faces came to the doors of the cells, eager hands reaching through bars.
It was Sinnia’s turn to freeze. She should have fled during this strange suspended moment, but this was the first time she’d seen the other prisoners. “Who are you?” she whispered to the wild man. She was stirred by a fierce determination. “How do you know who I am?”
“You came for me.” His powerful voice filled with conviction. And then an urgent warning: “Sahabiya, behind you!”
The frozen moment ended. One of the guards caught Sinnia by the neck, squeezing down on her throat. A second man reached for her arms. He’d taken off his gloves to unlatch her circlets.
“No! Don’t touch them!” It was the man in the cell who called out. But underneath his words there was more—a strange, low thrumming through Sinnia’s veins that carried the sound to her heart.
Another guard rapped on the door of the man’s cell. A disembodied voice echoed through the mask. “Get back, all of you! And you there. Still alive? That will change,” he promised.
He shoved the cart toward Sinnia, pushing her back into her cell. Her leaping, twisting body was subdued by a company of guards. The cart was wheeled to the side of her bed. She looked at its surface in terror, only to notice that the dark green canister was missing, as was the mask with the hose. In its place was a tray that held a gleaming array of instruments, polished to a shine. The sound-touch inside her veins intensified—her heart rate began to slow.
The disembodied voice spoke again, the man in charge moving to Sinnia’s side. He held a long thin spike in his hands. “She’s ready for the white needle.”
Sinnia forgot about the sound. All she could do was scream.
4
THE DOUBLE CUPOLA WHERE ELENA WAS TO MEET LARISA WAS ABANDONED, its twin domes feathered with bird’s nests. A step at a time, Elena crossed Ahdath lines, weaving in and out of the city of the dead. The soldiers were quartering the Hazing. If she hadn’t known its shadowed passages better than she knew her own scars, the Ahdath would have captured her by now.
The Hazing sloped down a hill to an abandoned alley that branched off into several paths that led deeper into Marakand. One path led to the Wall, one to the cemetery of the Russe, another to the Registan. Fires burned on the ramparts, glowing from the Wall like the baleful eyes of demons. The night was dark and cold, and the Ahdath were armored against it.
The First Oralist may have burned down the Registan, but she hadn’t defeated the army at the Wall. Instead, she’d left the people of Marakand to the Ahdath’s bitter revenge. Screams sounded from the alleyways as families were dragged from their homes and accused of giving shelter to the Companions. Elena could hear the sound of furniture being smashed and the crack of boots against bones.
She waited for a patrol to cross the Tomb of the Living King. There was a small marking on the door that signaled the Basmachi had passed on her orders to abandon the necropolis. Basmachi often sheltered in the crypt below the tomb. It was a sacred site in the Hazing. Even the Ahdath had not dared to despoil it. The forty steps known as the Ladder of Sinners led to the underground depths of the tomb. Those who submitted to the One were to count the steps descending and ascending. If they missed a step, their pilgrimage to the tomb was incomplete, and the gateway to paradise was barred. Richly inscribed lapis lazuli paneled the tomb itself. The third level of the tombstone was tiled with a warning that gave the necropolis its name.
NEVER CONSIDER DEAD THOSE SLAIN IN THE WAY OF THE ONE.
NAY, THEIR LIFE IS ETERNAL.
Elena shook her head. Why had Larisa risked meeting her here? She was the one who’d taught them an overabundance of caution. Now she’d broken the rules she’d prescribed for a stranger she scarcely knew. Perhaps she’d been misdirected by the use of the Claim.
Elena passed the door to the tomb to take a step closer to the double cupola that housed the Mausoleum of the Princess. At the slight trace of sound—boots scuffing against stone—she turned to seek out her sister. She was caught by surprise by an Ahdath blade at her throat. The Ahdath clearly believed Elena was one of the Companions: he was ready to slit her throat to prevent her use of the Claim. The hand that caught at her wrist fumbled over her bracelets. For a moment, the soldier stilled. Then he shoved her into the mausoleum. She was pushed against a wall, her face turned into the stark light cast by the moon.
“Basmachi,” he said with satisfaction. “Even better for me.”
He was broad-shouldered and powerful in the manner of the Ahdath. With her arms twisted behind her, there was no way Elena could overcome his strength. He shoved a knee between her legs; Elena spat in his face. He slashed his blade across her torso; she fought back a scream of fury. The wound bled freely, darkening his hands, but it wasn’t enough to defeat her.
This wasn’t Jaslyk—she could fight him. She just had to wait for her moment. She sagged in his arms, forcing him to take her weight.
Another man entered the cupola and she groaned. One she could fight off. Two or more, and it was over.
“Who do you have there?”
“Join me,” the first man grunted. “She’s not one of the Khanum’s doves, but she’ll do.”
“Do you know who you’re speaking to?”
The Ahdath who’d slashed her across the torso swiveled halfway around, his right arm blocking her throat. He stiffened as he recognized the newcomer. “Captain, she’s a Basmachi fighter—she bears the signs of the Usul Jade. I was bringing her to the Wall.”
The captain’s eyes stayed on his man. “So it seems.”
The Ahdath relaxed at the captain’s note of humor. He shrugged. “I have no access to the Gold House.”
“Nor I,” the captain said. “Let’s have a look at her, then.”
“She’s not much to look at,” the Ahdath said.
“No,” the other man agreed.
A horn sounded in the street behind the cupola. Though she should have been thinking of herself, Elena’s heart sank. Had they captured her sister as well? Both men turned at the sound, and Elena seized her chance. She bit down on the Ahdath’s arm, sinking her teeth to the bone.
He dropped his arm with a roar of pain. Elena brought up her knee to shove him in the groin. She connected, but his leather was too thick. He slammed her back against the wall with both arms, her head crashing into brick. Stars danced before her eyes. A moment later she was slumped on the ground.
She didn’t see what happened next. Instead, she heard the sounds of movement: the ring of steel, a hiss of surprise, a thud. Then the sound of something being dragged.
For a moment the world was suspended upside down. Elena felt herself raised as easily as a child; she smelled sweat and felt the scrape of a man’s rough beard against her face. She was tossed onto his shoulder and carried away from the mausoleum, into the shadows of the Hazing.
Behind the mausoleum, the captain of the Ahdath set her down on a broken tombstone.
Her head reeling, Elena muttered, “Is it your turn now?”
“Take a moment,” the captain suggested, “before you lacerate me with your tongue.”
“I’ll scream,” she warned him, unable to see his face in the shadows.
“Then you’ll bring a patrol right to your sister’s hiding place.” His tone was matter-of-fact.
Elena went still. It couldn’t be. Of all the Ahdath who could have tracked her to the Hazing, it couldn’t be the one who knew she’d rescued the First Oralist from the Gold House, delivering one of the Khanum’s doves to this Ahdath in her stead.
The man stepped out of the shadows, showing her his face. A pang of terror struck at her heart—she had walked into an ambush. This Ahdath had come for their heads, using her to trap her sister.
But the captain from the Gold House spoke to her with unexpected kindness. “It’s not what you think, Anya. I came with Larisa to find you.”
Elena stood up, backing away from the man. She gave him a careful nod, wondering if she could outrun him even with the knife wound at her ribs. “Captain Illarion, you’ve made a quick return from Black Aura. I’d appreciate your escort to the Gold House.”
Illarion smiled at her, a rueful smile that didn’t lighten his cold blue eyes in the least. “So you can cut my throat on the way? I know who you are, Anya. Larisa asked me to find you—that’s the reason I’m here.”
Like a tiger of the Shir Dar, Elena sprang at him. Her hand snaked to the knife at his hip. A second later it was at his heart. “What have you done with my sister?”
He stood still, his arms at his side, his palms spread wide. “She’s safe, I swear it to you.”
Elena pressed the tip of the blade through crimson armor. “Liar.”
Illarion was much taller than she was. He seemed bemused by her actions, staring down at her, his blue eyes wide. “Anya—”
“Where is she?”
“Here, Elena, I’m here.”
Elena didn’t move at the sound of a new voice. She switched out of the Common Tongue to the secret language of the Basmachi. “Is this a trap?” she asked.
“No, let the Ahdath go.”
Larisa jumped down from the rock wall behind the double cupola, one hand on the sword at her hip, the other shielding her face from the white glare of the moonlight. She was unfettered and alone. “Let him go,” she said again.
Elena shook her head. She pressed the blade deeper into the Ahdath’s breastplate. His breath hitched in his chest. He held the same nonthreatening pose until Larisa moved between them, removing the knife from her sister’s hand.
“The only good Ahdath is a dead one,” Elena said, not taking her eyes off Illarion.
“I know. But he’s not Ahdath. He’s … something else.”
Illarion fingered his ruptured breastplate.
“Don’t be stupid. With Araxcin dead, Captain Illarion is now Commander of the Wall.” Elena’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s take him. Let’s ransom him for some of ours.”
It was Larisa’s turn to shake her head. “You know the Ahdath won’t ransom our fighters. They’re on a killing spree even now.”
Elena’s face tightened. “Then why did you call me to the Hazing? And why did you bring him with you? You’ve put us both at risk.”
“I need your help, Elena. I need to break a prisoner out of Jaslyk.” She said this in the Common Tongue despite Elena’s furious glare.
“What madness causes you to share your purpose with the enemy?”
“We have to hurry,” Illarion cut in. “It won’t take them long to find us.”
Elena’s rage boiled over. How dare this Ahdath speak of himself as one of them when he knew they shared no common cause? The violent urge to bury her blade between his ribs renewed itself. She spun around to face him. “Why aren’t you at Black Aura, Captain? I saw you leave for the capital myself.”
He shifted on his heels, scouting the Hazing with his eyes. “You were mistaken, Elena. I never went to Black Aura.” He stressed her name to emphasize that he now understood her earlier deception. “I turned the Khanum’s prisoner over to my men for escort. Then I arranged for your friends to travel safely through Black Aura Gate.”
“What friends?”
Larisa answered for him. “The First Oralist.” She seemed to search for words. “And her consort, the Silver Mage.”
Elena’s lips formed a snarl. “You watched the First Oralist abandon Ruslan, yet you risked yourself to deliver her consort? I don’t know you anymore, sister.”
Tears formed in Larisa’s eyes. “Yes, you do.” Her voice cracked. “Do you imagine Ruslan’s death is a loss you suffer alone? Do you think the Companion of Hira doesn’t have a list of losses as long as your right arm? A man she loved was blooded before her eyes.”
Elena faltered. “Blooded?”
“Yes. Her grief brought down the Registan.”
Elena remembered her primary mission. “And the Gold House?”
Illarion answered. “The Gold House wasn’t harmed. The Claim knew who to destroy.”
Elena repudiated his words with a wave of her hand. “Were you there? Did you see it?”
He nodded, waiting. Elena’s breath caught on a sob. “Then the Claim couldn’t have known, could it? Not if there’s a single one of you left to walk on this earth.”
The bitterness and grief in her eyes held him long after she’d turned away.
Larisa drew Elena into the shadows. Moonlight spilled over the curves of the double cupola’s domes. Beneath the chipped and feathered bricks of the domes, blue-glazed tiles formed calligraphic patterns that swam in the play of shade and light. The faintest breeze disturbed the shoots of grass sprouting from the brick. It stirred the hair at the back of Illarion’s collar. He watched as the sisters muttered to each other in secret. He’d wanted to smile when Elena had suggested taking him captive, but her rage was too raw to suffer his condescension. He rubbed a hand over the bruise on his sternum. He wouldn’t misjudge her again.
He was due back at the Wall. And he was due to report to the Khanum. But before he could do either of these things, he needed to get these sisters out of the city to Jaslyk. Though Jaslyk held other dangers. They would have to face down soldiers of the Crimson Watch. They would also be risking a run-in with the Technologist—the madman who supervised the prison.
But if there was a chance to save the Companion, Sinnia, the risks they were taking would be worth it.
Doubt gnawed at him: Could the Companion still be alive? And if she was, did Larisa and Elena stand any chance of successfully bringing about a rescue?
Larisa interrupted his thoughts. “Come with us,” she said. “We know how to circumvent the patrols. Unless you think you’ll be missed.”
He studied the two sisters standing side by side, each with a knife in one hand and a sword in the other. Larisa was by far the comelier of the two, but it was Elena he couldn’t look away from, Elena who burned with a volatile fury that reminded him of the First Oralist raging against the murder of her friend with a fury that had fired the sky.
“I can spare a day or two before I must return. The Authoritan will send a regiment from the Ark led by Captain Nevus. Nevus is to assume control and command of the Wall. If I’m not there to receive him, it will raise suspicions.”
“That sounds like they don’t trust you.”
He raised an eyebrow, as if to remind them both that his presence in the Hazing at their side gave the Ahdath reason to doubt him.
Elena snorted, then pressed on.
Illarion followed the women through the double cupola, where the body of the soldier he’d killed lay hidden in the shadows. He prodded it with his foot. “They’ll take it for a Basmachi kill.”
“As it would have been,” Elena snarled at him. “I didn’t ask for your rescue.”
Illarion ignored this. His stomach had lurched at the sight of the man’s assault upon Elena. She’d been helpless, a fact she wouldn’t admit to him. Or to any man, he suspected, though she had let her sister tend to her wound with an indifference that spoke to what the sisters had endured.
He focused on answering Larisa as she led the way down the hill, moving in and out of the shadows of the Hazing’s once-graceful mausolea. She stopped for a moment at the Tomb of the Living King, adjusting a floral decoration on its faience. It rotated east without a betraying sound. He wondered if the Tomb of the Living King held any significance for these sisters beyond a place where they left messages for the Basmachi. He’d seen grown men fall to their knees crying at the door to the tomb, pressing their lips to its inscriptions. For himself, he was a man without religion. When everything was holy, nothing could be holy.
“Nevus is the Authoritan’s man. It was the Khanum who chose me as second to Araxcin. The Authoritan prefers his own men in command, but the Khanum will call me soon enough.”
“Then go to her.” Elena’s scowl was fierce. “We have no need of your escort.”
So she would go to Jaslyk. Despite the rift with her sister, somehow Larisa had managed to persuade her to rescue the Companion of Hira. “I’ll see you safely to Jaslyk,” he answered, keeping his voice even.
Elena gave a mirthless laugh. “We know Jaslyk better than you ever will.” She spat again at his feet, narrowly missing his boots. He suppressed the urge to yank her by the hair and offer her her blade in kind. But Larisa Salikh was watching him, her narrow eyes pale and intent.
Nor was Elena finished. “If you make it to Jaslyk, Ahdath, you won’t be leaving alive.”
The message Larisa had left wasn’t to abandon the Hazing. She trusted Illarion no more than Elena did, but he’d told her something she hadn’t known, something he wasn’t aware that he’d betrayed.
He didn’t have command of the Wall. And the new commander, Nevus, wasn’t due to arrive for another day or more.
She knew what the Ahdath were capable of. She was equally aware of their deficiencies.
For a day at least, the Wall was undefended, the opportunity she’d been waiting for—a chance for the Basmachi to weaken the Ahdath’s defenses from inside their own stronghold. A task she couldn’t accomplish on her own—not if she was headed to Jaslyk with Elena. She tipped her head to one side, weighing the risk against the gain. Strike too soon or miss the chance altogether? Success depended on timing. Her mission was to rout the Ahdath without allowing the Talisman to overrun them, exchanging one set of masters for another. To weaken the Wall as she hoped to, she’d have to take the risk.
She sent a message to Zerafshan. And prayed his men were ready.
5
“WELCOME TO THE EAGLE’S NEST, EXCELLENCY. I TRUST YOUR RIDE across the mountains was not too arduous, and that your treasure remains undisturbed.”
The Black Khan stirred from his perusal of a message delivered to him by hawk. His sister, Darya, had sent news of events at Ashfall, along with her wishes for his safe return. He read loneliness in her words, her genuine affection for him—an affection he used against her without the slightest remorse. To do so did not trouble his conscience: such was his right as Khan. More than that, it was his duty as Prince of the Khorasan empire. He’d risked the dangerous ride from Black Aura to the Eagle’s Nest in order to fulfill that duty. Darya’s desire to see him again was the least of his concerns.