Cihana laughs and grass sprouts, crops flourish, and flowers blossom. She groans and the earth splits asunder.
– Mahque teaching
Training riders proved no less exhausting than taming steeds, though fortunately, it did involve less faceplanting into the dirt. It still left Rafi coated in a thin layer of grime from jogging back and forth across the pen, chasing steeds all morning. Which made the water he guzzled taste like grit, and when he swiped his lips, left a smear of mud on his forearm.
He sagged against the ribbed trunk of a chuchoco tree, grateful for the speckled shade cast by its elongated yellow leaves, and raised the waterskin to pour a stream over his head.
A shovel hit the ground inches from his feet.
Nef plucked the waterskin from him and took a long swallow. “You know, when Red said we would be riders, I thought we’d be doing more riding and less—that.”
His tipped head indicated the main enclosure where Rafi had set the newly selected riders to work, grooming steeds and shoveling manure into piles, while Ceridwen continued to sift through the catch of recruits they’d netted. She dismissed any who balked on their first attempt, as well as any who refused to ride again after a fall. Ruthless? Maybe. Or maybe just driven by the same urgency Rafi felt whenever he thought of Sahak.
Right now, though, he wasn’t thinking of that. “You call her Red?”
Nef scowled. “No.” He tossed his head back and drained the entire skin in a series of long gulps, then shoved it toward Rafi. “So when do I get that earthhewn? I didn’t sign up to shovel dung. Quicker we finish, quicker I get back to the fight.”
“It takes time and effort. You’ll have to be patient.”
“You learned. How hard can it be?” Nef’s stance seemed to dare a fight, but he broke into a laugh and clipped Rafi’s shoulder. “Relax, Tet—Rafi, I’m just ribbing you.”
Oddly enough, he actually seemed to think he was.
He had even stopped himself from saying Tetrani. That was a first.
Could this be Nef’s way of trying to extend the hand of friendship? Not just fellows-in-arms or partners on a raid, but friends, like Nef was with Moc? Rafi wasn’t sure what he thought of that. He got the sense that Nef, like a python, was better kept at spear’s length.
Nef abruptly straightened, standing at attention. When Rafi didn’t react quickly enough, Nef slapped his chest with the back of his hand and nodded toward the gorge path, where Umut was approaching, feathered cloak draped loosely around his shoulders, beaked crown sitting low on his weathered forehead. Beneath, he still wore his old, ragged tunic and a belt fitted with pouches for medicinal supplies, both of which seemed better suited to the man Rafi had come to know.
On one side of Umut paced a compact, dark-skinned woman, all wiry muscles and ropey scars, with hair cropped close to her skull, save for a single knot behind her ear that held an Alonque bead strand. On the other marched a thickset, bearded man with a forehead like a cliff and shoulders like a plateau, and a scowl like a cleft between the two.
Rafi spared them only a glance, for behind, clad in a colorful coat still unmuted by the dust of the road, strolled the taleweaver Eshur.
What in Ches-Shu’s everlasting, watery embrace was he doing here?
Seeing Rafi, Eshur broke into a warm smile. “Ah, it’s the juggler. I suppose it’s safe to assume that you’re not here to kill me this time either?”
Rafi shook his proffered hand. “I had no idea you were a rebel.”
“It tends to be safer that way.”
Umut’s keen gaze slid between them, but he merely addressed the two newcomers. “Owga, Clae, this is the one I told you about before.” The woman regarded Rafi with interest, but the man’s focus was on the steeds. “He’s working to ready our team of riders.”
There was an implied “or he should be” in Umut’s tone.
“Water break.” Rafi raised the empty skin, and it flopped in his hands. “Or, well, it was. Now, I guess we’re water broke and—”
“We should get back,” Nef interrupted, nodding respectfully toward the others. “You know how it is: war rests for none, and we can rest when it’s won.”
“Well said,” the bearded man grunted. “And you are?”
“Nef, sir, and proud to fight for the Mah.”
“Then why aren’t you out there already, fighting with me?” He looked Nef over. “Any time you feel like trading this sideshow for the front lines, you know who to ask for.”
Umut coughed and pressed on, beckoning the others toward the caverns. Once they were out of earshot, Nef rounded on Rafi. “Do you know who that was?”
“Eshur?” He shrugged. “Sure, we’ve juggled together.”
Nef scoffed. “No, Clae of the Mahque. He’s a legend. Mahque head on the revolutionary council. One of our most effective war leaders. His forces wage a constant fight with the Nadaarian garrisons on the westward fringes of the Mah. They pose such a threat that the Nadaari started burning villages at random to tempt the tribes to turn against them.” His smile sharpened. “But every time the oppressor flexes his claws, more join our ranks.”
This Clae sounded like the kind of rebel leader that Torva had always frowned upon. One who brought just as much devastation to his people as the Nadaari.
Consequences, hissed a voice in the back of Rafi’s mind.
“Who was the woman?” he asked.
“That was Owga, head of the Alonque insurgence. Used to be a tiger fighter in the Chiznowith arenas.” Nef said it dismissively, though Rafi found that far more interesting than anything he’d relayed about Clae.
“Tiger fighter? Like stone-eyes?”
“You know another kind?”
Rafi had seen a tiger fight once long ago. His uncle had taken both him and Delmar, under the guise of teaching them the art of charioteering. In the traditional Choth sport, warriors battled a single stone-eye in pairs, one blindfolded and armed with a spear, the other seeing, but armed only with a net that had iron claws instead of weights attached to the edges. The stone-eyes wore no blindfolds.
But the arena they had visited had hosted a variety of fights, from one warrior versus one tiger—both or neither blindfolded—to ten warriors facing off in a melee against ten raging beasts. Rafi had shut his eyes but not his ears, and the sounds were enough to know that the fights tended to be short and bloody for both beast and man.
“Don’t you see it?” Nef demanded. “If the three heads of the council are meeting now, then we are on the verge of everything we’ve been striving for. Outright war to win our freedom. Can’t you taste it on the air? Victory?”
His fervor made Rafi uneasy. “Only if victory tastes like dirt.”
“Yes. Yes! Like dirt and blood and sweat, and when all is done—”
“Don’t tell me. Saga crisps?”
“Freedom.”
Nef didn’t say it the way Rafi felt it, rich with hope and desperate with longing. Or the way Delmar had, as a fearsome shout of determination. No, on Nef’s tongue, it was a final gasp, an agonized groan, a parched plea for a drop—just a drop—of water.
Nef tilted his head, and his one eye burned. “Tides shift, cousin.”
Then he retrieved his shovel and walked back toward the steeds.
By the time the sun sank behind the edge of the gorge, and rebels and refugees drifted back toward the caverns, Rafi was mentally counting the steps that it would take to reach his hammock and calculating whether or not it was worth detouring past the kitchens. It wasn’t much of a detour—the staircase from the lowest cavern let out on the kitchen side of the natural bridge, while the staircase to the next began across it—so really, it was less about the distance and more about optimism and the hope that tonight, maybe, he’d be tired enough to sink effortlessly into slumber, rather than stare at the ceiling.
Ghost’s nicker recalled him before he took two steps, and he swung back, digging in his pockets for crackers. He’d barely seen the colt today. He let Ghost’s whiskery lips thump up the crumbs from his palm, while he scratched the soft patch of scales in the hollow of his throat.
Smoke coiled toward him as Mindar stretched out his head, nostrils suffused with a warm, red glow. Without thinking, Rafi reached for another cracker.
“Flames,” Ceridwen warned.
Ches-Shu! His pulse ricocheted.
He hadn’t even seen her there, sitting with her back to the fence. Startled reflexes made him drop the cracker, and Mindar seared it with a burst of fire that left sparks dancing across his vision.
Ceridwen raised an eyebrow.
“I know,” he said, sparing her the trouble. “You told me so.”
She went back to gently massaging her left forearm while opening and closing her fist. Soiled bandages cast off in a pile allowed him to see the healing marks on her palms and the closed and slightly puckered wound on her arm.
“How did it happen? Your arm?”
“What happened to your hand?” she countered.
“My cousin.” His throat tightened around the confession. Earlier, Sev had accused him of juggling lies. But was it a lie if he just didn’t want to admit that he was a Tetrani like Sahak? Why must he be bound to the crimes others had committed against Ceridwen’s people?
“Do you have a lot of those?” she asked curiously. “It seems everyone around here claims everyone as their cousin.”
He grinned. “We’re not actually all related. Or well, we all were once, all the Que tribes. But now, we call each other ‘cousin’ to remember our shared heritage. You get used to it.”
“You sound as if you speak from experience.”
“I’m, uh, only half Alonque. My father was Nadaari.”
The truth pooled on the tip of his tongue now, flooding his mouth with a sour taste. But he’d been imprisoned, hunted, and tortured for his name, and he’d seen how quickly it could turn people against him. Was it truly so wrong to want to be just Rafi the rebel around her?
He was, after all, good at juggling.
Seeking a distraction, Rafi noticed loose papers scattered over her knees, a discarded charcoal by the toe of her boot. “Were you working on something?”
“Just making notes before we’re back at it tomorrow.”
He dropped on her left and stretched out his legs. “What kind of notes?”
“The strategic kind. Riders typically have years to hone their skills before they seek to bond their first steed, but we’re trying to create a combat-ready force with no time to spare, which means we must remove every obstacle we can.”
“Such as?” he prompted, digging out another cala root cracker.
“Steeds and riders are said to bond more quickly when they share certain aspects of temperament, so if we intentionally pair them, it might move things along.”
“Really? What do Ghost and I have in common?” Snuffling breaths suddenly ruffled his hair. Without bothering to look, he raised the cracker and let Ghost steal it from his fingers.
Ceridwen eyed him wryly. “I’ll let you figure that one out.”
“Okay.” Rafi made a grab for her notes, reaching across his body. She reacted swiftly, thrusting his arm aside. Distracted, exactly as he’d hoped, by the obvious movement of his left hand, which concealed the subtler shift of his right hand palming the papers.
He sat back, grinning, to shuffle through the stolen pages.
The hilt of her chet jabbed into his ribs, and he looked up to find her glaring at him, chin raised like her fiery steed when he was about to flame. She held out her hand. Rafi rapidly scanned the first page and let out a snort of disbelief.
She had written her notes in Soldonian.
He flicked his glance up to catch a defiant smile on her lips. He could no more read Soldonian than he could speak it, as she’d clearly surmised. But he could parse out the names of the rebels on her list, and from there, it wasn’t such a great leap to hazard a guess.
“Lowen and the silver-winged stormer, huh? Good choice.”
Ceridwen merely raised an eyebrow. “Obvious choice. He jumped up eager to fly even after being thrown across the pen. You’ll have to do better than that.”
Rafi flipped the papers toward her hand. “Or you could just translate.”
She regarded him with a long, scrutinizing look, and Rafi couldn’t help himself. He unleashed his mother’s crooked smile. Ceridwen rolled her eyes but took the pages back and abruptly began relaying her notes. Yath, who had surprised Rafi by showing up to ride, had been assigned a riveren. The Eliamite had displayed an unexpected ease around the steeds, despite looking just as awkwardly lanky mounted as standing. But the true natural had been Jasri, who’d come from the kitchens with the scent of roasted garlic in her hair to become the only rider who hadn’t been thrown, or even forced into a hasty dismount. Ceridwen intended to let her choose her own steed, which made sense, but had also granted Nef the earthhewn he’d requested.
Rafi snorted. “Nef riding an earthquake monster? What could go wrong?”
“So many things, and not just with Nef.” Ceridwen sighed. “This may all be for naught. We have no proof anyone else will be able to bond a steed. You could be an anomaly. No offense.”
“Offense greatly taken, I’ll have you know. What about Aruk?”
“Too cautious. He rounded that riveren five times before he got on.”
“He did get off to a rocky start with a shadower a few weeks back, but I’ve seen him slipping it treats more than once. They might make a good match.” He stopped her as she flipped past the next sheet, which bore only a half smudged-out drawing. “What’s that?”
Ceridwen tucked it away. “Nothing. Just proof I can’t draw.”
“That depends. Is it a drawing of an oddly shaped fungus?”
“It’s a saddle. For riding. Umut’s craftsmen were able to fashion bits and bridles from a description, but saddles are more complex, and no one here but me has ever seen one up close, hence the very poor drawing.”
“Wait, there’s something you can’t do? Tell me more.”
She set her notes down, her shoulders suddenly taut beside him. “You want to know what else I can’t do? I can’t figure out how Umut thinks any of this will matter. Less than fifty steeds against the might of the empire? Not with a thousand times that number could we make a difference. Not in Soldonia, and certainly not here. I would gladly die to draw the fight away from my people, but what does that gain Umut? Or the revolution?”
“But no one could touch us at the temple. Or on the coast.” He’d told her about taking on the longboat with Ghost, while stealing the ship.
“Those were surprise attacks where your steed was in his element. You’ve been either extremely lucky or extremely clever about when and where you fight.”
“Thank you . . . I think.”
“But you can’t control every battlefield. That’s the nature of war. It only takes one spear thrust to bring down a fireborn. One volley loosed at the right angle at the right time, and your friends are tumbling from the sky.” She’d gone completely rigid.
This was what it had meant for her to become Soldonia’s Fireborn. Fighting to defend her nation, seeing friends fall. “So, why did you agree to help?”
“I could not do otherwise. I could not sit idle while my kingdom burns. Not when I myself am the spark.” Her voice dropped. “Markham warned me. He warned me there would be no one to rule in my stead and unite the war-chiefs, that the loss of another monarch would splinter the nation beyond repair, and now I’m a thousand miles away, and . . . flames . . .”
She straightened. “I know what he’s planning.”
Scrambling to her feet, she took off toward the cavern, leaving Rafi to gather the papers and chase after her. “What, Ceridwen? What who’s planning?”
“I need to find Umut,” she called back.
She quickened her pace as they reached the caverns and scaled the staircase to track down Umut. He was not in his hut but sequestered for a meeting in a strange triangular building that was, apparently, the council hall. Ceridwen seized the latches of the doors in both hands and shoved them open. She halted at the foot of a low table filled with dozens of dishes from Saffa’s kitchens and looked directly at Umut, who sat at the head.
“You’re planning to assassinate the emperor.”
Rafi nearly stumbled over the threshold, but Umut just cocked his weathered head and studied Ceridwen through narrowed eyes. “Shut the door, Rafi, and the two of you take a seat.”