ILANDEH

Outskirts of Singing City, Pechacan, Empire of Songs

62nd day of the grand absence of the Great Star

Ilandeh had removed the scarlet feather and sewn it back into the seam of her tunic beneath her arm, where it had lived for a year while she played the part of a merchant in Tokoban.

She couldn’t part with it. While it marked her as a half-blood, proclaiming to all Pechaqueh that she was lower than they, it was also a source of fierce pride. The macaws, and the secretive Whispers within their ranks, gave her an identity and a purpose, a steady platform in the chaos of an Empire dedicated to the glory of one half of her blood and the denigration of the other. And yet Pilos had ordered her to thread an eagle feather into her hair – not just any eagle feather, but one from his own fan – and pretend instead to be something she could never be. Something she should never even think about being.

They would know she was a fraud the second she set foot on the processional way. It would be obvious. Ilandeh was no eagle. But none of her inner turmoil showed on her smooth, sweat-beaded face as she ran the last few sticks to the city. She was a Whisper and deception was her greatest strength. Macaw in her heart, she would be an eagle in her skin.

Weeks back beneath the song as she raced to the capital at Pilos’s bidding, and she still couldn’t get used to it. As Listener Citla had said, it was … wrong. Poisoned. Broken. A clanging dissonance that rubbed against her nerve endings and put a sharpness into her mood. Like that before her blood came, but all the time.

She saw evidence of it everywhere. When she’d stopped to demand food and water she had witnessed slaves punished more harshly than they deserved. She saw the defiance in the eyes of many Pechaqueh whose duty was to provide food for warriors – defiance even though she wore an eagle feather. They resented the rations that were her due, as though she were demanding enough to feed a Talon. There were bodies on the path most days, merchants and farmers, slaves and half-bloods, even full Pechaqueh sometimes. The waterlogged fields and mud-slick trails were sullen, the sky angry, and the song sharp as obsidian.

Elaq had nearly gutted Ilandeh on sight when she arrived wearing an eagle feather, and only respect for Pilos had allowed her entry to the estate to explain herself.

‘I swear by the song the idea was his, eagle,’ Ilandeh said for the second time. ‘A sun-year in the Sky City was easier than the last month with this in my hair, but the High Feather gave me my orders and my life is his to command.’

Elaq stalked back and forth and Ilandeh stood with her hands behind her back, trying not to yawn. She had run and walked every single day from Tokoban to here and she was exhausted. Now she couldn’t sit until Elaq did, and the old eagle seemed determined to remind her that no matter what colour feather she wore, she’d never be his equal.

As if I need reminding of that.

‘What do you know of the song?’ he demanded in the end, sitting and gesturing. They were in a small room far less ornate than any she would expect the High Feather to occupy; she thought it might be Elaq’s own.

‘Listener Citla travelled from her post in Yalotlan to the Sky City to bring us news of its shattering, but she didn’t know what had caused it. I have heard some gossip on my travels, but it is wild. I do not know the truth.’

‘I doubt any of us do,’ Elaq said. ‘All I can say for sure is that the council has vanished, and so have the courtesans and the Chorus. Every one of them, as far as I can tell. I’m pretty sure the councillors are all dead, though not Enet of course. That would be too much to hope for.’

‘But why? She is Great Octave. She is Chosen. What could she gain by killing the entire council?’

Elaq’s mouth twisted. ‘She’s not the one that killed them, though, is she? Or it’s not likely. As for what she gains? Autonomy. Control, now, before the Singer’s ascension. You can hear as well as me – what state do you expect the holy lord is in?’

It was so close to heresy that Ilandeh just shook her head, her mouth open. Elaq’s bitterness was unexpected, but shouldn’t have been. Of course Pilos would employ only the most loyal, most dedicated of eagles to run his home and estate and businesses.

‘Did Councillor Yana manage to discover anything that may be useful to my investigations? The High Feather wants to know what happened. He needs to know his enemies, and—’

‘Enet is his enemy.’

‘Honoured eagle, I am a Whisper. I go where full bloods cannot and I do what they will not. For Empire, song and the holy Setatmeh. For High Feather Pilos. If there is anything I need to know to protect him or the holy lord, I ask that you tell me.’

He examined her and then sighed. ‘I have a guest here. We have been awaiting the High Feather’s return, but … well, he’s one of yours.’

Ilandeh raised an eyebrow. ‘One of mine, high one?’

Elaq grimaced. ‘Eagle will do … eagle,’ he said, though he nearly choked on it. ‘I had word some weeks ago there was a macaw wandering the Singing City. A macaw who was seen – you don’t need to know by who – visiting the Great Octave’s estate on several occasions. He couldn’t very well refuse when I extended my hospitality and the High Feather’s to him.’

Ilandeh’s chest was tight, as if the wound she’d sustained in Tokoban had suddenly reopened. ‘I suspect I know who you mean. And you think …’

‘I think he had no need to be visiting the Great Octave once, let alone four times in a month.’

‘You think he’s a spy for Enet.’ It wasn’t a question, but Elaq nodded anyway. ‘He was with me in Tokoban for a year. What would she gain from that?’

‘You told the High Feather there is songstone in Tokoban. You will have relayed to him how best to bring the tribes under the song – that includes an estimate of how many days and how many deaths, yes?’ Ilandeh nodded, feeling slightly sick. ‘I imagine your fellow Whisper will have told Enet the same. Plus whatever information he gathered from the dogs leading the captives here – all the latest Melody gossip for a brave Whisper who’d been out of the Empire for a year.’

Ilandeh grimaced and felt anger begin to build in her gut. ‘Meaning Enet knows approximately how long she has to act before the High Feather and the Melody return victorious, and how battered and reduced in number they might be when they do arrive.’

Elaq was pensive, but he nodded again. ‘You are quick,’ he said approvingly. ‘I should have expected it if Pilos trusts you. What I don’t know is what she intends to do with that knowledge – if whether the breaking of the song’ – she saw him wince in remembrance – ‘had anything to do with it. Her survival indicates it did, but then she wasn’t seen in public for two weeks after it happened. At first, I thought she’d died too. You can’t imagine how fucking upset I was when I heard she was reaching out to nobles to join the new council.’

Ilandeh stood and smoothed her kilt and then removed the eagle feather from her hair. ‘Would you be so kind as to hold this for me?’ she asked. He took it and nodded. She breathed deep. ‘Show him in.’

A boy went to fetch him, and moments later Dakto entered; his gaze was clear and his features composed, like any good Whisper who’d been trained to give away nothing. It was so good to see him – and so bad.

‘Second Flight Dakto, it has been some time. You look well – and have been missed.’

‘Flight Ilandeh, you have seen some action since last we met, I’d say,’ he replied with an easy casualness that was new and unpleasant. ‘You have the look of battle still in your eye.’ He stretched onto his toes. ‘No feather, though. Working?’

Ilandeh shrugged. ‘You, on the other hand, have neither seen battle nor appear to be working. I am curious as to why you decided to ignore your standing orders and escort captives here instead of waiting for me at the Neck.’

‘It is a good thing I did, considering you shattered the illusion of our life in Tokoban. Did you think of that before going on a killing spree? Did you think what might happen to me?’

‘And how would you know what I did in Tokoban?’ she asked quietly and he flinched. ‘But yes. We did, after all, stand and watch the sacrifice of the Coyote Aez to the false goddess Malel. Of course I wondered what would happen to you. And yet we are Whispers. It is what we do.’

‘A year, Flight. A year we were there, living with them, eating and hunting with them. Laughing and watching the ejab kill your gods—’

‘Your gods?’ Elaq said sharply.

Ilandeh grabbed Dakto’s wrist and twisted, shoving him down, tightening the lock on his arm. His free hand hit the mat and a yell burst from behind clenched teeth as she increased the pressure on the back of his elbow.

‘The holy Setatmeh are gods to us all, Second Flight Dakto,’ she grated. ‘Would you forsake the Empire and all you have accomplished? All the glories of the song that grant you peace and wealth? Would you shame yourself and your Pechaqueh blood in front of an eagle?’ She twisted a little more and spit strung down from Dakto’s teeth as his mouth opened in pain. ‘Would you lose this arm in defiance of all you have been given?’

Dakto groaned, a long drawn-out sound. ‘No,’ he gasped. ‘No, Flight. Forgive me. Eagle Elaq, I beg you, forgive me. My words were ill conceived. Song and Empire and glory.’ She let him go and he stood, clutching his shoulder, mouth a thin line of anger.

‘You stand here in the High Feather’s own house and you utter blasphemy? You dishonour yourself, Dakto. You dishonour the Melody and you dishonour your Pechaqueh heritage.’ You dishonour me, she wanted to add, but didn’t.

The Whisper laughed, a ragged, ugly sound. ‘And what of my Xentib blood? Why am I not to honour that? Why is the father who raped my mother when she was a servant more important than she was? Why should I honour that animal or the animals who bred him? The song has lived inside them for generations, warping who they are, what they think. If they think. They’re as docile and arrogant as a glutted Setat and are good for nothing other than beating slaves and clawing for status. I spit on all of them.’

‘Including Enet? How long have your been her spy in the Melody?’

Dakto’s answer was to rip a tiny, wicked glass blade from inside his tunic and swipe for her throat. Ilandeh ducked, but not fast enough: the obsidian opened her face beneath the eye and across the bridge of her nose.

She pulled a knife of her own and Dakto leapt, empty hand chopping down onto the wrist of her knife hand, swiping again with the little weapon. Ilandeh parried it and twisted sideways, inside his guard, to elbow him in the chest. Not hard – too close for that – but enough to elicit a grunt. She drove through her legs and stabbed, a gutting strike.

Dakto’s hand slapped down on her wrist again, but not enough, too focused on his own overhead attack, which she deflected with her left forearm, pushing hand and blade up above her head and sinking down to free her knife hand. The point entered his thigh and she ripped it down towards the main artery.

Dakto was bigger than her, stronger by far, and a talented fighter. It was a shame he hadn’t thought through the consequences of his insubordination or ever imagined fighting Ilandeh. How she’d move; how fast she was. How her fierce loyalty to the Melody would outweigh anything she’d ever felt for him. She couldn’t get a lock on the arm above her head but the sudden spurting wetness over her right hand told her she didn’t need it. She ripped the knife out of his leg, danced back and kicked him in the chest.

Dakto scored a final cut on the top of her shoulder as he staggered backwards and only then, it seemed, did he realise that he was dead. He looked down as his leg collapsed into the pool of scarlet soaking into the mats beneath his feet. He met her eyes, surprised, horrified, and weakly amused.

‘Flight,’ he said.

‘Under the song,’ Ilandeh panted and his features creased with disgust.

‘No,’ he grunted. ‘May my ancestors guide me.’ He toppled sideways and bled to death. No one moved until it was done.

‘Well,’ Elaq said, advancing with a medicine chest he’d procured from somewhere. ‘Now I definitely understand why High Feather Pilos likes you. Though you’ll be the one explaining to him the cost of purchasing the new mats. Let me see your face.’

Ilandeh stood still, breathing through the pain and the adrenaline, rubbing together fingers sticky with the blood of a man she’d once considered a friend. Occasionally more than a friend, and one of shared heritage. ‘Forgive me for bringing disharmony to this house,’ she said. ‘If I had suspected, I never would have chosen him to live in the Sky City.’

‘Sometimes the rotten blood proves the stronger,’ Elaq said mildly.

Ilandeh winced as he poked at the cut. ‘I accept full responsibility. And I will see to the purchase of the matting and anything else the household needs to re-establish order. Again, I apologise.’

Elaq laughed. He took a needle and thread from the chest and gestured her to sit on mats not saturated with blood. He knelt at her side. ‘This is the house of the Empire’s greatest warrior. We are not unused to combat here, although it usually takes place in the training yard and doesn’t often end quite so terminally. Still, Dakto needed to die. His dangerous ideas had the possibility of infecting others.’ He paused and eyed her for an uncomfortably long time; Ilandeh’s Xentib blood yammered in her veins and leaked down her face.

‘I do the Singer’s will and the High Feather’s,’ she said in a low voice. ‘If you would put me to the test, I will walk into the Blessed River with this blood running into the water and let the holy Setatmeh decide my worth. As the eagle commands.’

The first stitch went into her face and she hissed hurt before Elaq spoke again. ‘Of all Pilos’s macaws, yours is the loyalty I would not doubt.’

‘Thank you, eagle. That means a lot,’ she said, and submitted to the needle.

‘Flight Ilandeh, if you’re well, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.’

The swelling across Ilandeh’s face was monstrous and she could barely see out of her left eye. Sleep had been elusive, images of Dakto spinning across the insides of her eyelids in stuttering counterpoint to the song, which itself juddered and veered in unexpected, irregular bursts.

The visitor was huge with muscle in the shoulders and arms, narrow in the waist and powerful in the thigh. A made warrior. Anxiety tickled the back of Ilandeh’s throat and she squinted at Elaq, who gave her a reassuring nod.

‘This is Chorus Leader Nara. He arrived at dawn; he’s been hiding since the … Well, I’ll let him tell you.’

‘Chorus Leader? Hiding?’ Ilandeh asked, her voice nasal from the blood and swelling clogging her nostrils.

‘What Eagle Elaq suspected is true, Eagle. The Singer massacred them all – every one of the Chorus, all the courtesans and children, the stewards, the councillors, the slaves. One giant … orgy of violence that broke something in his mind and broke the song. He killed everyone except Enet and me, held them helpless within the power of the song and slaughtered them.’

Ilandeh stared at him in silence, sickened. ‘Why not you?’ she managed in the end.

Nara lifted his tunic and pulled at bandages – the cut seamed him from below his left nipple all the way to the top of his right thigh. ‘I was very nearly dead. Enet wasn’t even there. Her slaves and guards tossed me out with the other corpses, too unnerved to check for life in any of us. Probably there were others who died in the gardens, taken by the holy Setatmeh. I managed to crawl away and find shelter, got myself stitched up. I’ve been hiding and recovering ever since. The High Feather has always put Empire above all else, so this seemed like the only place to come.’

‘Setatmeh preserve us,’ Ilandeh murmured. ‘Is there anything we can do to save the Singer – from her, from himself? Where has this bloodlust come from?’

‘From the Great Octave. That I can promise you is true. She has done this. She said we were wrong about the consequences of blooding the song.’ He laughed, a harsh bark of noise. ‘She might even have been right, if only she could have persuaded the holy lord to retain control of the desire. Instead, here we are.’

‘But why?’ Ilandeh asked, frustrated. ‘Is she trying to kill us all? Does she want the Empire to crumble and Ixachipan to be bereft of the world spirit’s song? Why is she doing this?’

‘That I cannot tell you, Eagle,’ Nara said softly. ‘I expect no one but the Great Octave herself can answer that.’

Elaq was watching her, waiting. Judging. Ilandeh licked her lips. ‘Chorus Leader, you mistake me,’ she began and Nara narrowed his eyes in alarm. She held up her empty hands. ‘I am loyal, unto death. But I am no eagle. I am a Whisper of the macaws. The High Feather himself decorated me as subterfuge, knowing it would make it easier for me to infiltrate the Singing City and learn Enet’s plans. But you should not do me the honour of naming me eagle; it is not my place, nor my blood.’

The shock and dawning horror on Nara’s face made Ilandeh’s wound throb as blood rushed into her cheeks. Shame followed it. She looked away, swallowing thickly. These men were both full bloods; they outranked her militarily, socially, and in status. And here she sat among them wearing their pride in her hair.

‘You knew about this?’ Nara spluttered. Elaq shifted, uncomfortable, but nodded. ‘I thought I could trust the High Feather. I thought I had found allies to help me save the Singer from the Great Octave. To allow such, such sacrilege towards our blood … I cannot believe it.’

‘And yet it is done,’ Elaq said. ‘Just yesterday, Flight Ilandeh killed one of her Whisper subordinates who showed signs of treachery. She did it without hesitation. I believe her loyalty is without question.’

‘Her loyalty, perhaps, but her blood is tainted. That weakness will show through eventually.’

Ilandeh breathed.

‘And yet hers is the only face Enet doesn’t know. I cannot go; none of the High Feather’s household can. But Ilandeh can.’

‘Could you put me into the source as a steward, even a slave?’ she asked, steering the conversation to firmer ground.

Nara sucked his teeth and glanced at Elaq. ‘You’d willingly become a slave for this cause?’ he asked.

‘I am a Whisper, Chorus Leader,’ Ilandeh said calmly. ‘I will be and can be whatever my High Feather and the Empire needs me to be.’

‘And the slave marks?’ Elaq pressed.

The flesh on Ilandeh’s back crawled at the thought of that brand being pressed to her shoulders to mark her for eternity as property. She licked dry lips. ‘When it is over, the brands will be amended to show I am a free woman. As I already am,’ she added with a hint of fire. ‘I am a Whisper. We know our duty.’

‘Even an eagle would balk at such a task,’ Nara admitted after an uncomfortable pause. ‘And yet a half-blood will do what we fear to.’

Ilandeh kept a neutral expression with only a little effort.

‘The High Feather has already marked her as an eagle. Another choice would be to make her one of the Chorus – their numbers are still too few and Enet is supplementing them with her own guards.’

‘Impossible,’ Nara snapped, outraged, and Ilandeh was tempted to agree with him. ‘The Chorus are the highest of eagles, those with greatest honour, outstanding warriors and leaders. She is a macaw. Tainted!’

‘My loyalty is without question, Chorus Leader,’ Ilandeh grated and heard the danger in her voice at the repetition of her inferior blood. Elaq heard it too and shot her a warning glance. ‘True Pechaqueh will not stoop to assassination or infiltration, and that is why the Whispers were developed, so please, with respect, allow me to fulfil my orders. I assure you that whatever feather I wear in my hair will not change who I am – only who I seem to be. Believe me, no one is more aware of my taint than I am.’

She rose to her feet before either of them could reply. ‘Get me into the Singer’s inner sanctum, high ones, and I beg you do it fast. I will not allow the holy lord to languish in pain or danger when my heart and my High Feather both command otherwise. Now, if you would excuse me, my wound pains me and I would rest.’

Ilandeh touched belly and throat and strode from the room before either could call her back or do more than stare in open-mouthed astonishment. She was shaking, but it had nothing to do with the hurt.