“Are you all right?” Meroe says, for the twentieth time. She’s hovering over my shoulder, hand out like she wants to touch me but is afraid to.
“I’m all right.” It comes out too fast, too harsh, and I glance at her face and see the worry. I force myself to take a breath, relax my shoulders. “I’m all right.”
“We don’t know how much of what they told us is true,” Zarun says. “Rumors get exaggerated.”
“Indeed,” Jack says. “Why, Clever Jack once overheard a tale of her own exploits she hardly recognized.”
Another deep breath. “I know.”
Exaggerated or not, the story the traders had told is enough to get my heart pounding. A rebellion, born out of a gang of rebel mage-bloods and a draft riot, that had not only escaped the control of the Ward Guard but undermined the walls to spread throughout the city. For all intents and purposes, Kahnzoka was under siege by its own government, the rebel-held wards surrounded by camps of Ward Guard and militia troops. That explains all the traders here in Redtree—the Imperial Army is buying supplies at generous rates.
And the Sixteenth Ward, my home, the brutal, familiar world of dock scum and kidcatchers, corner noodle shops and rickety tenements—gone. The traders disagreed about who had set the fire—one said it was the rebels, the other the Ward Guard—but were certain that it had consumed everything between the wall and the waterfront.
I wonder, briefly, how many of the people I remember died in the conflagration. If there’s anyone left who remembers me.
Later. I press the feeling down. Focus, Isoka.
“Tori’s house is in the Third District, on the north side of the city,” I say. “The traders said that was definitely still on the Imperial side of the line. We just have to get there.” And hope that she’s still there, that she’s okay, that—
Enough. My fists clench, Melos power throbbing under my skin, as though my blades want to emerge of their own accord. First, get there.
Meroe sits down on the narrow bed, brow furrowing. We’re in one of the upstairs rooms of the Redtree Inn, rented for a few hours for an exorbitant fee. It’s about the size of a coffin, with a bed that wouldn’t fit two of us. Zarun and Jack lean against the door, and I pace in what little room is left.
“That’s not going to be easy, I think,” she says. “I can’t imagine they want loose civilians wandering around.”
“The traders are going somewhere,” Zarun points out.
“There’ll be a system of passes,” I say. “The Ward Guard loves passes. Can’t get from here to there without the right bit of paper and the right stamp.”
“Could we fake one?” Meroe says.
“Not easily.” I frown. “Not without getting ahold of one, anyway. And if we can do that, we might as well just use it for ourselves.”
“That makes things easy, then,” Jack says. “The town is teeming with fine fat fish. We just have to catch one and pluck its feathers.”
“Fish don’t normally have feathers,” Meroe says. “But she has a point. If we can distract one of the traders, maybe get them drunk, we might be able to get hold of a pass.”
I shake my head. “Takes too long. We just have to find someone on the road and convince them to hand it over.”
Meroe looks troubled. “Actual highway robbery? I just—”
“I think there’s an easier way,” Zarun says. When we both look at him, he rattles the pouch in his pocket, which makes a dull jingle.
“Oh,” Meroe and I say together, then smile at one another. I give Zarun an embarrassed grin. “That should work.”
“—and it’s only that my grandfather is very ill, and he can’t be moved,” Meroe says. “And I promised I’d be with him before the end. I’d do anything.”
The merchant—a gawky boy with a prominent Adam’s apple that bobs when he swallows—has gone wide-eyed. Not from Meroe’s story, which I doubt he’s even hearing, but at the weight of the gold coins Zarun is patiently counting into his outstretched palm. They bear the name and face of a monarch who lived a thousand miles and two centuries from here, but gold is gold, whatever’s stamped on it.
“We’ll need your cart and horses,” I tell him. “And whatever paperwork you’ve got for your delivery.”
I’m trying not to sound too eager, and I suppress a sigh of relief as he digs a leather folio out of his satchel and hands it over. The first document is an official pass, allowing the bearer to transport a cargo of miscellaneous foodstuffs into the siege lines around the Third District, illegibly signed and with a blurry stamp. I pretend to riffle through the rest of the papers, which direct us to bring the wagon to some headquarters or other.
“I’ll make sure this gets there,” I say.
The boy nods, although I’m certain he no longer gives a rotting fishhead whether his cargo arrives. He sets off on foot up the road with enough gold in his pocket to buy most of Redtree. The part of me that spent years as a ward boss cynically gives him a life expectancy of about two days, but maybe things are a little less cutthroat out in the country.
In exchange for a handful of Soliton’s treasure, we have bought ourselves a run-down farm cart, pulled by an equally run-down pair of horses, laden so heavily with bags, barrels, and crates that it looks ready to tip over. The reddening light of the setting sun filters through the trees; we’re just off the coast road, east of Redtree, where our trader was resting his team and enjoying a quiet smoke before we ambushed him with a small fortune.
There’s only room for Meroe and me on the box, but Zarun makes space for himself and Jack by hurling a few sacks of rice into the woods. Meroe pulls herself up and takes the reins, and I hop up beside her, eyeing the rumps of the horses distrustfully.
“You know how to make them go, right?” I ask.
She laughs. “Yes, I know how to make them go.” She looks up at the sky, where the clouds are blazing crimson. “We’re not going to get far before dark, though.”
“If we go through the night—”
“Then one of the horses is going to step in a rut and break a leg,” she says. “And if we show up with a trader’s pass with no cart, people are going to ask questions.”
I clench my jaw for a moment, then force out a breath. Whether Tori’s safe or not, it’s not likely to change by tomorrow morning. “Okay.”
“I know how hard this is for you,” she says, quietly. “But we’re almost there.”
I give a jerky nod. Almost there. I sail halfway around the world, and come back to find they’ve burned the rotting place down.Typical.
We put a few more miles between us and town before the sun sets behind the screen of trees and the sky goes from red to purple to black. We don’t have proper camping gear, but it’s a mild night, so we munch on food from our packs and huddle together under blankets. Meroe tends the horses, which seem grateful for her efforts, and I fall asleep with her head on my shoulder and their thick equine scent in my nostrils.
As soon as it’s light, we start moving again, in spite of Jack’s complaints about the “cursed and ungodly hour.” She eventually falls asleep in the back, curled up around a barrel of salted squid and snoring loudly. Zarun occupies himself poking through the cargo, occasionally asking me to identify something. He seems bemused.
“Imperials really eat this stuff?” he says, holding up a morsel from Jack’s pillow by one dangling tentacle.
I snatch it from his fingers and shove it into my mouth. The squid is flat as a sheet of paper, crunchy and chewy both at once. Not bad, actually, though the salt makes me thirsty. I wash it down with a drink from my canteen.
“You ate crab on Soliton,” I point out. “And don’t Jyashtani eat snakes and crickets?”
“Only mad southerners eat snakes,” he says. “But candied crickets are delicious.”
“In Nimar we have many delicacies,” Meroe says. “But my favorite was always rhinoceros testicles.” She cups her hands, indicating something the size of an apple. “They’re served raw, with just a touch of butter and salt.”
There’s a long, contemplative silence.
“That was a joke,” Meroe says, with a wicked grin. Then, as I exhale, she adds, “Obviously we cook them.”
I don’t know if the two of them agreed to try to distract me, but I’m glad of the opportunity not to be alone with my thoughts as the cart crawls, desperately slow, along the coast road. We climb steadily, until by noon we reach the top of a promontory, a long ridge that stretches out like a finger into the bay. Having ascended in a series of lazy switchbacks, the road crosses over its spine before going down in the same fashion. Meroe brings the horses to a halt for a moment. From here we can see all of Kahnzoka, spread out on its hill a half day’s journey ahead of us.
I’ve never been far enough from my city to really see it, except for that last night, when the Immortals rowed me out to Soliton and the lights looked like distant fireflies. In daylight, it’s a vast, sprawling thing, roughly triangular, wide where it meets the sea and narrowing progressively as it climbs the hill. At the top is the Royal Ward, visible at this distance as a scattering of black-and-red buildings amidst an expanse of green. The First Ward has a fair amount of green, too, as do the Second and Third, before gardens and ornamental ponds give way to endless rows of wood-and-plaster buildings packed cheek-by-jowl, their sloping slate roofs close enough to touch. The military highways run through the chaotic tangle like knife wounds, one top-to-bottom, the other left-to-right.
But it’s the Sixteenth Ward that draws my eye. Or where the Sixteenth Ward used to be, because it’s clear the traders weren’t exaggerating at all. The whole long strip between the water and the southernmost wall is a blackened ruin, a few half-burned structures leaning drunkenly amid the wasteland of charred wood and fallen tiles.
Here and there I can see patches of fluttering white, which I realize must be the tents of the besieging army, camps cleared out amidst the debris. Other than that, the only repair work going on is around the docks, where new piers are already stretching into the sea. Even that has barely begun, though. A small section around the Imperial Navy dockyard has been cleared, but most of the waterfront is still a mess of canted, blackened masts and wrecked moorings.
No wonder they’ve got so many traders coming in. The whole fishing fleet must have burned. Kahnzoka had long since grown past the point where it could feed itself entirely from the bay, but for the poorer part of the citizenry fish has always been a staple. With the docks in ruins, everything has to be shipped in overland.
Not that there are no ships visible. At least a dozen Navy galleys cruise up and down the waterfront, their gold-trimmed sails gleaming, and there are more farther out in the bay. Good thing we didn’t try to bring Soliton in this way. With half the Navy on patrol, Naga would have spotted us immediately.
“I don’t know,” Zarun says. “I thought it would be bigger.”
I glance at him, and catch a teasing grin. I manage to smile back, fighting a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“It’ll look big enough when we get up close,” I tell him. Meroe clicks her tongue, and the horses start their slow plod forward.
We run into the first checkpoint at the crossroads, where the coast road splits, one branch following the sea down to the Sixteenth Ward, the other winding up the hill to eventually meet with the military highway. A Ward Guard officer sits by the side of the road, yawning, while a squad of a dozen militia with spears and wooden helmets checks passes. I present our borrowed credentials, trying to look as bored as everyone else. The militiaman, a weathered farmer with gray in his beard, gives us a once-over. He lingers a little on Meroe and Zarun, with their foreign looks, but he eventually waves us through.
There’s another checkpoint at the military highway, and another where we have to veer off onto a local path to ascend toward the Third Ward. By this point the siege lines are in sight, rows of identical white tents milling with militia soldiers. A perimeter of ditches and sharpened stakes lines the city-facing side, and then there’s a hundred yards or so of no-man’s-land, full of mud, grass, and abandoned shacks. Beyond that is the city wall, with a few figures visible on the battlements. At this distance, all that marks them as rebels is the red sashes they wear.
Zarun has been looking more nervous the closer we get to the city, keeping a wary eye on the militia. As the horses strain up the sloping dirt road, he worms his way forward, until he’s close enough to speak to me and Meroe.
“Are we sure this is a good idea?” he says, quietly.
“Of course not,” I say. “But I didn’t hear any better ones.”
“Is something wrong?” Meroe says.
“Just a lot of soldiers,” Zarun mutters. “Makes my palms itch.”
I give him a curious look. I know Zarun is the bastard son of some princeling, which is what earned him a one-way trip to Soliton when he became inconvenient. Other than that, he hasn’t talked much about the time before he came to the ship. I wonder if he had some run-ins with the Jyashtani equivalent of the Ward Guard.
My own history with the guardians of peace and order in Kahnzoka is certainly a checkered one. But they don’t frighten me. The thing about the Ward Guard is that they’re fundamentally there to defend people with money and power from people without; to manipulate them, you just have to convince them you’re on the right side. That’s part of why I set Tori up with a house in the Third Ward instead of living high in the Sixteenth. When you live in the Third Ward, the guards work for you.
Not that this was enough to keep the residents from bolting at the first sign of trouble. We finally pass through the city wall, & well beyond the border of the rebel control. Once again, a militiaman checks our papers, then directs us where to take our cargo. Meroe thanks him effusively, and we ignore his instructions as soon as we’re out of sight, following the broad, curving streets of the Second Ward toward the Third. Night is coming on, but nearly all the houses are still dark, the lampposts that mark their long drives untended.
“Does anyone actually live in this city?” Jack says, as we pass through a deserted crossroad.
“You have to be rich to live in this part of it,” I say. “And if you’re rich, you probably don’t want to hang around when a bunch of peasants start getting ideas. I imagine there’s been a run on guest rooms at country estates.”
“And this is where your sister lives?” Zarun says.
I nod, and he gives a low whistle. Something tightens in my chest. It was supposed to be safe here.
Meroe grips my hand and gives it a squeeze.
Another gate separates the Second and Third Wards, but this one is closed up. We wave to a couple of guards, and then we’re finally on the streets I remember. These houses are abandoned, too, and it suddenly occurs to be that Tori may not even be here. What would Ofalo do? He knows he has to keep her safe or he’ll answer to me. Maybe he’s gotten her away from the city.
If so, he’ll have left a note. Something. I swallow as we turn onto Tori’s street, and the horses’ hooves crunch on the gravel drive. There has to be something.
The house is just as I remember it, all understated style and traditional Imperial lines, and the knot in my chest relaxes fractionally. It’s not burned, or obviously looted, though the shutters are tightly closed as though in expectation of a storm. Meroe brings the cart to a stop, and I hop down, not waiting for the others. The front walk is lined with stands of decorative bamboo, recently trimmed. Someone’s still here. I stride up to the front door, rap loudly, and after a moment’s silence try to slide it open. It rattles in its frame—locked.
“Hello?” I try hard to keep the anxiety out of my voice. “It’s Isoka. Open up!”
No answer. Meroe has caught up, waiting a pace behind me, not sure what to do. I glare at the door, my hands tightening into fists. My blades would make short work of lock and bar, but—
“Hello?” The voice comes from around the side of the house. “Is someone there?”
A man pushes a wheelbarrow around the corner and stops, gawking. I recognize him—a skinny, ferret-looking gardener with too-large front teeth. I round on him, and my face must be thunderous, because he backs up a step in obvious alarm. Fortunately, Meroe is quickly beside him, speaking in soothing tones and slipping a silver coin into his hand. He looks down at it briefly, then back up at me, and raises his eyebrows.
“What happened here?” I ask him. “Where is everybody?”
“Dunno much,” he says. “Master Ofalo took the staff north when the fighting started. Staying with friends in Jinzoka, I hear. Doubled my wage to stay on and keep the grounds up.”
I stand still for a moment and absorb this information. On the one hand, it will slow us down—Jinzoka is at least two weeks’ travel, well inland. On the other, it means we can get away from the mess here in Kahnzoka, and if Kuon Naga has a full-fledged rebellion in the capital to deal with, he may not have time to worry about us after all. On the whole, I think, the news is welcome. I catch Meroe’s eye, and she gives a relieved nod.
“You’re sure about that?” I ask the gardener. “He and Tori are in Jinzoka?”
The man blinks, then shakes his head. “Master Ofalo might be in Jinzoka, but Miss Tori surely isn’t. She ran off before all this got going. Everyone says she’s with the Red Sashes now—Master Ofalo said it was ridiculous, but Chen heard from his cousin that she heard—”
The tension that had been draining out of me rushes back. I step forward, and I can feel the prickle of Melos energy in my arms. The gardener quails again, and Meroe puts a warning hand on my chest.
“Tell me,” I growl.
“There’s … there’s not much to tell,” the man says, voice quivering. “Not for sure. Miss Tori was ill for a while, or at least spending a lot of time in her room. Then one day she was gone. Master Ofalo organized a search and had the Ward Guard out looking for her, and that’s where we got rumors she was down in the Eleventh Ward, maybe with a young man. But before we could figure out where exactly, the riots started. The Ward Guard shut all the gates, and after the first big battle Master Ofalo said it wasn’t safe for the girls and such to stay around here.” He swallows hard. “That’s all I know, I swear.”
Rotting Ofalo. That was unfair, and I knew it, but I couldn’t help myself. I’ll kill him. I’ll rotting kill him. I’d paid him—paid him a fortune, by Sixteenth Ward standards—to keep Tori safe. That he’d been unable to hide her from the Immortals was one thing. Letting her do something as stupid as running away to the Eleventh Ward—
“Isoka,” Meroe says. “Not here.”
I was so close. At Tori’s front door. And now …
“She’s with the Red Sashes?” I say. It takes an effort to keep my voice steady. “As in she’s one of them?”
“Don’t know that for sure,” the gardener says. He clearly wants nothing more than to get away from this conversation, silver coin or no silver coin. “Just what Chen’s cousin heard.”
I snort and turn away, leaving Meroe to reassure the man and slip him another coin. I stalk across the drive, kicking at the gravel and desperately trying to keep myself on a leash. I want to scream, to summon my blades and chop something into kindling.
Finally, the gardener is gone. Meroe and I return to our cart, where Jack and Zarun are waiting.
“Perspicacious Jack senses that all has not gone as planned,” Jack says.
“She’s not here,” I growl. I want to lash out, so badly, but my friends don’t deserve it.
“Not here,” Zarun says, “as in—”
“The household has fled the fighting,” Meroe says. “But the groundskeeper was certain that Tori left before then, and that she’s somewhere in the rebel part of the city.”
“That doesn’t make any rotting sense,” I say. “Why in the Blessed’s Name would she be down in the Eleventh Ward in the first place, much less joining a rebellion?”
“He said there might have been a boy involved,” Meroe says.
“Tori’s too young for that,” I snap, then catch Zarun’s look. “What?”
“You said she was fourteen?” he says. “Plenty of fourteen-year-olds have done stupid things for a pretty face.”
“True enough,” Jack says. “It may surprise you, but even Jack’s own decisions have occasionally been less than perfect in the face of her … urges.”
“I don’t need to hear about my little sister’s urges.” I rub my hand over my face. “All right, fine. She’s getting to that age. But she ought to have better sense. I mean…”
“You don’t know what happened,” Meroe says, putting her hand on my shoulder. “Or what things have been like while you’ve been gone.”
“Or whether any of this is true.” I shake my head. “Maybe the rotting gardener is wrong, and she’s with Ofalo on the road to Jinzoka.” Or maybe the story about the Red Sashes is a plant, and Naga’s already snatched her and stuffed her in some dungeon cell—I cut the thought off abruptly.
“He seemed honest,” Meroe says. “But he may have been misinformed.”
“So you want to head north, then?” Zarun says. “Find Ofalo and get the whole story?”
“We don’t have the time.” I grit my teeth. “Two weeks to Jinzoka, two weeks back. This rotting rebellion will be dead and buried by then, and if Tori is here, she could easily get killed with it. Not to mention that’s nearly a month for Kuon Naga to figure out we’re back and send the Immortals after us. We have to go inside now.”
“That’s not going to be easy,” Zarun says. “In or out.”
“I know. But it’s the best chance we have.” I shake my head. “I can go in alone. This is going to be much more dangerous than we thought—”
“Isoka,” Meroe says, “please stop being ridiculous.”
“Agreed,” Jack says. “A few rebels do not frighten the bold conquerors of Prime’s ziggurat.”
“I always figured this would be a mess,” Zarun says. “Everything seems to be, with you.”
“Thanks.” I take a deep breath, and try to let some of the tension out with it. My friends. At least something good has come out of all this.
“Any ideas on how we get past the lines and over the wall?” Meroe says.
“That shouldn’t be the difficult part.” I glance to the south, toward the ward wall, though from here it’s invisible behind a screen of trees. “It’s the Ward Guard running the show. And if there’s one thing I learned in the Sixteenth, it’s that a Ward Guard officer never met a rotting bribe he didn’t like.”
As the old joke goes: how do you find a corrupt Ward Guard officer?
First, throw a rock. Second, pay him off so he doesn’t run you in for rock-tossing.
You might think that being in the middle of an actual siege against rebels would inspire an increased devotion to duty, but you would be wrong. At times like these, all the regular rules and procedures go out the window, which means even more opportunity to line one’s own pocket. Sure enough, at the first section of wall we approach, the Ward Guard officer in charge proves willing to have a quiet conversation about the disposition of our cart full of supplies. With a little bit of Soliton gold in his hand, he readily agrees to slip us past his own sentries.
“Mind you, I can’t guarantee that it’ll be open,” the man says, blowing at the corners of an enormous mustache. “And dealing with the rebels on the other side is your business. As is getting out again.”
“Don’t worry about that,” I tell him. “The rebels pay well enough that we can afford it.”
The officer gives a snort. “Not as though it’s going to matter either way. The Legions will be here before they have the chance to starve.”
He bids us to wait until nightfall, to reduce the chance of discovery—less because he’s worried about getting in trouble, I gather, than because anyone who stumbles onto us would want a share of the bribe. The four of us pull the cart into a side street, out of sight of the troops camped below the wall, and we wait an hour for the sun to slip below the horizon.
Zarun is glaring in the direction of the Ward Guard officer and his men, looking disgusted.
“Is there a problem?” I ask him.
“Not for us,” he says. “I’m just surprised that a soldier would let us supply his enemies for a pocketful of gold.”
“Ward Guard aren’t proper soldiers,” I tell him. “They’re just bullies in uniform, and the militia are farmers and tradesmen doing a month’s service.”
“Everyone seems confident the Legions will deal with the rebels when they arrive,” Meroe says.
I shrug. “They’ve got good reason. If you’re a commoner born a mage-blood and you’re not taken by a noble family as breeding stock, you probably end up in the Legions. With that much sorcery, they can roll over any non–mage-blood force.”
She grimaces. “The way you Imperials treat your mage-bloods is…” Meroe glances at me, and trails off.
“Barbaric?” I supply.
“I didn’t want to be insulting.”
“Go ahead. I spent half my life dodging the Immortals because of my Well, and when they caught up with me they threw me on Soliton. I’m not going to defend them.”
“Jack has a similar tale of woe,” Jack says, which makes me perk up a little. Jack has never shared much about her past. But she only adds, “On the other hand, if not for being exiled to Soliton, there would have been no relationship with the lovely Thora.”
“What are we going to do when we’re through the lines?” Zarun says.
“Try not to kill anyone,” I tell him. “Apart from that, I’m going to improvise.”
Eventually the walrus-faced officer returns and beckons us forward. Meroe drives the cart down a narrow street, running to the base of the wall, while the rest of us walk beside it on foot. A few stakes block the road, but they’ve been pulled aside, and two sentries with torches salute the Ward Guard officer as he waves us through. As easy as that, we’re in no-man’s-land, between the Imperial positions and the rebel-held fortification.
The gate is a small one, a double door in the base of the wall barely big enough for our cart. Like all the Third Ward’s fortifications, it was designed to keep people out, and the rebels had to hastily fit it with a bar on the other side. I watch the wall overhead for the silhouette of night patrols, but if they’re there they’re keeping out of sight.
Meroe brings the horses to a halt in the shadow of the wall, and I go to the gate. Not much chance the rebels will open it for the asking, so I ignite my blades, first taking care that the cart is between me and anyone who might see the flare of green. It’s the work of a few seconds to carve through the bar with Melos power, and the gate swings open to a push. Beyond is another side street, leading down into the Eighth Ward, where the buildings are packed tighter but still put up a respectable façade. Shops with glass fronts line both sides of the road, though many are boarded over now. Above them are apartments with darkened windows like empty eye sockets.
A small barricade has been set up, in case the enemy makes a push through this gate. Crates and furniture block the road, and a voice barks an order. Men and women rise up from behind the obstacle, at least a dozen of them, all with leveled crossbows. More lean out of the doorways of the nearest shops, and there’s a few on the wall behind us.
All right. So the rebels aren’t completely idiotic. Probably better for us in the long run. I spread my hands, cautiously, and raise my voice. “Who’s in charge here?”
“That would be me.” A short woman with her hair in a bun walks out from behind the line of crossbowmen, carrying a lantern. She has to be at least fifty. In the light, I can see she—and the rest of them—wear a crimson sash diagonally across their chests. “I have to say, if you lot are spies, chopping through a gate is a really stupid way to try to get through the lines.”
“Which means we’re probably not rotting spies, right?” I grin, hoping for a laugh, and don’t get one.
“If you’re not spies,” the woman says, “how’d you get through Imperial lines?”
“Bribed ’em,” I answer promptly. “You know Ward Guard.”
“And what’ve you got in the cart?”
“Food, mostly,” I say. “Originally meant for His Imperial Majesty’s Army, now our gift to the Red Sash rebels.”
I can see the effect this produces on the faces of the rebel soldiers. There’s a lean, pinched look to them: not starving exactly, but certainly not well fed. The officer with the lantern frowns.
“That’s awfully generous of you,” she says. “What are we expected to offer in return for this gift?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Except to let us be on our way.”
“Which is exactly the sort of thing a spy would say,” she mutters. “You’re not very good at this.”
“Or I’m just being rotting honest.”
She beckons two of her men over, and they start a conversation in low tones. I catch the words, “can’t get much worse,” and “rotting hungry.”
“Think it’ll work?” Zarun says in a whisper.
“Probably.” I shift slightly. “If it doesn’t, I’ll take the ones on the left, you take the ones on the right, and do your best to cover Meroe.”
He grunts acknowledgment. The argument among the rebels reaches some sort of conclusion, and the officer raises her lantern.
“Well,” she says, “we agree that you’re much too stupid to be spies. So—”
“What’s happening here?”
A man’s voice, utterly calm and devoid of emotion. The rebel officer freezes at the sight of three people coming down the street toward the blockade. The soldiers look over their shoulders, and a dark muttering passes among them. I hear the word “Blues,” and several people make quick signs of blessing against evil.
The trio, once they come into the range of the lantern light, seem ordinary enough. Like the other rebel soldiers, they’re dressed in everyday worker’s clothes, running to ragged. In addition to the red sash, these three wear a blue sash running the other way. What that means, I have no idea, but the officer is instantly deferential.
“These four came through, sir,” she says. “The one with the tattoos is Melos; she cut through the gate. Say they’ve got food in the cart for the cause.”
The closest blue-sash looks us over. There’s something strange about his eyes. Not vacant, exactly, but … unconcerned.
“We will bring them to headquarters for questioning,” he says, in the same monotone. “And the wagon will be taken to our ration depot. Detail four soldiers for an escort, please.”
“Of course, sir.” The officer points to four of the crossbowmen, who get hurriedly to their feet. “The rest of you, clear a path! We need to get this cart to the depot.”
“I don’t like this,” Meroe whispers.
“I’m not rotting crazy about it myself,” I mutter.
“So we break out,” Zarun says.
“Jack stands ready,” Jack adds.
“I think we don’t, for now,” I tell them. “Keep nice and calm.”
“You’re sure?” Zarun says.
“They’re taking us to their headquarters, which seems like a good place to ask questions,” I tell him. “If we don’t like the answers, then we can start a fight.”
The rebel headquarters, it turns out, is in the old Ward Guard barracks, at the very far end of the Eighth Ward, which means we have a ways to walk. In spite of the late hour, once we get away from the vicinity of the wall there are signs of life in the streets. All the shops are closed, but there are fires at regular intervals, and small groups huddled around them. Makeshift shelters built of wood and canvas line the road. The sight of our cart draws people’s attention, and they gawk, giving the blue-sashed soldiers a respectful distance. Most watch in silence, but a few call out.
“Spare something, sir?”
“My daughter—she’s so hungry, please—”
“Just a handful—”
I’m sitting on the box with Meroe again, Jack and Zarun in the back, the blue-sashes and the crossbowmen walking alongside. Meroe’s hand finds mine, and our fingers interlace. I give her a squeeze.
“They’re starving,” she says, quietly.
“That’s sort of the point of a siege, yeah.” I look over the sea of hollow faces. “I think these are Sixteenth District people.” My people. “If the whole waterfront burned, and nobody wants to live near the outer walls, that’s a lot of people without roofs.”
“It’s awful.” She pulls in closer to me. Meroe being Meroe, I know her mind is racing, trying to figure out some way to help.
I should be thinking about that, too. This is my city, and it’s tearing itself apart. But all I can do is scan the crowds for Tori’s face. Would I even recognize her? It’s only been a few months, but you just have to look at me to see how much a few months can change a person.
Eventually we reach the square outside the old Ward Guard barracks. A line of Red Sashes are on guard, and I look for Tori there, too, as they stand aside and let us through. The blue-sashed soldiers lead us past more guards at the front door, who stiffen. Zarun eyes the rebel soldiers, catches my gaze, and shrugs.
I hope we won’t need to fight our way out. But I have to admit it’s comforting having him along, just in case.
We’re hustled through a confusing warren of passages and stairs into a plain room with a round table. A blue-sashed man has stayed with us, and he asks us to sit and wait. His companions have broken off somewhere along the way, presumably to tell someone important we’re here. So far, so good. At least nobody’s taking us to the dungeon.
A few minutes later, the door opens, admitting a big, burly man, his long arms heavily tattooed. I recognize a few bits of Ward Guard imagery, but those days are apparently behind him, because he’s wearing a red sash and the other rebels salute as he comes in. He looks down at us, the bags under his narrowed eyes speaking of too many nights without sleep.
“Who in the Rot are you?” he says. “Thanks for the food, I suppose, but I’m not sure what you thought you were doing. If you haven’t noticed, this is a rotting siege.”
“We’re aware of that,” I tell him. “I’m here to find my sister. That’s all.”
“Oh, I see.” He shakes his head and slides into a chair across from us. “I’ve heard that story before. Saving her from the horrors of war, is that it?”
“Something like that,” I say. “If you can help me find her, then we’ll be on our way.”
“On your way?” He stares at me incredulously. “You have noticed that we’re surrounded by the Imperial Army?”
“Let me worry about that,” I say. “Please. This doesn’t have to be difficult.”
“Even if I was inclined to help, do you know how many people are in hiding, just here in the Eighth Ward? We don’t have the resources—
“Then just let us search,” I cut in. “That’s all we ask.”
“And very conveniently give a bunch of potential spies the run of the city.” He scratches his beard. “No, I think not. You’ll spend the night in the cells, and in the morning Tori can have a look at you. She’ll soon find out—”
“Tori.” I’m on my feet, and the Red Sash guards level their spears. I put one hand on Meroe’s shoulder, ready to shove her behind me, and I sensed Zarun tense. “Where is she?”
“Tori?” The Red Sash commander stares at me, incredulously. “Tori is your sister? That makes you—”
“Isoka!” The voice is muffled, outside the room. The blue-sashed guard slides the door open, then steps aside.
Standing in the doorway, gasping for breath, is my sister.