Chapter Thirteen

Tara stood under the lee deck, taking cover from the weather raging above. Their ride down the Misting River had been a storm of emotion, and the lightning striking outside befitted her mood. Her mother had won and she submitted. The Pescari world waited.

The city of New Weston was the youngest in the empire by years, if not historically. Flaya had told the story, that her father had destroyed the walls and homes of those who lived here before, but she never described how. Tara imagined there would still be rubble or traces of the old city, something to blend the two cultures. Sailing past the center of Lake Weston, she realized the old city had entirely disappeared.

“Where are the ruins of the old city?” she finally asked.

“It’s beneath us,” Flaya explained, “right now.”

“Under the lake?” Tara tried to look over the side, but the rain churned the dark waters into a froth. “It’s so... the water is so black.”

“The old city lies beneath the rock, torched black by the wrath of Felicima.”

Did he really wield her power? Tara had long doubted that part of her mother’s stories. But how else could he have so completely destroyed the high walls that nature buried it completely?

She gave up trying to imagine, turning her attention to the western shore of the natural harbor. As the lightning flashed above, an eerie reflection mirrored it on the ground.

She leaned forward, peering through the rain, and waited. The next strike lit up tall buildings, each as smooth as glass and solid black. Her eyes followed a reflected image of the lightning, pathing along the sides and tops of buildings just the same as it marked the clouds above.

Tara marveled. “What is it?” she asked her mother. “What material do they use?”

Flaya stood next to her daughter, staring with the same confusion. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “All this was done after I left Eston with Eusari, but letters from your great uncle spoke of rebuilding using Felicima’s power.”

Tara stared as two more strikes lit up the city and its splendid rows of smooth black buildings. Each stood taller than five farmhouses. The sight forced her to reconsider Felicima, for surely such marvels come only from a goddess. Filled with excitement, she could not wait until daylight, after the storm had breathed its final word.

“How does the power work?” she asked.

“Felicima fills her agents with power, and they channel her wrath.”

“So our goddess only destroys?”

“Look around, she also creates.”

“Who wields her power now?” Tara asked.

“Your great uncle is an agent, but I know she has blessed more than he.”

“How are her agents chosen?”

“I... I don’t know the nature of it. But I know she favors some above others.”

“That isn’t fair.”

“No,” Flaya agreed, “but fairness does not mean equality, and gods do not care about wealth or privilege, only faithfulness.”

“Especially ours,” Tara agreed, “except when we brazenly show strength.”

“Especially then.”

“I won’t take a Pescari husband,” Tara suddenly blurted out.

“Why do you say this so boldly and with such confidence, child?”

“Isn’t that the reason you dragged me downriver? You know I love Robert, yet you seek to force me to marry within our people.”

“Eusari and her boys are our people. They are not Pescari and do not share our customs, but they are bound to us like family. Eusari is like a sister to me, and I would not care if you married one of her boys as long as you continue to honor Felicima.”

“Then why am I here?”

“There are things you must learn about yourself, and you will only gain this knowledge by living among Pescari. After you are ready you may return to him a woman.”

Tara frowned. She had not expected options. “One year?”

“One year,” her mother promised.

A brilliant flash turned both women’s eyes, and both sets grew wide with worry. It struck a stable, or something equally combustible, and an angry inferno met the storm clouds in an instant.

Tara gasped, but Flaya let out a simple, “Hmmm.”

“The city will burn!” the girl exclaimed.

“No. Not with Teot around.”

They stood there, fixated on the pulsing heat as it throbbed a warning of Felicima’s wrath. Then it died, swept into a cyclone that seemed to shrink in an instant. Tara gasped, straining her eyes to watch a solitary figure atop the tallest structure. He seemed to absorb the heat.

“Is that him?”

Flaya grunted, but when her daughter turned she saw her mother wore a smile. A simple thing, but so long missing from the woman’s face. “That’s him, but you won’t meet him tonight. We’ll let the storm pass and he’ll want rest, of course.

Dawn did not disappoint. As Felicima rose above her people, her image reflected coolly on the black buildings below. They were smooth as glass, but not nearly as delicate. Tara felt her balance waver. With a flutter of her heart and a skipped beat, she feared toppling over the side. The river had felt so... wrong, and she endured its hospitality too long. She hurried, nearly running, across the last steps across the brow, finally breathing once on dry land.

The men who met them were hard, dressed in leather, but not the buckskins she expected. These skins they wore were pressed, layered and thick as armor. She halted abruptly and stared up at them.

“We’re here on the shappan’s invitation,” Flaya told them.

They exchanged a look, then one of them broke a smile.

Tara watched as her mother stepped forward.

“I am Flaya, widow of Shappan Taros and niece to Teot. Take us to him.”

“Widow?” one of the warriors asked. “Get to the fireside, and stand not in our way.”

Without warning, Flaya answered his insolence with a slap across his face. The fact she did so under the eye of Felicima was not lost on Tara.

“I am the conqueror of Eston, stand not in my way but comply. Let the shappan decide my fate.”

Tara blinked, not recognizing the woman speaking for their admittance to the city. Her mother wore a fury she had never seen, with confidence so hot she burned like Felicima. She checked the sky. The goddess shone down with displeasure.

The men laughed again. Without warning Flaya drew a bone handled dagger, placing it to the nearest throat.

“Do not press, nor force me to challenge you in Shapalote. I am a queen, and order you to take us to the shappan. He, not you, decides our fate.”

The nearest guard locked eyes with the other, a tinge of red marring his neck. He would have nodded but held his head perfectly still out of fear.

“Comply,” he urged. “Let the shappan decide.”

The other grunted, then led the women from the docks.

“That was bold,” Tara whispered to her mother.

“Felicima understands,” Flaya replied with a wink.

They followed in silence after that to a city square. It was abandoned, except for a solitary man standing in the center. His shoulders slumped with exhaustion, facing a row of buildings. These were unlike the others Tara had seen, with stacked rows of rock and sand mortar outlining skeletons of steel.

Steel. She only recognized the substance because of Sippen Yurik. He and Robert had once demonstrated its strength over iron, made stronger by heat—tempered they had explained. What is it doing here, in a Pescari city? The beams were perfectly forged, yet the covering simple.

The man entered a dance of flame as fire poured from his body. Even his eyes glowed like golden embers. Tara gasped as she watched the swirling heat form into focused fountains, melting both rock and sand. In moments the simple building components had fused against the steel, and the blackened row of buildings glowed red hot in the night.

“Felicima’s wrath?” a stunned girl asked her mother.

“Her gift,” Flaya corrected.

Exhausted, the man turned to face the woman and girl. Teot was older and more wizened than Tara imagined, certainly more an elder than a shappan. Had she not just witnessed his use of the goddess’ power, she would have guessed a younger man might have challenged long before. It was the Pescari way to follow strength.

When Teot spoke, his words rumbled deeply. “You’ve returned, Flaya? Why have you come? Does the lady no longer require your counsel?”

“I bring you the daughter of Taros, a girl who does not yet understand her name, but lives as if she does.”

The man frowned. “Have you not trained her in our ways? She has been gone from our people her entire life. Why shouldn’t I condemn you both to Felicima’s fireside?”

Tara stepped forward, full of indignance. “I am well trained, and you would not suffer either of us to the fireside. We bear no shame—not our own nor my fathers.”

Teot let out a laugh, an odd reaction from a Pescari. “No. Your father did not earn you a shunning, quite the opposite. Come, daughter of Taros. Let me properly greet you.”

Tara stepped forward, locking arms in his as her mother taught. They felt surprisingly cooler than expected, with no hint of the warmth they had recently held.

“You are welcome in our city, and to walk freely here, under the eye of Felicima.”

“What were you doing, just now?” Tara asked, locking eyes on the smoldering buildings behind Teot.

He let go of her hands and turned. As he did, heat left the molten rock and swirled into a pattern around his body. Tara felt it pass between them and shivered against its searing touch as the air rapidly warmed. The buildings were now identical to the rest of the city, their outer skin encrusted by the same smooth rock. This close to it, she realized it resembled glass.

“Obsidian,” Teot explained. “It hides our city from Felicima as she passes over, reflecting her eye and hiding our strength.”

“And the steel?” she demanded. “It allows you to build higher, but where does it come from. Do you forge it as well?”

The old shappan raised an eyebrow at her question but did not answer. “Come,” he commanded, “make yourself comfortable in New Weston. You will stay with me, in my palace.”

“Palace?” Flaya asked with confusion. “Such extravagance is not the Pescari way!”

Teot smiled warmly. “Flaya, granddaughter of Daska and widow of Taros, you’ve been gone so long you also know little of our ways. We are no longer nomads forced to roam the Steppes of Cinder. We are again blessed by Felicima, gifted many more riches than we ever dreamed.”

Tara watched shock form on her mother’s face, then took her hand to follow the shappan. Her own resentment had faded, and now felt excitement building inside. Thoughts about Robert would have to wait while she learned all she could about her people and their ways.