The moons rolled over in their sleep. Sounds of merriment ebbed like the tides of the Zeera, flowing away into yesterday as the new Ja’Akari tucked their tents and belongings into the churra packs, making ready to ride out into the desert.
The wind carried away the last bits of song and smoke, and girls who hoped to become warriors poured sand into the cooking-pits, just as she and Hannei had done this time last year. As she watched them from Ismai’s old hiding place beneath the arena, Sulema’s heart was heavy. She had waited for this, bled for this, wished for this her entire life. And now—in the last hours of the last days of her captivity—her mother’s past threatened to snatch it all away.
It was not very warrior-like to cry about life being unfair, so she clenched her jaw and said nothing.
She wore a warrior’s vest and trousers, and a proper shamsi hung at her hip. The sunblade had been a gift from Istaza Ani, and was one of a great many gifts given to her after she ceded the championship to Hannei. Had she continued the fight against a weakened opponent, she would have claimed an honor as empty and useless as a waterskin full of holes. As it was, even Umm Nurati had come to pay respect.
After the fight Sulema’s mother had clasped her shoulder. Just a brief touch, no words, but she had given Sulema a look and a nod of approval, and those were worth more than all the water in the Dibris.
She hated herself for that, for being so easily bought. A look. A touch. Pathetic.
She jumped half out of her skin at the voice, spun so hard the shamsi banged against her thigh, and snapped a smart bow to the First Warrior. Sareta laughed, and held out one of a pair of drinking horns.
“I thought I might find you here. I used to hide in these tunnels, myself, back when I was young. Would you share a drink with an old warrior?”
“You are not old.” She took the horn gladly—to share usca with the First Warrior was an honor.
“Do not argue with me, brat.” She raised her cup high in salute. “The way is long!”
“Life is short!”
“Drink!” They knocked back the usca together, and a warm glow settled around Sulema’s heart, loosing the grip of her disquiet.
The First Warrior thumped her chest and grinned.
“That never gets old, unlike us warriors. So, child, have you decided what you will do now?”
Sulema cleared her throat and blinked back tears. The cheap usca available to younger warriors did not have the kick this stuff did. “Do?”
“Istaza Ani assures me that you are not stupid, so do not pretend with me. Will you remain among your cousins?” The warrior gestured with her empty cup. “Or will you travel outland to sit at the feet of the Dragon King?”
The usca had begun to burn. “He is not my king.”
“No, but he is your father.”
“So she says.”
“She is your mother.” The First Warrior’s voice had a bite to it. “She would know.” She sighed, and took a step closer. “It is hard, I know. I understand how you must feel.”
“You do?”
“Of course. You are trapped.” The older woman shook her head, and the morning sunlight kissed her silvered braids. “You wish to meet with this man, with your father, but you do not wish to be seen as an outlander among your own people. Above all else, you crave acceptance—and you fear being seen as disloyal.”
“I would never betray the people!”
“I know this, child. I have seen you struggle with this your whole life, with the thought that you are not one of us.”
Ehuani, she thought, but the word stuck in her throat.
“You are one of us, Sulema, you are Ja’Akari to your bones. It is true that you do not have a warrior’s hair,” and here she reached to tug at Sulema’s copper-red braids, “nor a warrior’s eyes. There is too much cream in your coffee. You are spotted like a churra.”
Sulema felt her freckled skin heat with shame.
“But you see nothing, Ja’Akari. You fight this battle with your own shadow. Everyone else can see that your sa burns with the light of a true warrior. I name you Ja’Akari, under the sun I see you, Sulema. Warrior of the Shahadrim. True daughter of the pride.” Her brown eyes burned fierce.
Sulema bowed her head. “Thank you, First Warrior.”
“Ha, brat, do not thank me yet. I have a task for you, and a gift, and I am not sure which is worse.”
Sulema looked up, wiped the tears from her face with the back of one hand, and waited.
“The task will not be to your liking. I would have you go to Atualon with this red-headed stud of a brother of yours, and meet your father.”
It was the last thing she had expected to hear. “I do not understand.”
“You heard me right. Meet your father—Ka Atu, the king of Atualon, the man who wields the power of atulfah. The man who sings to the Sleeping Dragon. It is time for you to open your blind eyes and see what lies before you, Sulema. The dreamshifter says you are this man’s daughter, and I believe her. They say you can learn to wield this power… that you could become his heir. Sa Atu, the Heart of Atualon.”
“I do not wish to become this, this Sa Atu.”
“Do you think I care what you wish?” The older woman’s smile belied her words. “Think, child. You would be Sa Atu… and what else?” She reached up and tugged at one of her own braids.
Sulema blinked. Oh. “I would be Sa Atu… but I will also be Ja’Akari.”
“Just so. Yes.” The First Warrior nodded, pleased. “You could learn how to use atulfah, the most powerful magic this world has ever known…”
“Learn this magic… and bring it home to the people.”
“A fine gift, would you not agree? A gift to the people, worthy of a great warrior.” Her voice fell to a near whisper. “As great a warrior as Zula Din. Greater, perhaps.”
“You think I could do this thing?” A new dream, an impossible dream, gripped her. Sulema could hardly bear to breathe, she wanted it so.
“I know you can. I have been watching you, remember? I know you, Sulema, better than the youthmistress knows you, better than your cousins or that boy Tammas. I know you better by far than your mother does.”
“Is this the gift, then? Or the task?” Her head spun. What was in that usca?
The First Warrior laughed. “This is your task, Ja’Akari, though I am pleased to find you willing. As for your gift, it is this: three days to yourself, and a word of advice. No warrior is complete until she is Zeeravashani. Go now, and find your kithren.”
“Find my… but the vash’ai chooses the warrior, never the other way around.”
The First Warrior winked. “That is the common belief, yes. But like many common beliefs, it is not… quite… the truth. The vash’ai are always close to the Madraj this time of year, seeking the best, the boldest of our warriors for their young. You are already in the best place, at the best time… now, you have only to prove yourself worthy.”
“Hannei is champion. Should she not be accepted first?”
“Human titles mean nothing to the vash’ai.”
“I do not understand what you expect me to do, First Warrior. We are leaving with the moons, and if the vash’ai are not impressed by fighting…” Her voice trailed off at the other woman’s slow smile. “What would you have me do?”
“Seek out the Bones of Eth.”
Sulema blinked. “The Bones of Eth?”
“Umm Nurati tells me that the Bones of Eth have become infested by a lionsnake. A very young, very small lionsnake. The wardens have been complaining that it poses a threat to the eastern herds, and that the Ja’Akari have not yet killed it. It would only take a small party, they say. Two warriors… three, at most. One, if she were bold and foolish enough. But of course, I will not send a single warrior to this task. Only an exceptional warrior could hope to kill a lionsnake by herself. Such a warrior would surely find favor with the vash’ai.”
“They say you killed a lionsnake by yourself, once. When you were young.”
“Do they? I do not listen to gossip. It is almost always wrong.” The First Warrior touched the plumed headdress upon her brow and grinned, and Sulema caught a glimpse of the young scoundrel she must have been. “It was two lionsnakes. This is one of the reasons I was named First Warrior.”
Sulema’s heart danced at the possibilities.
“The gift I give you is this, Ja’Akari, as a reward for an honorable fight. Three days to yourself as the people prepare to return to the villages. Your horse is in the easternmost pasture, and there you will find weapons and supplies enough for a short journey. Ride to the Dibris and go fishing, if that is your pleasure, ride south and do a little tarbok hunting if you prefer. Or you could ride to the nearest oasis and take your ease.
“These three days are your gift. I will not tell you what to do with them… and for once, I will not tell you not to do anything stupid.”
The First Warrior put her hands on Sulema’s shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks, as warriors had done for years beyond count. “Akari be with you, warrior.”
“And with you,” Sulema replied.
She could hardly believe her luck.
* * *
Sulema knew the Zeera as she knew her own body, the rise and swell of it, every mood and season and scar. She understood the desert as she could never quite understand people. When she was riding her mare across the golden sands she felt in place and at peace as she never did when she sat near the fire with her peers, telling stories and matching wits and eyeing the eligible young men. When she was younger, she had liked to pretend that the Zeera was her mother, that Akari Sun Dragon was her father, and that she was beloved of them both.
She and Hannei had ridden to the Bones of Eth and back many times in the past—as a dare when they were younger, out of boredom or the need to escape Istaza Ani and her endless lists of chores when they were older. The path was so familiar they could have found their way on a moonless night, were it not for the threat of greater predators.
Today, she was the predator. Today she left the games of childhood behind and became a woman, no matter what her mother might say.
The shrill cry of a raptor snatched at her attention. She looked upward, shading her eyes against the midsun, but it was only a bird after all, a large hawk of some kind with the sunlight filtering through his tail feathers. They were close, then.
Sulema whooped as Atemi surged up the dark side of a particularly steep dune, her mare’s hindquarters bunching and flexing as she surged upward. As they came again into the sunlight, she could see, off in the distance, the dark and dangerous wound in the world that marked the Bones of Eth. The small specks that floated so lazily above the stone columns would be buzzards, but that larger speck might well be a wyvern. She had best keep an eye on that one, then, because if she could see a wyvern it had surely been watching her for some time.
The Zeera shimmered in the late heat. As she drew nearer to the Bones she could make out the twisted and ugly shapes of the columns rising from the ground like the legs of a dead spider. There were a lot of buzzards—something big must have died recently— and, yes, the larger shape was a wyvern. A small one, half-grown but deadly enough. The wyvern trumpeted, a high and pretty note nowhere near the deep bass rumble of a fully grown greater predator, and plummeted out of sight.
Atemi tensed from neck to tail and protested with a little buck. But the presence of so many scavengers was a good sign. It meant the lionsnake had killed recently, and a lionsnake that had gorged would be easier to kill. Sulema gripped her bow tight, clenched her jaw, and drove them both on.
The wind shifted, and the air burned with the thick stink of a lionsnake. Atemi bucked to a halt, nostrils flaring, eyes rolling, sides heaving slick with sweat. Sulema slid free of her trembling mare and gathered up her weapons. Atemi roared a little through her nostrils but stood still as she had been trained. She would not bolt.
Maybe.
Then again, Sulema had been better trained than to hunt a lionsnake alone, and yet here she was, fitting a trembling arrow to a trembling bow, with an unblooded sword at her hip. Killing a lionsnake or two by herself had seemed like a good idea when her belly was full of usca.
The First Warrior has done this, she reminded herself. Twice. This is what I must do if I wish to become Zeeravashani. I am a warrior.
It is a good day to die.
Another, treacherous thought tickled the back of her mind.
I should have gone fishing instead.
Sulema stepped gingerly and winced, wishing she had worn boots instead of sandals. Her feet were tough as old leather, but za fik the sand was hot out here. She stepped into the shadows, hoping the ground would be cooler underfoot. It was not, though a shudder of cold air sliced through her, raising chillflesh along her arms and tightening the skin at the back of her neck. As she walked between the black-and-red striped rocks, the air thickened and cooled. It stank of old death, and new.
The wind picked up, twirling the sand-dae into a mocking little dance around her feet, daring her just one step closer to death. There was a strange quality to the air, the breath of a scent or the faint note of a song she could almost remember, or the ghost of an old warning. She moved deeper into the shadow of the Bones, lifting her head as a tarbok might as it scented danger. There was something here beyond even the threat of greater predators. Something wrong.
This was a very bad idea. For a moment, her mind cleared and she shivered. I should go. I should go now. She shifted her weight, intending to turn and leave, and forget whatever madness had driven her to such a place.
A vash’ai roared nearby.
Help me!
The voice in her mind, weak and full of fear, was the same voice she had heard at the ceremony. Sulema quit thinking and ran toward its source. The air snapped shut behind her as she passed through the Bones and she stumbled, blinking, into the thin sunlight. There, in the far and darkest corner of the clearing, huddled a young vash’ai, black and gold as a statue passed through fire. The straggling wisps of a mane and bright tusks marked him as less than half-grown. His throat and chest were splattered and stained with bright blood, as was the sand all around. One foreleg canted outward at an awkward angle, and he snarled in defiance at a pile of tumbled rocks, old bones, and debris.
He looked at her, into her, and his thoughts were the last sweet notes of a lost song.
Help me, Warrior. Kithren. You are mine. Mine. Help me…
Ah, she could feel his heart pushing the blood through her veins, a stout heart and true. Warrior-poet, true friend, a song of tooth and claw. He was her light in the dark, she was his, they were…
Ware, Kithren. Ware the lionsnake!
No sooner had the thought touched her mind than the pile of debris shifted and the broad, plumed head of a lionsnake reared high in the air, blocking out the sun. Its mouth gaped wide, showing row upon row of inward-pointing teeth, glistening as venom welled from their needle tips to hang in long, viscous strands. The beast scrabbled at the mouth of its lair, claws like black scythes scraping against bone and rock as the beast hauled itself into the clearing on two long, muscled limbs.
Sulema gaped in shock.
This was no small hatchling, but a red-wattled old bitch of a grandmother snake. The tattered and faded crest of plumes stiffened and shook, and venom-sacs along her jaw swelled. She drew breath in a long, rattling hiss, and shrieked.
The young warrior cried out, nearly dropping her bow as she clapped her hands over her ears and remembered, belatedly, that the lionsnake was related to the bintshi. Its cry might not be deadly, but it hurt. The vash’ai snarled, but it was a weak sound, a dying sound. He flattened himself against the rocks as the lionsnake kneaded the sand beneath her claws, head weaving to and fro and eyes narrowed as she hissed in pleasure, anticipating the kill.
Istaza Ani is right, she thought. It is a good day to die…
Silently she stepped from the shadows, nocked an arrow and drew in a single, smooth movement, and shot the old bitch in the face.
…but it is an even better day to live.
Her hand was steady, and her aim true. Sulema’s arrow shot straight through one vulnerable eye—tip, shaft, and fletching— and put out that fell and ancient light.
The lionsnake screamed, jaws gaping and snapping shut as her head whipped about, seeking the enemy who had dared to wound her. The ruined eye dripped ichor as she screamed again, clawing at it, snaking her head back and rubbing the wound along her armored hide.
Then her good eye found the small warrior standing alone upon the sand. She froze, and let a long, slow hisssss. Sulema saw the pupil snap shut like a cat’s, saw a protective membrane slide over the eye. There would be no second lucky shot.
But Ja’Akari are not trained to rely on luck.
Sulema stepped back into the shadows of the Bones of Eth. Between the ringing in her ears and the trapped-bird pounding of her heart she was near deaf, but she schooled herself to stillness as the lionsnake thrashed and wailed, half-blind and maddened with pain.
It might be enough. She felt the fluttering in her soul as she felt the young vash’ai—Azra’hael, she thought, his name is Azra’hael— take a step toward the Lonely Road without her. It will have to be enough. I cannot lose him.
She watched as the lionsnake’s shoulders bunched and flexed, claws gutting the sand as the wounded beast dragged herself forward, propelling her bulk with agonizing slowness. In her youth the beast would have moved swiftly over short distances, but a lionsnake this massive would need the meat to come to her. Likely this had not posed a problem until this day, as there were always creatures that needed shade and shelter more than they feared ambush.
The Bones of Eth were cold and hard against Sulema’s back. The vash’ai lay tumbled to one side, limp and broken but still breathing. She could hear Atemi whinnying in fear, and smell the hot sand, and the stink of venom and blood and carrion. She realized that within the hour—perhaps within minutes—either she or the lionsnake would be dead.
She drew a deep breath and nocked another arrow.
The broad plumed head wove back and forth, foul breath wheezing and hissing as the lionsnake sought her prey. Her head was tipped so that Sulema could see the dim light of her good eye flickering and moving behind the protective lid.
Ha, you old bitch, Sulema thought. I am Ja’Akari, and I am no easy meat.
She drew the arrow back to her cheek, slowly, slowly… and let fly, shot high and wide, so that the steel tip of her arrow skittered along the Bones, drawing a thin line of blue sparks. The lionsnake whipped her head toward the sound and shrieked, plumes bristling and rattling, venom pumping as she prepared to strike.
Sulema loosed a third arrow, and watched in satisfaction as this one sank deep into the unprotected folds of the lionsnake’s engorged venom sac. She reached for another, ready to make an end of this.
Easier than I thought.
The lionsnake bellowed and reared, clawing at the sky and thrashing wildly from side to side. Sulema was hit by a wave of malice so strong that she reeled, stumbling and falling to her knees. Stupid luck saved her hide. The creature’s claws swiped so close that she went tumbling ass-over-end across the dirt. Hot agony blossomed in her shoulder and Sulema screamed with the realization that the claws had not missed her, after all. She screamed again as the massive tail whipped sideways, catching her in the thigh and sending her rolling like a sheep’s head in a game of aklashi.
She staggered upright, spitting sand and blood, unable to stand fully upright or raise her left arm. As the lionsnake reared to its full height, bellowing in injured outrage and planning to crush the small intruder who dared bring the fight to her very lair, Sulema realized three things in quick succession.
She had lost her bow.
She still had her sword.
And this had been a very, very bad idea.
Sulema drew her sword and threw herself to the ground, face-down, sword point up, and hoped that Atemi would make it back to the pride unhurt.
The cool shadow of the lionsnake washed over her, and then the full weight of the beast crashed down upon her like the end of everything, a massive weight that blocked out sun and sound and hope, smashing, crushing, suffocating her. The lionsnake’s flesh was slick, corpse-cold, and soft.
Soft…
Sulema felt the bones of her lower arm snap as the thing fell upon her, sword sinking deep, deep into the soft flesh of its throat. She screamed as the beast came down, screamed again as it thrashed upon her in a lifetime’s worth of dying, and a third time as it rolled off her, crushing her shoulder as it went. It writhed and humped along the sand in its extremity, shrieking, moaning, spraying hot blood and venom that smoked and burned where it hit rock and sand and flesh.
As she crashed down upon the shattered rocks, the lionsnake released a musky stink so vile that Sulema gagged and heaved, rolling over onto her side so that she would not choke on her own vomit.
Her shoulder and arm were on fire, an exquisite chorus of agony. Every bit of exposed skin itched and stung as droplets of the lionsnake’s venom burned her skin.
She rolled to a sitting position, cradling her broken arm, and then struggled to her feet—prepared for the worst—but the lionsnake was dead. Nothing could stink like that and not be dead. The lionsnake was dead, and she had survived.
Eventually she would be glad of it. At the moment, however, she concentrated on standing upright and not passing out from the pain.
The creature gave a final, bubbling hiss. Sulema jerked away, and cried out in pain as the bones in her arm ground together, but the creature seemed to deflate as sa and ka left its massive, stinking body.
I need to clean my blade, she thought. But her arm would not respond. Might as well skin the lionsnake while I am at it. Sulema giggled, a bit drunkenly. She would skin it and collect the plumes— just as soon as she could coax Atemi to enter a lionsnake’s lair, carry her wounded vash’ai to safety, and perhaps bind her wounds as well.
Za fik, everything hurt.
“That was the stupidest thing I have ever seen.”
Sulema nodded—there was no arguing with that. Then she stiffened, new agony screaming up her arm, and turned slowly toward the far, dark corner of the Bones. A figure stepped from the shadows. She held her breath, wondering if the Guardian of Eid Kalmut had come to snatch her breath away, for surely such a thing could only have come from the Valley of Death.
He might have been a tall man, bent in upon himself to conceal his true size, or he might have been twisted like an old tree left too long in bitter winds. It was hard to tell, enshrouded as he was in layer upon layer of shadowy robes. A mask of beaten metal and leather strips revealed more of twisted ruin of his face than it concealed, and he leaned easily against a massive war hammer that reeked of old blood and new murder.
“Brave, though.” Another voice, softer and higher than the first. Sulema searched the edges of her vision for the source of it, not willing to let this man slip from her sight, certain that if she looked away—even for a moment—he would disappear into the shadows again.
“Brave of a certes, sweet one, but the brave light the paths of Eid Kalmut. The dead are no less dead for having been brave.”
“Ah, but she is not dead yet.”
Sulema shivered, and grunted a little as the bones ground together in her arm. The voices were all coming from the twisted figure in black.
Nightmare Man, she thought. So you were not just one of my mother’s stories.
The figure drew nearer, though Sulema had not seen him move. She blinked the blood away, blinked again as her vision blurred and she fell to her knees, jarring loose a small, helpless sound that surely did not come from her throat.
“No? Not yet, then. But the venom will have its way with her.”
“If the lionsnake had bitten her, she would be dead by now. I think it just kicked her ass.”
“I was not speaking of the lionsnake.”
“What about this one?” The figure jerked its free arm toward the still form of the fallen vash’ai.
“Kill it if you like.” The voice was low and sweet as dark honey.
I know that voice, she thought, and a cold dread coiled deep in her gut. I have heard it before… but when?
“You… I know you…” She struggled to clear her head. To stand. Was she standing? She struggled to raise her sword arm. Had she lost her sword? How could she be a sword-sister, if she had lost her sword?
The dark form bent over the vash’ai, and Sulema fought against the darkness like an insect caught in a web. Or like a dreamer caught in a nightmare.
“No,” she whispered. “No.”
An image tickled up through her memories, like bubbles from the mouth of a drowned girl. This same face looming over her as she huddled deep in a nest of soft blankets, too terrified to cry out.
I wet the bed, she thought, but nobody ever came. In her memories, he was a giant.
A blade slashed across her throat—his throat—her throat, and the image shattered.
The vash’ai yowled, a terrible and final cry, cut short, sliced in half. Sulema wailed as her soul bled out into the endless night.
Azra’hael, her heart whispered, broken. His name was Azra’hael.
Flashes of blue light crackled across the man’s mask like lightning as he stepped back from Azra’hael’s limp body and turned to face her. He smiled, or perhaps he screamed without making a sound, and then he threw something at her. Something small and pretty that glittered as it flew, and she snatched it from the air with her good hand without thinking twice.
“A gift from Eth,” he said, and then he threw back his head and laughed like thunder, like fire in the tall dry grass.
Sulema fell to her knees—or had she fallen already?—and gasped as the bones in her arm ground together, gasped as she saw what she held in the palm of her hand. A shadow-jewel, a dark crystal the size of a plover’s egg, set into a silvery brooch in the shape of a spider. It danced with shadows in the pale moonslight, waving its forelegs at her as if tasting the color of her blood.
She struggled, a fly caught in its web.
“No,” she whispered. That was not right. It was latesun, no later, and she had to get Atemi. Had to skin the lionsnake, to take the plumes back to Hannei. She had to save Azra’hael, so that they could become Zeeravashani. “I cannot accept this gift, it is too much.”
She struggled…
“No?” He stood over her, smiling, and the sky was dark with regret. “No, then. But your father will be so disappointed.”
…caught in its web.
“I know you,” she whispered. “Nightmare Man.”
The spider crouched and leapt, trailing a silken strand of glistening moonslight. It landed on her injured shoulder and she screamed as its fangs sank into her too-soft flesh.
It burned. Venom flooded through her veins like a river of fire, and it burned. The sand rushed up to greet her, soft as her mother’s embrace.
Struggled…
Memories crowded forth in a shrill chorus, trapping her in a dark place filled with fire and death. There was no escape. There was no escape. And Mama would not wake in time to save her.
…in its web.
The wagon broke open, and she saw the face of Akari Sun Dragon, white-hot with rage.
She fell.
She burned.