Blood's Pride (Shattered Kingdoms) (22 page)

‘Daryan.’

He looked up from the doll. Shairav was standing in front of him.

‘It was her.’ His body felt as heavy as stone. ‘That girl in the desert – the girl with the burned arm – you called her Lahlil. That was the Mongrel.’

His uncle nodded. The small sack he carried in his right hand jingled and Daryan realised that the old man was shaking. He thought of the lone sudra stuck in the doorway. ‘She’s coming to kill us.’

‘Why?’ he asked faintly. ‘What did we do to her?’

Shairav circled past him and moved towards the secret door. ‘Later. First, we must get to the stables—’

‘No.’ He squeezed the doll a little harder, but he didn’t move from the spot where he was standing. ‘Tell me now.’

The old man turned back. ‘She knows about this place. She’ll come here.’

‘All right, then talk fast.’

Shairav stared at him for a moment with his lips pursed. ‘Very well. What do you want to know?’

‘Who is she, really? She was just a girl when I saw her with you in the Shadar.’

‘Lahlil is the governor’s daughter. His eldest daughter.’

‘His daughter?’ Daryan repeated, finding himself not as surprised as he might have been. Eofar’s older sister. He remembered the cowed way Eofar had shuffled behind her in the stables. ‘Go on. What else?’

‘The burns on her arm, that happened when she was just a few months old. It was an accident – a shutter with a bad latch.’ Shairav glared at Daryan. ‘Do you know what the Dead Ones do with their injured and deformed?’

‘They abandon them in the wilderness,’ he answered stonily. ‘They think they’re cursed.’

‘Well, the governor’s wife, Eleana, she was different. She pretended to everyone – even Eonar – that the baby had died from the burns. Then she found Meena in the Shadar and brought her here to nurse the baby. She thought Meena’s milk might keep her alive.’

‘Aunt Meena?’ Daryan asked, confused. ‘But wasn’t she here already? I mean, wasn’t she your wife?’

‘Temple servants aren’t allowed to marry,’ his uncle reminded him impatiently. ‘Meena was nobody important, just a penniless woman whose own baby was dead.’

‘Oh.’ He blinked at this new fact, but then he forced himself to return to the story. ‘And then what happened?’

Shairav smiled grimly. ‘Lahlil got better. She grew strong on Meena’s milk. Her arm healed, but it was obvious that the scars would never go away. And soon her hair began to grow in dark, and then her eye … Well, you’ve seen her. You know
how she looks. It must also have made her able to withstand the sunlight, but of course none of us knew that then.’

‘But that’s impossible,’ Daryan interjected. ‘Just from having a Shadari nurse? Shadari milk couldn’t have done all that—’

‘That’s what happened,’ the old man snapped. ‘Who are you to say what’s possible or impossible?’

Daryan drew his elbows in tighter against his sides, holding in his impatience. ‘No, you’re right. I’m sorry. Go on.’

The creases around Shairav’s mouth deepened. ‘Meena became frightened that the governor would find out what she and Eleana had done and punish her, so she came to me for help.’

‘You helped them hide her – that’s right, isn’t it?’ he interrupted. ‘You hid Lahlil here – this was her room. For how long?’ He was afraid that he already knew the answer. He remembered Lahlil in the desert, pointing up to the temple with the scarred arm that had made her an outcast. She had looked older than him then, but Norlanders were taller …

‘Nine years.’

Daryan shut his eyes. He could feel the walls of the chamber pushing towards him, boxing him in. ‘Nine years,’ he whispered to himself.

‘Meena was there for her, always, and Eleana gave us money – she wanted for nothing. And Eleana came often; she even brought the other children with her—’

‘The other children – do you mean they all knew about her? Frea? Even Isa?’

‘Of course.’

‘But then why didn’t I ever see her, except for that day? She
couldn’t have been here when I came, I would have—’ A chill of fear pulsed through Daryan and he stopped abruptly. Another idea had just occurred to him, this one too terrible to be true.

‘The governor found out about Lahlil,’ Shairav went on matter-of-factly. ‘I still don’t know how it happened. He sent for me, told me he knew what we’d done, but instead of punishing me, he asked for my help.’

‘Your help.’ His mouth had gone dry.

‘He told me to name my reward – I expect he thought I’d ask for gold, or my freedom, but there was something more important to me than that.’ He fixed his eyes on Daryan.

‘Me?’ he asked numbly. He shut his eyes again. ‘Please tell me you didn’t—’

‘I told him I had a nephew that meant everything to me. I told him my only wish was to save this boy from the mines,’ Shairav informed him pitilessly. ‘You see, then: I traded her for you.’

His stomach cramped and he thought he was going to be sick. ‘No – you couldn’t have—’

‘I did.’ The old man’s eyes were as hard as stones, but his mouth twisted for a moment. ‘I did what I had to do. I took her into the desert that night and I left her there, and then I brought you to the temple.’

Daryan opened his eyes and stared down at the doll in his hand. It was damp with his sweat. ‘Was I worth it?’ he whispered to the doll. ‘That’s what she wanted to know: was I worth it? How could I be? How could
anyone
?’

‘Perhaps you’ll take your responsibilities more seriously now that you know the sacrifices that have been made for you.’

‘Aunt Meena – she hated me. It wasn’t my imagination,’ he muttered. ‘Of course she hated me. She lost her child because of me.’

‘Come, we must—’

‘The next day – the day after I came here – no one knew why Eleana took the girls out on the dereshadi that day, but you had just taken Lahlil. She was looking for the daughter you stole from her – that’s what she was doing when she fell, looking for Lahlil!’

‘Of course!’ his uncle bellowed. He gestured towards the door. ‘Now do you finally understand? None of us realised Lahlil would survive in the sunlight, but she did, and now nothing will stop her from having her revenge. Our only hope is to escape!’

But Daryan didn’t move. Somehow the insanity of everything he had just learned had synthesised into a moment of searing clarity. As if she was standing right beside him, the Mongrel’s whispered words repeated themselves in his mind, only this time they made perfect sense. And he knew what she wanted him to do.

He turned around and followed the trail of footprints – Shairav’s footprints – away from the door towards the dark end of the room.

‘Daryan!’ Shairav called wildly behind him, but Daryan ignored him. He picked the lamp up from the table and kept going, around the pile of furniture. There was a heavy tapestry hanging on the wall, and when he held the light close he found exactly what he’d expected to find: a smeary handprint, just where someone would grip the material to push it aside.
He matched his own hand to the handprint and lifted the tapestry.

‘Stop!’ Shairav shouted.

He blew out the lamp as he crossed the threshold and set it down on the floor. He didn’t need it any more.

The tiny round chamber was bright with morning sunshine. The room was barely five paces across in either direction, and open to the seamless blue sky. It was entirely empty. The only reason for the room to exist was the hole that took up most of the floor. He peered over the edge. The sides of the shaft disappeared into blackness and he couldn’t tell how deep the hole went. But the walls weren’t entirely sheer, like those of a well; triangular shapes were recessed into the sides. They looked as if they’d been designed to slide in and out.

It was a staircase, or would be, with the steps in the right position.

Of course he had also noticed the sand strewn over the floor around the hole. With a pained smile, he read the prayers that had been scratched there just as easily as he read the splatter where a fist had pounded the floor in frustration.

‘He never had the power,’ he said softly, repeating Lahlil’s words aloud. The sun felt warm on his face. ‘He never did. That’s why they let him live.’

He heard Shairav’s heavy breathing behind him in the doorway. ‘Come away!’ the old man insisted, wheezing in distress.

‘This is the way out – the ashas’ way out,’ he confirmed, pointing to the secret staircase. After all these years, all of the
people imprisoned in the temple with no hope of escape, it had been right here all the time.

‘We can’t go this way – I would need to use my powers to make the steps slide out and my vow—’

Daryan looked into the old man’s eyes. ‘You were trying to open it. Just now.’

‘I was doing no such thing!’ he shot back as he pressed a hand over his heart. His skin had an unpleasant, waxy sheen.

‘It’s true,’ Daryan told him quietly, ‘you can’t make it work. You never could.’

‘I’m an asha.’ His voice sounded thin and unsteady. ‘An ordained asha. The last one.’

Daryan waited, watching curiously as Shairav’s face flushed, turned pale and then flushed again.

‘Smug, self-important—’ he finally blurted out, ‘all of them. They hated me – your precious Harotha’s parents, they were the worst. It was all your father’s fault; he insisted they take me after I failed the initiation. He said it would be too embarrassing for the king’s brother to fail, but I know he really just wanted me out of the city – out of the way.’

‘You were here when the ashas died – so why did they jump?’

‘Hah! Do you think they told me? Me who they treated like a servant, or worse? When the Dead Ones came, they locked themselves away and took the elixir. They didn’t tell even me what they were doing. Then they jumped – not a word why! And they never even thought to open the staircase so that I could escape to the city. They just left me here … I had to hide when the Dead Ones came and it was weeks before they
started bringing servants up from the city and I was able to mix in with the others.’

Daryan wet his lips. ‘Shairav’Asha,’ he whispered to himself, and chuckled darkly – but the laughter was too close to a sob and he clamped his mouth shut over it.

‘She’s coming for us,’ his uncle promised. ‘She’s going to kill us.’

Daryan shook his head. ‘Not me, I think. When someone stabs you, you don’t blame the knife.’

The old man stepped backwards until the doorframe checked his progress. ‘You’re going to let her kill me.’ The bag dropped out of his hand and fell to the floor with a musical crash. A few coins slid out; one rolled to the hole and went pinging down into the darkness.

‘You used us – all of us,’ he told his uncle, ‘Meena, Eleana. You used Lahlil to make your own little privileged world here, and after you couldn’t use her any more, you traded her for me – so that you could use me and all of us Shadari to keep yourself nice and comfortable right here. You didn’t bring me here to
protect
me – you brought me here to make sure that nothing changed for you. You never wanted me to be a leader, like the one Harotha always thought I could be. You wanted me to feel worthless, so that you could control me – so that I’d never see what a fraud you are.’

The hard lines around Shairav’s mouth went slack and he suddenly looked years older. ‘That’s not true.’

‘Yes, it is,’ Daryan said, unmoved, and walked past his uncle and across Lahlil’s bedchamber.

A shaft of dusty sunlight pierced the blackness as the old
man followed behind him. ‘You’re leaving me – you’re going to let her kill me,’ he moaned. ‘You can’t leave me! After all I’ve done for you—’

Daryan kept walking, but just before he slid through the secret door, he turned to his uncle and said coldly, ‘Let me go, or I might just kill you myself.’ He stumbled through the doorway and out into the hall, taking deep breaths like a diver coming up for air, but the dank atmosphere of the temple gave him no relief. After a few pointless turns, he threw himself into a corner with his face against the wall and broke down.

He couldn’t have said how much time had passed when he heard the voice behind him. He’d finished his angry sobbing, but he’d remained in the corner with his forehead pressed against the cool stone and his eyes closed, too drained to move.

‘Daryan.’

He blinked his sore eyes open reluctantly. ‘I wondered what happened to you,’ he said gruffly, but he didn’t turn around to face her. He was embarrassed at having been caught weeping in the corner like a child. ‘You’d better stay out of sight for now – that business with the knife was bad. I’ll try to straighten things out for you later, if I can. It won’t be easy.’

‘You don’t need to worry about me,’ said Rahsa. He felt the tips of her fingers touch his shoulder, then dart away again like a timid little mouse. ‘Won’t you tell me what’s wrong?’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘I want to help you.’

‘All right then, can you tell me what I’m supposed to do now?’ he asked, with a grim laugh. He looked briefly over his shoulder at her and caught a glimpse of dark eyes staring
intently at him and what looked like a nasty gash on her forehead.

‘That’s not hard. You’re our daimon,’ Rahsa said calmly. It was hard to believe she was the same girl who had behaved so wildly in the bathing room. ‘You’re our king – our leader. You’re supposed to
lead
us.’

‘Lead?’ he asked derisively. ‘The only thing I know how to do is follow. I do what Eofar tells me to do, or Shairav, or Harotha. I’m a slave, Rahsa, just like the rest of you; that’s all I’ve ever been.’

‘That’s not true. You’re much more than that.’

‘Well then, that just makes it worse, doesn’t it?’ he countered harshly. ‘Because if I’m capable of more, that must mean that I
chose
this. I
chose
not to see what Shairav really was, or what he was doing. I guess it was easier to blame him for this mess than try to do something about it on my own and fail. I’m worthless; I’ve always known that. Even my own mother knew it or she wouldn’t have let Shairav take me away in the first place.’

‘Stop, please! I won’t let you talk like that,’ Rahsa started. ‘You’re the daimon! You may have lost your way, but—’

‘Leave me alone, Rahsa!’ he shouted, slapping his palm angrily against the wall. The girl’s quivering body and wide-eyed stare fuelled his sudden rage. ‘You don’t
know
me – you don’t know anything about me. There’s only one thing in the world I care about, and tonight I let her go forever because I don’t have a single thing to offer her. I’m in love with a Dead One, Rahsa: how do you like that? Is that the daimon you want to lead you? I don’t care about the Shadari, and I don’t care about
you! For the gods’ sake, find someone else to worship – I can’t help you, don’t you understand?’