Authors: Lisa Tawn Bergren
“I can't believe we're doing this,” Vidar said as we neared the towering city gates.
“We didn't exactly leave through the front door last time.”
I swallowed hard. We were all thinking the same thing. We'd killed or injured a good
twenty guards on our way out and rappelled off the far wall to escape. And this was
the first place we'd ever encountered Sethos. I shivered at the memory. If Keallach
could only see him as we saw him that day, fingers like talons, screeching like an
unearthly animal closing in on its preyâusâmight he see his trainer for who he truly
was?
“I never intended to return,” Tressa said. “But the Maker has different ideas.”
“He usually does,” Niero said, edging past her. The afternoon was drawing to a close,
and people were thronging toward the gates.
I knew we could all feel the pull of whomever we were here for, just as we had from
the Citadel itself, but Tressa was excited beyond measure, hope and desire twirling
inside her like a small tornado. It would be she who led us to the man or woman the
Maker wanted us to heal . . . if she wasn't recognized and arrested first.
We parted into our small groups, those who had never been in the wretched city divided
among those of us who had. Kapriel was with Ronan and me. Chaza'el was with Niero
and Azarel. Vidar and Bellona were with Killian and Tressa. We all rode mudhorses,
intent on doing whatever the Maker would have us do here in this city, and then getting
back to the relative safety of the Valley, even if we had to ride all night to do
it. We allowed Tressa's group to take the lead, but kept them in sight. Behind us
was Niero's trio. Once inside the city, the forward team would board their horses
in the same stables we'd used last time and then allow us to keep them in sight as
we searched for the Maker's mission here.
“Easy, Dri,” Ronan murmured as we pulled to a stop, a hundred people ahead of us
waiting to get past the guards at the gate. “Remember, the last thing they expect
is for us to return.”
I knew he was right. But this whole blasted city smelled of the underworld. My mouth
was dry; my stomach roiled. I fought off the urge to touch my shoulder, where the
tattoo of the city was now embedded in my skin. I wondered if it would pass inspection.
I wondered if they would believe that I was Ronan's bound wife, or ifâ
“Hey,” he said, reaching out to take my hand in his. “Look at me.”
I turned to face him, his green eyes warm and reassuring. “We're together,” he said
with a shrug. “Sent here by the Maker. Who can come against us?”
Plenty
, I wanted to say, but I knew what he was after. “No one.” I swallowed. “At
least no one we cannot deal with.”
“That's right,” he said, a tiny smile lifting the corners of his full lips. I looked
down at our hands and wished we were back in the Valley with all that was familiar
about us. Or in the stronghold of the Citadel. I wished our battles were over. I
wished all of this was behind us, with not so much ahead, rising like a flash flood
coursing down a streambed.
Andriana.
I whipped my head around, distinctly hearing Niero's voice. But when I glimpsed him,
there were thirty people between us, even though he stared directly forward at me.
Do not be afraid. You are a Remnant. Born for just such a time as this.
I laughed under my breath. I'd always wondered if he could read my thoughts since
he often responded to me before I'd given voice to anything that was troubling me.
It made sense that he could do soâand respond to me in kind.
I will take heart, my friend,
I thought, hoping he could hear me.
For you are with
us, as is the Maker.
Casually, I turned in my saddle and waited until I glimpsed
him again. He was smiling.
And yet hadn't Niero himself been taken captive? In Keallach's desert monastery?
And did I not escape my captors?
I huffed a laugh. It was both captivating and aggravating, this inner dialogue.
“What is it?” Ronan asked me, shooting a quizzical look.
“Oh, nothing,” I said, shaking my head, as if I could dislodge Niero from my mind.
“It seems I must learn some lessons, over and over again.”
“Some lessons are more challenging than others,” he said, “and have to be carved
from stone rather than clay.”
“Agreed,” I said, after a moment. Ronan wasn't one to often spout such deep wisdom,
but what he said had been perfectly stated. And at that moment, I chose to act on
all I had learned and move forward from there, rather than to backtrack.
I want to
be clay, not stone.
I set my mind and heart to the task at hand, gazing upward to the massive red walls
of the ancient city, beyond the armed guards who patrolled there, trying to use the
inner eye that Vidar could so easily capture in order to see both angel and demon.
I thought I glimpsed a dark presence perched at regular intervals, almost like the
gargoyles on palaces of old, but I wasn't certain. When Vidar was within reach, I
could more readily make such things out.
“Dri, keep your head down,” Ronan said, and I immediately bowed my head, aware that
I'd appear brazen for a Zanzibian bride.
“Did anyone see me?” I whispered.
“Two guards above us are together, pointing at you and talking.”
A shiver of apprehension washed through me.
“They're likely just remarking on your beauty,” he said, trying to ease my fear.
“With Tressa so near?” I scoffed. “I doubt that.”
I could feel his soft gaze on me, but I didn't look at him, as I was unable to keep
my eyes from the other guards ahead. “For as much as you understand what everyone
feels
, Wife,” he murmured, “you understand surprisingly little of what everyone
thinks
.”
I eyed him then, returning his soft smile. He was good at protecting me, in more
ways than one.
He dismounted and then helped me downânot that I needed it. It simply was expected
here. He took the reins of both of our horses, and we eased forward, funneling inward
with the crowd until we finally stood between the two guards, following Kapriel.
They let the prince right through, but they slowed as they turned to us.
“Well, well,” said one, looking me over from head to toe. “This is a fine piece of
woman flesh,” he went on, slowly trailing behind me as Ronan handed our papers
to his companion. “Where do you hail from?”
I forced myself not to react or respond. It wasn't the way of the women in this city.
It's not the way, not the way, not the way.
The way for women here was utter subservience;
they were as much livestock as humans to the men here.
“My
wife
and I are proud citizens of Zanzibar now,” Ronan said, the muscles at his
jaw twitching as his eyes flicked to the other guard who remained behind me.
The guard leaned closer to me, taking my hair in his hands as if in a sweet caress,
his breath drifting over my shoulder. It was surprisingly clean. “Ah, no. I would
remember this one. And you. You're a brute, aren't you? But this one . . . your bride,
you say? Gods, man, how did you get so lucky?”
“I don't know,” Ronan said, his jaw muscle twitching, belying his tone. “Right place,
right time.”
The guard's left hand brushed my hair to one side, even as his right hand fingered
the neckline of my tunic. Then, ever so slowly, he pulled the scooped neckline down
over my shoulder.
My breath caught. I clenched my fists. His movements were not at all the casual check
of a disinterested guard perusing his thousandth Zanzibian mark of the day. It was
an invasion, designed to agitate Ronan and strike fear in me.
Remain still,
Niero said to me, silently.
It'll be over soon.
I bowed my head, using everything in me to remain in place, playing my part. To not
elbow the man in the belly, making him double over. To not then turn and knee him
in the face.
“May we pass?” Ronan growled, taking one step toward the guard and me. The other
guard stepped between us, unperturbed, looking at the papers in his hands. “We bear
the city mark,” Ronan said. “All we wish is to get to our quarters.
Unmolested
.”
“Easy, there,” said the guard behind me as he ran his thumb over my tattoo. “It's
fresh, but it's there,” he said to his companion. “It's the true mark.”
“He bears it too,” said the other, glancing at Ronan's tattoo and then back to the
papers. He suddenly turned to me and lifted my chin. “Look at me, woman.” He leaned
closer, still holding my chin, and said, “Where do you live in this city? Why do
we not recognize you?”
I let my eyes lift to his and willed my heart away from fear and fury, transforming
them into favor and protection. “We are new here. And we live along the Fifth,” I
said gently, as we'd rehearsed, while sending those key emotions of grace into him.
“In the old Kocho building. My husband purchased it for us as a wedding gift.”
His lips parted, and his eyes widened and then softened as my emotions shot through
him as clearly as a sweetly poisoned arrow might. I held his gaze. A moment later,
he abruptly clamped his lips shut and said, “It's true. That old Kocho place sold
weeks ago. Welcome home, fellow citizens,” he said, gesturing inward.
And then we were through. I was grateful to take Ronan's hip with one trembling hand
and walk in the odd Zanzibian way of couples, our stride in tandem down the street,
the horses trailing behind us.
Kapriel sidled beside me. “Sorry you had to go through that,” he muttered, gesturing
back toward the gates. “It was all I could do not to bring down a lightning bolt
upon them.”
I smiled. “Glad you didn't. That would have brought us some undue attention.”
“How did Azarel fare?”
“They didn't give her a second glance,” he said, “after seeing Niero.”
I considered that and wondered what methods an angel had to change a guard's mind,
or strike terror in him without saying a word.
The streets were busy, with many out to finish their errands before nightfall, and
I allowed myself to reach out, absorbing the odd, dark tension that seemed to plague
this city. When we finally turned the corner and reached the stables, I sighed in
relief. The first group was there, and the last was right behind us. Niero slipped
a gold coin in the stable boy's filthy fist, and we had a few moments alone.
“I forgot just how much I loathe this city,” Vidar said, looking uncommonly grim.
But I knew firsthand what birthed that response. There was a reason why a Sheolite
tracker had so very nearly caught us here on our previous trip; Zanzibar was a breeding
ground of evil. With men outnumbering women three to one, every female had become
a commodity. And yet with every family allowing only a male heir to inherit, females
were constantly killed, often as infants. Some were sold to pimps in the inner circle
of the city, where we'd seen so many prostitutes, their eyes sunken and glassy, as
if they'd long ago vacated their bodies. Others were sold to Pacifica to work in
her mines or factories. I wondered how many girls had ended up there. The custom
had begun after the Great War as a means of population control; within the walls,
space was finite. And the walls had once been the main protection Zanzibians had
against Drifters and rival feudal lords with growing armies and an eye on expansion.
But what remained was twisted and wrong for men and women alike. Again, I wondered
why the Maker would send us here. As powerful as we were together, how could we fight
against such depravity? How could we reach a people who had traveled such a dark
road for so long that their ears had to be deafened by lies, their eyes blinded by
deceit?
We sat down in a newly cleaned stall, atop fresh hay lining the walls. Azarel handed
out pieces of flatbread and dried fish. “Eat,” she said. “We'll need our strength.”
I nodded, but I shoved the food into my pocket as she moved on to Tressa. The whole
place made me feel vaguely nauseous.
I looked over at Tressa as she bit into her fish. “Did they recognize you at the
front gates?”
“They didn't recognize me,” she said softly. “Nor I them. Most of our lives were
spent below ground, and the people we knew were from the center of the city, with
the forgotten ones.” “But she still had to keep Killian from cutting one of the guard's
tongues from his mouth,” Bellona said, nudging Tressa's Knight.
“The man was . . . less than polite,” Killian ground out.
“Someday, we shall go back to those men and teach them what it means to respect our
wives,” Ronan said, sharing a warrior's promise with his brother.
“There will be other guards who will remember Tressa well,” Killian said to Niero.
“I know,” he said, chewing on a bite of bread. “If they get in our way, we must deal
with them as quickly as possible.”
Meaning, they would have to die, I surmised.
“I'll be first in line to help with that endeavor,” Killian said, visibly cheered.
I remembered the men who had held Tressa in chains on the palace wall. How they'd
taunted her, touched her, even as those at the city gates had begun to do with me.
“I understand your rage, brother,” I said to him. “Your desire for vengeance for
your bride, to make right all that was done wrong to her. But surely we were not
called to return to this city, at this point in our journey, simply for that. There
has to be a greater call within.” I looked to Tressa, knowing she'd felt the pull
to heal.
“Yes,” Tressa said, placing her hand through the crook of one of his arms, which
was wrapped around his knees. “There is someone here to be healedâperhaps many. That
is the beginning of what we're to do here, at least. I'm certain of it.”