Page 81 of Queen Demon
Dahin dismissed that. “Ziede won’t let her.” Then his tone turned serious. “We have to make this work, any way we can.”
“He is right, Fourth Prince,” Salatel said. “Not just for the sake of the Enalin. We can’t back away now. After the Summer Halls, the Kagala, Benais-arik, the unrest across the west, the legions must be a little afraid of us. We have to press our opportunity.”
Kai looked down at the map and all it represented. Salatel and Dahin were right: he couldn’t afford to turn down help, to fail, because he wanted to protect Dahin. Kai said, “I want them to be more than a little afraid.”
Nine
In flashes of awareness Kai heard Dahin’s voice, which was reassuring. Then he was riding with someone, leaning back against them, someone larger than Dahin. The arm around his waist that kept him from falling off the horse was warm and solid. Familiar, but not Ziede or Tahren. And the light was odd, dark but gray, not with moonlight. Like a twilight suspended in the moment between light and darkness. Half drifting, Kai slurred, “Bashasa.”
“No, no. It’s me, Ramad.” The words were soft, a little hasty and embarrassed. Or some other emotion, but Kai drifted again before he could parse it.
He dreamed Ziede was holding his chin, looking into his eyes, and saying with a hiss, “If you die, I’m going to kill Dahinwith my teeth.”
Poor Dahin,Kai thought,better not die. Drifting helplessly around the mortal world had always sounded terrible.
When Kai woke for real, his head hurt like something had cracked his skull open and run a hide-scraper through his brain. His body felt intact, but still healing; he could feel a grinding in various places, particularly his right kneecap and elbow, that meant the bones were still easing into place. He remembered falling, his back slamming into hard ground. The headache was probably from a cracked skull knitting itself back together.
He breathed air that was crisp and cold and smelled of ox dung; he remembered they were in Sun-Ar. He opened gummy eyes to see daylight illuminating a dull brown stretch of waxed canvas above his head. He hoped sincerely that he had been capturedby some enemy, he didn’t particularly care who, because he really wanted to kill a lot of people right now.
He sat up, bracing himself upright on a low camp bed piled with heavy blankets. He was in a large square tent, one wall rolled up and open to a view of the Belithan scholars’ camp. Ziede sat on the next bed, wearing a padded wool coat and a scarf, looking through a small wooden box. The day was sunny and clear, and outside the scholars were going back and forth carrying various boxes and bags. Packing to leave. His voice a rasp, Kai said, “That was the Hierarchs’ Well.”
“Yes, yes, it was. Dahin admitted that much.” Ziede lifted what looked like a dull bronze coin and examined it thoughtfully. “All the scholars got out. You were the only one badly hurt.”
Kai buried his face in his hands. Relief helped calm his temper. At least this battering hadn’t been for nothing. He took a deep breath and looked up. “Did Dahin know what was there when he let me walk in?”
“No.” Ziede’s certainty made something in his heart unclench. “Whatever reason he had for this, he isn’t that far gone.” She set the box aside and stood. “You should have some of this tea.”
She picked up a copper pot warming on a braizer, poured a cup, and passed it to him. It was red and sweet and milky, tasting like the tea with horse milk that the Saredi had made, all those years ago. It was comforting. Kai wasn’t sure he wanted to be comforted right now.
“We haven’t been able to get anything out of him.” Ziede took her seat again and propped her chin on her hand, pensive. “He wanted to wait for you, to tell us together.”
Kai drew breath and Ziede said, “Finish that first.”
Kai obediently continued to drink. It eased the ache in his skull a little, soothed his stomach. More fragments slipped into place, in his bones and his memory. He finished the tea and set the cup aside, and said, “Sura brought you and Tahren?”
“Yes, and we rode out just in time to meet you and all the otherscoming back.” Ziede stood up to refill the cup and get one for herself. She looked tired, probably because she had been up for the past two days. Or three, Kai had lost count. Then she added, “Tenes and Sanja came with us.”
“Sanja?” Kai stared at her. He had asked Tenes to stay behind with her. “She should have stayed with the Tescai-lin. They—”
“You’ve let her make her own choices this whole time and now you can deal with the consequences,” Ziede told him, unsympathetic. “She said if there were Hierarchs up here she wanted to help kill them. She didn’t want to wait down there for them to show up and kill everyone again.”
Kai sighed, and accepted the cup Ziede pressed on him. Sanja wanted to stay with the only people she knew. Kai could understand that all too well. “Anyone else?”
“Ramad’s two interfering Immortal Blessed. They complained the entire way.” She paused, listening to her pearl. “Tahren says they can’t help it, they have nothing else to talk about.”
“What happened after I was crushed?” Kai frowned, trying to recall the last clear moment before everything had gone black.
“Arnsterath killed the construct that was attacking you and carried you away from the Voice’s area of effect. Then the entrance collapsed and that seemed to stop it, or it stopped just before that. No one could tell.”
Kai stared at her. “Arnsterath? No. You’re serious?” He had trouble imagining she hadn’t been eager to see him die.
Ziede’s grim expression made it clear this was no joke. “Ramad said she was the only one who could. The Voice cut a swath through the trees and brush in front of the entrance. The few mortals who were still on the edge of its path were flung away into the brush and that’s what saved their lives. Possibly being funneled through the entrance interfered with the Voice’s power.” They had seen that happen before. The scholars had been very lucky they had been thrown clear and had something to land on that broke their fall. “Both Ramad and Dahin tried to get to you.Ramad said it was like running into a wall. A freezing cold wall studded with glass shards. He couldn’t get through, Dahin only made it a few steps further. Then Arnsterath tried. She made it in, forcing herself slowly, step by step.”
“That’s vaguely familiar.” Kai winced and rubbed his eyes. Another piece of his skull slotted back into place with a sting that reverberated down his spine.
Ziede grimaced in agreement. “Not unlike what you did in the Summer Halls, but there was no Hierarch to kill.”
Kai remembered that moment vividly. If there had been one more expositor in there to help Talamines, the Hierarchs would be ruling the world today.
