Chapter Fourteen

[cityofthehand]

<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>

---

Chapter Fourteen


Lord Shadow. He was all she feared and expected, unmistakeable in his regal, imperious bearing and stern, sharp featured face. For an Asna’isi - for anyone - he was a striking figure. His flawless, dark brown skin and thick, curly black hair gave him a look of robustness and health. He did not look old, though she knew him to be ancient. Rather he appeared to be a person in his prime, wearing fine clothes, in black silk, blue satin, and white. When he turned, his pure, transcendant black sheened midnight blue when glossy feathers met the light. He looked at her directly and she could neither breathe nor move.

Then: “Are you all right?”

Maira turned to the voice and Naran rose from the couch where he sat. In the blink of an eye, all her awe and terror twisted into blazing fury. She slipped free of Graymere’s loose hold and rushed at him, rearing back her arm to strike him. “Fucker!” she snarled.

Naran put up his arms to block her attack at the moment Graymere hauled her back, arm around her waist. Her blow landed short, as did the next and the next. She swiped at the air violently, kicked and let Graymere’s strength be her leverage. Naran backed toward Lord Shadow and she let out a frustrated, growling screaming.

“Please, Maira!” he begged. “I had to. You know I would never hurt you. I showed you my soul!”

“Fuck you and your soul! You made me think you were my friend and you sold me! I trusted you, asshole!”

Graymere pulled her back again until she was up against the flying harness he still wore. The tight hold calmed her though she didn’t understand why. She calmed and gathered herself. “How much did you get for me? Was I worth a lot? I hope you choke on your gold, you bastard!”

“You were neither bought nor sold. Mr. al-Shahd received nothing for his help,” Lord Shadow said, speaking in High Domainish. Maira turned her gaze to him as he rose from his seat, black wings spreading out behind him. “You call yourself Maira Aialah?”

The odd way of asking her name made her wonder if he meant something else.

She pressed back against Graymere and wished he’d hold on tighter. Not that he would save her. She doubted he could, even. Shadow had a taller, bulkier build and thick shoulders with arms made of cords of muscle and tendon. They flexed where the sleeves of his outer coat had been pushed up to the elbows. Surely he was stronger than anyone in the room.

Maira pitied Walksbetween and all the Pahali in that moment. In Shadow’s bearing the ferocious general and warrior that terrified his enemies and calculated their deaths with precise efficiency in his cold eyes. She shared their terror as he approached, tasted it sourly in the back of her mouth, shook with it.

“Yes, sir,” she answered in a whisper born of the breath she couldn’t gather. The closer he came, the harder exhaling or inhaling became. She fought not to avert her eyes.
“Why did you flee? I had no ill intentions toward you. You were told as much.”

Anger eased the tightness of her chest. She turned her eyes up to meet his. “You sent people to chase me. I ran for my life. I don’t know your intentions, just your actions.”

Lord Shadow did not precisely grin, but something in his face lightened. He nodded to the side and Graymere stepped away. The guards at the door left and the shut doors behind them.

“You gave a message to Ambassador Walksbetween today. What was it?”

His eyes narrowed to slits, studying her for any sign of a lie. She had no idea how good he was at reading faces. Perhaps he was better than Yena or her mother, she hoped he was worse.
You can get through this just think, think, she yelled at herself, keeping her eyes locked on his. Others had survived him. Walksbetween survived. What would she do if she were here? The question unlocked some of Maira’s fear frozen mind. The ambassador would glean information from every little word, say pointed things and learn from the reactions. Calm slowly crept over her as a small plan formed in her mind.

First step: find out if he did or didn’t know about the device.

Gathering herself, she raised her chin and then lifted her still bandaged hands, spreading her fingers even though it caused some of the scabs to crack. “Ask your sorcerer over there how long I had to hold on to get burned like this.”

Naran sighed, exasperated. “I’m not his sorcerer. You knew I made a promise to Andaric to bring you here.”

Lord Shadow considered at her hands, the dirtied bandages. His mouth fell, just a little. She sensed pity. “Go on,” she urged him. “Ask him how long I held on.”

“What of it, Mr. al-Shahd?” Shadow asked.

He came closer, arms crossed over his chest and he shrugged. “A long time. Maybe as long as half an hour.”

“Ask him how much it hurt.”

Naran answered the question before Shadow even asked. “It would have been as if her hands were on fire. What does it matter?”

“I do not think she wants to convince us of her strength. I think she is trying to tell us something else,” Shadow said. This time, he smiled perceptibly but she couldn’t guess at what it meant or why. A Tract Lord would understandably talented at only revealing what it suited him to reveal.

She dared to break a grin with him even though she didn’t feel it. “Yes.”

Naran lowered his hands, slapping them against his legs in frustration. “What?”

“Why do you think I held on so long?”

“You lied!” Naran gasped. He crossed the room to her and grabbed her arms. She sucked in a hard gasp but didn’t hit back. Now he was angry, too. Good. “He did say something. What? What did he tell you?”

“Mr. al-Shahd,” Shadow warned, in a dangerous, low tone. He glared darkly and Maira braced for violence though he had done little more than frown.

Naran backed off instantly. Shadow pointed his gaze a moment longer as if say there would be no more warnings, then turned to her. “Professor Decaran instructed you to deliver his last words to Ambassador Walksbetween?”

“No.”

“Then what was your business with her, if not a diversion to escape?”

“To make sure that once you caught me, you’d have to let me go.”

“Ambassador Walksbetween has no authority to do so. I am Lord in full here. Even High Chief Cloudkicker herself could not take you from me now.”

“I didn’t say take me.” She wondered if Reva would smile. Correcting a Tract lord in his own tower was as bold as Maira could imagine getting though her own instincts flinched at the foolishness of provoking him. “I said you would let me go.”

“Why would I do this?”

“Professor Decaran told me something very important. A secret.”

“He entrusted it to you to tell this secret to someone, but not to the Pahali,” Shadow said, nodding slightly. He turned to the window, hands clasped behind his back in thought, hidden by his beautiful black wings. Then he turned again. “Why do this for a man you didn’t know? Are you being paid?”

“Only in beatings and trouble,” she grumbled, then sighed. “The professor gave me a task, it’s very important and I can’t talk about it. I don’t have time to waste here. You have to let me go.”

“If I refused to let you go? What could Ambassador Walksbetween do to make me release you?”

“The same thing I did. Deliver a message. The thing he told me is powerful. It scared him. It scares me, too. So I went to the ambassador and asked her if she’d write copies of a letter saying that I knew what he knew and that I’d tell his secret to the first person to kill you and bring me your head. You have enemies, and everybody wants to know what the professor was up to. They’ll be believe the ambassador’s letter. You have to know that.”

Graymere came forward with a hurt look, like he’d been kicked by his best friend. “Why would you do this? We meant you no harm.”

She wheeled on him suddenly. “Stop!” Furious, hot tears rolled fast down her cheeks. “Stop saying that! You’ve already harmed me. I burned my hands and I watched a man die, then I got stabbed and beaten. I lost my job, people broke in to my apartment, destroyed most of what I own. And now I’ve been chased like an animal through two different Tracts! Because you had me hunted down and stalked, because you brought me to that house! I’ve lost everything but my life and it’s because of you! All of you!”

Tears rolled down her face, hot and helpless as the ones she shed in the workhouse as a raging, terrified child with no choice but to bury her rage with the unfair world to survive.

“Then amends must be made,” Lord Shadow replied, evenly.

Maira wiped her face on her arm and sniffled. “Just let me go. Ambassador Walksbetween will burn the letters and no one’ll ever know.”

“I have until morning?”

He walked to the south windows and looked over his Tract. She heard the calculating and strategizing clearly in his voice. Maira’s shoulder slumped as she watched and searched for any sign of his disbelief. “Yes.”

“Would you honor your word? If I kept you, and someone were to murder me, would you tell the secret?”

She held her breath as faint hope buoyed her. “If I had to.”

“But if you had to, you would?”

“Only if you make me. You can stop this. Just let me go.”

“Then to your mind the consequences of my keeping you are worse than telling this secret to a murderer.” He turned again, came back and got so close she smelled the incense and fine perfume on him and his clothes. His body heat radiated at her, little feathers rustled against each other. The odd, overwhelming intimacy of this closeness equalized them in a way she didn’t understand. It lessened her fear instead of increasing it.

“And you could do it? Have my head brought to you, laid at your feet?”

She thought about it as she gazed up into his eyes, considering the question as if the possibility were as real. She thought of what the sound of a wing bone snapping. She knew that sick pop-break noise. She thought of those gorgeous black feathers pulled, bloody from his wings as souvenirs, how he might scream in a moment of pure agony. A sick, excruciating disgust lurched into her belly.

“I don’t want to do this. Let me do what I have to do, and everything will be all right.”

“If I let you go freely, would you return when I summoned you?”

“Yes! I’ll swear whatever you want. If you let me go, I’ll come back when this is done.”

“No, no oaths. The only thing I require is that you accept my hospitality now. Allow me to have food and better clothes brought to you. After that, Graymere will take you anywhere you wish to go.”
“Thank you,” she said, quietly, lowering her eyes. She bowed to him as she’d bowed to the ambassador, and hoped it was the right thing to do or that he would understand what she meant by it.
Lord Shadow said nothing. He turned his back again. Graymere came close, merely touching her arm and indicating the door with a nod of his head. Naran followed a step behind as they went further down into the tower, to a grand apartment larger than most houses she’d ever seen. Servants wearing plain blue and white robes with their wings tucked in tightly went about their business, bowing in acknowledgement to Graymere. He gave quiet orders in Asna and they scattered quickly to obey.

“These are Lord Shadow’s private chambers,” he told them, switching back to High Domainish. Maira’s eyes widened at the grand gesture of being offered a Tract lord’s own quarters.
A bone-thin servant with white and blue hair came to Graymere, bowed and held out a small stack of neatly folded clothes with a pair of new boots on top. They mumbled a quick exchange in Asna and the servant shuffled to Maira, eyes averted, and held the clothes out to her.

“There is a washing room down that hall. It is the first door. It is open. You may dress yourself there,” Graymere said and pointed in the direction of the hall. Maira nodded, took the clothes and hugged them close to her chest. She followed the directions through an arched white door that shut on its own behind her. She eyed it and told herself it was harmless house magic or some Asna’isi contraption. Not that she could do anything about it if Lord Shadow went back on his word.

The washing room easily outsized Maira’s entire apartment, made even bigger looking by the polished white tiled floor and enormous marble washing tub in the corner with a bench across the basin. She assumed it helped them groom their wings more easily than sitting down in the basin.

Across from the tub was a latrine with a lever that didn’t need to be emptied, but drained on its own. Luxurious.

Clean washing cloths and neatly cut blocks of soap rested by a long, wide basin sink. She picked one up and sniffed its flowery scent. Good enough. The dirt and filth on her clothes itched now and the urge to get clean set her teeth to grinding. She reached for the sink found brass knobs in place of a standard pump. Experimentally she turned one. The water came out very, very warm. Almost hot.

Not wanting to waste such a precious thing as hot water, Maira quickly stripped, even unraveling her breast binder and letting it fall to the floor. She made the rag wet and rubbed it against the good smelling soap until she got a lather. Then she scrubbed her body quickly, never minding the bruises and scratches and bumps she discovered along the way. Maira washed everything quickly, even her aching feet.

Being clean melted tension from her body. The itching, dirty feelings left and she breathed easier. She wrung out the wash cloths when she finished, but the grime stayed in some. She draped them over the basin’s edge to try and then returned to the sink, bracing on the edge with her arms. She let out a breath, not sure she believed that she was truly alive, clean, and relatively safe.
She checked herself in the mirror before dressing and found bruises and scratches all over. Her knuckles, elbows, and knees had taken the worst of it. The worst bruise went from her neck to her shoulder blade. Another nasty one ran along her right flank. They could have been much worse, she supposed.

Leaving well enough alone she dressed in the clothes given to her. She could never have afforded these fine things on her own, especially the soft silk undergarments and the tight but stretchy under shirt to restrain her breasts. She put on the long, dark gray pants of thick, soft cotton, then the light blue shirt. It all fit as if sized just for her.
That thought gave her pause. They’d watched her long enough to size her up.

Pushing it to the back of her mind, she finished dressing and put on the dry stockings and boots provided. She couldn’t help taking the time to admire the fine leather work and the soles of the shoes. When she tested them out after buckling them up, they gave a slight bounce with each step. She could run forever in such shoes.

Maira gathered her old clothes, made a makeshift bag of her shirt to carry them in, and left the washroom. Another servant waited, this one had a curvy figure, curly white-blue hair and round face. They spoke in a deep voice and unsteady Domainish, “Come to this way, high-grace lady. To eat the foods is this way.”

Despite the mixed up phrasing, the honorific gave Maira pause. Nobody ever called her by such things. She shook her head to clear it and followed the servant into a dining room with a long table. Naran and Graymere waited for her on the sitting cushions. Graymere gestured for her to approach and she did, sitting as far from either as she could without being obvious about it. Once seated, servants came through a door behind Graymere bearing trays and bowls. Hot, spiced meat wafted it’s scent at her. Maira’s mouth watered instantly.

Not wanting to repeat her shame with Reva, Maira hesitated even after the food was laid in front of her.

“Eat,” Graymere urged, gently. She waited no further and spooned helpings of things onto her plate before taking a bowl of side soup for herself. She picked up the laquered eating sticks and ate.

Though not as extravagant as Reva’s fest, the food delighted her. Hunger and relief mixed to make each taste all the most delectable. Tender duck meat fell apart in her mouth, juicy with sauce. Whoever cooked for Lord Shadow certainly earned their pay. In between bites, she mumbled to herself, “Oh, thank the gods, real food.”

Naran laughed. “Have you been eating a lot of fake food lately?”

She looked up and realized that some broth had dripped onto her chin. She wiped it off quickly. “Sorry,” she said, feeling her face get hot with shame. “Old workhouse habit.”

Graymere raised his head from his plate, alarmed. “You were in a workhouse?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

She shrugged and put a big chunk of roasted pepper in her mouth to give herself time not to answer. Then she told him, putting the eating sticks down, “I don’t know, a few years.”

“You don’t know how long you were in the workhouse?” Naran asked, incredulous.

Maira bit back her anger with a sigh. Explaining to these high born people what it was to lose everything, even time itself, stung bitterly. The old feeling of being shameful, filthy, and unfit to be seen crept over her. She gritted her teeth. No. Not her shame, theirs. She did nothing wrong. “I just don’t.”

“How old were you when you…” Naran asked, trailing off. He looked away, possibly because she was glaring at him and contemplating whether she could stab him in the eye with her eating stick.

“I don’t know. I don’t know how old I am precisely.”

“How can you not know?”

“I don’t remember my parents and the priestesses didn’t keep records. I was there for as long as I can remember, and when they ran out of food, they sold the older ones off so the younger ones wouldn’t starve. They didn’t give us calendars or anything. Every day was the same. You work, you hope they fed you, you got chained to the fucking wall. Is that what you wanted to know?” she asked, angrily and looked down at her food so she didn’t have to see his face. Pity only magnified the lump in her throat, the burn in her chest.

The silence at the table tightened like a cord around her heart.

Graymere broke it with a smooth, “Where will you go after we are done? I can only take you to the gates of the Pahali Tract if that is where you are going.”

Maira glanced gratefully at him and returned to eating. Talking about the workhouse killed most of her appetite, but she couldn’t afford to waste such a good meal. Another one might not come for a while. Yena wasn’t likely to continue to protect her after she’d traded on the ambassador’s name. Neither could she return home. That meant making her coins last by sleeping on the safe street. They’d given her a thick coat with the clothes. She’d survive the cold that heralded winter’s coming. At least for a few weeks.

“No. The Palm.”

“Do you think you will be safe at your own residence?”

“There’s a safehouse, it’s in the Fire Valley in the Fourth Round,” she told him. “Do you know where that is?”

A strange smile came across his face for a moment before he said, “Yes. I can easily take you there.”

For the rest of the meal, they did not talk. Maira welcomed the quiet. When she had eaten all she could, the plates and trays were taken. Drowsiness overcame her in her warm, filled state. She might have slept at the table if Graymere had not summoned her to follow him.

He took her back to the landing at the tower’s top where agents waited for him. She ignored that Naran lingered behind her all the way there. One of the agents handed Graymere a harness that he handily put on himself before gesturing for her to come to him. She put her back against him and his wings enfolded her again while he harnessed her.

“I never want to fight you again. Keep your word. Please.”

“I hope I live long enough to.”

“You need not fear. If you are in danger, come here. We will not let any harm come to you.”

“What do I even matter to him? I’m a nobody.”

“That is false, and it for Lord Shadow to explain why. For the moment, it is enough that you know that you may return here any time you wish, freely, and you will be safe and cared for.”

She looked at the lightening sky in the spaces between his feathers. “Tell him thank you for the food. I’m sorry I had to threaten him. I didn’t want to. If I don’t come back, it’s because I’m dead, not because I lied. Tell him that, too.”

“Of course. But I think you will come back to us very soon,” he replied and opened his wings to catch the wind.