A Torch Against the Night (19 page)

All told, I have a thousand men, mostly auxes, and a dozen Masks. It’s not nearly enough to search a city swollen to a hundred thousand. It’s all I can do to maintain a cordon around the oasis so no wagon leaves without a search.

“Blood Shrike.” Faris’s blond head pops up from the stairwell leading into the garrison. “We’ve got her. She’s in a cell.”

I suppress my dread as Faris and I head down a narrow flight of stairs to the dungeon. When I last saw Mamie Rila, I was a gangly, maskless fourteen-year-old. Elias and I stayed with Tribe Saif for two weeks on our way back to Blackcliff after finishing out our years as Fivers. And though, as a Fiver, I was essentially a Martial spy, Mamie’d only ever treated me with kindness.

And I’m about to repay her with an interrogation.

“She entered the Nur encampment three hours ago,” Faris says. “Dex nabbed her on the way out. The Fiver assigned to follow her says she visited a dozen Tribes today.”

“Get me intelligence on those Tribes,” I tell Faris. “Sizes, alliances, trade routes—everything.”

“Harper is speaking to our Fiver spies now.”

Harper.
I wonder what Elias would make of the Northman.
Eerie as the ten hells
,
I imagine him saying.
Less chatty too.
I can hear my friend in my head—that familiar baritone that thrilled and calmed me at the same time. Would that Elias and I were here together, hunting some Mariner spy or Barbarian assassin.

His name is Veturius
,
I remind myself for the thousandth time.
And he is a traitor.

In the dungeon, Dex stands with his back to the cell, his jaw tight. Since he too spent time with Tribe Saif as a Fiver, I’m surprised at the tension in his body.

“Watch it with her,” he says under his breath. “She’s up to something.”

Within the cell, Mamie sits on the lone, hard bunk as if it is a throne, her back rigid, chin up, one long-fingered hand holding her robes off the floor. She rises when I enter, but I wave her back down.

“Helene, my love—”

“You will address the commander as Blood Shrike,
Kehanni
,” Dex says quietly as he gives me a pointed look.

“
Kehanni
,” I say. “Do you know the whereabouts of Elias Veturius?”

She looks me up and down, her disappointment obvious. This is the woman who gave me herbs to slow my moon cycle so it wasn’t hell to deal with at Blackcliff. The woman who told me, without an ounce of irony, that on the day I married, she would slaughter a hundred goats in my honor and make a
Kehanni
’s tale of my life.

“I’d heard you were hunting him,” she says. “I’ve seen your child spies. But I didn’t believe it.”

“Answer the question.”

“How can you hunt a boy who was your closest companion only weeks ago? He is your friend, Hel—Blood Shrike. Your shield brother.”

“He is a fugitive and a criminal.” I pull my hands behind my back and knot my fingers together, twisting the Blood Shrike ring round and round. “And he will face justice, like other criminals. Are you harboring him?”

“I am not.” When I don’t break eye contact, she breathes in through her nostrils, hackles rising. “You have taken salt and water at my table, Blood Shrike.” The muscles of her hands are rigid as she clenches the edge of the bunk. “I would not insult you with a lie.”

“But you would hide the truth. There’s a difference.”

“Even if I am harboring him, what can you do about it? Fight all of Tribe Saif? You’d have to kill every last one of us.”

“One man isn’t worth a Tribe.”

“But he was worth an Empire?” Mamie leans forward, her dark eyes fierce, her braids falling into her face. “He was worth your freedom?”

How in the bleeding skies would you know that I traded my freedom for Elias’s life?

The retort hovers on my lips but retreats as my training kicks in.
Weaklings try to fill silence. A Mask uses it to his advantage.
I cross my arms, waiting for her to say more.

“You gave up much for Elias.” Mamie’s nostrils flare, and she stands, smaller than me by a few inches but towering in her rage. “Why should I not give up my life for his? He is my
son
. What claim do you have on him?”

Only fourteen years of friendship and a trampled heart.

But that doesn’t matter. Because in her anger, Mamie has given me what I need.

For how could she know what I gave up for Elias? Even if she heard tales of the Trials, she couldn’t know what I sacrificed for him.

Not unless he told her.

Which means she’s seen him.

“Dex, escort her upstairs.” I signal to him behind her back.
Follow her.
He nods and escorts her out.

I trail him and find Harper and Faris awaiting me in the garrison’s Black Guard barracks.

“That wasn’t an interrogation,” Faris growls. “It was a bleeding high tea. What in the hells could you have possibly gotten out of that?”

“You’re supposed to be herding Fivers, Faris, not eavesdropping.”

“Harper is a corrupting influence.” Faris nods at the dark-haired man, who shrugs at my glare
.

“Elias is here,” I say. “Mamie let something slip.”

“The comment about your freedom,” Harper murmurs. His assertion unnerves me—I hate how he always seems to hit the nail on the head.

“The gathering is nearly over. The Tribes will begin leaving the city after dawn breaks. If Tribe Saif is going to get him out, that’s when they’ll do it. And he
has
to get out. He won’t risk staying and being spotted—not with the bounty so high.”

A knock sounds on the door. Faris opens it to a Fiver dressed in Tribal clothes, his skin stained with sand.

“Fiver Melius reporting, sir,” he salutes smartly. “Lieutenant Dex Atrius sent me, Blood Shrike. The
Kehanni
you interrogated is heading to the storytellers’ stage on the eastern edge of the city. The rest of Tribe Saif are on their way there too. Lieutenant Atrius said to come quickly—and to bring backup.”

“The farewell tale.” Faris grabs my scims from the wall and hands them over. “It’s the last event before the Tribes leave.”

“And thousands come out for it,” Harper says. “Good place to hide a fugitive.”

“Faris, reinforce the cordon.” We plunge into the packed streets outside the garrison. “Call in all the squads on patrol. No one gets out of Nur without going through a Martial checkpoint. Harper—with me.”

We make our way east, following the crowd streaming toward the storytellers’ stage. Our presence among the Tribesmen is noted—and not with the reluctant tolerance I’m accustomed to. As we pass, I hear more than one insult muttered. Harper and I exchange a glance, and he signals the squads we run into until we have two dozen auxiliary troops at our backs.

“Tell me, Blood Shrike,” Harper says as we near the stage. “Do you really think you can take him?”

“I’ve beaten Veturius in combat a hundred times—”

“I don’t mean can you take him down. I mean when the moment comes, will you be able to put him in chains and take him to the Emperor, knowing what will happen?”

No. Bleeding, burning skies, no.
I’ve asked myself the same thing a hundred times.
Will I do right by the Empire? Will I do right by my people?
I cannot object to Harper asking the question. But my answer comes out as a snarl anyway.

“I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we?”

Ahead, the storytellers’ theater sits at the bottom of a steep, terraced bowl, and it’s aglow with hundreds of oil lamps. A thoroughfare runs behind the stage, and beyond that, a vast depot filled with the wagons of those who will leave directly after the farewell tale.

The air crackles with expectation, a sense of waiting that has me clutching my scim with a white-knuckled grip. What is going on?

By the time Harper and I arrive, thousands of people pack the theater. I see immediately why Dex needed backup. The bowl has more than two dozen entrances, with Tribesmen flowing in and out freely. I deploy the auxes I’ve gathered to each gateway. Moments later, Dex finds me. Sweat pours down his face and blood streaks the brown skin of his forearms.

“Mamie’s got something up her sleeve,” he says. “Every Tribe she met with is here. The auxes I brought with me have already gotten into a dozen fights.”

“Blood Shrike.” Harper points to the stage, which is surrounded by fifty fully armed men of Tribe Saif. “Look.”

The Saif warriors shift to let a proud figure through. Mamie Rila. She takes the stage, and the crowd shushes each other. When she raises her hands, any lingering whispers are silenced—not even children make a sound. I can hear the wind blowing off the desert.

The Commandant’s presence prompted a similar silence. Mamie, however, seems to elicit it out of respect instead of fear.

“Welcome, brothers and sisters.” Mamie’s voice echoes up the terraced bowl. I silently thank the Language Centurion at Blackcliff, who spent six years teaching us Sadhese.

The
Kehanni
turns to the darkened desert behind her. “The sun will soon rise on a new day, and we must bid each other farewell. But I offer you a tale to take with you into the sands on your next journey. A tale kept vaulted and locked. A tale that
you
will all be a part of. A tale still being told.”

“Let me tell you of Ilyaas An-Saif, my son, who was
stolen
from Tribe Saif by the dread Martials.”

Harper, Dex, and I haven’t gone unnoticed. Nor have the Martials guarding the exits. Hisses and ululations erupt from the crowd, all directed at us. Some of the auxes move as if to draw their weapons, but Dex signals a halt. Three Masks and two squads of auxes against twenty thousand Tribesmen isn’t a fight. It’s a death sentence.

“What is she doing?” Dex says under his breath. “Why would she tell Elias’s story?”

“He was a quiet, gray-eyed infant,” Mamie says in Sadhese, “left to die in the swelter of the Tribal desert. What travesty, to see such a beautiful, strong child abandoned by his depraved mother and exposed to the elements. I claimed him as my own, brothers and sisters, and took great pride in doing so, for he came to me in a time of great need, when my soul searched for meaning and found none. In the eyes of this child, I found solace, and in his laughter, I found joy. But it was not to last.”

I already see Mamie’s
Kehanni
magic working on the crowd. She tells of a child beloved by the Tribe, a child
of
the Tribe, as if Elias’s Martial blood is incidental. She tells of his youth and of the night he was taken.

For a moment, I too find myself riveted. My curiosity transforms into wariness when Mamie turns to the Trials. She tells of the Augurs and their predictions. She speaks of the violence the Empire perpetrated upon Elias’s mind and body. The crowd listens, their emotions rising and falling with Mamie’s—shock, sympathy, disgust, terror.

Anger.

And that is when I finally understand what Mamie Rila is doing.

She is starting a riot.

M
amie’s powerful voice echoes across the theater, mesmerizing all who hear it. Though I cannot understand Sadhese, the movements of her body and her hands—along with the way Elias’s face pales—tell me that this tale is about him.

We have found seats about halfway up the terraces of the storytellers’ theater. I sit between Elias and Afya amid a crowd of men and women from Tribe Nur. Keenan and Izzi wait with Gibran a dozen or so yards away. I catch Keenan craning his neck, trying to make sure I’m all right, and I wave to him. His dark eyes drift to Elias and back to me before Izzi whispers something to him and he looks away.

In the green-and-gold clothes Afya gave all of us, we are, at a distance, indistinguishable from the other members of the Tribe. I retreat further into my hood, thankful for the rising winds. Nearly everyone has their hoods up or cloth over their faces to protect themselves from the choking dust.

We can’t take you directly to the wagons
,
Afya said as we joined her Tribe in walking to the theater.
There are soldiers patrolling the depot—and they’re stopping everyone. So Mamie’s going to create a little distraction.

As Mamie’s story takes a surprising turn, the crowd gasps, and Elias looks pained. To have one’s life story told to so many would be strange enough, but a story with so much suffering, so much death? I take his hand, and he tenses, as if to pull away, but then relaxes.

“Don’t listen,” I say. “Look at me instead.”

Reluctantly, he lifts his eyes. The intensity of his pale gaze makes my heart stutter, but I don’t let myself look away. There’s a loneliness to him that makes me ache. He’s dying. He knows it. Perhaps life does not get more lonely than that.

Right now, all I want is for that loneliness to fade—even if it’s for a moment. So I do what Darin used to when he wanted to cheer me up, and I make an absurd face.

Elias stares at me in surprise before cracking a grin that lights him up—and then he makes a ridiculous face of his own. I snicker and am about to challenge him when I spot Keenan watching us, his eyes flat with suppressed fury.

Elias follows my gaze. “I don’t think he likes me.”

“He doesn’t like anyone at first,” I say. “When he met me, he threatened to kill me and stuff me in a crypt.”

“Charming.”

“He changed. Quite a lot, actually. I would have thought it impossible, but—” I wince as Afya elbows me.

“It’s beginning.”

Elias’s smile fades as, around us, the Tribesmen begin to whisper. He eyes the Martials stationed at the theater exits nearest us. Most have hands on their weapons, and they watch the crowd dubiously, as if it will rise up and devour them.

Mamie’s gestures grow expansive and violent. The crowd bristles and seems to expand, pushing against the walls of the theater. Tension fills the air, spreads, an invisible flame that transforms all who come into contact with it. In seconds, whispers become angry mutters.

Afya smiles.

Mamie points to the crowd, the conviction in her voice raising goose bumps on my arms.