Read Blood's Pride (Shattered Kingdoms) Online
Authors: Evie Manieri
Blood's Pride (Shattered Kingdoms) (19 page)
She pulled him right towards the edge of the ridge. ‘Look!’ she said, putting a hand on the back of his neck and tilting his head downward.
A patchwork of riotous colour, a small city of brightly hued sailcloth tents crouched in the shadow of the mountain: the tribe of Amai. The camp swarmed with activity. The shrill voices of children floated up on the breeze and a hundred fires danced. Jachad glanced back out at the dust cloud on the horizon. It was hard to tell, but now he could see that they were moving towards the Shadar, rather than away from it as he had first thought.
‘There’s no law that says the tribes have to meet at that old place in the desert. We’re tired of lugging our tents through the sand,’ Nisha informed him with a touch of defiance. ‘We beached the boats in the usual place and just came here instead. I sent word of the change to your caravan twelve days ago. I knew that with you away, no one would dare contradict me. The men will be here by tomorrow. Besides, I think a change of scenery will do everyone some good.’
For once Jachad was at a complete loss for words.
She smiled. ‘There, you see, Jachi? Simple. You come to us
when you’re ready. And if you need us, we’re your people, and we’re here for you.’ Then she caught at his hand and held it tightly, holding it to her cheek. ‘Bring her back to us, if you can.’
He nodded, took her hand and kissed it.
As Isa reached the top of the stairs she could see the heat rippling the air in front of her. Greasy cooking smells came in waves and she paused, waiting for a sudden surge of nausea to pass. From the refectory doorway just up ahead she could hear knives clattering on clay plates, and every now and then a strained word of command to the slaves. Occasional bursts of light flared out through the open archway as fat dripped down onto the cooking fires.
Frea wasn’t in the refectory. Isa didn’t have to look inside; no wall in the temple could conceal the frigid intensity of her sister’s presence.
She shut her eyes. Sweat sheeted down underneath the stiff new leather of her fighting clothes. She could feel the heat pulling her back towards the darkness of her room, the softness of her bed, the filminess of the gown she’d left lying in a heap on the floor, pulling her back towards sleep and the greedy way it devoured the long, pointless hours of her life.
But no, not this time. Now she was made of ice. No amount of heat could thaw her. She was frozen as solid as the statues in the emperor’s palace at Ravindal. Her fingers were icicles.
Her breast was a snowdrift. Her heart was a glacier.
Her eyes flew open. Rho was standing in the shadows at the far end of the hall. All she could see of him was a long face and two indistinct hands hovering in the darkness.
She greeted him coolly, keenly aware of the shiny newness of her leather suit. The sleeveless jacket was supposed to be worn with a shirt underneath, but it was just too hot here. She tugged at the buckle across her chest to make sure it was still fastened.
she said breezily. She didn’t want him to know that after she’d left Daryan alone in the bathing room, she’d wasted the rest of the night away sitting half-dressed on the edge of her bed, lost in a miasma of feelings she couldn’t even name. She had left herself only enough time to put on her clothes and tie her hair back like a boy’s.
For a moment, all of the breathable air disappeared from the corridor. Nothing was left but the lung-searing heat.
Ice, she reminded herself.
Made of ice, like a Norlander. Like Frea. Like Rho.
Something was different about him – she should have noticed it right away. The aristocratic disdain that was the mainstay of his personality felt forced. And why was he standing so far away from her? She started down the hallway towards him.
The dark pupils in his silver eyes roamed up and down her frame.
She didn’t understand the comment, but she felt the criticism.
Isa felt him as oddly distant, as if he were talking to himself, without quite realising she was there.
become
her.>
She tossed her head and took a step back from him.
Now, even through the buzz of her own anger, Isa could feel some dark emotion churning up beneath his genteel posing.
She turned back to him.
He didn’t bother to contradict what they both knew was a lie.
His silver eyes flashed in the dark hallway.
She was too furious to respond. She stalked off down the corridor, hands trembling with rage.
She stopped halfway down the stairs and turned back to him warily.
Isa regarded him suspiciously.
She considered his proposal.
She looked past him, towards the doorway. All of those bodies. All of that heat.
He was right. She’d fail again, just as she had before.
Daryan stopped at the junction of two passages, his momentum gone. He told himself that he should keep going, but he felt incapable of propelling himself any further. Isa had played with a wooden toy when she was little, a Norland animal – he had never known what it was called – on rackety wheels; no matter how hard you pushed it, it never travelled more than a few feet across the stone floor before stuttering to a halt. That’s what he felt like now.
He didn’t know where she’d gone after she’d left him alone in the bathing room. That had been hours ago. He should have been helping to restore order in the wake of the earthquake, and Shairav was looking for him. He couldn’t just stand here brooding, going nowhere, doing nothing. People were hurt; they were afraid. He was the daimon. He had responsibilities. He wasn’t a child any more.
But neither was Isa.
Finally he heard footsteps, light and quick, too light for a man, too quick for a woman, and only a soft pattering, not the percussive strike of boots or the slap of sandals. And as the source of the footsteps solidified out of the grey darkness
at the far end of the hall, he understood quite plainly that his mind had snapped – temple sickness, his people called it, from living too long in the dark. He had gone mad.
Because it was a child: a little curly-haired Shadari child, just like Daryan himself had been when he first came to the temple. It was a likeness, an echo, conjured up from his own memories. The apparition walked towards him without slowing, and he would have not been at all surprised if it had passed through him as easily as if he were made of smoke. But the child stopped in front of him and looked up into his face.
‘Hello,’ said the boy brightly.
Daryan bent down. The warm, fresh smell of the boy’s hair and clothes – a mixture of bleached sand and hearth fires and sea-salt – made his head swim with longing and loss. ‘Who are you?’ he asked faintly. ‘Where did you come from?’
‘I’m Dramash. From the Shadar.’
‘But how did you—?’
‘I’m going to live here now and help take care of the dereshadi.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘The White Wolf. One of the soldiers said he’d teach me how to fight, too. I don’t know his name. What’s your name?’
‘Daryan.’
The whites of the boy’s eyes widened. ‘Oh! I’ve heard of you! I know all about you.’
‘Do you?’ he asked, smiling, but he was not really listening. He heard more footsteps coming their way.
‘My father told me,’ said Dramash. ‘He says you’re a coward.’
Daryan’s stomach muscles screwed up tight. He was careful
to keep his face turned away from the boy. ‘Does he?’ he asked, struggling to keep his voice level. ‘Why does he say that?’
‘He says if you didn’t like it here you would have done something by now. He says you get to lie around here while other people are dying in the mines,’ the child continued blithely.