The Shadowed Sun (Dreamblood) (43 page)

The day. Yes, he remembered this too. It was the day before the armies of Kisua and Gujaareh were to meet at Soijaro, in northern Kisua. The day before his father’s death.

“Father,” Wanahomen whispered, holding him tight. “Father.”

When he opened his eyes, however, he saw something that jarred him: the templewoman. She watched them, her form still gray and white and colorless, from the far side of the room. As he watched, she blurred again, and this time he could glimpse flickers of her other self: a weeping, wailing figure. A haggard creature with eyes full of bitter compassion.

That was right. She knew what it meant to lose a father too.

Wanahomen pulled back from his father’s embrace, gazing into the face of the man who had been god of his world for so long. Had there really been such sorrow lurking behind his father’s expansive smile, back then? Or was that merely a trick of memory?

“What’s wrong, Wana?” his father asked, half-smiling in bemusement at his expression.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just glad to see you.” So his father smiled
and put a companionable arm around his shoulders, guiding him out toward the balcony.

This is your world
, Hanani had said. He would see what he wanted to see. Back then, when he was a pampered prince’s child, there had been much he hadn’t wanted to see about his father. Now—

Hesitating a moment longer, Wanahomen closed his eyes and willed the memory to become
right
.

When he opened his eyes, his father had stepped away, leaning on the balcony railing as they gazed together at the setting sun. Now Wanahomen saw the worry-lines around his father’s eyes, read the uncharacteristic tension in his body. Now Wanahomen noticed—at last—that his father would not meet his eyes.

“I want you to know,” his father said, “that whatever I do tomorrow is for you.”

The Reaping of the armies. His father had done it to achieve immortality, per magical lore so ancient and forbidden that most of the world had forgotten its existence—but though Wanahomen had not known this at the time, Charris had confessed the truth to him in the years since. Had Eninket become immortal, Wanahomen would have been doomed to the fate that awaited most of his siblings—a life of precarious uselessness, wealth and privilege without purpose. As a favored son, he might have been married into some high-ranking lineage in order to cement that family’s ties to the throne, but he could never have achieved power or acclaim of his own, not even if he took up some profession or art. Any son of the Prince whose glory rivaled that of his father was a potential threat to the Sunset Throne.

And would his father have summoned assassins for him in that case, as tradition dictated?

His father threw him a glance then. How had Wanahomen never noticed the shame in those eyes that were so like his own?

“I want to keep you safe,” Eninket said, softly. “I want your life
peaceful. The burdens of rulership—” He sighed. “I would keep those from you, if I could. I would keep you as you are now, untainted.”

Keep me as I am, Father? A boy in a man’s body? A pet?

Beyond his father, the templewoman looked away.

“Wana? Do you understand?” His father looked up at him, troubled by his silence.

Yes, I understand. What kind of man chooses such a fate for his son? I understand exactly what you meant to do.

And yet Wanahomen sighed, rubbed his eyes, then reached up to grip his father’s shoulder with one hand. That hand, not entirely to Wanahomen’s surprise, was the hand he possessed now. It was no longer soft. It was lined and weathered from wind, darkened by the sun, nicked all over with scars from learning the knife, practicing the sword, fighting hand to hand. He had become the man his father never wanted to see.

“I love you, Father,” he said, and it was true. “I never said that to you enough. But the wrongness here, in this world that is my soul—” He closed his eyes, hating himself for this betrayal, of his own youthful image of his father if nothing else. “It’s
you
.”

And closing his eyes, he willed it, all of it, to vanish. They floated again in the space between realms, which had shed its guise and showed its true nature as endless, featureless darkness. This suited his mood.

“I’m sorry,” came her voice from somewhere.

“How is it that you’re able to be here?” he asked. He felt empty inside the crystal wall that protected his innermost self. All his anger had burned out. He could not even hate the Hetawa anymore—for now, at last, he understood they had been right to kill his father. “If this is my place to control.”

“Some part of you must want me here. I can go now, however, and leave you to sleep. The lesson is done.”

“No.” He willed the crystal wall of his soulname to thin and become permeable, an invitation. “Stay. We can comfort each other.”

Abruptly he felt the walls of her self manifest, solid yet brittle as bone. “I need no comfort.”

He had never heard her lie before.

But before he could confront her about it, she drew away. “Rest well, Prince. In peace.” Swift as light, she was gone.

“And Her peace to you as well,” he said. But he knew that too would be a lie for a long time.

In the dark of her tent, Hanani sat contemplating madness.

She could feel it encroaching on her consciousness with each passing moment. She had felt it in Ina-Karekh with Wanahomen, and even in the realm between. She did not know how to escape the madness. Nor was she entirely certain that she wanted to.

Dayu. Merchant Danneh. Mni-inh.
Everyone I care for dies.

But it hadn’t been just those, had it? Azima, Gatherer Sonta-i, even the nameless Shadoun woman. She might not be the direct cause in every case, but contact with her had heralded each tragedy. She was a living, breathing omen of death.

I have feared the Banbarra, but it is they who should fear me, in truth. I should leave the waking realm before I destroy this whole tribe.

So went the madness.

She knew her thoughts were irrational. The Hetawa taught that there were no omens, save those sent directly from the Goddess in the form of true-seeings. Mni-inh, especially, would be furious with her for thinking such heresy. But no matter how fiercely she tried to hold the thoughts at bay, they always returned. And grew steadily stronger.

The only solution was not to feel at all, and not to think of the things that caused her pain. That was difficult with so many people trying to talk to her, touch her, comfort her. They didn’t understand. Nothing could comfort her after Mni-inh’s loss. Nothing would ever comfort her again.

Curling on her side amid the cushions, Hanani slept.

*  *  *

The tribe was in high spirits when Hanani finally emerged from her tent that morning. She had slept later than usual, her body failing to wake with the dawn for the first time in her memory. She had had no dreams. Looking around as she came outside, she spied the Banbarra who were awake clustering near the lookout point again. By their excitement and pointing, she guessed that another hunt party had arrived.

She went down to the ground level to bathe, this time surprising a few other Banbarra women at the pool. They waved in greeting and made way for her, showing more courtesy than ever before. Though she had no idea what they were saying as they chattered around her, she found just the tone of the women’s voices enough to grate; they were so
happy
. When she could no longer bear their occasional bursts of laughter, she straightened, nodded a polite farewell, and left the pool. They fell silent then, though she felt their eyes on her back as she dressed. No doubt they would gossip about her once she was gone, so she obliged them and left as quickly as she could.

Back on the camp ledge, leaders of the final two Banbarra tribes, Vilisyo and Amaddur, had come up to exchange greetings with Unte and the others. The Banbarra slaves practically blurred as they hurried about, trying to prepare for the final night of the solstice and a celebration that was certain to be wilder than any in recent memory. The women of the tribe were frantic, rushing to pretty themselves; the men were more subtle about it but essentially
the same. As the day wore on, Hanani witnessed sparring bouts, speed-dancing contests with a coveted bit of jewelry as the prize, and men surreptitiously lifting their veils to each other to discuss the shine of their teeth.

Hanani was hard-pressed not to hate them all.

But hate was an emotion, and she could not let herself feel that any more than she could grief, or it would all fall apart. So at last she retreated to her tent, and stayed there for the rest of the day.

Toward evening someone drummed on the flap of her tent. She did not want visitors, but she rose and untied the flaps anyhow.

Wanahomen stepped into the tent, leaving the flap wide open so that others could see inside. He, unlike everyone else she’d seen that day, looked grim and grimy, and anything but celebratory in mood. Then Hanani spied the earthenware urn he carried under one arm, and understood why.

He offered her the urn. “It’s sealed. You should be able to carry it back to the Hetawa like this.”

She looked at the urn and felt the first crack in her defenses. Mni-inh, he of the laughing eyes and gentle voice, reduced to this. She looked away from it and closed her eyes. “Thank you, Prince. Could you put it elsewhere for me?”

She heard him move over to the side of the tent; leather and cloth shifted. “In one of your saddlebags. I’ve wrapped it in a sash, to cushion it.”

She nodded and moved back to the cushions to sit down, not trusting herself to speak because a knot was forming in her throat.
No feeling, no feeling.
She repeated the thought until it became real. When the knot had loosened enough that she could speak, she said, “Will the vote take place soon?”

“Tomorrow. The day after at the latest. If it goes in my favor, the troops will assemble and be ready to march within a day. The Ban
barra are indeed barbarians, but in military efficiency they put all civilized lands to shame.”

“And if the vote does not go in your favor?”

“That’s not likely anymore.” Yes, here was someone who understood that war was coming. She heard it in the weight of his voice: he did not sound happy for his achievement. “The Shadoun woman has outdone all my scheming; the leaders are united in their anger now. No doubt if we’re successful, they’ll ask for Gujaareh’s help in wiping out the Shadoun.”

“The Shadoun have already suffered, if the nightmare plague is among them.”

“It doesn’t matter.” His voice was flat. “Gujaareh will need allies until we’re strong again. And I must pay my debts.”

Hanani sighed. “You speak as if it’s a given that you’ll win the city back.”

He’d gone to stand near the open tent flap, gazing out at the camp, or perhaps just letting others see that he was doing nothing untoward with her. He had not removed his veil, but she knew him well enough now to sense his bitter smile. “What else is there for me? If I fail, no army or ally will ever follow me again. I’ll have to flee north into exile—that’s if the Kisuati don’t capture me and make a public spectacle of my execution.” He shrugged. “Optimism is easier.”

Hanani could only agree. But—“The people will rally around you. You are Her Avatar. Perhaps it
is
a given you’ll win.”

“Nothing is a given. The Banbarra army—” He paused and sighed. “My father would laugh at even calling them an army. If all the tribes’ war troops join together, the total will be a little over sixteen hundred. They fight like demons, but the Kisuati are four
thousand
, with another four who can come up from Kisua in an eightday. The nobles’ troops will add perhaps two thousand to my
side… but those are soldiers I dare not trust. Not all of my allies are as honorable as the Hetawa and the Banbarra, I’m afraid.”

He
was
afraid. She could see that in the set of his shoulders and his folded arms, and the way his eyes saw but did not see the gathering revelry outside. But she had no words of comfort to offer him. There were Hetawa proverbs she could have recited, wisdom from her Teachers that she could have shared, but all of it felt meaningless now.

He sighed. “Well. I’ve stayed too long. Don’t want tongues to start wagging.” Then he glanced back at her, his expression unreadable. “I understand what you’re trying to do,” he said at last. “I did it too, after… after Mother and I left Gujaareh. But don’t stay in here tonight, Hanani. The silence. It cuts you to pieces.”