To throw off Amdria's hands, of course, and Prince Lorens's.

  Amdria's expression was one of furious pleasure. "You were right," she half growled at Lorens. "He does command more than one magic, and the drugs don't work on him."

  An agony of betrayal slashed through Rasim's chest, taking his breath away. His voice broke on a wordless cry, and Lorens glanced at him with no regret, no concern. Not even a flicker of remorse touched his eyes as he said, "I hardly believed it myself, but I couldn't allow my own future to be jeopardized. I was afraid Nasira would prove too soft for this game, and I was right."

  Nasira lunged at Lorens, snarling, and the Northern prince barely stopped himself from skipping back, even though the chained Seamaster captain obviously couldn't get to him. "Tsk," Lorens said to her, soft and mocking. "It was stupid enough of you to try to help them and end up in chains yourself. Try again to harm me and your crew will die slowly and painfully in the arena." He turned his gaze to Amdria. "The boy is useful, Lady. You should consider a stay of execution."

  Amdria shrugged easily. "His usefulness ends with the knowledge that it's possible for Ilyarans—and perhaps others—to command more than one kind of witchery."

  "We already knew that," Lorens pointed out. "Their royal family has always been able to do."

  The Moranese woman turned a flat look on the Northern prince. "Are you suggesting I've happened on the lost Ilyaran heir, Lorens? That out of the hundreds who died in their great fire, the heir somehow survived the flames, was raised in their Seamasters' Guild, and ended up in chains in my arena?"

  Nasira's eyes bulged and she stared at Rasim, who nearly swallowed his own tongue in horror. He didn't want to be a lost prince. He wanted to sail the Waifia and never think about politics again. Lorens's expression reluctantly turned to acceptance. He still said, "It's possible," a bit defensively.

  Amdria rolled her eyes. "It's possible," she conceded. "It's more likely that no one has ever tried teaching someone outside of the royal family more than one magic. But now we know it's possible, and the slaves we have can be tested and trained without allowing this one to escape the consequences of his actions."

  A flash of frustration crossed Lorens's face and for an instant his gaze met Rasim's. Rasim couldn't tell if there was worry or apology in the expression, although it was certain that this was not how the Northern prince wanted things to go. Lorens tried once more, his voice low and intense. "Knowing how this boy did it would help in testing and training others, Amdria—"

  "No." The Moranese woman's tone brooked no argument. "These executions will emphasize that we fear no one, not even the Ilyaran guilds, and that will go a long way in quelling any resistance these four might have stirred up. A pity about the woman," she said with a dismissive glance at Agnet's body. "But at least we have Nasira to take her place on the field."

  They dragged Agnet's body first, making the price of defiance clear to everyone. Rasim, Karluk, and Bayar were no longer even worthy of a wagon, and Nasira had been chained with them. They were driven along with whips, stumbling with misery and defeat. Rasim's tears had disappeared, but he could think of no plan of action, not with witchery being denied to him. They'd forced him to drink more water laced with heartbreak, which, alone, was more bitter than mindkiller. Nasira, at his side, was forced to take the drugs, too, and either they worked on him this time, or the enslaved witches were still keeping the elements locked down. Whichever it was, Rasim could no more work witchery than he could turn into a fish.

  Bayar, beside him, wept silently. Strangely, that seemed to soften the tone of the re-gathering crowd. They had seen Agnet fight for him in the arena, and now he walked behind her body and mourned. Perhaps she was beloved by the people in the end, after all. They were surprisingly quiet and respectful as her body was dragged by.

  Amdria, riding a long-legged horse just within Rasim's line of sight, didn't seem to like that. She wanted the snarls and sneers of earlier. The silence was a kind of rebellion of its own. Lorens trailed behind her on another horse and looked neither left nor right, his expression unreadable as he helped escort the captured slaves to the arena.

  Rasim no longer knew whether he could trust the Northern prince. Nothing had gone according to plan, but the plans he'd helped Nasira and Lorens and Hassin come up with had fallen apart at the very moment Nasira had sent him to the arena. He had no way of knowing if other plans had been made in his absence. Lorens might have betrayed them all, or he might be the one person on their side who was still able to move freely through Moran. Rasim had to believe that, even if the weight of fear said it seemed unlikely.

  A cold place fixed itself in his heart. If Lorens really had betrayed them, Rasim would get even with him somehow, someday.

  That was an ambitious idea for a boy who expected to die in the next hour. Rasim actually laughed at himself, a harsh little sound that caught the attention of the quiet crowd. Someone spoke in a soft but surprised tone, and someone else caught their words and carried them on. "Laughing in the face of death," Karluk said abruptly, his translation surprising Rasim. "They admire you. They think you're mad," he added after a moment, "but they admire you."

  The whispers ran through the crowd, which swayed like a living thing, like something ready to be persuaded. Then one voice, louder than the others, broke out with a word Rasim knew. "Agnet!"

  It caught like straw kindling, a sudden roar of the Northern warrior's name: "Ag-net! Ag-net! AG-NET! AG-NET! AG-NET!" The shout swept down the streets, echoing from the arena to the docks. For a moment, the city shook with it.

  Then, as quickly, the silence returned. Before anyone had time to be singled out, Rasim thought. Before anyone could be slain for their boldness. In the cry's wake, though, the quietness seemed far more ominous. If shouting Agnet's name had been the straw catching fire, the silence now said that the whole of the city was tinder, waiting to come alight.

  The thought caught fire in him, clear and sudden: it was possible that putting them to death was the worst mistake the Moranese Council could make right now. The gathered crowd didn't have the air of a people eager for execution. They wanted action. Action of some kind. An execution would do, but maybe Rasim had done as he'd hoped after all. Maybe their dramatic escape from the arena had opened Moranese eyes to the idea that the world could be different.

  Or maybe there had been discontent simmering under the surface for a long time, and he was only here to see its eruption. But a show of power on the part of the Council had the wrong feeling to it, to him. If they wanted to retain their hold, they needed to be clever. They needed to show mercy, not strength.

  Another laugh barked loose from his throat. He was in chains, his back itching with whip stings, his tongue thick and dry from need of water, and he was being herded into an imposing arena to be murdered. But he was Rasim al Ilialio, who had an opinion on everything, and he thought his executioners were going about it all wrong. All he needed was a quick word to explain their folly, and everything would be all right.

  Well, he'd only be in Siliaria's arms a few minutes earlier if he spoke and it was badly received. Coughing laughter again, Rasim wet his lips and lifted his voice: "Lady Amdria! Lorens! I have an idea!"

  The Northern prince's spine stiffened and he turned toward Rasim so slowly that he wasn't sure Lorens was even going to look at him. Indeed, he met Amdria's gaze first, and the Moranese woman took her time in looking at Rasim. When she finally met his eyes, her expression was disbelieving to the point of laughter. "You do."

  "You're making a mistake. You shouldn't kill us."

  Amdria's eyebrows climbed upward. "Oh? You must understand, I'm not surprised to hear you say that."

  Her disbelieving amusement was infectious. Rasim felt a terrible urge to laugh again, a real laugh this time. Prisoners didn't bargain for their lives this way. "Look at the people, Amdria. They're burning for an excuse to riot, and they've already decided Agnet was a hero."

  Agnet's name caught fire again as he voiced it. Another rush carried it down the streets and into silence. Rasim charged on, heedless: "If they kill us too, we'll just be more fallen heroes. Symbols of resistance. If the Council is smart, they'll show mercy."

  A momentary pause hung in the air before Lorens murmured, "The boy may have a point, lady."

  Amdria looked at Rasim like he was something unpleasant found on her shoe, and at Lorens like he was a simpleton. "I trust the Moranese Council knows what it's doing more than a boy desperate to save his own life does. I wonder, that Ilyara has stood unmolested all these centuries, if they take their guidance from panicked children. And as for you," she said to Lorens, "I suggest you maintain your loyalties as they are, rather than imagine slaves have the right to thoughts of their own."

  "Of course, lady," Lorens replied softly. He bowed in his saddle, and Rasim, watching his shoulders set, muttered, "But I'm right."

  When he looked away from the prince, Karluk was watching him with an amused twist to his lips. "You don't give up, do you, journeyman? Keep your mouth shut now, though. Plenty of people here speak Ilyaran, and if you put ideas into their heads, it won't be just us who die today. The Council will stop rebellion however they can, including selecting random people out of a crowd to kill."

  "That," Rasim said through his teeth, "is stupid. If the people really are ready to rebel, the Council will only prove themselves worth rebelling against if they do that. Don't worry," he added more bitterly. "I tried. I won't try again. I don't want her to start killing people."

  Despite the apparent lack of blood lust, the arena was more than half filled when Rasim and the others were escorted in. There were no cheers at their arrival, but neither was there an outcry to save them.

  Hooded men with deadly instruments approached them, and, a little to Rasim's surprise, stopped several feet away, loosely encircling the three captives and Agnet's body. A little dully, he said, "I thought they were going to torture us," and to his left, Karluk chuckled dryly.

  "They may yet. Or they may have heeded your words after all, journeyman. They're not going to spare us, but they might fear anything but a quick, clean death will set off those who cried your Northerner's name. You've been in Moran less than a week, Rasim. Do you always sow this much chaos where you go?"

  Nasira, who had remained sullenly silent, abruptly snorted so loudly that Karluk laughed again. "I'll take that as a yes," the Skymaster slave said.

  "I don't mean to."

  "And yet," Nasira said through her teeth.

  "Nasira—Captain—is Lorens…?"

  "Playing a part?" Nasira's teeth showed again. "I hope so. This is what he was meant to do if things went wrong, but nothing was supposed to go this wrong. I don't know how you make these messes, Rasim."

  "I don't mean to!"

  "I wouldn't have thought Moran was ready for rebellion," Karluk interrupted quietly. "I would have thought we were all too afraid. I was."

  "You were also drugged so you couldn't use your own witchery unless somebody told you to. It's harder to fight when they've taken away all your familiar weapons."

  "You found a way."

  "I..." Rasim pressed his lips together. The air had gotten heavy and wet since they'd entered, and now it pressed down on him exhaustingly. "I never had much to lose, I think. I wasn't a good sea witch. All I really had was being clever, and if there hadn't been another fire in Ilyara, that wouldn't have been enough to get me what I wanted."

  "What did you want?" Karluk sounded genuinely interested, as if they were having a conversation over a cup of wine in a courtyard, not standing in chains beneath the arena's sweltering gaze.

  Rasim gave a quick laugh and shot an almost-angry glance at Nasira. Confessing his wish within her earshot seemed like an invitation to mockery, but it wasn't like any of them were going to live much longer anyway. "I wanted to be the captain of the Waifia, of course. Which was never going to happen. I've never even said it out loud before, but I might as well now."

  To his surprise, Nasira's mouth twisted in a smile that seemed sympathetic. "It's hard to want what you know you can never have," she said, almost gently. "I know that better than most."

  Rasim was silent a moment, staring at her, then nodded before, voice cracking, he spoke to Karluk again. "I had almost no magic then, and nobody gives a ship, never mind the flagship, to a magicless captain. So maybe I've just always taken chances that other people wouldn't. And look where it got me. Look where it got us."

  "You saved me," Bayar said in unexpected, flawlessly formal Ilyaran. "Taking another's life is the second-worst crime my tribe acknowledges, even when done in self-defense. If we are forced to kill to defend ourselves, we know that our spirit has been corrupted by the madness that led the other to attack. To be cleansed of that corruption takes many weeks of spiritual guidance by our shamans. When war comes to us, we spend the weeks before it in close contemplation with our shamans, and are cleansed again if we survive. If you had not come, Rasim al Ilialio, I believe I would have killed a man to save my own life. I would have died with that stain on my spirit, and I would not have been allowed passage into the King Horse's realm."

  As Bayar's speech went on, Rasim forgot the humidity and the gathering crowds in favor of gaping at the small Shenryalan boy. Bayar's mouth curved in a slight, almost apologetic smile that widened when, instead of asking about his ability to speak Ilyaran, Rasim blurted, "What's your worst crime, then?"

  Bayar's smile flickered a little wider. "Other tribes have differing traditions on lesser crimes, but all of Shenryal is united on the worst. To slaughter a horse unnecessarily is to lose all honor. A Shenryalan who does so is driven from their tribe forever, or until they can in some way redeem themselves in the King Horse's heart. I am sorry for my deception, in letting you believe I did not speak your language," Bayar added. "My people prefer the isolation of the steppes and believe that to speak long with strangers can...contaminate us. But I wished for you to know, before we died, that I believe you have saved my spirit from wandering the forever-after alone, with no hope but to return to the cycle of life as a lesser creature and begin my journey toward the King Horse's country again. I wished to thank you."

  "You're welcome. I wish we could have talked more. I wish I hadn't gotten us killed." The arena was full now, thousands of people looking down at them. They were quiet, though. Quiet, at least, by comparison to the screams before and during the arena fights. Their guards tightened the circle around them, weapons held more purposefully.

  Rasim swayed, feeling faint. He couldn't tell if his dizziness was from the heat, which was much worse than it had been after the chill of the past few days, or from pure astonishment, or—most likely—from the encroaching awareness that he was going to die very soon. One of the guards stepped forward and put his hand on the back of Rasim's neck, forcing him to his knees. A sudden spurt of defiance made Rasim lift his eyes to the arena's highest wall. They could kill him, but they couldn't make him die cowering and with his eyes closed. He wanted to see the world until the last possible moment.

  Karluk snarled and shook off the hands of the guard who tried pushing him downward. Instead he knelt gracefully, his own gaze lifted in a glare at the arena audience. A cheer rose at his boldness, and Rasim wished he'd done the same. Another guard kicked the backs of Bayar's knees, sending him crashing to the ground, although the Shenryalan boy's attention was also cast upward. He was murmuring. Praying, Rasim thought. He hoped the King Horse would welcome Bayar to their afterlife with pride. Nasira also knelt on her own, her gaze lifted in visible anger. Rasim thought Amdria must have given her heartbreak or she would have freed them all with her witchery by now.

  A drum beat banged through the arena, so deep and loud it made Rasim's teeth rattle. It silenced the audience more completely than they'd ever been, and in its wake someone started giving a speech. A woman. Probably Amdria, Rasim thought, although her voice was distorted by the use of sky witchery. It carried everywhere, though, and when Karluk caught his breath to translate, Rasim shook his head. "Don't bother. I can guess. We're criminals, throwing ourselves against the natural order, and we must be punished for our stupidity and so that everyone knows the price of defying their masters."

  Karluk smiled thinly. "Close enough." Before he could say anything else, the drums sounded again, this time rolling on long enough that Rasim swayed beneath the onslaught of sound. He would not faint. He wouldn't. The guards were baring blades now, preparing to kill them, but Rasim was not going to do them the favor of falling face first into the sand before they tried. They were going to have to look into his eyes before they murdered him.

  "This is duty," one of the guards said in Ilyaran. "I take no pleasure in it. Will you grant me forgiveness for what I must do?"

  Astonished, Rasim looked into the man's hooded face. "Not a chance, and I hope Siliaria drowns you in your sleep!"

  The guard recoiled in shock, and Karluk choked back edged laughter. "It's considered good manners to forgive your executioner. It's how they do it in Moran."

  "I don't give rotten fish guts for how they do it here! He's going to kill me, and he can carry the guilt of that for the rest of his stinking life!" Enraged, and glad for it, because at least he wasn't afraid anymore, Rasim locked his gaze on the arena's tall upper lip.

  Water began to pour over it.

  22

  It sounded like the tide rushing in, and drew the attention of everyone, including—most importantly—the guards about to kill them. More than one of the guards pulled the black hood from their heads to see more clearly as they gaped upward at the ever-widening stream that broke over supports and rushed onto the roofs of the wealthy's boxes. From there it fell again, spilling down onto those who couldn't afford rooftops and filling step after step of the arena's seats before splashing to the next one. Screams of surprise began echoing through the arena: screams and laughter from children, and shouts of fearful anger from adults.