The Kehanni traced circles on a wooden armlet she wore on her bicep, as if seeking a memory in its intricate etchings.

  “A giant’s fangs,” she murmured. “Shriveled hollow—when you say it, I feel as if I have heard these words. But I cannot quite remember. This may be beyond me, Ilar. If my instructor Mamie was here…” Laia shook her head. “We lost her two winters ago. Every day I have a question for her. Let me think on it. You have taken salt with us. Until I have a solution, stay as a guest. Live as we do.”

  Resentment rose like bile in Aiz’s throat. The Tribes had so much that they could share it with any stranger, while the clerics who cared for Kegar’s weakest hardly had bread for themselves.

  Jealousy would not serve Mother Div. Aiz made herself smile. “That’s most generous, Kehanni. But I wouldn’t wish to impose on you for more than a few days.”

  Laia no doubt sensed Aiz’s impatience. “It may take months, Ilar,” she said gently. “I do not mind hunting a story. Perhaps this was meant to be. But I will need to seek out other Kehannis who can advise me. I will send out messages—ask for meetings in Nur, where we travel for Rathana, the midwinter festival.”

  The woman stood and called out. A moment later, those who had disappeared from the fire returned, bringing with them a steaming dessert. Laia ladled a bowl for Aiz.

  “This is khiram,” she said. “Rice pudding with saffron, a specialty of Tribe Saif. Eat. Rest easy. You are safe with my Tribe. We will speak in the morning.”

  Laia left, and around Aiz, the members of Tribe Saif carried on their conversations.

  Months. Aiz didn’t have months. Sister Noa and Olnas and Hani were in the Tohr now. Aiz needed to destroy Tiral. And after—

  The Sacred Tales said the revelation of the Ninth Sacred Tale would trigger the Return. Her people would finally go home. Impatience burned through Aiz. Months!

  Mother Div spoke. What is a delay of months when I have been waiting centuries? I did not bring you here only to free me. There is much you can take from the Tribes. You will remain here, and you will learn from living among them.

  Aiz shivered. Mother Div wasn’t as understanding as she’d been in Kegar, or even on the Ankanese ship. She was disappointed. Aiz felt compelled to make it right.

  Of course, Mother Div, she said in her mind. I will do as you ask.

  Quil appeared by the fire, drawing the attention of most of the young people nearby, though they didn’t approach him. He had high cheekbones, a square jaw, and the slightest ridge in his nose, with skin that was darker than hers, and imbued with a golden-brown glow, as if he spent most days outside.

  The color of his irises was light and strange and shifting. One second as bright as a cat’s, the next softer, like the shed leaves of a butterfly larch. Aiz had never seen eyes like his before.

  He ladled himself a bowl of khiram—which was promptly stolen by a giggling Ruh. The child plopped down beside Aiz.

  “My favorite food,” he said. “No one makes khiram better than Quil.”

  The young man secured his own bowl. When Aiz glanced at him, he looked away quickly, cheeks flushed.

  Interesting.

  Aiz needed friends here. Anchors. People to help her make sense of this place—preferably without demanding too much of her in return.

  She took a bite of khiram. The flavor was too subtle for Aiz.

  “You made this?” She looked at Quil through her lashes. “Remarkable. Tell me how?”

  Quil joined her, but before he could respond, Ruh spoke. “Do you like stories? You must, since you told one to Ama.”

  “I— You weren’t supposed to—”

  “I’m going to be a Kehanni one day,” Ruh said. “I have a fine story to tell. But it’s scary. You aren’t very big.” He eyed her doubtfully. “You might get too scared.”

  “Quil is here.” Aiz glanced at him, hair falling in her face. “He’ll keep me safe.” Another flush. Perfect.

  “Well then,” Ruh said. “Not so long ago, on a cold night like this one…”

  As Ruhyan launched into the tale, Aiz rested her head on her hand, lips parted, shirt slipping a touch off her shoulder as she listened and watched the stars, well aware of how her skin would look lit by the fire.

  She’d purchased a bottle of Attar in Sadh, dabbed a bit on her wrists this morning. Aiz slung her magic down to lasso the scent, so that Quil might associate it with her. But it danced out of her fingers on a willful breeze.

  Do not demand, Mother Div said to Aiz. Coax. Then tether it.

  Aiz crooned to the wind in her mind. You carry such marvelous fragrances. Come closer, please, that I might share this one with you.

  The wind resisted, but Aiz kept at it, only half listening to Ruh’s story. Finally, Quil inhaled, gaze bemused.

  “Roses,” Quil muttered. “They’re usually not in bloom.”

  Ruh raised an eyebrow. “What roses? I didn’t say anything about roses. You’re not paying attention!”

  “Sorry, Ruh.”

  The boy continued with his tale. Quil tried not to glance over at Aiz and failed.

  Half-hidden by the dark, Aiz smiled.

  20

  Quil

  Sirsha, at least, appeared to have taken the revelation of Quil’s title in stride, regarding him surmisingly while attempting to work herself free from her bonds. But as the prince edged toward her, R’zwana, initially rendered silent, finally found her tongue.

  “We have no proof of your identity. Anyone could rattle off a ridiculous Martial name and say he’s a prince.”

  “It’s him, R’zwana,” said the grizzled Jaduna who’d been guarding the door, peering at Quil. “I was part of the delegation to Antium eight years ago. I remember his face.”

  R’zwana could’ve lit the older man aflame with her glare. “Do not defy me, D’rudo.”

  “Seems like he’s stating a fact,” Sufiyan offered. “But you two can sort that out. We have a ship to catch, so if you could unbind her, we’ll be on our way.”

  “You’ll pardon her and let her go,” the Raan-Ruku snapped. “After she has clearly flouted the very letter of the law by—”

  Quil sighed as R’zwana rattled off a list of grievances. He’d been at court enough to know that if you let petty people argue, they’d never shut up. The Jaduna could probably turn Quil into a gourd with the snap of a finger. But Arelia was alone and the Kegari were crawling through the city like roaches. They needed to get out of here.

  He was the crown prince of the bleeding Martial Empire. It was time these Jaduna realize it.

  He recalled his aunt’s flinty gaze when her council of advisers was being especially intractable, the way she’d tilt her head, and everyone suddenly thought thrice about crossing her.

  Quil felt the change in his body, the iron in his spine, the press of his thumbs into his knuckles as his fists clenched. All of them sensed it, and R’zwana, still ranting, fell silent.

  “Our two nations have a treaty.” Quil silently thanked his droning pill of a tutor, who insisted on the prince memorizing said treaty. “Honor it. Or I’ll be forced to draw my weapon. You’ll call on your magic. And we’ll have a diplomatic incident on our hands.”

  R’zwana’s eyes were dark, like her sister’s, but devoid of Sirsha’s humor and warmth. What Quil saw instead was a festering insecurity that she worked hard to hide. Quil kept talking. Kept making her angrier.

  “You hate your sister. That much is clear. But it’s not my problem.” Quil slowly let drop the blade in his sleeve, and drew closer to R’zwana, preying on her outrage, the way he’d seen his aunt do to others a hundred times. Until, in one swift motion, he had a dagger at her heart.

  “Let her go. My patience grows thin.”

  A moment later, the young man named J’yan sliced through Sirsha’s bonds, his knife flashing.

  “I, too, am Raan-Ruku,” J’yan said to R’zwana. “I don’t relish telling the Raani that her daughter died in a knife fight with a Martial.” He spat the last word like it was poison. Quil suspected that venom was because Quil had pronounced Sirsha his fiancée.

  “She might be Jaduna-born,” J’yan said. “But she’s Jaduna no more. Let her go. We have a killer to hunt, and no time for foolishness.”

  A vein pulsed at R’zwana’s temple. Then she smiled. The sudden shift was so unnerving that Quil grasped his dagger tighter.

  “If they are engaged,” she said, “then let him speak the words of fidelity. The Jaduna words, witnessed by the appropriate party.”

  “His Highness doesn’t have time to wait for a member of the Jaduna clergy to show up,” Sufiyan said, scorn dripping from every word. “He’s a Martial prince, for skies’ sake. His word is good.”

  R’zwana fixed her stare on Sirsha. “It’s not his word that’s the problem. Worry not. Any full-coined Jaduna can perform the ceremony with a few words.”

  “Enough.” Sirsha’s voice shook. “R’zwana, this is unnecessary—”

  “I knew you were lying!” R’zwana grabbed Sirsha’s arm and hauled her up. “Engaged! As if anyone would want to marry you.” Sirsha winced, and at the sight of her misery, Quil’s temper snapped.

  He didn’t know why he found R’zwana’s contempt for Sirsha so repugnant. Perhaps because he couldn’t imagine treating Arelia or Sufiyan this way. Or because, despite Sirsha’s dissembling, there was something oddly endearing about how terrible she was at it, and it made him want to protect her.

  Whatever the case, he was in R’zwana’s face before he realized what he was doing.

  Sufiyan stepped close, voice low. “Probably shouldn’t kill the Jaduna, Quil.”

  “What are the words?” he said to R’zwana, dead quiet. “I’ll say them.”

  Sirsha stared at him in surprise and R’zwana took a step back. Quil’s initial dislike of the woman burgeoned into something like loathing. She had no interest in treaties or laws or logic. She just wanted to kill her sister. At some point, she’d think of a reason to justify it. The longer they dragged this out, the more likely it was that she would conjure another loophole, and the longer they’d be stuck in bleeding Jibaut.

  He didn’t know much about Jaduna vows—his tutor had focused on treaties. A Martial troth took some undoing because families and assets were involved. But they were dissolvable, and Quil had never heard anything indicating that a Jaduna engagement was any different.

  “Make it quick,” Quil said. “As Sufiyan said, we have someplace to be.”

  “Very well.” R’zwana’s surprise was evident. “J’yan, the words of witnessing.”

  The other Raan-Ruku hesitated, and Sirsha’s sister gave the man a look so blistering that Quil was surprised his skin didn’t peel off. J’yan sighed.

  “I, J’yan Deshma, of Kin Deshma, bear witness to this union.”

  R’zwana cleared her throat at D’rudo. He shook his head, but still spoke. “I, D’rudo Inashi, of Kin Inashi, bear witness to this union.”

  Sirsha’s face went pale as R’zwana smiled nastily at her, drawing a dagger and offering it to Sirsha. “You know the words, sister,” she said. “You’ve heard them often enough.”

  “I—I, Sirsha W-W-Westering, name Quil as my—”

  “His full name,” R’zwana hissed. “Don’t forget the blood.”

  Sirsha grimaced and cut her hand. “…Zacharias Marcus Livius Aquillus Farrar as my Adah, half my soul. I give my heart unto his keeping, a gift with no compare.”

  R’zwana took the blade and handed it to Quil. “You memorized a treaty, so I imagine you can repeat that?”

  He cut his palm with the knife. “I, Zacharias Marcus Livius Aquillus Farrar, name Sirsha Westering as my Adah, half my soul.” It was just a few words. It wouldn’t mean anything. He tried to look comfortingly at Sirsha but shifted his gaze at her obvious distress. “I give my heart unto her keeping, a gift with no compare.”

  R’zwana looked between them. “Hands,” she said, and Sirsha sighed, offering hers to Quil.

  As he took it, as their blood mingled, his body flashed icy cold, then overly warm, as if he had a fever.

  “Witnessed,” R’zwana sniffed.

  J’yan and D’rudo echoed her. Sirsha released Quil. A moment later, the air shifted, as if a window had been opened though the room didn’t have one. Quil’s neck burned, and he glanced down, alarmed. He expected to see a wound or a dart poking out of his skin.

  Instead, he found a thin silver chain glimmering around his throat, with a coin attached to it.

  “What in the bleeding hells,” he said, “is this?”

  “That is the mark of a true Jaduna oath,” R’zwana said.

  “Excellent,” Sufiyan said. “Let’s go.”

  Before anyone could protest, Sufiyan bolted from the room, Quil following. The prince grabbed Sirsha’s hand, realizing that it would be odd for him not to at least try to touch her, since they were supposed to be affianced.

  “Move, move,” Sufiyan muttered as they hurried down a long hallway and up a flight of stairs. “Before they change their minds.”

  They pushed out the compound doors and into the rainy night. A figure reared up in front of them, and Sufiyan had his bow nocked and aimed almost before she could lift her hands.

  “It’s me!” Arelia was soaked through, her expression offended as she took in the murderous look on Sufiyan’s face. “The Kegari boarded the shabka. Just when I’d finally started making sense of the engine, too. Barely escaped them. Caught up with you in the market, but you went after Sirsha and I got stuck in the crush.”

  She held up a bag. “Got some supplies. Since you forgot that bit of the mission.”

  Arelia glanced down at Quil’s hand, still entwined with Sirsha’s. He dropped it quickly, expecting the Jaduna to disappear with nary a thank-you. But she only looked worriedly up the street. Voices sounded.

  “We need to get out of sight.” Sirsha nodded to an alley.

  They ducked into it and emerged on another narrow lane, only to spot four Kegari soldiers. They were dragging someone with them. From the clothing, it looked to be a Martial. Quil couldn’t understand the soldiers’ Kegari speech, but one of them was rubbing his jaw and glaring at their prisoner; the Martial had put up a fight.

  Quil reached for his scim—four soldiers, armor weak in the shoulder and neck—but Sirsha grabbed his arm. “You can’t fight them all, Quil,” she said. “Not if you want to get out of Jibaut alive.”

  She pulled him back too late; one of the Kegari looked up, shouting in excitement.

  “Run—” Quil said, but a sudden wind swept down from the sky, viciously dragging Sufiyan and Quil back into the street they’d been trying to escape. Arelia, still behind them, dove into a hedge.

  “What the hells— Quil!” Sufiyan clawed at a nearby wall, but lost purchase and skidded to the center of the road alongside Quil.

  Quil’s nerves screamed at him to run, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t even speak. How is this possible? Another hellish Kegari invention? He tried to see where Sirsha had gone—but found he didn’t need to because his necklace burned and he felt her, hidden a few yards away.

  He had no time to dwell on it, because a figure appeared out of the darkness of the alleyway. Tall and hooded, with broad shoulders and gray-scaled armor. His features were almost entirely in shadow, but Quil could make out pale skin, a sharp jaw, and a sneering mouth.

  “Quil Farrar,” the man said, his Ankanese uninflected. “The Martial crown prince himself. Long have I wished to look upon you.”

  He wore no markings of rank, but the way his soldiers fell back, the way he walked told Quil that he wasn’t some no-name officer. The air itself seemed to crackle around the man.

  Quil strained against the wind, breaking free for a moment before a tendril of white metal unfurled from the figure’s hand and wrapped around Quil’s shoulders.

  “Hold still,” the man said. “Let me look at—”

  A thin blade flew out of the dark and sank into the man’s shoulder. He hissed, flinching as three more whipped past his head, impaling two of the soldiers behind him.

  Sirsha’s face appeared at the end of the lane, more daggers flying from her hands. “Move, I’m covering!”

  The wind faltered, and Quil and Sufiyan bolted into the alley, Sirsha and Arelia on their heels. The Jaduna overtook them quickly, and they followed her as she cut through a garden, vaulted over a wall lined with glass shards, and raced through muddy, winding streets before stopping in a narrow space between two stables. Within, animals moved. Arelia wrinkled her nose at the tang of horse dung.

  “There are more patrols than before,” Sufiyan said after catching his breath. “Now they know we’re here. And we don’t have a ship.”

  Quil turned to Sirsha. “Thank you,” he said. “Consider us even. Good luck with the hunt.” He glanced at Sufiyan. “We of all people hope you succeed. Though—” His gaze dropped to the bracelet she’d stolen. “I’d like that back.”

  “You can’t leave.” She looked at him as if he’d suggested she stab herself in the eye. “We’re Adah now—soul halves. It’s a deeper bond than a simple engagement. Until our oath is established, we must stay close to one another, or it will feel like our bones are on fire.”

  “How close?” Quil asked, alarmed.

  “In Jaduna lore, no farther than a cloud cat ranges to hunt,” Sirsha said. “Practically, that’s a mile or two.”

  For a moment, he didn’t understand. Then it sank in. Bleeding, burning skies. Why had he let Sufiyan talk him into saving Sirsha? And why, the one time he carried out a plan with no forethought, was this the result?

  “You might have mentioned that the words of fidelity meant chaining myself to you—” Quil tried to pull the necklace off. It wouldn’t break.

  “R’zwana would have killed me on the spot! No Jaduna would get engaged without explaining the Adah oath. Besides, you knew our treaties backward and forward. I assumed you understood the oath, too.”