Herrith hurried along the narrow alley in the bottom tier of the city, head down. On either side of him, the buildings rose up, two or three stories of red stone, crammed full of the lives of people, displaying their washing hanging out of the windows or along strings stretched from one side of the alley to the other. In places where people reached out to grip the sides of the street, Herrith could see the prints of many hands, blackened and shiny over time. He heard babies crying in the heat, women calling out or laughing. The scents of dinner wafted through the air, and at least once, Herrith heard the muttered words, “red robe.”
He paid no attention. All his attention was directed at the slight figure of a woman in front of him. She had slipped out of the palace just before Herrith, and the guard who was in the Circle with Herrith had pointed her out, saying that she was acting suspiciously and he wasn’t sure who she was. Herrith felt instantly alert. There shouldn’t be anyone in the palace that Herrith didn’t know, and he had numerous reasons to make sure this woman wasn’t up to anything dangerous.
He paused for a moment and put his hand on the building beside him, feeling old and a little shaky. The woman was moving swiftly, and after a few breaths, Herrith followed her again. Work at the palace was growing ever more tense. Gavi told Herrith that he was almost certain the kitchen staff had been seeded with spies from the king. The Circle—the little group of resistance fighters in the Desert City—was trying to decide whether Gavi should go or stay. The boy desperately wanted to stay close to Aria, but she was being heavily guarded, so that few of them ever saw her.
They all needed to know: what would the king’s next move be? Gavi asked Herrith every day if he knew anything more, and Herrith had to restrain himself from snapping at the boy. Didn’t Gavi know Herrith would share the information with him just as soon as he himself knew? Herrith had lived a life of danger, a spy and member of the resistance who had existed in the king’s awareness since he was a young boy, and still these days vibrated with more tension than he had ever felt.
King Ikajo had stopped confiding in Herrith, his cousin, the Red Robe who had been with him the longest, and Herrith knew that the king could easily, without a second thought, decide to end Herrith’s life. There didn’t seem to be anything remotely like loyalty within the king’s soul, bones, or heart. The only person the king had ever seemed to love, even remotely, was Isika, his hope. Now that the daughter he had created from both the Warrior and Whisperer line had rejected the king, he was dangerous with a deep iron thread that terrified Herrith and everyone around him. Isika had the potential to be the most powerful person alive because of the combination of strengths within her, and she wanted nothing to do with his plan to subdue the lands around them. The king’s dream was dying.
Herrith was shocked and dismayed by the King’s way of thinking. Did he really believe Nenyi, the Shaper, the Uncreated One, was so easily manipulated, to create a weapon for Mugunta, the evil one, from a combination of bloodlines? The king had been so sure. Maybe he knew something the king didn’t.
He had nearly lost the woman as she turned around the corner, so he sped up, clutching at his side. There she was. She was slight, swathed in layers of clothing. As he watched, she clutched her cloak more tightly around her. She clung to the shadows as she walked, nearly running, along the narrow alley. Her hands were covered, Herrith noticed, and then he saw that nothing of her body was visible. She looked like a drift of clothing, scudding along the narrow street, hardly touching the ground. Goosebumps broke out along his body, and he cursed his superstitious mind. The thought had come to him, only briefly, that he was following a ghost.
The fragrances of a city evening continued to barrage Herrith’s senses as he hurried after the woman. Heady night blooming flowers, the scent of dough and rich spices frying in hot oil. Herrith’s stomach rumbled. Mara’s food waited for him at the Circle meeting, but he was stuck following this woman, who now seemed to be traveling erratically, zig-zagging though the alleys, apparently searching for something.
He almost missed seeing her stop, and had to regain his balance. She stood, completely still, gazing into a window on the building in front of her. It was large enough that Herrith could see in as well, from where he stood, hiding in the shadows a little further down the street. He had wondered if she was a spy, but there was nothing important about the old weaver who sat at his loom, lit by the magic stones of the Gariah people. The rhythm of his shuttle moving back and forth, back and forth, seemed to entrance the woman, and then she hurried on.
Herrith paused in front of the window to see if he had missed something, but no, the room was bare and simple, with one weaver working into the night. He watched for a moment, then followed the woman again, with a brief shake of his head and a feeling of anxiety starting to move in his gut. The woman had started to cling more seriously to the shadows, as though she suspected she was being followed. She looked back over her shoulder from time to time, and Herrith held his breath and kept himself very still, each time. He still couldn’t see her face, with the hood of her desert cloak pulled so far over her head. Once or twice it seemed that she would turn and go back the way she had come, but each time she stood, head down, clinging to a wall with a gloved hand, and then continued farther down into the lowest tier of the city. Other than the zigzags, she was heading in the same direction as Herrith, toward Circle headquarters.
He grew more afraid, anxiety boiling hotter in his stomach, trickling into his limbs. The king watched them all so closely ever since Isika had infiltrated the City, setting hundreds of people destined for slavery free and nearly killing the King.
Aria was guarded like a rare diamond, marched from her rooms to sit near the king and attend him, offering reassurances, then marched back to her rooms when he was tired of her. Herrith was rarely near her. When he was, he was careful not to look at her for too long. He felt the king’s eyes on his every move, the king’s awareness spreading out to draw all of them into a stronger grip than ever.
The woman stopped again, gazing into another window. This one didn’t even have glass, but was merely a few bars crossing a small squarish hole on a dilapidated building. She stood, swaying slightly, for a number of breaths, seemingly transfixed. Herrith couldn’t see what she was looking at, but when she finally moved on, he hurried closer to peer in.
A small family sat on the floor, eating from a single pot. Light came from a few candles, meaning the family couldn’t afford the magic lighting of the city, weakly illuminating a mother feeding a toddler bits of rice with her hands. Nearby were a small boy and girl, eating quietly from the pot. They took turns without fighting, but as soon as the food was in their hands, they shoved it back into their mouths with a bit of desperation. Herrith felt tears sting his eyes, watching them, and made a mental note of their location. The mother smiled down at the toddler in her lap.
A suspicion began to form in Herrith’s mind.
He turned to look for the woman and couldn’t see her, a group of laughing people crowding the narrow alley. His stomach felt as though it would drop out of his body. He knew where the woman was going. She wasn’t safe. None of them were safe. Panic rose as he rushed through the crowd, pushing past people even when they protested his rough treatment, earning scowls.
He caught sight of the woman just before she lifted her hand to rap on the blue door with the etched symbol of the broken circle. He drew near her as Mara opened the door, and without hesitating, caught the slight woman’s elbow, ploughing past Mara, into the room, slamming the door behind them.
“Herrith!” Mara exclaimed at his rough actions.
Gavi was on his feet. “Who is this?” he demanded. “We’re supposed to tell each other before bringing anyone new.”
Herrith ignored them. “Well?” he inquired, staring at the covered woman. “Are you going to show yourself?”
She reached up and pulled back her hood, then unwound the cloth that covered her face. Very expensive cloths, Herrith noted now, crossing his arms over his chest.
Gavi glanced at Herrith, his face confused, but Herrith shook his head, keeping his attention on the girl who emerged from the billow of cloth, looking back on him defiantly.
“Aria!” Gavi said with a rush of breath, moving close to hug her. She blinked up at him, smiling slightly. The smile turned to a confused frown for a moment, then she shook herself. Herrith felt a pang of love. This girl, ensnared by her father’s poison half the time, was like a daughter to Herrith. He took her elbow more gently and led her over to some cushions. She sank onto them, seeming weary to the core.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he asked. He couldn’t quite keep the anger out of his voice.
Her face shifted through a strange mix of emotions. Herrith was used to this. Aria was really only half herself, these days, with the king’s poison arrow still lodged inside of her. The fact that there was any of her left at all was astonishing, and Herrith had a deep pride in the resilience of Amani’s daughter. He didn’t know of even one other person who could have withstood the poison of the king for this long. He sometimes wondered if Aria really was the most powerful person in the world, resisting the king’s enslavement as she did. She should have withered and died long ago.
But at this moment he was more concerned with the fact that Aria had broken out of the palace. She knew what was at stake. The king watched her so closely, with guards and spies in place to follow her. She had put herself in danger. She had put them all in danger. She could so easily have been followed.
Gavi scooted close to Aria, keeping his eyes trained on her face. She smiled back at him. Mara approached with a cup of tea for the girl, and only then did Herrith look around to see who else was witnessing this. Abbas’s sister was in the corner of the room, with two of the other Karee circle members. An old friend of Mara’s sat at the table, bent over a bowl of soup in the dim lighting. That was all. He exhaled.
“I had to come,” Aria said in a soft voice after she had taken a gulp of tea. She paused and closed her eyes. They waited for many breaths before Aria opened her eyes again. “I’m sorry,” she said, “he’s angry that I’m gone and trying to work out what to do about it.”
All around the room there were gasps and muffled exclamations. Abbas’s sister sat forward.
“Does he know you are here?”
“No,” Aria whispered.
Herrith leaned forward to hear her better.
“He can’t tell where I am. He thinks I’m hiding somewhere in the palace.”
There were more exclamations and whispers from the Karee in the corner. Herrith held his breath for a moment.
“But how would he think that? Unless...” he felt a jolt of understanding, “Aria, are you altering his understanding?”
She nodded and closed her eyes again. Herrith nearly staggered. Aria had layers of curses on her, guards set to watch her, and was physically frail. Despite all this, she could read and alter the king’s mind.
Herrith met Gavi’s eyes and saw the same shock that must be visible in his own.
Aria took a shuddering breath. “I came because you must know his plans. They are...dangerous. For all of us.”
“Tell us,” Gavi said gently. His face was very still, every muscle in his body seemed rigid. Beside him, Mara was wringing her hands.
Aria took a few more moments to answer, then forced the words out. “He will go to the seas and fight from the water.” It seemed as though she was fighting for every word, eyes shut tight, her face raw and pained.
Gavi leaned closer and laid his hand gently on her shoulder. He let his breath out in a hiss. Herrith flinched, knowing he was feeling Aria’s pain, part of his gift as a healer.
She spoke again, biting out each word, with long pauses between some of them.
“The king will attack the Hadem. He plans to destroy them in order to draw Isika out. Then he will either turn her or kill her and go through the Hadem lands through Maween to the city of Azariyah. Without the dance magic of the Hadem, the Maweel will be greatly weakened and will fall. Forever.”
She got the last word out and then slumped over. Mara caught her, keeping her head from hitting the ground.
Gavi opened bloodshot eyes and whispered, “Give her a moment and then we need to get her back to the palace grounds. We can leave her in the garden and they can assume she just wanted to be outside.”
“What’s wrong, Gavi?” Mara asked. “Why did she collapse?”
Gavi’s eyes filled with tears. “He’s torturing her. We have to fix this, find something to cut the bond between them, or she isn’t going to make it. She’ll die. I can feel the despair within her. She's the strongest person I've ever known, but no one can take this much torment.
Herrith moved closer to stroke Aria’s hair. His eyes were stinging and he blinked back tears.
"How can he do this to her?" he murmured.
"He's a monster," Abbas's sister said.
"That's the problem,” Herrith said. “He’s not a monster, he's a man. How can a man harm his own child like this?"
Herrith had the tiniest flicker of hope, then. Maybe, after so many years of frustration, he was finding the reason he was here. Maybe he was supposed be the one to take the life of the king.
