Chapter 5
Siniq-elb tensed. The uneven wheel caused the cart to dip, and Siniq-elb fell ever so slightly to meet it. Even tensed as he was, bracing for the impact, the pain in his injured shoulder made him groan through the gag. One heartbeat, two heartbeats, three heartbeats—the boards dropped out beneath him again. He started counting again.
Counting the heartbeats was the only thing that kept him sane. He had woken on his side, tied hand and foot, head and shoulder ablaze with pain. The sides of the cart hid the landscape, and he caught only a glimpse of the stars out of the corner of one eye. For what seemed like hours, his world consisted of nothing more than darkness, the smell of sweat and blood and moldy straw, and the pulse of the wagon wheels beneath him.
Out of nowhere, the sound beneath him changed. The clatter of hooves on stone for a dozen paces. Light—weak and distant, but light. They had reached the Way of Ash, the stone road that circled Khi’ilan, and which ran in front of the temple compound.
Sure enough, the cart tilted as they began to head up the hill toward the temple. Siniq-elb slid a few inches, unable to stop himself, wood and straw scraping open the wounds that the seir had given him. It was nothing compared to the pain inside him. Azel, Aba, and Yre dead. Il a coward and a deserter. Natam a traitor. That last hurt worst of all. Natam had been a rock of companionship, always ready with a smile and a joke for everyone. For his squad to end like this—Siniq-elb gritted his teeth to keep from swearing, turning over and over in his mind thoughts of what he would do to Natam when he next saw the man. Those thoughts hurt too, but it was easier to think about revenge than the Garden.
The light was brighter here, and the wagon leveled out. Voices, soft at first, but growing with every pace, filled the night air. Normal voices. The sound of people about their business, living their lives. It seemed impossible that people could still be laughing and chatting, as though the world had not been turned upside down and shaken by a vicious child.
With one last painful thump, the cart came to a stop. Hands reached Siniq-elb, dragging him off the rough boards, onto his feet. Siniq-elb took in his surroundings, trying to keep his mind focused and alert, to avoid the despair that threatened to drown him. He stood at the base of the temple itself. The massive wooden building, with its great, domed top, rose above him, lights burning in every window. A row of orange trees, draped in vines of jasmine, lined the front of the painted stucco of the temple, perfuming the night air. Siniq-elb had only a moment to breathe in the scent before the eses untied his legs and shoved him forward, and he stumbled through the arched doorways, past torches that sizzled and spat.
Moving after so long confined was agony, and Siniq-elb’s legs burned, threatening to give way. The eses laughed as he stumbled, and when he fell to his knees they kicked him, boots driving into side and stomach and back.
The blows ceased abruptly, the men’s laughter falling into silence, and firm hands helped Siniq-elb to his feet. Gasping for breath, Siniq-elb stared, uncomprehending, into Dakel’s face. The su-esis who had captured him just stared back. The severity of the man’s expression revealed anger, but its cause was not clear. Without a word, Dakel gripped Siniq-elb by his uninjured arm and moved him along the hallway—not harshly, exactly, but at a clipped pace.
When they reached an ornate door, outlined in gold-leaf and with a carved brass handle, Dakel dismissed the eses. He led Siniq-elb into the room. Equal opulence met them here. A thick Istbyan rug, twice-dyed blue and threaded with gold and silver, covered the wooden floor, and silver candelabras held beeswax candles that lit the room as though it were day. A thin man with deep-set eyes looked up from the desk where he sat reading.
“Siniq-elb Ayaou,” Dakel said in a flat voice.
The thin man examined Siniq-elb for a long moment, eyes seeming to drink in his features. Siniq-elb shivered; in its intimacy, the look was worse than the eses with their kicks.
“Our god has already pronounced his chastisement,” the thin man said. “Remember, Siniq-elb, that the Garden is a place to grow in the grace of the gods-made-flesh and be renewed. Your chastisement is meant to teach you that.” With a glance at Dakel, the thin man added, “The feet.”
Dakel nodded once and dragged Siniq-elb from the room. The man’s words meant something to Siniq-elb, something important, but he was too tired, too hurt to understand. What were they going to do?
This time Dakel walked too quickly for Siniq-elb, and he half-dragged Siniq-elb behind him. The wooden floors, polished and glowing in the sparse lamplight, slid under his boots. Panic swelled inside him, made worse by the silence and Dakel’s relentless pace. Twice Siniq-elb tried to ask Dakel what was happening, but the su-esis ignored him, and the gag garbled the words so badly that Siniq-elb gave up.
Light filled the next hall they turned down, well-trimmed lamps lining the walls. A pair of guards wearing the green robes and chain of the eses saluted Dakel and stepped aside. Dakel did not slow his pace, and Siniq-elb caught only a glance of the eses’ faces—one, a sardonic smile creasing his face; the other unreadable in the even lamplight. Dakel threw open a pair of wide doors, and suddenly Siniq-elb was outside, the night air washing over him, heavy with dew and the scent of roses and the heady pull of lilacs. Trees blocked out much of the night sky, and only the shortest strain of grass grew here—not the tall grasses that were more common, but a thick, green carpet that covered the ground.
Siniq-elb stumbled along behind Dakel as the su-esis led him between the trees. Siniq-elb caught glimpses of painted stucco walls. A courtyard, then—he was not truly outside of the temple compound. The darkness under the trees was thick, and Siniq-elb tripped more than once over unseen roots, but Dakel never faltered or slowed, as though the darkness were no impediment. His grip never eased; when Siniq-elb fell, Dakel kept walking, dragging Siniq-elb over the grass without slowing, his strength incredible.
And then the far wall of the courtyard came into view, and Siniq-elb and Dakel reached the end of the trees. A small clearing, empty even of the short-growing grass, met them. In the center stood an oblong, flat-topped stone, almost as dark as the moonless sky. Soft, rich earth sank under Siniq-elb’s boots as Dakel dragged him toward the stone.
Dakel stopped at the center of the clearing. It happened in the space of a heartbeat—one moment, Siniq-elb was struggling to keep up; the next he was being lifted with terrifying ease, and then he hit the stone so hard that stars danced in front of his eyes. The pain in his wounded shoulder was even worse, like angry lightning, and for long moments there was nothing but pain and stirring lights.
A series of pain-choked breaths brought him back to some semblance of consciousness, but only to find himself tied to the stone, the ropes dragged through rings of iron embedded in the rock. Dakel stood at the foot of the stone, massive sword shining weakly in the darkness. The su-esis’s jaw was a line of determination, his dark eyes, as dark as his foreign hair, hard.
Then, so quickly that he blurred with the deep shadows, Dakel moved. The sword cut a line of tarnished silver through the darkness.
Pain exploded in Siniq-elb’s legs. He had never felt anything like it before. It was a creature with a thousand maws, swallowing him whole, devouring him alive. Fire and then, mercifully, darkness, and then he knew nothing.