The smoke boiling up through the floor-boards thickened the band of sunlight spilling into the little chamber, blinding him with its bright glare. His throat was full, his hands useless.
Across the room, just visible through the smoke, a lean figure moved closer.
“No!” he thought. “Not here. Never here.”
Ilar’s presence made no more sense than that of the glass spheres he clutched so desperately in both hands. The flames cleared before Ilar as he approached, his smile warm and welcoming.
So handsome. So graceful.
Seregil had forgotten how the man moved, light and easy as a lynx. Almost close enough to touch now.
Seregil felt the cold flames eating into him, felt smooth glass slipping through his fingers.
Ilar reached for him. No, he was offering him something, a bloody sword.
“No!” Seregil shouted, clutching frantically at the glass orbs. “No, I don’t want it!”
Seregil started up in bed, drenched in sweat and amazed to find Alec still asleep beside hm. Hadn’t he been shouting?
Shout? he thought in sudden alarm. He couldn’t even get his breath. The cold smoke from the dream still filled his lungs, making even the slight weight of Alec’s arm across his chest a stifling burden. He was choking, suffocating.
He slid out of bed as carefully as his rising panic allowed, still irrationally concerned about waking Alec. Snatching up discarded clothing, he blundered out into the dimly lit corridor.
Breath came easier once he was in motion. But when he paused to drag on his breeches and boots, the smothering sensation overwhelmed him again. He hurried on, pulling on the surcoat—Alec’s, it turned out—as he went.
He was practically running now, past the second landing and on down the broader staircase that led to the hall.
What am I doing?
He slowed, and as if in answer, the breath locked tight in his chest. So he blundered on, praying he didn’t meet anyone in his current state.
Raw instinct guided him down a side passage and out through the kitchen to the stable court. The moon was down, the shadows thick. A murmur of voices and a faint glow of firelight near the gate marked where the sentries stood, just outside the gate. Scaling the back wall unseen was a simple feat for the man once know as—
Haba
—the Rhíminee Cat.
The soft turf of the street muffled the sound of his boots as he jumped down from the top of the wall and loped away, the unfastened coat flapping loosely around his bare sides.
For a while the feel of his heart and breath and the long legs carrying him along were enough to fend off thought. Gradually, however, he grew calmer, and the panicked dash slowed to a walking meditation.
The confusion of the Cockerel with his childhood room—a homecoming of sorts? he wondered, beginning to pick away at the dream that had precipitated this headlong nocturnal perambulation. But the rest: glass orbs, fire, smoke, Ilar. Try as he might, the dream’s import still eluded him.
But then again, the images spoke of the past he’d mourned and here he was, alone under the stars, as he’d so often dreamed of being during the lonely years in Skala.
Alone with his own thoughts.
Introspection had never been a favorite pastime. In fact, he was quite skilled at avoiding it. “Take what the Lightbearer sends and be thankful.” How many times had he quoted that, his creed, his catalyst, his bulwark against self-revelation?
The Lightbearer sent dreams—and madness. His thin mouth tilted into a humorless smirk: better not to dwell too long on that. Nonetheless, this dream had driven him out alone for the first time since their arrival in Sarikali. Goose flesh prickled his skin, and he fastened the coat, noting absently that it was a little loose in the shoulders for him.
Alec.
Seregil had been with him or others day and night without cease since their arrival, making it a simple matter to fill every waking moment with the business at hand—so many concerns, so much to do. So very easy to stave off the thoughts brewing since he’d set foot in Gedre—hell, since Beka had told him about this mission in the first place.
Exile
Traitor
Alone here in the haunted stillness of a Sarikali night, he was stripped of his defenses.
Murderer
Guest slayer
With hallucinatory clarity, he felt the hardness of a long-gone dagger’s hilt clenched in his right fist, felt again for the first time the jar and give as the blade sank into the outraged Haman’s—
You knew him. He had a name. His father’s voice now, filled with disgust.
Dhymir í Tilmani Nazien
Guest slayer
—into Dhymir í Tilmani Nazien’s chest all those nights and years and deaths ago. There was an obscene simplicity to that sensation. How was it that it took less effort, less strength, to stab the life from a person than to carve one’s mark in a tavern tabletop?
With that thought came the old unanswerable question: What had made him draw steel against another when he could just as easily have run away? With a single stroke he’d taken a life and changed the entire course of his own. One stroke.
It had been almost nine years before he killed again, this time to protect himself and the Mycenian thief who’d taught him the first rudiments of the nightrunner’s trade in the dark stews and filthy streets of Keston. That killing had been fraught with no such doubts. His teacher had been pleased, said she could make a first-class snuffer of him, but even under her questionable tutelage he had never killed unless driven to it.
Later still, when he’d killed a clumsy ambusher to protect a young, recently met companion named Micum Cavish, his new friend had assumed it was Seregil’s first time and made him lick a little of the blood from the blade, an old soldier’s custom.
“Drink the blood of your first kill and the ghosts of that and any other can’t haunt you,” Micum had promised, so earnest, so well intentioned. Seregil had never had the heart to confess that it was already far too late, or that only one death had ever haunted him, one that galled enough to pay off all the others.
A glint of light ahead as he rounded a corner broke in on his thoughts. He’d been striding along without thought of direction, or so he’d imagined. A grim smile tugged at the corner of his mouth when he realized that his wandering feet had taken him deep into Haman tupa.
The light came from a large brazier, and in the compass of its flickering glow he saw the men gathered around it. They were young, and drinking. Even at a distance, he recognized a few of them from the council chamber, including several of Nazien’s kin.
If he turned now, they’d never know he’d been there.
But he didn’t turn, or even slow.
Take what the Lightbearer sends—
With a perverse shiver of excitement, he squared his shoulders, smoothed his hair back, and strolled on, passing close enough for the firelight to strike the side of his face. He said nothing, gave no greeting or provocation, but he could not suppress a small, giddy smile as a half dozen pairs of eyes widened, then tracked him with instant recognition and hatred. The tightness in Seregil’s chest returned as he felt the burn of their gaze between his shoulder blades.
The inevitable attack was swift, but strangely quiet. There was the expected rush of feet, then hands grasped at him out of the darkness. They slung him against a wall, then threw him to the ground. Seregil raised his arms instinctively to cover his face but made no other move to protect himself. Boots and fists found him again, striking from all directions, finding his belly and groin and the still tender arrow bruise on his shoulder. He was picked up, shoved from one man to another, pummeled, spat on, flung down, and kicked some more. The darkness in front of his eyes lit up momentarily in a burst of white sparks as a foot connected with the back of his head.
It might have gone on for minutes or hours. The pain was crude, erratic, exquisite.
Satisfying.
“Guest slayer!” they hissed as they
struck. “Exile!” “Nameless!”
Strange how sweet such epithets sounded when flavored with the dry lilt of Haman, he thought, floating dreamily near unconsciousness. He’d have thanked them if he could have drawn breath to speak, but they were intent on preventing that.
Where are your knives?
The beating stopped as abruptly as it had begun, though he knew without uncurling to look around that they were still standing over him. A muttered order was given, but he couldn’t make out the words over the ringing in his ears.
Then a hot, stinging stream of liquid struck him in the face. Another fell across his splayed legs and a third hit his chest.
Ah, he thought, blinking piss from his eyes. Nice touch, that.
Giving him a few last disdainful kicks, they left him, tipping over the brazier as they went as if to deny him the comfort of its warmth. They could just as easily have emptied it onto him.
Noble Haman. Merciful brothers.
A low chuckle scraped out of his chest like a twist of rusty wire. Oh, it hurt to laugh—he had a few cracked ribs to remember the night by—but once he got started he couldn’t stop. The breathless gasps grew to undignified giggles, then bloomed into raw, full-throated cackles that racked fresh pain through his sides and head. The sound would probably draw the Haman back, but he was too far gone to care. Red spots swirled in front of his eyes, and he had the strangest sensation that if he didn’t stop laughing soon, his unmarked face would come loose from his head like an ill-fitted mask.
Eventually the whoops lessened to hiccups and snorts, then dwindled to whimpers. He felt amazingly light, cleansed even, though his dry mouth tasted bitterly of piss. Crawling a few feet to safer ground, he sprawled on the dew-laden grass, licking moisture from the blades beneath his lips. There was just enough moisture to torment him. Giving up, he staggered to his feet.
“That’s all right,” he mumbled to no one in particular. “Time to go home now.”
Something twisted painfully in his chest as he whispered the word again.
Home.
Seregil wasn’t sure afterwards just how he got back to the guest house, but when he came to he was curled up in a back corner of the bath chamber, dawn light streaming in softly around him through the open windows. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move. It hurt to have his eyes open, so he closed them.
Hurried footsteps brought him around.
“How did he get there?”
“I don’t know.” That was Olmis, one of the servants. “I found him when I arrived to heat the water.”
“Didn’t anyone see?”
“I asked the guards. No one heard anything.”
Seregil cracked an eyelid and saw Alec kneeling beside him. He looked furious.
“Seregil, what happened to you?” he asked, then recoiled, nose wrinkling in disgust at the rank odor emanating from Seregil’s damp clothing. “Bilairy’s Guts, you stink!”
“I went for a walk.” Fire erupted in Seregil’s side as he spoke, turning the words to gaps.
“Last night, you mean?”
“Yes. Just had to—walk off a bad dream.” The ghost of a chuckle slipped out before he could stop it. More pain.
Alec stared at him, then motioned for Olmis to help strip off the filthy clothing. Both let out startled exclamations as they opened his coat. Seregil could guess what he must look like by now.
“Who did this to you?” Alec demanded.
Seregil considered the question, then sighed. “I fell in the dark.”
“Down a privy, by the smell of him,” muttered Olmis, wrestling off his breeches.
Alec knew he was lying, of course. Seregil could tell by the hard set of his lover’s mouth as he helped Olmis lift him into a warm bath and wash away what they could of the night’s debacle.
They probably tried to be gentle with him, but Seregil hurt too much to appreciate the effort. He didn’t feel light anymore. The night’s euphoric spell was broken; this pain was dull, nauseating, and constant—no brilliant flashes or crests. Closing his eyes, he endured the bath, endured being lifted out and swathed in a soft blanket. He let himself drift off, away from the massive throbbing in his head.
“I should fetch Mydri,” Olmis was saying, his voice already faint in Seregil’s ears.
“I don’t want anyone else seeing him like this. Not his sisters, especially not the princess. This never happened,” Alec told him.
Well done, talí, Seregil thought. I don’t want to have to explain it, either, because I can’t.
Seregil awoke propped up in a soft bed. Squinting up in confusion, he made out the play of firelight on rippling gauze hangings overhead.
“You slept all day.”
Moving only his eyes, Seregil found Alec in a chair close beside their bed, a book open across his lap.
“Where—?” he rasped.
“So you fell, did you?”
Snapping the book shut, Alec leaned forward to place a cup of water to Seregil’s lips, then one containing a milky sweet concoction that Seregil fervently hoped was either a painkiller or swift poison. He had to lift his head slightly to drink, and when he did, hot wires of pain drew taut in his neck and throat. He swallowed as quickly as he could and sank back, praying he didn’t vomit it back up. That would involve far too much movement.
“I told everyone you came down with a fever in the night.” This time there was no mistaking Alec’s tightly reined anger.
Something fell into place in Seregil’s addled brain. “I wasn’t out spying without you.” He longed for some of the previous night’s hysteria to buoy him, but it was long gone, leaving him flat and depressed.
“What, then?” Alec demanded, pulling back the blankets. “Who did this to you, and why?”
Glancing down, Seregil saw that his ribs were expertly bandaged, the bands just tight enough to ease the pain and help the cracked bones to knit. The rest of his naked body was covered with a truly impressive array of bruises of varying sizes and shapes. The acrid stink of urine had been replaced by the cloying aroma of some herbal salve. He could see the greasy sheen of it on his skin.
“Nyal bound you up,” Alec informed him, replacing the bedclothes with hands far more gentle than his tone. “I waited until the others left for the day, then brought him up. No one else knows about this yet, except Olmis. I told them both to keep quiet. Now, who did this?”
“I don’t know. It was dark.” Seregil closed his eyes. It wasn’t too great a lie, really; he’d known only one of them by name, the khirnari’s nephew Emiel í Moranthi, and Kheeta had hinted at bad blood between him and Alec, though he’d refused to elaborate.
If it’s vengeance you’re after, talí, don’t bother. The scales are still too heavily laden in the Hamans’favor.
Once his eyes were closed, he found it hard to open them again. The milky liquid evidently was a painkiller and he welcomed its dulling influence.
After a moment he heard Alec sigh. “The next time you feel the need to go out for a ‘fall,’ you tell me, understand?”
“I’ll try,” Seregil whispered, surprised by the sudden sting of tears behind his eyelids.
Warm lips brushed his forehead. “And next time, wear your own damn clothes.”
At Alec’s insistence, Seregil’s “fever” lasted through the following day.
“I’ll go keep an eye on Torsin and the Virésse,” Alec told him, ordering Seregil not to stir from bed. “If anything of interest actually happens, I’ll bring you every detail.”
Truth was, Seregil was in no condition to argue the point. A short trip to the chamber pot had been an exercise in pain in more ways than he wanted to think about, though he’d managed it by himself. He was pissing blood, and thanked any gods still listening that Alec wasn’t nursemaid enough to check. He’d have to speak to the slop boy, tell him to keep his mouth shut. Hell, he’d pay him if he had to. He’d survived worse treatment and there was no sense in worrying Alec any more than he was already.
Left al
one for the day, Seregil lapsed back into sleep for a time, only to awaken in a panicky sweat to find Ilar bending over him. He braced to roll away, only to hit a solid wall of pain.
He fell back with a strangled moan and found himself looking up instead at Nyal. From the look on the Ra’basi’s face, his waking expression hadn’t been a welcoming one.
“I came to check your dressings.”
“Thought you were—someone else,” Seregil croaked, fighting down the hot nausea welling at the back of his throat.
“You’re safe, my friend,” Nyal assured him, not understanding. “Here, drink some more of this.”
Seregil sipped gratefully at the milky draught. “What is it?”
“Crushed Carian poppy seed, chamomile, and boneset leaf boiled in goat’s milk and honey. It should ease your pain.”
“It does. Thanks.”
Seregil could feel the effects already, just blunting the edges. He stared up at the ceiling while the Ra’basi gently checked the bindings around his chest, asking himself what the hell he had been thinking, handing himself over to the Haman like that. Mortification wrenched at his heart as he thought of what would be made of his absence from the Iia’sidra chamber. His attackers would have better sense than to brag about committing violence on sacred ground, but rumors might already be leaking out along the fretted network of gossip that underlay any large gathering. That aside, he’d virtually abandoned his responsibilities and left the burden on Alec.
“Madness,” he hissed.
“Indeed. Alec is still very angry with you, and rightly so. I never took you for a stupid man.”
Seregil managed a weak chuckle. “You just don’t know me well enough.”
Nyal frowned down at him, suddenly devoid of sympathy. “If that little night encounter had happened so much as a pace outside the boundaries of Sarikali, your talímenios might be mourning you right now.”
Ashamed, Seregil looked away.
“What, no laughter at that? Good.” Nyal produced a steaming sponge from somewhere below Seregil’s line of vision and set about cleaning him.
“I didn’t know you were a healer,” Seregil said when he trusted himself to speak again.