Sworn in Steel

Chapter Twenty-nine

Tempting as it was to use the main thoroughfares to save time, I stuck to the back streets on my way to the padishah’s estate. Part of that was habit, but much more came from the simple fact that I had no idea how big or bad things would get at the theater. The magic had been designed more for show than anything-to get the attention of the padishah and his magi, and maybe give Raaz and his master a chance to swoop in and save the day by capturing the Zakur crime lord who’d been foolish enough to try and smuggle magic from the Empire into the city, let alone use it so close to the despot’s son. Clearly, such a combination could not have been meant for anything other than the darkest treachery?

I didn’t know if Fat Chair would walk out of there alive or not, but that wasn’t my problem. Mama Left hand had only stipulated that she wanted him embarrassed, and that I wasn’t supposed to dust him. Done and done as far as I was concerned, and good riddance. All I knew is that, no matter what else happened, the padishah and his people-including Heron-would have their hands full for the next several hours or more dealing with the threat and the confusion and the chaos. Maybe even all night, if I was lucky.

And, from what I’d seen of what lay ahead of me, luck was something I was going to need.

While Tobin and his people had been practicing for the performance, I’d spent my time casing the padishah’s estate. What I’d found hadn’t made me happy: tall, smooth walls with a broad swath of open ground at their outer base. Neither building nor tree was allowed near the wall, meaning that the idea of covering the gap with a leap from a similar height was out. Likewise, while the idea of a hemp stroll was a possibility, I wasn’t a good enough rope walker to risk running from a roof to the distant wall without risking either a spill or a sighting. As for climbing over: Well, aside from the iron spikes that graced the top of the barrier, I’d also been informed about a glass-lined channel that ran around the top of the wall-a channel that reportedly contained a string of quicksilver beads. It was said that each bead bore a small symbol on its surface, inscribed by a magi with a ruby stylus. How a person could make a lasting mark in a dot of quicksilver was beyond me, but I’d heard enough accounts on the streets of the Old City about would-be thieves bursting into flame atop the wall to decide that going over the top wasn’t an option.

As for under, well, let’s just say that the tales of the gates and guards and sewer spirits had made the wall seem a charming diversion by comparison.

Which left only one viable route into the grounds. Fortunately for me, it was one I’d become familiar with during my short time in el-Qaddice.

The hounds roaming the plaza outside the Dog Gate snarled and snapped and raised their hackles as I passed, but nevertheless kept their distance. Beat a dog enough-even a feral one-and they’ll shrink from any man with a bit of iron in his step. I don’t know who’d been taking a rod to the poor beasts in the courtyard, but I could make some guesses about the one behind the gate. The only question was whether the dog I was coming to see had had enough of his own master’s rod for my purposes.

“Open up,” I said crisply as I came up to the iron-barred archway that was the Dog Gate. I kept my eyes off to one side, both to seem unconcerned as well as to save them from the lamplight shining out from his post house. The dogs inside, I noticed, were quiet.

“Fuck off,” said a voice from the other side. There was much more relish in the guard’s tone than I’d heard in my previous visits.

My eyes snapped up, meeting his. “Don’t push me,” I said, taking a step closer to the bars. “You know where this can go.” He didn’t move back; instead, he came a pace closer. That wasn’t a good sign.

“You’re not to be admitted,” he said, his hand shifting along the haft of his short spear. “In fact, you’re to be turned away.” His other hand gripped lower on the wood, and the steel tip began to dip down in my direction. “Even by force, if necessary. And I think that’s necessary.”

Heron. He must have put the order in the other day, after I’d left him feeling less than warm toward me. I should have guessed.

Theoretically, it’s possible for a man with a rapier to take a man with a short spear. Degan had done it in the past, and even discussed the premise behind the practice one night. But there’s a long walk between talking about something and doing it in a fight, and I knew better than to even set foot on that path. There was no way I was going to challenge a man holding a spear, especially when he was on the other side of a locked gate, and especially when I’d used his sash to wipe dog shit off my boots.

I took a step back and held up my hands to show him I respected the threat. He didn’t seem impressed.

Think fast, Drothe.

“When did those orders come down?” I said.

“What does it matter?” he said, bringing the tip of the spear in line with me. “The point is, you’re not getting in. And if you try. . well, it’s my word against a corpse’s, now, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “Yes, but then you’d be in the awkward position of having to explain why you just killed one of the padishah’s newest dependents.”

That got a blink. “What?”

I jerked a thumb back over my shoulder. “Play. Tonight. He liked us, offered us patronage. I’m his now.”

“Ha!” He spit, just in case I missed the disdain in his laugh. “My master take you on? I don’t think so.”

“Think whatever you want, just open up so I can deliver my message.”

“What message?”

I sighed and lowered my hands. “The one the secretary gave me, of course.”

The spear tip wavered for a moment, but then became firm again. “There’s no message,” he said, sounding more certain than I liked. “And you’re not a dependent. If you were, you’d have one of my master’s tokens on, instead of the wazir’s.”

I looked down as if I’d forgotten the small bronze lozenge that hung against my chest. “Like I told you, he just took us as. . oh, never mind. Here. . ” I reached into my doublet. The guard tensed and jerked his spear forward. I froze.

“Don’t!” he cried.

Well, I’d certainly done a number on this one, hadn’t I? I didn’t know whether to be pleased or irritated with myself on the matter.

“Easy,” I said. “Easy. I just wanted to show you the message.” I slowly drew a pale, nonstained corner of the Mouth’s scarf I’d stuck in my doublet on the way over, hoping it could pass for paper in the gloom. I stepped forward. “Here, take a look.” Another step.

The guard came forward. So did his spear. “Far enough,” he said. “Put it on the blade and I’ll draw it to me.”

Crap. I’d been wanting to get him into knife range, or closer. Even if I did have something that could pass for paper, sticking it on the tip of his spear wouldn’t get me there.

I pushed the “message” back into my doublet, took half a step closer. “And let you read it?” I said. Could I grab the haft of the spear, maybe use it to pull him into the bars? “Or destroy it and say I never showed it to you?” Would that give me time to close before he scrambled away? I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

His scowl deepened. I was losing him with my story. Hell, I was losing me, it was so bad.

“I don’t-” he began, but then stopped as a surprised look came over his face. That seemed reasonable, considering the tufted end of a dart that had just appeared above his collar, the thin steel of the needle lodged into his neck.

He raised his hand, fingers brushing at the fine hairs on the end of the weapon, and gasped out the first half syllable of something. Then he fell over.

I was already spinning and crouching when a voice behind me said, “What kind of fool tries to talk his way into the padishah’s estate?” It came from a piece of night that was walking toward me, complete with sultry eyes and a mocking voice; a piece of night that also happened to be tucking a short blow tube back up her sleeve.

“One who’s already done it twice before,” I said, straightening as Aribah joined me. “What are you doing here?”

She shrugged. “As I said before: I’m supposed to keep you from killing yourself. Since you seemed intent on doing just that. .”

“I don’t need you on my blinders.” Not here. Not now.

“You can wish the stars to fall from the sky and become diamonds at your feet for all I care. Until I decide otherwise, you’re going to have two shadows lingering at your heels tonight: your own and me.” She folded her arms and arched an elegant eyebrow. “Now, do you wish to stand here until someone comes to investigate, or are we going through the gate?”

I took half a step back. “You’re not going to try to stop me?”

“Why would I do that?”

“You know. .” I gestured over my shoulder at the estate. “Not getting myself killed?”

“I’m here to keep you alive, not to prevent you from being stupid. Not that I think the latter’s even possible.”

“Right,” I said. “Great.” I turned back to the gate. The guard had fallen close enough that it was only a moment’s work to grab his leg, drag him the rest of the way over, and search his clothing for the keys.

I unlocked the gate. The sound of the rusty hinges swinging open caused the dogs in the kennels to start barking, which in turn got the ones in the piazza to join in as well.

“Here,” I said. “Help me.” We dragged the guard out into the square and then off into one of the side alleys. While the guardhouse was a closer stash, the alley was a better choice, since a missing guard tends to generate less immediate fuss than a dead one.

The dogs were already at work on the body before we made it back through the gate. I closed the iron behind us and we headed into the deeper darkness of the padishah’s grounds.

It was closer to the middle of the night than the beginning by now, but that didn’t mean the grounds were deserted. The occasional servant or functionary still walked the paths, torch in hand, running errands, delivering missives, or lighting the way for lavishly dressed nobles or high officers of the court. Patrols of the padishah’s guards roamed the grounds, too, but they were few, and made enough noise that even I could hear them coming, let alone Aribah. And, of course, there were the pavilions and open sitting circles-both lit and dark-dotting the landscape, providing cover from, and distractions for, any eyes that might have otherwise spotted us.

In a sense, it was an ideal situation for any kind of Prigger: open spaces, plenty of cover, with enough Lighters wandering about to make things like guard dogs and other night hazards impractical. I couldn’t believe this place didn’t get rolled every week: Once you were past the walls, it was a thief’s delight. I mentioned as much to Aribah when we paused in the shadows of a small grove of pistachio trees I’d recognized from my last visit.

“The grounds aren’t the palace,” said Aribah, her gaze sweeping the lawn before us, her head cocking back and forth like a songbird’s as she listened to the night. Even with the dye rubbed across her exposed skin, I found I could make out enough of her face to determine not only where she was, but what she was doing, but it took work. “There’s a difference,” she said, “between gaining access to those who serve the prince and reaching the prince himself.”

“What kind of difference?”

The smudge in the night regarded me. “Do all Imperials talk this much when they work?”

“Only the good ones.”

“Then I look forward to your impending silence.”

It was my turn to snort. I looked out over the grounds. A small troop of guards were walking across the turf downslope from us, their cresset lantern sending up flame and smoke from the end of its chain. They were far enough out that the light only caused me to tear up. I blinked and rubbed at my eyes. The patrol was crossing between our trees and a rise that I remembered being near Heron’s lodge. We settled in to let them pass.

“So, who watches over the padishah besides them?” I said, pointing at the moving light.

“The Opal Guard, for one,” said Aribah.

“And they’re not the Opal Guard?”

“Hardly. If they were Opal, we’d be moving away, believe me.”

“That good?”

“That good.”

I shifted on the ground, moving a fallen limb out from under my thigh. “You said ‘for one,’ ” I said. “Who else stands Oak around her?”

“. . stands Oak?”

“Watches. Guards. Keeps a lookout.”

Aribah muttered something under her breath about Imperials and insanity. Aloud, she said, “Sometimes the Lions of Arat. And djinn.”

“Djinn?”

She nodded. “Chained with silver shackles, forged and inscribed anew by magi every day so the spirits can be enslaved again every night. So my grandfather says.”

“He’s seen them?”

Aribah turned a dark, contemptuous gaze my way. “My grandsire is one of three assassins to have ever-ever-entered the despotic abode and returned to tell his tale. He is a Black Cord: His word is not questioned.”

I looked back out at the guards, saw the lantern bob and dip. A small spot of fire took life on the ground. Someone had stumbled and spilled some of the burning pitch. Laughter and jeers drifted up to us.

Even here, it seemed, Rags were Rags.

“Imperial?” she said to me after a moment.

“Yes?”

She paused to lick her lips. When she spoke, there was just the slightest bit of a tremor to her voice. “What’s it like?”

I didn’t need to ask, but I did anyhow. “You mean the night vision?”

“Yes.”

It wasn’t something I talked about much, but then, it wasn’t something most people knew about, either. Habit made me want to brush the question off, to play it down or simply lie. But she’d told me about the glyphs and the dyes in her robes: The least I could do was tell her about the thing she was putting her life on the line for.

“I’ve had the night vision so long now,” I said, “I’m not sure how to describe it. In some ways, it’s just another part of the night for me, like the stars or the moon or the stink of an alley. How do you describe what it feels like to walk or smell or taste? It’s like that, only different. But I suppose that’s an excuse, not an answer, isn’t it?” I paused, staring out into the night as she sat beside me, silent. Waiting. “It’s red,” I said at last.

“Red?”

“Red.” I nodded. “Red and gold, and it sticks to everything I see. Everything is touched with hints of amber, almost as if it were dusted with light only I can pick out.” I gestured out at the grounds. Aribah followed the motion, as if trying to see what I saw, as if will alone could give her the vision. “Have you ever seen an artist at work, when he’s sketching out the lines for a painting? My. . I know a baroness who patronizes one. I don’t know if they do it here, but in Ildrecca there’s a cadre-some say a cabal-of painters who are moving away from the old iconic style of art. They sketch everything out in careful detail first, using charcoal and chalk: textures, distance, shadows. Then they paint it. And it looks real; not real like you can tell it’s a man on a horse, but real in that it looks almost exactly like a specific man on a specific horse. You don’t have to guess-you’d know him on the street after you saw the painting.

“Night vision is like the charcoal sketches they do, only instead of blacks and grays and whites, you have ambers and reds and golds. It’s hints and details and gaps, all in one: a picture you see as much by what isn’t there as what is.”

“Like dark fighting,” she said. “You listen for the silences and fill them in, using the sounds as limits as much as guide-posts.” She shook her head. “A-ya, but if I had your gift-the blood-red path I would cut. The Lions would weep for their losses, and my grandfather. .”

“Your grandfather would what?” I said.

Her hand reached up and pulled gently at the cloth covering the lower part of her face, drawing it tighter. I caught hints of her sharp nose, her straight jaw clenched tight against words that wanted to come out.

I stayed silent, holding my words close. If Nosing had taught me anything, it was that most people wanted to talk, even when they thought they didn’t. A good Nose-and maybe even a good Gray Prince-left the silence there for others to fill.

Aribah stared out over the grounds, her eyes focused not on the darkness without, but rather the shadows within.

“My grandfather,” she said at last, the words heavy and solemn as granite, “might finally see me as myself, and not my mother’s pale shadow. See me as neyajin, and not as a disappointment.” She sniffed, staring out into the night. I watched as her thumb played with the battered silver ring on her finger.

“She was astonishing,” said Aribah. “The best assassin our school has produced in generations. A natural, both as a killer and a leader. Grandfather says she could walk up to a Sentinel on a moonlit night, count the hairs in his beard at her leisure, and then cut a line across his throat, all without him knowing she was there. Salihah Shiham: Salihah the Arrow. She made her first kill at thirteen years, became kalat at seventeen, and took over as amma of our school at twenty-six.”

“What happened to her?” I said.

“She died.”

I let the silence stretch, watched her worry the ring some more, but this time she didn’t respond.

“On a dodge?” I said, then caught myself at her look. “A job,” I amended.

“And this is your business how?”

“It isn’t,” I admitted. “I just. .” I shrugged.

Aribah turned back to the night. “She went to slay the Imam General of the Sentinels.”

“And did she?”

“Yes, but not, it turns out, the demon he rode. The djinni was able to escape the saddle and slay my mother. I know because of this.” She held up her hand, showing me the ring. “Three months to the day after she left, I heard a knocking at our door during a dust storm. It was my mother’s special knock, but when I threw the door wide, all I found was her ring hanging on a braided cord of hair and. . other things, spiked to the door.”

I looked away. Thoughts jostled up against one another in my head, demanding attention: of my own mother wasting away in bed, of Sebastian being cut down before my eyes in front of our cabin, of my trying to provide for Christiana and failing on the streets of the Barren. I pushed them away, back down into the darkness of the past.

All of a sudden, I wanted a ring of my own to worry.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry for.”

“Still, I can sympathize.”

Dark eyes turned my way. “Yes, I believe you can.” A pause. “Why are you here?”

“You mean why am I breaking into the padishah’s grounds?”

“You can start there, yes.”

“For a friend,” I said. “I broke my word, and now I’m trying to. . well, I’m hoping to make amends in some small way.”

“And will what you do here be enough to mend what you broke?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “But that’s not the point: The point is that I need to try. Even if this isn’t enough, at least it’s something-it’s an effort. And that’s all I can give him right now.”

Aribah stared off into the night. “It won’t be enough,” she said softly. “Once something is broken-be it your word, your friendship, your family-you can never do enough to repair it. A broken thing mended is still weaker than when it was whole. No matter how hard you work at it, no matter how much you bleed, no matter how much you cry, the flaw will always be there, beneath the surface.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.”

“One should always try,” said Aribah. “But trying isn’t the same as succeeding.” She gave the ring one last rub, and then looked down the hill. “The patrol’s gone. Go.”

“You’re not coming with?”

Her eyes smiled. “Your amends are yours to make. Who am I to tell you how to repair your word?”

I smiled back, but instead of rising to leave, I looked over at her hand.

“Tell me something,” I said. “When you found your mother’s ring, you said the cord that held it had been spiked to the door.”

“Yes.”

“What did the djinn use as a spike?”

A long, long pause. Then, softly, “Her dagger.”

“Uh-huh.” I reached down into my boot and drew out Aribah’s, once Salihah Shiham’s, shadow-edged dagger and placed it beside her on the turf. “In that case, I apologize. I never should have taken this from you in the first place. And your grandfather should never have made you give it back.”

“You had no way of knowing-”

“No, but he did.”

I watched as she reached out and took up the blade. A soft hiccup of a laugh, a gentle stroke along the handle. She lowered her scarf and gently kissed the weapon, then slipped it into the darkness of her robes.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, “but your grandfather’s an asshole.”

A soft sigh. She kept the scarf down. “A truth is a truth: as such, it can never be taken wrong.”

“Is that your grandfather talking?”

“The holy books.”

“Oh.” I looked back out over the grass. I should be up and going; should be cracking Heron’s ken before it got too late. I didn’t move. “What do those books say about changing a truth?”

“What do you mean? Lies?”

“No, not lies. The opposite of a truth doesn’t have to be a lie.”

Aribah narrowed her eyes, curious and dubious at once. “But then. . what?”

“Another truth,” I said. “A different one. One that you make for yourself.” Instead of, I thought, letting your grandfather do it.

“I don’t. .” She shook her head. “How does one ‘make truth’? Something is either true or it isn’t.”

“Not when it comes to you. When it comes to you, you can decide on the truth about yourself.” I glanced out into the night, considered my circumstances and what had brought me here. “Well, up to a point, anyhow.”

Aribah stared at me for a long moment. “You mean my grandfather, don’t you?” she said, her voice turning brittle, along with the rest of her. “You mean I should tell him I’m not my mother. He knows that, believe me. I’m reminded of the fact every day.”

“No,” I said. “I mean you should tell him to go to hell and walk away.”

“What?” She had the presence of mind to keep the outburst to a whisper-barely-but still, I flinched. “Leave him? Leave my school? He’s my blood, my clan. I’m neyajin-we don’t walk away.”

“Then maybe you should start.”

She was on her feet in an instant, a dark smudge against the night. “You know nothing about what it means to be neyajin, nothing about what it means to serve your people, to be part of something larger than-”

“Than what?” I said. “You said yourself he’s the last of your blood. You belong to a clan of two, Aribah, and half of that clan treats you like dirt.” I sat up on the grass. “You think I don’t know what it’s like to belong to something bigger than yourself? I am something bigger than myself: I have people cheating and lying and dying for me right now, hundreds of miles away-coves I don’t even know. Coves I don’t want to have under me. But they all look to me for direction and answers anyhow, because their truths say I have those answers. Well, here’s the answer: I don’t have one. And neither do you. And neither does your grandfather. We’re all just making our truths up as we go.”

“No.” She shook her head. “No. It’s not that simple for me. Maybe for you, maybe in your Empire, bonds are broken and truths are molded to your liking, but not here. Not in Djan. Here, you are nothing without your clan, without your family. And yes, he may be the only blood I have, but there is also the school. They are mine and I am theirs.”

“But they aren’t your blood,” I said. “They aren’t your clan, right?”

“They. .” She sighed and sat down and looked at the ring on her hand. “No, they’re not clan-not my clan. They come from other tribes, other traditions. They’re here because of Grandfather, because of his Black Cord.”

“And when he’s gone?”

Aribah shook her head. “The school will become mine, but. . will they stay? I don’t know.”

“You know,” I said.

“It’s complicated.”

“No, it’s not. It’s as simple as you want it to be.”

She stayed silent.

“You want to know a truth?” I said. “Here’s mine: I’m a street-level sneak trying to pass himself off as some sort of criminal genius. I didn’t choose that truth, but it’s the one I’m stuck with. But before that, I made my own truth: I worked the streets and sifted secrets and carved out my own path. It wasn’t until I stepped away from the truth I’d made that someone else started to define it for me.”

“And now? What is your truth now?”

“It’s. . complicated.”

She smiled. “Only if you let it be.”

I smiled back. “Maybe so, but we’re not talking about me.”

The smile flickered on her face, vanished. “It’s not easy.”

“To think about?”

“To do.”

“So you have thought about it?”

She nodded. Of course she had. Who wouldn’t?

I let the silence sit there between us, waiting for her words.

“It’s frightening,” she said at last. “And exciting. The thought of leaving? Of being my own person, responsible only to myself? It both pulls and pushes me, feeling like bravery and cowardice at once. But I don’t know which one is true, don’t know which one is right. They keep changing.”

“They’ll do that.”

She looked up, meeting my eyes in the moonlight. “How do you leave everything you’ve ever known?”

I thought back to the day Christiana and I had left Balsturan Forest, when I’d been half a decade younger than the woman before me now; thought back to when I had in turn walked away from my sister and any hope of repairing the damage between us; back, closer, to turning my back first on Degan, then on what I thought it meant to be part of the Kin. It hadn’t been a noble or glorious path, and Angels knew there’d been more than a fair amount of pain and heartbreak along the way, but at least it had been my path. I had chosen the truth of it.

“You start by taking one step,” I said, “followed by another and another, until you realize the road you’re following is your own and not someone else’s.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do. But the best part?” I reached out and tapped the worn ring on her finger. “She can come with you. Inside.”

A relieved laugh. “That sounds good.”

“It is.”

Aribah was just opening her mouth to reply when a grim, harsh voice spoke from the darkness behind us. “It may sound good,” said the voice. “But it will never happen. My granddaughter isn’t leaving el-Qaddice. And she certainly isn’t leaving with you.”