The Drowning City - Amanda Downum [24]
The girl’s jaw tightened and she sucked in a breath through her nose. “Why are you telling me this? I’m just an apprentice—a collaborator, no less.” She glanced at Vasilios with a rueful half-smile.
Vasilios’s laugh broke the thickening tension. “Forgive me, Zhirin. But do you really think I don’t know who you’re with, all those times you’re late for lunch or lessons?”
“Oh.” And her brown cheeks burned crimson.
“The empire isn’t the worst of it,” Zhirin said later, after she’d stopped blushing and stammering. She paced in front of the window, despite her still-aching feet; at least the carpets were soft. The cat followed her circuit with slitted eyes, tail-tip twitching. “Not really.”
“No?” Isyllt cocked an eyebrow. Hard to meet the woman’s gaze for long, eyes paler than an animal’s, clearer and colder than river water. “I had the idea that some Sivahri were none too pleased with things Assari.”
“Some, of course. But the Assari’s influence hasn’t been entirely bad. They built Symir, if nothing else. It’s the Khas Maram we fight.” Not that she fought anything—Zhirin shrugged the thought aside like a biting fly.
“The Assari are conquerors, but at least they didn’t betray their own blood. The Khas deny their clans, bleed the people with taxes.” Taxes that paid her mother’s government pension, taxes that had bought her clothes and childhood toys.
“They sacrifice our people in rice fields and mines. Many of the miners are prisoners, some arrested on ridiculous charges and forced into work camps. People die in the mines, more than the Khas will ever admit. Bodies are lost, never given burial rites. They disappear.” She glanced at her master and the stones glittering on his gnarled hands. Did he know about the diamonds? She didn’t dare ask, not yet.
The sorceress rolled her shoulders as if against a chill. Her companions—or bodyguards—watched silently. Zhirin couldn’t place the man’s features, but the woman was clearly forest-clan, though she hadn’t given a clan-name.
The sky darkened to slate and silver as the light died. Shadows thickened in the room for a moment before the lamps sprang to life, witchlight kindling to real flame.
“The Khas doesn’t care about the people,” Zhirin continued. The words felt awkward in her mouth—Jabbor was the one who made speeches. A mimic-bird, she imagined Kwan would call her. “Their only concern is wealth, theirs and the tithes that keep the Empire content.”
“Would this faction of yours rather see Sivahra independent, or only replace the Khas with less-corrupt officials?” Isyllt turned a cup of tea—doubtless long cold—between her hands and her ring gleamed. Zhirin had never seen a black diamond before, but she knew what they meant.
She paused in her circuit, shifting her weight with a rustle of cloth. “Of course we want to see Sivahra free. But our first concern is the people. We don’t want violence, not if there’s any other answer. There’s been enough bloodshed in Sivahra’s history.”
The Sivahri woman turned her head, lips tightening.
“Can we meet Jabbor?” Isyllt asked, leaning forward. By lamplight her face was an ivory mask; Zhirin wondered if her skin was cold to the touch.
“Yes. That is, I think so. I’ll ask him.” He hadn’t spoken of it last night, but she knew how much they needed the money they would have made from the stolen stones. Hard for the clanspeople to rise in revolution when they had farms to tend and no other way to eat.
She turned to Vasilios, who’d been silent for most of the conversation. “How long have you known, master?”
“Quite a while, my dear.” He smiled affectionately and she smiled back, though her stomach was cold. If he had noticed, who else might have?
Xinai couldn’t sleep, even after Adam snored softly beside her. His arm draped over her stomach, hair trailing against her cheek. Usually the press of warm flesh comforted her, but tonight she could barely breathe for the heat. Sweat-damp linen scraped against her skin, snagged on her scars.
Finally