The Drowning City - Amanda Downum [69]
“Worry about the Khas first. I won’t be much use in a fight if I’m pregnant.”
Shaiyung’s eyebrows rose. “The northlands made you soft. I was leading raids a month before you were born. My mother still had enemy blood on her hands when I came. Your foremothers are warriors, child.”
Xinai turned her head, cheeks warming. “I haven’t forgotten.”
“It’s not the fighting, is it? You’re still thinking about that foreigner of yours.”
She pulled a knee close to her chest, her heel digging a rut in soft earth. “I know I shouldn’t—”
“Oh, darling.” A cold hand stroked her back. “I know. Your father wasn’t the first man I cared for. I know what it’s like to lose, to let someone go. You can’t help what you feel. But you can’t let it cloud your thoughts either, or dull your blades.”
“I know, Mama—”
Leaves rustled and Xinai stiffened. But it was only Riuh. He rolled over, propped himself up on one elbow. “Who are you talking to?” He blinked sleepily, but his knife was in his hand.
Xinai let out a breath. “Just ghosts.” Her mother’s coldness faded.
Riuh stared at her for a moment, the question—Are you joking?—plain on his face. But finally he rolled over and tugged the blanket back over his head.
She wasn’t sure if she was grateful for the reprieve.
Chapter 13
Thunder came in the dead hours of morning, with wind to rattle the windows and arcs of blue lightning. Despite her bravado with Zhirin, Isyllt barely slept. Twice she woke from nightmares of faceless assassins and cold blades, of seeing her body lifeless in the street as uncaring crowds stepped around her.
As the storm eased into a gray dawn, she finally started to doze again, only to be startled awake by a knock at the door. Louder and more insistent than Li. Fumbling for her robe, she rose to answer it. Assassins didn’t usually knock first.
“I’m sorry to wake you,” Asheris said when she opened the door, “but I have a favor to ask.” He wore riding clothes and carried two oilcloaks over his arm.
She stepped aside and waved him in. “What is it?”
“I’ve had reports that something’s happened in one of the villages on the North Bank.”
“Something?”
He shrugged wryly. “They’re sketchy reports. But I’m told people are dead, and that ghosts or spirits may be involved. You’ve no obligation to help, but I still don’t have a necromancer on staff.”
She blinked sleep-sticky lashes. They’ll never find the body. “I’ll come.”
They collected half a dozen soldiers before they left the Khas, and horses from the stable by the ferry. As they climbed the high road they left the rain below, a shifting sea of gray covering the city and harbor. Rainbows shimmered along the tarnished edges of the clouds as the sun rose, and Isyllt soon shed her cloak as the day warmed.
They turned off the road to the Kurun Tam onto a narrower trail and met a group of local soldiers waiting at a bend in the path. The captain straightened, saluting Asheris. His skin was ashen and sweat stained his uniform.
“What happened?” Asheris asked.
“The villagers in Xao Par are dead, sir.”
His eyebrows rose. “All of them?”
“I’m not sure—we can’t see through that damned fog. Things are moving in the village, but I don’t think they’re alive. Forgive me, my lord, but we couldn’t stay in there.”
“What fog?”
“Up the road. You’ll see, my lord.”
Asheris cocked his head, and Isyllt turned her horse up the path. One of the soldiers rode first, then Asheris, and Isyllt followed close behind. The trail sloped into a narrow valley, shadowed like a wrinkle in a velvet skirt. The jungle rose up on either side, damp and green and much too quiet.
Her ring chilled first. An instant later the wind gusted, pricking gooseflesh on her arms. Tendrils of mist snaked between the trees. Above and below the day was clear, but inside the valley a gray brume gathered. She didn’t entirely understand the science of weather, but she knew it took cold and heat combined to produce a fog, like breath misting on a winter day.
Or a hot day and something very cold. Her ring burned like