Daughter of the Flames (18 page)

“Of course, Your Highness. As it happens we – we already have a spy in the fort. I took advantage of a most unusual opportunity not long ago. Her first report is due at any time.” Tiede clenched his shaking hands at his waist again.

“Good. Very good. Send my secretary in on your way out. I need him to begin preparations.”

“Preparations?”

“Yes, Tiede. I have a plan…”

By the time they found me and brought me down from the roof, I had already heard the screaming and shouts from the town below, and seen the bloody red taint of fire in the sky. I knew, before they told me, what had happened.

Half of the namoa and temple people – half of my friends, my family – had fled Fort Mesgao in the night. They had taken the Sedorne guards by surprise and beaten them, stolen provisions and, on their way out of town, had set fire to any Sedorne property they had come across.

My own people had turned fire – the weapon of the Sedorne – against me.

We had been welcomed into the fort like honoured, trusted guests. They had run from it like prisoners escaping. That night, as I watched the flames leap against the sky, consuming the homes and businesses of innocent people, I realized that no matter what I said, no matter how they were treated, this was how many of the Rua would always feel. They could not trust the Sedorne. They could not trust me. I just didn’t see it until it was too late.

I did not know if Kapila’s attack on me had been part of their escape plan, or if she had seized the opportunity to act on her own. I hoped the latter. I hoped that my friends, even if they had not been able to agree with me, would not have wanted me murdered in the night.

I would never know for sure.

I insisted that Kapila be buried decently, and her grave marked – but the marker was nameless. Kapila’s name was black now, the name of a murderer and a traitor, and nothing I could do would change that.

Mira and Deo had stayed. They had slept through the whole thing in their room – drugged. I thanked God the drug used was a less potent one than Kapila had fed Sorin and me, or else Mira would have miscarried her baby. When Deo finished turning the air blue with curses, he pulled me into a hard hug and held on to me for a long time. Mira took his place when he finally let me go. I hugged both of them back fiercely.

Joachim had gone, along with half the fighting namoa and many of the other temple people whom I had not known as well. Most of the children had been left behind. To my shock, Rashna had stayed too.

“I have unfinished business here,” was all she would say. I didn’t know whether this was a promise – or a threat. At that point I was really too tired to care.

The drug had affected Sorin much more strongly than it had me. Mira told me that the mixture of herbs was well known as one the Sedorne were particularly susceptible to. Kapila had obviously decided to forget that I was half Rua when she administered it. Her wilful blindness had saved my life.

Despite all Mira’s skill, it was two days before Sorin woke. When he did, his limbs were frighteningly numb and he found it hard to talk. It was awful to watch him struggle to sit up, even hold a cup on his own. I never left his bedside if I could help it, but all I could say to him was “I’m sorry.”

The first words he managed in return were “Don’t be stupid.”

That evening, after Sorin had managed to get down a cup of nutritious broth and a herbal drink of Mira’s, I sat by the window looking out at the fires that still raged in lower Mesgao. We had been forced to evacuate the homes there; the blaze was beyond control. Now a whole new lot of refugees, most of them Sedorne this time, were staying in the fort.

“How could they?” I whispered, looking at the veins of fire leaching up into the clouds like streaks on poisoned flesh. “How could they burn people’s homes? The Rua have never used fire like this.”

“The Sedorne … have,” Sorin said slowly. “You can’t … blame … the Rua, for … turning … our own weapons … against us.”

I whipped around, suddenly furious. “Fire took my family, killed my parents, destroyed everything I knew and loved. Fire nearly took my eye, scarred me for life! Fire robbed me of my own name for ten years. Fire is death and suffering. It is not a weapon; it is a curse. How could they? How could they turn fire against me? My own people!”

He leaned back against the headboard of the bed, his breathing laboured as he looked at me. “Zahira … this is not … your fault.”

I stared at him, my eyes burning. “Mira says you may never recover full feeling in your hands and feet. You might not walk again. If I hadn’t come here, hadn’t brought all of them
here
—”

“Not your fault!” he croaked, smacking his hand weakly against the side of the bed.

“I am the reia. Everything my people do is my responsibility. It
is
my fault.”

“Come … here.” He held out his hand in the familiar beckoning gesture. It shook in the air. I ran forward to take it, unable to bear the sight.

“Sorin—”

“Quiet,” he commanded as his fingers closed over mine. “If you … will stop blaming yourself … for everything … I will walk to our wedding. Promise.” His fingers tightened slowly, until my hand was almost crushed in his grip. “Promise?”

I lowered my face to press my forehead against his hand, hiding my tears from him. “I promise.”

“We will … go on.” He panted with effort as his fingers loosened. I wrapped my other hand around them, to keep them in place. “We will always go on … together. No … matter … what comes.”

Sorin kept his promise. Before a month had passed he was on his feet again. He did not have his previous mobility back yet, and he might always need a cane to help his balance, especially when he was tired. But he would walk to our second wedding.

Since the poisoning we had slept in the same room, in the same bed. Sorin was so ill, and I was so very tired, that our sleep had been as chaste as that of brother and sister – but I could not bear the thought that he might have died without my ever knowing how it felt to lie at his side. It would take a great deal to prise me away from his bed now, I knew.

He left at midnight the night before the ceremony. There was a custom that bride and groom must not see each other on the day of their marriage until the wedding itself, in case it brought bad luck. I pointed out that most Sedorne brides weren’t already married to their grooms, but I’d made the rather endearing discovery that Sorin was superstitious – he even refused to touch cobwebs in case they gave him bad luck – and so I wasn’t surprised when he insisted we observe the old tradition.

He dressed slowly and gingerly in the dark. I heard his fingers fumbling with the buttons but I did not offer to help. He didn’t like that. When he had finished, he leaned carefully over to press a kiss to my forehead.

“Go back to sleep,” he said, pronouncing the words precisely, as he always did now. “I’ll see you in a few hours.” Then he slipped out of the room.

After he had gone, I lay alone in the bed, running my hand over the cooling place where he had lain. I realized with an odd lurch of my stomach that it didn’t feel right now, without him in it. I’d got used to his breathing next to me. I pulled the blankets around myself more tightly and rolled over, but instead of closing my eyes I lay awake, the past month running back in my head.

For weeks now, important figures from the Rua resistance and potential allies from among the Sedorne lords had been arriving in Mesgao. We had met and talked with them in their separate groups and together, trying to convince them that what we proposed could work. It had not been easy, and not for the reasons I had feared.

The Sedorne lords had astonished me with their willingness to listen. Not one of them had even questioned my identity. When I learned that this was because, despite my colouring, the lords saw a strong resemblance between me and King Abheron, I felt a small chill of disgust – yet I had to admit that the hint of anxious deference they displayed was useful. It was clear that they all had the greatest admiration for Sorin.

But I had been unpleasantly surprised at how pedantic and downright stubborn many of the Rua men and women had been. While most of them accepted me for who I said I was, they had been dismissive of Sorin. The person I had been counting on to support me, Casador Fareed – the man whom Surya had been at such pains to introduce me to, and to whom she had told my real identity all those months ago – seemed to positively enjoy baiting Sorin, though what he expected to gain if Sorin lost his temper, I did not know.

In any case, there was no danger of that; it had been Sorin who restrained me when I was on the verge of exploding. He had nothing to prove to them. We had to remember, he said, that the casadors had already been dispossessed of their rightful place once. Of course they would feel threatened by the idea of cooperation with their conquerors. His patience with them shamed me; at the same time, it gave me a glow of pride in him. He’s mine – my husband.

Eventually we had reached a deadlock with the Rua, Fareed at their head. They would not talk to me seriously if those talks included Sorin – and I refused to negotiate without him present.

In the end, it had not been patience which had ended the impasse, but a drifting memory from my childhood. As I listened in mortification to Casador Fareed squabbling with Sorin over the freshness of his morning tea, I suddenly remembered sitting on my father’s knee as he presided over a council meeting very like this one, and how he had acted to end the arguing of his petitioners. That memory fused in my mind with a vision of the raggedly Rua orphans that we had taken in at the House of God. They acted aggressively, but their aggression hid fear and confusion. What they really needed was discipline. When they had it, they settled down.

Before I realized what I was doing, I’d smashed my hand down into the low table at which we were all sitting.

“Enough!”
I yelled. “This is childishness. I will not listen to any more. Leave my presence and do not return until you are willing to remember your duty to your reia and your country.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sorin’s hastily hidden look of astonishment, but it was too late to back down now. The casadors were gaping at me, Fareed’s face turning slowly purple with outrage. I met his dark, angry gaze with every bit of determination I had. There is only one rei in this room, Fareed – and it is not you.

Finally his eyes dropped. He nodded jerkily at the other leaders. One by one, they rose and meekly filed from the room. Sorin’s look of astonishment returned as they went, then transformed into a huge grin.

The next day, the Rua men and women had appeared when summoned, listened to what Sorin and I said, and offered no more insult to either of us. Fareed took care not to meet my eyes again. It was well worth the severely strained wrist I’d sustained when I hit the table.

This made things a lot easier when we eventually brought the Rua and Sedorne together. There were still arguments and muttering between them, and several important points which had to be clarified for the benefit of all, but I believed that together Sorin and I had managed to convince our peoples that we could truly get rid of Abheron. They were willing to follow us. Follow me.

Only, not until our union was official. The Sedorne wedding had to go ahead, and it had to be witnessed not just by those we wanted as allies, but by others, ordinary people who would then act as unofficial emissaries when they spread the story. It was our public declaration of unity – and our first challenge to Abheron. Once the wedding was over, we could act.

The ceremony had to go perfectly. It had to. As I had done a hundred times since I began to learn about Sedorne wedding customs, I cursed the complexity of the ritual. So many things could go wrong. Most of them weren’t even under my control.

The namoa and temple people who had fled from Mesgao had gathered their own followers in the mountains above us and were experimenting with small acts of terrorism up and down the countryside. They had borrowed tactics from the Sedorne lords who had once raided Ruan’s borders, attacking swiftly and in small numbers, robbing and even killing where they met any opposition. Sedorne farms, merchants, some of the smaller towns with Sedorne populations – all suffered. They screamed to Sorin for help, but there was nothing to be done, except increase the patrols of gourdin in the area. The Rua raiders were swift and skilful, and they did not make many mistakes.

Casador Fareed admitted that the leaders of the raiders had tried to contact the local resistance, but had been repudiated. Observing minutely, I thought that if the resistance had not been in talks with us at that moment, they might have welcomed the efforts of this new guerrilla band with open arms. There was no way to predict what the band of ex-temple people might do in protest at the wedding.

I hesitated, then opened my mind and called out to the Holy Mother.

Please, God, guide me through this. Help me.

I waited, eyes open, tensely expectant of some sign that God had heard my prayer. There was none. I didn’t know whether to feel relief or disappointment.

All my life I had believed, blindly and lovingly, in my God. Despite everything, I knew that if I had remained only Zira, I would have clung to that devotion until my dying breath. Since God had reached out and touched me, since I had truly known Her presence and learned the fearsome beauty of Her voice … somehow it had become incredibly difficult to keep to my faith. So many had died in order for my transformation to take place. Surya, Padma, Theri, Esha’s little boy. Finally Alrik, and Kapila. I no longer believed only in the Holy Mother’s love, but in Her power. I feared it.

I feared what I had become, under Her hand.

Defiant orphan and child princess had both perished in the heat of the sacred flames – had merged somehow to become Zahira, Lady Mesgao, the reia and queen of Ruan. I knew exactly who and what I was.

No one should know exactly who they are. It is terrifying. And I have to live with it, for the rest of my life.