Secrets of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 3) (3 page)

"Yet
my greatest kill was the traitor." She speared a moaning woman
found trapped under a dead wolf. "The fat boy. The Ardish scum."
She spat.

All
in the Nayan army—perhaps across the entire host of eight Timandrian
kingdoms—knew of the traitors, those four children of sunlight who
had defected into the darkness.

Torin
Greenmoat.

Camlin
Shepherd.

Linee
Solira.

Ishel
licked her lips. "And the one I killed—Hemstad Baker."

She
smiled to remember firing her arrows into his portly form. He had
died silently—a disappointing death. Ishel craved screaming almost
as much as blood. She vowed that when she found the other three, she
would make them scream and squeal. Elorians were insects to crush,
but those Timandrians . . . they were something even worse.

"Treachery
will be punished." She stroked her tiger. "We will find
them, my sweet Durga. They fled this city, but we will find them. You
will feed upon them too."

She
reached a section of wall that still stood, rising from rubble, its
crenellations chipped. She walked up the inner stairway, stepped onto
the battlements, and beheld her army below. The hosts of Naya roared
in a shadowy courtyard, banging spears against shields. Tiger pelts
draped across their shoulders, fang necklaces hung around their
necks, and blood stained their breastplates. Tigers growled among
them, chained to their wrists. Bone beads filled the warriors' long,
red hair and beards. Ishel's own hair—the color of fire—fluttered
in the wind. Standing upon the wall, she raised her bloody spear.

"Warriors
of Naya!" she shouted.

"Ishel!
Ishel!" they chanted.

She
swung her spear above her, spraying droplets of blood. "I have
sworn to lead you to glory. The empire of Qaelin has fallen, and the
spoils are ours!"

They
roared in triumph.

Seven
other kingdoms of Timandra had marched into darkness with her host,
and they would squabble like hens for seeds. But Ishel swore to
herself:
The choice cut
of Eloria will be ours. And revenge will be mine.

"Linee
Solira," she whispered as her army roared below. "Camlin
Shepherd. Bailey Berin. Torin Greenmoat."

The
names of the traitors. The names of those she would kill. As her
warriors brandished their trophies below—katanas, helmets, and
jewels seized in the war—Ishel imagined spearing her enemies and
smiled.

 
 
CHAPTER THREE:
THE LIBRARY

Cam stood on the palace balcony,
gazed upon a city of black bricks and red banners, and felt loss and
fear claw inside him.

The port city of Asharo, capital
of Ilar, spread across the hills and coast. Every building here—from
home to shop to silo—looked like a fortress. Battlements crowned
every roof, and soldiers stood upon them, clad in lacquered plates of
black steel, bows and spears in their hands. Braziers burned atop
dark towers. Troops marched in courtyards. Crenelled walls lined the
coast, and beyond them a hundred warships patrolled the sea, lanterns
bright. Everywhere he looked, Cam saw the banners of this southern
island empire—a red flame upon a black field.

Unlike Qaelin—an empire of
philosophers, buskers, priests, and beggars—Ilar was a land of
steel, fire, and war.

"And war is coming here,"
Cam whispered and shivered in the cold wind. "Ferius conquered
Qaelin, the largest empire of the night. Now he will sail to Ilar."

Beside him, Linee whimpered. Cam
turned to look at her. When he had first met her, Linee had been a
queen of sunlight, a young woman clad in a gown and gems, a fairy
tale creature. Her gowns had torn in the long wars of the night. Her
jewels had been sold or lost. Here in the darkness she wore the
accoutrements of an Elorian noblewoman—a red silk dress embroidered
with black dragons, a golden sash around her waist, and a single ruby
upon her throat. Her blond hair, once a masterwork of curls and
braids, now hung straight to the sides, and her eyes, once bright and
joyous, held the shadows of haunting memories.

"Maybe we should go home."
She lowered her head. "Look at this place, Camlin. A dark sky.
Elorians in black armor. A war between monks and the children of
night. This isn't our war." She looked at him, eyes pleading and
damp. "We can rent a boat; I still have some jewels to sell. We
can sail back home, Camlin. Home!" Her eyes lit up. "Do you
remember home? The blue skies, white clouds, and yellow sun. Trees
and grass and shrubs and flowers. The song of birds. The taste of
bread and fruit." She sighed. "We belong back there. This
isn't our war."

Cam closed his eyes. He could
barely remember that home. He could barely remember the warmth of the
sun, the light of day, the blue of the sky and the green of forests.

"I want to go home more
than anything." He hugged himself in the cold. "I don't
like the darkness or the cold of this place. I don't like eating
mushrooms, glowing fish, and whatever meat can be found in the dark.
And worst of all, I don't like this war—the constant fear of Ferius
arriving in this city. But Linee . . . Ferius now rules in Arden, our
old kingdom, and his monks are spreading to many lands in Timandra.
If we did return to sunlight, he would hunt us. He knows our names;
half the world must know our names by now. I never thought I'd be
famous." He laughed mirthlessly. "We're among the Five
Traitors, the Timandrians who fight for the demons of darkness. Well
. . ." That old chill gripped him, and he lowered his head.
"Four Traitors now."

The memory of Hem, lying dead
and peaceful in the ruins of Yintao, returned to him like icy wind.
Cam closed his eyes, and he knew why the memories of home evaded him.
In all those buried memories, Hem was with him—singing in The
Shadowed Firkin tavern, imitating Bailey behind her back, offering
their gang freshly baked bread . . . and following them to war in the
night.

"And now he's gone,"
he said. "Now that big, fat, stupid loaf of a boy is gone. And .
. . I don't know who I am anymore." He opened his eyes and
looked at Linee. "For so long, we were Cam and Hem. Bailey would
call us the two-headed beast. I don't know how to just be Cam."

Linee moved closer to him and
slipped her hand into his. Cam was used to being the shortest one
among his friends—barely reaching the shoulders of giants like
Bailey and Hem, and even Torin towered over him—but Linee stood just
as short, and her eyes gazed straight into his. He saw softness and
kindness in those green eyes.

"Maybe . . . maybe I can be
your new best friend." She bit her lip and lowered her head. "I
mean . . . not to replace Hem or anything. I know I can't do that.
Just . . . " She looked up at him, eyes damp. "Just to be a
new friend. We can be Cam and Linee maybe." She looked away,
cheeks flushing. "I guess it's a stupid idea."

He pulled his hand from her
grip, and she looked ready to cry, but then he placed his arm around
her, pulled her close, and held her tightly.

"I think it's a fantastic
idea," he said. "It's the best damn idea I've heard since
entering the night."

Her face lit up. "Really?"
She laughed, mussed his hair, and pinched his cheek. "Good!
Because I'm a very very good friend, even if I annoy you sometimes. I
know most people wouldn't believe me. They think I'm dumb and
childlike and pampered, and maybe they're right. Maybe I am those
things. But I'm also loyal and kind."

The cold wind gusted, billowing
a thousand red banners across the black city. Clouds trailed over the
moon, ships patrolled the coast, and the warriors of Ilar marched
upon battlements and courtyards below. Cam and Linee stood together
on the balcony, holding each other, watching the night.

Koyee walked through the refugee
camp, too hollowed for tears, too weary for grief. The thousands
crowded around her, exiles of her empire, but she sought only one
soul.

"Look again!" she told
the old man with the scrolls. "He must be on the lists. Okado
son of Salai. My brother."

The elder shook his head, white
beard swaying. He held a bundle of scrolls that rolled down to his
feet. "I am most sorry, my child. But no Okado son of Salai has
joined our camp." He patted her hand. "So many lost loved
ones in the battle. His soul was strong. He shines now among the
stars."

She pulled her hand back and
glared at him. "Do not be so quick to bury him." She left
the old man and marched through the camp, mud squelching under her
feet. "I will find him. Okado!" She coned her hand around
her mouth and cried out. "Okado! Has anyone seen him?"

She wouldn't listen to the old
man with his lists of survivors. She wouldn't listen to those
soldiers who claimed they had seen Okado fall in Yintao's port,
burned by Ferius himself, giving his life to protect the people of
that captured city. If there was no body, there was still hope.

"Okado!"

The refugee camp, home to the
survivors of Qaelin, spread across the valley. A mile away rose the
walls of Asharo, the capital of the Ilari empire, a city of bricks
and tiles and steel. But here in the wilderness rolled a place of
mud, of crude tents, of frightened survivors.

Koyee was not the only one
searching. Others walked between the tents, their feet muddy, calling
out the names of loved ones. Wives called for husbands. Mothers
called for children. Everywhere she saw them—skinny, wounded
refugees, their clothes in tatters, crying for the missing. And Koyee
knew: Most of those loved ones were dead. Thrice their elders had
moved from tent to tent, collecting the names of all the survivors.

"And you're not among them,
my brother." Koyee looked up at the stars. "Do you truly
now shine above me, watching from a place I cannot reach?"

She kept walking through the
camp, silent. She had fought to save thousands. She had left behind a
brother. She lowered her head and could not breathe for the ache in
her heart.

I
lost my mother in childhood. I lost my father two years ago. Now my
brother is gone, and I am truly alone.

"Koyee?"

She turned to see Torin, and her
eyes stung because though she had lost her family, and she herself
was lost in a strange land, she was not alone—not with him here, the
man who had followed her from sunlight into shadow, from war to
exile, from water to fire and finally to mud. He wore his armor of
the night—a shirt of steel scales and vambraces carved with moonstar
runes. Instead of his old longsword, a katana hung at his side. When
she had first met him, he had seemed a soft boy to her, his cheeks
smooth, his eyes afraid. She saw a man stand before her now. A beard
darkened his cheeks, his face was gaunter, and two years of bloodshed
had hardened his eyes like hammers on hot steel.

"I can't find him, Torin,"
she whispered. "I must have searched every tent. He's . . ."
She lowered her head, voice choking.

He took her hands. "I'm
sorry, Koyee. I'm so sorry."

She nodded and wiped her eyes.
"I have to tell you something. A secret." The pain
constricted her throat; she could barely speak. "I was with
Shenlai when he died. The last dragon of Qaelin. He spoke his last,
dying secret to me." She touched Torin's cheek. "Come with
me back to Asharo. We must find the city library. And we must find a
clock."

The Library of Asharo loomed
above the streets. Black columns stood in a ring, supporting a dome
so large it could have enclosed all of Oshy. A banner of the red
flame thudded from the roof, and iron statues of panthers guarded the
stone doors. Koyee had visited Minlao Palace, home of Pahmey's
elders. She had met Empress Hikari in her hall of stone and steel.
She had fought in the courts of the Eternal Palace of Yintao. She had
sailed upon ships like floating forts. This, however, was a place of
learning, and it was the greatest building she had ever seen.

"If there is hope for the
night, it will be revealed to us here," she said.

Torin sighed. "I don't
know, Koyee. 'Fix the clock and the world will turn again?' What does
that mean?

"I don't know. Maybe the
books do. That's why we're here." She smiled. "I hope you
remember the reading lessons I gave you."

They climbed the stairs, moving
between the panther statues. Soldiers stood outside the doors as if
guarding a palace, for knowledge too was power, mightier than swords
and cannons. Koyee stepped between them, entered the library, and
gasped.

Despite her grief, her fear, and
her aching wounds, she smiled shakily and tears of awe stung her
eyes.

"It's beautiful," she
whispered. "Oh, Torin . . . it's beautiful."

He twisted his lips. "It
looks dusty. Dust makes me sneeze."

"The only thing dusty here
is your empty skull." She held his hand, dragged him deeper into
the library, and grinned. "Look . . . oh stars above, look at
all those books."

Shelves spread along the walls,
rising toward the domed ceiling, and more bookshelves rose along the
floor like a labyrinth. Countless books filled them, wrapped in
leather or metal, books more plentiful than soldiers in any army.
Paintings of flying dragons covered the ceiling, statues of queens
and kings stood between columns, and mosaics of birds and panthers
spread across the floor, but Koyee spared these wonders but a glance
or two. Instead she gaped at the books, things of wonder and mystery.
Some were large, elaborate codices, their titles golden upon their
spines. Others were smaller, humbler things, simply sheaves of
parchment wrapped in a bundle, dusty and curling. Some books looked
too heavy to lift, and others she could have hidden in her pockets. A
few had covers forged from precious metals inlaid with jewels. She
saw books of poetry, of history, of medicine, of astronomy, and
some—how she wished she had time to read them!—stories of epic
tales from long ago.