Sparks (28 page)

Minutes later, we arrived in a dimly-lit room with a small boy waiting for us. The guards moved us to a wall several feet from each other before pushing us down to our knees. They did it easily and almost in unison, causing me to wonder how many times they had done it. The boy, who only had six or so summers, looked at us as if he was concentrating carefully, but I couldn’t determine why. A moment later, it became clear.

As if it were alive, a snake of stone crept out from the wall and wrapped around my wrists where the soldiers held them outstretched. When there was a continuous stream from the wall to my left wrist and then my right, the stone hardened to rigidly attach me to the wall. If I hadn’t been so irritated at the situation, I would have thought it was very clever.

With my wrists locked, I looked around to see the rest of my friends in similar restraints.
Khasla’s not going to like this.
The boy and the soldiers walked calmly out of the room and didn’t bother with the door. There was no way we were going anywhere.

The Hawk

On the fifth day of captivity, a soldier came for me. I sat in a pool of my own waste and was hungry enough to consider eating my hands. They were raw and bloodied from pulling in attempts to free them, but the stone restraints were too tight. I could drink a sea’s worth of water if I had been given the chance, my mouth feeling like I had been chewing on the sands of the Andover.

We gave up talking on the second day, exhausting ideas for how to get out or what was going to happen to us. It was clear we had completely lost control of the situation and we became resigned to our fate, whatever that may be.

By day, the guards brought a series of torches to light the room, though I would have preferred they bring food or water instead. At night, only a single dim torch illuminated the small, stone room where we were ultimately doomed to die. It seemed like a strange practice to let captives keep track of the days and nights, but at least it kept us from totally losing it.

With nothing left to do, I drew a thread to my father and found him happier than I would have expected, content with the life of raising a child again. He loved Estha, and she was reason for him to get up each day and fight to make a life. I knew he would be better than fine if I never made it back, which looked more and more likely as the days went on.

The soldier that came for me had his left arm completely tattooed from wrist to shoulder. He had a long scar under his left eye and was as unreadable as a rock. Behind the soldier came the small Shaker boy who effortlessly withdrew the stone restraints, allowing the soldier to yank me to my feet and push me into the corridor.

The boy’s thoughts dwelled on a sister and a threat of death if he offered anything other than his complete cooperation. He was as much a prisoner as we were
. Is that what happens to children with strong Sparks?
The soldier twisted my arm behind me and up towards my shoulder blades with the clear intention to rip my arm off if I tried anything.

My four friends each shouted as I was forced out of the stone room. Micha called out the loudest, fearful that I was being taken to meet my end and I couldn’t disagree. I tried to keep track of where we turned so I could get back if needed, out of old habit, but we didn’t end up going that far.

The soldier pulled me into a large room with the largest bath I’d ever seen in the middle and a window that looked out over the city. The tub was made of silver and was flowing over with steaming water and bubbles. My unreadable companion nodded towards the bath and seemed to want me to get in. I couldn’t deny I probably smelled horrible, but cleaning someone was hardly part of the standard of captivity or torture. It didn’t make any sense.

Deciding it was the last bath I was ever likely to get, I stripped off my soiled clothes and slipped into the heavenly water. It was warm and fragrant like flowers. I happily splashed it over my face before completely dunking my head under, reminded of the feeling of my first hot water bath in the inn at Nyssa. I washed as best I could without a cloth or any soap, but I came out cleaner than I would have thought possible. Even my wrists looked better once the dried blood was washed away.

The soldier motioned towards a black cloth hanging on a hook by the window.
Not much of a talker.
I tied the fabric around my waist to match his as close as I could–though it felt unnatural to have my body so uncovered. It was quite uncomfortable to have so little clothing on as the soldier pushed me down the hall again, holding one arm twisted behind me painfully. Just as I thought I could probably take him, he brought me back to the large room with the jade bench–only this time there was no sight of the queen. My sudden reemergence back in the queen’s room piqued my curiosity enough that I decided to let it play out. After all, I didn’t have much to lose.

The taciturn soldier pushed me past the bench and behind a set of tall, blue curtains that led to a terrace. An intricately-carved, stone rail overlooked Uxmal, and I could even make out the edge of the forest a few miles out. Dozens of pots filled with tropical flowers and plants with wide, flat leaves dotted the edges. I was moved towards a white, stone bench–that matched the jade one inside–before a strong hand pushed me down to sit on it.

Leaving the same as he came, the soldier silently walked away and disappeared behind the dark blue fabric. As soon as he was gone, the queen emerged from some hidden space and elegantly walked towards me. She looked much the same as she had the one time I had seen her before: with shiny, black hair hung over her chest and a strip of blue fabric around her waist.

“Nakben culture suits you,” she said, referring to the tiny bit of fabric I wore.

I was sure I felt entirely opposite. With no idea where she was going with it or what she wanted, I waited in silence.

“You Madurians have strange names.
Lark
.” She stressed the
r
sound, as if it were a sour fruit in her mouth. “Perhaps we’ll get you a new one. What does
Lark
mean?”

“It’s a bird. The morning lark.”
My mother’s bird.

“Then Quetzalli. The tail feather. It suits you.”

“Tail feather?”

She smiled slyly, clearly interested in playing games. “Did you know you are only the second Madurian I cannot hear?”

“What?” After talking for the last few minutes, I was pretty sure she could hear me fine.

“Most people in Nakbe can be heard. What they want. What they need. I can hear them. But not you.”

“In Madurai, it’s called Reading,” I offered her.

“Reading then. Do you know why I cannot read you?”

In fact I do.
I made a special effort not to reach down to touch my father’s ring where it sat on my fourth finger, remembering that she couldn’t see it. It was oddly comforting to think that my thoughts were safe in my own head as they had rarely been in my life.

“No,” I lied.

Apparently, she wasn’t used to having to understand people from their outward expressions; she didn’t argue despite my confidence I wasn’t a superb liar. The scene reminded me of Rhorken’s visit to Lagodon, only this time I was one who blocked, rather than the one who struggled to read.

“Then you are a rare treat, Quetzalli.”

I gave her a terse look at the use of my new ‘name’, exactly as she wanted.

“Is that why the law requires the copper bracelet? To protect the people from you?” I chided her, knowing that couldn’t be the reason; but seeing as how we were playing games, however, I was game to play along.

Just as I’d hoped, her mood seemed to sour. “My people love and respect their queen. We are close to our greatest achievement.”

“What achievement is that?” Had they killed every last beautiful woman? Did they reach their one-millionth sacrifice? As far as I was concerned, any Nakben achievement was nothing I was interested in.

“Did you know the Nakbe Tribes were a weak nation two thousand years ago?” As she asked the question, she sat on the narrow bench next to me so that the skin of her thigh was
lightly pressed against mine. I moved closer to the edge of the bench to get away. I was nowhere near mentally ready to even think about touching another woman, and I doubted I ever would be.

“Uh, no. I guess I’m rusty on my ancient Nakben history.”

“We were hungry, in constant strife with Takla Maya or Madurai, or even Hurgada during the First Wars. There was a sickness that washed through and stole many lives. Enemies with abilities to control the wind, or the earth, or to read–as you say– took their advantage to control us. The queen, Nitlatnoani, begged as many gods as she could find to help her people, but only Chichiton, the dog, answered. He promised Nitlatnoani safety in exchange for an offering. She must give him the strongest man and the most beautiful woman as a show of honor, and she must give him the weak and the sick, to strengthen our people.

“For the last two thousand years, we have continued this tradition, carefully monitoring blood lines and influencing marriages while removing the weak. Now over half of Nakbe is immune to the abilities of weaker enemies.”

“Then why do you require they wear the bracelet?”

“It prevents our enemies from determining who is immune and who is not. All Nakben people can either use powers, or are immune, but no one has both. We are one generation away from producing a queen who has strong abilities herself but is immune to the abilities of others. She will be the mother of the Nakbe of the future, the Tonani,
our mother
.”

“You want one woman to birth an entire nation? That seems a little sick.” I tried to fill my voice with sarcasm but it was a sentiment I truly felt. Who would make a woman do that?

“The queen will be the child of the strongest tiger and the swiftest hawk. She is the only way to secure our future.”
The tiger and the hawk? What?

“Will you stop the offerings to Chichiton once you have your queen?”

“Offering our strongest and our weakest to the dog is a tradition that stretches back to the dawn of our history as a powerful nation. We will always continue our traditions.”

“Then what do you want with me? An offer to your dog?” It was more of a rhetorical question than an actual one.

“Not yet. As I said, you may yet be useful. The hawk has proved more resistant than we hoped. You will persuade her.”

“What? You want me to convince a woman to marry your ‘tiger’ and produce a queen to start the new, strong future?” How would I possibly accomplish that? I wasn’t even sure I wanted to.

A flip of the wrist produced a sight I couldn’t have believed, and even once my eyes grasped it, there were several moments with my jaw on the floor before I could fully register the scene before me.

A large Nakben soldier turned the corner holding Khea by the elbow, pushing her so roughly that she missed a step and barely caught herself before hitting the floor. She wore a light blue band of fabric at her waist with a slim decorative silver chain hanging across her hips, and her blonde hair fell straight over her chest. She looked terrified to see me.

“Khea!” I said when it finally clicked, and I rushed over to her only to watch as the soldier pulled her behind him, blocking my view.

“Let her go!” Even to myself, I sounded like a petulant child, but the words rushed out before I had a chance to think.

“No, Quetzalli. She is the hawk. She will have Tonani. You will help her.” I could barely see Khea where she stood behind the brick-wall-of-a-guard, but the only glimpse I’d had of her showed tear-stained cheeks and a mountain of anguish. How could someone want that for her? She had barely started her seventeenth summer and Xiuhpilli wanted her to be the mother of the future race of Nakben warriors. It was insanity.

I couldn’t think of a strategy, or what to say to get her out of this. Only disbelief and rage occupied my rattled mind, and I said the only words I had. “I swear to your dog I will kill you before this is over. Release her now.”

“Quetzalli, I thought you might be more useful.”

Xiuhpilli gave the signal and Khea was dragged away as a soldier appeared behind me to hold me back. My heel flew behind me to shatter his knee and drop him down, but the second it took me to get free was long enough for Khea to disappear.

“The Yellows said you would protect her. They did not say how much, though.”

“The
Yellows
? What the fuck are you talking about?” The time for games and tip-toeing was over. She was going to give me answers and give me Khea, or I was going to kill her.

“The ones who sent you. They wanted someone who would make sure she arrived safely. The agreement would have gone very badly for them if she had been damaged in transport.”

The ones who sent me? Avis? Lheda?

Suddenly, it sank in.
The Yellows
. Whether it was a reference to their blonde hair or to the yellow pendant of Turners they each wore, I didn’t know. But–in that moment–I knew Xiuhpilli had planned this with Mathias and Lheda from the beginning.

“Yaotl never had anything to do with this, did she?”

“Oh no, she tried to stop it. She does not believe in Tonani. But I am queen, and she is not.”

“How did I not know about this?” I could read Lheda, even with blur from the copper bracelet she always wore, and Avis had been reading her cleanly for years. There was nothing in his mind about an arrangement with Xiuhpilli.

“The Cochi. The quiet. A method learned over the last three hundred years to keep secrets. The Yellows learned the Cochi as part of the arrangement. At first we gave them iron and the Cochi, in exchange for their support in the attack on Takla Maya. But when we learned of the hawk, we insisted she be transferred to us. Now we have the hawk and the tiger. Tonani is next.”

It was bloody sneaky. Lheda had been keeping secrets with some Nakben method of silence, and not even Avis had known. We were as far down the hole as you get, and neither of us had had a clue. All along, she had planned for Khea to come to Nakbe, to be used as a sow for the next generation. I was just here for guarded transport, and I had done my job wonderfully.