The Midnight Sea (The Fourth Element #1) (7 page)

Chapter Eight

“
I
’d like to see him,” I said, folding my hands primly in my lap.

“Why?” The magus gave me a hard stare. He’d aged in the four years I’d known him. His brown hair was now streaked with grey and faint lines creased the corners of his mouth. That’s what happened when a person was no longer bonded. I still didn’t know why he hadn’t taken another daēva, or how the first one had died, and I doubted he would ever tell me.

“Because I have a block, and the only way I can break through it is by practicing with Darius,” I said. “I told you about it, remember?”

He grunted. “One hour a day. After evening chores.”

“Thank you.” I jumped to my feet and was almost at the door when the magus spoke.

“You feel his emotions very strongly, don’t you?”

I froze. “Sometimes.”

“Not all do. Some feel nothing at all, only the power. It’s easier for them to maintain the necessary detachment. But your gift is strong. So is his. Mind what you do with it.”

“Yes, magus.”

I felt his eyes on my back as I walked out the door. On the way to the stables, I wondered if the magus had been one of those like me. I had a feeling he was, that he had been very close to his daēva. That he was still in mourning.

For the next hour, I helped Tommas muck out the stalls. Neither of us spoke much. I knew Tommas was in mourning too, for Abraxas. Ilyas had quickly reverted to usual self—cold and condescending—but Tommas never seemed to mind. His patience with Ilyas seemed boundless. I decided I would probably never understand the two of them.

And it didn’t matter, because I had a hard enough time figuring out my own daēva.

He had to have known I was coming, but he still frowned when he saw me. Dark shadows made his eyes an even more vivid blue. It had been three days since the fall, three days since his spine had shattered, and yet he was half sitting up, propped on a mound of pillows.

“Nazafareen. What are you doing here?”

“I have permission,” I said quickly.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Don’t be impertinent,” I said.

Darius coughed to cover a smile. The movement made him wince.

“How is it?” I asked.

“Healing. Slower than I’d like.”

And twenty times faster than I would, I thought, if I ever healed at all.

“Can I get you anything?” I asked him.

“I’m fine, thank you.”

I stood there. An awkward silence ensued.

“I told the magus we should practice with your power,” I said finally. “If you’re able to.”

Darius settled deeper into his pillows. “What’s the point?”

I scowled. “Do you want me to apologize again?”

“No. But we both know that you’re perfectly fine when you’re feeling calm. It’s when you’re scared or angry that you lose your head. Practicing won’t change that.”

I knew he was right, that he’d cut to the heart of it. But I suddenly didn’t want to leave just yet. I hated to admit it, but I missed him a little.

“We could do something else. Aren’t you getting bored?”

He shrugged.

“I could tell you stories. I know some good ones.”

He flung an arm over his face. “I’m too tired,” he mumbled.

“Fine. I know how exhausting it is to lie around feeling sorry for yourself. I used to do it when I first got here. You can talk to the spiders. Or play shadow puppets on the wall. That’s always entertaining.”

I turned to go and heard the covers rustle.

“Hang on. What kind of stories?”

“Well…there’s Prince Jamshid and the pomegranate seeds that turn into three beautiful maidens.”

“I know that one. Doesn’t it have an evil daēva that takes them captive?”

I winced a little. “Yes. Sorry, I forgot about that part.”

There was a long pause as I tried and failed to think of a story without some kind of Druj in it. To my surprise, Darius rescued me.

“I have one,” he said. “My amah used to tell it when I was a child. It’s about a clever young girl and the wicked satrap who wedded her.”

“What’s an amah?”

“Like a nursemaid.”

“Does it have a good ending?” I asked.

Darius shrugged. “I always hoped she’d kill the evil bastard, but I suppose it’s not a tragic end. She does outwit him and keep her head.”

So I sat on the floor, resting my back against the side of the bed, while Darius started to speak. He had a pleasant voice, with a slight trace of the lilting western accent. And every day thereafter until he healed, my daēva told me stories. I enjoyed the one about the girl and the satrap because it had lots of stories
inside
the story, but the one I liked best was called
The Midnight Sea
.

It was about a general who had gone to war against Queen Neblis and had to sail home with his men through the wine-dark waters off of Bactria. They had many adventures along the way, but then their ship was battered by a storm and broken apart. The general tied himself to the mast, tossed in the roiling seas. All manner of Undead were closing in from the depths when the current swept him to an island.

It was paradise, with fruit trees and lovely maidens whose songs kept the Druj away. But he could never leave it, or he would die.

So the end was both happy and sad at the same time, which was my favorite kind.

After those few weeks together, I no longer fumbled with his power. I held it lightly, if I bothered to hold it at all. I didn’t tell the magus this. He would have been very angry. Water Dogs were supposed to keep their daēvas in check at all times. To release them only when threatened. But I knew Darius wouldn’t take advantage of my lenience, despite what he had said on the roof that night.

We patrolled in the northern reaches and we killed Druj together. Too many to count. Ilyas had been right when he said the border wasn’t safe anymore. The satrap asked for reinforcements, but was refused. The Immortals and most of the Water Dogs had been sent to Persepolae to protect the capital. Eskander, the boy general who had sacked the Free Cities, now sat on the other side of the Hellespont, waiting for the spring thaw. It was a thousand leagues away, but the thought still made me uneasy.

And no matter how many Druj died at the end of my sword, I never found the peace I was looking for.

Once Darius healed, we went back to our old routine. But I found myself thinking of him at odd times. Figs, for example. I used to like them. But Darius despised them, and now I couldn’t look at one without feeling ill.

One day I decided that since I had to endure the water blessing every morning at dawn, I might as well go perform it with him. So I went down to the river. As before, he was stripped to the waist. But this wasn’t the boy I remembered. Darius was twenty now, lean and hard. I paused and prayed to the Holy Father that he had his walls up against me.

“Why aren’t you at the fire temple?” he asked, setting his bowl down.

Because you can’t go inside, I thought, although I didn’t say it.

“My people did the water blessing too,” I said. “I miss it.”

He looked at me. I couldn’t tell if he knew I was lying. His emotions were too jumbled up.

As were my own.

I filled the bowl with water and waited.

Darius hesitated. Then he dropped gracefully to his knees and I poured the water over his head. I watched it trickle through the curls at his neck and down the line of his back, as smooth and perfect as it was before the accident. His withered arm no longer repelled me. If anything, it made me feel more gentle toward him.

“Good thoughts, good words, good deeds. May the Holy Father guide and keep you.”

He kept his head bowed for a moment. Then he rose and started to leave.

“Wait!” I said. “You have to do me now.”

Darius looked scandalized. “I can’t…”

“Yes, you can.” I knelt before him. “Give me the blessing.” I peeked up at him through my hair. “I insist and you have to obey me, don’t you?”

Darius let out a long breath. I heard him fill the bowl.

“May the Holy Father guide and keep you,” he said hoarsely, slowly pouring the water over my head.

I leapt to my feet. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Don’t tell the magus…”

“Bah! Why would I tell the magus anything?” I laughed and it felt good. It had been a long time since I’d laughed. “Besides, you’re more devout than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“That’s because I have to be,” Darius said quietly.

He was getting all sorrowful again and I didn’t want that.

“Don’t make me go eat some figs,” I warned.

Darius gave a startled laugh. “You know about that?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I used to like them.”

“Well, your nomad ways make me restless,” he said with a straight face. “That’s why I was outside that night. I don’t like sleeping with a roof over my head anymore.”

I filled a bowl from the river and threatened him with it.

“Go ahead,” Darius grinned. “I’m already wet.”

We both turned as Ilyas came running down the hillside. Darius grabbed his tunic and hastily yanked it over his head. I stepped away from him.

“What in the name of the Father is going on here?” Ilyas demanded.

“We were just performing the water blessing,” I said, staring at the ground.

“That’s not what it looked like.”

“She didn’t do—” Darius began.

“Shut up.” Ilyas hadn’t raised his voice, which somehow made it worse. “Back to barracks, both of you. I will not have fraternizing outside of practice and patrol, is that understood?”

We nodded. I could feel Darius’s fear, thick and choking, like a cornered animal. What did he think Ilyas was going to do? Our captain demanded discipline, but his punishments were nothing out of the ordinary. When Tijah and I had snuck off into town to browse the bazaars and were late returning, Ilyas had made us carry rocks back and forth across the yard until well after dark, a backbreaking exercise made worse by its sheer pointlessness, but hardly torture. And the time he’d caught Myrri using the power to dry Tijah’s hair on a cold morning, which seemed to me a more serious infraction, he’d simply made them wear the grey again for two weeks. Tijah had been mad as a kicked boar at the humiliation, but it could have been a lot worse.

I risked a glance at Ilyas now. The disappointment in his eyes cut me. As though I had betrayed him somehow.

“Nazafareen, you can stop at the fire temple first,” he said. “Ask for forgiveness, and contemplate the righteous path. For if you stray from it…Well, the fall can be long and hard.”

I did as he commanded, although as I stared into the brazier and mumbled the words of purification, I kept seeing Darius with his shirt off. This went on for an hour or so, despite my best efforts at piety, and I departed faintly surprised that I hadn’t been dispatched to hell on the very spot.

Ilyas hadn’t said that I was confined to barracks, so I reported to the stables a few minutes earlier than usual that afternoon, thinking I would ask Tommas if Darius had ever spoken about his life before he came to Tel Khalujah. Every time I raised the subject, Darius brushed me off. But his reaction to Ilyas’s displeasure had been so extreme, I couldn’t help but wonder what his last bonded had been like. I knew he had trained with a contingent of Immortals in Karnopolis, but I had no clue what the upbringing of a daēva consisted of. I’d asked Tijah, but she didn’t know either. Myrri had been raised with her in the household.

My steps slowed as I heard a familiar voice inside. Ilyas was there. I knew I should leave, but I couldn’t resist lingering by one of the open stalls.

“…her. They are far too familiar with each other.”

“It sounds innocent enough,” Tommas said.

“That’s how it begins.” I heard Ilyas’s boots, pacing up and down. “I want you to watch him. Tell me if you witness any improprieties.”

“Improprieties?” Tommas laughed. “Such as what? They’re bonded. It’s only natural—”

My heart clenched as I heard the unmistakable sound of a palm striking flesh.

“It’s not
natural
,” Ilyas snarled. Then he kicked something. From the rolling clatter, it sounded like a wooden stool. “I’m sorry,” he said in a softer voice. “Tommas. I’m sorry.”

I had never heard my captain use such a tone. Almost pleading. Tommas didn’t reply. An instant later, Ilyas grew brusque again.

“Just watch him,” he said.

I pressed my back against the wall as Ilyas emerged suddenly from the stables. If he had so much as glanced to the right, he would have seen me. But he strode off in the direction of the gardens and didn’t look back.

“Go on, come inside,” Tommas said. “I know you’re there.”

I startled, although I should have guessed he’d sensed my presence. Daēvas had the hearing of bats.

“Are you all right?” I asked gently.

His right cheek and ear were an angry red, but he flashed me his crooked smile like nothing was wrong.

“I’m sorry,” I said miserably. “This is my fault.”

“No, it’s his,” Tommas said, and I didn’t think he meant Darius. “But I’d take care if I were you. Don’t give him any excuses.” He sighed. “Ilyas…He means well. He’s just afraid.”

That threw me. “Afraid of what?”

“Of failing in his duty. I think he sees a lot of himself in you, Nazafareen. He cares for you very much.”

I picked up a broom and started sweeping out the nearest stall to hide my confusion. Was it possible that Ilyas felt
jealous
? The thought had never occurred to me. He had always treated me as a sister. But I had been a child then, and now I was nearly nineteen. Ilyas was only a few years older. I had never seen him with a girl, although it wasn’t forbidden. Water Dogs were not magi. They could do as they pleased, as long as they were reasonably discreet, didn’t marry, and kept their hands off the harem.

The daēvas were different, of course. The magi had explained that they were not permitted to have sexual relationships because it could lead to offspring, and only the King decided how many new daēvas would be bred in a given year. It was all strictly controlled.

“I have nothing to hide,” I said.