Chapter 16

16

Aiz

The Southern Ocean boiled and raged, and the Ankanese ship should have been nothing but broken boards at the bottom of the sea. Instead, it cut a steady path south, riding the frothing waves the way Sail pilots rode the winds of a blizzard.

Aiz fixed her gaze on the southern horizon, welcoming the slap of wet on her face and the wind tearing at her hair. The ship's captain had shown her to her quarters, given her soap and a bucket of water to wash, and fresh clothing. Kegar was behind her. She must now determine what lay ahead.

"You have the rhythm of the sea."

The seer spoke from beside her, still in her deep green robes. Aiz stepped back, watchful.

"I am Dolbra." The seer inclined her head. "We promised Cero to take you wherever you wished to go after we round Cape Timdra tomorrow. Consider well, for once you decide, we will not change course."

Aiz had expected to fight Tiral, not escape Kegar. But Mother Div's will had set her on another path, and it was not fully illuminated. Perhaps Aiz wasn't ready to face Tiral. Mother Div would want a worthy opponent for her foe—and Aiz wasn't that. Yet.

"Why did you decide to help me?" Aiz stalled for time. If there was one thing she'd learned from the Nine Sacred Tales, it was that Mother Div communicated her will in a myriad of ways. Through visions, certainly, but also through signs. One simply had to know how to interpret them.

Dolbra gripped the railing as the ship crested a large wave, and spray broke over the deck. The bones of her knuckles pressed tight against her skin. For a moment, within her hood, the seer appeared almost skeletal.

Around the two of them, the odd silence of the ship deepened.

"I saw you," Dolbra whispered.

"Saw me where?" Aiz said.

"They mustn't hear." Dolbra's gaze raked across her countrymen all over the boat. "They mustn't know, for our people are to remain neutral in all things. But you appeared in my visions, Aiz bet-Dafra. You grasped an ancient wind in your hand and swallowed it. It bloomed through your chest and took form as a woman with her hands raised. Your cleric, Div."

"Your people," Aiz said. "They know of Mother Div?"

Dolbra nodded. "She visited centuries ago. Much of what she said was lost. But she told us her Nine Sacred Tales. She is not a holy figure for our people. But she is respected, for she knew the power of foresight. Look—"

Dolbra gestured up to a star burning low on the horizon.

"That is Malitha, which rises for rebirth and for destruction," she said, before drawing an invisible line to another star. "And when Jiragh is in direct line, that is a return. A change."

A chill swept up Aiz's arms. It was a star that led Mother Div to a new homeland long ago—the evening star.

"But there are other stars I see," Dolbra breathed. "In dreams, the seers delve beyond what the human eye can perceive and into the empyrean. There, constellations beyond our sky emerge." The seer stepped closer to Aiz now. "The Reaper rose once before, more than one thousand years ago. It rises again. When I look at you now, I see—"

"Holy Seer."

Aiz started, for she'd been so fixated on Dolbra's words that she hadn't noticed the ship's captain approach. She was small and fair-haired, with a stony gaze.

"Holy Seer, it is time for the sunset orison." The captain settled her hand on the seer's shoulder. "The crew awaits."

Dolbra seemed to come out of a daze at the woman's touch. She joined the rest of the crew, and they tipped their heads to the sky while Dolbra hummed. For a moment when everyone else faced the stars, Dolbra seemed to look across the ship at Aiz.

Her gaze pierced through the Kegari girl. Haunted.

Aiz wondered what Dolbra saw.

That night, Aiz pulled out the book she'd stolen from Tiral.

It was written in Ankanese and she'd read through it once already. The stories within appeared simple: "The Demon at the Wedding," "The Storm and the Storyteller," "The Wise Man and His Dutiful Daughter," "The Dragon of Wit and Wile." The types of tales you told children to ensure they didn't wander alone into a dark forest.

Certain words snagged in her head: Demon. Dusk. Wind. North. Song.

Tiral wouldn't have been so attached to it if it didn't mean something. There was a message in these words, and Aiz was determined to find it.

She finished one of the stories she'd enjoyed, about a monster who sneaks into a wedding. The setting alone beguiled her—the descriptions of lamps and food, of the bride's wedding dress embroidered to reflect the vivid purples and blues of the desert sky.

Aiz turned the page to see a new title:

The Vessel of the Fount

Aiz stared in astonishment. She'd read the book thrice now. She'd never seen this story. There, in the first paragraph, was Div's name.

Gather, gather and listen well, for Mother Div's voice must not be forgotten. Hear her in the wind which stirs in your blood. Forget her not, for she has not forgotten you.

No, this story was certainly not here before, else Aiz would already have it memorized. Almost without realizing it, she'd devoured half the story. Despite its unusual start, it otherwise mirrored the First Sacred Tale almost to the letter. The calamity across the sea. Div's desperate search for a homeland. The stars leading her to the valley below the Spires, where she settled her people.

But the First Sacred Tale ended at the cloister, with Div caring for animals and orphans and vowing that one day, the Kegari would return to their homeland. In this book, the story went on.

In time, Div felt the call of the wind again. She left Kegar and the burden of rule to her three children, Oona, Ghaz, and Hiwa. Div walked weaponless into the wind and let it carry her aloft to lands unknown, far beyond the Spires of Kegar.

She formed alliances with the Seers of Ankana and the Kins of Jaduna, the Ghost Men of Karkaus, and the Sun Lords of Firan. But the wind pulled at her still, until one day she met betrayal and imprisonment in the lee of a giant's fangs. Div wept, for no creature of fur nor feather dared to tread near her prison. No rain penetrated its shriveled hollow, no wind blew in to freshen the stale air.

There, in a place of unending death, Mother Div's spirit abides, trapped as she awaits one of the Blood to set her free. Only then can she return in the body of the Tel Ilessi, the Holy Vessel. And the Tel Ilessi shall deliver her people back to the homeland from whence they fled, so long ago.

The book fell from Aiz's hands, landing with a leaden thump on the deck. She closed her eyes, not quite believing what she'd read.

The clerics never spoke of Div's death. Only of her passing rulership to the first three Triarchs—her children. Aiz heard the story of Div leaving Kegar once. More rumor than fact , Sister Noa had said. Div was devoted to her people.

But that didn't mean that this story was false. It had the rhythm of a Sacred Tale.

Aizzzzz.

The voice—Div's voice. Aiz knew it instantly, and she spun, desperate to see the apparition of the Holy Cleric. To ask her if the story was true.

But the voice was different than when she heard it in the prison. More distant.

Help me, daughter. Find me. Release me and I will give you power beyond what you could dream. Power to do anything. Power to save your people.

"Power," Aiz whispered. "Windsmithing?"

Yes. You have the skill. You need only to control it. Windsmithing is the beginning. I can give you more than that. Whatever power you have, I will multiply it one hundredfold.

"Can you—can you help me destroy Tiral?"

As if he never existed. But first you must free me. The road will be hard, Aiz. There will be great sacrifice.

"What—kind of sacrifice?"

You may have to trade the few for the many. You may wish to turn back. But if you hold to the course I set before you, the poor and wretched of Kegar will never suffer again.

"Yes," Aiz said, and she could see it. See Noa and Olnas and Hani free. The cloister thriving, the orphans fed. And she, Aiz, would be the reason. "Tell me what to do, Mother Div."

Read the story. Find me. We will be unstoppable, child.

Mother Div's voice faded and Aiz reread the passage. A place of unending death. Aiz had not heard of such a place, but then, she'd never left Kegar. Dolbra might know, or the ship's captain, who was widely traveled.

Something occurred to her then. Dolbra's vision. You grasped an ancient wind in your hand and swallowed it. Aiz saw Hani in the dark of the Tohr asking why there were Nine Sacred Tales. Mother Div whispered the Ninth Sacred Tale to the wind in a faraway land. When the wind circles the earth and returns to Kegar, we will finally hear the tale. Its telling will herald the Return to our homeland.

Could this be the Ninth Sacred Tale?

Aiz flipped to the front of the book. There were numbers and letters inscribed there. 1006PF. Only nineteen years ago. A thousand and six years after the cataclysm that drove Aiz's people from their homeland. Below, the author's name.

If it was the Ninth Sacred Tale, it had been recorded by a foreigner: Laia of Serra.

Excitement flared in Aiz's chest. This was the sign she'd been searching for. The book wasn't old, so Laia of Serra might still live. If so, Aiz would find her, learn how she'd come across the tale. She would find the prison, set Mother Div free, and prove herself worthy.

And then she would become something more than a gutter Snipe, fated to die cold and hungry and worth less than nothing.

The girl hurried to the deck, the book wrapped in oilcloth and bound to her body.

As she emerged, dawn broke, a sudden, brilliant explosion in the eastern sky, made more beautiful after the rain that had followed them out of Kegar. Far ahead, plumes of spray shot into the air as the ocean slammed itself against the high white cliffs of Cape Timdra.

Dolbra was on deck, singing her dawn orisons. Her voice was low, rising and falling like the mournful call of seabirds, the tide a sustained chord beneath. Aiz waited until she was done before speaking.

"Serra," Aiz said to the seer. "I wish to go to Serra."

Dolbra raised her eyebrows in surprise. "The Martial Empire? Why?"

In truth, Aiz knew little of the Martials. According to the clerics, Ankana considered the Empire to be a backward society, as the Martials had only recently freed their slaves, and still thought of the dona'i—those who were neither male nor female but ascended—as oddities.

Aiz straightened her spine. She would learn what she needed to. "I am on a holy mission," she said. "Of the utmost importance. I must meet someone in Serra." She pulled out Tiral's book, skin tingling at the slickness of the cover. "This book has a tale in it that could be significant to my people. The author is someone named Laia of Serra. She's the one person who could tell me more about the tale, if she's still alive."

At this, the seer observed Aiz thoughtfully. "Laia of Serra does not live in Serra," she said. "She is a Kehanni, a storyteller and history-keeper for Tribe Saif, of the Tribal Lands, a vast desert east of the Martial Empire. If you wish to see her, you must disembark in Sadh. Someone there could give you more information about her whereabouts."

"Then that is where I wish to go," Aiz said. "Sadh."

"I will tell the captain." The seer stared at the book, fists clenched. "Beware, daughter of Kegar." Her voice was soft again, as if she feared being overheard. But her eyes were bright. "What you carry"—she put her hand to her heart—"it is powerful. But it casts a shadow too."

Aiz looked down at the book. She'd felt a certain unease when reading it, as if some of its words were lodged in her brain like tiny splinters.

It is powerful, child , Mother Div whispered, and there was a tremor in her tone, something like impatience. Only the weak fear power.

"Not all shadows are bad, seer." Aiz remembered the darkness of the Tohr. "Without them, there can be no light."

Four weeks after the Ankanese vessel rounded Cape Timdra, Aiz woke to the smell of earth instead of sea. The dhow bumped lazily against a dock.

With her meager belongings on her back, Aiz arrived on deck and was immediately hit by a blast of hot air and a blazing sun. They had arrived in Sadh.

Aiz, first confused by the heat, realized the seasons were switched—in Kegar, it was early spring by now. In Sadh, autumn. That was the beginning of the differences between the two.

If Kegar existed in shades of obsidian and salt, Sadh was soothing umbers and browns, rendering the blue of the sky and the white walls of the houses more vivid. The entire city seemed to be moving at once: Purple and red curtains billowed from open windows. Clouds of creosote-scented dust rose from brightly painted caravans snaking into the desert. The harbor teemed with humans and animals. Wooden pulleys creaked beneath the weight of enormous crates.

Aiz wished she could show Cero. Noa. She wished they could hear the air, cacophonous with conversation and laughter and ebullience . Until Aiz heard it here, she didn't realize—there were as many shades of joy in Sadh as there were suffering in the slums of Kegar. A spike of bitterness curdled her awe. Hani and Jak and Finh did not have this kind of joy. No, her people were cursed to misery.

But not forever. Not if Aiz found Laia of Serra and through her, set Mother Div's spirit free.

"Aiz bet-Dafra." Dolbra spoke from behind the girl, gesturing to the gangplank. "Our oath is upheld. Your mount awaits. I've given you my own saddle." She nodded to a lower ramp, where one of the Ankanese crewmen coaxed Tregan onto the dock.

"Thank you for all you taught me," Aiz offered, for Dolbra had told her much of the Tribes that would be useful. "Perhaps I will see you again one day."

"If you have need of me, find one of my fellow seers, and ask for Dolbra. They will know the name. Emifal Firdaant." The seer offered the traditional Ankanese words of parting. May death claim me first.

Aiz reunited with Tregan, who appeared as happy as Aiz to finally be off the ship. They lurched together down the long dock and into the harbor crowds, Aiz feeling as if the ground still swelled beneath her.

The throng parted, with more than a few people giving Aiz a second glance. Likely because her tangled brown hair was styled in the Kegari way, the long strands pulled into braided knots. The clothing the Ankanese had given her looked ragged against even the simplest Tribal garb.

A lithe Tribal woman swathed in scarlet approached. Aiz gaped at her mirrored pants and the jeweled scarf wrapped around her hair. She must be wealthy to wear such beautiful clothing.

Or perhaps such finery was commonplace. In the distance, another woman wearing identical garb greeted a group of passengers disembarking from a ship.

The first woman peered over Aiz's shoulder at the Ankanese vessel.

"I am Neita—of Tribe Sadh," the woman said in accented Ankanese. "Welcome to our city. I am here to aid you, as my Tribe aids all newcomers. How may I assist?"

"I need clothes," Aiz said. "A place to stable my horse." She glanced around. She was drawing too much notice. "And a haircut. I can pay." She'd hidden Cero's coins under her shirt. She didn't want to get robbed. "But I would like to get out of the street."

Neita nodded, gesturing for Aiz to follow.

They made their way to a broad avenue lined with date palms and wagons, shops and restaurants. A rainbow of clothing fluttered on lines above them. Each storefront had a different colored awning, the merchants within trying to out-shout each other and draw in customers.

But it was the wagons lining the street that slowed Aiz's steps. For they were filled with food.

Vegetables she'd never seen before glistening with oil and herbs. Skewered meat, fat dripping in mouthwatering rivulets onto mountains of rice. Baskets of steaming golden bread shaped like half-moons.

A child ran past Aiz carrying a stick of roasted vegetables. In his excitement to follow his playmate, it slipped from his hands. He hardly looked at it before running off, and Aiz snatched it up without breaking stride, though her heart thudded. She waited for someone to stop her. To demand the food.

But no one noticed. The children here had full cheeks and glossy hair. They weren't fighting for fallen food, because they weren't hungry. A few months ago, she'd opened the cloister's front gate to the body of a man who'd starved to death in the night.

This place was miraculous. And obscene. Aiz wanted it for herself. But more than that, she wanted it for her people. She wished she could steal every last morsel and take it to Kegar. Feed the cloisters for months.

In time , Div's voice whispered in her mind.

"Come!" her escort, Neita, called out, and Aiz hurried to follow. "I apologize for the crowds. But you're lucky you didn't come a fortnight ago! The Martial Empress was here with the crown prince, and it was madness. Everyone in the city was trying to get an audience."

Aiz listened carefully as Neita spoke, surreptitiously shoving bits of vegetable skewer in her mouth. The strangeness of this place was almost intimidating. But Mother Div had sent her here for a reason. She must learn all she could about these people.

By noon, Tregan was stabled, and Aiz inhaled an enormous meal at an inn. The innkeeper, who introduced herself as Neita's wife, cut Aiz's hair to just below her ears with a delightful lack of sentiment, and then drew Aiz a bath.

When she finally emerged, clutching her book, it was to find a new leather pack on the bed, along with a pouch to wear against her body. Aiz ran her fingers along a soft, split riding skirt with a matching green and fawn-colored top. Inside the pack, she found a sand-colored cloak, its edges lined in green, and on the floor beside it, brushed riding boots. They were big, but still the finest shoes Aiz had ever owned.

Again, Aiz thought of Kegar, but Mother Div spoke: Do not weep at the injustice your people face. Else you will not have the strength to change their plight.

Aiz jumped at the suddenness of the words. At the bite in them. Perhaps she'd disappointed Mother Div by focusing on the material pleasures in front of her, instead of her holy mission.

She moved her possessions into the new pack, threw it over her back, and made her way downstairs, twirling her aaj around her finger.

"Now you look as though you have received a proper welcome to my city." Neita gestured for Aiz to take the seat beside her at the common room fire. "What brings you here, child? I don't even know your name!"

"I'm looking for someone," Aiz said. "Laia of Serra."

It was as if all the lamps went out at once. The woman's face closed, suddenly forbidding. She exchanged glances with her wife, running a rag along the bar.

"What would you want with Laia of Serra?" Neita said. "I warn you: as a Kehanni, she's well protected by Tribe Saif."

"Neita!" the innkeeper snapped, shaking her head.

Kehanni. Dolbra had told Aiz of the different roles in the Tribes: the Zaldars, who led each Tribe; the Fakirs, who tended to the dead; and the Kehannis, who kept its histories.

"Tribe Saif," Aiz said. "Are they here in the city?"

It was the wrong question.

"No one who would seek the Kehanni for unwholesome reasons is welcome here." Neita's fists clenched and Aiz raised her hands in alarm.

"I don't mean her harm!" Aiz nearly took out the book to show them, but some instinct within quailed against it. She could not risk them coveting it and taking it from her. And she certainly couldn't tell them that she needed Laia to help her find the trapped spirit of Mother Div. They would think her a madwoman. "I'm interested in a story she told. I wished to ask her about it."

Neita's lips thinned and her hand strayed to the blade at her waist. "Sadh is a long way to come for a story."

"Look at me." She held out her skinny wrists. "I couldn't do her any harm."

"Trouble comes in strange packages." The innkeeper exchanged another glance with Neita, and they appeared to come to a decision without speaking.

"We thank you for your custom," Neita said. "But you'll wish to find lodgings elsewhere for the night."

In moments, Neita hustled Aiz out the door and back to the dusty streets of Sadh. Tregan was shoved out too, and they both stared at the courtyard gate, latched and locked against them.

Tregan whinnied, sensing Aiz's irritation, and she rubbed the mare between her ears. "We'll have to go about this another way."

The day was swelteringly hot, enough that Aiz was tempted to call the wind—only a trickle, to cool her brow. But there might be Jaduna in Sadh's streets, so she resisted, sweating her way through the city, into markets and caravanserais, looking for those who spoke Ankanese. She wasn't fool enough to bring up Laia's name again. Instead, she made small talk, learning of the desert beyond Sadh. She listened to a Kehanni tell a tale in a market square and paid a young merchant's assistant a few pennies to translate for her.

"I was not given this tale by a stranger, nor was it overheard around the fire. I speared it in the far west," the Kehanni said, "after searching out one of the blue-painted warlocks of Karkaus." The woman spoke as if the story was alive, as if she'd hunted it; Aiz filed the information away.

She bought spare clothing, oats for Tregan, a canteen, flint, tinder, dried meat. She listened and watched, learning that each Tribe sold a little of everything. But most had specialties. Tribe Nasur was known for its rugs. Tribe Nur for its lamps and rugs.

And Tribe Saif for its medicines and cures.

"Do you speak Ankanese?" Aiz asked a woman selling an array of herbs and poultices. The woman nodded—Aiz knew she would. She'd been watching her for the better part of an hour.

"My mother has an ailment of the lungs." Aiz let desperation seep into her voice. "I've tried bloodroot, green iris, and hallowrose sap. Nothing works."

The woman perused her own goods doubtfully. "I have basic cures, miss. I'd suggest a posset of fennelflame. But you'd need to go to one of the caravans for it."

"I've come from the south—I don't know anyone here."

She let a tear fall and the woman patted her kindly on the shoulder. "You could try Tribe Salah. They're on the east end of the city, near the gate. I'd suggest Tribe Saif, as their cures are the best, but they left Sadh a few days ago."

"I'll try my luck with Tribe Salah," Aiz said. Then, feigning an afterthought: "If they don't have it, can you tell me where Tribe Saif might be? My mother is the last person I have in this world. I'll do anything to help her, travel any distance."

The woman put her hand to her heart. "She is lucky to have a daughter like you." Her voice was thick with emotion. "Tribe Saif went north. They try to get to Nur before the winter storms. But beware on the road. There are coyotes and efrits."

By the time the sun set, Aiz had everything she needed. She and Tregan fell in with a large wagon train also making its way out of the city. The gate guards let her pass with hardly a glance. As soon as she was through, she nudged Tregan into a trot, and soon left the caravan and the city of Sadh far behind.