Chapter 42

42

Sufiyan

Ankana's capital, Burku, was a city of such awe-inspiring beauty that it was impossible for most people not to be moved by the vast arches and delicate columns, the floating bridges and geometric glass windows.

Sufiyan Veturius was unimpressed. Further, he was offended. A thousand miles north, multiple cities that were as beautiful had been reduced to rubble. And none of these rich sods knew or cared.

"We should check the Martial Embassy first," Arelia said. Sufiyan was gratified that she didn't seem much impressed by the city either. Though that might have been exhaustion. They'd ridden hard from Thafwa, and still, it had taken more than a week to reach Burku.

Sufiyan had been rubbish company. When Arelia brought up Quil, Sufiyan snapped at her. I don't want to talk about a selfish, know-it-all princeling.

Saying it had been satisfying. But now, after days of Arelia's silence, Sufiyan realized he had, perhaps, been a touch childish. He needed to make it up to her.

Perhaps he could ask her about aqueducts. Judging from the way she stared at Burku's, it would be a topic of great interest. And he liked listening to her talk. It was oddly soothing.

"Quil said Tas wouldn't be at the embassy," Sufiyan said. "He enjoys spending the Empress's money. We need to find the most expensive brothel in the city."

"The Bellflower," Arelia said, and at Sufiyan's raised eyebrows, she shrugged. "They have an underground fountain system that's a marvel of aquatic engineering," she said. "The Empress sent the engineering corps here to study it a year or so ago."

Despite his dislike of Burku and his general irritation at being sent off like a servant by Quil, Sufiyan found himself smiling. Arelia always managed to surprise him.

Two hours later, they approached the Bellflower. They'd cleaned up, boarded their horses, and now posed as a giddy married couple visiting the brothel on a lark. Arelia hooked her arm through Sufiyan's, and he found he was distracted by the way her fingers tightened on his wrist, the way her body pressed against his.

"Our dear friend Rano told us to ask for him by name." Sufiyan spoke down his nose to the doorman, using the fake name Quil had shared. The doorman, to Sufiyan's immense irritation, couldn't seem to lift his gaze above Arelia's bustline. "You do know Rano?"

"Fourth floor, northeast corner." The doorman collected their entry fee and, spotting Sufiyan's glower, averted his eyes. "The green room."

They entered to a high glass ceiling and long marbled hallways. A fountain sprawled across the central rotunda, jets of dancing water shooting from one corner of its pool to another, changing every few seconds. Sufiyan wanted to reach for the little sketch pad Quil had gotten him on his yearfall. He doodled in it here and there, but this was worth sitting down and studying for a day or two.

"The pressure system below the tiles is what allows those jets to shoot so high." Arelia's admiration was clear. "The sheer force of—" She caught herself, as she sometimes did. "Sorry."

"It's fine by me." Sufiyan glanced around, trying to figure out which way was northeast. "I wish I loved something that much. I used to, but—" He'd loved many things. Drawing. Medicine. Archery.

"You will again," Arelia said, squeezing his wrist so that he looked at her, surprised. "It will take time, is all."

Sufiyan didn't know what to say to that, so he grabbed Arelia's hand—something she didn't seem to mind—and pulled her ahead with the single-mindedness of an eager newlywed.

Laughter and other, more titillating sounds drifted out of the many rooms they passed, and Arelia craned her neck, trying to get a glimpse of whatever was going on within. Soon after leaving the fountain hall, they walked beneath a sculpture of two—or possibly three—people so closely entwined that it was difficult to figure out where one body began and another ended. Arelia stopped to stare, brow furrowed.

"Now, how would that even work—anatomically—considering that his leg is there, but hers is—"

"Now's not the time." Sufiyan's neck heated, which was ridiculous, as he was certain he had more carnal knowledge than Arelia. Yet here he was, lowering his gaze like a stuffy old grandfather. He cleared his throat. "Come back and get lessons if you're so interested."

"Hmm, I might."

He flushed at the image that conjured and focused on getting to the stairs.

They found Tas a few minutes later, surrounded by a bevy of half-clad companions, all laughing uproariously at something he'd said. Sufiyan wanted to shove them aside and hug the man who was like an older brother to him. He wanted to rejoice at the fact that, after so many weeks of hunting, Tas was exactly where Quil said he would be.

Except, of course, Tas was surrounded by prostitutes. And he was also spectacularly drunk.

"Bleeding hells," Sufiyan muttered. "Is he even going to recognize—"

"My dears!" Tas saw them and opened his arms. Arelia reddened, for when he stood up, he was wearing next to nothing. "You came! Oh, do excuse me, beauties." He leered at the two courtesans closest to him. "Friendship calls."

He staggered up, wrapping one arm around Sufiyan and the other around Arelia, smelling so strongly of wine that Sufiyan, who avoided alcohol, practically choked.

"About bleeding time," Tas hissed. Sufiyan got a good look at his friend's eyes—clear and bright. "Expected you weeks ago. Laugh, for skies' sake, there are watchers in these halls."

Arelia slapped Tas on the chest, giggling convincingly, and Tas swept them down a hallway and up a flight of stairs, talking about basking in the weather and devouring the food and delighting in the entertainment until finally, they entered another, simpler room. It had elegant pine furnishings and a large fireplace, but was thankfully empty of naked people.

As soon as the door shut, Tas dropped his arms and pulled on a robe, to Sufiyan's relief and Arelia's obvious disappointment.

"What the hells are you doing in a brothel?" Sufiyan asked. "I thought you were supposed to be spying. Not…" He waved his hand around suggestively.

"I was spying." Tas gave him a withering look. "I spent a month trying to get close to the harbormistress's favorite prostitute. He's a flighty one and usually only sees her. You two nearly ruined the whole thing." He took a closer look at Arelia.

"I don't think we've met," he said. "You're the engineer, right? I don't get to Navium much. Quil says you're brilliant. Didn't mention you were pretty." Tas grinned and Sufiyan struggled not to kick him.

"Probably because they're cousins," Sufiyan said icily. He'd forgotten how irritating Tas could be.

Arelia blushed and Tas laughed and held up his hands. "No need to look annoyed, little brother," he said. "I prefer lovers my own age. Now, where the hells is Quil? Sit, sit. Tell me everything."

Two hours, a meal, and a dozen arguments with Arelia later, Sufiyan had caught Tas up. The spy paced along a well-worn groove in the floor. Sufiyan wondered how much time he spent up here, doing Empress Helene's bidding.

"Your timing really couldn't have been worse," Tas finally said. "When you didn't show up a few weeks back, I assumed something went wrong and moved forward with a backup plan."

Sufiyan had known Tas his whole life. The man hadn't become a preeminent Empire spy by doing anything halfway.

"And you can't undo this plan," Sufiyan surmised. Tas shook his head and sat at his desk, pulling something from one of the drawers: a thin chain of glittering, purple-black metal.

It was oddly mesmerizing, and Sufiyan found he'd reached out to touch it without noticing. He flinched when his skin met the cold metal.

"It feels strange," Arelia said as she took the metal into her hand. "Dead."

"This metal is why I'm here," Tas said. "It's found only in Kegar and it suppresses magic."

Understanding and hope hit Sufiyan like lightning. "We need gobs of it," he said. "To bring the sky-pigs down. Tell me you have more."

" I don't have anything," Tas said. "The Ankanese are another matter. They deny the existence of the metal, but a source told me they're expecting a shipment soon. Didn't know when or where—"

"Thus, the wooing of the harbormistress's…friend," Arelia said. "Why not ask the High Seer for it? We have a treaty with Ankana. They're honor bound to aid us."

"That was supposed to be Quil's job," Tas said. "It was the entire reason the Empress sent him here. As a spy, I can't speak for the Empress. But the High Seer likes Quil. He was to ask for the metal and claim his intelligence sources confirmed its existence. He's a prince—they can't throw him out of the country for knowing things a monarch should know. I had it all worked out. But now—"

"Now you have to steal it," Sufiyan said.

"My source confirmed that the harbormistress is worked up about a shipment arriving in nine days. The dhow will bear a green flag—which means there's a seer on board. Boarding it would be an act of war. If it's traced back to the Empress—"

"There goes our treaty." Sufiyan sighed. Nothing came bleeding easy. "You can't blackmail the seer? Bribe them?"

"The Ankanese are irritatingly moral," Tas said. "Graft and blackmail carry life sentences, and I don't much like prison." He shuddered, an old memory flitting across his face. "Besides, they see the bleeding future. I don't know how to work around it."

"Their foresight is imprecise." Arelia looked out the window thoughtfully, and Sufiyan could practically hear the gears in her head turning. "It's good for large-scale threats, like wars. They're not like the jinn, who can see specifics. The seers are star-readers. They guess at the future. They might get hints of sabotage, but they won't know how, or when."

"Their guard will be down after the shipment's delivered," Sufiyan said. "Instead of stealing the ship—"

"Take the shipment." Tas pulled out a map of the Ankanese docks. "I considered that. But the shipment goes from the dhow to a barge and straight to the docks." He pointed to the map. "Then to the Vault of Seers. Once it's in, it's not coming out. The seers will have a full complement of troops escorting the metal. I've got a grouchy pirate captain who owes me a favor and you two. Even if we could take out a few hundred Ankanese soldiers, they'd chase us all the way back to the Empire."

Sufiyan examined the map of the harbor. It was far too shallow for larger dhows. Thus, the barges. Judging from the color of the ocean that he'd seen earlier, it had a sandy bottom.

"I have an idea." Sufiyan turned to Arelia. "It relates to what you said earlier—about aquatic engineering…"

Nine evenings later, just after sunset and with a storm soaking through his clothing and Arelia muttering beside him, Sufiyan was seriously questioning his sanity.

"This isn't going to work," Arelia said. "A hundred things could go wrong. A thousand."

"They won't," Sufiyan said, though Arelia was probably correct and Sufiyan fully expected to find himself in an Ankanese prison before the night was up.

"Ready, you two?"

Tas appeared behind them, unnaturally jaunty. He was in his element. The madder the plan , Sufiyan's ama used to say, the happier he is. The spy clapped one hand on each of their shoulders. "This is going to work," he said. "I feel it."

"What if it doesn't?" Arelia turned to Tas in a panic, rain dripping off her eyelashes. "The pulleys—I'm not sure how the storm will affect their function. I—I didn't expect these conditions—"

"Don't worry." Tas smiled. "Ankanese prisons aren't that bad. I hear there are windows. And not too many rats."

With that comforting pronouncement, he left, and Sufiyan found himself looking into Arelia's terrified face.

"It's going to be fine," he said.

"You don't know that!"

He took her fingers between his, mostly because she was shaking so hard that it was making him shake. And he needed steady hands tonight.

"But I know you. You're an incredible engineer. You were that student in the corps who annoyed everyone because you were so much smarter. Don't deny it," he said when she began protesting. "We both know it's true. You've thought this through, discussed it—" Bleeding hells , had she discussed it. He was seeing levers and pulleys and formulas in his dreams, she'd talked about it so much.

"Stick to the plan," he said. "I'll see you after. It will be perfect."

He squeezed her hands, and her shaking calmed, just a touch.

Ten minutes later, he was crouched amid a stack of abandoned pigeon crates on a high building overlooking the docks, his bow nocked and ready. From here, he could see everything: The long harbor and its boat slips and cranes. The unobtrusive barge at the far end of the dock, so decrepit that it looked on the verge of sinking. And the approaching Ankanese dhow, its green sails furled tight against the storm.

The sound of boots echoed through the empty streets—soldiers arriving with a wagon, tasked with escorting the shipment. Sufiyan ducked lower on the rooftop—there were more than three hundred troops down there. If they spotted him, he was done for.

Sailors poled a sturdy-looking barge out to the dhow, which rocked ponderously in the stormy seas. After an interminable amount of time, they loaded a large pallet on and rowed back.

The harbormistress herself oversaw the operation, guiding the barge into a dock, fitting a net around the pallet, and connecting it to a hook. The hook was attached to a crane via pulleys and a single rope.

A rope that was frayed. Too frayed to hold up such a heavy pallet, some might say.

The harbormistress bellowed for the crane operator to lift the pallet. It rose and swung over the barge, then over the water.

Sufiyan put his finger to the air. Tasted the windspeed, the direction. Below, a fight spilled out of a nearby tavern; a group of rowdy pirates shouted obscenities and threw punches. The harbormistress, the soldiers, even the crane operator turned to look.

Which was when Sufiyan let his arrow fly. It sliced silently through the rope, and the pallet dropped into the ocean with an enormous splash. Cries of dismay rang out, accusations of a shoddy job by the harbormistress, the crane operator, the rope maker.

Sufiyan only heard the beginning of the chaos before he leaped to a nearby roof, and then down to the harbor streets. He pulled his cloak close, hurrying through the rain until he was a full two miles from the harbor and safely ensconced at a bustling tavern called the Pennybrush. As the dinner rush began, he booked a room with three bunks, ordered up dinner, and waited for Tas and Arelia.

After an hour, he felt his chest tighten in worry. After two, he paced, cursing to himself. By midnight, he struggled to draw breath. Tas should have been here shortly after Sufiyan. Arelia not long after that. He checked the window again and again. Nothing.

They'd been caught. Imprisoned. Killed. And he'd been lounging in this inn while the people he cared about suffered.

Just like Ruh. The thought made his body tremble, his vision blur. Ruh, his only little brother, who had amused and annoyed and enriched him in equal measure. Ruh, who had trusted him and tricked him, shoving a pillow under his blanket. Sufiyan hadn't even bothered to look carefully at his brother's bed the night he was murdered. He saw the lump, felt relief that the boy was asleep, and went back to playing cards with Tas.

Now he'd left Tas and Arelia behind. Quil and Sirsha had been gone for weeks. He'd never made up with his friend—and if he was dead—

As Sufiyan passed by the window, his blood turned to ice. Four cloaked figures approached the inn's front door. He couldn't see their faces, but through the rain he caught the glint of their armor, the shine of weapons. Footsteps pounded up the stairs.

Sufiyan drew his scim because he might be utterly useless at protecting his friends, but his parents would be broken if they lost their other son, too. The door slammed open and—

"Suf?" A familiar voice. Sufiyan stared for a long, confused moment before the figure lowered his hood.

Quil.

Sufiyan blinked, because if this was a hallucination, it was damned cruel. But his oldest friend was hugging him now, and Arelia was too. Tas closed the door and hissed at them all to keep quiet.

"The soldiers locked down the whole port," he said. "I thought they'd gotten you—"

"We only just escaped," Arelia said. "Had to hide out for hours. Then we noticed someone following us—"

"Me," Sirsha said wryly, though her voice was exhausted. "Tracking them—this one almost stuck a knife in me." She nodded to Tas.

Arelia kept talking, giddily relieved that their plan had worked. Her underwater pulleys seamlessly shifted the pallet of metal a dozen yards to a nearby dock, where Tas's pirates had loaded it onto their ship once the harbormistress left.

After a brief search, the harbormistress had dredged up the lost pallet—or something that looked a great deal like it. It was heaved out of the water and transported to the Vault of Seers.

"They'll figure it out soon," Tas said. "But the metal is long gone. We will be too. Burku's harbor is already locked down, but I have a shabka waiting at one of the coastal villages. It's a few days' ride north of here. We leave in the morning."

Sufiyan tried to take it all in, but he was struggling to understand that everything was all right. That his friends—his family—were safe.

"Breathe, Suf," Quil said in his quiet way. "We're here. We're all right."

"I'm sorry," Sufiyan said as the others talked. "Sorry I got angry at you, Quil. I—I won't again—"

Quil sighed then, and for the first time, Suf took in how awful he looked, his hair a mess, his eyes red-rimmed, his clothing, usually neat even after days on the road, askew.

"You'll get angry again, Suf," Quil said. "You'll have every right to. Especially after you hear what I have to say."