Chapter Five

As she walked, the sun rose higher. The fields of the Akkenthian Plains gradually grew more golden in its light. It was beautiful, she thought wistfully, and she couldn't help but wonder if she would ever see it again. Her life had been so contained since she'd been brought to Karazhen as a child. That fact had never bothered her, so perhaps it was strange that the force of the realization would strike her as she looked over something as simple as rolling fields, but it did nonetheless. She'd seen so little of the world, knew so little about it. Out of fear and a simple need for the security that had been torn from her by fire and plague, she had limited herself. And it hadn't even just been what she'd allowed herself to see and experience, it had been what she allowed herself to feel .

Gods, she'd limited herself in so many ways. In protecting herself from pain, she'd insulated herself from so much else. Perhaps most people did, when it came down to it. But most people didn't have to confront the fact of how deeply they'd been living in fear on the very day when refusing to do so any longer meant taking a path that could easily lead to their death.

She kept walking, though her heart still ached. Over time, the wide expanse of golden-white fields was gradually broken up, sometimes interrupted by beautiful estates barely visible from the road, sometimes by clusters of housing for tenant farmers. She let her eyes pass over both, her mind wandering to the lives of the sorts of people who lived there. Inevitably, this led her to think on the lives of the many other travelers on the road, both approaching and departing the Shadowborn City. Different people, different lives, but all of them would be harmed if Karazhen's enemies saw fractures, if they saw weakness.

For their sake, for Darius' sake, she had to see him freed.

It was late afternoon by the time that Tanitha came upon the city walls of Karazhen. They were imposing, tall and beautiful and shining so brightly in the afternoon sun that she had to keep her gaze down as she approached. As she did, however, another worry came to mind. Had Alethia and whoever she had recruited to assist in tearing through the Hold's enchantments realized yet that Tanitha wasn't there? Tanitha had been counting on the enchantments holding for some time, but she didn't have any true idea of how long it might take. Although surely if they'd realized that she was gone, they'd think that she would have the sense to do… well, anything but what she was doing.

She continued on her way, the shining spires of Karazhen's silhouette growing ever nearer. By that point, the road was much more crowded, and she had to focus on her path much more closely to avoid being jostled. In some ways it was a relief to be taken out of her own thoughts. But then she realized that she was attracting curious glances and some stares. She took a slow breath, calming herself. Of course she was attracting the gaze of the people around her. She always had— her Ibalian heritage had seen to that— but despite having dressed herself as inconspicuously as she'd been able, the quality of her clothing was still obvious. An apparently wealthy woman traveling alone on foot was enough to catch anyone's attention. She'd be seen, noticed, and certainly remembered.

She took a slow breath, willing the suddenly rising speed of her heart to calm. She couldn't do very much about being seen, but… perhaps there was something she could do about being noticed.

She took several more calming breaths to center herself. A woman who could control flocks of birds and even push a demon prince into sleep against his will surely could divert a little attention from herself.

She reached out, lightly touching the minds of the people around her. At first, the sudden awareness of the hundreds of consciousnesses in her range struck her with such force that she had to step onto the road's shoulder between two sparse patches of grass, her hand pressed to her head. People were complex beings, far more than moths or geese, and for a moment she thought her idea was a foolish one. But then… she didn't need to influence more than perhaps a dozen at a time. She didn't need to use the full extent of her range; she only needed people to glance away when she was in their immediate line of sight.

She tried again, deliberately narrowing her range this time, keeping the radius of her influence to perhaps ten paces from herself in all directions. The sensation of the human consciousnesses near her was still strange, like fiery stars against the darkness of the weave of the universe. Some were far brighter than others, the brightness and intensity of the fires of thought and feeling varying wildly from person to person. She could feel some of them turning toward her and lightly, gently, she discouraged that. She was nothing interesting, she told them. She was nothing worth noting, nothing worth observing.

To her astonishment, she felt the attention slide away from her. Her breath caught. Gods, it was working. She might actually be able to manage this.

She opened her eyes and stepped back onto the path, walking toward the city gates. As she moved, she continued her soul-speaking, her subtle directive to the people around her to simply ignore her existence. It was to her continued astonishment that they did so. In fact, they were doing it almost a little too well; she had to dodge out of the way of more than one cart rattling up behind her, had to mind how close she got to anyone to avoid accidental jostles that might disrupt her focus.

Darius had once told her there was a danger to trying to influence too many minds at once, that one's sense of self could come dangerously unmoored, and she had no idea what her upper limit might be. But despite what she was doing, despite the churning rotation of dozens of human minds, the constant ebb and flow of thought and intention and alertness, she didn't feel any real strain or loss of her own intentions and goals. It was working. She was walking through a crowd that thickened with every league closer she came to the city, completely unnoticed and unseen.

The city walls loomed tall overhead, and she kept her slow forward walk, matching the flow of the crowd of people queuing at the gate. She craned her neck, suddenly anxious again. She didn't have any travel papers indicating her business in Karazhen, so she'd have to just walk right past the guards. It was fairly likely that there might be a soul-speaker or two among them— one of the officers, perhaps. Darius had told her that her use of the ability was unusually subtle and hard to detect, though, so perhaps she'd be all right. Or… anxiety curdled in her stomach. Or, perhaps using the ability in front of other soul-speakers would immediately call their attention to her.

The crowd had slowed nearly to a standstill as its people formed a line, each person presenting papers to the guards at the gate. Tanitha scanned the scene, tense. Two guards to either side, plainly visible by their uniforms, the gleam of their bronze armor shining in the sun. There wasn't anything particularly remarkable about their consciousnesses; if anything, they felt slightly dull, perhaps numbed by the monotonous routine. Just as that occurred to her, though, one of the minds she was lightly brushing suddenly flared with interest, and she turned her gaze quickly on the guard it belonged to. He was pulling the woman who had just presented her papers aside, motioning for someone else to approach. Tanitha turned her attention to the newcomer, and her heart jolted as she recognized him. He was an older man, stooped with age, and his face was lined with heavier cares than it had been the last time she'd seen him, but she recognized him instantly nonetheless. Ivathi Yarun.

She was unprepared for the overwhelming surge of anger that tore through her at the sight of him, unprepared for the memory of pain and fear and betrayal that swept through her entire body. Her focus on her soul-speaking wavered, and she almost didn't care enough to shore it up against the memory of darkness, juniper and smoke.

She tore her thoughts away, though the remembered fear and sting of betrayal lingered as she forced herself to take in the scene. Yarun, standing beneath the arched entryway into the city with the guards, was already shaking his head as he approached, motioning for the woman to go on her way. The guards were looking for someone specific, then. Someone that Yarun would be able to identify by sight.

Tanitha forced herself to order her thoughts, reminding herself of her goal. She needed to get to the palace, needed to make her offer to Naratha so that Darius would be freed. She thought she could walk past the checkpoint unnoticed, but then what? Perhaps the easiest way to do what she needed would be to let herself be taken into custody here.

Her heart was beating hard, but whether from fear of what she was about to do or from simmering anger toward Ivathi Yarun, she wasn't certain. Yes, it made sense to let herself be taken. But that was assuming that these guards had orders to take her into custody rather than just to kill her on sight.

She set her jaw. In that case, she simply wouldn't let the guards see her until after she was certain on that point. And all that would require was a conversation with a certain priest.

Refocusing her soul-speaking efforts, Tanitha stepped out of the line. It was a strange sensation, directly approaching men meant to observe comings and goings and yet remaining totally unseen. The crowd parted in front of her, people stepping unconsciously to one side or the other as she gently prodded their minds with her own intentions, directing them out of her path. Her neck prickled. She might as well have been a shade or a ghost.

Given the fate she was courting, it was not a comforting parallel.

Comforting or not, though, being a ghost had its advantages. The guards didn't so much as glance at her. Neither did Ivathi Yarun. She passed beneath the gate, its shadow momentarily casting her into darkness before she stepped into the city itself. She continued to walk, keeping her gaze directly forward. As she passed Yarun, she divided her attention slightly. Her overall intention remained the same— that no one should observe or notice her— but as she focused on Yarun, she changed her specific intention toward him. Willing him to turn, to walk. To follow.

With everyone's gaze away from Tanitha, no one noticed as Ivathi Yarun, his brows drawn together with an unfocused sort of confusion, turned away from his position. Her heart suddenly pounding, she passed several vendors of fruits and dried meats, then turned down a narrow side street. None of the men or women at the stalls so much as glanced at her. Nor did they appear to notice the priest who trailed her steps.

The second they were both out of easy line of sight from the guards' station, Tanitha stopped soul-speaking. She came back to herself fully with a strange jolt of the mind, but she didn't let that stop her. She strode purposefully up to Yarun, who was blinking in confusion, then shoved him hard against the alley's wall.

He let out a sharp gasp, looking around as he regained control of his own focus and will. Then, he looked directly at her, and his eyes widened.

"Don't speak," Tanitha said flatly, her voice full of a dark, barely-controlled anger. She took several seconds to center herself, trying to stifle the raging fury that was gnawing at the walls she'd built around it. The fury toward him, toward the man who'd used her trust in him to send her to her death. Maybe she couldn't have expected better of him, of any man in his role, but in that moment, it didn't matter. Because whether or not he could have been better, he should have been.

"Tanitha," he said in astonishment. His complexion had gone pale. "You're… you really are alive." Tanitha bit back a scathing response to that, just waiting as she watched him with cold, dark anger pooling in her stomach. "How did you…" He glanced toward the mouth of the alley, then back at her, eyes still wide. "You're… you're a soul-speaker," he said in realization.

Tanitha ignored this. "I take it you're looking for me?" she asked. None of the anger had left her tone, and despite her best efforts, that emotion seemed to only be rising inside her. He didn't answer, just staring at her in plain astonishment, though whether it was at her survival or her long-hidden abilities, she wasn't sure. Whichever it was, though, she found that she cared very little.

"What's happening?" she demanded. "What have you heard? What reason did they give to search for me?"

"There wasn't a reason given," he said, his voice soft. "I assumed it was because you'd somehow escaped the necropolis the night that…" He trailed off, and to her astonishment, she saw that tears were welling in his eyes. "I can't believe you're alive," he said.

"Don't," Tanitha snapped. "Don't you dare." Her voice broke, and she took a stiff breath, forcing her own tears back, furious at herself for showing any vulnerability to him. "Don't you dare try to tell me that you sorrowed for my death, that you mourned me," she managed. He started to speak, but she pressed on. "They told you I was to die," she said, her voice harsh with pain. "They sent word, and you didn't warn me, or try to help me. You helped them. You sent me to my death, and the only reason I didn't die is because the one meant to kill me is a better man than you." He didn't move, and for a moment they just stared at each other. "You could have helped me," she said quietly. "You helped them instead. And even now, you're still helping them."

He didn't answer, instead just watching her with a plea in his eyes. For mercy or for understanding or both, she wasn't certain, but it was infuriating nonetheless. But then, the oddness of him wanting anything from her, be it mercy or absolution, jarred her.

Ivathi Yarun had been the nearest thing to a father she'd had since coming here. He'd been a guardian, and he'd had a powerful influence over the shape her life had taken. And yes, that made the betrayal, the continued betrayal, all the worse. But at the same time, seeing a plea in his eyes… he was just a man. Somehow, she'd let his status as a priest and the power he'd had over her fate for so long make her forget that. He was just a man, and not one who had any true power over her any longer.

She stepped back, her entire body stiff with the realization that whatever influence he'd once had, she was the stronger of the two of them now. She took a sharp breath, meeting his gaze once more.

"Tell me what's happening at the palace," she said flatly. He hesitated, and she pressed on. "The rumors are everywhere. What's the truth of it?" He glanced toward the mouth of the alleyway. "Yarun," she said sharply, deliberately omitting his title, and his gaze snapped back to her. "You know what I can do," she said, voice low. "So you know that you aren't going to have a choice about doing as I say." His eyes widened slightly. "Tell me what is happening."

He passed his hand uneasily over his throat before dropping it to his side. "No one knows," he said. "There hasn't been any word since…" He trailed off, sending her an anxious look.

"Since what ?" she asked sharply.

He closed his eyes for a moment. "Two nights ago, there was… an incident," he said. "Two dragons fought each other there. I was already awake, leading a purification ceremony. The screams were like how the songs describe the cries of the creatures of the Abyss." He gave a quick shudder of recollection. "Neither Queen Naratha nor Prince Darius have been seen publicly since. That's all I know for fact."

Tanitha's mouth was still dry. She couldn't know the full truth of what had happened with such limited information, but she could guess. It was easy enough to patch together a sequence of events from this and from what Alethia of Zharen had told her. Of course, it also lent some credence to another thing Alethia had told her— that she was betrothed to Darius— but this wasn't the time to be wondering on that. "Prince Darius has been imprisoned," she said softly. "And Queen Naratha doesn't want that known."

"What?" he asked, straightening in obvious surprise. "What are you talking about?"

"Weeks ago, Queen Naratha gave him a task," Tanitha said quietly. "The same night she gave you a task. She told you that the gods had demanded my blood, but that wasn't true. She wanted me dead." Darius had never told her this explicitly, but it had to be the case. No one else could have given him that order.

"You…" He shook his head in sharp denial. "Her Majesty never would have abused the laws of sacrifice like that," he said, but there was a look of cold dread in his eyes despite the firmness of his words.

"She did," Tanitha said flatly. A part of her wanted to soften her tone or her words, but by far the greater part was firmly disinterested in hearing her story dismissed by this man. Naratha's involvement might be supposition, but the fact that he'd been lied to about Tanitha's death being ordered by the gods was not .

Yarun was looking at her, his expression edged with dawning horror, and she refocused on him, belatedly thinking on the implications that must be occurring to him. That he'd sent an innocent girl to her death, not on the words of a god, but of a mortal being simply leveraging his devotion to her own ends. Perhaps earlier in her life she would have offered some absolution, some pretty words that none of it had been his fault, but remembering the terror of that night, she couldn't dredge up any sympathy for him. He hadn't questioned the order. And even if he'd somehow known for a fact that the order had been of divine origin… even if that somehow could have been true, he'd still decided that her life was worth less than the whim of a greater being. Whether that being was a god or a demon might matter to him, but it mattered very little to Tanitha.

"After you sent me to the necropolis, Prince Darius arrived," she said. "I didn't know it was him at the time. And I don't know what ultimately made him rebel against Queen Naratha's order. But he was meant to execute me that night. Instead, he took me to a place of safety and offered me his protection." She closed her eyes for a second, remembering Darius' look of pain, his decision to seek help in dissolving the binding between them. "He protected me," she said again, softly. "And two nights ago, Queen Naratha must have learned of it."

"That doesn't…" He trailed off. "Why would your death or survival matter so much to her that she'd imprison her heir over it?" he asked, clear bewilderment in his gaze.

Tanitha looked away. Part of that was clear to her, but it was the same part that she couldn't speak of. The queen's need to see Tanitha dead now was simply born from the fact that Tanitha had soul-bound Darius, that Tanitha had enormous influence and perhaps even control over him. But Tanitha couldn't say any of that. She'd already betrayed Darius by binding him like that in the first place. She wouldn't compound it by exposing the most serious weakness his kind had to another person.

"I don't know why the queen ordered him to kill me," she said, her voice going soft once more. "I don't know why I ever mattered, why I ever came to her notice. But somehow, I did." She forced herself to take a breath, the motion shuddering and stiff. "I need an audience with Queen Naratha," she said, her voice level despite the fear that hearing those words, even from her own mouth, sent through her. "I intend to surrender myself, but I need to ensure that I'm not killed before I can speak with her. You are going to help me."

He blinked. "What… what could you possibly say to her?" he asked, a faint hint of incredulity in his gaze, though he seemed to be trying to keep his expression free of it. "If she is so determined to see you dead that she would imprison the crown prince over his failure to kill you…"

"I am going to offer myself in trade," Tanitha said. "My freedom for his. As to how I can prevent her from simply killing me instead…" She trailed off, then forced herself to continue. "I don't think she'd kill a woman carrying a child with the blood of her kind."

He stared at her in open astonishment. "You're… you're carrying Prince Darius' child?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

Tanitha nodded, pained. The thought should have been one of joy, and it would have been if the man she loved hadn't been in danger. But right now? Right now, there was too much fear and uncertainty for her life, let alone any kind of future.

"Prince Darius is going to be an honorable king one day," she said, her voice soft but still level with the steadiness of conviction. "He does not deserve to be punished for saving me. And I… I can't run forever. Queen Naratha will pour all her resources into hunting me. They will find me." She barely managed to keep a tremor of fear from her voice; that much, at least, was a true and certain fact. "So I am going to go to them. If they take me and release him, perhaps he can find some way to preserve my life after the child is born."

He was watching her with a strange expression of astonishment that was tempered by something else. Sorrow, perhaps, or maybe sympathy.

"You love him," he said, the words soft with realization. Tanitha closed her eyes for a second before nodding once. "And… he feels the same?" he asked, his voice still gentle.

Tanitha swallowed back a rise of tears as she remembered the look of betrayed pain in Darius' gaze. "I hope so," she said softly. She hadn't ever meant to hurt him. But that didn't change the fact that she had. She took a stiff breath, then looked back at Ivathi Yarun. "Whatever he feels, this is wrong," she said, forcing her voice to be level and calm once more. "I need to help him. So, I need you to help me get that audience with Queen Naratha."

He looked at her for a long moment before he finally spoke. "I can't do that, Tanitha."

"You owe me," Tanitha said fiercely. "I am not asking for a favor, I am telling you that you will do this."

"Of course I owe you," he said, looking at her in astonishment. "I owe you because I sent you to your death. And you want me to clear that debt by doing it again ?!" Tanitha glared, though the logic of that point was not, actually, something she could fault. Yarun met her gaze unflinchingly despite the force of her stare. "Don't go," he said, a hint of plea in his voice. "You can send a message. Write out your offer, then hide. If you go directly, she'll kill you."

"No," Tanitha said; she'd been over that option already in her mind. "If I do that, it won't end well for me." She glanced in the direction of the palace, though it wasn't visible from where she stood. "They hide behind so much darkness," she said. "There are so many things they've hidden. And it's only led to pain." She turned back to Yarun, her posture set with determination. "I'm not going to make the same mistake," she said. "I need to do this openly. It might be the only protection that I have."

She wrapped her arms briefly around herself, then dropped them to her sides. "What are your orders?" she said. "What did they want you to do? Was I to be killed, or captured?"

" My orders were only to identify you," he said. "There are people at the other gates who would know you by sight as well, people from the Sanctuary, as well as guards watching your old home." Tanitha pursed her lips, trying not to show the pang of distress those words caused. If Lithra had realized her home was being watched, she'd have to assume it was something to do with Tanitha. Tanitha could only hope that none of this would bring more trouble to Lithra's door than she already had.

Yarun continued, "But the guards… they've been ordered to bring you into custody alive, so far as I understand."

Tanitha weighed this. She supposed that made sense, if the story was that she was an escaped offering whose blood had been demanded by a god. They wouldn't kill her on the street, no matter how badly Naratha might want her dead right now.

The thought of the demon queen sent an icy trickle of fear through her body, and Tanitha forced herself to breathe. "All right," she said at last. "I am going to surrender myself to you. We will walk from this alley, and you will call the guards. And then you will secure me an audience with Queen Naratha. You will ensure that she knows I am with child, and that I came to you willingly. Tell her that I am offering myself in exchange for another prisoner's freedom, but don't let her guess that you know I'm referring to Darius. I'll handle that part when I speak with her."

He shook his head. "Tanitha… they'll kill you," he said softly. "They might wait until after the child arrives, but they will kill you."

"That wasn't such a concern to you a few weeks ago," Tanitha said coldly.

"Of course it was!" he said, his voice taut. "Of course it was! But that was at the behest of the gods, and—and now you're telling me that it wasn't. That none of that should have happened. That I handed you to them when there was no need to shed your blood!" He looked at her with his gaze still bright with pain. "Don't do this," he said quietly. "The demons don't have any reason to think that you're here. You can still leave. You can escape."

Tanitha shook her head once, the motion slow. "I can't," she said softly. "I can't do that to him. She'll never release him until I'm captured." She looked at the ground. "Please," she said. "I owe him my life, and much more than that besides. Help me help him."

He looked at her, clearly torn. "This child… it can only protect you so far," he said.

"I know," she replied. She straightened. "But I need to do this."

He closed his eyes for several seconds. "There may be something I can do to help protect you," he said, finally opening them. "Some way I can make them reconsider if killing you is wise."

"What is it?" she asked, looking at him warily, but he shook his head.

"It's better if you don't know," he said, then added, "It's not too late. If you leave now, I'll pretend I never saw you."

Tanitha hated how tempting that offer was, and she pushed the feeling away angrily. "No," she said. She inclined her head toward the alleyway's entry. "Take me to the guards."