“The moment I kissed that man,” the dark woman said, “this was inevitable. I was young and foolish and caught up in things I didn’t understand. The world is rarely kind to people like that.”
Sammish tapped her fingers together to draw their attention. The dream of her story was gone now, and she was very aware of the naked sword that still rested at the woman’s side and the short knife in the wild man’s hand. She should have felt fear, but she didn’t. “Are you going to kill me?”
“I wouldn’t ask,” the wild man said. “You’re into this deeper than you can swim already.”
“I know,” Sammish said. “But I still don’t know what it is.”
“What more can we lose by telling her?” the dark woman said.
“You? Nothing. I still have things worth living for,” the wild man said, and the regret showed as soon as the words were past his lips. He ran a liver-spotted hand through his hair.
The dark woman gathered herself. “The thread of Kithamar your friend spoke of is real,” she said. “But it is not a thread.”
“This city,” the wild man said, “is a shell around a particularly nasty crab. Only someone’s played a trick, and it’s not all safe in its armor anymore. That blade is what keeps it safe. All those people out there drinking their usual wine and eating their day’s bread don’t know it, but this city is on a knife edge.”
“Thank you,” Sammish said crossly. “That makes everything clear.”
The wild man laughed and tossed her his bowl. There were still strips of dry apple in it. She ate one.
“Ask what you want,” the dark woman said. “I will answer what I can.”
Sammish thought of the thousand questions that had haunted her. “What’s your name?”
“I am Saffa Rej of the Bronze Coast, priest of the six, and sworn of the spirit house.”
“Who is that boy?”
“He is my son,” she said, “and the son of Prince Ausai. By blood, he is the heir of Kithamar.”
The Khahon ran south from the city, flowing wide and slow as it moved toward the sea. Other, lesser rivers lost themselves in it, eaten by the broad water. It passed through Mastil and bent in a lazy S around Haunamar. Dozens of villages clung to its side, using its water to drink and irrigate and run little mills. And when that didn’t sustain them, they took coin from the boats that tied up for the night at their little piers and the oxcarts that worked the towpaths. Far in the south, it broadened into a rich delta, its water lost in the vastly greater expanse of the sea.
To the west of the delta were the black-soiled islands of the Iustikar—Caram and Imaja and the plague-struck ruins of Lithou. To the east, the land curved gently, cupped by high, cloud-forested mountains. The great cities of Dulai and Ghan marked the beginning of the Bronze Coast. Kithamar the cold, city of wood and stone, sheep fat and forge smoke, was as exotic in the courts of the Coast as the beetle hunters and night markets of Dulai were to the citizens of Longhill. The stories of the northern city’s wealth and power, its bloody past and the beauty of its men, were half enticement and half threat. Kithamar, seen from so far away, seemed to have only one face, and it was as sinister as it was enchanting. To a girl born to the warm waves of Ghan, it was only slightly more real than the drowned jade-and-gold cities that were supposed to house the spirits of the first people and the king with eight bodies from before the sky was broken.
The sky was broken? How was the sky broken? asked Sammish, and the wild man put a finger to his lips. She went quiet.
It was of no particular importance to be a priest of the six. Nearly every household had someone who had attended the rites, drunk from the cup, and spoken the oath in the grand circle. It had a cost, but not one so high that any but the poorest couldn’t find a way to save the temple’s fee. Only priests of the six could sit on juries, speak before the council of elders, or contribute to the fires that marked the end of the season of rain. Since many people wanted the things that came with the priesthood, many accepted it and then went on to ignore it for the rest of their lives.
To be sworn of the spirit house was another thing altogether.
Unlike the brotherhoods and petty temples that had their houses in every city, the spirit house belonged to the Bronze Coast and nowhere else. Every initiate was a priest of the six, but more than that. They had to have been in the world. The keepers of the spirit house had all known lovers. Many had borne children and had families. Some had cared for their parents as they died. The spirit house was a place people came to find peace from the world. Saffa had watched her young husband die of a bloody flux. She had carried his body to the fire without even a sister or brother to help her with her burden. The peace that the spirit house offered and its teachings of loving the world but not engaging with it called to her as if by name.
Even so, the keepers had not been convinced that she belonged. She was young, for one thing. And her grief had been fresh. It is easier to renounce those things with which you are already weary, and they had feared that as her hurts healed, she would find herself restless in the house. In the end, she had convinced them.
Young, hurt, and turning her back to the world. Looking back, it was clear what Ausai a Sal, prince of Kithamar, had seen in her. What he had thought she was, and why he had chosen her.
The news that the prince of Kithamar was coming to the Bronze Coast had been a curiosity and a wonder: the ice and dark of the northern waters walking the roads and sitting in the sun of the coast. The council of elders remained placid and calm, but that was their job. Everyone else quivered and fidgeted like children waiting for permission to eat their honey sticks. Or that’s how her memory had it. Knowing truth from the story she made after seeing the ending was difficult, if not impossible.
It was the middle of the dry season, which meant it only rained once or twice in a week. The ship that came in from the delta was tall, and its wood was dark and intricately carved. It cast anchor in the bay of Dulai. The council of elders had arranged for representatives of all the factions to gather on the wide, white sand as skiffs carried in the honored guests. Prince Ausai himself stood in the first skiff to shore. He wore a shirt of black and indigo. His head was shaved to the skin. Saffa had expected him to wear jewels and gold, but he walked to shore unadorned and accepted the welcome of the Bronze Coast as casually as a fisherman cleaning his catch. The white-haired, ice-eyed man who followed him was larger, stronger, and still seemed like a child beside the prince. That had been the prince’s brother-by-law, Drau Chaalat, and as much Saffa’s downfall as Ausai himself.
Who? Sammish asked.
Drau Chaalat, the wild man said. Husband to Ausai’s sister, Hanan, and father of your pale woman, Andomaka. How do you not know these things? These people have the power of life and death over you.
Does knowing which of them married who make my bridge tolls cheaper? Sammish snapped.
Seen in retrospect, the seduction was expert. Prince Ausai’s attention to her had been casual and polite at first, and then more aware. Nothing more than that at first. If he had expressed his desire for her as a demand or a point of diplomacy—these things happened—she would have refused him, but he didn’t. He invited her to his dinners and laughed when she made her little sallies into the conversation. He appreciated her as a man appreciating a woman. He was beautiful in his way. He was older than she was, but not an elder. He moved with the careful grace of a strong man who knew how to use his strength. He was a man of overwhelming importance and some mystery who had noticed her. If she didn’t believe all his little admirations, she did believe that he thought her worth flattering.