Braid of Sand Read online

  The swill they fermented must’ve been powerful stuff. After only a few rounds of celebratory toasts, their speech slurred beyond comprehension. Bottles were clinked, bellies were scratched, and the men were slapping one another on the backs, but not one of them so much as glanced toward the supply shed.

  Castien’s lip curled.

  They deserved what was coming to them if they weren’t willing to protect what was theirs.

  Still, he couldn’t afford to be overconfident. At least twenty men and women sat around the fire. Probably three times that many occupied the huts and makeshift tents beyond. If anyone raised the alarm, it would take the grace of Naiara to escape from the camp.

  Castien flicked a wry glance toward the heavens and ignored the phantom itch burning along the scar that ran the full length of his left arm.

  He’d get no help from the Goddess. If it were up to her, he’d already be dead.

  Palm fronds rustled overhead in a dry breeze. This far from the sea, the air didn’t reek of saltwater and rotting fish. Instead, it scraped at him with chips of rock and sand. A long scarf wrapped around his head in a makeshift hood that prevented the wandering firelight from gleaming off his hair.

  Time to move in.

  Reaching behind him, he crooked his fingers.

  Thamar came first. Moving with the slow, stalking grace of a panther, she low-crawled her way to his side. Her black hair was braided toward the center of her head to form a thick plait that draped along her spine. It emphasized her strong, pointed chin and long, pronounced nose. Like him, she was dressed all in black, but unlike him, her clothing was cut to emphasize each curve and contour of her form.

  When she noticed him studying her profile, she preened. Beauty was her weapon of choice, and she always aimed to kill.

  They didn’t speak. When Capt. Bulderic seated himself on another rock with his back to the hut, Castien tapped her outer thigh. She continued her slow creep to the front of the shed and flicked a skeleton key from a small ring at her belt. With his ears pressed against the wall, Castien felt the soft click as the spring-loaded, heavy shackle sprang open.

  Thamar’s successful entry was the signal. As soon as she ducked inside, the rest of Castien’s crew appeared. Like nature spirits emerging from the rocks and brush, the three remaining Shadow Strikers—Armelle, Barak, and Osee—shed their camouflage to converge on the hut.

  Just when it looked as though they would all slip in without a hitch, Osee pivoted too quickly around the corner and banged his shoulder against the spindly door. It creaked.

  Castien stifled a curse. Tossing an apologetic grin over his shoulder, Osee dove into the shed. There was a soft thud as he ran into one of the others, and someone let out a muffled ‘oomph!’ Castien’s eyes raked Bulderic and his men for signs they’d heard, but the wind chose that moment to send embers spraying in the opposite direction. The glowing sparks landed on one woman’s greasy apron, jolting her from her half-doze in a spasm of flapping arms and loud squawks.

  By the time she and her neighbors stamped out the cinders, Castien’s team were safe inside.

  This haul would earn enough money to secure each of them a warm bolt-hole during the winter months.

  Unlike most people, who only read the pamphlets circulated by SIAR Labs, Castien listened to the farmers who frequented the bars and taverns to drown their worries over the side effects of the new fertilizers mandated by the crown.

  He wondered how long after the harvest the King would wait to let the truth be known.

  This far from the propaganda wallpapering the High City of Phalyra, these people knew how dire things really were. For all their lax attention on the treasure in their keep, every last one of them carried at least one firearm, knife, or sword.

  Rustling sounds issued from inside the hut. Even though it was too soft for the men around the fire to hear, that small noise strung Castien’s nerves tight as a hangman’s noose.

  “Think Cas would kill me if I stopped for a snack break?” Barak murmured with a wet smack of his lips.

  “Quiet!” Thamar snapped before the slap of flesh striking flesh cut through the still night. “Worry about your stomach once we’re out of here.”

  Castien inhaled deeply and let it out in a slow count to ten. Sister and brother, Thamar and Barak couldn’t resist making digs at each other no matter how dangerous the situation they were in.

  One by one, the others crept out with the same practiced stealth with which they’d gone in. They moved slower though, stooping under the weight of their now-bulging packs.

  “How much more?” Castien caught Osee’s sleeve as he passed.

  Osee’s shoulder-length dreadlocks swung as he turned back to inspect the hut. Sea gull feathers were attached to some of the ends. He thought it made him look like a creature from the Shadow Realm. Castien disagreed. Coupled with his slim pointed nose and obsidian eyes, it simply made him look like a strange, oversized bird.

  “There’s enough to fill one more bag. You want me to go back in?”

  “No. Take what you’ve got to the cart. I’ll finish here and erase our tracks before I join you.”

  “You’ll need this then.” Osee shifted his duffle bag to retrieve a folded spare clipped to his belt. Castien nodded and then jerked his head toward the tree line where they’d left their vehicles. Barak and Armelle were already slipping away into the shadows.

  Thamar came last.

  She paused when Castien rose from his hiding place with the empty bag in his hand. Her bag slid from her shoulder to land with a dull thump and a small spray of sand.

  “I’ll wait for you,” she mouthed

  Castien’s nostrils flared.

  “This isn’t the Academy. If a man falls behind, you leave him.”

  “By the Goddess, Cas, you’re stubborn!”

  He slashed his finger across his throat. Quiet, or we’re both dead!

  She opened her mouth to argue, but he slipped past her before she could get another word out.

  He fumed. If she got them caught because of some misplaced notion of loyalty he’d strangle her himself before Bulderic and his men ever got the chance.

  Barely half a satchel was left when Castien sneaked inside, but even that was more than he wanted to leave Bulderic and his band. He dashed around, scooping up every ear of corn and shaft of wheat he could see. Vindictive pleasure swept through him at the thought of Bulderic’s face when he came in to find his storeroom completely emptied.

  Certain he’d gotten every last stalk and kernel, Castien slung his pouch over his shoulder and surveyed the hut one last time. A clay figure tucked in a shallow cut out in the wall caught his eye. A statue of Naiara? He’d thought the practice had been all but wiped out by King Herodes’ new regime.

  He glared at the crude, sculpted face. The totems were believed to serve as the eyes and ears of the Goddess.

  Castien edged backward, giving the figurine a wide berth.

  Its blank, staring eyes seemed to look right through him. The sensation tingled along his nerves. He swung toward the door—and froze.

  “I’ll tell you one thing, boy. You got stones the size of boulders to try sneaking in here tonight, but you got brains soft as a sea-soaked tea cake if you think you’re ever walking back out again.”

  Capt. Bulderic stood just inside the hut leaning his back against the door jamb and picking at his fingernails with the point of a dirk. Castien didn’t blink.

  “Now, it looks like we’ve got us a little problem,” Bulderic said, pushing away from the wall. He waved his dirk around at the empty room. “You see, last I checked, this whole place was full to burstin’ with food and supplies, and now the only thing I see in here is you. And while me and the boys will have us a good time taking it out of your hide, all the maiming and mangling in the world don’t take the place of a belly full of food.”

  Castien sent him a bland look. Maybe to a bunch of half-starved former sailors camping out in the remains of the Firuze For
est Capt. Bulderic appeared larger than life, but to someone who’d been expelled from the King’s Academy for being too violent for an institution that prided itself on brutalizing its pupils into soldiers, he was nothing but a beached bag of hot air.

  “Now, if you want me to go easy on you, you’ll set your sack down nice and easy and tell me where the rest of my supplies has gone off to. Then, once I’ve skinned the flesh off your bones, I’ll decide whether to give you a quick and easy death, or leave you to the Goddess’s mercy out there on the dunes. And let me tell you something, boy. Naiara’s a heartless old shrew.”

  Barely flicking him a glance, Castien took a purposeful stride toward the door. Unaccustomed to being ignored, Bulderic reached for the front of his shirt, but Castien planted his weight on his forward foot and brought the duffel bag swinging around to knock Bulderic out of the way. The big man staggered, but with only a few fumbling steps he had his feet under him again. The small distraction was all the time Castien needed to get his hand on his combat knife.

  He hadn’t brought any guns. They were too loud to take down a single foe without attracting the whole camp.

  Slowly, he set his bag on the ground behind him and rolled his shoulders to loosen them for the inevitable fight. He didn’t waste time with words. He let his hulking frame do his intimidating for him. As expected, Bulderic took a step back.

  “That was a clever trick, boy. But I can be clever too.”

  A faint whistle was his only warning before a searing pain exploded through Castien’s shoulder. He staggered back, clutching the shaft of a small throwing dart embedded in the meat of his deltoid.

  Rookie mistake. He’d stayed too long in front of the doorway and presented Bulderic with a perfect silhouette for a target.

  Luckily, the knife impaled itself in his left arm.

  “Thank you,” he said softly. With gritted teeth, he drew the small knife from his skin. Warm blood trickled over the swell of his bicep. It dripped from his elbow to patter on the ground. He paused, testing the weight of Bulderic’s knife in his palm as if he had all the time in the world to decide how to use it.

  The Captain grunted.

  “You’re thanking me for bleeding you like a pig?”

  Castien shrugged, ignoring the flash of fire that seared through his wound. He flipped the small knife into the air and caught it left-handed with impartial nonchalance.

  “With two blades I won’t have to drag this out.”

  3.

  The blood of a thief ran in her veins. It was her father’s theft from another garden that had brought her to serve Naiara in the first place. But he had taken food for his own gain, she was doing it for the good of others. Still, the irony was not lost on Raziela as she stole across the Temple grounds.

  The white gravel crunched softly beneath her sandals. She glanced back to make sure none of the phoenixes were following. It was likely the afternoon rain shower Mazin sent had doused what was left of Ryze’s internal flames and sent him fizzling into his egg form. None of the five fire bowls emitted more than a soft glow. Well that was a relief.

  Not looking where she was going, she stubbed her toe on a stone paver. Pain shivered all the way to her scalp as her toenail tried to tear away from the nail bed. Clamping her lips together, she barely managed not to unleash a filthy string of curses.

  Breathing through her nose to distract herself from the searing sensation, she limped past a clay planter overflowing with a maidenhair fern to the plot of rampion.

  A breeze tickled the patch of bare skin behind her ear. She stifled a hiss and tried to shield the spot with her shoulder.

  One of the zephyrs must have stayed to watch her transgression. Invisible spirits made of air, it was impossible to know where any of them were at any given moment. She did her best to ignore its presence and dropped to her knees beside the dense cluster of spiky, purple flowers and long, rounded leaves.

  Removing a trowel from the pockets of her skirts, Raziela hacked at the lush patch of leaves. A particularly hard swing sent the edge of the trowel cutting into the plant’s root. It split with a loud thwack that was both satisfying and overloud in the still night. She flinched.

  When she had gathered enough rampion to fill her basket—the largest she could find, Raziela rose stiffly and adjusted her haul against her hip. Its size threw off her gait.

  Sweat itched along her scalp as she worked. She tucked her trowel into the braided belt wound around her waist and mopped her forehead on her sleeve. The light material came away streaked with dirt, and she clenched her teeth at the thought of the bath she wouldn’t be able to put off another day.

  In the main gardens, the five fire bowls threw flickering light over the reflection pool. Standing upright at the center of each flame was a large, golden phoenix egg. Orange vein-like cracks glowed across the surface of Azar’s shell. The egg shuddered.

  Raziela forced herself to look at the flames. She took a deep breath and inhaled the ginger smell that perfumed their feathers, so different from the burning lime that fueled the torches back in the Human Realm. For just a moment, she had to remind herself that these were not the temple fires from her childhood. She was alone and safe. No one was coming.

  Her back ached as she heaved the basket to the well in the training field. No matter how she bent or stretched her limbs to release the strain along her spine from the weight of her hair, it was a constant companion, a single whip of flame straight up her back like a brand.

  The zephyr brushed a soothing caress against her cheek. They were strange creatures, the zephyrs. Made of air, they had no voices to tell the Great Mother what she was up to, so Raziela didn’t worry about one watching what she was doing. Over time, she’d managed to create a language of touches and pressures with them to convey basic emotions, directions, and yeses or nos. It was next to impossible to know which was which or how many of them there were, but this one’s puckish nature made it unique enough Raziela referred to it as Aeris.

  “I’ll be fine. I just need to get all these leaves cleaned first, then I can go upstairs.” Raziela shrugged off the zephyr’s prodding, determined to finish her task before she went to sleep. In response, it struck her square in the forehead with what felt like the flat of its hand. Raziela pinwheeled her arms to keep her balance and balled her hands into fists.

  “One of these days I’ll find a way to pay you back for that.”

  The leaves on the olive trees rippled back and forth, a sure sign Aeris was laughing at her. Muttering threats under her breath, Raziela reached for the rope to haul up a bucket of water. Aeris batted at her skirts, clearly demanding to know what she thought she was doing.

  “If I can offer that woman a reason to cling to the Great Mother, I will be fulfilling my duty as a priestess. This is what the Great Mother would want.” She knew the justification was for herself and not the zephyr. But she needed some way to show the Great Mother she was good for more than just a sparring partner.

  As the rope squeaked through its metal ring, strange sounds echoed from the deep stone well. Her stomach hollowed. The clash of steel and low grunts drifted up to her.

  Raziela hesitated. She’d spent enough time on the training fields to recognize those sounds. As she leaned forward to steady the bucket against the lip of the well, she couldn’t help but see the two men locked in mortal combat reflected on the black, rippling surface below. One was the man she’d seen earlier, only now he was dressed in a sleeveless blue coat that hung to the top of his calves. The other was a man dressed in black from head to toe.

  Raziela rested her palm on the lip of the well and leaned closer. She knew that man—the Shadow Striker. She’d seen him before.

  They slammed together like two mountain rams, but rather than butt heads, the Shadow Striker plunged one of his daggers into the exposed breast of the blue coat. He jerked the handle up hard, twisted, and yanked it out with a sucking squelch. The man in blue drew in his breath to shout, but the Shadow Striker covered his m
outh and muffled his cries until his body slumped. He released him to fall on his face in the dust.

  The violence of the act was out of place in the peaceful garden. With morbid fascination, Raziela watched the Shadow Striker wipe his dripping knife on the dying man’s trousers and return it to a sheath at his waist.

  “You knew this was coming, Bulderic.” His voice was devoid of emotion. “Sooner or later, you knew he’d send me when he got tired of watch his men fail.”

  Shocked to hear him speak when she’d never heard him utter a word after any of his previous deeds, Raziela leaned so far into the well her shoulder bumped the bucket off the ledge. It tumbled into the middle of the scene below. The splash erased their faces and the Gardens were quiet once more.

  She blinked as if she could fan the scene away with her lashes.

  That speed! The way he moved. How did the he do it? When she fought, she snarled and growled, but if he hadn’t spoken at the end she’d have believed he was mute. While the man in blue swung his arms like a bear, the Shadow Striker was cool and efficient. He saw his target. He struck. He was spectacular.

  Adrenaline sang in Raziela’s veins simply from watching him. She stepped back and tried to mimic the maneuver he’d used to get past his opponent’s guard. It had happened too fast though, and she just wound up slicing at the air with her trowel like a novice. She reset her stance and tried out a few counter maneuvers of her own. Anticipation rose like a tide inside her. Why else would the Great Mother insist on all her exercises and training if not to one day face an opponent like him?

  Feigning from an imaginary lunge, Raziela almost tripped over the basket resting beside the well. She fanned her burning cheeks, knowing Aeris must still be lingering around watching. Her hands trembled as she made a show of mopping her brow.

  The olive leaves rattled again.

  “Couldn’t you bother someone else for a change?”

  From nowhere, a strong gust shoved her hard in the back and she nearly tumbled headfirst into the well.