Once again Malik gazed up in wonder at Ziran. Though the Eshran Mountains were part of the Zirani Territories, few Eshrans ever got to see the famed city itself. The price of passage papers was too high and the approval rates for said papers too low, to say nothing of the dangers that lurked in the Odjubai. Ziran may control every aspect of Eshran life down to who could live in which village, but Ziran itself had never been meant for Malik’s people to enjoy.
But there they were, standing at the foot of the greatest city in the world. All those nights spent huddling with his sisters under worm-eaten blankets, fighting off the biting winds and the wailing cries of people being treated like animals all around them. The soul-aching fear that he would never see their birthplace ever again—all that had been worth it.
In fact, he’d yet to see even a hint of the . . . creatures that had plagued him back in Oboure.
They were safe now.
Malik’s thoughts were cut off by a commotion from the line directly to the left of theirs as a battered cart pulled by a mangy donkey reached the platform. The old man driving it handed a stack of documents to the soldier overseeing the platform while the man’s family nervously peered out from the back. Malik’s blood ran cold as he recognized the familiar symbols drawn on the side of the cart—geometric patterns native to Eshra.
The soldier riffled through the thin stack of papers with deliberate precision. Then he raised the hilt of his sword and bashed it against the old man’s skull. “No Eshrans, with or without papers!”
No Eshrans. The world swam once more, but Malik forced himself to remain upright. They were all right. Their papers listed them as a trio of siblings from Talafri, a city well within the Zirani border. As long as their accents didn’t slip, no one would know they were Eshran as well.
The family’s screams resounded through the air as the soldiers took the old man’s body and led the cart away from the checkpoint. In the chaos, no one noticed a single person falling out of the cart onto the dry ground. The child could not have been older than Nadia, yet every person ignored him as they fought to take his family’s place in line. Malik’s heart nearly broke into two.
What if that had been Nadia lying there in the dirt with no one to help her? The mere thought made Malik’s chest constrict painfully, and his eyes kept wandering back to the boy.
Leila followed Malik’s line of vision and frowned. “Don’t.”
But Malik was already moving. In seconds, he was hauling the boy to his feet.
“Are you all right?” Malik asked as he checked the boy over for injuries. The child looked up at him with hollow eyes sunk deep into a battered face, and Malik saw himself reflected in their black depths.
Quick as a lightning strike, the boy pulled Malik’s satchel over his head and dove into the crowd. For several seconds, all he could do was stare openmouthed at the spot where the child had just been.
“Hey!”
Cursing himself for his own naïveté, Malik then did what he did best.
He ran.
2
Karina
The Dancing Seal was one of those establishments that was both older and dirtier than it had any right to be, with a questionable layer of grime covering every visible surface as well as the staff. However, the food was great and the entertainment even better, which was what had brought Karina to the restaurant near the Outer Wall of Ziran.
As Aminata sulked beside her, Karina kept her eyes trained on the musician currently commanding the crowd, a stout, oud-playing bard with a mustache so perfectly coiled that it had to be fake. Appearance aside, the man had skill, and from the easy way he swaggered around the circular stage in the center of the room, he knew it.
The audience for the evening consisted mostly of travelers and merchants, their faces lined from years of trekking the unforgiving desert roads. In the chatter of the crowd, Karina recognized Kensiya, a language of the Arkwasian people from the jungles north of the Odjubai; T’hoga, a language spoken on the Eastwater savanna; and even the occasional word in Darajat screamed at frightened Eshran servers. Every major group in Sonande was represented that night.
But best of all, no one knew who Karina was.
Seated on low cushions around tables laden with thick bean stews and steaming cuts of lamb, the audience howled suggestions at the bard, each raunchier than the last, and sang off-key to every piece he played. Solstasia made even the most miserly freer with their purses, so many in the audience were well into their third or fourth drink of the evening even though the sun had yet to set.
The bard’s eyes met Karina’s, and he grinned. She cocked her head to the side, angelic innocence spreading across her face in response to the brazen suggestion on his.
“Are you going to stand there looking pretty, or are you going to play something worth listening to?” she challenged. Another howl went up through the audience, and the man’s dusky cheeks purpled. Despite its less-than-sanitary appearance, the Dancing Seal was one of the most respected music venues in Ziran. Only the best musicians could win over the crowd here.
The bard proceeded to play a raucous song that detailed the doomed love affair between a lonely spirit and a poor slave girl. Karina leaned back on her cushion as she examined the man. Her original appraisal had been correct; he was quite talented, twisting the melody in time with the shifting mood of the audience and biting into the tune at the story’s climax. If she had to guess, he was likely Fire-Aligned; that Alignment had a flair for the dramatic.
Smoothing her headscarf to ensure not a single strand of her hair fell out of place, Karina leaned toward her companion. “Do you think he oils his mustache every day to get it that shiny?”
“I think we’ve been here too long,” replied Aminata, angling herself away from the suspicious liquid that covered their table.
“We’ve been here ten minutes.”
“Exactly.”
Karina rolled her eyes, wondering why she’d expected any other response from her maid. Convincing a fish to swim on land would be easier than convincing Aminata to relax for even a single night.
“It’s Solstasia, Mina. We may as well enjoy ourselves.”
“Can we at least go somewhere that isn’t filled with people who could stab us?”
Karina began to retort that technically any room that had people in it was filled with people who could stab them, but the bard switched to a song Baba used to play for her, and a dull pain like a mallet banging the inside of her skull cut her off. Squeezing her eyes shut, Karina breathed out through her teeth and gripped the edge of the table until splinters dug into her skin.
Aminata frowned, realizing at once what had triggered the migraine. “We should go before it gets worse,” she suggested in that careful tone people used whenever Karina’s grief discomforted them.
“Not yet.”
This was likely the last moment of freedom Karina would have until Solstasia ended. Migraine or no, she couldn’t let the opportunity pass her by.
A cheer resounded through the restaurant as the bard strummed his last note. He collected his donations in a velvet coin purse, then strode over to their table and dropped into a low bow.
“I hope you found my performance tonight as pleasing as I find your appearance.”
Fighting back the wave of dizziness that often accompanied her migraines, Karina raised an eyebrow at the man. Perhaps she might have found his appearance pleasing as well had she been nearing seventy. As it was, she was only seventeen, and he reminded her of the toads who croaked in the fountains of the palace. The corners of her mouth tilted up, but she didn’t smile.