“I love our queen, Champion Solarin, and this supposed ruling council meets without her,” she said. “Can you understand what that means? Can you appreciate the position in which we find ourselves?” She turned away from him, the dragon, and its heat. “Come, now, we’re needed.”
Nyah wanted him to fight for the queen, and maybe Queen Tsiora was a better choice to lead the Omehi than the Royal Nobles or the Xiddeen, but Tau hadn’t sworn the champion’s oath because he thought it important to fight for Tsiora’s throne. She’d been sitting on it when his father was murdered, and having her there hadn’t helped Aren at all.
The queen’s cause wasn’t his. Tau was fighting to get to Abasi Odili so he could rip him apart, turn him inside out, piece by bloody piece, because that was what it would take for the Nobles to see and hear a man like him. To be understood, he’d speak the one language the powerful share with the powerless, the language of pain, fear, and loss. The powerful had to be shown that people can only be pushed so close to the flame before they catch fire and burn everything down.
He walked closer to the dragon.
“The Royal Nobles are the architects of the coup and are lost to us,” Nyah said. “The few Petty and Greater Nobles who still side with the queen are restless, rudderless. We can’t allow them to think that the queen is too weak to hold us together. We need to put this ruling council in their place.”
Tau’s exposed skin felt hot enough to burn. “You want to barge into their meeting and surprise them,” he said. “You want me there, with my swords and scarred face, to remind them that the queen has both words and weapons.”
“Every tool has its purpose, Champion,” she said. “Will you serve yours? Will you serve her?” Nyah looked at the dragon and back to him. “Or only yourself?”
Without waiting for an answer, she walked away, leaving Thandi behind.
The younger Gifted pointed at the ground behind him and closer to the dragon. “Watch the blood on the floor, Champion. It can kill.”
Tau followed her finger and saw the wet blackness staining the cobbles in streaks. “That’s its blood?”
“The youngling was wounded when it went aboveground, and in any case, the blood is poisonous,” she said. “The Indlovu came and gathered as much as they could, but the Guardian’s heat prevents any from getting close enough to get it all. Have a care.”
“I see.”
She nodded to him, paused, and spoke. “You’ll come, won’t you?” she asked. “Nyah isn’t telling you everything.”
Tau had his back to her, but he was listening.
“We cannot rely on the loyalty of the others,” she said. “The Nobles follow General Otobong. He’s the highest-ranking Indlovu in the keep, and he’s close with members of this . . . ruling council.”
Tau said nothing.
“We do need your help,” Thandi said before following the vizier.
Tau let her go and got as close to the creature as he could, close enough to reach out and touch it, the heat making it feel as if he were standing on top of a funeral pyre. Still, he leaned closer, letting his scalded lips almost brush the dragon’s scales.
“She felt guilt for what’s done to you, and I won’t blame you for her death,” he whispered to the beast. “I just want you to know that the Omehi intend nothing but this for you.” The flesh on his cheeks began to peel. “They wouldn’t forgive it if they’d been treated this way and so can’t believe that you can either. They think you’d kill us all if you could and that’s why they’ll never let you go.” He shook his head. “But Zuri believed that this thing we’ve done . . . that we do to you is a blight on our souls. She told me that a reckoning is coming, but I wonder if it must.”
Unable to take the heat, Tau stepped back.
“When the time comes, I promise you freedom or a quick death,” he said. “As soon as I’m able, either way I’ll release you.”
The dragon’s eye snapped open. Its bloodred iris ringed a pupil so deep and dark it felt like he were gazing into an abyss. Then the pupil thinned vertically, focusing, and the dragon shifted its bulk, trying to stand.
Hearing something fall to the ground behind him, Tau leapt back, swords in his hands.
“Champion!”
Tau shot a look in the voice’s direction. It was one of the Gifted tasked with keeping the youngling under control, and she was pointing to the woman next to her. The Gifted had collapsed, unconscious.
“Please,” the pointing Gifted said, “your closeness to the Guardian makes the work more taxing. Pleas—”
The dragon roared, the sound cracking inside Tau’s head like a whip, and the eye facing him rolled in the dragon’s head as the creature scrabbled at the cobbled floor, trying to lift itself. Swords ready, Tau shifted sideways and away from its claws when movement from the circle of Gifted caught his attention.
The woman who had collapsed was on her knees, and she raised a hand in the youngling’s direction. The effect was immediate. With the circle of Gifted complete again, the dragon could not fight its way free. Backing away, Tau watched as the youngling’s pupil dilated and lost focus, and the eye finally closed.
“Champion,” the one who had spoken earlier said, teeth gritted, the strain of manipulating her gift evident, “you must leave us to this.”
With another glance at the Gifted on her knees, and wishing he had something more to offer the women whose work he’d made more difficult, Tau nodded and left the prison. His skin burned, but that wasn’t what hurt. He was thinking about Zuri.
The days since her death had been impossible; the nights were worse. Like the youngling, Tau had been living a life little better than death, but unlike the beast behind him, he could still control the direction in which his fire flew.
He’d go to the queen. She needed him and he needed her. He’d go to the queen, because at the end of his path with her stood Abasi Odili.
REUNION
Tau found his sword brothers waiting for him in the hallway leading to the council chambers. He hadn’t spent time with any of them since the night of the battle, and the faces of those present brought to mind the faces of those he’d never see again.
“Tau!” Hadith said, striding over and clasping him wrist to wrist before pulling him into a hug. “It’s good to see you.”
“And you,” Tau said. His head was spinning. The tunnels hadn’t relinquished their hold on him yet, and he wished he’d had a little more time to come back to himself before running into everyone, but even so, he couldn’t deny how good it felt to see his brothers.
Uduak, waiting for Hadith to release him, wrapped Tau up in an embrace that pinched his still-healing ribs. “Tau,” the big man said.
“Common of Kerem!” Themba, smiling large enough to show teeth and the gaps where teeth should have been, made a show of examining him from scalp to sole. “The new cloths and swords suit you.”
Kellan, standing at attention a few strides back, saluted. “Champion Solarin.”
Feeling awkward at having an Ingonyama showing him such respect, Tau returned the salute. Kellan had proven himself to be a decent man, but it was still hard for Tau to think of them as peers or as being on the same side.