“Well, I must go to the sickroom first. I’m to stay with Mirrum this evening while Mudi gets some rest, and I need to fix this ear or she’ll lose it.” My head buzzed with urgency. “Arwia, come with me. I have plenty of clean linens and sterilized threads there.”
“We will go, too.” Ummi hitched her belt, which was full of weaponry. “To protect you.”
“My thanks, Ummi. That would be a relief.”
“Do you want me to come?” Dagan ran a hand down my arm. “If not, I’ll get Nanaea and Kasha back home.” His amber eyes picked up the light from torches held by the growing, murmuring crowd.
“No, my sweet. But grab Iltani. Only the gods know where she is.”
He nodded to Nasu. “Help me find her; then we can fortify the house. And warn Ilu. They may come looking for Simti, too.”
“I will.” Nasu turned to the Koru. “Protect Arwia with your life, do you hear me? She may not want the throne, but she has a right to it.”
Humusi looked down her long nose at him and grimaced. Ummi flicked him a baleful sneer, as if she hadn’t recently battle-axed the life from a man and casually wiped his blood on her tunic.
“Be careful. Stick close to the Koru.” Dagan put his big hands on my shoulders and kissed me softly on the forehead. “Come home safely to me.”
“You be careful, too.”
They left, and the Koru, Arwia, and I trekked toward the sickroom, kicking up dust in the moonlit night. Eyes wary. Hearts in our throats. As we traveled, I kept the linen pressed to Arwia’s ear while Humusi, ever watchful, gathered stones and tossed them into the brush, checking for assassins who might lie in wait.
As the sickroom came into view and my immediate panic about being caught on the road dwindled, Dagan’s question of marriage floated up into my brain like a specter. For the moment, it seemed we had more pressing concerns to attend to.
I doubted Dagan would like knowing that the delay filled me with a quiet sense of relief.
* * *
Unease feathered up my neck as I picked up a candle burning in the dim hallway that led to the Koru sick chamber.
“Through here, Arwia.”
We pushed past rows of beads hanging over the doorway, and stepped inside the room with neat pallets lying in two rows. Ummi and Humusi followed close behind. The overwhelming sense of river rot—the rank, mildewed stench of the fishing docks—greeted me.
The Boatman.
No. I stifled the feeling. Stay away!
But as I stepped into the gloom, the hair stood up on my head.
Something wasn’t right. There was no candle burning near Mirrum’s bed. There was no Mirrum in her bed, either. And where was Mudi?
“Stay back,” Ummi commanded, and Humusi pushed Arwia and me into a corner, covering both of us with her body. Silently, she unsheathed two swords.
Is there another assassin here? For us?
My heart thrummed, fear flowing through my body.
Ummi dropped into a low fighting stance, both battle-axes drawn, and crept through the sickroom, peering under pallets.
I strained to see through the dimness, a single shaft of moonlight from the lone window. I held my candle up higher.
“Mudi?” I called out, my voice choking me.
“Be quiet, Kammani. Let Ummi listen,” Arwia whispered.
Nobody answered me anyway.
“They’re gone! Where could they have gone? Mirrum was too sick to go far.”
She shook her head, a finger to her mouth, and winced against the pain of her ear.
Ummi poked under coverlets with her battle-ax and glided slowly, slowly toward the end of the room, her weapons flashing in the moonlight. Behind Humusi, Arwia and I shivered nervously, her blood soaking through the cloth and running down my arm off my elbow. I had to get her stitched, and soon. She was losing too much blood.
When Ummi reached Mirrum’s rumpled pallet, she bent and flung back the covers to look underneath. She straightened, confusion on her square face.
“They’re not here.”
A horrible sense of dread rose into my throat.
“Ummi, there’s a storage room. Around the corner.”
And as soon as I said it, a sound of rushing water filled my ears. If someone was lying in wait, or if Mudi had taken Mirrum, then that was where they’d be. I placed Arwia’s trembling hand against the cloth over her ear, and scooted away from Humusi, candle held high.
“A-zu, no.” Humusi gripped my elbow.
I shook her off.
“Stay with Arwia.”
If Mudi or Mirrum was in that room and had been harmed in any way, then I needed to be there to help.
Creeping between the pallets, each footfall enveloped by the shadows, I met Ummi’s eyes and jerked my head toward the corner where the storage room was.
Ummi nodded and pressed her lips grimly together in a line. Her dark eyes hardened as her grip tightened around her battle-axes. Like a cat, she slid around the corner, both weapons in her firm grip, and shoved past the beads hanging in front of the storage room.
I expected a shriek of terror. Or a cry of surprise.
But there was only Ummi’s guttural “Oh,” the word whispered in an expulsion of breath. It was followed by a name softly spoken in the dark.
“A-zu?”
Mudi. Mirrum.
Sick with dread, I dragged leaden legs to the beaded doorway, my stomach knotted.
“Kammani, wait for me.” Arwia’s strangled command rang through the chamber.
But I didn’t listen.
I pushed past Ummi, whose wide brown eyes were filled with a hard compassion. She tucked her battle-axes away and laid thick hands on my shoulders as I faced what I already knew I’d see.
No assassin was lying in wait in the storage room.
But both Mudi and Mirrum were.
Their throats had been slashed, and deep maroon blood was draped down the fronts of their tunics like aprons.
I sat down hard right where I was, spilling the candle and snuffing the light as their bodies swam in front of me.
Mudi. Mirrum.
A healer and a warrior so ill she couldn’t fight back as she was trained to do.
Murdered.
My hands found my head and I moaned in agony. I was going to save Mirrum! She was going to heal! And Mudi. A sob rose in my throat.
Behind me, Arwia’s quick cry, followed by hiccupping sobs, filled the room. Ummi barked an order to Humusi and they chatted quickly, frantically. Then Humusi left the room, her sandals slapping against the cool sandstone floor.