Arwia nodded. “You’re right. She can’t let this go unpunished, which is why it’s even more important for us to go to her and beg her to house us until this is all over. War brings chaos.”
Not only chaos, but death and disease, too.
“What she should do is take out Uruku with a band of her Koru warriors instead of launching a full-blown attack,” Dagan said. “Slide into the city in the dead of night and assassinate him. It would save countless lives.”
“Murder to prevent murder?” I asked him. “That’s what you believe in?”
“Even your abum would agree with that, my love. There’s no shame in saving your own life and in rescuing others.”
“What you’re suggesting is different. It means planning to kill a man, not simply defending yourself.” My insides twisted at the thought.
“Is it so different?” Dagan asked.
“The queen would never agree to that. An attack is more powerful,” Nasu said. “It would show Manzazu’s might. Then she could reinstate you on the throne, Arwia.”
“But I don’t want the throne.” Arwia’s face twisted in angst.
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” Nasu asked. “You’re the rightful sarratum. And you’ve been telling me that you feel guilty for leaving everyone behind in Uruku’s claws, have you not?”
Arwia flushed and looked at her hands. “Sarratum Tabni tells me that by abandoning them, I’ve disgraced my ummum and abum. That my parents would be staring at me from the Netherworld, urging me to rule the city in peace.” Arwia looked up at me. “But who would even want me on the throne? No one. I left them.”
“Whether or not killing Uruku is the means”—I cast a hard look at Dagan—“I doubt there are very many people in Alu who wouldn’t welcome your rule. They loved you before, Arwia.”
“Some did.” She shrugged.
“Many more than ‘some.’ ”
“But I’d have no idea how to lead.”
“If you were queen, you’d have twelve ensis to help you if you didn’t know what to do.” Nasu stood and took his bowl to the washbasin by the door. He squatted down to scrub it clean.
“Yes, and those same ensis would have to agree by majority to reinstate me as well. How would we accomplish that if Uruku has been keeping them happy enough by his side? It’s too much.” She stood. “Too soon. We just got here.”
“It’s been nine moons. And whether you want this to happen or not, here we stand.” Nasu dried his dish and set it on the shelf with the others.
“And would you come with me if I did suddenly have to rule Alu?” she asked us. “All of you? What of our lives here?”
“Oh, Arwia, of course we would,” I said.
“Really?” Dagan sat back and stared at me. “After the conversation we had about me going north?”
“This would mean supporting a new queen, Dagan. Not commerce.”
He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Yes, that’s true. I am tired.”
I reached over and squeezed his hand. “We are all tired. This has been a terrible night.”
“Kammani?”
Kasha’s voice was raspy with sleep. He stood on the stairs, a foot dangling as if to step down, staring at me with worried brown eyes that looked so much like my abum’s.
“Uruku is coming for us? We are not safe?”
Nanaea, Kasha, and I had finally been able to be a family again here. I’d watched Nanaea work hard at her sewing, trying to be responsible, and watched Kasha run around with the neighbor boys, chasing dogs and shooting birds out of the sky with their slingshots. We were living normal lives filled with nothing more tumultuous than arguments over who was taking too long at the washbasin.
So what answer could I give this boy, one whose own father had died by Uruku’s hand?
Pushing myself away from the table, I went to him and ruffled his dark curls, and kissed the top of his head, which still smelled of smoke from the torches and cookfires at Simti’s wedding.
“We are as safe as we can be right now, and we are going to make sure it stays that way.”
He relaxed as I walked him back up the stairs to his chamber. But after I settled him in and rubbed his back, I wondered how in Selu’s name I was going to keep that promise to him. Would Arwia agree to ask Sarratum Tabni for an assassination instead of a war? And if so, would the queen even agree if what Nasu said was true?
While Kasha drifted off, I eased his angst with a childhood song from our ummum, my eyes drooping as I stroked his hair. “Sleep, little bug.” I yawned. “Sleep.”
When I finally made my way down the stairs and tucked myself into the pallet I shared with Nanaea, she was already asleep, her measured breath blowing a single strand of hair back and forth in front of her face. I lay down, drunk with fatigue, and tucked the pillow under my chin.
But just as I was drifting off, a man’s whispery baritone sang from the moonlit corner of the room:
The river is wide
The river is deep
I take their souls to earn my keep
I startled and sat up, my heart pounding, and squinted at the shadows.
“Hello?” I whispered.
A shadowy figure appeared like a strike of lightning near my old wooden rocking chair, then vanished.
I clutched my quilt to my chest. “Nobody wants you here. Nobody! Do you hear me?”
But there was no response, save for a lone dog barking somewhere in the distance.
“Sister?” Nanaea murmured, stirring. “Dreams again?”
“Shhh. Go to sleep. It’s okay.”
I stroked her hair with a shaky hand and stared at the corner of the room until my eyes burned and the sound of his voice faded from my ears. Until the cold fear gripping my heart relaxed enough that I could lie down and drift off into blackness.
THE CROOKED STREETS that led to Tabni’s Palace were crowded with merchants coming to the Libbu to trade. Despite people milling about like any other day, the caution in their eyes made it clear that word of the assassination attempt had spread and orders had been issued.
The sarratum’s army was present in full force, sickleswords in hand, spears tucked against their sides, faces resolute. War carts and chariots were lined up in the Libbu, workers tending their wheels and loading them up with provisions and weaponry.
“Kammani, look what is happening in this city right now.”