The Black Khan Read online

  “Wait,” she said. She stroked a hand over the bloodmark on his cheek. “I will submit if you do not use me roughly.” She pushed him away, reaching for the cape fastened to the back of her dress. When she released its clasps, it whispered to her feet.

  Nevus set the stiletto back on the table with the others.

  His voice cool, he said, “There is time enough for that.” And at his casual promise of violence, Arian knew she had not misjudged him.

  He motioned at her arms. “First the circlets, then the dress.”

  She had moved to comply when a knock sounded behind him at the door. Without waiting for an answer, a page entered the room bearing a jug and a matching set of silver cups.

  He was gaunt and skinny, and he wore his hair in a cluster of riotous curls.

  “Leave it and get out.” Nevus kept his eyes on Arian. “Continue.”

  The page stumbled at the sight of Arian in a state of undress, bumping into the chest and spilling the ruby wine from the jug. Nevus’s arm shot out. He grabbed the page by the throat, forcing him to his knees. The violence he’d been containing had found a more immediate target, giving Arian the opening she’d been waiting for.

  She lunged past Nevus to the table, scooping up two of his blades. Nevus loosened his grip on the page, leaping after Arian. He caught her by the waist, using the heavy silk of her dress against her. She whirled, both blades shifted to one hand, but they were at too close quarters. She could do no more with the blades than score his palm.

  One hand gripped her throat and squeezed; the other tightened around her wrist, forcing the blades from her hand. Arian cried out in pain. The stilettos crashed against the marble and skittered across the floor. Now Nevus ripped the dress at Arian’s shoulder, wrenching it down her arm. It caught on one of her circlets.

  He kicked the page with his boot while he wrested Arian closer to the blades.

  “I wasn’t going to bleed you,” he said. He wasn’t out of breath; he had subdued Arian with minimal effort. “But you have shown me disrespect, and now you must answer for it.”

  Arian’s hands scrabbled against the table. She was losing air from the bruising pressure of his grip. He shoved her head to one side. “There. Do you see what I will do?”

  With a mist rising over her eyes, Arian focused on the brand on the table.

  “After you are bled, the brand will be fired and coated in the magic of your blood.”

  He wrenched the silk of her dress aside and squeezed the curve of her breast.

  “Here. This is where I will brand you, for all the Ahdath to witness.”

  Whatever he would have said next was choked off, his grip eased from her throat and breast. He staggered away as he cast about the room.

  “Sahabiya, run!”

  Arian whirled around. The page was still at Nevus’s feet, one of the stilettos in his hand. A trail of blood leaked from the back of Nevus’s leg. The page had slashed him at the heel, severing his tendon. Now the young man grabbed Arian’s hand, pulling her to the door.

  Nevus shouted after them, blundering against the table. He swept up the remaining blades and fired them with lethal swiftness at the door. Six of them lodged in the door’s wooden planks. The seventh found its mark in Arian’s back.

  She staggered forward from the force of the blow, dragged from the room by the frantic hands of the page. The door slammed shut just as Nevus sounded the alarm.

  “Hurry.”

  But in her condition, she couldn’t keep his pace. The page was forced to drag her along the passageway, ducking into an alcove that crossed another passage. With a gasp of horror, he noticed the crimson stain spreading from the blade buried in her back. He pulled her aside, finally meeting her eyes. She recognized him now.

  “Alisher!” Despite the pain from the knife wound, Arian’s voice was steady, even welcoming. She could see that the poet she had met at the Clay Minar needed his courage bolstered. His hands were trembling with fear, his handsome young face tearstained. “Do not worry about me, there isn’t time. I can continue on.”

  Alisher swallowed and nodded, then grabbed a satchel from a darkened corner of the alcove. From its depths, he unearthed a fabric pouch cinched with a leather tie. This was followed by a thick cotton wrap that he wound about his forearm.

  In spite of her brave words, Arian sank down to the ground, pain radiating from her back to her nerve endings. Fiery streamers of pain pulsed beneath the bruises at her throat.

  “Forgive me.”

  Alisher blushed as he drew the torn silk of her dress over her naked skin with a clumsy pass of his hand. He reached over her shoulder and yanked out the blade, dousing Arian in sweat.

  He drew out the contents of the pouch—a thick gold paste that shimmered in the dark. He plunged his hand into the wound, smearing the paste over it, his other hand covering the scream that rose from Arian’s mouth. As soon as it was done, he dropped his hands, muttering his apologies. Now he used the cotton wrap to stanch the flow of blood at her back.

  “Can you walk?” he whispered, and she nodded. “This way, then.”

  Ahdath horns sounded through the upper gallery of the Ark. Boots thudded along the corridors.

  “Can you mask our passage?” Alisher murmured. Arian shook her head. Her throat was still on fire, her senses overwhelmed by pain. She struggled to place one foot in front of the other, desperate to reach Daniyar before it was too late.

  “No matter. I will take you through the rooms of the doves.”

  “Alisher—the Silver Mage! The Authoritan bleeds him in the throne room.”

  “You’ll never make it there in time. I’ll go myself after I find a place to hide you.”

  Nothing would have been sweeter than to rest. Everything hurt—heart, body, spirit. But her last glimpse of Daniyar had been of the Silver Mage being prepared for the bloodrites.

  She forced herself to focus on how the Claim might serve her now.

  Because a ragged poet who had fled the Clay Minar could not stand against the Ahdath on his own.

  “Here,” Alisher said. “Wear this.”

  He’d brought her a pair of women’s boots and an outfit similar to his own, along with a hooded cloak of the Ahdath’s. She felt a sharp sense of relief at stripping off the torn and bloodstained dress that clung to the sweat on her body. She dressed quickly at the threshold of one of the rooms of the doves. In the shaded intimacy of the room beyond, an Ahdath soldier had failed to heed the alarm. He was wrapped in the embrace of a dove with a beauty mark on her cheek. Her eyes met Alisher’s over his head, and she nodded, motioning to him to hurry.

  Arian and Alisher slipped away.

  “Who is she?”

  “Just someone I know.”

  Alisher knelt down to help Arian drag on the boots. He pulled the hood up over her hair, noticing the bruises on her neck.

  “Sahabiya!” It was a whisper of dread. “Can you—Is it—” He stumbled over the words. “Are you bereft of the Claim?”

  Bereft.

  The word struck through to her heart. She was bereft of everything that mattered.

  But she wasn’t about to share that with her only ally.

  “We must go.”

  Nodding, he guided her along. As they moved through the palace, Alisher reached back into his pack for the leather pouch with the paste. They stopped again along the upper gallery, just out of sight of an Ahdath patrol, crouching behind the marble panels.

  “Sahabiya, may I?” Alisher gestured to her throat. Arian nodded, blinking back tears. His air of diffidence at the prospect of touching her stood in marked contrast to Nevus’s violence.

  With a featherlight touch, he applied the gold paste to her bruises. The pain from the knife wound in her back had eased, no longer burning with every step. She prayed the salve would work as well on her throat.

  A patrol crossed behind them to the far side of the gallery.

  “Come,” Alisher said. “There is a way down. The doves use it to
assure the privacy of their dalliances with the Ahdath.”

  Arian followed him down the secret staircase, taking care to step lightly in the boots. She drew back in alarm as one of the Khanum’s doves intercepted their path. Alisher flashed her a look of reassurance. He nodded at the dove, who touched his hand as she passed up the stairs.

  “Alisher, these doves are the Khanum’s spies. You must know you cannot trust them.”

  A bittersweet smile touched his lips. “I’m alive because of these doves. The girl who passed us on the stairs is my sister. The other was my betrothed.”

  22

  SHE HAD COME TO THE DAMSON VALE DRESSED IN WHITE SILK, HER thoughts and her love only for him. She touched him with a soft hand, a hand that no longer gripped a sword raised to strike, and her soft lips were smiling. He had seldom seen her smile.

  “Did I deceive you?” he whispered. “Or is the Damson Vale as I promised?”

  She placed a hand over his lips, urging him not to speak. “Rest now. You will be with me soon.”

  He was dying, weaker with every sip the Authoritan took from the vial of his blood. Lania tried to ease him with her touch; he saw only Arian.

  He wasn’t afraid of death. Others would rise to take up his burdens. Another boy would be born to the inheritance of the Silver Mage, even if Daniyar would be the last to discover the secrets of the Candour. He’d always thought he would yield his trust in the glades of the Damson Vale. He would die there peaceably, at Arian’s side.

  No man knows in which land he will die.

  Arian had said this to him once, cautioning him against their deepening attachment. But he had once had more faith in their prospects for joy.

  If misfortune touches you, know that misfortune has also touched others.

  The words of the Claim flitted through his mind and made him angry at himself. He would bear misfortune gladly, his share and Arian’s, to spare her any suffering. And now she was in Nevus’s hands, defenseless without the Claim, while his lifeblood slipped away—from his neck, from his wrists, from two delicate slashes at his ankles.

  Whatever is in the heavens and earth surrenders itself to the One.

  I surrender, he thought, his heart squeezed by regret.

  Lania bent to kiss him. No, she said. You mustn’t.

  Has he passed from this life, Khanum?” The Authoritan summoned Lania to his side.

  She responded coolly, her headdress swaying as she ascended the dais. “You bled him too swiftly. He was not long for this world.”

  The Authoritan’s hand tightened around her wrist. “Is that a rebuke, my love?”

  He didn’t utter it in the accents Daniyar used with Arian. Lania tried not to flinch.

  “I wished to strengthen you, my lord. I would have delayed the bloodrites to that end.”

  Whatever he would have said in reply was cut off by a stridency of horns. The Ahdath left their places in the hall, forming into patrols. The Authoritan nodded at a stalwart soldier, whose hair was held back from his face by a leather tie.

  “The First Oralist causes difficulty. Find out what Nevus wants.” He turned to Lania. “You didn’t warn me of this.” The strength of his grip was bruising, the ashen skin of his cheeks stretched in a grimace of rage.

  “I did not foretell it, Khagan. You know the sight comes to me. I cannot call it forth.”

  The Authoritan wrenched the headdress from her head. It fell back heavily, striking the dais, pulling at the curtains of pearls in Lania’s hair.

  “What I know is you begged me for your sister, so I gave her to you as a gift. You claimed your powers would be strengthened by her knowledge, yet you failed to achieve mastery.”

  Lania rubbed the back of her head. Without the mystery cast by the headdress, the lead mask was brittle and rudely exposed. “You collared her,” she muttered. “My sister’s voice was damaged.”

  The Authoritan raised his forefinger with a snarl. The lead mask cracked in two.

  “Could she not write? Do you not read?”

  He moved his finger twice more in the air. The ruby sprays on her belt snapped off. Inexorably the belt tightened. She stared at him in horror.

  “I gave up the Bloodprint in exchange for her gifts. You deceived me, Khanum. It was not the First Oralist you sought—you wanted the Silver Mage. And out of lust for him, you hoped to deny me his blood.”

  Lania’s fingers groped at the belt, trying to unlatch it.

  The Authoritan flung open his hand. The heavy crimson robe was torn from Lania’s shoulders. But the belt remained in place, biting into her ribs.

  He was stripping her of rank, stripping her of her place at his court.

  Did he intend to replace her with Arian? But he’d given Arian to Nevus. He’d insisted on the gift. So what did his fury portend?

  “Did you foretell this?” he asked cruelly. “Did you imagine for a moment your machinations had escaped me? That I sent no spies to your rooms? Yet you gave yourself to the Silver Mage. After everything I did for you, everything I was to you.”

  In her silk underdress, Lania began to bleed. The belt sliced through the silk, tearing strips from her flesh. “Khagan, I am yours. I have served only you.”

  “Once, perhaps you did. But not, I believe, any longer.”

  Unnoticed in the tumult and horror, Daniyar lifted his head.

  The Authoritan’s control over Lania was complete. Was it an occult magic? What could he do to help her, given that he could scarcely help himself—

  With a start, he felt his strength slowly return to his limbs. His blood had long since clotted, sticky on his ankles and wrists. It no longer flowed from the five-point wounds of the bloodrites. The realization confounded him. Through the ebbing tide of pain, he considered the nature of the ritual Lania had enacted. What precisely had she done? What advantage might it yield him now? He struggled to clear his thoughts, his hand groping along the floor for a sword. No one was left to guard him. The Khanum’s doves hovered before the dais. The Ahdath had fled to seek their captain. And the Authoritan was occupied in the punishment of his consort.

  Again, Daniyar was confused. Why did he punish her? She had given Arian up, and she had allowed the Authoritan to drain him of his blood. How had she shown her disloyalty? Or was it her noticeable favoring of Daniyar that had earned her the Authoritan’s displeasure?

  A dove bent over his chest, her hand bringing up a cloth to wipe the blood from his throat, an act that might have been taken for the preparation of the dead. He felt the hard edge of steel in the folds of the cloth. She moved it next to his wrist, her golden head tipped to one corner of the hall.

  Daniyar peered in that direction, his silver eyes searching the shadows. What did she warn him of?

  Shouts sounded from the upper gallery. Swords were drawn. Boots pounded down each of four arcades, another set down stairs that led into the hall. These were followed by a slow and painful thumping.

  Nevus lurched before the dais. “My lord!”

  The Authoritan’s hand dropped from Lania’s face, moving limply to his side. “What is it, Nevus? How did a woman bound and chained escape you?”

  Now Daniyar saw a trace of movement in the alcove. It was a hand. It beckoned him to run. But Nevus stood between Daniyar and the alcove.

  Even with his path cut off, a wave of relief swept over him.

  Arian wasn’t with Nevus.

  With the Authoritan distracted, Lania twisted the belt from her ribs and cast it upon the dais.

  Terrifying, trenchant verses of the Claim spilled from her lips, notes of broken glass that clawed the air with blanched and bloodied fingers. It slowed the approach of the Ahdath.

  For this brief moment, she and Daniyar were able to face down the Authoritan and Nevus unimpeded. She passed a signal to him, she spoke—she murmured the recitation she had daubed in gold on his chest. Power surged through his body, his mind starkly free of pain. She had been disloyal, then.

  And now she needed his help.
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br />   He gathered the cloth-wrapped blade in his hand, easing it from its folds. He moved his hand just as Nevus thought to look down at his feet. Striking with the swiftness of an eagle, Daniyar slashed Nevus’s other tendon. The captain went tumbling to the ground, bracing his sword before him.

  Now the Authoritan turned on Lania with full force. His white hair streaking out around his skull, his crimson eyes scorched her face. He raised both hands in the air, stabbing her with malevolent strikes. Strips of blood smeared her torso, soaking the gold silk of her dress.

  “No!” Daniyar shouted.

  The Authoritan rounded on him—a raised hand struck him down. He fell to his knees and met Nevus braced on his. Both men raised their weapons.

  “Was this why your Augury failed you? You meant to replace me with your pet?”

  The Authoritan gathered the white staff in his hand. Step by rapacious step, he advanced upon Lania. Crimson fire flared from the finial at its top. The words on the staff began to bleed. And Lania bled with them.

  Catching sight of her, Daniyar was amazed. She was drenched in her own blood, yet she faltered not at all—the blood loss hadn’t weakened her.

  Was this why she had claimed his blood?

  Did it empower her as it empowered the Authoritan?

  Nevus lunged at him and missed. Daniyar pushed him back, his knife finding its way to the captain’s throat.

  “Where is she?”

  The knife pierced Nevus’s flesh.

  “Here!” It was a low, hurried cry. Then he saw her—Arian, his golden companion, his heart—wounded and in pain from the bruising at her throat, her eyes radiating joy to find him still alive.

  His throat under Daniyar’s blade, Nevus managed a smile. The bloodmark rippled like a wave. It rendered the Ahdath monstrous.

  “Her chastity was sweet,” he said. “I claimed it as my own.”

  Daniyar crushed his throat with his knee.

  Nevus’s head lolled back and went still.