The Bloodprint Read online

  She had been summoned from those lands by the High Companion herself, to be presented to Arian as an ally of consequence. Impulsive, sardonic, brave beyond measure, she possessed the kind of strength that was as beautiful to Arian as it was indispensable in the country held by the Talisman.

  The destruction of the Library of Candour had been the first act of the Talisman, the white flag raised as a desolation above its storied arches. The bloodstained page on the Talisman flag spoke to a limitless capacity for ignorance. A thing to be pitied, a loss to be grieved. Something of that feeling was in Arian’s voice when she turned in her saddle to face the mob. She pronounced a phrase in the High Tongue.

  They wouldn’t know its meaning, nor even how to form the words themselves, but the Claim held an abiding power, deep in the bones of the people of Khorasan. The men fell back from the khamsa, their faces reflecting a mixture of awe and terror.

  Yes, Arian thought. These words have been the terror of an age.

  She halted the progress of her mare before a tavern with a broken door.

  “What are we doing here?” Sinnia whispered fiercely. “The Talisman have forbidden all means of intoxication.”

  Arian pointed a slender finger upward. The Talisman flag was nailed above the door.

  “Except for the members of their command, who do as they please. We’re not here to drink, though. I have a friend here. He will help us gain access to the Cloak.”

  A disquieting sense of hope beat against her thoughts, the lie fluttering in her chest.

  She wouldn’t describe the man she was searching for as a friend.

  He was a beautiful, dark mystery.

  And his absence from her life was a ceaseless bereavement.

  Sinnia slipped into the squalid room behind Arian. Inside, a handful of men were gathered at a table, drinking from hammered metal cups. Their heads turned at the sight of two unveiled women, the tallest man in their midst rising to his feet at once. He was dressed in the loose-fitting garb of the Talisman, a thick wool pagri settled on his skull, his pointed beard reaching to just above his chest. A sharp array of knives hung from the belt at his waist. His shrewd eyes were set deep in a narrow, tapered face.

  Before he could speak, Arian grasped Sinnia’s hand and led her to the bar, disarranging her cloak as she passed. The gold circlets on the women’s arms shone in the firelight. The man’s companions whispered together until the man with the pagri slammed down his fist on the table. Watching the women, he came no closer.

  At the bar, the man who tended the needs of the Talisman didn’t look up. He passed a grimy cloth over a grimier surface, darkened by soot and ash. Sinnia braced her arms on the bar and waited.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” the man with the cloth said. “What do you want?”

  He was dressed in clean riding clothes. His head was bare, his dark hair loose around his skull, his beard shorn close to his jaw. In every swipe of the cloth over the bar there was anger and intimidation.

  Arian drew a nervous breath before speaking. “I’ve come for the Cloak.”

  “Have you, indeed?” A silver flash of the man’s eyes moved from Arian to Sinnia to the hostile group of Talisman gathered at the table. A rumble of noise from the street battered the tavern’s door. “Veil yourselves, you fools, and get out of here before you cost me the little custom I have.”

  “They won’t touch us,” Arian said with more certainty than she felt. Her heart was thrumming inside her, the words dry in her mouth. The man at the bar was still here, whole and unharmed. Until this moment, she hadn’t known what that would mean to her.

  “Things have changed since you were last here.” He looked at Sinnia, who gasped. The man’s eyes were a bright, glancing silver in a face so strikingly beautiful, the squalor of his surroundings couldn’t diminish it. “Tell your friend she’s risking your life by bringing you in here.”

  Sinnia grinned in response. “She risks my life every moment of every day. She said you were a friend. I was hoping the odds might have changed.”

  A cold smile settled on the man’s lips.

  “For your sake, I’m sorry they haven’t. The color of your skin won’t protect you here. They take every kind of woman for the slave-chains.”

  It was a new thought for Sinnia. She had seen no black-skinned women in Khorasan, and she had freed none.

  Arian intervened.

  “Tell me how to get the key to the box that contains the Cloak, then we’ll go. I won’t ask for more of your help than this.”

  He turned his back to them both.

  “The man at the table is the Immolan. He became the ruler of Candour after the Talisman proclaimed the Assimilate. He also runs their prisons. If you don’t leave now, you’ll end up in one of them.”

  The words were meant to frighten Arian, to send her and Sinnia from Candour without the Cloak because, by any consideration, the pursuit of the Cloak was a reckoning waiting for the dead. Particularly when the Talisman’s proclamation had been forcibly memorized by every citizen of Khorasan, young and old, rich and poor, male and female.

  There is no one but the One. And so the One commands.

  The proclamation of the law known as the Assimilate burned every corner of the earth the Talisman had reached. Those who differed in thought or practice met a swift, unmerciful fate. Save for the Companions of Hira, well able to defend themselves. “How do I get the key? There must be a way, Daniyar.”

  Behind them, the Immolan had reached a decision. He and his men made for the door.

  “Do you still ride the khamsa?” the man named Daniyar asked, swinging back around.

  Arian nodded. There had been a time when she, like Sinnia, had been vulnerable to beauty, astonished by its existence in the midst of ever-present darkness, the lost time, before the rise of the Talisman. Now she could look at Daniyar, read the rage that colored his every gesture, and want no more from him than the information that would see her through this day.

  His warmth is not for me, she told herself. I no longer wish for it.

  But when he looked at her, she could only think of him. It was an effort to remember the Shrine of the Sacred Cloak. And it was more difficult than she had expected to force her thoughts back to her mission.

  No woman had ever beheld the Cloak or touched its soft folds. Arian would be the first, and in that action, she would break everything the Talisman had wrought in a war-ravaged decade. The Assimilate would fall, the slave trade would die, and the Talisman’s prisons would burn to the ground.

  If Daniyar would help her now.

  He faced her squarely, without compassion.

  “If you’re planning to go to your death, don’t look to me for rescue.”

  The words hurt as they were meant to. But there would be another time to think on why. She touched her hand to one of the circlets, a reaction to his indifference.

  “Your tahweez won’t work on me,” he said coldly.

  “I wasn’t going to—”

  “The key is held by the Akhundzada,” he interrupted.

  “I thought none of that line survived.”

  The noise in the street had doubled and redoubled. It was more than the shouts of the mob. It was the sound of glass breaking, the rumble of wheelbarrows in the street, the hungry lick of flame. Smoke seeped in through gaps in the tavern door.

  Daniyar reached down behind the bar for his sword, its blade formed from black steel, its short handle undecorated. Arian recognized it as a salawar, common to these parts. It wasn’t the sword she knew from the past, the sword with a history and legend of its own. She also knew in his hand, any weapon would be deadly.

  “I’ve given you what you want, now go. Call the khamsa, leave from the back.”

  “Where do I find the descendant of the Ancient Dead?”

  A fiery bottle smashed through the tavern’s window. Daniyar glanced at Arian. She felt the heat rise in her limbs.

  “He allied himself with the Talisman as a means of self-pr
otection. He’s the Immolan’s right-hand man.” He threw down the planks he’d gathered to shore up the window and door. “This place is lost now.” His anger was evident as he turned back to Arian. “Tell me what you want with the Cloak.”

  Arian’s reply was swift.

  “The Talisman have made it the symbol of their authority. If I can reclaim it for Hira, perhaps the people will begin to doubt the Talisman’s legitimacy.”

  The crowd was pressing against the door. Daniyar led them through a series of cramped passageways, each riddled with tiny sinkholes that stank of rot and filth. As they passed through a crowded storeroom with a ceiling that sloped to the ground, he grabbed two rounds of bread from the shelves. At the tavern’s blackened exit, he handed them to Sinnia.

  With sympathy he said, “For the road.” But his words to Arian were filled with contempt. “No one submits to the Talisman out of choice. The Cloak will make no difference. If you won’t think of your own life, you should trouble to think of your friend’s.”

  He didn’t wait for them. He kicked the door open and disappeared down a mud alley, the sword belted at his waist.

  “You think of me, too,” Sinnia called after him, but her jest didn’t lighten Arian’s spirits.

  He despises me. He thought I would use the Claim against him.

  But I could never raise my voice against him.

  As they took their own path and remounted the khamsa, the tavern exploded into flame. The fire roared on, rapacious in its greed.

  “What else in this city is left to burn?” she muttered to Sinnia.

  She had her answer, as the alleyway curved between rows of houses that shrunk away from the noise and flame. The Immolan was sending her a message. On the doorstep of the once-renowned Library of Candour, a mob of men had gathered the last few remnants of the library’s manuscripts. The Immolan was poised on a platform above the smoldering layers of Khorasan’s history, beauty burned to ash at his command. The written word had long been banned under the Assimilate.

  There is no one but the One. And so the One commands.

  The Immolan’s scaffold was suspended over the blaze by four cables. Behind the swaying platform, two tall and slender men dressed in Talisman garb waited to receive the Immolan onto the dais that had once been the entrance into the Library of Candour.

  An age without candor, without hope.

  She stared at the other two men. Which one was the Akhundzada?

  “Sinnia.”

  Sinnia’s bow was at the ready, her steel-tipped arrows launched. She aimed for the cables at the front, catching them at the juncture. The wooden platform tilted amid sounds of chaos. A flicker of blue behind the rubble of the library danced for a moment in Arian’s vision. The Shrine of the Sacred Cloak, isolated on a dreary plain, shimmering like a jewel.

  The Immolan lost his balance as the platform tipped forward. With a cry of fury, he fell onto the burning mound. Behind him, Arian caught a fleeting gesture before the Talisman guard checked himself. The green-eyed man to the left had raised his hand to tip the platform. His hennaed beard was unmistakable.

  “That one,” she called to Sinnia. “He won’t stay there. His last duty is to the Cloak.”

  3

  A woman with gold hair coiled in a loose rope sat before a twelve-sided table with a ceramic decoration as its tabletop. The outer ring of the ceramic was a turquoise frieze. The inner ring was patterned around a lapis lazuli medallion in the center of a stark white background. Marquetry inlays paneled the table’s twelve sides.

  A manuscript was placed in the dim light of a candle, its parchment so delicate that the pattern on the table could be seen through the page like a tracery. The woman’s head was bent over the parchment, her eyes reading the ancient script.

  “You would see better with a lantern,” a voice drawled in her ear.

  The woman looked up, a pair of exquisite amber-gold eyes lancing over the intruder. He tangled his hands in her coil of hair, his fingers brushing her throat.

  “What are you doing here, Rukh?”

  The woman’s voice was neither cordial nor unwelcoming. She was a woman who weighed her words, choosing each one with care. The man’s dark eyes glimmered in response. He read the manuscript over the woman’s shoulder.

  “You are late convening the Council, Ilea. If I am to wait for the First Oralist at Hira, I require something to occupy my time. What wisdom do you seek in the scriptorium?”

  The High Companion rose from her seat. Rukh’s presence was a disturbance she couldn’t afford, but the Prince of West Khorasan was a man she couldn’t ignore—nor did she necessarily want to. She entwined her hands with his, shielding his view of the manuscript with her body.

  “You won’t distract me,” he said mildly. “I came for what you promised me. I won’t leave Hira without it.”

  “I’ve told you. The Companions of Hira will have to be heard on the matter. You will need to speak before the Council.”

  She didn’t trouble to plead or sound forlorn. Rukh knew the full extent of her authority, he wouldn’t be deceived by a pretense of helplessness. He was the one man Ilea counted as an equal. He preferred her in full command of her powers.

  Their black and gold heads drew close, the language between them effortless and familiar. After a time, the man named Rukh pulled away.

  “What of the First Oralist?” he asked. “Does she come?”

  It took Ilea a fraction of a second longer to recover her composure, her lips faintly swollen, her gold eyes languid.

  “She comes with your treasure—you needn’t fear. What she makes of you will be another matter.”

  “You sound as though you fear her.”

  Ilea glanced back at the manuscript on the ornamental table.

  “The First Oralist is not as easy to manipulate as the others. She works her own agenda at the Council. She has the confidence to do so.”

  “But she brings you the Cloak.” Rukh grasped Ilea’s chin, searching the gold eyes. “Do not think to make a fool of me.”

  Ilea shrugged off his touch with a hint of anger.

  “You’ve never known me to forswear my word. You will have the good wishes of the Council, as I promised.”

  “That is not what I came for. It is not a trifle I trade with you.”

  Ilea said nothing, assessing the power in the Prince of Khorasan’s face. He was a man used to the dominion of an empire, but he had no dominion at Hira. Men like Rukh would come and go. The Council would rule to a time without end.

  “Just as I warn you not to trifle with me . . . or the First Oralist. She is not what you think her. She follows her conscience more than she heeds any counsel of mine.”

  “You have ways of bringing the Companions to heel. You can’t afford to have the First Oralist defy you before the Council. There are rumblings of discontent at Hira.”

  “And there are Talisman at your gates in Ashfall,” she snapped back. “Do not question my influence, you will witness it for yourself. Worry about the First Oralist. Her actions are unpredictable.”

  “But you scout her course ahead nonetheless.”

  He would have gleaned as much from the manuscript on the table. Like Arian, Rukh was a piece to be played in a greater game. No matter his attraction for her, she trusted him not at all.

  “She will not refuse the Audacy,” Ilea said. “If I send her, she will go. She believes she can change our fortunes in this war—I have only to offer hope of the same.”

  “A fool’s hope,” Rukh observed. “You say she is not easily deceived.”

  Ilea’s eyes skittered over Rukh’s face, stopping at the symbol at his throat.

  The black rook carved of onyx and silver was the symbol of an empire that swept from Hira to the west, as far as the Sea of the Transcasp. She couldn’t afford that empire as an enemy, when there were enemies gathered on other fronts.

  “She thinks she’s been fighting a war, but she doesn’t know the war has yet to begin. She believes t
he Cloak will delegitimize the Talisman, bringing the One-Eyed Preacher to heel. She knows nothing of the deeper forces at play.”

  “But you do.”

  “Yes, I do.” Ilea’s eyes sparked at Rukh. “And your knowledge is greater still, so you will honor your word and make the trade. Then we will see.”

  “What will we see, High Companion?”

  Ilea’s smile was bitter, even as she linked her arms around his neck.

  “Whose fortunes will be the ones to prevail.”

  When Rukh left the scriptorium, Ilea found herself considering his words. If Rukh had heard the rumors at Hira, it meant her grip on the Council was weakening. It was why she’d made changes at Hira—changes in the guard, changes in the rituals—changes in her plans for the First Oralist.

  She was playing a dangerous game, sending Arian down this road, setting her in the Prince of Khorasan’s path. She knew she couldn’t control him, and she didn’t know if she still commanded the First Oralist.

  But she knew more about the Sacred Cloak than either of the others. It was more than a holy relic, more than a stamp of authority. In the right hands, the Cloak would be a weapon of war. It would hold off the Talisman offensive, giving her the time she needed.

  Arian, Sinnia, Rukh—each had a part to play in her design.

  “I am coming for you, Preacher.”

  She sketched a complex incantation with her hand.

  The silence of the scriptorium closed round her again.

  4

  Arian and Sinnia took the road over the plain, the hooves of the khamsa pounding against the tracks. The Shrine of the Sacred Cloak was built on a slight incline. At one time, it had been reached through a complex of buildings, each dedicated to a worthier purpose. Now the shrine’s gilded archways had fallen into disrepair, just as the mirrored tiles and green marble that had decorated its exterior had long since been looted by the Talisman’s militias.