Page 8 of Heir

The Bani al-Mauth went on. “Two more children were found the nextday in Nur. Street urchins with no families. A dozen more, after that, all over the Tribal Lands and the southern Empire. And then for months, nothing. Until now.”

Fourteen children dead. Quil hadn’t known about a single one. The store, already dusty and dim, felt much colder.

“Three died in Serra a few weeks ago,” she said. “Two in Navium. Four as far north as Silas. All under age twenty, all with the same gaping wound, their hearts shriveled to gray ash. Those are the deaths I’ve heard about.”

“There were six Masks, too.” Quil’s stomach churned as he remembered the report from the morning. “Two found yesterday in the borderlands. You speak to ghosts. Don’t you know about them?”

The Bani al-Mauth considered him. “Not every ghost comes through the Waiting Place.”

“That wasn’t an answer.”

“You remind me of your aunt. Pain in the arse, that girl. Sharp as a scim, though. Heard more than she let on. You do too, I’d bet.”

“I didn’t hear about these kids,” Quil said. “She never said a word.”

“You do something for me,” the Bani al-Mauth said. “You ask her why, the next time you see her. And one more thing.” Her tone lost its edge. “How are you, boy?”

A simple question. One that elicited a waterfall of thoughts.

Quil didn’t often let himself think about Ruh and Ilar. But he did now: Ruh’s hands when he told stories about shadowy ghuls and evil tale-spinners. Ilar’s laugh, shy like she was out of practice. The way she saw past his reserve and drew him out with her questions, as if nothing he said could bore her.Tell me about the palace in Antium. Tell me about getting lost in Navium’s harbor. Are there truly whole streets of kite makers in Serra?

“I’ve done as you asked,” Quil said. “I try not to think about it.”

“What of your magic? Will you get training from the Jaduna?”

Quil tensed at the mention of the Jaduna. “You told me to forget what I saw that night,” Quil said. “In return, I don’t want to talk about the magic. Ever.”

The Bani al-Mauth shrugged and shook the dust from her cloak. “As you wish. I must return to the Waiting Place. Speak of this to no one. And, boy…”

She cocked her head. The shadows of the apothecary appeared to nibble at her edges.

“Watch your back. The air is wrong. The ghosts are restless. Something’s coming.”

No, Quil thought as she faded into the dark.Something’s already here.

3

Sirsha

Sirsha knew she shouldn’t have stayed in Raider’s Roost as long as she had.

The settlement festered like a forgotten canker in the foothills of the Serran Mountains, a cesspool of liars, thieves, and worse.

Now Sirsha stood in one of the Roost’s miserable, rain-soaked alleys in the dead of night, surrounded by a gang of miscreants. She was weaponless and—irritatingly—bootless, with nothing but her wits standing between herself and complete destitution.

Or possibly death. But she was, at this moment, primarily concerned with destitution.

She’d spent the last seven years saving up every penny from every job so she could leave the accursed Empire forever. She wanted warm weather, clear water, and a nice little inn to run in the Southern Isles. She wasn’t about to lose her dream to a pack of poorly dressed halfwits.

“Give us the money, tracker,” said the head thug, a pale weed of a girl called Migva. She packed a meaner punch than one would suspect, and she shook out her hand—sore from the beating she’d dealt Sirsha. “I’m tired and hungry and sick of hitting you.”

Sirsha glanced behind her, to the shack she’d lived in for the past few months. It was an ugly, ramshackle sort of place, held together by spite and dirt, like most of the Roost. She’d rented a room in it from a hulking gem dealer too scary for even a Roost rat to cross. They’d worked out a trade: between her other jobs, she tracked down items or people he was interested in, and he ran off anyone who might want to rob her. In a lawless place like the Roost, it was a cushy trade.

Everything was dandy until the gem dealer’s lover caught him cheatingwith the handsome tea merchant from up the lane. An hour later, the gem dealer was dead, his lover fled with his gems. Now the vultures circled.

“I told you, I don’t have—uff—” Migva swung her fist low, and Sirsha landed on her knees, gasping. Her sopping, dark hair slapped across her forehead, and mud oozed between her socked toes. Skies, was there anything more disgusting than the feeling of wet sock?

“You’ve searched me a dozen times,” Sirsha said. “I don’t have anything.”

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