Page 59 of Sins of His Wrath

By the time the servants came to get her, she was truly grumpy.

They led her out of the dungeons, this time with no hood on her head. A thick crowd of huge soldiers met them at the top of the stairs and surrounded her soon as she stepped into the palace corridor. They walked through the corridor, turning a few times as they navigated the palace, but once again, Naya couldn’t see anything but the ceiling. The soldiers’ bodies blocked her view in every direction. After a while, they slowed to a stop and then ushered her into a room.

It was her bedroom, the same one she’d been given the last time, and it looked exactly the same, earthy and warm. Based on the windows, it wasn’t yet light.

A woman with a broad nose and thin, straight lips stood waiting where Meiro usually dressed her with the circular bathing apparatus. Her weathered face and crinkled eyes indicated she was an older woman who smiled a lot, but there was no softness in her face. A bag sat by her feet that Naya recognized as the bathing liquids, and on the end of the bed, clothes were laid out. On the wood platform that extended from the mattress, a tray of food had been prepared, along with the short cup ofkkermo.

The new woman gestured to the floor, and Naya exhaled in annoyance. “Where is Meiro?”

The woman stared at her blankly, and then gestured to the floor again.

Naya exhaled again, and stalked to the bed. Lifting the cup ofkkermo, she drank it in one huge swallow, savoring the taste before realizing how much she’d missed it. Then she ate the whole tray of food, not having realized how hungry she was.

The woman bathed her more roughly and quickly than Meiro, though she was just as thorough. Once Naya was dressed, the woman led her back to the doorway, where only three soldiers waited this time. They led her to the front entrance, pausing when they reached the steps overlooking the courtyard.

Akoro sat on hisnniraeand was flanked by five important-looking soldiers onnniraes—two of them had carts attached.The carts had solid domes of magic covering them so it was impossible to see inside. Naya tensed. Was this how she was to spend the first day of her investigation? Inside a cart? The soldiers led her down the steps to Akoro, and to her surprise, Akoro dismounted when she arrived. His eyes were dark as she approached, but he lifted her swiftly and twisted to sit her on hisnnirae.

He mounted behind her and sat close, so her chest was against his back, and after some discussion in their language, he and his soldiers directed theirnniraesto move out of the court.

“Am I finally allowed to speak?” Naya said, her irritation still prickling.

Akoro seemed to be in his own bad mood. “Since today is one of your days, speak while you can.”

Naya’s mind lurched from one topic to another trying to figure out what to ask first. Should she question what happened yesterday or ignore that and start working on the magic problem immediately? Should she ask where they’re going and why they’re traveling before sunrise? Should she ask what happens after today? Naya stayed silent, trying to order her thoughts, but all thoughts ceased when Akoro’snniraetrotted into the city streets.

Horror filled her lungs, and her mouth dropped open. Had she really done all this?

The beautiful city was now a broken graveyard. Buildings that were once warm hues of amber and gold now stood like dull broken teeth against the horizon, their walls burst outward as though something monstrous had clawed its way free from within. Dried and congealed blood was everywhere—on what remained of the walls, on the debris-filled streets, even saturating the thick air a metallic taint. And in the undercurrent of the muddled odors was the acrid stench of death that seemed to seep from the very stones.

Naya’s breathing increased as they made their way through the streets, hardly unable to believe what she was seeing. Even though she’d known what the white fire was capable of, nothing like this had happened in the Lox Empire

As they passed what had once been the marketplace, the space where merchants had called out their wares and children had played, was now a mess of destruction; bits of cloth skimming along the ground, a child’s toy crushed beneath fallen stone, and a blood-splattered ledger whose pages scattered all over the area were the only things she could made sense of. So many lives had been destroyed, and she had caused this destruction—this time on a huge scale.

“Calm down,” Akoro murmured. “People are watching.”

“Did I really do this?” she said, over her shoulder.

“What did you think would happen when you drew that magic into this city?”

Naya face forward. “I didn’t intend for this to happen,” she muttered to herself. In truth, she hadn’t thought about it. She’d just wanted to get away. This looked like an act of war, and while she’d been forced to do it, Akoro was to blame, not these people. They didn’t deserve it, just like her people didn’t deserve what Akoro was trying to do to them. Naya tried to keep the guilt from seeping into her bones. She couldn’t take on the responsibility for something she had been forced to do, and yet she couldn’t ignore the children that were walking on the streets, their clothes ash covered, as though they had washed and put the same clothes back on. A group of women in patterned robes gathered up the children and were heading in the same direction as Akoro and Naya.

“These are children who have not yet been claimed,” Akoro said, following her gaze. “The neighborhood healers are looking after them. They are being taken to the communal area where people are pooling their food to help feed each other.”

Just as he finished speaking the communal area came into view.

Broken pillars and crumbling walls surrounded the space, but people had cleared enough debris to create paths between the improvised shelters—strips of fabric stretched between the posts to provide shade from the merciless sun. The air was thick with charred meat, herbs, spices, and unwashed bodies, punctuated by the occasional wail of a child.

Women moved through the crowds with practiced efficiency, distributing meager portions of flatbread and dried meat to those who couldn’t line up for the food being served on a large dais in the center of the space. Yet despite their movements, a heavy silence hung over the square—the kind of quiet that came from weary grief. Even the helpers who moved through area had the sallow, exhausted look of ragged survivors.

Naya gestured to the area. “Do you contribute anything to this?”

“Of course I do,” Akoro growled. “What kind of question is that?”

“I was just asking. It doesn’t seem like they have much.”

“The palace brings the majority of the food and medicine just beforelur ennenand just before sun down. But my people are independent. They have a strong sense of community and will help each other when they are in need. There are already groups rebuilding houses to rehome people, healers treating major and minor injuries, groups for creating clothes, searching for missing people, distributing help from the other regions… We’ve experienced this kind of hardship before.”

Naya kept her eyes on the area, twisting in her seat, as they trotted past, and when she couldn’t see them anymore, she turned and faced front. She couldn’t take on that guilt. Akoro had done this to his people and she had to make sure she remembered that.

---