Page 38 of Fate of the Argosi

She shrugged his hand away. ‘Kindly do not tell me what my mother was or was not doing, or how I should or should not regard her gift. She ruined my naming day, planting inside my chest a terrible blossom that I can never pluck from my heart, no matter how hard I try.’ The locket snapped closed and disappeared back down the front of her shirt. ‘But I keep her gift with me, always.’ She leaned close to Ala’tris, almost as if she were about to bestow her mother’s kiss on another. ‘Long before a Mahdek child learns to hate the Jan’Tep, we learn that those who offer charity frequently expect something far more valuable in return.’

Ala’tris didn’t retreat. She waited for Kievan to step back before speaking. Her eyes were red-rimmed and filled with as much outrage as shame. ‘Is that what you believe of us? That we’ve risked exile and perhaps even death just so that we can exploit you in such a vicious, vile manner?’

Kievan walked around her, slowly, as if inspecting a statue in a museum. ‘Your ancestors may have stolen the magic from mine, Jan’Tep, but they left us with a talent that rivals your spells or even Ferius’s Argosi ways. Our gaze can discern a hundred different shades of hatred and contempt in the smiles of others. Our ears can detect a thousand cackles or snarls in their kindly words.’

‘Speak then,’ Ala’tris said, shoulders back, prepared for the worst. ‘Put a name to the wickedness you see in my eyes and hear in my speech.’

When next the two were facing each other, Kievan stopped and lifted her chin to meet the other woman’s eyes. ‘Hope,’ she said quietly. ‘I see hope for your people, and compassion for mine. So much compassion for our plight . . .’ She brought up a finger and traced the arch of one of Ala’tris’s eyebrows. ‘It makes you blissfully unaware of how much our weakness disgusts you.’

I couldn’t see Ala’tris’s expression from where I was standing, but I knew her eyes would be bloodshot, holding back indignant tears she knew she couldn’t release. Too much was at stake, and besides, Kievan wouldn’t care. I knew something else too, and this time I didn’t need memories of Durral or Enna to make me see what had taken place here.

Smiles and kind words can hide evil intentions, but callousness can just as easily mask acquiescence, and a decision already made. Every negotiation begins with laying out the facts. Ala’tris had needed the Mahdek to accept the ugly truth of their situation on this continent. In turn, Kievan had forced Ala’tris to see that she didn’t know a damned thing about what it meant to be Mahdek.

Turns out it was a lesson I’d needed to learn too.

Kievan strode over to Sar’ephir and looked down at the pile of sand still waiting in the taller woman’s hand. ‘You were going to give us another display of magic?’

Sar’ephir nodded.

‘A beautiful envisioning of some strange, magical realm that can only be reached by your spellship? A bountiful land, uninhabited and inaccessible to the Jan’Tep or Berabesq or Zhuban?’ She gestured absently towards Ala’tris. ‘This was all a practice run for when you both stand before our council of elders. She destroys our people’s three-hundred-year-old dream of resettling our own territory, and you offer us a bright and shiny new one.’

Sar’ephir looked more amused than concerned. ‘Precisely.’

Kievan took the tall woman’s hand and turned it over so that the sand fell to the barracks’ floor. ‘Then no more mystical demonstrations will be required.’

‘Kievan, wait,’ I said, my arta loquit searching frantically for the right words to stop this from falling apart. ‘Just because th—’

‘You misunderstand, Ferius.’ Our eyes met briefly, and I knew in an instant that yet again my arta precis had failed to show me what one of my own people was planning. Turning on her heel, she faced the other eleven runaways. In their faces, beaming with excitement, I saw mirrored what must have been on her own. ‘We ran away from our families because we couldn’t endure the gloom and despair that left them unable to see even the brightest stars overhead. Wouldn’t it be –’ she glanced back briefly at Ala’tris and her coven, a wry smile on her lips – ‘magical if we could return to them bringing the stars with us?’

There was an explosion then – an eruption of cheering and shouting, hugging and crying that shook the rafters and sent me scurrying out the door. It was all too much for me. Too much joy born of sorrow – the bright light that blinds eyes grown accustomed to the darkness. I ran from the barracks, down the dirt track to where Quadlopo was standing in a copse of sparse trees, munching on the same bush as Conch, who seemed determined to outpace him. I placed my hand on the horse’s back, rested my forehead against his neck and waited for my breath to return or the fist to unclench from my chest. Either would’ve been nice.

Wasn’t long before I heard footsteps, which was polite of her since she has to work against her own reflexes to be anything but dead silent.

‘Well, that went real dark, real fast.’ Arissa came and leaned her back against Quadlopo’s haunch. Then she took out a smoking reed and lit it, taking a puff before staring at it quizzically. ‘Then it just got weird.’

I nodded. Weird was definitely the right word. That’s some pure arta loquit right there.

She took out a second smoking reed, lit it with the first and offered it to me. ‘Sure you don’t want to try it? The Gitabrian sailor who got me hooked on these things promised they were good for the lungs.’

‘Pretty sure he lied,’ I said, but took the reed from her anyway. It tasted horrible, thick and smoky and oily all at the same time. Then again, many of the finer things in life are an acquired taste, so I inhaled a second time, deeper. That set me coughing something awful and I decided that maybe some tastes aren’t meant to be acquired.

‘You okay?’ Arissa asked.

‘Funny thing to ask someone you just tried to poison.’

‘Not that. The other thing.’

‘What other thing?’

She nudged over, put her arms around me and held me tight like she didn’t think I could stand on my own. ‘It’s a hard thing to realise you can see through a thousand mysteries with those Argosi eyes of yours, but can’t recognise yourself in your own people.’

Yeah. That explained why I was crying so much.

23

The Refuge

Where do you hide nearly three hundred people from the rest of the world? Can you really house, feed, clothe and provide medical care to that many bodies without anyone figuring it out? Not their enemies, not your own government, not even the folks in neighbouring towns and villages? What’s to stop the clerks, guards and labourers needed to keep the operation running from selling your secret to the highest bidder? Why wouldn’t all those merchant caravans bringing supplies start making enquiries into how you go through them so fast?

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