UW02. Plains of Sand and Steel Read online

  PLAINS OF SAND AND STEEL

  UNCOMMON WORLD BOOK TWO

  ALISHA KLAPHEKE

  Contents

  1. Seren

  2. Ona

  3. Seren

  4. Ona

  5. Seren

  6. Seren

  7. Ona

  8. Seren

  9. Ona

  10. Seren

  11. Seren

  12. Ona

  13. Seren

  14. Seren

  15. Ona

  16. Seren

  17. Seren

  18. Seren

  19. Ona

  20. Seren

  21. Ona

  22. Seren

  23. Ona

  24. Seren

  25. Ona

  26. Seren

  27. Ona

  28. Ona

  29. Seren

  30. Ona

  31. Seren

  32. Seren

  33. Varol

  34. Seren

  35. Seren

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  This is a work of fiction. All events, dialogue, and characters are products of the author’s imagination. In all respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Alisha Klapheke

  Cover art copyright © 2017 by Merilliza Chan

  All rights reserved.

  Visit Alisha on the web! alishaklapheke.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Klapheke, Alisha

  Plains of Sand and Steel/Alisha Klapheke. —First edition.

  Summary: When her new royal husband dies at the beginning of an invasion, Seren must hide his body and use the visions the Holy Fire gives her to save the Empire from itself and its enemies—though a high-ranking general is bent on charging her with murder.

  ISBN 978-0-9987379-3-5 (ebook)

  ISBN 978-0-9987379-4-2 (print)

  [1. Fantasy. 2. Magic—Fiction.] I. Title.

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  First Edition

  ISBN: 978-0-9987379-3-5

  Created with Vellum

  For I.C., AA, & Mills

  SEREN

  A hot, desert wind swirled around the dais, tugging at Seren’s beaded kaftan and combing fingers through her jet hair as she stared down at the city. Her chest ached remembering her mother, who’d died when Seren was a baby, her father and sister—gone too—lost to Invader steel. But this city, her home, it eased that ache as she gazed at its people. Her people. Akhayma looked a lot like a hand. Fingers of water slipped from the oasis and through the many canals. Stone walls cupped everyone in a dusty palm. The scene pulled a smile out of Seren. The grin would topple soon—Meric would see to that—but for now, the turned-up edges of her mouth held. She savored the touch of happiness like a rare fruit as the pool’s mosaics scattered moonlight between conversations.

  “…and your grandfather shaped the steel that fought back the Invaders…”

  “Your ancestors found this oasis and built Akhayma with their own hands.”

  Tonight, on this most special of nights, there wasn’t any talk of business, lovers didn’t argue, co-workers kept their talk for another time. Tonight, Seren’s people laughed, wove stories, passed down details about family. That was what this was about. Seren’s smile broadened, lifting her cheeks and helping her stand beside the man she was too young to be married to and would never, ever have chosen for herself. Her father—the former High-General—had tried to keep her from this marriage, but the former kyros had ordered it. And not even generals said No to a kyros.

  She stepped closer to Meric, hoping it wasn’t too close. Sometimes he wanted to show her affection in public, but other times, no. Only ninety odd days into a marriage at seventeen, and she had little idea how to be a wife. Her smile wavered. She forced her lips up, afraid the light, easy feeling would be impossible to find if she lost it now.

  “We should do this more often,” she said, keeping that smile in place and ignoring Meric’s narrowing eyes.

  He coughed. “The Fire Ceremony?”

  “Just rolling back the tents to open the city to the sky. It makes everyone more…talkative.”

  The varied languages floated through the night air like music. Coming back here, to the city of her birth, hadn’t taken away the pain of losing her father, mother, and little sisters of course, but it lessened the ache in her soul. Akhayma had always been home.

  Meric scowled at the Holy Fire bowl. Inside the large, silver basin, Flames danced in the lahabshjara leaves.

  Beside them on the dais, the head of Clan Azjorr smoothed his black-striped kaftan. “Do you need another basket, Kyros Meric?” He gestured toward a servant clutching a hefty load of the emerald leaves.

  Another cough tore through Meric. “What I need is to get on with this so I can rest.”

  The clan leader’s cheeks darkened.

  Seren apologized to the nobleman, using her black eyes to show her empathy, then spun to face Meric. “Let me call the physician.”

  “He never heals me.”

  Seren nearly pulled a muscle trying not to roll her eyes. Barir did help. When Meric let him. Her husband was older than her, but he was such a child.

  “None of them fix anything.” Meric glared in the general direction of the physician’s home. Then, taking his position over the silver basin, he raised his high-pitched voice. “We gather here to honor the Holy Fire,” he called out over the crowd.

  He sounded like a bleating goat. Seren would’ve taken a goat over him any day. Goats didn’t yell at anyone or insult good people. She imagined a goat’s head in Meric’s finely embroidered kaftan and had to stifle a laugh with her sleeve.

  Despite Meric’s distinctly lackluster delivery of the ceremony’s opening words, the city quieted for their kyros.

  “Giver of knowledge and wisdom,” Meric continued, “weapon of our people, blessed and unrelenting. Holy Fire, grant us the Flame of your strength and invention. May ideas flicker from dreams into reality.”

  A warrior wearing a sweat-darkened military kaftan stepped out of the line. He was a scout.

  A chill slid through Seren’s bones.

  The scout paused at the dais steps, his helmeted head bowed reverently.

  Seren hurried over. “What’s wrong?” she whispered as Meric went on bleating.

  Standing on Meric’s other side, General Adem eyed Seren. His gaze lashed out and she flinched a little. His eyes drew a line from her to Meric, who was still praying. He wanted her to wait until Meric finished speaking to talk. But this scout wouldn’t be standing out of military line if everything was fine. Something was wrong and the Holy Fire would understand if there was an emergency. Seren clutched the scrap of mountain wool she kept in her sash, a bit of the skirt she’d been wearing when Invaders cut her family down.

  “What is it, scout?” Meric snapped at the younger man.

  The scout hurried up the stairs and approached Meric.

  The wind rose, sand giving it little teeth. Seren raised the thin scarf hanging at her neck to protect her face and to mask any response she might have to the scout’s report. An old trick of her father’s.

  Adem removed his silver helmet, his silver hair a close match, and inclined his head to listen.

  “We spotted Invaders on the horizon,” the scout whispered between Meric’s continued coughing.

  Seren shook her head. Surely she’d heard wrong.

  “An army of them, my kyros,” he said quietly to Meric. “Some on horseback.”

  Adem’s mouth tightened. He kept an eye on those around them.
“I was afraid of this, my kyros. When we first heard of their movement, I thought they were headed another direction, to invade lower Silvania instead. But…well, they will most likely strike Kenar for supplies after their journey from the West. They could conceivably cross our borders in two days. Kyros, you must tell me what you wish to do.” He stared at the Holy Fire bowl. “But please, finish the ceremony first.”

  Adem’s face seemed to blur, his gray beard and sun-browned skin hazy. Seren blinked, the chill deepening, seeping into her blood, her heart. Meekra rushed to her side, and Seren took the handmaiden’s slim fingers in her own. Despite her friend’s kind touch, Seren’s mind threw out memories of the Invaders’ sharp eyes, their wide, steel weapons, the way they shouted when they killed like it hurt them to shed blood, but they loved it anyway. She’d known they’d return. It was why she prayed for ideas from the Fire, kept up her studies of Father’s military scrolls, and trained in horse and bow daily.

  “I must…” Meric’s coughing doubled him over.

  Chilled blood racing through her, Seren took Meric’s arm and started him toward the stairs.

  “But you must finish…” Adem started.

  “What should we do, my kyros?” The scout twisted a hand around the hilt of his yatagan.

  “He’ll answer you as soon as the physician treats him,” Seren said, hoping Meric had an answer.

  General Adem addressed the city, and Seren watched over her shoulder as dark and light eyes both turned up to focus on him. “There is a military issue we must deal with immediately. Your kyros has blessed the basin, and you may come, one family at a time, to light your homefire sticks. May the Fire bless us all.”

  As Seren hurried Meric away, with their guards and servants around them, she said, “Call for your father, Meekra.”

  She didn’t care that Meric thought the physician never helped. Meric was wrong. Barir knew several ways to calm this cough he struggled with day-to-day.

  The Kyros Walls rose up beside them as they entered the courtyard and headed toward the main tent. Another gust of sand grated across Seren’s bare forearms and the single bell tied around her head to hang between her eyebrows.

  “And Cansu,” she said to the long-faced guard who’d been kind since the day he was assigned to Seren, “you will go with her. I don’t like this weather.”

  The two rushed into the night while her other two guards and a handful of Meric’s fighters followed Seren and Meric inside.

  In the main tent, the moon bled through the ceiling’s patterned weave. Light in the shape of blurry stars dotted the room. At the door dividing the main tent from Seren and Meric’s personal chambers, the guards took up positions, relieving the men that had been there during the ceremony.

  “Erol,” Seren said, “Protect the back entrance to my chamber along with the others serving there now. Tell them nothing. I don’t want anyone worrying.”

  Hossam, black hair more wild than normal, pushed the door back, the woven flaps too, and helped Seren get Meric inside. Erol sped past them, heading out the rear door of the bed chamber. Hossam gave Seren a quick bow, then left to join the other armed men and women in the main tent.

  Another tight cough shook Meric. Seren worked the knot in his ceremonial phoenix sash, throwing it to the ground, trying anything to make him more comfortable. White skin ringed his mouth. He dropped to sit on the bed, chin down, hands splayed and covering the bedcover’s calligraphy that spelled out his name and title. Kyros Meric, the Eternally Victorious.

  Lying back on a tasseled pillow, he shut his eyes, gasping like a fish without water.

  Where was Barir?

  Meric needed the physician now. Maybe Meekra and Cansu were having trouble getting to his quarters in the weather. What if a sandstorm hit right now?

  Tears burned at the corners of Seren’s eyes. Invaders. Sandstorms.

  Meric had to be all right.

  She didn’t know how to take care of an Empire. Images of maps and lists of agreements from Father’s time as the old kyros's general flickered through her head. Father had taught her a lot. But talking about leading was different from actually doing it. She wasn’t the heir anyway. She didn’t have any royal blood.

  The whistling in Meric’s lungs kept on, and he gasped more violently, his back arching at a painful angle. Seren couldn’t stop shivering.

  Barir walked into the room, tugging at his long, gray beard, his dark eyes worried. Meekra and Cansu trailed the physician like shadows.

  Seren heaved a breath. “Please. Help him.”

  Meric’s color was all wrong.

  “I need to dose him with ka’ud,” Barir said as he approached the bed.

  Meekra tucked a curl of dark hair behind her ear, took her father’s medicine satchel, and set it on the side table.

  Cansu’s throat moved in a swallow. His hand brushed the five high-caste bells on his sash as he joined the other guards outside the door.

  Seren heard Adem’s low grumble of a voice outside the door, probably asking for a report on the kyros's state.

  “I’ll tell him he’s being treated,” Meekra said.

  Seren couldn’t look away from Meric. The sudden hollowness to his cheeks. A hair lying over his left eye. His kaftan rumpled under his arms and how he did nothing to fix it.

  “Thank you,” she said to Meekra.

  Barir pulled a length of the rare, resinous wood from his bag and set a shallow dish on the bedside table. Praying quickly over the Holy Fire bowl in the corner, he lit the ka’ud with the Flames and arranged the smoking wood in the dish. Blue clouds billowed over the kyros. Barir listened to Meric’s lungs, his head on his chest.

  Meric’s shifting legs stilled.

  Something sharp and cold cut into Seren’s heart and she reached for his hand. His fingers were too limp.

  “Meric?” Her heart beat in her ears.

  He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. His lips had gone blue.

  Barir rose. “Pearl of the Desert, I don’t want to tell you this.”

  She held her breath.

  “Please forgive the bearer of bad news.” His voice dropped to a hush. “The kyros is dead.”

  The buzz in her ears was deafening.

  Meric, the man whose father saved her from the Invaders who’d killed her little sisters and father, the man who acted like a spoiled child one minute and a violent storm the next, Meric the Eternally Victorious, was dead.

  Shaking so badly she could hardly stand, Seren positioned Meric’s hands on his chest as was custom. He looked so much like his father had. Her own father’s closest friend. Sweat bloomed across her forehead and chest.

  No. It can’t be.

  Barir stared at her and moved his lips like he was about to say something.

  “What should I do?” An invisible sandstorm tore at her thoughts, her heart. She gripped the edges of the bed to stay upright. In the corner, the Holy Fire’s orange-blue fingers spread over emerald leaves.

  “You should pray, general’s daughter,” Barir whispered.

  “Now?”

  “I’ve seen you pray, my lady.” His mouth relaxed into a solemn line.

  Seren was shaking all over. “Don’t call me my lady. You’ve known me since I was a baby.”

  “You are the highest in the land as of now.” Face grave, he nodded toward the Fire.

  She went to the bowl and passed her hands over the flickering light. Bright heat tickled her palms. Her eyes fluttered shut, then open again. A familiar peace slid over her like a warm breeze on a chilly night, and her shaking eased. The small basin’s copper surface reflected the orange-blue Flames. Barir stayed quiet.

  Please, I need help, she prayed silently.

  Holding both palms at an angle over the Fire, she took a deep breath. The skin between her eyebrows twinged and a warmth rushed through her heart, all the way to her fingertips.

  A curl of Flame appeared in front of her face, hovering high over the bowl.

  She gasped.

/>   Barir said something quick and quiet under his breath.

  Many prayed to the Holy Fire. Only a few in history were blessed with the Hovering Flame, the true light of invention and purpose.

  The flesh in Seren’s hands glowed with the intense shine of the Holy Fire. Illuminated from within, bones showed under red skin as a vision burned into her mind.

  The corners of the Empire shimmered into view. Places she’d traveled to with Father when he was still the High General. Far off towns and seas. Markets and boats. Laughing children. Men and women talking, some singing, some arguing. Light skin, darker skin, people from every clan in the plains and the border towns in the mountains where Father had taken the family when he retired.

  Then Akhayma came into view.

  A shadowy cloud churned in the sky beyond the walls. Above it all, a length of pure white linen wrapped itself around Meric’s body. The storm near the walls shimmered, became men with wide weapons of steel, screaming and weeping as they swamped the city, more deadly than any storm. In the vision, Seren waved a hand and hid Meric’s corpse in the night clouds. She took up his best kaftan—a kyros's kaftan, hemmed in silver phoenixes—and raised it above her head. The invading men blew into dust. Kyros Seren! the people shouted, suddenly smiling and holding their homefire branches. Their lights became the stars above the desert, and a calm covered Seren’s panicking heart like a great, invisible hand.

  The vision faded.

  The thread of Holy Fire in front of her face unspooled and fell into its brother and sister Flames.

  She faced Barir, and the real world—and its very real trouble—intruded as suddenly as an arrow from the darkness, piercing Seren’s calm, bleeding it dry until she trembled again. All in the time it took to breathe in. The things she’d seen…it had only been her imagination. She hadn’t seen a vision. It was impossible. Wasn’t it? The Fire had given her ideas before, but they’d been simple words and thoughts in her head, small things like the idea to free that kind-eyed young man from Old Farm and to hire the famed mercenaries of Silvania. It was odd enough to gain those ideas without royal blood, but actual visions? It just could not be. But…