Fever: An Uncommon World Novella Page 4

  The first guard clamped down on my wrist and hefted me up. “Don’t even believe you are high-caste.”

  “This one definitely isn’t,” the second guard said.

  Radi set his jaw as the man put a yatagan’s long, steel edge to his throat.

  My skin felt too thin and my heart beat in my ears. “Please. You must let me speak to the kyros. Or his advisor. I’m not lying.”

  The guards led us—along with Arrow who certainly didn’t deserve to be a part of all this—to the back of the city.

  “This boy’s cousin is the kyros’s handmaiden. We need to speak to her. Where are you taking us?” I asked. “To see the kyros?”

  The guards laughed and Radi shook his head. “They’re taking us to the cells.”

  My bones were hollow. My heartbeat echoed through them.

  “Radi. I’m so sorry. You should’ve run. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “You didn’t force me to do anything. I’m here because I want to be. Well, I don’t want to be here exactly. But, you know.”

  “Shut your mouths,” the first guard spat as we crossed under a huge arch and into a sloped area filled with archery targets, a long row of what looked like stables, low buildings crowded with armed fighters, and a line of barred cells. The sun burned the image into my eyes and a shiver tugged at my limbs.

  They were going to cage us like animals.

  A stable boy ran up, and with direction from the guards, took Arrow to the stables. As her shiny coat and silky tail disappeared, my stomach worked its way toward my throat. She was my only way home. I couldn’t make it back to Jakobden on foot. Not on my own.

  The guards pushed Radi and me into the same cell.

  “Wait, please,” Radi said. “My cousin Meekra works for Pearl of the Desert. Can you at least send a message to her? She won’t know my name but—”

  The guard ignored Radi.

  The clang of the bolt sliding shut blasted through me, turning my legs to pudding. I curled a hand around the bars to keep from falling.

  Radi winced, his face a mask of pity. Two men and a woman crouched in the back corners, their clothing in rags and their faces thin. They looked at us like we might eat them for breakfast.

  “Avi.” Radi grasped the bars and looked into the training field. “What are we going to do now?”

  I dropped to my knees and stared at the lock, with no idea how to escape. We were trapped. Maybe for the rest of our lives. Worrying for Kinneret, I’d acted like her. Reckless. Not at all like myself. I should have planned and taken my time. Figured out something smart instead of climbing walls like a fool. And now Kinneret was going to die without Calev to save her and without her only family at her side.

  I put my head in my hands and cried.

  5

  Calev

  My stomach growled as I dried my hands on the cloth near a pile of clean platters. I’d spent an entire day, a night, and most of this day too working off what I owed Samira, picking up after idiots who acted like I had my first night here. Now I had to leave. To get to the kyros.

  Today was an open supplication day for people who didn’t have formal appointments, messages from foreign rulers or any of the Empire’s amirs. Today, even as a ragged nobody, I could get into the Kyros Walls. What I would do once I had the kyros's attention, I wasn’t sure, but the sun hung low in the sky and there was no time left for wondering. The last rays pierced the tent and gave Samira’s inn the glow of blood.

  “Leaving so soon?” Checking that none of the patrons peered over her countertop, Samira set two bags of coin in a hole under a wooden carving of a desert lion.

  “Yes. You said the kyros sees anyone today, right?”

  She nodded. “And in five days, he will again.”

  “In five days, I’ll be at home.”

  “What are you going to show the kyros to prove your story?”

  “He’ll believe me.”

  The slant of her eyebrow told me she didn’t think so, but I didn’t care. I had to try.

  “Thank you for all the help. I won’t forget what you did for me.”

  Samira’s eyebrow lifted mockingly. “Ah, it was nothing. If you want to work again tonight and get a meal out of it, come back to me, lord servant.”

  “Lord servant isn’t a title I relish. I think my time wearing it is over.”

  “So haughty is the lord servant! We’ll see how you feel when the kyros throws you out on your handsome bum.”

  “Goodbye, Samira.”

  “May the Holy Fire bless you.”

  “But not so much that I won’t work out an indenture to you for the rest of my days, hm?”

  She smiled wide. “That’s about right.”

  The line going through the Kyros Walls snaked around the oasis pool and through the market. It was nearly nightfall, and I was close enough to study the hilt of a guard’s yatagan. Small pomegranates decorated the length of it and made me miss home.

  Or did I?

  Father was going to explode when he heard all of this. He’d publicly punish me at best and Kinneret would never have me as her husband. At worst, I’d be cast out of Old Farm.

  My empty stomach rolled.

  Father and the amir were expecting me by nightfall in two days. My failure would shame Ekrem as the new amir. The agreement between the Empire—with Jakobden’s amir as representative—and Old Farm had been continuous and peaceful for two hundred years.

  My knuckles pressed into my forehead where my headtie had been until the robbery.

  Had I already started problems between the people at home? Had I already lost my people’s chance to remain as we were, with our own traditions and commerce, separate from the Empire?

  Surely, Amir Ekrem would be merciful. He was a good man. But even if he and his advisors didn’t begin tougher negotiations or accuse Old Farm of not taking his rule seriously, I would still be seen as a failure and a fool. How would I provide for Kinneret without my position?

  I blew out a breath, staring at the people in front of me. Why was this taking so long?

  I nudged the man in front of me. “Sorry, but do you think we’ll get in today?”

  The man bunched his lips. “Hmm. Maybe?” He shrugged and crossed his arms in a strange way with both hands on top of his forearms.

  Closing my eyes, I prayed very, very hard.

  “You,” a deep voice said.

  It was a new man. He wore a warrior’s kaftan and pants, but with detailed embroidery around the collar and down the sleeves. He had a bright blue sash devoid of bells, which spoke of his pure desert bloodline. His gaze went from my own clothing to my face like he was looking for clues.

  “Come. Why are you here?” he asked.

  Hope soared inside my chest. Hope mixed with the fear of falling into even worse trouble. Following him through the Kyros Walls, I explained everything. By the time I stopped talking, we’d arrived at the finest tent, the one with stars along its top.

  “I don’t believe this wild story.” The man didn’t look at me as he said those terrible words. Instead, he peered inside the kyros's tent and pulled something green from his sash. “But I do know the kyros was set to meet with an Old Farm representative. Yesterday.”

  So even if I did gain entrance and did everything right, I’d still be on his bad side for missing the appointment. My stomach rolled. Kyros Meric was known to be mercurial. One wrong word and your life was forfeit. I swallowed. I had to keep my wits about me and do the best I could.

  “It’s the truth,” I said to the warrior. “I swear it. Ask me anything about Old Farm.”

  “There have been strange tales coming out of Jakobden. No one quite understands what happened to dispose Amir Mamluk. And the talk about that girl and her abilities with the cursed waters there…”

  “Kinneret. She is my Intended.”

  “Your Intended?”

  “She will be my wife.”

  “And tomorrow you’ll be the kyros, yes?”

  “No. I’
m serious. I was with her during the discovery of hidden Ayarazi. The deaths…the—”

  “Enough. Your story is interesting. The kyros won’t want to hear all of it, but his wife, Seren, Pearl of the Desert, will. And I, Erol, one of her personal guards, do everything I can to please her.”

  His black eyes shone as he guided me into the tent and pressed the green something from his sash into my hand. “Chew this mint so you’ll be presentable to the royals.”

  I did as I was told, thinking of what Oron would say. He would’ve made some comment now about better places to stick that mint. I wished I could laugh.

  My guide Erol walked over to the copper Holy Fire bowl and passed a hand over the flames, praying silently. He gave me a look. Though I wasn’t wearing my sigil ring or my Old Farm headtie, I had to show them I was who I said I was.

  I shook my head, politely refraining from worshipping like the rest of the Empire. The guide’s eyebrows rose, but he dipped his chin in acknowledgment and led me up a long rug where I bowed to the royal couple and their general.

  The kyros leaned on the arm of his silver gilt chair, looking bored. His wife, Seren, Pearl of the Desert, stood tall in a dark blue kaftan, a yellow sash and—like the old amir had in Jakobden—she wore a slim length of leather around her head. A single, high-caste bell hung from the tie, touching a spot between the eyebrows.

  After the guide spoke to them, Seren smiled kindly, but her eyes were tired. Being a kyros's wife probably wasn’t the easiest of roles and she’d only been married a few weeks. Despite the tired eyes, she looked as young as Kinneret.

  The kyros himself was a weasel of a man. Just the way he sat, angled away from his wife and with that sulky posture told me everything I needed to know.

  He looked me up and down. “You claim to be Amir Ekrem and Chairman Y’hoshua ben Aharon’s emissary?”

  “Yes, my kyros.” My words shook a little, but I managed not to sound like the idiot I was.

  “Where is the agreement? Am I to apply my symbol, my royal sigil, to your forehead?”

  Some of the courtiers around laughed, but most narrowed their eyes like I’m sure I did. His wife, Seren, breathed out through her nose, irritated.

  “It would be an honor, my kyros, but I doubt the ink would hold under the weight of three days of hot travel.”

  Kyros Meric smiled. “Perhaps you’re right. Can you tell the details of the agreement?”

  He’d need them to create a new copy to sign and seal. He also probably wanted them so he could check my story.

  “Of course, my kyros.”

  As I started detailing the bushels of lemons and olives and the amount of barley and wheat we’d produced on average the last ten years, my tongue moved slowly and my mind whirred facts out too quickly. I stumbled over percentages of profit through trade.

  Erol said something quietly in the desert tongue. The kyros nodded and shifted in his chair.

  I smoothed my wrinkled, sashless tunic and tried not to worry about what he’d said. “So the amir will keep thirty percent of the late harvest trade profit and an eighth of the actual products.”

  The kyros waved impatiently. “Fine. Fine. But what happened to you? Why are you presenting yourself to me like a pauper?”

  “I was robbed, my kyros.”

  He sat up, a hand on the hilt of his personal dagger. An emerald winked at me. “In my city? No.”

  “Yes.”

  Every sound in the room blinked out of existence.

  All I could hear was my own heart beating the consequence of what I’d done. I’d publicly disagreed with Kyros Meric. My life was forfeit.

  Pressing my lips together, I bowed low, pressing my forehead into the rug. My heart pounded erratically.

  Shaking, I lifted my gaze and saw Erol speaking with the kyros. Seren put a hand on Kyros Meric’s arm, her eyes imploring.

  “You should die for your disrespect,” the kyros said.

  My stomach clenched. I forced myself to keep breathing. I had so many more things to do in life. I didn’t want it to be over yet. I wanted to become chairman of Old Farm, to enjoy my engagement to Kinneret, to be Avi’s brother and Oron’s confidant.

  “But I won’t have you killed just yet,” he said. “If you are who you say you are…well, I won’t put the Old Farm chairman’s son to death so quickly.” The kyros nodded to two guards. “Take him to the cells. I’ll have to think on what to do.”

  The cells? As in, prison?

  I held up my hands. “Perhaps, my kyros, if you sent a rock dove to Old Farm and asked them to verify my story—”

  The guards grabbed my arms. Their fingers dug into the bruises from the robbery, but the pain lancing through me had nothing to do with flesh and bone. My pain was the agony of knowing I had failed, miserably, utterly, and totally failed.

  I imagined Father’s angry eyes, the dejected set to his mouth when he learned his eldest son was rotting in a cell in Akhayma. In my mind, I saw confusion twist Kinneret’s beautiful face and could almost hear her arguing that the story couldn’t be true, that her Calev wouldn’t do something so stupid, that I’d never risk staying at a low inn or fall to thieves during such an important mission.

  Before I closed my eyes and let the guards drag me from the tent, I saw Seren whispering in Kyros Meric’s ear. Probably yet another person shocked at my behavior, at my lack of propriety, at what they believed were lies.

  As they walked me to a row of barred rooms near the military training facilities, I hated myself more and more. Because I’d been in a hurry to rest and eat, I’d spend my life wasting away in the kyros's prison.

  6

  Avi

  Radi elbowed me and jerked his chin toward the other cells. “A new prisoner.”

  “We have to focus on how we can get out of here.”

  The man they threw into a cell two down from ours had shoulder-length black hair. I squinted. Something about him plucked a string in me.

  I hurried to the far side of the cell and looked again. Dirty tunic. Definitely not from here. From Jakobden. But the fabric. The little red spots—

  “Pomegranates!”

  The noise of the training field—yatagans banging together and horses galloping—covered my outburst.

  Radi eyed me like I’d gone as mad as the man humming in the corner. I grabbed the front of Radi’s kaftan and shook him.

  “That’s my brother-in-law!”

  I pushed away from him to go see again, to make sure. It was impossible. But I was almost sure.

  Radi came up beside me. “Don’t yell to him until those guards leave. You’ll draw the wrong kind of attention.”

  “But that guard is here all the time. What about him?”

  “He’s a middle-caste guard. He won’t care as much as the high-caste ones.”

  I did notice the bells on the permanent guard’s shoulders. But a shout built up behind my lips regardless. I had to call out to Calev, to get him to turn around, to see if it really was him. The high-caste guards traded words with the middle-caste guard, and they grumbled. One made some sort of joke and they all laughed before the high-caste ones stalked away, heading toward the city’s back gate.

  “Calev!” I hissed. My bones pressed into my skin, into the bars, like I could squeeze through if I only tried hard enough. “It’s Avi!”

  Radi kept an eye on the guard, who scraped something off the bottom of his boot and spit into the dirt.

  The cell between us and the man I thought might be Calev was crowded. Eleven people milled about the space, blocking my view.

  “Move!” I waved an arm at them.

  One woman glared at me and chewed her thumbnail. Everyone else completely ignored me.

  I growled and bumped the bars with the bottom of my fist.

  Radi began speaking to the people in the next cell. The foreign words sounded so beautiful, though I didn’t have time for beauty right now. Several faces looked up at him. Most shifted to the front of the cell.

&nbs
p; The man I hoped was Calev had his arms crossed and his back to me. His body was coiled with anger, probably frustration.

  “Calev!”

  He spun. Familiar eyes widened. Inside me, joy opened her arms and threw happy tears down my cheeks.

  Calev flung himself against the bars, his face pale. “What are you doing here?” His words were a shaking sail in an undecided wind.

  “Me? What are you doing here? You should be honored. You’re doing the amir’s work. And the chairman’s. Why did they lock you up?”

  Calev’s gaze flicked between me and Radi. “Because I’m an idiot.”

  “I’m going to need more than that.” I pressed my forehead against the metal.

  As he ran hands through his hair, a purple bruise showed along his forearm. And another under his cheek. His headtie was gone. It was obvious something terrible had happened to him.

  I sighed and introduced Radi. “He helped me look for you. The guards here wouldn’t let me into the courtyard. When we failed, I climbed the Kyros Walls and went a little mad trying to get everyone’s attention, to see if you were around.”

  Calev bent at the middle, shoulders moving in a heavy breath, then straightened. “I was careless. I stayed at a low-fare inn and drank too much. Let down my guard. Stayed in an inn I shouldn’t have. Some men laced my food with gray plant, then robbed me. They took the agreement between Jakobden and Old Farm. They took my ring.” He held up a hand, his lips tipped low at the edges.

  I scratched my head and blinked.

  Calev nodded and looked away.

  “You are an idiot,” I said.

  Radi made a noise that said he disagreed.

  “Well? He is. How could you, Calev? You have everything. Why would you risk it by being careless in a city you don’t know?”

  “Says the girl who was arrested for climbing the Kyros Walls,” Radi said quietly, raising an eyebrow.

  I flashed him a glare.

  “There’s no excuse,” Calev said. “I was careless. Arrogant.” He breathed out heavily. “Then I presented myself to the kyros. I told him everything. But he didn’t believe I’d been robbed and my mouth moved before I could stop it and I disagreed with him. Out loud.”