Jay Lake - Green

She sighed. “I have never seen so many people, even adding up all the days of my life. Now, who are you, please?”

Think like a Blade, I told myself, and not a former student of this woman. “This is my city. You will answer first. Who are you, and what is your business here?”

“I am… searching for something.” She took a long look into my veiled eyes. “A priceless emerald stolen several years ago in Copper Downs.”

Me.

A chill stole across my spine, counterpoint to the redness in my eyes and ears. Me. What did they want me back for? Enslaved, boxed up for years, then turned loose to kill, after all the use they’d made of me, after all the ruin they’d made of my life, why call me back now?

Betrayal flooded me like bile in my sleeping mouth. “You will not find it here!” I roared in Seliu.

The knife was in my hand now. She kicked me with those powerful hind legs-so hard, I slammed against the door of the small haven and tumbled out to land among the jumbled trash and equipment.

My back hurt, my legs shivered, and the wound in my upper arm felt raw all over again. The Dancing Mistress leapt out of the little shack just in time to meet my arms coming up. I threw her past me, then followed to jump on her legs and scrabble for her neck from behind.

She twisted, sloughed me off, then caught my right thigh with a handful of claws. I kicked at her, scooted backwards and onto my feet as I brought the knife out far enough to make her rethink her next lunge.

We circled a moment, both panting. Neither of us had gone for the eyes or the throat. There were some rules here, then. At least until one of us discarded them. I would not let her kill me, and I would not let her take me back to Copper Downs.

I had slain a teacher before.

She spun on one heel, whip fast, but I knew that move from the old days. The Dancing Mistress had never taught me to attack, but she’d taught me to defend myself, and I still defended best from her. Shoulder first, I leapt inside the swing of her other leg and slammed into her chest. The knife could have gone into her gut, but I pulled the blow and scored a deep cut on her thigh.

We separated once more.

“You did not make the kill,” she gasped.

“A mistake I shall not repeat.”

We circled a moment longer, both catching our breath, before we met in a flurry of blows. I tapped her hard, half a dozen times, but she tapped me harder, twice on the side of my head so that she drove me to my knees.

This time, the Dancing Mistress bore me down with sheer weight. She let the claws of her right hand extend for her kill as she whipped away my mask and veil with her left.

The shock of recognition was written large and plain upon her face. “Green?”

“Never Emerald,” I spat. A sob caught up with me then, overwhelming the red river of my anger.

“Up,” someone said in Seliu. I looked to see Mother Vishtha leading a handle. Five women with swords out. One of them was Jappa, at that.

I staggered to my feet. “You came just in time, this-”

The flat of Mother Vishtha’s blade darted in and caught me on the side of the head, right on the bruise the Dancing Mistress had raised. I whimpered and dropped back to my knees.

Her voice was hollow, and came to me from a distance I could not measure in that moment. “There is a riot below. Death Right has been cried. Worse, you have exposed a small haven to a stranger.” Mother Vishtha’s breath was hot on my face then as she leaned close. Even in my blow-addled stupor, I could read the fury in her eyes. “You have broken too many stalks today, Green.”

They bound our hands and marched us to the edge of the roof, where we were lowered on ropes from one hostile set of hands to another before being taken away as prisoners through the roaring city. Every step was misery, every glance from the Dancing Mistress a murderous accusation.

Soon enough, we were in a cell beneath the Temple. I did not recognize the room, though it was off the same damp hallway as our practice rooms. I had always thought the little door led to a closet or some such.

I sat with my back to mossy stone. The Dancing Mistress sat facing me against the other wall. A large ewer of water stood between us, and a smaller metal bucket for slops. Some light flickered through the window relieved within the door, and beneath the crack at the bottom, but we sat mostly in red-laced shadow. I ached abominably, as after a very rough round of sparring. Which was unsurprising, of course. The Dancing Mistress winced also.

For a very long time we just looked at one another. Even in the deep shadow, I could see that her eyes were tightened and her ears set low. That meant she was angry. I knew my own face must be hard as well. All the doubts that had flooded into me when she’d mentioned the word emerald were back, deviling me.

I would not restart the fight with her, but neither would I treat with her. Mother Vishtha said I’d broken too many stalks. Quite possibly that was true, and a great pity besides. But where the Dancing Mistress had come from, I’d not only broken stalks, I’d set fire to the entire plantation.

Whoever wanted me there, whatever they wanted me for, it could not be to the good.

Everything was broken; everything was ruined. I did not fear the Death Right, but I was finished in this city. Even if I hid my face for a few years, whenever I reappeared, people would mark the scars and remember scandal and old disgrace. I knew how these Selistani were-tongues sharp as adders’ teeth and a memory for insult that could extend across generations.

As for the traitorous wretch across from me, she had everything to fear from the Death Right. I’d claimed the life of one Stone Coaster who had killed in self-defense. My privilege, such as it might be now, was no shield at all to her.

She could keep her damned emeralds and phony stories about stolen valuables and the preciousness of whatever had been snatched across the sea against its will.

They will kill her.

“Green.” The Dancing Mistress’ voice was soft.

That was when I realized I was sobbing. “Leave me alone,” I said in Seliu, barely able to speak through the tears.

“I’m sorry,” she replied in Petraean.

My heart roiled along with my gut. I took a few breaths to calm myself, then answered her in that language. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you.”

“Well, you found me. More fool you.” Bitterness infused my voice.

“No fool at all. The first hour I was here, I found you.” She smiled, lopsided with some pain in her neck or jaw. “As if my steps had been guided.”

Perhaps they had, if the Lily Goddess’ hand was to be discerned. “Don’t be so pleased. You are about to be charged under the Death Right.”

“I was attacked.”

“You killed, without privilege.” I shrugged, which sent a stabbing pain through my old wound. “It is our way here.”

She stepped across the cell and knelt before me. “Nonetheless, I am glad I found you. Such a fight you made. I am proud of you.”

“Even though I landed blows on you?”

“Especially because you landed blows on me.”

I laughed through the bitter tears. The Dancing Mistress tore a strip off her toga and dipped it in the ewer. I wondered what she was about when she turned back and said, “Let me bathe your hurts.”

For a moment, I wanted to send her away with my words and with my hands, but I stopped myself. Whatever she’d come for, it hadn’t been to push me once more into the confines of the Pomegranate Court. The Duke was vanished to dust, and the Factor with him. Mistress Tirelle was dead. No one remained to keep me in that place.

I began to slip free of my blacks. “Why did you ask for an emerald? I thought you were here to take me into captivity once again.”