Amanda Downum - The Drowning City

Isyllt smiled; Kiril had told her a few of those stories. “When did you leave the service?”

“After the old king died. I married, and my wife wanted me to keep my skin intact. I still took an occasional job. It gets in your blood after a time.”

She nodded.

His eyes narrowed. “My wife died ten years ago and I hadn’t the heart to stay in Selafai. Memories are worse than ghosts. I told myself I’d retired, but when I learned of the rebellion here…”

Isyllt lifted a hand, palm up, baring the blue veins in her wrist. “In your blood.”

More footsteps approached and Zhirin paused diffidently in the doorway. “Am I disturbing?” The cook slid a pan of dough over glowing coals before retreating to give them privacy. Zhirin waited till the slap of her sandals faded, then moved closer.

“I’ve sent word to Jabbor. We’re to meet tomorrow, near the Kurun Tam. I’m sorry it can’t be sooner-”

“I understand,” Isyllt said, lips quirking. “Some things shouldn’t be rushed.”

The girl shifted her weight, slippers rasping on tile. “I’m going into the city today, meliket, to look for a costume for the festival. I thought perhaps you’d like to come.”

“Yes.” Relax , she told herself. Play the tourist. With less wine. “Yes, I’d like that.”

Market Street was wider than most in Symir, more of a plaza, and packed nearly wall to wall with people. Assari and Sivahri voices tangled together as vendors haggled and hawked their wares. Silks and spices, brass and silver and steel, screeching birds and lazing lizards-Isyllt saw barely half the offered merchandise as she kept up with Zhirin, trying to find the rhythm of the crowd. Her height gave her an advantage but made her conspicuous as well. At least Adam had gone elsewhere to look around; an armed shadow would have drawn even more attention in a place like this.

She struggled not to flinch away from the careless brush of shoulders and arms. Erisín had its share of crowded places, but even the worst recognized the need for personal space. This was a thief’s playground. Or an assassin’s.

Zhirin led them out of the press eventually, into a narrow second-story shop. The crowds opened enough to move without touching anyone and Isyllt drew a grateful breath. Bolts of cloth piled on tables and shimmering swaths draped the walls.

“What sort of costumes do you wear to the Dance?” Isyllt asked, taking in the riot of colors and textures.

“Traditionally, people dress as spirits, to honor those that bring the rain. We give the masks to the river afterward. Though it’s not as traditional as it once was.”

“Selafai celebrates the winter solstice with a masque. It’s meant to keep the hungry ghosts from finding you when they crawl through the mirrors that night.” She smiled as Zhirin’s eyes widened.

“Do you have so many ghosts in the north?”

“In Erisín, at least. The city is built on bones. I don’t know your spirits-what do you think I should wear?”

Zhirin glanced around, turned toward a bolt of rough white silk. Rainbow luster danced along the edges as she lifted a fold. “You would make a good kixun .”

“What are they?”

“Spirits of moonlight and fog. They take the shape of foxes or women in white and lead men into the forests at night.”

Isyllt cocked an eyebrow. “And eat them?”

“Sometimes. They’re not very kind.”

Isyllt stroked the silk; it ran cool and slick as water between her fingers. “What does that say of your opinion of me?” The girl flushed and Isyllt chuckled. “I’m only joking-”

She broke off as someone bumped into her. Immediately a steadying hand closed on her elbow.

“Excuse me.”

She turned to face an Assari man, his hazel eyes crinkling in consternation. Automatically, her hand twitched toward her purse; his lips quirked as he caught the motion.

She gave him a crooked apologetic smile. “No harm-”

Thunder crashed outside the shop, rattling the floor. A scream followed, then another, till Isyllt’s ears rang with panicked cries. Someone jostled Zhirin on their way to the window and the girl fell into Isyllt. The Assari man caught her shoulder, holding them both steady. Another crash followed and dust and plaster drifted from the ceiling.

Isyllt twisted, pushing Zhirin into the man’s arms as she moved toward the window. With a whispered word she chilled the air around her, until the spectators retreated from winter’s bite and gave her room. She pushed aside the mesh curtain and leaned out.

Smoke billowed from a building across the street and flames licked its doorway. The cacophony of the crowd nearly deafened her as shoppers fled, tripping over one another in their haste. Already people in the room were rushing for the stairs, shoving down the narrow hall.

“Is there another way out?” she asked the shopkeeper. Wide-eyed, he pointed toward a curtained doorway in the back wall. Isyllt ducked through it, heard footsteps following her as she darted past a storeroom and through the back door. It opened onto a narrow stair above a canal; the steps creaked and the railing left splinters in her palm as she rushed down.

She ducked down a narrow alley and emerged into the street across from the burning shop. People lay crumpled on the ground, knocked down by the blast or by their neighbors. The wounded were mostly Assari, but not all. Smoke and dust billowed, eddied to reveal a hole in the wall and the sidewalk littered with shattered stone. The wind shifted and Isyllt choked on the reek of smoke and char and sour magic.

This was no accident. She wrapped a concealment around her, and a ward against the flames, and crossed the street.

Her ring blazed as she entered the shop, pushing back the crackling heat-no survivors inside. Flames consumed the doors and wall hangings, rushed over the ceiling to devour the rafters. Lamps melted on shelves, brass and silver charring wood as they dripped to the floor. Witchlight flickered around her in an opalescent web, holding guttering flames at bay. But it wouldn’t keep the ceiling from crushing her when it came down.

The smell of charred flesh and hot metal seared her nose, and something else. The air was heavy with intent, with sacrifice. The magic that turned the shop into an inferno had been dearly paid for.

A spell so powerful must have left a trace. She nearly stepped in a puddle of brown-burnt blood, nudged a body aside with her toe. The man’s eyes melted down his charred cheeks and Isyllt frowned; intact, he might have shared his dying vision with her. Not that she had time to scry the dead.

There. A red glitter caught her eye, beside a body so mangled it must have been near the center of the explosion. She tugged a handkerchief out of her pocket-the silk insulated whatever magic was left in the crystalline shards as she scooped them up, and spared her hands the heat.

The ceiling groaned, loud even over the roar and rush of the flames. Isyllt uncoiled from her crouch and leapt through the door, gasping as the air outside rushed damp into her lungs.

The ringing in her ears drowned the noise of the crowd, but she caught sight of red uniforms forcing their way through the press. No more time to investigate.

Zhirin waited in the alley-mouth, one hand pressed tight over her mouth like she was trying to keep in hysterics. The man from the fabric shop stood beside her, holding her arm. Isyllt let her spells drop as she ducked off the street and they startled. Sparks crackled in her hair as she moved, stung her skin like wasps as the magic bled away. The humid breeze off the canal made her face tingle.

The man’s eyes narrowed, measuring. He glanced at her hand, and his own twitched in a warding gesture.