Page 19 of The Merciless Ones
We haven’t heard from them since Hemaira’s gates closed. In fact, everything we know about what’s happening in the Warthu Bera and in Hemaira as a whole, we learn from the jatu we sometimes capture and “question” – White Hands’s favourite euphemism for torture. And from what we’ve heard during the last few questionings, the situation there hasn’t changed. The jatu still have all the alaki in all the training grounds imprisoned and are still bleeding them for their gold.
War is a very expensive business, after all, and alaki have money running through their veins.
Keita shakes his head. “No word there.”
So I ask one final question. “What about Gazal?” Last I heard of the dour, scarred alaki who once terrorized me at the Warthu Bera, she’d been promoted to commander of one of the regiments at the siege on Hemaira and was constantly trying to scale Hemaira’s walls, n’goma or no.
Gazal is eerily inured to pain, compared to other alaki. But then, given her history…
“Still looking for entry into the city,” Keita answers. “She’s trying to find any hint of the arcane object.”
The one he’s been searching for all this time.
In the six months we’ve been laying siege to Hemaira, the jatu have somehow been replenishing their supplies and meeting with other jatu commanders all across Otera. At first, we thought there must be a network of secret passages in and out of the city, but we tried for months to find one, with no success. White Hands and the other commanders finally determined that this is because there’s yet another arcane object at play, one that somehow allows the jatu to move from Hemaira to wherever they wish – which is why she sent Keita and the other uruni to search for it.
That’s the thing about arcane objects: if they aren’t killing you in horrifying ways or causing unspeakable damage to your mind, they’re useful tools that can accomplish feats to defy the imagination. It’s ironic. Six months ago, I’d never even heard of arcane objects. Now, I have to factor them into every battle plan.
“We haven’t found any sign of it yet,” Keita quickly says when he sees my questioning expression, “but that’s not why we rushed back. White Hands wants us to accompany you next week to find Elder Kadiri and the angoro. She’s already informed us of all the particulars.”
“That’s good,” I say, tension lifting from my shoulders. I don’t want to spend our precious time together discussing battle plans. “Let’s not talk about bad things any more, Keita,” I say, nuzzling my nose to his chest and breathing in his scent. “Tell me how you are. I missed you.” Months have gone by without my seeing his face every day, without our stealing treasured moments to be together.
Only a year ago, I couldn’t understand how a person could love me, could want to be by my side. Now I cannot imagine a world without Keita, cannot imagine a world where I am not his beloved always.
Warmth traces up my neck. Tiny kisses, an edge of teeth. “I missed you too,” he says, his breath warm in my ear. “I dreamed about you. Every night, I dreamed.”
I turn to him, accept the brush of his lips against mine. This is what I have been missing. What I’ve spent nights dreaming of. I close my eyes and allow the feeling to take me.
More kisses come, scattering down my neck, my shoulder. Finally, Keita sighs, presses his forehead to mine. We are both determined not to rush ourselves the way so many others do. When all you know is constant war, it’s easy to give up hope and just grasp things as they come. But Keita and I have both decided to remain on our slow, steady course. We have to believe that we’ll see the other side of these times, that we’ll be together for always. In fact, I’ve already spoken to the goddesses about extending Keita’s lifespan, perhaps even giving him immortality, but I’ll bring the subject up with him when we’re not always in such strained circumstances. He has to make the choice for himself. As much as I love him, I cannot force the decision on him. I know, more than anyone else, how truly painful immortality can be.
We remain as we are for a time, inhaling each other’s breath. A reaffirmation. I am yours, and you are mine.
He rests his head on my shoulder and slides his fingers through my hair, plucking and then releasing each coil to watch intently as it springs back up. “So how is everybody here doing?”
“Fine. Except for Adwapa, maybe.”
“She’s still missing Mehrut?”
“More and more every day.” She had nightmares again early this morning. I could hear her crying from across the hall. The walls may be thick, but my hearing is sharp.
“We’ll get Mehrut back,” Keita says, determined. “We’ll get them all back.”
He doesn’t have to say more for me to know he’s thinking of his own friends back at the Warthu Bera, the ones we left during the campaign. Most of them remained willingly with the jatu, but there were a few who supported their alaki sisters. Who rebelled against the emperor when they discovered the horrific truth of what he’d had us doing.
They’re imprisoned in the Warthu Bera as well, shackled next to the alaki and used even more brutally. It’s one thing for girls to rebel, but for boys, the chosen ones of Otera, to go against society? The boys in the Warthu Bera are all being made examples of – a warning to all other men: “You also are not safe. You never were.”
I nod. “We will,” I say firmly, trying to banish images of the uruni’s suffering from my mind. I quickly change the subject. “Any progress with the deathshrieks in your regiment?”
Even after all these months, the deathshrieks and the Firstborn are still not used to Keita. He and a few other uruni have a reputation for being deathshriek killers, so they’re not as easily accepted as the others.
Keita smiles wryly. “It’s a slow process. All I can do is prove that I’m their comrade, that I’ll never betray them.”
“It’s a start. It’s not easy to—”
I stop when I notice his eyes drifting shut. Now, I see the dark circles under them, the glassiness in his pupils. “You’re exhausted,” I say.
“I’m fine.” He looks guiltily away from me, and worry surges.
It’s not like Keita to be this worn out. Even in the middle of a raid, he can fall asleep in minutes. But he obviously hasn’t been sleeping.