but our child—” Truly, the last thing I have to lose.
“Our child’s life depends on what we are able to do next, and that depends on knowing everything we can know about him—including whether he can be swayed by a woman!”
She thinks to betray me. She will marry the hermit if she can. Tuvaini looked once more at the god-statue towering over them in the dark. “Do as you will. I care not.” The lie felt sour on his lips as he left the temple and made his way to the throne room.
Mesema crept along the kitchen corridors. Wearing a coarse sack and with her hair pulled back, she could pass for a toilet-keeper or offal-bearer. She left the marks on her arms exposed—all the servants bore marks now, and she would look suspicious without them. She held in her hand a bucket full of water. Cheese, bread, and dried fruits were hidden inside her rough clothes, secured within a filthy linen sash.
The disguise had been Sarmin’s idea; he had told her how Grada had sneaked out of the palace after he freed her, dressed in clothes from the Maze and carrying a bucket of slops, so when the last of Govnan’s food had been eaten, she had ripped a hole in the bag and pulled it over her head.
Now Mesema moved quickly, acting as if her filthy business couldn’t wait. A soldier approached, his eyes blank and unfocused, and she bent her head, hiding her own eyes, her heart racing. She nearly screamed when his arm brushed her shoulder, but then he moved on, turning into another corridor. Even in the Pattern Master’s new order, the ones who dealt in blood and shit were not fit to be acknowledged.
She was frightened, but thirst and hunger were driving her even more. Govnan sent word on the air that he could not leave the Tower, surrounded as it was by Carriers. Sarmin could not leave his room, though he would not tell her why. Eyul, the expert at sneaking, could not move at all. And so it fell to her to find food and water. She climbed a staircase and paused, sending her senses out for a moment. She hadn’t yet learned to stop searching for Beyon with her moon-mark. Then she continued on, up the tower stairs, to her prince. At the door she rapped twice, quickly, then paused, then gave a third rap.
Sarmin opened the door and smiled. “That was fast.”
She laid the food out on his pattern-carved table, then rushed over to Eyul. His lips were peeling and his tongue was thrust out between his front teeth. She dipped a ladle in the bucket and dribbled some water in his mouth.
Sarmin chewed on a piece of bread. “I have to join Grada now.”
Mesema nodded, though his times with Grada unsettled her. He stared at nothing, and sometimes talked out loud, even of intimate things. She picked up some food and started nibbling some cheese.
Sarmin sat on the bed and went into his trance. When he joined Grada, a peaceful look came over his face.
Mesema looked at Eyul instead. She couldn’t understand what held him here—he should be dead with those injuries, but instead he still suffered. He was rarely lucid; when they were open, his fever-bright eyes watched Sarmin. But now he looked at her and his cracked lips moved.
She moved in closer, to hear his whisper.
“How is evil destroyed?” Broken ghosts of words from an over-dry tongue. The stench of his suppurating wound stung her eyes.
He spoke again. “Only with the emperor’s Knife.” He took one deep, rattling breath, then fell quiet. She put a hand lightly on his chest, but just when she thought he had stopped, he took another ragged breath. This was the end. She sat on the bed and held his hand, remembering a lullaby her mother used to sing to her. She found the notes, putting into it her own grief, her own hope, and her own love. His mouth curled into something close to a smile, and she thought he was comforted.
Grada stopped on the leeward side of the dune and clambered from her camel. The trip had gone well, overall. She’d seen no bandits, nor Carriers. She’d found all the waterholes as she followed the common path—it made sense to stay on that road, since others who went from waterhole to waterhole had also seen the church.
And she saw it now. “My Prince,” she called. She climbed to the top