Ariah (33 page)

I half-turned and glanced over my shoulder. Sorcha crashed into me. “What do you mean?”

She waved me over. “I mean this,” she said. She placed a small, lifeless clockwork bird on the bar. “Came in the back window. Hit the kitchen wall and just stopped flying. I don’t what it is or what it’s here for, but I bet it’s to do with you.”

“
That’s a messenger bird,” I said. I glanced at Sorcha; he shrugged. I picked it up and found the pressure plate on its belly. It was bent slightly from the crash, and I had to pry it off with a butter knife. I felt terrible about it; I’ve never been any good with clockworks, and I knew I’d never be able to repair it. It seemed an untoward fate for the thing. The message was rolled tight and slipped into a waterproof sleeve. It took me some time to peel it off. My heart pounded when I had the tube of paper freed from it, waiting to be read. I knew it was bad news. I knew it. A dead parent. An arrested mentor. Revocation of citizenship rights. Something somehow worse than any of those things.

“
What is it?” Pan asked.

“
It’s…it’s a message. News, probably.”

“
Oh.” She laughed. “That bird, it looked alive. You send notes in birds?”

“
Only important notes.”

“
Read it,” Sorcha said.

“
I…” I frowned.

“
Ariah, just read it,” he said.

So I did. It was a short letter, but carefully written. I could tell in the sweep of Dirva’s handwriting how much thought had been put into it, how exacting the choice of words was.

Nisa is pregnant. Will you be the child’s falo? Please consider it.

My eyes went wide. Sorcha and Pan pestered me, demanded to know what was in the letter. “I have to go back,” I said.

“
To where?” Pan asked.

“
To the Empire. To Rabatha.”

Sorcha plucked the letter out of my hand. He frowned. “I can’t read this. Is this Semadran?”

“
Yes.”

“
What does it say? Are you in trouble?” he asked.

“
It, uh…I’m not in trouble. It’s good news. Thank you, Pan.”

“
My pleasure.”

I dragged Sorcha out to the street. “What is it?” he asked. “Why do you have to go?”

“
Dirva’s wife is having a baby. He wants me to be the godfather.”

It is a rare moment when Sorcha is at a loss for words. He gaped at me, at the street, at the door of the tavern for what felt like an endless stretch of time. He jammed his hands in his pockets and stared down at his boots. “He married,” he said. It came out quiet, private, only half a question.

“
You…you didn’t know that?” Sorcha shook his head. “I thought he told Cadlah. He got her to get papers forged for me before the wedding. I thought…I thought he told her, and I thought she told the rest of you.”

“
Maybe she did. Maybe she didn’t,” he said. “Caddie can keep a secret. They might all know. I told you I been down here since you left.”

“
They would have written to you.”

He gave me a hard look. “You know I’m not a good reader. I get news from merchants about them now and again. I’m not like you. I don’t write letters. They never sent word to me.”

“
Oh.”

“
He married.”

“
That’s why Vathorem was in the Empire. I came back with Vathorem after the wedding.”

Sorcha ran a hand through his hair. He drew in a breath and swung his head to the side, away from me. “I wonder if Ro knows.”

“
He does.”

Sorcha looked at me again. “How do you know that?”

“
Liro came to the Empire. It was before it was set, but Dirva knew that’s where it was going with Nisa, I think, and he told him. I’m sure Liro knows. I’m sure Liro told Amran.”

Sorcha threw up his hands. “Fuck! Fuck, Ariah, everyone knows but me? People crossing borders to find out, and I’m in the fucking dark?”

“
I’m sorry! I thought you knew!”

“
You’ve been here two years! You couldn’t have mentioned it?”

“
You don’t like to talk about him! I thought you knew!”

“
I didn’t! I didn’t know!” He passed his hands over his face and took a breath. He glanced up at the sky. He did his best to compose himself. “All right. Lor went and got married. Now he’s having a kid. A little silver kid with a little silver wife in a little silver house. All right. And he wants you to play falo?”

“
He wants me to be falo.”

“
He wants you to be a red godfather to a silver kid?”

“
Yes,” I said. “He does.”

“
And you’re going to.”

“
I am, yes.”

Sorcha waved his hand at me, dismissive, imperious. “Go on then. Run on back. In Rabatha you’ll just be a glorified babysitter, and no one’ll touch you with a ten-foot pole. You want that life, go and take it.”

“
Sorcha, I…”

“
You’re a lot like him, you know, with all this leaving.”

“
Sorcha, you should come, too,” I said.

He blinked at me. “What?” he asked softly.

“
I think you should come.”

“
What fucking for? There’s nothing there for me.”

I frowned. I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “I want you to come for me. You don’t have to, of course you don’t have to, but I want you to. For me. Rabatha will eat me alive without you there, I know it will. And if you don’t come, I’ll miss you. And nothing will feel right. And I’ll miss your music. And…”

He grinned. He cocked his head to the side and laughed. He raised his eyebrows and laughed again. “Ariah, there is nothing there for me. I’m half ghalio and all nahsiyya and I’m a street musician. What am I gonna do in the Empire? Lor don’t want me there. Hell, I didn’t even know he was hitched.”

“
You don’t have to go. But I do. The only thing that’ll be there for you will be me. That’s it. It’s selfish to ask, I know that, but I’m…I guess I’m asking anyway.”

Sorcha stared at me, hard, penetrating, like he was the shaper. “I’ll think on it. I’ll consider. Give me a few days?”

“
Consider as long as you want.”

CHAPTER 22

“
How much do we have between us?” Sorcha asked.

“
Not much. It’s not like Vathorem paid me. All we have is what you got with your violin and what I brought with me.”

“
So, how much is that, exactly?”

“
I have two hundred and thirty marks left. Which is, uh, around three hundred Vilahnan leaves,” I said. “How much do you have?”

“
Three fifty.”

“
Marks?”

“
Leaves.” He frowned. He kicked at the dirt. Sorcha had been nervous and bad-tempered for weeks. The tension in him ratcheted up as the deadline to leave Alamadour loomed closer and closer. “This fool’s errand is going to clean us both out, Ariah.”

“
Thank you for coming,” I said. I had said that a lot in the days since he decided to travel with me.

“
You owe me, Ariah.”

“
I do.”

“
As long as you know you owe me.”

“
I do know.” It was early afternoon, and the Alamadour markets soaked up the bright sunlight. It was a rare, clear day. The skies in the south are nests of clouds: gray, constantly shadowed. The brightness of the day’s naked sun made me think of Rabatha and the City. It seemed a fitting day to arrange transport. I shielded my eyes and studied the crowds.

“
There are some tahrqs over there,” said Sorcha.

“
I will not travel with them.”

“
All right. All right.”

“
They would fleece us anyway. We’d end up as slaves.”

“
I said all right.” Sorcha tugged at my sleeve and pointed behind me. “How about them, eh? Semadran to a man.”

I glanced over my shoulder, and the sight of her unmanned me. I blushed. My laugh was loud and slightly unhinged. I prayed it was a phantom recognition, that it was not really her, but she heard me. She cocked her head to one side, and then she turned around.

Shayat was still so much herself. It had been two years since I had seen her last, and then I had known her only while she prepared herself to live the life she now led. From across the market she gave me that utterly familiar look of condescending amusement. She said something to a tall man next to her and made her way towards us. She walked with such effortless certainty, gently nudging people out of her way like she owned the entire market district. I tried and failed to gather my bearings. Sorcha pestered me with questions, but I was laughing too hard to give him any answers. By the time she reached me my ribs ached, and my face was covered in tears. I stood braced against Sorcha, my sense of balance long lost.

Shayat stood in front of me, smirking, arms crossed. “Hello, professor.”

I managed, finally, to get control of myself. I wiped my face, grinning so wide it hurt. I had missed her. I hadn’t known until she appeared in front of me that I had, or how much. “You cut your hair,” I said.

“
You stopped cutting yours,” she said. “You look ridiculous.”

I laughed again and rubbed my jaw to relieve some of the soreness from having laughed so much already. Sorcha ran a hand through my hair. Shayat’s eyebrows raised just the slightest bit. I felt in her a spark of curiosity. “It suits him,” Sorcha said. He spoke Semadran with a pronounced City flair.

Shayat pointed at him. “Who is this?”

“
Sorcha. This is Sorcha,” I said. “He is my…we are…”

Sorcha held out his hand. “We’re brotherly.”

“
You’re brothers?” she asked.

“
No,” Sorcha said. “We’re brotherly. Who are you?”

“
This is Shayat Bachel’Parvi,” I said. “I taught her Modern Athenorkos and Coastal Lothic back in Rabatha. Shayat! Shayat, what are you doing here?”

“
Caravanning,” she said. “I come through here every six months or so.” She grinned; pride poured out of her. “I have the lead mercantile license. I have an all-elvish caravan.”

“
Really?”

“
First one in Rabatha. You have no idea the hoops they made me jump through to get it.”

“
Shayat, that’s…how did you manage that?”

“
Compromises,” she said. “Any Qin official can confiscate up to one-eighth of my goods, no questions asked, as a tariff.”

“
They’ll take your goods one eighth at a time,” I said.

“
They haven’t yet. They won’t. I’m smarter than they are. My route has one single border check. One. I lose an eighth there, and that’s it. I sell to the ghetto out of Papa’s shop. The Qin in the Rabathan markets never even see the goods.”

“
Speaking of routes,” Sorcha said, “we’re looking for one.”

Shayat looked at me, and laughter again bubbled up my throat. I turned a deep red.

“
Me and him, we’ve got to get to Rabatha. Are you heading back there soon?” Sorcha asked.

One corner of Shayat’s mouth hitched up. She looked me right in the eyes. “You’re going back to Rabatha?”

“
I am.”

“
And he is going with you?”