Karim thought about the item hidden inside his tunic. “I have my ways,” he said cryptically.
“And what about me?”
Karim remembered the way he’d felt when he looked into the girl’s eyes. The depth and the darkness contained there. “I think fate has placed you exactly where you need to be. Perhaps, if you wait long enough, your path will become clear.”
He glanced up at the position of the sun. “I really must go. There is a dog by the river who probably thinks I’m dead by now.”
“So youdohave a dog!”
“He’s notmy dog.He’sadog.”
Neff snorted. “Sure he is.” She walked him to the gate, ensuring he wasn’t hassled by any of the officials there.
“Goodbye,” she said. “I have a feeling we’ll meet again, Karim of the Red Lands.”
Karim hitched his pack up onto his shoulder as they reached the open gate. Most of the vendors had gone, and the temple had resumed its normal business of tending to the gods.
“Maybe we will,” he said to the young priestess, and went on his way.
21
Rae
The sun rose on a new day.
Rae woke at home in the late morning, bleary-eyed and sore. At first, her thoughts drifted to the normal rituals of bread and beer and cattle tending. But then she felt the heaviness of the winged armor she still wore and saw the sekhem scepter lying next to her, and it all came rushing back. She sat up abruptly.
We really did it.
Rae remembered cleaning the scepter at Omari’s workshop, washing the blood from its paddle-shaped head, and from her hands and forearms too. She had a vague memory of walking home after that and collapsing onto her sleeping mat without even changing her clothes.
She scanned the house for her father, but he was already gone—out to care for the zebu, probably. She rubbed her eyes. Her body ached from the blows she’d received, and the wounds on her back throbbed. But the pain drove the cobwebs from her mind. The shock and guilt she’d felt the night before had dissipated with the sunrise, leaving a fresh emotion in their wake.
Triumph.
Maybe the tide is turning for Sakesh, she thought, staring out onto the bright, cloudless day. What she’d done had been extremely risky, but she’d made it back home, unscathed.
This is what Omari felt last night.
They’d grown up believing their world was solid and unchangeable, composed of varying degrees of injustice, whose inviolate rules had been decided by people older and wiser thanthey.
Last night they struck that world a heavy blow. And sure, the damage was only a crack. But that crack proved one very important thing.
A crack meant the world could be broken.
And what could be broken could be rebuilt. Remade.
Rae changed into fresh clothing and wrapped the armor and scepter inside her dark robes before stowing the whole bundle in the woven chest where she kept all her things, including the gold ring the Jackal had given her. Then she washed her face and was out the door, waving at her father before making her way to the city for her morning chores. She was eager to avoid any deviation from the norm.
Strange that Father didn’t try to interrogate me before I left, she thought as she walked the river road. Maybe he’d been so tired from the farmwork that he hadn’t noticed she was out late last night.
Or maybe, he simply didn’t want to know.
***
There was something different about the city’s energy that morning. Rae noticed it right away—there was a charge in the air, like during one of Khetara’s rare lightning storms. She saw groups of women whispering to each other on the street, huddled so close together that the baskets of goods balanced on their heads bounced gently against one another, as if they were sharing secrets too. She saw bright-eyed vendors handing out fresh loaves of bread to the old soldiers who usually had to beg for their breakfasts. Was it possible that everyone already knew about the raid? News did travel fast in Sakesh… If so, it was clearly having quite an effect.
Maybe we accomplished more than just a blow to the HighKhetarans, Rae thought.Maybe we’ve given people hope.
