The Core

Ashia’s jaw tightened beneath her veil, but she undid the fastenings, catching the sleeping Kaji in the crook of her arm long enough for Kajivah to take him.

The woman’s whole demeanour changed the moment she held him, and Ashia knew that whatever came to pass, Kajivah would never harm her great-grandson – would stand between him and all the demons of the abyss.

‘Will you take him for the night?’ she asked. It would be Ashia’s first night apart from her son since the Night of Hora when they walked the edge of the abyss together.

‘Of course, of course.’ Kajivah did not take her eyes off the child.

‘Thank you, Tikka,’ Ashia said.

Now the woman looked up. ‘Do not call me that. Not ever again.’

Ashia swallowed. Once, she had been the favourite of Kajivah’s many granddaughters. It was Kajivah’s own insistence that sent Ashia and her spear sisters to the Dama’ting Palace, putting them on the path to Sharum’ting. Now they were nothing to her.

She dropped her eyes, bowing. ‘As you wish, Holy Mother.’

She turned on her heel, striding quickly from Kaji lest she lose her resolve and rush back to him.

Even at night, infiltrating Asome’s wing of the palace was difficult. The new Shar’Dama Ka had found and sealed the secret passages the Sharum’ting used to move unseen about the palace. Guards and armed dama patrolled the halls, eyes warded to see in Everam’s light. Tapestries, rugs, and tiles were warded against alagai, but Ashia could see, too, wardings much like those the dama’ting used. Symbols to raise alarm if even a human were to cross them, and to seal this part of the palace from prying eyes. The hora stones the Damajah hoped to use to eavesdrop would be of little use, their magic blocked.

But Ashia, Micha, and Jarvah were clad in their kai’Sharum’ting robes, embroidered in electrum thread with wards of unsight. Whether in human sight or Everam’s light, they blended with their surroundings as easily as a sand demon in the dunes. It was only when they moved swiftly that they could be seen.

Their jewellery was similarly magicked, rings and bracelets on their hands and feet allowing them to cling to walls and ceilings like spiders. Slowly they slithered deeper and deeper into her husband’s sanctum.

Check the lower levels, Ashia told Jarvah when they were past the barriers. Asome will have an underpalace of his own. Find and penetrate it if you can.

Yes, Sharum’ting Ka.

Jarvah disappeared as Ashia and Micha made their way up to the residential floors. The Palace had seven levels, one for each pillar in heaven, but the outer stair only went to six, landing doors guarded by an alert kai’Sharum, bright in Everam’s light.

The sixth floor was reserved for the royal family, a place Ashia knew well. She and Kajivah both had chambers there. Technically they had been Asome’s chambers, but her husband had only seen the pillows there once.

The Damajah believed her blessed mother would be housed on the sixth as well.

The topmost floor, Asome’s private level, could only be reached by an inner stair, no doubt guarded as well.

The young women paused, clinging to the ceiling as the door guard came into clear view. Even with his white night veil in place, Ashia recognized her cousin Iraven, the Deliverer’s firstborn Majah son. Stripped of rank by Damaji Aleveran, he was now relegated to guard duty for his elder brother.

Micha took one hand from her hold on the ceiling, making the sign for the sleeping potion they carried. Applied to a cloth and forced over the mouth and nose, it could render even a large man unconscious for some time, waking with only fuzzy memories of his last moments. Her littlest finger curled, indicating a question.

Ashia shook her head. Too slow, her fingers said. Precise Strike.

The Precise Strike, their master Enkido’s school of sharusahk, targeted the natural convergences in the body. Places where muscle, vein, and nerve met. The targets were small and always in motion, each unique as their owner, but a sharp, precise blow could temporarily cripple an opponent, or knock them out instantly.

They edged slowly into position, clinging to the ceiling directly over their cousin. Micha would hold him, and Ashia would strike. But before Ashia signalled the drop, a pair of nie’dama carrying food trays ascended the steps. She could tell from body language that Iraven recognized them and would let them pass unhindered.

Micha needed no orders as they opened the doors, following instantly as Ashia sprang through. They landed in identical rolls on opposite sides of the hall, warded bracelets absorbing the sound. Their robes blurred for a moment, but they were effectively invisible again by the time the boys passed through the door.

The floor was warded, a puzzle of steps that would sound an alarm if crossed improperly. Ashia memorized the path the boys took, but she and Micha followed along the walls, blending perfectly with the paint. They reached an inner stair guarded by a pair of clerics with warded staves, and the nie’dama split up, one continuing down the hall as the other ascended to the seventh floor.

Follow. Ashia used a finger to indicate the first boy. Her mission was to find the Damajah’s parents, but this close, Ashia could not resist looking in on her treacherous husband. She followed the second boy up the stairs, slithering along the ceiling faster than he could climb. She was his shadow as he passed guards and doors, coming at last to an anteroom where the boy laid the tray on a table, knocked at the far door, and then quickly scurried out, closing the hall door behind him.

Ashia was ready to leap when the door opened, but when she saw Asome, her breath caught and she nearly missed her opportunity. In their entire marriage, had she ever seen her husband answer a door? That was a task for women and servants.

Then Asome did the unthinkable. The Shar’Dama Ka, supreme leader of all Krasia, bent and picked up the tray himself. Ashia slipped in while his back was turned, thoughts reeling. Had Asome become a recluse since Asukaji died? A haunted shell of a man? Part of her hoped it was so. A taste of the judgement he would find in Heaven.

‘Dinner, my sun,’ Asome called, and Ashia blinked. His wife and lover murdered, and he had already found another? Anger threatened her centre, but she brushed it aside, skittering along the ceiling to follow her husband to the pillow chamber. Who would she find? Dama Jamere? Cashiv? One of Asome’s half brothers?

The last person she expected was her brother, Asukaji, whose neck she had broken.

‘I am not hungry.’ Asukaji’s voice was a harsh whisper. ‘Take it away.’

Asome set the tray by the bedside. Asukaji lay prone, his body unmoving, its aura flat. Not dead, but not truly alive.

That changed at his neck. The aura about her brother’s head was hot and raw, his eyes focused and his face full of emotion.

Paralysed, Ashia realized with horror. For a warrior, it was a fate worse than death. Even now after he had tried to strangle her, she did not wish this upon her brother. They had been close when they were young, and part of her loved him still.

‘You must eat, my love,’ Asome said. ‘You cannot feel your hunger, but it is there. Without food, you will waste away.’

‘And what if I do?’ Asukaji demanded. ‘Better I eat, and lie helpless as I shit the bed an hour from now? I could have died with honour. Instead you force me to linger, a prisoner in this worthless shell.’

Asome sat on the edge of the bed, taking one of Asukaji’s limp hands. ‘I cannot do this without you. Half my plans and stratagems are yours.’

‘That is not what you thought when you fucked that heasah.’ Asukaji’s head lolled with the force of his snarl.

Asome was quick to steady him, kissing his forehead. ‘She is your sister, whom you yourself insisted become my Jiwah Ka.’

Ashia’s cheek twitched. She fell deeper into her breath, silent as stone.

‘I am your Jiwah Ka!’ Asukaji’s cry was hoarse. ‘She was a womb to carry the son I could not.’

Asome lifted the cover from the tray, steam rising off a bowl of thin gruel that was likely all her brother could swallow. Asome blew on a spoonful like a mother preparing to feed an infant. ‘We needed her trust, cousin. For her to believe me loyal to her and humble before my mother. And if I’d created another son for us, so much the better.’

Asukaji spat at the spoon as it came near, but it came out as a dribble on his chin. ‘I am not a fool, Asome. Sons and plots were not on your mind when you bent her.’

‘What does it matter?’ Asome took a silk napkin, wiping Asukaji’s mouth. ‘She could never replace you in my heart. No one can. She could have been a valuable Jiwah Sen but for your jealousy. You insisted on killing her.’

He took Asukaji’s jaw in his hand, squeezing until his teeth opened enough to admit the spoon.

‘But you were not her match, were you, sweet Asukaji?’ Asome forced the gruel into his mouth. ‘Nor Melan and Asavi together a match for my mother. Now they are on the lonely path, you lie frozen, and my mother has hostaged half the throne.’ Asome massaged Asukaji’s throat until he swallowed.

‘Soon Amanvah will return to control the Kaji dama’ting, bringing with her a Jiwah Sen no doubt as deadly as your sister, and a husband blessed by Everam.’

‘A chin and khaffit,’ Asukaji growled. ‘Amanvah should have been mine, as Ashia was yours. That was our bargain.’

‘Khaffit or no, his power over the alagai is undeniable,’ Asome said. ‘What could I say when Father gave her to him? Mother’s power will grow when they return. We must balance the scales now, while there is still time.’

Asukaji stopped resisting, eating in silence. Asome was tender and attentive, massaging every swallow until the bowl was empty.