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Or perhaps such finery was commonplace. In the distance, another woman wearing identical garb greeted a group of passengers disembarking from a ship.
The first woman peered over Aiz’s shoulder at the Ankanese vessel.
“I am Neita—of Tribe Sadh,” the woman said in accented Ankanese. “Welcome to our city. I am here to aid you, as my Tribe aids all newcomers. How may I assist?”
“I need clothes,” Aiz said. “A place to stable my horse.” She glanced around. She was drawing too much notice. “And a haircut. I can pay.” She’d hidden Cero’s coins under her shirt. She didn’t want to get robbed. “But I would like to get out of the street.”
Neita nodded, gesturing for Aiz to follow.
They made their way to a broad avenue lined with date palms and wagons, shops and restaurants. A rainbow of clothing fluttered on lines above them. Each storefront had a different colored awning, the merchantswithin trying to out-shout each other and draw in customers.
But it was the wagons lining the street that slowed Aiz’s steps. For they were filled with food.
Vegetables she’d never seen before glistening with oil and herbs. Skewered meat, fat dripping in mouthwatering rivulets onto mountains of rice. Baskets of steaming golden bread shaped like half-moons.
A child ran past Aiz carrying a stick of roasted vegetables. In his excitement to follow his playmate, it slipped from his hands. He hardly looked at it before running off, and Aiz snatched it up without breaking stride, though her heart thudded. She waited for someone to stop her. To demand the food.
But no one noticed. The children here had full cheeks and glossy hair. They weren’t fighting for fallen food, because they weren’t hungry. A few months ago, she’d opened the cloister’s front gate to the body of a man who’d starved to death in the night.
This place was miraculous. And obscene. Aiz wanted it for herself. But more than that, she wanted it for her people. She wished she could steal every last morsel and take it to Kegar. Feed the cloisters for months.
In time, Div’s voice whispered in her mind.
“Come!” her escort, Neita, called out, and Aiz hurried to follow. “I apologize for the crowds. But you’re lucky you didn’t come a fortnight ago! The Martial Empress was here with the crown prince, and it was madness. Everyone in the city was trying to get an audience.”
Aiz listened carefully as Neita spoke, surreptitiously shoving bits of vegetable skewer in her mouth. The strangeness of this place was almost intimidating. But Mother Div had sent her here for a reason. She must learn all she could about these people.
By noon, Tregan was stabled, and Aiz inhaled an enormous meal at an inn. The innkeeper, who introduced herself as Neita’s wife, cut Aiz’s hair to just below her ears with a delightful lack of sentiment, and then drew Aiz a bath.
When she finally emerged, clutching her book, it was to find a new leather pack on the bed, along with a pouch to wear against her body. Aiz ran her fingers along a soft, split riding skirt with a matching green and fawn-colored top. Inside the pack, she found a sand-colored cloak, its edges lined in green, and on the floor beside it, brushed riding boots. They were big, but still the finest shoes Aiz had ever owned.
Again, Aiz thought of Kegar, but Mother Div spoke:Do not weep at the injustice your people face. Else you will not have the strength to change their plight.
Aiz jumped at the suddenness of the words. At the bite in them. Perhaps she’d disappointed Mother Div by focusing on the material pleasures in front of her, instead of her holy mission.
She moved her possessions into the new pack, threw it over her back, and made her way downstairs, twirling her aaj around her finger.
“Now you look as though you have received a proper welcome to my city.” Neita gestured for Aiz to take the seat beside her at the common room fire. “What brings you here, child? I don’t even know your name!”
“I’m looking for someone,” Aiz said. “Laia of Serra.”
It was as if all the lamps went out at once. The woman’s face closed, suddenly forbidding. She exchanged glances with her wife, running a rag along the bar.
“What would you want with Laia of Serra?” Neita said. “I warn you: as a Kehanni, she’s well protected by Tribe Saif.”
“Neita!” the innkeeper snapped, shaking her head.
Kehanni. Dolbra had told Aiz of the different roles in the Tribes: the Zaldars, who led each Tribe; the Fakirs, who tended to the dead; and the Kehannis, who kept its histories.
“Tribe Saif,” Aiz said. “Are they here in the city?”
It was the wrong question.
“No one who would seek the Kehanni for unwholesome reasonsis welcome here.” Neita’s fists clenched and Aiz raised her hands in alarm.
“I don’t mean her harm!” Aiz nearly took out the book to show them, but some instinct within quailed against it. She could not risk them coveting it and taking it from her. And she certainly couldn’t tell them that she needed Laia to help her find the trapped spirit of Mother Div. They would think her a madwoman. “I’m interested in a story she told. I wished to ask her about it.”
Neita’s lips thinned and her hand strayed to the blade at her waist. “Sadh is a long way to come for a story.”
