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“But your aunt. You’re close to her?”
Quil shrugged. “Once. Not so much lately. She’s been through the hells, but she pushes everyone away because of it. Laia says to be patient. That I wasn’t there when—”
His head jerked up, and he grasped his scim as he stood. He went from relaxed Tribesman to soldier so fast that it was as if Aiz was looking at a different human. He was not Idaka, a thinker, anymore. He was Shigaf—a warrior. Every muscle in his body was rigid as he listened. It took Aiz a moment to hear what he did. The thunder of distant hooves. Out in the flats, a dust cloud appeared.
“Horses,” he said. “Coming fast.”
Quil pulled a horn from his belt and blew it. An answer sounded from down in the camp, and by the time he and Aiz reached the Saif caravan, a group of a dozen mounted Tribespeople formed a perimeter around the wagons. Elias and his son Sufiyan were among them, their attention fixed on the approaching riders.
The horses were close enough to count, and moonlight glinted off armor and weaponry. Aiz held tight to her sword, wishing she could wield the wind as a weapon.
You can, Mother Div said.Lure it to you. Then tell it why you wish for its aid.
Aiz hesitated but, feeling Mother Div’s impatience, beseeched the wind to her. After dancing back and forth a few times, it came.Help me, she said.Make me safe.
Good, Div said. Now shape it into a spear in your mind. If one of them threatens you, release it.
Aiz broke into a sweat at the effort of bending the wind to her, thentrembled with excitement when it flowed as she wished. Such power! She’d always known she had it, even if she couldn’t control it. Now the wind felt as solid as any weapon, but biddable instead of chaotic.
She had not even freed Mother Div, and already, Aiz understood her magic better.
Imagine what it will be like when you do free me.
The horsemen drew closer and Quil relaxed suddenly. One of the men, brown-haired and dark-eyed, called a greeting and Quil laughed as he retorted. Aiz released the wind and it whipped away, startling a few of the horses.
The rest of the soldiers pulled in and—along with the dark-eyed man—dropped from their mounts and knelt to Quil. He waved them up almost before their knees hit the sand. Aiz couldn’t help but stare at them, for they all wore silver paint on the top halves of their faces.
“They’re masks,” a voice beside her said. She looked down to see Ruhyan at her side. “Made of living metal. The soldiers get them at Blackcliff.”
Aiz didn’t know what Blackcliff was. “Ruh,” she said. “Can you tell me what they are saying? I don’t speak Sadhese.”
Ruh stood up taller, happy to feel important. “First of all,” he said. “That’s Serran they’re speaking. Tas—he’s hugging Quil right now—he says he thought he’d have to wake Quil up with a bucket of water. Quil says not likely. Tas says that’s good—because Quil’s auntie wants to see him, and they need to leave. Now Tas is asking who you are—”
Aiz studied Tas—he’d picked her out of the shadows easily.
“Quil told him not to scare you. And Tas says Quil is only scared you’ll like him better because he’s more charming—”
“Why does Tas keep calling him Eppar?” Aiz asked.
“Eppar meansprincein Serran,” Ruh said. “I guess no one has told you, but it’s only because none of us really care too much.”
Aiz was about to ask what kind of prince when one of the maskedmen stepped into the light of the caravan’s fires. His mask, Aiz realized, wasn’t painted onto his face.
It was metal. Strange metal. Metal that moved. Shifted. Metal that lived. Ruh continued to translate, but Aiz could hardly hear him over the rapid thudding of her heart.
Before she realized what she was doing, she walked toward the man, hand outstretched, and it was likely only her small stature and the fact that he thought her unarmed that saved her from the edge of his blade. She touched his face. Touched the metal. It felt—
Like Loha.
Loha before it was refined by a Kegari metalworker. Aiz had seen the process when she was assigned to the forges outside the Aerie. Metallurgists took a ball of liquid silver the size of a thimble and turned it into enough Loha to power a dozen Sails.
And these soldiers had so much of it. Enough to power hundreds of Sails. Perhaps enough to carry the Kegari back to their homeland, back to the Fount.
Did I not tell you to have faith?Mother Div’s voice curled into her ears like smoke.There is much to learn here, Aiz bet-Dafra. Much to take. All your hopes will come to fruition if you but heed me.
23
Quil
