“A for amethyst,” he whispered, running his fingers over the stone. It wasn’t high in quality; it wouldn’t have fetched much in the market, but Evvy had loved it. It was her first step into her new life as a mage. She had kept the alphabet where the cats couldn’t play with it….
“The cats?”
“The letter said they killed the animals. We can hope they escaped,” Parahan said, his voice cracking.
He had spent time with Evvy and her cats, Briar remembered. “Might I be alone now?” he asked politely. “I’ll be all right.”
“Are you certain?” Souda wanted to know. “We can only imagine how bad this is for you.”
“Really, I’ll be fine,” Briar said. “I do this best alone.” Or with Rosethorn, and Lark, and my sisters, he thought, and none of them are here! None of them are with me! They’ve all gone off to do their whatevers and left me to face this!
It wasn’t fair. He knew it wasn’t fair. He didn’t feel like being fair just then. He climbed up the wall and walked along until he could look north. Right now he hated everyone, the First Dedicate and the God-King, Lark for not making Rosethorn stay home, Rosethorn for not refusing the emperor and the First Dedicate, Evvy for being unwilling to come along with him. Himself for not insisting that she come, or for not staying with her.
Especially himself. He hated himself. He was her first teacher, and he had dragged her into the path of the huge imperial armies and the legions of imperial mages. He stood by and watched as Weishu smiled and played games with their lives. Briar had left his Evvy to be tortured and to die alone. She was good with her power, but these people were masters of theirs. She was only twelve.
He clutched the stone alphabet and stared at the grasslands beyond the north gate. They were gray in the starlight. Somewhere across those were the imperial armies. That way lay the torturers, the murderers, and those who would steal other people’s countries. They would pay. He would make sure of that.
In the dark the grasses strained upward, their blades trembling with the power that filled them. Their roots swelled and stretched. For a long moment the land shook, then sank back.
16
THE TEMPLE OF THE TIGERS, AND
KANGRI SKAD PO MOUNTAIN IN THE DRIMBAKANG LHO
Dawn found Briar with the orange-and-black stone tiger at the southern temple gate. He had managed to talk the guards into letting him out at some point; he didn’t remember when. The tiger was good company in his present bleak mood. Wrapped in a fur from his bedroll, he had told it about Evvy, how aggravating she could be, how protective she was of her cats, how much she loved new clothes. The tiger had curled around him, forming a bowl to hold Briar. At last he had slept.
It was the chief priestess who found him. She spoke with the stone tiger gently, thanking it for its care of Briar, until it slowly uncurled and took its normal place by the gate.
As Briar looked at the old woman sleepily, she told him, “I think we must treat the gate tigers differently after this. It is written in our books that they are mindless slaves of our magic, but apparently they are otherwise. We have you to thank — perhaps.” She touched one of his swollen eyes. “You have been weeping.”
For a precious moment he had forgotten. Tears spilled down as he told her, “They killed Evvy. My student.”
“You shall have revenge,” the old woman said. “Last night a messenger came from the west. Your people will wait here another day for the wounded to heal. By this afternoon warriors from the western temples and tribes will join you. Parahan and Souda want to go east, to trap the enemy in Fort Sambachu. We shall see. General Sayrugo is closer.”
“I want to go there,” Briar said, struggling to his feet. “I want to serve them at the fort like they served Evvy!”
The old woman helped him up. “When you agreed to help Parahan and the others, you put yourself at the orders of the God-King. You may not have a choice.”
Briar glared at her, but he was too weak with grief to argue. Instead he thought of something else. “Wait — I can’t go. I have to wait here for Rosethorn. She’ll be returning from the mountains soon, I hope. I said I would meet her.”
“And you will,” the priestess said patiently. “When was the last time you had any food?”
He shook his head, not because he didn’t want to eat, but because he couldn’t remember his most recent meal.
“As I thought,” she said. She towed him into the temple complex.
They fed him egg soup and momos, scolding him when he picked at his food. When he’d eaten enough that the cooks let him be, he went to the healers’ tent and helped there. Midday was curry. Jimut sat on one side of him, Souda on the other. Between them he ate all that was set before him, just to stop them from nagging him to death.
He was about to leave the temple to say prayers for Evvy in one of his new willow groves when a squad of Gyongxin warriors carrying the yellow banner of messengers galloped up the road. He knew a couple of them from Fort Sambachu.
“We almost did not come up here,” the woman who carried the banner told the gate guards. “Those trees weren’t on your road when I was here last! How —” Looking past the guard’s shoulder, she saw Briar. “Oh. I thought Rana made that up about you growing trees from nothing. Never mind. I bring messages for Prince Parahan and Princess Soudamini, and Captains Lango and Jha!”
Only when Lango identified the newcomers as General Sayrugo’s warriors did the guards open the gate. The messenger and her guards led their horses inside. Briar felt distantly sorry for them. They would soon learn of their own losses: the slaughter of Captain Jha and his company. At least they had been soldiers. They had known they were expected to die in war. Evvy had not. She had been dragged here by Briar and Rosethorn. She had not wanted anything to do with the emperor. All she had wanted to do was see the mountains.
Evvy slept a lot. She dreamed, too, and they were the strangest dreams of her life. The fluorite bear was in most of them, trundling beside her from her head to her feet, watching as snakes made of backbones and skulls unwound her bandages. Lions made of ice and packed snow licked her feet. A spider at least twice her size leaped down from a roof she couldn’t see and bandaged her feet in its webs.
In some dreams, when the bear wasn’t present, a woman with a white eye painted on her forehead came and argued with her about food. Usually Evvy would drink the soup brought by the woman just so she would go away. Evvy knew that dreams didn’t work like that. People didn’t go away because you did the things they wanted you to do in dreams, but these dreams were as odd as the strange things that she saw in them.
In one, she asked the fluorite bear, “Which is weirder, the nine-headed snake, or —” Suddenly she was wide-awake and saying, “— the giant spiders that come from above?” She sat up and looked around. She was definitely awake. She could feel her ragged clothes against her skin. She could smell herself. When had she last bathed? “Can you smell me?” she asked the bear.
“No,” it said gravely.
“Oh, good.” Swallowing, terrified of what she might see, she made herself look at her feet. They were there, looking like her ordinary, everyday feet. She wriggled her toes. They were stiff, but not painful. “I dreamed the Yanjingyi yujinon flayed my feet and killed everyone in the fort, but that part was so real,” she murmured. “I dreamed they killed my cats. And then I came here and a big spider wrapped my feet in its webs. I know that part was a dream.”