The chief scowled and stepped toward the sorceress. “Are you threatening me?”
Sadira shook her head. “No. But I would expect that repayment for saving the chief’s life is the one debt his tribe would honor.”
Faenaeyon studied Sadira for several moments, then said, “First, we must escape the city. Then we’ll decide what to do about the Pristine Tower and Gaefal’s death.” He chuckled at the sorceress, then laid a hand on her shoulder. “Whatever I decide, don’t think that I will forget what you did. I admire your bravery and cunning.”
Sadira shrugged off the chief’s hand. Before she could tell Faenaeyon she cared more about reaching the tower than what he thought of her, Magnus interrupted.
“She inherited her courage and quick wit form her father,” said the windsinger. “Isn’t that so, Sadira?”
Faenaeyon narrowed one pearl-colored eye and looked Sadira over from head-to-toe. “I thought your name was Lorelei?”
The sorceress shook her head. “No. It’s Sadira-Sadira of Tyr.”
“Barakah’s daughter?” The words were as much an exclamation as they were a question.
“I’m surprised you remember her name,” the sorceress answered.
Faenaeyon’s thin lips twisted into a wistful smile. “My famous daughter,” he said, reaching out to stroke her henna-dyed locks. “I should have known it from the start. You have your mother’s beauty.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Sadira spat, slapping his hand away. “My memories are of a haggard, broken-hearted crone abandoned to slavery by the only man she ever loved.”
Faenaeyon’s mouth fell open and he seemed genuinely perplexed. “What else should I have done?” he asked. “Take her from Tyr and her own people?”
“Of course!” Sadira answered.
Now the elf looked thoroughly confused. “And then what? Keep her as a daeg?”
He spoke the last word in a derogatory tone. A daeg was a spouse-either a male or female-stolen from another tribe. Daegs lived in a state of serfdom until the chief decided they had forgotten their loyalties to their old tribe. It could be many years before a daeg was accepted as a full member of the new tribe, and sometimes they never were.
“That would have been better than what happened,” Sadira spat.
“You know nothing,” Faenaeyon scoffed. “Barakah was not an elf. The Sun Runners would never have accepted her as anything but a daeg, and our chief would have given you to the lirrs the instant you were born.”
Overcome by anger, Sadira shoved her father as hard as she could. The big elf barely budged. Scowling angrily, he grabbed her by the arm.
“Let me go!” Sadira hissed, reaching for her satchel.
“Quiet,” Faenaeyon replied, pushing her toward Magnus. With his free hand, he pulled the dagger from the sheath on Huyar’s hip.
Sadira heard the clack of two weapons striking each other, then turned and saw her father parry the slash of the obsidian barong. No one wielded the heavy chopping knife; it simply danced through the air on its own. Faenaeyon made a grab for the handle, then narrowly saved his hand by dodging away as the blade flashed at his wrist.
Suddenly ignoring his weapon, the chief rushed down the alley. At the end of the dark lane stood a boyish silhouette, his fingers pointed at the floating barong. The youth waved his hand in Sadira’s direction, and the heavy knife streaked toward her head.
The sorceress dropped to the street. As she rolled over the grimy stones, her injured leg erupted into fiery agony. She cried out, then came to rest against a pair of massive feet with ivory toe-claws. The barong descended toward her neck, but Magnus’s arm flashed out and smashed the black blade against the stone wall.
Sighing in relief, Sadira looked down the alley and saw Faenaeyon raising his dagger to strike at Raka. “Don’t kill him!” she screamed.
The elf’s blade stopped in midair, and he grabbed the boy. “But he tried to murder you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sadira answered, rising to her feet. “That’s our guide. Bring him here.”
Faenaeyon raised his peaked eyebrows as if she were mad, but did as asked. He used one band to keep Raka’s arms pinned, and held the other ready to cut the boy’s throat. When they reached Sadira, the young sorcerer glared at her with undisguised loathing. His face was covered with scrapes and lumps from being trapped under the falling arch, but otherwise he seemed to have emerged unscathed.
“You promised to help us escape the city,” Sadira said, returning Raka’s angry stare with a look of forbearance. “Why did you try to kill me instead?”
“You betrayed me,” the youth snapped. “My master has barred me from the Alliance.”
“What for?” Sadira asked, shocked.
“I cannot believe you must ask,” Raka replied, shaking his head angrily. “I vouched for you, and you’re a defiler. We saw you casting spells yesterday.”
Sadira’s stomach felt as though the youth had punched her. She bit her lip and looked away. “I don’t expect you to approve of my methods,” she said. “But it was the only way I could stop Dhojakt. I had no choice.”
“You could have died honorably,” Raka sneered.
“To what end?” Sadira demanded, now growing as angry as the boy. “So the Dragon can keep terrorizing Athas?”
“That would be better than helping him to destroy it,” Raka replied.
He jerked free of Faenaeyon’s grasp, then grabbed Sadira by the arm and pulled her to the end of the alley. “That grove was as old as Nibenay itself,” he said, pointing at the shriveled trunks of the agafari trees. “The sorcerer-king himself proclaimed it a refuge, and no defiler every dared to touch it-until Sadira of Tyr came.”
“I’m sorry your trees died,” Sadira said bitterly. “But stopping the Dragon is more important-or doesn’t the murder of thousands of people mean anything to you?”
“Of course,” Raka answered, his attitude softening. “But so do those lives.”
Sadira shook her head. “Call me a defiler if you like, but if I must choose between people and plants, I’ll take the people every time.”
“I’m not talking about the trees,” Raka said. He gestured at a dozen slaves struggling to throw a heavy bole on the nearest fire. “The king kept a hundred slaves to tend this grove,” he said. “Once they finish clearing it, the guards will make them join their charges on the pyres.”
The sorceress felt a terrible weight on her chest. “You can’t blame me for that,” she said. “I couldn’t have known.”
“You should have,” Raka countered. “Someone dies whenever you defile the land. Maybe not right away, but when they’re hungry for the faro that used to grow there, or when they need meat and leather from lizards that once grazed there.”
“That’s enough,” Faenaeyon said, roughly pulling Raka back into the alley. He raised a hand to cuff the youth. “Stop preaching and-”
“Don’t hurt him,” Sadira said, grabbing her father’s arm. “He’s right.”
Taking her comment as a signal to continue, Raka said, “What’s worse, you’re killing the future. If the land will grow no food, not only does the man die, so do his children-and all the children that would have lived there for the next thousand years.”
The young sorcerer had just finished his lecture when Rhayn approached from the other end of the tunnel.
“Good,” called the elf. “The guide’s here.”
Noting that her sister did not have her mount, Sadira asked, “What about my kank? I can’t go very far like this.”
“It wasn’t there. I’ll tell you why later,” said Rhayn. “But right now, we’d better go-there’s a press gang coming this way.”
“A press gang?” gasped Faenaeyon. “I’ve never seen that in Nibenay.”
“The sorcerer-king’s son has never been wounded before,” said Raka. “He has sent his templars out to gather sacrifices to make Dhojakt well.”
Magnus frowned. “No healing magic I know demands a living sacrifice.”
“Sorcerer-kings have their own kinds of magic,” Sadira said, turning to Raka. “Will you help us leave the city?”