Lukewarm glass touched his forearm. The barkeep nudged it across the lacquered wood and pointed to a staircase opposite them, where Salma waited at the top. With a graceful crook of her finger, she gestured for him to ascend before again disappearing behind a fall of heavy fabric.

“About time,” Zaethan grumbled.

Clutching his drink, he pushed between the drunken patrons and made his way up the narrow steps. Sweeping the drape of opaque velvet to the side, he entered a dimly lit hallway. His entry was immediately halted by two meaty guards: one Unitarian, the other a Darakaian cross-caste like Salma, each taller than Kumo.

An inviting chuckle drifted toward them from a cracked door at the end of the hall. Flickering light danced over the maroon damask rugs inside the room.

“He is the one, Ràoko,” Salma called to the cross-caste, who appeared to be her appointed lead. “I must speak to the jaha.”

Permitted to pass, Zaethan offered the surly guard a toothy grin and strolled into Salma’s private office. Tipping an imaginary hat, he winked at the middle-aged businesswoman.

“You certainly know how to keep a man waiting, Salma.” Zaethan took a seat on the divan and raised his half-empty glass. “I was starting to wonder if all I’d get from you is this cut-rate bwoloa.”

“And still you kept buying it.” Her eyes sparkled deviously. “But eh, it is a treat to see you, Jaha. It’s been too long since you joined your men, yeah?”

Salma rose fluidly from her satin armchair and crossed the room to an ornate, wooden desk.

“They do fine without me. Takoda won’t shut up about some new yaya you recruited.” Zaethan rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “He’d probably drag her home to Halona if he could.”

“Uni, if he could. The girl does well here, happy, fed, with family. He comes often, your cub warrior.” She bent to pick up a shabby crate, the clinking indicating its contents. “But I was pleased to find it was you who came for this, not he.”

Salma rested the crude box on the short table between them. Drawing back the pigskin duster, she revealed a set of dark red bottles. Zaethan sucked in a breath. Apparently, Orynthia’s king had developed a taste for pammu. Mworran pammu.

Zaethan rubbed his chin, considering the bottles on the table which could only be obtained through some very risky black-market trade. “This is highly illegal, Salma.”

“Eh, but what isn’t these days?”

“It’s a dangerous game, playing the hands and feet in the transaction of another.”

“You should know, son of Kasim,” Salma quipped, “for we are sitting here together.”

She produced two goblets and commenced pouring the syrupy liquid. It reminded him of clotted gore. When Salma proceeded to fill the second, Zaethan hastily covered it.

“Ano, ano. None for me.” He shook his head adamantly, adding a polite “shamàli”, when she gestured to his bwoloa in hand. “I’ve already had enough for one evening.”

“You amuse me, Jaha, still clinging to our native tongue and its leash.” Salma fell back and laughed musically. Her tight coils bounced as she gracefully rested her chin upon the edge of her hand. “A proper ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ doesn’t sting too much, yeah? Surely a little indulgence wouldn’t hurt.” The look in her eyes made it clear that pammu wasn’t all Salma was offering.

“We all maintain our allegiances,” Zaethan said, brushing off her suggestion. “Besides, how do I know this brew isn’t as foul as the shtàka your barkeep serves, eh?”

“I test my product personally,” she emphasized, taking a slow sip of the dark red liquor. “I’m surprised it doesn’t suit your palate.”

“As a general rule, I tend to avoid bloodlike brews when they’re smuggled in from a nation of cannibals.”

While the rumors were simply that, one could never be sure that fermented pam sap and withered beetles were the only contents of a bottle coming out of Mworra. Orynthia was technically at peace with the Mworrans, but all trade with Calluc, their largest mining tribe, was currently outlawed due to the longstanding conflict between Mworra and Razôuel, Orynthia’s highly temperamental ally. Zaethan’s father was tempting many political forces by contracting Darakaian smugglers to secure the Mworran liquor, even for the king.

“Men gravitate toward mystery.” Salma wiped a drop of pammu from her moistened lip. “Taste is not so different.”

“Mysteries are dangerous,” Zaethan remarked, setting down his empty glass in order to latch the crate and grip it in both hands.

“As are the rules which require them, Jaha,” she replied in a strange tone, then called for her lead guard.

Salma didn’t glance up from her goblet when the Darakaian cross-caste appeared in the doorway. “Ràoko, show our loyal friend to the alley stair so he may exit discreetly. Goodnight, Jaha.” She lifted her lichen eyes to meet Zaethan’s and added affectionately, “May Àla’maia watch you tonight as fondly as I do.”

“Shàla’maiamo, my favorite yaya.” Zaethan smiled in parting and followed her man into the hall.

Though the crate wasn’t heavy, it was certainly cumbersome to maneuver down the constricted stair, which was barely wide enough to accommodate Ràoko’s hulking shoulders. Zaethan shuffled around his trunk of a torso at the base of the landing, wincing as the bottles jostled. Receiving an expected grunt to his farewell, he stepped out into the shadows of Marketown’s alleyways, thinking Salma needed to reevaluate the charisma of her staff.

Turning onto an abandoned footpath, the odor of piss and garbage clouded the air. A few yards off, Zaethan made out the shape of a boot where a drunken yancy slumped on the ground, passed out. Continuing onward, he caught an indistinct movement in the darkness. It shifted near the form Zaethan had mistaken for a yancy, revealing a dirtied, lifeless, empty face.

Crouched inches from it was the slim profile of a hooded figure.

Rushing toward the crumpled body, Zaethan’s stomach dropped when the fair profile twisted and stopped him with unapologetic, inhuman eyes. He caught the crate in his arms just as it began to fall.

“You!”

TWENTY

   She moved swiftly, as if she weighed no more than the sheer, midnight linen veiling her features. A face that strongly favored her father, yet held so little of Eoine; of Alora. Luscia Darragh Tiergan embodied the shadow, as skillfully as any Najjan, and he often felt as if he was chasing a wisp.

From the heights of Marketown, the figure had trailed his mistress’s niece for a fortnight. Initially, her haphazard routine had perplexed him. Each night, the young al’Haidren ran through Bastiion’s streets, eventually navigating back to the palace. Only last night had he realized that she’d completed a spherical formation. By charting the imagined spokes on a wheel, night after night, Alora’s niece was mapping the city Proper.