Second Chapter
If at first you do not succeed,
At least consider a new option.
Sabiya speaks…
How is that in one night, I can travel farther than I have ever been from home, and yet come morning, I am back where I started? Will I ever be free of this gilded cage? Must I forever be imprisoned or will I manage to escape and never look back?
Sabiya
A thick darkness swallowed the shadows cast by the single torch in the hallway. The guard lay asleep, always the case so late in the early morning, before the sun arose to scatter golden flakes amongst glowing stars.
Sabiya’s skirt made a swooshing sound with the shifting of her legs and she choked on her own breath. She peered over at the guard as her heart raced; his head lolled. She wrinkled her nose when she noticed the trickle of spittle slipping from between his parted, cracked lips. A drop of alcohol dripped from the lip of the jug toppled next to him.
She tiptoed down the hallway with the smell of spilled alcohol and vanilla incense bombarding her nostrils.
She paused at another section in the hallway where another guard lay. His eyes were closed and he snorted as she crept past his body, barely missing his leg as it twitched. A sharp intake of breath escaped her dry mouth and she froze. Her head didn't move, only her eyes, swinging towards the slumbering drunkard still lost in sleep. Sabiya darted on, giving a moment of thanks to the Great Sia for allowing the guards to be lazy drunks and not dutiful young men.
She came to her father’s apartment and, holding her breath, turned the brass handle, pushing inward. It swung easily and noiselessly. She exhaled, mentally sending Sia another thanks for letting the door be as open as it was when she’d left. Once within, she locked it; her father wouldn’t look for trouble if nothing seemed peculiar.
Sabiya crept across the floor and parted the curtain that led into the room she shared with her sisters. Dawn kissed the room with pale pink light from the sheer silk draped over the single window, reflecting from the mirror nailed above the doorway.
A paradise compared to the bloodied tent. Home used to make her stomach churn, but she would’ve traded her soul for the chance to never leave.
“Where were you, and no lies?”
Sabiya brushed a strand of hair back from her face as a smile touched her lips, but she tried to sound annoyed, fashioning a pout. “I never lie!”
Shana sat up in the bed that stretched along the back wall beneath the window. The lump in the silk sheets beside her didn’t stir, lost to sleep.
Sabiya stripped off her gritty clothing and climbed into the bed beside her younger sisters, the sheets exotic against her hot skin. Shana combed her fingers through Sabiya’s tangled tresses, sand tickling her shoulders.
“Who was it?” Shana whispered.
The image of Uthias flashed behind Sabiya’s eyes. Shana couldn’t know about him. “Who do you speak of?”
“The man, Sabiya! He stole you off with him atop his great camel, didn’t he? Mama is so certain that you’re with child and Father will have to send you away like what happened to Mama’s sister, the one we can’t talk about or we’ll be beaten and all. Does Father have to send you away, or is the man still but a mere lover to you? You know this is why you shouldn’t take a lover. Babies happen.”
Sabiya buried her face into the sheets as Uthias appeared in her mind again. Lovers didn’t happen for her. Men winked at Shana, not her.
“I don’t think Mama’s right because you would be crying like a babe if you had to be sent away. I think you ran off to him, but he turned you down and so you came home. He isn’t of noble blood like us, so he lives in the city, in one of those tenements.”
“Shana,” Sabiya whispered, “I have no secret lover. It is pointless to love any man until you know he is the one you shall marry, and Father hasn’t told me yet whom I shall wed. I ran off with no one. Do you know of the scoundrels that dwell in the desert beyond our safe home?” Something touched her back, like a finger of ice. She whipped her head around, lips parting, yet no one was there. Had a spirit followed her back?
Shana’s eyes widened. “Do you mean to say a scoundrel loves you?”
“No! Never would I let a scoundrel think of me in such a way.” She paused. “It was a scoundrel who stole me. I was imprisoned, and some of my clothes were taken.” She deserved to slap herself. She made it sound like a drama, not a memory.
“He left you naked?”
“I still had some bits of clothes to protect my modesty to a decent degree.” More of that drama, as though the actors presented for their entertainment.
“How did you escape with your life?” Shana had lost the reality of it.
“There was another captive held with me. He had a wonderful brother and the dear man came to save him. Such devotion not even my precious Shana can provide me with.” Sabiya heard her nonchalant tone, yet when she tried to tear up with emotion, all she found was a gaping hollowness. “They were wonderful men, if it is not too bold to say. The younger, the man held with me, was named Harick, I recall, and our savior went by the name of Uthias.”
Shana’s head snapped around. “HJave you heard the tales told of the wicked man who calls himself the Killer, the one who plucks off our nobles as though they were no more than flies?”
Sabiya scowled. “Of course I have. He’s against everything our country stands for. He wishes to kill our wondrous king and murder all of our fathers. He kills our children and takes our women. He abandons our elderly.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “He eats us alive.” Most of the tales, Sabiya assumed, were just that – tall-tales.
“His given name is Uthias.”
Sabiya stiffened. The stories had circulated in the past nine years, yet it was impossible to think her warrior was the grotesque Killer, for he’d saved her, held her in his arms, and she’d pledged to him thanks and gratitude.
She’d offered herself to the Killer.
Tears burned her eyes. Impossible. It couldn’t be him.
“He lived in Juniper City with us, didn’t he?”
“No.” Her belly clenched. “They were of the Jadaidi clan, those people who live in the outskirts of the desert.” More Amalitan than Sian although they lived in the desert of the country of Sia, outcasts from society.
The Killer was Jadaidi.
An invisible hand slid over her neck, tracing her shoulder blades. Imagination. I’m imagining things now.
“Sia our leader,” Shana breathed. “You didn’t kiss him, did you?”
Sabiya shoved her sister away and sat up. As she stood in front of the mirror, gazing at her filthy body, her nakedness glared like a beacon; as if by some evil magic, he could see her, as she stood bared to the world. She turned to search through her trunk, loving the cedar smell that hit her tearstained face.
“You did kiss him, didn’t you?” Shana exclaimed.
“Kiss?” Their little sister blinked from the nest of blankets.
“Go to sleep, Kaitly,” Shana snapped.
Sabiya whirled around, a clean breast coverlet in her hand. “I did nothing with him. Say naught of this to anyone, do you hear? Furthermore, I won’t have you calling him evil! He is the kindest man I know, kinder even than our father!”
Sabiya winced. Words like that could have her imprisoned for a fortnight. Shana gasped and Kaitly whispered, “What’d Father do?”
“Sabiya,” Shana breathed. Sabiya turned away, fresh tears clinging to her lashes. She found her silk leggings from the bottom of the chest and yanked them on. Even in a bedroom of silk, everything seemed dull, old.
“It’s too hot for leggings,” Shana said. Sabiya didn’t respond, yet she pulled them off and wadded them into a ball. Shana was right; it was too hot for leggings worn only in the rainy season.
Sabiya sank onto the cushioned stool in front of the vanity. Usually by thirteen, marriage proposals flooded a girl’s father; not one man had requested her to marry his son yet.
“Was he handsome?” Shana asked.
“Was who handsome?” Kaitly yawned.
Sabiya yanked the silver comb through her hair, tearing out the tangles, and more sand slid down her neck. Outside, a guardsman blew the Juniper horn and voices exploded, carried by the gritty wind through the window. Fishermen grabbed their wooden boats to throw into the ocean to receive the day’s catch in their nets. Men roused animals for the day’s strenuous work. Below the window, a man yelled, “Get moving, mule.” Sabiya winced, dropping the comb so it clattered against the vanity, as the outlaw who’d stolen her appeared on the mirror.
The camp was framed by the rich colors of dusk in the sky, outlining the tents with thick black lines like a coal drawing. He shoved her forward, a dirty hand gripping her shoulder like a viper bite. He grunted again, giving her another shove forward. He grunted a lot, snorted a few times. The only words she’d heard him say were when he’d grabbed her onto his horse, sand blowing around her dangling feet. He’d only said two words then. “Little morsel.” His voice was deep and coated with a thick accent she didn’t recognize.
“Please,” she begged as he tossed her to the camp like a worthless doll. “Please, oh please, sir, let me go. My father will pay you to return me!”
He snorted again, and his phlegmy voice called her a worthless harlot. “No man would pay fer ye. Yer moine now, pet.”
She stopped struggling to look up at him. “I don’t even know what a harlot is!”
“Walk!” he had ordered, but before she could, he had slapped her. Stars fired in front of her eyes. She fell into the sand, a few grains flying into her gasping mouth.
“Stubborn mule!” he grabbed her by the arms again, yanked her to her trembling feet, and-
“Stubborn mule,” the man outside bellowed again. Sabiya closed her eyes, willing away more tears. She was too strong to bawl in front of her sisters. The bruise from the brute’s grip was still sore; the pain aroused her attention and she looked at her shoulder, a deep purple mixed with dull blue. She tugged her short sleeve to hide it.
Although they might wonder, no decent Juniper citizen would ask how she’d gotten bruises across her arms. Fathers beat their daughters, and Sabiya’s father was infamous for having a quick temper. Her mothers wouldn’t ask, either, for the same reason. She finished combing her hair and coiled it into a knot.
“Will you help me pin up my hair, too?” Shana held out her hairpins. Sabiya brushed past, grabbing her spare Juni and draping it on in the traditional fashion. The material was rougher than her good Juni and the weavings weren’t only carelessly done, the thread was cotton instead of silk, but her good Juni had been stolen with her other things.
“Please, Sabiya?”
“Pin up your own hair.” Sabiya swirled from the room. Didn’t Shana realize Sabiya might’ve died?
The apartment had come alive with the smell of cooking ham and sweet incense. Two women knelt on cushions beside the long, low table set with the morning foods. The lattice doors opened to the balcony and the yellow curtains fluttered with the wind. The flowers grown in the narrow clay boxes on the balcony had been arranged on the table. One woman cleaned fruit with a rag while the other seasoned ham she’d heated.
The woman tending the fruit smiled; the other frowned. Sabiya curtsied and busied herself with straightening her Juni. Her good Juni needed continual fussing to gather correctly, while this coarser fabric refused wrinkles.
The woman with the meat clicked her tongue. “Such voice I hear used in your room. A woman does not yelp so, evilness you are to raise your voice to your sisters in such a way. What have you to say?”
“I shall be better, Mother Ilyn. I promise to you I will behave as is due towards my sisters.” What would it be like if she was rude and loud like the outlaws? What if she became an outlaw? She could ride across the desert on horses, screaming while brandishing a sword to slice off heads.
Ilyn snorted her approval and set the plate of ham upon the table with a clink. Sabiya looked beyond to her father’s other wife, Anie. Sabiya’s own mother had perished in childbirth; she would never know her mother’s voice or the depths in her eyes. Watching Anie cleansing the fruit, Sabiya wondered how her mother had done it. Would she have used brisk rubs or gentle circling caresses?
If I had never been born, she wouldn’t have died. Did she get to hold me before her good soul left her body? Is she watching me now, scolding me for what happened last night?
Anie passed her an orange. “You look fretful. Did you not sleep well?” Sabiya looked up and met the woman’s eyes as she took the fruit. Anie knew she’d almost escaped. Did the woman think she should’ve stayed away? If she had, Sabiya might’ve died.
The orange was warm from the rubbing, yet when Sabiya peeled away the outer covering, the inside felt cool and juicy.
Anie is the mother I remember, but I should remember my own, not a stranger. My father had Ilyn for a wife when my mother died, Anie not until almost a year later. Ilyn must have held me in her arms first; sharp Ilyn and not my loving mother. I don’t even know her name. It’s a stupid rule not to be allowed to speak of the dead. Sweet Sia, I cannot believe it brings down evil when all I do is think of her and wonder.
Sabiya stuck the orange peels in her mouth, chewing to bring herself back to reality. Strange how bitter the peels could be when the meat inside was so sweet. If she were an outlaw, she would carry oranges in her saddlebags and eat one whenever she felt like it.
Kaitly trailed Shana out of their bedroom, gripping her skirt. She left Shana to go to Ilyn, her blood mother, and planted a kiss upon the woman’s cheek, but Ilyn turned away. Sabiya wished she’d been able to kiss Anie, except it had never felt right. They were her father’s wives, not her mother.
When her brothers emerged from their room, Sabiya finished her orange. It wouldn’t be long before her father arrived at the table, and only when he arrived was it allowed they break their nightly fast.
In minutes, he joined the family, no words to anyone. They ate in silence, the females consuming the fruit and the males eating the meat. As a grown man, Sabiya’s father ate the fastest and departed without a word. If she joined the outlaws, everyone would eat at once, and they would be as boisterous as they pleased.
Anie and Ilyn cleared the meal. The boys prepared to go to their jobs in the stables, looking after the city’s livestock as all the unmarried sons of the wealthy did during their days when they were too old for schooling.
The youngest waited by the door to go to school, shifting his stance from one leg to the other. When his sisters joined him, he snarled, “When will you grow up so I don’t have to escort you everywhere?”
“We are women, Aroh,” Shana snarled back as soon as the door to their apartment closed. “You must watch out for our virtue. You shall walk us till we marry.” Sabiya glanced at her, wishing she had that kind of nerve. She could pretend, though, and in her head, she had Aroh reduced to a puddle of worthless dust.
“Sabiya will never marry.” Aroh hit his sister’s arm too rough to be playful. “You’ll be like an ugly, old widow, won’t you, Sabiya? Just worse because you’ll have never gotten married. You’ll live with Father until he dies and then I’ll get stuck with you again.”
I know it’s wrong, but I despise him. He hates me, of this I’m sure. I can see it in his eyes when he looks at me like that. He hates me for killing our blood mother with my birth.
Shana took hold of her hand. “You can live with me, Sabiya.” Sabiya noticed Shana never said she had faith Sabiya would marry. None of them thought she would. Sabiya was fifteen now. She should have been married years ago.
Shana had proposals galore, with none yet for her older sister. Even Kaitly had one proposal, which their father could consider for years since she was too young for the marriage bed.
They reached the schoolroom in bitter silence. Shana kissed Sabiya’s cheek goodbye and took hold of Kaitly’s hand, tugging her inside. Kaitly waved to Aroh and Sabiya, smiling in her oblivious, childish manner.
Sabiya turned to go up the stairs to the next floor. “Aroh, you need not escort me. I know the way well.”
He darted past her, beating her up the stairs. She had to run to keep up with him, cursing him in her mind. He paused while she gathered herself outside the doors and when she looked back, he’d vanished.
The guard who stood outside the gilded double doors nodded to her and stepped aside to allow her entrance. She stepped into a world of shining gold and spicy incense, of intrigue and dishonesty. Curtainless windows stretched from marble floor to curved ceiling. Through them she spotted the sun, a glowing ball of fire sitting in a sky of endless deep blue as if suspended by the hands of the white clouds; at any moment, it would drop to burn the planet.
Harick
“It’s just the sun; you don’t have to study it.” Harick licked his dry lips, eyeing his brother. Uthias had his head tipped back, the sun baking his skin to bring out the sparse freckles on his bare forehead. He seemed as if in another world, completely free of his being, and yet Harick knew every grain of sand that moved registered in his brother’s mind. Every breath of wind was noticed, every lizard that basked upon the rocks was noted, and everything Harick had said had been heard, except whether it was taken into consideration was another matter. “Uthias, are you ignoring me?”
His brother stared at the sky. His horse, however, blinked as if to say of course the magnificent Uthias listened. Uthias, the infamous Killer of the Desert, heard all.
“Don’t you think she’s beautiful?” Harick repeated. “Her hair was like raven feathers woven into a wing. Her chest was so round. Our women don’t look like that. Did you see her eyes? They were like real blue sapphires. Look, Uthias, we’re home. Ya!”
Harick urged his horse into a gallop. Ahead of them arose the great stone arch, the barrier to their enclosed homeland, set in the crevice between two low mountains. Behind the carved arch, a layer of logs created a fort wall with a walkway at the top.
The guard waved as Harick drew near. “My greetings. How fare thee?”
Harick waved back, motioning for Uthias to hurry.
Uthias
Just to annoy his brother, Uthias stroked his horse’s velvety neck for calmness, an act that set the pace slower.
“Hurry up,” Harick yelled, and Uthias chuckled.
Harick was a foolish boy with no more wit in his head than a plant. He had even dared to insist they stop, after Uthias had tended to Harick’s wounds, to eat the bread and cheese Uthias had packed knowing his brother would be hungry. They could have eaten it as they rode and they would have been home in no more than an hour, but Harick had also insisted they not force their horses too hard, so the journey had taken them twice as long.
The conversation could’ve been more enlightening. Uthias would have enjoyed talking of horses or strategies, not the pretty girl he’d rescued. She wasn’t his first and she’d not be his last.
As he crossed beneath the massive arch, the guard called, “Hail, great Uthias. He has saved his brother yet again!”
As always. It is I who must save Harick. He must be cursed. So much misfortune could never befall a single person. This has always been the way since he was born to our parents. Snakebite and I must suck out the poison. A broken arm and I must set it. A fall resulting in a broken nose and it is I who must stop the bleeding. A fever and I am the one nursing him, sitting by his side unless he scream for me, giving no one any peace.
“Uthias, Harick!” A little girl ran from the lodges nestled between the mountains. Tight curls bounced against her head and one fell over her pale brown eyes, identical to the eyes of her brothers. Harick slid off his horse to grab her into his arms, hiding the pain it took to move behind a toothy grin. The salve worked, but not enough, not yet, and he was Human enough to require time.
The child’s rag doll slipped from her hands, but she laughed, looping her arms around Harick’s neck, mindless of his bloodied state. The stolen horse walked on, tossing his head at the unusual surroundings. Uthias jumped down from his horse to catch Harick’s mount. What a wonderful brother he had, to just let the animal go.
“Hallo, baby sister,” Harick teased. “Have you grown since the last time I saw you?”
“You saw me yesterday morning.” She shoved her head into the front of his shredded vest and giggled. If nothing better came of Harick, he’d make a fine father, but it wasn’t likely he’d sire any of the Juniper girl’s children no matter how much he wished otherwise.
“Father,” Harick called as an older man lumbered towards them, a limp in his step. “Father, aren’t you glad to see me? I’m alive!”
“Alive!” the little girl shrieked.
The man leaned against a cane for added support, but when he reached Harick, he released it to pat his son’s hand. “My son, what am I to do with you?”
Harick frowned, his sister curling his shaggy hair around her fingers. “Father… I’m back. Is not that what is most important?”
“No,” his father said. “Harick, this will happen again. You’ve always been a careless boy, but I had expected you to grow out of it. I have told you many a time, my son, never to go near Juniper City at dusk. The people there are as empty headed as you. They think the evil spirits come out only at night. They’d mistake you and shoot you down with unseen arrows.”
“If they are unseen, how would they hurt me? Juniper holds no magic, Father.”
“They are unseen until it is too late.”
“It wasn’t Juniper that got me!”
“Oh, aye, it wasn’t Juniper, but the desert thieves. If you had been home before dusk, they would not have gotten hold of you, my son. They always check around the city at night for any dropped jewel or a lone, weak straggler not yet in his bed.”
“I wasn’t alone. I had my friends with me.”
Uthias ground his teeth. Someday, his brother would learn not to argue.
“They were all home last night, weren’t they? They knew better than to go into the city. Can you imagine how I felt when they five come charging in here screaming about how you went into the city and a group of thieves had attacked you? I thought you were dead. You should have seen your brother, how he jumped onto his horse and took off, shouting back he would bring you home to me safely or die trying! Uthias, I owe you my heart, for if your brother was not with us now, I would be dead inside.”
Uthias nodded. “You are welcome, Father.” Harick was his younger brother; nothing could change that.
“Father, I am not a child. I can live by myself,” Harick whined, sounding every bit the child. “I’ve never heard you tell Uthias to keep here at dark; many a night he hasn’t come home until the magic hour of midnight.”
“Uthias is a man,” their father roared. Harick winced, and Uthias sighed. Scolding wouldn’t teach Harick if it hadn’t yet.
Their father groaned, closing his eyes. “You must be hungry and I can see you’re wounded. Hurry to your mother, but I must speak with Uthias before he ventures home.”
Uthias bowed as Harick stalked deeper into the village. “What is it?”
“A fine mount.” His father nodded to the horse Harick had stolen. “If I must guess, I wager it is a thief’s charger, and I venture I guess right.”
“Aye, Father,” Uthias said. “Harick’s new horse it is now.”
“No, we’ll give it to your sister Sefina. She’s old enough now for a horse and our little Jostine can have her pony. It would be an award for Harick to get this fine horse, and he deserves no horse now that he’s lost his. Sefina will be heartbroken. She always favored his, don’t you agree?”
“Aye.”
The older man slipped his cane into the loop on his belt to swing himself atop the stallion. Uthias mounted his own horse. It wasn’t often they rode into the desert together. Younger, they had done so each day, where Uthias had been taught the art of swordplay and the skill of horses upon the sands with his father, a warrior in his own day before the wound to his leg had forced him into smoother life.
They turned their horses to the desert and rode. Sunbeams beat upon them; the wind stirred their long hair, and Time passed slower while his father hummed. The sand whirled by in sheets of brown, sunlight obscuring the horizon in heat waves. Sand puffed beneath the hooves, and the men arched their bodies to move with the flow.
The older man pulled up on a hill overlooking Juniper City. Uthias stopped beside him, following his gaze to the sea. A salty breeze from the sea greeted them in a tangy breath.
“Was I wrong?” the older man asked. “Should I have trained Harick to be a warrior as I have trained you?”
Uthias lifted his hand to shade his eyes as he stared at the city. “He’s too airy to be a warrior. As we rode home this day, he talked nothing but of a Juniper girl we met in the thief camp. He spoke nothing of what the thieves did, only the size of the girl’s breasts.”
“I guess you saved her?” His father chuckled. “Uthias, I have trained you well in the art of combat. Someday you’ll need all that you know. I’ve heard what the people of the city yonder call you. To them, you are the Killer. I did not train you to be a killer.”
“I would never kill without just cause. They don’t recognize the evil in the citizens I eliminate.”
“Aye. Did the girl you rescued know who you were?”
“If she did, she told me not. Father, why are we here? I have been here once before on this day and that is enough to settle me.”
His voice transformed into cold lead, his gaze fastened on the ocean, the break of wave on rock and sand. “In that city is a woman they keep hidden. She is only half Amalitan, but still considered the enemy of this country. Her Sian mother fell in love with an Amalitan man and that is how she came to breathe this air.”
Uthias rolled his shoulders. “You never told me this before.”
“Only I and three other men know of this, for we helped the Sian woman to escape, but she left her daughter. This was too many years ago.” His father squinted at the sky. “An Amalitan noble came to the city and was staying with the family pretending to be from Sia. She convinced the woman to flee from her loveless marriage there to live with her lover in Amalita. The noble stayed with the daughter when we helped the woman to escape. We saw her meet her secret lover. The next day, while the woman was searched for, the Amalitan noble was to bring the daughter.”
The wind howled and the older man paused, looking to his son. He waited until Uthias nodded. “She never came; seasons later, we learned of their fate. The Amalitan noble had been captured and tried for sorcery, accused of contorting with the evil spirits of the night. The missing woman’s daughter, no more than a child, was locked up. They call her the Seeir because she possesses the art of Amalita, the ability to see things in everything. She can tell when a storm is coming, when the season will be dry, simple things like that. They cannot do that and so they use her.”
“What became of the Amalitan noble?”
“Likely she was killed. You must understand that most importantly, they have this poor girl, this Seeir, locked up. There is news that a Sian noble has been sent from their king to visit Juniper. Never has such been done in my lifetime or the lifetime of your grandfather. Likely it is regarding her.”
Before Uthias could answer, the aged warrior urged his horse onwards to the next hill, close enough to see the people scurrying through the streets in their bright clothing.
“He will be here by noon today. You and a few others have been appointed to journey into the city to learn if he has plans for the girl. I won’t have the king of Sia using her for his own ill purposes against Amalita. Although we live in this desert of Sia, we are still citizens of Amalita We must not let Sia have any advantage over us.”
“Does the Great Sia still live?” They’d never discussed that before, as though it lay as an unwritten law: a figurehead only, a legend derived from memory.
“No woman could live so long. Come now, we must prepare you. I know you will do your country proud.”
Uthias glanced at the city. A woman stood on a high balcony staring in his direction. Uthias knew who she was and he smiled, and turned to ride after his father. Harick would likely never see Sabiya again, but Uthias had, and in a beautiful Juni such as she wore, she looked like a magical princess to who even the sun would bow.
Shana
The Juniper teaching master clapped his hands for attention. The boys continued to laugh as they shoved each other off the low wooden benches, while the girls sat in a circle on the floor.
“Be quiet,” whispered one girl, a child on her first day of teaching. The teaching master slapped her in the face with his wooden pointer, clapping until at last the boys hushed.
Shana offered the new pupil a smile. Always on the first day for a girl, she would speak and be hit. She would never speak again in class after that.
“Tell me,” the teaching master called out, “who is it that we hope will come to us one day? Who is it that will save us from all evil?”
“The Daughter of Darkness,” the boys sang in unison. The girls thought it silently, adding a prayer the magnificent Daughter of Darkness would make their lives more worthy.
“Who is it we all love?” the schooling master questioned.
“The Great Sia and our goodly King Wrence,” the boys shouted.
“Who is it we hate?”
“Amalita!”
“Who is it we fear and wish dead from our wondrous city?”
“The Killer.”
A shiver tore through Shana and she closed her eyes, licking her lips.