Nightvine Page 10

  He nodded. “I see your point. But we know so little of the islands.”

  “I will change that,” I said. “We need to know what they know.”

  “There’ll be more to it than that,” he said. “This is a huge undertaking.”

  “Yes. It’s not just waves and the islands we don’t understand. It’s the whole world. But don’t you want to find out what more there is to know? Last time we saw each other, you talked about how much you’d always wanted to travel. To explore. To learn. And what better purpose could there be?”

  “I suppose it’s not a sin to indulge our curiosity.”

  I smiled. He wanted to help me. For the first time since Arav had died, the terrible weight of my loneliness eased.

  11

  Bare Hands

  EV AND THIYO MADE A spectacular scene, but Alizhan’s exit from the room didn’t go unnoticed. A dozen people remarked on her as she teetered toward the doorway. She had to concentrate hard to feel them. Most of them lost interest when they saw how she swayed and stumbled. Once she was outside the great hall, she doubled over next to a wall and emptied the contents of her stomach onto the floor.

  It was a disgusting but effective tactic. The last two people who were watching her turned away.

  Alizhan had never done a job drunk, but at least this one didn’t involve scaling any cliffs. Just a hallway and a couple of rooms. She was only a little tipsy now. The effects of the wai were more troubling. It was as though her ears were ringing, or someone had covered one of her eyes—not a complete loss of the sense, but disorienting. Had Kasrik felt like this when he’d been strapped to that chair? Or had it been nothing but pain?

  In the crowded hall, it had been a relief to have her senses dimmed. Here, in the quiet of the hallway, it was daunting. She would have to trust her eyes and ears.

  Alizhan staggered away from the wall, in case anyone was still watching. She’d slur her words and pretend to be lost if anyone caught her out here.

  Could she still incapacitate someone with a touch, if she had to?

  She’d touched Ev.

  Her heart sped up at the thought. No, she couldn’t think about that. It was a distraction. She would do what had to be done. If her powers failed her, running away was always an option.

  Ilyr’s quarters weren’t far. The map had been clear in his head. All the servants were occupied at the feast, so there were no obstacles in her path to his door.

  The door was so grand that Alizhan would have known it belonged to a member of the royal family even if she hadn’t seen it in Ilyr’s memory. The wood was carved with some historical scene. Nalitzvans, obsessed with their thousand-year-old kingdom, were always sculpting and painting their past kings and queens. Carved wooden faces meant even less to Alizhan than flesh and blood ones, but she couldn’t help reaching out to brush her fingers over the wooden relief. Most Laalvuri would have flinched from the sight of such a flagrant sin against God’s Balance, but Alizhan was a sin against God’s Balance herself.

  The company of her fellow sinners was dull, and she soon turned her attention to the lock. She bent the first hairpin too far in her haste, but her second pin worked perfectly. She slipped the crooked pins back into her hair afterward. If she’d known wearing her hair like this would allow her to keep useful things hidden there, she’d have learned to style it a long time ago.

  Alizhan stepped into a room with blue silk wallpaper, couches, and chairs. She knew there were double doors on the opposite wall that led into a study, and that was where she would find the book. It wasn’t even locked in a desk, at least in Ilyr’s memory. He’d simply left it lying out in the open.

  Amazing, that he could treat it so carelessly when it had upended her entire life.

  The double doors were locked, too—Ilyr had at least that much caution—but that lock was no harder than the first one. Alizhan stepped into the study, picked up the slim leatherbound volume, and turned.

  For the second time in her life, someone had snuck up on her.

  This time, instead of a scruffy, skinny teenage boy named Kasrik, it was a pale, petite woman in a stately cream-colored gown. Her hair had once been gold and the years had turned it silver. All silver and cream, she stood out in contrast to the dark wooden doors that she’d nearly closed behind her.

  At the sight of Alizhan’s face, the woman sucked in a breath.

  Alizhan couldn’t read her at all. Was it an effect of the venom? Was Alizhan well and truly powerless?

  You could stand to use your other senses every now and then, little sister. Relying on Mala’s training, Alizhan took a breath and examined the woman again. Perfect posture, beautiful tailoring, elegant jewelry, silk slippers.

  Bare hands.

  Inappropriate, for a royal gala. It wasn’t the wai stopping Alizhan from reading her, then. This woman had powers of some kind, maybe memory-altering powers like Iriyat’s. She could be the one who had ruined Barold Hyersk’s mind and altered Aniyat’s memories.

  She was blocking the double doors that led back to the salon and the hallway. Even powerless, Alizhan might be able to shove her aside and make a run for it. The woman wasn’t stooped or frail-looking, but she was old.

  Instead of reaching for Alizhan with one of her threatening bare hands, the woman spoke. “You’re delivering some kind of message for her. What I can’t figure out is why you’d be stupid enough to steal it back, or why you broke that godawful abomination out of prison.”

  “Her who?” Alizhan made a face. She didn’t normally have to ask questions like that. Who was this woman? Was she talking about the book? Was she talking about Iriyat? When she said “godawful abomination,” did she mean Thiyo? As a godawful abomination herself, Alizhan was outraged on his behalf.

  “What is she doing with Ilyr?” the woman pressed. “I know it has something to do with the islands. Ilyr came back from Laalvur three years ago with the wild idea to go exploring, and that boy has never had an original thought in his life. It has to be the venom. That boy whore Ilyr brought back is just a distraction, albeit one I was planning to exploit.”

  God’s Balance, people were even more confusing when all you had to go on was their conversation. But this woman did seem to be confessing to kidnapping, imprisoning, and torturing Thiyo, if he was the “boy whore” in question. Whatever this woman was talking about, it would be no great hardship to slam her face into a door.

  “Does she know I’m here?” the woman said, even more urgently. “Look at me, you little freak. What’s wrong with you, that you can’t look me in the eye? Does Iriyat know?”

  “How do you know about Iriyat?” Alizhan said.

  The woman let out a shuddering sigh of frustration and clenched her hands. “You’re so stupid, there will hardly be anything in your mind to unravel. Give me the damn book and I’ll figure it out myself.”

  Alizhan tightened her grip on the book, and then she and the woman froze as they heard voices on the other side of the doors.

  Thiyo crossed his arms under his stupid fake breasts, ignoring the pain in his hand, and glared at Ilyr. He could admit to himself that he’d sought this outcome—getting Ilyr alone, or almost alone, in a room—the whole time. He liked Ev and Alizhan well enough, but they were incidental to his real goal. He’d spent his time in the cell dreaming of a dozen different ways the scene could play out.

  Was the encounter one last time for the both of them, or was it the start of something new? There was always a fight in Thiyo’s fantasies. He would hurl his list of grievances, all expressed with perfect eloquence, at Ilyr. That part never changed. Then sometimes, it was goodbye forever. Finally free of his feelings, Thiyo would turn on his heel while Ilyr sobbed on the floor and clutched at his ankles. Other times, the dream version of Ilyr said everything exactly right, and Thiyo forgave him.

  Now that Ilyr was in front of him, bewildered and pale with rage, Thiyo had no idea what to do. As usual, his tongue was a step ahead of his heart.

  “Shouldn
’t you be with your beautiful bride?” he drawled. Thiyo didn’t need to switch back to his native language, as they were all equally easy for him. He spoke Hoi anyway, out of pure spite.

  “I knew that was a performance out there,” Ilyr said, holding fast to his own language. “Your theatrics are always for other people. When you’re truly angry, you’re as icy as Midnight. Will you tell me what the hell is going on now, or do you need to smash a few more glasses in front of your new friend here to get in the mood?”

  Instead of answering, Thiyo peeled the glove off his right hand. It took him a long time. His left hand was shaking, and his right hand was on fire with pain. Let Ilyr wait.

  Thiyo raised his arm slowly, and held his hand very still. “You tell me what’s going on,” he said. “Tell me why I was attacked in my own bed and thrown into prison. Tell me why you didn’t even notice I was gone. Tell me why you let your scumbag prison guards starve me and beat me and break my fingers one by one.”

  “Thiyo,” Ilyr whispered.

  Eyes wide, mouth hanging open. He looked stupid. Shocked. Sorry. It was everything Thiyo wanted, and he found he couldn’t bear it. Instead, he glanced away and saw Ev, behind Ilyr, caught between trying to intervene somehow—she looked like she wanted to say something, even though she couldn’t possibly have understood their conversation—and trying to inch out of the room. She pitied him, of course. Thiyo didn’t want to look at her, either.

  Ilyr took a step forward, obviously wanting to examine Thiyo’s hand or offer some kind of comfort. Thiyo whipped his arm behind his back. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

  “I didn’t—” Ilyr started.

  “I know you didn’t,” Thiyo snapped, not bothering to let him finish defending himself. Ilyr’s face had already confirmed what Thiyo had hoped. Ilyr wasn’t a cunning and cruel betrayer who would have his former lover jailed and tortured. He was just a run-of-the-mill asshole who didn’t love Thiyo as much as Thiyo loved him. In the moment, the two crimes felt inextricable and equal in magnitude. “But you didn’t stop it, either.”

  “I didn’t know,” Ilyr said. “I searched everywhere. I sent guards to every tavern, every temple, every goddamn brothel—even people’s homes! I looked in all the prisons. You were just gone. And you disappeared and then those—those poems started showing up in book peddlers’ carts, and I thought you—”

  Thiyo laughed, and it was an ugly, wet sound. “You thought I betrayed you.”

  Ilyr’s face was beautiful even in anger. The hard set of his jaw and the line of his brows formed an unspoken challenge. Thiyo shook his head, then wiped his left hand across his eyes, streaking black across the back of his white glove. The few feet of space between them was a chasm.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Thiyo said quietly. Those poems had been for Ilyr and Ilyr alone. Even at home in Hoi, where no one would have cared about one man writing love poems to another, he wouldn’t have shared them. That anyone else had ever seen them was a violation of something sacred and private.

  “But you would come to my wedding and scream at a stranger about ripping his dick off,” Ilyr said, with an eyeroll and a little smile.

  Thiyo responded with the most minimal of shrugs.

  Ilyr’s words seemed to have sparked his memory, and he turned around to look at Ev, who was hovering by the double doors on the other side of the room. Thiyo was inured to the power of Ilyr’s royal presence, having seen him in every imaginable state, but he remembered the awe the prince had inspired in him, those first few times he’d drawn himself up to his full height, squared his shoulders, and stared.

  Ilyr was taller than Ev. It must be a rare experience for her, having to look up at someone. Ev withstood his gaze for a moment, but then she bowed her head and spoke Laalvuri. “Ev, sir. Your Highness, I mean.”

  “Ev,” Ilyr said. “Is that a man’s name?”

  Ev forced a smile. There were rather too many teeth.

  “She’s a better person than me, Ilyr. Leave her out of this.”

  Ev shook her head at Thiyo. “I’m in it now. You should both know—there’s someone at court who can alter memories—”

  From the other side of the door, someone screamed.

  The woman’s touch burned. It was only her palm and her fingers making light contact with Alizhan’s face—no slap, no grip, no pressure—but the sensation was searing. Paralyzed with pain, Alizhan screamed instead of stepping away.

  Alizhan could hardly see or hear, but there was a crashing sound, and then something heavy slammed her to the ground. She was trapped beneath the woman for a moment, but someone wrested the woman’s hand from her face. The woman was dragged off of her. Alizhan blinked and when her vision cleared, she turned her head to the side—sitting up was not an option—to see the woman lying next to her, her silver hair spilling across the floor.

  The woman was reaching up at something, her clawlike fingers opening. Alizhan refocused her gaze just in time to see the woman’s fingers brush Ev’s face, and then Ev gave her adversary a cracking punch in the jaw. The woman’s arm fell limp.

  Satisfied, Alizhan let her eyes close again. How was it possible for her mind to hurt?

  People were talking. Rude. Couldn’t they tell she was suffering?

  When it became clear that no one was going to stop talking, Alizhan took a deep breath and started listening. It was a relief to discover she hadn’t lost her powers. The woman was as blank as she’d always been, which presumably meant she was unconscious. Ev was dazed. Thiyo was angry. The other person—oh, Ilyr—was confused and angry.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Ilyr was yelling. It was a small room. There was no need to yell.

  His speech was an echo, an incomprehensible string of syllables representing the perfectly clear question in his mind. After hours at the feast, this phenomenon was familiar. Ilyr was yelling in Nalitzvan.

  Thiyo didn’t say anything, although Alizhan could feel the answer forming in his mind, a dark swirl of memory and suspicion. Ev was still collecting herself. So it fell to Alizhan. Without opening her eyes, she said in Laalvuri, “That woman is the one who had Thiyo thrown in prison. She wants to undermine you—she’s also probably the one who published Loves. And if you have any more questions, for the sake of God’s Balance, ask them in a language I have half a chance of understanding.”

  Alizhan could have worked to decipher the conversation in Nalitzvan, but since the use of magic—a funny way to phrase it, as if magic were a hammer or a sword, instead of as much a part of her body as an eye or an arm—was punishable by death here, it was better not to alert the prince. Also, her head hurt.

  “‘That woman’ is a trusted friend and adviser!” Ilyr shouted. He had, at least, complied with her request about languages. “Merat Orzh has been a friend of my family for fifteen years.”

  “So what was she doing in your study,” Alizhan said. She was too tired to give the question its proper intonation. It was work enough to string all those words together.

  “Catching a thief, obviously,” Ilyr said. She heard someone reach down and pluck the book from the floor beside her.

  She sighed.

  “Ev said someone at court could alter memories,” Thiyo said. “She meant Merat?”

  Alizhan nodded, and stars burst behind the darkness of her eyelids. She sucked in a pained breath and then stayed very still. “Merat doesn’t like you very much.”

  “Neither does half my court. That proves nothing,” Ilyr said.

  “Give me a little credit, it’s two-thirds at the very least,” Thiyo said. A joke to cover his hurt. Alizhan knew that tactic well. She would’ve had more sympathy if her brain wasn’t sloshing around inside her skull.

  “Go ask your wife what she knows about Lan,” Alizhan said.

  There was a blessed silence.

  “What?” Ilyr said quietly.

  “You already know,” Alizhan said. “Aniyat doesn’t remember. At first you thought she was pretending, trying to put the w
hole affair behind you by acting like it never happened.”

  Ilyr huffed. Alizhan could feel his resignation warring with his doubts. He was unsettled that she’d characterized him so accurately. He was embarrassed, too, that she’d revealed Aniyat’s forgetfulness in front of Thiyo. Aniyat’s memory lapse had been convenient, if worrisome. What if Thiyo thought Ilyr felt the same way about his disappearance? It had benefitted him to have the unpredictable, divisive figure of Lady Lan gone from his court these past two weeks.

  And yet only two triads after Thiyo had vanished, Ilyr had ridden out into the woods alone and rammed his fist into a tree trunk. Even now, a twinge of remembered pain shot over his knuckles.

  He’d been elated to see Thiyo alive this shift. Elated, then heartbroken, then suspicious, then furious. Things were never simple with Thiyo.

  Alizhan rubbed her left hand over the knuckles of her right, wishing Ilyr could quiet his emotions. She didn’t want to sympathize with him.

  Ilyr collected himself, and then said, “But why would Merat do any of that? Why would she alter Aniyat’s memory—if such a thing is even possible? Why hurt Thiyo?”

  If Alizhan was going to lose him, it would happen now. “I don’t know yet,” she said. She opened her eyes and tried to make eye contact like a normal person, so he’d know she was sincerely trying to help him. “She thought you were working with Iriyat ha-Varensi in Laalvur. She thought you had some plot about the islands, and venom.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I went to the islands because I wanted to know about the islands. I stayed there for a year for scholarship, diplomacy—”

  “Love?” Thiyo interrupted. Then he addressed Alizhan, and the sardonic tone had vanished from his voice, “Merat won’t be unconscious for long.” Thiyo’s thoughts had turned to what Mala had said about Vines—Alizhan and Ev had mere hours to get to the harbor.