Crowns of Rust (Kingdoms of Sand Book 2) Read online

  "You allowed the eagles into the lions' den," Shiloh said. "Now you must deal with their talons."

  And I must deal with a lion club who fled. With a piece of my heart torn out. With a fear that will not leave me.

  It was then that Shiloh saw the rider.

  At first he was but a speck on the horizon, still outside the city walls, raising a cloud of dust, traveling from the west. As he drew closer, Shiloh could make out a horse, still too far to show color. The rider entered the city—for the first time in a year, the gates were open to pilgrims, farmers, and other travelers. The horse galloped along the city streets, heading here, toward the Mount of Cedars and the palace on its crest. And as she watched the rider approach, her heart sank, and Shiloh knew—whether from divine insight, from some hidden sense of lume, or simply from a wisdom inside her—that he came bearing ill tidings. Cold sweat trickled down her back.

  Finally the rider reached her, dust coating his cloak, beard, and tanned skin. In this courtyard beneath the golden palace, the highest point of the city, he dismounted and knelt before her and Shefael. He panted, seeming so weary he could barely breathe, and blood stained bandages across his arm and side.

  "My lord," he rasped. "My lady."

  Shiloh inhaled sharply. She knew him.

  "Hanan." She knelt by him. "Are you hurt?" She turned toward the legionaries. "Bring water! Bring milk and honey!"

  The legionaries only smirked. Shiloh returned her attention toward Hanan. The tall, bearded man had served as a bodyguard in their villa on Pine Hill, had been a family friend for twenty years.

  "My lady," he said, and his eyes dampened. He held her hand in his trembling, callused grip. "I am sorry."

  No. Tears flooded Shiloh's eyes. No. Oh Lord of Light, no, please, no.

  "Tell me," she said, struggling to keep the tremble from her voice, not to show weakness to the legionaries who watched, who smirked. "Are they all . . .?"

  "Lord Jerael has fallen." Hanan lowered his head. "The city of Gefen has fallen too, its defenders slain."

  Her world crumbled.

  A thousand thoughts stormed through her mind, crumbling.

  Only one remained.

  "What of my children?" Shiloh whispered.

  "Atalia and Koren live, but . . . my lady, it grieves me to speak these words."

  Still kneeling, she dug her fingers into his shoulders. "Speak them nonetheless."

  Hanan placed his hands on her arms and stared into her eyes. "Taken captive. Placed in chains. The legionaries say they will be shipped to Aelar as prisoners."

  As slaves, Shiloh knew.

  "What of Epher?" she whispered. "What of Ofeer?"

  Hanan shook his head. "I don't know, my lady. They say that Epher fought with the hillsfolk outside Beth Eloh."

  All the hillsfolk had died outside Beth Eloh, Shiloh knew. She had watched them all die from the wall.

  Slowly, she rose to her feet.

  She turned toward Shefael.

  "My king, send out a hundred more riders. We need more people searching for Maya. And send a hundred priests, a hundred masons and engineers, and a hundred wagons of supplies to Gefen. The wounded will need healing, the walls will need repairs, the people will need medicine and food and blankets." She nodded. "And give Hanan a place at your table tonight. He deserves to feast with a king."

  Shefael only stared at her, mouth hanging open. Two of the legionaries who guarded him took steps forward, frowning under their iron helms.

  "You are not to issue commands, whore of Zohar—" one legionary began.

  She met the man's eyes and interrupted him. "And you will not interfere with how we manage the daily affairs of our kingdom, legionary. Porcia Octavius has ridden out of this city. Until your emperor officially names Zohar a province of Aelar, and until he appoints a governor to command us, I will issue my own commands."

  She was playing a dangerous game here, she knew. A game whose rules were not yet set. Until the pieces arranged themselves in their final positions, she could not predict each movement's outcome, and as she stared down this legionary, memories of those fallen lands—of the ruins and corpses around the Encircled Sea—filled her mind.

  But a few things she knew.

  My husband is dead. My children are missing or sold into slavery. But a hundred thousand souls still live in this city, and many more live across the land of Zohar. And if I cannot protect them now, if I cannot walk this tightrope between subservience and autonomy, all these people will join my husband underground.

  Finally the legionary nodded. One battle won.

  "My lady." Hanan approached her again, head lowered. "We will pray in the Temple tonight. We will pray for Lord Jerael's soul, for—"

  "Tonight we will walk through the city," Shiloh said, "and distribute food and water to the poor. The heat is sweltering, dangerous for those weakened by siege. Then we will write a letter to Emperor Marcus in Aelar, offering him our servitude in exchange for our lives; a messenger will carry it to the port. We will continue to oversee the search efforts for the missing, and we will continue to bury the dead outside our walls. Now go, Hanan. Wash and change your clothes and drink and eat. Then join me again. We have much to do."

  He nodded and left her, perhaps wondering at how her heart could be so calloused. What he did not see was the pain inside her, was the heart that threatened to shatter, to leave her a ruin, a dead soul in a dying body.

  There were a million lives in Zohar to save. A million lives who needed her, whose need might just save her.

  She got to work.

  EPHER

  Hummmm.

  Buzzzz.

  For a long time, darkness and sound.

  Shadows and a dark labyrinth.

  Epher wandered through a shadowy city, knowing he had to find something, to reach a destination, knowing that if he failed, his family would die. But he was lost. He moved faster, soon running, but the streets kept twisting around him, reshaping, leading to dead ends. He ran faster, trying to find what he needed—to find his home. To find his family, to protect them. They were dying. They were dying and he was lost, and the streets narrowed, and—

  It flew before him. A great eagle, black, its wings dripping rot, its talons coated in blood. Its head was a human skull, bustling with crows, maggots in the eye sockets. It grew closer, and Epher realized it was massive, large as the city, its black wings hiding the sky.

  "Go!" the eagle cried, voice impossibly deep, thundering.

  Epher ran through the city streets, trying to flee it, to flee those talons, but it flew everywhere, mocking him.

  "Go! Go away!"

  Epher raced up a craggy black staircase, ran down an alleyway, trying to find an exit, a way out, and those talons grabbed him, shook him, dug into him.

  "Go away, whore?"

  There. He saw it. An archway. An archway and light beyond it, finally sunlight, searing, hurting his eyeballs. He gasped for air. The talons tightened around his shoulders.

  "Get lost, cunt," the voice whispered, but it was no longer deep and booming. It was soft, feminine, flowing through that archway of light. He tried to see, but it was so bright.

  "Hungry?" he whispered.

  "Hungry," the voice answered. "Hungry!"

  He blinked, trying to see. Her face appeared before him, framed with wild red hair, haloed with light. Her eyes were soft, and she stroked his cheek.

  "Hungry," she whispered.

  The light faded.

  The shadows wrapped around him.

  He wandered strange fields in the sunset. He wore the armor of a legionary, iron strips across his torso, a skirt of leather straps, a crested helm. The fields turned from green to gold, harvested, leaving barren soil to plow, then growing again, reaped again, the seasons churning with every step as he walked. Before him, he beheld a great city upon hills, ten times larger than Beth Eloh. Its white gateways led to many towers, to statues of gold, and he beheld a woman there, her head lowered. A woman all in
white, her skin, her hair, all of her the color of milk, and above her head floated five golden triangles like a crown. In her one hand she held a feather of gold, in the other the skull of a feline. The woman raised her head, revealing empty eye sockets.

  "She will enter through the Gate of Tears," the woman said, lips not moving. "She will walk through the city of God, bring healing to the hurt, prayers to the weary. Her light will burn us."

  Epher tried to reach her, to ask what she meant, but he fell. He was falling from the walls of Gefen, falling down toward the sea, falling, falling, knowing that he had to wake up, he had to open his eyes before he hit the bottom.

  He gasped for air and stared above.

  He saw the stars.

  He took slow breaths, trying to orient himself. He was no longer in the labyrinth of stone. He no longer wore armor. No pale women, haloed with golden triangles, hovered before him in gateways of white stone. He heard a soft trickling sound like wine pouring into a cup.

  I'm awake.

  He pushed himself to his elbows, wincing in pain. In the moonlight, he saw that he wore only his undergarments, and that tattered strips of cotton bound his wounds. He lay on a hill, and many other hills and valleys spread around him. He could just make out the moonlight on boulders, olive trees, and a human figure that crouched ahead.

  "Hungry?" he whispered, voice raspy.

  The trickling sound stopped. She spun around, eyes wide, and quickly stood up and tugged down her tunic—the very tunic he had given her long ago. He saw that strips had been cut from it, matching the fabric that bound his wounds.

  "Cunt!" She grinned. "Go away!"

  She bounded uphill toward him, knelt, and fussed over him—placing a hand on his brow, examining his bandages, peering into his eyes, opening his mouth to scrutinize his tongue. All the while, she kept chattering, mingling a few choice human curses with random clicks and clucks and squeaks. She reminded Epher of some nervous mother bird dotting over her hatchling. He thought back to what Benshalom had told him.

  Simpleminded. We call her Red.

  Epher dropped onto his back, too weak to keep himself propped on his elbows.

  "Red," he whispered. "Your name is Red."

  The young, red-haired woman cocked her head, kneeling above him. "Red?"

  He slept again.

  When finally his eyes reopened, it was morning. The sun revealed dry tan mountains in the north, rising toward a city on a plateau. Beth Eloh. It seemed a parasa away, maybe two—just a smudge in the distance. Moosh and Teresh, the horses Epher had taken from Gefen, stood nearby, tethered to a palm tree and munching on wild grass. The woman from the beach crouched by a campfire, cooking oats in an iron helmet. His iron helmet.

  Epher finally felt well enough to sit up. He spent a moment looking at the young woman. Scrapes and bruises covered her body. Her skin was pale, strewn with freckles, and mud and dry leaves filled her matted tangles of hair. He had given her a fine, newly woven tunic, and already it looked decades old, tattered down to strips. He was twenty-three years old, and she seemed no older, but it was hard to tell her age; too much grime covered her, smeared across her face.

  When she saw that he was awake, she hopped toward him, carrying the helmet of oats. She held it out to him.

  "Hungry?" she asked, then winced and dropped the hot iron onto the ground.

  He nodded. She wrapped cloth around her hands, lifted the helmet again, and held it up to him. He drank the oatmeal, feeling some strength return to him.

  "How long has it been?" he asked, his voice a little stronger. "Since the battle?"

  She blinked at him. "Go away? Get lost. Go away, whore."

  He sighed. "That's all you can say, isn't it?"

  She nodded emphatically. "Hungry. Red! Ur nim is Red."

  "Your name is Red," he corrected her, pointing at her.

  She grinned and jabbed him with her finger. "Your nim is Red." She launched into a stream of nonsense; it sounded like baby talk, simply sounds and clicks and coos, not words in a true language.

  Epher rose to his feet. His legs shook and his head spun, and he leaned against an olive tree. He stared north toward the distant city. He couldn't see its fate from here. When he squinted, he could just make out glints of metal on the wall—sunlight on armor. Whether it was the armor of legionaries or Zoharites, he couldn't say.

  "My mother and sister are still there," he said. "The battle might still be raging. Porcia might still be besieging the city." He lifted his armor, which Red had tossed aside, and pulled the suit of scales over his head. He saw his sword tossed several amot away by some bushes, and he walked downhill toward it. "I have to go back."

  Before he could clasp his sword to his belt, Red raced up toward him.

  "Go away?" she said, frowning.

  He nodded, working at attaching his sword. "Yes, I—"

  "Get lost!" she said, eyes dampening. She shook her head wildly, grabbed his sword from him, and tossed it aside. "Cunt. Cunt! Whore. Your nim is Red. Your nim is Red!" She panted, grabbing at him. "Go away!"

  Epher sighed and pried her hands off. "Red, listen to me. I have to go back to the city. To fight the legionaries. You know the legionaries?" He tugged up his hair, mimicking the crest of a centurion's helmet. "They're bad people. I have to fight them."

  Tears flowed down her cheeks. She wouldn't release him. When he tried to walk toward his sword, she grabbed him and pulled him toward her, embracing him. "Go away," she whispered, still shaking her head. "Lenaries?"

  "Legionaries," he said, nodding.

  Fear filled her eyes, and she pointed at his wounds. "Lenaries nim is Red." She tried to pull him back toward the campfire. "Lenaries go away."

  "Red!" He touched her cheek, lifting her tears onto his finger. "I know you're scared. But I can't abandon my city. If the battle still rages, I—"

  "Ballel go away!" She tugged up her hair, mimicking her own crest. "Lenaries nim is Red. Lenaries Red." She pointed at the city. "Lenaries. Lenaries!"

  Epher sighed. It was no use. He couldn't understand what she meant—had the legionaries taken the city, or was she merely afraid because the enemy was still outside the walls? He finally managed to hang his sword from his belt, then mount his horse.

  "I'm sorry, Red," he said. "I have to go."

  "Go away!" Now anger filled her eyes. She grabbed her makeshift bow and arrows, climbed onto the second horse, and glared at him. "Sorry go away? Hungry go away."

  He smiled wanly. "My name is Epher. Not Sorry." He pointed at himself. "Epher. Do you have a name? A real name?"

  She blinked at him. "Nim? Nim is Red?"

  No. No, her name was not Red. The hillsfolk had given her that name. He had thought of her as Hungry at first because she had mistaken it for her name, back on the beach, when he had offered her food. But she needed a true name, and perhaps nobody had ever given her one.

  Epher looked around him at the hills, the olive trees, the campfire, the distant city, then back at the young woman.

  "Olive." He moved his horse closer to hers, leaned across the saddle, and poked her arm. "Olive. Your name is Olive."

  She pointed at herself. "Olive?"

  He nodded.

  She bit her lip, then grinned. "Olive, Olive!" She pointed at him. "Pher."

  "Epher," he corrected her.

  "Epher." She pointed him, then at herself. "Olive."

  He dug his heels into Moosh, his chestnut gelding, and began riding downhill. Olive followed, riding on Teresh, the slender white mare.

  They made their way into a valley strewn with yellow grass, its last few flowers wilting. It was not yet summer, but the day was sweltering. Sweat dripped down Epher's back and brow. His wounds began to hurt now, a throbbing pain beneath his bandages. He didn't want to imagine what they looked like. His head felt too tight, as if the skull were squeezing the brain, but even worse was the thirst. He found his canteen still in his pack, half full. He drank some and gave the rest to Olive.

&nb
sp; "You're thirsty too, Moosh." He ruffled his horse's mane. "I know. We're going to find you a nice stable with water and hay and apples."

  The gelding neighed appreciatively.

  How long was I asleep? Staring ahead at the distant city, Epher could see no signs of battle. No catapult projectiles flew. He could hear no screams or clanging metal. The battle had ended. Whoever won, he couldn't say.

  "Are you still in that city, Mother and Maya?" he asked softly.

  When they passed by a persimmon tree, they paused to pick the fruit, and they ate as they kept riding, giving fruit to the horses too. The orange flesh was incredibly sweet, soothing his throat, but seemed to worsen his thirst. He would find no water out here, but there would be wells in the city—and hopefully still a lion on the throne.

  The sun had reached its zenith when ten horses came thundering their way, moving from the city. Epher reached for his sword, heart leaping. Olive hissed and bared her teeth and grabbed her bow. But these were no legionaries riding toward them. The riders wore robes, and veils hid their heads and faces from the sunlight. They seemed to wear no armor and bear no weapons. Zoharites.

  "Friends!" Epher called to them, raising his hand.

  The horses curved their path, thundering across the valley toward them, then rode in rings around Epher and Olive. Olive spun from side to side, hissing and spitting, and nocked an arrow.

  "Go away! Get lost, whore! Go away, cunt!"

  "Olive, easy." Epher pushed down her bow, then turned toward the riders. "What news do you bring from Beth Eloh?"

  One of the men pulled back his scarf, revealing a gaunt, bearded face, the dark eyes staring from under thick brows. Those eyes widened.

  "Epheriah?" the man said. "Epheriah Sela!"

  Epher gasped. Both men dismounted their horses, stepped toward each other, and embraced.

  "Hanan!" Epher said. "What are you doing so far east? What happened in Gefen? Do you ride from Beth Eloh?"

  His father's bodyguard lowered his head. His eyes darkened.

  "Only a day ago, I shared grim news with your mother," Hanan said. "Now a second time I must deliver the tidings."