Thrones of Ash (Kingdoms of Sand Book 3) Read online

  The legionaries' eyes widened; they did not often see silver. They scooped up the bracelets and left, snickering among themselves. Imani had taken to wearing many jewels during her outings, not for her own vainglory but to save lives, bribe after bribe, depleting the wealth of a nation to save its people.

  She knelt by the beaten man. "Grandfather, can you walk? They're gone."

  He shivered, back bleeding, and kissed her hand. "Bless you, Queen Imani, and may the spirits curse the jackals of the north."

  She cleaned his blood with her dress, helped him rise, and gave him a bracelet and three golden coins. She walked on, leading the giraffe calves through the city, heading home.

  Three pyramids rose in the center of the city, towering over the houses, markets, and acacias. Travelers said that here were the tallest buildings in the world, dwarfing even the greatest palaces in Aelar or Zohar. Even Cicero had once confessed as much to Imani. The Pyramids of Shenutep were not only the world's largest structures but the oldest too. For three thousand years, they had risen here, the center of Nur's power. Back when the Zoharites had been but desert nomads, when Aelar had been but a wilderness where brutes rutted in the mud, these pyramids had soared, home to the savanna's kings and queens.

  Palm trees grew around the pyramids, seeming small as grazed grass by the structures' might. Even the birds dared not fly to their heights. They were built of great sandstone bricks, so polished they reflected the sun, and precious metals capped their tips—silver on one, gold on another, platinum on the third and tallest. One for the spirits, one for men, and one for the queen, was the old saying. The three pillars of Nur.

  Kira led the way upon the elephant, and they herded the giraffes along a great stone bridge, formed of many limestone arches, that spanned the river. Ships sailed below, sails wide, while cranes and ibises and herons waded among the rushes. Across the river, at the base of the pyramids, spread the fabled gardens of Nur. Trees and flowers of every kind grew here, and streams flowed between them. The gardens were vast, a place where one could get lost for hours. The old statues of the spirits, carved from basalt and wood, had been smashed long ago, and now marble Aelarian statues rose here. The tallest among them, standing at the entrance to the gardens, depicted Emperor Marcus Octavius—a muscular and stern man, his nose aquiline and his brow furrowed, his stone eyes following Imani as she walked.

  "Kira, go to the milkmaids, and fetch jugs of milk for the calves," Imani said, corralling the giraffes onto a stretch of grass by a stream. "Then soak soft cloths with the milk, and feed the calves. Bring more servants to help you."

  With that, Imani turned and climbed the great staircase that rose along her pyramid's flank—the tallest of the three, the one capped with platinum. She needed to escape to her chambers. After a day of death and blood, she needed silence, to close her eyes, to pray.

  Today, ten years ago, my mother died. Today will always be a day of grief.

  It was a long climb, and with every step, Imani remembered that day ten years ago. She had been only seventeen, too young to govern, too young to inherit this—this pyramid, this kingdom, this burden of an invading empire. She could still hear the screams as Cicero Octavius dragged off her mother, as he beat her, sliced her face, and finally took her in his ship to Aelar. They said that Queen Anaya Koteeka had been crucified in the Amphitheatrum, the great amphitheater in Aelar, that her body had been dismembered, hung in pieces upon every gate of the city.

  My fate will be the same, Imani thought. Unless I can appease them. Unless I can somehow feed those eagles enough of our flesh. But bite by bite, they are devouring us. Bite by bite, we fade away, like a carcass in the savanna when the jackals and vultures arrive.

  Finally, after climbing a thousand steps, Imani reached an archway in the pyramid's facade. A platform of stone thrust out here, a place where once Nurian soldiers had stood, their breastplates and helmets gilded and jeweled. Today Aelarians stood guard here; not palace guards so much as prison guards, not here to protect Imani but to monitor her. She stepped between them, chin raised.

  Her throne room spread ahead, a vast chamber. A mosaic covered the floor, depicting lions, giraffes, zebras, elephants, and other animals of the savanna. Rushes rose from gilded vases, and incense burned in bronze braziers, filling the hall with their sweet scent. Nur's throne rose ahead atop a dais, carved of obsidian, the seat of her family going back thousands of years.

  The chamber was empty. For generations, the dignitaries of many lands would come here to speak to Imani's grandmother and mother—the monarchs of Zohar, Leer, Gael, even senators from the fallen Aelarian Republic. Now Imani rarely sat on this throne, and the chamber collected dust. She was still queen by name, yes, but this chamber felt too much like a stage, and whenever she sat on the throne, Imani felt too much like a puppet, felt the strings tugging.

  She walked hurriedly, crossing the hall, and entered a back door. She walked along a corridor until she reached the door to her bedchamber—her only place of refuge in this pyramid, in this city, in this province, in this empire that ruled the world. The only place where she could pray, where she could cry. Out there, let her be a strong ruler, let her people see her courage and kindness. In her bedchamber, she could be a fragile thing, and she could look at the golden statue of her mother—the one she had promised to melt—and she could be a child again.

  Imani opened the door, stepped into her bedchamber, and froze.

  Nausea churned her belly.

  Painted amphorae rose between silver columns, holding rushes and flowers. Hieroglyphs sprawled across the walls, coiling around frescoes of hunters, wild animals, and reed boats navigating the Majina River. The curtains were drawn back from the arched windows, affording a view of the true river, the obelisks and sphinxes that rose from the lush city, and the savanna beyond. The golden statue rose in a candlelit alcove, life-sized, depicting Imani's mother—a noble queen, clad in splendor, a spear in her hand.

  Under the statue's gaze, right on Imani's giltwood bed, a naked Cicero Octavius was thrusting into a Nurian woman. The pasty governor turned his head as she entered, nodded at Imani, and smiled.

  "Ah, welcome home, my darling! Care to join us? Two whores are better than one."

  Imani stared at him, feeling the blood drain from her face, knowing that this sight—his pale, bony, naked body in her bed—would forever haunt her.

  "Get out," she whispered. "Now."

  "From this whore? Very well." He pulled out, grabbed his toga, and wrapped it around his body. The woman lay on the bed, still naked, her dusky skin gleaming with sweat. A woman from one of the local brothels, no doubt, paid for with Aelarian coin.

  "Get out!" Imani screamed.

  The young whore grabbed her cloak and fled the chamber. Cicero, however, remained. He grabbed one of the vases, tossed the flowers out the window, and then pissed into the container, sighing as he filled it.

  "You must learn, Imani," he said, shaking off the last droplets. "You're nothing but another whore to me, queen or no queen. You defied me today—out there in the savanna. I brought you along as a courtesy, and you dared humiliate me before the lords and ladies."

  He placed down the vase, letting drops splash onto the floor.

  "Emperor Marcus himself recognizes my title," Imani whispered, unable to speak any louder. "He—"

  "—is my brother," Cicero said. "And you are queen of nothing, Imani. The days when Nurian apes ruled the savanna are over. You're here to serve me, nothing more. Now kneel. Kneel before me."

  "I will not—"

  "You will kneel!" he shouted, voice suddenly so loud Imani couldn't help but start. "You will kneel, or I will have every one of your pets butchered in the garden, then butcher a thousand men and women across this city, and you will hear their screams. Kneel!"

  Imani trembled. She had seen this punishment before. Nine years ago, when she had refused to wash his feet, Cicero had captured hundreds of children from across the city, had crucified them, ha
d made her watch.

  Fists clenched, eyes burning, Imani knelt on the soiled floor. Droplets of his piss dampened her knees.

  "Good. Good!" Cicero reached down and stroked her hair, passing his fingers through the mane of black curls. "See? You can be tamed. You are beautiful, Imani. Your full lips. Your high cheekbones. Your lush breasts. Your eyes that are full of such hatred, such fear. You are my beautiful savanna queen, my little obedient pet."

  This pet will one day kill you, she swore, fingernails digging into her palms. The rebellion brews across this city, Cicero Octavius, forging daggers and arrowheads. And when the rebellion rises, it will be my blade that sinks into your heart.

  "Now," Cicero said, "there's the matter of the statue. The statue you agreed to let me have."

  Imani rose to her feet. She turned toward the statue of her mother. When the Aelarians had outlawed all Nurian statues, allowing only marble sculptures of their own gods, Imani had hidden the golden queen here. Her last memory of her mother.

  "Let me keep it," she said softly. "Or take it by force. I cannot give it willingly."

  Cicero raised an eyebrow. "Oh, sweetness, I could have taken this statue by force long ago. That's not what I want. I want you to melt it. I want you to toss it into the forge, to watch your mother's likeness melt. I have plenty of gold, but to watch your spirit crushed? That's priceless, my dear." He whistled, and legionaries entered the chamber. "Men! Lift this golden statue. Let us visit the city forges, and our dusky darling will melt some gold."

  That evening, Queen Imani Koteeka stood in the smelters, closed her eyes, and felt tears flow as she said farewell, as she shoved the statue. Cicero grabbed her eyelids, tugged them open, made her watch. And Imani watched. She saw the statue melt in the cauldron, saw her mother's face become a puddle of gold, gone forever from this world but never from her memory. Imani swore this.

  I have your face, Mother, she thought, tears salty as she smiled. Whenever I look into the mirror, I will remember you. I will remember your kindness and your strength. And when I finally slay Cicero, when I cast off the yoke of Aelar, I will think of you, and I will know that you're proud.

  MAYA

  Barefoot, sunburned, and clad in rags, Maya emerged from the desert and beheld the town by the sea.

  "Suna," she whispered, and her eyes dampened. "A place of lume. Of hope."

  She raised her hand and drew just a hint of lume, refining it into luminescence. The light wove around her fingers, barely visible in the sunlight, filling her with vigor, with memories of home. The lume was different here, softer, finer, lighter. If the lume back in Zohar was a rich tapestry, ancient and embroidered with silver-and-golden thread, the lume here in the east, across the desert, was like gossamer, translucent and airy. And yet lume this was, the invisible, tasteless, odorless material that lumers could weave into luminescence. The grace that fueled the eternal light of Luminosity as oil fueled candles in a temple.

  And again Maya could see it. Zohar. The priests blowing ram horns outside the Temple, the sound rolling down the Mount of Cedars. The gold-and-bronze domes of Beth Eloh, shining in the dawn. The ancient gates of stone that led to brick alleyways, to markets of spice and splendor, to a city of grace and antiquity. The forests of Erez, the pines flowing across the hills. The waves washing over the golden coast, gleaming with beads of light like countless crystals. And one house on a hill, and a dining room with a painting of elephants, and a family. A home.

  She was far from that home now, but with the lume replenishing her, that home was as real as ever, so real she could smell the wax of her candles, hear her siblings' laughter, and feel the waves wash over her feet.

  Maya blinked the tears from her eyes. "You were right, Avinasi," she whispered. "There is lume here. There is magic."

  All her life, Maya had been told that lume was found only in Zohar, flowing from the mountains of Beth Eloh. All her life, the magic had been forbidden to her—magic that meant slavery in Aelar, forced to serve the Empire with her light. Here, so far beyond the Empire's reach, she found magic again.

  Here I will learn to become a lumer.

  She looked at the town ahead. Suna was a small town, smaller than Gefen. No walls surrounded it. It nestled along the sea, a cluster of pale stone buildings, a handful of domes, and several minarets that gazed upon the water. Palm trees grew from courtyards, and camels sat by a crumbling archway that led to a cobbled street. Gulls flew overhead, their caws the only sound Maya could hear. A few vineyards and farms grew from a stretch of arable land between water and sand. A pocket of life. An oasis between desert and sea.

  She took a step toward the town. Her legs shook. She took another step, breathed deeply. She could not see her face, but if it was anything like her arms, it was burnt and raw, punished by sun and sand. She was thinner than she'd ever been, and her fine tunic, the one the King of Sekur had given her, hung in tatters. But she was alive. She had survived a journey of countless parsa'ot and endless danger, crossing the desert from the Encircled Sea in the west to this second sea in the east.

  But he did not survive.

  Maya lowered her head when thinking of Leven the thief. She had buried him under the sand. She had prayed for him. In Aelar, priests taught that the dead rose to drink wine with the gods, but the Book of Eloh taught that there was no afterlife, that the dead remained as mere bones. There, buried in the sand, Leven would remain until the day he arrived—the old man on the white donkey, the savior who dallied, who would one day deliver Zohar from her enemies and raise the dead into a land of light and grace. Maya did not know if that prophecy was real, but until such a day might come, she would remember Leven.

  And . . . she had left him in the desert.

  The light left her fingers. The warmth fled her heart. Remembering him, Maya shuddered. The man who had stood on the hill, staring, silent, just before the dragon bones had risen. The man who had tried to stop her from reaching this place. Who had stared from the distance, mocking, hating, as she had buried Leven. The man of shadows. The man with furrowed gray skin. The presence that had always haunted Maya, that had stood in the shadows of her childhood room, that had moved through the crowd of Beth Eloh as that city had fallen, that had taken Leven from her.

  She knew who he was. But she would not even think his name. Naming him gave him power. She would face him again before the end; he had promised her that in the desert, promised with his black stare. For now Maya banished him from her mind. That battle was still to come, but not yet. Not in this place of light. Only in her greatest darkness would he reemerge. By then she would be—must be—strong.

  As she approached the town, the camels lounging outside the archway snorted and flicked their tails. Cud hung from their mouths. A boy sat by them, leaning against one camel's flank. He stared at her with large black eyes. His skin was a darker brown than hers, his hair was thick and black, and he wore a white tunic worked with red embroidery. A curved dagger hung from his belt, the blade made from a horn. It reminded Maya of her own dagger, the one she still wore upon her hip, a gift from Atalia. The archway rose ahead, formed from ancient bricks, weeds growing between them. Beyond, Maya saw a cobbled road leading toward the sea.

  She knelt before the boy. "Hello," she said. "I'm looking for . . ." She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should conceal her true quest, but in a town so small, there would be no secrets. "A house of Luminosity."

  The boy shook his head. "No Luminosity." He reached into a saddlebag and pulled out a handful of roasted fava beans. "Only beans. Buy them. One copper per handful."

  Maya had lost most of her treasures in the desert storm, but she still had her pack and pockets. She pulled out a copper shekel, a coin of Zohar. She swapped it with the boy for a handful of beans. She popped one into her mouth. It was salty and rich.

  She gave the boy a second coin. "Are you sure you know nothing of Luminosity?"

  He pocketed his prize. "There is no Luminosity. Only the blessing of Dagon." He gestu
red with his chin. "Only Dagon."

  Maya followed his gaze. It stood beyond the archway, an idol of stone, rising twice her height, shaped as a man with a dog's head, holding a scythe in one hand, a sheaf of wheat in the other. She had heard of this god. In ancient times, his idols had risen in Zohar, smashed long ago, his adherents driven into the desert. Maya was a follower of Eloh, a god without a form, fleshless, existing only in the lume. She did not believe in idols, and yet the eyes of this craggy statue seemed to stare into her own.

  She nodded to the boy and left him with his camels. She stepped under the archway, past the idol, and into the town. The cobbled road stretched before her, the main artery of Suna, leading toward a sea as blue and bright as sapphires. Houses rose at her side, two stories tall, built from tan bricks. Women stood on balconies, beating the dust out of crimson and blue rugs. They paused to stare at Maya as she walked by, and one made a sign against evil. A few women stood by a well, turning toward her. They wore richly woven veils, and their cattle stood with them. They said nothing, following Maya with their eyes. She kept walking. The town seemed too silent, too still.

  A temple rose ahead, built of sandstone and topped with a white dome. When she glanced into the shadowy interior, she beheld a great statue of Dagon, and men in robes knelt before it. A few other men sat on the stairs outside the temple, wrapped in white robes, sickles hanging from their belts. Their beards were long, oiled, and tightly curled, and henna lined their eyes. One of the men pointed at her and muttered to his companions. Instinctively, Maya grasped the lion amulet that hung on a chain around her neck. Did they recognize her as one who followed a different faith? Would they slay her for it?

  Her heartbeat quickened, and she felt the lume begin to rise inside, to glow around her fingertips. She swallowed hard, forcing the magic down. No. She would not let these men see her magic, not until she knew her kind was safe here.