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

  In the Empire, my magic would land me in chains, Maya thought. Would it do the same here?

  The men's eyes followed her as she walked. Even after she passed them by, she felt their glares. She breathed a sigh of relief once she turned a corner, heading down a different road, away from the temple, from those men with sickles, from the statue of the dog-faced man within. Yet she hadn't taken three more steps before her heart burst into a gallop again.

  Maya paused, stared, and looked away, but the image was seared inside her.

  A gibbet hung from a post, creaking and swaying in the wind. Inside the rusty cage was a burnt corpse, just scraps of blackened flesh over bones. A sign hung beneath the gibbet, a single word scrawled across it in ash.

  Lumer.

  Maya's heart hammered against her ribs. Cold sweat trickled down her back. She spun around, and she saw the boy behind her—the boy who had sold her the beans. He stared from behind a home, then retreated, vanishing from view.

  Maya's breath quickened. Avinasi had lied. The old royal lumer of Zohar had sent her here—here to death, here to a place that burned lumers, here to—

  Calm yourself, rose a voice inside her. Maya forced herself to take a deep breath, to feel the lume around her. She could not deny that grace filled this town by the sea, that a holy light shone here. Perhaps that was the nature of light. Light always cast shadows. Here too, across the desert, there was darkness. Eagles had flown over Beth Eloh, and here perhaps a rabid dog growled, but Maya was still a daughter of light, and she would not turn away from her path, not even if that path led through shadows.

  She kept walking through Suna, this town by the sea, leaving the burnt corpse behind. She crossed a courtyard where palm trees shaded lounging cats. A portico of columns rose along the sand, and the sea whispered beyond. A building rose ahead, built of craggy white bricks and topped with a stone dome. Olive trees grew in a yard beside it, and among the trees rose a bronze candelabrum, as tall as Maya, with four stalks.

  Maya's pulse quickened again, and her fingers trembled as she unrolled the map Zehav had given her in the oasis. On the parchment, drawn with ink, appeared a four-branched candelabrum by the sea. Symbol of Luminosity.

  "Four lights of Luminosity," Maya whispered, raising her eyes to stare at the bronze candelabrum in the yard. "Sight. Foresight. Healing. Muse."

  Finally, after fleeing the legions and their wrath, after so many days of travel, after nearly dying of thirst among the dunes, after captivity to the bone raiders, after facing the dragons of sand, after so much fear and doubt—finally Maya was here. At a center of Luminosity. A place to learn the art of light and wisdom.

  Her breath kept shaking as she walked forward, approaching the humble domed building. She walked between the olive trees in the yard. Nets had been laid across the ground to catch the olives falling from the branches. Maya had finished her meal of beans, and hunger still filled her, but she resisted temptation; these fruits were not hers to eat. Belly growling, she approached the door to the domed house. It was carved of old wood, cracked, moldy, and banded with iron strips shaped as a candelabrum. A knocker hung here, shaped as a serpent eating its own tail.

  Maya reached toward the brass snake, hesitated, then knocked three times.

  She waited.

  No reply came from within, and the door remained closed.

  Maya knocked again, harder this time. Still nobody answered. Maya wandered the yard between the olive trees, waiting for somebody to arrive, and worry began to grow in her that all the lumers of Suna had been murdered, that she had seen the last one in the gibbet. She licked her chapped lips with an equally dry tongue. More than she wanted food, she now wanted water, and she contemplated walking back to the town well but dared not. She had not liked the eyes of the women who gathered there.

  She wondered if Avinasi had told her sisters here that Maya was coming. Maya knew that powerful lumers—like Avinasi, the royal lumer of Zohar, or the infamous Taeer, bonded to Prince Seneca—could communicate over vast distances, speaking through the luminescence. Maya wondered if Avinasi could see her right now, using her powerful Sight. Maya herself had used the Sight only once, back in Beth Eloh under Avinasi's tutelage. She had gazed only a few parsa'ot away to see Porcia's hosts advance, and the magic had nearly consumed Maya, nearly burned her as surely as the fire had burned the lumer in the gibbet.

  But they can teach me to control Luminosity here, Maya thought. At least, if there's anyone here to teach me.

  She thought back to the desert, to the shadowy figure, to the bones of ancient dragons that had risen to assault her caravan. Maya had wrapped herself in a shield of Luminosity, had cast the bones back, not knowing what she was doing, allowing the luminescence to control her. What pillar had she used? Surely not Sight or Foresight, and certainly not Healing. She had done something in the desert with Muse, the most mysterious—some claimed the most powerful—of the four lights. She had bent the light to her will. She had formed a shield, had battled an enemy, had cast that enemy back. And it had nearly killed her.

  I must learn more, she thought. About what I did. About how I can learn wisdom, learn control, learn the fate of my family.

  She hung her head low, and worry gnawed on her innards. When she had left Zohar, Koren and Atalia had been taken captive, Ofeer had joined the enemy, and Epher was missing. More than anything, Maya wanted to learn Sight to gaze upon her siblings—even to speak to them, to tell them she was all right. She would even talk to Ofeer. She even missed Ofeer . . . a little.

  The sun began to set, and still Maya waited among the olive trees in the yard. From her time in Zohar, she was used to the sun setting into the sea. But she was far from the Encircled Sea now, and here the sea lay to her east, and the sun vanished beyond the buildings and dunes to her west. The stars emerged, and Maya resigned herself to a night of thirst and hunger among the trees . . . then noticed the lights coming on in the house's windows.

  She frowned. She walked between the shadowy trees toward the house's brick wall, hid behind a trunk, and peered through a round window.

  Candles burned within, their glow falling upon shelves and tables stacked with scrolls. A figure sat at one table, hunched over, its back to Maya. Scraggly silver hair hung down the figure's back, nearly hiding a coarse tunic.

  Maya walked back toward the building's front door and knocked again—as loudly as she could.

  "Hello!" she said, voice hesitant at first, then growing stronger. "Hello! Avinasi sent me. Can you hear me? Avinasi of Beth Eloh, lumer to King Shefael Elior himself, sent me here. I—"

  The door yanked open so quickly Maya took a step back.

  An old woman stood there, hunched over, her white eyebrows shadowing wrathful eyes. Her hair was long and silvery, and she wore a tunic of rough homespun. Maya recognized the figure from the window.

  "What do you want?" the old woman spat at her.

  Maya gulped. "I . . ." She fumbled in her pack for her prayer shawl, a relic of Zohar, and showed it to the woman. "I came here all the way from Zohar. I came to study Luminosity. Is there anyone here who can teach me?"

  The woman stared at her in disgust, as if a rat had crawled up to her door.

  "No." The old woman slammed the door shut.

  Maya blinked, standing alone outside in the shadows. She could not comprehend this. She refused to accept this. She had traveled for so long, survived so many dangers, only to be turned away here at this doorway? It seemed impossible. Her mind would not register it.

  Dazed, she wandered away from the house, made her way through the dark city, and found the well again. Blessedly, the townsfolk were gone, and she quickly drew some water, drank, and fled through the shadows. As she passed by the temple again, she saw candles burning inside, and the idol of Dagon—a man with a dog head—seemed to stare at her from within.

  She walked until she reached the beach and stepped onto the sand. The eastern sea spread before her, whispering in the night. The moonlight shone
on the waves' foam. She was hungry. She was so hungry. Tomorrow she would have to steal some olives or dare to find a market. She lay on the sand, curled up, and stared at the waves, seeking some comfort there. Yet in the dark shapes, she saw the idol, and she saw the men with sickles, and she saw the burnt corpse in the cage. And mostly she saw the shadowy man on the hill, felt his eyes upon her, within her, and when she slept, she dreamed that she lay in his embrace, that he stroked her hair, and that she could never escape his arms.

  OFEER

  She stood in a city of a million souls, a slave's collar around her neck, the bastard child of her own half brother growing in her belly. Ofeer—the daughter of an emperor, the daughter of Zoharite nobility—stood alone.

  "So this is how I come home," she whispered. "This is how I find my life in the land of my father. Not with splendor. Not with glory. Not the paramour of a prince nor the daughter of royalty." She touched the iron around her neck, the slave collar Seneca had placed there, and then touched her belly, where he had placed his child. "An escaped, pregnant slave."

  She stood with her back to a mausoleum, a round tower like a silo full of ancient dead, the place where she had spent last night. The city rolled before her. Aelar. Center of the Empire, the heart of the civilized world.

  Cobbled roads spread out, lined with brick apartment buildings, seven stories tall, topped with tiled roofs. A bronze statue of Marcus Octavius astride a horse reared on a marble dais, gazing down at a courtyard. Thousands of people walked to and fro: tradesmen and merchants in fine togas and dyed sashes, women sporting linen stolas and jewels, slaves in tunics bearing their masters on palanquins, muddy urchins racing into shadows like startled insects, and drunkards stumbling through the dawn after a night of forgetting. A portly woman opened a window on the sixth floor of a building and upended a chamber pot. The human waste showered down, landing in a gutter and splashing the passersby. A Nurian traveler, his skin dark as mahogany, raised his fist and shouted at the woman, finally storming off, kicking a stray dog as he went. The bustling streets spread like cobwebs, flowing up a hillside, lined with apartment buildings, public kitchens that belched out the smells of ten thousand meals, granaries bustling with doves who squabbled over fallen seeds, brothels to give patrons pleasure for a night and warts to last a lifetime, and columned temples to a pantheon of heartless marble gods.

  A city of majesty, might, and wealth, Ofeer thought. A city of disease, shit, and ten-denarii whores.

  She raised her head and stared north. There in the distance, above the squalor, the Acropolis crowned the hill. Walls surrounded this inner city, topped with battlements and legionaries. From where Ofeer stood, a mil away, she couldn't see much beyond those imperial walls, just the tips of its tallest structures. The upper tier of the Amphitheatrum, the greatest amphitheater in the Empire. The golden crest of the palace. Shining in the dawn, the gilded head of a colossal statue. A statue of Porcia Octavius. The new empress of Aelar.

  Ofeer shuddered. The news had spread across the city, flowing through the alleys and boulevards like waste flowed through gutters. Marcus Octavius—dead. The Senate—toppled to the ground. Porcia—the new empress. Seneca, her master, her half brother, the father of her child—fled into exile, his ship gone from the port.

  The Acropolis is closed to me now, Ofeer thought, gazing at those distant walls. The grand halls of the emperor would forever be forbidden to her . . . until she was caught.

  Ofeer touched the collar around her neck, caressing the tag that hung there, engraved with letters.

  I have escaped! If you catch me, return me to the Acropolis, to Seneca Octavius, for a thousand denarius reward.

  Seneca was gone now. The man who had fallen in love with her, who had butchered her stepfather, who had destroyed her hometown, who had enslaved her and fucked her until a child grew in her belly—gone from her. Ofeer was glad.

  "May you never return," she whispered, eyes burning. "May you die in exile, alone, afraid as I am. All the pain that I feel, that you gave me—I wish it upon you tenfold, Seneca Octavius."

  A tear fled her eye, trailing down to her lips. She thought back to Gefen, her hometown, a little city by the sea. She thought of the villa on Pine Hill, and the dining room with the painting of the elephants. She thought of her family. Of noble Jerael and wise Shiloh. Of proud Epher and silly Koren. Of strong Atalia and sweet Maya and of little Mica who slept beneath the pomegranate tree. And as she thought of home, Ofeer wept, and she couldn't stop her damn tears, and she couldn't stop missing Zohar.

  I want to go home. She trembled. Please, Eloh, please. I want to go home.

  No. Ofeer sneered.

  "Stupid." She punched herself. "Stupid, stupid girl!" She balled her hands into fists and ground her teeth. "All your life, you suffered in Gefen. All your life, you hated it there. All your life, you dreamed of coming here to Aelar, of finding a life in the land of your father. And now you'll give up, abandon all hope just because of a few difficulties?" She shook her head wildly. "You're stronger than that, Ofeer Octavius, daughter of Aelar."

  A beggar who limped down the street, missing both arms, gave her a sympathetic look. A flea crawled across his face, and he spat a yellow glob before shuffling on, sending a group of young maidens in stolas fleeing in fright.

  Ofeer took a deep breath, steeling herself. True—she looked like her mother, like a Zoharite. Her skin was light brown. Her hair was black as midnight. Her eyes were dark brown and shaded by thick black lashes. But though she looked like a daughter of the desert, the blood of Aelar flowed through her—the blood of her father, the fallen Emperor Marcus Octavius. And in her belly, she carried the child of an empire. She was not merely half-Aelarian. She was the daughter of an emperor, and here—here in this city of splendor and filth, here among a million souls, here in Aelar—this was her home.

  So no, Aelar was not the wondrous land she had imagined in her youth by the sea. Aelar was not just marble halls and gold, but also a city of fleas and gutters and disease. So no, she did not live here as a princess, clad in silk and jewels. But this was still Aelar—the place from her dreams. And she was still alive. And so long as she lived, Ofeer vowed: I will find a home here. I will find a life. I will not succumb to pain. I am a daughter of lions and eagles, and I can survive anything.

  She sucked in breath and squared her shoulders. If I forget you, Beth Eloh, may I forget my right arm, went the old prayer. But Ofeer vowed that she would forget that old, holy city in the desert. That life was over. Her new life, alone in a foreign land, began.

  No, not alone. She placed her hand on her belly. Never more alone.

  The first thing she needed to do, Ofeer knew, was to cover her collar and tag. Myriads of slaves filled Aelar, many of them collared. They bustled across the city, running errands for their masters. Just another collared slave would not draw much attention, Ofeer figured, but the metal tag—like one a dog wore—was a different story. If anyone read those words, knew that she had belonged to Seneca, they would drag her back to the Acropolis and dump her at Porcia's feet. Ofeer didn't want to even imagine what the mad empress would do to her. If the stories were to be believed, Porcia delighted in carving the hearts out from her enemies and feasting upon them. Ofeer was the slave and former lover of Seneca Octavius, Porcia's main challenger to the throne. If Ofeer came before the empress, it would be her heart upon a platter.

  She stepped back into the mausoleum where she had spent last night. It was shaped like a silo, tapering up to a point. The walls were like honeycombs, lined with tombs, each sealed with a marble stopper. Upon each seal appeared the name of the deceased whose ashes lay within. Back in Zohar, people buried their dead, for the Book of Eloh taught that man had come from the soil, and to the soil he should return. Here in Aelar, it was not soil that took dead flesh, but fire. Around her, rising higher and higher, lay the ashes of a thousand dead, and Ofeer felt as if their ghosts haunted this shadowy tomb. She tried to resist, but again her eyes strayed towar
d the marble seal in the beam of sunlight, the one under which she had slept. Again she read the epitaph, letters engraved eighty-two years ago.

  Felix Paulus, beloved son. 436-437. May the goddess Plutonia welcome you to your eternal rest.

  Ofeer placed her hands on her belly. Every time she gazed at those words, she was afraid. Afraid that somehow the ghost of that fallen babe would want to claim her own child. That somehow, by looking at the tomb of a dead baby, Ofeer was cursing her own son or daughter. That somehow she could make it happen again, that—

  No.

  Ofeer clenched her jaw, shut her eyes, and looked away.

  "No," she whispered. "I will not. I will not remember. I—"

  Yet that memory rose, and she was there again, fifteen in the sea, the water up to her waist, and the moon bloodred above, and—

  "No." She sucked in air, trembling, fists clenched. That night had not happened. She had vowed to forget it. That had not been her. That had been a different woman, a different life.

  "You will have a good life," she whispered, her hand on her belly. "I promise you."

  And now she let other memories rise. She thought back to her own mother, to Shiloh. Ofeer did not look like her siblings. She wasn't tall and strong like Atalia, wasn't sweet and soft like Maya. She had always looked like her mother—slender, dark, sharp-featured and fair. Yet the two had always clashed, more than anyone in the family. To be sure, Atalia often wrestled with her brothers, and Shiloh would scold even Maya when the girl used her Luminosity. But the true bad blood in the family had always been between Shiloh and Ofeer. So many nights Shiloh had wept, shouted, tried to keep Ofeer away from the port of Gefen—the place where Ofeer went to drink, to gamble, to lay with sailors, to dream of faraway Aelar.

  "I was never a good daughter," Ofeer said to the child sleeping within her. "And Shiloh was never a good mother to me. But you and I, sweet boy . . . it will always be only the two of us. Together against the world."