The Black Khan. Ausma Khan Zehanat
Illarion smiled at her, a rueful smile that didn’t lighten his cold blue eyes in the least. “So you can cut my throat on the way? I know who you are, Anya. Larisa asked me to find you—that’s the reason I’m here.”
Like a tiger of the Shir Dar, Elena sprang at him. Her hand snaked to the knife at his hip. A second later it was at his heart. “What have you done with my sister?”
He stood still, his arms at his side, his palms spread wide. “She’s safe, I swear it to you.”
Elena pressed the tip of the blade through crimson armor. “Liar.”
Illarion was much taller than she was. He seemed bemused by her actions, staring down at her, his blue eyes wide. “Anya—”
“Where is she?”
“Here, Elena, I’m here.”
Elena didn’t move at the sound of a new voice. She switched out of the Common Tongue to the secret language of the Basmachi. “Is this a trap?” she asked.
“No, let the Ahdath go.”
Larisa jumped down from the rock wall behind the double cupola, one hand on the sword at her hip, the other shielding her face from the white glare of the moonlight. She was unfettered and alone. “Let him go,” she said again.
Elena shook her head. She pressed the blade deeper into the Ahdath’s breastplate. His breath hitched in his chest. He held the same nonthreatening pose until Larisa moved between them, removing the knife from her sister’s hand.
“The only good Ahdath is a dead one,” Elena said, not taking her eyes off Illarion.
“I know. But he’s not Ahdath. He’s … something else.”
Illarion fingered his ruptured breastplate.
“Don’t be stupid. With Araxcin dead, Captain Illarion is now Commander of the Wall.” Elena’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s take him. Let’s ransom him for some of ours.”
It was Larisa’s turn to shake her head. “You know the Ahdath won’t ransom our fighters. They’re on a killing spree even now.”
Elena’s face tightened. “Then why did you call me to the Hazing? And why did you bring him with you? You’ve put us both at risk.”
“I need your help, Elena. I need to break a prisoner out of Jaslyk.” She said this in the Common Tongue despite Elena’s furious glare.
“What madness causes you to share your purpose with the enemy?”
“We have to hurry,” Illarion cut in. “It won’t take them long to find us.”
Elena’s rage boiled over. How dare this Ahdath speak of himself as one of them when he knew they shared no common cause? The violent urge to bury her blade between his ribs renewed itself. She spun around to face him. “Why aren’t you at Black Aura, Captain? I saw you leave for the capital myself.”
He shifted on his heels, scouting the Hazing with his eyes. “You were mistaken, Elena. I never went to Black Aura.” He stressed her name to emphasize that he now understood her earlier deception. “I turned the Khanum’s prisoner over to my men for escort. Then I arranged for your friends to travel safely through Black Aura Gate.”
“What friends?”
Larisa answered for him. “The First Oralist.” She seemed to search for words. “And her consort, the Silver Mage.”
Elena’s lips formed a snarl. “You watched the First Oralist abandon Ruslan, yet you risked yourself to deliver her consort? I don’t know you anymore, sister.”
Tears formed in Larisa’s eyes. “Yes, you do.” Her voice cracked. “Do you imagine Ruslan’s death is a loss you suffer alone? Do you think the Companion of Hira doesn’t have a list of losses as long as your right arm? A man she loved was blooded before her eyes.”
Elena faltered. “Blooded?”
“Yes. Her grief brought down the Registan.”
Elena remembered her primary mission. “And the Gold House?”
Illarion answered. “The Gold House wasn’t harmed. The Claim knew who to destroy.”
Elena repudiated his words with a wave of her hand. “Were you there? Did you see it?”
He nodded, waiting. Elena’s breath caught on a sob. “Then the Claim couldn’t have known, could it? Not if there’s a single one of you left to walk on this earth.”
The bitterness and grief in her eyes held him long after she’d turned away.
Larisa drew Elena into the shadows. Moonlight spilled over the curves of the double cupola’s domes. Beneath the chipped and feathered bricks of the domes, blue-glazed tiles formed calligraphic patterns that swam in the play of shade and light. The faintest breeze disturbed the shoots of grass sprouting from the brick. It stirred the hair at the back of Illarion’s collar. He watched as the sisters muttered to each other in secret. He’d wanted to smile when Elena had suggested taking him captive, but her rage was too raw to suffer his condescension. He rubbed a hand over the bruise on his sternum. He wouldn’t misjudge her again.
He was due back at the Wall. And he was due to report to the Khanum. But before he could do either of these things, he needed to get these sisters out of the city to Jaslyk. Though Jaslyk held other dangers. They would have to face down soldiers of the Crimson Watch. They would also be risking a run-in with the Technologist—the madman who supervised the prison.
But if there was a chance to save the Companion, Sinnia, the risks they were taking would be worth it.
Doubt gnawed at him: Could the Companion still be alive? And if she was, did Larisa and Elena stand any chance of successfully bringing about a rescue?
Larisa interrupted his thoughts. “Come with us,” she said. “We know how to circumvent the patrols. Unless you think you’ll be missed.”
He studied the two sisters standing side by side, each with a knife in one hand and a sword in the other. Larisa was by far the comelier of the two, but it was Elena he couldn’t look away from, Elena who burned with a volatile fury that reminded him of the First Oralist raging against the murder of her friend with a fury that had fired the sky.
“I can spare a day or two before I must return. The Authoritan will send a regiment from the Ark led by Captain Nevus. Nevus is to assume control and command of the Wall. If I’m not there to receive him, it will raise suspicions.”
“That sounds like they don’t trust you.”
He raised an eyebrow, as if to remind them both that his presence in the Hazing at their side gave the Ahdath reason to doubt him.
Elena snorted, then pressed on.
Illarion followed the women through the double cupola, where the body of the soldier he’d killed lay hidden in the shadows. He prodded it with his foot. “They’ll take it for a Basmachi kill.”
“As it would have been,” Elena snarled at him. “I didn’t ask for your rescue.”
Illarion ignored this. His stomach had lurched at the sight of the man’s assault upon Elena. She’d been helpless, a fact she wouldn’t admit to him. Or to any man, he suspected, though she had let her sister tend to her wound with an indifference that spoke to what the sisters had endured.
He focused on answering Larisa as she led the way down the hill, moving in and out of the shadows of the Hazing’s once-graceful mausolea. She stopped for a moment at the Tomb of the Living King, adjusting a floral decoration on its faience. It rotated east without a betraying sound. He wondered if the Tomb of the Living King held any significance for these sisters beyond a place where they left messages for the Basmachi. He’d seen grown men fall to their knees crying at the door to the tomb, pressing their lips to its inscriptions. For