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From under hooded lids he glances at Maraya’s twisted foot, face so impassive I almost want to thank him. “Bring the light in here, if you will, Doma.”

Maraya hangs the lamp from a hook over the bier.Advertisement

“Where can we anchor the rope?” He shrugs off a pack that looks to be stuffed with a rope and harness.

“We’ll have to lower everyone down by hand,” I say. “How did you get up here from inside the earth?”

“There is an entire complex of old Efean buildings buried underneath your Saroese City of the Dead.”

“I never read of that in the Archives!” Maraya retorts.

“Why would the Saroese Archivists write of what they wanted no one to know, Doma?”

She nods slowly, a gesture that angers me, for it seems she is actually considering his explanation. “It is a worthwhile argument that the Archives can only record what the chronicler writes down. But then how do you know of this buried complex? You are not an Archivist.”

“Who do you think was forced to bury the old complex five generations ago with rubble and dirt, Doma? Who built the tombs afterward? Patrons? No, they called the work unclean and corrupting, which really means it is too backbreaking and difficult. Efeans build all that your father’s people will not touch. Our masons’ guild knows of the existence of ancient buildings beneath the tombs, but they fear the underground spaces.”

“We can’t go down there!” Amaya appears in the archway looking very like an ethereal sky spirit only half-tethered to earth and likely to float up into the heavens at any instant. Her hair is tangled all loose over her shoulders. The linen sheath gown hugs her shapely curves like it was tailored to her. She looks so beautiful and frightening that Ro-emnu actually takes a step back as his eyes widen. “Denya’s nurse says there are monsters and shadows hiding beneath the tombs that want to eat us! We mustn’t go!”

My relief at seeing Amaya able to walk sweeps me with a wave of inexplicable anger. “You are welcome to stay here in the tomb because I don’t have the energy to coax you out!”

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“Don’t leave me, Jes!” Amaya begins to weep, not with the theatrical sobs she would often use to get her way but with exhausted hopeless tears.

“I didn’t mean it!” I hurry over and embrace her. She sags into my arms. “We won’t leave you, Amiable. Anyway we have to get you out of here because you desperately need a bath.”

She wipes mucus from her running nose and shakes with laughs that are also sobs. “I’ll never eat candied almonds again!”

“I doubt that,” mutters Maraya, but she smiles just a little to hear Amaya’s complaints.

“Lord Kalliarkos told me the offering was poisoned,” says Ro-emnu, watching us. “Is that true?”

Amaya draws herself up with a pose stolen from the theater, popularly called ‘the Glare of Disdain.’ Even grimy and sick, she is quite magnificent. “For what other possible reason might you think to discover me in such dishevelment?”

“Don’t say it, Ro,” says Coriander so suddenly that her defense of Amaya surprises all of us into silence, including her brother.

In the distance we hear horns trumpeting to announce the temple gates’ opening.

“We have to hurry!” says Maraya. “The High Priest will make his customary third-day visit to the new tomb. That’s us! He’ll demand a prophecy from the oracle.”

Ro-emnu shakes out a harness and beckons to Coriander. “Little sister, you go first.”

“No!” I object. “Let the others go first, and her after.”

“Don’t you trust me, Doma?” The lazy way he pronounces the title makes me want to punch him.

“Sullen schemers never trust anyone, not if we want to succeed.”

Unexpectedly he laughs. “I would demand the same were our positions reversed. Very well.”

I uncurl my fists. “We need her strength to lower people down. Merry first, with the baby.”

He glances at his sister, then at the door as Cook moves into view holding my baby sister.

At the sight of the baby his sneer vanishes and he actually drops the harness from sheer shocked surprise. “Blessed Lady! Bad enough that your monstrous priests bury women alive but to condemn a newborn child to this hateful prison! My apologies for doubting you, Doma,” he finishes with so much gentleness that I blink. But he is speaking to Merry, not to me. Or maybe he is under Amaya’s spell, because she leans against the wall, studying him from under half-closed eyes. pqdm.com