In the morning, nothing remained of yesterday’s bad weather. The sun had dried every puddle, and only the garden—pleased with itself and refreshed—showed off its lush green.

  The general woke early and went to wander through the house. He circled the entire inner courtyard and noted that had they arrived from the other side, he would have understood at once that this was a temple of the Mother Cat. The side wings proved to be chapels, filled with fresh flowers and little cat statuettes, among which the tailed brigands padded carefully on soft paws. Spotting him, the cats livened up—perhaps thinking he had come to feed them—but the general had empty hands, and so he retreated in cowardly haste, not even managing to bow to the Flow of Blossoming.

  Mikena returned through the garden, thick with fragrance that lured him deeper. On the western side, right beneath the wing’s windows, aromatic lavender bloomed in bright purple, and among its bushes, lonely and lost, stood a couple of poppies, their heads drooping under the weight of their own scarlet petals, as though under the burden of worries and responsibility.

  One poppy bent especially low, and when the general looked closer he saw a huge beetle, its shell gleaming like obsidian. He stepped back in alarm; his heart sped up. For a moment Mikena thought the creature belonged to Mádyè—but the advisor commanded bronze soldiers, not black.

  Embarrassed, he darted his eyes about—good, no one had seen this awkwardness, the mighty warrior flinching from an insect.

  Between the dense crowns the sky showed through, pale and clean, like a calm harbor, and the half-transparent clouds in it resembled jellyfish, drifting steadily wherever the wave carried them. These views—the deep blue distance, the city, the mountains—brought a kind of unfamiliar peace. Had it been his choice, he would have lingered here longer.

  The servants, seeing him, offered breakfast, and Mikena did not refuse, taking his seat alone at a huge table.

  In Hatra they ate the same things as all along the Drowsy Coast: fresh bread, honey, butter, tomatoes, olives, fresh berries, lemon water, and mint tea. Perhaps there was less seafood here, given the distance from the shore, but more foods made from milk: cheeses, sour creams, various stages of fermentation—from a light tang to full souring. Here it was whipped, split, mixed, boiled—until an astonishing variety of dishes emerged.

  A maid who looked about fourteen brought a large tray. Fresh greens lay like little emeralds on the still-warm bread.

  “Perhaps after breakfast, sir might wish to try Hatra’s cold milk?”

  Mikena looked at her, surprised—he had only just been thinking about the inventiveness of people in hot lands.

  “What is it? A local delicacy?”

  “Not exactly a delicacy, but probably our best invention,” she said—and only now did the general notice she was speaking to him in Sihemic, and not badly at all, using correct words that were sometimes unexpectedly chosen. It didn’t change the meaning, but it sounded amusing.

  Everyone around him pampered him as if he were a guest, not a captive—by their manner, their food, their native language. Should he throw himself even harder into Eridian, so as not to lag behind?

  “We whip the richest cream very hard with syrups and crushed ice, and cool it in a cellar or a well until the dessert turns thick—that is Hatra’s cold milk!”

  Not a simple recipe.

  “It’s delicious—like a kiss from Prosperity itself!”

  A smile touched his lips on its own. The girl likely assumed that any Sihemite revered the Flow of Gifts, and Mikena did not spoil her enthusiasm.

  “Thank you, dear, but I think sweets are best saved for midday,” he said. Back home they ate little sweet food, and cold—least of all; pies and baked apples were prized far more, and the hotter the better.

  The maid looked flustered—almost upset, as though he had refused her personally. Perhaps old Moremei let her household put their noses into the pot while cooking, and something sweet sometimes fell their way too. She bowed lightly and hurried off.

  After breakfast Mikena decided to walk again. He shouldn’t sit too long, or he’d start gaining weight—he was supposed to stay in shape, though he no longer understood why. His chance to flee, his chance to attack Mádyè, had long since vanished.

  He circled the house and the temple outbuildings again, went up to his room, came down once more. Hatra was waking. From the garden he could hear the city’s life, going on literally beyond the wall.

  Carts rattled; market women on their way to the square called to one another; an even hammering rang out—likely from a nearby smithy. In the outer courtyard, a fountain murmured softly, and the Tsaya, cold and full after the downpour, ran with an even roar inside its stone bed.

  Mikena turned his face to the sun, closing his eyes in contentment—and at once hurried footsteps sounded.

  “General!” It was Sebekh, the chief among Mádyè’s Syratines, an exceptionally skilled warrior. His Sihemic was very limited; his deep, singing voice demanded more resonance than the dry northern language allowed. In Eridian his intonations opened brighter—and when he sang… it was sheer wonder. “I didn’t find you in your room.”

  “And you ran yourself ragged searching for me?” the general snorted.

  “Don’t do that again.”

  “As if I can escape.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  But you thought it.

  They spoke little, and mostly on business. With the guards there was no way to put on a scene, like with Mádyè, when they measured themselves in sharpness of tongue.

  “My lord sent for you.”

  Of course—and who else would?

  “And what does your lord want?”

  “I don’t know. He is waiting for you in the sitting room.”

  The general sighed with lazy irritation and caught Sebekh’s tense look—he was still standing there.

  “Go. I’ll be there soon.”

  The guardsman said nothing and left, slipping back into the house.

  “Always like this—only knows how to sour a mood,” Mikena muttered, and went to meet his endless headache.

  The advisor was indeed waiting—true to himself, in his unchanging bronze mask, but now with a double ring of silvering beads that suited his simple, neat clothes.

  “My dear general—did you sleep well?”

  “Very well,” Mikena said, and it wasn’t a lie; he had, surprisingly, rested. “What did you want, Advisor?”

  “Such a wonderful day! I propose we take a walk about the city!”

  His brows rose of their own accord.

  This childishness did not look serious—though why be surprised?

  “And why are you looking like that? Don’t you want to?”

  “I’ve had enough walks under guard, back in the palace.”

  “Who said anything about guards? We’ll go only the two of us.” Mádyè stepped closer, briefly touched Mikena’s hand, then retreated.

  Mikena only snorted.

  What is this bronze-faced man plotting now? He won’t leave me alone, will he.

  He flicked his hand in assent.

  “The Flows witness it—fine. Let’s go.”

  Mádyè shone so brightly that, another moment, and light would have spilled from under the mask.

  “Excellent. Dress comfortably, and we’ll go.”

  They left just as they had said they would.

  The quiet of Moremei’s courtyard was replaced at once by the city’s bustle. The moment they stepped out from under the arch, the human current caught them and carried them through narrow lanes.

  Everything looked different than yesterday: shops, stalls, little pavilions—open now, people everywhere. The Hatrians brightened the monotone of their sandstone city. They painted balconies, draped awnings in cloth, and wore vivid colors themselves—which was not strange, with lavender and saffron growing here, indigofera and laurel, and surely many dye-stones mined in the mountains. Girls showed off scarves and veils, their strange ornaments chiming; men wore belts and embroidered tunics. And only the two of them, in gray, were meant not to draw notice, to blend into the crowd—yet they earned many astonished looks as they passed.

  The streets opened onto a market square with a four-sided obelisk, its top gilded. Mikena made out an old script carved on it, but understood nothing, though he recognized a couple of symbols.

  The square sold everything: spices and herbs Mikena hadn’t even suspected existed, or had only heard about; teas, incense, aromatic woods and resins. The smell was so rich you barely had time to turn your head and catch the next one.

  “Would you like to buy something, General?”

  “I don’t recall captives receiving wages.”

  “When a kind husband invites a lady for a stroll, he pays,” Mádyè laughed, utterly unembarrassed.

  Heat flared in Mikena’s head, but he clenched his teeth and forced the flush down. Blush at this snake’s jokes? Never.

  The advisor, meanwhile, seemed pleased with himself: both mask and merry eyes glittered in the sun.

  “As you wish,” he shrugged and stepped aside to purchase something from a man selling oils.

  Mikena looked away, then cast another glance at Mádyè, who wasn’t looking at him at all now. On the road, the advisor had been leaving him alone more and more, without the slightest concern. Did he see no danger? Could Mikena slip into the crowd and vanish—had the bronze-faced man truly been distracted, or did he always have a trick in reserve?

  Not far away a shadow flickered; Mikena focused, but caught only the edge of a sandy cloak disappearing around a turn. Had it seemed that someone was following them? Or had his imagination simply stirred?

  Before he could dwell on it, Mádyè had returned.

  “Would you like me to put a little oil on your wrist?” the advisor asked, showing a small bottle.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Mikena frowned.

  “What is it?”

  “Tea-tree oil.”

  Ah—so that was it.

  On the road he had caught that scent now and then, but never understood where it came from. And it turned out it had been the advisor all along. A handsome face, a slender body, refined fragrances—and how could such a person contain so much dreadful power?

  Gooseflesh rose on his back at the memory. The market’s scents dimmed; the living bustle seemed like the screams of a dying city, and dust swirled again in the air.

  “No,” he said more coldly than he intended, looking away. “Let’s go on. Where were you taking me.”

  In the next lane they were met not by scents, but by sound. Everything here hummed, rang, rattled. Smithies lined both sides. Stalls sold not only weapons but farming tools as well—but of course Mikena cared about the former.

  Eridian and foreign armor, swords and shields. Maces, hatchets, flails for every taste and need.

  Here the general could not resist. He stopped at a stall with solid-looking swords.

  For a moment, it flashed through his head that he and Mádyè truly looked like a married pair: the snake like some maiden, wanting oils and amusements, and he—a stingy, dry husband who’d been craving a sword for ages, and for what, he didn’t even know.

  Smiling at himself, he shook his head. Absurd.

  Mádyè, who had gotten ahead, came back.

  “A fine sword,” he said, noticing the general’s interest. “Pepper steel.”

  “Pepper steel? I heard you correctly?”

  Mikena wasn’t sure Mádyè had used the word right.

  “Yes, General. Quite correctly.”

  “And what does steel have to do with pepper?”

  “In the south, where these blades are forged, the masters dedicate themselves to the Flow of the Sands of Time. They preserve and increase the knowledge of their forebears. Memory there is bound to hot pepper—they say that as heat on the tongue awakens remembrance, so pepper-smoke in the fire wakes the will of metal. Such a blade will guide the hand of whoever takes it.”

  “So that’s black peppercorn—like in a kitchen?”

  “No, General. In the south it’s red pods. They eat them too, add them to dishes—yet they also burn them in rites of Memory.”

  Memory was another free Flow people relied upon—most often scholars, students, craftsmen, chroniclers, and all sorts of book-lovers.

  The general touched the edge; the blade chilled his fingers. Envy stirred within.

  “How good…” He had never seen such a sword. “By the way, Mádyè—since you’re so generous today—will you return my weapon? I’m a fighting general, and I haven’t held a sword in months. During the attempt on my life I had nothing to defend myself with.”

  Mádyè said nothing.

  As always. Ask an inconvenient question, and the snake pretends not to hear. It irritated him.

  Mikena clenched and unclenched his fists. No.

  “Don’t ignore me, Advisor. I need a sword.”

  “I’ll think about it,” he promised.

  “I’m sure you will,” the general muttered.

  The market roared and rang, spilling into countless voices and accents. Hatra lived no worse than Mutaaresh. The city was plainly fortunate. Despite its constant nearness to the front, its position somewhat aside from the main roads had protected it. It was not a strategic point like Sardas.

  For some reason the memory burned his face like hot wind.

  Were these walls just as fragile?

  He watched Mádyè’s straight back—the man who could ruin everything with a flick of his hand. Sometimes Mikena forgot who he dealt with, but the moment he recalled the advisor’s unrestrained cruelty, he wanted to throw himself at him with his fists. He turned toward the smith’s stall again—how the steel gleam tempted him. Snatch up a blade and swing—split the grim shadow moving ahead, put an end to evil.

  They went on.

  The market rows ended; ordinary streets began—winding, colliding, diverging. Twisting, widening, narrowing, yet always, ahead, the white tower rose. It seemed the advisor was leading him toward that magical refuge.

  Deep in thought and walking a step behind, Mikena saw, from the corner of his eye, a trembling shadow—just like in the square. It moved after them. His instinct had not failed; there truly was a pursuer.

  He stared at the advisor’s back, trying to tell whether Mádyè had noticed—or whether this was a trap set only for him.

  No—what a strange play to stage. If Mádyè had wanted him dead, he had had opportunities enough. Mikena quickened his step, drawing level with the snake.

  “We’re being watched,” he whispered cautiously.

  “I know,” the advisor replied evenly, without turning his head.

  “What will you do?” Mikena felt energy rise in his body. Not that he’d been relaxed on the walk—but now caution was becoming strength.

  Pity he had no sword.

  “I’ll wait for their move.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of giving the enemy the advantage?”

  “They lost it the moment they gave themselves away.”

  “Sometimes I’m simply amazed at your carelessness,” anger broke through his words. He was uneasy, and the advisor’s lightness irritated him—and yet, why worry? He could simply stay aside, let Mádyè deal with it, let them kill him.

  Didn’t he want to be rid of this arrogant bastard?

  Only a moment ago his hands had been aching for a blade.

  “And what makes you think they came for me?”

  “Because you’re utterly unbearable,” Mikena shot back, instantly finding an answer for the teasing.

  “What—me?”

  Oh, that landed. He hadn’t meant it seriously, of course, but Mikena felt the advisor still took the hit, and he smiled with satisfaction. Press harder.

  “If there are more than two, I’m running. I don’t have a sword, and I can’t fight barehanded.”

  “I take you for a stroll and you’re so rude to me. It wounds me.”

  “I hope to blood.”

  “Flows, General—what a foul mood you’re in today.”

  Why had they started this quarrel now? Perhaps it was easier to throw words than to wait in silence for the strike. Mikena noticed Mádyè’s eyes darting down the lane: he saw more than one shadow and was sizing things up. Mikena saw it too—around the next corner they would be attacked.

  Breaking off their exchange, the general asked,

  “Ready?”

  “Don’t take risks—we have shadows too,” the advisor threw back. It sounded sudden, out of place—but there was no time to think. Somewhere a shutter slammed like a signal.

  In an instant two blades barred their path. Two more were behind.

  Travel cloaks, masks—they had been waiting.

  “Gentlemen, may I—” Mádyè surely meant to unleash his deadliest weapon—his tongue—but he was not allowed to finish. A blade whooshed beside him, slicing the air, and he had to step back.

  They rushed them together, fighting easily. Their strikes—sharp and precise—fell just short, only because Mikena was quicker. The bandits were good, but not like trained soldiers, not like the Eridian who had attacked him in the garden.

  Dodging, the general tried to kick one in the leg, but missed. Everything here was so clean and neat there was nothing to grab from the ground—no stone, no stick. The odds were against him.

  A clang rang out and he was distracted despite himself: someone’s sword rang against the wall, leaving a visible scar, while the advisor still slipped the blow. Mikena bared his teeth.

  What kind of game was this? Why wasn’t he using the beetles?

  “Mádyè!” Mikena barked, jerking aside. They couldn’t let the attackers drive them into a corner. “Do something already!”

  But instead of an answer came muffled laughter.

  Anger—whether at the advisor or at everything—lent him strength.

  “Ah, you—!” he thundered at full lung and hurled himself into a frontal charge, seeming to startle them for a heartbeat.

  With a powerful leap he closed the distance and shoved one attacker straight into his partner. They collided; there was hissing and muffled cursing; and from somewhere under a sandy cloak a bone tag clattered loudly onto the stones.

  Mikena recognized it at once—the slavers’ token, just like the one he had seen in the cypress grove.

  So they’d come for Mádyè’s head, not his.

  That moment of confusion gave Mikena a chance. He lunged, snatched up the token, and with one clean throw sent it straight into a bandit’s forehead. The sound was as if the fool’s skull were empty.

  Blood seeped through the pale fabric of the kufiya. The bandit growled, failed to make a proper swing, staggered—and Mikena grabbed his wrist, yanking him close and using the man as a shield against his companion’s lethal strike.

  He felt the impact and heard a cry as he tore the sword from the weakening hand.

  “Now this is real!” A pleased smile twisted his face. How long it had been since he’d held a weapon—and what pleasure in its weight.

  There was no pause. The remaining attackers did not falter. A blade flashed close, but Mikena parried. Steel rattled against steel, threw sparks, carved figures in the air, split the warm Hatrian breath.

  His skill had not vanished. His hardened body remembered the complex movements: lunge, evade, step aside.

  He glanced toward the advisor again and caught his mocking, still-calm gaze—then noticed a dull glint on his wrist.

  “Now!” Mádyè commanded, flicking his hand. A buzz flared and died. Blood sprayed, spattering the ground.

  Two left.

  Their hesitation became obvious—they had not expected such strength—but they would not retreat. In their eyes burned malice mixed with desperation. Stepping over their comrades’ bodies without a glance, they coordinated like hunters. One rushed Mikena, forcing him backward, while the other pressed Mádyè to the same wall.

  Step by step, beneath the ring of steel and harsh breathing, general and advisor ended up nearly back to back, trapped in the narrow angle of the lane. Mikena felt the heat of another body close beside him—burning like a live coal.

  A sword point shot forward; Mikena knocked the thrust aside—steel scraped stone, throwing sparks. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a terrible gleam: the second blade was raised over Mádyè, and the general understood—the advisor wouldn’t get out in time.

  Without knowing what he was doing, without even thinking, Mikena lunged sideways and shoved Mádyè off the line of the strike with his shoulder. In the same breath he drove his own sword forward to block—steel crashed on steel and his arm ached from the strain.

  But the movement left his back open, and he heard the whistle of a blade behind him.

  Damn you, flashed through his mind. He gritted his teeth, bracing for pain—

  —but a shadow moved beside them from the neighboring roof, and a cat dropped down like a dark blot.

  If Mikena hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would not have believed a thousand witnesses. The cat was not the shadow; the shadow moved after it, slowly wrapping it, the dark essence swelling, transforming, until a huge, trained body pinned one of the swordsmen to the ground.

  A sickening crack sounded, a short scream—and then silence.

  The last attacker froze in horror, barely managing to turn his head before he was caught by a quiet buzz.

  It was over.

  Breathing hard, the general turned.

  Sebekh stood before him.

  Completely naked.

  “Flows…”

  Mikena blinked twice.

  He had just watched a cat turn into a man.

  Was Sebekh the cat? Or was the cat Sebekh?

  This magic was nothing like anything he knew or understood.

  Now all the small details he had forgotten surged back. At every halt, four of them went out on patrol, and Mikena had never managed to spot the men—yet from time to time he had seen cats. Even on the road to Hatra, on forest camps far from towns, he had periodically noticed tails flickering in tall grass.

  Was Mádyè’s whole unit made of shapeshifters?

  He had read of such things only in tales, and would never have believed it real.

  And how many cats had he petted at the inn? How many had he fussed over on Hazei Hill? How many had wandered his chambers when he was locked in the palace, watching him as he walked in the garden? How many of them had not been cats at all?

  And the one that jumped in through the window yesterday while he was changing—who had she been? A youth? A girl? Perhaps she truly was only a cat—otherwise it meant he’d been examined head to toe! And it wasn’t merely awkward—it was intimate.

  Could it have been the bronze-faced one himself, who would not leave him alone?

  “No, no,” the general tried to calm himself. “That one is not a cat. He’s a snake.”

  A pleasant heat and tension flooded his arms; he lowered the sword and looked over the scene. Silence filled the lane. Blood seeped between stones.

  His emotions slowly settled.

  What a mess.

  Only now did he fully grasp Mádyè’s earlier phrase: we have shadows too—so that had been about Sebekh, trailing them the entire time.

  And he’d promised they would go alone.

  Of course.

  Mádyè was dusting off his clothes.

  “Thank you, General. You saved me.”

  The advisor’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts, and irritation stirred again. Mikena still gripped the bloody hilt.

  He was angry—and most of all, angry with himself.

  Anger and frustration spread through him like poison. Why had he saved that snake, when he could have simply pushed him under the blade? Why had his own body betrayed him?

  Cold bewilderment flared into a flush on his cheeks. All day he had wanted to draw the advisor’s blood, to tear himself free from those suffocating serpent coils—yet in the end he had risked himself to save him.

  “You could have been quicker with your beetles,” he snapped.

  He didn’t want to carry this alone, so he poured it onto Mádyè.

  “Would you have enjoyed such a splendid fight if I’d ended it quickly?”

  “Enjoyment is when I almost got chopped up because of your games?” Mikena snorted. “You promised to protect me—and you?”

  “Oh, but the great general handled it splendidly.”

  “Because I got a sword. If I’d had one from the start, none of this would have happened at all.”

  Mádyè gave a quiet huff.

  “If you had a sword, you would have run me through yourself,” he said—his mockery gone, his voice perfectly even as he fixed Mikena with a cold, calm look. “Questions of trust…”