THE MOON SAT SO LARGE in the sky Kamran thought he might lift a finger to its skin, draw circles around its wounds. He stared at its veins and starbursts, white pockmarks like spider sacs. He studied it all as his mind worked, his eyes narrowing in the aftermath of an impossible illusion.
She’d fairly disappeared.
He’d not meant to stare, but how, also, was he meant to look away? He’d seen danger in the assailant’s movements even before the man drew his knife; worse, no one paid the altercation any attention. The girl could’ve been maimed or abducted or murdered in the worst ways—and even though Kamran had been sworn to anonymity in daylight, his every instinct compelled him to issue a warning, to step in before it was too late—
He needn’t have worried.
Still, there was much that troubled him, not the least of which was that there’d seemed something amiss about the girl. She’d worn a snoda—a sheath of semi-transparent silk—around her eyes and nose, which did not obscure, exactly, but blur her features. The snoda itself was innocuous enough; it was required of all who worked in service. She was ostensibly a maid.
But servants were not required to wear the snoda outside of work, and it was unusual that the girl had worn hers at this early hour, when the royals were still abed.
It seemed far more likely that she was not a maid at all.
Spies had been infiltrating the empire of Ardunia for years, but these numbers had been bloating dangerously in more recent months, feeding an unnerving concern that lately crowned Kamran’s thoughts, and which he could not now shake.
He exhaled his frustration, shaping a cloud in the cold.
More in every moment, Kamran grew convinced the girl had stolen the servants’ uniform, for her covert attempt had not only been poorly executed, but easily betrayed by an ignorance of the many rules and mannerisms that defined the lives of the lower classes. Her gait alone would’ve been warning enough; she’d walked too well for a servant, carrying herself with a kind of regal bearing established only in infancy.
No, Kamran felt certain now that the girl had been hiding something. It would not be the first time someone had used the snoda to mask themselves in public.
Kamran glanced at the clock in the square; he’d come into town this morning to speak with the Diviners, who’d sent a mysterious note requesting an audience with the young man despite his never having announced his return home. Today’s meeting, it seemed, would have to wait; for much to his dismay, Kamran’s always-reliable instincts would not quiet.
How, with only one free hand, had a maid so coolly disarmed a man holding a knife to her throat? When would a maid have had the time or coin to spare learning self-defense? And what on earth had she said to the man to leave him weeping in the snow?
The suspect in question was only now stumbling to his feet. His shock of red curls screamed he was from Fesht, a region at least one month south of Setar, the capital city; not only was the assailant far from home, but he appeared to be in severe pain, one arm hanging lower than the other. Kamran watched as the redhead held his bad limb—dislocated, it seemed— with the good, carefully steadying himself. Tears had tracked clean paths down his otherwise dirty cheeks, and for the first time, Kamran got a good look at the criminal. Had he more practice with outward displays of emotion, Kamran’s features might’ve registered surprise.
The assailant was quite young.
Kamran moved swiftly toward him, sliding a mask of intricate chain mail over his face as he went. He walked into the wind, his cloak snapping against his boots, and only when he’d all but collided with the child did he stop. It was enough that the Fesht boy jumped back at his approach, wincing as the movement jostled his injury. The boy cradled his wounded arm and curled inward, head to his chest like a humbled millipede, and with an unintelligible murmur, tried to pass.
“Lotfi, hejj, bekhshti—” Please, sir, excuse me—
The gall of this child, Kamran could scarce believe it. Still, it was a comfort to know that he’d been correct: the boy spoke Feshtoon and was far from home.
Kamran had every intention of handing the child over to the magistrates; it had been his sole purpose in seeking out the boy. But now, unable to pry loose his suspicions, he found himself hesitating.
Again, the child tried to pass, and again, Kamran blocked his path. “Kya tan goft et cheknez?” What did the young woman say to you?
The boy startled. Stepped back. His skin was a shade or two lighter than his brown eyes, with a smattering of darker freckles across his nose. Heat blossomed across his face in unflattering splotches. “Bekhshti, hejj, nek mefem—” I’m sorry, sir, I don’t understand—
Kamran stepped closer; the boy nearly whimpered. “Jev man,” he said. “Pres.” Answer me. Now.
The boy’s tongue came loose then, almost too quickly to be comprehensible. Kamran translated in his head as the child spoke:
“Nothing, sir—please, sir, I didn’t hurt her, it was only a misunderstanding—”
Kamran clamped a gloved hand around the boy’s dislocated shoulder and the Fesht boy cried out, gasping as his knees buckled.
“You dare lie to my face—”
“Sir—please—” The child was crying now. “She only gave me back my knife, sir, I swear it, and—and then she offered me bread, she said—”
Kamran rocked backward, dropping his hand. “You continue to lie.” “On m-my mother’s grave, I swear. On all that is holy—”
“She returned your weapon and offered to feed you,” Kamran said sharply, “after you nearly killed her. After you tried to steal from her.”
The boy shook his head, tears welling again in his eyes. “She showed me mercy, sir— Please—”
“Enough.”
The boy’s mouth snapped shut. Kamran’s frustration was mounting; he wanted desperately to throttle someone. He searched the square once more, as if the girl might appear as easily as she’d evaporated. His gaze landed again on the boy.
It was like thunder, his voice.
“You pressed a blade to a woman’s throat like the worst coward, the most detestable of men. That young woman might’ve shown you mercy but I see no reason to do the same. You expect to walk away from this without judgment? Without justice?”
The boy panicked. “Please, sir—I will go and die, sir—I will slit my own throat if you ask me to, only don’t hand me over to the magistrates, I beg you.”
Kamran blinked. The situation grew more complicated by the second. “Why do you say such a thing?”
The boy shook his head then, growing only more hysterical. His eyes were wild, his fear too palpable for theater. Soon he began to wail, the sound ringing through the streets.
Kamran did not know how to calm the urchin; his own dying soldiers had never allowed themselves such weakness in his presence. Too late, Kamran considered letting the boy go, but he’d hardly begun to formulate the thought when, without warning, the child drove the length of the crude blade into his own throat.
Kamran inhaled sharply.
The boy—whose name he did not know—choked on his own blood, on the knife still buried in his neck. Kamran caught him when he fell, could feel the outline of the boy’s ribs under his fingers. He was light as a bird, bones hollowed out, no doubt, by hunger.
Old impulses prevailed.
Kamran issued commands to passersby with the voice he used to lead a legion, and strangers appeared as if out of thin air, abandoning their own children to carry out his orders. His head was so dense with disbelief he hardly noticed when the boy was lifted from his arms and carried out of the square. The way he stared at the blood, the spotted snow, the red rivulets circling a manhole cover—it was as if Kamran had never seen death; hadn’t seen it a thousand times over. He had, he had, he thought he’d seen all manner of darkness. But Kamran had never before witnessed a child commit suicide.
It was then that he saw the handkerchief.
He’d watched the young woman press it to her throat, to the wound inflicted by a boy who was now presumably dead. He’d watched this strange girl manage her own near-death with the forbearance of a soldier, meting out justice with the compassion of a saint. He held no doubt now that she was indeed a spy, one in possession of an astuteness of mind that surprised him.
She’d known in but a moment how to handle the child, had she not? She’d done far better than he, had judged better; and now, as he processed her earlier escape, his fears only ratcheted higher. It was rare that Kamran experienced shame, but the sensation roared inside him now, refusing to be quieted. With a single finger, he lifted the embroidered square out of the snow. He’d expected the white textile to be stained with blood.
It was pristine.
