The Drowning City: The Necromancer Chronicles Book One (16 page)

All she could do was smile back and try not to think of Adam.

The skiff drifted close to the canal bank, where flowers overflowed their window boxes. The water had already risen, but not
all the way. The low waterline bared wards carved in the stone.

Riuh leaned close to shield her movements as Xinai drew a slender chisel from her sleeve. She tensed as his lips brushed her
shoulder, but managed a giggle. With one careful motion she dragged the blade across the stone, gouging through crusted moss
and grime to mar the sigil beneath, then palmed the chisel and reached up to pluck a violet blossom from the vine. She barely
felt the shiver as the ward-spell broke. With an aching smile, she threaded the flower into Riuh’s hair.

Something splashed softly beside them. Xinai looked down, and found herself staring into the flat face of a nakh. She stiffened;
she’d never been so close to one before. Skin pale as a snake’s belly, hair a weed-tangled cloud. Black eyes blinked, flashing
white as pearlescent membranes slid sideways. Xinai’s hand dropped to her knife.

The nakh grinned, baring rows of bone-needle teeth, and lifted one webbed hand from the water. A ruby glistened blood-black
in its palm. It hissed softly, then sank beneath the surface.

Riuh touched a charm-bag at his throat. “Ancestors,” he whispered. “I hope my grandmother knows what she’s doing.”

“So do I.” The nakh had no love for the warded city, or the invader mages who had driven them out of their delta, but they
weren’t allies Xinai would have sought out. Gold skin or brown made no difference once someone was at the bottom of the river.

The steersman pushed farther into the city. They’d finished their section of canals and now there was nothing to do but wait
for the others, and for the nakh.

The skiff neared the Floating Garden, which was full of barges and workers swarming to set up platforms and hang lanterns.
As Xinai watched the construction, movement on the far bank caught her eye. A flash of white skin and a familiar cloaked shape.
Adam and the witch. Her stomach tightened painfully and she swallowed. She brushed a charm, vision honing, and watched the
Laii girl lead them toward the temples.

“Let me off here,” she said, before she could think better of it.

“What is it?” Riuh asked.

“Something I need to take care of. Wait for me behind the temples.”

The steersman pulled up to the nearest steps. Riuh reached for her arm as she rose, but she dodged easily. “Don’t worry, I
won’t be long.”

She waited for Adam in an alley beside the canal. Rain dappled the murky green water, and low clouds cast an early twilight
between the walls. Marks covered the stone, children’s pictures drawn in charcoal and chalk, scrawled names and vows of love.
A handprint stood out in the midst of the smeared scribbles, red brick dust not yet streaked by the rain—another of the Dai
Tranh had already been here.

Rain dripped cold against her face and hair, warmed as it trickled down her neck. She didn’t have to wait long, as she’d known
she wouldn’t. Adam could always find her. He’d thrown his hood back and tendrils of hair clung to his cheeks. He grinned when
he saw her, but her own face was stiff and numb.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Her control slipped, brows pulling together. Nothing was easy now that she faced him. “I’m sorry.”

“Xin? What is it?” He glanced around, hand dropping to his sword hilt. Afraid of an ambush, and that left a bruised feeling
in her chest. Voices drifted from the temple yard and rain pattered against the water. He moved closer, laid his hands on
her shoulders. She fought a flinch, but his eyes narrowed and she knew she’d failed.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’m staying here.” A clean break was always best.

“Here?”

“In Sivahra. I won’t become a pirate with you after all.” Her mouth twisted.

“I’ll stay with you—”

She shook her head, short and sharp, and shrugged off his touch. “No, you can’t. I’m sorry.” The words fell like stones from
her mouth, but she kept on. “Please, stay away from the festival tonight. I don’t want you hurt.”

Wariness diluted the pain on his face. “What’s going to happen?”

She didn’t answer, only reached up and unhooked a heavy silver hoop from her ear. “It’s been…good.” She pressed the earring
into his palm, the metal warm as flesh, and let her hand linger against his for a heartbeat. “Thank you for bringing me home.”

She leaned up and kissed him, tasted rain and salt. Then she turned and fled toward the canal. The red handprint dripped down
the wall.

Adam returned as they left the temple. Isyllt frowned at the grim lines of his expression, and Zhirin flinched.

“What’s wrong?” Isyllt asked in Selafaïn. Zhirin drew back to give them privacy.

“I found Xinai. She’s left us, left the job.”
Left me
, she read in the unhappy set of his shoulders. “She’s joined the rebels.”

“The Dai Tranh?”

“Looks that way. She warned me away from the festival.”

Isyllt’s eyes narrowed. “Lovely. So we’ll get a better show than masks and lanterns tonight. So much for our day off. We need
to know this part of the city by tonight,” she said to Zhirin, repeating it in Assari after the girl gave her a blank stare.

As they followed Zhirin toward the far side of the plaza, Isyllt slowed and laid a hand on his arm.

“Are you all right?”

He shook his head, scattering raindrops. “Just stupid.” He tried to smile—or maybe it was a grimace. “I won’t let it interfere
with the job.”

She nodded wry acknowledgment. “If you don’t want to go tonight, I understand.” He turned away from the sympathy in her voice.

“And let you get killed?”

“I can take care of myself.”

“You’ve forgotten the part where Kiril skins me if you get hurt. It’s the job—I’ve got your back.”

She smiled. “Good. I bought you a mask.”

I
’ll be half-blind in this thing,” Adam said, glaring at the mask in his hands.

Isyllt chuckled as she unwrapped her own costume. “But very menacing.”

He snorted, running a finger over the black molded leather. A jackal’s head, stylized like paintings of the
ghulim
that haunted the Assari deserts. Gold paint outlined wide slanted eyes and tall pointed ears.

“You pay me to be effective, not just menacing.”

“Tonight I’m paying you to be both.”

He looked the part at least, all in black, sleek northern clothes instead of the billowing southern styles. He’d make a charming
counterpoint to her own white silk.

Her costume was simple, loose trousers and a long Sivahri coat that fit snug to the waist and belled from hip to calf. The
fabric made it beautiful, rippling with lustrous rainbows, opalescent as moonlight and fog. The mask was white as well, a
sharply pointed oval with slanting eyes and fur-lined ears. Her hair hung loose down her back and between the mask, the high-collared
coat, and her soft white gloves, the only skin that showed was her eyelids.

The sky had deepened from ash to slate by the time she finished dressing, and already shouts and music drifted down the street.
Zhirin waited for them in the front hall. Her mask was a simple domino, but the rest of her costume made up for it. Green
and silver ribbons threaded her hair and iridescent scales gleamed on her skirt and vest. Blue-green malachite dust shimmered
on her bare arms and throat, over the soft curve of her stomach.

When she saw Isyllt, the girl’s mouth gaped and she brushed a hand across her left eye in a warding gesture. “Lady…It suits
you.”

“Thank you. I think.”

“Are you sure you want to stay, master?” Zhirin asked Vasilios as he walked them to the door.

“I’ll be fine. I’m getting too old for drunken revelry.” His limp was more pronounced and he rubbed his swollen hands. “And
without Marat here to force meals on me, perhaps I’ll get some work done. Have fun. Be careful.” He patted Zhirin’s shoulder
fondly and shooed them out.

The night was bright with music and lanterns, thick with the smell of wine and incense. A few mask-sellers still cried their
wares, but nearly every face they passed was already covered. Herons and owls, lions and hounds, sea monsters and spirits,
all dancing and laughing in the streets. The rain had paused, as if in encouragement, but clouds still rode the rooftops and
Isyllt’s face was soon damp and sticky beneath her mask.

The guards were out in force as well; red uniforms marked nearly every street corner, stood like pillars adorning alleyways.
None wore masks.

They followed the crowd toward the water plaza. Banners and garlands hung from roofs and bridges, and candles bobbed like
fireflies in every canal. The crowd thickened when they reached the streets around the Floating Garden, till they couldn’t
move without brushing arms and shoulders or tangling in someone’s costume.

“This is madness,” Adam said, their masks bumping as he leaned in. “We have to get out of this. If something happens—”

She nodded and tried to push her way to the far side. They hadn’t reached the next building when drums rolled nearby and half
the crowd began to dance. Someone grabbed Isyllt’s hands and spun her around. She laughed in spite of herself, but by the
time she slipped free she’d lost sight of Adam and Zhirin.

A new partner seized her, a man with a raptor’s wicked beak, his mask a glorious crown of red and gold feathers. Gold thread
gleamed on fluttering sleeves and topaz and garnet chips rattled as he moved. Wings hung lovely and useless down his back,
two pairs. A jinn.

He caught her hand and bowed over it, graceful even in the unwieldy mask. His magic crawled against her skin and she knew
him.

“Lovely, my lady,” Asheris said. “But too plain. You should be hung all in opals.”

“We can’t all burn as bright as you, Lord al Seth.”

“No, I suppose not.” He twirled her and pulled her out of the flow of the crowd. Someone jostled her in passing and she steadied
herself against his shoulder.

“I keep running into you,” she said, leaning close to his ear. “I might suspect you were following me.” Foolish to tease him,
but the heat and energy of the dance stole away her caution.

His lips curled in the shadow of his beak. “This isn’t a night for suspicions.”

“Then why so many guards?”

“That, my lady, is caution, and sadly well-founded.”

She nodded, fighting the urge to pass on Xinai’s warning. But he knew as much as she did, doubtless, and she needed no more
attention.

Before she could speak, Zhirin appeared, laying a light hand on Isyllt’s arm to keep them from drifting apart.

“My escort,” Isyllt said, nodding farewell to Asheris. “Perhaps I’ll see you again tonight.”

“I suspect you shall.” He bowed again and Isyllt let Zhirin lead her away. He was dangerous, she reminded herself. But that
never stopped her as often as it should.

Wooden platforms covered most of the Floating Garden, firmly lashed together and to the banks. Some were stages for musicians,
some dance floors, others bridges. Lanterns bobbed in a web of ropes overhead, their reflections like colored moons in the
night-black water. Theater boxes had been erected around the plaza, raised and sheltered vantages from which to watch the
revelry.

“Adam’s on the other side,” Zhirin said, pushing her way through.

Isyllt stepped onto the rocking boards, but a new song started and she was caught in another dance. She dodged reaching hands,
balancing on the edge of the platform as dancers spun, trading partners as they twirled. Feathers and sequins littered the
wood.

When she neared the far side, a man in a fox mask—copper and black instead of white—offered her a hand from the bank. As she
reached for it, the barge trembled under her feet. A dancer stumbled drunkenly beside her and his companion giggled. Isyllt’s
stomach tightened and she tensed to leap for the shore.

Too late. Her fingers brushed the man’s and the water erupted in a violent fountain, flinging flowers and candles into the
air. The barge surged up, snapping its moorings as it capsized. Someone screamed, and then the water closed over Isyllt’s
head.

All around she heard frantic splashing and muted shouts from above. Water seeped into her mouth, bitter with silt. Her coat
weighed her down, fouled her legs as she tried to swim. A hand caught her arm, rescuer or fellow victim, and she reached for
it.

But the flesh she touched was nothing human and whatever held her was dragging her deeper.

She ripped off her mask and summoned a sickly white ghostlight that glowed through the murk. Black eyes paled to pearl in
the sudden glare and the creature bared needle teeth in a silent hiss. No seductive siren, this—webbed hands and sea-wrack
hair, a mouth twice as wide as a man’s. A finned tail like a sea serpent’s lashed the water, coiling around Isyllt’s legs.

A nakh. She groped for her knife but found only wet silk and scales. Already her chest burned and she fought to keep her mouth
shut. Claws scored her flesh.
Just take a breath
, she thought, wild and reckless. The river will take the pain.

She rallied her scattered wits, abandoned the knife in favor of better weapons. Her ring blazed through her glove, shards
of light aimed at the creature’s eyes. It recoiled, letting go of Isyllt’s arm.

It wasn’t alone—at least half a dozen sinuous monsters moved in the water, dragging down other hapless celebrants. Black ribbons
of blood twisted on the current.

She kicked up, but the nakh recovered too quickly. Its wide hand closed on her ankle and jerked her down so hard that she
nearly gasped. Air leaked from her nose and mouth and dark spots swirled across her eyes.

A splash broke the water above them, a burst of silver bubbles as someone dove into the canal. Isyllt kicked at the nakh,
slammed her heel against the side of its head and wished for heavy boots. It snapped at her and she barely jerked her foot
away in time to keep all her toes.

A voice carried through the water, clear and echoing with magic, though Isyllt didn’t understand the words. The nakh flinched
and released her leg. Its kin let go of their prey as well. Another shout and they turned and glided down, vanishing into
the darkness below.