The Unbroken by C. Clark (ebook reader .txt) 📕

“It’s not a cure. It’s a skill—you can’t just take it like you take their stone or their beads—”

“Then I want a hundred doctors or healers—whomever. I want a cadre to teach us, and then I want my throne. Help taking it, if need be. Then a protectorate.”

Touraine shook her head, incredulous. Who was this? What had happened to the dreaming scholar?

The answer was glaringly simple. Luca was Balladairan. She was Balladaire.

Touraine stood. Luca’s pale jaw flexed. The hollows of her eyes were skeletal in the dim light of the salon.

“And let them pay you in their own resources for the privilege of your protection?” Touraine scoffed. Her eyes burned and she blinked them clear. “You can’t be yourself unless you have a leash in your hand, and there’s always got to be someone attached to it.”

“Not you,” Luca said, voice surprisingly soft.

“No. Not me. Not anymore. And how long until the rest of Qazāl says the same? The rest of Balladaire?”

Touraine let the silence sink between them.

“They don’t need your protection. The magic does more than heal. If the rebels come for you, don’t look for me to stop them.”

“Are you threatening me?” Luca stood and walked slowly around the table, her cane tapping, until Touraine could have leaned over and kissed her.

“No.” Touraine dug her fingernails into her palms. Despite everything, the idea of Luca being hurt set her heart racing.

The sharp edge of Luca’s voice rested against Touraine’s throat. “I’m letting you walk out of here on one condition. Get the rebels in line. I don’t want any more bloodshed than you do. The sooner they stop fighting, the sooner I call off my hounds.”

“You deserve this fight.”

“The civilians, too? The children?”

“You teach the children to spit on us! Crawl out of your books, and open your fucking eyes, Luca. This is real. We are real.”

At the whistle of air, Touraine flung her hand up by instinct. Luca’s wrist crashed against her forearm, and Touraine whipped her hand over, grabbing Luca’s wrist so hard that Luca’s pulse pumped against her thumb.

“Boot me to the moon if I’ll let another of you women hit me in the face.”

“Let go of me.” Luca didn’t struggle.

“Keep your hands to yourself. I’m not your pet anymore.”

“Touraine—” For a moment, something softened her face. Touraine could almost hear her say it: Come back. The temptation to surrender and apologize was there. She could tell Luca wanted it. So did she. Just not with this Luca.

The window of apology slammed shut. “I hope their magic is as strong as you say it is,” Luca said. “If I were you, I would ask your new friends to hide you well.”

Her voice didn’t shake, and her blue-green eyes were colder and more uncompromising than frozen earth when you had a whole squad to bury. Her face flushed. They shared the silence and the air between them for three breaths, breaths that shuddered in Touraine’s chest. Her heart pounded all the way to her fingertips. She dropped Luca’s hand and brushed past Gillett without meeting his eyes.

CHAPTER 32A FAMILY (REPRISE)

The sun was blazing when Touraine made it back to the Old Medina, and she was fuming. She tried to wipe the evidence of her visit from her face behind the veil as she wove through the almost-familiar streets to Djasha and Aranen’s riad. The priestess had finally deemed her wife recovered enough to move, so Djasha and the pack of strays had relocated.

Jaghotai arrived at the same time, carrying a tray of khubza, the thick rounds of bread that Qazāli ate at meals. “Where have you been?” she grunted.

“Nowhere,” Touraine grunted back. She reached out to catch one end of the tray, but Jaghotai twisted away and nodded at the door instead.

The sharp smell of pungent vegetables met them immediately, along with the sound of pleasant banter. Saïd the bookseller was there, two books beside him while he cut the vegetables that Aranen threw into a pot already simmering.

Djasha lay in a corner, and Malika padded around her in bare feet and a casual dress—which meant it was still more elegant and sleek than anything in Balladairan high fashion. She held a cup of water for Djasha. A quick smile at Touraine and Jaghotai tugged the scar on her chin.

“She said she was fine.” Malika rolled her eyes, but Touraine heard the twist of grief in her voice.

“I lied.” Djasha winced as she pushed herself up to take a drink and tried to turn it into a scowl.

“Aranen said rest.” Malika pulled the thin blanket up Djasha’s stomach.

“I am. We are,” Djasha said, teeth gritted. With a start, Touraine noticed the tribal priest’s giant cat, its head resting at Djasha’s side. Their golden eyes matched. “It just hurts so Shāl-damned much.” She shoved the blanket off. “And it’s too damned hot in this place.”

“Can I bring anything?” Touraine directed the words more to Malika, who looked grimly at their patient, but Djasha answered.

“Both of you. Stop hovering over me like a nest of mosquitoes. Go bother my nurse.”

The doctor-priestess snorted from her side of the single room. “It is time you learned how to make a proper Qazāli dinner. Even Niwai is… helping.”

The tribal priest was poking at something in the tajine while Jaghotai peered suspiciously over their shoulder.

“Ya, Touraine!” Saïd threw his arms wide, knife included, which made Aranen squawk indignantly before swearing at him.

Touraine greeted him back in her awkward Shālan. Though Luca had been teaching Touraine the stiff scholar’s version of the tongue, being surrounded by the rebels’ liquid syllables was rubbing off on her. She braved the vegetable knife to kiss the man on both cheeks. Of all of them, he was still the warmest toward her.

“Watch yourself, Saïd,” Aranen said. “If you lose your lips—or anything else—I can’t promise to heal you.” Aranen twirled her own knife through the air, smiling down at her vegetables.

“What? The Mulāzim wouldn’t hurt me. I gave her the gift of poetry.”

They