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

They’d found another body in a black coat, its skull half-flattened. While everyone else looked pointedly up and away, Jaghotai looked over the Balladairan coldly.

Touraine pointed with her head. “Put him with the other dead.”

Noé and the woman pulled him out of the wreckage and carried his mangled body to a growing row. Touraine’s stomach turned. She wretched, barely able to swallow the vomit, burning, back down her throat. Sky above, she’d gotten soft.

Jaghotai pulled her away, white-dusted fingers gripping Touraine’s biceps hard. “Go home.”

Touraine pulled away. “It’s a bit late for that—”

Jaghotai shook her head wearily and held her palms up. “Not what I meant.” She started to walk away from the wreckage, away from the people digging up answers in the shape of flesh.

In a low voice, she continued as they walked. “Half the council is dead. Our temple is in ruins. My city’s still smoking. You’re not gonna fix this right now—doesn’t matter how many orders you give.”

Touraine scoffed. “I’m not stupid. We have to prepare.”

“Prepare? Ha! If they come for us now or they come for us next week, what will they get?”

Touraine looked over, eyebrows tight in confusion.

“Everything. All of it. Anything they want,” Jaghotai said. She stepped closer. Tentatively, she put a hand on Touraine’s shoulder. “You’ve been out here since they brought it down. Take some time. Clean yourself up. It won’t make any difference.”

Touraine looked down at herself. Her trousers were splattered with blood, pale with stone dust. She put a hand to her sweaty forehead and wiped at the grit.

“Go wash in one of the channels. The crocodiles don’t usually wash up so far inland.”

The darkness Touraine had been avoiding lurked at the side of her vision, crept at the edges of her limbs, and threatened to weigh her down. She tried to fight it.

“What right do you have—” To care? To give her orders?

“Every right.” Jaghotai headed back to the temple, leaving Touraine no dignified choice but to walk away.

Touraine followed her anylight.

“Touraine…” Jaghotai warned.

Touraine kept marching back to the mess she’d made, to something she could do. Jaghotai flung her arm out to catch Touraine in the chest and shoved. Touraine pushed her back and stalked on, back to the rubble.

“Are we really doing this?” barked Touraine over her shoulder. “We’ve got work to do.”

“Touraine—” The other woman tried to grab her in a bear hug, but Touraine spun, breaking the grip with an elbow. She hooked a punch into Jaghotai’s jaw.

Jaghotai went sprawling. It took a second before either of them registered what happened. As she rubbed her jaw, Jaghotai’s eyes went dark. She bared her teeth, and Touraine saw blood streaking them. Her hand was still clenched in its fist. It hurt to ease her fingers apart.

“I’m… sorry.” Touraine clenched and unclenched her fists again, working the fingers loose. She shook her head, trying to clear away that… that darkness that was invading. With Jaghotai still on the ground, she turned on her heel and strode toward the river.

Touraine scooped water onto her face from a tepid little pond made by the irrigation and damming architecture that the Qazāli had learned from Balladaire. The water, trapped during the Hadd’s flood season and the rains, normally watered goats. The goats were gone now.

The water dripped onto her aching shoulders and soaked into her scalp. She waded farther in. Maybe if she lay down in it, she could wash away the smell of the smoke. Maybe if she kept her ears stopped up with water, she wouldn’t hear the screaming and that infernal imperial anthem anymore.

They had sometimes sung it when they marched, the Sands. Noé leading the verses while they all chimed in, variously out of tune. It was too sore for some of them, though. Instead, they preferred songs like “Jolly Soldier,” which were morbid but at least reflected the lives they lived instead of an ideal Balladaire that they would never be a part of.

She hummed as the water tickled her scalp and she splashed a handful on her face.

Welcome, soldier. Welcome, jolly soldier. How can I help you today? Can I take your boots, sir, your army-issued boots, sir? How can I help you today?

The water dripped down her bare neck and drew goose bumps across her skin. The sun was on its way down, and the night was cooling quickly.

The river was lower than usual, people said, and this pool was barely knee high, murky with mud and plants, and too still to be completely fresh. It still smelled better than she did.

She stared at the Cursed City on the other side of the river. With the River Hadd between them, patrolled by the Many-Legged, the border between Qazāl and Briga stretched anywhere from a mile to several. At first, she’d thought it bizarre, the Qazāli leaving a whole city uninhabited because of superstition. Now Touraine knew what magic could do, and she didn’t care to test it. Like Djasha had said months ago—superstitions came from somewhere.

Thinking of Djasha gave the darkness another push. It closed tight around her chest and made it difficult to breathe. She took off her shirt, waded into the water, and stopped fighting it.

Djasha, dying. Tibeau, dead. Pruett, who hated her. A sob wrenched out of her, and she turned it into a growl.

Her legs were heavy in the water. She soaked her shirt and used it to scrub herself down. She’d grown so dark in the southern sun, and her wet hair shook out in short dreadlocks and braids. She wasn’t the soldier she’d been so sure of months ago.

She laughed at herself, at the irony. She wasn’t sky-falling obedient anymore—that was certain. The easy camaraderie of the barracks was so far behind her, it might as well have been a dream. She didn’t believe in Balladaire anymore, either. She would never be content on their side. The last hope she’d had died with Luca. Luca would never make Qazāl accept Balladairan rule. It was