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

Touraine and Jaghotai startled to their feet a second before the door burst open. Luca couldn’t help it—she screamed, ducking under her arms.

It was only Gillett, his face pale in the dim light of the smoking den. The gauzy dyed curtains made the grim lines of his face stand out in green and red and blue.

“Your Highness, we need to leave now. Mesdames, monsieur—” Gil looked meaningfully at the rebel leaders. “See to your people. You’re under attack.”

“What have you done?” shouted Jaghotai. The Jackal was up and lunging for Luca before Gil’s words had sunk in. Touraine tackled the woman in a clatter of low tables and stools, a howl of rage. Gil already had his pistol out, and it was pointed at Djasha.

“Into the carriage, Luca!” he said.

“But, Touraine—”

“Get… the fuck… out!” Touraine said from the ground, restraining the Jackal.

Luca obeyed.

“It wasn’t her!” Touraine growled at Jaghotai, holding her down until Luca was safely out the door. More of a whimper, really. Sky-falling fuck, but she hurt. “She didn’t plan this attack. It’s Cantic.”

“Then why the lucky coincidence?” Jaghotai shoved Touraine away.

“I don’t know.” Touraine heaved herself up and forced herself to meet Jaghotai’s eyes, then Saïd’s and Djasha’s. “This isn’t part of her plan.”

Touraine hadn’t expected Cantic to move so quickly. She had hoped for long enough, at least, to send a message to the rebels. To tell them they’d been compromised, if not by whom.

“I don’t have time for your bootlicking shit.” Jaghotai ran to the door. Guns fired and people screamed, only getting louder. And yet the streets near the Old Medina wall were emptying quickly, the local silence chilling in comparison.

Jaghotai ducked back in, coming to the same conclusion as Touraine. “Saïd, get Djasha to safety, then grab anyone caught in the cross fire. Take them there, too.”

“Take them where?” Touraine asked. “Where’s safety?”

Jaghotai frowned at her, her silence accusation enough. Then she shot back out into the chaos. Touraine trailed at a lope.

The storehouse where Luca had ordered the guns stored was on this side of the bridge, in El-Wast proper, down in the heart of the Old Medina. She knew without asking that Jaghotai was running to the heart of the Old Medina. Outside of the slums, it had the highest concentration of Qazāli.

Touraine knew the attack had to be Cantic. What she didn’t understand was why. All Cantic was supposed to do was send soldiers to get the guns from the warehouse before the Qazāli could get them. She was supposed to contain the violence, not unleash it on the civilians. The guns had nothing to do with the rest of the Qazāli. Her stomach twisted. But now the rebels would blame Luca, and they would never come negotiate again.

The streets thickened with an exodus of civilians in flight the closer they got to the bazaar square. And then she saw the sparkle of sunlight on fixed bayonets, a sight as familiar as the scars on Pruett’s back. Heard the pop-pop of musket fire, the soft thwack of the lead balls as they hit dirt and other, more vital places. On one side of the narrow street, a young man sprinted into one building, only to come out of the next—almost unnoticed. Farther down, the silhouette of a climber scaled to the top of a building—to escape across the rooftops? No: a sniper from another rooftop took aim, and the climber fell with a sickeningly stifled cry.

Jaghotai shook her head in answer to a question only she knew, and ducked left, down a side street.

“Where are you going?” Touraine shouted after her.

Jaghotai didn’t answer, didn’t even turn back.

Touraine looked back down the street. A door slammed shut. A Sand kicked it open. Not someone from her squad, but Touraine recognized him. The Qazāli couldn’t wait for someone else to defend them from her mistake.

Then Touraine recognized a figure climbing up a building’s outer ladder, a musket on her back. Pruett.

Touraine pushed forward. She sludged through the pulped remains of oranges and peppers and some plucked, raw bird. The smell of crushed food was everywhere.

As she yanked up her hood and its veil, a horse clopped closer. A nearby gunshot made Touraine and the fleeing Qazāli flinch. Ducking, she turned and saw Rogan, his pistol held high, his knees clenched around proud, tall Brigāni horse stock.

And then a fresh wave of Sands was upon them.

Her Sands.

The carriage bumped and jostled as quickly as the coachman could navigate the horses through the narrow roads. Luca looked back through the window, as if she could see her broken peace lying shattered on the road behind them.

“We have to go back for Touraine, Gil. They’ll kill her.”

The tight lines around Gil’s mouth said everything. Touraine was on her own.

“We have to at least see what’s happening.” Luca reached over for the screen that separated them from the driver.

“Sit down, Luca!” barked Gil. “If you would be the queen, act like one.”

Luca froze with her arm outstretched. When was the last time Gil had spoken to her like that? Slowly, she sat back. So be it.

“What do you know about this?” She used the cold scholar’s voice, forcing herself into a detachment she didn’t feel.

“I was hoping you would tell me.” He regarded her with a grim, calculating expression. Part father, part advisor, all tightly checked anger. Or was it fear he held in? For once, she couldn’t read the stiffness in posture or the pace of his breath. “I was under the impression negotiations were going well.”

“So was I. You said it was Qazāli under attack?”

Gil nodded grimly. He twitched the curtain of the carriage window sharply to peek outside. “Blackcoats and Sands. Cantic isn’t happy. What did the rebels do?”

The rebels hadn’t done anything. Unless they were planning something and Cantic’s own sources had gotten wind of it. Nothing would require this level of force, though. The rebels didn’t even have weapons, not yet—no. Cantic couldn’t know