The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani (story reading .TXT) 📕

the palace walls. And while he hasn’t entered the palace proper, his ability to come this far tells me that the Scholar might do so as well, or send his men.

“Over here.” Bren’s voice, pitched low, only just reaches me through the night air. I follow the sound of it to an open-air stairway. He leads me up and up, patient with my slow progress, and then along a hallway to a second, smaller service stair up to the roof.

In the moonlight, all I can make out of our surroundings are the small platform we’ve come out on, cluttered with broken furniture, and across from us, the palace proper with its own roofs, most rising higher but some below us, spreading out in a multilayered weaving of floors and courtyards.

Bren hops up onto the shingles that spread out past the platform and holds out a hand to me. At least the roof he stands on is relatively flat and wide. Even if I trip, I’m not likely to come to any harm before I manage to catch myself. Still, I slide my feet out of my slippers before clambering up, knowing I’ll have a better grip barefoot.

“Where are we going?”

“We’re almost there. Don’t stop now.”

His hand still waits for me. I grimace and take it, knowing I’ll likely need the help to keep my balance. He laces his fingers between mine, leading me along the roof to where it butts up against an adjacent building and then curls around the corner of it and under an overhanging balcony, protecting us from sight.

I hadn’t realized how intimate a handhold can be. Here, with the sky stretching above us, and the roofs wide and silent around us, and Bren’s hand warm around mine, it feels as though we are alone together while the whole world sleeps. That his hand is there when I inevitably wobble only makes the moment more real.

I’m almost grateful when we reach our destination. Bren releases me to remove a small pack from beneath his cloak. He spreads a thin blanket on the tiles where we stand, hidden from view by the slightly higher roof running beside it, and gestures grandly. “Won’t you sit, veriana?”

“I’m not a lady. Remember that whole country thing?” I say, easing myself down onto the blanket. I rearrange my skirts over my feet. I know he saw my foot that night after I escaped Bardok, when I fell out of bed and he helped me back in, but it’s easier to cover it. Even if my skirts still lie flat over one foot and curve over the bump of the other.

“True enough.” He takes out a packet and passes me something. I accept it without thinking, then stare in confusion at what I hold: flaky, light dough baked to perfection, stuffed no doubt with spiced chicken. I sniff it. Definitely chicken.

“What is this?” I ask.

“A chicken tasty.”

“I mean all of this.” I gesture with the tasty to the blanket beneath us, the rooftop with its hidden spot.

“A trysting place.”

“What?”

Bren’s shoulders shake. “Well-known among the servants, and therefore not policed by the guards and safe for us to use. But this isn’t a tryst.”

“I should hope not.”

He laughs out loud at that.

I take a calming breath. I don’t know why his words have discombobulated me. “What is this really, Bren?”

A pause, and he says lightly, “A peace offering. For the country girl who knows how to punch.”

I feel myself flushing and am grateful for the dark. “Why?”

He doesn’t need to bring me a peace offering. If anyone should apologize, it should be me. And why would he care, anyway? I wasn’t supposed to see him again.

Bren looks down at his chicken tasty. “You’re as prickly as a burr,” he says ruefully.

It isn’t an answer, and he knows it. Even if it’s true.

Finally, he mutters, “I’ve done enough things wrong that I know when I need to set things right, and I know that if I don’t do it sooner, later most likely won’t come. So, peace offering.”

“Oh.” I look down at my own tasty, thinking of his life. How each day is uncertain as the last, how he’s had to fight to survive in ways I can’t imagine. How he’s likely watched friends die, and lived with regrets he can’t put to rest. That he doesn’t want me to be one of those regrets leaves me strangely unable to answer him.

“Oh,” he agrees, his voice laughing at me. He takes a bite of his tasty, and I make myself follow suit. It’s delicious, the bread flaky and tasting of butter, the chicken bursting with spices and tender enough to nearly melt on my tongue.

“These,” I say, “are incredible. Peace offering accepted.”

“They’re the best in the city,” Bren agrees. He produces a flask and two small cups, offering one to me. It’s mint tea, still hot.

I take it, cradling the warmth of the cup in my hand.

“Also . . . ,” he says, and looks at me, mischief in his eyes.

“Yes?” I ask warily.

“What’s that on your finger?”

I blink, looking down, and find my grandmother’s ring glinting back at me from my pinky. I set the tea down and touch it disbelievingly. “How did you—?”

Bren chuckles. “Thief, remember?”

I look up at him. “I thought thieves didn’t un-thieve things.”

“Let’s say that being taken hostage and nearly killed because you were in my company probably entitles you to another punch or two. I figured returning the ring might save my face.”

“I shouldn’t have punched you,” I say, my cheeks burning. Bren seems to have a unique ability to put me in a constant state of deep mortification. “You did get me out alive. I just—” Just what? Couldn’t stand his laughing at me when I’ve been laughed at by others all my life? Why should it have mattered so much? “I’m sorry,” I whisper. As apologies go, it has nothing on Bren’s returned-ring, chicken-tasty, predawn-picnic extravaganza.

“It’s fine, Rae. I believe Artemian has wanted to punch me for quite a while. He