Free Of Sand and Malice Made by Bradley P. Beaulieu Page B

into her hidden place now. His form is dimming. She can barely hear his words. She can see the knife, though, wavering before her like a battering ram, a mouth aflame, set to raze the walls she’d built brick by painstaking brick.
    â€œNo?” Hidi asked. Then he shrugs. “Soon or late, you will come see things as we do.”
    The blade lowers. She feels Hidi’s cold hand on her ankle, just above where the cold iron shackle bites into her skin.
    A searing pain enters her body just above it.
“Kadir!”
    Hidi laughs, his eyes now filled with glee. “Your man long gone. Him think you dead. But
I
am here. My
brother
here.”
    The pain broadens, tearing at her world until it is all that is left.
“Kadir!”

    Ã‡eda’s eyes shot open. Her body was rigid as a spear, shuddering from the white hot pain in her right leg. “Kadir!” She thrashed, trying to throw off whoever or whatever was holding her.
    â€œÃ‡eda, it’s me!”
    She stared wildly around the small room with the plastered mudbrick walls. It was Makuo, standing over her.
    Or Hidi, with that cruel scar on his cheek.
    â€œÃ‡eda, you’re dreaming again!”
    She blinked.
    Hidi’s face faded, and she recognized Emre at last. He hovered over her, his hands clamped against her arms, pressing her down.
    The glowing blade. The searing pain as it drove into herlegs, into her ankles and knees, through the walls of the tower she’d so carefully constructed.
    Her nightdress was drenched in sweat. The breeze blowing through the windows was chill. She shivered horribly, from the memories, perhaps, or the sleepless nights, or the directionless fear that now surrounded her.
    Emre’s eyes took her in, assessing her. When he was sure she’d fully risen from her dream he released her and reached for the mug on the bedside table. Emre, bless him, had refilled it. Steam, lit silver by the moonlight, rose from the elixir, twisting and drifting before vanishing altogether. Çeda could smell its complex bouquet of floral scents, which somehow did more to ground her to this place and this time than Emre’s shouting.
    â€œI can’t go back to sleep, Emre. Not tonight.” She pulled herself up in her bed and propped herself against the wall behind her. “Some proper tea instead? I feel so very dry.”
    He looked ready to argue, but when he stared into her eyes, he must have seen something that convinced him she wouldn’t fall back to sleep, for he visibly deflated and set the mug down. “Of course, just wait here.” He left the room and returned a short while later with tea. As she held the hot mug and breathed in the loamy scent, Emre scraped the nearby chair over and sat down. “Blood of the gods, what’s
happening
, Çeda?”
    â€œI . . . It’s hard to explain.”
    â€œTry. Please. Because this can’t go on.”
    She nodded, sipping gratefully from the honey-laced tea. She didn’t want to lay her troubles at Emre’s feet—this was
her
problem to solve—but she admitted the mere thought of someone else,
anyone
else, knowing the story would be a huge relief. “Two months ago,” she finally said, “after the fight with Brama, I was abducted by an ehrekh.”
    Emre’s eyes narrowed and a smile tugged the corners of his lips as if he suspected a joke, but then his face grew intensely serious. “You were?”
    â€œHer name is Rümayesh, and she became . . . interested in me. She tried to take my memories from me using irindai, cressetwing moths, but before she could, two godling children came and took
her
.” Çeda wanted to laugh at how ridiculous it all sounded. “
Where
they took her, I don’t know, but her dreams have haunted me ever since.”
    When she closed her eyes, she could still see Hidi’s dark silhouette against the backdrop of the glowing brazier.
    â€œBut