Page 66

“It’s probably best if you land further away,” I told Naî.

Why? They’re the ones being rude, Naî said.

“Naî,” I warned.

She huffed an annoyed breath but circled around the camp twice before flying further out into the desert. Landing, her body settled into the sand, sinking a few inches down.

Immediately she hissed, at least waiting until we were off her back before shrinking smaller and climbing up my shoulder.

I miss the north. I want to go back home. Her words echoed in my brain, and, surrounded by hot sand in a desert I had never hoped to see, I felt the ache in my own chest.

“You never knew the north,” I told her. “You were born in the Southern Imperium.”

But my mother and my grandmother remember the north. I know the feel of flying through a snowstorm. I know what it is to carve a cave into the frozen ground. Naî rested her head against my neck. I want to go home.

I could say nothing, because I wanted the same thing.

The goblins were already moving, and I watched as they stepped across the sand. They moved in a specific way, somehow making their feet light enough that each step didn’t sink them down to their knees.

I tried to follow, and immediately found myself nearly buried in sand. Making an undignified sound for an assassin, I freed my leg, pulling it up and shaking the sand off.

Trying again, I managed to sink only down to my shin this time. One of the goblins turned, and after a brief conversation with another, the two of them came back for me.

In their native tongue they spoke to each other, and I could understand them, but hesitated acknowledging it. There were reasons to hide the extent of my abilities.

Yorîmu would have said that giving away the advantage was using one of my assassin’s blades to peel potatoes. There were benefits, but the sheer stupidity of the action negated them.

“We should just leave him here,” one of the goblins said, looking down at me as I struggled to free my leg again.

“He’s the consort to the emperor,” the other said.

“So what?” said the first.

“He will make a good hostage. If we want them to leave forever, all we need to do is threaten his life. You saw how the emperor dotes on him,” the other one said. “That is a true love. You know what someone would do for one they love.”

The first one glared at her companion, her expression hardening in the pale light of the moon. She reached for my hand, helping me out of the sand. It still clung to my boots, cascading down in rivulets onto the dune.

The goblin put down the ball of her foot on the sand, exaggerating the way she rolled her foot onto the sand. I followed suit. My imperial boots were not as flexible as her own shoes, but I had experience with contorting my body strangely, so I managed to put down my toes and the ball of my foot before rolling the rest onto the sand—arch to heel. I stayed on top of the sand, even with my full weight on my feet.

Pointing at her steps, she indicated I should follow her. I practiced the technique, stepping in each of her footprints and finding that my feet didn’t sink. The other goblin followed behind me, and we reached camp far after the others did.

The elephants had calmed by the time we got there, although I could see their trunks moving back and forth, their eyes watching me and, by extension, Naî, who still rested on my shoulder.

The goblins’ buildings were a strange sight in the desert. They rose out of the sand itself, as solid as granite, but there was no evidence of stone anywhere else; their architecture must have been magic. Rumors of what the goblins could do swirled in the gossip-hungry Imperium and in the north, but I had no idea what they were actually capable of.

Members of the tribe lingered in defensible positions behind the corners of the buildings, or standing in groups behind makeshift shields. After having been around the slaves for so many days, the goblins’ horns caught my eyes. They were as different as the goblins’ faces.

Some swooped up in large arcs, inlaid with gold or bronze. Others twisted in narrow spirals, with gemstones along the edges. There were a few that went straight up, and were carved with fluorescent embellishments.

An older goblin woman approached, her skin decorated with shimmering silver tattoos. Her horns curved in a semicircle and she had decorated them with hanging gemstones that caught starlight, reflecting it. By the sharpness in her gaze, I was reminded of the dragon seer Tallu and I had met back at the Mountainside Palace.

“Tell him that we welcome him into camp,” she said to the young man next to her. He wore one sword at his waist and another on his back. His dark hair was cut close to his head, and his horns spiraled around his ears like Choethei’s did.

“The matriarch says that you are welcome in our camp,” the young man said in Imperial.

“Ask him why he brought back our people,” the matriarch commanded.

“Why did you bring back our people?” the man repeated, his Imperial nearly perfect.