The Nine Lands by Marie Brennan

Author:Marie Brennan [Brennan, Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Book View Cafe
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Legend of Anahata

The woman at the stream caught Kirtti’s eye. She knelt on the grassy bank some distance from the road, washing clothes in the water. The tunic in her hands looked like a rich man’s, its deep red fabric a vivid contrast to her rough peasant clothes. Kirtti wondered if she had stolen it from a noble. Or from a noble’s corpse. The battle the previous day had left enough of those around.

“Your Highness?” Tami-e-tsume said, breaking his reverie.

The woman at the stream smiled at Kirtti just before he turned away. She was attractive for a peasant, with flawless earth-brown skin, but after so much time in foreign lands, he found the familiar gold of Sahasraran eyes startling, unnerving. Or perhaps it was the way she was watching him, so intently.

He dragged his thoughts away from the stranger and back to the woman who rode at his side. “I apologize, Captain,” he said to Tami-e-tsume. “My mind wandered. Weariness, I’m afraid.”

Now it was Tami-e-tsume who looked out of place to him, with her pale, silvery Kagi skin and pale, silvery Kagi hair. And her armor, and the sword on her hip. He wasn’t sure what to make of that, a woman commanding the soldiers who had been sent to help him. Certainly some of his Sahasraran lords did not like it. But was not the Blood Goddess herself female, and the patroness of war? So he told his followers. What he did not say was that he could not afford to refuse the only help anyone had offered him.

“I understand, your Highness,” the Kagi woman said. “You should rest as much as possible before we meet up with your lords and their forces. They will be looking to you for strength and leadership as we take back your kingdom.”

His kingdom. Part of it, anyway. One city, to be precise. But Anahata was a good place to begin. Kirtti’s grandfather had died there, defying the Elesteir forces that had conquered his realm. It would be the first city he retook.

“Rishenhara Kirtti, King of Sahasrara,” Tami-e-tsume said, guessing his thoughts. “It will happen.”

He drew a deep breath, straightening his back. His grasp of her language was weak, but he was given to understand that Tami-e-tsume’s name meant “Stands in the Wind.” Their gods gave them such names in recognition of their natures. She was made for this sort of thing, made to stand strong against the howling force of the storm.

As he himself was not.

Kirtti was appallingly dependent on Tami-e-tsume and her people. He would not have this rebellion without the Heptarchs who ruled the Kagesedo Isles; he would not even be here, back on Sahasraran soil, if they hadn’t lent him a ship. But that was how things had always been. He was not meant for such a task, traveling from one foreign court to another, begging aid from rulers who always turned him down, fearing to antagonize the Elesteir Empire. But no one else could do it. He would gladly have deferred to someone more qualified, but there was no one else of royal blood.

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