Ayla's Story - Chance of Rain

One night, Ayla’s life is saved by someone she doesn’t much care for: a sad-eyed date merchant’s boy named Junn. 

She’s asleep in her shabby little tent when the boy—a teen, she will correct herself later, not much older than herself—bursts through the flaps and cries, “Run, ataka, run!”

He can’t say more before a blood-dark sword bursts through his chest, cutting off his scream with a gurgle and a hiss of metal. The blade gleams dull orange even in the dark: a copperbite sword, coated with deadly viper’s venom and guaranteed to kill with even the smallest nick of skin. Wielded only by the leopard-warriors of Yassa, Prince of Ruin.

Ayla’s on her feet in an instant, blasting a hole through her tent in the next. Even as she flees into the dark and dormant dunes, she’s cursing herself. She’s been betrayed. She should have seen it coming: these date merchants picked her up out of Sotat, a young girl plying her trade as a wilderness guide. She’d wondered, even then, why seasoned merchants traveling through warzones would have need of someone like her—but she’d been too desperate to question it when they hired her. But somewhere along the way, they must have put the pieces together, found out about the bounty on her head—given her over to Yassa’s men.

But Junn, the dead boy, is—was—the son of the head merchant. Why had he warned her, and paid the price for it? Had he had a crisis of conscience at the last moment?

Ataka, he called her: person of respect. She’s never done a respectable thing in her entire damn life. And now he’s dead because of his misjudgment.

No time to dwell on it now. The Naeva River sparkles ahead, running fast and silver in the star-washed night, like the back of a quick-moving snake. Ayla prays her quarterstaff is secure, prays that it won’t weigh her down so much that she has to leave it behind. It knocks against her shoulder like an old friend. Yassa’s men are following her on horseback: she can feel the hoofbeats pounding against the sand, can almost feel the lacerating sting of a copperbite sword across her back. She puts a gust of wind behind her, squeezes her eyes shut, and jumps.

The water takes her like the cold embrace of someone both familiar and alien: someone she might have known once but had passed by in the dark. A feeling she knows well, unmoored and connectionless as she is. She breaks the surface of the water and sucks an impossible amount of air into her lungs before the river pulls her under again.

Water isn’t her element, air is. But as she watches the shadows of her would-be killers flit away, she decides the two of them will just have to make friends. For now. Sometimes, not even she can make it all alone.

#

Her dreams are all rushing water, the coppery taste of blood in her mouth. Dull red canyons and strange thorny trees. She dimly remembers floundering up out of the water, clawing her way up clay-filled red banks—but her head feels heavy and water-logged and dizzy even with the memory, and her vision blacks out.

She wakes up again to find herself in a bed, the first one she’s laid in in months. The mattress beneath her smells of straw—hay? grass? who has this unspeakable luxury in the Jalis desert?—and the hairy blanket covering her smells faintly of camel. Her eyes dart around the room even as her vision blurs with how fast she shoots up, whipping off the blanket and setting her bare feet on the ground. Wood floors. Brass doorknob. Bowl of perfumed water for washing—she’s in the house of someone rich. Her mind flies to Yassa, the boy-prince, and cold terror strikes her like a fist. Her quarterstaff is propped up in the corner: a big fucking mistake on the part of her captors, who probably assumed it was just a harmless stick. She runs over to her weapon and seizes it just as someone enters the room.   

A young girl with dark, dark eyes and coal-like short hair stops cold at the sight of her, eyes wide. She’s surprised, but not terrified, which throws Ayla off: the girl is maybe nine or ten by the size of her, carrying a pitcher in her arms like she’s a servant, but with the painted face and lips of the nobility. This also throws Ayla off, and to counteract it she snaps, “Who the Hael are you, where am I, and what am I doing here?”

The girl edges backwards slightly, but doesn’t run or speak. Ayla advances on her and growls, “I won’t say it again: who are you, where am I, and what am I doing here?”

Power surges through her arms as she says it, the air around her growing hot and dense. The girl’s throat bobs. Her eyes stay on the staff and the odd way Ayla is holding it: not poised as if to hit her with it, but as if she’s pointing a gun. Then the girl says, very softly: “You could kill me with that.”

Ayla stiffens, then relaxes again slightly, nonplussed. It’s not as if she’d actually kill a kid. But… who is she? And why isn’t she that afraid of the crazed, half-feral nomad threatening her with a giant stick?

A tinkling laugh comes from somewhere behind the girl, whose face shutters instantly as she steps back to make room for the newcomer. Ayla tenses again as another girl enters the room: this one a bit older than her, dressed in elegant silks, black hair bundled up in a complicated style and pinned through with pieces of jade and even gold. The new girl looks at Ayla through sly, kohl-rimmed eyes like a cat’s and says, “Don’t bother pointing that thing at me, you ungrateful urchin. My father saved you—and anyway, Jinn here could spear you like a fish.”

Ayla frowns, looking back and forth from the richly-dressed girl to the servant. She’s not talking about this meek little nine-year-old, is she? Are they sisters?

And “Jinn”? Like Junn—but no, she’s not going to think about him anymore. 

“What do you mean, saved me?” she asks, focusing on the one thing that makes any sense to her. “Where am I?”

The girl waves a languid hand at their surroundings. “Our house,” she answers idly. “In Telu. My father’s the chieftain here, and I am his heir.” 

Ayla’s frown deepens as she tries to dredge up her knowledge of Telu. She’s heard of it, but never passed through: it was a small nowhere settlement that burgeoned recently into a prosperous trading hub, not least because of the wily business dealings of its leader, Uthi Yamsk, and for the fact that it suddenly struck water in the middle of the desert, redirecting all nearby trade routes to the town. A miracle sent by the Pelinel and Dewi, Ayla had heard. A township blessed by the gods. 

“Your father is Uthi Yamsk?” she asks aloud. “So that means you’re…”

“Yvain Yamsk,” the girl finishes, twirling a strand of her bangs in a bored way. “Yes. Like I said, my father is chieftain here. One of his guards found you by the river during her scouting or hunting or whatever, and carried you all the way back here. I’m sure”—she covers a yawn with the back of her hand—“sure you would have died if she hadn’t. Anyway, Father said you could stay here until you’ve recovered enough to tell your story.” She arches a thin, painted brow at Ayla. “I’d say you’re plenty recovered now.”

Despite herself, Ayla feels a flush of embarrassment, low in her stomach, and she relaxes her grip on her quarterstaff. It’s true the girl could be lying to her about their intentions to put her at ease, but the little idiot looks too dull for that. And it’s true these people gave her a bed to recover in, left behind her sole weapon within easy reach. If they meant her harm, they could have finished her off at the river.

Or, she thinks with a chill, or they’re just waiting for Yassa to arrive, because he wants his prize still breathing when he exacts his punishment. 

The girl—Yvain—is already talking again before Ayla can shake herself out of her thoughts. “So,” she says, “what’s your story? Do you have a family we can contact, someone who’s missing you?” She runs a critical eye over Ayla’s ragged clothes, the leather thong fraying at the end of her braid. “What were you doing when you fell into the river? Decided to go for a swim?”

Ayla presses her lips together. Hael if she’s going to tell some chieftain’s whelp her life story. Or the fact that she’s being pursued, if the people in Telu don’t already know that. 

Yvain sees her expression and sighs, then steps over to the little servant girl, still standing there with her pitcher. “Go pour her a glass,” she scolds, stroking the girl’s dark hair like she’s a pet. The girl—Jinn, Ayla reminds herself—scurries over to the dresser, retrieves a clay cup, and pours it out before offering it to Ayla.

Ayla accepts the cup with a suspicious sniff: it looks and smells like milk, another luxury out here in the desert. Yvain, watching her, says, “There’s nothing in it. We just thought you’d be dehydrated after your… journey.”

So Ayla drinks, thinking to herself again that they could have done worse to her already if they actually wished her harm. The milk tastes faintly of honey and spices. After gulping thirstily, she croaks, “Thank you.”

She directs it more at Jinn, who casts her eyes down, but Yvain says in a satisfied way: “You’re welcome. Now: do you think you could manage dinner with my father?”

#

Ayla goes down to dinner because dinner means a free meal, and in the badlands of Jalis, one never foregoes food if they can help it. There’s roast quail on the fine dining table, stuffed with some sort of wild grain, and cool fruit wine and golden-glazed bread and apricots bursting out of their delicate pink skin. 

Ayla gorges herself; she can’t help it. She hasn’t eaten so well since she conned a soldier into paying for her meat pie, months ago. As she attacks the meal, Yvain and her father, Uthi, watch on with polite interest. Jinn takes a plate from the table and disappears into the kitchen: another oddity. Ayla’s never heard of a servant who could help herself to the masters’ food. 

“Who is she?” she asks Uthi after enough introductions have been made. He’s a tall, swarthy man with brown hair down to his shoulders and calculating, foxlike amber eyes; he tilts his head, as if he doesn’t know what she’s talking about, so Ayla jabs a quail drumstick towards the kitchen door. “Jinn,” she iterates. “What is she, your bastard child? Stepdaughter? Why doesn’t she get a seat at the table?”

Both Yvain and Uthi laugh lightly, the daughter with more genuine mirth than her father. “Jinn is an orphan,” Yvain tells her, dabbing daintily at her mouth with a napkin. “Father found her wandering in the middle of the desert and took her under his wing, out of the kindness of his heart. A little like you.” She tosses her head. “She’s not related to us in the least.”

“But she is like family,” Uthi says, with a warning look at his daughter. “We must never forget how much she’s done for us, Yvain.” 

The daughter’s face twists. Ayla thinks, That explains why Jinn gets special treatment. The little girl is stuck in a halfway zone, both adopted waif and servant, nominal member of the family and indebted lesser. She knows she ought to drop the subject, to express more gratitude towards her saviors and benefactors, but she says instead: “What do you mean, ‘how much she’s done’? The kid’s like nine years old.”

“Jinn is fourteen,” Uthi answers calmly. “I daresay not so much younger than you.” He looks at her with his appraising eyes.

“She’s scrawny as anything I’ve ever seen, then,” Ayla replies, not willing to be intimidated—though her hands itch suddenly for her windstaff across the room. “You’d better be feeding her right.”

“How kind of you to take such an interest in her,” Yvain says silkily. “Is there any particular reason why you’re so invested in her wellbeing?”

Ayla’s mouth clamps shut at that. Truth be told, she doesn’t know why she’s so interested in Jinn, or the workings of this odd, wealthy family. She supposes it gives her something to think about: something that’s not about her current plight, the assassins on her tail. And gauging how the Yamsks make Jinn pay off her debts is a good way of seeing how they’ll treat Ayla, who’s in a similar position now. 

And, she supposes, on a deeper level, she feels a certain kinship with Jinn. Ayla’s own parents abandoned her in the desert, left her to make it on her own as a tiny child, practically an infant. She was taken in by a nomad tribe, given scraps to feed on—but at least no one expected anything in return. In another place, a different time, she too might have grown up as the halfway servant of a wealthy house like this one. She doesn’t know who got the better end of the bargain, her or Jinn. 

She says, “I talk about things I don’t much care about to avoid thinking about the important stuff. But you’re a businessman, so I guess you’d rather get straight to the point. What do you want from me, in return for so kindly pulling me away from my napping spot?” She does not say for saving my life, to minimize the leverage he has over her.

Uthi leans forward and steeples his fingers in front of his face. “What do you have to give?” he asks, not bothering with the niceties.

“Nothing,” Ayla tells him bluntly, folding her arms. “I’m sure you had your guard search me: you’ll see I’ve got nothing. No coin, no food, not even a stitch of cloth that hasn’t been patched. So if your woman saved me hoping to get anything out of it—”

“Rizu saved you out of the kindness of her heart,” Uthi cuts in then. “She even offered to have your medical expenses taken out of her paycheck. But I don’t feel the need to do that, of course. We have money aplenty.”

“I’m sure.” 

“But do you have any skills?” Yvain asks then, tapping her long, painted nails impatiently against the tabletop. “Services, that kind of thing?”

Ayla sucks in air through her teeth, thinking on how much she should say. “I’m a guide,” she says finally. “Sometimes a surveyor. I map out places for people, find water for them or guide their ‘vans to it when they need.” She glances at the tapestry behind Uthi’s head, which depicts a vast fountain of water bursting above Telu. “Judging from what I’ve heard, though, you people have no need of that.” 

Yvain and her father exchange glances. Then the man leans forward again and says, “And what about that staff you have? Where did you get that from?”

Despite herself, Ayla’s eyes fly to her quarterstaff leaning against the wall: a dark, knotted thing shiny on the ends with constant use. Her teacher, Belnus Farplane, crafted that staff for her, carved it with runes to funnel her wind magic through; the rest of the staff is riddled with her own symbols, signs she carved into it to represent things that happened to her, trials she went through. Experiences she wants to remember. Tied around the staff, near its top, is a polished jade stone that the nomads found in her baby blanket. 

“I made it,” Ayla answers gruffly. “It’s mine.” It’s her only possession in the world, and she’ll scratch his eyes out rather than give it up. 

Uthi puts his hands up placatingly. “I don’t want it,” the chieftain clarifies. “I’m just interested in its design. Those runes—am I mistaken in thinking they relate to elemental magic? Magic of the air and wind, perhaps?”

The room grows dark and close. Ayla’s eyes dart back and forth, both to Yvain, looking as smug as a cat who’s caught a mouse, and her father, whose face is placid and unreadable. She senses their keen interest in her, feels her heart thrumming so fast in her chest it barely feels like it’s there. She says airlessly, “How the Hael would you know a thing about that?”

No one has ever taken notice of her staff before, let alone made a connection to such a specialized area of magic. Being a Mage isn’t the problem, of course—here in the wastes of Jalis, there is no Autarchy around to persecute her—but it’s still alarming that this merchant chieftain knows so much, when even the illiterate warlords of the West have never clocked her so accurately.

“I’ve had cause to do my research into the area,” Uthi says, speaking in soothing tones. “I have a… business interest in the field. Relax. I sincerely mean you no harm. In fact, just the opposite.”

He sits back and waits for Ayla to say something, but she remains stubbornly silent, wondering how far she could get if she were to slip out of this house in the dead of night. Yvain says, taking up her father’s pitch: “We know you’re on the run from someone. Something. It’s obvious from the way you act, how Rizu found you. But Father can protect you—our whole town can. All of the guards, everyone answers to him. And if he says to keep you safe, they will. Not even warlords want to upset Telu, the only source of water around for leagues and leagues.”

Ayla winces before she can tell herself not to: the warlords comment hits too close. To cover it up she rasps, “So what do you want in return? For me to work magic for you? It has to be that. Nothing comes free in Jalis.”

It’s an old saying, one that Uthi repeats: “Nothing comes free in Jalis. That’s right. But looking at it objectively, I’d say it’s a good deal. Food, water, shelter, protection for you. Celebrity status, if you want it: the townspeople will treat you like a hero. In exchange, perhaps—if you feel like it—a little breeze once in a while, to help our crops. Perhaps a sandstorm to assail those who wish us harm, to punish our enemies or run their caravans off-track. And for our allies—perhaps enough wind to usher in a friendly cloud on a harsh day, to cool their workers’ heads and spare their camels?”

“It would never work,” Ayla says abruptly, blinking too fast. Her eyeballs feel dry, like she’s a lizard. It’s not as if she hasn’t thought of something like this before, but… “It’s a fairytale. Your competitors get wind of a Mage like that working for you—not that I’m saying I am one—and they’ll send assassins to open my throat, and yours too, in your sleep or otherwise.”

“It’s never happened yet,” Uthi answers tranquilly.

“Because you’ve never done it!”

“On the contrary.” He stands, beckons a nearby servant to retrieve his dishes. “You should think on it. It’s a good deal, ataka. One that gives you security, prosperity, a home and a future. Everyone needs that, wouldn’t you agree?” At her glower, he smiles. “Think about it. In the meantime, Jinn and Rizu can show you our town. I’m sure you will find the sights most appealing.” 

#

Rizu, the guard who purportedly found Ayla and carried her back to Telu, is a pretty woman—at least from what Ayla can make out in the moonlight. She has dark ringlets of hair, a slender build, and lush, smiling lips: she looks more of a princess than Yvain does, save for the wicked saber she carries at her hip. She bows at the waist when she sees Ayla appear at the door with the silent Jinn, and says: “It’s good to see you up on your feet, ataka.”

“Don’t call me that,” Ayla snaps. It feels fake. 

Rizu blinks, but her smiles doesn’t waver. “Of course. What should I call you, then?”

Ayla scowls: she doesn’t think she’ll be talking much to this guard, but what does it matter? “Ayla’s fine,” she says roughly.

Rizu beams. “Ayla,” she repeats, as if the sound is very sweet and something to savor. When she moves to walk by Ayla’s side, she brings the scents of warm jasmine and something like tea through the air around her hair. Ayla feels the subtle heat of her against her side and moves away at once. 

Then she lapses into sullen silence as Jinn and Rizu begin to show her around the town, still just as alive in the cool moonlight as it must have been during the day. Firelight from the many huts and storefronts dances across the sand in golden ripples as the pair show Ayla the town square with its well, precious and heavily-guarded, and the several restaurants and the sole gambling den. By all accounts, Telu is a quaint, nice settlement: not so barren as to be uncivilized, but not yet so sprawling that it’s descended into a hotbed of sin. Uthi, Rizu says, has worked hard to keep it that way. 

“I’ll show you the place where he first found water,” she says, motioning towards a cluster of palm trees that lies just outside of town. “My father was his cargo master in that caravan: we’ve been with the Yamsks all our lives. I don’t remember the moment they found the water, but I’ve heard the stories.” She looks at Jinn, her smile causing a dimple to shade her left cheek. “You were barely even six, then, and Yvain must have been around ten.”

“What made you want to be the guy’s guard?” Ayla asks then, curious despite her reluctance to get involved. Her sleeve catches on the corner of a nearby stall, and she shakes it loose with a growl. She’s dressed in shoddy clothing, and the desert night is chilly, but for some reason cold air never bothers her. “Didn’t you ever want to get out of this place?”

Rizu’s lips quirk in a fetching way. “Why would I?” she asks, sweeping a hand out to encompass the town. “Telu is paradise.”

Ayla has to admit that she seems right as they make their way through the rest of the town. It wouldn’t be a bad place to live. It’s a thriving little community: there isn’t even a poor quarter. And Uthi, from the sounds of it, would not be a bad man to work for. Whoever chose to live here and help settle the land would be happy enough.

But what about the assassins? her mind whispers to her. Yassa’s people will find the tracks eventually. They’ll pick up your scent here—and then they’ll burn this place to the ground. They don’t call him Prince of Ruin for nothing.

Forget Yassa, she argues back. I always get restless, even in the nice places. And with the whole town counting on me, riding on my shoulders? Having a responsibility to them? I give it a week before I’m itching to get out.

Bitter doubt fills her then. Why is she even entertaining this tour? Her living here would never work.

Still, she holds her tongue as Rizu and Jinn lead her to the oasis where Uthi first struck the town’s water, thereby founding Telu. The entire time, Jinn has failed to speak, even when Rizu kindly attempted to draw her into the conversation; but as they draw nearer and nearer to the silver-dappled pool, the air rich with the sounds of crickets and birds, the little girl’s eyes brighten, and she begins to hurry forward despite her slippered feet. 

They’re about ten feet away from the pool when Ayla feels it: a strange catch inside her mind, as if a thread inside her had suddenly snagged against someone else’s. She lifts her eyes to Rizu, who simply seems to be enjoying the scented night air, oblivious. Then she looks to Jinn, splashing down to the banks of the pool, the water rising up to her ankles in a sudden surge of greeting that feels very, very familiar. 

Oh, Ayla thinks, all the pieces falling into place. Oh, oh, oh.

It wasn’t Uthi who found Telu’s water. But it explains why he was so interested in elemental magic; she’d be willing to bet he was looking into magic of the water when he read about her runes. 

Because it was Jinn, his adopted daughter, who found the water. Jinn who called it up. 

Because Jinn is a Mage just like her, too.

#

“You’re Aetherai?” Ayla says to Jinn, folding her arms. They’re back in the Yamsk house, and she’s cornered Jinn alone in the kitchen. Rizu has bid them farewell for the night. “Aquaeri, I’m guessing?”

Jinn looks at her blankly. 

“A Tidemaker,” Ayla clarifies. “An Elementalist? A Mage who can control the elements. Can you do more of them, or is it just water?”

There’s a creak as someone upstairs shuffles around, but neither of the girls move. Ayla doesn’t take her eyes off of Jinn, who’s frowning. “I’ve never heard those words before,” Jinn says slowly, after a moment’s hard thought. “All I know is… the water talks to me. I talk to it. And then everyone is happy.”

“Shit,” Ayla swears, turning away and running a hand through her sandy hair. “Shit, shit, shit.” The girl knows nothing, which makes her malleable, easy to manipulate. Can she even trust her enough to tell her anything, or is Jinn so brainwashed she’ll go running to Uthi to tell him everything she knows?

Then she wheels around again and says to Jinn: “I suppose Uthi knows about it, then? Your powers? And Yvain? Did they use you to find the water for Telu?” A horrible thought suddenly occurs to her. “Is it even true that your parents abandoned you?”

Jinn’s little frown deepens as she thinks on it. “I don’t know,” she says eventually. “I don’t remember. All I remember is… my mother telling me not to play with the water. And never around other people.” She moves to a table in the kitchen and fiddles with a piece of dough that had been left out, rolling it out between her fingers. “She said it would scare them. That they would hate me, try to kill me. But one day, when we were riding a big horse, we took a break in the shade. I felt the water calling to me from deep under the sand. So I called back, and it came to me.” Her face pales. “Then Father saw me. I remember him screaming at me, screaming at Mother. At Brother for not watching me. I remember going to sleep. I’d cried so much all the water had gone out of me.” She shakes her head. “When I woke up, I was with Yvain’s family… and Uthi said he would be my new father.” Her expression crumples. “My parents didn’t want me anymore. They gave me to him so they could be free of me. My mother said that other people would hate me for what I could do, but in the end, it was other people who loved me for my gift. Praised me for it. It was my own family who couldn’t stand it.” 

“Uh,” says Ayla. It doesn’t quite match the story Uthi gave, the one where he’d found Jinn wandering around in the desert… but perhaps being “given” to him instead of being “abandoned” was how she came to terms with it. But how likely is it that Uthi had simply seen Jinn practicing her gift, coveted it, and stolen her from her family before filling her head with lies? Dread fills her as she considers that Jinn’s family might still be looking for her somewhere out there. Or they could be dead, their bones bleached and buried under the dunes.

Bile rushes up her chest as she thinks, What if that’s what happened to my parents? She’d always wondered what kind of people would abandon their baby in a place like the Jalis desert. But if they’d been killed, or if she was stolen from them… perhaps even for her powers…

“He’s using you,” she spits at Jinn, who shrinks back a little. “Your water magic: that’s the only thing that’s driving profits for the town, isn’t it? None of this would exist if not for you.” 

“Yes,” Jinn says, raising her chin. “But they treat me well for it. And I’m happy to help.”

“Are you? Do they? Because from what I’ve seen—” 

A light step in the corner of the room, a creaking of a stair; Ayla whirls and sees Yvain standing there, hair undone as if for bed, arms folded. “Jinn,” she says coolly, looking at Ayla. “What are you doing, keeping our guest up? You’re supposed to brush my hair.”

Jinn’s spine goes ramrod straight—out of fear, Ayla deduces. That’s the response of someone who gets beaten for not moving fast enough. “Yes, Yvain,” the girl says quickly. And then, without looking at Ayla, she scuttles away and up the stairs.

Yvain’s eyes meet Ayla’s, takes in how they blaze with defiance. “Did you enjoy your tour? Have you decided to stay on in our little slice of paradise?” she drawls.

Ayla smiles back: it feels like the primate bearing of teeth. It shouldn’t matter to her—she shouldn’t care about this, not for a stranger, and certainly not enough to risk herself—but Tapyt take her if she’s going to get out of here without freeing Jinn, too. Call it penance for what happened to Junn. “Oh, yes,” she spits, feeling the magic in her blood bridle in challenge. Outside, the wind seems to kick up, howling as if in response. “I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to stay for as long as it takes.”

Yvain smiles back in a sickly way. “Good.”

#

She doesn’t know if she regrets her decision or not, three weeks into her stay at Telu. Ayla gamely manages to fend off Uthi’s increasing suggestions—really demands—for her to exercise some of her wind magic, to show him what she’s capable of and pay her debts back. But he plays the long game: he knows he can’t afford to piss her off, send her running, so he takes his time and courts her slowly.

Meanwhile, Ayla stews on what to do about Jinn. As the days pass, she sees how the town relies on the girl: how Uthi sends her out in secret, to perform some token errand like fetching bread or delivering a message, when really she’s maintaining the water in the well or keeping Telu’s crops nourished. She can’t tell where the girl’s head is really at; Jinn is so subdued that it’s hard to read her. She seems to take some pleasure in using her powers to help others—but at the same time, the way her own “family” treats her borders on cruel.

Yvain orders her around like she’s some sort of pet, kicking the girl around when she doesn’t think Ayla is looking, cooing over her like a cute animal in one moment and degrading her the next. Uthi largely ignores her, certainly never thanks her, as if it’s expected that she do all of this—as if she’s simply fulfilling an unspoken obligation by keeping the town alive.

Ayla doesn’t want her life to turn into that. She knows it will if she stays, so she works on Jinn’s confidence, picking away at her faith in the Yamsks. She has no idea if it works, and the times she can talk to Jinn alone are scant and far between—but she thinks the girl listens. And starts to trust her. At least somewhat.

Why do you care so much? she asks herself, again and again. Always she comes back to the feeling that she sees herself in Jinn: that she could have ended up in her same situation, alone, vulnerable, ignorant, desperate to be loved, if she’d been picked up by someone like Uthi instead of her nomads. That she’d want someone like Ayla to wake her up, to have her back in some way, if she were in Jinn’s position.

Or maybe you’re just getting soft, another part of her whispers. She shudders in revulsion. Gods strike her dead if that day ever comes.

There are benefits to staying in Telu. For one thing, she catches neither hide nor hair of Yassa’s assassins. It seems they lost her trail when the river carried her away, and either they haven’t thought to look in a place like Telu, or they’re being kept away by Uthi’s guards. So, for the time being, as long as she stays in the township, she’s safe. 

If safe is the word for it, she thinks, thinking of Uthi’s hungry eyes, Yvain’s soft-handed and subtle malice. But, if faced with the choice between Sotat’s leopard-warriors and the Yamsks, she knows which battle she’d choose every time.

The other upside is that she gets to spend time with Rizu, who has wormed her way into Ayla’s company enough times that she doesn’t put up a fight about it anymore. It is pleasant to spend time with someone who’s obviously so fascinated by her, who listens with wide and long-lashed eyes as Ayla tells her wild tales of the grey mountains of the Waste, the giant man-eating birds she’s seen outside of Majira. She knows there are ulterior motives to Rizu’s attentions, of course—but it doesn’t mean she can’t enjoy them anyway.

“Why did you save me?” Ayla asks her one night as they sip on rice wine under the stars. The moons are gone by now, but the tapestry of the night is punctured through with ten thousand little lights. “When you picked me up from the river, I mean. Were you just acting on Uthi’s orders?”

Rizu contemplates the question, then shakes her head slowly. “I knew Uthi wouldn’t have disapproved,” she says, slurring the words a bit. A pretty wine-flush has warmed her cheeks. “He likes to help people in trouble. I don’t know.” She shrugs lightly. “I don’t really have a reason. I couldn’t just leave you there to die.”

“Even though you didn’t know me?”

“Of course. Wouldn’t anyone have helped a stranger, if they’d found them lying half-dead on a riverbank?”

Not anyone, Ayla thinks, almost pitying and envious all at once. It’s clear that Rizu has never left the cradle of Telu, has never faced the hardship or the brutality that comes with life in the real Jalis desert. Ayla would have—and has—left dying strangers to their own plight, if it meant preserving her own safety. She rarely sticks her neck out for anyone, which makes this case with Jinn so interesting. What good would it do her, helping someone she doesn’t know? It’s everyone out for themselves, damn it. Nothing in Jalis is ever free. 

She notices suddenly that Rizu has scooted closer to her; that she’s now so close she can make out the freckles sprinkled across Rizu’s nose, the reflections of the stars in her green eyes. 

“Can I ask,” Rizu begins hesitantly, “how you ended up on that riverbank in the first place?”

Ayla opens her mouth, then falls silent again. She shouldn’t say; she knows this. In all likelihood Rizu is working for Uthi, reporting back on every word they exchange. It would be damn foolish to tell the girl of her true worries.

Still. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to, at least a little bit. Ayla’s been alone, dealing with her own problems for so long that she’s half-forgotten what it’s like to share them with someone else. 

Before she can make up her mind, Rizu is suddenly leaning forward, kissing her. Ayla feels the warm brush of lips against hers before she jumps back, as if burned.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she hisses, wiping her mouth unconsciously. Her skin tingles when Rizu touched her, and it feels like it transfers to the back of her hand.

The other girl leans back, eyes wide and startled. “I—I’m sorry,” she stammers. “I thought you wanted—”

Ayla, for some reason, is suddenly blazingly angry. “I knew you were loyal,” she spits, wanting to leap up and run away, or maybe hit something. “But even I didn’t think you’d stoop that low. You love the Yamsks so much you’d try to—try to seduce someone for them? Offer up your body, is that it?”

Now it’s Rizu who jumps to her feet, looking both aggrieved and offended. “How dare you!” she cries, eyes flaring with angry tears. “What are you talking about, the Yamsks? I kissed you because I wanted to, not because anyone else told me to!”

Ayla’s anger cools in the heat of Rizu’s, and now she looks down, feeling the low burn of shame in her gut. She says, her voice still sullen, “Don’t believe you.”

“Well, fuck what you believe!” Rizu exclaims, her voice uncharacteristically fierce. She begins to pace. “Haven’t I made it clear that I like you, Ayla? If you don’t feel the same, you could at least do me the courtesy of telling me so. I hadn’t realized your sense of trust is so warped you’d jump straight to me prostituting myself for someone else!”

Ayla bites her lip, then closes her eyes. Takes a breath, then another, then a third. She tells her pounding heart to calm down before she says, in a steadier tone, “I’m sorry. No, really—I’m sorry. I didn’t… didn’t realize. I’m sorry. You can sit down.”

She hears Rizu sit, though it’s farther away than she was before. When she opens her eyes again, she sees the girl sitting with her shoulders hunched, her back to Ayla as she hugs her knees. She looks small and humiliated, and now Ayla feels like an ass.

“You’re right,” she says in a low tone. “I’m… you said warped? Yeah. I’m all twisted up inside. And I wasn’t expecting…” She shakes her head. “I can only say sorry enough times.”

Rizu’s laugh is bitter. “Thanks very much for the apology.”

Now Ayla blows out an aggravated breath. “Sorry. Would it…” She gropes around for the appropriate thing to say, something she can do to make this right. She’s never been in this position before, caring enough about someone she’s wronged to want to smooth things over. Her brain offers up whatever they’d been talking about before the kiss. “Would it help if I told you the truth? About why you found me like that?”

Rizu’s answering silence is frosty. But she doesn’t get up and leave, so Ayla sighs and tells her the story.   

“I was in Sotat,” she begins. “Some seedy gambling den, trying to make a quick buck for my next meal. It went regular enough: I grift a couple of soldiers, a farm boy who’d wandered in. Then comes this… prick. A dweeby little snot-nosed brat, couldn’t have been more than nineteen or so. He has all these gold rings on his thumbs, and he’s blustering and ordering drinks for his entourage like he’s pissing money. So I figure he’s an easy mark.”

Rizu says nothing, but she rotates her body a little towards Ayla, silently listening. Ayla sighs and continues: “Turns out it’s the guy’s birthday, and he wants to celebrate with drinking and whoring. So I ply him with some drinks. Standard. Then I make a friendly bet with him, at Rattle. You know what that is?”

“It’s that dice game,” Rizu says faintly, still not facing her. “You told me about it when you showed me the dice symbol on your staff.”

Ayla nods. “Right. So I bet this chump at Rattle. I lose the first few times to get his confidence up. Then I get him to bet everything he has on one turn—and I take him for all that he’s worth.”

She closes her eyes, remembering the deafening silence that had reigned when she won. Up until then, it had all been bawdy cheers, raucous laughter—but that silence, and the terrible look on the boy’s face when he looked up, had been chilling.

“Well, he didn’t like losing. So he tries to renege on the bet, says I shouldn’t take money from him on his birthday. It’s bad luck. I tell him to put his luck up his ass: if he didn’t want to lose money on his birthday, he shouldn’t have gambled. Then all of a sudden, the whole den’s clearing out.”

“Who was he?” Rizu breathes, fully invested now.

Ayla’s lips quirk ruefully. “Yassa of Sotat.” 

“No!” Rizu claps her hands to her mouth. “The warlord of Sotat’s son? The one whose army made the Naeva run red? Scourge of the Foothills? Prince of Ruin? That Yassa?” She shakes her head, her face pale and drawn. “You must be joking.”

“I wish. But I didn’t know it was him: everyone else did, but no one told me when they saw me making bets with him. I just thought he was some sleazy nobleman.” She scratches her nose. “Anyway, to make a long story short, he sicced his guards on me. They pinned me to a table, were going to take off my fingers… one for every bet I played with him. But I got free, fought back… broke his nose…”

“Ayla! You didn’t!”

“Afraid I did. I dishonored him, humiliated him. Me, a measly urchin girl. When I ran away I heard him howling, swearing to the heavens he’d cut off my head… And his men have been hunting me ever since.”

The silence that falls between them is less heavy than before, but still weighted with meaning: Rizu is taking this in. She says slowly, “So you jumped in the river…”

“To get away from his assassins. That’s right.” She doesn’t mention Junn for some reason; why, she doesn’t know. She’s avoided thinking about him a lot recently. 

Rizu turns to her suddenly, the movement making Ayla jump. “You have to stay here, then, Ayla,” she says, speaking too fast. “It’s the only place that can keep you safe from him. Uthi can protect you—you have to stay—even if you have to work for him, he’ll—” 

Ayla holds up a hand, stops her mid-sentence. “I can’t stay,” she says. 

Rizu’s brow furrows. “Why not?”

Because I’ve never stayed in one place for that long. Because I can’t be someone else’s pet. Because I can’t risk Yassa’s men ruining this place because of me. Because I don’t trust any of this.

Because I’m scared. 

“I’m a drifter,” Ayla declares, rising to her feet and dusting off her pants. “It’s not in my nature to live here, get fat and happy. I’ll be back on the road soon enough.”

Rizu looks up at her, her eyes watery. “What’s kept you so long, then?” she asks thickly. 

Ayla turns her eyes towards the Yamsk house, dark and looming in the distance. “Good question.” Even she doesn’t really know.

#

Later that night, Ayla wakes in the dark, and for a few scrambled moments cannot understand why: her senses are an unfamiliar tangle of sights and sounds. A sudden crack of light appears in the blackness, and instinctively she lunges for her windstaff—but it’s only Jinn, slipping into her room with the silence of a ghost, wrapped in a blanket head to toe so that she looks like a desert nomad. She stands there for a moment, blinking in the darkness, and Ayla eases herself out of the shadows.

“Gods!” she says softly. “What is it?”

Jinn sways, peeping out at Ayla from the depths of her blanket. “There are men at the town gates,” she murmurs. “Demanding to be let in. They wear leopard skins. I think Yvain summoned them here.”

Ayla’s vision narrows, and suddenly her thoughts are hurtling at breakneck speed. I have my staff, she thinks. And the stash of food hidden under my bed. I’ve got to get away—got to run—

Jinn is still talking. “Rizu told her about the leopard-men: I heard them talking in her rooms. Then Yvain sent her out to find them—bring them back here—” 

Betrayed! That—that bitch! Ayla curses and works faster, tying her pilfered food in a sack made out of her blanket. 

“It’s because you won’t work for them,” Jinn finishes. “Yvain said she was tired of waiting, that you were never going to come around and they might as well have the bounty if they turned you in. Uthi is away—” 

She stops talking just as Ayla whirls on her. “It’s now or never,” she hisses at Jinn. “You can’t come with me: you’ll slow me down, and the leopard-men will get you too—but you can get away in the commotion. You don’t want to stay here. They’ll keep you as their pet, their performing monkey. You’ll get no thanks for a life of servitude. They won’t let you marry, won’t let you do a thing on your own. And then you’ll die. Is that what you want?”

Jinn does not get the chance to answer, because suddenly there’s a scrabbling in the bedroom hallway—and then Rizu and Yvain burst in.

“She’s getting away!” Yvain cries, pointing at Ayla.

Ayla whips out her quarterstaff, sends out a stream of power down along it quicker than thought, and a sudden gale blasts through the room and sends Yvain flying into the opposite wall with a cry. 

Rizu nimbly keeps her feet, rolling forward, and then there’s the glint of her saber in her hand. She darts ahead, slashing expertly at Ayla, who knocks the blade back with her staff. There is no emotion on Rizu’s face, save for grim determination.

She slashes again; Ayla parries again; Rizu drives her saber forward and Ayla unleashes a blinding burst of wind like a scream. Disorientated, the guard stumbles backward—and then Ayla is there, bashing her head with her staff. Once, twice. The motion feels terrible, like smashing a cantaloupe with a bat. 

Rizu folds to the ground, knocked out cold and bleeding.

Ayla hears a scream of fury from somewhere behind her and barely has time to turn before she sees Yvain coming at her with a kitchen knife. She makes the motion to form a barrier of the air, but her thoughts are whirring, and she doesn’t move fast enough; the knife lunges forward.

Then there’s a slicing sound, like the sound of a lemon being cut—and Yvain stops. Looks down.

There’s a point of something pale and glittering growing out of her chest.

Ayla looks, and Jinn is standing there, hands covering her ears, her eyes wide and frozen; but a stream of water has risen from the wash basin on Ayla’s night stand, forming a hard spear that has pierced Yvain through the back. The chieftain’s daughter staggers forward, groaning, before she clutches her hands to the growing red spot at her chest and collapses to the ground. Jinn looks wide-eyed at Ayla.

“Did I kill her?” she whispers.

Ayla casts a brief glance at Yvain, who’s pushing her hands against her chest and staring at the blood gushing between her fingers with disbelief. It doesn’t look like Jinn got any of her organs, but Ayla isn’t a Healer, so who knows? “Doubt it,” she sniffs. 

Yvain looks up, her expression hateful even as her breath comes ragged. “You fucking bitch!” she screams. Not at Ayla, but at Jinn. “You’ll pay for this!”

Jinn backs away, expression pained, and for a moment Ayla thinks briefly about disfiguring Yvain—giving her an ugly scar on that pretty face, just to punish her for what she’s done. To Jinn, to herself. To Rizu.

But cruelty is not in Ayla’s nature. Brutality, yes, ferocity—but only in self-defense. She hears the clatter of boots outside, downstairs; the sounds of a door being kicked. She begins to turn away. 

“Wait,” Jinn breathes, darting forward. Yvain has now lost consciousness and fainted. “Please—I don’t know where to go. Take me with you.”

For the briefest instant, Ayla considers it. What would it be like, she wonders, to not be alone all the time? To have someone watching her back as she sleeps under the stars, to have someone who would be saddened—or at least worse off—if she died? 

But then that part of her, that mistrustful part—the restless spirit, as Master Belnus once called it—balks, and she says flatly, “No. Sorry. I go my own way. Can’t be tied down.”

After a moment’s pause, Jinn nods, her face grave. “Like the wind,” she whispers. Then she blinks her too-dark eyes and says, “Where will you go?”

Away from here, Ayla says. Away from Yassa, away from this blasted desert altogether. “East,” is all she says, looking out at the lumpen dunes. “It’s about time I headed to that part of the world, took in the sights.” She glances at Jinn. “You should, too. Get out of this place, go somewhere there’s plenty of water. Where no one has any use for you, if you catch what I mean.”

Jinn nods hesitantly. 

“But,” Ayla says. “If you want to find your family—look in Havi. That was the place where the date merchants I was with said they were heading. Maybe they’d know something about your parents. Your… brother.”

Jinn frowns. “You think I should? Family hasn’t done so much for me.”

“Still,” Ayla says, turning away. “You might have one. That’s better than you can say for most. Don’t let that chance slip through your fingers.” 

She leaves, flying out the window with limbs lighter than air, and she doesn’t know what Jinn knows: that wherever she goes, she will carry the burden of this night with her. The wind is in her blood, but her soul is weighed down. By loss, by betrayal and fear. 

But at least she’s alive. It is a small price to pay for the chance to keep breathing. And, as Ayla knows, down to her very bones: it is the way the world works. 

Nothing comes free in Jalis.