“My apologies,” Nikolai said, stepping forward. “We had no intention of—”
Click click click. Like fingers snapping. The sound of triggers being cocked.
“No,” said Zoya, putting a hand out to stop him. “Don’t apologize. That will only make it worse.”
“I see,” said Nikolai. “Then what is protocol for an ambush?”
Zoya turned to the circle. “Our goal is to stop a war. But this place was not ours to trespass on.”
“Perhaps you came looking for death,” said another voice.
Zoya reached for the words her father had taught her, that she hadn’t spoken since she was a child. Even then, they had only been whispered. Her mother hadn’t wanted Suli spoken in their house. “Mati en sheva yelu.”
This action will have no echo. The phrase felt sticky and unfamiliar on her tongue. She sensed Nikolai’s surprise, felt the stares of the others.
“You speak Suli like a tax collector,” said a man’s voice.
“Hush,” said a woman in a jackal mask, stepping forward. “We see you, zheji.”
Zheji. Daughter. The word knocked the breath from her, an unexpected blow. The mask was the type worn all over the Barrel, but those were cheap knockoffs, souvenirs for tourists who didn’t know what they meant. Among the Suli, the jackal mask was sacred and worn only by true seers. Daughter. It wasn’t a word she’d wanted from the mother who had betrayed her, so why should it mean so much from the lips of a stranger?
“We see the walls raised round your heart,” the woman continued. “That’s what comes of living far from home.” The jackal turned, surveying them. “Shadows all around.”
“What did you say?” Nikolai asked Zoya beneath his breath. “How do you know those words?”
A hundred lies came to her lips, a hundred easy ways to walk away from this, to keep being the person she’d always been.
“Because I’m Suli.” Simple words, but she’d never said them aloud. She could feel her mother’s hands combing out her hair, placing a hat on her head to keep her out of the sun. You’re pale like me. You have my eyes. You can pass. The family had kept her mother’s name so that they wouldn’t draw attention. Nabri, her father’s name, was rubbed away like a stain.
It was as if the woman in the jackal mask had heard her thoughts. “Your father faded as we all do when we don’t live among our own.”
“I haven’t,” Zoya said. A protest? A plea? She hated the tremble in her voice. These people didn’t know her. They had no right to speak about her family.
“But think how brightly you might have burned if you hadn’t always walked in shadow.” She waved them forward. “Come with us.”
“Are they going to march us to our death now?” asked Jesper.
“No idea,” said Kaz.
Jesper cursed. “I wish I’d worn a nicer suit.”
“Might be worth playing the king card now,” Kaz said to Nikolai. “Don’t you think?”
“What king card?” asked Wylan.
The jackal’s voice carried through the mist. “There are no kings we recognize here.”
“I might find that humbling,” said Nikolai. “If I’d any practice with humility.”
They descended a long path down the cliffside as the wind shrieked up from the water. Zoya’s heart thumped wildly, a small creature caught in a snare. This was panic—skittering, mindless panic. Why? She knew Nikolai didn’t disdain the Suli. He never would. And she didn’t care what these Barrel rats thought. So why did she feel as if the rock was about to crumble beneath her feet? Just because she’d told them what she was? Was that all it took? Was this the terror of being seen?
Halfway down, they passed behind a boulder, and Zoya saw the entrance to a cave, its yawning black mouth carved into the side of the cliff.
Again the jackal spoke. “If you wish to enter the base, this tunnel runs under the watchtowers and opens in a basement beneath Rentveer.”
“Where did it come from?” asked Nikolai.
But Kaz didn’t seem surprised. “The Kerch used Suli labor to build the base.”
“We always leave a back door,” said the woman in the jackal mask. “There are two guards who patrol past the entrance to the basement. The rest is up to you. Daughter, you may use the cliffs to board your ship.”
“Why are you helping us?” Zoya asked.
“Can’t we just say thank you and be on our way?” said Jesper.