Two dogs sprinted from an alley, a spotted one chasing a mangy gold one. Touraine jumped back, heart hammering. Her head spun.
Hounds.
That bastard at the party had called them hounds. And the things that old hag had said…
And that poor kid. There were Balladairans like Cantic and even Cheminade, then there were Balladairans like the comte de Beau-Sang. When Touraine saw what the comte had done to the boy’s fingers, she’d felt the kind of anger she’d reserved just for Rogan.
Some Balladairans would never see the Sands as true citizens. Those people didn’t matter. Or they wouldn’t if the law would protect the Sands as citizens. And it didn’t. Which meant Beau-Sang and Rogan were dangerous. Which meant she had to keep knuckling her forehead at them, keeping her eyes and her voice down whenever they said shit like this.
It was so unfair that the anger pulled tears from Touraine’s eyes. There had to be something better than this. Look at Cheminade, she told herself. Married to a Qazāli! If that was possible, why not a promotion? Why not a Qazāli-born captain? General, even? It was hard to convince Tibeau of it, though, when there were a dozen moments like the one she’d had with the shit cabbie. A dozen chances for him to say he’d told her so.
And what would he say if he knew her mother was alive?
Her mother was alive—or no, Touraine thought, maybe not. No one had said with certainty that the woman was her mother, just someone she resembled a little. It was hard to convince herself. The old man knew her name. The name of that woman’s daughter. That woman was alive.
Alive.
Cheminade was kind, sure. But she was Balladairan. She didn’t understand the lines a Sand had to dance between. Even if Touraine wanted to meet Jaghotai, it would be impossible to open the doors to her past and keep her vision of a golden future in Balladaire’s army. And that was what she’d always wanted.
Cut off the most undesirable traits.
Was family an undesirable trait?
Touraine’s head was thick and woolly. All she wanted to do was lie down and sleep. She took a shuddering breath and tried to get her bearings.
She was lost.
From what she could tell, the Grand Temple and the Grand Bazaar were the social center of the city, closest to the river but still outside the floodplain. The Mile-Long Bridge stretched from the dock quarter over the floodland and into the city. She could see none of that from the ground where she walked; the clay buildings were too tall. Only occasionally did she glimpse a temple spire. She angled herself toward them. If she could find the temple, the bazaar and Ibn Shattath couldn’t be too far off.
The sickly sweet smell of refuse grew as Touraine walked on. A woman with a cart trundled behind Touraine. Beggars lay against walls, some maimed, some drunk. A small family, a mother and two children, slept under a single tattered blanket. Touraine shivered and walked faster. The desert night was chilly.
Those children should have been in a charity school. Balladaire made provisions for children. What kind of mother would keep her children from those benefits?
Dizzying anxiety seized in Touraine’s chest, competing with the fog in her mind. She stepped into a narrow lane to lean against a wall. Just to have something at her back until this all passed. Just to stop spinning. She hunkered down on her heels, pressed her palms into her eyes, and tried to pull herself into the moment with the techniques the instructors had taught her.
What could she see? Dirt, yellow brown like everything else here. Her boots, worn, polished leather, well trusted. The clay wall of the building opposite her, just two paces away. Another cart woman, dark skinned with braids, out on the street, pushing whatever remained of the day’s wares. But Touraine’s vision blurred and her eyes crossed.
She could hear the wheels squeaking away. They sounded familiar, as if the sound of cart wheels in the city streets were a constant. The night sounds of a city, so loud but so easily lost to the background, like the buzz of insects. She’d never lived in a city. Then the buzz faded, as if her ears had been stuffed with wax. Then her blurry vision went dark.
Touraine woke on her stomach, ankles tied to wrists behind her. The ropes dug into her flesh, and she tried to stay as still as possible. A muscle cramped along her lower back. With her face pressed into the floor, every breath tasted like dirt. Sand gritted in her teeth.
Sky above and earth below. Where was she? Other than fucked. The last thing she remembered was collapsing in a heap against the wall, her head too fuzzed to think straight. She hadn’t been that drunk.
She rocked, trying to tilt onto her side, but the ropes that bound her were held up by something else. All she got for the effort was a wrenched shoulder.