Sun's Heart

Chapter 21.2 - Dissent

Sani gently pushed Gale through the curtained doorway before them. Black-garbed hunters turned to watch them. Gale uncomfortably covered her exposed midriff with an arm. Two hunters were sparring in the center of the large, circular room. Thick sand coated the floor. Their boots scuffed through it, throwing waves wherever they moved. Their sleeveless tunics were covered in dust, showing signs of a long fight.

One had pale golden hair, cut just like Selias'. A foot lashed low, catching the blond man and throwing him to the ground. He landed hard, and he turned his head slightly as he gathered himself in the sand.

A familiar eyepatch stood against sun-dark skin.

Tona rolled out of the way of his opponent's kicks, grabbed the man's foot, pulled him off balance, and swung his own leg around to catch him in the jaw as he fell. He joined the chief in the sand, dazed.

Someone shouted, and the men climbed painfully to their knees as the hunters in the audience burst into laughter and cheered. Gale frowned. Who won if both were in the sand?

She jumped when Sani shouted over the noise, "Elantona!"

Tona saw them and rose to his feet. Another hunter entered the ring, dressed in a similar sleeveless tunic, and waited for her opponent to step forward. Sani spoke low in the chief's ear, gesturing. He nodded to her words, then looked sharply at Gale. He touched her elbow and led her outside as another hunter stepped forward to spar. Curtains fell behind Sani, blocking everything but the sudden quiet from inside.

He let go and touched the frayed edges of the slash in her dress. "Are you hurt?"

"No," she said stiffly. He let go of the fabric. "The arrow killed a woman, though."

"I heard."

She thinned her lips.

He frowned and rubbed a hand along his jaw, thinking hard. As his eye stared through her, she ran her gaze back over the details in his face no longer overshadowed by a cowl and sand veil. A straight nose, unforgiving mouth, proud cheekbones, a stare of steel, and hair like sunlight. "There is a meeting. You'll be there."

Sani frowned. "That is tomorrow."

"Not anymore. Wake Yanto and Selias. Gather the leaders. Sorceress, follow me."

"Where are we going?"

He turned on his heel and marched for a set of stairs leading to the uppermost level of the palace. Sani was already sprinting around the building, footsteps light but quick. "To a meeting."

She covered the slash in her dress with her hand. "Can I change?"

"No."

"Why not?"

He didn't answer. He waited at the top for her to reach him, then moved through the gardens toward an archway leading into the imposing palace of pale stone. Green and blue and white filled her senses, but she had no time to appreciate the gorgeous desert plants sheltered beneath the gauzy cloths stretching between posts.

His sharp steps turned them rightward the moment they entered the building. Down a hallway lined with long, open arches showing sunset bleeding over the land. Pushing through breezy curtains over another pointed archway, she stopped and took in their new surroundings.

It was clearly a meeting hall. Cushions organized like soldiers around an oblong table sitting barely three hands above the floor. Gray stone and harsh lines in the walls were contrasted by warm carpets with soft patterns and an abundance of colorful cushions tossed to one side of the room. Cold and hard, warm and soft. The room itself seemed in conflict with its contents.

Tona sat at the far end of the table, where the curve was sharpest. He had a couple of extra cushions behind him. He patted them. "Come."

"Why? What's going on?"

"There is a meeting."

She resisted the urge to growl in frustration. "So you've said."

Without the sand veil, his muscled arms open to the air, and strands of hair coming out of his loosened topknot, Gale felt more unsafe than when she'd first met him. He gazed at her, eye heavy. Slowly, he patted the cushion again. "I won't bite."

Compelling was one way to describe the way his words had softened. Amused, but weary. She uncrossed her arms and picked her way to him, eyeing him with equal parts curiosity and suspicion. The cushions were plump and soft as she plopped herself down on one.

"Alright." She strained to control her tone to one of command. "Now tell me about this meeting."

He inhaled. Prepared his words. "You...know the Sarceni phrase, 'forward before forgiveness?' Selias lives by it. He brings foreigners into the desert and expects to walk safely into Haliculir because Kunnafedib has adopted them. He chooses which laws to uphold or tear down." He looked down at one hand, examining the callouses on his palm. "Selias was my teacher. The chiefs see his disobedience as a sign that I have no desire to control him. They think I think as Selias does, that one of us is a puppet, and the other a puppet master."

"But that's not your fault," she blurted. "You don't have control over Selias."

"My generation feels it is time to discard of the old ways, as Selias does. That change is the way to strengthen our people. That traditions stagnate, not protect. Dissent, sorceress." He glanced toward her. "It...eats away at our people for years. Elah wished to enter the Rift, defeat the tonafang once and for all, and die in battle so another could inherit her power. I couldn't stop her. Now Elah is gone, the tonafang are worse than ever, and you are here while her barrier weakens." His features were grim. "We are this close," he whispered, "to losing everything. You claim to have found her. Such help comes at a cost. Always. Selias sent for you, and brought you into our stronghold, where I, the last unifier of the tribes, hide beneath a fading barrier as the tribes become more hostile."

A beat skipped in her pulse. Finally, the unwelcoming atmosphere made sense.

"You and Yanto are not safe here," he continued. "Selias can only look in one direction at once. We must find Elah and bring her back. Her word is final. We do not agree on much, but we do agree that if change is to be the new way, then our people must be united. Your death would only divide us further, as would hers."

Gale nodded slowly as the words poured from him in a flow he seemed to have no inclination to stop. "If I can bring Elah out of the Rift, then I can prove I'm an ally and she can get everyone under one banner again."

"It could stop rebellion."

Rebellion.

The word stung.

She'd thought the job to be many things. First, it was an opportunity. Then frightening. A mystery. Now it revealed its true colors.

There was little in the world she understood, this she knew well. Tales of rebellions or civil wars over years and across Ketsa were little more than cautionary tales until faced with the reality that she was in the middle of one at its infancy, and she'd done little more than fan the flames by being everything but a tribesman.

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