“Who says?” she demanded furiously.
“I say, and I’m the wingleader!” he replied, his own anger rising to meet hers halfway.
“Oh, fine. Use that as an argument.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “Abandon logic altogether and fall back on ‘I’m the wingleader.’ Never mind that I have more communication with my dragon than he has with his, or that I have more experience flying high and in storms and long distances, or that I’m lighter, or that silver and blue-black blends into clouds better than indigo and purple. Ignore all that. Ignore the fact that if you’re going to do something risky, it’s better to have two people doing it to double your chances of getting through. And completely forget about the fact that it looks as if you’re cosseting me because I’m a girl. . . .”
There were tears in her voice when she said that last, and he couldn’t meet her accusing gaze, because he was trying to protect her, and it was entirely true that the only reason he had dismissed the idea of her going was because she was who and what she was—his beloved, and yes, “a girl.”
“How can I expect to deserve equal treatment if you won’t give me equal responsibility?” she asked tearfully when he still wouldn’t look at her.
“She has a point, Kiron,” Orest said, not at all helpfully.
He clenched his jaw so hard it hurt. He wanted to tell Orest to mind his own business, but that would mean he would have to pull wingleader rank again, and that ploy was growing weaker by the moment.
“Don’t you think you ought to give her the chance?” Orest continued, even less helpfully. “It’s only fair.”
He glared at Orest and decided to bring up family instead. “Lord Ya-tiren wouldn’t thank me for putting her in danger. Neither would Lady Iris-aten.”
He’d hoped invoking both parents would get Aket-ten to reconsider. Unfortunately, she was made of sterner stuff than he’d thought.
“I’ll get his consent,” she said, clenching her own jaw. “When he gives his consent to anything, Mother simply steps aside and lets it happen. If I get his consent, will you assign this to me?”
Dear gods. Well, at least Lord Ya-tiren won’t be able to put the blame on me for sending his daughter into danger. He’ll know it was all her own idea. “And Lord Khumun’s,” he replied, transferring his glare to her.
She traded him glare for glare. “And Lord Khumun’s,” she agreed. She sounded confident. He only hoped that confidence would be shattered.
“If both of them give their consent, then you can go,” he said, sure that even if she could convince her father, Lord Khumun would never agree.
Lord Khumun agreed.
So did Lord Ya-tiren, although he was not at all happy about it, which left Kiron without any reason to forbid her. He even went to Heklatis to beg something that would make her feel too ill to fly; the Healer stared at him as if he thought Kiron had gone mad, and simply answered, “Are you daft? It would be worth my life, because you know she’d know I’d done it. No. Absolutely, positively, no.”
And Kaleth was no help either; he simply shrugged, opined that no one could hope to stop Aket-ten from doing anything she really wanted to do, and repeated that he could not “see” past the Magi interference, not into the city, and not into the future.
So, despite his misgivings, despite the nebulous feeling of dread in the bottom of his stomach, there was nothing Kiron could say or do, reasonably, to keep her from going. All he could do was to make her swear to be cautious.
She and Menet-ka were going to drop sandbags with messages in them into the inner courts of the Healers, messages detailing what the Jousters already knew, and advising them that when there was a huge distraction, the Healers should escape by whatever means they could.
The distraction was already well in hand. Heklatis knew the formulation of some vile concoction called “Akkadian Fire,” a substance that stuck to anything it splashed on and burned and couldn’t be put out with water. He was making pots of the evil stuff; they would all come in with a load of pots and a brazier apiece, drop in coals, and drop the pots. Half of them would unload their burdens on the men besieging the Healers, but the other half would unload over the Tower of Wisdom, the Magi’s stronghold. When they found their home burning down around their ears, Kiron doubted very much that any of them would think about the Healers.
That was the hope anyway.
As for the besiegers, this Akkadian Fire stuck to flesh as well as wood and stone, and the higher the Jousters were, the more it would splash about when it hit. A nasty trick . . . but anyone who had stood by while the Temple of the Twins and those left inside it burned, deserved whatever he got, to Kiron’s way of thinking.
The Healers likely would not agree, but that was why Lord Khumun wasn’t going to tell them what the distraction was going to be.
Well, some of the Healers wouldn’t agree . . . Heklatis, after all, was a Healer, and he was the one who would be making up those fire pots.
“Don’t take any risks,” he told Menet-ka and Aket-ten, for the hundredth time. “Don’t let yourselves be seen. Just drop your messages and get out of there. The best revenge we can have is to get the Healers out underneath their noses, like we got ourselves and the Winged Ones out.”
They both nodded, Menet-ka earnestly, Aket-ten with impatience and rebellion in her eyes. He saw it, and it made him sick with dread, but what could he do? He had given his word, and she already resented that she’d been forced to prove she had the right to a place among the Jousters and an equal share in the danger they all faced. All he could do was to urge the utmost caution.
“This is probably even part of an elaborate trap,” he went on, knowing he was grasping at straws, but hoping against hope that something would get through to her. “You know how much the Magi hated the Jousters, and that was before we pulled the Winged Ones out under their noses. Now, they must really loathe us, and they would probably do anything to capture any of us.”
Unfortunately, Menet-ka chose to take this as evidence that Kiron was letting his concerns and fears get the better of him. “I doubt it’s gone that far,” the Jouster said with a weak laugh. “Oh, I’m sure you’re right about the Magi hating us, but they have no reason to think we would come to the rescue of the Healers.”
Kiron didn’t agree with that in the least, but there was no point in arguing. “Just remember what they did to the Winged Ones,” he repeated, and stepped back.
Aket-ten was only waiting for that, it seemed, because she was in the air and flying toward Alta the moment he was clear of Re-eth-ke’s wings. Menet-ka gave him a sympathetic look, and then sent Bethlan into the sky after her. And all he could do was to watch after them.
“She feels as if she has to do this, Kiron,” said Nofret quietly in his ear. “She feels guilty that she didn’t manage to save all of the Winged Ones; she thinks if she’d just been brave enough, or fast enough, or—something, the gods only know what—she’d have been able to get them all out. You can’t argue with that sort of guilt; it doesn’t answer to logic.”
“Well, if she wants me to treat her as if she’s a logical person, she ought to behave like one,” he replied, irritation momentarily overcoming his feeling of sick dread.
Nofret gave him a crooked smile, and patted his arm. “This is logical,” she pointed out. “No one is going to take her seriously if she doesn’t do everything one of the boys is doing.”