Page 8 of The Witch who Trades with Death

Chapter Eight

The jeweler she found in the poorest, most crowded part of the city squinted at Khana when she presented her wares, claiming that they were something she found in her late grandmother’s house. He gave her a couple strings of coins, a fraction of what the jewelry was actually worth. She didn’t try to argue or negotiate, just took the pay and left.

She used the kitchen knife to sheer her hair, the thick black locks sinking to the bottom of the canal. The jungle heat meant that women often just wore a skirt, no top, and half the men wore nothing but loincloths as they went about their daily tasks. Others wore cotton robes or long shirts, sometimes sewn or dyed with intricate patterns and designs.

With no hair, and now enough money to buy a loincloth, plain long shirt, and sandals, Khana became nothing more than a laborer in the city. She bought a threadbare bag and the cheapest, ready-made food she could fill it with: bread made from millet. It had been out all day and was rougher than twigs.

As the final hour of the setting sun cast dark shadows over the buildings, Khana joined the flow of men leaving the city. The farmers and field laborers who had come to sell their wares, or conduct other business, now hurried to make it back to their homes before dark. Khana joined a small group leading donkeys and carrying their loads to one of the gates.

As she suspected, extra guards stood at the entrance. She saw a few imperial horses and sucked in a breath. It was the standard response: Yamueto sent his fastest riders to secure the city when a concubine or other fugitive tried to leave. They always reached the wall and port before anyone else, as hooves are faster than feet. This time tomorrow, there would be posters of Khana’s likeness hung all over the city, and everyone would be hunting for her, seeking a reward from the emperor. She had to get beyond those wooden walls by then.

She raised her hood and lowered her face, keeping her gaze on the sandaled feet of the man in front of her. Her loincloth and long shirt felt too big, too awkward, too billowy. Surely everyone around her could see that she was a fraud?

She hardly dared to breathe as she walked past the guards, through the city gate…

And out.

Khana kept walking, not daring to look behind her as the men peeled off one by one, mile after mile, until it was just her walking the southern path that led into the jungle. She kept going until the sky went black, making it impossible to see further than her hand, forcing her to stumble against a large tree and spend the night.

She’d thought she was out of tears, but apparently not. As soon as her bum hit the ground, she wept with relief.

She was out.

The rest of the season passed in a blur of mosquito bites, hunger cramps, and blistered feet. She had to sip aji from the trees around her to heal her feet and keep going, being careful not to take enough to damage the trees and leave a trail. While aji didn’t feed her, it did have the benefit of erasing her exhaustion for as long as she glowed, allowing her to travel farther and longer.

While her endurance for the road was non-existent, her navigation skills remained sharp. Every child of the desert knew how to navigate by sun and stars, knew the stories of the constellations and clusters. The palace library had kept a well-stocked supply of land maps and star charts as well, and while the stories were different, the celestial bodies remained the same. There were even songs about them, and she sang them to avoid boredom, missing her lute like a limb. She never got turned around, never had to wonder which way to go, because she could always find south.

She walked quickly through the jungle, wincing at every sound. Slithering snakes, tigers and panthers, falling tree branches – there were a million ways to die out here. She stopped to rest by a stream and refilled her waterskin, breathing hard. Her stomach cramped with hunger, and her limbs shook with exhaustion. Her rations had been eaten the day before.

She glanced up at the nearest tree and froze.

There, on one of the smaller branches by her head, crouched a small, colorful frog. Its yellow and black pattern was almost blinding against the browns and greens around it, and it didn’t seem to have a care in the world at how obvious it was to predators. It watched her with big, beady eyes, unflinching.

It took Khana a second to recognize its species. She’d never seen one in real life, but she’d read about poison dart frogs in the library. Some of the earliest people who lived in these jungles had coated their arrows and darts with the frog’s poison. The barest touch of its skin could kill a fully-grown man, never mind a small bird.

How can something so tiny be so dangerous? Khana thought. She backed away slowly, choosing a different tree for her aji, curing her fatigue and moving on.