I don’t know why he’s so upset about this—he doesn’t worship the Lady of the Sky and Father Guzan either—but the reason doesn’t matter. When I see an angry purple bruise, I jab my fingers into it.
“For someone who has dedicated their life to fighting Ashkarians, you know nothing about our beliefs,” I say calmly. “We stopped worshiping the First Gods when we realized they weren’t dead or ignoring us—they never existed to begin with. My Kalima power comes from within me. I am a god. Which is why there’s nothing you can do to take or diminish my powers.”
The long lines of Kartok’s body pull taut and he leaps from his chair. Diving at me.
Finally.
I thrust my hands forward and heave against the ice block in my chest, pressing harder than I ever have before. Digging deeper than I did on the icy buttress. Raging even harder than I did on the plains of Nariin, when I summoned Standing Death. I have to account for my body’s lingering weakness. And it doesn’t matter if I burn completely through my power. Kartok will kill me if I remain here.
The surge of ice that explodes from my palms is spectacular. Horrifying. Thousands of razor-sharp spikes careen toward the generál, and for an instant his face slackens with shock. Fear glazes his demon eyes. His hands move to shield his face, and I scream with murderous glee. But then the spears inexplicably sail past him—through him—evaporating into mist. Just as they did the first time I attacked him.
No.
It isn’t possible. Kalima powers have always been stronger than Zemyan magic. Always.
I reach into my core again, grappling frantically for more ice. But I am a quiver without arrows. Completely magic-barren until my power rebuilds.
If it ever does.
Kartok squats in front of me, his face rearranged into a smirk, as if he knew my attack was futile. But I saw the pulse of shock and fear in his eyes.
“What did you do to my power?” I demand. “And how?”
“I may not be able to strip your power, but if you use it freely, there’s nothing stopping me from collecting it and repurposing it.”
“That isn’t possible.”
“Isn’t it?” Kartok’s iceberg eyes practically glitter. “This prison cell is a xanav—a pocket world of my creation, in which I’m able to collect and store your power. Since you’re not feeling cooperative, I have no choice but to proceed without you. If the stone gateways are destroyed, I must forge another path to the home of the First Gods. Your power will be most useful for that. Just as Enebish’s power was key to taking Sagaan.”
My reeling mind slowly untangles his words—and the meaning behind them. The only reason a general advances into enemy territory is to conquer it—to dethrone the current ruler and place your own ruler in their stead. But Kartok can’t honestly believe he can depose gods. And he said Enebish’s power was key to taking Sagaan … not Enebish herself.
My ribs expand, as if a suffocating cord has been severed, and the gasp of air that fills my lungs feels almost like relief. Except that’s absurd. In order to feel relief, I would have to care about Enebish. And I don’t. I stopped caring when she chose that deserter over me. Again and again and again.
While my mind grapples for footing in this new, unsteady terrain, Kartok returns to his chair and flips through the ancient book, humming to himself.
Humming!
“Whose book is that?” I demand, eyeing it with growing unease.
Kartok grins. “Zemya had so many thoughts after she was unjustly banished from the Lady and Father’s presence. So many interesting theories and strategies. Plans to make her parents and brother pay for the harm they’d caused. She was quite brilliant, you know. And she could be quite vengeful, too.” He licks his finger and turns another page. “With good reason. But the timing wasn’t right, then, to wage war against the Lady and Father.”
“But it is now?” I shout.
“Careful, Commander. It almost sounds as if you’re scared. As if you believe …”
“I believe that you’re wicked and depraved.”
“For wanting to right centuries of persecution and injustice? For mistrusting powerful people who consider themselves gods? For wanting to restore the balance of power so all have an equal opportunity? Yes, that’s the height of depravity.”
I clench my hair, which would be hard with frost if a morsel of my power remained. “Stop twisting the truth to make yourself out to be a hero!”
“Stop denying the truth and accept that you’re not a hero either. You never have been.”
I need to stay calm. If I let him drive me to hysterics, he wins. But my head has never ached this badly. My brain feels seconds away from exploding. “I never asked for power!” I finally erupt. “It was given to me. For a reason. And you’re jealous. Your people have always been jealous. That’s the entire genesis of this war.”
“No. The genesis of the war is fear. Zemya discovered something unexpected and powerful, but instead of embracing her innovation and achievement, the foolish Ashkarian gods despised it because they couldn’t control it. They tried to squash it rather than understand it.”
“So you plan to repay us by instilling fear? By striking back cut for cut?”
Kartok shakes his head and turns another page of the book. “You’re so narrow-minded. I couldn’t care less about Ashkar. I plan to exalt my goddess and promote the reign of my empress, both of which will be much easier once … Ah, here we are. I knew Zemya would provide another way. Tell me, Commander, how many disparate powers do the Kalima warriors possess?”
My brows crumple. Why in the sacred name of the Sky King would he care about the distribution of power within the Kalima? “Shouldn’t you know? If you’ve spent your whole life fighting us?”
“How many?” he demands. “And how are they distributed throughout the battalion?”
“There isn’t a weak link among us, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
“Your warriors are the link!” Kartok roars, slamming the book. “I’ve never met anyone so infuriating. Your comrades’ decision to abandon you makes more sense every minute.” He pulls the long, curved blade from his robes and advances toward me.
I stiffen—I don’t know if the weapon is real or an illusion—but I don’t retreat. I refuse to retreat. “You’re finally going to kill me?”
“If you’re not going to be helpful, I see no reason not to.”
In less time than it takes to draw breath, Kartok is on top of me—the sleeves of his blue robe swirling, his knife flashing. It skims across my throat, the line so thin and delicate that I think he only nicked me. Then I feel the warm curtain of blood pour down my chest. I gargle and gag as pain consumes me. My eyes bulge beyond their limit, turning everything white. It’s oddly peaceful. Like an untouched field of snow.
Death. I pluck the word from my gasping, oxygen-starved brain, and for half a second I wonder if this might be preferable. I won’t have to live in a world without the Sky King. I won’t have to bear the disappointment and ridicule. Or be subject to Zemyans.
The pain ratchets higher. The whiteness blares brighter. But as I swallow my last, rasping breath, the agony abruptly vanishes. So does the glaring whiteness. I’m enfolded in a gentle embrace, like the soft, restful swaying of a hammock. Free from even the remembrance of pain. I feel lighter than I have in years. Since my childhood. Before my Kalima power presented.
My lashes part and I peer through the bleariness, trying to make out the details of my final resting place—this next phase of my existence. But I can’t see anything through a cloud of swirling purple smoke. When I try to speak, I choke on a metallic, bitter tang—like corroding steel and wet earth.
My pulse flutters faster, and I wave my hands to clear the haze. I never gave much thought to the afterlife, but I always assumed it would be better than this. I was the highest-ranking commander in the Imperial Army, for skies’ sake!
Until they rejected you.
I wave my arms more frantically, and my fin
gertips brush something warm. Something smooth and soft—like flesh. I scream as Kartok’s grizzled face materializes through the smoke, less than a hand’s breadth from mine.
“Welcome back, Commander,” he says.
I scream again. “What happened? I don’t understand…. Am I dead?”
A wide, toothy grin crinkles Kartok’s face. “Not quite yet.”
Without a word of explanation, he opens the tunnel and sweeps out of my cell, leaving me on the floor in a lake of my own blood.
My hands drift cautiously to my neck, but there’s no jagged wound. No scar, even. My fingers quickly peruse the rest of me, but there isn’t a single new scratch.
Was it all an illusion?
I clutch my throbbing forehead and shut my eyes.
I no longer know what’s real. I can’t trust my own body.
With a growl, I slam my fists against the ground and gasp when they splash into the pool of blood. Slowly, I bring my dripping hands up to my face and lick a finger, just to make sure.
My throat may be intact, but my blood is undeniably real.
Why would Kartok slit my throat then heal the wound?
And how in the name of the Sky King is it possible?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ENEBISH
“I THOUGHT YOU’D BE MORE EXCITED TO SEE ME,” Temujin calls in a wounded voice.
I stumble back before my mind can command my body to stand tall and strong. To meet Temujin as an equal.
“Perhaps you were hoping to be greeted by a different friend?” He whistles and Orbai dives from the canopy, streaking toward me and the shepherds, who scream and cover their heads. I stand my ground, willing her to see me, begging the Lady and Father to open Orbai’s eyes. But she tucks her wings and bares her talons, ripping out a clump of my hair when I don’t duck fast enough. My fingers touch the throbbing wound as she circles back to Temujin.
“How strange …” he marvels. “It doesn’t appear she missed you at all….”
Chanar and Oyunna chuckle on either side of Temujin, and the laughter spreads through the rest of the battalion—at least a hundred deep. So many faces I once considered friends. And even more I don’t recognize, with pale hair and eyes and skin. The true faces of the Zemyans who masqueraded as Ashkarian warriors.
“Stay back!” Pillars of flame rise from Serik’s palms, and he takes a bold step forward.
“Ah, Serik, my favorite monk,” Temujin drawls. “Such a relief to see you alive. I believe I already had the pleasure of experiencing your new abilities when you set fire to the xanav.” His voice takes on an edge, and that’s when I notice the angry burn marring his neck, and his ragged hair, singed shorter on one side.
“That was just a taste of what I’ll do if you come any closer,” Serik warns.
“I see you and Enebish have the same policy when it comes to your powers,” Chanar yells. “Attack first, ask questions later. Spare no mind for the innocent.”
“None of you are innocent!” I shout back. And neither was Inkar, I remind myself as her visage rises to haunt me: the metal from the obliterated Sky Palace gouging her side, her smiling eyes and warm praise, defending me even as she died.
“That may be true, but there’s no denying these people’s innocence.” Temujin motions to the shepherds, who have retreated several steps. “It’s a pity you dragged them through so much needless suffering. They would have been safe and well had you stayed in Sagaan.”
The shepherds look from me and Serik to Temujin and his Shoniin. As if there’s any question who they should trust.
“He invaded Sagaan with the Zemyans—our enemies!” I bark at them over my shoulder.
“You’re much safer here than in a fallen city or freezing and starving on the grazing lands,” Serik adds.
Temujin clucks his tongue and ventures closer, winding through the panicked sheep. “Enemies is such a polarizing term. Just because people have opposing goals doesn’t make one side noble and the other inherently evil. Time passes, circumstances change. Someday you may find your goals suddenly align, as ours and the Zemyans’ do now—we wish to be freed from the tyranny of the Sky King, and so do they. We wish to coexist peaceably, with freedom to worship as we please, and so do they. I like to think that we’re all allies instead.”
“Just because we all oppose the Sky King does not make you an ally,” I say. “If you’re a friend rather than foe, why did you come for us? Did Yatindra coordinate this with you?”
“I don’t know anyone named Yatindra. I simply received an anonymous note informing us that something we’d lost was hiding in the marshlands. And if we waited patiently, it would deliver itself into our hands. Look, here you are.”
I scoff. Yatindra never accepted King Minoak’s decision, and she never intended to pray with me. She feigned an apology to lure me down to the sheep pens, knowing I’d fall into the hole she’d gouged. Knowing the animals would escape and lead us to the waiting Shoniin. The worst part is, she’ll get away with it. I’ve been so suspicious and distrustful, the shepherds and Namagaans are much more likely to believe I’m casting undue blame than to deem the supportive sister of King Minoak and devoted wife of the vice chancellor capable of such treachery.
I want to strangle her. Or obliterate her with starfire. Yatindra may think she’s protecting her family by keeping them here, but it’s maddeningly shortsighted. We’ll all be squashed by the Zemyans.
“We don’t want to make trouble with Namaag,” Temujin continues.
“Since when is helping Zemya invade Namaag ‘not making trouble’?” I challenge.
Temujin ignores me. “We have a very generous proposal.”
“Generous for you, I’m sure,” Serik snarls.
Temujin shoots him an annoyed look. “How many times must I tell you this has nothing to do with me? I am fighting for the people. I want justice for the persecuted”—he gestures to the shepherds—“and freedom for the Protected Territories. How could you possibly condemn me for that?”
“Because of your methods! You’ll never accomplish any of it with your current ‘allies.’ The Zemyans are using you—as you used me,” I spit out.
Temujin releases a drawn-out sigh. “I had hoped we could settle this civilly, but we won’t allow you to jeopardize the well-being of these good people or to threaten the stability of the entire continent with a needless, slapdash rebellion. Sagaan has fallen. The Sky King is dead. A new dawn is rising, and you can either wake up and rise with it or be left to perish in the dark.”
“The Sky King is dead?” I croak.
There was no love lost between me and King Tyberion, so this news should come as a relief—we were going to have to face him eventually, and now there’s one less obstacle between us and liberating the Protected Territories. King Ihsan has no one to fall back on now, nowhere to turn but to us and our alliance. But my feet feel like they’re sinking deeper into the boggy ground. Like the entire swamp is going to swallow me. Because the Zemyans are that much closer to seizing the continent. Despite Temujin’s grand promises, I know Empress Danashti, and Kartok, will be even more ruthless than the Sky King.
“How? When? What’s happening in Sagaan?” The words pour from my mouth like vomit. “Was it destroyed? What about the people?”
And Ghoa.
I don’t want to think about her—I don’t care what happened to her—but there she is, battling across the stage of my mind. Did she perish alongside the king? She must have. There isn’t a single scenario I can imagine in which she would be alive if he isn’t. And despite everything, the thought of her cold and vacant-eyed on the ground with a Zemyan blade through her chest makes it suddenly hard to breathe.
“Zemya possesses all of Ashkar’s major cities.” Temujin ignores my questions. “The only task that remains is quelling what’s left of the Imperial Army, which will be simple and peaceable as long as no one attempts to intervene.” His amber eyes flick deliberately to me. “If you abandon this doomed rebellion, and yo
u and Serik return with us to Sagaan, we will allow the rest of your party to retreat to the safety of Uzul with their flocks. We will not attempt to ‘invade’ or ‘conquer’ Namaag. That has never been our goal.”
The shepherds guzzle down his lies like sap wine, and there’s an immediate shift in the air. Their feet scuffle restlessly. My ears ring with their unspoken pleas: Go. Leave us. I’m fairly certain they would grab me and Serik and physically throw us at Temujin’s feet if they weren’t frightened of our Kalima powers.
The even more outrageous part is I would let them—I would go with Temujin willingly if I truly believed the Zemyans would let the Protected Territories be. But they won’t. The shepherds don’t know Temujin like I do. They don’t know how he twists the truth to make it smell like honey-sweet sapota fruit on the outside, when it’s rotten and festering beneath the skin. And they don’t know Kartok, who siphoned my power. Who created an entire world within our own.
I raise my chin. “And if we refuse?”
“Then you’ll be responsible for even more destruction.”
The shepherds moan behind us, but I look to Serik. Just a flick of my gaze. It’s enough. He thrusts his arms forward and a pillar of white fire races toward the Shoniin. They leap back to avoid the inferno, and as soon as Orbai vaults from Temujin’s shoulder, I reach into the heavens, harness a ball of starfire, and aim it directly at his chest.
My body tenses with morbid anticipation as the starfire hurtles through the pitch black and slashes through the leaves—a furious streak of incandescent red. Just before it obliterates the Shoniin, another streak of light appears—this one flaming blue. The two balls of starfire collide, just as they did in the desert when I stopped Ziva from killing Orbai. Only this explosion is ten times larger, ten times hotter, since Temujin’s starfire wasn’t summoned by Ziva’s novice hand.
They were both summoned by me.
A pulse of violet light fills the sky, then millions of sparks sizzle down from the heavens, leaving trails of smoke. As the embers settle atop the canopy, pricks of light spatter the foliage—like the fireflies the Namagaans use to light their homes. Only these fireflies grow and multiply and spread.
Sky Breaker (Night Spinner Duology) Page 18
