I picture my parents, hearing the news. Receiving condolences that are actually declarations of praise. Commissioning a concerto in my name that will play forever after.
I’ll die knowing I made them proud.
That thought gives me the courage to leap.
I dive into the back of Kartok’s knees and my fingers dart through the folds of his cloak like a snake, coiling around the hilt of the sword. He’s heavier than I anticipated, but I manage to bring him to the ground. The impact knocks the breath from his lungs, giving me time to free the sword and roll away.
Kartok shouts something, but I can’t hear it over the roar of my pulse. It drums in my head. Faster every second. He reaches for me, his long, knobby fingers tangling in my hair. I swing the blade behind my head and sever my ponytail with a swish. Hoping Kartok’s fingers came off with it.
“What are you doing?” Ivandar cries. He looks completely bewildered. Like he honestly believed I’d perish without a fight.
With a roar that explodes from the depths of my gut—the place where I stored every hope and dream and ambition I had for my life—I drive Kartok’s blade into the wall.
The generál slams to a halt and clutches his stomach, as if I buried the knife in his flesh. Our eyes meet, and I expect to find fury, outrage, perhaps even fear, but he looks contemplative. Almost amused. He lifts a finger, and I flinch, expecting the enchanted blade to retract through the hilt and lodge in my chest. But it remains buried in the throne room wall. A second later there’s a monstrous crackle and the murals splinter into fragments, revealing the actual wall of glass behind the illusion.
Slowly, as if in a dream, spiderweb fractures spread through the pane. Beads of water race down the cracks and drip from the ceiling. The smells of brine and sand and victory fill my nose as the frothy green sea bears down on us.
Ivandar’s jaw drops.
Kartok is close enough and quick enough to tackle me, but he remains perfectly still and watches as I throw my weight against the splintered glass.
There isn’t time to contemplate why.
The wall explodes with a pop, and I laugh as the waves rush over me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ENEBISH
THE BLASTS FROM THE WATER CANNONS SLAM INTO OUR stomachs and fling us across the marsh like twigs in a raging current. I crash through the cypress trees, battered by their jabbing roots, and tumble through the wreckage of the sheep pen, colliding with too many shepherds and animals to count. My vision darkens with every impact. Pain detonates through my rag-doll body—crushing and suffocating and endless.
When the floodwater finally slows, the city of Uzul is no longer visible. Only a dripping expanse of trees and mud. Catching hold of a vine with my good arm—though neither arm feels “good” anymore—I drag myself onto a cluster of roots. As I cough up mouthful after mouthful of brown sludge, the current continues to swirl around me, littered with broken branches and leaves. Scattered with floating satchels and shoes and shawls. And strewn with battered, motionless bodies.
Sheep lie on their sides, mangled and soggy, their wool stained red and brown. Goats are bent and broken against the trees. And, most horrifying of all, are the people. The corpse of a shepherdess glides past, her eyes staring vacantly, her face bruised and bloated. Her long dark hair waves around her like the swamp reeds, and her hand is outstretched, fingers interlaced with those of a small boy, who is just as waterlogged and still.
My stomach turns itself inside out. I fling myself off the roots, desperate to get away from the woman and the child, but as I claw through the puddles in the opposite direction, another body floats around the bend. Then another. They move silently through the cypress trees—three gray-clad Shoniin and four shepherds. And these are just the bodies I can see. I’m sure there are dozens more scattered across the marsh.
So many lives taken because of Yatindra’s selfish deception.
And my stupidity.
I never should have accepted her invitation. I knew she couldn’t be trusted, but I was trying to “make an effort.” I wanted to prove I wasn’t too damaged to unite the Protected Territories and lead them against the Sky King and Zemyans. My doubt and mistrust had already ostracized and endangered so many. I wanted to be better and braver and stronger, but burying the past and moving forward proved even more disastrous.
There’s no winning.
Not for me.
“Serik?” I cry into the eerie silence. There isn’t a single note of birdsong. Even the relentless cicadas have stopped chirping, leaving only the gurgle of mud and the far-off sound of weeping. “Serik?” I shout louder.
Still no answer. Panic seeps into my pores. He was right beside me before the blast. Hands intertwined. Now he could be anywhere—crushed beneath a broken branch, dashed against a rock, the next corpse to drift downstream….
“Serik!” I stagger to my feet and wade through the slough. I don’t have a clue where I’m going—I could be stumbling in the wrong direction, wandering deeper into the maze of trees. My bad leg buckles every few steps, but I scrape off the grime and forge on.
He’s alive. I’ll find him. I refuse to accept anything else.
After what feels like years, my ears prick with the hum of voices, one louder than the rest. It doesn’t sound like Serik, but I follow it into a thicket of reeds, where the mud is even heavier and the plants jut from the ground like spikes. As I hack through the shoots, my legs give out for good. I lie there for a moment, the grime cold and stodgy against my cheeks, tempted to let the bog devour me. But I dig my elbows into the mire and continue to drag myself forward, length by torturous length, until I reach a cluster of people.
Several dozen shepherds stand in a huddle, keening—tortured sounds I haven’t heard since my days on the battlefield. I try to stand, but my body is too caked with the viscous mud. I feel so inhuman, it isn’t a surprise when several of them point at me and cry, “Alligator!”
The rest of the group screams and retreats.
I manage to lift a hand and force out a single word: “Serik?”
The shepherds’ screams abate, but their horrified expressions remain firmly in place.
“Enebish?” Old Azamat squints as he ventures forward.
Lalyne scoffs. “Of course she would survive! Of all the wretched creatures under the sun!”
“And only concerned for Serik. To hell with the rest of us,” Iree snaps.
“That’s not true,” I wheeze. But I can hardly hear my rasping voice. There’s no way it reaches the shepherds.
“We never should have followed you!” an unseen voice grumbles.
“We’ve lost everything!” several more proclaim.
“We’re going to die.”
“So many are dead already!”
Suddenly I’m surrounded by seething faces. Everywhere I turn, there’s more. Shouting and snarling and spitting. A boot strikes my lower back. Another jabs my chest. I gasp, like the fish flopping vainly in the muck, washed from their streams by the raging cannon water.
“I was trying to help,” I babble incoherently. “I was trying to trust—”
“We should kill her and drag her body back to Uzul,” Emani proclaims.
“Maybe the Namagaans will reconsider admitting us if she’s no longer a threat,” Bultum adds.
Tears tumble down my face, and my fingers itch to swipe them away. To hide every vestige of weakness and put on a brave face—the face of a warrior. But I ball my fists and let the drops slide off my chin. I let the shepherds see them—see me—for the first time since we met: ashamed and terrified, but trying.
It’s useless.
The mob comes at me with twice as much fervor. Hands shackle my wrists and stretch them painfully to either side. Someone presses on the back of my head, forcing my face deeper into the squelching mud. When I try to scream, sludge fills my mouth and clogs my nose. I feel like I’m back at Ikh Zuree, beset by the hateful monks. Only, this is even worse because Serik and the abba are
n’t here to stop them.
I squirm and kick as white spots burst behind my eyelids. My head feels like it’s going to explode. I spread my fingers, grasping for the darkness, but my hands are too full of mud. My body is too frantic for air to work properly.
I am going to die—at the hands of my allies.
My flopping becomes weaker and weaker. “I’m sorry,” I say with my last gasp of breath.
All at once, the pressure releases. My body feels as light as the floating lanterns in Sagaan, and as the distorted bursts of light recede, Serik’s perfect freckled face takes shape. He’s standing over me, arms outstretched, heat billowing from his palms.
“Stand aside!” Lalyne booms.
Serik shakes his head.
“Don’t make us turn on you,” Iree warns.
“Because we will!” Bultum joins Iree, standing shoulder to shoulder.
“You have no reason to turn on either of us!” Serik argues, but the shepherds’ bitter laughter cuts him off.
“We have every reason!” Azamat jumps into the fray. “People are dead! Our animals are dead! We’ve been cast from Uzul without clothing or supplies, which means we’ll all perish soon, thanks to her erratic actions.” He points emphatically at me. “She will never be content. She can’t stop meddling and lurking and spying, and look where it’s led us!”
“Enebish has made mistakes,” Serik agrees, and even though his voice is diplomatic, it stings. Because it’s true. I’ve made so many mistakes, too many, but it’s no longer out of suspicion and stubbornness. I’m trying to learn and change—it’s just always at the wrong time.
“But we’ve all made mistakes,” Serik continues. “Her actions weren’t erratic. She did exactly as we asked and put her trust in the Namagaans, and they betrayed her. We are the ones who didn’t listen this time. We are the ones who forced her to doubt her intuition, stay silent, and fall prey to another trap when her concerns were more than justified.” He gestures to the flooded swamp.
“How do you know she didn’t plan this?” someone demands.
“Why would I?” The words bubble up on a surge of indignation. I even manage to hoist myself onto my elbows. “That’s absurd!”
“Because we weren’t heeding your plan,” Azamat accuses. “You could sense we didn’t want to leave the marshlands to fight against the entire skies-forsaken continent, so you decided to force our hand.”
“I didn’t!” I cry at the same moment Serik proclaims, “She wouldn’t.”
I glance up at his fierce expression, those blazing eyes, and my heart squeezes with gratitude. I have never loved him more.
“What proof do you have?” Bultum asks. “How are you so certain that she was betrayed by the Namagaans?”
“I was there when she received the invitation to pray with Yatindra.”
“Yet, she wasn’t with Yatindra when the sheep escaped….”
“Because she and Ziva changed plans and left without me!” I interject, though no one is interested in what I have to say. “When I arrived at Yatindra’s house, her maid told me to meet them down at the water. Where the trap was waiting.”
“Did you escort her to Yatindra’s home?” Iree looms over Serik. “To ensure that’s where she actually went?”
“Well, no—”
“So how do you know she didn’t make up the bit about Yatindra changing the meeting location? How do you know she didn’t go directly down to water level to meddle with the sheep pens?”
“Because I know Enebish!” Serik barks.
“And she’s never lied to you before?” The harsh angles of Lalyne’s face contract into a piercing scowl. “She’s always been perfectly forthcoming and trustworthy?”
Serik hesitates and his gaze darts to me, filled with agony and frustration. I have to look away. He can say nothing in my defense. I can say nothing in my defense. The shepherds have been with us for weeks: they’ve seen me lash out and sneak around and ignore so many of Serik’s pleaded instructions.
“If you want to forgive her because you’re in love with her, that’s your prerogative,” Lalyne sneers. “But the rest of us are under no obligation to do the same. Stand aside, Serik. We must do what’s best for those who are left, and if that means eliminating Enebish to be readmitted into King Ihsan’s good graces, so be it.”
Serik looks from one hostile face to the next, then he drops to his knees between me and the shepherds, closes his eyes, and stretches his hands skyward. It’s the epitome of helplessness, of vulnerability, and it feels so much braver, and so much more powerful, than drawing a sword. If you’d told me a few short months ago that this would be Serik’s reaction—the final stand in the fight for my life—I would have laughed myself hoarse. But there he is, swinging at our assailants with patience and faith rather than fists.
“Please,” he says in a small voice, “after everything we’ve been through, do you honestly think I’d endanger you? If I truly believed Enebish was to blame, I’d let justice take its course. But I’m asking you to believe me, to trust me. I’ve given you everything—all I could possibly give and more. All I ask is this one thing in return.”
The shepherds are quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that leaves no room for deliberation.
Iree takes a decisive step backward. Away from us. Bultum and Lalyne and Azamat and at least twenty others do the same, spreading out to encircle us.
Serik raises his hands and fire pours from his fingers, streaming skyward. The blazing pillars almost remind me of the gateway to Kartok’s false Eternal Blue. “You’re certain you want to do this?” he asks, trying to mask the quaver in his voice.
The shepherds don’t answer, but the air is charged with the hair-raising buzz before a lightning storm. I reach for the night, prepared to fight alongside Serik, but before we unleash the sky, a voice drifts through the reeds, shocking in its high pitch but ferocious in its conviction.
“If you refuse to believe Serik, perhaps you’ll believe me!”
The tension shatters, and the shepherds part, sweeping to either side like window curtains. Sandals slosh into view, and dark, slender hands reach down and take my chin, forcing me to look up.
“You were right,” Ziva proclaims.
I gape at her for several seconds, waiting for her to wash away like the runoff from the water cannons. “What are you doing here?” I finally say. “Isn’t it enough that we were cast from the city? That innocent people lost their lives? Do you also have to gloat? Do you expect me to congratulate you and Yatindra on your little trick?”
“Didn’t you hear what I said? You. Were. Right.” Ziva enunciates each word. “I had nothing to do with that fiasco. I didn’t even know Yatindra had invited you to ‘pray.’ Yes, I was resistant to your claims, but in this case, they were justified. Yatindra was conspiring against our alliance. She wrote to the Zemyans, telling them to come for you, instead of sending missives to our soldiers at the war front. I found their correspondences when she locked me and my father in her powder room as soon as the confrontation began—‘to protect us,’ she said. But I’m not interested in cowering in a closet while my country crumbles. Nor will I waste time trying to convince King Ihsan to change his mind about marching to Verdenet. Not if there are people who are willing to act now.”
Shock ties my tongue. I can’t remember how to form a single word. If the shepherds had fallen on my feet and showered them with kisses, I wouldn’t have been more astonished.
“Well?” Ziva crosses her arms and looks around the group. “Aren’t you going to say something? I made a rather horrifying scene in Uzul and trudged all the way out here. I’ll be furious if it was for nothing.”
I shake my head and laugh. Because, in that moment, I have no trouble picturing her as a queen.
As my queen.
“From the moment you arrived in the caves, I knew you were the key to everything!” Serik crows and slaps Ziva on the back.
The shepherds slowly nod. A few even clap.
�
��Did your father come as well?” Serik leans around the princess, scanning the marsh for King Minoak, but Ziva shakes her head.
The group falls instantly silent.
Ziva squirms, but only for a moment. “My father still thinks this is a misunderstanding. He doesn’t wish to sever ties with King Ihsan by joining you. But maybe it’s for the best. He’s too weak to travel or invade Lutaar City anyway. He would only slow us down.”
Bultum chokes with surprise. “But he allowed you to come to us?”
“He doesn’t allow me to do anything,” Ziva retorts. “I am perfectly capable of making my own choices. My father encourages it, in fact. I will be queen someday.”
Serik’s nod is slow and shallow. “So we proceed with our initial plan, then, and march on the imperial governor in Lutaar City?” It sounds like he’s trying to convince himself along with the rest of us.
“I hate to be the naysayer,” Azamat interjects, which is laughable because he loves to be the naysayer, “and I mean no offense, Your Highness”—he sketches a little bow at Ziva—“but we can’t invade Verdenet and expect to unseat the imperial governor when led by a princess who’s hardly more than a child. It won’t rally the citizens of Lutaar City. Plus, we have no food. Or supplies. Or weapons.”
Ziva glares at Azamat, and I feel the darkness shiver as her fists tighten. My fingers tense—ready to step in—but Ziva blows out a breath and rearranges her sneer into a saccharine smile. “No need to worry about supplies, old man.”
Ziva turns and, with a wave over her shoulder, a handful of Namagaans emerge from the trees pulling wagons piled with food and blankets and tarps and furs, as well as everything that was left behind in the barracks during our rush to recapture the herds.
The shepherds shriek and clap. A large majority break into heaving sobs, while the rest hug one another and Ziva and Serik. A few even embrace me, which is when I know the tide has well and truly shifted.
“How did you convince King Ihsan to give us these supplies after everything?” Serik gestures to the floodwater below and the scorched canopy above.
Sky Breaker (Night Spinner Duology) Page 20
