No one utters a word when Ivandar finishes. The way the entire group is gaping at him—at both of us—makes me wonder if he was actually speaking Zemyan, if all that time in his abhorrent country infected me more than I realized.
“You were imprisoned in Zemya?” Serik says at last, looking at me with a dramatically cocked brow. “How did they capture you? Where were your loyal minions?”
Of course he’s the first to respond, and of course that’s the detail he latches onto.
Enebish remains much more focused. “You honestly couldn’t concoct a more believable lie? Neither of you care about the Lady and Father! You don’t believe They exist”—she points at me, then asks Ivandar—“and shouldn’t you want Kartok to succeed in avenging Zemya?”
“I don’t have to believe in your gods to want revenge,” I say curtly. “Kartok tortured me for weeks. And he’s trying to seize my power.”
It’s near enough to the truth. I may not plan on thwarting Kartok by protecting their old gods, but if that’s what’ll convince Enebish and Serik to follow me to the Kalima, so I can reclaim my position, so be it.
Ivandar shoots me an irritated look, as if he expected me to press my face to the earth and grovel at their feet.
Which is precisely what he does.
He bows his fair head, presses his palms together at his chest, and kneels as if praying. Or pleading. As if my cousin and former sister outrank us both. “Just because I worship Zemya doesn’t mean I want to see the Lady and Father deposed. They created Zemya—They created everything. Surely there would be consequences if They perished. Please, don’t slow us any further by forcing us to engage with you.”
The shepherds murmur among themselves. I haven’t a clue if they’re believers like Enebish or if they’re loyal to the New Order, as the law decrees. And I suppose it doesn’t matter, now that the Sky King is gone. I try not to think about what it means, that a god on earth perished without consequence. Without a breath of acknowledgment from his land or people. Almost as if he were as ordinary as any one of these shepherds.
“You’re actually serious,” Serik guffaws, seconds away from laughter.
Enebish, on the other hand, looks skyward, and even though her lips don’t move, I know she’s praying for guidance.
The shepherds murmur and jostle, and it’s all a waste of time.
“Stand aside and let us pass,” I order. “Or … if you truly wish to be heroic … help us warn the gods and defend the continent from Kartok. What good will freeing the Chotgori do if the sorcerer brings the heavens crashing down on all of us?”
Several shepherds actually nod, but then a weak voice rasps from the rear of the group, “They’re lying!”
The low, cocky timbre makes every hair on my body bristle with contempt. But at the same time, it’s music to my ears. Another piece of the puzzle to restore my honor. The final piece.
Temujin.
The crowd of shepherds parts and everyone glances back at him, sitting in the snow. He looks utterly wrecked—hands bound to his feet, bruises mottling his face, and a burn blazing down his neck.
I love it.
I haven’t a clue what created this rift between Enebish and the Shoniin leader—the last time I saw them, she was willing to risk her life and destroy Sagaan to save him—but I’m positive I can use this fracture. Deepen it to suit my purposes. Just as I did with Ivandar and Kartok.
“I’ve been allied with Kartok for years.” Temujin’s voice gains strength now that he has an audience. “And he’s never mentioned anything about infiltrating the actual realm of the Eternal Blue or deposing any gods. Do you think I would have allied with him if any of these lies were true? I am a devout follower of the Lady and Father. Kartok wants equality. Magic for all. Which is in Ashkar’s best interest. There will be no more exploitation of the magic-barren. No reason to send warriors into battle at all…. Don’t forget who helped me raid the supply wagons to deliver you rations. And he was responsible for saving so many young, mistreated soldiers from the war front.”
“Spare us your lies. You’re anything but devout,” Enebish snaps back at him, her voice teeming with even more hatred than when she addressed me. It fills me with the tiniest flicker of satisfaction. Pride, even. She knows I was right about the deserter. “How is that magic he ‘gifted’ you?” she continues, limping back to loom over Temujin. “Why don’t you demonstrate your power? Use it to escape?”
Temujin’s eyes narrow, but he says nothing. It’s Ivandar, beside me, who speaks.
“Kartok offered you our magic?” He sounds amused rather than incensed. “And you actually believed he’d follow through?”
“He did! I drank your hot-spring water! I wielded her siphoned darkness and starfire!” Temujin juts his chin at Enebish. “Kartok vowed to give it to everyone who aligned with him.”
“Except you haven’t been able to access the magic again, have you?” Ivandar asks. Then he waits like a disapproving parent for Temujin to shake his head. “Zemya formulated Her magic to be incompatible with your bodies. It’s toxic to any Ashkarian who possesses Kalima powers and all but useless to the magic-barren. Partaking once doesn’t open the floodgates to Zemya, as it does for Her children. You must continually take it into your system, each time you wish to use Zemya’s power. But Kartok didn’t tell you that, did he?”
Temujin stares ahead at nothing, blinking furiously. “Why don’t you tell everyone the real reason you’re here, Prince Ivandar?” he finally explodes. “You’re not worried about the gods or the continent, are you? You’re here for your throne. Because your mother favors Kartok.”
“He’s the Zemyan prince?” Enebish whips back around and blackness consumes the entire street, broken only by the wavering heat that rises like a fiery blade in Serik’s hands.
His control is impressive for a warrior so new to his power. It feels like something or someone is openly mocking me.
“You’re right. I don’t want my country in Kartok’s hands,” Ivandar begins, but a flood of furious accusations drown him out. The darkness abruptly recedes to reveal Serik, Enebish, and every shepherd on the street surging toward us.
Icy white explodes across my vision, twice as bright as before, and I feel the distinct impression of unseen hands on my back. Shoving me forward.
Fix this. Force them to comply. Get to the Kalima.
Again, I consider reaching for the ice. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve immobilized a group this large. They deserve it for supporting Enebish—a traitor. But as I look into the eyes of the raging, terrified people rushing toward me, my hands refuse to rise. I can’t dredge up even half of the staggering amount of fury I’d need to entomb them all in ice.
I tell myself it’s exhaustion from torture and travel. The strength I recklessly forfeited, taking the ice into myself to ease the cold. I could still obliterate them all, if I wanted to.
But that’s the strangest part: I don’t want to.
And I don’t know what that means.
Serik and several other wild-eyed shepherds are nearly on top of me, spitting war cries, but for the first time in my life, I’m not thirsty for battle. Instead of rushing to meet them, I drop to my knees, pressed down, again, by the weight of unseen hands on my shoulders.
I have never felt so weak—cowering and covering my head. But it’s the last thing they’d expect. The only thing that might work.
“Please, En!” I don’t consciously choose to cry her name. The plea is just there, on my tongue.
Still, my assailants come, blades flashing and arms swinging.
She’s going to let me die. At their hands. After all of the impressive battles I’ve won, Serik and these misfit shepherds will be the ones who finally cut me down.
At the last second my resolve wavers and I make a desperate grab for the cold, but my ice-filled muscles are too slow. My mind is so white and frost-covered, it’s like a clouded windowpane. I can’t see or hear anything other than one word.
; Wait.
The command is stern. Inarguable. So I raise my chin and glare defiantly at my cousin.
Right before Serik lays my throat open with his fiery saber, blackness slams down around me, more crushing than the Zemyan Sea.
I flatten my body against the frozen dirt as blades whistle over my head and hands whoosh past my sides, all of them missing their target, thanks to Enebish and her shield of darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ENEBISH
I WATCH GHOA DODGE SERIK’S BLADE THROUGH THE sudden mist of darkness.
Ziva’s darkness.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” I scream at the girl.
At the exact same moment, Serik yells at me. “Why’d you intervene? Ghoa deserves this! She’s never going to change.”
I, of course, know that.
But Ziva, apparently, doesn’t.
“You’ve ruined everything!” I shout at her, hiding like a coward behind a cluster of shepherds. I’d thought it was strange, how quiet she was during the confrontation. How little she had to say when she always has too much to say. “I never would’ve trained you if I knew you were going to sabotage us!”
I curl my fingers around the threads of darkness and try to yank them from Ziva’s grip. Serik and the others need their sight if they’re going to gain the upper hand. But Ziva refuses to let go, and she’s much stronger than she used to be—thanks to my training.
“Stop!” I bellow.
“This isn’t sabotage!” Her face is set with determination, her eyes aflame with scorching desert heat. “I think they’re telling the truth about Kartok and the gods and the Kalima.”
Of all the things I expected her to say, that was at the bottom of the list.
Why? How? What would possibly make you think that? But there isn’t time for questions. I have to make a decision. Ghoa and the Zemyan are stumbling their way across the street. Out of our reach. Either I side with Serik and my fury—backed by a lifetime of evidence against Ghoa and the Zemyans. Or I choose Ziva and her audacious but earnest declaration. Yes, she’s young, but she’s fiercely devoted to Verdenet. She wouldn’t have made such a bold claim, or backed it with equally bold actions, unless she had good reason.
The shattered part of me that’s been betrayed too many times to count insists it’s all a lie. Don’t make the same mistake again. But I can’t get the image of Ghoa, dropping to her knees, out of my head. My heart and gut clench.
Serik’s going to kill me.
I drop the threads of darkness, allowing Ziva to maintain the cover of night, and mutter, “You’d better be right.”
“Enebish! Stop this!” Serik and dozens of irate shepherds beg, but they’re easy to avoid, since they can’t see.
Once we’ve isolated Ghoa and the prince, Ziva and I tackle them to the ground and secure their arms and legs with rope we stole from the flailing shepherds.
“Cooperate and we’ll spare you,” I hiss. For now.
Ghoa stops thrashing at the sound of my voice and the Zemyan follows suit. “You came,” she marvels. Either her relief is truly genuine or she’s gotten much better at feigning gratitude.
“Ziva believed you. She is to thank for the darkness,” I say, tightening Ghoa’s rope with a merciless jerk. Hearing Ziva out is very different from siding with Ghoa. Or forgiving her. And I want to make sure she knows the difference.
Serik’s skin is so hot, it pulses with eerie orange light. He refuses to speak to me, or even look at me, as we drag Ghoa and the Zemyan prince into the abandoned home we’ve been squatting in. He stomps down the narrow hallway and up the stairs. I let him go. He needs space if we’re ever going to have a civil conversation.
I lead the rest of the group into the kitchen, where we stuff Ghoa and the prince into a windowless pantry. Neither of them fights or attempts to retaliate, and it sets my teeth on edge. Ghoa could have frozen us all where we stood, just as she did to the caravan of traders at Nariin. But she didn’t. And I need to know why. Even if their warnings about Kartok prove to be true, Ghoa could have an ulterior motive.
Once several guards are posted outside the pantry door, Ziva and I slowly ascend the stairs. Several rooms branch off either side of the hallway, but it’s easy to tell where Serik went. Billows of heat pour out from beneath the farthest door on the right.
“Your reasoning had better be sound,” I say to Ziva before I open the door.
She swallows hard, tucks her wild curls behind her ears, and shoves inside ahead of me.
Serik paces back and forth along the far wall, looking for all the world like a prowling sand cat, and it transports me back to the day Ghoa returned to Ikh Zuree. When she offered to let us take the Sky King’s eagles into Sagaan. The day that set all of this in motion.
The rest of our makeshift council is already here: Iree and Bultum sit on opposite sides of the room—one on a bed that’s still neatly made, the other leaning against a chest of drawers. Lalyne stands between them with her arms crossed. And old Azamat sits on the bearskin rug on the floor, grinning fiendishly, as if this is the most fun he’s had in years.
Before I can even part my lips, Serik erupts and the flare of heat is so intense, I half expect him to spit actual flames. “Why in the skies would you spare them? You know they’re going to ruin us. Ruin everything. This was our chance to gain a true advantage!”
“I didn’t spare them.” My voice comes out twice as loud and ten times more defensive than planned. “At least not initially …” I add softly. I need to douse Serik’s rage, not stoke it. “Ziva is the one who called the night.”
Serik stops abruptly and laughs. “You’re telling me you didn’t have the power to stop her?”
“I’m getting stronger every day,” Ziva interjects.
I give her arm a threatening squeeze. “That isn’t the point—”
“The point is, we never should have trusted you,” Lalyne interrupts. “You lead us from one disaster to the next.”
It hasn’t all been a disaster. You’re alive, aren’t you?
But arguing will get us nowhere. I pull a deep, balmy breath into my nose and calmly say, “Ziva believes that Ghoa and the prince are telling the truth about Kartok.”
“And you believe her?” Iree demands.
Ziva’s fingers clench. The light in the room wavers, and I quickly jump in to steady the threads of darkness. “I believe her enough to hear her out,” I say. “She hasn’t given us any reason to doubt. She wouldn’t risk—”
“Ghoa and the prince don’t care about the Lady and Father. Or any of us,” Serik says, pacing even faster.
“I know it seems improbable, but you’ve been begging me to trust, to listen to our allies….”
“Not in place of using your head!” Bultum barks.
Serik shoots the shepherd a blistering look. “You will not speak to Enebish like that.”
It might just be the suffocating heat, but his rush to defend me makes me feel like I’m basking in the desert sun.
“This isn’t an attack against Ziva,” Serik continues with a nod in her direction. “It’s accepting the truth about our enemies. That’s the Zemyan heir down there. And Ghoa, who framed you for a massacre, En.”
“I have a profound idea.” Azamat lies back on the bearskin rug and props his head up with his hands. “Why don’t we let the girl speak and save the arguing for when we know what we’re actually arguing about?”
Most of the time I want to strangle the old man, but right now I could kiss his stubbled cheeks. “Thank you for the sound advice, Azamat.” I turn to Ziva, trying to convey with a single, searing look how serious this is. Do not make me regret putting my faith in you.
She rolls her shoulders back. “I will happily explain if I’m allowed to speak.” She glares at Iree, Bultum, and Lalyne in turn. “As you know, I spent a good deal of time hiding with my father in the Temple of the Kings at Sawtooth Mesa. It’s where every king of Verdenet is brought for their Awakening, before
ascending to the throne. The temple is the size of an entire city, with rooms and halls branching out for leagues beneath the plateau. Before the Sky King invaded, it housed priestesses and scribes—”
“I’m sorry, but what does this have to do with Zemyan sorcerers infiltrating the land of the First Gods?” Iree interjects.
“Everything!” Ziva snaps back. “I wandered those halls for hours on end, day after day, studying the walls, which generations of scribes had painted with murals of Verdenese life and beliefs. They were beautiful, of course, but nothing groundbreaking. Stories I had heard a thousand times before. Except for one, though I didn’t realize it at the time.
“I had been on my knees for hours that day, praying to heal my father’s wounds and for deliverance from starvation and assassins, when the Lady put a distinct image into my mind of a mural I’d never seen before. For three days, I scoured the temple until I found it.
“The Lady of the Sky and Father Guzan were depicted high up in the sky, walking through what looked to be a floating garden, surrounded by high, jagged mountains. Their son, Ashkar, stood at the base of the mountains, where numerous people waited in line. One by one, they approached Ashkar and were turned away, until a group came forward, bearing a key. Ashkar inspected the key, counting the sigils of ice and snow and wind emblazoned on its head. Then he inserted the key into the mountainside, and when a tunnel appeared, he permitted the group to enter.”
“Were those people the Kalima?” Iree asks.
Sky Breaker (Night Spinner Duology) Page 26
