He answers with a warbling grunt followed by a stream of whispered pleas, “Get up. Wake up.”
Enebish rises from the ground and slowly looks from the Lady of the Sky to me, her expression full of wonder and awe, hurt and outrage. And then I’m crying even harder because I finally understand. She sees me in the face of the goddess. The Lady has cared for all of us. She resides in all of us. She is every incarnation of a mother.
I don’t know what Kartok sees, but whoever or whatever it is, the visage doesn’t deter him. He raises his sword and charges toward the Lady and Father, bellowing a Zemyan war cry.
Enebish starts after him, her injured leg moving faster than I thought possible.
The Lady and Father stand tall and unflinching on their balcony, watching the sorcerer come. Unlike the Lady of the Sky, Father Guzan’s face isn’t one I know, but his arching brows and peach-blossom cheeks invoke a familiar feeling—memories of places I’ve felt happy and safe and loved: running through the sprawling vineyards on my parents’ estate; sitting astride Tabana while her hooves churn up the grasslands; kneeling in the throne room at the Sky Palace, surrounded by my warriors.
Kartok is just steps away from the First Gods when Enebish catches the back of his robe in her good hand. The fabric pulls taut, collaring Kartok like a leashed dog. He coughs and his arms flail, grappling for balance. Enebish pounces again, diving into his waist and tackling the sorcerer to the ground. Then they’re rolling, snatching, struggling, the blade slashing between them, hungry for blood.
Bile rises up my throat. My ears ring with screams. With every swing, Kartok comes closer to flaying Enebish open.
“We have to do something!” Serik’s skin flares hotter than ever, and I pull away with a curse.
I gape at my hands. My fingers actually moved. Not much, but enough to bring the knife a hairsbreadth from Serik’s throat. Thanks to his skirmish with Enebish, Kartok doesn’t immediately refill my mind with ice.
“Burn me,” I say urgently to Serik. “Raise your hands to my knife, cut the ropes, and burn me with the full strength of your power.”
Serik is so perplexed, he outright laughs. “Why in the skies would I do that?”
“It will weaken my bond with Kartok! We’re connected through Loridium and through my siphoned power. If we break that link, I might be able to resist him enough to set you free.”
Serik says nothing. I can’t see his face, since I’m standing behind him, but I can feel him rolling his eyes.
“Neither of us can help Enebish if I’m holding you hostage,” I hiss in his ear. “I don’t know why you’re hesitating. We both know you’ve dreamed of setting me aflame long before you ever had a Kalima power.”
“I’m hesitating because I know this is a trick,” Serik says. “Some sly way to get the upper hand. You’ll probably charge up there and assist the Zemyan.”
Enebish cries out as Kartok’s sword skims her cheek. Another scar to add to the others. The sight of her cherry-red blood detonates a cannon in my chest. An explosion of fear and outrage.
“Do you honestly think I’d do that?” I try to snap, but my throat is too raw, too tight. “I know I’ve wronged you both. I know I’ve committed unpardonable sins, but I swear on my Kalima power, on the lives of my parents, on every morsel of pride I have left, that I’m on your side.” I take a deep breath and force myself to continue. “I’m sorry, Serik. I was awful to everyone, but especially to you. And I’m not asking you to forgive me; I know you never will. I’m simply asking you to give me the chance to make recompense where I can. Let me help you—and the girl we both love.”
The apology feels like a knife lancing a festering wound to let the infection drain out. A necessary, if painful, release.
After a prolonged moment Serik says, “My heat will kill you.”
“Your power isn’t that strong,” I say with a rueful smile. Even though part of me knows it is. Knows what I’m risking. “You don’t need to pump me full of fire—just one strong surge to break the connection.”
I grit my teeth and loosen my grip on Serik so he can lift his hands and drag the rope across the blade. He spins around, still caged by my arms, and looks into my eyes. Squinting with suspicion. But beneath this lingering hostility, there’s the tiniest hint of surprise. Maybe even respect.
I nod permission as he places his palms against my chest.
Before I can brace myself, Serik’s hands flare with light; fire engulfs my body, turning everything red and gold and blazing white. Heat rushes through me and I feel it refining me through the pain. My mind sharpens and quickens as Kartok’s icy hold falls. My arms fall too, allowing Serik to burst free.
He darts after Kartok and I stumble to keep up—my legs slow and my vision wavering like the air above a fire. Though, mercifully, it seems to be a dying fire: fading coals and sputtering smoke.
When we’re a few steps from where Enebish and Kartok brawl, Serik lifts a hand, forms a flaming whip, and cracks it across Kartok’s wrist. The sorcerer yowls as the blade spins across the tiles.
Serik swings at Kartok with a broadsword made of fire, but Kartok dodges the strike and rolls to safety. Before he can spot me and reassert his hold, I launch myself into his stomach like a blazing comet. Kartok screams as my blistered skin meets his. I scream with triumph as the blade he forced me to hold against Serik’s throat plunges toward his heart.
At the last second the hilt liquefies and drips through my fingers like hot wax.
I retract my hand, cursing. My burning hands must be too hot to wield a sword. But when the weapon reappears in Kartok’s fist, I realize it had nothing to do with Serik’s heat. The blade melted because it’s Zemyan steel.
I knew to be vigilant about their weapons. It’s been the one constant threat, the only predictable danger amid the chaos of ascending into a different realm. So of course it’s the one thing I overlooked.
Kartok shoves me onto my back and brandishes the traitorous blade. I raise my chin defiantly and continue to struggle, even though the battle’s over, desperate to give Enebish and Serik as much time as possible to regroup. To escape. To rescue the First Gods.
I choke on a disbelieving laugh. I should be raging about the injustice of being dragged into this realm. Reeling over how this will affect my legacy. No one will remember my accomplishments and strength. No one will know the true extent of my dedication to Ashkar. I should be begging Kartok to heal me again with his Loridium. Anything to save myself. But as I limp closer to death, none of those things seem to matter. Maybe they never did.
I draw a final breath, waiting for the sorcerer to kill me as callously as I killed Ivandar, but instead of stabbing pain, I feel air whipping past my face. My ears prick with a soft, deadly whoosh. And when Kartok’s knife hits its mark, it isn’t buried in my flesh.
It protrudes from the chest of the Lady of the Sky.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
GHOA
HER BLOOD IS A BAND OF SILVER STARS CASCADING DOWN her breast.
I don’t know why my eyes cling to this detail—why the color of the Lady’s blood is the one thing my brain refuses to accept when everything about this situation is impossible—but that silver glitter trickling through the velvety-blue is what breaks me.
I lie there, trembling with fury and disbelief, with outrage and devastation. I did everything I could have, made decisions and sacrifices I never would have. I tried to bury my pride and anger. Attempted to forgive and progress, and for what? To watch the goddess welcome death? If She’s truly omnipotent and all-powerful, She should have known this was coming, but She didn’t even move. Didn’t lift a hand to defend Herself!
It feels like a knee to the gut. A thankless dismissal of our efforts—of Ivandar’s sacrifice.
The pearly blue sky darkens, as if doused by a bucket of indigo paint. It bleeds down from the clouds as the Lady of the Sky sinks to Her knees. Coughing and gasping. Looking so much like my mother and Shoshanna, I vomit.
Father Guzan’s cry booms like thunder. Rivers of tears as wide as the Amereti pour from His earth-brown eyes. As He falls to His knees beside the Lady, the entire mountain shakes. Everything crumbles, from the boulders to the chairs to the tiles. But the most devastating fracture is inside me. It feels like someone has thrust a dagger into my heel, then strung me up like a slaughtered pig to let my blood and life—and power—drain out.
The moment we crossed into this realm, I could no longer access my power but I could still feel it there, nestled within me. Now the cold rushes from my body like blood from a battle wound, leaving me so hollow, I wonder if my organs were made of ice. If there’s ever been part of me that wasn’t hard and cold.
The only good to come from this sudden drainage is that the last of Serik’s heat leaves me too. Relief drips across my ash-and-ember skin like rain across a dry riverbed.
Across the parlor, Enebish screams in Serik’s arms.
Kartok retrieves the other sword Serik knocked from his hands and darts toward the gods, baying with triumph.
And a small, venomous voice whispers in my ear.
Did you honestly think this would end any other way? You were a fool to let faith and hope infect you. A fool to think of anyone or anything other than yourself.
It’s the firm, unflinching voice I’ve always listened to. The mantras and mentality that kept me strong—made my armor impenetrable.
Only now, that armor is so riddled with holes, it hangs in dented pieces from my chest. Part of me wants to yield. Why continue fighting for a goddess who didn’t even fight for herself? But the stubborn warrior within me marches on. Refuses to accept defeat. This can’t be the result of everything I’ve suffered, of all I’ve given.
Of all we’ve given.
I’m far from the only person who’s made a sacrifice. Who’s confronted their fears and questioned their beliefs. Who’s opened up their ears and allowed themselves to hear the strains of a beautiful song they had all but forgotten.
Now that melody plays loudly, building into a crescendo as I rise up from the ground. Drowning out the voices of fear and reproach. Refusing to be silenced now that I’m finally listening.
I may not know these gods, and I may not be worthy of Their grace, but I am not beneath Their notice. There’s a reason I was taken captive into Zemya. A reason Ivandar and I found Enebish and the rebels. A reason I didn’t betray them to the imperial warriors or turn my back on them when I had the opportunity. Every step has been too deliberate to be coincidental. Someone who knows far more than we do has been mapping our course. And She didn’t lead us here to fail.
I break into a run.
Without a plan.
Without a Kalima power.
With nothing but hope burning in my chest—cleansing and enlivening instead of scorching and ruinous.
Enebish and Serik sprint toward the Lady and Father too, but I’m faster. I always have been.
Kartok is nearly to the veranda where the Lady of the Sky lies.
The Father stands and moves in front of Her.
My lungs beg for air. My legs feel like they’re tearing from my body, churning faster than they ever have. But still not fast enough to wedge myself between Kartok and the gods. Not that it would do any good. I don’t have a weapon or a Kalima power. The sorcerer would cut me down like chaff and finish the gods anyway.
Like the magic-barren warriors you sent to the front.
Perhaps this is justice coming full circle. Punishment for sentencing so many untrained warriors to certain death. Or perhaps those magic-barren warriors are the answer. An example of dedication and bravery I was too proud to acknowledge. Throwing themselves at the enemy with no prayer of glory or hope for survival but leaping anyway. Giving their lives so that the people they love might live.
That has always been the most powerful weapon. And I have been too selfish to wield it.
Until now.
My eyes fix on a new target. I shift my angle, lower my shoulders, and explode with a final burst of strength as Kartok lifts his blade.
I slam into his ribs before his sword arm slashes down. Not grappling for control of the knife or wrestling him to the ground. My eyes are focused on the railing.
And the expanse of sky beyond.
Air bleats from the sorcerer as I drive him back. He struggles, his long limbs clawing and grasping, but this time I caught him by surprise.
“You don’t know what you’re doing!” he howls.
But he’s wrong. I’m becoming the commander—the sister and cousin and daughter—that I always should have been.
Splinters of wood spray into the air as we smash through the balcony’s decorative rail, and then I’m weightless.
Tumbling.
Falling into a chasm of jagged rocks and shadowy unknowns.
Kartok’s screams echo off the peaks, filling the sky with his fury. But I can hardly hear him over that glorious song, still playing in my ears. Only now, with the accompaniment of the wind and the thundering rhythm of my heart, I can finally hear the words.
I’m no longer falling through the sky, but seated in my parents’ music room, listening to the harpsichord trill, watching my father close his eyes and wave his glass of vorkhi like a conductor’s baton. “Sing, Ghoa!” he insists.
I shake my head. “Why would I sing when you could perform the piece with twice as much skill?”
“I could sing,” he agrees, “but that would deny you the opportunity. Sometimes the greatest fulfillment lies not in who could do it easiest or best, but in who can improve the most. It’s only through that off-key fumbling that we truly appreciate the beauty of the perfected piece. And it’s only through that show of vulnerability and courage that the singer reaches their full potential.”
From across the gilded music room, my mother looks up from her embroidery and smiles. Her face is the same as I remember, yet changed entirely. She is both woman and goddess. Two beings, but of the same mind. Possessing the same unfailing love.
“Bravo, my girl,” she says softly.
I tilt my face skyward and see Ivandar’s face in the whiteness of the swirling fog. I feel Serik’s heat in the warmth of the eternal sun. And it’s Enebish’s arms that wait for me in the darkness below. Making me unafraid to fall.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ENEBISH
EVERYTHING HAPPENS IN A BLUR—KARTOK SCREAMS ZEMYA’S name and bears down on Father Guzan. Sunlight glints off the sorcerer’s blade. His face gleams with morbid ecstasy.
A cry tears from my throat and I break into a run. The gods would never allow the Zemyan sorcerer to murder them. They wouldn’t! But the Lady of the Sky lies dead in a pool of blood and Father Guzan stands there, letting Kartok come.
I sprint faster than I ever have, but I’m too slow to intervene. Too skies-forsaken slow, thanks to my injuries from Nariin.
I scream again, braced to watch Father Guzan die alongside the Lady of the Sky. But then a streak of chestnut hair flies past me. Ghoa hurls herself at Kartok, slamming into his side with all the rage and speed she carries into battle. Her momentum drives him across the platform, toward an intricate railing that’s purely decorative—as curled and wispy as the veil of cirrus clouds.
“What are you doing?” I shout at her, but it’s muffled by a thunderous crack.
Ghoa and Kartok break through the fence, and for several inexplicable seconds they seem to skate across the sky: arms whirling, feet skidding. As if Ghoa somehow froze the air itself.
Kartok screams with rage, but Ghoa remains completely silent—her eyes closed, her head tilted back. A shaft of light breaks through the fog and paints a contented smile across her suntanned face.
Then they plummet out of sight.
Tortured wails echo between the mountain peaks, and it isn’t until I run out of breath, my throat blistering and raw, that I realize the screaming voice belongs to me. Not to Ghoa. Or to Kartok. My feet have somehow carried me to the edge of the balcony, though I have no memo
ry of taking another step, and my fingertips are bloody from dragging my hand across the splintered shards of what used to be the railing.
It’s the same out-of-body sensation that overwhelmed me the first time I was thrust into true combat. I’d been training with the Kalima for nearly a year and had accompanied them on plenty of missions. I’d sat on the sidelines of the most horrific battles. I thought I knew what it meant to take a life. I thought I was prepared. But nothing can prepare you for the feeling, the essence, that spills from someone’s body along with their blood. How it stains you and spatters you, but since you can’t see the gore, you don’t know how to scrub yourself clean.
To this day I’m still haunted by the eyes of the first Zemyan I killed. The girl couldn’t have been much older than I was, and her eyes were a vibrant seafoam green surrounded by the thickest, whitest lashes. Apparently, my sword plunged in and out of her flesh. Apparently, I kicked her body to the ground, as I’d been trained to do. But I remember none of it. Just those eyes, searing through me, until Ghoa gripped my arm and hauled me away from the next wave of Zemyan soldiers.
“Get ahold of yourself,” she said as she slapped me across the cheek. Not in a cruel way. Her face radiated worry. Maybe even a hint of understanding. As if she’d once been the same terrified twelve-year-old who couldn’t fathom how her sword had turned so red. Though, the thought of Ghoa being hesitant or afraid, the thought of her being anything other than a seasoned warrior, was laughable. Unfathomable.
Almost as unfathomable as watching her propel herself from a mountaintop to save gods she never believed in.
I glance over my shoulder. The Lady of the Sky hasn’t moved, but Father Guzan is slowly climbing to His feet, still clinging to the Lady’s lifeless hand.
This isn’t real. It can’t be real.
But the splinters of wood burrowing into my skin, and Father Guzan’s mournful cries, insist that it is.
“Burning skies.” Serik jogs up beside me, his voice soft and shredded. He peers over the edge, into a chasm so deep, I can’t make out the towering trees we passed during our ascent or the sprawling garden that’s larger than the entire city of Sagaan. Serik shakes his head. His skin emits billows of steam—like cold water thrown over a bonfire. “Are they …? Did Ghoa really …?”
Sky Breaker (Night Spinner Duology) Page 34
