Now, in the darkness, in this terrible quiet, I hear the screams from the day’s battle again, feel bruising hands spread my thighs apart. I see the mercenary spinning in the air, hacking off Subodh’s head. I see Prerna and dozens of Legion soldiers lying bloodied on the ground, their limbs askew.
My breath catches in my throat and, before I know it, I’m heaving, my face twisted into a hot, wet mess of tears. Cavas’s arms wind around me, but I barely feel them. In fact, it’s only when I calm down, ages later, that I realize Cavas is sobbing as well. Ugly, heart-wrenching sobs that remind me how he hasn’t had time to process the things that have happened to him at Ambar Fort, either.
“It’s fine,” I whisper. I’m on the verge of another bout of crying. “I won’t let them hurt you.”
It’s how we spend the night, wrapped up in each other’s arms on the roof under the fog, grieving and exhausted, pretending to sleep. We head back downstairs at dawn. Everyone else is awake as well, seated on the floor in Ramnik’s kitchen, eating a quick breakfast of hot bajra rotis, leftover suji halwa, and steaming cups of chai. Or attempting to eat, as in Amar’s case, shadows circling his eyes.
I sit down next to Kali and Sami, who appear equally grim, though they both acknowledge me with nods.
“He came out of the room late last night,” Kali says quietly. “Asked me and Amira to train with him. It … did not go well.”
Amira rises from her place next to Juhi and heads to the weapons I now see piled up in a corner on the floor.
“Why don’t you tell them I was bad, Kali ji?” Amar says flatly, breaking the silence. “That I have no hope at defending myself against an unfriendly spell.”
“Oh, stop acting so pitiful,” Amira retorts. “The conjuring you do is ten times more complicated than a basic shield spell—and expends even more energy. Your biggest problem is that you keep reverting to it instead of trying something new. You are more useless than Gul, here, used to be.”
My insides twitch—a reflex born more of habit than actual annoyance. Now, with Amira’s anger directed at someone else, I finally begin to see the method behind her mad goading of a man who could very well make her life miserable if he survives this and becomes king.
Amar’s yellow eyes harden. “What did you call me?” he asks, his voice so soft that it sends a chill down my spine.
“Useless,” Amira repeats, her eyes narrowing in challenge. “Pitiful. Forlorn. Pathetic. Are you satisfied with these adjectives or should I go on?”
“Amira!” Juhi admonishes, shocked. “What in Svapnalok—apologize at once!”
Amira doesn’t, of course. Neither does she break her deadlocked gaze with Amar. Spite etches a familiar look on her face—one that tells me that she has been pushed to her limit and that, true king or not, Amar will face the brunt of her anger.
I’m about to say something—anything to avoid a duel before the real one with Shayla—when Amar bursts out laughing. Loud and full-bellied, his sudden humor shocks us more than Amira’s rudeness.
“You’re right, Amira ji,” he says. “I am being rather pitiful. Not a good look for Ambar’s future king, is it?”
Amira blinks a few times. Amar’s response seems to have deflated her anger somewhat. “I shouldn’t have said that,” she says finally. “I lost my temper.”
“As my own mother would have—had she seen me now,” Amar says, giving her a half smile. They’re both still staring at each other when I clear my throat.
“Focus on a memory that makes you feel safe,” I tell Amar, eyeing his flushed face. “That works for me.”
Amar frowns. “Safe,” he repeats, as if this is a new concept for him—odd, since I never imagined a prince of Ambar being anything but safe for most of his life. Then I recall Amar’s strange life at Ambar Fort: his two brothers, who are better dead than alive, his ruthless father, who found amusement only by making others feel miserable.
“Or use this.” Amira bends to pick up one of the shields lying in the pile of weapons. “Jwaliyan teak and sangemarmar chips. Nice and lightweight. Not as strong a combination as sangemarmar and yellow firestones, but it should hold up well against most attacks.”
“I don’t think I’d be able to lift a shield made entirely of white marble anyway,” Amar says wryly. He takes a deep breath and rises to his feet, heading off toward Amira, who gives him the shield and also a lightweight sword and two daggers to belt around his calves.
“By Javer,” Cavas whispers to me. “I thought they were going to kill each other.”
“Oh, I doubt that killing was on either of their minds,” Kali says.
“No,” Sami says. A smirk flashes over her deceptively innocent face. “More like pouncing and…”
Sami makes a hand gesture that has Kali gasping “Samita!” before releasing a cackle.
Cavas covers his face with a groan. Juhi looks mildly amused. I hide my own grin behind my small tumbler of tea and take a fortifying sip. It will be interesting to see Amira interacting with Queen Amba if this goes anywhere beyond … pouncing.
If Amar survives.
Mirth dissipating, I force myself to eat the last of my roti and drink my tea to its final dregs.
The duel allows each challenger to bring five witnesses, and so shortly afterward, Juhi, Amira, Kali, Cavas, and I join Amar and make our way through the city, which is still mostly quiet, barely moving despite curfew having ended. The sun is up, bright and hot in a cloudless blue sky, as we reach the maidaan, with the Walled City and Ambar Fort towering farther ahead.
Shayla and her Sky Warriors are already here. Ten in total, I count, frowning at the number, my anxiety climbing when I see the maha-atashban standing at the back, its enormous arrow directed right at us.
“There’s a disparity in our numbers, Raja Amar,” I hear Juhi say. “She’s only supposed to bring five witnesses. And that maha-atashban shouldn’t be allowed!”
“Well, we can’t do much about that right now,” Amar replies grimly. “Even if we send for help, it will take them much too long to get here. The duel might be over by then.”
Cavas, however, is already whispering to someone—his mother, perhaps Latif.
General Alizeh claps her hands twice, the sound like firecrackers in the silence. In the space between the two groups, air bubbles, an invisibility spell lifting, revealing two bodies on the ground. A woman and a girl lie unconscious, entwined in a mess of long hair and silken nightclothes, their limbs bound with glowing blue shackles.
“Rani Ma, Malti!” Amar cries out, rushing toward them—only to be thrown back by a magical barrier that keeps him inches away from touching his mother and sister. “You said you wouldn’t hurt them!”
“They are unhurt, boy,” Shayla tells him with her cruel smile. “Well, except for your mother, who lost a few fingers for helping my prisoners abscond. They’re sleeping for now. What happens to them later really depends on you.”
Amar takes a deep breath. “Let’s get this over with,” he says, his voice clipped.
“Not so fast, conjurer—or have you forgotten the rules in your eagerness? Acharya Damak!” Shayla calls out.
A man I’d seen only once before in Ambar Fort appears. His white silk robes and perfectly coiffed hair do nothing to hide the high priest’s ashen complexion or the visible tremor in his shoulders. Amar’s hand tightens on the hilt of his sword, but his expression remains blank, as if he has seen nothing.
“We are here today, on the twentieth day of the Month of Birds, Year 1 of the reign of Rani Shayla, to settle a dispute over her claim to the throne,” the high priest begins. “Her challenger is Amar, third son of the erstwhile raja, Lohar. The challenger will face Rani Shayla in a duel, which will go on without interference and will not end before the death of either. All weapons and forms of magic are allowed. There are to be no replacements for either of the challengers. As required by the Code of Asha, each combatant has brought in witnesses to ensure that the duel remains fair. In the name of the goddess
of the air and the skies, may the true monarch win.”
The acharya steps back after this short speech. He nods at Shayla.
The duel has officially begun.
They start by circling each other, Amar cautious and alert, Shayla appearing less so to anyone who doesn’t note the cold clarity of her pale-brown eyes.
“What is it, boy?” she taunts. “Too scared to shoot a spell?”
As she speaks, a streak of red shoots right at Amar, which he blocks with the shield while simultaneously conjuring a flock of silver-tipped arrows out of thin air.
The arrows turn to dust within seconds of hitting Shayla’s shield.
She laughs. “So predictable. You haven’t fought a real battle, have you, conjurer?”
“It seems I haven’t, kabzedar rani,” Amar counters. “I only fought yesterday, when your own soldiers turned against you and joined my side.”
“I wish he’d stop talking,” Amira whispers.
I see a flash of anger enter Shayla’s eyes at the comment—a small tremor in the hand that wields her black atashban. This time, when she shoots a spell, it nicks Amar’s cheek, decimating his shield to chips of wood.
Wincing, Amar slashes his sword in the air, a movement that apparently does nothing except make the Sky Warriors laugh.
“We’re not here to do talwar demonstrations, conjurer,” someone shouts.
A smirk plays around Shayla’s full lips until the sand around her feet begins to move, forming a creature that latches teeth into the flesh of her calves. Snarling, she chops off the conjured dustwolf’s head, but another begins to take its place—this one an armored leopard, with milky eyes and a bleeding maw, distracting her long enough to allow Amar to aim another spell her way.
Shayla plunges the tip of her atashban through the leopard’s neck, her shield deflecting Amar’s other spell with such force that he flies back several feet. On the ground, he blinks repeatedly as if attempting to regain his vision. My heart balls in my throat. Next to me, Amira clenches and unclenches her fists. Neither of us can help him—the duel does not allow for this.
Yet Shayla isn’t unaffected: Amar’s conjured animals have left her bruised, shaking in a way I couldn’t have predicted.
Shayla shoots a few more spells, which Amar evades by sheer luck, ducking under the atashban’s beams that have by now set fire to the sleeves of his cotton tunic, forcing him to rip them off. Then Amar murmurs an indecipherable chant before cupping his hands and clapping them together with a resounding boom.
A crack opens in the hazy air, spewing forth an undulating, buzzing black mass.
Bees. A hundred, perhaps a thousand, stinging insects swarm around Shayla, who barely holds them off.
Unlike the dustwolf and the armored leopard, Shayla cannot kill the bees at once. They swirl and contort to form different shapes—a sword, a dagger, an arrow that now presses hard against her shield, the bees themselves only dying in increments, making her expend more and more energy.
It shouldn’t be a surprise. Despite being nicknamed after a poisonous animal, it’s clear from the strain on her face that Shayla cannot whisper to any. I lean forward slightly, holding my breath.
Could it happen? Could Amar really win the duel?
As I’m thinking this, a white-uniformed body flies in front of Amar, a snarl etched over her face. But before General Alizeh can do Amar any damage, Juhi leaps forward and knocks him flat to the ground. She grabs hold of Alizeh’s hands and aims her atashban upward, its spell exploding in the sky.
“Cheating bastards!” Amira’s shout melds in with the drone of the bees. “Come, Kali!” she says as they both begin running in the direction of the two grappling women.
But Juhi doesn’t need their help.
With a brutal efficiency I have only heard about but never seen, Juhi catches hold of Alizeh’s head and twists hard. I’ve barely registered the crack and Alizeh’s lifeless gray eyes when the Scorpion’s mouth opens in a howl that I can only describe as anguished. The bees pressing against her shield glow gold for one instant: sparks from a flame turning to smoke.
I think I see something else—the gleam of a tear on Shayla’s cheek before her black atashban slashes forth, casting a spell that throws Juhi in the air, backlit by a dome of red.
Amira’s and Kali’s screams are still ringing in my head when Juhi’s body hits the ground next to Alizeh, her eyes glassy, her scarred palm open to the skies, revealing flecks of a golden tattoo.
51
GUL
Subodh’s death turned my insides hot, an anger within me unwilling to extinguish. Juhi’s death turns everything cold, my fury tempered with a grief that makes the whole world still. Sthirta, I discover, comes much easier when the heart is numbed with pain, helping me pick out not only the magic glowing gold in my veins but also the bright particles that are Shayla’s spell forming a spiked mace midair.
I don’t bother with a shield this time. I sidestep the attack and send one in return, my seaglass daggers glowing without effort, carving a jagged red path toward Shayla’s heart.
Four Sky Warriors leap before their queen, their orange shields exploding against my spell, the impact knifing my inner ears, throwing me back like a toy. I blink away the stars from my eyes, barely managing to roll away from the spell Major Emil sends my way.
“I thought you were one of the good ones!” I shout at him. “The only one of them with a conscience. I guess I thought wrong!”
As I hoped, my words make Emil hesitate—and give Amira an opening to shoot a spell at him in turn. It’s not enough. Major Emil is well trained, far too experienced in battle to be caught off guard. Soon enough, he’s joined by three other Sky Warriors who begin shooting a rapid series of spells—daggers, arrows, maces, and talwars that have Amira spinning and dodging, fighting for both breath and life.
Roars vibrate the soles of my feet: a bruised and bloodied Amar shaping sand and earth to form armored leopards, their iron-clad scales glistening in the sun as they launch themselves on Shayla and the four Sky Warriors that Kali is struggling to fend off alone.
For a single, startling moment, I realize that no one is targeting me.
Automatically, I look for Cavas, but he’s nowhere in sight. Neither are Queen Amba and Princess Malti.
Calm, Gul. Deep breaths.
My mind stretches, reaching for my complement. Where are you?
Behind you, he replies almost at once.
I spin around—
—and still see nothing.
What in Svapnalok, I begin to swear, when I see them: footprints forming in the dirt, followed by indents made by something—two somethings—being dragged back, toward Ambarvadi, away from the maidaan.
Keep them distracted, Cavas urges. Latif and I need to get the rani and rajkumari to safety. Don’t worry about me. My mother will keep us invisible. Go now, Star Warrior. Protect the king!
I don’t need to be told twice.
I step alongside Amar and Kali, my daggers furiously carving spells into the air, drawing every Sky Warrior’s attention to me.
That’s right, I think. I’m the one you need to fear.
My heart pounds, death magic a song in my blood. I feel it rushing through my arms, ready to burst free, when my birthmark burns, the pain so terrible that I scream, blisters forming over my arms. My spell throws the Sky Warriors back, but it also breaks my state of sthirta, the familiar odor of my own blood filling my nostrils, everything returning once again to normal speed.
Amar beams a spell into the air, and a flock of shvetpanchhi burst from the skies in a storm of white feathers, their sharp beaks and talons attacking the Sky Warriors, drawing their attention away from my trembling form.
“Are you all right?” Amar’s shadow hovers overhead, his yellow eyes full of fear. “Gul, what happened?”
“I…”
My magic failed me. The words rest on the tip of my tongue. But at the last moment, I hold them back. No, my magic didn’t fail me.
It was simply too strong. Too much to expend on my own. I can feel it again, hammering my ribs, fighting for release like a caged blood bat.
Use me, it urges, a promise both insidious and tempting. Kill them.
But I can’t. If I do it on my own, I will kill myself.
“Cavas,” I say. “I need…”
My voice trails off at the sound of a conch. Amar and I turn to see dust rising in the distance, spear tips gleaming in the sun. At the head, a woman wearing Legion blues rides a horse—Sami. Four other riders follow, including Brigadier Moolchand, holding the reins of his horse in his left hand.
“How…?” Amar appears speechless for a second. “Who told them to come?”
“I did,” Kali says, stepping next to us. Fresh cuts mar her face alongside still fading bruises. “I told Sami to bring the infantry after we’d had a head start out of the city.”
As one, the Sky Warriors flock toward Shayla, gathering behind the maha-atashban.
“Surrender, conjurer!” Shayla shouts. “Abdicate your throne or I will shoot this thing and kill you all!”
I feel the blood drain from my face. The last time a maha-atashban was used, a city had nearly been decimated and would have turned to dust if not for the shield of an injured Pashu king and the strength of thousands of living specters protecting the survivors.
“She’s bluffing,” Amar whispers, his face ashen. “She has to be.”
But she isn’t. As our soldiers approach, I see that the atashban tip has been strategically placed to face them.
To face Ambarvadi.
“It’s a choice between the throne or the grave, conjurer!” Shayla says in a ringing voice. “These soldiers are one thing, but do you really want the lives of more than two million innocents on your conscience?”
“It won’t happen,” I say loudly. “I won’t let you!”
“Gul, no!” someone screams. Amira? Perhaps Kali. It doesn’t matter.
“Gul, I’ll abdicate!” Amar shouts. “I’ll—”
Rising Like a Storm Page 37
