Shyla bounces her baby on her hip nervously. “We need to warn the others.”
“We can do better than that,” counters Parisa. “We can fight.”
The rajah’s wives and courtesans have ample experience contending for their lives, and the scars from their rank tournaments prove it. A piece of Parisa’s earlobe was hacked off, and scars run widthwise across Eshana’s torso. Shyla is missing two fingers on her left hand. These women are dedicated daughters of the land-goddess Ki and have the right to defend themselves, their homes, and their families. They are not standard soldiers—they are better. They are sister warriors.
But even they cannot stand against the demon rajah and triumph. I should warn them of our remote chance of victory, though I doubt that would discourage them. It did not change my mind. I, too, am willing to fight against Udug for all that I love. The ranis and courtesans deserve that same choice, and perhaps together, we can make a difference.
“Brac,” I say. “How fast can you find their weapons?” No one knows the palace passageways better than he does.
“Could take a while. Galers are monitoring the corridors.”
“I can help,” Asha offers, her voice shy. “I was there when they stashed them. They’re in an antechamber off the throne room.”
“That’s in the center of the palace,” Natesa grumbles.
Asha nods. “I can lead us through the servants’ passageways. One connects to the antechamber, but the door is locked on the outside and I don’t have a key. We’d have to go through the throne room to the antechamber and unlock the door from the inside. We can use the passageway to carry the weapons out.”
I make a split-second decision. “Asha and I will go.”
“Won’t the rebels be guarding the main entrance?” Natesa asks. “You’ll have to pass by it to enter the throne room.”
Brac hops slightly on his feet, eager to help. “I’ll take care of the guards at the main entrance.”
“Good,” I reply. “Yatin and Natesa, stay here with Opal. Defend the entryways. Hastin may do something rash if he feels threatened or suspects we’re organizing our troops.”
Opal speaks up, wearing a mask of intensity. “I’ll cover everyone’s movements the best I can.”
I hearten her with a quick, one-armed embrace, and she tucks into my side to lengthen our connection. Her need for comfort is so great I regret not consoling her sooner.
“We’ll help too,” Eshana offers. “Parisa, Shyla, and I will tell the other women what’s happening.”
“Yatin and I will help answer their questions,” says Natesa. The ranis assess her, a lower-ranking courtesan in their strict hierarchy.
“Good idea,” Shyla says, slipping her arm through Natesa’s. She leads her ahead of Yatin and the others to the dining patio.
“Did you hear him?” Parisa whispers to Eshana as they go. “Deven called us his troops.”
“I wouldn’t mind being under his command,” Eshana replies. Their giggles drift away, and Yatin lumbers after them.
Asha goes to the doorway of the servants’ passageway and waits. I hesitate to leave my brother so soon after finding him. I still need to have a word with him about Chitt. But a new worry stops me. What if Brac is excited to hear about his father? He, Mother, and Chitt will be a family, and I do not know how I will fit in. Our conversation can wait.
“Look after yourself,” I say.
Brac grasps me by the shoulder. “Stop worrying about me, Deven. I’ve been sneaking around the palace since I learned to walk.”
“We’ll meet back here shortly,” I promise. My words are partly snatched away by rising winds. The rebels are gathering their defenses against the army. Time to move.
I join Asha at the doorway and pause to look back. Wind lashes at the silk draperies. Brac’s hair dances about his brassy eyes. I wave farewell and duck into the passageway.
25
KALINDA
Hot wind guides the mahati falcon over the waves of ginger sand dunes. Ashwin and Gemi stoop forward in apprehension as dust builds on their skin. I search the blurry horizon, sepia fading to azure heavens, for the City of Gems.
A shadow deepens on the skyline, materializing into view. Civilization rests upon an old, rounded mountain. The Turquoise Palace appears first, its gold-domed roofs a burnished reflection of the desert sun. White-walled towers gleam like ivory teeth above the drab city kneeling at the palace’s feet.
Red-coated soldiers flying Tarachand banners with black scorpions swarm the outer wall. They crowd a blown-out hole and fling huge rocks to smash the gap wider. The imperial army is only minutes from breeching the city.
Deven and the others would have found a safer, quicker route past the wall to await the navy. He will expect our arrival, so Rohan should be listening for us. Please hear us coming.
Tinley clucks her tongue, and Chare dips lower. The falcon circles a soft-mounded dune and lands. Gemi slips off and then Ashwin. He extends his arms to me. My feet hit the sand, and my knees crumple. I clutch his shoulders and wait for feeling to return to my lower half.
“I’ve been stationary too long,” I explain.
The corners of his mouth crease. He stays close a moment until I can transfer my weight to my feet. Numbness runs down my legs, but my knees adjust to standing and hold strong.
“I must be off,” Tinley says from upon her saddle. The mahati falcon digs her hook-like beak under a scrub bush and comes up with a scorpion to chomp on.
“Will you go to Paljor?” Ashwin asks.
“I wish I . . .” Tinley halts herself. “My father says wishes are for dreamers, not doers.”
“Your father may be the biggest dreamer of all,” Ashwin returns. Chief Naresh is a pacifist, a rare visionary and advocate for peace. “You only have one home, Tinley.”
I sigh inaudibly, or so I thought. Ashwin brushes his hand against mine. Neither of us has been blessed with a family praying for our safety. Tinley’s devotion to her falcon is admirable, but she may be avoiding Paljor for another reason. Perhaps she is not ready to confront her memories of Bya and replace them with Chare. But I hope she finds the strength to go home.
“Thank you, Tinley.” I stroke Chare’s feathers. “Let the sky lead you, the land ground you, the fire cleanse you, and the water feed you.”
“And you.” Tinley yanks on the reins, and the falcon launches into the air. They soar away from the late-afternoon sun, back over the hungry, brutal desert.
Ashwin stares in the opposite direction, at the gleaming palace domes. I slip my hand into his. He has not seen his palace, his legacy, as an adult. It must be odd to return to a place that belongs to him but is vacant of memories.
Gemi frowns at our linked hands. “Should we go?”
I release Ashwin to pull my dagger. Gemi brought a trident from her homeland, wielding it with poise. We ascend the rise and go down the other side. As we climb another dune, I slip and fall forward. The parts of me that are not yet numb radiate iciness.
Gemi crawls to the crest and lies on her belly, batting sand fleas away. Ashwin edges up beside her. I force myself to crawl the incline to them and peer over the ridge. We are about a thousand strides away from the rearmost ranks of the army.
The hole in the wall is finished. Hundreds of soldiers push catapults and wagons through the passage. My anxiety mounts as more troops disappear into the city. The protection of the palace relies upon the rebel army. They must uphold the palace’s outer wall until the navy arrives. By morning, they will be begging for our aid.
“We’ll wait here until the entire army is through, and then we’ll follow,” Ashwin says.
Gemi grabs his forearm. “Did you feel that?”
“Feel what?”
She shushes him and then launches to her feet. “Run!”
Gemi takes off across the dune, in clear sight of the army. I gape at her. What is she—?
A fearsome tremble rises from the ground. Ashwin and I scramble up. The quaking grow
s to a knee-buckling roar like a slumbering dragon has awoken. Gemi does not slow for us but sprints directly east, to the river. Ashwin and I clamber after her across shifting sand.
My leaden legs and feet, weighed down by numbness, impede my speed. Ashwin grabs me and helps me along. Out in the open, our view of the army is unhindered. They see us too. But as we run, an infantry drops and vanishes into the desert floor.
A stronger tremor jolts up my legs. I weave, and Ashwin catches my balance. Jagged cracks snake across the ground, spreading wider and wider. Gemi is carried away on the far side of one rift, and we are stranded on the opposite half. Ashwin and I go right up to the ledge. The chasm between us is wider than a catapult wagon.
Gemi summons a bridge of compact sand to span the gap. “Hurry!”
Ashwin pushes for me to go first. I stumble across the temporary conduit, Ashwin right behind me. I reach Gemi on the other side. Just before Ashwin meets us, another tremor opens the crevice broader, and the bridge disintegrates.
Ashwin leaps but misses my outstretched hand. Gemi throws up a burst of sand, blasting him in an arc above our heads. He falls and lands in a roll beside us, dusty and coughing. The ledge beneath us shakes. The two halves of the gulch are closing.
Gemi yanks Ashwin to his feet. We lurch down the shifting dune to the river, side-foot into the muddy bank, and splash into the cool water. Behind us, the quakes in the desert cease. The troops surrounding the city wall have disappeared.
I scan the sandy plain. “Where . . . where did they go?”
Gemi’s chest heaves, her trousers wet up to her knees and her chin quivering. “A powerful Trembler split the desert floor open. The soldiers fell into the cracks, and the Trembler closed them again.”
The warlord did this. Hastin is the most powerful Trembler known. Horses, wagons, catapults, hundreds of men—all devoured in sandy crevices and entombed.
Those soldiers were not our enemy; they were our people.
“Gods save them,” I pray.
Ashwin sloshes out of the river, his strides hasty. We backtrack to the army’s burial site. Gemi closes her eyes in anguish. I listen for the screams of survivors, but death prevails.
Lonely winds swirl sand tunnels across the barren war front. Please let Deven be in the city. Let him be anywhere but here.
The surviving troops have marched beyond the wall. Blue flames and eerie blue-gray smoke mark their progression up the winding roads to the palace. Udug leads the campaign, clearing their path with his destructive cold-fire. Given the number of casualties, his escape must be more than chance. Anjali said he was growing more powerful. He could have burned through the wall, but he relished knocking it down and forcing the rebels to retaliate. In one act, the demon rajah proved that he is beyond Hastin’s abilities.
Ashwin picks up a stray khanda, the only object left of the men who stood here, and steals through the opening. Gemi and I traverse the wrecked clay bricks, my blade drawn and her trident in hand.
Under the shadow of the breeched city wall, Ashwin’s and my gazes are guided to the Turquoise Palace looming above.
“Welcome home,” I tell him.
26
DEVEN
I stand straight as a pole against the corridor wall. Asha waits beside me, listening alertly. My muscles are stiff from hours of skulking down from the upper floor of the outer wing to the center of the palace. The door to the throne room is around the corner, but we can go no farther without the rebel guards at the main entrance seeing us.
Where in gods’ name is Brac? He should have caused his distraction by now.
A quake rattles up from the ground, extending in huge, terrible waves. Tapestries fall, and glass orbs shatter against the floor. Furniture skids across the tiles. I peer around the corner at the main entry. No rebels. I do not know how Brac managed it, but this must be his distraction.
I dart out to check the entry and double stairways. Both are empty. I gesture to Asha, and we slip into the throne room.
Daylight shines down from the high casements. Gone are the tidy rows of floor cushions for the rajah’s court to kneel upon. Tables have replaced them, set up in stations around the room. Upon the dais, the rajah’s throne is tipped over. One leg is broken, as though kicked free.
Asha hurries to the antechamber while I guard the entry. She tugs on the handle, but the door is stuck. “Someone jammed the hinges with stones.” She uses her nails to try to pick the hinges clean.
Noises sound in the entry hall. I snatch up a floor cushion as a defense and lean against the doorframe. The patter comes closer. I hold the cushion like a shield. I should’ve searched for a proper weapon.
A peacock struts by. I lower the cushion on an exhalation. The next intruder could be a rebel, so I leave my post to help Asha unseal the antechamber door.
“We need something to pry it open with,” I say, searching the tables for a makeshift tool.
An errant wind ruffles the swooping draperies, and a voice speaks.
“I thought I heard a couple of rats.” Anjali struts into the throne room. Asha goes stock-still. “Annoying little vermin, aren’t you?”
“We share the same enemy,” I reply, my gaze snug on her weapon. Gusts spin about her, coils of sky poised to strike. “We should help each other.”
“Help us? You’ll only ever be in our way.” Anjali hurls one of her squalls at Asha, slamming the servant into the wall. Then she sweeps a gale at me and tosses me off my feet. I hit the hard floor, pain exploding up my side, and roll over. Anjali crouches down and presses her chakram to my throat. “Don’t move or I’ll take your head off.”
“The demon rajah is coming,” I say. “Give the ranis and courtesans back their weapons and let us fight him with you.”
She scrapes the blade across my throat, almost breaking skin. “Which would upset Kalinda more? Taking your limbs off one by one or winnowing you so slowly you’ll wish I’d decapitated you?”
I hit her hands straight up and lunge for her chakram. Anjali knees me in the mouth. Stars shoot across my vision, and she seizes my throat. Our skin-to-skin connection is all she needs. Her powers dive inside me and suffocate the sky from my lungs.
“Your kind are worthless scarabs.”
Her asphyxiation process is torture. She squeezes out every puff of air, first from my muscles to weaken me, and then my organs. My pulse thuds slower, each beat a hollow echo, and my vision distorts.
I hear a whack, and Anjali slumps over.
I gasp for saving breaths. Drawing in the precious air reawakens my senses. Asha stands above me, clutching the broken leg of the rajah’s throne. Still wheezing, I push Anjali off me and take her chakram. Asha tosses aside her makeshift club, her pale face stark against her red scars.
“Come on,” I pant.
Using the chakram, I pry out the rocks jamming the door and force it open. The antechamber is full of hand wagons stacked with the ranis’ weapons. Opposite our entry is the exit to the servants’ passageway Asha spoke of.
Anjali is still passed out in the throne room, but voices echo in from the entry hall. I pile more daggers, haladies, and swords on top of two hand wagons. Asha and I both grab handles. She checks the servants’ passageway and waves me forward.
Shouts erupt behind us. I only distinguish Hastin’s voice.
“Let them have their measly steel. We haven’t time for this. Return to the palace wall!”
We steer the hand wagons through the dim passageways and lug them one at a time up steep stairwells. Finally, Asha wedges open a low door, and we enter the Tigress Pavilion. Asha and I wheel the weapons out and stop to gather our breaths.
Natesa rushes over, Yatin stalking close behind her. The ranis, courtesans, and servants have congregated on the floor cushions. Opal stares up at the darkening sky, her eyes blank and ears listening.
Natesa lifts a khanda off the top of the pile. “Oh, how I’ve missed you. Good work, Deven.”
“I couldn’t have done it with
out Asha,” I wheeze. The timid servant blushes. “Where’s Brac?”
Yatin also chooses a khanda. “He isn’t back yet. He mentioned something about going beyond the palace wall and then left right after you.”
I bank down a rush of unease. This does not mean something went wrong. Returning from beyond the palace wall would take him longer. But how exactly did Brac cause the tremor that distracted the guards? I turn to Opal for her report.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “My range of hearing is lessening as the army approaches. Udug’s powers are dwarfing mine. I cannot hear anything outside the palace walls.”
Explosions go off in the city. Some of the women shriek and duck. The winds kick up, and storm clouds steamroll across the sky, blotting out the sunset. Thunderheads crash, chased by flashes of lightning. The rebel army is deploying, and we must too.
“Will the women fight with us?” I ask.
“They’re confused,” answers Natesa. “We told them Rajah Tarek is dead, but some of them only gleaned that he’s coming to release them and their children. We need to rally them.”
We will start by returning their control.
I select my old friend, a military-grade khanda, and pick up a second. I carry both khandas to the women and lift my voice. “The imperial army has been deceived by a demon. Their counterfeit commander does not care for us or our empire. The true ruler of the Tarachand Empire is Prince Ashwin, and Kalinda Zacharias is your kindred. She has not forsaken you. She fled here to find and protect the prince. She knows that to save the empire she must preserve its heir.”
Natesa comes to my side. “Tell them you trust the prince,” she whispers.
I bristle. She wants me to lie?
Natesa huffs impatiently and addresses her peers. “Prince Ashwin gave Kindred Kalinda the choice to wed him or go free. He has never spoken of retaining me as his courtesan, and he won’t force any of you to stay in wedlock or servitude to his inherited throne.” The women murmur to each other in astonishment. “Prince Ashwin is a fair and noble ruler. He cares for his people and the fate of our empire.”
The Rogue Queen (The Hundredth Queen Series Book 3) Page 22
