The Warrior Queen (The Hundredth Queen Book 4)

by Emily R. King

  The rabisu catches his payment. “Cross the River of Ordeal. The gate is on the other side.” It rips into the meat with its teeth.

  The bone-chilling noise of its feeding follows us up a steep gradient. When the sounds finally quit, I glance back. Gate and guardian have disappeared.

  “Why is the landscape always changing?” I ask. “Where does it disappear to?”

  “Nowhere. The Void is empty unless it is not.”

  I cannot puzzle out the fire-god’s meaning. Omnipotent nonsense, I suppose.

  Enlil ascends the slope. I drag behind, my legs twinging and my side aching. The long stretches of sleeplessness have dwindled my stamina. Enlil notices my sluggishness and pauses. I almost overtake him, and he climbs on. He does this again and again without a word of encouragement. Cala is still, but I sense her near, like a person breathing in my ear.

  He scales to the top and waits. The din of gushing water increases as I crest the rise. I bend over, wheezing. A wooden rope bridge spans a sheer divide and, far below, a river. Rapids tear at its surface, sending up an almighty roar. The flimsy bridge has no handrails. The planks have rotted-out holes, and the gaps between them are irregular, some wider than our feet.

  Enlil passes me a mango. “Eat and recover your strength.”

  I gobble the fruit in record time. My fatigue goes away, as does the pinch in my side.

  Enlil sidesteps down the gravel slope to the flat grade where the rope bridge connects to the cliff by double posts. His footing unlooses stones that roll off the edge and plummet into the choppy river.

  He motions to me. I clamp his fingers and descend to him. I survey the cliff for another crossing. This rickety bridge is our only path to the other side.

  “We must cross one at a time,” he says. “I will go first.”

  Holding his spear across his chest for balance, Enlil ventures onto the first plank. The bridge swings from his weight and the ropes tauten. He hazards another narrow plank and glances back at me.

  “Face forward!” I yell.

  He grins and straddles another gap.

  Gods, what a pest.

  Enlil navigates the planks in succession, evading the rotten sections. At the center of the bridge, a portion of the plank creaks. He readjusts his footing. As he waves to let me know he is well, the wood beneath him snaps and he drops.

  “Enlil!” I fall to my knees at the ledge.

  He hits the river and goes under. His spear surfaces, then him. The rapids sweep him along.

  “Oh, gods, gods, gods, gods.” I stumble along the cliff, surveying for a trail down to the river.

  Enlil floats downstream. Soon he will be out of sight. I will be alone, lost without a guide, and with no means of freeing Deven.

  I still cannot find a trail. There is only one way down.

  “Please. Please. Please.” Gazing up, as if I can somehow see Anu in the Beyond, I leap.

  A scream wrenches out of me as I fall. My feet collide with the icy water first. I submerge and resurface into rapids. Gasping and kicking, I spin and bob downriver. On the next surge, I grab sight of land and lose it again. Another swell drags me under. I am heaved up and pushed into a boulder. The strap of my prosthesis loosens, and my wooden hand is swept in one direction, me another. It is swiftly lost in the torrent of waves. I gulp down water, only it is thicker and heavier than what I know.

  Enlil’s words return about Irkalla casting a plague on the under realm and turning the water to blood.

  I gag up the dampness. More wetness splashes up my nose and into my mouth. I am going to drown, choking on blood in this godless river.

  A beam of light glows in front of me. The current throws me directly into the radiance. I hug the end of Enlil’s spear. He tows me to a shallow bank, and I flop on a bed of pebbles. Blood smears our skin and clothes. A slash on my side bleeds from where I struck the boulder, mingling with the rest. My stomach buckles. I retch on the hard-packed shore and flop onto my back.

  Enlil glowers down at me. “You stupid, stupid woman. How many times must I watch you bleed?”

  “How. Many. Times . . . ?” I trail off.

  Cala shoves into my thoughts. Remember.

  I flinch at the power of her hold. If she were physically present, her demand would bruise.

  Remember what?

  Remember who we are!

  Her mandate smashes into my consciousness. A murky splotch charges across my vision and hauls me into the chasm of her being.

  Thunderous cheers echo throughout the amphitheater. I hurl my urumi blades. My nearest opponent yields, gashes seeping across her chest. I reel around and slash. The whiplike blades strike another competitor, cutting her down. She howls wildly. I hardly hear her over my inner gong ringing, pushing me to end this match.

  One final time, I slice at my rival. My blades slit her throat and put her suffering to rest. She falls onto the stacks of bodies around me. They are blood-spattered messes of ripped limbs, gushing wounds, and silent mouths. No other opponents rush me. She was the last woman, last competitor, standing.

  No. I am.

  The spectators packing the rows of the amphitheater pound their feet and pump their fists. “Hundred, hundred, hundred,” they chant.

  I thrust my blood-streaked urumi above my head. “Father Anu and Mother Ki—it is finished.”

  From overhead, descending from a divide in the rolling white clouds, a burning chariot pulled by horses of flame blazes a trail of fire. As the chariot appears, the audience hushes. I drop my urumi. Blood speckles my heavy armor. My lower body is bathed in it, and my own blood flows from a cut near my hip. I tuck my elbow against the wound to slow the bleeding.

  The fiery chariot circles the oval arena. I squint into the glory of the horses and their rider. The fire-god radiates vivacity, outshining that of his mounts. His magnificence comes into focus. Flowing hair, wavy yet tamed. Bare chest sculpted from marble. Acres of bronze skin. Hypnotizing cinder eyes. A full mouth drawn out like a bow and a clean-shaven jawline.

  He lands his chariot across the length of the arena. A sarong covers his upper thighs and groin, leaving toned legs wound by strappy leather sandals. He does not carry his lightning spear but a necklace. The hushed spectators bow as he steps off the chariot and strides to me. My gaze holds his, trapped in the aliveness of its color. Swirling golds and reds and oranges, a peek into the living flame within him. He stops and lifts the medallion.

  “My champion!” He slips the necklace over my head. The weight lies against my collarbone; the surface is engraved with the gods’ quad emblem.

  I start to bow, but he halts me.

  “You do not bow to me. My heart, my champion.” The fire-god lowers to one knee and presents a crown, a delicate arrangement of gold-plated lotus flowers. “You shall be my hundredth queen.”

  I remove my helmet and drop it in the dirt. The dead surround us, so many I question the sanctity of my soul. But these women tried to separate us. They died so that we might be one.

  I place the crown and fall into him.

  He cradles the back of my head. “Will you forgive me this trial?”

  “You need never ask for forgiveness. I did this for us, and I would do it again.”

  His eyes flash at the implication of another tournament, another trial standing between our love. “Nothing will separate us. You and I will be united forevermore.”

  The fire-god lowers his nose to mine, tipping our foreheads together. As our lips skim, Cala releases me from her clutches.

  Now you remember.

  My eardrums pulsate against my skull. I can still feel Enlil’s kiss and smell the misty clouds on his skin. As I reorient myself, he wipes the bloody river water from my cheeks.

  Tarek cannot have been right. During my rank tournament, he told our people I was the reincarnated soul of a legend, the greatest tournament champion of all time, who gained the favor of a god. This warrior battled Enlil’s wives and courtesans to secure her place as his one hundredth w
ife, and, in doing so, brought down an army of women.

  She had no name, no fate of her own, except the destiny that bound her to the fire-god. She is simply known as Enlil’s hundredth rani.

  She was me, says the voice in my head. And you know my name.

  I roll onto my side, away from Enlil. This cannot be. The woman who dominated the first-ever rank tournament was cold-blooded. But Cala’s memory is undeniable. She recalled Enlil in detail. She knows him in ways I do not that nonetheless fit my experiences so far.

  It’s true, Kali. You have my medallion.

  My satchel was ripped off while I was in the river, but I pat the outline of the necklace in my pocket. I do not need to look upon it again—it is the same medallion Enlil awarded his hundredth rani.

  I bury my eyes in the crook of my elbow. “It cannot be.”

  “Kalinda, I am sorry I was cross. I could never let misfortune befall you.”

  “I . . . I was Cala,” I say, shuddering.

  “You are Cala. The soul lives on after death.” Enlil rolls me so my upper body rests against his. “Souls who love each other will remember when united again and again.”

  I recall the other women in the Valley of Mirrors. “You and I met in more lives?”

  “Cala’s life was the first.”

  Her championship spurred a romance that lasted lifetimes, so many I am afraid to ask how often I have suffered through this moment, recalling sentiments lost behind my mortal veil.

  “Why didn’t I remember my past lives before now?”

  “Do you recall your Razing?” he asks. I could never forget. The ritual, wherein my back was cut systematically to prevent my body from overheating, was excruciating. “During that ritual, your inner stars consolidated to one. Those stars represented your prior lives. To fully come into your Burner abilities, you had to set aside those connections and accept your inheritance as a half-god.”

  My truest connection to the gods and my past lives were taken away, cut by cut.

  While my waterlogged muscles recover, the sky deepens from heather to sable. Enlil cradles me, still shaken from my near drowning.

  “Why did you do that, Kali? This river cannot harm me, but you could have died.”

  “I don’t know.”

  But I do know. I had to leap after him. Our fates are tied together, his and mine. Our bond transcends eras and our union is irrefutable.

  He falls and I fall.

  He rises and I rise.

  Enlil has laid claim to Cala, and, subsequently, to me. I cannot pursue my path without acknowledging his role in my past, my present, and, gods only know, my future. Cala has lived countless lifetimes at his side. What sort of claim does that leave me to my own heart?

  I cannot say what has been determined about my fate, but Cala and Enlil’s history does not alter the present. The fire-god will not lay claim to my soul or exploit my love for Deven to regain a closeness to Cala. My will and heart belong to me, and my purpose has not changed.

  I came for Deven Naik, and even if it means defying the gods and resisting fate, I will free him.

  26

  DEVEN

  Nightfall rests upon the under realm, darkness so thick it stings. Dagger in hand, I slide out from under the low branches of the thorn trees.

  The Road of Bone has transformed into an active highway. Rabisus guide the latest influx of souls into the city in oxen-pulled wagons. The oxen’s horns curl around their hairy faces and glistening snouts. Souls reach out the rear doors of the wagons, begging for release. A rabisu on foot snaps a whip at them, and the wagons plods onward.

  Every night new souls arrive, fresh from their mortal death. They greet the evernight fully aware, remembering who they are and what choices led them to this prison. Before long they forget their pain and wander about mindlessly. The under realm is full of these wanderers, shadows of their former selves. This will not be my fate.

  I join the wanderers leaving the city and mimic their expressions. Eyes flat, mouth turned down in a perpetual grimace, and a sluggish gait. Ahead, demons guard the blockade, admitting wanderers out and in. Putting my head down, I tuck my janbiya in the waist of my trousers and cover the hilt with my tunic. I finished engraving Kali’s name on it just before nightfall. I will not forget her again.

  I come up to the group of wanderers waiting to cross the blockade. Asag is on guard. I have a better chance of getting past him than Edimmu. Asag rakes his stony gaze over a wanderer and grunts, sending him along.

  Shoulders sagged and head lolled to the side, I shuffle up to the barrier and bump into Asag. He grabs the front of my dirty tunic. Before I left, I rolled in the dirt again. I will myself not to shudder as I stare at his thick legs. He snorts and shoves me forward. I stride off, so slowly I may explode.

  The blockade falls behind me, and pathways lead up into the sky. I follow the instructions on the back side of my janbiya. 1st right. 6th left.

  A shadow stirs behind me. I continue but train my senses on the slinking presence. It could be the same thing that has been following me up to the gate.

  Up ahead, the path splits at an overhang. Right at fork.

  Instead of selecting right, I duck down the opposite way. My pursuer comes up to the divide. I capture his neck and lift my blade, locking him against me.

  “Who are you?” I ask. “Why are you following me?”

  “Deven,” replies a choked voice. “It’s me.”

  “Brac?” I look askance at my brother’s honey eyes and coppery hair. I start to lower my blade. “How did you get here?”

  “I stepped through the gate after you.”

  Impossible. Kali tried that without success. “Who are you really?”

  He elbows me in the side. I bend over, and he throws me toward the end of the path. My heels teeter over the drop-off. I secure my balance and stumble from the ledge.

  Whatever this thing is, he is not Brac.

  He stalks up to me and throws a punch. His knuckles smash into my cheek. I wheel around with my dagger, and he kicks me in the side. I fold in on myself. He fists a handful of my hair, wrenches my head up, and knees me in the jaw. One of my lower teeth wiggles.

  “What are you?” I garble out.

  “I am whatever my queen requires. Presently, she requires you.” He robs me of my weapon and tosses it over the ledge.

  “No!” I scramble after it, but my dagger has fallen into the night.

  My pursuer grabs the back of my head and slams it against the road. I lie in a daze, engulfed by a deluge of pain. When I drift back into myself, the demon, still assuming Brac’s appearance, is dragging me down the path.

  This monster, this demon, can wear a disguise. If he followed me out of the under realm, through the gate, and assumed the appearance of Brac, the bhuta ambassador . . .

  I seek out Kali’s soul-fire high up in the nothing. Still, she is not visible. My dagger with my directions is lost, and my memory is dodgy, but I have to get home. Irkalla’s sudden interest in me must be related to the demon impersonating my brother. I have to return to the mortal realm and warn Ashwin.

  I twist my tunic from the demon’s grasp. He stops and cuffs me across the jaw. Braced on my side, blood spills from my split lip. I spit two busted lower teeth onto the ground.

  The demon reels back for another swing. I swipe my leg under his ankles, unbalancing him, and shove him over the ledge. He falls out of sight.

  I rub at my sore jaw. Skies alive, his fists are like mallets. I stagger to my feet, and the demon climbs back up. He wears Brac’s irksome smirk.

  “Son of a scorpion,” I breathe.

  He grabs for me. I rotate from his clutch and totter toward the edge. My inclination is to stop myself from falling, but I let the sky have me.

  I plummet through the pathways and lunge for one. My weight drags me over again. Another few seconds, and I land on a lower roadway of shadow. I pant and wait out the aching. Most paths return to the city. I get up and jog down the sloping road.


  Please lead me beyond the blockade. My steps weave, my vision watery. I have to get home. I have to warn the others.

  The path lets me out near the city gate. I am farther from the obstructions than where I began the night. I will have to pass Kur’s lair, take the Road of Bone, and sneak through the demon’s blockade again.

  My legs threaten to rebel. I may not have time to get through the blockade before daytime. Then the wanderers will go to rest, and they are my cover.

  I sway on my feet, exhaustion replacing my alertness. Tiny specks explode in my vision. The white streamers consolidate to one distant star. Kali’s soul-fire.

  She’s here? That must be her. No one else shines that brightly. Her light is a dot far out in the obstructions.

  I cannot fathom how she got into the under realm. I would be angry, but knowing she is here provides clarity. The demon’s attack on me could be related to her. Kur summoning his commanders. The blockade. The demon patrols. The army of the evernight would not go to such lengths for a lowly, half-dead mortal. They must want something from Kali. I have to warn her, then I can alert Ashwin about the possibility of an imposter demon in the palace.

  I scrub the blood off my chin and wipe it on my trousers. The dead do not bleed. By the time I revisit the blockade, my wounds should clot or else the demons will smell me and I will never pass as a wanderer.

  Joining the meandering throng, I tread by Kur’s lair. Nothing moves or makes a sound from within. I am not tempted to linger and wait for a sign of his attentiveness. On the Road of Bone, I set a more decisive pace. I cannot lose this connection to Kali.

  A gong rings in the distance, hailing from the city.

  No. Not now.

  All captives of the under realm halt, no matter their direction. Compelled to blend in, I stop too. Without an uttered word, the wanderers turn around and return to the city to heed their queen. I peer at Kali’s far-off gleam. I will never get through the blockade now. I must behave like a wanderer, and no wanderer ignores Irkalla’s summons.